illustration: sears] =owners manual= d.c. powered timing light model 161.2158 for 12 volt ignition systems +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | to achieve efficient and economical engine operation, the ignition | | system must be timed in accordance with the manufacturer's | | specifications. since ignition timing is also affected by the | | dwell angle, it is necessary to use a dwell meter to set the dwell | | angle to the manufacturer's specification before using the timing | | light to time the engine. | | | | | | the information in this manual will serve as a general guide for | | engine timing. | | | | consult the owner's manual of the vehicle being tested | | for specific information on dwell angle and engine timing. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ --------------------------------------------------------------------- =sears, roebuck and co. u.s.a.= chicago, illinois 60684 --------------------------------------------------------------------- printed in u.s.a. 2-1329 =rules for safe operation= 1. set the parking brake and place the gear selector lever in park position on automatic transmissions or in neutral on manual transmissions. 2. operate the vehicle in a well ventilated area to avoid danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. 3. be careful when testing an operating engine--stay away from the fan blades, drive belts, high voltage spark plug wires and hot exhaust manifold. 4. be careful when working near the battery. do not short the positive terminal to ground. do not look directly at the lens of the timing light when it is operating. =preliminary= 1. consult the vehicle's service manual for instructions regarding vacuum connections and specific timing procedures. 2. with the engine stopped, clean the dirt from the timing marks. 3. set the engine idle speed to the vehicle's specification with a tachometer. 4. check the distributor dwell angle and adjust to the manufacturer's specifications, if necessary, before timing the engine. =how to connect= 1. with the engine off, connect the black clip to the battery negative (-) terminal. 2. connect the red clip to the battery positive (+) terminal. 3. consult the vehicle's service manual for the location of the spark plug in number 1 cylinder. disconnect spark plug wire and attach adapter to the spark plug. connect the spark plug wire to the adapter. fasten green clip to the adapter. 4. optional hookup: the adapter may be placed in the distributor tower for the number 1 cylinder. attach the green clip to the adapter and connect the spark plug wire to the adapter. [illustration: consult the vehicle's service engine block manual for the location of no. 1 spark plug. no. 1 cylinder / /---adapter--=/= / / sears green / / timing ---------/ / #1 spark plug wire light : / / \ : or / | | : / | | : | | | : | | | | | other | | : | | | | | spark plug | | adapter-=| | | | | wires | | /---------\ / \ | | red black #1 cylinder (+) (-) distributor tower +============+ | auto | | battery | | | +============+] =engine timing= 1. start the engine and allow it to warm up. 2. after the engine is warm, operate it at idling speed or the rpm specified in the vehicle manual. 3. aim the timing light at the timing marks, press the switch to operate the timing light and observe the timing mark. the position of the timing mark must agree with the manufacturer's specification. if it does not, reset the timing as follows: 4. stop the engine. loosen distributor hold-down device (consult service manual for specific method). distributor should be just loose enough to permit rotating the distributor body by hand. 5. restart the engine. slowly turn the distributor in the correct direction in order to line up the timing marks. 6. when the specified timing marks are in line, stop the engine and securely tighten the distributor hold-down device. 7. restart the engine and recheck the timing. 8. stop the engine, disconnect the timing light, remove the adapter from no. 1 spark plug or distributor tower and replace the spark plug wire securely. transcriber's notes the diagram showing how to hook up the timing light was reproduced. although not officially a part of the original publication, the sales receipt was included and as the date and price information may be of interest, it was converted into an electronic version: +-------+ | sears | shipper copy +-------+ sears, roebuck and co. +------+------+----+------+------+----+----+--------------+-----------+ |s.r.c.|c.l.c.|s.c.|e.a.a.|m.c.a.|cash|div.|sales| date | 8340512 | | | | | | | x | 28 | 2568| 9/18/76| | +------+------+----+------+------+----+----+-----+--------+-----------+ |account | selling store no. | |number +--------------------+ +------------------------------------------------+ | |name +--------------------+ |(print) [name withheld] |no. or name of store| +------------------------------------------------+ carrying account | | +--------------------+ |address | | +------------------------------------------------+--------------------+ | | approval | |city emp # 03970 | | +------------------------------------------------+--------------------+ this purchase is made under my sears charge security agreement or my sears revolving charge account and security agreement for the credit sales price consisting of the cash price plus the finance charge. this order is subject to the approval of the credit sales department of sears, roebuck and co. purchased by: [name withheld] ====================================================+================== description | cash price ----------------------------------------------------+----------------- | | | 2568 emp | ca 28 div | 2158 mdse | 16.99+* | 16.99+s 10.000%disc | 1.70 | 15.29+s 8.000%tax | 1.22+ | 16.51+s 6241153244028 | 16.51+t 9 18 76 | | | | | [] floor | [] dock | [] whse. | [] __________ thank you for shopping at sears please retain this copy for comparison with your monthly statement, or in case of return, or exchange. 16045 rev. 6-72 (s.c.) printed in u.s.a. marvel carbureter and heat control as used on series 691 nash sixes booklet s marvel carbureter co. flint, michigan u.s.a. model "s" carbureter used on series 691 nash sixes the carbureter measures the fuel charges for the engine and automatically mixes them with the proper amount of air to form a highly combustible gas. the marvel model "s" carbureter is of the automatic air valve, heat controlled type. its outstanding advantages are: 1. simplicity of construction and operation. 2. quick starting in any weather. 3. automatically controlled heat application to ensure complete vaporization of fuels. 4. economy in fuel consumption. 5. ease of adjustment to meet varied driving and climatic conditions. construction the construction embodies a main body or mixing chamber and a conventional float chamber bowl with fuel strainer attached at point of entrance of fuel to bowl. within the mixing chamber are two nozzles which proportion the amount of gasoline used in the mixture. one of these nozzles, called the "low speed," is regulated by the gasoline adjustment screw at bottom of carbureter and the other, called the "high speed," is controlled by the automatic air valve. an air screw is provided which regulates the pressure of the air valve spring enclosed therein. within this screw is also enclosed a plunger connected by a link to the air valve. the function of this plunger is to provide a resistance in addition to that of the air valve spring to assist in acceleration. this arrangement of plunger and air valve screw is termed the dash pot. a further control of the high speed jet is provided by the fuel metering valve operated by the carbureter throttle. this valve provides the maximum fuel feed to the "high speed" nozzle when the throttle is fully opened for high speeds and for quick "pick up." during the ordinary driving ranges this valve controls the amount of fuel being used, thus providing all the economy possible. this valve is entirely automatic and requires no adjustment. the passage-way from the mixing chamber to the intake manifold is controlled by a butterfly valve which is called the throttle-valve and is connected to the throttle-lever on the steering wheel as well as to the foot accelerator, its position determining the amount of gas and air or mixture being fed the engine. starting a choke button is provided on the instrument board to assist in starting. pulling out this button closes a butterfly choker valve (see cut) in the air intake passage of carbureter which restricts the air opening of the carbureter, and consequently produces a richer mixture. to start engine, pull out choke button all the way. advance spark lever about half way and throttle lever about one-quarter way and depress starter pedal. as soon as motor fires when starting, this control should be released part way, otherwise too much fuel will be drawn from carbureter, causing flooding of the motor and failure of the latter to continue to promptly fire. after starting, motor should be allowed to run "part choke" as stated for a few minutes while warming up, then the choker control should be fully released, or pushed in completely on the instrument board, and engine allowed to run normally for sometime until water in cylinder jackets is thoroughly warmed up before starting to make final carbureter adjustments. heat control--stove in the colder seasons warm air is fed to air intake of carbureter through the warm air elbow "f" (see cut). this elbow connects the carbureter with the warm air stove, which is a casting surrounding the two exhaust heat tubes which supply exhaust heat to the carbureter jackets as described below. the amount of heat required for proper carburation depends on the temperature of the outside air. the first means of control is in the warm air stove just described, which should be connected to the carbureter furnishing warm air to carbureter air intake in all seasons of the year when the outside air temperature is below 50° f., whenever the outside air temperature runs above this point cold air should be furnished to carbureter air intake. this can be done by loosening the wing nut holding the warm air elbow "f" on the stove and also loosening the set screw holding this elbow in the air intake of carbureter, after which slide elbow out of air intake and revolve it--180 degrees about an horizontal axis and re-insert in carbureter air intake and lock in place with set screw. the opening in the elbow now is turned down away from the stove and draws in only cold air. the above procedure, it must be understood, will vary somewhat due to differences in locality, altitude and fuels used, but it should be borne in mind that the best economy can be had with cold air passing to the carbureter, and the stove should not be connected until the acceleration and performance of the job requires the use of warm air for the best results. the adjustment of the carbureter should be made per the above description of the stove, as the latter is used for meeting weather conditions and should be set as described. heat control--carbureter jackets the carbureter and manifolds have been designed to utilize the exhaust gases of the engine to insure complete vaporization and a consequent minimum consumption of fuel. this is accomplished by surrounding the upper portion of the mixing chamber with a large heat jacket provided with an inlet and an outlet opening and connected by means of tubes to an exhaust manifold valve body in the exhaust pipe of the engine; this valve body, housing a large valve called the main-exhaust-heat-valve ("c" in cut) within the body itself, the return or outlet tube from the carbureter heat jacket entering the valve-body in the lower portion below the main-exhaust-heat-valve. the main-exhaust-heat-valve "c" is connected by means of a lever and long connecting rod to the throttle lever of the carbureter so that when the throttle valve is operated the main-exhaust-valve is operated simultaneously with it. the purpose of the carbureter heat jacket and valve in exhaust line with connections described, is to provide means for utilizing the heat of the exhaust gases of the motor for vaporization of the fuel supplied the engine by the carbureter and to do so automatically. the automatic feature of same is accomplished by setting the main-exhaust-heat-valve "c" by means of the long connecting rod, in closed position with the closed or idling position of the throttle valve, thus providing for and causing all of the exhaust gases of the engine to pass through the heat jacket of the carbureter when engine is idling and to regulate the volume of this heat as throttle is opened by automatically opening the main-exhaust-heat-valve, thus allowing the increasing volume of the exhaust gases to pass on out through the main exhaust pipe without being deflected and by-passed to the carbureter heat-jacket as the motor speed increases. [illustration: heat setting no. 1] by referring to the cut shown (see page 5) and noting "heat setting no. 1," it will be noted that valve "c" in main exhaust line is fully closed with the closed or idling position of the throttle valve. this adjustment is accomplished by having long connecting rod "r" from valve "c" lever set in "hole no. 1," in throttle lever "l," being sure that when throttle valve is standing in fully closed or idling position that valve "c" is also in closed position, proving out the latter feature by loosening connection of valve "c" lever holding long connecting rod; holding throttle lever "l" in closed or idling position and bringing up valve "c" lever on connecting rod "r" as far as it will go to the right toward the carbureter and tightening its connection on the connecting rod in that position. after having made the adjustment as just described, it is assured that "heat setting no. 1" has been properly made and that all of the heat possible from the exhaust has been secured. this "heat setting no. 1," provides as stated, for the most exhaust heat obtainable and should be used during the entire year, except in extremely hot seasons or hot climates or when high-test gasoline is being used in engine and even then unless engine is losing power due to excessive heat. if loss of power or mileage due to too much heat is experienced, first be sure that it is not due to driving on hot-air instead of cold-air. after making this observation, if there is still too much heat, refer to cut (see page 7) describing "heat setting no. 2." it will be noted that connecting rod "r" from valve "c" is removed from "hole no. 1," in throttle lever "l" and placed in "hole no. 2," in throttle lever. this change is all that is necessary in order to reduce the amount of heat applied to carbureter. in "heat setting no. 2," when the throttle is in closed or idling position, valve "c" is quite aways off its seat. this adjustment provides for a great deal less heat than is provided by "heat setting no. 1" and is all that is required in the reduction of the volume of heat together with driving on "cold" air for the main-air-supply, in the warmest weather or hottest climates. [illustration: heat setting no. 2] note--after original position of valve "c" is made as described in "heat setting no. 1" do not again readjust valve "c" on connecting rod but when changing from "heat setting no. 1" to "heat setting no. 2," merely change position of long connecting rod from "hole no. 1" to "hole no. 2" in throttle lever. adjustment no change should be made in the carbureter adjustments until after an inspection has been made to determine if the trouble is in some other unit. it should be noted that the gasoline lines are clear, that there is gasoline in the vacuum tank, that there are no leaks at connections between carbureter and engine, that the ignition system is in proper condition, and that there is even compression in all cylinders. if it is necessary to test adjustment or to make a readjustment proceed as follows: set air screw so that the end is flush with the end of ratchet set spring. loosen packing nut on needle adjustment. turn gasoline adjustment to the right very carefully so as not to injure the needle point, until the valve is closed gently against its seat. then turn to left approximately one complete turn which will bring notch in the disc handle directly below the guide post above it. tighten packing nut to hold needle firmly as set. the notch in disc handle of needle is put in handle after the needle has been carefully calibrated by a flow-meter at the factory, therefore the notch in handle should register with guide post above it. this setting of needle valve is absolutely essential to get the best results. the object in directing that needle be first turned to the right until closed is to insure against two or more turns open, as from closed position to notch (usually about one turn) is the normal setting. this being true it is not necessary to turn needle in to the right firmly but merely far enough to be sure that when turning back to the left, to the notch registering with guide post, that the needle is not more than once around or one turn from its seat. set stove heat and damper heat as previously instructed above. pull out choker to closed position and start engine in usual manner. as soon as engine has fired release choker three-fourths of way in. run until engine has warmed up then push choker all the way in, remembering to never use choker longer than necessary, as when not needed it has a tendency to foul up engine and ruin the lubricating oil in the crank case. next, set air screw for good idle by either turning to the right a little or backing out to the left as the needs of the engine require, remembering that first of all, the needle must be set as described. with the needle so set and the engine warmed up, the adjustment of the air screw for proper idling is easily accomplished by using a little care. if the air screw is turned in too tight, the motor will roll. if the air screw is not tight enough, the motor will hesitate and perhaps stop entirely. to make a nice clean adjustment for idle, first having set needle as described, turn air screw in quarter of a turn at a time until engine, does roll; then turn back to the left until engine hesitates, indicating that mixture has too much air and is too lean; next turn air screw in to the right three or four notches at a time until engine runs smoothly. this accomplished (and it is very easy to do by proceeding as directed above) the proper adjustment for the entire range of the engine will have been attained, thus insuring the best economy and power. model "s" marvel carbureter [illustration: standard equipment 1923-24 series 691 nash sixes] if the engine idles too fast with throttle closed, the latter may be adjusted by means of the throttle lever adjusting screw. rich mixture an over-rich mixture will cause the engine speed to fluctuate through more or less regular periods from high to low speeds; the engine will seem to be mis-firing and there will be noticeable a strong odor, as well as, usually, a heavy black smoke from the exhaust. lean mixture the best adjustment is obtained with the fuel and air valves set as described. it must be remembered that too lean a mixture as well as an over rich mixture causes over-heating and loss of power and is not as economical as an adjustment which provides just the proper proportion of gasoline and air. caution it must be remembered that the low speed needle has been carefully calibrated to notch in disc handle and guide post above it, at the factory and that in making an adjustment that the needle must be so set and the rest of the adjusting done with the air screw as described, never varying from described needle setting unless in extreme cold weather, when a little more gas may be carried, or turning off a little when casing head gas is used in hot weather. marvel carbureter model "s" [illustration: nash series 691 sixes parts price list] part no. name price 10-80 carbureter body $ 6.00 10-580 carbureter assembly 22.00 11-537 insert assembly 7.00 12-77 accelerator lever .40 12-78 throttle lever .40 14-2 throttle fly .25 15-5 10×24×1/2 insert lock screw .05 15-6 bowl support screw .05 15-14 ratchet spring screw .05 15-15 bowl cover screw .05 15-23 throttle and choker fly screws .05 15-28 throttle stop adjusting screw .05 15-29 6-32×1/4" french head screw .05 15-32 pilot set screw .05 15-43 square head set screw .05 16-5 bowl cover gasket .05 16-14 strainer gasket (fibre) .05 16-16 strainer gasket (copper) .10 16-35 flange gasket .10 16-48 insert gasket .10 21-519 throttle stop damper control and shaft assembly 22-1 heater jacket plug .20 23-8 air screw shell .50 24-6 choker spring .15 24-116 air valve spring .30 24-28 flusher spring .15 24-50 metering pin spring .15 24-51 ratchet spring .15 25-524 choker shaft and spring assembly .75 27-10 choker fly .25 30-504 float and lever assembly .75 33-501 float shaft assembly .20 35-501 float valve assembly .45 36-4 strainer connection to bowl .40 38-501 insert connection screw .50 43-508 gasoline adjusting needle assembly .50 44-1 gasoline adjusting needle packing .10 45-1 gasoline adjusting needle packing nut .15 49-56 high speed jet .30 56-508 bowl cover assembly .75 58-501 flusher assembly .15 64-1 bowl support .10 65-1 brass bowl 2.50 65-502 brass bowl assembly 6.00 66-3 metering pin lock wire .05 67-1 strainer body .30 67-502 strainer assembly 1.00 78-1 throttle shaft washer .05 78-5 3/16 lock washer .05 79-8 metering pin housing space .20 80-3 metering pin plug .15 81-16 strainer nut .15 82-1 cotter pin .05 83-2 manifold stud .05 84-3 metering pin jet .35 95-1 strainer gauze .20 119-504 dash pot plunger, plunger rod and washer assem. .80 125-2 metering pin spring seat .05 158-2 metering pin housing .15 167-502 metering pin stem and wire assembly .10 173-529 metering pin and lock wire assembly .45 replacement for previous model nash sixes the model "s" marvel carbureter is interchangeable with the model "k" marvel carbureter, which was standard equipment on the 1922 and 1923 nash sixes of the early 691 series. the previous series 681 nash sixes of 1921, 1920, and 1919, which were equipped with the model "e" marvel carbureter as standard equipment, can be very greatly improved by the installation of the model "s" carbureter, exhaust damper body assembly necessary for same, and the hot air stove assembly that goes with this installation. following is the complete parts price list of the model "s" carbureter, damper body assembly and stove parts for same. notice is called to the fact again that the damper body and stove parts are not needed on the early 691 series of 1922 and 1923. replacement parts price list for 1919-1922 series 681 nash sixes 10-579 carbureter and heat equipment complete $30.00 consisting of the following parts: part no. name price 10-580 carbureter assembly 1 22.00 128-506 damper body and stove assembly 8.00 15-16 10×24×3/8 f.h. machine screw 1 $ .05 15-43 1/4×20×1/2 std. square head set screw 2 .05 15-53 5/16×18×2-1/2 cap screw 1 .05 15-54 3/8×16×1 standard square head set screw 2 .05 17-14 exhaust shut-off valve connecting rod 1 .10 17-15 damper connecting rod (main damper) 1 .20 19-2 exhaust manifold damper fly 1.00 19-9 warm air stove damper fly 1 20-31 stove damper fly shaft 1 .10 24-31 damper fly shaft spring 1 .10 24-43 stove damper fly spring 1 .15 28-4 connecting rod swivel 1 .25 62-5 escutcheon pin 1 .05 74-3 exhaust shut-off valve 1 .15 78-4 5/16 plain washer 1 .05 81-26 3/8×16 check nut 2 .05 82-1 1/16×1/2 cotter pin 2 .05 82-3 1/8×3/4 cotter pin 3 .05 100-16 warm air stove 1 100-17 warm air stove 1 100-520 warm air stove assembly 1 1.50 122-503 damper lever and shaft assembly 1 1.00 122-504 exhaust shut-off lever and shaft assembly 1 .40 123-1 heat tube support ring 1 .10 123-3 damper body packing stop ring 1 .10 123-4 exhaust damper body packing ring 1 .10 124-1 heat tube collar 4 .20 125-1 damper shaft spring seat 2 .10 126-2 heat tube outlet 1 .50 126-12 heat tube inlet 1 .50 127-1 heat tube packing 4 .10 127-2 exhaust damper body packing, per foot 1 .10 128-3 exhaust damper body 1 3.00 128-506 exhaust manifold damper body and stove assembly 1 8.00 163-1 choker rod extension .10 marvel carbureter distributors distributors who carry a complete stock of carbureters and parts and who are prepared to overhaul and rebuild carbureters: marvel carbureter sales co., 335 newbury street, boston, mass. marvel carbureter sales co., 242 west 69th street, new york, n.y. marvel carbureter sales co., 2120 fourteenth street, n.w., washington, d.c. marvel carbureter sales co., 6520 carnegie avenue, cleveland, ohio. marvel carbureter sales co., 1406 mcgee street, kansas city, mo. marvel carbureter sales co., 2119 s. michigan avenue, chicago, ill. marvel carbureter sales co., 926-928 e. washington street, indianapolis, ind. marvel carbureter sales co., 1138 broadway, denver, colo. marvel carbureter sales co., 1837 south flower street, los angeles, calif. edwards warden motor parts co., 309-315 e. broadway, salt lake city, utah. fauver-cavanagh co., inc., 46-52 canfield avenue e., detroit, michigan. mcalpin & schreiner co., 1520 tenth avenue, seattle, washington. moloney battery & ignition co., 108-110 wyoming street, el paso, texas. w.s. nott company, second ave. n. & 3rd street, minneapolis, minn. distributors who carry a complete stock of carbureters and parts: auto supply co., inc., 1107-1111 broadway, nashville, tenn. herrick hardware co., waco, texas. joseph schwartz company, 729-735 st. charles street, new orleans, la. shelton motor company, abeline, texas. wholesale auto supply house, 309-311 washington street, tampa, florida. westbrook motor co., san antonio, texas. export business all export business and shipments handled by overseas motor service corporation, 1760 broadway, new york, n.y. [illustration: the flint printing co.] sweet tooth by robert f. young illustrated by nodel [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy magazine october 1963. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] / the aliens were quite impressed by earth's technical marvels--they found them just delicious! sugardale three miles, the state highway sign said. dexter foote turned into the side road that the arrow indicated. he had no way of knowing it at the time, but by his action he condemned his new convertible to a fate worse than death. the side road meandered down a long slope into a wooded hollow where a breeze born of cool bowers and shaded brooks made the july afternoon heat less oppressive. a quantity of the pique that had been with him ever since setting forth from the city departed. there were worse assignments, after all, than writing up a fallen star. abruptly he applied the brakes and brought the convertible to a screeching halt. his blue eyes started from his boyish face. well they might. the two humpty dumptyish creatures squatting in the middle of the road were as big as heavy tanks and, judging from their "skin tone," were constructed of similar material. they had arms like jointed cranes and legs like articulated girders. their scissors-like mouths were slightly open, exposing maws the hue of an open hearth at tapping time. either they were all body and no head, or all head and no body. whichever was the case, they had both eyes and ears. the former had something of the aspect of peek holes in a furnace door, while the latter brought to mind lopsided tv antennae. as dexter watched, the foremost of the two metallic monsters advanced upon the convertible and began licking the chrome off the grill with a long, tong-like tongue. meanwhile, its companion circled to the rear and took a big bite out of the trunk. there was an awesome crunch! and the convertible gave a convulsive shudder. at this point, dexter got out and ran. more accurately, he jumped out and ran. a hundred feet down the road, he stopped and turned. he was just in time to see monster no. 1 bite off the right headlight. crunch! not to be outdone, monster no. 2 bit off the right taillight. crunch-crunch! an acrid odor affronted dexter's nostrils, and he discerned a faint yellow haze hovering about the convertible. the rear wheels went in two bites. the 250 h.p. motor required three. crunch-crunch-crunch! the upholstery caught fire and began to burn. a gout of flame shot up as the gas tank exploded. far from discouraging the two monsters, the resultant inferno merely served to whet their appetites. crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch! dexter's shoulders sagged, and the spot next to his heart that the convertible had shared with his best girl gave a spasmodic twinge. removing his suitcoat and slinging it over his shoulder, he turned his back on the grisly repast and set out sadly for sugardale. he had not gone far before his stalled thought-processes got into gear again. * * * * * the falling star he had been assigned by his editor to write up had been an unusually brilliant one according to the report the paper had received. maybe its unusualness did not stop there. maybe it was something more than a mere meteorite. certainly the two monsters could not be classified as local woodland creatures. all of which was fine as far as copy was concerned. but it didn't bring his convertible back. presently he saw two sizable deposits of slag at the side of the road, and approaching them more closely, he discovered that they were still warm. could they be the remains of a previously devoured automobile? he wondered. what an ignominious fate indeed to overtake a car! he looked at the two deposits once more before moving on. all he could think of were two piles of elephant dung. a mile and half later, he emerged in a small valley that sported a handful of houses, a scattering of business places, a church or two and a goodly number of trees. a roadside sign informed him that he had reached his destination, that its population was 350, and that its speed limit was 20 mph. the population, however, was nowhere in evidence, and the speed limit seemed silly in view of the absence of cars. a scared-looking housewife, upon whose door he knocked, told him he'd probably find the local minion of the law at the sugardale inn, "sucking up beer the way he always is when he should be out earning his money." the inn turned out to be a sagging three-story structure in desperate need of a paint-job. there was a model a sedan parked in front of it, the first automobile dexter had seen. formerly the establishment had provided a haven for weary travelers. now it provided a haven for contented cockroaches. its _fin de siècle_ bar was a collector's item, and standing at it, one foot propped on the brass bar-rail, was a lone customer. he was tall and thin, and somewhere in his sixties, and he was wearing blue denim trousers and a blue chambray shirt. there was a lackluster badge pinned on the fading shirtfront, and a beat-up sombrero sat atop the graying head. "sheriff jeremiah smith at your service," he said calmly when dexter dashed up to him. he took a sip from the schooner of beer that sat on the bar before him. "got troubles, have you, young man?" "my car," dexter said. "i was driving along the road and--" "got ate up, did it? well, it's not the first one to get ate up around here." jeremiah smith faced the doorway that led to the lobby. "mrs. creasy, get this young man a beer," he called. a plump middle-aged woman whose dark hair fell down over her eyes like a thicket came into sight behind the bar. she flicked a cockroach off the drain-board with an expert forefinger, drew dexter a schooner and set it before him. jeremiah smith paid for it. "drink her down, young man," he said. "i know how _i'd_ feel if _my_ car got ate up." manfully, dexter dispatched half the contents of the schooner, after which he introduced himself and explained the nature of his mission to sugardale. "i never figured on anything like this, though," he concluded. "you must have made it through just before the road-block was set up," jeremiah said. "you were lucky." dexter started at him. "lucky! i lost my _car_." "pshaw. what's a car to a newspaper man when a big story's in the air? take this newspaper fellow i saw on tv saturday night. he--" "big stories went out long ago," dexter said. "newspapermen work for a living the same as anybody else. get back to my car. aren't you going to do anything about it?" jeremiah looked hurt. "i've already done everything i can do. the minute i saw those tanks i knew it was a job for the army, and the state police agreed with me. so we notified them, after which we advised everybody to stay indoors and to keep their cars under lock and key. all we can do now is wait." jeremiah sighed. "crazy, if you ask me. tanks eating automobiles!" "i imagine," dexter said thoughtfully, "that our diet would give them pause too. where did this star of yours fall?" "in ed hallam's north timber lot. take you there, if you like. there's not much to see, though--just a big hole in the ground." dexter finished his beer. "come on," he said. * * * * * the model a parked in front of the inn turned out to be jeremiah's. they took off down the road at a brisk pace, wound through woods, dales, pastures and fields. dexter hadn't the remotest idea where he was when at last jeremiah pulled up beside a grove larger and darker than the others. the old man squinted into the lengthening shadows. "seems to me them auto-eating tanks ought to make better reading than a common ordinary falling star." halfway out of the car, dexter stared at him. "you mean to tell me you don't see the connection?" "what connection?" dexter got the rest of the way out. "between the automobile-eaters and the spaceship, of course." jeremiah stared at _him_. "what spaceship?" "oh, never mind," dexter said. "show me the fallen star." it was in a clearing deep in the woods. or rather, the crater-like hole it had made was. peering down into the hole, dexter saw the dark, pitted surface of what could very well have been an ordinary, if unusually large, meteorite. there was nothing that suggested an opening of any kind, but the opposite wall of the crater did look as though some heavy object had been dragged--or had dragged itself--up to the level of the clearing. the underbrush showed signs of having been badly trampled in the recent past. he pointed out the signs to jeremiah. "see how those saplings are flattened? no human being did that. i'll bet if we followed that trail, we'd come to the remains of the first car they consumed. whose car was it, by the way?" "mrs. hopkins's new buick. she'd just started out for the city on one of her shopping trips. she was so scared when she came running back into town her hair was standing straight out behind her head. maybe, though, it was because she was running so fast." abruptly jeremiah leaned forward and squinted at the ground. "looks almost like a big footprint right there, don't it." he straightened. "but if the darn thing is a spaceship like you say, how come it buried itself?" "because whoever or whatever was piloting it didn't--or couldn't--decelerate enough for an orthodox landing," dexter explained. "lucky it hit the clearing. if it had hit the trees, you'd have had a forest fire on your hands." jeremiah looked worried. "maybe we'd better be getting back to the road. i feel kind of guilty leaving my model a sitting there all alone." dexter followed him back through the woods and climbed into the front seat beside him. the road took them to the main highway, and not long thereafter jeremiah turned off the highway into another road--a familiar road heralded by a familiar sign that said, sugardale three miles. two slag deposits marked the spot where once dexter's proud convertible had stood. he gazed at them sadly as they passed. * * * * * suddenly jeremiah brought the model a to a screeching halt. the two desecrators of the american dream incarnate were in the midst of another repast. the victim this time, judging from the still-visible star and the o.d. color scheme, was an army staff car. the grill and the motor were already gone, and half of the roof was missing. yellow haze enshrouded the sorry scene, and the countryside was resounding to a series of horrendous crunches. "do you think if i sort of zoomed by, we could make it?" jeremiah asked. "i hate to go all the way around the other way." "i'm game if you are," dexter said. zoooooommmmmmm! the two monsters didn't even look up. "you'd think my model a wasn't good enough for them," jeremiah said peevishly. "count your blessings. look, there's someone up ahead." the "someone" turned out to be a two-star general, a chicken colonel and an enlisted man. jeremiah stopped, and the trio climbed into the back seat. "ate your staff car, did they, general?" he chuckled, taking off again. "well, that's the way it goes." "the name," said the general, whose middle-aged face had a greenish cast, "is general longcombe, and i was on my way to sugardale to reconnoiter the situation before committing any troops to the area. this is my aide, colonel mortby, and my driver, sergeant wilkins." "sheriff smith at your service," said jeremiah. "this here's dexter foote, who came to sugardale to do a big story on our falling star." "tell me about these vems of yours, sheriff," general longcombe said. jeremiah twisted around. "vems?" "'vehicle-eating monsters'," colonel mortby interposed. he was a small man with a pleasant youthful face. "it's standard army operating procedure to give an object a name before investigating it." "oh." jeremiah twisted back again, saved the model a from going into the ditch with a herculean yank on the wheel. "well, dexter here seems to think that our falling star is a spaceship and that they landed in it, and i'm inclined to believe he's right." "after seeing the vems in person, i'm inclined to believe he's right myself," colonel mortby said. "i think that what we have to do with here," he went on presently, when the general made no comment, "is a form of metal-based life capable of generating an internal temperature of at least three thousand degrees fahrenheit. the acrid odor they give off while 'feasting' probably arises from a substance analogous to our gastric juices which their heat-resistant stomachs supply to accomplish 'digestion,' only in this case 'digestion' consists primarily in melting down the metal they consume and in isolating its waste matter, after which the pure metal is reprocessed into 'body tissue' and the waste matter is thrown off in the form of slag. i think we might go so far as to call them a couple of animate open hearths." dexter had turned around in the front seat and was looking at the colonel admiringly. "i think you've hit the nail right on the head, sir," he said. general longcombe was scowling. "we're here to survey the situation, colonel, not to jump to conclusions." he addressed the back of jeremiah's weather-beaten neck. "i trust we'll have no trouble finding suitable accommodations in sugardale, sheriff." "mrs. creasy'll be glad to put you up at the inn, if that's what you mean," jeremiah said. * * * * * mrs. creasy was more than glad. indeed, from the way she looked at the two officers and the nco through her thicket of hair, you would have thought they were the first roomers she'd had in months, discounting the cockroaches, of course. the general said petulantly, "let's get down to business, colonel. i want an armored company brought up immediately, and i want the fallen-star area put off limits at once. have the sheriff show you where it is." he turned to sergeant wilkins. "sergeant, get on the phone as soon as the colonel gets off it, and arrange for my personal cadillac to be delivered here first thing." after phoning his paper, dexter headed for the dining room and sat down beside general longcombe. "anything new on the vems, general?" he asked. general longcombe sighed. there were shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks showed signs of sagging. "they're still in circulation. scared the wits out of a couple of teenagers and ate their hot-rod. we've got them under constant surveillance, of course, and what with all the underbrush they trample it's easy enough to track them. but we can't stop them. they eat our gas grenades and our fragmentation grenades, and they're impervious to our tank killers and our antitank mines. a small a-bomb would take care of them nicely, but even assuming there's an area around here large enough and isolated enough to permit us to use an a-bomb, there's no way of herding them into it." "it just so happens that there is such an area," jeremiah smith said. "tillson valley--about ten miles south of here. you'd have to vacate old man tillson, of course, but he'd be glad to go if you made it worth his while. he hasn't grown a thing but weeds anyway since he got his pension. just sits around all day and sucks up beer." "but there's still no way of getting the vems out there," general longcombe objected. "tell me, general," dexter said, "have they eaten any of your jeeps or trucks or personnel carriers?" general longcombe shook his head. "they've had plenty of opportunity to, too." "i have a theory," dexter said. the look that promptly settled on general longcombe's face made no bones about what he thought of presumptuous young reporters with theories. colonel mortby, however, was considerably less biased. "it won't do any harm to listen to what he's got to say, sir," he pointed out, "and it may even do some good. it'll be at least a day before the ship is excavated and even then we may not know any more about the sort of life forms we're dealing with than we do now." * * * * * dexter needed no further invitation. "i think it's pretty clear by now," he began, "that our two visitors from planet x aren't attracted by metal in just any old form at all, but by metal in the form of new, or nearly new, automobiles. this strongly suggests that their landing was unpremeditated, because if it had been premeditated they would have come down in a section of the country where such metallic concoctions are in plentiful supply--near a city or a large town, or close to a heavily traveled throughway. "but what is it about these new cars of ours that they find so irresistible? let's try an analogy. suppose that one of us has gone into a bakery to buy a birthday cake and that money is no object. which cake is he most likely to buy? the answer is obvious: the one with the most visual appeal. to return to our visitors from planet x. suppose that all their lives they've been eating metal in various but uninspired ingot forms--the metallic equivalents, let's say, of beans and bread and hominy grits. now suppose they find their way to another planet where visual appeal in metallic creation is a major occupation, and suppose that shortly after disembarking from their spaceship they come upon a new convertible. wouldn't they react in the same way we would react if all our lives our diet had been confined to beans and bread and hominy grits and _we_ traveled to another planet, disembarked and came upon a delicious birthday cake just begging to be eaten? wouldn't they make pigs of themselves and start looking for more cakes?" "but if it's the ornate nature of our late-model cars that attracts them, why did they eat the staff car?" colonel mortby asked. "and why did they eat the teenager's hot rod, and our gas and fragmentation grenades?" "i suggest," dexter said, "that they ate the staff car because at the moment there weren't any other cars immediately available. as for the teenager's hot rod, i imagine it was loaded down with enough chrome accessories to sink a battleship. and as for the grenades--your men threw them at them first, did they not?" colonel mortby nodded. "i see what you mean. sort of like throwing candy to a baby. i'll buy your theory, mr. foote." "and now, if i may," dexter continued, "i'd like to propose a means of getting rid of our unwanted visitors from planet x." general longcombe sighed. "very well, mr. foote. go on." "you mentioned earlier, sir, that there was no way of herding the vems into an isolated area. however, i think there is a way. suppose we were to remove all of the automobiles from the vicinity with the exception of one, and suppose we were to park that one in the middle of tillson valley as bait, with a remote-controlled a-bomb underneath it?" "but how would they know that the bait was there?" "through association," dexter said. "all of the automobiles they've consumed thus far were in operation shortly before they began to eat them, so by now they must have established an unconscious relationship between the sound of the motors and the taste of the metal. therefore, if we keep the bait idling and set up a p.a. system to amplify the sound, eventually they'll hear it, their mouths will salivate and they'll come running." general longcombe offered no comment he appeared to be deep in thought. "my car is in west virginia," colonel mortby said. "my car was eaten," dexter said. general longcombe opened his mouth. "my car--" he began. sergeant wilkins entered the room and saluted smartly. "the general's cadillac has just arrived, sir," he said. * * * * * old man tillson co-operated readily enough, once he was assured that he would be indemnified not only for his ramshackle house but for the young mountain of beer bottles that stood in his back yard, and the command post was moved forthwith to the lip of the valley. jeremiah smith was allowed to go along as an observer, and dexter was accorded a similar favor. by evening, everything was in place. the colonel's cadillac, parked in the valley's center, had something of the aspect of a chrome-bedizened lamb resting on an altar of crab grass, buttercups and mustard weeds. surrounding it were half a dozen floodlights, suspended over it was a microphone, standing next to it was a pole supporting three p.a. speakers, and located several hundred feet away was a tv camera. beyond this impressive display, old man tillson's homestead could be discerned, and beyond the homestead rose his mountainous collection of beer bottles. colonel mortby came out of the command-post tent and walked over to where dexter and jeremiah were standing, looking down into the valley. he handed each of them a pair of cobalt-blue glasses. "if you watch the blast, make sure you wear these," he said, raising his voice above the amplified purring of the cadillac's motor. "you'll be glad to hear that the two vems are already on their way, mr. foote--our walkie-talkie squad just called in. however, the creatures move so slowly that they probably won't be here before dawn." dexter came out of a brown study. "one thing still bugs me," he said. "why should two members of a race of extraterrestrials technically intelligent enough to build spaceships behave like a pair of gluttonous savages the minute they land on another planet?" "but you explained that," jeremiah pointed out. "they just can't resist eating american automobiles." "i'm afraid i got carried away by my analogy. civilized beings simply don't go running across the countryside the minute they land, and start grabbing up everything that strikes their eye. they make contact with the authorities first, and _then_ they go running across the countryside and start grabbing up everything that strikes their eye." colonel mortby grinned. "you've got a good point there, mr. foote. well, i'm going to see if i can't grab forty winks or so--it's been a trying day." "me too," jeremiah said, heading for his model a. left alone, dexter wedged a flashlight in the fork of a little tree, sat down in its dim radiance, got out pen and notebook, and began his article. _the solid cheese cadillac_, he wrote, _by dexter foote_.... dawn found him dozing over page 16. "there they are!" someone shouted, jerking him awake. "the filthy fiends!" the "someone" was general longcombe. joining him, dexter saw the two vems. they were moving relentlessly across the valley floor toward the helpless cadillac. jeremiah came up, rubbing his eyes. colonel mortby could be discerned through the entrance of the command-post tent, leaning over a technician's shoulder. the two vems reached the cadillac and began licking off the chrome with their long, tong-like tongues. general longcombe went wild. he waved his arms. "monsters!" he screamed, "i'll blow you to kingdom come personally!" and stomped into the tent. dexter and jeremiah started to put on their cobalt-blue glasses. abruptly thunder sounded, and a shadow darkened the land. looking skyward, dexter saw it-the ship. the saucer. whichever word you cared to apply to it. but whichever noun you chose, you had to prefix it with the adjective "gigantic," for the ventral hatch alone, which had just yawned open, was large enough to accommodate the sugardale methodist church. in the command-post tent, the general, as yet unaware of the ufo's presence, was giving the countdown in an anguished voice. "two--" in the valley, the two vems were trying vainly to extricate themselves from a huge metallic net that had dropped over them. "one--" on the lip of the valley, dexter foote was grappling with an insight. "zero--" pfft!... * * * * * "it wasn't a dud after all," general longcombe said. "they cancelled out the chain-reaction with some kind of a ray. i wonder...." he shook his head wistfully. "what a weapon, though." he and colonel mortby and the tech were standing by the chrome-stripped carcass of the cadillac. dexter and jeremiah had just come up. "my theory turned out to be a little bit off-center," dexter said. "you see, i overlooked the possibility that our children aren't necessarily the only galactic small fry who run away from home and get themselves in dutch. my birthday-cake analogy still holds true, but i would have done better to have compared our late-model automobiles to appetizing candy bars, or easter baskets filled with jelly beans and chocolate chickens." the general regarded him blankly. "i'm afraid i don't follow you at all, mr. foote." "did you ever turn a pair of hungry kids loose in a candy store, sir?" understanding came into general longcombe's eyes then, and he turned and gazed sadly at his chromeless cadillac. "i wonder if they have castor oil on planet x," he said. "i bet they have its equivalent," grinned dexter foote. images generously made available by internet archive (http://www.archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 29022-h.htm or 29022-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29022/29022-h/29022-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29022/29022-h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see http://www.archive.org/details/mrpunchawheelhum00londuoft mr. punch awheel. the humours of motoring and cycling. illustration: mr punch awheel * * * * * punch library of humour edited by j. a. hammerton designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "punch," from its beginning in 1841 to the present day. mr. punch awheel * * * * * illustration: _owner of violently palpitating motor car._ "there's no need to be alarmed. it will be all right as soon as i've discovered the what-d'ye-call-it!" * * * * * mr. punch awheel. the humours of motoring and cycling. as pictured by phil may, l. raven hill, bernard partridge, tom browne, a. s. boyd, h. m. brock, c. e. brock, gunning king, charles pears, g. d. armour, g. h. jalland, fred pegram, f. h. townsend, g. l. stampa, lance thackeray, and others. with 120 illustrations published by arrangement with the proprietors of "punch" the educational book co. ltd. * * * * * the punch library of humour _twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated._ life in london country life in the highlands scottish humour irish humour cockney humour in society after dinner stories in bohemia at the play mr. punch at home on the continong railway book at the seaside mr. punch afloat in the hunting field mr. punch on tour with rod and gun mr. punch awheel book of sports golf stories in wig and gown on the warpath book of love with the children * * * * * editor's note. among the characteristics which are essentially british, is the tendency to receive almost any innovation, be it a new style of dress or a new method of locomotion, with some degree of distrust which shows itself in satirical criticism; to be followed soon after by the acceptance of the accomplished fact and complete approval. in this trait of our national character, as in all others, mr. punch proves himself a true born britisher. when the bicycle was first coming into popularity, he seemed rather to resent the innovation, and was more ready to see the less attractive side of cycling than its pleasures and its practical advantages. so, too, with the automobile. only recently has mr. punch shown some tendency to become himself an enthusiast of the whirling wheel. this diffidence in joining the ranks of the cyclists or the motorists is due entirely to mr. punch's goodness of heart and his genuine british love of liberty. the cycling scorcher and the motoring road-hog are two abominations which he most naturally holds in the greatest contempt. against them he is never tired of directing his most scathing satire; but while this is entirely praiseworthy it tends a little to give a false impression of his attitude towards two of the most delightful sports which modern ingenuity has invented. after all, the scorcher and the road-hog are the least representative followers of the sports which their conduct brings into question, and it is very easy to over-estimate their importance. for that reason, in the compiling of the present volume the editor has endeavoured to make a selection which will show mr. punch in his real attitude towards motoring and cycling, in which, of course, it is but natural and all to our delight that he should see chiefly their humours, so largely the result of misadventure. but as he has long since ceased to jibe at the lady who cycles or to regard male cyclists as "cads on castors,"--in the phrase of edmund yates,--and ceased also to view the motor car as an ingenious device for public slaughter, his adverse views have not in the present volume been unduly emphasised. * * * * * mr. punch awheel enterprising pro-motor. one of our special correspondents started out to try the effect of taking notes from his motor-car whilst proceeding at top-speed. the experiment took place in june; but we have only just received the following account of the result. "started away and turned on full head of smell--steam, i mean. over southwark bridge, fizz, kick, bang, rattle! flew along old kent road; knocked down two policemen on patrol duty ('knocked 'em in the old kent road'); fizzed on through new cross and lewisham at awful nerve-destroying, sobbing pace, 'toot toot-ing' horn all the way. no good, apparently, to some people, who would not, or possibly _could_ not, get out of the way. cannoned milk-cart entering eltham village, ran into 'bus, but shot off it again, at a tangent, up on to the footpath, frightening old lady into hysterics. onwards we went, leaping and flying past everything on the road, into open country. ran over dog and three chickens, and saw tandem horses take fright and bolt; dust flew, people yelled at us and we yelled at people. came round sharp corner on to donkey standing in road. 'boosted' him up into the air and saw him fall through roof of outhouse! whirr-r-up! bang! rattle! fizz-izz--bust!" "where am i?--oh, in hospital--oh, really?--seems nice clean sort of place.--how long----? oh, been here about six weeks--have i, really? and what----? oh, _both_ arms, you say?--and left leg? ah--by the way, do you know anyone who wants to buy a motor----? what, no motor left?--by jove! that's funny, isn't it?--well, i think i'll go to sleep again now." * * * * * _ethel_ (_with book_). "what's an autocrat, mabel?" _mabel._ "person who drives an auto-car, of course, silly." * * * * * the best lubricant for cycles.--castor oil. * * * * * illustration: "wouldn't yer like ter 'ave one o' them things, liza ann?" "no. i wouldn't be seen on one. i don't think they're nice for lidies!" * * * * * motor questions what rushes through the crowded street with whirring noise and throbbing beat, exhaling odours far from sweet? the motor-car. whose wheels o'er greasy asphalte skim, exacting toll of life and limb, (what is a corpse or so to _him_)? the motorist's. who flies before the oily gust wafted his way through whirling dust, and hopes the beastly thing will bust? the pedestrian. who thinks that it is scarcely fair to have to pay for road repair while sudden death lies lurking there? the ratepayer. who as the car goes whizzing past at such law-breaking stands aghast, (for forty miles an hour _is_ fast)? the policeman. who hears the case with bland surprise, and over human frailty sighs, the while he reads between the lies? the magistrate. * * * * * illustration: fickle fortune "and only yesterday i was fined five pounds for driving at excessive speed!" * * * * * illustration: in dorsetshire _fair cyclist._ "is this the way to wareham, please?" _native._ "yes, miss, yew seem to me to ha' got 'em on all right!" * * * * * so unselfish!--"oh yes, i gave my husband a motor-car on his birthday." "but i thought he didn't like motor-cars!" "he doesn't. but i _do_!" * * * * * _q._ why is the lady bikist of an amorous disposition? _a._ because she is a sigh-cling creature. * * * * * illustration: crowded out.--_stage-struck coster_ (_to his dark-coloured donkey_). "othello, othello, _your_ occupation 'll soon be gone!" * * * * * hints for biking beginners 1. insure your life and limbs. the former will benefit your relations, the latter yourself. 2. learn on a hired machine. the best plan is to borrow a machine from a friend. it saves hiring. should the tyre become punctured, the brake be broken, the bell cracked, the lamp missing, and the gear out of gear, you will return it as soon as possible, advising your friend to provide himself with a stronger one next time. 3. practise on some soft and smooth ground. for example, on a lawn; the one next door for choice. a muddy road, although sufficiently soft, is not recommended--the drawbacks are obvious. 4. choose a secluded place for practising. it may at first sight appear somewhat selfish to deprive your neighbours of a gratuitous performance which would be certain to amuse them. nevertheless, be firm. 5. get someone to hold you on. engage a friend in an interesting conversation while you mount your bicycle. do you remember _mr. winkle's_ dialogue with _sam weller_ when he attempted skating? you can model your conversation on this idea. friend will support you while you ride and talk. keep him at it. it will be excellent exercise for _him_, physically and morally. also economical for _you_; as, otherwise, you would have to pay a runner. 6. don't bike; trike. * * * * * a new terror.--_johnson._ hullo, thompson, you look peekish. what's wrong? _thompson._ the vibration of motor-carring has got on my liver. _johnson._ i see, automobilious! * * * * * on the brighton road.--_cyclist_ (_to owner of dog over which he has nearly ridden_). take your beast out of my way! what right has he here? _owner._ well, he pays seven and sixpence a year for the privilege of perambulation, and _you_ pay nothing! * * * * * the very oldest motor-car.--the whirligig of time. * * * * * illustration: "hi! whip behind!" "yah! 'e ain't got none!" * * * * * illustration: adding insult to injury.--_tramp photographer._ "now, sir, just as you are for a shillin'!" [_and little binks, who prides himself upon his motor driving, is trying his best to get his wife to promise not to tell anyone about the smash._] * * * * * a question of etiquette dear mr. punch,--knowing you to be a past master in the art of courtesy, i venture to submit the following hard case to your judgment. the other morning, being a none too experienced cyclist, i ventured into the park on my "wheel" at an early hour, thinking to have a little practice unobserved. judge of my horror when, as i was wobbling along, i was suddenly confronted by the duchess of xminster and her daughters, all expert riders! her grace and the ladies wiseacre bowed to me in the most affable way, but, afraid to leave go of the handles of my machine, i could only nod in return. and i have always been renowned for the elegance with which i remove my _chapeau_! these noble ladies have since cut me dead. i cannot blame them, but i venture to suggest, for your approval, that the raising of the right elbow, such as is practised by coachmen, gentle and simple, should be adopted by all cyclists. i think that i could manage the movement. yours in social despair, amelius ambergris _bayswater._ * * * * * illustration: _cow-boy_ (_to young lady who has taken refuge_). "would you mind openin' the gate, miss? they're a-comin' in there." * * * * * an admirable improvement in motor-cars is about to be introduced by one of our leading firms. cars are frequently overturned, and the occupants buried underneath. in future, on the bottom of every car made by the firm in question there will be engraved the words, "here lies----," followed by a blank space, which can be filled up by the purchaser. * * * * * _he._ "do you belong to the psychical society?" _she._ "no; but i sometimes go out on my brother's machine!" * * * * * illustration: wheel and woe.--a brooklyn inventor has patented a cycle-hearse. * * * * * illustration: unlicensed pedallers.--cyclists. * * * * * to marie, riding my bicycle brake, brake, brake on my brand-new tyre, marie! and i would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me. o well for the fishmonger's boy that his tricycle's mean and squalid; o well for the butcher lad that the tyres of his wheel are solid! and the reckless scorchers scorch with hanging purple heads, but o for the tube that is busted up and the tyre that is cut to shreds. brake, brake, brake- thou hast broken indeed, marie, and the rounded form of my new dunlop will never come back to me. * * * * * a suggestion in nomenclature.--the old name of "turnpike roads" has, long ago, with the almost universal disappearance of the ancient turnpikes, become obsolete. nowadays, bicycles being "always with us," why not for "turnpike roads" substitute "turn-bike roads"? this ought to suit the "b. b. p.," or "bicycling british public." * * * * * illustration: "oh, did you see a gentleman on a bicycle as you came up?" "no; but i saw a man sitting at the bottom of the hill mending an old umbrella!" * * * * * that bicycle lamp the other sunday afternoon i rode over on my bicycle to see the robinsons. they live seven miles away. tomkins and others were there. people who live in remote country places always seem pleased to see a fellow creature, but robinson and his wife are unusually hospitable and good-natured. after i had had some tea, and thought of leaving, a hobnail was discovered in the tyre of tomkin's bicycle. he, being very athletic, was playing croquet, a game which requires vast muscular strength. however, he said that his tyres were something quite new, and that in one minute one man, or even one child, could stick one postage-stamp, or anything of the sort, over that puncture and mend it. so all the rest of us and the butler, principally the butler, who is an expert in bicycles, went at it vigorously, and after we had all worked for nearly an hour the tyre was patched up, and tomkins, having finished his game, rode coolly away. i was going to do the same, but robinson wouldn't hear of it--i must stay to dinner. i said i had no lamp for riding home in the dark. he would lend me his. i said i should have to dine in knickerbockers. that didn't matter in the country. so i stayed till 9.30. the next sunday i rode over again. i started directly after lunch, lest i should seem to have come to dinner, and i gave the butler that lamp directly i arrived. but it was all no good, for i stayed till 10, and had to borrow it again. "bring it back to-morrow morning," said robinson, "and help us with our hay-making." again dined in knickerbockers. on monday i resolved to be firm. i would leave by daylight. rode over early. after some indifferent hay-making and some excellent lunch, i tried to start. no good. robinson carried me off to a neighbour's tennis-party. after we returned from that, he said i must have some dinner. couldn't ride home all those seven miles starving. knickerbockers didn't matter. again dined there and rode home at 10.30. so i still have robinson's lamp. now i want to know how i am going to get it back to his house. if i have it taken by anybody else he will think i don't care to come, which would be quite a mistake. have vowed that i will not dine there again except in proper clothes. if i cross his hospitable threshold, even before breakfast, i shall never get away before bedtime. can't ride seven miles in evening dress before breakfast even in the country. besides, whatever clothes i wore, i should never be able to leave by daylight. i should still have his lamp. can't take a second lamp. would look like inviting myself to dinner. so would the evening clothes at breakfast. what is to be done? * * * * * illustration: the retort curteous.--_motorist_ (_cheerfully--to fellow-guest in house party_). "what luck? killed anything?" _angler_ (_bitterly_). "no. have you?" * * * * * illustration: _vicar's daughter._ "oh, withers, your mistress tells me you are saving up to take a little shop and look after your mother. i think it is such a sweet idea!" _withers._ "well, yes, miss, i did think of it; but now i've got the money i've changed my mind, and i'm going to buy myself one of these 'ere bicycles instead!" * * * * * illustration: a story without words * * * * * illustration: the inference.--_giles_ (_who has been rendering "first aid" to wrecked motor-cyclist_). "naw, marm, i doan't think as 'e be a married man, 'cos 'e says _this_ be the worst thing wot 'as ever 'appened to un!" * * * * * illustration: saving the situation _effie_ (_to whom a motor-brougham is quite a novelty_). "oh, mummy dear, look! there's a footman and a big coachman on the box, and there isn't a horse or even a pony! what _are_ they there for?" _mummy dear_ (_not well versed in electricity and motor-mechanism_). "well, you see, effie dear--the--(_by a happy inspiration_) but, dear, you're not old enough to understand." * * * * * the _daily mail_ has discovered that the "motor-cough" is "caused by the minute particles of dust raised by motor-cars which lodge themselves in the laryngeal passage." if people _will_ use their gullets as garages, what can they expect? * * * * * illustration: _horsey wag_ (_to mr. and mrs. tourey, who are walking up a hill_). "and do you always take your cycles with you when you go for a walk?" * * * * * in east dorsetshire.--_cyclist (to native)._ how many miles am i from wimborne? _native._ i dunno. _cyclist._ am i near blandford? _native._ i dunno. _cyclist (angrily)._ then what do you know? _native._ i dunno. [_cyclist speeds to no man's land in the new forest._ * * * * * our barterers bicycle.--thoroughly heavy, lumbering, out-of-date machine, recently doctored up to look like new, for sale. cost, second-hand, six years ago, â£4. will take â£12 for it. bargain. would suit a dyspeptic giant, or a professional strong man in want of violent exercise. safety cycle.--pneumatic tyres. a real beauty. makers well known in bankruptcy court. owner giving up riding in consequence of the frame being thoroughly unsafe, and the tyres constantly bursting. would exchange for one of broadwood's grand pianos or a freehold house in the country. * * * * * illustration: the ? of the day.--should there be a speed (and dust) limit? * * * * * the queen's highway.--_infuriated cyclist_ (_after a collision with a fast-trotting dog-cart_). i shall summon you to-morrow! i've as much right on the road as you, jehu! _irate driver._ and i shall summon _you_! this thoroughfare's mine as well as yours, let me tell you, scorcher! _pedestrian_ (_who has been nearly killed by the collision, and is lying prostrate after being cannoned on to the path, very feebly_). and what about me, gentlemen? have i any right of way? * * * * * the constant strain of driving motor-cars is said to be responsible for a form of nervous break-down which shows a decided tendency to increase. one certainly comes across a number of cars afflicted in this way. * * * * * "pikes and bikes" (_by a "riding poet"_) in years gone by our sires would try to abrogate the highway "pikes." no tolls to-day, can bar the way, but freeing of the road brought "bikes"; and there are many northern tykes, who would prefer the "pikes" to "bikes." * * * * * illustration: _old lady_ (_describing a cycling accident_). "'e 'elped me hup, an' brushed the dust orf on me, an' put five shillin' in my 'and, an' so i says, 'well, sir, i'm sure you're _hactin'_ like a gentleman,' i says, 'though i don't suppose you are one,' i says." * * * * * a motor-car, proceeding along the high street the other evening, took fright, it is supposed, at a constable on point-to-point duty, and exploded, blowing the occupants in various directions over the adjoining buildings. the policeman is to be congratulated upon averting what might have been a serious accident. * * * * * a well-known motorist has been complaining of the campaign waged against motor-cars by humorous artists, who never seem to tire of depicting accidents. "one common and ludicrous error in many drawings," he said, "is the placing of the driver on the wrong side of the car." but surely, in an accident, that is just where he would find himself. * * * * * _sympathetic lady._ "i hope you had a good holiday, miss smith." _overworked dressmaker._ "oh yes, my lady. i took my machine with me, you know!" _s. l._ "what a pity; you should give up needle and thread when you're out for a----" _o. d._ "oh, i don't mean my sewing machine! i refer to my bicycle!" * * * * * illustration: scene--_a remote district in the wolds._ _driver of motor-car_ (_who has just pulled up in response to urgent summons from countrywoman_). "well, what's the matter? what is it?" _countrywoman._ "hi, man, look! you've been an' left yer 'oss on the 'ill!" * * * * * the cycling governess i no longer teach my classes their shakespeare and the glasses, and the uses of the globes, as was my custom; but all they'll learn from me is to ride the iron gee- all other lessons utterly disgust 'em! the girls no more will meddle with the painful piano-pedal, they'll only touch the pedal of their "humber"; like their grannies, they begin at an early age to "spin," but the road it is their spinning-wheels encumber. so wheeling now my trade is, and finishing young ladies in the proper kind of bicycling deportment; _i_'m nearly finished, too, and battered black and blue, for of falls i've had a pretty large assortment! * * * * * woe on the wheel. there was a "scorching" girl, who came down an awful purl, and scarified her nose, and scarred her forehead. she thought, when first she rode, biking very, _very_ good, but now she considers it horrid! * * * * * illustration: _winny_ (_one mile an hour_) _to annie_ (_two miles an hour_). "scorcher!" * * * * * the favourite of the motor-cars.--_pet_roleum. * * * * * in england, says a french writer, motoring is not considered a sport because it does not involve killing anything. this is but one more example of continental aspersion. * * * * * as a result of his trip over the gordon-bennett course, the roman catholic archbishop of dublin now recommends the motor-car for pastoral visits. this will be no new thing. for years past some people have looked on the motor-car in the light of a visitation. * * * * * cycling conundrum.--_q._ what article of the cyclist girl's attire do a couple of careless barbers recall to mind? _a._ a pair of nickers. * * * * * motorists are still expressing their indignation at a recent disgraceful incident when one of their number, because he could not pay a fine at once, was taken to prison, and forced to don ugly convict garb in the place of his becoming goggles and motor coat. * * * * * illustration: _engineer._ "there's certainly a screw loose somewhere." _simple simon_ (_with gleeful satisfaction_). "he-he! i knaws where 't be too!" _car owner_ (_intensely interested_). "what do you mean, boy?" _simple simon._ "he-he! why i've got 'un! all the folks say as 'ow i've got a screw loose somewheres!" * * * * * wheels within wheels _dialogue between two young gentlemen, dressed in knickerbocker suits, gaiters, and golf caps. they have the indescribable air which proclaims the votary of the "bike"._ _first young gentleman._ yes; i certainly agree with the french view of it. cycling shouldn't be indulged in without care. _second y. g._ they say in paris that no one should become an habitual cyclist without "medical authorisation." _first y. g._ yes. quite right. then, when you are permitted, you ought to travel at a moderate pace. about five miles an hour is quite enough for a beginner. _second y. g._ enough! why, too much! you can't be too careful! then, if you break off for a time, you ought to begin all over again. you should "gradually acquire speed"; not rush at it! _first y. g._ certainly. i read in the _lancet_ only the other day that merely increasing the pace of a bike a couple of miles an hour was sufficient to send up the normal pulse to 150! _second y. g._ most alarming! and yet i can see from your costume you are a cyclist. _first y. g._ not at all. i am pleased with the costume, and, like yourself, have adopted it. now do not laugh at me. but, between ourselves, i have never been on a bicycle in my life! _second y. g._ no more have i! [_curtain._ * * * * * illustration: "enough is as good as a feast."--_nervous lady cyclist._ "i hope it isn't very deep here." _ferryman._ "sax hunderd an' fefty-nine feet, miss." * * * * * the provincial journal which, the other day, published the following paragraph:--"private letters from madagascar state that two cyclists have visited the island, causing the loss of 200 lives and immense damage to property," and followed it up with a leader virulently attacking motor-cyclists, now informs us that the word should have been "cyclones." the printer has been warned. * * * * * "anti-motor" writes to point out that one advantage of holding motor races like those that have just taken place in ireland is that after each race there are fewer motors. * * * * * the trail of the motor.--"collector. young man wants collecting."--_advt. in provincial paper._ * * * * * illustration: _old farmer jones_ (_who has been to a local cattle-show, and seen a horseless carriage for the first time_). "mosher carsh may be all very well--(_hic!_)--but they can't find 'er way home by 'emshelves!" * * * * * should motorists wear masks? ["plus de lunettes spã©ciales pour mm. les chauffeurs. ils devront conduire comme les cochers ordinaires ã  yeux nus ou avec les lunettes ordinaires de myopes ou de presbytes. nos sportsmen dã©clarent que ces lunettes de motoristes favorisent l'anonymat. ces lunettes sont de vã©ritables masques. on fait sous ce masque ce qu'on n'oserait pas faire ã  visage dã©couvert. en france il est dã©fendu de se masquer en dehors du temps de carnaval ... si le masque tombe, la vitesse des motors deviendra fatalement normale."--_m. n. de noduwez in the "times."_] mr. punch has collected a few brief opinions upon the subject of the above-quoted letter. mr. kipling writes: "through dirt, sweat, burns, bursts, smells, bumps, breakdowns, and explosions i have attained to the perfect joy of the scorcher. i have suffered much on the southern british highways. my tibetan devil-mask shall therefore add to their terrors. besides, i wore gig-lamps at school. what do they know of sussex who only burwash know?" mr. beerbohm tree telephones: "the most beautiful of all arts is that of make-up. we cannot all resemble _caliban_, but why should not the motorist aspire in that direction? life is but a masque, and all roads lead to 'his majesty's.'" miss marie corelli telegraphs: "i am all for anonymity and everything that tends to the avoidance of advertisement. if people must ride in motors, let them have the decency to disguise themselves as effectually as possible, and shun all contact with their kind." mr. jem smith, cabdriver, in the course of an interview, said: "masks? not 'arf! let 'em out on the fifth of november, and throw a match in their oil-tanks--that's what _i_'d do! _i_'d anonymous the lot of 'em!" policeman xx. (in the _rã´le_ of a labourer behind a hedge on the brighton road): "'oo are you a-gettin' at? do you see any mote in my eye? if you want to know the time, i've a stop-watch!" * * * * * illustration: division of labour.--it is not the business of ducal footmen to clean the family bicycles. the ladies ermyntrude and adelgitha have to do it themselves. * * * * * _enthusiastic motorist_ (_to perfect stranger_). _i_ swear by petrol, sir; always use it myself. now what, may i ask, do _you_ use? _perfect stranger._ oats! * * * * * illustration: juggernautical.--_unfortunate cyclist_ (_who has been bowled over by motor-car_). "did you see the number?" _jarge._ "yes, there was three on 'em. two men and a woman." * * * * * illustration: expectation.--the browns welcoming the robinsons (awfully jolly people, don't you know,) from whom they have had a letter saying that they will arrive early in the day by motor. * * * illustration: realisation.--the browns, when the arrivals have removed their motor glasses, etc., disclosing not the robinsons, but those awful bores, the smiths. * * * * * there was a new woman (_neo-nursery rhyme_) there was a new woman, as i've heard tell, and she rode a bike with a horrible bell, she rode a bike in a masculine way, and she had a spill on the queen's highway. while she lay stunned, up came doctor stout, and he cast a petticoat her "knickers" about, to hide the striped horrors which bagged at the knees. when the new woman woke, she felt strange and ill at ease; she began to wonder those skirts for to spy, and cried, "oh, goodness gracious! i'm sure this isn't i! but if it is i, as i hope it be, i know a little vulgar boy, and he knows me; and if it is i, he will jeer and rail, but if it isn't i, why, to notice me he'll fail." so off scorched the new woman, all in the dark, but as the little vulgar boy her knickers failed to mark, he was quite polite, and she began to cry, "oh! jimmy doesn't cheek me, so i'm sure this _isn't_ i!" * * * * * the pace that kills have a care how you speed! take the motorist's case:- on his tomb you can read, "requiescat in pace." * * * * * illustration: life's little ironies.-_motorist._ "conductor! how can i strike the harrow road?" _conductor._ "'arrer road? let's see. second to right, third to--it's a good way, sir. i tell 'ee, sir. just follow that green bus over there; that'll take you right to it!" * * * * * wonders on wheels (_by an old beginner_) wonder if my doctor was right in ordering me to take this sort of exercise. wonder whether i look very absurd while accepting the assistance of an attendant who walks by my side and keeps me from falling by clutches at my waistbelt. wonder whether it would have been better to go to hyde park instead of battersea. wonder whether the policeman, the postman, the nurse with the perambulator, the young lady reading the novel, and the deck passengers on the passing steamboat are laughing at me. wonder whether i shall keep on now that my attendant has let go. wonder whether the leading wheel will keep straight on until we have passed that lamp-post. wonder whether the next spill i have will be less painful than the last. wonder why mats are not laid down by the county council in the roads for the comfort of falling cyclists. wonder why the cycle suddenly doubled up and landed me in the gutter. wonder whether the pretty girl in the hat, whose face is hidden by a novel, smiled at my misadventure. wonder whether the person who has just come to grief over yonder is using good language or words of an inferior quality. wonder whether my attendant is right in urging me to remount and have another try. wonder whether i look well wobbling. wonder whether the elderly spinster with the anxious manner and air of determination is really enjoying herself. wonder whether, when i have completed my first hour, i shall want another. wonder whether the imp of a boy will run with me. wonder whether my second fall in five minutes beats the record. wonder, considering the difficulty of progressing half a dozen paces in as many minutes, how those marvellous feats are performed at olympia. wonder if i shall ever advance upon my present rate of speed, _i.e._, three-quarters of a mile an hour. wonder, finally, if the placards warning cyclists in battersea park against the dangers of "furious riding" can possibly be posted for my edification. * * * * * the scorcher he travels along at the top of his speed, you might think that his life was at stake; to beauties of nature he never pays heed, for the record he's trying to break. he stiffens his muscles and arches his back as if he were still on the cinder-path track. he races regardless of life and of limb, caring naught for the folk in his way; for chickens and children are nothing to him, and his mad career nothing can stay; so wildly he wheels as if urged by a goad; by coachmen he's christened "the curse of the road." he'll pass on the left and he'll ride on the right, for the rules of the road caring naught; his lamp he will not take the trouble to light till a pretty smart lesson he's taught. but lecture and fine him as much as you will, the trail of the scorcher is over him still. * * * * * rhyme for record-makers rattle-it, rattle-it, "biking" man; make us a "record" as fast as you can; score it, and print it as large as life, and someone will "cut" it ere you can say knife! * * * * * illustration: unwilling to give up horses altogether, captain pelham effected a compromise. his first appearance in the park created quite a sensation. * * * * * illustration: flattery--with an object _jocasta_ (_with an axe of her own to grind, ingratiatingly_). "oh yes, papa, it does suit you. i never saw you look so nice in anything before!" * * * * * illustration: mems for motorists.--if your car suddenly appears to drag heavily, you may be sure there is something to account for it. * * * * * illustration: "have you ever tried riding without the handles? it's delightfully easy, all but the corners." * * * illustration: !!! so it seems! * * * * * broken on the wheel _first lesson._--held on by instructor, a tall, muscular young man. thought it was so easy. cling for dear life to handle, as beginners in horsemanship cling to the reins. instructor says i must not. evidently cannot hold on by my knees. ask him what i am to hold on by. "nothing," he says. how awful! feel suspended in the air. that is what i ought to be. at present am more on ground; anyway one foot down. even when in movement position of feet uncertain. go a few yards, supported. muscular instructor rather hot and tired, but says civilly, "you're getting on nicely, sir." at this get off unexpectedly, and, when i am picked up, reply, "very likely," only my feet were off the pedals all the time. then rest, and watch little children riding easily. one pretty girl. wonder whether she laughed at me. probably. shall have another try. _second lesson._--held on by another instructor, who urges me "to put more life into it." hope it won't be the death of me. work in a manner which even the treadmill, i imagine, could not necessitate, and get the wheel round a few times. painful wobbling. instructor says i must pedal more quickly. can't. rest a minute. panting. awfully hot. observe little children going round comfortably. pretty girl here again, looking as fresh and cool as possible. suddenly manage to ride three yards unsupported. then collapse. but am progressing. shall come again soon. _third lesson._--endeavour to get on alone. immediately get off on other side. nearly upset the pretty girl. polite self-effacement impossible when one is at the mercy of a mere machine. after a time manage better. and at last get started and ride alone for short distances. always tumble off ignominiously just as i meet the pretty girl. instructor urges me to break the record. hope i shan't break my neck. finally go all round the ground. triumph! pretty girl seems less inclined to laugh. delightful exercise, bicycle riding! shall come again to-morrow. _fourth lesson._--high north-east wind. hot sun. regular may weather. clouds of coal-dust from track. pretty girl not there at all. start confidently. endeavour to knock down a wall. wall does not suffer much. start again. faster this time. the pretty girl has just come. will show what i can do now. career over large hole. bicycle sinks, and then takes a mighty leap. unprepared for this. am cast into the air. picked up. can't stand. something broken. doctor will say what. anyhow, clothes torn, bruised, disheartened. dare not catch the eye of pretty girl. carried home. shall give up bicycle riding. awful fag, and no fun. * * * * * in its "hints for bicyclists," _home chat_ says: "a little fuller's earth dusted inside the stockings, socks and gloves, keeps the feet cool." nothing, however, is said of the use of rubber soles as a protection against sunstroke. * * * * * overheard at a motor meeting.-_inquirer._ "i wonder what they call those large, long cars?" _well-informed friend._ "those? oh, i believe those are the flying kilometres, a french make." * * * * * people who are in favour of increasing the rates--motorists. * * * * * illustration: the perils of cycling.--(_a sketch in battersea park._) _angelina._ "come along, dear!" * * * * * illustration: motoring phenomena--and how to read the signs * * * * * illustration: _the squire._ "but i tell you, sir, this road is private, and you shall not pass except over my prostrate body!" _cyclist._ "all right, guv'nor, i'll go back. i've done enough hill climbing already!" * * * * * the moral bike _truth_ has discovered that temperance is promoted, and character generally reformed, by the agency of the bicycle--in fact, the guilty class has taken to cycling. that is so. go into any police-court, and you will find culprits in the dock who have not only taken to cycling but have also taken other people's cycles. ask any burglar among your acquaintance, and he will tell you that the term safety bicycle has a deeper and truer meaning for him, when, in pursuit of his vocation, he is anxious not to come in collision with the police. look, too, at the scorcher on his saturday afternoon exodus. where could you have a more salient and striking example of pushfulness and determination to "get there" over all obstacles? he is, in fact, an example of nietzsche's "ueber-mensch," the over-man who rides over any elderly pedestrian or negligible infant that may cross his path. then the lady in bloomers. she is a great reforming agent. she looks so unsightly, that if all her sisters were dressed like her flirtation would die out of the land and there would be no more cakes and ale. think also of all the virtues called into active exercise by one simple puncture: patience, while you spend an hour by the wayside five miles from anywhere; self-control, when "swears, idle swears, you know not what they mean, swears from the depth of some divine despair rise in the heart and gather to the lips," as tennyson has so sympathetically put it; fortitude, when you have to shoulder or push the moral agent home; and a lot of other copy-book qualities. lastly, the adventurer who proceeds without a light within curfew hours, the sportsman who steals a march on the side-walk, and the novice who tries a fall with the first omnibus encountered--are all bright instances of british independence, and witnesses to _truth_. truly, the bike is an excellent substitute for the treadmill and the reformatory! * * * * * illustration: "as others see us."-_obliging motorist._ "shall i stop the engine?" _groom._ "never mind that, sir. but if you gents wouldn't mind just gettin' out and 'idin' behind the car for a minute,--the 'orses think it's a menagery comin'." * * * * * illustration: the miltonic cyclist * * * * * wake up, england! ["british lady motor-drivers," says _motoring illustrated_, "must look to their laurels. miss rosamund dixey, of boston, u.s.a., invariably has her sweet, pet, fat, white pig sitting up beside her in the front of her motor car."] we are losing our great reputation our women are not up-to-date; for a younger, more go-a-head nation has beaten us badly of late; is there nowhere some fair englishwoman who'd think it not too _infra dig._ to be seen with (and treat it as human) a sweet--pet--fat--white--pig? there is no need to copy our cousins, a visit or two to the zoo will convince you there must be some dozens of animal pets that would do, with a "grizzly" perched up in your motor, just think how the people would stare, saying, "is that a man in a coat or a big--grey--tame--he--bear?" think how _chic_ it would look in the paper (_society's doings_, we'll say), "mrs. so-and-so drove with her tapir, and daughter (the tapir's) to-day. mrs. thingummy too and her sister drove out for an hour and a half, and beside them (the image of mr.) a dear--wee--pink--pet--calf!" * * * * * illustration: "did you get his number?" "no; but i saw exactly what she was wearing and how much she paid for the things!" * * * * * the motors' defence union a pedestrians' protection league is being formed to uphold the rights of foot-passengers on the highways. as no bane is without its antidote, an opposition union is to be organised, having in view the adoption of the following regulations:- 1. every pedestrian must carry on his front and back a large and conspicuous number as a means of easy and rapid identification. 2. no foot passenger shall quit the side-walk, except at certain authorised crossings. in country lanes and places where there is no side-walk the ditch shall be considered equivalent to the same. 3. each foot-passenger about to make use of such authorised crossings shall thrice sound a danger-signal on a hooter, fog-horn or megaphone; and, after due warning has thus been given, shall traverse the road at a speed of not less than twelve miles an hour. the penalty for infringement to be forty shillings or one month. 4. any pedestrian obstructing a motor by being run over, causing a motor to slow down or stop, or otherwise deranging the traffic, shall be summarily dealt with: the punishment for this offence to be five years' penal servitude, dating from arrest or release from hospital, as the case may be. 5. should the pedestrian thus trespassing on the highway lose his life in an encounter with a motor-car, he shall not be liable to penal servitude; compensation for shock and loss of time, however, shall be paid from his estate to the driver of the car, such amount being taxed by the coroner. 6. all cattle, sheep, pigs, swine, hares, rabbits, conies, and other ground game, and every goose, duck, fowl, or any animal whatsoever with which the motor shall collide shall, _ipso facto_, be confiscated to the owner of the motor. 7. any comment, remark, reflection, sneer or innuendo concerning the shape, speed, appearance, noise, smell, or other attribute of a motor-car, or of its occupants, shall be actionable; and every foot-passenger thus offending shall be bound over in the sum of â£500 to keep the peace. * * * * * the scotchman who tumbled off a bicycle says that in future he intends to "let wheel alone." * * * * * illustration: _mabel's three bosom friends_ (_all experts--who have run round to see the christmas gift_). "hullo, mab!. why, what on earth are you doing?" _mab_ (_in gasps_). "oh--you see--it was awfully kind of the pater to give it to me--but i have to look after it myself--and i knew i should _never have breath enough to blow the tyres out_!" * * * * * illustration: an accommodating party.--_lady driver._ "can you show us the way to great missenden, please?" _weary willie._ "cert'nly, miss, cert'nly. we're agoin' that way. 'op up, joe. anythink to oblige a lady!" * * * * * among the correspondence in the _daily mail_ on the subject of "the motor problem," there is a letter from a physician, who exposes very cynically a scheme for improving his practice. "i am," he says, "a country doctor, and during the last five years have had not a single case of accident to pedestrians caused by motor car.... as soon as i can afford it i intend to buy a motor." * * * * * illustration: how not _bikist._ "now then, ethel, see me make a spurt round this corner." * * * illustration: to do it _first villager._ "what's up, bill?" _second villager._ "oh, only a gent awashin' the dust off his bike." * * * * * it is a bad workman who complains of his tools, yet even the best of them may be justly annoyed when his spanner goes completely off its nut. * * * * * "motor cycle for sale, 2-3/4 h.-p., equal to 3-1/4 h.-p." _--provincial paper._ discount of 1/2 h.-p. for cash? * * * * * song of the scorcher. (_after reading the protests and plans of the cyclophobists_) i know i'm a "scorcher," i know i am torcher to buffers and mivvies who're not up to date; but grumpy old geesers, and wobbly old wheezers, ain't goin' to wipe me and my wheel orf the slate. i mean to go spinning and 'owling and grinning at twelve mile an hour through the thick of the throng. and shout, without stopping, whilst, frightened and flopping, my elderly victims like ninepins are dropping,- "so long!" the elderly bobby, who's stuffy and cobby, ain't got arf a chance with a scorcher on wheels; old buffers may bellow, and young gals turn yellow, but what do i care for their grunts or their squeals? no, when they go squiffy i'm off in a jiffy, the much-abused "scorcher" is still going strong. and when mugs would meddle, i shout as i pedal- "so long!" wot are these fine capers perposed by the papers? these 'ints about lassos and butterfly nets? to turn scorcher-catchers the old pewter-snatchers in 'elmets must take fewer stodges and wets! wot, treat _hus_ like bufflers or beetles! the scufflers in soft, silent shoes, turn red injins? you're wrong! it's all bosh and bubble! i'm orf--at the double!- "so long!" * * * * * illustration: _owner_ (_as the car insists upon backing into a dike_). "don't be alarmed! keep cool! try and keep cool!" [_friend thinks there is every probability of their keeping very cool, whether they try to or not!_ * * * * * illustration: _village constable_ (_to villager who has been knocked down by passing motor cyclist_). "you didn't see the number, but could you swear to the man?" _villager._ "i did; but i don't think 'e 'eard me." * * * * * illustration: the joys of motoring.--no, this is not a dreadful accident. he is simply tightening a nut or something, and she is hoping he won't be much longer. * * * * * suggested additional taxation _â£_ _s._ _d._ for every motor car 4 4 0 if with smell 5 5 0 extra offensive ditto 6 6 0 motor car proceeding at over ten miles an hour, for each additional mile 1 1 0 for every bicycle used for "scorching" 0 10 0 * * * * * the original classical bicyclist.--"ixion; or, the man on the wheel." * * * * * my steam motor-car (1) monday.--i buy a beautiful steam motor-car. am photographed. (2) tuesday.--i take it out. pull the wrong lever, and back into a shop window. a bad start. (3) wednesday morning.--a few things i ran over. (4) wednesday afternoon.--took too sharp a turn. narrowly escaped knocking down policeman at the corner. ran over both his feet. (5) thursday morning.--got stuck in a ditch four miles from home. (6) thursday evening.--arrive home. back the car into the shed. miss the door and knock the shed down. (7) friday.--ran over my neighbour's dog. (8) saturday.--silly car breaks down three miles from home. hire a horse to tow it back. (9) sunday.--filling up. petrol tank caught fire. wretched thing burnt. thank goodness! * * * illustration: my steam motor-car * * * * * modern romance of the road ["it is said that the perpetrators of a recent burglary got clear away with their booty by the help of an automobile. at this rate we may expect to be attacked, ere long, by automobilist highwaymen."--_paris correspondent of daily paper._] it was midnight. the wind howled drearily over the lonely heath; the moon shone fitfully through the driving clouds. by its gleam an observer might have noted a solitary automobile painfully jolting along the rough road that lay across the common. its speed, as carefully noted by an intelligent constable half-an-hour earlier, was 41.275 miles an hour. to the ordinary observer it would appear somewhat less. two figures might have been descried on the machine; the one the gallant hubert de fitztompkyns, the other lady clarabella, his young and lovely bride. clarabella shivered, and drew her sables more closely around her. "i am frightened," she murmured. "it is so dark and cold, hubert, and this is a well-known place for highwaymen! suppose we should be attacked?" "pooh!" replied her husband, deftly manipulating the oil-can. "who should attack us when 'tis common talk that you pawned your diamonds a month ago? besides, we have a swivel-mounted maxim on our machine. ill would it fare with the rogue who--heavens! what was that?" from the far distance sounded a weird, unearthly noise, growing clearer and louder even as hubert and his wife listened. it was the whistle of another automobile! in a moment hubert had turned on the acetylene search-light, and gazed with straining eyes down the road behind him. then he turned to his wife. "'tis cutthroat giving us chase," he said simply. "pass the cordite cartridges, please." lady clarabella grew deathly pale. "i don't know where they are!" she gasped. "i think--i think i must have left them on my dressing-table." "then we are lost. cutthroat is mounted on his bony black jet, which covers a mile a minute--and he is the most blood-thirsty ruffian on the road. shut off steam, clarabella! we can but yield." "never!" cried his wife. "here, give me the lever; we are nearly at the top of this tremendously steep hill--we will foil him yet!" hubert was too much astonished to speak. by terrific efforts the gallant automobile arrived at the summit, when clarabella applied the brake. then she gazed down the narrow road behind her. "take the starting-lever, hubert," she said, "and do as i tell you." ever louder sounded the clatter of their pursuer's machine; at last its head-light showed in the distance, as with greatly diminished speed it began to climb the hill. "now!" shrieked clarabella. "full speed astern, hubert! let her go!" the automobile went backwards down the hill like a flash of lightning. cutthroat had barely time to realise what was happening before it was upon him. too late he tried to steer black jet out of the way. there was a yell, a sound of crashing steel, a cloud of steam. when it cleared away, it revealed hubert and clarabella still seated on their machine, which was only slightly damaged, while cutthroat and black jet were knocked into countless atoms! * * * * * illustration: great self-restraint.--_lady in pony-cart_ (_who has made several unsuccessful attempts to pass persevering beginner occupying the whole road_). "unless you soon fall off, i'm afraid i shall miss my train!" * * * * * illustration: "these trailers are splendid things! you must really get one and take me out, percy!" * * * * * illustration: the rival forces. (scene--_lonely yorkshire moor. miles from anywhere._) _passing horse-dealer_ (_who has been asked for a tow by owners of broken-down motor-car_). "is it easy to pull?" _motorist._ "oh yes. very light indeed!" _horse-dealer._ "then supposin' you pull it yourselves!" [_drives off._ * * * * * illustration: _the owner_ (_after five breakdowns and a spill_). "are y-you k-keen on r-riding home?" _his friend._ "n-not very." _the owner._ "l-let's l-leave it a-and _walk_, s-shall we?" * * * * * illustration: sunday morning.-_cyclist_ (_to rural policeman_). "nice crowd out this morning!" _rural policeman_ (_who has received a tip_). "yes, an' yer can't do with 'em! if yer 'ollers at 'em, they honly turns round and says, 'pip, pip'!" * * * * * illustration: _rustic_ (_to beginner, who has charged the hedge_). "it's no good, sir. they things won't jump!" * * * * * the universal juggernaut.--"anyone," says the _daily telegraph_, "who has driven an automobile will know that it is quite impossible to run over a child and remain unconscious of the fact." _any one who has driven an automobile!_ heavens! what a sweeping charge! is there none innocent? * * * * * illustration: "'tain't no use tellin' me you've broke down! stands to reason a motor-caw goin' down 'ill's _bound_ to be goin' too fast. so we'll put it down at about thirty mile an hour! your name and address, sir, _hif_ you please." * * * * * urbs in rure ["when every one has a bicycle and flies to the suburban roads, the suburban dwellers will desert their houses and come back to crowded london to find quiet and freedom from dust."--_daily paper._] time was desire for peace would still my footsteps lure to richmond hill, or to the groves of burnham i, much craving solitude, would fly; thence, through the summer afternoon, 'mid fragrant meads, knee-deep in june, lulled by the song of birds and bees, i'd saunter idly at mine ease to that still churchyard where, with gray, i'd dream a golden hour away, forgetful all of aught but this- that peace was mine, and mine was bliss. but now should my all-eager feet seek out some whilom calm retreat, "pip, pip!" resounds in every lane, "pip, pip!" the hedges ring again, "pip, pip!" the corn, "pip, pip!" the rye, "pip, pip!" the woods and meadows cry, as through the thirsty, fever'd day, the red-hot scorchers scorch their way. peace is no longer, rest is dead, and sweetest solitude hath fled; and over all, the cycling lust hath spread its trail of noise and dust. so, would i woo the joys of quiet, i see no more the country's riot, but the comparatively still environment of ludgate hill. there, 'mongst the pigeons of st. paul's, i muse melodious madrigals, or loiter where the waters sport 'mid the cool joys of fountain court, where, undisturbed by sharp "pip, pip!" my nimble numbers lightly trip, and country peace i find again in chancery and fetter lane. * * * * * vehicular progression.--_mr. ikey motor_ (_to customer_). want a machine, sir? certainly, we've all sorts to suit your build. _customer._ it isn't for me, but for my mother-in-law. _mr. ikey motor._ for your mother-in-law! how would a steam roller suit her? [mr. i. m. _is immediately made aware that the lady in question has overheard his ill-timed jest, while the customer vanishes in blue fire._ * * * * * experto crede.--what is worse than raining cats and dogs?--hailing motor omnibuses. * * * * * illustration: comprehensive.--_owner_ (_as the car starts backing down the hill_). "pull everything you can see, and put your foot on everything else!" * * * * * illustration: _farmer_ (_in cart_). "hi, stop! stop, you fool! don't you see my horse is running away?" _driver of motor-car_ (_hired by the hour_). "yes, it's all very well for you to say 'stop,' but i've forgotten how the blooming thing works!" * * * * * illustration: simple enough _yokel_ (_in pursuit of escaped bull, to timmins, who is "teaching himself"_). "hi, mister! if yer catch hold of his leading-stick, he can't hurt yer!" * * * * * anti-bicyclist motto.--rather a year of europe than a cycle of to-day. * * * * * motto for those who "bike."--"and wheels rush in where horses fear to tread." * * * * * illustration: a case of mistaken identity.-_major mustard_ (_who has been changing several of his servants_). "how dare you call yourself a chauffeur?" _alfonsoe._ "mais non! non, monsieur! je ne suis pas 'chauffeur.' j'ai dit que je suis le chef. mais monsieur comprehend not!" * * * * * cycles! cycles!! cycles!!! something absolutely new the little handle-bar spring no more accidents! no more stolen cycles! all our bicycles are fitted with the little handle-bar spring, which, when pressed, causes the machine to fall into 114 pieces. anyone can press the spring, but it takes an expert three months to rebuild it, thus trebling the life of a bicycle. we are offering this marvellous invention at the absurd price of 50 guineas cash down, or 98 weekly instalments of 1 guinea. [special reductions to company promoters and men with large families.] we can't afford to do it for less, because when once you have bought one you will never want another. advice to purchasers don't lose your head when the machine runs away with you down the hill; simply press the spring. don't wait for your rich uncle to die; just send him one of our cycles. don't lock your cycle up at night; merely press the spring. don't be misled by other firms who say that their machines will also fall to pieces; they are only trying to sell their cycles; we want to sell you. note.--we can also fit this marvellous little spring to perambulators, bath-chairs, and bathing machines. we append below some two out of our million testimonials. the other 999,998 are expected every post. _july, 1906._ dear sirs,--i bought one of your cycles in may, 1895, and it is still as good as when i received it. i attribute this solely to the little handle-bar spring, which i pressed as soon as i received the machine. p.s.--what do you charge for rebuilding a cycle? _august, 1906._ gentlemen,--last month i started to ride to barnet on one of your cycles. when ascending muswell hill, i lost control of the machine, but i simply pressed the spring, and now i feel that i cannot say enough about your bike. i shall never ride any other again. p.s.--i should very much like to meet the inventor of the "little handle-bar spring." * * * * * illustration: _friend._ "going about thirty, are we? but don't you run some risk of being pulled up for exceeding the legal pace?" _owner._ "not in a sober, respectable-looking car like this. of course, if you go about in a blatant, brass-bound, scarlet-padded, snorting foreign affair, like _that_, you are bound to be dropped on, no matter how slow you go!" * * * * * illustration: an ambuscade.--captain de smythe insidiously beguiles the fair laura and her sister to a certain secluded spot where, as he happens to know, his hated rival, mr. tomkyns, is in the habit of secretly practising on the bicycle. he (captain de s.) calculates that a mere glimpse of mr. t., as he wobbles wildly by on that instrument, will be sufficient to dispel any illusions that the fair laura may cherish in her bosom respecting that worthy man. * * * * * illustration: _our own undergraduate_ (_fresh from his euclid_). "ha! two riders to one prop." * * * * * illustration: insult added to injury.--_wretched boy._ "hi, guv'nor! d'yer want any help?" * * * * * the perfect automobilist [_with acknowledgments to the editor of "the car"_] who is the happy road-deer? who is he that every motorist should want to be? the perfect automobilist thinks only of others. he is an auto-altruist. he never wantonly kills anybody. if he injures a fellow-creature (and this will always be the fellow-creature's fault) he voluntarily buys him a princely annuity. in the case of a woman, if she is irreparably disfigured by the accident, he will, supposing he has no other wife at the time, offer her the consolation of marriage with himself. he regards the life of bird and beast as no less sacred than that of human beings. should he inadvertently break a fowl or pig he will convey it to the nearest veterinary surgeon and have the broken limb set or amputated as the injury may require. in the event of death or permanent damage, he will seek out the owner of the dumb animal, and refund him fourfold. to be on the safe side with respect to the legal limit, the perfect automobilist confines himself to a speed of ten miles per hour. he will even dismount at the top of a steep descent, so as to lessen the impetus due to the force of gravity. if he is compelled by the nature of his mission to exceed the legal limit (as when hurrying, for instance, to fetch a doctor in a matter of life or death, or to inform the government of the landing of a hostile force) he is anxious not to shirk the penalty. he will, therefore, send on a swift messenger to warn the police to be on the lookout for him; and if he fails to run into any trap he will, on returning, report himself at all the police-stations on his route, or communicate by post with the constabularies of the various counties through which he may have passed. at the back of his motor he carries a watering-cart attachment for the laying of dust before it has time to be raised. lest the noise of his motor should be a cause of distraction he slows down when passing military bands, barrel organs, churches (during the hours of worship), the houses of parliament (while sitting), motor-buses, the stock exchange, and open-air meetings of the unemployed. if he meets a restive horse he will turn back and go down a side road and wait till it has passed. if all the side roads are occupied by restive horses he will go back home; and if the way home is similarly barred he will turn into a field. he encourages his motor to break down frequently; because this spectacle affords an innocent diversion to many whose existence would otherwise be colourless. it is his greatest joy to give a timely lift to weary pedestrians, such as tramps, postmen, sweeps, and police-trap detectives; even though, the car being already full, he is himself compelled to get out and do the last fifty or sixty miles on foot. he declines to wear goggles because they conceal the natural benevolence of the human eye divine, which he regards as the window of the soul; also (and for the same reason he never wears a fur overcoat) because they accentuate class distinctions. finally--on this very ground--the perfect automobilist will sell all his motor-stud and give the proceeds to found an almshouse for retired socialists. * * * * * illustration: _obliging horseman_ (_of riverside breeding_). "ave a tow up, miss?" * * * * * illustration: _cyclist._ "why can't you look where you're going?" _motorist._ "how the dickens could i when i didn't know!" * * * * * illustration: _middle-aged novice._ "i'm just off for a tour in the country--'biking' all the way. it'll be four weeks before i'm back in my flat again." _candid friend._ "ah! bet it won't be four hours before you're flat on your back again!" * * * * * the last record (_the wail of a wiped-out wheelman_) air--"_the lost chord_" reading one day in our "organ," i was happy and quite at ease. a band was playing the "_lost chord_," outside--in three several keys. but _i_ cared not how they were playing, those puffing teutonic men; for i'd "cut the record" at cycling, and was ten-mile champion then! it flooded my cheeks with crimson, the praise of my pluck and calm; though that band seemed blending "kafoozleum" with a touch of the hundredth psalm. but my joy soon turned into sorrow, my calm into mental strife; for my record was "cut" on the morrow, and it cut _me_, like a knife. a fellow had done the distance in the tenth of a second less! and henceforth my name in silence was dropt by the cycling press. i have sought--but i seek it vainly- with that record again to shine, midst crack names in our cycling organ, but they never mention mine. it may be some day at the oval i may cut that record again, but at present the cups are given to better--_or_ luckier--men! * * * * * illustration: the motor-bath _nurse._ "oh, baby, look at the diver!" * * * * * a song of the road tinkle, twinkle, motor-car, just to tell us where you are, while about the streets you fly like a comet in the sky. when the blazing sun is "off," when the fog breeds wheeze and cough, round the corners as you scour with your dozen miles an hour- then the traveller in the dark, growling some profane remark, would not know which way to go while you're rushing to and fro. on our fears, then, as you gloat (ours who neither "bike" nor "mote"), just to tell us where you are- tinkle, twinkle, motor-car. * * * * * "motor body."--"one man can change from a tonneau to a landaulette, shooting brake, or racing car in two minutes, and, when fixed, cannot be told from any fixed body."--_advt. in the_ "_autocar._" the disguise would certainly deceive one's nearest relations, but as likely as not one's dog would come up and give the whole show away by licking the sparking plug. * * * * * illustration: _chauffeur._ "pardon, monsieur. this way, conducts she straight to hele?" _major chili pepper_ (_a rabid anti-motorist and slightly deaf_). "certainly it will, sir if you continue to drive on the wrong side of the road!" * * * * * illustration: "facilis _bikist_ (_gaily_). "here we go down! down! down! down!" * * * illustration: descensus!" _the same_ (_very much down_). "never again with _you_, my bikey!" * * * * * should motors carry maxims?--under the title "murderous magistrate," the _daily mail_ printed some observations made by a barrister who reproves canon greenwell for remarking from the durham county bench that if a few motorists were shot no great harm would be done. the same paper subsequently published an article headed, "maxims for motorists." retaliation in kind is natural, and a maxim is an excellent retort to a canon. but why abuse the canon first? * * * * * so many accidents have occurred lately through the ignition of petrol that a wealthy motorist, we hear, is making arrangements for his car to be followed, wherever it may go, by a fully-equipped fire-engine, and, if this example be followed widely, our roads will become more interesting than ever. * * * * * are there motor-cars in the celestial regions? professor schaer, of geneva, has discovered what _he_ describes as a new comet plunging due south at a rate of almost 8 degrees a day, and careering across the milky way regardless of all other traffic. * * * * * illustration: our election--polling day _energetic committeeman._ "it's all right. drive on! he's voted!" * * * * * the motocrat i am he: goggled and unashamed. furred also am i, stop-watched and horse-powerful. millions admit my sway--on both sides of the road. the plutocrat has money: i have motors. the democrat has the rates; so have i--two--one for use and one for county courts. the autocrat is dead, but i--i increase and multiply. i have taken his place. i blow my horn and the people scatter. i stand still and everything trembles. i move and kill dogs. i skid and chickens die. i pass swiftly from place to place, and horses bolt in dust storms which cover the land. i make the dust storms. for i am omnipotent; i make everything. i make dust, i make smell, i make noise. and i go forward, ever forward, and pass through or over almost everything. "over or through" is my motto. the roads were made for me; years ago they were made. wise rulers saw me coming and made roads. now that i am come, they go on making roads--making them up. for i break things. roads i break and rules of the road. statutory limits were made for me. i break them. i break the dull silence of the country. sometimes i break down, and thousands flock round me, so that i dislocate the traffic. but i _am_ the traffic. i am i and she is she--the rest get out of the way. truly, the hand which rules the motor rocks the world. * * * * * motor car-acteristics (_by an old whip_) jerking and jolting, bursting and bolting, smelling and steaming, shrieking and screaming, snorting and shaking, quivering, quaking, skidding and slipping, twisting and tripping, bumping and bounding, puffing and pounding, rolling and rumbling, thumping and tumbling. such i've a notion, motor-car motion. * * * * * illustration: adding insult to injury _cyclist_ (_to foxhunter, thrown out_), "oi say, squoire, 'ave you seen the 'ounds?" * * * * * illustration: true philosophy.--_ploughman._ "ah, things be different like wi' them an' us. they've got a trap wi' no 'osses, an' we 'm got 'osses wi' no trap." * * * * * illustration: the reckless one _wife of injured cyclist_ (_who, having found considerable difficulty in getting on his bicycle, and none whatever in coming off, has never ventured to attempt more than three miles in the hour_). "well, i do believe he's had a lesson at last! i warned him about 'scorching.' i said to him, what have _you_ got to do with the 'record'?" * * * * * illustration: an inopportune time jones, while motoring to town to fulfil an important engagement, has the misfortune to get stuck up on the road, and has sent his chauffeur to the village for assistance. in the meantime several village children gather around and sing, "god rest you, merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay," etc. * * * * * the great motor mystery.--at lancaster two motorists were fined, according to the _manchester evening news_, "for driving a motor-car over a trap near carnforth, at twenty-nine and thirty-four miles per hour respectively." we are of the opinion that the action of the second gentleman in driving at so high a speed over the poor trap when it was already down was not quite in accordance with the best traditions of english sport. * * * * * illustration: breaking it gently.-_passer-by._ "is that your pork down there on the road, guv'nor?" _farmer._ "pork! what d'ye mean? there's a pig o' mine out there." _passer-by._ "ah, but there's a motor-car just been by." * * * * * illustration: exclusive.-_fair driver._ "will you stand by the pony for a few minutes, my good man?" _the good man._ "pony, mum? no, i'm a motor-minder, i am. 'ere, bill! 'orse." * * * * * crazy tales the duchess of pomposet was writhing, poor thing, on the horns of a dilemma. painful position, very. she was the greatest of great ladies, full of fire and fashion, and with a purple blush (she was born that colour) flung bangly arms round the neck of her lord and master. the unfortunate man was a shocking sufferer, having a bad unearned increment, and enduring constant pain on account of his back being broader than his views. "pomposet," she cried, resolutely. "duky darling!" (when first married she had ventured to apostrophise him as "ducky," but his grace thought it _infra dig._, and they compromised by omitting the vulgar "c.") "duky," she said, raising pale distinguished eyes to a chippendale mirror, "i have made up my mind." "don't," expostulated the trembling peer. "you are so rash!" "what is more, i have made up yours." "to make up the mind of an english duke," he remarked, with dignity, "requires no ordinary intellect; yet i believe with your feminine hydraulics you are capable of anything, jane." (that this aristocratic rib of his rib should have been named plain jane was a chronic sorrow.) "don't keep me in suspense," he continued; "in fact, to descend to a colloquialism, i insist on your grace letting the cat out of the bag with the least possible delay." "as you will," she replied. "your blood be on your own coronet. prepare for a shock--a revelation. i have fallen! not once--but many times." "wretched woman!--i beg pardon!--wretched grande dame! call upon debrett to cover you!" "i am madly in love with----" "by my taffeta and ermine, i swear----" "peace, peace!" said jane. "compose yourself, ducky--that is plantagenet. forgive the slip. i am agitated. my mind runs on slips." the duke groaned. "horrid, awful slips!" with a countenance of alabaster he tore at his sandy top-knot. "i have deceived you. i admit it. stooped to folly." a supercilious cry rent the air as the duke staggered on his patrician limbs. with womanly impulse--flinging caste to the winds--jane caught the majestic form to her palpitating alpaca, and, watering his beloved features with duchessy drops, cried in passionate accents, "my king! my sensitive plant! heavens! it's his unlucky back! be calm, plantagenet. i have--been--learning--to--_bike_! there! on the sly!" the duke flapped a reviving toe, and squeezed the august fingers. "i am madly enamoured of--my machine." the peer smoothed a ruffled top-knot with ineffable grace. "likewise am determined _you_ shall take lessons. now it is no use, duky. i mean to be tender but firm with you." the potentate gave a stertorous chortle, and, stretching out his arms, fell in a strawberry-leaf swoon on the parquet floor, his ducal head on the lap of his adored jane. * * * * * illustration: the freemasonry of the wheel.--"rippin' wevver fer hus ciciklin' chaps, ain't it?" * * * * * illustration: brothers in adversity _farmer._ "pull up, you fool! the mare's bolting!" _motorist._ "so's the car!" * * * * * illustration: quite respectful _fair cyclist._ "is that the incumbent of this parish?" _parishioner._ "well, 'e's the _vicar_. but, wotever some of us thinks, we never calls 'im a _hencumbrance_!" * * * * * illustration: _gipsy fortune-teller_ (_seriously_). "let me warn you. somebody's going to cross your path." _motorist._ "don't you think you'd better warn the other chap?" * * * * * the scorcher (_after william watson_) i do not, in the crowded street of cab and "'bus" and mire, nor in the country lane so sweet, hope to escape thy tyre. one boon, oh, scorcher, i implore, with one petition kneel, at least abuse me not before thou break me on thy wheel. * * * * * illustration: a motorist wishes to point out the very grave danger this balloon-scorching may become, and suggests a speed limit be made before things go too far. * * * * * the muggleton motor-car; or, the wellers on wheels _a pickwickian fragment up-to-date_ as light as fairies, if not altogether as brisk as bees, did the four pickwickian shades assemble on a winter morning in the year of grace, 1896. christmas was nigh at hand, in all its _fin-de-siã¨cle_ inwardness; it was the season of pictorial too-previousness and artistic anticipation, of plethoric periodicals, all shocker-sensationalism sandwiched with startling advertisements; of cynical new-humour and flamboyantly sentimental chromo-lithography. but we are so taken up by the genial delights of the new christmas that we are keeping mr. pickwick and his phantom friends waiting in the cold on the chilly outside of the muggleton motor-car, which they had just mounted, well wrapped up in antiquated great coats, shawls, and comforters. mr. weller, senior, had, all unconsciously, brought his well-loved whip with him, and was greatly embarrassed thereby. "votever shall i do vith it, sammy?" he whispered, hoarsely. "purtend it's a new, patent, jointless fishing-rod, guv'nor," rejoined sam, in a stygian aside. "nobody 'ere'll 'ave the slightest notion vot it really is." "when are they--eh--going to--ahem--put the horses to?" murmured mr. pickwick, emerging from his coat collar, and looking about him with great perplexity. "'_osses?_" cried the coachman, turning round upon mr. pickwick, with sharp suspicion in his eye. "'_osses?_ d'ye say. oh, who are you a-gettin' at?" mr. pickwick withdrew promptly into his coat-collar. the irrepressible sam came immediately to the aid of his beloved master, whom he would never see snubbed if _he_ knew it. "there's vheels vithin vheels, as the bicyclist said vhen he vos pitched head foremost into the vatchmaker's vinder," remarked mr. weller, junior, with the air of a solomon in smalls. "but vot sort of a vheel do you call that thing in front of you, and vot's its pertikler objeck? a top of a coach instead o' under it?" "this yer wheel means revolution," said the driver. "it do, samivel, it do," interjected his father dolorously. "and in my opinion it's a worse revolution than that there french one itself. a coach vithout 'osses, vheels instead of vheelers, and a driver vithout a vhip! oh sammy, sammy, to think it should come to _this_!!!" the driver--if it be not desecration to a noble old name so to designate him--gave a turn to his wheel and the autocar started. mr. winkle, who sat at the extreme edge, waggled his shadowy legs forlornly in the air; mr. snodgrass, who sat next to him, snorted lugubriously; mr. tupman turned paler than even a stygian shade has a right to do. mr. pickwick took off his glasses and wiped them furtively. "sam," he whispered hysterically in the ear of his faithful servitor, "sam, this is dreadful! a--ahem!--vehicle with no visible means of propulsion pounding along like--eh--saint denis without his head, is more uncanny than charon's boat." "let's get down, sammy, let's get down at once," groaned mr. weller the elder. "i can't stand it, samivel, i really can't. think o' the poor 'osses, sammy, think o' the poor 'osses as ain't there, and vot they must feel to find theirselves sooperseeded by a hugly vheel and a pennorth o' peteroleum, &c.!" "hold on, old nobs!" cried the son, with frank filial sympathy. "think of the guv'nor, father, and vait for the first stoppage. never again vith the muggleton motor! vhy, it vorse than a hortomatic vheelbarrow, ain't it, mr. pickwick?" "ah, sammy," assented mr. weller, senior, hugging his whip, affectionately. "vorse even than vidders, sammy, the red-nosed shepherd, or the mulberry one hisself!" * * * * * a bear in a motor-car attracted much attention in the city last week. it had four legs this time. * * * * * the _motor car_ declares, on high medical authority, that motoring is a cure for insanity. we would therefore recommend several motorists we know to persevere. * * * * * illustration: gentle satire--"i say, bill, look 'ere! 'ere's a old cove out record-breaking!" * * * * * illustration: motor mania.-_the poet_ (_deprecatingly_). "they say she gives more attention to her motor-cars than to her children." _the butterfly._ "of course. how absurd you are! motor-cars require more attention than children." * * * * * illustration: sour grapes _first scorcher._ "call _that_ exercise?" _second scorcher._ "no. _i_ call it sitting in a draught!" * * * * * illustration: not to be caught.-_motorist_ (_whose motor has thrown elderly villager into horse-pond_). "come along, my man, i'll take you home to get dry." _elderly villager._ "no, yer don't. i've got yer number, and 'ere i stays till a hindependent witness comes along!" * * * * * illustration: _pedestrian._ "i hear brown has taken to cycling, and is very enthusiastic about it!" _cyclist._ "enthusiastic! not a bit of it. why, he never rides before breakfast!" * * * * * illustration: grotesqueries _words wanted to express feelings_ when your motor refuses to move, twenty miles from the nearest town. * * * * * illustration: so inconsiderate "jove! might have killed us! i must have a wire screen fixed up." * * * * * browning on the road. round the bend of a sudden came z 1 3, and i shot into his front wheel's rim; and straight was a fine of gold for him, and the need of a brand-new bike for me. * * * * * illustration: "if doughty deeds my lady please" "mamma! mr. white says he is longing to give you your first bicycle lesson!" * * * * * a wish (_by a wild wheelman. a long way after rogers_) mine be a "scorch" without a spill, a loud "bike" bell to please mine ear; a chance to maim, if not to kill, pedestrian parties pottering near. my holloa, e'er my prey i catch, shall raise wild terror in each breast; if luck or skill that prey shall snatch from my wild wheel, the shock will test. on to the bike beside my porch i'll spring, like falcon on its prey, and lucy, on _her_ wheel shall "scorch," and "coast" with me the livelong day. to make old women's marrow freeze is the best sport the bike has given. to chase them as they puff and wheeze, on rubber tyre--by jove, 'tis heaven! * * * * * the biker biked henpeck'd he was. he learnt to bike. "now i can go just where i like," he chuckled to himself. but she had learnt to bike as well as he, and, what was more, had bought a new machine to sweetly carry two. ever together now they go, he sighing, "this is wheel _and_ woe." * * * * * illustration: "where ignorance is bliss," &c. _he_ (_alarmed by the erratic steering_). "er--and have you driven much?" _she_ (_quite pleased with herself_). "oh, no--this is only my second attempt. but then, you see, i have been used to a _bicycle_ for years!" * * * * * illustration: misunderstood _donald_ (_who has picked up fair cyclist's handkerchief_). "hi! woman! woman!" _fair cyclist_ (_indignantly_). "'woman'! how _dare_ you----" _donald_ (_out of breath_). "i beg your pardon, sir! i thought you was a woman. i didna see your _trews_." * * * * * automobile dust-carts, says the _matin_, are to be used in paris henceforth. we had thought every motor-car was this. * * * * * illustration: english dictionary illustrated.--"coincidence." the falling or meeting of two or more lines or bodies at the same point. * * * * * reflections of a motor-racer two a.m.! time to get up, if i'm to be ready for the great paris-berlin race at 3.30. feel very cold and sleepy. pitch dark morning, of course. moon been down hours. must get into clothes, i suppose. oilskins feel very clammy and heavy at this hour in the morning. button up tunic and tuck trousers into top boots. put on peaked cap and fasten veil tightly over face, after covering eyes with iron goggles and protecting mouth with respirator. wind woollen muffler round neck and case hands in thick dogskin gloves with gauntlets. look like nansen going to discover north pole. or tweedledum about to join battle with tweedledee. effect on the whole unpleasing. great crowds to see us off. nearly ran over several in effort to reach starting post. very careless. people ought not to get in the way on these occasions. noise appalling. cheers, snatches of _marseillaise_, snorts of motors, curses of competitors, cries of bystanders knocked down by enthusiastic _chauffeurs_, shouts of _gendarmes_ clearing the course. spectators seem to find glare of acetylene lamps very confusing. several more or less injured through not getting out of the way sufficiently quickly. at last the flag drops. we are off. pull lever, and car leaps forward. wonder if wiser to start full speed or begin gently? decide on latter. result, nearly blinded by dust of competitors in front, and suffocated by stench of petroleum. fellow just ahead particularly objectionable in both respects. decide to quicken up and pass him. can't see a foot before me on account of his dust. suddenly run into the stern of his car. apologise. can't i look where i'm going? of course i can. not my fault at all. surly fellow! proceed to go slower. fellow behind runs into _me_. confound him, can't he be more careful? says he couldn't see me. idiot! put on speed again. car in front just visible through haze of dust. hear distant crash. confound the man, he's run into a dray! just time to swerve to the right, and miss wreck of his car by an inch. clumsy fellow, blocking my road in that way. at last clear space before me. go up with a rush. wind whistles past my ears. glorious! what's that? run over an old woman? very annoying. almost upset my car. awkward for next chap. body right across the road. spill him to a certainty. morning growing light, but dust thicker than ever. scarcely see a yard in front of me. must trust to luck. fortunately road pretty straight here. just missed big tree. collided with small one. knocked it over like a ninepin. lucky i was going so fast. car uninjured, but tree done for. man in car just ahead very much in my way. shout to him to get out of the light. turns round and grins malevolently. movement fatal. he forgets to steer and goes crash into ditch. what's that he says? help? silly fellow, does he think i can stop at this pace? curious how ignorant people seem to be of simplest mechanical laws. magnificent piece of road here. nothing in sight but a dog. run over it. put on full speed. seventy miles an hour at least. can no longer see or hear anything. trees, villages, fields rush by in lightning succession. fancy a child is knocked down. am vaguely conscious of upsetting old gentleman in gig. seem to notice a bump on part of car, indicating that it has passed over prostrate fellow citizen, but not sure. sensation most exhilarating. immolate another child. really most careless of parents leaving children loose like this in the country. some day there will be an accident. might have punctured my tyre. chap in front of me comes in sight. catching him up fast. he puts on full speed. still gaining on him. pace terrific. sudden flash just ahead, followed by loud explosion. fellow's benzine reservoir blown up apparently. pass over smoking ruins of car. driver nowhere to be seen. probably lying in neighbouring field. that puts _him_ out of the race. eh? what's that? aix in sight? gallop, says browning. better not, perhaps. road ahead crowded with spectators. great temptation to charge through them in style. mightn't be popular, though. slow down to fifteen miles an hour, and enter town amid frantic cheering. most interesting. wonderfully few casualties. dismount at door of hotel dusty but triumphant. * * * * * illustration: _first cyclist_ (_cross-eyed_). "why the dickens don't you look where you're going?" _second cyclist_ (_cross-eyed_). "why don't you go where you're looking?" * * * * * illustration: quite impossible.--_motorist._ "what! exceeding the legal limit? _do_ we look as if we would do such a thing?" * * * * * illustration: the interpretation of signs _custodian._ "this 'ere's a private road, miss! didn't yer see the notice-board at the gate, sayin' 'no thoroughfare'?" _placida._ "oh yes, of course. why, that's how i knew there was a way through!" * * * * * illustration: after the accident "toujours la politesse." * * * * * illustration: quite a little holiday _cottager._ "what's wrong, biker? have you had a spill?" _biker._ "oh, no. i'm having a rest!" * * * * * illustration: whats in a name? _old gent_ (_lately bitten with the craze_). "and that confounded man sold me the thing for a safety!" * * * * * _motoring illustrated_ suggests the institution of a motor museum. if we were sure that most of the motor omnibuses at present in our streets would find their way there, we would gladly subscribe. * * * * * protection against motor-cars sir,--i recently read with interest a letter in the _times_ from "a cyclist since 1868." in it he announced his intention of carrying a tail-light in order to avoid being run into from behind. the idea is admirable, and my wife and i, as pedestrians since 1826 and 1823 respectively, propose to wear two lamps each in future, a white and a red. we are, however, a little exercised to know whether we should carry the white in front and the red behind, or _vice versã¢_. for in walking along the right side of a road we shall appear on the wrong side to an approaching motor-car. would it not therefore be better for us to have the tail-light in front. your most humble and obedient servant, lux prã�postera. p.s.--would such an arrangement make us "carriages" in the eye of the law? at present we appear to be merely a sub-division of the class "unlighted objects." * * * * * cure for motor-scorchers (_suggested as being even more humane than the proposal of_ sir r. payne-gallwey).--give them automobile beans! * * * * * illustration: slow and sure _john._ "i've noticed, miss, as when you 'as a motor, you catches a train, not _the_ train!" * * * * * how the match came off a harmony on wheels (_miss angelica has challenged mr. wotherspoon to a race on the queen's highway._) _fytte 1._ _mr. w._ fine start! (faint heart!) _miss a._ horrid hill! (feeling ill!) _fytte 2._ _mr. w._ going strong! come along! _fytte 3._ _miss a._ road quite even! perfect heaven! _fytte 4._ _mr. w._ goal in view! running true! _miss a._ make it faster! spur your caster! _fytte 5._ _mr. w._ fairly done! _miss a._ match is won! [_they dismount. pause._ _mr. w._ what! confess! _miss a._ well then--yes! * * * * * illustration: _motor fiend._ "why don't you get out of the way?" _victim._ "_what!_ are you coming back?" * * * * * motorobesity (_a forecast_) in the spring of 1913 st. john skinner came back from africa, after spending nine or ten years somewhere near the zambesi. he travelled up to waterloo by the electric train, and the three very stout men who were in the same first-class compartment seemed to look at him with surprise. on arriving at his hotel he pushed his way through a crowd of fat persons in the hall. then he changed his clothes, and went round to his club to dine. the dining-room was filled with members of extraordinary obesity, all eating heartily. in the fat features of one of them he thought he recognised a once familiar face. "round," said he, "how are you?" the stout man stopped eating, and gazed at him anxiously. "why," he murmured, after a while, in the soft voice that comes from folds of fat, "it must be skinner. my dear fellow, what is the matter with you? have you had a fever?" "i'm all right," answered the other; "what makes you think i've been ill?" "ill, man!" said round, "why you've wasted away to nothing. you're a perfect skeleton." "if it's a question of bulk," remarked skinner, "i'm much more surprised. you've grown so stout, every fellow in the club seems so stout, everyone i've seen is as fat as--as--as you are." "heavens!" exclaimed round, "you don't mean to say i've been putting on more flesh? i'm the light weight of the club. i only weigh sixteen stone. no, no, you're chaffing, or you judge by your own figure." "not a bit," said the other; "you and i used to weigh about the same. what on earth has happened to you all?" "well," said round, "perhaps you're right. it's very much what the doctors say. it's the fashionable complaint, motorobesity. sit down, and dine with me, and i'll tell you what the idea is. you see, it's like this. for ten years or so everybody who could afford a motor of some sort has had one. we've all had one. not to have a motor has been simply ridiculous, if not disreputable. so everybody has ridden about all day in the fresh air, never had any exercise, and got an enormous appetite. besides, in the summer we've always been drinking beer to wash down the dust, and in the winter soup, or spirits, or something to warm us. my dear fellow, you can't think what an appetite motoring gives you. i had an enormous steak for my lunch at winchester to-day, and a great lump of plum cake with my tea at aldershot, and my aunt, the general's wife, made me bring a bag of biscuits to eat on the way up, and yet i'm so hungry now that i should feel quite uncomfortable if the thirst those biscuits, and the dust, gave me didn't make me almost forget it. i suppose everyone is really getting fat. one notices it when one does happen to see a thin fellow like you. why, in all the clubs they've had to have new arm-chairs, because the old ones were too narrow. however, i've talked enough about motoring. so glad to see you again, old chap. of course you'll get a motor as soon as possible." "well," said skinner, "i rather think i shall buy a horse." "my dear fellow," cried round, "what an idea! horse-riding is such awfully bad form. besides, you can't go any pace. look at me. i wouldn't get on a horse, and be shaken to pieces." "i should think not," said skinner, "but i think i should prefer that to motorobesity." * * * * * an advertisement in _the motor_ quotes the testimony of a gentleman from moreton-in-the-marsh, who states that he has run a certain car "nearly 412,500 miles in four months, and is more than pleased with it." as this works out (on a basis of twenty-four hours' running _per diem_) at about 143 miles per hour, we have pleasure in asking what the police are doing in moreton-in-the-marsh and its vicinity. * * * * * noticing an advertisement of a book entitled "the complete motorist," an angry opponent of the new method of locomotion writes to suggest that the companion volume, "the complete pedestrian," had better be written at once before it becomes impossible to find an entire specimen. * * * * * maxim for cyclists.--"_try_-cycle before you _buy_-cycle." * * * * * illustration: motorist (a novice) has been giving chairman of local urban council a practical demonstration of the ease with which a motor-car can be controlled when travelling at a high speed. * * * * * illustration: love's endurance _miss dolly_ (_to her fiancã©_). "oh, jack, this _is_ delightful! if you'll only keep up the pace, i'm sure i shall soon gain confidence!" [_poor jack has already run a mile or more, and is very short of condition._ * * * * * illustration: tu quoque.--_cyclist_ (_a beginner who has just collided with freshly-painted fence_). "confound your filthy paint! now, just look at my coat!" _painter._ "'ang yer bloomin' coat! _'ow about my paint?_" * * * * * illustration: note to the superstitious it is considered lucky for a black cat to cross your path. * * * * * illustration: waiting for _a study of rural_ "w'y, i remembers the time w'en i'd 'ave stopped _that_ for furious drivin', an' i reckon it's only goin' about a paltry fifteen mile an hour!" * * * illustration: bigger game _police methods_ "_ar!_ now them cyclists is puttin' on a fairish pace! summat about twenty mile an hour, i s'pose. but 'tain't no business o' mine. _i'm_ 'ere to stop _motor-caws_. wot ho!" * * * * * love in a car ["i have personal knowledge of marriages resulting from motor-car courtships."--the hon. c. s. rolls.--_daily express._] when reginald asked me to drive in his car i knew what it meant for us both, for peril to love-making offers no bar, but fosters the plighting of troth. to the tender occasion i hastened to rise, so bought a new frock on the strength of it, some china-blue chiffon--to go with my eyes- and wrapped up my head with a length of it. "get in," said my lover, "as quick as you can!" he wore a black smear on his face, and held out the hand of a rough artisan to pilot me into my place. like the engine my frock somehow seemed to mis-fire, for reginald's manner was querulous, but after some fuss with the near hind-wheel tyre we were off at a pace that was perilous. "there's brown just behind, on his second-hand brute, he thinks it can move, silly ass!" said reggie with venom, "ha! ha! let him hoot, i'll give him some trouble to pass." my service thenceforth was by reggie confined (he showed small compunction in suing it) to turning to see how far brown was behind, but not to let brown see me doing it. brown passed us. we dined off his dust for a league- it really was very poor fun- till, our car showed symptoms of heat and fatigue, reggie had to admit he was done. to my soft consolation scant heed did he pay, but with taps was continually juggling, and his words, "will you keep your dress further away?" put a stop to this incipient smuggling. "he'd never have passed me alone," reggie sighed, "the car's extra heavy with you." "why ask me to come?" i remarked. he replied, "i thought she'd go better with two." when i touched other topics, forbearingly meek, from his goggles the lightnings came scattering, "what chance do you give me of placing this squeak," he hissed, "when you keep up that chattering?" at that, i insisted on being set down and returning to london by train, and i vowed fifty times on my way back to town that i never would see him again. next week he appeared and implored me to wed, with a fondly adoring humility. "the car stands between us," i rigidly said. "i've sold it!" he cried with agility. his temples were sunken, enfeebled his frame, there was white in the curls on his crest; when he spoke of our ride in a whisper of shame i flew to my home on his breast. by running sedately i'm certain that love to such passion would never have carried us, which settles the truth of the legend above- it was really the motor-car married us. * * * * * illustration: _miller_ (_looking after cyclist, who has a slight touch of motor mania_). "well, to be sure! there do be some main ignorant chaps out o' london. 'e comes 'ere askin' me 'ow many 'orse power the old mill ad got." * * * * * illustration: _cyclist_ (_whose tyre has become deflated_). "have you such a thing as a pump?" _yokel._ "'ees, miss, there's one i' the yard." _cyclist._ "i should be much obliged if you would let me use it." _yokel._ "that depends 'ow much you want. watter be main scarce wi' us this year! oi'll ask feyther." * * * * * illustration: _smart girl_ (_to keen motorist_). "my sister has bought a beautiful motor-car." _keen motorist._ "really! what kind?" _smart girl._ "oh, a lovely sage green, to go with her frocks." * * * * * illustration: _mrs. binks_ (_who has lost control of her machine_). "oh, oh, harry! please get into a bank soon. i must have something soft to fall on!" * * * * * illustration: _miss heavytopp._ "i'm afraid i'm giving you a lot of bother, but then, it's only my _first_ lesson!" _exhausted instructor_ (_sotto voce_). "i only hope it won't be my _last_!" * * * * * illustration: sorrows of a "chauffeur" _ancient dame._ "what d'ye say? they call he a 'shuvver,' do they? i see. they put he to walk behind and shove 'em up the hills, i reckon." * * * * * a cycle of cathay.--_the yorkshire evening post_, in reporting the case of a motor-cyclist charged with travelling at excessive speed on the highway at selby, represents a police-sergeant as stating that "he timed defendant over a distance of 633 years, which was covered in 64 secs." the contention of the defendant that he had been "very imperfectly timed" has an air of captiousness. * * * * * "many roads in the district are unfit for motorists," is the report of the tadcaster surveyor to his council. we understand the inhabitants have resolved to leave well alone. * * * * * at a meeting of the four wheeler's association, a speaker boasted, with some justification, that a charge which is brought every day against drivers of motor-cars has never been brought against members of their association, namely, that of driving at an excessive speed. * * * * * rumour is again busy with the promised appearance of a motor-bus which is to be so quiet that you will not know that there is one on the road until you have been run over. * * * * * illustration: an unpardonable mistake.--_short-sighted old lady._ "porter!" * * * * * illustration: nosce teipsum.--_lady cyclist_ (_touring in north holland_). "what a ridiculous costume!" * * * * * illustration: _sporting constable_ (_with stop-watch--on "police trap" duty, running excitedly out from his ambush, to motorist just nearing the finish of the measured furlong_). "for 'evin's sake, guv'nor, let 'er rip, and ye'll do the 220 in seven and a 'arf!" * * * * * my motor cap [motor-caps, we are informed, have created such a vogue in the provinces, that ladies, women and factory girls may be seen wearing them on every occasion, though unconnected, in other respects, with modern methods of locomotion.] a motor car i shall never afford with a gay vermilion bonnet, of course i _might_ happen to marry a lord, but it's no good counting on it. i have never reclined on the seat behind, and hurtled across the map, but my days are blest with a mind at rest, for i wear a motor cap. i am done with gainsborough, straw and toque, my dresses are bound with leather, i turn up my collar like auto-folk, and stride through the pitiless weather; with a pound of scrag in an old string bag, in a tram with a child on my lap, wherever i go, to shop or a show, i wear a motor cap. i don't know a silencer from a clutch, a sparking-plug from a bearing, but no one, i think, is in closer touch with the caps the women are wearing; i'm _au fait_ with the trim of the tailor-made brim, the crown and machine-stitched strap; though i've neither the motor, the sable-lined coat, nor the goggles--i wear the cap. * * * * * illustration: no, this isn't a collection of tubercular microbes escaping from the congress; but merely the montgomery-smiths in their motor-car, enjoying the beauties of the country. * * * * * lines by a rejected and dejected cyclist you do not at this juncture feel, as i, the dreadful smart, and you scorn the cruel puncture of the tyre of my heart! but mayhap, at some life-turning, when the wheel has run untrue, you will know why i was burning, and was scorched alone, by you! * * * * * illustration: finis bradbury, agnew, & co. ld., printers, london and tonbridge the scarlet car by richard harding davis to ned stone contents the jail-breakers the trespassers the kidnappers the scarlet car i the jail-breakers for a long time it had been arranged they all should go to the harvard and yale game in winthrop's car. it was perfectly well understood. even peabody, who pictured himself and miss forbes in the back of the car, with her brother and winthrop in front, condescended to approve. it was necessary to invite peabody because it was his great good fortune to be engaged to miss forbes. her brother sam had been invited, not only because he could act as chaperon for his sister, but because since they were at st. paul's, winthrop and he, either as participants or spectators, had never missed going together to the yale-harvard game. and beatrice forbes herself had been invited because she was herself. when at nine o'clock on the morning of the game, winthrop stopped the car in front of her door, he was in love with all the world. in the november air there was a sting like frost-bitten cider, in the sky there was a brilliant, beautiful sun, in the wind was the tingling touch of three ice-chilled rivers. and in the big house facing central park, outside of which his prancing steed of brass and scarlet chugged and protested and trembled with impatience, was the most wonderful girl in all the world. it was true she was engaged to be married, and not to him. but she was not yet married. and to-day it would be his privilege to carry her through the state of new york and the state of connecticut, and he would snatch glimpses of her profile rising from the rough fur collar, of her wind-blown hair, of the long, lovely lashes under the gray veil. "'shall be together, breathe and ride, so, one day more am i deified;'" whispered the young man in the scarlet car; "'who knows but the world may end to-night?'" as he waited at the curb, other great touring-cars, of every speed and shape, in the mad race for the boston post road, and the town of new haven, swept up fifth avenue. some rolled and puffed like tugboats in a heavy seaway, others glided by noiseless and proud as private yachts. but each flew the colors of blue or crimson. winthrop's car, because her brother had gone to one college, and he had played right end for the other, was draped impartially. and so every other car mocked or cheered it, and in one a bare-headed youth stood up, and shouted to his fellows: "look! there's billy winthrop! three times three for old billy winthrop!" and they lashed the air with flags, and sent his name echoing over central park. winthrop grinned in embarrassment, and waved his hand. a bicycle cop, and fred, the chauffeur, were equally impressed. "was they the harvoids, sir?" asked fred. "they was," said winthrop. her brother sam came down the steps carrying sweaters and steamer-rugs. but he wore no holiday countenance. "what do you think?" he demanded indignantly. "ernest peabody's inside making trouble. his sister has a pullman on one of the special trains, and he wants beatrice to go with her." in spite of his furs, the young man in the car turned quite cold. "not with us?" he gasped. miss forbes appeared at the house door, followed by ernest peabody. he wore an expression of disturbed dignity; she one of distressed amusement. that she also wore her automobile coat caused the heart of winthrop to leap hopefully. "winthrop," said peabody, "i am in rather an embarrassing position. my sister, mrs. taylor holbrooke"--he spoke the name as though he were announcing it at the door of a drawing-room--"desires miss forbes to go with her. she feels accidents are apt to occur with motor cars--and there are no other ladies in your party--and the crowds----" winthrop carefully avoided looking at miss forbes. "i should be very sorry," he murmured. "ernest!" said miss forbes, "i explained it was impossible for me to go with your sister. we would be extremely rude to mr. winthrop. how do you wish us to sit?" she asked. she mounted to the rear seat, and made room opposite her for peabody. "do i understand, beatrice," began peabody in a tone that instantly made every one extremely uncomfortable, "that i am to tell my sister you are not coming?" "ernest!" begged miss forbes. winthrop bent hastily over the oil valves. he read the speedometer, which was, as usual, out of order, with fascinated interest. "ernest," pleaded miss forbes, "mr. winthrop and sam planned this trip for us a long time ago--to give us a little pleasure----" "then," said peabody in a hollow voice, "you have decided?" "ernest," cried miss forbes, "don't look at me as though you meant to hurl the curse of rome. i have. jump in. please!" "i will bid you good-by," said peabody; "i have only just time to catch our train." miss forbes rose and moved to the door of the car. "i had better not go with any one," she said in a low voice. "you will go with me," commanded her brother. "come on, ernest." "thank you, no," replied peabody. "i have promised my sister." "all right, then," exclaimed sam briskly, "see you at the game. section h. don't forget. let her out, billy." with a troubled countenance winthrop bent forward and clasped the clutch. "better come, peabody," he said. "i thank you, no," repeated peabody. "i must go with my sister." as the car glided forward brother sam sighed heavily. "my! but he's got a mean disposition," he said. "he has quite spoiled my day." he chuckled wickedly, but winthrop pretended not to hear, and his sister maintained an expression of utter dejection. but to maintain an expression of utter dejection is very difficult when the sun is shining, when you are flying at the rate of forty miles an hour, and when in the cars you pass foolish youths wave yale flags at you, and take advantage of the day to cry: "three cheers for the girl in the blue hat!" and to entirely remove the last trace of the gloom that peabody had forced upon them, it was necessary only for a tire to burst. of course for this effort, the tire chose the coldest and most fiercely windswept portion of the pelham road, where from the broad waters of the sound pneumonia and the grip raced rampant, and where to the touch a steel wrench was not to be distinguished from a piece of ice. but before the wheels had ceased to complain, winthrop and fred were out of their fur coats, down on their knees, and jacking up the axle. "on an expedition of this sort," said brother sam, "whatever happens, take it as a joke. fortunately," he explained, "i don't understand fixing inner tubes, so i will get out and smoke. i have noticed that when a car breaks down, there is always one man who paces up and down the road and smokes. his hope is to fool passing cars into thinking that the people in his car stopped to admire the view." recognizing the annual football match as intended solely to replenish the town coffers, the thrifty townsfolk of rye, with bicycles and red flags, were, as usual, and regardless of the speed at which it moved, levying tribute on every second car that entered their hospitable boundaries. but before the scarlet car reached rye, small boys of the town, possessed of a sporting spirit, or of an inherited instinct for graft, were waiting to give a noisy notice of the ambush. and so, fore-warned, the scarlet car crawled up the main street of rye as demurely as a baby-carriage, and then, having safely reached a point directly in front of the police station, with a loud and ostentatious report, blew up another tire. "well," said sam crossly, "they can't arrest us for speeding." "whatever happens," said his sister, "take it as a joke." two miles outside of stamford, brother sam burst into open mutiny. "every car in the united states has passed us," he declared. "we won't get there, at this rate, till the end of the first half. hit her up, can't you, billy?" "she seems to have an illness," said winthrop unhappily. "i think i'd save time if i stopped now and fixed her." shamefacedly fred and he hid themselves under the body of the car, and a sound of hammering and stentorian breathing followed. of them all that was visible was four feet beating a tattoo on the road. miss forbes got out winthrop's camera, and took a snap-shot of the scene. "i will call it," she said, "the idle rich." brother sam gazed morosely in the direction of new haven. they had halted within fifty yards of the railroad tracks, and as each special train, loaded with happy enthusiasts, raced past them he groaned. "the only one of us that showed any common sense was ernest," he declared, "and you turned him down. i am going to take a trolley to stamford, and the first train to new haven." "you are not," said his sister; "i will not desert mr. winthrop, and you cannot desert me." brother sam sighed, and seated himself on a rock. "do you think, billy," he asked, "you can get us to cambridge in time for next year's game?" the car limped into stamford, and while it went into drydock at the garage, brother sam fled to the railroad station, where he learned that for the next two hours no train that recognized new haven spoke to stamford. "that being so," said winthrop, "while we are waiting for the car, we had better get a quick lunch now, and then push on." "push," exclaimed brother sam darkly, "is what we are likely to do." after behaving with perfect propriety for half an hour, just outside of bridgeport the scarlet car came to a slow and sullen stop, and once more the owner and the chauffeur hid their shame beneath it, and attacked its vitals. twenty minutes later, while they still were at work, there approached from bridgeport a young man in a buggy. when he saw the mass of college colors on the scarlet car, he pulled his horse down to a walk, and as he passed raised his hat. "at the end of the first half," he said, "the score was a tie." "don't mention it," said brother sam. "now," he cried, "we've got to turn back, and make for new york. if we start quick, we may get there ahead of the last car to leave new haven." "i am going to new haven, and in this car," declared his sister. "i must go--to meet ernest." "if ernest has as much sense as he showed this morning," returned her affectionate brother, "ernest will go to his pullman and stay there. as i told you, the only sure way to get anywhere is by railroad train." when they passed through bridgeport it was so late that the electric lights of fairview avenue were just beginning to sputter and glow in the twilight, and as they came along the shore road into new haven, the first car out of new haven in the race back to new york leaped at them with siren shrieks of warning, and dancing, dazzling eyes. it passed like a thing driven by the furies; and before the scarlet car could swing back into what had been an empty road, in swift pursuit of the first came many more cars, with blinding searchlights, with a roar of throbbing, thrashing engines, flying pebbles, and whirling wheels. and behind these, stretching for a twisted mile, came hundreds of others; until the road was aflame with flashing will-o'-the-wisps, dancing fireballs, and long, shifting shafts of light. miss forbes sat in front, beside winthrop, and it pleased her to imagine, as they bent forward, peering into the night, that together they were facing so many fiery dragons, speeding to give them battle, to grind them under their wheels. she felt the elation of great speed, of imminent danger. her blood tingled with the air from the wind-swept harbor, with the rush of the great engines, as by a handbreadth they plunged past her. she knew they were driven by men and half-grown boys, joyous with victory, piqued by defeat, reckless by one touch too much of liquor, and that the young man at her side was driving, not only for himself, but for them. each fraction of a second a dazzling light blinded him, and he swerved to let the monster, with a hoarse, bellowing roar, pass by, and then again swept his car into the road. and each time for greater confidence she glanced up into his face. throughout the mishaps of the day he had been deeply concerned for her comfort, sorry for her disappointment, under brother sam's indignant ironies patient, and at all times gentle and considerate. now, in the light from the onrushing cars, she noted his alert, laughing eyes, the broad shoulders bent across the wheel, the lips smiling with excitement and in the joy of controlling, with a turn of the wrist, a power equal to sixty galloping horses. she found in his face much comfort. and in the fact that for the moment her safety lay in his hands, a sense of pleasure. that this was her feeling puzzled and disturbed her, for to ernest peabody it seemed, in some way, disloyal. and yet there it was. of a certainty, there was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would be due to him. to herself she argued that if the chauffeur were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved her admiration. but in her heart she knew it would not be the same. at west haven green winthrop turned out of the track of the racing monsters into a quiet street leading to the railroad station, and with a half-sigh, half-laugh, leaned back comfortably. "those lights coming up suddenly make it hard to see," he said. "hard to breathe," snorted sam; "since that first car missed us, i haven't drawn an honest breath. i held on so tight that i squeezed the hair out of the cushions." when they reached the railroad station, and sam had finally fought his way to the station master, that half-crazed official informed him he had missed the departure of mrs. taylor holbrooke's car by just ten minutes. brother sam reported this state of affairs to his companions. "god knows we asked for the fish first," he said; "so now we've done our duty by ernest, who has shamefully deserted us, and we can get something to eat, and go home at our leisure. as i have always told you, the only way to travel independently is in a touring-car." at the new haven house they bought three waiters, body and soul, and, in spite of the fact that in the very next room the team was breaking training, obtained an excellent but chaotic dinner; and by eight they were on their way back to the big city. the night was grandly beautiful. the waters of the sound flashed in the light of a cold, clear moon, which showed them, like pictures in silver print, the sleeping villages through which they passed, the ancient elms, the low-roofed cottages, the town hall facing the common. the post road was again empty, and the car moved as steadily as a watch. "just because it knows we don't care now when we get there," said brother sam, "you couldn't make it break down with an axe." from the rear, where he sat with fred, he announced he was going to sleep, and asked that he be not awakened until the car had crossed the state line between connecticut and new york. winthrop doubted if he knew the state line of new york. "it is where the advertisements for besse baker's twenty-seven stores cease," said sam drowsily, "and the billposters of ethel barrymore begin." in the front of the car the two young people spoke only at intervals, but winthrop had never been so widely alert, so keenly happy, never before so conscious of her presence. and it seemed as they glided through the mysterious moonlit world of silent villages, shadowy woods, and wind-swept bays and inlets, from which, as the car rattled over the planks of the bridges, the wild duck rose in noisy circles, they alone were awake and living. the silence had lasted so long that it was as eloquent as words. the young man turned his eyes timorously, and sought those of the girl. what he felt was so strong in him that it seemed incredible she should be ignorant of it. his eyes searched the gray veil. in his voice there was both challenge and pleading. "'shall be together,'" he quoted, "'breathe and ride. so, one day more am i deified; who knows but the world may end to-night?'" the moonlight showed the girl's eyes shining through the veil, and regarding him steadily. "if you don't stop this car quick," she said, "the world will end for all of us." he shot a look ahead, and so suddenly threw on the brake that sam and the chauffeur tumbled awake. across the road stretched the great bulk of a touring-car, its lamps burning dully in the brilliance of the moon. around it, for greater warmth, a half-dozen figures stamped upon the frozen ground, and beat themselves with their arms. sam and the chauffeur vaulted into the road, and went toward them. "it's what you say, and the way you say it," the girl explained. she seemed to be continuing an argument. "it makes it so very difficult for us to play together." the young man clasped the wheel as though the force he were holding in check were much greater than sixty horse-power. "you are not married yet, are you?" he demanded. the girl moved her head. "and when you are married, there will probably be an altar from which you will turn to walk back up the aisle?" "well?" said the girl. "well," he answered explosively, "until you turn away from that altar, i do not recognize the right of any man to keep me quiet, or your right either. why should i be held by your engagement? i was not consulted about it. i did not give my consent, did i? i tell you, you are the only woman in the world i will ever marry, and if you think i am going to keep silent and watch some one else carry you off without making a fight for you, you don't know me." "if you go on," said the girl, "it will mean that i shall not see you again." "then i will write letters to you." "i will not read them," said the girl. the young man laughed defiantly. "oh, yes, you will read them!" he pounded his gauntleted fist on the rim of the wheel. "you mayn't answer them, but if i can write the way i feel, i will bet you'll read them." his voice changed suddenly, and he began to plead. it was as though she were some masculine giant bullying a small boy. "you are not fair to me," he protested. "i do not ask you to be kind, i ask you to be fair. i am fighting for what means more to me than anything in this world, and you won't even listen. why should i recognize any other men! all i recognize is that _i_ am the man who loves you, that 'i am the man at your feet.' that is all i know, that i love you." the girl moved as though with the cold, and turned her head from him. "i love you," repeated the young man. the girl breathed like one who has been swimming under water, but, when she spoke, her voice was calm and contained. "please!" she begged, "don't you see how unfair it is. i can't go away; i have to listen." the young man pulled himself upright, and pressed his lips together. "i beg your pardon," he whispered. there was for some time an unhappy silence, and then winthrop added bitterly: "methinks the punishment exceeds the offence." "do you think you make it easy for me?" returned the girl. she considered it most ungenerous of him to sit staring into the moonlight, looking so miserable that it made her heart ache to comfort him, and so extremely handsome that to do so was quite impossible. she would have liked to reach out her hand and lay it on his arm, and tell him she was sorry, but she could not. he should not have looked so unnecessarily handsome. sam came running toward them with five grizzly bears, who balanced themselves apparently with some slight effort upon their hind legs. the grizzly bears were properly presented as: "tommy todd, of my class, and some more like him. and," continued sam, "i am going to quit you two and go with them. tom's car broke down, but fred fixed it, and both our cars can travel together. sort of convoy," he explained. his sister signalled eagerly, but with equal eagerness he retreated from her. "believe me," he assured her soothingly, "i am just as good a chaperon fifty yards behind you, and wide awake, as i am in the same car and fast asleep. and, besides, i want to hear about the game. and, what's more, two cars are much safer than one. suppose you two break down in a lonely place? we'll be right behind you to pick you up. you will keep winthrop's car in sight, won't you, tommy?" he said. the grizzly bear called tommy, who had been examining the scarlet car, answered doubtfully that the only way he could keep it in sight was by tying a rope to it. "that's all right, then," said sam briskly, "winthrop will go slow." so the scarlet car shot forward with sometimes the second car so far in the rear that they could only faintly distinguish the horn begging them to wait, and again it would follow so close upon their wheels that they heard the five grizzly bears chanting beseechingly oh, bring this wagon home, john, it will not hold us a-all. for some time there was silence in the scarlet car, and then winthrop broke it by laughing. "first, i lose peabody," he explained, "then i lose sam, and now, after i throw fred overboard, i am going to drive you into stamford, where they do not ask runaway couples for a license, and marry you." the girl smiled comfortably. in that mood she was not afraid of him. she lifted her face, and stretched out her arms as though she were drinking in the moonlight. "it has been such a good day," she said simply, "and i am really so very happy." "i shall be equally frank," said winthrop. "so am i." for two hours they had been on the road, and were just entering fairport. for some long time the voices of the pursuing grizzlies had been lost in the far distance. "the road's up," said miss forbes. she pointed ahead to two red lanterns. "it was all right this morning," exclaimed winthrop. the car was pulled down to eight miles an hour, and, trembling and snorting at the indignity, nosed up to the red lanterns. they showed in a ruddy glow the legs of two men. "you gotta stop!" commanded a voice. "why?" asked winthrop. the voice became embodied in the person of a tall man, with a long overcoat and a drooping mustache. "'cause i tell you to!" snapped the tall man. winthrop threw a quick glance to the rear. in that direction for a mile the road lay straight away. he could see its entire length, and it was empty. in thinking of nothing but miss forbes, he had forgotten the chaperon. he was impressed with the fact that the immediate presence of a chaperon was desirable. directly in front of the car, blocking its advance, were two barrels, with a two-inch plank sagging heavily between them. beyond that the main street of fairport lay steeped in slumber and moonlight. "i am a selectman," said the one with the lantern. "you been exceedin' our speed limit." the chauffeur gave a gasp that might have been construed to mean that the charge amazed and shocked him. "that is not possible," winthrop answered. "i have been going very slow--on purpose--to allow a disabled car to keep up with me." the selectman looked down the road. "it ain't kep' up with you," he said pointedly. "it has until the last few minutes." "it's the last few minutes we're talking about," returned the man who had not spoken. he put his foot on the step of the car. "what are you doing?" asked winthrop. "i am going to take you to judge allen's. i am chief of police. you are under arrest." before winthrop rose moving pictures of miss forbes appearing in a dirty police station before an officious dogberry, and, as he and his car were well known along the post road, appearing the next morning in the new york papers. "william winthrop," he saw the printed words, "son of endicott winthrop, was arrested here this evening, with a young woman who refused to give her name, but who was recognized as miss beatrice forbes, whose engagement to ernest peabody, the reform candidate on the independent ticket----" and, of course, peabody would blame her. "if i have exceeded your speed limit," he said politely, "i shall be delighted to pay the fine. how much is it?" "judge allen'll tell you what the fine is," said the selectman gruffly. "and he may want bail." "bail?" demanded winthrop. "do you mean to tell me he will detain us here?" "he will, if he wants to," answered the chief of police combatively. for an instant winthrop sat gazing gloomily ahead, overcome apparently by the enormity of his offence. he was calculating whether, if he rammed the two-inch plank, it would hit the car or miss forbes. he decided swiftly it would hit his new two-hundred-dollar lamps. as swiftly he decided the new lamps must go. but he had read of guardians of the public safety so regardless of private safety as to try to puncture runaway tires with pistol bullets. he had no intention of subjecting miss forbes to a fusillade. so he whirled upon the chief of police: "take your hand off that gun!" he growled. "how dare you threaten me?" amazed, the chief of police dropped from the step and advanced indignantly. "me?" he demanded. "i ain't got a gun. what you mean by----" with sudden intelligence, the chauffeur precipitated himself upon the scene. "it's the other one," he shouted. he shook an accusing finger at the selectman. "he pointed it at the lady." to miss forbes the realism of fred's acting was too convincing. to learn that one is covered with a loaded revolver is disconcerting. miss forbes gave a startled squeak, and ducked her head. winthrop roared aloud at the selectman. "how dare you frighten the lady!" he cried. "take your hand off that gun." "what you talkin' about?" shouted the selectman. "the idea of my havin' a gun! i haven't got a----" "all right, fred!" cried winthrop. "low bridge." there was a crash of shattered glass and brass, of scattered barrel staves, the smell of escaping gas, and the scarlet car was flying drunkenly down the main street. "what are they doing now, fred?" called the owner. fred peered over the stern of the flying car. "the constable's jumping around the road," he replied, "and the long one's leaning against a tree. no, he's climbing the tree. i can't make out what he's doing." "_i_ know!" cried miss forbes; her voice vibrated with excitement. defiance of the law had thrilled her with unsuspected satisfaction; her eyes were dancing. "there was a telephone fastened to the tree, a hand telephone. they are sending word to some one. they're trying to head us off." winthrop brought the car to a quick halt. "we're in a police trap!" he said. fred leaned forward and whispered to his employer. his voice also vibrated with the joy of the chase. "this'll be our third arrest," he said. "that means----" "i know what it means," snapped winthrop. "tell me how we can get out of here." "we can't get out of here, sir, unless we go back. going south, the bridge is the only way out." "the bridge!" winthrop struck the wheel savagely with his knuckles. "i forgot their confounded bridge!" he turned to miss forbes. "fairport is a sort of island," he explained. "but after we're across the bridge," urged the chauffeur, "we needn't keep to the post road no more. we can turn into stone ridge, and strike south to white plains. then----" "we haven't crossed the bridge yet," growled winthrop. his voice had none of the joy of the others; he was greatly perturbed. "look back," he commanded, "and see if there is any sign of those boys." he was now quite willing to share responsibility. but there was no sign of the yale men, and, unattended, the scarlet car crept warily forward. ahead of it, across the little reed-grown inlet, stretched their road of escape, a long wooden bridge, lying white in the moonlight. "i don't see a soul," whispered miss forbes. "anybody at that draw?" asked winthrop. unconsciously his voice also had sunk to a whisper. "no," returned fred. "i think the man that tends the draw goes home at night; there is no light there." "well then," said winthrop, with an anxious sigh, "we've got to make a dash for it." the car shot forward, and, as it leaped lightly upon the bridge, there was a rapid rumble of creaking boards. between it and the highway to new york lay only two hundred yards of track, straight and empty. in his excitement the chauffeur rose from the rear seat. "they'll never catch us now," he muttered. "they'll never catch us!" but even as he spoke there grated harshly the creak of rusty chains on a cogged wheel, the rattle of a brake. the black figure of a man with waving arms ran out upon the draw, and the draw gaped slowly open. when the car halted there was between it and the broken edge of the bridge twenty feet of running water. at the same moment from behind it came a patter of feet, and winthrop turned to see racing toward them some dozen young men of fairport. they surrounded him with noisy, raucous, belligerent cries. they were, as they proudly informed him, members of the fairport "volunteer fire department." that they might purchase new uniforms, they had arranged a trap for the automobiles returning in illegal haste from new haven. in fines they had collected $300, and it was evident that already some of that money had been expended in bad whiskey. as many as could do so crowded into the car, others hung to the running boards and step, others ran beside it. they rejoiced over winthrop's unsuccessful flight and capture with violent and humiliating laughter. for the day, judge allen had made a temporary court in the clubroom of the fire department, which was over the engine house; and the proceedings were brief and decisive. the selectman told how winthrop, after first breaking the speed law, had broken arrest and judge allen, refusing to fine him and let him go, held him and his companions for a hearing the following morning. he fixed the amount of bail at $500 each; failing to pay this, they would for the night be locked up in different parts of the engine house, which, it developed, contained on the ground floor the home of the fire engine, on the second floor the clubroom, on alternate nights, of the firemen, the local g. a. r., and the knights of pythias, and in its cellar the town jail. winthrop and the chauffeur the learned judge condemned to the cells in the basement. as a concession, he granted miss forbes the freedom of the entire clubroom to herself. the objections raised by winthrop to this arrangement were of a nature so violent, so vigorous, at one moment so specious and conciliatory, and the next so abusive, that his listeners were moved by awe, but not to pity. in his indignation, judge allen rose to reply, and as, the better to hear him, the crowd pushed forward, fred gave way before it, until he was left standing in sullen gloom upon its outer edge. in imitation of the real firemen of the great cities, the vamps of fairport had cut a circular hole in the floor of their clubroom, and from the engine room below had reared a sliding pole of shining brass. when leaving their clubroom, it was always their pleasure to scorn the stairs and, like real firemen, slide down this pole. it had not escaped the notice of fred, and since his entrance he had been gravitating toward it. as the voice of the judge rose in violent objurgation, and all eyes were fixed upon him, the chauffeur crooked his leg tightly about the brass pole, and, like the devil in the pantomime, sank softly and swiftly through the floor. the irate judge was shaking his finger in winthrop's face. "don't you try to teach me no law," he shouted; "i know what i can do. ef my darter went gallivantin' around nights in one of them automobiles, it would serve her right to get locked up. maybe this young woman will learn to stay at home nights with her folks. she ain't goin' to take no harm here. the constable sits up all night downstairs in the fire engine room, and that sofa's as good a place to sleep as the hotel. if you want me to let her go to the hotel, why don't you send to your folks and bail her out?" "you know damn well why i don't," returned winthrop. "i don't intend to give the newspapers and you and these other idiots the chance to annoy her further. this young lady's brother has been with us all day; he left us only by accident, and by forcing her to remain here alone you are acting outrageously. if you knew anything of decency, or law, you'd----" "i know this much!" roared the justice triumphantly, pointing his spectacle-case at miss forbes. "i know her name ain't lizzie borden and yours ain't charley ross." winthrop crossed to where miss forbes stood in a corner. she still wore her veil, but through it, though her face was pale, she smiled at him. his own distress was undisguised. "i can never forgive myself," he said. "nonsense!" replied miss forbes briskly. "you were perfectly right. if we had sent for any one, it would have had to come out. now, we'll pay the fine in the morning and get home, and no one will know anything of it excepting the family and mr. peabody, and they'll understand. but if i ever lay hands on my brother sam!"--she clasped her fingers together helplessly. "to think of his leaving you to spend the night in a cell----" winthrop interrupted her. "i will get one of these men to send his wife or sister over to stay with you," he said. but miss forbes protested that she did not want a companion. the constable would protect her, she said, and she would sit up all night and read. she nodded at the periodicals on the club table. "this is the only chance i may ever have," she said, "to read the 'police gazette'!" "you ready there?" called the constable. "good-night," said winthrop. under the eyes of the grinning yokels, they shook hands. "good-night," said the girl. "where's your young man?" demanded the chief of police. "my what?" inquired winthrop. "the young fellow that was with you when we held you up that first time." the constable, or the chief of police as he called himself, on the principle that if there were only one policeman he must necessarily be the chief, glanced hastily over the heads of the crowd. "any of you holding that shoffer?" he called. no one was holding the chauffeur. the chauffeur had vanished. the cell to which the constable led winthrop was in a corner of the cellar in which formerly coal had been stored. this corner was now fenced off with boards, and a wooden door with chain and padlock. high in the wall, on a level with the ground, was the opening, or window, through which the coal had been dumped. this window now was barricaded with iron bars. winthrop tested the door by shaking it, and landed a heavy kick on one of the hinges. it gave slightly, and emitted a feeble groan. "what you tryin' to do?" demanded the constable. "that's town property." in the light of the constable's lantern, winthrop surveyed his cell with extreme dissatisfaction. "i call this a cheap cell," he said. "it's good enough for a cheap sport," returned the constable. it was so overwhelming a retort that after the constable had turned the key in the padlock, and taken himself and his lantern to the floor above, winthrop could hear him repeating it to the volunteer firemen. they received it with delighted howls. for an hour, on the three empty boxes that formed his bed, winthrop sat, with his chin on his fists, planning the nameless atrocities he would inflict upon the village of fairport. compared to his tortures, those of neuremberg were merely reprimands. also he considered the particular punishment he would mete out to sam forbes for his desertion of his sister, and to fred. he could not understand fred. it was not like the chauffeur to think only of himself. nevertheless, for abandoning miss forbes in the hour of need, fred must be discharged. he had, with some regret, determined upon this discipline, when from directly over his head the voice of fred hailed him cautiously. "mr. winthrop," the voice called, "are you there?" to winthrop the question seemed superfluous. he jumped to his feet, and peered up into the darkness. "where are you?" he demanded. "at the window," came the answer. "we're in the back yard. mr. sam wants to speak to you." on miss forbes's account, winthrop gave a gasp of relief. on his own, one of savage satisfaction. "and _i_ want to speak to him!" he whispered. the moonlight, which had been faintly shining through the iron bars of the coal chute, was eclipsed by a head and shoulders. the comfortable voice of sam forbes greeted him in a playful whisper. "hullo, billy! you down there?" "where the devil did you think i was?" winthrop answered at white heat. "let me tell you if i was not down here i'd be punching your head." "that's all right, billy," sam answered soothingly. "but i'll save you just the same. it shall never be said of sam forbes he deserted a comrade----" "stop that! do you know," winthrop demanded fiercely, "that your sister is a prisoner upstairs?" "i do," replied the unfeeling brother, "but she won't be long. all the low-comedy parts are out now arranging a rescue." "who are? todd and those boys?" demanded winthrop. "they mustn't think of it! they'll only make it worse. it is impossible to get your sister out of here with those drunken firemen in the building. you must wait till they've gone home. do you hear me?" "pardon me!" returned sam stiffly, "but this is my relief expedition. i have sent two of the boys to hold the bridge, like horatius, and two to guard the motors, and the others are going to entice the firemen away from the engine house." "entice them? how?" demanded winthrop. "they're drunk, and they won't leave here till morning." outside the engine house, suspended from a heavy cross-bar, was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into a hoop. when hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to fairport that the "consuming element" was at large. at the moment winthrop asked his question, over the village of fairport and over the bay and marshes, and far out across the sound, the great steel bar sent forth a shuddering boom of warning. from the room above came a wild tumult of joyous yells. "fire!" shrieked the vamps, "fire!" the two men crouching by the cellar window heard the rush of feet, the engine banging and bumping across the sidewalk, its brass bell clanking crazily, the happy vamps shouting hoarse, incoherent orders. through the window sam lowered a bag of tools he had taken from winthrop's car. "can you open the lock with any of these?" he asked. "i can kick it open!" yelled winthrop joyfully. "get to your sister, quick!" he threw his shoulder against the door, and the staples flying before him sent him sprawling in the coal-dust. when he reached the head of the stairs, beatrice forbes was descending from the clubroom, and in front of the door the two cars, with their lamps unlit and numbers hidden, were panting to be free. and in the north, reaching to the sky, rose a roaring column of flame, shameless in the pale moonlight, dragging into naked day the sleeping village, the shingled houses, the clock-face in the church steeple. "what the devil have you done?" gasped winthrop. before he answered, sam waited until the cars were rattling to safety across the bridge. "we have been protecting the face of nature," he shouted. "the only way to get that gang out of the engine house was to set fire to something. tommy wanted to burn up the railroad station, because he doesn't like the new york and new haven, and fred was for setting fire to judge allen's house, because he was rude to beatrice. but we finally formed the village improvement society, organized to burn all advertising signs. you know those that stood in the marshes, and hid the view from the trains, so that you could not see the sound. we chopped them down and put them in a pile, and poured gasolene on them, and that fire is all that is left of the pickles, fly-screens, and pills." it was midnight when the cars drew up at the door of the house of forbes. anxiously waiting in the library were mrs. forbes and ernest peabody. "at last!" cried mrs. forbes, smiling her relief; "we thought maybe sam and you had decided to spend the night in new haven." "no," said miss forbes, "there was some talk about spending the night at fairport, but we pushed right on." ii the trespassers with a long, nervous shudder, the scarlet car came to a stop, and the lamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the rest of the encircling world in a chill and silent darkness. the lamps showed a flickering picture of a country road between high banks covered with loose stones, and overhead, a fringe of pine boughs. it looked like a colored photograph thrown from a stereopticon in a darkened theater. from the back of the car the voice of the owner said briskly: "we will now sing that beautiful ballad entitled 'he is sleeping in the yukon vale to-night.' what are you stopping for, fred?" he asked. the tone of the chauffeur suggested he was again upon the defensive. "for water, sir," he mumbled. miss forbes in the front seat laughed, and her brother in the rear seat, groaned in dismay. "oh, for water?" said the owner cordially. "i thought maybe it was for coal." save a dignified silence, there was no answer to this, until there came a rolling of loose stones and the sound of a heavy body suddenly precipitated down the bank, and landing with a thump in the road. "he didn't get the water," said the owner sadly. "are you hurt, fred?" asked the girl. the chauffeur limped in front of the lamps, appearing suddenly, like an actor stepping into the limelight. "no, ma'am," he said. in the rays of the lamp, he unfolded a road map and scowled at it. he shook his head aggrievedly. "there ought to be a house just about here," he explained. "there ought to be a hotel and a garage, and a cold supper, just about here," said the girl cheerfully. "that's the way with those houses," complained the owner. "they never stay where they're put. at night they go around and visit each other. where do you think you are, fred?" "i think we're in that long woods, between loon lake and stoughton on the boston pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he reiterated, "there ought to be a house somewhere about here--where we get water." "well, get there, then, and get the water," commanded the owner. "but i can't get there, sir, till i get the water," returned the chauffeur. he shook out two collapsible buckets, and started down the shaft of light. "i won't be more nor five minutes," he called. "i'm going with him," said the girl, "i'm cold." she stepped down from the front seat, and the owner with sudden alacrity vaulted the door and started after her. "you coming?" he inquired of ernest peabody. but ernest peabody being soundly asleep made no reply. winthrop turned to sam. "are you coming?" he repeated. the tone of the invitation seemed to suggest that a refusal would not necessarily lead to a quarrel. "i am not!" said the brother. "you've kept peabody and me twelve hours in the open air, and it's past two, and we're going to sleep. you can take it from me that we are going to spend the rest of this night here in this road." he moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs the full width of the car. "if you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda." he buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the odors of camphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but he only yawned luxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a turtle draws into its shell. from the woods about him the smell of the pine needles pressed upon him like a drug, and before the footsteps of his companions were lost in the silence he was asleep. but his sleep was only a review of his waking hours. still on either hand rose flying dust clouds and twirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone walls, telegraph poles, hills rich in autumn colors; and before him a long white road, unending, interminable, stretching out finally into a darkness lit by flashing shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, by swinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of hundreds of darting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and then a cold white mist, and again on every side, darkness, except where the four great lamps blazed a path through stretches of ghostly woods. as the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and sizzled like bacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily down the bank, a white owl, both appalled and fascinated by the dazzling eyes of the monster blocking the road, hooted, and flapped itself away. but the men in the car only shivered slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness. in silence the girl and winthrop followed the chauffeur. they had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a glow-worm. the mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them. from their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor, and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered and rustled in the night wind. "take my coat, too," said the young man. "you'll catch cold." he spoke with authority and began to slip the loops from the big horn buttons. it was not the habit of the girl to consider her health. nor did she permit the members of her family to show solicitude concerning it. but the anxiety of the young man, did not seem to offend her. she thanked him generously. "no; these coats are hard to walk in, and i want to walk," she exclaimed. "i like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't you? when i was so high, i used to pretend it was wading in the surf." the young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the leaves were deepest and kicked violently. "and the more noise you make," he said, "the more you frighten away the wild animals." the girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion. "don't!" she whispered. "i didn't mention it, but already i have seen several lions crouching behind the trees." "indeed?" said the young man. his tone was preoccupied. he had just kicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing on one leg. "do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it that you are merely brave?" "merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "massachusetts is so far north for lions," he continued, "that i fancy what you saw was a grizzly bear. but i have my trusty electric torch with me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be pointed at by an electric torch." "let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the wood, and that we are lost." "we don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as i remember it, the babes came to a sad end. didn't they die, and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?" "sam and mr. peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl. "sam and peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth would look silly," objected the man, "i doubt if i could keep from laughing." "then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who came to kill the babes." "very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be babes. if i have to die," he went on heartily, "i would rather die with you than live with any one else." when he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the world and quite near to each other, it was as though the girl could not hear him, even as though he had not spoken at all. after a silence, the girl said: "perhaps it would be better for us to go back to the car." "i won't do it again," begged the man. "we will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and that we are gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and i will tell your fortune." "you are the only woman who can," muttered the young man. the girl still stood in her tracks. "you said--" she began. "i know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk seriously, so i joke. but some day----" "oh, look!" cried the girl. "there's fred." she ran from him down the road. the young man followed her slowly, his fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and kicking at the unoffending leaves. the chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung between square brick posts. the lower hinge of one gate was broken, and that gate lurched forward leaving an opening. by the light of the electric torch they could see the beginning of a driveway, rough and weed-grown, lined with trees of great age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn with bushes, and beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated faintly by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and forbidding. "that's it," whispered the chauffeur. "i was here before. the well is over there." the young man gave a gasp of astonishment. "why," he protested, "this is the carey place! i should say we were lost. we must have left the road an hour ago. there's not another house within miles." but he made no movement to enter. "of all places!" he muttered. "well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house, let's tap mr. carey's well and get on." "do you know who he is?" asked the man. the girl laughed. "you don't need a letter of introduction to take a bucket of water, do you?" she said. "it's philip carey's house. he lives here." he spoke in a whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry some special significance. but the girl showed no sign of enlightenment. "you remember the carey boys?" he urged. "they left harvard the year i entered. they had to leave. they were quite mad. all the careys have been mad. the boys were queer even then, and awfully rich. henry ran away with a girl from a shoe factory in brockton and lives in paris, and philip was sent here." "sent here?" repeated the girl. unconsciously her voice also had sunk to a whisper. "he has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here all the year round. when fred said there were people hereabouts, i thought we might strike them for something to eat, or even to put us up for the night, but, philip carey! i shouldn't fancy----" "i should think not!" exclaimed the girl. for, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron bars. "and the worst of it is," went on the young man irritably, "he could give us such good things to eat." "it doesn't look it," said the girl. "i know," continued the man in the same eager whisper. "but--who was it was telling me? some doctor i know who came down to see him. he said carey does himself awfully well, has the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and wonderful collections--things he picked up in the east--gold ornaments, and jewels, and jade." "i shouldn't think," said the girl in the same hushed voice, "they would let him live so far from any neighbors with such things in the house. suppose burglars----" "burglars! burglars would never hear of this place. how could they?--even his friends think it's just a private madhouse." the girl shivered and drew back from the gate. fred coughed apologetically. "i've heard of it," he volunteered. "there was a piece in the sunday post. it said he eats his dinner in a diamond crown, and all the walls is gold, and two monkeys wait on table with gold----" "nonsense!" said the man sharply. "he eats like any one else and dresses like any one else. how far is the well from the house?" "it's purty near," said the chauffeur. "pretty near the house, or pretty near here?" "just outside the kitchen; and it makes a creaky noise." "you mean you don't want to go?" fred's answer was unintelligible. "you wait here with miss forbes," said the young man. "and i'll get the water." "yes, sir!" said fred, quite distinctly. "no, sir!" said miss forbes, with equal distinctness. "i'm not going to be left here alone--with all these trees. i'm going with you." "there may be a dog," suggested the young man, "or, i was thinking if they heard me prowling about, they might take a shot--just for luck. why don't you go back to the car with fred?" "down that long road in the dark?" exclaimed the girl. "do you think i have no imagination?" the man in front, the girl close on his heels, and the boy with the buckets following, crawled through the broken gate, and moved cautiously up the gravel driveway. within fifty feet of the house the courage of the chauffeur returned. "you wait here," he whispered, "and if i wake 'em up, you shout to 'em that it's all right, that it's only me." "your idea being," said the young man, "that they will then fire at me. clever lad. run along." there was a rustling of the dead weeds, and instantly the chauffeur was swallowed in the encompassing shadows. miss forbes leaned toward the young man. "do you see a light in that lower story?" she whispered. "no," said the man. "where?" after a pause the girl answered: "i can't see it now, either. maybe i didn't see it. it was very faint--just a glow--it might have been phosphorescence." "it might," said the man. he gave a shrug of distaste. "the whole place is certainly old enough and decayed enough." for a brief space they stood quite still, and at once, accentuated by their own silence, the noises of the night grew in number and distinctness. a slight wind had risen and the boughs of the pines rocked restlessly, making mournful complaint; and at their feet the needles dropping in a gentle desultory shower had the sound of rain in springtime. from every side they were startled by noises they could not place. strange movements and rustlings caused them to peer sharply into the shadows; footsteps, that seemed to approach, and, then, having marked them, skulk away; branches of bushes that suddenly swept together, as though closing behind some one in stealthy retreat. although they knew that in the deserted garden they were alone, they felt that from the shadows they were being spied upon, that the darkness of the place was peopled by malign presences. the young man drew a cigar from his case and put it unlit between his teeth. "cheerful, isn't it?" he growled. "these dead leaves make it damp as a tomb. if i've seen one ghost, i've seen a dozen. i believe we're standing in the carey family's graveyard." "i thought you were brave," said the girl. "i am," returned the young man, "very brave. but if you had the most wonderful girl on earth to take care of in the grounds of a madhouse at two in the morning, you'd be scared too." he was abruptly surprised by miss forbes laying her hand firmly upon his shoulder, and turning him in the direction of the house. her face was so near his that he felt the uneven fluttering of her breath upon his cheek. "there is a man," she said, "standing behind that tree." by the faint light of the stars he saw, in black silhouette, a shoulder and head projecting from beyond the trunk of a huge oak, and then quickly withdrawn. the owner of the head and shoulder was on the side of the tree nearest to themselves, his back turned to them, and so deeply was his attention engaged that he was unconscious of their presence. "he is watching the house," said the girl. "why is he doing that?" "i think it's fred," whispered the man. "he's afraid to go for the water. that's as far as he's gone." he was about to move forward when from the oak tree there came a low whistle. the girl and the man stood silent and motionless. but they knew it was useless; that they had been overheard. a voice spoke cautiously. "that you?" it asked. with the idea only of gaining time, the young man responded promptly and truthfully. "yes," he whispered. "keep to the right of the house," commanded the voice. the young man seized miss forbes by the wrist and moving to the right drew her quickly with him. he did not stop until they had turned the corner of the building, and were once more hidden by the darkness. "the plot thickens," he said. "i take it that that fellow is a keeper, or watchman. he spoke as though it were natural there should be another man in the grounds, so there's probably two of them, either to keep carey in, or to keep trespassers out. now, i think i'll go back and tell him that jack and jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and that all they want is to be allowed to get the water, and go." "why should a watchman hide behind a tree?" asked the girl. "and why----" she ceased abruptly with a sharp cry of fright. "what's that?" she whispered. "what's what?" asked the young man startled. "what did you hear?" "over there," stammered the girl. "something--that--groaned." "pretty soon this will get on my nerves," said the man. he ripped open his greatcoat and reached under it. "i've been stoned twice, when there were women in the car," he said, apologetically, "and so now at night i carry a gun." he shifted the darkened torch to his left hand, and, moving a few yards, halted to listen. the girl, reluctant to be left alone, followed slowly. as he stood immovable there came from the leaves just beyond him the sound of a feeble struggle, and a strangled groan. the man bent forward and flashed the torch. he saw stretched rigid on the ground a huge wolf-hound. its legs were twisted horribly, the lips drawn away from the teeth, the eyes glazed in an agony of pain. the man snapped off the light. "keep back!" he whispered to the girl. he took her by the arm and ran with her toward the gate. "who was it?" she begged. "it was a dog," he answered. "i think----" he did not tell her what he thought. "i've got to find out what the devil has happened to fred!" he said. "you go back to the car. send your brother here on the run. tell him there's going to be a rough-house. you're not afraid to go?" "no," said the girl. a shadow blacker than the night rose suddenly before them, and a voice asked sternly but quietly: "what are you doing here?" the young man lifted his arm clear of the girl, and shoved her quickly from him. in his hand she felt the pressure of the revolver. "well," he replied truculently, "and what are you doing here?" "i am the night watchman," answered the voice. "who are you?" it struck miss forbes if the watchman knew that one of the trespassers was a woman he would be at once reassured, and she broke in quickly: "we have lost our way," she said pleasantly. "we came here----" she found herself staring blindly down a shaft of light. for an instant the torch held her, and then from her swept over the young man. "drop that gun!" cried the voice. it was no longer the same voice; it was now savage and snarling. for answer the young man pressed the torch in his left hand, and, held in the two circles of light, the men surveyed each other. the newcomer was one of unusual bulk and height. the collar of his overcoat hid his mouth, and his derby hat was drawn down over his forehead, but what they saw showed an intelligent, strong face, although for the moment it wore a menacing scowl. the young man dropped his revolver into his pocket. "my automobile ran dry," he said; "we came in here to get some water. my chauffeur is back there somewhere with a couple of buckets. this is mr. carey's place, isn't it?" "take that light out of my eyes!" said the watchman. "take your light out of my eyes," returned the young man. "you can see we're not--we don't mean any harm." the two lights disappeared simultaneously, and then each, as though worked by the same hand, sprang forth again. "what did you think i was going to do?" the young man asked. he laughed and switched off his torch. but the one the watchman held in his hand still moved from the face of the girl to that of the young man. "how'd you know this was the carey house?" he demanded. "do you know mr. carey?" "no, but i know this is his house." for a moment from behind his mask of light the watchman surveyed them in silence. then he spoke quickly: "i'll take you to him," he said, "if he thinks it's all right, it's all right." the girl gave a protesting cry. the young man burst forth indignantly: "you will not!" he cried. "don't be an idiot! you talk like a tenderloin cop. do we look like second-story workers?" "i found you prowling around mr. carey's grounds at two in the morning," said the watchman sharply, "with a gun in your hand. my job is to protect this place, and i am going to take you both to mr. carey." until this moment the young man could see nothing save the shaft of light and the tiny glowing bulb at its base; now into the light there protruded a black revolver. "keep your hands up, and walk ahead of me to the house," commanded the watchman. "the woman will go in front." the young man did not move. under his breath he muttered impotently, and bit at his lower lip. "see here," he said, "i'll go with you, but you shan't take this lady in front of that madman. let her go to her car. it's only a hundred yards from here; you know perfectly well she----" "i know where your car is, all right," said the watchman steadily, "and i'm not going to let you get away in it till mr. carey's seen you." the revolver motioned forward. miss forbes stepped in front of it and appealed eagerly to the young man. "do what he says," she urged. "it's only his duty. please! indeed, i don't mind." she turned to the watchman. "which way do you want us to go?" she asked. "keep in the light," he ordered. the light showed the broad steps leading to the front entrance of the house, and in its shaft they climbed them, pushed open the unlocked door, and stood in a small hallway. it led into a greater hall beyond. by the electric lights still burning they noted that the interior of the house was as rich and well cared for as the outside was miserable. with a gesture for silence the watchman motioned them into a small room on the right of the hallway. it had the look of an office, and was apparently the place in which were conducted the affairs of the estate. in an open grate was a dying fire; in front of it a flat desk covered with papers and japanned tin boxes. "you stay here till i fetch mr. carey, and the servants," commanded the watchman. "don't try to get out, and," he added menacingly, "don't make no noise." with his revolver he pointed at the two windows. they were heavily barred. "those bars keep mr. carey in," he said, "and i guess they can keep you in, too. the other watchman," he added, "will be just outside this door." but still he hesitated, glowering with suspicion; unwilling to trust them alone. his face lit with an ugly smile. "mr. carey's very bad to-night," he said; "he won't keep his bed and he's wandering about the house. if he found you by yourselves, he might----" the young man, who had been staring at the fire, swung sharply on his heel. "get-to-hell-out-of-here!" he said. the watchman stepped into the hall and was cautiously closing the door when a man sprang lightly up the front steps. through the inch crack left by the open door the trespassers heard the newcomers eager greeting. "i can't get him right!" he panted. "he's snoring like a hog." the watchman exclaimed savagely: "he's fooling you." he gasped. "i didn't mor' nor slap him. did you throw water on him?" "i drowned him!" returned the other. "he never winked. i tell you we gotta walk, and damn quick!" "walk!" the watchman cursed him foully. "how far could we walk? i'll bring him to," he swore. "he's scared of us, and he's shamming." he gave a sudden start of alarm. "that's it, he's shamming. you fool! you shouldn't have left him." there was the swift patter of retreating footsteps, and then a sudden halt, and they heard the watchman command: "go back, and keep the other two till i come." the next instant from the outside the door was softly closed upon them. it had no more than shut when to the surprise of miss forbes the young man, with a delighted and vindictive chuckle, sprang to the desk and began to drum upon it with his fingers. it were as though he were practising upon a typewriter. "he missed these," he muttered jubilantly. the girl leaned forward. beneath his fingers she saw, flush with the table, a roll of little ivory buttons. she read the words "stables," "servants' hall." she raised a pair of very beautiful and very bewildered eyes. "but if he wanted the servants, why didn't the watchman do that?" she asked. "because he isn't a watchman," answered the young man. "because he's robbing this house." he took the revolver from his encumbering greatcoat, slipped it in his pocket, and threw the coat from him. he motioned the girl into a corner. "keep out of the line of the door," he ordered. "i don't understand," begged the girl. "they came in a car," whispered the young man. "it's broken down, and they can't get away. when the big fellow stopped us and i flashed my torch, i saw their car behind him in the road with the front off and the lights out. he'd seen the lamps of our car, and now they want it to escape in. that's why he brought us here--to keep us away from our car." "and fred!" gasped the girl. "fred's hurt!" "i guess fred stumbled into the big fellow," assented the young man, "and the big fellow put him out; then he saw fred was a chauffeur, and now they are trying to bring him to, so that he can run the car for them. you needn't worry about fred. he's been in four smash-ups." the young man bent forward to listen, but from no part of the great house came any sign. he exclaimed angrily. "they must be drugged," he growled. he ran to the desk and made vicious jabs at the ivory buttons. "suppose they're out of order!" he whispered. there was the sound of leaping feet. the young man laughed nervously. "no, it's all right," he cried. "they're coming!" the door flung open and the big burglar and a small, rat-like figure of a man burst upon them; the big one pointing a revolver. "come with me to your car!" he commanded. "you've got to take us to boston. quick, or i'll blow your face off." although the young man glared bravely at the steel barrel and the lifted trigger, poised a few inches from his eyes, his body, as though weak with fright, shifted slightly and his feet made a shuffling noise upon the floor. when the weight of his body was balanced on the ball of his right foot, the shuffling ceased. had the burglar lowered his eyes, the manoeuvre to him would have been significant, but his eyes were following the barrel of the revolver. in the mind of the young man the one thought uppermost was that he must gain time, but, with a revolver in his face, he found his desire to gain time swiftly diminishing. still, when he spoke, it was with deliberation. "my chauffeur--" he began slowly. the burglar snapped at him like a dog. "to hell with your chauffeur!" he cried. "your chauffeur has run away. you'll drive that car yourself, or i'll leave you here with the top of your head off." the face of the young man suddenly flashed with pleasure. his eyes, looking past the burglar to the door, lit with relief. "there's the chauffeur now!" he cried. the big burglar for one instant glanced over his right shoulder. for months at a time, on soldiers field, the young man had thrown himself at human targets, that ran and dodged and evaded him, and the hulking burglar, motionless before him, was easily his victim. he leaped at him, his left arm swinging like a scythe, and, with the impact of a club, the blow caught the burglar in the throat. the pistol went off impotently; the burglar with a choking cough sank in a heap on the floor. the young man tramped over him and upon him, and beat the second burglar with savage, whirlwind blows. the second burglar, shrieking with pain, turned to fly, and a fist, that fell upon him where his bump of honesty should have been, drove his head against the lintel of the door. at the same instant from the belfry on the roof there rang out on the night the sudden tumult of a bell; a bell that told as plainly as though it clamored with a human tongue, that the hand that rang it was driven with fear; fear of fire, fear of thieves, fear of a mad-man with a knife in his hand running amuck; perhaps at that moment creeping up the belfry stairs. from all over the house there was the rush of feet and men's voices, and from the garden the light of dancing lanterns. and while the smoke of the revolver still hung motionless, the open door was crowded with half-clad figures. at their head were two young men. one who had drawn over his night clothes a serge suit, and who, in even that garb, carried an air of authority; and one, tall, stooping, weak of face and light-haired, with eyes that blinked and trembled behind great spectacles and who, for comfort, hugged about him a gorgeous kimono. for an instant the newcomers stared stupidly through the smoke at the bodies on the floor breathing stertorously, at the young man with the lust of battle still in his face, at the girl shrinking against the wall. it was the young man in the serge suit who was the first to move. "who are you?" he demanded. "these are burglars," said the owner of the car. "we happened to be passing in my automobile, and----" the young man was no longer listening. with an alert, professional manner he had stooped over the big burglar. with his thumb he pushed back the man's eyelids, and ran his fingers over his throat and chin. he felt carefully of the point of the chin, and glanced up. "you've broken the bone," he said. "i just swung on him," said the young man. he turned his eyes, and suggested the presence of the girl. at the same moment the man in the kimono cried nervously: "ladies present, ladies present. go put your clothes on, everybody; put your clothes on." for orders the men in the doorway looked to the young man with the stern face. he scowled at the figure in the kimono. "you will please go to your room, sir," he said. he stood up, and bowed to miss forbes. "i beg your pardon," he asked, "you must want to get out of this. will you please go into the library?" he turned to the robust youths in the door, and pointed at the second burglar. "move him out of the way," he ordered. the man in the kimono smirked and bowed. "allow me," he said; "allow me to show you to the library. this is no place for ladies." the young man with the stern face frowned impatiently. "you will please return to your room, sir," he repeated. with an attempt at dignity the figure in the kimono gathered the silk robe closer about him. "certainly," he said. "if you think you can get on without me--i will retire," and lifting his bare feet mincingly, he tiptoed away. miss forbes looked after him with an expression of relief, of repulsion, of great pity. the owner of the car glanced at the young man with the stern face, and raised his eyebrows interrogatively. the young man had taken the revolver from the limp fingers of the burglar and was holding it in his hand. winthrop gave what was half a laugh and half a sigh of compassion. "so, that's carey?" he said. there was a sudden silence. the young man with the stern face made no answer. his head was bent over the revolver. he broke it open, and spilled the cartridges into his palm. still he made no answer. when he raised his head, his eyes were no longer stern, but wistful, and filled with an inexpressible loneliness. "no, _i_ am carey," he said. the one who had blundered stood helpless, tongue-tied, with no presence of mind beyond knowing that to explain would offend further. the other seemed to feel for him more than for himself. in a voice low and peculiarly appealing, he continued hurriedly. "he is my doctor," he said. "he is a young man, and he has not had many advantages--his manner is not--i find we do not get on together. i have asked them to send me some one else." he stopped suddenly, and stood unhappily silent. the knowledge that the strangers were acquainted with his story seemed to rob him of his earlier confidence. he made an uncertain movement as though to relieve them of his presence. miss forbes stepped toward him eagerly. "you told me i might wait in the library," she said. "will you take me there?" for a moment the man did not move, but stood looking at the young and beautiful girl, who, with a smile, hid the compassion in her eyes. "will you go?" he asked wistfully. "why not?" said the girl. the young man laughed with pleasure. "i am unpardonable," he said. "i live so much alone--that i forget." like one who, issuing from a close room, encounters the morning air, he drew a deep, happy breath. "it has been three years since a woman has been in this house," he said simply. "and i have not even thanked you," he went on, "nor asked you if you are cold," he cried remorsefully, "or hungry. how nice it would be if you would say you are hungry." the girl walked beside him, laughing lightly, and, as they disappeared into the greater hall beyond, winthrop heard her cry: "you never robbed your own ice-chest? how have you kept from starving? show me it, and we'll rob it together." the voice of their host rang through the empty house with a laugh like that of an eager, happy child. "heavens!" said the owner of the car, "isn't she wonderful!" but neither the prostrate burglars, nor the servants, intent on strapping their wrists together, gave him any answer. as they were finishing the supper filched from the ice-chest, fred was brought before them from the kitchen. the blow the burglar had given him was covered with a piece of cold beef-steak, and the water thrown on him to revive him was thawing from his leather breeches. mr. carey expressed his gratitude, and rewarded him beyond the avaricious dreams even of a chauffeur. as the three trespassers left the house, accompanied by many pails of water, the girl turned to the lonely figure in the doorway and waved her hand. "may we come again?" she called. but young mr. carey did not trust his voice to answer. standing erect, with folded arms, in dark silhouette in the light of the hall, he bowed his head. deaf to alarm bells, to pistol shots, to cries for help, they found her brother and ernest peabody sleeping soundly. "sam is a charming chaperon," said the owner of the car. with the girl beside him, with fred crouched, shivering, on the step, he threw in the clutch; the servants from the house waved the emptied buckets in salute, and the great car sprang forward into the awakening day toward the golden dome over the boston common. in the rear seat peabody shivered and yawned, and then sat erect. "did you get the water?" he demanded, anxiously. there was a grim silence. "yes," said the owner of the car patiently. "you needn't worry any longer. we got the water." iii the kidnappers during the last two weeks of the "whirlwind" campaign, automobiles had carried the rival candidates to every election district in greater new york. during these two weeks, at the disposal of ernest peabody--on the reform ticket, "the people's choice for lieutenant-governor--" winthrop had placed his scarlet car, and, as its chauffeur, himself. not that winthrop greatly cared for reform, or ernest peabody. the "whirlwind" part of the campaign was what attracted him; the crowds, the bands, the fireworks, the rush by night from hall to hall, from fordham to tompkinsville. and, while inside the different lyceums, peabody lashed the tammany tiger, outside in his car, winthrop was making friends with tammany policemen, and his natural enemies, the bicycle cops. to winthrop, the day in which he did not increase his acquaintance with the traffic squad, was a day lost. but the real reason for his efforts in the cause of reform, was one he could not declare. and it was a reason that was guessed perhaps by only one person. on some nights beatrice forbes and her brother sam accompanied peabody. and while peabody sat in the rear of the car, mumbling the speech he would next deliver, winthrop was given the chance to talk with her. these chances were growing cruelly few. in one month after election day miss forbes and peabody would be man and wife. once before the day of their marriage had been fixed, but, when the reform party offered peabody a high place on its ticket, he asked, in order that he might bear his part in the cause of reform, that the wedding be postponed. to the postponement miss forbes made no objection. to one less self-centred than peabody, it might have appeared that she almost too readily consented. "i knew i could count upon your seeing my duty as i saw it," said peabody much pleased, "it always will be a satisfaction to both of us to remember you never stood between me and my work for reform." "what do you think my brother-in-law-to-be has done now?" demanded sam of winthrop, as the scarlet car swept into jerome avenue. "he's postponed his marriage with trix just because he has a chance to be lieutenant-governor. what is a lieutenant-governor anyway, do you know? i don't like to ask peabody." "it is not his own election he's working for," said winthrop. he was conscious of an effort to assume a point of view both noble and magnanimous. "he probably feels the 'cause' calls him. but, good heavens!" "look out!" shrieked sam, "where you going?" winthrop swung the car back into the avenue. "to think," he cried, "that a man who could marry--a girl, and then would ask her to wait two months. or, two days! two months lost out of his life, and she might die; he might lose her, she might change her mind. any number of men can be lieutenant-governors; only one man can be----" he broke off suddenly, coughed and fixed his eyes miserably on the road. after a brief pause, brother sam covertly looked at him. could it be that "billie" winthrop, the man liked of all men, should love his sister, and--that she should prefer ernest peabody? he was deeply, loyally indignant. he determined to demand of his sister an immediate and abject apology. at eight o'clock on the morning of election day, peabody, in the scarlet car, was on his way to vote. he lived at riverside drive, and the polling-booth was only a few blocks distant. during the rest of the day he intended to use the car to visit other election districts, and to keep him in touch with the reformers at the gilsey house. winthrop was acting as his chauffeur, and in the rear seat was miss forbes. peabody had asked her to accompany him to the polling-booth, because he thought women who believed in reform should show their interest in it in public, before all men. miss forbes disagreed with him, chiefly because whenever she sat in a box at any of the public meetings the artists from the newspapers, instead of immortalizing the candidate, made pictures of her and her hat. after she had seen her future lord and master cast his vote for reform and himself, she was to depart by train to tarrytown. the forbes's country place was there, and for election day her brother sam had invited out some of his friends to play tennis. as the car darted and dodged up eighth avenue, a man who had been hidden by the stairs to the elevated, stepped in front of it. it caught him, and hurled him, like a mail-bag tossed from a train, against one of the pillars that support the overhead tracks. winthrop gave a cry and fell upon the brakes. the cry was as full of pain as though he himself had been mangled. miss forbes saw only the man appear, and then disappear, but, winthrop's shout of warning, and the wrench as the brakes locked, told her what had happened. she shut her eyes, and for an instant covered them with her hands. on the front seat peabody clutched helplessly at the cushions. in horror his eyes were fastened on the motionless mass jammed against the pillar. winthrop scrambled over him, and ran to where the man lay. so, apparently, did every other inhabitant of eighth avenue; but winthrop was the first to reach him and kneeling in the car tracks, he tried to place the head and shoulders of the body against the iron pillar. he had seen very few dead men; and to him, this weight in his arms, this bundle of limp flesh and muddy clothes, and the purple-bloated face with blood trickling down it, looked like a dead man. once or twice when in his car, death had reached for winthrop, and only by the scantiest grace had he escaped. then the nearness of it had only sobered him. now that he believed he had brought it to a fellow man, even though he knew he was in no degree to blame, the thought sickened and shocked him. his brain trembled with remorse and horror. but voices assailing him on every side brought him to the necessity of the moment. men were pressing close upon him, jostling, abusing him, shaking fists in his face. another crowd of men, as though fearing the car would escape of its own volition, were clinging to the steps and running boards. winthrop saw miss forbes standing above them, talking eagerly to peabody, and pointing at him. he heard children's shrill voices calling to new arrivals that an automobile had killed a man; that it had killed him on purpose. on the outer edge of the crowd men shouted: "ah, soak him," "kill him," "lynch him." a soiled giant without a collar stooped over the purple, blood-stained face, and then leaped upright, and shouted: "it's jerry gaylor, he's killed old man gaylor." the response was instant. every one seemed to know jerry gaylor. winthrop took the soiled person by the arm. "you help me lift him into my car," he ordered. "take him by the shoulders. we must get him to a hospital." "to a hospital? to the morgue!" roared the man. "and the police station for yours. you don't do no get-away." winthrop answered him by turning to the crowd. "if this man has any friends here, they'll please help me put him in my car, and we'll take him to roosevelt hospital." the soiled person shoved a fist and a bad cigar under winthrop's nose. "has he got any friends?" he mocked. "sure, he's got friends, and they'll fix you, all right." "sure!" echoed the crowd. the man was encouraged. "don't you go away thinking you can come up here with your buzz wagon and murder better men nor you'll ever be and----" "oh, shut up!" said winthrop. he turned his back on the soiled man, and again appealed to the crowd. "don't stand there doing nothing," he commanded. "do you want this man to die? some of you ring for an ambulance and get a policeman, or tell me where is the nearest drug store." no one moved, but every one shouted to every one else to do as winthrop suggested. winthrop felt something pulling at his sleeve, and turning, found peabody at his shoulder peering fearfully at the figure in the street. he had drawn his cap over his eyes and hidden the lower part of his face in the high collar of his motor coat. "i can't do anything, can i?" he asked. "i'm afraid not," whispered winthrop. "go back to the car and don't leave beatrice. i'll attend to this." "that's what i thought," whispered peabody eagerly. "i thought she and i had better keep out of it." "right!" exclaimed winthrop. "go back and get beatrice away." peabody looked his relief, but still hesitated. "i can't do anything, as you say," he stammered, "and it's sure to get in the 'extras,' and they'll be out in time to lose us thousands of votes, and though no one is to blame, they're sure to blame me. i don't care about myself," he added eagerly, "but the very morning of election--half the city has not voted yet--the ticket----" "damn the ticket!" exclaimed winthrop. "the man's dead!" peabody, burying his face still deeper in his collar, backed into the crowd. in the present and past campaigns, from carts and automobiles he had made many speeches in harlem, and on the west side, lithographs of his stern, resolute features hung in every delicatessen shop, and that he might be recognized, was extremely likely. he whispered to miss forbes what he had said, and what winthrop had said. "but you don't mean to leave him," remarked miss forbes. "i must," returned peabody. "i can do nothing for the man, and you know how tammany will use this--they'll have it on the street by ten. they'll say i was driving recklessly; without regard for human life. and, besides, they're waiting for me at headquarters. please hurry. i am late now." miss forbes gave an exclamation of surprise. "why, i'm not going," she said. "you must go! _i_ must go. you can't remain here alone." peabody spoke in the quick, assured tone that at the first had convinced miss forbes his was a most masterful manner. "winthrop, too," he added, "wants you to go away." miss forbes made no reply. but she looked at peabody inquiringly, steadily, as though she were puzzled as to his identity, as though he had just been introduced to her. it made him uncomfortable. "are you coming?" he asked. her answer was a question. "are you going?" "i am!" returned peabody. he added sharply: "i must." "good-by," said miss forbes. as he ran up the steps to the station of the elevated, it seemed to peabody that the tone of her "good-by" had been most unpleasant. it was severe, disapproving. it had a final, fateful sound. he was conscious of a feeling of self-dissatisfaction. in not seeing the political importance of his not being mixed up with this accident, winthrop had been peculiarly obtuse, and beatrice, unsympathetic. until he had cast his vote for reform, he felt distinctly ill-used. for a moment beatrice forbes sat in the car motionless, staring unseeingly at the iron steps by which peabody had disappeared. for a few moments her brows were tightly drawn. then, having apparently quickly arrived at some conclusion, she opened the door of the car and pushed into the crowd. winthrop received her most rudely. "you mustn't come here!" he cried. "i thought," she stammered, "you might want some one?" "i told--" began winthrop, and then stopped, and added--"to take you away. where is he?" miss forbes flushed slightly. "he's gone," she said. in trying not to look at winthrop, she saw the fallen figure, motionless against the pillar, and with an exclamation, bent fearfully toward it. "can i do anything?" she asked. the crowd gave way for her, and with curious pleased faces, closed in again eagerly. she afforded them a new interest. a young man in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was kneeling beside the mud-stained figure, and a police officer was standing over both. the ambulance surgeon touched lightly the matted hair from which the blood escaped, stuck his finger in the eye of the prostrate man, and then with his open hand slapped him across the face. "oh!" gasped miss forbes. the young doctor heard her, and looking up, scowled reprovingly. seeing she was a rarely beautiful young woman, he scowled less severely; and then deliberately and expertly, again slapped mr. jerry gaylor on the cheek. he watched the white mark made by his hand upon the purple skin, until the blood struggled slowly back to it, and then rose. he ignored every one but the police officer. "there's nothing the matter with him," he said. "he's dead drunk." the words came to winthrop with such abrupt relief, bearing so tremendous a burden of gratitude, that his heart seemed to fail him. in his suddenly regained happiness, he unconsciously laughed. "are you sure?" he asked eagerly. "i thought i'd killed him." the surgeon looked at winthrop coldly. "when they're like that," he explained with authority, "you can't hurt 'em if you throw them off the times building." he condescended to recognize the crowd. "you know where this man lives?" voices answered that mr. gaylor lived at the corner, over the saloon. the voices showed a lack of sympathy. old man gaylor dead was a novelty; old man gaylor drunk was not. the doctor's prescription was simple and direct. "put him to bed till he sleeps it off," he ordered; he swung himself to the step of the ambulance. "let him out, steve," he called. there was the clang of a gong and the rattle of galloping hoofs. the police officer approached winthrop. "they tell me jerry stepped in front of your car; that you wasn't to blame. i'll get their names and where they live. jerry might try to hold you up for damages." "thank you very much," said winthrop. with several of jerry's friends, and the soiled person, who now seemed dissatisfied that jerry was alive, winthrop helped to carry him up one flight of stairs and drop him upon a bed. "in case he needs anything," said winthrop, and gave several bills to the soiled person, upon whom immediately gaylor's other friends closed in. "and i'll send my own doctor at once to attend to him." "you'd better," said the soiled person morosely, "or, he'll try to shake you down." the opinions as to what might be mr. gaylor's next move seemed unanimous. from the saloon below, winthrop telephoned to the family doctor, and then rejoined miss forbes and the police officer. the officer gave him the names of those citizens who had witnessed the accident, and in return received winthrop's card. "not that it will go any further," said the officer reassuringly. "they're all saying you acted all right and wanted to take him to roosevelt. there's many," he added with sententious indignation, "that knock a man down, and then run away without waiting to find out if they've hurted 'em or killed 'em." the speech for both winthrop and miss forbes was equally embarrassing. "you don't say?" exclaimed winthrop nervously. he shook the policeman's hand. the handclasp was apparently satisfactory to that official, for he murmured "thank you," and stuck something in the lining of his helmet. "now, then!" winthrop said briskly to miss forbes, "i think we have done all we can. and we'll get away from this place a little faster than the law allows." miss forbes had seated herself in the car, and winthrop was cranking up, when the same policeman, wearing an anxious countenance, touched him on the arm. "there is a gentleman here," he said, "wants to speak to you." he placed himself between the gentleman and winthrop and whispered: "he's 'izzy' schwab, he's a harlem police-court lawyer and a tammany man. he's after something, look out for him." winthrop saw, smiling at him ingratiatingly, a slight, slim youth, with beady, rat-like eyes, a low forehead, and a hebraic nose. he wondered how it had been possible for jerry gaylor to so quickly secure counsel. but mr. schwab at once undeceived him. "i'm from the journal," he began, "not regular on the staff, but i send 'em harlem items, and the court reporter treats me nice, see! now about this accident; could you give me the name of the young lady?" he smiled encouragingly at miss forbes. "i could not!" growled winthrop. "the man wasn't hurt, the policeman will tell you so. it is not of the least public interest." with a deprecatory shrug, the young man smiled knowingly. "well, mebbe not the lady's name," he granted, "but the name of the other gentleman who was with you, when the accident occurred." his black, rat-like eyes snapped. "i think his name would be of public interest." to gain time winthrop stepped into the driver's seat. he looked at mr. schwab steadily. "there was no other gentleman," he said. "do you mean my chauffeur?" mr. schwab gave an appreciative chuckle. "no, i don't mean your chauffeur," he mimicked. "i mean," he declared theatrically in his best police-court manner, "the man who to-day is hoping to beat tammany, ernest peabody!" winthrop stared at the youth insolently. "i don't understand you," he said. "oh, of course not!" jeered "izzy" schwab. he moved excitedly from foot to foot. "then who was the other man," he demanded, "the man who ran away?" winthrop felt the blood rise to his face. that miss forbes should hear this rat of a man, sneering at the one she was to marry, made him hate peabody. but he answered easily: "no one ran away. i told my chauffeur to go and call up an ambulance. that was the man you saw." as when "leading on" a witness to commit himself, mr. schwab smiled sympathetically. "and he hasn't got back yet," he purred, "has he?" "no, and i'm not going to wait for him," returned winthrop. he reached for the clutch, but mr. schwab jumped directly in front of the car. "was he looking for a telephone when he ran up the elevated steps?" he cried. he shook his fists vehemently. "oh, no, mr. winthrop, it won't do--you make a good witness. i wouldn't ask for no better, but, you don't fool 'izzy' schwab." "you're mistaken, i tell you," cried winthrop desperately. "he may look like--like this man you speak of, but no peabody was in this car." "izzy" schwab wrung his hands hysterically. "no, he wasn't!" he cried, "because he run away! and left an old man in the street--dead, for all he knowed--nor cared neither. yah!" shrieked the tammany heeler. "him a reformer, yah!" "stand away from my car," shouted winthrop, "or you'll get hurt." "yah, you'd like to, wouldn't you?" returned mr. schwab, leaping, nimbly to one side. "what do you think the journal'll give me for that story, hey? 'ernest peabody, the reformer, kills an old man, and runs away.' and hiding his face, too! i seen him. what do you think that story's worth to tammany, hey? it's worth twenty thousand votes!" the young man danced in front of the car triumphantly, mockingly, in a frenzy of malice. "read the extras, that's all," he taunted. "read 'em in an hour from now!" winthrop glared at the shrieking figure with fierce, impotent rage; then, with a look of disgust, he flung the robe off his knees and rose. mr. schwab, fearing bodily injury, backed precipitately behind the policeman. "come here," commanded winthrop softly. mr. schwab warily approached. "that story," said winthrop, dropping his voice to a low whisper, "is worth a damn sight more to you than twenty thousand votes. you take a spin with me up riverside drive where we can talk. maybe you and i can 'make a little business.'" at the words, the face of mr. schwab first darkened angrily, and then, lit with such exultation that it appeared as though winthrop's efforts had only placed peabody deeper in mr. schwab's power. but the rat-like eyes wavered, there was doubt in them, and greed, and, when they turned to observe if any one could have heard the offer, winthrop felt the trick was his. it was apparent that mr. schwab was willing to arbitrate. he stepped gingerly into the front seat, and as winthrop leaned over him and tucked and buckled the fur robe around his knees, he could not resist a glance at his friends on the sidewalk. they were grinning with wonder and envy, and as the great car shook itself, and ran easily forward, mr. schwab leaned back and carelessly waved his hand. but his mind did not waver from the purpose of his ride. he was not one to be cajoled with fur rugs and glittering brass. "well, mr. winthrop," he began briskly. "you want to say something? you must be quick--every minute's money." "wait till we're out of the traffic," begged winthrop anxiously "i don't want to run down any more old men, and i wouldn't for the world have anything happen to you, mr.--" he paused politely. "schwab--isadore schwab." "how did you know my name?" asked winthrop. "the card you gave the police officer" "i see," said winthrop. they were silent while the car swept swiftly west, and mr. schwab kept thinking that for a young man who was afraid of the traffic, winthrop was dodging the motor cars, beer vans, and iron pillars, with a dexterity that was criminally reckless. at that hour riverside drive was empty, and after a gasp of relief, mr. schwab resumed the attack. "now, then," he said sharply, "don't go any further. what is this you want to talk about?" "how much will the journal give you for this story of yours?" asked winthrop. mr. schwab smiled mysteriously. "why?" he asked. "because," said winthrop, "i think i could offer you something better." "you mean," said the police-court lawyer cautiously, "you will make it worth my while not to tell the truth about what i saw?" "exactly," said winthrop. "that's all! stop the car," cried mr. schwab. his manner was commanding. it vibrated with triumph. his eyes glistened with wicked satisfaction. "stop the car?" demanded winthrop, "what do you mean?" "i mean," said mr. schwab dramatically, "that i've got you where i want you, thank you. you have killed peabody dead as a cigar butt! now i can tell them how his friends tried to bribe me. why do you think i came in your car? for what money you got? do you think you can stack up your roll against the new york journal's, or against tammany's?" his shrill voice rose exultantly. "why, tammany ought to make me judge for this! now, let me down here," he commanded, "and next time, don't think you can take on 'izzy' schwab and get away with it." they were passing grant's tomb, and the car was moving at a speed that mr. schwab recognized was in excess of the speed limit. "do you hear me?" he demanded, "let me down!" to his dismay winthrop's answer was in some fashion to so juggle with the shining brass rods that the car flew into greater speed. to "izzy" schwab it seemed to scorn the earth, to proceed by leaps and jumps. but, what added even more to his mental discomfiture was, that winthrop should turn, and slowly and familiarly wink at him. as through the window of an express train, mr. schwab saw the white front of claremont, and beyond it the broad sweep of the hudson. and, then, without decreasing its speed, the car like a great bird, swept down a hill, shot under a bridge, and into a partly paved street. mr. schwab already was two miles from his own bailiwick. his surroundings were unfamiliar. on the one hand were newly erected, untenanted flat houses with the paint still on the window panes, and on the other side, detached villas, a roadhouse, an orphan asylum, a glimpse of the hudson. "let me out," yelled mr. schwab, "what you trying to do? do you think a few blocks'll make any difference to a telephone? you think you're damned smart, don't you? but you won't feel so fresh when i get on the long distance. you let me down," he threatened, "or, i'll----" with a sickening skidding of wheels, winthrop whirled the car round a corner and into the lafayette boulevard, that for miles runs along the cliff of the hudson. "yes," asked winthrop, "what will you do?" on one side was a high steep bank, on the other many trees, and through them below, the river. but there were no houses, and at half-past eight in the morning those who later drive upon the boulevard were still in bed. "what will you do?" repeated winthrop. miss forbes, apparently as much interested in mr. schwab's answer as winthrop, leaned forward. winthrop raised his voice above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing wind and scattering pebbles. "i asked you into this car," he shouted, "because i meant to keep you in it until i had you where you couldn't do any mischief. i told you i'd give you something better than the journal would give you, and i am going to give you a happy day in the country. we're now on our way to this lady's house. you are my guest, and you can play golf, and bridge, and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and after that you can go to the devil. if you jump out at this speed, you will break your neck. and, if i have to slow up for anything, and you try to get away, i'll go after you--it doesn't matter where it is--and break every bone in your body." "yah! you can't!" shrieked mr. schwab. "you can't do it!" the madness of the flying engines had got upon his nerves. their poison was surging in his veins. he knew he had only to touch his elbow against the elbow of winthrop, and he could throw the three of them into eternity. he was travelling on air, uplifted, defiant, carried beyond himself. "i can't do what?" asked winthrop. the words reached schwab from an immeasurable distance, as from another planet, a calm, humdrum planet on which events moved in commonplace, orderly array. without a jar, with no transition stage, instead of hurtling through space, mr. schwab found himself luxuriously seated in a cushioned chair, motionless, at the side of a steep bank. for a mile before him stretched an empty road. and, beside him in the car, with arms folded calmly on the wheel there glared at him a grim, alert young man. "i can't do what?" growled the young man. a feeling of great loneliness fell upon "izzy" schwab. where were now those officers, who in the police courts were at his beck and call? where the numbered houses, the passing surface cars, the sweating multitudes of eighth avenue? in all the world he was alone, alone on an empty country road, with a grim, alert young man. "when i asked you how you knew my name," said the young man, "i thought you knew me as having won some races in florida last winter. this is the car that won. i thought maybe you might have heard of me when i was captain of a football team at--a university. if you have any idea that you can jump from this car and not be killed, or, that i cannot pound you into a pulp, let me prove to you you're wrong--now. we're quite alone. do you wish to get down?" "no," shrieked schwab, "i won't!" he turned appealingly to the young lady. "you're a witness," he cried. "if he assaults me, he's liable. i haven't done nothing." "we're near yonkers," said the young man, "and if you try to take advantage of my having to go slow through the town, you know now what will happen to you." mr. schwab having instantly planned on reaching yonkers, to leap from the car into the arms of the village constable, with suspicious alacrity, assented. the young man regarded him doubtfully. "i'm afraid i'll have to show you," said the young man. he laid two fingers on mr. schwab's wrist; looking at him, as he did so, steadily and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a pulse. mr. schwab screamed. when he had seen policemen twist steel nippers on the wrists of prisoners, he had thought, when the prisoners shrieked and writhed, they were acting. he now knew they were not. "now, will you promise?" demanded the grim young man. "yes," gasped mr. schwab. "i'll sit still. i won't do nothing." "good," muttered winthrop. a troubled voice that carried to the heart of schwab a promise of protection, said: "mr. schwab, would you be more comfortable back here with me?" mr. schwab turned two terrified eyes in the direction of the voice. he saw the beautiful young lady regarding him kindly, compassionately; with just a suspicion of a smile. mr. schwab instantly scrambled to safety over the front seat into the body of the car. miss forbes made way for the prisoner beside her and he sank back with a nervous, apologetic sigh. the alert young man was quick to follow the lead of the lady. "you'll find caps and goggles in the boot, schwab," he said hospitably. "you had better put them on. we are going rather fast now." he extended a magnificent case of pigskin, that bloomed with fat black cigars. "try one of these," said the hospitable young man. the emotions that swept mr. schwab he found difficult to pursue, but he raised his hat to the lady. "may i, miss?" he said. "certainly," said the lady. there was a moment of delay while with fingers that slightly trembled, mr. schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his cigar; and then the car swept forward, singing and humming happily, and scattering the autumn leaves. the young lady leaned toward him with a book in a leather cover. she placed her finger on a twisting red line that trickled through a page of type. "we're just here," said the young lady, "and we ought to reach home, which is just about there, in an hour." "i see," said schwab. but all he saw was a finger in a white glove, and long eyelashes tangled in a gray veil. for many minutes, or for all schwab knew, for many miles, the young lady pointed out to him the places along the hudson, of which he had read in the public school history, and quaint old manor houses set in glorious lawns; and told him who lived in them. schwab knew the names as belonging to down-town streets, and up-town clubs. he became nervously humble, intensely polite, he felt he was being carried as an honored guest into the very heart of the four hundred, and when the car jogged slowly down the main street of yonkers, although a policeman stood idly within a yard of him, instead of shrieking to him for help, "izzy" schwab looked at him scornfully across the social gulf that separated them, with all the intolerance he believed becoming in the upper classes. "those bicycle cops," he said confidentially to miss forbes, "are too chesty." the car turned in between stone pillars, and under an arch of red and golden leaves, and swept up a long avenue to a house of innumerable roofs. it was the grandest house mr. schwab had ever entered, and when two young men in striped waistcoats and many brass buttons ran down the stone steps and threw open the door of the car, his heart fluttered between fear and pleasure. lounging before an open fire in the hall were a number of young men, who welcomed winthrop delightedly and, to all of whom mr. schwab was formally presented. as he was introduced he held each by the hand and elbow and said impressively, and much to the other's embarrassment, "what name, please?" then one of the servants conducted him to a room opening on the hall, from whence he heard stifled exclamations and laughter, and some one saying "hush." but "izzy" schwab did not care. the slave in brass buttons was proffering him ivory-backed hair-brushes, and obsequiously removing the dust from his coat collar. mr. schwab explained to him that he was not dressed for automobiling, as mr. winthrop had invited him quite informally. the man was most charmingly sympathetic. and when he returned to the hall every one received him with the most genial, friendly interest. would he play golf, or tennis, or pool, or walk over the farm, or just look on? it seemed the wish of each to be his escort. never had he been so popular. he said he would "just look on." and so, during the last and decisive day of the "whirlwind" campaign, while in eighth avenue voters were being challenged, beaten, and bribed, bonfires were burning, and "extras" were appearing every half hour, "izzy" schwab, the tammany henchman, with a secret worth twenty thousand votes, sat a prisoner, in a wicker chair, with a drink and a cigar, guarded by four young men in flannels, who played tennis violently at five dollars a corner. it was always a great day in the life of "izzy" schwab. after a luncheon, which, as he later informed his friends, could not have cost less than "two dollars a plate and drink all you like," sam forbes took him on at pool. mr. schwab had learned the game in the cellars of eighth avenue at two and a half cents a cue, and now, even in columbus circle he was a star. so, before the sun had set, mr. forbes, who at pool rather fancied himself, was seventy-five dollars poorer, and mr. schwab just that much to the good. then there followed a strange ceremony called tea, or, if you preferred it, whiskey and soda; and the tall footman bent before him with huge silver salvers laden down with flickering silver lamps, and bubbling soda bottles, and cigars, and cigarettes. "you could have filled your pockets with twenty-five cent havanas, and nobody would have said nothing!" declared mr. schwab, and his friends who never had enjoyed his chance to study at such close quarters the truly rich, nodded enviously. at six o'clock mr. schwab led winthrop into the big library and asked for his ticket of leave. "they'll be counting the votes soon," he begged. "i can't do no harm now, and i don't mean to. i didn't see nothing, and i won't say nothing. but it's election night, and--and i just got to be on broadway." "right," said winthrop, "i'll have a car take you in, and if you will accept this small check----" "no!" roared "izzy" schwab. afterward he wondered how he came to do it. "you've give me a good time, mr. winthrop. you've treated me fine, all the gentlemen have treated me nice. i'm not a blackmailer, mr. winthrop." mr. schwab's voice shook slightly. "nonsense, schwab, you didn't let me finish," said winthrop, "i'm likely to need a lawyer any time; this is a retaining fee. suppose i exceed the speed limit--i'm liable to do that----" "you bet you are!" exclaimed mr. schwab violently. "well, then, i'll send for you, and there isn't a police magistrate, nor any of the traffic squad, you can't handle, is there?" mr. schwab flushed with pleasure. "you can count on me," he vowed, "and your friends too, and the ladies," he added gallantly. "if ever the ladies want to get bail, tell 'em to telephone for 'izzy' schwab. of course," he said reluctantly, "if it's a retaining fee----" but when he read the face of the check he exclaimed in protest. "but, mr. winthrop, this is more than the journal would have give me!" they put him in a car belonging to one of the other men, and all came out on the steps to wave him "good-by," and he drove magnificently into his own district, where there were over a dozen men who swore he tipped the french chauffeur a five dollar bill "just like it was a cigarette." all of election day since her arrival in winthrop's car, miss forbes had kept to herself. in the morning, when the other young people were out of doors, she remained in her room, and after luncheon when they gathered round the billiard table, she sent for her cart and drove off alone. the others thought she was concerned over the possible result of the election, and did not want to disturb them by her anxiety. winthrop, thinking the presence of schwab embarrassed her, recalling as it did peabody's unfortunate conduct of the morning, blamed himself for bringing schwab to the house. but he need not have distressed himself. miss forbes was thinking neither of schwab nor peabody, nor was she worried or embarrassed. on the contrary, she was completely happy. when that morning she had seen peabody running up the steps of the elevated, all the doubts, the troubles, questions, and misgivings that night and day for the last three months had upset her, fell from her shoulders like the pilgrim's heavy pack. for months she had been telling herself that the unrest she felt when with peabody was due to her not being able to appreciate the importance of those big affairs in which he was so interested; in which he was so admirable a figure. she had, as she supposed, loved him, because he was earnest, masterful, intent of purpose. his had seemed a fine character. when she had compared him with the amusing boys of her own age, the easy-going joking youths to whom the betterment of new york was of no concern, she had been proud in her choice. she was glad peabody was ambitious. she was ambitious for him. she was glad to have him consult her on those questions of local government, to listen to his fierce, contemptuous abuse of tammany. and yet early in their engagement she had missed something, something she had never known, but which she felt sure should exist. whether she had seen it in the lives of others, or read of it in romances, or whether it was there because it was nature to desire to be loved, she did not know. but long before winthrop returned from his trip round the world, in her meetings with the man she was to marry, she had begun to find that there was something lacking. and winthrop had shown her that this something lacking was the one thing needful. when winthrop had gone abroad he was only one of her brother's several charming friends. one of the amusing merry youths who came and went in the house as freely as sam himself. now, after two years' absence, he refused to be placed in that category. he rebelled on the first night of his return. as she came down to the dinner of welcome her brother was giving winthrop, he stared at her as though she were a ghost, and said, so solemnly that every one in the room, even peabody, smiled: "now i know why i came home." that he refused to recognize her engagement to peabody, that on every occasion he told her, or by some act showed her, he loved her; that he swore she should never marry any one but himself, and that he would never marry any one but her, did not at first, except to annoy, in any way impress her. but he showed her what in her intercourse with peabody was lacking. at first she wished peabody could find time to be as fond of her, as foolishly fond of her, as was winthrop. but she realized that this was unreasonable. winthrop was just a hot-headed impressionable boy, peabody was a man doing a man's work. and then she found that week after week she became more difficult to please. other things in which she wished peabody might be more like winthrop, obtruded themselves. little things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and not talking of himself. since this campaign began, at times she had felt that if peabody said "i" once again, she must scream. she assured herself she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence was weak, that as she grew older and so better able to understand serious affairs, such as the importance of having an honest man at albany as lieutenant-governor, they would become more in sympathy. and now, at a stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from her. it was not that she saw peabody so differently, but that she saw herself and her own heart, and where it lay. and she knew that "billy" winthrop, gentle, joking, selfish only in his love for her, held it in his two strong hands. for the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by peabody this truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the street, the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. she was conscious only that a great weight had been lifted. that her blood was flowing again, leaping, beating, dancing through her body. it seemed as though she could not too quickly tell winthrop. for both of them she had lost out of their lives many days. she had risked losing him for always. her only thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time. but throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and the innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the one great fact. it was after dinner, and the members of the house party were scattered between the billiard-room and the piano. sam forbes returned from the telephone. "tammany," he announced, "concedes the election of jerome by forty thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him. ernest peabody is elected his lieutenant-governor by a thousand votes. ernest," he added, "seems to have had a close call." there was a tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of reform. they drank the health of peabody. peabody himself, on the telephone, informed sam forbes that a conference of the leaders would prevent his being present with them that evening. the enthusiasm for reform perceptibly increased. an hour later winthrop came over to beatrice and held out his hand. "i'm going to slip away," he said. "good-night." "going away!" exclaimed beatrice. her voice showed such apparently acute concern that winthrop wondered how the best of women could be so deceitful, even to be polite. "i promised some men," he stammered, "to drive them down-town to see the crowds." beatrice shook her head. "it's far too late for that," she said. "tell me the real reason." winthrop turned away his eyes. "oh! the real reason," he said gravely, "is the same old reason, the one i'm not allowed to talk about. it's cruelly hard when i don't see you," he went on, slowly dragging out the words, "but it's harder when i do; so i'm going to say 'good-night' and run into town." he stood for a moment staring moodily at the floor, and then dropped into a chair beside her. "and, i believe, i've not told you," he went on, "that on wednesday i'm running away for good, that is, for a year or two. i've made all the fight i can and i lose, and there is no use in my staying on here to--well--to suffer, that is the plain english of it. so," he continued briskly, "i won't be here for the ceremony, and this is 'good-by' as well as 'good-night.'" "where are you going for a year?" asked miss forbes. her voice now showed no concern. it even sounded as though she did not take his news seriously, as though as to his movements she was possessed of a knowledge superior to his own. he tried to speak in matter-of-fact tones. "to uganda!" he said. "to uganda?" repeated miss forbes. "where is uganda?" "it is in east africa; i had bad luck there last trip, but now i know the country better, and i ought to get some good shooting." miss forbes appeared indifferently incredulous. in her eyes there was a look of radiant happiness. it rendered them bewilderingly beautiful. "on wednesday," she said. "won't you come and see us again before you sail for uganda?" winthrop hesitated. "i'll stop in and say 'good-by' to your mother if she's in town, and to thank her. she's been awfully good to me. but you--i really would rather not see you again. you understand, or rather, you don't understand, and," he added vehemently, "you never will understand." he stood looking down at her miserably. on the driveway outside there was a crunching on the gravel of heavy wheels and an aurora-borealis of lights. "there's your car," said miss forbes. "i'll go out and see you off." "you're very good," muttered winthrop. he could not understand. this parting from her was the great moment in his life, and although she must know that, she seemed to be making it unnecessarily hard for him. he had told her he was going to a place very far away, to be gone a long time, and she spoke of saying "good-by" to him as pleasantly as though it was his intention to return from uganda for breakfast. instead of walking through the hall where the others were gathered, she led him out through one of the french windows upon the terrace, and along it to the steps. when she saw the chauffeur standing by the car, she stopped. "i thought you were going alone," she said. "i am," answered winthrop. "it's not fred; that's sam's chauffeur; he only brought the car around." the man handed winthrop his coat and cap, and left them, and winthrop seated himself at the wheel. she stood above him on the top step. in the evening gown of lace and silver she looked a part of the moonlight night. for each of them the moment had arrived. like a swimmer standing on the bank gathering courage for the plunge, miss forbes gave a trembling, shivering sigh. "you're cold," said winthrop, gently. "you must go in. good-by." "it isn't that," said the girl. "have you an extra coat?" "it isn't cold enough for----" "i meant for me," stammered the girl in a frightened voice. "i thought perhaps you would take me a little way, and bring me back." at first the young man did not answer, but sat staring in front of him, then, he said simply: "it's awfully good of you, beatrice. i won't forget it." it was a wonderful autumn night, moonlight, cold, clear and brilliant. she stepped in beside him and wrapped herself in one of his great-coats. they started swiftly down the avenue of trees. "no, not fast," begged the girl, "i want to talk to you." the car checked and rolled forward smoothly, sometimes in deep shadow, sometimes in the soft silver glamour of the moon; beneath them the fallen leaves crackled and rustled under the slow moving wheels. at the highway winthrop hesitated. it lay before them arched with great and ancient elms; below, the hudson glittered and rippled in the moonlight. "which way do you want to go?" said winthrop. his voice was very grateful, very humble. the girl did not answer. there was a long, long pause. then he turned and looked at her and saw her smiling at him with that light in her eyes that never was on land or sea. "to uganda," said the girl. little folks astray. by sophie may "to give room for wandering is it that the world was made so wide." 1872 to my young friend, emma adams. "johnnie optic." to parents. here come the parlins and cliffords again. they had been sent to bed and nicely tucked in, but would not stay asleep. they "wanted to see the company down stairs;" so they have dressed themselves, and come back to the parlor. i trust you will pardon them, dear friends. is it not a common thing, in this degenerate age, for grown people to frown and shake their heads, while little people do exactly as they please? well, one thing is certain: if these children insist upon sitting up, they shall listen to lectures on self-will and disrespect to superiors, which will make their ears tingle. moreover, they shall hear of other people, and not always of themselves. fly clifford, who expects to be in the middle, will be somewhat overwhelmed, like a fly in a cup of milk; for grandma read is to talk her down with her quaker speech, and aunt madge with her story of the summer when she was a child. it is but fair that the elders should have a voice. that they may speak words which shall come home to many little hearts, and move them for good, is the earnest wish of the author. contents. chapter i. the letter ii. the undertaking iii. the frolic iv. "taking our airs" v. dotty having her own way vi. dotty rebuked vii. the lost fly viii. "the freckled dog" ix. maria's mother x. five making a call xi. "the hen-houses" xii. "granny" xiii. the pumpkin hood little folks astray. chapter i. the letter. katie clifford sat on the floor, in the sun, feeding her white mice. she had a tea-spoon and a cup of bread and milk in her hands. if she had been their own mother she could not have smiled down on the little creatures more sweetly. "'cause i spect they's hungry, and that's why i'm goin' to give 'em sumpin' to eat. shut your moufs and open your eyes," said she, waving the tea-spoon, and spattering the bread and milk over their backs. "quee, quee," squeaked the little mice, very well pleased when a drop happened to go into their mouths. "what are you doing there, miss topknot," said horace: "o, i see; catching rats." flyaway frowned fearfully, and the tuft of hair atop of her head danced like a war-plume. "i shouldn't think folks would call 'em names, hollis, when they never did a thing to you. nothing but clean white mouses!" "let's see; now i look at 'em, topknot, they _are_ white. and what's all this paper?" "bed-kilts." "_in_-deed?" "you knew it by-fore!" "one, two, three; i thought the doctor gave you five. where are they gone?" "well, there hasn't but two died; the rest'll live," said fly, swinging one of them around by its tail, as if it had been a tame cherry. just then grace came and stood in the parlor doorway. "o, fie!" said she; "what work! ma doesn't allow that cage in the parlor. you just carry it out, fly clifford." miss thistledown flyaway looked up at her sister shyly, out of the corners of her eyes. grace was now a beautiful young lady of sixteen, and almost as tall as her mother. flyaway adored her, but there was a growing doubt in her mind whether sister grace had a right to use the tone of command. "'cause i spect she isn't my mamma." "why, fly, you haven't started yet!" "i didn't think 'twas best," responded the child, sulkily, fixing her eyes on the mice, who were dancing whirligigs round the wheel. "come here to your best friend, little topknot," said horace. "let's take that cage into the green-house, and ask papa to keep it there, because the mice look like water-lilies on long stems." flyaway brightened at once. she knew water-lilies were lovely. giving grace a triumphant glance, she danced across the room, and put the cage in horace's hands, with a smile of trusting love that thrilled his heart. "hollis laughs at my mouses, but he don't say, 'put 'em away,' and, '_put_ 'em away;' he says, 'little gee-urls wants to see things as much as anybody else,'" thought she, gratefully. "horace," said grace, with a curling lip, "that child is growing up just like you--fond of worms, and bugs, and all such disgusting things." horace smiled. no matter for the scorn in grace's tone; it pleased him to be compared in any way with his precious little flyaway. "topknot has a spark of sense," said he, leading her along to the green-house. "i'll bring her up not to scream at a spider." "now, young lady," said he, setting the cage on the shelf beside a camellia, and speaking in a low voice, though they were quite alone, "_can_ you keep a secret?" "course i can; what _is_ a _secrid_?" "why, it's something you musn't ever tell, topknot, not to anybody that lives." "then i won't, _cerdily_,--not to mamma, nor papa, nor gracie." "nor anybody else?" "no; course not. _whobody_ else could i? o, 'cept phibby. there, now, what's the name of it." "the name of it is--a secret, and the secret is this--sure you won't tell any single body, topknot?" "no; i said, _whobody_ could i tell? o, 'cept tinka! there now!" "well, the secret is this," said horace, laying his forefingers together, and speaking very slowly, in order to prolong the immense delight he felt in watching the little one's eager face. "you know you've got an aunt madge?" "yes; so've you, too." "and she lives in the city of new york." "does she? when'd she go?" "why, she has always lived there; ever since she was married." "o, yes; and uncle gustus was married, too; they was both married. is that all?" "and she thinks you and i are 'cute chicks, and wants us to go and see her." "well, course she does; i knew that before," said fly, turning away with indifference; "i did go with mamma." "o, but she means now, topknot; this very christmas. she said it in a letter." "does she truly?" said fly, beginning to look pleased. "but it can't be a _secrid_, though," added she, next moment, sadly, "'cause we can't go, hollis." "but i really think we shall go, topknot; that is, if you don't spoil the whole by telling." "o, i cerdily won't tell!" said fly, fluttering all over with a sense of importance, like a kitten with its first mouse. the breakfast bell rang; and, with many a word of warning, horace led his little sister into the dining-room. "papa," said she, the moment she was established in her high chair, "i know sumpin'." "o, topknot!" cried horace. "i know hollis has got his elbows on the table. there, now, _did_ i tell?" "hu--sh, topknot!" there was a quiet moment while mr. clifford said grace. "hollis," whispered katie immediately afterwards, "will i take my mouses?" "'sh, topknot!" "what's going on there between you and horace?" laughed grace. "a _secrid_," said fly, nipping her little lips together. "you won't get me to tell." "horace," exclaimed mrs. clifford, "you haven't--" "why, mother, i thought it was all settled, and wouldn't do any harm; and it pleases her so!" "well, my son, you've made a hard day's work for me," said mrs. clifford, smiling behind her coffee-cup, as eager little katie swayed back and forth in her high chair. "you won't get me to tell, gracie clifford. she don't want nobody but hollis and me; she thinks we're very 'cute." "who? o, aunt louise, probably." "no, aunt louise never! it's the auntie that lives to new york." "sh, topknot!" "well, i didn't tell, hollis clifford!" "so you didn't," said grace. "but wouldn't it be nice if somebody should ask you to go somewhere to spend christmas?" "well, _there is_!" "o, topknot," cried horace, in mock distress, "you said you could keep a secret." flyaway looked frightened. "what'd i do?" cried she; "i didn't tell nuffin 'bout the letter!" this last speech set everybody to laughing; and the little tell-tale looked around from one to another with a face full of innocent wonder. they couldn't be laughing at _her_! "i can keep secrids," said she, with dignity. "it was what i was a-doin'." "it is your brother horace who cannot be trusted to keep secrets," said mrs. clifford, taking a letter from her pocket. "hear, now, what your aunt madge has written: 'will you lend me your children for the holidays, maria? i want all three; at any rate, two.'" "that's me," cried flyaway, tipping over her white coffee; "'_tenny rate two_,' means me." "don't interrupt me, dear. 'brother edward has promised me prudy and dotty dimple. they may have a santa claus, or whatever they like. i shall devote myself to making them happy, and i am sure there are plenty of things in new york to amuse them. horace must come without fail; for the little girl-cousins always depend so much upon him.'" a smile rose to horace's mouth; but he rubbed it off with his napkin. it was his boast that he was above being flattered. "but why not have grace go, too, to keep them steady?" said mr. clifford, bluntly. horace applied himself to his buckwheat cakes in silence, and looked rather gloomy. "why, i suppose, henry, it would hardly be safe to send grace, on account of her cough." "i'm so sorry you asked dr. de bruler a word about it, mamma; but i suppose i must submit," said grace, with a face as cloudy as horace's. "horace, my son, do you really feel equal to the task of taking this tuft of feathers to new york?" "i don't know why not, father; i'm willing to try." "horace has good courage," said grace, shaking her auburn curls like so many exclamation points. "i never could! i never would! i'd as soon have the care of a flying squirrel!" "hollis never called me a _squirl_," said fly, demurely. "i've got two brothers, and one of 'em is an angel, and the other isn't; but hollis is _'most_ as good as the one up in the sky." "well, my son," remarked mr. clifford, after a pause, "if your mother gives her consent, i suppose i shall give mine; but it does not look clear to me yet. one thing is certain, horace; if you do undertake this journey, you must live on the watch: you must sleep with both eyes open. don't trust the child out of your sight--not for a moment. don't even let go her hand on the street." "i do believe horace will be as careful as either you or i, henry, or i certainly wouldn't trust him with our last little darling," said mrs. clifford. his mother's words dropped like balm upon horace's wounded spirit. he looked up, and felt himself a man again. chapter ii. the undertaking. when flyaway knew she was going to new york, it was about as easy to fit her dresses as to clothe a buzzing blue-bottle fly. with spinning head and dancing feet, she was set down, at last, in the cars. "here we are, all by ourselves, darling, starting off for gotham. wave your handkerchief to mamma. don't you see her kissing her hand? there, you needn't spring out of the window! and i declare, brown-brimmer, if you haven't thrown away your handkerchief! here, cry into mine!" "i didn't want to cry, hollis; i wanted to laugh," said the child, wiping her eyes with her doll's cloak. "when you ride in carriages, you don't get anywhere; but when you ride in the cars, you get there right off." "yes; that's so, my dear. you are in the right of it, as you always are. now i am going to turn the seat over, and sit where i can look at you--just so." "o, that's just as splendid, hollis! now there's only me and flipperty. there, i put her 'pellent cloak on wrong; but see, now, i've un-_wrong-side-outed_ it! don't she sit up like a lady?" her name was flipperty flop. she was a large jointed doll (not a doll with large joints,) had seen a great deal of the world, and didn't think much of it. she came of a high family, and had such blue blood in her veins, that the ground wasn't good enough for her to walk on. she wore a "'pellent cloak" and rubber boots, and had a shopping-bag on her arm full of "choclid" cakes. she was nearly as large as her mother, and all of two years older. a great deal had happened to her before her mother was born, and a great deal more since. sometimes it was dropsy, and she had to be tapped, when pints of sawdust would run out. sometimes it was consumption, and she wasted to such a skeleton that she had to be revived with cotton. she had lost her head more than once, but it never affected her brains: she was all the better with a young head now and then on her old shoulders. her present ailment appeared to be small-pox; she was badly pitted with pins and a penknife. "i declare i forgot to get a ticket for her," said horace. "what if the conductor shouldn't let her pass?" "o, hollis, but he must?" cried fly, springing to her feet; "_i_ shan't pass athout my flipperty! tell the 'ductor 'bout my white mouses died, and i can't go athout sumpin to carry." "pshaw! dotty dimple don't carry dolls. she don't like 'em: sensible girls never do." "well, _i_ like 'em," said flyaway, nothing daunted. "you knew it byfore; 'n if you didn't want flipperty, you'd ought to not come!" horace laughed, as he always did when his little sister tried her power over him. the conductor was an old acquaintance, and he told him how it stood with flipperty, how she was needed at new york, and all that; whereupon mr. van dusen gave fly a little green card, and told her to keep it to show to all the conductors on the road; for it was a free pass, and would take flipperty all over the united states. "yes, sir, if you please," said fly, with a blush and a smile, and put the "free pass" in miss flop's cloak pocket. after this, she never once failed to show it, whenever mr. van dusen, or any other conductor, came near, but always had to hunt for it, and once brought up a cookie instead, which fearful mistake mortified her to the depths of her soul. horace was sure all eyes were fixed on his charming little charge, and was proud of the honor of showing her off; but he paid for it dearly; it cost him more than his latin, with all the irregular verbs. there was no such thing as her being comfortable. she was full of care about him, herself, and the baggage. flipperty lost off a rubber boot, which bounced over into the next seat. horace had to ask a gentleman and his sick daughter to move, and, after all, it was in an old lady's lap. then fly's feet were cold, and horace took her to the stove; but that made her eyes too hot, and she danced back, to lie with her head on his breast and her feet against the window, till she suddenly whirled straight about, and planted her tiny boots under his chin. "o, topknot, topknot, i pity that woman with the baby, if she feels as lame all over as i do!" "where's the baby, hollis? o, i see." "what's the matter, now? why upon earth can't you sit still, child?" said horace, next minute, catching her as she was darting into the aisle, dragging miss flop by the hair of the head. "o, hollis, don't you see there's a dolly over there, with two girls and a lady with red clo'es on? 'haps they'd be willing for her to get 'quainted with flipperty?" "well, topknot, 'haps they would, but 'haps i wouldn't. i can't have you dancing all over the car, in this style." flyaways's lip quivered, and a tear started. horace was moved. one of fly's tears weighed a pound with him, even when it only wet her eyelashes, and wasn't heavy enough to drop. "well, there, darling, you just sit still,--not still enough, though, to give you a pain (fly always said it gave her a pain to sit still),--and i'll bring the girls and dollie over here to you. will that do?" fly thought it would. a dreadful fit of bashfulness came over horace, when he stood face to face with the black-eyed lady and her daughters, and tried to speak. "i've got a little girl travelling with me, ma'am; she's so--so uneasy, that i don't know what to do with her. will you let me take--i mean, are you willing--" "bring her over here, and we will try to amuse her," said the black-eyed lady, pleasantly; but horace was sure he saw the oldest girl laughing at him. "it's no fun to go and make a fool of yourself," thought he, leading fly to the new acquaintances, and standing by as she settled herself shyly in the seat. "how do you do, little one? what is your name?--_flyaway_?--well, you look like it. we saw you were a darling, clear across the aisle. and you have a kind brother, i know." at these words fly, for want of some answer to make, sprang forward and kissed horace on the bridge of the nose. "there, you've knocked off my cap." in stooping to pick it up, he awkwardly hit his head against the older girl, who already looked so mischievous that he was rather afraid of her. "wish i could get out of the way. she expects me to speak, but i shan't. "'needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man travels his trouble begins.'" horace was obliged to stand, very ill at ease, till the black-eyed lady had found out where he lived, who his father was, and what was his mother's name before she was married. "tell your father, when you go home, you have seen mrs. bonnycastle, formerly ann jones, and give him my regards. i knew he married a lady from maine." "i know sumpin," struck in fly; "if ever _i_ marry anybody, i'll marry my own brother hollis. i mean if i don't be a ole maid!" "and what is 'a ole maid,' you little witch?" "i don' know; some folks is," was the wise reply. flyaway was about to add "gampa clifford," but did not feel well enough acquainted to talk of family matters. when the bonnycastles left, at cleveland, horace thought that was the last of them. miss gerty was "decent-looking, looked some like cassy hallock; but he couldn't bear to see folks giggle; hoped he never should set eyes on those people again." whether he ever did, you shall hear one of these days. "o, topknot," said he, "your hair looks like a mop. do you want all creation laughing at you? you'll mortify me to death." "you ought to water it. if you don't take better care o' your little sister, i won't never ride with you no more, hollis clifford!" "well, see that you don't, you little scarecrow," said the suffering boy, out of all patience. "if you are going to act in new york as you have on the road, i wish i was well out of this scrape." flyaway was really a sight to behold. how she managed to tear her dress off the waist, and loose five boot buttons, and last, but not least, the very hat she wore on her head, _would_ have been a mystery if you hadn't seen her run. when they reached the city, horace put the soft, flying locks in as good order as he could, and tied them up in his handkerchief. "i wisht i hadn't come," whined fly; "i don't want to wear a hangerfiss; 'tisn't speckerble!" "hush right up! i'm not going to have you get cold!--my sorrows! shan't i be thankful when i get where there's a woman to take care of her?" on the platform at the depot, aunt madge, prudy, and dotty dimple, were waiting for them. a hearty laugh went the rounds, which fly thought was decidedly silly. aunt madge took the young travellers right into her arms, and hugged them in her own cordial style, as if her heart had been hungry for them for many a day. "we're so glad!--for it did seem as if you'd never come," exclaimed dotty dimple. "and i'd like to know," said horace, "how you happened to get here first." "o, we came by express--came yesterday." "by 'spress?" cried flyaway, pulling away from aunt madge, who was trying to pin her frock together; "_we_ came by a 'ductor.--why, where's flipperty's ticket?" horace seized prudy with one hand, and dotty dimple with the other, turning them round and round. "i don't see anything of the express mark, 'handle with care.' what has become of it?" "o, we were done up in brown paper," said prudy, laughing, "and the express mark was on that; but aunt madge took it off as soon as she got the packages home." "why, what a story, prudy parlin! we didn't have a speck of brown paper round us. just cloaks and hats with feathers in!" dotty spoke with some irritation. she had all along been rather sensitive about being sent by express, and could not bear any allusion to the subject. "there, that's miss dimple herself. let me shake hands with your dimpleship! didn't come to new york to take a joke,--did you?" "no, her dimpleship came to new york to get warm," said peacemaker prudy; "and so did i, too. you don't know how cold it is in maine." by this time they were rattling over the stones in their aunt's elegant carriage. it was dusk; the lamps were lighted, the streets crowded with people, the shops blazing with gay colors. "i didn't come here to get warm, either," said dotty, determined to have the last word: "i was warm enough in portland. i s'pose we've got a furnace,--haven't we?--and a coal grate, too." "i do hope horace hasnt't got her started in a contrary fit," thought prudy; "i brought her all the way from home without her saying a cross word." but aunt madge had a witch's broom, to sweep cobwebs out of the sky. putting her arm around dotty, she said,-"you all came to bring sunshine into my house; bless your happy hearts." that cleared dotty's sky, and she put up her lips for a kiss; while flyaway, with her "hangerfiss" on, danced about the carriage like a fly in a bottle, kissing everybody, and horace twice over. "'cause i spect we've got there. but, hollis," said she, with the comical shade of care which so often flitted across her little face, "you never put the trunk in here. now that 'ductor has gone and carried off my nightie." chapter iii. the frolic. if aunt madge had dressed in linsey woolsey, with a checked apron on, she would still have been lovely. a white rose is lovely even in a cracked tea-cup. but colonel augustus allen was a rich man, and his wife could afford to dress elegantly. horace followed her to-night with admiring eyes. "they say she isn't as handsome as aunt louise, but i know better; you needn't tell me! her eyes have got the real good twinkle, and that's enough said." horace was like most boys; he mistook loveliness for beauty. mrs. allen's small figure, gentle gray eyes, and fair curls made her seem almost insignificant beside the splendid louise; but horace knew better; you needn't tell _him_! "horace," said aunt madge, "your uncle augustus is gone, and that is one reason, you know, why i begged for company during the holidays. you will be the only gentleman in the house, and we ladies herewith put ourselves under your protection. will you accept the charge?" "he needn't _pertect_ me," spoke up miss dimple, from the depths of an easy-chair; "i can pertect myself." "don't mind going to the museum alone, i suppose, and crossing ferries, and riding in the park, and being out after dark?" "no; i'm not afraid of things," replied the strong-minded young lady; "ask prudy if i am. and my father lets me go in the horse-cars all over portland. that's since i travelled out west." here the bell sounded, and the only gentleman of the house gave his arm to mrs. allen, to lead her out to what he supposed was supper, though he soon found it went by the name of dinner. neither he nor his young cousins were accustomed to seeing so much silver and so many servants; but they tried to appear as unconcerned as if it were an every-day affair. dotty afterwards said to prudy and horace, "i was 'stonished when that man came to the back of my chair with the butter; but i said, '_if_ you please, sir,' just as if i 'spected it. _he_ don't know but my father's rich." after dinner fly's eyes drew together, and prudy said,-"o, darling, you don't know what's going to happen. auntie said you might sleep with dotty and me to-night, right in the middle." "o, dear!" drawled flyaway; "when there's two abed, i sleep; but when there's three abed, i open out my eyes, and can't." "so you don't like to sleep with your cousins," said dotty, "your dear cousins, that came all the way from portland to see you." "yes, i do," said fly, quickly; "my eyes'll open out; but that's no matter, 'cause i don't want to go to sleep; i'd ravver not." they went up stairs, into a beautiful room, which aunt madge had arranged for them with two beds, to suit a whim of dotty's. "now isn't this just splendid?" said miss dimple; "the carpet so soft your boots go in like feathers; and then such pictures! look, fly! here are two little girls out in a snow-storm, with an umbrella over 'em. aren't you glad it isn't you? and here are some squirrels, just as natural as if they were eating grandpa's oilnuts. and see that pretty lady with the kid, or the dog. any way she is kissing him; and it was all she had left out of the whole family, and she wanted to kiss somebody." "yes," said aunt madge. "'her sole companion in a dearth of love upon a hopeless earth.' "if that makes you look so sober, children, i'm going to take it down. here, on this bracket, is the head of our blessed saviour." "o, i'm glad," said fly. "he'll be right there, a-looking on, when we say our prayers." "hear that creature talk!" whispered dotty. "and these things a-shinin' down over the bed: who's these?" said flyaway, dancing about the room, with "opened-out" eyes. "don't you know? that's christ blessing little children," said dotty, gently. "i always know him by the rainbow round his head." "aureole," corrected aunt madge. "but wasn't it just _like_ a rainbow--red, blue and green?" "o, no; our saviour did not really have any such crown of light, dotty. he looked just like other men, only purer and holier. artists have tried in vain to make his expression heavenly enough; so they paint him with an aureole." prudy said nothing; but as she looked at the picture, a happy feeling came over her. she remembered how christ "called little children like lambs to his fold," and it seemed as if he was very near to-night, and the room was full of peace. aunt madge had done well to place such paintings before her young guests; good pictures bring good thoughts. "all, everywhere, it's so spl-endid!" said fly; "what's that thing with a glass house over it!" "a clock." "what a funny clock! it looks like a little dog wagging its tail." "that's the _penderlum_," explained dotty; "it beats the time. every clock has a penderlum. generally hangs down before though, and this hangs behind. i declare, prudy, it does look like a dog wagging its tail." "hark! it strikes eight," said aunt madge. "time little girls were in bed, getting rested for a happy day to-morrow." "i don't spect that thing knows what time it is," said fly, gazing at the clock doubtfully, "and my eyes are all opened out; but if you want me to, auntie, i will!" so flyaway slipped off her clothes in a twinkling. "we're going to lie, all three, in this big bed, fly, just for one night," said dotty; "and after that we must take turns which shall sleep with you. there, child, you're all undressed, and i haven't got my boots off yet. you're quicker'n a chain o' lightning, and always was." "why, how did that kitty get in here?" said auntie, as a loud mewing was heard. "i certainly shut her out before we came up stairs." dotty ran round the room, with one boot on, and prudy in her stockings, helping their aunt in the search. the kitten was not under the bed, or in either of the closets, or inside the curtains. "look ahind the _pendlum_," said fly, laughing and skipping about in high glee; "look ahind the pendlum; look atween the pillow-case." still the mewing went on. "o, here is the kitty--i've found her," said auntie, suddenly seizing fly by the shoulders, and stopping her mocking-bird mouth. "poor pussy, she has turned white--white all over!" "you don't mean to say that was fly clifford?" cried prudy. "shut her up, auntie," said dotty dimple; "she's a kitty. i always knew her name was kitty." fly ran and courtesied before the mirror in her nightie. "o, kitty clifford, kitty clifford," she cried, "when'll you be a cat?" "pretty soon, if you can catch mice as well as you can mew," laughed auntie; "but look you, my dear; are you going to bed to-night? or shall i shut you down cellar?" "don't shut me down _cellow_, auntie," cried the mocking-bird, crowing like a chicken; "shut me in the barn with the banties." next moment it occurred to the child that this style of behavior was not very "speckerful;" so she hastily dropped on her knees before her auntie, and began to say her prayers. the change was so sudden, from the shrill crow of a chicken to the gentle voice of a little girl praying, that no one could keep a sober face. prudy ran into the closet, and dotty laughed into her handkerchief. "there, now, that's done," said flyaway, jumping up as suddenly as she had knelt down. "now i must pray flipperty." and before any one could think what the child meant to do, she had dragged out her dolly, and knelt it on the rug, face downward, over her own lap. "o, the wicked creature!" whispered dotty. but aunt madge said nothing. "pray," said the little one, in a tone of command. then, in a fine, squeaking voice, fly repeated a prayer. it was intended to be flipperty's voice, and flipperty was too young to talk plain. "there, that will do," said aunt madge, her large gray eyes trying not to twinkle; "did she ever say her prayers before?" "yes, um; she's a goody girl--when i 'member to pray her!" "well, dear, i wouldn't 'pray her' any more. it makes us laugh to see such a droll sight, and nobody wishes to laugh when you are talking to your father in heaven." "no'm," replied flyaway, winking her eyes solemnly. but when the "three abed" had been tucked in and kissed, fly called her auntie back to ask, "how can flipperty grow up a goody girl _athout_ she says her prayers?" there was such a mixture of play and earnestness in the child's eyes, that auntie had to turn away her face before she could answer seriously. "why, little girls can think and feel you know; but with dollies it is different. now, good night, pet; you won't have beautiful dreams, if you talk any more." chapter iv. "taking our airs." flyaway awoke singing, and sprang up in bed, saying,-"why, i thought i's a car, and that's why i whissiled." "but you are not a car," yawned prudy; "please don't sing again, or dance, either." "it's the _happerness_ in me, prudy; and that's what dances; it's the happerness." "that's the worst part of fly clifford," groaned dotty; "she won't keep still in the morning. might have known there wouldn't be any peace after she got here." dotty always came out of sleep by slow stages, and her affections were the last part of her to wake up. just now she did not love katie clifford one bit, nor her own mother either. "won't you light the lamp?" piped flyaway. "please don't, fly," said prudy; "don't talk!" "won't you light the la-amp?" "no, we will not," said dotty, firmly. "won't you light the la-amp?" "is this what we came to new york for?" moaned dotty; "to be waked up in the middle of the night by folks singing?" "won't you light the la-amp?" "i'll pack my dresses, and go right home! i'll--i'll have fly clifford sleep out o' this room. why, i--i--" "won't you light the la-amp?" prudy sprang out of bed, convulsed with laughter, and lighted the gas; whereupon fly began to dance "little zephyrs," on the pillow, and dotty to declare her eyes were put out. "little try-patiences, both of them," thought prudy; "but then they've always had their own way, and what can you expect? i'm so glad i wasn't born the youngest of the family; it does make children _so_ disagreeable!" as soon as dotty was fairly awake, her love for her friends came back again, and her good humor with it. she made fly bleat like a lamb and spin like a top, and applauded her loudly. "it's gl-orious to have you here, fly clifford. i wouldn't let you go in any other room to sleep for anything." which shows that the same thing looked very different to dotty after she got her eyes open. when the children went down to breakfast, they found bouquets of flowers by their plates. "i am delighted to see such happy faces." said aunt madge. "how would you all like to go out by and by, and take the air?" "we'd like it, auntie; and i'll tell you what would be prime," remarked horace, from his uncle's place at the head of the table; "and that is, to take fly to stewart's, and have her go up in an elevator." "why couldn't i go up, too?" asked dotty, with the slightest possible shade of discontent in her voice. she did not mean to be jealous, but she had noticed that flyaway always came first with horace, and if there was anything hard for dotty's patience, it was playing the part of number two. "we'll all go up," said aunt madge. "i've an idea of taking you over to brooklyn; and in that case we shan't come home before night." "carry our dinner in a basket?" suggested dotty. "o, no; we'll go into a restaurant, somewhere, and order whatever you like." "will you, auntie? well, there, i never went to such a place in my life, only once; and then percy eastman, he just cried 'fire!' and i broke the saucer all to pieces." "i've been to it a great many times," said fly, catching part of dotty's meaning; "my mamma bakes 'em in a freezer." at nine o'clock the party of five started out to see new york. aunt madge and horace walked first, with flyaway between them. "we are going out to take our _airs_," said the little one. "i don't think you need any more," said horace, looking fondly at his pretty sister. "you're so airy now, it's as much as we can do to keep your feet on the ground." flyaway wore a blue silk bonnet, with white lace around the face, a blue dress and cloak, and pretty furs with a squirrel's head on the muff. she had never been dressed so well before, and she knew it. she remembered hearing "phibby" say to "tinka," "don't that child look like an angel?" fly was sure she did, for big folks like tinka must know. but here her thoughts grew misty. all the angels she had ever heard of were brother harry and "the charlie boy." how could she look like them? "does god dress 'em in a cloak and bonnet, you s'pose?" asked she of her own thoughts. prudy and dotty dimple wore frocks of black and red plaid, white cloaks, and black hats with scarlet feathers. horace was satisfied that a finer group of children could not be found in the city. "aunt madge and i have no reason to be ashamed of them, i am sure," thought he, taking out his new watch every few minutes, not because he wished to show it, but for fear it was losing time. "how i wish we had grace and susey here! and then i should have all my nieces," said aunt madge. "is it possible these are the same children i used to see at willowbrook? here is my only nephew, that drowned prudy on a log, grown tall enough to offer me his arm. (why, horace, your head is higher than mine!) here is prudy, who tried yesterday--didn't she?--to go up to heaven on a ladder, almost a young lady. why, how old it makes me feel!" "but you don't look old," said dotty, consolingly; "you don't look married any more than aunt louise?" here they took an omnibus, and the children interested themselves in watching the different people who sat near them. "aren't you glad to come?" said dotty. "see that man getting out. what is that little thing he's switching himself with?" "that's a cane," replied horace. "a cane? why, if flyaway should lean on it, she'd break it in two.--prudy, look at that man in the corner; _his_ cane is funnier than the other one." horace laughed. "that is a pipe, dotty--a meerschaum." "well, i don't see much difference," said miss dimple; "new york is the queerest place. such long pipes, and such short canes!" fly was too happy to talk, and sat looking out of the window until an elegantly-dressed lady entered the stage, who attracted everybody's attention; and then flyaway started up, and stood on her tiptoes. the lady's face was painted so brightly that even a child could not help noticing it. it was haggard and wrinkled, all but the cheeks, and those bloomed out like a red, red rose. flyaway had never seen such a sight before, and thought if the lady only knew how she looked, she would go right home and wash her face. "what a chee-arming little girl!" said the painted woman, crowding in between aunt madge and flyaway, and patting the child's shoulder with her ungloved hand, which was fairly ablaze with jewels; "bee-youtiful!" flyaway turned quickly around to aunt madge, and said, in one of her very loud whispers, "what's the matter with her? she's got sumpin on her face." "hush," whispered aunt madge, pinching the child's hand. "but there is," spoke up flyaway, very loud in her earnestness; "o, there is sumpin on her face--sumpin red." there was "sumpin" now on all the other faces in the omnibus, and it was a smile. the lady must have blushed away down under the paint. she looked at her jewelled fingers, tossed her head proudly, and very soon left the stage. "topknot, how could you be so rude?" said horace, severely; "little girls should be seen, and not heard." "but she speaked to me first," said flyaway. "i wasn't goin' to say nuffin, and then she speaked." a young gentleman and lady opposite seemed very much amused. "i'm afraid of your bright eyes, little dear. i'll give you some candy if you won't tell me how i look," said the young lady, showering sweetmeats into flyaway's lap. "why, i wasn't goin' to tell her how she looked," whispered fly, very much surprised, and trying to nestle out of sight behind horace's shoulder. when they left the omnibus, the children had a discussion about the painted lady, and could not decide whether they were glad or sorry that fly had spoken out so plainly. "good enough for her," said dotty. "but it was such a pity to hurt her feelings!" said prudy. "who hurted 'em?" asked fly, looking rather sheepish. "poh! her feelings can't be worth much," remarked horace; "a woman that'll go and rig herself up in that style." "she must be near-sighted," said aunt madge. "she certainly can't have the faintest idea how thick that paint is. she ought to let somebody else put it on." "but, auntie, isn't it wicked to wear paint on your cheeks?" "no, dotty, only foolish. that woman was handsome once, but her beauty is gone. she thinks she can make herself young again, and then people will admire her." "o, but they won't; they'll only laugh." "very true, dotty; but i dare say she never thought of that till this little child told her." "fly," said horace, "you are doing a great deal of good going round hurting folks' feelings." "poor woman!" said aunt madge, with a pitying smile; "she might comfort herself by trying to make her soul beautiful." "that would be altogether the best plan," said horace, aside to prudy; "she can't do much with her body, that's a fact; it's too dried up." all this while they were passing elegant shops, and aunt madge let the children pause as long as they liked before the windows, to admire the beautiful things. "whose little grampa is that?" cried fly, pointing to a santa claus standing on the pavement and holding out his hands with a very pleasant smile; "he's all covered with a snow-storm." "he isn't alive," said dotty; "and the snow is only painted on his coat in little dots." "well, i didn't spect he was alive, dotty dimple, only but he made believe he was. and o, see that hossy! he's dead, too, but he looks as if you could ride on him." "this other window is the handsomest, fly; don't i wish i had some of those beautiful dripping, red ear-rings?" "why, little sister," said prudy, "i'd as soon think of wanting a gold nose as those cat-tail ear-rings. what would grandma read say?" "why, she'd say 'thee' and 'thou,' i s'pose, and ask me if i called 'em the ornaments of meek and quiet spirits," said dotty, with a slight curl of the lip. "auntie, is it wicked to wear jewels, if your grandma's a quaker?" "i think not; that is, if somebody should give you a pair; but i hope somebody never will. it is a mere matter of taste, however. o, children, now i think of it, i'll give you each a little pin-money to spend, to-day, just as you like. a dollar each to prudy and dotty; and, horace, here is fifty cents for flyaway." "o, you darling auntie!" cried the little parlins, in a breath. dotty shut this, the largest bill she had ever owned, into her red porte-monnaie, feeling sure she should never want for anything again that money can buy. "there, now, hollis," said fly, drawing her mouth down and her eyebrows up, "where's my skipt? _my_ skipt?" "what? a little snip like you mustn't have money," answered horace, carelessly; "auntie gave it to me." the moment he had spoken the words, he was sorry, for the child was too young and sensitive to be trifled with. she never doubted that her great cruel brother had robbed her. it was too much. her "dove's eyes" shot fire. flyaway could be terribly angry, and her anger was "as quick as a chain o' lightning." before any one had time to think twice, she had turned on her little heel, and was running away. with one impulse the whole party turned and followed. "prudy and i haven't breath enough to run," said aunt madge. "here we are at stewart's. you'll find us in the rotunda, horace. come back here with fly, as soon as you have caught her." as soon as he had caught her! they were on broadway, which was lined with people, moving to and fro. horace and dotty had to push their way through the crowd, while little fly seemed to float like a creature of air. "stop, fly! stop, fly!" cried horace; but that only added speed to her wings. "she's like a piece of thistle-down," laughed horace; "when you get near her you blow her away." "stop, o, stop," cried dotty; "horace was only in fun. don't run away from us, fly." but by this time the child was so far off that the words were lost in the din. "why, where is she? i don't see her," exclaimed horace, as the little blue figure suddenly vanished, like a puff of smoke. "did she cross the street?" "i don't know, horace. o, dear, i don't know." it was the first time a fear had entered either of their minds. knowing very little of the danger of large cities, they had not dreamed that the foolish little fly might get caught in some dreadful spider's web. chapter v. dotty having her own way. yes, fly was out of sight; that was certain. whether she had turned to the right, or to the left, or had merely gone straight on, fallen down, and been trampled on, that was the question. how was one to find out? people enough to inquire of, but nobody to answer. horace had as many thoughts as a drowning man. how had he ever dared bring such a will-o'-the-wisp away from home? how had his mother consented to let him? his father had charged him, over and over, not to let go fly's hand in the street. that did very well to talk about; but what could you do with a child that wasn't made of flesh and blood, but the very lightest kind of gas? "dotty, turn down this street, and i'll keep on up broadway. no--no; you'd get lost. what shall we do? go just where i do, as hard as you can run, and don't lose sight of me." dotty began to pant. she could not keep on at this rate of speed, and horace saw it. "you'll have to go back to stewart's." "where's stewart's?" gasped dotty, still running. "why, that stone building on tenth street, with blue curtains, where we left auntie." "i don't know anything about tenth street or blue curtains." "but you'll know it when you get there. just cross over--" "o, horace clifford, i can't cross over! there's horses and carriages every minute; and my mother made me almost promise i wouldn't ever cross over." "there are plenty of policemen, dotty; they'll take you by the shoulder--" "o, horace clifford, they shan't take me by the shoulder! s'pose i want 'em marching me off to the lockup?" screamed dotty, who believed the lockup was the chief end and aim of policemen. "well, then, i don't know anything what to do with you," said horace, in despair. it seemed very hard that he should have the care of this willful little cousin, just when he wanted so much to be free to pursue flyaway. "if you won't go back to stewart's, you won't. will you go into this shop, then, and wait till i call for you?" "you'll forget to call." "i certainly won't forget." "well, then, i'll go in; but i won't promise to stay. i want to help hunt for fly just as much as you do." "dotty dimple, look me right in the eye. i can't stop to coax you. i'm frightened to death about fly. do you go into this store, and stay in it till i call for you, if it's six hours. if you stir, you're lost. do--you--_hear_?" "yes, i _hear_.--h'm, he thinks my ears are thick as ears o' corn? no holes in 'em to hear with, i s'pose! horace clifford hasn't got the _say_ o' me, though. i can go all over town for all o' him!" "what will you have, my little lady?" said a clerk, bowing to dotty. "i don't want anything, if you please, sir. there was a boy, and he asked me to stay here while he went to find something." "very well; sit as long as you please." "screwed right down into the floor, this piano stool is," thought dotty; "makes it real hard to sit on, because you can't whirl it. guess i'll walk 'round a while. why, if here isn't a window right in the floor! strong enough to walk on. there's a man going over it with big boots and a cane. i can look right down into the cellar. only just i can't see any thing, though, the glass is so thick." dotty watched the clerks measuring off yards of cloth, tapping on the counter, and calling out, "cash." it was rather funny, at first, to see the little boys run; but dotty soon tired of it. "horace is gone a long while," thought she, going to the door and looking out. "he has forgotten to call, or he's forgotten where he left me, or else he hasn't found fly. dear, dear! i can't wait. i'll just go out a few steps, and p'rhaps i'll meet 'em." she walked out a little way, seeing nothing but a multitude of strange faces. "well, i should think this was queer! i'll go right back to that store, and sit down on the piano stool. if horace clifford can't be more polite! well, i should think!" dotty went back, and entered, as she supposed, the store she had left; but a great change had come over it. it had the same counters, and stools, and goods on lines, marked "selling off below cost;" but the men looked very different. "i don't see how they could change round so quick," thought dotty; "i haven't been gone _more'n_ a minute." "what shall i serve you to, mees," said one of them, with a smile that was all black eyes and white teeth. dotty thought he looked very much like lina _rosenbug's_ brother; and his hair was so shiny and sticky, it must have been dipped in molasses. she answered him with some confusion. "i don't want anything. i was the girl, you know, that the boy was going somewhere to find something." the man smiled wickedly, and said, "yees, mees." in an instant it flashed across dotty that she had got into the wrong store. where was the glass window she had walked on? they couldn't have taken that out while she was gone. the floor was whole, and made of nothing but boards. "well, it's very queer stores should be _twins_," thought dotty. she entered the next one. it was not a "twin;" it was full of books and pictures. "why didn't horace leave me here, in the first place, it was so much nicer. and they let people read and handle the pictures. o, they have the _goldest_-looking things!" how shocked prudy would have been, if she had seen her little sister reaching up to the counter, and turning over the leaves of books, side by side with grown people! miss dimple was never very bashful; and what did she care for the people in new york, who never saw her before? she soon became absorbed in a fairy story. seconds, minutes, quarters; it was a whole hour before she came to herself enough to remember that horace was to call for her, and she was not where he had left her. "but he can't scold; for didn't he keep me waiting, too? now i'll go back." the next place she entered was a cigar store. "i might have known better than to go in; for there's that wooden indian standing there, a-purpose to keep ladies out!" "o, here's a 'sample room.' now this _must_ be the place, for it says 'push,' on the green door, just as the other one did." what was dotty's astonishment, when she found she had rushed into a room which held only tables, bottles, and glasses, and men drinking something that smelt like hot brandy! "i shan't go into any more 'sample rooms.' i didn't know a 'sample' meant whiskey! but, i do declare, it's funny where _my_ store is gone to." the child was going farther and farther away from it. "here is one that looks a little like it any way, i can see a glass window in there, on the floor." a lady stood at a counter, folding a piece of green velvet ribbon. dotty determined to make friends with her; so she went up to her, and said, in a low voice, "will you please tell me, ma'am, if i'm the same little girl that was in here before? no, i don't mean so. i mean, did i go into the same store, or is this a different one? because there's a boy going to call for me, and i thought i'd better know." of course the lady smiled, and said it might, or might not be the same place; but she did not remember to have seen dotty before. "what was the number of the store? the boy ought to have known." "but i don't believe he did," replied dotty, indignantly; "he never said a word to me about numbers. i'm almost afraid i'll get lost!" "i should be quite afraid of it, child. where do you live?" "in portland, in the state of maine. prudy and i came to new york: our auntie sent for us--i know the place when i see it; side of a church with ivy; but o, dear! i'm afraid the stage don't stop there. she's at mr. stewart's--she and prudy." "do you mean stewart's store?" "o, no'm; it's a man she knows," replied dotty, confidently; "he lives in a blue house." the lady asked no more questions. if dotty had said "stewart's store," and had remembered that the curtains were blue, and not the building, miss kopper would have thought she knew what to do; she would have sent the child straight to stewart's. "poor little thing!" said she, twisting the long curl, which hung down the back of her neck like a bell-rope, and looking as if she cared more about her hair than she cared for all the children in portland. "the best thing you can do is to go right into the druggist's, next door but one, and look in the city directory. do you know your aunt's husband's name?" "o, yes'm. colonel augustus allen, _fiftieth_ avenue." "well, then, there'll be no difficulty. just go in and ask to look in the directory; they'll tell you what stage to take. now i must attend to these ladies. hope you'll get home safe." "a handsome child," said one of the ladies. "yes, from the country," replied miss kopper with a sweet smile; "i have just been showing her the way home." ah, miss kopper, perhaps you thought you were telling the truth; but instead of relieving the country child's perplexity, you had confused her more than ever. what should dotty dimple know about a city directory? she forgot the name of it before she got to the druggist's. "please, sir, there's something in here,--may i see it?--that shows folks where they live." "a policeman?" "no; o, no, sir." after some time, the gentleman, being rather shrewd, surmised what she wanted, and gave her the book. "not that, sir," said dotty, ready to cry. perhaps you will be as ready to laugh, when you hear that the child really supposed a city directory was an instrument that drew out and shut up like a telescope, and, by peeping through it, she could see the distant home of colonel allen, on "fiftieth avenue." the apothecary did not laugh at her; but, being a kind man, and, moreover, not having curls hanging down his neck which needed attention, he gave his whole care to dotty, found an omnibus for her, told the driver just where to let her out, and made her repeat her uncle's street and number till he thought there was no danger of a mistake. chapter vi. dotty rebuked. one would have thought that now all dotty's troubles were over; and so they would have been, if she had not tried so hard to remember the number. she said it over and over so many times, that all of a sudden it went out of her mind. it was like rolling a ball on the ground, backward and forward, till most unexpectedly it pops into a hole. very much frightened, dotty bit her lip, twirled her front hair, and pinched her left cheek--all in vain; the number wouldn't come. "o, dear, what'll i do? i'd open that cellar door, where the driver is; but he's all done up in a blue cape, and don't know anything only how to whip his horses. and there don't anybody know where anybody lives in this city; so it's no use to ask. for what do they care? they'd tell you to look in the dictionary. there's nobody in portland ever told me to look in a dictionary. here they are, sitting round here, just as happy, all but me. they all live in a number, and they know what it is; but they keep it to themselves,--they don't tell. it always makes people feel better to know where they're going to. when i'm in portland i know how to get to park street, and how to get to munjoy, and how to get to back cove, with my eyes shut. but they don't make things as they ought to in new york. you can't find out what to do." so the stage rumbled, and dotty grumbled. presently a lady in an ermine cloak got out, and dotty did not know of anything better to do than to follow. she certainly was on fifth avenue, and perhaps, if she walked on, she should come to the number. "there isn't any house along here that looks like auntie's," said she, anxiously; "only they all look like it some. i never saw such a place as this city, so many same things right over, and over; and then, when you go into 'em, its just as different, and not the place you s'posed it was." here dotty ran up some steps, and rang a bell. she thought the damask curtains looked familiar. "no, no," cried she, running down again, as fast as the mouse ran down the clock; "my auntie don't keep onions in her bay window, i hope!" it was hyacinth bulbs, in glass vases, which had excited dotty's disgust. "o, i guess i'm on the wrong side of the street; no wonder i can't find the house. there, i see a chamber window open; _our_ chamber window was open. i'm going to cross over and get near enough to see if there's a little clock on the shelf that ticks like a dog wagging his tail." no, there was no clock of any sort, and where the shelf ought to be was a baby's crib. "well, any way, here's that beautiful church, with ivy round it; it's ever so near auntie's; so i'll keep walking." dotty was right when she said the church was near auntie's--it was within three doors; but she was wrong when she kept walking precisely the wrong way. she crossed over to sixth avenue. now, where were the brown houses? she saw the horse-cars plodding along, and tried to read the words on them. "'sixth ave. and fifty-ninth street.' why, what's an _ave_? i never heard of such a thing before; we don't have 'aves' in portland. there are ever so many people getting out of that car. while it stops, i'll peep in, and see where it's going to. perhaps there's a name inside that tells." and, with her usual rashness, dotty stepped upon the platform of the car, and looked in. what she expected to see she hardly knew,--perhaps "aunt madge's house," in gold letters; but what she really saw was, "no smoking;" those two words, and nothing more. "well, who wants to smoke? i'm sure _i_ don't," thought dotty, disdainfully, and was turning to step off the platform, when horace clifford seized her by the shoulder. "where did you come from, you runaway?" said he, gruffly. close beside him were aunt madge and prudy; all three were getting out of the car. "thank heaven, one of them is found," cried aunt madge, her face very pale, her large eyes full of trouble. prudy kissed and scolded in the same breath. "o, dotty dimple, you'd better believe we're glad to see you?--but what a naughty girl! a pretty race you've led horace, and he just wild about fly!" "h'm! what'd he go off for, then, and leave me there, sitting on a piano stool? s'pose i's going to sit there all day? didn't i want to go home as much as the rest of you." "and how did you get home? i'd like to know that," said horace, walking on with great strides, and then coming back again to the "ladies;" for his anxiety about his little sister would not allow him to behave calmly. "i rode." "you weren't in the car _we_ came in." "n-o; i just happened to be peeking in there you know. but i came in an _omnibius_." "it is wonderful," said aunt madge, looking puzzled, "that you ever knew what omnibus to take." dotty looked down to see if her boot was buttoned, and forgot to look up again. "well, _i_ shouldn't have known one _omnibius_, as you call it, from another," said prudy, lost in admiration. "why, dotty, how bright you are! and there we were, so afraid about you, and spoke to a policeman to look you up." "i wouldn't let a p'liceman catch _me_," said dotty, tossing her head. "but haven't you found fly yet?" they were at home by this time, and horace was ringing the bell. "no, the dear child is still missing; but the police are on her track," said aunt madge, looking at her watch. "it is now one o'clock. keep a good heart, horace, my boy. john shall go straight to the telegraph office, and wait there for a despatch. don't you leave us, dear; we can't spare you, and you can do no good." horace made no reply, except to tap the heels of his boots together. he looked utterly crushed. a large city was just as strange to him as it was to dotty, and he could only obey his aunt's orders, and try to hope for the best. dotty seemed to be the only one who felt like saying a word, and she talked incessantly. "o, what'd you send the p'lice after her for? to put her in the lockup, and make her cry and think she's been naughty? it's the awfulest city that ever i saw. folks might send her home, if they were a mind to, but they won't. they don't care what 'comes of you. there's cars and stages going to which ways, and nothing but 'no smoking,' inside. and i went and peeped in at a window, and there was _onions_! and how'd i know where to go to? there was a girl with a long curl, and she said, 'go to the 'pothecary's;' and what would fly have known where she meant? and he looked in a dictionary, and put me in a stage,--i was going to tell you about that when i got ready,--and asked me if i had ten cents, and i had; and then i forgot what the number was, and that was the time i saw the onions, or i should have gone right into somebody's else's house. and i knew there was a church with ivy round, but fly don't know; she's nothing but a baby. and i should have thought, horace clifford, you might have given her that money! that was what made her run off; you was real cruel, and that's why i wouldn't mind what you said. and--and--" "hush," said aunt madge, brushing back a spray of fair curls, which the wind had tossed over her forehead. "i don't allow a word of scolding in my house. if you don't feel pleasant, dotty, you may go into the back yard and scold into a hole." dotty stopped suddenly. she knew her aunt was displeased; she felt it in the tones of her voice. "dotty, the wind has been at play with your hair as well as mine. suppose we both go up stairs a few minutes?" "there, auntie's going to reason with me," thought dotty, winding slowly up the staircase; "i didn't suppose she was one of that kind." "no dear, i'm _not_ one of that kind," said mrs. allen, roguishly; for she saw just what the child was thinking. "'i come not here to talk.' all i have to say is this: disobey again, and i send you home immediately." "yes'm," said the little culprit, blushing crimson. "now, brush your hair, and let us go down." this was the only allusion mrs. allen ever made to the subject; but after this, she and dotty understood each other perfectly. dotty had learned, once for all, that her aunt was not to be trifled with. the child really was ashamed--thoroughly ashamed; but do you suppose she admitted it to horace? not she. and he, so full of anguish concerning the lost fly, found not a word of fault; scarcely even thought of his naughty cousin at all. chapter vii. the lost fly. now we must go back and see what has become of the little one. at first her heart had swollen with rage. anger had set her going, just as a blow from a battledoor sends off a shuttlecock. and, once being started, the poor little shuttlecock couldn't stop. "auntie gave me that skipt. hollis is a very wicked boy; steals skipt from little gee-urls. i don't ever want to see hollis no more." what she meant to do, or where to go, she had no more idea than the blue clouds overhead. she had no doubt her brother was close behind, trying to overtake her. her sole thought was, that she "wouldn't ever see hollis no more." she knew nothing could make him so unhappy as that. "i'll lose me, and then how'll he feel?" "lose me!" a wild thought, gone in a moment; but meanwhile she was already lost. "i hope auntie won't give hollis nuffin to eat, 'cause he's took away my skipt; nuffin to eat but meat and vertato, athout any pie." flyaway shook her head so hard, that the "war-plume" under her bonnet would have nodded, if the air could have got at it. "why, where's hollis?" said she, looking back, and finding, to her surprise, he was not to be seen. "i spected he'd come. i thought i heard him walking ahind me." flyaway's anger had died out by this time. it never lasted longer than a fourth of july torpedo. "he didn't know i runned off. guess i'll go back, and he'll give me the skipt; and then i'll forgive him all goody." a very nice plan; only, instead of going back, she turned a corner, and tripped along towards university place. she had twisted her head so much in looking for horace, that it was completely turned round. and, besides, a little farther on was a man playing a harp, and a small boy a violin. fly paused and listened, till she no longer remembered horace or the "skipt." she forgot this was new york, and dreamed she had come to fairy-land. her soul was full of music. happy thoughts about nothing in particular made her smile and clap her hands. birds, flowers, santa clauses, flipperties, and "pepnits" seemed to hover near. something beautiful was just going to happen, she didn't know what. after the man had played for some time without attracting attention from any body but flyaway and a poor old beggar woman, he put his harp in a green bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked off. flyaway followed without knowing it. down sixth avenue went the music-man, and close at his heels went she. by and by she saw a little girl, no larger than herself, with a great bundle on her shoulders. "you don't s'pose she's got a music on _her_ back?--no, not a music; it's too soft all swelled out in a bunch." fly went nearer the little girl, to see what she was carrying; and as she did so, some gray coals, mixed with ashes, fell out of the bundle upon her nice cloak. "why, she's been and carried off her mother's fireplace," thought fly, shaking her cloak in disgust; "what you s'pose she wanted to do that for?" but far from carrying off her mother's fireplace, the ragged little girl had only been picking up old coal out of barrels, and was taking it home to burn. it had already been burned once, and picked over and burned again, and thrown away; but perhaps this poor child's mother could coax it into a faint glow, warm enough to fry a few potatoes. while flyaway was shaking her cloak, and staring at some old silk dresses and bed-quilts, which were hung before a shop-door, the man with the harp on his back, and the boy with a violin under his arm, had turned a corner, and passed out of sight. flyaway rubbed her eyes, and looked again. they must have gone down through the brick pavement, but she couldn't see any hole. far away in the distance she heard their music again, and it did not come from under ground. she ran to overtake it, and turned into bleecker street. no music-man there, but a good supply of oranges and apples. "needn't folks put their hands in, and take some out the barrels? then why for did the folks put 'em on' doors?" while pondering this grave question, she was jostled by a man carrying a rocking-chair, and very nearly fell down stairs into an oyster-saloon. a minute more and she was back on broadway, the very street, where aunt madge and prudy were waiting for her, but so much lower down that she might as well have been in the state of maine. "now, i'll go find my hollis," said she turning another corner, and running the wrong way with all her might. past candy-stalls, past toy-shops, past orange-wagons. hark, music again! not the soft strains of a harp, but the stirring notes of bugle, fife, and drum. fly kept time with her feet. "here we go marchin' on," hummed she. but the crowd "marchin' on" with her was a strange one. carts full of hammers, pincers, and all sorts of iron tools, and men in gray shirts, with black caps on their heads. some of the men had banners, with great black words, such as "equal rights," or something like them, in german; but of course fly could not tell one letter from another. she only knew it was all very "homebly," in spite of the music. she began to think she had better get away as soon as she could; so she tried to cross the street, but some one held her back; it was a lady, carrying a small dog in her arms, like a baby. "don't go there, child; that's a strike, you'll get killed." fly knew but one meaning for the word _strike_; and, tearing herself from the lady, ran screaming down broadway, with the thought that every man's hand was against her. on she went, and on went the strike, close behind her. a little while ago she had been following music, and now music was following her. but the fifes and drums were rather slow, and flyaway's feet were very swift; so it was not long before the gray men, with their white banners and clattering carts, were far behind her. no danger now that any of the wicked creatures would strike her; so she slackened her pace. she did begin to wonder why she had not found horace; still, she was not at all alarmed, and there was a dreadful din in the streets, which confused her thoughts. it seemed as if people were making it on purpose. once, at willowbrook, she had heard boys banging tin pans, grinding coffee mills, and pounding with mortars. she had liked that,--they called it the "calathumpian band,"--and she liked this too; it sounded about as uproarious. while she sauntered along, spying wonders, her eye was attracted by some balancing-toys, which a man was showing off at one of the corners. what a pleasant man he was, to set them spinning just to amuse little girls! fly was delighted with one wee soldier, in a blue coat with brass buttons, who kept dancing and bowing with the greatest politeness. "captain jinks, of the horse-marines," said the toy-man, introducing him. "buy him, miss; he'll make a nice little husband for you; only fifteen cents." fly felt quite flattered. it was the first time in her life any one had ever asked her to buy anything, and she thought she must have grown tall since she came from indiana. she put her fingers in her mouth, then took them out, and put them in her pocket. "here's my porte-monnaie-ry," said she, dolefully; "but i haven't but two cents--no more. hollis carried it off." "well, well, run along, then. don't you see you're right in the way?" fly was surprised and grieved at the change in the man's tone: she had expected he would pity her for not having any money. "come here, you little lump of love," called out a mellow voice; and there, close by, sat a wizened old woman, making flowers into nosegays. she had on a quilted hood as soft as her voice, but everything else about her was as hard as the door-stone she sat on. "see my beautiful flowers," said the old crone, pointing to the table before her; "who cares for them jumping things over yonder? i don't." the flowers were tied in bouquets--sweet violets, rosebuds, and heliotrope. fly, whose head just reached the top of the table, smelt them, and forgot the "little husband, for fifteen cents." "he's a cross man, dearie," said the old woman, lowering her voice, "or he wouldn't have sent you off so quick, just because you hadn't any money. now, i love little girls, and i'll warrant we can make some kind of a trade for one of my posies." fly smiled, and quickly seized a bouquet with a clove pink in it. "not so fast, child! what you got that you can give me for it? i don't mind the money. that old pocket-book will do, though 'tain't wuth much." it was very surprising to fly to hear her port-monnaie called old; for it was bought last week, and was still as red as the cheeks of the painted lady. "i don't _dass_ to give folks my porte-monnaie-ry," said she, clutching it tighter, but holding the flowers to her nose all the while. "o, fudge! well, what else you got in your pocket? a handkerchief?" "no, my hangerfiss is in my muff." "that? why, there isn't a speck o' lace on it. nice little ladies always has lace. here's a letter in the corner; what is it?" "hollis says it's k; stands for flyaway." "well, you're such a pretty little pink, i guess i'll take it; but 'tain't wuth lookin' at," said the crafty old woman, who saw at a glance it was pure linen, and quite fine. "now run along, baby; your mummer will be waitin' for you." fly walked on slowly. ought she to have parted with her very best hangerfiss! "nice ole lady, loved little gee-urls; but what you s'pose folks was goin' to cry into now?" tears started at the thought. one of them dropped into the eye of the squirrel, who sat on the muff, peeping up into her face. "nice ole lady, i s'pose; but folks never wanted to buy my _hangerfisses_ byfore!" thought fly, much puzzled by the state of society in new york. "and i've got some beau-fler flowers to my auntie's house. wake up--wake up!" added she, blowing open a pink rose-bud; "you's too little for me." but the bud did not wish to wake up and be a rose; it curled itself together, and went to sleep again. "i don't see where hollis stays to all the time," exclaimed the little one, beginning to have a faint curiosity about it. chapter viii. "the freckled dog." but just then a gentle-looking blind girl came along led by a dog. the sight was so strange that flyaway stopped to admire; for whatever else she might be afraid of, she always loved and trusted a dog. "doggie, doggie," cried she, patting the little animal's head. "o, _what_ a sweet voice," said the blind girl, putting out her hand and groping till she touched fly's shoulder. "i never heard such a voice!" this was what strangers often said, and flyaway never doubted the sweetness was caused by eating so much candy; but just now she had had none for two days. "what makes you shut your eyes up, right in the street, girl? is the _seeingness_ all gone out of 'em?" "yes, you darling. i haven't had any seeingness in my eyes for a year." "you didn't? then you's _blind-eyed_," returned flyaway, with perfect coolness. "and don't you feel sorry for me--not a bit?" "no, 'cause your dog is freckled so pretty." "but i can't see his freckles." "well, he's got 'em. little yellow ones, spattered out all over him." "but if i had eyes like you, i shouldn't need any dog. i could go about the streets alone." "well, i don't like to go 'bout the streets alone; i want my own brother hollis." "i hope you haven't got lost, little dear?" "no," laughed fly, gayly; "i didn't get lost! but i don't know where nobody is! and there don't nobody know where _i_ am!" the blind girl took fly's little hand tenderly in hers. "come, turn down this street with me, and tell me all about it." fly trudged along, prattling merrily, for about a minute: then she drew away. "'tisn't a nice place; i don't want to go there." a look of pain crossed the blind girl's face. "no, i dare say you don't. it isn't much of a place for folks with silk bonnets on." "you can't see my bonnet; you can't see anything, you're blind-eyed; but," said fly, glancing sharply around, "it isn't pretty here, at all; and there's a dead cat right in the street." "yes, i think likely." "and there's a boy. i spect he frowed the cat out the window; he hasn't nuffin on but dirty cloe's." "do you see some steps?" said the blind girl, putting her hand out cautiously. "don't fall down." "i shan't fall down; i'm going home." "o, don't child; you must come with me. my mother will take care of you." "i don't want nobody's mother to take 'are o' me; i've got a mamma myself!" "how little you know!" said the blind girl, thinking aloud; "how lucky it is i found you! and o, dear, how i wish i could see! you'll slip away in spite of me." but flyaway allowed herself to be drawn along, step by step, partly because she liked the "freckled dog," and partly because she had not ceased being amused by the droll sight of a person walking with closed eyes. "what's the name of you, girl?" "maria." "maria? so was my mamma; her name was maria, when she was a little girl. o, look, there's another boy; don't you see him? up high, in that house. got a big box with a string to it." a very rough-looking boy was standing at a third-story window, lowering a bandbox by a clothes-line. as fly watched the box slowly coming down, the boy called out,-"get in, little un, and i'll give you a free ride." "o, no--o, no; i don't _dass_ to." "yes, yes; go in, lemons," said the boy, choking with laughter, as he saw the child's horror. "if you don't do it, by cracky, i'll come down and fetch you." at this, fly was frightened nearly out of her senses, and ran so fast that the dog could scarcely have kept up with her, even if he had not had a blind mistress pulling him back. "o, where are you?" exclaimed maria. "don't run away from me,--don't!" "he's a-gon to kill me in two," cried flyaway, stopping for breath.' "he's a-gon to kill me in two-oo!" "no, he isn't, dear! it's only izzy paul he couldn't catch you, if he tried. he's lame, and goes on crutches." "but he said a swear word,--yes he, did," sobbed the child, never doubting that a boy who could swear was capable of murder, though he had neither hands nor feet. "stop, now," said maria, clutching fly as if she had been a spinning top. "this is my house. mother, mother, here's a little girl; catch her--hold her--keep her!" "me? what should i catch a little girl for?" said mrs. brooks, a faded woman with a tired face, and a nose that moved up and down when she talked. she had been standing at the door of their tumbledown tenement, looking for her daughter, and was surprised to see her bringing a strange child with her. it was not often that well-dressed people wandered into that dirty alley. "the poor little thing has got lost, mother. perhaps _you_ can find out where she came from. i didn't ask her any questions; it was as much as i could do to keep up with her." maria put her hand on her side. fast walking always tired her, for she was afraid every moment of falling. they had to go down a flight of stairs to get into the house; and after they got there fly looked around in dismay. "i don't want to stay in the stable," she murmured. indeed it was not half as nice as the place where her father kept his horse. "but this is where we have to live," sighed maria. "have things to eat?" asked the little stranger, in a solemn whisper. there were a few chairs with broken backs, a few shelves with clean dishes, a few children with hungry faces. in one corner was a clumsy bedstead, and in a tidy bed lay a pale man. "who've you got there, maria?" said he. "bring her along, and stick her up on the bed." "don't be afraid," said mrs. brooks; "it's only pa; wouldn't the little girl like to talk to him? he's sick." flyaway was not at all afraid, for the man smiled pleasantly, and did not look as if he would hurt anybody. mrs. brooks set her on the bed, and maria, afraid of losing her, held her by one foot. the children all crowded around to see the little lady in a silk bonnet holding a button-hole bouquet to her bosom. "ain't she a ducky dilver!" said the oldest boy. "pa'll be pleased, for he don't see things much. has to keep abed all the time." mr. brooks tried to smile, and flyaway whispered to maria, with sudden pity,-"sorry he's sick. has he got to stay sick? can't you find the camphor bottle?" "o, father, she thinks if ycu had some camphor to smell of, 'twould cure you." then they all laughed, and fly timidly offered the sick man her flowers. "what, that pretty posy for me? bless you, baby, they'll do me a sight more good than camfire!" "there," said maria, joyfully, "now pa is pleased; i know by the sound of his voice. poor pa! only think, little girl, a stick of timber fell on him, and lamed him for life!" "yes," said bennie, "the lower part of him is as limber as a rag." "she don't sense a word you say," remarked mrs. brooks, shaking up a pillow, "see what we can get out of her. what's your name, dear?" "katie clifford." "where do you live?" "i _have_ been borned in nindiana." fly spoke with some pride. she considered her birth an honor to the state. "but where did you come from, katie? that's what we mean." "i camed from heaven," said the child, with one of her wise looks. "beats all, don't she?" cried mr. brooks, admiringly. "looks like an angel, i declare for't. did you just drop down out of the sky?" "no, sir," answered flyaway, folding her little hands as if she were saying her prayers; "i camed down when i was a baby." [illustration: "i camed down when i was a baby."] "that's what makes your hair so _goldy_," said bennie. "mother, did you ever see such eyes? say, did you ever? so soft, and kinder shiny, too." "children, don't stare at her; it makes her uneasy." "_i_ can't stare at her," said maria, bitterly. "i suppose you don't mean me, mother." mrs. brooks only answered her poor daughter by a kiss. "well, little katie, after you were born in _nindiana_, you came to new york. when did you come?" "one of these other days i camed here with hollis." "who's hollis?" "he's my own brother. got a new cap. had his hair cut." "who did you come to new york to see?" "my auntie." "her auntie! a great deal of satisfaction we are likely to get out of this child," said mr. brooks, laughing. he had not laughed before for a week. "what's your auntie's name?" "aunt madge." "is she married?" "o, yes; and so's uncle 'gustus. married together, and live together, just the same." "uncle 'gustus who? now we'll come at it!" "alling," replied fly, her quick eyes roving about the room, for she was tired of these questions. "allen, augustus allen!" said mr. brooks, in surprise; "i wonder if there can be two of them. tell me, child, how does he look?" "don't look like you," replied fly, after a keen survey of mr. brooks. "your face is pulled away down long, like that;" (stretching her hand out straight) "uncle 'gustus's face is squeezed up short" (doubling her hand into a ball) "i'll warrant it is the colonel himself," said mrs. brooks, smiling at the description. "yes, that's the name of him; the 'kernil's' the name of him." "is it possible!" said mr. brooks, looking very much pleased. "uncle 'gustus has curly hair on his cheeks, on his mouf, all round. _not_ little prickles, sticking out like needles." "o, you girl!" said bennie, frowning at fly. "you mustn't laugh at my pa's beard. there's a man comes in, sometimes, and shaves him nice; but now the man's gone to newark." "is it possible," repeated mrs. brooks, taking the child's hand, "that this is colonel allen's little niece, and my maria found her!" "your maria didn't find me," said fly, decidedly; "i founded maria." "so she did, pa. the first thing i knew, i heard somebody calling, doggie, doggie,' in such a sweet voice; and then i looked--no, of course i _couldn't_ look." here the discouraged look came over maria's mouth, and she said no more. "there, there, cheer up, daughter," said mr. brooks, with tears in his eyes; "i was only going on to say, it is passing strange that any of our family should run afoul of one of the colonel's folks." "it's the lord's doings; i haven't the slightest doubt of it," said mrs. brooks, earnestly. "you know what i've been saying to you, pa." "there, there, ma'am, _don't_," said mr. brooks; "don't go to raising false hopes. you know i'm too proud to beg of anybody's folks." "why, pa, i shouldn't call it begging just to tell colonel allen how you are situated! do you suppose, if he knew the facts of the case, he'd be willing to let you suffer? such a faithful man as you used to be to work." "no, i think it's likely he wouldn't. he's got more heart than some rich folks; but i hain't no sort of claim on the colonel, if i did help build his house. and then, ma'am, you know i've been kind o' hopin'--" "guess i'll go now, and find hollis," said fly, slipping down from the bed, for the talk did not interest her. "o, but i want to go with you, katie," said mrs. brooks, coaxingly. "bennie, you amuse her, while i change my dress." chapter ix. maria's mother. "i know your uncle must feel dreadfully to lose you; but never mind--he'll see you soon," said mr. brooks. "o, uncle 'gustus isn't there." "not there?" said mrs. brooks, turning round from the cracked looking-glass. "where then?" "o, he's gone off." "gone off? why, pa, ain't that too bad? i'm right up and down disappointed. but, then, the colonel has a wife; i can go to see her, you know; and i'll tell her just how you're situ--" "my aunt madge is gone off, too." "you don't say so!" "and my brother hollis is gone." "this is a funny piece of work if it's true," said mr. brooks, with another genuine laugh; "you'd better ask her a few more questions before you start out. who else is gone? have they shut the house up?" "yes, sir; shut it right up tight." "nobody in it, at all?" "no, only the men and women. prudy's gone, and dotty dimple's gone, and i'm gone." "only the men and women, she says. that must be the servants. so the house must be open, pa. at any rate, i shall take her. say by-bye, my pretty, and we'll be starting." fly was very glad to go, but maria clung to her fondly, and bennie ran after her almost to broadway, where mrs. brooks took a fifth avenue stage. she knew colonel allen's house very well, for she had seen it more than once, while it was in process of building. that was two or three years ago, when her husband was well, and the family lived very comfortably on thirty-third street. she sighed as she thought how different it was now. mr. brooks would never be able to work any more; they hardly had food enough to eat, and poor maria had lost her eyesight. "here we are, little katie," said she. but the child did not wait to be helped out; she danced down the steps, and would have flown across the street, if mrs. brooks had not caught her. "i see it--i see it; my auntie's house. but there isn't nobody to it." the man who met them at the door was so surprised and delighted to see fly, that he forgot his manners, and did not ask mrs. brooks in. "bless us, the baby's found!" cried he, and ran to spread the news. aunt madge was walking the parlor floor, and horace sitting on the sofa, as rigid as the marble elf puck, just over his head. prudy and dotty had joined hands, and were crying softly on the rug. as the police had been notified of fly's loss, all the family had to do was to wait. a servant was at the nearest telegraph office, with a horse and carriage, and at the first tidings would drive home and report. the words "the baby's found" rang through the house like a peal of bells. in an instant flyaway runaway was clasped in everybody's arms, and wet with everybody's tears. "thought i'd come back," said the little truant, peeping up at her agitated friends' with some surprise; "thought i'd come back and get my skipt!" then they exclaimed, in chorus,-"topknot _shall_ have her skipt! the blessed baby! the darling old fly!" and dotty wound up by saying,-"why, you see, we thought you's dead!" flyaway, who had at first been very much astonished at the fuss made over her, now looked deeply offended. "who said i's dead? what--a--drefful--lie!" "o, nobody said so, fly; only we thought p'rhaps you was; and _what_ would we do without you, you know?" "why, if i's dead," said fly, untying her bonnet strings, "then the funy-yal would come round and take me; that's all." "we are most grateful to you," said aunt madge, turning to mrs. brooks, "for bringing home this lost child; but do tell us where you found her." then mrs. brooks related all she knew of fly's wanderings, the little one putting in her own explanations. "i didn' be lost," said she sharply. "i feel jus' like frettin', when you say i's lost. 'tis the truly truth; i's walking on the streets, and a naughty woman, she's got my hangerfiss--had ashes roses on it." "yes, i put some otto of rose on it this morning," said prudy. "what a shame!" "and i gave my flowers to the sick man. he was on the bed, with a blue bed-kilt. a girl name o' maria, tookened me home. the seeingness is all gone out of her eyes, so she can't see." "how long has your husband been sick?" asked mrs. allen of the woman, while she was taking lunch in the dining-room. "did you tell me he knew colonel allen?" mrs. brooks dropped her knife and fork; but her lips trembled so she could not speak. flyaway, who sat in horace's lap, eating ginger-snaps, exclaimed, "she wants some perjerves, auntie. she don't get no perjerves, nor nuffin nice to her house." "'sh!" whispered horace. the woman looked so respectable and well bred, that it seemed a great rudeness to allude to her poverty. but mrs. brooks drank some water, and then answered aunt madge, calmly,-"i'm not ashamed of being poor, mrs. allen; it's no disgrace, for there never was an honester man than my husband, nor none that worked harder, till a beam fell on him from the roof of a house, two years ago, and he lost the use of his limbs.--yes, ma'am; he did use to know your husband. he was one of the workmen that helped build this house. i came and looked on when he was setting these very doors." "what is his name?" asked aunt madge, looking very much interested, and taking out her note-book and pencil. "what street and number?" "cyrus brooks, number blank, blank street, ma'am. before the accident, we lived on thirty-third street, in very good shape; but, little by little, we were obliged to sell off, and finally had to move into pretty snug quarters. but we've always got enough to eat, such as it was," added the good woman, trying not to show much she enjoyed her lunch. "i am very glad providence has sent you here, mrs. brooks," said aunt madge, warmly. "i know colonel allen will seek you out when he comes home next week; but i shall not wait for that; i shall write him this very night." mrs. brooks' heart was so full that she had to cry into a coarse purple handkerchief of bennie's, which happened to be in her pocket, and felt very much ashamed because she could not find her voice again, or any words in which to tell her gratitude. it was just as well, though. mrs. allen knew words were not everything. it gave her pleasure to fill a huge basket with nice things--wine and jelly for the sick man, plain food for the family, and a pretty woolen dress for maria, which had been intended for mrs. fixfax, the housekeeper. the children looked on delighted, while the basket was filled with these articles, then passed over to nathaniel, who was going home with mrs. brooks. it was amusing to watch nathaniel, with the monstrous burden in his hands trying to help mrs. brooks down the front steps; for aunt madge was not enough of a fine lady to send the pair around by the servants' door. it was pleasant, too, to watch mrs. brooks's happy face, half hidden in the hood of her water-proof cloak, which kept puffing out, in the high wind, like a sail. she was going home to tell her husband the lord had heard her prayers, and she had found a friend. "and you may depend i never talked so easy to anybody in my life, pa;" this was what she thought she should say. "i didn't _have_ to beg. mrs. allen is one of the lord's own; i saw it the minute i clapped my eyes on her face." "i am going to see that woman to-morrow, and ask some questions about her blind daughter," said aunt madge, turning away from the window. "ask 'bout her nose, too." "whose nose, fly?" "the woman's. it keeps a-moving when she talks." "there, who else noticed that?" exclaimed horace, tossing his young sister aloft. "it takes fly, with her little eye, to see things." "but i didn't ask her nuffin 'bout it, though, horace clifford. god made her so, with a wire in." everybody smiled at the notion of mrs. brooks being a wax doll. "what a queer day it has been!" said prudy. "nothing but hide and seek. we'll all keep together next time, and lock hands tight." "of course," said dotty, quickly; "but look here; don't you think 'twould be safer not to let fly go with us? she was the one that made all the fuss." "want to know if she was," said horace, slyly. "guess there are two sides to that story." "at any rate," struck in aunt madge, "fly was the one that did the most business. you went round doing good--didn't you, dear?" "little city missionary," said horace. whereupon miss fly modestly dropped her head on her brother's shoulder. she concluded she had done something wonderful in running after a dog. "on the whole," continued auntie, "we've all had a very hard time. it's only three o'clock; but seems to me the day has been forty hours long. let us rest, now, and have a quiet little evening, and go to bed early." chapter x. five making a call. the next morning everybody felt fresh, and ready for new adventures. "all going but the cat," said fly, never doubting that her own company was most desirable. "look up in my eyes, little topknot with the blue bonnet on. will you run away from brother hollis again?" "not if you don't take my skipt," replied fly, looking as innocent as a spring violet. "and look up in _my_ eyes, horace clifford. will you run away from cousin dotty, again?" said miss dimple, in a hurry to speak before aunt madge came up to them, and before horace had time for a joke. "i didn't run away from you, young lady, but i ran _after_ you, if i remember," said horace, dryly. "i don't mean to pursue you with my attentions to-day. you seem to be able to take care of yourself." "look," cried aunt madge, coming up to them with prudy; "did you ever before see a span of horses with a dog running between them?" "never," said doty; "what splendid horses! and don't the dog have to trot, to keep up? how do you suppose he happened to get in there?" "o, he has been trained to it; dogs often are. now, my young friends, it seems we have started for brooklyn again; but on our way to fulton ferry, i would like to stop and see the brooks family. we must all go together, though. 'united we stand, divided we fall.'" "that's so," said horace, as they entered the stage. "but, auntie, do you have perfect faith in the story that woman tells? perhaps her hushand is only just lazy, and her daughter shams blindness. you know what humbugs some of 'em are. i've read there's something they rub over their eyes, that gives 'em the appearance of being as blind as a bat." prudy looked up at horace with admiration and respect. he spoke like a person of deep wisdom and wide experience. "we will see for ourselves what we think of the family," said aunt madge. "now," said she, after they had ridden a mile or two, "we must get out here, and walk a few blocks to the house. fly, hold your brother's hand tight." "there's the chamer where the boy lives that says swear words; and there's the boy, ahind the window." "have a free ride, little girl?" shouted izzy paul, laughing; for he remembered faces as well as fly did, and saw at once that it was the same child he had frightened so the day before. but fly never knew fear where horace was; she clung to him, and peeped out boldly between her fingers. when they went "down cellow," as she called it, into mr. brooks's house, aunt madge was surprised to see how bare it looked. but dotty dimple need not have held her skirts so tightly about her, and brushed her elbow so carefully when it hit against the wall; for the house was as clean as hands could make it. "mrs. brooks, i hope you will forgive me for coming down upon you with this little army," said mrs. allen, with such a cheery smile that the sick man on the bed felt as if a flood of pure sunshine had burst into the room. he was so tired of lying there, day after day, like a great rag baby, and so glad to see anybody, especially the good lady who, his wife said, was "so easy to talk to!" "auntie, look! see the freckled doggie; and there's my flowers, true's you live," cried flyaway. "yes, pa wanted them in a vial, close to his bed; it's the first he's seen this winter," said maria, stroking fly as if she had been a kitten. "you may be sure, little lady, it will be as i said; they'll cure me full as quick as camphire. and, thank the lord, i can see as well as smell," said mr. brooks, with a tender glance at maria which made horace feel ashamed of himself. the idea of that poor child's rubbing anything into her eyes? why, she looked like a wounded bird that had been out in a storm. her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad that you could not see it without a feeling of pity. "she looks as if she was walking in her sleep," thought prudy, and turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart that thrilled strangely. that "slow winter" came back to her with a rush, and she was sure she knew how maria felt. "she is blind, and i was lame; but it is the same kind of a feeling. o, how i wish i could help her!" dotty was as sorry for maria as she knew how to be, but she could not be as sorry as prudy was; for she had never had any trouble greater than a sore throat. "i don't see why the tears don't come into my eyes as easy as they do into prudy's," thought she, trying to squeeze out a salt drop; "mrs. brooks'll think i don't care a speck; but i do care." as for wee fly, she took maria's blindness to heart about as much as she did the murder of the hebrew children off in judea. "pitiful 'bout her seeingness; but i wished i had such a beauful dog!" aunt madge was struck with the exalted expression of maria's face. the child was only thirteen, but suffering had made her look much older. "my child," said she, putting her arm around the little girl, and drawing her towards her, "i know you see a great deal with your mind, even though your eyes are shut. now, do tell me all about your misfortune, and how it happened, for i came on purpose to hear." "yes, we camed to purpose to hear," said fly, from the foot-board of the bed, where she had perched and prattled every moment since she came in. "i founded maria, and then i went up to her, and says i, 'doggie, doggie!'" "that was a pretty way to speak to her, i should think," said dotty; "but can't you just please to hush while auntie is talking?" "as near as i can tell the story," said mrs. brooks, rattling the poor old coal-stove,--for she always had to be moving something else, as well as her nose, when she talked,--"she lost her sight by studying too hard, and then getting cold in her eyes." "she was always a master hand to study," put in mr. brooks. maria looked as if she wanted to run and hide. she did not like to have her father praise her before people. "yes," said mrs. brooks, setting a chair straight; "and by and by the _leds_ began to draw together, and she couldn't keep 'em open; and there was such a pain in her eyes, too, that i had to be up nights, bathing 'em in all kinds of messes." "_don't_ her nose jiggle?" whispered fly to horace. "of course you took her to a good physician?" "well, yes; we thought he was good. we went to three, off and on, but she kept growing worse and worse. it was about the time her father was hurt, and we spent an awful sight on her, till we couldn't spend any more." "and it was all a cheat and a swindle," exclaimed mr. brooks, indignantly. "we'd better have spent the money for a horsewhip, and whipped them doctors with it!" "don't, pa, don't! you see, mrs. allen, he gets so excited about it he don't know what he says." "i wonder you did not take her to the city hospital, mrs. brooks. there she could be treated free of expense." "the fact is, we didn't dare to," replied mrs. brooks, taking up an old shoe of bennie's, and beginning to brush it; "there are folks that have told us it ain't safe; they try experiments on poor folks." "o, i don't believe you need fear the city hospital," said mrs. allen; "the physicians there are honest men, and among the most skillful in the country." "but that's our feeling on the subject, ma'am, you see," spoke up mr. brooks, so decidedly, that aunt madge saw it was of no use to say any more about it. "we don't want her eyes put out; there are times when she can just see a little glimmer, and we want to save all there is left." "there are times when she can see? then there must be hope, mr. brooks! let me take her to dr. blank; he can help her if any one can." "well, now, i take it you're joking, mrs. allen. that is the very doctor i wanted her to see in the first place; but they do say he'd ask six hundred dollars for looking into her eyes while you'd wink twice." "you have been misinformed, mr. brooks; he never asks anything of people who are unable to pay him. but even if he should in maria's case, i promise to take the matter into my own hands, and settle the bill myself." "mother, do you hear what she says!" cried mr. brooks, forgetting himself, and trying to sit up in bed. but his wife had broken down, and was polishing bennie's shoe with her tears. "o, will you take me? can i go to that doctor?" cried maria, forgetting her timidity, and turning her sightless eyes towards mrs. allen with a joyful look, which seemed to glow through the lids. "yes, dear child, i will take you with the greatest pleasure in life; but remember, i don't promise you can be cured. come with your mother, to-morrow morning, at ten. will that do, mrs. brooks? and now, good by, all. children, we must certainly be going." "god bless her," murmured the sick man, as the little party passed out. "didn't i tell you she was an angel?" said his wife. "no, mother; it's that little tot that's the 'angel.' the lord sent her on ahead to spy out the land; and afterwards there comes a flesh-and-blood woman to see it laid straight." "pa thinks that baby is a spirit made out of air," said maria, laughing in high excitement. "and, mother, don't you really believe now the lord did send her, just as much as if she dropped down out of the sky?" "yes, i hain't a doubt of it, maria, but what the lord had us in his mind when he let the child slip off and get lost.--pa, i'm going to give you some of that blackberry cordial now: you look all gone." chapter xi. "the hen-houses." while the brooks family were talking so gratefully, and maria counting over the cookies and cups of jelly for the twentieth time, fly, was holding on to horace's thumb, saying, as she skipped along,--"i hope the doctor'll take a knife, and pick maria's eyes open, so she can see." "precious little _you_ care whether she can see or not," said dotty. "i don't think fly has much feeling,--do you, prudy?--not like you and i, i mean!" "pshaw! what do you expect of such a baby?" said horace, indignantly. "you never saw a child so full of pity as this one is, when she knows what to be sorry for. but a great deal she understands about blindness! and why should she?--look here, topknot; which would you rather do? have your eyes put out, and lots of candy to eat, _or_, your eyes all good, and not a speck of candy as long as you live?" "i'd ravver have the candy '_thout_ blind-eyed?" "but supposing you couldn't have but one?" fly reflected seriously for half a minute, and then answered, "i'd ravver have the candy _with_ blind-eyed!" "there, girls, what did i tell you?" "'cause i could eat the candy athout looking, you know," added fly, shutting her eyes, and putting a sprig of cedar in her mouth, by way of experiment. "you little goosie," said prudy; "when aunt madge was crying so about maria, i did think you were a hard-hearted thing to look up and laugh; but now, i don't believe you knew any better." "hard-hearted things will soften," said auntie, kissing the baby's puzzled face. "little bits of green apples, how hard they are! but they keep growing mellow." "o, you little green apple," cried dotty, pinching fly's cheek. "i was rather hard-hearted, if i remember, when i was an apple of that size," continued aunt madge. "i could tell you of a few cruel things i said and did." "tell them," said horace; "please 'fess." "yes, auntie, naughty things are so interesting. do begin and tell all about it." "not on the street, dears. some time, during the holidays, i may turn story-teller, if you wish it; but here we are at the ferry; now look out for the mud." "o, what a place," cried fly, clinging to horace, and trying to walk on his boots. "just like where grampa keeps his pig!" "how true, little sister! but you needn't use my feet for a sidewalk. i'll take you up in my arms. it snowed in the night; but that makes it all the muddier." "yes, it doesn't do snow any good to fall into new york mud," said aunt madge; "it is like touching pitch." "i thought it felt like pitch," remarked dotty; "sticks to your boots so." "but, then, overhead how beautiful it is!" said prudy. "i should think the dirty earth would be ashamed to look up at such a clear sky." "but the sky don't mind," returned horace; "it always overlooks dirt." "how very sharp we are getting!" laughed auntie; "we have begun the day brilliantly. any more remarks from anybody?" "i should like to know," said dotty, "what all those great wooden things are made for? i never saw such big hen-houses before!" "hear her talk!" exclaimed auntie. "hen-houses, indeed! why, that is fulton market. i shall take you through it when we come back. you can buy anything in there, from a live eel to a book of poetry." "'in mud eel is,'" quoted horace. "reckon i'll buy one, auntie, and carry it home in a piece of brown paper. i believe dotty is fond of eels." "fond of eels! why, horace clifford, you know i can't bear 'em, any more'n a snake. if you do such a thing, horace clifford!" here prudy gave her talkative sister a pinch; for they were surrounded by people, and aunt madge was giving ferry-tickets to a man who stood in a stall, and brushed them towards him into a drawer. "does he stay in it all night?" whispered fly; "he can't lie down, no more'n a hossy can." "here, child, don't try to get down out of my arms. i must carry you into the boat. do you suppose i'd trust those wee, wee feet to go flying over east river?" "for don't we know she has wings on her heels?" said aunt madge. fly twisted around one of her little rubbers, and looked at it. she understood the joke, but thought it too silly to laugh at. east river lay smiling in the sun, white with sails. "almost as pretty as our casco bay," said dotty. "'winona;' is that the boat we are going in? but, horace, you must cross to the other side, where it says 'gentlemen's cabin.'" "how kind you are to take care of me! wish you'd take as good care of yourself, cousin dimple." and horace walked straight into the "ladies' cabin." there were more men in it, though, than women; so he had the best side of the argument. "horace," said aunt madge, as they seated themselves, "where is your money?" "money? o, in the breast pocket of my coat." "but don't you remember, my boy, i advised you to leave it at home? see that placard, right before your eyes." "'beware of pickpockets!'" read horace. "well, auntie, i intend to beware." mrs. allen did not like his lord-of-creation tone. it was not exactly disrespectful. he adored his aunt, and did not mean to snub her. at the same time he had paid no attention to her advice, and his cool, self-possessed way of setting it one side was very irritating. if mrs. allen had not been the sweetest of women, she would have enjoyed boxing his ears. "i wish he was two years younger, and then he would have to obey me," thought she; "but i don't like to lay my commands on a boy of fourteen." the truth was, horace had a large swelling on the top of his head, known by the name of self-esteem; and it had got bruised a little the day before, when he was obliged to stand one side, and let his aunt manage about finding flyaway. "i suppose she thinks i'm a ninny, just because i don't understand this bothersome city; but i reckon i know a thing or two, if i don't live in new york!" and the foolish boy really took some satisfaction in slapping his breast pockets, and remarking to his friends,-"'twould take a smart chap to get his hand in there without my knowing it. o, prudy, where's your wallet? and yours, dotty? i can carry them as well as not. there's no knowing what kind of a muss you may be getting into before night." prudy gave up hers without a word, but dotty demurred. "i guess i've got eyes both sides my head, just the same as horace has, if i am a girl." she and cousin horace usually agreed, but this visit had begun wrong. "very well, dot; if you think 'twould be any consolation to you to have somebody come along with a pair of scissors, and snip off your pocket, i don't know as it's any of my business." "see if they do," replied dotty, clutching her pocket in her right hand. they had been speaking in loud tones, and perhaps had been overheard; for two men, on the same seat, began to talk of the unusual number of robberies that had happened within a few days and to wonder "what we were coming to next." in consequence of this, dotty pinned up her pocket. when they reached brooklyn, she gave her left hand to horace, in stepping off the boat, and walked up fulton street, with her right hand firmly grasping the skirt of her dress. "good for you, dimple!" said horace, in a low tone; "that's one way of letting people know you've got money. look behind you! there's been a man following you for some time." "where? o, where?" cried dotty, whirling round and round in wild alarm; "i don't see a man anywhere near." "and there isn't one to be seen," said aunt madge, laughing; "there's nobody following you but horace himself. he had no right to frighten you so." "horace!" echoed dotty, with infinite scorn; "i don't call _him_ a man! he's nothing but a small boy!" "a small boy!" she had finished the business now. "the hateful young monkey!" thought horace. "i shouldn't care much if she did have her pocket picked." if he had meant a word of this, which he certainly did not, he was well paid for it afterwards. they went to greenwood cemetery, which dotty had to confess was handsomer than the one in portland. fly thought there were nice places to "hide ahind the little white houses," which frightened her brother so much, that he carried her in his arms every step of the way. after strolling for some time about greenwood, and taking a peep at prospect park, they left the "city of churches," and entered a crowded car to go back to the ferry. "look out for _our_ money," whispered prudy; "you know auntie says a car is the very place to lose it in." "yes; i'll look out for your pile, prue, though i dare say you don't feel quite so easy about it as you would if dot had it." "wow, horace, don't be cross; you know it isn't often i have so much money." aunt madge here gave both the children a very expressive glance, as much as to say,-"don't mention private affairs in such a crowd." colonel allen said if his wife had been born deaf and dumb nobody would have mistrusted it, for she could talk with her eyes as well as other people with their tongues. when they were on the new york side once more, mrs. allen said,-"now i will take you through dotty's hen-houses. what have we here? o, christmas greens." a woman stood at one of the stands, tying holly and evergreens together into long strips, which she sold by the yard. "we must adorn the house, children. i will buy some of this, if you will help carry it home." "load me down," said horace; "i'll take a mile of it." "loaden me down, too; _i'll_ take it a mile," said fly. "give me that beautiful cross to carry, auntie." "are you willing to carry crosses, prudy? ah, you've learned the lesson young!" "i like the star best," said dotty; "why can't they make suns and moons, too!" "will you have a _hanker_, my pretty miss?" said the woman, dropping a courtesy. "i never heard of a _hanker_; it looks some like a kettle-hook. let's buy it; see how nicely it fits on fly's shoulder." "it would look better for fly to sit on the anchor," said mrs. allen, smiling. "it is droll enough to see such a big thing walking off with a little girl under it. come, children, we have bought all we can carry." "thank you kindly, lady," said the evergreen woman, with another courtesy. "i don't see why she need thank you kindly, auntie," said dotty. "you wouldn't have bought her wreaths if you hadn't liked 'em." they walked through a long space lined with such nice things that the children's mouths watered--oranges, figs, grapes, pears, french chestnuts larger than oil-nuts, and, as if that were not enough, delicious-looking pies, cakes, cold ham, and doughnuts. on little charcoal stoves stood coffee-pots; and there was a great clattering of plates and cups and saucers, which men were washing in little pans, and wiping on rather dark towels. "it strikes me i should enjoy going into one of those cuddy-holes and eating my dinner," said horace. "i feel about starved." "you have a right to be hungry. it is two o'clock. how would you like some oysters? in here is a large room, with tables; rather more comfortable than these 'cuddy-holes,' as you call them." "only not nice," said prudy. "o, horace, if you should go once to an oyster saloon in boston, you'd see the difference!" "the probability is, i've been in boston saloons twice to your once, ma'am." which was correct. she had been once, and he twice. chapter xii. "granny." aunt madge seated her four guests at a little table. "will you have oysters or scallops?" "what are scallops?" "they are a sort of fish; taste a little like oysters. they come out of those small shells, such as you've seen pin-cushions made of." the children thought they should prefer oysters; and after the stews were ordered, mrs. allen went out, and soon returned with a dessert of cake, pie, and fruit. "i thought i would bring it all at once," said she, "just what i know you will like; and then sit down and be comfortable. we'll lay the wreaths under the table. there are no napkins, girls (this isn't boston, you know); so you'd better tuck your handkerchiefs under your chins." "but is this the handsomest place they've got in new york, without any carpet to it?" whispered dotty. "we'll see, one of these days," replied auntie, with a smile that spoke volumes. it was a very jolly dinner, and mrs. allen had to send for three plates of scallops; for the children found, after tasting hers, that they were very nice; all but fly, who did not relish them, and thought it was because she did not like to eat pin-cushions. "now, little folks, if you have eaten sufficiently, and are thoroughly rested, shall we start for home? i think a journey to brooklyn is about enough for one day--don't you? but you musn't leave without seeing granny." "granny?" "yes, i call her so, and it pleases her. she has had a little table in the market for a long while, and i like to buy some of her goodies just to encourage her, for she has such a way of looking on the bright side that she wins my respect. listen, now, while i speak to her." auntie's old woman had on a hood and shawl, and was curled up in a little heap, half asleep. "pleasant day," said mrs. allen, going up to the table. "yes, mum; nice weather _underful_," returned the old woman, rousing herself, and rubbing an apple with her shawl. "and how do you do, granny?" "why, is that you?" said she, the sun coming out all over her face. "and how've you been, mum, since the last time i've seen yer?" "very well, granny; and how do things prosper with you?" "o, _i'm_ all right! i've had a touch of rheumaty, and this is the fust i've stirred for two weeks." "sorry to hear it, granny. rheumatism can't be very comfortable." "well, no; it's bahd for the jints," said the old woman, holding up her fingers, which were as shapeless as knobby potatoes. "poor granny! how hard that is!" "well, they be hard, and kind o' stiff-like. but bless ye," laughed she, "that's nothing. i wouldn't 'a' cared, only i's afeared i'd lose this stand. there was a gyurl come and kep' it for me, what time she could spare." "i'm glad you havn't lost the stand, granny; but i don't see how you can laugh at the rheumatism." "well, mum, what'd be the use to cry? why, bless ye, there's wus things'n that! as long's i hain't got no husband, i don't feel to complain!" she shook her sides so heartily at this, that fly laughed aloud. "so you don't approve of husbands, granny?" "no more i don't, mum; they're troublesome craychers, so fur as i've seen." "but don't you get down-hearted, living all alone?" "o, no, mum; i do suppose i'm the happiest woman in the city o' new yorruk. when i goes to bed, i just gives up all my thrubbles to the lord, and goes to sleep." "but when you are sick, granny?" "o, then, sometimes i feels bahd, not to be airnin' nothin', and gets some afeard o' the poorhouse; but, bless ye, i can't help thinking the lord'll keep me out." "i'm pretty sure he will," said aunt madge, resolving on the spot that the good old soul never should go to a place she dreaded so much. "have you any butter-scotch to-day, granny?" "o, yes, mum; sights of it. help yourself. i want to tell you something'll please you," said the old woman, bending forward, and speaking in a low tone, and with sparkling eyes. "i've put some money in the bank, mum; enough to bury me! _ain't_ that good!" prudy and dotty were terribly shocked. she must be crazy to talk about her own funeral. as if she was glad of it, too? but horace thought it a capital joke. "that's a jolly way to use your money," whispered he to prudy; "much good may it do her?" and then aloud, in a patronizing tone, "i'll take a few of your apples, granny. how do you sell 'em?" "these here, a penny apiece; them there, two pennies; and them, three." horace felt in his coat pocket for his purse; and drew out his hand quickly, as if a bee had stung it. "why, what! what does this mean?" "what is it, horace?" "nothing, auntie, only my wallet's gone," replied the boy, very white about the mouth. "gone? look again. are you sure?" "yes, as sure as i want to be?" "mine,--is mine gone too?" cried prudy. horace did not seem willing to answer. "where did you have your purse last?" "just before we came out of dorlon's oyster saloon. just before we came here for butter-scotch," replied horace, glaring fiercely at granny. "are you quite sure?" "is mine gone, too?" cried prudy again. "did you put mine in the same pocket?" "yes, prue; i put yours in the same pocket; and it's gone, too." "o, horace!" "a pretty clean sweep, prue." "the _vilyins_!" cried granny; looking, auntie thought, as if her whole soul was stirred with pity for the children; but, as horace thought, as if she were trying to put a bold face on a very black crime. "let us go back to dorlon's, and ask the waiters if you dropped it in there," suggested aunt madge. "yes, but _i know i didn't,"_ said horace, with another scowl at granny. "_my_ money is safe," said self-righteous dotty, as they walked away; "don't you wish you _had_ given yours to me, prudy?" "the deceitful old witch!" muttered horace; meaning granny, of course. and lo, there she stood close behind them! she was beckoning mrs. allen back to her fruit-stand. "wait here one minute, children; i'll be right back." "nothin', mum," said granny, looking very much grieved; "nothin' only i wants to say, mum, if that youngster thinks as i took his money, i wisht you'd sarch me." "fie, granny! never mind what a boy like that says, when he is excited. i know you too well to think you'd steal." "the lord bless you, mum," cried the old woman, all smiles again. "and, granny, i mean to come here next week, and i'll bring you some flannel and liniment for your rheumatism. where shall i leave them if you're sick, and can't be here?" "o, thank ye, mum; thank ye kindly. the ain't many o' the likes of you, mum. and if ye does bring the things for my rheumaty, and i ain't here, just ye leave 'em with the gyurl at this stand, if yer will." "did she give it back?" cried horace, the moment his aunt appeared. "no, my boy; how could she when she hadn't it to give?" "but, auntie, i'm up and down sure i felt that wallet in my breast-pocket, when we came out of dorlon's," persisted horace. "i don't see how on earth that old woman contrived it; but i can't help remembering how she kept leaning forward when she talked; and once she hit square against me. and just about that time i was drawing out my handkerchief to wipe my nose." "yes, he did! he wiped his nose. and the woman tookened the money; i saw her do it." "there, i told you so!" "you saw her, miss policeman flyaway?" said aunt madge. "and pray how did she take it?" "just so,--right in her hand." "o, you mean the money for the butter-scotch, you little tease!" "yes," replied the child, with a roguish twinkle over the sensation she had made. "just like little bits o' flies," said dotty. "don't care how folks feel. and here's her brother ready to cry; heart all broken." "needn't be concerned about my heart, dot; 'tisn't broken yet; only cracked. but how anybody could get at my pocket, without my knowing it, is a mystery to me, unless granny is a witch." "horace, i pledge you my word granny is innocent." "and i'm sure nobody else could take it, auntie. the clerks at dorlon's had no knowledge of the money; neither had any of the apple or pie merchants along the market. things look darker for us, prue; but i will give you the credit of behaving like a lady. and one thing is sure--the moment i get home to indiana i shall send you back your money." "horace," said aunt madge, "i am very suspicious that you lost your purse in one of those cars, on the brooklyn side." "but, auntie, i tell you there couldn't anybody get at my pockets without my knowing it!" "just as prudy told you you would, you lost it in that car," echoed dotty. "don't you remember what you said, prudy?" "that's right; hit him again," growled horace. "now, dotty," said prudy, suppressing a great sob in her effort to "behave like a lady," "what's the use? don't you suppose horace feels bad enough without being scolded at?" "auntie don't scold, nor prudy don't, 'cause he didn't mean to lose it," said fly, frowning at dotty, and caressing horace, with her hands full of evergreens. "besides, he has lost more than i have," continued prudy. "well, a trifle more! fifty times as much, say. i shouldn't care a fig,--speaking figuratively,--only it was all i had to get home with." "don't fret about that," said aunt madge; "i'll see that you go home with as full a purse as you brought to my house." "o, auntie, how can i thank you? but you know father never would allow that!" "i could tell you how to thank me," thought mrs. allen, though she was so kind she would _not_ tell; "you could thank me by saying, 'auntie, i've been a naughty boy.'" but horace had no idea of making such a confession as that. "the money'll come up," said he; "i'm one of the lucky kind. let's see; wouldn't it be best to advertise?" "thieves won't answer advertisements," said mrs. allen. "but, i tell you, auntie, i dropped that wallet. i could take my oath of it." "well, in such a case an advertisement is the proper thing. but, my boy, your positiveness on this subject is extraordinary. how could you drop the wallet? do you keep it in the same pocket with your handkerchief?" "on, no, auntie; right in here." "and you haven't bought anything?" "no, auntie; you wouldn't let me pay the car fare, or anything else. but still i must have taken out the wallet by mistake. you see i _know_ nobody's picked my pockets." "why, horace, you just said granny picked 'em." "no, dot, i didn't! i only spoke of the queer way she had of leaning forward." "but you scowled at her sharp enough to take head off." "if i were you, dot, i wouldn't be any more disagreeable than i was absolutely obliged to.--now, auntie, how much does it cost to advertise?" "a dollar or so i believe." "well, if you'll lend me the money, i want to do it." "to be plain with you, horace, i really do not think it will be of the slightest use in this case; but i will consent to it if it will be any relief to your mind. we shall be obliged to cross the ferry again, for the advertisement ought to go into a brooklyn paper." "we are tired enough to drop," said dotty; "and all these stars and things, too!" "yes, we are all tired; but we will leave you little girls at the ferry-house on the other side." "but, auntie," said prudy, anxiously, "i shouldn't really dare have the care of fly. you know just how it is." "yes, i do know just how it is. fly must walk, with her tired little feet, to the eagle office, with horace and me; or else she must make a solemn promise not to go out of the ferry-house." "but i don't want to make a _solomon_ promise, auntie; i want to see the eagle." mrs. allen sighed. she began to think she had undertaken a great task in inviting these children to visit her. instead of a pleasure, they had proved, thus far, a weariness--always excepting prudy. she, dear, self-forgetting little girl, could not fail to be a comfort wherever she went. chapter xiii. the pumpkin hood. to the "eagle" office they went--obstinate horace, patient annt madge, and between them the "blue-bottle fly." "i do feel right sorry, auntie," said horace, a sudden sense of shame coming over him; "but i'm so sure i dropped the money, you know; or i wouldn't drag you up this hill when you're so tired." a sharp answer rose to mrs. allen's lips, but she held it back. "only a boy! in a fair way to learn a useful lesson, too. let me keep my temper! if i scold, i spoil the whole." they entered the office, and left with the editor this advertisement:-"lost.--between prospect park and fulton ferry, a porte-monnaie, marked 'horace s. clifford,' containing thirty-five dollars. the finder will be suitably rewarded by leaving the same at no. ----, cor. fifth ave. and ---street." "it is no matter about advertising prudy's purse, it was so shabby," said aunt madge; and on their way back to the ferry-house she bought her another. "o, thank you, auntie, darling," said prudy; "and thank you, too, horace, for losing my old one; it wasn't fit to be seen. and here is a whole dollar inside! o, aunt madge, _are_ you an angel?" "prue, you deserve your good luck; you don't come down on a fellow, hammer and tongs, because he happens to meet with an accident." "horace," said dotty, meekly, "are you willing to carry my gloves?" "yes, to be sure; but you don't want to go home bare-handed--do you?" "why, i was thinking how nice 'twould be, horace, to have you take 'em, and lose 'em, and me have a new pair. there's a hole in the thumb." this little sally amused everybody, and horace had the grace not to be sensitive, though the laugh was against him. "another queer day," said he, when they were at last at home again. "i don't know what will become of us all, if we keep on like this." the poor boy was trying his best to brave it out; but aunt madge could see that his heart was sore. "lost every cent i'm worth," mused he, turning his coat-pocket inside out, and scowling at it. "got to be a beggar as long as i stay in new york!" the whole party were tired, and horace's gloom seemed to fill the parlor like a fog, and make even the gas look dim. "i feel dreffly," said fly, curling her head under her brother's arm, like a chicken under its mother's wing--a way she had when she was troubled. "i feel just zif i didn't love nobody in the world, and there didn't nobody love me." this brought horace around in a minute, and called forth a pickaback ride. "music! let us have music," said aunt madge, flying to the piano. "when little folks grow so cold-hearted, in my house, that they don't love anybody, it's time to warm their hearts with some happy little songs. come, girls!" she played a few simple tunes, and the children all sang till the fog of gloom had disappeared, and the gas burned brightly once more. half an hour afterwards, just as fly was told she ought to be sleepy, because her bye-low hymn had been sung,--"sleep, little one, like a lamb in the fold,"--and she had answered that she "couldn't be sleepy, athout auntie would hurry quick to come in with a drink of water," there was a strange arrival. nathaniel, the waiting man, ushered into the parlor a droll little old woman, dressed in a short calico gown, with gay figures over it as large as cabbages; calf-skin shoes; and a green pumpkin hood, with a bow on top. "good evening, ma'am," said horace, rising, and offering her a chair. she did not seem to see very well, in spite of her enormous spectacles; for she took no notice of the chair, and remained standing in the middle of the floor. [illustration: the pumpkin hood.] "she stares at me so hard!" thought horace--"that's the reason she can't see anything else."--"please take a chair, ma'am." "can't stop to sit down. is your name horace s. clifford?" said the old woman, in a very feeble voice. horace looked at her; she had not a tooth in her head. "yes, ma'am; my name is horace clifford," said he, respectfully. he had great reverence for age, and could keep his mouth from twitching; but i'm sorry to say prudy's danced up at the corners, and dotty's opened and showed her back teeth the woman must have had all those clothes made when she was young, for nobody wore such things now; but it wasn't likely she knew that, poor soul! "did you go to the 'brooklyn eagle' office, to-day, to ad-_ver_-tise some lost money, little boy?" "yes, ma'am.--why, that advertisement can't have been printed _so_ quick!" "no, i calculate not. did you go in with a lady, and a leetle, oneasy, springy kind of a leetle girl?" "why, that's me," put in fly. "yes, ma'am--yes; were you there? what do you know about it?" "don't be in a hurry, little boy. i want to be safe and sure. i expect you took notice of a young man in a bottle-green coat,--no, a greenish-black coat,--a-sittin' down by the door." "o, i don't know. yes, i think i did. was he the one? did he find the money?" "did you walk up orange street?" continued the old woman. "no, i mean cranberry street?" "o, _dear_, i don't know! prudy, run, call aunt madge. please tell me, ma'am, have you got it with you? is my name on the inside?" "wait till the little girl calls your aunt. perhaps she'd be willing to let me tell the story in my own way. i'd ruther deal with grown folks," said the provoking old lady. horace's eyes flashed, but he contrived to keep his temper. "it is my purse, ma'am, and my aunt knows nothing about it. i can tell you just how it looks, and all there is in it." "perhaps you are one of the kind that can tell folks a good deal, and thinks nobody knows things so well as yourself," returned the disagreeable old woman, smiling and showing her toothless gums. "from what i can learn, i should judge you talked ruther too loud about your money; for there was a pusson heerd you in the ferry-boat, and took pains to go in the same car afterwards, and pick your pocket." "pick--my--pocket?" "yes, your pocket. you wise, wonderful young man!" "how? when? where?" "this is how," said the old woman, quick as a thought putting out her hand, and thrusting it into horace's breast pocket. "o, it's auntie's rings--it's auntie's rings," cried fly, jumping up, and seizing the pretended old woman by her calico sleeve. "why, aunt madge, that isn't you!" "but how'd you take out yer teeth?" said fly; "your teeth? your teeth?" "o, i didn't take them out, miss bright-eyes. i only put a little spruce gum over them." "horace, i can't find auntie anywhere in this house," said prudy, appearing at the parlor door. "do you suppose she's gone off and hid?" "yes, she's hid inside that old gown." "what do you mean?" "that's auntie, and her teeth's _in_," explained fly. "only i wish she was an old woman, and had really brought me my money," said horace, in a disappointed tone. "i declare, there was one time i thought the old nuisance was coming round to it, and going to give me the wallet." "what a wise, wonderful youth!" said the aged dame, in a cracked voice. "thinks i can give him his wallet, when he's got it himself, right close to his heart." horace put his hand in his breast pocket. wonder of wonders! there was the wallet! and not only his, but prudy's! had he been asleep all day? or was he asleep now? "money safe? not a cent gone. hoo-rah! hoo-ra-ah!" and for want of a cap to throw, he threw up fly. "where did it come from? where did the old woman find it? o, no; the man in the green-bottle coat?--o, no; there wasn't any old woman," cried the children, hopelessly confused. "but who found the money? did i drop it on cranberry street?" "did he drop it on quamby street?" "who brought it?" "who bringed it?" aunt madge stuffed her fingers into her ears. "they are all talking at once; they're enough to craze a body! they forget how old i am! came all the way from the eagle office, afoot and alone, with only four children to--" "o, auntie, don't play any more! talk sober! talk honest! did horace have his pockets picked?" "yes, he did," replied aunt madge, speaking in her natural tones, and throwing off the pumpkin hood; "if you want the truth, he did." "why aunt madge allen! it does not seem possible! who picked my pockets?" "some one who heard you talking so loud about your money." "but how could it be taken out, and i not know it?" "quite as easily as it could be put back, and you not know it." "that's true, horace clifford! auntie put it back, and you never knew it." "so she did," said horace, looking as bewildered as if he had been whirling around with his eyes shut; "so she did--didn't she? but that was because i was taken by surprise, seeing her without a tooth in her head, you know." "you have been taken by surprise twice to-day, then," said aunt madge, demurely. "it is really refreshing, horace, to find that such a sharp young man _can_ be caught napping!" "well, i--i--i must have been thinking, of something else, auntie." "so i conclude. and you must be thinking of something else still, or you'd ask me--" "o, yes, auntie; how did the thief happen to give it up? there, there, you needn't say a word! i see it all in your eyes! you took the money yourself. o, aunt madge!" "well, if that wasn't queer doings!" cried dotty. "yes, it is quite contrary to my usual habits. i never robbed anybody before. i hadn't the faintest idea i could do it without horace's knowledge." "why, auntie, i never was so astonished in my life!" said the youth, looking greatly confused. "i never heard of a person's being robbed that wasn't astonished," said aunt madge, with a mischievous smile. "will you be quite as sure of yourself another time, think?" "no, auntie, i shan't; that's a fact." "that's my good, frank boy," said aunt madge, kissing his forehead. "and he won't toss his head,--just this way,--like a young lord of creation, when meddlesome aunties venture to give him advice." horace kissed mrs. allen's cheek rather thoughtfully, by way of reply. "i don't see, aunt madge," said prudy, "why you went back across the river to put that piece in the paper, when you were the one that had the money all the time." "i did it to pacify horace. he _knew_ his pockets hadn't been pieked. besides i felt guilty. it was rather cruel in me--wasn't it?--to let him suffer so long." "not cruel a bit; good enough for me," cried horace, with a generous outburst. "you're just the jolliest woman, auntie--the jolliest woman! there you are; you look so little and sweet! but if folks think they're going to get ahead of you, why, just let 'em try it, say i!" dear readers: horace was scarcely more astonished, when his pocket was picked, than i am this minute, to find myself at the end of my book! i had very much more to tell; but now it must wait till another time. meanwhile the parlins and cliffords are "climbing the dream tree." let us hope they are destined to meet with no more misfortunes during the rest of their stay in new york. courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 5 mar. 27, 1909 five cents motor matt's mystery or foiling a secret plot [illustration: "that's motor matt!" yelled the man in the automobile, "get him, spangler!"] motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. entered according to act of congress in the year 1909, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c., by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ no. 5. new york, march 27, 1909. price five cents. motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. a dutchman in trouble. chapter ii. the runaway auto. chapter iii. the man at the roadside. chapter iv. the mystery deepens. chapter v. matt gets a job. chapter vi. concerning the letter. chapter vii. the two horsemen. chapter viii. on the road. chapter ix. in the hands of the enemy. chapter x. a shift in the situation. chapter xi. a surprise. chapter xii. escape. chapter xiii. the hut in the hills. chapter xiv. back to the car. chapter xv. a race and a ruse. chapter xvi. in ash fork. a young mariner's peril. swans carried over niagara falls. para rubber and its gathering. queer californian traders. burrowing fishes. turn river to mine its bed. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the western town, the popular name of "mile-a-minute matt." =carl pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking german lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with motor matt in double harness. =james q. tomlinson=, the jeweler from denver, who seems to have troubles of his own, and about whose identity there is more or less confusion. =trymore=, } a trio of sporting gentlemen who believe in hunting big =hank=, } game, and who consider themselves experts in the line =spangler=,} of choice gems. =pringle=, once honest carl's pardner in vaudeville, but latterly engaged in a far less honorable business. =gregory=, a chauffeur. =hop loo=, } =charley sing=,} the two eccentric laundrymen of ash fork. chapter i. a dutchman in trouble. whiz, bang! "dutchee boy no good! have gotee mon, no makee pay. whoosh! allee same cheap skate!" whiz, _bang_, clatter, _bang_! "vat's der madder mit you, hey? you vas grazier as i can't tell! py shiminy grickets, oof you hit me mit a flad-iron i vill mad be as some hornets. shtop a leedle, und i vill----" there followed a wild yell, a pandemonium as though bedlam had been turned loose, and then a heavy fall and sudden quiet. motor matt, just turning into the yard of a small adobe house, heard the tremendous uproar and came to a startled halt. hop loo, a chinese laundryman, lived in the house, and matt was just coming after his week's wash. under a cotton-wood tree in the yard, some fifteen feet from the house, was a wash-tub mounted on a couple of chairs. between the tree and a corner of the house, and running thence to a post set at right angles with the adobe wall, was a line strung with clothes. charley sing, who worked for hop loo, was at the tub, up to his elbows in hot suds. the racket in the house had claimed charley's attention just as it had caught matt's. pulling his hands out of the wash-water, charley dried them on his kimono, jerked the wash-board out of the tub, and, holding it by one leg for use as a weapon, stole toward the open door of the adobe. matt had been so situated that he could look into the house and catch a restricted view of what was going on. the thumping had been caused by flat-irons striking against the inner walls, each one being nimbly dodged by a fat youth of decidedly odd appearance. hop loo, who was ironing, had shrilly piped his denunciation of the fat boy; the latter had replied; and hop loo, failing to make a bull's-eye with the flat-iron, had sprung at the boy. the latter, with an astonishingly quick move, considering his size, had grabbed a rack of ironed clothes and hurled it in hop loo's way. thereupon hop loo had turned a somersault over the clothes, and was now standing on his head very quietly in a wood-box. "meppy you t'ink i vas a vandefeller, or rockybilt," cried the fat boy, breaking the silence, "but you bet my life you got anodder guess coming. you make me some drouples, by shinks, und i don'd like dot. goot-py, hob loo! sorry dot i can't vait undil you ged right-site-oop, aber i haf pitzness in some odder blaces, und vill broceed to fly my kite!" the fat boy turned and wabbled through the door. matt, now that he had a good look at him, began to laugh. "dutchman" was written all over the boy's face. he had a mop of carroty hair, and on top of it was a little plaid cap that looked as though it was lost in the wilderness. his ample dimensions were covered with a suit whose pattern consisted of a very "loud" plaid, and under the open coat could be seen a crimson vest that made even more noise than the rest of his apparel. as this ponderous vision ambled through the door, it was met by charley sing and the wash-board. "ged oudt oof my vay!" yelled the fat dutch boy. "oof you don'd, py shiminy, somet'ing is going to take blace vat is nod on der pills." charley, grimly determined, whirled the wash-board and let drive with it. the strength he put into the blow caused the board to leave his hands. the dutchman dropped, the wash-board flew over his head and hit hop loo, who had up-ended himself and was just returning to the attack, in the pit of the stomach. "wow!" gurgled hop loo, catching his middle with both hands and doing a wild dance in his straw sandals. charley sing was now thoroughly aroused. jabbering in frantic "pidgin," he proceeded to make front on the dutchman. the latter, continuing to display his surprising agility, ducked sideways between hop loo and charley sing, and rushed in the direction of the cottonwood. charley followed him with such speed that his pigtail stood straight out behind him, and the sandals flew right and left from his rapidly moving feet. the german boy circled around the wash-tub. charley would have circled, too, only his toes caught in a wringer that was lying on the ground, and he pitched heavily against the chairs that held the tub. a catastrophe followed. the tub went down, and charlie turned a handspring in the hot suds and came up covered with foam and wet clothes. "whoosh!" he spluttered; "killee dutchee boy! allee same debble! makee go topside!" falling over against the tree, he began clearing the soap-suds out of his eyes and throat. he looked like an animated drying-post, and the dutch boy, in spite of his troubles, began to haw-haw wildly. by that time, however, hop loo had recovered his wind, grabbed up a stick of stove-wood, and was bearing down on the fat teuton with blood in his eye. the youth saw him coming, whirled, and ran into the clothes-line. his weight ripped the line from the tree and the house-corner, and when he went on he carried it with him, the dried clothes flapping like so many distress-signals. perhaps the boy traveled a dozen yards. at the end of that distance, he got tangled in the rope, went down and rolled over and over, completely wrapping himself up in a choice assortment of laundry. it is hard to tell what hop loo would have done when he came up with that fluttering heap that was twisting and writhing on the ground. he had the stick of wood in his hand and much bitterness in his heart, but if he struck too hard he would make a bad matter worse by damaging some of the linen. besides, when hop loo got ready to take revenge, matt was standing between him and the helpless dutchman. "easy there, hop loo!" cried matt. "you no stopee china boy!" howled hop loo, dancing all around matt and trying to get at the bundle. "dutchee boy spoilee heap washee, makee plenty tlouble. me sendee topside, you bettee!" grabbing hop loo's waving arm, matt deftly relieved the yellow fist of the billet of wood. "hold up, hop loo," said he soothingly; "let's get down to cases on this thing and find out what's wrong." "by jim' klismus," shrilled hop loo, "he tly beatee china boy! no makee pay fo' launly! kickee up plenty lumpus. no likee!" "vell, der olt rat-eader! i vas drying to tell him some t'ings und he vouldn't lis'en. he made me more drouples as you can guess, und pegan drowing me at all der flad-irons in der blace." matt looked around. the dutch boy had managed to scramble to his feet and paw his head free of the clothes. a red undershirt was draped gracefully over his right shoulder, and he was completely swathed in other garments and clothes-pins. matt grinned. the sight was too much for him. "meppy id's funny," said the dutch boy, with a wink, "aber der chink ain't enchoying himseluf so as any vone can nodice." "who are you?" asked matt. "carl is der lapel vat i tote, carl pretzel." "do you owe the chinaman money?" "vell, i vas pusted, und i vanted him to vait undil i get some chobs, und he got mad und pegun drowing t'ings. he vould haf drowed der kitchen stof ad me, only it vas hotter as he could hantle. my, my, vat a grazy chink id iss." "how much does he owe you, hop?" inquired matt. "fittyfi' cent fo' launly," answered the chinaman, "two dol' fo' spoilee clothes," and he waved a discouraged hand at the garments on the ground and at the overturned wash-tub. "two fittyfi', you savvy? him one piecee bad dutchee boy." "how much is my laundry?" asked matt. "fortyfi'." "that makes three dollars," said matt, pulling some money from his pocket. "take it, hop, and call the account square. now run in and get carl's laundry and mine while i'm getting him out of his tangle." the three silver dollars soothed the chinaman's injured feelings, and he turned and vanished into the house. "say," cried carl, "you vas a pooty goot feller! vat's your name, hey?" "matt king." "you lif in ash fork?" "no; i'm just here waiting for a man i'm anxious to see." "vell, dot's my fix. i'm likevise vaitin' for a man dot i vant do see mit a club. he's aboudt my size, only not kevite so goot looging as me, und pigger oop an' down as i am der odder vay. his name iss pringle. he vas a pad egg, i tell you dot. can you tell me vere dot feller iss?" matt shook his head. "never heard of him, carl," he answered. "chonny hartluck has been hitting me like anyt'ing," sighed carl, as matt stripped away the last of the clothes-line, "und you peen der fairest friendt i haf hat since i don'd know. shake vonce." carl put out his hand, and matt grasped it cordially. "how you t'ink i efer pay you pack dot money, matt?" asked carl. "i'm not thinking much about it, one way or the other," said matt. "no great loss, carl, if you never pay it back." "you vas a fine feller, und ve vill go some place und i vill tell you somet'ing." just then hop loo showed himself with two bundles of laundry. matt took one, and carl the other, and they left at once for the main part of the town. there was joy in the faces of hop loo and charley sing as the dutch boy departed, and they immediately began bringing order out of their demoralized "plant." when they were out of the yard, and bound along the road, carl pretzel threw back his head and began to laugh. "you seem to get a good deal of fun out of your troubles, carl," remarked matt, who had developed a deep interest in his odd companion. "dot's me!" guffawed carl. "id iss easy to be jeerful ven luck is comin' your vay, aber you bed you it takes a pooty goot feller to be jeerful ven it ain't. so dot's vy i laff mit meinseluf. i peen more jeerful now, schust pecause i vas blayin' in der vorst luck vat efer habbened, und i bed you someding for nodding it ain't eferypody vat could do dot. now, oof i----" carl never finished his remark. the boys had been walking in the center of the road, and matt suddenly heard a sound behind them and almost on their heels. "look out!" he yelled, grabbing carl by the arm and giving him a jerk toward the roadside. chapter ii. the runaway auto. "vat's der madder?" gasped carl, as he came to a staggering halt. "look!" cried matt, pointing. an automobile--a big, red touring-car--rolled past the boys. if they had not jumped just when they did it would have run them down. it had come without warning, other than the muffled noise caused by its machinery, and matt had been so taken up with the talk of his new acquaintance that he had not heard the car's approach until the last moment. "vy didn't he honk?" sputtered carl. "_he_?" flung back matt, staring, and hardly able to believe his eyes. "why, there wasn't any one to honk!" this amazing statement was literally true. as the car passed them, the boys could see that there was no one in either of the front seats, or in the tonneau. the car had no passengers, _and was running itself_! "vell, py chimineddy!" murmured carl, aghast. the car was not going at a high rate of speed--perhaps fifteen miles an hour--but, even at that gait, it was rapidly leaving a wide gap between it and the boys. matt was nonplused, but he side-tracked his bewilderment in a hurry and tried to think of some means for overtaking the runaway auto and bringing it to a halt. this must be done before the car reached town, or there would surely be an accident. matt flashed his eyes about him. houses were few and far between in that part of the settlement, but, as luck would have it, a horse was standing in front of a dwelling on the right of the road. without losing a moment, matt rushed to the horse, jerked the bridle-reins over the top of a post, clambered into the saddle and dug out after the red car. carl was yelling and talking excitedly, but matt had no attention to pay to him, and the dutch boy's words soon died out in the distance. for several miles that road into ash fork was perfectly straight. the runaway car, however, was heading for a bend where trees and telephone-poles would surely wreck it unless it was halted or turned. as matt, with the horse on the keen jump, came closer to the car, he saw that the steering-wheel had been lashed by a rope. attached to one of the top-irons on the right side of the front seat, the lashing engaged the spokes of the steering-wheel and crossed to the top-iron on the left. this fastening held the wheel rigid, and kept the car on a straight course. how to drop from the saddle of the running horse and into the car was a point that matt turned over in his mind as he raced. he had not many seconds in which to mark out a line of action--and he did not need many. pushing the horse to top speed, matt passed the car; then, with a quick jerk on the reins, he brought the horse to a slower pace, tumbled out of the saddle, caught his footing in the road and flung himself at the running-board as the car came abreast of him. he was jolted considerably, although no particular damage was done, and got into the tonneau with a wild scramble. by then the car was dangerously close to the bend, and matt threw himself across the back of the front seat and into the driver's position. with lightning quickness he cut off the power and threw on the emergency brake. the machine halted, but with a telephone-pole almost between the front wheels! with a deep breath of relief, matt stood up to see what carl was doing. the fat dutchman was trying to head off and stop the horse. the animal, as soon as matt had dropped from the saddle, had whirled back along the road. not a little frightened, the horse seemed now about to turn in matt's direction in order to escape carl. hastily cutting away the wheel-lashing with his knife, matt sprang from the car and ran back, so he and carl could keep the horse between them. this move was successful, and the dutch boy, by an exercise of marvelous agility for one of his build, managed to grab the horse by the bits. "vat shall i do mit him, matt?" cried carl. "take him back to the place where i got him, carl," called matt, "then bring that laundry of ours and come to the car. there's a mystery here that we've got to look into." matt's wild ride on horseback, and his capture of the car, had not brought a single person out of the squat little adobe houses sprinkled along the road. for the most part, the houses were inhabited by chinamen, and they had little curiosity for the melican man's devil-wagon; not enough, at least, to let the stopping of the car draw them from their own affairs. matt looked the machine over with an admiring eye. it was a fine late model, with six cylinders under the long hood. from the amount of dust with which the machine was covered it seemed to have come a long distance. the tires, however, were in excellent condition, the gasoline-tank was half full, and there was still a good supply of oil. familiar as matt was with motor vehicles, he knew the car must have cost five or six thousand dollars. why was such a valuable machine loose in the road? who was the owner? and _where_ was the owner? getting into the tonneau, matt searched for something that would offer a clue to the mystery. he could find nothing. he was just straightening up after his unsuccessful examination when carl came along. "py chiminy," puffed carl, "i nefer heardt oof anyt'ing like dot! matt, you vas a great feller. dot's righdt. oof you hatn't done vat you dit, i bed you somet'ing der modor-car vould haf peen a lot oof junk. yah, so. vere you learn how to run audomopiles, hey?" "used to work in a motor factory," answered matt. "what do you think of this lay out, carl?" he asked. "here's a fine big touring-car running itself along the road, no clue to the owner, and the steering-wheel lashed to keep it on a straight line!" apparently the question was too difficult for carl. thoughtfully he tossed the two bundles of laundry into the tonneau, walked around in front and opened the bonnet. the beautiful mechanism disclosed brought an admiring cry from the dutch boy's lips. "py shinks," he murmured, "you don'd find cylinters like dot in cheap cars, matt!" "what do you know about cylinders?" demanded matt, opening his eyes at this new side of the teuton's character. "vell," and carl ran his fingers through the mop of hair, "meppy i don'd know how to dake a car apart und put him togedder again, aber i t'ink yah. i vorked vonce in some factories meinseluf--pefore i got foolish und vent on der stage mit pringle. you bed you i know der carpuretter from der spark-plug, but i don'd got der nerf to make a drifer." carl had been through experiences about which matt was anxious to learn, but, for the present, the mystery of the red car claimed his entire attention. "why should any one want to cut a car like this adrift?" queried matt. "dat's more as i know," answered carl, closing the bonnet, "aber led's be jeerful, matt. oof fife t'ousant tollars comes rolling indo our hants, all py itseluf, for vy shouldn't ve be jeerful?" "this car don't belong to us, carl, just because we happened to stop it." "vell, oof you hatn't shtopped it it vouldn't haf peen vort' nodding! und der feller vat hat it didn't vant it, or he vouldn't haf let it go. so helup me, i t'ink it pelongs py us. i vant to go py tenver. vere do you vant to go?" "i came from phoenix to ash fork, two weeks ago, with a letter of recommendation to a wealthy cattleman who has just bought a big automobile and wants a driver. i had my eye on the job, carl, but the cattleman hasn't shown up. he lives here, though, and i'm waiting for him. if it wasn't for that, i'd just as soon pull out for denver, myself." "i don'd got some money," said carl, "und along comes der audomopile und say, 'chump in, boys, und led me dake you py tenver!' und i, in der jeerful vay vat i haf, make some remarks aboudt 'vy nod?'" matt went around to the front and began cranking. "well, jump in," said he, coming back and getting into the driver's seat; "we're going to start." "for tenver?" cried carl. "hardly," laughed matt, backing away and turning the car in the road; "we're off along the back trail to look for the touring-car's owner." "vell, meppy he don'd vant it?" "then, if we find him, we'll give him a chance to say so." "how you t'ink ve vas goin' to find him?" "this car hasn't been abandoned very long, nor very many miles back on the road. you see, the road is straight for only a few miles, and the car, with the wheel lashed as it was, could only travel along the straight track. if it had been abandoned _before_ it was put on the straight track, it would have been in the ditch." "you know more in a minit as i in a year know, matt," said carl, heaving a long breath, "und dot's all aboudt it. ve vill look for der owner, und i vill shdill be jeerful efen oof he dakes der car und makes me valk by tenver, yah, so. it vas some pig mysderies, anyvay; py chimineddy, it vas der piggest vale oof a mysdery vat efer come my vay." motor matt agreed with carl. somewhere along the straight stretch of road ahead of them he felt sure the key to the mystery would be found. and what would it reveal? chapter iii. the man at the roadside. back past hop loo's adobe matt drove the car, and on into the open country. for five or six miles the road ran as straight as an arrow, and was almost as level and smooth as a boulevard. ahead of them, as they moved forward, the boys could see the marks left by the wheels when the car had passed over the road headed toward town. no other pneumatic tires had left a trail in the dust. "i bed you somet'ing, matt," remarked carl, "dot dis car don'd pelong py ash fork." "there's only one car owned in ash fork," said matt, "and that belongs to the cattleman i came to the town to see. from the looks of the road, no car has come into town or gone out of it for several hours, except this one. keep a sharp watch on your side of the road, carl. we've got to find the place where the car stopped while the driver was lashing the wheel and getting out." "py shinks, i haf peen vatching as sharp as some veasels, aber i don'd see nodding." matt was covering the back trail slowly, so that no clues which might have been left in the road could get away from his keen eyes. for a long time neither he nor carl saw anything of importance; and then, suddenly, when they were about four miles from town, matt's sharp glance showed him something that caused him to bring the car to a quick stop. "vat it iss?" asked carl excitedly. "get down and i'll show you," answered matt. when they were both in the road, beside the car, matt pointed to a spot close to the wheel-marks left by the car on its trip into town. "py shinks," muttered carl, pushing his fingers through his carroty hair in a puzzled way, "dot looks schust like some feller had t'rowed a bag der car off. dose marks in der dust look schust like dey vas made mit some pags." "it must have been a bag that could move, then," said matt. "huh?" queried carl, his bewilderment growing. matt showed him how the broad mark in the dust had moved toward the roadside. "and that bag, as you call it, carl," continued matt, "wasn't thrown out. if i'm figuring this thing right, it _fell_ out." "hoop-a-la!" exulted carl admiringly, "you vas some sherlock holmes, i bed you. how you make dot figuring, anyvay? i know as mooch as you, meppy, oof i could only t'ink oof it. you tell me somet'ing, und den i know." matt stepped toward the side of the road opposite from that where the broad, flat mark ran toward the edge. "you see, carl," he explained, "this road isn't quite so level here. there's a bit of a ridge, and when the car came into town, the wheels on the left side went over that ridge, tilting the machine to the right. what you call the bag dropped over the right side and into the road." "yah, so! und ven it hit der road it moofed mit itseluf. funny pitzness. der furder vat ve go, der less vat ve know, hey? vat next, matt?" "we'll follow the trail and see where it leads." "sure! aber ve don'd vant to go too far avay from der car. some goot-for-nodding fellers might come along und shnook it on us." "i don't think we'll have to go very far, carl." "veil, be jeerful. vatefer ve findt, matt, schust be jeerful. oof i can't go py tenfer in dot car it vill be a plow in der face; aber vatch und see how i took it." low bushes lined the roadside. matt, not paying much attention to carl's last remarks, was moving off in the direction of the bushes, following the strange broad trail. parting the branches at the outer edge of the thicket, he moved into the tangled undergrowth. carl, who was pushing along behind him, saw him stoop down and disappear below the tops of the bushes. the next moment, the dutch boy heard a startled exclamation, and matt straightened up quickly. his face, which he turned toward carl, had gone suddenly white. "come here, carl!" he called. "you findt der moofing pag, hey?" asked carl, floundering through the brush. then, a second later, carl's face also blanched. coming close to matt, and looking down, he saw the form of a man curled up in a little cleaned space in the thicket. the man's hat lay beside him, and about his forehead was tied a blood-stained handkerchief. his face was pallid and deathlike, and his eyes were closed. "himmelblitzen!" whispered carl. "iss he deadt, i vonder?" matt knelt down and laid a hand on the man's breast; then, lifting up one of his limp wrists, he pressed his fingers against the pulse. "he's alive," said matt. "den it vasn't a pag vat tropped oudt oof der car----" "it was this man," cut in matt. "he was sitting in the driver's seat. when the car pitched to the right he was too weak to hold himself in, so he fell into the road." "und hurt his head ven he fell!" "no, he must have hurt his head before he fell. it wasn't so very long ago, carl, that he took his header from the car, and that bandage must have been around his temples for two or three hours, at least." "den vat? oof he vas too veak to shtay py der car, how he tie der veel like vat it vas?" "he must have been running the car and steering. feeling his strength going, he lashed the wheel in order to keep the machine on a straight course. probably he hoped the car would get him into town." "how you t'ink he vas hurt?" "give it up. it looks like foul play to me." "ach, blitzen! dot's schust vat i say: der more vat ve hunt aroundt der less vat ve find oudt." the man was well dressed, and thirty-five or forty years old. "anyhow," said matt, "he must have been the owner of the car. i shouldn't wonder if some one had robbed him." "den der roppers didn't know deir pitzness, matt," returned carl. "see dot pig, goldt chain in his vest! und look at here vonce." carl bent over and pulled a fine gold watch from the vest pocket. "vat vas der roppers t'inking aboudt ven dey held der feller oop und didn't take dis? und den, again, dere iss der car. vy didn't dey shdeal dot, hey? no, i bed you, it vasn't roppers. it vas somet'ing else vat gif dot poor feller a crack on der headt." "some one may have _tried_ to rob him, carl," said matt. "the car is a fast one, and it's easy to guess that he got away." "vell, meppy. my prain vas all in kinks und i don'd know noddings aboudt it." "the quickest way to find out what happened is to get the man to ash fork and into a doctor's hands. we ought to do that, anyway, and the quicker we do it the better. let's take him and put him in the tonneau." "dot's der talk!" matt stepped to the man's head and started to lift him by the shoulders. as the limp form was slowly raised something dropped out of hip pocket. "py chimineddy!" exploded carl. "vait a leedle, matt. see vat iss dis." matt waited while carl stooped and picked up an object that glittered in the sunlight. "a revolver!" exclaimed matt "yah, so! der feller vent heeled mit himseluf. meppy he vas expecding drouble?" "that may be! or, if he was touring through this part of the country, it would only have been a wise policy to carry arms. any bullets in the gun, carl?" the dutch boy examined the weapon. "dere iss doo empty shells und four goot vones," he announced. "he must haf fired a gouple oof dimes." "well, drop the gun in your pocket and let's get him to the car." thereupon the unconscious form was picked up and carried out of the thicket and into the road. close to the car the burden was laid down while the tonneau door was opened. "after the man fell from the car," said matt, "he had to drag himself into the bushes." "vy vas dot? oof he hat shtaid in der roadt somepody who vas passing vould haf seen him." "he may have had his reasons for getting out of sight. anyhow, the only way for us to get to the bottom of this thing is by taking the man to town and having a doctor look after him." when carl had opened the door and thrown the two packages of laundry from the seat into the bottom of the car, the boys picked the man up again and heaved him into the tonneau. while he was being lifted something else dropped out of his pockets and fell on the foot-board with a muffled _thump_. "iss dot anoder gun?" puffed carl, who was in the tonneau and fixing the man on the seat. "not exactly," answered matt, taking the object from the running-board and holding it up. it was a small green bag. "see vat iss inside alreaty," suggested carl. "meppy it vill gif us a line on who der feller iss." the bag was of heavy silk, and its mouth was closed with a silken cord. to open the bag took only a moment, and matt thrust in his hand and drew out several small spheres about the size of so many peas. they were dark in color and cast off a lustrous gleam in the sun's rays. matt stared at the little objects in amazement. "chee grickets!" grunted carl. "vy he vas carrying pills in a silk pag? he must be a great feller!" "pills!" exclaimed matt. "you're 'way wide of the mark, carl. these are not pills, but pearls--black pearls, the rarest gems that come out of the sea. there--there's a fortune in this green bag!" chapter iv. the mystery deepens. the effect of matt's announcement on carl was startling. the dutch boy, of course, might be supposed to evince some surprise at finding the bag of pearls, but his amazement went so deep it left him speechless. more than that, his astonishment grew rather than lessened. "bearls!" he whispered, as soon as he could find his voice, staring strangely at matt over the side of the tonneau. "iss dot vat you say, matt--bearls?" "yes," answered matt excitedly, counting the contents of the bag. "there are twenty of them, carl, and i know that black pearls bring a big price." "veil, by shinks und den some!" wheezed carl. "vouldn't dot knock you slap-sited? bearls! und vat vas dot t'ing i findt me in pringle's room. say, matt, i got to shpeak mit you, righdt avay!" "we've got to take care of the man, carl," returned matt, closing the silk bag and stowing it carefully in his pocket. "this is a big thing we're up against, and we've got to handle it right. make the man as comfortable as you can. i'll go back after his hat and then we'll hustle him into ash fork." carl went about his work mechanically, his face full of wonder. matt returned to the place where the man had been found, picked up his automobile-cap and gave a hasty look around for anything else that might have been dropped. failing to find anything, he returned quickly to the car. "you better stay in the tonneau, carl," suggested matt, "and keep the man from being jarred off the seat." "i vant to talk," said carl; "py chimineddy, i got to shpeak mit you aboudt vat has habbened mit me. i don'd ged der time since der chinks blayed tag mit me, und----" matt was cranking the machine. as he came around and crawled into the front seat, he looked back to see that everything was all right. "you can talk while we run into town, carl," said he, throwing in the clutch and manipulating the side lever. "pefore you ged to going too fast," said carl, leaning over the back of the seat and pushing a scrap of paper under matt's eyes, "read dot." there were only a few words on the sheet, and matt read them almost at a glance. what he read thrilled him on the instant. "pearls on the way. break loose and meet us as per letter sent you at albuquerque." it was the one word, "pearls," that sent an electric shock through matt's nerves. "where'd that note come from?" he asked, keeping his eyes ahead on the road. "dot's all vot pringle left pehindt," answered carl, putting the note back in his pocket. "ven he flew der coop he took mit him der trunk mit eferyding else vat he hat. yah, so. ven i knocked py his room in der morning, i don'd ged no answer. i knock some more, und den i findt me der door vas oben, und i valk in mit meinseluf. no pringle. no trunk. no nodding aber schust dot paper lying on der floor. pringle hat vamoosed. he took vat money dere vas, und my shdreet clodings, so i hat to vear my stage make-oop." "where were you and pringle at the time?" "py flagstaff." "what were you doing in flagstaff?" "ve vas a knockaboudt moosickal team. yah, so. ve use a shlap-shtick, und make some monkey-doodle pitzness, und i blay der zillyphone, und der drompone, und der moosickal glasses, und der sleigh-pells. pringle he blow der horn und plinkety-plunk der pancho. ve vas vorkin' our vay agross der gontinent py san francisco, vere ve blay a circuit in vaudeville. aber pringle he pull out mit himseluf, und i vas left in some lurches. i go on py ash fork, and t'ink meppy pringle come up from phoenix, so i vait py ash fork. vell, he leaf me doo shirts und dree pairs oof socks, und vile i peen in ash fork vaiting, i dake dem py hop loo. ach, i haf some pooty pad dimes vile i vait for pringle, aber i vas jeerful. now i t'ink meppy he don'd vas in phoenix ad all, und dot he vas in tenver. dere iss somet'ing in dot note aboudt bearls. ve findt bearls in dot leedle pag. funny, ain't dot? for vy iss id, matt?" matt couldn't answer that question. the mystery was deepening. "somebody sent that note to pringle, carl, and he cut loose from you." "yah, so. he cut loose from me und he dook eferyt'ing vat i haf. he vas a pad egg, you bed you. oof i ketch him vonce, i make him t'ink he vas hit mit some cyclones!" "the fellow who wrote that note may not have meant that these pearls in the bag were 'on the way.'" "meppy nod, aber it looks doo keveer for a habbenchance. it gif me a cholt, matt, ven you saidt dose t'ings vas bearls, und i recollectioned vat vas saidt in der note about bearls. meppy pringle und some odder pad egg dry to holt dis feller oop und dake der pag avay from him." "that may be. how is the man now?" "aboudt der same like he vas." matt had been driving the car at a smart clip, and they had taken the turn in the road and were reaching out for the main street of the town. there was a doctor's office across the street from the hotel, and matt drew up in front of it. some loungers on the sidewalk, observing the unconscious form in the tonneau, began crowding around the car and asking questions. "i don't know what's the matter," said matt. "we found this car running away and picked up the man from the roadside. is the doctor in?" the doctor himself looked from a second-story window and answered the question. some of the bystanders helped remove the man from the tonneau and carry him up the stairs to the doctor's office. matt and carl followed. "keep quiet, carl," whispered matt to the dutch boy; "don't tell any of these people what we've found. that information will have to go to the officers." "sure t'ing," returned carl, with a wink. "i know more as you t'ink, matt. ve ought to ged a rake-off on dot pag. id vould be easy to be jeerful mit a rake-off." the unconscious man was laid down on a couch in the doctor's office, and the room was cleared of all the morbidly curious people. only matt and carl were left with the doctor. the latter, busily stripping away the blood-stained bandage, kept up a running fire of talk as he worked. he wanted to know all about the runaway car, how it had been stopped, just where the man had been found, whether he had been unconscious ever since he was picked up, and so on. carl let matt answer the questions, and matt was glad that none of the doctor's remarks brought up anything about the pearls. "his injury is not serious," said the doctor. "his forehead has been grazed by a bullet. a tight squeak, but in a case like this a miss is always as good as a mile." "why is he unconscious?" queried matt. "just weak from loss of blood. we'll bring him around in a jiffy, and then he can tell all about what happened to him." the doctor proceeded to cleanse the man's wound, and to put on a fresh bandage. then, holding up his head, he forced a stimulant between his lips. "he must be a wealthy man," remarked the doctor, his eyes on the watch-chain and the good clothes. "but what does a wealthy man want to be pounding around the country for--especially a country like this--all by himself?" before either matt or carl could hazard a guess, the man gave a slight start and opened his eyes. for an instant he stared blankly into the faces of the doctor and the boys, muttered something, and tried to get up. "i wouldn't do that," said the doctor. "you're weak, yet. wait till you get a little strength. here, drink some more of this." the man took another swallow of the stimulant, and seemed to get better control of himself. "how did i come here?" he asked. matt, obeying a gesture from the doctor, told how the car had been stopped, and how he and carl had gone back along the road and found the man unconscious among the bushes. for a minute or two after hearing matt's explanations the man lay silent and thoughtful. "if you did all that," said he to matt finally, "you must know how to run a car." matt nodded. "i used to work for a motor company in albany," he answered, "and they had me give demonstrations. i had to know all about cars and take out a license." a queer gleam arose in the man's eyes. "i am james q. tomlinson, of denver," said he, "and have been touring southern california and arizona for my health. with my chauffeur, i came up from yuma in the 'red flier,' and the chauffeur was taken sick at the needles. am expecting to pick up a friend in flagstaff. the friend is waiting there for me, and i thought i would drive the car through to flagstaff from the needles myself. i found i didn't know as much about it as i thought i did. however, i managed to peg along. "early this morning, about twenty miles out of ash fork, i was set upon by three masked men. they ordered me to stop, but i opened up the machine and made a run past them. the scoundrels fired at me, and one of their bullets grazed my head. i was stunned for a moment, but managed to keep my senses and hold the automobile in the road. had an idea that i could get to ash fork, but somehow i kept growing weaker and weaker. it became hard for me to manage the steering-wheel, so i tied it with a rope; then, all at once, the car tilted, and i was thrown out. "i can remember falling into the road, and crawling to some bushes where i could be out of the hot sun. after that my wits left me, and i remember nothing more until now." a knock fell on the door of the outer office. the doctor excused himself for a moment and went out, closing the door of the private office behind him. as soon as he was gone, mr. tomlinson's manner changed quickly. thrusting a hand into his pocket, he withdrew it with a cry of alarm. then he fixed upon matt and carl a suspicious look. "did you boys see anything of a bag, a little green silk bag?" he demanded. matt took the bag from his pocket and handed it to him. "it dropped out of your coat as we were lifting you into the car," said he. a gasp of relief went up from the man. "do you know what it contains?" he queried, opening the bag with trembling fingers. "pearls," said matt, "twenty black pearls." assuring himself that the pearls were all in the bag, tomlinson closed it and pushed it into his pocket. "these pearls are worth thirty thousand dollars," said he, in a guarded tone. "you boys are honest, and will be rewarded, but say nothing to anybody about the bag. understand?" matt nodded, and just then the doctor came in with a roughly dressed individual whom he introduced as a deputy sheriff. chapter v. matt gets a job. "what's the trouble here?" asked the deputy sheriff. "i hear that matt king and the dutchman brought you to town in an automobile, mr. tomlinson, and that you have been robbed." "not robbed," replied tomlinson. "i was shot at, and wounded slightly, but the car was too fast for the thieves and i got away." "where 'bouts was this?" "about twenty miles west of ash fork. i don't think it would do you any good to go after the rascals, though." "i reckon not. they're prob'ly a good long ways from where they tried to hold you up. you wasn't hurt very bad, eh?" "it wasn't serious at all. i feel pretty weak, but i'll soon get over that. it's necessary for me to go on to flagstaff to-night, or early to-morrow morning." "you'd better rest up for three or four days, anyhow, mr. tomlinson," admonished the doctor. "haven't the time. as i told you, there's a friend waiting for me at flagstaff." tomlinson's tone was decided, and he turned to matt. "so your name is king," he asked, "matt king?" "yes," answered the young motorist. "are you the motor matt i've been hearing about, down phoenix way?" "i've been living in phoenix for a while, and that's what they call me down there." "what are you doing in ash fork?" "came here looking for a job." "good! i need a driver for my car, and will pay you one hundred dollars a month and expenses. is it a go?" matt jumped at the chance. this was not the job he had been expecting to get, but it seemed fully as good as anything he could pick up in ash fork. besides, there was a prospect of getting to denver, and he had long had that city in his mind's eye. "i'll take it," said matt. "where do we go after leaving flagstaff?" "right back to colorado," answered tomlinson. "i guess this will stop my knocking around. i went away for my health, and now i'll go back to denver for the same reason." he took a roll of bills from his pocket, stripped off a twenty-dollar bank-note and handed it to matt. "here's some money, king," said he. "look after the red flier and have her all ready to start early to-morrow morning. how much do i owe you, doctor?" he added. "oh, a ten will about square us," answered the doctor, and must have pocketed more money for less work than he had done for some time. "help me to the hotel, will you?" asked tomlinson, of the deputy sheriff. "i'm not very steady on my legs, yet." "sure," said the officer readily. "schust a minid, oof you blease," spoke up carl. "oof you vas going to tenver, misder domlinson, vat's der madder mit ledding me rite along? dot's vere i vant to go, und i don'd haf some money to ged dere." tomlinson looked carl over for a moment. "well," said he, "i don't know why i shouldn't. i owe you something, anyhow." carl brightened perceptibly. he had taken a great liking to matt, in the few hours he had known him, and was glad that they were both going to denver together. tomlinson was assisted out of the office by the deputy sheriff, the doctor opening the doors obsequiously ahead of them. when the doctor returned to matt and carl he was rubbing his hands and smiling. "i'll bet you boys don't know what that man is," said he. "why, he's one of the biggest wholesale jewelers in the west, and he's got more money than you can count. this was a lucky day's work for you." "vell," returned carl grimly, "it don'd open oop like it. he gifs me a rite py tenver for vat i dit, und he gifs matt a chob like vat he could ged anyvere for der same money. domlinson iss an olt skinflint." "tut, tut," said the doctor reprovingly. "before you get through with him you'll find that he does the right thing by you." "have you ever seen him before, doctor?" asked matt. "no, but i've read a lot about him in the denver newspapers. you chaps are in for a streak of luck." "dot's vat i peen vaidin' for, all righdt," said carl, as he and matt left, "aber i got some hunches dot i'm goin' to keep righdt on vaidin', und being jeerful schust to show vat goot shtuff a pretzel iss made of." when they got down on the walk, carl laid a hand on matt's arm. "how vould you like to lend me a leedle more money, matt?" he asked. "you see, i owe a fife-tollar board-pill in town und it iss pedder dot i pay it pefore i hike. i can't gif you nodding but my vort dot i pay him back, shdill you alretty took some chances on me, und you mighdt as vell took a few more." "there you are, carl," laughed matt, handing him the money. "i wouldn't want you to go along with us if you didn't have your debts paid. i'm getting a hundred a month, now, and i'll stand back of you until you find a job of your own." "you vas a pully poy," answered carl, "und ve vill be fast friendts so long as you like." "that suits me," answered matt heartily, "right up to the handle." they shook hands cordially, and while carl went off to square his board-bill matt gave his attention to the red flier. now that matt had charge of that fine big car, he was conscious of a feeling of pride as he stood off and surveyed the superb machine. from now on the car was to be under his care, and to run under his hands. motors were his hobby, particularly gasoline-motors, and he was never so happy as when he had something to do with them. he wondered a little why a wealthy wholesale jeweler should be traveling about the southwest in a touring-car with no more baggage than mr. tomlinson had with him. but that was mr. tomlinson's business, and matt was so wrapped up in the six-cylinder machine that he gave little attention to anything else. his first move was to begin an examination of the car to see that everything was in proper shape. the cylinders and valves under the hood claimed his first care; then he examined the water-tank, the sparking-apparatus, and finally came to the point where he wanted a look at the gear. this was reached by a trap in the tonneau, and he pulled up a rubber mat in order to get at the opening. under the mat he found something besides the trap-door. the object was a letter, which might have got under the mat by mistake or have been put there for the purpose of secreting it. matt picked the letter up and gave it closer scrutiny. it had passed through the mails, and had been posted in flagstaff several days before. the address, in a scrawling hand, read, "mr. james trymore, brockville, a. t." brockville was the next station west of ash fork. the address was evidence enough that the letter did not belong to tomlinson; but, if not, how did it happen to be in the car? there was a chance that the missive belonged to tomlinson's chauffeur, who had been left sick at the needles. thinking that this was the way of it, matt started to put the letter in his pocket. at that moment the deputy sheriff came across the street from the hotel. "well, king," said he jovially, bracing up alongside the car, "you've feathered your nest in good shape. tomlinson is loaded down with money and you've done a big thing for him to-day." "think so?" queried matt. "wisht i was as sure i was goin' to make a million as i am of that." "did you talk with mr. tomlinson any?" "well, a little." "did he tell you the name of his other chauffeur?" "no, i can't remember that he did." "are you acquainted over in brockville?" "know about everybody in the town." "who's trymore, james trymore?" the effect of that question on the deputy sheriff was amazing. he gave a jump and his eyes narrowed as they peered at matt. "what did you ask me that for?" he demanded. "because i wanted to know." "look here, son, have you got a line on that feller, or have you jest seen one of the notices?" "what notices?" "why, i got a letter through the mails, from denver, not more'n three days ago, saying that a crook named denny jerome, otherwise denver denny, otherwise james trymore, had escaped from jail and was believed to be somewhere in this part of the country. how'd you hear about him?" matt was not taking the deputy sheriff into his confidence merely on that showing. parrying his curiosity with some offhand remark, matt pushed the letter into his pocket and went on with his examination of the car. his mind was full of all sorts of surmises. why should a letter addressed to a denver crook be in mr. tomlinson's car? matt began to think that the day's proceedings, taken all together, had a queer look. perhaps his new job wasn't going to be as pleasant a one as he had imagined. chapter vi. concerning the letter. carl came back in time to help matt clean the dust and dirt off the red flier, to replenish the oil, fill the water-tank and strain a full supply of gasoline into the fuel-chamber. the car was then backed into an unused barn connected with the hotel, and the boys washed the dirt off their hands and faces and went in to supper. mr. tomlinson did not show himself down-stairs. his meal was carried to his room. carl babbled continually while he and matt were eating, but matt had very little to say in reply. his mind was busy with the letter. when they had finished supper, matt and carl went up to their own room. inasmuch as the red flier was to make an early start for flagstaff, the following morning, matt had invited the dutch boy to spend the night with him. as soon as they were in the room, and matt had closed and locked the door, he drew up a chair close to carl's and began telling him, in a low voice, about what he had found under the rubber mat in the tonneau. "py shinks!" exploded carl, "dere iss unterhandt vork going on, matt, i bed you!" "not so loud, carl," cautioned matt. "i don't know where tomlinson's room is, but it may be next to this one." "you t'ink he knows somet'ing aboudt dot?" whispered carl, in amazement. "he may, and he may not. i don't know what to think. anyhow, the letter doesn't belong to him, and i'm going to read it and see what it has to say. if it contains any information worth while, i've got to tell the deputy sheriff." "sure!" returned carl. "it's funny dot you don'd read it pefore." "i've been thinking about it, and trying to figure out what i had better do. if james trymore is a denver crook, i can't understand how a letter to him got into mr. tomlinson's car." "dere's monkey-doodle pitzness somevere," muttered carl, shaking his head ominously. "vell, let's see vat dot ledder say, den ve know pedder vat to do." the letter was short, but its contents were amazing. "jim: got your note this morning. glad to hear the pearls are on the way. count on me. will cut loose from wienerwurst to-night, check trunk through to the needles and leave on night train, getting off at brockville and meeting you there. pringle." "pringle!" gurgled carl. "py shiminy grickets, dot's der feller vat run avay und took all vat i hat! vell, vell! vouldn't dot gif you a twist!" "this note," murmured matt, as several things dawned on his mind, "was written in answer to the one you found on the floor of pringle's room, the morning you discovered he had skipped." "sure!" averred carl. "dot's as blain as anyt'ing. und pringle say somet'ing aboudt der bearls, doo. say, look here vonce! i bed you dot drymore und pringle put oop some chobs to rop domlinson oof dose bearls, und domlinson vas doo sharp for dem. he sailed avay from der roppers und dey don'd ged nodding! vell, led's be jeerful. i like pooty goot to see dot kind oof luck hit pringle, afder vat he dit py me. yah, you bed you!" carl couldn't see very far ahead. but matt could, and he began to open up a line of speculation that took carl's breath. "the question is, carl, how did that letter get under the rubber mat in the tonneau of the red flier? tomlinson says he didn't stop, when the robbers commanded him to, but hit it up and sailed away from them. now, if trymore had that letter, and if he and pringle were the robbers, how could the letter get out of trymore's pocket and into the car? that had to happen in some way." "i'm oop a shtump," admitted the puzzled carl, shoving his fingers through his hair. "i nefer vas mooch oof a feller ad guessing oudt cornundums. vat you t'ink, matt?" "i think tomlinson must have been mixed up in it, in some way." "how could dot be?" returned carl. "domlinson iss a rich man, und he vouldn't haf nodding to do mit fellers like drymore und pringle. pesides, domlinson hat der bearls. he vouldn't vant to go indo a game vere he vas to rop himseluf!" "you don't catch my idea at all, carl," whispered matt excitedly. "maybe this fellow who calls himself tomlinson isn't the real tomlinson at all! maybe he's some one else, and just posing as tomlinson!" "aber der toctor say dot domlinson iss a real feller, und dot he lifs in tenver, und dot he read aboudt him in der tenver bapers." "that may all be," went on matt. "i don't mean to say that there isn't any one by the name of tomlinson, or that he isn't a rich man, and hasn't a jewelry-store, and all that. if tomlinson is a jeweler, he might naturally be on the lookout for pearls. trymore may have found out he had that fortune in black pearls, and have put up a deal to get hold of them. that's the way it looks to me from what evidence we have. but, for all that, the man we brought in may not be tomlinson, but one of the thieves who got the pearls!" carl fell back in his seat with a gasp. his brain was whirling with the startling surmises matt had evolved. "meppy you vas righdt, matt," carl finally returned, "aber you don'd know nodding for sure. oof you tell der deputy sheriff, und make some misdakes, den you lose your chob, und ve bot' lose a shance to ged to tenver. be jeerful, pard, und don'd go und do someding dot you'll be sorry vat you done." "i'm going to find out whether tomlinson--or the man who says he's tomlinson--put that trymore letter under the mat. if we find that he did it, then we'll know he must be one of the robbers, and not tomlinson at all. if we find he didn't, then it's a cinch he's straight goods." "how you do dot, matt?" "well, we'll steal out to the barn and put the letter where i found it. then we'll watch and see if tomlinson goes after it. if tomlinson is mixed up in this business, he'll be thinking about it, and he'll know that letter is under the mat. he'll be wondering if i got hold of it, and he'll be anxious to sneak down and find out. see?" "sure!" approved carl. "dot's a fine biece oof pitzness. ve'll take der ledder down und put him vere he come from--aber vait schust a leedle. dere iss somet'ing yet in der writing vat i don'd undershtand." with the letter open in his hand, carl ran his finger over some of the words. "'vill cut loose from wienerwurst'," read carl. "vat dit pringle mean by dot?" matt laughed softly. carl was as good as a circus, now and then. "why," answered matt, "he means that he'll cut loose from _you_. which is just what he did." "yah, so," said carl grimly. "dot's a new vone. wienerwurst! i fix him for dot vone oof dose days. anyvay, led's be jeerful. pringle ain'd so mooch himseluf. den look, vat i see again. 'vill check trunk drough to der needles.' he means py dot, meppy, dot der trunk, mit vat i got insite, has gone on to der needles. vell, pympy i ged dot trunk. yah, you bed you! 'wienerwurst!' ach, du lieber!" carl threw the letter away from him and got up. "pringle make some monkey-doodle pitzness mit me, und you bed you i do der same mit him." matt picked up the letter, returned it to the envelope, and he and carl cautiously opened the door and let themselves out into the hall. making as little noise as possible, they descended to the outside door, passed into the dark street, turned the corner of the hotel and made for the barn. it was about eight o'clock, and everything was gloomy and silent in the vicinity of the hotel. "meppy you pedder shtrike some lights, hey?" suggested carl, following matt into the blank darkness that reigned in the makeshift garage. "no, we don't have to do that," said matt. "i know right where the machine is, and a light might give us away. you stand in the door, carl, and i'll put the letter where i found it and be with you again in a brace of shakes." "vell, hurry oop. oof domlinson vas to come vile ve vas here, den ve vould be der vones vat got fooled." matt, with the location of the red flier firmly fixed in his mind, groped his way through the gloom and came to the front of the machine. with one hand sliding over the bonnet, he reached the side of the car, opened the tonneau door and stepped to the foot-board. just at that moment, while he was bending over with the letter in his hand, a pencil of light leaped suddenly out of the gloom and rested full on him. straightening up suddenly, he whirled his face into the light. for an instant his eyes were blinded, and he could see nothing. "quick!" he heard a husky voice mutter from somewhere in the darkness. "down him and grab that letter!" the next instant a fist leaped out of the gloom and into the ray of light. matt dropped downward, falling off the foot-board. the fist hit him a glancing blow on the shoulder, and he toppled backward. at the same moment the letter was snatched out of his hand. "py shinks," came the voice of carl, "vat vas going on, anyvay? who you fellers vas? keep avay from me, or----" running feet had sounded along the barn floor. while carl was talking, some one ran into him and knocked him flat with a quick blow. as the boy went down, two men bounded over him. carl was up almost as soon as he was down. some one else was coming, and he flung out his hands and made a grab. "vaid a leedle!" he puffed savagely. "i got _you_, anyvay, und----" "let go, carl!" came matt's excited voice. "take after those two men! see who they are, if you can!" carl gasped and withdrew his hands. "vell, oof it ain'd matt!" he muttered. "so many t'ings vas habbening, all in a punch, dot i peen all mixed oop in my mindt!" with that, carl rushed away in the direction taken by matt. chapter vii. the two horsemen. the attack in the barn was so utterly unexpected and so suddenly made that matt and carl hardly realized what had happened until it was all over. although a little dazed by the whirl of events, and still partly blinded by the gleam from the dark lantern, the king of the motor boys had his wits about him. the letter was gone, but that was no great loss. the value of the letter lay in the use matt had intended to make of it, by discovering who had placed it under the rubber mat in the tonneau. such a discovery would have given the young motorist a clue as to who "james trymore" really was. neither matt nor carl were very much damaged by their rough experience. in their rush from the barn they were only a few yards behind the men who had attacked them, and they would have been right on the others' heels if carl had not made a mistake and caught hold of matt just at the moment when there was no time for delay. matt, who was in the lead, heard a sound of running around the side, and toward the rear, of the barn. flinging away in that direction, he came out on an alley, with the sounds he had been following abruptly blotted into silence. while he stood there, wondering which way the men had gone, a pounding of horses' hoofs jumped out of the stillness, somewhere to the left. he turned barely in time to see the forms of two mounted men melting away in the blank darkness. matt was disappointed. he had not expected to overtake the men, but he had hoped to come close enough so that he could get a fairly good look at them. "who vas dem fellers, anyvay, und vat vas der mix-oop aboudt?" came the voice of carl as he pushed toward matt through the gloom. "that's too deep for me, carl," returned matt. "there were two of them, and they had their horses in the alley. one of them grabbed that trymore letter just as i was going to put it in the car." "vell, der ledder don'd amount to nodding. ve know vat it hat on der insite, und dot's plenty for us. be jeerful." "i guess i'll have to revise my opinion of tomlinson. neither of those horsemen could by any possibility have been him, and it's a cinch they were in the barn to get that letter. we blundered into their hands too slick for any use! as things look now, carl, tomlinson is straight goods." "i t'ink he vas some skinflints, all righdt, aber dot's der vorst vat can be saidt oof domlinson. dose two fellers vas de vones vat dry to rop der car, hey?" "they must have been." "und meppy vone vas pringle! der tinhorn vat cut loose from wienerwurst! say, i vish i could haf hanted him a cholt in der slats. i could blay ragdime moosic all ofer dat feller." "we'll go back and take a look at the red flier," said matt, "and make sure those two men haven't done anything to put the car out of business. this is a mighty puzzling proposition we're up against, and i can't make head or tail out of it. if tomlinson didn't have anything to do with that letter, i can't understand how it got into the bottom of the tonneau. and if he was the one who put it there, why did those men come after it?" "tough luck, matt, aber take it jeerfully," counseled carl. "i haf hat more money come indo my hants since i peen hooked oop mit you dan i efer t'ought i vould ged a look ad in all my life. dot's righdt. dot pig ret car comes rolling righdt oop to us, invitationing us to grab holt und keep it--vich ve don'd. den ve findt t'irty t'ousant tollars' vort oof bearls vich likevise say for us to cash dem in, go off py ourselufs und be rich und jeerful--vich also ve don'd. oudt oof all dose shances, you pull down a huntert-tollar chob und i get a rite py tenver. ach, himmel!" and carl heaved a long sigh. paying no attention to his comrade's regrets, matt had been making his way back to the barn door. the excitement in and around the barn had not claimed the notice of any one in the hotel or on the street. what racket there was had been confined to a limited space and had evidently not been heard by the townspeople. "close the door, carl," said matt, as the dutch boy followed him into the barn. "i saw a lantern on the wall, when we brought the machine in, and i'll light it while we look around." carl shut the door, and matt struck a match, found the lantern, and lighted it. "nopody heardt vat vent on here," remarked carl, while matt was moving about the red flier. "ve couldt haf peen laidt oudt for keeps mitoudt addracting any addention. vy, oof dose fellers had vanted to, dey could haf shtole der car, py chiminy!" "there ought to be some way to lock the barn," said matt, "but, as there isn't, i have a notion to bunk down on the tonneau seat for the rest of the night." "oof you do dot," asserted carl, "i vill keep along mit you." "that would be foolish. all i want to do is to watch and see that those two horsemen don't come back." "two to watch is pedder as vone, matt," answered carl firmly. "is der red flier hurt anyvere?" "i can't see that the machine has been tampered with at all." he stepped around in front and "turned over" the engine. "everything appears to be just as we left it," he added, "so i am compelled to think that those two horsemen rode into town after that letter." "und domlinson didn'd know a ting aboudt it, hey?" "that's the way it looks. of course, it's hard to under----" matt bit off his words abruptly and whirled around from the front of the machine. a crunch of footsteps could be heard outside, cautiously approaching the barn door. swiftly matt extinguished the light, caught carl by the arm and pulled him across the barn and into a box-stall. there they crouched down and peered out. "by shinks!" whispered carl. "a lod oof t'ings vas habbenin' to-nighdt. dose two fellers vas comin' pack! how ve ketch dem, hey?" "hist!" warned matt. just then the barn door opened, and a dark form could be seen against the lighter background of the doorway. the man slipped into the barn stealthily and pulled the door shut behind him. it was impossible for the boys to see him very plainly, and after the door was closed they could not see him at all. while they crouched breathlessly in the box-stall they heard a sound of fumbling movements, then the scratching of a match. two hands could be seen, one holding the match and the other a piece of candle. when the candle was lighted the face of the man was brought out with positive distinctness. it was tomlinson! carl, fairly shaking with suppressed excitement, gripped matt's arm. taking the hand from his arm, matt pressed it to signify that they were to remain where they were, and watch and see what happened. having lighted his candle, tomlinson raised erect and peered about him through the gloom. rest and food had brought back most of his strength, and he moved toward the car quickly and carefully. following down the right side of the machine, he opened the tonneau door, stooped and pulled up the rubber mat. the next moment a disappointed exclamation came from him. throwing the mat aside, he searched frantically, getting down on his knees in the tonneau and then carrying his hunt to the forward part of the machine. he was all of five minutes bobbing around in the machine, and when he got out of it, and stood for a moment in front of the car, there was an ugly and perplexed look on his face. muttering to himself, he pinched out the candle, flung it away from him, turned, and went through the door. "pinch me vonce!" murmured carl, with a long breath. "meppy i vas treaming." "you're wide-awake, carl," said matt grimly, "and so am i. what do you think of that?" "i don'd know vat to t'ink, und dot's all aboudt it. dere's peen nodding but funny pitzness efer since you shtopped der car ven it vas running avay mit itseluf--schust vone keveer t'ing afder some more. chiminy plazes! i feel like i vas going pughouse. domlinson come afder dot ledder, too." "sure he did." "und dose odder fellers vas afder it." "no doubt." "und dose odder fellers got it----" "and tomlinson will think i was the one who took it, and that i am keeping it." "vat you t'ink, matt? vill you go und tell der deputy sheriff?" "no. what we have discovered we will keep to ourselves. we don't know enough, yet, to lodge a complaint against anybody." "ve'll go on to tenver mit domlinson?" "yes, and keep our eyes and ears open every foot of the way. i've got a hunch that we'll find the key to this mystery somewhere between ash fork and flagstaff. you go on up to the room, carl, and go carefully. i'll sleep in the red flier. the car will be fairly comfortable for one, and it wouldn't be for two. besides, it will be better if some one occupies our room." carl protested a little, but was finally prevailed upon to carry out matt's suggestion. matt got into the car and doubled up on the rear seat. his mind was so full of the queer developments of the mystery that it was a long time before he went to sleep. however, he dozed off at last and did not open his eyes again until, in the early morning, he was aroused by the opening of the barn door. as he started up quickly in the tonneau, the face of tomlinson met him. tomlinson was startled by the sight of matt, and leaped back in consternation; then, recovering himself, he came on into the barn and drew near the machine. there was flaming suspicion in his eyes and a fierce look on his face. chapter viii. on the road. "what are you doing here?" demanded tomlinson. "watching your car," replied matt. "how long have you been here?" "most of the night." "did anything happen? did----" tomlinson snapped off the words and glared. matt was astounded at his manner. "i should say something did happen!" said matt. "before turning in, i came out here to make sure the machine was all right. you see, mr. tomlinson, there's no lock on the door, and i was worried a little. it was well i came. two men rushed out of the barn, and i followed them. they had horses hitched in the alley, and they got away." "are you giving it to me straight?" demanded tomlinson, peering steadily into matt's eyes. "certainly i am." "did you get a good look at those men?" "no, it was too dark. they got away on their horses before i had a chance to get very near them." tomlinson was thoughtful for a few moments. he was wondering, no doubt, if matt was pursuing the intruders while he was in the barn looking for the letter. evidently he made up his mind that matt knew nothing about his night visit to the barn, and it seemed equally evident that he believed the two men had got the letter. the fierce expression vanished from his face and he became more amiable. "after that," said he, "you were afraid the machine might be tampered with, and so you came here and stayed all night?" "that's the way of it, mr. tomlinson," replied matt. "i'm glad to know that i've got such a careful and discreet driver. i was worried about the car myself, and came out here, during the evening. i saw no one around, though, and suppose, at that time, you were chasing the two men. wonder what they wanted here?" "perhaps they were two of the men who tried to hold you up," suggested matt. "what object would they have in coming here?" "that's hard to tell. they might have wanted to injure the car just to get even with you." tomlinson shook his head. "that would have been a foolish move," said he, "and i can't believe that was their object. well," he added briskly, "it doesn't much matter. we'll get away from ash fork in less than an hour. come in to breakfast. the landlord promised to have an early one for us." "how are you feeling, sir?" matt inquired, as they walked toward the hotel. "first-rate," said tomlinson; "almost as good as ever. where's the dutchman?" "he spent the night in my room." "who is he? a friend of yours?" tomlinson spoke carelessly, but it was clear to matt that the question had more significance than he cared to make it seem. "yes, he's a friend," matt answered. "he's been playing in hard luck lately. he and a man named pringle were doing a turn in vaudeville. pringle got out between two days, when he and his partner were in flagstaff, and took about everything carl had." "hard lines!" muttered tomlinson. "well, he helped me, and i'm glad to be able to do something for him." carl was coming down-stairs just as matt and tomlinson entered the hotel office. he seemed surprised to see matt and the owner of the car together, but was clever enough to keep his feelings from tomlinson. all three went into the dining-room and ate a hurried meal. when it was done, matt brought down a grip which contained all his reserve wardrobe, packed his bundle of laundry away in it and stowed it in the bottom of the tonneau. the rest of the tonneau tomlinson appropriated for his own use. it was seven o'clock when the red flier, guided by matt's skilful hands, swept out of ash fork and pointed for flagstaff. carl, more "jeerful" than he had been for a long time, occupied the seat on matt's left. matt was not familiar with the road, but tomlinson furnished him with a road-map and carl kept the map open and followed the course with his eyes, from time to time giving matt directions. they had left ash fork no more than a mile behind when tomlinson, braced in a corner of the tonneau, broached a subject which was vastly interesting to both boys. "you lads," said tomlinson, "are probably wondering about those pearls. you see, i am a wholesale jeweler, in denver, and rare gems like those are directly in my line. they're from the gulf of california, and were picked up by a la paz mexican, who brought them into yuma. hearing that i was in yuma, the mexican came to me and offered the pearls for sale. i bought them at a bargain. i asked you to say nothing about the pearls in ash fork, because, if it were known i had such valuable property about me, some one might lay a plan to hold us up. that's what happened the other side of ash fork, and it was an experience i don't care to have repeated." "it's hardly safe to carry such valuable property around with you in this part of the country, mr. tomlinson," remarked matt. "no one knows that better than i do," the other answered, "hence my desire to keep the matter quiet." "why didn't you send the pearls to denver by express, after you got them in yuma?" asked matt. the question seemed to surprise tomlinson. "i was careless, i suppose," he answered, after a brief pause. "anyhow," went on matt, "after your narrow escape on the road to ash fork, i should think you would have got the pearls into the hands of the express company as soon as you could." "i pay you a hundred a month to look after this car," said tomlinson sharply, "and not to offer suggestions as to how i run my business." carl rolled his eyes at matt, and a slow grin worked its way over his fat face. matt himself felt like grinning, for he was putting these questions for a purpose. tomlinson's answers were hardly calculated to allay any suspicions that might be forming in matt's mind. at that time the red flier had dipped into a piece of road that skirted the foot of a mountain. according to the road-map, the course circled around the uplift to a point on the opposite side. the mountain was low, oblong in shape, and covered with pine timber. carl, stealing a covert look behind, now and then, saw that tomlinson was staring at the tree-covered slope with uneasy eyes. "this is a good road, king," said tomlinson presently, "and i think it would be well to let the car out. a better place than this for a hold-up could hardly be imagined, and----" the words were hardly out of his mouth when a thumping of hoofs was heard in the trail behind. "hold up, there!" yelled a voice; "wait!" matt took one look rearward. two mounted men were behind--rough-looking fellows in slouch-hats and blue flannel shirts. it was plain that they had ridden into the road from the timber, probably intending to get ahead of the car, but making a miscalculation. "hit 'er up!" cried tomlinson, crouching down in the tonneau. "those are two of the men who tried to rob me before! dig out, king! don't let any grass grow under this car now!" matt advanced the spark, and sent the red flier ahead at a furious speed. the horsemen were armed, but made no attempt to shoot. they spurred wildly, and slapped their horses with their hats, but, of course, a six-cylinder machine could walk away from anything on hoofs. in less than a minute the two men were out of sight. matt, keenly watching the road and keeping steady hands on the steering-wheel, was wondering if those were the same men who had been prowling about the barn the night before. he judged that they were, and he wondered at their foolish attempt to try to chase the red flier and bring the car to a halt from the rear. three minutes later, and while they were still making for the point of the mountain, tomlinson leaned over the back of the seat and gave a surprising order. "stop her, king! i'm going to get out here." "going to get out!" echoed matt, cutting off the power and clamping on the brake. "if you do, those fellows will capture you." "you don't understand," went on tomlinson, stepping down from the tonneau. "those fellows are after me, and i ought to have kept right on with these pearls and not laid over in ash fork last night. that gave them a chance to get ahead of us and lay a trap." "trap?" queried matt. "that's it. this road winds around to the other side of the mountain. see that gap up there?" tomlinson pointed up the wooded slope to a place where the ridgelike uplift was broken. "do you understand what those scoundrels can do, king?" pursued tomlinson. "they can ride through that gap and get to the other side of the mountain ahead of us. i don't want to be in the car when that happens--and if i'm not in the car the chances are it won't happen. i'll climb up and get through the gap myself, and you pull up and wait for me after you get a mile beyond the gap on the other side. understand? that's the only way we can fool those fellows. if we turn back toward ash fork, they'll get me, and if i stay in the car and go around the end of the mountain the result will be the same. they can watch, from up there, and make the move that's best calculated to help them; but, by getting out, i can dodge through the timber on foot and we'll all give them the go-by. wait for me a mile beyond the gap, on the other side," he repeated, and started up the slope. matt stared at carl for a moment. "be jeerful," grinned carl. "ve nefer know vat's going to habben, dis trip, so it iss pedder dot ve take eferyt'ing as it comes. domlinson must know vat he's aboudt." "it looks to me as though he was getting into more trouble than if he had stayed with the car," muttered matt. "he has some hard climbing ahead of him, for one who's been through what he has. however, i've got my orders, and here goes." there was enough gas in the cylinders so that the red flier took the spark without cranking, and the boys rolled on around the end of the mountain and doubled back on the opposite side. the road continued good, but the roadside was covered with jagged stones and it would have been impossible for the car to have turned out if any wagons had been met going the other way. on this side of the uplift the trail bore off from the bottom of the slope, but it was easy to keep an eye on the gap and calculate the point where tomlinson had told matt to stop and wait for him. as matt figured it, there was a good two miles yet before that point would be reached, and he let the car out, once more, in order to hurry over the distance. but he had hardly got under full headway before he shut off the gasoline and got busy with the foot-brake. "py chimineddy!" cried carl; "dose fellers haf plocked der road!" that was the exact condition of affairs. a pine-tree, growing close to the trail, had been felled in such a manner as to fall across it at right angles, making it impossible for the car to proceed. it was also impossible for the car to go around the tree, on account of the rocky ground at the trailside. wondering what the two ruffians hoped to gain by this move, motor matt leaped down from his seat and went forward to investigate the situation. chapter ix. in the hands of the enemy. matt had no more than reached the tree when he heard a sound of scrambling behind him. just as he whirled about to see what was going on, a husky yell rang out. "i'll take care o' the dutchman, spangler. you nail the other 'un!" simultaneously with the words a big, ruffianly-looking fellow sprang into the tonneau of the car, grabbed carl as he was about to rise and pulled him over the back of the seat with an arm about his throat. there was another man on the ground, moving warily in matt's direction. these were the two scoundrels who had chased the car on the other side of the mountain, there was no doubt about that. they had made their counter-move exactly as tomlinson had surmised. but why had they made it, now that tomlinson was not with the car? and where were their horses? it seemed clear that they had made a quick ride through the gap, and had reached the trailside and hidden behind the bushes, ready to make a capture as soon as the tree had stopped the boys and before they could take the back track. and what was the use of it all, now that tomlinson had got away with the pearls? these thoughts flashed through matt's mind with the swiftness of lightning. a dead branch had been broken from the pine-tree in its fall. matt grabbed at it and began waving it around his head. "keep away from me!" he cried, to the fellow who was closing in on him. the ruffian, seeing the snapping gray eyes and the whirling club, paused undecidedly. "that's motor matt!" yelled the man in the automobile; "get him, spangler!" "oh, blazes!" snarled the man. "if ye think i'm goin' to walk inter that club, hank, ye've got another guess comin'. i'll git him, though." spangler threw a hand behind him and jerked a revolver from his hip pocket. "now, younker," said he, leveling the weapon, "drop yer club an' be reasonable. i'd hate like sin ter cut ye off in yer youth an' bloom, but hank an' me ain't here fer the fun o' the thing, not noways." matt could see with half an eye that the man meant business, and that he would be quick to use the revolver if he had to. if the two ruffians were after the pearls, they would probably leave matt and carl and go away as soon as they found out they were on the wrong track. then, if ever, was the time to do a little talking. "what do you want?" asked matt, throwing the club away and leaning back against the tree. "you seen anything of a green bag?" asked hank, still hanging to carl. "i've seen it, yes," answered matt. "if that's what you want, we haven't got it." "where is it? don't you lie to me--it won't be healthy for you." "mr. tomlinson has got the bag," said matt. the man on the ground gave a jump and began to swear. "do you mean to say," shouted the man in the car, "that the _hombre_ who was in this car with you didn't have that bag?" "yes, he's the one. his name's tomlinson. he's in the jewelry business, in denver." an odd expression crossed the faces of the two men. then spangler began to laugh. "what d'ye think o' that, hank?" he demanded. "tomlinson! he said his name was tomlinson! waal, wouldn't that rattle yer spurs?" "you say he had the bag?" went on hank. "yes," said matt. "they didn't try to take it away from him in ash fork?" "no. why should they, if it belonged to him?" "what became of--er--tomlinson?" "he got out of the car on the other side of the mountain. he thought you'd cross over through the gap, and head us off." this information put both men in a swearing temper. "if he's on foot anywhere within a dozen miles of us," growled hank, "we'll get him. come on, spangler! spurs and quirts, while we run the coyote down." releasing the half-strangled carl, hank leaped out of the car. together they started for the trailside, and the wooded slope leading to the gap. but they were not gone, yet. just as they began to mount the slope, spangler gave vent to an angry yell. "look thar, hank," he roared, pointing along the road beyond the tree. "_now_ who's played it low-down on us?" matt ran back to the car and climbed up to the front seat. from that elevation he was able to look off and see what it was that had claimed hank's frantic attention. carl was already staring across the tree and into the distance. two mounted men were galloping up the road, one of them leading a horse with an empty saddle. one of the men was tomlinson; the other was---"pringle!" muttered carl; "py chiminy grickets, dere goes dot feller vat shkipped mit all vat i hat!" hank and spangler were furious. "they're makin' off with our hosses!" bellowed spangler. "and they've got the pearls!" added hank. "we got ter ketch 'em!" stormed spangler. "we got ter pick up hosses some'rs an' git holt of 'em!" he started to run along the slope in the direction the horses were going. "come back here, you fool!" ordered hank. "we couldn't overhaul them in a thousand years, on foot." "what'll we do?" flung back spangler. "we kain't stand here an' watch 'em go skyhootin' off with our hosses an' them pearls. of all the injun plays i ever heerd of, this takes the banner!" hank was already retracing his way down the slope. "we'll take the automobile!" he yelled, over his shoulder. "we'll be climbing right on top of 'em in a brace of shakes." "dot means us, matt!" exclaimed carl. "you do vat dey say, und py chimineddy i vill catch oop mit dot pringle feller! wienerwurst! i'll make him t'ink i vas vorse as dot!" with revolvers in their hands, spangler and hank came plunging for the car. "snake us out of this, motor matt!" shouted hank. "lay us alongside that outfit ahead, and see how quick you can do it!" "can't do it," answered matt. "you fellows have blocked the road." in their excitement, neither hank nor spangler had thought of the tree. it was a case of their own weapons being turned against them. the ruffians let loose their billingsgate again, but only for a moment. "get out here, you two," shouted hank, "and help us snake the log out of the way. i reckon the four of us will be plenty." carl piled out briskly, and matt followed. spangler and hank worked like beavers, and after a two minutes' struggle the way was cleared. "now for it!" panted hank, rushing back to the car. "all in, everybody! if you try any tricks with the machinery, motor matt," he finished savagely, "i'll make a lead-mine out of you. top speed!" it was an odd situation, take it all around. matt was being forced to help the would-be robbers, but his suspicions of tomlinson, since his talk with spangler and hank, had reached a point where he was more than willing to do his best to overhaul the men ahead. carl, of course, was thinking only of pringle, and of what pringle had done to him. the red flier leaped onward with a bound, matt leaning over the wheel and coaxing the six cylinders up, notch by notch, to their limit of power. hank was in front with matt. behind them, standing in the tonneau, gripping the seat-back and leaning over their heads, were carl and spangler. "gif her all she vill shtand, matt!" cried carl. "hit her oop like anyding! tear off der miles so kevick as dey nefer vas yet!" "whoop-ya!" yelled spangler. "we'll purty near git thar afore we start! talk about yer travelin'--why, this here's like bein' shot out of a gun!" "that fellow isn't tomlinson, you say?" shouted matt to the man beside him. "no more than i am!" answered hank. "is he denver denny, otherwise james trymore?" "you've hit it!" a light had suddenly dawned on matt. denver denny was playing a bold game, and the stakes were $30,000 worth of black pearls. although matt was helping spangler and hank, yet there was a hope, deep down in his heart, that he might somehow be able to worst all the robbers and recover the pearls for the man who owned them. but where was that man? while all this fighting was going on for the possession of the pearls, what had become of james q. tomlinson, of denver? chapter x. a shift in the situation. matt had never done any more rapid-fire thinking than he did then. while carl and spangler, carried away by the excitement of the chase, were yelping frantically and throwing themselves around in the tonneau, and while hank was growling and threatening, motor matt was driving mechanically and turning the situation over in his mind. pringle, trymore, hank, and spangler were all concerned in the robbery of tomlinson. trymore, in some way yet to be explained, must have got hold of the pearls and have tried to get away with them and leave his pals in the lurch. hank, spangler, and pringle had been trying to get hold of trymore, and had felled the tree and laid that trap where the road wound around the mountain. pringle had been left with the horses while hank and spangler made their attack on the car; by getting out, as he had done, trymore had checkmated his pals, had found pringle and the horses, and the two had made it up between them to hustle away with all the live stock and leave hank and spangler tied up with the automobile on the wrong side of the tree. all this, at least, represented matt's quick guess at the situation, built upon certain things he knew and others which he took for granted. trymore and pringle had about five minutes' start of the red flier; but the motor-car, under matt's skilful control, was registering fifty miles an hour by the speedometer on the dashboard. if trymore and pringle kept to the road, they must surely be overtaken in short order. spangler was the first to sight the horsemen. "thar they are, by thunder!" he cried, in savage exultation, "we're goin' a dozen feet to their one, an' we'll smash right inter 'em, in half a minit." "we'll empty the saddles, that's what we'll do!" said hank, through his teeth. "we'll teach that brace of come-ons to play lame duck with _us_!" out of the tails of his eyes matt saw hank draw a revolver; and over his shoulder leaned spangler with another weapon. the young motorist, no matter how desperate the situation, did not intend to allow any successful shooting from the red flier. quick as a flash, he steered the car over a roughened part of the road. during the shake-up that followed, the aim of the two ruffians was disconcerted, and their shots went wild. trymore and pringle, goading their horses frantically, were doing their utmost to get away from their vengeful comrades. they knew, however, that if they kept to the road it would be only a matter of seconds before they were overhauled. the whistle of the bullets impelled a quick change of tactics, and they turned from the trail and took to the timber. by this move, they screened themselves from the weapons of the pursuers, but got into country where they would have to travel more slowly. in the haste with which this fresh maneuver was executed, the led horse got away. "consarn 'em!" exclaimed hank. "if they think they're going to get away by pulling off such a game as that, they're going to get fooled. stop the car!" he added, to matt. matt slowed down to a halt. before the red flier had been brought to a standstill, hank and spangler were over the side, hank catching the loose horse and spurring after the fugitives, and spangler floundering after him on foot. presently, pursued and pursuers vanished, and matt and carl sat in the car and wondered what was going to happen next. "you bed my life," fumed carl, "i hope dey ged pringle." the dutch boy was so deeply concerned over pringle that he had lost sight of the more important points of the situation. "they're crooks, all four of them," said matt. "they stole the pearls from tomlinson, in the first place, and now they're trying to beat each other out of them." "und domlinson don'd vas domlinson afder all?" inquired carl. "the fellow who called himself tomlinson is denver denny, _alias_ james trymore. didn't you hear what hank and i said to each other, a few minutes ago, carl?" "i don'd hear nodding but schust some yells made py dot odder feller. vell, vell! led's all dry und be jeerful. der deputy sheriff hat dot news aboudt tenver tenny in his bocket all der time, und he heluped der crook across der shdreet, und made him comfordable py der hodel, und dit eferyt'ing he could for him! ach, drymore vas a shrewrd sgoundrel, i bed you." "he's a bold one!" declared matt. "vere iss der real domlinson alretty? und how dit drymore ged der audomopile?" "that's what we've got to find out, carl." "it vas a pig orter." "but we're going to fill it--and get back the pearls, too." carl shook his head. "i like to t'ink dot, aber it don'd vas bossiple. how ve do anyt'ing ven ve shday here mit der car? drymore von't come pack." "i think he will," said matt confidently. "i'll bet something handsome that hank and spangler make that mountain too hot to hold trymore, and that he comes rushing for the car. trymore won't know that we've found out who he is, and he'll try to keep on with the tomlinson rã´le. we'll let him think we're fooled, then capture him and recover the pearls." "dot vas some pright itees," returned carl admiringly, pulling down his fiery vest and smoothing the wrinkles out of it, "aber my vone pitzness in life, schust now, iss to ketch pringle und ged py tenver. it seems like ve vas gedding furder und furder avay from tenver all der time. you t'ink ve pedder shday righdt here, matt?" "trymore saw us here last," answered matt, "so it will be here that he comes to find us." "und oof ve can ged avay mit him und mit der bearls," said carl, "ve vill fool der odder roppers, aber i don'd ged no shance ad pringle. 'wienerwurst!' he say it in der note. pympy, vone oof dose tays, i make him know vich iss der saussage. yah, so!" matt had been listening for sounds of the flight and pursuit. they had died out, shortly after the quartet of thieves had disappeared, but matt was confident that he would hear them again. the contour of the mountain was such, at that place, that it would be impossible for trymore and pringle to cross to the other side. they would have to make along the slope, trusting to luck to dodge hank and spangler and get back to the trail. unless they were captured, it was a foregone conclusion that trymore and pringle would try to reach the car. inasmuch as hank was mounted, he would be able to press the fugitives hard. while the boys waited and watched, they heard the distant report of a revolver. the dull echoes, ringing through the woods, were taken up by a faint yell. "somepody vas shot!" cried carl excitedly. "oof it vas pringle, i don'd ged him; und oof id vas drymore, ve don't ged der bearls." "listen!" said matt. "somebody is coming this way." there was a crashing of brush up the slope, growing louder by swift degrees. matt sprang out, cranked up the engine, and hurriedly got back into the car. "vat now?" queried carl. "i'm going to turn around," said matt, "and be ready to rush trymore back to ash fork. he's coming--i'm sure of it. that means that we capture him and recover the pearls. a big day's work, carl!" "meppy ve ged some rake-offs, den, hey?" returned carl. "ve don'd got mooch luck so far, oudt oof dis shake-oop." matt, having turned the red flier, brought the machine to a halt and sprang out to be ready with the crank. if trymore came, with hank hot at his heels, not a second could be lost in getting away. the scrambling noise was still coming down the mountainside, growing louder and louder, but with no one breaking into view. as matt stood by the front of the machine, trying to follow the sound with his eyes, he saw a horseman appear in an opening among the timber. it was hank. he slid across the open space like a streak, bound down the slope and evidently in pursuit of trymore. just as hank disappeared, a form tore through the bushes close to the trailside and rushed for the car. "help!" cried the man. "get me out of this or i'll be killed." poppety-pop! spluttered the engine, as matt bent to the crank. "pringle!" shouted carl; "oof it ain'd pringle i vas a geezer! oh, be jeerful, eferypody. come, pringle, come to me! i peen vaiding here, und somepody else vas vaiding pehindt, aber meppy you pedder dake shances mit me." a thrill of disappointment ran through matt. he was expecting trymore with the pearls, and now to be forced to run away with pringle looked like losing out on the whole proposition. but there could be no lingering with the hope of ultimately securing trymore. hank and spangler would be quick to understand the possibilities of the car, in trymore's case, and they might puncture a tire, or do some other damage to eliminate the machine. pringle, caught between two fires, did not hesitate to take his chances with carl. with a wild leap he slammed himself on the foot-board and against the tonneau. carl had the door open, and laid hold of him and dragged him in. matt, smothering his disappointment, slid into his seat and started the car. at that moment, hank plunged out of the timber. "here, you!" he yelled to matt. "wait! i want that fellow!" "you can't have him," shouted matt, and jumped to the high gear. then away they went, covering the back trail as rapidly as they had gone over it the other way. chapter xi. a surprise. hank made a desperate attempt to overhaul the car. in fact, he tried so hard to capture pringle that matt wondered at it. why should he give so much attention to the fellow when the man he and spangler wanted most was still on the mountainside? hank goaded his horse to top speed, shouted threats, and even smashed the tail lamp with a bullet before the red flier could get out of the way. no other damage was done, and matt drew a long breath of relief when the angry robber was safely left behind. meanwhile things had been happening in the tonneau. carl's idea of revenge was to take his troubles out of pringle's hide, and he was going about it with considerable violence. the body of the car rocked from side to side on the chassis under the fierce turmoil in the tonneau. "wienerwurst, hey?" sputtered carl, rolling pringle over on the seat. "you cut loose from wienerwurst, hey? i make you t'ink it tifferent, you lopster!" "leave go o' me. pretzel!" cried pringle. "i'll eat you, if you don't, an' that's what. say, you monkey----" "monkey!" gurgled carl. "dot's somet'ing more. pringle und pretzel, der moosickal team haf bust oop! und now come der firevorks. how you like dot, hey? und dot, und dot! dose vas my gompliments. wienerwurst hants dem to you mit jeerfulness." thump, smack, bang! went carl's fists. matt, having made sure that there was now no danger to be apprehended from hank, halted the car and leaned over the back of the seat to take a hand in the squabble himself. "that'll do, carl!" he cried, grabbing the dutch boy by the collar as he pummeled the form on the leather cushions. "i hafen't paid him all vat i owe him yet," shouted carl. "that's enough, anyway. leave him alone. if----" "dere he goes!" screamed carl; "und look--look vat he's got in his hant alretty!" the moment matt dragged the dutch boy from his late partner, the latter had leaped from the seat, grabbed something that had fallen from his pocket, and had sprung down from the car. as he leaped away, matt saw that the object in his hand was _the green silk bag_! pringle had been saved from hank, and he was now anxious to save himself from carl and matt. with a flying leap from the car, matt made after him. a sharp run followed. pringle was no match for the athletic motor matt. catching up with him at the end of a fifty-yard dash, the young motorist grabbed the fellow by the arm and jerked him to a halt. pringle was a slab-sided, beak-faced youth with buttermilk eyes. merely a glance at him was enough to show matt that he was thoroughly unreliable. "no more fighting," said matt sharply, snatching the bag from pringle's hand. "back to the car with you, on the double-quick." "that ain't yours," snarled pringle, referring to the bag. "nor yours, either," answered matt. "i'm taking charge of it for tomlinson." this remark about tomlinson seemed to take pringle's breath. "who's tomlinson?" he asked, trying to play the innocent. "you know." "some one's been stringing you." "you're trying it now, pringle, but it won't work." carl, leaning out of the tonneau, was waving a revolver. "py shiminy, matt," he called, "here i vas heeled all der time und forgot aboudt it. dis gun pelongs mit der drymore feller. shtep avay vile i draw some beads on dot gangle-legged hide-rack, vat you got along." "put that up!" said matt sternly. "if it went off, i'd be in as much danger as pringle. that rope that was used to lash the wheel is wrapped around the foot-rest in the tonneau. get it, and we'll tie pringle's hands." "what are you mutts trying to do?" demanded pringle. "you ain't got no call to handle me like this." "oh, no, i guess nod!" taunted carl, pulling pringle's hands to his back and getting busy with the rope. "you vas a fine sbecimen oof a tinhorn, hey. wienerwurst! vell, i vas more oof a hot tamale as dot, hey?" "what do you want to knock a partner like this for, dutch?" demanded pringle. "just because i had to pull my freight without getting your permission? aw, you make me tired!" "see here," said matt sharply, as pringle was made to get into the tonneau, "there's no use of your trying to play possum with us, pringle. we know all about what you've done--not only to carl, but to tomlinson. you'll go to yuma, all right. just now we're going to take you to ash fork and leave you, and the pearls, with the deputy sheriff." this announcement took the wind out of pringle's sails. the white ran into his face, and he sank back and stared helplessly from carl to matt. at that moment the pounding of a motor was heard along the road in the direction of ash fork. in that region, where automobiles were few and far between, the sound claimed matt's instant attention. the other car was coming like the wind. it was a high-powered runabout with a single rumble-seat behind. there were two passengers--one a big man in cap and dust-coat, and the other a businesslike driver in leather fixings and goggles. the runabout was new, as could easily be seen, and there was an extra tire in irons at the driver's side. at that point in the road passing was easy, and the runabout surged by without decreasing speed. "look out ahead!" shouted matt, making a trumpet of his hands. but his warning didn't even win a backward glance from the big fellow with the driver. the dust the runabout kicked up soon screened the car from sight. a few moments later, the dust whisked out of view around the point of the mountain. "chiminy grickets, dot feller vas going some!" exclaimed carl. "he don'd vas on speaking-derms mit anypody to-day, i guess." "i'll bet that's the fellow i came to ash fork to see about a job," said matt. "he answers the description, all right, but from the looks of things he's got a driver." "vich leds you oudt," returned carl. "dis odder chob oof yours ad a hundert tollars a mont i don'd t'ink vill last. meppy ve don'd ged py tenver, neider. vat a luck it iss! aber be jeerful. pringle iss here," and carl reached over to nudge pringle in the ribs. "cut it out!" scowled pringle. "what can i do to get clear of this?" "you can go py ash fork fairst, und den py yuma. dot vill led you oudt in den years, meppy." "rub it in! oh, by all means!" "do you want to tell us what you know?" asked matt, facing pringle. "will it put me in deeper, or help me out?" returned pringle. "it won't do you any harm. we know a good deal about this business, as it is. for instance, pringle, you got a note from denver denny telling you that the pearls were on the way----" "dere id iss," said carl, pushing the note in front of pringle's eyes. "look him ofer, den you know ve don'd make some pluffs." "you answered the letter from flagstaff," went on matt, "and sent it to brockville, saying you were glad the pearls were on the way and that you would meet trymore at that place." "und dere iss dot vone, too--only ve don'd got it," put in carl. "dot's der vone vere you say someding aboudt wienerwurst, vich iss me." "no," said pringle, "i know you don't got it. hank got it. you're real cute in that red vest. it's almost like we were in the lime-light, doing the sketch. quite a line you lads have got on me. but i wouldn't linger around here. that other benzine buggy is coming back, and hank's up front. spang's behind, too, and they're reaching out for us." pringle was turned partly around in the tonneau, so that his eyes could command the road in the rear. matt took a quick glance toward the point of the mountain. pringle was right! the runabout was charging along the trail like a thunderbolt. the big man in the dust-coat had vanished. in his place sat hank, and behind hank was spangler. hank had a revolver in his hand and was pointing it at the driver, holding him to his work. "ach, du lieber!" whooped carl. "pull avay, matt! dey're afder us." matt turned over the engine in record time, jumped for his seat and started. chapter xii. escape. it was easy for matt to guess what had happened. hank and spangler had stopped the other car--by rolling the tree across the road again, or in some other way--and had taken possession of the runabout. the scoundrels were in luck to have such a car come their way at just that time. being a lighter machine than the touring-car, and fully as powerful, matt knew that hank and spangler had the advantage. the two scoundrels were in desperate earnest, there could be no doubt about that. they had risked much for the pearls and would not let them slip through their fingers now if they could help it. pringle was as anxious to get away from the runabout as were matt and carl. if hank and spangler caught him, their vengeance would be swift and terrible. pringle's easiest way out of the difficulty was to stay with the two boys. although the country through which the road ran was bluffy and rough, yet the road itself traveled the level places and was hard and firm. matt speeded up the engine to the limit and drew out every ounce of power. "dey're gaining!" shouted carl; "dey're coming oop on us, matt! vell, i t'ink dis is our hoodoo tay, anyvays." "tear her to pieces!" cried pringle. "is this the best you can do? it will be all day with me if hank comes alongside!" they were doing fifty-five miles an hour, and matt knew that they could not do any better, no matter what happened. he was hoping for something to turn up--that was all that could help them now. carl thought that was their hoodoo day, but he had occasion to change his mind. "somet'ing iss going wrong mit der odder machine, matt!" he called. "dey're preaking down, i bed you." "that's what!" came from pringle. "hank acts as though he wanted to kill the driver. is the driver making a play, or has something really slipped a cog? they're at a standstill." matt decreased the red flier's speed and looked back. the driver of the other car was on the ground and both hank and spangler were standing over him with drawn guns. "judging from what the driver is doing," said matt, "it can't be a tire they've blown up. water in the carburetter, perhaps. if that's the case, they'll be after us like a singed cat in less than a minute." a bend in the road hid those in the touring-car from a view of their enemies behind. the road curved back and forth, through that part of the hills, and matt was just making ready to let the flier out again when pringle made a suggestion. "you can't give them the slip on a straightaway run, can you?" he called. "no," answered matt. "and if they're only hung up for two or three minutes they'll catch us?" "easy." "well, i don't want to be hooked by that outfit, and i know a way we can dodge 'em." "how?" "right ahead, on the left, there's a gully in the hills. you can go through it from end to end, easy enough, and at the farther end there's another road. duck into that gully, quick!" this seemed like a good move to matt. he pulled the red flier down to the low gear. "oof you vas drying to make us some drouples, pringle," warned carl, "you vill ged vorse as you have hat yet." "aw, splash!" snorted pringle. "what do you take me for? i was helpin' denny to skip with the pearls, and hank would kill me for that, if he could. i'm a lot more anxious to dodge him than you fellows are. take the gully! i know what i'm talking about. i was through the place with hank and spang this morning." matt's keen eyes were already surveying the gully, and the ground that lay between the mouth of it and the road. the other car could be heard coming, and there was scant time for making a decision. a turn with the steering-wheel headed the flier for the opening, and she glided in between the sloping walls of the narrow swale. hardly was the car out of sight when the runabout came ripping along in a cloud of dust. none of those aboard saw the red flier, but had their eyes on the next turn of the trail. "fooled!" laughed pringle huskily. "if you take my advice, you'll keep going through the gully. as i just said, there is another good road beyond." this advice seemed good to matt, for, if they had pushed out into the road again and headed the other way, they might soon find the runabout once more behind them. the bed of the gully was sandy, but there were no sharp stones or anything else to injure the tires. proceeding carefully, matt kept the car headed for the other road. "i got a bottle of corn-juice in my back pocket," said pringle, after a while, "and i feel the need of a nip. how about having one, all around?" "not for me," returned matt promptly. "und nod for you, neider, pringle," said carl. "you vas too mooch oof a feller for der booze, und dot's vat's blayed der tickens mit you." "how did you come to hook up with hank, spangler, and trymore?" asked matt. "if i put you next," replied pringle, "i expect you to do what you can for me." "i'll do that--only i want the truth." "that's what you'll get, right off the bat. i'm down, and you've got the pearls, and hank and spang are hot on my trail. i've all to win by putting you wise, and i don't see how i've got anything to lose. "this denny jerome, otherwise denver denny, otherwise james trymore, and some others, is an old pal of mine. we used to turn a knockabout spiel behind the footlights on a little two-by-four western circuit; but denny got to selling gold bricks to jaspers and quit on me. i did a little with him, on the side, but the pace was too swift for my nerve. denny got jugged, and made a getaway, and a friend told him that tomlinson had picked up some pearls down in yuma, and was to bring them back to denver in his touring-car. that looked like good picking for denny, and he slid for brockville, a. t., and sent hank to yuma to see whether tomlinson was really going to tote the pearls along with him or have the sense to put them through to denver by express. "hank's the wise boy, all right, and he not only discovered that tomlinson was just as foolish as he was made out to be, but picked up the road they were taking from tomlinson's chauffeur. hank then took the train for brockville, denny sent word to me, and i pulled out to join him and hank and spang. "we laid for the touring-car beyond ash fork--stopped it by rolling a big stone into the road. tomlinson and his driver showed fight, and denny got a bit of a gouge in the block. he seemed all right, though, and pulled himself together in time to relieve tomlinson of the silk bag. "close by that place where we blocked the trail there's an old adobe hut between two hills. from the looks of it, no one has lived there for a hundred years. the play was for hank, spang, and little bright-eyes to take tomlinson and the chauffeur to the hut and leave them there, neatly roped. well, we did it; then, when we flocked back to the road, we found that this nice big car was gone and denny gone with it. strange as it may seem, denny had forgot to leave the pearls. "oh, well, the air was blue for a while. then, after hank and spang had taken their oaths they'd get the pearls and denny's scalp along with 'em, we soldiered along toward ash fork, hugging the hills all the way. we went into camp in a dry-wash close to town, and when evening settled down, hank sneaked into the burg and came back with a hot clue. the red flier was in the hotel barn, and denny was in the hotel. the question was, did denny have the pearls in his clothes, or had he hid 'em around the automobile? it looked like a raw play for him to keep the pearls in his pocket and run the risk of being caught with the goods, and we were all thinking he must have put 'em in the buzz-wagon. "hank and spang went into town on their horses to have a look through the barn. just as they had given up trying to find the pearls, some one came in and went to the machine while some one else stood in the door. hank had a dark lantern--all of denny's belongings he'd left with us--and he flashed it on the chap by the car. the fellow had a letter. spang got it. they went after pearls and came back with the paper-talk i'd sent to spang at brockville. then there was more language, and more swearing about what we'd do to denny when we dropped onto him. "there were only two ways denny could go out of ash fork. one road was back toward the place where tomlinson was held up. we knew he wouldn't go that way. the other road headed for flagstaff. hank stole an ax and we moved along the flagstaff road early in the morning. we rode through this gully--that's how i came to know about it--and we crossed the mountain through the crack in the top of it and dropped a tree across the trail. then we went up into the gap, where we could see a mile or two in every direction, and spotted the car when it came along with our absent-minded pal. "hank and spang rushed down with their horses, just throwing a bluff in order to make sure the car got around the mountain to the tree. after that, hank and spang came up the hill, left their horses with me, and scrambled down to a lot of bushes. "i was holding three horses in the gap. see? then, all at once, who shows up but denny. i was for yelling to hank and spang, but denny stops me. he had the pearls, he says, and i might as well have half of 'em. what's the use of letting hank and spang in on a good thing when we could have it all to ourselves? well, i went him one. denny got onto one horse, and i got onto the other and led the third. you're wise, i guess, that we counted on getting away while that buzz-wagon was hooked to the tree; consequently, we were scared stiff when we heard it climbing after us. "we took to the timber. what else could we do? the led horse parted company with me, hank caught it, and then he pushed us hard. my horse tumbled; that left me on foot. all denny and i had been thinking about was getting back to the car and making you fellows get us out of our hole. we might have made the riffle, i guess, if denny hadn't played out and tumbled from his saddle. that hurt in the head must have weakened him some; anyhow, he laid on the ground as stiff as a mackerel. not being able to do anything for denny, i guessed i'd do what i could for bright-eyes, so i stopped to get the silk bag. came pretty near stopping too long, because some one took a shot at me, and i guess i jumped twenty feet. "hank was after me, and hank was on his horse. what's more, hank had seen me taking the silk bag. i knew right off it was a nip-and-tuck race, with the chances in favor of a man called pringle getting nipped. well, i traveled. when i reached a high place and couldn't go on my feet i laid down and rolled over. that's how i got to the car, and was warmly greeted by pretzel. you know the rest. is the spiel worth anything?" matt, while steering the car through the gully, had been following pringle closely. "i'm willing to let you go, pringle," said he, "providing you take us to the place where you left tomlinson and his chauffeur, and providing neither of them is hurt." "und broviding," added carl, "you gif me pack vat you dook dot vas mine." "you're on, both of you!" said pringle. "i didn't think my dope would bring all that. ahead of the car is the end of the gully, and just over the end is that nice road i was telling you about. that road will take us past the adobe hut and keep us out of ash fork all the way. it might be well to push the pace, though. now that hank and spang have got a machine of their own, they may get the notion that we'll try to do something for james q. tomlinson, and make a play to block us." the unfortunate jeweler had been in matt's mind all the time, ever since the mystery had cleared enough so he could understand what had happened. in order to reach the road pringle described, it was necessary to climb the gully-bank. the climb was a stiff one, but matt put the red flier at it without loss of a moment. there was warm work ahead--and it would be warmer if hank and spang tried to block proceedings with the runabout. chapter xiii. the hut in the hills. the red flier made fine work of the climb, rounding the crest of the gully-bank in excellent form. the road they were after lay in plain sight, with smooth ground between. "which way now, pringle?" asked matt, when they had reached the trail. "turn to the right," answered pringle. "you and your new partner are in luck, pretzel," he added, when the turn was made and the car was skimming along toward the adobe hut and tomlinson. "you'll cut a fine large cake when you break in on mr. gotrocks and tell him he's saved, and that you're prepared to hand him all the pearls in the bag. wish i had you for the next twenty-four hours, dutch." "oof you hat blayed skevare mit me, pringle," replied carl, "you vouldn't haf peen in sooch a mix. i alvays t'ought you vas a pad egg, aber you know how to blay der panjo." "sure, and we make a good team. how'll it be if i meet you in brockville, after i get away, and we hit up needles with the sketch? all the stuff's at needles." "say, i vouldn't haf nodding more to do mit you. i'm for tenver so kevick as i can ged dere." "well, be jeerful, be jeerful." "schust vatch my shmoke a leedle und see. vill you send my shtuff py tenver?" "i will, so help me!" "you vill--i don'd t'ink. you check der trunk, hey?" "sure." "vere iss der check?" "in my jeans. going to frisk me for it?" carl pushed his hand into pringle's trousers pocket, and dug up a brass tag. "vell," said he, "you dit tell der trut'. i vill keep der sheck, pringle, und ven i got some time i vill sendt it on und have der paggage come to me ad tenver." "what about my stuff? you ain't going to hog the whole business, are you?" "vell, oof you know anypody in tenver, i vill leaf your shtuff any blace vat you say." "andy hickman has a saloon there. leave it with him. what's the use of keeping me tied any longer? you might just as well take off the rope." "not until we see how we find things in the hut in the hills," said matt. "yah," agreed carl, "meppy you vas sdringing us. how ve know dot undil ve findt it oudt?" "have i strung you any, so far?" protested pringle. "it vas all righdt, so far, aber somet'ing mighdt come oop farder on. hey, matt?" "that's right, carl," answered matt. "we'll keep him a prisoner until we find tomlinson." this road, like the one they had left, angled about through the hills. they passed one vehicle--a buckboard with two passengers--going in the other direction. the horses attached to the buckboard were not used to automobiles, and shied badly. matt slowed to a stop while the driver of the team was going past. "seen anything of another automobile, mister?" called matt. "nary, i haven't," answered one of the men, "although i hear lem nugent, o' ash fork, has been blowin' himself fer one o' the things." the horses danced past on their hind legs, and matt started up again. "there's the fork," announced pringle, a few minutes later, nodding his head toward the left. "this is as near as we come to the town." they were forging along rising ground, just then, and the huddle of buildings that represented the town lay below them, and about a mile away. "how far is the hut from here, pringle?" asked matt. "twenty-five miles, i should say, at a rough guess," was the answer. "we'll cross the railroad in another mile, and after that you'd better look for buzz-wagon tracks in the dust. if you see any, then you can bank heavy that hank and spang are ahead of you." "couldn't they go the other road?" "they could, but they wouldn't. they'd make a nice picture running through town, hank with a gun at the driver's head, wouldn't they? nix. they'll keep in the background as much as they can--and this road is pretty well back. they don't want to be seen by anybody but us, just now, hank and spang don't." "does this road run into the ash fork trail?" "yep--a mile t'other side of the hut. the hut's between the two roads, close to this and not so close to the other. if the hut had been closer to the other road, maybe hank, spang, and i would have heard denny when he cut loose from us with this car." the red flier descended a slope just then, crossed the railroad-track, and climbed another slope beyond. matt was worrying about the other car. there were no tracks in the road, so it was certain the runabout hadn't passed that way as yet, but there was plenty of time for it to reach the road and catch up with the red flier. the one thing to do was to travel at speed, forestalling possible interference from hank and spang by getting well ahead of them. during the rest of the trip, which matt made at the top gait, no travelers or vehicles were met. the twenty-five miles were covered in thirty minutes, and when pringle called on matt to stop, he brought the red flier to a standstill at a place where the hills rose steeply on each side of the trail. "here we are," said pringle. "the hut is on the left side of the road?" queried matt. "through that gouge," and pringle, with a nod, indicated a break in the hills. "going to take me along?" "i guess i can find the place, all right," answered matt. "you can stay here with carl until i see if things are as you say." "what if hank and spang come along?" matt turned to the dutch boy. "you have that revolver, carl," said he, "and if you see the other car, or hear it, fire a signal. i'll not be gone any longer than i can help." "i vill keep a sharp lookoudt, you bed you," answered carl, "und i vill shoot oof i vant you. mach schnell, matt, for i haf der feeling in my pones dot somet'ing iss going crossvays." without pausing for further talk, matt ran into the passage between the hills. a hundred feet carried him through it and out upon a little plateau. here there was a spring, a thicket of manzanita, and a small ruin of a house. opposite the point where matt came upon the plateau was another narrow valley, leading toward the east and apparently communicating with the other road. hurrying to the house, matt stepped through an unclosed breach in the mud wall that had once served for a door. the gloomy interior blinded him for a space and it was impossible for him to see any one. "you scoundrel!" cried an impassioned voice. "untie these ropes and let us go at once. you will save yourself trouble if you do that, and give me back that bag of pearls. there's law in this country yet, and i'll make it my business to see that it reaches you." gradually, as matt's eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he made out the forms of two men seated on a bench along one of the walls. "are you mr. tomlinson, of denver?" inquired matt, stepping toward the man who had spoken. "my name, sir," was the haughty reply. "how long are you going to leave us here, without a mouthful of food and no water to drink? by gad, you'll suffer for this!" "you're mistaken, mr. tomlinson," said the young motorist. "i'm not one of the robbers, and had nothing to do with putting you here. by a stroke of luck i have been able to recover your pearls and to find out where you were. your car is waiting in the west road, and i am here to release you and take you to ash fork." this startling news left tomlinson speechless for a moment. "you--you have come to release us?" he returned. "yes," and matt, with an open knife in his hand, passed to the bench and began severing the cords that held tomlinson and his chauffeur to the hard seat. the prisoners had been in their cramped positions all night, and when the ropes fell away, so numb were their limbs that they could hardly hold themselves upright. "give us some water," begged tomlinson. there was a canteen lying on the floor. matt picked it up, found that it was full, and uncapped it and held it to tomlinson's lips. "the villains that brought us here," spoke up the chauffeur, "left that canteen, but they never stopped to figure out how we were to get at it with our hands tied." "they were willing, gregory," said tomlinson, "to let us starve and die, right here. i never thought a set of men could be such inhuman wretches. but who are you, young man?" "my name is king, matt king," replied the youth. "you say that by a stroke of luck you were able to get my pearls and find out where i had been left? i wish you would explain how----" "i haven't time to explain anything, just now, as we may be interfered with by the robbers at any moment. they have stolen a fast motor-car and are chasing us. if you and your chauffeur are able to walk, mr. tomlinson, we'd better get to the west road as soon as we can. the thieves----" a noise at the door caused matt to whirl in that direction. he was astounded to see spangler standing in the entrance. chapter xiv. back to the car. there was but one place where spangler could have come from, and that was the east road. the stolen car must have been driven along the direct trail leading to ash fork and have stopped so as to let spangler out at the nearest point to the hut. as matt turned on the ruffian, tomlinson and gregory started up from the bench. "there's one of the rascals!" exclaimed tomlinson. spangler, for a moment, had shown evidences of surprise. getting quick control of himself, he pushed into the hut and started for matt. "waal, my bantam," he sneered, "i reckon ye didn't make sich a clean gitaway, arter all. here's where ye git what's comin' if ye don't fork over that bag. hurry up with it! ye've made us a heap o' trouble an' we ain't allowin' ter put up with any more o' yer foolishness." "why, you infernal scoundrel," cried tomlinson wrathfully, "you're my prisoner! put down that revolver, or----" "oh, you say moo an' chase yerself!" scoffed spangler. "i got bizness with young king, here, an' if you butt in ye're goin' ter git hurt. i'll take them pearls," he added to matt, "an' i'll take 'em _now_." spangler was only one against three, but he was armed, and two of the men he faced were worn out with the physical suffering they had endured. the ruffian was counting confidently on having things his own way, and matt was wondering how he could checkmate him. hank must be somewhere around. probably, matt reasoned to himself, hank was in the east road keeping guard of the driver of the stolen car. "your lease of liberty is short," fumed tomlinson; "i'll spend my last dollar, if i have to, in bringing you and the rest of your infernal gang to book." "fer the last time, king!" growled spangler, moving his revolver significantly. "i've chinned all i'm goin' ter about that bag. either pass it over or take what's comin'." matt had got around behind the bench. he had done this in a casual manner so as not to arouse spangler's suspicions. just as the ruffian finished, matt kicked the bench against his legs. spangler staggered back. he did not lose his balance, but, in order to keep from falling, he had to throw up his arms. this was the opportunity matt wanted. like a flash he jumped over the bench and his right fist shot out in a blow straight from the shoulder. it was no light tap, for the young motorist put all his heart and science into that darting right-hander. spangler was caught on the point of the jaw and driven against the crumbling adobe wall. the revolver fell from his hand, and matt pounced upon it and brought it level with spangler's breast. "by gad!" cried the admiring tomlinson. "what do you think of that, gregory? did you ever see anything neater than that? king, you're a wonder! bravo!" "he's quicker'n chain lightning!" averred gregory. spangler was having recourse to his usual tactics whenever things went wrong with him, and was swearing like an army teamster. "that will do, spangler!" said matt sternly. "swearing never helped anybody and it's not going to help you. stow it." "i'll have yer life fer this, my buck," gritted spangler, rubbing the point of his jaw, and glaring. "not right away you won't," returned matt coolly. "step around to the other wall. we want to pass that door, and you're too close to it." "if ye think ye're goin' ter make a clean gitaway," scowled spangler, as he moved across the room, "ye've got a surprise ahead o' ye. ye kain't bump hank as easy as ye bumped me." "what are you going to do, king?" asked tomlinson. "get away from here as quick as we can," answered matt. "aren't you going to take that scoundrel along, now that we've captured him?" "no, it's impossible." "impossible?" echoed tomlinson incredulously. "why, we've got him right in our hands." "his partner is close by, in another road, and his partner has a faster car than your red flier, mr. tomlinson. we've got to get away from here in a hurry. take my word for it. there's no time to talk about it. hurry out, you and gregory, and make for the west road. i've got a friend there watching the car." "but----" "hurry!" there was a compelling note in matt's voice that caused gregory to catch hold of his employer's arm and pull him toward the door. "he knows what he's talking about, mr. tomlinson," said gregory. "here's a chance for you to get away, and get back your pearls and the car. the boy has shown that he has pluck and sense, and we'd better do what he says." this logic overcame tomlinson's objections, and the two passed out of the hut. matt backed after them. "ye better leave that gun," called spangler. "i'll leave it," answered matt, "just as soon as it's safe. where's hank?" "ye'll find him quick enough!" was the grim response. getting through the door, matt turned and hurried after tomlinson and gregory. tomlinson was bareheaded. he wore an automobile-coat that reached to his heels, but there was no coat or vest underneath it. the missing garments, it seemed clear, had been appropriated by the scheming trymore. "if we could have taken that villain with us," fretted tomlinson when matt came up with him and gregory, "we would have had at least one of the gang. now they'll all go scot-free." "we've got to think of ourselves, first and foremost," said matt. "if you and gregory escape, and you get your car and your pearls, the sheriff can go after the gang." "but see what they did to me!" went on tomlinson querulously, opening his dust-coat and showing himself stripped to the shirt. "the rascal i wounded took part of my clothes, my watch, pocketbook, and some personal papers. then, to throw us into that miserable hovel as though we were dogs? gad, it makes my blood boil to think of it." "you might take the pearls," said matt, and handed him the bag. "if you could travel a little faster----" "can't go any faster!" declared tomlinson. "we haven't had anything to eat or drink for nearly twenty-four hours, and my hands and feet feel like sticks. i'm anxious to know how you managed to get these pearls, king----" "i'll tell you all about that just as soon as we get to ash fork." matt's anxiety was intense. he felt sure that hank was doing something, and the thought bothered him. tomlinson and gregory were creeping along, gathering strength with every minute, yet not fast enough to suit matt. "i was foolish ever to carry these pearls with me," went on tomlinson, "but i expected to dispose of part of them to a dealer in albuquerque, and thought i could take the lot that far in the automobile. how did the robbers know i had them? that's what i can't understand." "did you write to denver that you had secured the pearls and were going to carry them with you as far as albuquerque?" asked matt. "yes, but----" "then the news must have got out there. i happen to know that a denver man was back of the plot to steal the gems. there was a leak in your denver office. how long did you stay in yuma, mr. tomlinson?" "ten days." "that gave the denver man plenty of time to lay his plans. you bought the pearls from a mexican who came to yuma from la paz?" "where did you find that out?" "is it the truth?" "yes." "well, that shows there must have been some one in your denver office who told what you were doing. the information i just gave you came from denver denny, the fellow you wounded at the time of the robbery." "by gad, i'll overhaul my office force from the errand-boy up, as soon as i get back home!" "a good idea." "that robbery was the most barefaced proceeding you ever heard of! gregory and i were spinning along toward ash fork, never dreaming of trouble, when we were halted by a big stone in the road. gregory got out and had just rolled the stone out of the way, when four men rushed at us. i had a revolver and i blazed away. one of the villains staggered--but he couldn't have been very badly hurt, for he pulled himself together and came at me. two of them laid hold of gregory, and two laid hold of me; then one of them--the fellow i wounded--stayed with the car while the other three took gregory and me to that wretched hut. if i live, i'll make every one of those men answer for what they've done! how such a robbery could take place, on a public road, in broad day, is something i can't----" tomlinson's rambling remarks were interrupted by a sound that brought matt's heart into his throat. two revolver-shots, in quick succession, came from the west road! that meant that carl saw trouble of some sort coming the way of the red car. "run!" yelled matt, dropping the revolver and grabbing tomlinson by the arm: "you've got to run! catch hold of him on the other side, gregory. you'll be captured again if we don't hike out of this in short order." gregory was a younger man than tomlinson and had withstood their recent physical discomforts much better. he and matt, between them, contrived to rush the denver man toward the road. they did not have much farther to go, and when they broke through the little gap carl greeted them with a wild shout: "der odder car! it vas coming, matt, coming like a house afire!" chapter xv. a race and a ruse. carl, as he yelled his startling announcement, was standing up in the tonneau and pointing toward the place where the west and east roads came together, a mile farther on. the stolen runabout, while spangler had been at the hut, had doubled the fork of the trail. running along the east road it had put about and was now charging along the west. the red flier was facing the direction from which the runabout was coming, and would have to be turned. "get tomlinson aboard, gregory!" shouted matt, dropping the denver man's arm and springing to the front of the machine. frantically he turned the lever, then jumped for the driver's seat. by that time, gregory had got tomlinson into the back of the flier, and had scrambled for a place alongside of matt. "can you run 'er?" he asked. "watch me," flung back matt. to make a turn, in that narrow roadway, called for plenty of skill, but it was accomplished swiftly. by the time the nose of the red flier was pointed the other way, however, the runabout was dangerously close. hank was still in front with the captive driver, and still overawing him with the revolver. matt bent to his levers and steering-wheel. for him there was nothing but the road in front--his eyes saw nothing else. but how could they hope to win that race, with a better car against them? "she can do sixty," cried tomlinson, from behind. "you know her, gregory! perhaps you'd better take the wheel." gregory had been watching motor matt sharply. "king can forget more about driving a car than i ever knew, mr. tomlinson," said he. "leave the thing as it is. if any one can get us out of this, it's king." the red flier was going like the wind. "watch behind, carl!" shouted matt. "sure," answered carl, "you bed you. py shinks! der odder car is slowing down aboudt vere ve vas. ah, ha! dere comes spangler, oudt oof der blace vere you come, und he chumps by der car. now dey're rushing ad us again! himmel, how dey vas purnin' der vind! no use, matt. der red flier ain'd in it mit dot odder car." "how's she going, gregory?" cried tomlinson. gregory bent forward over the speedometer. "fifty-eight," he answered. no car ever worked more sweetly than did the red flier. she hummed like a swarm of bees, and matt's trained ear told him that the machinery was working to perfection. "she can do sixty!" again shouted tomlinson. "we mustn't let the scoundrels overhaul us now! five hundred dollars for you, king, if you keep us away from them!" "oof anypody can do dot," yelled carl, "id vas modor matt. hoop-a-la, matt! hid 'er oop, hid 'er oop! ve don't vant to get ketched any more dan vat domlinson does." "they're gaining, they're gaining!" cried pringle. he had freed his hands himself, accomplishing it the moment gregory had hustled tomlinson into the tonneau. if tomlinson or gregory recognized pringle as one of the robbers, they failed to say anything about it in the general excitement. but if tomlinson was urging motor matt onward, the desperate hank was doing no less with the driver of the runabout. and hank's urging carried with it a threat of life and death. foot by foot, steadily and relentlessly, the runabout drew closer to the touring-car. with frenzied eyes tomlinson watched the closing gap. presently the racer behind was so close that those in the flier could see the grimly resolute look on hank's face, and could hear the fierce words with which he threatened the man under his revolver-point. "who's got a revolver?" cried tomlinson desperately. "here you vas!" carl answered, and handed over the gun he had in his pocket. "it's mine!" exclaimed tomlinson, as he took the weapon. "ve got it from der feller vat heluped rop you." it was hardly a time for explanations, but carl made that one mechanically--for his thoughts were elsewhere. tomlinson lifted the gun, training it on the occupants of the car behind. hank saw the move but never flinched. "i wouldn't do that," he shouted. "we don't want to kill you, tomlinson. that isn't part of the game. we want those pearls, and we're not going to be euchered out of them after all this fuss." then spangler, from the rumble, leaned forward over the front seat of the runabout. he had picked up his own weapon from the place where matt had dropped it, or else he had taken a second six-shooter from hank's pocket. he leveled the gun at tomlinson. "pull that trigger an' i'll fill ye fuller o' holes than a pepper-box!" he cried. gregory, reaching over from the front, caught tomlinson's arm and jerked it down. "you're mad, mr. tomlinson!" said he. "don't take such a risk." "what's our pace?" demanded tomlinson, his iron-gray hair snapping about his face with the speed of their flight. "fifty-nine!" "then the other car is doing better than a mile a minute! a thousand dollars for you, king, if you land me, with those pearls, safe in ash fork!" the hot blood went dancing through motor matt's veins. could he do it? reason told him that the feat was impossible, but---a thought at that instant leaped through his alert brain. there was a chance--a long chance. "slide into this seat, gregory!" he cried. "careful, now. i'll hang to the wheel while you get under me." "what are you going to do?" demanded the astonished gregory. "the best i can--and trust to luck." a note of thrilling determination rang in motor matt's voice. gregory crawled and scrambled over the front of the lurching car and got into the driver's seat. matt, relinquishing the wheel, went on his knees in the seat vacated by gregory. "pringle," called matt, leaning into the tonneau, "you have a bottle in your pocket?" "yes, i----" "give it here." pringle pulled a quart bottle from his pocket. it was half-full of liquor. matt drew the cork and spilled the whisky into the road; then, again on his knees, he studied the car behind. the driver of the runabout was holding his car to a steady line. the left-hand wheels tracked the road a point two feet to the left of the trail of the red flier. standing in the car and bracing himself with his left hand, matt raised the empty bottle in his right. _crash_! the bottle, broken to fragments in the road, offered a danger-point for the car behind. the speed of the flier had scattered the jagged glass, but most of it had gone to the place matt had in mind. hank, hearing the crash, instinctively divined what had happened. "to the right, to the right!" he roared, brandishing his revolver in the driver's face. but the speed of the runabout was so great that swerving the car, before the danger-zone was reached, was out of the question. one of the front tires hit the broken glass and instantly there came a sharp "pop." the runabout slewed around and the driver cut off the power and put on the brakes just in the nick of time to avoid a bad accident. the red flier glided onward, leaping away from its defeated rival like a glittering streak. tomlinson, overcome with the tension of the struggle, collapsed in his seat with a breathless, "by gad." "king," exulted gregory, "you're the best ever!" "hoop-a-la!" gloried carl, in a frenzy of delight. "meppy modor matt ditn't do somet'ing dot time! oh, i bed you! be jeerful, eferypody, be jeerful! modor matt has safed der tay und von a t'ousand tollars. yah, yah, yah!" and carl flopped to an about face and shook his clenched fist at the car behind, now almost out of sight. "wonderful!" cried tomlinson. "king, how did you ever manage to think of that?" "how does he efer manage to t'ink oof eferyt'ing, hey?" asked carl. "he has his headt mit him all der time. dot's vy he cuts so mooch ice verefer he goes! oh, he vas a pully-poy, you bed my life!" "well," said tomlinson, "i'll not forget this." "there's ash fork," spoke up pringle suddenly, pointing to the right. "just across the railroad-track there's a road leading down to the place. i guess you better stop here and let me out." "stop, gregory," said matt. "pringle isn't going into town with us." "yes, he is!" averred tomlinson, bristling. "he was one of the four men who held us up. i didn't recognize him at first, but i do now. don't stop, gregory." "mr. tomlinson," said matt, facing about, "i promised pringle he should have his freedom if he told us what the robbers had done with you. but for the information he gave us, we would never have been able to get you away from that hut. i think he's entitled to something, don't you?" "is that the way of it?" asked tomlinson. matt assured him that it was. "then," went on tomlinson, "if you promised him his freedom, matt, gregory had better stop." the car halted and pringle, highly elated, jumped to the ground. "don't forget to leave my stuff where i told you, pretzel," he called. "vell, i von't," answered carl; "und don'd you forged to leadt some tifferent lives oder you vill findt yourseluf pehindt der pars yet." "oh, blazes! say, i'll be wearing diamonds while you're still doing stunts back of the footlights." "you vill be vearing shdripes, dot's vat." "by-by, wienerwurst!" carl gurgled and tried to get out of the car. matt grabbed him and threw him back in his seat. "never mind, old chap," he said. "you're well rid of that fellow, and you ought to be thankful." "i don'd like dot wienerwurst pitzness," grunted carl. "he vas rupping it in too mooch, py shinks. don'd he vas der vorst pad egg vat you efer see?" just then gregory switched on the spark, and the red flier glided into the branch road with the town well in sight. chapter xvi. in ash fork. once more the red flier found shelter in the hotel barn, and once more james q. tomlinson was quartered in the hotel. but, of course, it was a different james q. tomlinson. one of the first things matt did, as soon as he had helped gregory take care of the red flier, was to hunt up the deputy sheriff and tell him what had happened. if there was ever a dumfounded man in arizona, that man was the deputy. "well, thunder an' kerry one!" said he. "ain't i the bright boy, though? why, i helped that denver denny across the street from the doctor's office, did everythin' i could to make him comfortable, and--oh, gadhook it all! he played me for fair, and no mistake! but i reckon you was a bit fooled yourself, eh?" "for a while, yes," answered matt. "but you'd better get busy. denver denny is out there on the mountain, and hank and spangler are back on the west road with a stolen car. if you hustle you may be able to capture the whole gang--or three of them, anyhow." "that's me, on the jump." ten minutes later the deputy sheriff had collected a posse, and had split the force into two detachments. one party went toward the place where the stolen car had been left, and the other headed along the flagstaff trail. as a matter of fact, which may as well be stated in this place, neither detachment accomplished anything. the owner of the runabout, lem nugent, arrived in town on foot, late that afternoon, full of wrath, footsore, and weary. "hang the blooming luck, anyhow!" said he, to a group of loungers in front of the hotel. "got held up for my new car--two fellows snaked it right out from under me. there was a tree across the trail, and of course we had to stop. next i knew a revolver was looking at me from both sides. i had to get out, and the two hold-up boys went away in the runabout, taking henry along to run the car for them. as for me--whoosh! i walked into town. never liked walking much, anyhow. and where's my new runabout? that's what i want to know. henry's with it, wherever it is." but lem nugent was mistaken. henry wasn't with the car, at that moment, but was hoofing it into ash fork from the hills, glad to have his scalp with him. he reported to his employer an hour after the theft of the runabout had been described by its owner. "they made me chase a red touring-car," said henry, "kept a gun poked into my ribs all the time an' said they'd blow holes in me if i didn't do the right thing. what they thought was the right thing, and what i thought, was some different, but guns was trumps an' they had the best hands. first time we chased the red car the machinery of the runabout went wrong, and the other machine got away from us. came pretty near getting shot, then, as the strong-arm boys thought i'd made the runabout go wrong a-purpose. "when we got ready to do some more scorching, the other car had given us the slip. we kept chasing around, and finally dipped over a divide into that east road, a couple o' miles beyond the fork. by and by we stopped at a place where a feller called spangler got out and lost himself in a swale. hank and me jogged on to where the west road come into the other trail, an' turned back along that course. we was to pick up spangler on the new road, after he'd done something or other, i don't know what. "well, unexpectedlike, we sighted the red car. that was our signal to whoop it up, takin' spangler in behind on the fly. then we had a race an' no mistake. it would have been our race, too, if the young fellow in the red car hadn't busted a bottle in the trail and spoiled a tire for us. say, that was the slickest move i ever saw made! "it took us half an hour to get on a new tire, and by that time, of course, the red car was safe in ash fork. hank made me give him lessons in handling the runabout, then told me to go home and say that he and spangler liked the machine so well they was going to keep it." the cattleman swore roundly; and likewise declared that he'd spend the price of a new car getting the old one back. tomlinson remained in ash fork for two days, recovering from his trying experiences. and when he finally went on to albuquerque he went by train. as for the red flier, the arrangement he had made to have the car taken on developed in a conversation he had with matt a few minutes before he got aboard the steam-cars. matt was at the station with tomlinson and gregory, for both were going to albuquerque by train. "here's what i owe you, matt," said the denver man, pressing a roll of bills into the young motorist's hand. "a thousand dollars, and i call it cheap, considering the great service you rendered me. the red flier will have to come on to albuquerque, but i don't care to travel with her myself, and i want gregory to go with me. i'll give you an extra hundred, matt, if you'll bring the car through. i shall be in albuquerque for some time, and you can jog along at your leisure. what do you say? if you have anything else on hand, and feel that you can't do it, don't hesitate to say so. henry, nugent's driver, will take the red flier to albuquerque, if you can't. but, frankly, i'd rather trust the car in your hands." "i'll do it," said matt. "you see, i want to get to denver myself, and i'll be able to get over a long lap of the run on the trip." "good!" exclaimed tomlinson, with a look of relief. "you're going to denver, you say?" "that's my intention." "what are you going to do there?" "something with motor-cars--i can't tell just what, at the present time." "you'd make a good driver for a racing-car. you've got nerve, and steadiness, and presence of mind. how'd you like a job of that kind?" matt's eyes sparkled. "that would suit me right down to the ground, mr. tomlinson," said he. "then i think i can help you. a friend of mine is a manufacturer of automobiles, and i know he's looking for a good driver for his racing-machines. if you say so, i'll write him from albuquerque." "i'd be obliged to you if you would, mr. tomlinson," returned matt. "all right, then. you can count on me to give you a good recommendation." just then the train came along, tomlinson and gregory shook hands with matt and carl, and were soon pulling out of ash fork. "vell, vell!" murmured carl, staring after the disappearing train, "you vas some lucky poys, matt. meppy i vill be lucky, too, oof i shtay hooked oop mit you." "nothing would please me better, old chap," said matt heartily, "than to have you trail along with me." "und go mit you py albuquerque, und den py tenver?" "sure!" "hoop-a-la!" jubilated carl, gripping matt's hand. the end. the next number (6) will contain motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. stranded "uncle tommers"--the red flier gets a load--the stolen runabout--the coat in the rumble--matt begins a search--losing the box--a mysterious disappearance--spirited away--an unexpected meeting--a daring plan--on the road--a close call--car against car--down the mountain--motor matt's tenstrike--more trouble for the "uncle tommers"--conclusion. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, march 27, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. a young mariner's peril. by rufus hall. day after day the poisonous malarial vapors from thickets and jungles, combined with the heat of an equatorial clime, told even upon some of the hardy sailors and marines who had been sent from the sloop of war _trenton_ to protect a party of engineers away up in the gaboon country of lower guinea, near the mountains, in western africa. in a tent where the marines were encamped, they had put little jack winton, the lieutenant's nephew, a boy of fourteen, ill with a fever; and, one morning, as he lay there, with burning cheeks and parched lips, a vision of big red cherries, smooth and round, kept rising in fancy before his wistful eyes. his delirious mutterings were of these cherries, and his hands now and then crossed and recrossed his pillow, as if he thought the fruit must be there. then it was that will worth, a marine private of sixteen, hearing him, made up his mind to hunt for what he knew the invalid coveted--a cherrylike fruit, to be found among the glens and ravines of the mountains--and to bring some, as a pleasant surprise, to the sufferer. without mentioning his purpose to any one, he left the camp, being at present off duty, and sped on his way. mr. dale, a youthful ensign, noticing how hurriedly he plunged into the upland thicket ahead, suspected that he meant to desert. his lieutenant had already found fault with him for one soldier's desertion, and he did not relish the idea of another reprimand of this sort. he, therefore, resolved to follow the lad, watch him, and, if he went far, order him back to the camp. entering the thicket, he moved rapidly on. the foliage and the brush became denser as he proceeded. he heard the tapping and humming of bees in the hollows of trees. in and out of the great bell-shaped flowers around him they flew, spitefully buzzing at the big green gnats in their way. hundreds of large white lilies, enormous tulips, and wild roses brightened the shrubbery. high above hovered the scarlet cardinal-bird, sounding its shrill "fife." below, the hook-nosed falcon boldly confronted the youth, as if inclined to dispute his progress. at last he caught sight of worth down in the jungle, on the opposite side of a deep ravine, which he had evidently reached by a roundabout direction through brambles and vines leading past the front of the chasm. down where he was could be seen gleaming in profusion the small red globes of the cherrylike fruit he had come to gather for his sick little comrade. the ravine was evidently hundreds of feet in depth, the bottom hidden by the black shadows from the jungle on both sides. a few yards below worth the chasm, which was about eighteen feet wide, was crossed by a tree-trunk--a mere sapling, eight inches thick--probably all that remained of a former bridge. the trunk was smooth, except within five feet of the end nearest the boy, where there was a clipped branch. this end was in a sort of long hollow, overhung by tough roots. the ensign cautiously descended on his side of the ravine and watched worth until he had filled a haversack at his side with the "cherries" and was about to ascend, when he called out sharply: "that fruit will make you a poor meal, my boy, if you mean to desert!" the startled lad looked across the gorge, saw the ensign, and answered, much hurt by the officer's suspicion: "i had no intention of deserting, sir. i came here after the fruit for jack winton." "now, upon my word," said the ensign, who was a good fellow at heart, "i believe you, worth, and am sorry i made the mistake of suspecting you. those 'cherries' are just the things for little jack." worth was going to respond, when behind and above him he fancied he heard a low, guttural voice. turning and looking up, he saw two humanlike but fierce eyes shining amid a thick, dark screen of interlacing vines. "who's there--a 'pongwe?" he inquired, thinking one of the natives of the mpongwe tribe had been watching him pick the fruit. there was no reply to his question. but the leafy bower rustled, and now from out the dark screen there rose an awful roar, that was echoed to the chasm's very depths. from among the concealing vines stepped forth a hideous monster, which the boy at first thought was a chimpanzee, but which, from its black color and ferocious aspect, he concluded must be a gorilla. nearly erect it stood, beating its breast with its hands. being a greedy lover of fruit, it glared in a fierce, remonstrative way at the lad's full haversack, as if enraged at his having come to pluck the "cherries" it wanted entirely for its own use. the animal, about five feet high, was covered with black hair, had very broad shoulders and enormous hands, while its stomach bulged as if nearly filled to bursting with the "cherries" it had been eating, the red stain of which was all about its mouth. the diabolical face, with its great flat nose and projecting open jaws, the latter disclosing two enormous hooked lower teeth and a row of smaller ones above as sharp as a saw, was thrust slightly downward, showing the encircling edges of the hair on its head so distinctly defined as to give it the grotesque appearance of wearing a sort of big furry cap. it was plain that the brute meant to attack the boy. in fact, it suddenly raised one of its big paws and, with a rush, came crashing toward him through the shrubbery. unfortunately he had left his musket, thinking it would be in his way, near the edge of the ravine above. but his bayonet was by his side in its sheath. he drew the steel, and, flourishing it before him, retreated toward the tree-trunk that extended across the chasm. he had once heard a hunter say that the gorilla, unlike the common monkey, is not a very skilful climber. neither would it, he thought, attempt, for the same reason, to follow him should he creep out on the horizontal sapling. but just as he got close to the tree the ferocious brute, uttering a terrible roar, aimed a blow at him with its uplifted paw. he held up his bayonet. it was dashed from his grasp, but not before the point had inflicted a wound in the monster's arm. so great was the strength of this hairy arm that that single blow must have lacerated the boy's side had not the big paw fallen upon his cartridge-box. the force of the stroke whirled him over upon his back, knocking him into the hollow in which rested the end of the tree-trunk. he quickly pushed himself under the tough roots overhanging the hollow. the gorilla, bending over, looked at its wounded arm, lapped it, and pressed it against its breast, all the time growling as if with blended pain and wrath. then, using both its left paw and its teeth, it commenced to tear away the protecting roots above the lad, with the probable intention of dealing him a finishing blow. its strength was so enormous that the earth broke and flew in all directions as the animal shook, pulled, and bit at the roots. worth, knowing that these would soon give way, expected to be finally torn to death by the infuriated beast. meanwhile, the young ensign on the other side of the ravine had been watching for a chance to shoot at the gorilla with the long double-barreled pistol he had with him, which he had drawn from his belt. but the boy and his assailant were, from the first, so close to each other that he did not dare to fire, lest the bullet should strike his comrade. he now ran his gaze along the sapling that bridged the chasm. the slender tree was covered with a green, slippery slime. he doubted if he would be able to creep over it, but he saw no other way of attempting to get within close enough range of the fierce beast to shoot it without risk of hitting worth. therefore, replacing his pistol in his belt, he started, crawling along on his hands and knees. it was a daring venture. the horizontal tree was probably more than two hundred feet above the bottom of the chasm. if he lost his balance, certain death awaited him; he would be precipitated into the black depths so far below. on he went. as he proceeded, the narrow trunk shook with his weight. when he had reached its center, it bent, oscillated, and one of his knees slid off the slippery surface. he felt himself going over. his distended eyes were turned downward toward the dark, yawning gulf beneath, into which he expected to fall headlong. but the thought now occurred to him of throwing himself flat upon his breast along the sapling and of hugging it with his arms. he did so, and the action saved him. cautiously he then regained his former position and crept on. at length he reached the clipped branch, within five feet of the end of the tree. the gorilla had nearly torn away all the roots that protected worth. it seemed about to raise its left paw to deal him a fatal blow. the young officer knew he had no time to lose. he clutched the stumped branch with his left hand, drew his pistol, and, aiming as well as his position would admit of, he fired. the bullet inflicted a flesh-wound in the monster's side. with a roar that shook the air to the chasm's very depths, the brute turned, saw its assailant, and threw itself toward him, resting its big stomach on the sapling. up went its mighty left paw, and down it came slantingly toward the officer's head. worth uttered a cry of dismay. he expected to see the ensign killed and dashed from the tree's trunk into the black pit of the ravine, hundreds of feet below. it was a critical moment. had dale drawn his head back, the great paw would still have reached him, have struck his neck, and sent him to his doom. but instead of attempting in his present cramped position any backward movement, he threw his head and shoulders forward. thus the big paw clove, with a whirring sound, the empty air above him, and, placing the muzzle of his pistol between the monster's eyes, he fired. the brute, as the bullet passed through its brain, slid away from the tree, then clawed wildly at the air with both hands, uttered one loud, humanlike scream, and went whirling down into the black abyss of the ravine. the ensign crept to land and helped worth from the hollow. the boy had been badly, though not seriously, injured by the force of the gorilla's blow upon his cartridge-box, which had thus been jammed, as if with the stroke of a sledge-hammer, against his body. as with his rescuer's assistance he limped back toward the camp, now and then carefully adjusting his broken haversack so that the "cherries" in it might not drop out, he warmly thanked his companion for saving his life. "don't mention it," was the answer. "i am glad enough to have been able to do something for you toward making up for my mistake of suspecting that you meant to desert." it was a joyful surprise to little jack winton when worth brought the "cherries" to him. they were of great benefit to the fever-stricken lad, whose health began to improve the moment he had partaken of them. the ensign had made light of his rescue of worth, and had advised him not to mention so "trifling a matter," as he termed it, to his comrades. the boy, fearing that the knowledge of it would tend to unduly excite the invalid, said nothing about it until jack was fully recovered from his illness, when he gave him an account of the whole affair. the little fellow made it known to his uncle, the lieutenant; and dale's promotion, not long after, was, perhaps, partly due to this circumstance. worth, who had never dreamed of being favored for the slight service he had rendered his sick comrade, now attracted the notice of his commander. the latter, perceiving his unvarying good conduct, soon made him a corporal, from which position he eventually won his way to a higher rank. swans carried over niagara falls. all naturalists and many sportsmen will recall the great destruction of swans which took place in march, 1908, at niagara falls. a great flock of these large and beautiful birds was carried down the river and over the falls, and an authoritative account of the occurrence recently appeared in a paper by james savage, of buffalo, n. y., printed in the bulletin of the buffalo society of natural history, says _forest and stream_. while the whistling swan occurs regularly along the niagara river, it is always a rare migrant, and would scarcely ever be captured were it not for the fact that it often floats down the river to injury or death at the great cataract. observers declare that scarcely a year passes without one or more swans going over the falls. about twenty made the fatal plunge in march, 1906, and five in the same month, 1907, but no such destruction of swans has been known as took place on march 15, 1908, when more than 100 were destroyed. during the greater part of the day a severe rain-storm prevailed. about eleven o'clock in the morning, between showers, william leblond, of niagara falls, ontario, was engaged in removing from the ice bridge a temporary structure that had been used during the winter season as a souvenir and refreshment-stand, when he was startled by a loud cry. turning around, his attention was first attracted to a swan struggling in the water at the upper end of the ice bridge; but, on looking toward the falls, he saw a great company of swans in distress coming toward the bridge. the scene was a sad one for any bird-lover to contemplate. these splendid birds, helpless after their terrible plunge over the cataract, were dashed against the ice bridge by the swift current, amid cakes of loose ice which were constantly coming down from the upper river. some had been killed outright by the falls. others, unable to fly because of injury to their wings, attempted to stem the rushing waters, but here their wonderful swimming powers were of no avail. they were soon imprisoned in the ice, where their pitiful cries were heartrending. the game-laws of ontario will permit the taking of geese and swan in the spring until april 30, and it was not long before men and boys, armed with guns and sticks, availed themselves of the privilege and became the chief factors in the closing scene of nature's great tragedy--the sacrifice of the swans. as soon as he learned of the occurrence, mr. savage visited niagara falls, and from his investigation concluded that the number of swans taken march 15 was 102. on the morning of march 18 two more were taken at the ice bridge, and a third was picked up alive on the shore. it was secured by mr. savage and photographed. placed in the zoological collection in delaware park, buffalo, it recovered. eleven more swans were taken later, and some others were seen which, though apparently carried over the falls, were still able to take wing and fly away. but swans are not the only water-fowl that are in danger from niagara. on march 18, 1908, mr. savage saw a handsome male canvasback come down against the ice bridge. it appeared to be unable to fly. on the same day he saw a golden-eye duck struggle out of the foaming water below the horseshoe falls and reach the shore. it made no attempt to escape when picked up, and seemed unable to walk or fly. later, however, it recovered and did fly off. of the swans which went over the falls, many afterward appeared on the table. a number were preserved by the taxidermists of niagara falls and toronto. a group of five appears in the museum of the buffalo society of natural sciences. mr. savage saw not less than fifty of these dead birds and looked them over carefully, thinking that perhaps there might be among them a trumpeter swan, but none was found. mr. savage believes that fully one-third of the 116 swans taken would have survived if given proper care, but the impulse to kill was stronger than the spirit to save, and not even a pair of these unfortunate birds was rescued from nature's doom and restored to nature's freedom. para rubber and its gathering. rubber is collected by the natives in brazil, who gather the thick, creamlike sap which oozes from the hatchet-cut in the bark of the rubber-trees. it is received in tiny cups of clay or tin, several of which are emptied daily into pots and carried where the sap is coagulated and "cured." the flow of sap from each tapping lasts but a few hours, and the tree must be bled in fresh places daily. the total yield from the most vigorous tree does not exceed three or four pints in a season, and a considerable percentage of this is lost by evaporation. in the camps the para rubber sap is coagulated over a fire of uricuri palm-nuts, built under an earthen pot, something like a slender-necked jug without a bottom. a paddle is dipped into the thick sap, and then, holding it in thick smoke, it is deftly turned in the operator's hands until a thin layer of rubber is formed. an hour's work at this would produce a lump, the foundation of a biscuit weighing five or six pounds. when the biscuit has reached a weight of twenty-five pounds or more, it is slit open, the paddle removed, and the rubber hung up to dry. rubber thus gathered and cured is the finest known. from the forest the rubber is sent down the stream on crude boats, later being placed on the steamers which ply the amazon. when manaos, the second largest city in the amazon country, is reached, the rubber is boxed, though this is often left until its arrival at para, at the mouth of the amazon river. manaos is 1,200 miles from the sea, so that considerable time is consumed in bringing the rubber to its shipping-point to foreign lands. at para it is placed in the ocean liners destined for new york or some of the european countries. queer californian traders. the queerest "traders" in all vast california are the odd little animals known as "trade rats." they never steal, but give miscellaneous articles in exchange for what they take. a paste-pot left overnight in an assay office was found in the morning filled with the oddest collection of rubbish. this was the work of trade rats. they had stolen the paste, and left in exchange a piece of stick, a length of rope, some odds and ends of wire, and an unbroken glass funnel. a trade rat's nest, found in an unoccupied house, was composed of iron spikes laid in perfect symmetry, with the points outward. interlaced with the spikes were two dozen forks and spoons and three large butcher-knives. there were also a quantity of small carpenters' tools, and a watch, of which the outside casing, the glass, and the works were all distributed separately--to make a good show! we are unable to state what this particular trade rat left in exchange for all this "loot." burrowing fishes. in brazil are to be found fishes, eellike in form, which burrow in the mud during seasons of drought. in wet weather this curious class of fish stores up in its system a reserve of fat, and then, when the dry season arrives and the rivers dry up, it constructs a deep tubular burrow, in which it doubles up, with head and tail together. the mouth of the burrow is closed with a most ingeniously constructed mud flap, through which are several small perforations, which permit the animal to breathe air directly, as it is also one of the few species gifted with both lungs and gills. while enclosed in its nest, the fish is frequently dug out by the natives, who highly prize its flesh. in the period of incubation it lives upon the reserve of fat accumulated during the rainy season. when the early rains soften the soil, the fish emerges from its burrow and resumes its aquatic existence. turn river to mine its bed. the tunnel to turn the trinity river from its channel so that the river-bed may be mined for gold is now in 1,150 feet. the total length will be 1,400 feet. the tunnel cuts across a bend two miles above lewiston. the trinity river mining company has a crew of eight men at work. the tunnel is being dug 8 ã� 10 feet in size. when it is cut through the hill at that size it will be enlarged to 10 ã� 12 feet, making it big enough to carry the whole river at ordinary stages. the water will be used at the tunnel outlet to run low-pressure turbines, furnishing power for mining purposes. the river-bed is known to be rich in gold. over a mile of the bed can be mined when the river is turned through the tunnel less than one-third of a mile in length. _especially important!!_ motor stories _a new idea in the way of five-cent weeklies._ boys everywhere will be delighted to hear that street & smith are now issuing this new five-cent weekly which will be known by the name of motor stories. this weekly is entirely different from anything now being published. it details the astonishing adventures of a young mechanic who owned a motor cycle. is there a boy who has not longed to possess one of these swift little machines that scud about the roads everywhere throughout the united states? is there a boy, therefore, who will not be intensely interested in the adventures of "motor matt," as he is familiarly called by his comrades? boys, you have never read anything half so exciting, half so humorous and entertaining as the first story listed for publication in this line, called "=motor matt; or, the king of the wheel=." its fame is bound to spread like wildfire, causing the biggest demand for the other numbers in this line, that was ever heard of in the history of this class of literature. here are the titles to be issued during the next few weeks. do not fail to place an order for them with your newsdealer. no. 1. motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. no. 2. motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. no. 3. motor matt's "century" run; or, the governor's courier. no. 4. motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the _comet_. 32 large size pages splendid colored covers price, five cents per copy at all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by the publishers upon receipt of the price. _street & smith, publishers, new york_ _the best of them all!!_ motor stories it is new and intensely interesting we knew before we published this line that it would have a tremendous sale and our expectations were more than realized. it is going with a rush, and the boys who want to read these, the most interesting and fascinating tales ever written, must speak to their newsdealers about reserving copies for them. =motor matt= sprang into instant favor with american boy readers and is bound to occupy a place in their hearts second only to that now held by frank merriwell. the reason for this popularity is apparent in every line of these stories. they are written by an author who has made a life study of the requirements of the up-to-date american boy as far as literature is concerned, so it is not surprising that this line has proven a huge success from the very start. here are the titles now ready and also those to be published. you will never have a better opportunity to get a generous quantity of reading of the highest quality, so place your orders now. =no. 1.--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel.= =no. 2.--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends.= =no. 3.--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier.= =no. 4.--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet."= to be published on march 22nd =no. 5.--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot.= to be published on march 29th =no. 6.--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear.= to be published on april 5th =no. 7.--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto.= to be published on april 12th =no. 8.--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward.= =price, five cents= to be had from newsdealers everywhere, or sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers _street & smith, publishers, new york_ transcriber's notes: added table of contents. italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=. phoenix was printed with oe ligatures in the original text. some inconsistent spellings within dialect have been retained. some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. cottonwood vs. cotton-wood) has been retained from the original. page 1, changed "tomilson" to "tomlinson" and "ling" to "sing" in cast of characters. page 6, changed "under der drompone" to "und der drompone," "un der sleigh-pells" to "und der sleigh-pells" and "no noddng" to "no nodding." page 10, added missing quote after "der tenver bapers." page 12, changed ? to , after "watching your car." page 17, changed "away then went" to "away they went." page 21, changed "had he pearls" to "had the pearls." page 22, added missing quote before "does this road run." page 23, removed extra quote before "spangler, for a moment." page 28, changed "west rode" to "west road" and added missing quote before "well, unexpectedlike." page 29, changed "hundred of feet" to "hundreds of feet." courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 22 july 24, 1909 five cents motor matt's enemies or a struggle for the right _by the author of "motor matt"_ [illustration: _a hoarse laugh echoed in motor matt's ears as the burning launch leaped away through the thick shadows._] _street & smith publishers, new york_ motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. entered according to act of congress in the year 1909, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c., by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ no. 22. new york, july 24, 1909. price five cents. motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. on the road to waunakee. chapter ii. into a noose--and out of it again. chapter iii. george's sister. chapter iv. the "jump spark." chapter v. by express, charges collect. chapter vi. "pickerel pete." chapter vii. george and m'glory missing. chapter viii. setting a snare. chapter ix. enemies to be feared. chapter x. between fire and water. chapter xi. chums to the rescue. chapter xii. how fate threw the dice. chapter xiii. under the overturned boat. chapter xiv. a dash for the open. chapter xv. the power boat--minus the power. chapter xvi. a reconciliation. the guardian of the pass. watch the sky. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, otherwise motor matt. =joe mcglory=, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. a good chum to tie to--a point motor matt is quick to perceive. =george lorry=, a lad who has begun steering a wrong course, and in whom matt recognizes a victim of circumstances rather than a youth who is innately conceited, domineering and unscrupulous. =lorry, sr.=, george's father; a rich man whose attitude toward motor matt, in part of the story, is as incomprehensible as it is uncalled-for. =big john=, an unscrupulous person who takes his dishonest toll wherever he can find it; but, in crossing motor matt's course, he meets with rather more than he has bargained for. =kinky=, a pal of big john. =ross=, another pal of big john; a desperate man with a grievance against motor matt. =ollie merton=, a rich man's son with many failings, but rather deeper than he appears. =pickerel pete=, a superstitious little moke who collects two dollars from motor matt for a day's work and abruptly resigns. chapter i. on the road to waunakee. "do you know what you're doing, john?" "if i didn't, ollie, i wouldn't be doing it. i'm not one of these fellows who take a jump in the dark and trust to luck." "then it's about time you put me wise. i've been taking jumps in the dark ever since you showed up in madison yesterday." the man with the closely cropped red hair, the smooth face, and the mole on his cheek laughed softly. "back the car off the road and into the bushes," said he, "then we'll sit where we can look around the bend toward waunakee and i'll tell you all you want to know." the young fellow with black hair and a sinister face threw in the reverse and backed the big automobile off the road and into the undergrowth. when he stopped the car it was all but screened from sight. jumping down, he walked out to where the man was standing in the highway thoughtfully smoking a big, black cigar. pulling a silver cigarette case from his pocket, ollie helped himself to a highly ornamental brand of turkish poison, each little cylinder cork-tipped and marked in gilt with his monogram. big john looked at him with frank disapproval as he took a silver matchbox from his vest and fired the imported "paper pipe." "you're the silver-plated boy, all right," muttered big john. "sterling, you big duffer," grinned ollie. "nothing plated about me." "the dope they roll up in that rice paper and hand you with your cute little monogram is plate, all right--coffin plate----" "oh, splash!" sneered ollie. "you're a nice one to lecture a fellow, i must say. cut it out, john, and tell me what we're here for." big john shook his red head forebodingly and moved off toward the bend of the wooded road. here he sat down just within a fringe of brush, in such a position that he had a good view of the straightaway stretch toward waunakee, and ollie pushed in beside him. "you know george lorry, all right, eh, ollie?" big john observed. a flush crossed ollie's sinister face. "you bet i know him!" said he. "the fellows used to call him 'sis,' because he was so nice and ladylike. but i've known for a long time there was good stuff in george, and that he'd be a first-rate chap if some one would only cut him adrift from his mother's apron strings. i got him started right," and a very complacent look drifted over ollie's dark features. "he can smoke cigareets as well as the next one, now, and play as good a game of cards as any fellow in our set. he's got _me_ to thank for that." big john stared at ollie, and once more shook his head. "what fools you kids can make of yourselves!" he grunted. "you're the one that started young lorry, eh?" "he was a sissy," asserted ollie, "and i was making a man of him. george's folks never treated him right. old lorry has got as much money as my governor, but he's a tightwad, all right, and put the screws on george's allowance in a way that was scandalous. george bought a five-thousand-dollar motor launch, and had it sent on here from bay city, c. o. d., and his skinflint father wouldn't foot the bill and the launch had to go back." ollie fired up to a white heat. "what sort of a way was that for a man to treat his only son?" he demanded. "awful!" commented big john sarcastically. "george told me how he was treated," went on ollie, failing to observe the sarcasm in big john's voice, "and i advised him to break away and show the old folks that he wasn't going to let 'em tramp on him. he joined our club and got to be one of the best card players we have." "beautiful!" expanded big john. "i suppose his folks were all cut up about that, eh?" "i guess they were, only old lorry took the wrong way of showing it. what do you think he did?" flared ollie. "i'm by. what did he do?" "why, he made arrangements to send george to one of these military academies, that's nothing more or less than a reform school. george came to me and told me about it, and asked what he ought to do." "and what did you tell him?" "i told him to skip, and to take with him all the money of his father's that he could get his hands on. old lorry is a brute, and i didn't make any bones of telling george what i thought." "and george skipped, taking ten thousand dollars from his father's safe," said big john. "he went to chicago first, then bought a ticket to 'frisco. when he got there he had made friends with three men, and one of those men was me. i'm a villain, ollie, and ought to be a horrible example to every young fellow who's got sense enough to know right from wrong, and the minute i learned lorry had ten thousand dollars i planned with my two pals, kinky and ross, to get it. we'd have got away with it, too, on a boat to the sandwich islands, where i could have bought a pineapple plantation and, mebby, have lived honest for the rest of my life, but something happened." big john looked through the bushes, out along the road, and scowled blackly. "what happened?" demanded ollie. "a chap named joe mcglory----" "i've heard of _him_," interrupted ollie. "he's a cousin of george's, and lives in arizona. a cowboy and a rowdy--nothing refined or genteel in his make up. go on." "well, mcglory got a message from young lorry's father asking him to go to 'frisco and hunt for george. mcglory went, but he'd never have found george in a thousand years if it hadn't been for some one else who butted into the game." big john scowled again, this time more fiercely than he had done before. "who was it?" queried ollie. "hold your horses a minute," proceeded big john. "mcglory and this other fellow took after kinky, ross, and me, and dropped on us like a thousand of brick. my, oh, my! say, that other lad was the clear quill, all right. i've seen a good many likely younkers, but never one to match him. i guess you'd call him a 'sissy,' seeing as how he don't smoke, or drink, or gamble, but just trains his muscle to keep in form and cultivates his brain along the line of motors, gasoline motors. and muscle! son, that fellow's got a 'right' any man would be proud to own, and what he don't know about chug-engines nobody knows." ollie's upper lip curled. "i don't believe in paragons," said he. "but what has all this got to do with our being here?" "i'm getting to that. with this young fellow's help, mcglory got the ten thousand away from us; not only that, but we had to get out of 'frisco on the jump to keep the law from layin' hold of us. but big john wasn't throwing his hands in the air, not as anybody knows of. i knew what would happen. young lorry would have to be brought back to madison, and this motor boy would have to help mcglory bring him back. also, the ten thousand dollars would be brought back--and i was still yearnin' for that money and the pineapple plantation. i had ross dodge back to 'frisco and watch. when mcglory and the other chap took the cars with lorry, ross was on the same train, but he had changed himself so no one would have known him. ross is good at that sort of thing, and that's the reason i made him do the shadowin'. kinky and me hurried right on to madison, where i called on you and reminded you of the way i'd once given you a tip on a hoss race in new york and helped you win a thousand. you remembered old times"--big john grinned widely--"and you wasn't leery of me." "i always liked you, big john," averred the misguided youth, "because you're so free and easy." "thanks," was the dry response. "well, to proceed," he went on, "ross dropped in on kinky and me, last night, and said that young lorry and t'other two hadn't come to madison, but had got off the train at waunakee and had gone to a little cabin on the bank of a creek that empties into the catfish. ross hung around the cabin, listenin', until he found out that one of the outfit was to walk into madison, this morning, to have a talk with mr. lorry. i don't know what the talk's to be about, but this motor boy must have something up his sleeve." big john gave an ill-omened grin. "as near as i can find out from ross," he continued, "this chug-engine chap thinks he can make a man out o' lorry--but he's going about it a little different from what you did, ollie. now, i don't care a whoop about anything but that money, and i rather believe i've fixed things so the motor boy won't have easy sailin' with mr. lorry. but that's neither here nor there. i got you to bring me out here in your benzine buggy, this mornin', so i could lay for the chap that goes into town and take the ten thousand. after i get it, you're to take me to dane, or lodi, or barraboo, and leave me there. that'll settle the debt you owe me on account of the tip i gave you on that hoss race, see? are you willin'?" the sinister face of the youth glowed with a fierce light. "i'm willing to help you get away, big john," he answered, "and i'm even willing to help you get the money. this motor boy you speak about is trying to undermine my influence with george, and, by jupiter, i won't have it. i know what's the best thing for george." "we won't talk about that part of it," said big john, who was a strange mixture of right principles and evil actions, "because i might say something you wouldn't like. as i was saying, i've got my heart set on an honest life and a pineapple plantation, and ten thousand ain't any more to lorry, the millionaire, than ten cents is to me. i'm going to get that money--and here's where i turn the trick. you can go farther back into the bushes and watch, for i don't need your help." unbuttoning his coat, big john began unwrapping coil after coil of light rope from around his waist. when he was through he had a thirty-foot riata in his left hand and was holding the noose in his right. ollie, who had never been the confederate of a man before in such a rascally piece of work, stared with wide eyes at big john; then, before pushing farther back into the brush, he turned his eyes down the wooded road. a young fellow, lithely built, and with the grace and freedom of movement that marks the perfect athlete, was swinging toward the bend from the direction of waunakee. "is that mcglory?" asked ollie in a whisper. "nary it ain't mcglory," replied big john, with a snap of the jaws. "it's matt king, otherwise motor matt, and here's where he gets what's comin' for meddlin' in affairs that's none of his business. get back, i tell you, and give me a free hand." chapter ii. into a noose--and out of it again. motor matt, swinging along the road toward madison, that morning, was particularly light-hearted. he and his new chum, joe mcglory, had accomplished something worth while; and whenever a young fellow does that he is pretty sure to be on good terms with himself. the long railroad journey from san francisco to a point within a few miles of madison had been safely accomplished. young lorry had not been a willing traveler, at first, but matt had gradually won him over by suggesting a plan which carried an appeal to lorry's heart. this plan had to do with the three boys leaving the train at waunakee, taking to the little cabin in the woods, and then lorry and mcglory staying there while matt went on to the city for a talk with the elder lorry and to deliver the ten thousand dollars. motor matt and mcglory had had some exciting experiences with big john and his two pals, kinky and ross, but those experiences had been passed through safely, and the end of the journey, if not of matt's work, was in sight. matt had faith to believe that there was "good stuff" in george lorry. the boy had fled from madison, and had committed a dishonest act before doing so. having far and away too much pride for his own good, the thought of being brought back, virtually under guard and in disgrace, was more than he could bear. matt had tried to think of a plan for giving lorry's return a different look--hence the reason for mcglory and lorry remaining in the cabin while matt went on to the city. the morning was fresh, the sun was bright, and the clear weather seemed a good augury for what lay before. matt always made it a point to look on the bright side of things, anyway. ahead of him lay a bend in the road. when he rounded the bend he felt sure that he would be able to catch a glimpse of the white dome of the capitol, and from that point onward he would not be long in covering the ground. he halted abruptly just before he got to the bend. the peculiar corrugated marks of automobile tires lay under his eyes in the dust of the road. it wasn't so much the marks themselves that claimed his attention as the strange way they curved from the roadside and entered the brush. why should an automobile be taking to the woods in that unaccountable fashion? from ahead of him, around the bend, he heard a car. the car was on the move, plainly enough, but the motor was in distress, pounding badly; not only that, but there was a smell of fried engine in the air, as though some reckless driver were burning up his transmission. was the car matt heard the one that had left its tracks there by the roadside? he presumed that this must be the case; so, instead of investigating the bushes, he started to run around the bend. if he could help the injured car, then perhaps the driver might give him a lift the rest of the way into town. as he started on, after a moment's pause, a sinuous, snakelike thing leaped noiselessly from the bushes behind him, unwound itself in the air, and a loop fell over his head and dropped on his shoulders. motor matt jumped as though he had been touched with a live wire. he half turned and lifted his hands to remove the coil, but it tightened before he could free himself, and a rough jerk from behind landed him on his back in the dust. matt had not been expecting such lawlessness on that peaceable country road. who was back of it, and what was the purpose? to escape, half-strangled as he was and with enemies bearing down on him, was out of the question--at that moment. the lad's resourcefulness suggested a trick, whereby he hoped to gain time and discover a chance for escape. although the fall backward had not injured him in the least, yet he gave a groan, tried to lift himself, and then fell back and lay still and silent. in his ears the pounding of the motor around the bend continued to echo, but, from the noise, he could not discover that the car was coming in his direction. a quick tramp of feet and a rustle of bushes were heard, and two figures bounded to his side. one of the figures was that of a man, and the other of a well-dressed, dissipated-looking youth. matt, peering from half-closed eyes, could scarcely restrain an exclamation at sight of the man. when he had seen the man last, in san francisco bay, he had worn a red beard. although the beard was gone, matt recognized the scoundrel instantly--and the mole served to make his identification complete. "confound it, john!" grumbled the youth, "_now_ what have you done? if he's badly hurt----" big john laughed. "hurt! motor matt badly hurt by a little drop like that! why, he's tougher'n whalebone and you couldn't damage him with a sledge hammer. he's just stunned and strangled, that's all. a good thing for me, too, because he'll never know who roped him and we can get away before he comes to himself. pull out that noose so he can breathe, ollie. i'll get what i want out of the younker's pocket and----" "there's another machine!" ollie muttered, staring toward the bend as he was about to stoop over matt and release the noose. "just heard it?" answered big john. "well, don't let it worry you. i've heard it for some time, and it's coming into this road from a branch and is bound for town. look sharp, now, for we've got to hustle." while ollie, with trembling fingers, pulled out the loop and drew it over matt's head, big john went down on one knee to search his pockets. matt knew, then, what big john was after. the rascal was foolish enough to think matt was carrying lorry's money in cash. this was not the case, for matt and mcglory had bought a draft in san francisco. matt, however, did not intend to lose even the draft. suddenly, and most unexpectedly, he became very much alive. with a quick move he hoisted himself upward, catching ollie by the shoulders and hurling him, with terrific force, against big john. both the youth and the man were caught at a disadvantage. ollie gave a startled cry as he carromed against big john, and the latter, as he staggered back, said something more forcible than polite. as for matt, if he had any comments to make, he preferred to send them by mail. without hesitating an instant, he took to his heels and tore around the bend. he could see the dome of the capitol, far off and embowered by trees, but he was thinking more, at that moment, of the other car than he was of the capitol. a hundred yards ahead was another road, coming from the timber into the one he was following. the moment matt raced around the bend a swagger little runabout was jumping from one road into the other. the car was not _headed_ toward madison, although it was proceeding in that direction. it was on the reverse gear, and a young woman in the driver's seat was craning her head around in order to see the way and do the guiding. there was only the young woman in the car, and matt, in spite of his dangerous situation, felt a distinct sense of disappointment. he had been hoping to meet a man, in that emergency, and now to meet a young woman---but he had no time to waste in vain regrets. a look over his shoulder showed him big john hurrying after him at top speed. matt knew that big john was one of those lawless persons who carry weapons in their hip pockets, and, although matt's legs could outdistance big john's, the young motorist would hardly be able to keep ahead of a bullet. but big john held his hand and determined to trust to his sprinting ability. to use a revolver would, perhaps, have carried the matter farther than he wanted to see it go. besides, ollie was cranking up the big car and making ready to bring it along in pursuit. the smell of sizzling engine became stronger as matt drew closer to the runabout. the girl, with a very white face, had turned in her seat and was staring toward matt with startled eyes. at the same moment she had brought the car to a stop. big john, on seeing matt draw abreast of the runabout, halted and looked around for ollie and the touring car. "will you give me a ride into madison?" matt asked of the girl, as respectfully as he could in the circumstances. "what's--what's the matter?" asked the girl. "that fellow, back there, tried to rob me. i don't think he will follow me far, on a public highway in broad daylight--if you will let me ride in the runabout." "but the bearings are chewed up!" cried the girl; "i'm going home on the reverse." "take the other seat, please," said matt. "i know something about motors, and perhaps i can handle the car so as to get more speed out of it with less rack on the engine." without a word the girl changed to the other seat and matt leaped into the car beside her. the next moment he had advanced the spark, thrown in the high-speed clutch, and they were shooting down a long slope. matt's eyes were behind, and the girl's in front of her. "oh, hurry, hurry!" she cried, in a frightened voice. "they've got a big touring car, and i don't think anything can keep them from overtaking us!" chapter iii. george's sister. matt threw a look over his shoulder. big john was just making a flying leap to the running board of a large car. he fell aboard in a huddle, colliding with the dash and striking violently against his young companion, who was at the steering wheel. matt was not able to look longer. by doing wonders with the spark and the steering wheel, and by ignoring the bubbling in the radiator and the pounding of the engine, he nursed the runabout along at a good rate of speed. a low hill was before them, and it came near killing the car, but when they had reached the crest and were ready for the descent on the other side, an exclamation from the girl drew his attention. "what is it?" he asked. "is that other car close upon us?" "something has gone wrong with the other automobile," was the answer. "when that man jumped aboard he must have injured something." matt looked around again. big john and his companion were on the ground, looking over their car and trying to locate the trouble. matt laughed. "it's a good thing for those fellows that the car went wrong," said he. "in their excitement they might have done something that would have got them both into trouble. we'll go on for a little way and then i'll have a look at the runabout and see if i can't fix it up so we can run headfirst, like every respectable automobile ought to run." they coasted down the hill, and the tired and much abused motor must have appreciated the rest. "is this your car?" asked matt. "yes," was the reply. "i don't think you can fix it, for i've stripped the gear." "i'll look at it, anyway, if you don't mind, just as soon as we get to the bottom of this slope. i've had a lot of experience with motors." "you say that man tried to rob you?" queried the girl. "that's the way it looked to me, but it seemed like an audacious thing to attempt so near a big city like madison. you see, i was walking into town, and back there at the bend in the road some one threw a rope and i got tangled in the noose and thrown off my feet. i managed to get away, though, and the man took after me. if it hadn't been for you, that other car might have overhauled me. i'm much obliged to you, miss." "i'm glad i was able to help you," was the quiet reply. "as you say, it is strange any one should try to commit a robbery, in broad daylight, so close to the city. and on a public highway, too!" by then they were at the foot of the slope and matt brought the car to a halt. here he got out and turned to the girl. "if you'll jump down for a minute," said he, "i'll give that transmission a sizing and see if i can do anything with it." "but won't the other car come?" she demurred. "those fellows will think better of it. if they hadn't been excited they wouldn't have tried to chase me. they've had time to cool off, now, and to think better of what they're doing." matt helped the girl down, and, for the first time, saw that she was very young and very pretty. there was a familiar cast to her features, somehow, which aroused his wonder. was it possible that he had ever met her before? without trying very hard to answer this mental question, he stripped off the transmission cover and thrust a hand inside. the metal band encircling the low-gear drum had sustained a fracture. it was made of bronze, and had been slotted for convenience in lubricating, and the break was through two of the slots. "the low gear is chewed up," he remarked to the girl, "and that part of the machine is permanently retired. i guess we'll have to go into madison on the reverse, and it will be well to go slow so as not to overheat the engine. we can take care of that, all right, if we stop occasionally to cool off. how far are we from town, by the way?" "not more than two miles from sherman avenue and lake mendota." "we'll get over that quick enough. you don't mind my riding with you?" "i'm glad to have you," was the smiling reply. "you'll save me from twisting my head off and doing all the work." matt, with his gray, earnest eyes and fine face, was a well-favored lad, and it is not to be wondered at if the girl was impressed. "are you a stranger in this part of the country?" the girl inquired, when they were once more in their seats and backing away in the direction of town. "yes," he replied. "never been in these parts before." "you were walking into town, you say?" the girl eyed his neat, trim figure with a certain amount of surprise. "i was," he answered, with a laugh, "but please don't think i'm a tramp. i've a draft for ten thousand dollars in my pocket--and tramps are not usually as well fixed as that. the fellow who roped me must have known about that ten thousand, and perhaps he was foolish enough to think that i had it in cash." "ten thousand dollars!" murmured the girl. "that's a lot of money." evidently it was not such a vast sum--to her. that swagger little car, as matt figured it, was given to her for her very own, and she was wearing the latest thing in automobile coats, hats, and gauntlets. the dust coat had become parted at the throat and revealed a fraternity pin set with a big diamond. "after i take your car to the garage," said matt, "perhaps you could tell me where i can find mr. daniel lorry?" the girl started. "why," she exclaimed, "if we get to the garage about noon you will find dad in the house in the same yard. he's my father. i'm ethel lorry." "great spark-plugs!" exclaimed matt. "i guess this is my lucky day, after all. you're george's sister, are you?" a cry escaped the girl, and she reached out to drop a convulsive hand on matt's arm. "you know george?" she asked breathlessly. "i should say so!" returned matt. "where is he?" the girl was tremendously excited. "is he well? has he come back from san francisco?" "yes, miss lorry, he is back from san francisco, and he's feeling tiptop. but he didn't want to come to madison just yet. i left him not more than an hour ago. his cousin, joe mcglory, is with him." "but why didn't he want to come home?" cried the girl, with vague alarm in her voice. "i'm to see your father and tell him about that. that's what i was coming to town for." the girl suddenly whitened, a frightened look arose in her eyes, and she drew as far away from matt as she could. "what's the matter, miss lorry?" matt asked. "are you--can it be that you are the young man called motor matt?" "that's what i'm called. my real name is king, you know, matt king, but i'm always doing something with motors and that's why they call me motor matt." the girl was silent for a space. her face continued white, and she seemed to be thinking deeply. "i think, motor matt," she said finally, in a strained voice, "that you'd better get out of the car and let me run it back to madison alone." matt was "stumped." for a moment, so great was his astonishment, he could not do a thing but stare. "why," he exclaimed, "i want to see your father; that's why i'm going into town this morning." "i think it will be better for you if you don't see him." matt's bewilderment continued to increase. "i've got ten thousand dollars for him, and also a message from george," he managed to articulate. "you can give me the money and the message, mr. motor matt," was the terse reply, "and i will see that they are delivered." matt halted the car--it was time to cool off the engine a little, anyway--and straightened in his seat. "i am a friend of your brother's," he observed, "and joe mcglory will tell you what i have tried to do for him. your father sent a telegram to san francisco asking mcglory to have me come with him and george, if possible. now, at a good deal of inconvenience and expense to myself, i have come--and why shouldn't i see your father?" "because," answered miss lorry steadily, "he has recently heard something about you that--that is not to your credit. if you insist on seeing him, he might--he might have you arrested." if matt was "stumped" before, he was staggered now. arrested! george lorry's father might have him arrested! and for what? for helping george recover the ten thousand dollars, and for helping to bring george back to madison? "there's a big mistake, somewhere," muttered matt. "you'll not go on?" queried miss lorry. "i _will_ go on," matt returned firmly. "but i'll get out of the car and walk, if you want it that way, miss lorry. i can't give the money to you, or the message, either. as i say, there's a mistake, and i must see your father and explain away the bad impression he has of me. certainly he didn't get that from joe mcglory." "i don't know who told him what he knows," went on the girl, "and i don't know _what_ he knows, but he's very much incensed against you, motor matt." "i'll know why, before i'm many hours older," and matt got up to leave the car. once more the girl caught his arm. "i'm glad you show that sort of spirit," said she. "if you are really determined to see dad, and have a talk with him, then that proves on the face of it that there must be some mistake. please stay and take the car into town for me!" without a word, but with his mind working hard to evolve some clue to this puzzling situation, matt dropped back in the driver's seat. he threw in the switch, and the gas in the cylinders took the spark. but it was a silent ride that he and miss lorry had during the rest of the time they were backing into town. chapter iv. the "jump spark." into the grounds of one of the finest homes on "fourth lake ridge," otherwise known as "aristocracy hill," matt backed the little runabout. a brick-paved roadway, overarched with trees, led from the front of the premises to the neat garage in the rear. a middle-aged gentleman, stout of build and with a florid face, was sitting on the veranda of the house. the runabout, worrying backward up the street and into the yard, was an astonishing sight. the middle-aged gentleman leaned against the rail and stared; then, waving a newspaper which he held in his hand, he shouted something and hurried down the steps and toward the driveway. "dad!" murmured miss lorry, with an apprehensive glance at matt. a man--probably the lorry chauffeur--appeared in the open door of the garage and stared at the runabout in open-mouthed amazement. matt brought the car to a stop, and mr. lorry came puffing up alongside. "what in the world's the matter, ethel?" he demanded, his eyes swerving from his daughter to matt. "i smashed the low gear, dad, and had to come in on the reverse," miss lorry answered. "i was just coming into the waunakee road, two or three miles the other side of maple bluff, when the gear went wrong." mr. lorry's eyes continued to rest on matt, and they were becoming uncomfortably inquisitive. he was wondering, no doubt, who matt was, how he came to be in the car, and why his daughter did not introduce him. "call gus," went on miss lorry, jumping lightly out of the car, "and have him run _dandy_ into the garage. gus will know what to send for in order to make the runabout as good as new again." without waiting to speak further, the girl whirled about and ran into the house. mr. lorry stared after her, and then turned to give matt another look. "are you a chauffeur?" he asked. "i have been--a racing chauffeur," matt answered, springing to the ground, "but i haven't been driving a car for some time." "you helped my daughter--that much is plain, even though i _have_ been left in the dark on several other points." "i was coming into town along the waunakee road," matt went on, "to see you." "to see me?" mr. lorry's interest visibly increased. "yes, sir, on very important business. i happened to meet miss lorry and she kindly gave me a ride into town. the least i could do was to run her machine for her." "did you know miss lorry?" "not until she told me who she was." "quite a coincidence that you should meet her, when you were coming into town to see her father. but come up on the veranda--we'll be more comfortable there." mr. lorry turned toward the garage. "the runabout's in trouble, gus," he called. "take it into the garage, see what it needs, then order whatever's necessary. this way, sir," he added to matt. while gus removed the runabout to the garage, matt followed mr. lorry up the steps to the veranda and seated himself in a chair. "i don't remember ever seeing you before," remarked mr. lorry as he sat down close to matt, picked up a fan, and began stirring the air in front of his perspiring face. "but i'm obliged to you for giving ethel a helping hand. i'm worried to death every time she's out with _dandy_. it wasn't more than a week ago that she came near going over a bluff at mcbride's point." matt lost no time in plunging into his business. drawing the draft from his pocket, he handed it to mr. lorry. "part of my work," said he, "is to give you that." mr. lorry stared at the draft and opened his eyes wide. "ten thousand dollars!" he exclaimed, "and it's made payable to joseph mcglory." "on the back, sir, you will see that joe had indorsed it over to you." mr. lorry turned over the oblong slip of paper; then, suddenly, an idea darted through his mind and he stiffened in his chair. "is this--is this----" "it is the money george took when he left madison," said matt, dropping his voice. mr. lorry's face hardened. "then," said he raspingly, "inasmuch as you're not mcglory, i suppose you're that young rascal, matt king, better known as motor matt." "my name is matt king, sir," answered matt, "and you have no right to refer to me as a rascal." "i have, by gad," exploded mr. lorry, "and a very good right! i've heard about you, sir. you're the lad who was hand-and-glove with the three villains who made george so much trouble on account of this money. i wonder that you have the face to show yourself to me. do you know what i could do with you?" a hostile red had leaped into mr. lorry's face. as matt sat back and looked at him, he likened his anger to a "jump spark." the "make and break" system of ignition, while electrically simple, is complicated mechanically. the "jump spark" system, on the other hand, while complicated electrically is mechanically very simple. a simple error of some sort lay back of mr. lorry's anger, but it found vent in mighty puzzling expressions. "who is your authority for the statement that i was hand-and-glove with the three men who robbed george?" asked matt calmly. "i decline to quote anybody." "you can ask mcglory, or george, about me," proceeded matt, "and i think they will tell you that if it hadn't been for me that money would never have been recovered." "you have pulled the wool over mcglory's eyes, and over george's, too. but where's my son? why didn't he bring this money to me himself? why was it necessary for him to send it at the hands of a stranger?" "your son is a few miles out of town. he did not leave san francisco willingly, and it was only by promising him that we would not take him directly into madison that we got his consent to come with us." "a fine lay-out!" muttered mr. lorry. "the boy's got to come here, sooner or later, and what is he to gain by delaying the matter? can't he realize how worried all of us are?" "he feels the disgrace of his position very keenly, mr. lorry." "bosh! not much of what he's done is known to outsiders, and those who know, or think they know, anything about it, will forget the whole business within a week after george gets back." "are you going to send george to military school, mr. lorry?" at that the "jump spark" seemed about to set off an explosion. mr. lorry twisted angrily in his chair. "what business is it of yours, young man?" he snapped. "that boy has got to realize that he isn't of age yet, and i'm not going to let him run wild and bring disgrace on himself, and on me." "mr. lorry," said matt earnestly, "i have tried to be a good friend to your son, and it was your request, contained in the telegram you sent to san francisco, that i come with him and mcglory, that brought me here. i won't tell you what i have done--i will leave that to george and his cousin--but i will tell you, as plainly as i can, that george is just now in a place where he must be treated with consideration. one false move would prove his ruin, and----" "by gad," interrupted mr. lorry, "do you mean to sit there and lecture _me_? why, i'm old enough to be your father! such impudence as that is----" "sir," protested matt, "i'm not impudent. i know george pretty well, and i want to do what i can for him. he's got lots of pride, and he had his heart set on getting a power-boat that would make a good showing in the coming race of the winnequa yacht club. he had talked about what he was going to do to members of the club, and when he ordered that boat and you refused to pay for it and let it be sent back to the builders, the blow to his pride started him off on the wrong course." "a five-thousand-dollar boat, by gad!" growled mr. lorry. "his whims were getting too confoundedly expensive. if his pride is going to suffer every time i put my foot down on such a piece of folly, then he'll have to pocket his pride. i'm his father, and i guess he'll have to toe the mark for me for a while yet." "there's a way to make george the happiest fellow in madison, mr. lorry," matt went on, "and it won't cost you more than two hundred and fifty or three hundred dollars. i know a good deal about motors, and i'll help george fix up a boat that will win a prize in that yacht club race----" "not a cent more will he get from me!" stormed mr. lorry. "he'll come back here, and he'll go to that military school, and if what you call his 'pride' keeps him from being a dutiful son, then his pride will be broken. where is he? where did you leave him?" "if you go out to where he is now, without first giving him a chance to----" mr. lorry leaned forward and shook a finger in matt's face. "if you want to keep yourself out of trouble, my lad, you'll tell me where that boy is, and no more ifs nor ands about it." matt got up slowly. he was white, but none the less determined. "i am george's friend, mr. lorry," said he, "and i had to promise him that i would help him do certain things here in madison in order to get him safely back from the west. if i tell you where he is, while you feel as you do toward him, i would be breaking my promise. he is well, and he will be here in a few days. as for the rest, if you want to make trouble for me, why, go ahead." intensely disappointed with the result of his interview, matt passed down the steps and toward the street. mr. lorry gasped wrathfully and watched as he left the yard, but he made no attempt to interfere with him. matt was hardly out of sight, however, before he ran into the house and began using the telephone. chapter v. by express, charges collect. motor matt was surprised enough, as he left the lorry mansion, and his indignation equaled his surprise. who could possibly have furnished lorry with the information on which he had based his remarkable conclusions? certainly his attitude had changed most decidedly since he had sent his telegram to 'frisco requesting that matt accompany mcglory in bringing george home to madison. matt, as he descended the ridge and proceeded toward the capitol and the main part of the town, could think of only one possible cause for mr. lorry's actions. big john must be in some way mixed up in it. the knowledge that big john was in that part of the country had come like a thunderbolt to matt. the last the king of the motor boys had heard of big john, he and his two pals, kinky and ross, were getting out of california by way of sausalito. a bolt from the blue could not have been more astounding than the discovery of big john attempting a robbery there on the waunakee road. why had big john come to madison? and how had he known that matt was going to pass that particular point on the waunakee road that morning? no doubt big john's eastern trip had been inspired by the ten thousand dollars of lorry's. the rascal had been lured to wisconsin by the hope of recovering the money. this seemed clear enough--much clearer than the method by which big john had learned that matt was to go over the waunakee road that morning, on foot. yes, big john must have been back of that misinformation which mr. lorry had accepted as a true statement of facts. but it was odd how the scoundrel had been able to influence mr. lorry as he had. motor matt felt that he was embarked on a struggle for the right, and that he must go on with the battle in spite of his enemies. george lorry's whole future might hang on the result of that fight. had matt told mr. lorry where mcglory and george were waiting, the millionaire would certainly have proceeded to the place and attempted to bring george in to madison. this would have led george to believe that matt had broken faith with him, and the lad would have bolted for parts unknown. george had been allowed to have his way for so long that, when his father took another tack and resolved to be severe with him, the lad had thought himself abused and imposed upon. george was a spoiled youth, but matt believed that he had the right material in him and would prove a credit to his people if given the proper kind of a chance. just as surely, too, he would go down to ruin and disgrace if the wrong move was made at that critical time. lorry, senior's, obstinate determination to send george to the military school would be a step in the wrong direction. by paying out a little money for a motor launch, mr. lorry would have gone far toward healing the breach between him and his son, and would have paved the way for a perfect understanding. this affair of the launch looked like a trifling matter, but no one but matt and mcglory knew how much it meant to george. when matt reached the main part of the city his study of the situation had convinced him that he was doing exactly right. what his next step was to be he hardly knew. he hated to go back and tell george of his father's uncompromising attitude, and yet he felt the need of a talk with mcglory in order to lay future plans. it was about one o'clock, and matt went into a restaurant and ate his dinner. from there he went to the post office to see if any mail had followed him from san francisco. no mail had reached him from the west, but there was a postal card, posted that morning in madison, which informed matt that a certain express company had received, and was holding at his risk, a crated power boat on which there was a charge, for _transportation alone_, of $262.50. when matt read the postal card he was positive there was some mistake, and that it had been given to the wrong person. the card was addressed, plainly enough, to "matt king, otherwise motor matt," but the king of the motor boys was not expecting a launch, had not ordered one, and was not intending to turn over $262.50 to the express company on what was manifestly an error. he was on the point of handing the card back to the man at the post-office window, with the information that the card could not be for him, when he suddenly changed his mind and decided to go to the express company's office and rectify the mistake at headquarters. a little inquiry put him on the right road, and within five minutes he was leaning over a counter at the express office, showing the clerk the card and telling him the boat must be for some other matt king. "there's no other matt king in madison," protested the clerk, "and it's a cinch there's no other motor matt. you're the fellow the boat is for." "but that charge!" exclaimed matt. "it can't be for transportation alone. it must be a c. o. d. collection for part of the price of the boat. i haven't bought any boat, and am not expecting any one to send me a boat. i'm a stranger here, and only reached madison to-day." "can't help that. if you're motor matt the boat's for you. if you refuse it we'll have to notify the shipper, and if we can't get any satisfaction from the shipper, the boat will have to be sold for the charges." "great spark-plugs!" muttered matt. "where's the boat from?" "san francisco." the king of the motor boys stared blankly at the clerk. "from san francisco, eh?" he repeated. "yes, and it's all complete--an eighteen-footer, with engine installed." "can--can i see it?" "come this way." the clerk opened a gate at the end of the counter and matt walked through and into the storeroom. there he saw the boat, securely crated. between the bars of the crate he read the name _sprite_, lettered on the bow. by that time the king of the motor boys was too far gone for words. leaning against the wall of the room, he bent his head and drummed a tattoo on his brow with his fingers. "who's the shipper?" he finally managed to ask. "i don't know whether the way bill has it right or not, but the name of the consignor is down as ping pong. it reads like a joke. eh?" matt left the room and retired to the other side of the counter in the office. there was no joke about it. "ping pong" might look to the express agent like a fake name, but it was _bona fide_ for all that. ping pong was the name of a chinese lad whom matt had befriended in san francisco. the celestial had won the _sprite_ in a raffle, and had turned the boat over to matt on condition that matt would allow ping pong to work for him. ping and the _sprite_ had disappeared mysteriously before the young motorist left 'frisco, and that was the last seen of either the chinaman or the boat until now. and here the boat had turned up in that madison office of the express company with transportation charges of $262.50 to be collected! the idea of sending a power boat, engine and all, by express, in a heavy crate, was a piece of folly of which even a ten-year-old american boy would not have been guilty. but ping was a chinaman, and probably he thought matt was a millionaire. "goin' to take it or leave it?" inquired the agent as matt walked back and forth across the office turning this new development over in his mind. "the charges ain't any more than what they always are--three times the merchandise rate." "i guess the charges are all right," said matt humorously, "for it's a long haul. and then, too, the crate, and the engine, and the boat weigh up to beat the band." "going to take it?" matt's mind had been rapidly going over the points of the case. madison was surrounded by lakes, and motor-boating was a hobby with a large number of the people. by sending the _sprite_ to matt, ping had undoubtedly determined that he should have the boat. the _sprite_ was speedy--matt had tried her out in san francisco bay and knew that--and with some changes in the reversing gear matt believed she could show her heels to anything from first lake to fourth. on such a showing, the boat could undoubtedly be sold at a good price, and while $262.50 was a big sum to pay out, just for express charges, still---then matt had another thought, and it was a "startler." george wanted a motor boat for the race. the _sprite_ wasn't a five-thousand-dollar "speeder," but she could run like a streak with the right kind of a fellow at the engine. mr. lorry had refused to help george to a boat, and this unexpected arrival of the _sprite_ seemed almost providential. "i'm going to take the boat," said matt, pushing a hand into his pocket and stepping up to the counter. chapter vi. "pickerel pete." by bringing the submarine boat _grampus_ safely around south america the king of the motor boys had made a good deal of money. most of this he had invested on the pacific slope, but he had more than enough of the "ready" with him to settle the express charges and to keep him afloat until george lorry's affairs had been put in proper shape. having paid over the money and signed the express receipt, the question as to what should be done with the _sprite_ presented itself. "you can uncrate the boat in the storeroom, if you want to," said the obliging clerk, "and then we'll have her hauled down to the water for you." "much obliged," answered matt. "i believe i'll take off the crate and see how the boat has stood her long overland journey." the clerk furnished him with a hatchet, and matt threw off his coat and got busy. in an hour, the clean-cut hull of the _sprite_ had emerged from a litter of boards and old gunny sacks. an examination showed that both hull and machinery were in as good condition as ever. while matt was working he had noticed a map of madison hanging from the storeroom wall. the map gave a very clear idea of lakes monona and mendota, between which lay the long and narrow city. one of the express company's drivers had come into the storeroom and was looking over the _sprite_ with an air of deep interest. "i wish you would tell me something about this map, neighbor," said matt. "ask me anything you want to," was the cheerful response. "i was born and raised here and i know the place pretty well." "what's this?" matt inquired, laying a finger on a certain part of the diagram. "that's the yahara river, sometimes called the 'catfish.' it's been straightened into a canal, and connects third and fourth lakes. monona is third, and mendota is fourth. there's locks at the mendota end." "and what's the other river coming into mendota lake on the side across from the city?" "the yahara again." "then, if this boat was launched in lake monona, it could enter the canal over by winnequa, cross into mendota lake, and proceed up the yahara?" "she could, sure. lots of boats do that." "here's a creek entering the yahara. is that navigable for a boat drawing two or three feet of water?" "maybe. i guess a small boat could get up the creek a ways." as matt figured it, the cabin where he had left mcglory and george was on the creek. why couldn't he get the _sprite_ afloat and proceed by water to the cabin? "i don't know anything about these lakes," went on matt, "but i'd like to get some one who knows them and make a little cruise." "fourth lake is mighty treacherous. whenever there's a west wind she kicks up a big sea, and a lot of boats have come to grief on the rocks of maple bluff. that's here--that piece of land running out into the water, over where they've made a park. it used to be called mcbride's point. a mile across from the bluff is governor's island. the insane asylum is near the island. if you want to put your boat in fourth lake, why don't you launch it there instead of taking it to third lake?" "well, i want to try her out with a little longer cruise than just across fourth lake. do you know of any one i could get to pilot me around?" "h'm!" murmured the driver thoughtfully. presently his face brightened. "any objection to color?" he asked. "how do you mean?" "well, how'd a colored boy do? i know of one that's right to home on the lakes, and he's a character, you bet. his name's pickerel pete; that's all he's got, just pickerel pete." "he'll do," said matt. "how can i get hold of pickerel pete?" "tell you what i'll do; i'll get hold of him for you. when you going to put that boat in the water?" "right away." "'course we got to deliver it for you. i'll have some of the boys help me get it on the dray, and on the way down to the lake i'll pick up pete. you don't need to wait here. in half an hour you go down king street to wilson. there's a lot of landings and boathouses t'other side the railroad depot. if we ain't there when you reach the place, you wait, and we'll show up pretty soon afterward." "that's mighty good of you," said matt. "you'll be careful of the boat, will you?" "sure, you bet. no harm'll happen to her. we got a special dray for movin' boats like that." matt went to the capitol grounds and sat down on a bench. for half or three-quarters of an hour he was there, thinking of george and the unsatisfactory state his affairs had drifted into. the king of the motor boys did not want to appear to be helping george to dodge his father's authority, but he knew that the elder lorry would not have taken the stand he did if he had not acquired a whole lot of misinformation. the thing for matt to do was to get back to george and mcglory, tell them exactly what had taken place, and then ask them for suggestions as to the next move. on the way down king street, matt stopped at a store and bought a supply of gasoline, oil, and cotton waste. not having a hydrometer, he tested the gasoline as well as he could by other means, and convinced himself that it was, as the dealer assured him, the "right stuff." matt rode down to the lake with the expressman who took his supplies, and when he got there he found the _sprite_ in the water, moored to a small pier. the express driver, and those who had helped him with the boat, were gone. the only person in the vicinity of the launch was a barefooted little darky. he sat on the pier, absorbed in throwing a couple of dice. "come seben, 'leben, come seben, 'leben," he was saying, as the small cubes rattled on the boards. "pickerel pete!" called matt. the little negro jumped as though a bomb had exploded under him. "yassuh, yassuh, dat's me," he answered, grabbing up the dice and shoving them into a pocket of his ragged trousers. "come over here, pete, and give us a hand with this gasoline and stuff." "on de hop." the gasoline was emptied into the tanks and the oil cups filled. after that matt went over the machinery, carefully examining the ignition and all connections. pickerel pete helped him intelligently. "yo's de fellah whut's a-wantin' tuh hiah me?" he inquired. "yes," replied matt, highly pleased with the way pete divined whatever he wanted and handed it over to him from the tool kit. "do you know anything about a motor boat, pete?" "ah's done steered heaps o' boats froo dese yer lakes, boss," grinned the moke, "an' ah reckons ah knows de spa'k plug f'om de propellah." "you know the lakes, too?" "hones' tuh goodness, boss, ah could go froo all de lakes f'om first tuh fo'th, en cleah down de rock rivah, wif mah eyes shut. ah'm er phenomegon." "what's that?" "phenomegon. doan' you-all know whut a phenomegon is?" "you mean a phenomenon, i guess." "ah reckons ah knows whut ah means," answered pete, with sudden dignity. "you've mixed phenomenon and paragon, and----" "ah ain't mixed nuffin. ef you-all thinks ah'm er ignorampus, den ah 'lows ah ain't de fellah you wants tuh hiah." "yes, you are, pete--you're just the fellow." "how much does ah git?" "two dollars a day. there's pay for your first day's work." pete almost fell out of the boat. fifty cents a day was the most he had ever received. "does yo' think yo' kin stand dat, boss?" he inquired. "ah'd hate mahse'f tuh def ef ah thought ah was er strainin' yo' financibility." "i guess it won't be much of a wrench to give you a couple of dollars a day," laughed matt. "den yo's bought me. by golly, dis is de first time ah's evah had two whole dollahs knockin' togethah en mah clothes since ah was knee-high to a chickum. where you-all wants tuh go, boss?" "i want to go into fourth lake through the canal, then across fourth and up the catfish." "dat's easy. de catfish runs f'om one lake tuh de odder, intuh one en out ergin, cleah f'om fo'th lake tuh first. thutty miles you-all kin go in er boat, den intuh rock rivah en clean erroun' de worl'. but dat 'ar fo'th lake is right juberous when dar's er west win'. a boat ah was in once, on dat 'ar lake, turned ovah fo' times! yassuh. i got spilled out de las' time en swum fo'teen miles towin' de boat by de painter, which ah done happen tuh ketch when ah drapped in de watah. ah got er medal fo' dat. de gun club give me de medal." "they ought to have given you two medals, pete." "en it was er solid gol' medal, with er inscripshun sayin' dat pickerel pete was gallywhoopus tuh dat extent. golly, but dat was er fine medal! it was as big erroun' as er fryin' pan." "must have bothered you some to tote it." "sold it fo' fo' dollahs en fo'ty cents, en dey kep' it in de cap'tol fo' people tuh come in en look at. yo's got er pow'ful fine moke wo'kin' fo' yo', boss." "well, cast off, pete, and we'll start. i'll do the steering, and you can sit up front and tell me which way to go." matt started the gasoline, switched on the spark, and pete gave the fly wheel a turn. one turn of the wheel was enough to give them their first explosion, and the _sprite_ shook herself together and started out into the lake. chapter vii. george and m'glory missing. the hum of the motor was soothing to matt's troubled spirit, and even the kick of the wheel sent a joyous thrill through his every nerve. there were clouds in the west, and a promise of wind and rain in the air, but if there was to be a storm it would not come before night, and the _sprite_ would have ample time to nose her way up the catfish and into the creek. it was surprising how quickly the kinks of fortune straightened themselves out for motor matt whenever he found himself in control of an explosive engine. the sun was sinking behind the capitol as the _sprite_ headed toward winnequa on her way to the canal. the yellow rays pierced the gathering clouds, and madison peered from its enveloping greenery like a phantom city. a number of fishermen were rowing, sailing, and motoring home for supper, and they stared at the dashing little _sprite_, and some of them yelled a cheerful greeting to the diminutive colored boy perched on the launch's hood. "dat's de gobernor ob wisconsin," pete gravely explained, indicating a grizzled fisherman in one of the boats. "ah knows him as well as ah knows anybody. de fellah in dat rowboat wif de pipe is honnerbull tawm patterson, en he's done took me by de han' mo' times dan ah kin count. de lake is full ob notoribus pussuns tuhnight, seems lak." "where's the czar of russia?" asked matt soberly. "ah reckons he was too busy tuh come out tuhday," answered pete. "ah knows him, dough. ah done took him tuh a good fishin' place ovah by picnic p'int las' week." they passed the canal and locks, swept into fourth lake, and pete lined out a westerly course that carried the _sprite_ past the high bluffs of mcbride's point with the buildings of the asylum in clear view. pete's chatter enlivened the trip wonderfully. the little moke was a "notoribus" personage, to take his word for it, and there were very few famous people whom he had not shaken hands with or conducted around the lakes. matt was surprised to learn that he had dug bait for julius cã¦sar and had shown napoleon bonaparte a pickerel hole off governor's island. the catfish was comparatively easy for the _sprite_, but whisky creek--which, pete said, was the particular creek matt was looking for--was too shoal. after they had grounded twice, and backed clear with considerable difficulty, matt decided to tie up to a tree on the creek bank and go on to the cabin on foot. by then it was falling dark, and matt wanted to cover the remainder of his journey as quickly as possible. "pete," said he, getting out on the creek bank, "i'm going to leave you with the boat for a short time, while i go up the creek." pete immediately had an attack of the "shakes." "golly, boss," he chattered, "ah doan' lak de da'k when ah's erlone. hit's spookerous, en white things done trabbel erroun' lookin' fo' brack folks. where you-all gwine?" "not far. i ought to be back in an hour. you're not afraid of spooks, are you, pete? i should think a chap who was the friend of so many illustrious people would be above such foolishness." the gathering wind sobbed through the trees, and from somewhere a screech-owl tuned up in a most hair-raising way. "br-r-r!" muttered pete, hugging himself and dropping into the bottom of the boat. "ah ain't afraid, no, sah," he declared plaintively. "ah ain't afraid ob anythin' dat walks. hit's dem white ha'nts whut doan' walk, er fly, but moves erlong in er glide, dat gits me a-goin'. mebby ah better go along wif yo' en see dot yo' doan' git lost?" "i'll not get lost, pete, and i don't want the _sprite_ left alone." "yo'll be back in er houah, hones'?" "yes." "den hurry. ef ah was lef' in dishyer place twell midnight ah'd be skeered plumb intuh de 'sylum, sho' as yo's bawn. hurry up en git back, dat's all." pete cuddled up with his back against the stern thwart, and matt whirled away and vanished into the timber. as matt figured it, he was not more than a mile from the cabin. he had landed on the side of the creek where he knew the shack to be, and if he followed the little water course he knew he would soon arrive at the place where he had left george and mcglory. the timber was broken into by fields of corn, and by cleared pasture land. matt pushed through the corn and climbed pasture fences, and within half an hour came to the end of his journey. the cabin, nestling in a clump of oaks, seemed dark and deserted. george had known of the cabin as a rendezvous, in the fall, for duck hunters. it was a quiet and obscure place, and answered admirably the requirements of the boys while working out their plans in lorry's behalf. as matt drew closer to the hut the silence oppressed him with a foreboding that something had gone wrong. the door was open, and he stepped inside. still there was no sign of life about the place. "mcglory!" he called; "george!" his voice echoed weirdly through the one room of the cabin, but brought no response. striking a match, he peered about him. empty! there was no one in the room. the match flickered and dropped from matt's fingers. groping his way to a bench, he sat down, alarmed and bewildered. what had become of mcglory and george? this was the question he asked himself, and his mind framed a dozen different answers, none of them satisfactory. george was full of whims and unreasonable resolves. had he suddenly made up his mind that he could not trust matt to make peace with his father? had he broken away from mcglory, and had mcglory gone in pursuit of him? or was the absence of the boys due to some move against them on the part of big john? or had they gone to some farmhouse after milk and eggs, or to get a hot supper? that george had not "bolted," matt was almost sure. matt's plan for patching up a truce with the elder lorry had appealed to george too strongly for that. as for big john making george and mcglory any trouble, that was possible, although not very probable. matt did not see how big john could have any information about the cabin. and as for the boys visiting a neighboring farmhouse to secure food, it was not in line with their plan for either george or mcglory to show himself until their schemes were further advanced. rations had been secured in waunakee--cold rations, but enough to last all three of the boys for two or three days. giving over his bootless reflections, matt lighted another match, hunted up a candle, and soon had a more dependable glow in the room. a brief search showed him that george's suit case, mcglory's carpetbag, and his own satchel were missing. this was a staggering discovery. it meant, if it meant anything, that the two boys had left and did not intend to return. they would hardly go away, it seemed to matt, without leaving some clue as to their whereabouts, and the cause that had led them to make such a decided change in the general plans. george and mcglory understood that matt was to return as soon as he had talked with mr. lorry. matt had expected to get back to the cabin early in the afternoon. had his failure to return alarmed the two boys? matt hunted high and low for some scrap of writing which would let in a little light on the situation, but he could find none. the rations brought from waunakee had vanished along with the luggage--another fact that indicated a permanent departure on the part of the two lads. "here's a go!" muttered matt, leaning perplexedly in the open door of the cabin. "about all george and mcglory left behind them was that piece of candle. they might, at least, have tipped me off regarding their intentions, i should think. all sorts of things are liable to happen to a fellow when he's trying to do the right thing by another chap who's too proud and weak-kneed to put himself company-front with his responsibilities. but then, george is an odd stick. he can't be judged by any of the usual standards, and i'm pretty sure that if he's handled right, he'll come out all right. one or the other of them will certainly come back here. i'll return to the mouth of the creek, get pete, and we'll bunk down in the cabin. it's the only thing to be done." perplexed as he was, matt neglected to put out the candle before starting on his return to the catfish. on a corner shelf, the feeble gleam sputtered and flickered in the draft that came through the open door. matt hastened his steps on the return journey to the _sprite_. the clouds were slowly mounting and blotting out the stars, intensifying the darkness. as he came close to the bank where the launch was moored he experienced a feeling of relief when he saw the boat riding to her painter just as she had been left. the _sprite_ resembled a black blot on the water. the bank was rather high, at that point, and its shadow covered the boat. "hello, pete!" called matt. there was no answer to the call, and matt began to think that pete had vanished, as well as george and mcglory. "pete!" matt cried in a louder tone. "yassuh, yassuh," came the answer from below, and matt's apprehension suddenly subsided. "come up here, pete," matt went on. "we're going to spend the night up the creek. i guess the _sprite_ will be safe enough. there's a lantern in the port locker, amidships. bring it up with you." matt could see only the blurred outline of a human form moving around in the boat. he heard the lid of the locker as it was lifted. "ah kain't find dat lantern," came from the boat. "i'll get it," said matt. the next moment he had climbed into the launch. hardly had his feet found firm foothold when he was seized and flung roughly backward. two pairs of hands held him, and a hoarse, mocking laugh echoed in his ears. chapter viii. setting a snare. pickerel pete did not feel overloaded with responsibility. two dollars a day was a princely wage, but there were things he would not do even for that immense sum. he would try to stay with the boat for an hour, in spite of the owls and the queer crooning of the wind in the trees, but if he saw a "ha'nt," he'd resign his job, right then and there, and leave the _sprite_ to take care of herself. anyhow, he had two dollars. the fact that his services had been paid for until afternoon of the following day did not enter seriously into his calculations. "wisht de screech-owls would stop dat 'ar screechin'," muttered the darky, "an' i wisht de win' would stop dat ar' groanin' in de trees. dishyer's jest de time fer spookerous doin's, an' i'd radder be home in mah baid wif mah head kivered, so'st---golly, whut's dat?" something fluttered among the tree branches overhanging the water, farther along the creek. it may have been an owl, or some other bird, changing its roosting place, but pete's fears magnified the cause into something connected with the "ha'nts." crouching in the boat's bottom, he stared through the darkness and held his breath. the fluttering had ceased and nothing else happened. as one uneventful minute followed another, pete gradually put the clamps on his nerves. "ah dunno 'bout dat," he whispered. "mebby dat floppin' noise didun' mean nuffin', en den, ag'in, mebby it _mout_. hey, you, dar!" he added, lifting his voice. the cry echoed across the creek, but the only answer was the echo. "if yo's one ob dem gliderin' spooks," called pete, "den you-all doan' want any truck wif _me_. ah's on'y a po' li'l moke, en ah ain't nevah done no ha'm tuh nobody. ah's fibilus, occasion'ly, en now an' den ah's tole a whopper, but dem yarns doan' amount tuh nuffin'." the silence continued, save for the soughing of the wind and the "tu-whit, tu-whoo!" from the depths of the woods. "ah done got tuh do somethin' tuh pass de time," thought pete. "ah'll frow de iv'ries, dat's whut ah'll do. wonner where dar's a lantern?" pete remembered having seen a lantern in one of the lockers while he was helping matt with the engine. after a little thought he located the lantern, and secured it. then he recalled having seen a box of matches in the tool-chest, and he soon had the lantern going. it's surprising what a soothing effect a light will have on a superstitious mind that dreads the dark. with the lantern on the stern thwart, pete knelt in the boat's bottom and cast his dice again and again, becoming so careless of his "spookerous" surroundings that he almost forgot his fears. the little white cubes dropped and rattled on the thwart, and pete bent low to read the faces. "ah's got two dollahs," he muttered, surprised at the lucky combinations turning up for him, "en ah wisht dar was some odder moke here tuh take er han' in dis game. ah's havin' mo' luck, here, all by mahse'f, dan i evah----" he straightened on his knees in sudden panic, then dropped his head down on the thwart and covered his face with his hands. "whut's dat?" he whimpered. "whut's dat ah hear? hit sounded monsus lak er chain rattlin'." but it wasn't a chain; it was a good, well-developed groan. it came from the darkness at the top of the bank and echoed shiveringly across the creek. "dat wasn't no screech-owl," murmured pete, in stifled tones. "golly! de ha'nts is comin' fo' me. wisht ah was out ob here! oh, i wisht ah was some place else where dar's folks, en buildin's, en 'lectric lights. br-r-r!" the groan was repeated. it was a hollow kind of groan, long drawn out, and given in the most approved ghostly style. pete groaned on his own account, and collapsed in the bottom of the boat, floundering forward and trying to crawl into the motor and lose himself in the machinery. while the wretched little darky lay in a palpitating heap under the steering wheel, a funereal voice was wafted toward him--a voice that made him gasp, and close his eyes, and shiver until he shook the boat. "who-o are you-u-u?" inquired the voice. "oh, lawsy! oh, mah goodness!" fluttered pete in tremulous, incoherent tones. "ah's as good as daid! ah's nevah gwine tuh git out ob dis alive! der ha'nts has cotched me! oh, if i c'u'd only git away dis once, ah'll nevah brag no mo'! ah'll nevah tell anodder whopper!" "who-o are you-u-u?" insisted the sepulchral voice from the darkness at the top of the bank. "ah's er moke," whimpered pete, "jes' a moke. you-all go 'long an' nevah min' me. ah ain't nevah done nuffin'--pickerel pete's a good l'il coon. please, marse gose, go off some odder place en do yo' gliderin'. oh, gee! oh, golly!" "go 'way, go 'way, go 'way!" ordered the "ghost." "ah'll go, yassuh," chattered pete, "on'y doan' yo' grab me as ah run by. dat's all. yo' ain't layin' fo' tuh grab me, is yuh?" "go 'way, go 'way, go 'way!" insisted the spook, with hair-raising emphasis. pete got up slowly and cautiously in the boat. the lantern threw a weird reflection over him, but the most noticeable thing about the frightened little darky, just then, was the white of his eyes. he shook like a person with the ague, and nearly dropped into the water while stepping from the gunwale of the boat. begging the spook not to grab him, he floundered up the bank and darted into the timber as though the old nick was after him. his piteous wail was lost in a crashing of bushes, and finally even that sound died out. a chuckling laugh echoed from the top of the bank, and a form disentangled itself from the shadows. "come on, kinky," called a voice. "that little nigger was scared white. he'll not stop running until he gets clear to madison. what kind of a spook do i make, eh?" "pretty raw," answered another voice, as a second form pushed out of the shadows and joined the first. "you can fool a superstitious, half-grown darky, ross, but i wouldn't make a business of this ghost racket. what was the good of it, anyhow?" "well, that darky never came here alone in that boat." "well." "some one must have come with him. maybe the boat's other passengers are the two kids we couldn't find in the cabin." "i don't know how it could be, ross, but mebby you're right. that's not a rowboat." "just what i was thinkin', kinky. let's go down and look her over. the darky was obliging enough to leave a lighted lantern for us." the two men descended to the boat, and ross picked up the lantern and swung it about him. "it's a motor-boat, blamed if it ain't!" kinky exclaimed. "right you are," chuckled ross. "she must have come up from the town. what's she doin' here at this time o' night? suspicious, that's what it is! i'll gamble heavy the boat has somethin' to do with the young fellers in that cabin." "well, like enough you're right," answered kinky. "but what's that to us? we came up the catfish in a boat, too, an' we'd better take to our oars an' go back to town huntin' for big john. if he overhauled motor matt and got that money, we don't want to give him a chance to get away from us." "we'll see to _that_," grunted ross decisively. "it looked as though big john was tryin' to sidetrack us when he wanted us to keep watch of that cabin to-night. what's the good of watchin' the cabin if he gets the money? what's the use of keeping track of the other two boys when king's the one we want?" "right again, kinky. that brain of yours seems to be doin' some brilliant work to-night. here, take a hack at this." ross turned and held out a bottle. "if i take too many hacks at that, ross," answered kinky, "the brilliant brain work is liable to stop." nevertheless he seized the bottle and a prolonged gurgling followed. when he had finished, ross took the bottle back and gave some attention to it himself. "all i want," growled ross, as he screwed the top back on the flask, "is to get a chance at this here motor matt." "big john has already had a chance at him," suggested kinky. "will big john do anythin' to even up with motor matt for the way we was treated in 'frisco bay?" flung back ross. "don't you never think it, kinky. if big john gets the money, he'll turn the cub loose to make some more trouble for us. i'm built along different lines, myself. i want revenge, with a big r. that's me." "oh, slush!" grumbled kinky. "you ought to have left more of that stuff in the bottle. _your_ brain work's anythin' but brilliant." "i mean what i say, anyhow," rapped out ross. picking up the lantern, he went forward, crawled over the hood, and made a close examination of the forward part of the boat. "thunder!" he exclaimed. "what've you found?" demanded kinky. "what was the name of that chug-boat the chink won in 'frisco, and that motor matt used in windin' us up?" "_sprite._" "well, wouldn't this knock you stiff? say, kinky, this here's the _sprite_." "go on!" "there's the name, plain enough." "then it's another _sprite_. it's a common name, and the 'frisco _sprite_ couldn't be here." "it's the same boat, you take it from me. it looks the same, and by thunder it _is_ the same." "i don't see how it got here." "nor i--but here she is, for all that. let's burn her!" "what for?" "if it hadn't been for this boat we'd have been on the way to the sandwich islands by now. i'll feel a heap better if we burn the blame thing." "aw, be sensible, can't you. if----" "hist!" ross interrupted kinky with the warning syllable; then, quickly, the lantern was extinguished, and ross crept back into the rear of the launch. "listen!" he whispered; "some one's coming." "then we'd better hike!" "not on your life! crowd up forward, there. i played the spook, a while ago, and now let's see how well i can play the rã´le of the darky." "but what----" "sh-h-h!" thus suddenly did ross lay his snare. as kinky crept forward, ross crouched in the stern; then followed the brief colloquy between matt and ross, the latter imitating the voice of the negro. the instant motor matt dropped into the boat the snare suddenly tightened. chapter ix. enemies to be feared. as matt fell his head struck against the gunwale of the boat. his senses did not leave him entirely, but he was stunned for a few moments and rendered incapable of doing anything in his own defense. before he recovered sufficiently to struggle with his assailants the two men had found a rope and had lashed his hands. "now for his feet, kinky," said ross. "this is a haul i wasn't expectin', although we might have figured it out, i guess, if we'd had time to think things over." matt kicked out with his feet in a desperate attempt to overturn kinky, and, perhaps, leap upright and jump ashore. "he's a fighter, all right," snarled ross. "here, i'll hold him while you finish the job." with hands bound and two men to secure his ankles, resistance was worse than useless. when the binding was done, and matt was lying helpless, he had a chance to study the faces of his captors while kinky was relighting the lantern. ross' talk had already given matt an inkling of the two men's identity. the gleam from the lantern left no doubt about their being big john's pals. matt was not surprised that the two rascals should be in that part of the country. they and big john were birds of a feather, and it was quite natural that all three should flock together. what did surprise matt, however, was the fact that kinky and ross should be in that particular place, and have laid their plans to capture him. "surprise party, eh?" queried ross. "you weren't expectin' to meet a couple of old friends, eh, motor matt? oh, you're not so much. you're cracked up pretty high, but i reckon you're not any brighter than the rest of us. wonder if you've got ten thousand about you that we could borrow for a while?" "you're after that money," said matt, "and you're fooled. you won't get it, and neither will big john. it has been in mr. lorry's hands ever since noon. you didn't think i'd bring ten thousand dollars back with me in cash, did you? the money was in the form of a draft, payable to mr. lorry, and it wouldn't have benefited you or big john any if you had stolen it." "that's luck for old lorry, then," answered ross, pushing his hand into matt's pockets. "here's a roll," he added, drawing some bills out of matt's vest. "it's hardly big enough for the ten thousand, but i reckon we'll have to be satisfied with what we can get." "if you take that," said matt, "you'll be in trouble with the law before you're many hours older. so far as san francisco is concerned, i'm willing to let bygones be bygones; but if you take my money i'll do everything i can to have you caught." kinky seemed nervous. ross, however, was reckless and in an evil temper. "we'll _not_ get ourselves into trouble," he flared. "by the time we're through with you, my hearty, there won't be anybody to make us trouble." ross brought out his flask again and helped himself liberally to its contents. "here," he said, extending the flask toward kinky. "i guess i've had enough," demurred kinky. "take it, you fool!" cried ross; "you'll need it before we're done with this night's work." not until that moment did motor matt realize that here were two enemies who were seriously to be feared. he had thought, when he recognized his captors, that they had merely made a prisoner of him in the hope of securing the ten thousand dollars, but now he realized that there was something more villainous, perhaps more murderous, back of their scheming. liquor arouses the evil passions of men and makes them ripe for deeds they would not think of committing when in their sober senses. kinky and ross were partly intoxicated. kinky was the less desperate of the two villains, mainly because he was the more cowardly. matt hardened himself to face whatever might be coming. "you'd better think well about this, ross," said he. "all you've got to do to keep clear of the law is to return my money, set me at liberty, and take yourselves off. i'll forget what you've done, and what happened in san francisco bay----" "that's more than we'll do, you young cub," scowled ross. "you hadn't any notion i followed you all the way from 'frisco, on the same train, had you? you didn't know i got off the train at waunakee, when you got off, and that i trailed you and your two friends to that cabin in the woods, eh? and i don't believe, when you and your pards were talking in that cabin, that you had any notion i was hanging around and listening. but i was. i knew one of you was to go into town this morning with the money for old lorry, so it was me that put big john wise and had him waiting for you on the road. but do you think i rigged myself out in different clothes and followed you clear from 'frisco just in the hope of getting that money? you're wrong if you do think that. i was after something else--and that was to _play even_. it's a habit of mine always to settle my accounts. big john works differently--but i'm not responsible for what he does, or doesn't do. when i lay out a course and take the bit in my teeth, nothing can stop me." there was a short silence. "but, i say, ross," began kinky in faint protest, "you don't intend to----" "wait till i ask you to talk," cut in ross. "you can bobble more in your conversation than any man i ever knew." "do you know where my two friends are?" queried matt. "you know who i mean--young lorry and mcglory." "we don't know where they are. i don't object to telling you if that will make you any easier in your mind." "where's the colored boy that was here with the boat?" "i played spook and scared him out. he's on the way to madison, and is hitting only the high places. is this the old _sprite_ you used in 'frisco bay?" "yes." "glad to know it. she'll go up in smoke before we're done with her." ross' veiled hints of what he was going to do did not bother matt very much. he had a hearty contempt for a boaster--even a desperate boaster of ross' stamp. the scoundrel was in a communicative mood, and many points which had been dark to matt were being cleared away. "what has big john done," matt asked, "to get mr. lorry down on me?" ross laughed huskily. "how do i know?" he answered. "big john is about as sly as they make 'em. i didn't know he'd done anything to get lorry down on you--didn't think he'd have the nerve to go near lorry. you got away from that pal of ours?" "yes." "then i wish john was here with us. he's probably as mad as a hornet over losing that money, and would make a better stand-by than kinky." "i never go back on a pal," expanded kinky, "but i think a pal ought to be sensible and not kick up too big a row for his own good." "you'll find the row plenty big enough if you go too far," warned matt, speaking for kinky's especial benefit. kinky stirred uneasily. "it's a case," declared ross, "where we've got to go as far as we can. that's what'll make it safe for us. kinky and me have been loafing in the woods all day. we were not to report to big john until to-night. it's safer for us, you understand, to get together at night than at any other time." matt had been working desperately at the cord that bound his hands. the cord was drawn tight and firmly knotted, and his efforts had not met with much success. ross suddenly detected him in his work, and, with an oath, jerked him over and looked at the rope. "that's enough of that," he said sternly. "suppose you do get rid of the rope, how'll it help you? you lay still and be quiet, that's your cue." "what are we going to do, ross?" inquired kinky nervously. "you're going up on the bank and cast off the painter," returned ross. "i don't think you're any too steady on your feet, so be careful." "what do you want me to cast off the painter for? we've got a boat of our own, and we don't need this." "i'm engineerin' this deal, kinky," said ross sharply. "do as i say, or else take to the woods and let me do it alone." kinky got up and staggered ashore. although he worked awkwardly, yet he finally succeeded in releasing the painter and throwing the rope aboard. then he scrambled back into the boat himself. ross, meanwhile, had been starting the engine. he proceeded in a way that proved he had some knowledge of motors. turning the _sprite_, ross sent her slowly toward the mouth of the creek, peering sharply ahead as they moved through the water. "there she is," muttered ross, shutting off the power. as the _sprite_ came to a halt, ross reached over the side and caught the gunwale of another boat. "we'll tow our boat behind, kinky," announced ross. "climb into her and make sure the oars are safe inboard, then fasten her painter to the stern of the _sprite_." this rather difficult operation was safely accomplished, and then, with the rowboat in tow, the launch glided out of the creek into the catfish, and down the catfish toward fourth lake. how was that voyage to end for motor matt? chapter x. between fire and water. matt's position in the boat enabled him to watch one dark bank of the river as they glided down toward the lake. he was listening and looking for some sign of life on the bank. had he seen any one, a shout would quickly have apprised the person of the prisoner's predicament. but matt saw no one. steadily the _sprite_ glided onward--steadily, but covering so crooked a course that matt wondered they did not drive into the bank on one side or the other. the lake was reached. the storm promised by the late afternoon was slow in coming. the wind was no higher than it had been, two or three hours before, but the waves were beating sullenly on the rocks as if in warning of what was to come. far across the lake matt could see the glare of city lights. because of his position in the boat, the other shore of the lake was not visible to him. he was looking for other boats, but there were very few boats on the lake at the time. he saw one moving light, however, and essayed a lusty call for help. ross swore savagely. "clap a hand over that cub's mouth!" he snapped. at the same instant he jerked one hand from the wheel, caught up the lantern, and dropped it overboard. kinky, meanwhile, had forced his hands over matt's lips. the light matt had seen had shifted its position, and was gliding toward the _sprite_. "hello, there!" called a voice from the dark. "hello, yourself," flung back ross. "did you hail us?" "no." "i thought some one yelled. what became of your light?" "a lubber here with me knocked it overboard." "well, you'd better get out another. if you take my advice, you won't stay out long, either. there's nasty weather coming, and we're making for our berth over at the asylum." ross allowed this warning to go unanswered. the light of the other boat dwindled away and vanished in the gloom. "this is far enough, i reckon," ross remarked, halting the _sprite_. "you can leave him alone now, kinky," he added. "he could yell till he's black in the face and no one would hear him; but, if he knows what's good for him, he won't whoop it up while we're close to him. pull the rowboat up alongside, kinky." ross lifted the hood and leaned down into the space reserved for the motor and the gasoline tanks. "confound it!" he exclaimed, lifting himself erect, "i wish i had that lantern now." he continued to grumble and work around in the bow of the boat. at last he finished his labor, whatever it was, and turned to kinky. the latter was holding the rowboat alongside the launch. the task was none too easy, as the swell was bumping the boats together and then forcing them apart. "what am i to do, ross?" asked kinky. "i can't hang on here much longer." "get into the rowboat and take the oars," ordered ross. "ain't you going along with me?" "sure, when i get through." "what's your game?" "never you mind," was the angry retort. "it's my game, from now on, and you'll watch and do as you're told. get into the boat and hold her close to the _sprite_ with the oars. when i want you i'll let you know. mind your eye when you change or you'll find yourself at the bottom of the lake." kinky made three attempts to get from one boat into the other. at the last attempt he came near swamping the rowboat, and when he drew back and clung panting to the side of the _sprite_ the rowboat had got away from him. ross shouted his maledictions. "what can you expect of a fellow workin' like this in the dark?" grunted kinky. "i ain't no sailor, anyway." "you got feet and hands, haven't you? then why don't you use 'em?" with this retort, ross started the motor and laid the _sprite_ alongside the rowboat once more. "now," he ordered, "try it again, kinky. if you get a spill you'll stay in the lake for all of me." kinky's next effort was more successful. he had a narrow escape, but he finally plumped down into the bottom of the rowboat, righted himself unsteadily, and got on the 'midships thwart. a moment more and he had shipped the oars. "now what?" he demanded. his own temper was beginning to rise at the rough, and perhaps unnecessary, work he had been made to do. ross had again switched off the power of the motor and the launch was rolling in the waves. "wait, and i'll tell you," answered ross. he was lashing the steering wheel with a piece of rope. kinky could not see what he was doing, or he would probably have ventured some remarks. matt, however, was able to follow the scoundrel's movements, and a vague alarm ran through him. "what are you up to, ross?" asked matt sternly. ross snarled at him, but did not make any response that could be understood. "i suppose you could get at this wheel, bound as you are," muttered ross, turning around, at last, and facing matt. "but i'll fix that," he added with a brutal laugh. making his way to where matt was lying, he caught him by the shoulders and dragged him roughly forward. "what are you doing this for?" demanded matt. ross was strong, and, without deigning a reply, he heaved the helpless youth up onto the hood. bound as he was, matt's position was precarious in the extreme. "i never thought you were such a scoundrel, ross," matt said quietly. "it can't be you're going to leave me like this." "you wait till i get through," was the fierce answer. by craning his head around, matt could see ross pick up a pile of waste. from the pungent odor of gasoline which assailed matt's nostrils he knew that the waste had been soaked in the inflammable stuff. ross carried the waste back into the stern of the boat. "you like motors, king," called ross, "and i'm going to give you such a ride on a motor-boat as you never had before. i hope you'll enjoy it." "for the last time, ross," called matt, horribly conscious of the trend the scoundrel's work was taking, "i ask you to think of what you are doing." "i've thought of it all i'm going to. it's a fine plan, and i'm going to carry it right through to a finish." ross turned to the rowboat, which kinky was keeping close to the _sprite_. "come alongside, kinky," ross called. "i'm about ready to be taken off." "what have you been doin', ross?" demanded kinky, pulling the other boat closer. matt felt, at that moment, as though kinky was his only hope. "he's got me tied here on the hood, kinky," matt called, "and he's going to fire the boat! if you let him keep on, you'll be equally guilty with him, and the law will sooner or later take care of you both." "let him talk!" exclaimed ross. "much good it'll do him. a little more to the left, kinky." the man in the rowboat had turned to look. "is that him on that forward deck, ross?" asked kinky. "that's where i put him." "blazes! why, he's liable to roll off into the water and be drowned. what did you put him there for?" "i told you i was attendin' to this," retorted ross. "get that boat alongside here, and be quick about it." "but i'm not goin' to stand for any----" "you're going to do as i tell you. get alongside." kinky, unfortunately for matt, had the weaker will of the two. he was plainly afraid of ross, and the latter could bullyrag him into doing anything. as the rowboat came up, ross leaned over and grabbed the painter. securing the end of it to the driver's seat of the launch, he stepped back into the stern, struck a match, and dropped it into the heap of waste. a fire leaped upward instantly, and a yell of consternation broke from kinky. "ross, you're mad! you want to make a swinging job of this for both of us, i guess. put out that blaze or i'll put it out myself." ross did not reply. hastening forward again, he started the motor, and the _sprite_ began driving ahead, hauling the rowboat with it. "this course, motor matt," said ross, "will carry you direct to maple bluff. i hope you'll have a comfortable landing. good-by, and good luck to you! have i paid my debts? think it over." whirling swiftly, ross clambered into the rowboat. "i'll not stand for this!" yelled kinky. "this may be your idea of paying your debts, but----" ross pushed kinky backward, sending him sprawling across the 'midships thwart. "get up and take the oars," he cried. "pal of mine though you are, if you try to make me any more trouble something will happen to you. i've got the bit in my teeth, i tell you, and i'll settle for motor matt as i think best." ross leaned forward and slashed the blade of his pocketknife through the painter, and a hoarse laugh echoed in motor matt's ears as the burning launch leaped away through the thick shadows. chapter xi. chums to the rescue. matt was several moments realizing the terrible predicament in which ross had placed him. the glowing fire in the stern of the _sprite_ lighted the darkness with a ghastly glare. the boat was on fire and speeding, with a lashed wheel, across the troubled waters of the lake. what could matt do to save himself? it was a time when he must think quickly. he would also have to act with promptness and decision--an impossibility in his helpless state. if he could roll back over the hood, he might contrive to get aft and, in some manner, smother the fire. he made the attempt--and succeeded, although not until he had come within an inch of sliding off the rounded hood and into the lake. as he fell into the bottom of the boat, he struck the lever that controlled the sparking apparatus, throwing off the switch and causing the _sprite_ to slow to a halt. this was a little gained, for the speed of the boat would not now fan the flames; but matt was wedged in between the driver's seat and the motor, and found it impossible to extricate himself. his heart sank. was this to be the end? was the _sprite_ to burn and sink, there in the open lake, and carry him to the bottom? at this moment, just as his hopes were at the lowest ebb, he heard a shout from near at hand. "matt! where are you, pard?" mcglory! that was mcglory's voice! the wonder of mcglory's being there to help him was lost, for the moment, in the wild joy that swelled in matt's breast. "here!" he shouted. a whoop of delight came from mcglory. "we've found him, george!" matt heard him exclaim. then there came a splash of oars and a jolt as another boat bumped against the _sprite_. "hold her steady, pard," mcglory went on, "and i'll get matt out of this in a brace of shakes." the next moment the cowboy scrambled into the launch. "where are you, matt?" called mcglory. "never mind me," matt answered; "put out the fire. beat it out--use your coat." the fire looked worse than it was in reality. not much of the woodwork was afire, but the blazing waste had been scattered by the wind and was sending up smoke and flame from the stern almost to the driver's seat. mcglory was thinking more about matt than he was about the boat. however, he had his orders and did not stop to do any arguing. jerking off his coat, he got to work at once. lorry helped. fastening the skiff which had brought him and mcglory off from the shore, he likewise removed his coat, and the little _sprite_ rocked and pitched with the mad efforts of the two boys to get the best of the blaze. inside of five minutes they had the last flame smothered. while george dipped up water with his cap and deluged the smoking woodwork, mcglory pulled matt out of his cramped quarters. "well, speak to me about this!" gasped mcglory. "he's tied! say, this would make the hair stand on a buffalo robe. lashed hand and foot and turned adrift out in the middle of the lake! sufferin' volcanoes! who did it, pard?" "get the ropes off me," said matt, "and then i can talk to better advantage. my arms are numb clear to the shoulder." mcglory pulled a knife from his pocket and groped carefully while he cut the cords. "it seems like a dream," muttered matt. "nightmare, you mean," returned mcglory. "if i'd been in such a fix i'd 'a' thrown a fit." "and then to have you fellows come!" went on matt. "i don't know how you managed it, but here you are, and here i am, and i guess the old _sprite_ is good for several trips yet. shake!" mcglory caught matt's outstretched hand and gave it a hearty pressure. as soon as the cowboy was through, matt leaned over and gave lorry's hand a cordial grip. "i'll never forget what you have done for me," declared matt. "shucks!" muttered mcglory. "that's what pards are for--to help one another when they're in a tight pinch. and i'm an injun if this _wasn't_ a tight one. but see here, once, matt. you called this boat the _sprite_." "that's her name, joe." "queer they'd have another motor boat, same size and rig of that 'frisco launch and with the same name, here at madison." "it's the same _sprite_." "not the same boat you fellows used in frisco bay!" exclaimed lorry. "the same identical boat," returned matt. "wouldn't that rattle your spurs?" breathed mcglory. "but how did she get here?" "by express." "who sent her?" "ping." "ping! and did the yaller mug come with her?" "if he did i haven't seen him." "why," went on lorry, "the boat came through nearly as quick as we did!" "how did ping know where to send her?" asked mcglory. "he could have found that out easy enough. they knew at police headquarters that we were coming to madison." "and she came by express!" "yes, with charges of over two hundred and fifty dollars for transportation." "tell me about that!" mcglory nearly fell off his seat. "but that's just like a heathen chinee. probably he thought the charges wouldn't be more'n a dollar and a half. and they were over two-fifty! sufferin' millionaires!" "it's all well enough to talk," put in lorry, "but there are lots more comfortable places than a motor boat, with a dead engine, in the middle of the lake." "that's right, too," agreed mcglory. "every once in a while little george, the child wonder, gets a bean on the right number. it will be blowing great guns on this stretch of water before morning. i move we hike." "where'll we hike?" "did you fix things up in madison?" george inquired. "not the way i wanted to, george," said matt. "we'll have to talk about that." "then we won't go to madison," declared george, "and that's settled. we might as well haul off into the catfish and spend the night in the boat." "there used to be a 'tarp' for coverin' her in rough weather," put in mcglory. "was ping thoughtful enough to send all the stuff that belonged to her?" "he was," said matt, "at thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents a hundred pounds--three times the merchandise rate." "oh, glory! what did you take the boat off the express company's hands for, pard?" "for the reason, joe, that i had use for her." "and this is the kind of use you've been putting her to!" muttered the cowboy. "it wasn't worth the price, not by a whole row of 'dobies." the waves were rolling higher and higher, and the _sprite_ was pitching like an unruly broncho. "we'll have to get out of this," said lorry, as the skiff alongside smashed against the _sprite's_ bulwarks and gave them all a rough shaking. "the wind's carrying us toward maple bluff, and i don't want any experience with the bluff on a night like this. where's a lantern? is there one aboard?" "there was," answered matt, "but ross threw it into the lake." "ross!" gulped mcglory. "you don't mean to say you've seen him?" "we'll go over all that later," said matt. "we'll make for the catfish as fast as we can." "that's as good a place as any, i reckon, seeing as how george isn't ready to go to madison." matt opened the hood and sniffed at the engine to ascertain if there was any waste gasoline dripping from the tanks. he decided that the tanks were all closed. the engine was started and matt brought the boat's nose around into the wind. the trailing skiff was allowed to fall behind to the end of its mooring chain. there was thunder, off in the west, and an occasional sharp flash of lightning. the flashes served to guide matt over the course he had recently covered, while a prisoner in the hands of ross and kinky. as he held the _sprite_ steadily to her course, more and more the wonder grew upon him as to the timely arrival of mcglory and george. although matt, when bound and cast adrift, had left a fiery trail over the lake, yet he was positive that the grewsome beacon alone had not been responsible for the providential appearance of his two friends. but everything would soon be made clear, and matt hurried the moment of explanation by driving the launch at her best speed. the wind, of course, delayed the boat appreciably, but her sharp bows cut the water like a knife, and the white spray went swirling upward on both sides of the craft, high into the night. it was an exhilarating ride, and thoroughly enjoyed by matt and george. mcglory loved boats, but he had been built for a landsman, and the roll and tumble of rough water gave him unpleasant feelings in the region of the stomach. the cowboy drew a long breath of relief when the launch battled her way into the quieter waters of the catfish, and he sprang eagerly ashore to make the boat fast to a tree, under the lee of a steep bank. "there's a boathouse near here," said george, when the skiff had also been secured, "and the proper move for us is to make for it and break in. the rain will be coming down in sheets before long. the boathouse belongs to a friend of mine, and he won't make much of a fuss when he knows who it was broke into the place." before matt left the launch he spread the tarpaulin over it carefully and made the edges secure to the metal pins along the gunwale; then, led by lorry, the boys made their way to the boathouse. forcing an entrance was not difficult, and just as the lads got inside the rain began. chapter xii. how fate threw the dice. there was a rough but comfortable sitting room in one end of the boathouse. lorry, who was familiar with the place, left matt and mcglory near the door which they had forced open, and groped his way to the sitting room, where he lighted a tin lamp. there was a smell of stale cigarette smoke in the room, and the walls were papered with pictures of prize fighters, sailboats, race horses, and "footlight favorites," all cut from newspapers and magazines. this, and the acrid odor of cigarettes, attested sufficiently the taste of the owner of the boathouse. there were chairs enough to seat the three boys comfortably. "somebody has been here, pards," declared mcglory, "and not so very long ago, either." "he's a sherlock holmes, all right," grinned lorry. "how do you suppose he knew that, motor matt?" "oh, go on!" growled the cowboy. "your friend george is a cigarette fiend. why do you reckon the windows were draped like that?" there were two small windows in the sitting room, and each was covered with a double thickness of canvas, battened down on all sides. "give it up," said lorry. "ollie must have been having a game of cards here with some of the boys, and probably he didn't want anybody looking in." "ollie?" murmured matt, startled, suddenly remembering that, at the time of the attempted robbery on the waunakee road, big john had addressed his youthful companion as "ollie." "yes, ollie merton," answered lorry; "he's the fellow who owns this place." "what sort of looking fellow is he?" "why, he's about my build, rather dark, and with a face that's not much of a recommendation; but ollie's been a good friend of mine, just the same." matt was convinced that the ollie he had met on the waunakee road, under such evil conditions, was the same ollie who had papered that rude little sitting room--and had left behind him the reek of his cigarettes. "what are you asking about ollie for?" inquired lorry curiously. "we'll get to that in a few minutes," said matt. "just now i want to hear how you fellows came to leave the cabin on the creek, and what sort of a coincidence it was that enabled you to come to my rescue, out there on the lake." "i reckon we can explain that a heap easier than you can explain how you came to be lashed hand and foot and jammed between the thwart and the engine of a burning boat," returned mcglory. "you didn't get back to the cabin, that was one of the things that bothered george and me, and we couldn't savvy the why of it; then, all at once, we spotted our old friends, ross and kinky, standing among the oaks and piping off the cabin. _was_ it a jolt? say, speak to me about that. 'that means trouble,' said george, and i allowed that he had rung the bell. "there we'd been congratulatin' ourselves that no one knew of the hang-out, when along comes those 'frisco gents, loafing in the scrub and taking the sizing of our wickiup. having made up our minds that the appearance of ross and kinky spelled trouble with a big t, george and me got to guessing that those two lads had somehow interfered with your getting back to the cabin, matt. "'we'll duck out of this, george,' says i, 'and you can bet your moccasins on _that_. and when we duck,' i says further, 'we'll take the luggage and the grub along with us.' "'but what about matt?' says george. 'he's trying to do something for me, in madison, and it looks kind of rough to scatter when maybe he'll whistle for this siding even if he is somewhat behind his running time. didn't you tell me that motor matt usually does what he says he'll do?' "you must admit, matt, that this cousin of mine is improving a whole lot or he'd never have thought of that. up to now, he's been so busy taking care of number one that he hasn't had any consideration for the rest of the human race. but i explains to him like this: "'georgie, we're makin' a change of base. that's all. when we dodge those tinhorns, and pile our traps in another part of the woods, we'll sneak back here on the q. t. and watch for matt. like as not we can head him off on the waunakee road before he reaches the bridge over the creek.' "george thought that would be all right, so we get our plunder together, sneak out of the cabin, drop over the edge of the creek bank, crawl a mile downstream, and sashay right into the woods. i don't know whether you'll believe it or not--things like that happen mostly in story books--but we find the neatest cave you ever crawled into right on the banks of the catfish. george says it's a second edition of black hawk's cave. well, say, after we get the bats out of that hole in the rock, we are almost as snug as we are here, this minute. sufferin' niagara, hear it pour!" "never mind the rain, joe," said matt. "your talk is mighty exciting. go on with it." "of course," proceeded mcglory, "we couldn't enjoy our cave while you were due to arrive at the cabin any minute and drop into the hands of ross and kinky. i reckon it was about eight o'clock into dewfall when george and me crawled out of that hole and started to make a short cut for the waunakee road. then, right in the middle of the dark, we heard somethin' coming our way just a-tearin'. george guessed bears and i guessed injuns; but, no, we were both fooled. it was a little negro--george struck a match and got his color a minute after him and me had collided and i had flopped him on his back and was holding him down. then----" "pickerel pete!" exclaimed matt. "that's a guess for your life. sure, pard, it was pickerel pete, and a scared pickerel he was, at that. he thought george and me was a pair of 'ha'nts,' whatever they are; but george knew him, and he braced up some when he made sure that we were perfectly human. "then--speak to me about what that little ebony chap told us! motor matt had hired him for two plunks a day--you're getting reckless with your money, pard--and he had piloted motor matt from third lake to fourth, and from fourth up the catfish to whisky creek. motor matt had left the boat tied up there, with blackberry on guard, and gone on afoot up the creek. then spooks arrived, ordered pete to duck, and he had started for home like a singed cat. he was on his way when he ran into us. "well, george and me was all crinkled up with a scare. matt's gone on to the cabin, we figure it out, and he's dropped into the hands of ross and kinky. we make a run for the cabin. no one there, not even ross and kinky. but there's a candle still burnin' on the corner shelf. "was it motor matt who lit that candle, we asked ourselves, or big john's pals? of course we couldn't tell that, but we allowed it was probably matt who had struck a light. then it was us for the mouth of the creek to see what was going on at the launch. "i forgot to tell you, pard, that george and i had found a skiff, while we were fooling around the creek bank, waiting for you to get back. the skiff pleased me--i never saw a boat yet that didn't--and i suggested to george that we paddle down the creek in the skiff. that would save climbing fences and blundering around in the dark. well, we took the skiff. it didn't draw much more'n a drink of water, and, although the creek is lower than usual at this time of year, according to george, we got down it all right. just as we got within hailing distance of the launch, we heard the chug of an engine, and some one calling from the boat to some one else on the bank. we'd found ross and kinky--their voices give 'em away; and from what they said later we also knew that we'd found _you_. "george and i were up a tree for fair, then. ross and kinky were 'heeled'--we didn't have to guess any about that--while all i had was a pocketknife, and all george had was a scarfpin. "'well,' says george, 'i'm not going to leave those tinhorns to do what they please with matt.' surprisin', eh, the way this cousin of mine is beginnin' to act? he was as nervy as a ute buck with an overload of tizwin. i asks george what he thinks we can do against two men with a pair of hardware hornets that sting six times apiece. george didn't know, but allowed we'd better drop down the creek and get a closer view. "by the time we got down to where the launch was she had moved on and stopped again. when she moved on once more, something was trailing behind her. it was so dark we couldn't see what the thing was very plain, but after some sort of a while we made out that it was a boat. well, how we ever did it i don't know, but george--it was george, mind you--made our chain painter fast to the stern of the trailing rowboat--and that's the sort of procession we made down the catfish." mcglory threw back his head and laughed till he shook. "first, the launch," he went on; "then the rowboat, then george, and me, and the skiff. sufferin' side-wheelers! why, i nearly gave the snap away enjoying it." "great spark plugs!" muttered matt. "when we went down the catfish, i was watching the bank, hoping to see some one i could call to. and there were you and george behind us all the time! i wish ross and kinky knew about that." "it was too much fun to last, pard," continued mcglory, sobering a little. "when we got out into the lake the heavier swell made the chain break loose from the rowboat, and we had to follow with the oars, which was slow work. we were a long ways off when you spoke that other launch; and when you started like a streak of fire for the northwest end of the lake, we were still so far off that we didn't think we could reach you in time to do you any good. but we broke our backs at the oars, and managed to make it. you know the rest." "fine!" exclaimed matt admiringly. "say, you fellows are pards worth having. what became of pickerel pete?" "bother him!" put in george. "we didn't have any time to fool with the little moke after we heard what he had to tell us about you." "he kept on toward town, burnin' the air," said mcglory. "i think," said matt reflectively, "that this cave of yours would be a safer place for us than this boathouse." "safer," returned the cowboy, "but it hasn't got any chairs and nothing to make a light with. hear the rain, once! gee, _compadres_, i wouldn't move from here to the cave, through all that water, for a bushel of double eagles." "why is the cave safer?" asked lorry. "because this ollie merton isn't such a friend of yours as you think," said matt. george lorry stiffened in the old, arrogant way. "i guess i know my friends," he answered frigidly. "listen," went on matt. "when i left the cabin and started along the waunakee road, some one in the bushes threw a riata at me. it was big john threw the rope, and along with big john was this ollie merton. they were after that ten thousand dollars, but i played a trick on them and got away with the draft. it was your sister, george, that helped me get away." "what!" exclaimed george; "not ethel?" "yes. she was on the waunakee road with her motor car----" george scowled. "the governor would put twenty-five hundred in a runabout for sis," he growled, "and wouldn't scrip up when i wanted a motor boat. is that right? is----" voices were heard outside, accompanying a slushy crunch of wet gravel. matt leaped for the light and blew it out. "not a word!" he whispered. "that must be ollie merton, and we don't want him to see us. there's an overturned catboat--get under it." lorry tried to protest, but matt caught him by the arm and hustled him toward the overturned boat. the boat had been lying under the boys' eyes during their talk. barely had they secreted themselves when the door opened and two persons walked in, followed by a whirling gust of rain. "whoosh!" called a familiar voice, "i'm glad to get out of that, ollie." "big john!" whispered matt in lorry's ear. "he's come here with merton. keep quiet, now, and listen." chapter xiii. under the overturned boat. when matt, lorry, and mcglory had made forcible entrance into the boathouse, it had been through the door that fronted the river. merton and big john had entered through a door at the other end of the house. thus, for a time, at least, the broken lock on the other door was not discovered. "light up," went on the voice of big john. "and if you've got anything in a bottle, ollie, trot it out and mebby it'll drive the chill from our bones. i'm not pinin' for an attack of rheumatism." "i've got that, too," answered ollie, with a fatuous snicker. "always keep something for snake bites." "and it's a bad thing for a lad of your years. hurry up with the light." "give me time to get out of this mackintosh and then i'll hunt for matches." there followed the slap of a wet garment on the floor. the next moment a match was struck, and young merton could be seen making for the lamp. the moment he touched the chimney he jumped back with a cry and the match dropped from his fingers. "what ails you?" demanded big john. "why, the chimney's _hot_!" exclaimed merton. "somebody's been here, and they haven't been gone very long, either." "thunder! it must have been ross and kinky. they were to meet us here, you know, and ross had a key to the boathouse." "if they were here a few minutes ago," went on merton, "why aren't they here now?" "i'll have to pass that. but if any one was here, it was those pals of mine. go on and light the lamp. use your handkerchief for taking off the chimney." matt, under the overturned boat, drew a breath of relief. but it was only a temporary relief. already he was wondering what would happen when ross and kinky arrived at the rendezvous. ross had told matt that he and kinky were to meet big john that night, but had carried the impression that the meeting was to take place in town. merton's fears were apparently relieved, and he soon had the lamp lighted. big john divested himself of a raincoat and removed a dripping cap. coat and cap he hung very carefully from two nails in the wall. merton, meanwhile, was unlocking a cupboard. a bottle and two glasses came out of the cupboard. merton poured some of the liquor into the glasses. big john reached over and emptied part of merton's glass into his own. "that leaves enough for you, son, and a heap more than you ought to have," said he. "it ain't good for younkers--nor for old fellers, either." "oh, splash!" grunted merton. "you ought to go around with a pocketful of tracts," he grinned. "whenever you rob a man, leave a tract with him." "you're mighty cute," observed big john, setting his empty glass on the table and leaning back in his chair, "but the two of us wasn't cute enough to get the best of motor matt. there's a boy! he's a bright and shinin' example. he has backcapped me twice, and the more he does it the more i admire him." merton stared; then, developing his silver cigarette case and his silver match box, he proceeded to smoke. "you're a queer fish, big john," said he. "if you've got such high standards, why don't you live up to 'em?" big john shook his head gloomily. "i expect it ain't in me," he answered. "if you'd had ross and kinky with you, there at the bend in the waunakee road, this motor matt wouldn't have made a get-away." "mebby not; but ross is down on motor matt and wouldn't hesitate to hand him his finish. that's the reason i wouldn't have ross along; and i let kinky stay with ross as a sort of safeguard, in case anythin' went crossways and ross happened to find motor matt. only the hope of me gettin' that money has caused ross to hold back as long as he has. now that he knows there's no hope of gettin' the money, he'll be as mad as a cannibal. ross is worse'n an apache injun when he's worked up." "then he'll be mad when he comes here and finds you didn't get the money, won't he?" "he will; and i've laid my plans to make a quick jump for the west. i'll land that precious ross where he won't get us all into trouble." "you were telling me that you had set old man lorry against motor matt." a slow grin worked its way over big john's face. "anonymous letter," said he. "i just wrote lorry that i was a detective, and didn't think it wise to put my information over my own name, see? then i went on to tell him to look out for motor matt, and explained that he was in cahoots with the three desperate scoundrels who had stolen the ten thousand in 'frisco. that'll make lorry think a little. but see here, son. you haven't been private adviser for young lorry just to make a man of him in the gamblin' line, have you? what's your graft? i'll bet it's somethin' more than getting him away from his mother's apron strings, and out of the sissy class." merton's sinister face took on a crafty look. "you're right," said he. "the winnequa club has a race in a few days. for reasons of my own, i intend to win that race. see? lorry also wanted to have a boat in the race, and he's about the only one, apart from me, whose dad has money enough to furnish him with a boat that will make the rest of us climb. but old man lorry isn't furnishing george with the boat." merton chuckled. "when george asked me what he ought to do the time his father threatened to send him to military school, i told george to skip, and to get as far away as he could. that left me free to do as i wanted to in that motor-boat event." merton winked. "h'm!" murmured big john. "you're a foxy youngster. i'm not sayin' it's creditable in you, mind, but it shows sharp thinking, all right." the three boys under the overturned boat were able to see and hear all that went on. when the conversation between merton and big john had proceeded that far, matt heard a sharp breath escape lorry's lips. a few words, and merton's despicable planning had been laid bare. out of merton's own mouth lorry could judge him. this false friend, with whom lorry had associated, and whose advice he had taken, had headed him toward irretrievable ruin. "oh, i can be foxy if i want to," said merton. "all i want now is to make sure that lorry doesn't get in that race." "i guess you can be easy on that point," returned big john dryly. "the old gent won't put up money for the boat on a bet. motor matt called on lorry. i talked with gus, the lorry chauffeur, and he said there was a heap of coldness developed durin' the interview, and that when motor matt had left, lorry used the telephone and asked police headquarters to have a plain-clothes man pick up his trail and follow him. the fly cop followed motor matt from third lake into fourth, but lost him somewhere around the mendota end of the catfish. the last thing i did, before leaving madison to come here, was to drop another unsigned letter in the mails for lorry." "what was that for?" asked merton. "i told lorry that if he would cross fourth lake in the morning, and proceed up the catfish as far as whisky creek, then leave the boat and walk up the creek for a mile, he would come to the place where motor matt was having mcglory keep his son. i reckon _that_ will give motor matt something to think about. i'll not be here to see the fun, and i guess young king will get out of the scrape in his customary fashion, but it'll be something by way of remembering big john. king has made me a lot o' trouble, and has beat me out of a pineapple plantation, and that's all i can do to rough things up for him. you see----" big john broke off suddenly. some one else was approaching the boathouse. matt, mcglory, and lorry could hear the footsteps plainly. merton started to get up, but big john lifted a restraining hand. "if they're the ones we expect," said he, "they've got a key and can let themselves in. if they're not the ones we're looking for, then we don't want them here." a key rattled in the lock just as big john finished speaking. the next moment the door opened and two men blew in. they were ross and kinky! chapter xiv. a dash for the open. that visit of matt, mcglory, and lorry to the boathouse was worth all the danger it had brought, even if it had resulted in nothing more than opening lorry's eyes to the duplicity of his supposed friend. but other things had developed that were highly interesting, as well as edifying. matt was astounded to learn that an anonymous letter had made the elder lorry so bitterly hostile. if lorry had put so much faith in one unsigned letter, surely he would have equal confidence in the second, and might be expected to cross the lake on the following morning and make his way to the cabin on the creek. it was likewise refreshing to learn that big john was intending to take his two pals and return to the west. matt was not forgetting that ross and kinky had some three hundred dollars of his money, and before the flight something must be done to recover the funds. but just then a common danger suggested that the boys must get away from the boathouse. there were four enemies against them, and at least three of the enemies were armed. "we've got to get out of here, joe," whispered matt. "why not lay low till _they_ get out?" returned the cowboy. "it won't be possible. that hot lamp chimney is going to do the trick for us. big john will mention it and ask ross and kinky why they left the boathouse and went out into the rain. ross and kinky will say they didn't; then there'll be talk and a hunt for intruders. we've got to make a dash for the open--and at once." "you've got it right, motor matt," murmured lorry. "the quicker i can get away from here, the better i'll like it. i've learned a lot," and there was bitterness in lorry's voice as he finished. "let's heave over the boat and make a dash for the back door," suggested mcglory. "we're rushin' straight into the dark, and, if we're quick, we can get clear before there's any shooting." "that hits me," said lorry. "it's now or never, then," assented matt. "separate, just outside the boathouse, and then come together again at the launch. we'll go up to that cave you fellows found. you understand the plan, do you?" "yes," answered lorry and mcglory. "then lay hold of the edge of the boat," went on matt. in their narrow quarters the three boys knelt, waiting for the word to lift the boat's edge from the skids and throw the hulk entirely over. it was not a large boat, and their strength was fully equal to the task they had set for themselves. "_now!_" hissed matt. over went the boat with a crash. startled yells came from the sitting room, followed by silence broken only by a rush of feet as matt, lorry, and mcglory darted toward the rear door. "stop 'em!" roared big john. "guns!" cried ross; "use your guns!" mcglory halted and whirled. at the side of the boat he had found a small can of white lead, which was probably to do its part in giving the hull a coat of paint. when starting to run the cowboy had taken the can of lead with him. he paused to hurl the can. straight as a bullet it shot through the air, crashed into the lamp, and plunged the interior of the boathouse in darkness. another moment and mcglory had hurled himself through the door. acting upon matt's suggestion, the three friends separated as soon as they reached the outside air. ten minutes later they were all together again at the place where the _sprite_ was moored. there was a lull in the storm, and for a while, at least, the rain had stopped. matt began ripping off the boat's tarpaulin cover. "cast off the painter, joe," he called, as he worked. "you can help me with this, george," he added. "never mind the skiff--we can't bother with that now." clearing a working space aft of the hood, matt leaped into the boat and began getting the motor into action. george finished removing the "tarp," and mcglory scrambled aboard with the end of the painter. from the direction of the boathouse sounds of pursuit could be heard. "tumble in, george," called matt. "you can finish that from inside the boat." mcglory gave his cousin a hand and matt started the propeller. taking the launch up the river on such a night was hazardous in the extreme. but matt had the bearings of the stream in his head, and he urged the _sprite_ boldly onward. from behind them, somewhere, a revolver was fired. the leaden missile caused no damage, and the launch rushed on into the gloom. lorry, who knew the river well, pushed to matt's side to be of what help he could. "you never had a better chance to wreck a boat, motor matt," said lorry, "than you've got right now." "i'm hoping for the best," returned matt. "instinct, more than anything else, is guiding me. i don't know, but i seem to _feel_ it when we're going wrong." it was the same instinct, perhaps, which carries a horse over the right road when the rider is lost, or that carries a bird miles and miles through the air to the same nest in the same tree of the forest. this was not the first time matt had profited by that vague intuition. it was almost like a sixth sense. mcglory, time and again, held his breath, fearing that they were about to run upon the rocks; but, just as surely, time and again, the king of the motor boys turned the wheel and deep water remained under them. "it's up to you fellows to tell me where to stop," said matt. "i'm watching for the place," replied lorry, "but the shore line looks like a solid blur of shadow. i can't distinguish one point from another." "figure it out by dead-reckoning," suggested matt. "you must have some idea, george, how far the cave is from the lake." "two miles, i should say." "then, at this speed, we've covered the two miles," and matt shut off the power and let the boat's momentum carry her toward the bank. the _sprite_ came to a halt with a slight jar, which proved that she had struck. "that's all right," announced matt, "and we're close enough to tie up. never mind if we do get our feet wet; we're in luck to get out of that boathouse as well as we did." "you can gamble the limit on that," answered mcglory, splashing ashore with the painter. "i'm a digger, too, if this place don't look familiar to me, what little i can see of it." "it's familiar to me, too," exulted lorry. "why, fellows, we're within a hundred feet of the cave! talk about luck, will you? this lays over anything that ever came my way." matt replaced the tarpaulin, got over the side, and waded to the bank. lorry and mcglory led him upward for a dozen feet to a place where the bank broke away in a sort of narrow shelf. something like a hundred feet along this shelf was the opening into the cavern. the entrance was masked with hazels, but the boys crowded in, and soon found themselves in dry quarters. "speak to me about that boathouse, please!" guffawed the cowboy, stretching himself out on the uneven stone floor. "were big john and his pals surprised! i rather guess they were." "tell us more about that attempt big john and merton made to rob you on the waunakee road," said lorry. "it seems strange that merton should have a hand in anything like that, or that he should be mixed up with this gang of scoundrels at all. merton's folks are immensely wealthy. they're traveling in europe now, and merton is in madison attending the university. mert is a spender, all right, and all he has to do when he wants money is to ask for it. why should he help big john try to get that ten thousand from you, matt?" "possibly it wasn't the money end of the deal that attracted merton," answered matt. "it may be that all he wanted, lorry, was to make you as much trouble as he could." lorry muttered angrily under his breath. "i don't know how i ever let him pull the wool over my eyes," said he, "but it's a fact that i considered ollie merton my best friend. it was by his advice that i took that money and went to 'frisco." "that, alone," remarked matt earnestly, "proves that merton was not a friend." "i'm beginning to see it in that light myself," admitted lorry. "it's hard to have to say so, but it's the truth." "hard!" scoffed mcglory. "why, pard, the way you're showin' up is sure hard to beat. but don't hang fire with that yarn of yours, matt. you've got ours, and all george and i need is a statement of facts from you in order to get the whole business straight in our own minds. heave ahead now, and be quick about it. i'm about ready to doze off." matt began with his start for waunakee, related the attempted robbery, and the manner in which he and ethel lorry had backed the runabout along the waunakee road and into madison. the part matt dreaded to tell had to do with his interview with lorry's father; but lorry had shown such a surprising change in his whole manner of thought and action that matt detailed the conversation between himself and mr. lorry exactly as it had occurred. a few days before, such a report would have sent george into a furious tirade against his father, but he now listened quietly and without comment. matt, highly pleased, proceeded to tell how he had taken the launch from the express office, had engaged pickerel pete, and had run the _sprite_ into fourth lake and up the catfish; then followed his visit to the cabin, his failure to find mcglory and lorry, his return to the launch, his capture by a ruse on the part of ross, and, finally, the murderous attempt which ross had made and which had come so near being successful. "that ross must be bug-house!" growled mcglory angrily. "he had been drinking," said matt. "a man will do things when he's partly intoxicated that he wouldn't think of doing when sober." "you're out three hundred dollars, matt," spoke up lorry, "and i don't think that money will ever come back to you. when we made that dash from the boathouse, big john and his pals knew we had been there long enough to learn a whole lot about their plans. ross and kinky have discovered that you were saved from the burning boat, even if they didn't know it before, and all three of the rascals will not lose a minute getting away from this part of the country. i doubt if it would do any good for us to go to madison and report to the police. big john and his pals are done with madison, and with you. they'll make tracks for where they came from, and they'll do it at once." "that sounds like pretty good reasoning to me," observed matt, "but i guess that what we've accomplished is worth all it cost us. what are your plans, lorry?" "i'm going home in the morning," declared lorry. "if i'm to go to a military school--well, there are worse places." "listen to george!" cried mcglory. "oh, tell me about george! ain't he a surprise party, though?" "now," said matt jubilantly, "i'm _sure_ that what we've accomplished is worth the price. good night, pards. i've found a soft stone, and i've got material for pleasant dreams, so i'm going to sleep. in the morning, we're for across the lake--and aristocracy hill!" chapter xv. the power boat--minus the power. the boys were astir early, it being their intention to reach madison and the lorry home before mr. lorry could get away to cross the lake--providing that proved to be his intention. the boys had a frugal breakfast off the cold food mcglory and lorry had brought from the cabin, and immediately after they emerged from the cave upon the narrow shelf that ran in front of it. the rain seemed to be over, and the leaden clouds were being scattered by a fierce wind from the west. "this is a bad morning to be on fourth lake," said george, casting an anxious eye upward. "i had hoped the wind would blow itself out, but it appears to be as strong as ever." "why not leave the _sprite_ here," suggested mcglory, "and hike for madison along the wagon road?" "it would take us too long," protested matt. "i think a boat that can stand the seas in 'frisco bay ought to be able to negotiate this fresh-water lake. the _sprite's_ reliable, i can say that for her; and, so long as we have power, i guess we needn't fear the wind." "we'd better have a look at the boat by daylight," said mcglory. "for all we know, pards, the end may have been burned off her." but an examination showed that the _sprite_ had suffered little damage from the fire. the luggage was thrown aboard and the boys climbed to their places. one turn of the flywheel and the cylinders took the spark; then, on the reverse, the boat was pulled from the shoal into deep water, matt changed to the forward drive, and they were off in a wide circle that pointed them for lake mendota. "i don't care a whoop what happens now," gloried the cowboy, "we've got george out of the woods, and that's the main thing." "call it that if you want to, joe," said lorry, "but there's music for me to face, over on fourth lake ridge." "and you're goin' to face it like a little man, georgie; and if uncle dan don't back down on that military-school proposition he'll get a cold blast from joe mcglory. and that, pards," the cowboy added, "is a shot that goes as it lays." "i'll take my medicine and not make much of a face, no matter how bitter the dose is," went on george; "but there's one thing that's bound to happen." "meanin' which, george?" inquired mcglory. "why, my father is going to be set right on the subject of motor matt." "don't let me cause any friction between you, george," urged matt. "the breach between you and your father is in a fair way of being healed." "so far as i am concerned," said lorry, a flush tinging his cheeks, "i'm willing to admit that i acted like a fool. i'll go on record with that, face to face with the governor; i'll even go further and say that it was weakness that made me hang back from madison, stop in that cabin, and send motor matt on to make a dicker and save my pride. but the governor has got to understand that motor matt's my friend, and that, but for him and you, joe, i'd not be here now. right is right, and motor matt is going to have justice, if nothing more." "i'm glad as blazes, george," caroled mcglory, "to hear you tune up in that fashion. the more i listen to you, since last night, the better i feel." "i was quite a while getting to sleep in that cave," pursued lorry. "i lay there, on the hard rocks, and reviewed everything i've done since leaving madison. it seems as though a fog had been cleared out of my brain, and that i was able to stand off and get a clean-cut, impersonal look at myself. the sight wasn't pleasing. i know why motor matt suggested that stop at waunakee, and a probation in the cabin on the creek. he read me better than i could read myself. he knew that i had pride which would not suffer humiliation and disgrace, and that if i was not pampered and humored a little i would probably go off on another rebellious splurge--and wind up my future prospects. by staying at that cabin, i brought all these dangers upon matt; and yet, if he had not suggested some such move as the halt at waunakee, i should very likely have bolted from the train between 'frisco and here. oh, what an unreasoning idiot i have been!" lorry dropped down on a seat and bowed his head in his hands. "speak to me about this, matt!" whispered mcglory, placing himself alongside the king of the motor boys. "who'd ever have dreamed my haughty, high-and-mighty cousin would ever have come to the scratch in such a way? sufferin' tyrants! i wonder if uncle dan is going to do the right thing by george, or make as big a fool of himself as george did?" "i think mr. lorry, after he sees and talks with george, will do the right thing," returned matt. just here the _sprite_ shot out of the river into the rolling waters of fourth lake. the west wind, marshaling its strength on the broad sweep of the prairies, caught up the waves and flung them headlong toward maple bluff. the launch leaped and staggered, shoved her bow into the highest waves, and then shivered and flung off the spray in a double cataract on each side. it was a nerve-tingling ride, and mcglory suddenly made up his mind that his stomach would feel better if he sat down. george, his face flushed with excitement, looked around him and gave a jubilant shout. "great!" he cried. "i wish i felt like that," groaned mcglory. "for heaven's sake, matt, see how quick you can get us to the other side." "we can tie up at the yacht club on the west shore," said lorry. "all right," answered matt. "look at that boat over there, george," he added, nodding his head in the direction of governor's island. "she's the only other boat on the lake, so far as i can see, and she's acting as though something is wrong with her." lorry stood up, braced himself, and peered ahead. "she's a bigger boat than ours," he remarked, "and looked to me like the _stella_. the _stella_ is a thirty-footer, and belongs to barkley cameron, a neighbor of ours up on the hill. by jupiter," he added, a few moments later, "it is the _stella_, and she's in trouble, as sure as you're a foot high." "the wind is driving her toward the bluff," said matt excitedly. "her engine's dead--she hasn't any power to fight the wind and waves." "and there are four men aboard her," went on lorry. "great scott! if they ever go on those rocks at the point, the boat will be smashed to kindling and every one aboard of her drowned. let's stand by the _stella_, matt, and try and do something for her." "i'm rushing the _sprite_ in the _stella's_ direction," answered matt, "and have been for some time. but we may not be able to do anything. she's half a mile nearer the rocks than we are, and she may go onto them before we can overhaul her." far off, just beyond the drifting and helpless launch, matt and lorry could see the white waves flinging themselves against the jutting crags of mcbride's point. the _sprite_ was coming up with the _stella_ hand over fist, but the _stella's_ drift was carrying her toward the cliffs with tremendous speed. "i can see the people on board," cried george, "and two of them are tinkering with the engine. if they can get the motor in shape they're all right, but if they can't----" george broke off abruptly, and stood clinging to matt and staring at the other boat with frenzied eyes. two of the _stella's_ passengers, as matt could see, were looking toward the _sprite_ and waving their hands frantically. "matt," called george huskily, "one of those men is my father!" "great guns!" gasped matt. "he started across the lake in the _stella_. we didn't leave the catfish quick enough. but keep your nerve, george. we're going to save them if we have to run into the breakers and pull the _stella_ off the cliff!" chapter xvi. a reconciliation. mcglory aroused himself for a moment, and learned what the excitement was all about. straightway he forgot his physical ills and became absorbed in the wonderful race motor matt was running with death. by every trick in his power the king of the motor boys was doing his utmost to urge the _sprite_ onward. the boat's speed became a terrific dash, a headlong hustle, with wind and wave helping the propeller. "we'll never make it!" groaned george. "buck up, george!" cried mcglory. "motor matt has done harder things than this." "but the _stella_ will be on the rocks before we can get to her! and there's the governor, likely to meet his fate right under my eyes! oh, what a scoundrel i have been! seeing the governor like this, perhaps for the last time, makes me realize what i have done. he was crossing the lake to find me, joe." george's voice died to a whisper and ended in a dry sob. "pull yourself together, i tell you!" roared mcglory. "now's the time to show yourself a _man_!" "yell to them to stand ready to throw a rope," said matt, between his teeth. "we can't get alongside of them before they hit the rocks, but we can come near enough so we can catch a rope if there's a strong enough arm to pass it." lorry cast aside his overpowering doubts and fears and flung himself into the fight with demoniacal energy. "stand ready with a rope!" he yelled, trumpeting through his hands and doing his best to make his voice heard above the roar and crash of the waves. again and again he repeated it, and mcglory joined in, timing his voice with his cousin's. one of the men who had been working at the engine suddenly left his thankless labor and placed himself well forward on the _stella_ at the point nearest to the approaching _sprite_. "make ready to grab the rope, both of you!" shouted matt. "if you're lucky enough to grab it, take a half-hitch around the stern stanchion, and lay back on the end of the rope with every ounce of power in your bodies! there, stand by! they're going to throw!" matt shifted the wheel and, for a minute, placed the _sprite_ broadside on to wind and waves. this gave the man with the rope a better mark. out shot the coil of hemp, but the resistance of the wind caused it to fall pitifully short. a cry of despair went up from lorry. "once more!" yelled mcglory, as matt pointed the _sprite_ straight for the _stella_ and flung her onward. the man rapidly coiled the rope in his hands. another man stepped forward and took the rope to make the next cast himself. he was a more powerfully built man than the one who had attempted the first cast. "this will tell the story," cried george. "if this throw fails the _stella_ will be smashed to pieces on the bluff." matt and mcglory knew that fully as well as lorry; and those on the _stella_ must have realized it. the man with the rope was cool and deliberate. it was plain he was not going to waste any valuable chances by undue haste; then, as he was whirling the rope to let it fly, matt again turned the _sprite_ broadside on. for an instant it looked as though the rope was again to fall short; but lorry, stretching far out from the side of the _sprite_, snatched the end of the rope out of the air with convulsive fingers, and fell with it to the bottom of the boat. a faint cheer went up from those on the _stella_. but the battle was not yet won. mcglory went to the assistance of lorry, and the slack of the cable was jerked out of the water. this gave sufficient rope for a half-hitch around the stanchion and a firm hand hold. the cowboy and his cousin lay back on the line, bracing their feet against the thwarts and clinging with all their strength. motor matt, meanwhile, had been busy with his part of the work. the instant the rope was made fast, he had shifted the bow of the _sprite_, switching off the power for a moment in order to lessen the shock when the launch should begin to feel the pull. yet even with this precaution the shock was tremendous. but nothing gave way, and slowly but surely the _sprite_ took up her burden. for a few moments the two boats seemed to stand stationary, the power of the _sprite_ just counterbalancing the push of wind and wave against both boats; then, a little later, the _sprite_ began to move, gathering headway by slow degrees. anything like speed was out of the question, but the _sprite_, without missing a shot, plowed her way like a tugboat through the churning waters, and brought herself and her tow safely along the yacht club's pier. matt and mcglory, busy making the _sprite_ fast, caught a glimpse of george rushing across the pier to meet his father. "george!" shouted the elder man. "dad!" cried george. and they came together, gripping each other's hands. with arms locked they walked the length of the pier and vanished inside the yacht club's headquarters. "reconciliation?" queried mcglory. "if it isn't, i don't know the brand. oh, i reckon uncle dan will do the right thing by george. that cold blast of mine will have to be permanently retired. matt, give us your paw! this is a grand day for the lorry tribe!" "no doubt about that, joe," answered matt, with feeling, as he and mcglory shook hands. half an hour later matt went into the yacht club to telephone police headquarters about his stolen money. he had only a very faint hope of ever seeing the money again, but he felt it his duty to do everything possible to recover it. over the 'phone he gave a description of big john, ross, and kinky. the man at the other end of the line had just promised to do what he could when matt was caught by a strong hand and turned around. he was once more face to face with lorry, sr. but there was a difference in the lorry of matt's first and second meeting. "by gad!" cried lorry, "i want to shake hands with a hero. nobly done, young man! but for you we'd have gone to smash against maple bluff, every last one of us on the _stella_. we had our little differences when we met, that other time, motor matt, but i didn't understand the matter then. george here has been telling me how much he owes to you, how much i owe to you, how much i owe to him, and we all owe to mcglory, and everybody owes to everybody else. gad! my head is fair splitting with it all. never mind that three hundred that was taken away from you; i guess"--and the rich man laughed--"that my bank account is good for three hundred. i'll see that _you_ don't lose anything. we'll have more talk about this later." lorry, sr., turned to where mcglory was standing, at matt's side, his black eyes gleaming humorously. "ah, joe, you rascal," went on lorry, placing two hands on the cowboy's shoulders, "you've done something to make us all proud of you--and i guess you'll find it out before you're many days older." "what are you going to do for george, uncle?" queried mcglory. "you watch! keep your eyes skinned and you'll see me do something for you as well as for george." lorry, sr., pushed himself between matt and mcglory and caught each of them by an arm. "come on, my lads!" said he, "you're both going up to the house with george and me. this is a happy day, and the lorrys are going to celebrate. naturally, the celebration won't be complete without motor matt and joe. never mind your boat--i've asked the people here to look after it. gus is outside with the big car, and all we've got to do is to get in and strike out for home. _home!_ how does that sound to you, my son?" "it has a truer ring, dad," answered george, "than it ever had before." "maybe it's a different home, george," answered mr. lorry. "anyhow, we'll try to make it so." the end. the next number (23) will contain motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. a clash in black and yellow--pickerel pete's revenge--a "dark horse"--plans--an order to quit--facing the music--gathering clouds--the plotters--firebugs at work--saving the "sprite"--out of a blazing furnace--what about the race?--mart rawlins weakens--the race--the start--the finish--conclusion. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, july 24, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. the guardian of the pass. it was the sudden change in the color of the water that made nick salveson realize something was wrong. all day thunder had been muttering far up in the mountains, but down in the river valley the autumn sun had been shining warm; and, busy with his fishing, nick had paid no attention to the heavy clouds which hung over the jagged peaks upstream. suddenly the water lost its crystal clearness, and turned to a yellow, muddy hue, and the canoe began to strain at her anchor rope. "reckon it's about time to quit," muttered the young fellow; and, hastily reeling in his line, he laid the rod down and set to work to pull up the anchor. it was badly jammed between two rocks at the bottom. by the time he had cleared it the river had risen at least two feet, and was roaring down in a sheet of muddy foam. "guess there's been a cloud burst up in the hills," said nick to himself as he turned the bow of the canoe upstream. he was not uneasy. he had spent the whole summer in alaska, and could handle a canoe as well as most boys of his age. he had been anchored close in under the far bank. to reach his camp he had to cross the whole width of the river, and return nearly a mile upstream. but he had not taken six strokes before he realized that two strong men could not have paddled the canoe back against the flood that was now coming down. the only thing to do was to get across, land anywhere he could, pull the canoe up, and walk back. "great ghost! but it's strong," he muttered, as, in spite of his efforts, the bow of the canoe was swung sideways by the weight of the water. he leaned forward, drove the paddle deep in the yellow flood, and, with all his weight in the stroke, attempted to force her round. crack! the paddle, worn thin with weeks of hard wear, snapped like a pipestem. nick was left with a mere foot or so of useless stump. the blade was gone. instantly the rising flood seized the canoe and sent her flying madly downstream. like a feather she danced and spun among the whirling yellow eddies. recovering from the sudden shock of the accident, nick made a desperate effort to steer inshore by using the stump of the paddle. it was useless. the flood, rising every minute, mocked his best efforts. at last, streaming with perspiration, and with his heart beating like a hammer, he gave it up, and sat grimly quiet and silent. there was something of the stoicism of the indian in this son of a san francisco millionaire. he had done his best. now the only thing was to wait and see what the river would do with him. mile after mile the relentless current bore him flying westward. soon he was past all his landmarks, and speeding through country completely unknown to him. once or twice the river contracted dangerously between walls of rock, and the canoe pitched and plunged among foam-tipped waves. but for the most part the banks were hillsides covered with primeval forest of fir and hemlock. there was nowhere any sign of man. "it'll take me all my time to get back even if i do manage to hit the bank somewhere," said nick to himself grimly, as he noted the tangled thickness of the woods on either hand. he was in a tight place; he knew that. what he hoped was that some freak of the current would drive the canoe near enough to the bank to catch hold of a branch and so pull himself ashore. but this did not happen, and, after his mad flight had lasted for a full hour, nick became desperately anxious. in the distance, he could see that the valley narrowed greatly, and he more than suspected that he was approaching dangerous rapids. he swung round a curve. yes, he was right. barely half a mile away the whole river plunged into a gorge so narrow it looked like a mere crack in the cliff. the shriek of the tortured waters rang high above the roar of the flood which bore the canoe onward to its doom. nick was no fool. he knew that in all human possibility his fate was sealed. no craft that man ever built could hope to pass in safety down the raging flood that boiled through that rift in the mountain. "rotten luck!" he muttered. "well, there's one comfort--there's no one to miss me except old rube, and i don't remember i ever did any one a dirty trick in my life." every instant the scream of the rapids grew louder. nick could see the mouth of the rift and the yellow waves heaping themselves high against the black precipices on either hand. on flashed the canoe. every moment her speed increased. she was a bare one hundred yards from the top of the rapids, when a yell from the right-hand bank rose high above the thunder of the flood, and nick, turning his head, saw a small, slight figure dashing down through the trees. just above the gate of the rapids half a dozen great bowlders showed their black heads above the yellow foam. without a moment's hesitation the stranger leaped from the bank to the nearest, and so from rock to rock, till he stood far out near the centre of the raging river. nick watched him with straining eyes. was there still a bare chance? no! at that moment an eddy swept the canoe away to the left. with a groan nick realized that she would pass far out of reach of his would-be rescuer. the canoe shot like an arrow toward the lip of the fall. nick waved the broken stump of his paddle in farewell to the figure on the rocks. the latter's right arm whirled up, and, with a sharp hiss, a coil of rope flashed out and dropped clean and true across the canoe. nick snatched at it with the energy of despair. as it tightened, the canoe was drawn away from under him, and he, dragged over the stern, was struggling in the rushing water. a minute of gasping, stifling battle among the tumbling, roaring waves. the strain on the rope was so tremendous that it seemed to nick that either it must break or the man who held it must be pulled off his slippery perch. but neither happened, and inch by inch the boy was drawn in, until a hand grasped him and pulled him, gasping and exhausted, onto the solid summit of the bowlder. "can you jump?" he heard an anxious voice. "the water's still rising. it'll be over the rock soon." "you bet i can," replied nick, struggling to his feet and shaking himself like a dog. "come on, then!" cried the other. and, sure-footed as a goat, he sprang across six feet of raging torrent to the next rock. nick set his teeth and followed, and in another minute was safe ashore beside his rescuer. "mean to say you live here all alone!" exclaimed nick salveson in blank amazement, as he looked round the bare little log hut a little later. "yes, for the last four months, ever since my father left." "did he go down to the coast?" "i wish he had. no, he went inland, over the big snowies!" "great scott! what for?" asked nick bluntly. "gold," replied the other. "i'll tell you about it. my name's glenn--roger glenn. we came here a year ago prospecting. we heard there was gold down here, but we didn't do much, and an indian who was snowbound here last winter told my father that there was rich placer ground the other side of the mountains." "but no one's ever been across there," objected nick. "there's no pass." "the indian told us there was. he made a map. here's a copy of it." "so your dad tried it?" said nick, staring curiously at the rough map. "he went the first of june last, and i've not seen or heard of him since. he said he'd be back in six or eight weeks." "gee, but that's bad," replied nick sympathetically. "what do you reckon you are to do?" "what can i do?" cried young glenn bitterly. "i'm mad to go after him, but i haven't a red cent to grubstake myself or buy a pony or dogs or a sledge." nick stared in silence at the other for some seconds. then he said slowly: "say, mr. glenn, that flood may have done us both a good turn. what d'ye say to taking me along in your trip over the snowies?" roger stared violently. "b-but----" he began. "no 'buts' about it. i'm running this outfit. look here, roger--i guess you don't mind my calling you by your first name--i'm pretty well fixed. my people are dead; they were killed in the earthquake in san francisco. i'm my own boss, though i am only eighteen, and i came up to alaska this summer to get a holiday before i go to the university next christmas. there isn't a thing i'd like better than a trip over the snowies, and if we're smart we'll do it and be back before winter hits us. are you agreeable?" "i don't know how to thank you," said roger brokenly. "then don't worry to try, old man," replied nick comfortably. "just fix up a mouthful of grub, and give me a bunk. we ought to start before sun-up to-morrow morning." * * * * * "seems to me, rube, you were a bit out in your reckoning," said nick as early one morning, ten days later, he looked out of the tent and found the landscape white with snow. rube shook his grizzled head. "'tain't that altogether, boss. i reckon we're a matter of four thousand feet higher than your summer camp. winter comes here a sight sooner than down in them river valleys. howsomever, it ain't deep, and it'll melt when the sun gets good an' strong." all that day the little party of three struggled up a narrow valley that wound ever upward into the heart of a maze of great snow peaks. over and over again tall cliffs loomed up in front, and it seemed as if they could go no further. but always there appeared some fresh opening, and bit by bit they won their way upward toward the summit of the range. "i reckoned as i knew this here country's well as any," said rube, staring thoughtfully up at a tremendous pyramid peak, the snow on which was gold and crimson in the light of the setting sun. "but this beats me. 'tain't on any map as ever i seed." "the indian said no white man had ever crossed it," said roger. "hed he bin across hisself?" inquired rube. "no. he told dad that none of his tribe had ever been across. and when dad asked him why, he only shook his head, and said something about its being the country of two-tailed devils." "how did he know of this here pass then?" demanded rube. "the map was given him by his father. it had come down goodness knows how many generations. he tried awfully hard to persuade dad not to go." "they've got a mighty queer lot of legends about these mountains," put in nick. "you couldn't pay any injun i ever saw to put foot on 'em." they camped that night in bitter cold and deep snow on the very summit of the pass. rube took nick aside. "say, boss, do you reckon we're ever going to find roger's dad?" nick shrugged his shoulders. "i don't know. roger says that before he left his father told him he'd blaze a trail, so as if anything went wrong his son could come along after. roger found his father's mark on a tree near the eastern end of the pass." "seems to me the chances are ez something hez happened to old glenn," said rube thoughtfully. "chewed by a b'ar, i reckon. or maybe had a fall. it's a fool job fer any man to come into country like this by hisself." "i guess i'm going as far as roger wants," said nick, "seeing what he's done for me, it's about the least i can do for him." "you're right, boss," said rube. "he's a real white, that boy is!" "if we don't find his father, i'm going to take him back to the states," said nick. "but that's a bit o' news you can keep to yourself for the present." next morning the sun shone brilliantly on the snow, and, looking down, the party saw, thousands of feet below them, an unknown country covered with a forest heavier than any of them had ever seen before. "mighty curious-looking country this," observed rube doubtfully, as they slipped and slithered down the steep snow-covered rocks. "i don't reckon i ever seed woods as thick as them before." "what's that queer-looking little plain halfway down?" asked nick. "looks like a clearing of some kind." a smile crossed rube's leathery face. "thet's a pond, boss. it's fruz over, an' the snow's laying thick on it." further down they came to a place where the only possible track lay along the bottom of a three-hundred-foot slope, steeper than the roof of a house and thick in snow, which glared blinding white in the morning sun. the opposite slope was covered with the amazingly thick forest which they had seen from above. "go keerful," said rube. "'twouldn't take a great deal to start a snowslide down them rocks." "seems as if something had been falling already," said roger suddenly. "look at these pits in the snow." he pointed to a hole in the snow. it was circular and about two feet deep. "now that's strange," exclaimed nick. "there's a whole row of 'em." rube looked at the queer marks, grunted, and shook his head. he hadn't a notion what they were, but did not like to betray his ignorance to the boys. "reckon best not talk," he growled. "don't take much to start snow a-sliding." for the next half mile no one spoke. twice more roger noticed a series of the same queer marks in the snow. also in two places there seemed to be regular roads beaten back into the thick underbrush of the snowclad forest on their right. he did not pay much attention. his eyes were fixed on the tree trunks. suddenly he gave a shout. "dad's mark!" he cried, pointing to a blaze on a big trunk by the path. the words were hardly out of his mouth before there came a deep crashing sound from somewhere behind. "yew've done it now!" cried rube. "that's the snow!" "not a bit of it," retorted nick. "it's coming from the wood." "blamed if you ain't right!" exclaimed rube. "thet beats all. i never heerd a snowslide come down through a wood afore." "it's not snow; it's something alive!" shouted roger. "for heaven's sake, look there!" rooted to the ground with sheer amazement, the three saw the forest wave as if it were grass, heard the crashing of great boughs and trunks breaking like nettles under a boy's stick. there came a scream like the escape of steam from an express engine, and then there burst out from the forest a beast so huge and hideous that those who saw it stood gasping, unable to believe their eyes. as large as a four-roomed cottage, in shape it resembled an elephant. it was covered all over with a thatch of coarse, reddish hair, and high above its monstrous head it waved a trunk of incredible size. on each side of this trunk curled vast tusks, and its small, bloodshot eyes glowed with bestial fury. again came that awful trumpeting. instantly both the pack ponies were off at a mad gallop. "run!" shrieked rube. the warning was needless. nick and roger were off as hard as their shaking legs could carry them, and behind them came the monster at a shambling gallop, which, in spite of the snow, covered the ground at terrific speed. again he trumpeted, and one of the pack ponies, mad with fright, tried to wheel sideways into the wood. the poor brute slipped and fell, rolling over and over. before it could regain its feet the monster was upon it, and, lifting pony, pack, and all, bodily in its trunk, flung it against the cliffside with such frightful force as must have broken every bone in its body. the momentary delay gave the others a few yards' start; but almost instantly the gigantic brute was on their track again, and the solid ground shook beneath its ponderous weight as it thundered down the slope. it could not last. the monster was gaining at every stride. already roger felt his breath failing. there was no cover; in fact, the pass was opening out wider and wider as they went. "try the trees!" shrieked nick to roger. "no," came a gasp from rube. "the lake! that's our only chance!" they were close by the side of the little frozen lake, and the boys saw rube wheel and dash down the steep bank. it seemed madness, for on the open ice they were at the mad brute's mercy. roger was for going straight on, but nick seized his arm and swung him to the left and onto the lake. another of those ear-piercing squeals. roger, glancing back over his shoulder, saw the gigantic bulk of their enemy come plunging down the sharp descent toward the ice. it rushed straight toward him as though certain of its prey. then came a rending crack, and the whole surface of the ice rose and fell beneath the feet of the fugitives. a crash like the explosion of a shell, a terrific bellow, and a wave of icy water rushed across the frozen snow. "that's done it!" came an exulting yell from rube; and, swinging round, the boys were just in time to see the domelike head of their terrible enemy sink amid a lather of broken ice and foam. for another second or two that terrible trunk waved high in the air, as the huge beast fought for its ancient life in the hole its ponderous bulk had broken. then this, too, vanished. the last of the mammoths had sunk into the depths. while the three stood in awe-stricken silence, watching the black water heave and bubble, there came a loud shout from the woods at the far end of the lake. a burly man in furs stood waving a rifle. with a shriek of joy roger tore away across the ice toward him. "reckon that's his pa," observed rube. "guess so," agreed nick. "we might as well go and see." "dad!" cried roger, as rube and nick came up. "if it hadn't been for these good friends i could never have come to look for you." "then," said the man in furs with a grave smile, "i'm afraid i should have been hung up here for the term of my natural life." "what--did that old hairy elephant chase yer?" exclaimed rube. "he did, and i got away by the skin of my teeth by climbing a cliff," replied mr. glenn. "i've been living up in the hills ever since. time and again i've tried to find another way out, but there isn't one, and for the life of me i didn't dare risk conclusions a second time with the mammoth." "i reckon he won't trouble us no more," said rube dryly. "say, though, i'd like to have had them tusks. they'd be worth a mint o' money in the states." "they'd be awkward to carry," smiled mr. glenn. "they'd weigh about a quarter of a ton apiece. what do you suppose they'd be worth?" "a thousand dollars, i reckon," said rube. such a sum represented wealth untold to the old trapper. mr. glenn put a hand in his coat pocket, and pulled out a lump of dull yellow metal as big as his fist. "this isn't worth quite that much," he said quietly, as he handed it to rube. "but i'd be glad if you'd take it as a sort of consolation prize." "great gosh! it's a twenty-ounce nugget!" gasped rube. "yes, and plenty more where that came from," said the prospector. he turned to his son. "roger, i've made the strike of a lifetime. now to get back to dawson before the snow comes." watch the sky. the different colors of the sky are caused by certain rays of light being more or less strongly reflected or absorbed, according to the amount of moisture contained in the atmosphere. such colors do, therefore, portend to some extent the kind of weather that may naturally be expected to follow. for instance, a red sunset indicates a fine day to follow, because the air when dry refracts more red or heat-making rays, and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. a coppery or yellowish sunset generally foretells rain. the following has been advocated as a fairly successful way of prognosticating: fix your eye on the smallest cloud you can see: if it decreases and disappears, the weather will be good; if it increases in size, rain may be looked for. latest issues brave and bold weekly all kinds of stories that boys like. the biggest and best nickel's worth ever offered. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 331--two chums afloat; or, the cruise of the "arrow." by cornelius shea. 332--in the path of duty; or, the fortunes of officer dan deering. by harrie irving hancock. 333--a bid for fortune; or, true as steel. by fred thorpe. 334--a battle with fate; or, the baseball mascot. by weldon j. cobb. 335--three brave boys; or, adventures in the balloon world. by frank sheridan. 336--archie atwood, champion; or, an all-around athlete's career. by cornelius shea. 337--dick stanhope afloat; or, the eventful cruise of the _elsinore_. by harrie irving hancock. 338--working his way upward; or, from footlights to riches. by fred thorpe. 339--the fourteenth boy; or, how vin lovell won out. by weldon j. cobb. 340--among the nomads; or, life in the open. by the author of "through air to fame." 341--bob, the acrobat; or, hustle and win out. by harrie irving hancock. 342--through the earth; or, jack nelson's invention. by fred thorpe. 343--the boy chief; or, comrades of camp and trail. by john de morgan. motor stories the latest and best five-cent weekly. we won't say how interesting it is. see for yourself. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air-ship; or, the rival inventors. 10--motor matt's hard luck; or, the balloon house plot. 11--motor matt's daring rescue; or, the strange case of helen brady. 12--motor matt's peril; or, castaway in the bahamas. 13--motor matt's queer find; or, the secret of the iron chest. 14--motor matt's promise; or, the wreck of the _hawk_. 15--motor matt's submarine; or, the strange cruise of the _grampus_. 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. tip top weekly the most popular publication for boys. the adventures of frank and dick merriwell can be had only in this weekly. =high art colored covers. thirty-two pages. price, 5 cents.= 681--frank merriwell's patience; or, the making of a pitcher. 682--frank merriwell's pupil; or, the boy with the wizard wing. 683--frank merriwell's fighters; or, the decisive battle with blackstone. 684--dick merriwell at the "meet"; or, honors worth winning. 685--dick merriwell's protest; or, the man who would not play clean. 686--dick merriwell in the marathon; or, the sensation of the great run. 687--dick merriwell's colors; or, all for the blue. 688--dick merriwell, driver; or, the race for the daremore cup. 689--dick merriwell on the deep; or, the cruise of the _yale_. 690--dick merriwell in the north woods; or, the timber thieves of the floodwood. 691--dick merriwell's dandies; or, a surprise for the cowboy nine. 692--dick merriwell's "skyscooter"; or, professor pagan and the "princess." 693--dick merriwell in the elk mountains; or, the search for "dead injun" mine. _for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_ street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york =if you want any back numbers= of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. fill out the following order blank and send it to us with the price of the weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =postage stamps taken the same as money.= ________________________ _190_ _street & smith, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city._ _dear sirs: enclosed please find_ ___________________________ _cents for which send me_: tip top weekly, nos. ________________________________ nick carter weekly, " ________________________________ diamond dick weekly, " ________________________________ buffalo bill stories, " ________________________________ brave and bold weekly, " ________________________________ motor stories, " ________________________________ _name_ ________________ _street_ ________________ _city_ ________________ _state_ ________________ a great success!! motor stories every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of motor matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the tip top weekly. matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them. _here are the titles now ready and those to be published_: 1--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. 2--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. 3--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier. 4--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet." 5--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air ship; or, the rival inventors. 10--motor matt's hard luck; or, the balloon house plot. 11--motor matt's daring rescue; or, the strange case of helen brady. 12--motor matt's peril; or, cast away in the bahamas. 13--motor matt's queer find; or, the secret of the iron chest. 14--motor matt's promise; or, the wreck of the "hawk." 15--motor matt's submarine; or, the strange cruise of the "grampus." 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. to be published on july 12th. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. to be published on july 19th. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. to be published on july 26th. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. to be published on august 2nd. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. price, five cents at all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price. street & smith, _publishers_, new york transcriber's notes: added table of contents. bold text is represented with =equal signs=, italics with _underscores_. page 1, added comma after "joe mcglory" in list of "characters that appear in this story." page 10, restored missing period to last sentence of chapter vi. page 29, corrected "rufe" to "rube" ("miss me except old rube"). courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 8 apr. 17, 1909 five cents motor matt's triumph three speeds forward _by stanley r. matthews._ [illustration: _chub caught the murderous hand just in time to save motor matt._] _street & smith publishers, new york._ motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. entered according to act of congress in the year 1909, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c., by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ no. 8. new york, april 17, 1909. price five cents. motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. the white-caps. chapter ii. motor matt's foes. chapter iii. suspicious doings. chapter iv. a villainous plot. chapter v. matt goes trouble-hunting. chapter vi. higgins tells what he knows. chapter vii. brisk work at dodge city. chapter viii. matt interviews trueman. chapter ix. no. 13. chapter x. where is motor matt? chapter xi. running down a clue. chapter xii. forty-eight hours of darkness. chapter xiii. at the last minute. chapter xiv. the first half of the race. chapter xv. well won, king! chapter xvi. conclusion. taking a big 'gator. a tigers' haunt. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the western town, the popular name of "mile-a-minute matt." =chub mcready=, sometimes called plain "reddy," for short, on account of his fiery "thatch"--a chum of matt, with a streak of genius for inventing things that often lands the bold experimenter in trouble. =carl pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking german lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with motor matt in double harness. =colonel plympton=, secretary of the stark-frisbie motor company. =uncle tom=, an old darky who was once a member of a traveling dramatic company, but who is now, by self-appointment, motor matt's "'fishul mascot." =mr. trueman=, of the jarret company, who gives matt car no. 13 in the race. =slocum=, an unprincipled schemer, who plays a deep game. =sercomb=, } =mings=, } six members of the motor drivers association, some of =higgins=, } whom prove themselves ready to go to any length to =grier=, } keep motor matt out of the great race for the borden =finn=, } cup. =martin=, } chapter i. the white-caps. "vat's der madder mit you? ach, du lieber! vaid a minid! for vy you do dot monkey-doodle pitzness? hoop-a-la! oof it vas a fighdt, den ged avay, a gouple oof tozen oof you, und come ad me vone py each. i show you somet'ing, py shings, vat you don'd like und--wow! himmelblitzen----" the clamor which suddenly arose in that dark denver cross-street was as suddenly hushed. it was about nine o'clock in the evening, and two lamps on distant corners shed about as much light as a pair of tallow-dips. midway between the two street-lamps lay the mouth of a gloomy alley, and here it was that the frantic commotion burst out and died abruptly. a dutch boy had been walking along the street, accompanied by a "loudly" dressed youth. at the entrance to the alley the dutch boy's companion had stopped and given a low whistle. almost immediately, and before the teuton fairly realized what was going on, three figures had rushed from the gloom of the alley. the dutchman was caught from all sides, and, as he struggled, broke into a wild torrent of words. the torrent was suddenly stemmed by a cloth which was thrown over his head from behind; then, while smothered into silence and held helpless, he was lifted and borne along the alley to a basement door. one of the four captors descended to the door and knocked three times in a peculiar manner. the door was pulled open, captors and captive vanished swiftly inside, and the door was closed. an inner door now confronted the party, and the same knock was given here as had been given outside. "who approaches?" demanded a sepulchral voice. "four drivers of racing-cars," answered the spokesman of the party, "bringing the dutch chum of the fellow who calls himself motor matt." "give me the countersign." "four speeds forward and one reverse." the countersign was whispered. "enter, drivers, and finish your work," went on the sepulchral voice. two minutes later the dutch boy was seated in a chair, released, and the cloth whisked from his head. with a shout of anger he started to his feet. "sit down!" commanded a voice sternly. the captive was blinded by a glare of acetyline lamps, the rays of which crossed the room from all four walls, interlacing and merging in one comprehensive glow. gradually, as the captive's eyes became accustomed to the light, he made out the mouth of a small cannon thrust into his face. back of the gun stood a figure cowled in white. the dutch boy started back from the leveled weapon and sank into his chair once more; then his wondering eyes swerved about him. an automobile stood in front of him, backed up against the stone wall of the basement. it was a two-passenger roadster, with acetyline and oil-lamps lighted. in the driver's seat sat another cowled figure. three chairs on either side of the automobile held more of the white-caps, all rigidly erect and silent. "vat a foolish pitzness!" growled the captive. "oof you hat a ring ve vould haf a circus, und----" "silence!" thundered the white-cap with the gun. he had taken a seat at the captive's side, and leaned from his chair to poke the point of the weapon in the captive's ribs. honk, honk! the man in the car tooted his horn. "number three," said he, "will report." from one of the chairs on the right a white-cap arose, stepped in front of the car and kowtowed. "most honorable king of chauffeurs," said he, "i have to report that i met the captive at the railroad-station. he had claimed a couple of grips and sent them to a hotel by an expressman. i informed him that my name was higgins, and that i had something of importance to tell him about this fellow who calls himself motor matt. he swallowed the bait, hook and all, and i brought him past the mouth of the alley. aided by numbers one, two, and four, we captured him easily." honk, honk! "very good, number three," said the king of chauffeurs; "return to your station." number three sat down. "py shiminy grickets!" cried the captive, who had been watching and listening with a good deal of amazement, "it looks like i vas numper nodding mit a douple cross alongsite!" "your name, captive?" demanded the man in the car. "carl pretzel, most eggselent king oof der sore headts----" honk, honk! "if the prisoner refers again to the head of this exalted society in such insulting terms, warder, put a hole through him!" this from the man in the car. "even so, your highness!" answered the warder. "you are the chum of the big high butter-in who calls himself motor matt?" proceeded the man in the car. carl's temper rushed to the surface. "don'd you make some insulding remarks neider!" he scowled. "modor matt don'd vas a putter-in! und i peen his chum, efery tay und all der dime, yah, so helup me." "motor matt came to denver with mr. james q. tomlinson, in mr. tomlinson's touring-car, the red flier?" proceeded the man in the car. "vat iss it your pitzness?" demanded carl. "motor matt has come here to enter the racing-field?" continued the other. "vell, he iss a pedder triver as anypody, und vy nod?" "he intends to apply to colonel plympton for a place on the stark-frisbie staff of racers? he wants to drive a car in the race for the bordon cup?" "i don'd say nodding. vatefer modor matt toes, he vill do, und it vill be pedder oof you leaf him alone." "carl pretzel," went on the man in the car sternly, "we have a line on this motor matt. he is the original buttinsky. wherever he goes he noses around for a place where he can meddle with other people's business. a week ago he was at his old tricks down in new mexico, and----" carl jumped to his feet angrily. "sit down!" commanded the fellow at his side, jabbing him with the muzzle of the gun. "ven i ged goot und retty," fumed carl, "i vill sot down, und nod pefore. i know vat i know, und i shpeak it oudt. make some holes in me oof you vant, aber i don'd t'ink you haf der nerf to make holes in anypody. modor matt don'd vas a puttinsky. dis iss a free goundry, i bed you, und no fellers in nighdt-gowns iss going to make some fault-findings mit my chum, modor matt. vat he do in new mexico? vy, he safe his friendt, tick verral, from being killed twice. dot's vat he dit mit his putting-ins. i don'd shday here no more und lis'en to sooch talk vat you make. vich iss der vay oudt? oof you don'd led me go, py shinks i make you more drouples as i can dell!" carl started toward the door. honk, honk! "seize him, drivers!" called the man in the car. "bind him, blindfold him, and place him in the car. assisted by the warder, i will carry him off. remain here, the rest of you, until we return and go into executive session." carl was grabbed by all the white-caps; then, after he had been thrown on the floor, his feet and hands were tied and a cloth was bound over his eyes. "pretzel," went on the voice of the man in the car, "we racing-drivers are particular about those who enter our ranks. if motor matt attempts to race for the borden cup, he will never live to face the tape at the start. in your pocket we will place a communication which you will deliver to him. it contains a threat and a warning. let him ignore that letter at his peril." "you fellers make me so dired as i don'd know!" stormed carl, struggling to free himself. "modor matt don'd vas a kevitter. vat you say don'd make no odds aboudt ter tifference. you vill know more vone oof dose tays dan vat you t'ink. pah! you vas all a back oof gowards, und don'd haf der nerf to show your faces! ven i dell modor matt vat----" honk, honk! "gag him, drivers, and lay him in the car!" something was pushed between carl's lips and tied there. he still continued to splutter, but the sounds were muffled and the words indistinct. he felt himself lifted and crumpled into the front of the roadster. "open the doors!" ordered the driver in the car. "number one, crank-up!" carl could hear the doors thrown ajar, and this noise was followed by the popping of the motor as the cylinders took the explosion. "remember what i say, drivers," called the leader of the gang, "and wait here for us to return. we have plans to consider." then the car moved off on the low gear. carl felt it turn through the entrance and chuggety-chug up an incline; another turn and they were in the alley, another and they were in the street. after that, for a few minutes, the vehicle flew swiftly. presently it halted, carl's ropes were stripped away, and he was thrown out. stumbling to his knees, he began frantically jerking off the cloth that covered his eyes, and the gag that interfered with his speech. the tail-light of the roadster was just vanishing around a corner. carl shook his fist after the car and got to his feet, saying things to himself. his novel experience had dazed him. it was all so unreal that it seemed like a dream. still muttering to himself, he made his way to the sidewalk, found a policeman, inquired his way to the clifton house, and set out hurriedly to find motor matt, and report. chapter ii. motor matt's foes. motor matt was in his room at the clifton house. late that afternoon he and carl had arrived in denver in the red flier, having brought mr. tomlinson, the owner of the car, and gregory, mr. tomlinson's driver, from santa fé. matt had been in charge of the touring-car for several weeks, having taken it in hand at ash fork, arizona.[a] he and carl had brought it alone as far as santa fé, where they had been joined by mr. tomlinson and gregory. [a] see motor stories no. 5, 6, and 7. the boys had had numerous adventures on the long trail, and not only they, but the car as well, had been placed in considerable peril. now, however, the dangers were past, the car--owing to matt's careful handling--had been placed in the garage in as good condition as when it had come into the young motorist's hands, and everybody was pleased--mr. tomlinson exceedingly so. the extra luggage belonging to the boys had been checked to denver from santa fé, and directly after supper matt had sent carl to the railroad station with the checks. matt, lounging in his room and waiting for carl to return, thought his chum was taking a long time to do his errand. the expressman brought the grips, but no carl came with them. it was half-past ten before carl came in. there was a bruise on the side of his face, his clothes were covered with dust and dirt, and he was puffed up like an angry robin. "great scott, carl!" exclaimed matt, taking the dutch boy's sizing with a quick glance; "did you have to have a fight with the baggage-smasher in order to get the grips? you look like you'd had a scrap!" "den," growled carl, "i look like vat it iss." he threw off his coat and cap, pulled down his red vest, and flung himself into a chair. "i haf hat more shcraps as vone, matt, und dot's all aboudt it. py shiminy, i peen so madt i don'd can see srtraight," and he went on to rehearse his experiences to the wondering matt. "sounds like a pipe-dream," commented matt, when his chum had finished. "instead of being in peaceful, law-abiding denver, you'd think we had struck a mining-camp. who was the fellow who met you at the station?" "he say dot his name vas higgins, aber i bed you dot don'd vas it, any more as my name vas dunder. 'you peen modor matt's bard,' he say, like dot, making some friendliness mit me, 'und i got somet'ing to tell vat modor matt shouldt hear. you valk mit me,' he say, 'und i tell you, und you tell matt.' vell, i pelieve vat i hear, und he shteers me py der alley. ach, it vas some put-oop chobs all der vay t'roo, you bed my life." "you didn't recognize higgins as being any one else?" "i reckognize him as being some plackguards, all righdt!" "i mean, you'd have known him for ralph sercomb, balt finn, joe mings, or harry packard if he had been one of them?" "sure; aber he don'd vas dot. he vas some odder fellers." "all those chaps were mixed up in the trouble we had down near lamy, in new mexico, while we were helping dick ferral. they're the only denver motor-racers i know who would have it in for me."[b] [b] see no. 7 of the motor stories, "motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto." "meppy dose vas der fellers, matt," said carl, "aber dey vore vite caps ofer der faces und i don'd vas aple to see oof dey vas." "sercomb and his pals were all motorists," mused matt. "but what good will it do for them to try to keep me out of the borden cup-race? i've got a chance to make a record by going into that race, and i'm going to get into it, if i can." "sure you vas going indo der race, bard, und dose sore-headts von't be aple to keep you oudt." "i'm not going to back-water for them." "dot's you," chuckled carl. "you vill be dwice as keen to ged in der race now as you vas pefore. dot's der vay modor matt iss pud oop! py shinks, you vas der pest all-orundt modor feller vat efer habbened----" "oh, splash!" laughed matt. "use the soft pedal, carl." "py chimineddy, i mean vat i say!" persisted carl. "you know more aboudt modors in a year as some odder fellers know in a minid, und----" "i guess that's right." "misder domlinson say dot you peen a crack racer, und dot you ged oudt oof a car all der speed vat vas in it." "well, hang onto your bouquets for a while and let's see that letter the white-caps gave you to deliver to me." "vouldn't dot gif you some grimps?" cried carl, reaching for his coat. "i vas forgeddng all aboudt dot ledder." he extracted a sealed envelope from his pocket and tossed it to matt. matt pulled his chair closer to the light and examined the envelope. he smiled grimly as he read, "'to buttinsky, otherwise matt king, otherwise motor matt. kindness of wienerwurst.' they're complimentary, that gang. eh, carl?" carl had been lifted out of his chair. "be jeerful, eferypody!" he muttered. "is dot vat iss saidt on der enfellop, matt? iss it me dey mean by dot 'wienerwurst' pitzness?" "of course! who else?" "ach, ven i ged dime you bed you i go looking for dot cellar blace some more, und ven i findt it, i rip dot society oop der pack like some cyclones! 'wienerwurst!' pringle call me dot, vonce, und i gif him hail golumpy in forty-'lefen keys. readt der ledder oudt loud, matt. oof it say anyt'ing more aboudt 'wienerwurst,' meppy i go hunt for dot cellar blace do-night!" "barking dogs are not always the ones that bite, carl," returned matt, opening the envelope and extracting the enclosed sheet. "i haven't a very high opinion of those friends of sercomb's, and i guess they'll be careful not to do anything very desperate." "vell, dey tied verral in der ret flier und shtart him for der cliffs. dot vas tesperade enough, ain'd it?" "they did that out in the wilds; but we're in denver now, and there's a policeman on every block." thereupon motor matt began to read. "if matt king thinks he can come to denver and butt into the racing game, he's some shy of the situation. the motor-drivers of this town are a little particular who they associate with. nearly all our members will be represented in the race for the borden cup, and king is warned to stay out of it. he is also ordered to leave denver inside of twenty-four hours, and to make no deal with colonel plympton, of the stark-frisbie company. _unless king follows instructions, something will happen to him._ a word to the wise is sufficient." "ach, iss dot so!" whooped carl. "'a vort to der vise,' hey? say, dot makes me madt as some horneds! i vonder oof dot punch oof plackguards t'ink dey boss der goundry? donnervetter! i vould like to gif der hull oudfidt a punch in der slads!" matt was thoughtful. "it's sercomb and his gang all right," he averred finally. "when i saw sercomb last, he swore he'd be even with me. he sent that letter, not because he doesn't want me in the racing game, but because he knows i won't pay any attention to his orders, and that it will give him an excuse to try some underhand work." "i vould like to knock dot sercomb's face indo his pack hair," fumed carl. "he vas a lopsder, a rekular rank-a-tang! und i bed you dot pefore he iss tone mit us he vill know dot he has peen mixed oop mit a gouple oof life vones. 'wienerwurst!' he mighdt as vell haf called me a sissage. i'll show him i don'd vas anyt'ing like dot. mings iss as pad as sercomb, und so iss packard, aber i ditn't t'ink finn vouldt shtand for any sooch vork. dere iss more as mings, packard, und finn mit dem, too." "sercomb has told his own story to the rest of the members of that club," said matt. "he has rubbed it into my character in pretty strong style, i suppose, and in order to get even with me, and have all the others on his side, he uses the race for the borden cup as a pretext." "vell, be jeerful, matt. it dakes t'ings like dose to keep a feller chinchered oop." "right you are, carl," laughed matt. "i'll get into that race, now, if it takes a leg." "sure!" cooed carl. "you vill be in it mit bot' feets efen oof vone leg iss gone. how iss dot for a choke?" "it may not be so easy to break into the game, after all." "eferyt'ing iss easy for modor matt," gloried carl. "you vill ged indo der game schust like falling off some logs. for vy nod?" "well, for one thing, i haven't any racing record behind me." "ach, hear dot! ditn't you beat oudt a limidet egspress drain mit a modorcycle? und hain't you peen racing pubbles efer since ve left ash fork?" "all that hasn't given me a racing record. when a manufacturer puts a twenty-thousand-dollar racing-car in the field, he wants to be more than sure that his driver has plenty of nerve and skill. about the only way he can be sure of that is by looking back over his record and seeing what he has done." "vell, let dem look pack so far as dey blease ofer your recordt. dey vill findt some surbrises, you bed you." "the race for the borden cup is only two weeks off, carl. the automobile club decided it was to be run over a kansas course, and limited to western machines. why, some of the contestants have already been on the scene of the race for a week!" "i don'd care for dot," averred carl stoutly. "you vill make goot schust der same. mindt vat i say." just then there came a rap on the door. matt answered the summons and found the bell-boy with a card. "colonel jasper plympton," ran the legend on the bit of pasteboard. matt caught his breath. colonel plympton was coming to see him! "ask him to come right up," said matt, turning away. "who it vas?" queried carl curiously. "plympton!" exclaimed matt exultantly. "he is hunting me instead of letting me go looking for him." carl wore a grin you could have tied behind his ears. "now vat vouldt dot sercomb gang say oof dey knowed dot!" he chuckled. chapter iii. suspicious doings. the stark-frisbie company, like most of the progressive automobile concerns, maintained a staff of racing-drivers. wherever there was a speed contest, a reliability run or an endurance trial, stark-frisbie cars were sure to be entered. in the early days of the industry, motor-racing was a sport. now it is rapidly being reduced to a business. "win at any cost," are the instructions a firm gives its drivers. if a driver makes a mistake he is condemned for all time, and the reputation of his employers suffers in the estimation of the public. for this reason the rule of winning at any cost is carried out strictly. colonel plympton was secretary of the stark-frisbie company, and had entire charge of its racing affairs. mr. tomlinson was an intimate friend of the colonel's, and had engaged to secure matt a position with his firm. matt, however, had never dreamed that colonel plympton would be so eager to secure a new driver that he would call at the hotel. presently the colonel entered the room. in appearance he was a good deal of a disappointment to matt, for he was somewhat slouchy and a little bit shabby. nevertheless, he had abundant dignity and an air of large importance. "mr. king?" queried the colonel, stretching out his hand toward carl. "vell," chuckled carl, "nood so you can nodice it. i peen modor matt's pard. here iss der main vorks," and he waved a hand toward matt. "howdy?" inquired the colonel, shaking matt's hand. "tomlinson told me about you not more than an hour ago. if ever the stark-frisbie company needed drivers of nerve and skill, they need them now. the race for the borden cup is only two weeks away, and we have only two drivers to qualify for it, while in such a contest it is our invariable rule to have at least three entries. one of our best men smashed up his car in the east and has just come out of the hospital. that eliminates _him_. after a close call like that, no driver ever keeps his nerve--he's a dead one so far as racing is concerned." the colonel had seated himself comfortably and drawn a fat cigar from a vest pocket. he paused to light it, his eyes glimmering at matt through the smoke. "i've never had an accident that made me lose my nerve, colonel plympton," said matt. "egad, i guess that's right," chuckled the colonel. "tomlinson has told me all about you, and i think you'll drop into our racing schedules like a top. anyhow, we're willing to start you off in the borden cup race, providing we can make a deal with you. we don't pay our racing drivers any salaries. whenever there's an important race, we pay the entrance fee, running from five hundred to two thousand dollars, and we furnish the driver with a specially constructed racing-car costing from twenty thousand to fifty thousand dollars. in addition, we pay the driver from two hundred to two thousand dollars for making the race, and if he wins he gets a bonus of from one thousand to eight thousand dollars--depending on the importance of the race to us. in the borden cup race the entrance fee is five hundred; we pay that, give you five hundred more to make the race, furnish you with a good racing-car, and give you a bonus of two thousand if you win." "hoop-a-la!" exulted carl. "dot means easy shdreed, mit a pig e. modor matt iss a vinner from vinnerville." matt was stunned by his good fortune. the position had come to him even before he had gone to the trouble to apply for it. "hiram borden," went on the colonel affably, "is a fine old sportsman. he's a millionaire several times over and lives in a little town called ottawa, in the sunflower state. he has been an enthusiastic patron of automobile racing, and of its development in the west, ever since the sport began. he's too old to race a car himself, but he travels all over this country and europe, keeping track of the contests. the cup he offered has been fought for for five years. stark-frisbie held it three years, hand-running. our factory is here in denver, so whoever wanted to take the cup away from us had to come here and race for it. our principal western competitors are bly-lambert, of kansas city. during the last colorado race, bly-lambert won the cup. we've tried twice to get it away from them, and as a token of appreciation of mr. borden, the third race is to be run on a circuit out of his home town." "are there only two competitors, colonel plympton?" asked matt. "there are a dozen or more competitors in each race, but stark-frisbie and bly-lambert build the fastest cars, and the issue is almost entirely between them. as soon as you sign on for the race, king, you'll have to start for kansas and spend the rest of the time becoming familiar with the course. the car i intend to let you have is already at ottawa. perhaps you had just as soon sign the paper to-night? in that event you can start for kansas in the morning." "your terms are satisfactory," said matt, "and i'll sign the agreement at once." "that's the spirit!" approved the colonel. he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to matt. "just read that over," he added. the paper was typewritten and set forth the terms already stated by the colonel, _i. e._, that matt was to be furnished with a racing-car, have his entrance fee paid, and was to receive $500 for making the run, and a bonus of $2,000 if he won. his own expenses, however, were to be borne by himself. while he was reading, the colonel was unlimbering a fountain-pen. "let me take the pen," said matt, laying the paper on the table. "you understand that thoroughly, do you?" asked the colonel, getting up and taking the paper from the table. "it's simple enough, colonel," returned matt. "all right, then. just sling your fist on the bottom line." the colonel leaned over, laid the paper on the table, and matt dashed off his signature. the colonel at once picked up the paper, blew on the ink to dry it, folded the document, and placed it in his pocket. "call at my office in the morning, king," finished the colonel, picking up his hat, "and i'll give you a letter to our head mechanic. good night, gentlemen," and the colonel sailed out. carl stared at the closed door, and began industriously pinching himself. "be jeerful, be jeerful!" he muttered. "vas i treaming, oder vas i vide avake? py chimineddy, matt, how luck climbs ofter itseluf to ged ad you! oof you don'd preak your neck, you vas on der high roadt to more money as vanderfeller or rockypilt efer hat. how easy dot vas! ach, du lieber! do i go mit you py gansas? shpeak it oudt, kevick!" before matt could "speak it out," however, the door fluttered open and a black face, topped with kinky white hair, was pushed into the room. matt stared. the eyes of the negro met his and a wide grin parted the black face. "by golly! mistah motah matt, suh, habn't yo' got nuffin' tuh say tuh yo' 'fishul mascot?" "why, uncle tom!" cried matt heartily, making a jump from his chair and grabbing the old negro by the hand. "come in, old fellow," he added, pulling him into the room. "where in the world did you drop from?" "unkle dom!" muttered carl. "vell, vouldn't dot gif you der chillplains!" "yah, yah, yah!" cackled uncle tom. "didun' 'low yo' was gwine tuh see me, huh? why, chile, ah done tole yuh when we pa'ted togethah, down dar in arizony, dat i'd be waitin' fo' yo' when yo' come er prancin' 'long. ah's yo' 'fishul mascot, marse matt, en ah's been doin' er monsus lot ob mascottin' fo' yo' while ah's been er waitin'. notice any luck comin' yo' way, sah? well, dat was me, jess er rootin', an' er rootin' all de hull blessed time. seen mistah tomlinson dis ebenin', en he say whah yo' was. ah'd been up heah befo', only ah was subsequentious to dat odder caller." uncle tom, beaming benevolently, slid into a chair and laid his old slouch hat on his knee. "how's eliza, and topsy, and legree, and little eva?" laughed matt. uncle tom had belonged to a road company. the company had been stranded, and matt had helped some of the members to get back to denver, uncle tom being among the number. "dunno nuffin' 'bout legree an' li'l eva," answered uncle tom, "but miss eliza she done gone on tuh chicawgo whah she done ketched anodder job on de stage. topsy's waitin' on de table fo' a swell denvah fambly, en ah's been promiscussin' erroun' er-waitin' fo' yo' tuh show up. ah's hia'd out tuh yo', sah, en while dar's lots o' white folks pesterin' me tuh mascot fo' dem, ah recomembahs ah's engaged tuh yo'. yo's er puffick gemman, en ob co'se ah's hooked up wif yo'. if yo' happens tuh have a lonesome dollah rattlin' erroun' en yo' pocket, mistah matt, uncle tom allow he could make friends wif it." "there you are, uncle tom," laughed matt, flipping a coin toward the old darky. "when does yo'-all want me tuh trabble wif yo', an' be right on de spot eb'ry minit tuh take care ob yo' luck? dishyer luck's mighty onnery sometimes, en hit takes er keen eye en er coon dat knows hits ways an' rambiffications tuh keep hit runnin' smoof. while dat 'ar no 'count ebenezer slocum was up heah talkin' wif yo', ah was tu'nin' all dat ober en mah min', yassuh. yo' see, marse matt, dat----" "ebenezer slocum?" interrupted matt. "who's he?" "dat loafer dat was jess in heah wif yo'." "loafer!" exclaimed matt. "you're 'way off, uncle tom. why, that was colonel plympton, secretary of the stark-frisbie company." "dat? him kunnel plympton? yo's wrong, sah. ah's mascotted fo' kunnel plympton er quatah's wuff evah race dey had run, en ah knows him lak ah knows mase'f. dat fellah dat was jess heah, ah tells yo' fo' suah, was ebenezer slocum, an' he ain't nuffin' mo' dan no 'count white trash, pickin' up er dollah whahevah he can lay his han's on hit. yassuh. we-all whats hones', en wuks fo' our money, looks down on slocum, we sho'ly does." carl had jumped to his feet and was standing in front of his chair, staring at motor matt. matt was dumfounded. why was ebenezer slocum impersonating colonel plympton? slocum's actions were suspicious, to say the least. chapter iv. a villainous plot. "hab yo'-all been makin' any dealings wif dat 'ar slocum, marse matt?" inquired uncle tom. "if he allowed tuh yo' dat he was kunnel plympton, den he's done complicated hisse'f all up wif whut dey calls petty la'ceny, en yo' kin sweah out er warrant en put him in de jug." "i don't believe it's as bad as that, uncle tom," said matt. "i'm pretty busy to-night, and if you can come around and see me some other time we'll have a little talk." "sho'ly, marse matt," replied uncle tom, getting to his feet and bending down to rub one of his legs that didn't seem to be acting just right. "de rheumatix hab been pesterin' me powerful bad evah sence dat 'sperience ah had down dar in arizony. yo' ain't gwine tuh cut me out ob mah job ob 'fishul mascot fo' yo', is yuh? yo' needs one all de time, sah, en ah 'lows dar ain't a bettah mascot dan whut ah is anywhah en de country. ah mascotted two dollahs' wuff fo' mistah tomlinson, en----" "we'll talk that over next time you come, uncle tom," interrupted matt. "just now i'm anxious to have a few words with carl." "sho'ly, sho'ly. well, marse matt, ah wishes yo' good ebenin', an' mistah carl good ebenin'. ah'll root fo' bofe ob yo' when ah gits back home. yo'-all kin expec' somethin' tuh happen in de mawnin'." the genial old fraud let himself out and closed the door carefully behind him. "chiminy grismus!" muttered carl, as soon as he and matt were alone. "vat sort oof a game iss dot slocum feller drying to blay? und vy iss he blaying it? uncle dom has shtirred oop somet'ing, i bed you." "it's a conundrum to me, carl," mused matt, leaning back in his chair. "that card of his was genuine enough, but, of course, it wouldn't be difficult for a man to get hold of one of colonel plympton's cards. still, the fellow didn't look as i imagined colonel plympton looks." "der offers vat he made vas fine und pig," said carl glumly. "meppy dot vas pecause he don'd got der righdt to make dem. aber vy he do dot?" "another thing," went on matt, following his own line of thought, "it wouldn't be likely that colonel plympton would come around looking me up. i want the job, and i'm the one to go to him. i ought to have suspected something, just from that." "vell, you peen hired, anyvay. i vonder how dot slocum feller vill oxblain vat he dit to der sdark-frispie peoples? meppy dey hired him to come aroundt? led's be jeerful, anyvays, undil ve know dot slocum vas blaying some crooked games. he say for you to come aroundt in der morning und he vould gif you a ledder py der masder-meganic vere der race iss to run. in der morning, matt, you vill findt oudt all aboundt it." "that's right, carl," answered matt, throwing off his worry as well as he could; "in the morning, when i call on colonel plympton, i'll find out if anything is wrong, and just what it is. now let's tumble into bed, pull covers, and try to forget that anything has gone wrong." the boys had had a hard day, and carl was snoring almost as soon as his head struck the pillow. matt, however, lay awake for some time, thinking over all that had happened since he and carl had reached denver. they had been in town only a few hours and yet matt's enemies had lost no time in beginning their treacherous work. carl's experience proved that the hostile drivers were organized, and that sercomb and his friends had prejudiced some of the other chauffeurs against him. ralph sercomb was unscrupulous. he felt that he had good reason to hate matt, and to try to play even with him, and he would go to any length in carrying out his despicable schemes. motor matt had for years been eager to make good as a racing-driver. he was at home with a gasoline-motor, and speed, to him, was its highest expression of power. the race for the borden cup offered him a chance to enter the racing field, and he was not the one to turn back from the goal simply because he was encountering a few difficulties at the start. "i'll get into that race," he muttered to himself resolutely, "and i'll make good." and with that resolve and conviction he fell asleep. next morning he was up early. arousing carl, they both got into their clothes and went down to breakfast. colonel plympton had his office in a building on sixteenth street. following breakfast, matt started to have his interview with the colonel. carl was left behind at the hotel. as matt turned into the office building, some one brushed past him, through the door. matt had only a casual glance at the form, but it seemed so familiar that he turned back to look after the man. to his surprise, he found the fellow turning for a glance at him. it was ralph sercomb. there was a grim, mocking smile on sercomb's face. he did not stop, but passed hurriedly on and lost himself in the crowd. sercomb had just been calling on some one in the building. could it have been colonel plympton? matt, somewhat thoughtful because of this unexpected encounter, got into the elevator and rode to the fourth floor. in the ante-room of colonel plympton's office he gave his name to a boy, and the latter vanished through a door marked "private." the boy was back in about a minute. "colonel plympton says he can't see you," was the report. "if he's busy," returned matt, "i'll wait until he can see me." "it won't do you no good, see?" said the boy. "he don't _want_ to see you. ain't that plain enough?" matt hesitated for a moment. he knew something must have gone wrong or he would not have met with such a reception. mr. tomlinson, a good friend of plympton's and of matt's, had promised the young motorist that plympton would give him a hearing. "was ralph sercomb just here?" asked matt. "sure he was," answered the boy; "he's one of the colonel's men, an' he's here a good deal. here! where you goin'?" matt had started for the door of the private room. paying no attention to the boy, he kept right on, opened the door and stepped into the inner office. a tall man, with gray hair and mustache, was sitting at his desk reading a newspaper. he looked up as matt entered. "well?" he demanded. "he come right in, colonel plympton," called the boy from behind matt. "i told him what you said." "ah!" plympton laid aside his paper, wheeled the chair about and gave matt his keen attention. "that was hardly the thing for you to do, king," said he. "when i say a thing i usually mean it." "i'm sure, sir," returned matt, "that you wouldn't have refused to see me if you hadn't been misinformed about some things connected with me. i beg your pardon for walking in on you uninvited, but you can hardly refuse to let me say a few words for myself, colonel plympton." there was something so steady and true in the lad's gray eyes, and something so frank and open about his face, that the colonel nodded toward a chair. "you might as well sit down, now you're in here," said he, "but i don't think anything you can say will change my opinion of you." "did mr. tomlinson speak to you about me?" asked matt, taking the chair. "he did--and warmly--yesterday afternoon. that made it all the harder for me to believe something that has just come to light." "ralph sercomb was just here?" "sercomb is one of our crack drivers, but i wouldn't have believed even him if he hadn't had proof of what he said in black and white." "sercomb is not a friend of mine----" "i have nothing to do with that, king. every fellow who amounts to anything is bound to make enemies." "i want to become a racer, colonel plympton, and i think, if i had a chance, that i could deliver the goods." "why don't you hook up with the bly-lambert people?" asked the colonel dryly. "you seem to have established a connection in that quarter." "i don't understand you," replied matt. "oh, come, come!" exclaimed plympton impatiently. "do you mean to sit there and tell me you didn't have a talk with slocum, last night?" "is slocum connected with the bly-lambert people?" "well, i should say so! if the kansas city men want to hire a fellow to throw a race, slocum is just the one to put the deal through for them." matt, who was beginning to see a little light in the queer tangle, laid the card slocum had sent up, the evening before, on the desk in front of the colonel. "is that your card, colonel plympton?" he asked. "undeniably," was the answer. "well, slocum sent that to me last night, and claimed to be you. i had never seen you, and, consequently, didn't know he was acting a part." "mighty complimentary to me, i must say," muttered the colonel, "to mistake slocum for myself. well, go on, king. what happened?" "slocum hired me to drive a car in the race for the borden cup. he offered me five hundred dollars for doing it, and a bonus of two thousand dollars if i won. and he hired me for the stark-frisbie company!" "hardly!" returned the colonel. "he had no authority. stark-frisbie are not dealing through such rascals as slocum." "i signed an agreement to that effect, anyway," went on matt. "did you read that agreement before you signed it?" "yes, sir." "then look at this. sercomb just brought it in." the colonel pulled a folded paper out of his desk and handed it to matt. the young motorist, taking the paper, opened it and read as follows: "for the sum of one hundred dollars, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, i agree to enter the borden cup race with a stark-frisbie car, and to do my utmost to throw the race in favor of the bly-lambert contestants. "signed, matt king." the white rushed into motor matt's face. with a gasp he dropped back into his chair, staring with wide eyes at colonel plympton. chapter v. matt goes trouble-hunting. no matter how firmly convinced colonel plympton had been regarding matt's treacherous intentions, the tremendous shock the note gave him was too real to be feigned. "isn't that your signature, king?" demanded plympton. "yes, sir, so far as i can see; but certainly i never signed any paper like that. i'm not that sort of a fellow, colonel plympton. did ralph sercomb deliver that paper to you?" "i don't know why i should make a secret of it. yes, he did; but it was because he had the interests of the stark-frisbie company at heart." "you're wrong, sir," said matt firmly. "this is a cut-and-dried plot, all the way through. sercomb has got it in for me, and this rascal, slocum, is helping him spoil my chances with the stark-frisbie company." the colonel's face hardened. "seeing how you took that note, i was ready to believe this the first time you ever laid eyes on it," said he, "but you are spoiling the good impression by blaming sercomb." "in a case like this i have to put the blame where it belongs." a blow in the face could not have dazed matt more than that note had done. now, however, his anger and indignation were coming uppermost. in his case, that always meant that his brain was clearing, and every muscle steadying itself to the tensity of a fore-stay. "i can't go into your private quarrels, king," said colonel plympton, "and even if you are innocent of any dealings with a representative of the bly-lambert people, after what has happened i couldn't conscientiously hire you. besides, you are virtually a stranger; you have never driven in a motor-race--which is vastly different from ordinary driving, and requires experience--and you are rather young to enter the racing field." "that isn't the point just now, colonel," said matt. "i am bound to get into that race for the borden cup, now, in order to show that my intentions are honest--and in order to prove that there is villainous work afoot and that some one is trying to make me the victim of it. i owe this to myself, and i also owe it to mr. tomlinson, who recommended me to you. that paper," and he pointed to the document which he had picked up and laid on the colonel's desk, "is not the one i thought i was signing. slocum juggled it around in the place of the other. i can see that, now that the contemptible plot has come out. do you know sercomb's handwriting, colonel?" "as well as my own." matt fished from his pocket the communication which carl had brought to the hotel. "please tell me if that is sercomb's writing," said he. "no," answered the colonel decidedly. "kindly read the note through, anyway. it will show a reason for this slocum plot." colonel plympton read the note through carefully, and with a considerable show of surprise. "where did you get that?" he asked. matt thereupon told how carl had been waylaid and taken to the meeting room of the drivers' club, of what had transpired there, and how carl had been turned loose in an unknown quarter of the town and sent to the hotel with the letter. "this is too incredible, king!" exclaimed the colonel. "it's the wildest kind of a yarn. no, i'm not disputing your word at all, but simply suggesting that some of the drivers may be having a little fun at your expense. that the racing men should band together to keep you out of the game is too outrageous for belief." "i thought myself it was all a bluff until this slocum business came out," said matt. he got up. "i'm going to get to the bottom of this, colonel," said he with a glint in his gray eyes, "and i'm going to drive a car in that kansas race. i should like to race for the stark-frisbie company, but, if that's impossible, i'll go in for whoever will give me a show." "i'm afraid it's impossible, king, so far as our people are concerned. i'm glad you came in here and had this talk with me, though, for i think a hundred per cent. better of you than i did before. i was thinking tomlinson had been deceived in you. i'll not tell him about this signed paper if you don't want me to." "i want you to, sir," returned matt earnestly. "i believe mr. tomlinson has too much confidence in me to take any stock in that thing." "you're going to kansas?" "yes, sir." "on your own hook?" "it seems that i'm not able to go any other way." "egad, i like your spirit, anyhow! when do you start?" "just as soon as i transact a little business with slocum, and a few others who need my attention." "well, good luck to you!" the colonel got up and took matt's hand. "you've got a way of inspiring confidence, and i wish i could do something for you, but i'm afraid it's out of the question. win that kansas race, though, and you'll have more offers to drive motor-cars than you can fill." matt experienced a sense of great relief as he left colonel plympton's office. he felt that he had accomplished not a little in ranging the colonel on his side. carl was waiting impatiently for matt, walking up and down the hotel office and keeping his eyes constantly on the windows that faced the street. as matt, in a quiet corner of the office, told about the treachery of slocum, carl's rage was so intense that it would have been ludicrous in any other circumstances. "ach, dot sgoundrel! dot fillian!" he wheezed. "oof i hat him here i vould make him t'ink a brick house hat fell on him! der plackguard! der tinhorn! led me go oudt und look for him!" carl jumped furiously from his chair, but matt caught him and pulled him back. "there's somebody else we're to look for, carl," said he. "who's dot?" "sercomb and his scheming friends." "yah, you bed you! ve vill findt dose fellers, und ven ve do findt dem ve vill ged some shtrangle-holts on dem und make dem say oudt vere iss slocum." "it's not often that i go hunting trouble," said matt grimly, "but that's what i'm going to do now." "how ve shtart it oudt, matt?" queried carl. "we'll look for that basement club-room." "yah, so, aber how ve findt dot?" "can't you take me to the alley where the gang set upon you?" "easy! afder dot, how ve going to findt dot cellar-blace? i had somet'ing ofer my headt ven i vas dook dere, und i don'd see nodding." "well, they had an automobile in the cellar. that means that the basement door was wide enough to take the machine in, and that there is an incline for the car to climb and descend. that will give us our clue. i'll warrant that there are not many basement doors of that description opening upon that alley." "pully!" murmured carl, almost overcome with admiration. "vat a headt it iss! matt, oof i hat a headt like dot, i vouldt haf rockybuilt backed off der poard." "let's confine our attention to backing sercomb off the board, and straightening out this tangle." matt got up. "come on, carl." "vill dere be anypody in der clup-room now? meppy dey don'd come togedder undil nighdt, und meppy nod efery nighdt, eider." "we'll go and try to find the place, anyhow," replied matt. "if there's no one there we'll go back again to-night." "pully!" as they left the hotel and carl led the way toward the street where he had been captured, the night before, he remarked with a chuckle: "oof i don'd vas aple to use my eyes lashdt nighdt you bed you i used my ears! i hear how dose raps vas gifen on der toor, und i can gif dem meinseluf schust der same vay." a ten minutes' walk carried the two boys to the mouth of the alley where carl had been set upon. "dis vas der site oof der shdreet, und dis vas der blace," said he. "dey must haf dook me oop dere," and he pointed. the alley was narrow and on both sides was lined with the rear walls of second-rate store-buildings. every building, so far as matt could see, had a door. the narrow passage was paved with brick, and this prevented matt from seeing the tracks which an automobile might have left on the surface of bare ground. slowly the boys walked along the alley, peering at the doors on left and right as they advanced. they were about half-way through the alley when they found what they were seeking, namely, a wide door at the foot of a steep incline. the descent was not more than two feet downward from the surface of the alley, and the wide door was set well back, so that the cut-out place would not interfere with teaming through the passage. "py shinks," whispered carl excitedly, "ve haf foundt der blace!" "no doubt of it," answered matt with a grim feeling of satisfaction. there were no windows in the basement wall of the building, and those in the upper stories were dusty and cobwebbed. softly matt descended to the door at the foot of the incline and motioned for carl to follow. the dutch boy gained his side. "now rap," said matt, "and see how good an imitation you can give of what you heard last night." carl drummed the peculiar tattoo. there was no response. after waiting a little he drummed it again, but louder. this, somewhat unexpectedly, brought an answer. "who approaches?" demanded a muffled voice from within. "tell him 'two drivers oof racing-cars,' matt," whispered carl. "my voice vouldt gif me avay." "two drivers of racing-cars," called matt. "give me the countersign." "four speeds forvard und vone referse," whispered carl. matt repeated the words. instantly the door was opened and a young man of twenty-two or three stood in front of the boys. with a bellow of rage carl jumped forward. "higgins! oof it ain'd! now vatch, higgins, vile i show you der peautiful aurora porealis, und der leedle shooding shdars, und der comics. dis meeding makes me so habby as i can't dell!" chapter vi. higgins tells what he knows. higgins seemed to be the only member of the club about the place. the inner doors were open, and the racket which carl stirred up by his attack did not draw any one through them. higgins was very much surprised. carl's attack was so suddenly made that he was thrown from his feet. "vas it you dot wrode dot ledder," fumed carl, "und saidt in it dot i vas a 'wienerwurst?' ach, blitzen, i make you t'ink i peen a volgano mit an erubtion. i bed someding for nodding you don't fool some more dutchmans!" higgins, unable to protect himself from the frantic dutchman, began begging for mercy. "that will do, carl," said matt. "leave him alone. we seem to have him all to ourselves and it's a good chance for a little heart-to-heart talk." matt sat down on a chair beside the open alley door and carl appropriated an empty beer keg. it was evident that the members of the drivers' club were of a convivial nature. higgins, nursing the back of his head and a bruise on the side of his face, leaned against the wall and peered sullenly at matt and furiously at carl. "where's the rest of the gang, higgins?" asked matt. "what's it to you?" flared higgins. "that's your mood, is it?" said matt. "carl, go and get a policeman. we can put this fellow in jail for what he did last night." carl got up and started for the door. "on der chump!" said he, knowing well enough that matt was bluffing in the hope of drawing higgins out and making him more communicative. "wait a minute!" called higgins. "what do you want to mix the police in this thing for? you'll only be making trouble for yourselves, and you can't bother me very much." "i know what we can do," answered matt sternly. "go on, carl." "here, hold up!" begged higgins, showing signs of alarm. "can't we straighten this out somehow?" "we might, higgins, if you want to talk." "what is it you want to know?" "when will the rest of your gang be here?" "not before three weeks or a month." "where are they?" "gone to kansas to get ready for the race." "ach, vat a luck!" groaned carl. "when did they leave?" went on matt. "nine o'clock this morning." "who went?" "patsy grier, tobe martin, balt finn, ralph sercomb, harry packard and joe mings." "they all belong to the club, eh?" "yes." "who's the club's boss?" "grier." "are all those you named going to take part in the race for the borden cup?" "yes." "do they all drive for stark-frisbie?" "i should say not! sercomb, mings, and packard are the only stark-frisbie men." "who do the others drive for?" "bly-lambert." "where's slocum?" "he went with the rest." "is he working for bly-lambert, too?" "no, he's working for slocum." "who was it got slocum to call on me last night?" "i don't know anything about that," answered higgins shiftily. "i was the last member to join the drivers and they don't put me wise to very much that's going on." "it's plain," said matt, "that you don't intend to talk. you'd better go on, carl," he added to his dutch chum, "and get the officer." "wait!" clamored higgins. "i'll make a clean breast of everything. sercomb put up the deal with slocum. i don't know what the deal was, nor how it was worked, but sercomb was the fellow behind it. i'm new in the club, as i said, and you wouldn't have caught me here this morning if sercomb hadn't asked me to come and pack up some of his traps to go by express." "the outfit went to ottawa, kansas?" pursued matt. "yes. that's where borden lives, and----" "i know about that." matt got up. "we've found out enough, carl," said he, "and let's go. as for you and your friends," and here matt turned sternly on higgins, "tell them to be a little careful. i know their game, and i'm going to fight it right from the drop of the hat." with that matt turned on his heel and left the basement. when he and carl had reached the street carl expressed his doubts as to whether higgins had told the truth. "i'm pretty sure he gave it to us straight, carl," answered matt. "the gang, almost to a man, will drive in that race, and it's high time they were on the ground. sercomb probably went direct to the railroad station after he left colonel plympton's office this morning." "vat you going to do, hey?" "i'm going to kansas, too." carl began to get excited. "und me?" he asked; "vere do i come in?" "you're going along, of course. while i hunt up mr. tomlinson and have a talk with him, you go to the hotel, pay our bill and get our grips. meet me at the station." "hoop-a-la!" exulted carl. "ve vill carry der var righdt indo dem odder fellers' gamp, i bed you. dot's der shduff!" mr. tomlinson's wholesale jewelry establishment was on seventeenth street. after leaving carl, matt made his way directly to the store. to his intense disappointment he found that mr. tomlinson had been called out of town by the sickness of a relative and would probably not be back for two or three days. matt had planned on telling mr. tomlinson all about what had happened since he and carl had reached denver; but that was impossible now, and he would have to let colonel plympton do the telling. so far as the result was concerned, matt was not doing any worrying about the way mr. tomlinson would receive the news of slocum's trickery. what the young motorist had wanted, however, was to point out to mr. tomlinson a fact that he had not mentioned to plympton. this was, that, unless there had been collusion between slocum and sercomb, the latter would not have been able to secure the alleged agreement which matt had signed. if slocum had been acting in good faith for the bly-lambert people, he would have hung onto the agreement; and if he had not been acting in good faith, the whole affair at once resolved itself into a plot of sercomb's. colonel plympton, matt had reasoned, was probably keen enough to see that for himself. just what effect it would have on him matt could not know, but even a shadow of suspicion, although unwarranted, would be enough to throw a driver out of the borden cup race. matt had made up his mind that he could not race for stark-frisbie. if he did, and lost, there might always be a feeling that there had been something in the slocum business after all, and that he had thrown the race. the chances to drive a car for the bly-lambert people, on the other hand, did not seem at all flattering. they had taken three races from the stark-frisbie firm, and quite likely the drivers who had been successful in those contests would be the ones to drive in the present race. mr. tomlinson, matt had been thinking, might know some one connected with the other manufacturers who had entered cars, and could perhaps have given him a letter of introduction that would have been of use. now matt found himself thrown upon his own resources, and, strange as it may seem, felt easier in his mind. being forced to rely wholly upon himself, he marshaled all his grit and determination, and resolved to see the game through for its own sake. there is a pleasure in accomplishing things without the help of a "pull" or a "push," and matt's blood was already tingling over the prospect of exciting events in kansas. at noon he was at the station, and had bought tickets for carl and himself. carl was in the waiting-room with the grips. "vat dit misder domlinson haf to say?" the dutch boy inquired. "he's out of town, carl," answered matt. "tough luck!" "i don't know about that. there's a pleasure as well as an advantage in going it alone, on your own hook. a fellow can't keep keyed up when he's leaning on somebody else; but when he's depending on himself, he knows he has to be fit and ready for whatever comes his way." "meppy dot's righdt. anyvays, matt, you vill make goot. i know dot pedder as i know anyt'ing. dot sercomb und his crowd vill be surbrised, i bed you, ven dey see us come valking in on dem out in dot gansas blace. oof dey make some rough-houses, dey vill findt dot ve're fit und retty for dot, anyvays." just at that moment a voice boomed through the waiting-room announcing that the east-bound train was ready. matt and carl, picking up their luggage, started at once for the train-shed. from the sidewalk higgins had been watching them through a window. as the two chums left the waiting-room higgins slid in, his eyes wide with astonishment. "they're going east," he muttered. "i wonder if they can be on their way to kansas? what good will it do king to go there, after being turned down by colonel plympton?" this was too hard a nut for higgins to crack. he tried to find out, at the ticket window, what place matt and carl had booked for, but a good many people had bought tickets and the agent had not noticed matt and carl particularly. baffled in this move, higgins stepped to a telegraph office and despatched the following message: "ralph sercomb, on limited train no. 10, dodge city, kansas: king and his dutch pal left denver on east-bound train at noon. unable to ascertain their destination. higgins." "that puts it up to sercomb," muttered higgins as he paid for the message and turned away. "i'll bet there'll be warm doings in kansas before long." chapter vii. brisk work at dodge city. matt and carl had to change cars at a place called la junta, and there was a tedious wait. in due course, however, they resumed their journey, slept out the night in a sleeping-car and got out at dodge city for breakfast. the train halted for twenty minutes to give the passengers a chance to eat. this stop was to prove an exciting twenty minutes for matt and carl. just as they were moving with a crowd of other hungry passengers toward the door of the eating-house a shabby and seedy personage strolled out, chewing a toothpick. carl let off a whoop. "slocum, py shinks!" he called. slocum gave a jump and started to run. matt and carl at once trailed after him. the passengers on the station platform got out of the way and stood and gaped at the flight and pursuit. they could not understand what it all meant, of course, and, while it was sufficiently exciting to claim their attention, there was only twenty minutes allowed them for breakfast, and they could not waste much time. when the shabby man, with the two boys hot after him, had vanished around the corner of the station-building, the passengers began filing into the eating-room. to say that matt was startled to catch a glimpse of slocum would describe his feelings too mildly. if slocum had taken an early train with the rest of the drivers, what was he doing there in dodge city? he should have been several hours further along the road. matt was not looking for more trickery. the fact that higgins had watched him and carl in denver, and had sent a message to sercomb, was, of course, unknown to the young motorist. had that point been brought to matt's attention he might have suspected something underhand in this strange appearance of slocum. slocum's legs were long and he was making good use of them. after whirling around the corner of the station, he set off across the tracks toward some trees and bushes that lined the edge of the switch-yard. matt and carl were overhauling the rascal steadily, and were not more than a dozen feet behind him when he vanished into the bushes. matt led carl by a yard, and when matt had crashed through the brush and into a little cleared space, slocum was still out of sight. directly in front of matt was a small tool-house such as a section-gang uses for storing tools and hand-cars. the door of the tool-house was swinging wide, and an open padlock hung in a staple at the edge of the opening. as matt stood for a second looking at the tool-house, he fancied he heard a stir inside the small building and a sound of whispering voices. he felt sure that slocum had gone into the tool-house, and that there was some one else there. the secrecy with which the quick whispering had been carried on aroused matt's suspicions. had slocum been informed in some manner that matt and carl were on their way east? and had he stopped off the other train to carry out some other treacherous scheme of sercomb's? it looked very much to matt that this was the case, and as though slocum had secured some one to help him. slocum had made a bee-line for the tool-house, and it might be that he had had a confederate waiting for him there, and was intending to run the boys into some sort of a trap. all this flashed through motor matt's brain in the space of a breath. by the time carl came crashing to his side matt had canvassed his suspicions and laid a counter-plan. "vere iss dot feller, matt?" panted carl. "i think he's gone off through the brush," replied matt. "nix, bard; i bed you dot he has gone indo der leedle house." "we'll look in the brush first," returned matt, giving carl a significant glance and pushing him away toward the rear of the tool-shed. matt's talk was all for the benefit of those who might be listening. carl could not understand his chum's tactics, but he understood very well that he had something important at the back of his head. as carl moved off around the rear of the tool-house, matt proceeded quickly and softly toward the front. close to the open door he paused. "they'll get away from us, ralph!" came to him in an excited whisper. "no, they won't, joe!" answered an equally guarded voice. "they'll look around toward the rear of the shed and then they'll come in here. be ready to down 'em the minute they show up in the doorway. we'll fasten 'em in here and they won't be able to get out until night." "but if we lose that train----" put in another voice, only to be interrupted by sercomb's. "lose nothing, balt! the train stops twenty minutes, and we'll get back to the station in good time." "gad," muttered the voice of slocum, "higgins gave us a hot tip. you ought to've seen those chaps when they set eyes on me. that dutchman would have eaten me up if i'd let him get close enough." "i knew they'd chase you," went on sercomb. "i don't think we're gaining anything, even at that," struck in the voice of packard. "we jump off the other train and delay ourselves just to set king back a train." "trueman, of the jarrot automobile company, has a car in the race and he's not satisfied with his driver. i don't want king to work in there, and i intend to see trueman and put one of our boys in his car. if we'd stayed on that other train we'd have reached ottawa in the night. on this train we'll reach our destination in the morning, and i'll have a chance at trueman before king shows up. if----" matt overheard that much, and his astonishment can perhaps be imagined better than described. sercomb was plotting, as usual, and not only was he in the tool-shed with slocum, but joe mings and harry packard and balt finn were there as well. the talk between the drivers came to a sudden close as carl, impatient to find out what matt was doing, ran around the other side of the shed. matt started to close the door. it was held open by a stone and resisted his efforts. while he was kicking away the stone those inside the shed scented trouble and made a break for the doorway. "don't let them get out, carl!" shouted matt. "keep them in. they laid a trap for us, and we'll spring it on them!" "hoop-a-la!" cried carl, striking out with his fists. if there was one thing carl pretzel loved more than another it was a fight; and now there was not only a chance to have a brisk skirmish with the enemy, but also to turn the tables on them. the dutch boy's heart was in his work, and he planted one effective blow after another, as fast as he could move his arms. matt jumped to his aid. fists shot out of the doorway only to be countered and beaten back. the opening was wide enough for the passage of a hand-car, but not wide enough for all those in the shed to break through side by side. slocum, by the shift of circumstances, was juggled to the front of the struggling drivers. matt grabbed him and hurled him against those behind. sercomb and packard tumbled to the floor with slocum on top. this left finn and mings battling fiercely in the entrance. matt launched a blow, straight from the shoulder, that drove mings back against the inner wall; then, as carl sparred with finn, matt pulled the door toward him. "out of the way, carl!" matt shouted. the dutch boy slipped aside and matt slammed the door shut in finn's face. finn began to push, calling on the rest of his comrades to bear a hand. carl, while matt was tinkering with the heavy hasp and padlock, threw his weight against the door on the outside. another moment and the padlock was snapped into place, leaving those inside practically helpless. "cock-a-tootle-too!" crowed carl. "how you like dot, you fellers? dot's vonce, by chincher, you got more as you pargained for, hey? meppy you vill findt oudt, vone oof tose tays, how modor matt does t'ings, yah, i bed you!" "let us out of here!" bellowed sercomb, as frantic fists pounded on the door. "we want to go east on that train." "so do we," answered matt, "and you'd have kept us from it if you could. turn about is fair play, sercomb. i'll reach ottawa in time to see this man trueman, whom you were talking about. much obliged for the tip. you fellows can follow on the train carl and i would have had to take in case you had been successful and locked us in there." "let us out, king," bawled mings, "or you'll be sorry you didn't! take that from me!" "i've taken a whole lot from you fellows already, mings," answered matt, "and i'm getting tired of it. if i can ever catch slocum he'll tell all about that trickery of his in the clifton hotel, or he'll wish he had." "dot's righdt!" put in carl. "you vas a lot oof schmard alecs, und pooty kevick you vas going to findt oudt dot it don'd pay to act like vot you dit. dere iss so many oof you dot you von't be lonesome in dere, und ven you come py oddawa, modor matt und i vill meed you mit der pand. ach, you vas a fine punch oof grafders!" the door shook and shivered as those inside the shed hurled themselves against it; but it was strongly put together and the baffled drivers could not break it down or force it open. carl, shaking with enjoyment, stood off and watched the door bulge outward and rattle back into place. presently the attack ceased. "look here, king," called the breathless voice of sercomb, "if you'll let us out of here we'll agree to quit bothering you. ain't that fair enough?" "i'm not making any terms with you, sercomb," replied matt. "you're too tricky to be trusted." just then the engine bell set up its clangor and, from the distance, came the warning "all aboard!" of the conductor. "dot means us, matt!" cried carl. turning away from the shed the boys dashed through the fringe of bushes and off across the tracks. as they bounded to the station platform the last car of the train was flickering past. carl gained the steps of the last car at a flying leap, and matt was close behind him. the train rolled eastward, and the boys, leaning across the hand-rail and breathing themselves, watched the little patch of brush and timber encircling the tool-shed fade from sight. "be jeerful, eferypody!" jubilated carl. "ve missed our preakfast, aber it vas vort' der brice. hey, matt?" chapter viii. matt interviews trueman. ottawa is as pretty a little town as there is in all kansas. the streets are wide, and level, and shaded, and through the town runs the historic marais des cygnes, the "river of swans"--so named by the ancient french explorers. at this time the eyes of the western automobile world were turned upon that part of kansas, and representatives of more than a dozen alert motor-car manufacturers were located in ottawa, all busily preparing for the great race. long, lean racing-cars darted through the streets, passing back and forth between the town and forest park. from in front of the grand stand in the park the race was to start, describe a fifty-two mile circuit out across the prairie country and return to the race track. the race was to be six times around the circuit, comprising a total distance of three hundred and twelve miles. were the bly-lambert people to keep the borden cup, or would stark-frisbie take it away from them? this was the all-important topic, and was under discussion everywhere. none of the other contestants seemed to be considered. everybody, from past performances on the western racing field, seemed to think that no one else had a chance. matt and carl reached ottawa in the early morning. as soon as they had washed the stains of travel from their faces and eaten their breakfast they sallied forth to take in the situation at close quarters. each contestant had a garage of his own. in these garages the racing machines were jealously guarded, and about the cars the mechanics were constantly tinkering, making changes here and there as the experience of the drivers continued to suggest. only actual trials over the course could show what was needed and what was superfluous, and since the weight of each car must be limited, great care had to be exercised in making changes. by inquiring of people they met, the boys learned that the stark-frisbie people had their garage across the river, in north ottawa, while the bly-lambert folks were as far away in the other part of town as they could get. the racing talk was in evidence everywhere, the merits and demerits of the various machines giving cause for many warm arguments. there was something about the talk, the sight of the darting cars, and the general air of suppressed excitement that got into the blood. carl was bubbling over with enthusiasm, and matt, stirred as he had never been before, was more than ever determined that he would be in the race. twenty-one cars had been entered. among them were several touring cars, their owners being willing to pay the entrance fee just to gratify their sporting instinct--for no touring car could ever win against those high-powered racers, stripped for action and ready to hurl themselves over the course with every ounce of power in their cylinders. "py chimineddy!" expanded carl, "i vish dot i knowed der carburettor from der shpark-plug. oof i dit, i bed you i vould be in der racings meinseluf." matt's particular desire was to locate trueman, of the jarrot automobile company. he found him at last in a little private garage belonging to one of the wealthy residents of the place. the door of the garage was wide open, and the nose of a red racer could be seen inside. excited voices could be heard coming from within the garage. "confound your superstitions!" cried an angry voice. "if you happen to walk under a ladder on the day of the race, glick, i suppose you wouldn't drive for me, eh?" "i'll be careful about doing that when the race is pulled off, trueman," returned another voice. "luck plays the biggest kind of a part in a game like this, and i don't intend to hoodoo myself by taking the car out on friday. we've already been over the course four times, and what's the use of going over it again to-day?" "every time the course is gone over it helps you just that much. taking the race from stark-frisbie and bly-lambert is no cinch. we have only one car in the race and they have three each. but this red racer of ours can win, providing you learn the course well enough. will you go out?" "i'll go out of the garage and back to the hotel," and a slim, lightly built young fellow came through the doorway, paused to light a cigarette, and then moved off toward the main street. a stout man of about forty, in automobile cap and coat, stepped to the door and glared after the retreating driver. he was greatly wrought up, and started to say something but bit the words off short. when the driver reached the sidewalk and vanished nonchalantly around a building, the man in the garage door turned his eyes on matt and carl. "of all the superstitious fools that ever lived," he cried wrathfully, "i think that man glick takes the bun. he can handle a car better than any man i ever saw, but here he hangs up our day's work simply because this happens to be friday!" "are you mr. trueman, of the jarrot company?" asked matt. "my name, yes, sir," and trueman gave matt a more careful sizing. "well, i'm a driver. why not let me take you over the course?" trueman shook his head. "we were going over it for glick's benefit," said he, "not mine. who are you, young man, and where do you come from?" matt introduced himself, and presented carl. "have you ever driven a racing-car?" asked trueman, the boy's bearing and talk impressing him more and more. "no," replied matt, "but i'm confident i could do it. i've had a lot to do with gasoline-motors, and i've driven a good many cars." "come in here and look at this one," said trueman. "properly driven, i'll bet money we have a car that can walk away from anything stark-frisbie or bly-lambert have in the race." matt walked into the garage and looked over the red racer. it was a chain-driven, ninety-horse-power machine, and had the savage "get-there" look of a car that, run to the limit, could be made to win. "glick knows how i depend on him," remarked trueman, "so he does about as he pleases. we're giving him a thousand dollars to make the race, and a bonus of two thousand if he wins. if he doesn't spill the salt, or meet a cross-eyed man, or run into a post, he'll stand up under the strain and acquit himself in good shape." "i don't want to take any man's job away from him, mr. trueman," said matt, "but if anything happens that glick doesn't make the race, i'd like a chance to show you what i can do." but still trueman shook his head. "you've never been in a race, king," said he, "and while you may know a car from a to izzard, yet driving fifteen hundred pounds of machinery to win is an altogether different proposition. however, you might take me out in the racer and let me see what you can do. we won't go over the course, but will ride out south of town. just a half-hour's spin, that's all." matt twisted the crank and was pleased with the quickness with which the cylinders caught the explosion. trueman had already got into the mechanic's seat, and matt lost no time in climbing in beside him. "wait for me here, carl," said he, as the racer glided out of the garage. unless there is a certain sympathy between the driver and the machine he controls, it is impossible to get out of a car all that is in it. in most cases this bond between driver and car has to be acquired by long and patient practise with the same machine; but, in rare instances, a driver, the instant he places himself at the steering wheel, is able to get completely _en rapport_ with the complicated engine under his control. drivers of this sort are born, not made--and matt king was one of them. during that half-hour's spin over the flat country south of ottawa, motor matt aroused trueman's outspoken admiration. there were stretches where matt drove at the highest rate of speed, where he rounded dangerous corners with the skill of a master-hand, and the clutch went in and gears were changed so swiftly and smoothly that no jarring note broke the steady humming of the cylinders. "you're a crack-a-jack!" averred trueman when they were once more headed through town for the garage; "but going out on a little junket like this is vastly different from racing." "i don't believe i'd get rattled if there were racing-cars all around me," returned matt with a quiet laugh. while the car was being put back in the garage trueman was silent and thoughtful. when the throb of the machinery was finally stilled, and the two got out of the car, trueman turned to clap matt on the shoulder. "i'm going to keep you in reserve," said he. "if glick kicks over the traces, and throws up his hands, i may fall back on you as a last resort." "meanwhile," returned matt, "i'm going to be on the look-out for a car. i'm going to be in that race, and if i have a chance you can't blame me for taking it." "not at all, not at all. i like your driving, though, and if i was sure you wouldn't lose your head with cars all around you and dust so thick you can't see the bonnet, i don't know but i----" he broke off reflectively. "well," he finished, "we'll see what happens." matt and carl drifted back through the town. several cars were just coming in from the circuit, their drivers and mechanics begrimed with dust and oil. "it vas a gredt game, i bed you!" breathed carl. "i hope dot der suberstitious feller meeds oop mit a plack cat or somet'ing, so dot you ged his chob, matt." "i'm going to race for somebody," answered matt, "even if i have to go over the course in a touring car. i never had the fever like i've got it now." "me, neider," grinned carl. "led's go pack to der hodel und hunt for some tinner." that afternoon the two chums passed quietly on the hotel porch, listening to the racing talk that was going on all around them. it was about five o'clock when a boy came hurriedly to the hotel and disappeared inside the office. a few moments later the clerk came out of the office and gave matt a letter. "that's for you, mr. king," said the clerk. "the boy says he's waiting for your answer." matt tore open the letter and read as follows: "king: places were drawn for the start this afternoon, and, as luck (or ill-luck) would have it, i got number thirteen. that's the number that goes on the car. glick refuses to race. can i depend on you, same terms glick was to receive? answer yes or no, quick. "trueman." motor matt's heart gave a bound, and a thrill ran through his nerves. turning to the boy who was standing beside his chair, he cried, "tell mr. trueman he can depend on me, and that my answer is yes!" at just that moment a party with their grips in their hands were ascending the steps to the porch. they were sercomb, and the others, who had been left in the tool-house in dodge city. each of them gave matt and carl a sour look as he tramped on into the hotel. chapter ix. no. 13. nothing will rack the nerves of a superstitious man like the number "13." taking a car out on friday was as nothing compared to driving a car with such a hoodoo number. glick had balked, but he did not entertain any hard feelings toward matt for engaging to drive the car in his stead. when matt left the hotel next morning and started for the garage to meet mr. trueman, glick met him and walked part of the distance at his side. "maybe you'll think i'm a fool," said he, lighting a cigarette, "and i know trueman does, but i've seen too much of this number thirteen business to have anything to do with a car that's marked up for a dozen and one. that car of trueman's hasn't a ghost of a show to finish the course, say nothing of making a win. it'll go to smash, and if you're in it you'll go to smash, too. take my advice and keep away from it." "the number doesn't bother me," laughed matt, "and i'm only too glad to get the chance to drive in the race." "well," sighed glick, "i'm sorry for you, king. you won't have any hard feelings toward me if the car puts you in the hospital?" "well, i should say not!" exclaimed matt. "i was afraid you might have it in for me for taking the car." "not at all," said glick heartily. "i admire your nerve, but i think your judgment is mighty poor. i wouldn't get into that car in this race for five thousand dollars." when glick left matt the latter hurried on. trueman was waiting at the garage, and he caught the lad's hand in a cordial grip. "glick went back on me sooner than i had expected," said he. "when he quit, yesterday afternoon, he told me that if the drawing hadn't been on friday i wouldn't have got number thirteen. what an idiot! there are twenty-one cars in the race and some one had to have that number. my hopes are all wrapped up in you, king. if you want a start in the racing business, win the cup for the jarrot folks." "if the car has the speed, and no accident happens to the motor, we'll win," declared matt. "i'll watch the other twenty cars and find out just which ones we have to fear. now we'll go over the course and begin a practical study of it." "where's your dutch friend?" inquired trueman as they left the garage. "he's keeping track of some other friends of mine," laughed matt, "who would like to sidetrack me and put me out of the running." then, as they rode through town, across the bridge and to the park, matt told of his troubles with sercomb and his friends, and how trickery had prevented him from getting in the race for the stark-frisbie people. matt felt that trueman should know all about that phase of the matter, and he went into it in detail. to his surprise trueman reached over and grabbed his hand. "you're just the fellow to make a showing in this race, king," said he earnestly, "and, speaking from a selfish point of view, i wouldn't have your personal relations any different. sercomb is the fellow you'll have to beat, for he's stark-frisbie's crack man, and stark-frisbie have a car in this race that's going to walk away from all three of bly-lambert's. the surest way for you to down sercomb, and give him his due, is by beating him; it's the only way, too, for you to prove to colonel plympton that the deal sercomb says you made with the bly-lambert people is all moonshine. sercomb has run losing races for the last three years, but this year plympton has given him a car that's the fastest thing on wheels--excepting our own number thirteen." "if it's in this car, mr. trueman," answered matt with a flash of resolution, "i'll be the first man over the tape at the end of the last round." reaching the park and the race track, matt drove the car to the position from which the start was to be made. halfway around the track they went to a place where a section of the high board fence had been removed. here the course led out of the park grounds and struck into a level sweep of road that led toward the river. where the road turned to follow the river bank a sharp curve had to be negotiated. after that, for some four or five miles, the road wound easily through the trees. "you may have trouble here, king," said trueman. "when the dust is thick and racing-cars are ahead and behind you, it would be the easiest thing in the world to swerve a shade too far and butt into a tree." "we'll have to look out for that," replied matt, his keen eyes watching every part of the way as they went along. there was another hard turn where the course left the river road, but from that on there were twenty miles of level prairie, with packed earth like asphalt under the wheels. the car reeled off sixty miles an hour on this stretch, and would hardly have overturned a glass of water placed on the flat top of the hood. the end of the twenty miles brought them to a village called le loup. here the road bent to the north and east and climbed a long low hill, gradually changing its course to the south. just over the hill was a collection of shanties near a coal mine, and known locally by the name of coal run. from coal run back to the break in the park fence, the course was south and west, splendid going all the way. when the track was reached matt let the car out on the way to the starting point. at that place the first accident happened, and the left-hand chain flew off, hurtling through the air for fifty feet and landing in the paddock. matt brought the car to a halt without accident, found the chain, brought it back and adjusted it with a fresh link. we'll have to get on a new set of chains," frowned trueman. an accident like that during the race might put us out of it." "accidents are always liable to happen," said matt. "if they come we'll have to make the best of them." they went over the course a second time, matt forcing the car and bringing it in in sixty-five minutes from the start. "you'll do!" declared trueman. "i feel a whole lot easier with you in the car than i ever felt with glick. now let's go back to the garage. we've done enough for one morning." "how many men are there at the garage in charge of the car?" asked matt. "two--the best we have in the st. louis works." "you can depend on them?" "every time and all the time. why?" "the car must be watched night and day, mr. trueman," said matt earnestly, "for there's no telling what sercomb and his gang might try to do." "they're not afraid of the jarrot cars, king," returned trueman. "we haven't cut much of a figure in these western races so far." "well, you're going to cut a big figure in this race, mr. trueman, for it's my opinion you have the car to do it." for a week after that matt went over the circuit every morning, studying it thoroughly. having a retentive memory, he came to know every part of it as he knew his two hands. sometimes mr. trueman went with him, and once carl went along. but one trip was enough for carl. the way matt hurled the car through the air gave the dutch boy an experience that he never forgot. carl made up his mind that he'd rather hear the racing talk than take part in the race itself. in one respect, the number thirteen bore out its unlucky significance, for matt did not make a trial ride around the circuit that something did not go wrong, and several times he averted a bad accident only by his quickness and presence of mind. on one ride the feed-pipe between the gasoline-tank and the carburetor became clogged, and he had to disconnect it and clean it; another time a tire blew up; and again, it was the chain, once more flying off and missing his head by an uncomfortably narrow margin. the car certainly seemed to be working through a very severe case of "hoodoo." mr. trueman was vastly exercised over these mishaps. he was beginning to feel as though there was something radically wrong about the car's construction, and that its chance of running well in the race, say nothing of winning, was decreasing to the vanishing point. but matt was not greatly disturbed. "we're having all our troubles during the trials, mr. trueman," he explained, "and when the race comes we'll go over the course the six times without a hitch. stage people say that when the last dress rehearsal goes badly the first performance is always sure to go smoothly." although trueman admired matt's spirit, for his own part he still continued dubious. during matt's week of hard, gruelling work, fortune was kind to him in one respect, for sercomb and his friends left him severely alone. for one thing, every driver in the race had his hands full and found no time to give attention to anything else. sercomb, mings, and packard, driving stark-frisbie machines, had a friendly rivalry among themselves. each wanted to drive his car to victory for the bonus which the victor was to receive, and they were attending strictly to business and learning all the ins and outs of the course. their dislike of matt and their desire to get the better of him seemed to be thrust aside by the weightier affairs connected with the race. several times, while he was going around the course, matt either passed or was passed by one or the other of his enemies, but each and all of them ignored him completely. matt was well content to let the matter rest in that way. nearly every time sercomb, mings or packard passed him, matt was tinkering with the jarrot car. the stark-frisbie drivers wrapped him in their dust and must have chuckled over the difficulties in which he found himself. the day of the race was set for tuesday. saturday night matt came in wearily from the garage, washed the grime of dust and oil from his face and hands, talked a few moments with carl, and went up to bed. half an hour later he rang for a pitcher of water. carl was lounging around the office when the bellboy carried the pitcher upstairs. had carl dreamed what was to happen to matt because of that innocent little supply of drinking-water, he would have taken the pitcher from the boy and carried it up himself. motor matt's enemies were not ignoring him entirely. they were staying at the same hotel, and, as carl sized the situation up afterward, they were staying there for the purpose which they finally accomplished. that their evil designs did not keep matt out of the race was because they overreached themselves by hastening the nefarious plot. had they waited just a few hours longer, the great race for the borden cup would have had an altogether different termination. nevertheless, the blow, when it fell, came with amazing suddenness; and it seemed so completely successful, and the hand dealing it was so cunningly hidden, that carl was as deeply bewildered as he was filled with despair. chapter x. where is motor matt? matt and carl did not occupy the same apartment in the hotel. their rooms were adjoining, but there was no means of communication between them save by way of the hall. on the night the mystifying event happened, carl went up to his room a few minutes after matt had sent down for the ice water. he tried matt's door, but it was locked. in answer to his rap matt called out a cheery good-night, and carl went on to his own quarters and tumbled into bed. the ringing of the breakfast bell always got carl up on the jump. with the morning, he was up with the first beat of the clapper and scrambling into his clothes. as he passed matt's room on his way down he tried the door. usually matt left the door ajar when he went to breakfast, but this morning it was closed. carl found it locked. he was about to rap and get his chum up, when he thought how tired he must have been the night before, and turned away. "matt has peen vorking like a horse," he said to himself, "und he has der righdt to shleep a leedle late on suntay morning. i von't make some disturpances mit him. ven he geds t'roo snoozing he vill come down." carl ate his breakfast, missing his chum sadly during the meal. across from him at the table sat a young fellow who seemed to be a newcomer--at least, carl had never seen him about the hotel before. he had a freckled face and red hair, and the clothes he wore were almost painfully new. he ate slowly and seemed to be watching the chair in which matt usually sat. "for vy you look like dot at der blace next py me?" inquired carl curiously. "you don'd got a mortgage on it, meppy?" the red-headed boy grinned. "mebby not, tow-head," said he, "but here's a chance for you to put me wise." "ret-head yourseluf!" returned carl. "vat i pud you vise aboudt?" "why, by letting me know whether that chair is the one usually occupied by matt king, the three-ply wonder of the racing world who is sometimes called motor matt?" carl braced up in his chair and glowered. "vas you making some chokes?" he demanded. "i skelp anypody vat makes some chokes aboudt modor matt." "so will i. why, matt used to be my pard." "iss dot so?" queried carl, softening. "vell, he iss my bard yet. ah, ha! vat iss der name vat you go by?" "mark mcready, otherwise reddy mcready, otherwise just plain chub." carl gurgled delightedly, let go his knife and fork and reached over the top of the castor to grab chub mcready's hand. "ach, vat a habbiness!" he beamed. "matt shpeaks many dimes aboudt you! yah, py shiminy, he dell me all aboudt vat you dit mit each odder in arizona. der lapel vat i tote iss carl pretzel. don'd you know somet'ing aboudt me?" "well, je-ru-sa-lem!" grinned chub. "say, i guess i _have_ heard about you. the last letter i got from matt had a long spiel about some work you and he did down near lamy, new mexico. didn't matt get a letter from me in denver?" "nix, und he don'd got any ledder from dere here, vich vas forwardet. you wride him, hey?" "sure, i wrote him. told him dad was going to chicago to close a deal for his mine, and that little chub was going to trail along, drop off at ottawa and see the big race. matt's in it, eh? had a notion he would be; and i'll bet a button against a last year's bird's nest that he _wins_!" "i'll bed more as dot!" chuckled carl, tickled out of his shoes to find some one who liked matt as well as he did. "say," he babbled, "i peen glad as plazes, chub, dot you habbened aroundt." "so am i; but where the nation is matt? i can hardly wait till i grab hold of him and give his fist a shake." "he was schnoozing mit himseluf," answered carl. "he has peen vorking like der tickens und i bed you he was dired. oof you haf got t'roo mit your preakfast, vy nod valk oop to his room mit me? he vill be so habby as i don'd know ven he findts oudt dot you vas here." "go you!" and chub pushed back from the table and got up. together the two boys left the dining-room, passed through the office and climbed the stairs. carl was cackling to himself all the way up the flight, for he knew how surprised matt would be and how mightily pleased to meet his old friend, chub. the door was still closed. carl listened to see if he could hear matt moving around. "der olt maferick iss shleeping like a house afire dis morning," chuckled carl. "now i vake him," and he pounded on the door. the emphatic summons brought no answer. "meppyso i pedder ged a cannon," giggled carl. "he iss shleeping his olt headt off." "he never used to pound his ear like that," remarked chub. "he nefed got so tired in arizony like he dit in gansas," carl explained, rattling at the door in a way that would have wakened the occupant of every room on that floor. but still there was no response from matt. carl began to get alarmed. "maybe he locked the door and went out?" suggested chub. "der fairst blace he vould go vould be to preakfast," returned carl, "und he don'd vas dere. der madder is somet'ing to be infestigated. you peen as t'ick t'roo as me, so i don'd guess ve eider oof us couldt ged t'roo der dransom; aber ve can look t'roo, anyvay. i got some feelings dot dere has somet'ing gone crossvays. vat it iss i don'd know, aber, py shinks, ve find it oudt." carl went for a chair that was standing farther along the hall, placed it in front of the door, climbed up and peered through the open transom. "donnervetter!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "now vat do you t'ink oof dot!" "what's to pay?" asked chub. "he don'd vas dere." "well, that proves what i said a moment ago, that he has gone out." "vy, der ped don'd vas shlept in lasdt nighdt! how you aggount for dot?" "why, he may not have been here last night, carl." "yah, so! ditn't i say goot-nighdt mit him ven i vent to ped mineseluf? yah, so helup me! i vonder vat's oop?" "we'll probably find him downstairs," said chub. "i got some hunches dot dere iss a nigger in der vood-pile," declared carl, climbing down from the chair, his face full of apprehension. "it don'd vas like matt to pull oudt like dot. ve go downshdairs und make some questions aboudt it." on their way down they met the bellboy coming up. "say, vonce!" said carl, catching the boy's arm, "haf you seen modor matt dis morning yet?" "naw," answered the youngster; "mebby he hasn't got up." "he ain'd in der room, und der door iss locked." "then he's hiked out some'rs." "he vonldn't do dot. vat habbened ven you dook oop der vater lasdt nighdt?" "what happened? why, i met that slocum feller on the way, an' he wanted to know if i was takin' the pitcher to sercomb's room. we gassed for a minit er two an' he gave me a quarter to go right back down and see if there was any mail for him. he asked me to do it before i gave the pitcher to motor matt. there wasn't any mail. when i came back, i picked up the pitcher and went on. motor matt took it in--and that's all there was to it." "dot looks like a lod oof monkey-doodle pitzness for nodding," muttered carl. "vere does der nighdt clerk shleep?" "in that room at the end of the hall." the bellboy went on, and carl turned and started back up the stairs. "what are you going to see the night clerk for, carl?" inquired chub. "vell, matt ditn't shleep in der ped, und dot means he ditn't shday in der room. i vant to ask der nighdt clerk oof he vent oudt." the night clerk answered their summons in a sleepy voice and opened the door. "dit you see modor matt leaf der hodel lasdt nighdt?" asked carl. "yes," was the astonishing reply, "he went out about midnight and took his grip with him. looked like he was going away." "for vy shouldt he go avay?" gasped carl. "he vas in der race, und he vouldn't leaf town on a bet, schust now." "i thought it was mighty funny," said the clerk. "he didn't say a word about paying his bill, or where he was going, or anything else. i called to him and asked if he was going to make a trip somewhere, and he turned around and stared at me. he didn't seem to know what he was doing. he never said a word, but went on out." "ach, himmelblitzen!" muttered carl, rubbing a dazed hand over his eyes. "vouldn't dot knock you shlap-sitet? vent avay! modor matt vent avay und nefer say nodding mit me aboudt it! dere iss something wrong, you ped you!" "i didn't know whether i ought to tell you or not, carl," went on the clerk. "these racing folks are coming and going all the time, and, for the most part, they're a queer lot. motor matt, somehow, seemed different, but last night i hadn't a notion what was bothering him and i didn't want to pry into his business. supposed he knew what he was up to. why don't you go and see trueman? he may be able to tell you something." "who's trueman?" asked chub. "he iss der feller matt iss triving der car for in der race," replied carl. "meppy ve pedder go und shbeak mit him." the clerk drew back into his room, and carl and chub started along the hall toward the stairs. when they were about halfway down the hall a door opened as they were passing it and slocum showed himself. there was a guilty look on his face--or so it seemed to carl--and before he could draw back carl had leaped at him and grabbed him by the shoulder. slocum muttered an oath, and one hand darted toward his hip. when the hand reappeared from under his long coat it held a revolver. "oh, that's your game, is it?" cried chub. the next moment he had grabbed the hand holding the revolver, and he and carl, between them, had pushed slocum back into the room. with a quick move chub wrenched the weapon out of slocum's hand and trained it on him. "that'll do for you," said he menacingly. "now sit down and get peaceable. carl, here, has got somethin' he wants to say." chapter xi. running down a clue. chub mcready had no very clear idea why carl was displaying so much hostility toward slocum. the bell-boy had mentioned slocum's name in connection with carrying the pitcher of water to matt's room, and chub supposed carl was to do some questioning along that line. the drawing of the revolver not only surprised chub, but led him to believe that slocum had a guilty conscience and was ready to go any length in defending himself. "this is an infernal outrage, by gad!" cried slocum. "what do you young ruffians mean by setting upon me like that?" as he spoke he picked up a newspaper and threw it over the table. it was an odd move for a man to make at such a time. "vat do you mean py making some moofs mit a gun?" demanded carl. "why, you pie-faced dutchman, why shouldn't i pull a gun when i'm set upon like that? i was just leaving my room to go down to breakfast when you began to climb all over me. what's the matter with you, anyhow?" "pie-face!" gasped carl; "you call me dot! py chincher, you haf got a face like some hedge fences, und you haf a heart vat iss so plack und dricky as i can't dell. vat you do ven you meed der poy pringing some vater py modor matt's room lasdt nighdt? tell me dot!" "do? i sent him down to see if there was any mail for me. what business is that of yours, anyway? give me that gun and get out of here, both of you!" slocum gave the paper another hitch on the table. chub was already guessing about the moves he had made with that paper, and what he saw now brought his guessing to the suspecting stage. stepping to the table, he cast the paper aside. a small bottle, half-full of some drug, lay on the table. slocum, with a quick sweep of his hand grabbed the bottle away. "he's got somet'ing he don'd vant us to see!" exclaimed carl. "i'm next to that, all right," said chub. "put it back on the table, slocum," he added sharply. "don't be a mutt. i'm from arizona, and we don't speak twice when we back up our first talk with a gun." "this is my property!" faltered slocum, peering shiftily into chub's steady eyes. "you're so blamed careful of it that i'd about made up my mind it belonged to you. anyhow, drop it on the table. last call!" slocum laid the bottle down. "by gad," he blustered, "somebody'll pay for this!" "look out it ain't you," grinned chub. "pick it up, carl, and we'll take it down to the office, where we can look it over." "take that away from here," fumed slocum, "and i'll----" as carl picked up the bottle slocum made a grab at him. "steady!" warned chub. "now duck, carl. we've found out all we can in this place." with the bottle in his hand carl walked out of the room. chub backed out. taking the key out of the door, he dropped the revolver on the carpet, jumped into the hall, slammed the door and locked it on the outside. "that's to give him a chance to get over his mad spell before he tried to shoot," chub grinned as he rejoined carl and they took their way down-stairs. "you don'd know aboudt dot feller und matt," said carl, "und i vill dell you. den you vill know vat i know und ve can guess oudt der resdt togedder." they went out on the porch and took a couple of chairs; then carl told how slocum had called on matt, in denver, claimed he was colonel plympton and, by trickery, got him to sign a paper that had lost him the opportunity of driving a car for the stark-frisbie company. chub scowled. "i sized him up for bein' pretty low-down," said he, "but i hadn't any notion he'd pull off a trick like that. what did he do it for?" carl went on with an account of the doings of sercomb and his gang. chub's wrath had been mounting by swift degrees. "that's a fine lay-out!" he growled savagely. "the gang has done something to matt, that's a cinch. but what? matt goes off by himself, bag and baggage, at midnight, looking like he was locoed. queerest thing i ever heard of!" before carl could make any comment, mr. trueman came up the porch steps and started toward him. "matt was to meet me at the garage this morning at eight o'clock," said he, "and we were to talk over some important matters. why didn't he come, carl?" "dot's vat ve don'd know, misder drooman," answered carl gloomily. "modor matt don'd been aroundt der hodel since mitnighdt." trueman stood as though stunned. "matt hasn't been at the hotel since midnight?" he repeated blankly. "dot's vat's der madder. dere has peen some keveer pitzness going on in dis blace, you bed my life, und vere matt iss ve don'd know." trueman drew a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it across his face; then he dropped into a chair. "if anything has happened to king, now," said he, "it will be pretty nearly the last straw. tell me all about this thing--give me the whole of it, and be as quick as you can." between them carl and chub contrived to give trueman a fairly lucid idea of what they had done and what they had discovered. trueman, an ominous frown on his face, took the bottle which carl had brought away from slocum's room. the label contained but the two words, "_cannibis indica_." "it's a drug of some sort," he muttered, holding the bottle up between his eyes and the light and shaking it. "matt has told me all about slocum's double dealing, and how the fellow is working with sercomb and his gang. do you suppose slocum merely sent the bellboy down after the mail for a bluff?" "bluff!" echoed chub. "what kind of a bluff?" "why, so he'd be alone with the pitcher of water long enough to empty some of the contents of this bottle into it." carl and chub were astounded. "dot's vat he dit, und i bed you anyt'ing vat i got!" cried carl. "he doped matt's drinking-water," averred chub, "and that's the straight of it. i move we go upstairs and lay the tin-horn by the heels. if he's doing that sort of business he ought to be in the calaboose." "we'll go up and have a talk with him," said trueman. "unless he can give a good explanation of what this bottle of stuff is for, we'll walk him over to the jail and land him behind the bars." a hurried trip was made to the second floor, but trueman and the boys were too late. slocum had got someone to open the door for him and he was gone. "ach, plazes!" said carl angrily; "ve ought to haf pud some ropes on him so dot he couldn't ged avay. dot's vere ve vas lame, chub. now how ve going to findt oudt vere iss modor matt?" "slocum, guilty or innocent, wouldn't be able to help us find matt," spoke up trueman. "the thing for us to do is to hunt up a doctor and find out just what effect this _cannibis indica_ has on a person. it may be that we're on the wrong track entirely." there was a doctor in the office building next the hotel. his name was davis. he was an old doctor, but a knowing one. "_cannibis indica_," said he, "is a drug that has a very powerful effect upon the brain. it is not dangerous if taken in a small amount. a small dose of it would not induce a state of lethargy, but would be more apt to unhinge a person's mind and cause him to do things of which he would have no remembrance when the effect wore away." "how long would the effect last?" asked trueman anxiously. "that would depend altogether upon the amount that was taken. in this case, two or three days, perhaps." when trueman and the boys left the doctor's office the mystery was cleared as to the cause of matt's sudden departure, but was as deep as ever concerning his present whereabouts. "for several days," said trueman, "matt's enemies have held back. i suppose they planned this thing so as to work it at just the right time to keep matt out of the race. if he doesn't get back here before long i'll raise cain with the scoundrels who had a hand in the work. i'm going to see the authorities and have them telegraph and telephone to the surrounding towns. while i'm busy about that, you boys return to the hotel, get a duplicate key of the room, and take the pitcher of water you find there over to dr. davis. ask him to find out if any of the _cannibis indica_ was mixed with it. i'm fairly positive as to what his answer will be, but this is a case where we've got to be sure of every step." by noon the telegraph and telephone had carried their alarm into the neighboring country. the town was being searched, not only for matt, but also for slocum. dr. davis had declared that the water in the pitcher had contained a strong solution of the drug. circumstantial evidence connected slocum with the administering of the drug so that there was not the least shadow of a doubt. but slocum could not be located; and neither could matt. an afternoon of miserable anxiety passed for carl and chub, to be followed by a no less miserable and uneventful night. monday, the day before the great race, came, bringing crowds of people by every train--but motor matt was not among them. carl, as chub expressed it, had "gone off the jump" entirely; and chub himself was not much better off. trueman, grimly resenting what had happened to his driver, was firmly determined, if matt did not present himself before the race was started, to arrest every one of the stark-frisbie drivers. if the jarrot car was to be kept out of the race for lack of a driver, trueman would see to it that some of the other cars were left in like condition. in levelling their contemptible plot against motor matt, the guilty drivers would find that they had launched a boomerang. this was the condition of affairs up to midnight, monday night, and the first of the racers was to be started at eight sharp, tuesday morning. chapter xii. forty-eight hours of darkness. motor matt had never felt in better spirits, worn and weary though he was, than when he had climbed the stairs to his room that saturday evening. he had gone over the course three times that day, and the cylinders of the number thirteen had pulled nobly. there had been a little tire trouble during the first two rounds, but nothing had gone wrong on the last circuit, and trueman had held the watch on him. he had done the fifty-two miles in less than an hour. "you'll improve on that," trueman had said, "when you've got a man in front of you to overhaul. there'll be twelve ahead of you at the start, and among the twelve will be two of the fast stark-frisbie cars and one of the bly-lambert machines as pacemakers." matt was well pleased with the prospect. every car entered for the race had passed under his scrutiny, and he felt positive the chance for the number thirteen to win was excellent. sitting in a comfortable chair in his room, he rang for his ice-water and fell to going over the course of the race in his mind. every foot of the road was plainly mapped before him. the water came and he took a long drink. perhaps the very chill of it served to disguise the slightly astringent taste caused by the drug. at any rate, he did not notice that anything was wrong. carl came by, rapped on the door and said good-night. while matt listened, carl's feet seemed to go on and on along the hall interminably. it was a queer delusion, and matt shook back his shoulders and laughed softly. "i mustn't let this race get on my nerves so much," he said to himself. "nerves are bad things for a racing-driver. i'm tired out, and i guess i'll turn in." he started toward the bed, and that was the last thing he remembered for some time. when he came to himself he saw glittering little lights above him. at first he thought he was dreaming, and sat up, rubbing his eyes. even then he thought he was dreaming, his surroundings were so different from what they should have been--from what he had every reason to expect them to be. the lights far over his head were stars--or seemed to be stars. he was out-doors, and had been lying on a heap of straw at the bottom of a stack. on his right was a large barn, and beyond the barn were the shadowy outlines of a house. these odd discoveries confused and bewildered matt. what sort of witchcraft was here? a moment before, as he reckoned the time, he had started for bed in his room at the hotel. now he woke up in a heap of straw, out of doors and apparently on somebody's farm. staggering to his feet, he leaned heavily against the side of the straw-stack and drummed his knuckles against his forehead. a horrible illusion gradually took hold of him. had he been in an accident with the racing-car? was he just recovering from the effects of a bad smash? his brain seemed a bit hazy, but otherwise he appeared to be as well as ever. stepping away from the stack, with the view of making further investigations, he stumbled over something. picking up the object, he found it to be his satchel. this added a further mystery to his situation. he had evidently left the hotel with the intention of going somewhere to stay for a while. in the dim light his satchel looked frayed and worn, as though it had seen hard usage. his clothes, too, from what he could see of them, offered the same evidence of wear and tear. "well, great guns!" he muttered. "i wish somebody would kindly explain how i came to be here! and while the explaining is going on, i wish somebody would let me know whether i am really matt king or another fellow. this would read like a page out of the 'thousand and one nights.' i'll just go up to the house and ask where i am." the next moment he changed his mind about going to that particular house. a vicious bulldog rushed out at him, and he got over a near-by fence with more haste than grace. picking up a stone, he drove the dog back, then stepped off toward another house which he could see in the dim distance. all the while he was moving about, his mind was grappling with the situation--and carrying him nowhere. had his mind been unbalanced? had he lost his reason in some strange manner and only just recovered it? this was a terrible thought, but it was the only explanation that occurred to matt. there was no dog at the next house, and he walked up to the front door and rapped loudly. a long time elapsed, and then a window was thrown open in the second story and a head was poked out. "who in the name o' goodness is bangin' at my front door at this time o' night?" demanded a fretful voice. "i'm sorry to disturb you," answered matt, "but i've lost my way and would like you to tell me how far i am from ottawa." "ottawa?" returned the voice. "well, you're twenty miles from ottawa, an' four miles from lawrence." "twenty--miles!" gasped matt. "that's it. lawrence is right ahead over that hill yonder. it's purty dark, but i guess that hill's plain enough. anythin' else i can tell you? now i'm up i might as well tell you all you want to know." "what time is it?" asked matt in a subdued voice. "goin' on four o'clock in the mornin'." "what morning? sunday?" "say, but you're dumb! tuesday morning--the day of the race at ottawa. my boy joe went down yesterday to see it--all dumb foolishness, too, as i told him. them automobiles'll go by so tarnation fast he won't be able to see 'em. jest a-buzzin' like a swarm o' bees, a whiff of gasoline, an' that's all." matt was so astounded that he heard little of what the farmer had been saying. he had gone to bed in ottawa on saturday night, and here it was four o'clock tuesday morning and he was four miles from lawrence. he had been plunged in oblivion for forty-eight hours--but _how_, and _why_? "hey, down there!" shouted the farmer. "you gone to sleep?" "no," called back matt, recovering himself with a start; "do you want to make ten dollars, friend?" "how?" asked the man suspiciously. "by hitching up and driving me to ottawa." "sho! that's a heap o' money to spend for a ride. why, you can walk to lawrence and ketch a train. then t'll only cost you fifty cents to get to ottawa." "can i get a train between now and seven o'clock?" "i head one whistlin' every mornin' about six-thirty or seven, but whether it's goin' or comin' from ottawa i don't know. anyhow, i couldn't leave. my boy's away an' i got to stay home an' do the work." "all right," said matt; "much obliged." "sure you ain't from the ossawatomie insane asylum? you talk kinder queer, seems like." "i don't know but i ought to be in ossawatomie," answered matt as he started off down the road. the window closed with a bang. "well," murmured matt, striding along the road toward the hill, "what do you think of that! i've lost two whole days--haven't a notion what i've been doing in all that time. wonder what's been going on in ottawa? i was to meet trueman sunday morning for a talk. what'll he think? and carl! great scott! i wonder if they'll get the idea i've run away? the race starts at eight o'clock, and i'll have less than four hours to get to ottawa! what if i can't catch a train?" the possibility of missing the race bothered him more than the cause of his predicament. as he strode along the quiet country highway the cool night air beat against his face and freshened his wits. he began wondering if sercomb and his gang hadn't had something to do with his mysterious departure from ottawa? that was the only way he could account for what had happened. a steely resolution arose in his breast. he would get to ottawa, and he would get there in time to drive the jarrot car. if sercomb had plotted against him, then he would beat the scoundrel at his own game. it was nearly five o'clock when matt reached the lawrence railroad station. there was no train to ottawa, the nightman told him, until half-past nine in the morning--neither passenger nor freight. matt was dumfounded. "i was told that there was a train at six-thirty, or seven," said he. "sure," answered the nightman, "but it goes the other way." "this is tough luck!" exclaimed matt. "you see," he explained, "i'm to drive a car in that race this morning, and the first car starts off at eight. my car is number thirteen. there's a two-minute interval between each car, and that starts me about twenty-four minutes after eight. how far is ottawa from here?" "twenty-four miles." "any way i can get there in time for the race?" "you couldn't get there with a horse an' buggy, that's sure. there's a gasoline speeder in the shed, and the track-inspector sleeps on t'other side the yards in hooligan's boarding house. you might get the inspector to take you down." here was a ray of hope. matt inquired hastily how to find hooligan's place, and set out to get the inspector. he was an hour getting the man, and another half-hour getting him to agree to run the speeder to ottawa. matt had to promise the inspector twenty-five dollars for making the trip. another half-hour was lost filling the speeder's tank and getting the machine ready for the road, and the sun was rising before they chugged off along the glimmering rails. the motor had a chronic habit of misfiring, and there were numberless stops ranging in length from one minute to ten while the machinery was tinkered with. the entrance to forest park was not more than a stone's throw from the railroad track, and as the speeder came close to the town matt saw the first car leap through the gap in the fence and bear away in the direction of the river road. it was number one, a stark-frisbie car, with joe mings at the steering-wheel! matt had twenty minutes, perhaps, left him for getting to the track. throwing himself from the speeder at the point nearest the entrance to the park, he flung wildly away through the press of vehicles and pedestrians. chapter xiii. at the last minute. at midnight, monday night, the police of ottawa arrested a man who was trying to get out of town on a freight train. the man was slocum. slocum was taken immediately to jail. his nerve had entirely failed him and he was in a pitiable state of collapse. he admitted his guilt in the matter of motor matt's disappearance, and offered to make a confession providing no legal steps were taken in his case and he was allowed to go free. trueman was sent for; also the district attorney. both recognized that slocum was only a tool, and in order to get at those who were more culpable it was agreed to accept his sworn confession and to release him in case it developed that no harm had befallen motor matt. slocum's confession implicated indirectly every member of the drivers' club, but had most to do with sercomb, mings, and packard, and held up sercomb as the ringleader. it was sercomb who had prepared the two typewritten papers--one for matt to _read_ and the other for him to _sign_--which slocum had juggled with so successfully in the denver hotel; and it was sercomb who had paid slocum's fare and expenses to kansas in order that, at the right moment, he might administer the _cannibis indica_. on the basis of this confession, a warrant was issued for sercomb but was to be held back and not served until just before he was to get away in the race. also the whole matter dealing with slocum's arrest and confession was kept a secret so that the arrest and removing from the contest of stark-frisbie's crack racer might be successfully accomplished. this work of the police filled trueman with a negative satisfaction. it did not help him out of his own particular difficulty for he was still minus a driver. chub who was so worked up over matt's disappearance and his helplessness in doing anything to find him that he could not keep down his impatience and restlessness, offered to drive the car in matt's place, or to ride as mechanic with whoever did drive it. chub had taken lessons from matt in driving a motor-car, and he had always been wonderfully handy about machinery. trueman, however, had made up his mind to drive the car himself, but he was glad to have chub along to attend to the various duties of _mecanicien_. while chub had thus found something to do to take his mind temporarily away from matt, carl was in different condition. he moped around the hotel, filled with gloom and discouragement and waiting hopelessly for news. the town was filled with an enthusiastic mob of people, and the only thing that was talked about, or thought about, was race, race, race! but carl had lost interest in the race now that it seemed certain matt was out of it. chub had all he could do to get carl to go to the park when he and trueman took out the red racer. "vat's der use oof going any blace or doing anyt'ing?" said carl dejectedly. "matt vas down und oudt mit a dope und life don'd vas vort' der lifing. vell, meppy i go along mit you, chub. i got to be somevere." although trueman was a terribly disappointed man, and expected only to finish the course, and had no thought of winning, he made his preparations with as much care as though matt was to be at the steering-wheel and perhaps drive no. 13 to victory. new tires and new chains were put on, and the hundred and one little things always demanded by a big race were attended to. the grand stand at the park was choked with people. overflowing the seats, the throng packed itself densely along the fences on both sides of the race-track. but the crowds were not confined to the ottawa end of the course. over its whole extent from the park to le loup, from le loup to coal run, and from coal run back to the park again, the circuit was lined with people. they came from the contiguous country in wagons, from various parts of the state in automobiles, and from all over the west by train. the sportsman instinct animated the majority of them, and others had a morbid interest in an affair that might be filled with wreck and tragedy. mounted officers patrolled the circuit and kept the crowd back of the danger line. each car's weight, with tanks empty, was limited to fifteen hundred pounds. the weighing-in was going forward when trueman, chub, and carl reached the track. the owners of cars that were overweight had to do some more stripping while those that were under the limit found that they could take aboard some necessary appliances of which they were quick to avail themselves. mr. borden, the gray-haired patron of the race, was in evidence here and there about the grounds. it was the first of the races, for which he stood sponsor, ever run in the vicinity of his home town, and he was as pleased as a four-year-old with a tin whistle. colonel plympton was prominently in the public eye, mingling with the stark-frisbie drivers and mechanics and giving personal attention to every car. lambert, of the rival concern, was filling a corresponding position with his own cars and drivers. many other firms had their representatives on the spot. the first car to start was a stark-frisbie, 70-h.-p., with joe mings at the wheel. it got away in a perfect bedlam of cheers. two minutes later, car number two with patsy grier driving for bly-lambert, was sent from the tape. it shot away like a streak, and was through the gap in the fence and bound for the river before the wild yelling had died away. next came three touring-cars, driven by local celebrities, all out for a good time and caring little about the race. then came a no. 6 bly-lambert with balt finn up, then another touring-car, then a little 40-horse racer, then a no. 9 stark-frisbie, packard driving. as packard got away, a wild-eyed, disheveled youth shot through the crowd lining the track and broke into the banked racers that were waiting for the start. "mr. trueman! out of there, quick! give me your racing clothes." trueman and chub, sitting in the no. 13 and gloomily awaiting the word to come forward for the start, nearly jumped from their seats. "matt!" gasped trueman. his face cleared as if by magic. there was no time for explanations--no time for anything but to attend to the business immediately in hand. "hooray!" cried chub. "how are you, pard?" matt stopped and stared as he got into the gear trueman was throwing at him. "chub!" he exclaimed. "well, this _is_ a surprise! i've been having a lot of surprises lately." "we've found out all about what happened," said trueman. "slocum doped you. he tried to get away but was caught and has made a confession. on the basis of that confession a warrant is out for sercomb, and he will be arrested and taken from his car before he starts." matt's eyes drifted through the parked automobiles until they rested on the driver of no. 19. through his goggles the driver was staring at matt. it was sercomb, and motor matt's appearance evidently astounded him. "don't arrest him, mr. trueman, until the race is over," said matt. "but----" "i mean it! let's make this a clean race and a clean win. it will be better for the jarrot people, better for me, better for everybody." "well, if you insist----" "i do insist. that's the way i want it." matt climbed into the low-hung body of the car and lost himself to the head and shoulders in the driver's seat. the starter was looking toward them and throwing up his hand. trueman jumped to "turn over" the engine, and matt made for the starting tape. in spite of cap and goggles some of those in the grandstand recognized matt. they were those who had seen him working like a trojan over the circuit for a week, who had heard about his mysterious disappearance, and who now welcomed his return with hearty cheers. matt got away in grand style, whisked around the track and darted through the break in the fence. as soon as sercomb, in the last stark-frisbie car, had started, plympton went over to where trueman was standing. "i'm glad king got back," said the colonel. "his disappearance had an ugly look." "it still has an ugly look, plympton," returned trueman. "of course! but king's all right. that's the main point." "it's a good thing for you that he got back," went on trueman. "i don't see how you figure that. if what i hear of him is true, he's a star-driver. it isn't a good thing for us to have star-drivers running cars against us." "but for king, plympton, one of your crack men would have been out of this race." "what do you mean, trueman?" asked the colonel curiously. "do you see that sandy-whiskered man over there?" asked trueman, pointing. "yes." "well, he's an officer in plain-clothes. in his pocket he has a warrant for sercomb's arrest. he'd have served the warrant and taken sercomb out of the race if king hadn't said no." "a put-up job, eh, to get rid of our best man!" scowled plympton. "no put-up job about it," answered trueman. "sercomb was responsible for the hocussing of king." "come, come!" growled plympton angrily. "you've got too much sense, trueman, to take any stock in such a yarn as that." "have i? well, read this over and then tell me how much stock you take in it." with that, he handed slocum's confession to plympton. the latter read it with consternation in his face. "it seems incredible!" he muttered, as he passed the paper back. "whether he wins or loses, this is sercomb's last race for stark-frisbie." "i thought so!" chuckled trueman, returning the document to his pocket. chapter xiv. the first half of the race. motor matt had made up his mind, before starting, that he would take the first round steadily and easily. elimination would be going on steadily, and it was just as well to see what was going to happen before taking the long chances. the morning was bright and sunny. there was not a cloud in the sky. a gentle breeze fanned the course and dissipated the dust raised by the cars. and there was plenty of dust! it circled, and eddied, and rolled, outlining the course as far as the eye could see. at the difficult turn leading into the river road, matt passed patsy grier's overturned car. grier had failed to negotiate the turn and had gone into the ditch. grier himself seemed to have escaped without injury, but he was busily bandaging his mechanic's arm. the river road was an exceedingly difficult part of the circuit. the timber kept the wind from dissipating the dust, and it spread out like a fog. matt could hear cars ahead and behind, but he could not see them. intuition, rather than anything else, carried him safely by two of the touring-cars, one of which was suffering from tire-trouble. mings, in the stark-frisbie, and balt finn, in the bly-lambert, were both ahead of matt, and he thought only of getting past them. he was not intending, however, to do much more than hold his own against the better cars during the first round. the motor was pulling magnificently. matt, his heart leaping with the joy of the sport, opened the machine out a little more on the fine road from the river to le loup. he passed several more cars, but not mings', or finn's. the climb to coal run was splendidly made. between that village and the track he shot past the little "40," smashed into a scrap-heap, and with driver and mechanic standing hopelessly by. something must have gone wrong with the "40's" steering-gear, for it had left the road and smashed into a big boulder. all the cars had got well away before matt came plunging along the track in front of the grand stand. the first round had taken him exactly fifty-eight minutes. there were only two cars ahead of him--those driven by mings and finn. "bravo, matt!" the young motorist heard trueman shout, high over the ripple of cheering as he dashed past; "only two ahead and you're----" what the last of it was matt could not hear. for this second round he was going to cram on all the speed he could. his one idea was to pass mings and finn. the no. 13 was holding up under the strain in fine shape. nothing had gone wrong with either car or motor. chub had strapped himself to his seat. he was busying himself with the lubrication and the fuel supply, keeping tab on everything that was purely mechanical so that matt would have nothing to do but drive. both chums had a deep curiosity to learn what had befallen each other; but that was a time when personal considerations of every nature were of minor importance. nothing was thought of but the race; every faculty was centered upon the question of speed, and more speed, and then a little more. the passing of finn, on the beautiful sweep of road between the river and le loup, was an exciting event. in every way possible finn sought to block the road; yet steadily, persistently, matt crept alongside the bly-lambert car, swung into the lead and hurled through le loup. in the distance, well up the slope toward coal run, matt and chub could see the moving dust kicked up by mings' car. with teeth set and eyes flashing behind his goggles, matt hurled the no. 13 at the hill. the car jumped up the ascent with incredible speed. swiftly, surely, mings was being overhauled. the spectators in the grand stand had an excellent view of the sharp little scrimmage which put matt in the lead. the no. 13 appeared to leap alongside the no. 1 car, both drivers turning the very last ounce of power into their cylinders. for the space of a breath it seemed as though the wheels of the two cars would lock. as they rushed around the curve in the track, matt swung ahead and took the inside course. the roar from the crowd was tremendous. but matt was not thinking of that. he was in the lead, now, and his one idea was to keep it. mings had left the starting-tape twenty-four minutes ahead of him, and if matt had come over the last lap a fraction less than that behind mings, the race would still have gone to the jarrot people. there were still cars on the course, and matt began meeting and passing those that had left behind him. "overhaul sercomb! pass sercomb!" these were the first words chub had spoken since the beginning of the race. it was a startling feat he suggested, that of traveling clear around the circuit and overtaking sercomb--an impossible feat, matt thought, but the impossible is not always a thing to be scoffed at so much as to be striven for. but troubles were in store for matt. they began close to le loup when matt found that his governor was not working. every time he took the clutch out the engine raced, making everything terribly hot, and also making it necessary before changing speed to choke down the motor by the ignition. a halt was necessary, and chub let off a groan as matt slowed down and they got busy repairing the machine. two cars swept past, while they were tinkering. both were stark-frisbie cars, one, of course, driven by mings, and the other by sercomb. "instead of our overtaking sercomb, chub," said matt grimly, "it's the other way around. he's overcome the lead we had of him and has passed _us_." "if the governor works now, pard," replied chub, leaping into the car, "we'll make up for lost time. push ahead!" the governor worked as usual, and matt began reaching out to regain what he had lost. he flew past sercomb, and had another struggle with mings on the track. those in the grand stand knew that some accident must have happened, or matt would never have lost the lead he had gained in the previous round. trueman was beginning to feel disheartened. the no. 13 was beginning to "act up," and there was no telling what would happen, or where the disasters would stop. in le loup, trueman had placed a supply of gasoline. matt halted to replenish his tank. sercomb passed, but mings, for some reason, did not show up. shortly after leaving le loup the governor went wrong again. "don't stop, matt!" counseled chub; "we can't waste any more time. i'll switch off at the corners and see if that won't help." chub, by switching off at the corners and then switching on again when they got round, enabled matt to take the turns with the clutch out. for some time they kept up this rough method of driving, and, while engaged in it, they got by sercomb again. the stark-frisbie machine was at a standstill, and sercomb and his mechanic were working like beavers. "oh, i don't know, pard," laughed chub. "there's others. i wonder what's become of mings?" "perhaps he's had an accident. we can tell on the next round." "if we don't have anything worse than what we've got already to buck against, we'll do well enough. i'm satisfied that----" just then a very serious accident happened. they were taking the corner that led to the track, clutch out and switch off; the switch went on a fraction of a second too soon, and as the engine, racing tremendously, was dropped into gear on the third speed, there was a loud crash in the gear-box. "jumpin' horned-toads!" yelled chub; "what's was that, matt?" "our third speed's gone," matt answered. "it's first, second, fourth, second, first from now on." "that means we're out of it," growled chub gloomily. "i don't know about that," answered matt. "the race seems to be between us, sercomb, and mings. we'll hang on and do our best. maybe mings is out of it--he's lagging terribly, even if he isn't--and we know sercomb is having troubles." as the no. 13 rushed past the grand stand amid the cheers of the people, trueman could see that something was wrong; but he was feeling more hopeful. matt was in the lead and if he could keep it and fight down the mishaps that assailed him, there was still a chance that he would hold the lead and win. as if the troubles matt had had were not enough, on the road toward the river the motor began to misfire. having to run on three cylinders instead of four diminished the speed materially, and chub groaned in his discouragement. "don't take it so hard, chub," said matt. "be jeerful, as carl says. there's mings' car piled up against a tree." as they dashed past along the river road they saw the no. 1 smashed badly, and mings and his mechanic limping around the wreck in extreme dejection. miles farther around the circuit they came upon sercomb. he and his assistant had just finished their repairs and were starting on again. matt and chub had made the complete round of the track and had overhauled sercomb, but sercomb was now bidding fair to recover lost ground and take the race from the crippled jarrot car. "did you ever see such measly luck?" growled chub. chapter xv. well won, king! the narrowing down of the contestants in the race had brought the interest of the onlookers to a focal point. the excitement everywhere was intense. carl pretzel had not seen motor matt when he reached the track and took his place in the car, but, from a point in the grand stand he had recognized him when the car leaped away. for a while the dutch boy was dazed and dumfounded. could he believe his eyes? was that motor matt in the car, going over the course with chub? for almost an hour carl kept his post in the grand stand, waiting for no. 13 to come around, so he could give closer attention to the driver and make sure it was matt. he made certain; there could be no doubting the evidence of his senses; motor matt was really driving the jarrot car. but where had he come from? and what was sercomb doing in the race? carl had been told that sercomb was to be arrested and taken out of the contest, and he was wondering why this had not been done. in a highly excited condition, carl left the grand stand and went hunting for mr. trueman. he found him in a place reserved for the representatives of firms who had machines in the race. "misder drooman," demanded carl, "vat has peen going on, hey? i see dot modor matt iss in der car. how it come aboudt? vas i treaming, oder vas it somepody vat looks like matt und don'd vas him?" "it's motor matt, all right, carl," replied trueman. "vere he come from?" "give it up. he blew in here just in time to take the car out for the start. he didn't have a chance to explain a thing." "ach, i feel so habby as i don'd know! matt vas pack, some more, und he iss racing like vat he used to. dere ain'd nodding wrong mit him." "he's the best driver in the race, bar none," declared trueman. plympton, who was watching events closely, overheard the remark and turned around. "i agree with you, trueman," said he heartily; "motor matt's a wonder. and to think, by gad, that this is his first race!" probably colonel plympton was sorry, then, that he had not secured motor matt's services for the stark-frisbie people while he had the chance. "i t'ought dot sercomb feller vas nod going to be in der race," went on carl, taking particular pains to let plympton hear the remark. "he iss a sgoundrel, und nodding vould haf habbened to matt oof it hatn't peen for him." "i told matt i was going to have sercomb arrested and taken out of the contest, carl," explained trueman, "but matt insisted that he be allowed to stay in the race." "by gad," said plympton, turning again, "the boy was right! he wants to beat sercomb, and he knows it's a whole lot better to give him every advantage. king is a game sportsman, and i take off my hat to him." "dot sercomb feller vat runs der car for you, gurnel plympton," said carl, "iss some pad eggs. dere don'd vas nodding fair aboudt him. he has hat it in for matt for a long dime, und iss der piggest fillian dot efer vas. he vill dry on somet'ing in der race yet, you vatch und see." "you're mistaken, young man," said plympton sharply. "i think you are, too, carl," spoke up trueman. "sercomb, no matter how much he may hate matt, won't dare do anything crooked." "vy nod? dot feller iss der vorst dot efer vas. aroundt on der odder site oof der race course he mighdt run indo matt, oder do somet'ing like dot." "beautiful, beautiful," murmured plympton, watching matt pass mings a second time; "i never saw such driving as king is doing." "he can do anyt'ing!" declared carl, swelling up. "he iss my bard, und he iss der lucky poy. oof sercomb leds him alone, matt vill vin der race. aber i don'd t'ink sercomb vill do dot." for two hours longer the breathless crowd held to their places. only sercomb and matt were left on the course, all the rest of the machines having given out, or their drivers having given up. it looked like matt's race, although it could be seen that his car was bothering him terribly. chub was as busy as a monkey with its hand in a coconut, switching out and in with one hand, pumping oil with the other, and occasionally giving swift attention to something else. he was fairly plastered with oil and dust. matt had passed sercomb, having gone completely around the circuit and caught up with him. but sercomb's machine was again working smoothly and was going much faster than the no. 13. he passed matt. but could he get around the track completely and then cross the finish-line with a margin to his credit? if everything held up, it looked as though he would be able to win. how the crowd in the grand stand watched that gap in the fence, beyond the paddock, for a glimpse of sercomb rushing over the course to make up his opponent's lead! trueman and plympton were consulting their watches nervously. "something's gone wrong with sercomb," muttered plympton. "at the rate he was going when he passed here, on the other round, he ought to have been back before this." "the accidents can't all happen to one car," said trueman. "that's so; but stark-frisbie usually put out dependable cars. king has been having trouble with your racer almost from the start." "it's the finish of the race that tells the story," returned trueman. "this will be the first race the jarrot people ever won--providing you win it." "it's the biggest race, at that. even if we don't win, it's something to beat the bly-lambert people. we've thrown dust in the faces of the cup-holders, anyhow." tales of accident on the course had been drifting in, and some of the drivers of the wrecked and disabled cars had got back to the park. as by a miracle, no one had been killed, it seemed, or even dangerously hurt. "ah!" shouted colonel plympton, his eyes on the gap in the fence on the other side of the track, "here comes sercomb now!" a flurry of dust was shooting through the break in the fence and turning into the track for the home-stretch. for a space the thick blanket of dust shrouded the car and it was impossible to tell whose car it was. "don't be too sure that it's sercomb," cautioned trueman excitedly. "i've got money that says it's king." "done for a hundred!" returned plympton promptly. "if it isn't sercomb, i owe you the money." just then the wind whipped aside the dust and a most astonishing sight presented itself. the dust was raised by both cars, for matt and sercomb were rounding the track almost side by side. strangely enough, the third cylinder of the no. 13 had stopped its rebellion. dropping in line with the others, it had taken up its rhythmical action and was doing its full part. of course, the race was matt's. he was the full course, nearly, ahead of sercomb. even if the no. 13 stood still, the race would still be matt's. why, then, was sercomb continuing the hopeless fight? around the course came the two cars, matt keeping the lead by two or three feet. as the two machines, one white and the other red, raced toward the finish-line, the crowd grew nearly frantic. rising in their seats the people yelled until they were hoarse; men threw up their hats, and women fluttered their handkerchiefs. then suddenly the wild cheering died as if by magic. sercomb, perhaps carried away by the heat of the contest, had given his steering-wheel into the charge of his mechanic, a red-haired irishman, and was leaning far over toward the other car. sercomb had a wrench in his hand, and his purpose, as could clearly be seen, was to strike matt with the heavy instrument. the crowd caught its breath. "i toldt you, i toldt you!" carl was muttering to himself as his frenzied eyes watched the grim little affair as it went forward. matt, busy with his driving, could not see the danger that threatened him; but not so with the lad at his side. chub, facing backward in his seat, made a quick move outward and sideways. the wrench, at that moment, was on the point of falling. chub caught the murderous hand just in the nick of time to save motor matt. for a moment sercomb and chub struggled as the cars raced. then the wrench fell, sercomb slipped back into his seat, and matt cut off the power and slowed down to a halt. a great gasp of relief went up from the crowd, followed by a perfect roar of cheers. while sercomb and his irish mechanic raced onward, the crowd poured out of the grand stand and over the fences to rush upon the victor and congratulate him. chapter xvi. conclusion. "nobly done, king!" roared trueman, grabbing matt out of the car and giving him a rapturous hug. "oh, it was a grand race, a splendid race, and you have done wonderful things for the jarrot people! they'll not forget this in a hurry. make no contract with any one," he whispered, "until you hear from me! i've got to wire st. louis!" "matt!" whooped carl, pawing through the excited crowd to reach his chum's side. "i knowed dot you vould do it, yah, py shinks! und i knowed dot sercomb vouldt dry to do you, too. dot's der vay mit him." carl hugged matt ecstatically, then turned to grab the oil-caked hands of chub. "you safed matt, chub," said he, "dot's vat you dit. eferypody saw dot! eferypody knows, now, schust vat kindt oof a feller dot sercomb iss. efen plympton can'd ged aroundt vat he saw mit his own eyes, nix, py shiminy!" off to the left of the grandstand colonel plympton was having an interview with sercomb. "why didn't you stop where king halted his car?" he demanded wrathfully. "i wanted to get away from the crowd," was sercomb's sullen response. "well, i don't blame you for that," said plympton sarcastically. "the people probably would have done anything but congratulate you. sercomb, what did you mean by making that attempt on king?" "i meant to knock him out of the car, if i could!" was the savage response. "is that the kind of sportsman you are?" queried plympton, a gleam rising in his eyes. he was just beginning to understand what kind of a driver sercomb was. he was getting an insight into his character which he had never had before. the revelation was disagreeable, to say the least. plympton himself was a man of high principle, and had no patience with trickery or deceit. "i've put up with all i'm going to from king," growled sercomb. "he's dogged me about and is doing everything he can to ruin me." "i've learned something about that, too," went on plympton, his voice hard and keen. "tomlinson told me of that affair down in new mexico, but i took your side. i couldn't believe it possible that you would act in the way you were said to have done. now, however, i have had proof that you are a contemptible cur, and that king is a gentleman." "oh, yes," sneered sercomb, "king has a way of making everybody think he's all to the good. i don't wonder that he's pulled the wool over your eyes." "look here," went on the colonel impatiently, "if it hadn't been for king, you'd be in jail this minute. an officer was waiting at the track-side to arrest you and take you out of the race. when king got here, he told trueman to have the officer keep his hands off. that's the kind of work that makes me take stock in a young man. for king's magnanimity in letting you into the race he came near to being seriously wounded, perhaps killed. what do you say to that?" sercomb had nothing to say. he heard everything but preserved a sullen silence. "what's more," pursued the colonel, "i know that you tricked king, through slocum, into signing a paper he never would have signed if he had known what he was doing; and through that same paper you tricked me." "you've been listening to king's side of the story," growled sercomb. "more than that," went on the colonel relentlessly, "by your vile tactics, again using slocum as your tool, you drugged king and sent him away----" "that's false!" stormed sercomb. "don't lie," answered plympton sternly. "have strength of character enough to face the music. you've brought this on yourself and you'll have to bear it. slocum is in jail, and he has made a confession." sercomb gasped and his face turned gray. "then--then i suppose you're--you're done with me?" he faltered. "yes, you've guessed right, sercomb. stark-frisbie are done with you, but the law is not." as he finished, plympton stepped back and motioned to a man who was standing near. the latter pushed forward and laid a hand on sercomb's shoulder. "you're my prisoner, sercomb," said he. at that moment a touring-car came slowly past the place where the little group was standing. the car contained trueman, matt, carl, and chub, with one of the jarrot mechanics at the steering-wheel. they were all smiling and happy, but a puzzled look crossed matt's face as his gaze rested on the officer and sercomb. "stop a minute!" called plympton, stepping toward the car. "king," he went on, reaching up to take matt's hand, "i have done you an injustice, and i ask your pardon. you have acted like a gentleman and a true sportsman and you drove a race that will go down into automobile history as one of the pluckiest ever pulled off. your car bothered you a good deal, but you hung on and won." "we won on three speeds," replied matt. "we had trouble and stripped one of the gears." "dree speeds aheadt," bubbled carl. "vell, dot vas enough." "certainly it has proved so," said the colonel. "the jarrot people have first claim on your services, king, but if they don't offer you enough, i wish you'd give us a chance." "here, here," laughed trueman. "i don't think the jarrot people will let you steal from them the driver that won the cup." "what are you doing with sercomb, colonel?" queried matt, still with his eyes on the beaten driver. "he is under arrest," was the grim reply. "for what he did last saturday night?" "yes." "as a favor to me," said matt earnestly, "i want you to let him go." "oh, here," demurred trueman, "that's carrying the thing too far, king. don't waste any sentiment on that young scoundrel." "he deserves all that will come to him," averred plympton. "he has been beaten," persisted matt, "and that is punishment enough. i want him released. can't you arrange it, colonel?" "by gad," muttered plympton, "i can't understand you, king. if that's really what you wish, though, i'll see what can be done." "this is a day of victory to me," smiled matt, "and i'd like to celebrate it in that way." "your desire does you credit," said the colonel bluffly, "but i think you display poor judgment." "that's the way with pard matt," spoke up chub. "but i don't think it's such a bad way, either. anyhow, it don't keep him from making good in whatever he undertakes." "sure nod," put in carl, "aber i don'd like dot. i vouldt radder punch sercomb's headt as led him go. dot's me--so savage all der time as some grizzly pears." "well, drive on, patterson," said trueman impatiently. "settle the business as matt wants it, plympton, if you can." patterson drove the car to the hotel, matt receiving congratulations all the way into town. he and chub were both extremely tired, but a bath and fresh clothes made them feel a hundred per cent. better. while the two boys were looking after their own comfort, mutual explanations were indulged in. matt learned how chub and his father had started for chicago to make a sale of the mine, how chub had learned matt was to take part in the cup race, and had stopped off at ottawa to be with his chum in his hour of victory--or defeat. matt then explained how he had come to himself, early tuesday morning, camping down on a straw pile four miles from lawrence. "it's a queer thing," said he, "coming to your senses and finding yourself somewhere and never knowing the least thing about how you got there!" "well, i should smile!" grinned chub. "you don't know a whole lot about it yet, do you? we haven't had much time for talk since you got back." "i know i was drugged in some way," returned matt, "and that i had just time to get from lawrence to ottawa in a gasoline speeder so as to enter the race. if trueman had drawn first place, i guess i'd have been on the bleachers instead of in the car." chub told about the miserable hours he and carl had passed while waiting for matt to be found, or else to find himself. "that dutchman," said chub, "was as near daffy as a fellow can be and yet have a few lucid intervals. he wanted to fight. he didn't seem at all particular who he licked, but he wanted to be using his fists." "the little runt!" laughed matt. "he's a fine fellow, that carl. his head-work isn't very brilliant, at times, but he's true blue; and when it comes to fist-work, i don't know where you can find his equal for one of his size." "i've cottoned to him in great shape. how much do you pull down for the winning, matt?" "three thousand." "that's making money hand over fist!" exclaimed chub, "and there'll be more coming. a crack driver like you can command his own price." "you're in for something, too, you know. i never could have won if you hadn't helped me like you did." "splash! what's that bell i hear?" "supper!" "let's run. i'll bet i can eat twice as much as carl, to-night." "you'll have to be going some, if you do." "well," laughed chub, "we've been going some for five hours, steady, so we've got our hand in. three speeds forward, old chap, and hit 'er up!" the end. the next number (9) will contain motor matt's air-ship; or, the rival inventors. capturing an air-ship--a queer "find"--the balloon house--the kettle continues to boil--carl investigates--jerrold, brady's rival--jerrold's gratitude--aboard the _hawk_--willoughby's swamp--a foe in the air--brady changes his plans--into the swamp--a desperate chance--a daring escape--the end of the mid-air trail. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, april 17, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. taking a big 'gator. arnold chesney came galloping with his neck for sale up to the shanty among the orange trees, and flung himself off his steaming pony. "terry," he roared, "the cold signal's flying. heavy frost prophesied for to-night. get out and build the fires." a good-looking young irishman in flannel shirt and blue jeans came running out of the rough log building that served both as dwelling place and as office at their orange grove in florida. "faith, i thought as much, arnold. the wind's going nor'west. there'll be the divvle's own frost by morning," he declared. the two youngsters toiled like trojans while the sun sank behind the pine forest and the temperature dropped minute by minute. great piles of fat pine wood were stacked every few rows among the trees, covered with wet grass, and then as the thermometer in the tube sank close to thirty-two degrees the fires were lighted, and greasy, black smoke poured up in clouds. but as the cold increased so did the wind, and the smoke, instead of lying in a protecting fog over the trees, streamed away to leeward. by two in the morning it was blowing a full gale, and the cold was crusting the water buckets in the veranda. "'tis no good, arnold," gasped poor terry. "feel this!" he handed him an orange. it was hard as a baseball, frozen to the very core. arnold groaned. "you're right, terry. we're done." they were. when morning dawned crisp and clear, and the red sun rose in a cloudless sky, every orange in south florida was a lump of ice. the green leaves, so stiff and firm overnight, hung limp and blackened. not only was the crop gone, but the trees themselves were terribly injured. arnold and terence surveyed the scene of ruin in despair. "our first decent crop!" growled chesney. "we'll have to start all over again." "'tis not that i'm thinking of," said terence burke. "'tis cassidy." "the brute! i'd forgotten him!" exclaimed arnold in dismay. "small chance he's give ye of forgetting him. more be token, here comes the spalpeen." a short, square man with a flat face, a turn-up nose, and eyes like a pig's, came through the slip bars by the road. in an ill moment the two youngsters had given this irish-american a mortgage on their grove, a step they had never ceased regretting. "good-mornin' to ye, byes. th' quarther's interest is due. have ye it for me?" "there it is. look at it!" said chesney, pointing to the ruined trees. "ah, don't be pokin' your fun at me. 'tis cash i want, not froze-up oranges." terence turned on the man. "ye know full well, cassidy, 'twas the crop we were going to pay ye out of. the crop's gone, and ye'll not be brute enough to want us to pay ye on the nail." cassidy's ugly little eyes narrowed. "i can't help the frost," he said. "i'm a business man, and i'm wanting my money." "then you'll have to wait for it," said arnold chesney bluntly. "we haven't got it, so we can't pay. is that clear?" "clear as soup, begob. an' as ye can't pay, thin i'll take th' grove. an' that's clear, too." "not so fast," retorted chesney. "the law gives us a clear twenty-eight days. if we pay the interest within that time we're safe." cassidy scowled. he had not credited the boy with so much knowledge. "'twill take more than twinty-eight days to grow a new crop," he sneered. "i'll give ye what grace the law allows, an' not another hour. ye'd best write north for th' money. ye'll never make it in th' time. that i know." "what do you bet?" cried arnold sharply. "what do you bet we don't make a hundred dollars in the next four weeks?" "i'll bet ye the hundred, an' small chance i'll have o' being paid." "thanks for your kind opinion, but we'll have it in black and white if you don't mind, mr. cassidy." and arnold quietly led the way to the house. "you're crazy, arnold. what took ye to make a bet like that? a dollar a day's all either of us can earn. an' even if we get work, that's only forty-eight dollars between us." arnold looked mysterious. "have you forgotten our friend, enos b. hinks?" he asked. "the chap that owns the palmetto beach house?" "that's the man. when i was down there last year, he told me i could have a job any time as guide. taking his northern tourists out to kill quail and snipe. bet he'll take us both on, and it's two and a half a day and grub." "faith, i'm thinking 'twill pay better than growing frozen oranges," replied terence dryly. "i'm your man, arnold, dear." "good. now to pack and scrape up our fares. we've no time to lose." palmetto beach was eighty miles south, on the gulf coast. the tickets were nine dollars, which arnold raised by selling his watch to a friendly tourist at the station. when the two arrived at the door of the great building with its moorish minarets and roofs of gleaming tin, they had exactly sixty cents between them. "hinks?" echoed the smart clerk in the office. "mean enos b. hinks as used to own this hotel?" "used to own it!" "yes. you're strangers, i reckon. enos b. sold out last summer. hiram j. crundall's now the proprietor of the palmetto beach." the two boys stared with blank faces. terry was the first to recover himself. "d'ye think mr. crundall would see us?" he asked sweetly. terry's soft irish voice was irresistible. "i wouldn't wonder, gentlemen. i'll ask him. step inside the office." a great, burly man with scrubby black hair and a long, black cigar between his hard lips came into the office. "want rooms, gents?" he asked abruptly. "not rooms--work," replied arnold. the big man looked them over. "i haven't any jobs, for you. i've got a yellow chap, pete lippitts, who takes the guests out shooting. you'll have to try farther." "i'm much obliged to you," said arnold very quietly. he took up his hat, and somehow he and terry found themselves outside. a merry party were playing tennis. smartly dressed people lounged on the shady veranda. the sun shone brightly, and the two poor lads, with hearts heavy as lead, made their way through the beautiful gardens to the outer gate. "how are we going to get back?" asked terry. "sixty cents won't take us far." "walk, i reckon," said arnold grimly. "hi, mister. say, come back. the boss wants you." both the youngsters wheeled round. a big mulatto was running after them. "look here," said crundall. "peter tells me the big 'gator i've got in the pond has bust the netting and crawled out and gone. if you chaps are game to catch him or another, i'll make it worth your while." arnold and terry exchanged glances. "what's it worth?" demanded arnold. "fifty dollars," said crundall. "that is for one not less'n six foot long. i don't want any toys." "and if he's bigger than six foot?" "don't you fret. you won't get one bigger." "we might," said arnold dryly. crundall actually smiled. "i like your sand," he said. "tell you what. i'll make it ten dollars a foot extra for anything above six foot. is that a go?" "agreed!" "mind you, he's got to be whole and sound. no shark hooks in him, nor bullet holes," warned crundall. "right," said arnold. "we'll start in the morning." crundall nodded. he was a rough chap, but the straight talk of the young fellow appealed to him. he turned to pete. "pete, see these fellers have a bed to-night and grub. so long. the dollars will be ready when you come back with the 'gator." "a sweet fix you've got us in, arnold, me boy," was terry's first remark when, after an excellent supper, the two reached their room. "what's the matter, terry?" "begorra, what isn't? how are ye going to catch an alligator without hooks?" "don't you worry. i'll think it out." "faith, 'twill take a divvle of a lot of thinking." "i'm going to sleep on it first," said arnold quietly. "we've got to be up at an unholy hour to-morrow. i mean to give crundall a run for his money. he's worth cultivating--that man." terry gave a sigh of resignation, and began pulling off his clothes. when he awoke next morning arnold was standing over him ready dressed. "have you thought of a plan?" was terry's first question. "bet your life," grinned the other. "hurry up. breakfast's ready." an hour later, guns on shoulder, food for two days, and a coil of stout rope in a game bag, the two were tramping across the wire grass through the dewy pine woods, with the rising sun striking long shafts of light through the red stems. "bitter bayou's the place for my money," said arnold. "there's stacks of 'em there. but keep an eye peeled for a deer or a pig. i'm not particular." "bait, is it?" asked terry eagerly. "just so." "but that ould crundall said he wouldn't have a hooked 'gator at any price," replied terry, puzzled. "an' sure we couldn't hook one anyhow widout a hook." "true, terence," laughed arnold. "sh--quietly!" as he spoke he dropped flat behind a log. as terry did the same, there was a crisp rustling in a patch of saw palmetto about fifty yards away, and an old razorback sow, with six piglings behind her, came slowly out into the open. "take the first little 'un," muttered arnold. "keep your second barrel for the old beggar if she charges. now!" two reports crashed out. over rolled two of the small pigs. the old sow threw up her sharp head, then with a squeal of alarm bolted with the survivors of her family. "good business!" cried arnold, jumping up and running forward. "raw pork for mr. 'gator, and roast for ourselves. eh, terry?" "faith, 'tis a funny thing to catch a ten-foot alligator wid!" remarked terry, ruefully surveying the plump little porker. "quite enough," replied arnold with a grin, as he shouldered the other pig. the ground began to slope away, pine gave place to live oaks, and live oaks to cabbage palms and cypress. the soil was black and oozy beneath their feet, and at last they found themselves on the edge of a deep river, whose brown stream wound sluggishly beneath the gloomy branches of giant cypress trees. "here's the bayou. now for the 'gator," exclaimed arnold as he flung down his pig and his gun. "faith, you're as pleased with yourself as if ye'd got the scaly beggar in your pocket this minute," complained the irishman. arnold grinned. "how long a one do we want, terry. fifty dollars for six foot, and ten for each foot beyond. fifty and five tens. eleven foot's our minimum." "sure, there's one with a bit to spare," said terence sharply, pointing. out of the dull waters something was heaving itself slowly up. something long and rugged, like a rough barked, water-sodden log. so slowly did it rise that the oily water did not show a single ripple. "phew!" muttered arnold. "that chap takes the cake! never saw such a brute in my born days; thirteen foot if he's an inch. terry, if we can collar him our fortune's made." "more likely th' baste'll swallow us," retorted terence. "not he. he's going to have something else to swallow. keep an eye on the old scalawag, terry, while i fix up a dose for him." and arnold, plumping down on his knees, whipped out his knife and began operations. he slit open the pig, and then from the game bag pulled out a good-sized tin. in this were two packages, each carefully wrapped in oiled paper and sealed. arnold spread paper on the ground, and, turning out half the contents of each packet into two small white heaps, began to mix them together. "is it crazy ye are, arnold?" demanded his irish chum. "no; why?" "'tis a live alligator crundall asked for, not a poisoned one." "i'm not going to poison him; you wait a jiffy!" and arnold chuckled again, but gently, for fear of scaring the alligator. the latter, however, was still taking life easy, basking in a patch of sunlight which leaked between the trees. carefully mixing his two powders, arnold made them into one package, which he rolled up in several thicknesses of paper, and tied securely. he then dexterously inserted this package inside the carcass of the diminutive pigling, and sewed it into place. "next thing is to present the bait nicely and quietly to our fat friend there," remarked arnold as he completed operations. terry shrugged his shoulders. for once his quick irish wits were quite at fault. carrying the pig, arnold crept cautiously out on a fallen log which extended over the water, and dropped his burden cautiously into the sluggish stream. it floated slowly down toward the spot where the great scaly brute lay basking. "only hope another chap don't get it first," muttered arnold. "it's the big fellow we want." alligators have a quick sense of smell. all of a sudden two more scaly heads rose above the surface, and another couple of huge brutes appeared out of the thick saw grass on the opposite bank. but number one had no idea of being balked of his prey. the oily water began to swirl in front of his great blunt head. he came plowing upstream like a torpedo boat, and almost instantly the huge jaws opened like a barn door, and the tasty morsel disappeared between two rows of gigantic yellow fangs. then with amazing suddenness the monster vanished. "got him!" hissed arnold in tense excitement. "is it a slaping powder ye've given him?" asked terry eagerly. "sleeping powder! you'll soon see." arnold shook with laughter. minutes passed. nothing happened. arnold began to look uneasy. "your medicine ain't acting, arnold my bhoy," grinned terry. "it's bound to before long," replied arnold, creeping out to the very end of the log and peering down into the brown bayou. suddenly the water boiled violently, and out of the unseen depths the big alligator came flying as if he had been shot from a gun. "look out!" yelled terry. too late. the monstrous tail smote the log with a force that sent arnold flying up into the air. and terry, wildly grabbing for his gun, saw with horror that his friend had dropped slap on top of the writhing, struggling monster. for an instant both disappeared. then up they came again, and terry could hardly believe his eyes when he saw arnold seated astride on the huge scaly neck, while the alligator, thrashing the water with its tail, swam round and round in wide circles. terry, finger on trigger, dashed out on the log. he was certain the brute would dive and take arnold with him, and yet he dared not shoot for fear of hitting his friend. "don't shoot!" roared arnold, catching sight of terry out of the tail of his eye. "hold on. i'll have him." the alligator seemed unable to sink. yet it was evidently trying to. finding this impossible, it swung its great head round, snapping at arnold with a sound like the clashing of a shunting train. but arnold had his knife out, and every time the brute came round at him drove the point deep into the soft flesh at the joint of the neck. "the rope!" shouted arnold. terry bounded ashore, and next moment was back with the rope coiled and a slipknot at the end of it. round and round went the alligator, churning the water to foam, and sending small waves slapping under the hollow banks. it was fast exhausting its mighty strength. "now!" yelled arnold, as the beast came sailing straight under the log. quick as light terry swung the noose into position. it passed neatly over the great, rugged head, and as it tightened terry took a half hitch round the log, and the brute was brought up all standing with a jerk that made the tough rope sing and sent arnold flying overboard. terry had him out in a moment, and the two rushed the end of the rope ashore, and, getting round a tree, began playing the alligator as a fisherman plays a salmon. it was a good five minutes before the giant brute gave out and, more than half throttled, was lugged ashore. luckily for the boys, the bank was practically level with the water, or they never could have got the huge weight ashore. even when he was on land they had a terrible job to noose the great, thrashing tail that was leveling the bushes like a giant scythe. at last he was safe, tied head and tail to two trees, and the boys, gasping, mopped the perspiration from their dripping faces. "'twas mighty funny medicine ye gave him, arnold," said terry, as he surveyed their captive with huge satisfaction. "can't you guess what it was?" terry shook his head. "tartaric acid and carbonate of soda, my boy. turned him into a balloon. he couldn't sink for the life of him." "tartaric acid!" gasped terry; "carbonate of soda! sure no wonder the poor brute was onaisy!" then the comic side of it struck him, and he burst into shrieks of mirth. arnold joined, and the two laughed till they rolled helpless in the long grass beside their ugly captive. "geewhillikens!" exclaimed crundall as he surveyed the monster which four oxen were tugging in a cart through the hotel grounds. "i'll need a new pond for that le-vi-athan!" "give us the job to dig it?" put in arnold quickly. for the first time since they had met him hiram crundall actually laughed. "i reckon i've got a better job for you two fellers than digging sand. say, how'd you like to come into my office and learn this hotel business. don't mind telling you there's a pot of money in it." "we accept, sir!" cried arnold briskly. "whatever it is, it's better than growing frozen oranges." "i've made half a million at it in ten years, so i ought to know," replied crundall dryly. here terry put in a word. "i say, arnold, how about cassidy?" "cassidy--who's he?" asked crundall. terence told the story of the bet. crundall slapped his great knee. he pulled out a huge pocketbook, counted out bills for two hundred dollars, and handed them to arnold. "you git right along," he said, "and collect. and if cassidy don't pay on demand wire me. i'll come an' make him." but cassidy did pay, and then the boys let him foreclose on the ruined grove. they had better fish to fry. a tigers' haunt. lonely--difficult to traverse--haunted by wild beasts. such is the picture of the great delta of the ganges, as drawn by mr. edmund candler in _blackwood's magazine_. the region of the sundarbans occupies four thousand square miles, and is intersected by six hundred named and ten times as many unnamed channels. what is not water is thick jungle. the banks of the channels are haunted by crocodiles and red and brown crabs. "seeds fall all day long, and germinate at once in the mud, and spring up and choke one another, and writhe and struggle for light and room." but this seething mass of vegetation is all mapped out into sections by the forest department. each section, when the timber is cut, is left alone for forty years. this statement of itself makes us realize the loneliness of the place. wild animals have their lairs in this forest, and the tiger is a serious danger to the woodcutters of the forest, many of whom fall to the tigers yearly. latest issues motor stories the latest and best five-cent weekly. we won't say how interesting it is. see for yourself. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 1--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. 2--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. 3--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier. 4--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet." 5--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air-ship; or, the rival inventors. tip top weekly the most popular publication for boys. the adventures of frank and dick merriwell can be had only in this weekly. =high art colored covers. thirty-two pages. price, 5 cents.= 669--frank merriwell's great work; or, getting the right start. 670--dick merriwell's mind; or, the ideal of manhood. 671--dick merriwell's "dip;" or, the mysterious movements of a hat. 672--dick merriwell's rally; or, making a fighting finish. 673--dick merriwell's flier; or, the champions of the ice. 674--frank merriwell's bullets; or, a steady nerve and a sure hand. 675--frank merriwell cut off; or, the result of the great spring rise. 676--frank merriwell's ranch boss; or, big bruce and the blossoms. 677--dick merriwell's equal; or, the fellow with the flying feet. 678--dick merriwell's development; or, the all-around wonder. 679--dick merriwell's eye; or, the secret of good batting. 680--frank merriwell's zest; or, the spirit of the school. nick carter weekly the best detective stories on earth. nick carter's exploits are read the world over. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 632--the timelock puzzle; or, nick carter's bank vault case. 633--the moving picture mystery; or, nick carter's blindest trail. 634--the tiger-tamer; or, nick carter's boldest strategy. 635--a strange bargain; or, nick carter's dead-shot circus case. 636--the haunted circus; or, nick carter lays a ghost. 637--the secret of a private room; or, nick carter makes an experiment. 638--a mental mystery; or, nick carter on a difficult trail. 639--the sealed envelope; or, nick carter's search for a lost fortune. 641--the message in blue; or, nick carter's clue to a vast conspiracy. 641--a dream of empire; or, nick carter and the queen of conspirators. 642--the detective's disappearance; or, nick carter is saved by adelina. 643--the midnight marauders; or, nick carter's telephone mystery. _for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_ street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york =if you want any back numbers= of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. fill out the following order blank and send it to us with the price of the weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =postage stamps taken the same as money.= ________________________ _190_ _street & smith, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city._ _dear sirs: enclosed please find_ ___________________________ _cents for which send me_: tip top weekly, nos. ________________________________ nick carter weekly, " ________________________________ diamond dick weekly, " ________________________________ buffalo bill stories, " ________________________________ brave and bold weekly, " ________________________________ motor stories, " ________________________________ _name_ ________________ _street_ ________________ _city_ ________________ _state_ ________________ _the best of them all!!_ motor stories it is new and intensely interesting we knew before we published this line that it would have a tremendous sale and our expectations were more than realized. it is going with a rush, and the boys who want to read these, the most interesting and fascinating tales ever written, must speak to their newsdealers about reserving copies for them. =motor matt= sprang into instant favor with american boy readers and is bound to occupy a place in their hearts second only to that now held by frank merriwell. the reason for this popularity is apparent in every line of these stories. they are written by an author who has made a life study of the requirements of the up-to-date american boy as far as literature is concerned, so it is not surprising that this line has proven a huge success from the very start. here are the titles now ready and also those to be published. you will never have a better opportunity to get a generous quantity of reading of the highest quality, so place your orders now. =no. 1.--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel.= =no. 2.--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends.= =no. 3.--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier.= =no. 4.--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet."= to be published on march 22nd =no. 5.--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot.= to be published on march 29th =no. 6.--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear.= to be published on april 5th =no. 7.--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto.= to be published on april 12th =no. 8.--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward.= =price, five cents= to be had from newsdealers everywhere, or sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers _street & smith, publishers, new york_ transcriber's notes: some missing punctuation has been inserted without comment in cases where spacing of the type indicates that a position was left for the marks but they did not make it to the printed page in the source copy. many question marks appear to be missing from carl's dialogue. retained some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. bellboy vs. bell-boy). retained some questionable spellings in dialect. bold is represented by =equal signs=, italics by _underscores_. page 1, changed "abrutly" to "abruptly" ("died abruptly"). page 2, changed "blindfolded" to "blindfold" in "blindfold him, and place him." page 3, changed ? to ! after "had a scrap!" page 4, changed "hs" to "his" in "envelope from his pocket." page 8, added missing "a" to "name to a boy." page 10, removed extra "i" from "findt" in "ven ve do findt dem." page 11, added missing period after "if you want to talk." page 12, changed "the" to "they" in "they could not waste much time." page 15, changed . to ? after "was to receive?" page 16, removed extra space before period in "they left the garage." page 17, changed "then" to "than" in "than take part." removed space before period in "attention to anything else." page 20, changed "carred" to "carried" in "carried their alarm." removed duplicate "of" from "things of which." page 21, changed double quotes to single quotes around "thousand and one nights." page 22, changed "immeditaely" to "immediately" in "immediately to jail." page 24, changed "hopelssly" to "hopelessly" in "standing hopelessly by." page 25, changed "tremedously" to "tremendously" in "racing tremendously." page 28, changed "you" to "your" in "your desire does you credit." page 29, changed "rung" to "hung" in "hung limp and blackened." "latest issues" ad, changed "detetective" to "detective." courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 7 apr. 10, 1909 five cents motor matt's clue the phantom auto _by stanley r. matthews_. [illustration: "look a leedle oudt!" yelled carl, as motor matt made a quick jump for the phantom auto.] _street & smith, publishers, new york._ motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. entered according to act of congress in the year 1909, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c., by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ no. 7. new york, april 10, 1909. price five cents. motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. a night mystery. chapter ii. dick ferral. chapter iii. la vita place. chapter iv. the house of wonder. chapter v. sercomb. chapter vi. the phantom auto again. chapter vii. surrounded by enemies. chapter viii. the kettle continues to boil. chapter ix. ordered away. chapter x. a new plan. chapter xi. a daring leap. chapter xii. desperate villainy. chapter xiii. tippoo. chapter xiv. in the nick of time. chapter xv. a startling interruption. chapter xvi. the price of treachery. chapter xvii. the luck of dick ferral. bill, the bound boy. a winter story of colorado. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the western town, the popular name of "mile-a-minute matt." =carl pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking german lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with motor matt in double harness. =uncle jack=, a wealthy englishman, with ways and means of his own for accomplishing things, who leads a hermit's life in the wilds of new mexico. =dick ferral=, a canadian boy and a favorite of uncle jack; has served his time in the king's navy, and bobs up in new mexico where he falls into plots and counter-plots, and comes near losing his life. =ralph sercomb=, a cousin of dick ferral, and whose sly, treacherous nature is responsible for dick's troubles. =joe mings=, } three unscrupulous friends of sercomb, all =harry packard=,} motor-drivers, and who come from denver to help =balt finn=, } sercomb in his nefarious plans. chapter i. a night mystery. "oh, py shiminy! look at dere, vonce! vat it iss, matt? br-r-r! i feel like i vould t'row some fits righdt on der shpot! it's a shpook, you bed you!" a strange event was going forward, there under the moon and stars of that new mexico night. the wagon-road followed the base of a clifflike bank, and at the outer edge of the road there was a precipitous fall into stygian darkness. a second road entered the first through a narrow gully. a few yards beyond the point where the thoroughfares joined an automobile was halted, its twin acetylene lamps gleaming like the eyes of some fabled monster in the semigloom. two boys were on the front seat of the automobile, and one of them had leaned over and gripped the arm of the lad who had his hands on the steering-wheel. the eyes of the two in the car were staring ahead. what the boys saw was sufficiently startling, in all truth. out of the gully, directly in advance of them, had rolled a white automobile--springing ghostlike out of the darkness as it came under the glare of the acetylene lights. the white car was a runabout, with two seats in front and an abnormally high deck behind. it carried no lamps, moved with weird silence, and, strangest of all, _there was no one in either seat_! yet, with no hand on the steering-wheel, the white car made the dangerous turn out of the gully into the main road with the utmost ease, and was now continuing on between the foot of the cliff and the brink of the chasm with a steadiness that was--well, almost hair-raising. motor matt, who had been piloting the red flier slowly and carefully along that dangerous course, had cut off the power and thrown on the brake the instant the white car leaped into sight. as he gazed at the receding auto, and noted the conditions under which it was moving, a gasp escaped his lips. "that beats anything i ever heard of, carl!" he muttered. "it vas a shpook pubble!" clamored carl pretzel. "i don'd like dot, py shinks. durn aroundt, or pack oop, or do somet'ing else to ged oudt oof der vay. shpooks iss pad pitzness, und schust vy dit it habben don't make no odds aboudt der tifference. ged avay, matt, und ged avay kevick! py chorge! i vas so vorked oop as i can't dell." carl released matt's arm, pulled a big red handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his face. he was having a chill and perspiring at the same time; and his mop of towlike hair was trying to stand on end. matt started the red flier. there was gas enough in the cylinders to take the spark, so that it was not necessary to get out and use the crank. to turn around on such a road was out of the question, even if matt had desired to do so--which he did not. nor did he reverse the engine and back away, but started along in the trail of the white car. "vat you vas doing, anyvay?" cried carl. "i'm going to follow up that phantom auto and see if i can find what controls it." "you vas grazy, matt! meppy ve ged kilt oof ve ged too nosey mit dot machine. it don'd pay to dake some chances in a case like dose. i know vat i know, und dot's all aboudt it. go pack pefore der shpook pubble hits us und knock us py der cliff ofer!" carl was excited. he believed in "spooks" and motor matt didn't, and that was all the difference between them. "don't lose your nerve, carl----" "it vas gone alretty!" groaned carl, crouching in his seat, hanging on with both hands and staring ahead with popping eyes. "nothing's going to happen," went on matt. "there's no such thing as ghosts, carl." "don'd i know ven i see vone?" quavered carl. "you t'ink i vas plind, matt. dot pubble moofs mitoudt nopody to make it go like vat it does; und it don'd hit der rocks or go ofer der cliff. donnervetter! i vish i vas somevere else, py grickets. ach! i vas so colt like ice, und i sveat; und my teet' raddle so dot i don't hardly peen aple to shpeak anyt'ing." "we've seen the red flier moving along without anybody aboard, carl," said matt, in an attempt to quiet his chum's fears. "yah, so," answered carl, "aber der ret flier vas moofing along some shdraighdt roads, und der veel vas tied mit ropes so dot she keeps a shdraighdt course. aber dot shpook pubble don'd haf nopody on, und der veel ain'd tied, und yet she go on und on like anyding. ach, i peen as goot as a deadt dutchman, i know dot." while the boys were thus arguing matters the red flier was trailing the phantom auto. the white machine, still controlled in some mysterious manner, glided safely along the treacherous trail. it was beyond the glow of the acetylene lights, but the moonlight brought it out of the gloom like a white blur. in advance of the runabout matt saw a place where the road curved around the face of the cliff. the phantom auto melted around the curve. hardly had it vanished when a loud yell was wafted back to the ears of the boys. carl nearly jumped out of his seat, and a frightened whoop escaped his lips. "ach, du lieber!" he wailed. "ve vas goners, matt, ve vas bot' goners. i can't t'ink oof nodding, nod efen my brayers! vat vas dot? i bed you it vas der teufel gedding retty to chump on us. whoosh! i never had some feelings like dis yet." "don't be foolish, carl," said matt. "there was no spook back of that yell, but real flesh and blood. keep a stiff upper lip and we'll find out all about it." just then the red flier rounded the turn. a long, straightaway course lay ahead of the boys, lighted brightly by the lamps and, farther on, by the moon and stars. but _the phantom auto had vanished_! matt was astounded, and brought the red flier to a halt once more. with a high wall of rock on one side of the road, and an abyss on the other, where could the white car have gone? "ach, chiminy!" chattered carl. "poof, und avay she goes. der pubble vas snuffed oudt, und schust meldet indo der moonpeams. dis vas a hoodoo pitzness, all righdt. ve ged der douple-gross pooty soon, i bed you someding for nodding!" "but that yell----" "der teufel make him! id don'd vas nodding but der shpook feller, saying in der shpook languge, 'ah, ha, i ged you pooty kevick!' i vish dot i hat vings so i could fly avay mit meinseluf." matt got down from the car and started to walk forward. carl let off a yell and scrambled after him. "don'd leaf me, matt! it vas goot to be mit somepody ad sooch a dime. misery lofes gompany, und dot's vat i need." "come on, then," laughed matt. "vere you go, hey?" "i'm going to see if i can discover what became of that car." "it vent oop on der moonpeams," averred carl earnestly. "you can look, und look, und dot's all der goot it vill do. dake it from me, matt, dot ve don'd vas----" "ahoy, up there!" the words seem to come from nowhere--or, rather, from everywhere, which was equivalent to the same thing. carl gave a roar and tried to push himself into the face of the cliff. "vat i tell you, hey?" he groaned. "dere it vas again. matt, more und vorse dan der odder dime. righdt here iss vere ve kick some puckets; yah, leedle carl pretzel und modor matt king vill be viped oudt like a sponge mit a slate." "keep still, carl!" called matt. "there's no ghost back of that voice. listen a minute." turning in the road, matt lifted his head. "hello!" he called. "hello, yourself!" came the muffled but distinct response. the voice seemed to float out of the blackness of the chasm, and matt stepped closer to the edge. "who are you?" he asked. "my name'll be m-u-d, mud, if you don't man a line an' give me a boost out of this." "where are you?" "down the wall, hanging like a lizard to a piece of scrub. can't you tell by my talk where i am? from the looks, i'm about a fathom down; but i'll be all the way down if you don't get a move on. shake yourself together, mate, and be lively!" carl's fear, as this conversation proceeded, was gradually lost in curiosity. the voice from over the brink had a very human ring to it, and the dutch boy was beginning to feel easier in his mind. "get the rope out of the tonneau, carl," called matt. "hurry up!" "bully!" came from below, the person on the wall evidently hearing matt's order to carl. "that's the game, matey. if you've got a rope, reeve a bowline in the end and toss it over. i'm a swab if i don't think it's up to you to do it, too. i wouldn't have slid over the edge if your white devil-wagon hadn't made me dodge out of the way. how'd it--wow!" the voice below broke off with a startled whoop. "what's the matter?" called matt. "the bush pulled out a little," was the answer, "and i thought i was gone. rush things up there, will you?" at that moment carl came with the rope, and matt, standing above the place where he supposed the unseen speaker to be, allowed the noosed end to slide down to him. "i've got it!" cried the voice. "are you ready to lay on?" "catch hold, carl," said matt, "and brace yourself. all ready," he shouted, when he and carl were planted firmly with the rope in their hands. "then here goes!" the rope grew taut under a suddenly imposed weight, and matt and carl laid back on it and hauled in. chapter ii. dick ferral. a young fellow of seventeen or eighteen crawled over the brink of the chasm and sat on the rocks to breathe himself. the lamps of the red flier shone full on him, so that matt and carl were easily able to take his sizing. he wore a flannel shirt, cowboy-hat and high-heeled boots. his trousers were tucked in his boot-tops. his bronzed face was clean-cut, and he had clear, steady eyes. "wouldn't that just naturally rattle your spurs?" he asked, looking matt and carl over as he talked. "i thought you fellows had put a stamp on that rope and were sending it by mail. it seemed like a good while coming, but maybe that was because i was hangin' to a twig and three leaves with the skin of my teeth." he swerved his eyes to the red flier. "you've lit your candles," he added, "since you scared me out of a year's growth by flashin' around that bend. if you'd had the lights going _then_, i guess i could have crowded up against the cliff instead of makin' a jump t'other way and going over the edge." "you vas wrong mit dot," said carl. "it vasn't us vat come along und knocked you py der gulch." "that's the truth," added matt, noting the stranger's startled expression. "we were following that other automobile, and stopped when we heard you yell." without a word the rescued youth got up and went back to give the red flier a closer inspection. when he returned, he seemed entirely satisfied that he had made a mistake. "i did slip my hawser on that first idea, and no mistake," said he. "as i went over, i saw out of the clew of my eye that the other flugee was white. yours is bigger, and painted different. what are your names, mates?" matt introduced himself and carl. "i'm dick ferral," went on the other, shaking hands heartily, "and when i'm at home, which is about once in six years, i let go the anchor in hamilton, ontario. i'm a sailor, most of the time, but for the last six months i've been punching cattle in the texas panhandle. a crimp annexed my money, back there in lamy, and i'm rolling along toward an old ranch my uncle used to own, called la vita place. it can't be far from here, if i'm not off my bearings. where are you bound, mates, in that steam hooker?" "santa fé," answered matt. "own that craft?" and dick ferral nodded toward the car. "no; it belongs to a man named tomlinson, who lives in denver. carl and i brought it to albuquerque for him. when we got there, we found a line from him asking us to bring the car on to santa fé. if we got there in two weeks he said it would be time enough, so we're jogging along and taking things easy." "if you've got plenty of time, i shouldn't think you'd want to do any cruising in waters like these, unless you had daylight to steer by." "we'd have reached the next town before sunset," matt answered, "if we hadn't had trouble with a tire." "it was a good thing for me you were behind your schedule, and happened along just after i turned a handspring over the cliff. if you hadn't, davy jones would have had me by this time. but what became of that other craft? i didn't have much time to look at it, for it came foaming along full and by, at a forty-knot gait, but as i slid over the rock i couldn't see a soul aboard." "no more dere vasn't," said carl earnestly. "dot vas a shpook pubble, verral. you see him, und ve see him, aber he don'd vas dere; nodding, nodding at all only schust moonshine!" "well, well, well!" ferral cast an odd glance at motor matt. "that old flugee was a sort of flying dutchman, hey?" "i don'd know somet'ing about dot," answered carl, shaking his head gruesomely, "aber i bed you it vas a shpook." "there wasn't any one on the car," put in matt, "and it's a mystery how it traveled this road like it did. it came out of a gully, farther back around the bend, right ahead of us. we followed it, and when we had come around that turn it had vanished." "what you say takes me all aback, messmates," said ferral. "i'm no believer in ghost-stories, but this one of yours stacks up nearer the real thing in that line than any i ever heard. say," and ferral seemed to have a sudden idea, "if you fellows want a berth for the night, why not put in at la vita place?" "sure, matt, vy nod?" urged carl. "how far is it, ferral?" asked matt. "it can't be far from here, although i'm a bit off soundings on this part of the chart. i've never been to uncle jack's before--and shame on me to say it--and likely i wouldn't be going there now if the old gentleman hadn't dropped off, leaving things in a bally mix. they say i'm to get my whack from the estate, if a will can be found, although i don't know why anything should come to me. i've always been a rover, and uncle jack didn't like it. my cousin, ralph sercomb--i never liked him and wouldn't trust him the length of a lead line--stands to win his pile by the same will. ralph is at the ranch, and, i suppose, waitin' for me with open arms and a knife up his sleeve." "when did your uncle die?" inquired matt. "as near as i can find out, he just simply vanished. all he left was a line saying he was tired of living alone, that he never could get me to give up my roaming and come and stay with him, and that while ralph came often and did what he could to cheer him up, he had always had a soft place in his heart for me, and missed me. he said, too, in that last writing of his, that when he was found his will would be found with him, and that he hoped ralph and i would stay at the ranch until the will turned up. that's what came to me, down in the texas panhandle, from a lawyer in lamy. as soon as i got that i felt like a swab. here i've been knockin' around the world ever since i was ten, uncle jack wanting me all the time and me holding back. now i'm coming to the ranch like a pirate. anyhow, that's the way it looks. if uncle jack was alive he'd say, 'you couldn't come just to see me, dick, but now that i'm gone, and have left you something, you're quick enough to show up.'" ferral turned away and looked down into the blackness of the gulch. he faced about, presently, and went on: "but it wasn't uncle jack's money that brought me. now, when it's too late, i'm trying to do the right thing--and to make up for what i ought to have done and didn't do in the past. a fellow like me is thoughtless. he never understands where he's failed in his duty till a blow like this brings it home to him. he's the only relative ralph and i had left, and i've acted like a misbemannered sou'wegian. "when i went to sea, i shipped from halifax on the _billy ruffian_, as we called her, although she's down on the navy list as the _bellerophon_. from there i was transferred to the south african station, and the transferring went on and on till my time was out, and i found myself down in british honduras. left there to come across the gulf of galveston, and worked my way up into the texas panhandle, where i navigated the staked plains on a cow-horse. had six months of that, when along came the lawyer's letter, and i tripped anchor and bore away for here. as i told you, a crimp did me out of my roll in lamy. he claimed to be a fellow canuck in distress, and i was going with him to his hotel to see what i could do to help him out. he led me into a dark street, and somebody hit me from behind and i went down and out with a slumber-song. then i got up and laid a course for uncle jack's. if you'll go with me the rest of the way, i'll like it, and you might just as well stop over at la vita place and make a fresh start for santa fé in the morning." "we'll do it," answered matt, who was liking dick ferral more and more as he talked. "dot's der shtuff!" chirped carl. "oof you got somet'ing to eat at der ranch, und a ped to shleep on, ve vill ged along fine." "i guess we can find all that at the place, although i don't think the ranch amounts to much. uncle jack was queer--not unhinged, mind you, only just a bit different from ordinary people. he never did a thing in quite the same way some one else would do it. when he left england, a dozen years ago, he stopped with us a while in hamilton, and then came on here and bought an old mexican _casa_. he wanted to get away from folks, he said, but i guess he got tired of it; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been so dead set on having me with him after my parents died. the bulk of his money is across the water. but hang his money! it's uncle jack himself i'm thinking about, now." "we'll get into the car," said matt, "and go on a hunt for la vita place." matt stepped to the crank. as he bent over it, carl gave a frightened shout. "look vonce!" he quavered, pointing along the road with a shaking finger. "dere iss some more oof der shpooks!" matt started up and whirled around. perhaps a hundred feet from where the three boys were standing, a dim figure could be seen, silvered uncannily by the moonlight. "great guns, carl!" muttered matt. "your nerves must be in pretty bad shape. that's a man, and he's been walking toward us while we were talking." "vy don'd he come on some more, den?" asked carl. "vat iss he shtandin' shdill mit himseluf for? vy don'd he shpeak oudt und say somet'ing?" "hello!" called ferral. "how far is it to la vita place, pilgrim?" the form did not answer, but continued to stand rigid and erect in the moonlight. "ve'd pedder ged oudt oof dis so kevick as ve can," faltered carl, crouching back under the shadow of the car. "i don'd like der looks oof dot feller." "let's get closer to him, ferral," suggested matt, starting along the road at a run. "it's main queer the way he's actin', and no mistake," muttered ferral, starting after matt. matt was about half-way to the motionless figure, when it melted slowly into the black shadow of the cliff. on reaching the place where the figure had stood, it was nowhere to be seen. "what do you think of that, ferral?" matt asked in bewilderment. ferral did not reply. his eyes were bright and staring, and he leaned against the rock wall and drew a dazed hand across his brows. chapter iii. la vita place. "i'm all ahoo, and that's the truth of it," muttered ferral. "this is the greatest place for seein' things, and then losin' track of 'em, that i ever got into. there was certainly a man standing right there where you are, wasn't there?" "that's the way it looked to me," answered matt. "it can't be that we were all fooled. imagination might have played hob with one of us, but it couldn't with all three." ferral peered around him then looked over the shelf into the gulch, and up toward the top of the cliff. "well, sink me, if this ain't the queerest business i ever ran into! some one must be hoaxin' us." "why should any one do that?" asked matt. "what have they got to gain by such foolishness?" "i'm over my head. there's no use staying here, though, overhaulin' our jaw-tackle. let's go on to the ranch." "that's the ticket! if what we've seen and can't understand means anything to us, it's bound to come out." they started back. "are you on good terms with your cousin, ralph sercomb?" matt asked, as they walked along. "the last time i saw him was six years ago, when i came to hamilton to settle up my father's estate. ralph was there, and i licked him. i can't remember what it was for, but i did it proper. he was always more or less of a sneak, but he's got one of these angel-faces, and to take his sizing offhand no one would ever think he'd do anything wrong." "does he live in hamilton?" "no, in denver. his mother and my mother were uncle jack's sisters. last i heard of ralph he was driving a racing-automobile for a manufacturing firm--a little in your line, i guess, eh?" by that time the two boys had got back to the machine. carl was up in front, imagining all sorts of things. "i peen hearing funny noises," he remarked, as matt "turned over" the engine and then got up in the driver's seat, "und dey keep chabbering, 'don'd go on, go pack, go pack,' schust like dot. i t'ink meppy ve pedder go pack, matt." "we can't go back, carl," returned matt, starting the machine as soon as ferral had climbed into the tonneau. "we couldn't turn around in this road even if we wanted to." "vell, hurry oop und ged avay from dis shpooky blace. der kevicker vat ve do dot, der pedder off ve vas. i got some feelings dot dere is drouple aheadt. dot shpook plew indo nodding ven you come oop mit it, hey?" "the man vanished mysteriously--that's the size of it. if it was daylight, we might be able to figure out how he got away so suddenly." under motor matt's skilful guidance the red flier ran purring along the dangerous road. half a mile brought the car and its passengers to the end of the cliff and the chasm, and they whirled out into level country, covered with brush and trees. "there's a light ahead, mates!" announced ferral, leaning over the back of the front seat, and pointing. "it's on the port side, too, and that agrees with the instructions i got on leaving lamy. that's la vita place, all right enough, and ralph's at home if that light is any indication." owing to the fact that the house was almost screened from the road by trees and bushes, it was impossible for the boys to see much of it. the single light winked at them through a gap in the tree-branches, and was evidently shining from an up-stairs window. "while you're routing out your cousin and telling him he has company for the night, ferral," said matt, turning from the road, "carl and i will look for a place to leave the car." "aye, aye, pard," assented ferral, jumping out. "there must be a barn or something, i should think. go around toward the back of the house." there was a blind road leading through the dark grove toward the rear of the place. the car's lamps shot a gleam ahead and matt pushed onward carefully. when he and carl came opposite the side of the house, they heard voices, somewhere within the building, talking loudly. they could not distinguish what was said, as the intervening wall of the building smothered the words. "ve don't vas der only gompany vat dey haf do-nighdt, matt," remarked carl, in a tone of huge relief. "it feels goot to be so glose py so many real peoples afder dot shpook pitzness." "i didn't think you believed in ghosts, carl," laughed matt. "vell, a feller vas a fool ven he don'd pelieve vat he sees, ain'd he?" "that depends on how he looks at what he sees." this was too deep for carl, and before he could frame an answer, matt brought the red flier to a halt in front of a small stone barn. the barn had a wide door, and matt got out, took the tail lamp and went forward to investigate. opening one of the double doors, he stepped inside. the barn was a crude affair, the stones having been laid up without mortar. the roof consisted of a thatch of poles and boughs, overlaid with earth. there was plenty of room in the structure, however, for the machine, and there were no horses in the place to damage it. while carl opened both doors, matt ran the red flier into its temporary garage. just as they had closed the doors and were about to start for the house, ferral ran up to them out of the darkness. "here's a go!" he exclaimed. "i pounded on the front door till i was blue in the face, and no one showed up." "there's some one in the house, all right," declared matt. "carl and i heard them." "sure ve dit," struck in carl, "so blain as anyt'ing. und dare vas a lighdt, verral--ve all saw der lighdt." "well, there's no noise inside the house now, and no light, either," replied the perplexed ferral. "what sort of a blooming place is it? as soon as i began pounding on the door, the voices died out and the light vanished from the window." "are you positive this is la vita place?" asked matt, with a sudden thought that they might have made a mistake. ferral himself had said that he had never been to the ranch before, and it was very possible he had gone wrong in following directions. "call me a lubber if i ain't," answered ferral decidedly. "come around front and i'll show you." together the three boys made their way back through the gloomy grove, turned the corner of the building and brought up at the front door. the house continued dark and silent. ferral scratched a match and held the flickering taper at arm's length over his head. "look at that printing above the door," said he. there, plainly enough, were the rudely painted words, "la vita place." "we're takin' our scope of cable this far, all right," observed ferral, dropping the match and laying a hand on the door-knob, "and i guess i've got as good a right in uncle jack's house as anybody. open up, i say!" he shouted, and shook the door vigorously. no one answered. not a sound could be heard inside the building. matt stepped back and ran his eye over the gloomy outline of the structure. it was a two-story adobe, the windows small and deeply set in the thick walls. the window through which the light had been seen was now as dark as the others. this was as puzzling as any of the other events of the night, but it could be explained. those inside were not in a mood to receive callers; but, even if that was the case, why could not some one come to the door and say so? "i'm going to get in," said ferral decidedly, stepping back as though he would kick the door open. "wait a minute," suggested matt, "and let's see if the kitchen door isn't unlocked." "it isn't--i've tried it." "how about the windows?" "the lower ones are all fastened." "then i'll try one of the upper ones." there was a tree close to the corner of the house with a branch swinging close to the window through which the boys had seen the light. watched by ferral and carl, matt climbed the tree and made his way carefully out along the branch. when opposite the window, he was able to step one foot on the deep sill and balance himself while lifting the sash. "it's unlocked!" he called down softly. "i'll get inside and open the door." "there's no telling what you'll find inside there," ferral called back. "we'll all climb up and get in at the window, then look through the house together." carl was beginning to have "spooky" feelings again. not wanting to be left alone by the front door, he insisted on being the next one to climb the tree. matt, who had got into the house, reached out and gave his dutch chum a helping hand. when ferral came, they both gave him a lift, and all three were presently inside the up-stairs room. "there's been somebody here, and not so very long ago," said matt. "i smell tobacco smoke." "it's t'ick enough to cut mit a knife," sniffed carl. "i'll strike a match and look for a lamp," said ferral, "then we can see what we're doing." as the little flame flickered up in his hands, the boys took in the dimensions of a small, square room. a table with four chairs around it stood in the center of the room, and on the table was a pack of cards, left, apparently, in the middle of the game. in the midst of the cards stood a lamp. ferral lighted the lamp. "four people were here," said he, picking up the lamp, "and it's an easy guess they can't be far away. we'll cruise around a little and see what we can find." opening the only door that led out of the room, ferral stepped into the hall. just as he did so, a sharp, incisive report echoed through the house. a crash of glass followed, and ferral was blotted out in darkness. chapter iv. the house of wonder. "ferral!" cried matt in trepidation. "aye, aye!" answered the voice of ferral. "hurt?" "not a bit of it, matey. strike me lucky, though, if i didn't have a tight squeak of it. the lamp-chimney was smashed and the light put out. if the bullet had gone a few inches lower, the lamp itself would have been knocked into smithereens and i'd have been fair covered with blazing oil. that flare-up proves the skulkers are still aboard." he lifted his voice. "ahoy, there, you pirates! what're you running afoul o' me like that for? i've a right here, being dick ferral, of the old _billy ruffian_. mr. lawton's my uncle." silence fell with the last word. there were no sounds in the house, apart from the quiet, sharp breathing of the three boys. outside the faint night wind soughed through the trees, making a sort of moan that was hard on the nerves. carl went groping for matt, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he reached him and took a firm hold of his coat-tails. "ve pedder go py der vinder vonce again," suggested carl, catching his breath, "make some shneaks py der pubble und ged apsent mit ourselufs. ven pulleds come ad you from der tark it vas pedder dot you ain'd aroundt. somepody don'd vant us here." "i'm here because it's my duty," said ferral, still in the hall, "and by the same token i've got to stay here and overhaul the whole blooming layout--but it ain't right to ring you in on such a rough deal. you and the dutchman can up anchor and bear away, matt, and i'll still be mighty obliged for your bowsing me off that piece of wall, and sorry, too, you couldn't be treated better under my uncle's roof." "you're not going to cut loose from us like that, ferral," replied matt. "we'll stay with you till this queer affair straightens out more to your liking." "but the danger----" "well, we've faced music of that kind before." "bully for you, old ship!" cried ferral heartily. "i'll never forget it, either. now, sink me, i'm going through this cabin from bulkhead to bulkhead, and if i can lay hands on that deacon-faced sercomb, he'll tell me the why of this or i'll wring his neck for him." matt stepped resolutely into the hall and ranged himself at ferral's side. ferral was drawing a match over the wall. the gleam of light would make targets of the boys for their unseen enemies, but there would have to be light if the investigation was to be thorough. no shot came. "either we've got the swabs on the run," muttered ferral, "or i'm a point off. the lamp's out of commission, so i'll leave it here on the floor. we've got to find another." "be jeerful, be jeerful," mumbled carl. "efen dough ve ged shot fuller oof holes as some bepper-poxes it vas pedder dot ve be jeerful." "right-o," answered ferral, moving off along the hall. "only two rooms on this floor," he added, looking around; "we'll go into the other and try for a lamp we can use." the door of the second room opened off the hall directly opposite the door of the first. the boys stepped in and found themselves in a bedroom. there was a rack of books on the wall, a trunk--open and contents scattered--carpet torn up and bed disarranged. "looks like a hurricane had bounced in here," remarked ferral. "here's a candle," said matt, and lifted the candlestick from the table and held it for ferral to touch the match to the wick. when the candle was alight, ferral stepped to the table and looked at a portrait swinging from the wall. it was the portrait of a gray-haired man. a broad ribbon crossed his breast and the insignia of some order hung against it. in spite of the surrounding perils, ferral took off his hat. "uncle jack," he murmured, his voice vibrant with feeling. "the warmest corner of my heart is set aside for his memory, mates. i wish i'd done more for his comfort when he was alive." he turned away abruptly. "but we can't lose time here. what have you got there, matt?" matt had seen a sword swinging from the wall. drawing the blade from its scabbard, he was holding it in his hand. "i'd thought of borrowing this," said he, "until we see what's ahead." "that's a regular jim-hickey of an idea!" with one hand ferral twitched at a lanyard about his neck and brought out a dirk. "i might as well carry this, too," he added. "und vat vill i do some fighding mit?" asked carl anxiously. "i don'd got anyt'ing more as a chack-knife." "you stay behind and act as rear-guard, carl," said matt. "dick and i will go ahead." with sword and dirk in readiness for instant use, matt and ferral forged along the short hall to the stairs, peering carefully around them as they went. they did not see anything of their enemies and could not hear a sound apart from the noise they made themselves. the flickering gleams of the candle showed a number of rich furnishings in the lower hall. the first story consisted of three rooms, parlor, library and kitchen. the parlor covered one side of the house, and was divided by a passage from the two rooms on the other side. but in none of the rooms, nor the hall, was any of their lurking foes to be seen! "dis vas der plamedest t'ing vat efer habbened!" whispered carl. "a rekular vonder-house! noises, und lights, und pulleds, und nopody aroundt." "wait," warned ferral, making for an open door that evidently led into the cellar, "we haven't looked through the hold yet. we'll go down and get closer to bilge-water! i warrant you we'll stir up the rats." they descended a short flight of stairs into a rock-walled cellar. the cellar covered the entire lower part of the house, and was so high as to leave plenty of head-room. on a shelf were a number of cobwebbed bottles, and in one corner was a bin of potatoes--but there were no enemies in the cellar. "shiver me!" muttered ferral, peering dazedly at matt through the flickering gleams of the candle. "how do you account for this?" "the four people who were here," returned matt, "must have got out while we were in your uncle's room. if they have gone to the barn and tampered with the red flier----" this startling thought turned motor matt to the right about, and he raced back to the first floor. carl and ferral followed him swiftly. there were only two outside doors to the house, one leading from the kitchen, and the other from the front hall. investigation showed that both of these doors were bolted on the inside. all the lower windows were also securely fastened. ferral dropped down in a chair in the front hall and drew his hand across his forehead. "i'll be box-hauled if i can twig this layout, at all!" he muttered. "those fellows couldn't get out and leave those doors and windows locked on the inside." "and they couldn't have got past us on the stairs and got out the way we came in," added matt, equally nonplused. "we looked carefully as we came down from the upper floor, and the rascals must have been driven ahead of us. i'm knocked all of a heap, and that's a fact." carl cantered forward. "der shpooks vas blaying viggle-vaggle mit us," he averred in a stage whisper. "led us say goot-by, bards, und shkin oudt. it vas pedder so, yah, so helup me." "are you getting cold feet, matey?" queried ferral. "i peen colt all ofer," admitted carl, "efer since dot shpook pubble vented off indo nodding righdt vile ve look. den der man-shpook meldet oudt, und dese oder shpooks faded. yah, you bed my life, ve vill go oop in shmoke ourselufs oof ve shtay here long." "carl does a lot of foolish talking, dick," spoke up matt, "but he's as game as a hornet, for all that. don't pay any attention to his spook talk. i saw a lantern in the kitchen, and a padlock and key lying on a shelf. while you two are trying to solve this riddle, i'm going out to the barn and get a lock and key on the red flier. i can't afford to let anything happen to that machine." "i vill go mit you, matt," said carl. "you stay here with dick," matt answered. "i'll not be gone more than a minute." hurrying into the kitchen he lighted the lantern; then, with the padlock and key in his pocket and the sword in his hand, he unbolted the kitchen door and made his way to the barn. he listened intently as he went, but there was no sound in the gloomy grove save the hooting of an owl. he found the red flier just as he and carl had left it, and an examination of the barn proved that no one had taken refuge there. after putting the bolt upon the door and locking it--he already had the spark-plug in his pocket--he felt easier, and returned unmolested to the house. while he was gone, ferral and carl had lighted a large lamp in the parlor and drawn the shades at the windows. they were seated comfortably in easy chairs, eating sandwiches of dried beef and bread. "there's your snack, mate," cried ferral, pointing to a plate on the table. "better get on the outside of it. we may have a lively time, and it's just as well to prepare ourselves for whatever is going to happen." carl, now that the tension had eased a trifle and food was in sight, was feeling better. "i guess ve got der whole ranch py ourselufs," he beamed, his mouth half-full of sandwich. "ve schared dem odder fellers avay. oof dey shday avay undil ve clear oudt, dot's all vat i ask." "who were the lubbers, and how did they slip their cables?" queried ferral. "that's the point that's got me hooked. do you think that white car, and that man we saw in the road, had anything to do with the swabs who were in here?" before matt could answer, a rap fell on the front door and its echoes ran through the house. carl jumped up in a panic. "blitzen and dunder!" he cried chokingly, struggling with his last mouthful of sandwich and peering wildly at matt and dick, "dere's somet'ing else! schust ven ve ged easy in our mindts, bang goes der front door! now vat?" "we'll see what," returned ferral grimly, getting to his feet and starting for the hall. matt followed him, sword in hand, and ready for any emergency that might present itself. chapter v. sercomb. the rapping on the door had grown to a vigorous thumping before ferral and matt reached the entrance. quickly throwing the bolt, ferral pulled the door open and a young man of twenty-one or two stepped in. he was well built and muscular and had a smooth, harmless face. the face was so void of expression that, to matt, it showed a lack of character. ferral was carrying the candle. through its gleams, he and the newcomer stared at each other. "why--why," murmured the youth who had just entered, "can this be my cousin dick?" "you've taken my soundings all right, sercomb," answered ferral coolly. "wasn't you expecting me?" "well, yes, in a way," and sercomb's eyes roamed to matt. "we got track of you down in texas, and the lawyer said he'd sent word, but we didn't know whether you'd come or not." "where have you been, sercomb?" and matt saw ferral's keen eyes studying the other's face. sercomb met the look calmly. "i've been spending the evening at a neighbor's," he replied, "my nearest neighbor's--a mile away through the hills." "got out of an up-stairs window, didn't you?" asked ferral caustically. "what do you mean?" demanded sercomb, a slight flush running into his face. "why, when you started to make that call you left all the lower windows fastened and both outside doors bolted on the inside." "there's some mistake," answered sercomb blankly. "when i went away i left the front door open. we don't go to the trouble of locking doors in this country, dick." "well, these were locked when i got here. what's more, there were four men in a room up-stairs playing cards. come, come, you grampus! don't try to play fast and loose with me. how did you and the other three lubbers get out of the house? and why wouldn't you let me in when i rapped?" "look here," blustered sercomb, "what do you take me for? you never liked me, and you're up to your old trick of suspecting me of something crooked whenever anything goes wrong. i was hoping you'd got over that. uncle jack was all cut up over the way you treated me, and he never could understand it. now that he's dead and gone, i should think we might at least be friends." "dead and gone, is he," asked ferral quickly. "how do you know?" "because i've found him--and the will." ferral was dazed, as though some one had struck him a blow in the face. matt, who was watching sercomb intently, thought he saw an exultant flash in his eyes as he spoke. "the poor old chap," sercomb went on, "was tucked away in a thicket of bushes, less than a stone's throw from the house. i don't know whether there was any foul play--i haven't been able to find his hindu servant, tippoo, yet, but there weren't any marks on the body. i laid uncle jack away in the grove, and i'll show you the place in the morning. the will was in his coat-pocket, and wrapped in a piece of oilskin. it was very sad, very sad," and sercomb averted his face for a moment; "and to think that neither you nor i, dick, was with him. but come into the other room. i'm tired and want to sit down and rest." ferral, like one in a dream, followed his cousin into the parlor. sercomb was standing in front of carl, apparently wondering where ferral had picked up so many friends. "here, ralph," said ferral, suddenly rousing himself, "i'd forgot to introduce my friends," and he presented matt and carl. "what you've told me," he went on, "catches me up short and leaves me in stays. i heard that uncle jack had disappeared, but not that davy jones had got him." for the moment, ferral's feelings caused him to thrust aside his dislike of sercomb. "it's too confounded bad, and that's a fact," said sercomb, throwing himself into a chair and lighting a cigarette. "i haven't been down to see the old chap for six months. our firm had a machine in the endurance run from chicago to omaha, and i was busy with that, and in getting ready for a big race that's soon to be pulled off, so my hands were more than full. when i got the lawyer's letter, though, i broke away from everything and came on here." "why didn't the lawyer tell me uncle jack and the will had been found?" asked ferral. "that only happened two days ago. the lawyer wrote you the same time he wrote me." "but i saw the lawyer in lamy, day before yesterday----" "he didn't know it, then." "how does the will read, ralph?" "everything was left to me, this place and all uncle jack's holdings in south african stock. of course, you know, you've never come near him, dick. if you had, the will might have read different." "i don't care the fag-end of nothing about uncle jack's money; it was uncle jack himself i wanted to see. if this place is yours, sercomb----" and ferral broke off and started to get up. "you and your friends are welcome to stay here all night," said sercomb. "it's not much of a place, and i'm going to pack up the valuables, send them to denver, and clear out." "going to keep up your racing?" sercomb smiled. "hardly; not with a mint of money like i've got now," he answered. "in a few months, i'm off for old england." a brief silence followed, broken suddenly by sercomb. "but i'm bothered about the intruders you say were here when you came. they must have locked both doors on the inside." "a rum go," said ferral, "if strangers can come in and make free with a person's property like that." "tell me about it. this country is a good deal of a wilderness, you know, and strangers are likely to do anything." ferral said nothing concerning the phantom auto, nor about the man who had so mysteriously vanished on the cliff road; he confined himself strictly to what had happened in the house, and tipped matt and carl a wink to apprise them that they were to let it go at that. sercomb seemed greatly wrought up, and insisted on taking a lamp and making an investigation of the upper floor. "they were thieves," sercomb finally concluded. "they thought i had gone away for the night, and so they came in here and tore up uncle jack's bedroom like we see it. it was known that uncle jack had money, and it was just as well known that he had disappeared." "if you knew all that yourself," said ferral, "why didn't you lock up before you went visiting?" "i was careless," admitted sercomb, with apparent frankness. "the one thing that bothers me is the fact that you were shot at, dick! a nice way for you to be treated in uncle jack's own house!" "don't let that fret you, sercomb. i've had belaying-pins and bullets heaved at me so many times that i don't mind so long as they go wide. we'll have a round with our jaw-tackle to-morrow. just now, though, i and my mates are ready for a little shut-eye. where do we berth?" "two of you can fix up uncle jack's bed and sleep there; the other can bunk down on the couch in the room where those four rascals were playing cards. i'll sleep down-stairs on the parlor davenport. yes," sercomb added, "it will be just as well to sleep over all this queer business, and do our talking in the morning. good night, all of you." leaving the lamp for the boys, sercomb went stumbling down-stairs. "what do you think of ralph sercomb, matt?" whispered ferral, when sercomb had left the stairs and could be heard moving around the parlor. "i don't like his looks," answered matt frankly, "nor the way he acts." "me, neider," put in carl. "he vas a shly vone, und i bed you he talks crooked mit himseluf." "that's the way i always sized him up," admitted ferral, "and strikes me lucky if i think he's improved any since i saw him last. but he's got the will, and poor old uncle jack----" ferral's eyes wandered to the picture on the wall, and he shook his head sadly. "i'd have a look at that will," said matt, "and i'd get a lawyer to look at it." "these lawyer-sharps, of course, will have their watch on deck, but i hate to quibble over the old chap's property when it's uncle jack himself i wanted to find. anyhow, i got my whack, all right, to be cut off without a shilling; at the same time, ralph got more than was his due. but i'm no kicker." "if sercomb drives a racing-car," went on matt, "he must have skill and nerve." "nerve, aye! cousin ralph always had his locker full of that. but how shall we sleep? my head's all ahoo with what's happened, and i need sleep to clear away the fog. you and your mate take the bed, matt, and i'll----" "no, you don't," said matt. "i'm for the couch in the other room." matt insisted on this, and finally had his way. he was not intending to sleep on the couch, but to go out to the barn and spend the night in the tonneau of the red flier. if sercomb knew so much about automobiles, matt felt that the touring-car would bear watching. he had no confidence in sercomb, and felt sure that he was playing an underhand game of some kind. sitting down on the couch, matt waited until the house was quiet, then went softly to the open window, climbed through, and made his way to the ground by means of the tree. hardly had his feet struck solid earth, when he heard the front door drawn carefully open. sercomb stepped out and noiselessly closed the door behind him. matt, intensely alive to the possibilities of the unexpected situation, drew back into the darker shadows of the tree-branches. sercomb, moving away a little from the house, gave a low whistle. a hoot, as of an owl, came instantly from the grove. sercomb started away rapidly in the direction from which the sound came. matt followed him, keeping carefully in the shadows. chapter vi. the phantom auto again. sercomb did not follow the blind trail that led to the main road. he made for the road, but took his way along a foot-path that led through the grove. it was not at all difficult for matt to shadow him, and the young motorist was considerably surprised to see sercomb gain the road at a point where a heavy touring-car had drawn up. the car was about the size of the red flier and, in the semidarkness, looked very much like it. but it had a top. three men were standing near the head of the machine, in the glow of the lamps. they were all fairly well dressed, quite young, and there was little of the ruffian about them. they greeted sercomb excitedly, and for several minutes all four of them engaged in a brisk conversation. their voices were pitched in too low a tone, and matt was too far away to hear what was said. undoubtedly, matt reasoned, these three who had just come in the automobile had formed part of the number who had been in the up-stairs room. the fourth member of the party must have been sercomb, himself. but how had sercomb and the other three got away? their departure from the house was a mystery. and where had they kept their automobile while they were in the house? this was another mystery. they were planning evil things of some sort, and against dick ferral. matt had a clue. it assured him that sercomb had not told the truth when he said he knew nothing about the so-called intruders who had vanished from the house so strangely. sercomb, by this stealthy meeting with the three in the road, proved to matt that he knew all about the men. from their earnest talk it was clear that they were plotting mischief. wishing that he could overhear something of what was said, matt began creeping carefully along the path. by getting a few yards nearer he was sure that he would be within ear-shot. just as he had nearly reached the coveted point for which he was making, and the mumble of talk was breaking up into an occasional word which he could distinguish, the conversation broke off with a chorus of excited exclamations. matt started up, at first fearing he had been seen, and that the four in the road were coming to capture him. but in this he was mistaken. all four of them, as a matter of fact, had started in his direction, but they abruptly halted and whirled around. matt's heart jumped when he saw what it was that had claimed their attention. _it was the phantom auto!_ the white runabout was wheeling swiftly along the road in the direction of the treacherous cliff trail. the streaming lights of the touring-car were full upon the ghostly runabout, showing the vacant seats distinctly. the weird spectacle was more than enough to fill the four men with momentary panic. they stood as though rooted to the ground, watching the runabout turn of its own accord from the road, pass the touring-car, and then come neatly back into the road again. an oath broke from one of the men. leaping to the touring-car he cranked up the machine quickly and hopped into the driver's seat. two others jumped in behind him, one in front and the other behind, sercomb being the only one who remained at the roadside. swiftly the touring-car was turned and headed in pursuit. then, suddenly, there came the report of a firearm, shivering through the still air. at first, matt thought one of those in the touring-car had fired at the runabout; then, a moment more, he knew he was mistaken. the shot had come from the runabout and had punctured one of the touring-car's front tires. the big car limped and slewed until the power was cut off and it came to a halt. those who were in the car piled out, sputtering and fuming, and sercomb ran forward and joined them. together, all four watched the white phantom whisk out of sight. there followed a good deal of talking and gesticulating among sercomb and the three with him. finally one of them took off the tail lamp and all made an examination of the damaged tire. a jack was got out and the forward wheel lifted. from his actions, sercomb was nervous and excited. he kept walking from the road, looking toward the house and listening. he fancied, no doubt, just as matt did, that the sound of the shot might have awakened the sleepers in the house. however, this did not seem to have been the case. leaving one of the men to tinker with the tire, sercomb took the other two and led them off through the grove. they passed within a yard of where matt was crouching in the bushes, but their plans, whatever they were, had been settled, and they were doing no talking. matt continued to dodge after sercomb. the course he and the two with him were taking did not lead toward the house, but angled off through the grove on a line that would take them fully a hundred feet past the nearest wall of the adobe building. abreast of the house, at that point, there was a circular space, clear of timber and with only a patch of brush in the center. matt, not daring to venture beyond the edge of the timber, stood and watched while sercomb and his companions disappeared in the thicket. matt's position was such that he could see all around the little patch of bushes, and he watched for the three men to appear on the other side. they did not appear, and as minute after minute slipped away, matt's amazement and curiosity increased. the men had gone into that little thicket, and why had they not shown themselves again? what was there in that bunch of brush to attract them and keep them so long? matt concluded to investigate. there might be danger in doing that, as there would be three against him if he was discovered, but he knew he had only to raise his voice to bring ferral and carl. this clue, which he had picked up so unexpectedly in the night, called upon him to make the most of it and, if possible, discover what sercomb was up to. hastening across the cleared space, he came to the thicket without a challenge. resolutely he plunged into the bushes--and the next moment the ground seemed to drop out from under him. throwing out his hands wildly he plunged downward, struck an incline and rolled over and over, finally coming to a jolting stop on hard earth, on his hands and knees. the suddenness of his fall had bewildered him. he was bruised a little, but not otherwise hurt, and as his wits returned his curiosity came uppermost. what sort of a place was he in? his groping hands informed him that the incline he had rolled down was a rude stairway. a patch of starlight above revealed the opening into which he had stumbled. climbing the stairway, he reached a stone landing and lifted himself erect in the very center of the thicket. a flat slab, tilted upon its edge, showed how the hole was covered when not in use. matt drew a quick breath. the mysteries of la vita place were clearing a little. here, undoubtedly, was a passage communicating with the house. sercomb and the other three men must have used it in making their strange escape from the up-stairs room, earlier in the night. but why were sercomb and his two companions going back through the passage? instinctively matt's suspicions flew to dick ferral. sercomb was planning some evil against him, and the two from the touring-car were there to help him carry it out. matt hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether he should go through the passage or reach the house by crossing the cleared place and entering the front door. he decided upon the passage. the rascals had gone that way and would probably make their escape in the same manner. hurrying down the steps he began making his way along a gallery. the passage was not wide, for he could stretch out his hands and touch either side. it ran straight, and matt pushed rapidly through the gloom, trailing a hand along one wall. he knew he had only a hundred feet to go before he should reach the house, but in his haste he covered the distance before he realized it, and stumbled against a flight of steps. while he was picking himself up, he heard a commotion from somewhere above--a wild scramble of feet, a thump of blows and an overturning of furniture. above the hubbub sounded the voice of carl. "vat's der madder mit you? hoop-a-la! take dot, oof you like or oof you don'd like, und dere's anoder! matt! come along for der fight _fest_! vere you vas, matt, vile der scrimmage iss going on! verral! iss dot you?" just then, as matt began scrambling upward, a form came hurtling down. "they're onto us, joe!" panted a voice. "this way, old pal! nothing doing to-night. cut for it! i ran into something at the foot of the steps--look out for that!" matt, who had been thrown violently against the wall, heard forms dashing past him. before he could interfere with them, they were well along the passage. chapter vii. surrounded by enemies. although the two men had got past matt, nevertheless he followed them to the end of the passage, arriving just in time to see them disappear through the opening and close the aperture with the slab. only two went out. what had become of sercomb? had ferral and carl captured him--catching him red-handed and so unmasking his treachery? in any event, ferral and carl had proven more than a match for the two miscreants who had stolen in upon them. thankful that the affair had turned out so fortunately for his friends, although still mystified as to what sercomb's purpose was, matt groped his way back along the corridor and mounted the steps. it was a long flight--much longer than the one at the other end of the passage--and, at the top, matt was confronted by a blank wall. he ran his hands over it, and, in so doing, must have touched a spring, for a section of the wall slid back and a sudden glow of lamplight blinded him. "ach, du lieber!" came the astounded voice of carl. "dere vas matt, py chincher! vere you come from, hey?" matt stepped from the head of the steps into the room in which ferral and carl had been sleeping. the panel closed noiselessly behind him. "sink me!" muttered ferral, stepping past matt to run his hands over the wall. "a nice little trap-door in the wall, or i'm a fiji!" he whirled around. "how does it come you stepped through it, messmate?" "where's sercomb?" whispered matt, peering around. "what's he got to do with this?" just at that moment sercomb's voice came up from below. "what's going on up there? anything happened, dick?" "two men came in and made trouble for us!" shouted matt. "didn't you hear 'em run down the stairs?" "no, i didn't hear anybody!" answered sercomb. "take a look around, and we'll see what we can find up here." during this brief colloquy, ferral and carl were staring at matt in open-mouthed astonishment. matt whirled to ferral. "not a word to sercomb about that hole in the wall," he whispered. "tell me quick, what happened in here?" "i was sleeping full and by, forty knots," answered ferral, in the same low tone, "when i felt myself grabbed. it was dark as egypt, and i couldn't see a thing. i shouted to carl, and we had it touch and go, here in the dark. my eye, but it was a scrimmage! right in the midst of it the fellows we were fighting melted away. i had just got the glim to going when you stepped in on us." "wasn't sercomb in the fight?" "why, no. he must have been down-stairs, sleeping like a log. he only just chirped--you heard him." "well, sercomb came into this room with two other men, through that hole in the wall----" "is that right?" demanded ferral, his face hardening. "yes, but don't say a word about it. wait till we find out what his game is." "how dit you know all dot, matt?" queried carl. briefly as he could matt sketched his recent experiences. the astonishing recital left his two friends gasping. "the old hunks!" breathed ferral, scowling. "i can smoke his weather-roll, fast enough. what did i tell you about the soft-sawdering beggar?" matt stepped into the hall and listened. apparently, sercomb was not in the house. coming back, he pulled his two friends close together so they could hear him without his speaking above a whisper. "sercomb has gone out to hurry up the repairs on the big car and get it out of the way. we can talk a little, but we've got to be wary. don't let sercomb know anything about this clue i've picked up. we're surrounded by enemies, ferral, and you're the object of some sort of game they've got on. by lying low, perhaps we can get wise to it." "dot shpook auto has dook a hant in der pitzness," murmured carl, flashing a fearful glance around. "i don'd like dot fery goot." "this spook business will all be explained, carl," said matt, "and you'll find that flesh and blood is mixed up in the whole of it. that white runabout put a shot into one of the tires of that big touring-car, and no revolver ever went off without a human hand back of it. we know, too, how those men got away from that room where they were playing cards. they ran in here, got through the hole in the wall and went out by way of the tunnel. that shot that was fired at you, dick, and put out the lamp, must have come from this room, just before sercomb and the others dodged through the wall." "sercomb?" echoed ferral. "sure! it's a cinch he was playing cards in that room with the three men. he came here from denver, and he must have traveled in that big car and brought the others with him." "oh, he's the nice boy!" commented ferral sarcastically. "a fine cousin, that swab is! that phantom flugee is mixing in the game. i wonder if sercomb has anything to do with that?" "no. when the phantom auto showed up in the road, sercomb and all three of the others were scared nearly out of their wits. i'll bet that was the first time sercomb ever saw it. besides, the bullet that pierced the tire of the big car came from the runabout. that wouldn't have happened if the runabout was here to help sercomb's plans." "right-o. what kind of a bally old place is this, anyhow? holes in the wall, tunnels, and all that--it fair dazes me. what could uncle jack have wanted of a secret passage?" "didn't you tell me that this was an old mexican house, and that your uncle bought it?" asked matt. "that's how he got hold of the place, matey." "then it must have come into his hands like we find it. the mexicans used to build queer houses; i found that out while i was down in phoenix." matt turned away and took a look at the walls. they were wainscoted in cedar, all around. every little way there were panels, and the entrance to the passage, which matt had recently used, was by a panel. "the walls of these adobe houses are always thick," went on matt, "but these walls are even thicker than common. there's room in this wall for that stairway, and no one would ever suspect the wall is hollow, simply because it's made of adobe." "how does the door work?" queried ferral, stepping to the wainscoting and trying to manipulate the panel. "i'd like to know how to get the cover off the blooming hatch; the knowledge might come handy." along the wainscoting, about five feet from the floor, were arranged clothes-hooks. matt, helping ferral hunt for the secret spring that operated the panel, pulled on one of the hooks. instantly the panel slid open, answering the pull on the hook with weird silence. "chiminy grickets!" murmured carl, stepping back. "dot looks like der vay to der infernal blace." ferral stepped forward as though he would pass through the opening, but matt caught his arm and held him back. "don't go down there now, ferral," said he. "when sercomb comes we want him to find us here. he doesn't guess that i'm next to what he's done to-night, and none of his confederates know it. if we keep mum, the knowledge may do us a lot of good. if we try to face him down with it, we'll only show him our hands without accomplishing anything." "the sneaking lubber!" growled ferral. "why, he berthed us in this room so he and his mates could sneak in on us while we were asleep. but," and here ferral rubbed his chin perplexedly, "what did they want to do that for?" "we'll find out," returned matt, "if we play our cards right." "you're the lad to discover things," said ferral admiringly. "i never had a notion you were going to slip out of the house when you left us." "and i never had a notion what i was going to drop into," said matt, "i can promise you that. but it is a tip-top clue, and we'll be foolish if we don't use it for all it's worth." "you've started off in handsome style! your head-work makes me feel like a green hand and a lubber." "dot's matt, verral," declared carl, puffing up like a turkey-cock. "he alvays does t'ings in hantsome shdyle, you bed you. he iss der lucky feller to tie to, dot's righdt. i know, pecause i haf tied to him meinseluf, und i haf peen hafing luck righdt along efer since, yah, so. be jeerful, eferypody, und oof der shpooks leaf us alone, ve vill all come oudt oof der horn py der pig end. but vat makes sercomb act like dot?" "he wants uncle jack's property," scowled ferral, "and i'll wager that's what he's working for." "but how can he be working for it when he's already got it?" put in matt. "he claims to have found your uncle, and to have secured the will." "that's his speak-easy for it. he's a long-winded grampus, and can talk the length of the best bower, but that don't mean that there's any truth in all his wig-wagging." "now you're hitting the high gear without any lost motion," said matt. "between you and me and the spark-plug, dick, i don't think he ever found your uncle; and, as for the will, if he really has it, and everything's left to him, what's all this underhand work for?" a sudden thought came to ferral. "say," he whispered hoarsely, "do you think that sneaking cur could have handed out any foul play to uncle jack? i hate to think it of him, but----" "no," answered matt gravely, "i don't think----" he was interrupted by some one coming in at the front door, and stopped abruptly. "there's sercomb now," he whispered. "let's hear what he's got to say for himself. mind you don't let out anything about my clue. when you had your trouble, i ran in here from the other room and lent a hand." "are you up there?" came sercomb's voice. "i can't find a soul about the place." from the road the boys could hear the muffled pounding of a motor. and they knew, even as sercomb spoke, that he was not telling the truth. chapter viii. the kettle continues to boil. sercomb came up-stairs and stepped into the room. daylight was just coming in through the windows, and the gray of the morning and the yellow of the lamplight gave sercomb's face a ghastly look. nevertheless, it was a frank and open face--as always. "now, dick," cried sercomb, "what in the world has been going on here? do you mean to say that some one came into this room and attacked you?" "that's the how of it, old ship," answered ferral, repressing his real feelings admirably. "as near as we can figure out, there were two of them. it was so dark, though, we couldn't see our own fists, so there may have been more than two." "some of the gang who dropped in here while i was away, i'll bet," said sercomb. "i'm thinking the same thing, ralph," returned ferral, with a meaning look at matt. "they were handy, too, but not handy enough. they left us all at once, and how they ever did it beats me. we boxed the compass for 'em, though, and when we'd worked around the card they thought they had enough--and ducked." "where did they go?" "didn't you hear them go out the front door?" "not i, dick! if i had, i'd have taken a part in the scrimmage myself." "you were slow hearing the racket, ralph. it was all over when you piped up." "i heard it quick enough, but i was sound asleep when it aroused me. being a little bewildered, i went out into the kitchen." something like loathing swept over matt as he watched sercomb's face and listened to his smooth misstatement. "wonder how uncle jack managed to hang on in such a lawless country as this," said ferral. "no one ever bothered him. he was pretty well liked by the scattered settlers." "everybody liked the old chap! i thought no end of him myself." "too bad you didn't show it, dick, while he was alive," said sercomb. there wasn't any sarcasm in his voice--only a dry, expressionless statement of what ferral knew were the cold facts. nevertheless, there was a gratuitous slur in the words. ferral bristled at once, but a look from matt caused him to curb his temper. "belay a bit on that, ralph," said ferral mildly. "i know it well without your say-so to round it off. from now on, though, i'll do my best to show uncle jack what i think of him." sercomb looked a little puzzled. "his will shows everybody what he thought of you--at the last," said he. it looked as though sercomb was deliberately trying to force a quarrel, but ferral, still with matt's glances to admonish him, did not fall into the trap. "i'll go down and get breakfast," observed sercomb, after waiting in vain for a response from ferral. "some denver friends are coming up from lamy to make me a little visit, and we may be a bit crowded here. there are three of them." it was a broad hint for dick ferral to take his two friends and leave, as soon after breakfast as he could make it convenient. ferral fired up at that. matt and carl had served him well, and he was not the one to put up with any back-handed slaps from his cousin ralph. "by the seven holy spiritsails, sercomb!" he cried, "i'll have you know that i and my friends have as much right under uncle jack's roof as you and yours. we'll be here to breakfast, and as long as we want to stay." "now, don't fly off at a tangent, dick," returned sercomb, with a distressed look. "i didn't mean anything like that, and why do you go out of your way to take me in any such fashion? i'll go down and get the meal for all of us--if you can put up with my cooking." "go and help, carl," said matt. "we don't want to make mr. sercomb any extra trouble. we won't be here very long, anyhow." "dot's me," said carl, as cheerfully as he could. he hated to be associated with sercomb, but the idea of a meal always struck a mellow note in carl's get-up. "you understand, don't you, mr. king?" said sercomb, in a whining tone, turning to matt and jerking his head toward ferral. "perfectly," smiled matt. carl and sercomb went out. when they were going down the stairs ferral shook his fist. "shamming the griffin!" he growled; "the putty-faced shark, i'd like to lay him on his beam-ends! do you wonder i've had a grouch at him all these years, matt?" "no, i don't," said matt frankly; "but stick it out. i've a hunch, dick, that you're soon going to be done with your cousin for good and all. he's playing a game here that's going to get him into hot water." matt stretched himself out on the bed. "i'm going to lie here," said he, "and you can talk to me. carl will keep an eye on sercomb. tell me more about your uncle." "he was no end of a toff in london," replied ferral, taking a chair and casting a look at the portrait. "his wife died, and that broke him up; then his daughter died, and that was about the finish. he bucked up, though, and crossed the pond. when he was in hamilton he said he wanted to go some place where there wasn't so many people. then he came here." "this last move of his," said matt, "looks like a strange one to me." "he was full of his crochets, uncle jack was, but there was always a good bit of sense down at the bottom of them. sercomb would have gone down on his knees and licked his boots, knowing uncle jack had money, and nobody but him and me to leave it to. there's another cut to my jib, though. i wouldn't go around where he was because i was afraid he'd think the same of me. i've got a notion, matt, and it just came to me." "what is it?" "i'll bet that, when uncle jack left, he hid that will, and that he signed it and left blank the place where his heir's name was to be. the one that was shrewd enough to find it, you know, could put in his own name." "why should he do that?" "just to see whether sercomb or i was the smarter." "but you overlook what your uncle said about being found wherever the will was discovered." "right-o. i'm always overlooking things. you see, i'm taken all aback with this game of sercomb's. if i knew what his lay was, or what he's trying to accomplish, i'd have my turn-to in short order. still, as you say, he's going to get his what-for no matter which way the wind blows." "there's a lot of things happened that are mighty mysterious," mused matt; "little by little, though, they're clearing up. that clue i hooked onto last night makes several things clear. did sercomb know you were coming?" "the lamy lawyer must have told him he'd found out where i was, and had written to me. one thing i did do, and that was to sling my fist to a letter for uncle jack, once a month, anyhow. so he knew i was down in the panhandle." "when you pounded on the door last night, sercomb must have suspected it was you. if he hadn't, he'd have let you in." "he'd have let me in anyhow, only he didn't want me to see those other three swabs. and then for him to play-off like he did, and say he was calling at a neighbor's! it would have done me a lot of good to blow the gaff, when he came in on us a spell ago, and let him understand just where he gets off." "that wouldn't have helped any, and it might have spoiled our chances for finding out what he's up to." what answer ferral made to this matt did not hear. the young motorist had put in a strenuous night, and he was worn out. ferral's words died to a mumble, and before matt knew it he was sound asleep. some one shook him, and he opened his eyes and started up. "dozed off, did i?" he laughed. "sorry, old man, but i didn't sleep any last night, you know. you were saying----" an odor of boiling coffee and sizzling bacon floated up from down-stairs. "what i was saying, mate," answered ferral, "was some sort of a while ago. i've had my jaw-tackle stowed for an hour, letting you do the shut-eye trick. but now it's about mess-time, i reckon; and, anyhow, those friends of sercomb's are here from lamy. listen!" the chug of a motor on the low gear came to matt. getting up, he looked out of a window that commanded the front of the house. a car was coming slowly along the blind trail from the road, following the same course the red flier had taken the night before. as the automobile drew closer, matt gave a startled exclamation. "some new kink in the yarn, matt?" queried ferral. "i should say so!" answered matt. "that's the same car that was in the road last night----" "what?" demanded ferral, grabbing matt's arm. "there's no doubt of it, dick," said matt; "and the three in the car are the same ones sercomb met and talked with. two of them, of course, are the handy-boys who blew in here and roughed things up with you and carl." the car came to a stop in front. just then the front door opened and sercomb rushed out. "hello, fellows!" he called. "mighty glad to see you. pile out and clean up for the grub-pile----" matt heard that much, and just then had to turn around to look after ferral. with an angry growl, ferral had broken away and started down the stairs. "dick!" called matt, running after him. but ferral gave no heed to the call. he was down the stairs and out of the door like a shot. matt was close on his heels, but he was not close enough to keep him from trouble. "you two-faced crimp!" matt heard him yell. "you'll down me in lamy and take my money, will you, and then show up here! now, strike me lucky if i don't play evens!" chapter ix. ordered away. matt remembered at once what ferral had said about having been robbed while on his way to la vita place. now that ferral had recognized one of the newcomers as the man who had made the treacherous assault on him, a new light was thrown on that lamy robbery. if the thief was one of sercomb's friends, it looked as though sercomb must have had a guilty knowledge of the affair--perhaps had planned it. matt attempted to grab ferral and pull him away, but sercomb and the other two got ahead of him. the three laid hold of ferral so roughly that matt immediately gave them his attention. "let up on that!" he cried, catching sercomb and jerking him away just as he was about to strike ferral with his clenched fist. "there's no need of pounding dick." "i'll pound _you_ if you give me any of your lip!" answered sercomb. "the latch-string's out," answered matt grimly. "walk in." at that moment carl rolled out of the door. "vat's der rooction?" he tuned up, his eyes dancing over the squabble. carl was always as ready to fight as he was to eat, which is saying a good deal. "help me get ferral away from that fellow, carl," called matt. "on der chump!" carl landed right in the midst of the struggle, and in about half a minute he and matt had separated ferral from his antagonist. with a neat crack, straight from the shoulder, matt disarmed a fellow who had jerked a wrench out of the automobile. this put the last finishing touch to the clash, and both sides drew apart, bunching together, and each panting and glaring at the other. "dere iss only vone t'ing vat i can do on a embty shtomach, und dot's fighdt," wheezed carl, slapping his arms. "it don'd vas ofer so kevick? i got a pooty leedle kitney-punch vat i vould like to hant aroundt, only i don'd haf der dime." "take off your grappling-hooks, matt," puffed ferral, squirming to get out from under matt's hands. "dowse me if i've taken that crimp's full measure, yet. the nerve of him, breezing right up here with my money in his clothes!" "steady!" said matt, closing down harder on ferral and easily holding him. "this has gone far enough." "i should say it had," spoke up sercomb, showing a flash of temper. "pretty way for my friends to be treated! i won't stand for it." "when you've got thieves for friends, sercomb," cried ferral, "you're liable to have to stand for a good deal!" "hand him one for that, joe!" urged one of the newcomers. "that's the first time i ever heard a thing like that batted up to joe mings, and him not raising so much as a finger against the man that said it." "we've got to think of ralph, harry," said joe mings. "this row makes it uncomfortable for him." "especially since the chap that's making such a holy show of himself is my own cousin," remarked sercomb, with bitter reproach. "the more shame to you," flared ferral, "to let the hound that robbed your own cousin come here like he's done, and take his part. keep your offing, joe mings," he added, to the thief, "or i'll tie you into a granny's knot and heave you clean over your devil-wagon! where's that money? i need it, and i'm going to have it." "i don't know what you're talking about," answered mings. "you must be dippy! why, i never saw you before until you rushed out and tried to climb my neck." "you two-tongued swab! do you mean to stand up there and say you didn't meet me in lamy, tell me you were a canadian in distress, and ask me to go to your boarding-house with you and square a bill with your landlady? and will you say you didn't land on me with a pair of knuckle-dusters in a dark street and run off with my roll?" "that's a pipe," asserted joe mings. "somebody's doped you." "enough of this, dick," said sercomb. "joe's a friend of mine. all these lads are friends, and all of them drivers of speed-cars. they're here by my invitation. as for you, you're not here by anybody's invitation----" "except uncle jack's," interposed ferral grimly. "uncle jack has cashed in, and he's not to be counted. this ranch belongs to me, and you and your ruffianly friends will leave it. your friends can't ever come back here--and neither can you until you learn how to behave. come on in, boys," he added to the others. "grub's on the table." "avast a minute!" called ferral. "i'm ready to trip anchor and slant away--having never liked you so you could notice, and liking you less than ever after this round--but i and my mates will have our chuck before we go. what's more, that shark will hand over my funds, or i'll come back here with an officer and make him more trouble than he can get out of." "he hasn't got your money," said sercomb, "so he can't turn it over. what's more, you'll dust out of here _now_!" "oh, i will!" ferral lurched for the door, and matt and carl followed him. "you may have right and title to this bally old dugout, sercomb, but you'll have a chance to show me that in court; and uncle jack may be dead and gone, but that's something i'll find out for myself, and make good and sure of it, at that. his money don't bother me, for i've my two hands and know the ropes of a trade, so i won't starve; but it's uncle jack himself i'm thinking of. as for you, you were always a mixture of bear, bandicoot, and crocodile, and i wouldn't trust you the length of a cable. i and my mates are going in and eat, and if you want to avoid a smash, don't cross our hawser while we're doing it." he turned from the door, and, followed by matt and carl, went into the sitting-room, where the table had been spread. "now we've got sercomb's signals," said ferral, dropping into a chair at the table, "and know where we all stand. what do you think of this new twist in the game, matt?" "too bad it happened," answered matt, as he and carl likewise seated themselves. "we were just getting squared away to find out something worth while, dick." "i couldn't hold myself in, that's all. the idea of sercomb having that crimp in tow! i'm a fiji if i don't think my dear cousin put up that lamy job with mings." "i'd thought of that, too. but why should he do it?" "to knock the bottom out of my ditty-bag and keep me away from la vita place. more belike, he'd a notion mings would land me in a sick-bay. you remember uncle jack's room was all torn up when we first saw it?" matt nodded. "why was that?" ferral went on. "carpet torn away, sea-chest dumped all over the floor, everything in a raffle. why was that?" "what do you think was the cause of it?" ferral leaned across the table. "sercomb had been looking for uncle jack's will!" he declared. "he never found uncle jack, and he never found the will. if he's got a piece of paper, it's one he's fixed up for himself." "mighty serious talk, old chap," said matt gravely, "but i've a hunch you've got the right end of it, at that. but for this row, we might have been on fairly good terms with sercomb, and have used our knowledge, in a quiet way, to discover what he's trying to do." "vell," remarked carl, "he has rushed dot gang in here, und dot makes four to dree. meppy id vas pedder ve don'd shday. aber i'd like to hang on, you bed you! sooch a chance for some fighding i nefer foundt yet." then followed a brief interval of silence, during which the boys gave their whole attention to their food. ferral was first to speak. "you were going to set sail for santa fé this morning, matt." "we could never pull out and leave you in this mess," answered matt. "mr. tomlinson has given us plenty of time to get to santa fé." "sure, ve shday undil you vas pedder fixed to be jeerful, verral," put in carl. "dot's der greadt t'ing in life, my poy, alvays to make some shmiles, no madder vich vay chumps der cat, und be jeerful." "you're a pair of mates worth having," averred ferral, with feeling. "i don't know what i'd have done if it hadn't been for you. the very first thing you haul me off a cliff wall. if you hadn't done that, by now sercomb would be having the run of the ship. i'll do something for you some time, even if i have to travel around the world to do it. just now, though, i'd like to know what's become of tippoo, uncle jack's _kitmagar_ and _khansa-man_." "vat's dose?" inquired carl. "the hindu foot-servant and steward," explained ferral. "uncle jack was in india for a while, and that's where he picked up tippoo. sercomb, when we first met him here, hinted that tippoo may have handed uncle jack his come-up-with, but that was unjust. tippoo would lay down his life for uncle jack, and has been devoted to him for years." a noise from the barn reached those in the sitting-room. a window of the room commanded a view of the barn. matt, suddenly looking through the window, uttered an exclamation, sprang up, grabbed his hat, and rushed through the kitchen and out of the house. "what's the bloming racket now?" cried ferral, likewise getting to his feet. "look vonce!" answered carl, pointing through the window. "dere iss a shance for more scrimmages! led us fly some kites so ve don'd lose nodding oof der seddo." through the window ferral could see that the barn doors had been broken open, and that sercomb and his three companions were around the red flier. knowing matt's concern on account of the machine, ferral lost not a moment in running through the kitchen and following matt and carl. chapter x. a new plan. "get away from that machine!" cried matt, leaping into the barn. he had grabbed up a club on the way, and as he spoke he advanced threateningly upon sercomb and his friends. all four were in the car or around it. what they were trying to do matt did not know, but he felt pretty sure they had not broken into the barn with harmless intentions concerning the red flier. sercomb turned away from the front of the machine and the others got out. "what are you intending to do with that club?" sercomb demanded. "that depends on what you're trying to do to that car," answered matt. "this is my property and the car has no business here. we want this place for the other machine." "then leave the barn and i'll run the machine out. i don't allow any one to fool with that car." "there ain't one of us," struck in mings, "that don't know more about a car in a minute than you do in a year." "that may be," said matt, "but i'm boss of the red flier, all the same." "i've heard about you, king," went on mings. "dace perry, of denver, is a friend of mine, and he told me just what kind of a four-flusher you are--always sticking your nose into other people's business, same as now." "glad to hear perry has a friend," returned matt amiably, "but he could have told you a whole lot that i guess he thought he hadn't better." just then carl and ferral flocked into the barn. "are they trying to scuttle that red craft, matt?" asked ferral. "no," was the reply, "they're just going to run it out of the barn to make room for the other car. i told them i'd attend to it." "and when you get the car out of the barn," said sercomb pointedly, "just keep going, all of you." "we'll do that to the king's taste," averred ferral. "i wouldn't hang around here with you and your outfit for a bushel of sovs, sercomb, although i'm coming back after my roll." "come on, fellows," called sercomb, and left the barn with his friends at his heels. matt got the red flier in shape, carl climbed into the tonneau and ferral into the front seat, and they moved out of the barn. as they passed around the house they saw mings sitting in the other car, evidently watching it to make sure it would not be tampered with. he scowled at the red flier as it passed. "dey like us a heap--i don'd t'ink," chuckled carl. "i bed you dot mings feller iss vone oof der chumps vat come indo der room lasht nighdt, verral." "he don't like me any too well," said ferral grimly. "and he's none too easy in his mind, either. he knows what i can do to him for that lamy business." "are you really going to get an officer in lamy and come back here?" asked matt. "strike me lucky if i'm not!" reaching the main road, matt turned in the direction of lamy and the cliffs. "we'll take you to lamy," said matt, "and bring the officer back. we've the whole day before us, though, and there's something else i'd like to do." "name it, mate. i'm in for anything." "i'd like to go along the top of those cliffs and see if i can find how and where that white runabout went to last night." "if you go along the cliffs, you'll have to walk. why not make your examination from the road?" "we can't see enough from the road, dick. there may be something on the other side of that ridge. by walking, and staying on the cliffs, we can see both sides. the mystery of that white auto may be the key to the whole affair at la vita place. now's the time to settle it. if we don't, sercomb and those other fellows will." "right-o! we'll leave the red flier somewhere and tackle the game on foot." "we can't leave the red flier alone," said matt. "i was going to suggest, dick, that we run the car off the road, between here and the cliffs, and that you stay with it. i've got to look out for the machine, you know. i came pretty near losing it, near fairview, in arizona, and that gave me a jolt i'll never forget. it's a five-thousand-dollar car, and if anything happened to it it would be difficult to explain the matter satisfactorily to mr. tomlinson." "i smoke you, mate," returned ferral. "you've butted into this affair of mine, and if you were to lose the old flugee on account of it, i'd feel worse than you. i'll stay with the thing, and you can be sure nothing will happen to it. you and carl go hunt for the spook-car. i'll wait. how far do you intend to hoof it over the cliffs?" "if necessary, i'd like to go clear to that gully where the machine flashed into the cliff road ahead of us; but i'm particularly anxious to look over the ground this side of the turn, at the place where the white car vanished so mysteriously." "crack the nut! if any one can do it, by jingo, it's motor matt." by then they had reached a point about half-way between la vita place and the cliffs. here, off to one side of the road, there was a patch of timber, and matt turned the red flier, ran across the flat ground, and drew up among the trees. "here's a good shady place for you to wait, dick," said matt. "carl and i may not be back before noon." "take your time, mate. i'm the greatest fellow to sojer in the dog-watch you ever saw. take your turn-to, and when you want me on deck, just give the call." matt and carl got out, returned to the road, and proceeded on toward the cliffs. the road was a straight stretch clear to the first turn that carried it to the edge of the precipice. matt and carl remarked upon this as they strode forward. "a pad blace for any one to come in der nighdt, oof dey vas regless," observed carl. "i don'd vant to go ofer dot roadt again in der nighdt, nod me." "we won't have to go over it again with our lamps, carl," said matt. "it won't take us long to run to lamy, get an officer, and come back to la vita place. if we get back to the red flier by noon, we can make the round trip to town by four o'clock, and have half an hour to get our dinner." "sure! dot's der talk. aber i don'd t'ink ve vas going to findt der vite car, matt." "i'm not expecting to find the white car, but i want to discover how it managed to vanish like it did." carl shook his head gruesomely. he was still half-inclined to credit the runabout with "shpook" proclivities, and matt's new plan didn't appeal to him very powerfully. when they came to the chasm they paused to note how the road, in reaching its treacherous path along the edge, broke suddenly from a straight line into a sharp curve. certainly it was a bad place for motoring. in order to get to the top of the cliff that edged the road on the right, the boys had to do some hard climbing; but when they were on the crest of the uplift, the view that stretched out around them was ample reward for their toil. on their left they could look down on the ribbon of road, winding between the foot of the cliff and the chasm; and on their right they looked away toward a swale, which made the cliff-tops a sort of divide. "dot gulch down dere," shuddered carl, looking over the cliff, "iss more as a million feed teep, i bed you." "i don't know about that," said matt, "but it's deep enough." "oof verral hat dumpled from dot push," went on carl, "he vould haf gone clear py china." "that swale," said matt, pointing in the other direction, "is where the gully enters the hills. as the gully runs on toward lamy it comes closer and closer to the cliff trail." he turned and looked behind him. in the distance he could see the clump of timber where ferral had been left with the red flier; and beyond the little patch of woods could be seen the larger grove that sheltered la vita place. the touring-car was screened from sight, and so was the adobe house. matt was not interested in either of them just then, however, but was working out another problem in his mind. "carl," said he, "there's just a hint of a road leading out of the swale and off toward la vita place." "vell, vat oof dot?" asked carl. "incidentally," answered matt, "if one wanted to cut off a good big piece of that dangerous road, in going to lamy, he could leave la vita place and follow the blind track through the swale and gully, coming out on the cliff trail just where the white runabout showed itself in front of us last night." "py shiminy!" exclaimed carl. "you're der feller to vork mit your headt, matt. yah, so. meppy dot's der vay dot shpook car come oudt on us, hey? you t'ink she come from la fita blace?" "that's only a guess. the white car had to come from somewhere. let's go on." they climbed across the rugged cliff-top, and as they neared the turn where the white runabout had vanished the night before, the gully angled quite close to them; then, bending with the curve of the cliff road, went on until it merged with the face of the cliffs. at this point the cliff was not so high, with respect to the road, and its face was not so steep. while matt was trying to figure out how the phantom auto had made its abrupt disappearance, a sudden cry from carl drew his attention. "ach, du lieber!" faltered carl. "der teufel is coming some more. see here, matt!" matt, following carl's shaking finger with his eyes, saw the white runabout. apparently of its own volition, it was proceeding lamyward along the gully. sometimes it darted out of sight behind a rise in the gully wall, and again it came into full view, white, gleaming, and presenting a most uncanny spectacle. chapter xi. a daring leap. while matt watched the car an idea darted through his head. "the way to find out about that auto is to capture it," said he, speaking quickly. "how you vas going to do dot?" queried carl. "oof ve hat der ret flier along, meppy ve could oferhaul der shpook, aber i don'd know vedder it vould be righdt to indulch in any sooch monkey-doodle pitzness. ven der car puffs oudt mit itseluf, ve vould puff oudt mit it. vere you vas going, matt?" matt was lowering himself over the top of the steep bank, just around the curve above the cliff road. "come on," he called back, "and be careful. this is dangerous work." carl was not in a mood to tamper with the white runabout, nor was he in a mood to let matt do the tampering alone. sorely against his will, he began lowering himself down the steep bank, close beside his chum. "vy dis iss, anyvay?" he asked. "vat a regless pitzness! oof ve lose holdt oof somet'ing, ve vould fall in der roadt, undt meppy scood righdt ofer der roadt und go down vere verral ditn't go." "hang on, carl, that's the thing to do," returned matt. "yah, you bed you i hang on! i don'd vant to fall py china und make some visits mit der chings. i vouldn't enchoy dot, as i vould be all in bieces. aber for vy iss dis, matt? vy you do dot?" as they worked their way down the desperate slope, hanging to stunted bushes and projecting rocks, matt explained. "the white runabout may be going to lamy," said he, "but i hardly think it would show up in the town like that----" "id vould schare der peobles oudt oof deir vits oof it dit!" puffed carl. "wow!" he fluttered, making a slip and only saving himself a fall by grabbing a bush with both hands. "a leedle more, matt, und you vouldn't haf hat no dutch bard." "but it's my opinion," pursued matt, completely wrapped up in the work in hand, "that the runabout is going to make the turn, just as it did last night, and come back toward la vita place along the cliff road." "vy it do dot foolishness, hey?" "give it up. perhaps we'll know all about it before long. find a good place, about six feet above the road, and hang on." "yah, you bed my life i don'd ged indo der roadt oof der shpook pubble iss coming. i vould haf to ged oudt oof der vay, und meppy i vould go ofer der edge like vat verral dit, und you couldn't haf some ropes to helup me oudt. i vas fixed all righdt, matt." carl had planted himself on a good foothold and was clinging to a stunted bush. matt was on a level with him and a little to one side. "listen!" cried matt. it was impossible, of course, for the boys to see around the shoulder of the cliff, but a low murmuring sound reached their ears, growing quickly in volume. "dot's it!" said carl excitedly; "she vas coming, i bed you! she vill go py righdt unter us, und ve can look down und see vat ve can see, vich von't be nodding. aber i vish dot i vas some odder blace as here. oof dot----" carl broke off his talk. just then the white car came spinning around the curve. what motor matt was intending to do carl hadn't the least notion, but he was pretty sure it must be something reckless. the car was nearly upon them when motor matt, a resolute gleam in his gray eyes, loosened his hold on the rocks. carl's shock of tow-colored hair began to stand up like porcupine bristles. something was about to happen, and he caught his breath. then something _did_ happen, and the dutch boy got back his breath with a rush. "look a leedle oudt!" yelled carl, as motor matt made a quick jump for the phantom auto. it was a daring leap--so daring that carl hung to his bush with both hands and expected to see his chum either miss the machine altogether or else carom off the opposite side, bound into the road, and go hurtling into the chasm. but matt was too athletic, his nerves were too steady, and his eyes too keen for that. carl saw him land in the front of the white runabout in a heap. he was thrown violently against the seat, and then went sprawling against the dash. the runabout slewed dangerously, and something like a squeal came from somewhere. "ach, chincher," panted carl; "he vas some goners! i don'd nefer expect to see motor matt alife any more! donnervetter! vy he do dot?" quickly as he could, carl dropped into the road. "matt!" he called, whirling about and looking in the direction the white car had been going. then he staggered back against the rocks. the auto had disappeared and taken motor matt along with it! carl's nerves were in rags. he didn't know what to do. possessed with the notion that matt had faded into nothing along with the spook car, he turned and began running the other way. he stopped suddenly, however. matt was his pard, and to run away from him like that was something carl knew he ought not to do. but was he running away from matt? if matt had been snuffed into nothing with the car, how could he be running away from him? this was all foolish, of course, but carl was so upset he wasn't himself. he stopped his running, however, and came stealthily back, staring on all sides of him with eyes like saucers. "now vat i vas going to do?" he groaned. "dere don'd vas a modor matt any more, und dere iss der red flier, pack along der roadt, und verral, und sooch a mess as i can't dell at der la fita blace. ach, himmelblitzen!" carl, overcome by the dark outlook, sank down on the rocks and covered his face with his hands. near him the face of the cliff was covered with a growth of bushes and trailing vines. suddenly carl heard a voice that lifted him to his feet as though a spring had been released under him. it was his name! somebody had called his name, and it sounded like matt's voice. "vot it iss?" demanded carl, a spasm of hope running through him. "come here!" carl looked all around, but without seeing where he was to go. "iss dot you, matt?" he asked. "sure." "vere you vas, den? how you t'ink i come py you oof i don'd know dot? chiminy grickets, aber dis iss keveer!" "i'm inside the cliff," matt answered. "push through the bushes." carl stepped in front of the trailing vines and brush. "iss it all righdt?" he quavered. "come on, come on," called matt impatiently. carl pushed the bushes and vines aside, revealing a wide clear space which had been completely masked by the foliage. the ground, breaking in a level stretch from the cliff road, led smoothly away into the very bosom of the cliff. still dubious, carl pushed slowly on into the darkness. the vines fell back behind him and the parted bushes snapped across the opening. "i can't see nodding!" he wailed. "come straight ahead," said matt reassuringly. "i'm only a little ways off, and the car is here, too." "iss der shpook in der car?" matt laughed. "we'll settle this spook business in short order," said he. carl reached the car, and felt matt's hand guiding him around the side. "how you shtop der pubble, matt?" faltered carl. "i didn't stop it; somebody else did that." at that moment a muffled voice called: "get in de car, sahib! we go on to de daylight." carl gave a jump and grabbed hold of matt. "who iss dot?" he fluttered. "we'll find out before we're many minutes older," said matt. "get in, carl." assisted by matt, carl got into one of the seats, while matt climbed into the other. "all ready," announced matt, in a loud voice. instantly a glow from the acetylene lamps flooded the gloom ahead. the boys could see a rocky tunnel, wide and high, leading straight on through the heart of the cliff. "ach!" chattered carl. "ve go py kingdom come now, i bed you." "hardly that," laughed matt. "we're bound for daylight once more. wait and watch." swiftly and surely the white car glided on. presently the boys saw trailing vines and bushes ahead of them, similar to the screen at the other end of the tunnel. _snap!_ off went the lights. then, with startling suddenness, they brushed through the screen and were once more in the broad light of day. the gully lay before them, and when they had reached the center of it the car came to a halt. "vouldn't dot knock you shlab-sitet?" murmured carl wonderingly. "in vone door und oudt der odder! ach, blitzen, und den some! aber who vas dot vat shpoke in der tark?" "here's where we find out," rejoined matt, leaping down. carl likewise gained the ground. as he did so, the deck of the car, behind the seats, lifted slowly until it lay wide in an upright position. then a form slowly rose, a form with a chocolate-colored face, the head crowned with a white turban. jumping from the boxlike recess in the rear of the car, the form stretched itself and salaamed. "you surprise', sahib? ah, ha!" chapter xii. desperate villainy. although matt and his friends did not know it, yet the course taken by the red flier on leaving la vita place was watched. joe mings, climbing a tree, kept the car under his eyes. in the distance he saw it leave the road, then he could make out two figures returning on foot to the road and proceeding toward the cliffs. he called down the result of his observations. "what do you suppose they're up to?" asked sercomb, with a worried look, as mings slid back to the ground. "i pass," replied harry packard, one of the most lawless of the quartet; "but it's a fair gamble, ralph, that they're not up to any good." "i should say not," said balt finn, the driver of the touring-car. "that ferral is after mings' hide." "well," said mings sullenly, "i wouldn't have gone through ferral in lamy if you hadn't said so, ralph." "i'd like to know what their game is," mused sercomb. "mings, you and packard go to the place where they left the car. if you can smash the car some way, they won't be able to go to lamy until we're ready to leave here." "a nice jaunt before breakfast!" muttered packard. "we can stand it, i reckon," scowled mings. "let's take a drink all around and try it, anyhow." packard pulled a flask from his pocket and took a swallow of its fiery contents; then he passed the flask to mings. "you fellows have got some in the house," said packard, corking the flask and returning it to his pocket. "joe and i will take this with us. maybe we'll need it," and he winked at mings. "be careful what you do to the fellow that stayed with the car," cautioned sercomb. "suppose it's ferral?" "then," returned sercomb, with a significant look, "be careful _how_ you do what you're going to. you fellows fell down last night." "i'll not forget in a hurry the thumping that ferral and the dutchman gave us," growled packard. "and don't you forget, mings," said sercomb, "what ferral will do to you if he gets to lamy. smash the car." mings and packard started off briskly toward the place where the red flier had been left. the spot was not more than half a mile from la vita place. ferral, all unconscious of the fact that two of his enemies were approaching, sprawled out in the front seat of the red flier and puzzled his brain over the queer situation in which he found himself. he could make nothing of it, and as time slipped away his brain grew more and more befuddled. he was hoping matt and carl might discover something of importance, or, if they did not, that when the red flier returned from lamy with an officer, the law might do something to clear up the mystery in which uncle jack had plunged everything at la vita place. a deep quiet reigned in the little grove. a droning of flies was the only sound that disturbed the stillness. the warm air and the silence made ferral drowsy. once he roused up, thinking he heard a sound somewhere around him; then, assuring himself that he was mistaken, he sank back on the front seat and his nodding head bowed forward. suddenly, before he could do a thing to protect himself, a quick arm went round his throat from behind, and he felt some one catch his feet from the side of the car. he gave a shout of consternation as his head bent backward and his eyes took in the face that leered above him. it was the face of mings! "caught!" laughed mings hoarsely. "thought you'd shaken us, eh? well, you were shy a few!" "just a few!" tittered the voice of the man on the ground. "here's a rope," went on mings, kicking the coiled riata, which matt carried in the car, out through the swinging door. "take it and tie his legs, harry. i'll hold him. got a strangle-grip and he can't budge." as soon as packard let go his hold, ferral began to kick and struggle; but mings was in such a position that he could keep him very easily from getting away. packard, although tipsy from the effects of the liquor he and mings had imbibed on the way from la vita place, tied one end of the rope quickly about ferral's ankles. the free end of the rope was then wound around the seat and ferral's hands were made fast behind him. in a few minutes he was bound to the seat and absolutely helpless. mings and packard, gloating over his predicament, got around in front of the car. "how do you like that?" asked packard. "he likes it," hiccoughed mings; "you can tell that by the looks of him." "you're a fine lot of swabs!" exclaimed ferral contemptuously. "sercomb ordered me off the place, and i slanted away; now you follow me with your beach-comber tricks. oh, yes, you're a nice lot! what are you trying to do?" "going to smash the car," answered mings. "you keep your hands off this car!" cried ferral, realizing suddenly that he had been caught napping, and that motor matt might get into a lot of trouble on account of it. "well," grinned packard, "you just watch us." "are you going to lamy?" demanded mings. "that's where i'm going!" declared ferral resolutely. "not to-day you won't; and not in this car. we're going to fix motor matt for butting into our plans, and we're going to fix you so you won't get to lamy and back before we're on the road to denver. you're cute, but you're not so cute as we are. oh, no! is he, packard?" "we're the boys!" observed packard. they were both partly intoxicated. naturally lawless, the liquor they had taken had made them more so. "see here," said ferral, desperately anxious to save the car, "you've got some of my money, mings, and i could have you jugged for taking it, but if i'll promise not to get an officer and to let you keep the money, will you leave this car alone? it doesn't belong to motor matt, and he's responsible for it. i was left here to watch it----" "nice watchman!" sputtered packard; "fine watchman! eh, mings?" "dandy watchman!" and mings laughed loudly. "he didn't hear a sound when i sneaked into the tonneau. i tell you what, packard!" he exclaimed, as a thought ran suddenly through his befogged brain. "well, tell it!" urged packard. "let's send him to lamy." "send him to lamy?" "sure! let's put him in the road and open the car up! mebby he'll get to lamy." "he'll smash into the rocks, that's what he'll do." "well, that'll fix the car. by the time motor matt pulls ferral out of the wreck, i guess he won't feel like getting an officer." ferral could hardly believe his ears. "you scoundrels wouldn't dare do a thing like that!" he cried. "he says we wouldn't dare, packard," mumbled mings. "he don't know us, eh, mings?" "not--not even acquainted. let's throw the old benzine-buggy against the rocks, and give motor matt a surprise." "he'll be surprised, all right. serve him right, too, for meddling with sercomb's business." "he's a meddler, that's sure. dace perry told me all about him." "dace perry's a blamed good fellow. he's one of our set." "can you navigate the car to the road?" asked packard. "navigate a dozen cars! anything more in the flask?" "all gone," answered packard gloomily. "well, there's more back at the house." mings got into the car and packard did the cranking. when the car started it nearly ran over packard. "trying to kill me?" shouted packard, rolling out of the way. "you're too slow," laughed mings. fumbling awkwardly with the levers and the steering-wheel, mings managed to get the car into the road and headed for the cliffs. "cut off a piece of that rope, packard," called mings. "i'll tie the wheel so as to be sure the car goes to lamy." "that's right," answered packard, "you want to be sure." he took out his knife, slashed a piece from the free end of the rope, and handed it up to mings. the latter began lashing the wheel. "sercomb ought to give us a chromo for this," said packard, watching mings as he worked. "you tell him we ought to have a chromo," returned mings, with a foolish grin. "sercomb's a blamed good chap; nicest chap i know." meanwhile, ferral's face had gone white. he was fighting desperately with the ropes, but they held him firmly and he could not free his hands. a sickening sensation ran through him. neither mings nor packard had a very lucid idea of what they were attempting. they were fair examples of what liquor can do for a person in certain situations. "belay!" cried ferral desperately. "you don't understand what you're doing, you fellows! you've headed me for the cliffs, and----" "they're big and hard, those cliffs," said mings, "and you'll hit 'em with quite a jolt. but it'll only smash the car, ferral, and we had orders to smash the car." having finished with the wheel, mings got on the running-board. packard cranked up again. mings threw in the clutch with his hand, pushed on the high gear, and was thrown off as the car jumped ahead. he collided with packard, and both tumbled on the ground and rolled over and over. when they had struggled to their feet, the two scoundrels saw something that almost sobered them. _it was the white runabout racing across the level ground in the direction of the road and the flying red car!_ but, what was even more strange, motor matt was in the driver's seat of the runabout, and beside him was a strange, turbaned figure which neither packard nor mings had ever seen before. on the ground, a long way in the rear of the racing runabout, stood a figure which packard and mings recognized as being that of motor matt's dutch chum. chapter xiii. tippoo. the little brown man in the turban matt instantly recognized as a hindu, undoubtedly the servant of mr. lawton, ferral's uncle. here was a find, and no mistake! tippoo had vanished at the same time mr. lawton effected his queer disappearance, and the discovery of one might easily lead to the finding of the other. "is your name tippoo?" asked matt. "_jee_, sahib." "vat iss dat?" muttered carl. "gee! iss it a svear vort? he don'd look like he vas madt mit himseluf." the hindu certainly was taking his discovery in good part. his brown face was parted in a perpetual smile, and he seemed morbidly anxious to please. "does _jee_ mean yes?" asked matt. the turban ducked vigorously. "_jee, jee!_" "dot's two gees, vich means gootness cracious," bubbled carl, very happy to find that the ghost had been laid; "und also it means jeerful. led's try to be dot. so der shly brown roosder vas in der pack oof der pubble all der time! how he make it go, i vonder, ven he don'd vas aple to see der vay?" matt was also curious on that point. stepping closer to the automobile, he looked into it, and saw a wonderful combination of mirrors and levers. the smiling hindu, observing the trend of the boys' interest, advanced and doubled himself up in the back of the runabout. as he lay there, in tolerable comfort and with a cushion under his head, there was a mirror in front of his eyes. other mirrors, set at various angles, cunningly reflected the scenery in front of the car. when the deck was closed down it was evident that the enclosed space became a sort of camera obscura. convenient to the hindu's right hand was a small wheel with an upright handle on its rim. as he turned the wheel he steered the car--entirely independent of the steering-wheel in front. the spark was manipulated by a small lever near the wheel, and so were the throttle, the brakes, and the gears. strangest of all, though, was the arrangement for cranking inside the box. this device was so ingenious that it should have entitled its originator to a patent. "but vat's der goot oof it all?" queried carl. "for vy shouldt a feller vant to pen himseluf oop in a smodery leedle blace like dot und leaf der two frondt seads vagant? ach, vat a foolishness!" matt also wondered at that. "why do you ride in such cramped quarters, tippoo," asked matt, "when you could just as well ride on a seat?" "baud mens, sahib," said tippoo, clutching his forehead with one hand and bowing forward. "where were you going in the car?" "'round-around, 'round-around." "ring aroundt a rosy," said carl. "i haf blayed dot meinseluf, aber nod mit a pubble." "where is lawton, sahib?" asked matt. "_jee, jee!_" exclaimed the hindu. "he talks vorse der longer vat he speaks," said carl disgustedly. "ven ve vas in der tunnel, he shpeak pooty goot, aber now he don'd say nodding like vat ve can undershtand." matt despaired of being able to find out anything he wanted to know, and thought it would be well to take tippoo to ferral. "you know dick ferral?" queried matt. "_jee!_" "do you know where we left the red automobile?" "_jee!_" "gee stands for grazy, too, vich he iss," said carl. "will you take us to our car?" went on matt. "awri'," answered the hindu. "dot's pedder," said carl. tippoo lowered the deck carefully over the queer mechanism in the box, and motioned matt and carl to get into the car. matt got into the driver's seat, having a mind to run the car himself, and carl got into the other one. tippoo stood in front of carl, getting in after he had "turned over" the engine by means of the crank in front. he watched matt sharply, evidently wanting to make sure that he knew what he was about. matt started along the gully, marveling at the smooth course its bottom offered. the runabout responded quickly to the slightest turn of the steering-wheel, and every other part of the mechanism worked to perfection. tippoo, delighted at the skill with which matt handled the car, bent over and gave him an approving slap on the shoulder. "chimineddy!" laughed carl, "der prown feller likes you, matt." "i guess he likes the way i run the car," said matt. "it's a little dandy! i never handled a machine that purred along in neater style. i wish i knew more about the get-up in the back part of it." "ven somebody blays der shpook schust for foolishness, i don'd like dot," said carl. "you mighdt haf got your prains knocked oudt by chumping indo der car--und all pecause der prown feller vanted to blay shpook!" "me play gose, sahib, but not to scare de good white mans--only de baud white mans." this from tippoo, who was plainly keeping track of the conversation. "did you see us on the cliff road last night?" queried matt. "_jee._" "and you got away by running the machine into the cliff?" "_jee_, sahib." "you didn't have any lights. how could you see where you were going?" "me know de road, no need de light till me get in de tunnel, sahib." "you stopped the car in the tunnel last night, and came back into the road?" tippoo nodded. "why was that?" "me see fin' out if dick sahib be awri'." "ah! you were worried about dick, eh, and you came back to see if he was all right." "sure." "why didn't you wait till we could speak with you?" "naboob sahib give order no." "who is the 'nabob sahib'?" tippoo affected not to hear the question. "he don'd vant to talk about dot," put in carl. "he shies all aroundt dot uncle chack." "you came past the house in the road last night?" asked matt. this question evidently startled the hindu. "sahib see de car las' night?" he asked. "yes." "me no see sahib." "what were you riding past the other car for?" "try scare baud white mans. try see dem. naboob sahib say so. _jee!_" "then you must have been the one who fired that revolver and put a bullet through the tire?" for answer to this, tippoo pulled a revolver from a sash about his waist. "make lift board with head, make _dekke_, den bang!" he laughed. "fine shoot, eh?" "certainly it was a fine shot," answered matt. "were you trying to keep away from dick sahib?" "try keep 'way from dick sahib, and from ralph sahib. all same. leave 'em 'lone. naboob sahib say so." this conversation, which cleared up some more dark points, carried the runabout out of the swale and onto the flat stretch which led off in the direction of la vita place. the course to the ranch paralleled, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, the other road that led from the cliffs. matt turned the nose of the runabout so as to lay a direct course for the patch of trees where the red flier had been left. before they had covered more than half the distance between the swale and the trees, a loud cry escaped the hindu. his eyes were fastened upon the other road. "_dekke!_" he called, pointing. matt looked in the direction indicated. "ach, dunder!" cried carl. "dere iss der ret flier in der roadt, und some fellers vas aroundt it--two oof dem." "dick sahib him tied in car!" shouted tippoo. "dey let car go! car go to de cliff, dick sahib tied! _kabultah! hurkut-jee! hur-r-r-kut-jee!_" tippoo lifted his hands and wrung them in an agony of fear and apprehension. by that time matt was able to take in the situation. he saw ferral, bound in the front of the car, and the car speeding toward the cliffs and the chasm. vividly before his eyes floated that turn of the treacherous road. the car would go straight until it reached the turn, and then, if no one was at hand to stop it, the red flier would go into the chasm and carry ferral with it. motor matt's face set resolutely. "i'm going to slow down, carl," said he, "and you pile out! there's too much freight for the race we've got to make." "all righdt! don'd led nodding habben, bard, now ven ve're so near droo mit dis monkey-dootle pitzness." carl jumped for the ground, and tippoo sank limply into his seat. matt immediately threw on the high speed, giving an angle to the car's course which would lay it alongside the red flier. like a flash, the white car leaped over the flat ground, tippoo still wringing his hands and muttering fearfully to himself. chapter xiv. in the nick of time. there was no road-bed under the wheels of the white runabout, but, for all that, the earth was firm, although rilled, at irregular distances, with little sandy ridges. the car, being light, seemed fairly to leap over these small rises. the hindu had to hang to his seat with both hands in order to keep from being hurled out of the car. his turban was jolted down over his eyes, and after he had tried to knock it back into place half a dozen times, he flung it down on the floor of the car. "we come close, closer!" he breathed, leaning forward in his seat and peering steadily at the big touring-car. "naboob sahib be big mad at dis. we save dick sahib!" matt could see that they were rapidly overhauling the red flier, but, as he measured the gain, he knew they would have only a scant margin, at best, if they kept ferral and the car from shooting into the chasm. flinging across the road a dozen feet behind the flier, matt brought the runabout closer on that side. "i'm going to jump from this car to the other one, tippoo," he shouted, "as soon as we get where i can do it. the minute i jump, you be sure and grab the steering-wheel and take care of the runabout. understand?" "_jee_, sahib!" ferral was able to twist his head around and keep track of the gallant race the runabout was making. he must have been astounded to see the white car, with matt and the hindu, trailing after him. "you're coming, mate!" he yelled. "let 'er out for all she's worth! the brink of the precipice is right ahead!" matt was aware of their nearness to the abyss. a few rods farther and they would be at the turn of the road. the touring-car, of course, being lashed to run on a straight line, would plunge to destruction unless halted. with a final spurt, matt drove the runabout abreast of the red flier. the two cars were now running side by side, and not a second could be lost if matt was to transfer himself to the flier in time to be of any assistance to ferral. as he took his hands from the wheel, tippoo leaned sideways and gripped the rim. for an instant matt was poised on the foot-board, steadying himself by holding to the seat. a moment more and he had thrown himself across the gap between the two cars. it was his second daring leap for that day, but this jump was more dangerous than the other one, for, if he had slipped, he would have had two cars to reckon with, instead of one. both cars were racing furiously, and the red flier, with no hand to hold it, was taking all inequalities of the road and plunging and swaying as it rushed onward. but motor matt never put his mind to anything that he did not accomplish. ferral drew back in the seat to give him every chance, and matt sprawled with a jar that made the car shiver from crank to tail light. whether he was hurt or not did not appear. in a flash he was up, cutting off the power and bearing down on the emergency-brake. it was a stop such as matt hated to make, for fear of wrenching the machinery, but it was either that or go over into the chasm. as it was, the red flier ran across the curve and quivered to a halt, with the front wheels on the very brink. matt and ferral, from their seats, could look over the hood and down into the dizzy, swirling depths below. ferral's face was white as death, and he relaxed backward, limp and gasping. matt backed the flier away, and turned around, then drew his knife from his pocket and cut the ropes that bound ferral. "who did this, dick?" he asked huskily. "two of my cousin's friends," replied ferral, drawing his hands around in front of him and rubbing his chafed wrists. "toss us your fin! what you've done this day, messmate, dick ferral will never forget." a shiver ran through him as he gripped matt's hand. "the murderous scoundrels!" muttered matt, his eyes flashing. "they didn't mean it to be as bad as it was, i'll have to give 'em credit for that. they had about three tots of grog aboard, and aimed only to run the flugee into the rocks and stave it in. they didn't know about that jumping-off place, or else they'd forgotten about it." "it's bad enough, all right. no matter if the flier had only smashed into the rocks, you might have been killed, tied as you are. they sneaked up on you, back there in that patch of timber?" "aye, and it was all my fault. i was mooning, and that gave them a chance. if they hadn't caught me from behind, i could have bested the two of them, for they had been topping the gaff strong. i was careless, matt, and you might have lost the machine on account of it." "bother the machine, old fellow! it was you that brought my heart in my throat. in a pinch like that, it's the man that counts, not the machinery he happens to have along with him." "right-o! if there hadn't been a whole man in that white car, i might as well have been sewed in a hammock and slipped from a grating, with a hundred-pound shot at my pins." tippoo had halted the runabout and had watched with wide eyes while matt made his hair-raising jump and stopped the big car. he now leaped down from the runabout and hurried to ferral. catching one of his hands, he bowed over and pressed it to his temples. "sink me, but the fix i was in fair hid the curious part of the rescue," went on ferral. "where'd you get hold of tippoo, matt? and how did you come to have the white car handy?" in a few words matt straightened out the situation so it was clear to ferral. "i'm a fiji, matt," breathed ferral, "if you ain't chain-lightning when it comes to doing things. tippoo, where's uncle jack?" "me no say, dick sahib," answered tippoo, dodging the question. "you can tell me whether he's dead or alive, can't you?" roared ferral. "me no say, dick sahib," persisted tippoo. "you come 'long la vita place--come 'long with tippoo." "i was ordered away from there by sercomb. if i go any place, it will be to lamy after an officer. i'll raise a jolly big row with that gang at la vita place, scuttle 'em!" tippoo stared blankly at ferral. "ralph sahib order dick sahib away?" repeated the hindu, as though he scarcely believed his ears. "he said he had found uncle jack's remains, and the will, and that the will left everything to him, and he ordered me and my mates away." tippoo bent forward and gripped his forehead. "_joot baht, joot baht!_" he mumbled. "blast his lingo!" growled ferral. "it takes uncle jack to get the lay of him." "dick sahib, you go with tippoo back to la vita place?" the hindu was so deeply in earnest that he compelled ferral's attention. "what do you want me back there for?" "you go, you learn all--ever'thing," and tippoo flung his arms out in a comprehensive gesture. "now, strike me lucky, the beggar knows something. yes, we'll go, if for nothing more than to walk in on my dear cousin ralph and face mings and packard. get into your old catamaran, tippoo, and bear away. we'll hold you hard during the run, if i'm any judge of motor matt." tippoo went back to the runabout, got into the seat, and started for la vita place. "old chocolate certainly is an a. b. at running that craft," mused ferral, watching the ease with which tippoo handled the runabout. "but what was the good of all that flying dutchman business? why did tippoo want to tuck himself away in the locker behind when he could ride up in front in comfort and like a gentleman?" "i suppose," answered matt, "that we'll find all that out when we get back to la vita place." a glint came into ferral's eyes. "will we?" he cried, bringing his fist down on his knee. "aye, mate, even if i have to take ralph sercomb by the throat and shake the whole blessed truth out of him. if it's a game of dirks they're playing, i warrant you they'll find me handy with mine." "go slow, dick, whatever you do," counseled matt. "you've held yourself pretty well in hand, so far, and you'll be the gainer for it." they had been wheeling along the road at a good clip, and came finally to a place where carl was waiting for them. "vell, vell!" cried carl, as matt stopped for him to hop into the tonneau, "vot kindt oof a rite vas dot you dook mit yourseluf, verral?" "the kind, mate," answered ferral, "that i hope i'll never take again." "yah, i bed you! modor matt chumped in und shtopped der car, hey? i knew dot he vould. ven he geds dot look in his eyes, py chincher, like vat he hat, you can bed someding for nodding his madt vas oop. how did it habben, verral?" and while ferral was rehearsing the whole story for carl's benefit, the white runabout and the red flier came to a halt in the road in front of la vita place. tippoo jumped down and motioned for those in the rear car to follow him. "tippoo is the boss, dick," said matt; "get down and we'll trail after him. don't let your temper get away from you when we're in the house." "the way i feel now, matey," answered ferral, "i'd like to sail in and lay the 'cat' on the whole bunch. a precious crew they are, and no mistake." tippoo led the way along the foot-path, and ferral, matt, and carl followed him closely. voices could be heard in the house, and it was clear sercomb and his companions had not noticed the approach of the two cars. standing by the door, the hindu motioned for the boys to pass in ahead of him. chapter xv. a startling interruption. the parlor at la vita place, as has already been stated, covered half of the first floor of the house. the distinctive feature of the large room was an immense fireplace, which, after the mexican fashion, was built across one corner. above the fireplace, on the angling surface that reached from wall to wall, was a dingy, life-size painting of a saint. the painting was in a heavy frame, which was set flush with the wall. there were a few things about the old adobe _casa_ which had been left exactly as they had come into mr. lawton's hands from the original mexican owners of the place. this picture of the saint was one of them. the parlor was finely furnished. the floors were laid with tiger and lion-skins, trophies of the chase, and on every hand were curios and ornaments dear to the eccentric old englishman because of their associations. in this room sercomb and his denver friends were gathered. they had had their breakfast--mings and packard had just finished theirs--and all were excitedly discussing what mings and packard had done, and what they had seen. mings and packard, it may be stated, had been sufficiently sobered by their experiences, and not a little frightened. "confound the luck, anyhow!" cried sercomb. "nothing seems to go right with me. if you fellows had got hold of ferral last night, all this couldn't have happened to-day." "if we'd done that, ralph," said mings gloomily, "we don't know what would have happened to-day. motor matt and that dutch pal of his would have been left, and they'd have kicked up a big ruction when they found ferral had disappeared." "we could have taken care of motor matt and the dutchman," snapped sercomb, "and mings and packard could have run ferral away in the automobile and dropped him so close to the quicksands that he'd have wandered into them in the dark. he'd never have shown up here to make me any trouble." bitterness throbbed in sercomb's voice. "that fellow has been a drawback to me ever since we were kids, and now he's got to step in and try to knock me out of uncle jack's money!" "you wasn't a favorite of your uncle jack, eh?" queried balt finn. "no, blast the old codger! he never seemed to like me, and i was always around him. dick, who never came near, was the one he had always in mind." "well, has the old fluke cashed in?" asked packard. "that's the point." "of course he has! he was always a high liver, and it's a wonder apoplexy didn't take him long ago. feeling that he was about to die, he made his will, put it in his pocket, and tucked himself away somewhere, just to see whether dick or i would be first to locate him. precious little i care about the old juniper, if i could lay hands on the will." "the one you've made out, ralph," said packard, "is pretty well gotten up. you've imitated your uncle's signature in great shape." "the deuce of it is," returned sercomb, "i don't know just what property he's got, so i can schedule it. if i could find the original will, i could copy that part of it." "maybe," suggested finn, "this is only a tempest in a teapot, and that the old man left you all his property, after all." "i don't know, of course, but i'm afraid he's given dick too much. i don't want him to have a cent." "well," growled mings, "i'm hoping you'll make good your claim to the estate, ralph. you've promised to remember us all around, you know." "that promise goes!" averred sercomb. "once i get my hooks on uncle jack's money, you can bet i'll do the handsome thing by you fellows. just now, though, what we've got to think about is this: dick was started toward the cliffs in that car of king's, and king showed up in that confounded white runabout and chased after dick and the touring-car. what i'd like to know, did king save dick? everything hangs on that. if dick got smashed against the cliffs, he can't tell about that lamy business, nor about mings and packard tying him in the car. you fellows," and here sercomb turned to mings and packard, "ought to have hung around to see how it came out." "oh, yes," returned mings sarcastically, "we ought to have hung around and given them a chance to nab us. i guess not! we got back here as quick as we could. but you take it from me--king never saved ferral." "you fellows went too far," continued sercomb. "i told you to smash the car, but i didn't tell you to smash ferral along with it." "that's what you meant, sercomb, whether you said it or not," spoke up packard. "you wanted him taken away last night and dropped in the quicksands----" "i wanted him put out of the car close to the quicksands," qualified sercomb, "so that he'd have got into them himself." "it's all the same thing," said balt finn. "call a spade a spade and don't dodge." "who was that fellow with the queer head-gear we saw in the car?" asked packard. a look of dismay crossed sercomb's face. "if that was tippoo----" he began, but got no farther. just then there were steps in the hall, and ferral entered the room, followed by matt and carl. sercomb and his guilty associates jumped to their feet. "why--why, dick!" exclaimed sercomb, staring. "yes, you cannibal!" shouted ferral; "it's dick, but no thanks to you and your gang of pirates that i'm here, alive and kicking. now, mings, confound you, you and packard have got a chance to tell me whether my dear cousin put you up to that job over toward the cliffs." "we've got a chance to run you off the place, that's what we've got," answered mings. "heave ahead!" cried ferral, squaring himself. "i'd like a chance at you, just one." mings glared at him, but remained sullenly silent. ferral turned to sercomb. "i'm here to sink a lead to the bottom of this, my gay buck," said he, "and before i turn my back on la vita place i'll know the truth. what have you done with uncle jack? a scoundrel who'd treat me as you have wouldn't hesitate to deal foully with----" "there, there, dick," interrupted sercomb, fluttering his hand, "that will do you. you're judging me by yourself." "i'm judging you by your actions," stormed ferral. "it's been tack-and-tack with you ever since i knew you, and you never yet shifted your helm without having something to gain for sercomb. you cozzened around uncle jack, toadying to him for his money; when he disappears, you bear away for here, rip things fore and aft looking for a will, and, when you fail to find one, fix a document up to suit yourself. you're as crooked as a physte's hind leg, and you couldn't sail a straight course to save your immortal soul. now, here's where i stand, ralph sercomb: either you'll tell me the whole of it about uncle jack, or i go to lamy and come back here with an officer. if i do that, i'll round-up every man jack of you, and give you the hottest time you ever had in your lives; but tell me the truth about uncle jack, and i'll leave here and stay away." "uncle jack is dead," declared sercomb. "how many times do you want me to tell you that?" "that's still your play, is it?" scoffed ferral. "then, between you and me and the capstan, my buck, you lie by the watch!" a hoarse cry escaped sercomb. his hand swept under his coat, and when it appeared a bit of steel glimmered in his fist. "put up your gun," ordered ferral. "you took one shot at me with it last night, and if you try it again i'll turn a trick you'll remember." "get out of here!" ordered sercomb. "you can't come into my place and talk to me like that." he lifted the weapon, the muzzle full upon ferral. matt and carl stepped up shoulder to shoulder with ferral, and mings, packard, and finn drew nearer to sercomb. a tense moment intervened, followed by a quick, pattering footfall. tippoo glided in and placed himself resolutely between ferral and the leveled weapon. "tippoo!" gasped sercomb, stepping back and letting the revolver drop at his side. "_jee!_" answered the hindu. his eyes were not fixed on sercomb, nor on any one else in the room, but on the dingy saint in the frame over the mantel. he waved his arms sternly, separated sercomb and his friends, and passed through their gaping ranks toward the fireplace. the he salaamed, calling loudly: "naboob sahib! is de time not come? _dekke!_" thereupon a most astounding thing happened. while those in the room stared like persons entranced, the great frame that enclosed the pictured saint quivered against the wall. slowly it moved outward at the top, dropped lower and lower, until it had passed the mantel and its upper edge was resting on the floor. the inner side of the picture, now disclosed, was arranged in a series of steps, so that a stairway was formed from the mantel downward. at the top of the short flight, gaping blackly over the fireplace, a square recess was disclosed in the angle formed by the two walls of the room. for an instant the blank gloom was undisturbed; then, slowly, a tall, gray-haired form showed itself. the form was erect and soldierly, clad in black; the face was fine, the forehead high, and the eyes quick and keen. for a space this figure stood in the opening, the eyes sweeping the room and finally resting on ferral. while still gazing at ferral, the figure stepped over the mantel with military decision and descended step by step until it reached the floor. the stairway lifted itself, when relieved of the weight, swung upward, and closed the opening. once more the pictured saint was in the accustomed place. "dick!" called a voice. the figure in black stepped forward with outstretched hand. "uncle jack!" exclaimed ferral, starting forward. chapter xvi. the price of treachery. this most astounding event had left everybody gasping. a ghastly pallor had rushed into sercomb's face. his three companions were hardly in better case. all four realized that the unexpected had happened, and that it boded ill for them. but sercomb was not long in pulling himself together. "why, uncle!" he exclaimed, forcing a laugh; "this is a tremendous surprise, and a glad one. i have been worried to death about you!" he offered his hand. mr. lawton looked at him steadily. under that look sercomb's assurance faded, his hand dropped, and he fell back. "i would like you better, sir," said the old englishman, "if you showed the courage to acknowledge what you have done and face the consequences. you must know that i am aware of all that has taken place here; and yet you have the brazen insolence to step forward and offer me your hand!" "i guess we'd better be going, sercomb, old chap," said mings. "i think so, too," spoke up balt finn. "it's getting along toward noon, and we'll get out the car and start north." "come on, boys," urged packard. they started toward the door. at a gesture from mr. lawton, tippoo stepped in front of the door and drew the revolver from his sash. the denver man fell back in trepidation. "you'll start north very soon," said mr. lawton keenly, "and when you go you'll take sercomb with you. first, however, there is something to be told, and you'll wait to hear it. "ever since i came to america i have had ralph and dick in mind. either i was to divide my property between them, or else i was to cut off one and leave all to the other. in some respects i am a particular man. what property i have collected i want to fall into hands that will do the most good with it. with that end in view i have tried to make a study of ralph and dick. "it was easy for me to study ralph. whenever i asked him to come here and see me, he came; and he remained, as a rule, until i asked him to go. he had ways about him which i did not like, but i feared that was merely a prejudice. i like the youth who is open and aboveboard, who says what he means and who is frank and fearless. ralph did not seem to be that. "dick i never could get to come to me." mr. lawton lifted his hand and rested it on ferral's shoulder. "i couldn't understand this, for by making a little of me he had everything to gain. he was serving his king afloat--i liked that--but i felt that he might take a little time off for a visit, every two or three years, with the forlorn old man 'way off here in the american wilds. "when dick wrote me from texas, i conceived a plan. by this plan i hoped to bring both my nephews here, and to find out, beyond all cavil, just which was the better entitled to what i shall some day leave. "with the lamy lawyer to help, the little conspiracy was hatched. identically the same letters were sent to ralph and dick, each stating that i was tired of living alone, that i was going to get out of the way, and that wherever i was found my _will_ would be found with me." a grim smile hovered about the bristling gray mustache of the old man. "i did not say what the will was," he went on, "but i will remark here that it was purely the mental process by which i intended to judge which of my nephews was the more worthy. "ralph lost no time in coming to la vita place. he brought with him these friends of his"--mr. lawton swept his hand about to indicate finn, mings and packard--"and they carried on with liquor and cards, spending their time sleeping, eating, gambling and hunting for the will. there was never any concern about uncle jack--their interest was all in the will and uncle jack's money. everything that went on in this house i knew about--as well as everything that went on outside. tippoo, with the aid of the runabout, kept me informed of events beyond the walls; and, as for the others, i heard and saw for myself. "this old adobe house is like a medieval castle. in the old times, when settlers were even fewer in this country than they are now, lawless mexicans used the place for nefarious purposes; and, back beyond their time, the old friars who were here under the spaniards made this their retreat. the walls are honeycombed with passages, and every room can be reached secretly and secretly watched. i discovered these passages for myself, and have passed many a lonely hour unearthing the mysteries of the place. "ralph, during one of his visits here, found the passage leading from the bushes to my sleeping-room, up-stairs. he knew of that, but none of the others. "one thing i did not know about until now was ralph's plan to have mings meet dick in lamy, when he was coming here, and steal his money. it is hard to think one of my blood is a thief----" "uncle!" gasped sercomb. "stand as you are, sir!" cried mr. lawton sternly. "let us name the truth as it should be! it was not your hand that struck dick down, and his money is not now in your pocket, but yours was the plan, and you are even more guilty than mings. although i could not protect dick from that danger, yet he was equal to it himself. "when he came here, i was watching ralph and his friends playing cards up-stairs; i saw them put out the light and retreat noiselessly to my bedroom; and i heard the shot that was fired at dick before the young rascals left the house by the secret way. "all the rest that followed, during the night, i understood, save that i did not know, until i heard matt talking with carl and dick in my room, how he had been able to spy upon sercomb and his friends and gather a clue to sercomb's duplicity. "the ruffianly attack on dick and carl by mings and packard, who, under orders from sercomb, were plotting to carry dick off to the quicksands, horrified me. i would have shown myself then and there had not dick and carl protected themselves so valiantly and turned the tables on dick's would-be abductors. "tippoo, in the car, was watching the automobile in front, and he disabled the machine so that dick could not be carried off, in case mings and packard succeeded. "the most contemptible act of all was that where mings and packard followed dick and his friends, when they had been ordered away, and attempted dick's life----" "i did not sanction that!" cried sercomb desperately. his hopes were crumbling in his grasp like a rope of sand. "i did not tell mings to tie dick in the car and set the car toward the cliffs! uncle! i----" "silence!" thundered mr. lawton. "i will have no false excuses. i know what you wanted! you wanted to get dick out of the way. in your greed to get all of my property you shut your eyes to the heinousness of your conduct and struggled only to achieve your aim. "here, in this house, ralph, i have watched barefaced duplicity and murderous resolve battling with frankness and fearlessness! i have seen you deliberately, and with three unscrupulous friends to help, play every card you could in an attempt to beat your own cousin. and i have felt shame that one of our line could act so like a cur. "had i known, in the beginning, just how far your greed would lead you, had i even remotely imagined all the dangers that would encompass dick when he tried to follow out my last request, i would never have proceeded in the way i did. "but now it is over. i have seen you both when you could not know i was near; i have watched your actions, weighed even your words, and i am able to judge between you." a certain grimness of resolve came into the fine old face as mr. lawton went on. "ralph, you can expect from me--nothing. when i leave this place for good and all, and go to denver--which will be in a few days--there will not be even a deed to la vita place to go to you. considering my present mood, not a shilling of my money, sir, will go to you. to whom it _does_ go, i will leave you to guess. go back to your racing; and if, before i die, you have come nearer making a man of yourself, perhaps i will reconsider. you and your friends have an automobile in the barn. take it, at once, and leave here." a deep silence fell over the room. tippoo stepped away from the door and tucked the revolver back into his sash. mings, packard and finn bolted--glad, no doubt, to get away so easily. sercomb started after them, but hesitated. "uncle," he began tremulously, "if you will----" "go!" ordered mr. lawton sternly. then sercomb's true character came uppermost. halting in the door he shook his fist at matt and dick. "i'll play even with both of you for this!" he gritted, then whirled and darted after his crestfallen companions. "come, carl," said matt, hurrying toward the hall door, "we'll go and keep an eye on the car." "you bed you," exulted carl, running after matt. "it vas easy for verral to be jeerful now, hey? aber id don'd vas so easy for dose odder chaps. donnervetter, vat a surbrise!" when the other touring-car whisked out of the barn, through the grove and into the road, there were four very gloomy passengers aboard. hardly looking at matt and carl, they kicked up the dust toward santa fé and denver. tippoo appeared, as soon as the car had vanished. "sahib," said he to matt, "you go to de house. i take care of bot' cars. naboob sahib say so." "napoo sahip cuts a goot deal oof ice mit us, tibboo," said carl, "und i guess dot ve go, hey, matt?" "sure, we will," replied matt. "but be careful of this car, tippoo. it has had so many close calls lately that i am scared of my life when it's out of my hands." "me take good care, sahib," answered tippoo reassuringly. matt and carl, full of wonder and satisfaction because of the way the affair had ended, started back along the foot-path to the house. chapter xvii. the luck of dick ferral. mr. lawton and ferral met matt and carl in the parlor. they had been having a brief talk together, and there was a pleased look on lawton's face and a happy light in ferral's eyes. mr. lawton stepped forward and caught matt cordially by the hand. "matt," said he, "you have been a stanch friend of dick's in the little time you have known him, and you have twice saved his life. he is indebted to you, but i am under an even greater obligation. but for your aid, the little plan i conceived for getting at the relative merits of my two nephews might have ended disastrously and given me something to regret till the last day of my life. i thank you, my lad; and you, too, carl," he finished, turning to the grinning dutch boy. "oh, vell," said carl, "it don'd vas nodding vat i dit. matt vas der vone. he iss alvays der vone dot geds dere mit bot' feets ven anyding iss bulled off." "you both did nobly, and perhaps some time, somewhere, i can show you that i am not insensible of the debt i owe," went on mr. lawton. "just now," he added, turning away and walking to the end of the mantel, "dick has expressed a desire to see the place where i have lived for several days, and i presume you and carl, matt, are also interested." he pressed a spring under the end of the mantel and the great frame descended and presented its flight of steps. "i will go first, as i know the ropes," said mr. lawton. "the rest of you will follow." he ascended the stairs. dick, carl and matt went after him and the frame closed and left them in a narrow space in the dark. mr. lawton lighted a candle and flashed it across the inner side of the picture and above the last step. "the eyes of the picture, you will see," he observed, "are cut out. that gave me an opportunity to note what took place in the parlor. a very old device which i have seen in old castles on the rhine, and even in one or two houses in delhi. now," and he faced about, "we will go on." the passage wound around the house through the hollow wall. two steps led up and over the front door. in the sitting-room there was a niche with a crucifix and candles. holes in the back of the niche enabled one to look out and observe all that took place in the sitting-room. in like manner, there was a concealed place for keeping track of what went on in the kitchen. in the kitchen wall a dozen steps led upward to the second floor, and in the two upper rooms there were also peep-holes cleverly arranged. "the passage ralph knew about," explained mr. lawton, "has no connection whatever with this other burrow. it is entirely distinct and apart. the only way to get directly into the house from these corridors is by the opening over the parlor mantel. now we will descend to the subterranean part of the establishment." a continuation of the steps that led upward in the kitchen wall conducted the explorers downward into a place that was a sort of basement, although having no connection with the cellar of the house. here the boys were surprised to find the white runabout. "here's a point i'm twisted on, uncle jack," said dick. "what in the name of the seven holy spritsails, did you ever let tippoo go spooking around the country for?" mr. lawton laughed. "dick," said he, "this country is full of scoundrels who would not hesitate to get the better of an old man and his hindu servant if there were a few dollars to be gained. now, rascals of that ilk are superstitious, and i have kept them at bay by this harmless deception. this old, ill-favored shell of a house is supposed to be haunted, for dark deeds are known to have taken place here. that auto is my own idea. tippoo has made regular trips with it every night up the gully, around on the cliff road, through the cliff and so back to the house. la vita place, by that means, has lived up to its unenviable reputation, and the thieves have left me severely alone. "the auto came in very handily during this play of ralph's. ralph knew nothing about the car, and during his visits here i was careful to keep a knowledge of it away from him. tippoo would take a trip abroad and watch events outside; then he would come back and report to me. when matt jumped into the car, there on the cliff road, tippoo was willing enough to be discovered, for he knew that i was planning to show myself very soon, anyhow. tippoo, however, had orders from me to say nothing about what i was doing. here," added mr. lawton, stepping off along the rock-walled room, "is the way the car left its quarters whenever it wanted to make its ghostly round." matt, as he followed mr. lawton, noticed a supply of gasoline and oil, and congratulated himself on the fact that there would be no difficulty in getting the red flier fit for the road when the time came for carl and himself to start. a wide passage led for a hundred feet or more beyond the end of the stone room, a gentle grade, at its farther end, leading upward. a door, flush with the earth, was pushed upward by mr. lawton, and the blinding light of day flooded the passage. "we might as well get out here," said mr. lawton, and the rest followed him into a brushy covert in the grove. on one side of the covert the brush had been cleared away to leave a smooth track for the car. "the road," explained the old man, "leads directly to the gully. tippoo, when he desired to make his round, had only to push up the door, take his ghostly ride, and then come back again." "that idea of a crank in the machine for turning over the engine," said matt, "is a mighty good one and ought to be patented." "you may have it, matt," said mr. lawton. "i am too old to bother with patents." the door was closed and the little party wandered back through the grove to the house. tippoo, in the kitchen, was busily at work getting a meal ready. "this," observed mr. lawton, as they all seated themselves on a bench in the shade, "is one of the happiest, as well as the saddest, days of my life. i have discovered what dick really is, and that's where the bright part comes in; but i have also found out that my sister's son is a contemptible scoundrel--and i would rather have lost everything i own than to have discovered it. this racing-game must be demoralizing." "it isn't the game, mr. lawton," interposed matt earnestly, "but the character of the fellows who take it up. there isn't a thing in a speed contest to demoralize any one." "you may be right, matt," answered mr. lawton, "but it's hard to understand how ralph could prove so false to all the lawton ideals. his father was a gentleman in every sense of the word; and his mother--there was never a finer woman on earth." after a short silence, mr. lawton turned once more to matt. "you are going to santa fé?" he queried. "yes," replied matt, "and then to denver. mr. tomlinson, who owns the red flier, has a place for me on the racing-staff of a firm of automobile-makers." "ah! i would have spoken differently a moment ago, if i had known that you intended entering the racing-field. you'll never go wrong. but, when you get to denver, beware of the rascally crew who just left here. they are very bitter against you." "they'll not bother me, sir," said matt stoutly. "oof dey dry it on," spoke up carl, "py chincher dey vill ged somet'ing vat dey don'd like." "dick and i will be in denver soon," said mr. lawton, "and then we shall look you up. you will hear from us again, matt. the debt we are under to you cannot be easily canceled." "i've been repaid already," returned matt. "what i have done has given me a friend in dick ferral--and that's worth everything." "your fin, mate," said ferral, reaching over and clasping matt's hand. just then tippoo appeared in the kitchen door. "tiffin, sahib!" he called, and they all filed into the house--carl, as usual when there was eating in prospect, leading the way. the end. the next number (8) will contain motor matt's triumph or, three speeds forward. the white-caps--motor matt's foes--suspicious doings--a villainous plot--matt goes trouble-hunting--higgins tells what he knows--brisk work at dodge city--matt interviews trueman--no. 13--where is motor matt?--running down a clue--forty-eight hours of darkness--at the last minute--the first half of the race--well won, king!--conclusion. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, april 10, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. bill, the bound boy. bill bradley was a blacksmith boy. he was an orphan, and had been apprenticed to old carnahan the day lincoln was elected, and had pumped the bellows and swung the sledge every day since. old carnahan was a stern task-master, and got out of his bound boy all the law would allow. we used to pass the shop every time we drove from our farm in the country, and there was nothing in the county seat, the greatest town we had ever seen, so notable as the great shock of fiery red hair displayed by bill bradley. he always stood at the door of the shop as we passed at noon-time and nodded at us with the cheeriest sort of a smile. it was a thing to remember with pride when a town boy honored us with recognition. money was mighty scarce in our house those days. dimes were things to treasure carefully; and dollars, when they came, were something spoken of with bated breath and hidden away--or paid out grudgingly. and iron was in demand. the cannons made those first years of the war called into requisition it seemed to me all the fragments of old cast iron there was in the country. blacksmiths were paying first a cent, then two cents, and finally two and a half cents a pound; though they did not make a difference whether you "took it out in trade" or demanded cash. we boys in the country used to gather up every bit of metal that would sell, and carefully save it till we had a hundred pounds or more, and then take it to town and convert it into the infrequent cash or the almost as acceptable and quite costly groceries. one day when we took our plunder to town we found the streets in strange commotion. "they're listing soldiers," said a nervous voice in our ears, and when we turned we found bill bradley, wide-eyed, excited, and reckless. we were surprised, for we knew it was time for him to be at the forge, and we knew how strict was his employer in the matter of time. we drove to the blacksmith shop with the fragments of iron, and found bill bradley there before us. he was pumping the bellows, and old man carnahan was rating him soundly for his absence. the red head was a trifle higher, the blue eyes a trifle wider, and the breath was quicker and more charged with warning. carnahan should have known. but he didn't. he grew more enraged, till at a word of defense from the boy he lost his temper completely, and, in a fit of exasperation, struck his apprentice. the blow was not a severe one, and bill could not have suffered a twinge of pain. but his pride was hurt, and that blow ended for him, as that larger, later blow ended for four millions of others, his season of servitude. "i'll quit you," he cried, trembling and almost weeping with excitement and rage. "i'll list for a soldier." we left the iron in a pile on the shabby floor, and followed him with palpitating hearts to the little lobby of the post-office. he was greeted with a chorus of shouts, as was each new recruit, and a touch of ridicule must have mingled with the hailing, for it straightened him and stiffened him and sent him to the captain with as firm a front as ever was borne by a novice. if the men were changed by the donning of the blue, what transformation was this wrought in our blacksmith boy? he was inches taller and fathoms deeper. he was a man. he stood about with the recruits, his brow darkening a little when carnahan approached, for he did not yet understand the privilege of a warrior. but more than any other man in uniform he was severed from civil life. he was one of this wonderful legion that was filling the world with comment--and filling the homes with woe. we came to town that saturday when the troops were mustered in, and watched them drilling. we saw our blacksmith boy, and wondered how we ever had addressed him, he was a being so different from all he had been before. we saw the march by twos and fours and company front, the double-quick and the charge; and we heard the fledgling officers swear with strange oaths at the men they were later to push into conflict. we fancied bill bradley would not stand much of that. we saw them march to the depot, and then wept, i fear, at the passionate good-bys. there were fathers and younger brothers and desolate wives; but the saddest of all were the partings from mothers. it was so piteous, the hopelessness of their despair, the utter abandon of their tears. and then after much shaking of hands and waving of hands the train was away. we saw load after load go by on the cars after that, and always looked eagerly for the sight of some face we knew. but the faces which we knew were swallowed and lost in a sea of strangeness--a sea, we pray, which never may grow familiar. we read of the terrible battles that western army fought; we read of their victories, and the far too frequent defeats. we read the lists of killed and wounded, and saw at last in the longest column the name of private william bradley. how far that name removed him from us! he was william now--not common bill; not bill the blacksmith's bound boy. we wondered if there was anything we could do for him, and in the next box that went from our town mother sent underclothes and stockings to the youth; for there was no one near us by blood or friendship who weathered that winter in the south, and no one near bill to remember him. and one day toward the dawn of spring a letter came from the hospital, written in the clumsy hand of the orphan, acknowledging the receipt of the clothes, and thanking for them with the clumsy, genuine feeling of one who seldom speaks and never forgets a favor. he was well again, he said, and would be returned for duty in the morning. they looked for another hard battle, for the enemy was massing, and this new general that had won in the past believed in sledge-hammers and decisive measures. at the end of the letter was the sentence: "tha have mad me a corprl." how proud he was of that--prouder of it than were the thousands who had other things to comfort them. and how near us he seemed to come as the weary months went by and the fighting began again. once fix your mind on a man in the distance and a man who stands front face with danger night and day and never flinches; and it is wonderful how completely he will fill your sky. you imagine all manner of great things about him, dread all manner of terrible things, and end at last by loving him. so, when that other battle was fought by the general who believed in sturdy blows, and when vicksburg laid down her arms at the feet of a victorious army, we read again in the terrible lists of the killed and wounded the name of our blacksmith boy. this time, too, it was among the wounded--in the longest column; but it bore a prefix that surprised us. it was "sergeant bradley" now. the meager details of that time did not help us to all the information we wanted. we did not know how badly he was injured, but we sent a box of jellies and pickles and things that are not issued with the rations; and got another letter telling of the battle. and it makes no difference how many of these reports you read in the paper, this letter from a man who was in the thick of the fight was far more authentic. it was far more real. but sergeant bradley was sorely wounded this time. we found more about it later when a letter from the captain was printed in the county paper, detailing the events that had been important from a subaltern's standpoint and boasting of the prowess of his men. in this was told the story of a mississippi regiment, those tigers of the south--a charge that was met by the tattered remnant of the indiana brigade. he told of the clashing of man against man, and the loss of the banner over and over again--that banner that went down to the army with the blessings of a thousand women when corinth fell. and it told how, when the howling, shouting, slashing, shrieking legions swept the northerners back for a moment, and the guns were taken and not a thing could live in the sea of triumphant assault, corporal william bradley had wrapped his shattered arms about the flag and rolled with it right under the guns that were turned against his brethren. "i knew you would come back again," said the hero, when the charge was repulsed and the battery was recaptured. "i knew you would come back, and i saved the flag." he had, and he wore a sergeant's chevron for his heroism. but the hurt would not heal. the sulphurous smoke, the fearful concussions of earth and air as he burrowed under the guns and waited for rescue, the sword thrusts and bayonet pricks, the white flesh torn by whistling ball, and the two bones broken by the shattered shell--all this was tribulation which would not pass away. sergeant bradley lay long in the hospital. one night in the autumn, as we sat there under a waning moon and listened to the shrill complaint of a hidden cicada, we were conscious of a figure making slow progress along the path by the roadside. it was a man, and even in the darkness of night we could see it was not familiar. for the matter of that, the figure of a man at all those days was not a common thing. men were away in the south, as a general rule. but this figure grew stranger as it came nearer. presently the gate swung open, and the watch-dog gave challenge. we silenced him and rose to meet a limping, swaying figure in federal blue. he said nothing, and seemed, with that grinning insistence of the uncouth man, to wish we might remember him. we had filled our thought with bradley, no doubt; but this could not be he. it was, however, and when we were sure of that we gave him a welcome and hearty cheer. but he was very weak. it seemed, after the first timid acceptance of our greeting, he began to fail, and to take less and less of interest in the things about him. we thought he would like to hear news from town. he had forgotten all about the town. we hoped a little later he would enjoy a word of cheer from the front. there was no army for him now. he lay there so white on the pillow, his red hair making the whiteness more vivid; his blue eyes looking so steadily, yet so listlessly, at a single point in the wall; he stirred so slightly at the passing of day and night--and then he closed his eyes. it was long before he opened them again. when he did he saw mother beside him. she was cooling the cloth she laid on his forehead. "i thought i wanted to come home," he said, and then closed his eyes again. there was no relevancy in the remark. no one had spoken to him, and there had never been a thought of this or other place as a home for him. it must have been on his mind all the time. but there was youth to support him, and the blessings of twenty years to pour their vigor into his veins. his mending was slow, but it was sure. he walked about the farm at thanksgiving, and returned to duty at christmas. he was a different man. it seemed impossible he ever could have been a bound boy. he was dignified, self-reliant. he spoke easily and without embarrassment, no matter if it was a general addressed. and he was a lieutenant when the war was done. no, he didn't die. he lived to remember twenty battles and a dozen wounds. he lived to make a modest beginning in business, and to follow it to comfortable success. he owns his home now and under his broad hat hides red hair that will never be quite gray. he stands to-day with his children at the graves of the men who were with him in the army, who were with him in danger and suffering and success. he stands with those children and tells them the story and the lesson of the day. to him it was the working out of a problem, the right solution after years of wrong. to him and to me his record typifies the average of that darker period. thousands and tens of thousands went in with a whim to come out with a halo. they enlisted under the spur of example, of banter, of pique. yet they fought like greeks, and forgave like christians. it was the hand of the common man that left home duties and home obligations to take up the greater cause of a nation. it was the triumph of simplicity--that silent legion which boasted little before the war, and never complained when hardship came. it was the triumph of all that is good in the american who lives to see the realization of dreams that were not bold enough to paint their horoscope when prophecy was loudest. a winter story of colorado. the wild beasts upon hicks mountain were limited almost entirely to the coyotes; these persisted, in spite of advancing settlement, but in this section of colorado the grey wolf, the mountain-lion, and the bear had been practically exterminated. for five years the stock had run the hills quite unmolested. a coyote will kill sheep, but its depredations are confined otherwise to the poultry, barring now and then a sick and abandoned calf. however, in the winter of 1905, rumors spread that the grey wolves had returned. calves were being killed and eaten, sows mutilated, and even large steers torn about the legs and chest. one rancher discovered in the timber across the pasture from his house the remains of a yearling heifer killed only that night; whatever had attacked it had devoured it, hide and all, to the very largest bones, leaving only the scattered remnants of a skeleton. now, a mountain-lion would have eaten part and buried the rest; a bear would also have eaten part, and saved the rest for later; coyotes would only have gnawed and mangled the carcass; the great grey wolf alone would have worked a destruction so complete. the ground was bare of snow, and covered with pine-needles, thus being unfavorable for tracks. mr. jeffries had heard no howling. nevertheless, the grey wolf, the stockman's scourge, was blamed. traps were set, and poisoned meat was discreetly put out, but only the coyotes suffered, apparently. then ned coswell, early one morning, while searching for a lost milk-cow, came over a little rise, and saw below him in a hollow in the park a number of wolfish animals collected about a dead body, tearing at it. ned was unarmed, but, spurring his horse, he rode down upon them recklessly, whooping. "there were about a dozen of them," related ned, "and i knew they weren't wolves, because they were colored differently, more like dogs. they looked at me coming, and, boys, i didn't know for a minute whether they were going to get out of the way or not. old medicine eye"--his horse--"wasn't a bit afraid; just pricked his ears and kept on, which made me think all the more they weren't wolves. "they were dogs, boys, nothing but dogs. there was a brindled one that looked like a bulldog, and several woolly dogs, like sheep-dogs, and one big black-and-white shaggy fellow, biggest of all. they all lifted their heads, and stood staring at me, and i was beginning to think that maybe i'd been in too much of a hurry. but first one sneaked off, showing his teeth, into the brush, and another and another, and they all went, and i was mighty glad to have them go. they'd been eating at a dead steer--mine, too--but i don't know whether they'd killed it or not. i wish i'd had a gun." after that the ranchers made it a habit again to carry a gun of some kind when out on the range. however, for a long time nobody, when armed, caught any glimpse of the wild dogs. that is likely to be the case in hunting; the unprepared frequently have the opportunities. for instance, frank warring, while on his way home from town in his wagon, toward evening of a cloudy day, beheld the pack cross the road right in front of him, the animals in single file, one following another, silent as specters, noses outstretched, the big, shaggy black-and-white fellow leading. in the rear were two or three puppies, perhaps nine months old. frank had no gun. somebody else also saw the pack. the brutes' depredations continued, being limited, so far as we could ascertain, to our vicinity, as if they had selected hicks mountain for a hunting-ground. they hunted without howling. a spasmodic, rabid bark was the only sound that we could attribute to them, but it was sufficient. we were afraid of this wild pack; more afraid than of wolves. there is something uncanny about a dog gone wild, for he combines the lessons taught by domesticity with the instincts of savagery. as nobody from our section had missed dogs, we concluded that this band had come down upon us from wyoming, a hundred and fifty miles north. up in wyoming wild dogs had been bothering the sheep-range. probably energetic measures adopted by the irate sheep men had driven the marauders to seek new fields. finally, sam morris had a chance to retaliate. he was hunting deer afoot. the day was dark and snowy. as he was sitting motionless beside a boulder, watching the slope below and the ascent across the draw, the dog-pack suddenly streamed out from the pines down there, and all at a lope threaded the bottom of the draw, onward bound. the shaggy black-and-white was leading, as usual. sam's gun was loaded with buckshot, and he waited greedily, that he might get more than one dog with his charge. but the animals were too shrewd to travel bunched; they left intervals, as do the wolves when trailing, and when at last sam would desperately have "whanged away," his gun missed fire. rather chagrined was sam, telling his tale afterward. he confirmed the previous statements that the pack was variously colored, made up of different breeds; a strange invasion surely. the trail through the draw remained unobliterated, for no snow fell for two weeks thereafter. we found that the dog-pack was utilizing this draw for a pass. it appeared to lead from one favorite point to another. the trail grew more distinct, but it scarcely widened; the dogs stepped always, so it seemed, in the same spots. it was vain to set traps; the disturbance of the snow was noticed at once. poison was disregarded. the pack kept on ranging the country and attacking stock. sam was anxious to retrieve himself, and he and i agreed to put in our time watching that trail until we should "fix" some of those outlaws. i remember that it was the tenth day of january, and toward four o'clock in the afternoon, when, for perhaps the sixth or seventh time, we ensconced ourselves between two boulders on the slope overlooking the trail below. the sky was cloudy; a snowstorm was evidently approaching. cloudy days seemed to be those upon which the dog-pack was most likely to be sighted. probably upon such days it emerged earlier on account of the waning light. this afternoon we had been in ambush only a half-hour when the pack appeared. in silent, single file the pack came trotting out of the timber on our right, and across before us, following the trail in the draw. the big, black-and-white, shaggy fellow was the first; next to him was the brindle. i recognized them, for every narrative had contained them. i don't know exactly why, but the sight of them all, trotting so silently, so swiftly, business-bent, thrilled me with a little chill. about their steady gait was something ominous, unreal. a pack of wolves i could have surveyed without special emotion, for i should have known what to expect, but a pack of dogs, gone wild--ugh! they are neither dogs nor wolves, but, as has been said, an uncanny blending. we had agreed what to do. sam only nudged me, and levelled his gun. there was an instant of suspense, and we fired practically together. we had rifles, and were using black powder, and the smoke was momentarily thick. when it cleared, the shaggy leader was kicking in the snow, and the brindle was lying still. my bullet had not sped quite as truly as sam's; his aim had been the brindle. the rest of the pack were racing madly onward, and although we fired twice more, we did not hit any of them. we went down to our victims. the brindle had just life enough in him to snarl at us ere he died. the big black-and-white was gasping. then a strange thing occurred. as i stood over him, he wagged his bushy tail; his eyes were not wild, but soft, suffering, appealing. he was now all dog and would turn to his chosen friend, man, for sympathy and aid. "poor old chap!" i said. his eyes were glazing fast; he hauled himself on his side over the snow toward me. "look out!" warned sam. but there was no need. with a final effort, the animal just managed to lick my boot-toe, and with his head upon it, he shivered and was still. i declare, a lump rose in my throat. as i bent to pat his coat--i love dogs, and he had struck me right to the heart, marauder though he had been--i felt a collar round his neck, concealed by his long, curly hair. upon the collar was a plate, engraved "prince." somebody's "prince" had he been, somebody's pet. but whose? a more perfect example of atavism, reversion to type--call it what you will--would be hard to present. the dog-pack never again, as far as there was evidence, traversed that trail. nor was it seen again upon hicks mountain. it seemed almost as if it had been composed of weird phantoms, like the spectral packs of german and provençal legend, and had dissolved at our gunshots. _especially important!!_ motor stories _a new idea in the way of five-cent weeklies._ boys everywhere will be delighted to hear that street & smith are now issuing this new five-cent weekly which will be known by the name of motor stories. this weekly is entirely different from anything now being published. it details the astonishing adventures of a young mechanic who owned a motor cycle. is there a boy who has not longed to possess one of these swift little machines that scud about the roads everywhere throughout the united states? is there a boy, therefore, who will not be intensely interested in the adventures of "motor matt," as he is familiarly called by his comrades? boys, you have never read anything half so exciting, half so humorous and entertaining as the first story listed for publication in this line, called "=motor matt; or, the king of the wheel=." its fame is bound to spread like wildfire, causing the biggest demand for the other numbers in this line, that was ever heard of in the history of this class of literature. here are the titles to be issued during the next few weeks. do not fail to place an order for them with your newsdealer. =no. 1.--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel.= =no. 2.--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends.= =no. 3.--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier.= =no. 4.--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet."= =no. 5.--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot.= =no. 6.--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear.= =no. 7.--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto.= =no. 8.--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward.= =no. 9.--motor matt's air-ship; or, the rival inventors.= 32 large size pages splendid colored covers price, five cents per copy at all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by the publishers upon receipt of the price. _street & smith, publishers, new york_ _the best of them all!!_ motor stories it is new and intensely interesting we knew before we published this line that it would have a tremendous sale and our expectations were more than realized. it is going with a rush, and the boys who want to read these, the most interesting and fascinating tales ever written, must speak to their newsdealers about reserving copies for them. =motor matt= sprang into instant favor with american boy readers and is bound to occupy a place in their hearts second only to that now held by frank merriwell. the reason for this popularity is apparent in every line of these stories. they are written by an author who has made a life study of the requirements of the up-to-date american boy as far as literature is concerned, so it is not surprising that this line has proven a huge success from the very start. here are the titles now ready and also those to be published. you will never have a better opportunity to get a generous quantity of reading of the highest quality, so place your orders now. =no. 1.--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel.= =no. 2.--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends.= =no. 3.--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier.= =no. 4.--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet."= to be published on march 22nd =no. 5.--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot.= to be published on march 29th =no. 6.--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear.= to be published on april 5th =no. 7.--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto.= to be published on april 12th =no. 8.--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward.= =price, five cents= to be had from newsdealers everywhere, or sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers _street & smith, publishers, new york_ transcriber's notes: italics are represented by _underscores_, bold by =equal signs=. retained some unusual spellings (e.g. "bloming") within dialogue on the assumption they are intentional. page 4, changed "billy ruffin" to "billy ruffian" to match second instance of ship's nickname. page 12, added missing quote after "while i was down in phoenix." changed oe ligature in "phoenix" to oe (ligature retained in html edition). page 13, removed unnecessary quote after "slaps from his cousin ralph." page 17, removed unnecessary quote before "it was impossible, of course...." changed "intendeing" to "intending" ("what motor matt was intending to do"). page 18, changed "someting" to "something" ("something was about to happen"). page 19, removed unnecessary apostrophe after "mings" ("mings was in such a position"). page 20, changed "medding" to "meddling" ("meddling with sercomb's business"). page 21, changed "mat" to "matt" ("matt started along the gully"). page 25, changed "than" to "that" ("frame that enclosed"). page 26, changed "in" to "is" ("house is like"). page 28, changed "villianous" to "villainous" in "villainous plot." available by villanova university digital library (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrated book cover. see 47491-h.htm or 47491-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47491/47491-h/47491-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47491/47491-h.zip) images of the original pages are available through villanova university digital library. see http://digital.library.villanova.edu/item/vudl:304205 transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 6 apr. 3, 1909 five cents motor matt's red flier or on the high gear by stanley r. matthews street & smith, publishers, new york. [illustration: _"leaf dot alone!" yelled carl, floundering to get to the girl's aid, "dot pelongs to moder matt!"_] motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. entered according to act of congress in the year 1909, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c., by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ no. 6. new york, april 3, 1909. price five cents. motor matt's red flier or, on the high gear. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. stranded "uncle tommers." chapter ii. the red flier gets a load. chapter iii. the stolen runabout. chapter iv. the coat in the rumble. chapter v. matt begins a search. chapter vi. losing the box. chapter vii. a mysterious disappearance. chapter viii. spirited away. chapter ix. an unexpected meeting. chapter x. a daring plan. chapter xi. on the road. chapter xii. a close call. chapter xiii. car against car. chapter xiv. down the mountain. chapter xv. motor matt's ten-strike. chapter xvi. more trouble for the "uncle tommers." chapter xvii. conclusion. a snowball fight. secrets of trick shooting. reelfoot lake. a floating slum. wild horses of nevada. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the western town, the popular name of "mile-a-minute matt." =carl pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking german lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with motor matt in double harness. "=legree=," a member of the stranded "uncle tom" company, about whom something mysterious seems to hover. "=little eva=," who turns out to be other than appearances would seem to indicate. "=eliza=," } "=uncle tom=," } other members of the unlucky road combination "=topsy=," } helped by motor matt. =brisco=, } a brace of reckless adventurers with whom matt and his =spangler=, } dutch pard have a particularly exciting inning. =o'grady=, an inn-keeper. =lem nugent=, the owner of the stolen runabout. chapter i. stranded "uncle tommers." "help! some ob yo' folks ahead, dar! unc' tawm's in de ruvver! he drapped de box, an' went in afteh hit head first lak er frawg. he's drowndin', he sholey is! by golly! legree! eliza! come back hyeh dis minyit! unc' tawm's drowndin'!" topsy was making a terrific commotion. while she screeched for help she ran circles on the river-bank, tossing her hands wildly. if she had put some of her aimless energy into helping uncle tom, the kinky-headed old negro in the water would have been a whole lot better off. he was floundering and thrashing and making a good deal of noise himself. "hit's ovah mah haid!" he spluttered. "ah's done got de crampus en mah lef' laig an' ah's monsus bad off! bl-r-r-r! dat's twicet ah's gawn down, en de nex' time ah's gwine down tuh stay. doan' put yo'se'f out none--doan' scramble so ha'd yo' lose yo' bref. hit's only a coon whut's drowndin', so take yo' time gittin' hyeh an'----" uncle tom swallowed a bucket of water, more or less, just then, and his language was submerged. "mercy sakes!" cried eliza breathlessly, hurrying back through the brush, closely tagged by little eva and legree. "do something, somebody! oh, i wish we had a rope. hang onto the box, uncle tom," she added encouragingly; "we'll get you out!" "oh, biscuits!" scoffed little eva. "stop t'rowin' yerself around like dat an' try ter float. de way yous handles yerself, uncle tom, gives me a pain. can't y' swim?" legree was carrying a blacksnake whip. "here," he yelled, posting himself on the edge of the bank and reaching out to throw the whip-lash toward the old negro, "grab hold of that and i'll snake you ashore too quick for any use." uncle tom was beyond talking, but he shook the water from his eyes, saw the whip and grabbed it. thereupon legree laid back on the handle and pulled. uncle tom was brought upright, his feet on the river-bed. the water came just above his knees, and he waded ashore. "well, de old geezer!" exploded little eva. "say, give me a pair o' high-heeled shoes an' i'll walk acrost dat roarin' torrent widou' never wettin' me kicks. how much water does it take ter drown yous, uncle tom? oh, sister, what a jolt." little eva began to laugh. "dat's right," gurgled uncle tom, splashing around on one foot to get the water out of his ear, "laff, laff an' show yo' ignunce. dat didun' git away f'um me, nohow," and he threw a small tin box on the ground in front of legree. eliza stooped and picked up the box. "you take care of that, eliza," said legree. "uncle tom must have been careless. what were you and topsy walking along by the river for?" he added, turning to the old negro. "we reckons we mout hook er fish," explained topsy, pointing to the ground where a stick with a fish-line attached to its end had been dropped. "ah'm gettin' pow'ful hongry," complained uncle tom, "en ah doan' see how we-all's gwine tuh eat if we doan' ketch er fish er kill er possum, er somepin lak dat. mah goodness, but ah'm holla cleah down tuh mah shoes. if a piece ob bresh hadun' switched dat box out'n mah han', ah wouldn't hab got en de ruvver. anybody dat wants tuh kin tote dat 'ar box. ah done had enough ob it." "cheer up, uncle tom," said eliza. "when we get to the next town we'll have something to eat." "huccome yo' allow dat, miss 'liza? whah we git de money, huh?" "i've got a ring," answered eliza, with a little break in her voice, "and i'll pawn it." "no, you don't, eliza," said legree. "i've got a watch, and i'll pawn that." "wisht i had somet'in' t' soak," said little eva. "brisco's head wouldn't be a bad t'ing, eh? say, mebby i couldn't hand dat mutt a couple o' good ones if he was handy!" legree brought his hand around and boxed the boy's ears--for "little eva," in this case, was a boy of nine. "stow it," growled legree, who happened to be the boy's father. "you can talk a lot without saying much, kid. come on, everybody," he added. "the quicker we get to fairview the quicker we eat. you and topsy keep in the road, uncle tom, and don't lag behind." "how's ah gwine tuh git dried off?" fretted uncle tom. "de rheumatix is li'ble tuh come pesterin' erroun' if ah ain't mouty keerful wif mahse'f." "walk fast, uncle tom," said legree, starting back toward the road. "ah kain't walk fast," said the old man; "hit's all ah kin do tuh walk at all, kase ah's mighty nigh tuckered. dishyer walkin'-match is monsus tough on er ole man, sho' as yo's bawn. ain't dey no wagons in dis country? whaffur dey got er road if dey ain't got no wagons? ah'd give a mulyun dollahs if ah had it fo' a mu-el en a wagon." topsy pushed close to uncle tom's side, grabbed his wet sleeve and helped him along. in a few minutes they broke away from the river-bank into the road. little eva didn't seem to mind walking. he pranced along with a pocket full of stones, and every once in a while he stopped to make a throw at a road-runner or a chipmunk. trees and brush lined the road on each side, growing so thickly that it was impossible to see very far into the timber. eliza and legree, talking over the difficulties in which they found themselves and trying to plan some way for surmounting them, were pretty well in advance, while uncle tom and topsy were pretty well in the rear. little eva was dodging around in between, now and then shying at something with a stone. the strange little party had not proceeded far before the boy heard a noise in the brush. heedless of what he might find in such a wild country, he jumped into the thicket. and then he jumped out again, yelling like a comanche. "run!" he piped frenziedly, tearing along the road. "dere's somet'ing chasin' me an' it's as big as a house an' has a mout' like a church door. sprint! sprint fer yer lives!" the other four gave their immediate attention to little eva, and then changed it to something that rolled out of the undergrowth directly behind them. "a bear!" yelled legree. "hunt a tree, kid! everybody climb a tree!" this is exactly what everybody proceeded to do. little eva shinned up a sapling, legree gave eliza a boost into a scrub oak, and then started for a neighboring pine himself, and uncle tom displayed a tremendous amount of reserve force, considering his age and his recent experience. "ah knows dis trip is gwine tuh be de deaf ob me," he fluttered, getting astride a limb and hugging the trunk of the tree with both arms. "mah goodness!" he chattered, craning his neck to get a good look at the cause of the disturbance. "go 'way f'um hyeh, you! we-all doan' want no truck wif you." the bear was a grizzly--not a large grizzly, but plenty large enough. there were lots of bigger bears in that part of arizona, but this was the biggest one fate had to run in among those unlucky "uncle tommers." having gained a position about half-way up and down the line of treed actors, the bear sat down in the road and proceeded to enjoy the situation. "are you all right?" sang out legree from the top of the pine: "is everybody all right?" "if bein' hung up like dis is wot yous call all right, dad," answered little eva, "den it's a lead pipe dat we's all t' de good. but, say, i ain't feelin' real comfertable in me mind." "shoo dat animile away, mistah legree," begged topsy. "hit ain't right tuh make us stay hyeh lak dis when we's all tiah'd out." "go right up to de beah, legree," suggested uncle tom, "en tie dat whip erroun' his neck an' strangle de life outen him. beah meat is mighty nigh as good as possum, an' we kin git fo' er five dollahs fo' de pelt." "oh, dear!" murmured eliza. "i do wish he'd go away. i guess he's thinking more about making a meal off of us than letting us make one from him." "dey trabbles in paihs," called uncle tom in trembling tones, by way of enlivening the situation. "hit's lak snakes, en wherebber yo' finds one yo' sholey is gwine tuh fin' anudder." "ah hears de odder!" screamed topsy. "he's champin' down de road lak er singed cat. heah him! oh, mah golly! we's all as good as daid--we's all gwine tuh be et up." strange noises were coming from along the back track, coming rapidly and growing louder and louder. "dat odder one's bigger 'n a efelunt!" palpitated uncle tom, climbing a couple of limbs higher. "all ah hopes is dat he ain't big enough tuh reach up en take me outen de tree. ah's a gone niggah, ah feels hit en mah bones." the bear heard the approaching noise, and it seemed to puzzle him. he sniffed the air, shook his head forebodingly, and then dropped down on all fours and ambled into the brush. the next moment, to the astonishment of the four actors, a sparkling red automobile rushed into sight, coming from the direction of ash fork and headed toward fairview. a youth in leather cap and jacket was in the driver's seat; beside him was a young german in a "loud" suit and a red vest. "pretzel!" yelled little eva; "i'm a jay if it ain't pretzel!" "saved!" cried eliza. the big red touring-car came to a halt in about the same place where the bear had recently held the fort. the faces of the two boys in the car were pictures of amazement as they stared at the odd assortment of actors hanging in the trees. "vell, py shinks," exclaimed the dutch boy, "dis vas a jeerful pitzness und no mistake. it iss der fairst time i efer knowed it bossiple to pick actor-peoples oudt oof der drees. vat you t'ink oof dot, motor matt?" chapter ii. the red flier gets a load. motor matt didn't know what to think. the queerest lot of people he ever saw were dropping out of the trees and hurrying toward the automobile. first, there was a young woman of seventeen or eighteen, wearing a dust-coat and gauntlets. there was a look of intense relief on her pretty face. following her came a tall, slimly built man, whose clothes suggested the ruffian, but whose face was anything but vicious. he carried a blacksnake whip. a boy trailed after the man. he wasn't a handsome boy, by any means, but his eyes were bright and sharp and he had a clever look. from the other way along the road came an old darky in tattered, soggy clothes. a young negro girl hurried along beside him. "well," breathed motor matt, "if this ain't a brain-twister i don't want a cent. who are they, carl? one of them seems to know you." "sure i knows him," spoke up the boy. "got wise t' carl pretzel in denver. 'pretzel an' pringle, musical marvels.' w'ere's pringle, dutch?" "don't say someding aboudt him," answered carl. "i haf scratched him off my visiding-list, yah, you bed you. pringle iss some pad eggs, und ve don'd ged along mit each odder. matt, dis vas liddle efa, who blays mit a ungle dom's capin gompany. ven he geds his leedle curly-viggies on, he looks fine--schust like some girls, yes. who iss der odder peobles, efa?" "dis is me fader, dutch," answered the boy; "he's de guy wot licks uncle tom in de show. de loidy is eliza, an' say, she's got 'em all skinned w'en it comes t' jumpin' acrost de river on cakes of ice. dat's uncle tom, scramblin' into de auto wit'out waitin' f'r an invite, an' de goil is topsy." "young man," said legree, stepping forward and addressing motor matt, "we're what's left of brisco's uncle tom's cabin company. brisco took all the funds and left us in the lurch at brockville, the station west of ash fork. the constable took our tent, and properties, and even the bloodhounds. we were left with the clothes we stood in, and that's all. marks, and st. clair, and the rest, made a raise and rode back to denver in the train. they didn't have enough to help us out, and so we've started to walk as far as flagstaff. when we get there, we're going to get up some sort of an entertainment and see if we can't pull down enough hard cash to see us through to denver. brisco owes all of us money. barrin' the kid, here, he beat each one of us out of more'n a hundred dollars. but we're goin' to get him; you see if we don't." a grim look came to legree's face. "veil," said carl, "be jeerful und don'd vorry. i haf der same kindt oof pad luck, den i met oop mit modor matt und der luck dook a shange. meppy yours vill dake a shange, too." "we're going to albuquerque," spoke up matt, "and if you don't mind being crowded we can give you a lift as far as flagstaff." a long breath of satisfaction broke from uncle tom. "dat's fine," said he. "dis niggah am sholy tuckered. why doan' yo'-all git intuh de wagon? dat beah am li'ble tuh come snoopin' an' pesterin' back." "pear?" cried carl. "vat you say, huh? iss dere a pear aroundt here?" "dat's no dream, dutch," answered the boy. "wot did yous t'ink it was chased us up dem trees?" "everythin's been goin' wrong with us ever since we hit brockville," said legree. "a lot more'll happen, too, but i reckon we're done with the bear. this machine scared the brute away. how'll you have us in the car, motor matt?" "little eva, as you call him," said matt, laughing a little as he looked at the boy, "had better get in front here with carl. that will leave four of you for the tonneau. it won't be long until we get to fairview, and we'll stop there for dinner." "um-yum," said topsy; "golly, but dat sounds good! dinnah! heah dat, unc' tawn?" uncle tom smacked his lips and rolled up the whites of his eyes. "doan' say a wo'd, chile," he cautioned. "dis seems jess lak er dream, dis ride in de debble-wagon, de dinnah, en all. yo' speak too loud, ah's fearin' ah's done gwine tuh woke up." with his load of stranded actors aboard, all rejoicing in the good luck that had brought matt and carl along with the automobile at that particular time, the young motorist cranked up, threw in the clutch and started. hardly were they under good headway when a sharp cry came from eliza. "stop! the box! i dropped it when i got up into that tree." matt stopped the red flier. "pox?" cried carl; "vat iss dot?" "dat's whut got me into de ruvver," said uncle tom. "ah 'lows dat box is er heap mo' trouble dan hit's worf." "if we ever get hold of brisco," returned legree, "it'll be that box that does it for us. wait here a minute, motor matt, and i'll go back and get it. i think i know right where it is." legree got out of the car, went back along the road, and vanished among the bushes. "is der money in der pox?" asked carl. "we don't know what's in it," answered eliza. "dot's keveer. how vill dot pox helup you ged holt oof prisco?" "brisco always kept it by him," went on eliza, "so we know he thinks it's valuable. he told legree, once, he wouldn't lose the box for ten thousand dollars." "how did you come to get hold of it?" inquired matt. "that's the queer part of it. brisco left the brockville hotel during the night----" "an' i picked it up by de door, next mornin'," chimed in the boy. "brisco must have dropped it when he made dat getaway. it was blacker dan a stack o' black cats, dat night, an' he wasn't able t' use his lamps." "when marks, and harris, and st. clair, and the rest of the company left brockville," continued eliza, "they told us to keep the box and not give it up until brisco paid over what he owed. we lost our wages and everything else we had except the clothes on our backs." "dot's me," spoke up carl; "i vas fixed der same vat you are. den, pympy, modor matt come along mit himseluf, shpoke some jeerful vorts mit me, dook me for a bard, und luck made a shange. meppy dot iss how it vill be mit you." "seems lak he was a long time findin' dat dere box," said uncle tom. "ah's honin' fo' dat hotel in fairview, an' fo' dat dinnah, an' fo' to dry dese clothes. mistah legree is a monstus long time, an' no mistake." "stay here, all of you," said matt, getting out of the car. "i'll go back and see if i can help find the box. if it's so important, it won't do to leave it behind." "i'll go 'long wit' yous," chirped the boy. before he could get out of the car, the sharp, incisive note of a revolver echoed from the bushes at the trail-side, close to the place where legree had vanished into them. eliza stifled a scream. "mah goodness!" fluttered topsy. "somebody's done gone tuh shootin'!" "it wasn't dad, dat's a cinch!" cried the boy. "he didn't have no gun!" "stay there!" called matt to the boy, as he whirled and hurried on. "stand ready to crank up the machine, carl," he added, "in case we have to start in a hurry." matt had dropped into the troubles of these forlorn "uncle tommers" with bewildering suddenness. he hadn't had the remotest notion that there was going to be any violence, or shooting, and the report of the revolver had sent a thrill of alarm through him. had brisco been tracking the unfortunate actors, and had he attempted to make way with the tin box just as legree was about to secure it? as matt drew closer to the thicket, he heard sharp and angry voices. one voice he recognized as belonging to legree, and the other struck a strangely familiar note in his ear. he had heard that voice somewhere before--but where? there were only two voices taking part in the talk, but the man who had intercepted legree was armed. matt knew it would stand him in hand to be cautious, so, instead of turning directly from the road into the brush, he darted for the timber some distance beyond the scene of the altercation. then, making his way back warily, he pushed through the bushes. he made very little noise--so little that his approach was not heard by either of the two men. legree, however, was standing in such a position that he could not help seeing matt. he was facing the other man, and the latter had his back to the young motorist. there was something familiar about that back, but even yet matt could not recall who the man was. the fellow was roughly dressed. in his right hand he was holding a revolver, pointing it squarely at legree, and in his left hand he was holding a small tin box. "if ye think ye can fool hank brisco," the man with the weapon was saying, "ye're far wide o' yer trail. he's got a ottermobill, now, what kin shoot through the kentry like a cannon-ball, an' i reckon thar'll be some cain raised on this part o' the range afore many moons. you take my advice an' hike out o' here without tryin' ter make hank any trouble, er----" just at that moment motor matt's opportunity came. flinging himself forward suddenly, he grabbed the revolver out of the ruffian's hand. "bully for you, matt!" cried legree. the next instant legree's blacksnake whip had curled itself about the ruffian's left wrist, girdling the skin like a loop of fire. the man roared out an oath. the pain must have been intense, for his fingers curled away from the box and he caught his wrist with his other hand. matt stared. when the ruffian had turned and rushed into the woods, cursing and vowing vengeance, matt continued to stare. "ever seen that man before, matt?" asked legree, surprised at the boy's manner. "i should say so!" exclaimed matt. "let's get back to the car. you've got back the box, but we haven't seen the last of this--not by a long shot." chapter iii. the stolen runabout. shouts of relief went up from those in the red flier at sight of matt and legree sprinting down the road, legree with the box and matt with the revolver. "hoop-a-la!" jubilated carl; "be jeerful, eferypody. here dey come alretty, und mit more as dey vent to ged!" "fo' de lan' sake!" chattered topsy; "ah sholy expected some one had done been kilt." "git right in de kyah," urged uncle tom, "so we kin git erway f'om dis hyeh place. beahs, en robbahs, en oddah spontaneous excitements is monstus tryin' to er niggah wif er empty stummick. ah doan' lak shootin' nohow." "was dat some guy t'rowin' a bullet at yous, dad?" inquired little eva. "how close did he come t' ringin' de bell?" "how many were there?" cried eliza; "are they following us?" matt jumped into his seat, and legree scrambled for the tonneau. "take this, legree," called matt, and dropped the revolver over the back of the seat. carl, who had been posted at the front of the machine, had already "turned over" the engine. as she took the spark carl crawled to his place beside matt, and the red flier glided away. the young motorist was silent for a while, listening as legree told how he had gone searching for the box and found it in the hands of a scoundrel whom he had never seen before. the unknown had fired a revolver, but it had been more to intimidate legree and keep him at a distance, for the bullet had not come anywhere near him. legree finished with an account of how matt had come up behind the ruffian and had saved the day. "dot's der vay modor matt does pitzness," said the admiring carl. "you bed my life he vas some virlvinds ven he leds himseluf oudt." "the name of the man who ran off and left your company stranded was hank brisco, was it?" asked matt. "that was his name, matt," replied legree. "but who was that tough-looking citizen that had me cornered, there in the thicket?" "i'll have to tell you something that happened to carl and me, a few days ago, in order for you to understand that part of it," answered matt. "this touring-car belongs to mr. james q. tomlinson, a wholesale jeweler who lives in denver. he and his driver, gregory, have been touring the southwest in it. a gang of thieves, among whom was a fellow called hank, and another called spangler, robbed mr. tomlinson on the trail, several miles west of ash fork. carl and i got mixed up in the trouble, and we had some exciting times racing the red flier against a high-powered runabout that the thieves stole from a wealthy cattleman named lem nugent. "mr. tomlinson recovered his stolen property and went on to albuquerque with his driver, gregory, hiring me to take the touring-car from ash fork to albuquerque. that's how we happened to come along in time to help you out, mr. legree." "if this man, tomlinson, got back his stolen property," asked legree, "what became of the thieves?" "two of them, hank and spangler, got away with the cattleman's car. the stolen runabout can go like a blue streak, and is lighter and faster than the red flier. now, the man that tried to get the tin box, back there in the thicket, was none other than spangler; and the other villain, who was called by the name of 'hank,' was the fellow who left you in the lurch at brockville." "shiminy grickets, how t'ings vill turn oudt mit demselufs, vonce und again!" clamored carl. "domlinson vould like more as he can dell to haf dose fellers ketched, and nuchent vants pooty pad dot he geds his car pack some more. he vill gif fife huntert tollars to any vone vat vill findt der car, und he vill gif fife huntert more for hank, und der same for spangler." carl leaned toward matt with his eyes almost popping from his head. "bard," he asked, "can ve scoop it in?" "i'd like to get back that runabout for mr. nugent," said matt, "but i don't know as we ought to take the time to go fooling along on our way to albuquerque." "vell, misder domlinson say dot dere vasn't any hurry." "he also said," continued matt, "that he wouldn't trust this car with everybody. if we should get to tearing around after hank and spangler, and damage the flier, we would find ourselves in a hole." "you hadn't better bother trying to take us to flagstaff, then," put in legree, "for as long as we've got this tin box brisco is going to keep on trying to get hold of it. if he chases us with that stolen runabout, which you say is a faster car than the red flier, you're goin' to run some risks with this machine." "if we work it right," said matt, "i guess we can get you people to flagstaff without being bothered much by hank and spangler. it's queer, though, to have it turn out that those two scoundrels are mixed up in these troubles of yours." "ah's done had trouble enough," wailed uncle tom, "en ah doan' know how ah could stand any mo'. ah's er pretty ole niggah tuh go traipsin' erroun' afteh robbahs, en drappin' intuh rivvers, an' climbin' trees tuh sabe my hide from beahs. all de same, ah 'lows some ob dat money fo' ketchin' dat 'ar brisco would come mouty handy. but mistah legree, yo' listen hyeh. if brisco sets sich er pow'ful store by dat 'ar box, mebby he'd buy hit offen de lot ob us, payin' us whut he owes jess tuh git holt ob hit. why not, sah, entah intuh prognostications wif him wif de view ob settlin' ouah compunctions in er pleasin' manner?" a shadow of a grin wreathed itself around legree's lips. "well, uncle tom," he answered, "it's hard to prognosticate with a chap who's so hard to find as brisco is." "vere vas hank vile spangler vas looking for der pox, matt?" asked carl. "that's a conundrum, carl." "und vere vas der runaboudt?" "another conundrum." "vell, ditn't spangler ride to der blace vere he come for der din pox in der runaboudt?" "i didn't see anything of the machine, but i was afraid it was somewhere around--which is the reason i was in such a hurry to make a fresh start for fairview." "ve don'd vas shased py der runaboudt, anyvay, und dot means dot it vasn't some blace around vere spangler vas." "chee!" came from little eva, as he pointed ahead. "dere's de burg wot we're headin' fer. i'm a jay if it don't look almost big enough fer two 'r t'ree people t' live in." from the rising ground on which the red flier and its passengers found themselves, at that moment, fairview could be fairly viewed. perhaps there were twenty-five or thirty houses in the place, the main street being bordered by half a dozen stores. "doan' yo' go an' tell me dar ain't no hotel," faltered uncle tom. "no matter how small a town is, uncle tom," returned eliza, "travelers can always find a place to stay. our hardest work will be, i think, to discover some one who will lend money on our jewelry." "i'll furnish the jewelry, eliza," said legree. "this watch of mine is worth enough, i think, to furnish us with food and lodging while motor matt gives us a lift to flagstaff." "if you're out of cash," spoke up matt, in his usual generous style, "i'll foot the bills. some time, when you get on easy street, you can pay me back." uncle tom's anxiety over the prospect fell from him like a wet blanket. "yo's a gemman, mistah motah matt," he declared, "yo' is what ah calls a puffick gemman. ah'm mos'ly independent in dese money mattahs--dis is de fust time since ah can remembah dat ah habn't had all ob two dollars in mah clo's--so hit is mouty spognoocious tuh mah pride, sah, to be fo'ced tuh accept a loan. still, sah, ah brings mahse'f to hit bekase yo' is so willin' an' so spendacious. in retu'n fo' dat, mistah motah matt, ah becomes on de spot yo' official mascot. yassuh. ah takes yo' luck en mah own han's, an' evah time what yo' do anyt'ing, ah agrees tuh make yo' a winnah." "much obliged, uncle tom," laughed matt. "go on wif yo'!" cried topsy. "why didun' yo' mascot dat 'ar company so dat brisco couldn't do lak what he done? mascot! yah, yah, yah!" "laff," returned uncle tom tartly, "laff an' show yo' ignunce! what yo' unnerstan' about luckosophy an' mascots? yo' mouty triflin' an' tryin', dat's what yo' is. wait twell yo' see what ah does fo' motah matt." during this talk, the red flier had glided down a long slope into the little town. it did not take long to traverse the main street, and as they jogged onward all eyes looked carefully for a hotel. finally they saw a sign with a picture of something that looked like a four-leaved clover. under the picture were the printed words, "shamrock house." "dat 'ar fo'-leaved clovah means luck," averred uncle tom. "it's supposed to be a shamrock, uncle tom," said eliza, "and not a clover-leaf." "ah knows dat," went on uncle tom, "but hit sho' means luck. ah done got de feelin'." motor matt and carl pretzel "got the feeling," too, for around at one side of the hotel they saw another automobile. there was no one around the car. carl nearly dropped off his seat. "vas i plind mit meinseluf," he whispered, "or iss it der real t'ing vat i see? matt, dere iss der shtolen runaboudt, mit nopody aroundt! fife huntert tollars saying it righdt oudt loud, 'come, oh, come, somepody und pick me oop!'" matt was astounded; yet there was not the least doubt about the runabout being the same car that had been stolen. "is that the automobile brisco ran away with?" demanded legree, leaping energetically out of the tonneau. "that's the one!" declared matt. "then come with me, matt, you and carl," said legree, starting for the hotel door. "keep behind, though. i'm armed, now, and can meet brisco in his own way if he shows fight." chapter iv. the coat in the rumble. matt, while following legree toward the front of the hotel, was doing some quick thinking to account for this surprising discovery of the runabout. very likely brisco and spangler were planning to recover the tin box. it must have been these plans that had brought them eastward from the vicinity of ash fork. spangler had been dropped on the road to intercept the stranded players and get the box, while brisco had come recklessly into fairview. possibly brisco had been compelled to come into town after gasoline and oil. "ah doan' want tuh be erroun' if dar's goin' tuh be any shootin'," palpitated uncle tom, rolling out of the tonneau with more haste than grace. "ah used tuh be a reg'lar fire-eatah, en mah youngah days, but ah dun kinder got ovah hit. topsy, yo' an' miss 'liza come right along wif me, dis instinct. we'll go off whah dar's er safe place fo' me tuh do mah mascottin' fo' motah matt." eliza and topsy hurriedly descended from the car. little eva was already on the ground, but instead of going around the hotel with eliza, topsy, and uncle tom, he strolled over to the runabout. in their excitement, the others did not miss the boy. there were two windows in the hotel office--one in the front wall, a dozen feet from the door, and one just around the corner in the side wall. the window in the side wall overlooked the runabout. matt, doing some quick figuring, jumped at the conclusion that brisco, taken by surprise by legree, would make a bolt through one of the windows, both of which were open. close to the front window an eave-spout entered a rain-water barrel. matt did not believe brisco, if he tried to escape by a window, would come out at the front, but at the side, where he would be nearer the runabout. with this idea in mind, matt placed carl behind the water-barrel, while he went around the corner. through the window on that side the young motorist stole a cautious look. two men were leaning over a counter in the office. one was plainly an irishman, and the proprietor of the place, and the other was as plainly hank brisco. matt knew brisco too well to be mistaken in him. neither brisco nor the irish proprietor had heard the approach of the red flier, nor the entrance of legree into the office. with a grim smile on his face, and the revolver in his hand, legree was leaning against the wall, just inside the door, waiting for brisco to turn around. "begorry," the proprietor was saying, "fifty cints a gallon f'r th' gasoline is all i'm afther chargin' yez. oi know av robbers around here who'd be chargin' yez a dollar a gallon, but that's not the way wid terence o'grady. fifty cints is th' most oi'll take from yez. fifteen gallons at fifty cints is sivin-fifty; then wan dollar f'r oil makes eight-fifty. eight-fifty from tin laves wan an a half, an' there yez are. will yez shtay f'r dinner? faith, we've as foine a male t'day as yez iver put tooth in, an' a dollar is all ut will cost yez." "i reckon i'll stay, o'grady," replied brisco, picking his change off the counter and sliding it into his pocket. then he turned, and met the leveled weapon of legree. brisco's astonishment was ludicrous to behold. and o'grady was fully as startled. "phat th' blazes d'yez mean by thot?" and o'grady jumped over the counter and stood glaring at legree. "i'll explain," said legree, with a coolness that filled matt with admiration, "but while i'm talking, o'grady, don't get between the point of this weapon and that man, there." "is ut a hould-up?" demanded o'grady. "not at all. the man behind you knows me, and he knows that he owes me a hundred and twenty dollars." "i don't know anything of the kind," replied brisco, every whit as cool as legree. "you've made a mistake, my man; and, besides, even if i did owe you money, you're trying to collect it in the wrong way." "roight yez are!" put in o'grady. "shtick thot pisthol in yer pocket an' go off wid yez. this is a dacint, rayspectible hotel, an' guns ain't allowed in th' place at all, at all. av yez don't hike, begorry, oi'll call in th' town marshal." "call the marshal," said legree; "he's the man i'd like to have here. that fellow who just bought gasoline and oil at this place is one of the gang who robbed tomlinson, the denver jeweler, over west of ash fork, and stole the automobile belonging to nugent, the cattleman----" brisco began to laugh. "what do you think of that, o'grady?" he cried. "why, that car you just helped me fill with gasoline is tomlinson's car! i'm taking it east for him. who this man is, or what game he's trying to play, is more than i know." brisco was edging around toward the side window. "look out, mr. legree!" called matt, through the opening. "he's trying to get where he can drop out here." matt's words caused brisco and o'grady to swerve their glances in his direction. a glint darted into brisco's eyes at sight of matt. hank brisco had good reason to remember the young motorist. "this looks like a put-up job, o'grady," said brisco, still keeping the whip-hand of himself. "well, begob," cried o'grady, "no pack av blackguards can come into th' shamrock hotel an' shtir up throuble f'r me customers. clear out av here," he added, brandishing his fists, "or oi'll be afther gittin' busy wid me hands." "is that man the one who helped rob tomlinson, matt?" asked legree, nodding his head toward brisco. "he's the one," answered matt. "i'd know him anywhere. don't let him----" just at that moment, o'grady, wofully deceived, but thinking he was doing exactly what was right, kicked a chair at legree. the chair struck legree's shins with a force that hurled him back against the wall. "now, then," roared o'grady to brisco, "make a run av it! oi'll take care av this boonch av meddlers!" with that, he hurled himself upon legree and the two began to struggle, falling over the chair and dropping heavily on the floor. they were directly across the doorway, and brisco sprang for the front window and pushed himself through it. "shtop a leedle!" whooped carl, dodging around the rain-water barrel; "you don'd got avay so easy as dot, und---himmelblitzen!" brisco had grabbed the barrel. that happened to be the dry season and the barrel was empty. giving it a whirl, he threw it against the dutch boy with a force that took him off his feet. thrashing his arms wildly, carl laid himself down on the rolling barrel and went caroming off toward the road. meantime, matt, seeing that brisco was making for the window guarded by carl, had rushed around to the front of the hotel. he reached the scene of the scrimmage just in time to be grabbed by o'grady. the racket in the office had brought o'grady's chinese cook from the kitchen; and, while the chinaman continued the tussle with legree, the proprietor of the hotel had rushed out to see what more he could do for the man who had paid him so well for gasoline and oil. "oi've got yez, yez meddlin' omadhoun!" shouted o'grady. "oi'll tach yez t' come interferin' wid dacint people!" with that he flung his arms around motor matt and hung to him with all his strength. "hang onto him, o'grady!" cried brisco, dashing for the runabout. "niver yez fret!" panted the irishman reassuringly; "good-by t' yez. next toime yez come we'll give yez betther treatment; there won't be so many hoodlums around t'----" "let go!" shouted matt. then, suddenly freeing his hands, he struck the deluded irishman a quick blow. o'grady's hands relaxed for an instant. that instant gave motor matt his opportunity, and he tore himself free. about the same moment, legree, hatless, angry, and chagrined, came running out of the office. "where's brisco?" he demanded. just then the question was answered by brisco himself. the runabout, leaping around the corner of the hotel, shot toward the road, a mocking laugh from brisco trailing out behind. "not this time, legree!" called brisco, over his shoulder. "look out for me, from now on--you and motor matt!" the runabout was headed westward. in the rumble behind, lying partly over the rumble-seat, was a dust-coat. it undoubtedly belonged to brisco, and he must have thrown it aside while attending to the automobile, a few minutes before. while motor matt and legree stood staring at the receding car, the coat lifted a little and a hand was waved. "great scott!" cried matt; "it's that boy." legree, far from showing any consternation, leaned against the wall of the building and laughed softly. matt was amazed. "what's the matter with you, legree?" he demanded. "i'm just enjoying a situation that has a bad outlook for brisco," was legree's queer answer. "it has a bad outlook for the boy, too," said matt. "don't worry about little eva. i know him better than you do, and he'll take care of himself." at this moment the chinaman came out of the hotel office and handed the revolver to o'grady. "oi've had about all oi want av this rough-house!" shouted o'grady, his temper badly warped by the disturbance and the blow matt had dealt him. "yez will shtay roight here, bedad, until oi can have th' chink go afther th' town marshal. go f'r jennings, ping," he added, flourishing the weapon in the faces of matt and legree, "an hustle. we'll make this slab-soided roosther laugh on t'other soide av his face befure we're done wid him." chapter v. matt begins a search. carl, having untangled himself from the barrel, brushed off his clothes and rubbed his sore spots, came bristling up to o'grady. "you vas grazy," he cried, "so grazy as i don'd know. oof you hatn't fooled mit us, t'ings vould haf peen tifferent. ve lose vone t'ousant tollars py vat you do! yah, so helup me! pud avay der gun und ged reasonaple." "huccome dat 'ar resolver change han's lak what ah see?" inquired uncle tom, stepping gingerly around the corner of the hotel. "didun' ah do yo no good, mascottin' fo' yo', motah matt?" eliza and topsy followed uncle tom, peering about them excitedly and evidently expecting to find brisco a prisoner. "something went crossways, uncle tom," said matt. "brisco got away, and he took the stolen car with him. mr. o'grady, here, the proprietor of the hotel, didn't understand the case and helped the wrong side." by that time o'grady was himself beginning to think that he had made a mistake. the sight of the big red touring-car, and of the odd assortment of passengers who had arrived in it, afforded him food for thought. so he was thinking, lowering the revolver meanwhile and grabbing ping, the chinaman, by the queue to keep him from going after the marshal. "where did th' lot av yez come from?" o'grady finally inquired. "ash fork," replied legree. "them colored folks come wid yez?" "yes." "well, mebby oi did make a bobble, oi dunno. tell me something more about ut." briefly as he could, legree told of the robbery of mr. tomlinson and of the stealing of the cattleman's car, then wound up the recital by describing how brisco had run off and left his theatrical company, and how motor matt had picked up those who were tramping along the road and was giving them a lift as far as flagstaff. o'grady seemed to take more stock in motor matt than in any of the others. he watched the boy out of the tails of his eyes while listening to legree. "faith," said he, "yez are a har-r-d hitter, me lad. oi'm feelin' th' rap yez give me this minyit, an' me jaw'll be lame f'r a wake; but sure oi desarved ut av so be oi'm raysponsible f'r th' mon gittin' away. a good custhomer he was, an' oi make ut a rule t' trate good custhomers wid ivery consideration. oi supplied him wid gasoline out av me private barrel, an' sint th' chinee f'r oil which oi let him have at double th' proice oi paid f'r ut. by th' same token, oi felt loike tratin' th' mon white, d'yez see? now, av yez won't say annythin' more about th' fracas, sure oi won't, an' we'll let bygones be bygones. was yez all thinkin' av takin' dinner at th' shamrock?" "dat 'ar was de notion we had, boss," spoke up uncle tom eagerly. "then, begorry, oi'll make yez a special rate av sivin dollars f'r th' six av yez." "i'll give you three," said matt. "t'ree ut is," was the prompt rejoinder. "th' ladies can go t' th' parlor, an' th' gintlemen will foind a wash-bench by th' kitchen dure. hurry up wid th' meal, ping," the proprietor added to the chinaman. o'grady handed the revolver to legree, excused himself and went into the hotel. "it don't take him long to forget the trouble he made us," remarked legree, with a wink. "he's wise, too, in being willing to overlook the matter if we are." motor matt couldn't understand legree. he didn't appear to be worried in the least about the boy; on the contrary, he seemed pleased with the situation. "where's the kid?" inquired eliza. "he went away with brisco," replied legree. startled exclamations came from eliza, uncle tom, and topsy. "don't fret about him," went on legree, with a calm confidence that was too deep for matt, "for he'll come back. i'll have to stay here and wait for him, of course, and if matt feels as though he has to pull out for flagstaff before the kid gets here, why, we'll have to come along the best we can." "the boy's in danger," said matt, "and i'm not going to leave fairview until i try to do something for him." "don't go to any trouble, matt," returned legree, "for i tell you again the kid's able to look out for himself. this work of his may result in the capture of brisco and the recovery of the stolen car. after we eat, i'm going to find a cot, lie down, and take a snooze. i've got that coming to me, i think, considering what i've been through to-day. let's hunt up that wash-bench and get ready for dinner." matt was in a quandary. he knew, by his own experience, that brisco was a desperate man, and legree's firm conviction that the boy would keep out of trouble looked like the craziest kind of misjudgment. following the dinner, to which they all did ample justice, uncle tom curled up on a door-step in the sun, legree found a hammock in the shade, and eliza and topsy disappeared inside the hotel. matt led carl off to the red flier. "it's a queer layout, carl," said matt, nodding his head in the direction of the hotel. "hasn't it struck you that way?" "vell," returned carl, running his fingers reflectively through his mat of tow-colored hair, "i vas making some reflections on der soobjeck. leedle efa don't seem to cut mooch ice mit legree, hey? or meppy he cut a whole lot dot ve don'd know aboudt." "you knew the boy in denver?" went on matt. "yah, aber i forged vat his name vas, or vat he dit. und i ditn't know vedder he hat a fader." "well, i don't think we ought to go on to flagstaff until we find out something as to what becomes of the boy." "me, neider; aber how ve find oudt, hey?" "we'll take the flier and see if we can't track the runabout." "und oof ve come too close py der runaboudt, den vat?" "we'll take some old bottles along. if the runabout shows up and tries to chase us, we'll make a run of it and smash the bottles in the road behind us." carl chuckled. that was an expedient to which motor matt had already had recourse--and with brilliant success. "pully! i vill go findt der pottles, matt, vile you ged der macheen retty." carl went off toward a junk-pile back of the wood-shed. by the time matt had made the red flier ready, carl was back with an armful of bottles. "ve vas on der high gear dis drip, you bed you," observed carl, dumping the bottles into the tonneau. "i like dose oxcidements, yah, so. it vas goot for der nerfs und makes a fellow jeerful like nodding." as they got into the car, ready for the start, eliza came hurrying out of the hotel. she carried the box in her hand and made straight for the automobile. "where are you going, matt?" she asked breathlessly. "we're not intending to run off and leave you," matt laughed. "we want to see if we can't find out something about little eva, as you call him. it don't seem right to let the boy be carried off like this and not try to do something to help him." "he's a queer kid," said eliza thoughtfully. "he and legree were only with the company about two months, and they both had a queer way about them, sometimes. but if legree isn't worried i don't know why we ought to be." "i don't know, either," said matt, "but i am, all the same. carl and i are going to see if we can't follow the trail of the runabout for a ways. i don't think we'll be gone more than an hour or two." "may i go along?" "why, yes, if you want to; but hadn't you better leave that box here?" "legree told me to keep it by me all the time," answered the girl. "probably he didn't intend for you to take it out into the hills. well, never mind. if it's so mighty valuable i guess legree would be taking care of it himself. jump in, eliza." the girl climbed into the tonneau, and carl closed the door. matt started at low speed, getting into the road at the same place where brisco had driven the runabout. the trail of the broad wheels was well defined in the dust, and led along the course followed by the red flier in coming into town. "prisco vent oudt like ve come in," said carl. "i'm vonderin' in my mindt oof he vent pack py ash fork?" "give it up, carl," answered matt. "i don't know where he went. there's a whole lot about this business that's the rankest kind of guesswork." "sure! liddle efa vas foolish mit himseluf for gedding indo der car; und he vas foolish some more for shtaying der car in ven he mighdt chump it off. aber meppy he hat his reasons, hey?" "he must have had a reason for doing such a reckless thing, but he don't know brisco so well as we do." "he ought to, matt," spoke up eliza; "he was with the company for two months." "at that time," matt answered, "brisco had the best part of his character uppermost. carl and i have seen the worst side of him, and he's the biggest scoundrel out of jail." "vorse as dot!" averred carl. the tracks of the car led up the slope, out of the valley that contained the town, and on along the ash fork road. matt held the flier down to an easy pace. for several miles the little party had a pleasant ride, without any excitement whatever. but there was plenty of excitement in store, and when it arrived it came suddenly. a turn in the wooded road brought those in the car abruptly into a long, straightaway stretch. the instant they were able to look along the trail beyond the turn, a thrill shot through the nerves of all of them. three mounted men were coming toward the car at a tearing clip. evidently they had heard the pounding of the motor and had put their horses to top speed. "prisco!" shouted carl; "und dere iss spangler, too. durn aroundt, matt! durn aroundt so kevick as der nation vill let you! shiminy grickets, aber dis vas sutten!" motor matt had recognized two of the riders as brisco and spangler, even before carl had given his frightened yell. where had brisco exchanged his seat in the runabout to the saddle of the horse? and why had he changed, and where had he left the car? all this darted through the young motorist's mind as he halted the flier, reversed, and began backing to make the turn. chapter vi. losing the box. matt had not dreamed of being pursued by horsemen. the red flier would have no difficulty in running away from anything on hoofs, and certainly she could leave these three riders behind providing she could turn and get under headway before being overhauled. brisco, spangler, and the other man were dangerously close before matt got the red flier turned the other way. just back from the bend there was a grassy hill, along the foot of which the road ran smoothly. it was an excellent place for speed, and matt jumped from first to second, and from second to third with masterful quickness, considering the fact that he had to be careful about stripping the gear. as the car leaped away, like a spirited horse under the spur, brisco was alongside the tonneau. a scream from eliza called the attention of both boys. matt, of course, was busy with his driving and could not turn to see what was the matter. carl, however, got on his knees in his seat, face to the rear. what he saw brought an angry shout from his lips. brisco, leaning from his saddle, was reaching over the side of the tonneau. he had caught hold of the tin box, and eliza, hanging to it with both hands, was struggling to keep him from securing it. "leaf dot alone!" yelled carl, floundering to get to the girl's aid; "dot pelongs to modor matt!" carl was excited, but it wasn't excitement alone that caused him to say the box belonged to matt. he knew brisco was after a box he had once owned himself, and carl had a hazy idea that if he said the box belonged to matt it might be left alone. the gathering speed of the car carried it away from brisco; and, as brisco's one hand was stronger than the girl's two, the box remained with him. carl got into the tonneau, head over heels and with a crash like the breaking of a dozen windows--for he fell into the heap of useless bottles. when he picked himself up, the three riders, with jeering laughs, had pointed their horses the other way. "it's gone, matt!" cried the girl wildly; "the box is gone! brisco snatched it out of my hands!" "vat a luck it iss!" growled carl, holding one hand to his face, where it had been cut by a piece of glass. "i got pack here so kevick as i couldt, miss eliza, aber dot prisco feller was kevicker as me. donnervetter! matt, ve come oudt to look for dot poy und ve lose der pox! dot vill be some nice t'ings to dell legree." "oh," cried the girl, half-crying; "i shouldn't have come! even if it was all right for me to come i ought to have left the box at the hotel. now we'll never be able to get our money from brisco!" matt slowed down the car and took a look rearward. the three men were out of sight beyond the turn. "don't worry about it, eliza," said matt. "if any one is to blame, i'm the one. there's something queer about that tin box. if it's so valuable, why didn't legree take care of it himself? why did he trust it to you?" "before i had it," returned the girl, "uncle tom was carrying it. he lost it in the river, and had to jump in after it." "more carelessness on legree's part! uncle tom, as i figure it, is about the most irresponsible member of your party, and yet legree allowed him to carry a box which, brisco had said, was worth ten thousand dollars. it don't look reasonable to me." "dot's vat it don'd!" exclaimed carl. "aber prisco vanted dot pox pooty pad to go afder it like vat he dit. meppy it vas vort' a lod to him, und nodding to legree and der rest oof der parn-shtormers." "just because it _was_ valuable to brisco is the very reason i should have been more careful with it," went on the girl. "we might have made him pay us what he owed us, and then we could all have gone back to denver. now--now----" the girl began to cry. "say," wheedled carl, "i vouldn't do dot. you don'd helup nodding novay oof you cry. don'd fret aboudt der olt pox. matt und me vill gif you der money to go py tenver. jeer oop a liddle." "take my word for it, eliza," said matt, as the girl lifted her head and got better control of her feelings, "that box isn't worth a whole lot or legree wouldn't have taken chances with it like he did. i'm sorry brisco got away with it, of course, and i'm going to hurry back to fairview and do something i ought to have done before--and that is, find an officer and put him on brisco's track." "dot von't amoundt to nodding, matt," said carl, climbing back into the front seat. "prisco vill ged off der horse und indo der runaboudt und der officer mighdt as vell dry to ketch some shtreaks oof greased lighdning." "it may be, carl," speculated matt, "that the runabout has broken down. i don't believe brisco and spangler would be able to fix the machine if anything very serious got the matter with it. perhaps they had to leave the car and take to horses." "vat's deir game, anyvay? dot's vat i vant to know. oof deir game vas to ged der pox, den it vas all ofer, und ve don'd haf nodding to do mit brisco und spangler some more. py shinks! dot knocks us oudt oof a t'ousand tollars, matt." "all legree was keeping the box for," quavered the girl, "was so that brisco would follow us and try to get it. that would give us a chance to make brisco pay what he owed us." "legree ought to have hung onto the box himself," insisted matt. "prisco iss too schlick for legree," asserted carl. "i wish i understood what brisco and legree are up to," muttered matt. "there's more to this than appears on the surface." "yah, i bed you," agreed carl, wagging his head. "oof i knew as mooch as i vould like, den i vould tell you all aboudt it, vich i don'd. den dere iss efa. his monkey-doodle pitzness makes der t'ing vorse." a quarter of an hour later the red flier drew up in its old berth alongside the hotel. eliza got out and ran hurriedly to tell legree what had happened to the tin box. "i'm sorry for eliza," said matt, climbing slowly over the brakes as he got out of the car. "she's a nice girl, and it's too bad she has to feel all cut up over the way the box was taken from her. i've got a notion that legree is fooling them all--and you and me into the bargain, carl." "how you t'ink so, matt?" asked carl, opening his eyes wide. "i don't know how he's doing it, or why he's doing it, but it's just a hunch i've got." "how long ve going to shtay here?" "i don't want to pull out until we learn something more about this business. there are parts of it that have a crooked look to me." at that moment legree issued from the hotel. he did not act at all excited, although he must certainly have learned from eliza what had happened. "eliza's been telling me what a time you've had," said he. "the principal thing is that brisco has left the car and got onto a horse. i was surprised to hear that. i can't imagine why a rascal, who's as badly wanted as he is, should leave a swift automobile and take to horseback." "i should think, mr. legree," remarked matt, "that you would be more interested in the loss of that box than in anything else." "not at all. in fact, i haven't thought so much of that box since the lot of us left ash fork. it was a good thing to hang onto, but it wasn't so terribly important. i've told eliza not to feel bad over what happened. i'd feel worse myself if the kid hadn't got away in that runabout, like he did." all that legree said merely made the whole situation darker for matt. and for carl, too. the dutch boy stood blinking at legree, and running his fingers through the tangle of tow he called his hair. "you were keeping the box in the hope that brisco would came after it and give you a chance at him, weren't you?" demanded matt. "yes," answered legree. "well, now that brisco has got the box you can't expect him to come after it." "hardly," and legree gave a short laugh. noting the perplexity of the two boys, he went on: "you miss one point, matt, in sizing up this situation. we're not done with brisco--not by a long chalk. it isn't the box, but what was in it, that brisco is anxious to get." "wasn't there anything in the box?" queried matt. "no, and there hasn't been since we left ash fork. i opened the box on the q. t. in that town and took out what it contained. that object is in my possession. i intend to stay in this town, matt, until brisco is captured. i don't care anything about spangler; brisco is the man i want. if you've got time, you can stay and help me; and you can keep all you get for recovering the runabout for yourself." "what will you get for your work?" "why, i'll send brisco over the road. _the contents of that box will do it!_" matt and carl were dumfounded. the situation was clearing a little, but not much. chapter vii. a mysterious disappearance. "do you know this cattleman in ash fork who had the runabout stolen from him?" asked legree. "i know him by sight," answered matt; "i'm not acquainted with him." "are you sure that he will pay five hundred dollars for the recovery of his automobile?" "he said he would, and he's able to do it. and he offers to pay five hundred dollars apiece for the capture of brisco and spangler." "then there's a chance for you to make fifteen hundred. i'd advise you to stay here and do it." matt leaned against the car and went into a brown study. mr. tomlinson had not required him to get to albuquerque in a hurry. he could take a reasonable amount of time for the trip. but mr. tomlinson _did_ expect the car to be brought safely to its destination. would matt in any way endanger the car by staying a short time in fairview? that was the question that bothered him. "i t'ink, matt," said carl, "dot i could use some oof dot fifdeen huntert. vy nod shtay und dry dem a virl?" "if i stay, legree," observed matt, "i won't be called on to use the red flier for chasing brisco and spangler, will i? the car doesn't belong to me and i can't take any chances with it." "you can do as you please about that, matt. i'm after brisco. if you get spangler and the runabout, you'll have to do it in your own way. spangler and brisco, though, seem to be working together, just now, so my work ought to help you." "why not get an officer here and----" "do you want to divide with an officer what the cattleman is willing to pay?" "you know a lot that you're not telling me, legree," said matt quietly. "well," grinned legree, "when it comes to that, i know a lot that i'm not telling anybody--just now. you've heard more from me than any one else--excepting the kid." "i think i'll lay over here until to-morrow," said matt. "hoop-a-la!" exulted carl. "be jeerful, everypody. i t'ink, matt," he added, "dot i vill infest my haluf oof dot fifdeen huntert tollars in gofermend ponds, und----" "don't invest it till you get it, carl," interposed matt dryly. "pull off your coat, now, and we'll wash up the car and fill the tanks." for two hours the boys were more than busy. while in motor matt's hands, the machine was always as carefully groomed as a race-horse. not only that, but after the day's run he made it a point to go over the machinery with a wrench and pliers, tightening up everything that had worked loose and making sure that every part was in complete working order. the water-tank was filled. ten gallons of gasoline were needed for the gasoline reservoir, but before he bought any from o'grady, matt tested it carefully with a hydrometer. finding it nearly the same grade as he had been using, he funneled it into the tank, not only straining it through wire gauze but through thin chamois skin as well. the oil supply was also replenished. when the boys were through, the red flier was as spick and span as when it had come from the shop. not only that, but it was fit to take the road at a moment's notice and make a record run. to matt's regret, there was no place in town where the car could be housed for the night. there were two or three old barns, but they were so foul and unclean that he would not take the machine into them. he preferred to leave it outdoors all night, sleeping in the tonneau and guarding against tampering. when supper was announced, carl watched the car while matt ate; and when matt had finished, carl went in for his own meal. uncle tom, feeling much better now that his physical necessities had been relieved, walked out to the car with matt when he left the dining-room. there was something on the old negro's mind. he seemed flustered and backward about getting at it. finally he broached the astonishing proposition, leading up to it by degrees. "ah's done let out ob er job by de scan'lous actions ob dat 'ar brisco, marse matt," said he moodily. "hard luck, uncle tom," answered matt sympathetically. "where do you live when you're at home?" "ah's one ob dem 'ar rolling stones, en ah ain't had no home sense ah was knee-high tuh a possum, no, suh. fo' de las' few houahs, marse matt, ah's been kind ob cogitatin' en mah haid an' i 'bout come tuh de conclusion dat yo' outlook in life is juberous, yassuh. yo's a puffick gemman, but yo' take so many chances dat yo' prospecks am sholy juberous." "how can i help that, uncle tom?" asked matt, enjoying immensely the old darky's vagaries. "ah knows how dat kin be fixed, sah," went on uncle tom. "what yo' has got tuh hab is a official mascot, sah, tuh be wif yo' all de time an' wuk off de hoodoo. ah 'lows, sah, dat i could fill dat job. how much yo' willin' tuh pay fo' an official mascot by de monf?" that was too much for motor matt. laying back in the tonneau he laughed till he shook. "doan' laff, marse matt," begged the old fraud; "hit's a mouty complexus bizness. tu'n hit ober in yo' mind, sah, en if yo' t'ink ah'm wuth mah bo'd an' keep, jess considah ah'm engaged." "why, uncle tom," said matt, "i haven't much more than enough to board and keep myself, so i guess my prospects will have to continue to be 'juberous.'" "doan' say dat, sah; t'ink it ober. ah'll hold mahse'f open fo' de engagemunt." uncle tom stumped back into the house, and matt kicked off his shoes and snuggled down under a blanket which o'grady had furnished him. half an hour later, carl came out with a blanket of his own. "what are you going to do, carl?" asked matt, rousing up and peering at his friend through the gloom. "dis iss some games vot two can blay ad, my poy," chuckled carl. "i vill shleep py der machine mit you." "go on!" scoffed matt. "what's the use of denying yourself a good bed when you can just as well have one?" "vell, i dredder shtay mit you. don'd say nodding, pecause it vasn't any use. my mindt iss made oop, yah, you bed you." "all right, then," said matt. "curl up on the steering-wheel and enjoy yourself." the front seat, of course, was divided into two sections, so it was impossible for carl to stretch himself out in it; however, he wrapped his blanket around him and crowded down between the seat and the dash, head and shoulders over the foot-board on one side, and his feet tangled up in the foot-pedals and levers on the other. just as matt was getting to sleep a wild _honk, honk!_ brought him up like a shot out of a gun. "what's that?" called matt. "dot vas my feets," explained carl coolly. "i hit dem against dot rupper pag vat makes a noise. oof der car vas vider, den i vouldn't be too long for der blace vat i am. meppy i puy somet'ing else don gofermend ponds mit dot money. meppy, yah--so----" and carl's words drifted off into a snore. matt settled down again, and this time nothing disturbed him. carl had some bad dreams that night. he thought his feet were caught in a giant clothes-wringer, and that a locomotive was hitched to his head. some one would run him through the wringer, flattening him out up to the knees, and then the locomotive would back up and pull him out again. when his dreams had tired him out with that set of incidents, they shut him up in a little tin box, and three men on horseback played football with him; other experiences, too numerous to mention, followed, and at the wind-up carl thought he dropped several miles through the air and smashed through a skylight. starting up with a groan, he rubbed his eyes and looked around. it was morning. carl was sitting up on the ground, chilled and chattering. at first he thought that skylight episode was not a dream, and he looked up to see the place he had come through. instead of seeing anything so unsubstantial, his eyes encountered the face of legree. "you sleep like a log, carl!" exclaimed legree. "where's motor matt? what's become of the automobile?" then, in a flash, carl's hazy mind connected with the tangible things surrounding him when he went to sleep. "vy," he cried, struggling to his feet and staring around, "i vas in der car mit modor matt! i vent to shleep in it mit him." "i know you did; but where are matt and the car now?" carl rubbed his eyes again, and then took a more careful look about him. he was standing in the very place where the car had stood. but there was no sign of the car! and no sign of motor matt! the blanket carl had taken into the red flier with him was lying crumpled on the ground, a dozen feet away. "vell, py shinks!" gasped carl. "i don'd like dot. i don'd like some shokes vere sooch a monkey-doodle pitzness iss made mit me. modor matt nefer made dot shoke." "there's no joke, carl," answered legree; "i wish to gracious it _was_ a joke. the red flier left here some time during the night. no one heard it. no one knew it was gone until i looked out of the window of my room. you were lying on the ground here, but neither the car nor matt were in sight. do you think matt would pull out and leave you?" "leaf me? matt? vell, he vas my bard, und how you figure oudt dot he do dot? no, py shinks! oof he ain'd here he vas dook off, und oof he vas dook off id vas dot prisco und spangler vat dit it!" with that, carl went over to the well and sat down. he was still confused, but slowly the realization of what had happened was growing upon him. and as the realization grew, his temper mounted with it. chapter viii. spirited away. carl was not the only one who had been troubled with dreams that night. motor matt floundered through one of the worst nightmares he had ever had. the whole scheme of the thing was rather vague, but mighty depressing. he seemed to be engaged in some tremendous struggle, striking away and countering a thousand or more huge fists that leaped at him out of the gloom. one by one he put the clenched hands out of business, and when he had conquered the last of them he opened his eyes in bewilderment. the humming of a motor was in his ears. it was the red flier's motor, he could tell that instinctively. the stars were overhead, the cool, damp smell of the night was all around, and the glow of the acetylene lamps was glimmering and dancing in advance. the car was moving briskly through the silence. matt had a queer, sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. counting out the time he raced the limited train on his motor-cycle, collided with a freight-wagon and was laid up for a fortnight, he had never been confined to his bed for a week in his life. he wondered what ailed him, and his mind was sluggish and slow in working out the problem. he had felt just as he did then once before. that was the time he had been drugged and taken out of phoenix to keep him from racing with the prescott champion, o'day. had he been drugged now? if so, why, and by whom? by degrees the cool air cleared his befogged brain. he went back over the chain of events, picking it up where he had dropped it. the queer party of stranded actors--the arrival at fairview--the escape of brisco from the hotel--the ride into the hills to look for the boy--the pursuit by the horsemen and the loss of the tin box--all these events dragged through matt's mind. he and carl had gone to sleep in the automobile. why was the car moving? had carl, giving rein to some wild impulse, cranked up the car and started for a night ride? matt stirred. "carl!" he called, "what are you trying to do?" matt became aware, then, that there was some one beside him in the tonneau. "carl, hey?" came a jeering voice, as a strong hand reached over and pushed matt back in the seat. "ye got another guess comin'. thar ain't no dutchman along, this trip." "tuned up, has he?" asked a voice from the front seat. "yep; he's got back ter airth, hank." "surprised?" the man in front laughed hoarsely as he asked the question. "waal, kinder. he thought his dutch pard was erlong." matt, while this talk was going forward, realized with a shock that the two men in the car were brisco and spangler. brisco was in the driver's seat, and spangler was in the tonneau. with a quick gathering of all his strength, matt flung himself toward the door of the tonneau. his first unreasoning impulse was to get away from his captors. the car must have been going forty miles an hour, and the roadside was lined with sharp stones. if matt had succeeded in his desperate attempt, he could hardly have escaped without serious injury; but his rash move was nipped in the bud. spangler, who was in the tonneau for the purpose, grabbed matt and hurled him back into the seat. "none o' that!" he growled. "want ter break yer bloomin' neck? not as i keer much about yer neck, but hank an' me hev got diff'rent plans fer ye." matt was still dizzy and weak. the nausea at his stomach was leaving him slowly, but it made him feel as limp as a rag and utterly helpless. "did you men run away with this car?" he asked. "looks that-away, don't it?" returned spangler. "where's carl?" "didn't hev no time ter bother with the dutchman, so we left him behind." "was he hurt?" "hurt? nary, he wasn't hurt. we ain't opinin' ter hurt anybody this trip so long as we hev our way. the dutchman was snoring like a house afire. all we did was ter lift him out o' the keer an' lay him on the ground. we give him a smell o' somethin' on a han'kercher, jest ter make him snooze a leetle harder, that's all." "you drugged both of us, then?" "that was the easiest way ter keep ye from makin' er noise." "where are you taking me?" "ye'll know afore long." it was a rugged road they were traveling, and the red flier negotiated it with many a juggling bump. mountainous rocks, half-screened by bushes and trees, glided by, and there were dusky gashes and seams, and now and then a splash of falling water. rougher and rougher grew the trail, and the reckless driving of brisco caused matt's nerves to thrill with fears for the car. "you'll rack the car to pieces if you keep driving like that!" matt called sharply. "what's it to you?" taunted brisco. "it means a whole lot to me. this car belongs to mr. tomlinson, and i've promised to take it safely to albuquerque." "be hanged to you and mr. tomlinson!" snarled brisco. "we'll fix this car before we're done with it. if you ever take it to albuquerque, you'll have to scoop up the pieces and tote 'em there in a lumber-wagon. that's part of what we're going to do to play even with you and him!" matt's heart skipped a beat, and a cold chill ran through his body. could the villains really mean to destroy the red flier? "you'd better think well about what you do," warned matt. "if you ruin this car, mr. tomlinson will never let up on you till he puts you where you belong." spangler brought his hand around in a sweeping blow. matt dodged the hand so that the stroke was only a glancing one. "shut up!" he cried savagely. "ye ain't here ter make any threats, 'r throw any bluffs." at that moment, brisco brought the car to a stop, putting on the brakes so suddenly that the wheels locked and slid. "i reckon this'll be far enough," said brisco, turning in his seat. "make him get out, spang." "hear that?" cried spang. "open the door and git down." "what's this for?" returned matt, making no move to obey. for answer, spangler, with an oath, seized him by the collar and jerked him roughly out of the tonneau. matt was unable to make any resistance. as he stood in the road, the jagged uplifts by which he was surrounded seemed to swim about him in circles. spangler got back in the car, as matt staggered to a big boulder and leaned against it, and brisco backed the car around until it was headed along the back course. "wait!" cried matt, as a thought of what all this might mean to him took shape in his brain. "we're going to wait--and for just about a minute," returned brisco. "are you going to steal that car?" asked matt, "just as you stole nugent's?" "you're too much of a meddler," snapped brisco. "if you could go along and mind your own business, you'd be a whole lot better off. you had to tangle up with tomlinson, back there at ash fork, and you hadn't any call to butt in. if it hadn't been for you, we'd 'a' won out on that game and been all to the good. i don't reckon we'd have bothered you at all, though, if you'd been content to carry out your orders and push on to albuquerque. but you couldn't do that; oh, no. you're trying to be first aid to the weak and down-trodden wherever you run into them, so you had to mix up with that bunch of stranded actors. "when i drove the runabout into fairview after gasoline and oil, i dropped spangler off to lay for the tramps and get that tin box. you had to butt in, as per usual. i got away from fairview by the skin of my teeth, picked up spang at the place where he was waiting, and we went on to where our other pard had some horses. we side-tracked the runabout there, and slid back toward fairview, intending to push through the timber--a move we couldn't make in the car. then"--and here a swirling oath dropped from brisco's lips--"we dropped into your little trap." "what trap?" demanded matt. "oh, no, you don't know a thing about that, do you? you weren't moseying out there just to give us a chance to lift that tin box, were you? and you hadn't the least notion it was empty, had you? if you hadn't turned that trick, my bantam, we wouldn't have turned this one. we're going to settle with you, all right. this is a part of the country that isn't traveled once a week, and you're seventy-five miles from fairview. by the time you get back to town, we'll have got what was in that box, and have smashed the red flier into a heap of jack-straws. i know a nice little cliff alongside the road, and when we're through with the car we'll lash the wheel, open her up and let her go over the edge! i reckon that'll cook your goose with tomlinson. he didn't calculate you were going to use his car transporting a lot of stranded actors, and mixing up in their affairs on the way to albuquerque." for a space, motor matt's heart stood still. "you wouldn't dare do that!" he shouted. "wouldn't i?" and a reckless, mocking laugh came with the words. "from what you know of me don't you think i would? hope you'll have a nice, easy walk to fairview, motor matt! there'll be some surprises in store for you when you get there. good-by!" spangler also shouted a jeering farewell. the car got in motion, the humming slowly decreased, and the glow of the tail light winked suddenly into darkness. motor matt had been abandoned. but, worse than that, the two scoundrels who had spirited him away from fairview were bent on the wanton destruction of mr. tomlinson's car! chapter ix. an unexpected meeting. motor matt came nearer being utterly cast down, at that moment, than ever before in his life. weak and sick as he was, perhaps his discouragement was not to be wondered at. sinking down at the foot of the boulder against which he had been leaning, he began finding fault with himself. it was all right to pick up the stranded actors and carry them on to fairview. that was merely a kindness for which no one could blame him. but to jump into their troubles, at a time when he was engaged in work for mr. tomlinson and was not, strictly speaking, his own boss, that gave the affair another look. now, because of his desire to help legree, eliza, and the rest, there he was, hung up in the hills seventy-five miles from fairview, with the red flier in brisco's hands and pointed for the scrap-heap. mr. tomlinson would be perfectly justified in laying the destruction of the car to matt's own disregard of orders. and it was mr. tomlinson who had selected matt to take the red flier to albuquerque because he was satisfied the car would receive better care in his hands than in any other! there was enough in these reflections to make motor matt dissatisfied with himself. but he was not, and never had been, a "quitter." and the one cry of his soul had always been for fate to keep him from joining the ranks of the "quitters." as a matter of fact, motor matt was a self-reliant american boy, and there was never the least danger of his going over to the useless crowd of mistakes and failures. naturally, he might make a misplay now and then--running behind just enough to keep him "gingered up" for ultimate success in the big things. while he crouched at the foot of the boulder, the cool air clearing his brain and the sick feeling leaving him, he fell to planning for turning the tables against his enemies. what was there he could do, afoot and seventy-five miles from town? at first, the prospect seemed utterly hopeless; but matt knew that a brave heart and a firm will had time and again snatched victory from seeming defeat. he would start for fairview. possibly, although the road was not much traveled, he might have the good luck to encounter some freighter who would give him a lift. without losing a moment longer, he got up and started off in the direction taken by brisco and spangler. he wondered, as he swung along, what carl would think when he came to himself and found the car missing--and matt gone with it. and what would legree think? and eliza? but what those in fairview might think was a minor consideration. the great point was the recovery of the red flier before the car's captors could wreck the machine. brisco was the only one of the two scoundrels who could run a car, and even brisco's knowledge was superficial. an hour's instruction, from the driver of nugent's runabout, was all brisco had had. brisco now had two stolen cars and he could run only one of them--unless, indeed, the third man he had picked up knew something about motors. matt, perhaps, had walked a mile through the gloomy hills, when he heard a noise as of some one in the road ahead. he halted, half-fearing that brisco and spangler were coming back. but that could not be, he reasoned. if they had wanted to come back, they would have used the car--and the noise matt heard was of footsteps. he listened, straining his ears and eyes. only one man was coming. he could not see, but hearing alone told him there was but one. backing into the deep shadow of a nest of boulders, he continued to wait. the man, whoever he was, was coming hurriedly. sometimes he ran, and occasionally he stumbled. as he drew closer, matt saw that he was a small man, and as he came closer still the figure resolved itself into that of a mere boy. "hello!" called matt, stepping out into the road again. the figure gave a startled jump. "chee!" it cried. "say, who's dat?" matt's pulses quickened, and a glow of hope ran through him. "hello, kid!" he shouted. "what're you doing here?" "i'm a jay if it ain't motor matt!" came delightedly from the boy as he dashed forward. "how's dis f'r a come-off? say, it sure knocks de wind out o' me! where'd yous come from, yerself? was yous on dat automobile wid brisco an' spang?" by then the boy was close enough to grab matt's hand and give it a shake. "yes," answered matt; "i was on the car with them and they let me out and turned back." "how'd de mutts come t' git yous on de mat, hey?" matt explained how he had been spirited away. "well, on de level," breathed the boy, "dat's de rummest move i ever connected wit'. raw? oh, sister!" "now tell me something about yourself," said matt. "why did you get into that car? and where have you been since you left fairview?" "easy, cull! t'ings is bein' pulled off in such a bunch it's hard t' straighten dem out. le's do de ham-restin' act, right here on dis nice bunch o' rocks, while we chin a little." they sat down, side by side. "you must have had some reason, eva, for hiking out with brisco like you did, and----" "cut out de 'eva.' fergit de styge name. i was on'y dat back o' de tin lamps, an' no more of 'em fer mine. call me josh. not dat i'm a josher, understan', 'cause i ain't. an' here's somet'in' else i'm battin' up t' yous: dere's a few t'inks rattlin' around in me block dat i can't let yous in on. not bekase i ain't willin' meself, but bekase it ain't on de program. see? "first off, matt, i crowded into dat car becase de idee looked good t' me. dat's all yous is t' know about dat f'r now. i rode t' w'ere brisco stopped de car an' took on spang--about de place w'ere dad an' yous had de set-to on account o' dat box. "den we moved on ag'in, me still under de coat an' wonderin' how long i could keep shy o' de lamps o' dem two dubs. you can bet yer lid, matt, i didn't breathe on'y when necessary. i was de sly boy, all right. w'en we pulled up ag'in, we was clost t' t'ree horses, all saddled an' bridled, an' wit' a beer-faced guy on one o' dem. "de runabout was backed into de brush, an' brisco an' spang got onto two o' de horses an' all t'ree o' dat strong-arm bunch pulled deir freight back down de road. it was right den i wished dat i knowed how t' work dem cranks an' t'ings so'st i could make dat car go w'ere i wanted. but i didn't know de tail lamp from de carburetter, so i jess had t' lay low an' wait. "w'en dem jays got back, dere was yer uncle john right under de coat, same as usual, an' still holdin' his breat'. if one o' de mugs lifted de coat, i was plannin' to work me pins an' head right into de weeds, like anot'er bear was on me trail. "but dey didn't look under de coat, none of dem. dey was too mad. chee! but dey was r'iled! blatter, blatter, blatter, dey went, swearin' like a plumber wot's burned hisself wit' his torch. say, de air was blue an smelt like de odder place. if dey'd piped me off den, dey'd have took me skelp, all right. "from de spiel dey was givin' each odder, i hooked onto de infermation dat dey'd got de box an' dat dere wasn't not'in' in it--w'ich i knowed all de time. dey was crowdin' all deir swear-words onto motor matt. yous had fooled dem, dey said, an' dey was goin' t' saw off even if it took a leg. "brisco give de mug on de horse his orders to go t' some place w'ere brisco an' spang would go foist an' wait. wid dat we started up ag'in--me on de job an' still sayin' me prayers back'ards, for'ards, an' sideways. i couldn't see where we went, but we was goin' f'r a hunderd years, seemed like, i was dat worked up t'inkin' i might git nabbed. den we stopped, backed t'roo some brush, an' stopped ag'in, dat time t' stay. "i had drawn into me shell, listenin' w'ile brisco an' spang was rammin' around de place w'ere we was. after a w'ile, deir bazoos seemed t' move off, an' i stuck out me coco an' piped de layout. "we was in a well. anyways dat's how it looked. de well was about fifteen feet acrost, steep rocks all around an' on'y one place w'ere dere was a break. de break was choked up wit' brush, an' i'm wise right off dat we'd backed t'roo it w'en we come into de well. "i see anot'er nice little clump of brush off t' de right, an' it looked so invitin' dat i slipped out from under de coat an' ducked f'r it. "i was in dat clump w'en de odder bloke, who dey called klegg, blowed in t'roo de break wid de hosses; an' i was still dere w'en night come down, an' de t'ree of dem lighted up de runabout an' went away w'id it. "couldn't git in de back seat den, kase klegg was dere, so dey bumped off into de night an' left me in de well wit' de t'ree horses. "i kinked me thinker all up t'ryin' t' guess whedder i'd better stay right dere or borry one o' dem horses an' ride some place. well, i didn't ride, not knowin' any good place t' ride to. couldn't even make a guess which way de town was. "i went out t'roo de brush an' moseyed around in de dark till _chugetty-chug!_ along come dat runabout ag'in an' backed t'roo de brush into de well. but dere was on'y one man in it, an' it was klegg. w'ere was brisco an' spang? dat was wot fretted me. w'ile i was frettin', along comes dat red tourin'-car. i made out brisco in front, an' spang in de rear--an' dere was some odder mug in de rear wot i couldn't get next to. de tourin'-car went on past de well. "chee, but i was rattled! wot was happenin', i says t' meself, an' w'y was it happenin'? de tourin'-car come back ag'in an' in it was brisco an' spang, but de odder guy had been left somew'ere. de tourin'-car was backed into de well, w'ere de runabout had gone, an' i started dis way t' see wot i could find. say, matt, i was knocked stiff w'en i found yous! great, ain't it, how luck takes a shoot, once in a w'ile? if dat---wot's de matter w'id yous? w'ere yous goin'?" matt had jumped up, grabbed josh by the arm and was pulling him down the road. "come on!" said he. "we haven't got any time to lose!" chapter x. a daring plan. "say," panted josh, as he and matt traveled rapidly along the road, "put me wise to dis move, can't yous? wot's in yer block, matt?" "do you know what brisco intends to do with the red flier?" asked matt. "he's layin' in a supply o' benzine-buggies t' start a garage, 'r somet'ing, ain't he?" "he ran off with that touring-car just to play even with me, josh. he says i've meddled with his affairs long enough, and that he's going to run the red flier over a cliff just to pay me back for using the car to help you people." "wouldn't dat frost yous?" muttered josh. "and he said i was seventy-five miles from fairview," went on matt, "and that by the time i had walked to the town he would have finished his business there." "brisco has got anodder guess comin'. he ain't so warm. dad can show him a t'ing 'r two, an' don't yous fergit dat. chee! dat guy's de limit. but wot's yer game, cull?" "you say that both cars are in that 'well,' as you call it?" "dat's w'ere dey was w'en i started for here." "well, i'm going to get the red flier away from that outfit!" matt spoke as confidently as though he had merely remarked that he was going over to the hotel after his dinner. "say, cull," returned the boy, "i like yer nerve, all right, an' i marks yous up f'r de entry, but how yous goin' t' git under de wire? dere's t'ree o' dem guys, an' dey've got a lot o' artillery. how we goin' t' git away wit' de car if dey don't want us to?" "i don't know," replied matt, "but we've got to do it somehow." "yous is a reg'lar lollypaloozer, motor matt, an' i'd back yous t' win any ole day, but dis looks like too big a load. but yous can count on me. dad'll tell yous dat i'm big f'r me age an' no mutt in a getaway, so jest set yer pace an' i'll push on de reins." "how far is it to the place where the automobiles were left?" "we're close t' dere now. i'm wonderin' w'y brisco dropped yous widin a short walk o' de hang-out--dat is, if he was fixin' t' stay at de place?" "i don't know," answered matt; "but that's what he did and it's enough for me. i've got to recover that car, josh. if i don't, and if anything happens to it, i'd look nice making my report to tomlinson, wouldn't i?" "if yous hadn't picked up dat bunch o' tramps on de road yous wouldn't have got into dis fix." "i'm not sorry i helped you out, josh." "sure not. yous ain't dat kind, motor matt. all de same, yous would have been peggin' along to'rds albuquerque, nice as yous please, if it hadn't been for dat crowd o' uncle tommers. dere'll be doin's in fairview in de mornin', w'en dad finds out yous ain't w'ere yous ought t' be." "what can your father do?" "he can do a lot w'en he gits started. don't yous never t'ink he's a slow one, matt." matt knew that legree could keep a cool head in a pinch, but, for all that, he didn't see how he could do anything when he didn't have money enough even to pay his board-bill. "mr. tomlinson has a lot of confidence in me," said matt; "and, if that car is wrecked, i'll have----" "sh-h-h!" whispered josh, coming to a wary halt and laying a hand on matt's arm. "look ahead, dere. see dat black splotch on de side o' de hill by de road?" "yes," answered matt, straining his eyes in the direction indicated. "dat's de brush dat hides de openin'. are we bot' goin' t' blow in dere an' try t' make a run wit' de red car?" "we can't do the trick in such a hurricane way as that. we've got to lay some other plan. i'll go in and look the ground over, josh, and maybe i can get hold of an idea." "i'll try t' git holt o' one, too, w'ile i'm waitin' fer yous. don't make much noise w'ile yous is in de bushes, matt, or dem terriers'll pepper yous." "i'm going to sneak into the place as quietly as i can. i don't think they'll hear me." leaving the boy a little way from the dark patch of verdure clinging to the face of the hill, matt went on carefully. as he approached closer to the vague blot it gradually took form under his eyes. the wall of the hill seemed to be cracked through from crest to base and wrenched apart until it formed a narrow opening. up both sides of the opening grew the bushes, their branches spreading out and forming a thick screen. on account of the darkness, matt could not make a very close examination of the queer fissure, but he saw enough to convince him that nature had contrived a secure retreat for brisco and spangler. the bottom of the opening, matt judged, was all of ten feet in width. dropping down on his hands and knees, he began crawling through the middle of the break, parting the bush branches from in front of him as he advanced. so wary was he that he made very little noise. he had gone perhaps a dozen feet through the brushy tangle, when a glow of light struck on his eyes. this acted as a sort of beacon, and served to guide him the rest of the way. a dozen feet more brought him to the opposite side of the opening and to the edge of the bushes. crouching silently on the ground he proceeded to survey the peculiar niche in front of him. josh's description, likening the place to a "well," was quite appropriate. the niche was circular in form and its walls arose steeply to a height of at least fifty feet. in the shadow of the walls the place was very dark, but the glowing lamps of an automobile enabled matt to see enough to send a chill of disappointment through him. there was only one automobile in the niche! and that one was the runabout! brisco and spangler must have emerged and gone off somewhere with the red flier. had they taken it away to destroy it? the three horses were not far from the runabout. they were secured to some bushes, and could be heard pawing and stamping. matt could also hear something else, and that was the snoring of a man in deep sleep. after a moment's hesitation he continued to creep onward, redoubling his care and vigilance. he was upon the man before he was fairly aware of it, one of his groping hands coming in contact with an outstretched foot. the snoring ceased with an explosive grunt and matt drew back breathlessly. the man did not rouse up. shifting his position slightly he continued to snore. making a dã©tour, matt got around the man--whom he knew was not brisco or spangler, and consequently must be klegg--and reached the runabout. pausing there, the young motorist let his mind circle about this new phase of the situation. if he couldn't get the red flier, why not take the runabout? that would afford himself and josh a quick means for making the return trip to fairview. besides, no matter what happened to the red flier, there was something to be gained in getting the runabout away from the thieves. close to the car was a heap of horse-trappings. matt felt about among the saddles, bridles and blankets until he had found two coiled riatas. could he, by quick work, get one of the ropes around klegg's hands before he was thoroughly awake and able to struggle? josh would have been of use in such an attempt, and matt decided that he could not make it successfully unless he did have the other to help. he would go back after josh, he decided; but first he would look over the runabout and make sure it was ready for the road. laying the ropes in the front of the car, he arose to his feet, softly removed the tail lamp from its bracket, and flashed it into the rumble. the coat, used so cleverly by the boy, was still there, crumpled on the floor as though by a man's feet. passing on to the forward part of the car, the pencil of light jumped from point to point, matt's eyes following critically. everything seemed to be shipshape and in good order. a small object on one of the front seats caught the youth's attention. it was pushed well back into the angle where the back joined the seat, and matt picked it up and held it in the glow of light. it was a small bottle, and the label bore the written word, "chloroform." matt stifled an exclamation. undoubtedly it had been some of that bottle's contents which had helped brisco and spangler get the better of him, in fairview, and run off with the touring-car. then a startling expedient darted through matt's mind. turn about was fair play. with the aid of the drug he could clear a passage for the runabout, and without resort to any violence. setting the lamp down on the front seat, matt drew the cork of the bottle, took a handkerchief from his pocket and proceeded to wet it with the chloroform. then, re-corking the bottle and laying it aside, he went down on his hands and knees and started toward klegg. a lightening of the sky over the steep walls that hemmed in the niche told of coming day. the darkness would be a help to matt and josh in getting to the road and away, and if advantage was to be taken of night matt knew he would have to hurry. but he was well equipped to carry out his plans now, and lost no time in getting about them. chapter xi. on the road. kneeling beside klegg, matt leaned over and held the saturated handkerchief close to his face. the fumes were strong, and seemed to strangle him. with a gurgling grunt he shifted his position. matt moved the handkerchief and again held it over his face. this time klegg sputtered a little, but did not change his position. evidently the narcotic was beginning to have its effect. after a moment, matt allowed the handkerchief to drop on klegg's face. he left it there for two or three minutes and then threw it aside. klegg was breathing heavily and seemed to be completely under the influence of the drug. catching hold of the blanket on which the man was lying, matt began to pull it toward the wall of the niche. "chee!" whispered a voice close to matt's side. "wot kind of a smell is dat, cull? wot yous done to klegg?" "i thought you were going to wait outside, josh?" answered matt. "dat's wot i t'ought, but yous was so long in comin' dat i took de notion t' come in an' look yous up. wot's de play?" "i found a bottle of chloroform in the runabout, and it must have been out of that same bottle that brisco took the stuff that put me to sleep. thought i'd see how it worked on klegg." "yous is a jim dandy, matt!" laughed josh delightedly. "but w'ere's brisco an' spang?" "they're not here, and neither is the touring-car." "tough luck! yous figgerin' on makin' a getaway wit' de runabout?" "yes. we might use that for a quick run to fairview and get the sheriff to hunt up brisco and spangler. i'll go with the sheriff and use the runabout. it's a faster car than the flier, and we may be able to catch the two thieves before they wreck mr. tomlinson's car." "yous has got a head on yous, matt, an' no mistake," said the boy admiringly. "an' yous pulled all dis off yerself! well, say, if yous ain't a winner dis heat yous ought t' be. dat's right--on de level an' no stringin'. dad would like t' have a guy like yous t' work wit' all de time. an' so would little eva, de child wonder. but it's gittin' daylight, matt, an' if we're goin' t' pull our freight, let's be at it." it was already light enough so that they could see without the lamps. these were extinguished, and then matt put the tail lamp back in its place, started the engine and got into the driver's seat. on the low gear they moved slowly across the bottom of the niche. josh was still laughing softly to himself. "chee, cull, but i'd like t' be around w'en brisco an' spang find dat klegg feller!" he chuckled. "dat would be as good as a circus. dis is almost too good t' be true, ain't it?" "it will be, josh," replied matt, "if i can only get back the red flier." "dem coves'll be careful o' dat odder machine when dey find dis one has been took away from dem." "i know that--providing they find out the runabout is gone before they destroy the flier." setting the runabout at the bushes, matt drove through the undergrowth, josh keeping the branches out of his face while he attended to the steering. "on de road ag'in!" jubilated the boy, as they emerged from the mouth of the opening and turned to the left. "all i wish is," answered matt, "that i knew we were going right." "dere's on'y two ways t' go, cull. one's up to'rds w'ere you was dropped by brisco an' spang, an' t'odder's de way we're headin'. it's a cinch we're hittin' it off about proper. w'ere d' youse t'ink dem odder mutts went wid de tourin'-car?" "i'm afraid they took it off to carry out their threat and make junk of it." "i hope yous ain't got it right. if dey did dat, it 'u'd put yous in a bad hole. yous couldn't make tomlinson take dis car f'r de odder, could yous?" "hardly. this car belongs to nugent, in ash fork." something was rattling about the car, and it got onto matt's nerves. halting for a moment, he located the difficulty. the screw-cap of the gasoline-tank was loose. taking a wrench out of the tool-box he tightened the cap, then dropped the wrench in the rumble and returned to his seat. "yous don't like t' hear anyt'ing rattle, hey?" queried josh. "makes me nervous," laughed matt. "now hold onto your teeth, josh. i'm going to let her out!" "de quicker we kin go de better. let's see how fast de ole gal kin travel." they whirled around a turn in the narrow valley. the unexpected was lying in wait for them, for they came upon spangler, on foot and walking toward the niche. josh gave a startled yell. spangler, dumfounded at sight of the runabout, charging toward him with motor matt and the boy in front, stood as though rooted to the ground. "down, josh!" cried matt, advancing the spark; "get down behind the dashboard!" as matt spoke he sounded the horn. spangler climbed out of the way with more haste than grace, and the runabout dashed past him. "yi-yip-ee!" tuned up the boy, waving his hand mockingly. "d'radder do dat dan git run down, hey?" "drop!" yelled matt, and in a tone that made josh crumple down between the seat and the dash. bang! matt had expected a bullet, and he was not disappointed. but it went wide. bang! the next one came closer, but still left a safe margin. there was no more shooting. wondering at it, josh rose up and looked backward. "now wot d'youse t'ink o' dat!" he cried. "wot's dat mug doin' dat for?" "what's he doing?" asked matt. "w'y he's hustlin' a big stone into de middle o' de road. see 'im work! chee! wot's de meanin' o' dat?" the car whipped around another turn, wiping spangler and his strange activities out of sight. josh dropped down on the seat. "that's got a bad look," said matt, coaxing the runabout to a still faster gait. "we've got to get out of this as quick as we can." "chee!" cried the boy, holding to the seat with both hands, "we're goin' fast enough. gid-ap! wow! wot a spurt! don't let anyt'ing slip a cog, cull. if de ole benzine-buggy hit a rock an' stopped, i'd go right on f'r a couple o' miles afore i landed. oh, wot a clip! we've got de cannonball limited licked t' a frazzle!" then they took another turn, the rear wheels skidding and matt deftly catching the motor up and sending the car onward. the runabout did not follow the curve of the road, but made an angling turn--a hair-raising stunt copied after oldfield, the daredevil racer. josh gave a yell, and came within a hair of being heaved over matt and into the road. then, with a muttered exclamation, matt cut off the power, applied the brakes and quickly reversed, backing for the side of the road. it all happened so quick that it took the boy's breath. "wot's dat fer?" he asked. matt was whirling the wheel and starting the car on the back track. "brisco is heading us off," he answered--"brisco in the red flier!" josh turned to stare along the road. matt was right. brisco, still a long distance off, was whooping it up in their direction. "wouldn't dat crimp yous?" gasped the boy, awed at the gathering perils. "dey've got us f'r fair, matt! w'y didn't yous keep on an' give brisco de go-by?" "there wasn't room enough in the road to pass!" flung back matt. "dat's w'y spang was rollin' dem stones in de road! he knew dat brisco was comin', and dat he'd git us between him an' de rock-pile. chee! we're it, dis time, an' no mistake." matt, his face white and set and his gray eyes snapping, was leaning over the steering-wheel, watching every foot of road as they swept over it. "we've got to pass that rock-pile before it gets too big!" said he through his teeth. "den w'ere'll we go?" "anywhere, just so we keep away from brisco. this car is a faster one than the red flier. we can show him our heels at any stage of the game." they fairly flew, and rocks rushed past them as though hurled by some giant hand. "there'll be some danger when we get to the place where spangler is waiting, josh," said matt. "i'll slow down and you can get out, if you want to." "wot d'youse take me fer?" cried the boy. "i'm wid yous, matt, win 'r lose. see? make yer ole play. if uncle josh ain't wit' yous at de finish, den call him a quitter an' mark him off'n yer callin'-list." hurling onward, and skidding around the turns, matt kept straining his eyes constantly ahead. their source of peril was now wrapped up in spangler. if his pile of boulders did not block the road completely--if there was a chance for the runabout to get past the stones, or over them, there was still a fighting chance for escape. half a minute later, as the car reached out for the place where spangler had been at work, matt's heart went down into his boots. spangler was nowhere in sight, but he had worked to good purpose. a few big boulders were cunningly placed so as to make the road impassable. with a despairing cry, matt brought the runabout to a quick stop. chapter xii. a close call. "pile out, josh, and get busy with those rocks!" yelled matt. it was a forlorn hope, for the pounding of the red flier could be heard around the turn, coming up hand over fist. long before the way could be cleared, brisco would be upon them. and what had become of spangler. where had he gone? and _why_ had he gone? that was a conundrum, and matt had no time to give to conundrums just then. josh, eager to do all he could, was tugging and straining at the rocks. "it won't do, josh!" shouted matt. "run for those boulders at the side of the road and wait for me." to think quickly in an emergency was motor matt's long suit. many a time his cool head had helped him out of a bad difficulty. while he was shouting to the boy he was running back to the car. snatching the wrench from where he had dropped it in the rumble, matt went to work with lightninglike energy on the cap of the gasoline-reservoir. in record time he had the cap off. bending down he scooped up a handful of sand from the road and dumped the most of it into the reservoir, then, as quickly as he had removed the cap, he replaced it, flung the wrench into the car and jumped for the boulders. hardly was he back of the big stones that clustered along that edge of the valley, when the red flier shoved her nose through a cloud of dust and came scorching onward. brisco must have been astounded to see the runabout, deserted and at a halt in the road. the way, of course, was blocked for him as well as for the runabout, and he halted the red flier at a good distance from the other machine, leaped out and came running to the other car. the stones in the road probably gave him a pretty good idea of what had happened, for he immediately began looking around him as though expecting to see some one--possibly matt and josh. "spang!" he whooped. "where are you, spang?" "here!" answered spangler, appearing suddenly around the bend. "what you been doing?" demanded brisco. "the dickens is ter pay, an' no mistake!" stormed spang. "that young cub of a motor matt found out whar we'd cached the runabout, an' blamed if he didn't go in an' snake it right out from under klegg's----" "thunder!" broke in brisco. "don't you reckon i _saw_ the whelp? he was bearing down on me like a hurricane, slamming the runabout through for all she was worth." "he went past here gally-whoopin'," answered spang, "while i was makin' fer that hole in the hill. come mighty nigh runnin' me down at that. i got out o' the way, faced around an' sent a couple o' bullets arter him, but the brat's too lucky ter stop any lead----" "depends on who throws the lead," snarled brisco. "i kin throw it with ary man that walks! but i didn't take time ter throw much. i calculated the runabout would come up ferninst you, hank, afore it got out o' the valley, an' that king would have ter turn around an' chase back this way. so what does i do but begin pilin' stones whar they'd do the most good. jest got enough down ter do the biz, an' went ter see what had happened ter klegg. great jumpin' sand-hills! what d'ye think that infernal kid done ter him?" "what?" fumed brisco. "doped him, by thunder! doped him out er the same bottle we used last night! klegg's up thar in the notch, dead ter the world!" "what did you leave the hang-out for?" roared brisco angrily. "didn't i tell you, when i left, to stay there with klegg? if you'd done as i said, this wouldn't have happened." "i come out ter see if that kid was moseyin' down the valley," was the sullen rejoinder from spang. "ye said i was ter watch out an' make sure he didn't blunder outer the notch." "well, you made sure, didn't you?" taunted brisco. "where'd legree's kid spring from? how'd he come to be along with king?" "how'd i know? think i'm a mind-reader?" "deuced funny thing! he was with king, and i'd like to know where he came from, and how he got here. there's a nigger in the fence, i'll bet. where'd those boys go?" "i don't know that, nuther." "did they pass you and go up the valley?" "nary, they didn't!" "then they must be hiding around here somewhere! let's get 'em. if i lay hands on motor matt again he won't get off so easy." there was only one place in that vicinity where any one could hide, and that was among the scattered rocks not far from where the runabout was standing. brisco and spangler, making a hasty survey of the surroundings, at once hit upon the boulders as the place for them to look. "they're over thar," cried spangler, "an' i'll bet money on it." as he spoke, he started at a run for the side of the valley, pulling a revolver as he went. "don't do any shooting," called brisco, starting after spangler, "just grab 'em and hold 'em." "we'll tie king in that thar automobile when we run it over the cliff!" yelped brisco viciously. "we'll l'arn him ter play his tricks on _us_!" matt and josh had heard all this conversation. they were not standing still, either, but were busily finding some place where they could stow themselves away. a fight with the two armed men was to be avoided, if possible. matt knew that he and josh would stand little chance in such a one-sided combat; and matt had formed plans which he was eager to be carrying out. a little way up the steep hillside there was a ledge, with a recess back of it. matt's quick eye picked out the spot, and he climbed briskly, hauling josh along after him. the boulders shielded them from view while they were getting to the ledge, and matt pushed josh into the recess, and then rolled into it himself. from this position matt was able to peer over the ledge and keep track of the movements of brisco and spangler. "are they comin' dis way, cull?" whispered the boy. "yes," answered matt. "got deir guns ready, eh?" "of course, josh. scoundrels like brisco and spangler always draw and shoot if you give 'em half a chance." "dey're hot at de two of us, an' dey'll sure lay out ter do us up." "we'll have to fight, if they force it on us." "wot kin we do?" "there's a stone on the ledge. if they come too close i'll push it down on them." "better give dat dere stone a push right off, bekase----" "hist!" cautioned matt. silence fell between the boys. matt drew in his head, fearing he would be seen. he listened intently, however, and could tell by the scrambling feet below just how near brisco and spangler were coming. when they came too close, matt was intending to push the stone down on them. "beats the deuce where those whelps went to!" grumbled the voice of brisco. "they must be here. thar wasn't any place else they could go. i wasn't gone from the road more'n five minits, hank." "they wouldn't have had time to get past you?" "nary, they wouldn't. they're here, i tell ye; they must be." "the whole side-hill is under our eyes. if you can see the cubs you can do better than i can." "seems like there was a shelf up thar a ways. mebby they're on the shelf?" "gammon! that shelf isn't wide enough for a chipmunk to sit on." "anyways, i'm goin' up an' take a look." matt got ready to push out and roll the stone off the shelf. before he could do that, however, a shout from brisco halted him. "say, you! there were three horses in the hang-out with klegg!" "what o' that?" answered spangler. "why, those boys have gone there and are getting the horses." "how could they go thar, hank? they didn't pass me." "they might have got there when you didn't see them. while we're wasting time here, i'll bet something handsome they're getting out those horses. come on! don't lose another second fooling around among those rocks!" "waal, i don't reckon----" "come on, i say!" roared brisco. the two men were heard scrambling down the slope, getting farther and farther away. back in the little recess matt could hear the boy chuckling and talking to himself. "come on, josh!" whispered matt, starting up. "be careful, though! this is our day for luck, all right." "well, i guess!" answered the boy, rolling over the ledge. "chee, but dey're a pair o' dough-heads. good t'ing f'r us, too. what next, matt?" "we'll get to the red flier, turn it the other way along the trail, and ride back to fairview." "oh, lucy!" giggled josh. "fer a kid dat ain't had not'in' t' eat since yesterday mornin' i'm feelin' some fine! we gits de red flier, after all, an' dem guys is beat, hands down." they were proceeding down the hillside while josh was talking. when matt reached the boulders that lined the road, he looked out. brisco and spangler, hurrying as fast as their legs could carry them, were just vanishing around the bend. "now for the red flier--and fairview!" said matt, running out from among the boulders and laying a direct course for the red car. "dat's de talk, cull!" laughed josh, hustling along after matt. certainly it looked as though they were to have everything their own way, for a while at least--but they were not so lucky as they thought. chapter xiii. car against car. it may be that matt and josh made too much racket getting down the rocks, or that brisco had a premonition that something was wrong. be that as it might, however, yet brisco and spangler turned back a minute after they had gone charging around the bend. motor matt, at that moment, was bending to the crank of the red flier, and it was josh who excitedly announced the approach of their two enemies. the boy had done his jubilating too soon, and the sight of brisco and spangler filled him with panic. "oh, chee!" he fluttered. "dey're after us, matt, like a couple o' grizzlies! wow! let's duck f'r de rocks agin!" "get into the car!" shouted matt, giving the crank a whirl. one beauty of the red flier was the quickness with which the machine caught up its cycle; and it had been the same with matt's twin-cylinder motorcycle. half a turn of the pedal was enough for the little _comet_, and one pull of the crank did the business for the red car's motor. while the machine popped its defiance of brisco and spangler, motor matt ran around and vaulted into his old familiar place. he felt at home--much more so than he had when driving the runabout. neither brisco nor spangler wasted any time with their revolvers. both knew that the runabout was a faster machine than the red flier, and both felt confident that a quick start after the boys and a few minutes' chase would tell the tale. spangler scrambled into the car. brisco slipped as he rounded the front of the runabout to turn over the engine, fell sprawling and hit his head on the handle of the crank. he was not very much hurt, apparently, although from his flow of language his temper must have been severely injured. besides, he had lost ten seconds--no very serious matter, considering the usual speed of the runabout--but brisco was anxious for a rapid start and a quick finish for the chase. as he yanked the lever savagely, the popping from up the road sounding like the rapid discharge of a gatling gun. motor matt had turned the red flier with his customary celerity, and was off on the high gear with the muffler cut out. "by thunder," howled the frantic spangler, "oncet i ketch that motor matt i'll wring his neck fer him!" "i'll help you," answered brisco vindictively. there was a patch of skin gone from his forehead and a little dribble of red was flowing down his cheek. "if they wasn't out o' sight," growled spangler, "i'd pepper 'em." "what's the use of peppering them?" scowled brisco. "we'll climb right over 'em in less'n five minutes." "do it!" cried spangler, as they shot ahead recklessly. "do what?" asked brisco, just missing a boulder by a hair's breadth. "why, climb over 'em," snorted spangler. "run 'em down an' shove 'em inter the rocks! let's hev a smash, with that young whelp right in the middle of it. he's made us trouble enough!" "don't be a fool, spang!" returned brisco. "if we ran into them we might smash the runabout. we've got use for this machine--after we clean up on legree and this motor matt." "that's so, too," said spangler. "we may hev use fer it even if ye don't clean up on legree. with another pair o' shoes an' tubes, an' a place whar we kin keep a supply o' gasoline an' oil, an' them steel bottles o' compressed air, we could circle all around through this here southwestern kentry, takin' our toll wharever we wanted ter pick it up." "sure we could, and we _will_!" "i'm glad o' one thing," observed spangler. "what's that?" "why, thar won't be any more glass throwed in the road, same as thar was during t'other chase we had with that red flier. king had a lot in the red car, if ye remember, an' i dumped it all out." "we'll nip 'im this time," said brisco, through his teeth. "we got ter, that's what. if we don't---tear an' ages, hank! be keerful!" the runabout had been hurled at a curve. there was no lessening of the speed, and the entire machine slid sideways to the edge of the road, banging into the rocks with a force that pitched spangler against the dashboard. he came within one of going clear over upon the hood. "get back in your seat and hang on!" yelled brisco. "we haven't commenced to run yet." after that spangler had no time to talk--he was too busy holding himself in the car. meanwhile the red flier had been streaking it through the hills, josh keeping a pair of keen eyes on the back track, and matt giving his entire attention to the road ahead. "chee, wot a bump!" cried josh. he had seen the runabout skid across the road, take a welt at the rock wall and then leap onward like a bullet from a gun. "what's the matter?" shouted matt. he had to shout, for the wind of their flight caught the words out of his teeth and flung them, a mere wisp of sound, far to rearward. "brisco tried t' knock over a hill wit' his hind wheels," yelled josh, "an' spang tried t' turn a handspring over de bonnet. wow! but dey're goin some, matt!" "so are we," screamed matt, "fifty-eight miles an hour." "ever race dat runabout afore?" "yes." "w'ch winned?" "the flier--by a fluke. i scattered glass in the road--the runabout got into it and went lame." "got any glass along now?" "yes, in the tonneau; but----" "none dere now, cull." "then brisco must have thrown it out. it'll all right, though. this is going to be our race." "we'd better keep our lamps skinned f'r fairview. it's on'y seventy-five miles from w'ere we started, an we're goin' so fast we might run past de place an' never see it." josh felt hilarious. his panic was leaving him and his usual nerve was coming back. "how's the runabout coming?" roared matt. "gainin'!" whooped the boy. "oh, sister, how she's comin'! wisht i had some glass." "she'll never catch us, josh!" "how's dat?" "because i've fixed her so she won't." "i hope yous ain't shy in yer calkilations, matt. dem blokes'll sure kill us if we drops into deir hands." "watch her, josh! tell me when her speed slackens, or when anything goes wrong." "she ain't slackenin' none yet, an' nuttin' ain't gone wrong." "well, watch and tell me." matt couldn't understand why the runabout wasn't beginning to develop trouble in the vicinity of the needle-valve. but it would come, sooner or later. some of the sand was bound to get through the supply-pipe in time. the valley had widened considerably, and now it began to develop dips and rises which afforded matt opportunity for nursing the motor and preventing overheating. he could cut off the power on the down grades and give the throbbing cylinders a breathing spell. brisco had no such fine ability or discrimination. he took everything on the high gear. "still gainin'!" announced josh. "how far are they behind?" "a hundred feet. it's a wonder dey don't shake some bullets out o' deir guns dis way. one of 'em's tootin' his bazoo at us." "what does he say? can you hear?" "he says ter stop 'r he'll put a bullet into one o' our tires. chee! if he does dat----" matt snatched one hand from the steering-wheel. honk, honk! he answered derisively. sping! the warning report was followed by the whistle of a bullet. it did not come anywhere near the red flier, but spatted harmlessly into the valley wall. josh laughed wildly and waved his hand. the spirit of the race was surging through his veins and had wiped out all sense of fear. "wow!" he shouted. "yous ought t' seen dat! spang has been holdin' on t' de seat wit' bot' hands, but he let go wit' one t' fire at us. de runabout jumped sideways an' he lost his pepper-box overboard. come clost t' goin' hisself! say, i wisht he had!" the runabout was devouring the distance in remarkable style. it was now only twenty-five feet behind, and so near that the sand and pebbles kicked up by the flying rear wheels of the red car struck in the faces of brisco and spangler. spangler lowered his head. brisco jerked the goggles down over his eyes. "stop!" he roared, "or i'll run into you!" honk, honk! tooted matt defiantly. brisco swore and gritted his teeth. with his temper at fever heat, what did he care how he injured the runabout just so he evened his score with motor matt? closer and closer came the runabout. josh measured the decreasing distance with his eyes. "ten feet! five, matt, _five_! she's up t' us, now--look out!" not knowing what was to happen, josh curled over the back of the seat and hung on with both hands. there was a slight jar, followed by a sudden slewing on the part of the runabout, a quick lessening of speed and the whirr of a racing engine. "dey're stoppin'!" shouted the boy; "somet'ing has gone wrong wid de odder car!" "i knew _something_ would happen!" shouted matt, as he slowed his speed a little to give the red flier a bit of a rest. chapter xiv. down the mountain. "dat engine o' deirs went wrong just at de right time t' save our bacon, matt," said josh. matt tossed a look backward. the runabout was at a stop, and brisco was on the ground, tinkering frantically. "if he knows what to do," said matt, "he'll be able to come on again. but he'll have more trouble; and he'll continue to have trouble until he takes time to overhaul his fuel-tank." "what did yous do?" asked the boy. "mixed a handful of sand with his gasoline." "w'en?" "while we were hung up in front of those rocks spangler had laid for us." "didn't dat geezer see yous?" "i got out of the way before brisco showed up; and spangler, at the time, was away looking for the man in the notch." "chee, but you're a wonder! motor matt heads de percession an' carries de banner! yous t'ought o' all dat while i was hustlin' t' git behind dem rocks! did yous t'ink we was goin' t' have a race?" "i didn't know but we might. anyhow, i thought it good policy to fix the machine so it wouldn't be reliable. what's the news from the rear, josh?" "brisco is gittin' back in his seat." "is he coming on?" "dat's wot." "fast as ever?" "i don't see no diff'rence in de runnin'." "well, something is sure to go wrong, just as it did before. one grain of sand clogged the needle-valve, josh, and there's a thousand more grains to come down the supply-pipe. face around a minute. the road forks here. which one shall we take? do you remember coming this way?" the boy flopped around in his seat. the red flier was rushing toward a place where the road forked. both roads were bordered by rocky walls, and both had the appearance of being equally well traveled--which wasn't saying much for the travel, at that. "i don't remember nuttin'," answered the boy, "bein' scart stiff all de w'ile i was in de runabout. i'd say go t' de right. dat's always a good t'ing t' do." "if we had the least notion which way fairview lay we could shape our course a little better. but we don't know, so we'll take chances and go to the right." there was a slowing of speed while matt made the turn. for a long distance this fork was a straightaway stretch and fairly level. matt and josh were congratulating themselves on the fact that they had made a fortunate choice, when suddenly they whirled out on a vista that surprised them. at the end of the straightaway stretch, a sudden angle brought the side of a steep mountain under the boy's eyes. the road could be seen clinging to the mountain's side, describing horseshoe after horseshoe--edging its way between dizzy chasms and high cliffs. "wow!" gasped josh, and collapsed in his seat. "right here's w'ere we fall off de eart'." matt took another look behind. the runabout, with the stern, relentless face of brisco over the wheel, was surging toward them. "here we go!" called matt. "hang on, josh!" "i'm glued! yous can't shake me!" the boy was game, and matt flung the red flier at the mountainside and down the ribbon of treacherous road. there were places where a cliff overhung the trail, and the wheels on the left almost scraped the rocks, while those on the right barely tracked on the brink of a gulf. the boy's face went white, but his eyes glimmered brightly. he looked back from time to time and saw the runabout sliding after them. a quick fear had rushed to matt's brain. oddly enough, it was not a fear for his own safety, for he knew the red flier and knew what he could do with it; but the runabout! if that trickle of sand cut off the power and caused the machine to slew ever so slightly, it would go over the chasm's edge and carry brisco and spangler with it! the world would have been better off, perhaps, if such a mishap had come to pass; but matt did not want it that way. his own instrumentality in the matter would have been too hideously clear. and yet, if something did not happen to the runabout, the machine might collide with the red flier and drive it over the brink. matt knew he must keep ahead. never had he driven more masterfully than then. his nerves were steady, his brain alert, and every inch of that curving, treacherous down grade was covered by his eyes. it was more like falling down a hill than riding down. the red flier quivered like a thing of life, seeming to realize what was expected of it, and responding nobly. far off, over the level plain at the mountain's foot, could be seen the little cluster of houses that represented fairview. it glowed in the morning sun like a toy village on a toy map. as the road curved, struck a short straightaway, then curved again, the town swept vividly into view and again as quickly vanished. at the most desperate part of the trail a rock had crumbled from the wall and rolled to the edge of the chasm. there it lay, almost under the nose of the rushing car. the boy cast a despairing look into motor matt's set, determined face. all he saw was a swift gleam of the gray eyes. crash! the car, skilfully guided so that it touched the inward side of the boulder, forced it from the edge and sent it bounding and smashing downward into the gulf. a sharp breath tore through the boy's lips. confidence again took possession of him. after that escape, what difficulty could come up that motor matt was not able to conquer? matt seemed to be made of steel. with one foot on the brake and both hands on the wheel, he kept rigidly to his work. "how're they making it behind, josh?" he called. the boy knelt in his seat and looked back up the steep incline. fortune was riding with brisco that day. but for that he must have been hurled from the trail in a dozen places. driving a car was comparatively new work for him, and the chances are that never before had he been on such a dangerous piece of road. yet he was naturally a man of iron nerve, and would not hold back where motor matt led. spangler, from his appearance, was as frightened a man as there ever was in arizona. a gray pallor had spread over his face, and his eyes were fairly popping from his head. gripping his seat with both hands, he braced himself with his feet against the forward dip of the car. "dey're slidin' after us, cull," reported the boy. "gaining?" "dat's wot, but not like dey did on de level road." "the foot of the mountain is just ahead of us. can we get there before they overtake us?" "well, mebby we kin, but i wish de foot o' de mountain was half a mile nearer dan wot it is." facing about in his seat, josh looked at the foot of the mountain for himself. they were dropping toward it swiftly. there were no more curves--nothing but a straight fall, a shoot between bordering rocks and then a cheerful reach of road over the plain. "we're in luck t' git out o' dis widout a broken neck," said josh. "chee, but dat level place looks good t' me." "the flier's a dandy car!" declared matt. "she's got a dandy driver, an' dat's no dream. w'ere'd we been widout motor matt at de steerin'-wheel? yous is a four-time winner, an' dere's odders dat'll hear me say it." "the runabout will be hot after us as soon as we hit the level ground again." "dey'll never ketch us, cull. i don't care how hot dey come, wit' yous handlin' de flier." with a final spurt the red car rushed through the rocks, and, for the first time since it had taken that up-and-down trail, both ends were on a level. as they glided out onto the plain, matt cast a look backward. there was a feeling of relief came over him at sight of the runabout charging through the rocks at the mountain's foot. but, as he looked, and just as the runabout was on the point of striking level ground, there was a jerk to the left, a crash, and a sudden stop. brisco pitched forward over the wheel, shot clear past the hood, and doubled up and rolled along the stony trail. spangler went out on the left side, ricochetting into the air and turning a couple of grotesque somersaults. like brisco, when he dropped, he lay still. a sharp breath escaped matt's lips. turning the red flier, he started back until he had come almost upon the silent form of brisco; then he brought the flier to a halt and jumped out. "chee, moses!" muttered josh, awed by the abrupt termination of the chase. "do yous t'ink dem guys is killed, matt?" "that's what we've got to find out," flung back matt, hurrying to brisco and kneeling down beside him. human enmity seemed a paltry thing to matt as his hand went groping over brisco's breast, feeling for the heart-beats. a thrill of satisfaction shot through him as he found that brisco was alive. hurrying on to spangler, he was immensely relieved to find that worthy sitting up in the road and drawing a hand over his dazed eyes. "what--what happened?" faltered spangler. "nothing to what's going to happen now, spangler," answered matt, and picked up the second and last revolver which the ruffian had had about him. "there ought to be some ropes in the runabout, josh," called matt. "go and get them." chapter xv. motor matt's ten-strike. josh hustled for the runabout. one of the coiled ropes matt had put in the car was hanging over a lamp, and the other had been thrown into the road. taking the one off the lamp, the boy hurried back to the place where matt was training the revolver on spangler. "fine bizness!" laughed josh. "wot d'yous want me t' do, matt? put a bow-knot on his lunch-hooks?" "stand up, spangler!" ordered matt. spangler got lamely to his feet. he was still confused and bewildered. "somethin' hit us," he mumbled. "from the way i was throwed it must hev been a landslide. whar's hank? is he killed?" "brisco will get along, i guess," said matt. "put your hands behind you, spangler." just then, for the first time, it began to dawn on spangler that matt was making a prisoner out of him. the ruffian, although practically uninjured, had been badly shaken up. nevertheless, he was in condition to resist, and he leaped backward, swearing. "if ye think ye kin rope, down an' tie me," he cried, "jest bekase that thar machine bucked an' dumped me inter the road, ye got another----" "come this way!" cut in matt. the words, hard and keen, jumped at spangler like so many knife-points. motor matt meant business, and showed it in every movement. spangler stepped forward. "that's far enough," snapped matt. "now put those hands behind you." with the open end of his own gun staring him in the face, there was nothing for spangler to do but to obey. his hands went meekly behind him. "can you tie a good hard knot, josh?" asked matt. "t'ink i ain't good f'r nuttin'?" protested the boy. passing behind spangler, he used the free end of the rope for a few moments and then stepped back with the rest of the coil in his hands. "if he gits dem mitts out o' dat he's a good 'un," announced josh. "w'ere d'yous want him, matt?" "in the red flier. step lively, spangler. we've got to look after brisco." "get ap!" clucked josh, shaking the rope. with a black scowl on his face, the baffled spangler made his way to the touring-car. "get in on the back seat," went on matt. spangler obeyed the order. "now, josh," pursued matt, "cut the rope and tie a piece of it around his feet." the boy finished the work expeditiously, and when he and matt drew away from the red flier they left spangler helpless and fuming in the tonneau. brisco was still lying where he had fallen, and he was still unconscious. matt made a more thorough examination of him. his pulse was stronger and, so far as matt could discover, there were no broken bones. "wot keeps 'im in a trance?" asked the boy. "he's stayin' a long time in de land o' nod for not havin' nuttin' wrong wit' 'im." "pick up his revolver, josh," returned matt briskly, "and then sit down beside him and wait till he gets his wits back. don't let him get away from you." "get away from me? not on yer life, cull. i'd radder take dis mutt into fairview dan pull down a t'ousan' in de long green. dad wants _him_." paying no attention to the boy's rather obscure remark, matt went to the runabout. he was expecting to find the machine badly smashed, and was happily disappointed. both front lamps were broken, and the mud-guard over the right wheel forward had been ripped away. the guard had fallen between the wheel and the rock, and undoubtedly had kept the wheel from being dished. the tire was punctured and the jolt had disabled the motor. for all that, however, the machine, with a few temporary repairs, could travel on its own wheels if not under its own power. brisco had not yet corralled his wits. aided by josh, matt dragged the man off to one side, where he would be out of the way; then, cutting about six feet of rope from the other riata, he threw it down where josh could get at it. "when brisco wakes up, josh," said matt, "just hold him steady till we put that rope on him." "wot yous goin' t' do, matt?" inquired the wondering josh. "yous is busier dan a monkey wit' his hand in a coconut." "we're going to haul the runabout into fairview," said matt. "but i've got to patch her up first." getting into the red flier, matt backed her as close to the disabled car as he could; then, hitching onto the runabout with the ropes, he pulled it down onto the level plain. with a jack taken from the touring-car he swung the runabout's wheel off the ground. the mud-guard, having been ripped off, was not in his way. after locating the puncture and marking it with chalk, he unscrewed the wing-nuts, pushed out the security-bolt, and then, with levers, dug out the inner tube. perhaps he was an hour getting the hole patched up, tire back in place and reinflated. when he was through, the runabout was ready to be dragged to fairview. "how's brisco?" asked matt, putting on his leather coat, which he had thrown off while working with the runabout. "same as wot he was, cull," replied josh. "he ain't twitched an eye-winker." "he may be shamming," said matt, "in the hope of making a bolt for his liberty. we'll put him in the tonneau. you can ride with him and watch him every minute. i'll take spangler in front with me." "we're goin' t' take de hull outfit into fairview?" grinned josh. "that's the idea." "a whale of an idee it is, too, an' no stringin'. reg'lar line-up o' crooks an' stolen automobiles, wit' motor matt in charge o' de bunch. wow! it's de biggest come-easy dat i ever mixed up wit'. mebby dere won't be rejoicin' w'en we goes pokin' into town wit' all dis load. well, i guess yes." between them, matt and josh succeeded in carrying brisco to the touring-car and getting him into the tonneau. spangler, having been transferred to one of the front seats, had been chewing the cud of reflection. "looky here, motor matt," said he, "ye ain't got no call ter kerry me ter fairview. think o' klegg, down an' out an' mebby dyin' back thar in that notch. if anythin' happens ter him ye'll be responsible. better turn me loose an' let me go back an' take keer o' him." "don't do so much worrying over klegg," answered matt. "i intend to have him looked after. just as soon as we get to fairview i'll have the sheriff, or some other officer, go to the notch and see that klegg gets all the attention he deserves." "waal, even at that, ye ain't got no call ter lug me inter town. i ain't done a thing. brisco was the feller that had it in fer you. it's him ye want ter git even with, an' not me." "you didn't have a hand in robbing mr. tomlinson, did you?" said matt sarcastically. "there are a lot of other things you've done, too, and i'm going to turn you over to lem nugent, the man who owns the runabout, as soon as we reach fairview. it won't take long to get nugent up from ash forks." "yous is a game loser, i don't t'ink," scoffed the boy. "w'ere's yer nerve, spangler?" "say," said spangler, giving his attention to josh, "where did you butt inter this game?" "i rode out o' fairview wit' brisco," grinned josh. "he give me a ride." "give ye a ride?" echoed spangler. "sure, on'y he didn't know it. i was under de coat in de back o' de runabout; an' i was still dere w'en yous mutts went t' dat hole in de wall. 'course yous didn't see me. yous was too mad at motor matt t' see anyt'ing." the whole situation rushed over spangler with demoralizing clearness. he was able to understand how josh and matt, by the exercise of pluck and brains, had succeeded in balking the plans of brisco. spangler swore heartily. it seemed to be his only method for easing his feelings. "the worst move we ever made," he muttered savagely, "was takin' motor matt out o' town last night. i didn't want ter do it, but brisco had made up his mind, an' that settled it. we ain't got no one ter blame but ourselves fer what's happened. go on. the quicker we git ter fairview an' hev this thing over with, the better i'll be suited." spangler, resigning himself to the situation, sank back in his seat. matt went around to the rear of the car to make the ropes attaching it to the runabout more secure. as near as he had been able to discover there was a level road all the way to fairview. they were coming into the town from the north and east, and not along the ash fork road, where there was a hill to be descended in order to reach the valley. having reassured himself about the ropes, matt returned to the side of the red flier and mounted the running-board. looking over the side of the tonneau, he swept his gaze over brisco's unconscious face. "i can't understand what keeps him that way, josh," said matt. "mebby he's badly shook up inside," answered the boy. "wot he needs is a doctor." "well, he'll have one before long. stay right beside him and watch him every minute. if he's playing possum with us, we want to make sure he don't gain anything by it." "i'm right on de job," said josh. matt climbed into his seat and started on the low gear. there was a creaking of the ropes as they took the pull, and the runabout started. everything worked smoothly, and matt, with a load worth fifteen hundred dollars, set his face toward fairview. chapter xvi. more trouble for the "uncle tommers." the disappearance of motor matt and the red flier made carl pretzel not only bewildered but furiously angry. he was angry at brisco and bewildered to account for the way he had pulled off his night raid. "oof dot feller inchures a hair oof modor matt's headt," wheezed carl, shaking his fist in the air, "i vill camp by his drail, py chimineddy! i vill go on some var-paths! i vill make him be sorry for vat he dit, yah, so helup me!" leaving carl to rant and vow vengeance, legree rushed over to the railroad-station and sent a message. the message, owing to financial embarrassment on the part of legree, had to go collect. "lem nugent, ash fork. "come at once to fairview. important developments regarding your automobile. motor matt." legree signed the message with matt's name because he knew the cattleman wouldn't know anything about a man named legree; and he also felt sure that motor matt's name would secure the cattleman's instant attention. on his way back to the hotel he inquired for the sheriff. fairview was too small to have a sheriff, but the town had a deputy sheriff. the deputy, however, was just then attending his father's golden-wedding, in flagstaff, the marshal had gone with him, and the town was without an officer. as if this was not sufficiently discouraging, when legree got back to the hotel he found a very disquieting state of affairs. the uncle tommers had been chased out of the hostelry by o'grady and ping pong, his chinese cook. they were gathered in a forlorn group in front, and carl pretzel was with them. "mistah o'grady, sah," uncle tom was saying with all the dignity he could work up, "ah's de official mascot ob motah matt. while ah's been stayin' in yo' 'stablishment, ah's been mascottin' fo' him. he will come back, yo' ma'k what ah say. gib us ouah breakfus en yo' sho gits yo' money!" "begorry, yez have got into me f'r all yez are goin' to," yelled the proprietor. "it's a passel av thramps yez are, iv'ry wan av yez! av th' marshal was in town, oi'd have yez all in th' cooler. get out, befure oi sic th' dog on yez! scatther!" "what's the matter here?" demanded legree, pushing to the front. "py chincher," flared carl, "dot irish feller t'inks ve vas vorkin' some shkin games on him. he vas grazier as a pedpug, und he von't gif us some preakfast." "en we's all hongry es sin," piped uncle tom plaintively. "ah been mascottin' fo' motah matt twell ah's dat fagged ah dunno whut ah's about, no, sah." "i tried to get him to take my ring, legree," put in eliza, "but he won't. he says we're only a lot of dead beats, and never intend to pay him." "ah tole him," spoke up topsy, "dat ah'd wuk in his kitchum fo' de price ob a breakfus, an' he wouldn' hab it. ah's honest, dat's whut ah is. ah nebber stole a cent fum anybody en mah life." "see here, o'grady," remarked legree, "motor matt has money and he has offered to pay our expenses while we're stopping with you. i'll have money myself in a few days, and then i'll pay you. you're not taking any chances on this crowd." "faith, an' yez are roight about thot," scowled o'grady. "oi'm takin' no more chances wid yez. motor matt! why, he run aff lasht noight! sure, he did! he shneaked away so he wouldn't have t' pay me f'r yer kape. oi'm keen enough t' see thot!" "py shinks," whooped carl, dancing around and waving his fists, "don'd you say dod some more. i can lick der feller vat says somet'ings aboudt modor matt like dot. ven he say he pay, he mean vot he say, und he do it, too. yah, you bed you! modor matt vas my bard, und he don'd vas leafing a bard in der lurch like vat you say." "av motor matt is yer pard," said o'grady, "bedad but it's sthrange yez haven't money. git out, oi say! oi'm done wid yez." "i tell you," went on legree, "i'll have money myself in a few days." "yez can't make me belave any cock-an'-bull shtory like thot. niver again will oi take in anny wan widout baggage. shoo! clear out befure oi git violent." in o'grady's present temper there was no reasoning with him, so legree marshaled his comrades and led them off to a neighboring wood-pile, where they all sat down disconsolately. "ah's been accustomed tuh bettah treatment," mourned uncle tom. "ah's got de bigges' notion dat evah was tuh put a hoodoo on dat hotel. ah could do hit, but ah restrains mahse'f till ah gits odahs fum motah matt." "go 'long wif sich talk!" cried topsy, out of patience. "'peahs lak yo' done put dat hoodoo on de rest ob us. nuffin' ain't gone right sence we left dat 'ar brockville place." "there'll be some one here from ash fork before long, who, maybe, will help us," said legree. "just be as patient as you can, friends, and we'll hope for the best." "all de patience in de worl', mistah legree," answered uncle tom, "'doan' fill a pusson's stummick. mah goodness, ah didun' know ah was so pesterin' hongry." "i tell you somet'ing," said carl, "oof i knowed vich vay modor matt vas, i vould go und findt him. i vas madt as some vet hens ofer dis pitzness. here ve vas, hung oop on a vood-pile mit nodding to eat, und not knowing vere modor matt vent mit himseluf. chonny hartluck iss hanging aroundt mit us." leaving his disconsolate friends, legree went back to the railroad-station. there he waited for four hours for the local train from ash fork. he was rewarded, however, by seeing a big man get off the train, stop on the platform, and look around expectantly. legree walked up to the arriving passenger. "mr. nugent?" he asked. "you've hit it," replied the cattleman, staring the stranded actor up and down with an unfavoring eye. "ah! well, sir, my name's legree. i suppose you're looking for motor matt?" "another bull's-eye for you. i came here on a telegram from motor matt saying that there had been important developments concerning my automobile that was stolen from me near ash fork. where's motor matt?" "he is unavoidably absent just now," answered legree, "but i am confidently expecting him to appear at any moment. to be frank with you, sir, i sent that telegram and signed motor matt's name to it." the cattleman became indignant. "you're pretty fresh, seems to me!" said he. "what business had you doing a thing like that?" "because i wanted you here. your car was in town yesterday. one of the thieves brought it in for a supply of gasoline and oil. motor matt and i tried to capture the thief, but he got away from us and took the car with him." "who are you, if you haven't any objection to answerin' a straight question?" demanded the cattleman. "step into the waiting-room with me for a few moments," replied legree, "and i'll explain." they went into the waiting-room and were gone possibly five minutes. when they came out on the platform once more, nugent seemed to have developed a vast amount of confidence in legree. "why didn't you tell motor matt what you've told me?" asked the cattleman. "i wasn't telling anybody that, mr. nugent," answered legree, "and i wouldn't be telling you now if i hadn't wanted to fix things with o'grady so that i and my friends can continue to remain at his hotel." "i know o'grady," said nugent. "come along with me and i'll fix things up for you." they went to the hotel at once. o'grady, tilted back against the wall in front, was smoking a pipe and keeping a sharp eye on the wood-pile. uncle tom, with a red bandanna over his face, was leaning back against the wood and was apparently asleep. all the rest were hovering listlessly about, waiting patiently for something to happen. the sight of lem nugent, who was known throughout all that part of the country, wrought a great change in o'grady. the cattleman and the actor were approaching together, and seemed to be on cordial terms. "o'grady," said nugent, after he had exchanged greetings with the proprietor, "this gentleman is a friend of mine, and his friends are my friends, understand? take them all in and give them the best you've got. and don't bleed me, you shyster. i'll stand the damage, but i won't be robbed." "whativer yez say goes wid me, lem," said o'grady. "come on, all av yez," he cried, standing up and motioning toward the wood-pile. "oi'll have th' chink put a male on th' table f'r yez to wanst." uncle tom may have been asleep, but he heard those welcome words and was up like a shot. "ah was mascottin fo' dat very t'ing," he admitted, as he ran toward the hotel. "layin' back dar wid mah bandannah ober mah face, ah was wukin' lak er hiahed man, yassuh. now, den, yo' topsy, yo' see what ah kin do when ah lays mahse'f out!" just as they were starting into the hotel, a shout from carl brought them all to a halt and an about-face. "hoop-a-la!" yelled carl, dancing around and throwing his cap in the air. "look vonce ad vat's coming! vat dit i say? here vas a drain oof cars, mit modor matt pringing dem in. ach, himmel, i peen so habby as i can't dell! modor matt iss coming!" under the startled eyes of those in front of the hotel two cars could be seen coming along the road. the red flier, with matt and three passengers, was in the lead, and towing behind was the runabout. "my car, by thunder!" shouted nugent, starting for the road. "and spangler is with motor matt," cried the amazed legree, "and brisco, and the kid! how in blazes do you think that happened?" a disgusted look crossed uncle tom's face. "how yo' t'ink dat happened!" he muttered sarcastically; "en me a-mascottin' fo' motah matt all de time!" chapter xvii. conclusion. whether o'grady really thought motor matt had taken french leave during the night or not, is a question. certainly he was as surprised to see matt traveling into town as were any of the rest of them. all those around the hotel flocked to the road. "hello, matt!" called nugent, reaching up his hand. "it looks like you'd been accomplishing something." matt's acquaintance with the cattleman had been of exceedingly brief duration, and never before had he been hailed by him in that cordial tone. "how are you, mr. nugent?" he returned, taking the cattleman's hand. "how did you happen to come over this way?" "got a telegram from you----" "from me?" echoed matt. "i sent it, matt," put in legree, "and signed your name to it. when you disappeared last night i knew something had to be done, and that there ought to be a man with money to do it. so i sent for nugent." "it's all right, my boy," said nugent, "and i'm tickled to death because i came. you're bringing in my car, i see, and the two fellows that took it away from me. good! if we don't put 'em through for their crooked work, my name ain't nugent." "you'll have to send for a doctor for brisco," said matt. "he's been unconscious for two hours, and i don't know whether he's badly hurt or not. you see----" at that moment brisco proved that he was far from being badly hurt. with a jump he got out of the tonneau and started at a run toward the edge of town. uncle tom happened to be in his way, and was knocked heels over head. "dere he goes!" yelled josh excitedly. "clear out o' de way so i kin git a shot at 'im!" but josh was not allowed to carry out his warlike intentions. legree took after the escaping ruffian, overhauled him before he had gone far, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hurled him to the ground. o'grady, rushing to legree's assistance, lent a willing hand. brisco had been a good customer of o'grady's, but the situation had changed somewhat since the uncle tommers had been staying at the shamrock hotel. "i reckon, matt," remarked lem nugent dryly, "that the fellow ain't very badly hurt. how did you happen to get hold of the scoundrels?" "they were chasing us," answered matt. "we were in the red flier and they were in your car. brisco ran into the rocks, and he and spangler were thrown out. neither of them seemed very much hurt, and josh and i captured spangler before he had fully got back his wits. brisco appeared to be all right, but he was unconscious. i had an idea that he might be shamming. probably he came to himself just as we got here, and thought the best thing for him to do would be to make a break." "his break didn't help him any," said legree, as he and o'grady came marching back with brisco between them. "go up to my room, josh," legree went on, "and get those two plates. you'll find 'em under the northeast corner of the carpet. front room, boy." "dat's me," answered josh, handing brisco's weapons to his father and bounding away. "i'm going to tell you people something," proceeded legree, "that will no doubt surprise you. and i think," he finished grimly, "that brisco will be as much surprised as anybody." josh presently returned with a couple of flat, square packages. leaving o'grady to take care of brisco, legree took the packages in his hands. "a crook by the name of denver denny, alias james trymore," went on legree, "escaped from the authorities at denver and came to this part of the country. denver denny was a clever counterfeiter, and worked in conjunction with hank brisco. at least, following the output of the 'queer' as it trailed along in the wake of that uncle tom's cabin company, i came to that conclusion. "denny owned a set of very fine plates for the manufacture of bogus five-dollar silver certificates. when he was captured in denver those plates were nowhere to be found. i conceived the notion that they might be in brisco's possession, and in order to make sure, i became letter-perfect in the part of legree, and josh here got the part of little eva by heart, and we arranged to join brisco's company of barn-stormers. "we were with them for some time, watching brisco all the while. brisco was not shoving any of the 'queer' while we were with him, and i was inclined to think that i had made a mistake in connecting him with denny's operations. however, brisco had a little tin box, of which he was very choice and careful. his solicitude for that box aroused my curiosity. when brisco pulled out between two days in denver, and left his company stranded, by some freak of chance he dropped the box. josh found it. we opened the box in ash fork and found these two packages in it." legree lifted the two flat parcels so all could see. "i knew perfectly well that brisco would come after his box, so i continued to play the part of a stranded actor, hoping to get my hands on him. "fate was kind to us," and here legree turned and dropped a friendly hand on the young motorist's shoulder, "by bringing motor matt along. he came to the front gallantly and helped us. i should have captured brisco sooner or later, even without his aid, but he has closed the affair in hurricane fashion and saved the government lots of trouble." everybody, uncle tommers, matt, carl, and brisco and spangler, were astounded. nugent was the solitary exception, for legree had revealed his identity to the cattleman in the railroad-station. "these are the plates," went on legree. "brisco had them in the tin box." "and you are----" began matt, staring at legree. "a secret service man in the employ of the government." a cry of fierce anger escaped brisco. he made a fierce attempt to get at legree, but o'grady restrained him. "faith," said o'grady, with cheerful disregard of his past actions, "oi knowed yez was a bad egg th' minyit oi set eyes on yez." "dis," remarked uncle tom, with immense pride, "is de best job ob mascottin' whut ah's done yit!" "better give up, brisco!" called spangler from the touring-car. "they've got it on us an' we'll have ter take our medicine." "got it on us, yes," stormed brisco, "but they wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for motor matt." "not so quick, i'll admit," said legree amiably, "but i'd have caught you sooner or later, brisco. in my report i shall have something to say to the head of the department about motor matt. i'd like to hear, though, just how he happened to make this haul." "josh helped me," said matt. "not enough so yous could notice it," returned josh promptly; "motor matt was de man on de job from start t' finish. yous take it from little eva, an' no stringin'." the boy turned to matt with a wide grin. "yous is wise t' why i went off wit' brisco in dat runabout now, ain't yous? i wanted t' find out w'ere he had 'is hang-out so dad could turn a trick fer de gov'ment. but yous cut out dad, matt." "listen, vonce," cried carl, who had been trying for some time to get in a few words, "matt's der pest efer. he prings luck venefer he goes mit anypody. yah, dot's righdt. i know, pecause he prought luck mit me." uncle tom was disposed to butt in with an objection, but the cattleman had something to say. "there's fifteen hundred of my money goes to somebody for all this," said he. "who gets it, matt?" "divide it up between all of us," answered the boy generously. "the uncle tommers need it." a shout of delight went up from the actor contingent. "you can leave josh in the division," said legree, "but cut me out of it. i'm working for uncle sam." just at that moment the chinaman stepped to the door and announced dinner. "we'll talk all this over while we eat," said nugent. "come on, everybody." * * * * * motor matt and carl, having lost more time in fairview than they could well afford, started for albuquerque early in the afternoon. eliza, topsy, and uncle tom, now well supplied with money, were to proceed to denver by train. the secret service man and josh were to remain in fairview for a few days with their prisoners, and then to take them to denver for trial. "matt," said carl seriously, as the red flier leaped onward toward albuquerque, "i vas a lucky feller to hook oop mit you. vone oof dose tays, oof you don'd go pack on me, i vill vear tiamonts!" "i'll never go back on you, carl," laughed matt; "but i'm a little 'juberous' about the diamonds." the end. the next number (7) will contain motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. a night mystery--dick ferral--la vita place--the house of wonder--sercomb--the phantom auto again--surrounded by enemies--the kettle begins to boil--ordered away--a new plan--a daring leap--desperate villiany--tippoo--in the nick of time--a startling interruption--the price of treachery--the luck of dick ferral. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, april 3, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. a snowball fight. by horatio alger, jr. the snow had fallen to the depth of six inches during the night, filling in the yards and covering the door-steps, throughout the town of conway. among those who hailed the arrival of the snow with joy was frank taylor, a boy of fourteen, the son of the widow taylor, who lived in a miserable little tenement not far from the mill. why he was glad to see the snow will soon appear. early in the morning he shoveled a path to the street, and then putting his shovel over his shoulder, said to his mother: "i'm going over to squire ashmead's to see if he doesn't want me to shovel paths in his yard." "he's got a boy of his own," said mrs. taylor; "perhaps he will do it." frank laughed. "sam ashmead is proud and lazy," he said. "you won't catch him shoveling paths. i think i shall get the job. i want to earn something so that you need not sit all day sewing. it is too hard for you." "i ought to think myself lucky to get employment at all," said the widow. "i wish i could get steady work somewhere," said frank; "but i've tried and tried, and it seems impossible." "willing hands will not want work long," said his mother. "i hope not, mother. but i must be going, or somebody will get the start of me." while frank is on his way to squire ashmead's, a few words of explanation may be given. his mother had been a widow for two years. her husband had been a man of some education, having at times taught school, but he had never succeeded in laying up any money, and his widow was left almost penniless. frank, who was a stout boy, and a good boy as well, had earned something by doing odd jobs, but had failed to obtain permanent employment. the burden of their joint support, therefore, was thrown upon his mother, who was very industrious with her needle, but was compelled to labor beyond her strength. all this troubled frank, who felt that, as a stout, strong boy, he ought to bear at least half the expense. in due time he reached squire ashmead's, and was glad to see that the snow remained undisturbed. he rang the bell, and asked if he might shovel the paths that were necessary. squire ashmead was absent in new york, to which city he had gone the morning previous on business, but his wife agreed to employ frank. he went to work with a will, and soon had a path dug from the front door to the gate. a path was also required from the back door to the stable, which was situated in the rear of the house. this was quite a distance, and as frank wished to do the work thoroughly, it required considerable time. he was about half through this portion of his task when a snowball whistled by his ear. looking round quickly, he saw sam ashmead standing at the corner of the house, engaged in making a fresh snowball. "don't fire any more snowballs, sam ashmead," said frank. "i shall, if i please," said sam. "i haven't time to fire back now," said frank. "wait till i get through, and we'll have a match if you like." "but i don't like," said sam scornfully. "do you think i would have a match with a beggar like you?" "i am no beggar, sam ashmead," said frank, "and if i were i don't think i would beg of you." "oh, you're mighty proud," sneered sam, "considering that you live in an old hut not half as good as our stable." "yes, i am poor, and i live in a poor house," said frank calmly, "but that isn't a crime that i know of. some time i shall live in a better house, i hope." so saying, he went back to work, and began shoveling the snow vigorously. he did not anticipate any further attack from sam, but in this he soon found himself mistaken. in the course of a minute he felt a pretty hard blow in the center of his back, and looking round saw sam ashmead laughing insolently. "how does that feel?" asked sam. "that's the second snowball you've fired at me," said frank quietly, but there was a light in his eyes as he spoke. "i advise you not to fire another if you know what is good for yourself." "so you threaten me, do you? suppose i fire again, what's going to happen?" demanded sam, with an unpleasant sneer. "i think you will be sorry for it," said frank. sam hesitated a moment, but only a moment. he was a year older than frank, and larger in size. certainly he ought to be a match for him. but he did not believe that frank would have the audacity to touch him, the son of squire ashmead, the richest man in the village. he therefore deliberately made another snowball, and firing it, struck frank in the back of his head. frank no sooner felt the blow than he threw down his shovel, and ran toward his assailant. "keep off, you beggar!" said sam. "it's too late," said frank. "i warned you not to fire again." sam placed himself in an attitude of defense, but found himself seized violently round the middle, and before he fairly knew what was going to happen he was lying in a snow-bank with frank standing over him. he struggled to his feet mad with rage, and "pitched into" frank, as the boys express it, and endeavored to retaliate in kind. but frank was watchful and wary, and evading the attack, seized him again when his strength was half spent, and sam found himself once more occupying an involuntary bed in the snow. a third struggle resulted in the same way. sam was furious, but he saw that frank was more than a match for him. just then a servant called out from the door: "master sam, your mother says it's time for you to be going to school." to tell the truth, sam was rather glad of the summons, as it gave him an excuse for retiring from the contest. "i'll be even with you yet," he said, shaking his fist at frank. "i'll let my father know how you insulted me, you young beggar!" "if anybody has been insulted, i have," said frank. "you must remember that you began it." sam scowled vindictively, and brushing the snow from his coat went into the house. before frank finished the path at the back of the house he was gone to school. mrs. ashmead sent out fifty cents to frank for his morning's work, with which he went home, well satisfied, wishing that he might earn as much every day. he wondered a little whether sam would tell his father what had occurred between them. he did not speak of it to his mother, for she was nervous, and would be troubled by it, as she received considerable work to do from the ashmead family which she might fear would be taken away. on the afternoon of the next day, however, frank received a note, which proved to come from squire ashmead. it ran as follows: "frank taylor: please call at my office to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. james ashmead." this note frank thought best to show to his mother. "what does it mean, frank? have you any idea?" she asked. frank thereupon told her the story of his difficulty with sam. "it may be about that," he said. "oh, dear," said the widow. "i'm afraid he's very angry. i hope you will apologize, frank." "no, mother," said frank, "i don't see why i should. i only defended myself from a bully. i should be ashamed to do anything else. i didn't hurt him, and didn't intend to, but i wanted to teach him that he couldn't insult me without having to pay for it." "i am afraid some harm will come of it," said the widow anxiously. "don't trouble yourself, mother," said frank soothingly. "if we do only what's right, god will take care of us." still it was with some anxiety that frank made his way the next morning to the office of squire ashmead. this gentleman was the agent of a large manufactory in the town, of which also he was a considerable owner, so that he received an income of over ten thousand dollars a year, which made him the most prominent and influential citizen in the town. when frank entered the office, squire ashmead was conversing with a stranger on business. "sit down," he said, turning to frank. "i will be at leisure in a moment." "well," he said, after the stranger had departed, "sam tells me you and he have had a little difficulty." "yes, sir," said frank. "i would like to explain how it occurred." "very well. go on." it will be unnecessary to give the explanation, as it was strictly in accordance with the facts. "do you blame me for what i did?" asked frank, at the end. "no, i do not," said the squire. "sam acted like a bully, and was properly punished. let that pass. now let me ask you how you and your mother are getting along?" "poorly, sir," said frank. "if i could have steady work, it would be different, but that i cannot get. it troubles me to see my mother work so hard all day. i think it is too much for her." "how would you like to come into my office?" frank's eyes sparkled. "i should think myself very lucky, sir, to get so good a chance." "i want some boy whom i can trust, who can grow up to the business, and after a time relieve me of a portion of my cares. i would take sam, but i am sorry to say, though he is my own son, that he would not answer my purpose. i have heard good accounts of you from your teacher and the people in the village. i will take you at a salary of six dollars a week, to be increased from time to time if you will suit me. can you come monday morning?" "yes, sir," said frank, "and i will do my best to give you satisfaction." "very well, my lad. good morning." frank left the office, feeling as if his fortune was made. his mother, who was awaiting the result of the interview anxiously at home, was overwhelmed with astonishment at the unexpected good fortune of her son. sam was disagreeably surprised, and tried to shake his father's resolution, but squire ashmead was a sensible man, and not to be moved. frank commenced his duties the next monday. he was so faithful that he was rapidly advanced, and at twenty-one was receiving twelve hundred dollars a year. at twenty-five, on the sudden death of squire ashmead, he succeeded to his agency, and now lives with his mother in the mansion at which he once thought himself lucky to be permitted to shovel the paths. as for sam, he squandered the handsome property received from his father, and died at thirty from the effects of intemperate habits. secrets of trick shooting. when a champion rifle shot fires blindfolded at a wedding-ring, or a penny held between his wife's thumb and finger, or, seated back to her, shoots, by means of a mirror, at an apple upon her head or on a fork held in her teeth, the danger of using a bullet is obvious. none, of course, is needed; the explosion is enough. the apple is already prepared, having been cut into pieces and stuck together with an adhesive substance, and a thread with a knot at the end, pulled through it from the "wings," so that it flies to bits when the gun is fired, is "how it is done." generally, the more dangerous a feat appears the more carefully is all danger guarded against. in the "william tell" act the thread is often tied to the assistant's foot. when, again, the ash is shot off a cigar which the assistant is smoking, a piece of wire is pushed by his tongue through a hollowed passage in the cigar--thus thrusting off the ash at the moment of firing. a favorite but simple trick is the shooting from some distance at an orange held in a lady's hand. great applause is invariably forthcoming when the bullet drops out on her, cutting open the fruit. it is inserted by hand earlier in the evening. another popular trick is that of snuffing out lighted candles. half a dozen are placed in front of a screen in which as many small holes are bored, one against each candlewick. at the moment of firing, a confederate behind the screen sharply blows out each candle with a pair of bellows. this trick was accidentally exposed one evening by a too zealous assistant. the lady in the gallery pulled the trigger, but the rifle failed to go off; the candle, however, went out just the same. in most instances, where a ball or other object has to be broken on a living person's head, blank cartridge is used and the effect produced by other means. a special wig, with a spring concealed in it, worked by a wire under the clothes, is generally used, the confederate manipulating the spring simultaneously with the firing of the rifle. as the ball is of extremely thin glass, a mere touch suffices to shatter it. in these exhibitions some of the rifle "experts" invite gentlemen from the audience to testify that the weapon is indeed loaded. the cartridge shown looks very well, but it is a shell of thin wax blackened to resemble a leaden bullet. it would not hurt a fly. reelfoot lake. the physical history of reelfoot lake, of night-rider fame, is not without a certain interest of its own. the lake came into existence as the result of a series of earthquakes, which began in december, 1811, and continued until june, 1812. some authorities say that the earthquakes merely heaved up a great ridge of land across the path of the reelfoot river, which runs into the mississippi, and that this dam caused the water to back up and broaden out and form a lake; but the favorite account in the neighborhood is to the effect that the ground sank, springs were opened up, neighboring creeks diverted from their course, and the overflowing water of the mississippi rushed in during the flood season of the spring of 1812. it is said that for an hour and a half the waters of the mississippi flowed up-hill while filling up the depression caused by the earthquakes. both accounts likely have this much of truth in them that the entire configuration of the ground was changed by the earthquakes. big lake, west of the mississippi, in arkansas, is said to have been formed in the same way at the same time. reelfoot lake is sixteen or eighteen miles long, very irregular in shape, and covers from 35,000 to 40,000 acres of land. it varies in width from a mile in some places to four or five miles in others. the northern end is extended by a series of sloughs and bayous into kentucky. the most distinctive feature of the lake's appearance, the feature which first impresses and stays longest with the observer's fancy, is a certain grotesque effect, as if a set of crazy men had been operating a pile-driver there for the last century, for the trunks, stumps, and stark branches of dead trees stick out of it everywhere in desolate parody of some such human handiwork; far below the surface the fish dart among the boles and branches where the squirrels frolicked a hundred years ago. there are beautiful spots here and there, but the effect, as a whole, is not beautiful; at its best, when the mist rises and myriad protruding tree trunks are white and ghostly in the moonlight, it is weird; the general remembrance is of something uncouth. it is a kind of sloven lake that has preferred to sit down with its hair uncombed all day long, but at night it does manage to achieve a touch of wizard dignity. a floating slum. stand beside the imperial custom-house at canton and let the eye range down the river toward hongkong. as far as the sight can reach lie boats, boats, and again boats. these are no ordinary craft, mere vessels of transport plying hither and thither, but the countless homes of myriad chinese, in which millions of human beings have been born, have lived, and have died. they are the dwellings of the very poor, who live in them practically free from rent, taxes, and the other burdens of the ordinary citizen. the tankia--which means boat-dwellers--as the denizens of these floating houses are called, form a sort of caste apart from the rest of the cantonese. the shore-dwellers regard them as belonging to a lower social order; and indeed they have many customs, peculiar to themselves, which mark them as a separate community. how the swarming masses of them contrive to support existence is a mystery, but their chief mode of employment is in carrying merchandise and passengers from place to place. wild horses of nevada. horses are cheap in nevada. on the government ranges, where they are protected by game-laws, droves of wild horses exist which in the aggregate are said to amount to fifteen thousand. formerly there was a law in nevada permitting the shooting of these wild horses for their hides, but there were hunters who were not particular, and the ranchers found their domestic horses disappearing if they let them out on the range. so their shooting was prohibited, and since that time the droves have grown to be exceedingly troublesome. they can be domesticated, but they are not needed there, and it costs too much to ship them east. it seems a pity that, while so many sections could use them to advantage, the transportation problem makes it impossible to get them at a price which they are worth. _especially important!!_ motor stories _a new idea in the way of five-cent weeklies._ boys everywhere will be delighted to hear that street & smith are now issuing this new five-cent weekly which will be known by the name of motor stories. this weekly is entirely different from anything now being published. it details the astonishing adventures of a young mechanic who owned a motor cycle. is there a boy who has not longed to possess one of these swift little machines that scud about the roads everywhere throughout the united states? is there a boy, therefore, who will not be intensely interested in the adventures of "motor matt," as he is familiarly called by his comrades? boys, you have never read anything half so exciting, half so humorous and entertaining as the first story listed for publication in this line, called "=motor matt; or, the king of the wheel=." its fame is bound to spread like wildfire, causing the biggest demand for the other numbers in this line, that was ever heard of in the history of this class of literature. here are the titles to be issued during the next few weeks. do not fail to place an order for them with your newsdealer. no. 1. motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. no. 2. motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. no. 3. motor matt's "century" run; or, the governor's courier. no. 4. motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the _comet_. 32 large size pages splendid colored covers price, five cents per copy at all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by the publishers upon receipt of the price. _street & smith, publishers, new york_ _the best of them all!!_ motor stories it is new and intensely interesting we knew before we published this line that it would have a tremendous sale and our expectations were more than realized. it is going with a rush, and the boys who want to read these, the most interesting and fascinating tales ever written, must speak to their newsdealers about reserving copies for them. =motor matt= sprang into instant favor with american boy readers and is bound to occupy a place in their hearts second only to that now held by frank merriwell. the reason for this popularity is apparent in every line of these stories. they are written by an author who has made a life study of the requirements of the up-to-date american boy as far as literature is concerned, so it is not surprising that this line has proven a huge success from the very start. here are the titles now ready and also those to be published. you will never have a better opportunity to get a generous quantity of reading of the highest quality, so place your orders now. =no. 1.--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel.= =no. 2.--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends.= =no. 3.--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier.= =no. 4.--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet."= to be published on march 22nd =no. 5.--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot.= to be published on march 29th =no. 6.--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear.= to be published on april 5th =no. 7.--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto.= to be published on april 12th =no. 8.--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward.= =price, five cents= to be had from newsdealers everywhere, or sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers _street & smith, publishers, new york_ * * * * * * transcriber's note: added table of contents. retained some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. "motorcycle" vs. "motor-cycle"). retained some inconsistent spellings in dialect (e.g. "becase" vs. "bekase"). page 3, added missing comma after ""vell, py shinks." added missing apostrophe after "doan" in "why doan' yo'-all git." removed unnecessary quote after "matt stopped the red flier." page 4, removed unnecessary quote after "legree was about to secure it?" page 5, changed "as she pointed" to "as he pointed." page 10, "would came after it" looks like a typo but has been retained in case it is intentional dialect. page 12, replaced ligature in "phoenix" with "oe." ligature is retained in html edition. page 14, removed unnecessary quote before "matt's pulses quickened." page 18, added missing period after "josh turned to stare along the road." page 19, changed "mat" to "matt" in "matt was intending to push the stone." page 20, the sentence "as he yanked the lever savagely, the popping from up the road sounding like the rapid discharge of a gatling gun." seems incorrect, but it is reproduced as originally printed. the used people lot by irving fang _faint car never won fair lady!... make_ your _car proud of you!... grinning gregory helps used people!_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, august 1958. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it's had it. finished. done. my wonderful red thunderflash, i thought to myself, isn't worth the electricity to atomize it to kingdom come. ever since that drunk in his two-seat charioteer plowed into the rear end with such force that even my radar repellant couldn't stop it, my thunderflash had been out of kilter. the specialists my garage recommended worked over it for two days, but couldn't get it to running the way it did new. and what was i supposed to do for an automobile now? i had signed the customary 40-year pact for half my salary to pay for it. that meant i would still be shelling out by 2117. weeping over it wasn't going to do any good. it was stuck on the fifth level expressway and that was that. i levered myself out (at least the ejector still worked) then got behind the car and gave it a good old-fashioned push to get it on an off-ramp, out of the stream of traffic. after i parked i remembered i was heading for a date with jenny. i checked my wallet. no, not enough for a taxi there. i would just have to phone her to cancel the date. reluctantly i pushed the tip of my tongue against my tooth telephone. "operator," said the operator. "poplar 3104, please." "thank you. one moment. i'll ache it for you." she dialed the number of the tooth telephone in jenny's mouth, so the two fine wires sent gentle electric currents into the nerve. on the third ache jenny clicked the receiver open with the tip of her tongue. "hello?" "jenny, this is arnold. i won't be able to come over this evening." "but we had a date," jenny said in a petulant voice. "i know, but my car broke down." "again?" "yes, honey." "why don't you do something about it?" jenny complained. "but baby, what can i do? i've been to the garage. i've been to the specialists. i'm so broke on account of these repair bills i've been living on macaroni concentrate for the last couple of weeks." jenny, my beautiful sweetheart, was distinctly unhappy. "don't come to me with your troubles," she replied. "in fact, you don't have to come to me at all until you can come like a gentleman." "aw, listen just a minute, jenny," i started to plead. but it was too late. jenny had clicked off. a fine thermokettle of fish! a month ago i had a shiny lifetime car and was romancing the best looking girl in town. then one drunk comes along and my car is next to useless and my girl is mad at me. feeling in a distinctly blue mood i moved my tongue to the other side of my mouth and shoved on my tooth radio. i rolled the tongue over the bottom of the tooth until i got a program with some blues music. just the way i felt. the blues. i sat in the front seat of my thunderflash and listened to the music echoing against my tonsils. after the song came the inevitable commercial. only this was a new one. the announcer said: "here's some big, big, big news from grinning gregory, your largest volume dealer in lifetime cars. gregory announced today that his used people lots are nearly empty. yes, grinning gregory's used people lots are nearly empty. and that means good, good, good news for you car owners with lifetime contracts who would like new cars. "grinning gregory has added to his stocks of new orions, thunderflashes, galaxies, solars, charioteers, protons and fords. for the first time in two years, yes, the first time in two years, he has more new cars than new people to sell them to. "so he is offering a limited number of them to used people, you folks who have had cars, on his conveniently located used people lots. come on down and let some of grinning gregory's new cars look you over. be sure and bring photostats of your credit ratings and official car histories. hurry, hurry, hurry and avoid the rush to grinning gregory's used people lots." the commercial ended and was replaced by music. gosh, that was exciting news. ever since the accident i had given up hope of ever owning a decent running car again, automobile prices and government restrictions being what they were. i clicked on my tooth telephone and ached my garage mechanic to come by and pick up my car. then i took my credit rating and official car history from the glove compartment and caught a helibus to the nearest of grinning gregory's used people lots. * * * * * a lot of guys were already there before me, most of them in the same fix i was. they had been in accidents or they were divorced and their wives got custody of the car, although they still had to pay for it. some of them had been on the lot for some time and looked a little shopworn under the lights and fluttering pennants, but they hadn't found a car yet that would take them. we were all classified as used people, a lot less desirable than people who hadn't signed for cars yet. one of grinning gregory's contract brokers lined us up in a row facing the path the cars would come by robot direction. the fellow to my right slicked his hair down neatly and began shining his shoe-tops on the backs of his trouser legs. "sure hope i get selected," he whispered nervously to me. "boy, don't you sometimes wish you were living a couple of hundred years ago when cars were cheap enough so that people were doing the picking?" "not me," i told him. "drive that junk? i'll admit you didn't have to swear but a couple of years of your life away. but look at all you get now in a car." "mmm, i suppose you're right," he said. "my orion was stolen a year ago when i accidentally cut off the burglar photocell. the police never did find it and i've been trying ever since to get another one." "this is the first time i've tried," i said. "my car...." "ssh," he interrupted. "here they come." a procession of new cars, led by a beautiful green solar convertible, inched its way along the row of hopeful buyers, all of us with our credit ratings and car histories pinned to our lapels. each car's robot mechanism recorded our statistics, took our pictures, noted our heights, weights and appearances, then began to correlate the data. by government order the robot mechanism was directed to select its most promising future owner. a sobersides bank president, for example, might dearly love to change his big black galaxy sedan for a low-slung charioteer sports car, but sports cars were planned with crew-cutted college boys in mind, so the bank president would be likely to end up with another big galaxy. of course, the payment rate was fixed and the contracts were almost always for 40 years. a tie salesman might want a galaxy to make an impression on his neighbors, but he'd probably wind up with a proton or a thunderflash like i had. i was a tie salesman. the solar came abreast of me. i stood straight and smiling as it began to note my statistics. it flashed a 23 when it was done. not so good. that put me in the 23 percentile rank of its desirability. the next car, a rhinestone ford, gave me a 28. i was rated 22, 31, 14 (by a galaxy), 27, 35 and 30 by the next six cars. that was the way it went for the whole procession. i received the highest rating, 58, from an experimental model proton that was no longer in production, but i knew it was rating everybody higher and i was pretty gloomy. imagine my surprise when my name was called out as one of the possible choices. i went into the broker's office and was told the proton would select me if i would get rid of all but ten years of my thunderflash contract. that meant i had to find someone to take my car and 27 years of my contract, since i had been paying for three years of the 40. the price of the proton, the broker told me, was scaled down to a 30-year contract because it was an off-model. but who would take my heap with a 27-year contract attached to it? the broker said grinning gregory might go for five years, just out of the goodness of his big, big, big heart. i wouldn't get that kind of a deal anywhere else, the broker said. maybe i wouldn't, but that didn't do me much good. i needed someone to take 27 years. harry! why didn't i think of harry before? he didn't have a car yet. skinflint harry didn't want to sign the standard 40-year contract for a car and he had been shopping around for second-hand cars. besides, good old harry knew how crazy i was about jenny. he had even taken her out a couple of times. i gave harry an ache on the telephone and told him i'd be right over. then i ached the garage and the mechanic told me he could get my thunderflash in pretty good running condition again, even though he couldn't promise anything permanent. i caught a helibus to my friend's apartment. "harry, old pal, i've got the chance of a lifetime for both of us." harry eyed me suspiciously. "how's that?" he asked. "well, here's the deal. you know my real fine thunderflash? you said it was a sharp car. it is. it's a first class car. but ever since that slight accident, i've had just a wee bit of trouble with it. not much, you understand, but it's niggling enough to annoy my girl, jenny. you remember jenny, the girl you used to go with before i cut you out? ha! ha! anyhow, jenny wants me to get another car. a newer one." "but how can you?" harry asked. "you already have one." "that's just it, old buddy," i replied. "grinning gregory has one of those experimental model protons. it's a beauty, shimmering orange with purple wheels and bearskin upholstery. you'd love it. they'll let me have it on a 30-year contract if i can sell 27 years of my thunderflash contract. so here's what i'm going to do for you, pal. i'll keep ten years of the contract and let you have the thunderflash for the rest. you'll be getting a three-year-old car with 13 years of the contract taken care of. now is that a deal or is that a deal!" harry wasn't convinced. "what's wrong with your car?" "oh, hardly anything." "what's hardly anything?" "not even worth mentioning." "what's not worth mentioning?" "to tell the truth, the frame is just the least trifle out of line and every once in a great while it makes the rear wheel twist sideways." "i don't know," said harry. "good old cautious, hard-headed harry," i told him. "you are getting the deal of a lifetime and doing a good, loyal friend a big favor besides." "i still don't know, arnold," said harry. "all right. when will you know?" "let me sleep on it tonight." "ok, harry." i went home in high spirits. i knew harry would come through for me and take that wreck off my hands. he always was a man with an eye out for a deal. * * * * * i slept late the next morning, but by afternoon i was over to the used people lot to tell them to hold the proton for me for another day. instead, they tapped me over the head with the news that someone came in that morning and bought it. and they didn't have another one like it that would accept me. another hope gone astray! i caught a helibus to the garage and picked up my thunderflash after paying a whopping repair bill. i drove to jenny's house to convince her it was just as good as new. jenny's mother met me at the door. "hello, arnold," she said with the big smile of greeting she always gave me. "i'm glad to see you and i hope you'll keep dropping over to see me, but jenny isn't here any more." "not here?" "i'm afraid not." "where is she?" "she eloped less than an hour ago. you remember the boy she used to go with, harry? he came by in a beautiful new car. it was shimmering orange with purple wheels and bearskin upholstery and...." proofreading team at http://www.fadedpage.net [illustration: "rah! rah! rah! rah!" screamed paul jones in the most extravagant delight imaginable.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- the auto boys' vacation by james a. braden author of "the auto boys," "the auto boys' outing," "the auto boys' quest," "far past the frontier," "connecticut boys in the western reserve," etc. illustrated by e. a. furman the saalfield publishing company chicago--akron, ohio--new york ----------------------------------------------------------------------- copyright, 1913, by the saalfield publishing company ----------------------------------------------------------------------- contents chapter page i again the lonely south fork road 1 ii the search is continued 13 iii mr. billy worth does some thinking 27 iv detective bob rack has something to say 43 v a bit of advice from a stranger 59 vi a little kindness and what came of it 71 vii a swift ride through the darkness 85 viii in most excellent good season 103 ix the detective's strange story 111 x eastward ho! 127 xi passing the load of hay 143 xii nan and the jersey bull 163 xiii the kidnapers 183 xiv under the car 199 xv at the old tavern 219 xvi conclusion 239 -----------------------------------------------------------------------the auto boys' vacation chapter i again the lonely south fork road "you can't hide anything from the chief," observed willie creek, when chief fobes had left his garage, the scene of the mystery related in _the auto boys' big six_. "well, he didn't seem to be a whole lot interested to find out who broke in here--who killed our dog," replied billy worth, severely. "you don't _know_ him," returned mr. creek. "you just show him the fellow that done the deed and he'll arrest him mighty quick." "maybe if we'd see a man robbing a bank here, then called fobes so he could see, too, that the man _was_ robbing the bank, he'd do something," remarked billy, as the lads returned to the hotel. "i'll tell you what _he'd_ do," growled paul jones. "he'd say--'now from the standpoint of the law, maybe that man is going to commit a crime. from the standpoint of the law, he better go a little careful or i'll tell his mother on him.'" all of which might be taken to indicate that chief fobes was not as great a man in the minds of the four boys as he was in his own. still, something might be said on both sides of this subject, quite as phil way now remarked, but the conversation was abruptly dropped. "no news yet?" asked mr. wagg. the lads had just reached the hotel again. "none of the car, but--" and then they told the landlord of the killing of scottie. confidentially they intimated their belief that john smith or "pickem" might know something of the affair. "very strange," mused mr. wagg. "he checked out--paid his bill and left--last night. he said he was leaving on the ten o'clock train east. seemed put out because the party he had been expecting in to see him had not come. but he left no word--no address for mail, or anything." the hotel proprietor was not at all pleased with the indifference of chief fobes. the boys had told him of all that took place at the garage. "yet of course," said he, "it might make a difference if you lived here. there'd be quite a little expense to find out who killed the dog and, besides, the thieves, if it was thieves who did it, didn't get anything. it doesn't seem to me, now really, that this new trouble has anything to do with your lost automobile, and i take it that that's the main thing, after all." to this the boys agreed and, eager to put into execution phil's plan to telephone to all the larger cities east and west, to get some trace of the big six, if possible, they started for the telephone office. "but we can't all telephone," said phil. "who will look after burying scottie? and who will go to ferndale in the torpedo and take back the pick and shovel to the blacksmith? even if he did say we might have them as long as we liked, they should be toted home to-day." billy and paul volunteered for the work mentioned. with the cold, stiff body of poor scottie covered over with muslin in the tonneau, they started the stray automobile again toward the lonely south fork and ferndale. where the dog's burial place should be had been a problem. willie creek suggested a wooded knoll where some evergreens grew, not far beyond the branching of the road. this place the two boys reached in due time. it seemed to be quite what they sought. overhead the always green branches would sing a gentle requiem in the breeze the whole year through. the thick, emerald foliage would protect the little grave below, both from the violence of winter's storms and the heat of the summer sun. the solemn task was not a pleasant one. they wrapped the clean, new muslin around the body that in life had been so lithe, so strong, so active and so handsome, and gently placed it in the soft, cool ground. after the beautiful custom of the grand army of the republic they put bits of evergreen in the grave, in token of unceasing remembrance of their dead comrade. slowly they filled in the earth. "we'll come back some day--some day when we've at last got out of this awful ocean of bad luck we seem to be in, and we'll put up a little stone to mark the grave," said billy. "if ever a dog deserved it, scottie does. i only wish we knew to whom he rightly belonged before mr. knight ever saw him. they'd like to hear, i think, that he was a hero, whether they cast him off or not, or even if he was a runaway." going on toward ferndale, the little town two or three miles beyond where the big six was ditched, billy and paul again deeply felt the lonely influence of the unfrequented road. even in the bright sunshine the old mill-pond, the mill, the big, empty icehouse, the weeping willows near them--all seemed to tell of that dreadful tragedy of many years ago. the boys both noticed as they passed how the road's bank sloped down, and their active imaginations plainly pictured the frightened horses, the overturned carriage and the flood of the great, dark pond closing over the young man and his mother, whose sad story willie creek had told them. farther on, at the spot where all their own troubles had had their beginning, the two lads stopped. filled with vain regrets they looked again all about the place where the six went down. but if they expected to make any new discovery, they were disappointed. the road was dry now. the broken fence rails still lay at the foot of the embankment. the trampled grass and weeds still told of what had happened, but no one had been near; no human creature, it was to be believed, had visited the scene since the boys last saw it. returning to their car, the friends soon reached the house where they had stopped to make inquiry that first day of their trouble--the house where lived the lonely, old man, all his thoughts in the days of long ago. they now knew the story of the faded dwelling, the crumbling condition of every structure. curiously they glanced about, thinking they might see the lonely, old gentleman and give him a friendly salute--just a hand thrown up for an instant--as they passed. ah, there he was! seated in the kitchen doorway, he saw the machine even before paul and billy saw him. their wave of a hand seemed to please him, and he waved a beckoning signal in return. billy jumped down and walked up to see if something was wanted. "no, no!" the old man replied, far more pleasantly than at that former time. he meant only to acknowledge their greeting, he said. then he asked if the owner of the runaway car had been found. this led billy to tell all about the misfortune that had followed the picking up of the strange automobile. the farmer ruefully shook his head. there were many days together that no vehicle went along this road, in these latter years, he said. he could hardly understand how so strange a thing should happen almost at his door. and he had been disturbed in other ways. only last night, as he sat in the kitchen door, he had seen a crouching figure in the moonlight slip from one tree to another. it was after midnight. visitors he little expected to have at any time, much less at such an hour. so he called out, "hello, there!" the figure hastened away and he saw it no more. "it fretted me some," said the old gentleman slowly, "but i didn't see anything more, clean to daylight." somehow the picture of the aged, unhappy man sitting all night in the kitchen door, as his imagination presented it, touched billy's sympathies deeply. he asked if mr. peek would not like to take a little ride in the car to ferndale. they were coming back at once. it would take but a little while, he urged. with something more like a smile than had been seen on his face for many a year, the old man said he never had ridden in an automobile, and would be glad to go. he climbed up to the front seat beside paul. billy told him it was the more comfortable place to ride. and plainly mr. peek enjoyed the trip. he was quite silent but his deep, pain-marked eyes lighted up noticeably. "it's a grand thing to be young," said he, at last. neither blacksmith nor storekeeper at ferndale had heard the slightest inquiry for the runaway automobile, which was not a runaway at all at the time it passed through that village the previous friday. nor had they heard anything which might cast light upon the theft of the big six. "you'll find that whoever had this torpedo car is the same party that hooked your machine," said the blacksmith. "stands to reason. wherever could he have disappeared to, if it ain't so?" "i'm afraid you're on the wrong track," smiled billy, a little sadly. "chief fobes, at griffin, says positively that the two things--this lost machine on the one hand, and the stealing of our car on the other--have no connection with each other." "matter of opinion!" spoke the blacksmith warmly. and then as if he scarcely endorsed willie creek's high opinion of mr. fobes' ability, he added: "and i'll put my judgment against his'n any day." arranging with their friends to telephone them at the american house immediately should there be any development at ferndale concerning either car, the two boys turned toward griffin. they stopped at his lonely, cheerless home to leave mr. peek. his thankful appreciation of the ride made them glad of the little kindness they had been able to show him. neither lad thought to attach importance to the old man's account of his being disturbed by prowlers. it was phil who saw significance in this story as, at dinner, billy and paul told all that had taken place with them. "it's a mighty mysterious business," declared way. "don't you see it? here's an automobile,--quite likely a stolen automobile, at that--abandoned and left to run itself on a lonely road. no one can discover what became of the driver of that car. he was certainly driving when the machine left ferndale. three miles further on, and near the old peek place, he is missing. now isn't it likely that the same man is still sneaking around in that neighborhood?" "well, anyhow, we're getting off the main track again," billy returned. "we'd like to know where the torpedo belongs, but it's a heap more important that we keep on the trail of our own machine." "yes, that's so," phil soberly assented. "it's certainly strange that all my telephoning went for nothing. the police and all the big garages from albany to buffalo, i should say, have a description of our car, and yet not a sign of her has been discovered any place." "there's a long distance telephone call for mr. way," announced the voice of mr. wagg, the landlord. chapter ii the search is continued it is much to be feared that three certain young gentlemen finished their dinner with unbecoming haste in order to join more quickly the fourth young gentleman summoned to the long distance telephone. "why, it was dad! called up clear from lannington!" announced phil, coming from the telephone booth, perspiring but pleased. "they all got our letters, just a little while ago, and there must have been a general powwow all about us and the car right away. they fixed it up that dad should call us. and they're mighty interested. think we haven't acted fast enough, and all that. want us to offer a reward--get busy--travel around--not lose so much time just staying here. and if we can't get some news by wednesday, they'll either come on here or send a detective from chicago or somewhere." "it'll cost a raft of money," murmured maclester. "but we've been too afraid of spending a little," billy answered. "over four dollars' worth of telephoning in one morning!" ejaculated paul, forcibly. he did not like criticism. "just the same, it feels good to know there's somebody back of us. of course we knew there was, anyway, but to have them get together and then telephone clear here--it's mighty encouraging," spoke phil. "now we can't let them think we aren't capable of getting out of this pickle by ourselves, and we don't want them to hold a convention here. the answer is, get busy! so what are we going to do?" "well, what _are_ we going to do?" this from paul, as if he would say that everything possible to do had been done. "why, there's one thing that seemed like a good suggestion," said phil, "and that is that we look in other places--get on the train, get in touch with the police and the auto clubs and garages in different likely places, personally." "it's reasonable, and the thing to do," declared worth with emphasis. "phil, why can't you and dave go to albany or rochester this very day? stop off at syracuse. go up to pittsfield, too? paul and i can watch and hunt around here and follow up what poor little clues we've got." "clues? _we_ have no clues!" spoke maclester, moodily, "unless hipp and earnest are the ones. i've come to the conclusion that those fellows lied about seeing a man in a raincoat. who else saw him? don't we know that young earnest can lie like a beggar? is hipp any better?" "but there's the raincoat! saw it ourselves!" billy argued. "oh, that might belong to anybody! plenty of old raincoats lying around," persisted david. "i'm afraid you're on the wrong track, mack," phil way urged quietly. then immediately he added: "we must look up trains at once. billy's plan may not be very promising but, goodness, we can't sit around and wait for the car to come to us!" so the agreement was made, quite as worth proposed. dave and phil had just time to catch the 1:24 train--one of the few fast trains that stopped at griffin--and they promised to telegraph from albany the same night, if they found anything worth reporting. "i am glad we are making a start toward something, anyway," worth remarked, when he and paul had waved good-bye to the two on the train, and turned toward the hotel again. "tell you what, though, bill! let's just keep right on the job every minute, ourselves, and maybe we can surprise the fellows--get hold of something awfully important." paul was pretty serious. "sure!" said billy. then came the stumbling block. it was all very well to say "keep on the job," but just what to do that might be worth while was another problem. "funny we never heard a word from that 'a. w. kull, harkville, new york,' if our telegram was ever delivered there," said worth, thinking aloud, somewhat later. "let's ask the office here to find out what became of our message. it won't cost anything." "oh, gravy! that has nothing to do with us! it's the six we're after, bill!" but notwithstanding this objection, the griffin telegraph office was asked for the information. the operator kindly offered to send a service message, as it is called, desiring the harkville office to report on the matter. harkville replied in due time. the message to "a. w. kull" was delivered at his residence. why it was not answered the telegraph people did not know, of course. during the afternoon the boys also met chief fobes. with his stick under his arm, he leaned against a railing at the bank building, eating peanuts. "nothin' doin'," was his reply to their inquiry. "ain't likely to be," he added, discouragingly. "it ain't our luck, somehow. it may be here or any place around here that something will happen, but of course the gentry don't stay in these smaller places, and it's always in the bigger towns that they're nabbed if they don't get away altogether." "oh, yes, i see," said billy worth, but when he and paul had walked on, he remarked: "no, it is not mr. fobes' luck to catch anything. i reckon he banks more on luck than he does on work, though." "'from the standpoint of the law,'" grinned jones. but then lest he and worth should fall into the same error, he said briskly, "but come on, bill, we'll have to hustle if we're going to find anything." meanwhile dave and phil were approaching albany. on the train they mapped out their general plan of work. phil was to interview the police officials while dave made inquiries at the headquarters of the automobile club. then, together, they would visit the central garages. the outlying establishments they would call up by telephone, they decided. surely, every automobile, stolen or otherwise, must have gasoline. somewhere, then, it might be reasonably expected, trace of the big six would surely be discovered. it seems likely, and probably is true, that the boys failed to appreciate the great number of cars constantly going and coming through all such large cities as albany, buffalo, cleveland and the like. living in a much smaller place, where tourists from a distance, especially those with licenses from other states, were quickly noticed, they did not understand that machines from far and near are so numerous upon the great motor thoroughfares that they attract scarcely passing notice. disappointment followed disappointment as phil and dave pursued their task. the fact that the police department had a perfect description of their car and the assurance of the lieutenant, with whom phil talked, that every patrolman had the number of the stolen machine, were the only bits of encouragement they found. "didn't ye have insurance against theft?" asked a pleasant young fellow at a new garage not far from the capitol. "ought to have a fire and theft insurance policy," he declared, "then you let someone else do the worrying." "too late to think of it now, i'm afraid," said phil with a forlorn smile. "that's true enough," said the other, "but i was just thinking how lucky a fellow considers himself when he does have insurance in a case of this kind. there was an illustration of it up state just this spring. man had a new car. used it just a little, over winter. in april it was stolen and it never was found. he got a check for pretty nearly all he paid for it because he had insurance. he didn't have to lose any sleep, you see." "also, you may be able to sell him another car, because he has the money to pay for one," suggested dave, his eyes twinkling. "now you're trying to jolly me," returned the young man good-humoredly. "but i didn't mean it that way. fact is, the man was away up at harkville--'way out of our territory for torpedoes." "hello, now!" exclaimed way, eagerly. "was there a torpedo stolen in harkville, recently?" "not lately. two months ago," the other answered. "who lost it?" and again way glanced sharply at dave. the latter was listening to every word but taking care to betray no unusual interest. "h--m--m--hull, kull--why, that's it! kull was his name. but _your_ car was not a torpedo, was it?" if the young man thought that in this question he guessed the reason for phil's wish to know more of the incident mentioned, he guessed wrong, of course. but unwilling to tell just why he was interested, until he should have had time to think, phil gave him no enlightenment. "no," answered way, "the torpedo people don't build a six-cylinder car, do they?" "that's right, yours was a six," said the other. "makes you so much the greater loser, with no insurance." "what luck did the harkville man have finding his car? someone must have looked for it even if he did have insurance." "guess they _did_ look for it," said the garage man forcibly. "first kull and the police, then the insurance people and detectives, and believe _me_, insurance companies don't care how much it costs to find a stolen car if they've had to pay for it. they do get stung though, and last i heard, kull had his money, for his car was never found, high or low. strange case! never a clue to go by. a padlock pried off kull's little garage and the machine gone and--there you are." "strange!" muttered phil, but he was thinking too, that, though this was exceedingly interesting information, he must not allow it to take his thoughts from the loss that meant so much more to himself and friends, personally. so, thanking the young man, he and dave left the garage. "why didn't you tell him about the torpedo? she's the harkville car as sure as you're born!" spoke maclester, immediately the two were beyond hearing. "it might have done no harm, and again--there's the trouble! i wanted to talk it over with you. it seems small and mean, but still we didn't pay out railroad fare and all that to help find the owner of that torpedo. we wired kull and did our part. he may be in griffin right now to claim the property." "more likely he doesn't care. he got insurance money, so why bother any more about it? that would explain the whole thing--the whole reason why our telegram was never answered," dave reasoned. "it looks that way," phil replied. "and our chasing the torpedo is chasing right away from the car we want to find. blame it all! we don't seem to get anywhere. here we go stumbling into things about the torpedo but no clues at all to the six!" all of which, and the disgruntled tone, were both unusual words and manner in young mr. way. the day had long since closed. the boys found a comfortable hotel and went to bed, leaving a call for half-past five as the train for pittsfield left albany at six-thirty. the distance was not great and as several important automobile routes branched out from the massachusetts town, it was considered a likely source of information. tired as they were, phil and dave must and did discuss at length the day's developments before they fell asleep. a sense of duty that they should report at once the apparent fact that they had found the stolen harkville car, weighed somewhat upon their minds. "but what if we do? what happens?" they reasoned. "we are put out just that much in hunting for the six. we lose time being called as witnesses, and a lot of botheration, just when we need every minute, and nothing much is gained. a few days will make no difference with regard to the torpedo, long ago given up as beyond recovery." and so resolving to stick to the more important business first, but to report the finding of the stolen harkville car just so soon as details of identification and the law's red tape would not be so inconvenient, they put the subject aside. thanks to chief fobes, in part, and also thanks to their own error, in part, the boys were making a costly mistake by believing the trail of the torpedo had no connection with the theft of their own car. or so it would seem, would it not? and yet, even if the thieves who first stole the harkville car were the same who, later on, made off with the big six, what could be gained by going back along the route to deliver the one recovered machine instead of pursuing diligently the more recently stolen property? "we'll never see our car again; that i know," said dave maclester, glum and despondent. he pulled on his shoes in the stuffy little hotel room next morning, as if life were to him a barren, barren waste. "it's mostly the time of day, mack," said way good-humoredly. "half-past five has a mighty blue appearance after you've been eating strange grub, and staying up till midnight the day before. you'll brighten up like the shining sun if we can only get out where there is such a thing--that and get hold of a little news to-day." "we haven't got hold of any _yet_," asserted maclester, not a bit more cheerfully. and his words were the truth, cold and harsh, as the truth may sometimes be, beyond a doubt. chapter iii mr. billy worth does some thinking "hello! what's all the feverish bustle about? good news, i hope!" this from mr. wagg as billy and paul, very warm and very red, hustled into that gentleman's hotel and suddenly stopped, as if they had at that moment forgotten what they came for. "no,--not exactly," said billy. "fact is, we have no news at all and it just makes us feel that we've got to get busy; and that's what we've been doing--hustling up here as hard as ever we could." "what for? what scent are you on now?" asked the landlord, peering over his glasses as he leaned upon the register counter. there was a trace of amusement in his voice. "that's just it," put in paul. "we don't know just what scent we _are_ on but, by thunder! we've _got_ to get some news of that car!" "well, i suppose that nothing succeeds like determination," observed mr. wagg kindly. "still, there's a lot o' misdirected energy in the world." with a sigh he sat down and resumed the afternoon nap which the swift entrance of the boys had broken in upon. a large part of griffin seemed to be occupied quite as was landlord wagg. how very quiet the little town was this tranquil june afternoon! "ginger! i'd just like to take a nap myself; but we've got to keep busy," mused billy. the two were seated in big armchairs of the hotel office. "our basket, willie creek's lamp and that old raincoat are in our room. mr. hipp brought them and the porter carried them up. told me so just after dinner," suggested paul. "we might tote willie's lamp over to the garage." straightway up the stairs dashed the two boys. yes, there at the foot of the bed the articles in question were deposited. again the boys examined the lunch hamper inside and out. again they searched pockets, lining, every shred of the muddy, dirty, wrinkled coat. how freshly the garment, splashed with the rain and the thick pools of the road, brought back to billy's mind the dismal afternoon when first they ventured upon the lonely south fork! again, in mental vision, he saw the torpedo come over the hill, saw the impossibility of passing the machine if it did not quickly turn out! then he recalled--how vividly!--the dreadful scene, the big six ditched, the rain, the heavy, mist-laden air, the gloom, of approaching darkness. and in the same train of thought, as he went forward, he seemed to see the man hipp and earnest had told of seeing, marching stolidly along the wet road, carrying the basket stolen from the six, wearing this very raincoat and on his head a low, soft cap, his top boots or leggins splashed with mud, the rain pelting him till he stumbled as he walked. how easily the lad's imagination drew for him the picture alfred earnest and his friend hipp described! then suddenly---"for the love of cats, paul jones, i am one large punkin head! and so are _you!_ and so are _all_ of us!" quite naturally young mr. jones looked up suddenly, startled not a little by the extraordinary accusation. "wh----" paul's intended response was violently interrupted. knocking his own head with one pair of knuckles, billy brought those of his other hand down forcibly on his friend's tawny hair, at the same time and not once, but repeatedly. not until jones escaped beyond reach, which he did by tumbling ungracefully backward over a chair, as he retreated from the mysterious attack, did worth explain himself. "that man--the drunken fellow we saw fobes arrest on saturday night--you remember? he's the fellow who wore this raincoat, stole our basket and--who knows?--maybe the car! plain as daylight! why didn't we see it before? the cap, the leather leggins all caked with mud--i couldn't see it all plainer if he stood in this very room!" for a few seconds paul was lost in a confusion of thoughts, but he extricated himself at last, saying: "thunder! i do remember that that fellow fobes got wore leggins--yes, and the cap! but--why, a lot of people wear 'em for fishing trips and----" "yes, and chauffeurs wear 'em," put in billy, heatedly. "i say, come on! we'll have a look and we'll get something out of this, you bet!" whether paul would or would not wager, however, he did not say. what he did reply was: "honest, bill, i hope there's something to it, but--anyhow, let's not be too sure!" chief fobes, dozing the early afternoon away in his dingy office, sleepily called to the boys, "come in!" they entered. needless to say, also, the haste and earnestness in billy's manner fully awakened the officer of the law rather more abruptly than often happened. "we want to find out about a fellow you arrested saturday evening. wore a cap and high boots or leggins," spoke young mr. worth in a single breath. "soaked for ten days in the cooler," said mr. fobes, indifferently. by which it will be understood that the village magistrate had imposed upon the man a fine of ten days in jail. "well, who is he? can we see him?" worth continued rapidly. "he's just a bum, i guess. i don't know him and--well, you can ask willie creek whether i know everybody around here or whether i don't. he was hanging around all saturday afternoon and drinking. by night i had to pinch him." with a show of real interest chief fobes now heard the story billy told and the belief that the man in the lockup could throw light on the disappearance of the big six. slowly, very slowly, nevertheless, the officer rose, yawned and led the way to the corridor below, so conducting the boys to a group of steel cells in a basement at the rear of the building. the man they sought was lying on an iron bunk. he stepped forward when mr. fobes called sharply, "here, you! step up!" quite as if the unfortunate were a refractory horse. "might i ask you a question?" began billy. he and paul were both keeping pretty close to mr. fobes as the prisoner, still in the mud-stained boots and garments, approached the bars. "i'll do the talkin'," put in the officer bluntly. then to the man who peered out from the gloomy cell, "what was you doing on the south fork road last--last friday?" "i don't know anything about any south fork road. what ye givin' us? i come in here from rochester, hittin' the road an' lookin' fer a job in the country, an' i told the judge the same thing, didn't i?" "it don't go, billy. you can't throw any bluff here," said fobes with an air of familiarity, but shaking his head coldly, too. "you was seen on the south fork road an' there's an automobile man lookin' for you. guess he wants to give you a raincoat you lost somewhere." this, of course, was just the kind of talk that mr. fobes himself had termed a "bluff" and, in the vernacular, nothing else. whether the prisoner thought so or otherwise, for a few seconds he made no reply. then as if feeling his way carefully, he said: "somebody lookin' for me, eh? tell 'im where i am. or mebbe he knows it." "it ain't no go, i tell you," said fobes sharply. "there's a little matter of a patent dinner basket on you straight. swipin' grub from boys, too! ain't you ashamed of yourself? you don't happen to remember what you left in the raincoat, do ye?" billy and paul were far from approving this kind of questioning. yet they could see the object of chief fobes, which was to frighten and confuse the prisoner by making him believe a great deal was known about him, thereby leading him into admissions that would pave the way toward gaining a complete confession from him. "i don't know nothin' about a coat, boss; but who's lookin' fer me?" called the one behind the bars as the officer and the boys started to move away. "you'll find that out quick enough," said fobes with a harsh laugh. but he did not pause and led the way to his own office again. "now," said he, "you have seen how we go about it. we've set the yeast to workin'. he'll be more ready to let out a little by the time i take his supper in to him." chief fobes was evidently much pleased with himself but he was not prepared for the rather unusual incident that followed. "where's the kid that said might he ask me a question?" inquired the prisoner when the officer visited his cell again. "i want to see 'im if i can, boss!" billy was called only after mr. fobes had failed to extract from the man any information whatever. cautioning the lad to tell the prisoner little or nothing, the policeman, who was also turnkey, it will have been noticed, took worth into the lockup and left him. "what was yer question, bub! mebbe i might answer it," said the fellow. he held a bar of the cell in each hand and leaned forward on his elbows. his face, pressed between the steel rods, had a really hideous look. "where's the big six automobile that dinner basket came from? now you tell me that and you'll make a friend. you seem to need one all right." billy was surprised by his own boldness in this speech. the fact was the man's manner had quite startled him. the prisoner laughed in a coarse guffaw. abruptly checking himself, he said in a whisper: "you get me out o' here. swipe the keys--any old way! pass me in a saw--just so's i get out to-night, an' i'll show you where you can find that automobile, good as ever she was. and--" the fellow swore venomously and wickedly--"you blab this an' i'll get ye fer it if i go to the chair!" "might as well be reasonable," spoke the boy, frightened by the very nature of the proposal, but scarcely showing it. "i'll help you get out if it means just paying a fine for you, if you can do all you say, but----" "do all i _say?_ don't you think i couldn't?" billy hardly knew what to say. for a few seconds he made no answer. "aw, i was just a kiddin' ye," the fellow said with a coarse laugh again, as if he had quite suddenly changed his mind. "oh! all right!" the boy replied indifferently. and then, moved by a sudden impulse, whose origin he could never have explained, he stepped close to the cell, "mr. smith, of buffalo, has been staying at our hotel. maybe you'd like to see _him_," he said in a low tone. "he was looking for someone and i shouldn't be surprised from what i saw of him that you are the man." in general it was a chance shot--a random word without particular aim, such as fobes had used in his questioning, but billy fully believed that the remark struck home. "say, kid, say, on the level is he the party his nibbs was talkin' about? look 'e here, bub, you play fair with the old man that's down an' out. you won't lose nothin' by it. they's none of 'em plays fair any more or i wouldn't be here. you slip them very words to smith fer me, and don't ye breathe it to his nibbs." "where's our machine?" persisted worth soberly. again a vile oath came from the dirty lips pressed between the bars. the prisoner's pleading manner had changed to anger. "jest like 'em all, ain't ye?" he said with a vicious sneer in his tone. then he walked away. nothing billy could say served to draw another word from him and that young gentleman could only take his leave. this he did with the words: "we are over at the american hotel. you may want to send for us when you get a little sense." "how was i to know what to say to him? wish phil had been there," said billy earnestly, telling paul all about the interview later. "gee whizz! we're getting warm, though, i'll bet!" cried jones with enthusiasm. "if it wasn't just guesswork that pickem or smith--whatever his real name is--knows something about this man in the lockup, who in turn knows something about our car! pickem certainly does know something about the torpedo, but he's gone. even if he might help us, it's too late." the boys spent the evening trying to realize, with willie creek's help, some value from the day's developments. they were late getting to bed and still sleeping soundly when phil and dave, the following morning, were well on the road to pittsfield. and now to return to the latter pair of eager searchers, it may be briefly stated that their day's work was without results. except that they had made the theft of the big six the more widely known, they felt their efforts in pittsfield to have been a total failure. at nine o'clock on tuesday night they were on a pullman, their tickets reading "syracuse." there is in the city named, as everyone knows, an automobile club of more than usual excellence. whether it be in helping a pair of boys toward the recovery of a lost car, or the more general work of erecting road signs, mapping off the best detours around road construction work and informing the public of the same, nothing is too small or too large a task to receive intelligent attention. and it was a fortunate chance, therefore, that phil and dave chose syracuse to be the scene of their next endeavors. very early wednesday morning the two boys began their inquiries--began a day of work and developments, following rapidly one upon another, and more startling at their close than the strangest dreams may often be. chapter iv detective bob rack has something to say to the police officials of syracuse, phil and dave first directed their steps in that city. the result was as usual. the department had a report that such-and-such a car was stolen. the officers would be pretty likely to discover it if the machine should appear in the town. "but you better see the automobile club. they are a big help in everything where autos are concerned," advised the police captain. at a centrally located garage the boys stopped to repeat the same questions they had asked so many times before. the man in charge had heard the story of a car mysteriously disappearing from the south fork road beyond port greeley, but that was all. "you can't do better than see the automobile club," he added, however. "they are the ones to get you the right dope if there's any way to get it." although it was still too early to expect to find a secretary or other officer present, the boys decided to visit the club headquarters at once. a pleasant-faced man was reading a motor journal as they entered. to him they stated the purpose of their call. "by george, that's interesting!" said the stranger thoughtfully. "wait a minute!" reaching for a desk phone, the pleasant-faced man was soon in touch with the person he desired. briefly he told of the two young callers and their errand. "all right, that's the ticket!" he said, after some conversation over the wire, and hung up the receiver. asking the boys to accompany him, the agreeable stranger piloted them to an office in a large brick building where he introduced them to a gentleman who seemed hardly more than a boy in appearance, though his age was probably twenty-five. his name was freeland cape. ("a regular cape of good hope to us," phil said afterward.) "sit down," said mr. cape to the young strangers, as their escort left them. thanking him, phil and dave accepted the proffered chairs. without ado mr. cape was informed of the loss of the six and the search thus far so unsuccessful. "queerest affair i ever heard of," was the young man's comment. "but tell me more of this torpedo car. there was a torpedo stolen in harkville--(phil and dave exchanged glances)--an extraordinary case. and of course it is evident that the parties who, for some reason, abandoned the machine you found, grabbed your car directly afterward." "it would seem so, but it is hardly the case," put in phil quickly. "we have had that notion pretty well pounded out of us by different people, especially by mr. fobes, the policeman at griffin. 'two separate transactions,' were his words and he made it pretty plain. and of course we were, and are, more anxious to locate our own car than anything else. so all along, 'two separate transactions' we have had right in mind." young mr. cape scratched the crown of his head with one forefinger while he thought for a few seconds. "there never is a theory so exclusively inclusive but some other theory can be suggested," said he. "i may be wrong. without knowing anything about the torpedo you found, i'd say the two separate facts constitute a plausible supposition. but i _do_ know and _you_ know now, that the machine you found was probably the one stolen from harkville. who stole it? we do not know, but it is pretty plain that no one other than the original thieves had the car on that south fork road, wherever they may have been with it since first it disappeared. now that lands in the very vicinity of your car, at the time of your loss, the fellows who stole one automobile. and, having stolen one, no doubt they would just as lief take another and better one. the man who was seen with your basket may have been only a tramp. if your suitcases were left behind, the basket was thrown out, as well, at the same place or near by." "any way you put it, though," suggested maclester, his brow puckered in thought, "we are left right in the middle of it all, again. go one way, and we might find who owned the torpedo. go the other way--and we stand a better chance, i should think, of finding our own six and the thieves. whether they stole both cars, or simply ours, isn't a question in the case at all just yet." "yes," assented mr. cape, "but you must go back along the road, or wherever you may have to go, for the things you need to aid your search. you can't unsnarl a fish line, or anything else, without you have one free end with which to make a start." phil became nervous and uneasy as so much time was being consumed in discussion, interesting to him though the talk was. "tell us just what _you'd_ do, mr. cape," he said earnestly. "advice is dangerous in a case like this. you may do as i would do and lose by it. still, i'll venture a suggestion. you have gotten together, bit by bit, a lot of valuable facts. right here in this building is a detective. he works for big people. why not talk with him? if that torpedo is the stolen harkville machine you will win the help of one of the largest insurance companies in the job of capturing the thieves and at the same time, it is quite certain, recovering your own car." "that's the plan!" exclaimed phil eagerly. "the very thing!" said dave. in a moment mr. cape had the telephone in his hand. within five minutes the boys were in the office of detective robert rack, or plain "bob" rack, as his name so often appears in the newspapers. mr. rack was a ready listener to the whole story in detail as the boys told it. quietly he referred to a card index a stenographer brought him. "i don't think this work need cost you young men a copper," said he. his voice was soft as a june zephyr. his neat business suit, calm, gray eyes and hair just tinged with gray, made him appear a great deal more like a successful salesman of some kind than a detective--than such ideas of detectives as the boys had hitherto had, at least. "not a copper cent," said bob rack, looking up from the card index. "and how would you like to be reimbursed for your trouble and expense?" these were quite the most pleasant words that had fallen upon david's or philip's ears for some time. in substance they said as much. "i do not doubt the torpedo you picked up is one we have long wanted to get trace of. the insurance people offer four hundred dollars for the recovery of the car. for the arrest and conviction of the thieves they will give five hundred dollars more. so then, if your party--four of you in all, are there?--wish simply to turn over the torpedo you may do so. i'll tell you who is to be notified. there's one hundred dollars each for you. or if you'd like my office to help you, both with the torpedo and your own car, i'll make this proposition: to go myself, or send a good man with you on this case, and whatever the expenses and whatever the receipts may amount to they all shall be shared equally." "bob, you're a brick!" cried mr. cape, who had been an interested listener. then he said good-bye, assuring the boys that their problem was in the best of hands. heartily they thanked him. "but there's some doubt about that car in griffin being the one stolen at harkville, isn't there?" reasoned phil way as the facts in hand were further discussed with mr. rack. "why did that man kull never answer our telegram?" "ah, that is a thing to remember! i asked myself the same question the moment you said the telegram was not answered, a little time ago," smiled the detective. "it would be a dreadful thing, i am sure, for a man to show no interest in the recovery of his stolen car, simply because he had received the price of it in insurance." the boys could see mr. rack meant something more than he said. they thought they knew the thought he entertained. but he went on at once, more seriously: "there is a great deal more to this matter than simply getting your machine for you or restoring the torpedo, or i am badly mistaken." phil's eyes glistened. davy sat very still and i am afraid his mouth was open without reason other than for his wonder and interest. "so," concluded mr. robert rack, very calmly and gently, as he had spoken all along, "suppose you leave the whole matter with me for the present. you better stay in town until to-night or maybe to-morrow, in case i should want you. just now i wish you to do only one other thing, but that is very important. telegraph or telephone your friends in griffin to hold the torpedo. don't let it get out of their hands under any circumstances. if they ride out in it, they should not leave the car unattended anywhere for one moment." as if treading on air, such was their elation, the two boys were leaving the office. "oh, just a moment!" called mr. rack quietly. "was the name 'fielderson brothers' on the cans of paint found in the car you picked up, do you remember?" "yes, but they are the manufacturers. their paint can be bought anywhere," phil replied. "yes," the detective answered, apparently the least bit amused. with eager interest and pleasure phil and dave composed a telegram to billy and paul. after many efforts the following is the message they completed and sent: "don't let torpedo leave creek's garage for any purpose. expect to find six soon. must stay here until to-morrow. wire care of auto club." with the telegram safely dispatched, the boys found a pleasant, inexpensive hotel where they engaged a room. they went to a restaurant for dinner, then resolved to write some letters, first to the folks at home, assuring them of the hopeful outlook, then to billy and paul who would be keen to learn all that had taken place. a letter would reach them the following morning. "i would rather have telephoned," said phil. "they'll be wild for more news after getting our telegram, but we've spent so much money on long distance calls and railroad fare, to boot, the last two days!" and in addition to phil's remark i am able to state, in confidence, that the funds of the auto boys would soon need replenishing if many more railroad tickets must be bought or other considerable bills paid. for it will be remembered there were four lusty appetites to be provided for, to say nothing of the extra expenses they were meeting. the possessors of two of the "vast voids" (one of paul's names for the four appetites) found meal-time less pleasant now, however, than when phil and dave were with them. indeed, paul accused worth of being absolutely "grumpy," whatever that may be, as they sat at breakfast in the american house on tuesday morning. this was the day phil and dave were in pittsfield, it will be recalled. "and i'll bet we've done more than they have," said paul, referring to the absent ones. he was thinking of the man in the town jail and of billy's talk with that untractable person. "i did think we had made quite a start," said billy, droopingly. "but what's come of it? nothing!" "cheer up, cheer up!" chirped jones blithely. "we'll get busy again to-day. hurry up, too! these pancakes are made out of old burlap. i know they are! i used to think it was perfectly grand to eat in hotels and so forth but, golly! wouldn't some fodder from home taste good right now? honestly, i'm getting tired of burlap pancakes, puree of shavin' soap, pincushions a la hay, fried towels and all the other strange things you get under strange names in these places. i----" but billy said, "if we're going to get busy, let's do it," and promptly he led the way out to the office. "better see mr. fobes, hadn't we?" he suggested. just why worth wanted to see the police officer he possibly did not know, beyond the slight chance that the man in the lockup may have had something to say to him. yet it did happen that while the two sought chief fobes, the latter was seeking them. they met in front of the bank. "our fellow in the cooler has been asking for you. he may let go of something yet if you go at him easy." these words, addressed particularly to billy, took the pair to the jail quite bubbling with expectancy. they fully believed the prisoner knew something of their car--believed it regardless of willie creek's mild protest that the man was fooling them. again chief fobes escorted worth through the dim corridor to the somewhat lighter basement cells. a window in the rear of the building was open, looking out upon a yard with trees and shrubbery. the prisoner was apparently enjoying the breeze that drifted in. "can't i talk to the kid a second, boss?" the one behind the bars having spoken thus, though he still turned his face toward the corridor window, chief fobes motioned billy forward while he stepped back a few paces. "say, bub, did ye see that guy? did ye tell 'im?" for a fraction of time worth did not understand. then recalling more clearly the chance remark about "smith" at the hotel, he answered, "no." "didn't, eh? why didn't ye?" "you got mad yesterday and wouldn't talk sense or anything else. why should i pay any more attention to you? tell me what you know about the car you took that motor basket from and i'll do anything you ask that's reasonable." "ye was just lyin' to me about that man smith, now wasn't ye?" the man returned in a low, earnest voice, ignoring billy's request. and then he added as the boy hesitated, and swearing as he had done the previous day, "aw, i was just a-kiddin' ye--just a-kiddin' ye to pass the time away." chapter v a bit of advice from a stranger "is there no way you can _make_ that man talk?" billy worth asked chief fobes. the boys and the officer were again in the latter's office. "i suppose i can if you leave it to me, but i can't if you don't," mr. fobes answered. "look 'e here now. that fellow's in here for ten days. plenty of time yet to make him loosen up, but it ain't goin' to do no good. what could he have had to do with swipin' your car? nothin', that's all. might as well think he picked it up and shoved it in his pocket! there's nothin' to it. he's a bum, that's all, an' is havin' some fun tryin' to make us believe he does know something about your automobile." the two boys looked downcast. "says his name is coster," the officer went on. "belongs nowhere in particular. so much he told me when he first was in here. yer basket he picked up in the road, he now says, an' he don't deny eatin' yer lunch an' sleepin' in the preacher's barn. an' that's all he does know about your automobile. what's more, it stands to reason, too. from any standpoint of the law ye can pick or choose, if he took your auto, what could he have did with it?" "why has he been so interested, part of the time, anyway, in finding out if there's a man named smith, or anybody, looking for him?" billy asked. "they all act that way, pretty much. it's only once in a while that they give up anything by makin' 'em believe as there's a party lookin' for 'em; and of course every tramp knows other tramps." "maybe so," replied worth, thoughtfully, "but i do believe your mr. coster is not what exactly you call a 'bum.' even if he doesn't know anything about our car, there's some other matter on his mind and he is a lot more worried about it than he wants us to guess. what he has been trying to do was to pump me, without saying anything that would give me his reasons for doing it, and without telling me anything of any consequence. why, he's an _awful liar!_" billy's show of wrath in his closing sentence made chief fobes laugh boisterously. "liar?" said he when he could catch his breath. "did you expect he'd be anything else? i tell ye both," and his eye took in both billy and paul, "you might just as well forget this man. we'll have most ten days yet to make a charge of larceny against him for stealin' the basket. if there's anything to be had out of him we'll get it. all's you can do is have them east side fellers (hipp and earnest) come around here sometime and see if they can identify this coster as the man they seen on the south fork." "we might run out and see him right now," paul suggested. billy agreed and the two were soon at creek's garage. it was a delightful day for driving. the car's motion was cool and pleasant though the sun beat down with unusual warmth even for june. at the home of alexander hipp it was learned that he and alfred earnest were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the forks, on the main road. without trouble billy and paul found them. the work with the cherries was nearly over for the day and the auto boys gave a hand that it might be finished quickly. glad of a chance for an automobile ride, hipp and earnest had readily agreed to visit the griffin lockup. alfred had the seat beside billy, who was driving. "my brother," said he, "thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to albany to look for your machine. i told him about your plan, last night. he wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought to have gone toward buffalo." "that so? why?" billy asked. "because he says it's fairly certain the people who had this torpedo just switched to your car. they came from the east and was headed west to begin with. naturally they wouldn't go back the way they had just come from." "we thought of that, but our car didn't go through griffin," billy answered. "willie creek is sure of that. it must have turned back east again at the forks." earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be gained by the discussion, worth simply let him talk. it was strange how many people had advanced theories regarding the car's disappearance. indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys, and so little real help had been given them, save by mr. creek, that it is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying. coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little surprised when he once more answered chief fobes' "here, you! step up!" upon seeing four boys confronting him. he leaned with hands upon the steel bars as he had done the day before. "good, honest automobile grease on your hands, mister," remarked billy worth, noticing the fellow's fingers and especially his black nails. coster quickly put his hands down but volunteered no remark. then, as if he feared being suspected of a desire to conceal something, he seized the bars again as before. "he's the man we saw," said alex hipp, when with chief fobes they all had reached the refreshing outer air. "at least i think so." "thinkin' don't go much from the standpoint of the law," the officer answered. neither hipp nor alfred earnest could state positively that coster was the person they had seen on the lonely road that rainy afternoon. billy and paul drove them to their respective homes in the torpedo. "so we are knocked out of all we thought we had found yesterday," observed jones, droopingly, on the homeward way. "maybe not," worth returned, deep in thought. "do you see how the clutch pedal of the car has pressed against the side of the sole on my shoe till the leather is curved in half an inch or more?" paul said he did. looking at worth's shoes, then his own, he added: "that's nothing new. mine is the same way." "i know it is," said billy. "and the sole of coster's left boot is marked in the same way, too." paul saw at once the significance of this fact, the evidence that chief fobes' prisoner was an automobile man. "billy," he said earnestly, "we are gettin' some warm!" try as they would to "get busy," worth and jones found themselves accomplishing nothing as the afternoon wore away. mr. fobes was becoming quite impatient over their inquiries and they thought best not to visit him. willie creek was busy with some urgent repair work. there appeared no course to pursue--nothing to do--but wait. impatient for word from phil or dave, restless in their inactivity, the two boys sat for a long time at the large open window of the hotel. a stranger entered. as the young man--he seemed to be twenty-one or two, perhaps--sat down near the boys, he remarked that he was waiting while his car was undergoing some repairs at the garage. a conversation concerning automobiles was the most natural result imaginable. put two or more motor enthusiasts together and invariably they will soon be talking. the newcomer was from texas, he said, touring through to new york. his brother was with him but had remained at the garage. the substance of the auto boys' story was told the stranger as the conversation progressed. "look here," said the young man in his flippant, breezy fashion, "you fellows are too easy by half. you've let that garage keeper and his friend, the town policeman, pull you all around. the garage man--creek, you call him--sends you on a wild goose chase here and there. the village cop steers you off with no help worth speaking of. seems mighty suspicious, don't it? i just might mention that there was a garage in a town near us that made a business of changing over stolen cars. would switch 'em all around, in an old barn behind their shop, change wheel sizes, change engines, fix 'em up so no man could tell his own car if he saw it. then they slipped 'em off to the big cities and sold 'em. now, right there, you've got a real tip, you take it from me!" it is the meanest kind of wickedness to direct suspicion against any person without good cause. also it is criminal. paul jones and billy worth realized this. yet was it not true, as the stranger said, that willie creek and chief fobes were great friends? and had not mr. creek more than once suggested that it would be much cheaper for the boys to take a train home and conduct their search from there, paying no hotel bills while awaiting developments? "i've always thought willie was our friend," muttered worth when he and paul were alone again, "and i shall think so; but one thing is sure, we've got to keep our eyes open." mr. p. jones, esquire, as paul sometimes referred to himself, was of the same opinion. also he added: "it looked mighty funny to me the way old fobes paid so little attention when scottie was shot. willie creek didn't seem to mind it, either, so much as i'd think he would." oh, it is a sad, bad business to sow seeds of suspicion! it is but all too likely they will grow! always there is something which seems to confirm the suspicious thought. and yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that dishonesty and falsehood are not infrequently concealed by an appearance of friendliness on part of those who practice them. and now, whether willie creek was a true friend or a false friend, we soon shall see for another night has passed and another day has come--a day to test the endurance and the courage of the auto boys almost to the breaking point. and even while phil and dave were making themselves known in the automobile club of syracuse, billy and paul were planning a careful inspection of mr. creek's garage and its surroundings, as they sat at breakfast. chapter vi a little kindness and what came of it paul and billy received letters from home in the morning mail. they were glad to have them,--would have been sorry indeed had their respective households neglected for one day to send solicitous inquiries--but they were so very "busy," they assured themselves, that--well, if they could just get the time, they'd write in return that afternoon. whereupon they set forth for willie creek's establishment. mr. creek was looking over a newspaper. he said he was waiting for a possible customer for a car whom he was to take out for a demonstration. the boys said they were going to take the torpedo out for a little good fresh air. mr. creek said, "sure! she's your car, so far as i can see, though you are out some on the trade you made." this with a friendly smile. "we'll just drive back when willie has had time to get away and we will look his place over. not that i think we will find anything, but--" billy paused. "dandy good scheme," paul assented. "that boy of his--we don't need mind him at all." "better not go far. let's just wait at the hotel," worth suggested. they halted the torpedo in front of the american house accordingly. from their favorite chairs at the large, screened windows the two lads watched the occasional passerby, also the clock. "he'll be miles away by this time. we better hike over to the garage," proposed paul when half an hour had passed. "well, _sir!_" exclaimed billy, at the same moment. "there's mr. peek. let's say how do you do!" even as he was speaking, worth hastened out to the sidewalk. the old gentleman, the tragic story of whose life was written in his stooping figure and melancholy face, recognized the boy at once. he was pleased to be so cordially greeted. "it's the first time i've been to town for 'most a year," said he, as he also shook hands with paul. "i don't seem to know any of the young folks, any more, and not many of the older ones i meet." as mr. peek said he was just starting for home and that he was on foot, billy spoke up: "our car's right here. we will take you home, mr. peek." "we have something on hand, you know. shall we let it go?" paul whispered. worth nodded and the visible pleasure of the aged farmer as he climbed awkwardly up to a front seat could not but give his young friends pleasure also. "you must have been up pretty early if you walked to town this morning," observed worth to the old gentleman at his side. "y-a-a-a-s," mr. peek replied, drawing the word out to great length, as if he were really thinking of something else. and after a long pause he said, "did i tell you t'other day about someone bein' around my house in the night?" yes, he had told them, the boys answered, and he went on: "it has fretted me every day. an' last evenin' i got to feelin' so down in the mouth and glum i just concluded i'd get some cartridges for my old rifle. it'd make me feel safer to know i had a loaded gun right handy. so i went to town first thing this mornin'. i might 'a' drove, but my old horse is 'bout the same as i be,--almost ready to say good-bye." mr. peek was lost for a time in his own meditations. the torpedo whirred along at an easy speed and he seemed to enjoy greatly the pleasant motion of the car and gentle sweep of the wind. "'tain't much like water power, is it?" he remarked, as if he had been contrasting in his mind the machinery and appliances of _his_ young manhood with the automobiles and electric motors of the present day. "i suspect you boys never saw a water wheel," he said musingly. no, they had not, said billy, and in answer to a question whether they would like to see one, both he and paul were quite sure they would. the car was rumbling along the lonely south fork now. the old mill, the gray, old house of the miller, empty and cheerless, the pond and the icehouse were but a little way forward. "if you'd like to stop at the mill, i'll show you a water wheel," said mr. peek. "and it'd have been runnin' yet, but--" not finishing this sentence, the possible conclusion of which the boys could easily guess, the old gentleman after a little hesitation continued: "i can't get around like i used to and not as much as i ought to. i ain't been in the mill for nigh onto two years." billy halted the car before the weather-worn buildings. he glanced toward paul as if he felt some misgiving in entering the ruins of the once busy place in company with the ruin of him whose wrecked hopes were responsible for all the gloom and decay in this otherwise charming valley. but if jones was in any degree apprehensive, he did not show it. truly, too, it was interesting and surely there was nothing to fear, unless it were from loose or rotting boards beneath their feet. mr. peek explained briefly the operation of the long-silent water wheel. there was a choke in his voice, and in one way the lads felt relief when they all were in the outer air again. "it wa'n't a right convenient place to have a mill, but we had to take our work to where our power was. couldn't hitch power up an' make it carry us anywhere, in my time, as you do with your automobile," observed mr. peek. paul said he would like to take a walk around the old pond. billy said, "yes, let's do it, if mr. peek doesn't care." "just do whatever pleases ye," said the old gentleman kindly. "i'll sit here on the old platform a spell." so he seated himself at the entrance where, in the long ago, grain for the mill was unloaded and the two boys sauntered along the one-time race. they strolled partly around the pond, speaking of the chances of good fishing and the probable depth of the water, and wondering that the ancient dam had not given way long ago. they drew near and walked alongside of the icehouse between the building and the water. they saw the black, decaying sawdust oozing from cracks where the siding had decayed. they passed around to the east side where were the great doors, still hanging loosely on rusty hinges. the lowest one was but a few feet above the ground. it was unlatched and stood ajar an inch or two. "let's look in," billy suggested. a runway of heavy planks, seamy and gray, built wide enough to have driven a team of horses upon, led up to the lowest door. the two boys walked easily up the incline. they drew the great door open a foot or two. the place seemed very dark after the bright sunlight without. the dead, heavy odor of the sawdust slowly being consumed by damp rot below and by dry rot higher up, was strong to their nostrils. "if there's such a thing as spooks, they'd like to live here, i'll bet," said paul jones. the dense gloom within was slowly giving way to a heavy, blue-black light as the boys' eyes became accustomed to the dark interior. they saw that the sawdust filled the lower part of the building up to within a few inches of the incline they stood upon, so they stepped down upon it, and to give more light as they casually looked about, paul pushed the great door wide open. and there before the astonished eyes of the two young gentlemen stood an automobile--the big six of the auto boys, apparently sound and whole. "rah! rah! rah! rah!" screamed paul jones in the most extravagant delight imaginable. "what d'ye _know_ about it? what d'ye know about it? what d'ye know about it?" he cried, adding emphasis each time. but if mr. billy worth was answering the question, his manner of imparting information was somewhat strange, to say the least. for after his first astonished, "what in the world!" he simply seized a rear fender, as if the car might take fright and escape immediately, and there he stood, saying: "oh, my! i'm so glad! oh, i am thankful for this day!" for while paul's emotion found vent in an ecstacy of joy billy, really more deeply moved, scarcely knew what he did or said. the prayer of thanksgiving in his heart was very earnest and sincere--so much of both that words entirely failed to give his feelings expression. the first sharp edge of their surprise, excitement and delight was gone in a minute or two and the boys began a rapid inspection of the six and its contents. even as they did so mr. peek, attracted by paul's delighted yells, came slowly up the incline. his surprise was very manifest, though of a decidedly less demonstrative character than paul's, for instance. while worth and jones inspected the car, mr. peek was making a study of the manner in which the machine had been gotten down from the road and into the icehouse. "except for being so muddy inside as well as outside, she's just as we left her," announced billy worth presently. at the same instant paul, who had been looking at the engine, switched on the spark, touched the starter, and lo! the motor hummed as sweetly and powerfully as anyone could possibly desire. "but how in time did they put it in here and who in thunder done it?"--jones was apt to lose accuracy and gain a certain inelegance in his speech as his force of expression increased. as if answering paul's question, mr. peek called from outside: "sure enough, they knew the place!" and he pointed out to the two boys as they ran out to him how the automobile had been brought down the steep bank from the road above by means of heavy planks. there were four of the thick, unplaned boards. "how'd they ever get here, do you suppose?" asked mr. peek. "for more'n twenty year, i tell ye, them plank has laid in a pile way over on yon side of the hill. somebody must 'a' knowed where to lay hands on 'em." "do you mean that somebody must have expected to steal our car and brought the boards to be ready?" asked billy. "not exactly that," said mr. peek, "but them plank was carried way down here for the purpose. no stranger would 'a' known where to look for 'em." instantly billy remembered that alfred earnest and alex hipp were familiar with all this neighborhood. he started to speak but a quick second thought bade him refrain. "gosh! we've got the car and we're mighty glad of the planks to help her up to the road again!" cried paul. he did not grasp the significance of mr. peek's words as billy did. "we're going to take her right to griffin, ain't we? we'll telegraph phil and dave in a hurry if we can only find where they're at." it was agreed that the big six should be gotten out of the old icehouse and in readiness to go to griffin, even before mr. peek had been taken home. the old gentleman was eager to help, but his services were hardly needed. with the same heavy boards the thieves had used, a runway was made out from the sawdust to the outside incline. carefully the machine was backed up. all went well and in three minutes the mud-stained but still handsome automobile stood in the sunshine again. by a similar process the planks bridged the way up the steep embankment of the road, running directly over the low rail fence. the ascent was steep but with a quick start billy made the upward run nicely. the machine's long body swung prettily around at the top, once more on the open highway. finding his services were of no value in the moving of the car, mr. peek had been making further search inside and outside the icehouse. now billy and paul joined him. but all their eager scrutiny was without reward. no sign was discovered which might show who had stolen the big six or what the purpose of the thieves may have been in concealing the car where it was found. "this little trip has done me a world of good. i do believe i could be right spry again if i had some spry young fellows to help me get started, as you have done," said mr. peek. the boys were just leaving him at his home. "it's a pretty mysterious business about them planks," he remarked a moment later. "don't you let that automobile out o' your hands again." there was little danger that the boys would do so, it is needless to say. paul had driven the large car right behind billy and mr. peek in the torpedo, and similarly, each driving a machine, they returned triumphantly to griffin and to willie creek's garage. to say that mr. creek was surprised would be but a part of the truth. he was literally dumfounded. the story of where and how the stolen car was found seemed to surprise him still more. "better hike over to the american pretty quick," said he a little later. "there's a telegram for you." so did billy and paul receive the message from phil and dave. "who cares for that torpedo thing? we've got the _six_," said jones, reading the telegram over worth's shoulder. "we'll wire 'em! wow! but won't they be some surprised?" billy returned. and forthwith the two rushed to the telegraph office. "we have found her. pretty muddy inside but not hurt." and such was the message received by way and maclester in syracuse. chapter vii a swift ride through the darkness with what glorious good feeling paul and billy sat down to their late dinner at the american house! paul was a little ashamed of the slighting remarks he had lately made about the hotel fare. he said as much. "gee! i should think you would be, to see you diving into it all right now!" billy laughed. ah, what a difference in _his_ spirits, also, the recovery of the car had made! it seems strange to me that, considering the imperative nature of the telegram from phil and dave, worth and jones were not more deeply impressed by it. no doubt the finding of their own car had made them quite indifferent to all else. at any rate, they hardly more than mentioned the message from syracuse, when they met mr. creek at his garage in the afternoon. thither they had gone, eager to give the six such a gentle but thorough washing and oiling, and the brass such a complete polishing, as they felt no one else to be capable of doing. the work progressed most favorably. by supper time the beloved machine stood dry, clean and shining. a truly beautiful car, it never looked more lovely to paul and to billy than at this moment, with the sinking sun lighting up its radiance through the big front window of creek's garage. the torpedo, though a first-class car, appeared dingy and commonplace beside it. after bathing and dressing in clean, dry clothes, following their labors, the two boys were passing through the hotel office toward the dining-room. mr. wagg stopped them. "'nother telegram," said he, peering over his glasses, as usual. "you two are getting to be about the most important citizens of this village." eagerly the yellow envelope was opened. "yours received. hurrah. meet us with car eleven o'clock train. phil." "hully gee! i'll bet _they're_ glad!" chirped paul. but had he known all that dave and phil now knew, he would have been even more elated and excited than he was. after supper the boys stepped around to the garage. willie creek had just left in his own car for port greeley, said his boy of all work, half asleep on the cot in the office. "somebody telephoned him he could sell a car, if he could get over there and give a demonstration right off," the lad explained. "he won't be home till toward mornin', maybe." "we were only going for a ride, anyway," said billy. the facts were that he and paul had decided to drive out to see alfred earnest and his friend hipp. they believed they could tell from the manner of these young gentlemen whether they had not known all along where the six was hidden. "for an entire stranger would never have found those planks _away over beyond that hill_," declared worth with confident emphasis. if earnest or hipp had had any knowledge of the stealing of the auto boys' car, however, they concealed the fact amazingly well. they appeared most hearty in their congratulations upon the machine's recovery, as billy and paul told the story to them and to rev. and mrs. earnest at the latter's home. later the cordial young minister and his wife were taken for a ten-mile spin. then mrs. earnest insisted that all the boys come in for a little lunch. worth and jones had abundant time at their disposal as they must remain up to meet phil and dave, and cordially accepted the invitation. it was just after ten o'clock when they at last drove back to griffin and to the american house, there to wait until train time. "hello, here! fobes has been looking for you boys high and low!" said mr. wagg, severely, hastening out to meet them. "that man he has had in the lockup has escaped. sawed the bars of a cell and went out through a corridor window. it is bad luck, i'm afraid. fobes says the man made an offer to tell you where your car was if you'd pass some saws in to him." "but i never _did_ it!" cried billy worth, indignantly. quickly he had seen the likelihood that suspicion might point toward him in the remarkable coincidence that, directly the stolen car was found, coster had been enabled to break jail. the hotel telephone rang long and loudly. the very tone of haste and impatience was in its harsh clang and clamor. "well!" shouted mr. wagg, answering, and his voice was neither soft nor pleasant. then in milder tones, "you're wanted, worth." billy stepped to the phone. "no, certainly not," paul heard him say. and then, "it can't be!" a pause, then further, "oh, that's awful! we'll be over there right off!" with frightened, staring eyes worth turned to paul. "the torpedo is gone," he said. grievous anxiety and alarm filled the hearts of the two boys. quickly they drove the six to creek's garage. chief fobes and the youth who assisted in the establishment both ran out as the car stopped at the door. it had been long since anyone had seen mr. fobes so wide awake, and so keen to do his duty as he was now. he was frightened, too, lest his prisoner's escape might cost him his position. and he was so perplexed and so confused by his excitement that, as he mentioned suspiciously the circumstance that coster "got his saws and you fellows got your car," worth really feared the officer would be for clapping him into jail immediately. the torpedo was as completely missing as if it had never been. creek's boy had not the shadow of an idea concerning the machine. he knew only that he fell asleep in the office and was awakened by someone who wanted gasoline. not until this customer was gone did he discover the absence of the torpedo. he at once telephoned to the hotel, thinking worth or jones had taken the car out, perhaps. "don't let torpedo leave creek's garage for any purpose." this sentence in phil's telegram rang in billy's ears. what did it all mean? he looked at his watch. ten-forty. way and maclester would arrive at eleven, he thought. then, "have you telephoned port greeley and other places to be on the lookout for coster and the car?" the question was addressed to fobes, pacing excitedly about, accomplishing nothing. no, he had had no time, the policeman answered. coster's escape was not discovered until long after nine. there had been scarcely a chance to turn around before the theft of the torpedo was also reported. "you better be telephoning, perhaps," worth suggested. "we will meet that eleven o'clock train and, with the car to go in, maybe we can all help you some." * * * * * phil way's eyes glistened and he smiled with a delight so inexpressible he made no effort to put his thoughts into words. he had just read the telegram from billy and paul, handed him at the syracuse automobile club's downtown quarters. "can it be true?" asked dave in wonder. "why don't they--where was the car and--" "course it's true!" cried phil joyously. "but i do think they might have spent four or six cents more to tell us something about it. they kept right down to ten words all right!" maclester was for starting to griffin at once. "but we can't," way remonstrated. "we've got to stay by mr. rack and don't you remember--half that reward?" however, the two boys did hurry away immediately to mr. bob rack's office. he was out. the stenographer said he would return soon and the lads waited. detective rack appeared greatly pleased with the telegram from billy and paul. "a little more information might have helped us; still, perhaps, we do not need it," said he. "we will all go to griffin this evening. would you wire your friends there to meet us at--" he paused and glanced into a book of time-tables--"to meet us at the train due there at eleven o'clock?" with so much to occupy their thoughts and tongues, dave and phil found train time and their meeting with the detective at the station at hand without one dull minute having passed. and though they had discussed the evident ability and the possible plans of robert rack from all angles, they were no nearer a conclusion as to what he meant to do than they were to guessing how jones and worth had recovered the big six--a question they were pleasantly impatient to have answered. not by word or look did bob rack reveal one whit of what he had found during the day to the pair of his youthful admirers, who had a seat opposite him, while the train bore rapidly on toward griffin. when he talked about the case at all it was only to ask a few questions--some of them far removed from the problem in hand, the boys thought. for instance when he desired to know whether there was plenty of lighting gas in the tank of the torpedo, both were puzzled, though they answered that there was. "we were extremely fortunate in getting away to-night. every hour counts now," said mr. rack, "but as i have some papers to look over i'll get at them." swiftly through the summer night the train sped on. the detective seemed to be occupied with nothing more important than some road maps, but his companions did not venture to interrupt him and in their own conversation spoke in low tones. the distance seemed very great, somehow, to the impatient boys. but at last---"here we are!" said robert rack, even before phil or dave were aware of it, and a moment later the lights of griffin came into view. i shall not undertake to tell in detail of the conflicting emotions with which billy and paul greeted their friends and with which they all, mr. rack included, gathered beside the big six while worth quickly told of the escape of coster and the torpedo's disappearance. "a little faster than i expected," mused the detective, in that same easy, gentle tone. apparently _he_ was no more disturbed than if billy had said it looked like rain, which, in fact, was the case. "but this man in jail--_we_ didn't tell you anything about him, mr. rack. we didn't know it ourselves," phil spoke up anxiously. for it will be remembered that chief fobes' prisoner had not appeared in the situation at all at the time way and maclester left griffin. "or did you know without our _telling_ you?" phil added, his own mind in a whirl of confused thoughts. "oh, i have not been idle to-day," smiled detective bob. then more seriously, but still in his affable, pleasing way, quite as though he were planning a little outing, he continued, "now i'll need some help. the best driver take the wheel. i'll sit beside him. the rest of you ride behind and if i may ask so much, no one will leave the car except as i may request it." immediately phil nodded to dave to take the driver's place. in an instant bob rack was in the seat beside him, the others in the tonneau. "just as fast as is consistent with a reasonable degree of safety now," mr. rack said, placidly. "first, to creek's garage." the big six moved swiftly away, throwing always a flood of light ahead, its gleaming oil lamps seeming to be but a streak of white to those who watched it pass. in a minute's time the detective apparently had seen all he wished to see at the small garage. while he looked the place over way, at his request, was locating chief fobes by phone. the policeman came from the hotel on the run when told that mr. bob rack wanted him. for perhaps five minutes he and the detective talked in willie creek's office. "that fellow coster got out about nine o'clock. he must have got off with the torpedo about half-past nine. about a two hours' start of us," said billy worth to his friends in the tonneau. there was no doubt in his mind, whatever, that the jail-bird had flown in the stolen machine. "funny that the only thing mr. rack 'specially noticed in all we could tell him, bill, was about the planks that had been carried from over the hill to run the six down the bank on," observed paul jones, thoughtfully. "looks a lot like hipp and earnest, so far as the hiding of our car goes, mack," billy added to paul's idea, for dave was an interested listener. "in with you! speed now, david, if there's such a thing!" this from detective bob, the first words to phil standing beside the car, the second order to maclester at the wheel. and as the six instantly responded,--"out to the right-hand fork, and not a minute to lose!" he said. there was unmistakable authority and command in his manner. one could have thought of nothing but instant obedience. yet from his smile and gentle tone it seemed that he might have said, "i declare, it's a very pleasant evening." their hearts beating hard with the excitement of adventure and the rapid ride, the auto boys vainly speculated, each in his own thoughts, upon the unknown plans and intentions of the detective. "turn right! we're doing famously, but--" without a sign of question, or any movement save a quick, short nod to say that he heard, maclester obeyed bob rack's order. like a flying specter, the big six shot down the little grade where the lonely right fork branched off, and on and on. not a word was spoken. scurrying masses of cloud swept the sky above and only at intervals did rifts appear where the moon shone through, relieving for the moment the heavy darkness. over to the south and back to the west the inky clouds were rolling up like wind-tossed mountains. flashes of lightning came more and more often, and after each the thunder crashed or rumbled in the distance. the lonely woodlands, and the wildness of the unused, brush-grown fields were almost terrifying as each sharp and sudden glare fell for an instant on them. all within a second the flying car drew near and passed the darker shadows that marked the miller's grim old house, the mill, the pond, the icehouse. over the bridge and up the grade--a stretch of level road, then down the slope to the swampy spot where the six was ditched that other time, then up again and on! "stop here, david." always that same easy, gentle tone, but mack obeyed the order instantly. "you know this road. could you go forward without lights?" and without waiting for an answer, "will you put them out, way?" every light was extinguished. the car stood in total darkness, but stood for a second only. "just as quietly as you can," requested mr. rack, as maclester slipped the clutch to place again. "now," said the detective, "i am going to tell you that this may be a wild goose chase, though i think not. i don't believe any of you will need leave the car, but, phil, you take this revolver. if you hear me shout, 'close in,' come to me instantly. the rest of you stand ready for any instructions that may be necessary." almost noiselessly the big machine purred forward, more slowly now but still at good speed. in wonder and excitement the auto boys sat silent as the darkness round them. and while _they_ were at tension that strained every nerve, the calm tranquillity of mr. bob rack was, by contrast, the more amazing. "i suppose," said he, softly, quite as if he might have been gently musing before a pleasant fireplace in the quiet of home, "i suppose the truest words ever put in verse are those which say--- "'truth crushed to earth will rise again. "but error, wounded, writhes in pain "and dies amidst her worshipers.' "and there," he said as if he were but speaking to himself, "there is the whole ground work, the unfailing foundation that we must work upon, whether we are detectives or doctors or anything else. there is no such thing as successful deception. this case is an excellent illustration, and i must tell you about it later. it is an old, old error, a monstrous lie that has reached its end to-night, i firmly believe." chapter viii in most excellent good season almost as he ceased speaking the detective, peering forward, as if not quite certain of the road, it was so dark, placed a detaining hand on davy's arm. "right to one side here and stop," he said. without jar or sound, save the slight squeak of a brake, the big six came to a halt. the wonder of the auto boys was doubled, if such a thing were possible. another hundred yards would have placed them directly in front of the dwelling of mr. peek. "_he_ had nothing to do with stealing that car, or ours," paul jones could not refrain from whispering to billy, at his side. lost in his own questioning thoughts, worth did not answer. "keep right behind me, philip, the gun in your right hand and pointed to the ground." mr. rack was out of the car now, and taking phil by the sleeve as he spoke, that young gentleman also stepped softly down. "if you boys are as quiet as mice," said the detective to the others, "you will hear me call instructions, should i do so. we may be gone for some time." in silent wonder the three in the car obeyed the order so gently given, but so imperatively attuned. without misgiving, but trembling from the multitude of questions rushing to his mind, way followed mr. rack. walking upright, but without noise, the two approached the dark and lonely farmhouse. stationing way behind the trunk of an old apple tree, mr. rack left him. for a quarter of an hour he was absent. vastly to phil's surprise he came creeping on hands and knees and was fairly beside the boy ere the latter discovered him. "we are too late, or too early. it will take some time----" a terrific scream burst suddenly on the air. coming in unexpected violence, and from within the old house, the sound was terrifying beyond description. "don't forget the signal!" said robert rack calmly. "close in," phil whispered, to show he remembered, but the detective was gone. the seconds seemed like hours to philip way and no less so to the three in the car who had heard the frightful scream. suddenly there came a wild cry, like violent, threatening anger, like the howl of a wolf at bay. and then---"close in!" it was the voice of bob rack, and what a contrast with the other! it might have been a father calling a son to breakfast, so cool, collected, calm it was. instantly way rushed forward through the dark. _close in!_ yes, but where? how? soon he found himself groping for the door at the side porch. a feeble light shone from the kitchen. with a crash the door was suddenly flung open. a heavy figure leaped forth. phil threw himself forward, arms outstretched, just as many a time he had tackled on the gridiron, and the heavy body went tumbling to the ground beside the doorstep, way with it, but keeping the uppermost position. "nicely done, philip, nicely!" no disturbed note, no ruffled sound, no excitement whatever,--just bob rack saying a word or two in his calm and tranquil way, both then and an instant later: "sit up, adam! let him rise, phil. i think we were here just in good season. you see how mr. peek is, phil,--back there in the front room. you'll find another lamp in the kitchen, no doubt." nothing surprised phil more, perhaps, than the effect of the detective's low and even tones upon himself. though panting for breath, after the recent struggle and his exertion, he noticed that he experienced no sense of fear or apprehension. he found a lamp on a low mantel and lighted it. as he went toward the room adjoining, he heard mr. rack call cheerily, "light up the car, boys! drive up to the yard here, if you will." the scene phil discovered in the front room would have been horrifying but for the calm upon him, to which allusion has just been made. mr. peek, dressed as if for work, sat on the edge of the bed, his face covered by his hands while blood stained his fingers and dripped, like the dropping of water, upon the oil-cloth covering the floor. hastily way helped the old man to rise. he wanted the outer air he said--his chair near the kitchen door. the lad led him as he wished, then brought water and a towel. helping himself, then, mr. peek bathed an ugly wound above and to the left of his left eyebrow. a revolver in his hand, mr. rack sat on the lower steps of the porch. his prisoner sat on the ground before him and the detective had taken the precaution of slipping handcuffs upon him. billy, paul and dave had now arrived upon the scene, but not one ventured a word. "are you able to ride to town, mr. peek?" asked mr. rack. "you'll be so much better there than here." but no, the old gentleman would not go. he was not much hurt, he said, and would feel perfectly safe to remain alone. "safer than i have really been for many a day, i don't doubt," he added. "but if he had struck the temple, as he surely tried to, he would have killed me," shuddered the aged farmer. "lord, i have suffered as i have deserved!" the latter words were low, as if spoken in prayer. then quite aloud again, "take him with you. you might drop in to-morrow. maybe my boys will be out this way." the latter words were accompanied by a smile. "you and your automobile did good work to-night, boys! however you happened along, i can't think! and this gentleman with you?" "it's quite a story, mr. peek. i'll tell you all about it when you've rested some," said way, holding a lamp, while billy tied a soft, clean handkerchief over the wound. worth was gentle and clever as a woman at such things. "thunder and lightning! it's _pickem!_ i thought----" paul's violent exclamation caused all the boys to look at once to the man on the ground. the dull glow of the lamp had suddenly fallen upon the fellow's face. "so did i! i thought----" "that it was coster," broke in bob rack gently. "but it is neither he nor any other than mr. adam w. kull, of harkville, new york." "by thunder! _we_ called him pickem!" cried paul, in amazement. "how did _he_ get here?" "i think he ran out in his torpedo. the car stands by the roadside, just above," said mr. rack, pleasantly. chapter ix the detective's strange story detective bob rack and his prisoner, with phil to drive, went to griffin in the torpedo while paul, billy, dave and mr. peek rode in the six. for mr. rack would hardly consent to the old gentleman spending the remainder of the night alone. so, in due time, was he given a room at the american house. mr. pickem, otherwise smith, otherwise kull, was assigned to very narrow and also strong, quarters in the village prison with chief fobes personally mounting guard over both him and coster. two big revolvers the officer had and there was no sign of sleep in his usually languid eyes. the capture of the chief's prisoner was, vastly to his satisfaction, effected by himself and the village night watchman. on the advice of bob rack they had watched the railroad yards closely. coster was seized just as he darted from some hiding-place and tried to board an out-bound freight. deeply interested in the exciting occurrences of the evening, landlord wagg had not gone to bed, as proved quite fortunate for the auto boys and the detective. when mr. peek had been given every attention, he announced that a little supper for five was ready to serve whenever wanted. "i rarely venture an opinion without having facts to support it," said mr. rack, smiling, "but on this occasion i will say that i think all of us are ready to show our appreciation of such an invitation in a very thorough manner, provided you will join us, mr. wagg. also i've promised the boys a little history of the case that brought us together. perhaps you may be interested." a large part of the story told by mr. bob rack as the party sat long over a supper of cold meats, bread and butter, coffee and fruit, is familiar to the reader. without quoting his language then,--and the pleasing modulations of his voice could not be shown in print, in any event,--the narrative was substantially as follows: when the theft of adam kull's car, at harkville, was reported to the authorities two months earlier, mr. rack had been asked by the insurance company, in which a policy covering theft was held, to assist in the search. not a trace of the car was found. there seemed to be no clue to go upon. an odd circumstance which, though it apparently had no connection with the case, yet which mr. rack was unwilling to dismiss wholly from his mind, was the fact that a few days earlier mr. kull had purchased from a neighbor and shipped to a middle western city a fine scotch collie. the dog was greatly attached to the automobile, and had sometimes been allowed to ride. this simple fact in itself was not important; but the purchase of the dog, apparently for the mere purpose of giving the animal away, was not in keeping with mr. kull's usual disposition. from so trifling a cause for suspicion the detective was unwilling to make even a hint as to what was in his mind. all he could do, and the thing he did do, was to place a watch upon adam kull while secretly he made a thorough search of the man's record. among other things it was found that, as a young man, kull had been a party to a transaction by which he and his mother obtained a strange hold upon a wealthy farmer near griffin, henry peek by name. the woman married mr. peek but they soon separated. to be free of the woman and her son, mr. peek had entered into a written contract involving the payment of a large sum of money at once, and the further stipulation that, should the wife survive the husband, she should receive the entire peek estate. if, on the other hand, mr. peek survived his one-time wife, the estate should ultimately go to his heirs alone, and no heir of hers should be considered as having any claim whatever upon the property. the bargain seemed a very good one for the woman as she was much younger than mr. peek. years passed. mrs. peek, who had resumed her former name, kull, lived with her only son and they had eventually settled in harkville. here the man was engaged in real estate, a number of shady deals being credited to him in that connection. within a few months of the present time, the mother, though but little past middle age, had been stricken by an incurable disease. the son could not have failed to remember that, unless she survived his former step-father, the rich peek estate would not descend to him. matters were at this pass when detective rack obtained his first extended knowledge of kull, following his investigation of the disappearance of the automobile the latter had owned. several weeks slipped by and, as the man under scrutiny had made no movement which would in any way strengthen suspicion against him, the watching of his going and his coming was relaxed. one day, nearly two months after the theft of kull's car, a strange man called on the real estate dealer, later left his office, and was not seen afterward. mr. rack's men discovered the fellow to be a worthless, discharged employe of a motor concern in rochester. his name was coster. it was but a day or two later that kull suddenly left home. later it was learned he was in griffin, registered at the american hotel under an assumed name. "and it was at that time, undoubtedly," said mr. rack, "that, having taken the torpedo from wherever it was concealed, coster was on the way west with it. kull was in griffin to meet him. he visited the old farm where he had once lived for a short time. he carried the planks over the hill to the icehouse, that his friend might readily run the torpedo down the embankment and so into that building. there are some links missing as to this assertion but it will be found substantially correct when the details are known. for it was certainly the intention that the torpedo should be placed in this new and more distant hiding-place. kull had purchased a supply of fielderson's automobile and carriage paint. he mentioned to a clerk in the store that he was going to use the material on an old surrey he had. he owned no such vehicle. hence my conclusion, at this time, that the paint was to be used in a further concealment of the identity of the torpedo. "again i heard from harkville that kull, after a brief stay at home, following his having been in griffin, was once more out of town. i was busy with other matters and did not immediately take up the threads of the case again. i was about to do so yesterday," and here mr. rack smiled toward mr. wagg, who sat with eyes and mouth open, his glasses perched on the very top of his bald head,--"when mr. phil and mr. david, here, came in upon me, introduced by one of our best young lawyers. they were in possession of so much information that, dovetailing their statements with my own previous knowledge, i had a fairly perfect fabric of fact. from this it was simply a little study to deduce practically certain probabilities. however, i spent a few hours piecing out and verifying my threads of information. i found that kull's poor mother could probably live but a few days or weeks, at most. i found a man named coster had been locked up for intoxication here in griffin, that he was first seen in town on saturday and his clothing was splashed with mud. friday was a rainy day, you will remember. by the merest chance my harkville representative also learned yesterday that kull had purchased some saws for cutting steel before leaving town on tuesday. he had bought a ticket for batavia, but that was no certain sign that he would not stop off in griffin. "to see through the man's entire plan now is, of course, like reading it in print. all that we do not know is just how coster happened to lose the torpedo, then pick up the car of our friends here, which certainly he did. that we will learn later. the point i would bring to your notice now is that kull, whatever his first plan may have been, changed somewhat his course of action as he found circumstances favoring him. he had learned of coster reaching griffin in an intoxicated condition and being locked up. he enabled him to escape by passing saws in to him by means of a long stick put between the bars of the rear corridor window, which was open. this he did last night, mr. fobes believes, and he probably is correct. "it is an interesting fact, but not a strange one, for usually it is the small thing that trips the criminal up,--an interesting fact, observe, that the dog kull had been at such pains to be rid of in harkville, lest it innocently betray the spot where his car had been concealed, had appeared here in griffin to trouble him. to regain possession of the torpedo (after having failed to get it placed in a barn where he could more easily get at it) kull found it necessary to kill the scotch collie. this he did on sunday night. it was also desirable that mr. creek be placed beyond power to hinder. an anonymous telephone call from port greeley, summoning him there, did the work nicely. "now we come to the circumstance that kull believed so especially favored him--coster breaking jail, the torpedo disappearing, poor old mr. peek assaulted and killed--all this in one night. where would suspicion naturally point? to coster, certainly." mr. rack smiled and paused. "wonderful!" exclaimed mr. wagg. "not at all. the boys deserve more credit than i. and we found so much additional information the moment we reached griffin to-night, that the veriest novice could hardly go wrong. billy had coster's measure from boots up. fobes knew nothing except that he was able to tell me that creek telephoned to him from port greeley, stating that there was deception in his being summoned to that town, and asking him to watch the garage, which, by the way, he did not do. the time was short and the only particle of credit we deserve is for having moved at once and quickly. "the time was short for kull to act if he was to take advantage of favoring circumstances,--that is apparent now and it was before. it required no great mental power to see that at a glance. where kull would be found was thus easily determined. and, fortunately, we arrived in time. on my first survey of the peek place i found nothing but the torpedo, partially concealed behind some trees by the roadside and every light extinguished. kull could not be far away but i hesitated lest it should prove that, having not yet entered the house, he should discover that he was watched. the facts were, he was in the house when we reached the place. he was waiting to be sure his victim slept. i flashed a light upon him as he was in the act of striking his first blow and possibly that was why he struck to one side of the temple and only a flesh wound resulted. i seized his arms but he escaped me. i fear i might have been obliged to shoot to frighten him, if nothing more, but for phil's very able and timely help." "but what is _your_ idea as to the reason this fellow coster left one car in the road and hid another in the icehouse in place of it?" mr. wagg inquired. "one of two things--coster left the car to look about the peek place, either knowing or suspecting kull's ultimate plan of making away with the old gentleman, and in his absence the machine was in some manner started forward. or, and i think more probably, coster was drunk and fell from the torpedo as he saw another car approaching on that unfrequented road where he did not expect to see, and had no wish to see, any other traveler. and now, perhaps, we would better bid one another goodnight," mr. rack concluded. "might as well make it good-morning," grinned paul jones, stepping to a window, "it's nearly daylight." the following day coster made a complete confession to mr. rack. the latter's idea of the entire plans of kull were substantially correct. about the abandonment of the torpedo, coster said he had been drinking a great deal and, contrary to his usual experience, the more he drank the more he feared for his own safety in the car he knew police and detectives had made prolonged search to find. seeing a large, six-cylinder machine come rapidly over a hill toward him, and on that lonely road where he had been assured he would see no one whomsoever, he suddenly lost his head. he leaped headlong from the torpedo into the bushes at the roadside. later he had crept forward and, from the hillside, watched all that the auto boys did until they went away in the empty car. then he put their machine in the icehouse, guided no doubt by the drunken notion that he was very considerably the gainer. but instead of sobering up and meeting kull at the american house, as had been agreed he should do, he spent the night in a barn and proceeded to get drunk again the moment he reached the town in the morning. "it appears," said bob rack, telling the boys, chief fobes (who was still in a perfect fever of wonder and excitement) and willie creek the substance of coster's confession, the day following kull's capture,--"it appears that our harkville friend concealed his car several days before he pried the padlock off his garage and reported the machine to have been stolen. he had hidden the machine in an unused garage attached to a summer hotel a few miles from the town. coster obtained it there. knowing the case as i do now, i would venture to believe that it was the apparent success of his first crime, in defrauding the insurance people, that nerved kull to carry out his plan further, and so led to the attempt on the life of old mr. peek. his plans were clever, after a crude fashion, but he made the mistake every criminal makes sooner or later, in the belief he apparently entertained that deception could be covered up. in the long run there is no such thing. even coster may be truthful when he declares he did not know kull had defrauded the insurance company." chapter x eastward ho! after all this had come to pass, the auto boys found that if they so desired there was nothing to hinder carrying out in full all that they had purposed to do when the original plan of their eastern vacation tour had been so amply discussed by the snug fire in dr. way's library. "i propose that we go ahead with the old program," said p. jones, esq., as he occasionally dubbed himself. "we've got back our big six. she's all right. nearly all our luggage and other outfitting stuff is all right. as for gasoline, grub and so on--what's the odds? we're not broke yet." "guess you're right, jonesy," put in worth. "for once in your life, you've about stated the case correctly." "if the luck keeps up, all right." this from dave, who could not let go all his mental bearings without some pessimistic afterthoughts. "but who's to say it will hold out? one thing i rather insist on, phil, since you make a sort of bluff at being our leader. let's stick to the guide book route, whether we go through albany to boston or whether we short-cut through the catskills and down the hudson to new york. that's my opinion." they argued it out that last night at griffin, which they were to leave in the morning for the east. "somehow i'd like to see new york more'n boston, i think," remarked way. "it would shorten the time of our vacation, and give us more time for side trips, say to niagara falls or, if we went down the hudson, to west point." "geewhillikins! stop it, phil!" cried paul, making a grimace. "i tell you what, boys! after all our troubles we're going to take in the real country from here on. if i don't see the falls, 'twill be because you vote against the big six going there." "and west point!" this from maclester, no longer gloomy-viewed. "i've wanted to see that place ever so long." "tell you what we can do," chimed in billy, who had been listening intently. "let's have a sort of elastic program, a go-as-you-please route, governed each day by taking a vote as to how we'll go from then on, subject always to approval of a majority of the voters." "will that do?" queried phil humorously. "there are only four votes. suppose it's a tie, what then?" "aw, phil!" from the irrepressible paul. "if it comes to a tie, we'll keep talking and voting until it's unanimous or three to one. i guess we've all got some horse sense!" without too much stickling for unanimity, it was finally agreed that while the general plan of the eastern trip should remain the same, whenever advisable there would also be discussions of the next move which would require at least a three-to-one vote in order to decide. "we may all be fools some of the time," voiced dave sagely, paraphrasing lincoln's noteworthy pronouncement, "but we won't all of us be fools all the time." this while shaking his head dubiously at jones, esq., who sniffed scornfully. accordingly, the following morning when the big six left griffin its course was eastward over the big highway prescribed in the guide book. phil, dave and paul took turns at the wheel, and when night was again upon them they were nearing a small town where, according to the guide book, one might turn to the left and before the day was over be fairly within an hour or so of niagara falls. they put up at a modest hotel, stored the auto in a convenient garage, took supper and, after a short stroll along an uninteresting main street, retired for the night to a large bedroom with two double beds. some debate ensued as to whether they should turn off and visit the big falls, during which worth dropped off asleep while maclester nearly jerked his head loose as he nodded from the depths of an ancient armchair. "aw, what's the use?" grumbled paul. "_they_ don't care _where_ we go!" he pointed at billy snug in bed, while dave nodded the sleeper's approval of whatever course might be taken on the morrow. "they don't care, i say." "well, what do you say, paul?" phil regarded the boy quizzically. "have you ever seen the falls?" "no, nor i don't care if i _never_ see 'em. nothing but a roar of water and a cloud of wet spray if you go near 'em below." paul's grammar was humorously absurd at times. "how do you know, if you've never been there?" "haven't i read and heard about 'em ever since i was knee high to a duck?" "well then, let's vote. you wake billy up." while paul was shaking and struggling with worth, now angry over being thus disturbed, phil gently tweaked dave's nose until he staggered to his feet, making half-blind passes at his disturber as he mumbled: "g'way, you! i--i'll punch your head, you--you--you--" and that was as far as he ever got. "we're voting to know if we go to the falls or keep straight on," urged phil loudly. "what is it to be?" paul just then relinquishing his clutch on billy's nightshirt, the latter flopped back on his pillow, jerked the quilt over his head and was buried to the outer world. phil pinched dave's ear until the nodding one hauled back and struck out feebly, hitting nothing and throwing himself back into the big chair's embracing arms. this being the dumb reply of both, phil grinned at paul as he half whispered: "what do you vote, paul? is it straight on, leaving the falls for another time?" "bet your life--that's me! say, phil, i'll tell you what i'd really like to do." as he said this paul drew from his pocket a crumpled, soiled bit of paper. "here's something i got hold of at griffin." "right here's where we turn off to the right, according to this paper. got it from fobes. the chief said he took it from coster, who was tearing mad because fobes got it away from him. somewhere beyond here--don't say where--there's a one-horse tavern--old place, pretty well off the main track. but it's mighty nigh one of the main railroad lines." while paul was talking phil was examining the paper, growing more interested as he went on. now he looked up, saying: "it looks like a queer game. it may be worth a gambling chance." "think of the boodle! that express car was looted near there some years ago. another tramp was riding the brake beams and saw the robbers make off in the nearby woods with their boodle. papers were full of the amount taken." paul smacked his lips as if he tasted in anticipation what the money would do. "then this tramp jumped off and followed them. see? it says so here." paul pointed to a paragraph in the ragged clipping. phil, having already deciphered this, was reading further. then he said: "that tramp was blind in one eye. do you reckon he could tell and mark what those robbers did with their boodle?" "sure, if he says so. i can see most as well with my hand over one eye as with my two eyes." paul in pantomime covered one eye and winked at phil, who was obliged to laugh. "well, what does this tramp do? why, he waits round in hiding until them galoots go off after burying their loot. then he, like a fool, goes off to sleep. when he woke up his good eye pained him so that he only marked the spot as best he could and struck for the nearest house, which happened to be this old tavern." "i see," remarked phil ruminatively. "from this it appears he got better and stayed, making himself so useful, choring about, that they kept him on. of course it was the boodle that kept him at work, doubtless meaning to leave when he got better. once he sneaked over to this big hemlock and tried to dig for the money, but owing to the great rock they had piled over it, and being weak from his sickness, he had to let it go, meaning, of course, to come back when he was strong again. but he didn't get strong. his other eye became more affected and in time he went blind. after that the tavern folks sent him to the county almshouse, and there he finally died." "right-o, phil!" exclaimed paul, unable longer to keep silence. "just before he pegged out, along came this same coster's brother, also a tramp. tramp number one wouldn't tell the tavern folks because they put him in the almshouse; but he did tell tramp number two, coster's brother, just because he was a tramp like himself, i guess. coster's brother belonged somewhere around here and loafed his time away, always intending to visit the spot. but he, too, got sick and before he died passed the secret along to coster. the original thieves never came back because they were later arrested for another crime, that of killing one of themselves in a row, and the survivor or survivors were sent up for life or hanged, i reckon. anyway, they never bothered any one any more." "but this old printed paper doesn't tell exactly where the boodle was hid, except that it was close to a big hemlock and under a big rock." phil was shaking his head doubtfully. "where would that hemlock be? there are hemlocks scattered in the woods all around here." "here's something that coster gave me while he was in jail, towards the last. you see, i'd been sort of kind to him, or he took it that way. i carried him some tobacco. when he found that he was in for a serious time, he handed out to me not only this paper but a scrawl he'd made on the back of an old envelope with a bit of pencil i'd given him some days before. at the time i couldn't make much of what he was up to. but i guess his bad luck in general was too much for him. after rack landed him he seemed to give up. anyway he gave me both these," meaning the printed bit of crumpled paper and the old envelope which paul now passed to phil. "why didn't you tell us before, eh?" asked phil sharply. "aren't we all comrades together?" "yep! but i knew you'd laugh at me for being so simple as to believe anything coster said. but since we've reached this place where we are now, the thing came back to me so strong that i fished out these papers and looked 'em over again. by jimmineddy! i can't help but think there's something in all this rigmarole after all." phil, after some cogitation, gave back the papers to paul, saying: "let's sleep on it, paul. you can't get anything out of them now. in the morning we will go into it again." in the early morning billy, who had some advantage over the rest in point of sleep, was up first, and was presently whanging the others with his pillow in a way that bade little for further slumbers on their part. "g'way! get out!" cried paul, feeling less interest just then in treasure hunting than in securing a few more winks before the inevitable bell for breakfast rang forth. "remember how you acted last night when we wanted you to sit up and talk!" as for dave, the last to be thus treated by the now wakeful worth, he grunted, groaned, finally heaving his own pillow at billy who, dodging the same, renewed his offensive tactics to such effect that maclester presently sprang forth from beside the now dozing paul and grumblingly proceeded to dress. "dave," began phil, "i got something to tell you and billy that i want you to listen to until you get the thing firmly inside your thinkers. then, if you are interested, we'll wake up paul for good and you can look at what he's got to show you. he showed it to me last night, after we tried to get you two to wake up enough to get the facts fairly through your noddles." "'things' and 'noddles'!" this from billy, tossing his much abused pillow on the bed. "why don't you get busy and talk sense? what you got to show us anyhow? as for paul, he--he's a--" "he is, is he?" paul, thus exclaiming, suddenly sat up and discharged his own pillow at billy, but only managed to hit phil. "i didn't mean you, phil. i've been awake for about half a minute, and i know what you're up to, phil. go for 'em, while i dig up the documents." while phil was relating the substance of what paul told him and what the two papers revealed, maclester sniffed suspiciously and gradually assumed his customary expression when doubtful opinions were being aired, apparently for his own benefit. while phil was talking, paul had extracted the crumpled printed scrap, evidently clipped from some long forgotten town weekly, and the mysterious pencillings on the mussed envelope. one after the other dave and billy examined both the printed clipping and the soiled, misused envelope on which were sundry drawings in pencil. finally dave sniffed suspiciously. "s'pose we _do_ turn off here and do as paul wants us to? s'pose we spend a day or two enlarging our hotel bill, and don't find anything after all? besides, who would believe anything coster says? nobody"--here a skeptical look at p. jones, esq., now dressing in some haste--"nobody, i say, but him." dave jerked a finger at paul, who was pulling his shirt on over his head. "i hear you," came paul's voice, half smothered as he struggled up through the shirt and, his head popping into view, he eyed maclester in disdain. "oh, i don't know!" remarked worth, nodding at phil. "what do you think of it, boss?" meaning way. "i think just what i said to paul last night. it's a gambling chance. shall we take it? is it up to a vote?" "you bet!" shouted paul, greatly enthused. "in the first place it will be lots of fun. no one seems to know anything about this secret place of hiding or what may possibly be hidden there but us. do they now?" "n-no." this from worth, who was evidently much impressed. "we may be fooled, but who shall say that coster wasn't acting on the square? i saw paul going out of his way to make coster a mite more comfortable, especially after he was caught with the goods on him, so to speak. bad as he is, he may have had some notion of doing paul the only good turn he alone could do, by putting him wise to this thing. anyhow, it's fun and fun is one thing we're after." "well, then," remarked phil, "shall we put it to a vote?" "yep--let's vot'er now, right off the bat." so added jones, by now fairly in his trousers and reaching for his footgear. "i vote yes--yes, siree!" "so do i," said billy, glancing quizzically at dave. "me for treasure hunting! gee! wouldn't i like to feel my shovel scrape something hard, and see my hand pull out a wad of bank notes all caked with woods dirt?" "what do you say, mac?" phil was looking at maclester, who colored slightly. "i--i'll vote last. you say what you'll do, phil." "oh, well, if you want my decision, i'll say yes." phil here grinned openly at paul. "i'm fond of our youngest comrade and i want to please him whether we find anything or not." all looked at dave, who at first looked foolish, but straightway an open smile wreathed his ruddy scotch face as he said: "i'm with you, phil! paul sometimes acts the fool, but he means well all the same. here's for the treasure! if we don't get it, maybe we'll have some fun out of it after all." chapter xi passing the load of hay later that morning the big six was spinning over the road eastward from the small village where the preceding debate had occurred. before starting phil had asked their host if he knew of an old inn some miles ahead that had formerly been prosperous during the old stage-coaching days, before the advent of the railroads. the tavern keeper scratched his head as he reflected. finally he said: "can't think of nary place onless it's what they used to call the ghost tavern, but--law me! that place must 'a' rotted down before now." phil intimated that this might be what he was after, asking how far the inn with the foreboding name might be. "might be thirty mile or it might be fifty or more, i can't say. you might pass it not knowing where it is, and yet be within a few rods of where it is--or was. it's a woodsy neighborhood, and seems to me that i heard it had burned down but i won't be sure. anyhow, that's the only place i've learned of beyond here, eastward, that in the least is like what you been asking about. what might you kids be wanting such a place for? looks like i'd ruther pass it not knowing there was such a thing near as a ghost tavern." phil replied evasively, for it was decided to say nothing at present as to what the boys were up to. at least to say nothing that might make others think that anything out of the common was embodied in their present purposes. before the car started, however, the innkeeper, still scratching his grizzled head, looked up again, saying: "seems like i heard 'way back yonder that there was a tavern near where a big railroad robbery took place. but i ain't sure. old folks like me find that we forgit easier than we remember. however, i wish ye all good luck. keep your eyes open, boys, and don't go it blind--at least no blinder 'n you can help. so long!" all this strengthened their confidence in the sincerity of coster's last bequest to p. jones, esq., who plumed himself accordingly, after his customary manner. he pinched dave's arm as he said: "bet your life, dave, there was more in what coster gave me than you thought! you're driving. you watch the road. me and phil and billy will keep up a lookout that will not miss that old tavern, ghost or no ghost." "s'pose the old rookery has been burned or made way with?" dave propounded this while curving his course round a steep embankment that made the roadway barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. before paul had time to retort a rumble ahead broke in on their ears. dave instantly turned towards the bluff on his right, for the shelving embankment sloped steeply to the left. "that's right, mac!" interposed paul, his attention being thus diverted from a witticism at maclester's expense. "jam her close to the bluff and let the other fellow do the worrying." just then, round the further end of the curve came a farm wagon loaded with hay, one man driving as he sat cramped against the dashboard, while on the load behind was a boy and a girl, both somewhere along their teens in age. when the farm team saw the purring car they balked, tried to shy dangerously towards the slope, but the man behind reined them up so sharply that they were halted midway of the road and about twenty feet from the car. dave at once shut off the power and the purring ceased. "say, mister!" called the man anxiously. "how we goin' to pass ye?" "we've tried to give you all the room we could, don't you see?" this from maclester as he leaned coolly back in his seat. "you'll have to slow up, then go at a walk to the right, won't you?" "my team's sorter skeery along here. they ain't used to you autermobile fellers. whoa thar! what ye up to now?" the team was trying to shy again as they eyed the strange monster just ahead that was as terrifying to them as when some unsuspecting hunter suddenly sees just ahead of him a dangerous beast of prey. meantime phil, noting the alarm of the girl on the hay and similar symptoms in the younger boy, was taking in the possibilities of the situation. he signalled to the others to keep silent, then sprang out of the tonneau and made cautiously towards the team, speaking soothingly the while as the man held them in tightly. "let me get hold of their headstalls," he called, raising his voice slightly. "i think we can manage it. we'll pass each other all right." by cautious management, speaking calmly to the horses, phil managed at last to seize first one bridle, then the other, rubbing his hand propitiatingly over their noses, while securing a good grip on the startled animals, and began leading them to the left, towards the bluff. at the same time he called to dave, in a low but distinct tone: "loose the brake! get out, two of you, and back the car gently. keep her headed towards the middle of the road. don't release your clutch, dave." with some difficulty phil's directions were implicitly followed by the boys, all of whom had learned in the past to defer to phil's judgment when sudden decisions were required. when the big six was squarely midway of the road and pointed slightly outward towards the dangerous slope, the car was halted, and paul and billy clambered back into the machine. "now, my friend," said phil, "if i lead them, can you turn in close to the bluff, right where we were when we first saw you?" "i'll try mighty hard. whoa, jack! easy now, jill!" with way still at their heads, the wagon and its cumbrous load were safely jammed against the side of the bluff. "perhaps the young lady and the boy better get off on the upper side. we'll try to pass you, but your team may not like the situation." phil smiled. "it may cause trouble, but we will be as careful as we can." "well, boss," said the man, "you sure are good boys. my team--well, i don't know what they might have done if i'd tried to pass you on the outside." he turned back to the couple on the hay. "say, danny, you slide off and then help nan down. be keerful! remember she's your sister, and if she gets a fall you'll have to settle with me later." danny, a straw-hatted, barefooted lad with a freckled face and dangling legs, managed to slide himself down against the bluff and also managed to assist the girl in following him to a spot where they could uneasily await further developments. "better not start your car until i git by," remarked the farmer, while phil, still holding the bridles, aided the loaded wagon to slip by the red monster, now quiet enough on the dangerous side of the road. once their backs were towards the machine the team quieted down quickly enough. "let me help you down, miss," said phil, who never forgot his manners, springing back towards the young couple climbing down to the roadway. danny, like many brothers, having scrambled down unaided, went to his father's aid, though aid was now unnecessary. phil soon helped nan down, the weight of her plump young body convincing him that she must be several years older than dan. "i'm mightily obliged, sir," she lisped, with an upward glance at the boy as he landed her squarely on her feet, not bare like her brother's but clad in fairly dainty footwear. "i don't know what we'd 'a' done but for you." "pshaw, that's nothing! i'm sure glad we were on hand, miss--" he hesitated. "is there anything more we can do?" nothing, apparently; but before starting the car again, paul called out: "say, mister! how far is it to the nearest town on this road?" "ten mile, i reckon. we live three miles beyond." as the car started phil waved a hand from the auto, whereat a white handkerchief fluttered back an answering signal. dave turned back to way, saying: "blame if i don't believe you've made a regular mash on that girl--hey, paul?" paul, now at the wheel, was too busy to reply. "wonder what they were doing so far from home with a load of hay?" said dave. "it's past haying time now," was worth's comment. "must be taking it off somewhere to sell. if so, that explains why the girl was dressed so nicely." "how about the man and boy?" asked paul. "they looked like real hayseeds." "how'd you want 'em to look?" this from dave. "when you're selling hay you can't load or unload in your sunday go-to-meeting clothes." "well," remarked phil, "whoever and whatever they are, we tried to be decent to them. i reckon they're all right." "especially the girl, eh?" laughed paul. "oh, you nan! wasn't that her name, phil? you ought to know." phil passed this by without reply, as he talked about other matters. little did any of them then think that they had not seen the last of those three whom they had saved from possible accident and bodily danger by giving them the safest side of the road. from then on for half an hour the car glided smoothly through a rich farming section where the houses and barns looked prosperous and the numerous stacks of grain and hay and the sleek herds of cattle betokened that the owners or tenants were by no means on the wrong side of prosperity. then the timbered tracts increased, and a series of low, rugged hillsides opened up until at a sudden bend they saw the town whose smoke had been for some time indicative of this break in the hitherto uninterrupted rural expanse of their morning's ride. it was not a big town, being off the railroad lines, which were a mile or so to one side, but it looked prosperous and was doubtless the center of the rural trade activities for some miles around. it being now about the noon hour, the car stopped before a modest hotel for a noonday lunch. there were two larger hostelries on the main street, but from motives of prudent economy the boys preferred the less expensive taverns. "yes, we will have dinner ready in a few minutes," remarked a comfortable looking woman who seemed to be in charge of the tiny office. "make yourselves at home. why, are you lads from lannington?" this after reading the register. "that is our home town, madam," replied phil. "do you know the place?" "well, i should say i did!" the woman smiled. "i was raised there. been off here ever since i married." "lannington is where we live," remarked worth, after inscribing his name on the register with a flourish. "we're on a vacation trip, ma'am." "it might be that you knew our folks when you lived there," was dave's contributing remark, for he saw that she was reading their names and smiling more broadly than before. "why, yes, i do know some of them. i knew dr. way, and there was his friend lawyer dilworth, and the maclesters. i feel as if i knew you all right now." and she offered her plump hand, which was cordially shaken as the boys explained more about their folks, then added: "my name now is ewing. i'm known as the widow ewing round here. my husband has been dead three years or so. before that, in lannington, i was a mcknight. one of my brothers runs a garage there. know him?" "well, rather! hey, phil? we got this car mainly through his aid. mcknight & wilder--they're some punkins when it comes to automobiles!" after this all was plain sailing for the boys. mrs. ewing insisted that they should remain until the morrow. "won't cost you much. we'll cut the regular bill in half, for you're home folks, aren't you?" and it may be said that she had her way. the big six was put in the hotel garage and the boys were made comfortable in two adjoining rooms; and in the morning even phil was astonished at the exceedingly small bill which they had to pay. he could only thank the comely widow, who laughed it off with: "if you boys are simply on a vacation trip, you're bound to spend more than you think you will. i'd gladly keep you for nothing, but times are hard and i have to make some charge." cautious inquiries by phil resulted in learning that there had been, and still might be further on an old inn of the pre-railroad days. but it was off the main road, in the roughest, heaviest wooded section, somewhere about eight or ten miles off to the east. that region, it appeared, was poor, swampy, and so inferior to other land lying all about that hardly anyone lived there, even though in the midst of a thickly settled country. in the privacy of their rooms the four lads concluded that they would say nothing directly referring to the railroad robbery or the hiding of supposed treasure. they were so near the scene that any revival of that now old-time tragedy might cause annoying inquisitiveness even if nothing more resulted. after breakfast, while the boys were making a few purchases and taking on a generous supply of gasoline, they learned from mrs. ewing that "dan and nan, with their daddy, old pat feeney," had just gone by. "and who are they?" queried phil carelessly, though with a shrewd suspicion in his mind at the time. "oh, he's an irishman and lives three or four miles from here on the edge of some marshland where he pretends to farm. but i guess the most of his farming consists in cutting the marsh-grass during the summer and selling it for hay to those who don't know what good hay really is." "i guess we must have met him some ten or twelve miles back. we had quite a time passing him, for it was where the road runs along a side hill, with the bluff on one side and a steep embankment on the other. we stopped our car for his team was scared and after some delay they passed. they seemed to appreciate what we did, instead of rushing by and probably scaring the whole outfit into the ditch. the girl was rather pretty." "ah, you boys!" the widow smiled shrewdly. "always an eye out for the girls! but don't you allow yourselves to think that what a girl looks, so she always is underneath the surface." "are you coming back this way?" the widow finally asked, as the car was about to start. "if you don't stop, i--i will feel hurt. i'm homesick at times for the town where i was raised." "tell you what," said billy after the car had left the small but busy town a mile or two in their rear, "mrs. ewing treated us bang up, but she's a keen one, after all. i'm glad we saw her. it will be something to tell mcknight when we get home. do you reckon those feeneys are the ones we passed?" "what if they are or if they ain't?" demanded paul. "we won't be likely to meet 'em again, will we?" "oh, you shut up, jonesy. there's no one interested in 'em but phil, and the best way to define that is by a lesson in spelling." here billy made a comical face as he began: "n-a-n, nan. that, translated into plain lingo, means pretty girl--ouch! quit, phil!" for phil, seated in the tonneau with worth, had administered a decided pinch. on sped the big six, easily showing what she could do along an increasingly rough road that might once have been a much traveled highway but now showed ample signs of the neglect of later years. the wooded tracts increased, growing larger in area; the half cultivated fields evinced even more of the neglect and shagginess that wait on lands wholly or in part abandoned by man. sundry denizens of the woods such as rabbits, squirrels, even a stray fox, together with many birds, and upflying broods of quail, also indicated that nature was gradually replacing human inactivity in her own way. "by the way," remarked worth, "didn't that man with the hay say he lived some three miles from that town we stopped in--what's the confounded name?" "midlandville, stupid!" this from p. jones, esq., with a superior air. "that was one of the first things i heard." "coster's paper didn't mention that burg, did it?" asked dave. "reckon not. but on this envelope," here phil took out the pencilled scrap, "there's a dot with the word 'town' beside it that i take to mean the same thing. here runs the railroad, going east and west. look at this line running due southeast. somewhere along that line i figure there ought to be signs of the old tavern. i guess we've left that town at least six or eight miles behind." where they were now much of the timber appeared to be second growth, and such hemlocks as they saw were small. in a shaded spot to the right of the ill-kept highway they stopped at a small rivulet for the noonday lunch. this was eaten rather silently. in fact, so gloomy were their surroundings that after eating phil way proposed that they should divide themselves, two in each party, and explore to the north and south of the highway for a mile or so, making a detour into the forest as they went. "i'm with you," said paul briskly. "i'm getting tired of all this guessing. let's start from here, phil, and take a half circle northwest, then west, then south, crossing the highway. after another mile, we'll turn east, then northeast, then north until we strike the road again. dave, you and billy do the same thing, only turn northeast, east, then south and so on so as to bring you back to the road not far from where we all are now." but before any comment could be made on this plan there came a sudden interruption. chapter xii nan and the jersey bull there came a soft clatter of feet on the shaded greensward, and into view came the flying form of a girl, barefooted, sunbonneted, with a cheap calico gown showing a pair of graceful ankles, her touzled but abundant hair hardly half held by the pins. a second glance assured the boys that they knew that reddish coiffure, though now in disarray, and that supple form. it was undoubtedly the girl of the hay wagon, her finery laid away, and now chastely clad in the dangerously skimpy home attire, wherever that still mysterious home of hers might be. seeing the boys, their car, and the remains of the noonday meal, she paused, hesitated, then burst forward, exclaiming: "oh, oh! it's you, is it?" she gave a frightened glance behind her, and at the same time the boys thought they detected a low but growing rumble indicative of a coming bellow. "i'm so glad--ah-h! listen at him!" "what is it, miss nan?" queried phil, at once alert. "it's dad's jersey bull," she said. "he's got loose somehow." just then the rumble rose into an unmistakable bellow, and a yellowish, bovine form hove into sight from the timber, halted and stared wildly about. first he saw the boys and the barefooted girl. then, lashing his tail, he came on at a galloping run, uttering angry snorts at every step. realizing before the others that here might be actual danger, phil again rose to the emergency. he pulled out a flaming scarlet bandana handkerchief, which paul had more than once made fun of, and which phil seldom was caught using. happening to have it with him now, phil pointed at the big six standing near, bright colored and easily attractive to a mad bull. he darted toward the oncoming jersey, crying: "all of you get in the car--quick! i'll draw the bull! when he takes after me start her up! then i'll take a chance and jump in, if you'll swing round near me. hump yourselves!" dave at once saw what phil was up to. he wanted to save the car from the bull's attack, for the animal was in a mood to attack anything bright enough, gay enough. before phil had finished, dave sprang into the driver's seat, while paul and billy, both assisting the girl, jumped into the tonneau. dave released the clutch and off they went, the bull missing the rear end by hardly a yard. daunted by the fierce snorts emitted by the car the bull halted, roaring. then his eye caught the flare of a brilliant red something that phil was waving to and fro under his inflamed nostrils. the sight of scarlet always went to his bullish head, and now made him more mad. with another louder roar his bullship turned furiously on this new tormentor. for several moments it was nip and tuck between the jersey and his foe, who always was just behind that flaring expanse of scarlet. only a brief spell of such hairbreadth maneuvering was sufficient to produce shortness of breath on phil's part, at least. would that car never wheel in his direction? fearing exhaustion, but flirting the bandana behind him, phil made straight for the shady copse under which they had dined. then he vanished so quickly that mr. bull, scenting mystery, halted and lashed his flanks with his tail. dave saw the trick phil was playing. his car veered round the other side of the copse, whirling up to within ten feet of where phil stood panting, while the jersey plunged round the far side. paul flung open the door of the tonneau. "in with you, phil! lively now!" came the command. phil made the first leap, then the second. his face was red with exertion, his legs wabbly under the strain they had been under, and at the third and final plunge they threatened to give way under him. with a half cry, half scream, nan pushed herself through the door paul was holding wide open, as the car veered close under dave's dexterous hand. "ketch my hand, mister!" she cried and managed to clutch phil's fingers in a grip surprisingly strong for a girl. with his free hand paul clutched phil's other hand and the two managed to half drag, half pull phil inside, where he fell panting to the floor of the tonneau. meantime dave, far from idle, saw that phil was making the connection. he also saw that mr. bull was dangerously near making another kind of connection with the near wheel's guard with one of those sharp pointed horns. "here we go!" he shouted, and the big six made a powerful spring forward, beyond the reach of this four-footed terror that bawled, glared and snorted in a now vain pursuit. both paul and nan helped phil up and, with a gasp or two he sank back on the seat, still flourishing the kerchief. "well, what d'you think of that!" cried paul, after assuring himself that phil was all right. "did you ever see a madder bull?" meanwhile dave, taking to the road again, soon placed distance and some timber growth between themselves in the big six and the bull. "well, miss nan," said phil, who had recovered, "that was what you were scared at and i don't wonder. does he often do that way?" "not often." the girl was trying to hide her feet, somehow feeling that she was now where clothes assume greater importance than they do at home on the farm. "i was out after blueberries. sam--that's what we call him--had got out of the pasture, and when he saw me i think a bee or something had stung him. anyway, he blamed it on me. he took after me full tilt and i had to run. i don't know what i'd done but for you all." "i'm sure we were glad to be where we could help," encouraged phil, "though i feel sure i don't long for another such narrow escape. i must thank you, too, miss nan, for helping paul drag me aboard, for i was about all in." "don't you worry, nan," broke in paul, who had been taking in the girl's embarrassment. "i lived on a farm when i was smaller, and we didn't bother much about how we dressed. i'm sure you look well, no matter what clothes you wear." nan blushed while paul, feeling that he had done well, turned to dave. "where you going now, mac?" "just jogging along. but perhaps we better stop and find out what we're going to do next. what you think, phil?" "oh, there's my berry pail!" said the girl, pointing at an overturned tin bucket near the roadside. "if you will let me out i'll be going on." "do you live near? but of course you do, or you wouldn't have run across your bull. could we take you home?" this from phil. "i--i wouldn't mind," she rather hesitatingly said. "but i must get the pail." and out she jumped, running to the overturned bucket, scooping up most of the berries that had been spilled, then hurrying back, saying as she got in: "i wouldn't bother you but there's an old tumble-down house that folks say has a ghost or something near here. it used to be a tavern 'way back years ago. somehow i always dread to go near it alone, and i always go round it when i'm out after blueberries, but this road goes right near it." "why, i don't see any sign of a house round here," remarked dave. "i've stuck to this old road because i supposed it would lead somewhere." "i know," she returned. "the woods, so plentiful about here, are thicker'n ever where the ruins be. we're about two miles from my house. it's more open there; fields and so on. sam must 'a' strayed a good bit." "we'll take you home, nan," quoth paul, and billy nodded in assent. "but maybe you could tell us more about that house. when we get close, you know." here phil gave both the other boys a warning look as he inquired if they must turn round in order to go where her home lay. nan nodded, pointing eastward as she replied: "just follow the road the way i'm pointing now. i'll tell you when we get nearest to that old place. it's about two miles to our house from there." congratulating himself that they were so easily put in the way of finding what they had come so far to see, phil passed the signal round for the others to keep still and let him do the talking. by this time nan was much more at her ease with the boys. she told them of the extent of the woods and how she lived on a small farm at one edge of the great second-growth timber which was the predominating feature of this half swampy section. moreover phil, too, noted that here and there were larger hemlock trees, though none of very great size or ancient appearance. "has anyone seen the ghost lately?" queried phil. "is it a real ghost, or merely the echo of tales that have been current around here for years?" "i'm sure i don't know," said nan. "once, not long ago, father and i were riding by after dark. i'm sure i saw a kind of brightness in the thick woods where we knew that old tavern was. it was brighter, yet somehow pale; made me think of ghosts right away." "what did your father think of it?" "he never said, but when i spoke of it he drove along faster; but all he'd say was, 'shucks!' i guess he don't more'n half believe in them ghosts nohow." they laughed at this, but they noted that the timber grew thicker as the car glided at slow speed along the little used road. finally nan began pointing in a certain direction as the road curved, and a thicker growth of cedar, pine and other evergreens began not far away. "it's somewhere in there," she said. "we'll glimpse some of the roof and walls presently." sure enough, as the car hummed along, through the thick foliage they glimpsed weather beaten walls and parts of a roof covered by roughly rived boards, with gaps here and there, and all brown with age. it looked as if it might be eighty to a hundred yards back from the mere wagon trail the road had now become. "shall we stop and take a look?" asked maclester, gradually slowing up. "it's bright, noonday sunshine and if there are any haants about, i reckon now's the time of day when they take a rest." but as the car slowed down nan's alarm began to increase. phil watched her curiously. she did not look like a girl unduly afraid of ghosts, at midday especially. yet it was plain enough to see that she was vaguely uneasy. after all, why stop now? they knew where the old tavern was and could begin their investigations later. besides, they did not want outside witnesses. "better drive on, davy," said phil. "we must take miss nan home." the girl's relief was evident at once when dave increased the speed. in another minute or so the house was no longer visible. paul, looking back, said half to himself: "it's a cinch, phil! by ned! i'm going to see more of it before night, or bust a trace!" "ugh!" shuddered nan. "you can't mean that you want to go back there, do you?" "why not? we're strangers round here and when we find something curious yet unknown, that scares off the folks that have lived by it for years, it's only natural to get our curiosity up to a point that we've just _got_ to do something." the car sped on through the woods, then past open fields and soon they came up to a rather battered farmhouse with sundry outbuildings near it and stacks of hay which had been cut evidently from the neighboring marshes that jutted in and out of the timbered lands. at the gate nan sprang down, and at the same time out came the farmer, followed by the same boy they had before seen on the hay-load. being invited inside, the boys entered the sitting-room, where two other men, garbed more like town dwellers, were seated. the farmer greeted the boys warmly, recalling to them their kindly behavior along the side-hill road a day or so before. at the same time the two men got up to leave, giving the farmer a modest price for their dinners and remarking that they might be back again shortly. "keep a bright lookout, mr. feeney. no knowing what you might run up against," one said and they were gone. after this the boys had a sociable chat with feeney, who pressed them to stay all night. "shan't cost you a cent, boys, for you were good to us when jack and jill might have balked and dumped us over that bluff." "well, it is possible we may come back. but in the meantime we want to have a look round at the timber." "int'rested in timber, are ye? how'd ye come to meet up with nan?" the incidents connected with the jersey bull were briefly related, nan emphasizing how phil had risked himself in her behalf and that they had kindly brought her home. this too pleased feeney, who insisted more than before that they should stop with him while they were in the neighborhood. "this is, in the main, a thick settled country, lads," said feeney. "but right about here for a few miles there's hardly anybody but us really livin' here." "it may be that we will take up your offer," remarked phil. "but you must not let us stop here unless we pay you a fair price. if those men come back you'll hardly have room for more." "don't worry about that. we'll make room. them men, i don't know what they be up to. they won't be back from midlandville for a day or two, i guess." with no definite promise to return the boys left, going along the road they had come with nan, and on the way phil busied himself in studying the pencilled map on the old envelope which had been given to paul by coster. there was a square in the center marked "tavern," doubtless the place the boys had seen that day through the thick timber growth. a straight line ran off in one direction to a point marked on the border of the map "south," followed by the note: "from tavern half a mile." close to this was a rude skeleton, with a black spot close by marked "treasure rock." the skeleton of a tree had a huge split through the trunk, in which were the words "big split hemlock." on the opposite edge of the map marked "north" was added "to railroad, half-mile." east and west through the center, lengthwise of the envelope, ran an irregular line close by the tavern, which was indicated by the word "highway." the whole thing was simple and seemingly plain, and all they apparently had to do was to take a due south course from this building shown as the ghost tavern, for half a mile. right near where they had paused when nan was showing glimpses of the old building, they turned the car into a grove of young second-growth spruces and halted. they were now hidden from view from the road, that was clear. "can we leave this car here safely?" queried billy dubiously. "i doubt if it is safe," replied dave, naturally cautious where the big six was concerned. "billy, let's you and me flip a nickel to see who stays with the car. i ain't anxious to go that half mile; i _am_ anxious to know the car'll be here when we come back." after some discussion there was a toss up and dave won. billy looked vexed. "aw, what's the use of anyone staying?" he growled. "the car's safe enough." "what is the use of running risks?" rebuked phil. "after what we went through back at griffin we must take no more chances." worth resigned himself to the inevitable, but it was evident that he would much rather have gone with the others. as the three boys disappeared billy blinked a while, finally stretching out in the tonneau, pulling over himself paul's big rug and--though he did not mean to--he soon fell asleep. the woods were unusually quiet; no wind, much shade, with a soothing buzz and hum of insects that was in itself conducive to drowsiness. the other three, not deeming it necessary to actually visit the old tavern just then, took the compass with which paul had provided himself and struck out due south. "how will we know when we have gone half a mile?" suddenly questioned paul. "it's too thick with underbrush to pace off so many yards. say, how many yards in half a mile? anyone know?" "seventeen-sixty in a mile," said dave, drawing from his pocket one of those circular shielded tape measures. "figure it out for yourselves." "eight hundred and eighty, you gander!" this from paul, looking after phil, who had gone on ahead with the compass. "gimme hold of one end! how long is the thing, anyhow?" stretched out, it seemed that the tape was ten yards long. with paul linking a finger in the ring and dave holding the circular shield, the boys began their march after phil. paul, breaking a twig when he came to a stopping place, would forge on again with dave carefully following, keeping the line taut until paul, stumbling, jerked the reel from dave's hand and thereby created some confusion. both had been keeping count of each ten yards, but there was a difference of one length of the tape between. "aw--why didn't you hold to your end? i tell you my count is right!" "no, it ain't," was maclester's reply. "what i know, i _know!_" this difficulty finally adjusted, the pair resumed their march in phil's wake, who had taken particular pains to leave a trail of broken branches so that the rest could follow. going thus, they diligently but slowly kept on until dave suddenly looked up, shouting: "eighty-eight lengths! we're there--eight hundred and eighty yards. hullo! what's become of phil?" no phil was in sight. chapter xiii the kidnapers phil, it appeared, was the only one to think out two reasons why there was little necessity for being exact about measurements. coster had drawn his rough diagram on the envelope probably from memory. it was, according to coster, somewhere near a half mile from the tavern to the split hemlock. the main thing was to keep the proper direction, if anything like strict obedience was due to the pencilled chart. therefore he took upon himself the sole task of going south, and when he had convinced himself that he was somewhere in the neighborhood of that half mile, he began to look about for the big split hemlock. none could he then see. there were other hemlocks, but all of a younger, second-growth variety. so he ranged to and fro, but no such tree could he find. the undergrowth was not thick, yet it prevented clear vision of anything more than a few yards away. he was about to give up, feeling a first sense of coming despair, when he caught sight of a high bulge upward through the tops of some clumps of bushes. he sprang on a nearby log and his pulse thrilled a bit when he saw that what was in view was the rounded top of a big rock. impetuously he leaped on through the bushes, but when nearly there he stumbled and fell over a tree root. following the fallen trunk he noted an enormous split, extending from where the trunk divided halfway down towards the upturned root. "by hokey! can this be it?" plunging through the thick bushes, he reached the place where the branches spread out over the ground, first noticing that the withered leaves, like needles, still sharp and pointed, were undoubtedly of the hemlock variety. moreover, the big rock which had first caught his attention seemed to be about the proper distance from where the roots showed the hemlock must have stood before the storm, or whatever caused it to fall, had done its work. about this time he heard calls from his partners, for phil was yet hidden from them by intervening bushes. moreover, he was some distance away, which confirmed one of two facts. either the two lads had measured or counted wrong in their advance with the tapeline or, as phil concluded, the distance was only approximate. a prisoner, trusting largely to memory, coster could not be exact, unless by sheer accident. "hullo! here i am, boys! come this way!" they came, phil assisting their progress by calling out now and then. when they arrived, no hemlock being in sight, the boys stared first at phil seated on the trunk of an upturned tree, then at the boulder close by. "how'd you get way out here?" demanded paul. "followed my nose! how would you think?" phil looked amused. "what's that you got--a tapeline?" "yep," replied dave. "wanted to be exact as possible." phil laughed. said he: "do you reckon coster was very exact when he drew that map--from memory?" "oh--stuff! i don't see any big split hemlock." "you're looking at it, stupid! i'm sitting on the butt of it, and right there is the rock, i think." at first inclined to scoff, both lads now saw phil's side of it at once. dave looked about again. "it's a thick place here," he ventured. "you were lucky to stumble on it this way, phil." "didn't stumble on it. i was particular about keeping my compass right. when i got where i thought i might have gone half a mile or so i began to look round a bit. i couldn't see any big split hemlock, but i did manage to find this big rock. after that it was easy to find the tree, even though it had been blown down." after some further talk it was agreed that the first step would be to return to the car. then they would decide upon what to do next. "i think we should visit that old tavern while we are here," remarked paul. "no knowing what we might find there. if there's an old shovel or anything, we might come back and dig under that rock for a starter." phil and dave also had their theories as to what should next be in order, but nothing conclusive was determined on. meanwhile the three, threading the trail phil had first followed and which dave and paul had made more distinct, they finally reached the clump of shade trees where they had left billy on guard over the big six. but in the place of the glistening car with billy worth still on guard there was only a vacant place. no glimpse of either was anywhere to be seen. "look here--on the ground," exclaimed paul, pointing here and there. "somebody else has been here! looks as if there had been a scuffle!" where paul was pointing there were signs of many footsteps, inextricably intermingled, with sundry deep gouges in the loose soil as if those who made them were in a struggle of some kind. "look here, boys!" dave was holding up a soiled handkerchief that he had found underneath a jumble of twigs and leaves evidently kicked together by those engaged in the scuffling, signs of which were more than plentiful. "by jimminy! that's billy's handkerchief or i'm blind!" sure enough, it was billy's, for in one corner were his initials which the boys had often seen on many of his belongings. phil meanwhile had been taking a comprehensive survey of the whole scene. presently he noted that while the struggles had gone on mostly in one spot, there were, at one side, clear markings of the car wheels as it was steered in a semicircle towards the very road along which the boys had traveled not more than an hour or so before. "boys," said he, "i hate to acknowledge it, but billy must have been surprised by somebody. probably outnumbered, too. these tracks show that billy must have put up a good fight; but they were too many for him, whoever they were. come on! we've no time to lose!" and straightway he began following the tracks through the straggly undergrowth until he reached the road. the others, catching the significance of phil's suspicions, plodded after, taking in as they went where the car, avoiding the more open spaces, had plunged through the thicker growth. evidently those on board were bent on gaining the road by the nearest route, and at a point somewhat beyond where the car had turned off when the boys first reached that place. to the right was the old tavern, and at one spot the car had stopped where there were signs that a path had been crushed out in traveling through the brush towards the tavern. "look here," said phil. "what does this mean?" the signs were plain that something or someone had been half dragged or carried along towards the old ghost tavern. "what had we better do?" exclaimed dave. "follow the car or take a look into that old ramshackle building?" "gee! why, billy may have been carried there--hark!" at this from paul all listened intently. there were certainly queer sounds to be heard somewhere ahead. phil dashed boldly forward, calling: "dave, you go back and see which way that car went! then come back to paul and me. get a hustle on now!" paul, dashing on after phil, heard dave grunt a dubious acquiescence as he turned back towards the road. they could trust dave. he was often doubtful, even dubious, but he had sharp eyes and good judgment in the main. a minute or so later phil, followed closely by jones, reached a more open space, though overgrown with straggly weeds and grass. "this must be the yard of the old inn," remarked phil. "look, paul!" he was pointing where the woods trail on entering the yard showed distinct signs where some hard objects had been half dragged. it was as if boot-heels had dented the soft places in a steady imprint. just then came sounds from inside the house that might have been grunts or groans of pain. without a halt phil dashed over the porch, where heavier weights had partially crushed the rotten flooring. avoiding these places, the two boys--phil still in the lead--entered a short hallway, where was a doorless opening that led into what once had doubtless been the tavern office. on the floor of the porch and hallway were fresh tracks, with the trail of shoe or boot-heels dragging along. the office room looked dark inside, though a couple of sashless windows let in some light which was, however, little more than shadowy gloom from the overhanging branches of the trees without. while they stared, listening, something stirred and scraped the dusty floor in a far corner, where a short counter toppled outward as if in danger of falling over. "what's that?" echoed phil. "is it anybody?" muffled, jerky noises issued from the recess under the half tumbling counter. with an exclamation paul darted forward, reached under the counter and felt an object that at once electrified the boy. "let's pull it out, phil!" he urged. "it may be--" aided by phil, paul dragged forth a bound form, tied hand and foot with improvised shreds of cloth, the mouth tightly gagged with a couple of kerchiefs--in a word, billy! "why, billy, you poor boy!" exclaimed phil, whipping out his knife and in another minute releasing the cords that bound him and cutting loose the cruel gag that had been so tightly forced into the lad's mouth that the corners of his lips were bleeding. they bore him out of the porch to a grassy place, where with a sudden wriggle billy sat upright, twisted his neck about, gulped a time or two, then stared at his comrades as if astonished. "d-didn't you hear me holler?" he asked. "but of course you didn't. before i was half awake they had me down out of that car trying to gag and bind me." "who, billy? just what do you mean?" "i mean those two chaps that caught me fast asleep under paul's rug on the back seat, taking forty winks when i ought to have kept wide awake." "two men?" instantly phil's thoughts ran back to the two strangers they had seen at feeney's who seemed so anxious to get away as soon as the boys arrived with nan. "would you know them if you saw them? were they the two strangers we saw at feeney's? think hard, billy!" "confound 'em--they had on handkerchiefs that covered their faces, so i could hardly tell. i didn't get more'n a glimpse or two along at first. then they pulled something over my head after gagging me so tight it hurt. my mouth is sore now." billy dubiously fingered the corners of his mouth. "one thing i'm sure of. one of the men we saw at feeney's had on a visored gray cap and gray clothes. the other wore something darker. i feel sure the gray-clad man was one of 'em. of course i never got half a glimpse of their faces." "recognize these handkerchiefs?" asked phil, showing the ones used in binding and gagging. "two of 'em are bandanas: the others of a soiled, nondescript variety that might have belonged to tramps of any sort." by this time billy was more himself, being pretty well recovered from his recent manhandling. he was the first to think again of the big six. "i'm all right now, fellows. let's see what went with the car. they stopped with me some distance from this old rookery. gosh! if it wasn't for the car, i'd like to take a look around!" but, like worth, whom they were most glad to have with them again, all hated to feel that the pride of their hearts, their new car, was gone. but where? at this juncture they were joined by maclester, who after greeting billy very effusively for one who had seen him just two hours before, turned to the others, interrupting worth's brief recital of what had happened to him. "boys," dave began, "i followed those tracks about thirty yards or so; then they turned towards the railroad; right through the woods, too. rough going for a car like ours. i bet she's all scratched up by now, if nothing worse happens to her." "did you go any further, dave?" this from paul eagerly. "why, yes! presently the car struck another old trail that led towards the road, and i picked up this." mac held out the visored cap worth had mentioned to paul and phil. at sight of it billy grabbed it and turned it over in his hands as he said: "that's the one the chap in gray wore, i'm sure." "must 'a' got knocked off going through the woods," said dave. "i think they were in a hurry or they'd never have plunged along the way they did over such rough places." "well, if we're through here, let's get on." thus spoke phil, ever mindful of the lost car. "i took a look into a back room of the old tavern, and i saw a queer outfit--looked as if they'd been camping and working there. saw tools, and what looked like a sort of forge or fireplace. but we've no time now for anything but to look after the car. come on!" rapidly now the four lads pushed through the woods along the old road, then into the woods again along the open trail that led recklessly over rocks, through thick undergrowth and over fallen saplings, with here and there uneven rifts and rises, showing that nothing but superior motor power could have propelled the machine thus far. "bust their dirty hides!" said paul wrathfully. "those two ain't fit to drive cattle to water! hello! what's that?" jones, being in the lead, was pointing at a tumbled mass of their own outfit that had been dumped overboard during a rapid downward course, the end of which was not in sight owing to the thicker screen of bushes beyond, which the partially denuded car somehow had crashed through. paul and billy paused to gather up the suitcases, bags of bedding, and the wicker hamper containing their present supply of food, while dave and phil hurried ahead, their route roughly descending now until, reaching the thick screen where the car had crashed through, they came unexpectedly to a low embankment. at the bottom was the dry bed of a small brooklet, with a further shore that sloped gradually up into second-growth timber again. but this was not all. right below the two boys was the big six; not upright, but lying on its side, two wheels in the air, yet apparently uninjured. uttering a shout of joy at sight of the beloved car, dave jumped down the declivity, the irregular projections of which had doubtless caused the six to turn over under the reckless driving it had been subjected to ever since it had been seized. chapter xiv under the car reassured as to the fate of the car, phil was about to turn back to where paul and billy were still picking up the things, when dave's voice was heard: "oh, phil! here's trouble! come on down here--quick!" shouting back to the two lads behind that the car was found, phil jumped down and ran round to where dave was staring at something on the ground. meantime catching the meaning of phil's words, paul and billy hurried forward with the loads they already had. "geemineddy!" this was of course by paul, always emphatic and exclamatory. "if i ever get my hands on that old six again, i bet she don't go out of my reckoning soon!" "i know just how you feel, paul. i was to blame, but--oh, don't i wish we had the chaps that did it!" the two, their hands filled with sundry belongings, were hastening after phil who had vanished from their view. down the slope, over the jagged embankment they hurried, giving a yell as they saw the big six upturned, but apparently safe. the tops of dave's and phil's heads bobbed up and down on the further side of the car. reaching the spot, what was their surprise to see the body of a man lying prone on the ground, his legs and part of his body fairly under the car. billy, after one look, gave a gasp of amazement. the man was bareheaded, his face half turned under and pressed against the ground. "here, boys," began phil. "drop everything and let's turn the car off his body!" by the united efforts of all the big six was lifted at the forward end so that the weight of the car no longer rested on the dead or insensible man. "boys," said billy, "that's the man in gray who wore the visored cap we found back yonder. i'll swear to that. is he dead?" phil and dave, stooping closely, examined the man, and in so doing turned his head to one side. there, near the temple, was a purplish blot, from which a few drops of blood were trickling. at the same time certain movements, not unlike muscular tremors, were evident in body and limbs. "why, he's alive!" said paul. "let's get him more comfortably placed." while this was being done worth picked up a tin cup, ran to a rocky puddle in the dried brooklet where some water was left, and returning with the filled cup bathed the fellow's face and head, very gently now that they knew life was not extinct. this, aided by the more comfortable position in which he had been placed, had such effect that the man's eyes soon opened. he groaned as he breathed, while with one hand he attempted to feel his head near what was now seen to be a bullet wound. paul, wiping his head, felt a protuberance under his hair, and directly thereafter drew forth a small pointed bullet, such as is much used with pocket pistols of the smith & wesson type. "well, well!" exclaimed that lively youth. "if here ain't a regular twenty-two pistol ball. it must have glanced along under the skin near the temple and come out again. who could have done it?" when the man felt paul's hand extracting the ball from his mass of touzled hair, he clutched at the place, saying: "i always--told--dippy--that gun--was no--good--" a scuffling sigh, and the fellow was again in a swoon. what had they better do now? here was their car, all right except for some scars and bruises incurred during the last flight after billy was captured and stowed away in the old tavern. where was the other man? as usual in such stress, phil again took command of the situation. "this man's not dead. he may recover. he's either been shot by someone or he's shot himself, which isn't likely." here the man struggled into a half sitting position, as he murmured: "didn't sh-shoot myself! dippy shot--me! dippy always--poor--shot--" then with a groan he fell back again into a state of coma. phil, looking hastily over the car, now said: "help right the car, boys." this was accomplished almost as soon as said, by simply easing the upper side down so that the six again stood on "all-fours," as paul expressed it. it stood squarely across the brook-bed, headed towards the railroad which here was not more than an eighth of a mile distant. "now, paul," resumed phil, "you hike across through the brush to the railroad, if necessary. it may be the real highway lays over there somewhere. pick out the easiest way to get our car there. we can hardly go back the way we came, can we?" the others shook their heads at this. "when you're through, come back. mebbe we'll meet you on the way." without a word paul vanished in the thick undergrowth beyond the brooklet. meanwhile dave was examining the car, which he pronounced uninjured by the rough usage to which it had been subjected with the exception of sundry scars and a slight twist in one of the minor connecting rods, easy to readjust. both he and phil were kept busy restoring the things that had been dumped out by the fleeing couple during the last stages of that hurried flight to--where? probably where they thought the nearest open road would be; or perhaps it was the railroad and the nearest station they sought. when paul came back, he said that they were only a short distance to the new highway and the railroad. the guide book told them that they were within a very few miles of a small station east, while midlandville, the nearest town west, was not more than two hours away, with a good road. "better put that chap in the tonneau, hadn't we?" suggested worth. "aw, where'll we take him?" this from dave who now was in the driver's seat. "looks like we had enough trouble long of him and his mate as it is." "put him in back, of course," corrected phil. "if these two are in bad about something, it is our duty to keep track of this one, for the present at least. who knows? he may give us a pointer yet as to what they were up to." so the wounded man, despite his querulous complaints, was put in the tonneau with billy and paul to assist him and do whatever was necessary to make him as comfortable as conditions would permit. then the big six was started. as has been stated, the incline being gradual, the big car, carefully steered, had less trouble in making the remainder of the trip to the new highway than the boys anticipated. true, with the injured man and the equipment of the lads the car was rather crowded, but the motor did its duty, the purring sounds being as even as could be wished. paul, on his return, had broken down a sort of trail which it was not difficult to follow. arrived at the roadway it had been already determined that, as the day was already well spent, they would return to feeney's for the night, then make for midlandville in the morning. "won't old feeney open his eyes when we tell him what those two strangers were up to to-day?" remarked paul who, tired of fanning the wounded man, had managed to exchange with dave. not far from where they turned into the highway, it veered southward, leaving the railroad to the right, and a mile further crossed the old road along which the boys had motored that morning on their way to the old tavern. to say that they were cordially received by mr. feeney would be only the truth. at sight of the bareheaded man in gray, his visored cap somewhere among the things in the car, pat eyed him perplexedly, saying: "holy moses! little did i think to see the likes of you back again!" the wounded man opened his eyes slowly and blinked the lids when he saw they were carrying him to the house from the car. "dippy done it--yes--dippy--he done it." then he fainted away again. after the wounded man was placed on a cot in a small shed room attached to feeney's not very commodious house, pat took phil and worth aside, while dave and paul remained with the stranger. it was felt intuitively that the man should be closely watched. why none of them knew exactly, except that their methods with billy and the taking of the car indicated that something was wrong, somewhere. what it might be, of course none of them as yet had any distinct idea. feeney scratched his head meditatively, as he said to phil: "them two fellers come here about night, afore you boys appeared. they wanted to stay all night and after breakfast they had my wife put up some grub; quite a lot of it. but when you came in, all at once they took a notion to leave, sudden-like. after they was gone my woman found the stuff we'd packed up, which they seemed to have forgotten. that's all we seen of 'em until you came in here with that one in the fix he's in now." "it all does look mysterious," remarked phil. "from a hasty look we took in the old tavern we saw what looked like a forge and some tools. i thought i glimpsed some dies but i might have been mistaken." "wait a minute," broke in pat, going to the door of the kitchen. "ma," he called out, "any sign of nan and dan yet?" a broad-bosomed, red-faced woman appeared for a minute at the open doorway, as she replied: "no, pat, i ain't seen nothin'. i went to the bend of the road, too. it's time they was here onless something's bothered them." coming back to the two boys, feeney explained: "last night, ruther late, bill spivee, our nearest neighbor to the west, came over. he's got a telephone and he says that the midlandville op'rator asked him if any strangers had been round lately. bill told 'em he hadn't seen any, but that two fellers had stopped here, for i'd told him that when we met up after puttin' up some marsh hay yon way," jerking a thumb southward. "we often puts up wild grass together. "well, later they 'phones ag'in. asks bill to see me right away and find out all he could 'bout them strangers. if it was what they thought, them fellers was wanted right away." feeney pointed towards the shed-room, as he continued: "we mustn't let go of that chap, whatever happens, until we knows more." "i should say not," put in worth, who quickly related what these strangers had done to him. then phil briefly described the subsequent proceedings, including their finding the man senseless under the overturned car, and with the pistol wound, finally showing the bullet that had been found in his hair, which had glanced from the skull, as we have described. feeney looked at the bullet. "smith & wesson pistol sure!" he thought a moment. "i think i saw that pistol when the man that is missing changed some of his things, as i was passing their door. after thinking it all over, i sent dan and nan on horseback, soon after you all left, but i didn't say nothing, for i didn't really know nothing. we needed more coffee, and that was a good excuse. but i told the kids to be sure and see the operator of the telephone booth and try to find out what was the matter. i reckon we'll know if they ever get back." mrs. feeney now appeared in the doorway and excitedly pointed westward. "nan and dan's a-comin'. i can see 'em out at the kitchen back door. there's nobody with 'em as i can see." just then paul came in to say: "that chap's come to again. looks like he's worrying some. what ought dave and i to do? he seems to want dippy, as he calls that mate of his." phil accompanied paul back, while worth remained with pat to wait for the arrival of the girl and boy. their horses seemed tired, and stood with drooping heads while they dismounted, delivered the coffee to their mother and glanced shyly at billy as the father explained briefly what had happened. the children brought news that as soon as a telegram could reach midlandville, two officers would start at once for feeney's place. might get there some time in the night. "well, here's a pretty to-do!" exclaimed mrs. feeney. "how am i goin' to feed so many strangers? you know, pat, we're pretty near out of flour." "shucks, mother! we got plenty of meal and hog meat, and there's vegetables. we'll not starve. besides," here he whispered in mrs. feeney's ear, "you'll get some money from 'em, eh? i knows you--" "pat, you know you're not going to charge them four boys, if they stay a week. i've heard ye say so." "now, mrs. feeney," put in billy, "don't you worry! we boys are not going to cost you a dollar more than we'll pay back. we like you folks." here billy winked boldly at nan who laughed as she slightly blushed. "anything will do us." "you sure are good boys," nodded mrs. feeney. "you were nice to my folks on the way from the hay market. pat and me are glad to have ye. but these others--real strangers, that might be different." "oh, billy," called paul from the shed doorway, "please come here!" thus summoned, the two at once followed paul into where the sick man was picking at his wounded head and moaning: "dippy--done--it. what'd you do it for, dippy?" a series of feeble coughings ensued, and the man again seemed to swoon away. "that's the way he keeps going on," remarked worth, regarding phil attentively. "reckon he ought to have a--a doctor?" after another short consultation dan, who meanwhile had eaten and felt refreshed and rested, set out on another horse for the nearest physician. "tell doc the whole story, dan," urged the father. "if we get any sense outen him, mebbe it will help undo this mystery that surrounds the whole business. tell him i won't pay his bill, but the county probably will. thurfore he can stick it up to a pretty stiff figure." meanwhile phil had been conferring with his three chums apart. "i've made up my mind that some of us ought to visit that old tavern again. there's something up down there or i'm a fool in judging by appearances. how do we know that this dippy, as that chap calls his mate, may not slip in, having, as he may think, killed his partner, and destroy what i saw when we went in after billy? we've got time now. we can take the car--worth and me." "that sounds bully," exclaimed worth. "i'm with you. they kidnaped me; i want to get even." the only trouble now was that both dave and paul wanted to be "on," in this adventure; but they yielded when phil made it plain that part of them must remain at feeney's to make sure that the one they had captured was in safe keeping. they all felt that if anything serious were in all this, it was incumbent on all of them to be where things would go smoothly. "well then," remarked phil in low tones, "when billy and i are gone, it falls on you, (meaning dave and paul) to help feeney when anything happens." just then the wounded man suddenly sat up in bed, clapped a hand upon his forehead and began to mumble to himself. "no--good--" he began. "metal--dies--all there. then--dippy--tries to kill--me--" "who are you anyway?" suddenly demanded phil, spurred by a sudden hope that in his delirium the wounded man might let out something as his now disordered brain appeared to connect the present with what he remembered of the past. "me?" the man stared vacantly past phil at the wall. "i--i'm jimmy--horr. i'm--i'm--" his voice trailed off into a mumble. phil bent forward close as he demanded: "if you are jimmy horr, who is dippy? you've been calling him often enough. we want to find him." "d-dippy--he--he's my partner. he's--he's dippy quinn--he--" again he stared, straight now at phil. "wh--who be you?" still staring, he fell back, trembling as if in pain, muttering: "my head--my--he--head!" then his eyes closed and he was off in another apparent swoon. "come on, billy," said phil. "let us be off! are the things out of the car?" "most of them," replied dave. "i put 'em in the porch. don't be gone longer than you can help." in they jumped, phil at the wheel, and the car purred softly down the old woods road towards the ghost tavern. whether either of them knew their departure was observed by the feeneys was not important, and gave them no concern. both now felt that no time should be lost in finding out if the partner of horr was yet in that vicinity. despite the improbability, phil could not help feeling that if those two had been doing wrong in the old inn, it might be that the survivor, as he probably deemed himself, might wish to pay a final visit there before taking his stealthy departure. in fact, so mysterious was the whole series of adventures which the boys had gone through that almost anything might happen. in due time the big six drew up near the old tavern, and the boys cunningly hid the car behind a screen of shrubbery, where it would hardly be seen if any one should pass by. still phil, in view of what had happened to the car, made a suggestion. "you stay here, billy; at least until i call you or you see something is happening. if i find anyone or anything that's dangerous, i'll let you know." "will you--sure?" queried worth anxiously. before phil, now out of the car and heading for the porch could answer, there came the muffled sound of something inside the inn being moved. at the sound billy seized a heavy walking stick from the driver's seat, which no one ever used, but which was carried simply because it might some time come handy. giving this to phil, he himself took a short thick rubber tube used at times when gasoline was transferred from a tank to the machine reservoir. "i'm going with you, phil," he whispered. "no use to say no!" chapter xv at the old tavern phil offered no objection, but took the walking stick and at once entered the porch, making as little noise as possible. billy came close behind, feeling the rubber tube to make sure that it could stun, if not kill, when handled with due precision and force. as has been stated before, portions of the porch floor had been previously broken in, where the elements had too heavily tested the wood. phil finally passed into the office without making any noise but billy was not so lucky. despite his care, he misjudged where he trod when he was near the doorway, when there was an ominous crackling sound under his last footstep. "cr-r-r-r--a-c-c-k!" down went his leg, clear above his knee. in the effort to rise, down went the other leg with a similar crunching crumble, and there was billy submerged, so to speak, to the waist. nor did it stop there, for under the porch was a cellar that extended pretty well under the fore part of the ancient building. for half a moment billy's form remained waist deep under the porch, when from below there came another crackling, crunching sound, and billy began to descend at first slowly, as the rafters over the cellar began to collapse. then down he went amid a cloud of dust from the rotting woodwork, as with a feverish exclamation he vanished from sight. just at this instant phil wheeled, startled by the noise worth was making and started to whisper a cautionary "silence!" at this juncture billy vanished from sight, though phil heard him, as he struck the earth of the partially filled cellar, give voice as follows: "hullo, phil! i'm gone!" and that was all phil then heard from billy. just then there came a scuffling noise from the interior, where a door, partially open, led from the old office to the rear room. knowing that someone must be inside, for the noise was not from where billy had gone down, phil grasped his cane harder and dashed through the open door into the back room where he had before seen the forge and the tools, which he had not been able to understand at the time. right in front of him was another open door, beyond the hastily constructed forge; and down what seemed to be a cellar stairway he could see the head and shoulders of a man. the stranger was struggling upward, impeded by some burden he was carrying with difficulty. it was difficult in the half light that filtered through the overhanging shade trees without to distinguish anything distinctly. all phil could see was that the man wore a slouch hat, combed with cobwebs from the cellar region below. all at once came the conviction to the lad: "this must be dippy, whom the other was calling for so often." with this came phil's resolve to boldly move up and prevent this mysterious fellow's escape. he dashed forward, calling out: "halt, you! give an account of yourself! i--" here the stranger, dropping the bundle he was carrying, attempted to spring up the last two steps, at the same time reaching behind and pulling forth something small that glittered in the semi-twilight. what could it be--a pistol? at the mere thought, phil leaped nearer, struck at the glittering toy, while the descending blow knocked the fellow's hat off and, partially stunning him, sent him back down the gloomy stairway. the lower end of this was shrouded in deeper gloom, though some light from a cellar window shed a little pale glow from the outside daylight. following closely, phil began to stumble down the stairway, when he heard another's unmistakable advance below. for billy, still armed with the rubber tube, had heard the mix-up going on above, together with phil's loud tones and the succeeding fracas; and he saw dimly the tumbling of some bulky weight, followed by the heavier fall of a man's body. "great goodness!" thought worth. "can that be phil?" with the thought he scrambled forward over heaps of loose earth to the firmer floor of the main part of the cellar, until he stood over a figure trying to rise. at the same time down stumbled his comrade, saying: "i'll get you yet--mind that!" satisfied now that it was not phil at his feet, billy brought down his heavy rubber tube over the man's head, who sank back uttering a groan of pain. at the same time phil, reaching the bottom of the stairway, saw something twinkle in the dirt at his feet. he picked it up. "here is the pistol he was trying to shoot me with, billy. don't let him up while i feel for some cord i brought along." billy, standing astride the prostrate man, took the pistol, a small affair. as the stranger groaned and moved billy gave him another sharp tap with the tubing that seemed to settle his hash, as the boys later expressed it. fingering the weapon, billy found that it was loaded, all except one chamber. he looked up, saying: "i bet a nickel against a cent that this is the same pistol that shot--what's his name?--horr." meantime phil, having produced several cords that he had taken from the tool box of the six, proceeded to bind the stranger's wrists together behind his back as he lay half stunned by billy's attack. while so doing, he stumbled against a heavy object that proved to be a cheap suitcase, filled by something that rattled metallically as it was moved. having tied the man's wrists, they half carried him up the stairway, through the back room and into the old office. here billy stood guard armed with the tube and the pistol. this last they discovered was enough like the one billy had at home to be its mate. also one chamber being empty, phil at once felt sure--with worth--that they now held the very weapon that had been fired at horr, the supposed comrade of the man now recovering his senses at their feet. "watch him close, billy," cautioned phil, "while i go below and get that suitcase, and look around a little before we go back to feeney's." "don't be uneasy, phil. i'll watch him all right. ain't i just getting even for the way those two did me when they ran away with our car?" while phil was gone below the stranger, recovering his senses, and seeing only a boy standing over him, looked up with cunning, yet imploring eyes. "say, kid," he weakly began, "that was a bad blow you hit me. my head's about to bust. you've tied my arms too tight. please loose me. i won't do anything." "no, you won't! not while i'm in sight! remember how you and your pal, who's been calling on you constantly, did for me when you caught me fast asleep? not much will you get away! just bank on that, will you?" "i mean all right, boy. 'deed i do! just came back here for a few things that belong to us. be a good boy. turn me loose. i'll go with you all right." "no, you won't! we don't trust you. besides that, your pal's begging us hard to fetch 'dippy' back. wants to see you and ask you why you shot him after stealing our car. do you catch on?" at this the man, whose head and shoulder was bruised and aching from the effect of billy's rubber tube, seemed to give up. but worth had one more arrow. he produced the pistol, showed the man the one empty chamber, and said: "look here, quinn. that's your name or the one you go by, for horr said it was. see that empty cartridge? i know these smith & wesson twenty-twos, for i've got one at home myself. we got the bullet, too. it glanced off and came out. you might as well own up now and thank your stars you didn't kill your pal, or you would be in for murder as well as these other jobs." but before the man could make any rejoinder back came phil with the suitcase which seemed quite heavy. in the other hand he carried the stranger's black felt hat, from which phil had brushed most of the dust and cobwebs and placed it on the man's head as he now sat leaning against the edge of the tottering counter behind which the boys had found billy after his capture by the two who attempted to escape with the six. "can you stand and walk?" queried phil. "we've got to put you in our car; the one you and horr tried to steal." the man, now sullen enough, made no reply. without more ado they helped him up and started with him towards the porch. though his hands were tied, he went grudgingly until he saw the big, yawning open space made by worth when the boy fell through both porch floor and the cellar roofing below. the sight seemed to nerve the man to a final effort. as they stood at the outer office entrance he suddenly pushed against phil on one side and at the same time butted his head into worth as forcibly as possible. worth fell down while phil, overborne by the weight of the suitcase, seemed in danger of stepping into the hole in front. the man, seeing a wild chance, drew back his foot, and was about to kick at the suitcase as if to send it through the hole in front. "you would, would you?" grunted billy, recovering in time to put his back against the door-facing and administer a push with his foot to the man, still standing on one leg in the act of kicking at the suitcase. down he went, the intended kick going wild. at the same moment phil, having dropped the suitcase, sprang upon the man and with billy's ready aid, managed to bind both legs fast together, so that he lay helpless. after that the boys dragged their prisoner across the porch, then they carried him to where the car stood amid the shrubbery and placed him in the tonneau. "now, billy," said phil, "you watch him close. i'll go back, get that bag of his, shut the doors and come back. don't take your eyes off him. he's tricky!" and phil again went back while worth stood over the man watchful and wary. he was a sullen looking chap, like and yet unlike the stranger whom, with his partner, billy had briefly seen that day at feeney's. his eyes, roving about, avoided billy, while he apparently looked for some further loop-hole that might offer another chance to resist or afford a possible escape. "no good, old man," remarked worth, standing over him with the tube in hand, ready for any move the bound man might make. "you've got to go with us." "look here!" suddenly said the fellow. "we've got money--me and my partner. why not turn us loose on the quiet? we'll make it all right--sure." "how do we know you'll make it all right? didn't you shoot your own partner? he says you did. he calls you dippy quinn. that your name?" "oh, that's nothing! i was reloading the pistol. it went off 'fore i knew a thing. that's the real goods, boy! as i said, he and me have the dough. two hundred of it's yours, provided you'll turn us loose--on the quiet." "you're talking to no good, quinn. i wouldn't be party to turning either you or horr loose, not if you placed twice that amount in my hands right now." about this time phil was seen coming, lugging what appeared to be a very heavy suitcase, evidently packed full of something that weighed about as much as phil could carry. at sight of this the man seemed beside himself with anger. he almost spat in billy's face as he declared: "you're both a dirty set of rogues! yes, both of you! that," pointing at the packed bag, "is mine--mine and my partner's. we wasn't bothering you--" "oh, no!" laughed billy. "come, that's good! all you did was to gag and tie me and try to steal our car. that's a mere nothing, of course." phil, by this time arriving, seated himself at the wheel, putting the bag beside him. then he looked warningly at worth, saying: "keep a sharp eye out, billy. if he gets too obstreperous, just use the tube. if that don't quiet him, try his pistol." then he started the car, steering carefully until they had turned round and were headed up the old road leading through the timber towards feeney's. as the car bumped along over the rough places, quinn seemed to be suffering greatly, his tightly bound ankles being the cause of his present misery. "honest, boy," he began, "at least loose my legs! i sprained my ankle somehow in our scrap back yonder. besides, there's a boil on my leg. just loosen it up a bit--that's a good kid!" one would have supposed that with the previous experience they had had with this man, billy would have given no heed. but billy, naturally soft-hearted, saw real tears in the man's eyes. his looks and manner now were in such sharp contrast to that exhibited when he felt himself on the verge of an escape that even worth felt a certain compunction. could the man be shamming all the time, first in one way, then in another? with a side look at phil, who was watching the road as he steered, he bent forward as he said: "does the cord hurt you like that? will you promise to be quiet if i loosen up those leg cords a bit? but mind you, none of your shenanigan, if i do!" "no--no--no--course not!" thus the man mumbled, his breath coming and going tremulously, but his wet eyes, resting on billy appealingly, suddenly changed their expression as billy's head bent down over the cord, and a swift, crafty gleam shot from under his treacherous brows, while worth was bending over the confined legs. meantime phil, trusting to billy's watchfulness, was fully occupied with the wheel and the brakes, for right here was a bad bit of going. in manipulating the cord so as to loosen it a little--not too much--and while, in order to deceive billy, the fellow kept up his groaning, billy's fingers were all needed. he hastily tucked under his arm the tube for a moment, as he contended with a stubborn portion of the knot. watching both the condition of the loosening knot and noting that no one else seemed to be regarding them, the man shoved his legs apart. at the same time he seized the tube with both hands, jerking it from the arms of worth. then, springing to his feet, he raised the tube upward--all in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak. with one shoulder he pushed billy heavily, so that the boy dropped back into his seat just as quinn levelled a quick blow across the tonneau at phil, still busy at the wheel. the blow came as a complete surprise to the latter, still fully occupied with the wheel and the brakes. fortunately phil happened to bend forward in shifting gears, and the blow aimed for phil's head fell glancingly along his shoulder. even then the force was temporarily paralyzing. the boy shrunk still further forward under the blow, the movement causing him to press his foot on the brake. hence they began to slow towards a stop. with his faculties still shaken, he mechanically threw on the halting gear, thus bringing the car to a gradual stop. meanwhile billy, seeing at once how he had been duped, raised up so forcibly that he bumped against the prisoner, who was trying to throw himself from the tonneau to the ground, his legs now being practically loose. "ha, you will, eh?" gasped worth. "i'll show you!" reaching forth he grabbed a leg of the leaping fugitive, holding on for dear life, so that instead of alighting on his feet, the fellow actually fell forward over the tonneau with his head and arms dragging along with the car. reaching the earth, the man managed to wrench free from billy's clutch and finally kick himself loose, though with his arms still bound. meantime phil, having recovered, was already climbing from the car, and as the man scrambled to his feet he started in pursuit. "after him, phil!" shouted worth, bursting through the tonneau door. "he fooled me! don't give up! i'm behind you!" from then on it became a sharp though short race. first the fugitive, his hands tied behind, bareheaded, straining every nerve. just in his rear came phil, with every muscle doing double duty, reaching forward to grab him who fled. a yard or two behind was billy, doing a stunt in rapid running that might have surprised him a few minutes before. the man was agile enough, though doubtless tired. besides this his arms, inconveniently bound behind his back, doubtless interfered with his running. one result was that after several futile grasps, phil was at last able to fasten his grip on the man's tied arms. from that to passing an arm round his neck and hanging grimly on was but momentary. then in came billy, fairly frothing over the manner in which he had been tricked by the captive just when he was trying to make the stranger less uncomfortable. between them they soon had him down on the ground where he writhed, kicked and twisted about in a climax of sheer desperation. doubly exasperated, billy managed to get hold of a stout, short bit of a club from amid the fallen litter of the woods, and brought it down smartly on the man's head. it raised a welt, but he continued to struggle, though with decreasing force. evidently he was becoming exhausted. suddenly worth jerked out his handkerchief, saying at the same time: "gimme yours, phil--quick!" phil not only complied, but resumed holding down the stranger so effectively that in another minute worth soon had his legs bound fast again. "now let's drag him back to the car and be off," remarked phil. "really the way that chap acts causes me to feel sure we've made a haul that the law will more than sanction. yet i won't feel safe until we have him back at feeney's." the prisoner was lifted in the car where billy stood over him, with pistol and the tube club ready for instant use if necessary. without further trouble the big six sped along the rough roads until at length feeney's house was reached. what was their surprise to see another car drawn up before the yard gate, while two strange men were coming out of the house, evidently in a great hurry, preparatory to entering their own machine. chapter xvi conclusion at sight of the big six they halted, while in their rear came maclester and paul, with mr. feeney looking over their shoulders in sheer amazement at what his eyes beheld. noting worth's and phil's disordered attire and the bound, somewhat bruised captive inside the tonneau, the foremost man came forward, saying to the two lads: "well, well! i guess you have saved us some trouble, you boys!" he waved a hand at his partner. "permit me to introduce self and partner. we're from buffalo, plain clothes detectives, secret service. mcpherson is my name; westcott that of my partner. we already know yours through mr. rack, of syracuse. guess you know him. this man," pointing at quinn, "and the other chap inside have been wanted some time for illegal coinage. after putting them under guard we will visit that old tavern for further proofs. what's this?" "it's what that man quinn was trying to lug off when we took him. before that they had stolen our car--" this from billy. "i know, i know! and you got this, did you? pretty good!" mcpherson had opened the valise, disclosing tools, dies, bars of metal and numerous coins. "we were at midlandville. heard of you there. also got wind of these chaps and the old tavern, and, prompted by rack, we hurried along, fearing you lads might alarm them, inadvertently of course. but you have done well, remarkably well! there's a thousand reward out for them and it looks as if you four boys will have decidedly the best claim." meantime westcott, assisted by feeney, who greeted the two lads effusively, carried in quinn to join his comrade under strict guard. "are you not entitled to that reward, mr. mcpherson?" asked phil at length. "no, sir. not if anyone else does more than we in apprehending them. it looks now as if you four and perhaps feeney and his folks will be entitled to all there is in it." it may be said here that after all was over, the boys insisted that the feeneys should share proportionately in the reward. it did phil good to see the delight which these humble, hard working folks felt in what the third of that reward might do for them. they needed it and were glad to get it besides being grateful to our boys for being so generous. three days later the big six rolled smoothly into lannington once more. glad indeed were the auto boys to see again the dear home faces and receive the sweet home greetings. "and also, and likewise," said mr. paul jones, "home cooking beats the world!" a number of weeks later the boys read of adam w. kull being sentenced to serve seven years in prison, while grant coster received a sentence of two years. thus vividly reminded of their adventures, the friends renewed a former effort to learn how scottie had happened to appear in lannington, their own home city. they could not, though it was evident that the dog, always even humanly fond of automobiles, had followed some car there. phil and billy were now preparing to enter college. dave was already occupying a steady position in his father's shop and paul was about to take up engineering in a school near home. slowly but surely the almost unbroken companionship of years' duration was encroached upon by the demands the days were bringing. the boys were growing older. but i know there were still no pleasanter hours for any of them than when, on holidays and of an evening, they sometimes met again at the little green and yellow garage under the whispering elms. the end -----------------------------------------------------------------------rider agents wanted boys and young men everywhere are making good money taking orders for "ranger" bicycles and bicycle tires. you are privileged to select the particular style of ranger bicycle you prefer: motorbike model, "arch-frame," "superbe" "scout," "special," "racer," etc. while you ride and enjoy it in your spare time hours--after school or work, evenings and holidays--your admiring friends can be easily induced to place their orders through you. factory to rider. every purchaser of a ranger bicycle (on our factory-direct-to-the-rider sales plan) gets a high-grade fully guaranteed model direct from the factory at wholesale prices, and is privileged to ride it for 30 days before final acceptance. if not satisfied it may be returned at our expense and no charge is made for the use of machine during trial. choice of 44 styles. colors and sizes in the ranger line delivered to you free we prepay the delivery charges on every ranger from our factory in chicago to your town and pay the return charges to chicago if you decide not to keep it. if you want to be a rider agent or if you want a good bicycle at a low price, write us to-day for the big free ranger catalog, wholesale prices, terms and full particulars. parts for all bicycles in the ranger catalog you will find illustrated bicycle cranks, cups, cones, sprockets and a complete universal repair hanger and repair front forks designed to fit any and every bicycle ever manufactured in america. complete instructions are given so that any boy can intelligently order the parts wanted. you will also find repair parts for all the standard makes of hubs and coaster-brakes and all the latest equipment and novelties. tires at factory prices share with us our savings in trainload tire contracts and in the samson, record and hedgethorn tires get the best tire values in america at wholesale factory prices. send no money but write us to-day for the big ranger book and particulars of our 30 day free trial plan, wholesale prices and terms. mead cycle company dept. h 211 chicago, u.s.a. -----------------------------------------------------------------------summer snow and other fairy plays by grace richardson finding there is a wide demand for plays which commend themselves to amateurs and to casts comprised largely of children. miss richardson, already well and widely known, has here given four plays which, are unusually clever and fill this need. they call for but little stage setting, and that of the simplest kind, are suited to presentation the year around, and can be effectively produced by amateurs without difficulty. cloth binding . . . $1.00 puck: in petticoats by grace richardson five plays about children, for children to play--hansel and gretel, the wishing well, the ring of salt, the moon dream, and puck in petticoats. each is accompanied by stage directions, property plots and other helpful suggestions for acting. some of the plays take but twenty minutes, others as long as an hour to produce, and every one of the five are clever. cloth binding . . . $1.00 handy book of plays for girls by dorothy cleather not one of the six sparkling plays between these covers calls for a male character, being designed for the use of casts of girls only. they are easily, effectively staged--just the sort that girls like to play and that enthusiastic audiences heartily enjoy. cloth binding . . . $0.50 proofreading team at http://www.fadedpage.net [illustration: "great heavens! it's lew grandall!" cried the stranger on the raft. (_page 399_)] the auto boys' mystery by james a. braden author of "the auto boys," "the auto boys' adventure," "the auto boys' camp," "the auto boys' big six," "far past the frontier," etc. frontispiece by alfred russell the saalfield publishing company chicago--akron, ohio--new york the auto boys' mystery chapter i prologue the auto boys had been camped on the unfrequented shore of opal lake for several days. at first hunting and fishing were the only enlivening features of this, their unusual summer outing. opal lake, far up in the big northern woods, had at this time no other campers. true, there was an abandoned clubhouse on a nearby point not far from where phil way, billy worth, dave maclester and paul jones selected the spot for their outing camp. but, until within a day or two, even the clubhouse had seemed to be as it looked, deserted. but a smoke being seen one day, the boys had become curious. without actually entering the house itself, they had made individual or collective trips that way. also strange sounds had been heard, and even human presence had been detected. finally paul, the youngest of the boys, made a cautious trip thither and even entered the house where he had heard voices, and otherwise had detected that real folks were undoubtedly there; though why they were there paul could only guess. perhaps they were in search of a bag of money, said to be twenty thousand dollars, stolen three years before and supposed still to be hidden somewhere in that region. strange men had been seen near the end of a gravel road which the longknives club (owners of the now abandoned clubhouse) were then constructing for their own use and convenience. the unexpected loss of this money caused the work to stop, while the workmen, including a swedish foreman, nels anderson by name, remained unpaid to this day. aside from the clubhouse, the nearest inhabitants to the boys' camp were this same anderson and his family, who lived in a small clearing five or six miles away on the trail leading to staretta, a small town perhaps a dozen miles further on. this was the nearest town to opal lake which was, indeed, a veritable "lake of the woods." when paul jones, finally escaping through the cellar window, left the clubhouse without being discovered, he ran across in the dark another somebody who vanished, uttering strange and savage oaths. paul also made himself scarce in another direction and happened upon chip slider, whose merry response to paul's greeting caused both soon to become so friendly that paul took chip to their camp, where a warm meal soon loosened the boys' tongues and there was a general interchange of opinions about game, fish, the big woods, and at last the abandoned house on the point. here the boys learned from chip that a man named murky was also in the woods and supposedly after that lost or stolen satchel, thought by many to be hidden somewhere near. they learned from chip more of the robbery of grandall, the treasurer of the longknives, by this same murky; also that murky himself, through the connivance of grandall, was held up by chip's father by the order of grandall. the scheme seemed to have been for grandall to get the money thus entrusted to his care in a way that would divert suspicion against himself and direct it elsewhere. after sufficient time had elapsed, then grandall would manage to use that money, meanwhile placating chip's father, supposedly by bribes. so open, frank and friendless was young chip that he won the auto boys' confidence, and stayed on at the camp, proving himself a valuable aid and an added link in their narrow social life. shortly before this chip, encountering murky in the woods, had been badly beaten by the other, and had been seen with a bandaged head by some of the boys. this induced much pity for the homeless lad, while chip's knowledge of murky and matters connected with the robbery just alluded to, made him serviceable in the matter of knowing more about what was going on in and about the house on the point. it appeared, too, that others of the boys during previous scoutings about the point had seen murky, though they did not know who or what he was until slider enlightened them. the general conclusion was that the voices heard inside the house were more than apt to have indicated the presence of murky and grandall, still on trail of stolen money that must have, in some way, slipped into unknown hands. still nothing was sure or settled in their minds except that chip was a good fellow and murky a bad one from almost any point of view one might take. another point occurred to phil way, the oldest and the leader of the auto boys; not one of suspicion against chip, but for general enlightenment. a recent visit to their camp when all the boys were away had occurred. things had been taken, including provisions, bedding and dishes. perhaps young slider, more familiar with the woods life nearby, might have some knowledge that would lead to the perpetrator. taken all round, the camp thought itself rather in luck that paul had met this strange homeless lad in the way and under the circumstances he did. nels anderson, the giant swede, had also been seen under suspicious circumstances by some of the boys. taken altogether, the whole matter was attractive enough to foster certain ambitions inside the lads, who were too apt to fancy themselves amateur detectives, a vocation they knew little or nothing about, rather than young woodsmen, hunters, or anglers, pursuits they really did have some knowledge of and also some skill. chapter ii a quiet, tranquil sunday a great bull-frog whose hoarse croaking could always be heard above other sounds about the lake, "beginning at exactly eleven o'clock each night"--at least so paul jones positively stated--had started his unmelodious serenade a long time before the auto boys and their visitor prepared for bed. paul's adventure, chip slider's whole story and the combined information thus afforded had proved a most fruitful field for speculation and conversation. a bed for slider was contrived by spreading over some hemlock boughs a tarpaulin used on the car for covering baggage. a bucket-seat cushion from the car served quite nicely as a pillow. indeed chip had not for a long while had so comfortable a resting place, crude as it was. the plans for the night's sleeping arrangements were seized upon by phil as an opportunity of finding out whether the strange boy had any knowledge of the recent robbery of the camp. with this in view his remarks about a scarcity of blankets and his inquiries as to where chip had been managing to find accommodations were adroitly framed. quite perfectly he succeeded in gaining the knowledge desired, nor did slider ever suspect that the auto boys' suspicions might very easily have been directed toward him. it was truly pitiable to hear chip tell how in the night he had stood off a distance in the woods, taking note of the bright campfire of the four friends; how he had smelled their frying bacon when all he had to eat was a little dry bread; how he had been tempted to apply at the camp for food and shelter, but was afraid; how he had spent one whole evening within sight of the cheerful light about the shack, because it was a kind of company for him, and he slipped away and made his bed in the dead leaves beside a log when at last the campfire had quite died down. yet very interesting, too, was all that chip told. one certain fact made clear was that he had nothing to do with the theft of provisions and other items from the camp. when this was fairly plain phil way ventured the remark that murky had possibly fared better in the woods than slider had done. "no denyin' it," chip assented. "i found his hang-out only yesterday. it would put you in mind of a bear's den, most, to see it." "tell all about it," urged phil. "i'd like to smoke him out, like we would a woodchuck," he added with bitter earnestness. "nothin' much to it," answered slider, but he went on promptly to report what he had seen and the manner of his discovery. he had been in search of berries, or whatever he could find for food, he said, for his slender store of provisions was nearly gone. as he approached a marshy place where he thought he might find huckleberries, or blueberries, he discovered murky there ahead of him. he had known the evil fellow was in the woods. he had watched him frequently, believing he might learn something of the stolen payroll money or at least what was going on so secretly about the old clubhouse. carefully keeping himself out of sight, chip had followed when murky left the marsh. the latter walked directly to a thicket on a knoll, went in among the bushes and disappeared. then for a long time slider patiently waited. he wondered if the treasure he was seeking might not be hidden in the copse. toward evening murky left the thicket and slipped away in the direction of the point of land occupied by the clubhouse. improving this opportunity slider cautiously visited the brush-covered knoll. there he found the tramp's den--a nest of leaves and pine needles and branches between two logs. poles laid across the logs and covered over with branches made a roof for the den. merely as a place to sleep the nest looked snug enough, chip said. "didn't see any blankets or dishes, did you?" dave asked. indeed he had seen these very things, slider answered, and had wondered how murky came by them. he thought they probably had been taken from the clubhouse. a complete quartette of voices answered this remark, setting chip right as to the real ownership of the items mentioned. for not one of the four friends doubted now that it was murky and no one else who had stolen their equipment and provisions. considering the unscrupulous character of the fellow, they only wondered that he had not plundered the camp completely, leaving them nothing of value. it did not occur to them that probably the thief really wished to take more than he did, but could not conveniently carry a greater load. it was a matter of congratulation among the boys that they had not, by leaving the camp again unguarded, given murky a chance to return. they were more certain than ever now that some one of them must be always in attendance about the shack, and it would have needed very little to persuade them, also, that despite opal lake's many attractive features their best course would be to pull up stakes and bid its shores good-bye. even after all were in bed this feature of their situation was discussed to some extent. two main reasons for wishing to occupy the present camp, for yet a few days, were suggested. one was that in another week they must head the thirty homeward and it was therefore hardly worth while to search out a more secure and less frequented locality for a camp site. for reason number two there was the lively interest in the outcome of the search for the grandall payroll money, and an earnest wish to help chip slider find the treasure, if possible, and return it to the rightful owners,--the members of the club which had been practically broken up by its twenty thousand dollar loss, as many a larger organization might be. quite as usual paul's voice was the last one heard when the discussion closed and the quiet of midnight settled over the forest. all had been silent for some time. slider had expressed in his grateful, however awkward, way his appreciation of the offer his new friends made to help him. and phil way, answering for all the boys, said there was no obligation at all and no thanks necessary,--that nothing had been done, as yet, at least. "anyhow, it seems to me," said paul, after a long silence, "it seems to me as if we were all going to have our hands full. there will be murky and grandall and nels anderson digging into this mystery just as hard as we can, and maybe harder. and they are all bad ones, all of 'em, unless maybe anderson might not be so really bad excepting for being hooked up with a bad outfit, and all that." no comment being made by the others with regard to these remarks, jones went on to say that if there was any advantage to be had by having right and justice on their side, fortune ought to favor slider and his friends in the search to be carried forward. he reasoned it all out, too, to his own satisfaction, that in the end justice must prevail in all things or the whole world would ultimately go to smash. "and that's a fact, now, ain't it?" he asked. there came no answer. "well, is it, or don't it, wasn't it!" inquired paul, rather facetiously. still no answer. jones raised himself up on his elbow. he listened. it was perfectly evident from the heavy breathing all about him that every one of the other lads was sound asleep and had been for some time. "why! the bing-dinged mummies!" he exclaimed, "and me talking till i'm all but tongue-tied--and to no one!" he added indignantly. having heard how slider slept in the open woods with not even a cover over him more than leaves, the auto boys would have been ashamed now to feel afraid in their snug shack, no matter what strange noises might come from the lake's dark shore lines. and though the sounds of various wild creatures coming to bathe or drink did reach the lads, as occasionally one or more of them awakened during the night, no heed was given the disturbers. it was enough to know that the exceeding drouth brought animals from long distances to the water's edge and that they were much more intent on drinking than having trouble with anyone or even among themselves. not because it was sunday morning but due quite entirely to their having retired so late, the auto boys slept longer than was their custom. poor chip slider awakened with the first peep of daylight, really tremendously surprised to find himself in such comfortable quarters. with a sigh of exquisite content and satisfaction he at once dropped off to sleep again. with the exception of the night at the bachelor's shanty he had not known such sweet and unbroken rest for--it seemed to him almost his whole lifetime. and then again, if chip had wondered whether there might be kindness, cheerfulness and plenty to eat somewhere in the world, as he most certainly often had done, he must surely have found the answer now. for when he awoke again the rich aroma of boiling coffee and cheering scent of frying bacon greeted him. from the beach down by the lake, too, there came lively laughter and a great splashing of water. "skip down and dive in! paddle around some, then rub down lively!" urged billy worth, who, having had his plunge, was now nimbly getting breakfast. "makes a man feel dandy!" he urged, really thinking that a bath would do chip good, anyway. "and hold on!" he added. "here's soap and a towel if you care for 'em." slider was by no means afraid of the water. he was glad of the chance to take a swim and had the sound sense to realize, as well, that he stood much in need of a vigorous scrubbing. he hurried down to the water zestfully, albeit rather lamely for his body was stiff and sore. paul made him feel at home at once by turning a back flip-flop off the now completed raft for his especial benefit. he asked chip to follow suit, but the latter only smiled and dove off forward, instead. "being around the woods as much as you have been, you'll hardly have a change of clothes with you, but here's a shirt i'll never need, and you can keep it if you'll accept it from me," said phil way in a pleasant, off-hand manner, when he and chip were dressing. it was a friendly yet delicate way of getting the young stranger into one garment, at least, that was clean and whole. the boy could not refuse nor did he wish to do so. though he was sensitive, his feelings were not injured. nor were his pride and manliness hurt at all. it was just because he was not permitted to feel that he was in any degree an object of charity. true, chip had begged for food along the road. one would think that did not indicate much pride on his part; but it should be remembered that asking for aid among strangers is very different from receiving anything as charity from those one considers his friends. with such a beginning the auto boys and their new acquaintance found sunday passing very pleasantly. they wrote letters, took long walks about the lake and phil and paul took chip for a ride in the car, going almost to anderson's cabin before turning back. this put the boys in mind of the tree that had been shivered by the mighty blow of the great swede. after dinner all but dave walked out to the end of the gravel road improvement to inspect the spot again and particularly to see the slivered stump on which anderson's sledge had fallen with such mighty force. here, it developed, slider had made his headquarters, so far as he may be said to have had anything of the kind in the woods. he had kept his stock of food here, hidden in a weather-beaten cracker box, that some teamster had used in feeding his horses. but there was no food left now, chip explained. then he added that but for falling in with his new friends he would have been obliged to abandon, for the time, at least, his search for the stolen fortune. the few berries he could find would not have been enough to sustain him. he had eaten even the stray stalks of stunted corn that grew up where horses, used in the road building, had been fed. maclester had remained on guard in camp while the others were out upon the old roadway. the latter returned to find him perched on the log projecting over the water, scrutinizing the point and the old house there closely. "hang it!" declared david forcefully, "i wish we hadn't agreed that we wouldn't go near the clubhouse today. i've seen a man moving about over there. he came out on the porch toward the lake, once, and after looking all around he stepped down to that rotten old wharf and threw something into the water." "gee whiz!" paul jones burst forth, "was it the same man we saw before?" "yes, the one with the golf cap," maclester said. "when he went inside he went upstairs and closed that window that has been open. he acted as if he was getting ready to go away." chapter iii the search in the old house paul's adventure in the old house somehow seemed to give importance to his opinions on all matters pertaining to that subject. so when he suggested that the act of throwing something into the water by the tenant of the abandoned building was for the purpose of destroying evidence, all the boys agreed that quite likely such was the truth. what evidence this person, be he grandall or not, wished to destroy and why, was the subject of vast discussion. since the coming of slider among them, particularly, the auto boys found the mystery of the stolen twenty thousand dollars to possess for them a strong personal interest. they talked over and over again, and with the greatest relish, everything that had come within their notice in and around the bleak old structure down there on the point. finally--it was during the sunday evening supper of cold hard-boiled eggs, bread and butter, bananas, graham crackers and coffee--that finally, and at last, phil way proposed that a really serious visit be made to the clubhouse the following morning. of any person encountered--mr. murky excepted, of course--permission to use the vise and other equipment in the automobile shed would be asked. this would be a reasonable pretext for going to the clubhouse grounds. and being on those premises, everyone should look carefully about for some clue to the stolen money's hiding place. it was not easy for captain phil to suggest this plan. he was not sure it was quite square and honorable--"on the level"--as some would say,--but he called it a stratagem in a worthy cause and so felt better over it. but really, since the cause was that of helping chip slider, as against such villains as murky and grandall, no one could blame phil, or blame any of the lads that they welcomed his proposal heartily. the day had been hot and close. contrary to the usual condition, also, the air grew little if any cooler as night came on. a dive from the projecting log into the lake to cool off was in order then, as the boys prepared for bed. "just goes to show what a nuisance clothes are, anyway," observed paul jones, as he dried himself. he was rejoicing exceedingly that he had only to jump into his nightshirt to be clothed to all necessary extent, following his swim. "heap fine idea if we had clothes for day time as simple as for night time!" he added. "yes sir, it's just such fellows as you, jones, that would sooner or later drift right back to the stone age if there weren't more energetic ones to drag you along forward, making you wear clothes and things--keeping you civilized," was maclester's answer. a good-natured grin accompanied his remarks. "well, i s'pose it takes clothes to give some folks an appearance of being civilized," was paul's warm rejoinder, yet with utmost good-nature. "but for my part--well, i'll go on wearing 'em, david, for your sake." "and it would make your appearance more civilized still if you made more civil use of your tongue," maclester retorted. then jones had recourse to his usual, "tush, tush, davy! you've tired yourself all out. you'll feel better tomorrow." this sort of language, in a fatherly tone that from paul's slender size, in contrast with dave's large frame, was really grotesque, always provoked a mild laugh. usually, too, it closed the wordy clashes in which the two boys frequently engaged. maclester made no further response. he was ready for bed now, billy had already crept in and phil and chip slider were following him. "last is best of all the game," chirped jones in his own blithe, self-complacent way as he saw that he was bringing up the rear, as often he had done before. but in another moment he likewise was in bed. the boys were feeling now the late hours of the night before. undoubtedly they all would "feel better tomorrow." the probability that the amiable mr. murky would discover chip slider's presence in the woods had been discussed before, but the talk was renewed at breakfast monday morning. chip was quite sure the old fellow did not suspect that he was near. he had been very careful to keep out of murky's sight and was more anxious than ever to do so now, being quite sure there would be serious trouble for himself and his new friends as well, were he discovered. it was so apparent that slider stood in great dread of the tramp that phil had no hesitancy in suggesting that he might better remain at the camp while the others visited the old house. chip agreed readily. he said he could be of no use elsewhere, and his presence with the auto boys would but inflame murky as much against them as himself if they chanced to meet him. with the exception of the upstairs window being closed, the clubhouse and its surroundings looked exactly the same as on their former visits to the point, the auto boys found. the air of loneliness, melancholy and excessive quiet impressed them all just as it had done before. the sound of their own footsteps appeared to ring in a hollow and unnatural way. their voices, though low and subdued, seemed loud and harsh in their ears in the foreboding calm of this haunted atmosphere. "i don't see _why_ it should always feel so here--as if a fellow was just going to be scared to death," remarked billy in an undertone. "if you figure it out, though, it's all in your mind," replied phil thoughtfully. "trouble is, to make yourself believe it." but notwithstanding his reasoning, sound enough, undoubtedly, despite the awful tragedy the point was so soon to witness--captain phil carried his philosophy rather gingerly, as it were, when he stepped up on the porch to knock. in other words, he stepped very lightly. still his rapping was right sharp and it should have brought a response had there been anyone within hearing, willing to make answer. peering in at the windows, the boys could see nothing in any way different than when they had been at the house the first time. "i tell you whoever _was_ here has gone," said maclester for the fourth or fifth time, and he tried the door. it was locked. the door at the rear,--that is, the one opening upon the high porch facing the lake, was likewise tightly secured. "now then," said phil, resolutely, "we're face to face with the question that has been in my mind all night. what are we going to do next? and i'll tell you what we _are_ going to do. we have no right to go into the house--no right at all, one way you look at it. but that isn't the answer. we are helping chip slider with his search for money that was stolen and hidden, and that ought to be found and returned to its owners. then it's _necessary_ that we go in this clubhouse and _we're going in_." "paul knows the way up through the cellar! let him get in at the window he got out of and so go up the cellar stairs and open the door for us. there's a key inside, likely," proposed billy. "say! how'd you like to take a run and jump off the dock?" answered young mr. jones with more fervor than elegance. "no, sir! we can find some other window open!" and paul was right. a surprise awaited the boys when they reached the west side of the house. (the path from front to rear passed on the east of the building.) the brush and a couple of tall trees grew very close to the walls at the westerly side. phil was foremost as the friends ventured in that direction. "look!" he cried suddenly. "a window open, and more than that, it's smashed to smithereens!" quite true it was. the fragments of glass littered the parched and stunted grass. the sash of the window was raised to its fullest height. a freshly broken branch of a low bush, close by, was evidence that the mischief had been done but recently. the boys could only guess by whom and for what purpose the window had been shattered. the thought came to them that murky might have been doing some investigating inside. possibly he was in the house at this very minute. the idea was not a pleasant one to contemplate. "gee whiz! i'd fade _away_--i'd shrink up to a pale shadow and perish--actually perish, if ever that fellow got hold of _me_!" said young mr. jones. his voice indicated that perhaps his exaggerated statement might not be so overdrawn as it appeared. "come on! give me a lift, somebody," exclaimed way impatiently. then, ignoring billy's prompt offer of a hand to boost him, up he clambered and the next moment stood within. billy, paul and dave followed. the air in the house was close and oppressive. outside the sun shone hot. not even a zephyr stirred the leaves. a bluejay shrieked noisily, as if in protest at the visitors' conduct. with something of that "fading away" feeling paul jones had mentioned, the boys proceeded, however, from room to room. downstairs they found everything to be quite as has been described heretofore. the bucket on the kitchen table beside which, on a former occasion, the boys had seen a tiny pool of water, was now empty and turned upside down. other little things, such as the tin dipper being inside a cupboard and every drawer and every door closed, suggested that whoever had occupied the house had indeed gone away. a door opened upon the stairs that led to the second floor. it was closed but not locked. up the dusty steps the boys went. they found themselves in a hall off of which opened six small bed-rooms. in each was a bedstead of one kind or another, some of iron, some built of pine lumber. there were mattresses on all the beds but on only one was there other bedding. this was in the room the window of which the boys had more than once seen to be open. a couple of blankets and a pillow were thrown loosely over this mattress. the latter was quite out of its proper position as if it had been placed on the bedstead hurriedly. looking more closely the lads discovered that the other mattresses were awry. dave suggested that someone had pulled them this way and that to see if anything was hidden in or under them. there was no telling whether he was right. between two of the tiny bed-rooms was a bath-room. it contained a tub and washstand only, but was quite nicely finished in painted pine as, indeed, was all the second floor. there were no towels, soap, brushes or any of the usual paraphernalia of a bath-room in sight but on a little shelf beneath the mirror were a shaving-mug and brush. "see! this has been used just lately! the soap is still wet on the brush," phil way observed, picking up that article. "mr. grandall forgot it, i reckon." "grandall--your grandmother!" exclaimed worth quickly. "look at the initial b, big as life, on the cup!" "just the same, it was grandall who was here and the only questions are, what did he come for and where has he went?" said paul jones more positively than grammatically. "anyhow the shaving cup or the initial, either one, is no sure sign of anything except that someone was here, and we knew that before," said way reflectively. "quite likely the reason the mug was left here was that it had been here all along and did not belong to grandall," he reasoned. "now you're shouting," spoke jones with emphasis. at the end of the narrow hall was a small room with a door opening upon a balcony. here the boys stepped out. the view of the lake from this point was extremely pretty. under the glow of the sun the water shone like silver. the green shores looked cool and delightful--far cooler than they really were. but they were lovely to the eye. only one tall, dead pine whose naked top and branches rose gaunt and ghostly above the foliage of its neighbors offered the slightest omen of the impending danger in a scene so tranquil. a high trellis on which the roses or some vines had at some time clambered to this balcony or porch roof where the boys now stood, offered them an opportunity to climb down to the ground. only billy chose this route. he quickly reached the earth and went out to the decaying remnants of the wharf while the others resumed their search through the house. but if he thought to discover any sign of whatever the strange man threw into the water the day before, he was disappointed. worth rejoined his friends in the clubhouse living-room. striking many matches to find the way, they all descended the steep steps into the cellar. very little light entered this dark place. one small window only was there beside the one whose presence paul jones had found so convenient. "here's the place to look carefully," observed billy. "but i say, we are a pack of mutton-heads! what if someone should come into the house this minute? tell you what! you fellows dig around here and i'll stand guard upstairs." "i did think of such a plan but after seeing that broken window, i concluded it wasn't necessary," said phil. "whoever there might be to disturb us now, has been through the house ahead of us, i'm thinking. and it's my opinion that we are too late coming here, anyhow. the man who most likely found the twenty thousand dollars is the one who cleared out last night." still billy worth insisted on going upstairs to stand guard while the search of the dark cellar went forward and the bluejay outside harshly screamed its protests while the gaunt, bare top of the old dead pine frowned ominously across the lake. chapter iv a guest at nels anderson's in vain did the youthful searchers examine every foot of the cellar's earthen floor. the thought that there, if anywhere, the treasure might be buried, impressed them strongly and right diligently did they apply themselves to their task. a few old boxes, a heavy pine table and a combination cupboard and ice chest were substantially all the cellar contained. all these were explored and the ground beneath them thoroughly inspected. "nothing doing," was the way jones summed up the result, and if he meant by this that every effort was fruitless, as would appear likely, he was quite correct. all through the automobile shed and all about the club grounds the boys carried their exploring and their minute inspection of whatever had the appearance of being a likely hiding place for a suit-case containing twenty thousand dollars of currency. despite the temptation to experiment with the engine that had been used for pumping, to try the tools of the workbench, or to put afloat the fishing skiff they discovered, partly covered with lumber at the far end of the shed, they molested nothing. they only looked, but this they did thoroughly. it was noon and chip slider, keeping camp alone, had become anxious and worried for the safety of his new friends before the latter made their appearance at the lean-to. he looked wistfully from one to another and read in their faces the answer to the question in his mind. all hands fell to with preparations for dinner. chip had busied himself with the gathering of an immense quantity of dry wood, but fresh water must be brought from the well in the sandy beach, potatoes must be washed, peeled and sliced for frying; bacon must be sliced; eggs and butter brought from the "refrigerator," also,--something for everyone to do, in short, under chef billy's competent direction. whether murky, as well as the wearer of the golfing cap, that is, the recent tenant of the clubhouse, had departed from the woods, was a question all tried in vain to answer satisfactorily as the boys sat at dinner. and if one, or both, had or had not really gone for good, was also an inquiry, the answer to which could not be discovered. paul jones proposed that a visit be made to the den murky had made for himself. slider could show the way. approaching carefully, it might be quite easy to discover the tramp's presence or absence without danger of being seen by him. billy worth interposed with the suggestion that a trip to staretta was more important. provisions were needed, there would surely be some mail at the office and the letters written yesterday should be posted. "yes, and stop at anderson's, too!" put in maclester. "i'm mighty suspicious of that individual, _myself_,--'specially after jonesy's experience!" with these good reasons for going to town confronting them, together with the fact that the use of their car was always a source of keen enjoyment to the auto boys, it seems quite needless to state what they decided to do. paul inspected the gasoline supply and added the contents of a ten gallon can kept as a reserve, not forgetting to put the now empty can in the tonneau to be refilled at staretta. dave looked to the quantity of oil in the reservoir and decided none was needed. phil in the meantime was examining nuts and bolts with a practiced eye--a hardly necessary proceeding for every part of the beloved machine had been put in the pink of order on saturday afternoon. "worth's turn to drive," said jones. "so go on, bill. i'll wash dishes. gee whiz! if there's anything i'd rather do than wash dishes--" "yes, the list would fill a book!" worth broke in. "you go ahead, paul, i'm going to stay in camp. going to cook up a little stuff and all i ask of you fellows is to bring these things from fraley's." worth passed over a list he had been writing and, with a show of an extreme reluctance he did not feel, paul climbed up to the driver's seat. phil way meantime was protesting that he would remain to guard camp. billy would not listen, but said in an undertone that way must go along to make chip feel comfortable and contented. for slider had shown for way a fondness that was both beautiful and pathetic. it was as if he realized that he had truly found the answer to the musing questions of his lifetime at last. this was true with regard to all four of the chums but most especially was chip already devoted to phil. with maclester up beside paul, and way and the now clean and well-fed boy of the woods in the tonneau, the graceful automobile threaded its route among the trees. with roads averaging from fair to good, an hour would have taken the travelers to staretta easily. with six or seven miles of woodland trail, then an equal distance of but moderately good going before getting fairly out of the forest, paul took an hour and a half for the trip. there was no need to hurry, he said, but just the same as soon as the wheels struck the good, level earth not far from town the speedometer shot up to "30." link fraley was found, busy as usual, this time packing eggs into a shipping case; but for once he stopped working the moment he caught sight of his callers. sometimes he had allowed his father to wait on the boys as they did their buying, but today he told the senior member of the house he would attend to them himself. "been wantin' to see ye," said link cordially. "anything new back in the timber?" the young storekeeper's voice had a peculiar inflection and his face bore an expression that answered "yes" to his own question. "a little; that is, we have something to tell and something to ask about, as usual," phil replied. "here's the list of things billy wanted. if you'll get them ready while we go over to the post-office--we want to have a good, old talk with you." "been annexing part of our lumber country population, i see," remarked fraley in an undertone, glancing toward slider who had waited at the door. phil nodded. "want to look a little out," fraley continued, with a shake of his head and a tone of doubt; but he turned away at once to find the baking soda, item number one in billy worth's list, and his young friends betook themselves to the post-office. at the rear door of fraley & son's establishment was a platform to facilitate the loading and unloading of freight. it was roofed over with pine boards that gave protection from sun or rain and, as whatever slight breeze there might be blowing was to be found here, there was no better place in staretta for a chat on a hot day. seated on kegs of nails on this platform, upon their return to the store, the auto boys told mr. fraley, jr., the main facts of their discoveries since last seeing him. link listened with the most sober attention. "i honestly don't know," said he at last, "whether to take much stock in the story of the suit-case full of swag or not. but it does look as if things in general pointed in that direction. i didn't believe, at first, that your neighbor up there by the lake was anything more than one of these vacation tourists that often go trapsing 'round, even if he wasn't just a chap doing some shooting out of season. but i'm pretty well satisfied now that a lot more than ever _i_ suspected has been going on. listen here!" with this link took from between the leaves of a notebook a neatly folded clipping from a newspaper. clearing his throat, while he opened the clipping and smoothed it over his knee, he proceeded to read aloud. the newspaper item was an associated press dispatch dated from ----, the home city of the longknives club. its substance was that lewis grandall, teller of the commercial trust & banking company of that city, was missing from his home. his absence was supposed to be on account of an investigation the grand jury had been making in connection with certain city contracts in which he had been interested, not as an officer of the bank, but personally. the disappearance of grandall, the dispatch stated, had caused a small run on the bank and general uneasiness among the depositors and stockholders. this had later been quieted by a signed statement from the directors stating positively that the company's interests were not involved in any of the missing teller's personal business affairs. "from which it would seem to a man up a tree that one certain grandall was finding opal lake atmosphere good for his constitution," remarked link fraley as he finished reading. "but," he went on, "it looks to me a lot more as if he had come up here for his health, so to speak, than to hunt for a bag of the coin of the realm that somebody stole three years ago. the point is, that if the twenty thousand dollars that the road builders should have got, but didn't, was put through a nice, neat and orderly system of being stolen here and there till it all got back to grandall again, he ain't been letting it lie around the woods and drawin' no interest nearly three years now." "by ginger! i knew that fellow at the clubhouse was grandall, all right," spoke up paul jones. "and you must have hit the nail on the head when you told us in the first place that nels anderson was mixed up with him in cheating that whole army of men out of their pay," the boy added briskly. "that doesn't dovetail with what we already know about murky getting the money first and then slider taking it from him and its getting back to grandall again," said paul thoughtfully. "oh, no! that wouldn't make much difference," said fraley. "grandall was playing everybody against everybody else for the benefit of grandall. that was his general reputation, too--downright deceitful! never knew just where he'd hook up or how long he'd be either one thing or the other--your best friend, or your worst enemy." whether grandall had been frightened away from the clubhouse by finding murky to be in the vicinity, or for other reasons had deemed the lake an unsafe hiding place, the boys and fraley debated for some time. as they at last prepared to go, link called phil to one side. he did not like the notion of chip slider being taken up by the auto boys in any very intimate way, he declared. he had known the elder slider, he said, and there were a lot of better men in michigan than he and a lot of better boys than his son was likely to be. phil told fraley he was surely mistaken with regard to chip, at least, but promised he would be on his guard in case he found any deceptive tendencies developing in the young gentleman in question. meanwhile paul and dave had driven to the general repair shop at which their gasoline was purchased and all were soon ready for the road. with a steady purr their quiet, powerful car left the town behind. what a perfect machine it was! and what its owners would do were anything to happen to deprive them of its ever-ready services--the very thought would have been quite unbearable. it is a wise plan, indeed, that none of us can see even a few short hours forward, or know certainly the changes a single day may bring. an adequate excuse for stopping at the lowly home of the andersons had not been forgotten by the chums while in town. choosing to call there on their homeward way rather than when on the road in from the woods, they now had with them an extra half dozen of bananas. mrs. anderson sat on a rickety chair at the shady side of the little house vainly trying to get a breath of fresh air while doing some mending, as the thirty came to a stop near her. hastily she arose and went around to a back door. phil was already out of the car and was walking up to the low front step--the dwelling was without a porch--when through the open doors he saw mrs. anderson enter at the rear. she spoke some words in her native tongue the boy did not understand; but directly nels anderson stepped forward from the kitchen to meet him while at the same time another man glided silently out of the door at which the woman had just come in. the man wore a golfing cap. if he was not the identical person who had lately occupied the clubhouse then phil way was vastly mistaken. "wouldn't you like some bananas?" asked way pleasantly. "we thought likely you did not get to town often and maybe would relish a taste of these," and with a friendly smile he tendered his offering. with only a word of thanks and that spoken rather indifferently, phil thought, the great swede accepted the fruit. still holding the paper sack under his arm he said he wished the camp at the lake only good luck but he thought it dangerous for the boys to stay there. it would be more so as time went on, unless a pouring rain came very soon to wet the ground and foliage. the probability of forest fires near by was becoming serious. two severe blazes had already occurred. he pointed away to the west and south, calling attention to smoke that he said he could see over the distant tree tops. oddly enough phil could see no smoke, at least nothing more than usual. the horizon in this region had always a hazy, smoky tinge, he had observed. nevertheless he said he appreciated the suggestion and added that a few days more would see the breaking of camp at the lake, anyway. it was in his thoughts to ask what anderson himself would do in the event of a forest fire. the tiny clearing, he thought, would be very little protection if the flames came near it. but way refrained from speaking of this. there was a matter of more importance about which he wished to inquire. "do you know if there is anyone staying at the clubhouse at the lake, mr. anderson?" thus did the boy frame his question. receiving no answer but a shake of the head, phil then continued. "because," said he, "it would be right convenient if we could get permission to use the workbench in the automobile house. we'd do no harm to anything." "i tank yo better let him bay," nels answered, the least bit sharply. but more kindly he went on to say that he knew of no one being at the clubhouse now and that while the property was not his, the best advice he could offer was not to meddle with anything in the buildings or on the grounds. quite baffled by the swede's apparent friendliness, yet certain that he was practicing deception, phil returned to the machine. he told fully of the conversation with anderson while the car purred forward. without exception the boys agreed with him that the talk of forest fires was like the denial of all knowledge of the clubhouse being occupied--simple deception, and nothing else. clinching the soundness of this reasoning also, was the certain fact that the recent clubhouse tenant was now anderson's guest. "grandall! he saw murky or murky saw him! he must have guessed that murky has found out how he had been given the double cross, and was after him in dead earnest. result: grandall, in cahoots with anderson for some bad business or other, packs his little satchel and goes to the swede's to stay." so did dave maclester reason the whole matter out. chip slider nodded his endorsement of these conclusions. "they've got that stolen money, so they have!" he said. "we could have them arrested," he added, only the word he used was "pinched." "and we will! _mark that!_" said phil way. yet it often does happen that young gentlemen, and older ones, too, make assertions which, in the end, lead not where it was thought they would do at all. chapter v "who said i was afraid?" for billy's information the developments of the afternoon were told and retold when all were again together in the camp. there was much discussion, too, concerning the advisability of causing the arrest of the man in the golfing cap and, possibly, nels anderson as well. meantime billy had announced supper. it was a most tempting little meal with warm soda biscuits and honey as the chief items. the former chef worth had prepared during the afternoon and the latter he had caused to be brought from fraley's in anticipation of his having the biscuits ready. no doubt it was at the comfortable old farm home of tyler gleason that the four chums had developed a marked fondness for the delicacies mentioned, as readers of "the auto boys" will remember; but be that as it may, they enjoyed the change from the usual camp fare hugely. as has been stated, there was no little discussion as to whether the staretta officers should be asked to arrest and hold the stranger at nels anderson's until he could be positively identified as grandall, the dishonest longknives' treasurer. phil way declared firmly that this must be done. "personally, i don't see any sense in mixing up in an affair that doesn't really matter much to us!" exclaimed maclester. he had been quiet for a long time. when he did speak it was with hard emphasis in his voice. "murky and grandall and the whole outfit that got away with the cash the road builders should have had--well! we don't usually have much to do with such people and no good will come of our beginning now," the boy added. for a moment chip slider's face wore a look of anger. perhaps he thought dave's latter remark was aimed at him. but he said nothing. phil looked at maclester in a significant manner, as if he would caution him against speaking so. yet, "no use growling, davy," were the words he said. then he added that such a thing as duty must be taken into consideration; that one who has knowledge of a crime and conceals it is regarded by the law the same as if he actually shielded the wrong-doer. "gee whiz! i should say so," piped paul jones with shrill emphasis. "we'd be a pack of softies if we let grandall and murky, and the rest, get away, after all we know now!" when billy also joined heartily with phil and paul in urging that the staretta officers be notified of the presence of both grandall and murky, maclester no longer held back. how best to go about the matter, however, became immediately a problem. dave wanted to telegraph the police in grandall's home town and learn if the man was really wanted by them. the hearsay evidence possessed by slider, with regard to the stolen twenty thousand dollars, he declared, wasn't worth much until it could be backed up by more hard, cold facts than were thus far in hand. "suppose we were to go back to staretta and have a talk with the sheriff or chief-of-police or constable--whatever they have there in the brass buttons line--tonight," proposed billy. he was resting comfortably, his back against a tree, while phil and dave, with slider's help, were washing the dishes. having had a quiet but busy afternoon young mr. worth was quite ready for an evening out. "sure pop!" paul jones exclaimed. "how do we know but that grandall fellow is right on his way now to fly the coop?--and that's just what he is, most likely." "go ahead! i'll keep camp--slider and i," put in maclester quickly. perhaps dave was anxious to show chip some friendly attention to make amends for the unpleasant words spoken a little while before. perhaps chip, as well, wished to show that he harbored no ill feeling. at any rate, "yes, let him an' me do up the rest of them dishes an' the rest of you get started sooner," the lad proposed. the thought that slider's presence, to tell the officers in person what he knew of the stolen payroll money, would be highly desirable, did not occur even to phil, usually quick to see such things. the plan was put into effect at once. with headlights throwing a long, white glow before them billy, phil and paul said good-bye. worth was at the wheel, one finger on the throttle, and at truly hazardous speed he sent the steady thirty in and out among the trees that bordered the narrow trail. "goodness, bill! what's the hurry?" ejaculated phil, alone in the tonneau and getting more of a shaking up than he relished. "oh, he thinks there's so many trees around it won't hurt if he does tear out a few of the big, old ones _that are all done growing anyway_," paul added grimly. for it most generally is true that the driver is much less nervous than his passengers. a chuckle was worth's only answer, but he did retard the throttle some and with less gas the machine at once slowed down. the evening was close and warm as the previous night had been. the moon had not yet risen but, knowing every part of the road, billy let the car pick up speed again directly he reached the broader, straighter path. "we'll get this robbery business into the hands of the bluecoats; then home for us," called phil from his seat behind. he would not willingly have admitted it, but he believed he smelled smoke. also he was thinking of a clipping enclosed from home that morning telling of very destructive forest fires in other sections of this northern part of michigan. "i guess so," worth answered. "it's a shame to punish a car on such roads as these. the lake is all right and being by ourselves is just what we wanted, but--" the sentence was not finished. it was a way billy had of leaving some things unsaid. in this case the road told all the driver had left unspoken. it was certainly "no boulevard," as young mr. jones had expressively remarked the first time the chums traversed it. the dim glow of a kitchen lamp was the only sign of life the boys noticed at nels anderson's little house as they passed. they did not pause. there would be no occasion for them to visit the place again, they had decided, but whether correctly or not will in due time be apparent. just now the main thing was to reach staretta before everyone, link fraley in particular, would most likely be found in bed. true it was that the little town fell asleep early. "and what's to stop it?" paul jones had once asked. yet the lights were still burning in fraley's store and at the post-office, which was in the little shoe store opposite, when the thirty rumbled down the main street. mr. lincoln fraley, standing in the doorway, went down the steps to meet the boys as they drove up. something had happened, he was quite sure, to bring them back so soon; for, not being familiar with the rapid traveling an automobile affords, he had no idea of the lads having been to opal lake and back since he last saw them. "it's time to close up anyhow. come take a ride," billy invited. mr. fraley said his father would attend to closing the store and, going in leisurely for his hat--lest he be suspected of a too lively interest in the prospect of an automobile ride if he hurried, perhaps--he presently seated himself in the tonneau beside phil. as billy drove slowly forward way told of the discovery of grandall at anderson's. briefly he stated the intention of causing the man's arrest and the capture of murky, as well, which, he was certain, could be quite readily accomplished. "well now!" said mr. fraley in a musing tone, and, "if it don't beat me!" he slowly added in the same slow and reflective manner. "but great land of belly aches!" paul jones chirped protestingly, "don't you see what we want? we want to know whom we must see--sheriff--judge--chiropodist--whoever it may be to get these chaps into jail and nail down those twenty thousand pieces of eight!" "don't be in a hurry," spoke fraley with greater animation. "what i had in mind was that nels anderson surely is consorting with grandall and probably has been all along. i'm the more sure of it because the swede was in the store early this morning and bought a lot more stuff than we've ever sold him at one time before. i didn't wait on him and didn't know of it at the time you were here this afternoon. my father just happened to mention it at supper. pretty plain now where nels got the money and plain as daylight, as well, that he expects to have company for some time, which accounts for the stack of provisions he took back with him." "all the more reason--" phil began, meaning to continue, "that we should get in touch with the officers at once." link anticipated what he would have said. "no," he interrupted, "you don't need be in any hurry. and you do want to bring that slider boy with you when you come to talk with the sheriff. your evidence is mostly second-hand anyway. you don't want to give it to the county officers third-hand and fourth-hand when it ain't necessary. i'm watchin' the papers every day and i'll get some more news about grandall's running away from the grand jury and his bank. just you wait." there was a lurking suspicion in billy worth's mind that fraley wished to wait until he, himself, could communicate with the officers, but he said nothing. phil and paul were disappointed, too, that their friend would not advise immediate action. the boys talked of those matters after they had left link at his home,--the large, plain house with flower beds in front, near the store. but they had headed the car toward opal lake now and their conclusion was to continue homeward. they would do nothing until the next afternoon, at least, at which time, it had been agreed, they were to see fraley again. they would find out, meanwhile, and be able to inform the officers, whether mr. murky was still "at home" at the rude shelter where chip had seen him. the light was yet burning at the humble anderson dwelling as the friends passed on their homeward way. they thought they saw the figures of two men sitting just outside the door where a faint breath of air might now be stirring, but could not be sure. they were quite satisfied the guest of the family was still there and for the present this knowledge was sufficient. as the headlights' glare swept the camp at opal lake chip slider was for a moment seen making frantic gestures. he seemed to wish the boys to hurry. phil almost fell over the excited youth as he jumped down from a forward seat a few seconds later, for chip had seized a front fender as if he would thereby help to halt the car more quickly. "i can't help it," cried slider with anxiety, "and i don't want to be scared over nothin'--but it's dave! he went over the lake in the boat an' that's the last i seen him. it was somebody hollerin'--somebody hollerin' from t'other side!" with real alarm the three friends heard the disconnected words of the frightened chip. in a chorus they demanded to know all about the matter, their own language hardly more clear than slider's. phil was first to gain composure enough to call for quiet. then he said: "now, chip, tell us precisely what happened and how long ago. i guess mac could get himself out of any kind of pickle he'd be likely to get into," he added with vastly more confidence than he felt. "go ahead now, and don't be so rattled." it was only a half hour or thereabouts after the automobile had gone, the boy stated, his tones still filled with alarm, when he and maclester heard cries from across the lake. they had washed and put away the dishes left to their attention, and were sitting down by the water, thinking it cooler on the beach. some refuse they had thrown on the campfire blazed up, making quite a bright light. like a distant whistle of a railroad engine there came a little later a long, loud cry, "hello-o!" "well, hello!" maclester cried in answer, chip stated, telling his story clearly, but so slowly paul was fairly bursting with impatience. there was more "hollering" of hellos, the lad went on, then the voice from over the water asked, "could ye put me up fer the night?" dave answered, "yes, come on over." replies came back, "have ye a boat?" and "could ye not kindly row across fer me?" the outcome of the whole matter was that maclester remarked to chip that they would wait until phil and the others returned. "'would you be afraid to cross over alone?' i asked him," said slider, "an' i meant just a fair question, but he turned quick as a cat. "'who said i was afraid?' he spoke pretty sharp. then he hollered out to the party that had been yellin', 'keep singing out to guide me an' i'll paddle over to you.' "he got in the boat and started and never a word he said. every minute or two i heard the other one and dave hollerin' out to each other till about the time when the boat could have touched t'other shore. then it was still an' i ain't heard a word since. i've yelled an' yelled an' kept the fire blazin' up to steer 'em straight to this here side, but never a word of answer did i get an' hide nor hair of 'em i ain't seen." "could it have been that fellow murky? would you know his voice?" asked billy. chip shook his head. he was quite sure the voice was not that of the person mentioned. "he could disguise his voice easy enough," spoke paul dejectedly. "dave could swim all night, but the other fellow--" "now wait a minute!" interrupted phil briskly, feeling that he simply _must_ face the situation with courage, bad as it might be. he hurried down to the beach. loudly and again and again he called, "oh! dave," and "oh, david maclester!" no answer came to his despairing cries. softly the water lapped the sand at his feet. in the distance the frogs were croaking. darkness too deep to let even the outlines of the farther shore be seen hung over opal lake and distinctly on the light breeze now springing up came the odor of burning pine. "if we only had another boat!" murmured paul. "there's the skiff down by the clubhouse," he meekly suggested. "why," said billy, "our old boat was safe enough! i can't believe they ever left the other side. that's where we've got to get to. we can go around the east end of the lake in about half an hour's walk." phil way was never so perplexed--never so at a loss to know what to do. looked to as the leader and the captain in all things, he usually was quick to suggest, quick to decide and quite generally for the best. his heart--his nerve--whatever it is that keeps the mind steady and alert at such time--came nearer failing him now than ever before. all the boys, chip included, were on the beach. several times phil's cries had been repeated by the others. at last-"we must get the skiff," way declared. "if dave's on dry land we can find him when daylight comes, if not before. but if he's holding on to an upset boat, though too weak to answer us, maybe, we've got to find him right off." leaving paul to guard the camp and keep a bright fire burning, billy and phil, with chip accompanying them, were soon running toward the old clubhouse. they carried the oil lamps from the car and thus made good progress. but the skiff was found dry and seamy. it would be necessary for one or another to keep bailing constantly, they saw, the moment they launched her. and where were the oars? in their excitement the boys had not noticed the absence of this very necessary equipment until the boat was in the water. with frantic haste they searched here and there. the rays of their lamps were far from powerful and close inspection of each nook and corner must be made to see what might be there. the excessive stillness, the atmosphere of loneliness and melancholy that hung always about the point and its deserted buildings seemed intensified tonight. the shadows cast by the two lamps seemed unnaturally gaunt and ghostly. with all their activity the three lads could not but be impressed by these things, but they were too occupied to be frightened by them. "at last!" phil's voice came low but quick. in another moment he drew a pair of oars from behind an unused door whose lower panels a charge of buckshot had shattered, apparently, and which was now stored in a corner of the automobile shed. "whatever will we bail with?" asked billy, finding the skiff already to have taken considerable water. "i know," came a prompt answer and slider disappeared in the darkness. from behind the garage he brought in a few seconds two empty tin cans. "there's no end of 'em among some weeds back there if we need more," he said. "no! you keep bailing, chip, and you, billy, hold the lights! off we go!" and phil shoved away the moment all were fairly on board. from the black shore line to the east they could see the campfire shedding a bright light for a little distance over the waters; but except for this and the rays of the auto lamps worth held the darkness was like pitch. "paul's blaze will be our light-house. we want to hit toward the middle of the lake, just about opposite the camp, then straight over to the far side," spoke way, breathing fast. "keep me guided right, bill." he was pulling hard. the incoming water kept slider more than busy. with a can in each hand he scooped to right and left. worth found it necessary to give phil very few directions for way was a splendid oarsman and the light craft swept forward rapidly. every minute or two billy sang out maclester's name. eagerly he scanned the water as far as the lamp rays fell, but heard nothing, saw nothing. not until the north shore was almost reached did phil slow down. then he let the boat drift forward easily while watching for a landing place. "raise the lamp higher," he called over his shoulder. billy did so and as the skiff floated nearer the quite steep bank rising from the water at this point, there came suddenly into the lighted circle a flat bottomed fishing boat. it was the scow maclester had used and it was empty. chapter vi is no news good news? the fishing boat lay drifting, but only three or four yards from shore. had dave effected a landing or, in the darkness, had he tried and failed? that which quite possibly, even probably, had happened was a thought that filled even phil with apprehension and despair. "light the way! i'll pull close in shore," he said, trying hard to swallow the lump in his throat. the bank where the skiff's nose soon touched was steep, yet easy to be climbed as its height was only a few feet. but there was no sign that anyone had been near it. otherwise the dry earth would have shown the imprints of toes or heels. this was quickly proved when, phil steadying the boat and with a root and a straggling shrub to help him, billy crept quickly to the top. "still, we don't know just where dave may have run in. it's queer that he let the scow drift, if--even if he expected to go right back," said worth in a hushed tone, from the edge of the low bluff. "queer what became of the man who called him over here, if such a thing as mac falling into the water may have happened," observed phil. "and dave could swim--why, almost across the lake, if he had to! he could save himself if there was nobody pulling him down." throwing billy a line by which to hold the boat, way and slider followed him up the bank. they walked some distance in each direction along the shore but the feeble light of the oil lamps showed no trace of david maclester nor yet of the mysterious person who had summoned him. the thought, "crooked work," was in the minds of all three. "after all, it's the water i'm most afraid of. if dave fell and hurt himself or was pushed into the lake--but never mind. one of us must go back to paul and the others will have to--look further," said phil at last. billy was chosen to return to camp. what phil meant to do, with slider's help, was drag the lake in this vicinity. if dave had gone to the bottom, due to some accident or injury, it might not yet be too late to save his life. such things had been done, way said, but he spoke without his usual confidence and very, very gloomily. returning to the skiff, the boys ran along side the fishing boat and drew the latter to shore. phil and chip tied her to a projecting root and worth bade them good-bye. with a long, steady stroke he pulled for the southern shore and the bright light blazing there. but it is one thing to row for the fun of it, when the sunlight dances on the ripples, and quite another to cross a strange body of water--and alone--when inky darkness spreads everywhere. the swelling of the wood had now pretty well stopped the skiff's leaking, yet again and again billy paused to bail out. the unpleasant thought that he would find the water pouring in too fast for his best efforts harassed him. he could not see, so he often put down his hand to feel and thus make sure the boat was not filling. so at last did he float into the rays of the campfire's light and a minute later stand telling paul the unhappy discoveries made. the thought that dave and the strange man, having found their boat drifting beyond reach, may have started to walk around the head of the lake and so come on foot to the camp, had suggested itself to billy as he rowed. mentioning this to paul he set out, with a small camp lamp in hand, to explore the shore in the direction indicated. thus left alone again jones was the most dejected and sorrowful young fellow one could easily imagine. to keep the fire blazing high was all he could do to be of any possible assistance. inactivity was hard for him to bear at any time. especially was it hard when his thoughts were so disturbed and his anxiety so great. it was coming daylight when at last jones saw the fishing boat approaching. in it were phil and billy and chip; for worth, having traversed the whole upper border of the lake without result other than to tire himself exceedingly, had spent all the latter part of the night with way and slider. to the great astonishment of these two he had suddenly appeared to them out of the darkness. he had broken his lamp to bits in a painful tumble into a dry water course the undergrowth concealed. several hours the three lads had then spent alternately dragging the lake's bottom with hooked poles, looking up and down the steep bank for footprints, and here and there going some distance back into the woods vainly searching. even before the dawn appeared their lamps went out. with difficulty they had then embarked for the opposite shore. daylight came as wearily they worked their heavy craft forward. the one hopeful fact the boys found in a sorrowful review of the situation, as they stretched their tired limbs upon the ground, was that the dragging of the lake in the vicinity where dave's empty boat was found had been without result. "we'll get some rest--a few minutes, anyway, and a cup of coffee, then we'll see what daylight will do to help us," suggested phil. yet it was scarcely more than sunrise when the search was resumed. crossing to the north shore in the skiff, billy and paul set about a minute inspection of the dry earth of the bank and of the woods for a long distance up and down the water's edge. leaving slider in camp, phil made the detour of the east shore on foot. as way drew near the scene of the fruitless work of the night he discovered close in shore an old log lying just under the water's surface and partially imbedded in the earth of the bank. a short, stubby branch projected its wet and slimy tip an inch or two above the water. a slivered end that had risen considerably higher was freshly broken. not completely detached, it lay almost level with the water's surface. but a more interesting discovery still was unmistakable footprints in the dry earth. the footprints were made by maclester. of this phil was certain. it was to the large projecting splinter, broken from the old log, that dave had tied the boat, perhaps. yet how had the slow and heavy craft broken from its mooring? and what was of vastly more consequence what had then happened to mac? the scene of way's discoveries was some distance from the spot in which the fishing boat had been found. it was farther to the east, also, than search along the bank had been carried during the night; but the lake at this point had been dragged again. examining the ground carefully, phil sought to find some further evidence concerning the missing boy's movements. he discovered nothing of importance. going forward, then, to billy and paul, now working toward the westerly end of the lake, he told them of his discoveries. quickly they returned with him. to make their search thorough the three boys undertook to inspect the ground covering a wide area at this point where they believed their friend had landed. several hundred feet from the water they made an interesting discovery. in a little patch of earth, made bare by the burrowing of some small animal, there were three footprints. one showed the mark of a shoe such as dave maclester wore. two other tracks were broad and heavy--the imprints of coarser footwear. it was a marked relief to the three chums to find such good cause to believe maclester was not drowned; but what in the world had become of him? had he been enticed away? had he been taken captive by some unknown enemy? in vain the search for other footprints,--anything to cast additional light on the grievous problems,--was carried further. every prospect ended in disappointment. it was long after noon. the boys had penetrated several miles into the woods and they at last acknowledged themselves completely baffled. murky was a name they often mentioned as they counseled together. they could think of no one else who might have a reason for doing them all an injury. but why should murky wish to make dave or any of them a prisoner? his only motive could be that he feared they were searching for the stolen money he considered as his own. he had warned chip slider to keep off that track, the boys knew. "we'll hunt till dark, then if we have no success and get no word at all, we will get the sheriff and a lot of men from staretta! we will find dave and it won't be very pleasant for murky or whoever is to blame for this," declared way. "there's more back of the whole matter than we can make out--more than we can even guess right now, you'll see!" the boys returned to camp. the thought had come to them many times that chip slider might know a great deal more than he had told. they remembered link fraley's words about the boy. but they could not accuse him without any ground for doing so. they could find no evidence that mac's disappearance had not occurred just as chip had told them. and he had twice repeated the whole story the same as in the beginning. it was a heart-sick group that ate a hasty lunch of bread and coffee in the woodland camp. now for the first time, however, paul told of the lonely time he had had during the long night--told of the noises he had heard in the distance, along the beach. he was quite sure that bears and deer, as well, to say nothing of numerous smaller creatures, had come to the lake to drink and bathe. he believed they would have come quite close to the shack but, for the bright fire he kept blazing. ordinarily the boys would have found great interest in such a subject; but today their spirits were at too low an ebb, their minds too disturbed over the unaccountable loss of their friend to permit their attention being otherwise occupied. all except billy set out after lunch to learn whether the suspected murky had deserted his usual hiding place. slider was the guide. he led the others quite directly to the logs where the tramp had made his bed and headquarters. the fellow had apparently departed. he had left the pan and other utensils taken from the boys' camp but the blankets he had carried with him. they were nowhere to be seen, at any rate. more certain than ever, then, that it was this unscrupulous villain who had decoyed dave across the lake and in some manner forced their friend to accompany him, the lads hurried back to camp. again they rowed to the north shore and with utmost determination plunged into the hot, close woods. chapter vii the long-hidden treasure is uncovered and now, while the weary young searchers were hastening resolutely into the woods to the north of the lake, they were leaving in the forest to the south one who would well bear watching. i do not mean chip slider sitting alone, tired and melancholy, beside the shelter of poles, wondering if there could possibly be any place where trouble did not come. no--not chip, but a man who at this moment stood looking into the little valley where the last camp of the road builders had been. a somewhat portly, somewhat pompous and self-important appearing individual was this man. his bristly hair, cut very short, was tinged with gray under the large, loose-fitting cap such as golfers and motorists wear. his face was smooth, puffy and red. his very eyes, more touched with red, also, than they should have been, as well as his pudgy hands indicated self-indulgence and love of ease. presently the cap and the person under it moved from the rise of ground, above the road builders' last camp, down into the valley. with a smile that had too much of a sneer about it to be pleasant, the man ground his heel into the gravel where the longknives' road had come to its troubled ending. with the same disagreeable sneer in his manner that accompanied his unpleasant smile, he turned here and there, noting how the brush and stunted stalks of mullen were springing up all about the unfinished task the workmen had left. startled suddenly out of his reverie by a bluejay's scream, or some other noise--he may have fancied it, he thought--the man looked hastily, searchingly about him; but satisfied, apparently, that he was alone, he moved leisurely into a shaded place and sat himself down on a stump--another token of the great road that had been begun but never completed. quite carefully he drew up his trousers at the knees, then picked from his hosiery, whose bright color showed in considerable expanse above his oxfords, some bits of dry grass and pine needles gathered in his walk. mr. lewis grandall had come, apparently, to view the work his perfidy had caused to be abandoned. for a long time the unfaithful treasurer of the ambitious longknives sat in silent meditation. he had noted with some satisfaction that a growth of brush screened his position from easy discovery should anyone chance to pass that way; and now his thoughts ran back over the circumstances leading up to his present personal situation. quite steadily his eyes were fixed upon the unleveled bank of gravel, the half-hewn logs and all the unfinished work in the general picture of desolation and abandonment before him. it is doubtful, perhaps, if grandall realized his own responsibility for the waste and ruin on which he looked. at least his face bore no trace of sorrow, no expression of sincere regret. the same dull sneer was in his eyes, the same defiant air was in even the poise of his body and the heel that, with a certain viciousness, he dug into the dry earth. lewis grandall's start in life had been attended by bright prospects. if only he had been found out the first time he yielded to temptation in scheming to get money by dishonest means, he might still have made his life a success by turning at once to the right road; but not being detected, he became bolder. from mere trickery and deceit it is but a step to out-and-out thievery. grandall took that step and more. yet he managed for long to cover his tracks sufficiently that few suspected and no one publicly accused. one would have supposed that, being accustomed to the handling of other people's money in his banking work, he would not easily have been tempted when he found himself with a large sum of the longknives' funds in his possession. neither had he any pressing need of this money at the time he laid his plan to appropriate to his own use the cash intended for nels anderson's army of road builders. he merely thought he might some day be glad to have at his command a secret reserve large enough to maintain him indefinitely. so did he plan the pretended robbery by which a former woodsman he had long known made off with the suit-case wherein he carried the money for anderson's long overdue payroll. his original purpose had been to make some sort of division of the cash with murky; but there was not anywhere in the grandall code either honor or honesty. it was a particularly bright idea, indeed, so grandall himself considered when the thought came to him that he might have the unsuspecting murky relieved of the suit-case before the fellow had so much as seen what was in it. the plan was put into effect. slider, weak of morals, but strong of arm, was chosen for the work. to him grandall told as much of his whole scheme as he thought necessary, but told him nothing whatever that was wholly true, with the possible exception of the statement that murky was not to be trusted because he talked too much. having been a beneficiary in a small but largely crooked lumber deal grandall had once managed, slider entered into the robbery scheme most willingly. with the general result the reader is familiar; but in detail it may be added that, in keeping with the promoter's plan, he who relieved murky of the suit-case hid it later just where few would suspect it might be hidden. that place was almost within gunshot of the very spot where the money would have been distributed had it reached those for whom it was intended. this not only suited mr. grandall's convenience, but kept slider in a comparatively safe locality, as well. so many men had been engaged on the work near opal lake that the presence of any kind of person in working clothes, in that vicinity, would occasion no remark. thus had slider secreted the suit-case in a decaying heap of drift along the identical little stream beside which the great gravel road had ended. there had grandall found and quietly removed the riches the very next day. then the dishonest treasurer limped back to his hotel, for he was supposed to be scarcely able to move, owing to his "injuries," as a result of the robbery. nearly three years passed. the suit-case lay undisturbed where grandall hid it and its valuable contents were intact. if the longknives' treasurer had had occasion to make use of this money, meanwhile, he had been either afraid or unwilling to do so. but he knew where it was. he knew that in an emergency he could lay hands on a moderate fortune whose existence he believed none suspected. the thought bolstered his courage in scheming the method of more than one piece of trickery and dishonesty. then came the end, as sooner or later in crooked plans it must come--failure! they all fail,--it is inevitable,--at last. the wrong-doer faced the necessity of flight. grandall's defalcations in the bank did not appear at once. a small matter--the "padding" or falsely increasing of some petty bills for material furnished the city--had started an investigation. it was to the amazement of everyone who knew the man that a long, long chain of shady operations and even petty stealing, even the robbery of his own friends, was by slow degrees uncovered. toward the last, it was apparent, grandall had been driven to the most painful desperation. night and day he must be on guard to keep his deceptions covered up. constantly he must devise new practices in deceit to conceal others that once had served, but now, daily and hourly, were opening at most unexpected points revealing the treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy and rottenness they erstwhile had secreted. like a common thief, the guilty grandall stole away in the night. behind him he left all that might have made life useful and pleasant--home, friends, hope and ambition. lying for some time hidden in a distant city, he at last felt it safe to travel by a circuitous route to opal lake. at a country railroad station he stepped quietly off the train. with no luggage but a small handbag he slipped into the woods. a long tramp brought him the following day to the abandoned clubhouse. the very atmosphere of oppressive loneliness there pleased him because of its assurance of his safety from discovery. how little grandall guessed, or even suspected, that at just this time he could not have come to a place more fraught with danger to himself will never be known. no knowledge had he of the eyes that stealthily watched him. no thought had he that the moment he appeared with the stolen suit-case in hand, ready to slip away to hoped-for safety in a distant country, a lurking enemy would leap upon him. the thief sat for a long time contemplating the ruins where so abruptly the road building had ended. it was not until near evening that he strolled slowly toward the clubhouse. the general course of the gravel drive he followed, but in the main kept a few feet to one side, that the trees and brush might screen him. he had no fear here, yet he knew some boys were in camp not far away and not even by them did he wish to be observed. for he would spend one night of rest in the clubhouse room that once had been his own; and then he would be away--gone for all time from these and all the scenes of his younger life. yet a pair of heavy, scowling eyes watched grandall's every footstep--saw him enter the clubhouse--saw him seat himself restfully in the empty living-room beside the great fireplace and proceed to make a supper of sandwiches and fruit from his small satchel. murky could not have been more vigilant had his own life been at stake. not only his determination to gain again the stolen money that had been taken from him, but his hatred of that person the victim of whose double-dealing he had been, made him watchful, and a very dangerous man. quite suddenly in the afternoon had the vexed and oft-disappointed tramp discovered grandall. it was while the latter stood beside the ruins where the gravel road had reached its ending. in delighted surprise murky with difficulty suppressed a cry. dropping instantly to the ground, he pressed over his mouth both his dirty hands lest some exclamation he could scarcely resist should betray him. "blame _me_!" under his breath he muttered the words with almost fiendish pleasure. his worst enemy then was the occasion of those sounds that had startled grandall from his reverie. but he felt himself so entirely alone, so wholly free from any probability of being observed, that he had given the slight noise not a second thought. during all his afternoon of sinister gazing upon the ambitious enterprise his act had wrecked, he still believed himself as completely alone as a man well could be in any vast woods or wilderness. and even when grandall left the little valley and walked in silent meditation to spend one night more--but one--in the old house on the point he heard no footsteps coming on behind. his thoughts were far from pleasant ones but they occupied him fully. the sullen hatred so clearly shown in the expression of his eyes and lips was but a reflection of all that passed within his mind. friends or foes, men were all alike to him, and those who had never voiced a word against him he reviled equally with those who had been his dupes, and with the men whose accusations had caused his flight, as well. coming to the clubhouse, grandall lingered for a time up and down the weed-grown walk leading to the garage. then while it was yet light he went down to the rotting pier and looked long and earnestly across and up and down the lake. slowly he returned and, entering the house, went at once down cellar. in the pitch darkness he felt his way to the rear of the steps leading from above. striking a match or two, he examined by such flickering flames the rough uneven wall. with bare hands, then, he seized a projecting corner of one of the large flat stones and pulled it easily from place. if this part of the wall had been laid up with cement or mortar it had been broken down some time before, as would appear very probable, for the masonry that grandall now brought tumbling to the floor concealed a deep aperture in the dry, sandy earth. the thief's next lighted match revealed the hole and also revealed a damp and discolored leather case. still crouching in the dark cellar grandall managed to work the rusty lock and lay the suit-case open. then he struck another match and its dim glow disclosed the carefully packed bundles of bills, and among them a bag of coin. he nodded his head in a satisfied way. he had assured himself on first arriving at the old house that the treasure was safe; but he would not remove it from the hiding place until he was prepared to leave, he had decided. now he was ready. and where was murky? as a matter of fact, from his concealment among the bushes near by, he was trying to decipher the room upstairs that this lone visitor to the old house would probably occupy. he had lost sight of grandall when the latter had quickly entered and gone to the cellar. but it was only for a little while that the scowling eyes searched the open door and the windows in vain. as grandall came up to the living-room carrying the discolored suit-case, he glanced quickly all about him. possibly some sense of his guilt came to his mind now that the evidence of his theft was squarely in his hands, and for the first time he appeared apprehensive. yet he paused only for a few seconds. he saw to it that all the first floor doors were bolted from within, and slowly climbed the stairs to the sleeping rooms above. as if quite at home the man entered that room whose long, low window opened upon the little balcony toward the lake. he smoothed down the mattress and brought a blanket from an adjoining chamber. opening the window wide, for these upper rooms were very close and warm, he drew the suit-case to the better light he thus admitted and proceeded to count the money it contained. the night was hot, the air seemed stifling, but when he had satisfied himself as to the amount of the treasure, grandall returned the packages of bills and the bag of gold and silver pieces to their places, then closed and locked the window. he locked his chamber door also, before lying down to sleep. as if that could save him now! chapter viii dave maclester's adventure it required no little courage for dave maclester to row across the dark waters of the lake to the darker woods of the north shore. had there been someone to go with him he would have answered the cries for aid much more willingly. but since either he or chip must remain in camp, davy set out alone, pretty gloomily, pulling the heavy scow with what speed he could. maclester was far from being a coward but by nature he was more timid than calm, self-possessed phil way, or bold and venturesome paul jones. with a keen sense of duty and resolute determination to overcome every thought of fear, however, he ran the scow against the steep bank of the lake's far shore. the voice that had guided dave across the water greeted him at once. "it's full glad i am to see ye, even if i can't see ye half in the darkness of it," came with a pronounced irish accent. "guess that won't make much difference if you can see your way into the boat," dave answered. "did you get lost?" "no, no! not lost at all, at all, but i couldn't find me way, quite," came the response. the speaker had now come down on the sloping bank close to the boat, as if about to step aboard. "i only wondered," dave answered. "seems as if the woods were full of mysterious people--one lone man hiding in an old clubhouse, another--" the lad checked himself. a sudden thought came to him that perhaps he better not speak too freely without knowing with whom he was talking. "what's he doin' there? a man all alone, and in an old clubhouse? what might be his name thin?" "how should i know?" dave answered to this question. he was becoming the least bit suspicious and again he checked himself when it was just at his tongue's tip to add, "we think the name may be grandall." there would be no harm in awaiting developments before he told a stranger quite all he knew, he grimly reflected--a wise thought, it should be needless to say. "no harm,--no harm intinded," spoke the irishman good-naturedly. he had come close to the water's edge now and dave's eyes being fairly accustomed to the darkness, made him out to be a little, elderly man with a short beard, but very little hair on his head. the old fellow's baldness was, indeed, the most noticeable thing about him as, with hat in hand, lest it fall off into the lake, perhaps, he stooped down the more closely to inspect maclester and the boat. "why," said the boy, fearing his short "how should i know?" might have been unpleasantly curt, "you see there are four of us fellows in camp on t'other side and we've happened to see a man at the old house on the point below us. we've wondered who he might be, staying alone as he does, and keeping so out of sight of everybody. it's miles to the nearest house and nobody but our crowd of four fellows and our one visitor is anywhere near. but climb down into the scow and i'll take you over. steady now, while i hold the old shell up to the bank." for a few seconds the stranger made no reply. then--"it must be a lake here thin. has it a name, at all, d'ye know?" "why, sure it's a lake!" replied dave a little tartly, wondering if the old fellow supposed the sheet of water lying so quiet in the darkness there might be a river or an ocean. "its name is opal lake. this old boat is good and strong though. it'll carry us across all right." once again there was a long pause before the stranger spoke. "oh yis!" he suddenly exclaimed, "there's me baggage, and me almost forgettin' of it! will ye help me a wee bit with it? sure 'tis not far!" the kindly and somewhat coaxing voice of the old fellow, whose brogue was just enough to give a pleasant quaintness to his speech, amused maclester and he assented readily enough to the request made of him. he threw a loop of the scow's anchor rope over a stub projecting from the water and sprang ashore. he did not notice in the darkness that his leap broke the fragile branch securing the boat, allowing her to drift, but at once said: "we'll have to wiggle some, for they'll be looking for me in camp pretty shortly." "sure, 'tis not far," the man again said pleasantly, and clapping his straw hat down over his head till it almost concealed his ears, he led the way into the woods. "me name is smith--jawn smith. what's your'n thin?" spoke the genial irishman, as the two walked quite rapidly, despite the darkness. "maclester--i'm scotch," said dave, smiling to himself over the thought that his new friend plainly was not french. mr. smith made no reply and a long distance had been covered when dave spoke again. "how far back are you--that is, your baggage? we'll never find the lake again, till morning, if we don't watch out." "sure, 'tis not far now any more," came the quite unsatisfactory answer. "is it tired ye air?" "no--but--great guns!" with no other remark dave continued close behind or alongside his guide for a long time--a very long time, it seemed to him,--possibly a quarter hour. then-"where in the world are we bound for?" he asked pretty sharply. "sure, ye'll not lave me," was the answer, quite pleadingly. with a decided mixture of feelings dave said, "couldn't you do without your baggage until morning?" but in his thoughts he added: "i've heard of wild irishmen, and i guess i've met one, too." still, he smiled in a grim way, reflecting further that he, also, would have a stirring personal adventure to report in camp, and he would see it through now at all hazards. maclester was certainly right. he would have a story of personal adventure to relate when he parted company with "jawn smith." but this was something he was not to succeed in doing so soon as he supposed. time passed and still the little, old fellow with now and again his oft-repeated, "'tis not far," trudged onward. he _seemed_ to know the way perfectly. dave followed or kept near his side. however, when for possibly the tenth time the man said, "'tis not far," the lad's impatience got the better of him. "your ideas of distance must have been picked up in an automobile," he said. "twenty miles isn't far in a car, maybe. one or two--not to mention five or six--may be a lot better than a fair stretch for walking. and i've been gone a long time from camp." the stranger made no reply. "what are you doing in the woods--fishing, or just traveling for your health?" dave was getting more than a little cross and his tone showed it. "sure, thin', i was goin' to tell ye," muttered mr. smith, still going forward but more slowly now,--"i was goin' to tell ye that me business is that of a sivy-ear--you know?" "a what? i'm afraid i don't know exactly." "you don't know a sivy-ear? sure! peekin' through a little popgun on three poles? that's a sivy-ear." "oh, a surveyor!" exclaimed dave. "what in the world have you been surveying here in the woods?" "down't be axin' questions. sivy-ears go peekin' an' peekin' an' they don't tell whatever they may see. for why should there be sivy-ears at all, if they towld what they do be seein'?" maclester was both irritated and amused; but he was getting too uneasy now to let the all-too-apparent humbuggery of his companion go unchallenged. "well, i'll say this much, mr. smith, that if you know where your instruments are, and can go there right off, i'll stand by my bargain to help you; but if you don't, you better say so. we're five miles from the lake now, if we're a foot." "yes, it's right ye air," was the still unsatisfactory answer. and though dave replied more sharply than he had yet spoken, his companion each time responded in soft tones and mild language, but always evasively. "well! if you know where we are, tell me that!" spoke maclester very firmly at last. "i'm going not a step further until i know what sort of a wild goose business you are taking me on!" "oh,--oh! sorra day--sorra day!" the man sat himself down heavily upon a fallen tree over whose prostrate trunk he had just escaped falling. "ye must do as ye will, but it's lost i fear i am." "lost?" echoed dave loudly. "you don't mean that we've been jamming ahead in the dark, and all this distance, without knowing where we were going!" "it was _not far_!" mr. smith moaned wearily. "oh! it is tired am i!" "well! i'll be cow-kicked!" and possibly david maclester may be excused for using so impolite an expression when his situation is considered. here he was miles from opal lake--miles from camp, and lost in the woods in the dead of night with a strange man who might be either a dangerous crook or a harmless lunatic--circumstances pointed toward both. "ye'll not be blamin' _me_, sure!" spoke the old fellow. his very voice showed that he was indeed tired to the verge of fainting; but his manner was as mild and child-like as his words. language could not express dave's feelings. in mute contempt, anger, weariness and a certain deep curiosity mingled, he dropped to the ground. "i wouldn't blame you, mister," said the boy at last, "but i set out to do you a friendly turn and you get me into this pickle as a result and still give me no satisfaction as to where you belong or where you want to get to." "jawn smith"--and it plainly was not his name--made no answer for a long time. meanwhile david expressed himself pretty freely to the effect that there was but one course to pursue and that was to stay right where they were until morning. "and when daylight comes we'll head straight for the lake," said he. "it's no odds who i be," said the stranger finally. "if i be not a real sivy-ear, i'm the likes of one, a peekin' and peekin'. which is for why i can't be gossipin' about matters that means a great deal to them that i would be befriendin'. come mornin', we'll see." "humph! hope we may see more than we do this minute," dave answered. for although the two had been so long in the darkness that they could make out trees and other objects well enough to avoid them, it had been a very hard as well as a long tramp and the more so because of the gloom of night. his head pillowed on his arm dave fell asleep, at last, regardless of the many things that vexed and worried him. his queer companion slept also and so did the daylight find them sore and hungry. the sun's rays brightened their spirits, but "you can't eat sunbeams," as maclester rather gloomily remarked. the first excitement of the adventure had subsided now and he was quite inclined to despondency. on the strength of the stranger's statement that his camp and baggage and food he carried could be found in a short time dave again let him lead the way. a long walk in one direction was followed by a tramp of a still greater distance in another with no apparent intention of arriving anywhere. and both maclester and the stranger were suffering for water. they had crossed a small stream where there were still pools of good water, notwithstanding the severe drouth, early in the morning. it was decided to revisit it before starting for the lake. but here, too, long-continued efforts were a flat failure. it is a dreadful feeling to realize that you know not which way to turn to reach any given point. lost! it is a word whose terrors must be experienced to be fully understood. "come, now! i'll be the guide, and just you keep with me. we'll get out of here somehow," said maclester resolutely. thus far the stranger, for the most part, had been the pilot. it was past noon. neither had tasted food since the preceding day and both were parched for water. the sun beat down till even through the thick screen of pine and deciduous branches the heat was trying. no bit of breeze relieved the sultriness. but dave's best efforts seemed fruitless. the only reward in a long, long tramp was to lead the weary pair to a small stream. but even this was a most fortunate discovery and both drank freely, then drank again. as they rested the stranger was much depressed. after a long silence he said in hopeless tones: "what for a man ye may think me, i dunno; but the saints bear me witness, me bye, never did i sit out to drag ye where ye be. it's all past goin' further i am, and ye've got to lave me. an' if ever at last ye come to that lake, go right at wanst to that clubhouse and tell the gintleman who's stoppin' there, for the love of hivin' to come quickly where i be. it's daddy o'lear that wants him, say--poor--poor daddy o'lear." "what's that?" exclaimed maclester. "now if this _ain't_ a pretty mess! i was sure your name wasn't smith, but----" "an' i'll be staying thin, till ye come fer me; but ye'll be tellin' nobody but the wan man that i'm here, be sure." "you are going along with me," was the decisive answer. "then i'll tell no one anything. i don't want anything to do with your friend. there's a way out of this howling wilderness somehow! we've got to move! it will be dark again in two hours!" but even a strong tugging at his arm would not persuade mr. o'lear, if such were his real name, to rise and start. "you go with me or you'll go to jail where someone else ought to be too, if i'm not mistaken," said dave with emphasis. "you can't stay here, man! and whoever you are, i'm not going to let you!" chapter ix "the lake! it's the only chance of escape!" the sun went down and the coming darkness warned the three boys, vainly searching for dave maclester, that they must hurry if they were to find their way to camp. if no success had attended them by daylight, they certainly could hope to do nothing after nightfall, and they turned back toward the lake. all afternoon phil, billy and paul had tramped the woods. except for the three tracks in some soft earth, as earlier mentioned, not one certain clue to the direction taken by dave and his unknown companion had the friends found. quite worn out in both body and mind, they took careful note of their bearings, then headed by what they thought a bee-line for opal lake. on and on they hurried. the twilight deepened and they kept to a direct course with difficulty. and still they reached neither the lake nor any familiar spot. "fine boat we're in if we've gone and got lost," gasped paul, bringing up the rear. the boys were pushing forward at a slow run, phil way in the lead. "we didn't pay close enough attention to the distance, when we were going the other way; but we'll be out of this in a little while now," came way's hopeful answer. "i smell smoke. it might be from our own camp. chip would be firing up like mad to make a bright blaze," came billy's voice above the steady patter of feet upon the needle-strewn ground. "there's some breeze picking up, but not quite from that direction," said phil, though he paused not a moment. paul was first to discover that the course way was taking could not be right. "i can catch the smell of the swampy ground, at the west end of the lake, in the wind," he said. "we've got to head right against this breeze." a brief pause, and the lads agreed that paul was right. and soon the proof was positive. ten minutes of rapid walking brought the chums to the water, but it was at the east end of the lake, not the north shore, at which they found themselves. another half mile or less would have taken them entirely beyond the familiar sheet of water, and have led them, hopelessly lost, undoubtedly into the woods to the south. their course had been steered too far easterly in the beginning. glad, indeed, to be so near their camp once more, despite the weight upon their hearts concerning dave, the boys agreed to continue on around the upper end of the lake on foot rather than return now for the skiff on the more distant shore. so did they come presently to their shack and the bright blaze chip slider had burning as a beacon light for them. the ray of hope the young searchers held out to one another on their homeward way, that they might find maclester safe and sound in camp upon their own arrival there, was quickly turned to disappointment. chip had no news--not one word of information, good or bad, to report. he had remained faithfully in camp and had seen nothing, heard nothing unusual. "exceptin'," said he, "there's bad fires somewheres in the woods. i smelled smoke the minute the wind began blowin'. all day there wasn't hide nor hair of air a stirrin'. it was just after sundown that it started in, real gentle, an' it's gettin' higher. you take a fire in the woods, and a stiff gale, and you've got something to look out for, i tell you." "we've got to rest and think a little, and have something to eat," said phil, paying scant attention to slider's words. "we've done what we can in one direction, now we must start out on some other plan." "i knowed you'd be hungry and i've got the coffee hot. i boiled some eggs and cooled 'em this afternoon and them are ready, too. just you all rest and i'll get some kind of supper," announced slider, almost bashfully. but his friends were truly glad to do as he suggested. the simple, hasty meal of cold, hard-boiled eggs with plenty of bread and butter, crackers and cheese and coffee would have been most enjoyable too, had there been no absent one. for an hour or two the three auto boys rested and sought to find the best plan to pursue toward finding dave maclester. they could not do better, they at last felt sure, than to report their mystery to the authorities at staretta. from the town, also, inquiries among the villages lying beyond the great woods could be made by telegraph or, even better, by telephone, perhaps. if dave had been foully dealt with, as seemed only too probable, the law's officials could not be any too quickly informed. it was drawing on toward midnight when the thirty's lamps were lighted, the engine started and all made ready for a rapid run to the town. phil took the wheel. telling slider to keep a bright blaze shining and his ears wide open for any signal from over the lake, he threw in the gear, let the clutch take hold, and the three boys began this last bit of service they were ever to have from their much beloved car. way was usually a conservative driver but tonight his foot at no time ceased to press the pedal that increased the gas. over the smooth spots and over the rough ones, ruts, roots and hummocks of the hard-baked earth, the automobile whirred. rarely did the speedometer show less than fifteen miles and often the indicator touched twenty-five, and this while the road was still but the woodland trail. luckily the lights were clear and bright, but more fortunate still, phil was every moment alert and earnestly attentive to every inch of the road and every throb of the machine. like some swift phantom the blaze of the lamps sped on and on among the ever retreating shadows and utter blackness of the night. like black-hooded spectres the trees at either side seemed to glide ever to the rear, silent and ghostly except as their branches were tossed by the rising wind. it was not until they were far past the bleak, dark house of nels anderson, that billy shouted his opinion that inquiry should have been made there. no, phil called with emphasis, the time for giving heed to uncertain, unknown persons had passed. he was sorry the arrest of murky and of grandall had not been brought about when first it was suggested, he said. a lot of things might have turned out differently if it had been done, and he, at least, believed---"look! there's sure fire yonder!" it was paul's voice interrupting. the car was fairly clear of the woods and the road now led among the blackened stumps and rough undergrowth of the district where flames had raged in time long past. far to the west and north the sky was blazing red. the whole distant horizon of the direction named seemed as if the doors of some mighty, seething furnace, miles in width, stood open. a rank odor of burning wood came stronger and stronger on the gusts of wind. "it's a good ways off and maybe isn't burning much this way," shouted worth above the rush of air and whir of the auto's wheels. "the wind, man! it's sweeping right into the heart of the woods," phil answered loudly. but not for a moment did the car slacken speed. the road was getting better. staretta was but five miles distant. "still, there's not much danger of the fire coming our way. it will go way north of the lake," worth replied. "and that's just the direction mac's in," echoed paul jones in tones of alarm. "yes!" phil cut the word quick and short. his tone and the instantly still greater speed of the car told all too plainly where his fears were running. there was no need to rouse link fraley or the officers of staretta. they were astir watching the progress of the distant flames. scores of men had already gone to join the fire fighters, who, it was reported, had reached the scene from jacques' mills, a settlement to the northwest that lay in great danger, should the wind change. the fire had been noticed only as clouds of smoke during the day, link fraley said. in the afternoon messengers arrived saying that the blaze was gaining great headway. it might yet be confined to a certain swampy district, thick with dead trees and grass and a rank undergrowth of rushes, now dry as tinder from the long drouth. it was here the fire had started. many men returned with the bearer of the news to aid in the battle. with sundown came the wind. there could be no stopping of the terrible destruction so long as the gale increased, link fraley stated. the best that any could hope for was that the blaze could be kept within a narrow limit as it swept onward into the wholly unsettled country so saving the little towns and mills along the railroad line. but about maclester--the hearts of the three boys sank like lead. even sheriff larsen said nothing could be done for him while so great a number of lives were in jeopardy and every hand was needed to preserve them. he was sorry--very sorry; but he believed and hoped dave would escape in safety, somehow, though there was not a thing that anyone could do at once to help him or to aid his friends in finding him. perhaps he had been lured into the woods for purposes of robbery, or by murky, in a spirit of revenge; but even the much-needed attention of the law to that dangerous character must wait, the sheriff said, until the great fire could in some degree be overcome. awed and alarmed, their every nerve tense with a depth of interest and anxiety such as few ever experience, the three friends listened to the conversation of those about them. the principal crowd had gathered before fraley's store. suddenly, from the partially lighted interior, link fraley came. with a nod of his head he beckoned the auto boys aside. "an indian fellow--doughnut dan, they call him--has just come in from up the line," said he, "and brings word that the fire will get south of opal lake and no stoppin' it. hadn't ye better go? right now you'll be ahead of it to the lake and no danger. later on--and ye've got that slider chap on your hands back at your camp. get him and get your stuff, and get 'em quick." "but maclester! we can't----" began way hurriedly. "you've _got_ to! what can't be helped, can't be helped, but what _can_ be--that's what you got to think about and _right off_!" "he's dead right, phil, bad as it is," murmured billy sorrowfully. "it may be, but we'll----" whatever way had meant to say, he spoke no further but quickly started for the car. paul and billy followed and the latter took the wheel while phil re-lighted the gas lamps and jones gave the crank a quick, quarter turn. when but little north of staretta the three boys could see that all the indian had reported was true, and more than true. if the high wind continued the whole district south of opal lake would be swept by the fire within the next few hours. but even in this estimate they were falling far short of the truth. every hour the wind blew harder. great brands of fire were being carried forward, starting constantly, and in hundreds of places, fresh bursts of flame. the car never traveled better than on this last night of its usefulness. in but little more than twenty minutes the boys were driving through dense volumes of almost stifling smoke. they were now well into the woods and within the path of the flames' fiercely rapid advance. as they went forward they discovered that the fire's main path would probably be midway between the lake and the desolate country burned over years before. but it would be spreading constantly. nothing could check it. suddenly a feeble glimmer of light loomed out of the smoke and the darkness forward. it was the glow of the lamps at nels anderson's. "they'll never get out alive," called phil. "hold up, billy!" by the lights of the car, and from the windows and open door of the low, unpainted house, the figures of anderson and another man, and of mrs. anderson and their little girl could be seen moving hurriedly in and out. phil sprang down to investigate. the giant swede, his family and their guest were carrying the household goods of every kind to the very center of the small clearing. what they feared was all too plain. but would their efforts count for anything? would their very lives be safe in this small space? "i tank she will go nort of us," spoke anderson, excitedly, as phil approached. "she must bane most at da lake now." obviously he referred to the fire. before phil could say more than that he hoped the little clearing would escape the fire's main fury, at least, the other man came up. he was the person in the golfing cap. way was sure of his identity instantly and his face grew hard. "have you been in town? how bad is this situation?" he asked calmly but with a thoroughly business air. "ever so bad. you'll never be safe here," the boy answered with some excitement. "you better----" "no! the worst of it will be north of us," said the other quickly. "it came up as if the whole woods had caught fire at once. we smelled and saw the smoke in the afternoon. nels and i were 'way west of here to see what the danger was. we'd have been all right in this part but for the wind. but you boys--are any of your party at the lake now? because--you'll have to move fast! get back here to this clearing. if the fire keeps tending north you'll be far safer here than on the water. there's no telling how long it might keep you hemmed in there." much disturbed by the thought that even now chip slider might be in gravest danger, phil said hastily, "thank you for all you say, at least," and hurried to the car. "the worst of this is ahead of us! get to the lake, billy, quick!" again the trusted thirty shot forward. the fire was still too distant to be clearly seen among the trees, but the sky reflecting its red fury sent down a glow which, but for the dense smoke, would have been like early twilight. still over ruts and roots, smooth spots and rough spots alike, billy drove, not carelessly, but very fast. still the smoke-filled air grew denser. "the man is crazy! the fire may reach the lake, but anderson's place will be squarely in the path of the worst of it," cried phil way excitedly. the boys were nearing their camp now, and the duller glow upon the sky gave proof that the flames were more distant from here. poor slider was found nearly beside himself with fear for the safety not of himself but his new-found friends. he was resolutely at his post, and the blazing campfire showed that he had not forgotten to keep going a signal to dave maclester that the camp was not deserted, should he chance to appear on the farther shore. "we're the veriest blockheads!" said phil way, as he looked over the lake and noted that here was the only place of real safety. "we've left the andersons to be suffocated if they aren't burned up. who'll go with me to bring 'em?" "i'll go! come on!" cried paul, and billy was not a second behind him. "wait!" phil ordered. then, "one of you stay here with chip. add all the logs you can to the raft. make it bigger, stronger! there'll be eight of us, likely, that it will have to carry." "gee whiz! the car! the car, phil! it'll be burned." "no, it won't! into the lake it goes. water won't put it out of business permanently. billy, will you stay?" "go ahead!" cried worth and in five seconds phil was driving the automobile in a way he had never done before. even before anderson's place was reached the raging flames to the west of the road lit up the narrow trail with a frightful glare. but on and on the car flew. the little clearing was reached in the nick of time. great sparks and even flaming branches were raining down upon it. the smoke was stifling. huddled under some kind of an old canvas,--a tent cloth from some workman's camp on the gravel road, perhaps, mrs. anderson and the little girl were trying to escape the smoke and terrific heat. the grass all about the clearing was on fire. the little house must go, when the main body of the flames came closer, and very doubtful did it look that life itself could be saved in so exposed a place. with a cry, "you can never come through the fire if you stay here, people! we've come for you in the car! the lake! it's the only chance of escape!" phil made his presence known. the roar and crackle and all the dreadful noise of the ocean of flame that, as far as eye could see, flooded the woods to the west seemed quite to drown the boy's loud shout. chapter x the last run of the beloved thirty a second time phil loudly called and now an answer showed nels anderson and the golfing man to be near the edge of the woods. they had completed the burning of a wide strip of the dry grass completely around the clearing, only to find their work useless. all hope of thus stopping the spread of the fire toward the buildings was destroyed by the falling embers. the wind carried them everywhere. there was no time to lose. the danger of death from suffocation, even if the flames could be escaped, was very great. now the roof of the house was on fire. there was not a barrel of water within miles. further fighting, further loss of time, would be folly. giants of the forest were flaming up from roots to topmost branch not twenty yards within the woods. the whole roadway would be ablaze, on both sides, in a few minutes. a most pitiable object was anderson's poor cow. her head to the ground as if to escape the smoke, a low, frightened bellowing told of her realization of the danger. forgetful of herself the child was saying, "oh, poor, good bossy! oh, poor bossy!" the small haystack along side the crude, log barn suddenly blazed up. the dull red glow gave place to a white light all through the clearing. it was impossible now that any part of the property could be saved. anderson and the other man came running to the car. "it will be a close shave! can you make it, boys?" cried the one in the golf cap, above the roar of the flames. "you bet! be at the lake in no time! we've often carried more'n six," yelled paul excitedly. "right in here!" and he held the tonneau door open wide. "you in front with phil, mr. anderson!" even as jones followed mrs. anderson, the little girl and the golfing man into the tonneau, and slammed the door behind him, the thirty was under way. its staunch gears were never before so quickly shifted from low to high. what mattered it if paul did sit down hard in the strange man's lap? what mattered it if poor nels, unused to automobiles, was jerked nearly from his seat before he got his great, clumsy legs quite inside? the raging sea of fire was bordering the trail ahead, and hundreds of little tongues of flames leaped here and there in the parched, dry grass and weeds in the road itself. with frightened, staring eyes paul looked with wonder upon the dreadful flames leaping from one treetop to another. the man beside him was shielding his face from the terrible glare and heat and the woman and little girl clung tightly to each other, the former watching only the child and holding a hand to protect her face. as if dazed and unable to comprehend, nels anderson looked always back toward the doomed clearing. phil way alone watched the road ahead. with firm set jaw and straining eyes he looked ever forward through the blinding glare and the billows of smoke that now and again concealed the trail completely. but his hands gripped the wheel with perfect confidence, his foot pressed the accelerator steadily. the gallant car responded. the ground seemed speeding from under its wheels. on and on it flew. thus far the fire had raged to the west of the road only. in but a few places had it reached the trees directly beside the trail, pausing there till some fresh gust of wind, or shower of sparks, carried it to the other side. but now phil saw before him a spot where on both sides of the road the forest was a flaming furnace. he did not falter. on flew the car. another moment and it was in the midst of the fire. a hundred yards it ran through the deadly heat, the awful roar and sheets of flame leaping upward and outward till their fiery fingers were all but seizing the brave lad and his passengers. safely the thirty ran the fearful gauntlet. there came a shout of praise and admiration from the golfing man, words of thanksgiving from the woman. the worst was over. rapidly, but not so fast as in the direct course of the wind, the fire was reaching out toward opal lake. like a galloping army it came on behind the car, but, barring accident, could never, would never, overtake the swift machine. barring accident! bravely the engine, clutch, gears, springs, axles and wheels had withstood the strain of the terrific speed, the heavy load and the wretched road. bravely, with every charge of gas, each cylinder delivered generous power. the car shot down the grade into the small valley where, some distance below, the gravel road came to its abrupt ending. there was a heavy jolt as the front wheels struck the dry bed of the shallow stream. anderson, the giant, pitched forward. he might have caught and righted himself quite readily had he had complete use of his hands and arms, long since partially paralyzed; but in his disabled condition he missed the windshield frame he tried to catch, and went partly overboard. with his left hand phil way reached for his falling passenger, still holding the wheel with his right. he seized poor anderson just in time, but the great bulk of the fellow drew him partly from his own seat, and pulled the steering wheel sharply round. still going at speed, though now on the upward grade, the automobile answered instantly to the call of the steering knuckles--true to its mechanism, perfectly, to the last--answered to the driver's unintended command, and sharply swerved to the right. a large pine stood in its course. so quickly did the collision occur, so unprepared were any of the automobile's occupants to meet the terrible shock that the escape of all from serious injury was truly miraculous. the outcome must surely have been far worse had the tree been struck squarely head-on. the fact of the fender and right front tire and wheel receiving the heaviest force of the impact lessened the jar, and the car swung around spending broken momentum in the dishing of both rear wheels. nels anderson, pitched far out on the ground, was gathered up cut and bleeding. mrs. anderson and the child were bruised but not much hurt. phil, paul and the golfing man suffered no injuries beyond the nervous shock. strange as it may seem, paul jones spoke not a word. questioningly he looked at way. phil had been first to help anderson to his feet. now leaving him to the care of the others he quickly inspected the damage done to the machine. the roar of the flames was still just behind. their blood-red glare cast a twilight glow far ahead through the darkness of the woods. "she was a mighty good car," said phil way, softly, as if to himself, quite as one might speak of some friend who has gone. "a mighty good car!" but at the same moment his gaze took in the flames fast following along the ground and from tree to tree both west and south. even here the heat and smoke were terrible. the dull red light was everywhere. the very sky seemed ablaze. "this is most unfortunate. i'm truly sorry for this, boys," spoke the golfing man, very soberly. he too had been hastily investigating the damage. though his voice was kind, the speaker irritated paul jones exceedingly. "wouldn't have happened but for you, and except to send you to prison you aren't worth it, i can tell you that, mr. grandall," were the words he thought, but did not utter. "might have been worse! we're still a mile from the lake and the fire's just behind us! that's the whole answer," said phil rapidly. his words were in reply to the stranger's sympathetic expression, but were equally addressed to all. "right ahead on this trail, then! we've a raft that will hold everyone!" rapid movement was necessary. the wind was blowing furiously now. no power on earth could stay the flames that swept ever forward. their path grew constantly wider. both phil and paul looked with astonishment to see the stranger, whom they now detested more than ever, seize anderson's little girl in his arms to carry her; but they were all hastening forward through the crimson light, and clouds of smoke. no more than a glance could the boys exchange. many times the two lads looked back. it was fortunate, perhaps, that the rise of the ground soon shut off their view of the prized thirty. the hungry, sweeping flames came curling, playing, leaping, dancing, roaring on. they reached the car. phil remembered, long afterward, that as he stepped out of the automobile for the last time he noticed the speedometer, twisted about so that the light of a lamp shattered and broken, but still burning, fell upon it. the reading was 5,599 miles--the record of the season. safely ahead of the fire the fleeing refugees reached opal lake. with a glad shout, though their faces showed deepest anxiety and fear, billy worth and chip slider received them. "the raft's all ready! i've made it big enough to float a house! all our provisions are on board, too!" said billy to phil, the moment he ran up. "where's the car?" a few words told the story. there was no comment beyond the quick, "oh! what an escape!" the snaky tongues of fire coming on swift, almost, as the wind itself, were but two hundred yards away when the rescuers and rescued embarked upon the raft. boxes and camp equipage afforded seats. billy had trimmed a couple of extra long poles with which to move the clumsy craft, and present safety for all was assured. the dawn was just breaking. once out on the water the coming daylight was quite clear despite the smoke that in vast clouds rolled swiftly over, whipped and torn by the wind. "thank goodness there's no fire to the north--not yet anyway," said phil rubbing his face, grimy with smoke and ashes. he was thinking of maclester and for the information of the andersons briefly told of dave's unaccountable disappearance. "there's a long stretch of pine on the other side," said the stranger, still wearing his golfing cap, by the way. "there are a couple of streams there, though, both of them flowing into the lower end of the lake. if your friend is lost and should remember that, he could follow either one of them and not come out wrong." dave was more than merely lost, paul thought and said so. and, "you know this country pretty well," he added, addressing the former speaker. "you belonged to the longknives," he went on rather tartly. "it will be the last of the old clubhouse." "yes, one blot will be wiped out. it is only too bad that so much that is good must go with it." paul glanced at phil and his eyes also met billy's. the man's words were puzzling. "we saw--" paul began, but a shout interrupted him-"_there's_ dave! there's dave now and some man with him!" yelled chip slider suddenly. his voice was like a burst of ecstasy. his eyes scanning the distant shore, he had instantly caught sight of the two hats waved as a signal. the joy of the three chums, that the fourth member of their almost inseparable quartette was safe and sound, it would take pages to describe. with the most delighted waving of his own hat, phil shouted to maclester about the skiff still moored on the north shore. his voice was lost in the roar of the wind and the flames now sweeping very near the water's edge. by signals, however, he quickly made dave understand and the latter and the man with him were seen to hurry forward to where the boat was tied. all the time the golfing man watched maclester and the person with him keenly. "impossible!" he muttered at last. "i thought for a moment i knew the old chap your friend seems to have in tow." but it was not impossible, apparently, for even before maclester and his chums could exchange greetings, as the skiff drew near, the small, elderly man in the stern of the boat cried: "oh! 'tis there ye air then, mr. beckley! oh, ho! hurray! i dunno!" a laugh that was equally like a sob accompanied the words, and "oh, ho! oh, ho! i dunno!" the old fellow cried again and again. "it's 'daddy' o'lear, right from my own home," the golfing man explained briefly. the three boys again exchanged quick glances. instantly as he heard the name "beckley" phil had remembered the initial b on the shaving cup found in the clubhouse. was the man trying to carry on a deception even as to his name, and at such a time, his thoughts inquired. no, he quickly decided, there was some mistake. "i do hope it may be no bad news he may be sent with, meester beckley," said mrs. anderson. she had been sitting silent on one of the boxes billy provided, the little girl leaning on her knees. all the andersons had watched the fire constantly, their heavy hearts revealed in their sad faces. "i--i think not," spoke the man in a puzzled way, glancing toward the fire now almost bursting through the shore line. "it will be hot here, and dangerous," said phil, looking in the same direction. "we must shove down the lake. our poles won't reach to go out farther. the water's too deep. we'll lie off opposite the marsh near the point." shouting to the approaching boat to follow, way and billy slowly pushed their heavy craft to the west. the skiff overtook them easily and quickly. "hello!" grinned paul jones as dave faced quickly about when the boat came alongside. but his half-jocular tone fell on ears attuned to serious matters. "oh! this is a terrible thing," said maclester, his eyes fixed on the flood of flames. "i was never so glad as i am this minute! what in the world happened to you, dave? but never mind; you're safe now," way answered with emphasis. somehow all felt it was no time for conversation. dave made no response to phil's question. but billy worth--chef billy--remembered one thing. "have you had anything to eat?" he demanded. "i'll bet you haven't!" "mighty little--either of us," was the answer. "we were lost,--just about." "here's something!" and worth drew a basket out from beneath a blanket. "guess we'll all feel better for a bite of breakfast," he added. crackers, cheese, bread and butter and bananas were in the "ship's stores," as billy expressed it, and there was enough for all. the simple matter of eating served not only to relieve hunger but gave all present a sense of better acquaintance and far greater freedom in talking with one another. "'tis an awful waste of wood, sure!" said mr. o'lear. obviously he referred to the fire. the flames now swept the shore line from the point to the lake's eastern boundary. for miles upon miles the forest was a whirlwind of furiously roaring flames, or a desolate waste of blazing wreckage, smoldering stumps and blackened, leafless tree trunks. "the clubhouse! the roof has caught!" cried billy worth suddenly. "and look! it's a man!--two men, on the porch roof!" he yelled. "great heavens! it's lew grandall!" cried the stranger on the raft. "and the other man! they're fighting!" "it's murky! the other one is murky!" paul's sharp voice fairly shrieked. "it's the suit-case! they have the suit-case! murky's trying to get it away from him!" "oo--ho there!" shouted the golfing man with all his force. "get to the ground! the fire's all around you! get into the lake quick or you're dead men!" for an instant the two who fiercely struggled on the small balcony seemed to answer to the voice. grandall would have leaped, it was apparent, but the other seized him furiously, and drew him forcibly back. then a thick burst of smoke concealed them both. chapter xi setting wrong things right wearily had lewis grandall lain himself down to sleep in his hot, close room. it was his last night in the old clubhouse. he might have been quite comfortable, so far as his physical self was concerned, had he been willing to open the door-like window that led to the small balcony and admit the air; but this he feared to do. some sense of danger, a feeling of some dreadful peril impending, harassed him. he tried to reason it all out of his mind. he had not felt so before having actually in his possession the moldy, discolored leather suit-case, he reflected. why should it make a difference? there was no good cause for its doing so, he told himself, and resolved to think of other things. but always his thoughts came back to the one point--some great peril close before him. what was it? he could not fathom the distress of his own mind. often as grandall tried wearily to forget, to turn and sleep, some lines of a tale he had somewhere heard or read,--a pirate's song you'll recognize as being in a book of stevenson's--struck into his mind. it was as if someone sang or called aloud to him:- "fifteen men on the dead man's chest! yo-ho-ho! and a bottle of rum!" in vain he told himself that it was nothing--nothing! that he must not let himself fall a prey to such silly dread, an unidentified fear, like a child afraid in the dark. but ever the sense of peril oppressed him. ever there came to his haunted thoughts- "fifteen men on the dead man's chest! yo-ho-ho! and a bottle of rum!" at last he rose and sat a long time on the edge of the bed. then he dressed himself. for a great while, as the night crept slowly on, he sat thus fully clothed. he did not know why he did this. the fear of some unknown, threatening thing was not removed or altered. the ringing in his brain-"fifteen men on the dead man's chest!" was just as it had been before. he lighted a match and looked at his watch. four o'clock. soon it would be daylight. then he would go--leave this terrible place forever! leave everything he hated--and that was all persons and all things. leave the guilt he vowed he would never face--if he could. so thinking, he lay down once more and sheer exhaustion let the wretched man sink into heavy slumber. lynx-eyed, the scowling murky waited. the black shadows of the thick shrubbery near the clubhouse door concealed him. a long, long time passed. it was quite evident, the tramp reflected, that the man with the suit-case had gone to bed. should he break in on him? break in the house, slip up to his bed, strike one swift blow and end the whole search for that twenty thousand dollars quickly? end it all so quietly that the one who had played him false would never be conscious of the outcome? no, that was not the plan murky chose to follow. it might result in his obtaining the prize he sought, but he desired more. he wanted revenge. he wanted grandall to know, too, that he _was_ avenged,--would have him fully realize that it was murky,--murky whom he had tricked and deceived, that had found him out and vanquished him at last. daylight was necessary to the tramp's plan. he wanted grandall to see and recognize him. he pictured in his mind how, when suddenly awakened, the trickster should find looking down into his face a pair of eyes that were sharper and just as unmerciful as his own. then he would speak, make sure he was known--strike quickly and effectively, and be gone. he would not commit murder--unless obliged to do so; it might make trouble. but he would leave grandall so hopelessly senseless that there would be no possibility of early pursuit from that quarter, as there would probably be none from any other. oh, they were black, black thoughts that coursed in murky's mind!--hardly the thoughts that should come to a man in his last night on earth. but they were very pleasing to the tramp. with a kind of wild, wolfish relish, he pondered over the details of his plan. satisfied that grandall would not leave the clubhouse before morning, confident of his own ability to awaken at the slightest sound of footsteps near, and resolving to be astir before daybreak, anyway, if he were not disturbed earlier, which he regarded as quite improbable, the scowling wretch allowed his eyes to close. even in sleep murky's face bore an expression little short of fiendish. he was lying quite under the thick foliage of the bushes. they screened him from view and from the breeze that had sprung up out of the west. but also they screened from his eyes the glow that now lit up the heavens, in the distance, for miles around. it was the smoke, strong in his nostrils, that at last startled the fellow into sudden wakefulness. he had been too long a woodsman, had had too thorough a knowledge of the great forests in his earlier, better days, not to know instantly what it meant. he sprang up and looked about. the course of the wind was such, he reasoned, that the fire would not reach this particular vicinity. but what if it should? why, so much the better, he reflected. the clubhouse would burn. if grandall, dead or unconscious, burned with it--murky's smile was hideous. for some time he watched the progress of the fire, yet in the distance. but presently he became aware that the daylight was near. it was time for him to act. stealthily murky crept to the broken window at the west side of the clubhouse and entered. he knew the first floor doors were locked, but he did not know that grandall had secured his bedroom door. this he discovered in due time. just outside the room he listened. sounds of heavy breathing assured him his victim slept. it took a good while for murky's heavy knife to cut in a panel of the pine door a hole large enough to permit him to reach in and turn the key; for he worked very slowly, very quietly. the daylight was coming in at the window of the narrow hallway when his task was done--the daylight, the dull glare of the advancing flames and the sound of their roar and fury. the door creaked slightly as ever so slowly its hinges were moved, but in another second murky stood inside. the man on the bed awoke--leaped to his feet--saw--recognized--gave forth a yell the like of which even the wildest places have seldom heard. instantly grandall knew his danger. seizing the leather case, for whose stolen contents he had risked so much, he threw open the balcony window. in another moment he would have leaped to the ground below but murky caught him and they grappled. it was in the midst of this first fierce struggle that the two were seen by those on the raft. murky's greater strength was fast overpowering the other's soft muscles. grandall breathed in choking gasps. then came the shouted warning from the lake. for an instant the surprise of it caused the tramp to relax his hold, but only for an instant. "blame _me_!" like some wild beast he growled, though there was savage delight in his tones as well, "blame _me_! but i'd as soon leave my bones here as anywhere, to see you get what's comin' to ye, you lyin' skunk!" he fairly hissed the epithet in grandall's ear. it was at this juncture that murky first drew his panting adversary back into the flaming clubhouse. grandall knew he was no match for his enemy in strength. "wait, you fool!" he gasped. "there's a fortune for you--ease--luxury! take it! i'll add as much more to it!" as the lying wretch hoped, murky's wild thoughts were for the moment attracted by the words. his grip upon grandall's great, fat neck was weakened. like lightning and with a vicious curse the latter threw him off, put forth all his strength and hurled the tramp to the floor. for himself there was aid in sight, was grandall's thought. if he could escape to the water below, he could make some explanation to those on the raft, whoever they might be. they would save him from the fire and from murky, whom he feared still more. far more quickly than you read the words, the idea flashed in the mind of the frightened scoundrel. the instant he freed himself he leaped again through the window. with the yell of an enraged maniac murky followed. the auto boys and their companions on the great raft, floating but a few hundred feet from shore, saw grandall reappear. with horrified faces they saw about him the smoke and flame that now raged in the roof above, and throughout the whole lower floor of the clubhouse, below the balcony,--saw him seize the leather case and pitch it far forward to the water's edge--saw him glance down as if, in desperation, to leap. again a blood-thirsty savage scream sounded above the fury of the fire and wind, and murky also appeared on the flame-shrouded balcony. grandall was too late. no more than a child could he cope with the mad strength of his assailant. like a great bag of meal, or other heavy, limp and lifeless thing he was dragged in through the open, blazing window. a fiendish but triumphant yell once more came out of the leaping smoke and flame. it was the voice of the infuriated tramp, to be heard on earth again, no more forever. dazed, powerless, speechless, those on the lake helplessly witnessed the awful tragedy. with straining eyes and ears they watched and listened; but there came now no sound above the fitful roar and crackle of the fire and the surging wind. within a minute the roof of the clubhouse went down. the whole interior of the building followed, and where had stood the old house on the point there remained only the walls of flaming logs, the mass of debris and the wreckage of wrecked lives that rapidly burned within them. "you know what's in that bag he threw down to the water?" the golfing man asked. it was in the midst of the exclamation and words of awe of those who saw the terrible scene enacted, that the question was asked of anderson. the swede nodded. "and you?" said the stranger, turning to phil as spokesman for the boys. "yes, we know. we know the whole story. we--we thought _you_ were--we saw you about the clubhouse and we got it into our heads that _you_ were--was it really grandall that we saw on the balcony?" "thought _i_ was grandall?" muttered the man, mystified. "why should you? did you know he was in the woods? for i did not. but it was lewis grandall and no other that went to his death before our very eyes! the man with him--murky was the name you used? who was he?" "then you don't _know_ the _whole story_ of the robbery?" exclaimed billy worth. "murky was the man grandall got to go through the motions of robbing him of the twenty thousand dollars in the first place!" it was with great interest, indeed, that mr. beckley heard the complete account of grandall's double-dealing scheme as chip slider and the auto boys had gathered the information. meanwhile there had come with the wind fitful dashes of rain that soon settled itself to a steady downpour. the forest fire had nearly burned itself out on the lake's south shore. thousands of acres of smoldering ruins lay in its wake. yet for a long time the refugees huddled upon the raft, protecting themselves from the storm as best they could with blankets and bedding. not yet was it safe to venture ashore. it was during this period that the golfing man made known his own identity and told why he happened to be hiding in the old clubhouse, resulting quite naturally, he freely admitted, in his being taken for the fugitive treasurer of the longknives. his name was henry beckley, he explained, and he had been one of the most active members of the longknives club. he had never been quite satisfied that the club's treasurer was really robbed of the money intended for the road builders, but had never found any genuine evidence to the contrary. a long time had passed since the loss of the money. the investigation of grandall's crookedness, at home, was taken up by the grand jury. mr. beckley had reason to suspect the man of a number of dishonest practices, but feared for the safety of the bank, in which he was heavily interested, if the public suddenly learned that grandall was a thief. to avoid being called as a witness in the matter he decided to go away until the investigation was over. he would keep his going and his destination a secret from all, his own family excepted, he planned, and with no one suspecting where he might be, visit opal lake. living in concealment at the clubhouse he would have an opportunity of investigating his suspicion that grandall had made up the robbery story. also he would satisfy himself, at least, that nels anderson had had no part in the disappearance of the payroll money and settle, for all time, occasional rumors to the contrary. mr. beckley had reached the lake only a day or two before the auto boys set up their camp there. he avoided them for he wished to work in secret. also, for fear other strangers, or even some who might know him, should chance to visit the lake, he was careful not to disturb the deserted appearance of the clubhouse. he burned no light at night, and rarely sat anywhere but in his bedroom. "you had a light there one night," spoke paul. "we saw it flicker for just a second once, then after while saw the same thing again." "it must have been matches to light my cigar that you saw," mr. beckley replied. "i knew you had discovered me and that in part was one reason that i went to anderson's to stay. he brought me some provisions one evening and i agreed then to go to his house, and i did so within a day or two." paul could have said "yes, _i_ knew he came to see you," if he had wished. but he was silent. but maclester spoke up: "and you went down on the old pier and threw something into the water the last thing before leaving. we saw that, too!" "yes, you're right. all the scraps of my lunches and the like i tied up and, putting a stone in the package to sink it to the bottom of the lake, i threw it in. you must have had pretty sharp eyes for the point," the speaker added, pleasantly. "but it is no wonder. i would have been even more interested in my own investigations than i was had i known half as much of the true story of the grandall robbery as you boys knew. and had i known of that awful murky being around i'd most certainly have gone to stay with good old nels anderson much sooner than i did." "sure, i am worried sick to know what ever i would ha' done, a gettin' to the hoose an' not findin' of ye there," put in daddy o'lear with a sorrowful shake of his head. mr. beckley's faithful follower had already given that gentleman and maclester an account of his adventures ending in his sudden appearance on the north shore, as the three sat by themselves in the boat some time earlier. now the story was repeated for the information of all. mrs. beckley, it appeared, having learned of the flight of grandall wished her husband to be informed of this development. he had cautioned her that he could receive no letters without revealing where he was, and she could not write or telegraph. so with many instructions as to secrecy she sent the old family gardener, daddy o'lear, to tell all that had occurred. the well-meaning old fellow left the train at a town to the north of opal lake, as told to do. he became quite confused and lost in the woods as he sought the clubhouse, and when he chanced to learn from maclester that he had actually reached opal lake, though quite without knowing it, he was greatly alarmed. he feared the nature of his errand would be discovered by the young campers. on the pretext of going for his baggage he walked back into the forest, maclester accompanying him, instead of crossing over to the boys' camp. he wanted to gain time to think and plan. he finally decided that, a long way into the woods, he would give maclester the slip and later reach the clubhouse and mr. beckley secretly, by walking around the lake to the other side. this plan might have been more successful had "daddy" not lost himself more hopelessly than ever, before he was ready to put it into execution. and if it had not been for dave serving as his guide, at last, the good-natured irishman never would have found his way to the lake again at all. this he freely admitted. "i was satisfied that the stream we found must lead to the lake, or to some larger stream that would do so," maclester explained. "we were a long time getting here, but when i saw the fire burning so terribly i didn't know whether to be glad or sorry we had saved ourselves. then i saw the raft, and--_believe me_!" very soon after reaching his friends maclester had learned of the loss of the automobile. naturally thoughts of the car were in the mind of every one of the boys, even in the midst of all they had lately passed through. but no word of complaint or grief was spoken. possibly mr. beckley noticed this for his own thoughts were not idle. the rain still fell in torrents, hissing and steaming in the smoldering ruins of the great fire. but the heat was almost gone now. the shore could be approached without inconvenience. mentioning this, the golfing man suggested that it would now be possible to see if the general suspicion concerning the suit-case grandall had thrown to the water's edge was correct. the skiff was moored to the raft. dave and phil entered the boat and rowed up past the rotting and now half burned timbers of the old pier. the leather case had fallen partially into the water they saw, but quickly they recovered it. "in spite of what has happened to this money, and we all know the terrible history now--i suppose we must agree that this bag and its contents are still the property of the longknives club," said mr. beckley solemnly. for, unopened, phil had passed the discolored case at once to him. "at any rate," the speaker went on, very soberly, "we will see what is in it. i have a few things in mind regarding the club's disposition of this matter." without hesitation mr. beckley picked up the leather case and eyed it with a growing suspicion. it was now battered, almost shapeless. more than that it looked, somehow, almost too small. finding that it was locked, he cut open one of the sides with his pocket knife. but, instead of packages of bank notes and bags of gold and silver coin, there was disclosed brushes, comb, and a few other toilet accessories, together with a limited change of underwear and one bosom shirt. of course these were soiled by mud and water, but not unduly discolored. the varied expressions of dismay, vexation and amazement shown by those on the raft and in the skiff were almost comical. nels anderson ventured an opinion that the bag was grandall's, but wondered why the man had heaved it over first instead of jumping with it himself. "he must have been crazed by terror," said mr. beckley. "but the question now is what did he do with the larger suit-case. he certainly had it somewhere, or that chap murky wouldn't have been hanging round." "do you think both those men were burned to death?" this from dave. "i don't see how either could have escaped. the building was in flames when they disappeared. it is almost night and we're all tired. i think we perhaps had better to go back to camp, sleep quietly, and then in the morning we can search the ruins and see what we may find." as everyone was weary, this received general assent. they were not only weary but discouraged. the unexpected and mysterious loss of the suit-case containing the money was, in itself, an unlooked-for defeat, and just as everyone felt sure that their difficulties were solved. scarcely had they reached the old camping ground than out of the still smoking wilderness came a loud shout. link fraley, his shapeless old hat pulled down almost over his eyes, his horses and wagon steaming wet and coated with ashes, drove up at a trot. "well, well!" he cried. "we've been worried about you all. staretta's gone wild over this fire. worried about the andersons and the auto boys; and i'm more worried about what i saw on the way here." "what do you mean by that last?" asked mr. beckley, who was quick to hear the unusual note in this final remark by fraley. "what did you see?" "i ain't certain; but i'm almost sure i saw that scowling fellow we called murky. i didn't get but a glimpse. 'twas a mile or so back, where the half burnt logs was piled up thicker than usual near the trail. before i could stop my team he was gone. no use to foller; besides, i was in a hurry to get on to where the camp was, hoping i'd find you folks all right." link's news occasioned somewhat of a flutter among the weary party thus gathered at the ruins of what had once been the auto boys' camp. after some discussion, while chip and worth were roasting potatoes and preparing hot coffee, it was determined that, after eating, they would return with fraley to staretta and sleep in warm beds once more. after that plans might be made for investigating what link had seen on the way over. they hastened their meal and then, all climbing into the wagon, they started back. probably a mile further on fraley pointed at a confused tangle of fallen trees and logs which the fire had partially consumed, yet left in such profusion as to form a sooty labyrinth where a fugitive might easily escape unseen in that growing twilight. by now the moon was shining, for the rain had long passed. link stopped the wagon and was pointing out where he had caught this flying glimpse. he was about to start on again when phil way, crouched at the wagon's tail-board, cried out as he jumped off: "hold on a minute, link! i think i see something!" mr. beckley, beside him, had seen it too, for the moonlight made things more distinct than when fraley had passed an hour or so before. beckley also descended. when he reached phil, the boy was raising up a sooty, battered leather suit-case with several holes burnt partially through its thick sides. a wide flap was cut through the leather. it hung down as phil held it up. it was some larger than the other bag and beckley instantly knew that he was looking at the receptacle that had held the money. had held it, but now no longer. "it's empty, mr. beckley. how did he come to leave it here?" "why, don't you see? look at those holes." beckley pulled at the edge of one and the burnt leather parted easily. "murky--of course it was he--must have seen that this bag would no longer safely hold his plunder." "then he's taken it out and put it into something else," said way. "perhaps his coat, if he had one left." "no; here's what looks like it had once been a coat." further search under the moon revealed only that certain foot tracks, found by paul jones, led off to the left through the wet ashes, as if the party who made them was in a great hurry. but, search as they might, only one pair of foot tracks could be seen. "evidently grandall did not survive," said beckley. "no wonder! he must have been all in when that scoundrel dragged him back inside the burning building. but how could murky have gotten out alive? probably grandall, in his frantic haste, must have caught up the wrong bag, for it was the money he was after. when grandall was finished his companion would, of course, try to make sure of the loot which both had schemed so hard to get and keep." reasoning thus, they all went on to staretta, for nothing could be done that night, or without bloodhounds, which the county sheriff was known to have at his home at the county seat. chapter xii was this the end of murky? when the still struggling grandall was dragged inside by murky and hurled through the burning bedroom door into the flames beyond, the latter had one resource left, though it is doubtful if he would have thought of that but for one fact. in the brief struggle they had stumbled over another suit-case than the one grandall had heaved to the water's edge. murky recalled that when he had at first entered he had seen two bags. one was the bag containing the money. another, a trifle smaller, was the one brought by grandall containing articles for his personal use while in the woods. in the fight grandall had grabbed the smaller, whether by mistake or not will never be known. but in such a death-and-life struggle as went on, with murky indisputably the best man, such a mistake was likely, more than likely, to have been made by the despairing, frightened thief then being overpowered by a more ferocious, desperate rogue. in less than a second murky knew that there lay the treasure for which he had run such a terrible risk, and also that his only competitor was gone. little would the fire leave of grandall for after-recognition, when the ruins were searched. the heat was unbearable; murky's clothing was already ablaze in spots. on the stand was a can of water, left by the now dead man. in a twinkling he poured it over himself, seized the suit-case already scorched, and dashed for an open closet door. in this closet was a displaced trap door. murky knew that under this was the hallway leading to the cellar stairs. in the cellar might be present safety--if he could make it. the clubhouse had caught from the roof. probably the cellar was not yet reached. all this in less than no time, as he darted to the closet, kicked aside the trap which grandall had overlooked, and jumped boldly down to the floor he had glimpsed beneath. murky was strong, tough, and such a leap was easily made. already the lower rear rooms were blazing, and he had barely time to rush through the advancing flames to reach the stair door. jerking it open, he stumbled through, hurrying down into the obscurity below. it was not so dark as usual, for the wide flare of the burning house above lighted up the cellar dimly, also showing to murky the gleam of a cellar window off to one side, the last side to be encroached upon by the fire. there were smoke and sparks outside, while sundry sparkles overhead told him that the floors might shrivel into flames at any minute. in fact crumbs of blazing embers already were filtering down. in the light thus afforded, he saw some tow-bagging piled on one of the boxes that littered the cellar floor. at the same time a jingling thud announced that some of the coin had fallen from the scorched suit-case. at once he seized the bagging, picked up the chamois-bag of coin and wrapped it round the leather case, including the escaped coin. with a rock from the crumbling wall he broke what remained of the window and crawled through. fortunately for him he was on the opposite side from the balcony where the amazed group on the raft and skiff were still watching, although they, too, were on the point of quitting. which way should he go? the rain was beginning to fall though the woods were still burning. but, close by, a small lagoon began. it was a part of the water that separated the point on which the clubhouse was built, making it an eligible site for the purposes of the longknives when they erected the house. it offered murky a chance and he jumped at it as a drowning man will dash for a straw. the water was shallow, yet deep enough to keep off much of the heat as he waded along, crouching, half creeping, his treasure now over his shoulder as he hurried to where the lagoon widened towards the open lake. here he waited while the rain poured down drenchingly, gradually putting out the fires that here had not the fierceness that had driven them in from the westward. as soon as it was possible he stepped ashore, walking as he thought towards the east and south. he was still trying to make sure of his course and the rain was still coming down when he heard the rattling of wagon wheels off to his right. "blame _me_!" he ejaculated. "what the--the--what can that be?" twilight was near, the air dim with falling rain, when a rough wagon, drawn by two horses driven by one man whom he thought he knew, came in sight. before murky could get out of view behind the sooty, smoking logs, he himself was seen. link fraley had been urging his horses faster. before he could slow down the scowling face he had seen was gone, as link himself had told the others. he felt sure that he knew that face, but being unacquainted with the events at the clubhouse, already described, he was in too great haste to reach the lake to stop and further investigate. so link passed on while murky, now sure that he was headed wrongly, turned away. in order to make greater haste he took the money, bills and all, from the dilapidated bag, thrust it all inside the tow sack, and turning at last to the course he had mistakenly thought he was following, he disappeared within those slimy, sooty depths of the fire-ruined forest. he plodded on, wondering at times if he was going right. later in the night it became cloudy and there were symptoms of more rain. strange to say, he did not reach any farms or houses or other signs of the railroad which he felt sure must run in this direction. that is, if he had kept the course previously laid out by himself. as may be imagined, the going was not easy. the earth, at times strangely swampy, grew more and more difficult to pursue. he wiped the sweat from his head and neck more than once. "blame me!" he ejaculated. "why don't i git somewhere? looks like i've travelled long enough and fur enough!" when it began to rain again he was compelled to take off his one remaining coat to wrap round the tow sack of money to keep it, at least, partially dry. "the bulk of this money is paper," he reflected. "paper won't stand too much wetting; not even gov'ment paper such as money is made of. blame me! wish i had a rubber blanket!" crossing a log over a slough just before daylight, feeling his way slowly, yet not daring to stop until he reached some sign of railroad or clearing, or at least a house or barn, his foot slipped on a log and down he went into a black pool of mud-encrusted water. "ugh--ow-w-w-wh!" would his feet _never_ strike bottom? yes--at last. but the water was up to his shoulders: the bag, coat and all was partly in the slime that wrapped him coldly, icily about. though the night was summery, the chill of that involuntary bath was unpleasant. more than unpleasant; it was exhausting, even terrifying. he tried to wade out, but the mire deepened. he turned and tried to find the log again, but in the darkness all sense of direction seemed to have left him. at last, when even murky's resolution was about to give way to despair, his outstretched hand touched a limb. convulsively he grasped it, both arms going out in eager hope to grasp something tangible amid that inky, nauseous blackness. as he did so a cry broke from him, for he felt the bag slipping from his shoulder. he clutched it desperately. "oh! ugh-h! my gawd!" the cry broke into stranglings as his head went under. a furious struggle then began, for murky was not one to give up his hold on life, or plunder, or anything valuable to him, without fighting. somehow he grasped at the unseen limb. it broke just as his weight began to hang thereon. more splashings, strugglings. he found another limb, all dead, sooty, yet wet from the now pouring rain. this one seemed to hold. inch by inch murky drew one leg, then the other from the sucking mud below, but as fast as one leg was released the other stuck fast again. it was like working in a treadmill, only far more perilous, fatiguing, and terrible. would he ever get out--rescue himself? after all, love of life was more powerful than money or aught else. chapter xiii searching for clues the next morning, though it was still cloudy and rain was falling, link was prevailed to return with his team to the place where he had seen the man with the scowling visage. meantime nels anderson and family had been made comfortable in a disused cabin in the edge of the village. nels, being comparatively useless, also remained. to him later in the day came chip slider, saying: "i went with them folks and they didn't do nothin' much, except that paul picked up a gold piece right near where they found that old suit-case. all at once it come to me that something's got to be did." "vell, vot you bane goin' to do?" nels spoke indifferently, for he had his own troubles heavily on his mind. "i don't want you to say much to the others. but if you find they ain't goin' to foller up that trail we lost in them burnt woods, 'count of the rain, i'm goin' to foller it myself. say, nels, i want to get your wife to cook me up some grub--on the quiet, see?" "on de qviet--heh? v'ot for you bane goin' to do?" nels was vaguely suspicious but kindly. "they've gone for the sheriff and the dawgs. but they won't get back afore ter-morrer. i want that grub right away--see?" nels grunted a surly assent, adding: "don' you forget to bring dat grub." this chip proceeded to do, managing to secure through billy worth and phil way a limited amount of flour, bacon and one or more minor ingredients. but both were curious, naturally. "look here, chip," remarked phil casually. "you ain't going to leave us, are you? we--we rather like you, boy." chip took them both aside as he explained his purpose to some extent. "you know paul found a gold piece where that suit-case was picked up. that shows as how murky, or whoever it was, must 'a' been puttin' the money in something else. it's rained on that trail, and even if the sheriff comes with his dawgs, they can't foller it to do any good." "well then, how the mischief can you follow it?" demanded worth. "you just can't! believe me, chip, you're going up against a hard thing." but chip persisted. the sooner he got off, the better. after all, seeing he was bound to go, they wished him luck. but meanwhile paul had come up and was listening eagerly. when phil and billy turned away, he clapped chip on the back, saying: "chip, you're the goods--sure! i'm going with you, see?" chip looked so astonished that paul hastened to add: "don't you worry! i'll have some grub of my own, too. more'n that, i'll get a couple of our camp blankets. now that our thirty is gone, we won't be using much of our camp supplies. say, it's up to us to help get back that twenty thousand dollars or what's left of it--hey?" so it was arranged. during the afternoon mr. beckley and a constable came back but without either the sheriff or the dogs. to the anxious queries put to them beckley shook his head discouragingly. "we talked to the sheriff. he seemed anxious to do all he could; but he was positive that the rains and the strong scent of burnt ashes over soil would baffle the hounds. said he: 'i'm used to bloodhounds. i know what i am talking about. my dogs are useless here.' but he was insistent on our notifying the police of the nearer towns by wire. he also 'phoned to the nearest big cities, in case murky turned up at any of them. we gave a description of the fellow as best we could, and also charged him with murder." "i suppose you mean grandall," remarked maclester. "certainly! i think, considering what we saw on the balcony especially when murky was dragging grandall back into the burning building, there can be little doubt but that murky made an end of him. it was undoubtedly to his interest to get grandall out of the way; especially if murky had a notion of making off with the plunder himself." no one disputed this. and so the matter rested. during the day men were sent off to notify the nearest settlers. in case murky appeared, they were to arrest the man or, if unable to do that, to let folks in staretta know at once. meanwhile link fraley, having turned the store over temporarily to his father, who was the real proprietor after all, and an assistant, spent most of his time going round with the auto boys and mr. beckley. "it's this way," he remarked. "i've been so much with you lads in this business that i feel somehow as if we were all interested. by the way, kids, where is that chap slider? and i don't see your chum paul round here." these remarks were made along in the afternoon, after a busy morning of investigation involving a good deal of running round generally. for the first time it suddenly occurred to three of the auto boys that one of their number had not showed up, even at the dinner taken at noon at the one tavern of the place. also, where was chip slider? "gee whiz-z!" phil wondered that he had not noticed their absence before. "i remember him and chip whispering together after we got back. don't you, link?" link did and said so emphatically, adding: "now come to think, i seen them two moseyin' off down where the andersons be." "by ginger!" this from maclester. "i bet they're off to help nels fix up that old cabin a bit. it sure needs fixing if i'm any judge." "tell you what, boys," put in worth, "suppose we all go down there and give poor nels a lift. he's half helpless himself. these staretta folks sent them in some things. we'll do our bit while we're waitin' for mr. beckley to get that automobile he thinks he needs." now that the thirty belonging to the boys had been destroyed beckley, on reaching staretta, had sent a man to the nearest town to bring some kind of motor car, for it was plain to him that if he was to get anywhere with his faithful assistant daddy o'lear, some kind of assistance more to be depended on than link's scraggy horse team should be secured. so while beckley waited the boys set out for anderson's cabin. but upon reaching there no sign of either paul or chip was to be seen. instead nels himself sat despondent in the doorway, while inside mrs. anderson and the child were striving in a desultory, hopeless way to arrange the inside of the unkempt cabin. "we came down to see if we could help about anything to make you all more comfortable," said phil, still looking for jones and chip. "we kind a thought paul and that slider boy was down here." "so they was," remarked mrs. anderson, apathetically wiping out a frying pan, "but they went off soon as they had their grub cooked. and a job it was, too." "just what do you mean, mrs. anderson?" put in billy uneasily. "they was goin' somewhere, i think. then--" "yah--yah!" this from nels in the doorway. "they bane had der dinners." meanwhile phil was thinking what chip had told them that morning. paul's absence was now explained. worth also felt that an astonishing light had dawned on him somehow. he turned to way, saying: "what doughheads we were when chip was talking so glibly about what he was going to do! why, the thing is sheer nonsense!" "more than that, it is dangerous!" exclaimed phil. "suppose them two boys meet up with murky way off in the burnt over woods. what'll murky do to 'em?" "don't talk punk, phil!" billy was in cold earnest now. "you know what he'd do or try to do, if he thought they had come after that money. there's nothing he _wouldn't_ do if he could, that would put them off his trail and land them--oh, goodness! it makes me cold when i think of paul." here the anderson girl timidly approached, holding out a scrap of paper. "he give it me," said the child. "pap was away and ma was busy." "who gave it you?" demanded phil as worth took the soiled, folded paper. "one of you boys. they was leavin'. ma didn't know," seeing mrs. anderson looking on with astonishment written all over her. "i fergot it 'til now." "boys," the pencilled scrawl began. "i'm off with chip. we got some grub along, and a pair of blankets. chip thinks we can follow murky. i just got to go along, too. paul. p.s. don't worry." nels' wife was fishing out a blanket from a scant pile of bedding in one corner, and held it out, saying: "he says wrong, sir. they ain't got but one blanket; for mr. paul he--offered us one of the two he had. i wouldn't take it but he piled it with the things folks brought in. then they both hurried off." "ve nefer see dat blanket," began nels. "no. he done left it. mein frau, she find it v'en day bane gone." the situation now looked more grave to the boys than ever. little was said, however. even dave would only commit himself so far as to ejaculate: "paul always was a fool!" but this was said in no animadversive sense. it was wholly sympathetic, even while dave might have disapproved. finding there was nothing more to be done for nels they were about to leave when anderson, who had been whispering with his wife, suddenly announced: "i bane go mit you. i know de woods. i lif in de woods. i go mit you!" "it won't do, nels," remonstrated worth. "you ain't fit. you're needed more here." "how did you know we were going after paul and chip?" asked phil. nels smiled for the first time that day. his wife explained. "he knew you boys were good and that you loved your chum. perhaps he felt that you were sorry for chip, too. he wants to do his part. but i think you are right. in his fix he'd better stay with us." all three boys insisted that nels' place was with his family. it looked that way, anyhow. but nels shook his head rather grimly. finally he retired to the doorsteps, neither taking part in further discussion nor saying much of anything more at all. after the boys left, however, he bestirred himself. his wife, understanding him better than others, mutely began preparing more food. meanwhile nels, from some recess in his rough clothing, resurrected two one-dollar bills. these he forced upon his wife, who meantime had wrapped up certain provisions and made him take the blanket left by paul. on the way back to town the boys encountered link fraley; and he, being in their confidence, was briefly told all that had occurred. as they explained the grin on link's face grew broader, his eyes twinkled and he seemed vastly tickled at something. "well, what you goin' to do?" he asked it as if he already knew. they told him, and he slapped the boys on the shoulders congratulatingly as he rejoined: "bully for you, boys! stick to your friends! that's the way to git along in this world. that little hungry looking cuss chip--why, somehow i kinder liked him. lemme tell you something. i'm goin' 'long, too." here link's smile grew so broad that it nearly met his ears. "i been doin' some thinkin' of my own. i ain't after money in this. yet, if we should happen to git that money back, or he'p 'em git it, i rather guess mr. beckley would do the right thing." "he would; i feel sure of that." phil was speaking. "but that isn't worrying us so much as that chip and paul should start out that way without even letting out a cheep what they was up to." "we-ell!" link looked uncommonly wise. "you see, they two had seen that ugly cuss first. then ag'in, i think chip felt sore 'cause murky beat him up so. he'd sorter like to git even, i reckon." "another thing," put in phil. "chip knows that his dead father didn't act up square 'bout that money either. grandall put him up to it. but chip, i'm thinkin', wants to do the fair thing." "you say you are going along, too?" asked maclester. "that is good of you, mr. fraley. we've lost our car and the longknives have lost their money. i guess it's right that we should all help to try to get the money back. as for the car--our bully old thirty--well, we'll have to get home without it. but what made paul and chip in such a hurry?" "chip's knocked about a good deal. he knew that if murky got out of the big woods our chance to get him would be small." this from worth. "by the time it all got into the hands of the police there'd be more or less costs and--and expenses. as for paul jones, he just couldn't help it, i guess." "when will you be ready, link?" queried phil. "that is, if you are really going along." "ready right now, boys. when will you start?" "it's now mid-afternoon," remarked phil. "i propose we get ready and start at daylight tomorrow. it has rained off and on all day--hullo! here comes mr. beckley." beckley, still followed by his henchman daddy o'lear, came hurriedly out of the only telephone office in staretta. when he learned what the boys together with fraley were up to, he looked dubious. finally he said: "perhaps it is the best way after all. nothing more can be done here. whether we recover the money or not, it is right that you should look after your chum and--and that slider boy." mr. beckley spoke this last as if he rather had doubts if chip were worth looking after. but, with the auto boys on the trail he felt safe as far as the money went, provided they found murky, and the spoil murky would be apt to have with him. chapter xiv trailing the stolen money several miles away from the wagon trail that led from staretta to the now destroyed longknives' clubhouse, two boys were groping along in the falling twilight in a discouraged manner. around them stretched seemingly endless vistas of burned and blackened forest, stark, leafless, forbidding. under foot was a sooty, miry quagmire of rain-soaked soil, naturally low, swampy in places, and now all but impassable. the rain had subsided into a misty drizzle, soft, fine, yet penetrating. "gee but i'm tired, chip!" said the younger of the two, lifting with effort one foot after the other from the deep mud underneath. "well, she _is_ gettin' rather bad," replied the other. "won't be much moon tonight, i reckon." "d'you suppose the other boys will start out such a day as this?" "dunno; hard to tell. but we've come a right smart ways, paul, and so far as i kin see we're gettin' further and further into these big woods." "but we've never lost old murky's trail. have we, now?" "nope! dark as it is, i kin make it out. you know when we started out we noticed that one of his shoes or boots had a prong on one side of the heel. well, here she is--see?" and chip slider pointed to a deep impression made apparently by a big shoe-nail or some other peculiarity which the lads had noted earlier when the light was better. paul grunted a tired assent. "where do you reckon we are, anyhow?" chip was staring at a high bulge ahead as if some huge rock or boulder protruded upward from the nearly level ground. "i dunno. there's something ahead that looks like we might find a shelter. come on, paul." the two plodded on, one carrying the lone blanket and the other the small store of eatables that remained after their last inroad upon it. when they were nearly up to this unusual obstruction there came a sparkle of light that hit the damp air momentarily, then went out. it seemed to chip, who had the keenest eyes of the two, as if it might have been the flare of a match. the boys halted at once and stood staring, listening, perplexed and yet most curious. finally they heard a snapping of twigs, and then came another flare and still another. nothing else could they see for, as chip suspected, it was only the reflection of a light that they had seen. evidently there must be someone behind that bulge. while they waited breathless, there came a confirmation of their fears--or rather was it their hopes? "blame me!" growled a heavy voice. "why in sin won't she get afire?" with one accord the two boys stood and stared--at each other. finally paul leaned forward, whispering: "murky, murky!" chip more composedly nodded; then he too whispered: "we must slip up behind that thing. it's a rock, i reckon." paul said nothing but when chip started, he did likewise. "step keerful," whispered slider. "don't let your feet make a noise when you pull 'em out of the mud." a low rumble of thunder muttered its way out of the west indicating more rain. as if to emphasize the menace of this, they heard murky cursing to himself. he, too, was aware that further rain and storm boded no good to himself. more softly still the boys came gradually up under the shelving sides of a great rock, that proved to be the termination of a chain of similar rocks which abutted from a ridge of low hills off to the northeast. beyond, on the other side of this last big boulder, they could still hear murky--if it was murky--renewing his attempts to make a fire. under the shelving sides the boys had some shelter. but from the brighter glare on the other side they knew that the tramp had succeeded in starting his fire. was he any better protected from the increasing rain than they? for quite a time the two crouched, blanket over their shoulders, while the rain pattered harder and harder. finally a slight shift of wind to the westward caused the rain to beat in on them more. they were very uncomfortable, squatting in the wet mould with their backs against the damp rocks. "see what i got?" paul held up something that chip cautiously felt. "where did you get that?" chip was astonished. "i knew we had one at the camp. but i thought it was lost. but today i found it in one of our bags. when we started i managed to slip it into my pocket. we're only two boys, and murky is a grown man. why, you've got bruises on you now that he gave you--" paul was showing a pistol. "hs-sh!" whispered chip. "not so loud. lemme see that gun!" "all right," and paul passed it over. chip looked at it closely. "i can't tell yet if the chambers have any cartridges. we might need it." by the mere feel of the thing they did not make sure, so paul, before chip had time to remonstrate, struck one of his own matches. by this light the two bent closely, the light flaring out into the night air. at last, as the match went out chip declared: "the chambers are all empty except one, and i can't see--hold on!" forgetting his previous caution, chip himself struck another match. while they bent again to see if the cartridge was a full one they were appalled when a deep, rough voice from out the apparent wall of rock behind struck on their boyish ears like a knell of coming destruction. they turned, paul grasping the dubious pistol, while murky, still wet, covered with mud and doubly forbidding by reason of this, seized chip slider in one hand and reached for paul with the other. where had murky come from? how did he suddenly appear apparently out of what the boys supposed to be a solid wall of rock? but at any rate there he was with chip squirming in his grasp while paul, darting to one side, barely eluded his left-handed clutch. altogether it was a ticklish situation. but paul was plucky. in a trice, remembering the one cartridge, he levelled the pistol and began pulling the trigger. "let go that boy!" his almost childish treble rang out. "leggo, i say!" click--click--click went the hammer as he pulled the trigger, at the same time jumping back further from murky's gripping hand. meantime chip managed to loose himself. murky, hearing the empty sound of the striking hammer, growled: "huh-h! she's empty, blame ye--" just then--crack! came the sound of the full cartridge; but paul's aim being unsteady, the ball just clipped murky's left ear. it maddened him more than anything else. with a yell of rage and pain he sprang at paul, catching the lad as the latter tried to spring backward, but stumbling in the mud, while the pistol flew from his hand. by this time the light of murky's fire was blotted out by some passing object that darted swiftly out of the obscurity whence murky had sprung. at the same time chip, now free, leaped pluckily to the assistance of his friend. but on the instant the unknown object, emitting a swedish howl of rage, burst through, striking murky with an impact that sent him headlong out into the night. with this collision back came the light that had been momentarily blotted from view by the last welcome intruder. when this last stood revealed, big, heavy, yet strangely hampered by his half useless arms, the two boys were in turn again astonished yet gratified to behold--nels anderson. accompanying this appearance came the sounds of rapidly retreating steps as murky, recognizing defeat, made himself scarce as fast as he could. the three looked at each other, grinning the while as they looked. "say, mr. anderson," began paul, "it was bully of you to come, and you still crippled in your arms!" at a glance both saw that nels, while active as ever in body and legs, held his arms loosely, both hanging down at his sides. "my arms no good," he began, "but i bane all right yet. coom--ve look fer dot feller." he turned, diving through a side passage hitherto hidden from paul and chip, while they, following, emerged into a recess where two gigantic boulders, leaning together, made the shelter under which murky had started the fire that, flaring out into the darkness, had so puzzled the boys before. here murky, becoming aware that someone was beyond him, had crept up between rocks, listening when the boys arrived, and had sprung upon them as has been described. for half a minute nels stood, glaring at the embers of the fire and around to see what else might be there. but there was nothing, apparently, beyond a few scraps of eatables and a remnant of wet tow sacking. "coom on!" shouted the big swede. "we bane get nothin' here!" and he darted off in the darkness towards where murky's retreating steps had last been heard. but nothing resulted except a trio of tired searchers with deep mud on their legs and a sense that murky had eluded them again. "i don't see any signs of money round here," gloomily owned paul, looking about the rocky recess where murky had been quartered but a short while before. "it is dark as pitch everywhere else. one thing, chip. i fancy we got his grub, whatever he had left after eating." "that's something," owned up chip. "a feller can't git along much in these woods unless he has something to fill his belly with." anderson, paying little heed to this, was staring into the fire, doubtless thinking matters over. chip picked up the tow-bagging, scanned it closely and turned to paul standing near. he pointed at a shred of the bagging that, without being detached from the sack, had somehow caught a small patch of greenish paper inside its loose clutch. carefully chip picked out this, and handed it to nels and paul. "that looks like a piece of money," quoth chip. "ain't it the corner of a bill of some kind?" closer inspection revealed, even to anderson's thicker brain, that the paper shred had undoubtedly been part of a bank note of some kind. being wet, it was easily torn from the parent bank note in the rough handling the money had undergone. at least such was the conclusion drawn by all three after a short inspection. paul was greatly excited. "what did i say when phil found that old suit-case? murky must 'a' put the money in something else. it must 'a' been all wet. he must 'a' had that money here. what did he do with it?" "i'm goin' to hunt for it right now!" said chip now all eagerness. "first we find murky," interposed nels. "vere he be, dere ve find money." "but murky didn't have no load on him when he tackled us!" was chip's objection. "i goin' make light," said nels. "you look roun'. mebbe fin' money. mebbe fin' nothin'. i bane go fin' murky. make heem tell. yah!" and anderson, who still had some use of his big hands, picked up a hatchet left by the fugitive in his haste and clumsily began to split some dry pine which had long lain under shelter, doubtless left there by former campers or hunters. for several minutes the boys ferreted their way into or through the neighboring crevices among the jumble of rocks, even using part of anderson's splinters to aid them; but nothing did they find. "now we go," said nels at last. "you boys bane tired mooch?" the truth was all were pretty tired, but not one would acknowledge the fact. nels, used to long fatigues, and crippled besides, made both paul and chip reluctant to own up that they needed sleep more than further travel. the upshot of all this was that, in a short time, all were following the mud trail left by murky in his flight but a brief spell back. the fire had been replenished, so as to give them some clue as to where they were, should they wish to return. chip bore the torch; paul carried an armload of fat splinters; while nels, plodding between, bent his woods-sharpened eyes on the tracks that were plain enough yet, for the rain had at last ceased. after leading them a sinuous path through the blackened wilderness for perhaps a mile, the tracks turned sharply to the right and upward along a more gravelly slant until what seemed the backbone of a wooded ridge was attained. here the fire in consuming leaves, fallen branches and most of the thinner undergrowth, had thus swept from the gravel beneath all the surface refuse. probably this was accomplished before the rains began. in consequence the tracks, growing more and more imperceptible, finally vanished entirely. "i bane tired," and nels sat down, shaking his great head discouragingly. "gee whiz!" gurgled jones. "i almost wish i was back in staretta in my little bed 'stead of way out here where i don't even know where i am or how i'll get out again." but chip was made of sterner stuff. seeing his companions were in the dumps, he perked up and sniffed the night air expectantly. "what's the use of gittin' discouraged? mornin' 'll soon be here. we kin see that fire yet, can't we? les' go back and git some sleep." "no use of dat." this from nels. "it bane very late now. we git fire here. sleep a bit." but it was concluded not to make a fire, as it might give the man they were hunting a clue as to where they were. so the three prepared to pass a comfortless night. fortunately it did not rain any more and, after a fashion, they managed to endure the rest of the night. at last, cool and cheerless, the dawn came, and with the first glimmer the three set out along the ridge. nels kept to the summit, while the boys patrolled the sides, keeping an eye out amid the softer mud and ashes for any sign of foot tracks. a mile or more might have been traversed thus when, at a shout from chip, the others hastened to him and saw that the boy had detected distinct foot tracks leading away towards the east. "fresh ones too," said paul, pointing. "and--look there. criminy! i'm going to take a look inside that hollow log." he darted towards a rusty looking tree trunk over which the fire had swept, leaving naught but the solid wood cylinder of dead beech. most of the shrivelled bark, moss and dead leaves were reduced to ashes. these the rain had made into a moist, blackish gray mush. at the larger end were plain signs as if some heavy body had crawled inside and perhaps out again. nels, more up to woods lore, looked, sniffed, fingered clumsily, then delivered himself. "murkee, he bane sleep here yoost li'l whiles. git oop soon. he bane gone a'retty--yuss!" "gone--yes!" exclaimed paul. "but where did he go? how did he get away so all-fired soon--hey?" here another call from chip solved the question. not far below the hollow log began a tiny slough which presently widened out until footprints were discernible in the mushy tussocks of what had before been a fringe of marsh-grass. it was chip who led the way now, and eagerly pointed out further developments in the hunt. "do you reckon this really is murky we are following?" asked paul while nels, tired, hungry and sleepy as well, dragged along dumbly. "pshaw!" exclaimed chip, who was bent on solving the apparently unsolvable. "who else would it be way out here in this wilderness? we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for murky: murky wouldn't be here if his own work hadn't driven him into it. let's go on." and on they went, the trail growing plainer as the slough widened and deepened. finally they came to a fallen tree extending from one side of the slough to the other. the scorched, blackened, rain-soaked top reached to their side. half way across the branches ceased and nothing but a slimy black trunk reached to the other side. already they were about to pass this when chip, who was in the lead, suddenly stopped. "i don't see no more tracks," said he, seemingly nonplussed. at once nels came forward, took one look about, then pointed at a sooty limb projecting landward from the trunk. "w'at de matter wid dat?" he exclaimed. "she bane go dat way." "sure--you're right!" cried paul, instantly comprehending. "but how will you get across, mr. anderson?" chapter xv murky at bay chip slider, always willing when there was something to do, caught hold of the limb that showed signs of recent use and swung himself up into the top. paul jones followed, but anderson shook his head as he tried to raise his half useless arms. without assistance he could not make it. yet it was evident that the fugitive murky must have taken that road. meanwhile chip, landing on the other side after a slippery passage on the log, saw the tracks leading straight off through the woods as if murky well knew what he wanted and where he was going. paul, in crossing, noticed midway of the log certain muddy smears as if someone had either fallen off or had climbed up on the log about midway of the slough. this did not much impress him at the time. hastening on to join chip, the two then perceived that nels was still on the other side. "by cripes! anderson can't make it, chip! we ought to have waited and helped him over. that log's mighty slippery. looks as if someone had fallen off already. what had we better do?" "say, paul, this trail leads right back in the direction of them rocks where we spent last night. what do ye think of that?" but paul was now calling to nels on the other side. he had heard what chip said and shouted to the big swede its import. at this nels solved the difficulty in a few words, directing the boys--if they were sure of this--to follow the new trail while nels would go back to the head of the slough and rejoin them somewhere near the foot of the rocky ridge they had previously traversed. still the trail was puzzling. both lads found not only a fresh trail leading ridgeward, but signs of an earlier trail, now much rainwashed, that led towards the slough, not away from it as the fresh trail did. "tell you what i believe, paul," remarked chip after studying the situation over. "when murky first struck out he was trying to get clear off, probably east somewhere. he must 'a' come this way, tried to cross the run here and couldn't. he might 'a' fell off that log where you saw them stains. "what would he do then? why, strike for higher ground; git to some place where he could make a fire. that took him back to where he run against us. and if it hadn't 'a' been for nels, i ain't sure but what he'd a got the best in that mix-up. what do you think?" what chip thought was indicated by his pointing finger, for he was ahead, following the trail, now growing more and more indistinct. paul came up and looked at the faint outline of tracks now turning abruptly up the rocky ridge. "murky--if 'twas murky--is goin' right back where he and us spent last night. now what would he be doin' that for? there hain't but one reason that counts," affirmed chip. "he's hid out that money somewhere--don't you reckon?" all at once the significance of this appealed to both the boys. as with one accord they eagerly resumed their trail hunt, but it was with such scant success that paul finally shook his head in discouragement. chip, now on hands and knees, stooping, at times almost crawling, was inclined to give up too. "you remember how we lost that trail before on this ridge and only found it when we separated, taking in the lowland on either side?" "yep! that's what we'll have to do now. wish nels was here. wonder where he is now?" and paul peered in the direction of the slough. with one accord both lads waited a few minutes, but seeing no sign of the vanished swede, it was agreed that chip should take one side of the ridge and paul the other, and at each mile of progress or thereabouts, should let each other know. if, meanwhile, one should strike the trail again he should call or go in search of the other. possibly paul had gone a mile, when a rumbling, heavy voice halted him. no trail had he found, but--there was anderson coming, having at last rounded the head of the slough. "you find him yet?" meaning the vanished trail. "he bane go dis way?" "no, we lost it on the ridge like we did before. chip is looking for it on the other side of this slope. i hope he has better luck than us." "let's res' a leetle, paul," and nels slumped heavily down. at this juncture came a faint call from the other side of the ridge. paul jumped up again, saying: "come on, mr. anderson! that must be chip. he's found something, for we agreed to let each other know, whichever came on anything first." and paul gave an answering shout, starting up the gentle rise of the rocky elevation, on top of which both trails had vanished. "alright--i bane coomin'," responded nels as he wearily got up and tried to keep up with paul's hasty steps, but soon gave that up. "i bane tired--all een--das w'at." young slider had felt all along the keenest interest in the recovery of that stolen money. his dead father's participation therein probably kept him stimulated by a desire to show his new-found friends, the auto boys that he was worthy to be trusted. after some futile search he was at length gratified to discover signs of the vanished trail. it came down from the higher ground where the rocks and gravel made it indistinguishable. filled with new courage he followed on, pleased that it became more plain as the lower ground grew softer and more mushy. at this juncture he began calling to paul, and perhaps it was indiscreet in view of what presently happened. but chip was not thinking of himself. instead, as he gave his last shout and heard the faint echo of paul's reply, he only thought that he was again on the track of murky. where was murky now? "i hope we'll soon know," he said to himself as he plodded on, on--eyes on the ground and seeing little of things around him. "i hope paul hurries. he'd help a lot--" "blame _me!_" a savage growl struck on chip's ears. "it's that durned little slider cuss." with a curdling chill chip raised his eyes and was astounded by what he saw. having gone farther than he thought, amid his eagerness to get on and his constant scrutiny of the trail, he saw around him the same rocks rising to his right that they had approached the night before. and right under the heavy ledge where he and paul had been sheltered, prior to murky's attack, stood murky himself, mud-slimed, gaunt, fierce, and scowlingly savage. "ain't i never goin' to git rid of you?" he snapped, drawing menacingly near. "you'll not dodge me this time!" with this murky lurched forward, his claw-like hand reaching forth. chip let out a yell of terror. he could not help it. the yell would come, and it rang far-reaching, striking on anderson's ear as the swede, having recovered, was crossing the ridge's backbone not so very far away. that yell smote upon paul not unlike the effect of an unexpected thunder clap. but paul recognized the voice. chip was in trouble. he--paul--was not with him. gripping his courage, he rushed on, rounding a bulge of rock just in time to see chip being dragged within that same recess whence both murky and nels had emerged the night before, one to attack, the other to rescue the two boys. "look here!" cried paul, now more angry than ever, his fear of murky quite gone for the time being. "you let that boy alone! hear me?" apparently the tramp did not, for he disappeared through the elbowed recess still dragging the struggling chip. just then paul stumbled and was nearly thrown down by hitting a smooth, round rock with his foot. recovering, he picked up that rock and darted through the recess after murky with his captive. his other hand also found that pistol with which he had clipped the robber's ear, and which paul had hung onto, thinking he might have a use for it. no cartridges were in it of course, but still it was a weapon. in one corner of that recess where the fire had been built murky had young slider down and apparently was choking the life out of the lad. without a word paul ran up, heaved the rock and, as luck would have it, struck the robber fairly right over the head. a less hard-headed man would have toppled over. but murky was hard-headed as well as hard-hearted. he reeled upon his knees and his clutch upon chip relaxed sufficiently to enable that thoroughly frightened youngster to wriggle away on hands and knees while murky was recovering. the latter scrambled to his feet, his head smarting. roaring, he lunged at paul, who darted back, his only real weapon gone and wondering what to do next. more by instinct than anything he levelled the empty pistol at the robber, shouting at the same time: "keep off--keep off! i--i'll shoot--" but by this time murky had recovered his poise and his strength as well. for all he knew paul might send bullets his way, but that did not now stop the ruffian. with a savage snort of anger he sprang upon the boy, wrenched from him the pistol and straightway began to beat paul over the head. about this time murky felt a clinging form jump upon his back, wind its thin arms and legs around his half reeling frame, as paul struck at him with boyish impetuosity, though the blows were futile so far as doing the man any serious harm. "blame ye both!" he exploded. "i'll fix ye--blast ye!" and fix them both he methodically proceeded to do. seizing paul by the scruff of his neck and twisting chip somehow under his other arm, he then tried to bang their heads together. luckily he did not succeed before there was a sudden interruption. for the second time there came in murky's rear a rumbling roar of anger. nels anderson, just arrived, breathless, exhausted, was yet ready to do what might be done by a tired man almost without the use of his arms. at the sound close behind him murky turned, his savage claws fastened in the half helpless boys' clothing. pushing them before him, he rushed upon the swede. the impact was too much for nels. back he staggered, his heels tripping, and fell with the two youngsters on top of his prostrate bulk. by the time the three got to their feet again murky had vanished. but they heard him farther on, and in an instant chip was off, crying: "we mustn't lose him! he's back after that money! i just know it!" was chip right? only quick work might solve that riddle. in a trice paul was at chip's heels while nels, puffing more than ever, yet still game, came on after. arrived at the next turning, they saw murky dragging at something in a dark corner or crevice of rock. seeing his pursuers coming, murky rushed blindly at them. chip managed to dodge but paul was overborne and, stumbling back, brought up against nels, and again a rough-and-tumble struggle began. meantime chip, having dodged, saw what murky, down on his knees, had been dragging at when again surprised. intuition told him what it might be. instead of going to the aid of his companions chip stooped over, dragged out a wet, soiled package from a deeper crevice, ran off through another passage that seemed to wind among a number of converging boulders, and--a moment later returned empty-handed to where the fight was still going on. murky now had the big swede down and was pummelling him over head and face with his fists. anderson was rolling, twisting about, striving ineffectually to wriggle loose. from behind paul jones was doing his best to drag the robber back. paul had him by the hair and collar. when chip came back, he had managed to hit paul with one right-handed fist and the boy was gasping. all this went through chip like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky. seizing a good sized fragment of rock, he began pounding murky about the head. "blame ye!" roared the thief. "will ye quit? i--i'll--" further utterance was checked by murky's turning and flinging himself full length upon young slider. bearing him to the ground, the lad was soon knocked into unconsciousness by murky's powerful blows. "git outer my way!" he shouted, rising and making a break for the same place where chip had seen him stooping not ten minutes before. "blame me! i--i'll--where is it? what have ye done with it? ye will, will ye?" by this time, blinded by baffled rage, murky proceeded--as chip afterwards expressed it--"to wipe up the earth" with his opponents. chapter xvi conclusion through the nearer passages under the leaning rocks, approaching footsteps were heard, hurried steps, that even murky had to heed. then came link fraley, followed by phil, dave, billy--the auto boys. behind those was mr. beckley, breathing heavily as if tired by undue haste. no sooner had murky seen who they were than he sprang up from the scramble wherein he, the swede and paul were engaged, and made a break for another passage. but link, who happened to be nearest, thrust out one long leg. with another cry of rage murky went prostrate. for a few minutes--or was it seconds?--a struggle went on. but murky's day of probation was at last over. actually weeping with anger, anderson strove to reach his late opponent. paul, though somewhat bruised from his own struggles, also tried to do his bit in securing the scowling man. but it was not necessary. in another short space of time murky lay there helpless. his arms were bound behind his back, his legs and feet also secured. one of the first things mr. beckley did was to walk up to anderson and shake his nerveless hand with great vigor. then he did the same thing to paul, who was also being congratulated by the other boys. then beckley turned to anderson, saying: "it was brave and faithful of you, nels, to start out all by yourself. but it was you and this--this lad who really rounded up the rascal." "you forget chip slider, mr. beckley, don't you?" paul jones liked to be fair, though at times he was too forward. "chip was along--why, where is chip? i'd forgot him for the moment." link fraley and phil way were bending over chip's still prostrate form where he lay after being so maltreated by the scowling villain who now lay bound not more than ten feet away. attention thus drawn, the entire party devoted themselves to the task of reviving young slider, who it appeared was only stunned and bruised by his treatment at the hands of the robber. presently mr. beckley again took the lead in questioning. "of course i--we feel deeply grateful. the longknives will do almost anything for those who were most active in securing this fellow and his ill-gotten booty. he'll have to face a murder charge too, as there is little doubt but that he dragged grandall to his death inside that burning building. and now that we have the thief and the money--" "are you sure we've got the money, sir?" it was maclester who asked this for, scotch-like, dave was always ready to cast doubt upon most anything that was not proved before all men. "i don't see any money!" "of course we may not see it right now, yet i don't doubt but that you and murky know where it is?" this to nels and paul, who both looked rather nonplussed. "where is it, nels?" "i--i--" anderson was stammering and confused in manner. "i bane not sure i can tell. that feller, he know." he pointed at murky who glared evilly at the crowd in general. "ye needn't look for me to tell anything," he snarled. "i got no money!" "if you had, you'd lie about it," was beckley's comment that seemed to meet the general opinion among his captors. murky relapsing into sullen silence, beckley resumed his queries. "do you mean that having gotten this scoundrel here," indicating murky, "you don't know where his plunder is?" "wish i did, sir," said paul jones, turning from chip who was just beginning to be conscious of outward things. "and you, too, do not know where the money is?" beckley turned again to anderson, who squirmed rather uneasily. "wush i did," the latter muttered. "i bane coom after the boys. ven i coom oop wid 'em, dey vass in mix-oop wid heem," pointing at murky. "that fellow must 'a' had the money hid out somewhere," said paul. "we followed him for miles. finally we lost the trail, then we came on him by accident, as it were. he was about to get the best of chip and me when in came nels, here, and murky disappeared. it was in the night. in the morning we struck his trail again. but he never seemed to have the money with him. it is all a mystery to me. isn't that the way of it, nels?" nels gave a sheepish nod of assent. "well, it's something big to have apprehended this fellow. before we are through with him i dare say we will know where that stolen money is." mr. beckley spoke with grim purpose which, however, did not belie his apparent disappointment that the stolen twenty thousand dollars was not forthcoming, or at least some knowledge gained as to its present whereabouts. here chip slider, reclining against link fraley, who was still solicitously supporting the boy's dizzy head, blinked and strove to raise himself. clearing his throat, he asked in a shaky voice: "is it the money they want to know about?" this, apparently, to link. "why, yes, boy! we've got hands on the thief," meaning murky. "but what mr. beckley wants to know now, is what's become of the swag, the boodle, the stuff murky stole. he won't tell, and you chaps don't seem to know." "yes, we do!" replied chip unexpectedly. then he sat up unaided. "what do you mean, my lad?" queried beckley, a quizzical smile on his face for he had not fully determined the reason of chip's being here except in a casually superfluous way. "i mean that--" glancing at paul and nels, "--that we know where the money is. at least it looks like the money and murky seemed mighty anxious to get his paws on it." giving little heed to the wonder in the faces of the swede and jones, the boy tried to get to his feet. "help me up, please. i'll be all right in a minute. there! now if you will all go with me, i'll show you what i mean." still supported by fraley, though chip was almost himself again, he led the party to a deep crevice where some dirt had been hastily pawed out. "right here i saw murky on his knees trying to pull out something from this hole. about that time he saw us again, and the way he went for us kep' him busy with nels and paul. it flashed through me what murky was after. i left them fightin'. it was two to one, anyhow. when i got to this hole i pulled out a wet bundle that i took to be the money. seemed like i could see the bills or the corners of them in bundles." "yes, yes!" exclaimed beckley eagerly. "they would be apt to be in packages. you were right; i feel sure you were right!" "but where are those bills now? where is the bundle?" asked link. without a word chip, unaided, led the group to the nearby recess where he had hurriedly stowed them. pointing, he continued: "that there is what i drug out of yonder hole, sir. i guess it's the money, or murky wouldn't 'a' been so anxious about gittin' it." it was the missing money, of course. practically intact, too, although it was wet and in places mud-soaked. the bags of coin were there. one had a small rip in the seam, doubtless where the coin had escaped that paul found near the dilapidated suit-case. here paul's enthusiasm at last broke loose. "oh, you chip!" he cried. "you're the goods, ain't you? that then was the reason you didn't stop and help us fight murky!" "yah--he had good reesons--heh!" this from nels, now rejoicing like the rest. "i bane like you, cheep; zat i does!" after that nothing apparently was too good for young slider. even mr. beckley, dropping his previous air of good-humored toleration, declared that chip deserved real commendation. "you have showed pluck and perseverance, for you were about to start after that skunk murky alone when our young friend paul jones joined you. and nels, our good old nels, crippled though he was, came swiftly on the trail of you both, arriving just when help was needed." "yes, paul," remarked phil, "our crowd came just in time too; but if it had not been for you three, i guess we would not have both prisoner and money in our hands right now." "that reminds me," interrupted link, starting off on a run. "who stayed behind to watch that devil murky?" as with one accord the others, except mr. beckley and chip slider, started after fraley, leaving those two to bring along the money. a moment later they broke into the passage where murky had been left, and found that the wily rascal had already loosed his hands by rubbing the cords that bound his wrists against a sharp edge of the rocks, and was at work upon the bindings that held his feet. these were only partially freed. seeing his captors approach, he jumped up, made a reckless bolt for freedom, but fell sprawling on the earth. in a trice the others were upon him and after a brief struggle had him tied hard and fast again. "you'll not get away again, old chap," was billy's comment as he tied the last knot. "there's a thing called law and justice you've got to face before you're done with this crowd!" while mr. beckley, with anderson's aid, and with sundry others looking on, carefully counted over the wet, draggled, yet still good contents of the package thus found, there came a rattle of wheels. presently two teamsters from staretta appeared, with word that they had managed to bring their teams thus far, but the mud and thickening tree trunks might prevent their going farther. "guess you won't have to go farther, my men," spoke up mr. beckley. "can we get back to staretta by night--with a prisoner, and also three more of our friends who came on before?" "sure we can! we've broke such road as there is in comin'." the speaker, a red-faced, burly looking man, was shaking hands with nels, for he was one of the old gravel road workers whom the longknives had never paid as yet. "well then," remarked beckley to whom all deferred as the leader in their subsequent proceedings, "we will get a move on at once. i am anxious to reach town where i can telephone. it is lucky that i changed my mind and did not go on by rail, when i found that these boys were already after the prisoner yonder," indicating murky, "and that the other auto boys, with mr. fraley, were going at once in pursuit. i may state here that, though the clubhouse is gone and grandall along with it, we have recovered the twenty thousand dollars. if i know the longknives club, they will now be more than willing to pay all claims against them by those who trusted them. it was long delayed, yet it could not be helped. i trust to put all things straight before i leave your hospitable little town." needless to state good, clean staretta beds were occupied by the andersons, the auto boys, the golfing man, his servant daddy o'lear, and chip slider that night. even murky, though guarded in the village lock-up, had a more comfortable place to sleep than he had enjoyed for some time. later, under a warrant duly drawn, charging him with murder and robbery, he was conveyed to the jail at the county seat to await the grand jury and the court. before mr. beckley left, and after he had wired particulars of these recent events to the longknives club, he received by wire the hearty acquiescence from them in the plan already formulated for the disposition of the stolen and rescued twenty thousand dollars. first, there was to be medical aid for nels anderson, and a restoration of the money losses he had sustained in the building of that gravelled road. also chip slider was to be helped and aided for the plucky way he had acted, especially in removing the money from where murky, had he come back in a hurry, would have found it. next those workmen who had been employed three years before must receive the money due them. lastly a new automobile should be provided without undue delay for the auto boys. it certainly was due them. had it not been for their bravery and devotion to duty the tragedy making up the last chapter of the gravel road's history would have been far, far more terrible. it was not long until all mr. beckley's plans were carried out. legally the longknives club had never been disbanded and the funds were unanimously voted as he proposed. but how about poor chip slider? there is today no more contented boy in lannington, the home city of the auto boys, than he. without loss of time the chums returned home, taking chip with them. he's working for con cecil in a newspaper office there and going to night school. all his questioning if peace and plenty might not be found somewhere, sometime, has been most pleasingly answered. there was gladness and thanksgiving in the homes of all the boys' families when the telegrams telling of their escape from the great forest fire were received. a most happy homecoming it was for all, a day or so later. scarcely a week had passed when henry beckley and a committee of longknives drove up to the green and yellow garage the auto boys called their own, and there delivered a truly splendid new car. on part of the boys' families and their friends there was much ado about it all. a dinner by the lannington automobile club, and a great many more fine speeches than the four chums relished hearing about themselves, was one such thing. "and i will venture to say," spoke mr. beckley, in the course of his after dinner address, on this occasion, "that whatever the future has in store for our friends, they will be found active and alert in time of play, in time of work or in time of danger." "the auto boys' big six," a book wherein the later experiences of the chums will be reported, should in due time enable you to judge whether mr. beckley was correct. the end the auto boys' quest _by_ james a. braden author of "the auto boys," "the auto boys' outing," "far past the frontier," "captives three," "connecticut boys in the western reserve," etc. illustrated by arthur debebian the saalfield publishing company chicago, akron ohio, new york copyright, 1910 by the saalfield publishing company [illustration: phil held up a yellow envelope, then read: "know you have gone. don't know where. rushing around crazy."] contents chapter page i a plan and a scheme 7 ii a little practice in strategy 23 iii a plan that did not fail 40 iv safely away 53 v camping on a strange road 74 vi on to the gold cup races 90 vii a night adventure 104 viii plans for the big race 120 ix the crafty plan of mr. gouger 134 x adventure befalls the chosen trio 151 xi mr. blackbeard, the giant 168 xii discovered 184 xiii around the gold cup circuit 203 xiv at the clarion racing camp 218 xv secrets of the woods 233 the auto boys' quest chapter i a plan and a scheme "and they piled three stones one on top of another to mark the place. the first was just a big field stone, the second was rough and flat and the third, which was at the top, was the kind called conglomerate. you know--all full of pebbles, like coarse gravel pressed into a mass. or--or like a fruit cake." there was a note of earnestness in billy worth's voice, as if he felt his words to be of great importance and desired that his hearers be impressed accordingly. that his communication did have reference to an important matter was made most apparent, perhaps, by the response it elicited, also earnestly spoken: "and if no one has disturbed them, the chances are the rocks are there yet," said phil way. "i mean that, although the heaving of the ground, as it froze and thawed winter after winter, would probably throw the pile down, the three different stones would still be close together for years upon years." "and i'll be standing here for years upon years without starting this engine if you don't give me a spark! almost breaking myself in two, and you sit there threshing over that old stone pile again! did you think i was working this crank handle just for exercise?" these remarks, both earnest and emphatic, came from a young gentleman who stood at the front of a large touring car, the forward seats of which vehicle were occupied by the two whose words have been earlier noted. "or did you think i was trying an experiment in perpetual motion?" he added, with equal sarcasm. mr. billy worth, at the steering wheel, laughed good-naturedly. "i solemnly beg your pardon, mac," he said. "i was thinking of those three stones. now you're all right!" so saying, he moved the quadrant to the point at which there was a spark advanced to set the automobile's engine chugging when his friend with the crank handle had again given it an initial motion. "was pretty sure dave would make a discovery if he worked hard enough," piped a shrill voice tantalizingly. "i noticed that the spark wasn't on. meant to mention it after while, but really didn't like to interrupt the conversation!" these remarks, accompanied by a very self-complacent grin, proceeded from a young gentleman whose half-recumbent position in the tonneau was possibly more comfortable than dignified. indeed, comfort rather than dignity was plainly his preference as no doubt it often is with persons somewhat less than fifteen years of age. "meant to mention it, did you?" came with marked emphasis from the one addressed as dave, slamming the tonneau door behind him, as the machine moved out of its quarters--a tidy green and yellow building nestling beneath some old elms. "meant to mention it, eh?" and putting hands suddenly upon the youthful humorist's shoulders, he shook him pretty vigorously. the latter took his punishment with utmost good nature, saying only, "no fault of mine! if you fellows don't know how to start the car, let me know and i'll teach you. gee whiz!" with all its irony, this speech was allowed to pass unnoticed for now the automobile glided with a gentle bounce over the sidewalk and out of the cinder drive of dr. way's residence into the street. all four passengers settled themselves in their seats as if for a rapid ride. their car ran beautifully and in scarcely more time than is required to state the fact its glistening wheels and body, its shining wind shield, lamps and horn had disappeared at the park gate far down the avenue. had you happened to be in that well-known city of the middle west, lannington, on this early day of june in the year 190--, and had you noticed this particular automobile as, guided by well-trained hands, it swept with a flourish around the curve and in through the park entrance, quite possibly you would have wished to make inquiry concerning the car and its occupants. there was something of quiet distinction about the latter and about the machine and the way it was handled. inquiry from any person interested in boys or motoring or both--and who is not?--would have been, indeed, entirely natural. nor would the veriest stranger have experienced difficulty in obtaining information. while in no sense were they especially prominent because of wealth, exalted social position or otherwise, the auto boys, as the four were called, were at least well known. introduced briefly and individually they are phil way, billy worth, dave maclester and paul jones. just what sort of lads they are will become apparent as the acquaintanceship progresses. at the present moment attention must be returned to the spot they have so recently quitted--the little green and yellow building beneath the elms. a very tidy structure is the small garage the four friends call their own. it stands at the end of the drive leading out past the blooming syringas and a great bed of vari-colored peonies to the street. approach and entrance from that direction are very convenient. or entrance by way of the alley, in the rear, may be accomplished quite as easily. its doors, both front and back, are the largest things about the building. with both opened wide the automobile can be driven directly through. to back the car out is unnecessary at any time. driving in from the rear means simply driving out through the front doors, or vice versa. the custom of the young proprietors of this model establishment of its kind with reference to coming and going with the car was well known among their acquaintances. it was well known, too, that at most times the alley doors of the garage were kept closed and locked. just why any of their friends should remain waiting at that side of the building, therefore, with them inside and the machine headed toward the street, as a glance in at the back window would easily show, might well be considered a trifle mysterious. also, just why any friend should apply an ear to the small crack between the door and the wall of the building proper--stooping down in an attitude of thoughtful attention upon all that was taking place inside--might well be made a subject of inquiry. nevertheless precisely such a situation had existed to-day. a sharp-eyed young fellow, not much less than sixteen years of age, had stood for all of ten minutes in practically the position indicated. not until the automobile and its owners had departed did he also leave, walking hastily down the alley and keeping much closer under the cover of the high, tight-board fence than would seem entirely necessary. the young man was too respectable in his general appearance to be mistaken for a tramp or other type of vagabond loitering about for no good purpose. nor had he any of the usual sneak-thief characteristics, suspicious as his actions were. only a half-surly, half-defiant expression about his hawk-like eyes and a scowl above his heavy brows gave a clue to his thoughts and purposes. it was easy to guess that in some way he had suffered a disappointment. at the corner of a residence street upon which the lad presently emerged, his face lighted up. smiling, as if he had concluded to think better of the matter whatever it may have been, he spoke quite aloud, yet in a low tone: "'and they piled three stones on top of one another to mark the place. one was a big field stone, another a flat stone and the third, which was at the top, was conglomerate.'" and then a moment later, "'conglomerate! all full of pebbles like coarse gravel!' as if any man didn't know 'conglomerate'!" there was something coarse and rasping in the way the boy repeated the latter phrase of the words he had overheard at the green and yellow shed. it suggested both maliciousness and mischief. his further language as he spoke in undertones to no ears but his own was confirmation of such an opinion. "plenty of time yet. guess wherever any old thirty horse-power motor can go, a forty-five can follow! confound those little beasts! i don't see where they can be!" that the young man's latter remark, even less amiable than it was complimentary, had reference to someone whom he expected to see, was made apparent a few minutes later when a heavy car of the roadster type, too lumbering to be of the best, came suddenly around the corner and stopped at the curb near him. the machine carried two young fellows of about his own age. "been looking for you everywhere, pick," said one of the two--he at the wheel--"you said you'd go out chestnut. what you doing way down here on the avenue?" "said nothin' of the kind," growled the sharp-eyed one. "i said i'd meet you right here on green avenue. been looking for you till--" "you did _not_!" spoke the other of the two in the car. "i know what you said!" but by that time the lad called "pick" had seated himself in the double rumble, and as the automobile moved forward--"oh shut up!" he answered moodily. "i'm sore! still nothing to it but talk of the three stones. anyhow, though, i've got the exact words about them," and with this he repeated the description of three stones, piled one on top of another, substantially as he had overheard the same. "well, they're going somewhere and they're going to start soon. i've found out that much, for sure," spoke the chap who drove. he was a really likable looking fellow, named perth--fred, or more often freddy, when addressed by his first name. the lad beside him was "soapy"--otherwise harry--gaines, the somewhat spoiled son of one of the very few rich men in lannington. he was of such uncertain temper, slipping so far beyond the reach of ordinary mortals and putting on ever and again so vast an air of superiority, possibly because of the paternal wealth, but with or without cause or reason, that his nickname seemed well applied. he it was who claimed ownership of the roadster. "course they're going somewhere! haven't we known it all along? didn't they say themselves they were going, and just as good as tell us we wasn't wanted, when we told 'em we'd go with 'em? humph! they've had a plan rigged up this long while and making such a mystery of it that half the town wonders what they're up to." he of the hawk eyes--otherwise "pick," otherwise tom pickton--was the speaker. the coarse, rasping quality of his voice was the more pronounced as he put more contempt in it. "just the same, i'm thinking they can't go where we can't follow--if we like; eh, gaines?" it was in quite a different key, though the voice was still harsh as a file, that pickton addressed the owner of the machine. the latter young gentleman said that with his car he could run circles around the persons to whom the other made reference. he was of the opinion that nothing more interesting could be desired, however, than merely to trail along behind the auto boys, (for it was to them that the conversation referred) and by thus being constantly present, annoy and harass them in a way that would be a "deuced lot o' fun." then, too, if the four chums who had declined the self-extended invitation that soapy and his friends accompany them, had in mind the secret exploring of a mystery, a search for a robbers' cave or some such thing, which was considered to be their real purpose, they would be enabled to carry out their plan, at last, only by making terms with the chosen trio. the chosen trio, it will be understood, was the name by which messrs. pickton, gaines and perth had elected to style themselves. "chosen to be hanged, if anything!" paul jones had ungraciously said; but that is neither here nor there. the three were in no immediate danger of meeting such a fate, and they _were_ capable of making themselves most extremely disagreeable, without appearing to trespass beyond their lawful rights. where one automobile was allowed, for instance, another might follow; and the public roads everywhere were built no more for one individual than for another. "well, i was only going to say, if you'll give me the chance, that i know the four of 'em are going on a trip and what's more i know just about where," put in fred perth, as soapy concluded. "they've hired jim underhill to attend to a lot of the work they had engaged to do and they told him he'd have to begin next week sometime. they wouldn't tell jim where they were going. just said, 'ask me no questions an' i'll tell you no lies,' when he put it straight at 'em to know what for a trip was scheduled." "next week, eh?" pickton ejaculated. "_we're_ ready _now_. all we've got to do is watch their old boat and when they begin to pack up it will be ditto here. nothing much to that, eh?" "everything's fixed for me to leave any time," said perth, thinking with satisfaction how, after much difficulty, he had obtained permission to accompany gaines and pickton on a proposed motoring expedition. "huh! i'll just _go_," spoke soapy in that braggadocio way so common to his kind. "ought to get some new stuff in the touring outfit, i suppose," put in pick, as if to himself, but really fearful that at the last moment, due to gaines' well-known careless ways, the car would be found without one item of spare equipment. "by george! that's right! run down to the park garage, freddy. we'll load up some stuff and i'll have 'em put it in dad's next month's bill. we'll be away by that time." these instructions from soapy, always willing to make purchases if they were to be charged, and the more so if he saw at hand a way to defer for a time an interview with his father in regard to them, changed the course of the roadster away from the residence district of the city to the business center. as the car passed the down-town entrance to the park, the machine of the auto boys came up behind and, gliding past, halted before the door of the automobile establishment toward which the chosen trio had journeyed. the roadster drew up beside the thirty. "so you fellows are going to let daylight into some more mysteries, eh?" said pick, in a tone of banter to the occupants of the other machine. "are we?" asked billy worth, with a smile. "but you needn't tear yourselves away on that account. we haven't gone yet," dave maclester added as soapy said, "drive on!" perhaps it was the quiet, unruffled and yet absolutely uncommunicative tones of the auto boys that fired soapy gaines' wrath. like a pouter pigeon he swelled up. "aw, sure, drive on!" he said to perth, still at the wheel. "and don't you think," he added in a low tone, still pompous but threatening, too--"and don't you think that we won't make 'em get right down on their knees to us or wish they'd never left home." "or both!" laughed pickton in that unbearably rasping way. "yes, or both," was the response, "and some more on top of that! i'm going into this thing right, now, just for that low-down answer of worth's if nothing else--the little two-by-four!" "but yet--" it was perth who would have spoken, and it was in his mind to say that he saw nothing particularly objectionable in billy worth's words; that his answer to pick's observation was natural enough. "'but yet'? just you keep your 'but yet' till later on. i'm talking now!" interrupted soapy, savagely. "i'm talking now, i say!" the fact is, indeed, that mr. soapy gaines was quite apt to talk too much. chapter ii a little practice in strategy it was a direct result of gaines' tongue wagging much more loosely than reasonable discretion would have counseled, to say nothing of sound sense, that information concerning the scheming of himself and his fellow conspirators reached the auto boys. in the first place soapy made the boast in knight & wilder's garage that, when the auto boys set out on the tour, the object of which was shrouded in such mystery, his own car might not be so far behind but that somebody would look "about like thirty cents," when somebody arrived at somebody's very secret destination. again, the same afternoon, to a crowd of young fellows gathered for baseball practice he made such broad hints concerning the auto boys and a mysterious spot marked by stones piled near it, many years ago, that the dullest of them could not but connect the same with the journey phil way and his friends were known to have in prospect. it was the most natural thing imaginable that, being very friendly indeed with phil, billy, paul and dave, and by no means an ardent admirer of the chosen trio, ed wilder improved his earliest opportunity to tell the former of soapy gaines' words and half-jocular, half-threatening manner. with equal promptitude, also, a half-dozen or more of the baseball enthusiasts let it be known that, whatever the well-concealed plans and purposes of the auto boys might be, gaines and pickton, and very probably perth, as well, had obtained information in regard to them. thus did soapy's exact words, in some instances, and the substance of them in others, reach the four friends at one time and another before twenty-four hours had passed. "hard to tell whether they think it would be just a joke to follow after us or whether they intend to be low-down, sneaking mean," said phil way, as the well-nigh inseparable quartette discussed the situation in the green and yellow garage. "i don't see that that's the important thing. the main question is, how did the three of 'em find out so much," was billy worth's observation. "of course we know that our intention to go on a trip is common property; but wherever could they have heard about 'three stones to mark the place'? if they've heard enough that they make hints of that kind, how much else do they know?" "oh, fudge! pay no attention to 'em, _i_ say. what's the odds whether they trail after us or don't?" put in dave maclester. "huh! plenty enough odds!" ejaculated paul jones, forcibly. "if we'd wanted them tagging along we'd have told 'em when they as good as asked us. and what's more, if we're going to take them into the plan we might as well tell it to everybody and forget all about keeping our business to ourselves. but say! what's the matter with fooling 'em! let 'em follow after us and when we've led 'em away off the real track, just slip away and go where we first intended?" there was a general murmur of interest and some laughing over the possibilities paul's suggestion might develop, but in the end the talk came back to phil way's inquiry--were the chosen trio bent on making serious mischief and of themselves a contemptible nuisance, or did they think merely that it would be fun to ascertain and expose the object of the contemplated journey? "they've been spying on us some time or other or they'd never be able to drop so many hints about the three stones. then again, though, that's all they have hinted at, so far as we've heard," said maclester. "likely they don't know about anything else. but if we are going to pay any attention at all to them, let's do as jones says. let's have some fun out of it." and so began a series of moves on the checker board of events for both the auto boys and the three chosen ones which, and particularly with regard to the latter, gave all of them something to think about. a decoy movement was the first put into execution. its purpose was to ascertain to what extent soapy gaines and his friends were keeping tab on the going and coming of the thirty, by which name, it will be remembered, the car the four chums jointly owned was known. with a tarpaulin tied over the rack behind, as if it covered a quantity of baggage, divers boxes--mostly empty--in the tonneau, two extra tires in their racks and the whole outfit presenting the appearance of being ready for extended touring, the auto boys headed their car into the street the following morning. amid frantic waving of their hands, and by jones a most ridiculous pretense of wiping away tears of parting--fairly giggling in his handkerchief as he did it--the machine was turned directly toward the star lake road. at good speed, yet not too fast--it wouldn't do to eliminate the certainty of being seen--the thirty rolled into the country just as the great clock in the court house tower rang nine. going with what carelessness he could assume, yet stealthily, too, through the alley at the rear of the way and other residences on the south side of grace avenue, young mr. pickton looked in at the window of the green and yellow garage as he had done many times before within the past week. not at all surprised was he to see the shed empty, but he was astonished and not a little chagrined to notice that the extra tires were no longer in the corner reserved for them, and various other articles of touring paraphernalia customarily stored in plain view--ropes, lantern, shovel, a large tarpaulin, and so on--were missing. "ginger! they're gone already!" exclaimed the dumbfounded mr. pickton, and took to his heels. from a corner drug store in an adjacent street he telephoned the news to soapy gaines. the latter, no less surprised than pickton, vented his disgust and displeasure by applying to the auto boys a comprehensive variety of names. one would have supposed they had done him some personal injury; at least that they had been bound by every sort of moral obligation to have notified mr. gaines and his friends of their intended departure. within a half hour pickton and freddy perth were frantically working over gaines' roadster while that young gentleman rushed rather foolishly and very excitedly about the carriage house in which the machine was kept. (mr. gaines, sr., had not yet relinquished horses.) soapy's principal purpose, indeed, seemed to be that of getting himself in the way. in any event, he succeeded so well that young mr. perth, hastening to the tank with a heavy can of gasoline, collided with him violently and both rolled upon the concrete floor, the gasoline gurgling over them as if it laughed a deep, deep, solemn laugh. unlike most young fellows whose privilege it is to use and care for an automobile, soapy gaines little relished the work. instead of being constantly afraid his chums would have too much to do with the oiling, the lights, the fuel supply and the general keeping of the machine in good trim, as many another young fellow would have been, gaines was the opposite--afraid only that they wouldn't. not to any motive of generosity was this attitude of his to be credited. soapy just didn't like to work and, moreover, had never learned how to perform even the simplest tasks, whether in connection with the automobile or otherwise. it was a misfortune real and serious. to a great extent, however, since such learning had never been required of him, was he to be pitied rather than blamed. notwithstanding their various vexations, for the spilling of the gasoline was but one of several annoying experiences, the chosen trio were presently spinning down the street at a rate of speed inviting unpleasant notice should a bluecoat be encountered. they were by no means equipped for an extended journey. all they hoped to do was ascertain the road the auto boys had taken. with this information in hand, they would return home and make ready for a long tour. it would be easy to trace the well-laden touring car once its general route beyond the city was known. perhaps the auto boys made a mistake by not slipping away quietly, this very morning, well ahead of their expected schedule. they could probably have eluded successful pursuit more easily at this time than later. and yet it must be remembered, and their own opinion in the matter was that only by a decoy movement could they assure themselves with regard to the trio's real intentions. so all in all phil and his friends thought they planned extremely well. alighting from the thirty in the city's outskirts, billy worth had quietly returned by street car to the business district. in the seclusion of the private office of knight & wilder's garage he awaited developments. nothing happening at once, he bethought himself of the telephone, and obtaining ready permission to use it, he called up ben ryder. reflecting with no small interest that, as the ryder home was but across the street from the gaines mansion, and ben being a pretty wide-awake fellow and likely to be observing, also a good friend, even if he was going to college next fall, billy was mightily pleased with himself for having thought of him. he rejoiced the more, too, when ben--mr. benjamin harrison ryder, left tackle, if you please, sir!--but just good, honest ben, for short, answered his summons. "yes, the three of them went bowling down the street in gaines' young battleship twenty minutes ago," was the answer to worth's question. "don't mention your having inquired? why, not if you want it that way, certainly. might not promise so readily if i saw the thing from the same angle that makes it look so important to you. hope you won't take offense if i say i really don't, though, billy!" as this laughing answer terminated the conversation, worth scoured his brain for other sources of information. the park garage, and the automobile club were called in turn. from the first nothing was learned, but from the club came the news that gaines and pickton had been in the rooms to look at some road maps, leaving later to overtake phil way's crowd. the latter had driven out on the star lake road some time before. dr. malcom told gaines and pickton of having met them as he returned from a country call. john lawdon, the snappy young secretary of the club, always eager to be accommodating, told billy all this without so much as asking to whom he was speaking. he had helped pick and soapy look over the maps, he said. yes, fred perth was with them. he had seen all three drive away. so delighted to have obtained a positive key to the trio's movements that he could hardly say "thank you," without betraying excitement in his voice, billy hung up the receiver. then he waited, but not long was he kept in suspense. the telephone rang. mr. wilder's stenographer responded. "it is for you, mr. worth,"--with a peculiar little accent on the mr. it was phil way, calling in from star lake as had been agreed he should do. promptly and with many a laugh over the success of their ruse, billy reported all he had learned. "good enough!" exclaimed phil. "we will run over a lot of cross roads and finally back to town before noon, giving them a route to trace that will keep 'em out all day." "hurry along! they'll be there soon!" worth replied, eagerly. "get a good start ahead and we'll watch for them as they come back! let them see just a smile in the corner of an eye, you know! better than to give 'em the laugh right out." almost to the letter was the plan of the auto boys consummated. the hitch in their program followed the early discovery by gaines and his company that they themselves had made a serious mistake or else had been made the victims of a trick. that one or the other proposition was true dawned slowly upon them as they painfully traced the car they sought by the tracks of its wheels, or, where these were lost in the dust, by many inquiries at farmhouses and of fellow travelers upon the road. "if it was just a low-down scheme to send us wild-goose chasing, they'll be hanging around somewhere to gloat, you bet!" fred perth suggested, as it became painfully apparent that the auto boys' machine had simply made an extended series of turns, then returned to town. "anyhow, it's all the more reason we've got to upset their old secret tour," said gaines, with determination. pick was driving. "i'll run her around the suburbs to the south road, then up to your house through the back streets, soapy," he proposed. "they'll be watching for us to come in through town, if this _was_ just one of their measly tricks." "her" being the automobile and being also a well-behaved car, "she" made no protest of any sort to the longer way home, as pickton suggested. soapy and perth likewise agreeing, a half circle was made around the town. it was nearly two o'clock when the roadster, with the water fairly boiling out of the radiator, rumbled into the gaines carriage house. perhaps it was because they were not only disgusted with their fruitless journey, but very hungry as well, that the chosen ones unanimously agreed that, in substance, messrs. way, jones, maclester and worth were a precious lot of rogues who thought themselves extremely smart. and it is very much to be feared, indeed, that some such feeling with regard to their mental capacity was entertained by the four friends when a couple of hours later the two parties of young gentlemen came face to face on main street. but if there was in the glances of the auto boys an exultation which, strictly speaking, was not at all to their credit, it must be remembered that they were only human. only human, and not so trained in the suppression of the appearance, only, of exulting over a fellow creature, as older members of the human race sometimes become. phil and billy were on the way to deliver the large route of evening papers they managed every week day, and dave and paul to buy some supplies for the proposed trip when the opposing parties met. "oh, hello!" cried paul jones with an expansive grin. "g'wan, you--" it was soapy who answered, but the final word, if he completed his sentence, was lost in the noise of the street. what that word was is immaterial, perhaps. what it wasn't was made very plain by his manner and the term was certainly _not_ "young gentleman," "cherished friend," or anything of that order. "oh, well, they had no business trying to inject themselves into our affairs," said billy worth, sorry to see the bitter feeling of the three lads. and there was really broad justification for worth's remarks. for a large part of a year--ever since the preceding fall, and it was now june--the auto boys had had in contemplation the journey they were about to begin. for reasons they deemed sufficient, their destination and their object they had revealed only in their families. all comment, all conjecture, all inquisitive or teasing words from their friends had been successfully resisted. the curiosity of their usual associates was only heightened by this fact, and in time the secret plans of the lads were vested by their whole acquaintanceship with an importance far out of proper proportion to their probable consequence. then came soapy gaines and his followers, pickton and perth, with frequent hints of a truly mysterious nature--"three stones piled one upon another to mark the place." what place, and where? and why? and who marked it, and when? not only those of an age with the auto boys themselves but their elders as well wondered more and more as ever and again came some reference to the secret journey. chapter iii a plan that did not fail a number of plans for eluding soapy gaines and the watchful eyes of his two bosom friends did the auto boys formulate. none of them seemed quite satisfactory. a scheme to slip away at night was discarded as being too much like simply running away. another, which involved the shipping of all supplies to a nearby town and really making the start from there, was considered to necessitate too great a loss of time if the goods were sent by freight and to cost more than the lads felt justified in paying if forwarded by express. thus, as for varying reasons every suggestion offered was at last voted undesirable, there appeared no other course than to disregard the trio entirely. it was in the midst of this extremity that on the saturday following the wild-goose chase on which the roadster had been led, pickton again asked dave maclester point blank when "sinbad's next voyage" was to begin. "since you are so good as to inquire, and as it must make a whole lot of difference to you," answered davy, firing up under pick's bantering tone, "we're going to start monday afternoon. if there's anything else you'd like to know, just mention it." "say! _are_ you going to leave monday?" asked pickton, doubtingly. "if it's perfectly convenient to you, we really would like to get away at that time," maclester answered witheringly. then fearing he had said too much, he added: "of course we might come back the same day. such things have happened." pick received this reference to the fruitless chase of a few days previous with a contemptuous "a-h-w!" yet he went away pretty well satisfied that monday was the chosen day. a half hour later, dave related at the green and yellow shed under the elms all that had been said. "don't see what you meant by speaking out that way!" growled billy worth. "they'll just be watching all the closer!" "yes, sir! they'll be watching all the more," cried phil way, with sudden enthusiasm, "and i have a scheme that i think will work." then in the lowest undertones he told his plan. in undertones filled with joyous anticipation, also, the suggestion advanced was elaborated upon. and when the four chums separated, each knew just what he must do, and there is no doubt whatever that at this juncture they would not have had gaines, pickton and freddy perth abandon their plan of pursuit if but a word would have persuaded them to do so. no! the prospect of vanquishing them and of leaving them chagrined and humiliated was quite too delightful to think of the circumstances being other than just as they were. monday came. phil way and paul jones were out in the car when the work of the morning had been finished. billy worth was occupied with the lawn mower at his own home and dave was somewhat similarly engaged in the maclester family garden. all of these facts the chosen trio had gathered in good season. quite satisfied with the situation, they took the roadster out for a spin, intent upon the whereabouts of phil and paul in the thirty. keeping a sharp eye on all the automobiles in view, the three youths presently turned toward the ravine road, for it was one the auto boys used a great deal. they often went to tyler gleason's farm, a short drive beyond the city. phil and paul had gone there this very morning, in fact. and what was this? soapy gaines burst suddenly into a laugh not unlike a conqueror's war-whoop and pickton and perth joined in his mirth in scarcely less demonstrative fashion. the thirty of the auto boys was being "towed in." yes, it was true. as the roadster came close, the chosen ones found their first glimpse of the predicament of the enemy fully verified. there was george knight in his big six-cylinder, with phil way, glum and silent, in the seat beside him, while tied by ropes behind they hauled the four-cylinder car of the auto boys. paul jones, steering the car in tow, seemed to be trying to look indifferent--as if he didn't care. "give ye a lift?" cried tom pickton, slowing up. he was not alone in his anxiety to know how seriously the thirty was out of commission. "no, thank you!" phil way answered distantly, as mr. knight drove ahead without pause or comment. it is interesting to note how quickly the gaines party discovered that they were themselves ready to turn toward the city. this they did, and until town was reached they loafed along a considerable distance in the rear of the towed machine, yet keeping that car plainly in view. in the light of subsequent developments, too, it is interesting to record the zealous watchfulness of the three exultant young gentlemen as they saw the crippled car hauled into knight & wilder's garage. lacking nothing in brazen audacity, pickton alighted from the roadster and, standing in the doorway of the automobile establishment, noted with evident relish that mr. wilder, the mechanical genius of the concern, looked very sober and puckered his lips up quite despairingly as he lifted the thirty's bonnet and seemed carefully to inspect the motor. he spoke a few words to phil and paul, then some men came and pushed the auto boys' machine through the storage rooms into the repair shop. an expressive and by no means unhappy smile shone on pick's countenance--a really disagreeable smile, it was, in those hawk-like eyes of his,--as he climbed into gaines' machine. perth was driving,--soapy rarely ever held the wheel himself--and as the car moved off, all three noticed the evidently disconsolate feelings of phil and paul as the latter two emerged from the garage and started homeward on foot. "guess maybe that don't simplify matters some!" chuckled freddy perth. "instead of having to watch the whole bunch of 'em, all we need do now is keep our eyes on their shed at way's to see when they get the machine home again." "watch the garage, too!" gaines put in. "they'll run around to try out some as soon as they get fixed up. hang it! why didn't you push right up and see what the matter was, pick?" young mr. pickton, although considerably irritated by this question, merely said: "sure! we've got to watch the garage! wilder wouldn't tell us anything, though, if we asked him! knight, either. remember when i inquired what was wrong with crossley's limousine, the day it was run in there? 'who wants to know?' wilder says. 'well, i do,' i told him. 'guess it's the referendum,' he said with never even a grin. humph! knight's just about as accommodating as that, too. there's nothing to it but watch for the old boat when they get it to running again. perth, you go down through the alley and peek into way's shed about supper time." freddy said he would and added the suggestion that the trio could spend the afternoon at the ball game; that, particularly since their machine was laid up, way and his crowd would most likely be there. the proposal met with general approval. a great deal relieved to feel that their vigilance might safely be relaxed for the present were the chosen ones as they journeyed to the ball grounds in good season. sure enough, there were the auto boys,--paul and phil, at least, standing in line for tickets. "maclester and worth are working some place. you can pretty near count on that. it's their steady system," whispered pickton, as with gaines and perth he fell into line before the ticket window, then a minute later joined the rush through the gate. and "there they go in!" whispered paul jones to phil, his smile, always expansive, becoming almost alarmingly broad. "they saw us in line and never noticed us sidestep to the window," he added in triumphant manner. "they think we went inside all right," phil answered. "trouble is we don't know whether they'll find out we didn't. it's the only drawback to this scheme. they'll be suspicious if they discover we aren't there. only thing for it is quick action." already the two boys were walking rapidly down a side street. turning the corner they reached the car line a few blocks from the ball park. from a neighborhood grocer's establishment phil telephoned instructions to billy worth in waiting at knight & wilder's. then, while paul boarded the first city-bound car, he returned to the ball game. very careful was mr. philip way to take note before going inside that gaines' roadster was still alongside the curb. also careful was he to station himself where he could see all who came and went. in short, he was so occupied in these and similar matters concerning the whereabouts of that eminently select party of three, self styled as chosen, that his thoughts were a long way from the baseball game now in progress. but then the game was one-sided and slow; maybe that was the reason phil evinced so little interest. with others of the great throng way left the grounds when the very lame exhibition was over. a good many were growling about "a mighty poor article of ball," and "village hay tossers;" but phil made no complaint. the game had served one purpose almost as well as the decisive battle of a pennant series could have done. he even laughed, though inwardly, as he overheard fred perth say, "why, there's way, now!" as if quite by chance phil was walking past the roadster as its owner and his friends prepared to turn that lumbering vehicle homeward. even when gaines sang out, "oh, i say! the walking's pretty good!" which comment was plainly meant for his ears, he made no answer beyond a deprecating wave of his hand. not even did he look around--at that time, but he did assure himself of the direction the trio took and that their manner was that of unsuspecting confidence. or perhaps paul jones' expression, as phil told all about it afterward, fits the situation better. "there never was a better case of asleep at the switch," said paul. and maybe he was right. was it merely a coincidence that the trio in the roadster twice passed way's home before supper and again just afterward? once phil was on the porch. once he was loitering near the low, green and yellow garage, now so empty and bare but for the workbench and tools of many kinds, and the desk in one corner. later, when the long june day was over, when the sun had set and the good-night twittering of the birds sounded unusually loud and clear as darkness gathered, way busied himself inside the shed. the big front doors were wide open, to admit the air, no doubt. all three electric lamps in the small building were burning bright. if freddy perth had only known it, in fact, he could have seen from the street that the automobile was not in the home garage at all and that phil was. he might have saved himself the walk through the dusty alley, and still have made the same report to gaines and pickton, the substance of which was that the thirty was still at knight & wilder's and that its owners were at their respective homes. at least way was for he had seen him. but if perth or pickton or soapy gaines, himself, or all three, for that matter, had chanced to board a certain limited suburban trolley car an hour later, the same evening, they might have been surprised to discover that although phil _had_ been at home he was not at home now. and, also, if appearances were not altogether deceptive, that he had no intention of being again at home in the immediate future. for an extra large suitcase was on the floor before him and a motor coat draped the back of his seat. "round trip?" said the conductor when phil asked the fare to littleton. "no, one way," he answered. "forty cents," the conductor said. "ain't bad for twenty-five miles. cheaper'n automobile travel, at that." "oh, cheaper, possibly," said phil way, "but--" chapter iv safely away "they're going to go soon, if they go at all. likely would have started to-day, as maclester said, if their machine hadn't played out," said tom pickton, when on this monday evening he and perth were leaving gaines at his home. "we'll watch 'em to-morrow, all right!" declared mr. pickton earnestly. and now if pick is as good as his word, if he and his fellow conspirators are really watching the auto boys, as another day comes, it is an interesting and busy scene that falls upon their gaze. phil way is looking over every part of the thirty's oiling system. "it's too bad we had to put the faithful old machine in the humiliating plight of being towed in, even if there never was a thing the matter with her," says he. "and you ought to've seen phil! never saw him appear so broken up! honest, i just hurt from holding in when the three of them drove by us, as if they thought they were 'it,' hollering out, 'give ye a lift?' in that sarcastic way of pick's! and when they were 'way past, maybe i didn't laugh!" paul jones was the speaker, strapping a suitcase to the car's running board as he talked. billy worth and dave maclester were occupied in the rearrangement of a lot of other baggage, the canvas of a tent among the rest, in the tonneau. the car stood just outside a large frame building in the rear of the yorkshire house, the principal hotel of littleton. a combined livery stable and garage was this frame structure, if one judged by appearances, for it housed both horse-drawn vehicles and automobiles. of the latter there were three--two runabouts and a light touring car. the auto boys' machine appeared to have been kept here over night. by their further conversation it was evident, too, that the young gentlemen themselves had remained over night in the yorkshire house, and into that hostelry they repaired a few minutes later for an exceptionally early breakfast. "too early for any earthly use. i don't see no sense in it," the not fastidiously tidy cook of the establishment stated at least five or six times to the maid who waited on table; and who, it may be added, quite agreed with him until she found a nickel tied in the corner of each napkin after the very early guests had left. as a matter of fact, it was exactly five o'clock. and now again, if mr. thomas pickton, still sound asleep in his bed at home, had been watching the auto boys, as he had stated would be faithfully done to-day, he would have saved himself and friends a rather humiliating disappointment at a later time. but, as has also been plainly indicated, pick, with all his hawk-like eyes, saw nothing of what was taking place, and as freddy perth and soapy gaines were not a whit more wide awake than he at this hour of five a. m., the well-laden thirty with its four owners aboard purred merrily westward, farther and farther from the small town of appropriate name, and farther yet from lannington. "guess they have to get up in the morning some to get ahead of us," observed mr. paul jones, with a sigh of satisfaction. and it would certainly appear that he was right, though he did rub his eyes considerably and though his sigh stretched out to the extent of a great yawn only a few seconds later. thus was the _auto boys' quest_ under way at last. away back at the great, empty farmhouse where grandfather beaman once lived, the first plans for this trip had been laid. those of you who have read _the auto boys' outing_ will recall the circumstances. you will remember the days of zestful fun and tranquil rest the lads had, following the solution of the mystery of the strange characters on grandfather beaman's wooden leg, the disclosure of jonas tagg's evil designs and the discovery of the identity of "little mystery." and do you recollect the pleasant evenings on the old front door step? there it was that the trip to the great ship woods was first suggested, and there it was that the solemn agreement, making the whole expedition a secret, was entered into. going back a little farther, it will not be necessary to remind readers of _the auto boys_, the first story of this series, that for purely business reasons the four friends had made it a practice not to talk publicly of their joint ventures. even the "retreat" in gleason's ravine, was known to few outside the immediate families of the boys. just how they had managed, as the "young american contract company," to acquire their automobile and start the passenger service to star lake, with all the exciting adventures resulting therefrom, was, likewise, a subject the young men did not publicly discuss, although of course the main facts had in time become quite commonly known. one reason the four chums were so successful in confining within the limits of their respective households and to their very nearest friends knowledge of their plans and undertakings was that there was nothing of the braggart in any of them. phil way, usually the leader in their various ventures, whether for purposes of fun or business, was a tall, slender, brown-haired, clear-eyed and mild-mannered chap. at the time of the history herein related he is well past fifteen years of age. his father is a physician, by no means rich, but in very comfortable circumstances. billy worth, fun-loving and jolly, but an earnest young fellow, too, is a little younger than phil and in general appearance quite his opposite, being short and stout. yet let none suppose that that stocky frame of his carries an ounce of anything but bone, muscle and good, red blood--good, red blood that glows in his cheeks, and helps to place that alert, snappy expression in his twinkling brown eyes. so much for william worth, junior. william worth, senior, it may be stated, is engaged in machinery manufacturing. a member of this quartette of friends i am sure you will like is paul jones--slight, slender, audacious. he has been in long trousers less than a year. he wears his motor cap far back on his head and rakishly low on one side. his sandy hair, thus quite prominently exposed to view, is in a more or less tousled condition a greater part of the time. of a care-free disposition is young mr. jones, however, and the rumpled state of his hair bothers him not at all. it was brushed this morning, and, "goodness, gracious! can you expect a man's hair always to be just so?" why, probably not. then again, a good deal depends on the "man." forgive a great deal to paul. if he lacks something in general refinement and polish as compared to the other boys, it is because his advantages have not equaled theirs. being an orphan, he has missed much his friends have received, though mrs. wilby, his sister, and john wilby, her husband, have given the otherwise homeless lad the best their limited time and means afford. dave maclester is of still another type. nearly as tall as phil, he is much heavier. he lacks the power of quick perception and quick movements common to his three friends, but outranks any one of them in strength. he is a dark-haired chap of scotch descent and if he is just a little slow, he is at least sure. his fault, if fault it may be called, is a certain moodiness of disposition, apt to reveal itself at times in his hopeless, pessimistic view of things. maybe it would be more accurate to describe this characteristic as his misfortune. he is at fault in regard to it only to the extent that he neglects or fails to strive against his naturally gloomy or irritated mental condition, and, so eventually grow entirely away from it. one interesting fact about all the boys is the bond of union among them. petty differences have arisen scores of times, of course; wordy disputes have occurred less frequently; but for a long, long time the four have been almost inseparable, both in work and in play, their unwritten motto being, "the best interests of one are the best interests of all." unselfishly every pleasure is shared, and uncomplainingly in every task and duty each fellow does his share. the escape from the watchful eyes of soapy gaines and his followers with the car and its load of baggage for this present expedition was brought about only because each one of the four worked in faithful harmony with the general plan. what this plan was, has already become apparent. that the towing in of the thirty to knight & wilder's garage was but a pretense to throw the trio off their guard, you have probably guessed from the beginning. it would be interesting, perhaps, to hear at length how billy and dave rushed the automobile to the home garage upon receiving word by 'phone that the gaines party had been lured into the ball game and forgetfulness, but more important matters are waiting. let this part of the history be summed up briefly, then, by recording only the bare facts that, with the help of paul, who did not remain at the baseball park, it will be remembered, worth and maclester loaded the automobile with camp outfit and baggage and were safely beyond the city all within two hours. by a circuitous route, avoiding the streets most used for motor traffic, the three reached the country roads. here, too, they chose the least traveled thoroughfares until fully ten miles had been placed between them and lannington. even by the longer route, littleton, nearly forty miles distant, might have been reached before dark; but to attract the least possible notice they lingered in little frequented roads, and ran quietly into the yorkshire house garage and stable just after sundown. so was the car, laden down with the evidences of an extensive expedition, and well calculated to attract much notice, housed for the night. the three boys believed they had been observed by not one person likely to mention having seen them--at least to anyone from whom, directly or indirectly, the trio would obtain intelligence of their movements. they told phil as much, and with evident satisfaction, when they met him upon his arrival by suburban trolley car, later in the evening.--and now another day had come. the auto boys were in the best of spirits as they left the lately risen sun and littleton in their rear. "'westward the star of empire takes its way,'" quoted billy worth, waving his cap zestfully, as the automobile bowled smoothly along, maclester at the wheel. "takes its way and also its worth, and maclester and jones," shouted paul, with that expansive grin which never failed to bring a smile from any sort of person disposed to be half-way good-natured. "say, jones, they've hung people out in the ship woods country for horse-stealing, and that's hardly a misdemeanor compared to such downright atrocities as you perpetrate! goodness! that was bad!" declared dave. he always did like to have a fling at paul. "the best pun is horrible, but a poor one!--" "what did you say about the 'breast bone' mac?" shouted jones, from the tonneau, with admirable pretense of having caught but two words and caught neither of those correctly, as the car whizzed forward. then, almost without pause, "yes, i like the white meat, too!" he sang out. "white meat? don't mention it! i'm positively starving," worth put in, and in a twinkling the whole conversation changed to the subject of the noonday lunch and what the car's larder afforded. paul's hearing improved very greatly, at once, by the way. "why, we have a cheese-box full of cold ham and buns and baked beans and pickles and a cake and cheese and pie and--" jones enumerated; then maclester, quickly going forward with the inventory, as paul paused for breath, added: "sardines, bananas, olives and potato chips, and i'll bet half the stuff will spoil on our hands." "risk it!" phil way observed in the tone of one who speaks from experience. and somewhat later when a halt was made for luncheon, weighty evidence was presented that if any risk whatever existed it was extremely slight. the very hour appropriated to a noonday purpose was strong testimony--not yet eleven o'clock. however, breakfast had been extremely early, it will be remembered. with a great deal more haste than ceremony, the roadside repast being finished, dishes and food were packed away again and the automobile sent once more bounding forward. nearly fifty miles onward lay the little town of sagersgrove and here the auto boys expected to receive information direct from lannington concerning the movements of gaines, pickton and perth. how much or how little those young gentlemen may have discovered by this time, and what their intentions might be, were matters of marked interest to the chums who had so cleverly outwitted them. they were more than pleased with themselves, therefore, that their foresight had prompted the making of arrangements with mr. knight to send a telegram to sagersgrove to be received upon reaching there. that knight & wilder shared the secret of the four boys it is almost needless to say. even to knowledge of the destination and the real purpose of the journey the garage proprietors had been taken into confidence. they were good, reliable friends, to begin with, and as the location of the ship woods was remote from sources of automobile supplies, it might be necessary to send to them for repairs. and as both men had shown a lively interest in the enterprise now under way, it was quite certain mr. knight would not fail to have news of some kind awaiting the travelers at the point agreed upon. meanwhile the probable and possible discoveries of the chosen three and what their ultimate plans would be were discussed over and over again. even if gaines and his followers should learn the direction the thirty had taken--even if they chanced upon the discovery that the party had spent the night in littleton--they would still be unable to so much as guess the direction taken next. again, even if the trio had any knowledge of the great ship forest they would have no reason for supposing the four friends to be bent on reaching that wilderness. all the information the gaines crowd had, so far as known, and the thing which so seriously pricked their curiosity, was that sentence they had somehow overheard, "three stones piled one on top of another to mark the place." "they could connect that and the big woods if they knew where we were heading for; but by itself the talk of the three stones gives them nothing to go by," urged billy worth. he had put the same thought into slightly different words at least a half-dozen times before and the others had done no less. but there was no cause to doubt his reasoning. "three stones piled one on top of another" might be used to mark many and many different sorts of places. they might be in town. they might be in the country, in pasture or meadow; beside a lake in the valley, or on the summit of the hills. again, what reason why they might not be in the heart of a great forest? the ship woods comprised such a forest. its very name was derived from the fact that for long years great timbers for ship building purposes had been cut there. in one part or another of its vast expanse men were at work the whole year through, sawing, chopping, hewing. a single "stick" from the forest's depths might measure more than one hundred feet in length by three feet or more each way, in thickness. perhaps four teams of horses would be used to haul such a piece of timber out of the woods and to the railroad siding where it was loaded for transportation to the owners' mills, many miles away. the fact that those who owned the forest did live a long distance from it, naturally left the vast tract in the hands of only such men as were employed in cutting the big "sticks." and as the latter were little interested in anything more than the trees that would do for their purposes, the woods was for the most part regarded as pretty nearly public property. that is to say, no one so much as thought of asking permission to go there, to camp, to hunt, to pick blackberries, or anything of the kind. nor was anyone expected to do so, for that matter. the boss timber man and the crews which handled the saws, and axes, the heavy chains, the canthooks and all the paraphernalia of their hard, hard work, asked no questions of trespassers. they warned hunters against leaving campfires burning and against dropping lighted matches in the leaves. they would permit no one to chop into or otherwise injure a tree which might make "timber" then or later; but in general the occasional stranger who visited these wilds was as free to come to hunt, to fish, to build a brush shack or camp, or to gather firewood, herbs or poles or bark--to do almost as he pleased in short--and as free to go away again, as he would have been in the unclaimed forest of a new country. all this information and much more the auto boys had gathered. plans for their trip had been under way all winter. in imagination they had often pictured the wild, rugged scenery of the locality. working and talking together, they had built for themselves a kind of aircastle on the banks of the swift, cold and rock-strewn stream skirting the edge of the big woods, in which, at least figuratively, they lived. they had seen themselves in their tent, the automobile in a shelter close by, and a little fire lighted to drive mosquitoes away, many and many an evening together, while still the snow lay deep and the tinkle and gurgle of the swift-flowing stream were smothered beneath the ice. possibly it is true that in anticipation there is more pleasure than in realization, yet few people actually believe it. certainly phil way and his friends did not. they had anticipated a lot of fun in this tour now under way at last, but one of its merriest features they had not foreseen at all. this was the keen delight they had in having given gaines, pickton and perth the slip so nicely. indeed, their self-satisfaction over this incident was quite beyond measure, and dave maclester found no support whatever when he advanced a supposition that the telegram to be picked up in sagersgrove would say the chosen ones were in pursuit and probably not far behind. "anyhow, we'll know all about it in about two and a half flicks of a bobolink's tail," said billy worth, "for if that church spire up over the trees yonder isn't sagersgrove, i'm blind." fortunately, then, for young mr. worth's eyes, the spire rising above the banks of green a half mile beyond, was that of the methodist church of the town he named. in a very brief time it had been reached, also, and from a very neat and clean old gentleman, who might have been the preacher himself, although he was mowing the small church lawn, the lads inquired their way to the telegraph office. fortunately, again, it was not at all difficult to find one's way about in sagersgrove. the telegraph office was in the wing of the operator's home, "down the street two blocks, then turn to your left two blocks--a little brown house, set low to the ground. you'll see the white and blue sign." three minutes later phil way emerged from the side door of the identical house the old gentleman described. he held up to expectant view a yellow envelope, then opened the same, and, one foot on the running board, read in a low tone: to phil way and party, sagersgrove. know you have gone. don't know where. rushing around crazy. "wow!" yelled paul jones, with cheery emphasis. which expression, although seeming to betray no very great depth of intellect, or to communicate any very particular intelligence, did appear to express the feelings of the auto boys to a nicety. chapter v camping on a strange road jubilant and expressive though it may have been, paul jones' "wow," was very far from being all the auto boys had to say concerning the telegram received. in general they shared paul's mirthful feelings. with a very human kind of pleasure they let their minds dwell upon gaines' sullen wrath and pickton's chagrin and disappointment. the condition of bewilderment and utter discomfiture which would be natural to freddy perth was also easily imagined. in short, it was with real delight that the boys pictured the trio confronted by the discovery that they had been out-generaled; left like a squad of raw recruits hopelessly drilling around the field, looking for the beginning of the battle that was all over long ago. "oh, i guess maybe they don't find _their_ cake is dough, and they couldn't eat it if they kept it," chuckled paul, blithely, but really somewhat twisted as to the quotations he meant to employ. "but anyhow, the thing for us to do is keep moving. we're getting too much noticed. it'll lead to more advertising than we'd really like to have." this reference to a considerable number of pairs of eyes now scrutinizing the travel-stained car, its touring and camp equipment and the owners thereof, caused billy, now at the wheel, to drive slowly up the street. dave maclester, who had gone into a livery stable close by to inquire about the roads to the westward, came out just in time to see the machine move off. not guessing billy's intentions, which were to go only to the next corner above, as a good place to turn, he dashed frantically after the car. he sprang aboard and climbed into the tonneau breathlessly. "don't seem to be in any hurry at all!" he ejaculated, witheringly. "go straight ahead. turn at the first corner. it's the best road west. other one's all torn up for four miles out, they said." billy had put on speed at once, when dave was safely in, and now he let the speedometer mark up to twenty-five on a fine stretch of brick pavement, clear of car tracks and broken by few intersecting streets, a speedway not to be resisted. the net result of the flying start and apparent haste was not a little comment on part of those who had gathered near the car. even the men in the livery stable ran out to see and learn what the commotion was all about and the town marshal sauntered up just a moment later. now the marshal of sagersgrove was a self-important old fellow named wellock. his uniform consisted principally of a badge of great size and a greasy blue coat with brass buttons. he wore old and rusty black trousers, very baggy at the knees and much frayed around the bottom. with a solemn and knowing look marshal wellock made a few inquiries concerning the car which had just passed out of sight and its occupants. then he made some mysterious entries in a pocket memorandum, the generally soiled appearance of which was not at all unlike his own. these movements alone were enough to make a deep impression upon the crowd which had now collected; but accompanied as they were by mr. wellock's knowing and extremely mysterious air, the whole effect was to produce in the minds of those gathered near the profound conviction that the four strange boys were nothing short of bank-robbers in disguise. men exchanged looks of deep significance as if saying, "i told you so." women nodded their heads to one another in a way that plainly indicated their certain knowledge of the guilt of the young strangers, whatever might be the crime laid at their door. observing the unlimited notice he was attracting, marshal wellock's importance increased. preserving still his deeply mysterious air, he walked on to the telegraph office and went in. what he learned there apparently did not cause him to change his very good opinion of himself and of the great power vested in him, for he was more darkly mysterious than ever as he returned. indeed, his whole bearing was such as to make him decidedly red in the face, as he frowned savagely, in keeping with his idea of the great personage which he himself felt and, he believed, everyone else must undoubtedly consider him to be. what he thought he knew about the four boys would have made a long story. what he did know could have been told in a dozen words and none of them to the lads' discredit. meanwhile the thirty still sped on westward. the afternoon was waning and the road was growing bad. sagersgrove lay far in the rear. "don't look to me as if this could be the main route," said phil way, thoughtfully noting the brush-grown fields and the poor character of the farmhouses and buildings, becoming more and more infrequent as they progressed. "oh, it's the road all right. it'll be better going soon," maclester answered; and as the latter himself had obtained the information respecting the route, phil said no more. mile after mile slipped to the rear, but slowly now, for the road was a constant succession of deep ruts, miniature mountain chains and great, half-dried holes of mud. the late june sun was going down. blackbirds flew in noisy flocks from one to another of the dense thickets growing in frequent and extensive patches as far as eye could reach over the low land at either side of the wretched way. "well, if this _is_ the road, we better go where it isn't," muttered billy worth, his arms beginning to feel the effects of driving over the painfully distressing course. "oh, stop your growling!" dave answered a little savagely. "this road will be all right when we get to the high ground where the trees are yonder! and by the old harry! why should you hold me responsible? never knew it to fail, anyhow, that whoever it is that half breaks his neck and nearly gets left behind, to dig up the road statistics for a trip or any part of one, is from that minute blamed right and left for every hole that's found and for every stone that's struck." in which observation young mr. maclester was not at all wrong. identically the same weakness of human nature crops out in so many places that none can fail to recognize it. phil way saw and felt the truth of dave's remarks at once. "does look better on ahead. can't expect good going all the time," he said. it was a way of his. he had turned aside and prevented storms which might have grown to serious proportions among the four in just such manner time upon time. nevertheless, the promised improvement did not come with the higher places to which the rough trail in due time led. two parallel ruts among the grass and low underbrush were all that now remained to indicate a road of any sort. now, too, a thick woods, without so much as a fence between, bounded the course on both sides. the sun was lost to view, the late twilight of a june night was closing in. for nearly two hours not a human habitation had been seen. away to the east stretched the swampy brush-grown country that had bordered the line of progress for many miles. to the west there appeared only the scarcely passable path leading deeper and deeper into the forest, hemming in the course on north and south. billy had brought the car to a halt. unmistakably the auto boys were as nearly lost as one can well be on a public highway--(but there are many just such)--of a prosperous and wealthy commonwealth. "anyhow it makes me think that i always was fond of white meat," chirped paul jones, trying to put a cheerful countenance upon a truly depressing situation. "if you don't mind a suggestion, jones, i'd say that it's better not to talk of what you aren't likely to get," put in phil way, a little soberly. "just some of that ham and bread and butter and beans sounds good to me. so if billy will make some coffee we can go into camp pretty comfortably right here. in the morning we can go back, if we can't do anything else." "gee! i always did like chicken, though!" persisted jones, as if melancholy had marked him for her own, and there was no remedy for his feelings but the refreshment he mentioned. "here, too! if we had a good supper, it would brace us all up," worth put in. "shucks! we'll _have_ a good supper," remonstrated phil, impatiently. "who'll get some water? wish i knew where. come on, dave! likely there's a good, clear creek just over this rise of ground. you make the fire, paul." so way and maclester started off with a bucket while chef billy set to work with his provisions. in five minutes jones had a bright fire blazing beside an old log, where an open, grassy place offered comfortable seats upon the ground, then he began unloading such baggage as would probably be needed. yet every minute or two he would trot around to where worth's supper preparations were in progress, sniffing the air, and smiling in a most delighted state of anticipation. "and won't way be surprised!" he said. "just listen to me when he comes back." at last phil and dave did come. they had been obliged to go a long way to reach the valley and the stream they knew must be there, and it was now quite dark. the embers of the fire glowed brightly, offering a truly comfortable sense of companionship. in the bright glow's midst stood the big coffee pot which had seen service many times before, also a tightly covered, black roasting-pan. the two boys put down the bucket, borne between them on a short pole and way at once busied himself in opening up a big bale of bedding. "all-i-wants-is-my-chicken," half sang, half chanted paul jones. "oh, forget it!" drawled phil, impatiently, creating a laugh--perhaps because it was not often he descended to plain, unvarnished slang. "you've been talking chicken all day. my! that coffee smells good," he added, just to take the rough edge off his speech. "a nice drumstick and a slice or two of white meat. u-m-m!" sighed jones, as if he certainly would expire directly if his wish were not gratified. an impatient growl from phil elicited another laugh in which jones joined with greatest merriment. then in another moment-"come on, here! get your festal board ready!" commanded chef billy and directly he drew the black, covered pan from the coals and lifted the lid. ah, what savory smell was that! chicken--roast chicken, and positively no mistake about it. "say!" this ejaculation, his face lighted up bright as the blazing coals, was all phil could muster. "well, i guess maybe we're no wizards! no, we're no wizards--nothing like that at all," chirped paul jones in his peculiarly happy way. "no! don't take a wizard to do these little tricks! don't think it for a minute!" "where ever _did_ you get that chicken?" demanded phil, completely puzzled. "this is what your talking about white meat meant, is it?" then they told him how mrs. tyler gleason, whose good friendship they had won out on the farm the year before, sent the chicken, all nicely roasted, expressly for the expedition. all four lads had been at the farm and at the "retreat" in the ravine on sunday afternoon and in confidence told mr. and mrs. gleason of their plan to start their journey on monday. the unexpected but very welcome contribution to their stock of provisions arrived but an hour before the car was loaded. phil being so busily engaged in putting the blinders over the eyes of the too-confident trio, had not, of course, known of the gift. the others saved the fowl for supper purposely to surprise him. "nothing to do but warm it up, and way off here on the edge of nowhere, we have as fine a roast chicken as ever came down the pike," quoth billy worth. and although it must be admitted that any roast chicken pursuing its way upon the pike, or any other roadway, would be nothing short of extraordinary, the fact remains that mrs. gleason's offering was all that could be desired. always master of ceremonies in such matters, billy did the carving and a good-sized thimble would have contained all that remained of the roast fowl, apart from the dismembered skeleton, when supper was over. the best way to pick a bone really right up to the last shred, inclusive, never was with knife and fork, anyway. ample quantities of coffee, bread and butter and the other good things the regular store of the cheese-box larder afforded, made the entire supper so successful that, on the whole, the boys contemplated their situation with no serious misgivings as they gathered about the campfire. the croaking of the frogs in the broad expanse of swamp and marsh land to the east, the profound quiet, and intense darkness in the woods on either side, the flickering lights and shadows of the blaze before them, were well calculated to inspire dread and apprehension if not downright fear; but so used to depending upon themselves--so self-reliant, therefore, were these four friends that the thought of being fearful or allowing themselves to be uncomfortable on account of their lonely surroundings, lost though they practically were, did not occur to one of them. so much, then, for the worth of a clear conscience and the habit of self-confidence. and again, notwithstanding their somber surroundings and the annoying lack of knowledge as to their precise whereabouts, the four friends were by no means without equipment to make themselves quite comfortable. long winter evening discussions, plans and preparations had not been for nothing. even to rubber-covered sleeping bags which, just as an experiment, perhaps, would have made a pouring rain something to be invited rather than feared, the camp and touring outfit was complete. just for one night it was not worth while to put up the tent or to unpack a large part of the car's load, but blankets to spread upon the ground, others for covering, and a tarpaulin for the car, were all within easy reach. drowsiness came early, under the influence of the fire's genial warmth and in the midst of paul's voluble discourse on the probable extent of time lost, due to losing the road, the other boys drew their blankets over them and with a laugh bade him good-night. there being "nothing else for p. jones, esquire, to do," as he himself expressed it, he, also "sought the arms of morpherus nodinski." again quoting the words of "p. jones, esquire," it must be "that frogs sleep all day, for how else can they stay up to holler all night?" certainly there was little diminishing of the weird clamor from the marshes as the night advanced. all else was still as death. not even an owl disturbed the forest's dark solitude. and the auto boys slept on. the greater part of the night had passed, but no glimmer of dawn had yet appeared when there came suddenly like a wail of dire distress, louder far than the frogs' deep croaking, a long drawn-out cry--"help!" and again and yet again, "help! help!" dave was the first awakened. the second call completely roused him and he had the whole camp astir in another five seconds. once more, and thrice repeated, came the wailing, drawn-out cry. chapter vi on to the gold cup races "yes, sir, they have went. i don't know nothing else about it," spoke the young fellow employed as general utility man in knight & wilder's garage. his principal work consisted of polishing metal and pumping up tires, but laboring under an impression that he was an automobile salesman, he put on very swaggering airs. just now he affected scarcely to notice three boys who made inquiry concerning the proposed tour of phil way and his friends. mr. knight, coming up at the moment, told the important young gentleman in an undertone that his deportment in the establishment was not that of publicity. such being the case, he sent the youth to gather up some tools which a touring party had borrowed and left lying on the curb, as was certainly very good of them and very honest. then mr. knight quizzed the three lads, who were none other than gaines, pickton and perth. it appeared, he said, with a sly smile, that phil way and his party had gone away on a trip. then he asked them about their own plans, but they knew his friendliness toward the four chums too well to divulge a great deal. still, they could not help showing the chagrin they felt upon learning that the auto boys had really departed the preceding day. seeing their ill-humor in the matter the senior partner of the establishment made various remarks to the effect that none but the most active and alert individuals could expect to cope successfully with such clever chaps as billy worth, phil way, maclester and jones. indeed, he was of the opinion, he said, that no one--referring to no person in particular, of course--but in general, _no one_,--need feel disturbed if phil way and his crowd of fellows did get ahead of him or them; because phil and billy and the others were really exceptionally able men,--in fact, quite out of the ordinary with regard to intelligence and good judgment. the whole effect of mr. knight's discourse, as he no doubt intended, was to make gaines really sour, pickton's vanity decidedly ruffled and freddy perth deeply humiliated, sick at heart and ready to admit that he was no match for such fellows as way had gathered about him. "oh, come on!" growled pick, at last, and when a half minute later the three were again in gaines' roadster at the curb outside, he slammed in the clutch so violently that soapy just escaped being thrown out. to the automobile club, to the park garage,--to all places they considered in the remotest degree likely to afford information of the direction the auto boys had taken, the trio went. with furious impatience but still vainly, they hustled from one end of the city to another. repeatedly they drove past dr. way's residence, as if to make sure, time after time, that none of the four friends was about the green and yellow shed. all they could learn was that the chums had driven away, their car laden as if they meant to go to the pacific coast, at least, the preceding afternoon. "i _thought_ it was funny that only way and jones went to the ball game. and they did it just for a blind, too!" said pickton grimly. "you thought nothing of the kind!" growled gaines. "least if you did, it's a fine time to be telling it!" "well, i guess they haven't seen the last of us yet, anyway, eh?" pick answered in that way in which he so often knuckled to soapy's humor, leading that young gentleman on to do the thing he himself most wished to do. "i should rather _guess_ they hadn't," gaines responded, as if the idea of pursuit were wholly his own,--"i'll show 'em a trick or two yet." "the first thing is to find out where they are; at least, which way they went," put in perth, quietly. gaines turned on him angrily. "what's that got to do with it? you leave that to me!" he said. and while it would appear that the information fred mentioned was, under all the circumstances, quite essential and really did have quite a great deal to do with the case, that young gentleman made only a wry face in answer. soapy did not see him. quite possibly perth did not intend that he should. in fruitless running from place to place the three boys spent the day. repeatedly were they on the verge of falling out with one another completely. only because pickton bore gaines' insolence in silence, or turned it aside by some flattering or cajoling remark, did these two get on at all in this time of trouble and disappointment,--the sort of time that really measures friendships and motives. perth was content to have little to say, usually accepting the suggestions and remarks of the others without comment. he drove the car, for the most part, and as he liked it very much, earnestly hoped the proposed long trip following after the auto boys would not be abandoned. wednesday came and the trio, glum and despondent, talked a great deal, again came very near to serious quarreling, and achieved nothing. and now the objects of their chiefest interest and the cause of their chagrin were two days upon their way. but whither? "'three stones piled on top of each other to mark the place,'" mused pickton over and over again. "they _think_ they have something great in sight, but i'll bet they don't know exactly what, any more than we do. and they think they're so plagued smart! we've just _got_ to take some of the conceit out of 'em." "that's what!" soapy gaines asserted, but rather dubiously. "might as well talk in our sleep, for all the good just talk's doing," perth was moved at last to say with some asperity; and his views would appear to be not far wrong. however, he was called a pessimist, or some other word amounting to the same thing, by pickton, while soapy insisted quite violently, "you leave that to me." the fact that the auto boys had disappeared almost as if by magic and at a time when their machine was supposed to be indefinitely laid up for repairs, pickton and gaines were obliged reluctantly to admit. that their intention of following after the chums looked more and more ridiculous as the hours passed, and they had no notion whatever as to the direction they should take, was something of which they did not care to be reminded. yet it is likely that for want of any clue whatever, and their inability to find one,--for none of the three was particularly resourceful,--the chosen ones would have been forced to abandon their scheme at last, but for the merest chance by which some valuable information came to them. early on thursday freddy perth sat looking over the morning paper while soapy and pick were starting a fresh discussion of the necessity of taking some of the conceit out of someone, needless to mention whom. the three were on the lawn at perth's home. the roadster stood at the curb. marshal mired sagersgrove official pulled out of swamp by youths he pursued. the foregoing headlines came to fred's notice as he tried to read while still following the conversation of his two friends, thread-bare though their subject now assuredly was. half mechanically at first, then with lively interest he noted the following: "sagersgrove, june--in a light automobile in which they had set out to overtake and arrest four youthful tourists from lannington who passed through sagersgrove yesterday, marshal wellock and eli gouger, the latter a self-appointed detective, plunged over a bank into cowslip marshes west of here last night. both were buried to their necks in mire. "the locality is practically a wilderness and the automobile would have settled beyond recovery in the swamp but for the merest accident of assistance being quickly obtained. the touring party the officers were after had encamped on a ridge of high land a half-mile beyond and responded to the cries for aid. wellock and gouger were able to drag themselves out of the marsh and the car of the tourists pulled their automobile out when only the seat remained above mud. marshal wellock was saved the necessity of arresting his rescuers for it developed that his suspicion that the youths had stolen their car was unfounded. the four strangers had themselves taken the marsh road by mistake. they were piloted to the state pike by the officers." having read this interesting item through twice, the second time very slowly and thoughtfully, freddy perth again listened to the conversation of pickton and gaines. they still discussed the possible whereabouts of the auto boys. "seems likely to me that they may have gone west,--away out through sagersgrove and beyond," observed young mr. perth, after a minute or two, a self-complacent twinkle in his eye. "about as likely as a muley cow having horns, eh, gaines?" pick answered. "or a--or a dog or anybody else having 'em," soapy responded, lamely. "well, of course i never did know anything about it, and of course you two _do_ know all about it. still, when you get through with all this stuff you've said over and over ever since tuesday, till honestly i'm sick of hearing it, just read that!"--and perth held out the newspaper, his finger indicating the important item. there was triumph unlimited in his manner. "aw, let's see!" growled pickton, doubtingly. perth's self-satisfied smile irritated him. he took the paper and, soapy peering over his shoulder, both read the item through. "humph! may be them and it may not," was pick's comment. "don't be a hogshead! it's them all right," gaines answered brusquely. "why, they're two hundred miles away by this time!" "yes, sir! and they're headed for the gold cup road races at queensville," put in perth, quickly. "that's just where that old state pike goes. i remember seeing the map!" reluctantly pickton admitted that the tourists mentioned in the newspaper dispatch must be phil way's party. inwardly he denounced his luck that he himself had not been first to discover the news. reluctantly, too, he admitted that the four chums were apparently headed for the gold cup automobile races,--a series of road contests over a twenty-six mile course, scheduled for saturday of the following week. however,--"don't see, though, what that mystery of the 'three stones piled up to mark the place,' that they seem to make so much of, has to do with races," he persisted. "maybe they're going to have a lunch stand at the track. maybe they rented space for it by mail and had three stones piled up so's they'd know their place when they got there. just like that bunch, figuring to earn some money!" this thought, advanced by soapy, really did that young gentleman credit, he so rarely had an idea of his own. and although pick declared as boldly as he felt prudent, that the three stones he had heard mentioned so mysteriously had been placed one upon another long years before, which fact he had also heard stated, the former insisted that his own notion of the matter was correct. while in no sense agreeing as to this, pickton, for reasons of his own, carried the discussion no further. in his own mind was the thought that he, at least, would find out if the three stones did not mark some spot vastly more important than soapy pictured. let gaines and perth think what they might, the main thing was to be starting in pursuit. "if it's us for sagersgrove and the old state pike west, we can't move too fast," he said. "we can trail them all right from there, and catch them by sunday, i'll bet!" gaines and perth gave prompt acquiescence. the roadster was run to its home garage at once, and there followed the trying packing and repacking of touring equipment which inexperience always encounters. preparations for a hurried departure had been going forward, in a haphazard way, for a long time. the result was an accumulation of much baggage that was not needed, and the utter absence of several items both desirable and necessary. out of such chaos order was brought before noon, however, and the three lads separated to meet again at one o'clock. their good-bys were said, their car at last lacked nothing which could well be carried on a machine of its type, and the chosen trio headed toward sagersgrove promptly at the hour named. "now burn up the road," quoth mr. soapy gaines; and perth, at the steering wheel, answered, "we'll see the gold cup races, anyhow." "enough more than races, you take it from me," said young mr. pickton, grimly, still thinking of--what? chapter vii a night adventure the cries for help which broke upon the quiet of the night, rousing the auto boys as they slept, they quickly answered. with what result has been told in the sagersgrove item appearing in the lannington morning paper, the second day following. briefly, the circumstances were that, his mind overheated by his large estimate of his own importance, marshal wellock's imagination got the better of him. true, the four young strangers had appeared to be in a great hurry. true, one does not often see, even in larger cities than sagersgrove, four mere youths enjoying a touring car equipped for long-distance work. also the sagersgrove operator had plainly hinted to the marshal the telegram the lads received looked decidedly queer. and to one unacquainted with the facts, it must be admitted, also, that such an impression was quite natural. all in all, the bumptious officer, believing he saw a glowing opportunity to distinguish himself, enlisted one eli gouger in his enterprise, not so much because he desired that gentleman's assistance, as for the reason that mr. gouger was possessed of a motor car. he used the machine, a light runabout, in his business of ice-cream peddling, on sunday afternoons particularly, and on various occasions when not occupied with another line of activity he pursued, namely, that of general detective. in this connection it may as well be stated quite frankly that if mr. gouger had ever succeeded in detecting anything more than some small boys, whom he once caught filching cherries from his trees, the world at large had yet to learn of it. but perhaps that was the fault of people who might have employed him, but didn't. he always had said he never got half a chance in detective work, though he liked it ever so much better than the ice-cream business. be this as it may, mr. gouger, private detective, had eagerly joined marshal wellock in his proposal that they pursue the four mysterious youths who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the marshal himself declared, had stolen the automobile in which they attracted so much attention in front of the telegraph office. in some respects the two officials were well matched. mr. gouger was considerably the younger, but his attire had the same appearance of needing renovating that marked the marshal's outfit. in their conclusions with regard to the absolute certainty that the young strangers were automobile thieves, and that probably a reward was offered somewhere for their arrest, the two were also quite identical. even in their private and personal opinions of each other they did not differ greatly. marshal wellock secretly considered mr. gouger to be nothing more than a would-be private detective, whose gilded badge was worth about five cents as a novelty--nothing more. eli, on the other hand, had long since reached within his own confidence the certain conviction that the town of sagersgrove needed nothing so much as a new marshal; that mr. wellock was a conceited old loafer and nothing more, and that a man of about eli gouger's age should be in his place. the very fact that, in the recesses of their hearts, the two men had for each other a minus quantity in the matter of admiration, was to a degree responsible for the ignominious ending of their enterprise. each secretly planning to reap the major portion of the glory, also the reward they persuaded themselves would follow the capture of the four desperate car thieves, they chugged painfully over the road the auto boys had taken. darkness had come before they were fairly started. now it was growing very late. "it's sure as shootin' that they stole the car. they never would have took such a road, except they was tryin' to sneak along where nobody would see 'em," observed mr. gouger. the going grew steadily worse. it was past midnight. the little runabout had been making a slow and trying voyage over the ruts and through the holes. perhaps marshal wellock was weary. he certainly had become impatient. "can't you get a little more speed out o' this junk wagon? like ridin' in a stone-boat," he remarked pretty sharply, after a long silence in which he had reflected upon the probability that mr. gouger was "putting up some game" on him. nettled by these words, and being tired, cross and likewise suspicious himself, mr. gouger decided to shake the marshal into a better humor by going over a very rough place at the fastest rate the little car could muster. possibly he would have succeeded; at any rate mr. wellock was gripping his seat with both hands to hold on, when suddenly, whizz! the car skidded into a rut, mr. gouger for a moment lost control, and in another instant the little machine leaped over the low bank into a stagnant pool of thick, dirty water and almost bottomless mud. "now see what you done!" gasped mr. wellock, sputtering and spitting, as he succeeded in dragging himself up the bank. he had gone out of his seat and into the mud and water like a log rolled off a flat car. "who in thunder made me do it? nobody's fault but your own! i knew 'twasn't safe, but by _gum_! you kept squealin' for more speed! now see what _you_ done," hotly returned eli, who had also taken into his mouth rather more of the stagnant water than he seemed to relish. head foremost he had pitched out over the steering wheel as the machine went down. what followed when the two had taken inventory and found themselves not seriously damaged, though in a truly sorry plight, has in substance been told. both men were still wet from head to foot and literally covered with the thick, oozy mud when the auto boys reached them. the first task was to rescue the car. this was accomplished by means of ropes hitched to the thirty though the runabout had sunk almost out of sight. beside the rekindled campfire on the ridge, a half-mile away, the two unhappy officers bathed as best they could and dried their clothes. the dawn of the early summer morning was breaking now, and billy worth bestirred himself to prepare breakfast. the other boys began repacking the car which had been quickly unloaded, preparatory to answering the calls for help. the identity of the lads mr. wellock and mr. gouger had learned to their entire satisfaction. yet it was with mixed feelings of disappointment and relief that they became convinced of their folly in supposing the four young men to be thieves and runaways. for it _was_ a disappointment that for all their trouble they had received nothing but a ducking in a swamp; and it _was_ something of a relief not to feel compelled to place under arrest those who had been of such timely service. so, as they scraped the thickest of the mud from their clothing, the crestfallen officers agreed to say nothing to the boys to indicate that the lads themselves were, in fact, the suspected car thieves of whom, they had already told, they were in pursuit. unfortunately their self-importance had caused them to let a large part of sagersgrove know the object of their journey as they set out. their return home, in consequence, was followed by a very different kind of story in the newspapers than they had pictured would be the case. however, that was a matter for the marshal's and the detective's own and later consideration. for the present, and for a long time afterward, for that matter, the degree of admiration they confidentially entertained toward each other was not materially increased. nevertheless, the two did have the manliness to bury their mutual feelings of irritation, in the presence of the young strangers, and to offer in return for all that had been done for them to direct the boys to a cross road by which they could soon reach their proper route. a hasty breakfast being over, the thirty was again turned back to the scene of the runabout's accident. the little car had not been greatly damaged and from this point it slowly led the way eastward. at a still early hour a road leading off to the right and seeming to terminate in the very depths of the marshes was reached. with the assurance, however, that the rough trail was passable and led directly to the state pike, the auto boys ventured upon this course, mr. gouger's machine going on in advance as before. a struggle of nearly two hours through ruts and holes--one so bad that the thirty was practically unloaded before getting through--brought the promised end. coming out of a stump-strewn lane, for the cross road was at this point nothing more, the two machines emerged upon a fine, smooth road. there was a sigh of relief from five of the six travelers. the sixth simply shouted and the hearty enthusiasm of his "hurrah!" was inspiring. needless to say, the noisy one was--to use his own usual form of identification--"mr. p. jones, esquire." "it was us they were after, all right. i'm satisfied of that," was billy worth's comment when good-bys had been said to the two men. "they suspected something or other, and i only wish we knew what." "i hardly believe that," phil way protested mildly, but paul and dave sided quite emphatically with worth. perhaps it is immaterial, but the subject was discussed at great length. and as the thirty again rolled smoothly forward all but phil recalled with unconcealed satisfaction the woeful spectacle the two men presented when first the light from the automobile lamps, carried to the scene of rescue, fell upon them. "why, honestly, i'm glad dave did get us onto that awful road. we've had a real adventure," chirped jones; but he had to dodge a backhand swing from maclester the same moment. to make his peace in that quarter he added: "anyhow we didn't lose so much time and i wouldn't have missed the excitement for a lot." so, as the speed and the road permitted, the talk ran on and meanwhile the car was making good progress forward. the map showed nearly two hundred miles yet to be covered and half the distance must be made to-day if possible. if the going continued good this would be no hardship, but the old pike would be left behind before night, and road conditions beyond were likely to be questionable. following the extremely early breakfast, the usual noonday lunch was looked forward to with no little impatience as the morning advanced. phil had suggested that no pause be made until a small river, shown on the map to be not many miles distant, was reached, and the others agreed. nevertheless a wagon, en route to some market with strawberries, was so much of a temptation that the car was halted and two baskets of the fine fruit were purchased. the contents of one of these disappeared in a manner well calculated to make adherents of fletcherism hold up their hands in amazement, had any such been near--which assuredly there were not, or not in the automobile, at least. the second basket billy worth simply put away to be enjoyed with the regular noon luncheon; nor would all of paul's and dave's coaxing soften his stony-hearted determination. billy, it will be remembered, was the cook and general chief of the commissary department. as such he possessed in a strong degree the trait, peculiar to those offices, of always being ready to repel too severe a raid upon the larder between meals and always keen to add some delicacy to the commissary's store. and maybe billy's idea was the right one. certain it is that when the river bridge was crossed at last and the noon camp was made under some willows just beyond, nothing could be finer than the deliciously fresh berries with sugar and cream. phil brought the latter from a farmhouse on the hill above and a still larger supply of good, rich milk. with the fruit, bread and butter, cheese, crackers and the last of the boiled ham, the repast was ample in both quantity and enjoyment. "only wish we had that other quart of strawberries," sighed paul jones, longingly. "of course you do, p-i-g! lucky to have _any_!" billy reminded him. "provisions are going to be a thing to look out for on this trip." "well spoken, my boy; well spoken!" responded paul, with patronizing air; but phil put in, "no joke about that. nothing nearer the ship woods than gilroy and that's six or seven miles away. no telling, either, how far back in the woods we may be." "great columbus, phil! don't talk that way! you'll give bill nervous prostration!" exclaimed maclester, rising and starting to look the car over. "on the job here, you fellows, if you're going with me!" he added briskly. for mac was driving to-day and the responsibility of covering yet another sixty miles before sundown, and over roads some of which might be extremely bad, rested on his shoulders. if "on the job" meant "on the car," as at least seems probable, instructions were followed with alacrity. not even pausing to gather up the evidences of their having stopped for lunch, billy and paul hastily packed away bread and butter and similar supplies, then clambered into the tonneau. phil had hurried to the river's edge where he washed dishes and milk buckets in a shorter space of time than he would ordinarily have considered proper; but the car was chugging away in waiting and he jumped up to the seat beside dave in an exceedingly spry and nimble manner. "go ahead," he said, and the thirty answered gently, smoothly to the clutch. "you left that strawberry basket lying there by the fence and you had scribbled all over it," said billy worth to paul, a half hour later. he was thinking of the possibility of the chosen trio coming on behind, perhaps in hot pursuit, yet uncertain of the course, "what did you write on the box?" "why! say, that's _so_!" was the answer, with a disconcerted grin, "that's right! i wrote 'p. jones, esq.,' for one thing, and 'with kind regards to lannington.' i drew a picture or two and--gee! i thought i'd toss the basket into the river! don't s'pose it will hurt, do you, bill?" "guess not. of course we aren't billing the country as if we were a circus, exactly. at least that wasn't what we set out to do." "well, what d'ye think of it? i'm frank to say i'm a fine young chimpanzee," jones muttered, really blaming himself a great deal. "oh, don't gnash your teeth over it! there's just about one chance in a hundred that gaines and his crew will ever find which way we came or try now to follow us," said billy reassuringly. phil and dave agreed with worth as the subject was discussed later, saying there was no probability whatever that paul's writing would ever come to the trio's notice. even if gaines' roadster were to pass the identical spot, what likelihood was there that any of the party would notice or give heed to a little, empty strawberry basket? so did jones quickly recover his wonted joyousness. blithely he was declaring, "oh, i guess i'm no wizard! no, no wizard at all. no, not at all!" his customary good opinion of himself quite restored, within a few hours. the sun was low. camp for the night had been made beside a turbulent little brook where a woodland skirted the highway. paul had gone to a dwelling some distance to the rear for milk. he returned bringing not only the five quart bucket nearly full, but eggs and a basket of berries, as well. hence his self-complacency; hence for the third time, his words accompanied by that contagious grin, so peculiarly his own--"oh, i guess i'm no wizard! nothing like that at all!" chapter viii plans for the big race quite likely it was because they were so completely engrossed with the intended search of the ship woods--the main item in the plan they had discussed for many months, that the auto boys had thus far given the gold cup races little heed. casually they had mentioned among themselves the circumstances that the western boundary of the woods was not many miles from the scene of the great stock car contests, but that was all. beside the campfire they kindled close to the dashing, woodland stream, however, the subject was suggested by an item in a city newspaper purchased in one of the small towns on the day's run. the final laying out of the twenty-six-mile course, it now appeared, had brought one corner of the irregular circuit to within a few miles of the great forest. the general headquarters would be in queensville, only a half-hour's ride beyond. "we'll just slip over there of a morning now and then and watch the practice work," proposed phil. he brought his open right hand down like a small pile driver upon his left wrist at the same moment, not by way of emphasis, but in deadly attack upon a mosquito. "and go to the races? sure!" put in billy worth, asking and answering the question all in one breath. "wonder we never realized how near queensville we'd be!" "yes, we'll let the race meet upset all our plans and we'll go home with nothing to show for the whole trip," muttered maclester, with a tremendous yawn. jones came up with a lot of green weeds, twigs and leaves for the fire just in time to hear dave's comment. he dropped the armful on the blaze, producing a smoky "smudge" as protection from mosquitoes, and sat himself down cross-legged upon the ground. then very deliberately-"david, i really think you better go to bed," he said. "you're tired and cross. go to bed, so as to wake up early in the morning and hear the birds sing," he added soberly. "possibly i _am_ somewhat fatigued," was the cutting response, "and being so, you will kindly pardon me if i don't tear any buttons off laughing at such a positively brilliant witticism." paul grinned his appreciation of this thrust but before he could answer, phil way broke in: "why, no! the races needn't interfere with our plans at all. who knows but what a day or two will end the whole expedition so far as anything the woods contains is concerned? we wouldn't want to hike back right away! we're after fun as much as anything, aren't we?" "and the most fun i can think of right this minute is to get some sleep," dave replied. then with a cushion from the car for a pillow he stretched out upon his blanket. "happy day when we get the tent up and go into camp right, about to-morrow night," he said, as if to himself. and if there was a note of irritation in his tone it was because he _was_ very tired. dave was a trifle gloomy and occasionally the least bit sour by disposition; but in this instance it must be remembered that he had been at the wheel of the thirty all day; also, that the rest of all the boys had been much disturbed the night before. "really believe i am '_somewhat fatigued_,' myself," chirped paul, a few minutes later, gay and lively to the very last. for scarcely had he added: "gee! this is a _downy_ couch!--down about a foot too far!" than he dropped off sound asleep on his blanket spread over the grass. billy and phil were not long in following the example of the other two and presently the only sound to break the silence was the tinkle of bells where some sheep were feeding in a pasture across the little stream. tired humanity finds rest and comfort even on the bare ground when more conventional beds are not obtainable. yet dave was right. another night, when a permanent camp had been established, might easily show a marked improvement in the lads' situation. not but that all four were happy and contented just as they were! any one of them would have asserted emphatically that he was having a fine time. but--confidentially--a nice dreamy nap on the soft grass beneath some tree on a warm afternoon is one thing, and sleeping all night on the ground is another. even the auto boys, in strictest confidence, mind you, would have admitted it. time was that, when sleeping out, whether in the open as on this occasion, or in the hillside hut of gleason's ravine, the boys found themselves subject to a certain degree of nervousness. the distant shriek of a locomotive whistle on the still night air might cause any or all of them to start into partial or complete wakefulness, uncertain whether the sound was not a human voice. the heavy barking of a dog far away, yet in the silence and the darkness seeming very close, was apt to produce a similar effect. the certain conviction that the sounds came nearer, being directed, indeed, straight toward the camp, easily impressed itself upon high-strung imaginations. a considerable variety of experience of this character is common to most camping parties whose members have seldom slept with no roof but the sky, or none but a bit of canvas, at the most. it would not do to say they are caused by timidity. but rather they are the result of surroundings wholly unlike those to which body and mind have been accustomed. but there are delights in sleeping out of doors which those who have never experienced them can scarcely imagine. even though the couch be "downy" after the manner paul jones described, there are compensations. of course there must be sufficient covering to keep one warm, and a roof of some kind when it rains. with these provided, soft mattresses may well be dispensed with. the company of the stars, the good, fresh air, the music of the breeze in the branches above--these and much more will be bountiful recompense. every one of the auto boys would have endorsed these remarks and with enthusiasm, i am sure. dave may have wished for a bed in an established camp rather than the one he had on the bare ground. they would all have voted for that. a pillow, even though made of a blanket-end spread over fresh pine twigs or clean, freshly gathered grass, beats an automobile cushion as a head-rest. this no one would deny. and if the established camp means one thing, and the roadside resting place the other, it is very well to choose the former. the degree of comfort is the only question. the delights of out-of-doors exist as certainly one way as another. thus, for instance, in either situation, are the stars, whether they look down in the tranquillity of a calm, still night, or through broken, storm-tossed clouds, most excellent and interesting company. now the whole purpose of this digression from the story is to make clear the _reason_ back of the simple statement that the auto boys slept soundly. notwithstanding their strange surroundings and their lack of a permanent camp's greater comforts, they passed the night in unbroken rest. if they awakened at any time it was merely to turn over and fall asleep again. if in the interim they noted, drowsily, the stars still bright, the sky still clear and the promise of fine weather to-morrow, it was merely this and nothing more. the apprehensions that at one time would have come to them that possibly danger lurked in the deeper shadows they rarely if ever experienced now. and let no one suppose it is not something of a trial to desert one's snug resting place upon the ground in the morning, quite as much as it is to leave a soft, warm bed indoors. the temptation to indulge in just one more little snooze of five minutes, ten minutes or whatever time one thinks he might possibly allow himself, is quite the same. complete wakefulness and ambition return more quickly in the open air and buoyancy of spirit is usually greater--that is all. with the responsibility of breakfast on his shoulders billy worth was the first astir. the sun was well up and all the woodland was merry with the songs of birds. robins piped musically from the old rail fence. bobolinks, jays, bluebirds, chattering blackbirds and even crows added their voices to the odd combinations of melody. in some not distant pasture a boy was calling loudly as he drove up the cows. into the cool, clear brook where the swift current eddied among some stones, billy plunged hands and arms elbow deep. he dashed the water over his face with a half-shiver and ran to the towel left hanging over night on the steering wheel. "you fellows going to get up?" he inquired abruptly. "yep! right away!" came the response from phil, and with a reluctant sigh he sat up and looked about him. from dave and paul came no answer. "i'm going to get a bucket of water at the creek. i'll be back here in about a minute, and anybody who's not up is going to get ducked! so there's fair warning!" announced mr. worth. there was a note of determination in his voice. maybe billy even hoped the two still stretched snugly in their blankets would fail to take him at his word. he would soon show them whether he meant what he said or not, he thought. but by the time he reached the brook dave rose slowly and stretched himself. seeing this, young mr. worth lost no time. half filling the small bucket, he raced back to camp. the distance was only a few yards. two more quick steps and he would have reached the prostrate paul; but suddenly as if shot from a gun that young gentleman leaped to his feet. "just saved _yourself_!" laughed worth, making a move with the bucket as if he thought a little cold water judiciously applied might be a good thing anyway. "well, you want to remember that i gathered all the stuff for the smudge last night, and i need my rest," said jones with a half injured air but with a sly smile, too. "well, that's so! five minutes' work does quite exhaust some people," billy returned with friendly sarcasm. "if you could possibly wiggle a little firewood up this way and phil will get the grub out while dave puts the blankets and things away, i'll see if we can't have a light collation in the shape of breakfast." way was already kindling the fire with the remnants of last night's fuel supply. paul acted upon instructions with reasonable alacrity and a fine bed of coals was ready by the time the bacon was in one frying-pan and several large potatoes, washed, peeled and sliced, were in another. coffee and bread and butter completed the menu, and as a fine appetite is another of the delights of open air living, the call to breakfast was answered a great deal more promptly than chef billy's earlier call to get up had been. so was another day begun. so a little later was the thirty again measuring off the hard, smooth clay of the road while the bright june sun and pleasant breezes combined to set off most delightfully every one of nature's early summer charms. for mile upon mile the auto boys' route was bordered by rich pastures, waving meadows and the cultivated fields of a fine farming country. the wheat was coming into head. the oats marked the long, parallel lines of the drills like millions of tiny soldiers in green uniforms massed regiment upon regiment. farmers, their sons and their hired men were busy with cultivators and with hoes in many a field where the young corn was starting off vigorously, as if having particularly in mind that growth expected of every good corn field, "knee high by fourth of july," and meant to establish a new record. surely there's nothing to equal motoring as a means of seeing the country. not only are the constant change of landscape and constant succession of new scenes which the railway traveler may enjoy, to be had in an automobile but more--very much more. the motorist gains a great deal that the railroad passenger inevitably misses. for the man on the train the musical clang of the dinner bell as one passes near some farmhouse, for instance, is lost--swallowed up in the noise and rush of the locomotive. the sweet scent of the wild crab apple can never make its presence known in the skurrying currents of air sweeping constantly aside from and after the wheels of steel. and these are but samples of countless impressions upon the senses the automobile tourist experiences, which he who journeys by rail may meet only by rare chance. the difference is vast. the auto boys discussed the subject with keen appreciation of their good fortune in owning a machine. "why!" said billy worth, "it amounts to the same thing as the difference between pictures and actual life. you can lay eyes on a scene like that young fellow plowing, over yonder, say, in any art store. you can see the green of the grass and the brown of the ploughed land. see the trees and the old rail fence in the background and the team of horses and the driver. but it doesn't mean anything like as much as when you can at the same time catch that smell of the ground just turned over and hear that hired man calling out to his team. hear him? hear that chap yonder, now?" and through the air, rich with the fragrance of the freshly ploughed earth came in lusty tones: "ha-a-a-aw! haw, there! molly! you great big haystack, why don't you ha-a-w?" certainly billy was right. chapter ix the crafty plan of mr. gouger the late afternoon sun shone with a softened light in the valley through which wolf creek flowed dark and sluggish from the ship woods. the stream itself looked very dark, indeed, where the shadows of the trees lay on the deeper pools. where the sunbeams struck the ripples the water had a brighter, clearer hue and tinkled sweetly, soft and low, for the current was moderate. looking up stream from the low wooden bridge at the public road, one could see that a sharp, irregular, wooded steep marked the limits of the valley on the east. the rise of ground began only two score yards distant from the water and with it began, also, a thick growth of mostly small trees and brush. rough ledges of sandstone and conglomerate rock cropped out of the earth in many places here, but the strip of land between the stream and the hillside was cleared of timber and lay quite level. two parallel paths through the coarse grass and among the straggling bushes marked a primitive roadway midway between the slope and the creek. it extended back through the valley, apparently, to where the woods a quarter of a mile distant from the highway, stretched down from hill to hill, hiding the creek and all beyond. as the sun was going down there rolled along the unfenced public road skirting for nearly two miles this southern boundary of the ship woods, a heavily laden touring car. "the bridge! the creek! that old trail through the valley--by jinks, we're here!" cried a shrill young voice from the car. the machine had come to a halt where the rough road led back from the highway just before the bridge was reached. "yes, we're _here_ and blessed if i see anything very thrilling about it!" came another voice, in tones of decidedly less enthusiasm. "at any rate, though, we _are here_." is it necessary to state that paul jones was the first speaker and that dave maclester was the second? "well, scoot ahead, somebody! see if we can get down the bank and into that pair of ruts through the grass, yonder, without turning turtle or blowing out a tire." this command, briskly delivered, came from billy worth who leaned, tired and dusty, on the steering wheel. "all o.k.! come ahead!" shouted phil way a second later. "the track down the bank is here all right, but under the grass. gently, bill!" with a sudden plunge and stiff jerk the car went down the incline leading from the road and across a broad, shallow ditch. then slowly it rolled onto the grass and weed-grown trail leading up to the valley. way walked rapidly in advance looking out for pitfalls or possible causes of danger to tires. "might as well get the road cleared at once, fellows," he said, and the hint was sufficient. paul and dave jumped down from the slowly moving machine to lend assistance. heavy wagons in summers that were past and the logging sleds of the timber crews in winter had broken a well-marked road. it was still rough but odd chunks of wood and the stones found here and there could be and were thrown to one side. paul jones voiced with considerable earnestness the opinion that he would rather pilot the car than "heave dornicks" out of the road; but a subdued chuckle from billy, lazily driving forward as the course was announced clear, was all the comfort his observation brought him. "s'pose we needn't go more than thirty or forty miles back from the road!" ejaculated maclester grimly. he was quite out of breath from the effort of up-ending a heavy pole that had lain across the trail. also, as has been noted earlier, he was just the least bit tired and impatient. "no farther back than we have to go to find a snug camping place," phil responded with extra good humor. for cheerfulness is contagious and does a great deal more to brighten up another's despondent mood than any sort of remonstrance against being glum could do. "maybe that little point down by the creek is just what we want, now," way went on gayly. "hold up, bill, till we peek around here some." the point did offer many advantages, being a low, grassy place, like a small peninsula, where a water course curved about till it finally reached the main stream. the creek formed a considerable pool just below the junction with the water-worn trench; for, while the latter, though deep, was now nearly dry, it was apparent that in time of rain its torrents rushed into the larger stream with both force and volume. "rather flat and low, but pretty good at that," observed way, hopefully surveying the situation. "but maybe we'd better look a little further. what do you think, mac?" "reckon so," said dave, and telling worth to wait, the two went forward to investigate. paul jones meanwhile had been tracing the deep, narrow bed of the smaller stream, filled with the idea that its source must be in some spring. and presently he came running back shouting at the top of his voice--"yelling like a wooden indian," billy said--"say! oh, say! here's the hunky-doriest place you ever dreamed about! here's the one spot in all your natural life, for a fact!" the rapturous enthusiasm of jones' tones caused worth to jump down from the car and hurry toward him. dave and phil, now some distance forward, also hastened back, and together the quartette climbed the rise of ground toward the woods. what they found fully accounted for paul's delighted manner. here on a shelving plateau of conglomerate rock, overgrown with moss and patches of velvety grass, was a level space several hundred feet in length and perhaps fifty feet from the abrupt descent at its front to the rough, irregular wall of natural stonework, rising as high as the tops of the trees, at the back. from a wide but shallow cave, in the wall at the rear, there trickled a beautifully clear and cool spring. for a time the water rested in a natural basin in the rocks, then overflowed through a tiny channel of its own making. deeper and wider this channel grew and so became the water course, previously described, leading to the creek. many small ash, beech and chestnut trees somehow found foothold in the earthy crevices of the rocks, but of underbrush, fallen timber or similar obstructions the place was quite clear. being much higher than the valley before it, the little plateau caught the last rays of the sinking sun most charmingly as it also received the welcome visits of the wandering breezes that passed quite over the lower land. of firewood, that most necessary factor in the making of a camp, there was plenty both below and above the broad shelf. water of the purest quality the spring afforded in abundance. for bathing, fishing or such other accommodations as a good-sized stream could afford, the creek was but a few hundred feet away. "great!" exclaimed mr. william worth approvingly. "simply carniverous!" by which expression, it will be understood, he meant that the spot under inspection was extremely satisfactory, rather than exactly what he called it. "never get the car up here!" declared maclester, looking about doubtfully. "never get the car up here in the world!" "you leave that to me," cried paul, blusteringly, as if mac's remark were a challenge to himself personally. "i've heard of half-backs and quarter-backs and all that sort of thing, but i'll be blamed, dave, if you aren't the champion hold-back of the united states! we'll get the car up here like rolling off a log!" and although paul's expression was possibly as much overdrawn as it was picturesque, it may be stated at once that a means of running the thirty up to the higher level was provided without great difficulty. the cutting down of a few straggling trees and clearing away of the brush where the southern edge of the wide ledge sloped off easily toward the public road, made all that remained quite safe and easy. the net result was that, ere the shadows grew so deep as to cause a suspension of operations, the car with all its heavy load stood close beside the shallow cave and the spring. the campfire blazed cheerily a few minutes later and the sweet sizzle of frying bacon, always delicious to a hungry man, filled the pure, wholesome air of the woods. the auto boys were very, very comfortable. of this fact they assured themselves over and over again, although at no time was there room for the slightest doubt in the case. and leaving them in this pleasant situation, weary but entirely tranquil, restful and luxuriously content, attention must at this point be returned to mr. soapy gaines, and the two companions of that very unselfish and highly agreeable young gentleman. it was on thursday afternoon, it will be remembered, that the chosen trio set out from lannington. gaines' big and clumsy roadster was loaded heavily. freddy perth at the wheel, soapy at his side and pickton buried among baggage strapped on and around the rumble seat, they headed toward sagersgrove by the most direct route. without mishap the little town of waterloo was reached by dusk and there the night was spent. pickton had so adroitly planned matters that gaines registered at the village hotel for the entire party. he meant also that soapy should have entirely to himself the pleasant task of settling the bill in the morning. but it was not to be. very unselfishly that young gentleman ventured the supposition, when breakfast was over that, as he was furnishing the car for the trip, his companions would probably be prepared to pay the traveling expenses. "oh, whack 'em up all around," suggested perth. "thought that was understood." pickton said nothing. "well, by george! i don't pay anybody's but my own!" growled gaines. "if anybody thinks i'm soft, they better think again." this shot was so obviously intended for pick that he flushed hot and scarlet. "sure! everybody's to pay his own way!" he said. rather sheepishly he added, though: "we might have got breakfast cheaper along the road somewhere." and the foregoing dialogue but serves to illustrate the feeling that existed among the three companions. the unity, mutual trust and generous friendship which characterized all the relations of the auto boys with reference to one another were wholly missing in the chosen trio. the wonder is, indeed, that these three had remained together so long. true, soapy wanted someone for company and someone to operate the car and to take care of it. pickton had his own selfish end to serve by making use of gaines in such ways as he could and perth--fred would have borne a great deal just for the sake of being around the roadster. also, fred liked both the other two, in a way. it was not his disposition to find fault or to be over-critical at any time. it did not so much as occur to him, for instance, that the uncomfortable rumble seat, hemmed in with baggage, should be occupied by soapy any part of the time as the car chugged on noisily but at no mean speed, toward sagersgrove. it lacked still two hours of noon when eli gouger, self-constituted detective in sagersgrove, beheld the heavy machine of the chosen trio coming down the main street of that peaceful town. he looked again and a sudden thought smote upon his brain. then he acted. perhaps it should be explained that, following their uncomfortable experience in pursuit of the auto boys through the cowslip marshes, mr. gouger had even less admiration for marshal wellock than he had entertained before. and now, as he saw the strange automobile approaching, he realized that it was traveling at a considerably higher speed than the ordinances of the town permitted. also he realized that if marshal wellock chanced to see the law's violation by these young strangers he would pounce upon them instantly. in no mood was the marshal, of late particularly, to let any motorist escape if there was the slightest reason for an arrest. the officer had been made the butt of too much ridicule as a result of that chase that ended with him head first in the mud to be in a very amiable temper. he wanted only the excuse and he would clap into jail any strange automobile user who entered the town. well aware of all this, and well aware that he, himself, detective though he feign would be, was powerless to make an arrest, mr. gouger hastily planned a deep and crafty plan. he would win for himself a degree of glory which should make marshal wellock appear, in contrast, a most negligent and inefficient officer, to say the least. frantically waving his arms, mr. gouger rushed into the street as the strange car and its three passengers drew near. pickton brought the machine to a halt. "you chaps will get arrested if ye don't watch out!" declared mr. gouger, vehemently, a little irritated by gaines' instant and by no means polite inquiry, "what's hurting _you_?" "fact is, you've been speeding half way through town. i own a machine, myself, an' i know. maybe there's a warrant out for ye now," he continued rapidly. pickton's jaw fell and gaines felt a giving way inside as if his upper and lower halves had suddenly parted company at the waist line. "guess--guess--we'd better not stop to talk about it then," said freddy perth, brokenly, but with a sadly forced grin. "tell ye what, slip 'round here with me. drive up slow. i'll get ye into my barn an' a little later ye can slip out o' town," mr. gouger suggested. there was a gleam in his eye, however, and a sort of internal chuckle in his tones that would have been a warning had any of the trio noticed them. "well, blame it all! show us _where_," growled pickton, noticeably bolder now. "lead on!"--this with solemn, dramatic air that would have been ridiculous had it not been so tragic. mr. gouger wasted time in very few more words. through an alley he escorted the trio, still in the car, to the yard at the rear of his own modest, frame dwelling in a side street close by. asking the lads to leave their car partially screened from view beneath the low-branching cherry trees, he invited them into a small, tightly-boarded cowstable. "stay in here a spell. i'll be back," grinned the would-be detective, and suddenly stepping out he closed the door and locked it by means of a large padlock attached to a chain. "ye can consider yourselves under arrest _right now_," sang out mr. gouger, then, in tones of triumph, "i'll have the constable here right off an' ye can go before the 'squire an' pay up. don't be speedin' next time till ye know there's no _detectives_ around." the astonishment of messrs. gaines, pickton and perth may be more easily imagined than successfully described. they did not suspect the purpose and the reason for the imposition that had been practiced upon them, nor did they realize that their captor had no authority to make an arrest himself. he had taken this means of detaining them until he could summon a constable, apparently, because he did not care to undertake the arrest alone. having no knowledge of mr. gouger's lack of admiration for marshal wellock, of course, the lads ascribed the motives of that very able disciple of mr. pinkerton entirely to a desire to share in the fine to be imposed upon them. these general conclusions the three boys reached in an extremely short space of time. what should they do? the day was warm and the tightly-closed stable was like an oven. in the cherry trees and along the hedge, bordered by bachelor buttons, at the opposite side of mr. gouger's back yard, the robins were twittering joyously. but their lively notes awakened no responsive feeling in the hearts of the imprisoned trio. remotely possible is it, however, that, unnoticed though their music was, the songsters exerted an influence upon the thoughts of soapy gaines; or it may have been only a coincidence. at any rate, his spoken words were-"i'll be blamed, pick, if you ain't a bird! followed that duffer into this trap like a pup trailing a meat wagon. blame me, if you ain't a real _bird_!" mr. gaines' tones, it may be stated, were even less complimentary than his language. chapter x adventure befalls the chosen trio the stable's one window, composed of two small panes of extremely dirty glass, admitted to the young gentlemen within a dingy light. the shed was empty, save for the dirt and litter everywhere; but not one crack or crevice could be seen to suggest a loose board and possible means of escape. clambering up to the little window, however, freddy perth discovered that it was hooked inside and he lost no time in admitting the air and sunlight. "can wriggle through here, all right, if we want to do it!" he exclaimed in loud undertones. "get along then, quick!" ordered pickton. "s'pose we're going to stay here and get fined? you right after me, soapy!" ordinarily pick would have shown gaines a very noticeable deference in allowing him to go first; but this was a different situation. he even resented fred's being ahead of himself, and fumed irritably while that young fellow was slowly struggling through the narrow opening. with no ledge or projection of any kind on the outer wall to steady him, perth could only slip one foot and then the other through the window, let his body follow and drop to the ground. he struck in the midst of a wet and sticky heap of decaying weeds, garbage, tin cans, ashes and broken crockery but fortunately, upon his feet. more frightened than ever, now, he viewed impatiently pickton's painful efforts to force himself out of the stable by the same route, and his eventual success. "for pity's sake, gaines, don't be all day!" admonished pick fretfully, when finally he had reached the ground in safety. "let go, now! you're all right! hangin' on there like a crazy pinchin' bug!" thus pleasantly encouraged, soapy had by this time his head and body through the aperture, and was moved, yet loath, to let go his desperate grasp upon the edges of the window's frame. stupidly he had not advanced feet first and in consequence there was but one chance in a thousand of his being able to alight upon those extremities when he let himself down. however the urgency of the situation as well as his friend's caustic remarks determined him to make the effort and with a subdued groan he pitched forward. it was only as might be expected, under the circumstances, that when gaines sought to leap clear of the window and get his feet in under him, he failed--failed wretchedly. his head plunged into a large, and sadly decomposed pumpkin, carried out to the heap of refuse when mrs. gouger had cleaned the cellar recently. his hands grasped only the wet, decaying weeds and, unable to steady himself, he rolled on his back amid the cans, the ashes and all that the rank heap contained. if there was consolation for young mr. gaines in the fact that the pumpkin had broken the force of his fall, he expressed it in a weird and peculiar manner, as he struggled out. if he found reason to congratulate himself that, beyond a mixture of pumpkin pulp and seeds upon his face and in his hair, and sundry sorts of decomposed vegetation clinging to his hands and arms and clothing, he was not injured, he did this, likewise, in strangely excited, irritated language. perhaps he was thinking of other things than either consolation or congratulations. nevertheless he let perth lead him quickly to the car, half-blinded with the juices of the pumpkin in his eyes. pickton had the engine going, and soapy was pushed and lifted into his seat with more dispatch than ceremony. even while fred climbed up to the rumble the automobile was put under way. then out of the alley and down the side street it lunged as if eli gouger were but a yard behind. to follow the side streets to the city's outskirts, and avoid every thoroughfare that looked like a principal artery of the town, was pickton's plan. for some distance he put on great speed, but later heeded perth's suggestion to go more slowly and so attract less notice. and as even moderate driving would take one from center to circumference of sagersgrove in no great length of time, the roadster was well into the country within a quarter of an hour. but on and on pickton hurried. whither he went he cared not, nor looked to see where he might turn to left or right. he wanted only to leave behind as far as possible the pursuers he believed would certainly be coming on. "we'll be at the south pole sooner than the queensville race course at this rate," freddy perth shouted, at last. "head down the first likely looking road west. great guns! things aren't so desperate as all this!" soapy gaines, still bearing noticeable evidence in his hair and on his clothing of his plunge from the window, but now able to see as usual, vehemently acquiesced in perth's suggestion. "never saw a man lose his head so!" he growled, with reference to pickton's frantic haste, regardless of direction. "we're after that phil way outfit, don't you know it! catch 'em about next year! sagersgrove is where we were going to get right behind 'em on the old pike!" "a few miles west, then on the first thing that looks like a road, due north, and we'll come to the pike," suggested fred, more pleasantly. "we can't help but recognize it, and the paper said way's crowd took that route. keep a-going. if we don't stop for noon we won't have lost much time, after all." the still frightened travelers reached their looked-for road to the west a mile further on. often they had looked back, but now they paused and scrutinized carefully the distant horizon in the direction they had come. an old black horse and buckboard and a small boy in charge of that conveyance, which they had passed a few minutes before, were the only objects in sight along the dusty, sunny road. over in the pasture on the right, some cows were feeding. in the wood lot on the left silence reigned save for the vagrant breeze faintly rustling the leaves. from a farmyard further down the road came indistinctly the cackling of a hen in token of a new laid egg added to the world's food supply; but for aught else within view or hearing the three lads might have been the sole inhabitants of the country. the general influence of the calm and quiet scene was beneficial to the excited minds of mr. gouger's erstwhile prisoners. at a far more moderate speed than they had lately traveled they now went forward again, taking the road to the west. it pitched down a remarkably long, stony hill, then crossed a broad valley. and as by following this route the trio escaped the necessity of taking a round-about way on the north side of sagersgrove, as the auto boys had done, to pass the streets torn up for improvements, they really fared better than they thought. particularly was this true when, by mid-afternoon, they found themselves on the hard, level surface of the old state pike, quite as freddy perth had planned. what difficulties they escaped by missing the northern route the auto boys used, and what danger of straying into the cowslip marshes they thus avoided, the travelers never discovered. the fever of excitement accompanying their flight from the stable had quite subsided as fred and pickton exchanged places, the former taking the wheel preparatory to a long, steady run over the fine old pike. three objects were now kept constantly in view. one, to leave sagersgrove as far behind as possible before nightfall; another, to discover a store or restaurant where provisions for a picnic supper might be purchased, and the third to gain, if possible, certain information as to whether the auto boys had passed that way. a camping place for the night was a fourth but much later consideration, for it had been decided to keep the car in motion until a late hour. years ago one would have found plenty of opportunities to purchase either food or lodging along the still famous old road the boys were traveling. at nearly every four corners was a tavern or some house whose hospitality might be enjoyed for a moderate price. frequent hamlets and villages marked the way, also, and there quite elaborate entertainment might be obtained at the inns. very different did the trio find the situation, however--as different, almost, as the contrast between their own conveyance and the stage coaches of old. in one small settlement after another did either perth or pickton leave the car to inquire for the provisions they wanted, but beyond crackers, cheese and sometimes dry, hard cakes or cookies the general country stores offered them, they found nothing. "we would have brought some proper stuff to eat along if you two hadn't been in such a frothy hurry!" growled soapy gaines, and as he spoke he was busily consuming the last of a dozen bananas fred had brought from home. but mr. gaines was not much given to self-denial or to a considerate manner at any time. he had set his heart on cold ham or chicken, iced tea and salad for his supper. the prospect of feasting on crackers and cheese did not strike him at all favorably, hungry as he was. being pretty tired and having the mortification of his ridiculous plunge into the decayed pumpkin still in his mind, as well, it may be said that he was not the most agreeable of traveling companions. and indeed, his mood showed little improvement as time passed. how much of his more than usual ill-temper might be attributed to the humiliating plunge from eli gouger's stable window, would be difficult to determine. no doubt he thought much of it and so grew all the more irritable, instead of passing the whole matter off with a laugh and then forgetting it, as any sensible young fellow would have done. but gaines had not gathered in environment or training even a moderate degree of good, sound sense. perhaps he was not alone at fault, yet right here it may be said that, clear through to the wretched and unfortunate end of his connection with the present enterprise, he maintained quite constantly an air either of bullying and grumbling or utterly selfish indolence and indifference. freddy perth and pickton, as well, for that matter, were quite willing to make a supper of such simple provisions as they could obtain at the general stores, with the possible addition of milk, and maybe a pie or fresh bread and butter from some farmhouse. but no extent of "soap," as perth called the wheedling talk and flattery pick administered to gaines, would make that young gentleman agree. it was quite dark, therefore, ere a town affording even moderately good hotel accommodations was reached. there a stop for supper was made. even then soapy found the iced tea and the salad not at all to his taste, but ate hugely of the plainer fare. a more important development of the hour spent in the hotel was the certain knowledge gained that four lads in a heavily-laden touring car had stopped to purchase some newspapers a couple of days earlier. the news-stand clerk supplied this information quite frankly when asked if such tourists had been noticed passing through. he added that there would be many touring parties on the roads during the next week or more, going to the gold cup races. so certain was he in his own mind, indeed, that the boys before him were bound for the big stock car contests (as he likewise had no doubt the four earlier travelers had been) that unconsciously he overstepped the truth in the report he gave. the young men who had passed on in advance had _told_ him, he said, that they were _going_ to the races. he _thought_ they had stated that they would stay in queensville. "sure thing!" exclaimed freddy perth as the information gleaned was discussed while the roadster forged steadily forward again, a little later. "sure thing!" said he. "i didn't think there was much to that 'three stones piled one on top of another,' unless just marking the place they are to have beside the race course. they'll go straight to queensville. if we keep going late to-night, we can be there by to-morrow night ourselves." again gaines gave it as his opinion that the auto boys had some business venture, as well as the races in view. again pickton kept to himself his thoughts on this subject--thoughts that were far from loyal to his companions. maybe it would have been better had he mentioned them. maybe it would have been better had he changed the plan that, in his heart, he knew he had formulated even before this journey was fairly started. it was a warm june night. fireflies flashed and vanished in constant succession over the field and along the roadsides. in the frequent farmhouses the lights shone pleasantly through open doors and windows. and always the gas lamps of the roadster showed ahead a clear, smooth course. the car was leaving the miles steadily behind. under the influence of the calm surroundings and the automobile's easy motion, soapy fell asleep. he had turned partially upon his side and rested his head upon his arm thrown over the back of the bucket seat. "we'll make camp when we find a good place," said perth, at the wheel, over his shoulder to pickton, "gaines is dead to the world." "blessed good thing! he'd insist on a feather bed or something, if he wasn't," the person addressed made answer. "don't know that i relish the idea of sleeping out very much myself; but gee whiz! i haven't got the price to hunt up hotels every time we want a meal or a bed, and neither have you. and you take it from me, soapy will want to borrow some money from one of us before the week is over. i'll not give him a picayune!" "humph!" perth responded, and that was all he did say. he didn't fancy the change in pickton's words and tone, now that gaines would not hear. but later he did add: "it's camp out or nothing for me. that is what we planned to do and if we don't find a place where we can do what cooking we have to do, i'll get a room somewhere and pick up meals as best i can. then if i run out of money i'm going to get a job at something or another till the races come off. might as well see them, while we're there. our chasing phil way and his bunch isn't going to amount to anything anyway--nothing more than that they won't be able to say they saw the gold cup and we didn't." "you stick to me, fred. we'll make gaines do as we all agreed. we are going to find worth and way and those fellows and we're going to have some fun with 'em. we can rough it just as well as they can and if gaines don't like it--" "oh, fiddle! you dream miracles and talk wonders! and it stops there," perth exclaimed, but only half seriously. then, "what you say is all right, pick, but you won't stand by it." "by the old bean porridge pot, perth! you're the most contrary monkey i ever saw!" was pickton's ejaculation. "i'll stand by every word i've said!" but whether he did or whether he didn't subsequent chapters will show. for the present it is essential to state that beside a thick hedge, where the ground was level and the grass deep--and very wet with dew, in consequence--a camping place was found. not one of the auto boys would have chosen such a spot. there was no water near, no trees beneath which the ground would be comparatively dry. the thorns of the hedge, also, where dead branches had fallen, might be encountered just when one least expected them. no, billy worth or phil, paul or dave would not have picked this place even in the dark. pickton and perth would not have done so either, had they possessed half the knowledge and experience the auto boys had gained in matters of this kind. it was eleven o'clock by freddy perth's watch. for an hour or more the night air had felt quite cool, in the automobile, and thoughts of warm blankets and sleep were pleasant ones as camp was established at the point described, despite the objectionable features named. far back in sagersgrove the town clock was striking the hour. eli gouger turned restlessly in his sleep and half awakened. "might have had two, or maybe four dollars apiece out of 'em just as well as not, if that good-for-nothing petersby hadn't had to get his dinner 'fore coming with me," he growled, as indeed he had been growling for some time. "get his dinner! the blamed calf! he's a great one to be a constable, he is!" chapter xi mr. blackbeard, the giant it was with much growling and sleepy sulkiness that soapy gaines crawled down from his seat in the roadster while pickton and fred were opening camp equipage and making ready for the night. by the lamps of the car he viewed their labors for a minute or two, drowsily grumbling the while, then putting a light motor robe over his head and shoulders threw himself on the grass heavily. "ow! murder! i'm killed!" came frantic screams from young mr. gaines the next instant. "ow! i'm--i'm killed dead!" if "killed" soapy was, however--to say nothing of his being killed "dead"--his actions were certainly extraordinary. he rolled over and over, then jumped to his feet, again calling out in greatest distress that he was "killed," and ending with the declaration in tones both loud and angry, "never saw such crazy idiots! let me jump into thorns a yard long and never say 'look out!' somebody'll get it for this, i'll bet, now you see!" as a matter of fact there had chanced to be a considerable heap of thorny branches from the hedge buried in the tall grass at the precise spot where gaines had thrown himself. they found him out in several places, piercing his back and legs painfully. and although his injuries were, of course, not at all serious, he seemed somehow not to take this fact into consideration. he hopped about--"like a crazy war dance," fred perth muttered--then frantically sought to examine the damage sustained by the glare of the headlights. all the while he was saying things, some of which were not exactly complimentary to those addressed, and vowing vengeance on someone or something, he apparently did not know what. perth could scarcely suppress a laugh but pickton was more in a mood to express some very decided opinions as the two helped gaines assure himself that none of the thorns were still lodged in his flesh--an assurance he seemed very reluctant to accept. "anyhow, it shows us we'll have to be right careful about the tires. we'd have to pump _them_ up again," observed perth with a grin. but soapy saw nothing funny in the remark and quite pointedly said as much. and it was not until pickton had explored a spot nearer the car, on his own hands and knees, and so proved that it was wholly safe, that the sadly spoiled member of the party could be persuaded to stretch himself in a blanket there and so fall asleep. in a little while the other two of the somewhat discordant, though self-named "chosen" trio had done the same. it was friday night--the very evening on which a certain quartette of other lads had selected their permanent camp in the western edge of the ship woods. tom pickton thought much of them, wondering where they were and what progress they might have made by this time with the mystery of the "three stones" as he lay gazing at the stars. very fearful was thomas that ere their stopping place could be discovered and their movements investigated, he would be too late--too late to learn the secret of the auto boys' quest. or if not, indeed, too far behind them to discover the real purpose of the lads' expedition, at least too late to do some possibly successful exploring on his own account. for this, particularly, did pick have in mind. if there was hidden treasure to be found, he had the right, he considered, to locate the same if he could do so. but tom fell asleep at last resolving only for the present that an early start must be made next morning and no pains spared to trace definitely the movements of the young motorists whom he knew to be at least two days in advance of the roadster. and this resolution he carried into prompt action. it was just sunrise when he arose. freddy perth responded instantly to his call. gaines still slept and was left undisturbed while a tiny gasoline stove was excavated from the depths of a bale of baggage and breakfast preparations started. perth had a long walk to obtain water, but returned bringing some fresh eggs the kind farmer's wife had offered him, as well; and when soapy was at last summoned to arise he found coffee boiling and the morning meal just ready. a night's rest had improved the temper of the genial mr. gaines, temporarily, at least. although indulging in a deal of growling over the lack of bathing facilities, which were, in fact, noticeably wanting, he "felt like a lark." at least he said so, and perhaps he did. for a creature of that description could hardly be expected to lend a hand at packing baggage away, pumping up a tire from which considerable air had escaped, or anything of the kind; and certain it is that soapy did not. the day's running of the trio was through a wealthy farming section. often they stopped to inquire if the auto boys had passed that way, and, as the well-loaded touring car and its four youthful passengers had been noticed by many, they found in this well populated region no want of information. even after the pike was left behind and a sparsely settled section encountered, it was still no task to learn at one poor dwelling or another the direction the auto boys had traveled and the time, even to the approximate minute, when they had passed. the sight of an automobile was not a frequent occurrence in these parts. the way the horses shied here, in contrast with the little heed they gave the machines nearer the towns, was sufficient proof of this. the people, too, had paid vastly more attention to the touring car, as they also looked much more curiously at the roadster here than had been the case on more prominent thoroughfares. so did the three lads find their spirits rising. or, it might be more accurate to say, so did two of them make such observation; for when the prospect of simply crackers, coffee and cheese for lunch developed, mr. soapy gaines sank into a sullen rage which continued until evening. he was like a volcano during such periods--smoldering constantly, but emitting flame and fury at quite frequent intervals. if any of the boys still seriously considered their flight from gouger's stable as likely to make them trouble, they did not show it. fully believing their captor to have been a properly authorized officer, they understood their offense in escaping him to be much more serious than the mere charge of exceeding a speed limit would be. once fred suggested that it would have been better to have submitted to the arrest and paid their fine, that they might have proceeded on without fear of further molestation; but to this there came from gaines so violent an eruption, in answer, that he pursued the subject no further. very well did fred know, however, that at any point along the road, at any spot, whether they might be in queensville or at the races, at any time of night or day, the charge "fugitives from justice," might have to be faced. perfectly well did pickton, also, understand this to be the very unpleasant situation, though he grew boldly confident such complications would not arise as sagersgrove fell farther and farther to the rear. and on the whole it was extremely fortunate for the trio that eli gouger was far from being a regularly constituted officer of the law. it certainly would have been an immense relief to the inner consciences of perth and pickton had they known this. perhaps it was because soapy was too positively stupid to comprehend the situation fully that, except for the ridiculous part he had played in the affair, he would have considered the escape from the barn as a particularly bright and clever piece of work. as nearly as the three boys could learn, they were within fifty miles of queensville when lights began appearing in the windows of the few houses they passed, as twilight overtook them. "got to find beds sooner or later and why not in the first good camping place?" pickton suggested. "cost less here than in town, even if we reached there all right." "yes! see if you can't find a bloomin', thorny hedge and both of you jump into it," came from gaines, explosively. "'and when he saw his eyes were out, with all his might and main he jumped into the bramble bush and scratched 'em in again,'" quoted pickton with a laugh. for an hour he had been trying in vain to rally soapy into a better humor. but that young gentleman making no response to this pleasant sally, tom turned to fred, on the rumble seat, saying: "you try to get some eggs and ham and bread, or whatever you can at the next house we come to and we'll go into camp right off. blamed pity, though, we didn't make queensville." "blamed pity we didn't get bacon and dried beef--any old thing--at that last cross-roads store, as i wanted to," was the answer. "i don't relish walking into strange yards and nobody knows how many dogs ready to take your leg off, any better than you do. and after dark, too!" nevertheless fred did consent to try for provisions at the next dwelling and succeeded in buying a loaf of heavy, dark bread, a chunk of salt pork and a two-quart measure of potatoes. moreover, the man of the house, a great, swarthy, black-bearded fellow, returned with him, volunteering to show the way to a suitable camping place. pickton was far from favorably impressed by the looks of the man or with his deep, gruff voice. gaines was plainly frightened. however, fred seemed to have become quite well acquainted with the stranger at once and the two talked and walked together, as the man led the way forward. pickton drove up slowly, behind, and in a little while crossed a small bridge spanning what appeared to be a nearly dry water course. but just beyond this the party was conducted over another bridge, a small affair of light timbers, erected over the wide, deep gutter at the roadside. the heavy car caused the flimsy structure to sag threateningly, and remembering the predicament following mr. gouger's leadership, pick liked less and less the piloting of the black-bearded stranger. it was now entirely dark. the car's headlights showed no road ahead--only the closely-cropped grass of a pasture with here and there clumps of brush and weeds. it was a wild enough appearing place, indeed, to have caused older men than these lads to look askance before proceeding further. "right ahead here, bub! it's only a shortish piece," the stranger called. there was nothing for it but to follow or name a reason for not doing so. tom allowed the machine to creep forward, though gaines whispered, "we'll be murdered and robbed, that's what we'll be!" it was a real relief to both when perth's voice came back through the darkness a few seconds later, "come on up with the car. here we are, and it's first-class." almost immediately the headlights shone upon an open space under some chestnut trees. it was at the foot of a steep rise of ground. here the small stream crossing the road, just below, formed a deep, narrow pool, clear and cool. fallen limbs and branches of a giant chestnut long since dead and now dry as tinder, lay here and there, affording the finest sort of firewood. the short, velvety grass beneath the thick foliage of the living trees was like a lawn and in all respects the conditions presented a splendid camp location. "ye'll want a fire the first thing," the black-bearded fellow said, and at once collected an armful of the dry wood. "now ye can peel yer taters an' cook 'em like a ding-dang. fry yer pork, too! got a skillet?" said he, as the bright blaze he started flamed up. and upon being assured that everything needful was at hand, the stranger bade the party good-night and strode away. a minute later his heavy foot-falls upon the light wooden bridge over the ditch were heard. and although by this time the boys were inclined to believe he meant them nothing but kindness, it was a relief to have him out of sight and hearing. late as it was, fred proposed a hearty supper. all were hungry and gaines and pickton found the suggestion quite agreeable, the latter making the reservation, however, that he'd "be blamed" if he was going to wash any dishes afterward. the remark was quite like soapy, all through. also, much as he sniffed and, in fred's language, "turned up his nose" at the salt pork, he ate heartily, not to say greedily, of that fare, though the meat and potatoes were scarcely more than half cooked. whatever other faults he may have had, pickton never objected to doing a fair share of work. he fell to at the dish washing while perth opened up blankets for the night. the campfire was very cheerful, though the gasoline stove of their outfit had been found more convenient for cooking, for all three lads lacked a broad camping experience. so more wood was brought to keep the fire blazing, and in all the odd chores performed, necessary or otherwise, the sum total of mr. soapy games' contribution to the labor was the opening of his own suit case to find a clean shirt he wished to put on in the morning. although their supper and a vigorous washing of dusty, dirty hands and faces (which, quite contrary to precedent, followed rather than preceded their repast), had made each member of the trio more optimistic than they had lately been, they still felt apprehensive concerning the swarthy giant of a fellow on whose land they were. fred insisted that he meant only kindness, but when asked why the man should want to be more than decently civil to utter strangers, he could only answer, "good samaritan!" all night long pickton scarcely slept, so doubtful of mr. blackbeard's seemingly good intentions was he. gaines had merely said, "well, you fellows have got to keep your eyes open. i sleep sound as a bat and would never wake up no matter what happened." then he had growled a great deal about the quality of his bed until at last he was snoring tremendously. perth's confidence in the "good samaritan" gave him a sense of real security and he dozed off quickly. and in the meantime mr. blackbeard himself had returned to his homely, unpainted house and sat himself down with mrs. blackbeard on the kitchen doorstep. "likely young fellers," said he. "might have asked 'em into the house but they'd probably rather sleep out. beat's all where some folks get all the money, lizzie!" his tone was one of wonder, rather than complaint. "here's them snips of young shavers tearin' over the country havin' a good time while you,--you that's worth a hay-rack load of 'em, ain't got a fairly good go-to-meetin' gingham dress, an' won't have till we sell the wheat that ain't hardly mor'n headed out yet. beat's all, don't it?" "well, well, it's all right, john! everybody has their good times, accordin' to their different ways an' means," the woman answered simply. "we have ours an' plenty enough to be thankful for, every day of our lives." the whole of which goes to show that for every eli gouger in the world there is somewhere a true and honest, manly man bringing the general average up. also, that big, generous hearts are often found in rough exteriors, and some of earth's truest nobility dwelling in obscure places. but-"gee whiz! this is another day!" exclaimed freddy perth, several hours later, sitting up suddenly to find the sunlight filtering in through the chestnut branches. and, quite remarkable as he seemed to think it, it was. chapter xii discovered it was sunday morning in camp golden. the name had been bestowed by paul, always fond of the high-sounding or romantic. and although david, with customary pessimism, proposed that the broad, shelving ledge be called "camp golden--it's-barely-possible" instead, jones' suggestion was accepted; partly because no one cared, in particular; partly because his name possessed euphony, if not positive significance. anyway, sunday morning it was and breakfast of coffee, corn cakes and bacon, with strawberries after, rather than before the principal part of the meal, was just over. the auto boys, in various attitudes of ease, made no immediate haste to clear away the dishes. paul jones sat on a cushion on the ground, with legs crossed like a tailor on his bench. billy made himself comfortable, on a convenient box, both hands clasped around an up-turned knee--a favorite attitude of his,--while phil and dave in equally unconventional positions occupied camp stools. their places were at opposite sides of an old-time trunk which, turned half over, served as a table. newspapers--quickly disposed of in the fire when soiled,--no need to _wash them_--did duty as a tablecloth. it was a cheerful, pleasant scene, there amid the shade and sunshine and green leaves. a low tent was erected with its back to the rocky cliff at the rear of the ledge. here were accommodated two beds of hemlock twigs spread upon the ground and covered with blankets, also a box which, in addition to holding wearing apparel and the like, served as a kind of center table. its lid was pretty well littered with an assortment of young gentlemen's belongings this morning--an odd mixture of neckties, collars, socks, clothes-brush, shoe brush, a revolver, fishing tackle, a hatchet and a bottle of olives. larger items of wearing apparel hung on a line along the tent's rear wall. in the shallow cave shelves formed by building up broad, flat stones like a series of steps, accommodated sundry tinware, dishes and canned provisions. a perfect cooling system, made by diverting a part of the water from the spring to a small excavation in the gravelly floor of the cave, afforded proper storage for a crock of butter and a pitcher of milk set down in the little pool. here, also, a bucket of other provisions of a perishable nature was similarly disposed. not even the famous spring-houses of early days could have been more serviceable or delightful. the campfire was placed not quite in front of the tent, as the custom is if prevailing winds do not blow the smoke in, but quite to one side. it was the width of the ledge, rather than the winds, however, which in this instance made desirable the location chosen. it would not do for chef billy to have to work at the extreme edge of the declivity that broke sharply down to the valley below--the "jumping off place," jones called it. the improvised table was almost directly in front of the tent, but slightly toward the right, the fire being on the left. still further to the right was a rough shelter for the car made of poles with a tarpaulin and sundry green branches spread over them. here were stored, likewise, a couple of axes--brought all the way from the retreat in gleason's ravine--and numerous other tools, spades and a pickaxe included. "and now we're so comfortably settled, the pity is it's sunday, and--" "and we told the folks we'd keep track of the days of the week, and they sort of took it for granted from that that we'd observe the seventh," broke in phil way, finishing the sentence billy worth began. "pretty good day to write some letters home, for one thing. and those other matters you may have in mind, such as certain things that have been in the woods, all undisturbed for a good many years, will probably keep till to-morrow." "if there had just been a text announced we'd have had a regular sermon already," quoth paul jones, with that inimitable grin that made his plain, freckled face delightfully attractive. "why, if a text is all you want, i'll give you one," spoke way instantly. "it isn't from the bible but is a good text, anyway. 'to thine own self be true.' it means just this: that we should not, away off here in the wilderness, and no fellow should when away by himself anywhere, be any less decent and respectable than he would be where everybody knows all that is going on. it means enough more than this, but the point for us is that it is just as much sunday here as it is at home. we'll be civilized." "well, that is a sure-enough sermon and a pretty good one, too," said maclester, quite soberly. "we'll sing something, and it will be the same as going to church, almost." dave liked singing at any time, it may be remarked parenthetically, and his bass and paul's tenor did make the vocal efforts of the quartette very pleasing. so now they sang "america," "lead, kindly light," "the old oaken bucket," "onward, christian soldiers," and "tenting on the old camp ground." and although it must be admitted that their selections were of wide variety, they were all full of the spirit of love, thanksgiving and kindness and certainly not the slightest irreverence was intended if any there was. "no, sir! we'll sing no more till the dishes are washed and the camp, to say nothing of ourselves, put in some kind of order," announced billy worth in answer to dave's, "what else do we all know?" he began a rapid collection of the tin plates, cups and the like, but suddenly paused. "automobile!" cried paul at the same instant. all four boys rushed to an extreme point of the ledge, which commanded a partial view of the public road. again the horn of a car sounded and they were just in time to see a heavy roadster, laden with traps and baggage and three lads of their own age as passengers, sweep over the bridge and, more slowly, up the stiff rise beyond. "pickton and gaines and perth!" cried worth in astonishment. "and--" "what do you know about that?" demanded mr. paul jones in similar tones; and again he said, "what _do_ you know about that?"--not, apparently, because he had reason to suppose that any of his friends had information pertaining especially to the chosen trio, or even because he expected to gain intelligence of any description. perhaps he really looked for no answer to his inquiry. (in which case it would be difficult to say just why he made it.) at any rate he received none. "well, sir, i never thought they'd have the gumption to carry out their scheme of following after us," was phil's comment. "if they only knew how close they were just a minute ago!" "wouldn't make much difference," observed maclester, dryly. "they'll locate us now, but if we keep our wits about us they won't locate anything else." "nothing of the kind!" worth ejaculated. "their hustling by so fast is good enough evidence that they think we are still on ahead somewhere. they'll never think of this woods, but likely only of the races." "sure thing!" put in paul jones, in his very positive, opinionated way. "nothing to it but keep out of their sight. they'll go clear through to queensville, likely. in three days more the whole county around the race course will be alive with strange automobiles. they'll never get a line on us if we keep out of sight. simply means we've got to watch them some, though, so's to be sure _they_ aren't watching _us_." "maybe we _had_ better look into what they're doing," phil acquiesced and all heartily agreed. the fun of the situation, a hide-and-seek game in automobiles with the whole vicinity of the gold cup race course--a stretch of territory twenty-five miles in length and as many broad--as the grounds of action, appealed instantly to each one. the best part of it, too, was that the chosen trio were "it"--the ones who must do the searching. the desirable side of the game, as the ones who were hunted, had fallen to the auto boys. believing as they did, that their hiding place was reasonably secure against discovery, too, and there being never a rule of play to require them to call out or give any sort of clue to their whereabouts, the prospect became all the more interesting to the lads as they talked it over. one thing of which all four boys assured one another was that they had too much at stake to incur any sort of risk of their camp being found. also, they were agreed, there must be no underestimating of the resourcefulness and cunning of the trio. it was really surprising that the latter had succeeded so well thus far in finding the route the thirty traversed. their evident perseverance in doing so was, as well, ample indication of their serious intention to do all they threatened--find out the meaning of the mysterious expedition and play mischief with that undertaking generally. all day saturday the auto boys had spent in erecting their permanent camp and in establishing connections for such part of their food supply as they could best obtain from some farm. the latter had not been easily accomplished. there was little cultivated land in the immediate neighborhood of the great woods. the nearest farmhouse was a half-mile away and the next one an equal distance beyond. unluckily, too, it had been found necessary to go to the second of the farms in order to obtain milk. it would mean a two-mile tramp each morning, there and back. either this or a trip in the car, and on account of the rough ground between the camp and the public road, the latter method was hardly desirable, as a daily practice. aside from this inconvenience the young campers were highly pleased with their location. they had yet to make arrangements for sending and receiving mail, but this they had planned to do on sunday afternoon. their letters home having been written, the most convenient grocery or other source of general supplies discovered, and all the odd tasks incident to getting settled cleared away, they would be ready on monday morning, they planned, to begin the long contemplated attack upon the secrets of the great, silent woods. but now had come the unexpected arrival of messrs. gaines, pickton and perth much nearer these scenes than any of the four friends had supposed they ever would be. it might make an entire revision of the program necessary. "as to that same, we shall see," said billy worth, looking up from the letter writing on which, barring numerous interruptions, all were engaged. "how d'ye spell 'barnacles'?" demanded paul jones, insistently, the same moment. "huh! barnacles! i'll bet that's the trio," laughed billy. "lot jones knows about barnacles," sniffed maclester. "that so? listen to my letter: 'the insectivorous barnacles on the face of nature'--meaning gaines and his bunch, of course--'them would-be cutaneous young billy goats'--meaning gaines and the rest again--'have hurled their preposterous physiognomy unfrequented and unbid into this locality.'" a merry laugh greeted paul's conclusion and he grinned his own delight with himself. "still, i bet he don't know what a barnacle is," persisted dave with good-natured derision. "why, you certain species of shell fish! what do you mean by your insolence?" demanded jones, with mock dignity. "barnacles--from the latin word 'barn,' meaning a kind of stable, and the greek word 'culls,' meaning an inferior kind of anything. together, then, barnacles--an inferior kind of stable, a--a pig sty, say? so there you have it; but you might have let it go without forcing me to use such a low word as 'pigs' in the presence of gentlemen, just to make myself clear in your laborious mental processes." phil and billy laughed at this sally but went on with their writing. dave must give one return shot, and it was: "jones, if words were water, you'd have been drowned long ago. the way you flounder around in 'em makes me think of a tumble bug climbing upstairs backwards." paul responded only with a solemn "pooh! pooh!" as if he could not take time to notice seriously any such childish prattle. and while it must be admitted that there was nothing at all brilliant or elevating in the exchange of youthful repartee that had taken place, who shall say that both did not profit by it? they had made each his thrust and parry and, give or take, without a thought of losing temper. they had had a few seconds' practice in quick thinking, which is always desirable. the whole difference between a brain of snap and vim and one both slow and dull, is likely to lie in practice in rapid, accurate work, or the lack of such training, rather than in an original difference in capacity. yet it must not be supposed that even paul and dave were constantly in an offensive and defensive attitude toward one another. that would never have done at all. sooner or later such a manner would have become irritating. the tongue whose words are too frequently sharp, or by constant habit, other than kind and considerate, will make trouble inevitably. by themselves jones and maclester rarely indulged in such exchange as that of this morning. the fun of it was lacking when phil and billy were not by to serve as an audience. alone together, the two were harmonious as could be. they were much more apt to differ at other times. an instance when they did not, however, occurred directly after the verbal contest lately recorded. "we will make a run to queensville, get a light lunch there and have dinner in camp to-night," remarked chef billy, sealing the letter he had written. he brought his fist down with a whack upon the envelope, not for sake of emphasis but to make sure of the flap being fast. "aw, bill! i'm most starved _now_!" protested paul. "here, too!" maclester urged. "something in this air seems to make a fellow want to eat all the time." "well, the point is, we've got to be starting. it's nearly noon," worth answered. "yes, that's so," phil way agreed. "maybe we better have an egg sandwich or something like that, all around, and it will do for now." "sure!" chirped jones, emphatically. "stuff will only spoil if we don't eat it up." "risk anything spoiling around here," was billy's earnest comment; but he ordered that frying-pan and eggs be brought him forthwith, while he proceeded to rake together the remnants of the fire. the route to queensville was, for the first part, straight ahead upon the road bordering the ship woods. six miles distant, westerly, this road effected a junction with a thoroughfare running to north and south. distant a mile or two, in the former direction, was the direct road to queensville. this and the north and south road were both a part of the twenty-six-mile race circuit. it was easy to locate the road to queensville once gilroy, with its one general store, half dozen straggling dwellings, a church, a school and blacksmith shop, was reached, for numerous automobiles were traversing the course of the races in both directions. and how the auto boys scanned every car! and what a collection of machines it was!--runabouts, roadsters and nondescript contrivances, the identity of the manufacturers of which even billy worth could not determine. some had been rebuilt in one way, some another and some were of strictly home production. but among all the cars, fine and otherwise, the lumbering black and gray roadster mr. soapy gaines called his own, was not seen. in a quiet side street of queensville the four friends left the thirty. they were but a few steps from the main thoroughfare upon which the business section was situated, and directly before them, as they turned into the street was a sign: "alameda headquarters." "here's one of the likely cars, now," exclaimed phil. "jim wilder, cousin of our mr. wilder at home, drives her and he's great, they say!" he would have added: "let's see what they're doing," but already billy, dave and paul had hastened forward, bent on that very mission. as the lads approached, the crowd about the entrance to the building surged suddenly away and, waving his hand to all to stand back, a man in overalls and jumper pulled the heavy door about and it swung shut with a bang. the curious ones thus barred from further view of what was within--the racing car and drivers, probably--formed an assemblage so dense that those nearest the door were not visible to the auto boys, at the edge of the gathering. but immediately the people began dispersing. a minute later, through the thinning ranks, paul jones suddenly discovered the chosen trio. he had just time to whisper and, with his friends, slip back of a group near the curbing when gaines, pickton and perth passed at the inner side of the walk. there appeared no room to doubt the trio would go straight forward and, when they were fairly beyond the crowd, billy and phil, still watching them, stepped back into the open to get a better view. the movement was unfortunate. freddy perth chanced to turn and his eyes rested at once upon the lads. with a gay laugh he caught the hands of pickton and gaines, wheeling them around. pointing with his thumb, his arm half outstretched: "how do you _do-o-o_?" he called triumphantly to the crestfallen way and worth. "hello!" phil responded with a frown, but looking about as if to see how billy was bearing up, he was astonished to find himself alone. chapter xiii around the gold cup circuit phil's "hello!" was none too cordial, but glad under any circumstances to meet someone from home, and quite overjoyed to show the auto boys that the chosen trio were on the spot, perth was hastening forward. again way looked anxiously in all directions, trying vainly to learn whence his friends had so mysteriously fled. no sight or sound of them could he discover. "got your car running again sooner'n you expected, didn't you?" grinned freddy, coming close up. "when did you get in?" "not sooner than _we_ expected--sooner than _you_ expected, wasn't it?" responded phil. "haven't been here long. you came in this morning." "how'd you know?" perth demanded with a searching look. "bird told me," phil smiled. "where you staying?" "ask the bird that, too!" grinned freddy. "well, see you later. be here for the races, i take it," way laughed, not at all put out by perth's adroit reply to his own question. with a little wave of the hand he walked quickly away; but a glance over his shoulder a minute later assured him that perth, gaines and pickton were following not far behind. the latter two had loitered in the background while the conversation with fred was taking place. if phil was astonished to find himself so unexpectedly alone, it was apparent that the trio were scarcely less so. perth was certain he had seen billy worth at the same moment he had first seen way. what had become of billy and where were dave and paul? phil, himself, would have given something at this particular moment to have been able to answer these questions. meanwhile it was obvious his first task was to escape from the three who followed. where was gaines' roadster? if he could lead the trio far enough from their car that they would not have that means of pursuit, it might be that billy and the rest would come along in the thirty, pick him up and thus enable all to make their escape quite readily. acting on this thought, phil turned into the first residence street intersecting main, the business thoroughfare. even now he was but a few blocks distant from where the thirty had been left. surely, he reasoned, some one of his friends would be watching the direction he took. one of them would manage, some way, to get into communication with him, even if they did not come dashing up with the machine and effect his rescue. was it an instance of telepathy--the action of billy's mind, or paul's or dave's or of all three, upon phil way's--that caused the latter to think of a sudden, rapid dash in the car, after the trio had been led a safe distance from their own machine, as a likely means of escaping them? such a thing is not impossible. it is not, indeed, improbable. and yet, although stranger instances of thought transference have been fully proved, it may have been after all only a coincidence that the plan that came into phil's mind was exactly the one billy worth suggested to paul and david and which they prepared to put into execution. very luckily had worth made a dive into the crowd the moment he found himself and phil observed by freddy perth. thinking way followed, he called with a quick gasp to maclester and jones and darted into an open stairway. quickly as they could the three ran up the steps into a narrow hall on the second floor. a window was open toward the street and worth was not long in discovering how to put it to good use. in dismay he saw, with paul and dave peeping out over his shoulder, that phil had fallen fairly into the enemy's hands. he could not hear the words exchanged with perth, but realized how mystified way was as he waved his hand and walked away. "of course they'll follow. won't let him get out of their sight!" ejaculated billy. "we've got to make a grand rush in the machine and get phil away from them before they know what's happened." "just let him lead them quite a stretch away. gaines' car is probably right near here," paul put in, eagerly. the suggestion was adopted. then jones volunteered to keep way and the enemy both in sight while billy and dave brought the thirty up. ten minutes later there was a sudden blast of a flying automobile's horn in one of queensville's quiet streets. in another instant the car had slackened speed and a young man rushed from the sidewalk and climbed aboard. like a flash the machine sped forward again, followed by a series of angry, disappointed yells from three other youths who also dashed out from the sidewalk as if they had thought of going along. a good many people observing the rather mysterious performance, as they sat upon their lawns and porches, or strolled on the street, were decidedly at a loss to know what to make of it all. "oh, i guess we're no wizards at all! no, nothing like that! no wizards about us! not at all!" chuckled paul jones in a perfect rapture of delight. "no, we're no _wizards_!" and although philip, william and david expressed themselves in somewhat different language, it was apparent that they, too, entertained pretty much the same opinion as the highly elated mr. jones with regard to their being "no wizards, at all," whatever that may signify. yet now that the chosen trio had been again outwitted and again left behind, temporarily at least, there remained the problem of keeping well beyond their sight and reach. to do this and to do it without permitting those persistent young gentlemen to bar the thirty from entering the limits of queensville was no small undertaking. the town was of only a few thousand population, and even now when filled with strangers and with strange automobiles from the larger cities near by, it was apparent that at any moment the four friends appeared on the principal streets they might expect to meet the very persons they most wished to avoid. maclester emphatically declared himself in favor of letting the trio "go hang." if they "wanted to tag along clear to the ship woods," he did not care. they'd have principally their trouble for their pains. all they might discover as to the object of the expedition and the camp in that out-of-the-way place, would not, according to young mr. maclester's way of stating it, "make 'em wise enough to hurt 'em." whatever the reports they carried back to lannington, no one would give them much credence anyway, he declared. but phil way sturdily opposed any such surrender. the original determination to keep the real purpose of this long journey a secret could not be abandoned now, he argued, without a practical admission that gaines and his followers had been too clever for them. billy and paul stood resolutely with way. meanwhile the thirty had been traversing one dusty, unpaved street after another in the town's outskirts. "they'll never be expecting to see us again to-day. let's go back down town. if we keep our eyes open, we'll see them first, and that's all that's necessary," proposed worth; and, being himself at the wheel, he turned the car toward the business district. from no source came an objection. in ten minutes the machine was again standing just where it had been left before. quite contrary to the expectations of the boys, also, they saw nothing whatever of the trio, though they spent an hour looking about the little city and observing the hundreds of visitors. some had come, it appeared, simply for the day, to see the preparations for the great road races. many were present because of a direct interest in the contests in one way or another and would remain until all was over. racing drivers and the builders of their cars, automobile salesmen, tire men, newspaper men from many cities--motoring enthusiasts of a score of sorts and a hundred degrees of significance, from the young fellow who expected to own a runabout some day to the engineer who designed and would drive the most popular machine in the heavy car race--they were on the streets, in the hotels, thronging everywhere. on barns, fences, trees, posts--anything that offered a chance to drive a nail, were signs, banners and all sorts of advertising matter. one might find himself informed on one post that he must use "heapa" oil or be miserable for life. the very next post would tell him if he did not use "slickem" oil he'd be sorry forever. and as the really quite conflicting announcements, admonitions, claims and assertions were in great variety and multiplied many times by their frequent repetition, any gentleman who might have set out to be guided by them would surely have had a serious time of it and have landed in a padded cell somewhere, sooner or later, undoubtedly. in addition to the cosmopolitan character of the crowds--to say nothing of the diversity of the advertising posters and signs--were the town's decorations of flags and bunting everywhere. then a band played on the steps of the court house, in the heart of the little city, and the music, the chugging of engines, the confusion and excitement, the very odors--for where is the real motoring enthusiast who dislikes the smell of diffused gasoline fumes?--made a deep impression upon the auto boys. it is very much to be feared, indeed, that they started for camp golden at last much more intent upon seeing the races the following saturday than upon delving into the secrets of the ship woods the following morning. by taking the longer route, followed by the race course, around to gilroy, in going home, the four friends finished a complete circuit of the roads chosen for the stock car contest. in going to queensville, it will be remembered, they turned due north and later almost directly west upon reaching the course, directly in front of the gilroy post-office. from queensville they ran almost directly south, thence east, northeast and north to gilroy again. the geographical situations of camp golden, gilroy and queensville the reader should have well in mind. let him imagine a series of country roads forming a great, irregularly-shaped dipper. the handle is the road passing the ship woods. where the handle joins the dipper itself, six miles west of the auto boys' camp, is gilroy, a crude little country hamlet--no more. the rim of the dipper represents the roads making up the racing circuit. nearly half way around, to the right, that is, north, thence west from gilroy, is queensville--twelve miles distant. continuing on around the rim is the little town of chester, three miles beyond queensville. the "ambulance station,"--a desperately sharp curve--marks the turn of the course to the east again, two miles further on. then the edge of the dipper becomes very irregular as the road winds in and out through a wooded country, until at far creek sawmill it strikes off due north. four miles ahead is gilroy again, which hamlet, by this way around, is fourteen miles from queensville. much work had been done on the roads comprising the racing circuit to put them in condition, and as phil way remarked, on the homeward trip this sunday afternoon, "there was certainly going to be some excitement." yet little he guessed how much more than excitement, merely, was in store for himself and his friends. "i'll bet there _is_," quoth billy worth, answering way's remark. "it'll be some exciting, for instance, about the time we meet gaines' roadster somewhere around the track. that very choice trio will be out every day, more or less, and whether we go one way or the other, it will be pure luck and nothing else if we don't come face to face with them some time before the races are over." and billy's view of the matter was nothing if not plausible. there was no way of reaching queensville from the camp without following the course of the proposed races. there was no cross road leading even in the direction of that town. by a very long detour the result named might possibly be accomplished, it was true, but it would be like going from new york to philadelphia by way of albany and harrisburg. this sunday afternoon it was most fortunate for the auto boys that they chose to complete the circuit the races would follow, when leaving queensville for camp golden. had they gone the other way a meeting with the trio would have been certain, for that select company of young gentlemen spent several hours on the opposite side of the course vainly watching. guided only by the direction the thirty had taken after the rescue of phil way, gaines and his associates had set out in pursuit as rapidly as possible. until dark they haunted the road to the north and east. their utter lack of success was quite annoying. in fact, mr. soapy gaines became so irritated that his company could scarcely be called enchanting; unless, indeed, one were possessed of the peculiarity of enjoying being called a "crazy snapping turtle" and other like names, not well chosen, at least, if intended as terms of endearment. but as to soapy's ruffled temper and conduct generally there will be opportunity for observation later. at this moment attention should return more directly to the auto boys. "if we hadn't spent a whole half-day chasing around queensville and back again, we might have had a good walk in the woods and maybe we would have found those three stones," growled dave maclester, toasting his hands over the campfire, for the evening had come on quite cold. "never mind, little one, never mind! you'll feel better after you've had your supper. your poor, 'ittle tummy wants something. you'll feel better pretty soon." this language in a soft, fatherly tone from paul jones caused a smile. even david smiled, too, for directly afterward chef billy announced the evening meal. it was a pleasant thing to sit before the glowing fire, enjoying toasted crackers and toasted cheese after the major portion of the supper--baked beans, baked potatoes and bacon, and coffee, of course--was over. it was a pleasant thing to creep under the blankets in the tent, luxuriously tired, an hour and a half later. most exquisitely pleasant was it, also, to lie snug and comfortable listening to the tinkle of the little spring where the water flowed over the miniature cataract leading to the cleverly devised cooling system, and so to fall asleep at last. chapter xiv at the clarion racing camp the arrival of the chosen trio in queensville did not occasion the excitement in that small city that at least mr. gaines had anticipated. possibly there would have been a more noticeable interest had it not been that strangers and strange cars had already become, on account of the numbers present for the races, a drug on the market. queensville people had grown quickly accustomed to the presence of visitors. beyond a passing glance the lumbering roadster and its passengers received little notice, therefore. soapy had counted so much upon the demonstration of lively interest the arrival of himself, his car and pickton and perth--whom he regarded as a kind of body-guard--would occasion that to attract little or none of such curious attention was a serious blow to his vanity. the fault, mr. gaines in his own mind assured himself, lay in the very ordinary appearance of his friends. he would have to let it be known, he concluded, that he alone was the owner of the roadster and that he, if not those with him, was a person of quite some consequence. it was with difficulty that pickton and perth prevailed upon gaines to do as they had originally agreed and look for quarters where they could prepare most of their own meals and so incur no considerable expense. this accomplished, they quite readily found a really desirable place of the character desired. it was a vacant, one-story, white cottage. adjoining was a more pretentious house, the owner of both of which dwellings was desirous of taking in what money he might while the influx of strangers was on. for the moderate charge of five dollars for the week he gave the trio the use of the cottage for themselves and permission to run their car into a shed in the rear of his own residence. the three lads might have been very comfortable--might have fared well in all respects, in the situation presented, had soapy been the least bit favorably disposed toward "roughing it." with the gasoline camp stove for their cooking, ample bedding, and water and similar accommodations already in the cottage and at their disposal--why, under the same conditions the auto boys, or any group of really congenial young fellows, would have lived in a delightfully care-free way! but gaines did not like the bare floor and he did not like the absence of such little conveniences as rocking chairs and electric lights. and although mrs. gaston, wife of the owner of the property, and a most pleasant, motherly old lady, sent over a mirror, a lamp, a small table and three kitchen chairs for the accommodation of the boys, to say nothing of a jar of canned peaches and a fresh rhubarb pie, soapy "hoped he wasn't an object of charity just yet awhile." or as mr. freddy perth expressed it, he "simply turned up his long, thin nose at the whole shooting match and acted like a beastly cad." where and how anything remotely similar to a "shooting match" came into the situation may not be exactly clear. no doubt young mr. perth knew just what he was talking about; but at any rate the words quoted, it should be understood, were his own. however, and notwithstanding mr. gaines' constantly expressed dissatisfaction, pick and fred went ahead with the plan to make the white cottage their headquarters for the week of the races. the location was pleasantly convenient. only four blocks distant was the main street and the crown hotel. here many of the racing car owners and drivers were staying and here, also, the committee in charge of the contests had its office. considerably disgusted with the failure again to find the auto boys and out of sorts with himself and everyone else, gaines went alone to the hotel for his supper on sunday night. perth and pickton enjoyed their evening meal just as much without him, it is possible, at the cottage. and though they attempted nothing more intricate in the culinary art than boiling eggs, toasting bread and making coffee, they supplemented this fare with fruit from the stand down on the corner and so managed very well. soapy returned from the hotel to find the cottage uncomfortably cool and fred and tom both in bed--because they were tired and because they were warmer there. he sniffed contemptuously as he prepared to follow their example. growing still more sulky, he requested both his friends to bear in mind who owned the car that brought them there. even after he was in bed, gaines felt moved to declare that he didn't care where the auto boys were or were not. he meant, he said, to enjoy the races. he wanted to hear the hotel discussions, see the practice work and all things incident to the contests. so far as he was concerned, he at last concluded, "worth and that bunch might run and jump off the edge of the earth if they wanted to." which feat, by the way, had the auto boys known they had mr. gaines' free and complete permission to perform, they would quite likely have been glad to undertake for his especial accommodation, if for no other reason. now, although mr. tom pickton was no better pleased with the temper gaines displayed than was mr. frederick perth, the two did not themselves become the firmer friends. being fellow sufferers from soapy's disagreeable manner, it would have been quite natural that every bond of friendship and sympathy between them should be strengthened. yet quite the contrary was true. pickton more than half believed perth responsible for the fact that gaines had not invited him to supper at the hotel. fred's somewhat inferior clothing, and his general lack of a kind of swaggering style, much affected by soapy himself, made the latter ashamed to associate with him. in this light, at least, pickton viewed the matter. he reasoned that gaines went by himself because to invite one made it necessary that he invite both the others. thinking thus, he wished fervently that fred were some place else. on the other hand, young mr. perth resented in his thoughts, if not in words and actions, a certain secretive manner pickton had shown more and more of late. he resented still further soapy's selfish and snobbish conduct. so all in all, harmony and good-fellowship among the chosen trio's members, never strong, never founded on the deep, mutual love and respect that is the basis of all true friendship, was in a fair way to disappear entirely. monday morning presented little change in the chilly atmosphere of the white cottage. soapy remained in bed until perth called him to breakfast--again toast, eggs and coffee. meanwhile pickton had brought the roadster around to the street in front, and after the morning repast suggested a trip over the course. as gaines and fred both liked this proposal, the feelings of all three toward one another became, for the time, more pleasant. earnest, serious practice by the racing drivers began this monday morning and from four to ten o'clock the roads were closed against all others. the trio ran down in the roadster to the banked curve just south of queensville to watch the work of the different cars and men. it was at this point that the main grandstand was to be. work on the structure, rising in successive tiers of seats in rows hundreds of feet in length, was now nearly completed. no charge for admission would be made before the day of the races and from boxes for each of which, for the one big day, the price would be fifty dollars, the three lads viewed the coming and going of the machines and their crews. a large, red car, stripped to the chassis, save for the hood, the low seats and fuel tank back of them, made the most consistent record of the morning. repeatedly its driver covered the circuit at fifty-five mile speed and did not exceed a minute's difference in time between one lap and another. this machine was the _clarion_; kemper, driver, and allstop, mechanician. it was a popular car and a favorite crew. gossip at the crown hotel was partial to kemper and the _clarion_ as winners in the heavy car race. a long, low, gray car with black lines--and known as the _hare_, was another of the "sure" winners, according to the forecast of those whose wisdom was aired each day and night wherever crowds congregated in queensville. the identity of the _hare's_ driver was the subject of almost unceasing discussion. when out on the course or wherever he might be seen, he wore invariably a head-dress that covered his face completely. none could recognize him. on the entry list his name appeared as "i. s. mystery"--nothing more, and it is scarcely necessary to add that a mystery he was. cobert, his mechanician, was also unknown. he wore no mask. his head-rigging left his face open to close scrutiny; but he was silent always. he worked with mr. "mystery" as if they read continuously each the thoughts of the other and had no need of any other language. the _hare_, as a car, was known quite well enough. the manufacturers were among the most prominent in america. as a factor in the heavy car race, the machine was considered very important, as has been stated. so much, however, depends upon the skill, experience and daring of the driver in any such contest, that many and many a man would have given a great deal to know who "mystery" was, and where he and cobert had acquired their apparently perfect training. six other cars, including the alameda, two brights, a henry and two wings completed the field for the big race. the light car contest was but a minor affair and attracted little notice. of the six machines just mentioned, the henry was looked upon as a bare possibility. the brights were not rated highly, though one of them, with crane--a long-experienced driver--as pilot, was counted upon as an interesting "dark horse." the wings were the product of unknown builders. one of the wags at the crown hotel remarked that "the _pair_ of them might fly _some_, but not very far at that." the alameda was not considered at all formidably, either, being practically unknown. all the gossip concerning the different contestants he had heard about the hotel gaines repeated as being strictly first-hand intelligence, or quite as if every word were a matter of his own personal knowledge, as the trio watched the monday morning practice. very well did fred and pickton know where he had heard all he told them. that they secretly resented his manner of superiority there can be no doubt; but their interest in obtaining information was too lively to permit of their failing to listen, and attentively. by ten o'clock, all the racing cars had been taken home to their respective stations, some in queensville and some to headquarters established in camps at convenient points adjacent to the course. with the way now open to them, the trio started in the roadster for a trip around the circuit, pickton at the wheel. "oh, you!" called a voice from one of the tire supply pits directly in front of the grandstand. perth answered, "hello!" "how far you going?" asked the first speaker, a brisk young man in a suit of khaki. "wonder if you'd just as soon take a couple of tubes over to the clarion camp for me?" "sure, mike," said the by no means bashful perth, though why he supposed the name of the young man to be michael--which, in fact, it truly was not--is a problem. but anyhow, "sure, mike!" he said. "their camp is in a little grove just the other side of chester. you'll see a lane leading right back to their tent and a barn they have," the chap in the khaki suit continued. "give 'em these two tubes. they'll know who sent 'em. you're the boys for me, all right!" gaines would have objected to taking the tubes aboard except for the opportunity to see the clarion headquarters. he did not like the way in which perth acted as spokesman. he so informed fred a little later. again he requested him, also, and with some degree of earnestness, to remember whose machine he was "banging around for the accommodation of any tom, dick and harry." perth smoothed matters over as best he could by saying, "oh, gaines, let's be civilized!" but he held the two tire tubes in his own hands. when the camp of the _clarion_ was reached, he carried them personally to the man who appeared to be in charge. with the gentleman who received the tubes perth found it quite easy to become acquainted. he volunteered to assist as the stranger immediately set about the work of inserting one of the new tubes in a tire. the change was being made on a car kept at the camp for general purposes. fred's offer was accepted and he did his work right skillfully. gaines and pickton looked on but gave no assistance. later all three were allowed to watch kemper and allstop making some adjustments on the clarion racer. a proud moment it was, too, when the famous driver nodded to them in a friendly way. "much obliged for those tubes," he said, looking toward fred. "it was one on me that you were asked to fetch them. i intended stopping at the tire control my last time around and forgot it." "don't mention it," said perth. it was odd, but the fact, nevertheless, that this very natural conversation was the source of much irritation to mr. soapy gaines. "that clarion car has no more chance," said he, when the roadster was again underway upon the course--"that clarion car has no more chance of winning than your grandmother. the thing's a heap o' junk and kemper couldn't drive a truck!" "fudge!" snorted perth in an outburst of supreme contempt. "keep our eyes open and we might find way's outfit," suggested pickton, anxious to prevent a clash and even more anxious, if the whole truth were known, to locate the auto boys' camp. strangely enough tom's proposal instantly interested soapy very much. fickle and uncertain always, he now declared that, come what might, he would find where way and the rest were staying and what they were doing in the locality, if it took all day. chapter xv secrets of the woods "wiggle around some! get your blood in circulation, and you'll be warm enough!" ejaculated billy worth, rather forcibly. his remark was aimed at paul jones, fussing and shaking, pretending to be all in a shiver with the cold while he leaned half-dressed over the campfire. "might wiggle a little more wood up here. can't afford to burn up the back-log, just getting breakfast!" billy added. worth had been up and fully dressed a quarter of an hour or more. with phil's help he had the morning meal actively in course of preparation. it was but little later than sunrise. the air was still cool. dave was finishing his hasty toilet in the tent and jones half-heartedly was trying to do the same while crouching as close to the fire as he very well could do without falling in. "great scott, bill!" protested paul in answer to worth's call for firewood. "great scott and also gee whiz! i'll bet i've toted twenty-seven cords of wood into this camp already, and we've been here just two days. i hope if ever you are married your wife will be descended from four generations of railroad firemen and your coal house will be half a mile from where you live! i just do, by ginger!" and although paul's words were decidedly softened by his tone of pretended personal injury and suffering, billy called, "gangway!" in a manner far more peremptory than sympathetic in reply. up he came rushing with the coffee pot and, uncertain whether some of its cold contents might not be intended for his bare shoulders, paul sprang quickly to one side. quite sprightly then, he completed his dressing in almost less time than it takes to say it, and until breakfast was announced gathered and carried up firewood as if he had whole train-loads to collect and only a day in which to do it. on part of all the boys there was the liveliest activity this monday morning. at last and at last, after all their months of planning, after all the preparations and their long journey they were ready to explore the secrets of the vast ship woods. all talk of the automobile races, all thought of the chosen trio's pursuit, thus far so ridiculously fruitless, were forgotten. true, mr. gaines and his loving friends were in queensville; and true, that small city lay almost twenty miles distant. still what do twenty miles count with an automobile at one's disposal? yet even this thought did not more than once occur to the four chums. "three stones piled one upon another to mark the place." once more the auto boys found themselves repeating many times the words which had been the means of bringing them to the great woods. once more they speculated upon the probability of being able, in all this broad expanse of timbered hills and dales, to find that one small spot where years before the marker of stones had been erected. their search, it had been decided long ago, should be pursued systematically. to roam through and through the woods, going at random in this or that direction, would almost certainly result in a complete failure to locate the object of their trip. the danger of becoming hopelessly lost, far in the forest's interior, was still another excellent reason for keeping steadily within lines of march agreed upon before starting. "remember," said billy worth, "that the bark has the most moss on the north side of the trees. remember--" "oh, fiddle, billy! you remember that there'll be the hungriest quartette around here to-night that you ever had to cook for," broke in paul jones. "nobody's going to get lost!" "well, you remember, young fellow, that you're to be back to camp in time to go for milk before supper," cried out dave maclester. there were other parting sallies as dave and billy started out in one direction and phil and paul another. a last admonition from way, that regardless of all else, and no matter what was or was not discovered, all four were to meet in camp again at six o'clock, marked the separation of the two searching parties. yet even these were not the last words spoken. dave maclester just could not resist his customary prediction of ill-luck. "bet a dollar, right now, nobody finds a thing!" he called loudly. but by this time he and worth were high up on the crest of the ridge rising above the camp. phil and paul were some distance away, heading straight up the valley of the stream below. any one chancing to observe the boys as they thus set out would surely have found his curiosity aroused by their accouterment. each party carried an axe and spade. in the hollow of phil way's arm was also a small rifle. billy worth carried in addition to his spade a rather formidable looking revolver. paul jones carried a noonday lunch for himself and phil in a small box slung over his shoulder like a knap-sack. similarly maclester bore refreshment for himself and his partner for the day. "pretty good fun if we _don't_ find anything," dave found himself admitting almost before the echo of his prediction of failure had died away. and was he right? the air was just pleasantly cool. the fragrance of the forest's tender new leaves was everywhere. no sound but the distant cawing of crows, and somewhere to the right the chirp of a squirrel broke the silence save for the rustling leaves underfoot. the very hush of the woods was eloquent with sweet sentiments. the dogwood blossoms seen at intervals, and more frequently the wake-robins and adder's tongues, contributed their touch of beauty to enhance such gentle thoughts and feeling. buoyant and happy, the one eager with expectation, the other less confident but very willing to find himself a poor prophet, the two lads moved steadily, watchfully forward. billy and dave had been assigned to all that part of the forest lying to the north of camp golden and between the edge of the hillside above the creek and a long since abandoned logging road which penetrated deep into the woods a quarter of a mile to the east. it would keep them very busy to cover the ground at all thoroughly before night. "no, this ain't the great woods, though! oh, i guess it's hardly any woods at all! very poor woods! oh, yes! very poor day, too!" with this and other similar declarations, equally dignified and polished, paul jones expressed the delighted state of his mind at about the same time dave was mentioning his own pleasure to worth. phil way acquiesced in all of paul's words, paradoxical as it may appear, for he really denied them. "there never was a grander day; and isn't it a dandy, big woods!" he said. "just makes a man feel like soaring, though never before so conscious of his littleness and downright insignificance. why! the creek! these old trees! they were all here and ages old long before we were on earth! they'll be here long after we are gone, too, paul. but oh! it is fine to be with them--to enjoy them!" the course way and jones were taking was to the north through the valley. between the east bank of the creek and the foot of the hill lay a strip of woods ranging from one hundred to three hundred yards in width. this was to be the field of their searching as they progressed to the extreme northern limits of the forest. returning, they would traverse carefully the broad, sloping hillside, broken here and there by precipitous ledges. so would they reach camp again, and the more open valley near it. "'three stones piled one on top of another!' it will be along the hill, i'm thinking, that we'll finally find them," observed paul thoughtfully to himself. then, impressed by what he considered the importance of this conclusion, he called out the substance of it to phil, for the two were keeping some distance apart in order that the least possible bit of ground should escape their scrutiny. "well, don't forget there's something more than three stones to look for," way answered. "if you find anything that looks interesting, sing out. i'll do the same." it was a valley of romantic interest the two boys were exploring. here the creek foamed and bubbled into "suds" over and around obstructing rocks or driftwood. again it rested in deep, narrow pools. beyond, in gentle ripples the water gained speed again to go tumbling on and on in miniature falls of a thousand different shapes and sizes, where its course was rough and broken. years and years ago the indian knew this valley and its adjacent wooded hills and low plateaus as a favored hunting place. later white hunters and trappers here sought and found wild game,--the deer, the bear, the panther, the wolf, and even the beaver. pioneer settlers followed in their turn. for the latter, however, the country was too broken by rocky ledges and hills. the more level and fertile lands offered greater attractions for their husbandry, so they carried their work of clearing, ploughing and planting elsewhere. for years after the country all about had been quite opened up, wild game continued to be found in the rough region now known as the ship woods. it continued thus to be a hunting place. men traveled many miles to try their skill as sportsmen there, finding pigeons, wild turkeys and smaller game for a great while after the last deer and the last bear were gone. at noon phil and paul came together beside a considerable waterfall of the creek. seated on a great beech tree, partially uprooted by the undermining of the stream and now lying across it, the two ate their lunch. no reward for their searching had yet come to them. through the screen of leaves and low bushes they could see in the distance a farmhouse. it meant that the road bounding the ship woods on the north was very near. "humph! didn't think we _would_ find anything right off," observed paul, philosophically. "but it wouldn't surprise me if we'd have some luck this afternoon." and a minute later, as if fortifying himself against disappointment,--a really wise thing for anyone to do where the element of chance is a factor--"then again," said he, "it wouldn't _surprise_ me if we _didn't_." but although paul had thus plainly stated that he was not to be surprised at any event, the fact remains that he gave a most joyful yell a couple of hours later, in answer to phil's loud signal,--"guess we've found something!" "not the three stones, but something pretty good, though!" way called again, easily, as jones bounded forward. "it's slippery elm! twenty trees if there's one!" "good enough!" paul cried enthusiastically. "wish it had been the other thing but anyhow we wanted slippery elm, too! we haven't failed entirely, have we, phil?" delighted as could be, jones frisked about like a colt while with his axe way trimmed from a tree before him a long strip of bark. then again and again he pulled off shreds of the inner fiber and tasted them. "let me see!" paul demanded. he sank his teeth into the interior surface of a piece of the bark. it was soft and moist and had a peculiarly sweetish taste. in one's mouth it seemed to be melting away and in a smooth, oily manner like butter. "gee! it's slippery, all right!" ejaculated paul, seriously, his lips screwed up like the mouth of a jug, his nose all wrinkled. "no doubt at all about it being slippery elm," replied phil confidently. "only trouble is, it's not the best season for gathering it. ought to be taken in spring when the sap is flowing. the inside of the bark is just the slipperiest thing then you ever saw." "twenty-six cents a pound. i remember the quotation we saw in the paper as if it were only yesterday," observed jones delightedly. "s'pose there must be just hundreds of pounds in the trees right around here, phil. won't weigh so much when it's dry though!" he added, his spirits falling slightly. "only the inner bark is good, but even at that," phil returned with satisfaction, "even at that, we could gather a perfect stack of it in almost no time. won't billy and dave be glad?" carefully noting all surroundings,--the distance from the creek, the bare knob or point on the hill yonder and various other landmarks,--that they might easily find the place again, the two boys in due time continued on. with them they carried extensive samples of their discovery and both watched eagerly for more trees of the same kind while pushing forward. but they did not forget they had other things for which to search. they cautioned each other they must be as painstaking as to this as they had been before. how worth and maclester had been faring meanwhile may be told more briefly, though they were even more fortunate. that part of the woods penetrated by them lay quite dry and high. there was less underbrush than on the lower levels. the saws and axes of the logging crews had scarcely touched this portion of the forest. all was in quite the same wild state as it had been a hundred years before. dave and billy came upon a shack of brush piled over some supporting poles late in the afternoon. some hunter had erected the shelter the preceding winter, perhaps. in any event, with its bed of leaves and abundant shade, it offered a good place to have lunch and to rest. leaving their tools here, then, the boys descended into a valley beyond to find water. there was a small brook there but its bed was quite dry. "good thing we have that bottle of cold coffee," observed billy. "it'll do for now. we'll get water sometime, or--" his sentence was never finished. suddenly his eyes had fallen upon a low, broad-leafed plant. he gazed steadfastly for a few seconds. then dave saw what it was that had so unexpectedly arrested worth's attention and-"ginseng!" he exclaimed. "sure it's ginseng! i've seen the cultivated kind!" "i just happened to catch sight of it! wasn't watching out for anything just then at all!" said billy excitedly. "and here's some more!" cried maclester in similar tones. "here, too,--a lot more! six dollars a pound for it! hurrah for us!" and billy ran for a spade. he wanted to make sure the plants had the forked roots usually characteristic of ginseng. "now, bill worth, don't you go to counting any chickens before they're hatched!" answered dave. "there'll be some drawback, somewhere." it was quite like young mr. maclester to make just such a prediction. yes, david maclester, some drawbacks to be sure, yet without this bed of ginseng never would the joys experienced in "_the auto boys' race_" have been your happy lot. the end. * * * * * rider agents wanted boys and young men everywhere are making good money taking orders for "ranger" bicycles and bicycle tires. you are privileged to select the particular style of ranger bicycle you prefer: motorbike model, "arch-frame," "superbe," "scout," "special," "racer," etc. while you ride and enjoy it in your spare time hours--after school or work, evenings and holidays--your admiring friends can be easily induced to place their orders through you. factory to rider every purchaser of a ranger bicycle (on our factory-direct-to-the-rider sales plan) gets a high-grade fully guaranteed model direct from the factory at wholesale prices, and is privileged to ride it for 30 days before final acceptance. if not satisfied it may be returned at our expense and no charge is made for the use of machine during trial. [illustration: choice of 44 styles colors and sizes in the ranger line] delivered to you free we prepay the delivery charges on every ranger from our factory in chicago to your town and pay the return charges to chicago if you decide not to keep it. easy payments if desired, at a small advance over our special factory-to-rider cash prices. parts for all bicycles in the ranger catalog you will find illustrated bicycle cranks, cups, cones, sprockets and a complete universal repair hanger and repair front forks designed to fit any and every bicycle ever manufactured in america. complete instructions are given so that any boy can intelligently order the parts wanted. you will also find repair parts for all the standard makes of hubs and coaster-brakes and all the latest equipment and novelties. tires at factory prices share with us our savings in trainload tire contracts and the samson, record and hedgethorn tires get the best tire values in america at wholesale factory prices. send no money but write us today for the big ranger book and particulars of our 30 day free trial plan, wholesale prices and terms. [illustration] mead cycle company chicago usa * * * * * summer snow and other fairy plays by grace richardson finding there is a wide demand for plays which commend themselves to amateurs and to casts comprised largely of children, miss richardson, already well and widely known, has here given four plays which are unusually clever and fill this need. they call for but little stage setting, and that of the simplest kind, are suited to presentation the year around, and can be effectively produced by amateurs without difficulty. puck in petticoats by grace richardson five plays about children, for children to play--hansel and gretel, the wishing well, the ring of salt, the moon dream, and puck in petticoats. each is accompanied by stage directions, property plots and other helpful suggestions for acting. some of the plays take but twenty minutes, others as long as an hour to produce, and every one of the five are clever. handy book of plays for girls by dorothy cleather not one of the six sparkling plays between these covers calls for a male character, being designed for the use of casts of girls only. they are easily, effectively staged--just the sort that girls like to play and that enthusiastic audiences heartily enjoy. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations by charles m. russell. see 14334-h.htm or 14334-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/3/3/14334/14334-h/14334-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/3/3/14334/14334-h.zip) the range dwellers by b. m. bower (b. m. sinclair) author of _chip of the flying u_, _the lonesome trail_, _her prairie knight_, _the lure of the dim trails_, _the happy family_, _the long shadow_, etc. illustrated by charles m. russell new york; grosset & dunlap, publishers 1906 [illustration: "she turned her back on me, and went imperturbably on with her sketching." (frontispiece)] contents chapter i. the reward of folly ii. the white divide iii. the quarrel renewed iv. through king's highway v. into the lion's mouth vi. i ask beryl king to dance vii. one day too late viii. a fight and a race for life ix. the old life--and the new x. i shake hands with old man king xi. a cable snaps xii. i begin to realize xiii. we meet once more xiv. frosty disappears xv. the broken motor-car xvi. one more race xvii. the final reckoning chapter i. the reward of folly. i'm something like the old maid you read about--the one who always knows all about babies and just how to bring them up to righteous maturity; i've got a mighty strong conviction that i know heaps that my dad never thought of about the proper training for a healthy male human. i don't suppose i'll ever have a chance to demonstrate my wisdom, but, if i do, there are a few things that won't happen to my boy. if i've got a comfortable wad of my own, the boy shall have his fun without any nagging, so long as he keeps clean and honest. he shall go to any college he may choose--and right here is where my wisdom will sit up and get busy. if i'm fool enough to let that kid have more money than is healthy for him, and if i go to sleep while he's wising up to the art of making it fade away without leaving anything behind to tell the tale, and learning a lot of habits that aren't doing him any good, i won't come down on him with both feet and tell him all the different brands of fool he's been, and mourn because the lord in his mercy laid upon me this burden of an unregenerate son. i shall try and remember that he's the son of his father, and not expect too much of him. it's long odds i shall find points of resemblance a-plenty between us--and the more cussedness he develops, the more i shall see myself in him reflected. i don't mean to be hard on dad. he was always good to me, in his way. he's got more things than a son to look after, and as that son is supposed to have a normal allowance of gray matter and is no physical weakling, he probably took it for granted that the son could look after himself--which the mines and railroads and ranches that represent his millions can't. but it wasn't giving me a square deal. he gave me an allowance and paid my debts besides, and let me amble through school at my own gait--which wasn't exactly slow--and afterward let me go. if i do say it, i had lived a fairly decent sort of life. i belonged to some good clubs--athletic, mostly--and trained regularly, and was called a fair boxer among the amateurs. i could tell to a glass--after a lot of practise--just how much of 'steen different brands i could take without getting foolish, and i could play poker and win once in awhile. i had a steam-yacht and a motor of my own, and it was generally stripped to racing trim. and i wasn't tangled up with any women; actress-worship had never appealed to me. my tastes all went to the sporting side of life and left women to the fellows with less nerve and more sentiment. so i had lived for twenty-five years--just having the best time a fellow with an unlimited resource can have, if he is healthy. it was then, on my twenty-fifth birthday, that i walked into dad's private library with a sonly smile, ready for the good wishes and the check that i was in the habit of getting--i'd been unlucky, and lord knows i needed it!--and what does the dear man do? instead of one check, he handed me a sheaf of them, each stamped in divers places by divers banks. i flipped the ends and looked them over a bit, because i saw that was what he expected of me; but the truth is, checks don't interest me much after they've been messed up with red and green stamps. they're about as enticing as a last year's popular song. dad crossed his legs, matched his finger-tips together, and looked at me over his glasses. many a man knows that attitude and that look, and so many a man has been as uncomfortable as i began to be, and has felt as keen a sense of impending trouble. i began immediately searching my memory for some especial brand of devilment that i'd been sampling, but there was nothing doing. i had been losing some at poker lately, and i'd been away to the bad out at ingleside; still, i looked him innocently in the eye and wondered what was coming. "that last check is worthy of particular attention," he said dryly. "the others are remarkable only for their size and continuity of numbers; but that last one should be framed and hung upon the wall at the foot of your bed, though you would not see it often. i consider it a diploma of your qualification as master jackanapes." (dad's vocabulary, when he is angry, contains some rather strengthy words of the old-fashioned type.) i looked at the check and began to see light. i _had_ been a bit rollicky that time. it wasn't drawn for very much, that check; i've lost more on one jack-pot, many a time, and thought nothing of it. and, though the events leading up to it were a bit rapid and undignified, perhaps, i couldn't see anything to get excited over, as i could see dad plainly was. "for a young man twenty-five years old and with brains enough--supposedly--to keep out of the feeble-minded class, it strikes me you indulge in some damned poor pastimes," went on dad disagreeably. "cracking champagne-bottles in front of the cliff house--on a sunday at that--may be diverting to the bystanders, but it can hardly be called dignified, and i fail to see how it is going to fit a man for any useful business." business? lord! dad never had mentioned a useful business to me before. i felt my eyelids fly up; this was springing birthday surprises with a vengeance. "driving an automobile on forbidden roads, being arrested and fined--on sunday, at that--" "now, look here, dad," i cut in, getting a bit hot under the collar myself, "by all the laws of nature, there must have been a time when _you_ were twenty-five years old and cut a little swath of your own. and, seeing you're as big as your offspring--six-foot-one, and you can't deny it--and fairly husky for a man of your age, i'll bet all you dare that said swath was not of the narrow-gage variety. i've never heard of your teaching a class in any sunday-school, and if you never drove your machine beyond the dead-line and cracked champagne-bottles on the wheels in front of the cliff house, it's because automobiles weren't invented and cliff house wasn't built. begging your pardon, dad--i'll bet you were a pretty rollicky young blade, yourself." now dad is very old-fashioned in some of his notions; one of them is that a parent may hand out a roast that will frizzle the foliage for blocks around, and, guilty or innocent, the son must take it, as he'd take cod-liver oil--it's-nasty-but-good-for-what-ails-you. he snapped his mouth shut, and, being his son and having that habit myself, i recognized the symptoms and judged that things would presently grow interesting. i was betting on a full-house. the atmosphere grew tense. i heard a lot of things in the next five minutes that no one but my dad could say without me trying mighty hard to make him swallow them. and i just sat there and looked at him and took it. i couldn't agree with him that i'd committed a grievous crime. it wasn't much of a lark, as larks go: just an incident at the close of a rather full afternoon. coming around up the beach front ingleside house a few days before, in the _yellow peril_--my machine--we got to badgering each other about doing things not orthodox. at last barney mactague dared me to drive the _yellow peril_ past the dead-line--down by the pavilion--and on up the hill to sutro baths. naturally, i couldn't take a dare like that, and went him one better; i told him i'd not only drive to the very top of the hill, but i'd stop at the gift house and crack a bottle of champagne on each wheel of the _yellow peril,_ in honor of the occasion; that would make a bottle apiece, for there were four of us along. it was done, to the delight of the usual sunday crowd of brides, grooms, tourists, and kids. a mounted policeman interviewed us, to the further delight of the crowd, and invited us to call upon a certain judge whom none of us knew. we did so, and dad was good enough to pay the fine, which, as i said before, was not much. i've had less fun for more money, often. dad didn't say anything at the time, so i was not looking for the roast i was getting. it appeared, from his view-point, that i was about as useless, imbecile, and utterly no-account a son as a man ever had, and if there was anything good in me it was not visible except under a strong magnifying-glass. he said, among other things too painful to mention, that he was getting old--dad is about fifty-six--and that if i didn't buck up and amount to something soon, he didn't know what was to become of the business. then he delivered the knockout blow that he'd been working up to. he was going to see what there was in me, he said. he would pay my bills, and, as a birthday gift, he would present me with a through ticket to osage, in montana--where he owned a ranch called the bay state--and a stock-saddle, spurs, chaps, and a hundred dollars. after that i must work out my own salvation--or the other thing. if i wanted more money inside a year or two, i would have to work for it just as if i were an orphan without a dad who writes checks on demand. he said that there was always something to do on the bay state ranch--which is one of dad's places. i could do as i pleased, he said, but he'd advise me to buckle down and learn something about cattle. it was plain i never would amount to anything in an office. he laid a yard or two of ticket on the table at my elbow, and on top of that a check for one hundred dollars, payable to one ellis carleton. i took up the check and read every word on it twice--not because i needed to; i was playing for time to think. then i twisted it up in a taper, held it to the blaze in the fireplace, and lighted a cigarette with it. dad kept his finger-tips together and watched me without any expression whatsoever in his face. i took three deliberate puffs, picked up the ticket, and glanced along down its dirty green length. dad never moved a muscle, and i remember the clock got to ticking louder than i'd ever heard it in my life before. i may as well be perfectly honest! that ticket did not appeal to me a little bit. i think he expected to see that go up in smoke, also. but, though i'm pretty much of a fool at times, i believe there are lucid intervals when i recognize certain objects--such as justice. i knew that, in the main, dad was right. i _had_ been leading a rather reckless existence, and i was getting pretty old for such kid foolishness. he had measured out the dose, and i meant to swallow it without whining--but it was exceeding bitter to the palate! "i see the ticket is dated twenty-four hours ahead," i said as calmly as i knew how, "which gives me time to have rankin pack a few duds. i hope the outfit you furnish includes a red silk handkerchief and a colt's .44 revolver, and a key to the proper method of slaying acquaintances in the west. i hate to start in with all white chips." "you probably mean a colt's .45," said dad, with a more convincing calmness than i could show. "it shall be provided. as to the key, you will no doubt find that on the ground when you arrive." "very well," i replied, getting up and stretching my arms up as high as i could reach--which was beastly manners, of course, but a safe vent for my feelings, which cried out for something or somebody to punch. "you've called the turn, and i'll go. it may be many moons ere we two meet again--and when we do, the crime of cracking my own champagne--for i paid for it, you know--on my own automobile wheels may not seem the heinous thing it looks now. see you later, dad." i walked out with my head high in the air and my spirits rather low, if the truth must be told. dad was generally kind and wise and generous, but he certainly did break out in unexpected places sometimes. going to the bay state ranch, just at that time, was not a cheerful prospect. san francisco and seattle were just starting a series of ballgames that promised to be rather swift, and i'd got a lot up on the result. i hated to go just then. and montana has the reputation of being rather beastly in early march--i knew that much. i caught a car down to the olympic, hunted up barney mactague, and played poker with him till two o'clock that night, and never once mentioned the trip i was contemplating. then i went home, routed up my man, and told him what to pack, and went to bed for a few hours; if there was anything pleasant in my surroundings that i failed to think of as i lay there, it must be very trivial indeed. i even went so far as to regret leaving ethel mapleton, whom i cared nothing for. and above all and beneath all, hanging in the background of my mind and dodging forward insistently in spite of myself, was a deep resentment--a soreness against dad for the way he had served me. granted i was wild and a useless cumberer of civilization; i was only what my environments had made me. dad had let me run, and he had never kicked on the price of my folly, or tried to pull me up at the start. he had given his time to his mines and his cattle-ranches and railroads, and had left his only son to go to the devil if he chose and at his own pace. then, because the son had come near making a thorough job of it, he had done--_this_. i felt hardly used and at odds with life, during those last few hours in the little old burgh. all the next day i went the pace as usual with the gang, and at seven, after an early dinner, caught a down-town car and set off alone to the ferry. i had not seen dad since i left him in the library, and i did not particularly wish to see him, either. possibly i had some unfilial notion of making him ashamed and sorry. it is even possible that i half-expected him to come and apologize, and offer to let things go on in the old way. in that event i was prepared to be chesty. i would look at him coldly and say: "you have seen fit to buy me a ticket to osage, montana. so be it; to osage, montana, am i bound." oh, i had it all fixed! dad came into the ferry waiting-room just as the passengers were pouring off the boat, and sat down beside me as if nothing had happened. he did not look sad, or contrite, or ashamed--not, at least, enough to notice. he glanced at his watch, and then handed me a letter. "there," he began briskly, "that is to perry potter, the bay state foreman. i have wired him that you are on the way." the gate went up at that moment, and he stood up and held out his hand. "sorry i can't go over with you," he said. "i've an important meeting to attend. take care of yourself, ellie boy." i gripped his hand warmly, though i had intended to give him a dead-fish sort of shake. after all, he was my dad, and there were just us two. i picked up my suit-case and started for the gate. i looked back once, and saw dad standing there gazing after me--and he did not look particularly brisk. perhaps, after all, dad cared more than he let on. it's a way the carletons have, i have heard. chapter ii. the white divide. if a phrenologist should undertake to "read" my head, he would undoubtedly find my love of home--if that is what it is called--a sharply defined welt. i know that i watched the lights of old frisco slip behind me with as virulent a case of the deeps as often comes to a man when his digestion is good. it wasn't that i could not bear the thought of hardship; i've taken hunting trips up into the mountains more times than i can remember, and ate ungodly messes of my own invention, and waded waist-deep in snow and slept under the stars, and enjoyed nearly every minute. so it wasn't the hardships that i had every reason to expect that got me down. i think it was the feeling that dad had turned me down; that i was in exile, and--in his eyes, at least--disgraced, it was knowing that he thought me pretty poor truck, without giving me a chance to be anything better. i humped over the rail at the stern, and watched the waves slap at us viciously, like an ill-tempered poodle, and felt for all the world like a dog that's been kicked out into the rain. maybe the medicine was good for me, but it wasn't pleasant. it never occurred to me, that night, to wonder how dad felt about it; but i've often thought of it since. i had a section to myself, so i could sulk undisturbed; dad was not small, at any rate, and, though he hadn't let me have his car, he meant me to be decently comfortable. that first night i slept without a break; the second i sat in the smoker till a most unrighteous hour, cultivating the acquaintance of a drummer for a rubber-goods outfit. i thought that, seeing i was about to mingle with the working classes, i couldn't begin too soon to study them. he was a pretty good sort, too. the rubber-goods man left me at seattle, and from there on i was at the tender mercies of my own thoughts and an elderly lady with a startlingly blond daughter, who sat directly opposite me and was frankly disposed to friendliness. i had never given much time to the study of women, and so had no alternative but to answer questions and smile fatuously upon the blond daughter, and wonder if i ought to warn the mother that "clothes do not make the man," and that i was a black sheep and not a desirable acquaintance. before i had quite settled that point, they left the train. i am afraid i am not distinctly a chivalrous person; i hummed the doxology after their retreating forms and retired into myself, with a feeling that my own society is at times desirable and greatly to be chosen. after that i was shy, and nothing happened except that on the last evening of the trip, i gave up my sole remaining five dollars in the diner, and walked out whistling softly. i was utterly and unequivocally strapped. i went into the smoker to think it over; i knew i had started out with a hundred or so, and that i had considered that sufficient to see me through. plainly, it was not sufficient; but it is a fact that i looked upon it as a joke, and went to sleep grinning idiotically at the thought of me, ellis carleton, heir to almost as many millions as i was years old, without the price of a breakfast in his pocket. it seemed novel and interesting, and i rather enjoyed the situation. i wasn't hungry, then! osage, montana, failed to rouse any enthusiasm in me when i saw the place next day, except that it offered possibilities in the way of eating--at least, i fancied it did, until i stepped down upon the narrow platform and looked about me. it was two o'clock in the afternoon, and i had fasted since dinner the evening before. i was not happy. i began to see where i might have economized a bit, and so have gone on eating regularly to the end of the journey. i reflected that stewed terrapin, for instance, might possibly be considered an extravagance under the circumstances; and a fellow sentenced to honest toil and exiled to the wilderness should not, it seemed to me then, cause his table to be sprinkled, quite so liberally as i had done, with tall glasses--nor need he tip the porter quite so often or so generously. a dollar looked bigger to me, just then, than a wheel of the _yellow peril_. i began to feel unkindly toward that porter! he had looked so abominably well-fed and sleek, and he had tips that i would be glad to feel in my own pocket again. i stood alone upon the platform and gazed wistfully after the retreating train; many people have done that before me, if one may believe those who write novels, and for once in my life i felt a bond of sympathy between us. it's safe betting that i did more solid thinking on frenzied finance in the five minutes i stood there watching that train slid off beyond the sky-line than i'd done in all my life before. i'd heard, of course, about fellows getting right down to cases, but i'd never personally experienced the sensation. i'd always had money--or, if i hadn't, i knew where to go. and dad had caught me when i'd all but overdrawn my account at the bank. i was always doing that, for dad paid the bills. that last night with barney mactague hadn't been my night to win, and i'd dropped quite a lot there. and--oh, what's the use? i was broke, all right enough, and i was hungry enough to eat the proverbial crust. it seemed to me it might be a good idea to hunt up the gentleman named perry potter, whom dad called his foreman. i turned around and caught a tall, brown-faced native studying my back with grave interest. he didn't blush when i looked him in the eye, but smiled a tired smile and said he reckoned i was the chap he'd been sent to meet. there was no welcome in his voice, i noticed. i looked him over critically. "are you the gentleman with the alliterative cognomen?" i asked him airily, hoping he would be puzzled. he was not, evidently. "perry potter? he's at the ranch." he was damnably tolerant, and i said nothing. i hate to make the same sort of fool of myself twice. so when he proposed that we "hit the trail," i followed meekly in his wake. he did not offer to take my suit-case, and i was about to remind him of the oversight when it occurred to me that possibly he was not a servant--he certainly didn't act like one. i carried my own suitcase--which was, i have thought since, the only wise move i had made since i left home. a strong but unsightly spring-wagon, with mud six inches deep on the wheels, seemed the goal, and we trailed out to it, picking up layers of soil as we went. the ground did not _look_ muddy, but it was; i have since learned that that particular phase of nature's hypocrisy is called "doby." i don't admire it, myself. i stopped by the wagon and scraped my shoes on the cleanest spoke i could find, and swore. my guide untied the horses, gathered up the reins, and sought a spoke on his side of the wagon; he looked across at me with a gleam of humanity in his eyes--the first i had seen there. "it sure beats hell the way it hangs on," he remarked, and from that minute i liked him. it was the first crumb of sympathy that had fallen to me for days, and you can bet i appreciated it. we got in, and he pulled a blanket over our knees and picked up the whip. it wasn't a stylish turnout--i had seen farmers driving along the railroad-track in rigs like it, and i was surprised at dad for keeping such a layout. fact is, i didn't think much of dad, anyway, about that time. "how far is it to the bay state ranch?" i asked. "one hundred and forty miles, air-line," said he casually. "the train was late, so i reckon we better stop over till morning. there's a town over the hill, and a hotel that beats nothing a long way." a hundred and forty miles from the station, "air-line," sounded to me like a pretty stiff proposition to go up against; also, how was a fellow going to put up at a hotel when he hadn't the coin? would my mysterious guide be shocked to learn that john a. carleton's son and heir had landed in a strange land without two-bits to his name? jerusalem! i couldn't have paid street-car fare down-town; i couldn't even have bought a paper on the street. while i was remembering all the things a millionaire's son can't do if he happens to be without a nickel in his pocket, we pulled up before a place that, for the sake of propriety, i am willing to call a hotel; at the time, i remember, i had another name for it. "in case i might get lost in this strange city," i said to my companion as i jumped out, "i'd like to know what people call you when they're in a good humor." he grinned down at me. "frosty miller would hit me, all right," he informed me, and drove off somewhere down the street. so i went in and asked for a room, and got it. this sounds sordid, i know, but the truth must be told, though the artistic sense be shocked. barred from the track as i was, sent out to grass in disgrace while the little old world kept moving without me to help push, my mind passed up all the things i might naturally be supposed to dwell upon and stuck to three little no-account grievances that i hate to tell about now. they look small, for a fact, now that they're away out of sight, almost, in the past; but they were quite big enough at the time to give me a bad hour or two. the biggest one was the state of my appetite; next, and not more than a nose behind, was the state of my pockets; and the last was, had rankin packed the gray tweed trousers that i had a liking for, or had he not? i tried to remember whether i had spoken to him about them, and i sat down on the edge of the bed in that little box of a room, took my head between my fists, and called rankin several names he sometimes deserved and had frequently heard from my lips. i'd have given a good deal to have rankin at my elbow just then. they were not in the suit-case--or, if they were, i had not run across them. rankin had a way of stowing things away so that even he had to do some tall searching, and he had another way of filling up my suit-cases with truck i'd no immediate use for. i yanked the case toward me, unlocked it, and turned it out on the bed, just to prove rankin's general incapacity as valet to a fastidious fellow like me. there was the suit i had worn on that memorable excursion to the cliff house--i had told rankin to pitch it into the street, for i had discovered teddy van greve in one almost exactly like it, and--hello! rankin had certainly overlooked a bet. i never caught him at it before, that's certain. he had a way of coming to my left elbow, and, in a particularly virtuous tone, calling my attention to the fact that i had left several loose bills in my pockets. rankin was that honest i often told him he would land behind the bars as an embezzler some day. but rankin had done it this time, for fair; tucked away in a pocket of the waistcoat was money--real, legal, lawful tender--m-o-n-e-y! i don't suppose the time will ever come when it will look as good to me as it did right then. i held those bank-notes--there were two of them, double xx's--to my face and sniffed them like i'd never seen the like before and never expected to again. and the funny part was that i forgot all about wanting the gray trousers, and all about the faults of rankin. my feet were on bottom again, and my head on top. i marched down-stairs, whistling, with my hands in my pockets and my chin in the air, and told the landlord to serve dinner an hour earlier than usual, and to make it a good one. he looked at me with a curious mixture of wonder and amusement. "dinner," he drawled calmly, "has been over for three hours; but i guess we can give yuh some supper any time after five." i suppose he looked upon me as the rankest kind of a tenderfoot. i calculated the time of my torture till i might, without embarrassing explanations, partake of a much-needed repast, and went to the door; waiting was never my long suit, and i had thoughts of getting outside and taking a look around. at the second step i changed my mind--there was that deceptive mud to reckon with. so from the doorway i surveyed all of montana that lay between me and the sky-line, and decided that my bets would remain on california. the sky was a dull slate, tumbled into what looked like rain-clouds and depressing to the eye. the land was a dull yellowish-brown, with a purple line of hills off to the south, and with untidy snow-drifts crouching in the hollows. that was all, so far as i could see, and if dulness and an unpeopled wilderness make for the reformation of man, it struck me that i was in a fair way to become a saint if i stayed here long. i had heard the cattle-range called picturesque; i couldn't see the joke. frosty miller sat opposite me at table when, in the course of human events, i ate again, and the way i made the biscuit and ham and boiled potatoes vanish filled him with astonishment, if one may judge a man's feelings by the size of his eyes. i told him that the ozone of the plains had given me an appetite, and he did not contradict me; he looked at my plate, and then smiled at his own, and said nothing--which was polite of him. "did you ever skip two meals and try to make it up on the third?" i asked him when we went out, and he said "sure," and rolled a cigarette. in those first hours of our acquaintance frosty was not what i'd call loquacious. that night i took out the letter addressed to one perry potter, which dad had given me and which i had not had time to seal in his presence, and read it cold-bloodedly. i don't do such things as a rule, but i was getting a suspicion that i was being queered; that i'd got to start my exile under a handicap of the contempt of the natives. if dad had stacked the deck on me, i wanted to know it. but i misjudged him--or, perhaps, he knew i'd read it. all he had written wouldn't hurt the reputation of any one. it was: the bearer, ellis h. carleton, is my son. he will probably be with you for some time, and will not try to assume any authority or usurp your position as foreman and overseer. you will treat him as you do the other boys, and if he wants to work, pay him the same wages--if he earns them. it wasn't exactly throwing flowers in the path my young feet should tread, but it might have been worse. at least, he did not give perry potter his unbiased opinion of me, and it left me with a free hand to warp their judgment somewhat in my favor. but--"if he wants to work, pay him the same wages--if he earns them." whew! i might have saved him the trouble of writing that, if i had only known it. dad could go too far in this thing, i told myself chestily. i had come, seeing that he insisted upon it, but i'd be damned if i'd work for any man with a circus-poster name, and have him lord it over me. i hadn't been brought up to appreciate that kind of joke. i meant to earn my living, but i did not mean to get out and slave for perry potter. there must be something respectable for a man to do in this country besides ranch work. in the morning we started off, with my trunks in the wagon, toward the line of purple hills in the south. frosty miller told me, when i asked him, that they were forty-eight miles away, that they marked the missouri river, and that we would stop there overnight. that, if i remember, was about the extent of our conversation that day. we smoked cigarettes--frosty miller made his, one by one, as he needed them--and thought our own thoughts. i rather suspect our thoughts were a good many miles apart, though our shoulders touched. when you think of it, people may rub elbows and still have an ocean or two between them. i don't know where frosty was, all through that long day's ride; for me, i was back in little old frisco, with barney mactague and the rest of the crowd; and part of the time, i know, i was telling dad what a mess he'd made of bringing up his only son. that night we slept in a shack at the river--"pochette crossing" was the name it answered to--and shared the same bed. it was not remarkable for its comfort--that bed. i think the mattress was stuffed with potatoes; it felt that way. next morning we were off again, over the same bare, brown, unpeopled wilderness. once we saw a badger zigzagging along a side-hill, and frosty whipped out a big revolver--one of those "colt 45's," i suppose--and shot it; he said in extenuation that they play the very devil with the range, digging holes for cow-punchers to break their necks over. i was surprised at frosty; there he had been armed, all the time, and i never guessed it. even when we went to bed the night before, i had not glimpsed a weapon. clearly, he could not be a cowboy, i reflected, else he would have worn a cartridge-belt sagging picturesquely down over one hip, and his gun dangling from it. he put the gun away, and i don't know where; somewhere out of sight it went, and frosty turned off the trail and went driving wild across the prairie. i asked him why, and he said, "short cut." then a wind crept out of the north, and with it the snow. we were climbing low ridges and dodging into hollows, and when the snow spread a white veil over the land, i looked at frosty out of the tail of my eye, wondering if he did not wish he had kept to the road--trail, it is called in the rangeland. if he did, he certainly kept it to himself; he went on climbing hills and setting the brake at the top, to slide into a hollow, and his face kept its inscrutable calm; whatever he thought was beyond guessing at. when he had watered the horses at a little creek that was already skimmed with ice, and unwrapped a package of sandwiches on his knee and offered me one, i broke loose. silence may be golden, but even old king midas got too big a dose of gold, once upon a time, if one may believe tradition. "i hate to butt into a man's meditations," i said, looking him straight in the eye, "but there's a limit to everything, and you've played right up to it. you've had time, my friend, to remember all your sins and plan enough more to keep you hustling the allotted span; you've been given an opportunity to reconstruct the universe and breed a new philosophy of life. for heaven's sake, _say_ something!" frosty eyed me for a minute, and the muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched. "sure," he responded cheerfully. "i'm something like you; i hate to break into a man's meditations. it looks like snow." "do you think it's going to storm?" i retorted in the same tone; it had been snowing great guns for the last three hours. we both laughed, and frosty unbent and told me a lot about bay state ranch and the country around it. part of the information was an eye-opener; i wished i had known it when dad was handing out that roast to me--i rather think i could have made him cry enough. i tagged the information and laid it away for future reference. as i got the country mapped out in my mind, we were in a huge capital h. the eastern line, toward which we were angling, was a river they call the midas--though i'll never tell you why, unless it's a term ironical. the western line is another river, the joliette, and the cross-bar is a range of hills--they might almost be called mountains--which i had been facing all that morning till the snow came between and shut them off; white divide, it is called, and we were creeping around the end, between them and the midas. it seemed queer that there was no way of crossing, for the bay state lies almost in a direct line south from osage, frosty told me, and the country we were traversing was rough as white divide could be, and i said so to frosty. right here is where i got my first jolt. "there's a fine pass cut through white divide by old mama nature," frosty said, in the sort of tone a man takes when he could say a lot more, but refrains. "then why in heaven's name don't you travel it?" "because it isn't healthy for ragged h folks to travel that way," he said, in the same eloquent tone. "who are the ragged h folks, and what's the matter with them?" i wanted to know--for i smelled a mystery. he looked at me sidelong. "if you didn't look just like the old man," he said, "i'd think yuh were a fake; the ragged h is the brand your ranch is known by--the bay state outfit. and it isn't healthy to travel king's highway, because there's a large-sized feud between your father and old king. how does it happen yuh aren't wise to the family history?" "dad never unbosomed himself to me, that's why," i told him. "he has labored for twenty-five years under the impression that i was a kid just able to toddle alone. he didn't think he needed to tell me things; i know we've got a place called the bay state ranch somewhere in this part of the world, and i have reason to think i'm headed for it. that's about the extent of my knowledge of our interest here. i never heard of the white divide before, or of this particular king. i'm thirsting for information." "well, it strikes me you've got it coming," said frosty. "i always had your father sized up as being closed-mouthed, but i didn't think he made such a thorough job of it as all that. old king has sure got it in for the ragged h--or bay state, if yuh'd rather call us that; and the ragged h boys don't sit up nights thinking kind and loving thoughts about him, either. thirty years ago your father and old king started jangling over water-rights, and i guess they burned powder a-plenty; king goes lame to this day from a bullet your old man planted in his left leg." i dropped the flag and started him off again. "it's news to me," i put in, "and you can't tell me too much about it." "well," he said, "your old man was in the right of it; he owns all the land along honey creek, right up to white divide, where it heads; uh course, he overlooked a bet there; he should have got a cinch on that pass, and on the head uh the creek. but he let her slide, and first he knew old king had come in and staked a claim and built him a shack right in our end of the pass, and camped down to stay. your dad wasn't joyful. the bay state had used that pass to trail herds through and as the easiest and shortest trail to the railroad; and then old king takes it up, strings a five-wired fence across at both ends of his place, and warns us off. i've heard potter tell what warm times there were. your father stayed right here and had it out with him. the bay state was all he had, then, and he ran it himself. perry potter worked for him, and knows all about it. neither old king nor your dad was married, and it's a wonder they didn't kill each other off--potter says they sure tried. the time king got it in the leg your father and his punchers were coming home from a breed dance, and they were feeling pretty nifty, i guess; potter told me they started out with six bottles, and when they got to white divide there wasn't enough left to talk about. they cut king's fence at the north end, and went right through, hell-bent-for-election. king and his men boiled out, and they mixed good and plenty. your father went home with a hole in his shoulder, and old king had one in his leg to match, and since then it's been war. they tried to fight it out in court, and king got the best of it there. then they got married and kind o' cooled off, and pretty soon they both got so much stuff to look after that they didn't have much time to take pot-shots at each other, and now we're enjoying what yuh might call armed peace. we go round about sixty miles, and king's highway is bad medicine. "king owns the stage-line from osage to laurel, where the bay state gets its mail, and he owns kenmore, a mining-camp in the west half uh white divide. we can go around by kenmore, if we want to--but king's highway? nit!" i chuckled to myself to think of all the things i could twit dad about if ever he went after me again. it struck me that i hadn't been a circumstance, so far, to what dad must have been in his youth. at my worst, i'd never shot a man. chapter iii. the quarrel renewed. that night, by a close scratch, we made a little place frosty said was one of the bay state line-camps. i didn't know what a line-camp was, and it wasn't much for style, but it looked good to me, after riding nearly all day in a snow-storm. frosty cooked dinner and i made the coffee, and we didn't have such a bad time of it, although the storm held us there for two days. we sat by the little cook-stove and told yarns, and i pumped frosty just about dry of all he'd ever heard about dad. i hadn't intended to write to dad, but, after hearing all i did, i couldn't help handing out a gentle hint that i was on. when i'd been at the bay state ranch for a week, i wrote him a letter that, i felt, squared my account with him. it was so short that i can repeat every word now. i said: dear dad: i am here. though you sent me out here to reform me, i find the opportunities for unadulterated deviltry away ahead of frisco. i saw our old neighbor, king, whom you may possibly remember. he still walks with a limp. by the way, dad, it seems to me that when you were about twenty-five you "indulged in some damned poor pastimes," yourself. your dutiful son, ellis. dad never answered that letter. montana, as viewed from the bay state ranch in march, struck me as being an unholy mixture of brown, sodden hills and valleys, chill winds that never condescended to blow less than a gale, and dull, scurrying clouds, with sometimes a day of sunshine that was bright as our own sun at home. (you can't make me believe that our california sun bothers with any other country.) i'd been used to a green world; i never would go to new york in the winter, because i hate the cold--and here i was, with the cold of new york and with none of the ameliorations in the way of clubs and theaters and the like. there were the hills along midas river shutting off the east, and hills to the south that frosty told me went on for miles and miles, and on the north stretched white divide--only it was brown, and bleak, and several other undesirable things. when i looked at it, i used to wonder at men fighting over it. i did a heap of wondering, those first few days. taken in a lump, it wasn't my style, and i wasn't particular to keep my opinions a secret. for the ranch itself, it looked to me like a village of corrals and sheds and stables, evidently built with an eye to usefulness, and with the idea that harmony of outline is a sin and not to be tolerated. the house was put up on the same plan, gave shelter to perry potter and the cook, had a big, bare dining-room where the men all ate together without napkins or other accessories of civilization, and a couple of bedrooms that were colder, if i remember correctly, than outdoors. i know that the water froze in my pitcher the first night, and that afterward i performed my ablutions in the kitchen, and dipped hot water out of a tank with a blue dipper. that first week i spent adjusting myself to the simple life, and trying to form an unprejudiced opinion of my companions in exile. as for the said companions, they sort of stood back and sized up my points, good and bad--and i've a notion they laid heavy odds against me, and had me down in the also ran bunch. i overheard one of them remark, when i was coming up from the stables: "here's the son and heir--come, let's kill him!" another one drawled: "what's the use? the bounty's run out." i was convinced that they regarded me as a frost. the same with perry potter, a grizzled little man with long, ragged beard and gray eyes that looked through you and away beyond. i had a feeling that dad had told him to keep an eye on me and report any incipient growth of horse-sense. i may have wronged him and dad, but that is how i felt, and i didn't like him any better for it. he left me alone, and i raised the bet and left him alone so hard that i scarcely exchanged three sentences with him in a week. the first night he asked after dad's health, and i told him the doctor wasn't making regular calls at the house. a day or so after he said: "how do you like the country?" i said: "damn the country!" and closed _that_ conversation. i don't remember that we had any more for awhile. the cowboys were breaking horses to the saddle most of the time, for it was too early for round-up, i gathered. when i sat on the corral fence and watched the fun, i observed that i usually had my rail all to myself and that the rest of the audience roosted somewhere else. frosty miller talked with me sometimes, without appearing to suffer any great pain, but frosty was always the star actor when the curtain rose on a bronco-breaking act. as for the rest, they made it plain that i did _not_ belong to their set, and i wasn't sending them my at home cards, either. we were as haughty with each other as two society matrons when each aspires to be called leader. then a blizzard that lasted five days came ripping down over that desolation, and everybody stuck close to shelter, and amused themselves as they could. the cowboys played cards most of the time--seven-up, or pitch, or poker; they didn't ask me to take a hand, though; i fancy they were under the impression that i didn't know how to play. i never was much for reading; it's too slow and tame. i'd much rather get out and _live_ the story i like best. and there was nothing to read, anyway. i went rummaging in my trunks, and in the bottom of one i came across a punching-bag and a set of gloves. right there i took off my hat to rankin, and begged his pardon for the unflattering names he'd been in the habit of hearing from me. i carried the things down and put up the bag in an empty room at one end of the bunk-house, and got busy. frosty miller came first to see what was up, and i got him to put on the gloves for awhile; he knew something of the manly art, i discovered, and we went at it fast and furious. i think i broke up a game in the next room. the boys came to the door, one by one, and stood watching, until we had the full dozen for audience. before any one realized what was happening, we were playing together real pretty, with the chilly shoulder barred and the social ice gone the way of a dew-drop in the sun. we boxed and wrestled, with much scientific discussion of "full nelsons" and the like, and even fenced with sticks. i had them going there, and could teach them things; and they were the willingest pupils a man ever had--docile and filled with a deep respect for their teacher who knew all there was to know--or, if he didn't, he never let on. before night we had smashed three window-panes, trimmed several faces down considerably, and got pretty well acquainted. i found out that they weren't so far behind the old gang at home for wanting all there is in the way of fun, and i believe they discovered that i was harmless. before that storm let up they were dealing cards to me, and allowing me to get rid of the rest of the forty dollars rankin had overlooked. i got some of it back. i went down and bunked with them, because they had a stove and i didn't, and it was more sociable; perry potter and the cook were welcome to the house, i told them, except at meal-times. and, more than all the rest, i could keep out of range of perry potter's eyes. i never could get used to that watch-willie-grow way he had, or rid myself of the notion that he was sending dad a daily report of my behavior. the next thing, when the weather quit sifting snow and turned on the balmy breezes and the sunshine, i was down in the corrals in my chaps and spurs, learning things about horses that i never suspected before. when i did something unusually foolish, the boys were good enough to remember my boxing and fencing and such little accomplishments, and did not withdraw their favor; so i went on, butting into every new game that came up, and taking all bets regardless, and actually began to wise up a little and to forget a few of my grievances. i was down in the corral one day, saddling shylock--so named because he tried to exact a pound of flesh every time i turned my back or in other ways seemed off my guard--and when i was looping up the latigo i discovered that the alliterative mr. potter was roosting on the fence, watching me with those needle-pointed eyes of his. i wondered if he was about to prepare another report for dad. "do yuh want to be put on the pay-roll?" he asked, without any preamble, when he caught my glance. "yes, if i'm _earning_ wages. 'the laborer is worthy of his hire,' i believe," i retorted loftily. the fact was, i was strapped again--and, though one did not need money on the bay state ranch, it's a good thing to have around. he grinned into his collar. "well," he said, "you've been pretty busy the last three weeks, but i ain't had any orders to hire a boxing-master for the boys. i don't know as that'd rightly come under the head of legitimate expenses; boxing-masters come high, i've heard. are yuh going on round-up?" "sure!" i answered, in an exact copy--as near as i could make it--of frosty miller's intonation. i was making frosty my model those days. he said: "all right--your pay starts on the fifteenth of next month"--which was april. then he got down from the fence and went off, and i mounted shylock and rode away to laurel, after the mail. not that i expected any, for no one but dad knew where i was, and i hadn't heard a word from him, though i knew he wrote to perry potter--or his secretary did--every week or so. really, i don't think a father ought to be so chesty with the only son he's got, even if the son is a no-account young cub. i was standing in the post-office, which was a store and saloon as well, when an old fellow with stubby whiskers and a jaw that looked as though it had been trimmed square with a rule, and a limp that made me know at once who he was, came in. he was standing at the little square window, talking to the postmaster and waving his pipe to emphasize what he said, when a horse went past the door on the dead run, with bridle-reins flying. a fellow rushed out past us--it was his horse--and hit old king's elbow a clip as he went by. the pipe went about ten feet and landed in a pickle-keg. i went after it and fished it out for the old fellow--not so much because i'm filled with a natural courtesy, as because i was curious to know the man that had got the best of dad. he thanked me, and asked me across to the saloon side of the room to drink with him. "i don't know as i've met you before, young man," he said, eying me puzzled. "your face is familiar, though; been in this country long?" "no," i said; "a little over a month is all." "well, if you ever happen around my way--king's highway, they call my place--stop and see me. going to stay long out here?" "i think so," i replied, motioning the waiter--"bar-slave," they call them in montana--to refill our glasses. "and i'll be glad to call some day, when i happen in your neighborhood. and if you ever ride over toward the bay state, be sure you stop." well, say! old king turned the color of a ripe prune; every hair in that stubble of beard stood straight out from his chin, and he looked as if murder would be a pleasant thing. he took the glass and deliberately emptied the whisky on the floor. "john carleton's son, eh? i might 'a' known it--yuh look enough like him. me drink with a son of john carleton? that breed uh wolves had better not come howling around _my_ door. i asked yuh to come t' king's highway, young man, and i don't take it back. you can come, but you'll get the same sort uh welcome i'd give that--" right there i got my hand on his throttle. he was an old man, comparatively, and i didn't want to hurt him; but no man under heaven can call my dad the names he did, and i told him so. "i don't want to dig up that old quarrel, king," i said, shaking him a bit with one hand, just to emphasize my words, "but you've got to speak civilly of dad, or, by the lord! i'll turn you across my knee and administer a stinging rebuke." he tried to squirm loose, and to reach behind him with that suggestive movement that breeds trouble among men of the plains; but i held his arms so he couldn't move, the while i told him a lot of things about true politeness--things that i wasn't living up to worth mentioning. he yelled to the postmaster to grab me, and the fellow tried it. i backed into a corner and held old king in front of me as a bulwark, warranted bullet proof, and wondered what kind of a hornet's-nest i'd got into. the waiter and the postmaster were both looking for an opening, and i remembered that i was on old king's territory, and that they were after holding their jobs. i don't know how it would have ended--i suppose they'd have got me, eventually--but perry potter walked in, and it didn't seem to take him all day to savvy the situation. he whipped out a gun and leveled it at the enemy, and told me to scoot and get on my horse. "scoot nothing!" i yelled back. "what about you in the meantime? do you think i'm going to leave them to clean you up?" he smiled sourly at me. "i've held my own with this bunch uh trouble-hunters for thirty years," he said dryly. "i guess yuh ain't got any reason t' be alarmed. come out uh that corner and let 'em alone." i don't, to this day, know why i did it, but i quit hugging old king, and the other two fell back and gave me a clear path to the door. "king was blackguarding dad, and i couldn't stand for it," i explained to perry potter as i went by. "if you're not going, i won't." "i've got a letter to mail," he said, calm as if he were in his own corral. "you went off before i got a chance to give it to yuh. i'll be out in a minute." he went and slipped the letter into the mail-box, turned his back on the three, and walked out as if nothing had happened; perhaps he knew that i was watching them, in a mood to do things if they offered to touch him. but they didn't, and we mounted our horses and rode away, and perry potter never mentioned the affair to me, then or after. i don't think we spoke on the way to the ranch; i was busy wishing i'd been around in that part of the world thirty years before, and thinking what a lot of fun i had missed by not being as old as dad. a quarrel thirty years old is either mighty stale and unprofitable, or else, like wine, it improves with age. i meant to ride over to king's highway some day, and see how he would have welcomed dad thirty years before. chapter iv. through king's highway. it was a long time before i was in a position to gratify my curiosity, though; between the son and heir, with nothing to do but amuse himself, and a cowboy working for his daily wage, there is a great gulf fixed. after being put on the pay-roll, i couldn't do just as my fancy prompted. i had to get up at an ungodly hour, and eat breakfast in about two minutes, and saddle a horse and "ride circle" with the rest of them--which same is exceeding wearisome to man and beast. for the first time since i left school, i was under orders; and the foreman certainly tried to obey dad's mandate and treat me just as he would have treated any other stranger. i could give it up, of course--but i hope never to see the day when i can be justly called a quitter. first, we were rounding up horses--saddlers that were to be ridden in the round-up proper. we were not more than two or three weeks at that, though we covered a good deal of country. before it was over i knew a lot more than when we started out, and had got hard as nails; riding on round-up beats a gym for putting wire muscles under a man's skin, in my opinion. we worked all around white divide--which was turning a pale, dainty green except where the sandstone cliffs stood up in all the shades of yellow and red. montana, as viewed on "horse round-up," looks better than in the first bleak days of march, and i could gaze upon it without profanity. i even got to like tearing over the newborn grass on a good horse, with a cowboy or two galloping, keen-faced and calm, beside me. it was almost better than slithering along a hard road with a motor-car stripped to the running-gear. when the real thing happened--the "calf round-up"--and thirty riders in white felt hats, chaps, spurs a-jingle, and handkerchief ends flying out in the wind, lined up of a morning for orders, the blood of me went a-jump, and my nerves were all tingly with the pure joy of being alive and atop a horse as eager as hounds in the leash and with the wind of the plains in my face and the grass-land lying all around, yelling come on, and the meadowlarks singing fit to split their throats. there's nothing like it--and i've tried nearly everything in the way of blood-tinglers. skimming through the waves, alean to the wind in a racing-yacht, comes nearest, and even that takes second money when circle-riding on round-up is entered in the race. but this is getting away from my story. we were working the country just north of white divide, when the foreman started me home with a message for perry potter--and i was to get back as soon as possible with the answer. now, here's where i got gay. as i said, we were north of white divide, and the home ranch was south, and to go around either end of that string of hills meant an extra sixty miles to cover each way--a hundred and twenty for the round trip. directly in the way of the proverbial crow's flight lay king's highway, which--if i got through--would put me at the ranch the first day, and back at camp the second; and i rather guessed that would surprise our worthy foreman not a little. i didn't see why it couldn't be done; surely old king wouldn't murder a man just for riding through that pass--that would be bloody-minded indeed! and if i failed--why, i could go around, and no one would be wise to the fact that i had tried it. i headed straight for the pass, which yawned invitingly, with two bare peaks for the jaws, not over six miles away. it was against orders, for perry potter had given the boys to understand that they were not to go that way, and that they were to leave king and his stronghold strictly alone; but i didn't worry about that. when i was fairly in the mouth of the pass, i got down and looked to the cinch, and then rode boldly forward, like a soldier riding up to the cannon's mouth with a smile on his face. oh, i wasted plenty of admiration on one ellis carleton about that time, and rehearsed the bold, biting speech i meant to deliver at old king's very door. so far it was easy sailing. there was a hard-beaten road, and the hills seemed standing back and holding aside their skirts for a free passing. the sun lay warm on their green slopes, and one could fairly smell the grass growing. in the hollows were worlds of blue flowers, with patches here and there a royal purple. i stopped and gathered a handful and stuck them in my buttonhole and under my hatband. i don't know when i have felt so thoroughly satisfied with said ellis carleton--of whom i am overfond of speaking--i even mimicked the meadow-larks, until they watched me with heads tilted, not knowing what to make of such an impertinent fellow. king's highway was glorious; i didn't wonder that dad thought it worth fighting over, and as i went on, farther and farther down this lane made by nature for easy passing, i could see what an immense advantage it would be to take herds through that way. i could see why the bay state men cursed king when they took the rough trail around the end of white divide. after an hour of undisputed riding on this forbidden trail, the pass narrowed rather abruptly till it was not more than a furlong in width; the hills stretched their heads still higher, as if they wanted to see the fun, and the shadow of the eastern rim laid clear across the narrow valley and touched the foot of the opposite slope. i hope i am not going to be called nervous if i tell the truth about things; when i rode into the shadow i stopped whistling a bad imitation of meadow-lark notes. a bit farther and i pulled up, looked all around, and got off and tightened the cinch a bit more. shylock--i always rode him when i could--threw his head around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him i forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game i was playing. then i loosened my gun--i had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the other boys--made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and went on. around the next turn a five-wired fence stretched across the trail, with a gate fastened by a chain and padlock. i whistled under my breath, and eyed the lock with extreme disfavor. but i had learned a trick of the cowboys. i pulled the wire off a couple of posts at one side of the gate, laid them flat on the ground, and led shylock over them. then i found a rock, pounded the staples back in place, and went on; only for the tracks, one could not notice that any had passed that way. still, it was a bit ticklish, riding down king's highway alone and with no idea of what lay farther on. but dad had dared go that way, and to fight at the far end; and what dad had not been afraid to tackle, it did not behoove his son to back down from. i made shylock walk the next half-mile, with some notion of saving his wind for an emergency run. of a sudden i rounded a sharp nose of hill and came plump on the palace of the king. it looked a good deal like the bay state ranch--big corrals and sheds and stables, and little place for man to dwell. the house, though, was bigger than ours, and looked more comfortable to live in. and the thing that struck me most was the head which king displayed for strategy. the trail wound between those same sheds and corrals, a gantlet two hundred yards long that one must run or turn back. on either side the bluffs rose sheer, with the buildings crowding close against their base. i didn't wonder frosty called king's highway "bad medicine." it certainly did look like it. i went softly along that trail, turning sharp corners around a shed here, circling a corral there, with my hand within an inch of my gun, and my heart within an inch of my teeth, and you may laugh all you like. no one seemed to be about; the sheds were deserted, and a few horses dozed in a corral that i passed; but human being i saw none. it was evident that king did not consider his enemy worth watching. i passed the last shed and found myself headed straight for the house; i had still to get through its very dooryard before i was in any position to crow, and beyond the house was another fence; i hoped the gate was not locked. shylock pricked up his ears, then laid them back along his neck as if he did not approve the layout, either. but we ambled right along, like a deacon headed for prayer-meeting, and i tried to look in four different directions at one and the same time. for that reason, i didn't see her till she stood right in front of me; and when i did, i stared like an idiot. it was a girl, and she was coming down a path to the trail, with her hands full of flowers, for all the world like a duchess novel. another minute, and i'd have run over her, i guess. she stopped and looked at me from under lashes so thick and heavy they seemed almost pulling her lids shut, and there was something in her eyes that made me go hot and cold, like i was coming down with grippe; when she spoke my symptoms grew worse. "did you wish to see father?" she asked, as if she were telling me to leave the place. "i believe," i rallied enough to answer, "that 'father' would give a good deal to see _me_." then that seemed to shut off our conversation too abruptly to suit me; there are occasions when prickly chills have a horrible fascination for a fellow; this was one of the times. "he's not at home, i'm very sorry to say," she retorted in the same liquid-air voice as before, and turned to go back to the house. i thanked the lord for that, in a whisper, and kept pace with her. it was plain she hated the sight of me, but i counted on her being enough like her dad not to run away. "may i trouble you for a drink of water?" i asked, in the orthodox tone of humility. "there is no need to trouble me; there is the creek, beyond the house; you are welcome to all you want." "thanks." i watched the pink curve of her cheek, and knew she was dying for a chance to snub me still more maliciously. we were at the steps of the veranda now, but still she would not hurry; she seemed to hate even the semblance of running away. "can you direct me to the bay state ranch?" i hazarded. it was my last card, and i let it go with a sigh. she pointed a slim, scornful finger at the brand on shylock's shoulder. "if you are in doubt of the way, mr. carleton, your horse will take you home--if you give him his head." that put a crimp in me worse than the look of her eyes, even. i stared at her a minute, and then laughed right out. "the game's yours, miss king, and i take off my hat to you for hitting straight and hard," i said. "must the feud descend even to the second generation? is it a fight to the finish, and no quarter asked or given?" i had her going then. she blushed--and when i saw the red creep into her cheeks my heart was hardened to repentance. i'd have done it again for the pleasure of seeing her that way. "you are taking a good deal for granted, sir," she said, in her loftiest tone. "we kings scarcely consider the carletons worthy our weapons." "you don't, eh? then, why did you begin it?" i wanted to know. "if you permit me, you started the row before i spoke, even." "i do _not_ permit you." clearly, my lady could be haughty enough to satisfy the most fastidious. "well," i sighed, "i will go my way. i'm a lover of peace, myself; but since you proclaim war, war it must be. i'm not so ungallant as to oppose a lady's wishes. is that gate down there locked?" "figuratively, it's _always_ locked against the carletons," she said. "but i want to go through it _literally_," i retorted. and she just looked at me from under those lashes, and never answered. "well, the air grows chill in king's highway," i shivered mockingly. "if ever i find you on bay state soil, miss king, i shall take much pleasure in teaching you the proper way to treat an enemy." "i shall be greatly diverted, no doubt," was the scornful reply of her--and just then an old lady came to the door, and i lifted my hand grandly in a precise military salute and rode away, wondering which of us had had the best of it. the gate wasn't locked, and as for taking a drink at the creek, i forgot that i was thirsty. i jogged along toward home, and wondered why frosty had not told me that king had a daughter. also, i wondered at her animosity. it never occurred to me that her father, unlike my dad, had probably harped on the carletons until she had come to think we were in league with the old boy himself. her dad's game leg would no doubt argue strongly against us, and keep the feud green in her heart--supposing she had one. on the whole, i was glad i had traveled king's highway. i had discovered a brand-new enemy--and so far in my life enemies had been so scarce as to be a positive diversion. and it was novel and interesting to be so thoroughly hated by a girl. no reason to dodge _her_ net. i rather congratulated myself on knowing one girl who positively refused to smile on demand. she hadn't, once. i got to wondering, that night, if she had dimples. i meant to find out. chapter v. into the lion's mouth. perry potter, when he had read the foreman's note, asked how long since i left camp; when i told him that i was there at daylight, he looked at me queerly and walked off without a word. i didn't say anything, either. i stayed at the ranch overnight, intending to start back the next morning. the round-up would be west of where i had left them, according to the foreman--or wagon-boss, as he is called. logically, then, i should take the trail that led through kenmore, the mining-camp owned by king, and which lay in the heart of white divide ten miles west of king's highway. that, i say, was the logical route--but i wasn't going to take it. i wasn't a bit stuck on that huddle of corrals and sheds, with the trail winding blindly between, and i wasn't in love with the girl or with old king; but, all the same, i meant to go back the way i came, just for my own private satisfaction. while i was saddling shylock, in the opal-tinted sunrise, potter came down and gave me the letter to the wagon-boss, an answer to the one i had brought. "here's some chuck the cook put up for yuh," he remarked, handing me a bundle tied up in a flour-sack. "you'll need it 'fore yuh get through to camp; you'll likely be longer going than yuh was comin'." "think so?" i smiled knowingly to myself and left him staring disapprovingly after me. i could easily give a straight guess at what he was thinking. i jogged along as leisurely as i could without fretting shylock, and, once clear of the home field, headed straight for king's highway. it wasn't the wisest course i could take, perhaps, but it was like to prove the most exciting, and i never was remarkable for my wisdom. it seemed to me that it was necessary to my self-respect to return the way i came--and i may as well confess that i hoped miss king was an early riser. as it was, i killed what time i could, and so spent a couple of hours where one would have sufficed. half a mile out from the mouth of the pass, i observed a human form crowning the peak of a sharp-pointed little butte that rose up out of the prairie; since the form seemed to be in skirts, i made for the spot. shylock puffed up the steep slope, and at last stopped still and looked back at me in utter disgust; so i took the hint and got off, and led him up the rest of the way. "good morning. we meet on neutral ground," i greeted when i was close behind her. "i propose a truce." she jumped a bit, and looked very much astonished to see me there so close. if it had been some other girl--say ethel mapleton--i'd have suspected the genuineness of that surprise; as it was, i could only think she had been very much absorbed not to hear me scrambling up there. "you're an early bird," she said dryly, "to be so far from home." she glanced toward the pass, as though she would like to cut and run, but hated to give me the satisfaction. "well," i told her with inane complacency, "you will remember that 'it's the early bird that catches the worm.'" "what a pretty speech!" she commented, and i saw what i'd done, and felt myself turn a beautiful purple. compare her to a worm! but she laughed when she saw how uncomfortable i was, and after that i was almost glad i'd said it; she _did_ have dimples--two of them--and-the laugh, however, was no sign of incipient amiability, as i very soon discovered. she turned her back on me and went imperturbably on with her sketching; she was trying to put on paper the lights and shades of white divide--and even a desire to be chivalrous will not permit me to lie and say that she was making any great success of it. i don't believe the lord ever intended her for an artist. "aren't you giving king's highway a much wider mouth than it's entitled to?" i asked mildly, after watching her for a minute. "i should not be surprised," she told me haughtily, "if you some day wished it still wider." "there wouldn't be the chance for fighting, if it was; and i take great pleasure in keeping the feud going." "i thought you were anxious for a truce," she said recklessly, shading a slope so that it looked like the peak of a roof. "i am," i retorted shamelessly. "i'm anxious for anything under the sun that will keep you talking to me. people might call that a flirtatious remark, but i plead not guilty; i wouldn't know how to flirt, even if i wanted to do so." she turned her head and looked at me in a way that i could not misunderstand; it was plain, unvarnished scorn, and a ladylike anger, and a few other unpleasant things. it made me think of a certain star in "the taming of the shrew." "fie, fie! unknit that threatening, unkind brow, and dart not scornful glances from those eyes, to wound thy neighbor and thine enemy," i declaimed, with rather a free adaptation to my own need. her brow positively refused to unknit. "have you nothing to do but spout bad quotations from shakespeare on a hilltop?" she wanted to know, in a particularly disagreeable tone. "plenty; i have yet to win that narrow pass," i said. "hardly to-day," she told me, with more than a shade of triumph. "father is at home, and he heard of your trip yesterday." if she expected to scare me by that! "must our feud include your father? when i met him a month ago, he gave me a cordial invitation to stop, if i ever happened this way." she lifted those heavy lashes, and her eyes plainly spoke unbelief. "it's a fact," i assured her calmly. "i met him one day in laurel, and was fortunate enough to perform a service which earned his gratitude. as i say, he invited me to come and see him; i told him i should be glad to have him visit me at the bay state ranch, and we embraced each other with much fervor." "indeed!" i could see that she persisted in doubting my veracity. "ask your father if we didn't," i said, much injured. i knew she wouldn't, though. a scrambling behind us made me turn, and there was perry potter climbing up to us, his eyes sharper than ever, and his face so absolutely devoid of expression that it told me a good deal. i'll lay all i own he was a good bit astonished at what he saw! as for me, i could have kicked him back to the bottom of the hill--and i probably looked it. "there was something i forgot to put in that note," he said evenly, just touching the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of the girl's presence. "i wrote another one. i'd like ballard to get it as soon as you can make camp--conveniently." his eyes looked through me almost as if i weren't there. my desire to kick him grew almost into mania. i took the note, saw at a glance that it was addressed to me, and said: "all right," in a tone quite different from the one i had been using to tease miss king. he gave me another sharp look, and went back the way he had come, leaving me standing there glaring after him. miss king, i noticed, was sketching for dear life, and her cheeks were crimson. when potter had got to the bottom and was riding away, i unfolded the note and read: don't be a fool. for god's sake, have some sense and keep away from king's highway. i laughed, and miss king looked up inquiringly. following an impulse i've never yet been able to classify, i showed her the note. she read it calmly--i might say indifferently. "he is quite right," she said coldly. "i, too--if i cared enough--would advise you to keep away from king's highway." "but you don't care enough to advise me, and so i shall go," i said--and i had the satisfaction of seeing her teeth come down sharply on her lower lip. i waited a minute, watching her. "you're very foolish," she said icily, and went at her sketching again. i waited another minute; during that time she succeeded in making the pass look weird indeed, and a fearsome place to enter. i got reckless. "you've spoiled that sketch," i said, stooping and taking it gently from her. "give it to me, and it shall be a flag of truce with which i shall win my way through unscathed." she started to her feet then, and her anger was worth facing for the glow it brought to eyes and cheeks, and the tremble that came to her lips. "mr. carleton, you are perfectly detestable!" she cried. "miss king, you are perfectly adorable!" i returned, folding the sketch very carefully, so that it would slip easily into my pocket. "with so authentic a map of the enemy's stronghold, what need i fear? i go--but, on my honor, i shall shortly return." she stood with her fingers clasped tightly in front of her, and watched me lead shylock down that butte--on the side toward the pass, if you are still in doubt of my intentions. when i say she watched me, i am making a guess; but i felt that she was, and it would be hard to disabuse my mind of that belief. and when i started, her fingers had been clinging tightly together. at the bottom i turned and waved my hat--and i know she saw that, for she immediately whirled and took to studying the southern sky-line. so i left her and galloped straight into the lion's den--to use an old simile. i passed through the gate and up to the house, shylock pacing easily along as though we both felt assured of a welcome. old king met me at his door as i was going by; i pulled up and gave him my very cheeriest good morning. he looked at me from under shaggy, gray eyebrows. "you've got your gall, young man, to come this way twice in twenty-four hours," he said grimly. "you can turn around and go back the way you came in." "you asked me to call," i reminded him mildly. "you were not at home yesterday, so i came again." he glanced uneasily over his shoulder, and drew the door shut between himself and whoever was within. "you damn' cur," he growled, "yuh know yuh ain't no friend uh the kings." "i know you're all mighty unneighborly," i said, making me a cigarette in the way that cowboys do. "i asked a young lady--your daughter, i suppose--for a drink of water. she told me to go to the creek." he laughed at that; evidently he approved of his daughter's attitude. "beryl knows how to deal with the likes uh you," he muttered relishfully. "and she hates the carletons bad as i do. get off my place, young man, and do it quick!" "sure!" i assented cheerfully, and jabbed the spurs into shylock--taking good care that he was beaded north instead of south. and it's a fact that, ticklish as was the situation, my first thought was: "so her name's beryl, is it? mighty pretty name, and fits her, too." king wasn't thinking anything so sentimental, i'll wager. he yelled to two or three fellows, as i shot by them near the first corral: "round up that thus-and-how"--i hate to say the words right out--"and bring him back here!" then he sent a bullet zipping past my ear, and from the house came a high, nasal squawk which, i gathered, came from the old party i had seen the day before. i went clippety-clip around those sheds and corrals, till i like to have snapped my head off; i knew shylock could take first money over any ordinary cayuse, and i let him out; but, for all that, i heard them coming, and it sounded as if they were about to ride all over me, they were so close. past the last shed i went streaking it, and my heart remembered what it was made for, and went to work. i don't feel that, under the circumstances, it's any disgrace to own that i was scared. i didn't hear any more little singing birds fly past, so i straightened up enough to look around and see what was doing in the way of pursuit. one glance convinced me that my pursuers weren't going to sleep in their saddles. one of them, on a little buckskin that was running with his ears laid so flat it looked as if he hadn't any, was widening the loop in his rope, and yelling unfriendly things as he spurred after me; the others were a length behind, and i mentally put them out of the race. the gentleman with the businesslike air was all i wanted to see, and i laid low as i could and slapped shylock along the neck, and told him to bestir himself. he did. we skimmed up that trail like a winner on the home--stretch, and before i had time to think of what lay ahead, i saw that fence with the high, board gate that was padlocked. right there i swore abominably--but it didn't loosen the gate. i looked back and decided that this was no occasion for pulling wires loose and leading my horse over them. it was no occasion for anything that required more than a second; my friend of the rope was not more than five long jumps behind, and he was swinging that loop suggestively over his head. i reined shylock sharply out of the trail, saw a place where the fence looked a bit lower than the average, and put him straight at it with quirt and spurs. he would have swung off, but i've ridden to hounds, and i had seen hunters go over worse places; i held him to it without mercy. he laid back his ears, then, and went over--and his hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it like thread. i heard it hum through the air, and i heard those behind me shout as though something unlooked-for had happened. i turned, saw them gathered on the other side looking after me blankly, and i waved my hat airily in farewell and went on about my business. [illustration: "his hind feet caught the top wire and snapped it like thread."] i felt that they would scarcely chase me the whole twelve or fifteen miles of the pass, and i was right; after i turned the first bend i saw them no more. at camp i was received with much astonishment, particularly when ballard saw that i had brought an answer to his note. "yuh must 'a' rode king's highway," he said, looking at me much as perry potter had done the night before. i told him i did, and the boys gathered round and wanted to know how i did it. i told them about jumping the fence, and my conceit got a hard blow there; with one accord they made it plain that i had done a very foolish thing. range horses, they assured me, are not much at jumping, as a rule; and wire-fences are their special abhorrence. frosty miller told me, in confidence, that he didn't know which was the bigger fool, shylock or me, and he hoped i'd never be guilty of another trick like that. that rather took the bloom off my adventure, and i decided, after much thought, that i agreed with frosty: king's highway was bad medicine. i amended that a bit, and excepted beryl king; i did not think she was "bad medicine," however acid might be her flavor. chapter vi. i ask beryl king to dance. if i were just yarning for the fun there is in it, i should say that i was back in king's highway, helping beryl king gather posies and brush up her repartee, the very next morning--or the second, at the very latest. as a matter of fact, though, i steered clear of that pass, and behaved myself and stuck to work for six long weeks; that isn't saying i never thought about her, though. on the very last day of june, as nearly as i could estimate, frosty rode into kenmore for something, and came back with that in his eyes that boded mischief; his words, however, were innocent enough for the most straight-laced. "there's things doing in kenmore," he remarked to a lot of us. "old king has a party of aristocrats out from new york, visiting--terence weaver, half-owner in the mines, and some women; they're fixing to celebrate the fourth with a dance. the women, it seems, are crazy to see a real montana dance, and watch the cowboys _chasse_ around the room in their chaps and spurs and big hats, and with two or three six-guns festooned around their middles, the way you see them in pictures. they think, as near as i could find out, that cowboys always go to dances in full war-paint like that--and they'll be disappointed if said cowboys don't punctuate the performance by shooting out the lights, every so often." he looked across at me, and then is when i observed the mischief brewing in his eyes. "we'll have to take it in," i said promptly. "i'm anxious to see a montana dance, myself." "we aren't in their set," gloomed frosty, with diplomatic caution. "i won't swear they're sending out engraved invitations, but, all the same, we won't be expected." "we'll go, anyhow," i answered boldly. "if they want to see cow-punchers, it seems to me the ragged h can enter a bunch that will take first prize." frosty looked at me, and permitted himself to smile. "uh course, if you're bound to go, ellis, i guess there's no stopping yuh--and some of us will naturally have to go along to see yuh through. king's minions would sure do things to yuh if yuh went without a body-guard." he shook his head, and cupped his hands around a match-blaze and a cigarette, so that no one could tell much about his expression. "i'm bound to go," i declared, taking the cue. "and i think i do need some of you to back me up. i think," i added judicially, "i shall need the whole bunch." the "bunch" looked at one another gravely and sighed. "we'll have t' go, i reckon," they said, just as though they weren't dying to play the unexpected guest. so that was decided, and there was much whispering among groups when they thought the wagon-boss was near, and much unobtrusive preparation. it happened that the wagons pulled in close to the ranch the day before the fourth, intending to lay over for a day or so. we were mighty glad of it, and hurried through our work. i don't know why the rest were so anxious to attend that dance, but for me, i'm willing to own that i wanted to see beryl king. i knew she'd be there--and if i didn't manage, by fair means or foul, to make her dance with me, i should be very much surprised and disappointed. i couldn't remember ever giving so much thought to a girl; but i suppose it was because she was so frankly antagonistic that there was nothing tame about our intercourse. i can't like girls who invariably say just what you expect them to say. when we came to get ready, there was a dress-discussion that a lot of women would find it hard to beat. some of the boys wanted to play up to, the aristocrats' expectations, and wear their gaudiest neckerchiefs, their chaps, spurs, and all the guns they could get their hands on; but i had an idea i thought beat theirs, and proselyted for all i was worth. rankin had packed a lot of dress suits in one of my trunks--evidently he thought montana was some sort of house-party--and i wanted to build a surprise for the good people at king's. i wanted the boys to use those suits to the best advantage. at first they hung back. they didn't much like the idea of wearing borrowed clothes--which attitude i respected, but felt bound to overrule. i told them it was no worse than borrowing guns, which a lot of them were doing. in the end my oratory was rewarded as it deserved; it was decided that, as even my capacious trunks couldn't be expected to hold thirty dress suits, part of the crowd should ride in full regalia. i might "tog up" as many as possible, and said "togged" men must lend their guns to the others; for every man of the "reals" insisted on wearing a gun dangling over each hip. so i went down into my trunks, and disinterred four dress suits and three tuxedos, together with all the appurtenances thereto. oh, rankin was certainly a wonder! there was a gay-colored smoking-jacket and cap that one of the boys took a fancy to and insisted on wearing, but i drew the line at that. we nearly had a fight over it, right there. when we were dressed--and i had to valet the whole lot of them, except frosty, who seemed wise to polite apparel--we were certainly a bunch of winners. modesty forbids explaining just how _i_ appear in a dress suit. i will only say that my tailor knew his business--but the others were fearful and wonderful to look upon. to begin with, not all of them stand six-feet-one in their stocking-feet, or tip the scales at a hundred and eighty odd; likewise their shoulders lacked the breadth that goes with the other measurements. hence my tailor would doubtless have wept at the sight; shoulders drooping spiritlessly, and sleeves turned up, and trousers likewise. frosty miller, though, was like a man with his mask off; he stood there looking the gentleman born, and i couldn't help staring at him. "you've been broken to society harness, old man, and are bridle-wise," i said, slapping him on the shoulder. he whirled on me savagely, and his face was paler than i'd ever seen it. "and if i have--what the hell is it to you?" he asked unpleasantly, and i stammered out some kind of apology. far be it from me to pry into a man's past. i straightened sandy johnson's tie, turned up his sleeves another inch, and we started out. and i will say we were a quaint-looking outfit. perhaps my meaning will be clearer when i say that every one of us wore the soft, white "stetson" of the range-land, and a silk handkerchief knotted loosely around the throat, and spurs and riding-gloves. i've often wondered if the range has ever seen just that wedding of the east and the west before in man's apparel. we'd scarcely got started when the wind caught frosty's coat-tails and slapped them down along the flanks of his horse--an incident that the horse met with stern disapproval. he went straight up into the air, and then bucked as long as his wind held out, the while frosty's quirt kept time with the tails of his coat. when the two had calmed down a bit, the other boys profited by frosty's experience, and tucked the coat-tails snugly under them--and those who wore the tuxedos congratulated themselves on their foresight. we were a merry party, and we were willing to publish the fact. when we had overtaken the others we were still merrier, for the spectacular contingent plumed themselves like peacocks on their fearsomeness, and guyed us conventionally garbed fellows unmercifully. when the thirty of us filed into the long, barn-like hall where they were having the dance, i believe i can truthfully say that we created a sensation. that "ripple of excitement" which we read about so often in connection with belles and balls went round the room. frosty and i led the way, and the rest of the "biscuit-shooter brigade," as the others called us, followed two by two. then came the real wild west show, with their hats tilted far back on their heads and brazen faces which it pained me to contemplate. we arrived during that humming hash which comes just after a number, and every one stared impolitely, and some of them not overcordially. i began to wonder if we hadn't done a rather ill-bred thing, to hurl ourselves so unceremoniously into the merrymakings of the enemy; but i comforted myself with the thought that the dance was given as a public affair, so that we were acting within our technical rights--though i own that, as i looked around upon our crowd, ranged solemnly along the wall, it struck me that we _were_ a bit spectacular. she was there, chatting with some other women, at the far end of the hall, and if she saw me enter the room she did not show any disquietude; from where i stood, she seemed perfectly at ease, and unconscious of anything unusual having occurred. old king i could not see. a waltz was announced--rather, bellowed--and the boys drifted away from me. it was evident that they did not intend to become wall flowers. for myself, it occurred to me that, except my somewhat debatable acquaintance with miss king, i did not know a woman in the room. i called up all my courage and fortitude, and started toward her. i was determined to ask her to dance, and i got some chilly comfort out of the reflection that she couldn't do any worse than refuse; still, that would be quite bad enough, and i will not say that i crossed that room, with three or four hundred eyes upon me, in any oh-be-joyful frame of mind. i rather suspect that my face resembled that plebeian and oft-mentioned vegetable, the beet. i was within ten feet of her, and i was thinking that she couldn't possibly hold that cool, unconscious look much longer, when a hand feminine was extended from the row of silent watchers and caught at my sleeve. "ellie carleton, it's never you!" chirped a familiar voice. i turned, a bit dazed with the unexpected interruption, and saw that it was edith loroman, whom i had last seen in the east the summer before, when i was gyrating through newport and all those places, with barney mactague for chaperon, and whom i had known for long. edith had chosen to be very friendly always, and i liked her--only, i suspected her of being a bit too worldly to suit me. "and why isn't it i? i can't see that my identity is more surprising than yours," i retorted, pulling myself together. it did certainly give me a start to see her there, and looking so exactly as she had always looked. i couldn't think of anything more to say, so, as the music had started, i asked her if she had any dances saved for me. i couldn't decently leave her and carry out my original plan, you see. she laughed at my ignorance, and told me that this was a "frontier" dance, and there were no programs. "you just promise one or two dances ahead," she explained. "as many as you can remember. beryl told me all about how they do here; beryl king is my cousin, you know." i didn't know, but i was content to take her word for it, and asked her for that dance and got it, and she chattered on about everything under the sun, and told all about how they happened to be in montana, and how long they were going to stay, and that mr. weaver had brought his auto, and another fellow--i forget his name--had intended to bring his, but didn't, and that they were going to tour through to helena, on their way home, and it would be such fun, and that if i didn't come over right away to call upon her, she would never forgive me. "there's a drawback," i told her. "i'm not on your cousin's visiting-list; i've never even been introduced to her." "that," said miss edith complacently, "is easily remedied. you know mama well enough, i should think. aunt lodema--funny name, isn't it?--is stopping here all summer, with beryl. beryl has the strangest tastes. she _will_ spend every summer out here with her father, and if any of us poor mortals want a glimpse of her between seasons, we must come where she is. she's a dear, and you must know her, even if you do hold yourself superior to us women. she's almost as much a crank on athletics as you are; you ought to see her on the links, once! that's why i can't understand her running away off here every summer. and, by the way, ellie, what are _you_ doing here--a stranger?" "i'm earning my bread by the sweat of my brow," i told her plainly. "i'm a cowboy--a would-be, i suppose i should say." she looked up at me horrified. "have you--lost--your millions?" she wanted to know. edith loroman was always a straightforward questioner, at any rate. "the millions," i told her, laughing, "are all right, i believe. dad has a cattle-ranch in this part of the world, and he sent me out here to reform me. he meant it as a punishment, but at present i'm getting rather the best of the deal, i think." "and where's barney?" she asked. "one reason i came near not recognizing you was because you hadn't your shadow along." "barney is luxuriating in idleness somewhere," i answered lightly. "one couldn't expect _him_ to turn savage, just because i did. i can't imagine barney working for his daily bread." "i can," retorted miss edith, "every bit as easily as i can imagine you! and, if you'll pardon me, i don't believe a word of it, either." on the whole, i could hardly blame her. as she had always known me, i must have appeared to her somewhat like solomon's lilies. but i did not try to convince her; there were other things more important. i went and made my bow to mrs. loroman, and answered sundry questions--more conventional, i may say, than were those of her daughter. mrs. loroman was one of the best type of society dames, and i will own that i was a bit surprised to find that she was beryl king's aunt. in spite of that indefinable little air of breeding that i had felt in my two meetings with miss king, i had thought of her as distinctly a daughter of the range-land. "i'll introduce you to my cousin and aunt now, if you like," edith offered generously, in an undertone--for the two were not ten feet from us, although miss king had not yet seen fit to know that i was in the room. how a woman can act so deuced innocent, beats me. miss king lowered her chin as much as half an inch, and looked at me as if i were an exceeding commonplace, inanimate object that could not possibly interest her. her aunt, lodema king, was almost as bad, i think; i didn't notice particularly. but miss king's i-do-not-know-you-sir air could not save her; i hadn't schemed like a villain for a week, and ridden twenty-five miles at a good fast clip after a stiff day's work, just to be presented and walk away. i asked her for the next waltz. "the next waltz is promised to mr. weaver," she told me freezingly. i asked for the next two-step. "the next two-step is also promised--to mr. weaver." i began to have unfriendly feelings toward mr. weaver. "will you be good enough to inform what dance is _not_ promised?" i almost finished "to mr. weaver," but i'm not quite a cad, i hope. "really, we haven't programs here to-night," she parried. i played a reckless lead. "i wonder," i said, looking straight down into those eyes of hers, and hoping she couldn't suspect the prickles chasing over me at the very look of them--"i wonder if it's because you're _afraid_ to dance with me?" "are you so--fearsome?" she retorted evenly, and i got back instantly: "it would almost seem so." i had the satisfaction of seeing her lip go in between her teeth. (i should like to say something about those teeth--only it would sound like the advertisement of a dentifrice, for i should be bound to mention pearls once or twice.) "you are flattering yourself, mr. carleton; i am not at all afraid to dance with you," she said--and, oh, the tone of her! "i shall expect you to prove that instantly," i retorted, still looking straight into her face. a quadrille--the old-fashioned kind--was called, and she looked up at me and put out her hand. only an idiot would wonder whether i took it. "this isn't a fair test," i told her, after leading her out in position. "you won't be dancing with me a quarter of the time, you know. only the closest observer may tell, after we once get going, whom you are dancing with." "that," she retorted, with a gleam in her eyes i couldn't--being no lady's man--interpret--"that is a mere quibble, and would not hold in court." "it's going to hold in _this_ court," i answered boldly, and wished i had not so systematically wasted my opportunities in the past--that i had spent more time drinking tea and studying the "infernal feminine." she gave me a quick, puzzling glance, and as we were commanded at that instant to salute our partners, she swept me a half-curtsy that made me grit my teeth, though i tried to make my own bow quite as elaborate and mocking. i couldn't make her out at all during that dance. whenever we came together there was that little air of mockery in every move she made, and yet something in her eyes seemed to invite and to challenge. the first time we were privileged, by the old-fashioned "caller," to "swing our partners," milady would have given me her finger-tips--only i wouldn't have it that way. i held her as close as i dared, and--i don't know but i'm a fool--she didn't seem in any great rage over it. lord, how i did wish i was wise to the ways of women! the next waltz i couldn't have, because she was to dance it with mr. weaver. so i had the fun of sitting there watching them fly around the room, and getting a good-sized dislike of the fellow over it. i don't pretend to be one of those large-minded men who are always painfully unprejudiced. weaver looked like a pretty good sort, and under other circumstances i should probably have liked him, but as it was i emphatically did not. however, i got a waltz, after a heart-breaking delay, and it was worth waiting for. i had felt all along that we could hit it off pretty well together, and we did. we didn't say much--we just floated off into another world--or i did--and there was nothing i wanted to say that i dared say. i call that a good excuse for silence. afterward i asked her for another, and she looked at me curiously. "you're a very hard man to convince, mr. carleton," she told me, with that same queer look in her eyes. i was beginning to get drunk--intoxicated, if you like the word better--on those same eyes; they always affected me, somehow, as if i'd never seen them before; always that same little tingle of surprise went over me when she lifted those heavy fringes of lashes. i'm not psychologist enough to explain this, and i'm strictly no good at introspection; it was that way with me, and that will have to do. i told her she probably would never meet another who required so much convincing, and, after wrangling over the matter politely for a minute, got her to promise me another waltz, said promise to be redeemed after supper. i tried to talk to "aunt lodema," but she would have none of me, and she seemed to think i had more than my share of effrontery to attempt such a thing. mrs. loroman was better, and i filled in fifteen minutes or so very pleasantly with her. after that i went over to edith and got her to sit out a dance with me. the first thing she asked me was about frosty. who was he? and why was he here? and how long had he been here? i told her all i knew about him, and then turned frank and asked her why she wanted to know. "mama hasn't recognized him--yet," she said confidentially, "but i was sure he was the same. he has shaved his mustache, and he's much browner and heavier, but he's fred miller--and why doesn't he come and speak to me?" out of much words, i gathered that she and frosty were, to put it mildly, old friends. she didn't just say there was an engagement between them, but she hinted it; his father had "had trouble"--the vagueness of women!--and edith's mama had turned frosty down, to put it bluntly. frosty had, ostensibly, gone to south africa, and that was the last of him. miss edith seemed quite disturbed over seeing him there in kenmore. i told her that if frosty wanted to stay in the background, that was his privilege and my gain, and she smiled at me vaguely and said of course it didn't really matter. at supper-time our crowd got the storekeeper intimidated sufficiently to open his store and sell us something to eat. the king faction had looked upon us blackly, though there were too many of us to make it safe meddling, and none of us were minded to break bread with them. instead, we sat around on the counter and on boxes in the store, and ate crackers and sardines and things like that. i couldn't help remembering my last fourth, and the banquet i had given on board the _molly stark_--my yacht, named after the lady known to history, whom dad claims for an ancestress--and i laughed out loud. the boys wanted to know the cause of my mirth, and so, with a sardine laid out decently between two crackers in one hand, and a blue "granite" cup of plebeian beer in the other, i told them all about that banquet, and some of the things we had to eat and drink--whereat they laughed, too. the contrast was certainly amusing. but, somehow, i wouldn't have changed, just then, if i could have done so. that, also, is something i'm not psychologist enough to explain. that last waltz with miss king was like to prove disastrous, for we swished uncomfortably close to her father, standing scowling at frosty and some of the others of our crowd near the door. luckily, he didn't see us, and at the far end miss king stopped abruptly. her cheeks were pink, and her eyes looked up at me--wistfully, i could almost say. "i think, mr. carleton, we had better stop," she said hesitatingly. "i don't believe your enmity is so ungenerous as to wish to cause me unpleasantness. you surely are convinced now that i am not afraid of you, so the truce is over." i did not pretend to misunderstand. "i'm going home at once," i told her gently, "and i shall take my spectacular crowd along with me; but i'm not sorry i came, and i hope you are not." she looked at me soberly, and then away. "there is one thing i should like to say," she said, in so low a tone i had to lean to catch the words. "please don't try to ride through king's highway again; father hates you quite enough as it is, and it is scarcely the part of a gentleman to needlessly provoke an old man." i could feel myself grow red. what a cad i must seem to her! "king's highway shall be safe from my vandal feet hereafter," i told her, and meant it. "so long as you keep that promise," she said, smiling a bit, "i shall try to remember mine enemy with respect." "and i hope that mine enemy shall sometimes view the beauties of white divide from a little distance--say half a mile or so," i answered daringly. she heard me, but at that minute that weaver chap came up, and she began talking to him as though he was her long-lost friend. i was clearly out of it, so i told edith and her mother good night, bowed to "aunt lodema" and got the stony stare for my reward, and rounded up my crowd. we passed old king in a body, and he growled something i could not hear; one of the boys told me, afterward, that it was just as well i didn't. we rode away under the stars, and i wished that night had been four times as long, and that beryl king would be as nice to me as was edith loroman. chapter vii. one day too late! i suppose there is always a time when a fellow passes quite suddenly out of the cub-stage and feels himself a man--or, at least, a very great desire to be one. until that fourth of july life had been to me a playground, with an interruption or two to the game. when dad took such heroic measures to instil some sense into my head, he interrupted the game for ten days or so--and then i went back to my play, satisfied with new toys. at least, that is the way it seemed to me. but after that night, things were somehow different. i wanted to amount to something; i was absolutely ashamed of my general uselessness, and i came near writing to dad and telling him so. the worst of it was that i didn't know just what it was i wanted to do, except ride over to that little pinnacle just out from king's highway, and watch for beryl king; that, of course, was out of the question, and maudlin, anyway. on the third day after, as frosty and i were riding circle quite silently and moodily together, we rode up into a little coulã©e on the southwestern side of white divide, and came quite unexpectedly upon a little picnic-party camped comfortably down by the spring where we had meant to slake our own thirst. of course, it was the kings' house-party; they were the only luxuriously idle crowd in the country. edith and her mother greeted me with much apparent joy, but, really, i felt sorry for frosty; all that saved him from recognition then was the providential near-sightedness of mrs. loroman. i observed that he was careful not to come close enough to the lady to run any risk. aunt lodema tilted her chin at me, and beryl--to tell the truth, i couldn't make up my mind about beryl. when i first rode up to them, and she looked at me, i fancied there was a welcome in her eyes; after that there was anything else you like to name. i looked several times at her to make sure, but i couldn't tell any more what she was thinking than one can read the face of a chinaman. (that isn't a pretty comparison, i know, but it gives my meaning, for, of all humans, chinks are about the hardest to understand or read.) i was willing, however, to spend a good deal of time studying the subject of her thoughts, and got off my horse almost as soon as mrs. loroman and edith invited me to stop and eat lunch with them. that weaver fellow was not present, but another man, whom they introduced as mr. tenbrooke, was sitting dolefully on a rock, watching a maid unpacking eatables. edith told me that "uncle homer"--which was old man king--and mr. weaver would be along presently. they had driven over to kenmore first, on a matter of business. frosty, i could see, was not going to stay, even though edith, in a polite little voice that made me wonder at her, invited him to do so. edith was not the hostess, and had really no right to do that. i tried to get a word with miss beryl, found myself having a good many words with edith, instead, and in fifteen minutes i became as thoroughly disgusted with unkind fate as ever i've been in my life, and suddenly remembered that duty made further delay absolutely impossible. we rode away, with edith protesting prettily at what she was pleased to call my bad manners. for the rest of the way up that coulã©e frosty and i were even more silent and moody than we had been before. the only time we spoke was when frosty asked me gruffly how long those people expected to stay out here. i told him a week, and he grunted something under his breath about female fortune-hunters. i couldn't see what he was driving at, for i certainly should never think of accusing edith and her mother of being that especial brand of abhorrence, but he was in a bitter mood, and i wouldn't argue with him then--i had troubles of my own to think of. i was beginning to call myself several kinds of a fool for letting a girl--however wonderful her eyes--give me bad half-hours quite so frequently; the thing had never happened to me before, and i had known hundreds of nice girls--approximately. when a fellow goes through a co-ed course, and has a dad whom the papers call financier, he gets a speaking-acquaintance with a few girls. the trouble with me was, i never gave the whole bunch as much thought as i was giving to beryl king--and the more i thought about her, the less satisfaction there was in the thinking. i waited a day or two, and then practically ran away from my work and rode over to that little butte. some one was sitting on the same flat rock, and i climbed up to the place with more haste than grace, i imagine. when i reached the top, panting like the purr of the _yellow peril_--my automobile--when it gets warmed up and going smoothly, i discovered that it was edith loroman sitting placidly, with a camera on her knees, doing things to the internal organs of the thing. i don't know much about cameras, so i can't be more explicit. "if it isn't ellie, looking for all the world like the _virginian_ just stepped down from behind the footlights!" was her greeting. "where in the world have you been, that you haven't been over to see us?" "you must know that the palace of the king is closed against the carletons," i, said, and i'm afraid i said it a bit crossly; i hadn't climbed that unmerciful butte just to bandy commonplaces with edith loroman, even if we were old friends. there are times when new enemies are more diverting than the oldest of old friends. "well, you could come when uncle homer is away--which he often is," she pouted. "every sunday he drives over to kenmore and pokes around his miners and mines, and often terence and beryl go with him, so you could come--" "no, thank you." i put on the dignity three deep there. "if i can't come when your uncle is at home, i won't sneak in when he's gone. i--how does it happen you are away out here by yourself?" "well," she explained, still doing things to the camera, "beryl came out here yesterday, and made a sketch of the divide; i just happened to see her putting it away. so i made her tell me where she got that view-point, and i wanted her to come with me, so i could get a snap shot; it _is_ pretty, from here. but she went over to the mines with mr. weaver, and i had to come alone. beryl likes to be around those dirty mines--but i can't bear it. and, now i'm here, something's gone wrong with the thing, so i can't wind the film. do you know how to fix it, ellie?" i didn't, and i told her so, in a word. edith pouted again--she has a pretty mouth that looks well all tied up in a knot, and i have a slight suspicion that she knows it--and said that a fellow who could take an automobile all to pieces and put it together again ought to be able to fix a kodak. that's the way some women reason, i believe--just as though cars and kodaks are twin brothers. our conversation, as i remember it now, was decidedly flat and dull. i kept thinking of beryl being there the day before--and i never knew; of her being off somewhere to-day with that weaver fellow--and i knew it and couldn't do a thing. i hardly know which was the more unpleasant to dwell upon, but i do know that it made me mighty poor company for edith. i sat there on a near-by rock and lighted cigarettes, only to let them go out, and glowered at king's highway, off across the flat, as if it were the mouth of the bottomless pit. i can't wonder that edith called me a bear, and asked me repeatedly if i had toothache, or anything. by and by she had her kodak in working order again, and took two or three pictures of the divide. edith is very pretty, i believe, and looks her best in short walking-costume. i wondered why she had not ridden out to the butte; beryl had, the time i met her there, i remembered. she had a deep-chested blue roan that looked as if he could run, and i had noticed that she wore the divided skirt, which is so popular among women who ride. i don't, as a rule, notice much what women have on--but beryl king's feet are altogether too small for the least observant man to pass over. edith's feet were well shod, but commonplace. "i wish you'd let me have one of those pictures when they're done," i told her, as amiably as i could. she pushed back a lock of hair. "i'll send you one, if you like, when i get home. what address do you claim, in this wilderness?" i wrote it down for her and went my way, feeling a badly used young man, with a strong inclination to quarrel with fate. edith had managed, during her well-meant efforts at entertaining me, to couple mr. weaver's name all too frequently with that of her cousin. i found it very depressing--a good many things, in fact, were depressing that day. i went back to camp and stuck to work for the rest of that week--until some of the boys told me that they had seen the kings' guests scooting across the prairie in the big touring-car of weaver's, evidently headed for helena. after that i got restless again, and every mile the round-up moved south i took as a special grievance; it put that much greater distance between me and king's highway--and i had got to that unhealthy stage where every mile wore on my nerves, and all i wanted was to moon around that little butte. i believe i should even have taken a morbid pleasure in watching the light in her window o' nights, if it had been at all practicable. chapter viii a fight and a race for life. it was between the spring round-up and the fall, while the boys were employed in desultory fashion at the home ranch, breaking in new horses and the like, and while i was indefatigably wearing a trail straight across country to that little butte--and getting mighty little out of it save the exercise and much heart-burnings--that the message came. a man rode up to the corrals on a lather-gray horse, coming from kenmore, where was a telephone-station connected from osage. i read the message incredulously. dad sick unto death? such a thing had never happened--_couldn't_ happen, it seemed to me. it was unbelievable; not to be thought of or tolerated. but all the while i was planning and scheming to shave off every superfluous minute, and get to where he was. i held out the paper to perry potter, "have some one saddle up shylock," i ordered, quite as if he had been rankin. "and frosty will have to go with me as far as osage. we can make it by to-morrow noon--through king's highway. i mean to get that early afternoon train." the last sentence i sent back over my shoulder, on my way to the house. dad sick--dying? i cursed the miles between us. frisco was a long, a terribly long, way off; it seemed in another world. by then i was on my way back to the corral, with a decent suit of clothes on and a few things stuffed into a bag, and with a roll of money--money that i had earned--in my pocket. i couldn't have been ten minutes, but it seemed more. and frisco was a long way off! "you'd better take the rest of the boys part way," potter greeted dryly as i came up. i brushed past him and swung up into the saddle, feeling that if i stopped to answer i might be too late. i had a foolish notion that even a long breath would conspire to delay me. frosty was already on his horse, and i noticed, without thinking about it at the time, that he was riding a long-legged sorrel, "spikes," that could match shylock on a long chase--as this was like to be. we were off at a run, without once looking back or saying good-by to a man of them; for farewells take minutes in the saying, and minutes meant--more than i cared to think about just then. they were good fellows, those cowboys, but i left them standing awkwardly, as men do in the face of calamity they may not hinder, without a thought of whether i should ever see one of them again. with frosty galloping at my right, elbow to elbow, we faced the dim, purple outline of white divide. already the dusk was creeping over the prairie-land, and little sleepy birds started out of the grasses and flew protesting away from our rush past their nesting-places. frosty spoke when we had passed out of the home-field, even in our haste stopping to close and tie fast the gate behind us. "you don't want to run your horse down in the first ten miles, ellis; we'll make time by taking it easy at first, and you'll get there just as soon." i knew he was right about it, and pulled shylock down to the steady lope that was his natural gait. it was hard, though, to just "mosey" along as if we were starting out to kill time and earn our daily wage in the easiest possible manner. one's nerves demanded an unusual pace--a pace that would soothe fear by its very headlong race against misfortune. once or twice it occurred to me to wonder, just for a minute, how we should fare in king's highway; but mostly my thoughts stuck to dad, and how it happened that he was "critically ill," as the message had put it. crawford had sent that message; i knew from the precise way it was worded--crawford never said _sick_--and crawford was about as conservative a man as one could well be, and be human. he was as unemotional as a properly trained footman; jenks, our butler, showed more feeling. but crawford, if he was conservative, was also conscientious. dad had had him for ten years, and trusted him a million miles farther than he would trust anybody else--for crawford could no more lie than could the multiplication-table; if he said dad was "critically ill," that settled it; dad was. i used to tell barney mactague, when he thought it queer that i knew so little about dad's affairs, that dad was a fireproof safe, and crawford was the combination lock. but perhaps it was the other way around; at any rate, they understood each other perfectly, and no other living man understood either. the darkness flowed down over the land and hid the farther hills; the sky-line crept closer until white divide seemed the boundary of the world, and all beyond its tumbled shade was untried mystery. frosty, a shadowy figure rising and falling regularly beside me, turned his face and spoke again: "we ought to make pochette's crossing by daylight, or a little after--with luck," he said. "we'll have to get horses from him to go on with; these will be all in, when we get that far." "we'll try and sneak through the pass," i answered, putting unpleasant thoughts resolutely behind me. "we can't take time to argue the point out with old king." "sneak nothing," frosty retorted grimly. "you don't know king, if you're counting on that." i came near asking how he expected to get through, then; when i remembered my own spectacular flight, on a certain occasion, i felt that frosty was calmly disowning our only hope. we rode quietly into the mouth of king's highway, our horses stepping softly in the deep sand of the trail as if they, too, realized the exigencies of the situation. we crossed the little stream that is the first baby beginning of honey creek--which flows through our ranch--with scarce a splash to betray our passing, and stopped before the closed gate. frosty got down to swing it open, and his fingers touched a padlock doing business with bulldog pertinacity. clearly, king was minded to protect himself from unwelcome evening callers. "we'll have to take down the wires," frosty murmured, coming back to where i waited. "got your gun handy? yuh might need it before long." frosty was not warlike by nature, and when he advised having a gun handy i knew the situation to be critical. we took down a panel of fence without interruption or sign of life at the house, not more than fifty yards away; frosty whispered that they were probably at supper, and that it was our best time. i was foolish enough to regret going by without chance of a word with beryl, great as was my haste. i had not seen her since that day frosty and i had ridden into their picnic--though i made efforts enough, the lord knows--and i was not at all happy over my many failures. whether it was good luck or bad, i saw her rise up from a hammock on the porch as we went by--for, as i said before, king's house was much closer to the trail than was decent; i could have leaned from the saddle and touched her with my quirt. "mr. carleton"--i was fool enough to gloat over her instant recognition, in the dark like that--"what are you doing here--at this hour? don't you know the risk? and your promise--" she spoke in an undertone, as if she were afraid of being overheard--which i don't doubt she was. but if she had been a delilah she couldn't have betrayed me more completely. frosty motioned imperatively for me to go on, but i had pulled up at her first word, and there i stood, waiting for her to finish, that i might explain that i had not lightly broken my promise; that i was compelled to cut off that extra sixty miles which would have made me, perhaps, too late. but i didn't tell her anything; there wasn't time. frosty, waiting disapprovingly a length ahead, looked back and beckoned again insistently. at the same instant a door behind the girl opened with a jerk, and king himself bulked large and angry in the lamplight. beryl shrank backward with a little cry--and i knew she had not meant to do me a hurt. "come on, you fool!" cried frosty, and struck his horse savagely. i jabbed in my spurs, and shylock leaped his length and fled down that familiar trail to the "gantlet," as i had always called it mentally after that second passing. but king, behind us, fired three shots quickly, one after another--and, as the bullets sang past, i knew them for a signal. a dozen men, as it seemed to me, swarmed out from divers places to dispute our passing, and shots were being fired in the dark, their starting-point betrayed by vicious little spurts of flame. shylock winced cruelly, as we whipped around the first shed, and i called out sharply to frosty, still a length ahead. he turned just as my horse went down to his knees. i jerked my feet from the stirrups and landed free and upright, which was a blessing. and it was then that i swung morally far back to the primitive, and wanted to kill, and kill, with never a thought for parley or retreat. frosty, like the stanch old pal he was, pulled up and came back to me, though the bullets were flying fast and thick--and not wide enough for derision on our part. "jump up behind," he commanded, shooting as he spoke. "we'll get out of this damned trap." i had my doubts, and fired away without paying him much attention. i wanted, more than anything, to get the man who had shot down shylock. that isn't a pretty confession, but it has the virtue of being the truth. so, while frosty fired at the spurts of red and cursed me for stopping there, i crouched behind my dead horse and fought back with evil in my heart and a mighty poor aim. then, just as the first excitement was hardening into deliberate malevolence, came a clatter from beyond the house, and a chorus of familiar yells and the spiteful snapping of pistols. it was our boys--thirty of the biggest-hearted, bravest fellows that ever wore spurs, and, as they came thundering down to us, i could make out the bent, wiry figure of old perry potter in the lead, yelling and shooting wickeder than any one else in the crowd. "ellis!" he shouted, and i lifted up my voice and let him know that, like webster, "i still lived." they came on with a rush that the king faction could not stay, to where i was ambushed between the solid walls of two sheds, with shylock's bulk before me and frosty swearing at my back. "horse hit?" snapped perry potter breathlessly. "i knowed it. just like yuh. get onto this'n uh mine--he's the best in the bunch--and light out--if yuh still want t' catch that train." i came back from the primitive with a rush. i no longer wanted to kill and kill. dad was lying "critically ill" in frisco--and frisco was a long way off! the miles between bulked big and black before me, so that i shivered and forgot my quarrel with king. i must catch that train. i went with one leap up into the saddle as perry potter slid down, thought vaguely that i never could ride with the stirrups so short, but that there was not time to lengthen them; took my feet peevishly out of them altogether, and dashed down, that winding way between king's sheds and corrals while the ragged h boys kept king's men at bay, and the unmusical medley of shots and yells followed us far in the darkness of the pass. at the last fence, where we perforce drew rein to make a free passage for our horses, i looked back, like one mrs. lot. a red glare lit the whole sky behind us with starry sparks, shooting up higher into the low-hanging crimson smoke-clouds. i stared, uncomprehending for a moment; then the thought of her stabbed through my brain, and i felt a sudden horror. "and beryl's back among those devils!" i cried aloud, as i pulled my horse around. "_beryl_"--frosty laid peculiar stress upon the name i had let slip--"isn't likely to be down among the sheds, where that fire is. our boys are collecting damages for shylock, i guess; hope they make a good job of it." i felt silly enough just then to quarrel with my grandmother; i hate giving a man cause for thinking me a love-sick lobster, as i'd no doubt frosty thought me. i led my horse over the wires he had let down, and we went on without stopping to put them back on the posts. it was some time before i spoke again, and, when i did, the subject was quite different; i was mourning because i hadn't the _yellow peril_ to eat up the miles with. "what good would that do yuh?" frosty asked, with a composure i could only call unfeeling. "yuh couldn't get a train, anyway, before the one yuh _will_ get; motors are all right, in their place--but a horse isn't to be despised, either. i'd rather be stranded with a tired horse than a broken-down motor." i did not agree with him, partly because i was not at all pleased with my present mount, and partly because i was not in amiable mood; so we galloped along in sulky silence, while a washed-out moon sidled over our heads and dodged behind cloud-banks quite as if she were ashamed to be seen. the coyotes got to yapping out somewhere in the dark, and, as we came among the breaks that border the missouri, a gray wolf howled close at hand. perry potter's horse, that had shown unmistakable symptoms of disgust at the endless gallop he had been called upon to maintain, shied sharply away from the sound, stumbled from leg-weariness, and fell heavily; for the second time that night i had need to show my dexterity--but, in this case, with perry potter's stirrups swinging somewhere in the vicinity of my knees, the danger of getting caught was not so great. i stood there in the dark loneliness of the silent hills and the howling wolf, and looked down at the brute with little pity and a good deal of resentment. i applied my toe tentatively to his ribs, and he just grunted. frosty got down and led spikes closer, and together we surveyed the heavily breathing, gray bulk in the sand at our feet. "if he was the _yellow peril_, instead of one of your much-vaunted steeds," i remarked tartly, "i could go at him with a wrench and have him in working order again in five minutes; as it is--" i felt that the sentence was stronger uncompleted. "as it is," finished frosty calmly, "you'll just step up on spikes and go on to pochette's. it's only about ten miles, now; spikes is good for it, if you ease him on the hills now and then. he isn't the _yellow peril_, maybe, but he's a good little horse, and he'll sure take yuh through the best he knows." i don't know why, but a lump came up in my throat at the tone of him. i put out my hand and laid it on spikes' wet, sweat-roughened neck. "yes, he's a good little horse, and i beg his pardon for what i said," i owned, still with the ache just back of my palate. "but he can't carry us both, frosty; i'll just have to tinker up this old skate, and make him go on." "yuh can't do it; he's reached his limit. yuh can't expect a common cayuse like him to do more than eighty miles in one shift--at the gait we've been traveling. i'm surprised he's held out so long. yuh take spikes and go on; i'll walk in. yuh know the way from here, and i can't help yuh out any more than to let yuh have spikes. go on--it's breaking day, and yuh haven't got any too much time to waste." i looked at him, at spikes standing wearily on three legs but with his ears perked gamily ahead, and down at the gray, worn-out horse of perry potter's. they have done what they could--and not one seemed to regret the service. i felt, at that moment, mighty small and unworthy, and tempted to reject the offer of the last ounce of endurance from either--for which i was not as deserving as i should have liked to be. "you worked all day, and you've ridden all night, and gone without a mouthful of supper for me," i protested hotly. "and now you want to walk ten beastly miles of sand and hills. i won't--" "your dad cared enough to send for you--" he began, but i would not let him finish. "you're right, frosty," and i wrung his hand. "you're the real thing, and i'd do as much for you, old pal. i'll make that frenchman rub spikes down for an hour, or i'll kill him when i get back." "you won't come back," said frosty bruskly. "see that streak uh yellow, over there? get a move on, if yuh don't want to miss that train--but ease spikes up the hills!" i nodded, pulled my hat down low over my eyes, and rode away; when i did get courage to glance back, frosty still stood where i had left him, looking down at the gray horse. an hour after sunrise i slipped off spikes and watched them lead him away to the stable; he staggered like a man when he has drunk too long and deeply. i swallowed a cup of coffee, mounted a little buckskin, and went on, with pochette's assurance, "don't be afraid to put heem through," ringing in my ears. i was not afraid to put him through. that last forty-eight miles i rode mercilessly--for the demon of hurry was again urging me on. at ten o'clock i rolled stiffly off the buckskin at the osage station, walked more stiffly into the office, and asked for a message. the operator handed me two, and looked at me with much curiosity--but i suppose i was a sight. the first was to tell me that a special would be ready at ten-thirty, and that the road would be cleared for it. i had not thought about a special--osage being so far from frisco; but crawford was a wonder, and he had a long arm. my respect for crawford increased amazingly as i read that message, and i began at once to bully the agent because the special was not ready at that minute to start. the second message was a laconic statement that dad was still alive; i folded it hurriedly and put it out of sight, for somehow it seemed to say a good many nasty things between the words. i wired crawford that i was ready to start and waiting for the special, and then i fumed and continued my bullying of the man in the office; he was not to blame for anything, of course, but it was a tremendous relief to take it out of somebody just then. the special came, on time to a second, and i swung on and told the conductor to put her through for all she was worth--but he had already got his instructions as to speed, i fancy; we ripped down the track a mile a minute--and it wasn't long till we bettered that more than i'd have believed possible. the superintendent's car had been given over to me, i learned from the porter, and would carry me to ogden, where dad's own car, the _shasta_, would meet me. there, too, i saw the hand of crawford; it was not like dad or him to borrow anything unless the necessity was absolute. i hope i may never be compelled to take another such journey. not that i was nervous at the killing pace we went--and it was certainly hair-raising, in places; but every curve that we whipped around on two wheels--approximately--told me that dad was in desperate case indeed, and that crawford was oiling every joint with gold to get me there in time. at every division the crack engine of the shops was coupled on in seconds, rather than minutes, bellowed its challenge to all previous records, and scuttled away to the west; a new conductor swung up the steps and answered patiently the questions i hurled at him, and courteously passed over the invectives when i felt that we were crawling at a snail's pace and wanted him to hurry a bit. at ogden i hustled into the _shasta_ and felt a grain of comfort in its familiar atmosphere, and a sense of companionship in the solemn face of cromwell jones, our porter. i had taken many a jaunt in the old car, with crom, and rankin, and tony, the best cook that ever fed a hungry man, and it seemed like coming home just to throw myself into my pet chair again, with crom to fetch me something cold and fizzy. from him i learned that it was pneumonia, and that if i got there in time it would be considered a miracle of speed and a triumph of faultless railroad system. if i had been tempted to take my ease and to sleep a bit, that settled it for me. the _shasta_ had no more power to lull my fears or to minister to my comfort. i refused to be satisfied with less than a couple of hundred miles an hour, and i was sore at the whole outfit because they refused to accommodate me. still, we got over the ground at such a clip that on the third day, with screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at oakland pier, where a crowd was cheering like the end of a race--which it was--and kodak fiends were underfoot as if i'd been somebody. a motor-boat was waiting, and the race went on across the bay, where crawford met me with the _yellow peril_ at the ferry depot. i was told that i was in time, and when i got my hand on the wheel, and turned the _peril_ loose, it seemed, for the first time since leaving home, that fate was standing back and letting me run things. policemen waved their arms and said things at the way we went up market street, but i only turned it on a bit more and tried not to run over any humans; a dog got it, though, just as we whipped into sacramento street. i remember wishing that frosty was with me, to be convinced that motors aren't so bad after all. it was good to come tearing up the hill with the horn bellowing for a clear track, and to slow down just enough to make the turn between our bronze mastiffs, and skid up the drive, stopping at just the right instant to avoid going clear through the stable and trespassing upon our neighbor's flower-beds. it was good--but i don't believe crawford appreciated the fact; imperturbable as he was, i fancied that he looked relieved when his feet touched the gravel. i was human enough to enjoy scaring crawford a bit, and even regretted that i had not shaved closer to a collision. then i was up-stairs, in an atmosphere of drugs and trained nurses and funeral quiet, and knew for a certainty that i was still in time, and that dad knew me and was glad to have me there. i had never seen dad in bed before, and all my life he had been associated in my mind with calm self-possession and power and perfect grooming. to see him lying there like that, so white and weak and so utterly helpless, gave me a shock that i was quite unprepared for. i came mighty near acting like a woman with hysterics--and, coming as it did right after that run in the _peril_, i gave crawford something of a shock, too, i think. i know he got me by the shoulders and hustled me out of the room, and he was looking pretty shaky himself; and if his eyes weren't watery, then i saw exceedingly, crooked. a doctor came and made me swallow something, and told me that there was a chance for dad, after all, though they had not thought so at first. then he sent me off to bed, and rankin appeared from somewhere, with his abominably righteous air, and i just escaped making another fool scene. but rankin had the sense to take me in hand just as he used to do when i'd been having no end of a time with the boys, and so got me to bed. the stuff the doctor made me swallow did the rest, and i was dead to the world in ten minutes. chapter ix. the old life--and the new. now that i was there, i was no good to anybody. the nurse wouldn't let me put my nose inside dad's door for a week, and i hadn't the heart to go out much while he was so sick. rankin was about all the recreation i had, and he palled after the first day or two. i told him things about montana that made him look painful because he hardly liked to call me a liar to my face; and the funny part was that i was telling him the truth. then dad got well enough so the nurse had no excuse for keeping me out, and i spent a lot of time sitting beside his bed and answering questions. by the time he was sitting up, peevish at the restraint of weakness and doctor's orders, we began to get really acquainted and to be able to talk together without a burdensome realization that we were father and son--and a mighty poor excuse for the son. dad wasn't such bad company, i discovered. before, he had been mostly the man that handled the carving-knife when i dined at home, and that wrote checks and dictated letters to crawford in the privacy of his own den--he called it his study. now i found that he could tell a story that had some point to it, and could laugh at yours, in his dry way, whether it had any point or not. i even got to telling him some of the scrapes i had got into, and about perry potter; dad liked to hear about perry potter. the beauty of it was, he could understand everything; he had lived there himself long enough to get the range view-point. i hate telling a yarn and then going back over it explaining all the fine points. i remember one night when the fog was rolling in from the ocean till you could hardly see the street-lamps across the way, we sat by the fire--dad was always great for big, wood fires--and smoked; and somehow i got strung out and told him about that kenmore dance, and how the boys rigged up in my clothes and went. dad laughed harder than i'd ever heard him before; you see, he knew the range, and the picture rose up before him all complete. i told that same yarn afterward to barney mactague, and there was nothing to it, so far as he was concerned. he said: "lord! they must have been an out-at-heels lot not to have any clothes of their own." now, what do you think of that? well, i went on from that and told dad about my flying trips through king's highway, too--with the girl left out. dad matched his finger-tips together while i was telling it, and afterward he didn't say much; only: "i knew you'd play the fool somehow, if you stayed long enough." he didn't explain, however, just what particular brand of fool i had been, or what he thought of old king, though i hinted pretty strong. dad has got a smooth way of parrying anything he doesn't want to answer straight out, and it takes a fellow with more nerve than i've got to corner him and just make him give up an opinion if he doesn't want to. so i didn't find out a thing about that old row, or how it started--more than what i'd learned at the ragged h, that is. frosty had written me, a week or two after i left, that our fellows had really burned king's sheds, and that perry potter had a bullet just scrape the hair off the top of his head, where he hadn't any to spare. it made him so mad, frosty said, that he wanted to go back and kill, slay, and slaughter--that is frosty's way of putting it. another one of the boys had been hit in the arm, but it was only a flesh wound and nothing serious. so far as they could find out, king's men had got off without a scratch, frosty said; which was another great sorrow to perry potter, who went around saying pointed things about poor markmanship and fellows who couldn't hit a barn if they were locked inside--that kept the boys stirred up and undecided whether to feel insulted or to take it as a joke. i wished that i was back there--until i read, down at the bottom of the last page, that beryl king and her aunt lodema had gone back to the east. the next day i learned the same thing from another source. edith loroman had kept her promise--as i remembered her, she wasn't great at that sort of thing, either--and sent me a picture of white divide just before i left the ranch. somehow, after that, we drifted into letter-writing. i wrote to thank her for the picture, and she wrote back to say "don't mention it"--in effect, at least, though it took three full pages to get that effect--and asked some questions about the ranch, and the boys, and frosty miller. i had to answer that letter and the questions--and that's how it began. it was a good deal of a nuisance, for i never did take much to pen work, and my conscience was hurting me half the time over delayed answers; edith was always prompt; she liked to write letters better than i did, evidently. but when she wrote, the day after i got that letter from frosty, and said that beryl and aunt lodema had just returned and were going to spend the winter in new york and join the giddy whirl, i will own that i was a much better--that is, prompt--correspondent. edith is that kind of girl who can't write two pages without mentioning every one in her set; like those local items from little country towns; a paragraph for everybody. so, having a strange and unwholesome hankering to hear all i could about beryl, i encouraged edith to write long and often by setting her an example. i didn't consider that i was taking a mean advantage of her, either, for she's the kind of girl who boasts about the number of her proposals and correspondents. i knew she'd cut a notch for me on the stick where she counted her victims, but it was worth the price, and i'm positive edith didn't mind. the only drawback was the disgusting frequency with which the words "beryl and terence weaver" appeared; that did rather get on my nerves, and i did ask edith once if terence weaver was the only man in new york. in fact, i was at one time on the point of going to new york myself and taking it out of mr. terence weaver. i just ached to give him a run for his money. but when i hinted it--going to new york, i mean--dad looked rather hurt. "i had expected you'd stay at home until after the holidays, at least," he remarked. "i'm old-fashioned enough to feel that a family should be together christmas week, if at no other time. it doesn't necessarily follow that because there are only two left--" dad dropped his glasses just then, and didn't finish the sentence. he didn't need to. i'd have stayed, then, no matter what string was pulling me to new york. it's so seldom, you see, that dad lowers his guard and lets you glimpse the real feeling there is in him. i felt such a cur for even wanting to leave him, that i stayed in that evening instead of going down to the olympic, where was to be a sort of impromptu boxing-match between a couple of our swiftest amateurs. talking to dad was virtuous, but unexciting. i remember we discussed the profit, loss, and risk of cattle-raising in montana, till bedtime came for dad. then i went up and roasted rankin for looking so damned astonished at my wanting to go to bed at ten-thirty. rankin is unbearably righteous-looking, at times. i used often to wish he'd do something wicked, just to take that moral look off him; but the pedestal of his solemn virtue was too high for mere human temptations. so i had to content myself with shying a shoe his way and asking him what there was funny about me. after dad got well enough to go back to watching his millions grow, and didn't seem to need me to keep him cheered up, life in our house dropped back to its old level--which means that i saw dad once a day, maybe. he gave me back my allowance and took to paying my bills again, and i was free to get into the old pace--which i will confess wasn't slow. the montana incident seemed closed for good, and only frosty's letters and a rather persistent memory was left of it. in a month i had to acknowledge two emotions i hadn't counted on: surprise and disgust. i couldn't hit the old pace. somehow, things were different--or i was different. at first i thought it was because barney mactague was away cruising around the hawaii islands, somewhere, with a party. i came near having the _molly stark_ put in commission and going after him; but dad wouldn't hear of that, and told me i'd better keep on dry land during the stormy months. so i gave in, for i hadn't the heart to go dead against his wishes, as i used to do. besides, he'd have had to put up the coin, which he refused to do. so i moped around the clubs, backed the light-weight champion of the hour for a big match, put up a pile of money on him, and saw it fade away and take with it my trust in champions. dad was good about it, and put up what i'd gone over my allowance without a whimper. then i chased around the country in the _yellow peril_ and won three races down at los angeles, touring down and back with a fellow who had slathers of money, wore blue ties, and talked through his nose. i leave my enjoyment of the trip to your imagination. when i got back, i had the _yellow peril_ refitted and the tonneau put back on, and went in for society. i think that spell lasted as long as three weeks; i quit immensely popular with a certain bunch of widows and the like, and with a system so permeated with tea and bridge that it took a stiff course of high-balls and poker to take the taste out of my mouth. i think it was in march that barney came back; but he came back an engaged young man, so that in less than a week barney began to pall. his fiancã©e had got him to swear off on poker and prize-fighting and smokers and everything. and i leave it to you if there would be much left of a fellow like barney. all he was free to do--or wanted to do--was sit in a retired corner of the club with _shasta_ water and cigarettes for refreshments, and talk about her, and how it had happened, and the pangs of uncertainty that shot through his heart till he knew for sure. barney's full as tall as i am, and he weighs twenty-five pounds more; and to hear a great, hulking brute like that talking slush was enough to make a man forswear love in all forms forever. he'd show me her picture regular, every time i met him, and expect me to hand out a jolly. she wasn't so much, either. her nose was crooked, and she didn't appear to have any eyebrows to speak of. i'd like to have him see--well, a certain young woman with eyelashes and--oh, well, it wasn't barney's fault that he'd never seen a real beauty, and so was satisfied with his particular her. i began to shy at barney, and avoided him as systematically as if i owed him money; which i didn't. i just couldn't stand for so much monologue with a girl with no eyebrows and a crooked nose for the never-failing subject. my next unaccountable notion was manifested in an unreasoning dislike of rankin. he got to going to some mission-meetings, somewhere down near the barbary coast; i got out of him that much, and that he sometimes led the meetings. rankin can't lie--or won't--so he said right out that he was doing what little he could to save precious souls. that part was all right, of course; but he was so beastly solemn and sanctimonious that he came near sending my soul--maybe it isn't as precious as those he was laboring with--straight to the bad place. every morning when he appeared like the ghost of a puritan ancestor's remorse at my bedside, i swore i'd send him off before night. to look at him you'd think i had done a murder and he was an eye-witness to the deed. still, it's pretty raw to send a man off just because he's the embodiment of punctiliousness and looks virtuously grieved for your sins. in his general demeanor, i admit that rankin was quite irreproachable--and that's why i hated him so. besides, montana had spoiled me for wanting to be dressed like a baby, and i would much rather get my own hat and stick; i never had the chance, though. i'd turn and find him just back of my elbow, with the things in his hands and that damned righteous look on his face, and generally i'd swear he did get on my nerves so. i'm afraid i ruined him for a good servant, and taught him habits of idleness he'll never outgrow; for every morning i'd send him below--i won't state the exact destination, but i have reasons for thinking he never got farther than the servants' hall--with strict--and for the most part profane--orders not to show his face again unless i rang. even at that, i always found him waiting up for me when i came home. oh, there was no changing the ways of rankin. i think it was about the middle of may when my general discontent with life in the old burgh took a virulent form. i'd been losing a lot one way and another, and barney and i had come together literally and with much force when we were having a spurt with our cars out toward ingleside. the yellow peril looked pretty sick when i picked myself out of the mess and found i wasn't hurt except in my feelings. barney's car only had the lamps smashed, and as he had run into me, that made me sore. we said things, and i caught a street-car back to town. barney drove in, about as hot as i was, i guess. so, when i got home and found a letter from frosty, my mind was open for something new. the letter was short, but it did the business and gave me a hunger for the old days that nothing but a hard gallop over the prairie-lands, with the wind blowing the breath out of my nostrils, could satisfy. he said the round-up would start in about a week. that was about all, but i got up and did something i'd never done before. i took the letter and went straight down to dad's private den and interrupted him when he was going over his afternoon letters with crawford. dad was very particular not to be interrupted at such times; his mail-hours were held sacred, and nothing short of a life-or-death matter would have taken me in there--in any normal state of mind. crawford started out of his chair--if you knew crawford that one action would tell you a whole lot--and dad whirled toward me and asked what had happened. i think they both expected to hear that the house was on fire. "the round-up starts next week, dad," i blurted, and then stopped. it just occurred to me that it might not sound important to them. dad matched his finger-tips together. "since i first bought a bunch of cattle," he drawled, "the round-up has never failed to start some time during this month. is it vitally important that it should _not_ start?" "_i've_ got to start at once, or i can't catch it." i fancied, just then, that i detected a glimmer of amusement on crawford's face. i wanted to hit him with something. "is there any reason why it must be caught?" dad wanted to know, in his worst tone, which is almost diabolically calm. "yes," i rapped out, growing a bit riled, "there is. i can't stand this do-nothing existence any longer. you brought me up to it, and never let me know anything about your business, or how to help you run it--" "it never occurred to me," drawled dad, "that i needed help to run my business." "and last spring you rose up, all of a sudden, and started in to cure me of being a drone. the medicine you used was strong; it did the business pretty thoroughly. you've no kick coming at the result. i'm going to start to-morrow." dad looked at me till i began to feel squirmy. i've thought since that he wasn't as surprised as i imagined, and that, on the whole, he was pleased. but, if he was, he was mighty careful not to show it. "you would better give me a list of your debts, then," he said laconically. "i shall see that your allowance goes on just the same; you may want to invest in--er--cattle." "thank you, dad," i said, and turned to go. "and i wish to heaven," he called after me, "that you'd take rankin along and turn him loose out there. he might do to herd sheep. i'm sick of that hark-from-the-tombs face of his. i made a footman of him while you were gone before, rather than turn him off; but i'm damned if i do it again." i stopped just short of the door and grinned back at him. "rankin," i said, "is one of the horrors i'm trying to leave behind, dad." but dad had gone back to his correspondence. "in regard to that clark, marsden, and clark affair, i think, crawford, it would be well--" i closed the door quietly and left them. it was dad's way, and i laughed a little to myself as i was going back to my room to round up rankin and set him to packing. i meant to stand over him with a club this time, if necessary, and see that i got what i wanted packed. the next evening i started again for montana--and i didn't go in dad's private car, either. save for the fact that i had no grievance with him, and that we ate dinner alone together and drank a bottle of extra dry to the success of my pilgrimage, i went much as i had gone before: humbly and unheralded except for a telegram for some one to meet me at osage. rankin, i may say, did not go with me, though i did as dad had suggested and offered to take him along and get him a job herding sheep. the memory of rankin's pained countenance lingers with me yet, and cheers me in many a dark hour when there's nothing else to laugh over. chapter x. i shake hands with old man king. for the second time in my irresponsible career i stood on the station platform at osage and watched the train slide off to the east. it's a blamed fool who never learns anything by experience, and i never have accused myself of being a fool--except at odd times--so i didn't land broke. i had money to pay for several meals, and i looked around for somebody i knew; frosty, i hoped. for the sodden land i had looked upon with such disgust when first i had seen it, the range lay dimpled in all the enticement of spring. where first i had seen dirty snow-banks, the green was bright as our lawn at home. the hilltops were lighter in shade, and the jagged line of hills in the far distance was a soft, soft blue, just stopping short of reddish-purple. i'm not the sort of human that goes wading to his chin in lights and shades and dim perspectives, and names every tone he can think of--especially mauve; they do go it strong on mauve--before he's through. but i did lift my hat to that dimply green reach of prairie, and thanked god i was there. i turned toward the hill that hid the town, and there came frosty driving the same disreputable rig that had taken me first to the bay state. i dropped my suit-case and gripped his hand almost before he had pulled up at the platform. lord! but i was glad to see that thin, brown face of his. "looks like we'd got to be afflicted with your presence another summer," he grinned. "i hope yuh ain't going to claim i coaxed yuh back, because i took particular pains not to. and, uh course, the boys are just dreading the sight of yuh. where's your war-bag, darn yuh?" how was that for a greeting? it suited me, all right. i just thumped frosty on the back and called him a name that it would make a lady faint to hear, and we laughed like a couple of fools. i'm not on oath, perhaps, but still i feel somehow bound to tell all the truth, and not to pass myself off for a saint. so i will say that frosty and i had a celebration, that night; an osage, montana, celebration, with all the fixings. know the brand--because if you don't, i'd hang before i'd tell just how many shots we put through ceilings, or how we rent the atmosphere outside. you see, i was glad to get back, and frosty was glad to have me back; and since neither of us are the fall-on-your-neck-and-put-a-ring-on-your-finger kind, we had to exuberate some other way; and, as frosty, would put it, "we sure did." i can't say we felt quite so exuberant next morning, but we were willing to take our medicine, and started for the ranch all serene. i won't say a word about mauves and faint ambers and umbras, but i do want to give that country a good word, as it looked that morning to me. it was great. there are plenty of places can put it all over that osage country for straight scenery, but i never saw such a contented-looking place as that big prairie-land was that morning. i've seen it with the tears running down its face, and pretty well draggled and seedy; but when we started out with the sun shining against our cheeks and the hills looking so warm and lazy and the hollows kind of smiling to themselves over something, and the prairie-dogs gossiping worse than a ladies' self-culture meeting, i tell you, it all looked good to me, and i told frosty so. "i'd rather be a forty-dollar puncher in this man's land," i enthused, "than a lily-of-the-field somewhere in civilization." "in other words," frosty retorted sarcastically, "you _think_ you prefer the canned vegetables and contentment, as the bible says, to corn-fed beefsteak and homesickness thereby. but you wait till yuh get to the ranch and old perry potter puts yuh through your paces. you'll thank the lord every sundown that yuh _ain't_ a forty-dollar man that has got to drill right along or get fired; you'll pat yourself on the back more than once that you've got a cinch on your job and can lay off whenever yuh feel like it. from all the signs and tokens, us ragged h punchers'll be wise to trade our beds off for lanterns to ride by. your dad's bought a lot more cattle, and they've drifted like hell; we've got to cover mighty near the whole state uh montana and part uh south africa to gather them in." "you're a blamed pessimist," i told him, "and you can't give me cold feet that easy. if you knew how i ache to get a good horse under me--" "thought they had horses out your way," frosty cut in. "a range-horse, you idiot, and a range-saddle. i did ride some on a fancy-gaited steed with a saddle that resembled a porus plaster and stirrups like a lady's bracelet; it didn't fill the aching void a little bit." "well, maybe yuh won't feel any aching void out here," he said, "but if yuh follow round-up this season you'll sure have plenty of other brands of ache." i told him i'd be right with them at the finish, and he needn't to worry any about me. pretty soon i'll show you how well i kept my word. we rode and rode, and handed out our experiences to each other, and got to pochette's that night. i couldn't help remembering the last time i'd been over that trail, and how rocky i felt about things. frosty said he wasn't worried about that walk of his into pochette's growing dim in his memory, either. well, then, we got to pochette's--i think i have remarked the fact. and at pochette's, just unharnessing his team, limped my friend of white divide, old king. funny how a man's view-point will change when there's a girl cached somewhere in the background. not even the memory of shylock's stiffening limbs could bring me to a mood for war. on the contrary, i felt more like rushing up and asking him how were all the folks, and when did beryl expect to come home. but not frosty; he drove phlegmatically up so that there was just comfortable space for a man to squeeze between our rig and king's, hopped out, and began unhooking the traces as if there wasn't a soul but us around. king was looping up the lines of his team, and he glared at us across the backs of his horses as if we were--well, caterpillars at a picnic and he was a girl with nice clothes and a fellow and a set of nerves. his next logical move would be to let out a squawk and faint, i thought; in which case i should have started in to do the comforting, with a dipper of water from the pump. he didn't faint, though. i walked around and let down the neck-yoke, and his eyes followed me with suspicion. "hello, mr. king," i sang out in a brazen attempt to hypnotize him into the belief we were friends. "how's the world using you, these days?" "huh!" grunted the unhypnotized one, deep in his chest. frosty straightened up and looked at me queerly; he said afterward that he couldn't make out whether i was trying to pull off a gun fight, or had gone dippy. but i was only in the last throes of exuberance at being in the country at all, and i didn't give a damn what king thought; i'd made up my mind to be sociable, and that settled it. "range is looking fine," i remarked, snapping the inside checks back into the hame-rings. "stock come through the winter in good shape?" oh, i had my nerve right along with me. "you go to hell," advised king, bringing out each word fresh-coined and shiny with feeling. "i was headed that way," i smiled across at him, "but at the last minute i gave montana first choice; i knew you were still here, you see." he let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable, and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. "yuh want to--" he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent. i had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip--the grip that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in frisco. "put it there, king!" i cried idiotically and as heartily as i knew how. "glad to see you. dad's well and busy as usual, and sends regards. how's your good health?" he was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and i let him go. i acted the fool, all right, and i don't tell it to have any one think i was a smart young sprig; i'm just putting it out straight as it happened. frosty stood back, and i noticed, out of the tail of my eye, that he was ready for trouble and expecting it to come in bunches; and i didn't know, myself, but what i was due for new ventilators in my system. but king never did a thing but stand and hold his hand and look at me. i couldn't even guess at what he thought. in half a minute or less he got his horse by the bridle again--with his left hand--and went limping off ahead of us to the stable, saying things in his collar. "you blasted fool," frosty muttered to me. "you've done it real pretty, this time. that old siwash'll cut your throat, like as not, to pay for all those insulting remarks and that hand-shake." "first time i ever insulted a man by shaking hands and telling him i was glad to see him," i retorted. "and i don't think it will be necessary for you to stand guard over my jugular to-night, either. that old boy will take a lot of time to study out the situation, if i'm any judge. you won't hear a peep out of him, and i'll bet money on it." "all right," said frosty, and his tone sounded dubious. "but you're the first ragged h man that has ever walked up and shook hands with the old devil. perry potter himself wouldn't have the nerve." now, that was a compliment, but i don't believe i took it just the way frosty meant i should. i was proud as thunder to have him call me a "ragged h man" so unconsciously. it showed that he really thought of me simply as one of the boys; that the "son and heir" view-point--oh, that had always rankled, deep down where we bury unpleasant things in our memory--had been utterly forgotten. so the tribute to my nerve didn't go for anything beside that. i was a "ragged h man," on the same footing as the rest of them. it's silly owning it, but it gave me a little tingle of pleasure to have one of dad's men call dad's son and heir "a blasted fool." i don't believe the lord made me an aristocrat. we didn't see anything more of king till supper was called. at pochette's you sit down to a long table covered with dark-red mottled oilcloth and sprinkled with things to eat, and watch that your elbow doesn't cause your nearest neighbor to do the sword-swallowing act involuntarily and disastrously with his knife, or--you don't eat. frosty and i had walked down to the ferry-crossing while we waited, and then were late getting into the game when we heard the summons. we went in and sat down just as the chinaman was handing thick cups of coffee around rather sloppily. from force of habit i looked for my napkin, remembered that i was in a napkinless region, and glanced up to see if any one had noticed. just across from me old king was pushing back his chair and getting stiffly upon his feet. he met my eyes squarely--friend or enemy, i like a man to do that--and scowled. "through already?" i reached for the sugar-bowl. "what's it to you, damn yuh?" he snapped, but we could see at a glance that king had not begun his meal. i looked at frosty, and he seemed waiting for me to say something. so i said: "too bad--we ragged h men are such mighty slow eaters. if it's on my account, sit right down and make yourself comfortable. i don't mind; i dare say i've eaten in worse company." he went off growling, and i leaned back and stirred my coffee as leisurely as if i were killing time over a bit of crab in the palace, waiting for my order to come. frosty, i observed, had also slowed down perceptibly; and so we "toyed with the viands" just like a girl in a story--in real life, i've noticed, girls develop full-grown appetites and aren't ashamed of them. king went outside to wait, and i'm sure i hope he enjoyed it; i know we did. we drank three cups of coffee apiece, ate a platter of fried fish, and took plenty of time over the bones, got into an argument over who was lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to eat a mouthful while it lasted. we had the bad manners to pick our teeth thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and frosty showed me how to balance a knife and fork on a toothpick--or, perhaps, it was two--on the edge of his cup. i tried it several times, but couldn't make it work. the others had finished long ago and were sitting around next the wall watching us while they smoked. about that time king put his head in at the door, and looked at us. "just a minute," i cheered him. frosty began cracking his prune-pits and eating the meats, and i went at it, too. i don't like prune-pits a little bit. the pits finished, frosty looked anxiously around the table. there was nothing more except some butter that we hadn't the nerve to tackle single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks. we went at the toothpicks again; until frosty got a splinter stuck between his teeth, and had a deuce of a time getting it out. "i've heard," he sighed, when the splinter lay in his palm, "that some state dinners last three or four hours; blamed if i see how they work it. i'm through. i lay down my hand right here--unless you're willing to tackle the ketchup. if you are, i stay with you, and i'll eat half." he sighed again when he promised. for answer i pushed back my chair. frosty smiled and followed me out. for the satisfaction of the righteous i will say that we both suffered from indigestion that night, which i suppose was just and right. chapter xi. a cable snaps. our lazy land smiling and dreaming to itself had disappeared; in its stead, the wind howled down the river from the west and lashed the water into what would have looked respectable waves to one who had not been on the ocean and seen the real thing. the new grass lay flat upon the prairies, and chunks of dirt rattled down from the roof of pochette's primitive abiding-place. it is true the sun shone, but i really wouldn't have been at all surprised if the wind had blown it out, 'most any time. pochette himself looked worried when we trooped in to breakfast. (by the way, old king never showed up till we were through; then he limped in and sat down to the table without a glance our way.) while we were smoking, over by the fireplace, pochette came sidling up to us. he was a little skimpy man with crooked legs, a real french cut of beard, and an apologetic manner. i think he rather prided himself upon his familiarity with the english language--especially that part which is censored so severely by editors that only a half-dozen words are permitted to appear in cold type, and sometimes even they must hide their faces behind such flimsy veils as this: d----n. so if i never quote mr. pochette verbatim, you'll know why. "i theenk you will not wish for cross on the reever, no?" he began ingratiatingly. "the weend she blow lak ----------, and my boat, she zat small, she -------." i caught king looking at us from under his eyebrows, so i was airily indifferent to wind or water. "sure, we want to cross," i said. "just as soon as we finish our smoke, pochette." "but, mon dieu!" (ever hear tell of a frenchman that didn't begin his sentences that way? in this case, however, pochette really said just that.) "the weend, she blow lak ----" "'a hurricane; bimeby by she blaw some more,'" i quoted bravely. "it's all right, pochette; let her howl. we're going to cross, just the same. it isn't likely you'll have to make the trip for any body else to-day." i didn't mean to, but i looked over toward king, and caught the glint of his unfriendly eyes upon me. also, the corners of his mouth hunched up for a second in what looked like a sneer. but the lord knows i wasn't casting any aspersions on _his_ nerve. he must have taken it that way, though; for he went out when we did and hooked up, and when we drove down to where the little old scow they called a ferry was bobbing like a decoy-duck in the water, he was just behind us with his team. pochette looked at him, and at us, and at the river; and his meager little face with its pointed beard looked like a perturbed gnome--if you ever saw one. "the leetle boat, she not stand for ze beeg load. the weend, she--" "aw, what yuh running a ferry for?" frosty cut in impatiently. "there's a good, strong current on, to-day; she'll go across on a high run." pochette shook his head still more dubiously, till i got down and bolstered up his courage with a small piece of gold. they're all alike; their courage ebbs and flows on a golden tide, if you'll let me indulge in a bit of unnecessary hyperbole. he worked the scow around end on to the bank, so that we could drive on. the team wasn't a bit stuck on going, but frosty knows how to handle horses, and they steadied when he went to their heads and talked to them. we were so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice what was going on behind us till we heard pochette declaiming bad profanity in a high soprano. then i turned, and he was trying to stand off old king. but king wasn't that sort; he yelled to us to move up and make room, and then took down his whip and started up. pochette pirouetted out of the way, and stood holding to the low plank railing while he went on saying things that, properly pronounced, must have been very blasphemous. king paid about as much attention to him as he would to a good-sized prairie-dog chittering beside its burrow. i reckon he knew pochette pretty well. he got his rig in place and climbed down and went to his horses' heads. "now, shove off, dammit," he ordered, just as if no one had been near bursting a blood-vessel within ten feet of him. pochette gulped, worked the point of his beard up and down like a villain in a second-rate melodrama, and shoved off. the current and the wind caught us in their grip, and we swashed out from shore and got under way. i can't say that trip looked good to me, from the first rod out. of course, the river couldn't rear up and get real savage, like the ocean, but there were choppy little waves that were plenty nasty enough, once you got to bucking them with a blum-nosed old scow fastened to a cable that swayed and sagged in the wind that came howling down on us. and with two rigs on, we filled her from bow to stern; all but about four feet around the edges. frosty looked across to the farther shore, then at the sagging cable, and then at me. i gathered that he had his doubts, too, but he wouldn't say anything. nobody did, for that matter. even pochette wasn't doing anything but chew his whiskers and watch the cable. then she broke, with a snap like a rifle, and a jolt that came near throwing us off our feet. pochette gave a yell and relapsed into french that i'd hate to translate; it would shock even his own countrymen. the ferry ducked and bobbed, now there was nothing to hold its nose steady to the current, and went careering down river with all hands aboard and looking for trouble. we didn't do anything, though; there wasn't anything to do but stay right where we were and take chances. if she stayed right side up we would probably land eventually. if she flopped over--which she seemed trying to do, we'd get a cold bath and lose our teams, if no worse. soon as i thought of that, i began unhooking the traces of the horse nearest. the poor brutes ought at least to have a chance to swim for it. frosty caught on, and went to work, too, and in half a minute we had them free of the wagon and stripped of everything but their bridles. they would have as good a show as we, and maybe better. i looked back to see what king was doing. he was having troubles of his own, trying to keep one of his cayuses on all its feet at once. it was scared, poor devil, and it took all his strength on the bit to keep it from rearing and maybe upsetting the whole bunch. pochette wasn't doing anything but lament, so i went back and unhooked king's horses for him, and took off the harness and threw it in the back of his wagon so they wouldn't tangle their feet in it when it came to a show-down. i don't think he was what you could call grateful; he never looked my way at all, but went on cussing the horse he was holding, for acting up just when he should keep his wits. i went back to frosty, and we stood elbows touching, waiting for whatever was coming. for what seemed a long while, nothing came but wind and water. but i don't mind saying that there was plenty of that, and if either one had been suddenly barred out of the game we wouldn't any of us have called the umpire harsh names. we drifted, slippety-slosh, and the wind ripped holes in the atmosphere and made our eyes water with the bare force of it when we faced the west. and none of us had anything to say, except pochette; he said a lot, i remember, but never mind what. i don't suppose he was mentally responsible at the time. then, a long, narrow, yellow tongue of sand-bar seemed to reach right out into the river and lap us up. we landed with a worse jolt than when we broke away from the cable, and the gray-blue river went humping past without us. frosty and i looked at each other and grinned; after all, we were coming out of the deal better than we had expected, for we were still right side up and on the side of the river toward home. we were a mile or so down river from the trail, but once we were on the bank with our rig, that was nothing. we had landed head on, with the nose of the scow plowed high and dry. being at the front, we went at getting our team off, and our wagon. there was a four or five-foot jump to make, and the horses didn't know how about it, at first. but with one of us pulling, and the other slashing them over the rump, they made it, one at a time. the sand was soft and acted something like quicksand, too, and we hustled them to shore and tied them to some bushes. the bank was steep there, and we didn't know how we were going to make the climb, but we left that to worry over afterward; we still had our rig to get ashore, and it began to look like quite a contract. we went back, with our boot tracks going deep, and then filling up and settling back almost level six steps behind us. frosty looked back at them and scowled. "for sand that isn't quicksand," he said, "this layout will stand about as little monkeying with as any sand i ever met up with. time we make a few trips over it, she's going to be pudding without the raisins. and that's a picnic, with our rig on the main deck, as you might say." we went back and sat swinging our legs off the free board end of the ferry boat, and rolled us a smoke apiece and considered the next move. king was somewhere back between our rig and his, cussing pochette to a fare-you-well for having such a rotten layout and making white men pay good money for the privilege of risking their lives and property upon it. "we'll have to unload and take the wagon to pieces and pack everything ashore--i guess that's our only show," said frosty. we had just given up my idea of working the scow up along the bar to the bank. we couldn't budge her off the sand, and pochette warned us that if we did the wind would immediately commence doing things to us again. frosty's idea seemed the only possible way, so we threw away our cigarettes and got ready for business; the dismembering and carrying ashore of that road-wagon promised to be no light task. frosty yelled to pochette to come and get busy, and went to work on the rig. it looked to me like a case where we were all in the same fix, and personal spite shouldn't count for anything, but king was leaning against the wheel of his buggy, cramming tobacco into his stubby pipe--the same one apparently that i had rescued from the pickle barrel--and, seeing the wind scatter half of it broadcast, as though he didn't care a rap whether he got solid earth beneath his feet once more, or went floating down the river. i wanted to propose a truce for such time as it would take to get us all safe on terra firma, but on second thoughts i refrained. we could get off without his help, and he was the sort of man who would cheerfully have gone to his last long sleep at the bottom of that boiling river rather than accept the assistance of an enemy. the next couple of hours was a season of aching back, and sloppy feet, and grunting, and swearing that i don't much care about remembering in detail. the wind blew till the tears ran down our cheeks. the sand stuck and clogged every move we made till i used to dream of it afterward. if you think it was just a simple little job, taking that rig to pieces and packing it to dry land on our backs, just give another guess. and if you think we were any of us in a mood to look at it as a joke, you're miles off the track. pochette helped us like a little man--he had to, or we'd have done him up right there. old king sat on the ferry-rail and smoked, and watched us break our backs sardonically--i did think i had that last word in the wrong place; but i think not. we did break our backs sardonically, and he watched us in the same fashion; so the word stands as she is. when the last load was safe on the bank, i went back to the boat. it seemed a low-down way to leave a man, and now he knew i wasn't fishing for help, i didn't mind speaking to the old reprobate. so i went up and faced him, still sitting on the ferry-rail, and still smoking. "mr. king," i said politely as i could, "we're all right now, and, if you like, we'll help you off. it won't take long if we all get to work." he took two long puffs, and pressed the tobacco down in his pipe. "you go to hell," he advised me for the second time. "when i want any help from you or your tribe, i'll let yuh know." it took me just one second to backslide from my politeness. "go to the devil, then!" i snapped. "i hope you have to stay on the damn' bar a week." then i went plucking back through the sand that almost pulled the shoes off my feet every step, kicking myself for many kinds of a fool. lord, but i was mad! pochette went back to the boat and old king, after nearly getting kicked into the river for hinting that we ought to pay for the damage and trouble we had caused him. frosty and i weren't in any frame of mind for such a hold-up, and it didn't take him long to find it out. the bank there was so steep that we had to pack my trunk and what other truck had been brought out from osage, up to the top by hand. that was another temper-sweetening job. then we put the wagon together, hitched on the horses, and they managed to get to the top with it, by a scratch. it all took time--and, as for patience, we'd been out of that commodity for so long we hardly knew it by name. the last straw fell on us just as we were loading up. i happened to look down upon the ferry; and what do you suppose that old devil was doing? he had torn up the back part of the plank floor of the ferry, and had laid it along the sand for a bridge. he had made an incline from boat nose to the bar, and had rough-locked his wagon and driven it down. just as we looked, he had come to the end of his bridge, and he and pochette were taking up the planks behind and extending the platform out in front. well! maybe you think frosty and i stood there congratulating the old fox. frosty wanted me to kick him, i remember; and he said a lot of things that sounded inspired to me, they hit my feelings off so straight. if we had had the sense to do what old king was doing, we'd have been ten or fifteen miles nearer home than we were. but, anyway, we were up the bank ahead of him, and we loaded in the last package and drove away from the painful scene at a lope. and you can imagine how we didn't love old king any better, after that experience. chapter xii. i begin to realize. if i had hoped that i'd gotten over any foolishness by spending the fall and winter away from white divide--or the sight of it--i commenced right away to find out my mistake. no sooner did the big ridge rise up from the green horizon, than every scar, and wrinkle, and abrupt little peak fairly shouted things about beryl king. she wasn't there; she was back in new york, and that blasted terence weaver was back there, too, making all kinds of love to her according to the letters of edith. but i hadn't realized just how seriously i was taking it, till i got within sight of the ridge that had sheltered her abiding-place and had made all the trouble. like a fool i had kept telling myself that i was fair sick for the range; for range-horses and range-living; for the wind that always blows over the prairies, and for the cattle that feed on the hills and troop down the long coulã©e bottoms to drink at their favorite watering-places. i thought it was the boys i wanted to see, and to gallop out with them in the soft sunrise, and lie down with them under a tent roof at night; that i wanted to eat my meals sitting cross-legged in the grass, with my plate piled with all the courses at once and my cup of coffee balanced precariously somewhere within reach. that's what i thought. when things tasted flat in old frisco, i wasn't dead sure why, and maybe i didn't want to be sure why. when i couldn't get hold of anything that had the old tang, i laid it all to a hankering after round-up. even when we drove around the end of white divide, and got up on a ridge where i could see the long arm that stretched out from the east side of king's highway, i wouldn't own up to myself that there was the cause of all my bad feelings. i think frosty knew, all along; for when i had sat with my face turned to the divide, and had let my cigarette go cold while i thought and thought, and remembered, he didn't say a word. but when memory came down to that last ride through the pass, and to shylock shot down by the corral, at last to frosty standing, tall and dark, against the first yellow streak of sunrise, while i rode on and left him afoot beside a half-dead horse, i turned my eyes and looked at his thin, thoughtful face beside me. his eyes met mine for half a minute, and he had a little twitching at the corners of his mouth. "chirk up," he said quietly. "the chances are she'll come back this summer." i guess i blushed. anyway, i didn't think of anything to say that would be either witty or squelching, and could only relight my cigarette and look the fool i felt. he'd caught me right in the solar plexus, and we both knew it, and there was nothing to say. so after awhile we commenced talking about a new bunch of horses that dad had bought through an agent, and that had to be saddle-broke that summer, and i kept my eyes away from white divide and my mind from all it meant to me. the old ranch did look good to me, and perry potter actually shook hands; if you knew him as well as i do you'd realize better what such a demonstration means, coming from a fellow like him. why, even his lips are always shut with a drawstring--from the looks--to keep any words but what are actually necessary from coming out. his eyes have the same look, kind of pulled in at the corners. no, don't ever accuse perry potter of being a demonstrative man, or a loquacious one. i had two days at the ranch, getting fitted into the life again; on the third the round-up started, and i packed a "war-bag" of essentials, took my last summer's chaps down off the nail in the bunk-house where they had hung all that time as a sort of absent-but-not-forgotten memento, one of the boys told me, and started out in full regalia and with an enthusiasm that was real--while it lasted. if you never slept on the new grass with only a bit of canvas between you and the stars; if you have never rolled out, at daylight, and dressed before your eyes were fair open, and rushed with the bunch over to the mess-wagon for your breakfast; if you have never saddled hurriedly a range-bred and range-broken cayuse with a hump in his back and seven devils in his eye, and gone careening across the dew-wet prairie like a tug-boat in a choppy sea; if you have never--well, if you don't know what it's all like, and how it gets into the very bones of you so that the hankering never quite leaves you when you try to give it up, i'm not going to tell you. i can't. if i could, you'd know just how heady it made me feel those first few days after we started out to "work the range." i was fond of telling myself, those days, that i'd been more scared than hurt, and that it was the range i was in love with, and not beryl king at all. she was simply a part of it--but she wasn't the whole thing, nor even a part that was going to be indispensable to my mental comfort. i was a free man once more, and so long as i had a good horse under me, and a bunch of the right sort of fellows to lie down in the same tent with, i wasn't going to worry much over any girl. that, for as long as a week; and that, more than pages of description, shows you how great is the spell of the range-land, and how it grips a man. chapter xiii. we meet once more. i think it was about three weeks that i stayed with the round-up. i didn't get tired of the life, or weary of honest labor, or anything of that sort. i think the trouble was that i grew accustomed to the life, so that the exhilarating effects of it wore off, or got so soaked into my system that i began to take it all as a matter of course. and that, naturally, left room for other things. i know i'm no good at analysis, and that's as close as i can come to accounting for my welching, the third week out. you see, we were working south and west, and getting farther and farther away from--well, from the part of country that i knew and liked best. it's kind of lonesome, leaving old landmarks behind you; so when white divide dropped down behind another range of hills and i couldn't turn in my saddle almost any time and see the jagged, blue sky-line of her, i stood it for about two days. then i rolled my bed one morning, caught out two horses from my string instead of one, told the wagon-boss i was going back to the ranch, and lit out--with the whole bunch grinning after me. as they would have said, they were all "dead next," but were good enough not to say so. or, perhaps, they remembered the boxing-lessons i had given them in the bunk-house a year or more ago. i did feel kind of sneaking, quitting them like that; but it's like playing higher than your logical limit: you know you're doing a fool thing, and you want to plant your foot violently upon your own person somewhere, but you go right ahead in the face of it all. they didn't have to tell me i was acting like a calf that has lost his mother in the herd. (you know he is prone to go mooning back to the last place he was with her, if it's ten miles.) i knew it, all right. and when i topped a hill and saw the high ridges and peaks of white divide stand up against the horizon to the north, i was so glad i felt ashamed of myself and called one ellis carleton worse names than i'd stand to hear from anybody else. still, to go back to the metaphor, i kept on shoving in chips, just as if i had a chance to win out and wasn't the biggest, softest-headed idiot the lord ever made. why, even perry potter almost grinned when i came riding up to the corral; and i caught the fellow that was kept on at the ranch, lowering his left lid knowingly at the cook, when i went in to supper that first night. but i was too far gone then to care much what anybody thought; so long as they kept their mouths shut and left me alone, that was all i asked of them. oh, i was a heroic figure, all right, those days. on a day in june i rode dispiritedly over to the little butte just out from the mouth of the pass. not that i expected to see her; i went because i had gotten into the habit of going, and every nice morning just simply _pulled_ me over that way, no matter how much i might want to keep away. that argues great strength of character for me, i know, but it's unfortunately the truth. i knew she was back--or that she should be back, if nothing had happened to upset their plans. edith had written me that they were all coming, and that they would have two cars, this summer, instead of just one, and that they expected to stay a month. she and her mother, and beryl and aunt lodema, terence weaver--deuce take him!--and two other fellows, and a gertrude--somebody--i forget just who. edith hoped that i would make my peace with uncle homer, so they could see something of me. (if i had told her how easy it was to make peace with "uncle homer," and how he had turned me down, she might not have been quite so sure that it was all my bull-headedness.) she complained that gertrude was engaged to one of the fellows, and so was awfully stupid; and beryl might as well be-i tore up the letter just there, and the wind, which was howling that day, caught the pieces and took them over into north dakota; so i don't know what else edith may have had to tell me. i'd read enough to put me in a mighty nasty temper at any rate, so i suppose its purpose was accomplished. edith is like all the rest: if she can say anything to make a man uncomfortable she'll do it, every time. this day, i remember, i went mooning along, thinking hard things about the world in general, and my little corner of it in particular. the country was beginning to irritate me, and i knew that if something didn't break loose pretty soon i'd be off somewhere. riding over to little buttes, and not meeting a soul on the way or seeing anything but a bare rock when you get there, grows monotonous in time, and rather gets on the nerves of a fellow. when i came close up to the butte, however, i saw a flutter of skirts on the pinnacle, and it made a difference in my gait; i went up all out of breath, scrambling as if my life hung on a few seconds, and calling myself a different kind of fool for every step i took. i kept assuring myself, over and over, that it was only edith, and that there was no need to get excited about it. but all the while i knew, down deep down in the thumping chest of me, that it wasn't edith. edith couldn't make all that disturbance in my circulatory system, not in a thousand years. she was sitting on the same rock, and she was dressed in the same adorable riding outfit with a blue wisp of veil wound somehow on her gray felt hat, and the same blue roan was dozing, with dragging bridle-reins, a few rods down the other side of the peak. she was sketching so industriously that she never heard me coming until i stood right at her elbow. it might have been the first time over again, except that my mental attitude toward her had changed a lot. "that's better; i can see now what you're trying to draw," i said, looking down over her shoulder--not at the sketch; it might have been a sea view, for all i knew--but at the pink curve of her cheek, which was growing pinker while i looked. she did not glance up, or even start; so she must have known, all along, that i was headed her way. she went on making a lot of marks that didn't seem to fit anywhere, and that seemed to me a bit wobbly and uncertain. i caught just the least hint of a smile twitching the corner of her mouth--i wanted awfully to kiss it! "yes? i believe i have at last got everything--king's highway--in the proper perspective and the proper proportion," she said, stumbling a bit over the alliteration--and no wonder. it was a sentence to stampede cattle; but i didn't stampede. i wanted, more than ever, to kiss--but i won't be like barney, if i can help it. "it's too far off--too unattainable," i criticized--meaning something more than her sketch of the pass. "and it's too narrow. if a fellow rode in there he would have to go straight on through; there wouldn't be a chance to turn back." "ergo, a fellow shouldn't ride in," she retorted, with a composure positively wicked, considering my feelings. "though it does seem that a fellow rather enjoys going straight on through, regardless of anything; promises, for instance." that was the gauntlet i'd been hoping for. from the minute i first saw her there it flashed upon me that she was astonished and indignant that night when she saw frosty and me come charging through the pass, after me telling her i wouldn't do it any more. it looked to me like i'd have to square myself, so i was glad enough of the chance. "sometimes a fellow has to do things regardless of--promises," i explained. "sometimes it's a matter of life and death. if a fellow's father, for instance--" "oh, i know; edith told me all about it." her tone was curious, and while it did not encourage further explanations or apologies, it also lacked absolution of the offense i had committed. i sat down in the grass, half-facing her to better my chance of a look into her eyes. i was consumed by a desire to know if they still had the power to send crimply waves all over me. for the rest, she was prettier even than i remembered her to be, and i could fairly see what little sense or composure i had left slide away from me. i looked at her fatuously, and she looked speculatively at a sharp ridge of the divide as if that sketch were the only thing around there that could possibly interest her. "why do you spend every summer out here in the wilderness?" i asked, feeling certain that nothing but speech could save me from going hopelessly silly. she turned her eyes calmly toward me, and--their power had not weakened, at all events. i felt as if i had taken hold of a battery with all the current turned on. "why, i suppose i like it here in summer. you're here, yourself; don't you like it?" i wanted to say something smart, there, and i have thought of a dozen bright remarks since; but at the time i couldn't think of a blessed thing that came within a mile of being either witty or epigrammatic. love-making was all new to me, and i saw right then that i wasn't going to shine. i finally did remark that i should like it better if her father would be less belligerent and more peaceful as a neighbor. "you told me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically down at me. she made a wrong play there; she let me see that she did remember some things that i said. it boosted my courage a notch. "but that was last summer," i countered. "one can change one's view-point a lot in twelve months. anyway, you knew all along that i didn't mean a word of it." "indeed!" it was evident that she didn't quite like having me take that tone. "yes, 'indeed'!" i repeated, feeling a rebellion against circumstances and at convention growing stronger within me. why couldn't i put her on my horse and carry her off and keep her always? i wondered crazily. that was what i wanted to do. "do you ever mean what you say, i wonder?" she mused, biting her pencil-point like a schoolgirl when she can't remember how many times three goes into twenty-seven. "sometimes. sometimes i mean more." i set my teeth, closed my eyes--mentally--and plunged, insanely, not knowing whether i should come to the surface alive or knock my head on a rock and stay down. "for instance, when i say that some day i shall carry you off and find a preacher to marry us, and that we shall live happily ever after, whether you want to or not, because i shall _make_ you, i mean every word of it--and a lot more." that was going some, i fancy! i was so scared at myself i didn't dare breathe. i kept my eyes fixed desperately on the mouth of the pass, all golden-green in the sunshine; and i remember that my teeth were so tight together that they ached afterward. the point of her pencil came off with a snap. i heard it, but i was afraid to look. "do you? how very odd!" her voice sounded queer, as if it had been squeezed dry of every sort of emotion. "and--edith?" i looked at her then, fast enough. "edith?" i stared at her stupidly. "what the--what's edith got to do with it?" "possibly nothing"--in the same squeezed tone. "men are so--er--irresponsible; and you say you don't always mean--still, when a man writes pages and _pages_ to a girl every week for nearly a year, one naturally supposes--" "oh, look here!" i was getting desperate enough to be a bit rough with her. "edith doesn't care a rap about me, and you know it. and she knows i don't care, and--and if anybody had anything to say, it would be your mr. terence weaver." "_my_ mr. terence weaver?" she was looking down at me sidewise, in a perfectly maddening way. "you are really very--er--funny, mr. carleton." "well," i rapped out between my teeth, "i don't _feel_ funny. i feel--" "no? but, really, you know, you act that way." i saw she was getting all the best of it--and, in my opinion, that would kill what little chance a man might have with a girl. i set deliberately about breaking through that crust of composure, if i did nothing more. "that depends on the view-point," i grinned. "would you think it funny if i carried you off--really, you know--and--er--married you and made you live happy--" "you seem to insist upon the happy part of it, which is not at all--" "necessary?" i hinted. "plausible," she supplied sweetly. "but would you think it funny, if i did?" she regarded her broken pencil ruefully--or pretended to--and pinched her brows together in deep meditation. oh, she was the most maddening bit of young womanhood--but, there, no barney for me. "i--might," she decided at last. "it _would_ be rather droll, you know, and i wonder how you'd manage it; i'm not very tiny, and i rather think it wouldn't be easy to--er--carry me off. would you wear a mask--a black velvet mask? i should insist upon black velvet. and would you say: 'gadzooks, madam! i command you not to scream!' would you?" she leaned toward me, and her eyes--well, for downright torture, women are at times perfectly fiendish. i caught her hand, and i held it, too, in spite of her. that far i was master. "no," i told her grimly. "if i saw that you were going to do anything so foolish as to scream, i should just kiss you, and--kiss you till you were glad to be sensible about it." well, she tried first to look calmly amused; then she tried to look insulted, and to freeze me into sanity. she ended, however, by looking a good bit confused, and by blushing scarlet. i had won that far. i kept her hand held tight in mine; i could feel it squirm to get away, and it felt--oh, thunder! "let's play something else," she said, after a long minute. "i--i never did admire highwaymen particularly, and i must go home." "no, you mustn't," i contradicted. "you must--" she looked at me with those wonderful, heavy-lashed eyes, and her lips had a little quiver as if--oh, i don't know, but i let go her hand, and i felt like a great, hulking brute that had been teasing a child till it cried. "all right," i sighed, "i'll let you go this time. but i warn you, little girl. if--no, _when_ i find you out from king's highway by yourself again, that kidnaping is sure going to come off. the lord intended you to be mrs. ellis carleton. and forty feuds and forty fathers can't prevent it. i don't believe in going against the decrees of providence; a _wise_ providence." she bit her lip at the corner. "you must have a little private providence of your own," she retorted, with something like her old assurance. "i'm sure mine never hinted at such a--a fate for me. and one feud is as good as forty, mr. carleton. if you are anything like your father, i can easily understand how the feud began. the kings and the carletons are fond of their own way." "thy way shall be my way," i promised rashly, just because it sounded smart. "thank you. then there will be no melodramatic abductions in the shadow of white divide," she laughed triumphantly, "and i shall escape a most horrible fate!" she went, still laughing, down to where her horse was waiting. i followed--rather, i kept pace with her. "all the same, i dare you to ride out alone from king's highway again," i defied. "for, if you do, and i find you--" "good-by, mr. carleton. you'd be splendid in vaudeville," she mocked from her saddle, where she had got with all the ease of a cowboy, without any help from me. "black velvet mask and gadzooks, madam--i must certainly tell edith. it will amuse her, i'm sure." "no, you won't tell edith," i flung after her, but i don't know if she heard. she rode away down the steep slope, the roan leaning back stiffly against the incline, and i stood watching her like a fool. i didn't think it would be good policy to follow her. i tried to roll a cigarette--in case she might look back to see how i was taking her last shot. but she didn't, and i threw the thing away half-made. it was a case where smoke wouldn't help me. if i hadn't made my chance any better, i knew i couldn't very well make it worse; but there was mighty little comfort in that reflection. and what a bluff i had put up! carry her off and marry her? lord knows i wanted to, badly enough! but-chapter xiv. frosty disappears. on the way back to the ranch i overtook frosty mooning along at a walk, with his shoulders humped in the way a man has when he's thinking pretty hard. i had left frosty with the round-up, and i was pretty much surprised to see him here. i didn't feel in the mood for conversation, even with him; but, to be decent, i spurred up alongside and said hello, and where had he come from? there was nothing in that for a man to get uppish about, but he turned and actually glared at me. "i might be an inquisitive son-of-a-gun and ask you the same thing," he growled. "yes, you might," i agreed. "but, if you did, i'd be apt to tell you to depart immediately for a place called gehenna--which is polite for hell." "well, same here," he retorted laconically; and that ended our conversation, though we rode stirrup to stirrup for eight miles. i can't say that, after the first shock of surprise, i gave much time to wondering what brought frosty home. i took it he had had a row with the wagon-boss. frosty is an independent sort and won't stand a word from anybody, and the wagon-boss is something of a bully. the gait they were traveling, out there with the wagons, was fraying the nerves of the whole bunch before i left. and that was all i thought about frosty. i had troubles of my own, about that time. i had put up my bluff, and i kept wondering what i should do if beryl king called me. there wasn't much chance that she would, of course; but, still, she wasn't that kind of girl who always does the conventional thing and the expected thing, and i had seen a gleam in her eyes that, in a man's, i should call deviltry, pure and simple. if i should meet her out somewhere, and she even _looked_ a dare--i'll confess one thing: for a whole week i was mighty shy of riding out where i would be apt to meet her; and you can call me a coward if you like. still, i had schemes, plenty of them. i wanted her--lord knows how i wanted her!--and i got pretty desperate, sometimes. once i saddled up with the fixed determination of riding boldly--and melodramatically--into king's highway, facing old king, and saying: "sir, i love your daughter. let bygones be bygones. dad and i forgive you, and hope you will do the same. let us have peace, and let me have beryl--" or something to that effect. he'd only have done one of two things; he'd have taken a shot at me, or he'd have told me to go to the same old place where we consign unpleasant people. but i didn't tempt him, though i did tempt fate. i went over to the little butte, climbed it pensively, and sat on the flat rock and gazed forlornly at the mouth of the pass. i had the rock to myself, but i made a discovery that set the nerves of me jumping like a man just getting over a--well, a season of dissipation. in the sandy soil next the rock were many confused footprints--the prints of little riding-boots; and they looked quite fresh. she had been there, all right, and i had missed her! i swore, and wondered what she must think of me. then i had an inspiration. i rolled and half-smoked eight cigarettes, and scattered the stubs with careful carelessness in the immediate vicinity of the rock. i put my boots down in a clear spot of sand where they left marks that fairly shouted of my presence. then i walked off a few steps and studied the effect with much satisfaction. when she came again, she couldn't fail to see that i had been there; that i had waited a long time--she could count the cigarette stubs and so form some estimate of the time--and had gone away, presumably in deep disappointment. maybe it would make her feel a little less sure of herself, to know that i was camping thus earnestly on her trail. i rode home, feeling a good deal better in my mind. that night it rained barrelsful. i laid and listened to it, and gritted my teeth. where was all my cunning now? where were those blatant footprints of mine that were to give their own eloquent message? i could imagine just how the water was running in yellow streams off the peak of that butte. then it came to me that, at all events, some of the cigarette-stubs would be left; so i turned over and went to sleep. i wish to say, before i forget it, that i don't think i am deceitful by nature. you see, it changes a fellow a lot to get all tangled up in his feelings over a girl that doesn't seem to care a rap for you. he does things that are positively idiotic at any rate, i did. and i could sympathize some with barney mactague; only, his girl had a crooked nose and no eyebrows to speak of, so he hadn't the excuse that i had. take a girl with eyes like beryl-a couple of days after that--days when i hadn't the nerve to go near the little butte--frosty drew six months' wages and disappeared without a word to anybody. he didn't come back that night, and the next day perry potter, who knows well the strange freaks cowboys will sometimes take when they have been working steadily for a long time, suggested that i ride over to kenmore and see if frosty was there, and try my powers of persuasion on him--unless he was already broke; in which case, according to perry potter, he would come back without any persuading. perry potter added dryly that it wouldn't be out of my way any, and would only be a little longer ride. i must say i looked at him with suspicion. the way that little dried-up sinner found out everything was positively uncanny. frosty, as i soon discovered, was not in kenmore. he had been, for i learned by inquiring around that he had passed the night there at that one little hotel. also that he had, not more than two hours before--or three, at most--hired a rig and driven on to osage. a man told me that he had taken a lady with him; but, knowing frosty as i did, i couldn't quite swallow that. it was queer, though, about his hiring a rig and leaving his saddle-horse there in the stable. i couldn't understand it, but i wasn't going to buy into frosty's affairs unless i had to. i ate my dinner dejectedly in the hotel--the dinner was enough to make any man dejected--and started home again. chapter xv. the broken motor-car. out where the trail from kenmore intersects the one leading from laurel to and through king's highway, i passed over a little hill and came suddenly upon a big, dark-gray touring-car stalled in the road. in it beryl king sat looking intently down at her toes. i nearly fell off my horse at the shock of it, and then my blood got to acting funny, so that my head felt queer. then i came to, and rode boldly up to her, mentally shaking hands with myself over my good luck. for it was good luck just to see her, whether anything came of it or not. "something wrong with the wheelbarrow?" i asked her, with a placid superiority. she looked up with a little start--she never did seem to feel my presence until i spoke to her--and frowned prettily; but whether at me or at the car, i didn't know. "i guess something must be," she answered quite meekly, for her. "it keeps making the funniest buzz when i start it--and it's mr. weaver's car, and he doesn't know--i--i borrowed it without asking, and--" "that car is all right," i bluffed from my saddle. "it's simply obeying instructions. it comes under the jurisdiction of my private providence, you see. i ordered it that you should be here, and in distress, and grateful for my helping hand." how was that for straight nerve? "well, then, let's have the helping hand and be done. i should be at home, by now. they will wonder--i just went for a--a little spin, and when i turned to go back, it started that funny noise. i--i'm afraid of it. it--might blow up, or--or something." she seemed in a strangely explanatory mood, that was, to say the least, suspicious. either she had come out purposely to torment me, or she was afraid of what she knew was in my mind, and wanted to make me forget it. but my mettle was up for good. i had no notion of forgetting, or of letting her. "i'll do what i can, and willingly," i told her coolly. "it looks like a good car--an accommodating car. i hope you are prepared to pay the penalty--" "penalty?" she interrupted, and opened her eyes at me innocently; a bit _too_ innocently, i may say. "penalty; yes. the penalty of letting me find you outside of king's highway, _alone_," i explained brazenly. she tried a lever hurriedly, and the car growled up at her so that she quit. then she pulled herself together and faced me nonchalantly. "oh-h. you mean about the black velvet mask? i'm afraid--i had forgotten that funny little--joke." with all she could do, her face and her tone were not convincing. i gathered courage as she lost it. "i see that i must demonstrate to you the fact that i am not altogether a joke," i said grimly, and got down from my horse. i don't, to this day, know what she imagined i was going to do. she sat very still; the kind of stillness a rabbit adopts when he hopes to escape the notice of an enemy. i could see that she hardly breathed, even. but when i reached her, i only got a wrench out of the tool-box and yanked open the hood to see what ailed the motor. i knew something of that make of car; in fact, i had owned one before i got the _yellow peril_, and i had a suspicion that there wasn't much wrong; a loosened nut will sometimes sound a good deal more serious than it really is. still, a half-formed idea--a perfectly crazy idea--made me go over the whole machine very carefully to make sure she was all right. when i was through i stood up and found that she was regarding me curiously, yet with some amusement. she seemed to feel herself mistress of the situation, and to consider me as an interesting plaything. i didn't approve that attitude. "at all events," she said when she met my eyes, and speaking as if there had been no break in our conversation, "you are rather a _good_ joke. thank you so much." i put away the wrench, fastened the lid of the tool-box, and then i faced her grimly. "i see mere words are wasted on you," i said. "i shall have to carry you off--beryl king; i _shall_ carry you off if you look at me that way again!" she did look that way, only more so. i wonder what she thought a man was made of, to stand it. i set my teeth hard together. "have you got the--er--the black velvet mask?" she taunted, leaning just the least bit toward me. her eyes--i say it deliberately--were a direct challenge that no man could refuse to accept and feel himself a man after. "mask or no mask--you'll see!" i turned away to where my horse was standing eying the car with extreme disfavor, picked up the reins, and glanced over my shoulder; i didn't know but she would give me the slip. she was sitting very straight, with both hands on the wheel and her eyes looking straight before her. she might have been posing for a photograph, from the look of her. i tied the reins with a quick twist over the saddle-horn and gave him a slap on the rump. i knew he would go straight home. then i went back and stepped into the car just as she reached down and started the motor. if she had meant to run away from me she had been just a second too late. she gave me a sidelong, measuring glance, and gasped. the car slid easily along the trail as if it were listening for what we were going to say. "i shall drive," i announced quietly, taking her hands gently from the wheel. she moved over to make room mechanically, as if she didn't in the least understand this new move of mine. i know she never dreamed of what was really in my heart to do. "you will drive--where?" her voice was politely freezing. "to find that preacher, of course," i answered, trying to sound surprised that she should ask, i sent the speed up a notch. "you--you never would _dare_!" she cried breathlessly, and a little anxiously. "the deuce i wouldn't!" i retorted, and laughed in the face of her. it was queer, but my thoughts went back, for just a flash, to the time barney had dared me to drive the _yellow peril_ up past the cliff house to sutro baths. i had the same heady elation of daredeviltry. i wouldn't have turned back, then, even if i hadn't cared so much for her. she didn't say anything more, and i sent the car ahead at a pace that almost matched the mood i was in, and that brought white divide sprinting up to meet us. the trail was good, and the car was a dandy. i was making straight for king's highway as the best and only chance of carrying out my foolhardy design. i doubt if any bold, bad knight of old ever had the effrontery to carry his lady-love straight past her own door in broad daylight. yet it was the safest thing i could do. i meant to get to osage, and the only practicable route for a car lay through the pass. to be sure, there was a preacher at kenmore; but with the chance of old king being there also and interrupting the ceremony--supposing i brought matters successfully that far--with a shot or two, did not in the least appeal to me. i had made sure that there was plenty of gasoline aboard, so i drove her right along. "i hope your father isn't home," i remarked truthfully when we were slipping into the wide jaws of the pass. "he is, though; and so is mr. weaver. i think you had better jump out here and run home, or it is not a velvet mask you will need, but a mantle of invisibility." i couldn't make much of her tone, but her words implied that even yet she would not take me seriously. "well, i've neither mask nor mantle," i said, "but the way i can fade down the pass will, i think, be a fair substitute for both." she said nothing whatever to that, but she began to seem interested in the affair--as she had need to be. she might have jumped out and escaped while i was down opening the gate--but she didn't. she sat quite still, as if we were only out on a commonplace little jaunt. i wondered if she didn't have the spirit of adventure in her make-up, also. girls do, sometimes. when i had got in again, i turned to her, remembering something. "gadzooks, madam! i command you not to scream," i quoted sternly. at that, for the first time in our acquaintance, she laughed; such a delicious, rollicky little laugh that i felt ready, at the sound, to face a dozen fathers and they all old kings. as we came chugging up to the house, several faces appeared in the doorway as if to welcome and scold the runaway. i saw old king with his pipe in his mouth; and there were aunt lodema and weaver. they were all smiling at the escapade--beryl's escapade, that is--and i don't think they realized just at first who i was, or that i was in any sense a menace to their peace of mind. when we came opposite and showed no disposition to stop, or even to slow up, i saw the smiles freeze to amazement, and then--but i hadn't the time to look. old king yelled something, but by that time we were skidding around the first shed, where shylock had been shot down on my last trip through there. it was a new shed, i observed mechanically as we went by. i heard much shouting as we disappeared, but by that time we were almost through the gantlet. i made the last turn on two wheels, and scudded away up the open trail of the pass. chapter xvi. one more race. a faint toot-toot warned from behind. "they've got out the other car," said beryl, a bit tremulously; and added, "it's a much bigger one than this." i let her out all i dared for the road we were traveling; and then there we were, at that blessed gate. i hadn't thought of it till we were almost upon it, but it didn't take much thought; there was only one thing to do, and i did it. i caught beryl by an arm and pulled her down to the floor of the car, not taking my eyes from the trail, or speaking. then i drove the car forward like a cannon-ball. we hit that gate like a locomotive, and scarcely felt the jar. i knew the make of that motor, and what it could do. the air was raining splinters and bits of lamps, but we went right on as if nothing had happened, and as fast as the winding trail would allow. i knew that beyond the pass the road ran straight and level for many a mile, and that we could make good time if we got the chance. beryl sat half-turned in the seat, glancing back; but for me, i was busy watching the trail and taking the sharp turns in a way to lift the hair of one not used to traveling by lightning. i will confess it was ticklish going, at that pace, and there were places when i took longer chances than i had any right to take. but, you see, i had beryl--and i meant to keep her. that weaver fellow must have had a bigger bump of caution than i, or else he'd never raced. i could hear them coming, but they didn't seem to be gaining; rather, they lost ground, if anything. presently beryl spoke again, still looking back. "don't you think, mr. carleton, this joke has gone far enough? you have demonstrated what you _could_ do, if--" i risked both our lives to glance at her. "this joke," i said, "is going to osage. i want to marry you, and you know it. the lord and this car willing, i'm going to. still, if you really have been deceived in my intentions, and insist upon going back, i shall stop, of course, and give you back to your father. but you must do it now, at once, or--marry me." she gave me a queer, side glance, but she did not insist. naturally i didn't stop, either. we shot out into the open, with the windings of the pass behind, and then i turned the old car loose, and maybe we didn't go! she wasn't a bad sort--but i would have given a good deal, just then, if she had been the _yellow peril_ stripped for a race. i could hear the others coming up, and we were doing all we could; i saw to that. "i think they'll catch us," beryl observed maliciously. "their car is a sixty h.p. mercedes, and this--" "is about a forty," i cut in tartly, not liking the tone of her; "and just plain american make. but don't you fret, my money's on uncle sam." she said no more; indeed, it wasn't easy to talk, with the wind drawing the breath right out of your lungs. she hung onto her hat, and to the seat, and she had her hands full, let me tell you. the purr of their motor grew louder, and i didn't like the sound of it a bit. i turned my head enough to see them slithering along close--abominably close. i glimpsed old king in the tonneau, and weaver humped over the wheel in an unpleasantly businesslike fashion. i humped over my own wheel and tried to coax her up a bit, as if she had been the _yellow peril_ at the wind-up of a close race. for a minute i felt hopeful. then i could tell by the sound that weaver was crowding up. "they're gaining, mr. carleton!" beryl's voice had a new ring in it, and i caught my breath. "can you get here and take the wheel and hold her straight without slowing her?" i asked, looking straight ahead. the trail was level and not a bend in it for half a mile or so, and i thought there was a chance for us. "i've a notion that friend weaver has nerves. i'm going to rattle him, if i can; but whatever happens, don't loose your grip and spill us out. i won't hurt them." her hands came over and touched mine on the wheel. "i've raced a bit myself," she said simply. "i can drive her straight." i wriggled out of the way and stood up, glancing down to make sure she was all right. she certainly didn't look much like the girl who was afraid because something "made a funny noise." i suspected that she knew a lot about motors. a bullet clipped close. beryl set her teeth into her lips, but grittily refrained from turning to look. i breathed freer. "now, don't get scared," i warned, balanced myself as well as i could in the swaying car, and sent a shot back at them. weaver came up to my expectations. he ducked, and the car swerved out of the trail and went wavering spitefully across the prairie. old king sent another rifle-bullet my way--i must have made a fine mark, standing up there--and he was a good shot. i was mighty glad he was getting jolted enough to spoil his aim. weaver came to himself a bit and grabbed frantically for brake and throttle and steering-wheel all at once, it looked like. he was rattled, all right; he must have given the wheel a twist the wrong way, for their car hit a jutting rock and went up in the air like a pitching bronco, and old king sailed in a beautiful curve out of the tonneau. i was glad beryl didn't see that. i watched, not breathing, till i saw weaver scramble into view, and beryl's dad get slowly to his feet and grope about for his rifle; so i knew there would be no funeral come of it. i fancy his language was anything but mild, though by that time we were too far away to hear anything but the faint churning of their motor as their wheels pawed futilely in the air. they were harmless for the present. their car tilted ungracefully on its side, and, though i hadn't any quarrel with weaver, i hoped his big mercedes was out of business. i put away my gun, sat down, and looked at beryl. she was very white around the mouth, and her hat was hanging by one pin, i remember; but her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon the brown trail stretching lazily across the green of the grass-land, and she was driving that big car like an old hand. "well?" her voice was clear, and anxious, and impatient. "it's all right," i said. i took the wheel from her, got into her place, and brought the car down to a six-mile gait. "it's all right," i repeated triumphantly. "they're out of the race--for awhile, at least, and not hurt, that i could see. just plain, old-fashioned mad. don't look like that, beryl!" i slowed the car more. "you're glad, aren't you? and you _will_ marry me, dear?" she leaned back panting a little from the strain of the last half-hour, and did things to her hat. i watched her furtively. then she let her eyes meet mine; those dear, wonderful eyes of hers! and her mouth was half-smiling, and very tender. "you _silly_!" that's every word she said, on my oath. but i stopped that car dead still and gathered her into my arms, and--oh, well, i won't trail off into sentiment, you couldn't appreciate it if i did. it's a mercy weaver's car _was_ done for, or they could have walked right up and got their hands on us before we'd have known it. chapter xvii. the final reckoning. about four o'clock we reached the ferry, just behind a fagged-out team and a light buggy that had in it two figures--one of whom, at least, looked familiar to me. "frosty, by all that's holy!" i exclaimed when we came close enough to recognize a man. "i clean forgot, but i was sent to kenmore this morning to find that very fellow." "don't you know the other?" beryl laughed teasingly. "i was at their wedding this morning, and wished them god-speed. i never dreamed i should be god-speeded myself, directly! i drove edith, over to kenmore quite early in the car, and--" "edith!" "certainly, edith. whom else? did you think she would be left behind, pining at your infidelity? didn't you know they are old, old sweethearts who had quarreled and parted quite like a story? she used to read your letters so eagerly to see if you made any remark about him; you did, quite often, you know. i drove her over to kenmore, and afterward went off toward laurel just to put in the time and not arrive home too soon without her--which might have been awkward, if father took a notion to go after her. i'm so glad we came up with them." she stood up and waved her hand at edith. i shouted reassurances to frosty, who was looking apprehensively back at us. but it was a facer. i had never once suspected them of such a thing. "well," i greeted, when we overtook them and could talk comfortably; "this is luck. when we get across to pochette's you can get in with us, mr. and mrs. miller, and add the desired touch of propriety to _our_ wedding." they did some staring themselves, then, and beryl blushed delightfully--just as she did everything else. she was growing an altogether bewitching bit of femininity, and i kept thanking my private providence that i had had the nerve to kidnap her first and take chances on her being willing. honest, i don't believe i'd ever have got her in any other way. when we stopped at pochette's door the girls ran up and tangled their arms around each other and wasted enough kisses to make frosty and me swear. and they whispered things, and then laughed about it, and whispered some more, and all we could hear was a gurgle of "you dear!" and the like of that. frosty and i didn't do much; we just looked at each other and grinned. and it's long odds we understood each other quite as well as the girls did after they'd whispered and gurgled an hour. we had an early dinner--or supper--and ate fried bacon and stewed prunes--and right there i couldn't keep the joke, but had to tell the girls about how frosty and i had deviled beryl's father, that time. they could see the point, all right, and they seemed to appreciate it, too. after that, we all talked at once, sometimes; and sometimes we wouldn't have a thing to say--times when the girls would look at each other and smile, with their eyes all shiny. frosty and i would look at them, and then at each other; and frosty's eyes were shiny, too. then we went on, with the motor purring love-songs and sliding the miles behind us, while frosty and edith cooed in the tonneau behind us, and didn't thank us to look around or interrupt. beryl and i didn't say much; i was driving as fast as was wise, and sometimes faster. there was always the chance that the other car would come slithering along on our trail. besides, it was enough just to know that this was real, and that beryl would marry me just as soon as we found a preacher. there was no incentive to linger along the road. it yet lacked an hour of sunset when we slid into osage and stopped before a little goods-box church, with a sample of the same style of architecture chucked close against one side. we left the girls with the preacher's wife, and frosty wrote down our ages--beryl was twenty-one, if you're curious--and our parents' names and where we were born, and if we were black or white, and a few other impertinent things which he, having been through it himself, insisted was necessary. then he hustled out after the license, while i went over to the dry-goods and jewelry store to get a ring. i will say that osage puts up a mighty poor showing of wedding-rings. we were married. i suppose i ought to stop now and describe just how it was, and what the bride wore, and a list of the presents. but it didn't last long enough to be clear in my mind. everything is a bit hazy, just there. i dropped the ring, i know that for certain, because it rolled under an article of furniture that looked suspiciously like a folding-bed masquerading as a cabinet, and frosty had to get down on all fours and fish it out before we could go on. and edith put her handkerchief to her mouth and giggled disreputably. but, anyway, we got married. the preacher gave beryl an impressive lily-and-rose certificate, which caused her much embarrassment, because it would not go into any pocket of hers or mine, but must be carried ostentatiously in the hand. i believe edith was a bit jealous of that beflowered roll. _her_ preacher had been out of certificates, and had made shift with a plain, undecorated sheet of foolscap that frosty said looked exactly like a home-made bill of sale. i told edith she could paint some lilies around the edge, and she flounced out with her nose in the air. we had decided that we must go back in the morning and face the music. we had no desire to be arrested for stealing weaver's car, and there was not a man in osage who could be trusted to drive it back. then the girls needed a lot of things; and though frosty had intended to take the next train east, i persuaded him to go back and wait for us. beryl said she was almost sure her father would be nice about it, now there was no good in being anything else. i think that long roll of stiff paper went a long way toward strengthening her confidence; she simply could not conceive of any father being able to resist its appeal and its look of finality. we all got into the car again, and went up to the station, so i might send a wire to dad. it seemed only right and fair to let him know at once that he had a daughter to be proud of. "good lord!" i broke out, when we were nearly to the depot "if that isn't--do any of you notice anything out on the side-track, over there?" i pointed an unsteady finger toward the purple and crimson sunset. "a maroon-colored car, with dark-green--" beryl began promptly. "that's it," i cut in. "i was afraid joy had gone to my head and was making me see crooked. it's dad's car, the _shasta_. and i wonder how the deuce she got _here_!" "probably by the railroad," said edith flippantly. i drove over to the _shasta_, and we stopped. i couldn't for the life of me understand her being, there. i stared up at the windows, and nodded dazedly to crom, grinning down at me. the next minute, dad himself came out on the platform. "so it's you, ellie?" he greeted calmly. "i thought potter wasn't to let you know i was coming; he must be getting garrulous as he grows old. however, since you are here, i'm very glad to see you, my boy." "hello, dad," i said meekly, and helped beryl out. i wasn't at all sure that i was glad to see him, just then. telling dad face to face was a lot different from telling him by telegraph. i swallowed. "dad, let me introduce you to miss--mrs. beryl king--that is, carleton; my _wife_." i got that last word out plain enough, at any rate. dad stared. for once i had rather floored him. but he's a thoroughbred, all right; you can't feaze him for longer than ten seconds, and then only in extreme cases. he leaned down over the rail and held out his hand to her. "i'm very glad to meet you, mrs. beryl king--that is, carleton," he said, mimicking me. "come up and give your dad-in-law a proper welcome." beryl did. i wondered how long it had been since dad had been kissed like that. it made me gulp once or twice to think of all he had missed. frosty and edith came up, then, and edith shook hands with dad and i introduced frosty. five minutes, there on the platform, went for explanations. dad didn't say much; he just listened and sized up the layout. then he led us through the vestibule into the drawing-room. and i knew, from the look of him, that we would get his verdict straight. but it was a relief not to see his finger-tips together. "perry potter wrote me something of all this," he observed, settling himself comfortably in his pet chair. "he said this young cub needed looking after, or king--your father, mrs. carleton--would have him by the heels. i thought i'd better come and see what particular brand of--er-"as for the motor, i might make shift to take it back myself, seeing potter hasn't got a rig here to meet me. and if you'd like a little jaunt in the _shasta_, you four, you're welcome to her for a couple of weeks or so. i'm not going back right away. ellis has done his da--er--is married and off my hands, so i can take a vacation too. i can arrange transportation over any lines you want, before i start for the ranch. will that do?" i guess he found that it would, from the way edith and beryl made for him. frosty glanced out of the window and motioned to me. i looked, and we both bolted for the door, reaching it just as old king's foot was on the lower step of the platform. weaver, looking like chief mourner at a funeral, was down below in his car. king came up another step, glaring and evidently in a mood for war and extermination. "how d'y' do, king?" dad greeted over my shoulder, before i could say a word. he may not have had his finger-tips together, but he had the finger-tip tone, all right, and i knew it was a good man who would get the better of him. "out looking for strays? come right up; i've got two brand new married couples here, and i need some sane person pretty bad to help me out." there was the faintest possible accent on the _sane_. say, it was the finest thing i had ever seen dad do. and it wasn't what he said, so much as the way he said it. i knew then why he had such, a record for getting his own way. king swallowed hard and glared from dad to me, and then at beryl, who had come up and laid my arm over her shoulder--where it was perfectly satisfied to stay. there was a half-minute when i didn't know whether king would shoot somebody, or have apoplexy. "you're late, father," said beryl sweetly, displaying that blessed certificate rather conspicuously. "if you had only hurried a little, you might have been in time for the we-wedding." i squeezed my arm tight in approval, and came near choking her. king gasped as if somebody had an arm around his neck, too, and was squeezing. "oh, well, you're here now, and it's all right," put in dad easily, as though everything was quite commonplace and had happened dozens of times to us. "crom will have dinner ready soon, though as he and tony weren't notified that there would be a wedding-party here, i can't promise the feast i'd like to. still, there's a bottle or two good enough to drink even _their_ happiness in, homer. just send your chauffeur down to the town, and come in." (good one on weaver, that--and, the best part of it was, he heard it.) king hesitated while i could count ten--if i i counted fast enough--and came in, following us all back through the vestibule. inside, he looked me over and drew his hand down over his mouth; i think to hide a smile. "young man, yuh seem born to leave a path uh destruction behind yuh," he said. "there's a lot uh fixing to be done on that gate--and i don't reckon i ever _will_ find the padlock again." his eyes met the keen, steady look of dad, stopped there, wavered, softened to friendliness. their hands went out half-shyly and met. "kids are sure terrors, these days," he remarked, and they laughed a little. "us old folks have got to stand in the corners when they're around." * * * * * king's highway is open trail. beryl and i go through there often in the _yellow peril_, since dad gave me outright the bay state ranch and all pertaining thereto--except, of course, perry potter; he stays on of his own accord. frosty is father king's foreman, and aunt lodema went back east and stayed there. she writes prim little letters to beryl, once in awhile, and i gather that she doesn't approve of the match at all. but beryl does, and, if you ask me, i approve also. so what does anything else matter? automobile biographies an account of the lives and the work of those who have been identified with the invention and development of self-propelled vehicles on the common roads illustrated new york the monograph press copyright, 1904 by the monograph press all rights reserved foreword in a large sense the history of the rise of the automobile has been a history of some of the foremost inventors, mechanical engineers, manufacturers and active business men of more than a full century. the subject of self-propelled vehicles on the common roads has enlisted the faculties of many men whose minds have been engrossed with the study and the solution of mechanical and engineering problems, purely from an absorbing love of science; it has had the financial support of those whose energies are constantly and forcefully exerted in the industrial and commercial activities of the age; it has received the merited consideration of those who regard as of paramount importance any addition to the sum of successful human endeavor and any influence that contributes to the further advance of modern civilization. along these lines of thought this book of automobile biographies has been prepared. on its pages are sketches of the lives and the work of those who have been most active in planning, inventing and perfecting the modern horseless highway vehicle, in adapting it to the public needs for pleasure or business and in promoting its usefulness and broadening the field of its utility. included herein are accounts of the pioneer inventors, the noted investigators and the contemporaneous workers who have helped to make the automobile in its many forms the most remarkable mechanical success of to-day and the most valuable and epoch-making addition to the conveniences of modern social, industrial and commercial life. these sketches have been carefully prepared from the best sources of information, works of reference, personal papers and so on, and are believed to be thoroughly accurate and reliable. much of the information contained in them has been derived from exceedingly rare old volumes and papers that are not generally accessible, and it comes with a full flavor of newness. much also has been acquired from original sources and has never before been given to the public. the investigator into this subject will find, doubtless, to his very great surprise, that the story of the pioneer inventors, who, in the early part of the nineteenth century, experimented with the problems of the steam road carriage, has been recorded voluminously and with much detail. it was a notable movement, that absorbed the abundant attention of inventors, manufacturers and the public at large at that time. writers of that day recorded with a great deal of particularity the experimenting with boilers, engines, machinery and carriages, and the promoting of companies for the transportation of passengers and the hauling of goods. modern students and historians of this subject find themselves greatly indebted to the writers of that epoch, like gordon, herbert and others, who preserved, with such painstaking care, for future generations, as well as for their own time, the account of the lives and labors of such men as watt, trevithick, maceroni, hancock and others. every modern work upon this subject draws generously from those sources. concerning the later period from the middle of the century that has just ended, down to the present time, there is less concrete information, readily available. with the cessation of public interest in the matter and its general relegation into the background, by inventors, engineers and those who had previously been financial backers of the experimenting, writers ceased to give the subject the enthusiastic attention that they had before bestowed upon it. records of that period are scant, partly because there was so little to record and partly because no one cared to record even that little. until comparatively recent times the historian of the self-propelled vehicle, who was so much in evidence seventy-five years ago, had not reappeared. even now his work is generally of a desultory character, voluminous, but largely ephemeral. it is widely scattered, not easily accessible and already considerably forgotten from day to day. especially of the men of the last half century, who have made the present-day automobile possible and are now contributing to its greater future, the following pages present much that has never been brought together in this form. it is both history and the material for history. it is believed that these sketches will be found peculiarly interesting and permanently valuable. individually they are clear presentations of the achievements of some of the most distinguished engineers and inventors of the last hundred years. collectively they present a complete story of the inception and gradual development of the automobile from the first clumsy steam wagons of cugnot, trevithick, evans and others to the perfected carriage of to-day. the chapter on the origin and development of the automobile is a careful study and review of the conditions that attended the attempts to install the first common road steam carriages, the tentative experimenting with bicycles, tricycles and other vehicles in the middle of the last century and the renaissance of the last two decades. several of the illustrations are from old and rare prints, and others are from photographs. it is not possible to set down here all the authorities that have been consulted in the preparation of this work. special acknowledgment, however, must be made to the engineering magazine for permission to use text and photographs, and to j. g. pangborn for permission to use a great deal of interesting information regarding the early steam inventors contained in his work, the world's railway, and to reproduce portrait sketches of trevithick, murdoch, and read, from the same valuable volume. lyman horace weeks. new york, january, 1905. origin and development of the automobile strange early vehicles he who would fully acquaint himself with the history of the inception and growth of the idea of travel by self-propelled vehicles on the public highways must go further back in the annals of the past than he is likely first to anticipate. nearly three centuries ago men of mechanical and scientific turns of mind were giving attention to the subject, although their thoughts at that time were mostly confined to the realms of imaginative speculation. even before that philosophers occasionally dreamed of what might be in some far off time. roger bacon, in the thirteenth century, looking into the distant future, made this prediction: "it will be possible to construct chariots so that without animals they may be moved with incalculable speed." it was several hundred years before men were ready to give practical attention to this idea, and about 1740 good bishop berkeley could only make this as a prediction and not a realization: "mark me, ere long we shall see a pan of coals brought to use in place of a feed of oats." but the ancients, in a way, anticipated even roger bacon and bishop berkeley, for heliodorus refers to a triumphal chariot at athens that was moved by slaves who worked the machinery, and pancirollus also alludes to such chariots. horseless wagons in china approaching the seventeenth century the investigator finds that definite examples are becoming more numerous, even if as yet not very practical. china, which, like egypt, seems to have known and buried many ideas centuries before the rest of the world achieved them, had horseless vehicles before 1600. these merit, at least, passing attention even though they were not propelled by an engine, for the present automobile is the outgrowth of that old idea to eliminate the horse as the means of travel. matthieu ricci, 1552-1610, a jesuit missionary in china, told how in that country a wagon not drawn by horses or other animals was in common use. in an early collection of travels this vehicle was described as follows: "this river is so cloyed with ships because it is not frozen in winter that the way is stopped with multitude; which made ricius exchange his way by water into another (more strange to us) by waggon, if we may so call it, which had but one wheel, so built that one might sit in the middle as 'twere on horseback, and on each side another, the waggoner putting 't swiftly and safely forwards with levers or barres of wood (those waggons driven by wind and gayle he mentions not.)" it was somewhat later than this that china was indebted to that other famous jesuit missionary, verbiest, for his steam carriage, which, however, was not much more than a toy. manually propelled vehicles but in the seventeenth century most attention seems to have been given to devising carriages that should be moved by the hand or foot power of man. the auto car that was run in the streets of nuremberg, germany, by johann hautsch, in 1649, was of this description, and that of elié richard, the physician, of la rochelle, france, about the same time, was of the same class. not long after this potter, of england, came along in 1663 with a mechanical cart designed to travel on legs, and in the same year the celebrated hooke presented to the royal society of england a plan for some sort of a machine by which one could "walk upon the land or water with swiftness, after the manner of a crane." it does not quite appear what that cart and that machine were. one authority thinks that the hooke patent was for a one-wheel vehicle supposed to be propelled by a person inside the wheel. then, also, there was beza, another french physician, with a mechanical vehicle in 1710. other french and english experiments in fact, the interest in carriages worked by man power extended from the seventeenth well into the nineteenth century. soon after the time of beza, mechanical chariots, modeled after the richard coach, were advertised to be run in london, but it does not appear that they met with public favor. scientists and others gave much thought to the subject, both in england and in france. john vevers, master of the boarding-school at ryegate, surrey, came out with a carriage that was evidently copied from that of richard. other forms of carriages worked by hand or foot power of man were described in the periodicals of the time. george black, of berwick-on-the-tweed, built a wagon to be run by hand power in 1768. in england, john ladd, of trowbridge, wilts, in 1757; john beaumont, of ayrshire, in 1788, and in france, thomas in 1703, gerard in 1711, ferry in 1770, and maillard, blanchard and meurice, in 1779, and others, were most active during this period. it was well into the nineteenth century before this idea was wholly abandoned. edmund cartwright, inventor of the hand loom, contributed to the experimenting, and the 1831 patent to sir james c. anderson was for a very imposing vehicle rowed by twenty-four men. compressed air power at the same time that the steam engineers in england were bringing out their vehicles, 1800-35, others were at work on the problem of compressed air carriages. among these was w. mann, of brixton, who, in 1830, published in london a pamphlet, entitled a description of a new method of propelling locomotive machines, and of communicating power and motion to all other kinds of machinery, and it contained a lithograph of the proposed carriage. sir george medhurst, of england, about 1800, with his proposed regular line of coaches run by compressed air was, perhaps, the most conspicuous experimenter into this method of propulsion. sailing carriages on land many men long speculated upon the possibility of wind propulsion on land as well as upon the sea. the most ambitious attempt in that line was the sailing chariot of simon stevin, of the hague, in 1600. vehicles of this kind were built by others, and in 1695 sir humphrey mackworth applied sails to wagons on the tramways at his colliery at neath, south wales. the frenchman, du quet, in 1714, and the swiss clergyman, genevois, proposed to get power from windmills mounted on their wagons. more curious even than these was the carriage drawn by kites, the invention of george pocock, in 1826. the steam carriage predicted but all these and other fantastic devices never got beyond the experimental stage, and nothing of a substantial, practical character was ever evolved from them. it remained for the latter part of the eighteenth century to see the subject taken up seriously and considered in a way that promised definite results. and it was steam that then brought the matter strongly to the front. it is true that sir isaac newton tentatively suggested the possibility of carriage propulsion by steam about 1680, but his suggestion lay dormant for nearly a century. then the growing knowledge of the power of steam and the possibilities in the new element turned men's thoughts again very forcibly to this theme. the stationary engine had shown its usefulness, and the consideration of making this stationary machine movable, and therefore available for transportation, naturally followed. dr. erasmus darwin is said to have urged james watt and matthew boulton to build a fiery chariot as early as 1765. in his poem, the botanic garden, famous in that day, dr. darwin, like a prophet crying in the wilderness, sang of the future of steam in these lines: "soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; on, on wide waving wings, expanded bear the flying chariot through the field of air; fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, shall wave their fluttering 'kerchiefs as they move, or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowds, and armies shrink beneath the shadowy clouds." these lines may indeed be fairly interpreted as anticipating in prophetic prediction the modern motor airship, as well as the motor car. the first steam vehicles it was considerably later than this that the dream of dr. darwin approached to realization at the hands of the steam engine inventors and builders. aside from nicholas joseph cugnot, the french army officer who, about 1769, constructed an artillery wagon propelled by a high-pressure engine, those who first built successful self-propelled vehicles for highway travel were the famous engineers of england and scotland, who harnessed steam and developed the high-pressure engine in the last half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. james watt patented, in 1782, a double-acting engine, which he planned might be "applied to give motion to wheel carriages," the engine to be portable; but he never put the patent to trial. he was followed by george stephenson, richard trevithick, walter hancock, goldsworthy gurney, david gordon, william brunton and others in england, and oliver evans, nathan read and thomas blanchard in the united states, with two score or more contemporaries. for more than half a century steam vehicles of various types were invented by these engineers and many of them were brought into practical use. soon after the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century the interest in steam carriages had assumed large proportions in england. in 1833 there were no less than twenty such vehicles, either completed or in hand, around london, and a dozen corporations had been organized to build and run them over stated routes. alexander gordon, the eminent engineer, wrote a book, entitled treatise upon elemental locomotion, that went into three editions inside of four years. he also brought out two special journals covering this field of mechanics. the mechanic's magazine, and other publications, also gave much attention to the subject, and the steam-carriage literature of the period became very voluminous. popular prejudice aroused for a time it looked as though the new vehicle was destined to a permanency and to accomplish a revolution in the methods of travel on the high-roads. but several things arose to determine otherwise. there sprang up an unreasoning senseless hostility to any substitute for the horse as the agent of vehicular traffic. the stage-coach drivers were afraid that they would be thrown out of work. breeders of horses foresaw the destruction of their business, when horses should no longer be in demand. farmers were sure that with horses superseded by steam, they would never be able to sell any more oats. this public animosity manifested itself wherever the steam carriages went. the coaches were hooted at and stoned amid cries of "down with machinery." stones and other obstacles were placed in the roads, trenches were dug to trap the unsuspicious driver and stretches of roadway were dug up and made into quagmires to stall the machines. parliament was called upon and enacted excessive highway tolls, especially directed at steam carriages. another law that stood on the statute books of great britain until within comparatively recent times compelled every self-propelled vehicle moving on the highway to be preceded by a man walking and carrying a red flag. the beginning of railroads all this was undoubtedly due, in a large measure, if not wholly, to what was then known as the turn pike trusts, which, in conjunction with the stage-line companies, in many cases, were owners of a thousand and more horses. the latter, quite naturally, objected to the introduction of the mechanical vehicle, while the former had such relations to them that both their interests were identical. but above all things, the great art of railroading had already grown from infant existence to a condition of great possibilities, which were now to be finally determined by a success, not alone mechanical and in the eyes of the inventor, but measured by the balance sheets of the companies of individuals who had made possible the construction of the various experimental locomotives or experimental lines then being operated in england and elsewhere. just at this time, in the thirties of the nineteenth century, seems to have been the crucial point. the arguments of the engineers on the question of sufficient traction of the iron-shod wheels on iron or other hard railways, while given due consideration, were not wholly convincing, at least to the people investing their money in the enterprises; the profits were to tell in the final conclusion, and it would seem that the great era of railroading might be considered to have had its actual birth at this time, because: the first dividend was paid on one of the great railroad enterprises. influence of the first dividend for the time being that seemed to sound the death knell of the common road steam-propelled vehicle. the engineers so strongly advocating the railroad had proven their various propositions in the eyes of those who had the financial powers to engage in the extensive introduction and development of the new means of transportation. further demonstration, extensively exploited, was also made to the satisfaction of those investors, that vehicles could be pulled with less power on a hard roadbed such as a railway, than on an uneven and sometimes soft path such as common roads. it seems clear that these and various other arguments, heartily urged at that time, and, in some cases, unquestionable from a technical standpoint, were really decided by that first dividend. and the common road vehicle with the support and enthusiasm of its backers largely withdrawn from it dropped to a position greatly subordinate to the other branch of transportation. the steam road vehicle again on the other hand, the development which came in the next few decades in the railroad department brought also a renewed demand for common road vehicles for certain classes of work or for certain localities. the steam vehicle for stationary purposes, and also for the locomotive, were being rapidly developed and refined. the railroad settled down to the idea of a power unit drawing numerous wagons. that has been consistently adhered to to the present day, and only in the past decade have we gone back to the old and first principles of embodying the mechanical propelling means in the same vehicle that transports the passengers or goods. so, while hancock and his worthy contemporaries passed into history, other common road steam advocates continued their isolated attempts up to and past the middle of the nineteenth century, although without any such general enthusiasm as prevailed in the twenties and early thirties. new generation of inventors many attempts in america, such as those of fisher, dudgeon, and others, and the work in england by numerous inventors and machine manufacturers, such as tangye, hilditch, snowden, f. hill, jr., aided by the engineers, macadam, telford and m'neil, who were improving the common roads so that they might approach the advantageous conditions of the railroad, assume prominence in connection with that period of the history. rickett's carriage, in 1858; carrett's, in 1862; boulton's, in 1867; catley's, in 1869, and others, were among the finger-posts of that time, pointing to more notable achievements of the future. but in england the act of parliament, passed in 1836 and in force almost to to-day, known as the locomotive act, was the deterrent to progress in common road steam locomotion. this condition even continued after the select committee of parliament, in 1873, endeavored to remove some of the restrictions, but succeeded only in producing the act of 1878, which in no way improved the position of the common road vehicle. in france and on the continent political conditions doubtless mitigated against any general advance, and though this period included the great development of machinery and construction which paved the way for the future, it is not of prominence in this history. a period of experimenting a new era may be said to have commenced in the early part of the seventies when we find amédèe bollèe exhibiting a steam machine at the vienna exposition. in the seventies were also experiments on modified forms of power on vehicle propelling motors other than steam, but it still seemed to be the steam vehicle that characterized the new period of activity which blossomed out in the early eighties with many ardent advocates, and exhibited a type of light vehicle with efficient strong boiler and light engine. america should not be overlooked, however, when we consider the one small vehicle of austin, which was constructed in massachusetts, and attracted great attention at the shows of the ocean circus, in the early seventies, or thereabout. bouton, of france, came to the fore in the early eighties, and the light steam vehicle seemed on the high road to a great development and a monopoly of the common roads vehicle industry, until its competitor appeared in what is now popularly known as the gasoline vehicle in the middle eighties. the selden patent from this time on the great industry of to-day advanced in strides and jumps, but while the future had been anticipated in some suggestions and experiments in europe, at last one great mind had delved into the problem and anticipated the great future of the new type of vehicle in america. selden, after a decade or more of study and work, and well-directed experiments, had made his own deductions, and with clear discerning had concluded what, to his mind, would be _the_ vehicle in the future. the result of his labors and the subsequent filing, in 1879, of a patent application, when considered in connection with his persistent work from that time on, even to the present day, would seem to justly mark him as the pioneer in this type of vehicle; in fact, he was so called by the commissioner of patents of the united states when publishing his annual report, immediately after the issue of selden's patent. advent of the hydro-carbon engine then followed the work on carbureters and ignition devices and details of construction adapting the liquid hydro-carbons of uncertain quality to more satisfactory use. details became and still are numerous, and optional to a great extent, but the liquid hydro-carbon engine of the compression type distinguished the new epoch. the development of the stationary engine operated with gas from receivers also proceeded rapidly in those days, though it was well into the eighties before the gas engine of the compression type involved a commercially successful industry to any extent; not for several years did the principal manufacturers take up commercially the proposition of the liquid hydrocarbon application. the development of the small engine using liquid hydro-carbons received attention from marcus, in austria, and the persistent attention of benz and of daimler, in germany. the two latter, furthermore, adapted their engines to vehicles, and enthusiasm was great when benz ran his three-wheeler, with explosive engine, through the streets of his native town. progress in france and america england was still shackled; but in france many were inspired to change from steam to the hydro-carbon engine. about 1890 we find several french manufacturers procuring engines, or the right to manufacture the small explosive engines developed by the germans, and promptly adapting them to their vehicle construction, already well developed for steam propulsion. panhard & levassor; bouton, with his backer, dedion; bollèe, now leon, the nephew; delahaye and peugeot, were among the earliest frenchmen to appreciate the commercial possibilities of the new type. then the large manufacturers, already experienced in other lines, and particularly in cycle manufacture, entered the field in 1893, 1894 and 1895; among them such old concerns as dedetrich, manufacturers for one hundred and more years, grasped the opportunity. america was not idle, and while road conditions in this country militated largely against the early attempts in the industry, the efforts of the duryeas and of haynes, and various other experimenters, who have since retired, were heard from. it was difficult, however, with the obstacles then existing in america, for these early workers to secure encouragement, and progress was slow, just as the endeavors of selden and some of the early steam vehicle people had received nothing but discouragement at the hands of those whom they endeavored to lead to the success of large manufacturing undertakings. however, the times-herald race, in chicago, near the close of 1895, brought forth a large number of inventors and several starters, including electric, steam and gasoline vehicles, and the showing was such as to practically satisfy the doubting that these were the beginning of the industry in this country. the english revival abroad, the leaders in the automobile movement organized the now historic races from paris in different directions. with the runs of 1894, 1895 and 1896, and in each successive year thereafter, and with the road and other conditions improved, the industry rapidly developed. england also was at last reached. the restraints that had existed there for more than half a century could no more be endured. the burden was finally thrown off, for which great credit is due to sir david salomon, and the offensive locomotive act was at last repealed in august, 1896. the subsequent locomotive act which came into effect november 14, 1896, marked a red-letter day in motoring history for england, and was justly celebrated by a procession of vehicles from london to brighton. salomon had previously organized an exhibition in england, and had imported a french car, and as a prominent member of scientific and technical societies, in which he presented many papers on the subject, had done, possibly, more than any other individual to influence public sentiment and to secure this new enactment. english manufacturers were not entirely unprepared for the change, and a great wave of interest and activity swept the country. naturally this was followed by a reaction, but since then a counter-reaction has set in, resulting in the present grand development of that class of manufacturing in the british isles. the small steam vehicle of whitney, and his contemporaries, the stanleys in the united states, then came to the fore. under energetic promotion thousands of small vehicles of that type were manufactured and put into use. these, in no small measure, became to the public at large the convincing object lesson of the practicability and possibilities of the small automobile for every-day use. modern conditions the paris show of 1900 revealed a great forward step in the development of constructions, and the offer immediately thereafter of the james gordon bennett trophy of international racing gave to the automobile industry such an impetus as has seldom been the good fortune of any other art to receive. to-day the automobile has reached that stage of perfection where the question is no longer whether or not the vehicle will carry you to a certain place and back. now it is only a question of the speed, absence of vibration, and sweetness of running the engine, absence of all noise, and other details of refinement. vehicles are now of the pullman type, luxurious to the extent of prices ranging into the thirties of thousands of dollars, while on the other hand, thousands of small vehicles, costing between five hundred and one thousand dollars, are annually made and sold. the steam machine, after being practically succeeded by the gasoline, was again improved by the flash boiler. the main development of this new power was carried on by serpollet, of france, and later, by rollin t. white, in the united states, both whom have become most able competitors of manufacturers of machines of other classes. the industry to-day the beginning of 1905 finds us with the annual shows, which have been consecutive for many years, while the census of vehicles now in use, or made in the last ten years, will aggregate several hundred thousand. the annual production is estimated as probably approximating one hundred thousand in a few of the principal countries. the value of the electrical vehicle, particularly as the town vehicle for anything except speeding, is now well established, and reports from paris as well as new york indicate the lack of facilities of factories in this line for producing these carriages as rapidly as demanded. heavy 'buses and individual vehicles alike are also popular. pioneer inventors nicholas joseph cugnot, william murdock, oliver evans, william symington, nathan read, richard trevithick, david gordon, w. h. james, goldsworthy gurney, thomas blanchard, m. johnson, walter hancock, w. t. james, francis maceroni, richard roberts, j. scott russell, w. h. church, etienne lenoir, amédèe bollèe, george b. selden, siegfried marcus, carl benz, gottlieb daimler, m. levassor, leon serpollet. nicholas joseph cugnot born at void, lorraine, france, september 25, 1725. died in paris, october 2, 1804. concerning the early life of cugnot, little is known. he was educated for the engineering service of the french army, and gained distinction as a military and mechanical engineer. he also served as a military engineer in germany. soon afterward he entered the service of prince charles of lorraine, and for a time resided at brussels, where he gave lessons in the military art. he did not return to his native land until 1763, and then invented a new gun, with which the cavalry were equipped. this brought him to the attention of the compte de saxe, and under the patronage of that nobleman, he constructed in 1765 his first locomotive. this was a small wagon. on its first run it carried four persons, and traveled at the rate of two and a quarter miles an hour. the boiler, however, being too small, the carriage could go only for fifteen or twenty minutes before the steam was exhausted, and it was necessary to stop the engine for nearly the same time, to enable the boiler to raise the steam to the maximum pressure, before it could proceed on its journey. this machine was a disappointment, in consequence of the inefficiency of the feed pumps. it has been stated that while in brussels he had made a smaller vehicle, which, if so, was soon after 1760. several small accidents happened during the trial, for the machine could not be completely controlled, but it was considered on the whole to be fairly successful and worthy of further attention. the suggestion was made that provided it could be made more powerful, and its mechanism improved, it might be used to drag cannon into the field instead of using horses for that purpose. consequently, cugnot was ordered by the duc de choiseul, minister of war, to proceed with the construction of an improved and more powerful machine. this vehicle, which was finished in 1770, cost twenty thousand livres. it was in two parts, a wagon and an engine. the wagon was carried on two wheels and had a seat for the steersman; the engine and boiler were supported on a single driving-wheel in front of the wagon. the two parts were united by a movable pin. a toothed quadrant, fixed on the framing of the fore part, was actuated by spur gearing on the upright steersman's shaft in close proximity to the seat, by means of which the conductor could cause the carriage to turn in either direction, at an angle of from fifteen to twenty degrees. in front was a round copper boiler, having a furnace inside, two small chimneys, two single-acting brass cylinders communicating with the boiler by the steam pipe, and other machinery. on each side of the driving-wheel, ratchet wheels were fixed, and as one of the pistons descended, the piston-rod drew a crank, the pawl of which, working into the ratchet-wheel, caused the driving-wheel to make a quarter of a revolution. by gearing, the same movement placed the piston on the other side in a position for making a stroke, and turned the four-way cock, so as to open the second cylinder to the steam and the first cylinder to the atmosphere. the second piston then descended, causing the leading wheel to make another quarter of a revolution, and restoring the first piston to its original position. in order to run the vehicle backwards, the pawl was made to act on the upper side, changing the position of the spring which pressed upon it; then, when the engine was started, the pawl caused the driving-wheel to turn a quarter of a revolution in the opposite direction with every stroke of the piston. this machine was first tried in 1770 in the presence of a distinguished assembly, that included the duc de choiseul; general gribeauval, first inspector-general of artillery; the compte de saxe, and others. subsequently, other trials of it were made, with satisfactory results generally. the heavy over-balancing weight of the engine and boiler in front rendered it difficult to control. on one of its trips it ran into a wall in turning a corner and was partly wrecked. further experiments with it were abandoned, and in 1800 it was deposited in the conservatoire des arts et metier, paris, where it still remains. at a later period of his life, having lost his means of support, cugnot's public services were considered to entitle him to a reward from the state. louis fifteenth gave him a pension of six hundred livres, but the french revolution coming on, he was deprived even of that pittance, and he lived in abject misery in brussels. his carriage was then in the arsenal, and a revolutionary committee, during the reign of terror, tried to take it out and reduce it to scrap, but was driven off. when napoleon came to the throne, he restored the pension and increased it to one thousand livres. in addition to his inventions, cugnot wrote several works on military art and fortification. william murdock born in bellow mill, near old cumnock, ayrshire, scotland, august 21, 1754. died at sycamore hill, november 15, 1839. murdock was the son of john murdoch, a millwright. he was modestly educated, and brought up to his father's trade, helping to build and put up mill machinery. a curious production of the father and son, at this period, was a wooden horse, worked by mechanical power, on which young murdock traveled about the country. when he was twenty-three years of age he entered the employment of the famous engineering firm of boulton & watt, at soho, and there remained throughout his active life. watt recognized in him a valuable assistant, and his services were jealously regarded. on his part he devoted himself unreservedly to the interests of his employers. in 1777 he was sent to cornwall to look after the pumps and engines set up by the firm in the mines, and for a long period he lived at redruth. for some five years after 1800 he was engineer and superintendent at the soho foundry. while living at redruth, in 1792, he began a series of experiments on the illuminating properties of the gases of coal, wood, peat, and other substances, and in 1799 put up a gas-making apparatus at soho. in 1803 he fitted the soho factory with a gas-lighting system. other inventions that are credited to him are models for an oscillating engine and a rotary engine, a method of making steam pipes, an apparatus for utilizing the force of compressed air, and a steam gun. [illustration: william murdock] his early training and all his surroundings naturally and inevitably interested murdock in the subject of steam locomotion, and before 1784 he began to experiment on these lines. that he made definite progress is shown in a letter that thomas wilson, agent in cornwall of boulton & watt, wrote to his employers in august, 1786, saying, "william murdock desires me to inform you that he has made a small engine of three-quarter-inch diameter and one and one-half inch stroke, that he has applied to a small carriage, which answers amazingly." he had made and run this model in 1784, and it is still in existence, and in the possession of the messrs. richard and george tangye, england. this model was on the high-pressure principle, and ran on three wheels, the single front one for steering. the vertical boiler, nearly over the rear axle, was heated by a spirit-lamp, and the machine stood only a little more than a foot high. the axle was cranked in the middle and turned by a rod connected to a beam moved up and down by the piston-rod projecting from the top of the cylinder. yet it developed considerable speed. it is interesting to note that the use of the crank for converting the reciprocating motion of the steam engine into rotary was patented by pickard in 1780, and murdock's was probably its first application to self-propelled carriages. the first experiment with this little engine was made in murdock's house at redruth, when the locomotive successfully hauled a wagon round the room, the single wheel, placed in front of the engine, fixed in such a position as to enable it to run round a circle. dr. smiles, in his work on inventors, tells an amusing story concerning this machine. he says: "another experiment was made out of doors, on which occasion, small though the engine was, it fairly outran the speed of its inventor. one night, after returning from his duties at the mine at redruth, murdock went with his model locomotive to the avenue leading to the church, about a mile from the town. the walk was narrow, straight and level. having lit the lamp, the water soon boiled, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. shortly after he heard distant shouts of terror. it was too dark to perceive objects, but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries had proceeded from the worthy vicar, who, while going along the walk, had met the hissing and fiery little monster, which he declared he took to be the evil one in propria persona!" but murdock was too useful a man to boulton & watt to be allowed to have free rein, and his inclination toward steam locomotion invention was apparently curbed, though it would appear watt thought the roads of that time an insurmountable obstacle to the development of road vehicles, and wanted murdock to devote his time to mechanical matters more ripe for success. boulton, writing to watt from truro, in september, 1796, tells how he met murdock on his way to london to get a patent on a new model, and how he persuaded him to turn back. this model was for a steam carriage that was afterward shown as able to travel freely around a room with a light load of shovel, poker and tongs upon it. his was probably the first high-pressure steam-engine vehicle run in england. though only a small model, it did its proportionate work well. watt continued to oppose murdock's scheme, but on one occasion suggested that he should be allowed an advance of five hundred dollars to enable him to prosecute his experiments, and if he succeeded within a year in making an engine capable of drawing a post chaise, carrying two passengers and the driver, at four miles an hour, it was suggested that he should be taken as partner into the locomotive business, for which boulton and watt were to provide the necessary capital. this proposition was never carried out. again, in 1786, watt said: "i wish william could be brought to do as we do, to mind the business in hand, and let such as symington and sadler throw away their time and money in hunting shadows." murdock continued to speculate about steam locomotion on common roads, but never carried his ideas further. he retired from the employment of boulton & watt in 1830, and practically retired from all work at the same time. murdock seems to have had a very clear idea of the possibilities of steam propulsion on the common roads. had circumstances permitted he might well have been expected to have solved the problem in 1796 quite as completely as his successors did in 1835. but he was a quarter of a century ahead of the time. even the moderate public interest that existed later on had not manifested itself at all in his day and the condition of the english highways offered almost insuperable obstacles to steam vehicular travel. personally his lack of self-assertiveness and his feeling of dependence upon boulton and watt also held him back. so he remained simply one of the pioneer investigators pointing the way for others. oliver evans born in 1755 or 1756, in newport, del. died in philadelphia, april 21, 1819. little has been preserved respecting the early history of oliver evans, who has been aptly styled "the watt of america." his parents were farming people, and he had only an ordinary common-school education. at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a wheelwright or wagonmaker, and continued his meager education by studying at night time by the light that he made by burning chips and shavings in the fireplace. while yet an apprentice his attention was turned to the subject of propelling land carriages without animal power. but the lack of definite knowledge in regard to steam power compelled him to abandon his plans, although his experiments were continued for a long time. soon after attaining his majority he was engaged in making card-teeth by hand, and in connection therewith developed several labor-saving improvements. he also invented improvements in the construction of machinery of flour mills that effected a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour. these improvements consisted of the elevator, the conveyor, the hopper-boy, the drill and the descender, which various machines were applied in different mills so as to perform mechanically every necessary movement of the grain and meal from one part of the mill to the other, causing a saving of fully one-half in the labor of mill attendance and manufacturing the flour better. these improvements were not accepted by the mill owners at the outset, and evans spent many discouraging years before he could finally persuade the manufacturers of the utility of his inventions. in the end, however, he lived to see his inventions generally introduced, and he profited largely thereby. [illustration: oliver evans] in the year 1786, evans petitioned the legislature of pennsylvania for the exclusive right to use his improvements in flour mills and steam carriages in that state, and in the year following presented a similar petition to the legislature of maryland. in the former instance he was only successful so far as to obtain the privilege of the mill improvements, his representations concerning steam carriages being considered as savoring too much of insanity to deserve notice. he was more fortunate in maryland, for, although the steam project was laughed at, yet one of his friends, a member, very judiciously observed that the grant could injure no one, for he did not think that any man in the world had thought of such a thing before, and therefore he wished the encouragement might be afforded, as there was a prospect that it would produce something useful. this kind of argument had its effect, and evans received all that he asked for, and from that period considered himself bound in honor to the state of maryland to produce a steam carriage, as soon as his means would allow him. for several years succeeding the granting of his petition by the legislature of maryland, evans endeavored to obtain some person of pecuniary resources to join with him in his plans; and for this purpose explained his views by drafts, and otherwise, to some of the first mechanics in the country. although the persons addressed appeared, in several instances, to understand them, they declined any assistance from a fear of the expense and difficulty of their execution. in the year 1800, or 1801, evans, never having found anyone willing to contribute to the expense, or even to encourage him in his efforts, determined to construct a steam carriage at his own expense. previous to commencing he explained his views to robert patterson, professor of mathematics in the university of pennsylvania, and to an eminent english engineer. they both declared the principles new to them, and advised the plan as highly worthy of a fair experiment. they were the only persons who had any confidence, or afforded encouraging advice. he also communicated his plans to b. f. latrobe, the scientist, who publicly pronounced them as chimerical, and attempted to demonstrate the absurdity of evans' principles in his report to the philosophical society of pennsylvania on steam engines. in this he also endeavored to show the impossibility of making steamboats useful. evans commenced and had made considerable progress in the construction of a steam carriage, when the idea occurred to him that as his steam engine was altogether different in form, as well as in principle, from any other in use, a patent could be obtained for it, and then applied to mills more profitably than to carriages. the steam carriage was accordingly laid aside for a season of more leisure, and the construction of a small engine was commenced, with a cylinder six inches in diameter and a piston of eighteen inches stroke, for a mill to grind plaster of paris. the expense of its construction far exceeded evans' calculation, and before the engine was finished he found it cost him all he was worth. he had then to begin the world anew, at the age of forty-eight, with a large family to support, and that, too, with a knowledge that if the trial failed his credit would be entirely ruined, and his prospects for the remainder of life dark and gloomy. but fortune favored him, and his success was complete. in a brief account, given by himself, of his experiments in steam, he says: "i could break and grind three hundred bushels of plaster of paris, or twelve tons, in twenty-four hours; and to show its operations more fully to the public, i applied it to saw stone, on the side of market street, where the driving of twelve saws in heavy frames, sawing at the rate of one hundred feet of marble in twelve hours, made a great show and excited much attention. i thought this was sufficient to convince the thousands of spectators of the utility of my discovery, but i frequently heard them inquire if the power could be applied to saw timber as well as stone, to grind grain, propel boats, etc., and though i answered in the affirmative, they still doubted. i therefore determined to apply my engine to all new uses; to introduce it and them to the public. this experiment completely tested the correctness of my principles. the power of my engine rises in a geometrical proportion, while the consumption of the fuel has only an arithmetical ratio; in such proportion that every time i added one-fourth more to the consumption of the fuel, its powers were doubled; and that twice the quantity of fuel required to drive one saw, would drive sixteen saws at least; for when i drove two saws the consumption was eight bushels of coal in twelve hours, but when twelve saws were driven, the consumption was not more than ten bushels, so that the more we resist the steam, the greater is the effect of the engine. on these principles very light but powerful engines can be made suitable for propelling boats and land carriages without the great encumbrance of their weight as mentioned in latrobe's demonstration." in the year 1840, evans, by order of the board of health of philadelphia, constructed at his works, situated a mile and a half from the water, a machine for cleaning docks. it consisted of a large flat or scow, with a steam engine of five horse-power on board, to work the machinery to raise the mud into the scows. this was considered a fine opportunity to show the public that his engine could propel both land and water conveyances. when the machine was finished, he fixed, in a rough and temporary manner, wheels with wooden axletrees, and, of course, under the influence of great friction. although the whole weight was equal to two hundred barrels of flour, yet his small engine propelled it up market street and round the circle to the waterworks, where it was launched into the schuylkill river. a paddle-wheel was then applied to its stern, and it thus moved down that river to the delaware, a distance of sixteen miles, leaving behind all vessels that were under sail. this demonstration was in the presence of thousands of spectators, which he supposed would have convinced them of the practicability of steamboats and steam carriages. but no allowance was made by the public for the disproportion of the engine to its load, nor for the rough manner in which the machinery was fixed, or the great friction and ill form of the boat, and it was supposed that this was the utmost it could perform. some individuals undertook to ridicule the experiment of driving so great a weight on land, because the motion was too slow to be useful. the inventor silenced them by answering that he would make a carriage propelled by steam, for a wager of three thousand dollars, to run upon a level road, against the swiftest horse that could be produced. this machine evans named the oructor amphibolis. on the 25th of september, 1804, evans submitted to the consideration of the lancaster turnpike company a statement of the costs and profits of a steam carriage to carry one hundred barrels of flour, fifty miles in twenty-four hours; tending to show that one such steam carriage would make more net profits than ten wagons, drawn by five horses each, on a good turnpike road, and offering to build one at a very low price. his address closed as follows: "it is too much for an individual to put in operation every improvement which he may invent. i have no doubt but that my engines will propel boats against the current of the mississippi, and wagons on turnpike roads, with great profit. i now call upon those whose interest it is to carry this invention into effect. all of which is respectfully submitted to your consideration." little or no attention was paid to this offer, for it was difficult at that day to interest anyone in steam locomotion. evans' interest in the steam carriage forthwith ceased, but in his writings, published about that time, he remarked: "the time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines from one city to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour. passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, will be the most rapid exhilarating exercise. a carriage (steam) will set out from washington in the morning, the passengers will breakfast at baltimore, dine at philadelphia, and sup at new york in the same day." to accomplish this he suggested railways of wood or iron, or smooth paths of broken stone or gravel, and predicted that engines would soon drive boats ten or twelve miles an hour. in the latter years of his life, evans established a large iron foundry in philadelphia. although evans' distinct contribution to the problem of steam locomotion on the common roads was not particularly practical it was at least important as being the first suggestion of anything of the kind in the united states. road conditions in this country at that time were worse than they were in england and yet under more discouraging circumstances he was as far advanced in ideas and plans as his great contemporaries, trevithick and others across the water. to evans must be given the credit of perfecting the high-pressure, non-condensing engine, and even trevithick, "the father of the locomotive," was largely indebted to him for his progress in the lines he was working on in england, his plans and specifications having been sent abroad for the english engineers to inspect in 1784. william symington born at leadhills, scotland, october, 1783. died in london, march 22, 1831. more fortunate than most of the english inventors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with whom he was associated, william symington came of a family that was able to give him a good education. his father was a mechanic who had charge of the engines and machinery at the warlockhead lead mines, and the son gained his first knowledge of mechanics and engineering in the shops with his father. intended for the ministry, he was sent to the university of glasgow and the university of dublin to pursue his studies. but the ministry had slight attractions for him, and when the time came for him to choose a profession, he adopted that of civil engineering. in 1786 he worked out a model for a steam road-car. this was regarded very highly by all who saw it. it is said that mr. meason, manager of the lead mines at warlockhead, was so pleased with the model, the merit of which principally belonged to young symington, that he sent him into edinburgh for the purpose of exhibiting it before the professors of the university, and other scientific gentlemen of the city, in the hope that it might lead in some way to his future advancement in life. mr. meason became the patron and friend of symington, allowed the model to be exhibited at his own house, and invited many persons of distinction to inspect it. the carriage supported on four wheels had a locomotive behind, the front wheels being arranged with steering-gear. a cylindrical boiler was used for generating steam, which communicated by a steam-pipe with the two horizontal cylinders, one on each side of the firebox of the boiler. when steam was turned into the cylinder, the piston made an outward stroke; a vacuum was then formed, the steam being condensed in a cold water tank placed beneath the cylinders, and the piston was forced back by the pressure of the atmosphere. the piston rods communicated their motion to the driving-axle and wheels through rack rods, which worked toothed wheels placed on the hind axle on both sides of the engine, and the alternate action of the rack rods upon the tooth and ratchet wheels, with which the drums were provided, produced the rotary motion. the boiler was fitted with a lever and weight safety valve. symington's locomotive was abandoned, the inventor considering that the scheme of steam travel on the common roads was impracticable. henceforth, symington gave his attention to the study of boat propulsion by steam. in 1787 he got out a patent for an improved form of steam engine, in which he obtained rotary action by chains and ratchet-wheels. this engine, with a four-inch cylinder, was used to work the paddles of a pleasure boat on dalswinton loch, in 1788, the boat steaming at the rate of five miles an hour. this boat is now in the south kensington museum, and it has been termed "the parent engine of steam navigation." the experiment with this method of boat propulsion was so successful that a year later larger engines, with eighteen-inch cylinders, were fitted to another boat, which attained a speed of seven miles an hour. in 1801, symington took out a patent for an engine with a piston rod guided by rollers in a straight path and connected by a rod with a crank attached directly to the paddle-wheel shaft--the system that has been in use ever since. although the perfect practicability of this method of boat propulsion was fully demonstrated by a trial on the tugboat charlotte dundas, in march, 1802, the plan for steam power on canals and lakes was not carried further. the forth and clyde company, and the duke of bridgewater, who were backing symington, gave up the project and he could get help from no other sources. his inventions and experiments are generally regarded as marking the beginning of steam navigation. it is interesting to note that among those who were guests on the charlotte dundas, on the occasion of this trial trip, was robert fulton, who wrote a treatise on steam navigation in 1793, tried a small steamboat on the river seine, in france, in 1803, and in 1807 launched his famous steamship, the clermont, on the hudson river. symington, disappointed and discouraged, gave up his work and went to london. the rest of his life was for the most part thrown away, and he became one of the waifs and strays of london. in 1825 he received a grant of one hundred pounds from the privy purse, and later on fifty pounds more, in recognition of his services for steam navigation. he died in obscurity and although he was unquestionably the pioneer in his country of the successful application of steam to navigation on inland waters his name is only a bare memory. nathan read born in warren, mass., july 2, 1759. died near belfast, me., january 20, 1849. graduated from harvard college in 1781, read was a tutor at harvard for four years. in 1788 he began experimenting to discover some way of utilizing the steam engine for propelling boats and carriages. his efforts were mainly directed toward devising lighter, more compact machinery than then generally in use. his greatest invention at that time was a substitute for the large working-beam. this was a cross-head beam which ran in guides and had a connecting-rod with which motion was communicated. the new cylinder that he invented to attach to this working-frame was double-acting. in order to make the boiler more portable he invented a multi-tubular form, and this he patented, together with the cylinder, chain-wheel, and other appliances. the boiler was cylindrical and was placed upright or horizontal, and the furnace was carried within it. a double cylinder formed a water-jacket, connected with a water and steam chamber above, and a water-chamber below. numerous small straight tubes connected these two chambers. read also invented another boiler in which the fire went through small spiral tubes, very much as it does in the present-day locomotives, and this was a smoke-consuming engine. for the purpose of acquiring motion he first used paddle-wheels, but afterward adopted a chain-wheel of his own invention. [illustration: nathan read] read planned a steam-car to be run with his tubular boiler, and it is said that this vehicle, when laden with fifty tons weight, could make five miles per hour. the model which was completed in 1790 had four wheels, the front pair being pivoted at the center and controlled by a horizontal sheave and rope. the sheave was located back near the boiler, and in guiding the machine it was operated by a hand-wheel placed above the platform, within easy reach of the engineer. a square boiler with read's multi-tubular system, overhung at the rear of the carriage. two driving-wheels were forward of the boiler, and in front of these were two horizontal cylinders on each side of the engine. on the inside of each wheel were ratched teeth that fitted into corresponding teeth on horizontal racks above and below the hub. the piston, moving back and forth from the cylinder, engaged these teeth and caused a revolution of the wheel. there were two steam valves and two exhaust valves to each cylinder, the exhaust being into the atmosphere. although this was the first conception of propulsion by steam on land in america, read went no further in creating this model, inasmuch as he received no encouragement from financial sources. in 1796, read established at salem, mass., the salem iron foundry, where he manufactured anchors, chain cables, and other machinery. in january, 1798, he invented a machine to cut and head nails at one operation. he also invented a method of equalizing the action of windmills by accumulating the force of the wind through winding up a weight; and a plan for harnessing the force of the tides by means of reservoirs which, by being alternately filled up and emptied, created a constant stream of water. among his other inventions were a pumping engine and a threshing machine. richard trevithick born in illogan, in the west of cornwall, england, april 13, 1771. died in dartford, kent, april 22, 1833. richard trevithick had meager educational advantages. his father was manager of the dolcoath and other mines, and shortly after the birth of his son moved to penponds, near camborne, where the boy was sent to school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, which were the limits of his attainments. early in life he showed the dawning of remarkable inventive genius, was quick at figures and clever in drawing. he developed into a young man of notable physique, being six feet two inches high, and having the frame and the strength of an athlete. he was one of the most powerful wrestlers in the west country, and it is related of him that he could easily lift a thousand-weight mandril. at the age of eighteen young trevithick began to assist his father as mine manager, and at once proceeded to put his inventive faculty to practical test. his initial success, in 1795, was an improvement upon an engine at the wheal treasury mine, which accomplished a great saving in fuel and in power, and won for him his first royalty. before his father died, in 1797, he had attained to the position of engineer at the ding dong mine, near penzance, and had already set up at the herland mine the engine built by william bull, with improvements of his own. his earliest invention of importance was in 1797, when he made an improved plunger pump, which, in the following year, he developed into a double-acting water-pressure engine. one of these engines, set up in 1804, at the alport mine, in derbyshire, was run until 1850. [illustration: richard trevithick] in 1780 he built a double-acting high-pressure engine with a crank, for cook's kitchen mine. this was known as the puffer, from the noise that it made, and it soon came into general use in cornwall and south wales, a successful rival of the low-pressure steam vacuum engine of watt. as early as 1796 trevithick began to give attention to the subject of steam locomotion, and a model constructed by him before 1800 is now in the south kensington museum. he busied himself in designing and building a steam vehicle to travel upon the common highways. the work was done in a workshop at camborne, and some of it in the shop of captain andrew vivian. it was christmas eve of 1801 when this steam locomotive was completed and was brought out for trial. the following account of the first trial was made by one who was present: "i knew captain dick trevithick very well. i was a cooper by trade, and when trevithick was making his steam carriage i used to go every day into john tyack's shop at the weith, close by here, where they put her together. in the year 1801, upon christmas eve, towards night, trevithick got up steam, out on the high road, just outside the shop. when we saw that trevithick was going to turn on steam, we jumped up, as many as could, maybe seven or eight of us. 'twas a stiffish hill going up to camborne beacon, but she went off like a little bird. when she had gone about a quarter of a mile there was a rough piece of road covered with loose stones. she didn't go quite so fast, and as it was a flood of rain, and we were very much squeezed together, i jumped off. she was going faster than i could walk, and went up the hill about half a mile further, when they turned her and came back again to the shop." the next day the engine steamed to captain vivian's house, and a few days subsequently, trevithick and vivian started off for tehidy house, where lord dedunstanville lived, some two or three miles from camborne. on this journey they met with an accident, the engine being overturned in going around a curve; but they got back safely. this carriage presented the appearance of an ordinary stage coach on four wheels. the engine had one horizontal cylinder which, together with the boiler and the furnace-box, was placed in the rear of the hind axle. the-motion of the piston was transmitted to a separate crank-axle, from which, through the medium of spur-gear, the axle of the driving-wheel, which was mounted with a fly-wheel, derived its motion. the steam cocks and the force-pump, as also the bellows used for the purpose of quickening combustion in the furnace, were worked off the same crank axle. this was one of the first successful high-pressure engines constructed on the principle of moving a piston by the elasticity of steam against the pressure only of the outside atmosphere. in the following year trevithick went to london with his cousin, andrew vivian, and secured a patent. early in 1803 he made his second steam carriage. this was built at camborne and taken to london, via plymouth, for exhibition. its journey along the highways thoroughly alarmed the country people. coleridge relates that a toll-gate keeper was so frightened at the appearance of the sputtering, smoke-spitting thing of fearsome mien that, trembling in every limb and with teeth chattering, he threw aside the toll-gate with the scared exclamation, "no--noth--nothing to pay. my de--dear mr. devil, do drive on as fast as you can. nothing to pay!" the engine in this carriage had a cylinder five and one-half inches in diameter, with a stroke of two and one-half feet, and with thirty pounds of steam it worked five strokes per minute. in every way it was superior to its predecessor. it was not so heavy; and the horizontal cylinder, instead of the vertical, added very much to its steadiness of motion; while wheels of a larger diameter enabled it the more easily to pass over rough roads which had brought the camborne one to a standstill. the boiler was made entirely of wrought iron, and the cylinder was inserted horizontally, close behind the driving axle. a forked piston-rod was used, the ends working in guides, so that the crank axle might be brought near to the cylinder. spur gearing and couplings were used on each side of the carriage for communicating motion from the crank shaft to the main driving axle. the driving-wheels were about ten feet diameter, and made of wood. the framing was of wrought iron. the coach was intended to seat eight or ten persons, and the greater part of the weight came on the driving axle. the coach was suspended upon springs. the london steam carriage was put together at felton's carriage shop, in leather lane, and after its completion, vivian one day ran the locomotive from leather lane, gray's inn lane, on to lords' cricket ground, to paddington, and home again by way of islington, a journey of ten miles through the streets of london. several trips were made in tottenham court road and euston square, and only once did they meet with accident. finally, however, the frame of the carriage got twisted, and the engine was detached and set to driving a mill. trevithick's next experiment was made in 1803-4, while he was engineer of the pen-y-darran iron works, near merthyr tydvil, where he built and ran on a railway a locomotive that was fairly successful. in 1808 he built a locomotive for a circular railway or steam circus that he and andrew vivian set up in london, near euston square. this ran for several weeks, carrying passengers at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour around curves of fifty or one hundred feet radius. one day a rail broke and the engine was overturned, which ended the exhibition. subsequently, trevithick applied his high-pressure engine to rock-boring and breaking, and dredging. he laid out a system of dredging the thames river, planned a tunnel under the thames, invented a high-pressure steam threshing engine in 1812, constructed iron tanks and buoys, and modeled an iron ship. he was one of the first to conceive the practical use of steam in agriculture, declaring that the use of the steam engine for this purpose would "double the population of the kingdom and make our markets the cheapest in the world." in 1814, trevithick became interested in a plan to work the silver mines of peru by cornish methods, and nine of his high-pressure engines were sent to south america in charge of henry vivian and other engineers. he himself followed in 1816, and remained in that country ten years, making and losing several fortunes during that time. finally, in a revolution, the mining plants were destroyed, and he was forced to leave the country, penniless. for a time he was prospecting in costa rica, where he planned a railroad across the isthmus from the atlantic to the pacific. in 1827 he returned to england, still a poor man, and settling in dartford, kent, devoted himself to new inventions, unsuccessfully endeavoring to secure the help of the government in his work. his later years were spent in poverty, and when he died, the expense of his burial was borne by his fellow-workmen of dartford. undoubtedly, trevithick was one of the foremost english engineers of his day, a period that was rich with strong men of distinction in his profession. by many he has been considered as having contributed more even than james watt to the development of the steam engine and its broader adaptation to practical uses. in his early years he was restrained in putting his ideas and experiments to practical test by the restrictions of watt's patents. finally when that difficulty was removed he at once took a leading position in his profession. especially in the development of the high pressure engine he is entitled to at least as much credit as any man of his day. his genius was fully recognized in his generation and his impoverished old age was the result of financial reverses in business operations and not from the lack of substantial rewards for his inventive achievements. david gordon the first experiments of david gordon, who in 1819 was working with william murdock, in soho, were for the purpose of using compressed air for common road locomotives. he also invented a portable gas apparatus, and originated a society of gentlemen, with the intention of forming a company for the purpose of running a mail coach and other carriages by means of a high-pressure engine, or of a gas vacuum or pneumatic engine, supplied with portable gas. alexander gordon, his son, states that "the committee of the society had only a limited sum at their disposal, nor were there to be more funds until a carriage had been propelled for a considerable distance at the rate of ten miles an hour." david gordon then tried to prevail upon the committee to make use of a steam engine, but evidently without success. in 1821 he took out a patent for improvements in wheel carriages, and his locomotive is fully described in the interesting treatise on elemental locomotion, by mr. alexander gordon. the machine consisted of a large hollow cylinder about nine feet in diameter and five long, having its internal circumference provided with a continuous series of cogged teeth, into which were made to work the cogged running wheels of a locomotive steam engine, similar to that of trevithick. the steam power being communicated to the wheels of the carriage, caused them to revolve, and to climb up the internal rack of the large cylinder. the center of gravity of the engine being thus constantly made to change its position, and to throw its chief weight on the forward side of the axis of the cylinder, the latter was compelled to roll forward, propelling the vehicle before it, and whatever train might be added. gordon's next attempt to construct locomotive carriages for the common road was in 1824. the means proposed was a modification of the method invented by william brunton. but instead of the propellers being operated upon by the alternating motion of the piston-rod, as in brunton's vehicle, gordon contrived to give them a continuous rotatory action and to apply the force of the engines in a more direct manner. the carriage ran upon three wheels, one in the front to steer by, and two behind to bear the chief weight. each of the wheels had a separate axle, the ends of which had their bearings upon parallel bars, the wheels rolling in a perpendicular position. this arrangement, by avoiding the usual cross-axle, afforded an increased uninterrupted space in the body of the vehicle. in the fore part of the carriage were placed the steam engines, consisting of two brass cylinders, in a horizontal position, but vibrating upon trunnions. the piston-rods of these engines gave motion to an eight-throw crank, two in the middle for the cylinders, and three on each side, to which were attached the propellers; by the revolution of the crank, these propellers or legs were successively forced outwards, with the feet of each against the ground in a backward direction, and were immediately afterwards lifted from the ground by the revolution of another crank, parallel to the former, and situated at a proper distance from it on the same frame. the propelling-rods were formed of iron gas-tubes, filled with wood, to combine lightness with strength. to the lower ends of these propelling-rods were attached the feet, in the form of segments of circles, and made on their under side like a short and very stiff brush of whalebone, supported by intermixed iron teeth, to take effect in case the whalebone failed. these feet pressed against the ground in regular succession, by a kind of rolling, circular motion, without digging it up. the guide had the power of lifting these legs off the ground at pleasure, so that in going down hill, when the gravity was sufficient for propulsion, nothing but a brake was put into requisition to retard the motion, if necessary. if the carriage was proceeding upon a level, the lifting of the propellers was equivalent to the subtraction of the power, and soon brought it to a full stop. when making turns in a road the guide had only to lift the propellers on one side of the carriage and allow the others to operate alone, until the curve was traversed. gordon got fair results from this locomotive, but the speed was not satisfactory. in his first trials he found the power insufficient. he afterwards fitted one of gurney's light boilers in the hinder part of the carriage, though even after this improvement had been added the experiments were disappointing. gordon was convinced that the application of the power to the wheels was the proper mode of propulsion, and his project was abandoned after six or seven years had been spent in inventing, constructing, and carrying out experiments with four distinct carriages. william henry james born at henley, england, march, 1776. died at dulwich college alms house, december 16, 1873. the father of william henry james was william james, of warwickshire, the great railway projector of his time. he was a solicitor in early life, but became wealthy, worked a colliery in south staffordshire, and in 1815 removed to london, where he had a large land agency business. he became interested in tramways in 1806, and from that date on devoted most of his energies and fortune to projecting railways in the united kingdom. he had an interest in one of george stephenson's patents, made numerous railway surveys, and by many has been considered to have done more than any single individual in laying the foundations of the english railroad system. william henry james assisted his father in his railway surveys in early life, and then began business independently as an engineer, in birmingham. he made experiments in steam locomotion on common roads, and took out patents for locomotive steam engines, boilers, driving apparatus, and so on. his patent for a water-tube boiler for road locomotives was secured in 1823, and his first car was built in 1824. this was a twenty-passenger steam coach. each rear wheel had a double-cylinder engine, and the pistons were worked at a pressure of two hundred pounds per square inch. separate engines to each driver gave each wheel an independent motion, so that power and speed might be varied for turning corners, the outer wheel travelling over a much greater space than the inner wheel. when the front wheels were so placed that the carriage proceeded in a straight line an equal amount of steam was admitted to each pair of cylinders, but when the front wheel was in the lock the engine driving the outer wheel received a greater amount of steam and thus developed more power and traveled faster than the inner wheel. this arrangement was said to be so efficient that the carriage could be made to describe every variety of curve, repeatedly making turns of less than ten feet radius. the whole of the machinery was mounted upon laminated carriage springs. this arrangement caused the engines and their framework to vibrate altogether upon the crank-shaft as a center, at the same time connecting these engines to the boiler by means of hollow axles moving in stuffing boxes. each engine had two cylinders of small diameter and long stroke; to these separate engines steam was supplied from the boiler by means of the main pipe, which moved through steam-tight stuffing boxes to the slide valve-boxes by small pipes. the locomotive was entirely distinct from the passenger carriage. sir james c. anderson became associated with james, and in 1829 they built another carriage. this weighed nearly three tons, and the first trials were made round a circle of one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. when it was finally ready to be brought out it was loaded with fifteen passengers and driven several miles on a rough gravel road across epping forest, with a speed varying from twelve to fifteen miles an hour. steam was supplied by two tubular boilers, each forming a hollow cylinder four feet six inches long. the tubes of which the boilers were composed were common gas pipe, one of which split on one of the trips, thus letting the water out of one of the boilers and extinguishing its fire. under these circumstances, with only one boiler in operation, the carriage returned home at the rate of about seven miles an hour, carrying more than twenty passengers--at one period, indeed, it is said, a much greater number; showing that sufficient steam could be generated in such a boiler to be equal to the propulsion of between five and six tons weight. in consequence of this demonstration that the most brilliant success was attainable, the proprietors dismantled the carriage and commenced the construction of superior tubular boilers with much stronger tubes. shortly after anderson and james commenced to build another steam carriage, which was ready for use in november, 1829. this engine was not intended to carry passengers, but to be employed for drawing carriages behind. four tubular boilers were used, the total number of tubes being nearly two hundred. these boilers were enclosed in a space four feet wide, three feet long, and two feet deep. the steam from each boiler was conducted into one main steam pipe one and one-half inches in diameter, and the communication from any one of the boilers could be cut off in case of leakage. four cylinders, each two and one-quarter inch bore and nine inch stroke, were arranged vertically in the hind part of the locomotive, and two of them acted upon each crank-shaft as before, giving a separate motion to each driving wheel. the exhaust steam was conducted through two copper tanks for heating the feed water to a high temperature, and thence passed to the chimney. the steering-gear consisted of an external pillar containing a vertical shaft, at the upper end of which small bevel-gearing was used, giving motion to the vertical shaft, whose bottom end carried a pinion gearing into a sector attached to the fore axle. the motion of the crank-shafts was communicated to the separate axles of the driving-wheels by spur-gearing with two speeds. in experiments made with this carriage, the greatest speed obtained upon a level, on a very indifferent road, was at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and it never ran more than three or four miles without breaking some of the steam joints. the mechanic's magazine, reporting one of these trials, said: "a series of interesting experiments were made throughout the whole of yesterday with a new steam carriage belonging to sir james anderson, bart., and w. h. james, esq., on the vauxhall, kensington, and clapham roads, with the view of ascertaining the practical advantages of some perfectly novel apparatus attached to the engines, the results of which were so satisfactory that the proprietors intend immediately establishing several stage coaches on the principle. the writer was favored with a ride during the last experiment, when the machine proceeded from vauxhall bridge to the swan at clapham, a distance of two and a half miles, which was run at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. from what i had the pleasure of witnessing, i am confident that this carriage is far superior to every other locomotive carriage hitherto brought before the public, and that she will easily perform fifteen miles an hour throughout a long journey. the body of the carriage, if not elegant, is neat, being the figure of a parallelogram. it is a very small and compact machine, and runs upon four wheels." w. h. james patented another steam carriage in august, 1832. this varied much from his earlier engines in the working parts, and it was not generally considered to be as satisfactory as the others. sir james anderson was not able, for pecuniary reasons, to continue to back james in his experimenting, and it does not appear that these plans of 1832 were ever consummated in a completed vehicle. james was a man of strong mind, an original thinker and thoroughly well-trained by his apprenticeship with his father. he spent a good part of his life in experimenting with common-road steam propulsion, but he had not monetary resources or financial ability commensurate with his mechanical genius. when the support of anderson was withdrawn from him he seems to have been compelled to give up. little has been recorded concerning the latter years of his life, and his death in the almshouse sufficiently indicates the poverty in which his last years were spent. his father also sacrificed his life to the cause of railroad advancement, losing his entire fortune and dying a poor man. goldsworthy gurney born at treator, near padstow, cornwall, england, february 14, 1793. died at reeds, near bade, february 28, 1875. the son of john gurney, goldsworthy gurney received a good elementary education at the truro grammar school, and then studied medicine. he settled at wadebridge as a surgeon, but although very successful, gradually turned his attention to scientific and mechanical investigations. he constructed an organ, studied chemistry and mechanical science, and removing to london in 1820, delivered a series of lectures on heat, electricity and gases at the surrey institute. his investigations resulted in the invention of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and the discovery of the powerful lime-light known as the drummond light, and he engaged in other experiments in this field of research. in 1804, while on a holiday at camborne, he saw a trevithick engine on wheels. recalling this in after years he began experimenting on steam locomotion in 1823, and soon abandoned his surgical and medical practice for this new pursuit. his first efforts were toward the construction of an engine to travel on the common roads. the weight of the steam engines that were then being built seemed to him to offer great objections to their use for this purpose, but he succeeded, with his first machine, in reducing weight from four tons to thirty hundredweight. then he secured a sufficiency of power by the invention of the high-pressure steam jet. this invention differed from those of stephenson and trevithick, who sent their waste steam up through the chimney instead of utilizing it. the gurney jet was applied to the stephenson rocket engine on the liverpool and manchester railway, in october, 1829, and also to steamboats and steam carriages. in 1823, gurney made his first experiments with a model steam carriage, on which propellers or feet were used. two years later, in 1825, he completed a full-size carriage on the same plan, and in may of that year he took out his first patent for this vehicle. the carriage was impelled by these legs being alternately drawn forwards and pressed backwards by a steam engine acting upon them through movable oblong blocks, to which they were attached. as a first experiment this carriage was driven up windmill hill, near kilburn. another trip, between london and edgeware, demonstrated the inefficiency of these propellers, and led to the discovery that there was sufficient friction between wheels and the ground to insure propulsion. in 1826 he constructed a coach about twenty feet long, which would accommodate six inside and fifteen outside passengers, besides the engineer. the driving-wheels were five feet diameter, and the leading wheels three feet nine inches diameter. two propellers were used, which could be put in motion when the carriage was climbing hills. gurney's patent boiler was used for supplying steam to the twelve horse-power engine. the total weight of the carriage was about a ton and a half. in front of the coach was a capacious boot, while behind, that which had the appearance of a boot, was the case for the boiler and the furnace, from which it was calculated that no inconvenience would be experienced by the outside passenger, although in cold weather a certain degree of heat might be obtained, if required. in descending a hill, there was a brake fixed on the hind wheel, to increase the friction; but, independently of this, the guide had the power of lessening the force of the steam to any extent by means of the lever at his right hand, which operated upon the throttle valve, and by which he could stop the action of the steam altogether and effect a counter vacuum in the cylinders. by this means also he regulated the rate of progress on the road. there was another lever by which he could stop the vehicle instantly, and in a moment reverse the motion of the wheels. this carriage traveled up highgate hill to edgeware, and also to stanmore, and went up both stanmore hill and brockley hill. in ascending these hills the driving-wheels did not slip, so that the legs were not needed. after these experiments the propellers were removed. gurney obtained another patent in 1827, and under this worked a steam carriage resembling the common stage coach, with the boiler in the hind boot. this carriage was run experimentally to barnet, edgeware, finchley, and other places, and in 1828 it was said that a trip was made from london to melksham, thirteen miles from bath, a distance of nearly two hundred miles. on the return trip the rate of speed was about twelve miles an hour. gurney's carriage so fully established its practicability, that in 1830, sir charles dance contracted for several, and ran them successfully from london to holyhead, and from birmingham to bristol. in the following year he ran over the turnpike road between gloucester and cheltenham for four months in succession, four times a day, without an accident or delay of consequence. the distance of nine miles was regularly covered in from forty-five to fifty-five minutes. nearly three thousand persons were carried, and nearly four thousand miles traveled. a strong public sentiment against the use of the common roads by these vehicles sprang up, and parliament was prevailed upon to impose upon steam carriages heavy highway tolls that were in effect prohibitory. sir charles dance suspended his operations. gurney petitioned the house of commons for relief. several committees in 1831, 1834 and 1835 investigated the subject and reported strongly in favor of steam carriages, but no legislation could be secured, and gurney was forced to give up further introduction of steam carriages. he continued his experimenting in other directions, invented the stove that bore his name, introduced new methods of lighting and ventilating the houses of parliament, and was otherwise active in scientific pursuits. he was a magistrate for cornwall and devonshire, and in 1863 was knighted in recognition of his discoveries and inventions. by writers of that period gurney received a great deal of credit and an abundance of advertising for his work. he was especially conspicuous in the parliamentary investigations regarding steam carriages. on the whole, however, it is generally considered that he was proclaimed far beyond his merits, especially in comparison with such rivals as hancock, maceroni and others. thomas blanchard born in sutton, mass., june 24, 1788. died, april 16, 1864. blanchard received a common school education, and before he had entered his teens his mechanical genius began to show itself. at thirteen years of age he invented a machine for paring apples, and shortly after, a machine for making tacks. his great work was the invention of a machine for turning out articles of irregular form from wood and metals. his lathes for this purpose were put in operation by the united states government in the armories at harper's ferry, va., and springfield, mass. becoming interested in the subject of steam propulsion he made, in 1826, a steamboat that was successfully tried on the connecticut river, running from hartford, conn., to springfield, mass. afterward, he built a boat of larger size, that drew eighteen inches of water, and ran this up the connecticut river, from springfield, mass., to vermont. he also built other boats for use on the alleghany river. the subjects of railroads and locomotive power on land interested him for a short time, and in 1825, after he had completed his engagement with the united states armories, he built, at springfield, mass., a carriage driven by steam for use on the common road. this was the first real steam carriage constructed in this country, the philadelphia machine of evans being but a rude affair, although it involved the essential principles of steam propulsion. the blanchard carriage was perfectly manageable, could turn corners and go backwards and forwards with all the readiness of a well-trained horse, and on ascending a hill the power could be increased. its performance on the highway was altogether satisfactory, and a patent was issued to its inventor. [illustration: thomas blanchard] blanchard endeavored to secure support to build a railroad in massachusetts, and the joint committee on roads and canals of the massachusetts legislature, in january, 1826, endorsed the model of his railway and steam carriage, and recommended them "to all the friends of internal improvements." notwithstanding this report, capitalists viewed the project as visionary, and blanchard met with no greater success when he subsequently applied to the legislature of new york. giving up his plans he thenceforward devoted his attention to the subject of steam navigation. blanchard was a prolific inventor, having taken out no less than thirty or forty patents for as many different inventions. he did not reap great benefit from his labors, for many of his inventions scarcely paid the cost of getting them up, while others were appropriated without payment to him, or even giving him credit. his machine for turning irregular forms was his most notable work, and even of that, others sought to defraud him. to defend himself he was forced to go to the courts and even to congress, before he succeeded in establishing his rights. after the success of this machine he made other improvements in the manufacture of arms, constructing thirteen different machines that were operated in the government armories. johnson two brothers johnson had a small engineering establishment in philadelphia, in 1828. they put upon the streets in that year a vehicle that j. g. pangborn, in his the world's rail way, says was "the first steam wagon built, and actually operated as such, in the united states." the same writer, describing this wagon, says that it had a single cylinder set horizontally, with a connecting-rod attachment with a single crank at the middle of the driving-axle. its two driving-wheels were eight feet in diameter and made of wood, the same as those on an ordinary road wagon. the two forward or guiding wheels were much smaller than the others, and were arranged in the usual manner of a common wagon. it had an upright boiler hung up behind, shaped like a huge bottle, the smoke-stack coming out through the center of the top. the safety-valve was held down by a weight and lever, and the horses in the neighborhood did not take at all kindly to the puffing of the machine as it jolted over the rough streets. generally it ran well, and could take without difficulty reasonable grades in the streets and roadways. during its existence, however, it knocked down a number of awning-posts, ran into and broke several window fronts, and sometimes was altogether unmanageable. like all others of their day, however, the johnsons were ahead of their time. there was no demand for their steam wagon, road conditions made it unavailable and the machine itself was, despite much merit, really not much more than a suggestion of better things three-quarters of a century later. walter hancock born in marlborough, wiltshire, england, june 16, 1799. died may 14, 1852. the father of walter hancock was james hancock, a timber merchant and cabinet maker. walter received a common school education, and then was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweler in london. the bent of his inclination, however, was toward engineering, and he turned his attention to experimenting along the lines that were at that time absorbing the thoughts and efforts of those men of england interested in mechanical and scientific subjects. he was foremost among those who in the early part of the nineteenth century were engaged in trying to solve the problem of steam carriage locomotion on the common highways. the story of his work in this direction is fully told by himself in his narrative of twelve years' experiments, 1824-36, demonstrative of the practicability and advantage of employing steam carriages on common roads, a book published in london, in 1838. this volume contains a full account of his labors, and descriptions of all the carriages that he built and ran. the following extract from the introduction of the book shows in what esteem hancock regarded himself and what estimate he placed upon the value of his work: "the author of these pages believes he should offend alike against truth and genuine modesty were he to yield to any of the steam carriage inventors who have appeared in his day, in a single particular of desert; he began earlier (with one abortive exception) and has persevered longer and more unceasingly than any of them. he was the first to run a steam carriage for hire on a common road, and is still the only person who has ventured in a steam vehicle to traverse the most crowded streets of the metropolis at the busiest periods of the day; he has built a greater number of steam carriages (if not better) than anyone else, and has been thus enabled to try a greater variety of forms of construction, out of which to choose the best." in 1824, hancock invented a steam engine in which the ordinary cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible steam receivers, composed of several layers of canvas firmly united together by coatings of dissolved caoutchouc, or india-rubber, and thus enabled to resist a pressure of steam of sixty pounds upon the square inch. this engine he tried to adapt to steam carriages, but found that he could not get the requisite degree of power for locomotion, although it worked very well as a stationary engine of four horse-power at his factory in stratford. next he invented a tubular boiler with sixteen horizontal tubes, each connected with each other by lesser tubes, so that the water or steam might circulate through the entire series. this boiler was subsequently changed by arranging the tubes vertically, and a patent was taken out in 1825. after further experiments and improvements, hancock finally made a vehicle to travel on three wheels, getting power from a pair of vibrating or trunnion engines fixed upon the crank-axle of the fore wheels. experimental trips of this carriage were made from the stratford shop to epping forest, paddington, hounslow, croydon, fulham, and elsewhere. some changes were made in the vehicle, and finally the trunnion engines were put aside and fixed ones substituted. this improved carriage, the first in a long series built by hancock, was named the infant. the body was in the form of a double-body coach, or omnibus, with seats for passengers inside and out. the bulk of the machinery was placed in the rear of the carriage, a boiler and a fire being beneath it. between the boiler and the passengers' seats was the engine and a place for the engineer. a pair of inverted fixed engines working vertically on a crank-shaft furnished the power. the steering apparatus was in front. the whole carriage was on one frame supported by four springs on the axle of each wheel. the carriage was capable of carrying sixteen passengers besides the engineer and guide. its total weight, including coke and water, but exclusive of attendants and passengers, was about three and one-half tons. the wheel tires were three and one-half inches wide, and the diameter of the hind wheels four feet. in february, 1831, the infant began to run on regular trips between stratford and london. in 1832 a second carriage, similar to the infant, was built, and called the era. it was constructed for the london and brighton steam carriage company, to ply between london and greenwich. the following year a third carriage, the enterprise, was completed, for the london and paddington steam car company, and was run between london and paddington. hancock took the infant on a long trip from stratford to london and brighton, in october, 1832. eleven passengers were carried, and the carriage kept a speed of nine miles an hour on the level, and six to eight miles an hour up grade. on the return one mile up hill was made at the rate of seventeen miles an hour. another trip to brighton was made in september of the next year at an average speed of twelve miles an hour actual traveling. at brighton the new carriage attracted much attention, and was exhibited for several days on trips in and around the town. after the enterprise, the autopsy came from the hancock shops, in september, 1833. this carriage was run on trial about brighton and in london streets, and for about a month was run for hire between finsbury square and pentonville. a small steam drag or tug to draw an attached coach or omnibus was the next production of the hancock establishment, which had already attained more than local fame. this was built for a herr voigtlander, of vienna, and on one of its trial trips it carried ten persons and an attached four-wheeled carriage with six persons in it. with this load a speed of fourteen miles an hour on the level was attained, and eight to nine miles an hour on up grades. beginning in august, 1834, the era and the autopsy were run daily in london between the city, moorgate and paddington. during the ensuing four months over four thousand passengers were carried. each coach carried from ten to twelve passengers, and the trip from moorgate to paddington, five miles, was made in a half hour, including stops. on the trial trip a speed of twelve miles an hour, exclusive of stops, was maintained. later in the same year the era, with its name changed to the erin, was sent to dublin, ireland, where it was exhibited and run in and about the city, by hancock, for eight days, before it was reshipped to stratford. next in turn came a drag of larger size than any before built, with an engine of greater capacity. on the trial trip this drew, on a level road, at a speed of ten miles an hour, three omnibuses and one stage coach with fifty passengers. in july, 1835, the trip to reading, a distance of thirty-eight miles, was made in three hours forty minutes twenty-five seconds; actual running time, exclusive of stops, three hours eight minutes ten seconds, at a moving rate of over twelve miles an hour. subsequently, this drag was made over into a carriage, like the others of the hancock type, fitted for eighteen passengers, and named the automaton. in august, 1835, the erin ran from london to marlborough, a distance of seventy-eight miles, in seven hours forty-nine minutes, exclusive of stops, averaging nine and six-tenths miles an hour. the return from marlborough to london was accomplished in seven hours thirty-six minutes, exclusive of stops, an average of nine and eight-tenths miles an hour. in the same month the erin made the run from london to birmingham at the rate of ten miles an hour. in 1836, hancock ran all his carriages on a regular route on the stratford and islington roads for a period of twenty weeks, making in that time seven hundred and twelve trips, covering four thousand two hundred miles, and carrying twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty-one passengers. after running his carriages for several years dissensions in the companies that were promoting the new means of travel, and the increasing efficiency of railways, led to the discontinuance of hancock's energy in this direction. thereafter he built only a steam phaeton for his personal use; this had seats for three, and was used about the city, hyde park and the london suburbs. hancock's steam vehicles were ten in number--the experimental three-wheeler, the trunnion-engine infant, the fixed engine infant, the era, afterward the erin, the enterprise, the autopsy, the austrian drag, the irish drag, the automaton, and the phaeton. hancock turned his attention in the later years of his life to developing the use of india-rubber, in connection with his brother, thomas hancock, who was one of the foremost rubber manufacturers of england. he secured several patents for improvements in manufacturing rubber. at the time when hancock was at work upon his steam carriages, gurney was also in the front and there was considerable jealousy between the two. dr. lardner and others were active in exploiting gurney, while hancock was supported in controversies by alexander gordon, luke hebert and others. that hancock achieved most in the way of definite results and that his experimenting and accomplishments were more markedly along thoroughly intelligent and conservatively practical mechanical lines than any of his rivals is now generally conceded. his carriages were admirable productions as road vehicles, well-built, attractive and comfortable. william t. james an engineer of new york, who was engaged in experimenting about 1829 james made, in his shop in eldridge court, several small models of vehicles that proved sufficiently satisfactory. his first engine had two-inch cylinders and four-inch stroke. this ran around a track on the floor of his shop, and drew a train of four cars, carrying an apprentice boy on each car. james' second locomotive was mounted on three wheels, two drivers in the rear and a steering wheel, and it ran on the floor or sidewalk. in 1829, james, satisfied with his experimenting, built a steam carriage capable of carrying passengers, and with this he made very good time over the streets and roadways in and about the metropolis. he then adopted the rotary cylinders instead of the reciprocating, in his engine, which had two six-inch cylinders, and was supported on three wheels. on each cylinder were two fixed eccentrics, one for the forward and one for the backing motion. the slide valve of one cylinder had a half-inch lap at each end, and exhausted its steam into the other. in 1830, james made his fourth full-size steam carriage. this was a three-wheeled vehicle, the rear wheels being drivers three feet in diameter, and the third the front or steering wheel. in 1831, in a competition for the best locomotive engine adapted to the baltimore and ohio railroad company, james built his fifth locomotive, and the first one to run on rails. his engine did not secure the prize, but the company, thinking his machine contained valuable ideas, entered into an arrangement with him for further experimenting. francis maceroni born in manchester, england, in 1788. died in london, july 25, 1846. the father of francis maceroni was peter augustus maceroni who, with two brothers, served in a french regiment in the american revolution. after that conflict was ended he went to england and settled in manchester, where he was italian agent for british manufacturers. francis maceroni was educated in the roman catholic school, in hampshire; at the dominican academy, in surrey, and at the college at old hall green, near puckerbridge, hertfordshire. during a period of ten years, from 1803 to 1813, he lived in rome and naples as a young gentleman of elegant leisure. in 1813 he began the study of anatomy and medicine, but had not gone far in those pursuits before his vagrom disposition took him in another direction. he became aide-de-camp to murat, king of naples, with the rank of colonel of cavalry. his service with murat took him on missions to england and france, and for a time he was a prisoner of the french authorities. after two years of this military service, he returned to england, and retained his residence there for the rest of his life. he did not remain at home long, however, for he was with sir george macgregor at porto bello, in 1819; became a brigadier-general of the new republic of colombia, and in 1821 saw service in spain with general pepe. returning again to england, he came before the public as an advocate of a ship canal across the isthmus, between the atlantic and pacific oceans, and also promoted a company, called the atlantic and pacific junction and south american mining and trading company, with a capital of one million pounds sterling. the company collapsed in the commercial panic of 1825, and this soldier of fortune in 1829 went to constantinople to assist the turks against the russians. in london again in 1831, maceroni was engaged for the rest of his life in the cause of highway steam locomotion, in which he accomplished a great deal. maceroni was second only to walter hancock as an inventor and builder of steam road carriages and as a promoter of travel by those vehicles. from 1825 to 1828 he was with goldsworthy gurney in london, but his real activity did not begin until 1831, when he became associated with john squire. in 1833, maceroni and squire took out a patent for a multi-tubular boiler, which they applied to a steam carriage that one writer of that day described as "a fine specimen of indomitable perseverance." it often traveled at the rate of from eighteen to twenty miles an hour. the engines were placed horizontally underneath the carriage body, the boiler was arranged at the back, and a fan was used to urge the combustion of the fuel, the supply of which was regulated by the engineman, who had a seat behind. the passengers were placed in the open carriage body, and their seats were upon the tops of the water tanks. there were two cylinders seven and one-half inches in diameter, the stroke being fifteen and three-quarter inches. the diameter of the steam pipe was two and one-quarter inches, and that of the exhaust pipe was two and three-quarter inches. the carriage attracted a great deal of attention, and much was written about it in the newspapers of the time. once the trip was taken to harrow-on-the-hill, a distance of nine miles, in fifty-eight minutes, without the full power of steam being on at any time. for several weeks in the early part of 1834 the carriage was running daily from oxford street to edgeware. several trips were made to uxbridge, when the roads were in very bad condition, but the journey from the regent's circus, oxford street, a distance of sixteen miles, was often performed in a little over an hour. a trip to watford was made, and one of the passengers thus described the experience from bushby heath into the village of watford: "we set off from the starting place amid the cheers of the villagers. the motion was so steady that we could have read with ease, and the noise was no worse than that produced by a common vehicle. on arriving at the summit of clay hill, the local and inexperienced attendant neglected to clog the wheel until it became impossible. we went thundering down the hill at the rate of thirty miles an hour. mr. squire was steersman, and never lost his presence of mind. it may be conceived what amazement a thing of this kind, flashing through the village of bushy, occasioned among the inhabitants. the people seemed petrified on seeing a carriage without horses. in the busy and populous town of watford the sensation was similar--the men gazed in speechless wonder; the women clapped their hands. we turned round at the end of the street in magnificent style, and ascended clay hill at the same rate as the stage coaches drawn by five horses." maceroni made two steam carriages, but in 1834 he separated from squire, and becoming short of funds fell into the clutches of asda, an italian jew, who persuaded him to let the two carriages go to the continent. one was sent to brussels, where it ran successfully, and the other went to paris. the performance of the latter was thus described in the columns of a paris journal: "the steam carriage brought to perfection in england by colonel maceroni, ran along the boulevards as far as the rue faubourg du temple. it turned with the greatest facility, ran the whole length of the boulevards back again, and along the rue royale, to the place louis xv. this carriage is very elegant, much lighter, and by no means so noisy as the one we saw here some months ago, and it excited along its way the surprise and applause of the astonished spectators. all the hills on the paved boulevard were ascended with astonishing rapidity. one of our colleagues was in this carriage the whole of its running above described, and he declares that there is not the least heat felt inside from the fire, and that conversation can be kept up so as to be heard at a much lower tone than in most ordinary carriages." asda sold the carriage and the patent for a large sum of money, and swindled maceroni out of all his share. for years the inventor was in the direst extremes of poverty. in 1841 he succeeded in securing the support of the general steam carriage company to construct and run carriages under his patent. disagreement between the directors and the manufacturing engineer again brought to maceroni disaster, from which he was never able to recover. richard roberts born in 1789. died in march, 1864. roberts was best known as a manchester, england, engineer, of the firm of sharp, roberts & co. he built a steam road locomotive that was first tried in december, 1833. three months later the machine was subjected to a second trial. the carriage went out under the guidance of mr. roberts, with forty passengers. it proceeded about a mile and a half, made a difficult turn where the road was narrow, and returned to the works without accident. the maximum speed on the level was nearly twenty miles an hour. hills were mounted easily. no doubt existed of the engine being speedily put in complete and effective condition for actual service. during another experimental trip in april of the same year, the locomotive met with an accident caused by some of the boiler tubes giving way, allowing the steam to escape and the fuel to be scattered about. no one was seriously injured, and none of the passengers was hurt. roberts invented the compensating gear that he first used on his steam carriage. this gear superseded claw clutches, friction bands, ratchet-wheels, and other arrangements for obtaining the full power of both the driving-wheels, and at the same time allowing for the engine to turn the sharpest corner. in 1839, roberts invented an arrangement for communicating power to both driving-wheels at all times, whether turning to the right or left. during the latter years of his life this famous engineer lived in exceedingly straitened circumstances, and he died in poverty. john scott russell born at parkhead, near glasgow, scotland, may 8, 1808. died june 8, 1882, at ventnor. the father of john scott russell was david russell, a scottish clergyman, and the son was originally intended for the church. his mind was more inclined toward mechanics than theology, and he entered a workshop in order to learn the trade of engineering. studying at the universities of edinburgh, st. andrews and glasgow, he was graduated from glasgow when he was sixteen years of age. in 1832, upon the death of sir john leslie, professor of natural philosophy at edinburgh university, russell was elected to fill the vacancy temporarily. shortly after that he began his celebrated investigations into the nature of the sea waves, as a preliminary study to improving the forms of ships. as a result of these researches he developed the wave-line system for the construction of vessels. in 1837 he received a gold medal of the royal society of engineers, and was elected a member of the council of that society for a paper that he read "on the laws by which water opposes resistance to the motion of floating bodies." at that time he was manager of the shipbuilding words at greenock, and under his supervision and according to his designs several ships were built with lines based on his wave system. among these were four of the new fleet of the west india mail company. russell removed to london in 1844, and became a fellow of the royal society in 1847. he was vice-president of the institute of civil engineers and secretary of the society of arts. for many years he was a shipbuilder on the thames, and supervised the construction of the celebrated steamship great eastern. he was one of the promoters and vice-president of the institute of naval architects, and a pioneer in advocating the construction of iron-clad men-of-war. he published many papers, principally upon naval architecture. it was while he was residing in edinburgh that he took out a patent for a steam locomotive to be used on the common roads. the boiler that he invented was multi-tubular, with the furnace and the return tubes on the same level, and similar to a marine boiler. the boiler everywhere consisted of opposite and parallel surfaces, and these surfaces were connected by stays of small diameter. the copper plates of the boiler were only one-tenth of an inch thick. when put to actual test the weakness of the boiler thus constructed was fully demonstrated. the engine had two vertical cylinders, twelve inches in diameter and with twelve inches stroke. the engine was mounted upon laminated springs, arranged so that each spring in its flexure described, at a particular point, such a circle as was also described by the main axle in its motion round the crank shaft. this arrangement was intended to correct any irregularities in the road so that they would not interfere with the proper working of the spur gearing. exhaust steam was turned into the chimney to create a blast. water and coke were carried on a separate tender on two wheels, coupled to the rear of the engine. spare tenders, filled, were kept in readiness at different stations on the road. these tenders, mounted upon springs, had seats back and front for passengers. to work the locomotive three persons were required, a steersman on the front seat, an engineer on the back seat outside above the engines, and a fireman stationed on the footplate in front of the boiler. on the order of the steam carriage company, of scotland, six of these coaches were built by the grove house engine works, of edinburgh. they were substantially constructed and very elaborately fitted up. as was said at the time, they were "in the style and with all the comfort and elegance of the most costly gentleman's carriage." they ran very successfully for some time, during 1834, between st. george's square, glasgow, and paisley. there was a service of six coaches once an hour. each carriage accommodated six passengers inside and twenty outside, and sometimes drew, in addition, a dogcart laden with six passengers, and the necessary fuel and water. these dogcarts were used as relays on the road, being kept ready constantly. public opposition to these coaches developed here as it had done in london about the same period. road trustees objected to them on the ground that they wore out the roads too rapidly. obstructions of stones, logs of wood, and other things were placed in their way, but the coaches generally went on in spite of these. ordinary horse-drawn road carriages were more damaged and hindered than the russell coaches, and even heavy carts were compelled to abandon travel on the obstructed roads and take roundabout courses, greatly to the discomfiture of the drivers. one day, however, a heavy strain, unusually severe, caused by jolting over the rough road, broke a wheel, and the weight of the coach falling on the boiler caused an explosion. five persons were killed, and as a result of this accident the court of session interdicted the further travel of these carriages in scotland. the steam carriage company brought an action for damages against the trustees of the turnpike road for having compelled them to withdraw the carriages from the glasgow and paisley road by "wantonly, wrongfully and maliciously accumulating masses of metal, stones and rubbish on the said road, in order to create such annoyance and obstruction as might impede, overturn, or destroy the steam coaches belonging to the plaintiffs," but nothing seems to have come of this action. no longer used in scotland, two of russell's coaches were sent to london. there they were engaged in running with passengers between london and greenwich, or kew bridge. several trips were made to windsor. after about a year they were offered for sale, and, on exhibition preparatory to sale, they started every day from hyde park corner to make a journey to hammersmith. but they remained unsold, and were shortly forgotten. had conditions been more encouraging russell might have achieved as great success in his land as in his water vehicles. he was a man of rare scientific attainments, and his work in ship designing and building put him in the front rank of naval architects and builders of his day. in addition to his work, already mentioned, he built a big steamer to transport railway trains across lake constance. w. h. church a physician of birmingham, england, dr. w. h. church gave many years to the study of steam locomotion. several patents were secured by him between 1832 and 1835, and in the latter year a common road carriage, built according to his plans, was brought out. the church vehicle had a framework of united iron plates or bars, bolted on each side of the woodwork to obtain strength. well trussed and braced, this framework enclosed a space between a hind and fore body of the carriage, and of the same height as the latter, and contained the engine, boiler, and other machinery. the boiler consisted of a series of vertical tubes, placed side by side, through each of which a pipe passed, and was secured at the bottom of the boiler tube; the interior pipe constituted the flue, which first passed in through a boiler tube, and was then bent like a syphon, and passed down another until it reached as low or lower than the bottom of the fireplace, whence it passed off into a general flue in communication with an exhausting apparatus. two fans were employed, one to blow in air, and the other to draw it out; they were worked by straps from the crank shaft. the wheels of the carriage were constructed with the view to rendering them elastic, to a certain degree, in two different ways: first, the felloes were made of several successive layers of broad wooden hoops, covered with a thin iron tire, having lateral straps to bind the hoops together; second, these binding straps were connected by hinge joints to a kind of flat steel springs, somewhat curved, which formed the spokes of the wheels. these spring spokes were intended to obviate the necessity, in a great measure, of the ordinary springs, and the elasticity of the periphery was designed so that the yielding of the circle should prevent the wheel from turning without propelling. church also proposed, in addition to spring felloes, spring spokes, and the ordinary springs, to employ air springs, and for that purpose provided two or more cylinders, made fast to the body of the carriage, in a vertical position, closed at top, and furnished with a piston, with packing similar to the cap-leather packing of the hydraulic press. this piston was kept covered with oil, to preserve it in good order, and a piston rod connected it with the supporting frame of the carriage. motion was communicated by two oscillating steam cylinders suspended on the steam and exhaust pipes over the crank shaft. the crank shaft and driving-wheel axle were connected by means of chains passing about pitched pulleys. to introduce the church coach, the london and birmingham steam carriage company was organized. the first carriage built for the company was an imposing vehicle, something like a big circus van, elaborately ornamented and with a large spheroidal wheel in front. it carried about forty passengers on top, in omnibus fashion, and the driver sat on a raised seat near the roof. a fair rate of speed was maintained, fifteen miles on the level, but the boiler was damaged, and horses hauled the engine back to the factory. other carriages were subsequently brought out, but they all failed to meet the requirements of travel on the rough roads that existed at that time in england. jean joseph etienne lenoir born at mussy-la-ville, luxembourg, january 12, 1822. died, july, 1900, at la varnne chemevieves, near paris. when lenoir came to paris in 1838 he had but an ordinary education and was without resources. for a time he served as a waiter in order to earn money to become an enameler and decorator. in 1847, he invented a new white enamel and four years after invented a galvano plastic process for raised work. many other inventions were made by him, among them being an electric motor in 1856, a water meter in 1857, an automatic regulator for dynamos, the well-known gas motor that bears his name, and a system of autographic telegraphing. it is claimed that in september, 1863, lenoir put a gas engine of his non-compressor type, of one and a half horse-power, on wheels and made an experimental run to joinville-le-paris and back. the motor, running at one hundred revolutions, it is said, took them there in one and a half hours. he thereupon abandoned such trials, and tried his engines in a boat, and in 1865 put a six horse-power in one, but the insignificant speed possible with his engine caused him to abandon that also. the academy of science of paris decorated m. lenoir and the society of encouragement gave him the grand prize of argenteuil, amounting to twelve thousand francs. for his patriotic services at the siege of paris, during the franco-prussian war, he was made a naturalized frenchman. in 1880, he published in paris a work treating of his researches into the tanning of leather. amedèe bollèe in april, 1873, amedèe bollèe, of le mans, france, the noted french engineer, filed a patent for a steam road vehicle and two years later he built the steam stage that he named obeissante. toward the end of that year this stage was run in and about paris, where it created something of a sensation. it was even chronicled in the songs of the day and was made a topic of amusement at the variety theatres. this steam omnibus made twenty-eight kilometers in an hour. it is claimed to have been the first creation of the man to whose family much credit is due for the modern french automobile. between 1873 and 1875, bollèe made several carriages. in 1876, he worked with dalifol and made a tram-car that would carry fifty passengers. this vehicle was put into the steam omnibus service in rouen. two years later he made another steam omnibus that he called la mancelle. this vehicle, in june of that year, was run from paris to vienna and developed a speed on level roads of twenty-two miles an hour. in vienna this vehicle was the subject of much talk and was largely caricatured. in 1880, bollèe built another omnibus, la nouvelle. this vehicle was entered in the paris-bordeaux competition in 1895, and was the only steam carriage that covered the course in that race. bollèe has been a conspicuous exponent of the steam carriage in france from the time he commenced as far back as 1873. the vehicles that he has built were in many instances pioneers in their class, and have been exceedingly serviceable and successful. they have made the name of bollèe notable. george b. selden born in the fifties, george b. selden came of a family of jurists, whose ancestors were early connecticut settlers. among them were several eminent scientific men. his father, henry rogers selden, was born in lyme, conn., october 14, 1805, and died in rochester, n. y., september 18, 1885; was judge of the supreme court of the state of new york, and is still remembered by men of that generation as one of the most accomplished lawyers and jurists who occupied that bench in the last century. george b. selden attended yale university, and while equipping himself for his legal career, following in the footsteps of his father, indulged his natural predilection for scientific work. while practicing law in rochester, n. y., he devoted much time to the problem of self-propelled vehicles on common roads, in which, as early as the sixties, he was then interested. the study of this art led to a very full analysis of the possibilities of different means of propulsion, with, as a result, the conclusion that the light, liquid hydro-carbon concussion engine must eventually fill the exacting requirements of road vehicles. his further experimenting that was carried on during the seventies, and the actual constructing, so convinced him in his deductions that the record is found in the united states patent office of his filing an application for patent in may, 1879, with a patent office model of his gasoline vehicle. for more details, reference must be made to his patent, no. 549160, subsequently issued in november, 1895. thereafter in a general report treating of important and leading inventions in various fields this was referred to by the commissioner of patents as the pioneer patent in its class. of selden's voluminous and persistent work and his many engines and models more detailed information cannot be here given. his fundamental patent at present is involved in extensive litigation, although it is recognized by manufacturers of gasoline vehicles who, to-day, are producing from eighty to ninety per cent of the output of the united states. of his work along the lines of improvements in details of his main invention, the gasoline automobile _per se_, and kindred matters all of which have or will have a great bearing upon automobile construction and operation, it is not at this time possible to dwell at length. selden is known as an exceedingly able attorney in his specialty, while his active connection with the extensive reaper and binder litigation, in all of which he appeared prominently, established for him an enviable reputation. those who have had the privilege of a closer personal acquaintance know of his great fund of scientific knowledge in various arts, as well as his most interesting accumulations of data as a result of his personal researches. selden is a patentee in other fields beside that of the gasoline automobile and his achievements have been numerous and of exceeding importance. he is also a chemist of more than ordinary ability and has applied himself as a close student to this line of scientific investigation. as a result he has made notable discoveries that, although not yet given to the world, will, it is confidently believed by those acquainted with them, prove to be of the greatest scientific value. siegfried marcus marcus was an ingenious mechanic. in early life he made dental instruments and apparatus for a magician in vienna. for his construction of a thermopile he received a prize and to his further credit as an inventor are placed an arc lamp, rhumkoff coil carbureter, a high candle-power petroleum lamp, magneto-electro machines, a microphone and various other things in many branches of science. [illustration: siegfried marcus] it is claimed that about the middle seventies of the last century he carried on experiments with a gas engine that had a spring-connected piston rod. he mounted this vertically on an ordinary horse vehicle and connected it directly with a cranked rear axle, carrying two flywheels in place of the regular road wheels. he is said to have made trials of this vehicle at night in vienna. if this was so he was apparently trying to keep his plan secret and succeeded very well. aside from general references nothing of importance revealed itself concerning this vehicle and marcus' experiments with it, until very recently when interest in the historic development of the automobile has stimulated anew investigation into the endeavors of the early inventors. in 1882 the motor work of marcus was principally preparatory to his new engine construction. it included experimenting with an otto engine run with petroleum and a vaporizer and electric ignition with magneto. in 1883 he constructed a closed or two-cycled motor and thereafter had engines made in budapest and elsewhere. one of these motors he put on wheels, but this was abandoned for other ideas that came from his fertile mind. carl benz born, november 26, 1844, at karlsruhe, baden, germany. the early education of carl benz was acquired at the lyceum until his seventeenth year and then at the technical high school of his native city for four more years. this was followed by three years of practical work in the shops of the karlsruhe machine works. when he was twenty-eight years of age, in 1872, after further experience in mannheim, pforzheim and vienna, he opened workshops of his own in mannheim. in 1880 he began to commercialize a two-cycle stationary engine. in 1883 he organized his business as benz & co., and produced his first vehicle in 1884. in the beginning of 1885 his three-wheeled vehicle ran through the streets of mannheim, germany, attracting much attention with its noisy exhaust. this was the subject of his patent dated january 29, 1886, claimed by him to be the first german patent on a light oil motor vehicle. this embodied a horizontal flywheel belt transmission through a differential and two chains to the wheels; but it is noteworthy primarily as having embodied a four-cycle, water jacketed, three-quarter horse-power engine, with electric ignition. in 1888, the benz company exhibited their vehicles at the munich exposition, where they attracted wide attention. this was followed by the exhibition at the paris show in 1889, by the engineer roger, of another vehicle made under license that roger had acquired from benz and constructed by panhard and levassor. [illustration: carl benz] while in 1899 the firm was converted into a stock company of three million marks capital, and then employed three hundred men, carl benz remained the leading spirit of the concern, technically, while the commercial work came under the direction of julius ganz. the able co-operation of these two has established the world-famous automobile enterprise looked upon by many as the pioneer producing works of its kind in germany. of late years motor boats have also been made by them, but their automobiles and those of their affiliated companies or licensees in other countries still stand in the first rank. gottlieb daimler born at schorndorf, wurtemburg, march 17, 1834. died at cannstadt, near stuttgart, march 6, 1899. after receiving a technical and scientific training at the polytechnic school at stuttgart, 1852-59, daimler spent two years, 1861-63, as an engineer in the karlsruhe machine works, becoming foreman there. in 1872 he entered the gas engine works at deutz, near cologne, and became director of that establishment. within ten years that shop, better known as the otto engine works, grew from a small place into a large, well-organized and famous establishment. in 1882 he removed to cannstadt to give his entire attention to the light-weight internal-combustion auto motor, with which his career was so completely identified, and the successful application of which earned for him the title, "the father of the automobile," in germany, though that is, in fact, contested by those familiar with the work of benz. instead of using the uncertain-acting flame with the inconvenient speed limitations, daimler invented and introduced in 1883 the so-called hot-tube ignition. this consisted of a metal or porcelain tube attached to the compression space of the cylinder in such a manner that the interior of the tube was in continual communication with the compression space. a gas flame, continually burning under the tube, maintained it at a glowing red heat, so that the mixed charge of air and gas, when compressed into the tube, became fully and effectively ignited. experience showed that by a proper regulation of the temperature of the hot tube the ignition could be made to take place at any desired point in the compression, and thus the complicated, slow and uncertain slide flame ignition was replaced by a simple device, without moving parts, altogether satisfactory and reliable. the especial feature of the hot-tube ignition, however, was soon found to be the increased speed which it permitted. by its use the rotative speed could be increased eight to ten times over the older motor, and hence the weight could be reduced in nearly the same proportion. [illustration: gottlieb daimler] this fact at once showed daimler that the application of the internal-combustion motor to mechanically propelled vehicles had become a possibility, and that, with the use of hydro-carbon vapor as fuel, and the high-speed hot-tube motor, the petroleum automobile might become a practical possibility. he therefore severed his connection with the otto engine works at deutz, and returning to cannstadt, near stuttgart, his early home, he devoted his entire time and attention to the design of a light petroleum motor and motor vehicle. the result was the production, in 1885, of a motor-bicycle, in which the motor was placed directly under the seat, between the legs of the rider. the petroleum was drawn from a tank, the supply being regulated by the valve. the motor was first set in motion by lighting a lamp and turning the crank a few times, the discharge passing through the chamber into an exhaust-pipe. after the motor had been fully started, the vehicle was set in motion by moving a lever, which drew a tightening pulley against the belt, and so caused the power to be transmitted from the shaft pulley to the wheel pulley. changes of speed were attained by using pulleys of different sizes, similar to the cone pulleys on a lathe. this machine was put into successful action at cannstadt on november 10, 1885. an interesting feature in connection with the daimler motor is the arrangement of the cooling-water circulation for the cylinder jacket. the water is contained in a tank, from which it is circulated in the cylinder jacket by means of a small rotary pump. from the jacket it passes to the cooler. this consists of a system of several hundred small tubes over which a blast of air is driven by a fan operated from the motor shaft. since the speed of the fan increases with the speed of the motor, the cooling is proportional to the production of heat in the cylinder. in addition to gas, which is applicable for stationary motors only, the fuel may be benzine of a specific gravity of sixty-eight or seventy one-hundredths, or ordinary lamp petroleum. the consumption varies according to the size of the motor, ranging from thirty-six to forty-five one-hundredths kilograms per horse-power hour for vehicles, or somewhat less for boats. he adapted these light motors to vehicles of many styles, and his persistent work in this connection has made the world-wide reputation of the daimler motoren gesellschaft, now flourishing at cannstadt, germany. in 1888-89 the french interest in the light motors led to their adoption by panhard and levassor. the type then developed and known as phenix motors, were soon copied in part at least by many other french makers, resulting in a modified form there known as the pygmée. work at cannstadt progressed steadily, however, and many pleasure vehicles were made as well as small boats. the able assistance of william maybach brought further credit to the company, particularly in view of the aspirating carbureter which, with such details as clutch and transmission mechanism, helped to perfect the cannstadt automobiles. in the latter nineties the prominence of the daimler works as vehicle makers, distinguished from motor makers, again began to be noticed and soon their now famous mercedes cars appeared. in recent years these machines have made remarkable records in races and all other branches of the sport. with a magnificent refinement of details in construction they are to-day looked upon as the pleasure vehicles _par excellence_. they have had a large vogue in all parts of europe and are accepted there as among the most satisfactory vehicles in their class that are now made. many of them have been brought to the united states, where they have been and still are in great demand. levassor born at marolles, in hurepoix (seine and oise), january 21, 1843. died, april 14, 1897. levassor was graduated from the central school of arts and manufactures, paris, in 1864. he was employed as an engineer at the cockerill works at seriang, belgium, and also with durenne at courbevoie, near paris. in 1872 he entered the firm of perrin & panhard, the name of the concern being changed to perrin, panhard & co. upon the death of m. perrin, he became the junior partner and the name of panhard & levassor was adopted. when levassor died in 1897, the corporation of panhard & levassor was formed. [illustration: levassor] levassor made many improvements in the machinery and output of panhard & levassor. especially he perfected machines for wood-working and made important changes in the processes used for the cold cutting of hard metals. on the first appearance of gas motors he undertook their construction in france. it was in the establishment of panhard & levassor that the first motors were constructed under the system of otto and langen with atmospheric pressure, then the four-cycle engine of otto and finally the two-cycle system of benz and ravell. in 1886, when the daimler petroleum motor appeared, he recognized the great part that it would play in practical application to the propulsion of vehicles and boats. he acquired the right to use it in france, and in 1887 exhibited, in paris, a boat thus propelled. after several years he put forth the first automobile vehicle with motor in front. leon serpollet serpollet is noted in france to-day as the champion of the steam automobile. in 1887, he appeared in paris with his three-wheeler, two rear drive and one front steering wheel. with its light and safe generator his machine attracted much attention, but its use in the streets of the capital was temporarily prohibited, until the granting to him in 1891 of the first unrestricted license for such use resulted from his initiation of the prefect of police by driving that important personage in the steamer. his generator, known as the "flash boiler," has been developed to a high state of perfection. the tubes of his boiler were heavy, flattened tubing, strengthened in that form by being transversally bent or grooved. he was helped doubtless to no small extent, in his work, by his association, about 1897, with a wealthy american, f. l. gardner, who made possible the development of the large gardner-serpollet establishment in the rue stendhal, paris. while serpollet has achieved a brilliant and well-deserved reputation in his native land, he is also recognized in other countries as one of the greatest living promoters of the steam branch of the automobile industry. his adherence to steam as the motive power in self-propelled road vehicles has been unremitting and energetic. few men have done more than he to improve carriages in this class. in 1900, serpollet was made a chevalier of the legion of honor. his sales to that date of five machines for the shah of persia and landaulets for the maharajah of mysore and other notables had given him much prominence at that time. [illustration: leon serpollet] louis and marcel renault born in boulogne, france, the renault brothers, with general technical education, perseverance and ability, entered the field of automobile manufacturing only some six years ago, although they earlier gave to the subject much attention and study. having appreciated through personal experience the shortcomings of the gasoline tricycle, louis renault in october, 1898, manufactured, in his private shop, a small two-passenger vehicle, with a one and three-quarters horse-power motor, which eliminated the pedalling for starting, but was otherwise small and light as a tricycle. in january, 1899, he brought out a small four-wheeler with one and three-quarters horse-power motor in front, three speeds and chainless, or as now called propeller drive. the demand was immediate and large and resulted in the establishment of the works of renault frères, who began to make the first lot of these small vehicles in march of the same year. these won prizes in the paris-trouville, the ostende and the rambouillet runs, and one completed a three thousand six hundred kilometer tour through different parts of europe and over the alps. the new model of 1900 had a three and one-half horse-power motor and thermo-syphon cooling system. many honors were won with these, and notably that of louis renault's most successful use of one in the grand army maneuvers. but the output of three hundred and fifty showed the necessity for larger works. with the increased facilities of 1901, the product was doubled and the model increased to four and one-half horse-power, while eight and nine horse-power were winners in the paris-bordeaux and paris-berlin races. in 1902 came another addition to the billancourt works of cloise to four thousand square meters area, and the renault brothers then changed their models to voiture légère, six to eight horse-power, steel tube frame and wood wheels--a full-fledged vehicle. they succeeded in the circuit du nord, organized by the minister of agriculture, for alcohol-motored vehicles. then came the triumph of their twenty horse-power four-cylinder type in the great paris-vienna race, where it was pitted against forty and even seventy horse-power vehicles. the result was a great impetus commercially, and new shops accommodating a thousand workmen and covering thirteen thousand square meters, which produced one thousand four hundred vehicles in the following year. both brothers, who had always been at the wheel of their own cars in the years of racing, entered the memorable "race-of-death," paris-madrid, in may, 1903. louis arrived first at bordeaux, but his unfortunate brother marcel, while close to victory, was killed with the overturning of his machine only a few kilometers from the goal. in memory of marcel renault a simple monument was unveiled at billancourt may 26, 1904, on ground contributed by the municipal council; a bronze plate on one side of this perpetuates his triumphant entry into vienna, showing his arrival at the finish. louis renault, since continuing the business, has now produced larger machines, including the sixty to ninety horse-power made for the vanderbilt race in america, october, 1904. [illustration: marcel renault] noted investigators simon stevin, thomas wildgosse, david ramsey, johann hautsch, christiaan huygens, stephen farfleur, fernando verbiest, isaac newton, vegelius, elié richard, gottfried wilhelm von leibnitz, humphrey mackworth, denis papin, vaucauson, robinson, erasmus darwin, richard lovell edgeworth, francis moore, planta, j. s. kestler, blanchard, thomas charles auguste dallery, james watt, robert fourness, george medhurst, andrew vivian, du quet, j. h. genevois, john dumbell, william brunton, thomas tindall, john baynes, julius griffiths, edmund cartwright, t. burtsall, t. w. parker, george pocock, samuel brown, james neville, t. s. holland, james nasmyth, f. andrews, harland, pecqueur, james viney, chevalier bordino, clive, summers and ogle, gibbs, charles dance, joshua field, dietz, yates, g. millichap, james caleb anderson, robert davidson, w. g. heaton, f. hill, goodman, norrgber, j. k. fisher, r. w. thompson, anthony bernhard, battin, richard dudgeon, lough and messenger, thomas rickett, daniel adamson, stirling, w. o. carrett, richard tangye, t. w. cowan, charles t. hayball, isaac w. boulton, armstrong, pierre ravel, l. t. pyott, a. richter, raffard, charles jeanteaud, sylvester haywood roper, copeland, g. bouton, count a. de dion, armand peugeot, radcliffe ward, mors, magnus volk, butler, le blant, emile delahaye, roger, georges richard, pochain, louis krieger, de detrich, david salomons, leon bollèe, joseph guedon, rene de knyff, adolf clement, a. darracq, james gordon bennett. simon stevin born in bruges, holland, in 1548. died in 1620. stevin was a noted mathematician, and also experimented in the construction of wheel vehicles about 1600. he built in his workshop at the hague a wheeled vehicle that was propelled by sails. this was simply a tray or boat of wood, which hung close to the ground. it was borne on four wooden wheels, each one of which was five feet in diameter, and the after-axle was pivoted to form a rudder. a tall mast was carried amidships, and there was a small foremast that was stayed aft. large square sails were carried on these masts. a trial trip of this sailing ship on land was made in 1600, when the journey from scheveningen to petten, a distance of forty-two miles, was made in about two hours. on this occasion some twenty-two passengers were carried. prince maurice of holland steered, and among the passengers were grotius, and the spanish admiral, mendoza, who was then a prisoner of war in holland. stevin also built a smaller sail vehicle, similar to the one just described, that carried from five to eight persons. both carriages were used a great deal, running many miles on the dutch coast. the smaller one was to be seen at scheveningen as late as 1802. grotius wrote a poem on these carriages. bishop wilkens, in england, also wrote about them in 1648, and showed a drawing that was made from a description given to him by those who had seen the car at work. howell, a writer of the period, thus quaintly described the stevin carriage: "this engine, that hath wheels and sails, will hold above twenty people, and goes with the wind, being drawn or moved by nothing else, and will run, the wind being good and the sails hois'd up, about fifteen miles an hour upon the even hard sands." thomas wildgosse in 1618, thomas wildgosse got out a patent for "newe, apte, of compendious formes or kinds of engines or instruments to ploughe grounds without horse or oxen; and to make boates for the carryage of burthens and passengers runn upon the water as swifte in calmes, and more safe in stormes, than boats full sayled in great wynnes." it is agreed by the best authorities that these vehicles were set in motion by gear worked by the hand of a driver, although fletcher thinks that steam engines were intended. additional patents were granted to wildgosse in 1625. david ramsey associated with thomas wildgosse in his experimenting and patenting, in 1618, was david ramsey, who at that time was page of the bed chamber to james i. of england, and afterwards was groom of the privy chamber to the same monarch. in 1644, ramsey was again a partner in the grant of a patent for "a farre more easie and better waye for soweing of corne and grayne, and alsoe for the carrying of coaches, carts, drayes, and other things goeing on wheels, than ever yet was used and discovered." this may have been a manually or a steam propelled vehicle. it is most reasonable to suppose that it was the former. johann hautsch born in 1595. died in 1670. hautsch was a noted mathematician, and, experimenting in the construction of road vehicles, he built a mechanical carriage for use on common roads. this carriage was successfully run in nuremberg, germany, in 1649, and thereafter attracted a great deal of attention. it was propelled by a train of gears that turned the axle, being operated by two men who, secreted in the interior of the body, worked cranks. the finish of the body of this coach was very elaborate, being heavily carved and having fashioned in front the figure of a dragon, arranged to roll its eyes and spout steam and water, in order to terrify the populace and clear the way. on each side of the body were carved angels holding trumpets, which were constantly blown, the precursors, perhaps, of the automobile horns of to-day. the hautsch coach was said to have gone as rapidly as one thousand paces an hour. one of the carriages which he built was sold to the crown prince of sweden, and another to the king of denmark. not much more is known of the hautsch vehicles, but it is a matter of record that the inventor was preceded by one whose name is unknown, but who ran a coach, mechanically propelled somewhat like this car, in january, 1447, near nuremberg. christiaan huygens born at the hague, holland, april 14, 1629. died at the hague, june 8, 1695. huygens received a good education, and at early age showed a singular aptitude for mathematics. soon after he was sixteen years of age he prepared papers on mathematical subjects that gave him pre-eminent distinction. he became noted as a physicist, astronomer and mathematician. he devoted some time to the consideration of improvements in road vehicular travel. stephen farfluer born in 1663. farfluer was a contemporary of johann hautsch, and was a skillful mechanician of altderfanar, nuremberg, germany. about 1650 he made a dirigible vehicle propelled by man power, but as distinguished from that of his rival, hautsch, this was a small carriage, being calculated only for one person. being crippled, farfluer used the wagon as his only means of getting about alone. it had hand cranks that drove the single front wheel by gears. fernando verbiest born near courtrai, belgium, 1623. died in china in 1688. verbiest became a jesuit missionary, and was a man of marked ability. after going to china he acquired a thorough knowledge of the language of that country, where he spent the greater part of his life. under his chinese name he wrote scientific and theological works in chinese. he was appointed astronomer at the pekin observatory, undertook the reformation of the chinese calendar, superintended the cannon foundries, and was a great favorite of the emperor. about 1655 he made a small model of a steam carriage. this is described in the english edition of huc's christianity in china, in muirhead's life of james watt, and in the astronomia europia, a work that is attributed to verbiest, but was probably compiled from his works by another jesuit priest and was published in europe in 1689. the verbiest model was for a four-wheeled carriage, on which an aeolipile was mounted with a pan of burning coals beneath it. a jet of steam from the aeolipile impinged upon the vanes of a wheel on a vertical axle, the lower end of the spindle being geared to the front axle. an additional wheel, larger than the supporting wheels, was mounted on an adjustable arm in a manner to adapt the vehicle to moving in a circular path. another orifice in the aeolipile was fitted with a reed, so that the steam going through it imitated the song of a bird. isaac newton born at woolsthorpe, lincolnshire, england, december 25, 1642. died at kensington, march 20, 1727. isaac newton, who became one of the greatest mathematicians that the world ever knew, was the son of a farmer. he was educated at trinity college, cambridge, and in his early youth he mastered the principles of mathematics, as then known, and began original investigations to discover new methods. his great achievement was the discovery of the law of universal gravitation, but his genius was active in other directions, as the investigation of the nature of light, the construction of improved telescopes, and so on. he was a member of parliament in 1689 and 1701, and master of the mint, a lucrative position, from 1696 until the time of his death. in 1671 he was elected a member of the royal society, and was annually chosen to be its president, from 1703 until his death. newton was one of the first englishmen to conceive the idea of the propulsion of vehicles by the power of steam. taking up for consideration hero's hollow ball filled with water from which steam was generated by the outward application of heat, he added these conclusions: "we have a more sensible effect of the elasticity of vapors if the hole be made bigger and stopped, and then the ball be laid upon the fire till the water boils violently; after this, if the ball be set upon little wheels, so as to move easily upon a horizontal plane, and the hole be opened, the vapors will rush out violently one way, and the wheels and the ball at the same time will be carried the contrary way." beyond this philosophical suggestion, however, newton never went. the steam carriage attributed to him by some writers is merely an imaginative creation, by writer or artist, based upon the above proposition. vegelius a professor at jena, saxony, in the seventeenth century, vegelius constructed, in 1679, a mechanical horse, which was propelled by springs and cased in the skin of a real horse. this machine is said to have traveled four german miles an hour. elié richard born on the island of ré in 1645. a physician of la rochelle, france, elié richard was a man of science, and a considerable celebrity in his day. he had built, in 1690, a dirigible vehicle that he used to travel about in on his professional work. the carriage was propelled by mechanism operated by a man-servant by means of a treadle. the operator was placed on the rear of the carriage, and the occupant, seated in front, steered by a winch attached to a small wheel. this construction was frequently referred to by contemporaries of richard, and even later on, and was copied by others during the following hundred years or so. gottfried wilhelm von leibnitz born at leipsic, germany, july 6, 1646. died at hanover, november 14, 1716. leibnitz, in addition to his work as a philosopher and mathematician, was also interested in mechanics. he gave some attention to the study of the possibility of making improvements in common road vehicles, and he endeavored to encourage, though without results, his contemporary, denis papin. humphrey mackworth born in 1647. died in 1727. a celebrated english politician and capitalist, sir humphrey mackworth matriculated at magdalene college, oxford, december 11, 1674. he was entered at the middle temple, in june, 1675, and called to the bar in 1682. in 1695 he was engaged in developing collieries and copper and smelting works at melencryddan, near neath, wales, and the improvements introduced by him there were of the greatest value. among other improvements he constructed a wagon-way from the mines, and propelled his coal-carrying cars by sails. denis papin born at bloys, france, august 22, 1647. died in england, 1712. papin was a son and nephew of a physician. he studied medicine in paris and practiced for some time, attaining distinction in his profession. a passion for the sciences, mathematics and physics drew him away from medical practice and he became skillful in other lines. he followed assiduously the footsteps of huygens and in some respects became a rival of his master in original thought and experimenting and in professional attainments. papin invented in 1698 a carriage that was fitted with a steam engine as such is now understood; that is, a cylinder and a piston. this was probably the first vehicle of its kind known in europe. the construction was a model merely, a toy which ran around the room, but it is said to have worked well. concerning this invention, papin said: "i believe that one might use this invention for other things besides raising water. i have made a little model of a carriage that is propelled by this force. i have in mind what i can do, but i believe that the unevenness and turns of the highway will make this invention very difficult to perfect for carriages or road use." although encouraged to prosecute his work by the baron gottfried wilhelm von leibnitz, his doubts could not be overcome in regard to the practicability of his proposed carriage. he still claimed, however, that by the aid of such vehicles, infantry could probably be moved as quickly as cavalry and without the necessity of heavy impedimenta of food and other supplies. vaucauson a celebrated french mechanician, vaucauson, in april, 1740, built a vehicle "to go without horses." he was visited at his palace in rue charonne, paris, by king louis fifteenth, and the exhibition of this vehicle, which, according to reports, was propelled by a "simple watch spring," was reviewed in a journal of the time as follows: "yesterday, at 3 p.m. his majesty, accompanied by several officers and high court functionaries, repaired to the palace of m. vaucauson and took his seat on a species of throne specially prepared for his reception on a raised platform, whence he could clearly discern all the mechanism of the carriage in its gyrations through the avenues and alleys. the vehicle would seat two persons, and was painted scarlet, bordered in blue, ornamented with much gilding; the axle trees of the wheels were provided with brakes and set in motion by a fifth wheel, likewise well braked and bound with long ribbons of indented steel. two chains communicated with a revolving lever in the hands of the conductor, who could at will start or stop the carriage without need of horses. his majesty congratulated the skillful mechanician, ordering from him for his own use a similar vehicle to grace the royal stables. the duke of montemar, the baron of avenac and the count of bauzun, who had witnessed the trial, were unable to credit their own vision, so marvelous did the invention appear to them. nevertheless, several members of the french academy united in declaring that such a piece of mechanism could never circulate freely through the streets of any city." either from royal forgetfulness or thanks to the customary court intrigues to turn his majesty from his purpose, or possibly because of the somewhat crude nature of the invention itself, the fact is that from that time forth not the slightest mention is to be found in history of the motor carriage of vaucauson. robinson it is on the authority of james watt that dr. robinson is credited with having conceived the idea of driving carriages by steam power. watt wrote as follows: "my attention was first directed to the subject of steam engines by the late dr. robinson, then a student in the university of glasgow, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the university of edinburgh. he, in 1759, threw out the idea of applying the power of the steam engine to the moving of wheel carriages, and to other purposes, but the scheme was soon abandoned on his going abroad." erasmus darwin born at elton, nottinghamshire, england, december 12, 1731. died at derby, april 18, 1802. having studied at st. john's college, cambridge, and at edinburgh, darwin settled as a physician at litchfield and gained a large practice. in 1781 he moved to derby. he was a man of remarkable scientific attainments and a voluminous writer of poetry that was pervaded by enthusiasm and love of nature, but had little poetic quality. darwin, wrote most of his poetry and evolved most of his ideas as he drove about the country in a doctor's covered sulky that was piled high with books and writing materials. he was in correspondence with benjamin franklin and matthew boulton about 1765 in regard to steam, and writing to boulton, said: "as i was riding home yesterday i considered the scheme of the fiery chariot, and the longer i contemplated this favorite idea, the more practicable it appeared to me. i shall lay my thoughts before you, crude and undigested as they appeared to me, and by these hints you may be led into various trains of thinking upon this subject, and by that means (if any hints can assist your genius, which, without hints, is above all others i am acquainted with) be more likely to approve or disapprove. and as i am quite mad of the scheme, i hope you will not show this paper to anyone. these things are required: (1) a rotary motion; (2) easily altering its direction to any other direction; (3) to be accelerated, retarded, destroyed, revived, instantly and easily; (4) the bulk, the weight, the expense of the machine to be as small as possible in proportion to its weight." darwin gave sketches and suggested that the steam carriage should have three or four wheels, and be driven by an engine having two cylinders open at the top, and the steam condensed in the bottom of the cylinder, on newcomen's principle. the steam was to be admitted into the cylinders by cocks worked by the person in charge of the steering wheel, the injection cock being actuated by the engine. the "fiery chariot" never went beyond this suggestion, however. richard lovell edgeworth an english gentleman of fortune, and much interested in mechanics, richard lovell edgeworth was influenced by dr. erasmus darwin to take up the subject of steam locomotion. in 1768, dr. small, in correspondence with james watt, spoke of edgeworth and his experiments in the problem of moving land and water carriages by steam. two years later edgeworth patented a portable railway system and then spent nearly forty years on that one idea. when an old man of seventy, edgeworth wrote to james watt: "i have always thought that steam would become the universal lord, and that in time we should scorn the post horses." dr. smiles says: "four years later he died, and left the problem which he had nearly all his life been trying ineffectually to solve, to be worked out by younger men." francis moore in 1769, francis moore, of london, a linen draper, invented a machine which he described as made of wood, iron, brass, copper, or other metals, and constructed upon peculiar principles, and capable of being wrought or put in motion by fire, water, or air, without being drawn by horses or any other beast or cattle; and which machines, or engines, upon repeated trials, he has discovered would be very useful in agriculture, carriage of persons and goods, either in coaches, chariots, chaises, carts, wagons, or other conveyances, and likewise in navigation, by causing ships, boats, barges, and other vessels to move, sail, or proceed, with more swiftness or despatch. it was said that, so confident was the inventor of the success of his machine, he sold all his own horses, and by his advice many of his friends did the same, expecting that the price of that animal would be so affected by the invention, that it would not be again one-fourth of what it was then. moore made several trials with his steam carriage, and took out three patents for it. like many others of that time, however, moore's carriages never got into use. planta a swiss army officer who was contemporary with cugnot in the seventeenth century. he was engaged upon the problem of a steam road wagon at about the same time that cugnot conceived and executed his vehicle in 1769. general gribeauval, to whom cugnot's plan had been referred, engaged planta to pass upon it and to examine the new vehicle. the swiss officer found it in all respects so much better than his own that he so reported to the french ministry of war and abandoned further endeavors on that line. j. s. kestler in 1680 a description was published of a carriage designed by j. s. kestler. this was merely a toy, set in motion by mercury in a tube heated by a candle. blanchard in connection with his partner, masurier, blanchard brought out in paris, in 1779, a vehicle that was somewhat patterned after the man-propelled carriage of elié richard. it was very successful and attracted a great deal of attention. thomas charles auguste dallery born at amiens, france, september 4, 1754. died at jouy, near versailles, in june, 1835. about 1780, dallery made a steam vehicle with a multi-tubular boiler which he claimed was an original invention of his own. this vehicle was run in amiens and in 1790 was seen on the streets of paris. in march, 1803, he secured a patent on the tubular boiler for use on his steamboat, or on his steam carriage. this vehicle was a boat-shaped wagon, driven by a steam engine. james watt born at greenock, scotland, january 19, 1736. died at birmingham, staffordshire, england, august 25, 1819. watt came of a respectable and industrious family. his grandfather was a professor of mathematics, while his father was an instrument maker, councillor and manufacturer. after a limited education young watt went to london, in 1755, and became a mathematical and nautical instrument maker. in that capacity he became connected with glasgow university, and there made his discoveries that resulted in the practical improvements in the steam engine which made him famous. he was associated with matthew boulton, under the firm name of boulton & watt, from 1774 to 1800, and the watt engines that were built by that concern at soho revolutionized england's mining industries. his steam engines represented a great step beyond the newcomen engines, though still using low-pressure steam. watt's connection with steam carriages for use on the common roads, a subject that was of much moment in his day, was limited to a single patent and generally to discouraging the plans of others in that direction, owing to his fear that the introduction of high-pressure steam use would harm the engine business. in the patent granted to him in 1784 he proposed that the boiler of his carriage should be made of wooden staves, fastened with iron hoops, like a cask, and the furnace to be of iron, and placed in the inside of the boiler, surrounded with water. watt, however, never built the steam carriage. he retained the deepest prejudices against the use of high-pressure steam, saying: "i soon relinquished the idea of constructing an engine on this principle; from being sensible it would be liable to some of the objections against savery's engine, viz., the danger of bursting the boiler, and also that a great part of the power of the steam would be lost, because no vacuum was formed to assist the descent of the piston." robert fourness born in otley, yorkshire, england. died at an early age. fourness became a practical engineer and invented several labor-saving machines. one of his first inventions was for a machine to split hides, that was set up and operated in the establishment of his father. later in life he established works for himself in sheffield, and afterwards in gainsborough. in 1788, he was a resident of elland, halifax, and there made a steam carriage that was run by a three-cylinder inverted engine. spur-gearing transmitted the driving power from the crank shaft to the axle. his patent was taken out in conjunction with james ashworth. this vehicle was mounted on two driving wheels and had a smaller steering wheel in front. george medhurst born at shoreham, kent, england, in february, 1759. died in september, 1827. medhurst was educated as a clock maker, but in 1789 started as an engineer. in the same year he secured a patent for a windmill and pumps for compressing air to obtain motive power. one of the first investigators in this direction, the idea on which he worked and which continued to absorb his energy throughout life, was to make use of the wind when it served in order to compress large bodies of air for use when needed. in 1800, he took out a patent on an aeolian engine and demonstrated how carriages could be driven upon the common roads by compressed air stored in reservoirs underneath the body of the vehicle. he also contemplated applying this engine to other useful purposes and calculated that small carriages could be worked by a rotary engine and larger ones by reciprocating engines with special gear for varying power. in describing his inventions and explaining his ideas regarding compressed air, medhurst said: "the power applied to the machinery is compressed air, and the power to compress the air i obtain generally by wind, assisted and improved by machinery described in this specification, and in order to render my invention universally useful i propose to adapt my machinery and magazine so that it may be charged by hand, by a fall of water, by a vacuum obtained by wind and also by explosive and effervescent substances, for the rapid conveyance of passengers, mails, dispatches, artillery, military stores, etc., and to establish regular stage coaches and wagons throughout the kingdom, to convey goods and passengers, for public accommodation, by erecting windmills, water-mills, etc., at proper intervals upon the roads, to be employed in charging large magazines at these stations with compressed air, or in raising large magazines of water by wind, etc., by the power of which portable magazines may be charged when required by machinery for that purpose." medhurst contemplated establishing regular lines of coaches, with pumping stations at regular stopping places. he endeavored to form a company to work his inventions and develop his plans and published a pamphlet on the subject of compressed air. about 1800, he established himself as a machinist and ironmaster in denmark street, soho, and about ten years later was the first to suggest pneumatic tubes for the carriage of parcels or passengers. some two years later he brought out the proposition for what has come to be known as the atmospheric railway, an appliance for conveying goods and passengers by the power of a piston in a continuous tube laid between the rails. andrew vivian a resident of cornwall, england, andrew vivian, a cousin of richard trevithick, became much interested in the engineering experiments of his famous relative. he worked with his cousin and particularly assisted him in experiments on steam engines for propelling road carriages. in 1802, he was a joint patentee with trevithick, in the early steam vehicle that was taken to london and was exhibited in that city, where for a short time it occasioned a great deal of public curiosity. du quet a frenchman who, in 1714, designed a small windmill to give motion to the wheels of his carriages. j. h. genevois a swiss clergyman, of the early part of the eighteenth century. he proposed to use windmills or sails on his wagon and by a system of springs to store the energy thus obtained until such time as it should be needed for driving purposes. john dumbell in 1808, john dumbell secured a patent for an engine that had many peculiar features. he planned to have the steam act on a series of vanes, or fliers, within a cylinder, "like the sails of a windmill," causing them to rotate together with the shaft to which they were fixed. gearing transmitted the motion of this shaft to the driving wheels. the inventor proposed to raise steam by permitting water to drop upon a metal plate, kept at an intense heat by means of a strong fire, which was stimulated by a pair of bellows. william brunton born at dalkeith, scotland, may 26, 1777. died at camborne, cornwall, england, october 5, 1857. the eldest son of robert brunton, a watch and clock maker, william brunton studied mechanics first in his father's shop and then in england, under the guidance of his grandfather, who was a colliery viewer. when he was thirteen years of age, in 1790, he began work in the fitting shops of the new lanark cotton mills of david dale and richard arkwright. remaining in that establishment for six years he then went to the boulton & watt shops, at soho, where he was gradually promoted, until he finally became the foreman and superintendent of engine manufacturing. in 1813, he went to the jessop's butterley works, but remained there only three years, when he became a partner and mechanical manager of the eagle foundry, at birmingham, a connection that he maintained for ten years. from 1825 to 1835, he was engaged in the practice of civil engineering in london. in the last-mentioned year, he became a share owner in the cwm avom tin works in glamorganshire, wales, where he superintended the erection of copper-smelting furnaces and rolling mills. he was also connected with the maesteg works in the same county and a brewery at neath. through the failure of these enterprises he lost the savings of his lifetime and was never again engaged actively in business. he invented many ingenious modes of reducing and manufacturing metals; made some of the original engines used on the humber and the trent and also some of the earliest that were seen on the mersey, including those four vessels first operated on the liverpool ferries in 1814. he also invented the calciner that was put in use in the tin mines at cornwall and the silver ore works in mexico. like nearly all the other engineers of his day, brunton planned a steam carriage. this was built when he was at the butterley works, in 1813, and was called "the mechanical traveller." although a peculiar machine it worked with some degree of success, at a gradient of one in thirty-six, all the winter of 1814, at the newbottle colliery. the machine was a steam horse rather than a steam carriage. it consisted of a curious combination of levers, the action of which nearly resembled that of the legs of a man in walking, with feet alternately made to press against the ground of the road or railway, and in such a manner as to adapt themselves to the various inclinations or inequalities of the surface. the feet were of various forms, the great object being to prevent them from injuring the road, and to obtain a firm footing, so that no jerks should take place at the return of the stroke, when the action of the engine came upon them; for this purpose they were made broad, with short spikes to lay hold of the ground. the boiler was a cylinder of wrought iron, five feet six inches long, three feet in diameter, and of such strength as to be capable of sustaining a pressure of upwards of four hundred pounds per square inch. the working cylinder was six inches in diameter, and the piston had a stroke of twenty-four inches; the step of the feet was twenty-six inches, and the whole machine, including water, weighed about forty-five hundredweight. in 1815, the engine of this carriage exploded and killed thirteen persons. thomas tindall a steam engine was patented, in 1814, by thomas tindall, of scarborough. the inventor proposed to use this for an infinitude of purposes, such as driving carriages for the conveyance of passengers, ploughing land, mowing grass and corn, or working thrashing machines. the carriage had three wheels--one for steering. the steam engine drove, by spur gearing, four legs, which, pushing against the ground, moved the carriage. the engine could also be made to act upon the two hind wheels for ascending hills, or for drawing heavy loads. a windmill, driven partly by the action of the wind, and partly by the exhaust steam from the engine, was used as adjunct power. john baynes a very ingenious modification of william brunton's mechanical traveler, was the subject of a patent granted to john baynes, a cutler, of sheffield, england, in september, 1819. the mechanism was designed to be attached to carriages for the purpose of giving them motion by means of manual labor, or by other suitable power, and consisted of a peculiar combination of levers and rods. the patentee also stated that there might be several sets of the machinery above described for working each set with a treadle, or even only one set and treadle. then he added: "i prefer two for ordinary purposes, particularly when only a single person is intended to be conveyed in the carriage, who may work the same by placing one foot on each treadle, in which the action will be alternate. the lower parts of the leg should be so formed or shod as not to slip upon the ground. this machinery may be variously applied to carriages, according to circumstances, so as that the treadles may be worked either behind or before the carriage, still producing a forward motion; in some cases it may be advantageous to joint the front end of the treadles to the carriage and press the feet on the hind ends." julius griffiths among those who came to the front with plans for steam carriages for the public highways, soon after the roads began to be improved, was julius griffiths, of brompton crescent. in 1821, he patented a steam carriage that was built by joseph bramhah, a celebrated engineer and manufacturer. it is said that part of the mechanism was designed by arzberger, a foreigner. the carriage has been termed by some english authorities "the first steam coach constructed in this country, expressly for the conveyance of passengers on common roads." it was repeatedly tested during a period of three or four years, but failed on account of boiler deficiencies. alexander gordon said of it: "the engines, pumps, and connections were all in the best style of mechanical execution, and had mr. griffiths' boiler been of such a kind as to generate regularly the required quantity of steam, a perfect steam carriage must have been the consequence." the carriage moved easily and answered very readily to guidance. the vehicle was a double coach and could carry eight passengers. this locomotive had two vertical working steam cylinders, which with the boiler, condenser, and other details were suspended to a wood frame at the rear of the carriage. the engineer was seated behind and did his own firing. the boiler was a series of horizontal water tubes, one and one-half inches in diameter and two feet long; at each end the flanges were bolted to the vertical tubes forming the sides of the furnace. attached to the wood frame in front of the driving wheels, was a small water tank, and a force pump supplied the boiler with water. the steam, passing through the cylinder, went into an air condenser. the power of the engines was communicated from the piston rods to the driving wheels of the carriage by sweep rods, the lower ends of which were provided with driving pinions and detents, which operated upon toothed gear fixed to the hind carriage axle. the object of this mechanism was to keep the driving pinions always in gear with the toothed wheels, however the engine and other machinery might vibrate or the wheels be jolted upon uneven ground. the boiler, engine, and other working parts were suspended to the wood frame by chain slings, having strong spiral springs so as to reduce the vibration from rough roads. edmund cartwright born at marnham, nottinghamshire, england, april 24, 1743. died at hastings, october 30, 1823. cartwright was educated at oxford and secured a living in the english church. he devoted himself to the ministry and to literature until 1784, when he became interested in machinery and in the following year invented the power loom. he took out other patents and also gave some attention to devising a mechanical carriage propelled by man power. in 1822, he made a vehicle that was moved by a pair of treadles and cranks worked by the driver. even the steam engine engaged his attention. some improvements which he proposed in it are recorded in works on mechanics. while residing at eltham, in lincolnshire, he used frequently to tell his son that, if he lived to be a man, he would see both ships and land-carriages impelled by steam. at that early period he constructed a model of a steam engine attached to a barge, which he explained, about the year 1793, to robert fulton. it appears that even in his old age, only a year before his death, he was actively engaged in endeavoring to contrive a plan of propelling land-carriages by steam. t. burtsall an engineer, of edinburgh, scotland, t. burtsall, in conjunction with j. hill, of london, got out, in 1824, a patent for flash or instantaneous generation boilers. his aim was to make the metal of the boiler store heat instead of a mass of water, and he accomplished this by heating the boiler to anywhere from two hundred and fifty degrees to six hundred degrees fahrenheit, keeping the water in a separate vessel and pumping it into the boiler as steam was required. a coach that he built to run with this boiler weighed eight tons, and it was a failure, simply because the boiler could not make steam fast enough. t. w. parker a working model of a light steam carriage was made by t. w. parker, of illinois, in 1825. three wheels supported the carriage, the two hind wheels being eight feet in diameter. the double-cylinder engine was used. george pocock one of the most curious of the wind vehicle productions that held the fancy of scientists to a slight extent in the early part of the nineteenth century was the charvolant or kite carriage that was devised by george pocock in 1826, and built by pocock and his partner, colonel viney. this was a very light one-seated carriage, drawn by a string of kites harnessed tandem. with a good wind these kites developed great power and it is said that the carriage whirled along, even on heavy roads, at the rate of a mile in three or even two and one-half minutes. once viney and pocock made the trip from bristol to london, and they often ran their carriage around hyde park and the suburbs of london. as the wind could not always be depended upon the charvolant was provided with a rear platform, upon which a pony was carried for emergencies. samuel brown in 1826, samuel brown applied his gas-vacuum engine to the propulsion of a carriage, which was effectively worked along the public roads in england. it even ascended the very steep acclivity of shooter's hill, in kent, to the astonishment of numerous spectators. the expense of working this machine was, however, said far to exceed that of steam, and this formed a barrier to its introduction. experiments with this engine for the propulsion of vessels on canals or rivers were also made by the canal gas engine company. brown patented a locomotive for common roads in 1823. james neville in january, 1827, james neville, an engineer of london, took out a patent for a "new-invented improved carriage," to be worked by steam, the chief object of which appears to have been to provide wheels adapted to take a firm hold of the ground. he proposed to make each of the spokes of the wheels by means of two rods of iron, coming nearly together at the nave, but diverging considerably apart to their other ends, where they were fastened to an iron felly-ring of the breadth of the tire, and this tire was to be so provided with numerous pointed studs about half an inch long as to stick into the ground to prevent the wheel from slipping round. a second method of preventing this effect was to fasten upon the tire a series of flat springing plates, each of them forming a tangent to the circumference, so that as the wheels rolled forward each plate should be bent against the tire and recover its tangential position as it left the ground in its revolution. it was considered that the increased bearing surface of the plate, and the resistance of its farthest edge, would infallibly prevent slipping. for propelling the carriage neville proposed to use a horizontal vibrating cylinder to give motion direct to the crank axis by means of the compound motion of the piston rod, as invented by trevithick, the motion to the running wheels to be communicated through gear of different velocities. t. s. holland among the singular propositions for producing a locomotive action that were brought out early in the eighteenth century was that invented by t. s. holland, of london, for which he took out a patent in december, 1827. the invention consisted in the application of an arrangement of levers, similar to that commonly known by the name of lazy-tongs, for the purpose of propelling carriages. the objects appeared to be to derive from the reciprocating motion of a short lever a considerable degree of speed, and to obtain an abutment against which the propellers should act horizontally, in the direction of the motion of the carriage, instead of obliquely to that motion, as is the case when carriages are impelled by levers striking the earth. james nasmyth born in edinburgh, scotland, august 19, 1808. died in south kensington, england, may 6, 1890. while yet in his teens james nasmyth showed great mechanical ability and constructed a small steam engine. in 1821, he became a student at the edinburgh school of arts. six years later he had made a very substantial advance in his experiments. the story of what he endeavored to accomplish is best told by himself. in later life he wrote: "about the year 1827, when i was nineteen years old, the subject of steam carriages to run upon common roads occupied considerable attention. several engineers and mechanical schemers had tried their hands, but as yet no substantial results had come of their attempts to solve the problem. like others, i tried my hand. having made a small working model of a steam carriage, i exhibited it before the members of the scottish society of arts. the performance of this active little machine was so gratifying to the society, that they requested me to construct one of such power as to enable four or six persons to be conveyed along the ordinary roads. the members of the society, in their individual capacity, subscribed three hundred dollars, which they placed in my hands as the means for carrying out their project. i accordingly set to work at once, and completed the carriage in about four months, when it was exhibited before the members of the society of arts. many successful trials were made with it on the queensferry road, near edinburgh. the runs were generally of four or five miles, with a load of eight passengers sitting on benches about three feet from the ground. the experiments were continued for nearly three months, to the great satisfaction of the members. "i may mention that in my steam carriage i employed the waste steam to create a blast or draught, by discharging it into the short chimney of the boiler at its lowest part; and i found it most effective. i was not at that time aware that george stephenson and others had adopted the same method; but it was afterwards gratifying to me to find that i had been correct as regards the important uses of the steam blast in the chimney. in fact, it is to this use of the waste steam that we owe the practical success of the locomotive engine as a tractive power on railways, especially at high speeds. "the society of arts did not attach any commercial value to my road carriage. it was merely as a matter of experiment that they had invited me to construct it. when it proved successful they made me a present of the entire apparatus. as i was anxious to get on with my studies, and to prepare for the work of practical engineering, i proceeded no further. i broke up the steam carriage, and sold the two small high-pressure engines, provided with a strong boiler, for three hundred and thirty-five dollars, a sum which more than defrayed all the expenses of the construction and working of the machine." f. andrews it is said that f. andrews, of stamford rivers, essex, england, was the inventor of the pilot steering wheel which was used by gurney and has been often used since then. he also made other improvements in steam carriages in 1826. one of his patents was for the oscillating cylinders that were used by james neville in his steam carriage. andrews' steam carriage was a failure, like many others of that period, on account of imperfect working of the boiler. harland dr. harland, of scarborough, in 1827 invented and patented a steam carriage for running on common roads. a working model of the steam coach was perfected, embracing a multi-tubular boiler for quickly raising high-pressure steam, with a revolving surface condenser for reducing the steam to water again by means of its exposure to the cold draught of the atmosphere through the interstices of extremely thin laminations of copper plates. the entire machinery placed under the bottom of the carriage, was borne on springs; the whole being of an elegant form. this model steam carriage ascended with ease the steepest roads. its success was so complete that harland designed a full-sized carriage; but the demands upon his professional skill were so great that he was prevented going further than constructing a pair of engines, the wheels, and a part of the boiler. harland spent his leisure time in inventions and in that work was associated with sir george cayley. he was mayor of scarborough three times. he died in 1866. pecqueur chief of shops at the conservatoire des arts et metier, paris, pecqueur made a steam wagon in 1828. his vehicle had two drive wheels keyed to two pairs of axles. his planet gearing was the origin of the balance gear. james viney colonel james viney, royal engineers, in 1829 patented a boiler intended for steam carriages. his plan was to have two, three, four, or six concentric hollow cylinders containing water, between which the fire from below passed up. an annular space for water, and an annular space or flue for the ascending fire, were placed alternately, the water being between two fires. chevalier bordino an italian officer of engineers, bordino devised and constructed a steam carriage for the diversion of his little daughter. it was a carriage à la dumont, and for forty years was used regularly in the carnival festivities of turin in the early part of the nineteenth century. it is still preserved as donated by the widow of bordino to the industrial museum of turin. clive best known as a writer of articles on the steam carriage, over the signature of saxula, in the mechanic's magazine, clive, of cecil house, staffordshire, england, also engaged in experimenting with steam. in 1830, he secured patents for two improvements in locomotives, one increasing the diameter of the wheels and the other increasing the throw of the cranks. after a time he seems to have lost faith in the steam carriage, for in 1843 he wrote: "i am an old common road steam carriage projector, but gave it up as impracticable ten years ago, and i am a warm admirer of colonel maceroni's inventions. my opinion for years has been, and often so expressed, that it is impossible to build an engine sufficiently strong to run even without a load on a common road, year by year, at the rate of fifteen to twenty miles an hour. it would break down. cold iron at that speed cannot stand the shock of the momentum of a constant fall from stones and ruts of even an inch high." summers and ogle two steam carriages built by summers and ogle, in 1831, were among the most successful vehicles of their kind in that day. one of these carriages had two steam cylinders, each seven and one-half inches in diameter and with eighteen-inch stroke. it was mounted on three wheels and its boiler would work at a pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds per square inch. passengers were carried in the front and the middle of the coach, while the tank and the boiler were behind. the second carriage had three steam cylinders, each four inches in diameter, with a twelve-inch stroke. when the committee of the house of commons was investigating the subject of steam locomotion on the common roads summers and ogle appeared and gave interesting particulars concerning their vehicles. the greatest velocity ever obtained was thirty-two miles an hour. they went from the turnpike gate at southampton to the four-mile stone on the london road, a continued elevation, with one slight descent, at the rate of twenty-four and a half miles per hour, loaded with people; twenty passengers were often carried. their first steam carriage ran from cable street, wellclose square, to within two miles and a half of basingstoke, when the crank shaft broke, and they were obliged to put the whole machine into a barge on the canal and send it back to london. this same machine had previously run in various directions about the streets and outskirts of london. with their improved carriage they went from southampton to birmingham, liverpool and london, with the greatest success. the saturday magazine, of october 6, 1832, gave an account of one of their trials as follows: "i have just returned from witnessing the triumph of science in mechanics, by traveling along a hilly and crooked road from oxford to birmingham in a steam carriage. this truly wonderful machine is the invention of captain ogle, of the royal navy, and mr. summers, his partner, and is the first and only one that has accomplished so long a journey over chance roads, and without rails. its rate of traveling may be called twelve miles an hour, but twenty or perhaps thirty down hill if not checked by the brake, a contrivance which places the whole of the machinery under complete control. away went the splendid vehicle through that beauteous city (oxford) at the rate of ten miles an hour, which, when clear of the houses, was accelerated to fourteen. just as the steam carriage was entering the town of birmingham, the supply of coke being exhausted, the steam dropped; and the good people, on learning the cause, flew to the frame, and dragged it into the inn yard." gibbs an english engineer, gibbs made a special study of the steam carriage of sir charles dance in 1831. as a result of his investigations he built a steam drag in 1832. this was intended to draw passenger carriages and it had a boiler with spirally descending flue placed behind the driving wheels. in 1832, in conjunction with his partner, applegate, he patented a steam carriage with a tubular boiler and oscillating engine cylinders. the power from the axle was transmitted to the driving wheels through friction bands, arranged in the bases of the wheels so that one or both wheels could be coupled to the axles. charles dance an enthusiastic motorist, sir charles dance, of london, in the first third of the ninteenth century did a great deal to encourage the engineers who were inventing steam road vehicles. he was financially interested in several of the companies that were organized to run steam coaches over the common roads. he was the backer of goldsworthy gurney, and was also engaged in building for himself. his most famous car was a coach that ran every day from the strand, london, to brighton. this was an engine mounted on four wheels with a tall rectangular funnel that narrowed toward the top. above the engine were seats for six or seven persons besides the driver. behind the engine was a vehicle like a boxcar low hung on wheels. on the side of this box was emblazoned the coat of arms of its owner. on the roof seat in front were places for four passengers. on a big foot-board behind, stood the footman. this carriage was one of the spectacular sights of london at that time and great crowds gathered in the strand every day to witness its departure. dance ran gurney's coaches on the cheltenham and gloucester road until public opposition compelled his withdrawal, but after that he was a joint patentee with joshua field, of an improved boiler. this was applied to the road carriage above mentioned and the first trips were made in september, 1833, with a drag and omnibus attached, a speed of sixteen miles an hour being attained. on the first trip from london to brighton, fifteen passengers were carried and the distance of fifty-two miles was covered in five and a half hours, the return journey being performed in less than five hours. about the middle of october the steam drag and omnibus were put upon the road between wellington street, waterloo bridge, and greenwich, where it continued to run for a fortnight, with a view of showing the public in london what could be done in this direction. the proprietor had no intention of making it a permanent mode of conveyance, and therefore kept the company as select as he could by charging half a crown for tickets each way. joshua field born in 1786. died in 1863. a member of the well-known firm of maudsley, sons & field, marine engineers, of london, england, joshua field took out a patent for an improved boiler, in conjunction with sir charles dance. the firm made an improved vehicle for dance, and in 1835 field constructed for himself a steam carriage that made a trip in july with a party of guests. the carriage was driven up denmark hill, and did the distance, nine miles, in forty-four minutes. it also ran several times to reading and back, at the rate of twelve miles an hour. one of the subscribers towards the building of this carriage, said that it was a success mechanically, but not economical. field was one of the six founders of the institution of civil engineers. dietz previous to the time that the carriage of francis maceroni was taken to france, an engine designed by dietz was run in the streets of paris. in the reports of the academy of sciences and academy of industry in paris, in 1840, this vehicle was described. the carriage had eight wheels, two of which were large and gave the impulsion. the six smaller wheels rose and fell according to the irregularity of the road, and at the same time assisted in bearing the weight of the carriages. the wheels were bound with wood tires, having cork underneath. the locomotive was a drag, drawing a carriage for passengers. the engine was of thirty horse-power, and a speed of ten miles an hour was made. yates a steam carriage was built by messrs. yates & smith, london, in 1834. it had a trial in july of that year, running from the factory in whitechapel, along high and several other streets, at the rate of ten to twelve miles an hour. vibrating engines, working on horizontal framing, were used. the coach resembled an ordinary stage-coach. g. millichap in a letter to an english engineering paper in 1837, g. millichap, of birmingham, claimed to have a locomotive carriage building. he wrote: "if your correspondent will take the trouble to call at my house i shall be happy to show him a locomotive carriage in a state of great forwardness, intended decidedly for common roads." james caleb anderson born in cork, ireland, july 21, 1782. died in london, april 4, 1861. the father of sir james caleb anderson, of buttevant castle, ireland, was john anderson, a celebrated merchant of ireland, famous as the founder of the town of fermoy. the son gave much attention to the subject of steam and steam propulsion, and made many experiments, taking out several patents. in 1831, he lodged a specification for improvements in machinery for propelling vessels on water; in 1837, for improvements in locomotive engines, and in 1846, for improvements in obtaining motive power and applying it to the propulsion of cars and vessels and the driving of machinery. his 1831 patent was for a manually-propelled vehicle, a carriage in which twenty-four men were arranged on seats, like rowers in a boat, but in two tiers, one above the other. the action was nearly the same as the pulling of oars, the only difference being that all the men sitting on one seat pulled at one horizontal cross-bar, each extremity of which was furnished with an anti-friction roller that ran between guide rails on the opposite sides of the carriage. the ends of each of these horizontal bars were connected to reciprocating rods that gave motion to a crank shaft, on which were mounted spur gear that actuated similar gear on the axis of the running wheels of the carriage; so that by sliding the gear on the axis of the latter any required velocity could be communicated to the carriage, or a sudden stop made. it was proposed to employ this as a drag, to draw one or more carriages containing passengers after it. the patentee had chiefly in view the movement of troops by this method. anderson gave financial support to w. h. james, in 1827, until he fell into pecuniary difficulties. ten years later he re-engaged in steam carriage construction on his own account, and according to his own reports he expended over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on experiments. it was said that he failed in twenty-nine carriages before he succeeded in the last. he patented a boiler that was said to be a poor copy of walter hancock's boiler. then he organized a joint-stock company, the steam carriage and wagon company, which proposed to construct steam drags in dublin and in manchester, which, when completed, were to convey goods and passengers at double the speed and at half the cost of horse carriages. anderson said: "i produce and prove my steam drags before i am paid for them, and i keep them in repair; consequently, neither the public nor the company runs any risk. the first steam carriage built for the company is nearly completed. it will speak for itself." in the mechanic's magazine, june, 1839, a dublin correspondent writes: "i was fortunate enough to get a sight of sir james anderson's steam carriage, with which i was much pleased. it had just arrived from the country, and was destined for london in about three weeks. the engine weighs ten tons, and will, i dare say, act very well. i shall have an opportunity of judging that, as the tender is at cork. it has a sort of diligence, not joined, but to be attached to the tender, making in all three carriages. i talked a great deal about it to one of his principal men, who was most lavish in its praises, especially as regards the boiler." in august, 1839, the carriage arrived in london. in 1840, a report said: "several steam carriages are being built at manchester and dublin, under sir james anderson's patents, and one has been completed at each place. at manchester the steam drag had been frequently running between cross street and altrincham, and the last run was made at the rate of twenty miles an hour, with four tons on the tender, in the presence of mr. sharp, of the firm of sharp, roberts and company, of manchester, and others." a newspaper of the same year reported that an experimental trip of anderson's steam drag for common roads took place on the howth road, dublin. it ran about two hours, backing, and turning about in every direction--the object being chiefly to try the various parts in detail. it repeatedly turned the corners of the avenues at a speed of twelve miles an hour, the steam pressure required being only forty-six pounds per square inch. no smoke was seen, and little steam was observed. the whole machinery was ornamentally boxed in, so that none of the moving parts was exposed to view, and it was found that the horses did not shy at this carriage. the company had great plans for travel communication by means of these drags between the chief towns in ireland, as soon as a few of the steam carriages were finished. an even more pretentious scheme involved a service in conjunction with the railway trains from london, carriages to be run from birmingham to holyhead, whence passengers were to be conveyed to dublin by steamer; from dublin to galway the steam drags were to be employed; and thence to new york per vessel touching at halifax; thus making ireland the stepping-stone between england, nova scotia, and the united states of america. but all these plans came to naught. anderson continued to take out patents down to as late as 1858. he devoted more than thirty years of his life to the promotion of steam locomotion on common roads. robert davidson robert davidson, of aberdeen, was probably the first to make an electrically propelled carriage large enough to carry passengers. this he did in 1839. his carriage could carry two persons when traveling over a fairly rough road, and though the prospects were enticing enough to cause investment in the enterprise, davidson's subsequent work was on rail vehicles. w. g. heaton w. g. and r. heaton, of birmingham, england, built several steam carriages which operated with various degrees of success in their neighborhood. their patent was dated in october, 1830. the patent aimed particularly at the guidance of a locomotive carriage, and the management of the steam apparatus so that the power and speed might be accommodated to the nature of the road, the quantity of the load, and so on. for the purpose of steering the carriage, a vertical spindle was placed at some distance before the axle of the front wheels and on its lower end a small drum was fixed. around this drum was coiled a chain with its middle fixed upon the drum, and its ends made secure to the front axle formed a triangle with the drum, situated at the angle opposite the longest side. the other end of the vertical spindle was connected with a frame situated in front of the coachman's or rather the steersman's seat and here on the spindle was a horizontal beveled-toothed wheel. over this wheel an axis extended, terminating in two crank handles proceeding from the axes in different directions, so that one was down when the other was up. upon this axis was fixed another beveled-toothed wheel taking into the first. when these wheels were turned in one direction the right-hand fore wheel of the carriage advanced and the coach turned towards the left, while when they were turned in the other direction the left-hand wheel advanced and the carriage turned towards the right. the driving wheels were connected with the axle by means of a pair of ratchets furnished with a double set of ratchet teeth and a reversing pall. by this one wheel could be advanced or backed while the other remained stationary, or moving in a contrary direction, an arrangement necessary for turning and backing. the steersman controlled the reversing pall by connecting rods and lever. motion was communicated to the driving wheels by a double set of spur wheel gear, arranged to give different powers or velocities, by having both a large and a small wheel fixed on the driving as well as the driven axis. by shifting the large wheel on the driving axis into gear with the small wheel on the driven axis speed was obtained, and by shifting their relative position till the small wheel on the driving axis came into gear with the large wheel on the driven axis, power was obtained at the expense of speed. these two axes were kept at the same distance from each other by means of connecting rods, although the relative positions might be changed by the motion of the carriage on rough roads. in august, 1833, the heatons placed a steam drag on the road between worcester and birmingham. a slight accident occurred at the start, but after repairs were made the trial was a success. attached to the engine was a stage-coach, carrying twenty passengers, the load weighing nearly two tons. lickey hill was ascended, a rise of one in nine, and even one in eight in some places. many parts of the hill were very soft, but by putting both wheels in gear they ascended to the summit, seven hundred yards in nine minutes. a company was formed in birmingham to construct and run these carriages, subject to the condition of keeping up an average speed of ten miles an hour. a new carriage was built and tried in 1834, but after trials, the messrs. heaton dissolved their contract, as they were unable to do more than seven or eight miles an hour. after spending upwards of ten thousand dollars in endeavors to effect steam traveling, they retired from the field, stating that the wear and tear were excessive at ten miles an hour, and that the carriage was heavy, and wasteful in steam. f. hill an english engineer, connected with the deptford chemical works, hill was among the first to be interested in steam-road locomotion. he was familiar with hancock's experiments and made a carriage of his own that was tried in 1840. he journeyed to sevenoaks and elsewhere and ran up steep hills with the carriage, fully loaded, at twelve miles an hour, and on the level at sixteen miles an hour. he adopted the compensating gear that was invented by richard roberts and that by some writers has been credited to him. to put hill's patents to practical use the general steam carriage company was formed in 1843. the probable success of the company was based upon the belief that there was a demand for additional road accommodations in order that road locomotion should counteract the exorbitant charges made by the gigantic railway monopoly for conveying goods short distances. the company stated in its prospectus "that while they confidently believe the improved steam coach which they have engaged and propose to employ in the first instance to be the most perfect now known in england, they do not bind themselves to adhere to any particular invention, but will avail themselves of every discovery to promote steam coach conveyance." trial trips were made on the windsor, brighton, hastings, and similar roads, and with success. once the carriage made a trip to hastings and back, a distance of one hundred and twenty-eight miles, in one day, half the time occupied by the stage coaches. the mechanic's magazine said: "we accompanied hill, about a year ago, in a short run up and down the hills about blackheath, bromley, and neighborhood; and we had again the pleasure of accompanying him in a delightful trip, on the hastings road, as far as tunbridge and back. the manner in which his carriage took all the hills, both in the ascent and the descent, proved how completely every difficulty on this head had been surmounted." in the hill carriage, both the coach and the machinery were erected upon a strong frame mounted upon substantial springs. in the rear were the boiler, furnace, and water tanks, with a place for the engineer and fireman. in front was a coach body with seats for six inside, three on the box, and the conductor in front. the front part of the carriage was also suspended upon springs. the carriage was propelled by a pair of ten-inch cylinders and pistons, horizontally placed beneath the carriage. these acted upon two nine-inch cranks, coupled to the main axle through compensating gear; the two six-foot six-inch diameter driving wheels had the full power of the engines passed through them. the weight of the boiler when empty was two thousand three hundred pounds, and it had a capacity of about sixty gallons of water, while one hundred gallons more were contained in the tanks. the total weight of the carriage, including water, coke, and twelve passengers, was less than four tons. on heavy and rough roads the steam pressure was seventy pounds per square inch, but on good roads only sixty pounds. the average speed was sixteen miles an hour, but on a level twenty miles an hour was reached. as late as 1843, hill's carriages were running from london to birmingham, having been in operation four or five years. smooth in motion, they carried their passengers comfortably, but soon went out of use. goodman early in the forties a small road locomotive was made by goodman, of southwark, london. it was worked by a pair of direct-acting engines, coupled to the crank shaft. a chain pinion on the crank shaft transmitted motion to the main axle through an endless pitch chain working over a chain wheel of larger diameter on the driving shaft. the smoke from the boiler was conducted by a flue placed beneath the carriage. the vehicle had a speed of from ten to twelve miles an hour. norrgber a correspondent of the mechanic's magazine, of london, wrote in 1843: "norrgber, of sweden, a locksmith and an ingenious mechanic, made a steam carriage which ran between copenhagen and corsoer, carrying thirty passengers, the engine being of eight horse-power." j. k. fisher a small steam carriage, that in general character was like a railroad locomotive, was designed by j. k. fisher, of new york, in 1840. it was not until 1853, however, that he went beyond this. then he built another carriage, with driving wheels five feet in diameter, and two steam cylinders four inches in diameter, with ten-inch stroke. this carriage attained a speed of fifteen miles an hour on good pavements. during the next two years, fisher made many trips, sometimes running twelve miles an hour without excessive wear. in his later engines he introduced several novelties, among them being parallel connections between the crank shaft and the driving axle. in the steering gear a screw was placed across the front part of the carriage carrying a nut, to which the end of an elongated reverted pole was jointed. the screw was turned by bevel gearing, one wheel being keyed to the end of the screw, and the other to the steerage rod, the opposite end of this rod having a lever placed within easy access of the footplate. fisher's carriages were driven by direct-acting engines, one cylinder on each side of the smoke-box. r. w. thompson born in stonehaven, england, in 1822. died, march 8, 1873. r. w. thompson came to the united states in early life, but returned to england and engaged in scientific experimenting and studying, and in engineering at aberdeen and dundee. he invented a rotary engine during this period of his life. in 1846, being then in business for himself, he conceived the idea of india-rubber tires and perfected this in 1876. in december of that year he made a small road locomotive to draw an omnibus and this was sent to the island of ceylon. other road steamers of thompson's design were manufactured and sent to india and elsewhere. anthony bernhard in 1848, a compressed-air carriage invented by anthony bernhard, baron von rathen, was built in england. it weighed three tons, and on its first trip was driven at a speed of eight miles an hour. upon one occasion it made twelve miles an hour on a trip from putney to wandsworth, carrying twenty passengers. until near 1870, baron von rathen was engaged in inventing compressed-air engines. battin in 1856, joseph battin, of newark, n. j., constructed a steam carriage with a vertical boiler and oscillating engines. richard dudgeon a small locomotive for the common roads was built in 1857, dy richard dudgeon, an engineer, of new york. it had two steam cylinders, each three inches in diameter and with sixteen-inch stroke, and drew a light carriage at ten miles an hour on gravel roads. the carriage was destroyed by fire at the new york crystal palace in 1858. dudgeon is said to have afterward built another carriage, which was larger and more clumsy than the other. a few years ago this was discovered in an old barn in locust valley, l. i. it was fixed up and started out and demonstrated that, old as it was, it could go at a speed of more than ten miles an hour. lough and messenger in 1858, messrs. lough and messenger, of swindon, england, designed and erected a steam-road locomotive which for two years ran at fifteen miles an hour on level roads, and six miles an hour up grades of one in twenty. the engine had two cylinders, each three and one-half inches in diameter and with five-inch stroke, working direct on to the crank axle. the driving wheels were three and one-half feet in diameter, and the leading wheels two feet in diameter. the vertical boiler fixed on the frame was worked at one-hundred-and-twenty-pound pressure. the tanks held forty gallons of feed water. the total weight of the locomotive was eight hundred pounds. thomas rickett when the revival of interest in the common-road steam locomotive began in england, about 1857, thomas rickett, of castle foundry, buckingham, was one of the first to give attention to the subject. he built a road locomotive in 1858 for the marquis of stafford. this engine had two driving wheels and a steering wheel. the boiler was at the back with the steam cylinders horizontally on each side of it. three passengers were carried. the carriage was steered by means of a lever connected with the fork of the front wheel. the cylinders were three inches in diameter, with nine-inch stroke; the working steam pressure was one hundred pounds per square inch. the driving wheels were three feet in diameter. the weight of the carriage when fully loaded was only three thousand pounds. on level roads the speed was about twelve miles an hour. an account of one of the trips in 1859 was as follows in the columns of the engineer: "lord stafford and party made another trip with the steam carriage from buckingham to wolverton. his lordship drove and steered, and although the roads were very heavy, they were not more than an hour in running the nine miles to old wolverton. his lordship has repeatedly said that it is guided with the greatest ease and precision. it was designed by mr. rickett to run ten miles an hour. one mile in five minutes has been attained, at which it was perfectly steady, the centre of gravity being not more than two feet from the ground. a few days afterwards this little engine started from messrs. hayes' works, stoney stratford, with a party consisting of the marquis of stafford, lord alfred paget, and two hungarian noblemen. they proceeded through the town of stoney stratford at a rapid pace, and after a short trip returned to the wolverton railway station. the trip was in all respects successful, and shows beyond a doubt that steam locomotion for common roads is practicable." two other engines were built by rickett, one of them for the earl of caithness. some improvements were installed in this carriage, which was intended to carry three passengers. the weight of the carriage, fully loaded, was five thousand pounds. in this carriage, the earl of caithness traveled from inverness to his seat, borrogill castle, within a few miles of john o' groat's house. he describes his trip as follows: "i may state that such a feat as going over the ord of caithness has never before been accomplished by steam, as i believe we rose one thousand feet in about five miles. the ord is one of the largest and steepest hills in scotland. the turns in the road are very sharp. all this i got over without trouble. there is, i am confident, no difficulty in driving a steam carriage on a common road. it is cheap, and on a level i got as much as nineteen miles an hour." the earl of caithness brought the trial to a successful result, and some expert authorities jumped to the conclusion that at once steam traveling upon the high roads of england would be availed of to a large extent; but that did not happen. in 1864, mr. rickett furnished an engine for working a passenger and light goods service in spain, intended to carry thirty passengers up an incline of one in twelve, at ten miles an hour. the steam cylinders were eight inches in diameter, and the driving wheels four feet in diameter. the boiler would sustain a pressure of two hundred pounds. rickett's later engines had spur wheels; but his last engines were direct-acting. in november, 1864, he says: "the direct-acting engines mount inclines of one in ten easily; whether at eight, four, two, or one mile an hour, on inclines with five tons behind them, they stick to their work better than geared engines." daniel adamson in 1858 the firm of daniel adamson & co., of dukinfield, near manchester, england, built a common-road locomotive for a mr. schmidt. a multi-tubular boiler was used, two and one-half feet in diameter and five and one-half feet long, with a working pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds per square inch. the engine, which weighed five thousand six hundred pounds and was borne on three wheels, was calculated to run at eight miles an hour. a steam cylinder of six-inch diameter was attached to each side of the locomotive, and these cylinders actuated a pair of driving wheels three feet six inches in diameter. mr. schmidt gave this vehicle a thorough trying out and especially raced it with several competitors. on one of these races, in 1867, with a boulton steam carriage, the start was made from ashton-under-lyne, for the show ground at old trafford, a distance of over eight miles. although the adamson engine was the larger, the smaller one easily passed it during the first mile, and kept a good lead all the way, arriving at old trafford under the hour. mr. schmidt sent his road locomotive to the havre exhibition, in 1868, and a trial of its powers was made by french engineers, and m. nicole, director of the exhibition. mr. schmidt conducted the engine himself, and to it was attached an omnibus containing the commissioners. the engine and carriage traversed several streets of havre and mounted a sharp incline. other trips were made to several villages in the neighborhood of the exhibition, and the engine behaved very satisfactorily. stirling in a road steamer designed by stirling, of kilmarnock, in 1859, the five traveling wheels were mounted upon springs. a single wheel was used as a driver, and more or less weight was thrown upon this wheel. the leading and trailing wheels swiveled in concert, in opposite directions, by means of right and left hand worms and worm wheels. the carriage was thus made to move in a curve of comparatively short radius. w. o. carrett in 1860, george salt, of saltshire, england, employed w. o. carrett, of the firm of carrett, marshall & co., proprietors of the gun foundry at leeds, to design and build a steam pleasure carriage for him. the carriage was first shown and exhibited at the royal show held in leeds, 1861, and likewise at the london exhibition, 1862. it had two steam cylinders, six inches in diameter and with eight-inch stroke. the boiler was of the locomotive multi-tubular type, two feet six inches in diameter, and five feet three inches long. it had a working pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds per square inch, the test pressure being three hundred pounds. the locomotive was mounted upon two driving wheels, each four feet in diameter, made of steel, and a leading wheel was three feet in diameter. seats were provided for nine persons, including the steerer and the fireman. the traveling speed was fifteen miles an hour; and the weight of the carriage, fully loaded, was five tons. motion was communicated from the crank shaft to the driving axle through spur gearing. the english magazine, engineering, in an article in june, 1866, said: "this steam carriage, made by carrett, marshall & co., was probably the most remarkable locomotive ever made. true, it did little good for itself as a steam carriage, and its owner at last made a present of it--much as an eastern prince might send a friend a white elephant--to that enthusiastic amateur, mr. frederick hodges, who christened it the fly-by-night, and who did fly, and no mistake, through the kentish villages when most honest people were in their beds. its enterprising owner was repeatedly pulled up and fined, and to this day his exploits are remembered against him." hodges ran the engine eight hundred miles; he had six summonses in six weeks, and one was for running the engine thirty miles an hour. it was afterwards altered to resemble a fire engine and the passengers were equipped like firemen, wearing brass helmets. the device did not deceive the police, and finally the carriage was made over into a real self-moving fire engine. richard tangye the steam carriage built by the tangye brothers, of england, about 1852, was a simple affair. it had seating capacity in the body for six or eight persons, while three or four more could be accommodated in front. the driver who sat in front had full control of the stop valve and reversing lever, so that the engine could be stopped or reversed by him as occasion required. the speed of twenty miles an hour could be attained, and the engine with its load easily ascended the steepest gradients. richard tangye, in his autobiography, speaks of his experience with this carriage in the following terms: "great interest was manifested in our experiment, and it soon became evident that there was an opening for a considerable business in these engines, and we made our preparations accordingly, but the 'wisdom' of parliament made it impossible. the squires became alarmed lest their horses should take fright; and although a judge ruled that a horse that would not stand the sight or sound of a locomotive, in these days of steam, constituted a public danger, and that its owner should be punished and not the owner of the locomotive, an act was passed providing that no engine should travel more than four miles an hour on the public roads. thus was the trade in quick-speed locomotives strangled in its cradle; and the inhabitants of country districts left unprovided with improved facilities for traveling." the tangye carriage thus driven out of england was sent to india, where it continued to give good service. t. w. cowan at the london exhibition of 1862, the messrs. yarrow and hilditch, of barnsbury, near london, exhibited a steam carriage, designed and made by t. w. cowan, of greenwich. eleven passengers, besides the driver and the fireman, were carried and the vehicle with full load weighed two tons and a half. the boiler, of steel, was a vertical multitubular two feet in diameter and three feet nine inches high. the frame of the carriage was of ash, lined with wrought-iron plates, and to the outside of the bottom sill were two iron foundation plates, to which the cylinders and other parts were attached. the cylinders were five inches in diameter and had nine-inch stroke. charles t. hayball a quick-speed road locomotive was made by charles t. hayball, of lymington, hants, england, in 1864. the machinery was mounted upon a wrought-iron frame, that was carried upon three wheels. the two driving wheels had an inner and an outer tire, and the space between was filled with wood to reduce noise and lessen the concussion. the two steam cylinders were each four and one-half inches in diameter and with six-inch stroke. hayball used a vertical boiler, two feet two inches in diameter, and four feet high, working at a pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds. the carriage ran up an incline of one in twelve at sixteen miles an hour, and traveled four miles an hour in fourteen minutes, up hill and down, with ten passengers on board. isaac w. boulton in august, 1867, thomas boulton says: "i ran a small road locomotive constructed by isaac w. boulton, of ashton-under-lyne, from here through manchester, eccles, warrington, preston brook, to chester, paraded the principal streets of chester, and returned home, the distance being over ninety miles in one day without a stoppage except for water." boulton's engine had one cylinder four and one-half inches in diameter, and with nine-inch stroke. the boiler worked at one hundred and thirty pounds pressure per square inch. the driving wheels were five feet in diameter. two speeds were obtained by means of spur gearing between the crank shaft and the counter shaft. on the chester trip six persons, and sometimes eight and ten passengers, were carried. armstrong the virtues of the horseless vehicle early penetrated to india. many english manufacturers sent carriages there. some time in 1868, a steam carriage, with two steam cylinders, each three inches in diameter, and with six-inch stroke, was made by armstrong, of rawilpindee, punjab. a separate stop valve was fitted to each cylinder. the boiler was fifteen inches in diameter and three feet high, and worked steam pressure of one hundred pounds per square inch. twelve miles an hour on the level, and six miles an hour up grade of one in twenty, were made. the driving wheels were three feet in diameter. pierre ravel ravel, of france, planned in 1868 a steam vehicle, and about 1870 completed the construction of one at the barracks at saint-owen. then came the declaration of war with prussia, and the barracks, being within the zone of fortification, the vehicle was lost or destroyed. there is no certainty that it was ever unearthed after peace was declared. l. t. pyott before 1876, a motor vehicle was invented by l. t. pyott, who was then a foreman with the baldwin locomotive works in philadelphia. the carriage, which could carry seven persons at the rate of twenty miles an hour, cost about two thousand two hundred dollars, and weighed nearly two tons. it was shown at the centennial exposition in philadelphia in 1876, but was not allowed to run on the streets. a. richter an engineer and mechanician of neider-bielan, oberlaneitz, germany, richter secured in 1877 a patent for a vehicle that was propelled by a motor consisting of a stack or battery of elliptic springs horizontally disposed, which were compressed by a charge of powerful powder exploded in what was practically a cannon. the subsequent expansion transmitted the driving effort to the wheels by a rack of gears. the success of this vehicle is not generally known. raffard in 1881, raffard, a french engineer, made a tricycle and a tram-car that is said to have been the first electric automobile which ran satisfactorily. charles jeanteaud it is claimed for jeanteaud that he built a four-wheeled electric vehicle about 1881, which was changed in 1887 by the addition of an immisch motor. in 1890 he constructed a three-wheeled steam vehicle for five persons, having the advice and interest of archdeacon. in june, 1895, at the paris-bordeaux race, he entered an electric automobile and established battery relays every twenty-five kilometers, but without success so far as speed was involved in comparison with the gasoline cars. in 1897 he constructed a gasoline phaeton, but his subsequent work has been primarily confined to the electric. sylvester haywood roper as early as 1850, sylvester haywood roper, of roxbury, mass., began experimenting with steam for street-vehicle propulsion. in 1882, when he was seventy-three years of age, he fitted a columbia bicycle with a miniature engine, and with this he could run seventy miles on one charge of fuel. his bicycle weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds. he engaged in many track events and his record for three runs of one-third of a mile each, was forty-two, thirty-nine and thirty-seven seconds. copeland a tandem tricycle with a vertical boiler and a two-cylinder vertical engine was built by copeland, of philadelphia, in 1882. kerosene was used to fire the boiler. it is said that over two hundred of these machines were built. g. bouton an ingenious and practical engineer, bouton made various mechanical devices, but it is claimed that from a clever toy came the associations which have resulted in the now famous firm, dedion-bouton, with which he is connected. it is said compte dedion saw this toy and on asking for the maker, met bouton. thus came the partnership, in 1882, with bouton and trepardoux. bouton made a steam tricycle in 1884, containing the remarkable light and efficient boiler of his invention, which for years remained the most important contribution of the firm to this art. in 1885 a quadricycle was made, and the success attending the runs made with this, in which merrelle co-operated, was such as to bring forth the personal ideas of dedion in so strong a manner that trepardoux and merrelle severed their connections with the firm. the real beginning of the work of this firm was in 1884, and the several years following saw the production of numerous steam machines, including phaetons, dog carts, and a variety of other types. even as late as 1897 heavy steam chars-bancs were made by them, and that year also saw their well-known thirty-five-passenger, six-wheeled coach, pauline, on the streets of paris--a vehicle which cost over twenty-six thousand francs, and had a thirty-five horse-power steam tractor. this vehicle had been preceded by a somewhat similar one constructed in 1893 on the old idea of a mechanical horse attached to an ordinary 'bus body from which the front wheels had been removed. in 1895, dedion-bouton produced their first liquid hydro-carbon engine vehicle--a tricycle with air-cooled motor and dry-battery ignition, which is so well known to everyone in the industry to-day. these were manufactured in large numbers, and were followed by larger gasoline vehicles into which they introduced their engine, namely, a vertical position. in 1899, their three-passenger, four-wheeled vehicle, and in 1900 a six-passenger vehicle, made good reputations. since then their large factory at putaux, france, well known under the name of dedion-bouton et cie, has been continually crowded with work on vehicles, and with the manufacture of their motors which are still sold independently to other makers in france, as well as in other countries. in fact the manufacture of engines and parts might be said to be now their main work. count a. dedion count dedion's interest in an ingenious mechanical device constructed by bouton, led to his backing the enterprise now so well known under his name. his activity in the automobile club of france, and in all the sporting events in the past ten years, has in fact brought him into far more prominence than his associate, bouton. his interest and energy in connection with his company are well known, and though the credit for the mechanical work must undoubtedly be given to bouton, dedion is largely responsible for the great success and general prominence of the company. armand peugeot in 1885, and again in 1889, armand peugeot, a french inventor and manufacturer, brought up the subject of automobiles, and in 1889 he began to manufacture, using the daimler motor. his first attention having been given to the motor, he brought out very soon his famous two-parallel cylinder mounted horizontally on the body frame. originally of the firm of fils de peugeot, he severed his connection with that firm, and in 1876 formed the society of artisans. in 1898, additional factories were erected at fives-lille, and now the concern has works also at audincourt. the latter works is claimed to be the most extensive automobile manufacturing establishment in the world. peugeot is a member of many learned societies, was elected an officer of the academie in 1881, and a chevalier of the legion of honor in 1889. radcliffe ward ward commenced his experiments in england about 1886, and built a cab in 1887, which he ran in brighton with more or less success. a second vehicle, an omnibus, was built by him and run on the streets in london in 1888, and actually covered, all told, five thousand miles. mors a manufacturer of electrical apparatus, the mors establishment made a steam vehicle in 1886, and some ten years later began to manufacture gasoline vehicles. magnus volk in 1887, volk built an electrical dog cart which, like that of ward, was seen on the streets of brighton. the next year he associated himself with immisch & co., and built for the sultan of turkey an electrical dog cart. this was claimed to have a radius of fifty miles at ten miles an hour, with seven hundred pounds of battery in twenty-four cells, driving the vehicle by means of a one horse-power motor. butler about the same time that daimler and benz were at work, butler, an englishman, was studying to make a hydro-carbon engine. he had drawings in 1884 and got out a patent in 1887. he built a tricycle soon after that date. this had two front wheels as steering wheels and a rear wheel driven by a two-cylinder engine. but butler did not carry his plans further, for, as he wrote in 1890, "the authorities do not countenance its use on roads, and i have abandoned in consequence any further development of it." le blant the steam carriage that le blant, of france, built carried nine passengers, and its weight, fuel and water included, was three and one-half tons. the engine was three-cylinder horizontal, and the boiler, a serpollet instantaneous generator, was placed behind the carriage, the fireman beside it and the driver in front. emile delahaye delahaye, of tours, associated himself with the firm of cail in 1870, spending some years in belgium, but in 1890 the automobile so attracted him as to lead him to the construction of his first vehicle. for ten years he practically adhered to the horizontal engine under the seat, which construction we find him using in 1900. it is worthy of note that to delahaye is given credit for the practical adaptation of the radiator in the arrangement now generally used in the cooling system. roger roger, of paris, was the french licensee for benz, taking up that motor much in the same manner as panhard & levassor took up the daimler. in fact he had such close relations with benz as to guide the further development of both. to this extent he was doubtless largely responsible for converting benz to the four-cycle instead of the two-cycle construction, and he is also credited with having brought about the change from the vertical crank shaft to the horizontal in the benz cars. making good headway in 1894, he had produced fifty or more machines by 1895, and ran one in the paris-bordeaux race of that year. he brought a car to new york in 1896, and took part in the cosmopolitan race, from new york to ardsley and return. georges richard in 1893, georges richard began cycle manufacturing in a small shop and two years later turned his business into a limited corporation. in 1897, he began the manufacture of automobiles. his motor is a development of the benz, with ignition improvement. pochain pochain, in france, built in 1893 a six-seated phaeton with fifty-four cells of battery, which would seem to have been practically the first satisfactory vehicle of its kind. louis krieger early in the nineties of the last century krieger made an electric vehicle. about 1894, he introduced his four-passenger hack, converted by substituting an electric fore carriage for the front axle of an ordinary vehicle. he has since developed his electric vehicles in the class of city carriages. a touring car, built for england, called the powerful, made in 1901 notable records in that country in a long tour through the isles. the principal work of krieger, however, has been in the development of front drive and steer construction. dedetrich baron dedetrich is of the well-known house that claims to have been founded more than one hundred years ago in luneville, alsace, and has grown to be one of the greatest works for the manufacture of locomotives and other machinery. in 1880 the concern is said to have employed four thousand men. its connection with the automobile industry began practically in 1895, when the construction of automobiles on the system of amédèe bollèe & sons was undertaken. with large resources and ability development was naturally rapid, resulting in the production to-day of one of the first-class french makes. david salomons sir david salomons, bart., was born in england, in 1851. he was educated for a short period at university college, london, and afterwards at caius college, cambridge, where he was graduated with natural science honors. he is a member of the institution of electrical engineers, where he took leading part for many years on the council, and served in the positions of honorary treasurer and vice-president. he is a fellow of the royal astronomical society, of the physical society of london, and of the royal microscopical society, and an associate of the institution of civil engineers. [illustration: sir david salomons] sir david was one of the first in england to adopt the electric light. this was about the year 1874, when he found it necessary to make the lamps, switches and other apparatus himself, as those were unobtainable at the time; much of the apparatus in general use to-day has been copied from his models. about 1874-5, he constructed a small electrical road carriage, which was in use a short time only, owing to the trouble of re-charging batteries, as no accumulators existed at that period. devoting himself largely to scientific investigation he is the author of various works on scientific subjects, such as photographic optical formulæ, photography and electrical subjects, his chief work being his three-volume electric light installations, now entering its ninth edition. of this work, the first volume on accumulators was for a great many years the only practical work on the subject. he is also the author of many papers read before scientific societies, including the royal society and royal institution. he is an original member of the automobile club of france and of the automobile club of great britain, being a member of the committee of the former and member of committee and a vice-president of the latter, and is also an ordinary or honorary member of most of the continental automobile clubs. he was mayor of tunbridge wells, 1894-5, and high sheriff of kent in 1881, and is a magistrate for kent, sussex, middlesex, westminster and london. the connection of sir david salomons with the encouragement and development of self-propelled traffic in the united kingdom, constitutes one of the most important chapters in the contemporaneous history of the automobile. his first step to secure a favorable public opinion for the legislative measures that he proposed was to have an exhibition of vehicles, which took place at tunbridge wells, in october, 1895. as a result of this exhibition and a voluminous correspondence thereafter, the newspapers of great britain and many of the members of the houses of lords and commons were brought to see the justice of the measures asked for. next, the self-propelled traffic association was organized. sir david salomons was elected president and the campaign for parliamentary action was inaugurated and brilliantly and energetically prosecuted. when the bill came before the commons and the lords it was substantially supported, but its provisions received a great deal of discussion. some amendments, particularly relating to the questions of smoke and petroleum use, were attached to it. in the end, however, the act that was passed was generally satisfactory to all interested in the promotion and protection of self-propelled traffic. it has been said that "there has hardly been an act passed containing more liberal clauses and with more unity of action." its provisions allow of reasonable travel of all kinds of self-propelled vehicles throughout the kingdom and the act as a whole is regarded as one of the most notable advances made in this matter during the present generation. leon bollèe a brother of amédèe bollèe, leon bollèe has been long interested in the business that bears the family name. in 1896, he brought out a motor cycle that was a type between a cycle and a vehicle. it had two front steering wheels and one front driver. the same type of vehicle has been adopted for light work, such as parcel delivery. joseph guedon guedon made his appearance at bordeaux, in october, 1897, with a four-wheeled wagonette, which he made under the name of the decauville. his special construction was claimed to very largely eliminate the vibration of the vehicle, and his success can be fairly judged from the results in the past few years. the decauville cars have been developed and refined to such a point as to be among the best of the french makes, and now have an international reputation. rene de knyff de knyff became an enthusiastic automobilist, and with other gentlemen, sportsmen of the nobility, became a great amateur. he was and is still known as the king of chauffeurs, having won several of the most important races, driving the panhard cars to victory. adolf clement born in 1855. entirely a self-made man, clement had experience as a locksmith and served an apprenticeship as a tinsmith. he started and built up a bicycle manufacturing establishment which, in 1894, was considered one of the finest in france. in time this developed into the finest cycle manufactory in that country. it is situated in levallois, near paris. in 1899, clement contracted with panhard & levassor to manufacture under their patents, and in 1900 he made a most successful light vehicle of four horse-power. since then he has developed his automobile factory, and in the past few years has produced competitors for honors in the first class, which are known at home and abroad as the bayard or clement-bayard cars. a. darracq about fifty years of age, darracq has had an energetic and successful career. he is now president of the society of engineers, paris, and a member of the legion of honor. he is best known as an inventor in connection with the automobile industry. among his inventions are a shaft drive and a beveled gear drive which are now universally used. he originated the idea of placing the operating lever on the steering post and made the first moderate priced automobile in france. he is now the engineer and manager of one of the biggest factories in the world. [illustration: a. darracq] james gordon bennett so interesting was the sporting side of the automobile movement that it early attracted the attention of james gordon bennett. the great runs, or tours, or races commenced in 1891, and continued annually from 1894 on, resulted in the offering of the bennett trophy for international competition under conditions which may have been suggested by the america yacht cup races. in january, 1900, this was announced in paris, and the custody of the trophy initially given to the automobile club of france as the first and foremost champions of automobiling. elaborate and excellent rules govern the annual competition for the trophy, and the races are held in the country whose representative has won in the previous year. in this way the first race was in france, as well as the second, and the 1903 race in ireland, while that of 1904 was held in germany, but was won by a frenchman, so that the 1905 race will again be held in the land of the original custodians of the trophy. index adamson, daniel, 158 anderson, james caleb, 145 andrews, f., 137 armstrong, 163 automobile, origin and development of the, 11 battin, 155 baynes, john, 129 bennett, james gordon, 176 benz, carl, 94 bernhard, anthony, 154 blanchard, 121 blanchard, thomas, 68 bollèe, amedèe, 90 bollèe, leon, 174 bordino, chevalier, 139 boulton, isaac w., 163 bouton, g., 166 brown, samuel, 133 brunton, william, 127 burtsall, t., 132 butler, 169 carrett, w. o., 159 cartwright, edmund, 131 church, w. h., 87 clement adolf, 175 clive, 139 copeland, 166 cowan, t. w., 162 cugnot, nicholas joseph, 31 daimler, gottlieb, 95 dallery, thomas charles auguste, 122 dance, charles, 142 darracq, a., 175 darwin, erasmus, 118 davidson, robert, 148 decauville, 174 de detrich, 171 de dion, count a., 167 de knyff, rené, 175 delahaye, emile, 170 dietz, 144 dudgeon, richard, 155 dumbell, john, 126 du quet, 126 edgeworth, richard lovell, 120 evans, oliver, 38 farfleur, stephen, 112 field, joshua, 143 fisher, j. k., 153 foreword, 5 fourness, robert, 123 genevois, j. h., 126 gibbs, 141 goodman, 153 gordon, david, 56 griffiths, julius, 130 guedon, joseph, 174 gurney, goldsworthy, 64 hancock, walter, 71 harland, 137 hautsch, johann, 111 hayball, charles t., 162 heaton, w. g., 148 hill, f., 150 holland, t. s., 135 huygens, christiaan, 111 inventors, pioneer, 29 investigators, noted, 105 james, william henry, 59 james, william t., 77 jeanteaud, charles, 165 johnson, 70 kestler, j. s., 121 krieger, louis, 171 knyff, rené de, 175 le blant, 169 leibnitz, gottfried wilhelm von, 115 lenoir, jean joseph etienne, 89 levassor, 99 lough and messenger, 155 maceroni, francis, 78 mackworth, humphrey, 115 marcus, siegfried, 93 masurier, 121 medhurst, george, 124 messenger, 155 millichap, g., 144 moore, francis, 120 mors, 169 murdock, william, 34 nasmyth, james, 135 neville, james, 134 newton, isaac, 113 norrgber, 153 noted investigators, 105 ogle, summers and, 140 origin and development of the automobile, 11 papin, denis, 116 parker, t. w., 133 pecqueur, 138 peugeot, armand, 168 pioneer inventors, 29 planta, 121 pochain, 171 pocock, george, 133 pyott, l. t., 164 raffard, 165 ramsey, david, 110 ravel, pierre, 164 read, nathan, 48 renault, louis, 101 renault, marcel, 101 richard, elié, 114 richard, georges, 171 richter, a., 164 rickett, thomas, 156 roberts, richard, 82 robinson, 118 roger, 170 roper, sylvester haywood, 165 russell, john scott, 83 salomons, sir david, 172 selden, george b., 91 serpollet, leon, 100 stirling, 159 stevin, simon, 109 summers and ogle, 140 symington, william, 45 tangye, richard, 161 tindall, thomas, 129 thompson, r. w., 154 trevithick, richard, 50 vaucauson, 117 vegelius, 114 verbiest, fernando, 112 viney, james, 138 vivian, andrew, 125 volk, magnus, 169 von leibnitz, gottfried wilhelm, 115 ward, radcliffe, 168 watt, james, 122 wildgosse, thomas, 110 yates, 144 transcriber's note: bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. a more detailed note is located at the end of this book. note de transcription: le texte en gras est entouré par =le signe égal=. une note plus détaillée se trouve à la fin du volume. english-french and french-english dictionary of the motor car, cycle and boat english-french and french-english dictionary of the motor car, cycle, and boat by frederick lucas new impression [illustration: printer's logo] london e. & f. n. spon, limited, 67 haymarket new york spon & chamberlain, 123 liberty street 1915 all rights reserved preface the object of this work is to assist those interested in the motor industry and pastime to read the foreign technical literature devoted to the subject. i have translated into the respective languages the technical terms used in the various journals and the catalogues of the leading english and french makers. the work embodies all the component parts of the vehicles and machinery at present on the market, and should therefore be of service to the user, the manufacturer, and the patent agent. the technical terms which are peculiar to cycles are printed in italics. frederick lucas. 9 gracechurch street, london, e.c. contents page english-french 1 french-english 95 dictionary of the motor car, cycle, and boat. english-french. accelerator accélérateur. accelerator control gear mouvement de commande d'accélérateur. accelerator pedal pédale d'accélérateur. accelerator rod tige d'accélérateur. accelerator rod spring ressort de tige d'accélérateur. accelerator rod washer rondelle de tige d'accélérateur. accelerator sector, or quadrant secteur d'accélérateur. accelerator shaft arbre d'accélérateur. accessories accessoires. accident accident. accumulator accumulateur. accumulator cap bouchon d'accumulateur. acetylene gas gaz acétylène. acetylene lamp lanterne à acétylène. acetylite acétylite. active material matière active. adhesion adhésion. adjust the ball-bearings, to ajuster les roulements à billes. adjustable bearings coussinets ajustables. adjustable cone bearings coussinets à cônes réglables. adjustable cup bearings coussinets à cuvettes réglables. adjustable seat siège ajustable. adjusting cone cône de réglage. adjusting nut ecrou de réglage. adjustment réglage. advance, sparking avance à l'allumage. air chamber chambre à air. air chimney tube de prise d'air; cheminée d'aspiration. air inlet pipe tube de prise d'air. air lever manette d'admission d'air. air nozzle for carburetter tuyère de carburateur. air piston piston à air. air port prise d'air. air pump pompe à air. air tight etanche à l'air. air tube chambre à air. air valve soupape à air. alcohol alcool. alight, to descendre. aluminium aluminium. amateur amateur. ammeter ampèremètre. amperage ampérage. ampere ampère. angle bar cornière. angle plate equerre. anneal, to recuire. apply the brake, to freiner; serrer le frein. apron tablier. arbor shaft cardan. arbor shaft system of transmission à cardan. transmission. arm sling brassière. armature induit. artillery wheel roue d'artillerie. ascent, steep montée rapide. asbestos amiante. asbestos cloth toile d'amiante. asbestos cord corde d'amiante. asbestos millboard carton d'amiante. asbestos paper papier d'amiante. asbestos washer rondelle d'amiante. ash frêne. automatic automatique. axle essieu; axe. axle arm fusée d'essieu. axle box boîte à graisse. axle seat portée de calage. b back balance, crank contrepoids de vilebrequin. _backbone_ _corps._ back fire allumage prématuré; choc en arrière. _back fork_ _fourche arrière._ _back fork stays_ _tirants de la fourche arrière._ _back forks, end of_ _pattes arrière._ back hub moyeu arrière. _back hub adjusting cone_ _cône de réglage du moyeu arrière._ _back hub chain ring_ _pignon de roue arrière._ _back hub fixed cone_ _cône fixe du moyeu arrière._ back kick choc en arrière. back mudguard garde-boue arrière. _back mudguard stays_ _tirants du garde-boue arrière._ _back pedal, to_ _contre-pédaler._ _back-pedalling brake_ _frein à contre-pédalage._ back pressure contre-pression. back rim jante de la roue arrière. _back stay_ _tube montant arrière._ back step marchepied d'arrière. back tyre { bandage de la roue arrière. { pneumatique de la roue arrière. back wheel roue arrière. _back wheel spindle nuts_ _ecrous de moyeu arrière._ back wing aile d'arrière. badge insigne. baffle plate contre-plaque. baffles, arranged as en chicanes. bag sac. balance gear mouvement différentiel. balance weight contre-poids. ball bille. ball bearing axle essieu à billes. ball bearing axle arm nut ecrou d'essieu à billes. ball bearing axle washer rondelle d'essieu à billes. ball bearing thrust butée à billes. ball bearings coussinets à billes. ball for axle arm bille pour fusée d'essieu. ball for carburetter bille pour carburateur. ball for oil pump bille pour pompe à huile. ball, governor boule de régulateur. _ball head_ _tête à billes._ ball joint joint à rotule. ball lever levier à boule. ball race rangée de billes. ball race cup cuvette à billes. ball race of back axle cuvette arrière d'essieu à billes. ball race of front axle cuvette avant d'essieu à billes. ball valve soupape à bille. band collier; bande. band brake frein à bande; frein à collier; frein à enroulement. bank up the corners of the track, relever les virages de la piste. to ball bearing axle essieu à billes. bar of iron barre de fer. base socle; base. battery batterie. beaded edge of tyre cover talon; bourrelet. beam traverse; poutrelle. beam (breadth of boat) largeur au maître-bau. bearing coussinet. bearing block palier. bearing keep chapeau de palier. bearing spring ressort de suspension. beech hêtre. bell timbre; grelot; sonnette; clochette. bell crank manivelle à cloche. bell, dome of calotte de timbre. belt courroie. belt butt crupon pour courroie. belt, cemented courroie collée. belt, edged courroie à talon. belt fastener agrafe de courroie. belt, flat courroie plate. belt grease enduit pour courroies. belt lace lacet; lanière. belt, round courroie ronde. belt, sewn courroie cousue. belt, slack courroie lâche. belt, slipping of glissement de la courroie. belt, stretching of allongement de la courroie. belt, tight courroie tendue. belt tightener tendeur pour courroie. belt, to lengthen the allonger la courroie. belt, to shorten the raccourcir la courroie. belt, to throw off the débrayer la courroie. belt, to tighten the tendre la courroie. belt, to untwist the détordre la courroie. belt, twist courroie torse. belt, twisted courroie tordue. belt, v courroie en v. bending strain effort de flexion. _bent handle bar_ _guidon cintré._ bevel gear engrenage conique. bevel pinion pignon d'angle. bevel wheel roue d'angle. bevelled biseauté. _bicycle_ _bicyclette._ _bicyclist_ _bicycliste._ billing spanner clef américaine à molette "billing." _bike_ _bécane._ birchwood bouleau. blacklead mine de plomb. blacksmith forgeron. blade (coil) lame de bobine. _blades, fork_ _fourreaux de fourche._ bleriot lamp phare blériot. blind flange bride borgne. blind nut ecrou borgne. block bloc; cale; sabot. block chain chaîne à blocs. blowpipe chalumeau. blow through tap robinet de purge. body caisse. body spring ressort d'essieu. boil (on cover) hernie; gerçure. boiler chaudière. boiler, flash générateur à vaporisation instantanée. bolt boulon. bolt (of door) verrou. bolt and nut boulon et écrou. bonnet entourage; capot couvre-moteur. bonnet door porte d'entourage. bore alésage. boss moyeu. _bottom bracket_ _pédalier._ _bottom head cone_ _cône du raccord inférieur avant._ _bottom head cup_ _raccord inférieur avant._ _bottom stay_ _tube de la fourche arrière._ _bottom tube_ _tube inférieur._ bowden wire câble flexible bowden. box boîte. box spanner clef à douille. box-wood buis. bracket, lamp porte-lanterne. bracket seat strapontin. brad clou à parquet. bradawl poinçon. braid tresse. brake frein. _brake adjusting clip_ _collier de tube de frein._ brake band collier de frein; bande de frein. _brake detachable clip_ _collier de levier de frein._ brake guide guide de frein. brake holder serre-frein. brake horse-power force en chevaux effectifs; puissance au frein. brakeless sans frein. brake lever levier de frein. brake lever connecting rod bielle de levier de frein. brake lever catch cliquet du levier de frein. brake lever handle spring ressort du cliquet de levier de frein. brake pedal spring ressort de rappel de pédale de frein. _brake plunger_ _tube de frein._ brake pulley poulie de frein. brake rod tige de frein. brake rod end chape de tige de frein. brake rod fork fourchette de tige de frein. brake screw boulon, vis de frein; vis de mécanique. brake segment segment de frein. brake spoon, or shoe patin, sabot de frein. brake spring ressort de frein. brake, to apply the serrer le frein. brake tube tube de frein. brake and clutch lever connecting bielle de commande de débrayage rod et de frein. brass cuivre jaune; laiton. braze, to braser. breadth largeur. break-down panne. break down, to rester en panne. breaking strain charge de rupture. bridge pont. _bridge, back fork_ _tirant de la fourche arrière._ bridge piece culotte. bridge piece for exhaust culotte d'échappement. bridge piece for inlet valve culotte d'aspiration. bright parts parties polies. broad large. brougham coupé. brush, dynamo balai. bucket seat baquet. buckled wheel roue voilée; roue tordue. buffer tampon. buffer guide boisseau de butoir. buffer head tête de butoir. buffer spring ressort de choc. bulb (glass) for accumulator cap ampoule verre pour bouchon d'accumulateur. bulge (on cover) hernie; gerçure. bulb of horn poire de cornette. bulk, in en vrac. bumpy road route cahotante. burn well, to brûler bien. burner brûleur. burner cage lanterne. burner case monture des brûleurs. burner cup cuvette de brûleur. burner for acetylene lamp bec. burner guard, or hood capuchon de brûleur. burner mount monture de brûleur. burner needle aiguille pour brûleur. burner nipple bec de brûleur. burner tank lampe. burst, to eclater; crever. burst (tyre) crevaison. bush douille; bague. bushed fourré; garni. butt-ended spokes rayons renforcés. butterfly nut ecrou à oreilles; papillon. butterfly valve soupape à papillon; papillon. button bouton. butt-welded soudé par rapprochement. c cab cab. cam came. cam, ignition came d'allumage. cam shaft arbre à cames. cam shaft cover couvercle d'arbre à cames. cam shaft roller galet d'arbre à cames. camel hair belt courroie poil de chameau. candle bougie. candle lamp lanterne à bougie. canopy, removable ballon démontable; couvercle démontable. canvas toile. canvas for repairing cover toile dissolutionnée; toile gommée. cap chapeau; bouchon. cap for oil hole bouche-trou. cap for steering connecting rod bouchon de bielle de commande de direction. cap for water tank bouchon d'emplissage de réservoir d'eau. cap of draw link chapeau de tension. capacity (of tank) contenance. car voiture. car wheel roue de voiture. carbide carbure de calcium. carburetter carburateur. carburetter connecting rod bielle de commande de carburateur. carburetter float flotteur de carburateur. carburetter float cap bouchon de dessus de carburateur. carburetter float needle aiguille de carburateur. carburetter float spindle axe de flotteur de carburateur. carburetter hand regulator régulateur à main de carburateur. carburetter lever spring ressort de rappel de levier de carburateur. carburetter nipple bec de carburateur. carburetter piston piston de carburateur. carburetter piston rod end chape de piston de carburateur. carburetter piston spring ressort de piston de carburateur. carburetter valve soupape de carburateur. carburetter valve spring ressort de la soupape de carburateur. cardan cardan. cardan joint joint cardan. carpet tapis. carriage builder carrossier. carriage clock horloge de voiture. carriage road route carrossable. carriage work carrosserie. carrier, luggage porte-bagage. _carrier tricycle_ _tricycle porteur._ carrying axle essieu porteur. carter gear case carter. carvel built a franc bord. case gaine; caisse. cased blindé. case harden, to cémenter. casing blindage. cash prizes prix en espèces. cast iron fonte. cast steel acier fondu. castor oil huile de ricin. catalytic catalytique. catalysis catalyse. catch cliquet; verrou. catch for bonnet door verrou d'entourage. catch for change speed lever verrou de levier de changement de vitesse. caulk, to calfater. cedar cèdre. cell elément. celluloid celluloïd. cement (for tyres) colle; mastic. centaur cylinder cylindre-culasse. centering gauge trusquin à centrer. centering ring bague de centrage. _central driving tricycle_ _tricycle à chaîne centrale._ centre to centre d'axe en axe. centre bearing palier central. centrifugal pump pompe centrifuge; pompe turbine. chain chaîne. chain adjustment tension de chaîne. chain adjusting rod; long end; bielle de tension de chaîne; small end grand côté; petit côté. chain, block chaîne à blocs. chain block bloc de chaîne. chain bolt and nut boulon et écrou de chaîne. chain brush brosse à chaîne. chain, double roller chaîne à doubles rouleaux. chain guard garde-chaîne; couvre-chaîne. chain link maillon. _chain ring lock nut_ _contre-écrou du pignon arrière._ _chain ring, back hub_ _pignon de la roue arrière._ chain, roller chaîne à rouleaux. chain roller rouleau de chaîne. chain, single roller chaîne à simples rouleaux. _chain wheel_ _grand pignon._ chain wheel roue de chaîne. chamois leather peau de chamois. champion champion. championship championnat. change speed connecting rod bielle de changement de vitesse. change speed gear changement de vitesse. change speed lever levier de changement de vitesse. change speed lever catch cliquet du levier de changement de vitesse. change speed lever catch fork chape du cliquet de levier de changement de vitesse. change speed lever rod tige de levier de changement de vitesse. change speed lever spring ressort de levier de changement de vitesse. change speed rod tringle de changement de vitesse. change speed shaft arbre de changement de vitesse. channel iron fer en u. charge, to charger. chassis châssis. check valve soupape de retenue. checker (in a race) pointeur. cheek flasque. chestnut châtaigner. chinese lantern lampion; lanterne vénitienne. chrome leather cuir chrome. chronometer chronomètre. circuit circuit. circuit, primary circuit primaire. circuit, secondary circuit secondaire. circuit, short court circuit. circuit, to close a fermer un circuit. circulation pump pompe de circulation. clamp bride; pièce d'attache; presse patte. clamp for fastening motor pièce d'attache du moteur. clasp brake frein à mâchoires. clean propre. clean, to nettoyer. clear, in the dans l'oeuvre. clearance jeu. clinch of the rim crochets de la jante. clincher built a clin. clip collier de serrage. clip brake frein à mâchoires. clip for spring bride de ressort. close the circuit, to fermer le circuit. closure tyres caoutchoucs auto-réparables. cloth for cleaning torchon. club cercle; société; club. club costume costume social. _club, cycling_ _société vélocipédique._ club run sortie officielle. clutch embrayage. clutch cone cône d'embrayage. clutch cone spring ressort de cône d'embrayage. clutch fork fourchette de débrayage. clutch lever levier d'embrayage; yatagan. clutch lever pedal pédale à levier de débrayage. clutch lever roller galet de débrayage. clutch shaft arbre d'embrayage. clutch shaft spring ressort d'arbre d'embrayage. clutch sleeve manchon. clutch spring ressort d'embrayage. coach, house remise. cobble stones pavé. coefficient of friction coefficient de friction. coil bobine; serpentin. coil, electric bobine électrique. cog dent; denture. cog wheel roue dentée; pignon. cog wheel, larger grand pignon. cog wheel, smaller petit pignon. collapse, to (of tyres) s'affaisser; crever. collar bague. collar for digger bague de biellette de rappel de tige. collision collision. colour couleur. combustion chamber chambre de combustion; chambre d'explosion. come off, to se détacher. commutator distributeur d'allumage; distributeur de courant; collecteur. commutator brush balai de distributeur d'allumage. commutator brush spring ressort de balai de distributeur. commutator bush bague pour corps de distributeur d'allumage. commutator cam shaft axe portant la came de distributeur d'allumage. commutator glass glace de couvercle de distributeur d'allumage. compass boussole. compensating spring ressort compensateur. compression relief décompression. compression relief lever manette de commande; manette de compression; décompresseur. compression stroke temps de compression. compression tap robinet de compression. compression valve soupape de compression. compression valve spring ressort de soupape de compression. concealed hinge charnière avec cache-fente. condenser condenseur. conductor conducteur. cone cône. cone bearings coussinets à cônes. cone clutch embrayage à cônes. connecting plug interrupteur à cheville. connecting rod bielle. connecting rod end tête de bielle. consolation race course de consolation. constant level carburetter carburateur à niveau constant. contact contact. contact breaker trembleur; allumeur; rupteur. contact breaker spring ressort de trembleur. contact screw vis de contact. containing case bac. contour map carte avec profils. control commande. controlling lever manette de commande. controlling wheel roue de commande de marche. convex bombé. cool, to rafraîchir; refroidir. cooler refroidisseur. cooler, beehive refroidisseur nid d'abeilles. cooling refroidissement. cooling flanges ailettes. cooling surface surface de refroidissement. copper cuivre rouge. copper plated cuivré. copper wire fil de cuivre. cord corde; cordon. core, iron noyau de fer. cork float flotteur en liége; macaron. cork handle poignée en liége. corner coin. corner plate gousset. cost of the trip frais de voyage. cotter clavette. cotton waste déchets de coton. countershaft arbre intermédiaire. countersunk head tête fraisée; tête noyée. counterweight contre-poids. cover (lid) couvercle. cover (tyre) enveloppe; bandage. cover for oil hole bouche-trou. cover 80 miles in a day, to couvrir 80 milles dans la journée. cover of contact breaker couvercle d'allumage. covers wired on pneumatiques à tringles. covers with beaded edges pneumatiques à talon. cow hide peau de vache. _crack rider_ _coureur de première force._ crank manivelle; vilebrequin. _crank bracket_ _pédalier._ _crank bracket adjusting collar_ _collier de réglage des cuvettes de pédalier._ _crank bracket axle_ _axe du pédalier._ _crank bracket barrel_ _cuvette de pédalier._ chain bolt and nut boulon et écrou de chaîne. _crank bracket cotter pin_ _clavette de pédalier._ crank case carter; bâti de moteur. crank case lubricator graisseur de bâti. crank cotter clavette de manivelle. crank disc plateau de manivelle. crank, left manivelle gauche. crank lever levier coudé. crank pin bouton de manivelle. crank, right manivelle droite. crank shaft vilebrequin; arbre à manivelle. crank starting handle manivelle de mise en marche. crank washer and nut rondelle et écrou de manivelle. crate caisse à claire-voie. crate, folding caisse pliante. _cross frame_ _cadre en croix._ cross head crosse. cross section coupe transversale. cross shaft croisillon. crossways carrefour. _crown, front fork_ _couronne de fourche._ _cup, bottom head_ _raccord inférieur avant._ cup (of bearings) cuvette. _cup, top head_ _raccord supérieur avant._ cup valve soupape en champignon renversé. current courant. current, high tension courant de haute tension. current, low tension courant de basse tension. current, strength of force du courant. curtain rideau. curve courbe. curved frame châssis cintré. cushioned seat siège à coussins. custom house douane. custom house officer douanier. customs pass passavant. customs receipt quittance douanière. customs seal plomb de la douane. customs ticket carte de douane. cut off valve soupape de détente. cut out coupe-circuit. _cycle_ _velocipède_; _vélo_. _cycle, to_ _monter à vélo._ _cycling_ _velocipédie._ _cyclist_ _vélocipédiste_; _cycliste_. _cyclometer_ _compteur_; _cyclomètre_. cylinder cylindre. cylinder full (of mixture) cylindrée. cylinder head culasse. cylinder head cover couvercle de culasse. cylinder head stay end chape de tige entretoise de culasse. d d shackle menotte. d valve tiroir à coquille. damage dommage. damage, to endommager. danger board poteau avertisseur. dangerous hill descente dangereuse. dash board planche pare-crotte. day's stage etape journalière. dead centre point mort. de-clutch, to débrayer. deflate, to dégonfler. delivery pipe tuyau de refoulement. densimeter densimètre. design, to etudier. detachable démontable; détachable. detachable crank manivelle détachable. detailed plan plan de détail. detour détour. devil béquille. diagonal diagonal, -e. diagonal tube tube diagonal. diagram diagramme; schéma. diagrammatic arrangement disposition schématique. diameter diamètre. diaphragm diaphragme. diaphragm piston piston à air. diaphragm spring ressort de piston à air. differential brake frein de différentiel. differential brake bolt axe du levier de frein de différentiel. differential brake lever end chape de frein de différentiel. differential brake pedal pédale de frein de différentiel. differential brake segment segment de frein de différentiel. differential brake spring ressort de rappel de frein de différentiel. differential gear mouvement différentiel. differential gear box boîte de différentiel. diffuser diffuseur. digger fork fourchette de rappel de tige. digger rod tige de rappel; culbuteur. digger spring ressort de rappel de tige. direct drive on top speed grande vitesse en prise directe. direct spokes rayons directs. disc disque. discharge, to décharger. disengage, to débrayer. disengaging lever levier de débrayage. dish, to emboutir. dismantling démontage. dismount, to descendre. distance distance. distance between axles ecartement des essieux. distance run distance parcourue. distance, to distancer. distributor distributeur. divided axle essieu brisé. dog clutch embrayage à griffes; manchon à griffes. dome of bell calotte de timbre. door porte; portière. door handle bouton de porte. door lock loqueteau de portière; serrure de portière. door pillar montant de porte. dotted line ligne pointillée. double ball bearings coussinets à double filet. double branch spanner clef à deux branches. double butted spokes rayons renforcés aux deux bouts. double driving gear mouvement différentiel. double ended spanner clef double. double helical gear engrenage à chevrons. double male screwed filetage double mâle. double roller chain chaîne à doubles rouleaux. _down tube_ _tube diagonal._ dragon tongue dard. drain tap robinet de vidange. draught courant d'air. draught of water when empty tirant d'eau à vide. draught of water when loaded tirant d'eau en charge. _drawlink (chain)_ _tension de chaîne._ _drawlink cap_ _chapeau de tension._ dray camion. _dress guard_ _garde-chaîne_; _garde-jupe_. dressing room vestiaire. drill foret. drill a hole, to faire un trou. drip feed lubricator graisseur compte-gouttes. drip tap purgeur continu. drive, to faire marcher. driver chauffeur; conducteur. driving axle essieu moteur. driving power force motrice. driving pulley poulie de transmission; poulie motrice. _driving shaft_ _axe de volant_; _axe moteur_. driving shaft arbre moteur. driving wheel roue motrice. drop counter compte-gouttes. drop shackle huit. drum tambour. drum brake frein à tambour. dry battery pile sèche. dust poussière. dust cap tube tube pare-poussière. dust guard pare-poussière. dust proof etanche à la poussière. dust-shield, gauze grille métallique; grille anti-poussière. duty free exempt de douane; en franchise. duty, to pay payer les droits d'entrée. dynamo dynamo. dynamo brush balai de dynamo. dynamo wheel volant de dynamo. e easy gradient pente faible. easy running très roulant. ebonite ebonite. ebony ebène. eccentric excentrique. eccentric rod tige d'excentrique. eccentric sheave disque d'excentrique. eccentric strap collier d'excentrique. efficiency of motor rendement du moteur. elbow coude. electric electrique. electric coil bobine électrique. electric ignition allumage électrique. electric wire fil électrique. elliptic spring ressort elliptique; ressort à pincette. elm orme. elm, grey orme blanc. elm, rock orme noir. emery cloth toile d'émeri. emery paper papier d'émeri. enamel email. enamel, to emailler. enamelled plate plaque émaillée. end elevation elévation de bout. end of back forks pattes arrière. endless belt courroie sans fin. endurance endurance; fond. engine moteur. engine shaft arbre de moteur. entrance fee droit d'entrée. entrance for a race inscription pour une course. erratic steering direction erratique. exhaust echappement. exhaust box réservoir d'échappement; pot d'échappement. exhaust fork fourchette d'échappement. exhaust fork guide guide de fourchette d'échappement. exhaust fork roller galet de fourchette d'échappement. exhaust fork roller bolt axe de fourchette porte-galet d'échappement. exhaust fork roller spring ressort de fourchette porte-galet d'échappement. exhaust gas gaz de la décharge; gaz brûlé; gaz d'échappement. exhaust lift cam came d'échappement. exhaust pipe tube d'échappement. exhaust port lumière d'échappement. exhaust pot pot d'échappement. exhaust steam vapeur de décharge. exhaust stroke temps d'échappement. exhaust tubing tuyauterie d'échappement. exhaust valve soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve cap bouchon de soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve flange bride d'échappement. exhaust valve fork fourchette d'échappement. exhaust valve guide guide de soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve lift taquet de soulèvement de soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve lift rod tige de soulèvement d'échappement. exhaust valve spring ressort de soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve stem tige de soupape d'échappement. exhibition exposition. exhibitor exposant. expanding pulley poulie extensible. expansion brake frein à expansion. expansion of steam détente de vapeur. expired, the patent has le brevet est dans le domaine public. explosion explosion. explosion chamber chambre d'explosion. explosion stroke temps d'explosion. explosive mixture mélange tonnant. extinguisher extincteur. extra nuts ecrous de rechange. extra price plus-value. extra strong tube tube renforcé. eye bolt piton. f fabric (of tyre cover) toile. face of slide valve glace du tiroir. faced in the lathe dressé au tour. fall, to tomber. fan ventilateur. fast rapide. fasten, to attacher. fastener for bonnet fermeture d'entourage. fat spark etincelle chaude. feat exploit. feat of skill tour d'adresse. feat of strength tour de force. feather clavette. feed alimentation; débit. feed heater réchauffeur. feed pipe tube d'alimentation. female cone cône femelle. ferrule frette; virole. ferry bac. ferry, to cross the passer le bac. fibre fibre. fibre cam came fibre. fibre, insulation fibre isolante. file lime. file, to limer. fillet congé. filter filtre. finger post poteau indicateur. fir sapin. fire tube carneau. firing nipple bouchon d'inflammateur. fitting montage; agencement. fixed cone cône fixe. fixed seat siège fixe. flame guard pare-flamme; capuchon de lanterne. flange bride; collerette. flanged collar bague à collerette. flanged shaft arbre à plateaux. flap door trappe. flap valve clapet. flash boiler générateur à vaporisation instantanée. flask flacon. flat, on the en palier. flexible wire câble flexible. float flotteur. float chamber boîte du flotteur; réservoir à flotteur. float wire tige de flotteur. flooder déversoir. flush head tête affleurée. fluted rubber pedal pédale à caoutchouc cannelé. flying start départ lancé. fly wheel volant. foil clinquant. fold, to plier. _folding bicycle_ _bicyclette pliante._ folding seat strapontin. _folding tricycle_ _tricycle compressible._ foot pied. footpath sentier; trottoir. foot pump pompe à pied. foot rest appui-pieds; repose-pied. foot warmer chaufferette. foot warmer (hot water) bouillotte. force the pace, to forcer le pas. fore-carriage avant-train. forge forge. forgings ebauchés. fork fourche; fourchette. fork (of a road) bifurcation. form, in good en bonne forme. forward and reverse lever levier de changement de marche. forward and reverse lever rod pin axe de levier de changement de marche. forward movement marche en avant. four cycle gas motor moteur à quatre temps. four way coil bobine quadruple. _frame_ _cadre._ frame châssis. frames (boat) membrures. _frame switch_ _interrupteur de cadre._ _free wheel_ _roue libre._ _free wheel, ratchet and pawl _roue libre à cliquet._ clutch_ _free wheel, roller clutch_ _roue libre à galet._ french chalk talc. friction frottement. friction clutch embrayage à friction. friction plate plateau de friction. friction roller galet de friction. friction, to reduce the réduire le frottement. front apron } tablier d'avant. front board } _front driver_ _machine à roue motrice devant._ front elevation elévation de face. _front fork_ _fourche avant._ _front fork blades_ _fourreaux de fourche avant._ _front fork crown_ _couronne de fourche._ front hub moyeu avant. _front hub adjusting cone_ _cône de réglage du moyeu avant._ _front hub fixed cone_ _cône fixe du moyeu avant._ front mudguard garde-boue avant. _front mudguard stays_ _tirants du garde-boue avant._ front rim jante de la roue avant. front seat siège d'avant. _front steerer_ _tricycle à roue directrice devant._ front steering bar barre d'accouplement de direction. front tyre pneumatique } bandage } de la roue avant. caoutchouc } front view vue de face. front wheel roue avant. _front wheel spindle nuts_ _ecrous du moyeu avant._ front wing aile d'avant. full on, to put the brake serrer le frein à bloc. funnel entonnoir. funnel, with fine strainer entonnoir avec toile métallique fine. funnel, with strainer entonnoir avec grille. g gaiter, tyre manchon guêtre pour pneu. garage garage. gas gaz. gas bag ballon; poche à gaz. gas lever manette d'admission de gaz. gas pipe to motor tube d'alimentation. gas pliers pinces à gaz. gas-tight etanche au gaz. gasket tresse; limande de garniture; garcette. gauge, measuring jauge gauge, pressure manomètre. gauze dust shield grille métallique. gauze filter diaphragme; filtre en toile métallique. gear multiplication; développement; engrenage. gear box boîte de mouvement; boîte d'engrenages. gear box bearings coussinets de boîte de mouvement. gear case garde-chaîne; carter; couvre-engrenages. gear, double-driving mouvement différentiel. gear, in engrené. gear shaft arbre de transmission; arbre de mouvement. gear, to throw into embrayer. gear, to throw out of débrayer. gear up, to multiplier. _geared bicycle, ordinary_ _bicycle multiplié._ gearing, high multiplication forte. general plan plan de l'ensemble. general view ensemble. german silver maillechort. gib contre-clavette. gill ailette. gimlet vrille. gland presse-étoupe. glass glace; cristal; verre. globe joint joint à rotule. goal, to reach the gagner le poteau. goggles lunettes de route. governed commandé. governor régulateur. governor ball boule de régulateur. governor ball fork chape de boule de régulateur. governor cam came de régulateur. governor hammer marteau de came de régulateur. governor hammer shaft arbre porte-marteau de régulateur de moteur. governor lever levier de régulateur. governor spring ressort de régulateur. governor wheel roue de régulateur; volant de régulateur. gradient rampe; pente. gradometer indicateur de pentes. grasshopper spring ressort demi-pincette. gravel gravier. grease graisse. grease, stauffer } graisse consistante. grease, thick } grease injector seringue de graissage. green light feu vert. green sheet (for lantern) lame verte. grid grillage. grind, to roder; meuler. groove cannelure; rainure. grooved pulley poulie à gorge. grooved shaft arbre à rainures. grooved wheel roue à gorge; volant à gorge. grounds, petrol lie; sédiment. gudgeon pin goujon. guide guide; toc; coulisseau. guide for clutch cone toc d'embrayage. guide for governor lever toc de levier de régulateur. gun clip porte-fusil. gunwale plat-bord. gusset gousset. gutter caniveau. h hair seat siège en crin. half-section demi-coupe. half-speed shaft arbre à cames. half-time gear mouvement de réduction à 1/2. hammer marteau. hand control spring ressort d'appareil de commande d'allumage. hand lever levier à main. hand pump pompe à main. hand pump lubricator coup de poing. handicap course proportionelle. handle manette; poignée; manche. _handle bar_ _guidon._ _handle bar stem_ _tube plongeur du guidon._ _handle bar switch_ _poignée d'allumage du guidon._ handle of oil pump poignée de la pompe à huile. hard pumped (tyre) gonflé à bloc. hardened steel acier trempé. _head and handlebar clip_ _collier de serrage du guidon._ _head and handlebar clip bolt and _boulon et écrou du collier du nut_ guidon._ headlight phare. _headlock_ _arrêt de direction._ _head locking nut_ _contre-écrou de direction._ head prop goujon de capote. _head socket_ _douille de direction._ header (of tubular boiler) collecteur. heat, the final la preuve finale; la belle. heat, the first la première épreuve. heats, to run three faire trois épreuves. heavy car voiture lourde. heavy oil pétrole lourd. heavy road route pénible. height hauteur. hemlock hemlock. hemp cord corde chanvre. hexagon-head bolt boulon à 6 pans. hickory hickory. high speed trembler rupteur à grande vitesse. hill climbing trial course de côte. hill, to mount a gravir une côte. hilly accidenté; montueux. hind wheel roue de derrière. hinge charnière; gond; compas. hire, to louer. hired car voiture de louage. hitch accroc; anicroche. holding down bolt boulon d'ancrage. hole trou. hollow creux; creuse. hollow rim jante creuse. hollow tyre caoutchouc creux. honeycomb radiator radiateur nid d'abeilles. hood capote; capuchon. hook crochet. hook bolt boulon à mentonnet. hooter corne d'appel. horn corne. horn bracket porte-trompette. horn, bulb of poire de cornet. horn handle poignée en corne. hot air inlet prise d'air chaud. house, to remiser. hub moyeu. hub brake frein au moyeu. i igniter allumoir; appareil d'allumage. ignition allumage. ignition cam came d'allumage. ignition, electric allumage électrique. ignition lever manette d'allumage. ignition, magneto allumage magnéto-électrique; allumage par magnéto. incandescent ignition allumage à incandescence. inch pouce. inclined water outlet rampe de sortie d'eau. index (cursor) curseur. india-rubber caoutchouc; gomme. induction coil bobine d'induction. induction pipe tube d'admission. induction valve soupape d'admission. inflate, to gonfler. injector injecteur. inlet, petrol orifice de remplissage. inlet valve soupape d'admission; soupape d'aspiration. inlet valve cap chapeau de soupape d'admission. inlet valve cotter clavette de soupape d'admission. inlet valve flange bride d'aspiration. inlet valve seat siège de soupape d'admission. inlet valve spring ressort de soupape d'admission. inlet valve stem tige de soupape d'admission. inlet valve union raccord d'aspiration. inn auberge. inner tube chambre à air. inspection plate plaque de regard. insulate, to isoler. insulation isolation. insulator isolateur. interchangeable parts pièces interchangeables. intermediate shaft arbre intermédiaire. interruptor plug interrupteur à cheville. introducer (of club member) parrain. inverted or spray cone cône renversé; champignon. iron fer. ironmonger quincaillier. iron tyred wheel roue ferrée. irregularities of the road déformations de la route. j jack vérin; cric. japan, to vernir. jersey tricot de laine. jet condenser condenseur à jet. jet, petrol gicleur; bec. jockey pulley poulie de tension. joint joint. journal (of shaft) tourillon. k keel quille. keep chapeau. kerbstone pierre de rebord. key clavette; clef. key, to caler. key way mortaise de clavette. kick back choc en arrière. knapsack sac. knife couteau. knock a-coup. l label etiquette. laced spokes rayons tangents. _lady cyclist_ _vélocipédiste._ _lady's bicycle_ _bicyclette de dame._ _lady's machine_ _machine de dame._ lamp lanterne. lamp bracket porte-lanterne; porte-phare. lamp oil huile à brûler. lamp side-lights verres latéraux de lanterne. lamp stump or socket douille de lanterne. landau landau. landaulet landaulet. landing place débarcadère. lap (in a race) tour de piste. lap-welded soudé par recouvrement. larch mélèze. latch loquet. lattice girder poutre en treillis. lead plomb. leak, to fuir. leakage fuite. leather cuir. leather seat siège de cuir. _leather top of saddle_ _cuir de selle._ left crank manivelle gauche. left handed screw vis à filet gauche. left, to the a gauche. length available for carriage work tablier. length between perpendiculars longueur de tête en tête. length, to win by a gagner d'une longueur. lens lentille. level crossing passage à niveau. lever levier. lever brake frein à levier. liable to duty passible de droits. lift, valve soulèvement; poussoir. lifting jack cric. light lumière. light (adj.) léger, légère. light railway voie légère. light vehicle voiture légère. lignum vitæ gaïac. limousine limousine. linch pin clavette; esse. link maillon; chaînon. linoleum linoleum. linseed oil, boiled huile de lin cuite. live axle essieu moteur. lock serrure; loqueteau. lock nut contre-écrou. locksmith serrurier. long commutator spring ressort de rappel de distributeur. long distance race course de fond. long frame châssis long. longitudinal section coupe longitudinale. loose nut ecrou desserré; écrou lâche. loose road chemin défoncé. loose spoke rayon desserré; rayon lâche. loose tyre caoutchouc décollé. loosen a nut, to dévisser un écrou. loosen a screw, to desserrer une vis. lorry camion. lubricant lubrifiant. lubricate, to lubrifier; graisser. lubricating oil huile à graisser. lubrication graissage. hire, to louer. lubricator graisseur. lubricator ball seat siège pour bille de graisseur. lubricator glass glace de graisseur. lubricator pulley poulie de graisseur. lubricator screw for wheel cap vis graisseur pour chapeau d'essieu. lubricator tap robinet pour alimentation de graisseur. lubricator wheel roue de commande de graisseur. lug oreille. luggage bagage. _luggage carrier, handle bar_ _porte-bagage de guidon._ luggage guard galerie. luggage top couvercle et galerie. luggage van fourgon des bagages. m macadam macadam. macadamised road chaussée en empierrement. machine machine. magnet aimant. mahogany acajou. main axle essieu principal. main road grande route. maker fabricant. male cone cône mâle. _man's bicycle_ _bicyclette d'homme._ map carte; plan. maple erable. maple, rock erable dur. mask masque. master patent brevet principal. measurement over body dimensions de la caisse. mechanically operated commandé mécaniquement. member (club) sociétaire. membrane membrane. mercury mercure. mesh, to engrener. metal métal. metal polish pâte à polir. metalled road route en pierres concassées. methylated spirits alcool dénaturé. mica mica. mile, english un mille anglais. milestone borne. milled molleté. milled edge nut ecrou molleté. misfire raté d'allumage. mixing mélange. mixing chamber chambre de mélange; boîte de mélange. mixing tube tube mélangeur. mixture mélange. morocco maroquin. motive power force motrice. motor moteur. motor and gear groupe moteur. motor bearings coussinets de moteur. _motor bicycle_ _motocyclette_; _bicyclette à moteur_. motor boat bateau à moteur. motor car automobile. _motor cycle_ _motocycle._ _motor cyclist_ _motocycliste._ motor house garage. motor in front moteur à l'avant. motor launch canot automobile. motor piston piston de moteur. _motor quadricycle_ _quadricycle à moteur._ _motor tandem_ _tandem à moteur._ _motor tricycle_ _motocycle_; _tricycle à moteur_. motor under the seat moteur sous le siège. mount, to monter. mud boue; crotte. mudguard garde-boue; garde-crotte. _mudguard bridge_ _tirant des tubes montants arrière._ _mudguard stay_ _tirant de garde-boue._ multiple lubricator graisseur à départs multiples. multitubular radiator radiateur multitubulaire. mushroom cap bouchon à champignon. mushroom valve soupape en champignon. n nail clou. nail catcher arrache-clous. name plate plaque d'identité. _narrow tread bracket_ _pédalier étroit._ nave hoop frette. neat's foot oil huile de pieds de boeuf. neck plate, 4 slat eventail à 4 branches. needle aiguille. needle valve pointeau. nip, to pincer. nipping pinçage. nipple bec; tétine. nipple, spoke ecrou de rayon. noise bruit. noiseless silencieux. non-deflatable indégonflable. non-side-slipping anti-dérapant. non-skidding anti-dérapant. non-skidding band bande anti-dérapante. non-skidding protecting cover contre-enveloppe anti-dérapante. non-stretching belt courroie inextensible. non-trembler coil bobine sans trembleur. notch cran. notched quadrant secteur denté. nozzle tuyère. number numéro. number plate plaque numérotée. nut ecrou. o oak chêne. oak, live chêne vert; yeuse. oak, white chêne blanc. odometer odomètre. offset reducing coupling manchon excentrique de réduction. oil huile. oil bath bain d'huile. oil can burette. oil cup godet à huile. oil funnel entonnoir à huile. oil hole trou de graissage. oil lamp lanterne à huile. oil, lubricating huile à graisser. oil pipe to crank case tube de la pompe à huile au moteur. oil pipe to pump tube du réservoir à la pompe à huile. oil pump pompe à huile. oil reservoir } réservoir à huile. oil tank } oil, to huiler; graisser. oil way gouttière de graissage; rampe d'huile. oiling huilage. omnibus omnibus. opening, exhaust orifice d'échappement. operated commandé. option of purchase faculté d'achat. order, to get out of se détraquer. ordinary car voiture courante. _ordinary geared bicycle_ _bicycle multiplié._ otto cycle a quatre temps. outer cover of tyre enveloppe. outlet sortie; départ. over all hors oeuvre. overflow pipe tube de trop-plein. overhanging shaft arbre en porte à faux. overheating echauffement. overtake, to dépasser. oxide of lead oxide de plomb. oxide of zinc oxide de zinc. p pace allure. pace, to go a good aller bon train. pace, to increase the accélérer. pace-maker entraîneur. pack, to emballer; garnir. packing emballage; garniture. packing collar for pump bague de garniture pour pompe. padlock cadenas. panel panneau. para rubber gomme de para. parabolic reflector réflecteur parabolique. paraffin pétrole lampant; paraffine. parcels van voiture de livraison. passport passeport. patch for repairing tyre pastille pour réparation de pneu. patent brevet d'invention. path, cycle accotement; trottoir cyclable. pattern modèle; échantillon. paved road route pavée. pavement pavé. pawl linguet. _peak, saddle_ _bec de selle._ pedal pédale. _pedal adjusting cone_ _cône de réglage de pédale._ _pedal adjusting nut_ _ecrou de réglage de pédale._ _pedal dust cap_ _couvercle anti-poussiéreux de pédale._ _pedal fastening nut_ _ecrou d'axe de pédale._ pedal gear pédalier. pedal pin axe de pédale. _pedal rubber_ _caoutchouc pour pédales._ pedal shaft arbre de pédale. _pedal washer_ _rondelle de pédale._ performance performance. permit permis de circulation. petrol essence; pétrole. petrol, a supply of une provision de pétrole. petrol can bidon. petrol cup godet à pétrole. petrol inlet orifice de remplissage. petrol jet gicleur. petrol pipe tap robinet de tuyauterie à essence. petrol tank réservoir à essence; réservoir à pétrole. petrol tank tap robinet de réservoir à essence. petrol warmer réchauffeur. petroleum paraffine; pétrole. petroleum lamp lanterne à pétrole. phaeton phaeton. pin goupille. pincers tenailles. pinch, to (tyre) pincer. pinching pinçage. pine pin. pinion pignon. _pillar, seat_ _tige de selle._ pin driver chasse-goupille. pin extractor tire-goupille. pipe from carburetter to mixing tube du carburateur à la boîte de chamber mélange. piping tuyauterie. piston piston. piston connecting rod bielle de moteur. piston pin axe de piston. piston rings segments de piston. piston rod tige de piston. pitch (screw-thread) pas de vis. pitch pine pitch-pin. pivot pivot; tourillon. plan looking upwards plan vu de dessous. planet wheel roue planétaire. planetary member satellite. planking bordé. plate plaque. plate clutch embrayage à plateaux. plate, to nickeler. platinum platine. platinum contact contact platine. platinum contact on trembler contact platine de ressort de spring trembleur. platinum tipped tête platinée. platinum tipped screw vis platinée de contact. platinum tube tube de platine. play jeu. pliers pinces. plotting scale echelle de réduction. pneumatic pneumatique. pneumatic tyre caoutchouc pneumatique. points, sparking plug points de la bougie. pole finder indicateur de pôles. pole, negative pôle négatif. pole piece pièce polaire. pole, positive pôle positif. polish, to polir; astiquer. poncelet 1 h.p. = 3/4 poncelet. porcelain porcelaine. post road route postale. pouch, tool sacoche. press, the la presse. pressed steel acier embouti. pressure gauge manomètre. pricker aiguille. primary shaft arbre primaire. prize, to win a gagner un prix. projecting shaft arbre en porte-à-faux. projector projecteur. prop tirette; renfort. prop, fork contrefourche. propelling power force motrice. propeller propulseur; hélice. protecting band for tyre protecteur de bandage; croissant de protection. protecting cover contre-enveloppe. protector protecteur. public carriage road grande route. pulley poulie. pump pompe. pump, air pompe à air. pump bracket support de pompe. pump bracket stud goujon de support de pompe. pump clip porte-pompe. pump connection raccord de pompe. pump fan roue à ailettes pour pompe. pump, foot pompe à pied. pump, rotary pompe rotative. pump, stirrup pompe à étrier. pump, to (inflate) gonfler. pump tube tube de pompe. pump, tyre pompe pour pneumatique. pump union raccord de pompe. pump washer rondelle pour pompe. pump with clapper valve pompe à battant. puncture perforation. puncture proof imperforable. puncture, to se perforer. punctured tyre pneu perforé. purlin panne. q quadrant secteur. _quadricycle_ _quadricycle._ quadruple gear wheel roue quadruple. quadruplet quadruplette. r race course. racing car voiture de course. _racing machine_ _machine de course._ racing man coureur. rack crémaillère. radiating fin } ailette. radiating flange } radiator radiateur. radiator stay tirant de radiateur. ratchet encliquetage; cliquet. ratchet wheel roue à cliquet. rattan rotin. rattle, to claquer. rat-trap pedal pédale à scie. raw hide cuir vert. reaction spring ressort de rappel. record, to make a etablir un record. red light feu rouge. reed (horn) anche. reference mark point de repère. refill recharge. reflector réflecteur. regulations règlement de circulation. regulator régulateur. relief valve soupape de trop plein. removable détachable; démontable. renew, to renouveler. repair box boîte nécessaire. repair outfit nécessaire de réparations. repair, to réparer. repairer mécanicien. repairs, to do faire des réparations. re-rubbering recaoutchouture. reservoir réservoir. resin résine. retard sparking retard à l'allumage. re-tyring recaoutchouture. reverse movement marche arrière. reverse shaft arbre de changement de marche. reverse shaft spring ressort d'arbre de changement de marche. _reversible handle bar_ _guidon réversible._ reversing gear changement de marche. reversing lever levier de changement de marche. reversing thrust butée de changement de marche. revolution tour. revolution counter compte-tours. revolving seat siège tournant. ribbon road route en lacets. rideable hill côte praticable. rideable road route praticable. rifle clip porte-fusil. right crank manivelle droite. right handed screw vis à filet droit. right, go to the prendre à droite. rim jante; couronne. rim brake frein sur jante. rimer alésoir. ring couronne; bague; anneau. rivet rivet. rivet, to river. rivet, chain tourillon de chaîne. road route; voie; chemin. road, bad mauvaise route; voie impraticable. road book routier. road broken up by traffic chemin défoncé par le roulage. road, carriage route carrossable. road, good bonne route. road map carte routière. road mender cantonnier. _roadster_ _bicyclette de route._ roadway chaussée. rod tige. rod for brake lever tige de levier de frein. rod for carburetter piston tige de piston de carburateur rod for clutch pedal tige de pédale d'embrayage. rod for differential brake tige de frein de différentiel. rod for single cylinder tige entretoise de culasse. roller galet; rouleau. roller bearings coussinets à rouleaux. roller chain chaîne à rouleaux. roof board planche de toiture. rope corde. rosewood palissandre. rotary pump pompe rotative. rotary valve soupape rotative. rough (forging) ebauché. round (on a track) tour de piste. roundabout way détour. row (radiator) etage. rubber caoutchouc. rubber pedal pédale à caoutchouc. rubber sleeve of valve tube caoutchouc de valve. runabout voiturette. rust rouille. rust, to rouiller; se rouiller. rust, to remove dérouiller. rut ornière. s saddle selle. _saddle clip_ _serrage de selle._ _saddle cover_ _couvre-selle._ _saddle, cushion_ _selle à coussins._ _saddle frame_ _cadre de selle._ _saddle lug_ _raccord du pilier de selle._ _saddle, peakless_ _selle sans bec._ _saddle pillar_ _pilier de selle._ _saddle, pneumatic_ _selle pneumatique._ _safety bicycle_ _bicyclette._ safety bolt boulon de sécurité. safety valve soupape de sûreté. sal ammoniac sel ammoniac. sand paper papier de verre. satin wood bois de satin. saw scie. screen, rotary ecran rotatif. screw vis. screw brake frein à vis. screw-cut, to tarauder; fileter. screw driver tournevis. screw for fastening vis de fixation de vis de contact. platinum-tipped screw screw for governor cam vis de came de régulateur. screw for horn bracket vis de collier de trompette. screw for piston pin vis d'axe de piston. screw for starting bush vis de clavetage de la douille de mise en marche. screw for steering vis pour direction. screw tap for burner vis pointeau de brûleur. screw tap for burner tank vis pointeau de lampe de brûleur. screw, to visser. screw wrench clef anglaise. scroll iron main de ressort. seamless tube tube sans soudure. seat siège; place. seat board planche du siège. _seat pillar_ _pilier de selle_; _tube de selle_. secondary shaft arbre secondaire. section iron fer profilé. sectional radiator radiateur cloisonné. sector secteur. sector support support de secteur. security bolt with spring and cap boulon de sécurité à ressort et à chapeau. security stud with wing nut boulon de sécurité à oreilles. segment segment. seize, to gripper. seizing grippement. self-propelling automobile. self-sealing tyre pneumatique auto-réparable. _semi-racer_ _machine demi-course._ set of wires série de fils. set screw vis de rappel. shackle menotte; esse. shade lines traits de force. shaft arbre. shearing strain travail de cisaillement. sheet iron tôle de fer. sheeting tôlerie. shoe, brake sabot de frein. shop atelier. short frame châssis court. shoulder embase; épaulement. show exposition. shutter persienne; volet. side board planche latérale. side door portière latérale. side elevation elévation de côté. side entrance entrée sur le côté. side plate of link lame de maillon. side rail for folding seat accotoir de strapontin. side slip dérapage. side slip, to déraper. side step marchepied de côté. side thrust poussée oblique. side timbers ridelles. side view vue de côté. sight feed lubricator graisseur à débit visible; compte-gouttes. silencer silencieux; pot d'échappement. silver plated plaqué argent. single ended spanner clef simple. single roller chain chaîne à simples rouleaux. single tube tyre pneumatique à tube simple; pneumatique collé. skid, to patiner; déraper. slack tyre pneumatique dégonflé. sleeve manchon; douille. slide coulisse; glissière. slide rod tige de distribution. slide rod guide coulisseau de tige de distribution. slide valve tiroir. slipping glissement. small connecting rod biellette. small plate lame. _smaller cog wheel_ _petit pignon._ smear, to enduire; barboter. snug ergot. snug, with ergoté. socket manchon; douille. _socket, head_ _douille de direction._ soft soap savon noir. solder, to souder. sole bar longeron. sole piece semelle. solid d'une seule pièce. solid tyre caoutchouc plein; bandage plein. solid wheel roue pleine. spanner clef. spanner for steering gear clef pour rotules de direction. spare parts pièces de rechange. spark etincelle. spark gap espace d'étincelle. sparking allumage. sparking advance avance à l'allumage. sparking advance lever manette d'avance à l'allumage. sparking plug bougie; inflammateur; tampon d'allumage. sparking plug stud goujon d'inflammateur. sparking retard retard à l'allumage. specific gravity gravité spécifique. speed vitesse. speed, at full a toute vitesse. speed gear box boîte de vitesse. speed indicator indicateur de vitesse. spindle, pinion axe de pignon. spindle, valve tige de soupape. spiral spring ressort à boudin. spirit essence. spirit lamp lampe à alcool. splash board planche pare-crotte. split fendu. split pin goupille fendue. split pulley poulie en deux pièces. split washer rondelle grover. spoke rai; rayon. spoke nipple ecrou de rayon. spoke tightener serre-rayon. spoke washer rondelle pour rais. sponge eponge. spoon block sabot forme cuiller. spoon brake frein à sabot; frein à patin. sport sport. sprag béquille. sprag bracket chape de béquille. sprag pulley poulie de béquille. spray carburetter carburateur à pulvérisation. spray chamber chambre de pulvérisation; chambre de diffusion. spray nipple or nozzle gigleur; bec. spray vaporiser vaporisateur à pulvérisation. sprayer diffuseur; cône renversé; champignon de pulvérisation. spring ressort. spring box boîte à ressort. spring clutch embrayage à ressort. _spring frame_ _cadre antivibrateur._ spring of burner valve ressort de vis pointeau de brûleur. spring of compression valve ressort de soupape de compression. spring of contact breaker ressort de trembleur. spring seat siège à ressorts. sprocket axle support support d'arbre de pignon de chaîne. sprocket bolt colonnette. sprocket shaft arbre de pignon de chaîne. sprocket wheel pignon de chaîne. sprocket wheel washer rondelle de pignon de chaîne. spruce spruce. spur gear engrenage droit. spurt, to donner un coup de collier. square coil bobine carrée. squared shaft arbre à carré. stack of tubes faisceau tubulaire. stage, day's etape journalière. staggered en quinconces. stand support. stand (for spectators) tribune. staple gâche; crampon. start, to démarrer; mettre en marche. starting mise en marche; démarrage. starting catch or bolt verrou de mise en marche. starting handle manivelle de mise en marche. starting handle axle axe de manivelle de mise en marche. starting pin goupille de mise en marche. starting pinion pignon de mise en marche. starting pinion bush douille de pignon de mise en marche. stay tirant; entretoise. stay rod tige entretoise. stay tube tube tirant. steel acier. steel, cold drawn acier étiré à froid. steel cord corde en acier. steel rim jante en acier. steel wire fil d'acier. steep ascent montée rapide. steep descent descente rapide. steep gradient forte rampe. steer, to diriger. steering direction. steering axle essieu directeur. steering bar barre de direction. steering collar emplanture pour direction. steering column tube de direction; barre verticale de direction. steering gear box boîte de direction. steering lever levier de direction. _steering lock_ _arrêt de direction._ _steering post_ _tube intérieur de direction._ steering quadrant secteur de direction. steering rod bielle de commande de direction; tige de direction. steering rod bolt axe de bielle de direction. steering sector secteur pour direction. steering shaft arbre de direction. _steering wheel_ _roue directrice._ steering wheel, hand volant de direction. stem (boat) etrave. _stem, handle bar_ _tube plongeur de guidon._ stem, valve tige de soupape. step marchepied. step bearing crapaudine. step pulley poulie étagée. step tread palette de marchepied. stern frame cadre d'hélice. stern post etambot. stern tube tube d'arbre de l'hélice. sticking plaster taffetas. stirrup pump pompe à étrier. stop butoir. stop, to s'arrêter. stop valve soupape d'arrêt. stoppage arrêt. stopping place etape. straighten, to redresser. strap courroie. street rue. stroke of piston course du piston. stud goujon. stud bolt colonnette. stud, security boulon de sécurité. stud with projection goujon ergot. studded tread band protecteur antidérapant à rivets. stuffed rembourré stuffing box presse-étoupe; boîte à garniture. subscription abonnement; cotisation. suction aspiration. suction stroke temps d'aspiration. suction tubing tuyauterie d'aspiration. suction valve cap bouchon d'aspiration. suction valve flange bride d'aspiration. sulphuric acid acide sulfurique. superheater surchauffeur. support support. support for spring main de support. surface carburetter carburateur par surface. surface condenser condenseur par surface. syringe seringue. switch interrupteur. switch block sabot d'interrupteur. switch off, to couper le circuit. switch on, to fermer le circuit. swivel emerillon. t tack pointe. tail-board tablier d'arrière. tail board fastening (wagon) fermeture de hayon. tail board hook crochet de tablier. tail end shaft arbre porte-hélice. tallow wood arbre à suif. tandem tandem. _tandem safety_ _bicyclette-tandem._ _tandem tricycle_ _tricycle tandem._ tangent spokes rayons tangents. take to pieces, to démonter. tank réservoir. tap robinet. tap, screwing taraud. taper pin goupille conique. tappet toc; broche d'entraînement. tarpaulin bâche. tax plate plaque de contrôle. teak teck. tee té. telescopic pump pompe télescope. template gabarit. tenon tenon. terminal borne. thimble cosse. thong lanière. thread, to fileter. threaded pin goupille filetée. three way tap robinet à trois voies. three way water tap robinet à trois débits pour circulation d'eau. thread (screw) filet. throttle valve soupape à papillon; étrangleur. throw out of gear, to débrayer. thrust poussée; butée. thrust bearing palier de butée. thrust block butée. thrust collar bague de butée. thrust rod bielle de poussée. thrust screw vis de poussée. ticket of membership certificat de membre. ticking for covering cushions toile treillis pour coussins. tighten, to serrer; tendre. tightener, belt tendeur pour courroie. tiller barre. timekeeper chronométreur. timing gear appareil d'avance à l'allumage. timing sector or quadrant secteur pour avance à l'allumage. _toe clip_ _rattrape de pédale_; _calepieds_. tool bag sacoche. tool pouch sacoche. tommy bar broche. tonneau tonneau. tongs tenailles; pinces. _top head cup_ _raccord supérieur avant._ top part of diaphragm cuvette de piston à air. top shaft arbre supérieur. _top tube_ _tube supérieur_; _tube horizontal_. torque torque. tour voyage; tournée. touring le tourisme. touring car voiture de tourisme. tourist touriste. tow, to remorquer. track, racing piste. tractive power effort de traction. tractor tracteur. trade, the le commerce. trade mark marque de fabrique. traffic, heavy encombrement de voitures. trailer voiturette remorque. tread chape; bande de roulement; croissant de protection. trembler trembleur; rupteur. trembler coil bobine à trembleur. _tricycle_ _tricycle._ trip voyage de plaisir. trip rod culbuteur. trip rod collar bague de culbuteur. trip rod collar pin goupille de bague de culbuteur. triple gear wheel roue triple. triple inlet valve seat siège triple de soupape d'aspiration. trouser clip pince-pantalon. true, to rectifier. true a wheel, to centrer une roue. tube tube. tube expander sertisseur. tubular box spanner clef en tube concentrique. tubular steel shaft arbre tube acier. turning handle poignée tournante. turnpike road route de grande communication. turpentine térébenthine. tyre caoutchouc; pneumatique; bandage. tyre cement colle; mastic. tyre cover enveloppe. tyre pump pompe à pneumatique. tyre remover démonte-pneu; démonte-bandage. tyre solution dissolution. twin tap robinet de mélange. twist belt courroie torse. _two speed machine_ _machine à deux vitesses._ two to one gear mouvement de dédoublement. two to one shaft arbre à cames. two way tap robinet à deux voies. u unattached indépendant. underframe châssis inférieur. under stem of carburetter dessous de carburateur. uniform, club costume social. union raccord. union, cycling union vélocipédique. universal joint joint universel; joint à rotule. universal shackle jumelle. unpuncturable imperforable. unrideable impraticable. unrivet, to dériver. unscrew, to dévisser. up hill, to go monter une côte. upholstered garni; capitonné. upholstering garniture. v v belt courroie trapézoïdale; courroie en v. v block on trembler bloc en v du trembleur. valve, petrol inlet clapet d'alimentation; pointeau d'arrivée d'essence. valve valve; soupape; clapet. valve chain chaînette de valve. valve chamber chambre de soupapes. valve chamber cap bouchon de chambre des soupapes. valve cone cône de soupape. valve dust cap bouchon de soupape. valve lifter lève-soupape. valve plug (tyre) obus. valve seat siège de soupape. valve spindle } tige de soupape. valve stem } valve, to grind a meuler une soupape. van voiture de livraison. van, large fourgon de livraison. vapourising carburetter carburateur à évaporation. variable speed vitesse variable. vehicle véhicule. ventilator ventilateur. vertical section coupe verticale. vibration trépidation. vice etau. victoria victoria. voltage voltage. voltmeter voltmètre. vulcanised fibre fibre vulcanisée. vulcanised rubber caoutchouc vulcanisé. w wagonette wagonnette. wallet sacoche. walnut noyer. warmer réchauffeur. warming pipe tube-réchauffeur. wash-board fargue. washer rondelle. waste oil screw vis de purge pour l'huile de graissage. waste oil tap robinet de purge pour l'huile de graissage. waste petrol screw vis de purge pour carburateur. waste petrol tap robinet de purge pour carburateur. watch holder porte-montre. water eau. water cap bouchon de réservoir. water circulation circulation d'eau. water circulation connection tubulure pour circulation d'eau. water cooling refroidissement à l'eau. water gauge niveau d'eau. water gauge glass tube de niveau d'eau. water jacket culasse à eau; enveloppe d'eau. water receiver round exhaust valve poche d'eau autour de la soupape d'échappement. waterproof imperméable; étanche à l'eau. waterproof bag sac en toile caoutchoutée. waterproof cape pèlerine. water tank réservoir à eau; caisse à eau. water tube bouilleur. watering cart arrosoir; tonneau d'arrosage. wear and tear usure. web (of a beam) ame. wedge coin; cale. weighing machine bascule. weight poids. weld, to souder. weldless sans soudure. well seat siège profond. wheel roue. wheel base empattement. wheel cap chapeau de roue. wheel cap spanner clef pour essieux de voitures. wheel gauge ecartement des roues. wheel guard couvre-roues. wheel iron head embrasure de ressort. wheel pulley poulie jante. whip cravache. whistle sifflet. white light feu blanc. wick mèche. wind vent. wind, head vent contraire. wind shield contrevent. winding road route en lacets. window blind store. wing aile. winged nut ecrou à oreilles. winning post poteau d'arrivée. wipe contact distributeur d'allumage. wire clamp serre-fil. wire clamp for commutator serre-fil pour distributeur d'allumage. wire clamp for timing sector serre-fil pour secteur d'avance à l'allumage. wire drawing of steam laminage de la vapeur. wire gauze toile métallique. wire, iron fil de fer. wire rope câble métallique. wire seat siège à tissu métallique. wired on cover enveloppe à tringles. wooden rim jante en bois. wooden seat siège de bois. working drawing dessin d'exécution. working load charge utile. working parts pièces mécaniques. working pressure pression effective. workmanship main d'oeuvre. works ateliers; fabrique; usine. worm filet; vis sans fin. wrench, adjustable clef anglaise. wrist pin axe d'assemblage. wrought iron fer forgé. y yew if. yoke etrier. z zinc zinc. french-english. abonnement subscription. acajou mahogany. _acatène_ _chainless._ accélérateur accelerator. accessoires accessories. accidenté hilly. accotement cycle path. accotoir de strapontin side rail for folding seat. accumulateur accumulator; storage battery. acétylène acetylene. acétylite acetylite. acier embouti pressed steel. acier trempé hardened steel. a-coup knock. affaisser, s' to collapse (of tyres). agencement fitting. agrafe de courroie belt fastener. aiguille needle; pricker. aile wing. aile d'arrière back wing. aile d'avant front wing. ailette gill; flange; fin. ajouré with an opening. alcool dénaturé methylated spirits. alésage bore. alésoir rimer. allumage ignition; sparking. allumage à incandescence tube ignition. allumage électrique electric ignition. allumage magnéto-électrique magneto-ignition. allumage par magnéto magneto-ignition. allumage prématuré back fire. allumeur contact breaker. allumoir lighter; igniter. ame web. amiante asbestos. ampérage amperage. ampère ampere. ampèremètre ammeter. ampoule verre glass bulb. anche reed. anti-dérapant non-skidding. arbre à cames cam shaft. arbre à carré squared shaft. arbre à plateaux flanged shaft. arbre d'accélérateur accelerator shaft. arbre de changement de vitesse change speed shaft. arbre de différentiel differential shaft. arbre de direction steering shaft. arbre d'embrayage clutch shaft. arbre de moteur engine shaft; motor shaft. arbre de mouvement gear shaft. arbre de pédale pedal shaft. arbre de pignon de chaîne sprocket shaft. arbre de ralentisseur accelerator shaft. arbre de transmission gear shaft; counter shaft. arbre en porte-à-faux overhanging or projecting shaft. arbre inférieur clutch shaft; bottom shaft. arbre intermédiaire reverse shaft; counter shaft; intermediate shaft. arbre porte-hélice tail end shaft. arbre porte-marteau de régulateur governor hammer shaft. de moteur arbre primaire primary shaft. arbre secondaire secondary shaft. arbre supérieur top shaft. arrache-clous nail catcher. _arrêt de direction_ _headlock_; _steering lock_. arrière-train after carriage. arrivée d'essence petrol inlet. aspiration suction. astiquer to polish. atelier workshop. attache clamp. automobile self-propelling; motorcar. autoréparateur, -rice self-sealing. avance à l'allumage sparking advance. avance à l'allumage, appareil d' timing gear. avant-train fore-carriage. axe axle; bolt; pin; spindle. axe d'articulation de direction steering rod bolt. axe d'assemblage wrist pin. axe de bielle de direction steering rod bolt. axe des abscisses datum line. axe de flotteur de carburateur carburetter float spindle. axe de fourchette porte-galet exhaust fork roller bolt. d'échappement axe de frein brake pin. axe de galet du levier exhaust fork roller bolt. porte-galet de moteur. axe de levier de changement de forward and reverse lever rod pin. marche axe de manivelle de mise en marche starting handle axle. axe des mâchoires du frein de differential brake bolt. différentiel. axe de pédale pedal pin. axe de pignon pinion spindle. axe de piston piston pin; gudgeon pin. _axe de volant_ _driving shaft._ _axe du pédalier_ _crank axle._ axe en axe, d' centre to centre. _axe moteur_ _driving shaft._ axe principal main axle. axe supportant les distributeurs commutator cam shaft. d'allumage. b bac d'accumulateur containing case. bâche tarpaulin. bague collar; bush. bague à collerette flanged collar. bague de biellette de rappel de collar for digger. tige bague de butée thrust collar. bague de captation thrust collar. bague de culbuteur trip rod collar. bague de centrage centering ring. bague de corps de distributeur commutator bush. d'allumage _bague de réglage de direction_ _steering head lock nut._ bain d'huile oil bath. balai brush. balai des distributeurs d'allumage commutator brush. ballon gas bag; canopy. ballon démontable removable canopy. bandage tyre. bandage plein solid tyre. bande anti-dérapante non-skidding band. bande de roulement tread. baquet bucket seat. barbotage smearing. barboter to smear or daub. barre d'accouplement de direction front steering bar. barre franche tiller. bascule weighing machine. basse tension low tension. bateau à moteur motor boat. bâti de moteur crank case. batterie battery. batterie de piles sèches dry battery. bec nipple; burner. _bec de selle_ _peak of saddle._ _bécane_ _bike._ béquille sprag; devil. _bicycle multiplié_ _ordinary geared bicycle._ _bicyclette_ _safety bicycle._ _bicyclette à moteur_ _motor bicycle._ _bicyclette de dame_ _lady's bicycle._ _bicyclette d'homme_ _man's bicycle._ _bicyclette pliante_ _folding bicycle._ _bicycliste_ _bicyclist._ bidon petrol can; oilcan. bielle connecting rod; rod. bielle de changement de vitesse change speed connecting rod. bielle de commande de débrayage brake and clutch lever connecting et de frein rod. bielle de commande de direction steering rod. bielle de commande de frein brake lever connecting rod. bielle de commande de piston de carburetter connecting rod. carburateur bielle de moteur piston connecting rod. bielle de poussée thrust rod. bielle de rappel de tige digger connecting rod. bielle de tension de chaîne chain adjusting rod. biellette small connecting rod. bille ball. bille de carburateur carburetter ball or valve. bille de graisseur lubricator ball. biseauté bevelled. blindage casing. blindé cased. bloc block. bloc de chaîne chain block. bloc du trembleur trembler block. bloc, gonflé à hard pumped (tyre). bloc, serrer le frein à to put the brake full on. bobine à trembleur trembler coil. bobine carrée square coil. bobine d'induction induction coil. bobine quadruple 4-way coil. bobine sans trembleur non-trembler coil. bois d'arbre à suif tallow wood. boisseau de butoir buffer guide. boîte box. boîte à garniture stuffing box. boîte à graisse axle box. boîte à ressort spring box. boîte de différentiel differential gear box. boîte de direction steering gear box. boîte d'engrenages gear box. boîte de mélange mixing chamber. boîte de mouvement gear box. boîte de vitesse speed gear box. boîte du flotteur float chamber. boîte nécessaire repair box. bombé convex. bordé planking. borgne blind. borne terminal. bouche-trou cap for oil hole. bouchon cap; plug; nipple. bouchon à champignon mushroom cap. bouchon d'accumulateur accumulator cap. bouchon d'aspiration suction valve cap. bouchon de dessus de carburateur carburetter float cap. bouchon d'échappement exhaust valve cap. bouchon d'emplissage de réservoir cap for water pipe. d'eau bouchon d'inflammateur firing nipple. bouchon de réservoir water cap. bouchon du regard d'échappement exhaust valve inspection cap. bouchon de valve valve cap. bouchon de vidange blow off plug. bouchon registre de prise d'air carburetter air cap. pour carburateur bougie sparking plug. bouilleur water tube. bouillotte footwarmer (water). boule de régulateur governor ball. bouleau birch-wood. boulon bolt. boulon à mentonnet hook bolt. boulon d'ancrage holding down bolt. boulon de frein brake screw. boulon de sécurité safety bolt; security stud. boulon de sécurité à oreilles security stud with wing nut. boulon de sécurité à ressort et à security stud with spring and cap. chapeau _boulon du collier de direction_ _head and handle bar clip bolt._ boulon, 6 pans hexagon head bolt. boulon et écrou bolt and nut. boulon et écrou de chaîne chain bolt and nut. _boulon et écrou de la tige de _seat pillar bolt and nut._ selle_ bourrelet beaded edge of tyre cover. bouton button. bouton d'arrêt stop button. bouton de manivelle crank pin. bouton de porte door handle. braser to braze. brassière arm sling. brevet d'invention patent. brevet principal master patent. bride clamp; flange. bride d'aspiration inlet valve flange. bride d'échappement exhaust valve flange. bride de ressort clip for spring. briquet clamp. broche tommy bar; drift; gudgeon pin. broche d'entraînement tappet. brosse à chaîne chain brush. brûleur burner. buis box-wood. burette oil can. butée thrust block. butée à billes ball bearing thrust. butée de changement de marche reversing thrust. butoir stop. c cab cab. câble wire; rope. câble flexible flexible wire. cache-poussière dust cap. _cadre_ _frame._ _cadre à ressorts_ _spring frame._ _cadre antivibrateur_ _spring frame._ _cadre de selle_ _saddle frame._ _cadre en croix_ _cross frame._ cadre d'hélice stern frame. caisse body. caisse à eau water tank. caisse pliante folding crate. cale block; wedge. _calepieds_ _toe clip._ caler to key. calfater to caulk. calotte de soupape d'aspiration inlet valve cap. calotte de timbre dome of bell. came cam. came d'allumage ignition cam. came d'échappement exhaust lift cam. came de régulateur governor cam. came fibre fibre cam. camion dray; lorry. caniveau gutter. canot automobile motor launch. caoutchouc india rubber; tyre. _caoutchouc cannelé pour pédales_ _fluted pedal rubber._ caoutchouc creux hollow tyre. caoutchouc plein solid tyre. caoutchouc pneumatique pneumatic tyre. _caoutchouc pour pédales_ _pedal rubber._ capitonné upholstered. capot couvre-moteur bonnet. capote hood. capuchon hood. capuchon de brûleur burner guard. capuchon de lanterne flame guard. carburateur carburetter. carburateur à évaporation vapourising carburetter. carburateur à niveau constant constant level carburetter. carburateur à pulvérisation spray carburetter. carburateur par surface surface carburetter. carbure de calcium carbide. cardan cardan; arbor shaft. carneau fire-tube. carrefour crossways. carrosserie carriage work. carrossier carriage builder. carter crank case; gear case. carton d'amiante asbestos millboard. catalytique catalytic. catalyse catalysis. cèdre cedar. celluloïd celluloid. cémenter to case-harden. centrer une roue to true a wheel. chaîne chain. chaîne à blocs block chain. chaîne à doubles rouleaux double roller chain. chaîne à rouleaux roller chain. chaîne à simples rouleaux single roller chain. chaînette de valve valve chain. chaînon link of chain. chambre à air air tube; inner tube. chambre de combustion combustion chamber. chambre d'explosion explosion chamber. chambre de diffusion spray chamber. chambre de mélange mixing chamber. chambre de pulvérisation spray chamber. chambre de soupapes valve chamber. champignon inverted cone. champignon de pulvérisation sprayer. chanfreiner to chamfer. changement de marche reversing gear. changement de vitesse change speed gear. chape tread of tyre; end; bracket; fork. chape de béquille sprag bracket. chape de boule de régulateur governor ball fork. chape du cliquet de levier de change speed lever catch fork. changement de vitesse chape de levier de frein brake lever end. chape de piston du carburateur carburetter piston rod end. chape de tige de frein brake rod end. chape de tige entretoise de cylinder head stay end. culasse chapeau cap; keep. chapeau de palier bearing keep. chapeau de roue wheel cap. chapeau de soupape valve cap. _chapeau de tension_ _cap of draw-link._ charge de rupture breaking strain. charge utile working load. charger to charge. charnière hinge. charnière avec cache-fente concealed hinge. chasse-clous nail-catcher. chasse-goupille pin driver. châssis chassis; frame. châssis cintré curved frame. châssis court short frame. châssis inférieur under-frame. châtaignier chestnut. chaudière boiler. chaudière à vaporisation flash boiler. instantanée chaufferette footwarmer. chaussée roadway. chaussée en empierrement macadamised road. chemin road. chemin forain wide thoroughfare. cheminée d'aspiration air chimney. chêne oak. chêne blanc white oak. chêne vert live oak. chevaux effectifs, force en brake horse-power. cheville de l'interrupteur connecting plug. chicanes, en arranged as baffles. choc en arrière back fire; back kick. circulation d'eau water circulation. cisaillement, travail de shearing strain. clapet flap valve; valve. clapet d'alimentation feed valve. claquer to rattle. clavette key; cotter; linch-pin. _clavette de pédalier_ _bottom bracket cotter pin._ clavette de soupape d'admission inlet valve cotter. clef spanner. clef américaine à molette billing spanner. "billing." clef anglaise screw wrench. clef à deux branches double branch spanner. clef à douille box spanner. clef de serrage spanner. clef double double ended spanner. clef en tube concentrique tubular box spanner. clef pour essieux de voitures wheel cap spanner. clef pour rotules de direction spanner for steering gear. clef simple single ended spanner. clin, à clincher built. clinquant foil. cliquet catch; ratchet. cliquet de levier de changement change speed lever catch. de vitesse cliquet de levier de frein brake lever catch. clochette bell. cloison partition. clou à parquet brad. coefficient de friction coefficient of friction. coin wedge. colle cement (for tyres). collecteur commutator; header (of boiler). collet collar. collier band; strap. collier d'excentrique eccentric strap. collier de frein brake band; brake clip. _collier de levier de frein_ _brake detachable clip._ _collier de réglage des cuvettes _bottom, bracket adjusting de pédalier_ collar._ collier de serrage clip. _collier de serrage de direction_ _head and handle bar clip._ collier de trompette horn bracket. _collier de tube de frein_ _brake adjusting clip._ colonnette sprocket bolt; stud bolt. commandé operated; governed. compas hinge. compte-gouttes drip feed lubricator. compte-tours revolution counter. condenseur à jet jet condenser. condenseur à surface surface condenser. cône cone. cône d'embrayage clutch cone. _cône de moyeu arrière_ _back hub cone._ _cône de moyeu avant_ _front hub cone._ _cône de pédale_ _pedal cone._ cône de réglage adjusting cone. _cône du raccord inférieur avant_ _bottom head cone._ cône femelle female cone. _cône fixe du moyeu arrière_ _rear hub fixed cone._ _cône fixe du moyeu avant_ _front hub fixed cone._ cône mâle male cone. cône renversé inverted or spray cone. congé fillet. contact platine platinum contact. contour outline. contre-clavette gib. contre-écrou lock-nut. _contre-écrou de direction_ _head locking nut._ _contre-écrou du pignon arrière_ _chain ring lock nut._ contre-enveloppe protecting cover. contrefourche fork prop. _contrepédaler_ _to back-pedal._ contre-plaque baffle plate. contrepoids balance weight. contrepoids de vilebrequin crank back-balance. contre-pression back pressure. contrevent wind shield. corde cord. corde d'amiante asbestos cord. corde de chanvre hemp cord. corde en acier steel cord. cornet d'alarme horn; hooter. cornière angle bar. cosse thimble. costume social club costume. côte praticable navigable hill. coude elbow. coulisse slide. coulisseau block; guide. coulisseau de tige de distribution slide rod guide. coup, à knock. coup de collier spurt. coup de poing hand pump. coupe section. coupé brougham. coupe-circuit cut-out. coupe longitudinale longitudinal section. coupe transversale cross section. coupe verticale vertical section. couper le circuit to switch off. courant current. couronne ring; crown; rim. couronne de billes ball race. _couronne de fourche avant_ _front fork crown._ courroie belt; strap. courroie à talon edged belt. courroie collée cemented belt. courroie cousue sewn belt. courroie en =v= =v= belt. courroie inextensible non-stretching belt. courroie poil de chameau camel hair belt. courroie sans fin endless belt. courroie torse twist belt. courroie trapézoïdale =v=-belt. course du piston stroke of piston. course de côte hill climbing trial. course de fond long distance race. coussin cushion. coussinet bearing. coussinets à billes ball bearings. coussinets à cônes réglables adjustable cone bearings. coussinets à cuvettes réglables adjustable cup bearings. coussinets à double filet double ball bearings. coussinets ajustables adjustable bearings. coussinets à rouleaux roller bearings. coussinets de boîte de mouvement gear box bearings. coussinets de moteur motor bearings. couvercle cover; canopy; top. couvercle antipoussiéreux dust cap. couvercle d'allumage cover of contact breaker. couvercle d'arbre à cames cam shaft cover. couvercle de culasse cylinder head cover. couvercle démontable removable canopy. couvercle et galerie luggage top. couvre-chaîne chain guard. couvre-engrenages gear case. couvre-roues wheel guard. _couvre-selle_ _saddle cover._ crampon staple. crapaudine step bearing. crémaillère rack. crevaison burst (tyre). crever to burst; to collapse. cran notch. cric lifting jack. cristal glass. crochet bell fastener; hook. crochet de tablier tailboard hook. crochets de la jante clinch of the rim. croisillon cross shaft. croissant de protection protecting band; tread. crosse cross head. crupon pour courroie belt-butt. cuir leather. cuir chrome chrome leather. _cuir de selle_ _leather top of saddle._ cuir vert raw hide. cuivré copper plated. cuivre jaune brass. cuivre rouge copper. culasse cylinder head. culasse à eau water jacket. culbuteur trip rod; digger. culotte bridge piece. culotte d'aspiration bridge piece for inlet valve. culotte d'échappement bridge piece for exhaust. curseur index; cursor. cuvette ball race; cup (of bearings). cuvette arrière d'essieu à billes ball race for back axle. cuvette avant d'essieu à billes ball race for front axle. cuvette de brûleur burner cup or pan. _cuvette de pédalier_ _bottom bracket barrel._ cuvette de piston à air top part of diaphragm. cylindre cylinder. cylindre-culasse centaur cylinder. d dard dragon tongue. débit feed. débrayer to disengage; to de-clutch. débrayer la courroie to throw off the belt. déchets de coton cotton waste. décompression compression relief. déformations de la route irregularities of the road. dégonfler to deflate. démarrage starting. démarrer to start. demi-coupe half section. démontable detachable. démonte-bandage } tyre remover. démonte-pneu } démonter to take to pieces. démonteur de bandage tyre remover. densimètre densimeter. dent de roue cog. denture tooth; cog. départ outlet. dérapage side slip. déraper to side slip; to skid. descente dangereuse dangerous hill. désengrener to throw out of gear. dessin d'exécution working drawing. dessous de carburateur under stem of carburetter. détente de vapeur expansion of steam. détraquer to get out of order. développement gear. déversoir flooder. diaphragme diaphragm. diffuseur sprayer. dimensions de la caisse measurement over body. direction steering; _head of a bicycle_. disposition schématique diagrammatic arrangement. disque disc. disque d'excentrique eccentric sheave. dissolution tyre solution. distance distance. distance parcourue distance run. distributeur d'allumage } distributeur de courant pour } commutator; wipe contact. allumage } domaine public, le brevet est the patent has expired. dans le douille bush; sleeve. _douille de direction_ _head socket._ douille de lanterne lamp stump. douille de mise en marche starting pinion bush. douille de régulateur governor sleeve. dressé au tour faced in the lathe. dynamo dynamo. e ebauché rough; forging. ebène ebony. ecartement des essieux distance between axles. ecartement des roues wheel gauge. echappement exhaust. echauffement overheating. echelle de réduction plotting scale. eclater to burst (tyre). ecrou nut. ecrou à encoches } castle nut. ecrou à entailles } ecrou à oreilles butterfly nut. ecrou borgne cap nut. _ecrou d'axe de pédale_ _pedal fastening nut._ ecrou d'essieu à billes ball bearing axle arm nut. ecrou de rayon spoke nipple. _ecrou de réglage de pédale_ _pedal adjusting nut._ _ecrou du collier de direction_ _head and handle bar clip nut._ _ecrou du moyeu arrière_ _back hub spindle nut._ _ecrou du moyeu avant_ _front hub spindle nut._ ecrou molleté milled edge nut. effort de flexion bending strain. effort de traction tractive power. elément cell. elévation de bout end elevation. elévation de côté side elevation. elévation de face front elevation. email enamel. emailler to enamel. embase shoulder. embouti dished; pressed. embrasure de ressort wheel iron head. embrayage clutch. embrayage à cônes cone clutch. embrayage à friction friction clutch. embrayage à griffes dog clutch. embrayage à plateaux plate clutch. embrayage à ressort spring clutch. embrayer to throw into gear; to clutch. emérillon swivel. empattement wheel base. emplanture pour direction steering collar. encliquetage ratchet. enduire to smear. enduit pour courroies belt grease; belt dressing. engrenage gear. engrenage à chevrons double helical gear. engrenage conique bevel gear. engrenage de dédoublement two to one gear. engrenage droit spur gear. engrené in gear. engrener to mesh (of cog wheels). ensemble general view. entonnoir funnel. entonnoir avec grille funnel with strainer. entonnoir avec toile métallique funnel with fine strainer. fine entourage bonnet. entrée sur le côté side entrance. entretoise stay. _entretoise des tubes montants _mudguard bridge._ arrière_ _entretoise fourche arrière_ _back fork bridge._ enveloppe cover; outer cover of tyre. enveloppe d'eau water jacket. enveloppe du vilebrequin crank case. enveloppe protectrice protecting cover. epaulement shoulder. equerre angle plate. erable maple. erable dur rock maple. ergoté with snug. esse linch-pin; shackle. essence petrol; spirit. essieu axle. essieu à billes ball bearing axle. essieu brisé divided axle. essieu directeur steering axle. essieu droit straight axle. essieu coudé crank axle. essieu moteur driving axle; live axle. essieu porteur carrying axle. essieu tournant live axle. etage (radiateur) row. etambot stern post. etanche à la poussière dust proof. etape stopping place. etape journalière day's stage. etincelle spark. etincelle chaude fat spark. etiquette label. etiré à froid cold drawn. etoquiau detent pin. etrangler to throttle. etranglement throttling. etrave stem. etrier yoke. etudier to design. eventail à 4 branches 4 slat neck plate. explosion prématurée back fire. exposant exhibitor. exposition exhibition; show. extincteur extinguisher. f fabrique factory. faisceau tubulaire stack of tubes. fargue wash-board. fendu split. fer en u channel iron. fer forgé wrought iron. fer profilé section iron. fermer le circuit to close the circuit. fermeture closing; fastening. fermeture de hayon tailboard fastening. feu blanc white light. feu rouge red light. feu vert green light. fibre fibre. fibre isolante insulation fibre. fil d'acier steel wire. fil de fer iron wire. fil électrique electric wire. filet thread of a screw. filetage double mâle double male screwed. filtre filter. flasque cheek. flotteur float. flotteur de carburateur carburetter float. fonte cast iron. forte rampe steep gradient. fou, folle loose. _fourche arrière_ _back fork._ _fourche avant_ _front fork._ fourchette fork. fourchette d'échappement exhaust valve fork. fourchette de rappel de tige digger fork. fourchette de tirage de levier de brake rod fork. frein fourchette porte-galet exhaust roller fork. d'échappement fourgon de livraison large van. fourré bushed. fourreau de fourche fork blade. franc-bord, à carvel built. frein brake. frein à bande band brake. frein à collier band brake. _frein à contre-pédalage_ _back-pedalling brake._ frein à enroulement band brake. frein à expansion expansion brake. frein à levier lever brake. frein à mâchoires clasp brake; clip brake. frein à patin spoon brake. frein à sabot spoon brake. frein à tambour drum brake. frein à vis screw brake. _frein du moyeu_ _hub brake._ frein sur jante rim brake. frein du différentiel differential brake. freiner to apply the brake. frêne ash. frette ferrule; nave hoop. frottement friction. frottements à cônes cone bearings. fuite d'air leakage of air. fusée d'essieu axle arm. g gabarit template. gâche staple. gaïac lignum vitæ. gaine case; sheath. galerie luggage guard. galet roller. galet d'arbre à cames cam shaft roller. galet de chaîne chain roller. galet de débrayage clutch lever roller. galet de fourchette d'échappement exhaust fork roller. galet de friction friction roller. garage garage; motor house. garcette gasket. garde-boue mudguard. garde-boue arrière back mudguard. garde-boue avant front mudguard. garde-chaîne chain guard; gear case. garde-crotte mudguard. _garde-jupe_ _dress guard._ garni upholstered; bushed. garniture lining; upholstering; packing. gaz acétylène acetylene gas. gaz brûlé burnt gas. gaz de décharge } exhaust gas. gaz d'échappement } générateur à vaporisation flash boiler. instantanée gerçure boil; bulge on cover. gicleur; gigleur petrol jet. glace glass; window. glace de couvercle de commutator glass. distributeur d'allumage glace de graisseur lubricator glass. glace du tiroir face of slide valve. glissement slipping. glissière slide. godet à huile oil cup. godet à pétrole petrol cup. gomme de para para rubber. gonfler to inflate; to pump (tyres). goujon stud. goujon de capote head prop. goujon d'inflammateur sparking plug stud. goujon de support de pompe pump bracket stud. goujon ergot stud with projection. goupille pin. goupille conique taper pin. goupille de bague de culbuteur trip rod collar pin. goupille de mise en marche starting gear pin. goupille fendue split pin. goupille filetée threaded pin. gousset corner plate; gusset. gouttières de graissage oil ways. grain thrust block. graissage lubricator. graisse grease. graisse consistante stauffer grease; thick grease. graisser to lubricate. graisseur lubricator. graisseur à débit visible sight feed lubricator. graisseur à départs multiples multiple lubricator. graisseur compte-gouttes drip feed lubricator. graisseur coup de poing hand pump lubricator. graisseur de bâti crank case lubricator. _grand pignon_ _chain wheel._ grande route public carriage road. gravier gravel. grelot bell. griffe dog. grillage grid. grille anti-poussière } gauze dust shield. grille métallique } grippement friction; seizing. gripper to seize. groupe moteur motor and gear. guichet de prise d'air air inlet flap or valve. guide guide. guide de fourchette d'échappement exhaust fork guide. guide de frein brake guide. guide de soupape d'échappement exhaust valve guide. _guidon_ _handle bar._ _guidon cintré_ _bent handle bar._ _guidon réversible_ _reversible handle bar._ h haute tension high tension. hayon front or tail board of a wagon. hélice propeller. hemlock hemlock. hernie boil; bulge on cover. hêtre beech. hickory hickory. horloge de voiture carriage clock. huilage oiling. huile oil. huile à graisser lubricating oil. huile de lin cuite boiled linseed oil. huile de pieds de boeuf neat's foot oil. huileur oil hole. huit drop shackle. i if yew. imperforable puncture proof. imperméable à l'air air tight. indégonflable non-deflatable. indicateur de pentes gradometer. indicateur de pôles pole finder. indicateur de vitesse speed indicator. induit armature. inflammateur sparking plug. injecteur injector. insigne badge. interrupteur switch. interrupteur à cheville connecting plug. _interrupteur de cadre_ _frame switch._ isolateur insulator. j jante rim. jante creuse hollow rim. jante de la roue arrière back rim. jante de la roue avant front rim. jante en acier steel rim. jante en bois wooden rim. jauge gauge. jeu play; clearance. joint joint. joint à rotule ball joint. joint de cardan cardan joint. jumelle universal shackle. l lacet belt lace. lâche slack. laiton brass. lame small plate; blade. lame à talon du rupteur carpentier high speed trembler top plate. lame de collier de frein ordinaire segment of ordinary brake. lame de maillon side plate of link. lame verte green sheet. laminage de la vapeur wire drawing of steam. lampe de brûleur burner tank. lampion chinese lantern. landau landau. landaulet landaulet. lanière belt lace. lanterne lamp; burner cage; diaphragm. lanterne à acétylène acetylene lamp. lanterne à bougie candle lamp. lanterne à huile oil lamp. lanterne à pétrole petroleum lamp. lanterne de queue tail light. largeur au maître-bau beam. lentille lens (of lamp). levier lever. levier à boule ball lever. levier à main hand lever. levier coudé crank lever. levier de changement de marche. reversing lever. levier de changement de vitesse. change speed lever. levier de débrayage disengaging lever; clutch lever. levier de direction steering lever. levier de frein brake lever. levier de ralentisseur accelerator lever. levier de régulateur governor lever. levier de tirage de frein brake lever. limande de garniture gasket. lime file. limousine limousine. linguet pawl. linoleum linoleum. longeron sole bar. longueur de tête en tête length between perpendiculars. loquet catch; latch. loqueteau de portière door lock. lubrifiant lubricant. lubrifier to lubricate. lumière d'échappement exhaust port. lunettes de route goggles. m macadam macadam. macaron cork float. _machine de route_ _roadster._ maillechort german silver. maillon link. main de ressort scroll iron. main de support support for spring. manche handle. manchon sleeve; socket. manchon à griffes dog clutch. manchon excentrique de réduction. offset reducing coupling. manchon guêtre pour pneu tyre gaiter. manette handle; hand lever. manette à ressort spring handle. manette d'admission d'air air lever. manette d'admission de gaz gas lever. manette d'allumage ignition lever. manette d'avance à l'allumage sparking advance lever. manette de commande controlling lever. manette de compression compression lever. manivelle crank; starting handle. manivelle à cloche bell crank. manivelle de mise en marche starting handle. manivelle détachable detachable crank. manivelle droite right crank. manivelle gauche left crank. manneton crank. manomètre pressure gauge. marche movement; motion. marche arrière reverse movement. marche en avant forward movement. marchepied step. marchepied d'arrière back step. marchepied de côté side step. maroquin morocco. marteau hammer. masque mask. matière active active material. mèche wick. mélange mixture; mixing. mélange tonnant explosive mixture. mélèze larch. membrane membrane. membrures boat frames. menotte shackle; dee shackle. mentonnet flange. meuler to grind. mine de plomb blacklead. mise en marche starting. modérateur governor; regulator. molleté milled. montant de porte door pillar. montée rapide steep ascent. montueux hilly. monture de brûleur burner mount. moteur motor. moteur à l'avant motor in front. moteur à quatre temps four cycle gas motor. moteur sous le siège motor under the seat. _motocycle_ _motor cycle._ _motocyclette_ _motor bicycle._ _motocycliste_ _motor cyclist._ mouvement de commande de accelerator control gear. ralentisseur mouvement de différentiel differential gear; balance gear. mouvement de réduction à 1/2 two to one gear; half time gear. moyeu hub; boss. moyeu de la roue arrière rear hub. moyeu de la roue avant front hub. multiplication gear. multiplication forte high gearing. multiplier to gear up. n nécessaire de réparations repair outfit. nickeler to plate. noyau de fer iron core. noyer walnut. o obturateur cap for oil hole. obus valve plug (tyre). odomètre odometer. oeuvre, dans l' in the clear. oeuvre, hors over all. omnibus omnibus. oreille lug. orifice d'échappement exhaust opening. orifice de remplissage petrol inlet. orme elm. orme blanc grey elm. orme noir rock elm. ornière rut. p palette de marchepied step tread. palier bearing block. palier central centre bearing. palier de butée thrust bearing. palier, en on the flat. palissandre rosewood. panne purlin; break-down. panne, rester en to break down. panneau panel. papier d'amiante asbestos paper. papier d'émeri emery paper. papier de verre sand paper. papillon throttle valve; butterfly nut. paraffine paraffin. pare-crotte dash-board. pare-flamme flame guard. pare-poussière dust-guard. pas de vis pitch; thread of screw. pastille pour réparation de pneu. patch for repairing tyre. pâte à polir metal polish. patin de frein brake spoon or shoe. patiner to skid. patte d'attache clamp. _pattes arrière_ _end of back forks._ pavé cobble stones. peau de vache cowhide. pédale pedal. _pédale à caoutchouc_ _rubber pedal._ _pédale à dents de scie_ _rat-trap pedal._ pédale à levier de débrayage clutch pedal. _pédale à scie_ _rat-trap pedal._ pédale au yatagan clutch pedal. pédale d'accélérateur accelerator pedal. pédale de débrayage clutch pedal. pédale de débrayage et frein disengaging and brake pedal. pédale de frein brake pedal. pédale de secteur d'accélérateur. accelerator sector pedal. _pédalier_ _crank bracket_; _bottom bracket_. pédalier pedal gear. _pédalier étroit_ _narrow tread bracket._ peinture aluminium aluminium paint. pente dure } pente forte } steep gradient. pente raide } pente douce } easy gradient. pente faible } perforation puncture. perforer, se to puncture. persienne shutter. pétrole lampant paraffin; heavy oil. pétrole lourd heavy oil. phaëton phaeton. phare headlight. pièce d'attache clamp. pièces de rechange spare parts. pièces interchangeables interchangeable parts. pièces mécaniques working parts. pièce polaire pole piece. pierre de rebord kerbstone. pignon pinion. pignon conique } bevel wheel. pignon d'angle } pignon de chaîne sprocket wheel. pignon de dédoublement gear wheel. _pignon de la roue motrice_ _rear hub chain ring._ pignon de mise en marche } starting pinion. pignon de mise en train } pignon droit spur pinion. _pignon, grand_ _chain wheel._ pile sèche dry battery. _pilier de selle_ _saddle pillar._ pin pine. pince pliers. pinçage pinching (of tyre). pincer to pinch. piston piston. piston à air air piston. piston de carburateur carburetter piston. piston de moteur motor piston. pitch-pin pitch pine. piton eye bolt. pivot pivot. place seat. plan de détail detailed plan. plan de l'ensemble general plan. plan de niveau datum line. plan vu de dessous plan looking upwards. planche de toiture roof board. planche du bout end board. planche du siège seat board. planche latérale side board. planche pare-crotte dash board; splash board. planétaire planetary. plaque plate. plaqué argent silver plated. plaque de contrôle tax plate. plaque d'identité identification plate. plaque émaillée enamelled plate. plaque numérotée number plate. plat bord gunwale. plateau de friction friction plate. plateau de manivelle crank disc. plus-value extra price. pneu-cuir tread. pneumatique tyre; cover. pneumatique à talons cover with beaded edges. pneumatique à tringles cover wired on. pneumatique à tube simple single tube tyre. pneumatique auto-réparable self sealing tyre. pneumatique collé single tube tyre. pneumatique dégonflé slack tyre. pneumatique de la roue arrière. back tyre. pneumatique de la roue avant front tyre. poche à gaz gas bag. poche d'eau autour de la soupape water receiver round exhaust d'échappement valve. poignée handle. _poignée d'allumage du guidon_ _handle bar switch._ poignée de la pompe à huile handle of oil pump. poignée en corne horn handle. poignée en liège cork handle. _poignée tournante_ _turning handle._ point de repère reference mark. point mort dead centre. pointeau needle valve. pointeau d'arrivée d'essence petrol inlet valve. pointes de la bougie points of sparking plug. poire de cornette bulb of horn. pompe pump. pompe à air air pump. pompe à battant pump with clapper valve. pompe à étrier stirrup pump. pompe à huile oil pump. pompe à pied foot pump. pompe centrifuge centrifugal pump. pompe de circulation circulation pump. pompe pneumatique tyre pump. pompe rotative rotary pump. pompe télescope telescopic pump. pompe turbine centrifugal pump; turbine pump. poncelet 1 h.p. = 3/4 poncelet. porte door. porte à coulisse sliding door. porte-à-faux, arbre en overhanging or projecting shaft. porte-bagage luggage carrier. porte d'entourage bonnet door. porte-fusil gun clip. porte-lanterne lamp bracket. porte-montre watch holder. porte-phare lamp bracket. porte-pompe pump clip. portée de calage axle seat. portière door. portière latérale side door. pot d'échappement exhaust box; exhaust pot; silencer. poteau avertisseur caution board. poteau d'arrivée winning post. poteau indicateur finger post. poulie pulley. poulie de béquille sprag pulley. poulie de commande driving pulley. poulie de frein brake pulley. poulie de graisseur lubricator pulley. poulie de tension jockey pulley. poulie de transmission driving pulley. poulie étagée step pulley. poulie extensible expanding pulley. poulie jante wheel pulley. poulie motrice driving pulley. poussée thrust. poussée oblique side thrust. poussière dust. poussoir de soupape d'échappement. exhaust valve lift. poutre à treillis lattice girder. presse clamp. presse-étoupe gland; stuffing box. pression effective working pressure. prise d'air air port; air inlet. prise directe direct drive. propulseur propeller. protecteur protector. protecteur antidérapant à rivets. studded tread band. protecteur de bandage protecting band for tyre. puissance au frein brake horse power. purge blow off. purgeur continu drip tap. q _quadricycle à moteur_ _motor quadricycle._ quadruplette quadruplet. quille keel. quinconces, en staggered. r raccord union; pipe connection. raccord d'aspiration inlet valve union. raccord de pompe pump union. _raccord du pilier de selle_ _saddle lug_; _seat lug_. _raccord inférieur avant_ _bottom head cup._ radiateur radiator. radiateur à alvéoles honeycomb radiator. radiateur cloisonné sectional radiator. radiateur multitubulaire multitubular radiator. radiateur nid d'abeilles honeycomb radiator. rafraîchir to cool. rai spoke. rainure groove. ralentisseur; accélérateur accelerator. rallonge extension piece. rampe guard. rampe d'huile oil-way. rampe de sortie d'eau inclined water outlet. rampe, en on a gradient. rangée de billes ball race. rappel, tige de digger rod. raté d'allumage misfire. _rattrape de pédale_ _toe clip._ rayon spoke. rayons directs direct spokes. rayons renforcés butt ended spokes. rayons renforcés aux deux bouts double butted spokes. rayons tangents tangent spokes. rebord de la fusée collar. recaoutchouture re-tyring; re-rubbering. recharge refill. réchauffeur petrol warmer; warming pipe; feed heater. rectifier to true. recuire to anneal. recuit annealed. réflecteur parabolique parabolic reflector. refoulement, tuyau de delivery pipe. refroidir to cool. refroidissement à l'eau water cooling. refroidisseur cooler. refroidisseur nid d'abeilles beehive cooler. regard inspection plate or cover. réglage adjustment. réglement de circulation regulations. régulateur governor; regulator. régulateur à main fixé sur le carburetter hand regulator. carburateur rembourré stuffed. remiser une voiture to house a car. remorquer to tow; to haul. rendement du moteur efficiency of motor. renfort de fourche prop for fork. _repose-pied_ _foot rest._ réservoir tank. réservoir à eau water tank. réservoir à essence petrol tank. réservoir à flotteur float chamber. réservoir à huile oil reservoir. réservoir d'échappement exhaust box. réservoir de pétrole petrol tank. ressort spring. ressort à boudin spiral spring. ressort à pincette elliptic spring. ressort compensateur compensating spring. ressort d'appareil de commande hand control spring. d'allumage ressort de choc buffer spring. ressort d'embrayage clutch spring. ressort d'essieu body spring. ressort demi-pincette grasshopper spring. ressort de piston à air diaphragm spring. ressort de rappel reaction spring. ressort de rappel de distributeur long commutator spring. ressort de rappel de frein brake spring. ressort de rappel de levier de carburetter lever spring. carburateur ressort de rappel de tige digger spring. ressort de régulateur governor spring. ressort de soupape de robinet petrol tap spring. ressort de suspension bearing spring. ressort de tige de ralentisseur accelerator rod spring. ressort de trembleur contact breaker spring. ressort de vis pointeau des burner valve spring. brûleurs ressort elliptique elliptic spring. retard à l'allumage retard sparking. rideau curtain. ridelles side timbers. rivet rivet. robinet tap. robinet à deux voies two-way tap. robinet à trois débits pour three-way water tap. circulation d'eau robinet à trois voies three-way tap. robinet de compression compression tap. robinet de mélange twin tap; mixing tap. robinet de purge blow through tap. robinet de purge pour carburateur waste petrol tap. robinet de purge pour l'huile de waste oil tap. graissage robinet de réservoir petrol tank tap. robinet de tuyauterie à essence petrol pipe tap. robinet de vidange drain tap. robinet pour alimentation de lubricator tap. graisseur roder to grind. rondelle washer. rondelle d'amiante asbestos washer. rondelle de pignon sprocket wheel washer. rondelle de réglage de pompe pump washer. rondelle grover split washer. rondelle pour bossage de rais spoke washer. rotin rattan. rotule, joint à globe joint; universal joint. roulements à billes ball bearings. roue wheel. roue à ailettes pour pompe pump fan. roue à cliquet ratchet wheel. roue à gorge grooved wheel. roue d'angle bevel wheel. roue d'arrière back wheel. roue d'artillerie artillery wheel. roue d'avant front wheel. roue de chaîne chain wheel. roue de commande de graisseur lubricator wheel. roue de commande de marche controlling wheel. roue de régulateur governor wheel. roue de voiture car wheel. roue dentée cog wheel. roue directrice steering wheel. roue ferrée iron tyred wheel. _roue folle_ _free wheel._ _roue libre_ _free wheel._ _roue libre à billes_ _ball bearing free wheel._ _roue libre à cliquets_ _free wheel, ratchet clutch._ _roue libre à galets_ _free wheel, roller clutch._ roue motrice driving wheel. _roue motrice_ _rear wheel._ roue planétaire planet wheel. roue pleine solid wheel. roue quadruple quadruple gear wheel. roue triple triple gear wheel. roulant, très easy running. rouleau de chaîne chain roller. route road. route cahotante bumpy road. route carrossable navigable road. route défoncée loose road. route défoncée par le roulage road broken up by traffic. route de grande communication turnpike road. route départementale high road. route en lacets ribbon road; winding road. route en pierres concassées metalled road. route nationale main road. route pavée paved road. route praticable rideable road. _routière_ _roadster._ rupteur trembler; contact breaker. s sabot block. sabot bois pour interrupteur wooden switch block. sabot de frein brake spoon or shoe. sabot forme cuiller spoon block. sac bag. sac en toile caoutchoutée waterproof bag. sacoche tool bag. sans-chaîne chainless. sapin fir. satellite planetary member. satin, bois de satin wood. schéma diagram. secours, boîte de repair box. secteur sector; quadrant. secteur denté notched quadrant. secteur de levier de ralentisseur accelerator sector. secteur pour avance à l'allumage timing sector. secteur pour direction steering quadrant. segment segment. segment de piston piston ring. selle saddle. semelle sole piece. série de fils set of wires. seringue syringe. seringue de graissage grease injector. serpentin coil. _serrage de selle_ _saddle clip._ serre-fil wire clamp. serre-rayon spoke tightener. serrer le frein to apply the brake. sertisseur tube expander. siège seat. siège à coussins cushioned seat. siège ajustable adjustable seat. siège à ressorts spring seat. siège à tissu métallique wire seat. siège d'avant front seat. siège de bois wooden seat. siège de cuir leather seat. siège de soupape valve seating. siège en crin hair seat. siège fixe fixed seat. siège profond well seat. siège rembourré stuffed seat. siège tournant revolving seat. siège triple de soupape triple inlet valve seat. d'aspiration silencieux exhaust box; silencer. société club. socle base. soie de manivelle crank pin. sonnette bell. sortie outlet. soudé par rapprochement butt welded. soudé par recouvrement lap welded. soulèvement lift. soupape valve. soupape à air air valve. soupape à bille ball valve. soupape à papillon butterfly valve; throttle valve. soupape d'admission inlet valve; induction valve. soupape d'arrêt stop valve. soupape d'aspiration inlet valve. soupape de détente cut-off valve. soupape d'échappement exhaust valve. soupape de retenue check valve. soupape de sûreté safety valve. soupape de trop-plein relief valve. soupape en champignon mushroom valve. soupape en champignon renversé cup valve. soupape rotative rotary valve. spruce spruce. store window blind. strapontin bracket seat; folding seat. support support. support de pompe pump bracket. surchauffeur superheater. surface de refroidissement cooling surface. surface de roulement tread. t tablier apron; length available for carriage work. tablier d'arrière tail board. tablier d'avant front apron; front board. talc french chalk. talon beaded edge of tyre cover. tambour drum. tambour de frein brake drum. tampon plug; buffer. tampon d'allumage sparking plug. tandem tandem. tandem à moteur motor tandem. tapis carpet. taquet de soulèvement de soupape exhaust valve lifter. d'échappement taraud tap. tasseau de bois wood clamp; block. té tee. teck teak. temps, à quatre otto cycle. temps d'aspiration suction stroke. temps de compression compression stroke. temps d'échappement exhaust stroke. temps d'explosion explosion stroke. tendeur jockey pulley. tendeur pour courroie belt tightener. tendre to tighten. tenon tenon; stud. tension de chaîne chain adjustment; _draw-link_. térébenthine turpentine. tête head; crown. tête affleurée flush head. tête de bielle connecting rod end. tête de butoir buffer head. _tête de fourche avant_ _front fork crown._ tête fraisée countersunk head. tête noyée countersunk head. tête platinée platinum tipped. tétine nipple. thermosiphon thermo syphon. tiers-point triangular file. tige rod; stem; spindle. tige à fourchette fork rod. tige d'accélérateur accelerator rod. tige de butée de débrayage rod for end of clutch shaft. tige du cliquet de levier de change speed lever rod. changement de vitesse tige de distribution slide rod. tige d'excentrique eccentric rod. tige de flotteur float wire. tige de frein brake rod. tige de levier de frein rod for brake lever. tige de la pédale au yatagan rod for clutch pedal. tige de la soupape de compression stem of compression valve. tige de la soupape d'échappement exhaust valve stem. tige de piston piston rod. tige de poussoir d'échappement exhaust valve lift rod. tige de ralentisseur accelerator rod. tige de rappel de soupape digger rod for exhaust valve. d'échappement _tige de selle_ _seat pillar._ tige de soupape valve spindle or stem. tige de tirage de frein brake rod. tige entretoise stay rod. tige entretoise de culasse rod for single cylinder. timbre bell. tirant stay. tirant d'eau à vide draught of water when empty. tirant d'eau en charge draught of water when loaded. _tirant de la fourche arrière_ _back fork bridge._ tirant de radiateur radiator stay. _tirant des tubes montants_ _mudguard bridge._ tire-goupille pin extractor. tirette prop. tiroir slide valve. tiroir à coquille d valve. toc guide; tappet. toc d'embrayage guide for clutch cone. toc de levier de régulateur guide for governor lever. toile fabric (of tyre cover). toile d'amiante asbestos cloth. toile d'émeri emery cloth. toile dissolutionnée canvas for repairing cover. toile gommée canvas for repairing cover. toile métallique wire gauze. toile treillis ticking. tôle sheet of metal; sheet iron. tôle emboutie dished plate. tôlerie sheeting. tonnant explosive. tonneau tonneau. tordre une roue to buckle a wheel. torque torque. touche interrupter plug; contact. toucheau contact piece. tour d'adresse feat of skill. tour de force feat of strength. tournée tour. tournevis screwdriver. tourillon journal; pivot. tourillon de chaîne rivet of chain. tracteur tractor. train balladeur balladeur train. traits de force shade lines. transmission à cardan arbor shaft system of transmission. trappe flap door. travail de cisaillement shearing strain. traverse sole bar; beam. trembleur contact breaker; trembler. trépidation vibration. tresse gasket; braid. tribune stand. _tricycle à chaîne centrale_ _central gear tricycle._ _tricycle à moteur_ _motor tricycle._ _tricycle à roue directrice _front steerer tricycle._ devant_ _tricycle compressible_ _collapsible tricycle._ _tricycle porteur_ _carrier tricycle._ _tricycle tandem_ _tandem tricycle._ tringle de changement de vitesse change speed rod. tringle de garde-boue mudguard stay. tringle de relevage drag link. tringles, à wired on. trottoir footpath. trottoir cyclable cycle path. trou graisseur oil hole. trusquin à centrer centering gauge. tube tube. tube d'admission induction pipe. tube caoutchouc rubber tube. tube caoutchouc de valve rubber sleeve of valve. tube d'alimentation gaspipe to motor; feed pipe. tube d'arbre de l'hélice stern tube. tube d'échappement exhaust pipe. tube d'entrée d'air air chimney. tube de direction steering column; _head socket_. tube de frein brake tube. _tube de fourche arrière_ _bottom stay._ tube de la pompe à huile au moteur oil pipe to crank case. tube de niveau d'eau water gauge glass. tube de platine platinum tube. tube de prise d'air air inlet pipe. tube de trop-plein overflow pipe. _tube diagonal_ _diagonal tube._ tube du carburateur à la boîte de pipe from carburetter to mixing mélange chamber. _tube inférieur_ _bottom tube._ _tube intérieur de direction_ _steering post._ tube mélangeur mixing tube. _tube montant arrière_ _back stay._ tube pare-poussière dust cap tube. _tube plongeur du guidon_ _handle bar stem._ tube renforcé extra strong tube. tube sans soudure seamless tube. _tube supérieur_ _top tube._ tube tirant stay tube. tubulure nozzle; connection. tuyau pipe. tuyauterie tubing. tuyauterie d'aspiration suction tubing. tuyauterie d'échappement exhaust tubing. tuyère nozzle. tuyère de carburateur air nozzle for carburetter. u usine factory. usure wear and tear. v valve valve. vapeur de décharge exhaust steam. vaporisateur à pulvérisation spray vaporiser. vaporisation steam production. véhicule vehicle. _vélocipède_; _vélo_ _cycle._ ventilateur ventilator; fan. vérin jack. vernir to japan. verre glass. verrou catch; bolt. verrou d'entourage catch for bonnet door. verrou de levier de changement de catch for change speed lever. vitesse verrou de mise en marche starting catch or bolt. victoria victoria. vilebrequin crank; crank shaft. virole ferrule. vis screw. vis à filet droit right handed screw. vis à filet gauche left handed screw. vis bouchon de purge run off screw. vis d'axe de piston screw for piston pin. vis de butée du rupteur carpentier screw for high speed trembler blade. vis de came de moteur screw for governor cam. vis de clavetage de la douille de screw for starting pin or bush. mise en marche vis de collier de trompette screw for horn bracket. vis de contact contact screw. vis de couvercle de carburateur screw for carburetter cover. vis de fixation fixing screw. vis de fixation de la vis de screw for fastening platinum contact tipped screw. vis de marteau de came governor hammer screw. vis de mécanique brake screw. vis de poussée thrust screw. vis de purge pour carburateur waste petrol screw. vis de purge pour l'huile de waste oil screw. graissage vis de rappel setscrew. vis de réglage setscrew. vis de sûreté setscrew. vis fixant la lame platinée à screw for high speed trembler top talon du rupteur carpentier plate. vis graisseur pour chapeau lubricator screw for wheel cap. d'essieu vis platinée de contact platinum tipped screw. vis pointeau de lampe de brûleur screw tap for burner tank. vis pointeau de support de brûleur screw tap for burner. vis pour direction screw for steering. vis pour ralentisseur screw for accelerator. vis sans fin worm. visiter to examine. visser to screw. vitesse en prise directe, grande direct drive on top speed. voie road. voie impraticable bad road. voie légère light railway. voilée, roue buckled wheel. voiture car. voiture courante ordinary car. voiture de course racing car. voiture de livraison parcels van. voiture de tourisme touring car. voiture légère light vehicle. voiture lourde heavy vehicle. voiturette runabout. voiturette remorque trailer. volant fly-wheel; hand wheel. volant à gorge grooved wheel. volant de direction steering wheel. volant de dynamo dynamo wheel. volant de pompe pump wheel. volant de régulateur governor wheel. volet shutter. voltmètre voltmeter. vrac, en in bulk. w wagonnette wagonette. y yatagan clutch lever. yeuse live oak. z zinc zinc. london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited, great windmill street, w., and duke street, stamford street, s.e. * * * * * _short list_ _august 1912_ a short list of scientific books published by e. & f. n. spon, limited, 57 haymarket, london, s.w. sole english agents for the books of- myron c. clark, new york spon & chamberlain, new york page agriculture 2 architecture 2 artillery 5 aviation 5 bridges and roofs 6 building 2 cement and concrete 7 civil engineering 9 curve tables 12 dictionaries 13 domestic economy 13 drawing 14 earthwork 15 electrical engineering 15 foreign exchange 21 gas and oil engines 21 gas lighting 22 historical; biographical 23 horology 23 hydraulics 24 industrial chemistry 25 institutions 56 interest tables 28 irrigation 28 logarithm tables 29 manufactures 25 marine engineering 29 materials 31 mathematics 32 mechanical engineering 34 metallurgy 37 metric tables 38 mineralogy and mining 39 miscellaneous 55 model making 41 municipal engineering 46 naval architecture 29 organisation 41 physics 42 price books 43 railway engineering 44 sanitation 46 structural design 6 telegraph codes 48 useful tables 53 warming; ventilation 48 water supply 49 workshop practice 50 all books are bound in cloth unless otherwise stated. _note: the prices in this catalogue apply to books sold in the united kingdom only._ agriculture. =hemp.= a practical treatise on the culture for seed and fibre. by s. s. boyce. 13 illus. 112 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1900_) _net_ 2 0 =farm drainage.= by h. f. french. 100 illus. 284 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1904_) _net_ 4 6 =spices and how to know them.= by w. m. gibbs. with 47 plates, including 14 in colours, 179 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 15 0 =talks on manures.= by j. harris. new edition, 366 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1893_) _net_ 6 6 =coffee=, its culture and commerce in all countries. by c. g. w. lock. 11 plates, 274 pp. crown 8vo. (_1888_) 12 6 =sugar, a handbook for planters and refiners.= by the late j. a. r. newlands and b. e. r. newlands. 236 illus. 876 pp. demy 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 1 5 0 =hops=, their cultivation, commerce and uses. by p. l. simmonds. 143 pp. crown 8vo. (_1877_) 4 6 =estate fences=, their choice, construction and cost. by a. vernon. re-issue, 150 illus. 420 pp. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 8 6 architecture and building. =engineering work in public buildings.= by r. o. allsop. 77 illus. 168 pp. demy 4to. (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =the hydropathic establishment and its baths.= by r. o. allsop. 8 plates, 107 pp. demy 8vo. (_1891_) 5 0 =the turkish bath=, its design and construction. by r. o. allsop. 27 illus. 152 pp. demy 8vo. (_1890_) 6 0 =public abattoirs=, their planning, design and equipment. by r. s. ayling. 33 plates, 100 pp. demy 4to. (_1908_) _net_ 8 6 =the builder's clerk.= by t. bales. second edition, 92 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1904_) 1 6 =glossary of technical terms= used in architecture and the building trades. by g. j. burns. 136 pp. crown 8vo. (_1895_) 3 6 =chimney design and theory.= by w. w. christie. second edition, 54 illus. 200 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 12 6 =approximate estimates.= by t. e. coleman. third ed. 481 pp. ob. 32mo, leather. (_1907_) _net_ 5 0 =stable sanitation and construction.= by t. e. coleman. 183 illus. 226 pp. crown 8vo. (_1897_) 6 0 =house plans= and building construction for general contractors and house builders. by m. m. dustman. 511 illus. 239 pp. oblong folio. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 8 6 =architectural examples= in brick, stone, wood and iron. by w. fullerton. third edition 245 plates, 254 pp. demy 4to. (_1908_) _net_ 15 0 =bricklaying system.= by f. b. gilbreth. 240 illus. 321 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 12 6 =field system.= by f. b. gilbreth. 194 pp. 12mo. leather. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 12 6 =the building trades pocket book.= compiled by r. hall. 12mo. with diary _net_ 1 0 =the economics of contracting.= by d. j. hauer. 10 illus. viii. + 269 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 12 0 =the clerk of works' vade mecum.= by g. g. hoskins. seventh edition, 52 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1901_) 1 6 =paint and colour mixing.= by a. s. jennings. fourth ed. 14 col. plates, 190 pp. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 5 0 =a handbook of formulæ, tables, and memoranda for architectural surveyors.= by j. t. hurst. fifteenth edition, 512 pp. royal 32mo, roan. (_1905_) _net_ 5 0 =quantity surveying.= by j. leaning. fifth ed. new impression, 936 pp. 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 1 5 0 =builders' quantities.= by h. m. lewis. 6 illus. 44 pp. cr. 8vo. (s. & c. series no. 40.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =obstruction to light.= a graphic method of determining problems of ancient lights. by h. b. molesworth. 9 folding plates, 4to. (_1902_) _net_ 6 0 =suburban houses.= a series of practical plans. by j. h. pearson. 46 plates and 12 pp. text, crown 4to. (_1905_) _net_ 7 6 =solid bitumens=, their physical and chemical properties. by s. f. peckham. 23 illus. 324 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) 1 1 0 =roman architecture, sculpture and ornament.= by g. b. piranesi. 200 plates, reproduced in facsimile from the original. 2 vols. imperial folio, in wrappers. (_1900_) _net_ 2 2 0 =the seven periods of english architecture=, defined and illustrated. by e. sharpe. third edition, 20 steel plates, royal 8vo. (_1888_) 12 6 =our factories, workshops and warehouses=, their sanitary and fire-resisting arrangements. by b. h. thwaite. 183 ill. 282 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1882_) 9 0 =elementary principles of carpentry.= by t. tredgold and j. t. hurst. eleventh edition, 48 plates, 517 pp. crown 8vo. (_1904_) 12 6 =treatise on the design and construction of mill buildings.= by w. g. tyrrell. 652 illus. 490 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 17 0 =practical stair building and handrailing.= by w. h. wood. 32 plates, 91 pp. crown 4to. (_1894_) 10 6 =spons' architects' and builders' pocket price-book, memoranda, tables and prices.= edited by clyde young. revised by stanford m. brooks. 16mo, leather cloth (size 6-1/2 in. by 3-3/4 in. by 1/2 in. thick). issued annually in two sections. =prices and diary=, in green cover, 239 pp. with diary showing a week at an opening _net_ 2 6 =memoranda and tables=, in red cover. illustrated, 372 pp. _net_ 2 6 artillery. =guns and gun making material.= by g. ede. crown 8vo. (_1889_) 6 0 =treatise on application of wire to construction of ordnance.= by j. a. longridge. 180 pp. 8vo. (_1884_) 1 5 0 =the progress of artillery: naval guns.= by j. a. longridge. 8vo, sewed. (_1896_) 2 0 =the field gun of the future.= by j. a. longridge. 8vo, sewed. (_1892_) 2 6 aviation. =the atmosphere=: its characteristics and dynamics. by f. j. b. cordeiro. 35 illus. 129 pp. small quarto. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 10 6 =theory and practice of model aeroplaning.= by v. e. johnson. 61 illus. 150 pp. crown 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 3 6 =the gyroscope, an experimental study.= by v. e. johnson. 34 illus. 40 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 22.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =natural stability and the parachute principle in aeroplanes.= by w. le maitre. 34 ill. 48 pp. cr. 8vo. (s. & c. series no. 39.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =how to build a 20-ft. bi-plane glider.= by a. p. morgan. 31 illus. 60 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 14.) (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 1 6 =flight-velocity.= by a. samuelson. 4 plates, 42 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1906_) _net_ 2 0 =resistance of air and the question of flying.= by a. samuelson. 23 illus. 36 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1905_) _net_ 2 0 =aeroplanes in gusts, soaring flight and aeroplane stability.= by s. l. walkden. demy 8vo. (_in the press._) bridges, arches, roofs, and structural design. =strains in ironwork.= by henry adams. fourth edition, 8 plates, 65 pp. crown 8vo. (_1904_) 5 0 =designing ironwork.= by henry adams. second series. 8vo, sewed. part i. a steel box girder. (_1894_) _net_ 0 9 " ii. built-up steel stanchions. (_1901_) _net_ 1 3 " iii. cisterns and tanks. (_1902_) _net_ 1 0 " iv. a fireproof floor. (_1903_) _net_ 1 0 =columns and struts.= theory and design. by wm. alexander. 101 illus. xii + 265 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 10 6 =a practical treatise on segmental and elliptical oblique or skew arches.= by g. j. bell. second edition, 17 plates, 125 pp. royal 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 1 1 0 =economics of construction= in relation to framed structures. by r. h. bow. third thousand, 16 plates, 88 pp. 8vo. (_1873_) 5 0 =theory of voussoir arches.= by prof. w. cain. third edition, 201 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 2 0 =new formulæ for the loads and deflections= of solid beams and girders. by w. donaldson. second edition, 8vo. (_1872_) 4 6 =plate girder railway bridges.= by m. fitzmaurice. 4 plates, 104 pp. 8vo. (_1895_) 6 0 =pocket book of calculations= in stresses. by e. m. george. 66 illus. 140 pp. royal 32mo, half roan. (_1895_) 3 6 =strains on braced iron arches= and arched iron bridges. by a. s. heaford. 39 pp. 8vo. (_1883_) 6 0 =tables for roof framing.= by g. d. inskip. second edition, 451 pp. 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 12 6 =stresses in girder and roof frames=, for both dead and live loads, by simple multiplication, etc. by f. r. johnson. 28 plates, 215 pp. crown 8vo. (_1894_) 6 0 =a graphical method for swing bridges.= by b. f. la rue. 4 plates, 104 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1892_) _net_ 2 0 =bridge and tunnel centres.= by j. b. mcmasters. illustrated, 106 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1893_) _net_ 2 0 =notes on cylinder bridge piers= and the well system of foundations. by j. newman. 144 pp. 8vo. (_1893_) 6 0 =calculation of columns.= by t. nielsen. 4 plates, 36 pp. 8vo. cloth. (_1911_) _net_ 4 6 =a new method of graphic statics= applied in the construction of wrought iron girders. by e. olander. 16 plates, small folio. (_1887_) 10 6 =steel bar and plate tables.= giving weight of a lineal foot of all sizes of =l= and =t= bars, flat bars, plates, square and round bars. by e. read. on large folding card. (_1911_) _net_ 1 0 =reference book for statical calculations.= by f. ruff. with diagrams, 140 pp. crown 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 5 0 =suspension bridges and cantilevers.= by d. b. steinmann. vii. + 185 pp. 18mo, boards. (van nostrand series, no. 127.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 2 0 =the strength and proportion of riveted joints.= by b. b. stoney. 87 pp. 8vo. (_1885_) 5 0 =the anatomy of bridgework.= by w. h. thorpe. 103 illus. 190 pp. crown 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 6 0 cement and concrete. =portland cement=: its manufacture, testing and use, by d. b. butler. second edition, 97 illus. 396 pp. demy 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 16 0 =theory of steel-concrete arches= and of vaulted structures. by w. cain. fourth edition, 27 illus. 212 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 2 0 =reinforced concrete construction. elementary course.= by m. t. cantell. 65 illus. 135 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911._) _net_ 4 6 =reinforced concrete construction. advanced course.= by m. t. cantell. 242 illus. xvi + 240 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =graphical reinforced concrete design.= a series of diagrams on sheets (measuring 17-1/2 in. by 22-1/2 in.) for designing and checking. with 48-page pamphlet. by j. a. davenport. complete in roll. (_1911_) _net_ 5 0 =cement users' and buyers' guide.= by calcare. 115 pp. 32mo, cloth. (_1901_) _net_ 1 6 =diagrams for designing reinforced concrete structures.= by g. f. dodge. 31 illus. 104 pp. oblong folio. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 17 0 =cements, mortars, and concretes=; their physical properties. by m. s. falk. 78 illus. 176 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1904_) _net_ 10 6 =concrete construction, methods and cost.= by h. p. gillette and c. s. hill. 310 illus. 690 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 1 1 0 =engineers' pocket-book of reinforced concrete.= by e. l. heidenreich. 164 illus. 364 pp. crown 8vo, leather, gilt edges. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 12 6 =concrete inspection.= by c. s. hill. 15 illus. 179 pp. 12mo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 4 6 =practical silo construction.= by a. a. houghton. 18 illus. 69 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 27.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =molding concrete chimneys, slate and roof tiles.= by a. a. houghton. 15 illus. 61 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 28.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =molding and curing ornamental concrete.= by a. a. houghton. 5 illus. 58 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 29.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =concrete monuments, mausoleums and burial vaults.= by a. a. houghton. 18 illus. 65 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 31.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =concrete floors and sidewalks.= by a. a. houghton. 8 illus. 63 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 32.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =molding concrete baths, tubs, aquariums and natatoriums.= by a. a. houghton. 16 illus. 64 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 33.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =concrete bridges, culverts and sewers.= by a. a. houghton. 14 illus. 58 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 34.) (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 1 6 =constructing concrete porches.= by a. a. houghton. 18 illus. 62 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 35.) _net_ 1 6 =molding concrete flower-pots, boxes, jardinières=, etc. by a. a. houghton. 8 illus. 52 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 36.) (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 1 6 =molding concrete fountains and lawn ornaments.= by a. a. houghton. 14 illus. 56 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 37). (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 1 6 =reinforced concrete.= by e. mcculloch. 28 illus. 128 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 6 6 =concrete and reinforced concrete.= by h. a. reid. 715 illus. 884 pp. royal 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 21 0 =theory and design of reinforced concrete arches.= by a. reuterdahl. 41 illus. 126 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 8 6 =specification for concrete flags.= issued by the institution of municipal and county engineers. folio, sewed. (_1911_) _net_ 2 6 =practical cement testing.= by w. p. taylor. with 142 illus. 329 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 12 6 =concrete bridges and culverts.= by h. g. tyrrell. 66 illus. 251 pp. cr. 8vo, leather. _net_ 12 6 civil engineering. canals, surveying. (_see also_ irrigation _and_ water supply.) =practical hints to young engineers employed on indian railways.= by a. w. c. addis. with 14 illus. 154 pp. 12mo. (_1910_) _net_ 3 6 =levelling=, barometric, trigonometric and spirit. by i. o. baker. second edition, 15 illus. 145 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 2 0 =punjab rivers and works.= by e. s. bellasis. 47 illus. 85 pp. folio, cloth. (_1911_) _net_ 8 0 =notes on instruments= best suited for engineering field work in india and the colonies. by w. g. bligh. 65 illus. 218 pp. 8vo. (_1899_) 7 6 =practical designing of retaining walls.= by prof. w. cain. fifth edition, 14 illus. 172 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 2 0 =land area tables.= by w. codd. sheet mounted on linen, in cloth case, with explanatory booklet 3 6 =the maintenance of macadamised roads.= by t. codrington. second ed., 186 pp. 8vo. (_1892_) 7 6 =the civil engineers' cost book.= by major t. e. coleman, r.e. xii. + 289 pp. pocket size (6-1/2 in. × 3-5/8 in.), leather cloth. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =retaining walls in theory and practice.= by t. e. coleman. 104 ill. 160 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 5 0 =on curved masonry dams.= by w. b. coventry. 8vo, sewed. (_1894_) 2 0 =a practical method of determining the profile of a masonry dam.= by w. b. coventry. 8vo, sewed. (_1894_) 2 6 =the stresses on masonry dams= (oblique sections). by w. b. coventry. 8vo, sewed. (_1894_) 2 0 =handbook of cost data for contractors and engineers.= by h. p. gillette. 1854 pp. crown 8vo, leather, gilt edges. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 1 1 0 =rock excavation, methods and cost.= by h. p. gillette. _new edition in preparation._ =high masonry dams.= by e. s. gould. with illus. 88 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1897_) _net_ 2 0 =railway tunnelling= in heavy ground. by c. gripper. 3 plates, 66 pp. royal 8vo. (_1879_) 7 6 =levelling and its general application.= by t. holloway. (_third edition in preparation_) =waterways and water transport.= by j. s. jeans. 55 illus. 520 pp. 8vo. (_1890_) _net_ 9 0 =table of barometrical heights to 20,000 feet.= by lt.-col. w. h. mackesy. 1 plate, 24 pp. royal 32mo. (_1882_) 3 0 =aid book to engineering enterprise.= by e. matheson. third edition, illustrated, 916 pp. medium 8vo, buckram. (_1898_) 1 4 0 =a treatise on surveying.= by r. e. middleton and o. chadwick. third edition, royal 8vo. (_1911_) part i. 11 plates 162 illus. 285 pp. 10 6 " ii. 152 illus. and 2 plates, 340 pp. 10 6 =a pocket book of useful formulæ and memoranda=, for civil and mechanical engineers. by sir g. l. molesworth and h. b. molesworth. with an electrical supplement by w. h. molesworth. twenty-sixth edition, 760 illus. 901 pp. royal 32mo, french morocco, gilt edges. (_1908_) _net_ 5 0 =the pocket books of sir g. l. molesworth and j. t. hurst=, printed on india paper and bound in one vol. royal 32mo, russia, gilt edges _net_ 10 6 =metallic structures: corrosion and fouling and their prevention.= by j. newman. illustrated, 385 pp. crown 8vo. (_1896_) 9 0 =scamping tricks and odd knowledge= occasionally practised upon public works. by j. newman. new imp., 129 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 2 0 =co-ordinate geometry= applied to land surveying. by w. pilkington. 5 illus. 44 pp. 12mo. (_1909_) _net_ 1 6 =pioneering.= by f. shelford. illustrated, 88 pp. crown 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 3 0 =topographical surveying.= by g. j. specht. second edition, 2 plates and 28 illus. 210 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1898_) _net_ 2 0 =spons' dictionary of engineering=, civil, mechanical, military and naval. 10,000 illus. 4300 pp. super royal 8vo. (_1874, supplement issued in 1881_). complete, in 4 vols. _net_ 3 3 0 =surveying and levelling instruments.= by w. f. stanley. (_fourth edition in preparation_) =surveyor's handbook.= by t. u. taylor. 116 illus. 310 pp. crown 8vo, leather, gilt edges. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 8 6 =logarithmic land measurement.= by j. wallace. 32 pp. royal 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 5 0 =the drainage of fens and low lands= by gravitation and steam power. by w. h. wheeler. 8 plates, 175 pp. 8vo. (_1888_) 12 6 =stadia surveying=, the theory of stadia measurements. by a. winslow. fifth edition, 148 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 2 0 =handbook on tacheometrical surveying.= by c. xydis. 55 illus. 3 plates, 63 pp. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 6 0 curve tables. =grace's tables for curves=, with hints to young engineers. 8 figures, 43 pp. oblong 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 5 0 =railroad curves and earthwork.= by c. f. allen. third edition, 4 plates, 198 pp. 12mo, leather, gilt edges. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 8 6 =data relating to railway curves and superelevations=, shown graphically. by j. h. haiste. on folding card for pocket use _net_ 0 6 =tables for setting-out railway curves.= by c. p. hogg. a series of cards in neat cloth case 4 6 =tables for setting out curves= for railways, roads, canals, etc. by a. kennedy and r. w. hackwood. 32mo _net_ 2 0 =spiral tables.= by j. g. sullivan. 47 pp. 12mo, leather. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 6 6 =tables for setting out curves= from 101 to 5000 feet radius. by h. a. cutler and f. j. edge. royal 32mo _net_ 2 0 =tables of parabolic curves= for the use of railway engineers and others. by g. t. allen. fcap. 16mo 4 0 =transition curves.= by w. g. fox. 18mo, boards. (_new york_) _net_ 2 0 dictionaries. =technological dictionary in the english, spanish, german and french languages.= by d. carlos huelin y arssu. crown 8vo. vol. i. english-spanish-german-french. 609 pp. (_1906_) _net_ 10 6 vol. ii. german-english-french-spanish. 720 pp. (_1908_) _net_ 10 6 vol. iii. french-german-spanish-english. _in preparation._ vol. iv. spanish-french-english-german. 750 pp. (_1910_) _net_ 10 6 =dictionary of english and spanish technical and commercial terms.= by w. jackson. 164 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 2 6 =english-french and french-english dictionary of the motor-car, cycle and boat.= by f. lucas. 171 pp. crown 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 2 0 =spanish-english dictionary of mining terms.= by f. lucas. 78 pp. 8vo.(_1905_) _net_ 5 0 =english-russian and russian-english engineering dictionary.= by l. meycliar. 100 pp. 16mo. (_1909_) _net_ 2 6 domestic economy. =food adulteration and its detection.= by j. p. battershall. 12 plates, 328 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1887_) 15 0 =practical hints on taking a house.= by h. p. boulnois. 71 pp. 18mo. (_1885_) 1 6 =the cooking range=, its failings and remedies. by f. dye. 52 pp. fcap. 8vo, sewed. (_1888_) 0 6 =spices and how to know them.= by w. m. gibbs. with 47 plates, including 14 in colours, 179 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 15 0 =the kitchen boiler and water pipes.= by h. grimshaw. 8vo, sewed. (_1887_) _net_ 1 0 =cookery and domestic management=, including economic and middle class practical cookery. by k. mellish. 56 coloured plates and 441 illus. 987 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 16 0 =spons' household manual.= 250 illus. 1043 pp. demy 8vo. (_1902_) 7 6 ditto ditto half-bound french morocco 9 0 drawing. =the ornamental penman's=, engraver's and sign writer's pocket book of alphabets. by b. alexander. oblong 12mo, sewed 0 6 =slide valve diagrams=: a french method for their construction. by l. bankson. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1892_) _net_ 2 0 =a system of easy lettering.= by j. h. cromwell. with supplement by g. martin. eleventh edition, 36 pp. oblong 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 2 0 =key to the theory and methods of linear perspective=, by c. w. dymond, f.s.a. 6 plates, 32 pp. cr. 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 20.) (_1910_) _net_ 1 6 =plane geometrical drawing.= by r. c. fawdry. illustrated, 185 pp. crown 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 3 0 =twelve plates on projection drawing.= by o. gueth. oblong 4to. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 3 0 =hints on architectural draughtsmanship.= by g. w. t. hallatt. fourth edition, 80 pp. 18mo. (_1906_) _net_ 1 6 =a first course of mechanical drawing= (tracing). by g. halliday. oblong 4to, sewed 2 0 =a text-book of graphic statics.= by c. w. malcolm. 155 illus. 316 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 12 6 =drawings for medium-sized repetition work.= by r. d. spinney. with 47 illus. 130 pp. 8vo. (_1909_). _net_ 3 6 =mathematical drawing instruments.= by w. f. stanley. seventh edition, 265 illus. 370 pp. crown 8vo. (_1900_) 5 0 =the backbone of perspective.= by t. u. taylor. 40 illus. 56 pp. 18mo cloth. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 4 6 earthwork. =tables for computing the contents of earthwork= in the cuttings and embankments of railways. by w. macgregor. royal 8vo 6 0 =tables for facilitating the calculation of earthworks.= by d. cunningham. 120 pp. royal 8vo 10 6 =grace's earthwork tables.= 36 double-page tables, 4to. (_1907_) _net_ 12 6 =earthwork slips and subsidences= on public works. by j. newman. 240 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1890_) 7 6 =diagrams for the graphic calculation of earthwork quantities.= by a. h. roberts. ten cards, fcap. in cloth case _net_ 10 6 electrical engineering. =practical electric bell fitting.= by f. c. allsop. tenth edition, 186 illus. including 8 folding plates, 185 pp. crown 8vo. (_1903_) 3 6 =telephones=: their construction and fitting. by f. c. allsop. eighth edition, new impression, 184 illus. 222 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 3 6 =auto-transformer design.= by a. h. avery. 25 illus. 60 pp. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 3 6 =principles of electric power= (continuous current) for mechanical engineers. by a. h. bate. 63 illus. 204 pp. crown 8vo. (_1905_) (finsbury technical manual) _net_ 4 6 =practical construction of electric tramways.= by w. r. bowker. 93 illus. 119 pp. 8vo. (_1903_) _net_ 6 0 =the electric motor and its practical operation.= by e. e. burns. 78 illus. vi + 91 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 7 0 =electrical ignition for internal combustion engines.= by m. a. codd. 109 illus. 163 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 3 0 =design and construction of induction coils.= by a. f. collins. 155 illus. 272 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 12 6 =plans and specification for wireless telegraph sets.= by a. f. collins. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, nos. 41 and 42). (_new york, 1912_) _each net_ 1 6 part i. an experimental set and a one to five miles set. 37 illus. viii + 45 pp. part ii. a five to ten mile set and a ten to twenty mile set. 63 illus. viii + 72 pp. =switchboard measuring instruments= for continuous and polyphase currents. by j. c. connan. 117 illus. 150 pp. 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 5 0 =electric cables, their construction and cost.= by d. coyle and f. j. o. howe. with many diagrams and 216 tables, 466 pp. crown 8vo, leather. (_1909_) _net_ 15 0 =management of electrical machinery.= by f. b. crocker and s. s. wheeler. eighth edition, 131 illus. 223 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 4 6 =electric lighting=: a practical exposition of the art. by f. b. crocker. royal 8vo. (_new york._) vol. i. =the generating plant.= sixth edition, 213 illus. 470 pp. (_1904_) _net_ 12 6 vol. ii. =distributing systems and lamps.= second edition, 391 illus. 505 pp. (_1905_) _net_ 12 6 =the care and management of ignition accumulators.= by h. h. u. cross. 12 illus. 74 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 19.) (_1910_) _net_ 1 6 =elements of telephony.= by a. crotch. 51 illus. 90 pp. cr. 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 21.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =elementary telegraphy and telephony.= by arthur crotch. new impression, 238 illus. viii + 223 pp. 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1912_) _net_ 4 6 =electricity and magnetism in telephone maintenance.= by g. w. cummings. 45 illus. 137 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 6 6 =grouping of electric cells.= by w. f. dunton. 4 illus. 50 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 1 6 =wireless telegraphy for intending operators.= by c. k. p. eden. 20 illus. 80 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 24.) _in preparation._ =magnets and electric currents.= by prof. j. a. fleming. second edition, 136 illus. 417 pp. crown 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 5 0 =notes on design of small dynamo.= by george halliday. second edition, 8 plates, 8vo. (_1895_) 2 6 =practical alternating currents and power transmission.= by n. harrison. 172 illus. 375 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 10 6 =making wireless outfits.= by n. harrison. 27 illus. 61 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 11.) (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 1 6 =wireless telephone construction.= by n. harrison. 43 illus. 73 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 12.) (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 1 6 =testing telegraph cables.= by colonel v. hoskioer. third edition, 11 illus. viii + 75 pp. crown 8vo. (_1889_) 4 6 =long distance electric power transmission.= by r. w. hutchinson. 136 illus. 345 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 12 6 =theory and practice of electric wiring.= by w. s. ibbetson. 119 ill. 366 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 5 0 =practical electrical engineering for elementary students.= by w. s. ibbetson. 61 illus. 155 pp. crown 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 3 6 =form of model general conditions= recommended by the institution of electrical engineers for use in connection with electrical contracts. _new edition in preparation._ =telegraphy for beginners.= by w. h. jones. 19 illus. 58 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 2 0 =a handbook of electrical testing.= by h. r. kempe. seventh edition, 285 illus. 706 pp. demy 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 18 0 =electromagnets=, their design and construction. by a. n. mansfield. 36 illus. 155 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 2 0 =telephone construction, methods and cost.= by c. mayer. with appendices on the cost of materials and labour by j. c. slippy. 103 illus. 284 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 12 6 =storage batteries, stationary and portable.= by j. p. niblett. 22 illus. 80 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 2 6 =house wiring.= by t. w. poppe. 73 illus. 103 pp. 12mo, limp. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 3 0 =practical electrics=: a universal handybook on every day electrical matters. seventh edition, 126 illus. 135 pp. 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 13.) (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 1 6 =electroplating.= by h. c. reetz. 62 illus. 99 pp. crown 8vo. (new york, 1911) _net_ 2 0 =wiring houses for the electric light.= by n. h. schneider. 40 illus. 85 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 25.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =induction coils.= by n. h. schneider. second edition, 79 illus. 285 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 4 6 =electric gas lighting.= by n. h. schneider. 57 illus. 101 pp. cr. 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 8). (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 1 6 =how to install electric bells, annunciators and alarms.= by n. h. schneider. 59 illus. 63 pp. crown 8vo, limp. (s. & c. series, no. 2.) (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 1 6 =modern primary batteries=, their construction, use and maintenance. by n. h. schneider. 54 illus. 94 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 1.) (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 1 6 =practical engineers' handbook on the care and management of electric power plants.= by n. h. schneider. 203 illus. 274 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 5 0 =electrical circuits and diagrams=, illustrated and explained. by n. h. schneider. 8vo. (s. & c. series, nos. 3 and 4.) (_new york_) no. 3, part 1. _new edition in preparation._ no. 4, part 2. 73 pp. (_1909_) _net_ 1 6 =electrical instruments and testing.= by n. h. schneider. third edition. 133 illus. 239 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 4 6 =experimenting with induction coils.= by n. h. schneider. 26 illus. 73 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 5.) (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 1 6 =study of electricity for beginners.= by n. h. schneider. 54 illus. 88 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 6.) (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 1 6 =wiring houses for the electric light=: low voltage battery systems. 44 illus. 86 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 25.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =low voltage electric lighting with the storage battery.= by n. h. schneider. 23 illus. 85 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 26.) (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 1 6 =dry batteries=: how to make and use them. by a dry battery expert. with additional notes by n. h. schneider. 30 illus. 59 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 7.) (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 1 6 =the diseases of electrical machinery.= by e. schulz. edited, with a preface, by prof. s. p. thompson. 42 illus. 84 pp. crown 8vo _net_ 2 0 =electricity simplified.= by t. o. sloane. tenth edition, 29 illus. 158 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 4 6 =how to become a successful electrician.= by t. o. sloane. third edition, 4 illus. 202 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1899_) _net_ 4 6 =electricity=: its theory, sources and applications. by j. t. sprague. third edition, 109 illus. 658 pp. crown 8vo (_1892_) _net_ 7 6 =telegraphic connections.= by c. thom and w. h. jones. 20 plates, 59 pp. oblong 8vo. (_new york, 1892_) _net_ 3 6 =dynamo electric machinery.= by prof. s. p. thompson. seventh edition, demy 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) vol. i. =continuous-current machinery.= with 4 coloured and 30 folding plates, 573 illus. 984 pp. (_1904_) _net_ 1 10 0 vol. ii. =alternating current machinery.= 15 coloured and 24 folding plates, 546 illus. 900 pp. (_1905_) _net_ 1 10 0 =design of dynamos= (continuous currents). by prof. s. p. thompson. 4 coloured and 8 folding plates, 243 pp. demy 8vo. (_1903_) _net_ 12 0 =schedule for dynamo design=, issued with the above. 6_d._ each, 4_s._ per doz., or 18_s._ per 100 _net_ =curves of magnetic data for various materials.= a reprint on transparent paper for office use of plate i from dynamo electric machinery, and measuring 25 in. by 16 in. _net_ 0 7 =the electromagnet.= by c. r. underhill. 67 illus. 159 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 6 6 =practical guide to the testing of insulated wires and cables.= by h. l. webb. fifth edition, 38 illus. 118 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 4 6 =wiring rules.= with extracts from the board of trade regulations and the home office regulations for factories and workshops. issued by =the institution of electrical engineers.= sixth edition, 42 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1911_) _net_ 0 6 foreign exchange. =english prices with russian equivalents= (at fourteen rates of exchange). english prices per lb., with equivalents in roubles and kopecks per pood. by a. adiassewich. 182 pp. fcap. 32mo, roan. (_1908_) _net_ 1 0 =english prices with german equivalents= (at seven rates of exchange). english prices per lb., with equivalents in marks per kilogramme. by st. koczorowski. 95 pp. fcap. 32mo, roan. (_1909_) _net_ 1 0 =english prices with spanish equivalents.= at seven rates of exchange. english prices per lb., with equivalents in pesetas per kilogramme. by s. lambert. 95 pp. 32mo, roan. (_1910_) _net_ 1 0 =english prices with french equivalents= (at seven rates of exchange). english prices per lb. to francs per kilogramme. by h. p. mccartney. 97 pp. 32mo, roan. (_1907_) _net_ 1 0 =principles of foreign exchange.= by e. matheson. fourth edition, 54 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1905_) _net_ 0 3 gas and oil engines. =the theory of the gas engine.= by d. clerk. edited by f. e. idell. third edition, 19 illus. 180 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 2 0 =electrical ignition for internal combustion engines.= by m. a. codd. 109 illus. 163 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 3 0 =the design and construction of oil engines.= by a. h. goldingham. third edition, 112 illus. 260 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 10 6 =gas engine in principle and practice.= by a. h. goldingham. new impression. 107 illus. 195 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 6 6 =practical hand-book on the care and management of gas engines.= by g. lieckfeld. third edition, square 16mo. (_new york, 1896_) 3 6 =elements of gas engine design.= by s. a. moss. 197 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 2 0 =gas and petroleum engines.= a manual for students and engineers. by prof. w. robinson. (finsbury technical manual.) _third edition in preparation_ gas lighting. =gas analyst's manual= (incorporating hartley's "gas analyst's manual" and "gas measurement"). by j. abady. 102 illus. 576 pp. demy 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 18 0 =gas works=: their arrangement, construction, plant and machinery. by f. colyer. 31 folding plates, 134 pp. 8vo. (_1884_) _net_ 8 6 =transactions of the institution of gas engineers.= edited by walter t. dunn, _secretary_. published annually. 8vo _net_ 10 6 =lighting by acetylene.= by f. dye. 75 illus. 200 pp. crown 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 6 0 =a comparison of the english and french methods of ascertaining the illuminating power of coal gas.= by a. j. van eijndhoven. illustrated, crown 8vo. (_1897_) 4 0 =gas lighting and gas fitting.= by w. p. gerhard. second edition, 190 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1894_) _net_ 2 0 =a treatise on the comparative commercial values of gas coals and cannels.= by d. a. graham. 3 plates, 100 pp. 8vo. (_1882_) 4 6 =the gas engineers laboratory handbook.= by j. hornby. third edition, revised, 70 illus. 330 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 6 0 historical and biographical. =extracts from the private letters of the late sir william fothergill cooke=, 1836-9, relating to the invention and development of the electric telegraph; also a memoir by latimer clark. edited by f. h. webb, sec. inst. e.e. 8vo. (_1895_) 3 0 =a chronology of inland navigation= in great britain. by h. r. de salis. crown 8vo. (_1897_) 4 6 =a history of electric telegraphy= to the year 1837. by j. j. fahie. 35 illus. 542 pp. crown 8vo. (_1889_) 2 0 =history and development of steam locomotion on common roads.= by w. fletcher. 109 illus. 288 pp. 8vo. 5 0 =life as an engineer=: its lights, shades, and prospects. by j. w. c. haldane. new edition, 23 plates, 390 pp. crown 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 5 0 =philipp reis=, inventor of the telephone: a biographical sketch. by prof. s. p. thompson. 8vo, cloth. (_1883_) 7 6 =the development of the mercurial air pump.= by prof. s. p. thompson. illustrated, royal 8vo, sewed. (_1888_) 1 6 horology. =watch and clock maker's handbook=, dictionary and guide. by f. j. britten. tenth edition, 450 illus. 492 pp. crown 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 5 0 =the springing and adjusting of watches.= by f. j. britten. 75 illus. 152 pp. crown 8vo. (_1898_) _net_ 3 0 =prize essay on the balance spring= and its isochronal adjustments. by m. immisch. 7 illus. 50 pp. crown 8vo. (_1872_) 2 6 hydraulics and hydraulic machinery. (_see also_ irrigation _and_ water supply.) =the suction caused by ships= explained in popular language. by e. s. bellasis. 2 plates, 26 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1912_) _net_ 1 0 =hydraulics with working tables.= by e. s. bellasis. second edition, 160 illus. xii + 311 pp. 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 12 0 =pumps=: historically, theoretically and practically considered. by p. r. björling. second edition, 156 illus. 234 pp. crown 8vo. (_1895_) 7 6 =pump details.= by p. r. björling. 278 illus. 211 pp. crown 8vo. (_1892_) 7 6 =pumps and pump motors=: a manual for the use of hydraulic engineers. by p. r. björling. two vols. 261 plates, 369 pp. royal 4to. (_1895_) _net_ 1 10 0 =practical handbook on pump construction.= by p. r. björling. second edition, 9 plates, 90 pp. crown 8vo. (_1904_) 5 0 =water or hydraulic motors.= by p. r. björling. 206 illus. 287 pp. crown 8vo. (_1903_) 9 0 =hydraulic machinery=, with an introduction to hydraulics. by r. g. blaine. second edition, with 307 illus. 468 pp. 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1905_) _net_ 14 0 =practical hydraulics.= by t. box. fifteenth edition, 8 plates, 88 pp. crown 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 5 0 =pumping and water power.= by f. a. bradley. 51 illus., vii + 118 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 4 6 =hydraulic, steam, and hand power lifting and pressing machinery.= by f. colyer. second edition, 88 plates, 211 pp. imperial 8vo. (_1892_) _net_ 10 6 =pumps and pumping machinery.= by f. colyer. vol. i. second edition, 53 plates, 212 pp. 8vo (_1892_) _net_ 10 6 vol. ii. second edition, 48 plates, 169 pp. 8vo. (_1900_) _net_ 10 6 =construction of horizontal and vertical waterwheels.= by w. cullen. second edition, small 4to. (_1871_) 5 0 =donaldson's poncelet turbine= and water pressure engine and pump. by w. donaldson. 2 plates, viii + 32 pp. demy 4to. (_1883_) 5 0 =principles of construction and efficiency of waterwheels.= by w. donaldson. 13 illus. 94 pp. 8vo. (_1876_) 5 0 =practical hydrostatics and hydrostatic formulæ.= by e. s. gould. 27 illus. 114 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 2 0 =hydraulic and other tables= for purposes of sewerage and water supply. by t. hennell. third edition, 70 pp. crown 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 4 6 =tables for calculating the discharge of water= in pipes for water and power supplies. indexed at side for ready reference. by a. e. silk. 63 pp. crown 8vo. (_1899_) 5 0 =simple hydraulic formulæ.= by t. w. stone. 9 plates, 98 pp. crown 8vo. (_1881_) 4 0 =a b c of hydrodynamics.= by lt.-col. r. de villamil, r.e. (retd.). 48 illus. xi + 135 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 6 0 industrial chemistry and manufactures. =perfumes and their preparation.= by g. w. askinson. translated from the third german edition by i. fuest. third edition, 32 illus. 312 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 12 6 =brewing calculations=, gauging and tabulation. by c. h. bater. 340 pp. 64mo, roan, gilt edges. (_1897_) _net_ 1 6 =a pocket book for chemists=, chemical manufacturers, metallurgists, dyers, distillers, etc. by t. bayley. seventh edition, new impression, 550 pp. royal 32mo, roan, gilt edges. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =practical receipts= for the manufacturer, the mechanic, and for home use. by dr. h. r. berkeley and w. m. walker. new impression, 250 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =a treatise on the manufacture of soap and candles=, lubricants and glycerine. by w. l. carpenter and h. leask. second edition, 104 illus. 456 pp. crown 8vo. (_1895_) 12 6 =a text book of paper making.= by c. f. cross and e. j. bevan. third edition, 97 illus. 411 pp. crown 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 12 6 =c.b.s. standard units and standard paper tests.= by c. f. cross, e. j. bevan, c. beadle and r. w. sindall. 25 pp. crown 4to. (_1903_) _net_ 2 6 =pyrometry.= by c. r. darling. 60 illus. 200 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 5 0 =soda fountain requisites.= a practical receipt book for druggists, chemists, etc. by g. h. dubelle. third edition, 157 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 4 6 =spices and how to know them.= by w. m. gibbs. 47 plates, including 14 in colours, 176 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 15 0 =the chemistry of fire= and fire prevention. by h. and h. ingle. 45 illus. 290 pp. crown 8vo. (_1900_) 9 0 =ice-making machines.= by m. ledoux and others. sixth edition, 190 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 2 0 =brewing with raw grain.= by t. w. lovibond. 75 pp. crown 8vo. (_1883_) 5 0 =the chemistry, properties, and tests of precious stones.= by j. mastin. 114 pp. fcap. 16mo, limp leather, gilt top. (_1911_) _net_ 2 6 =sugar, a handbook for planters and refiners.= by the late j. a. r. newlands and b. e. r. newlands. 236 illus. 876 pp. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 1 5 0 =principles of leather manufacture.= by prof. h. r. procter. 101 illus. 520 pp. medium 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 18 0 =leather industries laboratory handbook= of analytical and experimental methods. by h. r. procter. second edition, 4 plates, 46 illus. 450 pp. demy 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 18 0 =leather chemists' pocket book.= a short compendium of analytical methods. by prof. h. r. procter. assisted by dr. e. stiasny and h. brumwell. (_in the press_.) =theoretical and practical ammonia refrigeration.= by i. i. redwood. sixth thousand, 15 illus. 146 pp. square 16mo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 4 6 =breweries and maltings.= by g. scammell and f. colyer. second edition, 20 plates, 178 pp. 8vo. (_1880_) _net_ 6 0 =factory glazes for ceramic engineers.= by h. rum-bellow. folio. series a, leadless sanitary glazes. (_1908_) _net_ 2 2 0 =spons' encyclopædia of the industrial arts=, manufactures and commercial products. 1500 illus. 2100 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1882_) in 2 vols, cloth _net_ 2 2 0 =the absorption refrigerating machine.= by g. t. voorhees. 42 illus. 144 pp. narrow crown 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 8 6 =tables for the quantitative estimation of the sugars.= by e. wein and w. frew. crown 8vo. (_1896_) 6 0 =the puering, bating and drenching of skins.= by j. t. wood. 33 illus. xv + 300 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =workshop receipts.= for the use of manufacturers, mechanics and scientific amateurs. new and thoroughly revised edition, crown 8vo. (_1909_) _each net_ 3 0 vol. i. acetylene lighting _to_ drying. 223 illus. 532 pp. vol. ii. dyeing _to_ japanning. 259 illus. 540 pp. vol. iii. jointing pipes _to_ pumps. 256 illus. 528 pp. vol. iv. rainwater separators _to_ wire rope, splicing. 321 illus. 540 pp. =practical handbook on the distillation of alcohol from farm products.= by f. b. wright. second edition, 60 illus. 271 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 4 6 =the manufacture of chocolate= and other cacao preparations. by p. zipperer. second edition, 87 illus. 280 pp. royal 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 16 0 interest tables. =the wide range dividend and interest calculator=, showing at a glance the percentage on any sum from one pound to ten thousand pounds, at any interest, from 1% to 12-1/2%, proceeding by 1/4%. by a. stevens. 100 pp. super royal 8vo, cloth _net_ 6 0 quarter morocco, cloth sides _net_ 7 6 =the wide range income tax calculator=, showing at a glance the tax on any sum from one shilling to thousand pounds, at the rate of 9_d._, 1/and 1/2 in the pound. by a. stevens. on folding card, imperial 8vo _net_ 1 0 irrigation. =punjab rivers and works.= by e. s. bellasis. 47 illus. 65 pp. folio, cloth. (_1911_) _net_ 8 0 =irrigation pocket book.= by r. b. buckley. 419 pp. crown 8vo, leather cloth with rounded corners. (_1911_) _net_ 12 6 =the design of channels for irrigation and drainage.= by r. b. buckley. 22 diagrams, 56 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 2 0 =the irrigation works of india.= by r. b. buckley. second edition, with coloured maps and plans. 336 pp. 4to, cloth. (_1905_) _net_ 2 2 0 =irrigated india.= by hon. alfred deakin. with map, 322 pp. 8vo. (_1893_) 8 6 =indian storage reservoirs=, with earthen dams. by w. l. strange. _second edition in preparation_ =the irrigation of mesopotamia.= by sir w. willcocks. 2 vols. 46 plates, 136 pp. (text super-royal 8vo, plates folio). (_1911_) _net_ 1 0 0 =egyptian irrigation.= by sir w. willcocks. _third edition in preparation._ _a few copies of the first edition (1889) are still to be had. price_ 15_s. net._ =the nile reservoir dam at assuan=, and after. by sir w. willcocks. second edition, 13 plates, super-royal 8vo. (_1903_) _net_ 6 0 =the assuân reservoir and lake moeris.= by sir w. willcocks. with text in english, french and arabic. 5 plates, 116 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1904_) _net_ 5 0 =the nile in 1904.= by sir w. willcocks. 30 plates, 200 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1904_) _net_ 9 0 logarithm tables. =aldum's pocket folding mathematical tables.= four-figure logarithms, and anti-logarithms, natural sines, tangents, cotangents, cosines, chords and radians for all angles from 1 to 90 degrees. and decimaliser table for weights and money. on folding card. _net_ 4_d._ 20 copies, _net_ 6_s._ =tables of seven-figure logarithms= of the natural numbers from 1 to 108,000. by c. babbage. stereotype edition, 8vo _net_ 5 0 =four-place tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions.= by e. v. huntington. ninth thousand, 34 pp. square 8vo, limp buckram, with cut lateral index. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 3 0 =short logarithmic= and other tables. by w. c. unwin. fourth edition, small 4to 3 0 =logarithmic land measurement.= by j. wallace. 32 pp. royal 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 5 0 =a b c five-figure logarithms with tables, for chemists.= by c. j. woodward. crown 8vo _net_ 2 6 =a b c five-figure logarithms= for general use, with lateral index for ready reference. by c. j. woodward. second edition, with cut lateral index, 116 pp. 12mo, limp leather _net_ 3 0 marine engineering and naval architecture. =marine propellers.= by s. w. barnaby. fifth edition, 5 plates, 56 illus. 185 pp. demy 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 10 6 =marine engineer's record book=: engines. by b. c. bartley. 8vo, roan _net_ 5 0 =the suction caused by ships and the olympic-hawke collision.= by e. s. bellasis. 1 chart and 5 illus. in text, 26 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1912_) _net_ 1 0 =yachting hints=, tables and memoranda. by a. c. franklin. waistcoat pocket size, 103 pp. 64mo, roan, gilt edges _net_ 1 0 =steamship coefficients, speeds and powers.= by c. f. a. fyfe. 31 plates, 280 pp. fcap. 8vo, leather. (_1907_) _net_ 10 6 =steamships and their machinery=, from first to last. by j. w. c. haldane. 120 illus. 532 pp. 8vo. (_1893_) 15 0 =tables for constructing ships' lines.= by a. hogg. third edition, 3 plates, 20 pp. 8vo, sewed (_1911_) _net_ 3 0 =submarine boats.= by g. w. hovgaard. 2 plates, 98 pp. crown 8vo. (_1887_) 5 0 =tabulated weights= of angle, tee, bulb, round, square, and flat iron and steel for the use of naval architects, ship-builders, etc. by c. h. jordan. sixth edition, 640 pp. royal 32mo, french morocco, gilt edges. (_1909_) _net_ 7 6 =particulars of dry docks=, wet docks, wharves, etc. on the river thames. compiled by c. h. jordan. second edition, 7 coloured charts, 103 pp. oblong 8vo. (_1904_) _net_ 2 6 =marine transport of petroleum.= by h. little. 66 illus. 263 pp. crown 8vo. (_1890_) 10 6 =questions and answers for marine engineers=, with a practical treatise on breakdowns at sea. by t. lucas. 12 folding plates, 515 pp. gilt edges, crown 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 8 0 =reed's engineers' handbook to the board of trade examinations= for certificates of competency as first and second class engineers. nineteenth edition, 37 plates, 358 illus. 696 pp. 8vo _net_ 14 0 =key to reed's handbook= _net_ 7 6 =reed's marine boilers.= second edition, crown 8vo _net_ 4 6 =reed's useful hints to sea-going engineers.= fourth edition, 8 plates, 50 illus. 312 pp. crown 8vo. (_1903_) _net_ 3 6 materials. =practical treatise on the strength of materials.= by t. box. fourth edition, 27 plates, 536 pp. 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 12 6 =treatise on the origin, progress, prevention and cure of dry rot in timber.= by t. a. britton. 10 plates, 519 pp. crown 8vo. (_1875_) 7 6 =solid bitumens.= by s. f. peckham. 23 illus. 324 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 1 1 0 =lubricants, oils and greases.= by i. i. redwood. 3 plates, ix + 54 pp. 8vo. (_1898_) _net_ 6 6 =practical treatise on mineral oils= and their by-products. by i. i. redwood. 67 illus. 336 pp. demy 8vo. (_1897_) 15 0 =silico-calcareous sandstones=, or building stones from quartz, sand and lime. by e. stoffler. 5 plates, 8vo, sewed. (_1901_) _net_ 4 0 =proceedings of the fifth congress, international association for testing materials.= english edition. 189 illus. 549 pp. demy 8vo. (_1910_). paper _net_ 15 0 cloth _net_ 18 0 mathematics. =imaginary quantities.= by m. argand. translated by prof. hardy. 18mo, boards. (_new york_) _net_ 2 0 =text book of practical solid geometry.= by e. h. de v. atkinson. revised by major b. r. ward, r.e. second edition, 17 plates, 8vo. (_1901_) 7 6 =quick and easy methods of calculating=, and the theory and use of the slide rule. by r. g. blaine. fourth edition, 6 illus. xii + 152 pp. 16mo, leather cloth. (_1912_) _net_ 2 6 =symbolic algebra=, or the algebra of algebraic numbers. by w. cain. 18mo, boards. (_new york_) _net_ 2 0 =nautical astronomy.= by j. h. colvin. 127 pp. crown 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 2 6 =chemical problems.= by j. c. foye. fourth edition, 141 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1898_) _net_ 2 0 =primer of the calculus.= by e. s. gould. second edition, 24 illus. 122 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1899_) _net_ 2 0 =elementary treatise on the calculus= for engineering students. by j. graham. third edition, 276 pp. crown 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1905_) 7 6 =manual of the slide rule.= by f. a. halsey. second edition, 31 illus. 84 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 2 0 =reform in chemical and physical calculations.= by c. j. t. hanssen. 4to. (_1897_) _net_ 6 6 =algebra self-taught.= by p. higgs. third edition, 104 pp. crown 8vo. (_1903_) 2 6 =a text-book on graphic statics.= by c. w. malcolm. 155 illus. 316 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 12 6 =galvanic circuit investigated mathematically.= by g. s. ohm. translated by william francis. 269 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1891_) _net_ 2 0 =elementary practical mathematics.= by m. t. ormsby. second edition, 128 illus. xii + 410 pp. medium 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 5 0 =elements of graphic statics.= by k. von ott. translated by g. s. clarke. 93 illus. 128 pp. crown 8vo. (_1901_) 5 0 =figure of the earth.= by f. c. roberts. 18mo, boards. (_new york_) _net_ 2 0 =arithmetic of electricity.= by t. o'c. sloane. thirteenth edition, 5 illus. 162 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 4 6 =graphic method for solving certain questions in arithmetic or algebra.= by g. l. vose. second edition with 28 illus. 62 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 2 0 =problems in electricity.= a graduated collection comprising all branches of electrical science. by r. weber. translated from the french by e. a. o'keefe. 34 illus. 366 pp. crown 8vo. (_1902_) _net_ 7 6 mechanical engineering. steam engines and boilers, etc. =engineers' sketch book of mechanical movements.= by t. w. barber. fifth edition, 3000 illus. 355 pp. 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 10 6 =the repair and maintenance of machinery.= by t. w. barber. 417 illus. 476 pp. 8vo. (_1895_) 10 6 =practical treatise on mill gearing.= by t. box. fifth edition, 11 plates, 128 pp. crown 8vo. (_1892_) 7 6 =the mechanical engineers' price book, 1912.= edited by g. brooks. 176 pp. pocket size (6-1/2 in. by 3-3/4 in. by 1/2 in. thick), leather cloth, with rounded corners. (_1912_) _net_ 4 0 =safety valves.= by r. h. buell. third edition, 20 illus. 100 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1898_) _net_ 2 0 =machine design.= by prof. w. l. cathcart. part i. fastenings. 123 illus. 291 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 12 6 =chimney design and theory.= by w. w. christie. second edition, 54 illus. 192 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 12 6 =furnace draft=: its production by mechanical methods. by w. w. christie. 5 illus. 80 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 2 0 =the stokers' catechism.= by w. j. connor. 63 pp. limp cloth. (_1906_) _net_ 1 0 =treatise on the use of belting= for the transmission of power. by j. h. cooper. fifth edition, 94 illus. 399 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 12 6 =the steam engine considered as a thermodynamic machine.= by j. h. cotterill. third edition, 39 diagrams, 444 pp. 8vo. (_1896_) 15 0 =fireman's guide=, a handbook on the care of boilers. by k. p. dahlstrom. eleventh edition, fcap. 8vo, limp. (s. & c. series, no. 16.) (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 1 6 =heat for engineers.= by c. r. darling. second edition, 110 illus. 430 pp. 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =diseases of a gasolene automobile=, and how to cure them. by a. l. dyke. 127 illus. 201 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 6 6 =belt driving.= by g. halliday. 3 folding plates, 100 pp. 8vo. (_1894_) 3 6 =worm and spiral gearing.= by f. a. halsey. 13 plates, 85 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 2 0 =commercial efficiency of steam boilers.= by a. hanssen. large 8vo, sewed. (_1898_) 0 6 =corliss engine.= by j. t. henthorn. third edition, 23 illus. 95 pp. square 16mo. (s. & c. series, no. 23.) (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 1 6 =liquid fuel= for mechanical and industrial purposes. by e. a. brayley hodgetts. 106 illus. 129 pp. 8vo. (_1890_) 5 0 =elementary text-book on steam engines and boilers.= by j. h. kinealy. fourth edition, 106 illus. 259 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 8 6 =centrifugal fans.= by j. h. kinealy. 33 illus. 206 pp. fcap. 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 12 6 =mechanical draft.= by j. h. kinealy. 27 original tables and 13 plates, 142 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 8 6 =the a b c of the steam engine=, with a description of the automatic governor. by j. p. lisk. 6 plates, crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 17.) (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 1 6 =valve setting record book.= by p. a. low. 8vo, boards 1 6 =the lay-out of corliss valve gears.= by s. a. moss. second edition, 3 plates, 108 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 2 0 =steam boilers=, their management and working. by j. peattie. fifth edition, 35 illus. 230 pp. crown 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 4 6 =treatise on the richards steam engine indicator.= by c. t. porter. sixth edition, 3 plates and 73 diagrams, 285 pp. 8vo. (_1902_) 9 0 =practical treatise on the steam engine.= by a. rigg. second edition, 103 plates, 378 pp. demy 4to. (_1894_) 15 0 =power and its transmission.= a practical handbook for the factory and works manager. by t. a. smith. 76 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 2 0 =drawings for medium sized repetition work.= by r. d. spinney. with 47 illus. 130 pp. 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 3 6 =slide valve simply explained.= by w. j. tennant. revised by j. h. kinealy. 41 illus. 83 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1899_) _net_ 4 6 =shaft governors.= by w. trinks and c. hoosum. 27 illus. 97 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 2 0 =treatise on the design and construction of mill buildings.= by h. g. tyrrell. 652 illus. 490 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 17 0 =slide and piston valve geared steam engines.= by w. h. uhland. 47 plates and 314 illus. 155 pp. two vols. folio, half morocco. (_1882_) 1 16 0 =how to run engines and boilers.= by e. p. watson. fifth edition, 31 illus. 160 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1904_) 3 6 =position diagram of cylinder with meyer cut-off.= by w. h. weightman. on card. (_new york_) _net_ 1 0 =practical method of designing slide valve gearing.= by e. j. welch. 69 diagrams, 283 pp. crown 8vo. (_1890_) 6 0 =elements of mechanics.= by t. w. wright. eighth edition, illustrated, 382 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 10 6 metallurgy. iron and steel manufacture. =life of railway axles.= by t. andrews. 8vo, sewed. (_1895_) 1 0 =microscopic internal flaws in steel rails and propeller shafts.= by t. andrews. 8vo, sewed. (_1896_) 1 0 =microscopic internal flaws, inducing fracture in steel.= by t. andrews. 8vo, sewed. (_1896_) 2 0 =practical alloying.= a compendium of alloys and processes for brassfounders, metal workers, and engineers. by john f. buchanan. with 41 illus. 205 pp. 8vo, cloth. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 10 6 =brassfounders' alloys.= by j. f. buchanan. illustrated, 129 pp. crown 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 4 6 =the moulder's dictionary= (foundry nomenclature). a concise guide to foundry practice. by john f. buchanan. new impression, 26 illus. viii + 225 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 3 0 =american standard specifications for steel.= by a. l. colby. second edition, revised, 103 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 5 0 =pyrometry.= by c. r. darling. 60 illus. 200 pp. crown 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 5 0 =galvanised iron=: its manufacture and uses. by j. davies. 139 pp. 8vo. (_1899_) _net_ 5 0 =management of steel.= by g. ede. seventh edition, 216 pp. crown 8vo. (_1903_) 5 0 =the frodair handbook for ironfounders.= 160 pp. 12mo. (_1910_) _net_ 2 0 =cupola furnace.= a practical treatise on the construction and management of foundry cupolas. by e. kirk. third edition, 106 illus. 484 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 15 0 =practical notes on pipe founding.= by j. w. macfarlane. 15 plates, 148 pp. 8vo. (_1888_) 12 6 =atlas of designs concerning blast furnace practice.= by m. a. pavloff. 127 plates, 14 in. by 10-1/2 in. oblong, sewed. (_1902_) _net_ 1 1 0 =album of drawings relating to the manufacture of open hearth steel.= by m. a. pavloff. part i. open hearth furnaces. 52 plates, 14 in. by 10-1/2 in. oblong folio, in portfolio. (_1904_) _net_ 12 0 =metallography applied to siderurgic products.= by h. savoia. translated by r. g. corbet. 94 illus. 180 pp. crown 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 4 6 =modern foundry practice.= including revised subject matter and tables from spretson's "casting and founding." by j. sharp. second edition, new impression, 272 illus. 759 pp. 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 1 1 0 =roll turning for sections in steel and iron.= by a. spencer. second edition, 78 plates, 4to. (_1894_) 1 10 0 metric tables. =french measure and english equivalents.= by j. brook. second edition, 80 pp. fcap. 32mo, roan. (_1906_) _net_ 1 0 =a dictionary of metric and other useful measures.= by l. clark. 113 pp. 8vo. (_1891_) 6 0 =english weights, with their equivalents in kilogrammes.= by f. w. a. logan. 96 pp. fcap. 32mo, roan. (_1906_) _net_ 1 0 =metric weights with english equivalents.= by h. p. mccartney. 84 pp. fcap. 32mo, roan. (_1907_) _net_ 1 0 =metric tables.= by sir g. l. molesworth. fourth edition, 95 pp. royal 32mo. (_1909_) _net_ 2 0 =tables for setting out curves= from 200 metres to 4000 metres by tangential angles. by h. williamson. 4 illus. 60 pp. 18mo. (_1908_) _net_ 2 0 mineralogy and mining. =rock blasting.= by g. g. andre. 12 plates and 56 illus. in text, 202 pp. 8vo. (_1878_) 5 0 =winding plants for great depths.= by h. c. behr. in two parts. 8vo, sewed. (_1902_) _net_ 2 2 0 =practical treatise on hydraulic mining in california.= by a. j. bowie, jun. tenth edition, 73 illus. 313 pp. royal 8vo. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 1 1 0 =tables for the determination of common rocks.= by o. bowles. 64 pp. 18mo, boards. (van nostrand series, no. 125.) (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 2 0 =manual of assaying gold, silver, copper and lead ores.= by w. l. brown. twelfth edition, 132 illus. 589 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 10 6 =fire assaying.= by e. w. buskett. 69 illus. 105 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 4 6 =tin=: describing the chief methods of mining, dressing, etc. by a. g. charleton. 15 plates, 83 pp. crown 8vo. (_1884_) 12 6 =gold mining and milling= in western australia, with notes upon telluride treatment, costs and mining practice in other fields. by a. g. charleton. 82 illus. and numerous plans and tables, 648 pp. super-royal 8vo. (_1903_) _net_ 1 5 0 =miners' geology and prospectors' guide.= by g. a. corder. 29 plates, 224 pp. crown 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 5 0 =blasting of rock in mines, quarries, tunnels, etc.= by a. w. and z. w. daw. second edition, 90 illus. 316 pp. demy 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 15 0 =handbook of mineralogy=; determination and description of minerals found in the united states. by j. c. foye. 180 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1886_) _net_ 2 0 =our coal resources= at the end of the nineteenth century. by prof. e. hull. 157 pp. demy 8vo. (_1897_) 6 0 =hydraulic gold miners' manual.= by t. s. g. kirkpatrick, second edition, 12 illus. 46 pp. crown 8vo. (_1897_) 4 0 =economic mining.= by c. g. w. lock. 175 illus. 680 pp. 8vo. (_1895_) _net_ 10 6 =gold milling=: principles and practice. by c. g. w. lock. 200 illus. 850 pp. demy 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 1 1 0 =mining and ore-dressing machinery.= by c. g. w. lock. 639 illus. 466 pp. super-royal 4to. (_1890_) 1 5 0 =miners' pocket book.= by c. g. w. lock. fifth edition, 233 illus. 624 pp. fcap. 8vo, leather, gilt edges. (_1908_) _net_ 10 6 =chemistry, properties and tests of precious stones.= by j. mastin. 114 pp. fcap. 16mo, limp leather, gilt top. (_1911_) _net_ 2 6 =tests for ores, minerals and metals of commercial value.= by r. l. mcmechen. 152 pp. 12mo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 5 6 =practical handbook for the working miner and prospector=, and the mining investor. by j. a. miller. 34 illus. 234 pp. crown 8vo. (_1897_) 7 6 =theory and practice of centrifugal ventilating machines.= by d. murgue. 7 illus. 81 pp. 8vo. (_1883_) 5 0 =examples of coal mining plant.= by j. povey-harper. second edition, 40 plates, 26 in. by 20 in. (_1895_) _net_ 4 4 0 =examples of coal mining plant, second series.= by j. povey-harper. 10 plates, 26 in. by 20 in. (_1902_) _net_ 1 12 6 models and model making. =how to build a model yacht.= by h. fisher. numerous illustrations, 50 pp. 4to. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 4 6 =model engines and small boats.= by n. m. hopkins. 50 illus. viii + 74 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1898_) _net_ 5 9 =the gyroscope, an experimental study.= by v. e. johnson. 34 illus. 40 pp. crown 8vo, limp. (s. & c. series, no. 22.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =the model vaudeville theatre.= by n. h. schneider. 34 illus. 90 pp. crown 8vo, limp. (s. & c. series, no. 15.) (_new york, 1910_) 1 6 =electric toy-making.= by t. o. sloane. fifteenth edition, 70 illus. 183 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 4 6 =model steam engine design.= by r. m. de vignier. 34 illus. 94 pp. crown 8vo, limp. (s. & c. series, no. 9.) (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 1 6 =small engines and boilers.= by e. p. watson. 33 illus. viii + 108 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1899_) _net_ 5 6 organisation. accounts, contracts and management. =organisation of gold mining business=, with specimens of the departmental report books and the account books. by nicol brown. second edition, 220 pp. fcap. folio. (_1903_) _net_ 1 5 0 =cost keeping and management engineering.= a treatise for those engaged in engineering construction. by h. p. gillette and r. t. dana. 184 illus. 346 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 15 0 =manual of engineering specifications= and contracts. by l. m. haupt. eighth edition, 338 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1900_) _net_ 12 6 =handbook on railway stores management.= by w. o. kempthorne. 268 pp. demy 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 10 6 =depreciation of factories=, municipal, and industrial undertakings, and their valuation. by e. matheson. fourth edition, 230 pp. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 10 6 =aid book to engineering enterprise.= by e. matheson. third edition, 916 pp. 8vo, buckram. (_1898_) 1 4 0 =office management.= a handbook for architects and civil engineers. by w. kaye parry. new impression, 187 pp. medium 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 5 0 =commercial organisation of engineering factories.= by h. spencer. 92 illus. 221 pp. 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 10 6 physics. colour, heat and experimental science. =the entropy diagram= and its applications. by m. j. boulvin. 38 illus. 82 pp. demy 8vo. (_1898_) 5 0 =physical problems and their solution.= by a. bourgougnon. 224 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1897_) _net_ 2 0 =heat for engineers.= by c. r. darling. second edition, 110 illus. 430 pp. 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =the colourist.= a method of determining colour harmony. by j. a. h. hatt. 2 coloured plates, 80 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 6 6 =engineering thermodynamics.= by c. f. hirschfeld. 22 illus. 157 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 2 0 =experimental science=: elementary, practical and experimental physics. by g. m. hopkins. twenty-third edition, 920 illus. 1100 pp. large 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 1 1 0 =reform in chemical and physical calculations.= by c. j. t. hanssen. demy 4to. (_1897_) _net_ 6 6 =introduction to the study of colour phenomena.= by j. w. lovibond. 10 hand coloured plates, 48 pp. 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 5 0 =practical laws and data on the condensation of steam in bare pipes=; to which is added a translation of peclet's theory and experiments on the transmission of heat through insulating materials. by c. p. paulding. 184 illus. 102 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1904_) _net_ 8 6 =the energy chart.= practical application to reciprocating steam-engines. by captain h. r. sankey. 157 illus. 170 pp. 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 7 6 price books. =the mechanical engineers' price book, 1912.= by g. brooks. 176 pp. pocket size (6-1/2 in. by 3-3/4 in. by 1/2 in. thick), leather cloth, with rounded corners. (_1912_) _net_ 4 0 =approximate estimates.= by t. e. coleman. third edition, 481 pp. oblong 32mo, leather. (_1907_) _net_ 5 0 =the civil engineers' cost book.= by major t. e. coleman. xii. + 289 pp. pocket size (6-1/2 in. by 3-3/4 in.), leather cloth. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =railway stores price book.= by w. o. kempthorne. 500 pp. demy 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 10 6 =handbook of cost data for contractors and engineers.= by h. p. gillette. 1854 pp. cr. 8vo, leather, gilt edges. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 1 1 0 =spons' architects' and builders' pocket price-book and diary, 1912.= edited by clyde young. revised by stanford m. brooks. illustrated, 239 pp. green leather cloth. with diary showing a week at an opening. (size 6-1/2 in. by 3-3/4 in. by 1/2 in. thick). issued annually _net_ 2 6 railway engineering and management. =practical hints to young engineers employed on indian railways.= by a. w. c. addis. 14 illus. 154 pp. 12mo. (_1910_) _net_ 3 6 =field and office tables=, specially applicable to railroads. by c. f. allen. 293 pp. 16mo, leather. (_new york, 1903_) _net_ 8 6 =up-to-date air brake catechism.= by r. h. blackall. twenty-third edit. 5 coloured plates, 96 illus. 305 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 8 6 =prevention of railroad accidents, or safety in railroading.= by geo. bradshaw. 64 illus. 173 pp. square crown 8vo. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 2 6 =simple and automatic vacuum brakes.= by c. briggs, g.n.r. 11 plates, 8vo. (_1892_) 4 0 =notes on permanent-way material=, plate-laying, ad points and crossings. by w. h. cole. sixth edition, revised, 44 illus. in 39 plates, 203 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 7 6 =statistical tables of the working of railways= in various countries up to the year 1904. by j. d. diacomidis. second edition, 84 pp. small folio, sewed. (_1906_) _net_ 16 0 =locomotive breakdowns=, emergencies and their remedies. by geo. l. fowler, m.e., and w. w. wood. fifth edition, 92 illus. 266 pp. 12mo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 4 6 =permanent-way diagrams.= by f. h. frere. mounted on linen in cloth covers. (_1908_) _net_ 3 0 =formulæ for railway crossings and switches.= by j. glover. 9 illus. 28 pp. royal 32mo. (_1896_) 2 6 =setting out of tube railways.= by g. m. halden. 9 plates, 46 illus. 68 pp. crown 4to. (_1907_) _net_ 10 6 =railway engineering, mechanical and electrical.= by j. w. c. haldane. new edition, 141 illus. xx + 583 pp. 8vo. (_1908_) 15 0 =the construction of the modern locomotive.= by g. hughes. 300 illus. 261 pp. 8vo. (_1894_) 9 0 =practical hints for light railways= at home and abroad. by f. r. johnson. 6 plates, 31 pp. crown 8vo. (_1896_) 2 6 =handbook on railway stores management.= by w. o. kempthorne. 268 pp. demy 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 10 6 =railway stores price book.= by w. o. kempthorne. 487 pp. demy 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 10 6 =railroad location surveys and estimates.= by f. lavis. 68 illus. 270 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 12 6 =pioneering.= by f. shelford. illustrated, 88 pp. crown 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 3 0 =handbook on railway surveying= for students and junior engineers. by b. stewart. 55 illus. 98 pp. crown 8vo. (_1909_) _net_ 2 6 =modern british locomotives.= by a. t. taylor. 100 diagrams of principal dimensions, 118 pp. oblong 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 4 6 =locomotive slide valve setting.= by c. e. tully. illustrated, 18mo _net_ 1 0 =the railway goods station.= by f. w. west. 23 illus., xv + 192 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 4 6 =the walschaert locomotive valve gear.= by w. w. wood. 4 plates and set of movable cardboard working models of the valves, 193 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 6 6 =the westinghouse e.t. air-brake instruction pocket book.= by w. w. wood. 48 illus. including many coloured plates, 242 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 8 6 sanitation, public health and municipal engineering. =sewers and drains for populous districts.= by j. w. adams. ninth edition, 81 illus. 236 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 10 6 =engineering work in public buildings.= by r. o. allsop. 77 illus. ix + 158 pp. demy 4to. (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =public abattoirs=, their planning, design and equipment. by r. s. ayling. 33 plates, 100 pp. demy 4to. (_1908_) _net_ 8 6 =sewage purification.= by e. bailey-denton. 8 plates, 44 pp. 8vo. (_1896_) 5 0 =water supply and sewerage of country mansions= and estates. by e. bailey-denton. 76 pp. crown 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 2 6 =sewerage and sewage purification.= by m. n. baker. second edition, 144 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 2 0 =sewage irrigation by farmers.= by r. w. p. birch. 8vo, sewed. (_1878_) 2 6 =sanitary house drainage=, its principles and practice. by t. e. coleman. 98 illus. 206 pp. crown 8vo. (_1896_) 6 0 =stable sanitation and construction.= by t. e. coleman. 183 illus. 226 pp. crown 8vo. (_1897_) 6 0 =public institutions=, their engineering, sanitary and other appliances. by f. colyer. 231 pp. 8vo. (_1889_) _net_ 2 0 =discharge of pipes and culverts.= by p. m. crosthwaite. large folding sheet in case _net_ 2 6 =a complete and practical treatise on plumbing and sanitation: hot water supply, warming and ventilation=, steam cooking, gas, electric light, bells, etc., with a complete schedule of prices of plumber's work. by g. b. davis and f. dye. 2 vols. 637 illus. and 21 folding plates, 830 pp. 4to, cloth. (_1899_) _net_ 1 10 0 =standard practical plumbing.= by p. j. davies. vol. i. fourth edition, 768 illus. 355 pp. royal 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 7 6 vol. ii. second edition, 953 illus. 805 pp. (_1905_) _net_ 10 6 vol. iii. 313 illus. 204 pp. (_1905_) _net_ 5 0 =conservancy, or dry sanitation versus water carriage.= by j. donkin. 7 plates, 33 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1906_) _net_ 1 0 =sewage disposal works=, their design and construction. by w. c. easdale. with 160 illus. 264 pp. demy 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 10 6 =house drainage and sanitary plumbing.= by w. p. gerhard. tenth edition, 6 illus. 231 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1902_) _net_ 2 0 =central station heating.= by b. t. gifford. 37 illus. 208 pp. 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 17 0 =housing and town planning conference.= report of conference held by the institution of municipal and county engineers. edited by t. cole, _secretary_. 30 plates, 240 pp. demy 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 10 6 =engineering work in towns and cities.= by e. mcculloch. 44 illus. 502 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 12 6 =the treatment of septic sewage.= by g. w. rafter. 137 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1904_) _net_ 2 0 =reports and investigations on sewer air= and sewer ventilation. by r. h. reeves. 8vo, sewed. (_1894_) 1 0 =the law and practice of paving= private street works. by w. spinks. fourth edition, 256 pp. 8vo. (_1904_) _net_ 12 6 structural design. (_see_ bridges and roofs.) telegraph codes. =new business code.= 320 pp. narrow 8vo. (size 4-3/4 in. by 7-3/4 in. and 1/2 in. thick, and weight 10 oz.) (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 1 1 0 =miners' and smelters' code= (formerly issued as the =master telegraph code=). 448 pp. 8vo, limp leather, weight 14 oz. (_new york, 1899_) _net_ 2 10 0 =billionaire phrase code=, containing over two million sentences coded in single words. 56 pp. 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 6 6 warming and ventilation. =heat for engineers.= by c. r. darling. second edition, 110 illus. 430 pp. 8vo. (finsbury technical manual.) (_1912_) _net_ 12 6 =hot water supply.= by f. dye. fifth edition. new impression, 48 ill. 86 pp. cr. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 3 0 =a practical treatise upon steam heating.= by f. dye. 129 illus. 246 pp. demy 8vo. (_1901_) _net_ 10 0 =practical treatise on warming buildings by hot water.= by f. dye. 192 illus. 319 pp. 8vo. cloth. (_1905_) _net_ 8 6 =central station heating.= by b. t. gifford. 37 illus. 208 pp. demy 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 17 0 =charts for low pressure steam heating.= by j. h. kinealy. small folio. (_new york_) 4 6 =formulæ and tables for heating.= by j. h. kinealy. 18 illus. 53 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1899_) 3 6 =centrifugal fans.= by j. h. kinealy. 33 illus. 206 pp. fcap. 8vo, leather. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 12 6 =mechanical draft.= by j. h. kinealy. 27 original tables and 13 plates, 142 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 8 6 =theory and practice of centrifugal ventilating machines.= by d. murgue. 7 illus. 81 pp. 8vo. (_1883_) 5 0 =mechanics of ventilation.= by g. w. rafter. second edition, 143 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1896_) _net_ 2 0 =principles of heating.= by w. g. snow. 62 illus. 161 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 8 6 =furnace heating.= by w. g. snow. fourth edition, 52 illus. 216 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1909_) _net_ 6 6 =ventilation of buildings.= by w. g. snow and t. nolan. 83 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 2 0 =heating engineers' quantities.= by w. l. white and g. m. white. 4 plates, 33 pp. folio. (_1910_) _net_ 10 6 water supply. (_see also_ hydraulics.) =potable water and methods of testing impurities.= by m. n. baker. 97 pp. 18mo, boards. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 2 0 =manual of hydrology.= by n. beardmore. new impression, 18 plates, 384 pp. 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 10 6 =boiler waters=, scale, corrosion and fouling. by w. w. christie. 77 illus. 235 pp. 8vo, cloth. (_new york, 1907_) _net_ 12 6 =water softening and purification.= by h. collet. second edition, 6 illus. 170 pp. crown 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 5 0 =treatise on water supply=, drainage and sanitary appliances of residences. by f. colyer. 100 pp. crown 8vo. (_1899_) _net_ 1 6 =purification of public water supplies.= by j. w. hill. 314 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1898_) 10 6 =well boring= for water, brine and oil. by c. isler. second edition, 105 illus. 296 pp. 8vo. (_1911_) _net_ 10 6 =method of measuring liquids flowing through pipes by means of meters of small calibre.= by prof. g. lange. 1 plate, 16 pp. 8vo, sewed _net_ 0 6 =on artificial underground water.= by g. richert. 16 illus. 33 pp. 8vo, sewed. (_1900_) _net_ 1 6 =notes on water supply= in new countries. by f. w. stone. 18 plates, 42 pp. crown 8vo. (_1888_) 5 0 =the principles of waterworks engineering.= by j. h. t. tudsbery and a. w. brightmore. third edition, 13 folding plates, 130 illus. 447 pp. demy 8vo. (_1905_) _net_ 11 0 workshop practice. for art workers and mechanics. =a handbook for apprenticed machinists.= by o. j. beale. second edition, 89 illus., 141 pp. 16mo. (_new york, 1901_) _net_ 2 6 =practice of hand turning.= by f. campin. third edition, 99 illus. 307 pp. crown 8vo. (_1883_) 3 6 =artistic leather work.= by e. ellin carter. 6 plates and 21 illus. in text, xii + 51 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 2 6 =calculation of change wheels for screw cutting on lathes.= by d. de vries. 46 illus. 83 pp. 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 3 0 =milling machines and milling practice.= by d. de vries. with 536 illus. 464 pp. medium 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 14 0 =french-polishers' manual.= by a french-polisher. new impression, 31 pp. royal 32mo, sewed. (_1912_) _net_ 0 6 =art of copper-smithing.= by j. fuller. fourth edition, 483 illus. 319 pp. royal 8vo. (_new york, 1911_) _net_ 12 6 =hand forging and wrought iron ornamental ironwork.= by t. f. googerty. 122 illus. 197 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 4 6 =saw filing and management of saws.= by r. grimshaw. new edition, 81 illus. 16mo. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 4 6 =paint and colour mixing.= by a. s. jennings. fourth edition. 14 coloured plates, 190 pp. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 5 0 =the mechanician=: a treatise on the construction and manipulation of tools. by c. knight. fifth edition, 96 plates, 397 pp. 4to. (_1897_) 18 0 =turner's and fitter's pocket book.= by j. la nicca. 18mo, sewed 0 6 =tables for engineers and mechanics=, giving the values of the different trains of wheels required to produce screws of any pitch. by lord lindsay. second edition, royal 8vo, oblong. 2 0 =screw-cutting tables.= by w. a. martin. seventh edition, royal 8vo, oblong _net_ 1 0 =metal plate work=, its patterns and their geometry, for the use of tin, iron and zinc plate workers. by c. t. millis. fourth edition, 280 diagrams, 470 pp. crown 8vo. (_1906_) 9 0 =the practical handbook of smithing and forging.= engineers' and general smiths' work. by t. moore. new impression, 401 illus. 248 pp. crown 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =modern machine shop construction=, equipment and management. by o. e. perrigo. 208 illus. 343 pp. crown 4to. (_new york, 1906_) _net_ 1 1 0 =turner's handbook on screw-cutting=, coning, etc. by w. price. new impression, fcap. 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 0 6 =introduction to eccentric spiral turning.= by h. c. robinson. 12 plates, 23 illus. 48 pp. 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 4 6 =manual of instruction in hard soldering.= by h. rowell. sixth edition, 7 illus. 66 pp. crown 8vo. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 3 0 =forging, stamping, and general smithing.= by b. saunders. 728 illus. ix + 428 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) _net_ 11 0 =pocket book on boilermaking, shipbuilding=, and the steel and iron trades in general. by m. j. sexton. sixth edition, new impression, 85 illus. 319 pp. royal 32mo, roan, gilt edges. (_1912_) _net_ 5 0 =power and its transmission.= a practical handbook for the factory and works manager. by t. a. smith. 76 pp. fcap. 8vo. (_1910_) _net_ 2 0 =spons' mechanics' own book=: a manual for handicraftsmen and amateurs. sixth edition, new impression, 1430 illus. 720 pp. demy 8vo. (_1912_) 6 0 ditto ditto half french morocco 7 6 =spons' workshop receipts for manufacturers, mechanics and scientific amateurs.= new and thoroughly revised edition, crown 8vo. (_1909_) _each net_ 3 0 vol. i. acetylene lighting _to_ drying. 223 illus. 532 pp. vol. ii. dyeing _to_ japanning. 259 illus. 540 pp. vol. iii. jointing pipes _to_ pumps. 257 illus. 528 pp. vol. iv. rainwater separators _to_ wire ropes. 321 illus. 540 pp. =gauges at a glance.= by t. taylor. second edition, post 8vo, oblong, with tape converter. (_1900_) _net_ 5 0 =simple soldering=, both hard and soft. by e. thatcher. 52 illus. 76 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 18.) (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 1 6 =the modern machinist.= by j. t. usher. fifth edition. 257 illus. 322 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1904_) _net_ 10 6 =knots, splices, and rope-work.= by a. h. verrill. 148 illus. 102 pp. 12mo. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 3 0 =practical wood carving.= by c. j. woodsend. 108 illus. 86 pp. 8vo. (_new york, 1897_) _net_ 4 6 =american tool making= and interchangeable manufacturing. by j. w. woodworth. 600 illus. 544 pp. demy 8vo. (_new york, 1905_) _net_ 17 0 useful tables. _see also_ curve tables, earthwork, foreign exchange, interest tables, logarithms, _and_ metric tables. =weights and measurements of sheet lead.= by j. alexander. 32mo, roan _net_ 1 6 =barlow's tables of squares=, cubes, square roots, cube roots and reciprocals, of all integer numbers from 1 to 10,000. crown 8vo, leather cloth _net_ 4 0 =tables of squares.= of every foot, inch and 1/16 of an inch from 1/16 of an inch to 50 feet. by e. e. buchanan. eleventh edition, 102 pp. 16mo, limp. (_new york, 1912_) _net_ 4 6 =land area tables.= by w. codd. on sheet mounted on linen, in cloth case with explanatory pamphlet. (_1910_) 3 6 =tables of some of the principal speeds= occurring in mechanical engineering, expressed in metres per second. by p. keerayeff. 18mo, sewed _net_ 0 6 =calculating scale.= a substitute for the slide rule. by w. knowles. crown 8vo, leather _net_ 1 0 =planimeter areas.= multipliers for various scales. by h. b. molesworth. folding sheet in cloth case _net_ 1 0 =tables of seamless copper tubes.= by i. o'toole. 69 pp. oblong fcap. 8vo. (_1908_) _net_ 3 6 =steel bar and plate tables.= giving weight per lineal foot of all sizes of =l= and =t= bars, flat bars, plates, square, and round bars. by e. read. on large folding card. (_1911_) _net_ 1 0 =rownson's iron merchants' tables= and memoranda, weights and measures. 86 pp. 32mo, leather 3 6 =spons' tables and memoranda for engineers.= by j. t. hurst, c.e. twelfth edition, 278 pp. 64mo, roan, gilt edges. (_1907_) _net_ 1 0 ditto ditto in celluloid case _net_ 1 6 =optical tables and data=, for the use of opticians. by prof. s. p. thompson. second edition, 130 pp. oblong 8vo. (_1907_) _net_ 6 0 =traverse table=, showing latitudes and departure for each quarter degree of the quadrant, and for distances from 1 to 100, etc.; 18mo, boards _net_ 2 0 =fifty-four hours' wages calculator.= by h. n. whitelaw. second edition, 79 pp. 8vo. _net_ 2 6 =wheel gearing.= tables of pitch line diameters, etc. by a. wildgoose and a. j. orr. 175 pp. fcap. 32mo. (_1903_) _net_ 2 0 miscellaneous. =the atmosphere=: its characteristics and dynamics. by f. j. b. cordeiro. 35 illus. 129 pp. crown 4to. (_new york, 1910_) _net_ 10 6 =popular engineering.= by f. dye. 704 illus. 477 pp. crown 4to. (_1895_) _net_ 5 0 =the phonograph=, and how to construct it. by w. gillett. 6 folding plates, 87 pp. crown 8vo. (_1892_) 5 0 =engineering law.= by a. haring. demy 8vo, cloth. (_new york._) vol. i. the law of contract. 518 pp. (_1911_) _net_ 17 0 =the gyroscope, an experimental study.= by v. e. johnson. 34 illus. 40 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 22.) (_1911_) _net_ 1 6 =particulars of dry docks=, wet docks, wharves, etc. on the river thames. by c. n. jordan. second edition, 7 coloured charts, 103 pp. oblong 8vo. (_1904_) _net_ 2 6 =new theories in astronomy.= by w. stirling. 335 pp. demy 8vo. (_1906_) _net_ 8 6 =the american hardware store.= a manual of approved methods of arranging and displaying hardware. by r. r. williams. 500 illus. 448 pp. royal 8vo. (_new york, 1896_) _net_ 7 6 =inventions, how to protect, sell and buy them.= by f. wright. 118 pp. crown 8vo. (s. & c. series, no. 10.) (_new york, 1908_) _net_ 1 6 =the journal of the iron and steel institute.= edited by g. c. lloyd, _secretary_. published half-yearly, 8vo, cloth, 16_s._ _net_. * * * * * =carnegie scholarship memoirs.= published annually, 8vo, cloth. * * * * * =the journal of the institution of electrical engineers.= edited by p. f. rowell, _secretary_. * * * * * =the proceedings of the institution of municipal and county engineers.= edited by thomas cole, assoc. m. inst. c.e. _secretary_. published annually, 8vo, cloth, 21_s._ _net_. * * * * * =the transactions of the institution of mining and metallurgy.= edited by c. mcdermid, _secretary_. published annually, boards, 21_s._ net, or half-bound, 25_s._ net. * * * * * =transactions of the institution of gas engineers.= edited by walter t. dunn, _secretary_. published annually, 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. * * * * * =proceedings of the international association for testing materials.= (english edition.) * * * * * =transactions of the american institute of chemical engineers.= published annually, 8vo, cloth, 25_s._ net. london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited. * * * * * transcriber's note: this book contains a dictionary plus a book advertisements section. the punctation has been homogenized in the dictionary but not in the advertisements. the spelling of some names in the dictionary can differ between the french/english part and the english/french part; this has not been fixed. the following typos have been fixed in the dictionary: * p55: corrected "concassés" into "concassées" ("route en pierres concassées") * p68: corrected "rétard" into "retard" ("retard à l'allumage.") note de transcription: ce livre contient un dictionnaire, plus une section publicités. la ponctuation a été homogénéisée dans le dictionnaire, mais pas dans les publicités. l'ortographe de certains mots diffère dans le dictionnaire entre les versions french/english et english/french; celle-ci n'a pas été corrigée. les erreurs suivantes ont été corrigées: * p55: corrige «concassés» en «concassées» («route en pierres concassées»), * p68: corrige «rétard» en «retard» («retard à l'allumage.»). note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 36320-h.htm or 36320-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36320/36320-h/36320-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36320/36320-h.zip) [illustration: when the train stopped at the palm beach station, there was the comet waiting for them.--page 14.] the motor maids by palm and pine by katherine stokes author of "the motor maids' school days," etc. m. a. donohue & company chicago--new york copyright, 1911, by hurst & company made in u. s. a. contents chapter page i. to the sunny south 5 ii. making new acquaintances 19 iii. timothy's drowning 37 iv. a race and what came of it 50 v. the two edwards 64 vi. the gray motor car 79 vii. the coward 94 viii. mr. duffy gives a party 111 ix. the bullfrog and the pollywog 128 x. the song of the motor 138 xi. the orange grove 150 xii. an unwished wish 161 xiii. in the deep woods 173 xiv. the mocking bird 186 xv. out of the wilderness 196 xvi. mrs. l'estrange 208 xvii. a morning call 220 xviii. it's an ill wind 234 xix. a passage at arms 246 xx. the hand of destiny 258 xxi. picnicking under the pines 270 xxii. the last of the house of troubles 280 xxiii. explanations 291 xxiv. so endeth the second lesson 298 the motor maids by palm and pine chapter i.--to the sunny south. the atlantic ocean and the breadth of europe including half of russia lay between mr. duncan campbell and his daughter, wilhelmina. but that did not prevent mr. campbell from thinking of numerous delightful surprises for billie and her three friends in west haven. sometimes it was a mere scrawl of a note hastily written at some small way station, saying: "here's a check for my billie-girl. treat your friends to ice-cream sodas and take 'em to the theater. don't forget your old dad." sometimes the surprise took the form of queer foreign-looking packages addressed to "the misses campbell, butler, brown and price," containing strange articles made by the peasants in the far-away land. he sent them each a cossack costume with high red boots and red sashes. but some three weeks before the easter holidays came the best surprise of all. "i believe the comet needs a change of air," wrote mr. campbell. "a fine automobile must have as careful handling as a thoroughbred horse, or, for that matter, a thoroughbred young lady. what does my billie-girl say to an easter trip to florida with cousin helen as guardian angel and nan and nell and moll for company and the comet for just his own sweet self?" mr. campbell, who received long, intimate letters from his daughter once a week, felt that he knew the girls almost as well as she did, and he would call them by abbreviated, pet names in spite of billie's remonstrances. "it so happens," the letter continued, "that my old friend, ignatius donahue, who holds the small, unimportant, poorly-paid position of vice-president of an insignificant railroad, not knowing that i was digging trenches in russia, has offered me the use of his private car, including kitchen stove, chef and other necessities. i have answered that i accept the invitation, not for self, but for daughter and friends and comet; which latter must have free transportation on first-class fast-going freight, or he is no friend of mine. you will be hearing from ignatius now pretty soon. your old dad will be answerable for all other expenses, including hotel and-so-forth and if the and-so-forth is bigger than the hotel bill, he'll never even chirp. life is short and time is fleeting and young girls must go south in the winter when they have a chance." so, that is how the motor maids happened to be the four busiest young women in west haven--what with those abominable high school examinations which always came about this time, and the getting together of a palm beach wardrobe. and that is also how, one cold wet day at the end of march, they found themselves lolling in big comfortable chairs in mr. donahue's private car while the train whizzed southward. it had been a bustle and a rush at the last moment and they were glad to leave west haven, which was a dreary, misty little place at that time of the year. miss campbell leaned back in her wicker chair and regarded her four charges proudly. how neat they looked in their pretty traveling suits and new spring hats! "i am so glad they are young girls and not young ladies," she was thinking, when her meditations were interrupted by sam, the colored chef and porter combined, whose arms were laden with packages. "why, what are you bringing us, sam?" asked the little lady with some curiosity. "with mr. donahue's compliments, ma'am, and he hopes the ladies won't git hungry and bored on the journey," replied sam, depositing the packages on a chair and drawing it up within miss campbell's reach. "dear me, children," she exclaimed excitedly, "look what this nice man has sent us. i feel like a girl again myself. a beautiful bunch of violets apiece----" "and a big box of candy," exclaimed nancy brown. "and all the latest magazines," added billie campbell, laughing. "what a dear he is," finished elinor butler, fastening on her violets with a long lavender pin; while mary price gave her own violets a passionate little squeeze. "i hopes," went on sam, shifting from one foot to the other, "i hopes the ladies ain't goin' to eat so much candy they won't have no appetite for they dinner. we g'wine have spring chicken to-night, an' fresh green peas an' new asparagrass, an' strawbe'ies. i'd be mighty sorry if de ladies don' leave no space for my dinner. marse donahue he don' kill de fatted ca'f fo' dis here 'casion." "sam, we'll close the candy box this minute," said miss campbell. "and you needn't bring us any tea this afternoon. you need feel no uneasiness about your spring chickens and your new peas. i shall write to mr. donahue myself as soon as i get to palm beach and thank him for his kindness." "he's a very nice gemman, he is that," observed sam. "is he a young man, sam?" asked nancy, with young girl curiosity. "he ain't to say young or old, missy. he don' took his stan' on the dividin' line an' thar he stan'." "how long has he been standing there, sam?" put in elinor. "i knowed the gemman twenty years an' he ain't never stepped off yit." the private car rang with their cheerful laughter. "he must be a wonderful man," said miss campbell. "i wish he would teach me his secret." "his secret is, ma'am, he ain't never got married and had no fambly troubles to age his countenance," answered sam. "but," cried miss campbell, "i've never been married either, and i'm white-haired and infirm." "you infirm, ma'am! you de youngest one in de lot," answered the colored man, turning his frankly admiring gaze on the pretty little lady as he backed down the car, grinning, and disappeared in his own quarters. "you see, cousin," said billie, patting miss campbell's cheek, "you must never try to make people believe again that you are old. you are a pretty young lady gone gray before her time." it was plain that mr. ignatius donahue was very much pleased with the arrangements he had made with his old friend, duncan campbell. all along the journey he had fresh surprises for his five guests. at one place came a big basket of fruit; at another station a colored woman climbed on the train and presented each of them with a splendid magnolia in full bloom, that filled the car with its fragrance. "with mr. donahue's compliments, ma'am; an' he says he hopes the ladies is enjoyin' they selves," she added as she gave miss campbell the largest blossom in the bunch. "dear, dear," cried miss campbell. "one would think mr. donahue were taking this journey with us. he is so attentive. is he anywhere around here?" "no, ma'am," interrupted sam, with a warning look at the colored woman. "marse donahue, he jes' give orders and specs 'em to be kerried out like he says." "i feel as if mr. donahue were a sort of spirit always hovering near us," said billie, when the two colored people had disappeared, "a kind of guardian angel. i wish papa had told us something about him." "a very substantial spirit," observed miss campbell, "showering upon us all these gifts of fruits and flowers and candy." "what does mr. donahue look like, sam," nancy asked the colored man later. "is he tall and thin?" "no, ma'am; he ain't what you might call tall. an' he ain't short neither. "medium, then?" "not jes' exactly mejum, neither, ma'am." "go way, sam. you don't know what he is. i don't believe you ever saw mr. donahue." "ain't i don' tol' you i knowed marse donahue twenty years? but i couldn't paint no picture of him, missy." "what color is his hair, sam?" asked mary. "it ain't white an' it ain't black, neither, missy." miss campbell herself joined in the laughter which sam's reply raised and they asked no more questions about mr. donahue's appearance. but the magnolias were not the last token from their mysterious host, who seemed to have arranged everything with the greatest care and forethought. when the train stopped at the palm beach station, there was the comet waiting for them like a faithful steed. the red motor had been shipped nearly a week before, and the sight of his cheerful face was like meeting an old friend. "sam, you just give mr. donahue _my_ compliments," exclaimed billie, patting the comet affectionately, "and tell him that next to my father he's the nicest man i ever knew, or rather didn't know, because i haven't met him yet." sam bowed and scraped and grinned in the familiar manner of his race as he helped the ladies into the car. a young chauffeur was at the wheel, and billie and nancy crowded into the front seat beside him while the others sat in the back as usual. for a long time the train had been passing through a flat country, monotonous with palm trees and undergrowth, and now they seemed to have broken into fairyland. the air was laden with the scent of flowers and the sound of music floated to them in the stillness. "the concert in cocoanut grove," explained the chauffeur to nancy and billie. "are we in heaven?" asked mary price, dreamily. "it will be three weeks of heaven, i hope, my child," answered miss campbell, patting the young girl's hand. those of you who have read the first volume of this series will recall how mary price had been made the victim of a cruel conspiracy a few months before, during which only the faith of her friends and a strange combination of circumstances prevented her from being branded as a thief. the unhappiness and anxiety which she had endured during that trying time, followed by months of hard study, had sapped her strength, and mary more than any of the motor maids needed this change to a southern climate. "this is lake worth," observed the chauffeur, pointing to a beautiful placid body of water, the little waves of which lapped the shores so softly that the whir of the motor engine seemed out of place in that quiet spot. for the first time, the girls noticed the chauffeur. he seemed very young to be running a machine; although billie did not reflect that she herself was not much past the sixteenth goal; but then she ran her own machine, and he was a public chauffeur. he was a handsome boy with black hair and blue eyes and he spoke with a soft, beautiful accent. billie was about to ask him a question, when they drew up in front of the great hotel where their rooms had been engaged for days in advance. a curious thing happened in connection with their chauffeur while the motor maids and miss campbell stood in a group at the hotel desk waiting for the busy clerk to give them his attention. the boy had gallantly helped them out of the car, carried in their suitcases and satchels and placed them in a pile, and miss campbell had extended her hand with the usual tip, when a muscular-looking man with smooth face and burnsides, touched the chauffeur respectfully on the shoulder. "i beg your pardon, mr. edward," he said in a low voice, "your grandmother is waiting to see you." "my grandmother waiting to see me?" repeated the chauffeur with amazement. the english servant, for that was evidently what he was, gave him a long and searching look and stepped backward with a puzzled expression on his face. "you've made a mistake, i reckon," said the boy, smiling gently. "beg pardon, sir," replied the man and moved quickly away. miss campbell, who liked the looks of edward, as he by a curious coincidence happened also to be named, and was taken with his quiet, respectful manners, engaged him on the spot to be their chauffeur and guide, since they were unfamiliar with the roads. "i can run a motor-boat, too, ma'am," he said. and that was another reason for taking him into their service; for they had planned to take many a sail on the placid waters of lake worth and to picnic along those verdant shores. chapter ii.--making new acquaintances. "mr. ignatius donahue's compliments, and will the ladies take a ride in his motor-boat this afternoon? mr. donahue is sorry he cannot go too, but a business engagement prevents his being at palm beach." this was the message brought to miss campbell the morning after their arrival at palm beach. the bearer of the message was edward, the young chauffeur, who stood at a respectful distance while she read the note. "but if mr. donahue isn't here, how did the note come?" asked miss campbell, much mystified. "i can't say, ma'am," replied edward, turning his face away so that they could not see the smile which twitched the corners of his mouth. "perhaps he telegraphed it," observed billie. "but it's written on note paper," replied miss campbell, rather irritably. "would you like to go, girls?" "oh, yes," chorused the four voices. "very well, edward, there seems no one to tell it to but you. we shall accept the invitation with pleasure. it would be absurd, i suppose, to telegraph this important communication to mr. donahue at kamschatka or boston or wherever he is, but he is very kind to offer us his boat and you may expect us on the pier this afternoon at four. is that a good time for sailing?" "yes, ma'am," replied edward, withdrawing down the corridor just as the door of an adjoining room opened and an angry voice cried: "how dare you meddle with anything in this room? leave it instantly." some one replied in a low musical voice, "i am very sorry. i was only looking at a picture. i noticed a likeness----" "you are here to clean up and not to notice. you are a servant and not a visitor. another time and you will be reported. you may go." at this point a girl was thrust out into the hall so roughly that she fell on her knees. it was only a chambermaid, and perhaps she was accustomed to being spoken to harshly, although she did not appear to be, for she covered her face with her hands and crouched against the wall. "how could any one be so brutal?" exclaimed billie indignantly as she ran to the trembling little figure and helped her to her feet. "won't you come into our room until you calm down? it was cruel to have spoken to you so roughly." the door opened again and an old woman stood on the threshold, leaning on a cane. there was something rather regal in her appearance, in spite of her plain black dress and grotesque-looking old garden hat with its flapping brim which half concealed her face. "don't interfere, young woman," said the formidable-looking personage. "young american girls are far too impertinent." billie, who all her life had been the champion of the oppressed, was not frightened by the glare from the old woman's steely blue eyes. she made no reply, however. her father had taught her never to engage in a battle of words if she could possibly avoid it, especially with an older person. putting her arm around the little chambermaid's waist, she drew her into miss campbell's room and closed the door. the other girls who had been silent witnesses of the scene gathered around them. "what a dreadful old person," billie burst out at last, giving vent to her indignant feelings, when the girl staggered and almost fell on the floor. "oh, the poor dear is fainting," cried miss campbell, hurrying to the dressing-table for her smelling salts, while the others quickly lifted the little maid to the bed. they opened her dress at the throat and moistened her lips with water and performed the numberless little services a woman, with any kindly sympathy in her nature, will never withhold from another woman who needs her help. "she is much too young and pretty to be a servant," observed miss campbell, looking down with pity into the white, tired face of the chambermaid, who appeared hardly older than her own girls, although her fluffy blond hair was drawn up into a knot on top of her head. presently the color came back to her face, and she opened her eyes which were large and very deep blue. "are you better now?" asked billie, waving a palm-leaf fan gently over her head. the girl sat up and looked about her in bewilderment. "where am i?" she asked. then her eyes caught billie's kind gray ones and memory came back to her. "it was so good of you to take my part and so stupid of me to faint! i was frightened, i suppose, and a little tired. i must be going, now," she looked toward the door uneasily. "it would be dreadful to lose my place on the first day i began to work." "but you are not going back to work when you are ill, child?" exclaimed miss campbell. "i'm afraid i must. it will be only a few hours more. i am off at twelve. my work isn't hard. i only sort and distribute the fresh linen," she added with a note of apology in her voice, which was soft and beautiful. the girls were struck also with her lady-like manner. they could see that she was not accustomed to being a maid because she never said, "yes, miss," and "no, miss," like the usual chambermaid. but they were too polite to ask any questions, and presently she withdrew without their knowing much more about her than they had at first. but they soon forgot the chambermaid and her troubles in the joys of palm beach. probably nobody in the world can have a better time than four intimate young friends on a pleasure trip, and many admiring glances were turned in the direction of the motor maids as they sat in a row on the hotel veranda after breakfast, while miss campbell composed a letter in the writing-room. they were entirely unconscious of the attention they attracted, however, so interested were they in watching the rippling waters of lake worth already dotted with white sails. groups of people, dressed in white, strolled about the hotel grounds or sat on garden seats under the palm trees. it was that delicious lazy time in the morning when one is on a holiday and there is only pleasure to anticipate. "billie," whispered nancy, "there is that brutal old woman who was so rude to the chambermaid this morning. i honestly believe she would have struck you with her stick if you had answered a word." "if she had," replied billie, laughing, "and i had cabled it to papa, he would have taken a flying leap across the atlantic ocean and got here before midnight. but i really don't think she would have dared go that far." "be careful, here she is upon us," warned elinor, and the four girls, without intending to be rude, turned their eyes toward the approaching figure. the old woman still wore her flapping garden hat tied under the chin with brown silk strings. she leaned on her cane heavily as she walked, and noticed no one until she saw the four pairs of eyes regarding her with evident curiosity. she paused in front of the group and brandished her stick in their faces. "well, what do you think you are looking at," she cried, "a chimpanzee or an elephant or one of your own native wild people?" "oh, grandmamma," cried a tall, slender girl walking at her side. "how can you talk in that way? you mortify me terribly." and she led the old woman into the hall. "what a fierce old party," exclaimed a young man in white flannels, who was sitting so low in a deep chair that he appeared all legs and arms. "'native wild people,'" he repeated, laughing gaily. "we look like native wild people in this civilized place, don't we?" "now, timothy," said a girl sitting next to him, "she meant you, i am sure. you resemble a native wild person more than any one here, with your absurd bristling red hair." the young man laughed good-naturedly, and the girls could not resist joining in, for timothy might have been taken for a human porcupine any day. and that was how the motor maids came to make friends with timothy peppercorn, whose ridiculous name and funny appearance never failed to set them laughing. "but who is this old lady?" asked the girl who had spoken to timothy, and whom they came to know later as miss genevieve martin of kentucky. "i don't know," answered billie, smiling. "i've only seen her once before, and the meeting wasn't very friendly then." "did she beat you with her stick?" asked timothy peppercorn. "if i had said anything, she would have tapped me on the head with the gold knob, i believe, but i kept very still." "what happened?" asked miss martin, turning to elinor who was nearest her. elinor related the story of the poor little chambermaid or "linen sorter," as she was careful to call her. "what a brutal old wretch!" exclaimed the other indignantly. "does she expect to teach manners to americans by treating them like this? "timothy, run quick and look at the hotel register and see who she is." timothy gathered his loose frame together and rose to his feet. he was really not so tall as he appeared when sitting, but he seemed all arms and legs like a grand-daddy-long-legs. "after i come back, will you have that swim?" he demanded. the girl nodded her head gaily. "no one can ever resist that funny red-headed boy," she exclaimed to the others. "i don't know quite what it is about him. he is really one of the best natured creatures alive, and he has had a great deal to make him unhappy, too, but he is always in a good humor." "what has happened to him?" asked nancy, who had a childish curiosity and was still young enough to ask questions. "his mother and his brother and sister have all died of consumption. timothy would be delicate, too, but he is determined not to be, and when he finishes college he is going to be an engineer and live out of doors." "we are engineers," put in billie, "papa and i and it's the nicest work in the world." miss martin laughed. she had taken a tremendous fancy to these four nice young girls who seemed so unaffected and natural. but timothy returned before she could reply. "the military lady in the flap-brimmed hat," he announced, "is registered as mrs. paxton-steele. the meek young person at her side is miss georgiana paxton, and there appear to be also in the family edward paxton and clarence paxton, all of england." "steele is a good name for such a stern old personage," said genevieve. "well, 'her is naught to we, nor we to she,'" added timothy, "so let's go in bathing and forget all about her." "are you sure you feel strong enough, timothy?" asked his friend, looking at him critically. "of course i do, genie," answered the boy, flushing as red as his ruddy upstanding hair. "but i don't want to lose my new friends just as i have made them," continued the charming girl, changing the subject quickly and smiling into billie's face. "perhaps you will go with us?" "oh, may we?" cried billie and nancy in one voice. mary and elinor were no swimmers. "where are your mammas, then, so that i may ask permission first?" demanded miss martin. "we haven't but one with us and she's a cousin, but here she is," replied billie. miss martin had the easy gracious manners of the south and she never permitted any one in her company to feel awkward or strange for long. she introduced herself and her friend, timothy peppercorn, to miss campbell simply and gracefully, and after a moment's pleasant chat she had learned miss campbell's name and the names of the four girls, and the swimming party was arranged. "how quickly things do happen once they begin," thought billie, as she ran lightly into the surf where they chose to bathe instead of going to the pool which most people preferred. "if old mrs. paxton-steele, of england, hadn't been so quarrelsome with the chambermaid this morning, we should never have stared at her on the piazza. she would probably have passed us by without noticing us at all. then, we should not have made friends with miss martin and that funny timothy-boy, and no one would have suggested this glorious morning swim." she plunged under the foamy crest of a cool green wave, rose breast high on another, shook herself like a young water spaniel and made for the raft with long overhand strokes. swimming was a real accomplishment with billie, although her father, who had brought her up very much as he would have reared a son, had not taught her this particularly boyish pastime. she had learned to swim at the age of five from an old peasant woman in a village on the coast of brittany, where they had spent a summer. these old fisherwomen were the only swimming masters on that sequestered beach. billie could still remember with something of a shiver the ancient, gnarled creature with her skirts tucked up about her wrinkled limbs, who, standing waist-high in the water, had taught her the first strokes. hard as it had seemed at the time, she had never ceased to be thankful for those early lessons. "my, but you're a corker," exclaimed timothy peppercorn, breathlessly. "i thought genevieve was pretty good, but you're the best i have ever seen." "thank you," answered billie, as she swung herself on the raft. many other swimmers dotted the surf that morning and groups of people in light clothes sat about on the shining strand. splendid palm trees and poincianas made a cool green background to the lovely shore, and billie half closed her eyes as she lay on the raft, so as to make a picture she might carry in her mind always. she had not noticed that timothy was too winded to hoist himself on the raft. her attention was presently attracted by a frolicking group of swimmers coming toward the raft. in the midst of them, puffing and snorting like a triton, was a jolly big fat man whom they called duffy. mr. duffy had a red rubber ball--not much redder or rounder indeed than his own face--which he was tossing ahead of them on the water while the others raced to get it. "let's get in the game," called timothy as the ball skipped toward them over the waves. billie dived off the raft and came up just where she had seen the ball strike, but some one seized it and tossed it a score of yards away. there is always a swimmer in a water party who does reckless and dangerous things. this time it was the individual who had seized the ball before billie could get it. one by one the other swimmers left off chasing and made for shore. mr. duffy, turning his immense frame over, floated away on his back in happy oblivion. but the stranger, pitching the ball again as far as he could send it, challenged timothy to race for it. it was in vain that genevieve, who had at that moment reached the raft, protested and looked coldly at the man whose back was turned. timothy darted off in the water while the two girls watched his red head uneasily as it rose and fell on the white-tipped waves. both swimmers reached the ball at the same moment, struggled over it, and then that reckless, inhuman stranger tossed it further out to sea. "idiots!" cried genevieve, beating her hands helplessly together as she sat on the side of the raft. all the other swimmers had gone ashore now and were making for the bath houses, while loiterers on the beach were scattering to the tennis courts and golf links or the morning concert in cocoanut grove. suddenly billie saw the strange man throw up both hands with a loud cry, which sounded very much like "sharks!" and start to shore as fast as he could go. "oh! oh!" cried genevieve, covering her face with her hands. some twenty yards beyond timothy they could just make out the ugly square nose and upstanding fin of a big fish sticking above the water. "hurry, timothy, hurry," called the girl in an agony of anxiety. "i'm all right," he answered faintly, but each movement seemed to be weaker than the last and suddenly he sank beneath the waves. while genevieve was calling for help toward the now almost empty beach, billie made a running dive off the raft, and with long, clean strokes, swam for the red head which appeared on the surface once more. chapter iii.--timothy's drowning. when one is swimming in a great hurry minutes change to hours and yards to miles, and to a small human speck in the ocean the sky overhead appears like an immense arc. as the eyes of the human speck follow the horizon line, many things seem to be happening in the circular zone which girdles the whole world. it was only an instant that billie had turned her eyes away from timothy's head, and yet in that moment she saw first the shark, more frightened than they were, making for the open sea; then a seagull swooping down on the water. then she saw genevieve standing irresolutely on the raft; next a line of sea, and finally the reckless stranger who had enticed timothy to race for the ball and left him to his fate. he was still swimming desperately, as if a whole army of sharks was at his heels. "coward," thought billie, as she cut through the waves as neatly and swiftly as the prow of a little ship. she was swimming on one side, far down, making a wide circular motion with her right arm. as she neared the struggling boy, she called out cheerfully: "all right, timothy. keep up a minute. i'm almost there." he tried to smile, and beat the water feebly in a last effort to save himself. but when she was almost at arm's-length distance, he sank again. billie dived under, caught him by his stiff red hair and pulled him to the surface. loungers on a beach are not apt to notice what is really going on among the bathers. a man has been drowned in sight of a hundred spectators and no one knew that anything had happened. so it was with the group of people lying on the sand. they had not even looked seaward for ten minutes, and were as oblivious to the fact that a struggle for life was taking place in the water, as if they had been sitting in an inland meadow. once again, genevieve called weakly: "help, help!" but her voice was lost in the sound of the surf as it broke on the shore. then, at last, seeing she could not attract anybody's attention, she jumped into the water and began swimming slowly out toward timothy and billie. but she was frightened, and fright in deep water takes the form of a creeping, all-pervading exhaustion. once she turned and tried to go back to the raft, but the strong current carried her along faster than she could swim. it was all she could do now to keep her own head above water, and she forgot billie and timothy and everything in the world but her determination to stay on top. in the meantime, billie, with timothy in tow, was also in the grip of the current. "take your own time, billie," she heard her own voice saying, and she half smiled when she remembered how often she had heard her father use those very words in the early days of her swimming. "i can't keep this up forever," her thoughts continued, as her arm began to feel numb and the pressure became almost unbearable. it had not come into her head that she could let timothy go and save herself. her father had had his own peculiar ideas in bringing up his little daughter, and it was a very courageous heart that now thumped and thumped in her athletic young frame. one hand still gripped timothy's hair while with the other she paddled gently and let herself drift along. hours seemed to pass. it was really only a few minutes. billie closed her eyes. "i'm so tired, papa," she whispered. "don't think i'm a coward if i----" bump! straight they drifted into something large and soft and yielding. it was mr. duffy whose enormous frame was floating on the water like an empty cask. "br-r-r!" he spluttered, as his head went under and came up again. it was impossible to sink that vast bulk of human frame. billie had just sense enough to call out as he struggled to see what had collided with him: "keep on floating--we're--almost--drowning." "hey, hey! little girl, tired out, are you? hold on tight. why, you've got a boy there." "yes," gurgled billie. "he's about all--in--don't move--i must rest." timothy opened his eyes. "did i faint?" he asked in a weak, shaky voice. "something like it," called mr. duffy. "hold on, boy, and don't talk." at last billie's arm was relieved of the weight which had grown so heavy that she thought every moment it would break. but she had kept timothy's nose above the water line, and she breathed a sigh of satisfaction. "what's that! what's that on my foot?" demanded mr. duffy, not daring to move and unable to see over the hemisphere of his portly frame. billie looked up mechanically. in her relief and weariness, she had really forgotten that genevieve existed in the world, and there was her new friend clinging desperately to the fat man's foot and breathing hard. billy could hardly keep from laughing! what a funny picture they must make to the people on shore: a big whale surrounded by small fry; or an ocean liner being pushed seaward by three little tugs. "it's just another tired swimmer," she answered at last. mr. duffy's round, good-natured face wrinkled into a delightful smile. "i seem to be a sort of general life-preserver," he exclaimed. "do the people on land think we are playing a game? why doesn't somebody come out and help this poor boy before we float on out to sea?" "i'm awfully sorry, but we're too tired to call for help," said billie, apologetically. "of course you are, little girl. but you've done a brave thing, so don't reproach yourself and don't be frightened any of you. i'm going to send out one of my chest notes." with that, mr. duffy roared out "help, help!" in such deep bass tones that the ocean fairly rocked with the sound. just as he called, billie noticed a girl run up to the group of people on the beach and point toward the sea. it was georgiana paxton, she was almost certain. two men in white flannels, taking off their coats as they ran, dashed into the surf. as they swam, they appeared like two great white fish leaping out of the water. presently they came alongside the human flotilla and swimming to the other side of mr. duffy's huge frame, paused for breath. "what's the matter?" asked one. "matter?" cried mr. duffy with half-comic irritation. "let go of me. do you think i'm the strong turk who lifts a dozen people at once? there's a poor boy would have drowned if it hadn't been for this brave young lady, and there's another young lady about to go under, and you sitting on the beach playing mumbly-peg when human life is at stake! if i hadn't been an animated cork there'd have been three drownings this morning. get busy and look alive." "i'm all right," said billie, as one of the young men swam toward her. "look after the others please." it was genevieve and timothy who were towed ashore while billie and mr. duffy slowly followed the rescuing party, swimming side by side and chatting as if they had been old friends. "i'm glad there's a happy ending to this little story," gurgled the fat man, moving easily along in the water like a man walking on shore. "i am, too," answered billie, pillowing her cheek on a green wave and propelling herself gently toward shore. she felt as if she could swim forever now; so much has the state of mind to do with swimming. "you are a brave girl," went on mr. duffy. "how far had you towed the boy?" "i don't know. not as far as it seemed, i suppose. the current kept us going. all i had to do was to hold his head above water." "wasn't he the boy who raced for the rubber ball?" "yes." "what became of the other fellow, the one who threw the ball," demanded mr. duffy, looking out seaward as if he expected to see him also struggling in the waves. "he was frightened at a shark and swam in. i suppose he thought timothy was coming, too. but he needn't have made such a fuss. the shark was one of the scary kind." "the low contemptible coward! did he leave you to look after that drowning boy?" "he didn't know timothy was drowning, you see," said billie, trying to be just. but they had reached the shore now and there was no time to argue about it. a crowd of people had surrounded timothy, who was still weak and exhausted. billie and mr. duffy hurried up the beach to the bath houses. "would you know that cowardly fellow again if you were to see him?" he asked, when they had reached the pavilion. "no," she answered, "i never saw anything but the back of his head when he swam ashore." nancy appeared at the bath-house door. she had been dressing during the last fifteen minutes and had missed "timothy's drowning," as the girls always called it afterwards. "oh, billie," she cried to her friend who was hastening toward her, "i have just had such a fright!" "i hoped you had missed it, nancy," interrupted billie. "then you saw it, too?" "saw it? i was in it." "in the fight?" demanded nancy. "we are talking about different things, nancy. what is it you saw?" "i saw that terrible old english lady, what's-her-name, mrs. paxton-steele, beat a boy with her stick! she took him by the arm and beat him well across the back, and called him 'low, dastardly coward,' and he howled like a whipped dog, and when i said 'oh, don't,' she turned on me and i thought she was going to hit me with her stick, too." "that must have been the boy who threw the ball," cried billie. "i'm glad some one punished him. what did he look like?" "how could i tell? he was all dripping wet in a bathing-suit, and his face was turned away." in a few words and with very modest allusions concerning her connection with the saving of timothy peppercorn, billie described the accident to nancy. "that is the reason why i asked you what the boy looked like, nancy. i just wanted to see which of all the men in this hotel he was," billie added, after she had finished the story. "oh, billie," cried her friend, putting her arms around billie's neck, "you are the bravest, finest girl in the whole world." "but it was that nice fat mr. duffy who saved us all, child. go hug him." "don't belittle your brave deeds," said nancy, "and don't try to excuse that cowardly man who called out 'sharks!'" as the two girls disappeared into the pavilion, a young man about seventeen emerged from one of the alleys. he was tall and well-built with handsome, regular features and brown hair, but there was an angry flush on his face and a snarl on his weak, rather effeminate mouth. he did not leave the pavilion, but waited until nancy and billie came out of the bath-house, and as they walked arm in arm down the corridor, he took a long look at their two faces and followed slowly after them, his hands in his pockets. "little cats!" he ejaculated, as he turned toward the hotel, "i'll get even with them yet." miss campbell and the other girls were sitting in big wicker chairs on the piazza. they, too, had heard nothing of timothy's drowning, and were laughing and chatting together while they absorbed iced fruit drinks through long straws. "my dear children," cried miss campbell, "how long you have been. here are some delicious lemonades especially ordered for us by that mysterious individual, mr. ignatius donahue. i really wish he would come forth from his hiding-place. he reminds me of an attentive ghost." chapter iv.--a race and what came of it. "i feel rather badly about leaving the poor old comet in his stable all day," observed billie, who had taken a long rest after her adventure in the water that morning and was enjoying a trip in the firefly, mr. donahue's motor-boat. "he will be wondering why you brought him down if you use his rival the very first afternoon," said elinor. they were skimming over the blue water of lake worth, which was dotted with every kind of pleasure craft imaginable. the shores of palm beach shimmered gold in the afternoon sunshine and across the lake came the faint sound of music from the band in the grove. "any kind of machine is glad to take a rest, my dear, human or otherwise," put in miss campbell. "no doubt the comet is well pleased to stop whirring and whirling for awhile and stay quietly in the garage." "you see how real our motor car is to us," said billie to edward, who was running the boat. "we feel toward him just as we should toward any faithful animal, a horse or a dog----" "or a cat," put in mary, who loved cats to the exclusion of all other dumb creatures. "i could never love a cat the same as a horse or a dog or a motor car," cried billie with enthusiasm. "now, i've planted my affections on a canary bird," said elinor, "and i wouldn't exchange him for the finest cat in seven kingdoms. he is always in a good humor. he sings and carols all day long and his little heart palpitates with joy when i let him hop out and perch on my finger." edward's face lighted up. he had been listening silently to the chatter of the young girls while he guided the boat somewhat nearer the beautiful tropical shores which bordered the lake, and slowed down so that they could have a passing glimpse of this fairyland. "we have a bird," he said presently. "i'd feel mighty bad if anything should ever happen to him. he's the finest little fellow you ever saw." "what kind is he?" asked elinor with polite interest. "a mocking bird." "a mocking bird?" repeated billie. "how i should love to hear one sing! what is he like?" "he's a beautiful brown," returned edward, warming to the subject. "his tail and wings are tipped with white and he has a white breast. his little eyes are so bright and black, they see everything that happens. he knows he can sing, too. he's just as proud of it as we are. he's a wonder, i can tell you, and he is as fond of us as we are of him. i found him when he was little. his wing was broken and he had fallen out of the nest. his name is dick and he's just like a member of the family." "what a dear little fellow!" cried billie. "i would like to have him hop on my finger and look at me with his shiny little black eyes. do you live near palm beach, edward? couldn't we motor over and see him some time?" there was a whirring noise behind them. the boy turned quickly without answering and looked back. another motor-boat was coming toward them at a clipping rate. "would you like a little race?" he asked, rather wistfully. "i know that boat, and ours can beat it, if that's the same fellow who ran it the other day." "wouldn't it be dangerous?" asked miss campbell, smiling indulgently in spite of her objections. the motor maids exchanged amused glances. they had long had a secret conviction that there was nothing the little lady enjoyed more than to sit on the back seat of the comet and close her eyes, while they took a breathlessly swift run up the cliff road at west haven. "i don't think it would be dangerous, ma'am," replied edward. "this is a dandy little boat if it is handled properly." "and you're sure you know how to handle it, edward?" "certainly, ma'am. i've raced in it before and raced this other boat, too." "did you win the race, edward?" "yes, ma'am," replied the boy earnestly. "i have no objections to trying it again, then, edward," said miss campbell, "only don't upset us in the water, whatever you do." the girls laughed happily. who could be solemn in this magical place where everything was beautiful? the sky, the water, the land, even the faces of the most ordinary human beings were glorified by the bewitching atmosphere. "you are a precious little sport, cousin," cried billie, kissing her relative on her peach-blossom cheek, "with all your baby-blue eyes and your laces and frills, you enjoy a race as much as any of us." "and why not, my child? i'm not a stock or a stone always to stay planted in one spot and never to have any good times." the other boat had come alongside of them now. "want to race?" called out the young man at the engine, who by the way was the same person who had called nancy and billie "cats" that very morning in the bathing pavilion. "all right," answered edward. "we'll start now if your friend will give the signal, and race to the little house on the shore." there were two other people in the boat, one a boy who sat in the stern. he wore smoked glasses and his hat was pulled well down over his face. the other was a girl. "why, it's the same girl who was walking this morning with the terrible old english lady," whispered nancy. "her name is georgiana paxton." but no one replied, for the boy with the smoked glasses had called out: "one--two--three--off you go," and the two boats had shot out over the water. it was glorious fun skimming along the lake in the pretty little craft. shores flew past and sail boats and canoes were left far behind. the other boat kept well ahead of them for awhile. over the noise of its chugging engine they could hear the scornful laugh of the young man who was running it. "what an impolite person," observed miss campbell. "there is nothing ridiculous about any of us, i hope." "he's laughing because he thinks he's going to beat us," said edward over his shoulder. "but wait and see what happens when we beat him. we are almost at the goal now." gradually the firefly began to get up speed, and chug and work as the other boat would, it could not keep abreast of the graceful swift-moving craft which shot ahead and presently slowed up just opposite the knock-kneed, rickety little boat-house on the shore. the girls were standing up, and miss campbell was waving her handkerchief in her enjoyment and excitement. "it was thrilling," she cried. "i have never actually been in a race before, and how beautiful to be the winner. if i had known there was going to be a race i should have offered a prize for us to win, ourselves. the young man should never have laughed. it is unlucky to laugh before a race is decided." at that moment the other boat came up. "the race was not a fair one," exclaimed the young man, whose name we will presently find is clarence paxton. he was frowning and biting his lips angrily. "what was wrong about it, i'd like to know?" demanded edward. "you had the start of at least half a minute." edward's blue eyes took on a steely look. "you are mistaken," he said quietly. "i tell you i am not mistaken," began the other, when miss campbell interfered. "edward," she said, in her gentlest and most charming manner, "this would be a good place to land and have our tea. perhaps these young people will join us." the girl in the other boat turned toward her gratefully. "oh, thank you," she said, "we should love to." "that will be very nice," answered miss campbell. "an excellent way to celebrate a well-fought battle," she added, blinking her blue eyes a little mischievously. "it will be impossible, georgiana," said clarence, "i have an engagement at the hotel at five o'clock." "an engagement!" she exclaimed. "why you don't know anyone to make an engagement with." "is it any of your business one way or the other?" he replied angrily. "if this young man is anxious to get back," put in miss campbell, "don't detain him, please. we shall be delighted to take you home later in our boat, if you care to come ashore, and your friend, too." georgiana flushed with pleasure. she was a pale thin girl with a rather plain face and sad dark eyes. "i should love to come," she said, looking wistfully at the motor maids. "i have no friends here." "will you come, too?" asked miss campbell hospitably of the boy who wore glasses. "do come, edward," cried georgiana, and the other edward started at hearing his name called out. the boy took off his slouch hat diffidently. "are you sure there will be room in the boat?" he asked. "plenty," said the other edward. "i believe i will come," he said with a shy eagerness that the girls noticed at once. "take your friends ashore," commanded miss campbell sternly to clarence, "and then you need not trouble about them further. they will be our guests." clarence obeyed sheepishly, and as the two boats pointed toward the beach, miss campbell remarked: "the only way to avoid a quarrel with that singular young man was to ask them all to tea. but i'm sure if it gives them any pleasure it is well worth the trouble." presently they found themselves on a smooth beach, just back of which in a little hollow was a lovely grove of palm trees. "what a perfect place for a picnic," cried elinor. "do the fairies dance here by moonlight, i wonder?" "isn't it sweet?" cried mary, clasping her hands rapturously. the prow of the other boat then grounded on the beach and the boy and girl jumped out so eagerly, that it was plain to be seen they were glad to get rid of the ill-natured clarence. "i can't tell you how much pleasure this will give us," said georgiana to miss campbell, a slight tremble in her voice. "it gives me a great deal of pleasure, too, i'm sure," replied the other cordially. "your name is----" "georgiana paxton, and this is my brother, edward paxton." miss campbell introduced them to her charges, and nobody took any more notice of clarence, who busied himself with his engine and occasionally cast a surly glance at the others. edward and elinor had carried the tea basket and a package of sandwiches into the little hollow, and the rest now followed. "what a beautiful spot, what an ideal place," they cried, as they grouped themselves about the little dell, while elinor opened her tea basket and laid out the dainty crockery and the kettle. there was a spring bubbling in the dell, and the ground all about was carpeted with a thick bed of moss. the yellow jasmine grew in abundance there and violets were thickly strewn in the shady corners. "what an enchanting place----" miss campbell was saying, when suddenly edward, the chauffeur, said "sh-h-h," and pointed to the upper branches of an immense old pine at the edge of the grove. "listen," he whispered. hidden among the thick green foliage, a bird was singing the most lovely, trilling song imaginable. the liquid notes poured from his little, quivering throat like so much pure gold. it was such a joyous song and they were so afraid he might stop that they hardly dared breathe. elinor clasped her hands rapturously and tears came into her eyes. "it's a mocking bird," whispered edward, proudly. so much absorbed and enchanted were they with the music that they did not notice what was taking place on the beach. two steps up and they would have seen something which would have caused them a far different emotion. clarence, who had no business whatever in the firefly, leaped into it for a moment, then back again into his own boat, and presently the chug-chug of his engine broke the spell of the mocking bird's song. chapter v.--the two edwards. "'knowest thou the land of the citron bloom,'" sang elinor as she busied herself with the tea things. there were not quite enough cups to go around and the two boys waited until two of the girls had finished; but it was only one more excuse for lingering in that lovely spot; pulling the yellow jasmine and the sweet violets and dipping their hands in the cool waters of a little brook which had hidden itself in a corner of the dell. georgiana showed a kind of awkward, shy joy in being with the four young girls. so absorbed was she in her new happiness that she had not noticed, and indeed, no one had observed, a very curious coincidence. it was not until elinor had poured out two fresh cups of tea and was saying: "sugar or lemon, mr. paxton--er--i mean edward--i mean--why, which edward are you?" that they waked up. edward paxton had removed his black glasses and slouch hat and stood revealed as edward, the chauffeur, or his living image. the others formed an interested circle around the two boys, who were certainly very much alike. they had the same blue eyes and black hair; the same handsome, regular features. they were indeed the same height. "it is only when they are together that i could tell them apart," cried nancy, with irish obscurity. "why, they are as alike as two peas in a pod," ejaculated miss campbell. the two boys stood face to face and regarded each other curiously. "i feel as if i were looking in a mirror," said edward paxton gravely. "and they are both named edward," put in georgiana. "isn't it strange?" "what is your last name?" asked edward paxton. "my name--is edward l'estrange," he said. then he looked anxiously at the others, but no one gave any sign of having heard the name before and he appeared to breathe a sigh of relief. "there is this difference between them," announced billie, who, when she had observed a person's face, usually finished by looking at their chests and shoulders exactly as her father would have done, "edward paxton is not as broad as edward l'estrange, and he is much paler." "it's because edward's always ill," said his sister, in a half-accusing tone. "he has headaches and pains and side aches. grandmamma says he is determined to be delicate." edward paxton flushed painfully. "is that why you wear those smoked glasses?" demanded billie. "yes, the glare on the water gives me a headache." "how dark and hideous everything must look," went on billie. "the sky must always be cloudy and the water gray and the woods a dusty green. i should be very unhappy, i'm sure, if i had to wear them. one could never see anything as it really was." "he doesn't," cried his sister. "he's always sad and sorrowful and quiet--and--and moody, too, edward, you know you are." "i'm not," exclaimed her brother. "or rather if i am, i suppose i have enough to make me so. grandmamma----" he began, and then paused and bit his lips. there was an awkward silence. the others recalled the terrible grandmamma who wielded her gold-headed cane with almost as much freedom as an ancient warrior did his battle-axe. miss campbell felt sorry for the boy and girl. no doubt the fierce old lady led them a wretched life. "well, well," she said, patting edward paxton on the arm. "no one can judge for any one else, because no one knows how much another has to bear. you will grow strong and well down here, i'm sure, my dear, and i hope you and your sister will spend a great deal of time with my girls. they are so merry and bright, you can't help catching the fever when you are with them. they have made a new creature of me, i assure you." "it's you who started all the happiness a-going, dearest cousin," said billie, giving her relative a little squeeze. "and speaking of going," went on miss campbell, "we must be tearing ourselves away from this charming place. but you will bring us here again, will you not?" she added, turning to the other edward, who had been silently assisting elinor to gather up the tea things and store them in the basket. "certainly, ma'am," he replied, "if you wish it." miss campbell could not help feeling that this quiet, rather masterful boy was really the host of the beautiful afternoon party, and not merely the engineer of the boat. but he knew his duties as engineer, and his place, too, evidently, for he rarely spoke except to answer questions. with the basket under one arm and a cushion under the other he hurried over and jumped into the boat. "he is really much the more manly of the two," thought billie, as she watched his self-reliant movements, "but i suppose that old grandmamma would be enough to cow any one's spirit." presently they were seated in the firefly and their youthful engineer shoved off from shore. they were drifting lazily along over a miniature ripple of waves which the movement of the boat had set in motion, when edward l'estrange gave an exclamation of surprise and annoyance. as he bent over the machinery, they waited for the whir of the motor, but the engine was silent and the little boat bobbed up and down like a piece of driftwood that had shifted all responsibility in life. motor boats are much like delicate people who are subject to sudden and unexpected attacks. the girls, therefore, were not surprised that the engine was indisposed, and they began chatting and laughing gaily with their new friends, while edward l'estrange got out his box of tools and set stoically to work. "why don't you help him, edward?" asked georgiana. "i always thought you knew so much about motor-boats." edward paxton rose languidly and joined his counterpart. the girls thought they had never seen such a spiritless boy, and secretly they preferred the edward who was their own first discovery. "there is nothing to do," said edward l'estrange, "because there is nothing the matter with the engine, as far as i can see." "why, the gasoline tank is empty," exclaimed the other. "what?" cried the young engineer. "but that is impossible, unless there is a leak somewhere, because i just filled it this morning. by jove," he added, with a steely light in his eye that looked dangerous, "well of all the----" his voice died away and the two boys exchanged a long and meaning look. the girls could not help laughing. they were like the two dromios, these two young men. the resemblance was even more striking when edward paxton had waked into life. "but what is it?" demanded miss campbell. it was so difficult to have anything but agreeable sensations in this pleasant land. "all the gasoline's gone," said the engineer. "there's not a drop of it left in the tank and we started with plenty. there has been foul play somewhere," he added in a lower voice. "are you sure you started with plenty?" asked billie, who was accustomed to the appetite of a gasoline motor engine. "perfectly," answered the self-reliant young man. "i cleaned and overhauled the machinery and filled the tank this morning." "there's lots of gasoline here," observed mary price, "only it's all outside." suddenly they became aware that there was a strong odor of gasoline in the air and that the waters about them were covered with a bluish gray film. "ho ho," cried edward paxton, with some excitement. "i've found the leak. a hole has been bored straight through the side of the boat, tank and all." he was leaning far over the boat. "it's just above the water line," he added. "but who could have played such a trick as that?" exclaimed miss campbell. the english brother and sister looked uncomfortable. there was no doubt in the minds of the company regarding the author of that practical joke, but no one cared to accuse clarence paxton since his cousins were their guests. "what are we going to do, boy?" asked miss campbell helplessly. "how are we going to get back? i don't suppose you can find any more gasoline in this wilderness, even if you could mend the boat." "no, the hotel is the nearest place," replied edward l'estrange. he knitted his brows and sat thinking for a moment, while the others waited in respectful silence. surely this edward must have been well accustomed to taking charge of things. "there is nothing to be done," he said at last, "but for me to go back to the hotel and get the motor car." "but how will you get there?" demanded billie. "it must be at least ten miles." "oh, i'll manage," he answered evasively. "and must we wait here?" asked miss campbell. edward hesitated for some time before he replied. "i live not far from here. if you don't mind walking a little, you could wait at my home until i come back with the motor." "and then we could see the mocking bird," put in elinor. the boy's face lit up. "yes." "it would be very, very kind of your--of you to take such a crowd of us in, edward," said miss campbell. "we should appreciate your hospitality. i don't seem to fancy stopping in this lonely spot all that long time, especially after dark." once more they landed and formed a silent procession along an old wagon road from the beach through a great grove of trees. it was a gloomy place in the late afternoon. the branches draped in gray spanish moss made a mournful picture. "we look like a troop of spirits," whispered mary to billie. the two girls had lingered a little behind the others. "what spirit was it, do you think, that sprung a leak in our boat?" whispered billie. "it was the spirit of mischief. and it might have been very serious mischief, too, if it had not been for our wise little engineer." "we should have had to sleep in the dell. cousin helen could have taken the launch and perhaps georgiana, because she is so frightened and nervous. i am so sorry for her, mary, and for all of them, even that wretch of a clarence. they are all orphans, you know, and wards of their fierce old grandmother. georgiana and edward lived in canada until a few years ago. that is why they speak with so little accent, i suppose." presently the wagon road emptied itself, like a tributary into the main stream, into what had once been a broad carriage road, a splendid avenue bordered with giant pine trees. "why, this must lead to a mansion," exclaimed billie as they turned into the avenue. "i suppose edward works for the family who live here; but, somehow, i never can imagine his working for any one. he seems so--so different from chauffeurs and people like that in general." they walked along silently for a few minutes. there was only the last twittering of the birds to break the hushed stillness of the place. "i feel as if i were approaching an enchanted palace," whispered elinor, who had dropped back with her two friends. "it was on just such an evening as this, i fancy, and along just such a road that the prince came to waken the sleeping beauty," exclaimed mary. "oh, look," cried several voices at once, and suddenly right in front of them loomed an immense house. four classic doric columns supported the two galleries on the first and second floors, and at one side rambled a huge wing which must at one time have been the servants' quarters, in this fine old mansion. "is this where you work, edward?" asked miss campbell, without intending to be patronizing. "yes," he replied. "it is my home," he added, as he led them to the first gallery and banged the knocker loudly. presently footsteps sounded in the empty hall, and an old colored woman carrying a lighted candle opened the door and peered at them curiously. "mammy, will you look after these ladies, please? they will wait here until i can get a motor car from the hotel. our boat was wrecked a while ago." "come right in, ladies," said the old colored woman, leading the way into a large almost empty room at one side of the hall. a grand piano stood at the end. on the walls a few old portraits were half visible in the flickering candlelight. at one side was a long mahogany sofa covered with faded tapestry, and the only other piece of furniture in the immense apartment was a small supper table set for one. "i'll jes' go up and fetch little missy, marse edward," whispered mammy, while the others strolled about looking at the portraits and elinor touched a soft chord on the piano. chapter vi.--the gray motor car. it was not long before the door opened and a young girl bearing a lighted candle in each hand entered the room. "this is my sister, virginia," said edward l'estrange, introducing her to miss campbell. billie could hardly conceal her surprise, and nancy, who always forgot not to speak out, was about to exclaim: "why, it's the little chambermaid," when a reminding nudge from elinor stopped her. it was indeed the little chambermaid, although the fluffy pale gold hair was no longer tucked in a knot under the maid's cap, but hung in a shining mass down her back and was caught at the neck with a pink ribbon. virginia was like a charming woman of the world. her manners were so gracious and easy that they began to feel at home at once in the ghostly old place. "these southern girls," miss campbell was thinking, "how graceful and well-bred they are!" "i'm so glad my brother brought you here," said the girl in the soft musical voice that had attracted them in the morning. "it would have been lonely for you on the beach and he may be some hours in getting back." "before you go, edward," put in elinor, "may we not see the mocking bird? or has he gone to bed?" "oh, dick? he'll wake soon enough if he knows there is company," said virginia. "do get him, edward." but edward had already left the room and presently returned with a large covered cage which he placed on the table. "won't all these people and lights frighten him?" asked billie. "not dick," replied edward. "he's a gentleman, first and foremost, and loves the ladies. and he's a very obliging rascal. watch him open one eye when i take off the cover." when the brown linen cover was removed, the graceful little fellow was disclosed, standing on one foot, the other drawn up under his body, which gave him a ministerial appearance, as if he were about to deliver a speech. "why, what an elegant little gentleman he is," cried elinor delightedly. "look at his neat brown coat and his white waistcoat. he might have just dressed to go to church." dick cocked his head on the side and opened one of his intelligent little black eyes as much as to say: "of course i'm a gentleman. i belong to the mocking bird family." but he was well pleased with the attentions of these young people, for he hopped gravely out and stood on edward's finger looking at them critically. "darling little dicky," exclaimed virginia. "he's the very life of this house. i'm sorry you're not to hear him sing. he makes it a rule never to sing after dark. the dawn is his favorite time." dick gave an apologetic little chirp. he regretted evidently that it was impossible to display his musical powers at this time. edward regarded him with the yearning gaze of a father toward his first born. "you are very fond of him, aren't you?" asked billie, noticing the look of pride and affection in the boy's eyes. "he adores him," put in his sister, laughing. "but you had better go now, edward. uncle peter said he would be around with alexander in a few minutes." "oh, that reminds me, how are you going to get back to palm beach?" demanded miss campbell. edward blushed and looked at his sister, who, although she was the younger, was not so shy. "he's going to ride," she said. just then the old colored woman the boy and girl so lovingly addressed as "mammy," entered the room and walking straight over to edward paxton, said: "marse edward, alexander is at de do'." the other edward laughed. "you didn't know i had a twin, did you, mammy?" the woman held up her hands in amazement. "fo' de lord," she said, "i thought 'twas my young massa." virginia, too, was amazed at the strong resemblance between the two boys. "but i must be hurrying away," said edward l'estrange. they followed him to the front door. georgiana paxton wanted to send word to her grandmother that they were safe. miss campbell had another errand for him, and edward paxton whispered something gravely in his ear. the two boys looked at each other. already, they had established a sympathetic understanding. then the american boy mounted an old bony mule and rode off down the avenue. billie now understood why edward l'estrange did not want to explain how he was to get back to the hotel. but virginia laughed gaily. it was impossible to say whether it was really a pleasure to her to be entertaining these strangers in her dismantled old home or whether her manners were so perfect that she was able to make it appear so. one thing was plain, however. she was determined not to be recognized as the chambermaid of the morning. they strolled back into what they strongly suspected was the only furnished room on that floor, and distributed themselves about on the sofa and two chairs. "won't you play for us, dear, on that beautiful big piano?" asked miss campbell, who was really enjoying the adventure. "i'm afraid i don't play well enough to play before company. it was papa's piano. he was a musician. perhaps some of you will play, and i'll open the door so that mamma can hear the music from upstairs." "is your mother ill?" asked miss campbell. "are you sure we won't disturb her?" "she is always ill," answered the girl sadly. "she never leaves her room. but music was once her greatest pleasure and i know she would enjoy hearing some one else play besides me." "edward," said georgiana, "won't you play for miss l'estrange?" the quiet english boy became suddenly animated. he had been leaning on the piano ever since he had been in the room. perhaps his fingers were itching to touch the keys, for when he sat down and began to play the notes seemed to run from their ends like water from the mouth of a fountain. he played so beautifully that the girls began to comprehend why he never appeared to be hearing anything that was said around him. "supper is served, miss virginia," announced mammy at the door, just as they were crowding around the young pianist with exclamations of pleasure. "i'm sorry we can't eat in the dining-room," said virginia, "but, as you see, the table is too small." and that was the only apology she made that evening. "my dear child," cried miss campbell, "you ought not to have taken all this trouble for us. i am afraid we have put you out terribly." virginia smiled and took her hand. "it is a pleasure. what would mamma say if she knew we let our guests leave the house hungry?" the motor maids will never forget that supper party. they were taught a lesson in good manners and hospitality that they had not dreamed was possible. they found themselves in a big old-fashioned kitchen. in the center was a table covered with a splendid damask cloth and set with the most motley and variegated pieces of glass and china ever beheld together outside of a curiosity shop. at miss campbell's place was a beautiful bohemian glass tumbler. two silver mugs, one marked "edward" and the other "virginia," stood at the sides and at the other places were several pressed glass tumblers and one or two cracked and chipped teacups of rare old china. miss campbell had the only silver knife and fork on the table. in the center was a crystal bowl, which had been cracked and mended, filled with oranges. uncle peter, who was mammy's husband, and the ex-butler of this fine old mansion, now appeared in an old blue swallowtail coat with brass buttons. he bore a platter of crisp, fragrant smelling bacon, and mammy walked behind him with a dish of cornbread. that was all the supper and no food ever tasted better to the hungry tourists. "after all," thought billie, "everything depends on who gives the party." after his duties as butler were finished, uncle peter passed through the room bearing a large tray, and those who were facing him could not help noticing the appetizing and dainty meal set upon it on plates of old-fashioned blue and gold china. billie caught a glimpse of half a broiled chicken and a small glass dish of jelly. "it's for the sick mother," she thought, as she followed the others back into the living room, and it came to her with a throb that this boy and girl were probably denying themselves every luxury in life and working hard to look after their invalid mother. "i feel so worthless and no account when i think of those two," she thought. "i have never had to give up anything in all my life so that some one else could have it." elinor played for them after supper, and virginia also played and sang some delightful old negro melodies. finally, when she struck up the "suwanee river," the girls joined in and the house was filled with music. "oh dear, i'm having such a good time," exclaimed the young southern girl. "what a treat it is to be with other girls! i wish you were all going to make me a long, long visit." "perhaps you could make the girls a visit in west haven," said miss campbell. "that would be a nice change for you from this southern climate." "it would be beautiful but i can't leave mother----" "miss virginia," said the voice of mammy in the hall, "your ma wants you quick----" virginia darted from the room and they heard her running up the stairs. a door opened somewhere above and for an instant there was a sound of weeping, which was shut out immediately when the door was closed. "dear, dear! i'm afraid we have disturbed mrs. l'estrange," said miss campbell. "how very unfortunate!" they sat in a silent row listening for more sounds, but the place was as still as a tomb. elinor began to talk with edward in a low voice about music. georgiana and mary presently became absorbed in conversation, and miss campbell, with her head against the back of the sofa, dropped off into an after-dinner nap. billie and nancy rose and held a whispered conference at the window. "let's do it," said nancy to some suggestion of billie's. "what can harm us in this wilderness?" "mary," said billie, "if cousin helen should wake, tell her we are taking a little stroll in the avenue. we can't endure this close, still place any longer." the two girls tiptoed from the room and presently found themselves in the broad road which led to the house. how beautiful the place looked by moonlight, with its galleries and noble doric columns! it was too dark to see the stained and discolored walls, the staring, empty windows, but even in this light they could discern the rickety look of the house which appeared to have slipped over on one side. "i can easily imagine this place was haunted," whispered billie. they were standing in the avenue, examining the old building. "heavens, how you give me the creeps," exclaimed nancy, taking her friend's hand and starting to walk. they were like ghosts themselves as they flitted down the avenue in their white dresses. they felt it would soon be time for edward to return, and they planned to meet him at the entrance and ride back. "there he is now," said nancy at last. far down the avenue they could hear the whirring of a motor engine. "he's traveling fast," observed billie, listening with practised ears to the sound of the machinery. "i didn't know the comet could take such a pace as that." "how strange for him to have no light," observed nancy. "very careless, but i suppose something happened to the light. i don't think we'd better try to stop him," she added hurriedly. "he's going like the wind," and she drew nancy back into the path beside the road. to their surprise, as the machine approached, they saw that two men were in it, and, strange to say, it was not the comet but a gray car which slowed up gradually as it neared the house. "better stop here," said one of the men in a low voice. "so this is the old place," he added. "poor things! poor things!" "i don't see why you should pity them," said the other man. "you have more reason to hate the mother, than not." there was silence. "now, ignatius donahue," went on the second man,--the girls' hands met in a frightened clasp and they pressed together behind the trees,--"i didn't bring you out here to sentimentalize. i want to talk business. we are both looking for the same thing. if i find it, i tell you frankly, i shall destroy it----" "you scoundrel," cried the man called ignatius donahue. "you thief, you sneak----" the two men grappled and began to fight. they fought like wild cats, first in the car and then on the ground. presently the one on top hit his adversary a terrific blow on the head. he fell backward and lay quite still in the road. nancy was about to scream but billie put her hand over her mouth. the man kneeled on the ground and felt the other's heart. "stone dead," he muttered. he lifted the man in his arms and, staggering under the weight, carried him through the thick undergrowth of what had once been the park of the old place and deposited him on the ground. then, with a terrified glance over his shoulder, as if he were already afraid the ghost of the dead man might follow him, he rushed blindly to the car, cranked it up, backed off and was gone like the wind. chapter vii.--the coward. billie and nancy, too frightened to speak or move, were as still as one of the old pine trees which had shielded them from the gaze of the two men. as the whirr of the motor died away in the distance, the girls heaved a deep sigh almost at the same moment, as if they had awakened from a terrible dream. "billie have we just seen a man killed?" whispered nancy, her knees knocking together with fright. "yes," whispered billie unsteadily. "what shall we do?" "wait and let me think. must we go and alarm the people in the house or wait for edward l'estrange? you wouldn't dare go over there with me and see if the man is really dead, would you, nancy?" "no-o-o," cried nancy. "never, never, never!" "why not tell edward paxton?" "why not?" answered the other, and pressing close together, the frightened girls hurried back to the house as fast as their shaking knees could carry them. it was gloomy enough in the great dark hall with only one candle sputtering in a bracket on the wall, and they were not reassured when on opening the door they found the living room empty. "where on earth are they?" exclaimed nancy. "perhaps they couldn't stand it in here either, and have gone out doors. let's look for them on the piazzas." hand in hand they hastened from the house, looking back fearfully at their fantastic shadows dancing on the walls. "thank heavens, i hear them," said nancy, pulling billie toward the low sound of voices at the end of one of the side galleries. "don't you say anything, nancy. leave me to manage it. you will be certain to frighten cousin helen." "why, there you are," called miss campbell herself, as the two girls approached. "somebody started a false alarm that the sound of a motor had been heard and we came out hoping it was edward. i was beginning to get uneasy for fear you had wandered too far." "we just walked down the avenue and back." "didn't you hear the motor?" demanded mary, who scented something in billie's manner. "yes, but it was not edward, evidently. i suppose there are lots of motors around the neighborhood." "what did you see? anything interesting?" asked elinor. "you both look as if you had seen a ghost." "you are pale," exclaimed miss campbell, "or is it the moonlight? and nancy's hands are cold as ice. come in the house, child. you should not be out in this night air. you are trembling. are you ill?" "keep it up, nancy," whispered billie in her ear. "i feel a little faint," said nancy. "perhaps i'd better go in and sit down a moment." miss campbell, who was consumed with anxiety if one of her girls had the suspicion of a pain, drew her into the house, made her lie on the sofa and took off her own coat to throw over her. in the meantime, billie pulled edward paxton's sleeve and whispered, "wait, i have something to tell you." "what is the matter," he asked, wonderingly. "when nancy and i were in the avenue, an automobile drove up and stopped near us. two men, who were in it, began fighting. they fought out of the car and on the road and one of them hit the other an awful blow. the man is dead, i'm afraid, because the other man pulled him over into the bushes and left him there. then he jumped into the motor and rushed away. the dead man is over in the bushes down there now." she pointed down the avenue. "what do you think we'd better do?" billie had been too agitated to realize how strange the story sounded until she put it into words. "he's there, i tell you," she exclaimed impatiently, when edward made no reply. "you look as if you didn't believe me." "it does sound very much like a curious dream. why should people be killing each other in this wilderness?" "i don't know, i'm sure. but it happened just as i told you." "you are not playing a joke on me, are you?" there was nothing in the world which irritated billie so much as to have her word doubted. her father had often said that she was absurdly truthful, and as a matter of fact she stuck to the letter of the truth with scrupulous care. she always believed other people, because she expected the truth. and she seldom got anything else. it, therefore, seemed incredible to meet some one who could believe that she would invent a tale just for the sake of excitement. with a slightly contemptuous spark in her fine gray eyes, she turned to edward and said, "if you have any doubts on the subject, you had better come with me and see for yourself." "don't you--think--we'd better wa-a----" he stammered, and broke off with an embarrassed laugh. then it was she realized that edward was timid. she could hardly call it cowardice because the boy followed her; but from the corner of her eye she could see that it was with reluctant steps. she felt sorry for him, somehow. probably his grandmother had taken all the spirit out of him. that is why he permitted his cousin clarence to ride over him, and his old granny, too. "are you certain he was dead?" he whispered. "no, i'm not certain at all. we ought to hurry," she continued, "if he isn't, we might be able to help him." half way down the avenue, she stopped at two tall pine trees standing closely together like a loving pair which had grown up side by side. "i think it was just here," she whispered. "we were behind these two trees, nancy and i, when they began to fight, and it was along this smudged place that he pulled the man's body and pitched it into that clump of bushes." edward paused and drew in a deep breath. a brave soldier about to go under fire could not have been more resolute than he when he finally doubled his fists and plunged through the bushes followed by billie. although the moon was bright, they could not see any signs of an object having been dragged over the ground. the elastic undergrowth had sprung back into place and the body might have lain there forever under the trees and no one the wiser. "was this the place?" he whispered, trying to keep billie from seeing that he was shaking all over. "yes," she answered, parting the branches of the acacias. "it was right in here, i think." but there was no sign of any creature, living or dead, in the high grasses. they searched, growing bolder every moment. at last, with a sigh of deep relief, edward said, "dead or alive, he's gone. and still you say it wasn't a dream?" even the most patient and amiable natures have their turning points. now, billie, with all her high spirits, was singularly free from outbursts of temper. from her father she had inherited a happy, even disposition, always willing to see the best and overlook the worst. but the young girl was very tired that evening. it had been only a few hours since she had saved timothy peppercorn's life, and that followed by the shock of seeing a man struck down, had unnerved her. she regretted afterwards the words which came to her lips now, for she was terribly and uncontrollably angry and she hardly knew that it was herself who spoke them. perhaps, after all, billie was at that moment an unconscious instrument of fate, because her impetuous, passionate outburst was the means of changing the lives and destinies of several actors in this little history. "how dare you accuse me of speaking a falsehood?" she said. "you are a coward and you are glad we didn't find the man's body because you are afraid. you haven't even the spirit or courage to believe the truth. you are afraid of everything and everybody. afraid of your grandmother and your cousin. you are afraid of me now. you are afraid of being sick; of losing your eyesight. you are afraid of the dark, and you are afraid of the sun. you shut it out with black glasses. you may look like edward l'estrange. but you are not really like him. he is brave and strong. he is not afraid to fight to make a living and take care of his sick mother. this afternoon when your cousin told that falsehood about the boats starting wrong, you knew it was a lie, but you were afraid to stand up for what was right. it was your cousin who punched a hole in our boat this afternoon. you know that perfectly well; but you will be afraid to tell him so. "just change places with edward l'estrange once and let him fight your battles and you will see what courage is." billie stopped. the fire of her anger had burned out almost as soon as it had started. she felt shaken through and through and very tired. "i wonder if vesuvius feels like this after one of her eruptions," she thought, shamefacedly. but there was no time for any inward reflections just then, for her attack on edward bore very quick results. instead of giving fire for fire as a real coward would do with some one smaller and weaker than himself, edward buried his face in his hands and burst into a perfect tempest of sobs. "oh, don't," cried billie, remorsefully. "it was cruel of me to speak in that way. i was very angry, but it's all over now, and i apologize. i must have hurt you awfully. of course you're not a coward." "no, no. you are quite right. i am a coward. every word you said was true. i am afraid of everything: the daylight and the dark and draughts and people. i am even afraid of the only thing i want to do in the world--be a musician; because my grandmother threatens to cut me off with a shilling if i touch the piano. i am afraid of being poor. you were right in saying i was afraid of the truth, because it hurts, and what you said hurt me terribly. i sometimes wonder why i was ever born. i have always been so miserable." "you poor boy," said billie, all the kindness in her nature rising to the top. "i am so sorry i hurt you. won't you forgive me?" she asked, putting her hand on his arm. "oh, yes," he answered. "i'm not angry with you. i wish i could be mad just once. i have always been afraid of scenes." "well, don't say again you wish you had never been born, because perhaps some day you may be awfully glad you were, and then you would be sorry you had said it. after all, you have an easier time than edward l'estrange. think how hard he has to work, and virginia, too. if you were to change places----" she began, when the english boy interrupted her. "do you think we are very much alike?" he demanded with some excitement in his voice. "wonderfully." "why not change places then? our accents are not so very different. i can run boats and automobiles and edward l'estrange can----" "can fight your battles," billie thought, but she said aloud, "can take your place for a while?" "yes," went on edward, warming up to the subject. "i would gladly give him my allowance. i dare say it's more than he makes now and he could have what i made, too. i don't want it. all i want is a little freedom." "but what about your sister and clarence? wouldn't they find out?" "clarence wouldn't because he has never noticed edward l'estrange and doesn't know anything about the likeness. if it were necessary, we could tell georgiana. but i would rather not. it will be a secret between us three." "and are we to trust you to run the firefly and take us out in the motor?" asked billie, doubtfully. "won't you please?" asked the boy so earnestly that billie smiled. "it may not be necessary," she said. "edward has to be won over first. there he is at last," she added, looking down the avenue. "we had better hurry back. they will be missing us." it was not long before the firefly party was hastening back to the hotel in the faithful red motor. "billie," whispered nancy, "what happened? did you find him? and was it mr. ignatius donahue? and was he dead----" "no, nancy dear, the dead man had run away, thank heavens, whichever one he was." nancy gave an hysterical little giggle. "then he was alive?" "what a foolish question, child. you don't suppose the dead can walk, do you? 'dead men rise up never.'" "ugh--" shivered nancy. "oh, dear, but i'm glad that we didn't really see a murder. which did you think struck the blow?" "how can i tell," answered billie. "but i would much rather it would be ignatius donahue, if it was our mr. donahue, who was struck down. because the other man ran away." early the next morning just as sunrise flooded the world with a mellow light, virginia l'estrange tiptoed from the front door of her house and climbed into the back of an old spring wagon where she sat down composedly in a rocking-chair. "git up, alexander," said uncle peter, who occupied the driver's seat, and off they started down the avenue. as they turned into the main road, they noticed a man sitting on the ground holding his head in both hands. "stop, uncle peter," ordered the girl. "are you ill?" she asked. the man looked up with a dazed expression. "i--i think i am," he answered. "would you like to ride?" "you are very kind." the man climbed into the wagon, and suddenly grasping his head with a groan, fainted dead away. "oh, mercy, what shall we do, uncle peter? take him home?" "we'll have to, little missy. we cyant car' him to the hotel." the long-suffering alexander once again turned his face toward the house and trotted patiently up the avenue. perhaps he thought he was not to take his usual early morning trip to palm beach. by the time they had reached the end of the avenue, the man opened his eyes. "where am i?" he asked. "this is my home," said the young girl. "my name is virginia l'estrange. you had better stay here until you feel better. you will look after him, won't you please, mammy?" she said to the colored woman who had come around the side of the house at the sound of approaching wheels. "this gentleman is ill." "virginia l'estrange," repeated the man, getting slowly out of the wagon with the help of the two old colored people. "virginia," he said again, presently, stretching himself wearily on the long sofa while the colored woman bound a wet cloth about his forehead. in the meantime, virginia, herself, rocking gently back and forth, was again on her way to the hotel. "i suppose it's all right, uncle peter," she said. "we couldn't leave a sick man in the road." "yes, little missy," said the colored man, "an' they ain't nothin' in our house wuth takin' anyhow ceppen it be the gran' pianner." chapter viii.--mr. duffy gives a party. "o'er the waters so blue, o'er the waters so blue, we're afloat, we're afloat in our birch-bark canoe." elinor's sweet fresh voice, floating across the waters of lake worth, seemed a part of the rippling accompaniment made by the waves as they lapped the bow of the firefly. edward, the young engineer, absorbed in listening to the music, forgot he was guiding a boatful of people down the lake to an evening party at mr. duffy's villa. "be careful," whispered billie, sitting near him. "look out for that boat on the right." edward started from his dream, smiled, and turned the firefly out of the track of the oncoming boat. "that's a pretty song," said timothy peppercorn, "only to be strictly truthful, you should substitute--'we're afloat, we're afloat in our little motor-boat.'" "there's nothing poetical about the smell of gasoline," interrupted elinor. "it out-perfumes all the orange blossoms and yellow jasmine at palm beach." "speaking of gasoline," miss campbell here broke in, "edward, did you find out any more about that leak that came in the firefly the other night? was it--do you--er, could it possibly have been----" miss campbell hesitated. she never liked to make accusations on circumstantial evidence, but it certainly looked very much as if clarence paxton had done the deed, out of spite. edward hesitated and billie replied for him. "the engineer is busy at this moment, cousin helen," she said, "but i will tell you that if it wasn't the person who shall be nameless, he got a good beating anyhow for some one else's sins the next day." "is it possible?" exclaimed the little lady with great concern. "dear, dear. who beat him?" "the other one." "it all sounds very mysterious," laughed timothy, "like the letter at the trial of the knave of hearts: "'i gave her one; they gave him two, you gave us three or more. they all returned from him to you, though they were mine before.'" "what are these paxton people like?" asked genevieve martin. "they are english and peculiar," answered nancy. "two orphans and one almost-orphan, and their grandmother. the two orphans are very nice and the almost-orphan is--well, rather disagreeable. the grandmother beats them when she is angry----" "oh, nancy," exclaimed elinor. "she does, for i saw her at timothy's drowning. she beat clarence." "oh, clarence. i should think she would have to beat him. but edward is really quite nice." the others laughed at this, and the engineer bent down over his machine as if motor engines were the only thing in life that interested him. "here we are," cried the ever-watchful billie, pointing to a pretty villa which was one of many built on a long strip of land separating the lake from the ocean. "this is mr. duffy's villa. i can tell it by the three lanterns hung in the boat-house. he told me that would be the duffy signal." since billie's bravery in keeping timothy from drowning, mr. duffy had been her devoted follower. it was impossible for him to conceal his admiration, he said. he wished all the world to know that she was the finest young lady in three kingdoms and all the states. he brought his wife to the hotel to call on miss helen and the girls, but chiefly to exhibit the brave young woman who had kept two heads above water at the same time and not lost either of them. and then he wished to give billie a party at his own house, and he invited her and all her friends who were at the moment in speaking distance on the piazza. timothy peppercorn and genevieve martin were included, and the three english cousins who happened to be near at the time. the firefly party could see their launch now making for the pier. "why, look," exclaimed mary. "clarence isn't running the boat to-night. edward paxton is doing it." "good!" cried billie. "it's a fine sign." "sign of what, pray?" demanded elinor. "oh, nothing," began billie, when she was interrupted by a burst of music played by three negroes on a guitar, a banjo and a triangle which sent a silver tinkling note through the melody. mr. duffy, himself, was at the boat landing looking as large as a white elephant in his spick and span linen suit. "this is a pleasure and an honor, madam," he exclaimed, helping miss campbell out of the boat as gallantly as if he had been a slender young cavalier. "mrs. duffy and i have been looking forward to this, i can tell you. the old woman's on the porch. she never walks a step if she can avoid it, you know." mr. duffy always called his wife "the old woman," but it was simply a term of endearment for she was not really old at all. she was almost as fat as her husband, however, but at the top of her mountainous figure was the most charmingly pretty face imaginable, as pink and white as a wax doll's and always wrinkling with little smiles which played hide-and-seek among her many dimples. her eyes were as blue and innocent as an infant's and her naturally blonde hair, made blonder by artificial means, gave her face a singularly childlike appearance. "are you all here?" she cried, giving a funny little elephantine run down the piazza, as they came up the steps. "i do hope no one stayed behind. i wish i had told you to bring more people. mr. duffy and i love boys and girls, because we haven't any of our own, i suppose. if i wasn't so fat and lazy, i think i should like to be at the head of a big orphan asylum. it would be different from any orphan asylum i have ever seen. the children should have such a good time they would forget they had no parents. the little girls should have pretty dresses," she rattled on, "and not those hideous dun colored things, and every saturday they should have a party----" "you see how my old woman does run on," laughed mr. duffy, winking at the others. "orphan asylums are her particular fad, but i don't believe any methodist association would engage her if they heard her views first." "if they ever do make you a superintendent of an orphan asylum, mrs. duffy," called billie, on her way up the stairs to leave her scarf and wrap, "you will have your hands full because we shall all join the orphan brigade." "bless you, child, mr. duffy and i would be only too glad to make a little asylum just for you all alone if you should ever feel inclined to try it," returned the warm-hearted soul who had yearned in vain for a little girl of her own. mr. and mrs. duffy's winter home was built very much as they were: broad and commodious and of an exceedingly comfortable disposition. there was plenty of room in the big parlors for dancing; on the broad piazzas were lounging chairs and hammocks, and in the tropical garden, now lighted with japanese lanterns, settees had been placed in all the prettiest nooks. other guests now began to arrive from the neighboring villas, and our motor maids soon found themselves at what nancy called "a real party." and, oh, how busy mrs. duffy was introducing all the boys and girls! she chose timothy peppercorn as her assistant and the incongruous pair kept the couples spinning about the room like so many human tops. "no one shall ever have a stupid time in my house," declared the good woman, leading forth young men and maids to the dance like so many sacrificial lambs. but once things got into swing, she had no further trouble except with poor, awkward, shy georgiana. the young english girl danced a hoppety dance instead of the american glide, and it was difficult to obtain a partner for her a second time. at last mr. duffy himself was called into action. with rivers of perspiration pouring down his rotund countenance, like spring freshets down the side of a mountain, he gallantly piloted georgiana through the mazes of the waltz. but mr. duffy had a light and graceful step, in spite of his enormous weight. there was a dancer at the ball whose enjoyment was so apparent that mrs. duffy felt a thrill of gratification whenever she noticed his flushed, happy face. it was edward--which edward, you may guess for yourselves, but he danced as cinderella must have danced when she knew that at midnight she must fly. billie was his partner as often as timothy peppercorn would permit. as soon as edward had arrived he had pushed his way through the crowd and gone straight to her side. "how many dances may i have, miss billie?" he asked, with a candor not unusual in young southerners. "as many as you can get," replied billie, laughing, but with a bright flush on her cheeks, and edward had taken her at her word. elinor, who was standing next to billie when this happened, turned away and bit her lip. it was only because she had been saving up something to tell edward about a duet she wanted him to try some day with her at the hotel, and edward had merely bowed to her and gone away. such things are disturbing even to the most dignified and high-bred natures, and it was natural for poor elinor to wonder why edward paxton had never been near her since the evening they all spent together at virginia's home. elinor had many partners that night, but edward was not one of them. her feelings were hurt and she could not resist a slight coldness toward billie, who seemed to have forgotten that she had three intimate comrades and was always talking to edward in a low voice and stopping immediately any one came near. "won't you and timothy come and stroll in the garden with us, elinor?" asked billie, as they passed each other between dances. "thanks," replied elinor, with all the dignity of an injured queen, "i would rather stay indoors." so it was that billie and edward strolled alone in the garden. "how are you getting on?" she asked. "splendidly," he replied. "i gave clarence such a licking as he'll never forget, and yesterday when the old lady started to rap me in the head with her cane, i caught it in my hand and said 'don't do that again.' i could hardly keep from laughing. but she has treated me very politely ever since. i have to watch out for clarence, though. he is just waiting for a chance to get at me. it will be from behind. that's why i have to be careful. and i want to warn my twin brother. i suppose we'll find him at the boat landing." "how do you like being in another boy's shoes?" billie asked, as they turned in the direction of the boat-house. "it's rather jolly having plenty of clothes and nothing to do but amuse myself; but i'd just as soon live at the foot of mount etna as take a permanent job with my present grandmamma. "nonsense," said billie, "i believe you will find her all right if she learns to respect you. she has no respect for her grandchildren. that's why she bullies them with her cane." stretched on the cushioned seat of the firefly, they found the other edward gazing at the stars, the very picture of contentment. "hello," he exclaimed, looking up as he stifled a yawn. "how's the party?" "fine!" answered edward l'estrange. "i wish you could have come, too," said billie. "thanks, but i'm much happier here. i hate dancing. it always gives me palpitation. the lights hurt my eyes, too, in a ball-room. i'm just as well off here." billie gave a humorous groan. "dear me, what a delicate invalid you are," she laughed. "i am getting better every day," he admitted. "this life of freedom is doing me a lot of good. there is nothing really the matter with me but constant worry and nagging, you know." "and that reminds me," said the american boy. "you will have to give up your life of freedom, as you call it, for a day or two and go to st. augustine with your family. they are all going to-morrow night." "oh, fizzle," exclaimed the other. "why can't grandmamma stay in one place for a week at a time? we came over to new york on business and she couldn't rest until she got here and now she wants to go somewhere else." "it's only for two days," continued edward l'estrange. "they want to see the city. that's all." "i say, edward," said his counterpart in a coaxing voice, "won't you go in my place?" "i'm afraid to. i can't always remember to say 'been' as you do and they might find out. you see, i shall have to be with them constantly. now i only see them at meals and i never talk unless some one asks me a question." the english edward was silent for a few minutes. for the first time in all his days he had been happy. he had tasted the joy of being his own master and of living his own life. he had not even minded the work, although he was not as diligent as the other boy and twice billie had scolded him about the appearance of the comet which was not in its usual spick and span order. "look here," he said at last, "i'm so anxious for another week's happiness that i'd be willing to do almost anything to get it. didn't you tell me when you undertook this business that money was the thing in the world you needed most?" "yes," "would you do it for twenty pounds? that's about a hundred dollars in your money." edward l'estrange thrust his hands in his pockets and kicked the ground meditatively with one toe. "that seems a good deal for you to give and a good deal for me to ask. have you really got that much money?" "oh, yes; i saved it out of last year's allowance. i have kept it a secret. clarence would have borrowed it from me. he's always in debt. i would gladly pay it to you for going to st. augustine." "do you advise me to accept, miss billie?" "why, yes, i do," hesitated billie. "all right, then, i'll do it. i want some money so badly, that i would do almost anything to earn a hundred dollars all at one time." billie, who felt that she was a very responsible party to this strange transaction, was rather uneasy after it was settled. but she knew that edward l'estrange must need money very much and it was a quick way to earn it. "we'll have to change places to-night, though," said the american boy, "because i must go home first and see my mother if i'm to be away for two days. come into the boat-house and we'll change now." billie waited for them, sitting on a bench by the water's edge, and pondering on the curious situation. overhead the stars gleamed twice as brilliantly as they did at west haven. the air was full of sweet odors. a little breeze ruffled the bosom of the lake and stirred the palm trees. how sweet it all was! and mr. and mrs. duffy, what adorable, good-natured, fat, funny souls they were. she smiled to herself and closed her eyes. the next dance had begun and the music of a waltz floated out through the open windows. she was to have danced it with some one, but, never mind, she would wait for the other edward who would now make his appearance in the drawing-room in his real character. it was a pity he was so shy. and she was afraid, too, that he was just a little lazy. "i believe you have this waltz with me, miss campbell," said some one close behind her. it was the sharp voice of clarence paxton that broke the peaceful stillness. billie remembered that she had promised him a dance early in the evening. she had not had the spirit to refuse with mrs. duffy standing at her elbow. "oh, yes," she replied. "i am coming now," and she started down the path. "do wait a moment, billie. perhaps i won't see you again for several days. won't you say good-bye?" called edward l'estrange, running out of the boat-house. he stopped when he saw clarence standing near her. billie felt very uncomfortable. she wished edward had not been so hasty, but southern boys take little pains to conceal their likes and dislikes. edward liked billie very much and he was not at all ashamed of it. however he was not prepared for what was now to happen. chapter ix.--the bullfrog and the pollywog. billie hesitated, too embarrassed to know what to reply. "but----" she began, when clarence interrupted. "do you know you are speaking to a lady," he exclaimed angrily, "and you a servant! how dare you call her by her first name, you insolent young upstart. can't you see that you have made her very angry?" billie was so surprised at this unexpected attack that she lost her voice and choked indignantly. "he is not a servant," she tried to say, but her words were drowned in the abuse which clarence poured out on edward. "go back to your boat and remember your place hereafter. don't interrupt when i'm speaking to you, sir--in england servants are trained not to answer back." even in the half darkness billie could see the flush on edward's face growing deeper every instant. he seemed to breathe in sharp little gasps and his body trembled as if he had an ague. "run," she said to clarence, who after one swift glance at edward had actually turned on his heel and started up the path. but the warning came too late. in an instant edward had seized him by the collar and was shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat. then, without a moment's hesitation, he tossed him into the lake. "you low, contemptible coward," he said. "stay there until you apologize." clarence floundered about in the water snorting and coughing, and started to wade ashore. "i'm in earnest," said edward. "apologize, or you'll get pitched in again if you try to come out." all this time billie had been standing silently on the bank. she could hardly blame edward for punishing the cowardly boy who had insulted him, but she wished with all her heart that she had not been the cause of the quarrel. "it's just what i get for mixing into other people's affairs," she thought. "it all came about because i put it into the two edwards' heads to change places. i do wish i hadn't said so much that night." the other edward strolled out of the boat-house just then with his hands in his pockets. he was dressed in the white duck trousers and blue serge coat his counterpart had just removed. "you look as if you had been having a quarrel," he said. "what's happened?" "edward, please give that fellow a good flogging," called clarence from the lake where he stood waist-deep in water. "you can do it, i know. i found that out the other day." but edward l'estrange was in no humor to be bothered. "you touch me and you go where your cousin did," he said, feeling equal at that moment to exterminating the line of paxton-steeles, root, branch and stock. "is that old clarence out there in the water," said edward paxton chuckling. "by jove, but that's funny. you look like 'the bullfrog on the bank and the pollywog in the pool.'" billie laughed outright at this because it was funny--edward crouched on the bank with a black look on his face, like an angry bullfrog, and pollywog clarence wading about in the water afraid to come out! at that moment there was a sound of shouting and laughing and a crowd of boys and girls came running from the piazza into the garden. they were chasing timothy peppercorn, who was racing down the path in front of the others. it was only a child's game they were playing, but there are always some big children ranging anywhere from fifteen to fifty who love to play games, and the biggest child at mr. duffy's party that night was mr. duffy himself. he resembled a jolly fat old satyr with a crowd of pretty wood nymphs around him as he ran puffing and blowing through the palm-bordered walks. it was nancy, fleetest nymph of them all, who was the first to catch timothy by the tail of his coat and hold him fast until the others came up, and it was on the bank of the lake she had caught him, not two feet from where edward l'estrange was sitting embracing his knees, in moody silence. just as the others came up, a row-boat shot from round the boat-house and pulled into shore. "is this marse duffy's res-dence?" some one called from the boat. edward started. he recognized the voice of uncle peter. "is that you, uncle peter?" he called. "what is it?" "you's needed at home, marse edward." "all right. pull over to the boat landing. i'll meet you there. will you take back the firefly for me to-night?" he asked edward paxton. "i'll be glad to," replied the other. "you may expect me to-morrow morning," added edward l'estrange in a low voice. "i'll probably need that hundred dollars more than ever now. before i go will you promise to take my place in every way until i come back?" "i promise," said the english boy. he had not noticed that clarence, seeing a chance to escape, had now advanced within hearing distance. "and tell your blackguard cousin," continued edward l'estrange, "that the apology is only postponed." "edward," said billie, running after him as he hastened to the boat-house, "if you want to use the comet to-night to get home in, you're welcome to it." "thank you, billie," replied the boy, giving her hand a warm grasp. "you don't mind my not calling you 'miss,' do you?" "of course not," said billie. "we're just a boy and girl, anyway. besides, i called you 'edward' first." "good-bye, again," he said, and was gone down the steps before she could say a word. billie took another path to the house and avoided the crowd. in the meantime, edward paxton, seeing elinor standing apart from the group of young people, had whispered to her. "it's awfully jolly to see you again. i'm not strong on dancing but i'd like one with you, if you don't mind my bungling." elinor looked at him in amazement. "you seem to have been rather strong on dancing the first part of the evening," she said coldly. "oh--er, perhaps i was," answered the boy, suddenly remembering that he could not speak for his actions during the first part of the dance. "but you will dance with me now," he went on, "or better still, suppose we sit on the piazza. i have been thinking up the music for that song," he went on eagerly. "you remember the words you gave me the other night: "'on thy fair bosom, silver lake, the wild swan spreads his snowy sail and round his breast the ripples break, as down he bears before the gale.' "you said you would like to sing it on lake worth, and i've got the music all ready to put down. if it's ever published, i'll dedicate it to you. it goes like this," he added, humming the air to the song as they moved slowly off toward the house. "what's that in the water?" called nancy, after uncle peter had interrupted the game and the merry-makers had paused on the bank of the lake to rest and cool off. mr. duffy, mopping his face with his pocket handkerchief, had seated himself on the bench occupied by billie a few moments before. "it's a man," announced several voices. "it's a man standing in the water." "what are you doing, my friend? cooling your ankles?" asked mr. duffy, politely. seeing that he was discovered, the man waded in. "why, it's clarence," cried georgiana paxton. "are you quite mad? what will grandmamma say?" she added in an awed tone of voice. "mr. duffy," said clarence in a voice quivering with rage, "i have been insulted by a boatman on your place. i thought i wouldn't speak of it at first because i didn't wish to make a scene, but since you have seen me, i must explain." "dear me, dear me, dear me," exclaimed mr. duffy with great concern. "a boatman on my place? who could it be? i'm sorry, sir, i'm sure. and what did he do, pray?" "he was impertinent to a young lady and i reprimanded him, and later when i was standing here talking with her he came up from behind and pushed me off the bank. he rowed off with a man in a boat before i could come out and give him a good flogging." "why, he must mean our edward," said nancy. "he runs the motor-boat and the comet, too." "edward, of course. he's a fine boy," said mr. duffy. "he often does work for mrs. duffy in the garden. it's hard to believe he would play such a mean trick on any one. but you'd better come into the house, mr. paxton, and get on some dry things." "thanks, i'll take the motor-boat back to the hotel. my cousins can go with the others. ask the young miss campbell," he called after them, "if that low fellow didn't have the impertinence to call her 'billie,' and speak to her as familiarly as if he were her equal?" "he is her equal," exclaimed mary, indignantly. but of course the others only knew edward as a very useful and capable boy who worked around the hotel at anything he could find to do. he had even been known to carry luggage, so anxious was he to earn money. chapter x.--the song of the motor. mr. and mrs. duffy enjoyed their own party so much that they concluded to give another one immediately. accordingly at eleven o'clock the next morning, the comet containing the motor maids and timothy peppercorn started off behind the duffy motor in which sat those two ample souls, the master and mistress of the machine, miss helen campbell and the chauffeur. it was a picnic party, during which they were to visit mr. duffy's orange grove and his famous alligator farm. as the motors passed the station, billie saw a group of familiar figures standing on the platform. mrs. paxton-steele, as usual, was flourishing her gold-headed cane, this time to point out pieces of luggage to the man and maid-servants who traveled with her. nearby stood edward, clarence and georgiana. billie sounded the motor horn several times to attract the attention of the others. clarence looked over his shoulder and turned around quickly without speaking. georgiana waved her hand and her handkerchief both at once, and edward flourished his cap and looked only at billie, who thought regretfully: "so, he did get back in time." "strange he didn't tell me last night he was going away," observed elinor. "i think edward paxton is a person of many moods," said mary. "he is never the same from one day to the next. i don't think he is a bit like edward l'estrange in character. it's only his face." "they are certainly alike in face," put in billie. "i believe their nearest relatives could not tell them apart if they were dressed alike." "i could," exclaimed elinor with conviction in her tones. "there is such a difference in their expressions. edward paxton's face is so much more spiritual." billie could not help laughing at this, and elinor was piqued. "well, i do think he is much more refined," she observed. "after all, billie, it was rather familiar of edward l'estrange to call you by your first name." "nonsense," ejaculated billie. "he's as good as i am, and i call him edward. besides, haven't we accepted his hospitality, 'eaten his bread,' as papa says? it was quite right for him to call me billie if he wanted to." the girls were rather surprised at this little tiff between the two friends, who were never known to have had the shadow of a quarrel before. billie made up her mind that she would tell the girls the truth about the two edwards that very night, even if it were not her secret. she couldn't bear these small misunderstandings, though they disturbed the placid waters of their friendship ever so little. "why is it no one ever sees virginia?" asked peacemaker mary, changing the subject. "i did see her in the corridor of the hotel not long ago," replied nancy, "but when she recognized me she flew down a side hall. miss campbell wanted to ask her to luncheon with us and tried to catch her, but she had disappeared." "ever since you saved my life, billie," here broke in timothy, "i've been meaning to tell you something. i'm almost certain it was clarence paxton who yelled 'sharks,' that morning. of course i couldn't testify in a court about it, because when you are chasing around in deep water you are not apt to examine people's lineaments. anyway, it was not his face i recognized, but his laugh. the last time he pitched the ball he gave a jeering laugh, and that was why i kept on swimming farther out. i had a feeling he thought i couldn't." "if it was clarence, he was punished," said nancy. "his grandmamma beat him well with her stick; for i saw her do it and he saw me see her and i saw that he saw that i saw her----" she finished breathlessly, while the others laughed and clapped their hands. "bravo! bravo!" cried timothy. they now entered a road which was not unlike a green tunnel. as a matter of fact, it was a tunnel, only it had been cut through vegetation and not through earth and rock. "this must be the road to miami," observed billie. "you see it is cut through the jungle. isn't it wonderful?" on each side of them tropical trees had grown in such thick profusion and were so closely interwoven with vines and undergrowth as to form an impenetrable wall. "this must be a dreadful place to be lost in," said timothy seriously. "there are paths that lead through it, they say. but it is said that the people who ventured to find them were lost themselves and never returned." "criminals have hidden there----" mary began, when the sound of another motor coming up behind at a tremendous rate of speed attracted their attention from the jungle. it was a gray racing car and as it flashed past them, billie and nancy exchanged a meaning glance. the other girls had heard the story of their strange adventure that night at the l'estranges, but they had half forgotten it already, since it was only a fight after all. however, it had been a very real occurrence to billie and nancy. they wondered if the gray car contained a man who thought he had committed a murder; and was that man ignatius donahue? of course, there may have been other ignatius donahues in the world, but since that night, they had heard no more from mr. campbell's old friend. ten miles down one road and almost as many along another flew the comet, flashing his red breast gloriously in the sunshine. in the whir of his smoothly running motor engine they could hear a song of the joy of living. "he's singing this morning," exclaimed mary ecstatically. "he's got a little song all his own. listen!" they sat silently for a few minutes harkening to the music of the motor machine. "i know exactly what he's singing," said elinor. "i can distinctly hear him say: 'god's-in-his-heaven-all's-right-with-the-world god's-in-his-heaven-all's-right-with-the-world.'" "i don't hear him say that," put in nancy. "he seems to me to be singing: 'begone-dull-care-begone-dull-care-begone-dull-care.'" "what do you think he's saying, mary?" asked timothy. "something entirely different from the others," replied mary. "here's what his song sounds to me like: 'my-coursers-are-fed-with-the-lightning they-drink-of-the-whirlwind's-stream.'" "this sounds like a quotation party," laughed billie. "it reminds me of friday afternoon in the rhetoric class. it's my turn now, i suppose, and i'm afraid i haven't got the oriental imagination that will make a motor car know verses from shelley and browning. all i can hear the old comet sing is 'punch-punch-punch-with-care- punch-in-the-presence-of-the-passengere.'" "you've none of you struck it right," said timothy. "this is the song of the motor and once you catch it you never hear anything else: 'ketch a nigger by the toe, ketch a nigger by the toe. when he hollers, let 'im go, when he hollers, let 'im go.'" "timothy!" protested the two most poetic souls of the party, mary and elinor. but having got that insidious verse in their minds they could not get it out, and for the rest of the journey they heard the motor singing joyfully to himself: "ketch a nigger by the toe; when he hollers, let him go." before them stretched the road like a long white ribbon fading into the blue horizon. but they had left the tangled wildwoods far behind them, and were now passing orange groves hedged in with tall fences of arbor-vit㦠or bushes of the roses of sharon in full bloom, their white blossoms gleaming in the sunshine like a line of new-fallen snow. "this must be the duffy grove," exclaimed billie. "he told me he had built a board fence as high as the wall of china around his place, because next to his wife, he loved his orange trees." it was the duffy grove, for the rotund gentleman himself could now be seen frantically waving his panama hat and pointing toward a whitewashed board fence, some twenty feet high, at the top of which branched rafters like the uncovered roof of an enormous building. "he stretches canvas over it when the weather is cool, and he has stoves all about inside with wood fires to keep the baby oranges from catching cold. isn't he a funny man?" "in other words he has an orange asylum instead of an orphan asylum," put in timothy, as they drew up at the gate of the two-acre enclosure wherein mr. duffy indulged his taste for an ideal orange grove. the avenue itself did not enter the enclosure but took its unconsecrated way outside the great white wall. tall palms, like a row of giant sentinels, seemed to keep guard over the secrets of the grove; but the inquisitive vine of the yellow jasmine had almost reached the top, and innumerable and brilliant flowers grew at its foot. at the end of the avenue was the duffy lodge. "ladies, you must excuse these simple accommodations," he said as he helped them out of the motor. "mrs. duffy and i like to come here and camp out occasionally, but it's a little too primitive for the old woman. she prefers palm beach and society. and she's right," he added good-naturedly. "this is a fine place to motor to, but it's too far from people, and mrs. duffy and i like people, don't we, old lady? especially young people, eh? i feel like blessing that current that carried you and timothy against me that day, miss billie." "we feel like blessing it, too," said billie. "it was a very well-bred and respectable current," exclaimed timothy. "it not only saved our lives but it carried us into a moonlight dance and an orange grove." although the lodge was hardly the primitive affair mr. duffy had described, being a well-built and comfortable bungalow, it had only three rooms--a large living room, a bedroom and a kitchen. "take off your coats and hats, my dears," exclaimed mrs. duffy, "and put on these aprons, because when people eat oranges in a real grove they need protection, and i would not for worlds have you ruin your pretty frocks." thus enveloped in large white aprons, they followed mr. duffy, looking like a jolly fat comic opera pastry cook in that costume, to the entrance of the orange grove. "jason must have felt like this when he found the golden fleece," whispered mary, while they stood in a group waiting for mr. duffy's man to unlock the small door in the wall. as for their jolly host himself, he smiled mysteriously and beckoned them to follow. chapter xi.--the orange grove. as they passed through the door they gasped with amazement and wonder. nothing on the outside of the whitewashed fence could have given them an idea of what it concealed. mr. and mrs. duffy stood arm in arm, smiling with proud pleasure, as rotund as their own round oranges. it was a thing to be proud of certainly to possess this noble grove. imagine rows and rows of orange trees all exactly the same size and each cut in the shape of a beautiful dark green ball. and, as if nature could not be lavish enough with gifts to one of her favorite children, each tree was a bouquet of flowers, ripe fruit and green fruit. through the polished cool green leaves gleamed the brilliant golden balls, and the clusters of white flowers sent out a fragrance that was sweeter and more delicate than the most delicious perfume ever distilled. "perhaps the garden of eden was an orange grove," said mary, pinching herself to see if this really were a dream. "only this fruit is not forbidden, my sweet child," answered mrs. duffy, "and you shall have all you can eat of it this minute. mr. duffy, did you tell james to bring the knives?" "certainly, my dear. i couldn't forget them because they are in the pocket of this garment, and i've been afraid of sitting on them inadvertently." he drew forth a number of sharp steel knives and distributed them among the guests. "the old woman and i will show you first how to peel the oranges," he said, "and then just fall to and help yourselves. you can eat all you want and don't be afraid they will make you sick. they never do. they are very much like rattlesnakes, i think. they won't strike you unless you are afraid of them." after a few trials they learned to reverse the peeling on the orange and draw it down to one end like a handle. the proper way to eat the orange was to bite into it as if it were an apple. they never knew how many oranges they consumed that day. most of them lost count after the fourth or fifth. they even lost sight of each other and wandered about in the beautiful grove like a band of greedy sleep walkers. "i declare," exclaimed billie at last, coming out of her absorption long enough to squeeze mrs. duffy's plump waist and smile into her face, "we are just a lot of butchers stabbing fruit to death." "i don't wonder you never stay here for any length of time, mrs. duffy," said timothy peppercorn. "the smell of these blossoms and the fruit have hypnotized me already. i can't remember who i am. i feel that i am rapidly becoming an orange." "or a mock orange, perhaps," suggested nancy. "no, the real thing. i'm a genuine florida orange, a delicious concoction of juice and pulp----" "not much pulp, timothy, my son," interrupted mr. duffy. "you must lay on a little before you leave florida. but what about lunch, my dear?" "lunch?" gasped miss helen campbell, who had retired to a bench and was leaning back exhausted. "how can you mention the word?" "oh, you'll be ready enough to eat after you shake down a bit," said mr. duffy. "we'll see the alligators first." "but, my dear," objected mrs. duffy, "alligators are such unappetizing creatures. perhaps miss campbell would prefer to lie down and rest while you take the children to see the animals." "i feel as if i had been dipped in a shower bath of orange juice," cried elinor, joining the others who had gradually assembled under one of the trees. "now you see why i keep these pinafores for my guests," answered mrs. duffy. "i wouldn't have you ruin your pretty frocks for the sake of a few oranges." "it was worth it," ejaculated billie. "i haven't a dress i wouldn't have sacrificed for the opportunity of eating all the oranges i wanted to, right off the trees." "i should have hated to give up my pale pink mulle," observed nancy regretfully, as if she had already laid that cherished costume on the altar of the goddess of fruits. after removing their juice-stained pinafores and washing their streaming faces and hands, they repaired to the alligator farm which was another fad of good mr. duffy's. mrs. duffy loathed the creatures, however, and she and miss campbell took their siesta at the bungalow in the absence of the others. billie herself harbored a secret distaste for the animals ever after that, on account of what happened while she was feasting her eyes on their hideous bodies. the alligator farm in another part of mr. duffy's plantation appeared to have been arranged and devised solely for the comfort and happiness of these creatures, who disported themselves on the banks of a small lake or wallowed about in the shallow water like the great lazy reptiles they were. immense logs and great boulders had been placed in the lake for their amusement. "i could easily imagine they would eat hindoo babies," said mary, watching them fearfully through the wire netting which served to screen her from their enormous jaws. "jennie is really the only vicious one in the family now," observed mr. duffy, apologetically, pointing to an immense alligator which had stretched its length on a log. jennie opened her jaws with a humorous grin as if her vicious reputation was an amusing subject to her. they were still laughing at her when one of the children of the lodge-keeper ran up quite breathlessly. "miss campbell is wanted on the telephone," she said. "me?" cried billie. "what in the world? there must be some mistake. who could want to speak to me over the telephone?" "best way to find out is to run and see," replied mr. duffy. "if it's long distance, and it probably is, they may be paying for time, remember." billie hurried after the child and the other motor maids followed, being as curious as she to learn who could be telephoning her in this remote region. "oh, my dear, i'm afraid the person couldn't wait, whoever it was," exclaimed miss campbell, meeting her young cousin at the door of the bungalow. "i thought it was for me at first, and i tried to take the message. there was some confusion about it. you know i'm no good over the telephone." billie seized the receiver. "hello!" she cried. "this is billie campbell." an immense distance off, a still, small, and yet strangely familiar voice seemed to be speaking to her out of space: "billie-e-e--" it said. "who are you?" asked the girl, with a feeling of foreboding which an unexpected call on the long distance telephone always causes. "it's edward--edward l'estrange. listen. i must go away. something has happened. make edward paxton keep his word. you are the only one who knows about it. tell virginia if necessary. but no one else. everything depends on nobody's knowing i'm not at palm beach. tell edward i'll be back, and he must represent me in every way until i come, as he promised. you understand, don't you? every way. you won't lose faith in me, billie, will you?" "no," she replied, wondering what it all meant. "good-bye." "good-bye," she answered mechanically, feeling that she was in some sort of strange dream. "wait," called the voice that sounded so like and still so unlike edward's. "do you promise?" "yes," replied billie. "good-bye again." "good-bye," she answered, feeling very much like giving way to a few inexplicable tears. "was it edward?" burst out the bunch of curiosity as soon as billie had hung up the receiver. "yes," said billie, groping about in her mind for some explanation which would explain, without telling what edward had really said. "which edward?" asked elinor. "why, the one we saw this morning. they must be in st. augustine, now." "but what did he want?" demanded all the girls in one voice. "he wanted to say good-bye." "didn't he send any messages?" demanded elinor. "just to say good-bye," replied billie, flushing a little under the scrutiny of her friends. "he's going away." "not to come back any more?" "he's coming back but not for a while. he really didn't make any explanations. he just said he was going away." mary and nora laughed and elinor was silent. "i always said he was a queer boy," observed mary. "but why telephone you, child?" observed miss campbell, much mystified. "i can't imagine," answered billie. "he just seemed to have to tell some one that he was going away. that's all i know. he is queer," she admitted, laughing. "luncheon is served," announced a respectful colored woman who was in charge of the bungalow at all times. at one end of the vine-covered piazza a table had been spread with a white cloth, and there the hospitable mistress of the establishment served tea and sandwiches to her guests. during the ride back home, billie tried to laugh and talk with the others, and elinor, too, made a great effort to be gay. but elinor could not conceal a slight coldness which was creeping into her heart toward her friend, and billie, somehow, was not happy. what did edward l'estrange mean by going away and shifting all his responsibilities on a strange boy and his poor little sister? and why, oh, why, would he insist on drawing her into his troublesome affairs? she wished with all her heart that he had not been such a nice, interesting boy. then it would have made no difference if he had chosen to go to china. only she would have still been disappointed in him, of course. and what had he meant by saying: "you won't lose faith in me, billie?" it was all very strange and perplexing. chapter xii.--an unwished wish. miss helen campbell was laid low with a sick headache the day after the orange grove party. "a little too much juice of the fruit, my dear," she explained to billie, who had tiptoed into her room to see if there was anything she could do. "but you mustn't stay with me. i shall be all right as soon as my head stops throbbing. only never show me another orange as long as i live. get edward to look after you and go for a ride in the comet. you mustn't miss a moment of this beautiful visit on my account." "do you think there would be anything out of the way in our going over to see virginia, cousin helen? she is not working here any longer the housekeeper says, and i suppose we shall find her at home. we could take her for a motor ride and bring her back to luncheon." "certainly, child, if she will come. ask her brother's opinion. he ought to know better than any one else. but whatever you do, be sure and be back to lunch or i shall be very uneasy." billie wished to see virginia very much. she also wished to find edward, and the plan of the morning she hoped would bring both of these things about. she felt worried, and anxious to disburden her soul of its secret. her three friends had noticed at breakfast how quiet billie was, for her frank and honest face had never been able to conceal any emotion which saddened or brightened it. "aren't you feeling well to-day, dear?" mary asked, as they hurried down the hotel walk to look for edward, who they had been told was probably at the boat landing. "quite well," replied billie. "wilhelmina," said nancy sternly, "you know something and you won't tell. now, get it out of your system right off, or it will be making you ill." elinor said nothing at all. it was impossible for her to explain her feelings just then even to herself. she was hurt with billie for no good reason, and she was angry and ashamed of herself for permitting this ugly little bitterness to enter her mind. "do tell us, billie," pleaded nancy, whose curiosity when with her three intimate friends was insatiable. "but it isn't mine to tell," answered billie desperately. "ha! she admits she has a secret," cried nancy dramatically. "the only way for you to learn this secret," said billie, cornered at last by her own confession, "is to find it out for yourselves. i can't tell because i promised not to. for some reason, which i don't know any more than you do, it's very important for the secret to remain a secret, and everything depends on its being kept a secret. that's all i can tell you, because, except for the actual thing itself, that's all i know." "heavens, how mysterious!" cried nancy. "i feel i shall burst in a minute if i don't find out." "i'm afraid you'll have to burst then, you inquisitive child," laughed billie, giving her a friendly shake. it was really something of a relief to talk about it, even in this vague and unsatisfactory manner. edward was nowhere to be seen at the boat landing. "perhaps he's in the firefly," suggested mary. the motor-boat was the last of a row of launches moored to the landing, and as they approached they heard a clear, boyish voice, singing: "on thy fair bosom, silver lake, the wild swan spreads his snowy sail, and round his breast the ripples break, as down he bears before the gale." nancy and mary, who were already half down the flight of steps leading to the boats, paused to listen. billie also lingered on the platform, when suddenly elinor, who had lagged behind, busy with her own thoughts, ran up to her friend and seized her by the shoulders with a little low cry that was half a laugh and half a sob. "billie campbell," she whispered, "i know the secret. they've changed places. but why did they do it?" "for fun, at first," replied billie. "and now i don't understand. something has happened because edward l'estrange is not coming back." the two girls looked at each other a moment in silence. "you mean he's left the other edward to take his place here?" elinor whispered. billie nodded. "but that isn't fair." "i'm sure it is," said billie stoutly. "because--because----," she went on lamely, "he couldn't do anything that wasn't fair." "but think what it will mean to him," elinor persisted. "he will have plenty of money and he can go to school and travel----" "i know," said billie, "but he told me he was coming back and i believe him." "and edward paxton, what will he be doing? he will have to work for a living." "it will do him good." "you are not fussing, i trust," called mary, who had run back up the steps to look for them. "no, no, only arguing," replied elinor. edward paxton now appeared, his hands in his pockets, whistling the same air he had been singing only a moment before. his eyes met elinor's and he stopped in the middle of a bar. this double identity was awfully mixing. he was always forgetting that as engineer of the boat, firefly, he was not supposed to know about music. "what are your orders this morning, miss campbell?" he asked, with just a suspicion of mockery in his voice. "get the comet, please, edward," she said, flushing. "we are going to motor out to see virginia. can you go with us?" "at your service," replied the boy, smiling broadly. he really seemed so happy that billie thought, after all, the news she had to tell him would not be so unwelcome. "how do you like the life?" she asked him presently, following him to the garage, while the other three girls returned to the hotel for mail, motor veils and a last word to miss campbell. "wonderful," he replied with enthusiasm. "if i only had a piano it would be perfect. i have just finished composing a song and i want to try it." "you don't mind the work, then?" "not specially. you see i don't do very much. i've got it down to the firefly and the comet, and let everything else slide." "but----" began billie with a tone of protest in her voice. "after all," she thought, "it isn't any of my business." "but what?" he asked. "i have something to tell you, edward. what would you say if you really had to work for a living for awhile?" "is that what you had to tell me?" he asked smiling. "i should say i would rather study music." "but you aren't studying music," said billie. "you're just lying around making up pretty tunes and neglecting the work you promised to do. i'm afraid you can't neglect it any longer, edward. you've got to look alive and earn some money." then billie gave him the message she had received over the long distance telephone. edward was too amazed to answer at first. his lips formed the word "scoundrel," but he seemed to have no voice. at last he burst out indignantly: "and i thought i could trust him, billie, when i let him have that money in advance." "but you can. he will be back, of course." "what earthly reason could he have for staying away, except to take my place? don't you think it's a good deal easier life to live with a rich old grandmother, even if she is a scold, than to slave down here as an engineer and a porter and anything else that happens to come along and take insults from people?" "but i thought you liked it?" "i did, but not forever. of course, i shall telegraph grandmamma or clarence at once and let them know he is an impostor." [illustration: "no, you won't," cried billie. "no, no, edward, you couldn't do that."] "no, you won't," cried billie so suddenly that she surprised herself. "no, no, edward, you couldn't do that. that wouldn't be honest. you gave him your promise, didn't you, to look after his work until he came back. i am sure you would regret it very, very much if you didn't. if he had not meant to come back, he would never have called me up on the telephone. you see, it wasn't necessary. they expected to stay several days, didn't they? but he knew i was going to be at mr. duffy's lodge that afternoon, and although he seemed in a tremendous hurry, he called me up to ask me to give you that message. you are to represent him," she repeated, "as you promised. i am sure he meant every word he said. please, edward, do wait until you get word from him. how can you distrust any one who looks so exactly like you? it would be like disbelieving in one's self." edward did not reply. with an angry, impatient gesture he left her, to bring the car out of the garage. presently she climbed in beside him. "it won't hurt you to do something for some one else," she went on. "i don't want to preach, of course, but i'd just like to ask you if you ever have, that you can remember, really made a sacrifice for any one?" "i can't say i have," said edward. "perhaps i've never had the opportunity." "do you remember that night when we didn't find the dead man, you told me you had been afraid all your life of daylight and dark and draughts and people and poverty? this is such a splendid chance to show you are not afraid of anything in the world, even of keeping your promise, edward." "but," he exclaimed, "i have no money, billie." "take out sailing parties and launch parties and carry baggage and do the things edward did. papa always said the proudest moment of his life was the first time he earned five dollars." "by jove, it would be rather nice," he said after a pause. "grandmamma has always treated me like an infant, you know. when she finds out i can earn a living, perhaps she'll have a little more respect for me." "i'm sure of it," said billie, climbing into the back seat as they drew up in front of the hotel. "it's a dangerous thing," she said to herself as she sank down upon the cushions, "to wish for a thing unless you really want it, because if your wish comes true, you are just as apt as not to unwish it, and then things are in a muddle." chapter xiii.--in the deep woods. billie, having unburdened her mind, felt much happier. the whole situation had come about of course by her own careless words spoken in anger, but after all she could hardly be called a responsible party to the transaction, a phrase which sounded very legal to her. she remembered once her father had playfully called her "a little accessory before the fact," when she had induced him to take her on a foolish excursion that had ended in disaster. certainly it all sounded very much like a romantic tale, and she did hope it would have a happy ending, but no amount of hopefulness could keep that little entering-wedge of anxiety from finding its way into her mind. "billie, is this the road to the left?" asked edward paxton, suddenly. billie had just time to say she thought it was the road, they had never been over it but once and then at night, when mary and nancy pounced upon her. "we know the secret," they whispered, pointing to edward. "you've guessed," she replied, relieved that she was no longer burdened with a secret she had longed to discuss with her friends. and they did discuss it in low voices from every point of view. it was impossible to explain edward l'estrange's mysterious telephone message. it did look very much as though he had taken a mean advantage, but billie believed in him and so did the other two girls. so absorbed were these young people in their whispered conversations, edward and elinor on the front seat and the others on the back, that they had not noticed that the road they had taken was rapidly degenerating from a hard beaten highway into a sandy trail. the land about them had a lonely, uninhabited look. the stillness was oppressive. almost imperceptibly, the few sparse palm trees and scraggy pines which stood far apart like people on the outskirts of a crowd, began to grow more closely together in little friendly groups. then the groups joined and became companies and the companies a multitude, and the multitude a vast legion whose branches interlocked so closely as to form a roof over their heads. it was hard pulling along the deep sandy ruts, but the comet uttered no complaints until suddenly with a groan that was almost human, his wheels sank hub-high in the sand and he could go no more. "for heaven's sake," cried billie, "this can't be the road to virginia's." the motor had stopped whirring and the place was as still as death. they climbed out of the car and edward, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking gravely at the half-sunken wheels. "i'm afraid i've got you into a deuced lot of trouble," he exclaimed remorsefully. "i ought to have been watching the road instead of talking. i'm a poor chauffeur." billie secretly thought he was and she wished with all her heart that she had run the car that morning. but chauffeurs, like professional singers, are apt to criticise each other, and billie had great confidence in her powers as engineer of the comet. "now we have relieved him of our weight, maybe he'll pull out," said hopeful mary, pointing to the motor. "why don't you start him up and see?" "crank him up, edward," called billie, jumping into her own particular seat at the wheel. somehow she never could feel at home in the other seats. the machinery began to whir and the poor comet strained and tugged until his one "all-seeing eye," as the girls had called it, was almost starting from its socket and his loyal engine heart was nigh to bursting its bonds. "it's no good breaking a blood vessel, you poor old dear," exclaimed billie, patting the red cushion beside her as she stopped the motor. "just you wait and we'll see if we can't find another way out of this hole." the others laughed. it was always funny to hear their friend talk to her machine as if a heart really did beat in his throbbing mechanism. but after all, it wasn't a joking matter when they began to look about them. it seemed as if the only thing to do was to abandon the comet and walk back to the main road. but billie was not one to give up so easily, and before she would consent to a general retreat, her friends knew she would try everything she could think of to release the machine. "i suppose we'll have to foot it," said edward with a sigh, glancing at his watch. billie flushed. somehow this lazy boy irritated her. she had been brought up by a man who thought nothing of spanning a great chasm with a bridge or tunneling through mountains for his railroads. there was something very like contempt in her heart for this young man who played tunes on the piano and thought chiefly of his own health. "foot it, indeed!" she exclaimed, "and leave the comet here to be swallowed in quicksands?" "but it isn't really that, you know," he answered. "besides, what can we do? we can't push the thing out and this sun is awfully hot." "you don't mean to say you're going to give up without a struggle?" cried nancy. even elinor, who was edward's champion at all times, was not pleased. "if you want to watch us work, you can," went on billie, making a great effort not to be too rude. edward's face fairly burned with shame. "i--i didn't mean that," he answered. "of course, i'll do anything you say. i was only thinking of you." "he was not," thought billie. "he was thinking of his own delicate constitution." but she did not voice her thoughts and tried to swallow her indignation. never had she met anything in trousers so utterly lacking in spirit. having decided to remain and see the comet through, the question was what would they do? billie sat down on the ground and began to think. finally edward approached her almost timidly and volunteered a suggestion. "i saw an ox cart stalled in some mud once, in england, and they got it out with some boards and a cross log. i think we could manage this if we could find the boards." "but where can we get any boards?" asked elinor hopelessly. no one could answer this difficult question, and they were beginning to think that after all, they would have to submit to the easiest way and foot it back to the main road, several miles away. "a road is obliged to lead somewhere," said mary price at last. "else how did it happen to be at all? why not 'foot it,' as edward calls it, down this path a bit and see what we come to?" billie, already ashamed of the temper she had just displayed for the second time in her acquaintance with edward, jumped up. "wise little mary," she exclaimed, "i think that would be a splendid idea." "we'll probably be eaten up by boa constrictors," said nancy with a groan, "but come ahead. they'd be just as vicious here as farther on, i suppose." "and tarantulas and scorpions," said elinor, following the others. as they ran along, they noticed the trail gradually narrowed into a path as if a wagon were in the habit of coming to a sudden stop and the driver got out and walked the rest of the way. the outskirts of the forest had been as still as the entrance to a tomb. the interior was filled with noises. the songs of the wild birds, the humming of insects, all kinds of inexplicable cracklings and creakings, as if unseen things were creeping about. "ugh," exclaimed nancy. "i'm frightened. please let's go back." "oh, oh, oh!" shrieked elinor, wringing her hands. a long green snake had wriggled across the path almost over the toe of her shoe in its haste to hide itself in the undergrowth. "oh, elinor," said billie, filled with remorse. "i'm so sorry. i remember now how you loathe snakes. do let's go back." "haloo-o-o," called edward, who had run on ahead, "you were right, mary. roads must lead to something." filled with curiosity, in spite of their horror of the creeping, crawling things they felt sure the forest was alive with, they hastened down the path which turned abruptly to the right, where a clearing had been made, in the middle of which stood a little wooden shack of the most primitive character, but still with a certain individual look as if the one who had erected it must have put into it some of his own personality. and why was it that this crude little hut in the forest should have reminded edward of an english cottage? the door opened straight on the ground and from under the low overhanging roof peeped one little window. a jasmine vine had been trained against the wall of the house and a hedge of acacia bushes formed a sort of peaceful barrier between the clearing and the advancing hosts of giant pine trees. the door was open and they walked in boldly. inside were a few pieces of furniture, a cot, an old table and a chair. "this must be a hermit's house," said edward, who had forgotten all about himself in the excitement and interest of the adventure. "he must be dead or something, then," observed nancy, looking about the room curiously. "because i can see with half an eye that no one has lived here for some time." "it's a snug little place," said elinor. "it's almost cosy with this solid wall of green around it. now, who do you suppose lived here and why did he do it?" "he must have had some very good reason for hiding himself in this forest," put in billie, "but i hope if he is still living, he won't begrudge us a few planks from his dwelling, and if he's dead his spirit won't rise up and haunt us for disturbing his earthly dwelling place." "look," cried mary, who had been standing in the doorway. "what is it?" demanded the others. "i'm almost sure i saw some one. it was a man. he stood out against the green just for an instant. there was something white on his head like a bandage or a handkerchief." "which way?" they asked, hurrying into the yard and scanning the green wall on all sides. "he seemed to be over there, but i am not sure. perhaps i just imagined it after all." "looking through the woods like this i could imagine i saw almost anything," said billie, making a frame of her hands and peering into the forest. "people and animals and things." here and there a golden sunbeam, slanting through the foliage, cast a flickering, dancing shadow on the trunks of the trees. "they do look like people," said mary thoughtfully, gazing at the multitude of trees which seemed to be elbowing and jostling each other for first place. standing aloof among them was that slim dandy, the magnolia, his black trunk gleaming richly, like a gentleman's frock coat. next came the rusty gray trunk of the vagabond pine which wanders like a gypsy into all lands; and beside him, like a good-natured comrade, grew the palm, spreading his fan-shaped leaves in every direction, like so many friendly hands outstretched in welcome. suddenly a bird, flying quite low, came so close to elinor's face that she almost fell backwards. perched on a corner of the roof he regarded them with two bright beady eyes, as a singer standing behind the footlights might take stock of his audience. then swelling out his little bosom and throwing back his head, he began to sing. "it's dick, the mocking bird," whispered elinor. "i'm certain of it. you see, he's almost tame." chapter xiv.--the mocking bird. what a morning concert that was! it is true it lasted only a few minutes, but it seemed to be a medley of all the beautiful songs ever sung by birds. surely dick gave them his entire repertoire. his little quivering throat seemed to be an instrument on which he played the long, cool, clear notes of the wood thrush, the sweet trills of the canary bird, arpeggios and runs, turns, quavers and semi-quavers. edward threw himself on the ground in a transport of enjoyment as he watched the throbbing little creature. then, with a final chirp, dick hopped down on the door sill, looked in with an inquiring twist of his head, and flew away as quickly as he had come. "was there ever anything to equal that?" cried billie, breaking the silence which had settled upon them during the concert. "the darling little fellow," exclaimed elinor. "anybody would suppose he had come to make a morning call on a sick friend and give him a concert to cheer him up." "virginia's house must be near here, because she told me herself dick never went far from home," mary observed. "there's no telling," answered billie. "i've lost all sense of direction in this place; but i think we'd better get to work," she answered, glancing at her blue enamel watch. "it's eleven o'clock. edward, do you think we could knock some of the planks off the lower part of the house without doing much damage?" edward, who had been lying flat on his back in a day dream, pulled himself together and jumped up quickly. "of course," he said apologetically, "if we can find anything to do it with." "perhaps, if the hermit built his own house, he has a few tools," said mary. "let's look in and see, at any rate." sure enough, they did find an old rusty hatchet standing in one corner of the room. the house had been built on a slight foundation consisting of four pine stumps about a foot high and the space from the floor to the ground level was covered with planking. it was these boards billie's quick thought had designed to remove. warming to the work, edward hammered vigorously, but it was very difficult to release the thick boards which had been secured with long nails. edward's slim, piano-playing hands seemed hardly strong enough for the task and after the top nails had been loosened, the four girls, sitting in a row beside him, each took hold and began to pull. the rusty nails clung to the wood with irritating obstinacy and then after all gave way unexpectedly, as obstinate things and people are apt to do. over they went on their backs in a laughing, giggling confusion of skirts and feet, with the plank on top of them. they sat up rubbing the dust from their eyes. then with wild shrieks they jumped to their feet and fled in every direction, edward with them. there curled up under the house, his head raised, ready to strike, was a long gray and green snake. "oh, dear, oh dear!" cried elinor, while edward shivered with disgust, and the other girls pressed together with feelings of terror. how were they not to know that hideous reptiles and beasts were not around them everywhere in this wild place? but the snake, evidently much relieved that matters were no worse, glided off in the bushes. "i hope his wife isn't around," groaned nancy. "they always have a wife about somewhere." "i don't see her," said edward, coming resolutely forth and seizing the hatchet. "shall we get this next board off and finish the thing as soon as possible? this is a deucedly wild place to be in without any weapon but a rusty hatchet." with feelings of more or less repugnance they finally loosened the second board. placing one on top of the other, so that all five of the party could lend a hand in carrying them back to the motor, they started down the path. "what's that?" exclaimed mary, looking back. "what's what?" they demanded in a chorus, almost dropping the boards in their nervousness. "under the house." "not another snake?" shrieked elinor. "no, no; it's a box, i think." "let's leave it," said elinor. "it's none of our concern. probably love letters of the hermit." but, strange to say, as if a will stronger than his own impelled him, edward shifted his end of the board to one of the others and walked back to the house. "it is a box," he called, moving the object with his foot. "shall i bring it along?" the girls laid the boards on the ground to consider. elinor had worked up a romantic tale in her head about the box which she now imparted to her friends. "the hermit who lived here," she said, "was probably disappointed in love. he built a house in the woods and put his love letters in the corner stone----" "which was a cedar post--" interrupted nancy. "and when he died," went on elinor. "but how do you know he is dead?" they demanded. "if he were not dead, he'd be living there still, like the old woman who lived on the hill," broke in nancy. the others laughed. it did not seem unkind somehow to make a little innocent fun of the poor, dead, imaginary hermit who lived such an uncomfortable life for his lost love. "if you don't think it's highway robbery," observed billie, "bring it along. having walked off with two boards, why pause at boxes?" "a deserted box under a deserted house in a deserted wood should belong to the first person who found it," said elinor with conviction. the box, which turned out to be an old cigar box with the lid tacked on, was accordingly placed on top of the board with the hatchet, and once more the procession started on its way. "we look like a lot of pall bearers at a funeral," said nancy breathlessly as they trudged along. at last they reached the comet. it seemed an age since they had left him wallowing in the sand, and his one great eye, which at night glared so gloriously, now looked at them with mild reproach. "the first thing to do is to find a log," said edward, proceeding to look for one. the girls were surprised at his sudden energy when he appeared presently dragging a fallen pine tree after him. having got it across the road, he chopped it to a proper length. the two boards he placed under the hind wheels of the motor car, the ends being slightly raised by the pine crossbeam. "we'll have to run the car backwards," he said, "because, of course, if we try to go on, we'll have to turn around eventually." billie had cranked up and was already sitting in the chauffeur's seat. she was beginning to see the usefulness of edward's plan now. once more the comet struggled and groaned in his effort to climb out of the sand pit, but without moving an inch. "it'll have to be the front wheels or nothing," said edward, wiping the perspiration from his brow as he carried the two boards and the crossbeam to the front and placed them under the car. this time, with a mighty strain, the comet rolled slowly onto the boards, went the full length and promptly sank again into the sand. but each time he responded promptly to the "board treatment," as billie called it, and after infinite patience and energy they finally pulled him to harder ground. "what shall we do now?" asked nancy. "we're only getting deeper into the woods." "we can't turn around," answered billie. "we'll just have to ride over bush and brake, i suppose, and follow the path." "sound the horn, then," said elinor, "to scare away the animals," and as the honk, honk rang out in the stillness the birds and beasts who lived in the woods must have thought some terrible new creature had come to disturb their haunts. it was a slow ride they took that morning along the trail. the comet picked his way cautiously, crushing vegetation under his iron wheels, like the car of juggernaut riding over its victims, while the motor maids and edward paxton ducked their heads frequently to avoid being hit with vines and branches. past the hermit's house they went, past the enclosure and still the path persevered. they could trace it far in front of them. the trail had been carefully and deliberately made, evidently. trees had been felled on each side and vines and plants torn away, and although a new vegetation had grown up, the path was still open. except for the noise made by the wheels of the motor car as it passed over bracken and fern and all the varied undergrowth of a great forest, there was not a sound. the woods were deadly quiet. the birds had stopped singing; even, the insects ceased to buzz. the quiet was terrible. "i feel," whispered mary, "as if everything in the place was waiting for something to happen. do you notice there isn't a sound? the birds are too frightened to sing. i have heard that a poisonous snake could hypnotize a whole forest like this." no one replied to this unpleasant suggestion. there was a long, uneasy silence. then, suddenly, the comet gave a swift backward movement like a terrified horse. right in his path crouched a creature which might, in that shady twilight spot, have been taken for a good-sized cat. but his body was spotted, each spot outlined with an uneven circle of black, and his tawny eyes gleamed more fiercely than any cat's eyes ever gleamed. "it's a leopard!" whispered billie, as she backed the comet slowly along the path. chapter xv.--out of the wilderness. from his reputed royal ancestors, the lion and the panther, the leopard, or jaguar, as he is called in that region, had inherited a sinuous body, swift as a flash in movement, and a savage, feline face. a ray of sunlight, falling on the soft tones of his beautiful spotted skin, gave out a rich lustre. the smooth padded paws, under their velvet covering, were as strong as steel. his fierce, gray whiskers bristled at the whirring of the motor and his ears stood up straight like an angry cat's. "the horn, the horn," whispered mary in a choking voice, "it will frighten him." billie reached mechanically for the rubber bulb and squeezed it again and again. the honk-honk rang out in the forest like a cry for help, and the leopard shivered where he crouched as if this unmelodious music jarred on his nerves. suddenly with a flying leap, he landed in the branches of a tree beside the motor. billie never knew how she had the presence of mind to start the car. she only knew that they were going as fast as possible on that encumbered path and that the leopard, not counting on this swiftly moving object, had jumped again, grazed the motor and landed just back of them. perhaps it was mary's ear-piercing shriek which frightened him, or perhaps it was the red motor itself, which may have seemed to him a newly created animal with a whirring, bristling noise that made his nerves tingle. at any rate, instead of terrifying them again by jumping into the branches over their heads, he crept behind, half cautiously, but still ready to leap at the first opportunity. "keep up the horn, for heaven's sake, and make as much noise as you can," cried elinor. "they can be frightened, i know, by loud noises." edward on his knees beside billie, worked the horn until his fingers ached, and the girls gave indian yells and hooted and yodeled until they were exhausted. for fully five minutes they rolled over the carpet of pine needles along the trail and the leopard dropped farther and farther off, until finally he slunk into the bushes. the intervals of hooting and calling grew longer and longer, and at last they rested. mary, only, kept watch, kneeling backwards in the seat in a prayerful attitude. "we'll be out of this dreadful place in a moment now," billie was saying, when suddenly, there was a blood-curdling shriek. a shot rang out in the stillness, and with a strange vibrant noise that sounded like the echo of the base string of a 'cello, the leopard jumped high into the air and fell backward in the path just behind them. billie, with a very white face indeed, stopped the car and turned to see who had saved their lives. the leopard was still quivering in the death-throes when they reached him, but it had been a clean shot straight through his body and it was only a moment before he lay stiff and stark before them. "but who killed him?" sobbed nancy, quite unnerved now that the danger was past. "yes, who?" they asked each other. but there was no one in sight. whoever had done the deed had slipped quietly away without waiting to be thanked. "hello," called edward, "come out, won't you?" and his voice echoed through the place and came back to them like some one else's. "i wish we had some way to thank him," said billie, "but as we haven't, let's be moving. the sooner we get out of this wood, the better. there's no telling what will happen next." "shall we take this beast along?" asked edward with a tone of disgust in his voice, that brought to billie's mind a remembrance of that evening, not long before, when he could not hide his terror of death and blood. "no, no," put in elinor, who had a strong sense of justice. "his skin should belong to the one who killed him. he isn't our trophy." "i'm sure i don't want it," ejaculated mary, jumping into the car. "do hurry and let's be off." once more they were on their way. after a long interval of silence, mary continued: "this is like an enchanted wood in a fairy tale. it is full of goblins and elves, wicked fairies and poisonous snakes and wild beasts." "i don't mean to interrupt your poetic train of thought," said nancy, "but i'm certainly thankful at this moment that there is no smile on the face of that dead tiger." they all laughed but billie. the woods were thinning now and the relief from the strain of the last two hours made them light-headed. "my beloved friends," exclaimed billie finally, as the motor car slid into a real road, and the great wood bristled behind them, black and ominous, "oh my beloved friends, we are out of the wilderness at last. and it's no thanks to me that we've all escaped alive. it was wicked, wicked of me," she went on, choking to keep back her tears. "what was wicked of you, billie, dear?" asked elinor, moved at the sight of her friend's remorse. "not to have followed edward's advice and walked back the other way. it was wicked and stubborn of me. i can't forgive myself." not one of her friends had ever seen billie so moved as she was now. her gray eyes were filled with tears and her generous, finely shaped lips quivered painfully. "oh, billie, dearest billie," they cried, standing up and leaning over the seat while she bent her head to hide her tears, "don't blame yourself. it was everybody's fault. we agreed with you that it was right, didn't we?" they asked each other. "yes, yes," they cried, and elinor especially pressed her cheek to her friend's shoulder. billie seemed dearer to her now than ever before, and all the morning a little verse had been running through her head: "oh, blessings on that falling out which all the more endears, when we fall out with those we love and kiss again with tears." "don't cry, billie," said edward. "i think we've had a great experience. nobody was hurt and we did the things we started out to do. we've saved the comet and we are on the road to virginia's. don't you recognize this place?" "it is the same," replied billie, comforted by the reassurance of her friends and smiling away her tears. "it's the very road we took that day when we came up from the lake." already they could see the avenue of pines and as they turned in, the sunlight gleamed quite cheerfully on the old white house at the far end. "virginia will have to go back with us," said billie, "to show us the way home." the place was as still as ever, when they drew up at the front door, but a certain inexplicable change had taken place. they could hardly tell what it was. perhaps, that the front door was wide open and a big easy chair with a book and a newspaper stood on the gallery. they had not had time to get down, when virginia herself appeared at the door and welcomed them as joyfully as if the very nicest thing in the world that could happen to her that morning was to see these new friends. with a little cry of pleasure she ran out to meet them, her fluffy blonde hair blowing about her face like a pale gold halo. "i am so glad to see you," she cried. "won't you come in? have you had a nice ride?" nice? they exchanged glances. "wait until you hear about our ride, virginia," said elinor. "then you can judge for yourself how nice it was." billie was wondering which of the two edwards virginia thought was with them, when the young southern girl turned to edward paxton and said in the most natural manner possible: "i could almost have taken you for my brother in your chauffeur's clothes, mr. paxton. but not quite." they stirred uneasily. did virginia know that her brother had run away? elinor was wondering; for elinor had her own views on the subject of edward's disappearance. billie hardly knew what to think. she had a bewildered feeling that virginia perhaps knew all about what had happened, until edward paxton broke in with: "do you know when your brother is coming back, miss l'estrange?" virginia opened her eyes wide. "when is your grandmother coming back?" she asked. edward shook his head. the young girl was too deep for him. "virginia," said billie, "we've come to take you back with us to luncheon and to stay all night, too, if you will. i hope you can come." "if mamma can spare me, i should love to," she answered eagerly. "will you come in while i find out?" they preferred, however, to wait outside and the young girl flew into the house and upstairs as lightly as a thistledown on the breeze. presently she was back again. "i can go," she cried joyfully. "mamma is feeling much better to-day and she would like so much to meet you four girls. you don't mind waiting, do you, mr. paxton? i would ask you up, too, but i'm afraid your likeness to my brother might excite her." as they followed her into the enormous empty house, she added in a lower voice: "remember, mamma knows nothing about our working, or--or anything. be careful what you say." chapter xvi.--mrs. l'estrange. the second floor of the l'estrange house was very different from the first. the hall at the upper end was like a fine drawing-room. there were rugs on the floor and opposite the door of the front bedroom were several easy chairs and a sewing table. the door of this room stood ajar and virginia led the way inside. "mamma," she said softly, "i want you to meet my four friends who are stopping at the hotel at palm beach." the girls never forgot the picture of mrs. l'estrange in her bedroom. it was all so unreal after the empty old house. it was really a sumptuous chamber, large, and full of polished objects. the light came in dimly through the heavy blue brocaded curtains at the windows and was reflected in the mahogany secretaries and tables and the graceful rosewood lounge at one end. mrs. l'estrange was lying in an invalid's chair drawn up by a table on which stood a bowl of oranges and a glass vase of flowers. she was a small, slender woman, much like virginia, only more beautiful, with quantities of pale gold hair and sad blue eyes. a ray of light falling across her thin white face gave her a look of one of the early saints, resigned and gentle, sorrowful and happy, all at once. "i am so happy to meet my little girl's friends," she said, stretching out a small transparent hand through which they could see the pink light shining. "she has told me how kind you have been to her." "but she was very kind to us, mrs. l'estrange," replied elinor. "i don't know what we would have done if she had not taken us in and given us supper one night when our launch was wrecked in the lake." "ah, but that was nothing," continued the poor, pretty invalid. "think how many times she has visited you at the hotel." "oh----" began billie, and broke off quickly, for virginia, standing back of her mother's chair, had put her finger to her lips, and the truth now dawned upon the motor maids. the young girl had told a brave falsehood to her mother to explain her frequent absences from home. "it's what might be called a 'noble lie'," thought billie, "but how can they keep it up? and now there's edward gone off and left it all to virginia," her thoughts continued, but she stifled the notion immediately. "it's impossible. i believe he will come back, i do, no matter how strange it seems." "i am so sorry that edward, my son, has gone away on a trip with some friends," went on mrs. l'estrange. "but he writes he is having such a beautiful time, i don't begrudge the boy a change. it is very dull for him here. i wish you could help me persuade him to go to college next year. he should go north and see something of the world, but he will not leave virginia and me, and as you see, i am quite helpless." she spread out her pink hands and smiled faintly. presently virginia, seeing that the girls understood, passed into the next room to change her dress. they were silent after she left, hardly daring to venture a remark until nancy threw herself into the breach by saying: "what a beautiful old house this is, mrs. l'estrange. it is as big as a hotel. i never saw so many rooms in a private house." "i'm glad you like it, dear. it has been in my family for a great many years and it is rather in disrepair now. the furniture is quite old. i have not bought any in my time except the piano. it was all collected by my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother, too. if you have been in my drawing-room, perhaps you noticed the inlaid desk. it was brought over from france nearly two hundred years ago. i value it more than anything in the house, i think. and if you are interested in such things, you must ask virginia to show you the tea set which was once owned by lady hamilton. and many other things, the silver bowl presented to my great-grandmother by general lafayette, and a beautiful sword which was given to one of my great-great uncles by general jackson." so the invalid chattered away. it was evident that the lost treasures of that house were her greatest joy and hobby, and her children had never had the heart to tell her they were gone, scattered. "perhaps you would like to see my collection of miniatures," went on mrs. l'estrange. "they are just inside the cabinet. won't you bring them over, and i can explain them myself." on a shelf in the highboy they found two large black velvet plaques on which were pinned a dozen beautiful miniatures, some in jeweled frames. "these are all my family," she said. "i shall have the children done to add to the collection as soon as i am well enough to go north. there are no good artists in this part of the country. this is my aunt who danced with the prince of wales. she is like virginia, i think, blonde hair and blue eyes and the same sweet expression. this is my uncle who was presented with the sword. he was a brave soldier." "here is some one who looks very much like your son, mrs. l'estrange," put in billie. the picture they were looking at was a tinted photograph showing a handsome young man with black hair and clear blue eyes. it resembled edward except that the mouth and chin were softer and less resolute in outline. the face indeed was more like edward paxton's. "oh," said virginia's mother, "i did not know that was on the plaque. that is my husband's picture." she laid it on the table nervously and then picked it up again and looked at it sadly. "my poor husband," she said softly, continuing to gaze at it so long that the girls felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. "who is this?" asked mary, pointing to another old-fashioned photograph. the invalid smiled as if the sight of this new face brought up pleasant memories, and the young man in the picture smiled back at her, a kindly, merry smile. it was not a tinted picture and they could only tell that he had dark hair and eyes and a strong, rugged face. "that," she said sadly, "was an old and--and dear friend--ignatius donahue." virginia hurried into the room at this moment and looked a quick warning at the girls. in another instant they would have exclaimed: "ignatius donahue? we travelled down in his private car!" "good-bye, mamma, dearest," virginia said, taking the plaque and photographs gently but firmly away from her mother and locking them in the cabinet. "mammy will take good care of you and i shall be back to-morrow morning. if we are to get to the hotel by lunch time, we had better be hurrying on. it's a quarter to one now. you won't forget your drops at half-past, will you, dear? and your tonic to-night? see, i'll put them here to remind you. good-bye," and she kissed her mother twice and hurried the girls out of the room quickly. the old colored woman was waiting in the hall, probably to go on duty, and billie heard virginia whisper as she passed: "she's been looking at those pictures again, mammy." only one thing more happened before they left that mysterious house. billie, who was the last in the line of young girls to file down the staircase, heard a door creak in the hall and looked back. there, standing in the doorway of one of the other rooms stood a tall, well-built man. a long white bandage was wrapped around and around his head. but it did not hide his rugged face, and at that moment, his lips, for some unknown reason, were curled into a kindly, merry smile. perhaps it was uncle peter who provoked the smile, for he appeared just then with virginia's battered old suit case, standing very erect and dignified in his old blue cloth swallowtail with its brass buttons, like the fine old-time servant he was. on the way back to the hotel, they told virginia the story of their adventures in the woods. "do you think it could have been dick?" they asked, when they reached the mocking bird part of the history. "perhaps," she answered. "he's been off all morning. but there are lots of other mocking birds, you know." many and varying were the emotions which reflected themselves in virginia's face as she heard of the dangers they had been through. she almost shed tears over the attack of the jaguar, as she called it. "i didn't know there were any left around here," she said. "they are the most dangerous, treacherous animals in the world." but when she was questioned about the house in the woods, she pressed her lips together into a thin line of determination and was silent for a moment. "did you know there was such a house, with a path connecting directly with your place, virginia?" asked billie in her usual direct, honest way that was sometimes embarrassing. "oh, yes," answered the girl, "but the person who lived there is--is dead now." "was he a hermit?" demanded nancy. "yes, something like it." "how interesting," put in elinor. "and did you really know him?" "i have seen him," answered virginia guardedly. "he must have walked frequently between your house and his," said edward, "because the trail looks as if it had been well trod." "and the man who killed the panther?" asked billie. "who was he, virginia? i would like to give him something if it could be arranged. he saved our lives." "he does not need anything. he would not like a present, i'm sure, for what he did." "you know him, then?" "i believe so. he is a man who has been staying in this neighborhood for some time." and not another word could be got out of virginia. soft, pretty little creature that she was, it could be seen that she had a will of her own. they were not late to luncheon and miss campbell had not been uneasy, but it seemed strange to them to be sitting around a snowy damask-spread table in a beautiful big dining-room, with softly treading waiters at every hand to do their bidding and music floating to them from the piazza. was it only that morning that they had been lost in a wilderness with poisonous snakes and wild animals about them; or had the forest after all been enchanted and was it all a dream? after drinking tea in the cocoanut grove and listening to the concert, they strolled until dinner time in the splendid avenue of palms. but there was one more sensation for the motor maids before bedtime. edward sought them in the evening, and calling billie off from the others, gave her a letter. "this was in the old cigar box," he said. it was addressed to "ignatius donahue, esq.," and billie, after consulting with elinor, added that gentleman's new york address under the name, stamped it and dropped it in the mail box at the desk. it was impossible to fathom the mystery which had wound itself about that name, but if a letter had been waiting for him all this time in the wild wood, he certainly ought to have it as soon as possible. chapter xvii.--a morning call. one morning, a few days after the visit to virginia's home, the motor maids and miss helen campbell received a surprise. never was anything more utterly unexpected than the event which i am now about to record. they were in their rooms preparing for an after-breakfast dash in the comet, when there was a tap on miss helen's door. "see who it is," she said to elinor, the one motor maid who knew how to fasten the little lady's blue veil to her satisfaction. the knock proved to be a bellboy with a sealed note. "it's addressed to miss helen campbell and the motor maids," said elinor laughing. "some one who knows us, evidently. shall i open it?" "of course, my dear," answered miss campbell, busy at the mirror with her headgear, just as the rest of the maids came in. elinor tore off the end of the envelope and took out two cards, while the others with young-girl curiosity made haste to look over her shoulder. on a piece of folded note paper was written: "introducing the marquis di briganza and lord albert spencer ormond. ignatius donahue." the cards were foreign-looking square pieces of pasteboard engraved with the names of these noble gentlemen, one of whom was attached to an embassy in washington. "now, what in the world?" cried miss campbell, and the girls seemed quite awe-struck at these high-sounding titles. "why should ignatius donahue send these titled persons to meet us? we are just plain, simple americans and i don't think a marquis and a lord would add to our pleasure a bit. do you, children?" "no," answered billie emphatically. "i shall be afraid of them, i am certain," said mary. "we shall have to put on our best clothes to meet them, i suppose," was nancy's observation; while elinor, holding herself very grandly, remarked: "i am sure, we are quite as good as they." "noble princess," laughed billie, "of course you are and so are we all, but don't you think it's a nuisance to have to give up our morning ride and change our dresses just to spend half an hour with two silly foreign lords? they'll probably have little mustaches that are waxed and turned up at the ends, and wear high-heeled shoes and carry rattan canes and----" "but the boy is waiting," interrupted miss campbell. "shall i send word we'll be down presently?" "of course," they answered in a chorus, and miss campbell smiled to herself. after all, it was not an every-day occurrence to have a lord and a marquis pay a friendly morning call. "you may tell the gentlemen we will see them on the piazza in ten minutes, boy," she said, commencing to unpin her veil as she spoke. they were much longer than ten minutes, however, in making the proper toilets in which to receive their distinguished guests. miss campbell put on a lavender silk she usually wore in the afternoon. nancy insisted on wearing her very best lingerie and a leghorn hat with a wreath of pink roses encircling the crown. billie removed a linen suit only slightly wrinkled and replaced it with a fresh one as dazzling white as the snow that caps the atlas mountains. elinor wore a beautiful creamy organdy trimmed with real lace, a gown that she had been saving for mrs. duffy's next party; and little mary attired herself in the daintiest and prettiest muslin that that clever mother of hers had ever made. "shall i wear my hat or not?" asked miss campbell, taking a final survey of herself in the cheval glass. "billie, you have lived in europe. is it customary over there to receive visitors at hotels in bonnets in the morning?" "dearest cousin," laughed billie, "i never received a visitor in my life that i can remember except some of papa's friends, and i never wore a bonnet for them. i suppose people in very high society may do as they please. papa told me he saw a funny, shabby old english lady once at a hotel who turned out to be a real duchess. but she poured her tea into a saucer and drank it, and when her granddaughter remonstrated papa heard her say in a deep bass voice: 'my dear child, don't you know a duchess may drink tea from a tin pail if she chooses?'" "very good, my dear, we are american princesses and it's nobody's business whether we wear hats or not. now, are you ready? let me see how all of you look first. very charming and lovely, my four little rosebuds. i am quite proud of you. am i all right?" "sweet as a peach," answered billie. "now, children, let me caution all of you not to let two foreign noblemen make you feel ill at ease. they are not a bit better than you are, remember, no matter how many titled generations they may have back of them." "i wonder if they live in castles," said nancy with a little fluttering laugh that showed the state of her feelings better than words could tell. elinor swept along with her proud head held high. her friends decided that she looked the part of a noble princess to perfection. mary, with a feeling of timidity, stuck close to miss campbell's side, and billie, feeling rather bashful herself about confronting these grand strangers, brought up the rear of the procession. miss campbell stepped resolutely into the elevator, determined not to be frightened by two paltry titles, and in this wise they approached the hotel piazza, unable to disguise from themselves that they were all feeling slightly shaky in the region of the knee joints. "where are the gentlemen who sent up these cards?" miss campbell asked a bellboy, as she searched the piazza which was almost empty at this hour. the boy took the cards and read them slowly. then he began an itinerary of the piazzas and parlors calling in a loud voice: "the marqueese dee brigander,--lord albert spencer ormond." "good heavens, how very embarrassing," exclaimed miss campbell. "i didn't know the child was going to scream the names all over the place." it was indeed a conspicuous moment in the lives of these five ladies. people scattered about the piazzas and in the parlors began slowly to collect near the entrance to the lobby. there were faces at every window. bellboys peeped from the doorways and around corners. but no gentlemen answering to the names of these ancient titles responded. in truth, miss campbell and her charges appeared to form a highly interesting group as they sat waiting for the noble strangers to approach. at last the boy returned. "they ain't no such persons registered at this here hotel, ma'am. they may have come over from one of the others. do you remember the boy as brought you the card?" "i do," answered elinor. "he had a freckled face and a snub nose and i think his name is joey." joey was produced immediately. it appeared that he had been watching the callers who had sent up the sealed envelope, but he had not known that it was their names being called about the hotel. he had noticed, however, that they had slipped into the garden with some rapidity and no doubt they were there now, although he, joey, had distrusted them from the first. "but why, joey?" asked miss campbell with some concern. "i'm sure they came very properly introduced by our great, although still unseen friend, mr. ignatius donahue." joey could give no better reason for mistrusting the strangers than that they seemed sly. "i am afraid you are a person of exceedingly poor judgment then, joey," answered miss campbell with great dignity. "we shall see the gentlemen in the garden. it is less conspicuous than here. go before and announce us." following the little page, who resembled an imp in bottle green, they went forth into the garden, where in the distance they beheld two figures in white flannels seated on a rustic seat under a poinciana tree. "they are," whispered nancy in an excited voice. "the blonde one is the english lord, i suppose, and the dark one is the marquis." "it may be just the other way around," replied billie. "things always turn out contrariwise when you arrange them yourself beforehand." "i'm sure the blonde one is english," repeated nancy with conviction, "and from the back of his head, i should say he was quite handsome." while they were whispering together as they followed slowly after miss campbell, they were amazed to behold timothy peppercorn running at full speed down another walk which branched off toward the hotel. in his haste he leaped over a low stone bench and landed right beside the two strangers. "if this isn't jolly," they heard him cry, slapping the blonde lord on the back. "by jove, but i'm glad to see you. how are you, old man?" suddenly miss campbell pressed her lips together. two red spots appeared on either cheek, and she hurried as fast as her diminutive feet could carry her toward the group of young men. "percival algernon st. clair," she cried, shaking the blonde lord by the shoulders. "charlie clay! you young rascals, how dare you play a practical joke on an unprotected old lady and four helpless children? i would just like to box your jaws well, the both of you two upstarts! marquis and lord, indeed! think of our having wasted the morning dressing up in our best clothes like this! you are a precious pair, but i'm glad to see you," she added, beginning already to relent. her occasional mild bursts of anger were like brief summer tempests, done almost before they had begun. "we are so ashamed, miss campbell," answered percy. "we thought it would be a bully good joke on you and the girls, but we had no idea they were going to shout those names all over the hotel. i got the cards from my senator-uncle in washington, and we used mr. donahue's name for fun. but when they began to yell those titles we had to run. we couldn't face it." "well, well," said miss campbell, "i will forgive you this time, but never play another practical joke on me. you've no idea what a sensation your names created in the hotel." there was no bad feeling on the part of the motor maids. they were too glad to see their friends from west haven to mind having been fooled. "i recognized you as soon as i saw your back, percy-algy," said nancy. "only i couldn't think who on earth you were." "do you call that recognizing, miss nancy-bell?" laughed her friend, his handsome ruddy face flushing deeper with the pleasure of seeing her again. "but how did you happen to come?" inquired billie. "it was timothy, here, who got us down," answered percy. "you see we were great chums one summer in the mountains. i didn't know how much i wanted to see him again until i found he was at palm beach, and the midget and i decided we'd run down and look him over." "so you didn't come to see us at all, then?" inquired miss campbell. timothy winked slyly and grinned. "i guess i'm a pretty good excuse, miss campbell," he said. "but don't tease the lad. he blushes too easily." "and charlie came to see you, too, i suppose?" pursued miss campbell, glancing at the other boy who was at that moment engaged in an earnest and interested conversation with mary price. "let's go back and get into our every-days and take a ride in the comet," suggested billie. "we can all squeeze in just as we used to do." as the notion seemed agreeable, they parted company for a time, while the ladies fled by a side door into the hotel. and you may be sure they were not as long in "dressing down" for old friends as they were in dressing up for foreign lords. it was not many minutes before they crowded into the red motor which edward paxton had brought around from the garage. "why, hello," exclaimed percy, noticing the young chauffeur at once. "i'm awfully glad to see you again, but i thought you were gone to new york. you must have changed your mind in a hurry to have beat us down." "you have made a mistake," said edward stiffly. "i never saw you before." "curious," said percy, "but you are enough like a fellow we met on the way down to be his twin brother." "was he alone?" demanded billie. "he seemed to be, but why?" "oh, nothing," she replied, jumping into the car with the others. as the automobile turned down the driveway, it met another approaching. the occupants in it bowed politely to miss campbell and her party. they were old mrs. paxton-steele, her granddaughter, georgiana, and her grandson, clarence. edward l'estrange was not with them. chapter xviii.--it's an ill wind. billie and elinor strolled together that evening along the palm-bordered walk of the hotel. they had grave matters to discuss and they had slipped away from their friends to be alone. percy and nancy waited eagerly on the piazza for the first strains of the orchestra, which meant that dancing would begin, and mary and charlie lingered on a bench talking of west haven. "it is a queer business, elinor," billie was saying. "i do wish he had written." "he might have sent either you or edward just a line," exclaimed the other. "how can he think edward is going to masquerade like this much longer? he is really working quite hard for a boy who has never done anything much in his life." "it will do him good," insisted billie. "he's twice as manly as he was when we first met him." "but what is going to happen now? is he to wait until edward l'estrange comes back?" "he promised to." "but he didn't expect him to go beyond st. augustine, and he's gone to new york." "the family is here. edward paxton could let them know who he is at any moment if he doesn't trust the other edward. why doesn't he?" elinor was silent. "he's afraid, billie, i think," she said presently. "that's just it," cried billie. "he's always afraid, afraid, afraid." "it's certainly queer, all of it," answered elinor, when a figure which had been standing behind a clump of palms stepped into the path. it was clarence paxton, and so little did billie trust this treacherous cousin of her friends, that she gladly joined timothy peppercorn who had come running down the walk to find her. "they are playing the barn dance, billie," cried the red-headed youth, eagerly. "we had such a jim-dandy barn dance together at the duffy's, i thought we might try it again to-night." "'barkis is willin'," answered billie, and away they ran like two frisky young colts. "i don't know any of the native dances, miss butler," said clarence, who was much more english than his cousins, "or i would ask you to try this--er--jig----" "barn dance," prompted elinor, who also had no liking for edward's cousin. "will you go for a little stroll?" "i will go as far as the hedge. miss campbell does not allow us to go out of sight of the hotel in the evening." clarence thrust his hands in his pockets and walked beside her. he had very grown-up airs, although she had heard from his cousins that he was only seventeen. "perhaps you think our meeting just now was accidental," he went on. "i hadn't thought of it at all," replied elinor. "please don't be unkind to me, miss butler. it was because i was in trouble that i wanted to speak to you. i knew you would listen to me when perhaps the other girls wouldn't. you were especially fond of him----" "fond of whom?" she interrupted. "why, of edward, my cousin. although we did quarrel a good deal, miss butler, i loved him like a brother. that's why i'm so unhappy now." "do get to the point," she answered impatiently. "has anything happened to your cousin?" "yes." "can't you tell me what it is? is he ill or hurt, or anything?" "no, no; not that. something much worse." "but what?" "my grandmother has disowned him; cast him off." "oh! are you quite sure?" "perfectly. i was present when it happened." for the first time since he had joined her, elinor began to notice that clarence, far from being dejected and cast down, was in such high spirits he could hardly conceal his joy. his eyes had a new light in them. there was an unusual color in his cheeks, and he smiled continually as he flicked the foliage with a light little cane and walked with an elastic step as if he were going down the middle in a quadrille. "yes," he went on joyfully, "i was in the room. so was georgiana. and we both saw the whole thing." "but what brought it about? had edward done anything so terrible as to be punished like that?" "oh, he's been going off ever since we came to this place. he's been rebellious and bad tempered--and--and--" here clarence smiled reminiscently, "i've had some trouble with him myself. finally, in st. augustine, grandmamma and he had an out and out quarrel over nothing apparently, but they worked it up between them until it came near being a pitched battle. they really seemed to enjoy it, the two of them. it was like a game of battledore and shuttlecock. i didn't know edward had it in him. but grandmamma, she's a tartar when she's scratched, and anybody within range of that stick of hers had better look alive. she started to strike him with it, and he caught it and broke it into two pieces and threw it on the floor. then she turned on him so calmly and quietly georgiana and i thought she wasn't angry but we changed our minds. 'this changes every prospect you ever had,' she said. 'leave me and from this day your future, as far as i am concerned, is altered.'" "good heavens," exclaimed elinor, her thoughts turning to the real edward paxton, who was at that moment lying on his back under the comet, cleaning the machinery. "but don't you think it can be patched up? he's only a boy. surely, she will take him back." "i'm afraid not," answered clarence, smiling with secret pleasure. "i doubt it very much. georgiana has been on her knees to grandmamma, but the old general only says, 'don't let me hear you speak that name again.'" "and what have you done for him? anything?" clarence shrugged his shoulders. "if georgiana could do nothing, you don't suppose i could?" "but think of his being in a strange country without any money or friends? couldn't you let him have some of your allowance until he gets a start?" "hardly. my allowance is not sufficient for my own wants." here was a state of things, indeed. elinor began to wonder how edward paxton could ever induce his grandmother to forgive the trick he had played on her. would she ever listen to him? would she even see him, no matter how many proofs he could give her that he was the real edward paxton? and where, oh where, was edward l'estrange? "then you will be your grandmother's heir," she said presently, breaking the silence which had fallen between them. "oh, georgiana will have a little, i suppose," he replied carelessly. "but i shall have the bulk, of course. you see grandmamma's second husband, mr. steele, who left most of the money, had no heirs." "what will you do with all those thousands, or millions, is it?" "a million and a half. oh, i shall live in a yacht a great deal. i shall have a shooting box in scotland and a town house in london. i don't care for grandmamma's london house. it's old and dingy and rather cramped. i shall get rid of it at any price. i shall have a villa on the riviera, probably at monte carlo, and that reminds me, miss butler," he broke off suddenly, looking at his watch, "you will pardon me if i leave you, will you not? i am due at the casino at twenty past eight. good evening." lifting his straw hat with the affected air of a piccadilly dandy, he tripped down the walk out of sight. elinor laughed out loud as she watched him stepping off, flicking the palm leaves with his rattan cane. "and that is going to get the money!" she ejaculated. "what a shame. i'm sure edward paxton has more in him than his ridiculous cousin, who has already commenced to gamble at the casino on prospects. if edward could only prove to his grandmother that there is something to him!" the young people had finished the barn dance and were resting on the broad piazza overlooking the lake, when elinor found them. "do you suppose we could find edward paxton?" she whispered to billie. "i have a piece of very bad news for him. i will tell you about it if we can get away." billie knit her brows. "is it about the other edward?" she asked. "it certainly is. he's been and gone and done it!" "done what?" "got disinherited and packed off by mrs. paxton-steele, and if you can explain why he didn't pack himself back home, you must know a great deal more about him than the rest of us." "i can't explain it, elinor," replied billie. "i can't even try. but i still believe he's honest and i'd rather wait a little longer before i pass judgment. there may be some explanation." elinor could not but admire her friend's loyalty, which was one of the strongest characteristics in her fine nature. "what a trump you are, billie," she said. "you are the truest friend in the world." "the chauffeur wishes to speak to one of the ladies," announced a bellboy. "he is at the side entrance." "elinor and i will go, cousin helen," said billie, promptly seizing the opportunity which had come so quickly. edward was waiting for them in a passage leading to one of the side exits. he was in his chauffeur's suit and was singing to himself as they approached the song he had dedicated to elinor: "on thy fair bosom, silver lake." "i came for orders for to-morrow," he announced cheerfully. "i have a good many engagements, and i was afraid i would be filled up if i didn't see you this evening." "engagements for what?" demanded elinor. "to make money," he answered gaily. "i made six dollars to-day and i expect to earn almost twice that much to-morrow. at this rate, i'll be earning a real salary, soon." "good," cried billie, clapping her hands. "and you are really beginning to like the work, then?" asked elinor. "well, rather. i find machinery almost as interesting as the piano. the climate of this place agrees with me, too. i don't have those attacks of indigestion any more. my eyes are lots stronger and i sleep seven hours a night and eat everything in sight. but what are your plans for to-morrow? there is a man waiting to see me, now." "we are going to the duffy's in the firefly at four o'clock for a tea." the two girls hadn't the heart to tell him the unwelcome news that night. chapter xix.--a passage at arms. mr. and mrs. duffy's teas were quite different from other people's afternoon affairs. there was always lots to eat for one thing; long buffet tables piled with salads and sandwiches; great bowls of fruit drinks and ices and cakes. there was dancing, too, in the big parlors, and who ever heard of dancing at a tea before? "young people like to dance no matter what the hour of the day," mrs. duffy had said in explanation to miss campbell. "but this is a very beautiful entertainment, my dear," replied miss campbell. "we had expected simple tea and you are giving us an elaborate lawn party. you must have gone to no end of trouble, and what a good time they all seem to be having. my girls are everywhere. billie is on the tennis court, and mary is playing croquet, and nancy is dancing, and here is elinor hovering over me like a guardian angel." "you are a careful chaperone, i see," observed a deep, well-trained english voice at her elbow. miss campbell turned quickly. it was mrs. paxton-steele leaning heavily on her stick. elinor could not keep from looking at that stick with much curiosity. edward paxton had told her that the old lady had numbers of canes which her man servant packed around in a case like golf sticks. it would have been interesting, she thought, to have been an unseen witness at that famous battle when the other edward had seized the stick and broken it in half. she wondered if there had been a great clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, as there was when siegfried smote the staff of wotan. miss campbell turned smiling. her manners were always exquisite and she was not in the least afraid of the old bird of prey, as the girls had disrespectfully christened the war-like english lady. "ah, well," she replied, "they are not my own. that is why i must be particularly careful of them. they are only borrowed children. one feels especially responsible for borrowed property, don't you think?" "they are all equally troublesome, my dear lady," returned mrs. paxton-steele, "whether they are one's own or another's. i assure you that bringing my three grandchildren with me to america was much more difficult than bringing three packages of bohemian glass of the most expensive and brittle character. that is what they are, these young people, expensive and brittle. they have no stability--no strength." "with your permission, madam, i would like to introduce my four girls to you," put in miss campbell proudly. "they are much more satisfactory than bohemian glass and i can rely on them always." elinor smiled to herself. the two ladies reminded her of an old baldheaded eagle in a garden hat and a silver pheasant in a lavender bonnet. "perhaps if you were suddenly deprived of your grandchildren, madam," went on the silver pheasant, "you would realize how much you really cared for them." the old eagle shrugged her shoulders and flapped the brim of her garden hat with a sort of fierce humor. "ah, but they are a problem, madam, they are a problem. people should not bring children into the world and leave them for others to rear. i had hoped for a peaceful old age and i find neither peace nor rest." "that's because you don't give any yourself," thought elinor. "just leave a few of those canes behind and things would go smoother." "this young woman," continued the old eagle, pointing to elinor with her cane--elinor held up her head haughtily because she did not enjoy being under inspection in this way--"this high-bred, proud young woman looks as if she might have plenty of backbone." elinor blushed slightly. after all, mrs. paxton-steele had a flattering way with her that was not entirely unpleasant. "elinor, dear, have you met mrs. paxton-steele?" asked miss campbell. "this is elinor butler, one of my most precious charges." "a very good name," pursued the old lady. "butler, a fine, irish name. perhaps, if you will excuse me, madam, mistress elinor butler will be good enough to walk with me about the garden. i do not notice that my granddaughter, georgiana, is paying me much attention. what i like about you, child, is that you are not timid. georgiana is like a frightened hare. she rushes under cover at the first loud noise." "perhaps," replied elinor, feeling that it would do no harm to live up to this high opinion of courage, "perhaps georgiana is afraid of your ebony stick." the old lady chuckled. [illustration: "perhaps," replied elinor, "perhaps georgiana is afraid of your ebony stick."] "my dear mistress elinor butler," she exclaimed, "you have quite hit the nail on the head. that is the very test of courage i have always been setting them, but they don't seem to understand. why should they be afraid of a stick? i'm not going to murder them. suppose i should threaten to strike you with this stick. what would you do?" "if i had the strength, i should break it in two; if not, i should throw it as far as i could send it." "and you would be quite right to do either. i have respect only for those who stand up for their rights. if my sticks were loaded, if they were pistols or rifles, there might be some excuse. they are merely harmless splinters of wood. and yet, i assure you, not a member of my household, either servants or grandchildren, has ever found it out. there is no more harm in them than there was in the queen of hearts who cried, 'off with his head,' every other moment and never beheaded anyone. but i have only to raise one of these bits of sticks and shake it in the air and they are all at my feet. it is very monotonous." "why don't you tell them so?" asked elinor. "perhaps poor georgiana would be happier and so would the others, if they knew it was all a--a bluff." "oh, child; that is the point. that is the test. a coward is always a coward until he proves his own courage, and these grandchildren of mine are cowards, worthless, characterless cowards. if georgiana were only like you or your friend who saved the young man in bathing--what's her name? but she is not. she is a spiritless little creature." "you mean you would like her better if she wouldn't allow you to--to go on so?" hesitated elinor, hardly knowing what name to call the old lady's fits of rages. "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see her stand up for herself. but it is not in her. it is a pity some good red american blood could not be injected into her veins." "oh," broke in elinor, "but i thought you didn't like american girls. i once heard you say you thought they were too bold." the old lady looked at her with a shrewd smile. "i find the species improving," she said. while they had been idling along the path, a bold stroke had occurred to elinor and she now determined to put it into action. gently, but firmly, she had turned her companion's footsteps toward the boat landing. as they took the lower walk, she said: "is edward coming back to palm beach?" "i know nothing of edward or his movements," replied the other sharply. "and you don't miss him?" "miss him, indeed! lazy, piano-playing fellow! it was his music i could forgive least of all. it has been a curse in my family. i am old and bent from the misery it has brought me." "but suppose he could do other things besides play? couldn't you forgive him then?" "no, no," answered mrs. paxton-steele. "i am tired of hearing his name. never speak to me of edward again. you are a presuming, impudent young upstart." "and you," exclaimed elinor, flushing scarlet, "and you, mrs. paxton-steele, are a cruel, vain old woman. you think you are wise and you are only stupid. because it is stupid to be a bully. you are crushing all the soul and spirit out of edward and georgiana until, instead of loving you, they--they hate you," she ended, stamping her foot on the gravel path. "what? what?" screamed the old woman, choking with rage. she raised her stick. but before she could lay it across elinor's back the young girl seized it with both hands, wrenched it from her and pitched it into the lake. then she burst into tears. mrs. paxton-steele sat down on a bench and folded her hands in her lap. "don't cry, child," she said as calmly as if a moment before a tornado of rage had not almost swept both of them off their feet. "but of course all women must cry," she added. "i was curious to see if you would keep your word, which i am delighted to see you did. i shall have no sticks left if this keeps up. dear, dear, dear!" "but you had no right to experiment with me like that," sobbed elinor. "i'm not one of your unfortunate grandchildren." mrs. paxton-steele laughed good-humoredly. "i haven't enjoyed myself so much in years," she said. "it's a dangerous thing, my dear, for a rich old woman to be bored and disappointed, that is, if she has a bundle of sticks nearby. but of course i had no intention of striking you, just now. i should have had the whole duffy clan on my back in a moment if i had, and your little peacock chaperone in the bargain. it was only an experiment, as you say. so i am a vain, cruel, stupid bully, am i?" elinor hung her head. she was ashamed of her outbreak now that calm was restored. she felt that mrs. paxton-steele was really just a big tease; that her grandchildren had never understood her and perhaps--perhaps. a notion had come into elinor's head. might it not be that she was too deep for any of them to fathom? for just one instant elinor had caught a glimpse into this strange woman's mind, and now she was more than ever bent on the original object of the walk which had taken its course downward toward the water's edge. "why didn't you add that i was an old cat playing with a harmless little mouse?" her eccentric companion added leaning on the young girl's shoulder almost affectionately. "because i didn't feel like a helpless mouse," returned elinor, dabbing her eyes with her pocket handkerchief to remove the last traces of tears from them. "but where are you bound for now, elinor butler?" "wouldn't you like to take a motor-boat ride? we have a splendid engineer. he is reliable and knows the engine thoroughly." "i should like it very much. it would cool our blood after our recent passage at arms." chapter xx.--the hand of destiny. edward paxton, with nothing special to do, was lying on one of the cushioned seats of the firefly, humming his favorite tune. mechanically he felt in his pockets for a roll of bills. "all earned," he said softly, smiling into the deep blue sky with an expression of ineffable content. "pretty good for a new hand," he added, listening with pleasure to the quiet music of the waves lapping the sides of the boat. he drew the money from his pocket and began to count it. "i beg your pardon," said a voice just over him. edward looked up quickly. it was his cousin, clarence, flicking at his duck trousers with his everlasting rattan cane. "by jove," added clarence with a somewhat startled expression on his face, "by jupiter, but you resemble my cousin edward! georgiana told me, but i didn't altogether believe her. i've really never seen your face well by daylight before, you know." edward did not trust himself to reply. "i came down here," clarence went on, "to make you an humble apology. it was awfully nasty of me, you know, that day to have spoken as i did. i hope it's all over and forgotten now, old man. isn't it?" "yes," said edward, thrusting his hands in his pockets and turning his face toward the lake. "how is business at present? pretty good?" went on clarence in his most ingratiating tone, climbing into the boat without being asked and sitting down beside edward. "pretty good." "i imagine you earn quite a good deal now, don't you, taking out parties every day? and i notice you are working on the motor cars at night, too." edward shrugged his shoulders. he was not surprised at what was coming next. "i had a beastly stroke of luck last night, old man. i went over to the casino with some fellows and lost more than i happened to have on hand just now. what do you say to lending me a small sum at a high rate of interest?" "why don't you borrow from your cousin?" asked edward. "by jove--but of course you haven't heard the news, old man, have you, not having any way to hear it. edward's played the deuce with my old grandmamma and she's disinherited him. sent him packing, bag and baggage, don't you know." "what----" the engineer began and then turned his face away to hide his expression of amazement, horror, and alas, fear. "i'm the only heir, now, don't you know. of course, georgiana counts for nothing. i'm the old lady's favorite grandchild and i shall be as rich as croesus, i tell you. you can safely lend me any amount. i'll pay you back twice over. grandmamma can't last much longer now. she'll go off with apoplexy in one of her fits of rage. she's bound to, don't you know. she'll not last a year." edward's shoulders suddenly began to shake with irrepressible laughter, not at the thought of the ending clarence had pictured for his unfortunate grandmother, but at clarence's unexampled assurance. "it is something of a joke, old man, isn't it? but about that money, you know," he was beginning, while he drew a package of cigarettes from his pocket, offered one to edward which was refused, and lit another himself. "by jupiter, if here isn't the old woman herself," he exclaimed laying the cigarette down on the seat. "were you looking for me, grandmamma?" he asked, jumping off and removing his hat with a flourish. "no, i'm not looking for you. i'm looking for a boat with a first-class, reliable engineer in it, who will take me out on the lake without upsetting me into the water." "here is the one, mrs. paxton-steele," said elinor, trying not to smile, as she helped the old lady into the firefly with clarence's assistance. "this is the boat and the engineer both. will you take us for a little ride, edward?" she asked, giving the boy a meaning glance. "let me out first," demanded clarence, who had no mind to go boat riding that afternoon with his aged relative. "no such thing," snapped his grandmother. "stay where you are. you know how to run a motor-boat and if one engineer fails, we shall have another at hand. stay where you are, but don't talk. i want to hear mistress elinor butler talk about her home in america, and what methods her parents used to rear her into such a fine, spirited young woman, who is not afraid to speak out when she wants to." elinor blushed. she had planned other things for this boat ride and this incorrigible old eagle was upsetting all her schemes. both grandsons looked up with interest. never had they heard their grandmother speak in this way before. edward started the boat and presently they were sailing smoothly over the pleasant waters of lake worth. mrs. paxton-steele, who was enjoying the ride extremely, had hardly noticed the engineer who had pulled his cap well down over his eyes and bent over the engine. clarence, bored to extinction, looked sullenly toward shore, and took furtive puffs from his cigarette which was concealed between times on the seat beside him. the english lady had become reminiscent. she was telling elinor a really thrilling story of a shipwreck in which she had nearly lost her life some fifty years before. elinor remembered afterwards that she had an indescribable feeling of waiting for something. as the tropical shores receded and the striped awnings on the lawn of the duffy villa became spots of white, she exchanged a long glance with edward, who smiled slightly and began whistling softly the air he had composed to "the white swan spread his snowy sail." after all, life was an exceedingly pleasant thing to a perfectly able-bodied and quite talented young man, even if he were disinherited by an irascible old grandparent. "it all proved to me," finished mrs. paxton-steele, "that courage--" (clarence laid down his cigarette and began to listen and edward turned his face toward her) "real courage, is the most admirable trait of character that----" one of those inexplicable little puffs of wind which people who sail in boats on a lake must learn to expect, gave the old lady's hat brim an impudent flop, tossed edward's cap to the other end of the boat, and blew clarence's cigarette dangerously near the gasoline tank. but this same frolicsome breeze was the means of saving two lives. both boys rose at the same moment and moved to the other end of the boat, one to get his cap and the other his cigarette which he thought had blown that way. the next instant there was a loud explosion. the boat was shaken as a leaf in the wind, then with a convulsive shiver lay still in the water, like a creature stricken to death. a puff of smoke followed the noise and after that a tongue of flame shot high into the air and began licking its way hungrily along the seat. elinor found herself lying across mrs. paxton-steele's lap and the two boys were flat in the bottom of the boat. the old lady's face had turned a deep purplish red and she sat looking at the flames with a strange, stupid expression. then up jumped clarence, gave one look at his grandmother, another at the burning boat, and leaped into the water. with long, even strokes he made for the shore. as his grandmother watched him, a light came into her eyes and she tried to speak, but she could only mutter in a thick unnatural voice: "cow-ad-cowad-cowad!" in the meantime elinor was throwing water into edward's face. he had been stunned by the explosion but consciousness came back to him with the first dash of cold spray on his cheeks, and he sat up. perhaps, in his dazed condition, he had forgotten that his grandmother and elinor were in the burning boat and only saw the flames leaping high into the air. at any rate, without looking behind him, he jumped to the seat, stood for an instant poised on the side of the boat, and dived into the water as his cousin had done. when he rose again to the top and started to strike out toward shore, he glanced back over his shoulder. what he saw was his grandmother's countenance, still that strange purplish color, and elinor sitting beside her, holding her hand with a very haughty, proud expression on her face. with three strokes he was at the side of the boat. "oh, what have i done?" he cried as he drew himself on board again. it all happened very quickly, and clarence was still hardly twenty yards from them, when edward, kneeling in the bottom of the launch, drew out the fire extinguishers. "it's the gasoline that's burning now," he said in a quiet, steady voice. "if we can only put that out we're all right." wrenching the cap off the top of the torpedo shaped object, he rushed to the burning end of the boat and poured it over the flames. there were only two extinguishers, however, and the fire still continued to lick its way along the cushions after all the fluid had been used. elinor drew out a striped roman blanket that miss campbell was in the habit of using to keep her knees warm when sailing, and thrust it into his hands. they dipped it into the lake and throwing it over the obstinate little flames which still remained, extinguished them completely. "it's all out," announced edward, looking quite old and grizzled with his eyebrows and front hair burned to an ashen gray. "i'm afraid your grandmother has had a bad shock, edward," said elinor. "we must get her to shore as quickly as possible." "grandmamma, dear grandmamma," he exclaimed, kneeling beside her with a sudden impulse of affection which he would have lavished on her long before with a little encouragement. the poor old woman lifted one hand heavily and put it on his head. "brase-boy sedward-my granson," she tried to say. "there comes the other launch," cried elinor as a boat shot out from shore. and it did not reach them any too soon, for the firefly had a hole pierced in her side and was already fast filling with water. it was not an easy matter to transfer mrs. paxton-steele from one boat to the other, but it was finally accomplished, and towing the stricken firefly after them, they made for the shore. nobody had remembered clarence until they heard him hail loudly. he was evidently very tired and had been resting on his back when they reached him. but he clambered in and plucked up breath sufficient to say: "i had hoped to get to land and bring a boat back myself, grandmamma." "cowad-an-liar," she mumbled and closed her eyes. chapter xxi.--picnicking under the pines. "we are very much like murderers returning to the scene of their crime," observed mary price as she followed her friends along a sandy trail which led to the forest. "suppose the mate of the dead leopard should be lurking about somewhere?" "and suppose the moccasin we didn't kill should return with self, wife and numerous family," added nancy. "don't suppose so many dreadful things," objected billie. "the moccasin isn't going to come out here in these open spaces, and as for mrs. leopard, charlie will kill her with his borrowed rifle if she comes snooping about." ever since that eventful day when the comet had been stalled in a sand bank, billie and her friends had wished to return to the pine forest for a picnic. leaving the comet among those vanguard trees which lingered on the outskirts of the woods, before the trail became too soft, they carried their luncheon somewhat within the confines of the pine woods and chose for their picnicking ground an open space carpeted with pine needles. here the trees grew to immense heights before they put forth their crown of fringy foliage. miss campbell, off on a motor trip with the duffys that morning, had trusted her young charges to their old west haven friends, percy and charlie. they had invited timothy peppercorn to come, and edward paxton, who was growing more and more in favor with the motor maids every day. two days had passed since the explosion of the gasoline on the firefly and the old eagle, his grandmother, who had suffered a slight stroke, had not asked for him again. georgiana was at her side, but clarence, she had ordered to keep out of her sight. "the girls are not to do any work to-day," announced percy gallantly. "be seated, ladies, while we become your slaves." "but you don't know how," exclaimed billie. "you haven't been trained in the business as we have." "just you wait and watch," returned percy. "charlie, you build the fire while we prepare the victuals." "what an unappetizing word," ejaculated elinor, sniffing. "why not viands?" "the first course will be viands, then," said percy, proceeding to peel the bark from a long, straight althea twig, while charlie with a knife and tablespoon dug a circular trench to keep the flames from spreading, swept the pine needles into the centre, and built a beautiful fire of pine logs and branches. presently it burned down to a bed of very hot cinders, on each side of which he planted two stout sticks with forked ends. "what on earth are you doing with those long gumbo shooters, charlie?" called billie, fidgeting from the inactivity of being served by four slaves. "something perfectly ripping," he answered. "wait until you taste what's to come, and see." "this will be a course of viands, good strong food, i can tell you," added percy, very busy over the luncheon hamper. "we don't like the looks of it now," said nancy. "fortunately, there are cakes and sandwiches in the basket for those who can't quite go strong food, as you call it." "well, this is our contribution to the party beside our services, and i'll wager a pound of candy apiece that after the cooking process you'll eat every scrap, even the onions." "ugh!" shuddered elinor. in the meantime edward had opened a bundle containing a large juicy beefsteak which he cut into small round pieces. percy was engaged in peeling and slicing potatoes and timothy was putting half a dozen bermuda onions through the same process. "ready, mates?" called percy. "aye, aye, sir," answered the others. and with that they began spearing slices of the meat and vegetables on a long stick and between every potato slice and section of beefsteak, they sandwiched a slice of bacon, then came another piece of potato, then a slice of onion and then the beefsteak again. "now for the salt and pepper, gentlemen. build up the fire a little, charlie. swing him over. who says we are not cooks?" resting neatly in the crotchet of the two upright sticks, this unusual arrangement of meat and vegetables began sending out a sizzling, appetizing odor while the four cooks danced a wild indian war dance around the fire. "dear me, it does smell good," admitted billie at last. "i'm beginning to think i may lose that pound of candy, percy." "spread the cloth, charlie, dear," called percy in a high woman's voice which always made them laugh. "lady elinor may make the tea now, and miss nancy-bell may cut the cake. i'm head chef of this kitchen. that's the reason i give so many orders. timothy, suppose you entertain the guests with one of your stunts while the beefsteak is cooking." "do 'the battle of marathon,' timothy," ordered billie. timothy rose obediently and made a bashful bow. "i'm supposed to be a little schoolgirl," he said, "ridiculous as that may seem, and the teacher has commanded me to tell the story of the battle of marathon. this is the history class. "the ba-el of marathon," he began, in an absurd little girl's voice, "the ba-el of marathon was a great ba-el. it happened in greeth yearth and yearth ago. there were two sidths to the ba-el and they fo't and fo't and fo't and ever tho many pe-pel wath killed and at lath the thide that had the moth men killed wath beaten an' the other thide won, an' that wath the end. i forget which wath the thide that won." a joyous laugh went up at this lucid and graphic account of the famous battle. but deeper and merrier was the laugh which mingled with it. the young people suddenly became aware that a stranger had joined their circle and was now leaning against a pine tree looking at the picnic party with an expression of intense amusement. he was a handsome man, rather past middle age, of medium height with a fine rugged face, bronzed with sun and wind, and quizzical, laughing, gray-blue eyes. he wore khaki trousers much the worse for wear. his rather large head with its iron-gray hair, slightly thin at the temples, was uncovered, and across the forehead was the red mark of a recent bruise or scar. he carried a rifle under one arm and a fishing rod under the other. "i beg your pardon, young ladies," he said. "i didn't mean to intrude, but i was attracted by the appetizing fumes of your beefsteak and bacon. not many visitors at palm beach are fond of gypsy picnics like this. i was curious to see whom it could be." they knew, all of them, at once, that it was not a tramp who was speaking, in spite of his shabby old trousers and his collarless shirt. then billie, looking at his face closely again, and the beautiful smile which now radiated it, rose rather shyly and said, somewhat to the surprise of her friends-"won't you join us? we've brought lots of lunch, and i'm sure there is enough of percy's burgoo, or whatever it is, to feed a regiment." the stranger hesitated a moment, looking at the others. "do please," echoed nancy, always following the lead of captain billie. "i hope you will," added percy, cordially, never behind in dispensing hospitality. "i accept your invitation with pleasure," replied the stranger. "it's most kind of you, i am sure. i'm hungry as a wolf, and it's rather far from--er, supplies." without the slightest embarrassment, he sat down in the group of boys and girls and joined in the talk and laughter so naturally, that presently they quite forgot he was a stranger at all. he had a talent, this ingratiating individual, of making all of them talk a great deal, while he listened always with that amused, quizzical expression which nancy confided to elinor's private ear "was fascinating." he ate a great deal and enjoyed himself thoroughly. the sizzling, delicious combination of beefsteak and other things, he pronounced the most appetizing dish he had tasted in years. he smacked his lips over elinor's tea and asked for a second cup. he joked with nancy, smiled gravely into mary's serious dark eyes, took many long searching glances at billie when she wasn't looking, and started each boy, even silent charlie, on his favorite hobby. before that famous luncheon was over, it really seemed that they were entertaining an angel unawares. chapter xxii.--the last of the house of troubles. at last, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, everybody lent a hand at clearing up the lunch things, while the stranger in the khaki trousers sat under a tree smoking a short black pipe, and watched them thoughtfully. "i smell burning," announced charlie, suddenly, sniffing the air like a hunting dog. "it's your own fire, midget," replied percy. "no, no, it's on the breeze. there, look at that." as he spoke a spark fell at his feet, then another and another. the stranger jumped up quickly, wet his finger and held it in the air. "the wind's from the northwest," he exclaimed under his breath. as he faced the wind, another group of sparks, borne on the breeze, blew against him. "by jove," he cried. "it must be virginia's house. thanks for your hospitality, i must go," he added, starting to run down the trail. "come back," called billie, "we'll take you in the car quicker than you can cut through the woods." without a word the stranger turned and joined them as they gathered their belongings together and raced through the woods to the comet. silently they piled themselves into the machine and in another ten minutes billie had guided them safely over the rutty wagon track to the hard beaten automobile road and they were speeding along toward virginia's. as they tore up the avenue of giant trees, over which hung a cloud of dense smoke, billie said to the stranger who was sitting beside her: "i know that you are mr. ignatius donahue. i have known it from the first." "how did you recognize me?" he asked smiling. "from your pictures." "well, keep the secret awhile longer," he said. "i have been getting over an--er--accident i was in not long ago, and staying here quietly with virginia and edward." the only living soul they could see as they approached virginia's home was old mammy who was running up and down the front gallery like a distracted creature, lifting up her voice in wails and lamentations. one wing of the house had entirely burned down and the flames had leapt over the main roof and were making rapid headway. "bress de lord, oh my soul," she cried when she saw the automobile full of people come up to the front door. mr. donahue was the first to jump out. "is your mistress in her room, mammy?" "yes, marsa, yes, sir. i cyan't move her a step," wailed the poor old woman. "where's miss virginia?" "a lady don' sen' fur her to come to the hotel quick. she's been gone an hour." "where's uncle peter?" "he don' drive little missy over, marsa." another moment, and mr. donahue had disappeared in the smoke-filled house, followed by the boys. then billie did something for which i am sure you will hardly know whether to commend her for her bravery or blame her for her recklessness. "where's dick, the mocking bird, mammy?" she asked. "in his cage in de kitchen, little missy," moaned the colored woman, rocking herself back and forth. running around the back of the house where she dimly remembered the kitchen was situated, billie pressed her face against one of the windows and peered into the room, which was fast filling with smoke that poured in from a passage leading from the burning wing. she knew it was the kitchen because the floor was of brick and she could make out the dim outline of the great range which had not been used in all these years. it was impossible to find the door in all the intricate back region of the old house. it must be somewhere in that smoke-filled passage. seizing an old stool under the window, billie broke in the glass; then using it to stand on, she climbed through. "dick, old fellow," she called. a feeble chirp answered. yes, there he was, huddled in his cage, his feathers all ruffled up and his head under his wing. she seized the cage and ran to the window just as the roof of the wing with a great crash fell in, covering the porch outside with burning debris. a volume of smoke and flame outside curled into the open window and she knew that escape was impossible that way. as she ran up the three steps which divided the kitchen from the next room, she stumbled and fell over something stretched across the doorway. it was the body of a man lying face downward, his head on his arm. seizing him by the shoulders, she dragged him away from the door and closed it to keep the smoke from pouring in. then to confirm the suspicions which had come to her when she saw the rumpled black hair and slight, well-knit frame, she turned the man over. "edward!" she cried. "get in here, dicky-bird," she said, slipping the mocking bird from the cage into her blouse. seizing the unconscious boy by his ankles, she began dragging him slowly across the floor. it required all her strength, but she managed to get him through the doorway and into the hall. the smoke was terrible, however. not in the great fire at shell island had it seemed so dense and thick. at last, staggering toward the door, she called: "help! help!" it was ignatius donahue who carried her out in his arms, while she whispered hoarsely, "be careful not to crush the bird! he's in my blouse." edward's double and charlie clay lifted him out of the smoke-filled hall. "shan't we try and save the house, sir?" asked percy, who saw in the stranger now only a very distinguished person, born to command. "no, no, my boy. it can't be saved and it had better burn. it has been a house of sorrow always." they carried edward l'estrange farther down the avenue to the automobile which had been moved out of reach of smoke and sparks. as billie's dazed senses began to return, she saw, sitting in the back, virginia's mother, very pale and ill. but strange to say, the invalid was not looking at the house. her eyes were fastened on ignatius donahue with an expression in which could be read many things: wonder, surprise, perhaps even joy. billie thought her more beautiful even than the first time she had met her, and it occurred to her, watching the delicate, lovely face, that at least the poor lady would never know now about her prized heirlooms. they would to her always have been burned with the house. edward l'estrange was not long unconscious, after he was brought into the fresh air. they chafed his wrists and temples and presently he opened his eyes. "are they all safe?" he asked as memory returned to him. "all safe, my boy, and if you are able to stand up, we'd better be taking your mother back to the hotel," answered mr. donahue. as he spoke, the roof of the old house crashed in and the four walls stood out bleak and desolate in the smoking ruins. the comet carried a big load that afternoon. for the first time in her life, old mammy rode in an automobile, but the old woman, like her mistress, was too dazed to realize that she was skimming along the high road at the rate of thirty miles an hour. on the way to the hotel, billie heard mr. donahue say to edward: "i didn't know you were in the house or in the neighborhood, my boy." "i only arrived this morning. i was to stay away two or three days longer, but i went to your office in new york as you directed, with the message for your secretary, and while i was waiting a bunch of mail arrived. the letter on top was this. it may have been wrong, but i took it because you see i couldn't help recognizing the handwriting as my father's. who directed it or where it came from, is a mystery." he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a letter which billie recognized as the very one she had re-directed several days before. "but where did it come from?" demanded mr. donahue in amazement. "we found it under a little house in the woods," she broke in, "and i sent it to your new york address, which is the one papa gave me." "you are a jolly, clever young lady," cried the older man delightedly, "and you can never know what a debt of gratitude we owe you." it was a lucky chance that mr. duffy's motor car happened to pass before they reached the hotel, and some of the party were transferred to that roomy and capacious machine. so that the overloaded comet did not, after all, create a sensation as it rolled up to the side entrance of the hotel. contrary to their expectations, mrs. l'estrange was neither ill nor cast down. perhaps she did not realize yet that her home had just been burned to the ground. at any rate, when mr. donahue carried her into the hotel, she rested her cheek on his shoulder and said softly: "you find me a broken old woman, ignatius." "no, no, virginia. only much paler and thinner. there is a great doctor who is an intimate friend of mine, and he has promised to come down in a few days and have a look at that spine of yours. i have enormous faith in him. i believe he can cure you." the two edwards were talking earnestly together when billie restored the little mocking bird to its master, and before they parted they grasped hands like two brothers who had been reunited after a long separation. chapter xxiii.--explanations. late that evening, when billie sat resting on the piazza, not caring to join the others who were laughing and talking together, edward l'estrange drew up a chair beside her and told her the strange story which had drawn them all into a network of puzzling incidents. "my father was an englishman, billie. his name was paxton." billie started. "then you are----" "yes. i am edward's first cousin. our fathers were twins and adored each other as twins usually do. my father did not get on well with his mother because he wanted to be a musician. edward's father was more practical and he was her favorite son. but he was dissipated, and once in a fit of wild temper he committed a crime, and when they arrested my father by mistake, his brother let him go to jail." "how dreadful! how wicked!" put in billie. "yes, it was pretty bad. but edward's father made up for it afterwards by his misfortunes, and at last he committed suicide. but to go on, my father escaped and came to this country. he changed his name and went south where he met my mother and eloped with her, although she was to have been married the next day to ignatius donahue. it was wrong, of course, and i can't defend it except that they were so much in love. they lived very happily until my father got word that they were on the track of him. my mother wanted him to fight it out in the courts, but it would have been a difficult case, because you see he had run away. my father was very delicate and visionary, and i suppose he lacked the spirit to defend himself. at any rate, he would build the house in the pine woods and hide himself, and there he stayed for several months--until we brought him home to die, in fact. just before the end came, he called me into his room one day and told me that he had in his possession a very valuable letter. he had addressed it to mr. donahue but it was not to be delivered unless we were in actual want. as we had plenty of money, it didn't seem likely then that the letter would ever be sent. anyhow, when i went to look for it, i couldn't find it. my father's mind must have been wandering at the time. "but that wasn't the end of our troubles, because after father's death, mother had a fall and injured her spine so that she has never been able to walk a step since. then the cotton mills, in which all her money was invested, failed and we lost every cent we had. mother doesn't know that, though. virginia and i have managed to keep it from her, so far." "i know," said billie. "you were wonderful, both of you. but what was in the letter?" "it came just before father's death, while he was still at the little house, and it was a full confession written by his brother. after we got so poor, i wrote to mr. donahue, thinking perhaps he might have received this lost letter. i suppose father wanted him to have it because of his devotion to mother, and he has helped us in every sort of way. i think he bought the firefly just for me to take parties out in. he never came to our house, but he used to run down here on his car for a night or two and consult with me." "one more question?" asked billie. "what was he doing that night in the avenue when he had the fight with the man in the motor car?" "well," said edward, "you must know that there were people who were trying to get that paper away from us before my grandmother could see it. clarence's people they were, a bad lot. i suppose they thought if clarence inherited his grandmother's millions, they would all come in for their share. "that fellow who fought with mr. donahue represented himself as coming from my grandmother. but then he tried to play a double game and mr. donahue caught on and they fought." "now, a last question, edward. where in the world have you been hiding?" "you see, my grandmother and i made friends immediately. when i took the stick away from her that day, she saw at once i was not edward paxton, although that is really my name, and she knew she had found her other grandson. the quarrel we had when i broke her stick later in st. augustine was all fixed up between us. she enjoyed it immensely. then she ordered me to lie low somewhere, until she sent for me. she was anxious to see if edward would really keep his word and get to work. he has, so i suppose she's well pleased. but she has had a hard life. her children disappointed her one way or another, and have all died, and her grandchildren didn't seem to come up to the mark either. she's just a soured, embittered old woman, but i like her, anyhow, now that we understand each other." that night billie related the strange story to her three intimate friends in their bedroom. each motor maid made her own characteristic observation. nancy, standing before the mirror, rolling her curls on her pretty fingers, smiled at her image and remarked: "mr. ignatius donahue is the most charming, fascinating, delightful man i ever met." elinor, in a long white bath robe, her braids twisted around her small head like a coronet, observed: "it was really family pride, i suppose, that made edward l'estrange's father keep the letter a secret." "oh, no, elinor," cried mary, seated cross-legged on the bed, while she thoughtfully brushed her fine brown hair, "it was his love for his brother. they say that the love of one twin for another passeth understanding." "whatever it was," said billie, lying flat on her back on the bed and gazing up at the ceiling, "a fine american boy and girl, honest and plucky and proud, too, for that matter, have come up, head and shoulders from the whole wretched muddle." chapter xxiv.--so endeth the second lesson. "sit right there in a row in front of me, so that i may have a good look at you, young ladies. now, tell me all of your names. this one i know: mistress elinor butler, an american princess. wilhelmina campbell? ah, you are the brave young woman who saves people's lives, anne starbuck brown? you're irish, my dear, i can tell by your blue eyes and your pretty, impudent face. mary anastasia price? those eyes of yours, my child, are too earnest and serious for this wicked world." mrs. paxton-steele had left her room this morning for the first time since the explosion, and the two edwards, her grandsons, as like as two peas in a pod, had pushed her rolling chair down to the beach. then she had sent her man servant scurrying back to the hotel with her compliments to the motor maids--and would they do her the pleasure of calling on her that morning on the sands? her tongue was still quite thick and her head shook a little as she spoke, but the old eagle sat as erect as ever, the brim of her garden hat flapping up and down in the breeze as it always had. the girls felt sorry for the aged woman whose early life had been filled with sorrows and disappointments and her last years poisoned by scheming relatives who desired her money. "so these are the motor maids," went on mrs. paxton-steele. "do you know, my dears, why i asked you to spend one of your golden hours with a stricken old woman like me? it is because i want to thank you. you have taught me the second great lesson of my life. the first one i learned when i was a young woman. the second one now comes to me on the brink of the grave. "a vain, cruel, stupid bully! a selfish old woman, eh?" elinor flushed. how disrespectful those words seemed to her now! but the old eagle chuckled to herself. "i have certainly been all those things," she continued, "and i want to thank you, mistress elinor, for speaking out your mind. you might have added blind, too. i have been blind--blind. "my poor boys who have been dead so long, have been restored to me in their own sons, and i am very happy." here she paused and closed her eyes to hide the tears which had welled into them. "yes, i am happy," she went on. "they are fine boys, both of them. and all of this i owe to the motor maids. you have done what i could not do. you have righted a great wrong and reunited a broken, scattered family. "i am glad--yes, proud, that my new grandchildren are half american. and now give me your hand, each one of you, and run along and play. i am old and tired, but, thank god, i am still alive and able to enjoy this last blessing of my life." one by one the four girls bowed their heads over the hand of the broken old eagle, pretending not to notice the two tears which trickled down her furrowed cheeks. they smiled at the two edwards, who stood like sentinels at the side of her chair, waved a gay salutation to virginia and georgiana coming toward them arm in arm, and all but collided with mr. ignatius donahue following behind at a slower pace. "where are you running away to, my pretty maids?" he cried, spreading out his arms playfully to block their passage. "this is our last day at palm beach, you know," answered billie. "we leave for home to-night, and we are going to ride out in the comet to say good-bye to the duffys." "and we are to have no more jolly picnics?" he asked. "not unless you come to west haven, mr. donahue, and let us take you on a comet picnic to seven league island." mr. donahue looked at them with that humorous, quizzical expression that they remembered to have noticed in his photograph. "i'm going to have a picnic party myself in a few months," he said, "and if that picnic comes off, you may see a private car backed upon a side track in west haven, and you will know, if you do, that at the happiest period of my life i have come to spend a day with the four nice girls who helped to bring it about." "why, what does he mean?" asked elinor, as they hurried on to the hotel. "i think he means he is going to marry mrs. l'estrange," answered billie. "he has brought a big osteopath down here to see her and something's being put to rights in her spine. she's expected to get perfectly well, virginia told me." "but how did we bring anything about?" "i can't say, unless it was the comet, bless him, that got us to the burning house in time to save her life." the red car was waiting for them when they reached the hotel, and miss campbell, also, on the piazza, her peach-blossom face framed in the familiar motor veil of sky blue. presently they rolled swiftly away toward the home of their good friends, the duffys, and in the memories of all who saw them start on that bright morning, there was left no happier impression of florida's holiday glory than the light in the faces of the four motor maids. if the girls themselves could have seen, stretching far into the future, the road of experience and adventure over which the comet was to take them, their faces would have been aglow with anticipation as well as with present pleasure. for the way that they were next to travel is one that each and all should know, and even if you can go in no other party, we are sure that you will enjoy following "the motor maids across the continent," in the story of their next trip. * * * * * * girls banner series a desirable assortment of books for girls, by standard and favorite authors. each title is complete and unabridged. printed on a good quality of paper from large, clear type and bound in cloth. each book is wrapped in a special multi-colored jacket. 1. alice's adventures in wonderland _carroll_ 2. alice through the looking glass _carroll_ 3. campfire girls on a long hike _francis_ 4. daddy's girl _meade_ 5. dog of flanders, a _ouida_ 6. elsie dinsmore _finley_ 7. ethel hollister's 1st summer as a campfire girl _benson_ 8. ethel hollister's 2nd summer as a campfire girl _benson_ 9. faith gartney's girlhood _whitney_ 10. four little mischiefs _mulholland_ 11. polly, a new fashioned girl _meade_ 12. world of girls _meade_ for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of 40 cents m. a. donohue & company 701-733 s. dearborn street :: chicago * * * * * * victory boy scout series stories by a writer who possesses a thorough knowledge of this subject. handsomely bound in cloth; 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or, cast away on an iceberg, _frank honeywell_ 2. radio boys on the thousand islands; or, the yankee canadian wireless trail, _frank honeywell_ 3. radio boys in the flying service; or, held for ransom by mexican bandits, _j. w. duffield_ 4. radio boys under the sea; or, the hunt for the sunken treasure, _j. w. duffield_ 5. radio boys cronies; or, bill brown's radio, _wayne whipple_ 6. radio boys loyalty; or, bill brown listens in, _wayne whipple_ peggy parson's series by annabel sharp a popular and charming series of girl's books dealing in an interesting and fascinating manner with the the life and adventures of girlhood so dear to all girls from eight to fourteen years of age. printed from large clear type on superior quality paper, multicolor jacket. bound in cloth. 1. peggy parson hampton freshman 2. peggy parson at prep school for sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of 75c. m. a. donohue & company 701-733 s. dearborn street :: chicago the motor girls series by margaret penrose author of the highly successful "dorothy dale series" 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid. since the enormous success or our "motor boys series," by clarence young, we have been asked to get out a similar series for girls. no one is better equipped to furnish these tales than mrs. penrose, who, besides being an able writer, is an expert automobilist. the motor girls on a tour contents i a spoiled dinner. ii the woodland conference. iii "no boys!" iv the strange promise. v a little brown wren vi the hold-up vii a chance meeting. viii jack and clip ix the mysterious ride. x "they're off!" xi those dreadful boys. xii the girl in the ditch xiii at the grotto xiv the promise book lost xv rob roland xvi a strange message xvii the road to breakwater xviii the clue. xix paul and hazel xx at the mahogany shop xxi perplexities xxii the children's court xxiii the motor girls on the watch. xxiv cora's resolve. xxv a wild run xxvi legal strategy xxvii against the law xxviii confidences xxix merry motor maids xxx the promise kept the motor girls on a tour chapter i a spoiled dinner the big maroon car glided along in such perfect rhythm that cora kimball, the fair driver of the whirlwind, heard scarcely a sound of its mechanical workings. to her the car went noiselessly--the perfection of its motion was akin to the very music of silence. hazel hastings was simply sumptuous in the tonneau--she had spread every available frill and flounce, but there was still plenty of unoccupied space on the luxuriously cushioned "throne." it seemed a pity to passers-by that two girls should ride alone on that splendid morning in the handsome machine--so many of those afoot would have been glad of a chance to occupy the empty seats. directly following the whirlwind came another car--the little silver flyaway. in this also were two girls, the robinson twins, elizabeth and isabel, otherwise belle and bess. chelton folks were becoming accustomed to the sight of these girls in their cars, and a run of the motor girls was now looked upon as a daily occurrence. bess robinson guided her car with unmistakable skill--cora kimball was considered an expert driver. sputtering and chugging close to the flyaway came a second runabout. in this were a girl and a boy, or, more properly speaking, a young lady and a young gentleman. as they neared the motor girls bess called back to belle: "there come sid and ida. i thought they were not on speaking terms." "they were not, but they are now," answered belle with a light laugh. "why should a girl turn her back on a young man with a brand new machine?" "it runs like a locomotive," murmured bess, as, at that moment, the other car shot by, the occupants bowing indifferently to the robinson girls as the machines came abreast. cora turned and shook her head significantly when the third car had forged ahead. she, too, seemed surprised that ida giles should be riding with sid wilcox. then bess rolled up alongside the whirlwind. "my, but they are going!" she called to cora. "i thought ida said she would never ride with sid again." "why not?" flashed cora merrily. "isn't sid's car new and--yellow?" "like a dandelion," put in belle, who was noted for her aesthetic tendencies. "and, precisely like a dandelion, i fancy that machine would collapse without rhyme or reason. did you every try a bunch of dandelions on the table?" the girls all laughed. no one but belle robinson would ever try such an experiment. everybody knew the ingratitude of the yellow field flower. "i can never bear anything of that color since my valentine luncheon," declared belle bravely. "that's why i predict disaster for sid's new car." "they have dropped something!" exclaimed hazel as she peered ahead at the disappearing runabout. bess had taken the lead. "let's put on speed," she suggested, and, pulling the lever, her car shot ahead, and was soon within close range of the yellow runabout. "be careful!" called her sister. "you will run over--" it was too late. at that moment the flyaway dashed over something--the pieces flew in all directions. "their lunch-hamper!" exclaimed belle. the runabout had turned to one side, and then stopped. bess jammed on the brakes and also came to a standstill. "well!" growled sid wilcox, approaching the wreck in the road. "i--couldn't stop," faltered bess remorsefully. "i guess you didn't try," snapped ida giles, her cheeks aflame almost to the tint of her fiery tresses. "i really did," declared bess. "i would not have spoiled your hamper for anything." "and your lunch was in it?" gasped belle. "we're awfully sorry!" bent and crippled enameled dishes from the lately fine and completely equipped auto-hamper were scattered about in all directions. here and there a piece of pie could be identified, while the chicken sandwiches were mostly recognizable by the fact that a newly arrived yellow dog persistently gnawed at one or two particular mud spots. "oh, we can go to a hotel for dinner," announced the young man, getting back into his car. "but they ought to pay for the hamper," grumbled ida, loud enough for the robinson girls to make sure of her remark. "we will, of course," called bess, just as cora and hazel came up, and then the wilcox runabout darted off again. "table d'hote?" called cora, laughing. "no, a la carte," replied bess, picking up a piece of damaged celery, putting it on a slice of uninjured bread and proffering it to hazel. "what a shame!" sighed hazel. "their picnic will be spoiled." "but look at the picnic we've had," put in belle. "you should have seen ida's face. a veritable fireless cooker." "and sid--he supplied the salt hay," declared bess. "i felt as if i were smothered in a ton of it." "and that was the peace-offering hamper," declared cora, alighting from her car and closely viewing the wreck. "jack told me that ida gave sid a handsome hamper for the new car." "i told you that the yellow machine would turn--" "dandelion," hazel interrupted belle. "well, i agree with you that was an ungrateful trick. to demolish the lunch, of all other available things to do, on a day like this!" "souvenirs?" suggested cora, removing her glove to dig out of the mud a knife, and then a fork. "oh, forget it!" exclaimed bess. "i am sure i want to. let's get going again, if we are to make the woodbine way in time to plan the tour. i'm just crazy about the trip," and the enthusiastic girl expended some of her pent-up energies on the crank at the front of the flyaway. cora was also cranking up. "yes," she said, "we had best be on the road again. we are due at the park at twelve. i expect maud will have the family tree along and urge us to stop overnight at every gnarl on the 'trunk.'" "we might have asked ida and sid," reflected belle aloud, sympathetically. "yes," bess almost shouted, "and have them veto every single plan. besides, there are to be no boys on this trip; lady isabel please take notice!" "as if i wanted boys!" sneered her sister. "as if you could have them if you did!" fired back bess in that tantalizing way that only sisters understand, only sisters enjoy, and only sisters know how to operate successfully. "peace! peace!" called cora. "if belle wants boys she may have them. i am chairman of the acting committee, and if boys do not act i would like to know exactly what they do." "no boys!" faltered hazel, who, not owning a machine, had not as yet heard all the details of the proposed three-days' tour of the motor girls. "nary a one!" returned bess, now about to start. "if we had boys along," explained cora, "they would claim the glory of every spill, every skid, every upset and every 'busted tire.' we want some little glory ourselves," and at this she threw in the clutch, and, with a gentle effort, the whirlwind rolled off, followed closely by the flyaway. "i suppose sid and ida are licking their fingers just about now," remarked the good-natured bess. "very likely," rejoined her sister, "for i fancy their meal was made up of buckwheat cakes and molasses, as sid had to pay for it." "oh, i meant sheer deliciousness," corrected her sister. "i 'fawncy'"--and she imitated the dainty tones used by belle--"they have had--" "backbiting and detraction," called cora, who had been close enough to hear the sisters' remarks. "i would not have been in your place at that table, bess, for a great deal." bess tossed her head about indifferently. she evidently knew what to expect from ida and sid. "now for a straight run!" announced cora, throwing in third speed. "we must make the bridge by the quarter whistle or the maud morris family tree may have been consumed for luncheon. i particularly want a peg at that tree." "we're off!" called bess, following with additional speed. then the whirlwind and the flyaway dashed off, over the country roads, past scurrying chicks and barking dogs, past old farmers who turned in to give "them blamed things" plenty of room, out along woodbine to the pretty little park where the plans for the first official run of the motor girls were soon to be perfected. chapter ii the woodland conference in the first volume of this series, entitled "the motor girls; or, a mystery of the road," we became acquainted with these vivacious young ladies. cora kimball, the first to own her own motor-car, the whirlwind, was the only daughter of mrs. grace kimball, a wealthy widow of the little town of chelton. jack kimball, cora's brother, a typical college boy, had plenty to do in unraveling the mystery of the road, while his chums, walter pennington and edward foster, were each such attractive young men that even to the end it was difficult to guess which one would carry off the highest honors socially--with cora as judge, of course. it was ed foster who lost the money, a small fortune, and it was the rather unpleasant sid wilcox, and perhaps unfortunate ida giles, who finally cleared up the mystery, happily enough, all things considered, although in spite of the other girls' opportune intention it was not possible to reflect any degree of credit upon those responsible for the troubles and trials which that mystery involved. speaking of the young men, paul hastings, a young chauffeur, should not be overlooked. paul was a very agreeable youth indeed, and his sister, hazel, a most interesting young lady, with very special qualities of talent and learning. "among those present" in the first volume were the attractive robinson twins, bess inclined to rather more weight than height, and belle, the tall, graceful creature, who delighted in the aesthetic and reveled in "nerves." mr. perry robinson, the girls' father, was a wealthy railroad magnate, devoted to carriage rides, and not caring for motors, but not too "set" to allow his daughters the entire ownership of the pretty new runabout--the flyaway. cora, hazel, bess and belle were flying over the country roads in their cars, making for woodbine park, where they were to hold a preliminary meet to arrange for a tour on the road. past the bridge at the appointed time, they reached the wooded park exactly at twelve--the hour set for the rest and luncheon, to be followed by the "business meeting." "there come daisy and maud," called cora, as along the winding road she discerned another car approaching. "and there are clip and ray," added belle, shutting off the gasoline and preparing to bring her machine to a standstill. "i think it a shame to call cecilia thayer clip," objected belle. "she is no more of a romp than--" "any boy," interrupted bess. "well, the boys call her clip, and it's handy." by this time the new car was up in line with the others. "'lo, there!" called cecilia, jerking her machine to a stop in the manner deplored by skilled mechanicians. "look out!" cautioned cora. "you'll 'bust' something." cecilia had bounded out on the road. "stiff as a stick!" she exclaimed with a rather becoming twist of her agile form. "i never make that road without absorbing every bump on the thoroughfare." cecilia was not altogether pretty, for she had the "accent on her nose," as cora put it, but she was dashing, and, at a glance, one might easily guess why she had been called clip. rachel stuart was a striking blonde, tall to a fault, pink and white to bisqueness and, withal, evidently conscious of her charms. even while motoring she affected the pastel tints, and this morning looked radiant in her immense blue scarf and her well-matched blue linen coat. "you look," said cora to cecilia, as the latter continued to shake herself out of the absorbed bumps, "like nothing so much as like a 'strained' nurse--jack's variety." "exactly that!" admitted cecilia. "i have been searching high and low for a cheap and economical rig to drive in, and i have just hit upon this." she pirouetted wonderfully. "all ready made--the 'strained' nurse variety, sure enough. how do you like it?" "very becoming," decided bess. "and very practical," announced belle. "sweet," declared cora. "when you say a good thing, stop," ordered cecilia, just as ray was about to give her verdict. "and now to the woods," suggested cora. "we may as well put our machines up in the open near the grove. we can see them there, and make sure that no one is tempted to investigate them." it was a level stretch over the field to the grove. cora led the way and the others followed. lunch baskets and boxes were quickly gathered up from the machines, and, with the keenness of appetite common to young and healthy, and "painful" to our fair motorists (for cecilia declared her appetite "hurt"), the party scampered off to an appropriate spot where the lunch might be enjoyed. "and there are to be no boys?" asked maud morris, she with the "imploring look," as cecilia put it, although maud was familiarly known as a very sweet girl. "no boys!" echoed bess, between uncertain mouthfuls. daisy bennet turned her head away in evident disapproval. "no boys," she repeated faintly. daisy did everything faintly. she was a perfectly healthy young girl, but a little affected otherwise--too fond of paper-covered books, and perhaps too fond of other sorts of romance. but we must not condemn daisy--her mother had the health-traveling habit, and what was daisy to do with herself? cora handed around some lettuce sandwiches. "i am just as keen on boys as any of you," she admitted, "but for a real motor girl tour it is apparent that boys will have to be tabooed." bess grunted, belle sighed, cecilia bit her tongue, ray raised her eyebrows, hazel made a "minute" of the report. "and silence ensued," commented cecilia, reaching back of maud and securing a dainty morsel from the lunch-box of the latter. "water?" called bess. "yes," chimed in cecilia, "go and fetch some." "the spring is away down the other side of the hill," objected bess. "you need the exercise," declared cecilia. "clip, you go fetch some," suggested cora, "and i'll give you half my pie." without another word clip was on her feet, had upset daisy's improvised table of sticks and paper napkins in her haste to secure the water bottle, and was now running over the hill toward the spring. presently she stopped as if listening to something. then she turned and hurried back to the party on the grass. her face was white with alarm. "oh!" she gasped. "i heard the awfullest groans! some one must be either dying for a drink, or dying from a drink. the groans were wet!" cora jumped up, as did some of the others. "come on," said cora. "i'm not afraid. some one may need help." "oh, they do--i am sure," panted cecilia. "all kinds of help, i should say. the moans were chromatic." "listen!" commanded cora, as the sounds came over the hill. low, then fierce growls and groans, tapering down to grunts and exclamation marks sounded through the grove. "oh!" screamed belle. "what can it be?" exclaimed daisy. "almost anything," suggested cora. "but we had best be specific," and she started in the direction of the mysterious sounds. cecilia followed, as did bess, while the others held off in evident fear. although it was high noon, in the grove the heavy spruce and cedar trees darkened the place, and the farther the girls penetrated into the depths of the wood, the deeper did the shadows close in around them. cora picked up a stout stick as she advanced. "get me one," begged cecilia. "we may encounter a bear." "human?" asked cora with a laugh. "preferably," answered cecilia, keeping very close to cora. the noises had ceased. the girls halted, waiting for a sound to give them the clue of direction. "he's dead!" gasped cecilia. "it was the drink--he got the drink, and then died!" "as long as he got it," whispered cora. she was anxious to catch another "groan." "there!" exclaimed bess, as a sound, faint but decisive, was heard from a hollow ahead. "where?" asked cora, purposely misunderstanding bess. "here!" called cecilia, who, with sudden resolve, had snatched the stick from cora's hand, and now darted forward. she went straight for the spring. chapter iii "no boys!" such shouting and such laughing! there, hidden in the thicket near the spring, were discovered jack kimball and walter pennington, while the chuckles and other noises emerging from mysterious parts of the wood indicated the presence of human beings, although the sounds had a queer similarity to that made by furry beasts. "oh, clip! spare me!" called jack, as cecilia actually undertook to punish physically the offending young man. "i really did not think you would be scared--in fact, i had an idea you were scare-immune." "i am," declared the girl; "but the idea of me wasting sympathy! i might have discovered the dead man of all my life-long dreams--had to appear in court, and all the other delightful consequences of finding a man under suspicious circumstances; and there you are not even sick. jack kimball, how could you? you might at least have had the politeness to be deadly ill." walter crawled out from the thicket. "i thought i smelled eating," he remarked, "and i suggested that we postpone the wild and woolly until we had investigated." "oh, come on," called cora. "we may as well allow you to move on.--you have actually interrupted the plans for our first official run.' "good!" exclaimed ed foster, who, with some other young chaps, had collected themselves from the various haunts. "any boys?" "boys!" echoed cora. "b-o-y-s!" drawled maud, "chucking the imploring look," as cecilia whispered to cora. "we have been discussing the question," declared bess, as they all started toward the lunch spread on the grass, "and we have now fully decided. the answer is: no boys!" this verdict brought forth the expected chorus of groans from the young men. "indeed, you may be glad to get a fellow when you find yourselves in a good and proper smashup," declared jack, "and i predict a smash-up about every other mile." the sight of the tempting lunch and that of the other young ladies who had not undertaken the march to the spring, was the signal for a "grand rush"--and that was about all. when the boys extricated themselves from the "rush" there was not a crumb visible. "we had all we wished," faltered the circumspect ray stuart. "you were entirely welcome--might have saved, at least, the dishes." "oh," breathed ed, "it is so much pleasanter to poach--don't spoil it." ed cast a most appreciative glance at ray. she expected it, of course, and accepted it with a smile. clip was talking earnestly to jack, cora was being entertained by walter, who, at the same time, managed to keep up a running conversation with the group of girls now busy putting away the lunch things. "we had a dreadful accident coming out," said belle. "bess ran over--" "a square meal in a square basket," interrupted bess. "i demolished the hamper that ida giles had bestowed on sidney wilcox. it was a peace offering, i believe." "and you should have seen the kind of 'pieces' bess made of it," commented hazel with a merry laugh. "hush!" hissed ed with his finger to his lips. "something tells me that the demolished hamper forbodes evil. you will regret the day, miss elizabeth, that you spilled sid wilcox's-" "pumpkin pie," finished cora. "i never saw such pumpkiny pumpkin pie in my life. i can smell it yet!" "mrs. giles' famous home-made," quoted walter. "well, it might have been worse--they might have eaten that pie." "say, fellows," said jack suddenly, "this is all very pretty--the girls, i mean, of course--but does it smite any one of you young rustics that we have an engagement--ahem! at three-thirty, wasn't it?" "precisely," declared ed. "so much obliged for the feed; and do we make a party call?" "of course," answered the pretty ray, attempting to tie her huge scarf, without having any idea of doing so. "we shall expect--" "the bunch?" interrupted jack, knowing ray's preference for the handsome ed. "how--" "naughty," simpered cecilia. "jack, how can you use slang in the presence of ladies?" and she assumed the characteristic "tough" walk, which had always been one of clip's most laughable capers. "loidies!" echoed jack, tilting his cap and striking an attitude appropriate to that assumed by cecilia. he slipped his arm within hers, and the pair "strutted off," in the fashion identified with the burlesque stage. "here! here!" called more than one young lady. "come back here, clip! there are to be no boys!" "this isn't a boy," called back cecilia, keeping up the performance. "he's only a--" "don't you dare!" threatened jack. the girls began to gather the things up from the grass. "now don't hurry," remarked ed coolly. "the fact is, we are not going your way." "don't want us!" almost gasped ray. "shook!" groaned bess. "not at all," walter hurried to add, "but the real truth is--well, let me see. what's the real truth?" jack was fetching cecilia back. at some secret sign the young men actually took to their heels, and ran away before the girls realized what was happening. but from a distance they waved a cheerful adieu. "what do you think of that!" exclaimed hazel. "oh, they are just up to some frolic, and could not take us in," said cora. "if we were not so busy with our plans we might follow them. but i propose continuing the business meeting." with some reluctance, for the time had been greatly enlivened by the appearance of the young men on the scene, the girls once more got to discussing the details of their proposed three days' tour. as cora had predicted, maud wanted the stops along the way made at the homes of her various and varied relatives. daisy feared her mother would insist upon a chaperone, and this almost absorbed daisy's chance of being eligible. ray thought the motors should flaunt flags--pretty light blue affairs--but bess declared it would be infinitely more important to carry plenty of gasoline. so the girls planned and plotted, until, in the northwest, a great black cloud came stealing over the silent blue, gathering fury as it came, and coming very quickly at that. "a storm!" shouted belle. "oh, i do hope it won't be the thundering kind!" there was a swirl of the leaves around them, and the wind gave a warning howl. all ran for the cars. "a tornado, likely," said hazel. "and, oh, dear! this is just about the time that paul will be bringing the mail over. i am so nervous since his firm undertook the mail route between new city and cartown. this is such a lonely road for an auto in a storm--especially when every one knows paul carries the mail." hazel was greatly agitated, but the other girls endeavored to reassure her. "why, paul will be all right," declared cora, surprised at hazel's alarm. "what could happen to him? why is a storm in the afternoon of such consequence?" "oh, i don't know," sighed hazel; "but having to manage a car, and be personally responsible for the big mailbag--there is so much important mail between cartown and new city--i have been nervous about it ever since paul began carrying it." "but it makes him all the more important to his firm," said cora convincingly, "and i am sure he will be all right." "you read too many wild-west stories," commented bess, who was still alongside the whirlwind with her flyaway. "there are no stagecoach hold-ups these days." "i hope not," returned hazel with a forced laugh. quickly the storm was gathering. with some apprehension cora directed the line of cars. "you lead, daisy," she said, "as your clothes are most perishable." "indeed," shouted cecilia, "my 'strained' nurse suit will have to go to the laundry if it gets wet, and that adds to the price--reduces my bargain." "well, hurry, at any rate," commanded cora. "i know of a barn we may be able to make." "we ought to meet paul at the bridge," remarked hazel, evidently unable to dismiss her concern for her brother. "now, hazel," exclaimed cora, her voice carrying something of vexation, "one would think you suspected--" "you don't really think those boys would play a trick on him?" interrupted hazel. "somehow i didn't like the way they looked--as if they were plotting something." cora laughed heartily. "why, you precious baby!" she managed to say; "do you think boys of their caliber would tamper with the mail? to say nothing of putting so nice a boy as paul to inconvenience?" "oh, of course; forgive me, cora. i should not have asked that. but you know what paul and i are to each other!" "yes, i know," said cora with marked emphasis. "you are each the other's little brother and sister. but it's nice, hazel, very nice, and i forgive you the fling at jack." "and ed?" asked hazel mischievously. "and walter," added cora, ignoring the personal. "oh, mercy!" yelled belle. "we're going to have another fire and brimstone thunderstorm! cora, make for that farmhouse!" "yes," called cora, "i guess it will be all wind, and it won't hurt the machines. turn for the cottage, girls!" blinding and brutal, the wind and sand attacked the eyes and ears of the motor girls, in spite of all the hoods and goggles. it was one of those tearing windstorms, that often come in summer, seemingly bent on raising everything on earth heavenward except the sand--that always sought refuge under eyelids--the average grain of sand would rather get in a girl's eye than help to make up a reputable mountain. the line of cars made straight for the little farmhouse. it was sheltered in a clump of pines quite near the roadside. bess drew up first. belle was out, and upon the steps of the porch. she had even struck the brass knocker before the others could bring their machines to a stop. "belle is frightened," said ray, taking her time to leave cecilia's auto. "well, we had a great storm one day--and belle has the reflex action," explained cora, referring to an exciting incident told of in the first book of this series. the door of the cottage opened. "come on, girls!" called belle. "we may come in--the lady says." "now--now for an adventure!" whispered cecilia. "i can see it through the closed blinds! i see it under the knocker. i feel it in my gloves! yes, young ladies, there is going to be something doing inside that cottage!" chapter iv the strange promise when the eight young ladies marched into the little cottage it must be admitted that each had her misgivings. what would any one think of such a procession? but belle, whether from actual fright of the storm, or from some intuitive knowledge of the circumstances, seemed to be assured that they were all welcome. a dark-eyed woman greeted them. "why, come right in," she insisted. "we haven't much room, but we are all glad to see you." "careful," whispered the mischievous clip to cora. "there's a trap door some place, i'll bet." "hush!" commanded cora under her breath. "you will be suspected if not overheard." the woman gathered up some sewing from an old-fashioned sofa. cora saw instantly that the piece of furniture was of the most desirable pattern and quality, an antique mahogany gem of the colonial style. "there will be room for most of us on your beautiful couch," said cora, taking her place, and indicating that the others might follow. "what a handsome piece of furniture!" "yes," replied the woman with a sigh, "that is one of my family heirlooms. we are very fond of old furniture." "look out!" whispered the irrepressible clip. "perhaps the trap is in the sofa!" bess giggled helplessly. belle, with her self-confidence, peculiar to this particular occasion, took her place over by the window in a huge, straight-back chair--the kind built with "storm doors at the back." the sad-eyed woman smiled with her lips, but her eyes "remained at half mast," as clip put it. "it is so delightful to meet a lot of healthy young ladies," began the woman, betraying a certain culture and unmistakable education. "i have a little daughter, who is not healthy of body, but her mind is the joy of our lives in this isolated place. she will ask to see you directly, and that is why i tell you of her infirmity. we never speak of it to her--she almost thinks herself in health. i am glad you came--for her sake." without waiting for a reply the woman opened a small door and disappeared: "now!" gasped clip. "now be prepared! we will be fed piece by piece, one by one, to the yellow dwarf--" "will you hush!" insisted belle. "i am sure you ought to respect-" "oh, i do, belle, dear! i respect your pretty self, and shall hate terribly to see you torn limb from--" the opening of the door cut short clip's nonsense. the woman wheeled a child's invalid chair into the room. sitting in this chair the girls beheld a child--that sort of child which heaven in making a cripple of seems to hold some special claim on. the lines of some amateur poet flashed across the mind of cora: "does heaven in sending such as these, from nature hold a claim? to keep them nearer to the gates, to call them in again?" these lines had always appealed to cora in spite of their faulty rhyme, and, in glancing at the little girl in the chair, she understood why. "this is my daughter wren," said the woman, "and i should have introduced myself. i am mrs. salvey mrs. ruth salvey." the girls gracefully acknowledged the introductions. clip had surrendered--she was "all eyes on the little girl"; too absorbed to speak. she had left her place on the sofa, and now stood beside the invalid's chair. "how do you do, wren?" she managed to say finally, taking the small, white, slim hand within her own. "aren't you frightened of--this invasion?" "oh, no, indeed," said the child sweetly. "i am perfectly delighted. mother has been telling me all day we would have some pleasant surprise before night. i thought when i saw the storm coming that that was the surprise--i love storms, grandfather's kind--but now i know it is this." every girl in the room instantly felt the charm of this child. she was almost bewitching. her eyes had the same "unfathomable depths" that marked those of mrs. salvey, but the child did not otherwise resemble her mother. it was evident that the name wren fitted her well--so small, so sweet, so timid, and with such a whispering voice! then, her eyes were brown, her hair was brown and, in spite of ill-health, there was a gleam of color in her delicate cheeks. "what's this?" asked cora, stepping over to the child and touching a book in her lap. "oh, that--that is my story," replied wren. "i want to tell you all about it. will you have time to wait?" and she looked toward the window, through which could be seen the silent automobiles. "indeed, we will," replied cora. "i am so anxious to hear all about it, and i am sure the others are. do tell us, wren," and cora found a chair quite close to the one on wheels. cecilia was fairly "devouring the child." the others were plainly much interested. belle, who evidently regarded the affair as her own particular "find," retained the slim hand of the invalid in that of her own healthy palm. mrs. salvey was smiling now--even the great sad eyes were throwing out a light, although the light did come from dark and uncertain depths. wren opened her book. "this is my promise book," she began. "i have to tell you a long story about it. then i will ask each of you to make me a promise--it is a very strange promise," she intoned most seriously. "but i know some day it will be kept. some day all these promises will unite in one grand, great demand. then fate will have to answer." chapter v a little brown wren the girls were awestricken. daisy, maud, hazel and ray seemed to shrink closer together on the old mahogany sofa. cora and the robinson girls with cecilia were grouped closely about the sick child. "it's all about grandfather," she began. "i had the dearest, darlingest grandfather, and since he went away i am so lonely. only for mother," she added, with something like an apology. "of course, i am never really lonely with mother." mrs. salvey shook her head. then she picked up the discarded sewing. "you see," went on wren, "we used to live with grandfather in a beautiful cottage right near the river. he was a sea captain, and couldn't live away from the waves. then i was strong enough to play on the sands." wren stopped. at the mention of her infirmity a cloud covered her young face. presently she brightened up and resumed: "but i am going to be strong again. when i find--" she tossed her head back and seemed to see something beyond. for a moment no one spoke. the silence was, akin to reverence. "then," sighed the child, "when we lived by the ocean grandfather went out in a terrible storm--he said he had to go. and he never came back." "oh!" gasped cora involuntarily. cecilia bent so close to wren that her breath stirred the brown ringlets over the child's ears. "but, of course," declared the child vehemently, "he will come back. if not here--in some other world." "dear," said mrs. salvey, "you had better make your story a little short. i am sure the young ladies will want to get over the roads before nightfall." "oh, it is quite early yet," declared cecilia falsely, for the mantel clock pointed to six. "i'll hurry," promised wren. "you see, this is the important part of it all. when we lived with grandpa he made a beautiful table--i even helped him to make it. there were tiny pieces of wood all inlaid with anchors, oars and sea emblems. i used to dip them in the hot glue for grandpa. well, there were some secret drawers in that table, and grandpa told me that if anything should happen to him we must explore the table. well, we went away--it was the time of my own father's death--and when we came back the table was gone." "who took it?" demanded cecilia sharply. "everything was sold--at auction--and no one could tell us anything about the table." "you see," said mrs. salvey, "wren thinks if we can find that table we will come into our own. father was very fond of daughter, and the other relatives were so numerous that when the estate was equally divided it left very little for us. we thought the table might contain a will--" "i know it did," declared wren. "didn't grandpa show it to me once? and now i want you each to sign the promise in my book. i shall read it over for you." the child drew herself up straight, and held the book high between her hands. then she read "'i, the undersigned, promise most sacredly to do all in my power to help discover the whereabouts of an antique inlaid table that has on either side carved a large anchor, and which has the initials cut on each end, w. s. and r. s.' these were mine and grandpa's initials," she explained. "i was called wren because his name was renton." she resumed reading the promise: "'if ever i do discover this table i also promise to notify wren salvey immediately.' then you sign," she said. "there are pen and ink. mother always keeps them in the sitting-room for me." belle took the book. pages were already filled with signatures. "you must have a great many callers," she remarked, taking up the pen to sign. "oh, i take my book with me every time i go out," said wren. "sometimes mother takes me where there are a lot of people. i love to talk to folks." "of course you do," said cora, filled with admiration for the mother who so humored the sick child. "and with all those promises, as you say, they must some day become a great, grand call, and so be answered." "i hope you will hear the voice," said wren fervently, and the day came when cora remembered the child's prayer. the girls added their names to the long list. wren required that they repeat the promise individually, and, indeed, it became a most solemn proceeding. the storm had entirely subsided. it was time to be on the road again, and cora stood up first to take her leave. "we really must go," she said. "we have had a most delightful hour. we shall never forget wren, and, perhaps, some day we may return to fulfil our promise." "i really feel that you will," declared the child. "i have never before met such--nice young ladies," and she blushed consciously. "i shall repeat your names many times--so that they will echo when i sleep." cecilia put her lips to the child's forehead. she did not dare trust herself to speak. "i am sure you will dream about us--we are such an army," said daisy with a laugh. "try to forget that we are just girls--" "she's an angel," interrupted cecilia. "don't get her mixed up with mere girls." wren laughed--such a dainty little laugh. she looked at daisy. "you are all--lovely," she declared, "and i always like blue eyes!" mrs. salvey added her felicitations to those of her little daughter. "this has indeed been a most enjoyable visit," she said, "and i hope you will all try to keep your strange promise. i believe where one is so serious as is wren something good is sure to result. if we could find that table--" "perhaps you will," said cora pleasantly. "we are about to start on a long trip. we will make numbers of stops, and i assure you we will never forget to look for the table. i am sure it will give us a very pleasant duty to keep our eyes open." "indeed, it will," declared cecilia warmly. "i only hope i shall be the lucky one--for i feel a sort of premonition that some one in this party really will be the means of bringing little wren the good news. i have a mental picture of the table. i shall know it instantly." "it would be very easy to recognize it," said mrs. salvey, opening the door as her visitors filed out. "the inlaid anchors are most conspicuous on the leaves." outside cecilia renewed her antics. "stick a hatpin in me--somebody do!" she exclaimed. "but not yours, ray. i never could stand for that college, even in a stick." ray smiled and hurried into her car. the fair chauffeurs cranked up quickly, for it was almost dusk, and there was considerable road to cover between the place and chelton. "we must make speed now," called bess. "i have a dinner date, be it known." "i'm in a hurry, too," shouted maud. "i have an engagement to be tried on--my new auto cloak. i have to have that on time." the machines were speeding along merrily. it was pleasant after the rain, and the twilight lent enchantment to the delights of motoring. "why do you suppose hazel was so anxious about paul?" bess asked belle. "she could talk of nothing else, even when we were at the cottage." "well," replied the prudent belle, "hazel knows. there must be some danger or she would not talk of it. perhaps paul has had some warning." chapter vi the hold-up dashing over the country roads, the motor girls sent their machines ahead at fast speed, unwilling to stop to light up, and anxious to make the town before the twilight faded into nightfall. suddenly cora, who was in the lead, grabbed the emergency brake and quickly shut off the power. "what's that?" she asked. "something straight ahead. don't you see it, hazel?" hazel stood up and peered into the gathering darkness. "yes; it looks like an auto. perhaps some one got disabled, and had to leave the machine," she replied. "perhaps," returned cora, going along carefully. "it is an auto," declared hazel presently, as they were almost upon the object in the roadway. "the auto stage!" exclaimed cora. "don't be frightened, hazel," she hurried to say. "paul is not in it. he must have gone on with the mail." hazel sank down in the cushions and covered her eyes. somehow she could not bear to look at the deserted auto stage. the other girls were coming along cautiously--they saw that something was the matter. the standing machine was directly in the road; it instantly struck cora that this was strange. who could have been so careless as to leave an unlighted auto in the roadway, and night coming on? she turned her wheel to guide the whirlwind to one side, and then stopped. bess was next, and she shut off the power from the flyaway. "what is it?" asked bess anxiously. belle did not venture to leave the machine, but hazel had bounded out of the whirlwind almost before cora had time to stop it. "oh," exclaimed hazel, "there are paul's gloves. where can he be?" "perhaps playing a trick on us," suggested cora, although she had little faith in the possibility. "i am sure he would not go far off and leave this expensive machine here." by this time all the other girls had reached the spot, and were now deliberating upon the abandoned auto. suddenly a call--shrill and distinct--startled them. "that's paul!" shrieked hazel, turning instantly and dashing off in the direction from which the voice had come. cora, bess, maud and cecilia followed her. over the wet fields, through briars and underbrush the girls ran, while the call was repeated; this time there being no possibility of mistake--it was paul shouting. breathless, the girls hurried on. with a sister's instinct hazel never stumbled, but seemed to get over every obstacle like some wood sprite called to duty. "oh, i'm all right, girls! take your time!" came the voice in the woods. "all right!" repeated hazel in uncertain tones. "oh, look!" shrieked cecilia. "didn't i tell you it was a joke? look!" what a sight! there, sitting on something like a stool, with a big cotton umbrella opened over his head, his eyes blinded with something dark, and his hands and feet made secure, was paul hastings, the chauffeur of the auto stage. "whatever does this means?" asked cora, hurrying to hazel, who was now madly snatching the black silk handkerchief from her brother's eyes. "a prisoner of war," replied paul rather unsteadily. "glad you came, girls--there, sis, in my back pocket, you will find a knife. just cut those carpet rags off my feet and hands." cecilia found the pocket knife, and, more quickly than any boy might have done it, she severed the bonds, and paul stretched out--free. "well," he exclaimed, "this is about the limit!" "did the boys do it?" asked cora. "boys! not a bit of it," replied paul. "it was a regular hold-up. and the mail! i must get that, if they have left it on the road. did you see the car? is it all right?" "it appeared to be," said cora. "it was the car that brought us to a standstill. it's in the middle of the road." paul shook himself as if expecting to find some damage to limb or muscle. then he turned toward the open path. "tell us about it," demanded cecilia. "wasn't it a joke?" "joke!" he reiterated. "well, i should say not! would you call it a joke to have two masked men jump in front of a running car, and flash something shiny? then to have them climb in, cover my eyes and tell me i would be all right, and not to worry!" "oh," sighed hazel, "i felt something would happen to you, paul, dear. you must give up this position." "well, we will see about that," he replied. "perhaps i won't have anything to say about it--if the mailpouch is gone." "then they brought you out here?" asked cecilia, determined to hear all the story. "carried me like a baby," replied paul, "and in sheer humane consideration they put me near the road, so that my call might be heard." "and the umbrella?" asked cora. "oh, they went to a barn for that. it was raining, and my polite friends did not want me to take cold." his tone was bitterly cutting; taking cold would evidently have been of small account to him. "and they sat you upon that log?" put in maud. "like any ordinary bump," he rejoined. "i never knew the misery of a bump on a log before." "and, you are not hurt?" hazel pressed close to his side and looked up lovingly at the tall boy. "not in the least--that is, physically. but i am seriously hurt mentally." cora could not but recognize how handsome paul was. the excitement seemed to fire his whole being, and throw some subtle human phosphorus--a light from his burning brain certainly brightened in his eyes and even in his cheeks. "come along, girls," he said hurriedly. "never mind the paraphernalia. some lonely goat might like the rags. let's get out on the road." his anxiety was of course for the mail. that leather bag meant more to him than the mere transference of uncle sam's freight--it meant his honor--his position. over the rough fields the girls followed him. hazel clung to his hand like a little sister indeed, while the others were content to keep as close as the uncertain footing would allow. presently they reached the road, then the stage coach. the other girls, who had not run to paul's rescue, were standing around breathless. paul jumped into the car--thrust his hand into the box under the floor, where he always put the government pouch. he brought up the mailbag. chapter vii a chance meeting paul lost no time in reaching cartown with the belated mail, and so was obliged to leave the girls an the road with scant ceremony, hardly pausing to discuss why he had been bound when no apparent robbery had been perpetrated. hazel appeared so agitated that cora insisted upon her returning to the kimball home to dinner, and also had succeeded in getting a promise from paul that he would come there as early in the evening as it would be possible for him to do so. then, when the mail car was lost sight of, and the motor girls started again on their homeward way, clip insisted upon leading. "i know the variety of bandit," she declared, "and i want to meet him personally. he is sure to fall dead in love with me on the spot. and, oh, girls! think of it! me and the bandit!" even hazel laughed. the suggestion called up a picture of the disgraceful clip in robber uniform, with the proverbial red handkerchief on her head, and all the rest of the disreputable accessories. clip would "look the part." but the thayer machine was not noted for its beauty or service--it had the reputation of bolting always at the "psychological moment," and when clip dashed forward to meet her fate, the fate of the turtle (as her car was called) intercepted her. with a jerk the turtle tossed up its head, bounced clip off her seat, and then stopped. "oh!" exclaimed the girl. "isn't this the utmost! and i about to meet my bandit! now i suppose i will have to leave turtle here to afford the foe a means of escape. i say, girls, isn't that the utmost?" she jumped out of the car and, with a superficial glance at the fractious machine, waited for cora's car. "come on, ray," she said to her companion. "no use sitting there. that car will never, move unless it is dragged. i know her. no use monkeying with tools. when she stops, she stops, and we may as well make up our minds to it." "but," argued ray, "you have not even attempted to find out what is the matter. perhaps we could fix it up--" "no use attempting. i would find the whole thing the matter. just feel," she suggested, putting her ungloved hand on the radiator. "you could make beef stew on any of her lids. oh, i know this kind of hot box! i've boiled the water, and the cylinders are stuck." by this time the other girls had come along. cora insisted upon looking over the disabled machine, and, while she did so, clip deliberately made herself comfortable in the whirlwind. "get in with daisy," she called to ray. "this will do me." "can't we tow it?" asked cora. "why should you leave your machine out here? and it is almost dark!" "that's the reason," replied clip. "it is almost dark, and i prefer to leave the machine here as a little token of my love to the bandit. suppose i want to be 'run in' for traveling without a glimmer'?" cora saw that argument was useless. reluctantly she turned from the turtle. ray climbed in with daisy and maud. bess and belle were ready to start "from the seat," without cranking up. cora gave the whirlwind a few turns. "i hope we get home without any further trouble," came from the folds of ray's blue veil. "i think we have had enough for one day." "enough!" echoed clip. "why, i could stand ten times that much! i love trouble--in the abstract." "suppose you call this the abstract," almost sneered daisy, who evidently did not relish being crowded. "certainly i do," declared clip. "just gaze on the abstracted turtle!" "who's that?" whispered hazel nervously. a step could be heard in the roadway. "my bandit!" breathed clip. "oh, my darling, desperate bandit!" "hush!" cautioned cora, for she felt the possibility of paul's captors being about still. then two figures appeared from the sharp turn in the road. cora wanted to start, but hesitated. the figures came closer. they were those of two well-dressed men; that was easily discernable. clip put her hand over her heart. "oh-h=h!" she groaned audibly. "isn't he handsome!" hazel clutched at her sleeve. "do stop!" she begged. "they may be--" "they are!" answered clip, and, as the men halted beside the turtle, she deliberately jumped out and approached them. the other girls were spellbound. cora, too, left her place--she knew cecilia's recklessness and felt it her duty to stand by her. the two strange men looked first at the girls and then at the car. "had an accident?" asked the taller of the two politely. "oh, no, it's chronic," answered clip flippantly, much to cora's dismay. the men were evidently gentlemen. they were well dressed, and had the mannerisms of culture. "perhaps i can help you," suggested one, taking from his pocket a wrench. "i always carry tools--meet so many 'chronics,'" and he laughed lightly. "come on," called hazel from the whirlwind. "you know, paul will be waiting, cora." at this the men both started. he with the wrench ceased his attempt to open the motor hood. the other looked toward hazel. "oh, i see," he said with affected ease. "your friend promised to meet you, and you are late." "my brother," said hazel curtly. "paul hastings," said cora quickly, before she knew why. "oh!" almost whistled the taller man. "i see; of the whitehall company?" "do you know him?" demanded cora rather sharply. "slight-ly," drawled the stout man, he with the wrench. "well, we had best not detain you, young ladies," said the other, "as you have so important an engagement," and with that they both turned off. "what do you think of that?" exclaimed cora. "the utmost!" replied clip, in her favorite way of expressing "the limit." "they knew paul!" gasped hazel. "seemed to," answered cora evasively. she had her opinions and doubts as to who these gentlemen might be. "just my luck," murmured clip. "i rather liked the tall fellow, but i noticed that the other carried a gold filigree fountain pen, had a perfectly dear watch charm, and he talked like a lawyer." "oh, my!" exclaimed cora. "you did size him up. i only noticed that he was a joint short on his right-hand thumb." "that, my dear, is termed a professional thumb-mark. we will know him if we meet him in the dark," said clip. cora laughed. she felt, however, more serious than she cared to have the others know. "well, let's be off this time," she said. "we will hardly make town before dark now." chapter viii jack and clip "a deliberate trick of cecilia's," murmured daisy. "she pretends to be so off-hand," answered maud. "i have always noticed that that sort of girl is the greatest schemer." "to leave her car out on the road, and then boldly ask jack kimball to go with her to fetch it. who ever heard of such a thing? i wonder cora tolerates her." "cora is what some people call 'easy,'" said daisy with uncertain meaning. "she takes her chances in choosing friends." "did they fetch the car back?" "i saw it at the garage this morning. i do hope it cannot be fixed. i mean," maud hurried to say, "i hope she will not hamper us with it on our tour. it is only fit for the junkman." daisy and maud were walking toward the post office. it was the morning after the adventure on the road, and the two girls had heard from ray stuart something of the news they were now discussing. the hold-up of paul hastings was to them not so important as the fact that cecilia thayer had gone over to kimball's and actually asked jack kimball to take her out woodbine way to tow home the balky turtle. but, precisely as her friend had said, clip was a schemer. in the first place, she had no idea of detaining her companions on the lonely road to "monkey with the machine," so soon after paul's hold-up. next, she had no idea of leaving the car there at the mercy of fate. instead, she deliberately went over to kimball's after dinner, asked jack to take her out woodbine way, and incidentally suggested that he take along a gun. jack had two good friends, each opposite the other in type. bess robinson was very much admired by him; and cecilia thayer, she who always played the tomboy to the extent of affording a good time for others when she could actually disguise a serious reason in the joke, she who affected the "strained" nurse costume for fun, when it was a real necessity--jack kimball liked cecilia thayer. her rather limited means often forced her to make sport of circumstances, but, in every case, cecilia "won out." she was, the boys said, "no knocker." so it happened as daisy related. clip did ask jack to go with her to fetch home the car. it also happened that they encountered sid wilcox on the way. he seemed to be returning alone in his auto from cartown. sid told ida, ida told ray, ray told daisy and daisy told maud. daisy and maud were inseparable chums. they agreed on everything--from admiration for jack kimball and walter pennington, to dislike for cecilia thayer, and something akin to jealousy for the robinson girls. cora was beyond criticism--they simply "regarded her." "and," spoke daisy, as they turned into the green, "i do believe that the boys played that trick on paul. i thought when they hurried so to get away that they were up to something." "queer joke," commented maud. "didn't you think those strange men acted suspiciously?" asked daisy. "how could they do otherwise when cecilia acted as she did? i never saw a girl so forward." "i suppose she will have some boys tagging after us on our tour, if her car is fixable," went on daisy in sarcastic tones. "likely she will find some excuse for stopping at hotels, and such places. mother insisted i should not go to any public eating place unless we have some older person along. but cecilia--she is old or young, just as it suits her." "there's bess and belle!" exclaimed maud, as the robinson twins' runabout swerved into the avenue. "and there are jack--and cecilia!" daisy fairly gasped the words. at that instant the two last named persons, in jack's little car, came up to the turn. cecilia looked almost pretty--even her critics admitted that, secretly. of course, jack was always handsome. "i wonder how bess feels," remarked daisy with scornfully curled lip. "she thinks a lot of jack," replied maud, as both bowed to the occupants of the runabout. "where do you suppose they are going?" went on daisy. "oh, probably to see about having the old car fixed up. of course, when she got jack to fetch it she will manage to have him attend to the rest." bess and belle were now abreast of the girls on the sidewalk. the twins bowed pleasantly, while the others nodded in return. "i wish mother had not gone to town this morning," said daisy. "i would just like to see where they are all going." "your mother took the car?" "yes; and she won't be home until evening. well, i declare if there isn't cora and--" "walter pennington," finished maud. "she is almost as changeable as her brother." "isn't it too mean that we have to walk," complained daisy. "i have a mind to go over to the garage and ask for a car. father often gets one." "oh, yes. doctors are always having breakdowns. do you suppose you could get one?" "well, i am going to try, at any rate," and daisy bennet quickened her pace, while maud morris hurried along with her companion. it was but a few minutes' walk to the garage, and when the girls reached the entrance they were surprised to find the three automobiles, jack's, cora's and the twins' pulled up outside. "oh, i can't go in now," demurred daisy. "we will have to wait until they go. funny they should be taking a morning run, without asking us along." paul hastings was talking to the robinson girls. it was evident that he was much excited. cora was on the sidewalk, and cecilia was beside her. jack stood off to one side with walter. "some important consultation," whispered daisy. "i'll wager it's about the hold-up." "of course, father knows you had nothing to do with it," bess was saying to paul, "but he is positive the papers were in that mail. corn, thought it best we should let you know right away." "forewarned is forearmed," said paul. then daisy and maud came up to the group. "my!" exclaimed daisy. "quite a gathering." "yes," answered clip. "we are glad you came. now our meeting is complete. we want evidence. tell us all you know about the strange men. you had a good chance to observe. you were not in the little quadrille on the road." "why," stammered daisy, "i thought them very nice-looking men. they were well dressed, and--" "that's it," interrupted jack. "they were nice men, well dressed. what else do you expect young ladies to observe? clip, your suspicions are not borne out by facts. not a girl in the party but yourself saw--what was it? the corner of the missing blue envelope in the upper right-hand pocket--" "jack kimball! you know perfectly well i never said such a thing. i did see something blue, but it might have been--" "a captured shadow from daisy's eyes," said walter dryly. "what happened?" breathed maud. then walter realized what a girl's eyes may do in the matter of "imploring." he deliberately stepped over to maud's side. "oh, some valuable papers were taken from the mailbag," volunteered clip. "and we thought the strange men might have found them." "you cheerful fibber," whispered jack. "come on, if you expect to get to cartown to-day." "how can we, now?" asked clip in an undertone. "just jump in and go," replied jack. "why should we explain?" jack cranked up his car, and in her usual deliberate way, cecilia thayer stepped into the runabout, pulled on her gloves, smoothed out the robe, and then said: "good morning!" jack and clip left the others standing in surprise and, perhaps, disappointment. only cora guessed where they were actually going. chapter ix the mysterious ride the fact that cecilia thayer could be old or young, as had been remarked by one of her companions, was not a mere saying. the thayers were strangers in chelton, and cecilia was now only home from school on a vacation. it was generally understood that the girl was not exactly a daughter of the small household, but perhaps a niece, or some relative, who made her home with the people. she never invited her friends to her home, but this was not considered strange, as her means plainly were not equal to the circumstances of those with whom she associated. not that cecilia sought this class, because she was constantly sought by them--she was a brilliant, happy young girl, and, as such, was a most desirable adjunct to the chelton younger set. it was, of course, cora kimball who "took her up," and that fact was sufficient to vouch for all. the girl and jack were well on the road to woodbine the morning of the little meeting by the garage, when, with a very different expression of countenance to that shown to the party by the roadside, cecilia grasped at the arm of the young man beside her. "it's awfully good of you, jack," she said, "and i suppose i am taking desperate chances." "good! the idea! it's a privilege," he answered warmly. "you suspect, of course." "i have suspected," he said with a light laugh. "and if the girls find out?" "what of it? is it a disgrace to--" "hush! i haven't qualified yet, and when i do i'm going to spring it on them." she tossed her head back defiantly. "won't some of them howl!" jack laughed outright. "you're a brick, clip," he exclaimed. "you can count on cora, too. does she know?" "i haven't told her, but i imagine she has guessed. you are a great family at guessing." "which way?" he inquired, nodding toward a fork in the road. "to the left. isn't it too mean that our old lumber wagon gave way? i never had more need of it. it's just splendid of you to help me out this way." "and good of you to let me," he replied with a keen glance at the girl's bright face. "of course i had no idea of going on the girls' trip. i only went in for the arrangements for the fun of the thing. i seem to need an awful lot of fun," she finished with a sigh that ended like a groan. "oh, we all do, more or less," spoke jack. "only some of us are more upright than others in the way we acknowledge it." they were turning up to the salvey cottage. cecilia pointed it out. "you must expect to sign the promise book," she said. "that is a condition of admittance." "so cora told me. well, i'll sign. can't tell which name may win the prize." "of course i'll see wren first. but before we go she will insist upon seeing you. and--don't mind her extravagances about me. you know, she sees so few people that she thinks i am just wonderful." "i agree with her. but you can count upon my discretion, if that is what you want, clip." "you're 'immense,' jack!" exclaimed the girl, her smile apologizing for the vulgarity of the expression. "if i had a brother like you--" "hush! your brother! why, clip!" "here we are," she interrupted; and she prepared to get out as jack stopped the car. "suppose you stay outside until i call you?" "oh, if i must. but be sure to call. i've had cora play that trick, and forget the cue." "oh, she'll have to see you," and with that cecilia jumped out of the car, and presently touched the brass knocker of the little cottage. jack was left to his own thoughts. wasn't she a girl, though? so like cora in her impulses. well, a girl has to be impulsive to get ahead--she is so ridiculously hampered by conventionalities. it seemed a long time before clip reappeared at the door, and beckoned him to come in. then the room he entered smelled strongly of antiseptics, and the crippled child sat in a chair made sweet and fresh with snowy pillows. wren had her promise book in her hands. briefly cecilia introduced jack, while the child eyed him keenly, as do those deprived of the usual means of making sure of their friends. "you know about my promise," she said shyly. "grandpa's will is lost in an old table, and will you promise to help find it?" "indeed i will," said jack warmly, taking the pen offered. "i have a weakness for hunting old furniture, and i hope it will be my good fortune to find the table." "how much you are like your sister," said wren, referring to cora, "but not a bit like your cousin." this caused both jack and cecilia to laugh--she jack's cousin! mrs. salvey patted the child's head. "she is so much better lately," she said, "since she has been friends with miss thayer." "her friendship is wonderful," said jack, handing back the book. "it does me all sorts of good." cecilia was pulling on her gloves. she picked up the small black satchel (her hand bag, she called it), and started for the door. "that hand bag smells like--" "fresh eggs," she interrupted jack. "understand, young man, i had to come out here to get one dozen of strictly fresh eggs." for a moment she looked intently at jack, as if determined to put him on his honor without further explanation. he took her hand and assisted her into the car. as he did so she felt the assurance that jack kimball was her friend. then they started back to chelton. chapter x "they're off!" "isn't it too mean? i never thought that cecilia would act so. i think jack knows why." bess robinson was talking to cora. her voice betrayed something other than disappointment. bess now called cecilia by her full name--the affectionate "clip" had been laid aside. besides this she hesitated when jack's name was needed in her conversation. the fact was perfectly evident. jack's attention to cecilia, their runaway ride, and the consequent talk, had rather hurt bess. jack had always been a very good friend to her. "but clip simply can't come," said cora. "her machine is out of order, and, besides this, she is called away to look after some sick relative." "cora kimball!" exclaimed bess. "you're a perfect baby. sick relative! why, every one sickens a relative when they want to go away in a hurry. it might be interesting to know who else has a made-up sick relative who demands, say, jack's immediate attention." "why, bess! i'm surprised that you should speak so bitterly. you know perfectly well that jack's going to the races. you heard them make all the arrangements--jack, ed and walter. besides--" cora stopped. she tossed back her pretty head as if too disgusted to speak. she was packing the last of her touring things into the hampers of the whirlwind. she would have everything ready for the early start next morning. bess robinson had run over for final instructions, when cora announced that cecilia thayer could not go with them on the motor girls' tour. this information drove all other details from the mind of bess. and now cora was locking her boxes. "oh, i suppose we will get along very well without her," said bess finally. "in fact, it may be better that she does not come, for she is bound to be doing things that are risky." "well, we will miss her, i'm sure," said cora, "for she is such good company. but we will have to manage." "has belle all your tools packed? don't forget candles; they are so handy when anything happens after dark. i always fetch them. they poke under little places so nicely." "oh, i fancy belle has managed to take along the candelabra. at least, i think i can count on the glass candlesticks. poor belle! i wonder will she ever leave off that sort of thing. she cares more or an 'effect' than for a good square meal," answered bess. "alt kinds make a world," replied cora. "suppose she were as sensible as you or i? why, as well take away the flowers, and plant kindling wood." bess laughed. cora turned up the path with her. "i met ray," said bess, "buying a new veil, of course. i would hate to be as pretty as ray, and have so much trouble to keep up the reputation. that's the worst of pretty girls. they really have to keep pretty." "and daisy? was she buying a new novel to read en route? they might both do better to 'chip in' and buy a new kit of tools," said cora. at precisely eight forty-five o'clock the next morning the whirlwind drew up in front of the post-office. the start was to be made from that point, and cora was first to arrive. with her were hazel hastings, and gertrude adams, a school friend of cora's. two minutes later the flyaway puffed into sight with the robinson twins smiling serenely from her two-part seat. scarcely had the occupants of the two car exchanged greetings than daisy bennet and maud morris drove up in the bennet runabout, called the breeze. on account of the change of plan, ray stuart was to ride with cora, instead of with clip, as was at first proposed. ray met the girls at the post-office. as predicted, she did look like a brand new bisque statue. she wore a soft silk coat, of light green pongee, the same shade hood, over which "rested," one might say, a long white chiffon veil. it reposed on the hood, where two secret pins held it, but otherwise the veil was mingled with ray's expression and the surrounding atmosphere. the girls sighed as they beheld her. she had been waiting for some minutes in the post-office, and needless to say there were others waiting, too--not altogether engrossed in reading the latest mail. cora stepped out of the whirlwind and opened the tonneau door for ray. hazel and she were to ride within the car, while gertrude shared the seat with cora. cora wore her regular motor togs. the close-fitting pongee coat showed off well her perfect figure, and with the french bonnet, that nestled so snugly to her black tresses there was no semblance to the flaring, loose effect so common to motorists. she looked more like a paris model than a girl equipped for a tour. but cora had that way--she was always "classy," as the boys expressed it, or in perfect style, as the girls would admit. hazel usually affected strong shades--she was dark and could wear reds and browns to good advantage. it so happened that the motor girls afforded a peculiar variety, no two wearing similar outfits. timid little maud morris was in white, and daisy was in linen. the robinson girls wore their regular uniform--bess in havana-brown and belle in true-blue. so it will be seen that such an array of beauty and clothes could not help but attract attention, to say nothing of the several automobiles that made up the procession in front of the post-office. at the last moment belle had to run into a store to make some trifling purchases, while daisy sent two extra postcards, and ray needed something from the drug store. finally all was ready. it was just nine o'clock. "ready!" called cora. a blast on a bugle startled them. then-what was it? it looked like a hay wagon, but it came along at the speed of a fine auto. "the boys!" called the girls in one breath. sure enough, there were jack, walter, ed and some others of their chums, piled up on a veritable hay rack, and they wore all sorts of farmer clothes. the hay rack evidently set upon the body of are automobile. and jack on the "monkey seat," blowing that bugle! "start!" called cora. "they're off!" shouted the chorus from the hay wagon, and then chelton folks were treated to a sight the like of which they had never before witnessed. it was the first official tour of the original motor girls. chapter xi those dreadful boys "no boys, eh?" shouted ed from his "perch" in the hay. "aren't they dreadful?" exclaimed daisy with doubtful sincerity. "hope mother doesn't hear of it," replied maud. "she would be sure to worry." cora laughed, and bess fairly panted. belle tossed something into the hay wagon as it passed--it made a practice of passing each machine in turn, and then doing it all over again. every one in chelton and the near-by places rushed out as the procession went along. it was like a circus--many folks really did believe that a "railroad show" had come to town unannounced. the girls had planned to have dinner at a pretty little tea-house on the outskirts of hollyville. but the boys had no intention of turning back, it seemed, and imagine those boys in the tea-house, kept by a couple of enterprising college girls! "hey there!" called jack. "when do we eat? there's the noon whistles." "yon don't eat," replied cora. "don't, eh? well, look out for your commissary department," answered jack. "we came prepared to fight." "oh," sighed daisy, "do you suppose they will spoil all our boxes?" "i'm sure i don't know," replied the noncommital maud. but hazel said: "what do you suppose they are up to?" "trust them for fun," answered cora. "i will simply trounce jack if he attempts to overhaul our stores." hazel laughed merrily. "if only paul were along," she ventured. "and, cora, do you know that mailbag business is not by any means settled?" she asked. "i know that, girlie," said cora with polite seriousness, "but all troubles are tabooed on this ride, you know. gertrude," to the girl who had been looking and listening, "i appoint you monitor of this car. the first girl to bring in troubles is to be fined." "very well," replied gertrude, "i shall be glad to have something to do. i feel like a stranger with those boys." "that's because you do not know them," ventured ray. "they are perfectly splendid boys." "make a note of that," called cora. "gertrude, that is one mark in favor of ray." the procession was winding along a pretty country road. trees closed in from side to side, and deep gutters outlined the driveway from the footpath. the boys had actually ceased their antics for the time, and it occurred to more than one girl that this respite might have been more advantageous if it had been put into operation in the city streets--the decorum was wasted in the woods. but boys have a queer reasoning code--where girls are concerned. "don't you suppose they will turn back before we reach the glen?" called bess to cora. their machines were running quite close together. "if they don't leave us we will drive past the teahouse, and come back later," said cora. "but what will the college girls think? they will be sure to have a nice lunch ready." "when tillie sees ed foster she will cease to think. she knows ed," and cora laughed significantly. "oh, look!" shouted hazel. "a flock of sheep. and directly in the track. the boys--" at that moment every one saw the sheep. the hay wagon made a spurt and dashed straight through the frightened herd, scattering them right and left, like feathers blown by the wind. daisy and maud came next. they had time to jam down the brakes, but it would have been wiser to have dashed through the flock without loss of time, for an angry ram turned as the car slacked speed, and when daisy and maud saw him jump toward them, they also jumped out into the gutter, deserting their car. a big, woolly ram leaped up from the midst of the flock, and actually landed in the runaway automobile. the improvised hay wagon was quickly steered to one side, just as daisy's car, with the horned beast at the wheel, plunged past. the machine, in charge of the queer mechanician, plunged straight ahead, and after a moment's hesitation on the part of their drivers, the other cars were quickly sent after it. the boys shouted lustily. as if the frightened and angry ram cared for the harmony of a college quartet. wasn't it ridiculous to see the ram positively driving the car? by some strange instinct the animal had raised its fore legs to the rim of the steering wheel, standing upright on his hind ones, which were jamming the brake and clutch pedals. "oh!" screamed the girls in a chorus. "there comes a runabout! he'll collide with it!" a runabout, coming in the opposite direction, and headed straight for the ram, could be seen down the road. the driver was a girl, that was evident, but she was so muffled in hood, veil and cloak that her features were not discernible. "stop it!" screamed gertrude. "she'll be killed." the ram evidently saw the other car coming, and tried to leap out, but its fore feet had gone through the spaces between the spokes of the steering wheel. the girl in the runabout was sending her car from side to side, in a frantic endeavor to avoid a collision. it seemed to be a choice with her, whether she should smash into the ram's car, or tilt into the roadside ditch. suddenly the girl stood up. the eyes of the motor girls and their boy companions were on her. she gave a scream, and then--something happened. from the rear cars came a scream. then--the breeze was stopped--the ram was gone, and the runabout was ditched. where and who was the unfortunate driver? chapter xii the girl in the ditch when all the machines had been stopped there was a wild rush to the rescue--bess and belle with gertrude hurrying back to where daisy and maud had been left, while cora, ray and hazel ran forward to the side of the strange runabout. the boys divided themselves--some going in each direction. presently cora shouted "jack! jack! hurry! it's clip! and she is unconscious!" jack was not far away, and at his sister's call he hurried to her. ray had taken cecilia's head in her lap, while cora was trying to lift the unconscious girl from her bent-up posture in the narrow, roadside, grass-grown ditch. "oh, the poor dear!" sighed cora. "to think that our sport should have--" cecilia was opening her eyes. "clip! clip, dear!" whispered cora. "try to--wake up!" cecilia did try--she put her hand to her dazed eyes. "here! let me lift her," commanded jack, slipping down on the other side into the deep grass and without any apparent effort lifting cecilia up. with one long step he reached the road. then for a moment he seemed uncertain--should he lay the girl down, or carry her to a machine? "oh, i can stand," she said faintly. "i am much better now. what--happened?" "you happened," answered jack, so dismissing the question. "just keep still, and we will have you around directly. this is where you beat the motor girls." he was now helping her to her feet. "you may ride back with the motor boys." "are you better?" asked ray anxiously, stroking cecilia's white hand, which had been divested of its glove. "wasn't it dreadful?" "very," sighed cecilia. "and my poor little machine! jack, how can i ever--" "you can never," he insisted with a wink. "i never saw such a rambunctious ram. didn't he ramify, though?" "what in the world was it?" asked cecilia. she was sitting on the grass and seemed almost prepared to laugh. "i thought i must be seeing things. then i--" "felt things," said jack. "that's the regular course of the disease. here come the others. hello, daisy has the veil tied up, and maud is limping." "what happened to them?" asked cecilia. "same thing that happened to you," replied jack. "the ram. that was the most happening thing i have seen in some time." maud was limping, and had ed's arm. daisy kept her hand to her face, and she clung to walter. hazel flashed a meaning look to cora. the girls might not be very badly injured, but they needed help--that sort of help. "well!" exclaimed cora. "you look as if something did happen." "oh, i'm all scratched," fluttered daisy. "that is, my face feels like a grater." she took her handkerchief from the abused face. a few harmless scratches were discernible. "not so bad," said jack. "just the correct lines, i believe, for--let me see--intellectuality." "oh, you needn't joke," snapped daisy. "i suppose cecelia--is--badly hurt!" she said this with the evident intention of drawing attention to jack's attitude toward cecilia. "now, daisy," said jack good-naturedly, "if you want to dump in the ditch again, and will only give me the chance, i will be perfectly delighted to fish you out: i fancy i would get you first shot." "oh, you need not bother," interrupted walter. "i can take care of miss bennet." at this he spread his handkerchief most carefully on the grass, and, with mock concern, assisted daisy to the low seat. ed followed suit, adding to the handkerchief cushion his cap--to make the grass softer for maud. "but however did you happen along, cecilia?" asked belle, who now added her dainty self to the line of girls on the roadside. "now, here!" called jack. "no more happenings! i beg your pardon, belle, but we have had such a surfeit of this happening business that we intend, in the language of the poets, to cut it out." cecilia gave jack a grateful glance. cora broke in promptly with a new thought--to divert attention. "and you are the girls who wanted 'no boys!'" exclaimed walter. "i should just like to know what you would have done without us?" "there! didn't i tell you?" said cora. "they are actually claiming the glory of the whole thing. i suppose, walter, you hired the ram to do the proper thing in initiating the motor girls in the art of touring?" "wouldn't he make a hit, though, at some of our college affairs!" exclaimed ed. "i wonder if we could buy the beast? here comes the owner now." the girls looked alarmed. suppose the farmer should blame them for the disappearance of the ram! "i'll do the talking," suggested walter. "if you say anything, jack, there might be a row." "humph!" said jack. "i suppose you know just how to deal with ram owners." the farmer was quite up to them now. he was not an ill-natured-looking man, and as he approached he touched his big straw hat. "no one hurt?" he asked, much to the girls' relief. "oh, no, thank you," said cora, before walter could open his mouth. "i hope you have not lost the sheep." "lose him! couldn't do that if you chucked him in the mill-pond and let the dam loose on him. only yesterday the plagued thing went for my wife. yes, sir, and he 'most knocked her down. when i seed your steam wagons comin' along i knowed there would be trouble. he's that pesky!" the man looked at the disabled machine. "busted?" he asked. "some," replied walter. "but i guess we can manage. would you like to sell that ram?" "sell him? what for? to kill folks as try to feed him? i bought him from a fellow who always wore an overcoat, and, bless me, that ram got so used to it if i haven't had to put my ulster on the hottest days this summer to do down to the pasture where he was chewin'." the boys laughed heartily at this. walter seemed keener than ever now on making a bargain. "well, you see," he said, "we might use the fellow for stunts--tricks. i think we might train him--" a scream from belle startled them. "oh!" she yelled. "there he comes! what shall we do?" without waiting for instructions, however, belle, with the other girls, jumped up and started for a little cottage not far from the roadside. the ram was coming over the fields straight for the autos. "now wait," cautioned the farmer, as the boys made ready to confront the animal. "just keep back until he gets near that machine. then maybe we can git him." "he's game sport, all right," said walter. "he evidently hasn't had enough." the brush and low trees along the road made it possible for the young men to hide, while the excited animal dashed through the tall grass out into the road. he went straight for the hay wagon. with a bound he was in the decorated auto, like a beast in a cage, with the rack and hay trimmings surrounding him. "now we've got him," said the farmer; "that is, if we're careful." "how?" whispered ed. "someone must lasso him." the farmer held out the rope in his hand, making a loop ready to throw over the ram's head. the girls had reached the cottage, but were calling to the boys all sorts of warning and cautions. "when he gets at the hay," said the farmer, "i guess he'll eat. that run likely whet up his appetite." "more fun than a deer hunt," said jack, laughing. "i wonder what will turn up next on this motor girls' tour." "get busy," said ed, creeping toward the hay wagon. "now, walter-oh, glory be! if he isn't at my four-dollar gloves!" quick, like the well=trained athlete that he was, ed grabbed the rope from the farmer, sprang to the hay rack and made a cast. it landed true on the animal's horns. "i've got him!" exclaimed the boy. "now, fellows, quick! make his legs fast." no need to say "quick," for the boys were up and busy making fast the beast before the surprised farmer had a chance to exclaim. "so you like the real thing in gloves?" asked ed while pulling at the rope. "well, i fancy you will make something real--perhaps a robe--for the best record of this trip. oh, i say, fellows, let's buy the brute, have him done up properly, and offer his coat to the girl who comes home with a record." shouts of glee followed this suggestion, and the girls, seeing that the animal was made safe, were now running back from the cottage to add their voices to the excitement. clip insisted upon helping to tie the ram--she declared he had done his share toward making it uncomfortable for her--while daisy, in her timid way, wanted to do something to the "saucy thing" for upsetting her, and jack suggested that she "box his horrid ears." cora glanced at her watch. "if it's all the same to the gentlemen," she said, "we will continue on our way. we have lost a full hour already." "lost!" repeated walter meaningly. "she said 'lost,'" faltered ed with similar intent. "not actually lost," corrected cora, "but at least dropped out of our itinerary." "we were due ten miles ahead now," sighed maud in her wistful way. "too bad, too bad," whimpered jack, who was still pulling at the ram's rope. "but it was not our fault, girls. now, daisy, do you think you can run your machine without taking in any more circuses? we have examined your car, and it is intact--not so much as a footprint did the naughty beast leave." clip was looking over her runabout. it was not damaged, it seemed, and for this she was most grateful. clip was not out for pleasure--you have guessed that--and it would have been highly inconvenient for that young lady to go back to town in the hay. jack left off at the ram's horn, and came to crank up for her. "all right, clip?" he asked with evident concern. "i don't want you to go over that lonely road if you do not feel just like it. i can go with you." "you!" she exclaimed. "why, jack kimball, what are you thinking about?" and she laughed airily. "if you want to finish the impression we started the other day, just take another ride with me. no, jack, my dear boy, i am very much all right, and very much obliged. but i must hurry off. whatever will my little brown wren think of me?" she stepped into the car. "good-by, girls," she called. "i am so sorry i delayed you, but so glad we met. take care of the ram, boys, and am i eligible for the trophy? i am a motor girl, you know." "of course you are," said jack, before the others could speak. "all motor girls are eligible." "ida giles, too?" asked bess. the moment she had spoken she could have bitten her tongue. why could she never hide her feelings about jack and clip? "and, girls," called cecilia, who was starting now, "don't forget about your promise. wren is counting on results." "what promise?" asked ed. "oh, don't you know?" replied cora. "well, i am afraid jack will have to tell you. we really have not another moment. are you ready, girls?" "why, our strange promise," put in maud, who was glad to have a "real remark" to make to ed. "we promised a little girl we would find an old table for her and we have just ransacked the farmer's house, hoping to find it." cora burst out laughing. such an explanation! "why, i'll promise a 'little girl' that," said ed, taking up cora's laugh. "any qualifications? might it be a time-table?" maud pouted. she stepped into cora's car, evidently disgusted with boys in general. gertrude had something to say to walter, and was obliged to stand up on the hay rack to do so, as the young man would not let go the rope that held the ram. there was a sudden hum of an auto, and clip was gone. "thought she had a sick relative," murmured bess. "so she has," said jack, who overheard the remark. "but she came near neglecting her this morning. that was a close call." "oh, yes," said bess with a curled lip. "it seems to me everything cecilia does is close." "bess robinson!" exclaimed jack. "do you want me to hug you? you have been treating me shamefully for weeks past. now, own up. what have i done?" jack knew how to restore bess to good humor, and his success this time was marked. "you ridiculous boy!" exclaimed bess. "you know perfectly well what i mean." and jack did. chapter xiii at the grotto "we have dropped something," said cora as the party started off again. "yes," replied gertrude, "i agree with ray that the boys are jolly. we miss them already." "hush!" cautioned cora. "we are to have nothing to do with boys on this trip." she laughed at her own assertion. "nothing more to do with them?" asked belle. bess kept her machine within talking distance. "till the next time," replied cora, throwing in the second speed gear. "but we will certainly have to hurry now. what on earth do you suppose walter will do with that ram?" "what on earth do you think the ram will do with walter?" replied ray. "he paid the farmer three dollars for him, and the man declared he could have him for nothing," said belle. "now, that three dollars--" "would have bought orchids," interrupted cora, teasing belle for her sentimentality. "cora," spoke hazel suddenly, "did you hear what ed said to jack about paul's hold-up?" "the forbidden topic," interrupted gertrude. "hazel, you don't want to lose the sheepskin for insubordination, do you?" "but, gertrude, please," begged hazel quite seriously, "i really must speak to cora. i will promise not to be blue, but you know i am very anxious about paul." "then speak on, very briefly," replied gertrude. "i will allow you exactly five minutes." "thanks," said hazel. "cora," she began again, "ed told jack that the papers lost from the mail belonged to mr. robinson, and have to do with a very valuable patent. do you suppose the post-office will do anything to paul?" "oh, you precious baby!" exclaimed cora. "don't you know that paul has been entirely cleared? the mystery is simply who took the papers and otherwise left the mailbag intact?" "poor paul!" sighed the sister. "poor hazel!" added cora. "a sister who is always worrying about a handsome brother is bound to lose him, eh, gertrude?" gertrude blushed. she had only met paul once, and at that time her remark was so positive that cora had seized the opportunity of teasing the girl. that she never noticed boys was gertrude's claim at college, and now cora was delighted to have a chance of reversing the claim. daisy and maud, who had been at some distance from the whirlwind, now cut past bess and belle, making their way to the side of the big maroon car. "cora," called daisy, "i forgot to tell you. i found this little satchel by the road where we stopped." cora gazed at the black bag that daisy held up for her inspection. "why," faltered cora, "that must belong to clip. why didn't you ask to whom it did belong?" "i really never thought a word about it until maud said just now it must be clip's." "but why did you pick it up without asking?" insisted cora, her voice somewhat indignant. "it was dropped on the road. i thought of course it belonged to some of the girls, and just threw it in my car in a hurry when you called to us to hasten along," said daisy, her voice sharp and eyes flashing. "i am sure it must belong to clip," said cora, calming down. "i hope it will not inconvenience her." "i wish you would take the smelly thing," shouted daisy. "it smells like papa's office, and i hate drugs." "clip was going to see some sick relative," went on cora, "and of course the satchel--" "must be filled with the sickness," and daisy laughed sarcastically. "well, papa's bag smells that way, but he has more than one 'sick relative.'" cora frowned. gertrude looked surprised. hazel shook her head at daisy. "toss it here," called cora. "i just love disinfectants." daisy threw the bag into the whirlwind. then she put on speed and passed the big car. for a few miles the girls seemed very quiet, scarcely any conversation being held. it was but a short run to the grotto, the little wayside tea-house. the party was a full hour late, but cora knew she could depend upon generous excuses for the motor girls. so many things might happen by the way, and so many things did happen. "i suppose," murmured ray, "the biscuit will be stony. i do love hot biscuit." "don't worry. tillie will keep things hot, if she possibly can do so. but i hear they have had some very busy days at the grotto. i hope we have not hit upon the very busiest. gertrude, have i told you about the grotto? did you know that mathilde herold and adele genung are keeping a tea-house this summer, to earn enough money for their senior year? and they have done surprisingly well. yes, their folks have a summer place near the tea-house, so the girls go home nights, and of course the place must be very pretty--tillie is an artist in decorating." "splendid!" exclaimed gertrude. "of course i know tillie. what girl at springsley doesn't know her? she has been decorating for every affair at the gym. and she always helped with chapel. oh, yes, indeed, cora, i agree with you, tillie herold is an artist." "well, let us hope her talent is not confined to mere walls," said ray. "hot biscuit requires a different stroke, i believe." "in accepting us for to-day," said cora. "tillie stipulated that we should dine table d'hote and no questions asked. i hope, ray, you will not be disappointed." "oh, there they are!" exclaimed hazel. "i see some one waving her apron!" "that's adele," replied cora. "she knows how to wave aprons. don't you remember, gertrude, the night she served the welsh rarebit, when she made an apron of our best table-piece with a string through the middle?" cora turned her auto to the roadside. then she called to the cars following: "here we are, girls. get your machines well in from the road." "oh, what a charming place!" exclaimed belle, who was not slow to observe the attractions of the little grotto. it seemed all porch and vines, one of those picture places, ample for an eating house, but unsuited for anything else. "there!" gasped daisy; "that's the sort of house to live in!" "to live out of, you mean," put in maud. "i can't see how one could live 'in' there." the cars were all motionless now. cora and gertrude had already "escaped" from the college hug of adele and tillie. when the chelton girls had been introduced, the vine-covered porch was actually filled with the members of the motor party. "how splendid!" exclaimed tillie, with that delightful german accent that defies letters and requires a pretty mouth to "exhale." "darling!" went on adele, with all the extravagance of schoolgirl enthusiasm. "you leave us no adjectives," remarked cora. "i never saw anything so sweet. how ever did you get those vines to grow so promptly?" "wild cucumber," said adele with a laugh, "why, you know, dear, wild cucumber can no more help growing than you can. isn't she tall, tillie? i do believe you have grown inches since school, cora." "yes, mother bemoans it. my duds are all getting away from me." "and we have been waiting lunch for you ladies. i did hope we would not have a single visitor to-day, so that we might entertain you properly," went on adele, "but two horrid men called. wanted 'tea'; but indeed i know what they wanted--just a quiet place to talk about their old patent papers." "yes, and one broke a beautiful china cup," said tillie. "but he had his thumb gone," adele hurried to say. "i saw him directly i went to pick up the pieces. so i suppose we could not exactly blame the man for dropping tillie's real german cup." "his thumb gone!" repeated cora absently. "oh!" exclaimed hazel. "the man we met after paul's hold-up had lost a joint of his thumb." "and papa said the papers stolen were patent papers!" exclaimed bess, all excitement. "hush!" whispered belle. "bess, you know father particularly said we were not to speak of that." if, as is claimed, the mature woman has the wonderful advantage of an instinct almost divine, then the growing girl has, undoubtedly, the advantage of intuitive shocks--flashes of wireless insight into threatening surroundings. such a flash was distinctly felt now through the grotto--even the two young proprietors, who were not supposed to be really concerned, felt distinctly that "something was doing somewhere." cora sank down into a low wicker chair. bess and belle managed to both get upon a very small divan, while daisy, maud and ray, the "three graces," stood over in the corner, where an open window let in just enough honeysuckle to sift the very softest possible sunshine about the group. but hazel lingered near the telephone. she had confided to cora that paul was not at all well when he left home in the morning, and just now she was wondering if it would seem silly for her to call up the whitehall company and ask to speak with her brother. at that instant the telephone bell rang. it sent the expected shock through the little assemblage, and cora jumped up as if she anticipated a message. tillie took down the receiver. presently she was saying "no" and "yes," and then she repeated cora's name. she handed the receiver to cora with a whispered word. hazel's face went very white. "you little goose!" exclaimed bess, who instantly noticed the change. "is there no one here worth a telephone message but hazel hastings?" "yes, ed--ed foster," they heard cora say. then she listened a long time. her face did not betray pleasure, and her words were plainly disguised. "all right, ed," she said finally. "i will attend to it at once. oh, yes, a perfectly lovely time. thank you--we are just about to dine. good-by." cora was slow to hang up the receiver. and when she turned around hazel hastings confronted her. "oh, is it paul?" asked hazel. "tell me quickly. what has happened to paul?" "hazel," said cora, "you must have your lunch. you are dreadfully excitable." but it was cora kimball who was distracted, who played with her lunch without apparent appetite, and it was she who could take but one cup of tea in the fascinating little tea-house, the college girls' grotto. chapter xiv the promise book lost "now, cora, dear," began gertrude, in her quiet, yet convincing way, "you may just as well tell us what you are waiting for. we are guessing all sorts of things, and the truth cannot possibly be as bad." they were sitting on the porch of the grotto, and although they were away behind scheduled time at that point, cora insisted she wanted to rest a bit, and seemed loath to move. cora kimball tired after twenty-five miles! as well accuse the whirlwind of drinking its own gasoline. hazel was almost feverish. cora had not divulged the purport of the telephone message, beyond admitting it was from ed, which gave ray the chance for her little joke on the combination of names--cora and ed, the "co-eds." "when the co-eds conspire," lisped ray, "we may as well wait patiently. we will have to wait their pleasure, of course." cora did not mind the sarcasm. she was certainly not like herself. bess and belle were even anxious about her, and offered all sorts of remedies, from bicarbonate of soda to dry tea. "now," said cora finally, "it is two o'clock. do you really think we ought to make breakwater tonight?" "why not?" gasped daisy. "won't aunt may be waiting for us? and it is only thirty miles." "yes, but," faltered cora, "suppose you should have a breakdown on that lonely road? there is neither station nor house from here to the falls." "what should break down?" asked daisy. "this is papa's best machine, if you mean it is not trustworthy." "oh, daisy, dear, i had no idea of insinuating such a thing. your machine, of course, is just as trustworthy as any of the others. but i was thinking how delightful it would be to spend the night here. i really must confess to being broken up by that ram accident," and cora shivered slightly. the girls looked at her in astonishment. her words did not ring true; cora kimball was a poor actress. "if cora wants to stay," said tillie, "i should think you would all agree. cora is captain, is she not?" "but our trip will be spoiled," wailed maud. "i do wish i had never come." "oh, if there is going to be real distress about it," said cora, evidently trying hard to pull herself together, "i suppose we had best start. but remember, i have warned you. i have a premonition that we will 'run up against' something before night." "then i am not going," declared hazel. "i won't stir one step. cora, let the others go; you can overtake them with your fast car, and we will meet them in the morning." this brought on a veritable storm of protest and dissatisfaction. cora left the girls on the porch, and went outside with tillie. "could you hear anything those men were saying?" she asked the pretty little german. "were they discussing a patent, do you think?" "oh, no; it was not like that," replied tillie. "it was about--let me see. some haster, no, like a name--like your friend's name, hazel hastings. that was it, hastings." "did they say hazel?" pressed cora. "no, not that, of course," and tillie laughed. "how should they know hazel? it was a similar name--just hastings." "and they unfolded blueprints? like our campus maps, you know?" "yes, they had blue maps; i saw them when i picked up my shattered cup.--it is all very well for adele to blame his thumb; i blame him--he is too fat, and thinks himself very smart." tillie pouted. evidently her caller had not been too polite, perhaps he had mistaken her for an ordinary waitress. a distant "honk-honk" startled the girls. cora rushed out to the road, and before the others knew what she was about she was in conversation with ed foster. so quickly did he run up to the grotto in jack's car that no one but cora realized who he was until the machine was stopped and he was out beside her. there was a stranger with him--a business-like looking man. he did not leave the car. "there!" exclaimed ray. "didn't i tell you? it was this co-ed business that kept her. cora can't fool me." "hazel," said cora, stepping up to the porch, "ed thinks you had best not go on with us. paul is not well--he is not very sick, though--" hazel turned white, and cora put her arm around her. "now you must not be frightened. it is nothing serious, and i will go back with you," she said. "indeed you shall not!" exclaimed hazel, now calling up all her courage, and proving herself to be the girl she really could be in an emergency. "i shall go back with ed, if i may." the girls glanced from one to the other. they understood this was an emergency, that hazel had been called back to her sick brother, yet with girlish curiosity some of them, at least, showed surprise that hazel should offer to ride back with ed foster. "but i am not going back," said ed; "at least not until we--this gentleman and i--have followed the trail a little farther. you see, girls, we are out on a 'bear hunt.'" but the girls did not see--only cora looked as if she understood. she said to hazel: "there is no hurry, dear. you can go with them when they come back. they have to pass this way, don't you, ed?" "would you mind, cora," said ed suddenly, "if the gentleman outside asked you a few private questions?" "a reporter!" exclaimed ray, all excitement. "dear me! i do hope he won't ask for our pictures. mother would never permit it." ed smiled broadly. he looked a sort of assent, but did not otherwise express it. cora stepped up to the auto, whereat the man left his place, and, under pretext of walking along idly, and perhaps thus gaining cora's "private ear," he was soon out of reach of those on the porch. "it is like a double robbery," he said after exchanging some preliminary remarks, "and the child is disconsolate. her mother is sure it was not stolen, but lost, while we feel otherwise. it seems there is a handsome young man, a cousin of the child's, interested. his father is a lawyer--the lawyer who has the case against mr. robinson. now this book--the promise book--contained the names of those who visited the cottage on the day that the papers were taken out of the mailbag. it is comparatively easy to guess the sequence." "you mean they might call on those whose names appear in the book?" asked cora, beginning to see something of the complex situation. "yes, and more than that. they would obtain valuable information from that little book--a clear description of the missing table. if they can find it they will be able to keep the property where it is now--in the possession of rob roland, wren salvey's rival cousin." "rob roland!" exclaimed cora. "why, he was in the party at robinson's the other evening. he was even attentive to a friend of ours." "to whom, may i ask?" inquired the detective politely. "a miss thayer, a young student," she replied. "miss thayer! i heard her name mentioned in court this morning. is she a friend of yours?" "yes, indeed!" exclaimed cora, now alarmed. "what could be said of cecilia thayer?" "why, she has been on very intimate terms with the salvey child, and lawyers devise all sorts of schemes, you know, to meet their own ends. it was hinted that miss thayer might know where the missing promise book was." "clip take that from wren! impossible!" cried cora. "oh, this is all a mistake! i must go back. i cannot go on and let clip be blamed for stealing the promise book." chapter xv rob roland "cora kimball!" ed foster stood up every inch of his height. he was always tall, but now, facing the girl whose name he had so vehemently spoken, he seemed a veritable giant. cora wanted to be firm; she meant exactly what she said when she declared she would abandon the tour of the motor girls, and go back to chelton to help cecilia thayer out of her difficulty. but, after all, cora was only a girl, and ed was a great, strong man--he ought to know. "if you cannot trust me, cora, and allow me to help clip, i really think you are not doing justice to jack's friend." cora laughed a little. ed put things so nicely. he never presumed upon her own intimacy--it was always just "jack's friend." "besides," he pressed, seeing, in, cora's eyes, his advantage, "i feel i can do more alone. i have got to take hazel back to her brother, then i promise you i shall not rest until i have found clip, and made sure of her exact situation." "oh, i know, ed, you will do everything possible. but it seems like treason for me to go on a pleasure trip and leave two very dear friends in such trouble. even jack may be implicated." ed turned away to hide his own tell-tale face. he knew perfectly well that jack was implicated, knew that rob roland had deliberately accused him of taking cecilia thayer out to the salvey cottage for the purpose of gaining possession of the promise book. for this very reason ed wanted cora to go on--to escape, if possible, the anxiety she must experience if she should have to know the real story. "well," sighed cora, "it is getting late. i suppose it will be best, ed, as you say. take hazel back, and find clip. have her 'phone me at breakwater, tomorrow." "that's the girl!" exclaimed ed, taking both her hands in his own strong clasp. "see, the girls are looking at us. they think you have accepted me." "i have," she answered, "accepted you, and your terms. good luck, ed. it is so nice for jack to have such a good friend." hazel was soon tucked in the little runabout, the detective going on in another car that was sent out to him in answer to his call over the telephone. "is your premonition all fulfilled, cora?" asked daisy, her voice far from merry. "i suppose you were 'premonited' that hazel should go off like that." "if we keep on losing," said gertrude, "we will soon all fit in the whirlwind." cora stood gazing after the runabout--jack's car. hazel's eyes had burned their look upon cora's face--those deep, violet eyes always seem like live volcanoes, thought cora. and ed--his eyes had been searching, his look--well, it was convincing, that is all cora would admit even to her own heart. she turned finally to those on the porch. "well," exclaimed belle, the sentimental one, "who is star-gazing, now? cora, what did you forget in that runaway car?" cora smiled. she had been remiss, and she owed it to the girls to see that their trip was a success. she would atone now. "tillie," she said suddenly, "couldn't you and adele shut up shop for a week and come with us? you have been working hard all summer, and you have made up the required pennies. now, don't you think it would be perfectly splendid to take the run with us?" every one instantly agreed that this would be the very thing, and in spite of the hesitation of adele and tillie, who argued that it might not be agreeable to bring strangers into the homes where others had been expected, it was finally settled that the party should wait until the next morning, when the tea-house girls would be ready to start off with them. nor were the arrangements without a certain happy possibility--there were two other girls waiting to take up that same little grotto--to earn college money, as had tillie and adele. "rena and margaret will be here first thing in the morning," announced adele, after her telephone talk with rena, "and they are perfectly delighted. oh, isn't it just splendid!" then cora had messages to send. she called up jack, but only got the maid in answer. she called up walter, and he also was out. finally she called up ed. she waited until she felt he would be at his dinner quarters, and she was not disappointed in getting his own voice in reply. he told her that everything was all right--that clip was with little wren, who had been very ill since the loss of her book, and that paul hastings was no worse. this last cora considered evasive, but had to be content, for ed would give no more definite information. such demands as were made upon that little tea-house telephone that evening! every one of the girls called up her own home, besides calling up many relatives at the other end of the line, those with whom the tourists expected to visit during the trip. the grotto was well situated for business, being about half way between two country seats, and the same distance between two large cities. "we will close exactly at sundown to-night," said adele, when a lady from bentley, who stopped every evening for a cup of tea on her way from the village, had been served. "do let me keep shop for a while," begged cora. "i would just love to be in real business. mother declares i have a bent for trade. let me try, tillie, while you and adele go over to the cottage and get your things together." thus it was that one hour later cora kimball was left the sole possessor of the grotto; every other motor girl managed to either go for a walk, or go with some one who wanted to take a walk, but cora was glad--she felt the need of rest which only solitude can give. she sat on the porch; the gentle evening breeze made incense through the honeysuckle. it was delightfully resting; she could hear the voices of the girls in the meadow, after cowslips, buttercups, daisies and clover. they would fetch back a huge bunch, cora knew, and they would discard them at the steps of the grotto, as most girls do--run wild for wild flowers, then toss them away when the run is over. "i hardly think i shall have any business," thought cora, "although i would just love to wait on somebody." the rumble of an approaching automobile caught her ear. "there!" she thought; "the driver of that car may want a sip of russian tea--i am glad it is not turkish--that the girls serve here." the car was almost up to the sycamore tree, just at the side of the grotto. yes, the driver was stopping. cora rocked nervously in the wicker chair. who would it be? the girls should not have gone so far away-a young man alighted from the runabout. he stepped briskly up to the porch. it was rob roland. "well!" he exclaimed, plainly as surprised to see cora as she was to see him. "if this isn't luck! miss kimball!" quick and keen as was his glance, making sure that cora was alone, her own sharp wits were able to follow his. "yes," she replied indifferently, "the girls have closed up the tea-room, and are just out in the meadow. i felt more like sitting here." he drew up a chair and sat down uninvited. cora never did like rob roland, now she disliked him. "you are the very person i am most anxious to talk to," he began, "and this is an excellent opportunity." "about what, pray?" asked cora. "i must go with the girls very soon." "oh, no, you must not," he replied, and, handsome though he was, there was that in his manner that deepened the very lines nature had done her best with, and his eyes were merely smoldering depths. cora felt she should not betray the least nervousness, for, though rob roland was known to be a gentleman, he might take advantage of her helplessness to gain from her some information. ed had warned her to beware of him. "of course you know all about cissy thayer," he began. cora resented his insolence, but dared not show it. "you know how she has been getting around my little cousin, the cripple." cora glared at him. she felt that his cowardly attack was simply a display of weakness, and she knew a coward is easily overcome. she deliberately drew her chair closer to him. "rob roland," she said calmly, "my friend, miss thayer, is not only a lady, but she is also a student of human ills. she has been interested in little wren that she might be cured. it appears that some of her relatives consider her incurable." "cured!" he sneered. "that misfit made right! why, she has only a few months to live. your friend is very foolish. she should put her energy on something worth while. and she should be careful how she handles their property. that scrapbook, for instance." "how dare you, rob roland!" exclaimed cora. "miss thayer says the child has been ill-treated through alleged treatment, and it appears the man who has been treating her was paid by your father." "oh, my!" the fellow sank deeper into his linen coat. "i had no idea of your dramatic powers, miss kimball. i beg a thousand pardons. i never dreamed that the thayer girl was so close to you. in fact, i rather thought you merely took her up out of charity. every one in chelton knows that the thayers are just poor working-people." that was too much for cora. she stepped to the door of the tea-room with dismissal in her manner. he knew she intended him to leave at once. "but what i want to know," he said, deliberately following her, "is just who this thayer girl is. it is important that we should know, to go on with the--" "we!" interrupted cora. "pray, who are 'we'?" "why, my father's firm, the lawyers, you know," he stammered. "some day, miss kimball, i expect to represent the firm of roland, reed & company." cora turned and looked at him. it was on that very spot that she had turned to ed--ed was so like this young man, the same dark, handsome youth, and just about his age. but ed was, after all, so different--so very different. cora was gaining time as she strove to hold him by her magnetic glance. any youth would accept it; he did not despise it. "mr. roland," she said, in her own inimitable velvet tones, "you are making a very great mistake. if you really believe that cecilia thayer had anything to do with the loss of that child's book, you are wrong; if you think she had any other than humane motives in visiting the child, you are wrong again. cecilia thayer--" "oh, now come, cora," he interrupted. "you don't mind me calling you cora? i know the whole scheme. your brother jack is--well, he is quite clever, but not clever enough to cover up his tracks." he grasped cora's arm and actually dragged her to him. "don't you know that cissy thayer and jack kimball are suspected of abduction? that wren salvey has been stolen-stolen, do you hear?" chapter xvi a strange message uproarious laughter from the girls with the wild flowers aroused cora. rob roland was gone. had she fainted? was that roaring in her ears just awakened nerves? "cora! oh, cora! we had the most darling time," bess was bubbling. "you should have been along. such a dear old farmer. he showed us the queerest tables. and he had the nicest son. cora- what is the matter?" "oh," lisped ray, "another co-ed message over the telephone." "cora, dear," exclaimed gertrude, "we should not have left you all alone. are you ill?" "cora! cora!" gasped adele. "cora, dear!" sighed tillie. "oh, cora!" moaned belle. "what has happened?" "cora, darling," cried maud, "who has frightened you?" "cora kimball," called daisy, "have you been drinking too much tea?" "too little," murmured cora. "will some of you girls leave off biting the air, and make a good cup of tea?" there was a wild rush for the alcohol lamp; every one wanted to make the good cup of tea. "i saw a runabout moving away as we came up," said ray. "i hope, cora, your caller was not obnoxious." "oh, just an autoist," replied cora indifferently. "i did not take the trouble to brew tea for one solitary man." the color was coming back into her cheeks now, and with the return of animation her scattered senses attempted to seize upon the strange situation. jack and clip to be arrested for abduction! could that fellow have known what he was saying? if only jack would call her up on the telephone. she had left word for him to do so, no matter how late the hour might be when he should return home. "now drink every sip of this," commanded adele, as she turned on the lights and fetched cora a steaming cup of the very best grotto hyson. "there is nothing for shaken nerves better than perfectly fresh tea, and, you see, we make it without soaking the leaves." "it is delightful," said cora, sipping the savory draught. "i must learn how to make tea this way--it is so different from the home-brewed variety." gertrude sat close to the reclining girl. "is there nothing i can do, cora?" she asked. "no message i can send?" "yes," whispered cora; "you can manage to get the girls out of here before you and i leave for the night. i want to use the telephone privately." gertrude understood. she had not been a roommate with cora kimball for two years without knowing something of her temperament. she pressed her friend's hand gently, then said loud enough for the others to hear: "we will soon have to get our machines under cover. tillie says her grandfather has all sorts of sheds over around his country place. in fact, he has a regular shed-farm. cora, i am just dying to try running a motor. would you trust me to get the whirlwind in the shed safely?" "of course i would, gertrude," and cora jumped up from the wicker divan. "i would suggest that some one go along, though--perhaps ray. she has had some experience, and you know the whirlwind." "is not a prize-package machine," interrupted gertrude. "all right, cora. i will humbly take instructions. come along, girls. it will be dark directly, and then we might have to waste time lighting the lamps." "and grandfather's man has offered to look over every machine early in the morning," said tillie. "he is quite expert; we will be sure that every nut and bolt is in perfect order." this was good news to the motor girls, especially to daisy, who had her own secret doubts about her father's best car--she was accustomed to running the substitute. presently all except cora and adele were attending to the cars. cora was just about to call up her own house when the tinkle of the telephone bell startled her. she picked up the receiver and was not surprised to find the party inquired for was herself. "this is jack," came the welcome voice. "is that you, sis?" "oh, yes, jack, dear!" she replied. adele had gone out to fetch the chairs in from the porch. "i have been almost frantic. where are you? where is clip? where is wren?" "oh, easy there, now, sis," and cora thought she had never before appreciated the value of a real brother. "i can't answer everything at once, although i can come pretty near it. first, i am here--at home. next, clip is here--at our home, and third, the other party--i won't mention names--is here also." "all at our house?" exclaimed cora. and the answer came: "exactly that. but you mustn't say a word to any one. you know, there has been a sort of rumpus. do you want to speak with c.? she is here." "hello, cora," came cecilia's voice. "how are you? not getting on with your trip very fast, i guess." "oh, clip!" said cora. "i cannot understand it--" "you are not supposed to," replied the other. "we are all right, you are all right, and what more do you ask?" "how is paul?" "well, he did have quite a time, but is improving. say, cora," and the voice was subdued, "don't call us up until you hear from me. i can't explain now. but where shall i write--say in two days' time?" "two days!" repeated cora. "do you expect me to exist that long and not know--" "i am afraid you will have to. we are being watched"--this was barely breathed--"and a break would spoil it all. surely you can trust me." the girls were coming back-were actually on the porch. cora was obliged to say a few disconnected words, and then she hung up the receiver. chapter xvii the road to breakwater "what a delightful morning!" exclaimed maud. "the wait was certainly worth while. i do believe there is something inspiring about the morning air." "yes," rejoined daisy, throwing in the second speed, "it always makes me feel like a human rain-barrel. i want to go out in a great, big field, and sit down in a lump. then i want to throw back my head and open my mouth very wide. that is my idea of drinking in the fresh morning air." "well, never mind the dewy morning business," called cora. "just get your machines well under way. you know, we must make twenty-five miles by noon." cora was, as usual, in the lead. daisy and maud came next, then bess and belle lined up the rear, as cora thought it best that the two big machines should lead and trail. cora tried her best to be cheerful. she had definite ideas about a friend's duty to a friend, and no one could say she failed in that duty. why should she think of jack and clip and wren when she was captain of the motor girls' club, and they expected a good time on their initial run? "oh, i am so glad everything happened!" exclaimed tillie, who was in the whirlwind; "for if everything did not happen we never could have come along." "and we never could have had all our camping things," put in gertrude. "i am just dying to get out on the grass and light up under the kettles. that was a very bright idea of adele's to fetch along part of the tea-house outfit." "won't it be jolly to build miniature caves to keep the wind from the lamp?" suggested cora. "i tell you, after all, the motor girls were poor housekeepers--we had to take lessons from our business friends." this pleased tillie immensely. she was the sort of girl who is glad to prove a theory, and in keeping the tea-house she had proven that girls--mere girls--are not always sawdust dolls. daisy was speeding up her machine to speak with cora. "there's cedar grove over there!" she shouted; "and aunt may's is only four miles from the turn in the road." "but we are going to lunch on the road," replied cora. "the girls are bent on camping out." a cloud fell over daisy's sensitive face. "i must telephone to papa that i am all right," she remarked. "aunt may expected us last night, and if you girls do not want to come, maud and i will go. we can meet you farther on." "oh, of course," cora hurried to say, "we must go on, since we are expected. we can have the camping out to-morrow. i had actually lost track of our plans in the mix-up." "isn't it too bad that hazel had to turn back?" said ray. "i do hope her brother is not seriously ill." "i heard last night that he was very much better," replied cora. "it seems that robbery unnerved him. ridiculous as the situation appeared, it was no fun to paul. i don't wonder he broke down." bess, belle and adele were in the flyaway, and they, like the others, seemed to take new pleasure in flying over the roads since they had realized what it meant to have to stand still. adele was all enthusiasm. she had not often been privileged to enjoy automobile sport, and the prospect of the trip seemed like an unopened wonder book to her--every mile revealed new delights. along the shady byways, through the numberland hills, past the famous springs, where everybody stopped to drink and make a wish, the motor girls took their way. "let me lead now, cora?" asked daisy. "i am just dying for aunt may to see us come up. and say, girls, i've got the dearest, darlingest cousin--a young doctor!" a scream went up from every throat. daisy had not told of her attractive cousin until the party were within very sight of him. "me first!" shouted belle. "i have been a perfect angel ever since we left chelton; didn't even speak to the nice man with the short thumb--clip's friend." at that moment an auto dashed by. tillie seized cora's arm. "that's the man who talked about hastings!" she exclaimed. "the man who took tea in our house yesterday." "and that's the very man we met on the road the day paul was help up," cora declared. "oh, now i see the coincidence. of course they heard of the hold-up, they being on the road about the time it happened, and when they were at your house they might have been discussing the latest account of the affair--there was something in the daily paper about it, you know." cora was not sure she believed herself, but at the moment she decided it would be best for the happiness of the party to think lightly of the meeting with the strange men. rob roland's voice still rang in her ears like a threat, and while she was no coward neither did she invite trouble. there seemed now to be clearly some connection between the missing papers from the mailbag and the missing promise book, but of the two cora's girlish heart considered the loss of the book the more serious. "did you ever see such old-fashioned houses in all your born days?" asked bess. "look at that one over there. if our table is not in that house, then we had better abandon the antique and look in some new, first-class hotel." "that house over there is my aunt's!" shouted daisy, laughing at bess for making the blunder, "and i am going to tell duncan exactly what you have said about it." bess begged off, and made all sorts of apologies, but daisy insisted that her cousin, the doctor, should hear what bess thought of one of the finest old mansions in breakwater. "here we are!" called daisy, pulling up on the gravel drive. "and there are duncan and aunt may." out on the broad veranda stood a young man--plainly a professional, for while at a glance a girl might decide that duncan bennet was "up to date," still there was about him that disregard for conventionality that betokens high thinking, with no room for the consideration of trifling details of every-day life. cora instantly said: "there! he's fine!" ray was thinking: "how unpolished!" bess whispered to belle: "i see trouble ahead. gertrude will want to take him along." maud was "adjusting her eyes." she could not forget her famous "imploring look." but duncan bennet, with one bound, left the veranda, clearing the steps without touching them, and he was in front of daisy's car dangerously soon. "look out, duncan!" called daisy. "do you want to spatter yourself all over my nice clean machine?" "not exactly," he replied, "but i felt i should do something definite to welcome you. i suppose i may extend the kiss of peace?" "oh!" gasped maud. "will he really kiss us?" "without a doubt," replied his cousin, laughing. "duncan bennet is famous for his hospitality, and quite demonstrative. don't worry, dear. he is an awfully nice fellow." chapter xviii the clue jack kimball sat in his study, with his hands laced in his thick, dark hair. he was thinking--jack claimed the happy faculty of being able to think of one thing at a time, and to do that thoroughly. suddenly he jumped up, and, whistling a tune that only a happy youth knows how to originate, he dashed up the polished stairs, three steps at a time, and finally reached the third floor of his home. he was met in the hall by a matronly woman with a tray in her hands, and at his approach she stepped back to allow him to enter a room, the door of which was swung open. "morning, miss brown," he said. "how's the baby?" "doing splendidly, thank you," replied the woman, "and she is very anxious to see you. won't you step in?" "sure thing," answered jack. "that's just what i came up for. i want to chat with her myself." he stepped lightly into the apartment. it was plainly furnished, with a keen appreciation of what was needed in a sick room, and what should be left out of it. jack sank into a steamer chair beside the white bed. "how are things, wren?" he asked, stroking the delicate hand that was put out to greet him. "are you almost strong enough to--play football?" the child smiled, and turned her head away. she had never known any one in all her life like jack kimball, so big and strong, and yet so kind. he almost made her feel timid and shy. "i'm better every minute," she managed to say. "but, of course, i ought to be." she glanced at her nurse, miss brown, who was bringing the morning's beef tea. "she is really doing splendidly," put in the nurse. "but she is a model patient--never wants what is not good for her." "is clip coming to-day?" asked wren, hesitating as she said "clip." "i hope so," replied jack, "but you know she is very busy, and may not get here. but if she does not"--noting the child's disappointment--"she will surely come to-morrow. she telephoned so last night." "did she say anything about the book?" queried the little one. "that's exactly what i want to talk about," he replied with nice evasion. "i wonder are you well enough to try to remember about that book. where did you last have it?" "out in my chair, with mother. i asked a little boy along the road to hand me some flowers, the book slipped back of me, and, as mother wheeled me along, i could feel that it was all right. when we got home it was gone." "and you didn't speak with any other persons than this boy?" jack continued. "oh, there were a lot of people out to see the firemen's parade, and lots of them spoke to me." "but did any one walk along with you to talk with you?" "yes," she said with hesitation, trying to recall that day's momentous happenings; "there were two people. they were strangers. i think they had been in an automobile, for the girl was dressed like a motor girl, and the young man wore a long duster." jack stopped and made a mental note of this remark. he had evidently expected this intelligence. "what did they look like--i mean personally?" "the girl had red hair--i particularly noticed that," replied the child; "but i have no idea what the man looked like, for he walked back of my chair." "i'm not tiring her, am i, miss brown?" asked jack, turning to the nurse. "i can wait for the other details." "go right on," assented the woman, who was dressed in the garb of a nurse. "i think the talk will do her good; she has been so anxious about it all." "and these two people talked with you?" pursued jack. "why, yes. the girl sat down on the roadside, and mother stopped my chair. let me see; i think mother went into the little candy shop and left them with me. they were very pleasant. i am sure they would never touch my book." "did you tell them what it was?" "i did, of course. i always told everybody what my precious book was. i asked them to sign my promise, and they both did so." "oh!" exclaimed jack, whistling his punctuation. "they did sign, did they?" "why, i thought you knew that," replied wren. "but i did not see the book after they signed, so i do not know their names. you see, mother was in a hurry, and they just gave me the book and--oh, what could have become of my precious book!" she broke off, her voice like a cry from her very heart. "well, now there!" soothed jack. "i knew i should not have distressed you about it. but, you see, i had to know, else i could not find it. now i feel i shall have it back to you in jig time. brace up, little girl"; and he tried to impart both courage and hope by his manner. "don't you know you are sure to get some wonderful blessing for having to stand this loss? that's cora's pet theory. she almost drives a fellow after trouble declaring he will find joy at his heels." wren was sighing. her book had been to her so much. more, perhaps, than some animal pet is to the average cripple, both companion and distraction. miss brown brought the bottle of alcohol, and bathed the child's temples. "do you know, mr. kimball," she said, "we have a secret for you. wren stood up yesterday!" "bully for the legs!" cried jack, with an absolute disregard of the way he was expressing his joy. the remark brought the color bark to wren's cheeks. "yes," breathed wren; "but they--my feet--are awfully full of pins and needles." "save them, save them," went on jack. "i can never find a pin in this house. cora fainted one day, and the doctor said it was pins. he had to take out twenty pins to give her back her breath." "i wish your sister were home," said wren, looking wistfully out of the low window beside the bed. "she is so like clip--and clip can't be here." "she'll be home soon, all right," replied jack, who was now standing at the door, "and when she does come we will all know it. cora kimball is a brass and a lawn mower, rolled into one piece. you should be glad she is away," he finished, his words actually accusing himself of falsehood. "fetch her, and let me see," spoke wren, trying to appear as cheerful as she, had been when her visitor entered her room. "well, i'll fetch something next time," he replied. "if i can't get cora or clip i'll get--ice cream." chapter xix paul and hazel meanwhile, at another bed of sickness sat a girl pale and wan from nights and days of anxiety. hazel hastings had left the motor girls' tour and hurried to her sick brother with more apprehension stirring her heart than the report of his actual condition warranted. paul had always been subject to peculiar spells--shocks they were termed--but hazel knew what collapse meant, or what it might mean, unless-brother and sister were to each other what the whole world might be to others. paul had kept up well under the strain of the hold-up, but when suspicion was pointed at him he collapsed. who could be at the back of the defaming scheme to spread the report? who could have dared to say that he was in league with whoever took those papers from the mailbag? "are you better, paul?" murmured the girl. "you had a lovely sleep." "oh, yes," he sighed. "i feel almost good. if only my head would stop throbbing. what time is it?" "almost noon, dear, and clip will soon be here." "will she fetch the morning papers? i must see how the thing is going on. they were to go to court this morning." "now you must not think of that, you know, paul," commanded the girl gently. "if you are to grow strong enough to go and take your own part you will have to leave the others alone. there is nothing new, or i should have told you." "but mr. robinson called--i heard you talking to him last night." "yes, you did, dear. but he came to inquire for you. he is very anxious about you." hazel hastings went to the dresser and slipped under the cover a piece of yellow paper. paul was getting better, and he should not see mr. robinson's check for money, which that gentleman had insisted upon leaving for the sick boy's expenses. they were not poor, neither were they rich, but paul hastings should not want for anything through his sister's pride. "he was so glad to hear you were improving," she went on, "and particularly said you were not to worry about the papers. it seems they have some important clue, and feel positive of recovering them." "if they only could," sighed paul. "to think that i should have lost them! and they meant a small fortune to the robinsons. what if they should become poor, and through me!" "oh, you silly boy! stop that nonsense this moment. there! i heard clip coming. i am glad, for she knows better than i how to control you." it was clip who entered the room, but what with her buoyant, happy way, and the great bunch of flowers she carried, one could hardly be certain it was only a girl--it might have been some fairy of sunshine. "well!" she exclaimed, glancing from paul to hazel. "you are better, paul. has hazel been treating you again with some of her magic suggestion business? at any rate, i cannot deny its power." she flittered over to the bed and playfully buried paul's face in the bouquet. "there! aren't they splendid? and you would never guess who sent them. guess, hazel." "ed," hazarded the girl. "no, indeed. you try, paul." "walter pennington," replied paul, smiling. "indeed, walter probably has forgotten my very existence." "then it was--" "oh, you would never guess. it--was--rob roland!" a dark look stole over the face of the young man on the bed. "i don't like him, clip," he said. "neither do i," she replied promptly. "that is precisely why i am so nice to him. i have to keep friends with him just now. and i have not the slightest doubt his motive is identical with my own." she paused to laugh indifferently, then she tossed aside her dust coat and stood revealed in spotless white linen. "how do you like me?" she asked, straightened up to her short height. "am i not a full-fledged 'strained' nurse, now? you know i am summoned to court this afternoon, and all the papers will describe me." her brightness seemed infectious. paul leaned upon his elbow, and hazel was actually interested in clip's new costume. "yes," she went on. "you see, mrs. salvey has been called to account for wren--did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous? those lawyer relatives of hers pretend to believe that wren is being neglected because we have taken her away from the supposed care of that absurd doctor. well, i just told mrs. salvey to answer the summons and go to court. it will be the best thing that ever happened to have her get her real story before the public." "but what about yourself?" asked hazel. "they will ask you how old you are, and what is your occupation?" "and my friends will all fall dead." cecilia did not appear worried at the prospect. "well, i shall say i am not as old as some girls, and that i am engaged in being a member of the motor girls' club." "that is precisely where your trouble will begin," said paul. "the motor girls will never stand for a 'strained'--" "indeed, i am not the least bit afraid that i shall lose the friendship of cora and her brother. even walter and ed will think it jolly to have kept up the joke. of course"--and she hesitated--"some of the others--" "well, you can count on us," declared paul warmly. "and if ever i get out of this trouble, and am well again, i am going to take hazel for a long tour. you might--" "oh, you silly! i might go along? where on earth would i get seventy-five cents to go to europe with?" she placed the bouquet on the small table near the window. "there; i guess the flowers will not contaminate us. but when he gave them to me--or, rather, sent them, there was a note in the box," she added. both hazel and paul looked their question. "yes," replied clip. "would you like to hear the note?" she took from her pocket a slip of paper. "it always strikes me as odd that people who try hardest to do one thing, and mean another, fail utterly to hide the intention. now this gentleman, who writes with such solicitation about wren, says he really misses seeing her, declares frankly that jack kimball and i were seen to smuggle her off in jack's auto, and then-but let me read the finish. i am spoiling the effect: "'of course you have the child safe,'" she read, "'and no one questions your ability to care for her. all the little clandestine trips which you and your friend made to the salvey cottage happened to have been observed.' just hear the boy! happened to have been observed, when i knew he was watching--saw him on more than one occasion." she turned over the page of business letter paper, and continued: "'but the fact that i, her own cousin, am denied the privilege of seeing her makes the thing look odd.' "now do you see what that means?" asked the girl. "he is trying to make me feel that it would be better to produce wren than to keep her away from the lawyers, because it looks 'odd.' well, i'll take my chances on the odds," she said with a laugh; "and wren salvey will be 'produced' when i am sure that the motor girls' strange promise will be kept. we have those smart men just where we want them now, and if they want wren they must give us that table." "you think they know where the table is?" asked hazel. "i am not so sure of that," responded clip, putting away the paper and preparing to place upon the center table some of the contents of her satchel. "but i do know that this man, reed, is mrs. salvey's second cousin. she told me he was always interfering between wren and the popular grandfather. now, if the table contained the will, as wren declares, and if that same table was sold at auction, by this man, reed, or through his management, it seems more than likely that he could trace it." "but if he could find it, why would he not do so, and destroy the document?" asked paul. "bright boy!" declared the girl. "that only goes to show, hazel, that when a girl gets a thought she stops. when a boy gets one he looks for another. i think now that perhaps the old table is safe in some unthought-of place, and that perhaps--" "that is why they wanted to get the promise book, to find if any clue to its whereabouts might be within its pages," put in hazel. "well, i know that cora kimball will find that table if it is in any house around here. she vowed when she started out she would either bring back the table or acknowledge herself beaten. the latter possibility is actually beyond serious attention." "whew!" paul almost whistled. "but our little sister is progressing. talk about professions, clip. i rather fancy there will be more than one to report at the final meeting of the motor girls' club." chapter xx at the mahogany shop it was duncan bennet who suggested the auto meet. the town of breakwater had never gone beyond the annual dog show, and this progressive young man confided to his cousin daisy that on a certain day next week he expected several of his friends from out of town, who were sure to come in autos, and: "why not tell them to 'slick up' their machines, and you girls could do the same? then, oh, then!" he exclaimed, "we could run a real up-to-date auto meet. i can round up fifteen machines at least. and the girls! why, the fame of the motor girls will then be assured. you will actually have to appoint a press agent." the cousins were strolling through the splendid gardens of bennet blade, as duncan called the long, narrow strip of family property that, for years, had been famous for its splendid gardens, not flower beds, but patches of things to eat. "i think it would be perfectly splendid," declared daisy, her eyes full of admiration for her good-looking cousin. "and i know the girls will like it." that settled it. duncan bennet went straight to his room, scribbled off a number of notes, threw himself astride his horse mercury (called ivy for short), and was on his way to the post-office before daisy had time to stop the exclamation gaps in the girls' faces with the correct answers to their varied questions. some days lay between the proposition and the fete, and this time was to be spent on the road, as the girls had yet some miles to cover before they would turn back toward chelton. there was a visit to be made at a ruins in clayton; this was an underlined note of ray's on the itinerary. then maud wanted so much to see a real watering place in full swing. this was put down as ebbinflow, and would take up at least an entire afternoon. tillie had a craze for antiques, and there was a noted shop only twenty miles from breakwater. so when cora facetiously suggested that the party start out from a given point, go their separate ways and get back to chelton for the auto meet, the girls realized that they would have to "boil down their plans" to fit the time allotted for the tour. the trip to the clayton ruins occupied a whole day. the girls started early and took their lunch, which bess said would be eaten in a crumbling, moss-covered and ivy-entwined tower. the ruins fully came up to expectations, and the girls, leaving their machines at the roadside, began their explorations. "isn't it just perfect!" exclaimed ray. "i wish i had my sketch book along." "she wants to outdo washington irving," called cora, poising on a tottering stone. "look out!" suddenly called bess. "that stone, cora--" a scream from cora interrupted her, for the stone began to roll over, and cora only saved herself by a little jump, while the piece of masonry toppled down upon a pile of bricks and mortar. "my! that was a narrow escape!" gasped maud. "you might have sprained your ankle." "which would have been all the more romantic," added cora, smiling faintly. "it would have been material for ray's sketchbook." "never, cora!" cried ray. "but come on. let's go to some less dangerous part of this ruin. you know they say this was once a church, but was made into a sort of castle by an eccentric individual--" "who did dark and bloody deeds and whose spirit now haunts the place," interrupted maud. "oh, don't!" begged ray. "it's not quite as bad as that, but i heard some one say that on certain dark nights that--" "stop it!" commanded cora. "my nerves are all right, but i'm still shaky from that stone. let's see if--" "oh!" cried bess suddenly. "there's something there, girls," and, with dramatic gesture, she pointed to a pile of leaves in one corner. "something moved there, i'm sure of it!" they looked, and all started as the leaves actually did move. "come on!" cried ray. they gathered up their skirts and were hurrying from the old room into which they had penetrated when the leaves rustled still more, and from them came a tiny snake. there was a chorus of screams and cora found herself alone in the ruined chamber. she was pale but resolute as she followed her companions sedately. "weren't you awfully frightened?" asked ray as cora joined them. "no indeed," she answered. "i prefer a live and seeable snake to some haunting, unseeable rumor that only appears on dark nights. but let's get out into the sunlight and admire the ruins from a better perspective. besides it's getting near lunch time." it was more reassuring out of doors, they all admitted, and after admiring the picturesque remains of what might have been either a church or fort as far as appearances now went, they got the hampers from the cars and feasted. then, sitting in the shade, they discussed many things until lengthening shadows warned them that it was time to go. "now for a jolly day to-morrow," remarked maud as they neared their stopping place that night. "if only we have good weather." she had her desire. never was weather more perfect, never were better country roads discovered and never could there have been a more jolly party of girls. maud was enchanted with ebbinflow. she declared the watering place was a perfect fairyland, but some of her companions hinted that it was the style of the gowns that attracted her. still they spent the best part of a day there, enjoying the bathing and coming back in the cool of the evening much refreshed. "now, bess, it's your choice for our destination to-morrow," announced cora at a little luncheon just before retiring time. "but please don't choose ruins or a watering place." "the woods for mine," announced bess. "i heard of a lovely grove about twenty-five miles from here--" "twenty-five miles to find an ordinary grove," said maud. "oh, but it's not an ordinary one," declared bess. "it is quite extraordinary." a delightful fancy dress ball was given that evening at the girls' club, where our friends stopped, and this made a pleasant break in the tour and a welcome relief from spark plugs, carburetors and the cranking of motors, much as the girls had come to care for their cars. two days more were spent in visiting well-known places of interest, and on one trip maud and bess, who managed to slip away from their companions, went through several old farmhouses in search of the table. once they had hopes that they were on the track, as an elderly woman declared she had just what they were looking for, but it proved to be far from it, though she was anxious to sell it to them. "oh, dear, i hoped we could find it," said bess as they came out. next morning tillie declared it was her turn to say where the trip should be, and she picked out an exclusive antique shop, about twenty miles from breakwater, in which direction the cars were soon speeding. "i'll get a warming pan if there is one in the place," announced tillie, whose love for the old copper pan with the long and awkward handle was almost a joke with her friends. "well, i do hope if you can't get a pan that you'll not load us up with lead pipe and such stuff," said cora with a laugh. "i remember very well that last day at school when you came back from beverly. my, what a sight you were! what did you ever do with the junk?" "indeed, it was not junk," objected tillie, "but a lot of the very handsomest glass knobs and brass candlesticks, and my samovar." "you surely did not carry a samovar!" exclaimed maud. "indeed i did," replied the little german, "else i should not have gotten it in the morning. i know those antique men. they are like a thermometer--go up and down with simple possibilities." ray was as pretty as ever, maude just as sweet and daisy just as gentle, while cora and gertrude had added new summer tints to their coloring. adele and tillie were still bubbling over with enthusiasm, the twins were exceptionally happy, the morning mail having brought good news--so that all were "fine and fit" when they started on the ride to the antique shop. the day was of that sort that comes in between summer and fall, when one time period borrows from the other with the result of making an absolutely perfect "blend." ray had changed places with belle robinson, so that belle was in the whirlwind and ray in the flyaway, and when the procession was moving it attracted the usual public attention. but the motor girls were now accustomed to being stared at; in fact, they would have missed the attention had they been deprived of it, for it was something to have a run with all girls--and such attractive girls. "what if we should find the table at the antique shop!" suddenly said belle to ray. "somehow i have a feeling--" "let me right out of your machine, bess robinson," joked ray. "i have had all i want of 'feelings' since we started on this trip. i rather think the one where the goat or sheep or whatever it was did the actual 'feeling' was about the 'utmost,' as clip would say. poor clip! i wonder what she is about just now." "about as frisky as ever, i'll wager," said belle. "i never could understand that girl." "well," objected bess, "it would be hard to understand any one who is only in chelton two months at summer. if you were at school all year and came home for new clothes, i fancy i would scarcely understand my own twin sister." "strange," went on ray, "that boys always so well understand a girl of that type. now i do not mean that in sarcasm," she hurried to add, noting the impression her remark had made, "but i have always noticed that the girls whom girls think queer boys think just right." "pure contrariness," declared bess. "i don't suppose a boy like jack kimball thinks more of a girl just because she keeps her home surroundings so mysteriously secret." as usual, bess had blundered. she never could speak of jack kimball and clip thayer without "showing her teeth," as belle expressed it. the machines were running along with remarkable smoothness. the flyaway seemed to be singing with the whirlwind, while daisy's car had ceased to grunt, thanks to the efforts of the workman at her aunt's place. "what will the antique man think of three autos stopping at his door?" inquired adele of cora. "think? why, it will be the best advertisement he ever had. likely he will pay us to come again," replied cora. the street upon which "the mahogany shop" was situated was narrow and dingy enough--the sort of place usually chosen to add to the "old and odd" effect of the things in the dusty window. the proprietor was outside on a feeble-looking sofa. as cora predicted, he evidently was honored with the trio of cars that pulled up to the narrow sidewalk. tillie, with the air of a connoisseur, stepped into the shop before the little man with the ragged whiskers had time to recover from his surprise. "have you a warming pan?" she inquired straightaway, whereat, as was expected, the man produced almost every other imaginable sort of old piece save, of course, that asked for. but tillie liked to look at all the stuff, and was already running the risk of blood poison, as cora whispered to gertrude, with her delving into green brasses and dirty coppers. with the same thought uppermost in their minds, bess, belle and cora were soon busy examining the old furniture. there were many curious and really valuable pieces among the collection, for this man's shop was famous for many a mile. "tables!" whispered belle. "did you ever think there were so many kinds?" cora approached the owner. "have you an inlaid table--a card table or one that could be used for one? i would fancy something in unpolished wood." "i know just what you mean," answered the man, "and i expect to have one in a few days. in fact, i already have an order for one--with anchors and oars inlaid." cora did not start. she winked at bess, who was always apt to "bubble over." "anchors?" repeated cora. "set in on the sides, i suppose? well, that would be odd. but where can you get such a piece as that?" cora did not mean to ask outright where the piece might be obtained; what she meant was: "that will surely be a difficult thing to find." "oh, there is one--some place," replied the man, little dreaming what a tumult his words were creating in the brains of the anxious motor girls. "and when i get an order i always get the article. i shall have a warming pan for this young lady by to-morrow noon." "then suppose i order a table, like the one with the oars and anchors?" ventured cora. "could i get that?" "oh, no, miss," and he shook his head with importance. "you do not understand the trade. that would be a duplicate, and in furniture we guarantee to give you an original--i can only get one seaman's card table, and that is ordered." cora smiled and walked off a little to gain time, and to think. her manner told the girls plainly not to mention the matter. she would act as wisely as she was capable of doing. she overhauled some blue plates and selected a pair of "baronials." the man went into ecstasies, describing "every crack in the dishes," maud said to daisy, but cora bought the plates, and paid him his price without question. adele and tillie had piled up quite a heap of brass and copper, and, unlike cora, they argued some about the cost, but finally compromised, and put the entire heap into an old chinese basket which the man "threw in." "then i cannot get a table," said cora, purposely displaying a roll of bills which she was replacing in her purse. "not exactly that kind," answered the man. "but something very much handsomer, i assure you. if you will call in a day or two i will show you something unmatched in all the country. a house has just sold out, and i have bought all the mahogany." chapter xxi perplexities when cecilia thayer in her own little runabout, the turtle, went over the road to mrs. salvey's cottage, after the visit to the hastings, her alert mind was occupied with many questions. she had advised the mother to go to court to account for her own child, a most peculiar proceeding, but one insisted upon by a well-meaning organization, the special duty of which was to care for children. what sort of story mrs. salvey's relative may have told to bring such a course about, neither she nor cecilia knew. but at any rate a private hearing was arranged for, and now cecilia was on her way to fetch the widow to town. driving leisurely along, for the turtle could not be trusted to hurry, cecilia had ample time to plan her own course of action, should the judge insist upon having wren shown in court. this cecilia felt sure would be dangerous to the extremely nervous condition of the child, and it was such a move she most dreaded. "i will call dr. collins," thought cecilia, "and have him state the facts, if necessary. but then i would have to give an account of my own part," came the thought, "and that would mean so much to me just now." the "burr r-rr-r" of an approaching automobile startled her. she turned and confronted rob roland. "well," he exclaimed, his pleasure too evident, "this is luck. were you going to aunt salvey's?" cecilia was annoyed. but she had no other course than to reply that she was going to the cottage. "so am i," replied the young man, "and very likely our business is of the same nature." "i am going to fetch her into town to the hearing," spoke up cecilia, "and i have to hurry along." "and i, too, was going to fetch her. she is quite in demand, it seems," and he stretched his thin lips over his particularly fine teeth in something like a sneer. "i wish i had known you were coming out; i should have invited you to ride with me." "thanks," said cecilia indifferently. "but i could hardly have accepted. i had some calls to, make as i came along." "yes, i saw your machine at hastings. how's the chap getting on?" "paul is almost better," replied cecilia, making an effort to get out of talking distance. but he knew exactly why she sent her machine ahead, and while too diplomatic to actually bar her way, he, too, opened the throttle to increase the speed of his car. it was very aggravating. cecilia had expected to have an important talk alone with mrs. salvey. without a doubt this was also the very thing rob roland intended to do. if only she could get mrs. salvey into her car. but if she should prefer to ride with her nephew. for some short distance cecilia rode along without attempting conversation with the young man who was driving as close to her car as it was possible for him to do. finally he spoke: "have you ever been in a courtroom?" he asked. "no," she replied curtly. "then you are sure to make a hit. bet your picture will be in the paper to-morrow." "what!" gasped cecilia. "i understood this was to be a private hearing." "nothing's private from the newspaper chaps. they make more of chamber hearings than the open affairs. always sure to be something behind the doors, you know." the thought flashed through the girl's mind that he was trying to frighten her--to keep her away from the hearing. "well, i hope they have decent cameras," she managed to say indifferently. he glanced at her with a look that meant she would make a picture. and in this, at least, he was honest, for the girl was certainly attractive in her linen coat, her turn-over collar and her simple panama hat. she looked almost boyish. "better let me call aunt salvey," he said as they neared the cottage. "but there she is--waiting for us." cecilia urged the turtle slightly ahead, then stopped suddenly. she was almost nervous with suppressed excitement. "all ready?" she asked as mrs. salvey greeted first her, then the young man. "yes. i wanted to be on time," replied the woman, stepping down from the porch. "well, you cannot ride in two cars," called young roland, "and this is--if i must be impolite--the best machine, aunt salvey." "but you had an appointment with me," pressed cecilia, pretending to joke. "i would not trust even mr. roland to get you there on time, so i came myself." "of course," replied the widow, puzzled at the situation, "it was good of you to come, rob, but i must go with miss thayer. i had arranged to do so." "just as you like," he said, tossing his head back defiantly, "but you know it would look better. oh, we know perfectly well where wren is," he sneered, "and if you go to see her this afternoon i am going, too." so this was his scheme--he would follow them to find the child's hiding place. mrs. salvey stepped into cecilia's car. her face was whiter than the widow's ruche she wore in her black bonnet. she trembled as cecilia took her hand. what if she were making a mistake in trusting so much to this young girl, and so defying her antagonistic relatives! what if they should attempt to prove that she was not properly caring for her child! and if they should take wren from her! "perhaps i ought not to anger him," she whispered to the girl. "do you think i had best go with him?" "after i have had a chance to say a word or two, you may get out if you like," replied cecilia hastily. "but i must caution you not to mention where wren is, no matter how they press you. if they insist upon knowing i shall call dr. collins. that is the most important thing. next, don't tell who were the last persons who signed the promise book. now, you may get out and make a joke of it. i will trust to luck for the rest." chapter xxii the children's court judge cowles was a gentleman of what is called the "old-fashioned" type. he was always gentle, in spite of the difficult human questions he was constantly called upon to decide, and which necessarily could not always be decided to suit both parties involved in the legal dispute. but when mrs. salvey walked into his room and took a seat beside cecilia thayer he started up in surprise. he had known mrs. salvey long ago, when she lived by the sea with her father-in-law, captain salvey. many a time had judge cowles ridden in the little boat that the captain took such pride in demonstrating, for the boat was rigged up in an original way, and the captain was choice about his companions. "why, mrs. salvey!" he exclaimed, with the most cordial voice. "i am surprised to see you!" mrs. salvey bowed, but did not trust herself to speak. she felt humiliated, wronged, and was now conscious of that deeper pang--stifled justice. judge cowles would be fair--and she would be brave. cecilia, young and inexperienced as she was, felt a glad surprise in the words of the judge; if he knew mrs. salvey he must know her to be a good mother. a man of extremely nervous type, who continually rattled and fussed with the typewritten pages he held in his hand, represented the children's society. evidently he had prepared quite an argument, cecilia thought. close to him sat rob roland, and the stout man whom the motor girls had met on the road after the robbery of the mailbag. cecilia recognized him at once, and he had the audacity to bow slightly to her. there were one or two young fellows down in the corner of the room, sitting so idly and so flagrantly unconcerned that cecilia knew they must be newspaper men--time enough for them to show interest when anything interesting occurred. the case just disposed of--that of a small boy who had been accused of violating the curfew law--was settled with a reprimand; and as the crestfallen little chap slouched past cecilia, she could not resist the temptation of putting out her hand and tugging pleasantly at his coat sleeve. "you'll be a good boy now," she said, with her most powerful smile. but the agent of the children's society, he with the threatening papers in his hand, called to the boy to sit down, and the tone of voice hurt cecilia more than the insolent look turned fully upon her by rob roland. the judge was ready for the next case--it was that of the children's society against mrs. salvey. cecilia could hear the hum from the newspaper corner cease, she saw mr. reed, he of roland, reed & company, and the same man who had just bowed to her, take some papers from his pocket. then the judge announced that he was ready to hear the case. "this woman, your honor," began the nervous man, "is charged with wilfully neglecting her child in the matter of withholding the child from relatives who have for years been both supporting and rendering to the child necessary medical aid." mrs. salvey's face flushed scarlet. cecilia was almost upon her feet. but the others seemed to take the matter as the most ordinary occurrence, and seemed scarcely interested. "this child," went on the agent, "is a cripple"--again cecilia wanted to shout--"and mentally deficient." "that is false!" cried mrs. salvey. "she is mentally brilliant." "one minute, madam," said the judge gently. "to prove that the child has hallucinations," pursued the man, reading from his papers, "i would like to state that for some years she has kept a book--called a promise book. in this she collected the names of all the persons she could induce to put them down, claiming that when the right person should sign she would recover some old, imaginary piece of furniture, which, she claimed, held the spirit of her departed grandfather." the man stopped to smile at his own wit. cecilia and mrs. salvey were too surprised to breathe--they both wanted to "swallow" every breath of air in the room at one gulp. "and the specific charge?" asked the judge, showing some impatience. "well, your honor, we contend that a mother who will wilfully take such a child away from medical care, and hide her away from those who are qualified to care for her, must be criminally negligent." the judge raised his head in that careful manner characteristic of serious thought. "and what do you ask?" he inquired. cecilia thought she or mrs. salvey would never get a chance to speak--to deny those dreadful accusations. "we ask, your honor," and the man's voice betrayed confidence, "that this child be turned over to the children's society. we will report to the court, and make any desired arrangements to satisfy the mother." turn wren over to a public society! this, then, was the motive--those rolands wanted to get the little one away from her own mother. "mrs. salvey," called the judge, and the white-faced woman stood up. as she did so, mr. reed, the lawyer, advanced to a seat quite close to that occupied by the judge. rob roland shifted about with poorly--hidden anxiety. "you have heard the charge," said the judge very slowly. "we will be pleased to hear your answer." "one minute, your honor," interrupted lawyer reed. "we wish to add that on the day that our doctor had decided upon a hospital operation for the child, the child was secretly smuggled off in an automobile by a young girl, and a young sporting character of this town." had cecilia thayer ever been in a courtroom before, she might have known that lawyers resort to all sorts of tricks to confuse and even anger witnesses. but, as it was, she only felt that something had hit her--a blow that strikes the heart and threatens some dreadful thing. the next moment the blood rushed to her cheeks, relieved that pressure, and she was ready--even for such an insulting charge. mrs. salvey was again called, and this time she was not interrupted. she told in a straight-forward manner of the illness of her little girl, of her own difficulty in obtaining sufficient money to have the child treated medically, and of how her husband's cousin, wilbur roland, senior member of the firm of roland, reed & company, had come forward and offered her assistance. "then why," asked the judge, "did you take the child away?" mrs. salvey looked at cecilia. lawyer reed was on his feet and ready to interrupt, but the judge motioned him to silence. "i took her away because i feared the treatment was not what she needed, and i had others offered," replied mrs. salvey. "other medical treatment?" asked the judge. "yes," answered the mother. "then she is being cared for?" and judge cowles looked sharply at the children's agent. "most decidedly," answered mrs. salvey with emphasis. "and not only is she better, but can now stand--she has not been able to do that in ten years." "it's a lie!" shouted rob roland, so angered as to forget himself entirely. "she is a hopeless cripple." "have you any witness?" asked the attorney of mrs. salvey, while the judge frowned at rob and warned him to be careful or he might be fined for contempt of court. the mother turned to cecilia. "this young girl can corroborate my statement," she answered. as cecilia stood up the reporters actually left their places and very quietly glided up to seats near the trembling girl. "would they make a scandal of it?" she was thinking. "that lawyer's remark about jack kimball?" "your name?" asked the judge. she replied in a steady voice. "and your occupation?" cecilia hesitated. she was not yet ready to make public the ambition she had so earnestly worked for. "a student," she replied finally. "of what?" asked rob roland. "young man," said the judge sternly, "i am hearing this case, and any further discourtesy from you will be considered as contempt." the youth smiled ironically. he was already accustomed to such usage, and did not mind it in the least if only he could gain his point, but this time he had failed. "you know the child--wren salvey?" asked the judge. "yes. i have been in close attendance upon her for some weeks," replied cecilia. "and you can state that she is improved in health since leaving her mother's house?" "very much improved. if she had not lost a very dear treasure, over which she grieves, i believe she would be almost well soon." cecilia looked very young and very pretty. she spoke with the conviction of candor that counts so much to honest minds, and judge cowles encouraged her with a most pleasant manner. the newspaper men were scribbling notes rapidly. rob roland was looking steadily at the chandelier at the risk of injury to his neck--so awkward was his position. "you are the young lady who removed the child?" questioned the magistrate. "yes," replied cecilia. "and her accomplice?" shouted rob roland questioningly. "leave the room!" ordered the judge. "i think there is a different case behind this than the one we are hearing. i shall inquire into it, and, for the good of the child and her wronged mother, i shall order a thorough investigation. what motive have those who brought up this alleged case? there is absolutely no grounds for this action. the case is dismissed." so suddenly did the relief come to cecilia that she almost collapsed. she looked at mrs. salvey, who was pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. "it is all right," whispered cecilia. "oh, i am so glad!" a stir in the room attracted their attention. cecilia turned and faced jack kimball. jack was hurrying up to the judge's chair, and scarcely stopped to greet cecilia. "mr. robinson wishes you to detain these gentlemen a few minutes," said jack to judge cowles. "he is on his way here." a messenger was sent to the corridor after rob roland. the other lawyers were discussing some papers, and in no hurry to leave. presently mr. robinson and two other gentlemen entered. the face of the twins' father was flushed, and he was plainly much excited. "i have just heard from my daughters," he began, "who are away on a motor tour. they state that the day my papers were taken from the mailbag they met on the road a man answering the description of this gentleman," indicating mr. reed. "they described him exactly, his disfigured thumb being easily remembered. now the young fellow who was 'held-up' that day, and who has been sick since in consequence, also says he felt, while blindfolded, that same one-jointed thumb. further than that," and mr. robinson was actually panting for breath, "my girls can state, and prove, that this same man was at a tea-house near breakwater discussing papers, which the young girls who conduct the tea-house plainly saw. the papers were stamped with the seals of my patent lawyers." rob roland was clutching the back of the seat he stood near. the lawyer accused, mr. reed, had turned a sickly pallor. jack kimball stepped up. "there is present," he said, "one of the motor girls who was on the road at that time. she may be able to identify this man." what followed was always like a dream to clip--for, leaving off legalities, we may again call her by that significant name. she faced the man to whom she had talked on the road, he who had wanted to help her with her runabout when she was unable to manage it herself. it was directly after paul hastings left them, and within a short time of the happening which had meant so much to hazel's brother. clip told this, and, strange to say, the lawyer made no attempt to deny any part of her statement. "we are prepared to answer when the case is called," he said. "but it seems to me, robinson, you went a long way for detectives. did not the motor girls also tell you that they met me on the road to breakwater two days ago?" "judge, i demand those papers!" called mr. robinson. "this fellow does not deny he took them." "when the ladies leave the room," said the judge quietly, with that courteous manner that made clip want to run up to him and throw her arms about his neck, "we may discuss this further. we are indebted to the young motor girl for her identification." when clip took mrs. salvey out they went directly to the kimball home, nor were they now afraid of being followed by the threatening and insulting rob roland. chapter xxiii the motor girls on the watch cora kimball was turning away from the antique shop as indifferently as if nothing there interested her. the other girls looked at her aghast. bess could scarcely be motioned to silence, for the "little mahogany man" came to close the door of the tonneau, incidentally to look over his customers. "if you come again in a day or so," he said to cora, "i will have tables," and he rolled his eyes as if the tables were to come from no less a place than heaven itself. "oh, such tables!" "i may," replied cora vaguely. "but i fancy i may have a seaman's table made. i would not be particular about an original." "wait, wait!" exclaimed the man. "if you do not care for an original i could make a copy. the one i am to get is something very, very original, and i will have it here. there is no law against making one like it." "well," said cora, "i will be in breakwater for a few days, and i may call in again. there," as he handed in her blue plates, "these are splendid. mother has a collection of baronials." then they started off. bess drove up to the whirlwind. "why in the world didn't you ask who had ordered the table?" she almost gasped. "if you knew that you could easily have traced it." "wait, wait!" exclaimed cora, in tones so like those of the shop proprietor that the girls all laughed heartily. "i will go to the shop again, and then i will see. perhaps i will get the original--and then--well, wait--just wait." "you are a natural born clue hunter!" declared daisy, "and i am just dying to get back to aunt may's to tell duncan." "now see here, girls," called cora very seriously, so that all in-the different machines might hear her, "this is a matter that must not be mentioned to any one. it would spoil all my plans if the merest hint leaked out. now remember!" and cora spoke with unusual firmness; "i must have absolute secrecy." every girl of them promised. what is dearer to the real girl than a real secret--when the keeping of it involves further delights in its development? once back at bennet blade the girls whispered and whispered, until cora declared they would all, forsooth, be attacked with laryngitis, if they did not cease "hissing," and she called upon doctor bennet to bear out her statement. duncan was going to chelton, and of course he took the trouble to ask what he might do there for the chelton girls. what he might do? was there anything he might not do? the robinson girls declared that their mail had not been forwarded, and they could not trust to mails, anyhow, since their father's papers had been lost. would it be too much trouble for him just to call? to tell their mother what a perfectly delightful time they were having, and so on. and maud morris hated to bother him, but could he just stop at clearman's and get her magazine? she was reading a serial, and simply could not sleep nights waiting for the last instalment. of course he would go to see his uncle, dr. bennet, sr. in fact, it was with dr. bennet he had the appointment; and when daisy started to entrust him with her messages to her father, he insisted that she write them down--no normal brain could hold such a list, he declared. ray was what bess termed "foxy." she did not ask him to do a single thing. "she thinks he will fetch her a box of candy, or a bottle of perfume. that's ray," declared bess to belle. cora certainly wanted to send many messages, with the opportunity of having them go first-hand. it did seem such a long time since she had seen jack; then there was hazel, poor child, penned up with a sick brother. and wren and clip. why couldn't cora just run in to chelton herself with duncan? the thought was all-conquering. it swayed every other impulse in cora's generous nature. why should she stop at the thought of propriety? was it not all right for her to ride with doctor bennet, to reach chelton by noon and return before night? she must go. she would go if every motor girl went along with her. mrs. bennet was one of those dear women who seem to take girls right to her heart. as i have said, she was small and rosy, with that never-fading bloom that sometimes accompanies the rosy-cheeked, curly-headed girl far into her womanhood. cora would go directly to her, and tell her. she would abide by her judgment. mrs. bennet simply said yes, of course. and then she added that cora might start off without letting the girls know anything about it. that would save a lot of explanation. how cora's heart did thump! duncan was going in his machine, and, like all doctors, he always preferred to have a man drive--his chauffeur was most skilful--doctors, even when young in their profession, do not willingly risk being stalled. but in spite of cora's one guiding rule--"when you make up your mind stick to it"--she had many misgivings between that evening when her plans were made, and the next morning when she was to start off with duncan bennet. the other girls had gone out to an evening play in forest park, one of the real attractions of breakwater, and at the last moment cora excused herself upon some available pretense so that she was able to get her things together and see that her machine was safely put up, and then be ready to start off in the morning before the other girls had time to realize she was going. "it does seem," she reflected, "that i am always getting runaway rides." then she recalled how sid wilcox actually did run away with her once, as related in the "motor girls." "and," she told herself, "i seem to like running away with boys." this was exactly what worried cora; she knew that others would be apt to make this remark. "but i cannot help it this time," she sighed. "i have to go to chelton, or--" cora was looking very pretty. excitement seems to put the match to the flickering taper of beauty, hidden behind the self-control of healthy maidenhood. her cheeks were aflame and her eyes sparkled so like jack's when he was sure of winning a hard contest. "dear old jack!" she thought. "won't he be surprised to see me! that will be the best part of it. they will all be so surprised." she went down to the study, where she was sure to find duncan. "i suppose your mother has told you of my mad impulse," she began rather awkwardly. "do you think the folks will be glad to see me?" what a stupid remark! she had no more idea of saying that than of saying: "do you think it will snow?" but, somehow, when he put up his book and looked at her so seriously, she could not help blundering. "they ought to be," he said simply. then she saw that he was preoccupied--scarcely aware that she was present. "i beg your pardon," he said directly, "but i was very busy thinking, just then." "oh, i should not have disturbed you," she faltered. "i will go away at once. i just wanted to be sure that you would wait for me--not run off and leave me." "oh, do sit down," he urged. "my brain is stiff, and i've got to quit for to-night. i haven't told you what takes me to chelton--in fact, i haven't told mother. you see, she thinks i am such a baby that i find it better not to let her know when i am on a case. but the fact is, i am just baby enough to want to tell some one." he arranged the cushions in the big willow chair, and cora sat down quite obediently. she liked duncan--there was something akin to bravery behind his careless manner. "what he wouldn't do for a friend!" she thought. "your case?" asked cora. "i am very ignorant on medical matters, but i should love to hear about the chelton case. i fancy i know every one in chelton." "well, you know uncle bennet, daisy's father, is quite a surgeon, and he has been called in this case by dr. collins. it is a remarkable case, and he has asked me to come in also." "it is that of a child who has been a cripple for some years, and who now is making such progress under the physical-training system that she promises to be cured entirely. "a child?" asked cora, her heart fluttering. "yes; and i rather suspect that you know her." he seemed about to laugh. "uncle mentioned your brother's name in his invitation for me to go in on the case." "oh, tell me," begged cora, "is it wren?" "just let me see," and he looked over some letters. "it seems to me it was some such fantastical name--yes, here it is. her name is wren salvey." "oh, my little wren! and clip is doing all this! oh, i must go! is she going to be operated upon?" "seems to me, little girl," and the young doctor put his hand over hers as would an elderly physician, "that you are over excitable. i will have to be giving you a sedative if you do not at once quiet down. the child is not to be operated upon, as i understand it. it is simply what we call an observation case." "but she is at our house--she has been there since i came away. why, however can all that be going on at home and no one there but the housekeeper--" "the child was at your house, but is now in a private sanitarium," he said quickly. "i have had the pleasure of being in close correspondence with your friend clip." chapter xxiv cora 's resolve for a moment cora was dumfounded. duncan bennet a close friend of clip! the next moment the riddle was solved. "why, of course you know clip," she said. "she goes to your college." "yes," and he ran his white fingers through his "fractious" hair. "the fact is, cora, i am quite as anxious to see clip as to go in on the case. haven't seen her since school closed." "i'll likely have some trouble in finding her," he added presently. "never can find her when i particularly want to, but if she is in chelton i'm going to hunt her up." "won't she be at the sanitarium?" asked cora, and she wondered why her own voice sounded so strained. "i think not," he replied. "clip is a poster-girl, in our parlance, and we don't let them in on real cases." "poster?" asked cora. "yes; it means she has had her picture in the college paper, with 'next' under it. i don't mind saying that i cut out that particular picture." "it must be lots of fun to be in such affairs," said cora. "i have often thought that the simple life of society is a mere bubble compared to what goes on where girls think." "well, i am going early," he said pleasantly. "i suppose you don't mind running away before breakfast." "no, indeed," she answered. "i rather fancy the idea. if i ever trusted myself to meet the girls i would surely 'default.'" "all right. my man is always on time. mother will see that we are not hungry--i've got the greatest mother in the world for looking after meals." cora laughed, and arose to go. "i've told you a lot," he said rather awkwardly, "but somehow i felt like telling you." "you may trust me," replied cora lightly. "i have such a lot of secrets, that i just know how to manage them--they are filed away, you know, each in its place." "thanks," he said. "you know, we don't, as a rule, speak about our professional friends. don't say anything to daisy about clip. i think she would die if she knew i fancied her." he said this just like a girl, imitating daisy. "why, she likes clip," declared cora. "we all do." "wait," he said, and he raised a prophetic finger, "wait until clip sails under her own colors. then take note of her friends. this is the thorn in her side, as it were. she speaks of it often." how cora's head throbbed! perhaps, as duncan had said, she was over excited. but just now there seemed so many things to think about. if she went to chelton she might hear something that would give her a clue to wren's book. jack insinuated that he had a clue when he spoke to her over the 'phone. what if she should be able to trace both the book and the table! and bring wren into her own! as if divining a change in the girl's mind, duncan bennet said: "now, you won't disappoint me? i am counting on your company." "well, i shall have to dream over it," replied cora. "mother says it is always safest to let our ambitions cool overnight." "'think not ambition wise, because 'tis brave?'" he quoted. but he did not guess how well that quotation fitted cora's case. it seemed scarcely any time before the girls were back from the park, just bubbling over in girlish enthusiasm about the wonderful woodland performance. and that cora should have missed it! even gertrude, the staid and steady, could not understand it. the bennets' home was a very large country house, but with all the motor girls scattered over it the house seemed comparatively small. chocolate and knickknacks were always served before bedtime, and daisy had reason to be proud of her part in the entertainment of the girls. "and to-morrow," said adele, between mouthfuls of morsels, "we shall have to decorate for the fete. i am going to do the whirlwind all my own way, am i not, cora?" "you certainly may," replied cora vaguely. "i am the poorest hand at decorating. i prefer driving." and they all wondered why she took so little interest in the preparations for the fete. "i know," whispered bess. "you are thinking of that little mahogany man. and so am i. i can't just wait to see the table." bright and early, the next morning the girls were astir. they had need to be "up with the lark," for the gathering of stuffs with which to decorate cars is quite a task, and they planned to make the fete a memorable affair, as belle put it. "wait till cora comes down," said tillie. "won't she be surprised that i have already been over the meadow, and gotten so many beautiful, tall grasses!" mrs. bennet appeared at that moment. "my dears," she began, "i have a surprise for you. cora has taken a run home--she really had to go, but she will be back by nightfall. now, there," to daisy, "you must not pout. cora has been a faithful little captain, and, from what i understand, there have been a great many things to demand her attention at home. go right on with your plans, and make her car the very prettiest, and when she gets back she will have some reason to be proud of her allies. i have arranged to be at home all day, and to do whatever i can to assist you, in cora's place." the girls were utterly surprised, but what could they say? show displeasure to so affable a hostess? never! what they thought was, of course, a matter of their own personal business. chapter xxv a wild run' "speed her up, tom," ordered dr. duncan bennet to his chauffeur, as he and cora started out that bright, beautiful morning. "we will have all we can do to cover the ground and make home by nightfall." "without a single stop," remarked cora, "i calculated we could do it. do you think there is any possibility of us failing to get back?" "tom knows no end of short cuts," said duncan, settling himself down comfortably. "we take quite a different route to that which you girls came over." "oh, yes, of course. we could never get to chelton and back in one day over the roads which we came by," replied cora. "the one controlling thought is," said the young physician, "that an automobile is not a camel. no telling when its thirst will demand impossible quenching. but this is a first-rate car," he went on, "and it has never gone back on me yet." "it rides beautifully," agreed cora, as the machine was speeding over the roads like the very wind. "after all, i do believe that an experienced chauffeur is a positive luxury." "now, now!" exclaimed duncan. "don't go back on your constitution. you will have to report, i suppose. what do you imagine our little girls are thinking and doing about now?" cora laughed. duncan seemed amused at the idea of "stealing" the captain of the club--he liked nothing better than a "row" with girls. "well, i suppose," said cora cautiously, "that they are scouring breakwater for things to decorate the machines with. i am glad that i entrusted the whirlwind to tillie--she is so artistically practical that she will be sure to avoid making holes in the car to stick bouquets in." "the fellows will be up to-night. they have taken rooms at the beacon. there'll be no end of a rumpus if they strike breakwater, and i am not there to pilot them." "likely our girls would attempt to put them to rights," said cora, joking. "just fancy a crowd of students, and those silly girls." "it is well that they can't hear you," remarked duncan. "of course, you are very--very sensible." "you mean--i should not have come?" she said, her face flushing. "oh, indeed, i meant nothing of the sort," he hurried to explain. "in fact, i never could have carried out my plan if you had not come along. i am going to bring clip out for the meet." "oh, wouldn't that be splendid!" exclaimed cora. "if only we can manage it. but she is always so busy--" "then i intend to make her stop work for a few days at least. i want my brother to meet her, and this--well, quite an opportunity." cora looked at the earnest young man beside her. "clip is worth knowing," she said simply. then she added: "i wonder if we could arrange it to have hazel come? it would be just glorious to have the club complete after all our little drawbacks. if her brother is better i will not take 'no' for an answer. i shall simply insist upon hazel coming." cora was aglow with the prospects--if only everything would go along smoothly and no other "drawback" should occur. "your friends are from exmouth, aren't they?" asked duncan. "i ought to know some of them; we played their team last year." "oh, do you know ed foster? and walter pennington?" asked cora. "i happen to remember their names," said duncan. "i would be glad if we could manage to have them come out to the show. let me see. how could we fix it up?" "jack has a car, and so has walter," replied cora, while the chauffeur looked at his speedometer and noted that they were doing twenty-five miles an hour. "then," said duncan, "if we can fix it--but that observation case will take quite a little time." "you can attend to your case, and get clip," said cora with a mischievous smile, "and i will attend to the boys." "oh, my!" exclaimed duncan. "you are ready and willing to make the 'round up.' well," and the car gave an unexpected bump that almost threw cora over into her companion's arms, "i would like first rate to have them all come to breakwater, and our fellows would count it the best part of their vacation to have an auto run of that kind. if we find everything all right out in chelton we will call a special meeting of the motor girls, the girls being you, and the motor boys being me, and then we will come to the quickest decision on record." cora was arranging her goggles and veil. the speed of the car was playing sad havoc with her costume, and she was not too independent to want to look well when she got into her home-town. "look out, tom!" called duncan to his man. "here is about where they enforce the speed laws, isn't it?" "we have to take chances," replied the man, "if we expect to cover the ground." "mercy!" exclaimed cora. "please do not take any chances with speed laws. i have a perfect horror of that sort of thing." "what's she doing?" asked the doctor. "only twenty miles, sir," replied the chauffeur, "and they allow us fifteen." "couldn't we just as well conform to the regulation speed?" asked cora anxiously. it was rather unusual for her to show such timidity. "leave it to tom," replied the young doctor. "chauffeurs are like house-maids--they must not be interfered with." up to this time cora had really not noticed the speed. her conversation with duncan had been altogether engrossing. but now she began to appreciate the situation, and this precluded all other considerations, even the thoughts of chelton. duncan bennet had no sister, and, consequently, was not versed in the art of "fidgets." he only knew the ailment when it took definite form. but cora was getting it--in fact, she now felt positively nervous. how that machine did go! the speed delighted duncan. tom was like an eagle bending over his prey--he urged the car on with such determination. once or twice cora felt bound to exclaim, but duncan only shook his head. it was going, that was all he seemed to care for. near the station they were obliged to slow up some to look for trains. as they did so cora saw another car dash by, and in she recognized the man now known to her as mr. reed, rob roland's cousin. she made no remark to duncan; he seemed so occupied with his own thoughts. but when, after a few minutes, the same car passed them again, having made a circuit on a crossroad, and the same man stared at cora as if to make sure it was she, she felt a queer uneasiness. this time the other car shot ahead at such a wild pace that even duncan's machine was not speeding compared with that. "talk about going!" commented the physician; "just look at that fellow. if he can use up that much gasoline and escape the law, no need for us to worry." the chauffeur was simply intent upon speed--he seemed to have gone speed crazy, cora thought. they were traveling over a perfectly straight road, and duncan bennet took out his field glasses. "here," he said to cora, "i often find these interesting when on a long journey. take a peek." cora adjusted the glasses and peered ahead. "that man," she said, "has stopped at a small shed--" "that's the constable's hang-out," remarked duncan. "i had to stop there once--just once," and the thought was evidently funny, for he laughed boyishly. "yes," went on cora, "there is some one talking to him. oh, duncan," and she clutched his arm nervously, "do tell tom to drive slowly past there, for i think i know that man." "go slow, tom," called duncan carelessly. "we might be held up. just let me take the glasses, cora." he peered through the strong lenses. "the other car has gone on," he said. "perhaps the cop is a friend of your friend's"; and again he laughed, much to cora's discomfort. on and on the machine flew. finally they were within a few rods of the little shed by the roadside. a man on a motor-cycle was waiting. as the bennet car came up he shot out into the center of the road. duncan did not mistake his intention. tom turned his head and gave the other a meaning look. then the chauffeur slowed down--slower and slower. "stop!" called the man on the motor-cycle, at the same moment dismounting from his wheel. tom almost stopped. cora thought he had turned off the gasoline, but the next moment he had shot past the surprised officer, and was going at a madder pace than ever. cora was frightened. some motor-cycles can beat ordinary automobiles; she knew that. but duncan was laughing. if only that man, reed, was not on the same road just then. "can you make it?" asked duncan, calling into the chauffeur's ear. "don't know," replied the man. "but we may as well get as far out of the woods as possible." "don't worry, little girl," said duncan to cora with that self-confidence peculiar to those who are accustomed to being obeyed. "we are all right. it is only a fine, at any rate, and i always carry small change." "stop!" yelled the man at the rear. "you cannot cross the line, and if you don't stop soon you will find your tires winded." a revolver shot sounded. tom drew up instantly. "i don't fancy putting on new tires," he said coolly, "so we may as well surrender." duncan looked at the officer in a perfectly friendly way. "well, what's up?" he asked indifferently. "you ought to know," replied the man, scowling angrily. "if i hadn't stopped you land knows but you would have been over the falls. what's the matter with you fellows, anyhow? can't you take a joy ride without committing murder and suicide?" "you're mistaken," replied duncan. "i'm a doctor on a hurry call--" "yes, you are! you look it!" and the officer sneered at cora. "tell that to the marines!" "well, what's the price?" demanded duncan with some impatience. "i'm in a hurry." "wait till your hurry cools off," said the officer, who from his own wild chase was now plainly uncomfortably warm. "you made the marked-off distance in the shortest time on record, from post to post in one minute." "how do you know?" asked the chauffeur sharply. "what's that to you?" replied the officer. "didn't i see you?" "you did not!" shouted tom. "some one 'squealed,' and you have no proof of what you are saying." the man hesitated. then he blurted out: "well, what if a friend did tip me off? wasn't he in as much danger from your runaway machine as the next one?" "that man!" whispered cora to duncan. "he stopped and told him to arrest us." "well, the price?" called duncan, with his hand in his pocket. "i tell you i am a doctor, and i am in a hurry to get to chelton. can't you make it something reasonable--and then something for your own trouble?" the man eyed duncan sharply. "i was told you would say just that," he said with a curious laugh. "and that is just what the other fellow said to you," spoke tom. "now look here, hanna. i know how much you have got out of this already, and i happen to know the sort of coin that that sneak, reed, carries. he has offered me some--at times. he travels out here quite some of late. take my advice and be square. it is all bound to come out in the wash." cora gazed at duncan in astonishment. "i told you," said the latter, "that it is best to leave a good man alone. like a good cook, they usually know their own business." but the officer was not so sure. he hesitated, then said: "well, i see judge brown over in the meadow. he can settle it. come along." chapter xxvi legal strategy cora was in despair. to be thus detained when there was not an hour to spare! tom drew the machine well to the roadside. duncan leisurely climbed out and then asked the girl if she would remain in the car. "that's the mean part of this business," remarked duncan; "they don't want money--they want time--good, honest time." then, of a sudden, with that boyishness that cora had so greatly admired in so thoughtful a young man, he sprang off on a run toward the meadow, where the constable had indicated the judge could be found. "come on, friend," he called good-naturedly to the officer on the wheel. "when a thing's to be done, may as well do it. the sooner the quicker," he joked, while cora wondered more and more how so wronged a person could be so good-humored. tom fussed about the machine, looking to see that the official bullet had not struck through a tire. evidently the constable did not expect duncan to take him at his word, and go after the squire, for it took him some time to put his wheel against a tree and prepare to follow on foot. "you can't go that way," he shouted to duncan. "that's all swamp." "won't hurt me," replied the irrepressible duncan. "i am taking the water cure." soon duncan was talking to the farmer--and the constable was still "picking his steps" toward the spot where the two stood. "i am sure duncan will win him," thought cora, "and perhaps we will not be so long delayed, after all." but tom could not stand the suspense. he asked cora if she would mind being left alone for a few minutes, and soon he, too, was hurrying over the meadow. cora had great faith in tom's judgment now, and was rather glad that he had gone to duncan's help. she stepped out of the car to gather a few wild flowers, and was just about to step in again when the rumble of an approaching machine attracted her attention. she turned and saw coming toward her that man reed. with assumed indifference she stepped back to the road to get another flower. this took her just a bit farther from his path than she would have been in the car, but as he came up she heard him slacken, then stop. her heart seemed to stand still. in an instant she realized what it meant for a girl to be alone on a road--she should not have left breakwater, and the doctor and tom should not have left her. "miss kimball," called a voice from the other car. "i am sorry to see you in this predicament. i am mr. reed, of roland, reed & company," and he said this with all possible courtesy. "i believe we have met before, and i came back to see if i might be of any assistance to you. this speeding business is rather troublesome, and i ventured to guess that you are most anxious to be in chelton to-day, as there are so many interesting things going on there." for an instant cora felt that she had wronged this man. perhaps, after all, he was a perfect gentleman, and had nothing to do with their being detained. if only duncan or tom was there! "yes, i am in a hurry to get home," admitted cora. "but i think we will soon be off again." "not very likely," went on the other. "that old judge seems to delight in keeping folks away from their business. he has the most roundabout way possible of transacting matters. i was about to suggest that if you really are anxious to get to chelton i would go over there and speak with your friend, and, as we are not so far away from the home town, it might be wise for you to ride with me. it is very awkward for a lady to be in this position. sometimes a newspaper fellow comes along, and, as they say, 'gets a story' out of it." "oh, i thank you very much," she said hurriedly and not without showing her confusion, "but i will wait until dr. bennet comes. i am sure he will not be detained long. they should have some consideration for physicians." "dr. bennet? oh, i see. he is in a hurry, too, to get to chelton." (if cora could have seen the flash that shot through the lawyer's brain at that moment.) "well, of course, he ought to be allowed to go--although we all have to keep within the speed limit." "they are coming now," said cora joyously, for the interview was anything but pleasant. "i will tell dr. bennet of your kindness." the man cranked up instantly, excusing his haste with a glance at his watch. "well," he said, "i have a noon appointment, so i may as well hurry on. good morning, miss kimball. i suppose we shall see each other again in chelton, as we both are interested, i believe, in the same affair--finding the promise book and finding the lost table." then he was off. duncan, tom and the two officers were up to the car before cora had quite recovered herself. "that was reed, miss, wasn't it?" asked tom sharply. "yes," replied cora. "well, he's a cool one," went on tom, while duncan looked after the receding car. "do you know him, if i may ask?" "yes, and no," said cora nervously, for the constable and justice were looking at her with some impertinence. "i thought so. his usual game. he makes himself known. now see here," said tom, in a manner that made cora think of paul--perhaps tom loved machines as did paul, and was more than an ordinary chauffeur--"that man is a keen lawyer, dr. bennet, and he has some purpose in delaying you." "delaying me!" echoed duncan. "no," interrupted cora. "it is in me he seems to have the interest, for he asked me to ride back to chelton with him. oh, i know!" she exclaimed. "it is in wren! he is the lawyer who has to do with mrs. salvey's case, and he is trying to keep dr. bennet away from chelton to-day. he must have heard that you were on the case," declared cora, as the whole strange proceeding seemed to flash before her excited mind. "that's bad!" groaned duncan. the officials were talking at one side of the road. "look here, squire," called tom, "this is all a putup game. you have no proof that we were going faster than the law allows. that sneak reed simply told you so. now own up, hanna. am i not right?" "he sure said so," grumbled hanna. "and you had only his word?" asked the old justice angrily. "i saw the smoke from that car, and--" "well, i'm goin' to let you go," asserted the judge. "i don't like this here kind of business, hanna, and i want you after this to have all your charges first hand. don't take no tips from nobody, d'ye hear?" hanna smiled. he had his hand in his pocket, and it may as well be told that there was also in the pocket something which resigned him to letting the automobilists go. reed had attended to the compensation. "just as you say, judge," remarked the constable. duncan put his hand out to the old squire. "here, squire," he said. "i do this openly. i want you to take this, not as a bribe, but as a personal gift, which i have a perfect right to offer you. you are doing me a kindness, and also this young lady a kindness, and the one most concerned is a helpless little creature who waits until i reach chelton to know whether or not she is to be made perfectly well, so to speak. not that i am the one to say that, but because a noted specialist will wait for all the other doctors. it's a long stony, but i will let you know how we make out if i beat that sharper into chelton." cora couldn't speak. she, too, put out her hand to the old squire, who was wiping his eyes and shaking his head against duncan's gift. finally the young doctor prevailed upon him, and then once more they started on their mad run for chelton. chapter xxvii against the law two hours later cora almost fell into the arms of her brother--so overstrained were her nerves after the exciting ride. "oh, jack," she exclaimed, "i had the awfullest time! it is very well to be a girl and imitate boys in the matter of risking; but i say, jack, it is always risky." "well, i am glad you have found that out, little girl," answered the brother, putting her comfortably down in the big armchair. "what's the particular risk now? no more stolen girls?" "oh, that was your part," she said, laughing. "and, by the way, i hear you are quite a successful kidnaper." "not so bad. but you should have seen the time we had to get wren to the sanitarium. she didn't want to leave here, and had a mortal fear of a hospital. but how are you?" and he looked into her flushed face. "i declare it seems moons since i've seen you." "and all the other planets since i saw you, jack. i wonder will i ever have the courage to tell you all about it?" "wouldn't the courage just naturally come on my side? i would have to listen--" "oh, no. you don't have to--" "there you go! home ten minutes and picking a fight--" "jack kimball!" "cora kimball!" then they both laughed. it was jolly even to play at quarreling, and be real brother and sister again. "well, i have so little time, jack, i must be serious. you know we have to get back to breakwater to-night. we are to fetch you, and ed and walter and clip--" "oh, you don't say! in a suit case or a la hamper? ed is literally cut up about all the girls being out of town at once. he would fit in the shirt box, i fancy. but wallie--he seems to have expanded. i doubt if you could manage him--" "oh, you ridiculous boy! come on. run after me while i get through the house. i must see dear old margaret. how is she treating you?" "first-rate, for margaret. she only starved me out of the midnight rations twice--" "you should not eat after ten, jack. but come along. i must look over the place, and talk at the same time," and with that intention cora started on her tour of home inspection, while jack made all the noise he possibly could make (which was not a little), running through the house after her. margaret, of course, knew what the tumult was about. she always declared that boys went to college to learn how to make unearthly noises. cora found little out of place. margaret was an old and trusted servant, and, in the absence of her mistress, could always be depended upon to look after the "children." "and now i must go and get the folks together," remarked cora. "can you come, jack?" "and help you pick up the humans? well, guess i may as well, as i am to be in the collection. but what is it all about?" in a girl's way cora told of the plans for the auto fete, and of dr. bennet wishing to have the chelton boys meet his student friends. "first rate!" responded jack, when cora paused for breath. "i rather fancy the idea of going after some of the girls. i cannot help but agree with ed that all the girls should not leave town at once--you should take turns." "but how about clip? the others imagine that she makes up for quite a number--with you and walter." "there you go again, picking a fight," and he laughed honestly. "now, cora, clip is just clip, no more and not one whit less, but she has been so busy--oh, so tremendously busy!" he was getting into his motor togs, and cora was already equipped for her ride about chelton. "say, sis," he added, "did i tell you i have my suspicions about the loss of wren's book? did she describe to you the pair who last signed the contract?" "no," answered cora, now fully interested. "well, she told me it was a fellow with bent shoulders, and a girl with red hair. now, who does that fit?" cora thought for a moment. then her face showed quicker than her words that she guessed who might answer those descriptions. "sid wilcox and ida giles!" she exclaimed. "but what motive could they have?" "sid wilcox and rob roland are termed the heavenly twins, they are so often together. now, rob roland has been the paragraph and the period, so to speak, in this story," said jack meaningly. "but why should ida stoop to such a thing?" "didn't you run over her dining-car one day early this summer?" jack reminded her. "or was it bess? no matter just who, it was one of the motor girls. and, besides, you did not ask her to go on the run." "if i thought ida giles knew anything about that book i would go directly to her house and demand an explanation," said cora, flushing. "ida is too apt to be influenced by sid wilcox. i thought she had seen enough of the consequences of such folly." "oh, ida is ambitious in that line," replied the cool, deliberate jack. "well, let us start," suggested cora. "i have quite some ground to cover. dr. bennet has agreed to find and fetch clip." "has, eh? smart fellow, doc bennet! i tried all afternoon yesterday to locate the lithersome clip. took a coy little jaunt of two miles afoot--some one said she had a friend out bentley way, but i did not locate her. hope doc has better luck." jack said this in a way that opposed his words to their own meaning. he evidently meant he hoped dr. bennet would not have better luck. "i am so anxious about the report on wren," commented cora, as they finally started off in jack's runabout. "it will mean so much to her mother, and to her, of course." "well, if clip has had any influence, i should say wren would turn out an artist's model, physically. clip has just about lived with the child since you went away. of course, we had miss brown, and if she isn't brown by nature as well as by name. i wouldn't say so. i never got one single smile to cut across her map." "shall we look for ed first?" and cora could not control a most provoking flush that threatened her cheeks. "just as you say, lady. but i have not told you--let the last moment be the hardest. ed has taken to the ram. he is training the ram. can't get him away from the ram. mary's little lamb is a 'bucking bronco' to it." "oh, i have been wondering about that," said cora. "i thought i was to wear the ram's fleece as a sort of real baby-lamb coat next winter." "nothing of the sort, girl. ed's ramifications are the talk of the town. he is to give an exhibition at college when we get back. a clear case of the lamb and mary's school days." "well, where shall we hope to find him?" and she glanced at her watch. "i must find some one soon." "come along. i'll hunt him up. he is likely at this very moment giving minus his morning ablutions. he called the ram minus because the animal takes away so much of his time. joke, eh?" jack directed his machine toward the same little creek that figured in my first story of the motor girls, when ed rescued them from a sorry plight, the whirlwind having run into a mudhole. "now, i'll bet we find him by the brookside with minus chewing daisies and, incidentally, ed's stray clothing," declared jack. along the way people appeared surprised to see cora, and their greetings were a mixture of query and astonishment. "there's ida!" suddenly exclaimed jack. "don't let on you see her. i don't want to stop here to talk to her." "why?" asked cora curiously. "because in about one minute you will see her trailer, the insufferable sid, and i am not in sid's humor. "i would like to speak with ida," objected cora. "i really wanted to ask her something." "save it," commanded the ungovernable brother. "a thing like that gets better with time." so they passed along, cora having to be content with a bow and a smile to ida giles, who returned both promptly. "jack," said cora, when they were also up to the hill behind which they hoped to find the idler by the brook, "do you know i think i have an actual clue to wren's table. an antique man out breakwater way has an order for one. i am watching that order." "that's easy. when you know that reed has been in and out of the place for some days. that's the best of being a girl. you can trace around after the most important clues and no one would ever suspect you of knowing what you are after. now, i rather think when the fete is 'pulled off,' if i may use the term," and he laughed his apology, "then there will be some doin's. i just want to see rocky rob rumpled." "let us not delay talking long with ed," proposed cora, "for i must be at hazel's at one--i am so anxious about paul." "about paul? why, he's all right. he's out and has been to the office," was the brother's surprising answer. "didn't you hear about mr. robinson wanting to send him away for his health? robinson has taken a great fancy to paul. the stolen document business is also near a climax. i had a fine time trying to keep clip's name out of the paper, the day they had the hearing about wren. you see, i--the great first person--ran into the courtroom just as the judge was dismissing the absurd case set up against mrs. salvey. of course, that was nothing more or less than a trick to get information for the other side. well, mr. robinson was hurrying to court and he has passed his running days creditably, i believe when he met me. i took up his run at a moment's notice, reached the courtroom, waved my hands wildly in the air--" "oh, jack!" interrupted cora; "don't be so absurd. you know i am just dying to hear what happened." "then don't die until you do hear," and he slowed up at the hill. "the fact is, i just caught the whole city news force red-handed with a great story about clip. the reporters had called her the modern clara, and all that, but i got it away from them. i know one of the best of them, and he agreed, so they all had to. it was a good little story, for the lawyers were matched against a motor girl. that made it interesting from a newspaper viewpoint. hello! didn't i tell you? say, there, mr. foster! chain up the ram, ed. we want to approach." just as they rounded the hill, ed could plainly be seen as jack had foretold--idling by the brook with the ram in the same picture, but at a polite distance from its owner. "i thought walter wanted the ram," remarked cora as they neared the spot where ed was "getting himself together." "oh, he did. but do you remember what the man said about having to put his overcoat on to feed that animal? well, he wouldn't even stand for walter, with or without the ulster. he tried his best raincoat and all, but the ram just went for him. but look how he purrs around ed--tame as a kitten." "i am not going to trust him, though," decided cora. "one experience with mr. minus is enough for me. shout to ed to come over. i must hurry." cora's invitation to go to breakwater came almost as a shock, ed declared, but coming from cora he would accept. consequently he hurried the ram to its quarters, and, agreeing to look up walter, the girl was left to pay her visit to hazel. "we fellows will start from here about daybreak," jack decided, "and we will reach breakwater about ten o'clock. that's the time doc bennet gave me for the official gun to go off." it happened that ed knew the young doctor slightly, so that he took jack's urgent "appeal" as coming from the actual host. "i told you he would be glad to join the motor girls' club," remarked jack, while ed was exchanging civilities with cora. "he's just been pining around here like a lost--" "now, jack, be square," interrupted the handsome young man, whom cora thought had actually grown handsomer in the days since she had last seen him. "i never pine. i growl--just plain growl." "you take me over to hazel's, jack?" asked cora. "then you may go along and help look for walter. i must meet dr. bennet at two-thirty. and then, i wonder, will we be able to get back to breakwater by six." she was thinking of her experience coming out to chelton; also she kept on the lookout for mr. reed. he had hinted that there were interesting things developing in chelton just then. he had said openly that his interest and cora's were mutual. would he again molest her? with this thought she determined not to get too far away from jack. she would have him call at the hastings' house for her. and the roland, reed & company lawyers knew that cora kimball was a leader among the motor girls the club that had avowed its purpose of finding the book, as well as the table. all this was complicated and involved, but to the shrewd lawyers, cora knew the working out of the details was merely a matter of opportunity. having failed to prove wren a subject for some "shut-in" institution, these same lawyers were now engaged on another scheme, that of trying to show that the child was detained against her will, and was actually in the possession of cora kimball. jack had told cora all this, trying to make it a matter of small importance, and laughing at rob roland's initial performance, as jack put it; but cora felt that it was no laughing matter, and that at least the happiness of two persons--mrs. salvey and her delicate little daughter--was involved. cora and jack were on the road, and jack had cranked up. ed, having made the ram secure in the field, was about to walk to his own lodgings. suddenly a flash of red swept across the streak of brown highway. cora recognized it instantly as dr. bennet's car. he was coming at such a pace that in drawing up the gears and brakes of his machine protested with unpleasant, grinding sounds. dr. bennet seemed flushed and excited. he began, without any preliminaries, to tell cora that she must get into his car, and hurry back to breakwater. "i have been on the wildest hunt," he said, smiling an acknowledgment to cora's introduction to ed, and bowing to jack, whom he had met earlier in the day. "i have been all over chelton, but of course did not expect to locate you out here." duncan bennet possessed that manner which is at once persuasive and at the same time courteous combination of the doctor and the man. "you see," he continued, "i happened to overhear that you are to be subpoenaed in that robinson patent case. in fact, i heard reed say he would have you in an hour, so i determined to beat him back home--get you over the state line before he can serve the papers. now, you had best jump right in. clip is waiting for us at wiltons'. we will pick her up and then fly." "oh!" gasped cora, seizing at jack's arm. "i am not going to run away. i will stay right at home--with my brother." cora was as near crying as any young lady with the reputation of strength of character might safely venture. but jack knew more of the case than he had confided to her, and he instantly agreed with dr. bennet. "run along, sis," he advised, with the jollity that makes a brave boy ever a girl's hero. "i'll be after you with the others, and it will be no end of fun. clip's going, and i'll try to have paul and hazel join--if paul is fit. then with ed and walter-say, we will have the time of our young lives! get in with dr. bennet, and i'll turn back and stop in front of the ice cream place. of course, reed or roland will come along that way, and of course you will be inside eating frapped subpoenas." cora was now climbing in beside dr. bennet. "and that is why that horrid man tried to get me to ride in town with him!" cried cora. "he wanted to make me take those papers--" "certainly," interrupted duncan. "but we have fooled him thus far. be sure to come to the show, boys," this to ed and jack. "my crowd will be out there to-night, but i suppose we will not see the chelton throng until to-morrow. excuse haste--and a bad pen," he added, laughing, while tom gave a signal on the horn. "this is the time we make a run against the law." chapter xxviii confidences "now, tom," called duncan bennet to his chauffeur, after clip had joined cora, "you had better slow up some. the young ladies may want to find out whether or not they still wear hats." they had ridden fast and far. "oh!" exclaimed clip, "i never had such a delightful ride. i suppose that is what you call being motor mad--going and going until you cannot go fast enough. they say it is a disease, isn't it, doctor?" "i believe it is so defined," answered duncan with mock dignity. "but we are not to talk disease, if you please, young lady," and he smiled a command which might easily be interpreted to mean: "you must rest from that sort of thing for a while." cora turned to look back over the dusty road. her face, usually alive to every mood, was strangely set--as if too anxious to venture a change of expression. duncan from the front seat saw her look. "oh, he is not coming," he said. "no need to worry now. we are across the state line." "i never was so frightened in my life," admitted cora. "not that i was afraid of going to court, but i was mortally afraid we would not be able to make the run in time. i should have known better, however, for tom had qualified before to-day." "tom knows just how fast this machine ought to go," added duncan. "i don't mind tom hearing it, either." the chauffeur smiled in acknowledgment to the compliment. it had been a hard run, and the chelton lawyer had only turned back at the last mile post. "wonder where that motor-cycle officer is now?" remarked cora. "i mean constable hanna." "oh, he's out having a good time on what he earned this morning," answered duncan. "one hold-up in a day is plenty for hanna." "i have scarcely had a chance to speak to you, clip," cora began, as her nervousness vanished. "i am so glad to see you." "well, you have been looking whole vocabularies at me, cora, in many and various languages," said clip in her own inimitable way. "i have been wondering whether you had turned into a sphynx or just liberty." "but, clip, i did have a fright. suppose i should have had to give up the run, and go to that stuffy old courtroom!" "well, i am glad you didn't," answered clip sincerely. "i do think that a courtroom is about the meanest place i have ever visited--and i have been in a lot of queer places. and the girls," went on clip. "whatever will they say to you two runaways?" "what won't they say?" replied duncan. "i am not to blame, of course. miss cora simply inveigled me into allowing her to ride with me--" "i saw reed pass over the back country road a moment ago," interrupted tom. "i might guess where he is going." "where?" asked the trio in a breath. "to that junk shop on the turnpike," replied tom. "he seems to think the shop is haunted with a valuable ghost. he goes out there almost daily." "you mean the antique shop?" asked cora. "oh, i know. he is after a table. i am sure it is he who has given the order--" she stopped--her finger on her lip. tom seemed to know so much--what if he should know about the missing table? "have you any idea what he is after?" asked cora directly. "well, i ought to know," replied tom, "for he has made no secret of it. he has searched every attic from breakwater to moreland. i caught an old junk dealer in our barn the other morning, and while i watched him get down the road i saw reed come along. of course, he had hired the man to search where he himself could not go. he is after some sort of ancient rustic table, i believe." clip and cora exchanged meaning looks. cora had not for a moment forgotten about the antique man's promise to have the original table in a few days. she was to see this and then-"we are not out of the woods yet," remarked clip. "i am thinking, duncan, that you have undertaken a large contract. you have positively agreed to have me back in chelton by to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock." "oh, we will see about that," replied the physician with a sly look at cora. "there is a telephone in breakwater--" "duncan bennet! if i thought i should be late for the 'clearing-up' to-morrow i would start right now," declared clip most emphatically. "oh, you won't be. we will fix it so the 'clearing-up' will be late for you. i suppose you think everything that ever happened is going to repeat itself to-morrow afternoon, just because one miss cecilia thayer is going--" "hush, duncan! cora does not know one word about it. she may have guessed, but that is not knowing, is it, cora?" "i confess to a keen curiosity," answered cora, "but as a matter of fact i expect to be very much busy myself to-morrow. just now i cannot see how it is all going to be managed." "well, when the chelton boys arrive i guess the girls will not be so particular about their time," said duncan. "i fancy even the captain will have to show somebody the beauties of breakwater. but hark! wasn't that daisy? i just heard a breath. we are only about ten miles from home--daisy can easily breathe that long when she is excited. oh, i am just aching to hear what they will say, cora," and he laughed. "i'll wager ray will be the aggrieved one. she will likely manage to keep out of the work, don't you think so?" cora did not reply in so many words, but she looked acquiescence. certainly those who knew ray appreciated her ability to take care of her own personal self at the risk of all other matters. but cora was thinking of something else--of wren and the medical report. she knew better than to ask duncan outright what might have been the result of their inquiry. nevertheless, she could not refrain from "begging the question." "is little wren happy?" she asked, without apology for the sudden turn in their conversation. "well, just now," replied duncan very seriously, "she can scarcely be expected to realize either happiness or unhappiness, for we had to give her a powerful anesthetic." "for an operation?" cora could not refrain from asking. clip showed no curiosity, and cora knew at once that she was acquainted with the circumstances. "something of that kind," answered duncan vaguely. "but put your mind at rest--the child has every chance of ultimate recovery. the trouble was the wrong treatment. we use purely physical training for that sort of thing." "could the neglect have been intentional?" asked cora further. she had in mind the "quack" doctor so long sent to salveys' by the roland branch of the family. "oh, i wouldn't like to venture an opinion on that," replied duncan, "but ignorance is closely allied to criminal negligence." clip set her deep dark eyes in a tense, strained expression. then they all fell to thinking, and for a time conversation ceased. "ten more telegraph poles and we run into breakwater," announced duncan, while tom eyed his speedometer. "then for our reception!" it seemed but two minutes, at most, from that announcement that duncan's machine turned into the bennet estate. chapter xxix merry motor maids the runaways were forgiven, finally, although between four "enraged" young medical students, and the sextette of motor girls, cora and duncan had some difficulty in making it perfectly clear that the trip to chelton was entirely unavoidable. it was a merry party that gathered in mrs. bennet's long drawing-room that evening to make arrangements for the run over breakwater roads in the morning. the girls at first refused to allow cora a sight of the decorated cars until they should be in line, but tillie was so proud of her achievement with the whirlwind that all finally consented, and directly after tea the cars in the garage and in the big barn were admired and inspected. certainly the machines did credit to the fair decorators. the whirlwind was transformed into a moving garden, the sides being first wound with strong twine, and into this were thrust all sorts of flowers in great, loose bunches. only the softest foliage, in branches, was utilized, as tillie felt responsible for the luster of the "piano" polish, for which the whirlwind was remarkable. the top of the car was like a roof garden, the effect being quite simply managed, for tillie was resourceful. she had stretched across the roof of the car a strong sheet of pasteboard. into this she placed a great variety of wild flowers, banking the stalks, which stood into holes made in the board, with soft grasses and such ferns as might be depended upon not to "slink" in the sun. "wonderful!" exclaimed cora with unfeigned delight. "but what an awful lot of trouble, tillie!" "it is for you," said the german girl sincerely, "and you have gone to an awful lot of trouble for me. besides," she added, "you will look so queenly in that throne of flowers." the compliment was rather overwhelming--especially as the strange young men were there, they with duncan adding a new line of adjectives to the admiration party. "you may look at our car, cora," assented bess, "although you were so indifferent, going away without even offering a suggestion as to what we might do." "as if i could anticipate belle's talent," said cora with a laugh. "i feel i ought to answer to 'which hand' when i open my eyes on her creation." "oh-h-h-h!" the boys all joined in with cora and clip in the expressions of delight, for there was the pretty little runabout, the flyaway, made into a "live pond lily." "however did you do it?" asked cora, actually amazed at the charming effect. "i shouldn't tell," replied belle, who was looking very pretty--at least one of the strange boys thought so. it was phil macvicker who "kept track" of belle, and it was the same gallant phil, who, late in the afternoon, helped belle to finish up her pond lily. "we may all guess why belle chose that design," said daisy, who was waiting for the newcomers to pass judgment on her own runabout. "a pond lily has a yellow head, and belle's is just about that shade." it would be pretty to see a yellow head in the white peals of the improvised lily. cora satisfied her curiosity by finding out that these petals were nothing more than barrel staves covered with crushed white paper. "you have had an awful lot to do, girls," she said with genuine sincerity. "i am actually sorry i could not have been here to help." "of course, mine is not so elegant," remarked daisy, who led the way to the other carriage house, where her machine was kept, "but i fancy people will look at it." duncan "went wild" when he beheld what daisy had rigged up. a veritable circus wagon--a cage, in which daisy declared she was going to sit with whip in hand, and nero, the big st. bernard dog, at her feet. "we made it out of clothes poles and laths," said daisy proudly. "i have not taken a course in manual training for naught." then the boys had to fix up their cars. duncan was tired--the other boys were frisky--so he nicely suggested that they "do as they jolly pleased with his car, so long as they left room for his feet." of course the boys wanted something grotesque. phil suggested that they all carry out the circus idea, and "trail" after beauty and the beast. this was finally agreed to, and it was duncan's car that they turned into the calliope, actually going so far as to hire the local hurdy-gurdy man to ride in it and do the "callioping." "it looks as if our run home would be more auspicious than the trip we made in," said cora to one of the very nice young students, who had offered to look over her car and see that it was in good working order. "we had a dreadful time coming out here--but i suppose the girls have told you about it." bentley davis, otherwise called ben, admitted that the young ladies had spoken of the trip, and he presumed to predict a great time for the auto meet. so it went on until the boys had to go back to their hotel, and the girls, after discussing all sorts of necessary and unnecessary plans, finally consented to wait for the morrow. tired from their enthusiasm, as well as from muscular efforts, the girls found their eyes scarcely "locked," before the bright rays of a late summer sun knocked on the tardy lids and demanded recognition. was it really time to get up? if only the wasted hours of the evening past might be tucked on to the shortened time! most things might be lengthened that way. but, one after the other, the girls were at last awake, and so, quicker and quicker, sped the time until horns were sounding from garage and stable and even from the roadway. "there come the cheltons!" called duncan as he saw jack's car. then walter's with ed rounded the gravel driveway. from that moment, until car after car was upon the roads of breakwater, it was a question which made the most noise, the girls talking or the boys blowing signals on the auto horns. hazel had come with jack, as paul was scarcely able for the excitement, so that, after all, the motor girls were all in the run. what a parade! of course, cora, being captain, had to lead, and from the floral folds of the whirlwind floated the club flag in the newly adopted colors, red and white, with the gold letters, m. g. c. (motor girls' club), plainly discernible in the changing sunlight. every one in breakwater had heard that there was to be an amateur motor show, but few expected it to turn out into such a fine procession. the sound of the "calliope" was truly ludicrous. to this was soon added all sorts of noises that only street urchins know how to develop spontaneously. nor were the young people of breakwater to be left out of the sport, for numbers of them possessing automobiles, fell into line, after the decorated cars, until the entire little summer place was agog with such excitement as the extreme originality of the visiting colonists usually affords. street after street was paraded through, auto after auto wheeled along, horns tooting, whistles screeching, boys shouting, girls cheering, until one hour of this strenuous frolic seemed enough to satisfy motor girls and motor boys; and the party went to the beacon for luncheon precisely at noon, leaving tom to finish the honors by stripping the cars of their trappings and making them ready for a homeward trip. cora, however, was persuaded to leave her machine decorated, as the flowers made a pretty picture, and the return home, after the three-days' trip, seemed more auspicious when thus heralded. reluctantly the adieux were made--mrs. bennet had been so hospitable, and the boys such good company. duncan found an opportunity of making clip more intimately acquainted with his mother, for she was a woman glad to be the friend of her boy's friends, and willing to take considerable trouble to show the many little social preferences. cora insisted on the festivities breaking up on the scheduled time, and so did clip. cora wanted to get to the antique shop, and clip wanted to get back to chelton. so after a delay, impossible to avoid where there were so many boys and so many girls, each and all wanting something to say, some question to ask, or some message to deliver, the party finally started off on the return trip of the first regular tour of the motor girls' club. chapter xxx the promise kept with jack's and walter's additional cars the girls were able to ride home without crowding, so that the whirlwind carried only cora, clip and gertrude--the gallantry of the chelton young men affording tillie and adele a chance for a most jolly trip in the little runabouts, while hazel rode with the twins. cora explained that she had an errand to do on the river road, so that she might go to the antique shop without the others. "i think it will be best to have a chance to talk with the old man quietly," she told her companions. "i am so anxious to find out whether or not he really had wren's table, or knows anything about it." but scarcely had she turned into the narrow street than the surprising sight of rob roland's car dashed before her eyes. in it were rob roland and sid wilcox. seeing the festooning of the whirlwind, the driver of the smaller car slackened up, then, seeing further who the occupants of the floral car were, rob roland drew up to speak to cora. "he has just come from the antique shop," whispered clip, "and i am afraid we are too late, cora." but cora spoke cheerily to the young men, exchanging pleasantries about the auto show, and remarking that they should have been in breakwater to see it. "oh, we have had our own show this morning," said rob triumphantly. "i guess the motor girls are not such expert detectives as they have thought themselves to be." this seemed to be aimed directly at clip. she only laughed merrily, however, as the whirlwind shot out of reach of the young man's voice. "what do you suppose he meant?" she asked cora. "we will soon know," replied the other. "it is about the table, of course." they pulled up to the narrow sidewalk. cora was not slow in leaving her car. clip was with her on the walk directly. as they pulled off, their gloves they stopped for a moment in front of the dingy window. cora drew back. "look!" she exclaimed. "there is wren's promise book." "for sale here!" gasped clip. "i--hope so--" faltered cora quickening her steps into the shop. the little bewhiskered man was rubbing his wrinkled hands in apparent satisfaction. he was in no hurry to wait on his customers. "what is that album i see in the window?" asked cora. "some foreign postcard book?" "oh, that! no, that is not foreign. it is a sacred relic of some child saint." "for sale?" asked cora, her voice a-tremble. "oh, no! no! no!" and the man shook his head gravely. "i always keep relics--for curiosities." "might i look at it?" pressed the motor girl, while clip picked up something with pretended interest. "oh, yes, of course. but it is only filled with names, and i got it in a deal with another sale. the party who brought it here," went on the curio dealer, "the same who bought the table gave me the book in the bargain, with the understanding that i should not sell it but keep it on exhibition. they were very particular about me not selling it." cora instantly guessed what this meant--a trick of rob roland. to show her the book! to make sure it was now useless, as the table had been made secure by him, but just to put it in that case to taunt her, when she would come, as of course he knew she would, and discover there was now absolutely no hope of ever recovering wren's long-lost treasure. she looked vaguely into the glass case. "so you did get the table?" she said indifferently. "yes, that, too," said the man. but he made no attempt to display it. "can't i see it? you said you would make me one like it--" "oh, yes. i know i did. but my customer is very particular, and i have agreed not to show it." "cora's heart sank. she must be shrewd now or lose what she had so long worked for. "but you made the agreement with me first," she argued. "you promised to let me see the table, and said you would make me one to order, not like it, of course, but in the same line." the old man shook his head. he had evidently changed his mind. a new thought came to cora. "has your customer paid for the table?" she asked. "oh, it will be paid for--it will be paid for," and he seemed to gloat over the words, "when it is delivered." then it was not yet paid for--not actually bought. clip saw instantly what cora was striving for, but she pretended to be interested in the locked case in which rested the much-looked-for promise book. "how do you know it will be paid for?" hazarded cora. "young folks often change their minds. i suppose you have a good deposit?" "well, no. i wanted one, but the gentleman is gone for to cash a check--" cora laughed. the old man's face changed. "if they wanted the table why did they not bring the money?" she said. "i should think it would save you trouble to sell the table directly to me--if it suits me, of course. i am going away from here, and suppose the other customer never comes back?" still the old man did not speak. cora saw her advantage and took out her purse. "how much is it?" she asked boldly. "they will pay me fifty dollars for that table," he said dramatically. "so will i, if it suits me," she declared. "come, let me see it." the old man saw the new bills in her hands, he stepped toward the door of another room, but he put up his hand to warn her not to follow. "i will bring it," he said in such grave tones that clip wanted to laugh--surely this was a shylock. while he was within the room cora whispered to clip, and when the old man came out clip was gone. he had between his hands a small, very narrow table, like the old-time card table, with glass knob at either end, and on the long drop leaves were inlaid an anchor and crossed oars. "that is just the size," declared cora, while she trembled so she feared the man would detect her agitation. then she looked it over, and under she was seeking for a hidden drawer. "are there drawers in it?" she asked. "oh, my, but yes. that is why it is worth so much. the drawers cannot all be found. it is like a safe--" cora was sure this was the long-lost table. oh, if she could only induce the man to let her take it. the price, she was positive, was far beyond that offered by the other customer, but that did not matter. "you had better let me have this," she said. "i will take it right along and save express. then make one for the other party, if he ever comes back." the shopkeeper shrugged his shoulders--if he only would talk, thought cora. cora counted out fifty dollars. the man watched her greedily. it was twenty-five dollars more than he had bargained to sell the table for. why should he lose so much? "may i have it?" pressed cora. "well, i never before did that but he should have left a deposit," said the man. quicker than the girl dreamed she could do it, cora paid the man, actually grabbed the table herself and ran out of the shop with it and thrust it into the front of the whirlwind among the flowers, cranked up her car and darted off. her face was so white that she frightened gertrude. "don't ask any questions, dear," she said to the latter. "i must meet clip. she has gone for a detective." just around the corner came clip, and with her an officer in plain clothes. cora swung in to the curb. "i have it! i have it!" she exclaimed to clip. "is this the officer?" she asked. "and have you told him the book was stolen?" "oh, don't worry about the details, miss," replied the officer. "we have that thing to do every day. these fellows take anything they can get, and that being the book of a cripple, i will take chances on getting it. you may be asked to explain fully, later." "oh, thank you so much!" cried cora, almost overcome. "to think we may bring both the table and the book home to wren!" what followed seemed like a dream to cora. of course she knew that it was rob roland who had ordered the table and sid wilcox who had returned the book. as the whirlwind passed the little hotel on the road to chelton cora actually brushed against rob roland's car--and she had the table hidden amid the flowers in the whirlwind! in clip's hands was grasped the promise book--wren should have both. poor, afflicted little wren! straight to the private sanitarium they went--these two motor girls. miss brown helped carry the table up to wren's bedside. at the sight of it wren uttered a scream--then the shock did what medical skill often fails to do. wren salvey sprang out of bed, touched a spring in the table and a drawer jerked open. "there!" she shrieked, holding up a paper. "the will!" then she fell back--exhausted. "the shock has done it," said miss brown as clip helped put the girl on the bed and cora looked frightened. "it has broken the knot that tied her muscles. she will be cured." clip stepped over to a closet, and while cora was almost fainting from excitement clip quietly took off her motor coat. presently she stepped back to cora--in the full garb of a trained nurse. "clip!" exclaimed cora. "yes," replied the girl, "i graduate to-night. will you be able to come?" what more should be told? with the failure of rob roland to get possession of the table he lost all courage and simply admitted defeat. it was sid wilcox who stole the book from little wren--just to avenge ida giles, whose lunch basket had been demolished by a motor girl. an odd revenge, but he thought, in some way, it would annoy the motor girls. of course rob roland paid him something for doing it. but all their strategy was not equal to the ready wit of cora kimball and her chums. nor was this the only time that the motor girls proved their worth in times of danger and necessity. they were active participants in other adventures, as will be related in the third volume of this series, to be called "the motor girls at lookout beach; or, in quest of the runaways." how they went east in their cars, and how they unexpectedly got on, the trail of two girls who had left home under a cloud, will, i think, make a tale you will wish to peruse. it was not long after the table and the promise book had been restored to wren, and following her complete recovery, that the suit against mr. robinson was dropped. roland, reed & company admitted that they had arranged to have the papers taken from the mailbag, and the government imposed a heavy fine on them for their daring crime. they had done what they did with the idea of securing information, and not with a desire to keep the papers, but the federal authorities would accept no excuses. later mr. robinson secured heavy damages from the men, the disfigured thumb of one having served clip to identify him. as for wren and mrs. salvey, with the will in their possession, they were enabled to get control of a comfortable income, and wren could be taken to a health resort to fully recover her strength. sid wilcox and rob roland were not prosecuted for their mean parts in the transactions, as it was desired to have as little publicity as possible. "and to think, clip, dear, that you were deceiving us all the while," remarked cora several days later, when she and the robinson twins; and a few other of the chums, were gathered in the kimball home. "i never would have thought it of you." "nor i," added belle. "but wasn't it strange how it all came about?" suggested bess. "it seemed like fate." "it was fate," asserted clip. "fate and--cora." "mostly fate, i'm afraid," declared cora. "of course the table being disposed of at auction was a mere accident, likely to happen anywhere. the real power, though, was little wren. she, somehow, felt that the old will was in it, and by her talk, and through her promise book, the fact came to be known to the enemies of the family. then rob roland, or some of the men who used him as a tool, conceived the idea of searching for the table. they probably had the old mahogany man act for them, and he made inquiries of auctioneers and persons who were in the habit of buying at auctions. then we came into the game, and--" "yes, and then ida and sid wilcox, though i'm glad ida didn't take any part in these proceedings," observed belle. "so am i," said cora softly. "well, we managed to get ahead of rob roland. a little later and he would have had the table, and would have found the will. then little wren and her mother would never have come into their inheritance. oh, i don't see how people can be so mean!" "and the way they treated paul," added clip. "they ought to be punished for that." "well, i guess paul was more harmed mentally than he was physically," said bess. "he told me the men used him very gently. it was the papers in the bag they were after." "i think clip gave us the greatest surprise of all," went on cora. "the idea of a girl keeping it secret as long as she did, that she was all ready to graduate as a trained nurse! no wonder she knew how to treat wren. i feel that she is far above us now." "shall i lose my honorary membership in the motor girls' club?" asked clip as she slipped her arm around cora and pretended to feel her pulse. "well, i guess not! the motor girls are proud of you!" cried bess. "of course," added belle. cora said nothing, but the manner in which she put her arm around the waist of clip was answer enough. bert wilson at the wheel the bert wilson series by j. w. duffield an excellent series of stories for boys, full of outdoor life and adventures, athletic sports, etc. wholesome, clean and instructive. 1. bert wilson at the wheel. 2. bert wilson's fadeaway ball. 3. bert wilson wireless operator. 4. bert wilson marathon winner. _others in preparation._ 12mo. cloth with four illustrations in each, by h. g. richards. price each, 60 cents. [illustration: he wrenched the steering wheel around, and headed it directly up the track.--(_see page 168_)] bert wilson at the wheel by j. w. duffield author of "bert wilson's fadeaway ball," "bert wilson wireless operator," "bert wilson marathon winner." [illustration] new york sully and kleinteich 1913 copyright, 1913, by sully and kleinteich all rights reserved. contents chapter page i. the "red scout" 1 ii. the flying auto 8 iii. the copperhead 19 iv. the challenge 30 v. the hoboes and the bees 39 vi. shorty goes to the ant 50 vii. the ants go milking 61 viii. the gipsy caravan 76 ix. how the "red scout" climbed dobb's hill 94 x. quick work 111 xi. the four-legged recruit 118 xii. the youngsters' great day 127 xiii. dave's tiger story 148 xiv. with death behind 160 xv. mountain scouting 176 xvi. by a hair's-breadth 186 xvii. biddy harrigan remembers 199 xviii. the race 206 list of illustrations he wrenched the steering wheel around and headed it directly up the track, _see page 168_ _frontispiece_ page three men of the roughest order were dancing distractedly around 46 then he swung the "red scout" squarely across the road, _see page 89_ 90 across the line it flew like a rocket, _see page 217_ 218 bert wilson at the wheel chapter i the "red scout" "what dandy luck." "it's too good to be true." "who'd ever thought we'd have the luck to get it?" "it can't be true. i shan't believe it till it gets here." "anyway, it _is_ true, and won't we have the niftiest time ever?" "well, you might as well sit down, bob. running around like a hen with her head cut off won't make it come any sooner." "aw, how's a fellow to sit still when a thing like that's on the way? i wonder how long we'll have to wait. what can be keeping him?" a score of voices, talking singly, two together, all together, woke the woodland echoes, silent through the long winter and tardy spring, gone at last. summer had come and with it the annual encampment of a score or more of manly, healthy youngsters, overflowing with animal spirits and vitality. for several years past, substantially the same group under the supervision of a mr. hollis, a gentleman of sterling character and considerable means, had gone into camp together for two or three weeks of the heated season. brimming over with life, the boys always made the camp a lively place; but this summer a new and enveloping excitement seemed to have taken possession of everyone, and now all were plunged into a discussion of the cause of the hullabaloo, the voices rising higher and higher as each one sought to make himself heard above the rest. turning a bend in the road that brought the camp into view, mr. hollis, as he witnessed the excited gestures of the boys, and heard the volume of sound caused by every enthusiast trying to talk at once, instinctively quickened his pace, for it almost seemed as though a serious altercation were in progress; but as he came near enough to distinguish words and heard--"six cylinders," "forty-eight horsepower," "chrome nickel steel," "wheel base one hundred and twelve inches," "diamond tires," "autometer," "safety treads," "grip treads"--he realized that nothing more serious was going on than a discussion of the relative merits of automobiles and their fittings. no wonder there was gesturing and loud talking. what boy would not rise to the topmost heights of enthusiasm at the thought of an automobile in which he was to have a personal interest? such a delight had come to the camp, and since the announcement in the morning that on account of the long trips that the summer's plans would make necessary, the boys would be allowed an automobile for their own exclusive use, nothing else had been thought or talked about; and each eager boy was impatiently awaiting the return of mr. hollis to learn the make and all other details of that most wonderful car. now, as he came into camp, the boys crowded around him and the wood rang with cheers as he told them that the car would arrive the following morning. a volley of questions overwhelmed him: "how large is it?" "what speed?" "what color is it?" "how many of us can ride in it at a time?" question followed question in quick succession, until mr. hollis put his hands over his ears, and, refusing to answer any more, proposed dinner as a means of quelling the noise. the boys could scarcely have told of what their dinner consisted that night, so great was their excitement. all were glad to turn in early as the surest way to bring the morning and the longed-for car. a full hour earlier than usual the lights were out and silence settled over the camp, broken only by nature's mysterious night sounds. a belated rabbit homeward bound, keeping ceaseless vigil with round bright eyes, encouraged by the unusual quiet, crept close to the door of the mess tent, and snatching a stray cracker from the grass, scurried joyfully away. at the distant menacing "tu-whit, tu-whoo" of the night owl, the birds stirred uneasily and nestled closer under cover of the sheltering leaves. the quiet hours crept on till at last morning dawned and gave promise of a glorious day. frank edgewood was the first to open sleepy eyes, and seeing a few clouds not yet dissipated by the early sun, woke the camp with the dismal wail: "fellows, it's going to rain." "put him out," "smother him," "duck him in the brook," came in a chorus; and frank, taking to his heels, dropped the flap of his tent, with not a moment to spare. "run early and avoid the rush," sang out tom henderson. "to pass he had such scanty room, the descending grazed his plume," chanted dick trent. "let's forgive and forget," said ben cooper. "be glad we let you live, frank," bob ward chimed in; and so the culprit, reassured, ventured out to breakfast. again the all-absorbing topic was renewed, two vital questions claiming them. what should they name their auto? who would be able to run it? the first was easy enough, for almost from the first they had decided, the color permitting, to call it the "red scout." the second was not so easy, for mr. hollis must be assured, for the sake of the general safety, that the driver should be fully capable. if only bert wilson were there, the question would be answered, for capable bert in new york had studied the mechanism of automobiles and grown very proficient in handling them; but they were not sure that he would be able to be in camp with them this year. expressions of regret were heard on all sides, for bert had a very warm place in their hearts. his splendid qualities had easily made him their natural leader and his absence was far more keenly felt than that of any other fellow in the camp would have been. still, bert not being there, they must choose someone else, so mr. hollis called for volunteers. several answered, but their qualifications were rather doubtful, until bob ward said that he had had a lot of experience in driving his uncle's machine, and felt very sure he could handle it. so it was decided that the next day bob should take them on their first trip, which would be in search of a new camp site, the old one proving too small for this year's requirements. while the question as to who should be chosen to drive the automobile was being decided, sam fielding and philip strong, two of the younger boys, had placed a long plank over a big rock which rested under the shade of a low-branched tree, and thus improvised a capital see-saw. when the question was settled, there was a general movement among the boys, and one of them, thoughtless of consequences, jumped upon sam's end of the board. this added weight gave the other end a sudden jerk upward, and in a twinkling philip was tossed into the boughs of the tree, where, his foot catching in a forked branch, he hung suspended, head downward, his jacket falling about and covering his head and face, while he yelled like a comanche indian. in an instant the entire camp was aroused and phil was quickly extricated from his uncomfortable position. at the sight of his astonished face, the whole camp went into paroxysms of mirth, while peal after peal of laughter made the woods echo again. even phil, now "right side up with care," could not resist the contagion and joined in the merriment. it was many minutes before a normal condition of things was re-established, but at last the boys fell to discussing the proposed change of camp. "it's a shame that we have to change," said charlie adams; "i don't believe we'll have such bully times in the new camp as we have had here." "oh, i don't know," said tom cheerily; "we'll have the dandiest fun, hunting new caves and things." "it will at least have the charm of novelty," joined in dick trent--dick was eighteen and sometimes used words and phrases so ponderous as to give him added dignity in the eyes of the other fellows. "things will be altogether different this summer," he went on; "having the auto will make a great change." "well, we're going to have a great time to-day, anyway," said bob ward; "mr. hollis says we are to make a flying trip in the new machine, and i will have a chance, while the man who brings it is here, to study handling the car." as bob finished speaking, a distant but distinct "honk-honk" sent each boy tearing down the road, where in due time a great, red, glistening car came up the turnpike like a gleaming streak of light, and, with a graceful curve to the side of the road, stopped. the car, _their_ car, the "red scout" had come! chapter ii the flying auto a group of the campers stood regarding the big red touring car rather dubiously. "the fact is," bob ward was saying, as he meditatively chewed a long piece of grass, "you never can tell when the fool thing is going to go back on you. i used to drive my uncle's car a good deal, but i never could go very far without some part of the machinery breaking down. uncle jack said i was a jonah and i guess i was, because he could run the pesky thing all over the country if i wasn't with him, and it would go like a bird. one day i ran it into a fence and nearly got killed, so i took the hint and haven't fooled with one since." "but we ought to make a try at locating a site for the new camp," frank edgewood objected. "we volunteered, and we'll be the laughing stock of the whole camp if we don't succeed, besides breaking our word to mr. hollis." "yes, i don't see why you said you could do it, if you are going to get cold feet at the last minute," said jim. "i haven't got cold feet," bob defended hotly, then virtuously, "it isn't because of my own danger that i hesitate, but i don't like to drag you fellows into it with me." "if you don't mind breaking your own neck, you needn't worry about ours," said dave ferris; "we'll stay here while you take a little spin across country," grinning wickedly. "of course, if you should find a good camp location in the meantime, you could claim all the glory"--this last condescendingly. before bob had time to retort, a cry of "bert, bert wilson!" caught the boys' attention, and they turned in time to see a young fellow take a flying leap over one of the fences and land in the midst of a group of excited, welcoming friends. "make believe we're not glad to see you, bert. we thought you wouldn't be able to get off this year." "tom henderson spread that report. where is he?" "wait till i get at him." "he ought to have a ducking," and other undeserved threats were hurled at poor tom's innocent head. "hold on, fellows," said bert, laughing; "tom wasn't to blame. i didn't know myself that i could make the camp till yesterday." at that moment the maligned tom dashed up, nearly upsetting his friend in an ecstasy of delight. "you're a brick with a capital b and the best kind of a sight for sore eyes," gasped tom, getting his breath back by degrees. "i never was so glad to see anyone in my life. and you came just in the nick of time, too, to help us out." then, dragging his friend away unceremoniously, tom explained the situation in which he and the other volunteers found themselves. "you will help us out, won't you, bert?" he asked appealingly. by this time the rest of the volunteers had come up and were eagerly awaiting the decision. when they heard bert's hearty "surest thing you know," they went wild, and after giving him "three cheers and a tiger," marched him off to the mess tent, there to partake of corn bread and maple syrup. this last had such a good effect on bert as to lead him to say that the fellow who had never known the gastronomic delight of corn bread spread thick with maple syrup didn't know what it was to live. the dramatic arrival of bert at the camp just when they most felt the need of him had been almost as unexpected to him as to the other campers. through the recommendation of mr. hollis, he had secured a position with a large manufacturing business in new york. there from the very start he had made good and his industry and ability were soon noted by his employer. it was not long before his salary was increased and larger opportunities afforded him, and he soon found himself treading the path that was bound to lead to success. of course, like every other healthy boy, he felt the need of friends and recreation. the first he found in tom henderson, with whom he struck up a great friendship. another crony was frank edgewood, who worked on the same floor as himself. when the work of the day was done they were usually found together, either in each other's rooms or at some of the places of wholesome recreation of which the city offers so great a variety. if bert had one trait that stood out more prominently than any of the others it was his love for mechanics. anything in the way of a clever mechanical toy, a puzzle, or a machine attracted him immensely. he wanted to "see the wheels go 'round." especially was this true in the case of automobiles. the huge machine moving so swiftly, so noiselessly, with such a sense of freedom and the sensation of flying, drew him like a magnet. he scarcely dared to dream that one day he might be the actual owner of a motor car, but he did hope that some day or other his hand might be on the wheel, his foot upon the brake, while he steered the flying monster as it sped like a flash across the country. his dream seemed perceptibly nearer being realized when tom introduced him to the owner of a garage in the vicinity of his home. there he speedily became familiar with every joint and crank and lever of the great machines. he saw them taken apart and put together, he saw them brought in battered, broken, almost wrecked, and made as good as new. from theory to practice was not far. little by little he was permitted to help in the minor repairs. after a while he was entrusted with short trips, at first in the company of an experienced chauffeur and at last on his own responsibility. it was not long before he felt capable to handle, steer, drive, and repair, and, if he had cared to do so, he would have had no difficulty in passing an examination and securing a license to drive a car. his idea of recreation ran in the same direction. whenever there was a motor meet anywhere within reach, especially on saturday afternoon, which was a half holiday at the factory, bert could be found, accompanied by either tom or frank, or both, watching with intense delight the exciting incidents of the race. the crowd--the start--the great machines flying by like streaks of lightning--the roar of the partisans of each car as their favorite took the lead, and above all the frantic excitement and enthusiasm at the finish as the victor flew across the line--all these things stirred his blood with inexpressible delight. on another occasion he and his chums had visited the "greatest show on earth." he had laughed at the clowns and had been thrilled by the acrobats. every pore of his body had drunk in with delight the tremendous feats of skill and daring that appeal so strongly to a boy. but the one supreme thrill, the one he never forgot, the one that repeated itself over and over again in his dreams, was when the automobile with its daring operator starting from the very top of the immense building, amid the deathlike hush of the crowd, flew like a flash down the steep incline, sprang into space, turned a complete somersault, and, lighting on the further side of the gap, rushed across the arena. this was the climax of everything. little else appealed to bert; he talked of nothing else on the way home. there was no use talking, the "auto fever" was in his blood. with this passionate delight in his favorite machine, bert's feeling can be understood when he learned that the chief feature of the boys' encampment when the summer opened was to be an automobile "hike," the car itself having been kindly loaned by mr. hollis. at first, owing to conditions at the factory, he had feared that he would not be able to go at the time set for the encampment, and his disappointment was crushing. a quiet little talk of mr. hollis's with his employer, however, had adjusted things so that he learned at the last moment he would be able to go. we have already seen how uproariously he had been received by his old companions when he came so unexpectedly into the howling mob of enthusiasts at the summer camp. in less time after his arrival than it takes to tell, bert was clad in khaki and had obtained the ready permission of mr. hollis to take the boys on their desired expedition. the fellows scrambled into their adored "red scout" with more haste than grace, while bert was busy cranking it. then with a cry of "all right back there?" and an answering shout of "you bet your life," the great car started smoothly up the ascent. as it quickened its speed and disappeared around a bend of the road, more than one of the boys at the camp wished he had been quicker to offer his services. "if i'd only known that bert would be here i'd been one of the first to volunteer, but i must say i wasn't anxious to trust my neck to bob's safe-keeping. he doesn't know any more about running an automobile than i do;" and when jim said that he was saying a great deal. meanwhile the "red scout's" passengers were having the time of their lives. "gee, it's like flying," said frank joyfully. "it's a heap sight better," challenged tom. "can't you make it go faster?" he asked of bert. "i guess yes," bert shouted, as he put on more speed. the automobile darted forward like a live thing and the boys were enraptured by the rapidity of its motion. it almost seemed to them as though the "red scout" were standing still and all the scenery were flying past. hardly did the farmhouses come in sight than they were passed and lost in the distance. scores of timid little woodland creatures scurried away to the shelter of holes and empty logs, surprised and alarmed at the streak of red lightning that flashed by. mother birds hovered protectingly over their fledglings, ready to defend them against the whole world if necessary, while excited squirrels scolded noisily from the treetops long after they had any excuse for it. on, on they rushed along roads over which giant trees met, past meadow lands where cattle grazed lazily, over bridges, past sparkling brooks that formed miniature waterfalls as they rushed over the stones--on, on! as they slowed up to take a sharp bend in the road they came face to face with another automobile dashing along at a reckless speed. fortunately both bert and the driver of the other machine kept their presence of mind. before anyone had a chance to realize what was happening, bert had swerved the scout way over to the right side of the road. there happened to be a fairly deep depression on that side, so bert had the choice of two evils. he had either to crash squarely into the other automobile or he had to run the risk of having his own machine turn turtle. he chose the lesser danger and ran into the ditch. however, it wasn't as bad as it easily might have been, for only the front and rear wheels of one side of the car were in the depression. even at that they had come within a hair's-breadth of being upset. as soon as the boys could pull themselves together, they tumbled out of the car. the occupants of the other car were four men, who sprang out at once to see if they could be of service in any way. "i think we'd better improvise a lever," bert suggested. "that may look all right in print," grumbled bob, "but how are you going to do it?" "i know how we can work it all right," said one of the men. "see those big stones over there? well, the first thing to do is to bring them over here." "oh, i see what you mean to do," bert chimed in eagerly. "there are lots of big tree branches lying around. looks as if they had been blown down in some storm. we can use them for levers." "guess you've got the right idea, son," said the man who had first spoken. "now let's get down to business." it was a work of time to place the stones in the right position and to pick out branches that would stand the strain. it proved a tremendous task to lift the heavy car. at times they almost despaired of moving it. however, it was that very desperation that gave them strength at last. inch by inch, slowly, carefully, they finally forced the great car upward, until with a sigh of relief they realized that the task was finished. the boys dropped to the ground, exhausted by the unusual exertion. it doesn't take very long, though, for strong, healthy boys to recover from any strain, however great; so in a few minutes they were again in the car and ready to start for camp. it was too late to go further, and after thanking the men for their help they started back--slowly this time. it was after dark when they reached the camp, and mr. hollis, although confident of bert's resourcefulness, was beginning to be slightly worried when the wanderers appeared at last upon the scene. in a very few moments the half-famished boys were seated at a most appetizing meal, to which they did full justice. the rest of the fellows listened with the greatest interest, while tom related the adventure. bert and mr. hollis at a little distance discussed the events of the day and planned to renew the trip on the following morning. it was only when everything was quiet in the camp and the boys were supposed to be asleep, that tom, rising on his elbow, called out softly: "hello. are you asleep over there?" "just turning the corner," came a sleepy voice. "well, stay on this side for a minute. i was just thinking that in that wild ride we never even looked for a place to pitch camp." "gee, that's so," came the voice, a little less sleepy this time. "well, of all the boneheads we're the limit. i always thought my head was hard, but now i know it's solid. oh, well," and again the voice grew sleepy, "we'll have plenty of time to-morrow to think of that. i'm too tired now. good night. i've just got to--turn--the--corner." where tom promptly joined him. chapter iii the copperhead bright and early next morning bert awoke to find the sunbeams playing all over his tent. he noticed lazily what funny spots they made on tom's sleeping face. then, with a start, he remembered that tom had grumbled the night before because they would have to get up early to catch a mess of fish for breakfast. thinking that he would wait a little while till tom woke up, he rolled off his cot on to the floor so that he could command a view of the brook through the open tent flap. he had just made himself comfortable when an irritable voice hailed him from the direction of tom's cot: "that you, bert? what are you doing awake at this unearthly hour?" "same as yourself, i suppose," came the calm reply. "humph! well, you're not going to rout me out at five o'clock in the morning." "don't be a bear, tom. we've got to help the fellows catch that fish and you know it, so the sooner we start the better. a couple of the fellows are down there now." "oh, well, i suppose we've got to, then, worse luck. they probably will guy us unmercifully, too, about yesterday. it's a wonder they didn't, last night," which was all the credit the boys got for trying to save the feelings of the reckless volunteers. as the two comrades ran swiftly down to the water's edge, they noticed that shorty--philip strong had been nicknamed shorty because of his very small figure--was tugging hard at his line. "got a bite, shorty?" they shouted, when they came within hailing distance. "bet your life, and it's pulling like a good fellow, too." "better let me help; i'm stronger than you," offered bob, who was sitting a little distance down the bank and whose luck hadn't been of the best up to that time. now, a very sore point with shorty was his lack of strength, and whenever anybody referred to it, no matter with what good intentions, he always bristled up as if at a personal insult. this morning that very touchiness proved to be his undoing, for, as he got to his feet, intending to inform bob that he could do very well without any of his help, the fish gave a sudden jerk to the line that made shorty lose his balance and tumble head-first into the water. the boys, convulsed with laughter, fished him up, dripping and sheepish. without thanking the boys for their help, shorty zig-zagged up to the tent, making, it must be confessed, a rather sorry figure. when they finally had managed to get the line up they found that the cause of shorty's undoing had escaped. "poor little shorty, he's always getting into trouble," one of the boys said when he had breath enough. then, as the time was getting short, they all settled down in good earnest to their task and, before the camp was awake at half-past six, had caught a "corking mess," as they expressed it. as each tent poured forth its several occupants, the fishermen took their mornings catch to the mess tent and went to report--some of them with sinking hearts, it is to be feared--to mr. hollis. however, the leader was very lenient with the offenders, merely reprimanding their carelessness and cautioning them not again to forget that they had pledged their word of honor to render him the most absolute obedience in every particular. upon the boys eagerly promising that they wouldn't offend again and upon bert's asking to be allowed to have another chance to find the camp site, permission was given and they sauntered away, filled with the happy anticipation of laurels still to be won. soon after breakfast the "red scout" was brought out and the original volunteers, their ranks swelled by three new recruits, shorty among them, started off up the hill amid the cheers and good wishes of the fellows. for an hour they rode steadily up hill and down dale until they saw far off through the trees the faint gleam of water. running the auto into the woods for a short distance, they all jumped out and started to investigate. the boys thought they had never seen the woods when they were as beautiful as on that day. they had not gone very far before bert, who was in the lead, called back, "come here, fellows and see this grove of chestnut trees. isn't it great?" the boys all hurried forward and there, sure enough, was a regular colony of chestnut trees, their huge branches giving promise of abundant harvest, when the frost came. "say, fellows, its a shame not to be able to get any good out of these nuts that are sure to be so plentiful in the fall. don't you suppose we might arrange to stay until the frost comes?" shorty asked. "i should think we ought to be able to fix it up," said frank. "we can ask mr. hollis about it anyway." then they started again, on the lookout for other finds. all the way along they came across numbers of clear, cold springs and never failed to test each one. more than once they had to cross brooks on stones that were not over steady and, at one time, a very loose one nearly caused shorty another ducking. at last they reached the border of the woods and looked out upon a sight that held them spellbound. there before them was a smooth, grassy stretch of ground, dotted here and there with beautiful, spreading oak trees. sloping gently down, it stopped at the edge of a clear, transparent lake that reflected the radiant brightness of the sun. on the other side the ground was level for a short distance and then rose forming a small hill, richly carpeted with low shrubs and gorgeously colored wild flowers. branches of trees drooped low over the lake, as if trying to catch their own reflections in its clear depths. birds twittered and sang in the branches, joyously mingling their bubbling notes with the music of a rippling brook near by. it seemed as if the soft voice of nature spoke to them in the murmuring of the trees, sang to them in the song of the birds, joyously called to them in the babble of the brook, smiled a welcome to them from the bright surface of the lake. "gee!" said tom, drawing a long breath. "it sure is wonderful!" "wonderful!" bert exclaimed. "it's by far the most beautiful place i've ever had the luck to locate! come on, fellows, let's take a look around." so look around they did and found that every thing about this ideal spot was all they could possibly ask for--and more. after examining everything in sight they found that they were just about starved, so they sat down under one of the trees near the lake and spread out the contents of the lunch basket. after a feast of chicken, canned salmon, cornbread, maple syrup, and sweetened lemon juice, which, when mixed with cold spring water made a very tempting drink, they started off with the empty lunch basket, the latter being, as one of the boys remarked, "a heap sight lighter than it was when we started." "that's all right," said frank, "but i feel a heap sight heavier." "you shouldn't have eaten so much," shorty reproved him. "if i'd eaten as much as you have, philip strong," frank retorted, "i wouldn't be able to walk." "speaking of eating," said shorty, sniffing the air inquiringly, "do any of you fellows smell cucumbers?" "what's the matter, shorty? has the little ducking you indulged in this morning addled your brains? whoever heard of cucumbers in the woods?" said frank contemptuously. "i know it sounds foolish but it's the truth just the same," and shorty stood his ground stoutly. "shorty's right, boys: i noticed the cucumber smell quite a while ago and it seems to grow stronger the farther we go," said bert. "by george, that's so! i smell it myself, now." "i do, too." "so do i." and various other exclamations of the same sort showed that shorty was right. the boys scattered all over trying to locate the odor, which was very strong at this time. tom was the first to discover the cause of it. at his low, imperative, "come here quick, fellows, but don't make a noise," they all ran to see what was the matter. excitedly he pointed to a long, copper-colored snake, that seemed to be watching a bird's nest built low in one of the bushes. the mother bird was hovering distractedly over her nest, uttering shrill, excited cries that brought her mate to her side. just then the snake coiled ready to strike and the boys looked around desperately for stones but bert had gotten ahead of them. as soon as he had seen what was happening he had slipped noiselessly away to a brook they had just passed and, snatching up a heavy stone, had hurried back to the scene of the tragedy. so, as soon as the snake had its head in a position to strike he hurled the stone directly at it. slowly and convulsively the snake untwined and finally lay still. "it's strange i didn't think of that cucumber smell being caused by a copperhead," said bert; "i used to kill them every once in a while when i was at my uncle's farm." just then, tom called their attention to the mother bird. "doesn't it almost seem as if she were thanking us?" and it really did seem so. the little bird had settled back on her nest with her black eyes fixed gratefully on her rescuers and making little, low, gurgling noises way down in her throat. nearby on a low branch the father bird was swaying back and forth, pouring out his musical notes straight from a little heart bursting with gratitude and joy. leaving the happy family to its own devices, the boys took up the trail again. in high spirits, they chased each other over fallen logs and through the dense foliage, peered into squirrels' holes and rabbits' burrows, commented upon the appearance and habits of the sly little chipmunk and other interesting, woodland creatures. before they realized it they had come upon the "red scout" standing just as they had left it in its leafy garage. while they were on the way home they examined the snake skin. it was a beauty of its kind. it was about a yard long and the sixteen copper-red, moccasin-shaped stripes were very clearly defined. as soon as they reached camp they gave in their report to mr. hollis. the boys all crowded around, eager to hear about the snake and camp site. the heroes of the day were deluged with questions. "how did you get it?" "have you found a good place for camp?" "where is it?" "what does it look like?" "tell us all about it." finally, mr. hollis, seeing how tired and hungry they were, came to their rescue, proposing that they eat their supper first and save the tale of adventure until the camp council. at first they agreed rather hesitatingly but, as an appetizing smell issued forth from the mess tent, they found that they couldn't get there fast enough. after supper the boys made a roaring fire and squatted around it, waiting for the roll-call. then mr. hollis called the roll, beginning with adams and ending with taylor. as everybody was there, the reports were called for. every boy reported his adventures and experiences during the day; all of which would have been intensely interesting to the boys as a rule, but they were so anxious to hear bert's report that they passed over the others rapidly. when at last bert's turn came, they all crowded forward with eager interest, and they were not disappointed. bert told his story simply and well, and was not once interrupted. when the tale was finished the boys fairly exploded. cries of "isn't it great?" "everything is sure going our way this year," mingled with "how did you manage to get the stone without the snake hearing you?" "what are you going to do with the skin now that you've got it?" and to all bert gave a satisfactory answer. it was a long time before the boys could quiet down and even then they felt like hearing something exciting. "who can tell a good ghost story?" bob asked. "dave's the boy. come on, dave, put on your thinking cap." dave ferris had been elected official story teller at the beginning, because he always had a stock on hand, and they were generally thrilling tales of adventure or weird ghost stories, the kind that boys always revel in. dave was silent, thinking for a little while. then he said, "all right boys, here goes. are you ready?" to a chorus of "sure thing, fire away, and break the speed limit," they all gathered closer together around the fire and dave began his story. chapter iv the challenge dave certainly could not complain of a bored or indifferent audience. even mr. hollis was absorbed and listened with a smile on his kindly face. he was always intensely interested in anything the boys said or did, and was never happier than when he saw that they were especially enjoying themselves. dave had just reached the most thrilling part of his story, and in their imaginations the boys could hear the wailings of the ghost and the clanking of his chains. he was describing the awful appearance of its sunken fiery eyes, when shorty happened to glance apprehensively around and immediately emitted a blood-curdling yell. "the ghost! the ghost!" he stammered, pointing in the direction of the road. all leaped to their feet and followed the direction of shorty's trembling finger, and for a moment even bert wilson felt a queer little tightening sensation about the heart, for there, apparently coming directly toward them, were the fiery eyes that dave had just described with such gusto. "why, you simps," laughed bert, "that's no ghost, or if it is, it is the most solid spook i ever heard of. those are the acetylene lamps of another auto," and as he spoke he exchanged significant glances with mr. hollis. somewhat ashamed of having been so startled, the boys now fell to guessing at the mission of the strange car. they had not long to wait. in a few minutes they could hear the purring of its exhaust, and soon a great gray automobile dashed into camp and drew up in front of the fire. from it descended a genial looking man, apparently of about the same age as mr. hollis, followed by five clean cut young fellows. mr. hollis and mr. thompson, as the new comer's name proved to be, evidently knew each other and shook hands heartily. meanwhile the camp boys mingled with their unexpected guests and with the freemasonry of youth soon became chummy. the only fault perhaps that could be found with the new arrivals was that they seemed to be a trifle overbearing, and evidently thought that their car, which they called the "gray ghost," could beat any other automobile ever made. it is needless to state that bert's crowd felt the same way regarding the "red scout," so that the boys were soon engaged in a heated argument concerning the respective merits of their cars. "why," maintained tom, hotly, "you fellows have no idea what our 'red scout' can do in the way of speed and hill climbing. just to-day we were out on a run and, though i didn't actually time it, i am dead sure there were stretches where we did as well as a mile a minute. what do you think of that?" he asked triumphantly. indeed, this seemed to cool the visitors down somewhat and they exchanged surprised glances. but they soon recovered their confidence and went on to describe the speed qualities of their car with ever-increasing enthusiasm. "it was just a short time ago," said one whose name turned out to be ralph quinby, "that we took the 'gray ghost' around the old race track just outside the town, and we averaged over fifty miles an hour. we could have gone much faster too, only mr. thompson would not let us. i'll just bet your auto couldn't go as fast as that." it was now the turn of their hosts to look doubtful. they were sure, however, that the "red scout" could hold its own with any other car, and as they thought of their idolized driver, bert wilson, their confidence came back with a rush. "well," replied tom, drawing a long breath, "you fellows evidently think you could win in a race and we just _know_ that we could, so i guess the only way to settle the dispute is to run off a race somewhere and prove which is the better machine. i know we'd be willing if you would, wouldn't we, boys?" there was a chorus of approving shouts from his companions, but the visitors only smiled in a superior fashion, and evidently thought there could be but one conclusion to any race in which their car was entered. meanwhile, mr. hollis and mr. thompson were holding an earnest conversation in which the latter seemed to be urging some point about which mr. hollis apparently hesitated. in fact, mr. thompson was trying to get mr. hollis to give his consent to a race between the cars owned by the two camps. but the latter thought that it would involve too much risk for the boys who drove the machines. "you see, it's this way," he was saying, "you and i, thompson, are responsible for the safety of these boys. we both feel toward them as though they belonged to us and if anything happened to them we would never forgive ourselves. it seems to me too big a risk to take merely for the sake of seeing who owns the faster car." "yes, you're dead right there, of course," returned mr. thompson, "but then i don't think the risk is so great as you imagine. i have seen the track they would use, provided the race was run, and i think there would be little, if any, danger. the track has not been used for several years and most of the fence is missing, so that if they ran off the course itself, it would only be a matter of running over the grass until they stopped. you know me well enough to realize that i would not sanction anything that contained too large an element of peril. as for the slight risk that undoubtedly exists, it seems to me that it would not hurt the boys to take it, and it would teach them self-reliance and confidence." "as far as that goes," said mr. hollis, smiling reluctantly, "my boys have too much confidence in themselves and i have to be constantly curbing their tendencies toward taking chances. however, i have every confidence in your judgment, so i suppose i might as well consent this once. i wish to have it understood, however, that this is the last as well as the first race they ever run, win or lose." "that suits me all right, so i guess we can consider it settled," answered mr. thompson, "what do you say to going over and having a look at the machines? you haven't seen our car yet, have you?" "no, that's a pleasure still in store for me," replied mr. hollis; and the two men rose and strolled over to where the cars stood, their brass work glittering in the light of the dancing campfire. by this time most of the boys had gathered around the cars, but they saluted and made way respectfully for their leaders as they came up. they both smiled when they saw bert and ralph quinby, for they were so engrossed in the discussion of the respective merits and appliances of their cars that they did not even notice the coming of their leaders. such terms as "gear ratios," "revolutions per minute" and "three point suspension" filled the air, and mr. hollis whispered to mr. thompson: "i'll wager that those boys saturate their handkerchiefs with gasoline, so that whenever they get a block away from a machine they can smell gasoline and feel at home again." "wouldn't be surprised if they did," laughed mr. thompson. "here, you fellows come out of your trance," called dick, and bert and ralph turned quickly around and saluted. their leaders returned the salute, and mr. thompson said: "well, i suppose both you boys think you have a pretty fast machine there. how would you like to have a test of speed?" there was a chorus of excited cries and exclamations from the boys, and their leaders smiled indulgently. bert stepped forward and said: "i think, sir, that i speak for mr. quinby as well as myself when i say that nothing would suit us better." ralph gave a nod of assent and bert went on: "we will both promise to be cautious, and i think if we take proper precautions we will be able to run off a good race without an accident. how long do you think the race ought to be?" "how long is the track that you propose using?" inquired mr. hollis. "why, it's just one mile, isn't it ralph?" asked mr. thompson. "yes, sir," replied ralph. "well, it seems to me," said mr. thompson, "that ten miles, that is ten full laps around the track, ought to be about right. will that be satisfactory to you, mr. hollis?" "yes, i can see no objection to that," replied the latter, "what day shall we have the race?" "how would a week from today suit you?" "let me see, that will be tuesday, won't it? i guess that will be satisfactory to all concerned. how do you boys feel about it?" they voiced a unanimous assent to these arrangements, and both sides started discussing the various chances and possibilities of the contest, but with perfect good humor and friendly feeling. it was now getting late, however, and the discipline of the camps could not be too much relaxed, even in the face of such an important event as this. accordingly, hearty farewells were exchanged, and the visitors climbed into their big gray car. all the boys gathered around expectantly to note the behavior of the car when it started, and it must be admitted that even bert wilson's expert eye could find no defect in the handling or running of the rival machine. ralph started it smoothly and without a jerk, and soon all they could see of it was the angry gleam of its red tail-light. as they turned away to prepare for sleep, jim remarked: "aw, i bet we'll have a walkover in that race." bert knew better, however, and was convinced that he would have to use every ounce of power that the "red scout" possessed to beat the "gray ghost." but one thing he was sure of, and that was that whoever won it was going to be a mighty close race. he did not make the mistake of underrating his rival, as so many boys in his position would have done, but made up his mind to do the very best he could, right from the start. for a long time he stood staring at the "red scout," and then raised its shining hood and patted the spotless cylinders. "i guess we can do it, old boy, but you will have to stand by me and work as you have never worked before," he said, and gently lowered the hood and walked off toward his tent. chapter v the hoboes and the bees early in the morning the boys began to break camp and start for the new location. groups of three or four were detailed by mr. hollis to accomplish certain tasks and they started to carry out his directions right merrily. some were sent to store the provisions and cooking utensils; others to take down the tents and gather together their blankets and other bedding; still others got together the fishing tackle and all was done to the accompaniment of songs and jests and laughter, so that before they knew it everything was ready to dump into the old farm wagons they had hired for the purpose. when everything was packed in the wagon that would possibly go in, mr. hollis selected tom to ride beside the driver and show him where to go. after the wagon had started off, some of the boys' own personal belongings that were left over were put in the "red scout" and seven of the fellows scrambled in someway--trust boys to find room if there is any to be found--and started away after the wagon. they soon passed it and went on until they came to the turn in the road where the lake could be dimly seen through the trees. there bert stopped and the boys got out, taking the packages with them. shorty had been detailed to lead them to the lake and then to come back and wait for the farm wagon. then bert went back to pick up mr. hollis and dick trent who had stayed behind to see that nothing had been forgotten. on the way back he passed the wagon and hailed tom with a "how are you getting along, old man?" "pretty badly, i thank you. i wish mr. hollis had picked out somebody else for this job--someone who didn't care if he spent hours getting nowhere," tom replied sourly. "cheer up, the worst is yet to come," laughed bert. "never mind, even the worst trials have to end some time," he added consolingly and started off again while tom looked enviously after the red car, now fast disappearing in the distance. when bert reached the old camp site, now looking very bare and forlorn, he found mr. hollis and the boys waiting impatiently for him. mr. hollis and dick got in, followed by six of the boys. bert promised to come back for the rest right away and the "red scout" started off with its second load. in a little while, for bert had found a second and much shorter road to the lake, they came once more to "campers' crossing" as the boys had named it. there they found that the wagon had just arrived with its load, but the boys had delayed unloading it until mr. hollis should reach the scene of action. in a minute the camp master had taken charge and the boys were busy unloading and carrying everything to the camp. once more bert started back with the reliable "red scout" for his last load. when he got to the old camp the boys greeted him with the news that jim dawson had disappeared and couldn't be found anywhere. "he was here just a few minutes ago," said steve thomas. "but when i went to ask him a question just now he was gone. we have hunted high and low but we can't find a trace of him." bert was troubled at first, but suddenly a thought struck him and his face lighted up as he exclaimed: "i think i can explain the mystery. follow me, fellows." he led them through a dense thicket to the side of a hill, covered with underbrush. pulling a bush aside, he disclosed to the boys' astonished gaze, a great, black hole which was evidently the mouth of a cave. "come on out, jim," bert called. "we don't want to keep mr. hollis waiting _too_ long, you know." jim dawson was one of those hungry boys who never can get enough to eat, so, having discovered the cave one day, while chasing a butterfly, he had secretly brought food there in a tin box, so that if he chanced to get hungry, he always had something to eat at hand. bert had discovered the cave and its secret long ago but he was not given to tale-bearing and so had kept his own counsel. as bert spoke, a sound was heard inside the cave, and, in a minute, out came the culprit with an accusing piece of cornbread in his hand, blinking like an owl brought suddenly into the glare of the sun. at the look of complete surprise and dismay on his face the boys burst into a shout of laughter. "oh, you lemon," gasped steve. "you full-sized lemon! how did you ever manage to get away with it?" "no wonder we have been short of grub, lately," dave said, holding his sides as if he were afraid he would burst. "aw, i don't see why you can't leave a fellow alone," said jim, sulkily. "i only brought grub here that belonged to me." "don't be sore, jim," bert said, good-naturedly. "i wouldn't have disturbed you if we hadn't been in a hurry. that reminds me that we've wasted a good deal of valuable time, already. i guess we had better be getting along." at that they all started back on the run and soon had jim in such a good humor that he even told them how he had escaped being found out by a narrow margin many a time, and that nobody but bert had even suspected the cave's existence. they all piled into the "red scout" in a hurry because they feared that mr. hollis would worry on account of their prolonged absence. they arrived at "campers' crossing" just in time to carry the last barrel of provisions. when they reached the new camp the boys were surprised to see how much had been done in their absence. the tents had been set up and from the mess tent came the clattering of utensils and the savory odor of creamed salmon on toast. soon, the call to dinner was heard, and the boys all gathered around the table, chattering like magpies. "it seems as if we'd always camped here," said shorty. "there's something about the place that makes you feel at home right away." "it's the classiest place i've ever been in," dave ferris declared, enthusiastically. "it makes you imagine that nature might have had a little time on her hands and devoted it to making this one spot a little paradise." "hear! hear!" tom cried, clapping his hands in mock praise. "dave will be a poet if he doesn't look out. give us some more, old man, the sample's good." "you'd better be careful how you "'beard the lion in his den the ferris in his hall,'" said dick trent, warningly. "he won't favor us with any more stories if you are not careful how you offend him." "i'd just as soon he'd spout all the poetry he wants to if it relieves him any, as long as he doesn't forget how to tell stories," shorty remarked as he contentedly munched a piece of toast. "how very kind of you," said dave, sarcastically. "i thank you with all my heart for your liberality." "my which? say, dave, if that ever belonged to me, i call you all to witness that i disown it from this time on. it's no friend of mine from this time on." "you'd better hang on to it, shorty. it's the best kind of thing to have around at times," said mr. hollis, as he rose to leave the table. in the afternoon scouting parties were sent out in all directions to find out the nature of the surrounding country. steve thomas, bert, tom, bob, shorty, and jim dawson were sent off to scour the woods in an easterly direction from the lake. for a considerable distance they tramped along, talking of the different plants and shrubs they came across and naming the birds they saw in the trees. they threw peanuts to the squirrels that peeped inquiringly at them from branches over their heads or ventured shyly from the shelter of their holes. they imitated the clear notes of the birds until the little songsters paused to look wonderingly at these strange creatures that could not fly and yet sang like themselves. timid little rabbits watched the boys with soft, brown eyes, not knowing whether or not to sally forth from their security even for the tempting carrot that bert held out so coaxingly. when he threw it at a distance, however, one little fellow, braver than the others, his appetite overcoming his fears, ran forth quickly, snatched the carrot and scurried back in a panic to his burrow, where, with his bright eyes fixed on these humans who had been so kind to him, he ate contentedly. suddenly the quiet woods rang with shouts and cries, the barking of a dog and the noise of people running to and fro furiously. alarmed, the boys started on a run for the place from which the cries seemed to come. they fairly gasped when they came upon the cause of all the commotion. three men, of the roughest order, were dancing distractedly around, trying to beat off a swarm of bees that surrounded them, and yelling like mad, while a big collie dog, wild with excitement, barked with all his might. [illustration: three men of the roughest order were dancing distractedly around.] "say, this is better than a circus," shorty shouted, "only i'm glad that those hoboes and not i are the whole show now." "shut up, shorty. the question now, is, what we can do to help the poor fellows out," said tom; then, turning to the tramps, he yelled, "you'd better make a dive for the brook and get under water. it's right through the trees to your left," he added, as the men, now nearly crazy with pain, started to follow his advice. rushing frantically to the brook, they plunged in head first, while the bees, deprived of their prey, flew off angrily into the woods to search for new victims upon whom they might vent their spite. when the tramps came up, dripping from the water, they were a sight to behold. their faces were swollen so that their eyes seemed to be mere slits and their ears appeared to be twice their natural size. the boys at once ran to get mud to put on the red, angry wounds. the tramps submitted with indifferent grace to the treatment, grumbling that they "didn't see what good being all smeared up with mud was going to do." as soon as the boys had done what they could to ease the pain, the tramps declared that they would have to be moving on "because them pesky critters might come back to finish up their business." so the boys watched the strange company of sullen, muttering men disappear through the trees. as they were lost to view, the comical side of the adventure struck shorty and he began to laugh and the longer he laughed, the harder he laughed. the others caught the infection and in a second the woods were ringing with the unrestrained roars of the boys. they laughed until they could laugh no more and then lay on the grass, gasping for breath. "oh, they did look _so_ funny!" said shorty between gasps. "i never shall forget that sight until my dying day." at that minute bert sat up suddenly, exclaiming, "fellows, look who's here!" with one accord they turned and saw the collie which they had entirely forgotten, sitting near and regarding them with inquiring, wistful eyes. "come here, beauty," bert called, and the dog came unhesitatingly and stuck his cold, black muzzle in bert's hand. "did they desert you, old fellow?" bert asked, putting his arm around the dog's neck. the collie waved his beautiful brush and, lifting his soft eyes to bert's face saw something there that made him his slave forevermore. for the collie, with true dog instinct, had recognized that in bert he had a friend. "i wonder where those tramps got him." "probably swiped him." "doesn't look as if he'd had very good treatment." "he doesn't and it's a shame, too. isn't he a beauty?" were some of the comments of the boys as they gathered around the dog, patting his head gently. the collie waved his tail and in his eyes was a great longing for sympathy and love. and you may be sure the boys gave him what he asked for. tired out, the boys finally went back to camp, followed by their new friend who soon became a favorite with everyone. that night don, as they called the dog, sat with the rest around the camp fire and answered whenever they spoke to him with a wave of his silver brush. bert made him a bed on the floor of his tent and don gladly took possession of it. just before he got into bed bert put his hand on the dog's head, saying, "i guess we're going to be good friends aren't we, old fellow?" and don, looking up in his master's face, with eyes that held a world of gratitude and love, answered to bert's entire satisfaction. chapter vi shorty goes to the ant the next morning, when the boys drew aside the flaps of their tents, the sky was dark and lowering. a good many anxious glances were thrown at the clouds and open disapproval of the outlook was not slow in breaking out. "gee, what a fearful day," said jim. "you bet it is," chimed in shorty. "that's our luck," wailed dave, "just when i wanted to go to town to get a new blade for the jack-knife i broke yesterday." "oh, come off, you pessimists," sang out bert, who had just plunged his head in a bucket of cold water and now was rubbing his face until it shone, "somewhere the sun is shining." "heap of good that does us," grumbled shorty, "but say," as he turned to bert suspiciously, "what sort of thing was that you called us?" "i said you were pessimists." "well, what does that jawbreaker mean?" "why," said bert, who could not resist his propensity to tease, "that means that you are not optimists." "worse and worse and more of it," complained shorty. "that's just as clear as mud," echoed jim. "well," said bert, tantalizingly, "listen my children----" "'listen, my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of paul revere,'" chanted frank, who had recited that identical poem in his elocution class at the last term of school. a well-aimed pillow made him duck, and bert resumed: "you see, shorty, it's just like this: the optimist is the fellow that sees the doughnut. the pessimist sees only the hole in the doughnut. now, for my part, there is no nourishment in the hole, but there's lots of it in the doughnut." "aw say, don't make a fellow's mouth water," said shorty, before whose practical vision rose up his mother's kitchen, fragrant with the smell of the crisp, brown, sizzling beauties, as they were lifted from the pan, "and me so far from home." if there were no doughnuts at the breakfast to which all hands came running, their place was more than taken by the golden corn bread and the savory bacon that formed the meal to which they sat down with all the enthusiasm of hungry boys. the food disappeared as if by magic and the table had been replenished more than once before the boys cried enough. many a sated millionaire would have willingly exchanged a substantial part of his hoarded wealth for one of those unjaded appetites. but in pure, undiluted satisfaction, the boys would have been the losers by the exchange. that very thought struck mr. hollis as he watched the havoc made at table by these valiant young trenchermen, and, turning to dick, who sat at his right, he spoke of the starving king midas. jim, who overheard the name, which, as he said "was a new one on him," wanted to know who midas was, and how, if he were a king, he couldn't get grub enough to keep him from starving. the boys, who had by this time taken the first keen edge off their appetite, were equally eager to hear the story, and mr. hollis went on to tell about the avaricious king of the olden time who could never get enough, but was always asking the gods for more. after a while they became wearied and disgusted and granted his request that everything he touched should turn to gold. the king was delighted at this beyond all measure. now, at last, he was to have his heart's desire. he put the gift to the test at once. he touched his sword and it changed to gold. that was fine. he stroked his beard and every hair became a glistening yellow spike. that wasn't so fine. he began to get a little worried. wasn't this too much of a good thing? well, anyway there was no use in fretting. he would go to dinner and get his mind off. but when he touched the food, it too became gold. he lifted a goblet of wine, only to find that it held molten metal. in the midst of plenty, he was starving. upon his knees, he begged the gods to take back their fatal gift, and, thinking he had learned his lesson well, they did so. his gold vanished, but, oh, how delicious was the first taste of food. "and to-day," concluded mr. hollis, "there is many a millionaire whose gold doesn't give him the pleasure that a square meal gives the ravenous appetite of a healthy boy." "well," said tom, expressing the general sentiment, "i'd sure like the money, but, oh, you corn bread." after breakfast, the boys broke up into separate groups. one went off under the guidance of mr. hollis to gather some fossils that were to be found in great abundance in the limestone that jutted out from a quarry at a little distance from the camp. another group of the fellows with dick in charge, who were especially interested in bird and insect life--the "bug squad" as they were commonly and irreverently referred to in camp--went to a little clearing about half a mile away that was especially rich in specimens. the day before, tom had secured an uncommonly beautiful species of butterfly that topped anything in his experience so far, and the other boys wanted to add one to their rapidly growing collection. whether the lowering day had anything to do or not with the absence of these fluttering beauties who love the sunshine, their search was without result, and after two hours spent in this way they threw aside their butterfly nets and sat down in the shade of a spreading beech to rest and as shorty called it "to have a gabfest." almost directly beneath the eastern branches was a large mound nearly three feet above the surrounding level and perhaps twenty feet in circumference. as shorty flung himself down on the centre of the mound, a curious expression came into the eyes of dick. he glanced quickly at frank, who returned his look and added a wink that might have aroused suspicion in shorty's mind, had not that guileless youth been lying stretched out at full length with his hat over his eyes. the warmth and general mugginess of the air saturated almost to the raining point, together with the constant activity of the last two hours, had tired him out, and after a little badinage growing less and less spirited, he began to doze. the other boys who had been given the tip by frank and dick, let the conversation drag on purpose, and with a wicked glint of mischief in their eyes watched the unsuspecting shorty slip away into the land of sleep. soon his arms relaxed, his chest rose and fell with his regular breathing and horrors! an undeniable snore told that shorty was not "faking," but was off for good. from being a spot of perfect peace and quiet, the mound suddenly burst into life. from numberless gates a swarm of ants issued forth and rushed about here and there to find out the cause of this invasion. the weight of shorty's body and his movements as he composed himself for sleep had aroused them to a sense of danger and they poured out in thousands. soon the ground was covered with little patches of black and red ants, and as though by common consent they began to surround the unconscious shorty. some crept up his legs, others his arms, while others climbed over his collar and slipped inside. first, an arm twitched violently. then a sleepy hand stole down and scratched his leg. the boys were bursting with laughter, and tim grew black in the face as he crowded his handkerchief into his mouth. shorty shook his head as a horse does when a fly lights on it. again he twitched and this time seemed to realize that there was something wrong. still half asleep, he snapped: "aw, why don't you fellows quit your kidding? stop tickling me with that----" a yell ended the sentence as a nip more vicious than usual brought shorty to his feet, this time wide awake beyond all question. he cast one glance at the boys, who now made no pretence of restraint but roared with laughter. then he saw the swarm of ants surrounding him and took in the situation. he tore his hat from his head, his coat from his shoulders, shook off his tormentors and spinning around like a dancing dervish, dashed off toward the brook. a moment later there was a splash and they heard shorty blowing, spluttering, diving, rubbing, until finally he had rid himself of the swarms that clung closer to him than a brother. at last he succeeded and came up the bank. before resuming his clothes, he had to take each garment separately and search every seam and crease to make sure that not a single ant remained. then he came back into the group like a raging lion. his temper never was any of the best, and the sudden awakening from sleep, the stings and ticklings of the invaders, and perhaps most of all, the unrestrained laughter of the boys had filled his cup to the brim. he "saw red," as the saying is, and regardless of age and size was rushing toward the rest with doubled up fists and rage in his heart, when dick caught him by the wrists and held him in his strong grasp until his fury had spent itself somewhat and he began to get control of himself. "phil," said dick--he never called him shorty, and at this moment that recollection helped to sober the struggling boy--"remember that the first duty of boy or man is to control his temper. the boys didn't mean any harm. it looked to them like a splendid joke, and perhaps we let it go a little too far. i am really to blame more than any one else because i am older and in charge of the squad. i'm awfully sorry, phil, and i beg your pardon." the kindly tone and sincere apology were not lost on phil, who was not without a sense of humor, which through all his anger began to struggle to the surface. the other boys, too, thoughtless and impulsive though they might be, were sound and kind at heart, and following dick's example crowded about phil and joined in the apology. the most flaming anger must melt before such expressions of regard and goodwill and phil was at last compelled to smile sheepishly and say that it was all right. "you're a sport, phil, all right," called out frank, and at this highest of commendations from a boy's point of view, the last vestige of phil's resentment faded away. "well, anyway, fellows," he said, "i don't bear any grudge against you, but i am sure going to get even with those pesky ants. i never did care much for ants anyway. i've been told so often to 'go to the ant, thou sluggard,' that now i'm going to them for fair, and what i do to them will be a plenty." as he said this, he turned toward the ant hill as though to demolish it, but dick put up a friendly hand: "no, phil," said he, "you wouldn't destroy a wonderful and beautiful palace, would you?" "palace," said phil in amazement, thinking for a moment that dick was "stringing" him. "what do you mean by that?" "just what i say," returned dick; "a wonderful and beautiful palace. there is a queen there and she walks about every day in state, surrounded by a throng of courtiers. there are princesses there that are taken out daily to get the air, accompanied by a governess, exactly as you have seen a group of boarding-school girls walking out with their teachers. surrounding the palace is a city where there are hundreds of carpenters and farmers and sentinels and soldiers. if you waited round a while, you would see the farmers going out to milk their cows----" at that point, dick was interrupted by a roar of laughter that burst from every boy at once. they had listened in growing amazement that had rapidly become stupefaction, but this was really too much. what was the matter with dick? was it a joke, a parable, a fairy story? they might be kids all right, but there was a limit to everything, and when dick talked of ants going out to milk the cows--well! it was up to him to explain himself or prove his statement, and that they felt sure he could never do. dick waited good-naturedly while they pelted him with objections and plied him with questions. then he took from his kit a strong magnifying glass and told them that he was going to prove to them all what he had said. "he laughs best who laughs last," he said, "and i am going to show you that all i said is true. that is," he modified, "i cannot _prove_ everything just now, as i would have to destroy this wonderful palace if i were to try to show you how marvelous it is and how perfect in all its appointments. but what we don't see ourselves has been seen time and time again by hundreds of wise and truthful men, and their testimony is as strong as though it were given under oath in a court of law." "well," said frank, "i'm willing to take everything else on faith, but i'm afraid i'd have to see the milking done myself in order to believe it." "all right," said dick, "as it happens that is just the thing i can show you more easily than anything else." the boys crowded eagerly around him. chapter vii the ants go milking "you know," said dick, as the boys threw themselves down at the side of the mound and looked at it with an entirely new interest, "if these were african ants, you wouldn't be taking any such liberties with them. instead of hanging around this mound you would be running away like all possessed. and if you didn't make tracks in a hurry the only thing left here would be your skeleton picked as clean as the one you saw the other day in old dr. sanford's office." "what?" cried jim, "do you mean to say that i would run away from a little thing like an ant. not on your life, i wouldn't." "let's see," said dick, "you'd run away from a boa-constrictor, wouldn't you?" "who wouldn't," retorted jim. "well, if you'd run away from the boa-constrictor, and he'd run away from the ants, where do _you_ get any license to face the ants." "do you mean to say that those monster snakes are afraid of such tiny things?" "i should say they were," replied dick, "the ants go from place to place through the great african forest in countless numbers, millions at a time, a regular army of them. nothing can stand before them. they strip every shrub, eat every blade of grass. they swarm over every living thing they find in their way. sometimes they come across a snake unawares, and climb all over him. he squirms and twists and rushes away, trying to brush them off, against the bushes. at last he turns and bites frantically, but they never let up. they actually eat him alive, and in less than ten minutes they pass on leaving his bones picked clean as a whistle. the natives take their wives and children and flee for their lives whenever they see an army of ants approaching." "but that, of course, has nothing to do with these little american neighbors of ours. they are perfectly harmless and though they are fierce scrappers among themselves, inflict no injury on any one else. and there is nothing in the whole animal or insect world, except perhaps the bees, that have a society and government so much like that of men." "in one respect they are like their african brothers and that is in their fondness for travel. every once in a while they make up their minds to emigrate and then they fly in swarms of millions----" "what?" interrupted frank, "do you mean to say they fly? i never knew that an ant had wings." "of course they have," said dick, "they often have to cross rivers to get to their new home. how could they do that without wings?" "oh, i don't know," hummed shorty: "the bed bug has no wings at all but he gets there just the same." a rather severe glance from dick quenched phil's exuberant spirits which had all come back to him since his ducking. "now," continued dick, "these swarms are sometimes so vast that they darken the sun in certain localities. men working on high buildings have been surrounded and almost blinded by them. while these emigrations last they are a bother, if not a peril, and the only ones that are really happy are the fish in the brooks and rivers over which they pass. sometimes the surface is fairly black with them and the trout and little troutlings have the time of their lives. once the flight is ended, however, and the new locality chosen, the wings disappear. nature has no use for needless things and from that time on the air knows them no more. the carpenter ants get busy right away. the place is marked off as accurately as a surveyor marks out a plot in the suburbs of a city. the queen ant is given a royal room apart from all the others. she is a good mother and takes the best of care of her little ones. as they grow older, they in turn help the queen to care for their little brothers and sisters. they are excessively neat and clean in their personal habits. they spend hours preening and combing and cleaning until they are immaculate----" "regular dudes," muttered jim. "well," said tom, "that's something that will never be laid up against you, jim." jim, who indeed had a hard time keeping up to a high ideal of cleanliness, and whose hair was usually tumbled while his nails too often were draped in mourning, looked a little confused, and while he was thinking up something to hurl back at tom, dick went on. "there is one thing, however, about the ants that i don't admire. they like to get somebody else to do their work. a certain number of their own colony are 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' for the rest. indeed, the aristocrats among them get so lazy after a while that they will not even feed themselves. the workers not only have to hustle for the grub, but actually have to feed it to the lords and dukes. and talking of hustling for grub, just look here." the boys followed the direction of dick's finger, and there coming up a little beaten path they saw a procession of ants dragging along a big fat caterpillar. it had evidently put up a good fight, judging from the numbers that had been necessary to capture it, but they had proved too strong. a little convulsive movement showed that it was not yet quite dead, but it no longer made any resistance. the formic acid that the ants secrete had partly paralyzed it and made defence impossible. there was an almost comical disproportion between its large helpless bulk and the tiny size of its conquerors, but this was a case where numbers counted. the victors all pulled like good fellows and passing through one of the entrances of the mound finally dragged their booty into the inner cave. "another thing," said dick, when the keenly interested boys had again gathered about him, "the red ants are slaveholders. when their working force has been weakened or diminished, they get a big army together and raid some colony of black ants a few hundred feet or yards distant in order to carry them away as slaves. there is nothing haphazard or slouchy about the way they go about it. everything is arranged as carefully and precisely as in the case of an american or european power getting ready to go to war. at a given signal the troops come out and get in order of battle. there is perfect order and system everywhere. when there is a very large army, a sort of hum or buzz arises from it almost as though they were beating drums to inspire the soldiers for battle. they march forward in perfect time and dash upon the enemy with irresistible fury. the black ants through their scouts have been told of the enemy's approach and have made all the preparation they can to beat them off. the infant ants, together with their household goods, have been tucked away in upper galleries where they can see the fight but not be in it." "reserved seats as it were," murmured frank. "the ants have two weapons. one is the nipper, that can cut off their enemy's head as neatly as a pair of shears. then they have the formic acid that, used against ants or other insects, has a poisonous quality. with both of these weapons they fight with the greatest desperation until victory declares for one side or the other. the red ants are usually victorious, as they are larger and stronger and more aggressive. in case they win, they carry away all the little ones of their black opponents and bring them up as slaves. they are treated kindly, and after a while seem to grow content and take their place as the humbler members of the community. after the battle is over the wounded ants are carried home by their companions and the dead are buried in a regular ants' cemetery." the boys had listened with a fascinated interest to these marvelous stories of life going on all around them and to which they had never given more than a passing thought. "well," said jim, "it sure is the queerest thing i ever heard about. if anyone else but dick had told me this i wouldn't have believed it." "yes," said tom, "it certainly sounds like a fairy story." "what gets me," said shorty, "is that the queen seems to be the most important of the whole bunch. what about the king? it must be a regular suffragette colony." "yes," replied dick, "in a certain sense it is. the males of the community don't amount to much. one by one their privileges are taken away from them. they even lose their wings before the females do. after they have taken their flight and safely escorted the queen to her future home they drop out of sight. their wings fall off and in some cases are pulled off by the more ill-tempered females of the family. they hang around a little while and then drop out of sight altogether. nobody seems to care what becomes of them. they can't even get back to the place from which they started. their wings are gone and they can't walk. they remind me of the cat--they are so different--the cat came back--the male ants can't." "gee," said jim, "how do the rest get on without them?" "oh," replied dick, "they don't seem to mind the males at all. it takes away some of the conceit of the male sex when they see how easily one can get along without them." "well," said shorty, who was never partial to work, "they at least get rid of a lot of trouble. how about the carpenter ants, the soldier ants, the foraging ants? are they all females?" "every one of them," said dick. "it is a regular colony of amazons." "it seems to me," said shorty, "that in all the bunch the queen is the only one who has a snap." "don't you believe it," returned dick, "as a matter of fact, she is the hardest worker of all, that is, at the start. she is the busiest kind of a mother, brings up all the little ants, washing their faces, combing their hair----" "oh, say," interrupted shorty, "aren't you putting it a little bit too strong, dick?" "not at all," said dick; "here, take up this ant and look at it through the magnifying glass." under the lens the boys, crowding around, saw that there, sure enough, was a fine silky down resembling very much the hair upon the human head. "of course," said dick, "as in every other part of the animal or insect world, this only lasts for a little while. men and women are the only creatures in the whole universe that stick by their children through thick and thin. there is no better mother than a cat, for instance, while the kittens are small and they need her help, but just as soon as they are able to shift for themselves, nothing more doing for mrs. cat. out they go to hustle for their own living, and if some of the slower and lazier ones still hang around, the mother's claws soon give them a sharp reminder that it is time to be up and doing. the same is true of the birds. see how the mother bird sits brooding over her eggs. with what tender care she watches them while they are still unable to feed themselves. how the father bird scratches from morning to night to find worms to put down those scrawny little beaks. but after a while they, too, go to the edge of the nest, and with many a timid flutter stretch their wings and drop off the edge. and with the laggards, the parental beak is ready to push them off into the new world where they hustle for themselves. it is only a fellow's father and mother that stand by him to the end. no matter how bad he is, how often he wrenches their hearts, how many times he has sinned and been forgiven and sinned again, the mother heart clings to him to the end. i tell you what, boys, you can't make too much of that father and mother of yours." "you bet," came in a responsive murmur from the boys. "now, going back to the queen," said dick, "it sure does seem that after the kids have grown up she'd have a dandy time. she is by far the biggest figure in the colony. the worker ants can't do too much for her. she has the finest room and the choicest food, and yet, after all, i suppose this becomes tiresome. it is just as it is with human queens. so many things are done for them, so much pomp and ceremony surrounds them, that no doubt they often sigh for freedom and would exchange their places with almost any of their subjects. they are something like a little girl that was a rich man's daughter. her milk was pasteurized, the water she drank was sterilized, so that after a while her only thought was to grow big enough to do as she chose and the very first thing she was going to do was to eat a germ." the boys laughed and dick resumed. "it is almost pathetic to see the poor old queen going out for a walk. she moves in a perfect circle of courtiers. as long as she keeps in the middle she is all right, but the minute she strays to one side or attempts to go further, this surrounding group push her back. sometimes they thrust their shoulders against her and at other times simply mass themselves in front of her, and even, at times, are undignified enough, if these hints are not sufficient, to take her by one of her antennae and lead her back into the center of the circle, for all the world like a mother taking home a naughty child by the ear. no, you can bet it is not all 'peaches and cream' where the queen is concerned." "well," said shorty, only partly convinced, "even if the queen has troubles of her own, it must be nice to be the aristocrat. think of having nothing to do but just hang around and let the carpenter ants build your house and the farmer ants store up the grain and the foraging ants bring in the caterpillars and the soldier ants do the fighting." "no," said dick, "you are wrong again, shorty. they do so little and become so dependent upon the work of others that after a while they seem to lose their faculties. they wander around in a crazy and feeble way, trying to kill time, i suppose, and after a while become so lazy and helpless that they can't even eat without help." "can't eat!" said jim, whose appetite was a standing joke in camp; "then no lords and dukes for me." "i really think," resumed dick, "that just as it is in human life, the workers are the lucky ones after all. there is something doing every minute. their lives are full of interest. they are too busy to be unhappy. don't make any mistake, fellows, work is the salvation of the world. the happiest are the busiest; the drones and sluggards are almost, without exception, the most miserable creatures on the face of the earth. if i were----" but just at this moment a curious thing happened. the afternoon had worn on while the boys were talking, and so keen was their interest in the wonders that were being brought before their eyes that they had failed to realize how late it was. the ants had been wandering around in an aimless way--that is, it seemed aimless to the boys, but doubtless they knew what they were about and had a definite object, even though the boys couldn't understand it. but now a sudden stir and bustle seemed to arouse the colony. from numerous gates the throng came forth with almost military order and precision. "ah," said dick, "here's just the thing you want to see, boys. it is milking time and the ants are going to herd their cows. now we will follow one of these lines and see just how they do it." at a few feet distant from the mound there was a little shrub about three feet high, covered with foliage and with widely extended branches. the column of ants reached the foot of this, climbed it, and scattered among the branches. the boys at a signal from dick followed him softly, so that the ants might not be disturbed. "see," said dick, gently taking hold of a branch that projected beyond the others, "look through this magnifying glass." one by one the boys stole up, each eager for a sight that they had never before seen or dreamed of. on the upper side of the branch which dick held between his thumb and finger were little groups of parasites, almost too small to be seen by the naked eye. all day long they had been feeding upon the sap that came from a branch until their bodies were swollen with a transparent honey dew. an ant approached one of them, placed its antennae over the throat and extracted a tiny drop of the colorless liquid. again and again this was repeated. it seemed like rank robbery, but there was no resistance on the part of the herd. they seemed just as glad that milking time had come as do the cows that stand lowing at the bars of the fence and calling for the farmer. drop after drop of the honey dew was extracted, until finally the aphid, as the little creature is called, grew lank and thin, while the ant became correspondingly large. from time to time the antennae of the ant stroked the tiny hair on the back, just as a farmer would stroke the cow in order to soothe it and keep it perfectly still. finally the milking was completed and the farmer ants retraced their way along the branch and down the stem and, falling into line with their comrades similarly laden, resumed their march to the colony. the boys had watched with bated breath and almost awe-struck interest. "well," said jim, at last breaking the silence, "those ants are surely not going hungry to bed." "gee," said shorty, "i bet they will suffer from indigestion." "not a bit of it," said dick. "you don't suppose they keep this all to themselves, do you? just look here." he lifted a stone about eighteen inches from the foot of the mound. under the magnifying glass they could see a number of tiny apertures that evidently led in the direction of the colony, and on one side an ant waiting for the return of the milking party. as dick selected one and placed his magnifying glass directly upon the opening, the boys could see one of the ants laden with the honey dew stop and, placing its mouth close to that of the waiting ant, exude a tiny drop of its burden. moving the glass around quickly in the arc of a circle, they saw this process repeated until finally the round was finished and the farmer ants, more lightly laden than before, went on toward the main entrance of the colony. "those," said dick, "are the lords and dukes getting their supper." "well," said tom, "after this i am ready to believe anything. i tell you what, dick, i never learned so much in my life as i have to-day." "yes," said shorty, as the boys picked up their kits and prepared to return to camp, "i am glad enough now that i didn't smash that ant nest when i tried to. after all, they are good sports and i would hate to spoil their fun." "yes," replied dick, "you know that one of the most important principles in life is kindness to anything that breathes. of course there are certain pests that are harmful to human life and we are compelled to kill in self-defense, but for anything that is harmless the one great principle that should govern us always is found in those two lines that mr. hollis repeated the other day: "'never to blend our pleasure or our pride with sorrow to the meanest thing that feels.'" chapter viii the gipsy caravan "hello, fellows. look at this. well, of all the----" the boys looked up at bob's startled exclamation, and for a moment everything else was forgotten, while they stared with wide-open eyes at the grotesque procession that came into view. down the road crawled a little caravan of ten or a dozen ramshackle wagons, drawn by tired-looking horses. at their heads or alongside walked a number of men of various ages, dressed in all sorts of nondescript costumes. their swarthy faces and dark eyes, together with the large earrings that they wore, gave them a distinctly piratical appearance, and to the boys they looked as though they might have been taken bodily from one of the old romances of the spanish main. they might easily have been the blood brothers of the rascals who sang in thundering chorus: "fifteen men on the dead man's chest, sing heigho, and a bottle of rum." but, alas! there were no murderous pistols thrust in their belts or cutlasses held between their teeth to complete the illusion, and the picturesque crowd resolved itself into a troop of gipsies going into camp. the place they had pitched upon for their temporary stay was about three miles distant from the boys' camp and had been chosen with a keen eye to its advantages. either through a scout sent ahead or simply by that marvelous sixth sense so highly developed in wandering peoples, they had elected to stop at a little ravine through which ran a brook of sparkling water and surrounded by a wood that furnished ample supplies for their campfires. it was fascinating to see the dexterity, born of long experience, with which the camp was pitched. the horses were unhitched in a twinkling and turned out to graze, while the wagons were ranged in a single circle around the camp. some brown, dirty canvas and a few branches of trees were quickly transformed into tents. wood was cut, a rough fireplace built, a huge kettle suspended over the flames that crackled merrily beneath, and the women and girls who had descended from the wagons busied themselves in bringing water from the brook and preparing supper for the tired and hungry crew. the men, after the rougher work was done, sprawled around upon the grass, talking in a language unintelligible to the boys, and occasionally casting an indifferent look at the group in the automobile, who had watched the scene with breathless interest. "well," said bert at last, as he roused himself with an effort, "they haven't asked us to stay to supper, and i suppose it isn't good manners to hang around while they are eating, even if this is a public place. so here goes," and throwing in the clutch he started the "red scout" off toward camp. the liveliest interest, not unmixed with envy, was shown by the other boys at the recital by the auto squad of the afternoon's adventure. "gee," said jim dawson, "you fellows certainly do have all the luck. if i'd been with you there'd have been nothing more exciting than a rabbit scurrying across the road. to-day i stayed behind and here you fellows have watched the pitching of a gipsy camp." "never mind, jim," said tom, "we'll all go over soon and take it in. i suppose they'll be there for some time." "there's no telling," remarked dick. "sometimes they stay in one place for two or three weeks, until the call of the road becomes so strong that they can't resist it. then again, after a day or two, they "'fold their tents like the arabs and silently steal away.'" "'steal' is a very good word to use in that connection, dick," said mr. hollis, as he joined the group, when after an abundant supper they sat around the campfire; "for if what we hear of gipsies in general is true, they spend most of their time in stealing." "perhaps, though," he went on, "that is putting it a little too harshly. there is a strong prejudice against them because of their vagrant mode of life, and there is no doubt that the distinction between 'mine' and 'thine' is very vague in their minds. hen-roosts are apt to be mysteriously thinned out when they are in the neighborhood, and many a porker has uttered his last squeal when gripped by a gipsy hand. horses, too, occasionally vanish in a way that would mean a short shrift and a rope in the western country, if the thief were caught. but, on the other hand, they seldom commit deeds of violence. you never hear of their blowing open a safe, and, though they are passionate and hot tempered, they are not often charged with murder. the bowery thug and yeggman are much more dangerous enemies to society than the average gipsy. perhaps the worst indictment to be brought against them is that in years past they were frequently guilty of kidnapping. but that was in the earlier days, when the country was sparsely settled and communication was difficult. then, if they got a good start, it was often impossible to overtake them. but to-day, with the country thickly populated and the telegraph and telephone everywhere, they would most certainly be caught. no doubt the elders of the tribe shake their heads sadly as they reflect that the kidnapping industry is no longer what it has been." "how do they make a living, anyway?" interjected dave. "what they steal isn't enough to keep them alive." "well," returned mr. hollis, "the men are very keen traders in horses. they know a horse from mane to hoof. they can take a poor old wreck of a cart horse and doctor him up until he looks and acts like a thoroughbred. very few men can get ahead of them in a trade, as many a farmer has found to his cost. the women are often very expert in embroidery and find a ready sale for their really beautiful work. then, too, as fortune tellers they are proverbial the world over. cross a gipsy's palm with gold or silver and she'll predict for you a future that kings and queens might envy. it is safe to say that during their stay here they will reap quite a harvest--enough at least to suffice for the simple needs of to-day. as for to-morrow, they don't care. that can take care of itself. they are as irresponsible as crickets or butterflies. they 'never trouble trouble till trouble troubles them.'" "well," said dave, "they get rid of a whole lot of needless worry, anyway. they don't suffer as much as the old lady did who said that she had had an awful lot of trouble in her life and most of it had never happened." the boys laughed, and tom asked: "where do they get their name from? why do they call them gipsies?" "because," answered mr. hollis, "they were supposed to be descended from the old egyptians. they resemble them in features, and many words in their language are derived from egypt. many scholars think, however, that their original home was india. europe has been familiar with them for the last four hundred years. they have always been ishmaelites--their hand against every man and every man's hand against them--and by some they have been believed to be the actual descendants of ishmael, the outcast son of abraham. everywhere they have been despised and persecuted. in the old days they were accused of being sorcerers and witches. they have been banished, burned at the stake, broken on the wheel, hung, drawn and quartered. it is one of the miracles of history that they have not been wiped out altogether. but they have always clung closely together and persisted in their strange, wandering way of life. they have a language of their own and certain rude laws that all the tribes acknowledge. the restless instinct is in their blood and probably will be there forever. they are a living protest against civilization as we understand it. occasionally, one of them will join the ranks of ordinary men, but, far more frequently, they gain recruits from those who want to throw off the shackles and conventions of the settled life. more than one man and woman have listened to the 'call of the wild' and followed the gipsies, as the children in the fable followed the pied piper of hamelin. but now, boys," he said, rising, "it's time for 'taps.' to-morrow evening we'll all go over and take a closer look at these gipsies of yours." all through the following day the boys, though attentive to what they were doing, were keenly alive to the promised treat that night. there was an early supper, to which, despite the under-current of excitement, they did full justice, and then in the gathering dusk the boys set out for the grove. since not all could go in the automobile, it was decided that all should go on foot, and with jest and laughter they covered the three miles almost before they knew it. quite different from that of the day before was the sight that burst upon them as they rounded a curve in the road and came upon the picturesque vagrants. here and there were torches of pitch pine that threw a smoky splendor over the scene and hid all the squalor and sordid poverty that had been so evident in the broad light of day. by this time it was fully dark, but a full moon cast its beauty over the trees and flecked the ground with bright patches that added to the torches made the whole grove like a fairyland. the news of the gipsies' coming had reached the surrounding towns, and there was quite a gathering of pretty girls and country swains, whose buggies stood under the trees at the roadside, while youths and maidens wandered among the wagons of the caravan. at the open door of one of the vans a young gipsy drew from a violin the weird, heart-tugging strains that have made their music famous throughout the world. others sat around their fire and talked together in a low tone, casting furtive glances at the visitors, whose coming they seemed neither to welcome nor resent. with their instinctive appreciation of the fine points in any animal, the eyes of some of them brightened as don threaded his way through the different groups, but, apart from that, they gave no sign that they were conscious of the newcomers. with the gipsy women, however, it was different. this was their hour and they improved it to the utmost. withered crones and handsome girls with curious turbans wound about their heads went from group to group, offering to tell their fortunes, provided their palms were crossed. there was no difficulty about this, as most of the girls had come there with that one desire and the gallant youths who escorted them urged them to gratify it regardless of expense. if the recording angel put down that night all the lies that were told, all the promises of wealth and title and position that sent many a giddy head awhirl to its pillow, he was kept exceedingly busy. just for a lark, the boys themselves were willing patrons of these priestesses of the future; but little of what was promised them remained in their memory, except that tom was to meet a "dark lady" who was to have a great and happy influence upon his life. the boys chaffed him a good deal about this mystical brunette, but he maintained with mock gravity that "one never knows" and that perhaps the swarthy soothsayer "knew what she was talking about after all." in view of the unusual circumstances, mr. hollis had not insisted upon the ordinary rules, and it was nearly midnight when the boys, having trudged back to camp, prepared to retire. "what time is it, anyway, dick?" yawned bert, as they started to undress. "i'll see," said dick, as he reached for his watch; "it's just----" he stopped aghast as the chain came out of his pocket with a jerk. his watch was gone. at this instant a shout came from bob ward's tent: "say, fellows, have any of you seen my scarfpin? i can't find it anywhere. i'm sure i had it on when i started." bert looked at dick and dick stared back at bert. the same thought came into their minds at once. "stung," groaned dick, as he sank down heavily on his bed. at once the camp was in commotion. everyone made a hasty inventory of his belongings and the relief was general when it was found that nothing else was missing. their hearts were hot with indignation, however, at the loss of their comrades. dick's gold watch had been a graduation present and bob's scarfpin had held a handsome stone, so that the money loss was considerable. but deeper yet was the sense of chagrin voiced by jim dawson: "well," said he, disgustedly, "if this isn't the limit. here we are, city fellows who think we are up to snuff. we are surrounded by pickpockets every day and nothing happens. then we come out in the country and are roasted brown by a band of wandering gipsies." by this time mr. hollis, aroused by the unusual stir, had hastily dressed and joined the excited group. the facts were quickly detailed to him, and, as he listened, his face set in hard lines that boded ill for the thieves. he first directed that a thorough search be made in order to be perfectly sure that the missing articles were not somewhere about the camp. when careful examination failed to reveal them, doubt became certainty. if only one thing had been lost it might have been set down to carelessness or accident, but that two should disappear at the same time pointed to but one explanation--theft. and it was a foregone conclusion that the thieves were to be found in the gipsy camp. the more hot-headed were for starting out at once to regain the watch and pin at any cost. but this was vetoed by mr. hollis, who recognized the futility of attempting anything at so late an hour. he promised that early in the morning they should all go together, and with that promise they were forced to be content. there was very little sleep for the boys that night, and at the first streak of dawn the whole camp was astir. breakfast was swallowed hastily, and bert whistled for don as the boys made ready to start. "here, don, old fellow, good dog," he called when the whistle failed to bring him; but no don appeared. then a thought suddenly struck bert. when had he last seen the collie? in the excitement last night he and the other boys had given no thought to the dog. he recalled with a sudden sick feeling that he had last seen him in the light of the gipsy torches. his heart smote him for his forgetfulness. was it possible that the gipsies had stolen don also? why not? he never would have stayed away of his own accord. the collie was a splendid animal of the purest breed and would easily bring a large price if offered for sale anywhere. a fierce rage flamed in bert--a rage shared by all the others when he hastily told them of the suspicion that every moment was becoming a conviction--and it was lucky for the abductor of don that he did not at that moment meet bert wilson face to face. with dick, tom and bob, he leaped into the "red scout", and taking up mr. hollis as they came to the door of his tent, they swung into the broad high road, leaving the others to follow as fast as they could. "now, purr, old scout," said bert as he threw in the clutch; and the "red scout" purred. it leaped forward like a living thing, as though it pulsed with the indignation and determination of its riders. they fairly ate up the three miles in as many minutes, turned the curve of the road just this side of the gipsy camp and-the camp was gone! gone as though it had dropped into the earth. gone as though it had melted into the air. utterly and completely gone. the ashes of last night's fires, some litter scattered here and there, alone remained to mark the spot that a few hours before had been so full of life and animation. they leaped from the car and scattered everywhere looking for signs to indicate the direction the caravan had taken. they had certainly not come south by the boys' camp. it was equally certain that they had not gone directly north, as this led straight to a large town that they would instinctively avoid. this narrowed the search to east and west roads, from which, however, many byroads diverged, so that it left them utterly at sea. "the telephone," cried bert; "let's try that first." they bundled into the car and a few minutes brought them to the nearest town. picking out half a dozen addresses along different roads, they called them up. had they seen a band of gipsies going by? the answer "no" came with exasperating monotony, until suddenly bert leaped to his feet. "here we are, boys," he cried. "bartlett on the ashby road, eight miles from here, saw them go by two hours ago. now let's get busy." they flew down the ashby road and in a few minutes came to the bartlett farm. yes, they had passed there and they certainly were traveling some. a couple of miles further on the road forked. there was a negro cabin at that place and they might get some information there. he hoped so, anyway. good luck, and with a word of thanks, the boys rushed on. a stout negress washing clothes under the tree at the fork of the road wiped the suds from her hands with her apron as she came forward. "dey sholy did go pass hyar, gemmun, and dey wuz drivin' as do de ole nick was affer dem. dat's a pow'ful po' road up dataway and der hosses wuz plum tired. dey kain't be ve'y far ahaid, i specs." exultingly bert threw in the high speed. their quarry had been run down at last. the motor fairly sang as they plunged up the road. turning a curve to the right they came upon the procession of carts, now toiling along painfully. bert never hesitated a second, but rushed past the line of wagons until he had reached the head of the caravan. then he swung the "red scout" squarely across the road and with mr. hollis, dick, tom and bob, sprang to the ground. [illustration: then he swung the "red scout" squarely across the road.--(_see page 89_)] consternation plainly reigned in the halted carts. the men crowded forward and hastily consulted. a moment later an old man, evidently the chief, came forward. he was prepared to try diplomacy first, and with an ingratiating smile held out his hand to mr. hollis. the latter, ignoring the extended hand, came straight to the point. "i want three things," he said, "and unless you are looking for trouble, you'll hand them over at once. i want the pin and watch and dog your people stole from us last night." the leader's smile faded, to be replaced by an ominous scowl. "it's a lie," he said sullenly, "my people stole nothing. get out of our road," he snarled viciously, while his followers gathered threateningly around him. the air was surcharged with danger and a fight seemed imminent, when suddenly a familiar bark came from one of the vans. bert dashed forward, thrusting aside a young gipsy who sprang to intercept him. he threw open the van door, and out rushed don, mad with delight. he had chewed in half the rope that held him and the frayed remnant hung about his neck as he leaped on bert and capered frantically about him. the game was up! fear and chagrin were painted on the gipsies' faces. they might have bluffed through as regards the stolen articles and it would have been almost impossible to prove their guilt. but here was the living proof of theft--proof strong enough to land their party behind the bars. moreover, the great dog was no mean addition to the little force that faced them so undauntedly. it was plainly up to them to temporize. as bob with regrettable slanginess, but crisp brevity, summed up the case: "they had thought to make a quick touch and getaway, but fell down doing it." the chief held up his hand. "wait," he said, "while i talk to my people. perhaps they have found something. i will see." a whispered conversation followed and then he came forward sheepishly, holding out the watch and pin. "they found them on the grounds. i did not know," he mumbled. mr. hollis took them without a word and motioned bert to get the auto ready. he had gained his point and did not care to press his advantage further. after all, they were almost like irresponsible children, and, despite his resentment, he felt a deep pity for these half-wild sons of poverty and misfortune. their code was not his code, nor their laws his laws. they were the "under dogs" in the fight of life. let them go. the motor began to hum. the party piled in, with don between them, barking joyfully, and they swept down the shabby line of carts with not a glance behind them. they waved gaily to the old black mammy, who beamed upon them as they went by. a thought struck bert, and turning to tom, he shouted: "the dark lady, tom. the dark lady that the gipsy prophesied would bring you luck." "sure thing," grinned tom. "it certainly is luck enough to get old don back, to say nothing of the watch and pin. isn't it, old fellow?" and he patted the dog's head lovingly. so thought the rest of the boys, also, when the "red scout" reached camp. don was overwhelmed with caresses and strutted about as though he had done it all. as jim put it: "napoleon on his return from elba had nothing on don." it was late when the excitement subsided and the campers went weary but happy to bed. mr. hollis, bert and dick lingered about the fire. only these older ones had realized how ticklish a situation they had faced that day. they didn't like to think what might have happened if it had come to an open fight. "the way you faced that crowd was the pluckiest thing i ever saw, mr. hollis," said bert; "but suppose it had come to a showdown?" "well," laughed mr. hollis, "it was a case of touch and go for a minute. but i counted on the fact that we were right and they were wrong. 'conscience makes cowards of us all.' behind us were law and order and civilization. behind them crowded nameless shapes of fear and dread that robbed their arms of strength and turned their hearts to water. it was simply a confirmation," he concluded, as he rose to say good night, "of the eternal truth: "'thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.'" chapter ix how the "red scout" climbed dobb's hill the morning of the long anticipated day in the "red scout" dawned bright and clear, and the campers who were to go were astir soon after dawn. most of them would willingly have dispensed with breakfast, but mr. hollis insisted that they take their time and eat a hearty meal. however, everything comes to him who waits, and at last they were ready to start. it had been arranged that on their trip they were to stop in town, and get supplies and some camp appliances that mr. hollis required. otherwise they were to do as they pleased, subject only to bert's authority. the car was ready to start, and bert had received mr. hollis' last instructions. "well, fellows," said bert, "pile in, and we'll start for town right away. it rather looks now as though we might have a little rain before the day is over. i don't like the looks of the sky over there any too much, but we've got to have grub anyway, even if we have to go after it in boats." "yes, or we might swim, i suppose," suggested shorty, sarcastically. "in that case, we'd let you try it, as its only a matter of twenty miles or so each way, and see if you are as strong as your name," retorted bert, and shorty subsided. meanwhile the others had taken their appointed places in the auto, and, after adjusting spark and throttle levers, bert walked to the front of the machine and cranked the motor. on the first turn, such was the beautiful condition in which he kept the car, the engine started with a roar, and he quickly climbed into the driver's seat and threw in the clutch. without a tremor the big car glided away as if moving on air, which indeed it was, in a way, if the air in the tires could be counted. with the ease of a driver who thoroughly understands his car, bert steered the machine around and between the bumps in the road, and even one who had never ridden in an automobile before would have appreciated his masterly handling of this machine. suddenly tom, who, as usual, was riding in the seat beside bert, leaned over and said, "say, bert, do you suppose she would take dobb's hill?" now, the hill to which tom referred was one notorious in the neighborhood. more than one gray-haired farmer had shaken his head dubiously while inspecting the "red scout," and said, "yes, that there contraption may be all right on the level, and there's no getting over the fact that it can run circles around a streak of greased lightning, but i'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that it could never get up dobb's hill." so bert thought a moment before answering tom's question, and then said, "well, that's an awfully steep hill, but the old 'scout' has never balked at anything yet, and i have a sneaking feeling that it wouldn't even stop at dobb's hill. however, there is only one way of finding out about it, and that is to try it. what do you say, fellows, shall we try it and show these people around here just what our machine can do?" there was a unanimous chorus of assent from the other occupants of the car, so at the next crossing bert turned off the main road in the direction of the famous dobb's hill. soon the hill itself loomed up in front of them, and bert opened the throttle a trifle. the machine immediately picked up speed, but to the occupants of the machine it seemed almost impossible that anything but an elevator could get up that hill. it looked to them almost like a high wall. bert, however, was thinking more of the machine than of the hill. he had been gradually giving the engine more gas, and now, when they were almost at the foot of the hill, he realized that the moment had come to call forth the supreme effort of the motor. he opened the muffler so as to get rid of all back pressure, and opened the throttle to its widest extent. with a bound and a roar the powerful machine took the hill, and to the boys in the car it seemed as though they had some powerful, willing animal working for them. up the great machine climbed, with scarcely diminished speed, the engine emitting unbroken and exhilarating music, or at least that is what it sounded like to the tense boys in the auto. at last with a final roar of the motor, and rumble of the straining gears, the machine topped the hill and started on its long downward coast. bert threw out the clutch, and giving the engine a well-earned rest after its strenuous work, allowed the "red scout" to glide rapidly and smoothly down the hill. every boy in the car seemed half-crazy with delight over the performance of their mechanical pet. some even went so far as to pat the sides of the car, and bob expressed the general feeling when he said, "well, i'd rather be a camper and be able to say i held part ownership in a car like this, than to be king of england." the boys also realized that a lot of credit was due bert for the success of their climb, as even such a car as the "red scout" could never have gotten up that hill without expert handling. down the long hill glided the "red scout" with constantly increasing momentum, and long before they reached the bottom bert had to apply the powerful brakes with which the machine was equipped, and check its speed. gradually he slowed it down to a safer, but less exciting speed, and at the bottom eased in the clutch and the willing motor took up the load. in the meantime the sky had taken on a more threatening appearance, and while the happy-go-lucky boys in the tonneau gave it little thought, bert, to whom the care of the car and its occupants were intrusted, cast more than one dubious and anxious glance in the direction in which the storm might be expected to break. he hoped that they might at least make the necessary trip to town and back before the rain could catch them, however, and so held a steady pace, and they were soon rolling down the main street. bert got out his list of the things they would need, and detailed the boys to different stores so that they could get started again as soon as possible. bert's last remark to them was, "now, fellows, step just as lively as you know how, and whatever else you do, don't come back drunk." this raised a general laugh, as, it is needless to say, the boys had had no such intentions. bert and tom remained with the car, and while bert said less than the other boys about his love for the machine, it was easy to see that he had a real affection for it, and took pleasure in cleaning and adjusting it. "say, tom," he called after a few minutes, "bring me grandfather, will you?" now, "grandfather" was not what that word usually means, but an immense monkey-wrench, with jaws on it like a vise. it was called grandfather for no particular reason that anybody knew of, but someone had called it that once, and the name had stuck. the boys sometimes used it to exercise and perform feats of strength with, so heavy was it. so now, when tom got it out of the tool box on the running board and handled it with loving care, bert took it from him, and for several minutes was busy adjusting and tightening bolts and nuts around the motor and transmission case. finally he handed the wrench back to tom with a sigh of relief. "well!" he exclaimed. "there's a good job well done. i'll bet we could take that hill now even a little better than we did, if that's possible." "i don't know about that," replied tom, "this old scout went up that hill better than i thought it could, and i guess you ought to have as much credit as the machine. after this i will back you and the 'red scout' against all comers." from this it may be seen that there was more than a little hero worship mingled with tom's love for bert, and no wonder. bert was the sort of fellow that everyone had to admire and like. by this time the boys had begun to return with their bundles and boxes, and soon everything was safely stored in the tonneau, and the boys had time to wonder how they were going to get themselves in too, as the supplies seemed to take up about all the room. finally it was arranged that jim and dave should stay in the tonneau to see that nothing was shaken overboard, while bob and frank ranged themselves on the running board. in this fashion they started, but it soon became evident to everybody that they would never be able to get back to camp before the storm broke, even with the help of the "red scout." thunder could be heard coming nearer and nearer, and soon they felt the first warm drops of rain. bert wished then that they had a top to their car, but unfortunately the leather covering ordered by mr. hollis had not yet arrived at the camp. "what do you think we'd better do, bert; make a run for camp or hunt shelter around here?" asked tom. "why, this road is pretty rough, and we can't make much speed," replied bert. "i guess we'd better hunt cover right away," as a vivid streak of lightning split the sky, followed by a crash of thunder. "we noticed an old barn over toward the right when we were on a botany expedition the other day," said frank, "and i think that if you swing into that dirt road we're coming to, it will lead us right to it." "well, here goes," said bert, and swung the "red scout" into the old road. sure enough, before they had gone a quarter of a mile they sighted the old barn, and were soon snugly established in it. to be sure, the roof leaked in places, but it was fairly tight, and what did a bunch of hardy campers, in the pink of condition, care for a few drops of rain? there was some hay left in the barn, and they lounged comfortably around on this, talking and listening to the rain, which by this time had increased to a downpour, and beat fiercely on the roof and sides of the old barn. the boys started a discussion about the hill-climbing feat of the "red scout," and while all agreed that it had been a splendid performance, bob seemed to be inclined to sneer at bert's handling of the car. he firmly believed that he knew more about automobiles than bert, and was sometimes a little jealous of the praise given him by the other boys. "oh, i don't know," he finally remarked, when tom remarked that some people seemed able to coax more out of a car than others, "i don't see that that makes much difference. i'll bet that if i had been running the 'red scout' this morning it would have gone up that hill just the same. why, when i used to run my uncle's car----" but here he was interrupted by cries of derision, and tom remarked: "i suppose that if bob had been running the 'red scout' he would have run it up the hill backwards so that it would think it was going downhill, and so got to the top without any trouble." this sally caused a general laugh at bob's expense and he subsided, but was heard to mutter about "getting the right mixture," and "easing her down to second speed," which nobody but bert understood, but which seemed to make him feel much better. in justice to bob, it must be said, however, that he did know quite a little about automobiles, but usually lacked nerve when it came to putting his knowledge into practice. by this time the boys were all hungry, and as there seemed to be a small chance of the rain letting up for a while, bert proposed that they have lunch. there was plenty of food in the automobile, and bert started the boys to fishing out crackers and jam. suddenly a thought struck him. "say, fellows," he called, "how about making some cornbread and having a real bang-up meal? we've got bacon and all the fixings here, and we all know how to cook, thanks to our experience as campers. i'll make the corn bread, and tom here will fry the bacon." there was such a joyous and noisy consent to this plan that bert could not help laughing. "all right," he cried, "some of you fellows dive into the car and bring out the new frying pan and the dutch oven we bought to-day. we'll build a fire on that slab of stone over there, and have something to eat in next to no time." this was no sooner said than done, and as the odor of frying bacon and hot "corn pone" filled the old barn, the boys thanked their lucky stars for the thousandth time that they had come on this camping trip. in a short time everything was ready, and they seated themselves near the fire. tom dished out the sizzling bacon and steaming "corn pone." under the cheering influence of this feast even bob ward forgot his grudge of the morning, and when he shouted, "what's the matter with wilson?" the resulting "he's all right!" almost lifted the roof off the old barn. soon they had finished and cleared away the meal, and when they opened the barn door were surprised and delighted to find that the sun had struggled through the clouds and was now shining brightly. quickly they packed the tonneau, and were soon ready to start. "all right, fellows, get to your places," sang out bert, and soon they were chugging out of the old barn that had offered them such timely shelter. once outside and fairly on the disused road, however, it soon became apparent that only with great difficulty could they make any progress at all. the rain had converted the road into a quagmire, and although bert brought the "red scout" from third speed to second, and finally to first, he saw that they must soon stop altogether, and indeed this soon proved to be the case. the faithful motor apparently had plenty of power, but the car sank into the mud up to its axles, and the rear wheels simply turned around without propelling it. bert finally threw out the clutch and the "red scout" stopped as though he had applied the brakes, so great was the opposition formed by the mud. "well, this is a pretty fix, to be sure," exclaimed bert. "we're going to have the time of our lives getting this machine out. what you need for this road is not so much an automobile as a boat. however, it wouldn't speak well for us if we couldn't get our car out of this scrape after all it has done for us, so let's get busy." "that's all very well," said jim, "but the question is, how are you going to do it? this isn't exactly a flying machine, although it can go pretty fast, and it seems to me that we will need something like that to get us out of here." "say, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, jim dawson," exclaimed tom, indignantly, "here you call yourself one of the crowd, and yet you are willing to give up before you have fairly begun to try. that isn't the right spirit." "oh, it's easy enough to talk," answered jim, sulkily, "but i'd just like to know how you are going to do it, that's all." "well, i can't say i have a plan right now, but i'm sure that our old 'red scout' isn't going to leave us in the lurch now after all it has done so far," and here he patted the vibrating car lovingly. meanwhile bert had been thinking deeply, and had finally hit on a plan. "here, some of you fellows, run back and bring me all the hay you can carry from that barn, will you? we want to get out of here as soon as we can, because mr. hollis will be anxious about us. lively's the word." tom, bob, and frank ran back to the barn and soon reappeared, carrying armfuls of hay. when they reached the car bert took charge of it, and placed it carefully under the rear wheels, and made a path in front of each wheel for about six feet. "if we can only get over to the side of the road and up on that grass there," he explained, "we will be on firmer ground and can get better traction. i only wish we had tire chains." "what are tire chains, bert, and what are they for?" inquired frank. "why, you see how it is," replied bert, "we have plenty of power, but the wheels can't get a grip on the ground, and just skid around. if we had a network of chains over the tires they would bite through the mud to solid ground and get the grip we need. understand?" "sure thing, and much obliged for the explanation," said frank, heartily. by this time bert had arranged things to his satisfaction, and now climbed into the driver's seat, while the boys looked on expectantly. bert threw out the clutch, advanced the spark slightly, and opened the throttle a few notches. immediately the motor increased its revolutions, and when it had reached a good speed bert gently eased in the clutch. there was a grinding sound of clutch and gears as the power was transmitted to the rear wheels, and the "red scout" lunged forward. the front wheels were so firmly embedded by this time, however, that even the "red scout" was helpless. again and again bert raced his engine and let in the clutch, and each time the machine made a gallant attempt to free itself, but could never quite make it. finally he reversed, but with no better result. at last he gave up the attempt, and leaving the motor turning over slowly, descended to hold a consultation with the other boys. "have you any suggestions to make, fellows?" he asked, "i confess i'm up a tree just at present. what do you say, bob? can you think of anything?" "why, i was thinking," answered bob, flattered by this direct appeal to his vaunted experience, "that if we could dig out a path in front of the machine up onto the grass we might get it out that way." "say! you've hit the nail on the head this time!" exclaimed bert, enthusiastically. "that's just what we'll do. get that spade out of the tonneau, will you frank, and we'll get to work." frank immediately complied, and in an incredibly short space of time the boys had a path dug in front of the auto down to hard gravel, and were ready for another attempt to extricate their beloved car. bert climbed into his seat with a do-or-die expression on his handsome young face, and repeated his former tactics, but this time with greater success. the "red scout" surged forward with a roar, like some imprisoned wild creature suddenly given its liberty. bert took no chances this time, but plugged steadily onward until he reached high, firm ground. here he stopped the panting machine, and waited for the cheering boys to catch up. they soon reached the faithful car, and quickly jumped into their places. before starting again bert turned around and said, "fellows, i think we owe bob a vote of thanks. all who agree please say 'aye'." there was a hearty chorus of "ayes," and bob flushed with pleasure at this tribute from his comrades. he thought, and with reason, that he had demonstrated his knowledge of automobiles to good advantage, as well as his ability to meet emergencies. by this time it was getting near dusk, and bert knew that mr. hollis would be worried over their continued absence. accordingly, when he got on to the main road, he threw the gears into high speed, and soon they were bowling along at a rapid, but safe, pace toward their camp. it would be hard to imagine a happier set of boys in the world than those who sat in the big red automobile in the silence of good fellowship and listened to the contented purring of the "red scout's" powerful motor. as they revolved in their minds the exciting occurrences of the day, and thought of other equally happy days yet to come, it seemed to them that there was indeed nothing more desirable in life than to be campers with such leaders as mr. hollis, bert wilson, and dick trent. it is safe to say that they would not have changed places with any other set of boys on earth. "say, bert," said jim dawson, breaking the long silence, "that race is as good as won already. i'm sure that with this machine and you driving it, we couldn't lose if we tried. what do you think?" bert did not answer for a moment, and when he did his eyes twinkled merrily. "well, jim," he said, "i don't know whether we'll win or not and that 'gray ghost' is certainly some racer. from what i have seen of our old 'red scout' to-day, however,--but there, i'm not going to say any more just now. there is no use raising your hopes, and then perhaps have nothing come of that in the end." and with that they were forced to be content. by this time they had almost reached the camp, and could see the smoke of the fire. soon they rolled smoothly into camp, and mr. hollis came to meet them with a relieved look on his face. at first he seemed inclined to blame them, but bert soon explained matters to his entire satisfaction. the boys mingled with their comrades, and many were the exclamations of wonder over their day's experiences. after a short rest, supper was prepared, and while they all voted it delicious, still they claimed that nothing had ever tasted quite as good as their lunch in the old barn. as tom and bert were dropping off to sleep that night, tom murmured drowsily, "say, bert, did we or didn't we have a bully time to-day, eh?" "just bet your hat we did." "well, say, isn't the old 'red scout' about the greatest automobile that ever turned a wheel?" "that's whatever it is," concurred bert, and dropped off to sleep with a smile on his face, and the image of a big red automobile enthroned in his heart. chapter x quick work "you fellows get it all," complained steve thomas, with as ugly a look as such a round good-natured face as his could wear. "you sure do seem to move in a charmed circle," chimed in another grumbler. "don't they?" echoed a third. "they ought to be called the lucky three. this is the fourth time in less than two weeks that they've had the auto." the "lucky three," to whom these remarks were addressed, stood grinning happily at the disgusted faces of the other fellows in camp. the question to be settled was as to what ones should take the auto into town for some supplies that were unexpectedly but urgently needed. there had been quite a lively dispute, waxing louder and louder until it threatened to end in a genuine quarrel. mr. hollis, busily finishing some letters that he wanted to send into town by the boys, was at first too absorbed in his writing to notice the unusual disturbance, but as the recriminations grew hotter he saw that immediate action was necessary. rising hastily and taking in his hand a sheet of paper on which he had been writing, he stepped from his tent into the group of heated boys. the clamor ceased at once and when he learned the cause of the discussion, mr. hollis proposed to draw lots. the fellows who should draw the numbers one, two and three were to be the autoists for the trip. this seemed fair to all, and cutting the paper into equal strips mr. hollis wrote a number on each and, shaking them well in a hat passed them around. when they had all been drawn, each one turned over his slip and looked eagerly for the sign that fate had been good to him. the lot had fallen to bert, tom, and ben. there was no appeal and the rest of the camp had to submit, some, however, with so poor a grace that mr. hollis, smilingly genially remarked: "come, boys, be sports. any fellow can growl but it takes an all-around manly one to bear defeat smilingly. there's always the chance of better luck next time." his words and manner speedily dissipated what shreds of ill-temper remained, so that the boys gave a rousing cheer for a send-off as the car, gleaming like red gold in the brilliant morning sunshine, shot off up the road and disappeared from their longing eyes. as for the fortunate three in the car, everything unpleasant was forgotten in the twinkling of an eye. a great splendid flying auto is no place for disagreeable memories, and the woods rang with song and jokes and laughter as the car flew on. out of the woods at last they swept into a wide well-kept turnpike, where they could safely ride at greater speed. bert opened up the throttle and the "red scout" fairly "burned up the ground." they passed a number of lumbering ox carts and farm wagons drawn by sedate old horses, whom nothing could dismay. now just in front of them they saw a runabout, drawn by two spirited bay horses evidently of the thoroughbred type. as they came up behind the carriage, tom noticed that one of the horses began to prance and that the lady who held the reins glanced behind nervously. "wouldn't you better go rather slow," he cautioned bert; "one of those horses doesn't seem to have any love for automobiles." accordingly, bert was very careful as he attempted to pass the runabout; but at the first glimpse of the car the prancing horse reared up on his hind legs and lurched heavily against his mate. startled, the other horse plunged forward, jerking the reins from the driver's hands. the feel of the loose reins on their backs completed their panic, and before anyone realized what was happening, the horses had taken the bit between their teeth and were dashing down the road, utterly beyond control. the carriage swayed frightfully from side to side, and the two ladies, their faces blanched with fear, clung desperately to the seats. the "lucky three," feeling not a bit lucky at that moment, were filled with dismay. "i suppose that's our fault," groaned tom, "although i don't for the life of me see how we could have helped it." "that's not the question," said bert, anxiously, "the only thing now is how to help them." "it seems to me," said tom, "that the thing to do is to overtake them, range up alongside and then one of us jump into the carriage and get hold of the reins." this seemed the only feasible thing and the speeding auto soon came within a few feet of the runaways. bert waited till the road widened and then shot the auto over the intervening space and drew alongside. tom grasped the wheel and bert, watching his chance, sprang into the carriage. the double motion hurled him backward and almost out on the road, but with a desperate effort, he succeeded in grasping the back of the seat and held on. then climbing over, he made his perilous way out upon the shaft between the flying horses and snatched the reins. upon these he pulled and sawed with all his strength until he at last brought the frightened beasts under control. tom and ben, seeing their opportunity, stopped the machine, and, running to the horses' heads, brought them to a standstill. they helped the trembling women to alight and with cushions and robes hastily brought from the auto made them a comfortable seat at the foot of a tree by the roadside. ben, bethinking himself of the drinking cup that was part of the auto's equipment, filled it with water from a nearby spring, and under these attentions the ladies somewhat recovered from their terrifying experience. the elder of the two turned to the boys and tried to express her heartfelt gratitude, while, if the younger was to be believed, they had proved themselves veritable heroes. this they modestly disclaimed and declared they were only too delighted to have been able to stop the team before any serious harm had been done. meanwhile the horses stood panting and trembling at the side of the road. evidently it would not be safe to attempt to drive them again at present, and they were greatly relieved when a young farmer, who had seen the runaway, came up and offered to keep them overnight in his barn. the horses thus disposed of, the "lucky three" offered gallantly to drive the ladies home in their car. so, fastening the runabout to the rear of the auto and seating their guests comfortably in the tonneau, the boys crowded into the driver's seat and were soon gliding up a broad avenue of elms that ended at the spacious and elegant home to which they had been directed. declining a pressing invitation to enter, the boys, followed by their repeated thanks, started off with redoubled speed on their original errand. without further adventure they secured their supplies and turned toward home. what was their surprise as they neared the camp to see a procession of the fellows coming down the road, some beating on imaginary drums, others blowing on horns, still others with harmonicas and jewsharps, but managing in some unaccountable way to evolve the well-known air of "hark! the conquering hero comes!" it was evident that the news of their adventure had preceded them. the "gray ghost," coming over to the camp to discuss some detail of the forthcoming race, had overtaken the farmer leading the runaway horses and had learned the particulars. hence the impromptu band and the nerve-racking rendition of the triumphal welcome. it was comical but cordial, and the boys would not have been human had they failed to appreciate it. and later on their hearts thrilled with still greater pleasure at mr. hollis' earnest words of commendation. they were soon seated at the table with their guests from the rival camp, and in the discussion of the anticipated race all else was forgotten. they had not finished before a strange automobile rolled up and the colored chauffeur lifting a large basket from the car and bowing low, announced that it was for mr. bert wilson and his friends from the ladies whom they had rescued that day from deadly peril. many and loud were the exclamations of delight when the basket was found to be filled with the mostly costly and delicious fruit. before the onslaught of the crowd it vanished like magic and jim urged the boys to stop a team of runaways every day that summer. the fruit seemed to the boys the last souvenir of that memorable day, so crowded with incident and accident. but it was not. the "lucky three" were to be reminded of this day's adventure in a most unexpected manner before the season ended. chapter xi the four-legged recruit "don, boy, look here," cried bert, coming out of the mess tent after dinner with a plate of scraps. "now how are you going to thank me for it?" he asked as don pranced up, barking and wig-wagging with his tail. don's answer was to stick his cold muzzle into bert's hand and to wig-wag a little harder. "now, old fellow," said bert when don had cleared the plate, "some of the boys are hunting butterflies over there and i want you to get this note to them right away. do you understand, beauty?" the dog looked up with full understanding in the eyes that said so much and barked joyfully as bert tied the note to his collar. he started off in the direction pointed out to him perfectly happy in the thought that he was serving his master. bert looked fondly after the proudly lifted head and waving silver brush of his favorite. the dog had been a mystery to the whole camp. he seemed to know what was said to him and scarcely ever failed to carry out any directions given him. he had learned a great many tricks in the few days he had been in camp besides displaying some he had mastered previously. with one accord they decided that he must have been stolen by the tramps, who, in the discomfort and excitement of the other day, had forgotten all about him. a squad of the boys had that morning been sent over to the hills on an all-day hike to hunt for butterflies and to study ants--the last had become a favorite amusement among them since dick's talk of a few days before. bert had expected to go with them, but, as more supplies were needed from the village, he had volunteered to go over for them in the "red scout," although he would much rather have gone with the "bug squad." the note that he had entrusted to don contained a warning to the boys to come home by the main road and not attempt to come over the hills as they contained many dangerous holes and pitfalls. he was sure that don could find the boys because he had gone with them more than once on their hikes among the hills. meanwhile, up in the hills, one of the boys, arthur gray by name, had wandered way off from his fellows before he realized it. a strikingly beautiful butterfly had led him on and on, now lingering on one flower, now on another, always flitting away at the very instant when arthur felt sure of success. finally, with a lazily graceful motion of its delicately marked wings, it flew away and was lost to sight, leaving arthur to "mop his fevered brow," as dick would have said. looking around him he discovered that the boys were nowhere to be found. he reached for his pocket compass and found, to his great surprise and dismay, that it wasn't there. by this time, really worried, he tried to remember where he was and which way he had come, but all with no result. the butterfly had led him there by such a roundabout path that he could not, for the life of him, point out the direction from which he had come. what should he do? in a moment he thought that he had brought his watch with him--more by luck than anything else, for he often left it at the camp--and he remembered that he could find in what direction the south lay by means of it. by that time it was exactly four o'clock, and, pointing the hour hand toward the sun, he found that the number 2 on his watch-face pointed to the south: that is, half the distance between four o'clock and twelve when the other hand is pointed toward the sun, marks the southerly direction. of course, when he had one point of the compass it was very simple for him to find the others--that being a necessary part of summer camp training. arthur knew that the camp lay somewhere to the east so he started to get there as fast as his legs would carry him. but, alas. the time when we think fate has been most kind to us often turns out to be the time when it is hardest. so it was in arthur's case. as he hurried along, congratulating himself on having thought of so easy and quick a way to get out of his difficulty, he forgot that the passes over the hills had been reported dangerous. going happily along he had no warning of what was in store for him until, with a groan, he sank to the ground and began to rub his ankle. he had stepped into one of those treacherous holes that covered the whole countryside and had sprained his ankle very badly. painfully, he tried to get up, but when he attempted to bear his weight on the injured ankle, it pained so cruelly that he winced. "oh, i can't, i can't," he moaned aloud in his misery. "what shall i do, what shall i do?" and, sinking to the ground, he covered his face with his hands. * * * * * meanwhile, the boys had missed him and had begun to search all over for him. not finding him, they became anxious and looked desperately for him in every place they could think of. "i wonder if he could be hiding in a cave the way jim was doing the other day," shorty suggested. "don't be a fool, shorty," said tom, rather sharply. "arthur isn't that kind. probably he's chased some butterfly way off somewhere and can't find his way back." "he ought to be able to find his way easily enough with his pocket compass. the thing i'm afraid of is that he may have met with some accident," said frank. just then don came trotting up to tom, calling attention to the note tied to his collar by a series of short, imperative barks. tom patted his head lovingly and called him a "good fellow" at which don wig-wagged vigorously. the boys all crowded around, eager to see what was in the note. "it's from bert," tom announced, "and he says that mr. hollis wants us to come home by the main road because of the dangerous holes and pitfalls. say, fellows," as the truth dawned upon him, "do you think that arthur can be hurt so that he can't get to us?" "nobody knows. but i know one thing," said shorty stoutly, "and that is, that i won't leave these hills to-night until we have found him." "good for you, shorty," said frank. "i know we all feel the same way so we had better get down to business in a hurry." all the time the boys had been speaking don had stood with his head cocked knowingly on one side, watching their every action. when they started to go he looked up into tom's face, mutely asking to be allowed to go too. and tom answered heartily, "you just bet you can come along, don. we couldn't do without you." then the boys began to scour the woods in good earnest. for half an hour they worked hard with a dull, aching sensation at their hearts. they looked behind rocks, pulled aside dense underbrush, gazed down deep ravines with the awful fear that they might see their comrade lying at the bottom. they were coming now into the most dangerous part of the country and they were forced to work slowly and with the utmost care. when they paused, weary and discouraged, to consult on what course was best to follow, don's short bark reached their ears and in a minute the dog himself rushed up to them. then, running back and forth between them and the direction from which he had come, he plainly showed them that he wished them to follow him. "we'd better go," tom said. "he may have found him, or at least some trace of him." so, with don in the lead the boys started once more. as they went they called arthur's name, but at first nothing but the echoes answered them. they were so torn by thorns and briers and so wearied by the long search, that nothing but the thought that their poor comrade was in a much worse plight than they, could have kept them to their task. finally, when they were beginning to think that don was leading them on a wrong scent, they heard a faint cry. joyfully, they called out again and again and each time the answer came nearer. when they came upon the runaway at last they were so happy that they didn't notice his condition at once. when they did realize how badly he was hurt, they forgot how tired they were and set about at once to relieve him. the poor boy had tried to drag himself along on his hands but had not been able to get very far. the boys bandaged the ankle and then began making a litter. it wasn't very long before they had arthur fairly comfortable on the improvised bed. with light hearts the procession started for camp, don proudly taking the lead. the boys thought it was best not to question arthur until he had had time to recover from the shock. it was nearly dark, when, tired and hungry, the "bug squad" reached camp. it is a well known fact that boys are not worth much when they are hungry. mr. hollis, who was a good judge of human nature, hurried the troop into supper, declaring that curiosity could be much better satisfied on a full stomach than an empty one. after supper the boys made the usual camp fire and made the wounded hero of the day comfortable before it. when the preliminaries were over the boys called for the story of the "bug squad's" adventures. tom told as much of the story as he knew and then, turning to arthur, asked, "did don really find you there? we weren't sure but that he might just have struck the trail." "he did both," arthur replied. "he struck my trail and followed it until he found me. i don't think i was ever so glad in my life as i was to see our don come trotting up ready for some petting. he saw that i was hurt, though, and started away like a streak of lightning to bring you to my help. at first i thought that he was deserting me, but even as the thought came to me i knew it was unjust. think of our gallant don deserting anyone in distress. then in a few minutes i heard you hail and answered as well as i could. i will always carry a picture of you fellows as you came into sight, with don in the lead. believe me, it was the finest i ever saw or expect to see. and now, fellows, i want you to give three cheers for the hero of the day and the finest dog that ever lived. come on, now---"hooray-hooray-hooray--now let 'er out fellows--hooray," and in spite of his sprained ankle, arthur led the cheers that echoed and re-echoed through the trees for rods around. all the time the cause of all the enthusiasm was lying with his head on bert's knee, watching the boys contentedly. when they all crowded around, he took the praises they showered on him as a true gentleman should--with courtesy and dignity, only those speaking eyes of his telling of the love in his heart for the boys that would have made him die for any one of them. if ever a dog was glad and happy, his name was don that night. although he didn't understand what it was all about, he knew that he was being honored and showed that he appreciated it. the happiest moment in the whole day for don came when bert put both arms lovingly around his neck and whispered, "you're a trump, old man." and so the four-legged recruit went happily to sleep to dream that he was rescuing all the boys in camp. chapter xii the youngsters' great day "say, fellows," said bert, as he lay stretched out lazily beneath the limbs of a spreading beech, "isn't this the finest day ever?" "you bet it is," said tom, "the mould was broken when this day was made." it was, indeed, one of the perfect days that come sometimes to break the heat of sweltering midsummer. a brisk wind stirred the branches through which the sunlight, flecking lazily the ground beneath, played over the group of boys, who lay in all sorts of abandoned attitudes on a bit of rising ground a little removed from the camp. they had had a splendid morning's sport. the coolness of the day and the fine condition of the roads and meadows had suggested to them the game of hare and hounds. up hill and down dale they had raced with occasional intervals of rest. when the hares had successfully shaken off their pursuers, still the bewildered hounds had nosed about, so to speak, seeking to pick up the lost trail. bert and tom had been the hares and their escape from capture had added to the delight occasioned by the day and the game itself. it was only after the rice that they had carried in their pouches to make a trail had been almost exhausted, that they thought of doubling on their tracks and making for camp. the hounds had trailed in a little later on, looking a bit discomfited but not disheartened. as pete hart, one of the hounds, said "though slightly disfigured they were still in the ring." and, oh, how that dinner tasted and how impossible it was almost for the famished boys to wait while the fish snatched from the brook that morning were frizzling in the pan and came in tantalizing whiffs to the nostrils of the boys. something more substantial than whiffs, however, did quickly follow, and now like gorged anacondas full to the brim, they lay stretched out upon the grass and talked over the events of the morning. "i tell you what, boys," said frank, "it sure was the luckiest day in my life when i struck this camp." "well," said tom, "i reckon we all say amen to that. think of being out in these woods on such a day as this with a lot of jolly good fellows and not a thing to do but be happy. when i think of the people in town roasting under the summer heat while we are out here under the trees, you bet i feel sorry for them." "yes," said jim, who, as usual, had eaten more even than the others and hadn't before had energy enough to speak, "the town is all right in the fall and spring, but when the summer comes, me for the long hike and the camp in the woods." "it sure does us a lot of good," said bert. "i know that when i go back to the city after a summer like this i feel so strong that i could lift a ton." "god made the country but man made the town," chimed in dick who was great on quotations. "i think it does everybody good to get away somewhere where they can come in contact with the woods and the brooks and the squirrels and the birds. who was it we used to read about--that fellow in the old grecian stories--i think his name was antaeus, who got into a fight with one of the old heroes and every time he was knocked down, refreshed by contact with mother earth, got up ten times stronger than before. i guess that is the way we feel after a summer spent in the woods." while they were speaking, mr. hollis had joined the group. the boys quickly moved aside to make room for him. although he was so much older than they, his genial spirit and unfailing friendliness kept him in touch with every one of the boys. at heart he was still a boy and always would be one. he was a stickler for discipline, but not in the slightest degree a martinet. with him it was always the "iron hand in the velvet glove," and he was so just, so considerate, he understood boy nature so thoroughly and in the case of each was able so accurately to put himself in his place, that the boys regarded him as a father or rather an older brother, instead of a commander. "i heard what you said, tom," he said, smiling, "about not having a thing to do but be happy. are you quite sure you have nothing to do but that?" tom stared a moment, "why yes," he said slowly, "to make somebody else happy." "that's the thing," said mr. hollis. "you hit the nail right on the head that time, tom. there is no higher aim in life than to make some one else happy." a murmur of assent arose from the boys. "now," said mr. hollis, "we ought to do some one a good turn every day. it doesn't matter especially what that good turn is. it may be a thing so slight as almost to escape notice. it is just in some way or other to add to the sweetness of human life. it may be to give somebody a lift in the automobile--it may be a word of appreciation to kindle a smile on some tired face; it may be guiding a blind man across the street, or giving your seat to a woman in the street car, or even so slight a thing as to kick a banana peel off the sidewalk. the essence of the whole thing is self-forgetfulness. to lend a hand, to give a lift, to make life brighter and easier for someone even in the smallest degree. "but what i have in mind just now is a sort of wholesale lift. when i was in town the other day i passed the orphan asylum. you know the one i mean. that building just off the court house square with a stone wall around it and a pretty lawn in front." the boys remembered perfectly. every one of them at some time or other had passed the place and seen the childish faces at the windows. "now," said mr. hollis, "my idea is this. there are from forty to fifty children in that building. it serves as the asylum for all the towns in the county. i happen to know it is carried on in a splendid way. the officials at the head are kind and humane and the matrons in charge take the best possible care of the little ones, but after all they need variety. they want individual attention. in a home of that kind even with the best intentions there has to be a certain monotony and uniformity. they have to rise at a certain hour, sit down at the table at the same moment, go to the school room at a given time, and even play under the direction of somebody else. now, what a glorious thing it would be if for one day those children could come out into the woods and roll in the grass and chase the squirrels and kick up their heels like young colts let loose in the pasture. what do you say boys, to giving up one whole day of this vacation and make those little ones think they have had a glimpse of heaven?" what they said was plenty. as shorty said, "it hit them where they lived." there was a chorus of excited exclamations, "will we?" "you bet!" "just try us and see." "when's it going to be?" "why can't we have it to-morrow?" "how many kids are there in the asylum?" "what's the best way to get them here?" at last mr. hollis, smiling, had to raise his hand, in order to be heard. "well," said he, "i haven't fixed upon the date. as a matter of fact, i haven't spoken to the officers of the institution at all and am not absolutely sure that they will see their way clear to make the arrangement. of course, they have a great responsibility upon them in caring for so many little ones and they would have to look at the question from every side. still i don't think there will be much trouble in arranging it. they are just as eager to see the children have a good time as we are, and i think the idea will strike them as a capital one. one or two of the people in charge will, of course, have to come with them. ordinarily they might feel a little timid about letting the children spend a whole day in the woods in company with a lot of high-spirited boys who might be reckless, and, even with the best intentions, lead them into danger. still, you boys have established such a good reputation in this neighborhood," and here mr. hollis looked about on the eager faces with an expression of pride, "that i don't think there will be any real trouble in arranging the affair." "it is a capital idea," said dick, warmly. "how did you come to think about it?" "well," said mr. hollis, "it wasn't original with me. it's a custom in the city to set aside a day each year as 'orphans' day.' there are thousands of well-to-do people, owners of automobiles, who have the tenderest sympathy with these little ones deprived, by nature, of their natural guardians, and on that one day of the year they give up all thought of selfish enjoyment and try to give the children the time of their lives. it's a splendid sight and warms the heart to see the long line of automobiles coming down the avenues decked with flags and overflowing with the little tots. off they go to the beach where all sorts of amusements have been prepared for them. they dig in the sand. they paddle about with bare feet at the edge of the breakers. they take in every innocent amusement from one end of the island to another. they haven't any money to spend, but they couldn't spend it if they had. everything is free. the spirit of kindness and good feeling is shared by all the owners of the different resorts, and the doors are flung wide open the minute the children come in sight. they see the moving pictures. they ride in the merry-go-round. they hold their breath as they speed up and down the scenic railways. they watch, with awed admiration, the wandering artist who moulds tigers and lions in the sand. the life guards take them in their boats and row around the different piers. they go to the great animal shows and see the big brutes put through their wonderful tricks. they sit in the weighing machines. they throw base-balls at the clay figures and the larger boys are even permitted--supreme pleasure for a boy--to fire at the target in the shooting galleries. they watch the great ocean steamers as they go past at a distance, and the smaller vessels, like white-winged birds, that hug the shore. and eat! how they do eat! they are like a flock of ravenous locusts and the food disappears as if by magic. it's a day of days for the poor little youngsters, to be talked over and dreamed over for months to come, and when at the end of the day they pile into the autos, tired, full, happy as larks, for the swift return journey to the only place they know as home, it is a question who are the happier, the little ones to whom this means so much or the owners of the machines who, for that one day at least have spent themselves gladly for the happiness of others." the boys listened with rapt attention, and when mr. hollis had finished they were chock full of enthusiasm. "well," said tom, "we haven't any beach here, but i am willing to bet that by the time we get through with those kids they will have had just as good a time as any youngster in the big city ever had." the boys all chimed assent to this, and shorty, who was always impulsive and never could bear to wait for anything that he greatly desired, suggested, "why not fix it up right away?" "well," said mr. hollis, "i don't see any objection to that. if bert has the automobile in shape we will go over at once." so many of the boys wanted to go with him that, to avoid any selection, mr. hollis suggested that they draw lots. of course it went without saying that bert would go to drive the machine, but in addition fate decreed that tom, frank, jim, and shorty should pile in with them. off they went along the smooth country roads, their hearts leaping not only with the delight of the glorious day and the thrilling swiftness with which the great machine sped over the turnpike, but also from the feeling that they were going to carry gladness and sunshine into a lot of wistful little hearts to whom father and mother were only names. in what seemed only a few minutes from the time they left the camp, they reached the asylum. bert went in with mr. hollis while the rest of the boys stayed outside in the machine of which they never tired, and where they much preferred to stay rather than wander about the streets of the town. the interview with the officers of the asylum was most cordial. they knew mr. hollis as a courteous gentleman and a capable and careful ruler of his little kingdom. the matron in charge was called in at the conference and she also assented heartily and thankfully. it was arranged that on the second day thereafter, provided, of course, the weather was suitable, the outing should take place. then arose the question of transportation. how were they to get there? the automobile would only carry a few of the little ones even though they were packed in like sardines. the superintendent suggested that no doubt they would be able to find plenty of the townspeople who would be glad to furnish teams to carry the rest. but just before this arrangement was concluded a thought occurred to bert. he knew how much the auto appealed to a youngster. they were used to seeing horses and wagons and at times would be taken for a ride in them, but automobiles were scarce in that locality and seemed almost like a fairy vehicle to the little ones, as with faces pressed against the panes they would see an occasional touring car glide swiftly along the road in front. "where were the horses?" "what made them go?" "why do they go so fast?" it seemed to bert that half the delight of the little ones would be in the automobile ride and as he pictured the little wave of envy and discontent that would inevitably come over the youngsters who were forced to take the more prosaic and common place wagons, he said: "what's the matter with taking them all over in the machine? of course we would have to make a good many trips, but what of that? it only takes a few minutes to get from here to the camp and turn our load loose in the woods and then come back for another. the whole thing could be managed in a couple of hours. bob and i could take turns in driving the machine. i am sure bob would be glad to, and i know i would, and as for the kids, there is no question of the way they would feel about it." "all right," said mr. hollis, while the superintendent and matron greeted gratefully this further example of bert's thoughtfulness and kindness of heart. when the machine returned to camp and the boys who had been left behind learned of the arrangement, everything was bustle and stir at once. although the camp was always kept in first-class order, this being one of their cardinal principles, yet there were a good many little things that needed doing in order that the youngsters should have the glorious time that the boys had mapped out for them. some of them took a long rope and fixed up a great swing between two oaks at a little distance from the camp. others arranged an archery butt and prepared bows and arrows for the larger boys to use. a number of fishing lines with sinkers and hooks were prepared so that the children might have the rare delight of trying to catch their own dinner. then, too, it was necessary to go to town on several different occasions to secure supplies. their own store had to be replenished, and besides, they wanted to get a lot of extra dainties that would appeal especially to the appetites of their little guests. there had been a heavy rain a day or two before and the prospects were that nothing in the way of bad weather would mar the outing. this had been a question of a little anxiety because their stay in camp was rapidly nearing a close. many of the boys had only a limited time to stay and had to return to their employment in the city. and even those who could extend the period had no desire to do so after their fellows had gone. in all this rush of preparation the automobile race was not neglected. every boy in the camp felt as though his own personal reputation was involved in winning. rumors had filtered in from different quarters that ralph quinby, the driver of the "gray ghost", was simply burning up the roads in exercise. it was even said that for a short distance he had attained the speed of a mile a minute. while there was no bitterness in the rivalry between the two camps, yet their desire to win was extremely keen. "you have simply got to get there, old fellow," said dick as he and bert were tinkering at the machine on the morning before that set for the outing. "it would never do to have those fellows say that the 'red scout' had to take the dust of the 'gray ghost.'" "well," said bert, who, as the driver of the car, naturally felt a greater weight of responsibility than anybody else, "there are just three things we need in order to come in first. above everything else, we've got to have the car in splendid condition. it must be stripped of every single thing that might furnish wind resistance and make its work that much harder. every bolt and nut must be examined and tightened. the lever, the clutch, the gear, has to be thoroughly examined. many a race is won in advance in this way, even before the machine leaves the post. in the next place, we've got to have good judgment. by this i mean judgment of pace. it isn't only what the speedometer says, but there is a little something that tells the man who has his hand on the wheel just when and just how hard he should hit it up. sometimes it is wise to trail the other fellow. at other times it may be well to set the pace, but the ability to do either one or the other is the thing that, other things being equal, is bound to tell in the long run. then, greatest of all, perhaps, is nerve. i don't know whether you have ever ridden, dick, in a machine that goes a mile a minute, but if you have, especially on a circular track, you'll know something of what i mean. a fellow's nerves must be like iron. the least hesitation, the least doubt, the least shakiness even for the merest fraction of a second, may be fatal. this is true even if one were riding without anything especially at stake, but when we know that all the fellows will be yelling like indians, begging us to win, and know the bitter disappointment that will come to them if the other fellow shows us the way over the line, i tell you it is a sure enough test of a fellow's nerve." "well," said dick, "as to that last point i haven't any doubt about you having plenty of nerve, bert. if that were the only thing in question i would call the race won just now, but how about the machines themselves? don't they enter into the calculation?" "of course," said bert, "that counts for an awful lot. you can't make a cart horse beat a thoroughbred, no matter how well he is ridden. there's got to be the speed there or everything else counts for nothing. but take two machines of about equal power, and from all i hear the 'red scout' hasn't much, if anything, on the 'gray ghost' in this particular, it puts the matter right up to the drivers of the cars. under those conditions, nine times out of ten, it's the best man and not the best machine that wins." while tom and bert discussed the thing in this way soberly, the rest of the troop hadn't a doubt in the world that their hero would win. they idolized bert. they had seen him under a variety of circumstances and never once had he shown the white feather. never once had he failed to measure up to an emergency. never once had he failed to use every ounce of energy and power that he possessed. if he _should lose_--and this thought was instantly dismissed as traitorous--they knew that, although beaten, he would not be disgraced, and so, with a vast amount of excitement but with scarcely the slightest feeling of trepidation, they awaited the momentous day when the "gray ghost" and the "red scout" should battle for supremacy. "orphans' day" dawned clear and beautiful. there was just enough breeze to temper the heat of the sun. the skies were cloudless. many a tousled little head up at the asylum had tossed restlessly on its pillow through that night and almost all of the expectant youngsters needed no rising bell to call them from their dreams. even breakfast was dispatched more quickly than usual, and the feverish impatience of the little tots made it almost impossible to wait for the coming of that glorious automobile. as it was necessary to save all possible space in the auto for the children themselves, bert drove the car over alone. when he came in sight he was hailed with a yell of delight by a little group of seven or eight gathered on the lawn, who had been told off, to the envy of their less fortunate companions, for the first ride. the matron in charge made a pretense of keeping order, but she had been a child herself and the attempt was only half-hearted. in they piled, one after the other, tumbling over the sides, or tossed in by the strong arms of bert, and untangled themselves somehow, some on the seats, some on the bottom of the car between the last and the driver's seat. brown heads, black heads, blond heads, yes, even one little red head--that of teddy mulligan--made what shorty said when he saw it was "a sure enough color scheme." as soon as they were safely ensconced, bert blew his horn, swung the car around, and then made off for the camp. oh, the delight of that swift trip on that glorious morning. oh, the chatter that rose from those eager lips. oh, the joy that bubbled in those little, motherless hearts. it wasn't earth--it was heaven. on sped the machine, noiselessly, softly, swiftly as a bird. if it had not been for the other groups who were eagerly waiting their turn bert would surely have turned off into a side road and given the kids a good many extra miles; but the others had to be considered, too, and time was passing, so into the camp they glided, all alive with eagerness, delight and anticipation. the ready hands of the other boys lifted the little ones from the machine, which instantly turned about for its second trip. again and again this was repeated, until the last little group on the lawn of the asylum had melted away, and the woods resounded with their childish prattle. the boys had surely spread themselves to give "the kids" a day that they'd never forget. frank took some of the larger boys to the little glade where the archery practice was on, put the bows and arrows into their hands that had been prepared and showed them how to shoot. the girls were taken to a swing that the boys had rigged up and swung to and fro to their hearts' content. tom showed them how to make jack-o'-lanterns and told them about the time when bert had put one up in a great cave and frightened him so badly when he caught a first glimpse of it. a little group under the guidance of dick went down to the brook and watched the sunfish dart to and fro under the gleaming surface and the great perch and catfish lying lazily under the reeds that fringed the bank. shorty, who was an expert fisherman, threw his line while the boys looked on with bated breath, and in a few minutes pulled up a plump catfish. "why do they call them that?" said little tony darimo. "well," said shorty, "maybe it's because of the whiskers they have; perhaps because the face looks something like a cat, or else because of the noise they make when you take them off the hook." little billy jackson seemed unconvinced. "it doesn't seem to me like a cat," he said. just then shorty, who had turned his head to put the fish in the basket, uttered a loud "meow." billy jumped. "i guess you are right after all," he said. "it surely does sound like a pussy cat." in the shallow part of the brook some of the little ones under the guidance of the matron were permitted to take off their shoes and stockings and paddle about. the water was less than a foot deep. one of the children slipped and fell. in a moment don, who had been racing along the bank, jumped in and grabbed him by the collar of his blouse. the child was on his feet in a minute and had never been in the slightest danger at all, but don felt just as proud of his exploit as though he had saved him from a raging torrent. the boys laughed and called him a "fake hero," and yet every one of them knew in his heart that, however great might have been the danger, don would have jumped just the same. don outdid himself that day. he made the children scream with delight. under the guidance of bert he played soldier, shouldered the stick and marched, rolled over and played dead, and did it all with such a keen sense of enjoyment in his tricks that the children stood about and watched him, with endless wonder and delight. but the one whom the children remembered above all the others was bert. he was everywhere. he told them stories. he carried them on his shoulders. he imitated the calls of the different birds. he summoned the squirrels and the timid little creatures, who long since had lost all fear of him, came readily forward, ate out of his hand and perched upon his finger tips. the children looked on with wide-eyed amazement, delight and admiration. then came dinner, and such a dinner! the kids had never seen anything like it before. fish caught fresh from the brook, the golden corn bread made by the boys themselves, the maple syrup, the cakes, the pies, the countless goodies that melted away before those famished youngsters would have filled a dyspeptic's heart with envy. but all things come to an end, and in the late afternoon, amid the shouted good-byes and waving of hands from all the boys in the camp, the "red scout" took up its burden--and it had never borne a happier one--and carried the kids away, their little hearts full of unspeakable content, at the end of the best day's outing they had ever known. the boys were tired that night. even tom, who prided himself on never owning up to weariness, admitted fairly and squarely that he was "clean tuckered out." but it was a delightful weariness. they had forgotten themselves. they had worked and planned for others. they had not looked for their own happiness, and just because they had not, they found it. they had learned the one supreme lesson of life, "that to give is better than to receive," "that he who seeks pleasure as an end in itself never finds it," and that he who bestows happiness upon another has his own heart flooded with peace. chapter xiii dave's tiger story the next night, while dave, who had promised to tell them a tiger yarn, was pulling his "thinking cap" on tight, and trying to select his most fetching story, the boys gathered closer about him, and with hearts beating a little faster at the very mention of the word "tiger," prepared to listen. at last dave looked up, and in order to make his story a trifle more thrilling, gave a little talk on the bloodthirstiness of his majesty, the tiger. when he concluded by the tense look on his hearers' faces that the right moment had arrived, he plunged into the story of the tiger "one calm evening in the summertime, somewhat later than usual, a gentleman stepped from the train at a railroad station in a suburban town and walked up the street toward his home. deep in thoughts of business, he did not notice at first that a most unusual silence pervaded the town. in a short time the deadly stillness roused him, and he noticed, wonderingly, that he was the only person to be seen on the streets. not a man, woman, or child could he see, a most unusual thing, as at that time, in the early evening, the town was always a very lively place indeed. he noticed, too, with amazement, that the doors and windows of the houses were all closed. not a face appeared at any of them. all the windows that had blinds or shutters attached had them drawn tightly, and fastened securely. not a sign of life anywhere. what had happened? had everybody gone crazy? "amazed and frightened, he hurried on, up one street and down another, until his own house came into view. that, too, was closed and shuttered. the welcoming face that had never failed to greet him was not at door or window. now, thoroughly alarmed, he ran up the steps of the porch and wildly rang the bell. the door was opened cautiously, just a little crack, and to his great relief the face of his wife appeared at the tiny opening. "at the sight of him the door opened wider. he was clutched by the sleeve and hurried into the house with scant ceremony. before he could get his breath after this amazing treatment the door was closed and locked and double-locked on the instant, and the white face of his wife confronted the dazed man. "his dinner was ready, but without waiting for him to be seated at the table his wife commenced to tell him the cause of the unusual state of affairs. 'did he remember that the wild animal show was to have arrived in the town that day?' 'no,' he had not remembered, 'but go on.' "well, it did come, and while the show was in progress one of the animals, a tiger, had escaped from the tent and raced up main street, while everyone on the street hurried to the nearest refuge. at the end of main street he dashed into the woods, and though the crowd of pursuing men and boys did their best to recapture him, he was still at large. the manager of the show told the people, while they ran madly in pursuit, that the tiger was a new one, scarcely at all trained, and by far the fiercest and most savage of all the animals in the show. he warned everyone to stay closely within doors that night, and assured them that as soon as daylight appeared every possible effort would be made to capture and cage him. that is why everybody is barricaded within doors. "of course, being a man, he laughed at his wife's fears, said there was no danger, and that it was extremely foolish for everyone to be so scared, and that, as for him, he would not lose a wink of sleep worrying about it. his wife noticed, however, that although he talked so bravely, he kept closely within doors all the evening, and that when they were ready to go upstairs for the night he looked with unusual care at the fastenings of all the doors and windows, both upstairs and down. once, as he fastened the bolt of a window, he had stopped and grown a little white at a slight scratching noise just outside the window." here a decided shiver ran around the camp, furtive looks were cast over hiked shoulders, and sam, who for some minutes had been watching a moving shadow just outside the line of camp firelight, decided that the shadow was decidedly tigerlike, and wanted to know if they did not think the fire needed some more logs. "all right, old man," said bob, and the logs went on. they blazed up brightly, and gave every man jack, even the bravest of them, a more comfortable feeling of security, and dave went on with the story: "in the middle of that night the man found himself suddenly awake, with an intense feeling that someone or something was in the room. raising himself upon one elbow, he gazed searchingly about the dim room, and was just about to give himself a lecture for imagining things, when, in the farthest and darkest corner, he saw what appeared to be two great balls of green fire glaring straight at him. at once the thought of the escaped tiger leaped into his mind, and he knew that the fierce and savage beast was within his room. for a moment his heart fairly stopped beating, but, gaining control of himself with an effort, he tried to think what he should do. he reached over and laid his hand softly over his wife's lips and whispered in her ear. then together they watched the two glowing points of fire, wondering with sick hearts how soon the tiger would be upon them. "they had not long to wait, for now the tiger began crawling toward them, inch by inch, inch by inch----" at this point in the story the boys, utterly forgetful of the world and everything in it, had crowded close about the story teller, and with flesh creeping and hair rising on their heads were listening, open-mouthed, to the story. dave had paused to take breath, when every heart stood still as a fierce scratching on the bark of a nearby tree and a deep, savage growling were heard. all sprang to their feet. dick trent was the only one who remained cool. having seen bert wilson (who never lost an opportunity for a little fun and mischief) steal quietly away under cover of the darkness, he more than suspected that something was going to happen, and so was prepared. suddenly a burst of ringing laughter made itself heard, and there on the grass lay bert, rolling over and over, holding his sides and saying between gasps, "oh, my! oh, my! you did look so funny! hold me, somebody, or i _will_ go to pieces. oh, my! oh, my!" at first the boys were inclined to be angry, but they were good fellows and always ready to laugh at a joke, even when it was on themselves, and so with many a laughing threat to "get even with bert, and that mighty soon," they came, a little sheepishly, back to the fire and with one accord begged dave to go on with the story. "well," resumed dave, "we left the tiger creeping inch by inch, inch by inch, toward his two victims, and feeling very sure of his capture; but the man was not the one to give up his life or that of his wife without a brave effort to save them. he whispered hastily to his wife, 'be prepared'"--here a voice interrupted to exclaim, "they ought to have been campers"--"'to jump out and roll way back under the bed the instant i say now!' "by this time the tiger had come to within a few feet of them, and they could see him in the dim light, every muscle quivering, crouched for a spring. the man had slipped his feet over the side of the bed to the floor, and his hands clutched the bedclothes from underneath. "as the beast sprang the man shouted, 'now!' and at the same time flung the bedclothes over the head and body of the tiger. the two terrified people used the few minutes the angry, snarling beast took to get out from the tangle of bedclothes to roll as far under the bed as they could. the bed was a very low one, and the man knew that the tiger, who was very large, could not creep under without raising the bed with his shoulders. so the two resolved that when he tried to get under, as they knew he would, they would grip the steel springs above them and hold on like grim death, and try to hold the bed down. "all too soon they found themselves holding on to those springs with all the combined strength of their muscles. the tiger tried again and again to lift the bed, but could not get enough of his shoulders under to get a purchase, and finding himself baffled, crept away to his far corner to consider what to do. "the man knew that they could not keep the tiger at bay in this way very long, for their strength was nearly gone. groping about desperately, his hand touched his son's tool box, pushed carelessly under the bed. how thankful he was that their boy was visiting relatives at a distance. he, at least, was safe. he grasped the box as a drowning man grasps a straw, and lifting a lid searched for and found a screw driver, and, oh, joy! a few large screws. "working desperately, and more rapidly than ever in his life before, he drove a couple of the screws through the two top legs of the bed, securing them to the floor. another two minutes and he had one of the bottom legs in the same condition. before he could touch the fourth leg the tiger, angered by the noise of the screw driving, bounded forward and again tried to lift the bed. finding he could not get at them, the tiger suddenly sprang upon the bed and began tearing at the mattress. very soon there was nothing between him and the now almost despairing couple but the woven wire springs. these springs were of extra strong, fine quality, but even these could not hold out long against the onslaught of those terrible, powerful claws. "almost mechanically the man again thrust his hand into the box, and drew out a small saw. the idea came to him to cut a hole through the floor into the ceiling of the room below, slip through, and rush for help. he spoke to his wife, and found she had fainted. he worked desperately, faster and faster, while all the time the tiger tore more and more fiercely at the tough springs. his hot, terrible breath swept across their faces, so close to that snarling one above them, while the saliva dropped from his savage jaws. "almost fainting with disgust and terror, the man worked on still more desperately, for dear life now. at last one side was finished, then another, now the third, and a little hope came back to the man's heart. if he could only finish that other side he would have at least a slight chance of escape. but now the tough woven wire links began to give way under the tearing of the tiger's savage claws. in one place a small hole is broken in the wire. in mad haste the man tears the saw through the wood. it seems as if it would never give way. once the saw slips and bends. what if it should break! one more desperate, despairing effort. only two more inches now, only one, only a half inch. at last it is over, and the saw drops from his nerveless hand. he makes a last effort to arouse his wife, but without avail. he cannot bear to leave her, for he fears that before he can get help and return the tiger will be upon her. what can he do? it is his only chance to save her. he _must_ take it. "the tiger, as if he knew a crisis had come, ceased his tearing and lay above them, watching with angry fire flashing from his eyes, and keeping up a low, savage snarling. "with a muttered prayer for protection for his poor wife and help for himself, the man lowered himself through the opening until he found himself suspended from the ceiling of the lower room. in desperate haste to go for help, he is about to drop to the floor, but pauses to hear if there is any sound or movement in the room above. not a sound. there is comfort in that, for his poor wife must be safe as yet, but what is the tiger doing? why is everything so deadly quiet? incensed at the escape of one of his victims, one would suppose him to be all the more eager to secure the other; but there is no sound. what can he be doing? "at this moment an awful thought comes to him. what if the cunning tiger had crept silently down the stairs into the room below? he remembers that the door into that room was open when they passed it on their way upstairs. how safe they had felt then! how little had they dreamed that this awful thing would come upon them! could it be only a few hours since they had gone upstairs, chatting cheerfully together? it seemed days and days ago. perhaps the tiger was at that moment crouched below him there in the darkness, ready to spring upon him the moment, yes, even before, his feet touched the ground. "the awful thought made him pause, and he hung there with fiercely throbbing heart, undecided what to do. if he could hear one sound of the tiger moving in the room above him he could drop, quickly close the door, and rush away for help. still no sound from his wife's room. what should he do? perhaps it would be better to try to hold on until morning, when he could at least have the blessed light to aid him. it could not be long now before daybreak. surely out of doors there must be daylight now. soon it would come into the room and enable him to look about him. yes, that would be the best and only thing to do. "but no; he cannot! his strength is failing. already his numbed fingers are slipping--slipping--another moment and the tiger will be upon him and all will be over. he can hold on no longer. he is falling--falling---"'john! oh, john!' comes a cheerful voice from below. 'aren't you coming down? it is almost train time, and breakfast is ready.' "john sits up in bed, looking with dazed eyes all around the bright room, flooded with morning sunshine, and it is minutes before he realizes that it is _all a dream_!" if anyone could have taken a photograph of the boys' faces just before the conclusion of the story and another just after it, the two pictures would have been a comic study; but they could not have given the transition from faces filled with rapt, motionless, breathless interest to the astonished, somewhat disgusted look as the totally unexpected ending of the story filtered in upon them. mr. hollis, who had listened to the last part of the story with as much interest as the boys, thanked dave for the pleasure he had given them, but could not keep back a smile as shorty voiced the general sentiment, "you ought to be ashamed, dave ferris, for handing us such a lemon." chapter xiv with death behind pop! pop! bang! the "red scout's" motor gave a few preliminary explosions, and then started off with a sound like a whole battery of field guns going off at once. a cloud of black smoke issued from the exhaust, and in a few seconds had enveloped the car so that it could hardly be seen. some of the boys came running up with consternation written in their faces, evidently thinking that the automobile was about to explode, or run away, or do some equally disastrous thing. they were reassured by bert's broad grin, however, and bob ward gave a relieved laugh. "gee!" he exclaimed, "what's the matter with the old machine, anyway, bert? you had us scared stiff there for a few minutes. i thought that after this when we wanted to get anywhere we'd have to walk, sure. it looked as though the old 'scout' were on fire." "it sure did," confirmed frank. "what _was_ the matter, bert?" "oh, nothing to speak of," replied bert airily. "i had just washed the engine out with a little kerosene oil, and, when i started it, why, of course that burned, and gave out the smoke you saw. i don't wonder that you thought something was up, though," he continued, laughing. "it certainly did look like the 'last days of pompeii' for a few seconds, didn't it?" "that's what it did," broke in shorty, "and seeing all that smoke reminded me of a riddle i heard a little while ago." "go on, shorty, tell us the riddle and get it out of your system," laughed bert. "if you don't it might grow inward and kill you. some brands of humor are apt to work that way, you know." "well, the riddle is this," said shorty. "why is it that an automobile smokes?" many were the answers to this, but at each one shorty shook his head. finally he said, "well, do you give it up?" "i guess we'll have to, fellows," grinned bert. "go on and tell us, shorty; why _is_ it that an automobile smokes?" "because it can't chew," crowed shorty triumphantly, and dodged just in time to avoid a piece of greasy waste that bert threw with unerring aim at his head. amid cries of "lynch him!" and "this way out!" and "don't let him escape alive, fellows," shorty took nimbly to his heels and skipped behind a tree. after the excitement had subsided bert returned to his grooming of the "red scout," and soon had matters fixed to his entire satisfaction. it was a hot, sticky afternoon, and the boys had nothing particular to do outside of the routine duties of the camp. they had been lying around on the grass, lazily talking and listening to the drowsy hum of an occasional locust, when one had said: "gee, i wish to goodness there was a little wind stirring. i feel as though in about five minutes i would become a mere grease spot on the landscape." "well," bert had replied, "if you feel that way about it, why not manufacture a little wind of our own?" "manufacture it," had come a chorus of surprised protest, "how in time can you manufacture wind?" "oh, it's very simple when you know how," bert replied, in an offhand manner. "what's to prevent us from piling into the auto and taking a spin? when we get out on the road i think i can promise you all the breeze you want. what do you say, fellows? want to try it?" the answer was an uproarious shout of approval, and accordingly bert had been getting the machine in shape. in a short time they were ready to start, and as they were getting in they discerned shorty's stocky form emerging from the trees. he signaled frantically for them to wait, and soon came up panting. "say, you weren't going without me, were you?" he asked reproachfully. "well," laughed bert, "you deserve almost anything after springing a thing like that on us, but i guess we can forgive you, if we try real hard. shall we take him along, fellows?" "i don't see what shorty needs to come for, anyway," said ben, slyly. "it seems to me that a fellow that can run as fast as shorty did a little while ago can make all the wind he needs himself. he doesn't have to get in an automobile to get swift motion." "that's so," agreed bert, with a serious face, "still, probably philip has other views, and so we might as well give him the benefit of the doubt. jump in, old scout." this was easier said than done, however, as the big red auto was already literally overflowing with perspiring boys, but they managed to squeeze in, and started off, singing three or four different songs all at the same time, and each one in a different key. nobody seemed to be bothered much by this, however, and they soon reached the hard, level, macadam high road. bert "opened her up" a few notches, as he expressed it, and they were soon bowling along at an exhilarating pace. the breeze that bert had promised them soon made itself felt, and you may be sure it felt very grateful to the overheated boys. "this beats lying around on the grass and whistling for a wind, doesn't it?" asked frank, and, needless to say, all the rest of the boys were emphatically of his opinion. they had been going along at a brisk pace for several miles when they heard the purr of another motor car in back of them, and glancing back saw a handsome-looking blue auto creeping up to them. a flashily dressed young man, smoking a cigarette, was driving it, and three girls were sitting in the tonneau. the blue machine overtook them steadily, and soon was abreast of them. "gee, bert," exclaimed frank, excitedly, but in a low voice, "you're not going to let them pass us, are you?" "oh, let them, if they want to," replied bert; "we didn't come out for a race, and i feel just like loafing along and taking things easy. what's the use of getting excited about things on a hot day like this? besides, i don't think those people are looking for trouble, anyway." at this point the blue car passed them, however, and as it did so one of the girls in the tonneau looked back and called, "how does the dust taste, boys? like it?" the fellow driving it laughed at this sally, and shouted, "hey, youse, why don't you get a horse?" all the boys looked at bert to see how he would take this. he said never a word, but his grip tightened on the steering wheel, and the "red scout" gave a lunge forward that almost jerked some of the boys out of their seats. faster and faster the powerful car flew, and it was evident that they would soon overtake the blue car. the latter was also a first rate machine, however, and the boys could see one of the girls in the tonneau lean over and speak to the driver. the blue car started to draw slowly away, and bert opened the throttle a few more notches. the motor took on a deep, vibrating note, and the hum of the gears rose to a higher pitch. soon they began to overtake the car in front, and now it became evident that the latter was doing its best. the "red scout" fairly "ate up" the intervening space, and in a few moments had come up to within a few yards of the laboring blue car. the driver looked back, and seeing that the big red car in back of him would surely pass him in another few seconds, swerved his own car over so that it was squarely in the middle of the narrow country road. there was a shallow ditch on each side of the road, and the only way bert could pass him was to take a chance of overturning and run two wheels in this ditch. usually he would not have thought of exposing the boys to such a risk, but now he threw caution to the winds. amid hoarse and excited cries from the boys he "gave her the limit," to use his own expression, and the "red scout" seemed fairly to leap ahead. he swerved the big machine into the ditch, and the wheels bumped and pounded over the uneven surface. the big car fairly shot by the blue machine, however, and amid a triumphant shout from the frenzied boys regained the smooth road and hid the defeated challenger in a cloud of dust. then bert slowed it down a little, but kept well in the lead. the blue machine had evidently given up in despair, however, and gradually dropped back until a turn in the road hid it from their view. the boys broke into an excited discussion of the recent "brush," and all were enthusiastic in their praise of the staunch old "red scout." they also had many flattering things to say in regard to bert's driving, until he was forced to protest that he would have to buy a hat about five sizes larger, as he could fairly feel his head swelling. finally the excitement subsided somewhat, and the boys had time to look around them and get their bearings. it did not take them long to find that they were in unfamiliar surroundings. they had gone at such a fast pace that they had covered more ground than they would have believed possible. bert consulted the odometer, or distance recording instrument, and announced that they had covered almost thirty-five miles! "say!" he exclaimed, "we'll have to do some tall hustling to get back to the camp in time for lunch. we'll keep on a little way, until we get to a place where the road is wide enough to turn around in, and then we'll beat it back as fast as possible." as he finished speaking, they rounded a sudden turn in the road and a gasp arose from every boy in the car. not fifteen feet ahead of them was a railroad crossing, and giving a lightning-like glance up and down the track bert saw that there was a train approaching from both directions. it was obvious that the automobile would not be able to get across in time, and at the brisk rate at which they were traveling, it was equally impossible to stop the machine. it seemed inevitable that the auto would be struck by one or both of the ponderous locomotives, and it and its occupants be crushed to atoms. the boys turned sick with horror, and gripped the sides of the automobile without being able to say a word. their eyes gazed without winking at the two rushing locomotives, and they were unable to move. but bert saw that they had one, and only one, bare chance of life. he did not try to apply the brakes, which would have been useless and fatal, but as the big auto reached the railroad tracks he wrenched the steering wheel around and headed it directly up the track in front of the northbound train. as he did this he opened the throttle, and bent over the wheel in a desperate and almost hopeless attempt to beat the flying locomotive until the engineer, who of course was using every means in his power to stop his train, could check its momentum and give them a chance to escape. the "red scout" bumped and swayed wildly over the uneven ballasting and ties, and the boys breathed heartfelt prayers that nothing on the staunch car would break. in spite of all bert could do, the fast express train gained on them, although sparks were streaming from the wheels where the brakes were clamped against them. the engineer had reversed the locomotive, and the great driving wheels were revolving backward. the momentum of a fast and heavy express train is not a thing to be checked in a moment, however, and the boys in the rear of the automobile could feel the heat from the locomotive boiler. but the powerful automobile had gotten "into its stride" by this time, and was fairly flying over the uneven roadbed, and to the boys it felt as though it were only hitting the high places, as frank afterward expressed it. for a hundred or two hundred feet the train failed to gain an inch, and then the brakes began to tell and it gradually fell to the rear. shorty leaned over and thumped bert on the back and yelled: "slow up, bert, slow up! we're out of danger now, i guess." bert glanced back, and saw that shorty was right. they were drawing rapidly away from the locomotive, so he reduced speed, and the automobile gradually attained a safer pace, and at the first opportunity bert swung it up off the tracks and onto a country road. this done, he stopped the machine, and leaning on the steering wheel, buried his face in his hands. he said not a word, and the boys could see that he was trembling like a leaf. in a few moments he recovered himself, however, and the boys began to overwhelm him with questions: "how did you ever think of going up the track instead of trying to get across, bert?" inquired frank. "if you had tried to cross that would have been the last of us, because we could never have made it." "i did it because it was the only thing to be done, i guess," replied bert, in a shaky voice. "i'm no end of a fool to go at that speed on a road that i don't know, anyway. i don't know what i could have been thinking of to take such chances. mr. hollis will never have any confidence in me again, i guess." "nonsense!" retorted bob, indignantly. "why, if mr. hollis could have seen the presence of mind you showed, i think he would trust you all the more, if that is possible. not one person in a hundred would have thought of doing what you did." "yes, but that's not all of it, by any means," said bert, in a mournful voice. "i'll bet that we've broken something on the old car, as well as almost getting ourselves converted into sausage meat. here goes to look things over, anyway." a thorough inspection failed to reveal any break in the mechanism or frame, however, and even the tires were intact. finally bert straightened up with a relieved expression on his face, and said: "well, i can't seem to find anything at present, that's one comfort. however, i wouldn't have believed that any car could stand such punishment and hold together. we won't kick against fate, though, for not smashing our car for us, will we?" "i guess not," agreed shorty, heartily, "i think we ought to thank our lucky stars that any of us are left to talk about it, even. it's more than we had a right to expect fifteen minutes ago." "i guess you're right, shorty, at that," agreed bert, "but now, we'd better make a quick sneak back to camp. mr. hollis will have given us up for lost." accordingly the boys all climbed into the car, and they were soon humming along on their homeward journey. you may be sure that bert slowed down almost to a walking pace at every turn they came to, however, and once, just for fun, he said, "say, shorty, i don't like the looks of that curve ahead of us. perhaps you had better get out and go on ahead to make sure that the coast is clear. i intend to be on the safe side this time." shorty immediately entered into the spirit of the joke, and vaulted out over the side of the tonneau while the auto was yet in motion, and disappeared around the curve. as the auto crept around the bend its occupants could see shorty waving his handkerchief and signaling for them to come on. bert laughingly complied, and, as they passed shorty, stopped a moment to give him a chance to climb aboard. shorty was soon in his place, and frank laughed. "gee, bert, that's being careful for fair. if mr. hollis could have seen that i think it would have made up for our going too fast and almost getting smashed up. what do _you_ say, fellows?" there was a unanimous chorus of assent to this proposition, but bert did not join in the laughter. he felt in his heart that he had been careless, and he knew that even his subsequent presence of mind in getting them out of a tight scrape did not wholly atone. his mind was filled with these thoughts, when bob said, "say, fellows, i don't see why we have to say anything to mr. hollis about our near accident, at all. it will just make him angry at us, and maybe he will not want to let us use the car again. besides, now that it's all over, it won't do him any good to know what a narrow escape we've had." "no, no, bob, that would never do in the wide world," replied bert, quickly, and in a reproving voice. "the last thing we ought to think of is to deceive mr. hollis, and you know it. i'm surprised that you should even have mentioned such a thing." "well, there's no harm done, is there?" replied bob, but in a rather shame-faced manner. "we won't do it if you don't think we ought to, so there's no use getting mad about it. i just offered that as a suggestion, that's all." "well," replied bert, "the chief blame for this thing lies on me, anyway, and as soon as we get back to camp i intend to make a clean breast of the whole matter to mr. hollis, and he can do as he thinks best." "oh, all right, have it your own way," growled bob, sullenly, and they relapsed into silence. by this time it was almost dark, and bert was forced to drive very slowly, as he had never been over that particular road before. he had a well-developed sense of location, however, and was pretty sure that he was going in the right direction. as it proved he was not deceived in this, and they shortly struck a road with which they were all familiar. bert ventured to accelerate their pace somewhat, and it was not long before they came in sight of the cheery camp fire, around which mr. hollis and the boys who had not gone on the automobile trip were seated. as they heard the sound of the machine the group around the fire leaped to their feet, and mr. hollis walked slowly toward them. when the auto swung into the circle of fire light and came to an abrupt halt, he said: "what has been detaining you, boys? it seems to me that you are not treating me quite right by going off in this manner and returning at such an hour as this. why, you should have been back two hours ago." a chorus of excited exclamations rose from the boys, but mr. hollis raised his hand for silence. when this had been restored, he said, "one at a time, boys, one at a time. here, bert, let's hear your explanation." this bert proceeded to give in a very straightforward manner, and did not attempt to gloss over any of the details of his recklessness, as he was pleased to call it. mr. hollis listened with a serious face, and when bert had finished, said, "well, bert, you were certainly to blame for taking chances in the manner that you did, but, on the other hand, you deserve credit for the presence of mind and courage you showed in extricating your companions and yourself from what might very easily have been a fatal accident. still, you were right to tell me all about it, and i think that to-day's experiences may have the effect of making you more careful in the future." "you may be sure, sir, that i will never be so careless again," promised bert, and by the tone of his voice, mr. hollis knew that he meant it. it was a hungry lot that sat down to supper that evening, and little was spoken of except their thrilling experiences of the day. after supper, however, they began to feel the effects of the exciting day, and all expressed themselves "tuckered out." as frank said, "he felt too tired to take the trouble of going to sleep." they all managed to overcome this very important objection, however, and soon there was no sound to be heard in the camp except the rustling of the embers in the camp fire as they slowly burnt themselves out and settled into ashes. chapter xv mountain scouting sunshine! glorious, golden sunshine! was ever sunshine more bright? was ever sky more blue? was ever day more beautiful? so questioned our campers as, fresh and glowing from a cold plunge in the lake, a hearty breakfast despatched, bedding aired and cots freshly made up, camp cleared up and morning duties all attended to in tip-top fashion, they mustered about mr. hollis to receive the day's commissions. it mattered little what might be the commission allotted to each squad. anything, everything that might come to them in the way of camp duty, could not but be a pleasure on such a glorious day as this. with young bodies aglow with health, young minds, awake and alert for all new impressions, young hearts filled with desire to live right, to do right, to be kind and helpful to all with whom they came in contact, how could they help being happy? the camp was full of merriment, but perhaps the happiest squad of all was the auto squad. in fact this was always the case, but today the autoists had a special expedition. they were to play the mountain scouting game, and as the nearest mountains were at a distance from camp the squad had been detailed for the automobile. gaily the fellows piled in and away they flew. as the roads which they must travel today were rough, their progress was much less rapid than usual; but, despite this they reached their destination in about half an hour. "hurrah for the 'red scout,'" cried bob, as they tumbled out of the car. "if she can travel like that over these roads, what'll she do on the race track? oh, say, fellows, the 'gray ghost' won't be in it. she'll fade away like a real ghost." "don't i wish the day of the race was here," said tom. "seems as if it would never come, doesn't it, fellows?" and "it sure does," they all chorused. the "mountains" were really very high, rocky hills, but, as they were known to embrace many very steep and dangerous ravines, some of them nearly as perilous as mountain precipices, many and earnest had been the warnings given by mr. hollis as the boys had started on their expedition, and each boy carried in the pockets of his jacket some part of the equipment for first aid to the injured that was a part of the camp outfit. thus safe-guarded, they felt no fear. as soon as they had arrived the three "hares," who had been coached in the game, went to hide themselves in the mountain, and, after sufficient time had been given them for this purpose, the "hounds" followed them; while bert and dave ferris remained in the auto to watch for any signal that might be given them from the mountain. the game of mountain-scouting consists in the "hounds," who must stay within certain limits of ground, finding or "spotting" the "hares" within a given time. if they find or spot them even with field glasses, it counts, provided that the finder can tell who it is he has spotted. the hounds write down the names of any of the hares that they may see. if at the end of the allotted time no hare has been spotted, the hares win. to-day two hours had been the given time and the boys in the mountains were to signal to bert the news as each hare was found. time was nearly up. three hares had been found. the chase had been a merry one and now hares and hounds together, no longer pursuers and pursued, but just happy-hearted campers were hiking down to the two in the automobile. the return signal had been given, and bert and dave, relieved of the slight anxiety they had felt while the game was going on, expected each moment to see the boys come into view. suddenly dave sprang to his feet. "look, bert," said he, "another signal." breathlessly the boys read the signal wig-wagged to them from a point high up on the side of the hill. "come quick! fred hurt. bring splints and kit and ropes." it took only a very short time for the boys to reach the scene of the accident, and one glance took in the situation. turning a corner the boys had come, all unknowing, upon a spot where the rocks shelved suddenly down into a deep ravine. the edge of the descent was hidden by a fringe of breast-high bushes, and fred morse, all unconscious of his danger, had stepped upon a piece of rock which gave under his foot, and, before the boys could even put out a hand to save him, had slipped through the bushes, and the horrified boys had heard their comrade go crashing through the bushes on the side of the ravine. his frightened cry, "help, fellows, i'm falling!" still echoed in their ears. while two of the boys were signalling, the others had called to fred but no reply had come back to them. when bert reached them, bob was running along the edge of the cliff, in great danger of going over himself, in a vain effort to find a place to climb down. now, not waiting for the call for volunteers, he ran to bert and begging him to hurry and help him, began fastening the ropes about himself. in a twinkling, the rope was adjusted, the knots securely tied, and the rope firmly held by four boys, bob was lowered slowly and carefully over the side of the cliff. down, down he went till, just as the boys began to fear that the rope would not be long enough, it lay slack in their hands, and they knew that fred was found. presently came the signal, three distinct pulls on the rope, and soon poor fred was lifted tenderly over the edge and laid gently down. a few minutes more and good old bob was back with them. now, all attention was turned to fred. after a careful examination from head to toe, bert relieved the anxious fears of his comrades by the announcement that he was sure that fred's life was not in danger. a faint cheer went up, which faded when bert said fred's leg was broken. consternation filled their hearts, for the nearest doctor was miles away, and though bert felt sure there was no more serious injury than the broken limb, it was hard to tell what internal injury might have been sustained, and a long ride in the motor with the leg in the present condition might prove a serious matter. there was no doubt about it, the leg must be set at once. not one of the boys had anything but the simplest knowledge of first-aid-to-the-injured, but, though at first hearts feared and hands trembled, they conquered fear and each boy went steadily to work to do his part. whether it was to hand the cotton batting or to pull with full strength upon the poor broken limb, or hold the splints while bert wound yards of bandage around them, not a boy flinched, and at last the work was done, and well done. then with faces scarcely less white than fred's own, they turned to the task of making a litter on which to carry him down to the motor. after a long search, for the hill was almost barren of trees, being covered mostly with scrubby bushes, two short and two long saplings were found and, laying two of the boys' jackets on the ground and running each of the long poles through the sleeves of a jacket, the two jackets were buttoned together with buttons down. then the short poles were lashed on and a comfortable stretcher was ready to their hand. in the auto on smooth roads, carried tenderly by his fellows over the rougher places, they at last reached the office of the crusty old village doctor and laid fred on the couch for the doctor's examination. but though the doctor was crabbed, he was skilful, and in a very short time the temporary splints were replaced by permanent ones and the party turned toward camp. homeward-bound in the auto at last, the boys drew a great sigh of relief and weariness. what an eventful day it had been! begun so brightly, it had nearly ended in a tragedy, and at the thought their hearts swelled with gratitude that they were taking dear old fred home with them alive, and, if not well, at least only the worse for a broken leg and some severe bruises. they could not be thankful enough. "who's that going along the road ahead?" asked one of the boys, and all saw, walking in the middle of the road and directly in the path of the motor, a little bent old woman's figure, the most conspicuous article of whose dress was a bright red, very draggled looking feather which drooped from the brim of a very ancient hat. very tired and pathetic, the old figure looked to the boys as they brought the machine to a stop beside her, and the old wrinkled face, wet with tears that was turned to them when they spoke to her, made every warm boy's heart ache with pity. "why it's kitty harrigan's old mother, who has just come over from ireland," said dick, in a low voice. "don't you remember, fellows, how we laughed when mr. hollis told us about her the other night? he said, you know, that the poor old lady had been quite a village belle in her young days, and now, in her age, she imagines herself back in her girlhood. look at her now." indeed, the old lady was a study, for no sooner did her old eyes fall on bert's handsome face as he spoke to her, than tears were brushed hastily aside, and with a coquettish glance from her brown eyes that, despite the years, were still bright, she made him so deep a curtsey that her long black coat swept the ground. she had eluded all watchful eyes, and slipped off by herself for a walk, and when she wished to return, had taken the wrong direction, and was walking away from home instead of toward it. she had enjoyed herself immensely at first, making the most of her seldom-obtained freedom, but now her old feet were very tired and the old limbs that had carried her sturdily for nearly ninety years were growing weak at last, and, after such unusual exertion, were trembling beneath her. at the boys' proposal to take her into the car and give her an automobile ride, the tired old face broke into a smile, and, as the boys settled her in the most comfortable seat in the tonneau, she leaned back luxuriously, and, clasping her old hands, said in ecstasy, "did annybody iver see the loike of biddy harrigan ridin' in an artymobile, no less." she beamed upon the boys, she patted the hands and shoulders of all of them within her reach, and in her rich irish brogue showered compliments upon them; for a very demonstrative creature was old biddy harrigan. she did not notice that mischievous bert, whom she had called a "rale foine gintleman," took advantage of her flow of talk to sing in a very low tone, "'h-a-double r-i-g-a-n spells harrigan'," but the boys found it very hard to keep their faces straight. on fred's account, poor fred, who had, perhaps, shown more courage than anyone else in that day's ordeal, for not one word of complaint had he uttered through all his pain, the boys felt that they must go on to the camp where he could get the rest and attention he so sadly needed. they did not know that what was causing him keener anguish than the physical pain was the fear that he would be unable to be on hand on that day of days which he, like every other fellow in camp, had thought of every waking moment, dreamed of every night and looked forward to with daily-increasing impatience--the day of the race between their adored "red scout" and the challenged "gray ghost." to miss seeing the "red scout" come in gloriously victorious (not a single doubt of her victory entered any boy's mind), what was the pain of a broken leg to the misery of that possibility! but they did know that he needed care, so they carried biddy harrigan with them. as supper was ready when they reached camp, they placed biddy in the seat of honor and regaled her with the best of the camp fare. never had an old women enjoyed herself so much. she could not get over the fact that the delicious supper had been cooked by boys. "if oi hadnt of seen it and tashted it, oi niver, niver would have belaved," she said over and over again. after supper they hurried the old woman, gesturing and exclaiming at the delight of another "artymobile" ride, into the auto and soon had her home. irish kitty, who washed for the camp, was overjoyed at her old mother's safe return and overwhelmed them with gratitude. the boys last view of biddy was a grateful, curtseying, waving, delighted old woman who repeated over and over again, "o'll not forgit yez, b'ys, o'll not forgit yez. yez'll hear from old biddy agin," and they did. chapter xvi by a hair's-breadth tap, tap, tap, tap--tap, tap--tap, tap, tap--sounded in ben's ears before he was fully awake and conscious. he sat up in bed and listened, and asked himself what that sound was. was it rain? at the thought his heart grew heavy with apprehension. rain on _this_ day, when he and bert and tom were going to auto ten miles over to the red river for a day of trout fishing. the other fellows, who did not care so much for fishing, were going on a tramp with mr. hollis, and he and his chums were to have the auto all to themselves the whole day. slipping noiselessly from his cot, he lifted the tent flap and stepped outside. the first rays of morning sunshine beamed full in his face, and the insistent noise that had aroused him proved to be the tap-tapping of an energetic woodpecker out for the proverbial "early worm." delighted at the prospect of such a glorious day, he rushed back into the tent with a hop, skip and a jump, at sight of which don, always ready for a frolic, began frisking about and barking joyfully. of course, there was no sleep after that for the other fellows, and, bath and dressing and breakfast dispatched as soon as possible, the three boys, seated in their beloved auto, and bidding a noisy good by to the rest of the camp, sped away on their quest for trout enough for a rousing fish dinner that evening. you would have had to go a long way to find a merrier or more care-free set of boys than our three adventurers. used as they were, by this time, to the automobile, it never became an old story to them, and now, as the swift motion of the car sent the cool air rushing against their young faces, with the sunshine turning everything to gold, and with the prospect of a day of rare sport before them, they gave full vent to their overflowing spirits. they shouted and laughed, and chaffed each other until many a staid farmer or farm hand, starting early work in the fields, or doing chores about the barns, found themselves smiling in sympathy. they recalled the time when they were boys, and the whole world just a place to be happy and jolly in. the boys had enjoyed the ride so much, that all three were almost sorry when tom pointed out the gleam of water through the trees, and they knew that red river was at hand; but in a moment nothing was thought of but the fun of getting ready for their day's sport. tumbling out of the "red scout," laden with fishing baskets and tackle and rods, they raced down to the river bank, selected each a shady, grassy, comfortable spot, and, line and reel and hook adjusted, were obliged at last to curb their wild spirits, still their noisy chatter, and settle down to fisherman's quiet, although irrepressible tom, unable to subside at once, sang softly: "hush, hush, not a breath, not a breath, i've a nibble, still as death, still as death." the others could not resist joining in the chorus of the old song, and regardless of consequences sang lustily: "oh, the joys of angling! oh, the joys of angling! oh, the joys, oh, the joys, the joys, the joys of angling." then a sabbath stillness descended on the party, until ben shouted, "first bite," and giving his line a sudden jerk and swing, landed a beautiful speckled trout upon the grass a few feet away. for a few moments excitement reigned, and cries of "hurrah for ben," "good for us," "isn't he a beauty?" "let's keep it up," were heard, until bert's "we certainly won't keep it up unless we keep quiet," sent them back to their places and again quiet reigned. ten, fifteen, twenty minutes went by, and there were no more nibbles. the boys were beginning to get restless, when bert landed the second fish, and, a couple of minutes after re-baiting his hook, added a third beauty to their collection. tom, seeing the success of his comrades, began to feel as though he were being left on the outside of things, but bert encouraged him by reminding him, "first the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game," and sure enough, after nearly half an hour of most trying waiting, he suddenly felt his line twitch, and had the joy of landing the largest and finest fish yet caught. when the excitement had a little subsided, ben said, "i think we ought to celebrate that dandy catch, and the very finest way would be to have a feast." as, what with the stirring ride and the excitement of the sport, each fellow felt, with bert, that he was hungry enough to "eat nails," the hamper was brought from the "red scout" and unpacked with scant ceremony. every boy who has spent a day in the open will know exactly how _good_ those cold chicken and ham sandwiches tasted; and the way the doughnuts vanished was something to see. washed down with a drink of cool water from a nearby spring, it was a luncheon to be remembered. again settling themselves in their chosen places, they continued to try "the heedless finny tribe to catch"; for four trout, even though they were fine, large ones, would, tom said, regardless of the aptness of his simile, be no more than "a drop in the bucket for all those hungry fellows"; but their luck seemed to have changed. for more than two hours not a nibble disturbed the quiet of those exasperating lines, and, as the ground, although covered with springy grass, is not the softest seat in the world, the boys' patience was tested to the utmost. they lay outstretched, resting on both elbows, and tom, tempted by the heat and the absolute quiet, was just falling into a doze, when he was aroused to immediate action by the violent twitching of his line. a moment more, and another speckled victim was added to their store. for the next hour and a half the fish bit almost as fast as they could bait their hooks, and they were kept busy hauling in one after another, until, in the joy and excitement of the sport, they lost all count of time. fortunately for the camp, bert suddenly made the double discovery that they had more than enough fish, and that if there was to be a fish dinner at camp that night, they would have to stop at once. "we'll have to make a quick sneak," said ben, who, in moments of excitement, sometimes forgot his most polished english. hastily packing their catch in the fishing baskets they had brought, they tossed them and the tackle into the auto, scrambled in themselves, and were off and away. "the 'red scout' goes fine," said tom, as the great car gathered headway. from the beginning, the auto race, which even the wonderful day's sport could not completely banish from their minds, had been the almost exclusive topic of conversation among the campers, and now that the day was rapidly drawing near, they could think of little else. "is she in first-class condition, bert?" asked ben. "yes," bert replied, "except that i noticed on the way out this morning that the brake did not work as well as usual. as soon as we reach home i will find and remedy the trouble, whatever it is. if worst comes to worst i can send to the factory for a new part, which would reach us inside of twenty-four hours." by this time about half the ten mile stretch had been covered, and now they had begun to descend a very steep hill. suddenly bert's face went white. tom, chancing to look at him, exclaimed, "what's the matter, bert?" and bert replied, "the brake won't work, fellows. something's stuck. i can't control the car." then for a moment all yielded to a panic of fear. "oh, bert," said ben, "you _must_ stop her." "there must be _something_ you can do," begged tom. looking into the frightened faces of his two companions, bert recovered his self-control, and resolved to do his best to avert an accident. "don't be frightened, fellows," he said. "the steering gear is all right. just sit tight and keep a stiff upper lip, and we'll come through." "but, bert, the bridge!" gasped tom, and at the same moment a vision of the narrow bridge, scarcely wide enough for two autos to pass, which crossed the river at the foot of the steep hill, and just where the stream was deepest, flashed before their eyes. all realized that should the automobile fail to pass over the center of the bridge, and should strike the frail railing on either side--well, they didn't dare to think of that. calling up all their courage, the brave boys resolved to face, without flinching, whatever awaited them. once past the bridge and onto the broad roadway beyond, they knew that they would be safe. on level ground, with the power shut off, they would come to a standstill. but "would they ever reach that level roadway?" each boy asked himself, with sinking heart. bert renewed his efforts to use the worthless brake, but without avail. down, down, they flew, gaining speed with every passing moment, and now the bridge was in sight. another moment, and they would be upon it. "courage, fellows," said bert, in low, tense tones, and bracing himself, he concentrated all his mind and energy in guiding the car to the center of the bridge. when a few hundred feet away the forward wheel struck a large stone, and the machine, which had been headed directly for the bridge, swerved to one side, and now sped onward toward the river. with lightning-like rapidity bert wrenched the steering wheel around, and once more, with only a few feet of space to spare, the "red scout"--good old "red scout," was headed _almost_ for the middle of the bridge--not quite--the space had been too small. to the boys, looking ahead with straining, despairing eyes, it seemed that they _must_ crash into the railing, and that nothing could save them. instinctively they closed their eyes, as the car dashed upon the bridge, expecting each minute to hear the crash of breaking timbers, and to feel themselves falling into the engulfing waters of the rushing river. but the expected did not happen. like a bird the "red scout" skimmed over the bridge, missing the railing by a hair's breadth, and was out upon the broad roadway. almost before the boys could realize their escape from the awful danger that had threatened them, it was over, and the "red scout" gradually losing its speed, at last stood still. breathless, speechless, dazed, almost overcome, the boys sat looking at each other for a few moments, until, the full realization of their wonderful escape coming upon them, they grasped each other's hands convulsively. each knew that in the other's heart, none the less earnest for being unexpressed, was a fervent prayer of thankfulness for their deliverance; but as speech returned to them, the first words uttered by tom, were, "what do you think of that for classy driving, fellows?" at which they all laughed nervously. their laugh did not last long, however, for in the midst of it, out from among the trees and shrubbery that skirted the roadway emerged two rural constables. as if one overwhelming experience were not enough, the constables informed them that they were arrested for exceeding the speed limit. bert was the first to recover from the shock, and giving his companions a comical, but reassuring look, he stepped forward and said, "we have been speeding some, officers, but we simply couldn't help it," and he proceeded to explain. but the boys' faces expressed their consternation when they found that their explanation was not credited. "we only have your word for that," said one of the men, "and you will have to convince the judge that you are telling the truth." "why, you certainly won't arrest us for an accident to our brake, for which we are not at all to blame!" cried tom, indignantly. "well," said one constable, giving his fellow a knowing wink, "perhaps if you have a 'tenner' that you have no use for, we might forget all about it." bert, flushed and indignant, refused, and without further protest, the three boys, followed by the two constables, took their places in the car. as they were only a short distance from town, they soon arrived at the court house, and were left in an ante room to await their turn for a hearing. once alone, the three comrades stood for the second time within an hour, looking into each other's faces. as tom afterwards said, "too full for utterance." suddenly ben began strutting around the room in a most pompous manner, remarking, "i guess you don't know who we are. you know," said he, "that one is not a howling swell until he has been pinched for speeding, so behold us three aristocrats!" with another strut across the room. the boys could not help laughing, but bert said, "well, if this is being an aristocrat, i'd rather be excused. it won't be quite such a laughing matter if we find ourselves fined fifty or a hundred dollars." "but," began tom, and said no more, for at that moment they were called before the judge. they were obliged to stand by and hear the constable's charge against them, given in detail. then the judge turned to them---"what are your names?" was the first question. bert replied for the three. upon hearing the names the magistrate started, and looked keenly at them, but said nothing further than to ask what they had to say to the charge brought against them. bert gave a clear and connected account of the accident to the auto brake, and its consequences, and ended by saying, that if any proof were needed, an examination of the brake would show the truth of their account. the judge accepted the boy's statement, dismissed the charge against them, and turned to them a face from which all sternness had vanished, and been replaced by such a genial, friendly smile, that the three comrades were filled with wonderment. this was not lessened when the magistrate asked them if they were the three brave fellows who had stopped the two runaways a few days before, and saved the lives of the ladies who were driving. with amazement that the judge should know of the runaway, plainly written on their faces, the boys acknowledged that they had stopped the horses, but added that it was their auto that had frightened the animals, and so it had plainly been up to them to help. the magistrate smiled more broadly at this, but repeated that they were brave boys, and that he was glad to meet them. looking quizzically at them, he said: "i have a special interest in those two ladies. one of them is my wife, and the other my daughter, and i can never repay you for what you have done for me. you have made me your debtor for life. if i can ever do anything for you, be sure and let me know." another handshake all around, and the boys found themselves free once more. were they happy?--well, you should have seen them as they climbed into the car and headed toward camp. events had so crowded upon each other that for the first mile or so the three speeders sat silently reviewing the occurrences of this most amazing day. and tom, recalling their court room experience, broke out with: "gee whiz, i'm glad i'm free no prison cell for me." this provoked a laugh and broke the tension, and a moment afterward a scouting party from the camp hailed them boisterously: "where are those fish?" "how long do you think we can live without eating?" "stand and deliver or take the consequences"--and as the auto came to a standstill, the basket was snatched and hurried off to the mess tent. soon a delicious odor made every hungry boy's mouth water, and when at last they gathered around the table it was with wolfish appetites that they paid their respects to that belated fish dinner. chapter xvii biddy harrigan remembers "cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon the waters, "and it shall return--it shall return unto thee after many days," chanted a clear, high voice, truly a wonderful voice, which bert claimed as his own discovery. it was almost bed-time in the camp. the day had been a most fatiguing one, and all had returned so weary that no one cared for the usual lively evening entertainment. even mr. hollis had said that he was "dog-tired," and he felt with the boys that the very finest thing in the world was just stretching out on the grass, resting weary feet, and saying to one's self: "nothing to do till tomorrow." it was a perfect evening, cool and quiet. there was no moon, but the stars twinkled brightly, and the boys had been looking up at them and trying to make out some of the six constellations that everyone should be familiar with. but even that, in their present state of laziness, was too much like work, and now they lay doing and almost thinking nothing. even don, the big collie, that the tramps had deserted, was not inclined to romp with the boys as usual, but lay quietly with his great head resting upon his paws. he had become the pet and plaything of the whole camp and treated them all impartially except bert whom he had chosen as his one particular master. he wanted no other heaven than this--to lie, as now, close to bert, whose hand caressed his head while he said now and again: "good dog"; "good old fellow!" don, like the boys, was at peace with all the world. suddenly, someone started a popular air in which all joined. this put them in a musical humor, and song followed song, changing after a while from popular music and rollicking college songs to those of a more sentimental nature. most of the boys had good voices. with the soprano of some, the tenors of the older fellows and mr. hollis' fine bass, the camp singing would have delighted any lover of music. whenever the boys had sung together, they had noticed that phil's voice had never joined in with the others. they had guyed him about it but as he would never answer them, they had come to the conclusion that he could not sing and was sensitive about it, so they had stopped teasing him. to-night, as the notes of "the soldier's farewell" floated over the camp, bert noticed that shorty was singing for the first time, and though his voice was low as though he were purposely holding it back, for fear the attention of the boys might be drawn to it, the notes were remarkably clear and pure. when the song ended, bert turned to phil and asked him if he liked music. phil answered that he loved it and added more as if he were thinking aloud than talking, that it was "the finest thing on earth." the boys sat up and stared. there was a moment of surprised silence and then a chorus of voices: "then you can sing?" "we never dreamed you could." "why didn't you tell us?" "why wouldn't you sing for us?" "because," said phil, who had decided to tell them the real reason at last, "because all you big fellows thought that just because i was small, i couldn't do anything worth while, and i was sore." the fellows expressed their regret and then in responses to a few kindly questions put by mr. hollis, they learned that shorty's ambition was to obtain a thorough musical education. they learned too that for two years past he had been the soloist in the boy choir of one of the prominent churches in new york. he had joined the boy choir because there he could gain, without cost, a knowledge of sight reading and voice control. bert's "won't you sing something for us, phil?" was not to be resisted and after a moment's thought his clear notes rose in a burst of melody: "cast thy bread upon the waters"---the boys fairly held their breath as the flutelike notes of one of the finest voices they had ever heard, floated off into the woodland spaces. when he had finished, every one sat spellbound, paying the highest tribute of a moment of perfect silence. even when the silence was broken by hearty hand clapping, the spell of the music still brooded over them. it had been too fine for noisy applause. the boys' appreciation of his singing was very grateful to phil, and not the least tribute was tom's: "gee, phil, i hope the birds didn't wake up to hear that. they would have been green with envy." the tension was broken by sam's asking: "what does that mean, 'cast thy bread upon the waters'--and how can it return?" mr. hollis was glad to explain that no kind deed or word is ever wasted, but is sure to return blessings on the one who gave it, if only in the glow that a kind action always brings. but, uplifted as the boys had been, it is not in boy nature to stay long upon the heights and they soon came down to earth again. jim showed how fully he had come back to earth by remarking as he suddenly remembered that owing to a miscalculation as to the elastic nature of a boy's capacity, both flour and corn meal had given out, and that in consequence, nothing in the shape of bread had come their way that night: "i wish some real bread were coming tomorrow. i am not particular about its coming by water. it can get here any old way, as long as it comes." the sound of someone approaching the camp aroused them. irish kitty appeared, with a big basket on one arm and a great bunch of red roses in her apron. as soon as the boys saw the flowers, a shout went up: "roses! roses! what beauties!" and on kitty saying that she had counted them and there was one for each, they were seized upon and distributed in a twinkling. now, kitty stated that she had a "prisint for the young gintlemin" from her mother, mrs. harrigan, "to thank thim for the foine illigant ride in the artymobile." the big basket was uncovered and there lay revealed to the eyes of the delighted boys a number of large loaves of delicious homemade bread. one did not need to taste that bread to know its value. the firm white loaves spoke for themselves. corn bread they had in plenty every day, but white wheat flour bread was not included in their regular camp rations, so that this was indeed a treat. they were all devouring it already in imagination, and each wished it were morning so that they might begin in reality. kitty departed amid "good nights" and hearty thanks to her mother, and, camp bed time having arrived, all drifted toward their tents, tom gaily singing: "'tis a name that no shame has iver been connected with harrigan! that's me." all at once some one shouted: "look at ben cooper." they turned to see ben standing like a statue, eyes fixed on nothing, staring straight ahead of him. "say, fellows," said he, "that bread that we cast on the waters on our way home from the doctor's the other day sure did come back, didn't it?" "it certainly did and it didn't take 'many days' either to get here," said tom. "and," chimed in shorty, "a big bunch of red roses thrown in, too." "yes, caruso," added bert, throwing his arm affectionately over phil's shoulder, "you must be a prophet as well as a singer." very soon the tired boys were off to dreamland, where visions of loaves of fluffy white bread, each loaf with a red rose growing out of it, floated about, and imaginative dave dreamed that old biddy made a "prisint" of a loaf to each one, singing in a high cracked voice as she handed them around: "harrigan! that's me!" chapter xviii the race "well," exclaimed bert, drawing a long breath as he rose from his cramped position beside the "red scout," "this machine is in as good condition as i know how to put it, and if nothing happens i guess we can show you fellows some speed this afternoon." it was the morning of the long wished-for race and bert was addressing an excited group of boys, who were holding wrenches, oil cans, and such other appliances as he might need in putting the finishing touches on the pampered machine. the whole camp was in a ferment of excitement and expectancy, and many were the heartfelt wishes for bert's success. to these boys it seemed the most important thing on earth that their machine should win, and it is safe to say that if bert had wanted to remove a piece of black grease from the car and had not a cloth handy, any one of them would have sacrificed his best handkerchief without a moment's hesitation, and been glad to do it. fortunately, such a contingency did not arise, however, and finally the last nut had been tightened and the last fine adjustment made, and everything was ready for the start. the race was scheduled to start at two o'clock, but as the boys had to walk to the track, and this necessitated a long detour around the lake, they started almost immediately after breakfast, so as to get there in plenty of time. the boys in the two rival camps were not the only persons interested in the race by any means. news of it had leaked out over the surrounding countryside during the week between the completion of arrangements and the actual race, and now there promised to be a goodly attendance of farmers and their families. considerable interest was taken in the camp by the kindly country folk, and now the boys were surprised at the number of carriages and farm wagons, full of jolly youngsters, that they met on their march. every one they met shouted cheery greetings to them, which they returned with interest. it made them very happy to see the interest taken in them by the farmers, and the very evident good will expressed by them. they didn't take the trouble to figure out the reason for this, but it was not very hard to find. the fact is, the boys were so manly and well-behaved that they won their way into all hearts. many a time they had seen the boys stop their machine rather than frighten a skittish horse, and more than one weary farmer had been given a lift on his way home from some distant field. so, as has been said, the boys were greeted with expressions of good will on every side as they marched along, and it made them realize, perhaps more than anything else could, that it paid to live a manly, upright life. meanwhile, back in camp mr. hollis, bert, and dick, were having a final discussion before leaving for the rival camp in the "red scout." it had been decided that dick was to ride with bert in the race, and give him any help that he might need. the other boys had been bitterly disappointed, especially tom, who had counted right along on going. "it only seems fair that i should go," he had contended. "bert and i have always been special pals, and i wanted to share any risk he is going to take." but mr. hollis was firm as a rock, as he well knew how to be when he thought circumstances required it of him. "i'm a little bit uneasy about the race, anyway," he explained, "and as long as somebody has to take chances i want it to be some boy who is old enough to be responsible for his own actions. i know nobody could fill the place better than you, my boy, but i am sure that when you think over what i have said you will agree with me in my decision," and tom had to admit to himself that, as usual, mr. hollis was right. but now the time had come to leave for the rival camp, and mr. hollis and tom climbed into the tonneau, while bert and dick occupied the two front seats. soon they had started, and as they went along bert gave dick his last instruction. "remember," said he, "that when we take the turns you must lean as far toward the inside of the track as you can. this may not seem to help much in keeping those inside wheels on the ground, but every little thing like that does help, and i think that we will have to do everything we know how to beat that 'gray ghost' of theirs. that car is no slouch, as the saying goes, and ralph quinby knows his business." "all right, bert," replied dick, "i'll try to remember all the things you have told me. i really believe," he continued, laughing, "that i have forgotten more about automobiles in the last week than i ever knew before. i never had any idea that there was so much to know about a car, and you certainly have got it down to perfection." bert was pleased at this evidently sincere tribute from dick, and could not prevent a slight flush of pleasure from mounting to his face. "well, dick," he remarked after a moment, "all i've got to say is that if such a trio as you and i and the old 'red scout' can't win that race, there must be something the matter with the universe, that's all." the rival camp all felt as confident as did mr. hollis' troop, however, and to the impartial observer it would certainly have seemed as though there was little to choose between the autos and their crews. by this time they had come in sight of the old race track, and were astonished, and, it must be confessed, somewhat confused at the sight that met their eyes. there was an old rickety grand stand along one side of the course, and this was literally packed with a bright-colored mass of humanity. even scattered around the infield there were quite a few farm wagons, with their complement of folks out for a holiday. "say," said dick to bert in a low tone, "i didn't count on having an audience like this. they'll guy the life out of us if we lose." "well," said bert, who by this time had recovered from his first astonishment, "that's all the more reason why we should win. we simply can't let ourselves be beaten now, that's all there is about it." but there was no time for further speculation, as mr. hollis was seen approaching them, and it was evident the race must soon begin. bert ran the "red scout" around to a small shed in back of the grandstand, and he and dick made their final preparations. these consisted in taking off the hood, or bonnet, altogether, and removing the exhaust pipes from the motor. as bert had already explained to dick, this was done to eliminate any back pressure from the exhaust gases. under ordinary conditions, this makes such a small difference in the power of a car that it can hardly be said to count, but in a race every ounce of power is required. this is done on every racing car, and that is why the explosions make such loud, sharp reports when the car is in action. it need hardly be said that every boy in mr. hollis's troop, except poor fred, was present, and many were the anxious looks cast at bert and dick to see, if possible, how they felt about the outcome of the race. both had been trained to have control of their feelings, however, and so outwardly they appeared to be very calm. this was far from being the real state of their feelings, and both felt as though their hearts had suddenly become too large and were trying to get out between their ribs. they realized that it was not only their own reputation that would suffer if they were defeated, but the whole camp was involved. what would mr. hollis think of them if the other boys were victorious? what would the boys who had such blind confidence in them and the "red scout" do or say if the "gray ghost" won? such thoughts were demoralizing, however, and neither bert nor dick entertained them any longer than they could help. into both their faces came that stern, resolved look that all the boys had seen at times and come to love, and in the minds of tom and the others all doubts as to the final result vanished. meanwhile, mr. thompson's troop had been giving the "gray ghost" its final touches, and now, at the sound of a mellow whistle, both bert and ralph cranked their motors. none of the boys had ever heard the unmuffled exhaust of a racing car before, and at the savage roar that now issued from both cars all the boys fell back several steps with scared faces. as soon as they realized that the gasoline tank had not exploded, nor any other equally awful thing occurred, they came forward and tried to ask questions, but in the confined shed they could hardly hear the sound of their own voices. slowly the fire-spitting monsters were backed out of the shed, and their respective drivers swung them around and on to the track. they were greeted by a wave of cheering both from the boys and from the assembled farmers, and more than one burly countryman who had come to the "kids' racket" under protest was seen to sit up straight and open his eyes wide. no doubt many of them had expected to see a rather tame affair, and in fact few of them had ever seen an automobile race, or knew the tremendous speed of which a good car was capable, or realized the cool head and steady nerves required to control the condensed power of forty horses traveling at a speed of close to a mile a minute. however, they were soon to experience a few of the thrills attendant on such an occasion. the two leaders had been holding a consultation, and now they approached the vibrating, eager cars. mr. hollis was forced to shout to make himself heard above the din of the exhausts. "it is understood," he said, "that this race is to be run from a standing start, and is to be for a distance of ten miles, or ten laps around the track. the cars must line up on the tape that we have stretched in front of the grandstand, and at the report of my pistol they are to start, each driver getting away as best he can. we have drawn lots for the choice of position, and the 'gray ghost' won, and is to have the inside position. mr. thompson and i will act as judges. is that perfectly clear?" to bert and ralph. "yes, sir," they both responded, and proceeded to manoeuvre their cars into the appointed positions. mr. hollis and mr. thompson took their places in the grandstand, part of which the boys had been directed to reserve for them. by this time the cars were in position, each one with its front wheels resting on the strip of white tape. the "gray ghost" had a decided advantage to start with, as it is evident that in any race the car that has the inside position, that is, the part of the track nearest to the center of the field, has a slightly lesser distance to travel than the car on the outside, and in a close race every few feet count. but now there was a breathless hush over the grandstand, and all eyes were on mr. hollis's hand, holding the pistol aloft. bert and ralph were bent over their levers, every muscle tense, and nerves stretched to the breaking point. crack! went the pistol. with a mighty roar, and the blue flames spitting from the exhaust ports, the two great machines bounded forward, and almost with one movement bert changed the gears from first to second, from second to high. at every change the willing car leaped ahead with ever-increasing momentum, and bert felt a wild thrill run through his body as he realized the vast force beneath him, subject only to his control. the "gray ghost" had made almost as good a start, however, and now, although the "red scout" had a slight lead, the inside position began to tell, and the "gray ghost" gained a trifle. dick, who had been looking back over his shoulder, now turned to bert and yelled excitedly in his ear, "sock it to her, bert! give her the gas! they're gaining on us!" they had now covered the first lap, and the speedometer hand on the "red scout's" dashboard registered a speed of fifty miles an hour. bert knew he could do better than that, but remembered mr. hollis's instructions not to take any unnecessary chances. the machine was working beautifully, and a wave of pride surged over him as he thought that this was largely due to the care and work he had bestowed upon it. but now the "gray ghost" was ranging alongside--ahead-"give her a pump full of oil, dick," yelled bert to his friend, and opened the throttle a trifle wider. the machine answered like a thing of life. the wind whistled in their ears, the track seemed a mere gray blur racing away behind them, and the mighty speed song of the ravening motor was like music in their ears. faster and faster they flew, the two cars keeping pace side by side, and the speedometer hand creeping up--up. fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-six! it registered, and the flying cars seemed barely to touch the ground. on the straight stretch in front of the grandstand they gathered such speed that at the turns the rear wheels skidded, throwing up showers of dirt, and the drivers were forced to slow down a little or the machines would surely have collided. up to that time neither car had a decided advantage, but now they had covered the eighth lap, and both crews realized that the time had arrived to call on the racing engines for their final and greatest effort. the crowds in the stands were yelling like maniacs, as each car in turn pushed its nose ahead of the other. but bert and dick heard nothing but the terrific roar of the racing cars. their pulses beat like trip-hammers; their eyes were starting from their heads. they felt rather than saw that the "gray ghost" was gaining--gaining only a little, inch by inch, but gaining. now it had come abreast; now it was slowly but surely forging ahead. it looked as though the "red scout" had "shot its bolt," and its partisans in the grandstand groaned in an agony of apprehension that was fast becoming despair, while their rivals danced up and down and shrieked encouragement to their gray champion. now they were on the last lap, and suddenly bert leaned forward and advanced his spark to the limit. it was do or die. his heart exulted as he felt the splendid car leap forward. he took a firmer grip on the wheel and threw the throttle wide open. his mysterious "sixth sense" had told him that he had something in reserve, and now the "red scout" justified his judgment. it leaped, it flew. it collared the "ghost" just as they turned into the stretch, and tore down the course, the explosions of its motor blending together in one deafening volley of defiance as it drew away from its rival. across the line it flew like a rocket, the pistol cracked, and--_the race was won_! [illustration: across the line it flew like a rocket.--(_see page 217_)] both cars made another circuit of the track before they were able to stop, and then drew up in front of the grandstand. immediately the crowd surged down, and in a moment the two contestants were surrounded by a frenzied mob of shouting and hat-throwing boys, and almost equally excited, if less demonstrative, country people. mr. hollis pressed forward and grasped the hands of bert and dick, one in each of his. "you did nobly, boys," he exclaimed, but there was a catch in his voice, and his face looked gray and drawn, "you did great work, but i would not consent to your racing again for all the money in the world. it is altogether too dangerous." but by this time the defeated boys belonging to mr. thompson's troop had recovered a little from their chagrin, and now elbowed their way through the crowd, headed by their leader and ralph quinby. like the clean-cut and manly fellow that he was, ralph walked up and shook hands with bert and dick in turn. "well," he said, "you fellows certainly put up a great race, and we have nothing more to say. it was simply a case of the best car winning, that's all." bert appreciated his manly spirit, and replied, "it was simply a matter of the 'red scout' having a little more speed. if we exchanged cars, you would win and we would lose. you gave us a hard tussle up to the last second." all the other boys showed the same feeling as had ralph, and both parties separated with mutual expressions of esteem and good will. all the members of mr. hollis's troop that could do so crowded into the "red scout," and various good-natured farmers volunteered to make room in their capacious wagons and take the rest home. room was even found for don, who had been an excited spectator of the race and was now regarded by the jubilant boys as their mascot. "it's little enough to do at that," remarked one husky agriculturist. "i'd be willing to cart the whole outfit over and back a dozen times for the sake of seeing another race like that. i wish old dobbin could hike along like them things." and in this he expressed the general sentiment of the crowd. as they traveled campward through the cool twilight the boys shouted and sang, and in a thousand other noisy but harmless ways found a vent for their overflowing enthusiasm. bert and dick were the heroes of the day, as they well deserved to be. the race was run again at least a hundred times, and by the time they struck camp they had quieted down to some extent. their beloved car had, of course, reached camp ahead of them, and now, as they alighted and caught sight of bert and dick, their enthusiasm flamed up again, and cheer after cheer resounded through the silent woods. at last they cooled down sufficiently to go to bed, but it was a long time before they finally got to sleep. bert and dick shook hands before parting to go to their different tents. for a few seconds they looked into each other's eyes, and the grip of their hands tightened before they finally separated and said good night. for when two good comrades meet danger face to face and win out, a new and never-to-be-forgotten bond is riveted between them that lasts through life. * * * * * it was a wildly hilarious group of campers who sat down to a piping hot breakfast the next morning. some, indeed, had hardly slept at all, so great was their rejoicing at the "red scout's" glorious victory. they had won and the much-vaunted "gray ghost" had had to "take their dust." what if it were their last day in camp? as jim, who was famous for mixing his figures of speech, said, "the camp, anyway, was breaking up in a blaze of glory." every exciting detail of the great struggle was rehearsed and enlarged upon, times without number. they crowded round the splendid car and praised it and patted it as though it were alive and could understand how proud they were of its victory. and bert! if he had been anything but the fine, manly fellow he was, he would have been utterly spoiled by the plaudits heaped upon him. he had been their hero before; now he was their idol. his skill, his judgment, his nerve, were dwelt upon to the exclusion of everything else; but he modestly disclaimed any credit and put it all up to the car. "this is the fellow that did it all," he said, patting the great machine affectionately. "yes," quoted dick, "'this is the steed that saved the day, by carrying sheridan into the fight from winchester, twenty miles away,' but all the same," he went on, "the steed saved the day because sheridan was on his back, and the 'red scout' saved the day because bert wilson was at the wheel." and to this the whole camp gave a thundering chorus of assent. and bert was at the wheel that afternoon, when, after "three times three" given for the "red scout" and its driver, the noble car stood panting, crowded to the guards with as many as could tumble in, ready to lead the way to the station where they were to take the train to the city. "i tell you, tom," he said, as he grasped the wheel and the great car sprang forward, "i never expect to have so much pleasure and excitement in my life as i have had this summer." but bert was mistaken. a broader field and greater triumphs lay before him--exploits that would tax every ounce of brain and muscle; victory snatched from defeat amid the applause of excited thousands. how he met the test and won his fight will be told in the next volume, "bert wilson's fadeaway ball." the end the bert wilson series by j. w. duffield an excellent series of stories for boys, full of outdoor life and adventures, athletic sports, etc. wholesome, clean and instructive. =bert wilson at the wheel= an absorbing story of automobile exploits, abounding in stirring experiences and exciting adventures. =bert wilson's fadeaway ball= how a baseball pennant was won by the masterly pitching of the young freshman recruit is told in crisp, snappy fashion, with a wealth of thrilling detail that will delight the lovers of the great national game. =bert wilson, wireless operator= perils of storm and shipwreck, head-hunters and pirates, are woven into a romance of compelling power that chains the attention at once and holds it to the end. =bert wilson, marathon winner= how the pick of the world's athletes struggled for supremacy and how the representative of the stars and stripes carried off the crowning victory at the great olympic games. _others in preparation_ 12mo, cloth, with four illustrations in each, by h. g. richards. price each, 60 cents. =sully and kleinteich--new york= the bert wilson series by j. w. duffield _the following titles are in preparation_ =bert wilson at panama= a host of thrilling adventures is woven into this stirring story of the young american who thwarts by his quick wit and determined courage a plot to destroy the great canal. brimming with interest from cover to cover. =bert wilson's twin-cylinder racer= a motor-cycle romance of speed and daring that will stir the blood and make the heart beat faster. how sheer pluck that refused to be downed won out against foul play and tremendous odds. =bert wilson on the gridiron= the "never-say-die" spirit of college football that makes it such a glorious game sparkles on every page. a gripping story of "bucking the line" and "going round the ends," culminating in the great run down the field in the last minute of play that snatched victory from defeat. =bert wilson in the rockies= full of life and spirit, dash and danger in the wild regions of the west. the picturesque figures of the frontier--greasers and grizzlies, rustlers and road agents--appear in adventures that make one throb and tingle with excitement. 12mo, cloth, with four illustrations in each, by h. g. richards. price each, 60 cents. =sully and kleinteich--new york= publications of sully and kleinteich the "how" books =how to make things= by archibald williams author of "how it is done," "how it is made," "how it works." this is just the book for the active youth who has got beyond the period when he asks, "how is it done?" and now wishes to do it himself. the book is very fully illustrated with useful diagrams drawn exactly to scale. 12mo. cloth, 450 pages, with numerous illustrations and diagrams. price $1.20 net =how it is done= _or, victories of the engineer_ by archibald williams author of "how it is made," "how it works," "how to make things." describing in simple language how the great engineering achievements in all parts of the world have been accomplished. it is a book brimful of interest for everybody, and especially to the younger generation with a turn for engineering in any of its many branches. 12 mo. cloth. 450 pages, with 268 illustrations and diagrams. price $1.20 net =how it is made= by archibald williams author of "how it works," "how it is done," "how to make things." describing in simple language how various machines and many articles in common use are manufactured from the raw material. 12mo. cloth. 474 pages, with numerous illustrations and diagrams. price $1.20 net =how it works= by archibald williams author of "how it is done," "how to make things," "how it is made." it deals in simple language with steam, electricity, light, heat, sound, hydraulics, optics, etc., and with their application to apparatus in common use. 12mo. cloth. 461 pages, with illustrations and diagrams. price $1.20 net =how it flies= _or, the conquest of the air_ by richard ferris, b. s., c. e. the story of man's endeavors to fly and of the inventions by which he has succeeded. 12mo. cloth. 476 pages, with numerous illustrations and diagrams. price $1.20 net the gateway series =gateway to chaucer= stories told by emily underdown, from the canterbury tales of geoffrey chaucer. with 16 colored plates and numerous marginal illustrations after drawings by anne anderson. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 =the gateway to spenser= tales, retold by emily underdown, from "the faerie queene" of edmund spenser. with 16 colored plates and numerous marginal illustrations from drawings by f. g. papã�. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 =the gateway to romance= tales retold by emily underdown, from "the earthly paradise," by william morris. with 16 colored plates and many other illustrations. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 =the gateway to tennyson= tales and extracts from the poet's works, with an introduction by mrs. andrew lang. with 16 colored illustrations from drawings by norman little. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 =the gateway to shakespeare= containing a life of shakespeare, by mrs. andrew lang, a selection from the plays, and from "lamb's tales." with 16 colored plates and many other illustrations. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 the sunshine and shadow series =in the service of the king, and other stories= =in the heart of the forest= =after long years, and other stories= these books translated from the german by sophia a. miller and anes m. dunne. 16mo. illustrated. each $.75 the ethical stories in the sunshine and shadow series have been translated from the german with the view of instilling into the minds of youthful readers such truths as will help materially toward building a character that will withstand the trials and temptations of life. it is conceded by educators that ethics presented in the lecture form fails of its purpose; therefore the writers have presented this subject in the form most appealing to children--the story. =the book of golden deeds.= by charlotte m. yonge. with 16 full page colored illustrations, 12 full-page illustrations in black and white (photo engravings) and marginal illustrations all through the book. 8vo. cloth. net $2.50 =tales of the gods and heroes.= by sir g. w. cox, m. a. with sixteen colored plates from drawings by james fripp. 8vo. cloth. net $2.00 contents the sorrow of demeter -the sleep of endymion -niobe and leto -orpheus and eurydice -phryxus and helle -cadmus and europa -odysseus and polyphemus -odysseus and circe -odysseus and the seirens -odysseus and nausicaa -the story of arion -the treasures of rhampsnitus -cephalos and procris -daphne -the delian apollo -the pythian apolli -the vengeance of apollo -the toils of heracles -althaea and the burning brand -phaethon -io and prometheus -briareos -arethusa -tyro -poseidon and athene -ariadne -narcissus -medeia -cyrene -bellerophon -iphigeneia -hector and andromache -sarpedon -memnon -oenone -the lotos-eaters -the cattle of helios -odysseus and calypso -atys and adrastos. =lives of great men, told by great men= edited by richard wilson. with 31 full-page illustrations in color. quarto. cloth. 448 pp. net $2.00 contents alexander the great -alfred the great -the black prince -the story of william wallace -sir thomas more -francisco pizarro -sir richard grenville -sir francis drake -sir phillip sidney -john hampden -oliver cromwell -john bunyan -benjamin franklin's boyhood -dr. johnson -oliver goldsmith -flora macdonald -the boyhood of james watt -robert burns -charles lamb -william wordsworth -the boyhood of turner -george borrow -the boyhood of george stephenson. =the story of heather= by may wynne 12mo. cloth, 6 colored illustrations. _price_, net $1.00 this is the autobiography of a pony, simply told for young children, and full of action and interest. the volume is excellently illustrated in color by dorothy pope, and attractively presented in cloth cover. =exmoor star= the autobiography of a pony by a. e. bonser 12mo. cloth. illustrated. _price_, net 50c; postpaid 55c. the sympathy of children in the humane treatment of animals will be enlisted by this charming story. they see how cruel our thoughtlessness and lack of attention to the needs of our dumb servants often are. they will share the views of this bright little pony in regard to man's attitude to animals. the story is fascinating and as circus performer or polo pony, star is a most interesting character. after many strange experiences he saves the lives of twelve people, receives a medal from the royal humane society and retires from public life. the story is not marred by a sad ending. the book is fully illustrated. =a book of birds and beasts= or _the law of kindness_ 134 pages and 32 colored illustrations _price_, net $1.00 it is full of interesting stories, all about animals and their doings, and of such a character that no child who reads them will ever dream of being unkind to bird, beast, fish, or insect; for when people get to know god's creatures and their wonderful ways, they learn how to leave them alone and to watch them patiently, just because they are so well worth watching. =the old fairy tales= 189 pages and 32 colored illustrations _price_, net $1.00 a book of fairy tales for boys and girls containing; the three bears -brother and sister -little red riding-hood -hansel and grethel -the golden goose -the magic key -little one eye, little two eyes, and little three eyes -the story of catskin -cinderella, or, the little glass slipper -the frog-prince -the sleeping beauty in the wood -the iron stove -shemus and the little people -prince curly chin -queen mab and oberon -the merry tricks of tom thumb -prince cherry -little snowdrop -the goose girl -the fairies of the caldon-low. =the wonders of the world= formerly published under the title of "the world by the fireside." by mary and elizabeth kirby. crown. 8 vo. cloth. hundreds of illustrations. price $1.50 this volume brings the world, that is so full of wonders, to our own fireside. the book is embellished with pictures of the various scenes and objects described, in order to make it more attractive. =the wonders of the sea= formerly published under the title of "the sea and its wonders." by mary and elizabeth kirby. crown. 8 vo. cloth. hundreds of illustrations. price $1.50 wonders abound in the ocean. it is a world in itself, and is subject to its own laws. "in this great and wide sea are creeping things innumerable, both small and great." the various chapters are amply illustrated with drawings taken from life, and on which the utmost care has been bestowed. sully and kleinteich--new york the book of indoor and outdoor games by mrs. burton kingsland with suggestions for entertainments. illustrated. 12mo. cloth. $1.00 a veritable encyclopaedia of games, pastimes, and entertainment. contents games of thought, wit and memory -progressive games -card games -children's games -children's singing games -games for sunday evenings -catches and riddles -fortune telling -mesmerism -children's parties -special dinners, dances and luncheons -tableaux -wedding anniversaries. "without touching on the side of profit-yielding occupations, and with more stress laid down upon the social side of life, this book will prove a real treasure for those lacking in invention, and will bring delight to many a dull or rainy day."--_the dial_ =sully and kleinteich--new york= the golden river series =bound in cloth 16mo. with a colored panel illustration on front cover--title stamped in gold= =price each= =50 cents= alice's adventures in wonderland. 8 colored illustrations. anderson's fairy tales. (ugly duckling.) 4 colored illustrations. water babies. 4 " " the king of the golden river. 8 " " arabian nights. 5 " " gulliver in lilliput. 4 " " don quixote. 4 " " stories from hiawatha. 6 " " tanglewood tales. 4 " " john halifax's boyhood. 4 " " tales of a grandfather. 6 " " david and emily. 6 " " nell and her grandfather. 4 " " stories from spenser. 8 " " rose and the ring. 4 " " knights of the grail. 8 " " sir thomas thumb. 8 " " linden leaf. 8 " " undine. 8 " " maggie and tom tulliver. 4 " " children of the old testament. 6 " " children of the new testament. 6 " " six gifts. 6 " " kingsley's heroes. 4 " " adventures of ulysses. 6 " " golden deeds. 6 " " stories from tennyson. 6 " " tales from shakespeare. 6 " " stories from chaucer. 4 " " cox's greek heroes. 4 " " =sully & kleinteich--new york= transcriber's notes: --text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). --text in bold is enclosed by "equal" signs (=bold=). --punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected, except as noted below. --colon (:) punctuation has been retained as in original. --normalized variations of red scout and gray ghost to 'red scout' and 'gray ghost' within quoted speech and "red scout" and "gray ghost" in all other cases. --archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. --variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. --spaced dashes used in some back matter for better wrapping of text. the motor girls by margaret penrose chapter i cora and her car "now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?" asked jack kimball, with a most significant smile at his sister cora. "do with it?" repeated the girl, looking at her questioner in surprise; then she added, with a fine attempt at sarcasm: "why, i'm going to have jim break it up for kindling wood. it will make such a lovely blaze on the library hearth. i have always loved blazing autos." "now, sis," objected the tall, handsome boy, as he swung his arm about the almost equally tall, and even handsomer girl, "don't get mad." "oh, i'm not in the least angry." "um! maybe not. put i honestly thought--well, maybe you would like some of the boys to give you a lesson or two in driving the new car. there's wally, you know. ahem! i thought perhaps wally--" "walter can run a machine--i'm perfectly willing to grant you that, jack. but this is my machine, and i intend to run it." the girl stepped over to a window and looked out. there, on the driveway, stood a new automobile. four-cylindered, sliding-gear transmission, three speeds forward and reverse, long-wheel base, new ignition system, and all sorts of other things mentioned in the catalogue. besides, it was a beautiful maroon color, and the leather cushions matched. cora looked at it with admiration in her eyes. an hour, before, jack kimball and his chum walter pennington, had brought the car from the garage to the house, following mrs. kimball's implicit instructions that the new machine should not be driven an unnecessary block between the sales-rooms and the kimball home. "the car must come to cora on the eve of her birthday," jack's mother had stipulated to him, "and i want it to come to her brand new, with the tires nice and white. hers must be the first ride in it." so it was, after "digesting her surprise," as she expressed it, and spending the intervening hour in admiring the beautiful machine, climbing in and out of it, testing the levers, turning the steering wheel, and seeing jack start the engine, that cora was able to leave it and enter the house. "it's--it's just perfect;" she said, with a longing look back at the car. "yes, and isn't it a shame mother won't let you go out in it to-night?" spoke jack as he joined his sister at the window. "if they had only unpacked it a little earlier--it's too bad not to have a run in it while it's fresh. but," he concluded with a sigh, "i suppose i'll have to push it back in the shed." "yes," assented cora, also sighing. "but mother must be humored, and if she insists that i shall not take a trial spin after dark, i'll simply have to wait until daylight. jack, you're a dear! i know perfectly well that you influenced mother to give me this," and cora brushed her flushed a cheek against jack's bronzed face. "well, i know a little sister when i see one," replied the lad; "and though she may want to drive a motor-car, she's all right, for all that," and jack rather awkwardly slipped his arm around his sister's waist again, for she did seem a "little sister" to him, even if she was considered quite a young lady by others. "girls coming up to-night?" asked jack after a pause, during which they both had been silently admiring the car and its graceful lines. "i don't know," replied cora. "they haven't heard about my new auto, or they'd be sure to come." "let's run over and tell them," proposed jack. cora thought for a moment. she had plans for the evening, but they did not include jack. she said finally: "i have to write a few letters--acknowledging some birthday gifts. don't wait for me if you intend to go over to walter's. you might call at the robinsons', however, to fetch me; say at half-past nine." "oh, then i'm not to see bess or belle--or--well, there are plenty of other girls just as keen on ice cream sodas as those mentioned," and he pretended to leave the room, as if his feelings had been hurt. "now; you know, jack, i always want you with me, but--" "but just to-night you don't. all right, little sister. after me running that machine up from the garage for you, and not even scraping the tires; after me--even kissing you! fie! fie! little girl. some day you may want another machine--or a kiss--" "children, children," called mrs. kimball, "are you coming to dinner? and are you going to put that machine in the shed before dark, jack?" "both--both, mum! we were just discussing a discussion about the--the machine, girls and ice cream sodas." "what nonsense!" exclaimed his mother with a laugh. "come to dinner, do. but, jack, run the machine in first, please." the car was put under a shed attached to the barn, cora looking enviously at jack as he manipulated the levers and wheels, she sitting on the seat beside him, on the short run up the driveway. she would not venture to operate it herself in such cramped quarters. "there!" exclaimed cora as jack locked the shed door. "i hope nobody steals it to-night. did you take out the plug, jack?" "here you are," and he handed her the brass affair that formed the connection for the ignition system, and without which the car could not be run. "put it under your pillow, sis," he added. "maybe you'll have a gasolene dream." they went into the house, where dinner was waiting for them. the meal was a simple one, although the means of the little family were ample for a most elaborate affair. but mrs. kimball preferred the elegance of simplicity. mrs. grace kimball was a wealthy widow, a member of one of the oldest and best known families in chelton, which was a new england town, not far from the new york boundary. her husband had been joseph kimball, a man of simple tastes and sterling principles. when he had to leave her, with the two children, he said as he was passing away: "grace, i know you will bring them up rightly--plainly and honestly." plain in character, upright and fair, the two children had grown, but, in personality, nothing could make either jack or cora kimball "plain." they were just simply splendid. "then i can't take out the machine to-night, mother dear?" asked cora after dinner. "not to-night, daughter. i know you can run a car, but this is a new one, and i would feel better to have you give it a test run in daylight. you must get the man at the garage to show you all about it. do you like it very much, cora?" "like it! oh, mother, i perfectly love it! i can scarcely believe it is all mine--that jack has no mortgage on it and that it's my very own." "i don't know about that," put in jack. "a fine car like that is rather a dangerous thing for a handsome young lady of seventeen summers, and some incidental winters, to go sporting about in. some one else may get a mortgage on it, and want to foreclose." "now, i don't tease you, jack," objected his, sister, "and a girl has just as much right to tease a boy as a boy has to tease a girl." "goodness me! you don't call that teasing, do you? the girls have all the rights now. but help yourself! i'm not particular. did you say i was to call at the robinsons' at nine?" "no, nine-thirty." "oh, exactly. well, i'll try to be there. you might make it a point not to be waiting on the drive for me. a fellow wants to get a look at a girl like bess once in a while--just for practice, you know." "oh, jack!" "oh, cora! what's the matter?" "you're horrid!" "all right. then i'm going off and read a horrible tale about pirates, and walking the plank, and all that. i'll be on hand at the time and place mentioned. hoping this will find you well, remain, yours very truly, jack." and he hurried out of the room amid the laughter of his mother and sister. "what a boy!" exclaimed mrs. kimball. it was a pleasant, summer evening, and when cora hurried down the avenue toward the robinson home, she actually seemed to have wings. for she was not running, and her pace could hardly be called walking. her tall, straight figure was clad in a simple linen gown. she had need to disregard frills now, for she was a motor girl. "oh, come on, and don't ask a single question!" she exclaimed as the robinson twins--bess and belle--hastened to meet her in response to her ring. "come on! we must go over to the garage, quick! i've got a new machine, and i've got to learn all about it." she had to pause for breath, and belle managed to say "cora! a new machine! all for yourself! oh, you dear! who gave it to you?" "why jack found it," cora laughed. "it was running along the street, you know, and he lassoed it. it was going like mad, but he whirled the lash of his riding-whip about it and--and--" "now, cora, dear!" and belle dropped her voice to one of aggrieved tones. "you know what i meant." "of course i do, girly; but hurry--do! i want the man at the garage to teach me all about my new machine. i call it the whirlwind.' you know it's different from jack's small runabout, and there are several new points to be posted on. i want to be all ready, so that when we go out to-morrow morning we can surprise the boys." "oh, how perfectly lovely!" exclaimed bess. delighted and excited, the three girls hurried over the railroad hill, on a short cut to the garage. "do you think he'll show you?" asked bess. "he might want you to hire a chauffeur." "well, we'll see," responded cora. "if we can manage to find a nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman--the story-book kind of machinist, you know. i fancy he will be sufficiently interested--ahem! well, you know--" and she finished with a little laugh; in which her chums joined. they had reached the small door of the office of the garage. a notice on the glass directed them to "push." cora put both hands to the portal, and it swung back. she almost stumbled into the room. "we would like to see some one who will teach us how to run an auto," she began. "i know something of one, but i have a new kind." the three girls drew back. "a nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman!" whispered belle to cora. cora could not repress a smile. instead of the "story-book machinist," a handsome young lad stood before them, smiling at their discomfiture. "what is it?" he asked in a pleasant voice, and cora noticed how white and even his teeth were. "we--er--i--that is, we--i want to learn some points about my new car," she stammered. "it's a--" "i understand," replied the handsome chap. "i will be very glad to show you. just step this way, please," and, with a little bow, he motioned to them to follow him into the semi-dark machine shop back of the office. chapter ii the dash of the whirlwind when jack kimball called at the robinson home that same evening, at precisely nine-thirty, he found three very much agitated young ladies. bess, or, to be more exact, elizabeth robinson, the brown-haired, "plump" girl--she who was known as the "big" robinson girl--was positively out of breath, while her twin sister, isabel, usually called belle, too slim to puff and too thin to "fluster," was fanning herself with a very dainty lace handkerchief. cora paced up and down the piazza, in the true athletic way of cooling off. "why the wherefore?" asked jack, surprised at the excitement so plainly shown, in spite of the girls' attempts to hide it. "oh, just a race," replied cora indifferently. "out in the dark?" 'persisted jack. "only across the hill," went on cora, while bess giggled threateningly. "seems to me you took a queer time to race," remarked the lad with a sly wink at isabel. "who won out?" "oh, cora, of course," answered isabel. "she won--in and out." "oh, i don't know," spoke jack's sister. "you didn't do half badly, belle." "oh, i was laughing so i couldn't run." "cora said you were coming for her," put in bess with a smile. jack seemed disappointed that the subject was mentioned. "yes," he said. "she was very particular to specify the time. it's nine-thirty now, but i'm in no hurry," and he looked about for a chair. "but i am," insisted cora. "well, then," added jack a bit stiffly, "if you're ready, suppose we run along. or, have you had enough running for this evening?" "plenty. but i really must go, girls. be sure and be ready in the morning for--well, you know what," and she finished with a laugh. "we want the chelton folks--" "to sit up and take notice, i suppose," put in jack quickly. "pardon the slang, ladies, but sometimes slang seems to fit where nothing else will." the twins managed to whisper a word or two into cora's ear as she said good-night and left with her brother. they had had such a splendid time at the garage. it was the run back home, over the railroad embankment, that had caused all their flurry and excitement. and, though they had not left the auto salesrooms until five minutes before the time cora had appointed for her brother to meet her, they had actually managed to reach home before jack called, so that he could have no suspicion of their visit to the garage. paul hastings, the young man whom they had encountered on their visit to the automobile place, had proved a most interesting youth--he appeared to know many things besides the good and bad points of the average car. mr. and mrs. perry robinson, parents of the robinson twins, happened to be out that evening, so that, even to them, the visit to the garage was a profound secret, and there was no need of making any explanations. that night, in her sleep, elizabeth was heard to mutter "the clutch! throw in the clutch!" and isabel actually answered, also in dream language: "jam down the brake!" but cora, across the fields, in her own cool, out-of-doors sleeping apartment, built on a broad porch, did not dream. she just slumbered. it was a delightful morning in early june, and the air seemed sprinkled with scented dew, when cora kimball drove up to the robinson home in her new automobile. "come on! come on!" she called as she stopped at the curb and, tooted the horn. "hurry! i want to overtake walter. he and jack have just gone out!" "oh, of course, you want to overtake walter," answered isabel, with the emphasis on "walter." "well, never mind about that, but do come," urged cora. "what do you think of my car?" she asked as the girls hastened to her. "isn't it a beauty?" she handled the machine with considerable skill, for she had had some practice on jack's car. "think of it!" exclaimed elizabeth. "why, it's simply beyond thoughts; it's--overwhelming!" "a perfect dream," agreed belle. "aren't you the lucky girl, though!" "guess i am," admitted cora. "see, i can start it without cranking"; and to prove it, when the engine was quiet, she threw forward the spark lever, shifted the gasolene one a trifle, and the motor began to throb and hum rapidly. "good!" cried isabel. "paul told me about it," went on cora. "the paul, you know. he said when a charge of gas is in one of the cylinders all you have to do is to send a spark to the cylinder, and--" "it didn't take you long to learn," complimented bess, while isabel said: "paul--er--is he--" "yes, he is," admitted cora with a laugh. "the youth of the garage." "well, i don't remember a thing he said," confessed elizabeth; "but paul--who could forget paul? didn't he have nice teeth?" "and so polite," added belle. "wasn't he just splendid?" concluded cora. "and such a number of things that he told me. but come on, get in," and she slowed down the motor somewhat, while, removing a pair of buckskin gloves from her long, tapering hands, she produced a small, dainty handkerchief and rubbed a spot of black grease from her aristocratic nose. "got that when i was oiling the rear wheels," she explained. the twins entered the tonneau, neither of them caring to risk riding on the front seat just yet. cora speeded the motor up a bit, glanced behind to see that the tonneau door was securely fastened, and then pulled the speed lever and threw in the clutch. the car started forward as smoothly as if paul himself were at the wheel. elizabeth's hand flew to her hat, which tilted backward in the wind. they had not yet secured their motor "togs," and regulation hats were so difficult to manage. "oh, isn't this glorious!" cried isabel. "every one is looking at us," announced elizabeth. "now i wonder which road jack and walter took?" said cora as she swung the car around a curve in good style. "i heard jack say he was going for some fishing-tackle." "perhaps they went to arden," ventured isabel. "maybe. well, we'll take a nice little spin down the turnpike," decided cora as she threw in the high gear, the cogs grinding on each other rather alarmingly. "gracious! what's that?" asked elizabeth. "only the gears," replied cora calmly. "i hope i didn't strip them, but i might have done that changing a little better. i wasn't quite quick enough." the car was going rather fast now. "don't put on quite so much speed," begged isabel. "i'm so--" "now please don't say you're nervous," interrupted cora. "but i am." "well, you needn't be. i know how to run the car." "of course, since paul showed her," put in elizabeth. the speed was a trifle too fast for an inexperienced hand at the wheel, but cora grasped the wooden circlet firmly, and with a keen look ahead prepared for the descent of a rather steep hill. coming up the grade were a number of autos, containing chelton folks, who had been to the depot with early city commuters. chelton was a great place for commuters and autos. "please don't put on any more speed, cora," again begged isabel, leaning over toward the front seat. "this is such a steep hill." "all right, i won't," and cora placed her foot more firmly on the brake pedal, while she was ready to grasp the emergency lever quickly, in case anything happened. "oh, there's ida!" suddenly cried elizabeth as a small runabout loomed up in front of them. "and sid wilcox. i wonder what she finds interesting in that--that lazy chap?" "a companion--that's all," replied her sister. "i think ida is about as unenergetic a girl as i ever knew." "funny thing," said cora, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the noise of the motor, "how she manages to keep going. she rides as often in sid's car as if--well, as if she was his own sister." "oftener than most sisters," added belle significantly. "they have just left her friend, who was on from new city, at the depot," said bess. "it's quite handy to have a chum with a motor-car--even if it does happen to be a chap like sid." "well, i guess ida's harmless, even if she is jealous," said cora. "i do believe that's all that ails ida--just plain jealousy." "maybe," assented isabel. they rode along for some time, coasting down the steeper parts of the hill, and running easily where there was a level stretch. they were now approaching the worst part of the descent. from this point there was quite a steep slant to the level highway, which the railroad crossed at grade, and approached on a curve. there was a long-drawn, shrill whistle. "what's that?" exclaimed elizabeth. "the train!" cried isabel. "oh, the train! cora, the train is coming!" "i hear it," spoke cora calmly, but she pressed her foot down harder on the brake pedal, and tried to use the compression of the cylinders as a retarding force, as paul had showed her. "can't you slow up?" pleaded elizabeth. there was a note of alarm in her voice. "i'm--i'm trying to!" almost shouted cora, as she exerted more strength on the brake lever. "i've done all i know, now, but but we don't seem to be stopping!" she spoke the last words in a curiously quiet voice. "put on the brakes!" called bess. "they are on!" said cora fiercely. "oh, cora!" screamed isabel. "i see the train! there at the foot of the hill! we'll run into it! i'm going to jump! we can't stop!" "sit still!" commanded cora energetically. elizabeth covered her face with her hands. she shrank back into her seat. her sister leaned up against her. below could be heard the puffing of the train. then the engineer, seeing the auto rushing down to destruction, blew shrieking whistles, as if that could help. cora was frantically pulling on the brake lever. her face was now white with fear, but even in the midst of this terror she felt a curious calmness. it was just as if she were looking at some picture of the scene. she thought she was miles and miles away. her foot was pressed down so hard on the brake pedal that it felt as if her shoe would burst off. but the car slid along, nearer and nearer the track, along which the train was thundering--rushing to meet the auto-to annihilate it. "stop! stop!" screamed isabel. "stop!" she rose in her seat. "sit down!" commanded cora. "but stop!" pleaded isabel. "we'll all be killed! stop! oh, cora, stop!" "i'm trying to!" was the grim reply. "but--i can't the brake--the brake is jammed!" the last words came out jerkily, for cora was pulling on the brake handle with all her force. nearer and nearer sounded the approaching train. the auto was sliding down the hill with ever-increasing speed, but cora never let go her hold of the steering wheel. once more she tried to pull the brake lever. it would not come back another notch. the engineer of the train was blowing more frantic signals. he leaned from his cab window and motioned the auto back. he even seemed to be shouting to them. cora braced both feet against the brake pedal. she took a firmer grasp of the wheel. the seams of her new gloves were starting from the strain. there was a desperate look on her face. "oh, we'll be killed! we'll be killed!" screamed isabel. "we can't get across in time!" she leaned over, and fell into her sister's arms, while cora, with a keen glance to either side, stiffened in her seat. there was a bare chance of safety. chapter iii a sudden acquaintance despite the tense moment of anxiety, the almost certainty that the auto would crash into the train, cora's quick eye had seen something that she hoped would enable her to avert the accident. she knew that she could not stop the machine in time, by any means at her command. there was but one other thing to do. that was to steer to one side. to the left there was a solid stone wall. to dash into that would mean almost as horrible an accident as if she collided with the train. to the right there was a field, but it was fenced in, and between it and the road was a little miry, brook. in some places the brook widened almost into a pond. the bottom was treacherous, and to steer into it meant to sink down deeply into the mud. to run into the fence might mean that one of the rails would become entangled in the mechanism of the motor, tearing it all to pieces. or one of the long pieces of wood might even impale the occupants of the car. cora's eyes swept down the length of the barrier with a flash. there was just what she wanted! a gap in the fence! she could go through that in safety. but suppose the machine was brought to too sudden a stop in the mud? they would all be thrown out and perhaps injured. but it was the only thing to do. with a firm grasp of the wheel cora sent the auto from the road. elizabeth screamed as she felt the swaying of the car. she had to hold her sister from being tossed but, for isabel was incapable of taking care of herself. straight for the field rushed the car, the engineer of the train now tooting his whistle as if in gladness at the narrow escape. splash! the auto fairly dived into the brook, and gradually slackened speed. right toward a clump of willow trees it surged, throwing a spray of water in advance. then it became stationary in the middle of a spot where the brook widened into a pond. cora was dimly conscious of a figure on the opposite bank of the stream. a figure of a young man, with a fishing-pole in his hands. she saw a spray of water, cast up by the auto, drench him. she even heard him cry out, but at that moment she gave him not a thought. everything centered on her narrow escape, the condition of her two chums, and, last, but not least, whether her new auto had been damaged. cora leaned over the side and looked at the water flowing past the mud guards. "safe!" she exclaimed. "i--i thought we were doomed, girls. didn't you?" "doomed?" echoed elizabeth. "i never want to go through that experience again." "me either," added cora fervently. "has belle fainted?" "i'm afraid so." cora leaned over, scooped some water up in her hand, and dashed it into the white face of the girl. isabel opened her eyes. "are we--are we--" she gasped. "we're all right, you little goose," said cora with a laugh, though her voice trembled and her hands shook. "i guess it wasn't nearly as dangerous as it looked." "it was bad enough," spoke elizabeth. "anyhow, the auto stopped," went on cora. "don't you see where we are? in the middle of campbell's pond. and we won't have to swim out, either. it's not very deep. but, bess, you look like a sheet, and belle, you seem like--" "a pillow-case, with the pillow out," added isabel with a wan smile. "i never was so glad to get a ducking in all my life." "and i guess we're not the only ones who got a ducking," said cora as she shook some drops from her hair. "why?" inquired bess. "look!" and cora pointed across the pond. a very much drenched figure was standing up. the man with the fishing-pole was wiping the water from his face. he looked at the girls in the auto. "oh, dear!" exclaimed elizabeth. "i should think we did give him a ducking!" "i'm awfully sorry, but--but we couldn't help it," said cora, standing up and looking at the young man. he approached closer, began wading out into the pond toward the auto. the water was not very deep, hardly up to his knees. cora found herself wondering how he had managed to fish in it. he was very good-looking, each of the girls was thinking to herself. "can't i help you?" he asked, smiling broadly, in spite of the mud and water splashed all over him. there was actually a little globule of mud on the end of his nose. he seemed as much amused over his own predicament as he was over that of the motor girls. "do you need any help?" he went on. "i'm sure i--er--that is, i hardly know," stammered cora. she was not altogether certain about the state of the auto. "i'm afraid we've been very--very impolite--to splash water, and--er--mud all over you," she added. "not at all--not at all," he assured her. "i never saw a better--a better turn, so to speak. you are very plucky, if i may be permitted to say so. i--er--i almost said my prayers when i saw you racing down toward the train. then i saw you turn in here. but what happened that you couldn't stop before?" "the brake," replied cora. "it refused to work. this is a new car--our first trip, in fact." "oh, i see," replied the young man. "well, i know a little about cars. perhaps i can run her out for you. just let me try." cora shifted over to the other side, leaving the wheel free. the young fisherman cranked up, from a very insecure and muddy footing in the middle of the pond. there came a welcome "chug! chug! chug!" the auto was all right, after all. the young man climbed in. the spot of mud was still on his nose, and cora felt an insane desire to laugh. but she nobly restrained it. he took the wheel and threw in the low speed gear. there was a grinding sound, the whirlwind seemed to shiver and shake, and then it began to move. a few seconds later, after running slowly through the pond, it ran up the soft bank, and, under the skilful touch of the stranger, came to a stop in a grassy meadow. "there!" exclaimed the young man. "i guess you're all right now. but let me look at that brake. perhaps i can fix it." then it occurred to cora that she might attempt to introduce her friends and herself. the twins had not yet spoken a word to the fisherman. the same thought "wave" must have surged into the stranger's brain, for he said: "my name is foster--edward foster," and he raised his wet cap. "i was just trying to kill time by fishing, but it was a cruelty to time. i don't believe a fish ever saw this pond." "mr. foster, my name is--er--kimball--cora, kimball," said the owner of the auto, imitating the young man's masculine style of introduction, "and these are my friends, the misses robinson." the young man bowed twice, once for each of the twins. mr. foster had a most attractive manner--that was instantly decided by the three girls. "i know your brother," he remarked to cora. "jack kimball, of exmouth college." "oh, yes, of course. i've heard jack speak of you, i'm sure." "yes, he was on our team--" "oh, you are the great football player," interrupted elizabeth. she made no secret of her admiration for "great football players." "not exactly great," answered mr. foster, "but i have played some. my interest in sports has rather kept me away from society. that accounts for me not being better acquainted in chelton, or perhaps--" "hello there!" came a hail from the road. "jack and walter!" exclaimed cora, as at that moment another machine came along and drew up alongside the fence which separated the highway from the meadow. "now, won't they laugh at us!" "well, i declare!" exclaimed the mud-bespattered young fellow. "if that isn't jack! and walter pennington is with him!" "what's up?" called jack, leaping from the car and running across the meadow, after a quick climb over the fence. "a great deal is up," said cora. "well--ed foster! where in the world did you come from?" jack added as he saw the young man about to alight from cora's car. "from the ditch," was ed's laughing answer, as he looked down at his splattered garments. "i just got but in time to--" "never mind--shake!" interrupted jack, extending his hand. "when i was a youngster, and our big newfoundland dog came out with the stick from the pond--" "now! now!" cautioned ed. "i may be big, and i may have just crawled from the pond, but i deny the stick." "i'm sure we would have been here forever if mr. foster hadn't--" began cora. "been here first," interrupted jack. "that's all very well, sis. but i told you so! a brand-new, spick-and-span car like this! and to run it into a muddy ditch!" "indeed!" exclaimed elizabeth. "we were almost killed! cora just saved our lives!" "mercy me!" cried walter, who had left the car and joined jack. "now, cora," he added mockingly, "when you start out to save lives, why don't you give a fellow the tip? there's nothing i do so love as to see lives saved--especially nice young ladies," and he made a low bow. "oh, you may laugh," said cora somewhat indignantly, "but i don't want anything like it to happen again. the brake would not work, and--" "the train was just in front of us, and we were running right in it," put in isabel, her voice far from steady, and her face still very white. at this point ed insisted upon telling the whole story, and he described the plight of the motor girls so graphically that both jack and walter were compelled to admit that cora did indeed know how to drive a car in an emergency, and that she had acted most wisely. "good for you, sis!" exclaimed jack, when the story was finished. "i could not have done better myself." "such praise is praise indeed," spoke ed with a laugh. he went around back to look at the brake, and found what had caused the trouble. a loose nut had fallen between the brake band and the wheel hub, and prevented the band from tightening. the trouble was soon remedied, and the brake put in working order. "there--you are all ready for the road now," remarked ed. "thank you--very much," said cora quietly, but there was a world of meaning in her tones. ed looked into her eyes rather longer than perhaps was necessary. "come on; get in with us, ed," invited jack. "haven't seen you in an age. let's hear about the detroit team." "oh, i'm--i'm too dirty to get in the car, i'm afraid," objected ed, with a glance at the mud spots that were now turning to light-gray polka-dots on his clothes, in the strong sunlight. "nonsense!" cried jack heartily. "come along. walter will drive for cora, in case she is nervous. it needs a strong wrist in this soft ground." "oh, yes! do please steer for us," begged the still trembling isabel. "i'd feel so much safer--" "well, i like that!" cried corm with a light laugh. "is that the way you treat me, after having saved your life?" "but it was you-who--who almost ran us into the train, cora," answered isabel, giving her friend a little pinch on her now rosy cheek. "so you see it was your duty to save us." "well, i did it," replied cora, glad that she had come out of the affair with such flying colors. walter took ed's place at the steering wheel of the whirlwind, and the fisherman seated himself beside jack. then walter ran cora's car out of the mire of the meadow and into the road, the three girls remaining in the machine. "i suppose if the young ladies hadn't run you down we wouldn't have seen you the entire summer," said jack to ed as he ran the smaller machine along behind the touring car. "oh, indeed you would," answered ed. "i really intended looking you up in a day or two. you see, i have been very busy. what are you laughing at? because i said i was busy? well, i guess i have the busiest kind of business on hand. say, let me whisper," and he leaned over confidentially, though there was no need for it, as the other auto was some distance ahead. "i'm going into finance." "finance?" "yes. stocks--bonds--and so on, you know. bank stocks. think of that, jack, my boy!" "good for you! three cheers for the bank stock!" exclaimed jack in a half whisper. "in the new bank, i suppose?" "the correct supposition," answered ed. "i have been invited to subscribe for some of the new issue of stock, and i've decided to. i'm going over to get it in a day or two. i'm to pay partly in cash, and turn over to them some of my bonds and other negotiable securities that i inherited from father, who was a banker, you know. i think i am making a good investment." "not a bit of doubt about it," said jack. "i wish i had the chance." "i hear that sid wilcox wanted to get some of the stock, jack," went on ed. "he comes of age soon, and he will have some cash to invest. but, somehow, there's a prejudice against sid. he has not been asked to take stock, though the directors rectors know he has money." "well, i guess the trouble is he can't be depended on. he'd be peddling the stock all over the state, or putting it up for doubtful transactions, and i guess the directors wouldn't like that. he's a reckless sort. i shouldn't mind his fits of crankiness, if he would only leave girls out. but when he goes in for some kind of mischief harmless in itself, he invariably brings some girl into it, and she has to suffer in the scrape with him. it's not right of sid. but--speaking of angels--there he is now." jack's runabout, called the get there, had been climbing the hill back of the whirlwind, and both machines were now on a level stretch of road and approaching fisher's store--an "emporium," as the sign called it, and a place where one could get anything from a watch to a shoestring, if old jared fisher only knew that it was wanted before he went to town. it so happened, however, by some strange intervention of providence, that he never did know in time. but, at any rate, you could always get soda water--the kind that comes in the "push-in-the-cork bottles," and that was something. as the two autos drew up, the occupants beheld, standing on the steps of the store, sidney wilcox and ida giles. jack halted his car behind the whirlwind. "hello there!" called out ed. "seems to me i'm bound to meet all my friends to-day. how are you, sid?" ed leaped from jack's car and up the steps to greet sid. "oh, i'm so-so," was the rather drawling answer. "but what's the matter with you? been clamming?" "not exactly," replied ed, glancing down at the mud spots; "but i caught something, just the same." "so i see," responded sid, chuckling at his wit. "pity to take it all, though. you should have left some for the turtles. they like mud." jack, who followed ed, said something in conventional greeting to ida. but the girl with sid never turned her head to look in the direction of the whirlwind. cora remarked on this in a low voice to isabel and elizabeth. "i hear that you are going in for--er--wall street," said sid to ed in rather a sarcastic voice. "oh, no. nothing like that. no chance for a lamb like me in wall street. it's too much of a losing game." "oh, i don't know," drawled sid. "a fellow might make good, and then do--well, better." ed glanced at jack. how did sid know about ed's plan to take stock in the new bank? that was a question that each youth flashed to the other. there was something unpleasant in the manner of sidney wilcox. all in the party seemed to feel it. and as far as the girls were concerned, they noticed much of the same manner in ida, though jack and ed were not quite so critical. as for walter, he did not seem to be giving ida a thought. but it is doubtful if she was so indifferent toward him. still, she would not look in his direction while cora and her two chums were with him. corn walked slowly up the broad store steps; bess and belle following. "i'm simply choked," said cora with a laugh. "i never had such a thirsty run." ida seemed very much interested in the distant landscape. "the roads are awfully dry," she murmured. "and so am i," added elizabeth as she followed her sister and cora into the store. walter and jack trailed in after them, while ed stayed for a moment outside with ida and sid. the latter did not introduce ed to ida. it was a habit sid had, of never presenting his young men chums to his "girl," unless he could not avoid it. ida, perhaps, knew this, and she strolled to the other end of the porch. "how'd you make out in your exams?" asked ed of sid, for the latter attended college with jack. that is, he was in his study class, though not in the same grade socially. "oh, pretty fair. i cut most of 'em. i finish next year, and i don't intend to get gray hairs over any exams now." "you cut 'em?" repeated ed. "sure," and sid started toward his car, ida following. "so long." "well, you're not going away mad, are you?" asked ed with a laugh, wondering the while over the identity of the striking-looking girl whom sid so obviously refrained from introducing to him. "oh, not's so's you could notice it," was sid's answer as he began to tuck the dust robe over ida's lap. then sid cranked up his car, which he had named the streak, though it didn't always live up to the name, and soon he and the girl were out of sight around a turn in the road. "humph!" exclaimed ed as he entered the store. "i wonder where he heard about my plan to take--bank stock? i wish he didn't know of it. and i also wonder who that pretty girl was?" for ida was pretty, in spite of her reddish hair and her rather jealous disposition, which was reflected in her face. ed shook his head. he was puzzled over something. chapter iv twenty thousand dollars "say, jack," remarked ed a few days later, when the two were sprawled beside a brook, with rod and reel, "i believe i'll have to get better acquainted with the young folks out here. honestly, i feel wobbly when i get to talking to them. i've been out of touch with them so long that i'm afraid i'll ask after some dead and gone aunt or uncle, or for some brother that has been in trouble and isn't spoken of any more in polite society. for instance, who is ida--ida giles? you know--the girl who was with sid? he introduced me to her last night." "oh, ida--why--she's--just ida. that's all. but that's a good idea of yours. i was thinking myself that you ought to begin studying up the blue-book of chelton society. now, as to ida, the red-haired girl--" "not really red," corrected ed slowly, "but that bright, carroty shade--so deliciously like lobster a la--" "oh, pardon me," and jack assumed an affected manner. "of course, ida's hair is not really red--not merely--carroty is the very word needed. well, she is the daughter of the reverend mrs. giles. don't you remember the woman who always scolded us for everything? wouldn't let us even so much as take a turnip. and she wore such pious-looking spectacles that we dubbed her reverend mrs. giles. well, she still is ida's mother." "then i don't blame ida a bit. i'd be ida myself if i was brought up as she's been, though i suppose her mother means all right. it's curious what queer manners some people have. but i dare say we all have our own faults." "and, with all of them, i hope the girls love us still--even ida," added jack quickly. "now, those others--the beautiful robinson twins," pursued ed. "oh, yes. well, bess and belle are certainly the real thing in girls--right up to the minute. besides, they have an immensely rich papa. you've heard of him--perry robinson, the railroad king?" "oh, yes. and their mother, if one may be permitted to ask?" "certainly, fair sir--their mother is a wonderfully handsome woman, in a statuesque sort of way. very dignified, and all that. now, the twins are worth while." "exactly so," answered ed. "now i think--" he stopped suddenly, and quickly jerked up his rod, but not quite speedily enough, for he had the pleasure of seeing a fish slip wrigglingly off the hook. "biggest one to-day," he murmured as he adjusted some fresh bait. "now, as to the robinson twins. the only fault i have to find with them, from my limited acquaintance, is that they are not evenly divided. bess is--er--well, not to be too delicate about it--too fat--" "no, no, i beg of you!" exclaimed jack. "don't use that word. say too much adiposed." "sounds like indisposed," murmured ed; "but let it go at that. bess is too much adiposed, and belle--" "well?" "she is too un-adiposed, if you like it better. not to put to fine a point upon it, as mr. snagsby used to say--she's too thin." "not faults in either of them beyond repair," commented jack. "cora is very keen about them. thinks they're the best ever. she is very much interested in them." "how about jack?" teased ed. "he might have a perfectly pardonable interest in being interested in the twins--solely on his sister's account, however--solely an the part of his sister." "um!" murmured jack. "that's neither here nor there. to carry it a little further, and still discussing the twins, there is ed foster, who is always at college when he is not fishing. he has money to burn, and so he's going to set fire to some of it by entrusting it to the new city bank. "not quite money to burn," said ed as he carefully threw out the baited hook again. "i've about twenty thousand dollars that came from father's estate, and it is stipulated that it must be most carefully secured. i think the new bank a good investment. but as for that being a drawing-card in my favor, why look to yourself. here's jack kimball," went on ed, "the best musician at exmouth. the girls' pet, and, altogether, a very nice boy. i believe that's all--no, hold on. i never said a word about your weakness for chicken potpie, although you did appropriate my dish the last day at college." "i was hungry," pleaded jack. "but i thank you for your considerate description. do you think that you now have the chelton folks to rights?" "we haven't touched on walter pennington. he seems to be the whole thing with the girls," and ed did not try to disguise his tone of sarcasm. "oh, yes--walter," said jack. "oh, walter's all right. he seems to have more time to spend fussing around the girls than the rest of us have." "is that it?" asked ed. "i thought it was the other way about. that the girls had more time for walter than for the rest of us." "i don't pretend to understand you," remarked jack, pulling up quickly and looking in disgust at his empty hook. "but if you want anything--why, go in and win, as priscilla said to john alden. you can beat walter--you're handsomer." "drop that!" cried ed, looking for a clod of earth to throw at jack. then he ran his fingers through his thick, black hair. he was handsome, but he did not like it "cast up to him." "oh, i don't know," he murmured after a pause. "walter has a way with him. girls 'perfectly love' that uncertain shade of hair. it's capable of being made over to suit--" "knocking!" cried jack. "you're knocking! i'll tell walter. you called him a--" "a first-rate chap, and i mean it!" insisted ed warmly. "that's just what i think of walter pennington." "well, you know what i've always thought of him," and jack was equally enthusiastic. "walter is the kind of a fellow that will keep without canning." "meaning some others won't--such as sid, for example?" "well, he's very `close' sometimes, so to speak. at least very hard to understand. but let's talk about something else. when do you go over to the bank, to stand and deliver your good cash, bonds and securities for their stock?" "this very afternoon, may it please the court. and, by the same token, i should be getting home now. hope we won't meet anyone, or they might ask, as sid did, if i'd been clamming. i can't seem to keep out of the mud." they gathered up their fishing paraphernalia and walked out to the highway. "are you and your money going over in the machine?" asked jack. "certainly. why not? henry porter is going to loan me his runabout." "oh, i suppose it's all right, but it's a lot of money to carry with you alone--twenty thousand dollars." "and to hear you talk i might suspect that you had designs on it. i guess i'll get over to new city with it safe and sound. i hardly think i need a bodyguard." "humph! maybe not. i guess you'll be all right." "your sister seems much interested in motoring," remarked ed as they trudged along. "oh, yes, sis is just wild about it. she learned to run my car, and then began teasing for one of her own. we a were waiting for her seventeenth birthday to give it to her--mother and i--" "oh, i suppose you paid for part of it," remarked ed with a laugh. "no; but i ran it up from the garage for her. it's a fine, up-to-date car, and now that sis has it she's as happy as a kitten lapping up sweet cream." "and she's as plucky as--um--what shall i say? i never saw any one manage a car better than she did the day the brake wouldn't work and they nearly ran into the train. i declare, when i saw her dive through that gap in the fence and steer toward me through the pond, i felt like yelling. i was almost frozen stiff. couldn't do a thing but look on." "and sis thawed you out with a mud bath," said jack. "oh, cora's all right, even if i am her brother." "she certainly is a star, if i may be pardoned the expression. well, here's where i'm going to leave you. i've got to stop at the post-office. people have gotten into the habit lately, and a mean habit it is, of mailing me bills about the first of the month. one would think they might let a fellow have a vacation from that sort of thing once in a while." "oh, i get mine, too. and this month they're rather heavier than usual, as it's cora's birthday." "there's sid," suddenly remarked ed, pointing down the road to where sidney wilcox was coming around a turn, walking slowly. "yes, and i guess he gets his bills, too." "likely," admitted ed. "he seems to have one now, and it doesn't appear to please him," for sid was intently studying a sheet of paper as he walked along. he turned back and looked up the road. "who's he looking for?"' asked jack. "give it up. no, i don't, either. there she is. it's ida giles." sidney waited for the girl to come up to him. then he put the sheet of paper in his pocket, and the two walked along together until they came abreast of ed and jack. sid nodded, which salutation was returned by the two fishermen. ida made a slight motion with her head, which might or might not have been taken for a bow. then the two passed on. "my, but they're rushing it pretty fast!" commented jack. "oh, sid owns a nice little car--built for two," spoke ed. "that makes it worth while for her." "yes, ida does get in a lot of runs." jack turned to look at the girl. she was rather becomingly dressed in a dark-blue gingham sailor suit. her red hair seemed fairly to blaze in the summer sunlight. her companion slouched along in that indifferent way common to many youths of neutral temperaments--nothing much decided about them save their dislike for hard facts. ed and jack had now reached the beginning of the sidewalk leading into town. they noticed a torn envelope lying on the flags. it was, as they could see, addressed to sidney wilcox, and in one corner was the imprint of an auto firm, which made the style of car that sid drove. the fishermen smiled at each other, but made no remark. perhaps the envelope had contained a bill. "i may take a spin out on the road this afternoon," said jack at parting. "cora and the twins are going out, and we have promised to trail along after them." "we?" questioned ed. "yes. walter and i, of course." "oh, of course--walter." "jealous!" called jack. "but cheer up. perhaps we shall meet' you, and you'll have a chance." "oh, i'll be too busy with the cash, i'm afraid. but, at any rate, give my regards to your sister." "surest thing you know. how about the twins?" "well--er--never mind." "all right. say, ed, come over to dinner some night. i want mother to meet you." "all right, i will." ed turned away. he seemed unusually thoughtful. was it jack's remark about carrying so much money, unprotected, along the highway that caused it? it was a large sum--twenty thousand dollars. but he was strong enough to take care of himself. besides, he would have his revolver with him. he decided on this, though at first it had not occurred to him. then he laughed aloud at his worriment and his prospective precautions. who ever heard of any one being robbed on the road from chelton to new city? chapter y an impromptu race "all ready!" it was cora who spoke. she and her chums, the robinson twins, and a fourth girl, were about to start out for the afternoon run jack had mentioned. the fourth girl was mary downs, a little millinery model and helper, to whom cora had promised a ride in the new car. it was mary's initial spin, and, as cora cranked up, the young girl, with the queer, deep-set eyes, and the long, oval face so dear to the hearts of model-hunters, fairly quivered with anticipation. "are you all right, mary?" asked cora with a reassuring smile. "oh, yes," replied the girl with a happy little laugh. "this is--just glorious!" "wait just a minute," begged bess. "i want to tie my hat on more securely. i do hope we get our auto bonnets soon." "madam said they would be finished to-day," remarked mary. "they are very pretty, i think." madam julia was mary's employer. "chug! chug!" sounded from the motor as it speeded up, momentarily, drowning all conversation. then, as cora climbed in and adjusted the throttle and shifted the spark lever, she let in the clutch, and the car rolled gently away. "where were the boys to meet us?" asked belle. "at the turnpike junction," replied cora as she deftly threw in the high speed gear, and that without the terrific grinding of the cogs that betrays the inexperienced hand. the whirlwind leaped forward, and the girls clutched their hats. "jack promised he wouldn't be a minute late," went on cora as she turned out to avoid a rut. "jack usually is on time," murmured isabel. she almost lisped, yet the more you heard it the more you thought it was but a pretty little catch in her voice--in the accent--after the manner of babies, who seem to defer all they have to say to their listener. every one loved isabel. "oh, you think so, do you?" asked her sister. "jack never makes any mistakes apparent to belle," she added with an arch glance at cora, with whom she was riding on the front seat. "never mind," murmured belle. mary listened to the talk with evident pleasure. she was not accustomed to this sort of perfectly frank jokes. "there they are!" suddenly cried cora as the get there swerved into sight around the corner. jack, who was at the wheel of his car, with walter beside him, swung in close to his sister's machine. "all right?" asked jack, looking critically at cora as she slowed up the big car, and noting her firm grip of the steering wheel. "fine and dandy!" exclaimed the girl, with the expression that makes that sort of slang a parody rather than a convenience. "and if there aren't sid and ida!" exclaimed belle. "seems to me we run into them wherever we go." "as long as it's only metaphorically and not mechanically speaking, it's all right," observed walter. the yellow streak glided smoothly along. "quite a parade," remarked jack. "let's make it a race," suggested cora, her dark eyes flashing in anticipation. jack glanced at walter. the relations between him and sid were rather strained. as for ida--well, ida was credited with "running after walter," and the sentiment of lads toward such girls is too well known to need describing. "oh, yes! do let us race!" chimed in bess. "it would be such fun!" "all right," agreed jack. "that is, if sid is, willing." "will you race, sidney?" called cora, before the occupants of the yellow car had had time to greet the others. "yes, certainly," he assented. "i would like nothing better." "then we'll have to handicap the girls," suggested walter. "they have by far the fastest machine." "but it's brand new," objected cora, "and isn't tuned up yet, as the two runabouts are. besides, look who we are--girls." "very charming ones, i'm sure," said sid quickly, but, somehow, his voice did not ring true. "handicap," spoke walter. "i suppose it's right, but you see--er--we fellows could--" he was floundering about for a way of saying that the girls should not be penalized by giving the drivers of the two runabouts a start. for, in spite of their small size and less power the runabouts were speedy cars. it seemed as if walter did not want to take the obviously fair advantage due him. "oh, no," declared cora. "we'll let you handicap us all you wish. we are willing to test the whirlwind on its merits." "i should think so," sneered ida, and then she turned disdainfully away, as if the landscape held more of interest for her than did the details of a race. "who is that forward girl?" asked quiet mary of bess. "ida giles," was the whispered reply. "she looked at me as if i did not belong in a motor car," went on the little milliner, with that quick perception acquired by business experience. "well, she doesn't belong in the one she's in," retorted bess kindly. "i guess you imagine she meant something like that. ida is not really mean. she is merely thoughtless." "that's the very meanest kind of meanness," insisted mary, "for, when folks do a thing through thoughtlessness they do not know enough to be careful next time." bess smiled to assure mary that the milliner's model was on an equal footing with the girls in the whirlwind, at all events. "line up!" called jack. "get ready for the race. we'll not insist on a handicap for you, cora." sid sent his car directly to the middle of the road, the very best place. "better let the touring car go there," suggested walter in as even a tone as he could command. "it will need lots of room, and the road's not very wide." "that's right," added jack. "a runabout can go on either side, then." "i don't know," began sid. "cora ought to beat, and yet with two fellows driving against her--" "oh, if it's a matter of girls," almost sneered ida, "i'll drive the streak." "good idea!" hurriedly spoke jack. "that will `make the match even. suppose we take a girl to drive our car, walter?" walter glanced rather ruefully at his companion. "why--er--yes," he drawled. "suppose we take--" "bess," finished jack, quickly. "she knows considerable about a car, and she's driven this one." somehow, the idea of having bess as a rival to ida suggested fun to jack. "now we have it," went on cora's brother, as bess alighted from the whirlwind and entered the get there. "are we all ready?" "where's walter going?" asked cora, for he had given up his seat to jack, who moved to make room for bess. mary, cora and belle were in the touring car. "i guess i'd better get into the big machine,", decided walter. "three such pretty girls in it all alone are an unequal division of beauty and talent--the last for myself, of course." he moved toward the whirlwind. ida frowned. she had rather hoped to have matters so arranged that walter would be with her. cora saw the frown and laughed merrily as walter slipped into the seat beside her. "i suppose you think you are going to do the mascoting for this car," she said. "at your service, mademoiselle," replied walter, trying to bow, a politeness rather difficult of accomplishment in a small seat. "do anything you like, but don't run me into the ditch. my watch is deadly afraid of ditches." then cora introduced mary, the little model blushing refreshingly. walter made a mental note of mary's eyes, and the soft tints, like the bloom of a peach, in her cheeks. the two other girls were not slow to observe his interest. it was odd, thought cora, how boys go in for the romantic sort--and models! "all ready?" called jack again. ida shook her head. she looked critically at the clutch lever, from her seat at the wheel, which sid had relinquished to her. the lever was not properly adjusted, and she called her companion's attention to it. sid shifted it, and then walter called from his seat beside cora. "all ready here!" "it's about time," murmured jack, jokingly. the cars, which had been cranked, were "chug-chugging" away, and vibrating with the speed of the unleashed motors. three clutch pedals were released, and the three cars moved forward. there was a grinding of gears, as ida threw in a higher speed. her hand and ear were not quite true, but to the surprise of the others her car darted ahead. it was speedier than had been thought. it was a beautifully clear road, and the machines were now fairly flying along it. bess clung desperately to the wooden rim of the steering wheel of jack's car. "keep her straight," he cautioned. "don't work so hard at it. an auto is like a horse--a light, firm touch is what it needs." "um!" murmured bess. she was afraid to open her mouth lest she should lose her breath in the wind. "look out for that wagon!" walter suddenly called to cora. a clumsy vehicle was some distance in advance, and seemed to be standing still, so slow was the movement. ida was nearer to it than the others, and as she passed it she swung safely to one side, giving several disconcerting blasts on the horn as she did so. she was proving herself a good driver. somehow bess had managed to distance the big car and had swung to second place. cora thought she had her machine going at full speed, but either it had not "warmed up" yet, or she was not properly feeding the gasolene, and had not correctly adjusted the sparking device. just as cora was about to pass the wagon, which feat bess had now safely negotiated, the old man driving it seemed to awaken from a nap. he appeared to remember something he had forgotten and pulled his horses to one side--the wrong side--toward cora's car, which was rushing right at him! the whirlwind was almost upon the wagon! "mercy!" screamed. mary. "we'll be smashed!" "steady!" called cora, though her face went white. walter reached over, as if to take the wheel from the girl. she stopped him by a shake of her head, and then braced herself for what was coming. she screamed at the top of her fresh, clear voice: "stop! stop! don't turn! stop!" the farmer heard just in time. he fairly pulled the horses back on their haunches, and the wagon came to a stop. there was barely room for the auto to get past, but cora managed it. "oh!" sighed mary in thankfulness. "wasn't that awful?" "a narrow escape," assented isabel. "but not as bad as the other one was. you should have seen that! we're safe now." the whirlwind careened along the road, from the shelving gutter back into the middle of the highway. "why didn't you let me take the wheel?" asked walter, looking at cora in a strange sort of way. "i couldn't seem to let go," she said with a nervous little laugh. "i knew, of course, that you could run it more safely than i could, but somehow i couldn't seem to let go. my fingers appeared to be glued to the wheel." "i certainly could not have done better," admitted walter. "but i thought i might help you. look at ida, though! she is going like grim death." "if she doesn't encounter another farmer she may be all right," said cora. "but i wonder why i don't go faster. oh, no wonder. i'm on second speed. i forgot to throw in the high gear. here it goes. now watch me pass them." she advanced the lever, and the car shot forward. it was going at a greatly increased speed, and easily passed bess and jack. "here's where we leave you," called cora. "it's about time," replied jack. "i thought something was wrong with you. "third gear," answered cora. "forgot i had it." her voice floated back on the wind. with a merry shout she turned on more gasolene and advanced the spark. she was almost up to ida. the race was to end at a bridge, which was only a few rods ahead. "careful," cautioned walter to the fair driver beside him. she was making some rather reckless curves. "i'm all right," declared cora. "i'm sure we'll win," exclaimed mary. the whirlwind was now close to sid's car. he heard it coming and looked around. then he caught the steering wheel from ida, leaning over to reach it. "foul!" shouted walter. "that's not allowed!" "never mind!" panted cora. "i'm not afraid to let him steer. i can beat him!" jack stood up in his machine. he was angry, and showed it in his face. "stop, sis," he called to cora. "the race is yours. don't pass him." "she can't!" retorted sid. "oh, i'm afraid!" gasped bess, beside jack. "he's steering right in front of her to cut her off. he won't turn out." then, as if realizing that the race would be counted lost to them for sid's violation of the rules, ida tried to displace the hands of her, companion from the wheel. "let me steer!" she exclaimed. "i want to! let me, sid!" "no!" he answered angrily. "i'm going to run it now." the car was swaying from side to side because of the erratic motion imparted to it, due to the struggle between sid and ida to gain possession of the wooden circlet. "let me take it! i want to beat her!" spoke ida in a tense whisper, and sid, with a queer look at her, nodded. he released his grip of the wheel, and again ida took it in a firm grasp. but the change was not skillfully enough made, and the next moment the streak cut diagonally across the road, right in front of the whirlwind. "oh!" screamed cora, in spite of herself, and bess and mary added their frightened cries. cora swung the wheel as far to the right as it would go. there was a grinding sound as she threw on the emergency brake, and the powerful clutch of it held the rear wheels in so firm a grip that the big rubber tires fairly slid along the road. "sid," cried ida, "they'll collide with us! do something! do it quick!" he stood up and tried to take ida's hands from the wheel again, but she seemed to have lost her head. the big car was still careening toward them, though the brakes were slowing it up. then ida, with a flash of instinct, did the only thing possible. instead of putting on brakes and trying to stop, she pressed the accelerator pedal, and the little car shot forward at a momentarily increased speed. between them ida and sid managed to steer it into a ditch, and brought up with a crash against a fence, splintering the rails. ida, with more force than she thought she possessed, jammed on the brakes, and the streak, with a groan and a jar, came to a stop. then there came a jolt, a ripping sound, and cora's big, four-cylindered machine banged into the streak, for, in spite of all cora and walter could do, the whirlwind could not be stopped in time. but, fortunately, the damage to the large car was not great, for as she saw that a collision was inevitable, cora had quickly shifted the wheel, and but a glancing blow had been struck. a mud guard was torn from the whirlwind. only cora's plucky driving, and her emergency stop, had prevented a worse accident. "well," remarked sid in a strange voice, "we're alive, at any rate." "yes," added bess sharply, "and no thanks to somebody, either." "if you mean me--" began sid, the color flaming into his face. "look at your radiator!" suddenly exclaimed walter. "it's sprung a leak!" a stream of water, trickling down from the front of the streak testified to this. a piece of the broken fence rail had jammed into the radiator, puncturing several coils and bending others out of place. "no more go in her," observed sid ruefully. "we'll have to be towed back home." "is your car damaged much, cora?" asked walter, for the girl had leaped out and was critically examining the auto. "only the mud guard," she replied as she reached up to the steering wheel, touched the levers and shut off the engine. chapter vi getting a tow for a few minutes every one seemed to be talking at once, and there was considerable confusion. sid and ida came in for a number of rather angry glances, for the mishap seemed to be due entirely to their thoughtless conduct, and that their runabout had been the most damaged did not appear to lessen their offense. walter took the wheel of the whirlwind, which cora gladly relinquished to him, and soon had the car out of the ditch and upon the highway. the streak, of course, could not move under its own power for more than a short distance, as the water had all leaked out of the radiator, and, there being none to cool the cylinders, to operate it was to invite disaster. jack and bess had alighted from the get there. jack was very angry. "nice way to race!" he exclaimed. "i've got a good mind to--do something to you, sid wilcox!" "oh, you have, eh?" sneered sid. "well, i don't know but what i might like to take it out of you for your sister cutting so close across my course. i guess i'm the one to get mad." "you sneak! she did nothing of the sort!" cried jack. "oh, jack! please don't!" begged his sister. "if it was my fault, i'm ready to apologize." "your fault!" exclaimed walter. "it wasn't your fault at all. it was--er--well, sid and ida were to blame." "that's the way it looked to me," declared cora. ida stared at jack's sister for a moment, and then, with an open sneer on her face, turned deliberately away. "oh, i'm so glad we escaped, anyhow!" ejaculated mary downes. her voice attracted sid's attention. he had not noticed the little work girl before. at first he appeared to scowl, and then he smiled most pleasantly. the action was not lost upon belle, though cora, puzzling over ida's manner, had not seen it. "come on, get in, girls," called walter from his seat in the touring car. "no use standing there in the sun." "you've got to tow me," ordered sid in a peremptory manner. "got to?" repeated walter, with a curious inflection. "hush!" whispered cora. "let's do it, walter. jack is so angry at him that i'm afraid something will happen." "very well. just as you say," replied walter gallantly. jack turned away in disgust. he was evidently trying hard to keep his temper under control. "that he and ida should deliberately endanger the lives of several people, to say nothing of their own risk, seems past belief," jack murmured to walter. "i've a good mind to teach him a much-deserved lesson. we ought to leave him to walk home." "oh, i do dislike rows!" exclaimed cora, and she whispered in jack's ear: "don't bother with him, bud. he isn't worth it." "you're right about that," was the response, and the lad looked affectionately at his sister. she had gotten over the momentary fright, and there was now a pretty flush on her face. "i'll overlook it this time, sis," went on jack. "perhaps he'll get his lesson later--without me having to give it to him." "aren't some of you going to tow me?" asked sid rather disconsolately. "i can't run my car the way it is." "don't ask any favors of them," cora heard ida whisper to sid. "we'll walk." "i will not," he answered sharply. "i'm not going to leave my car here. will you give me a tow, cora?" he asked. "seeing that you made me smash--" "she did not!" cried jack. "and if you say so you're--" "jack!" exclaimed his sister. "well, he knows it was his own fault," concluded jack, not wishing to accuse ida. sid looked a bit worried. "we'll tow you," said cora simply. "thank you," responded sid. "got a rope?" asked walter. "here's one," answered the owner of the streak, producing a strong rope from the rear of his runabout. "looks as if you were in the habit of getting towed," remarked walter. "yes. i've had bad luck with this car." sid and walter were soon busy arranging the two cars, so that the big auto would tow the disabled one. "i want the boys to separate," whispered cora to bess. "i'm so afraid jack and sid will quarrel." "not if they keep as far apart as they are now," was the answer, for jack had gotten back into his own car, and was looking on. ida, too, seemed to keep herself at a distance from the other girls. "well, i guess that will hold," remarked walter as he put the last knot in the rope. "here comes ed foster!" suddenly exclaimed jack as the puffing of an auto was heard and a machine came in sight. "now i guess we're all here. hello, ed!" "hello, yourself," replied ed. "well, what's up now? somebody turned turtle?" "no, but somebody's turned--" began jack, on the point of saying something uncomplimentary about sid, but cora interrupted him. "we had a race, and this is how i--that is, we--won it," she said with a laugh. ed stepped out of his car and walked to where sid's silent machine stood. "radiator, eh?" he questioned. "a bad break." "that's what. cora collided with me--but it was partly my fault," added sid quickly for jack's benefit. "and look at my nice, new mud guard," spoke cora. "see how it hangs down, like a dog's broken leg. isn't it a shame? i guess we'll have to tear it off, so we can run." "let me look at it," suggested ed. "maybe i can spring it back into place." "i never thought of that,"--remarked walter. ed was searching in his tool-box, and presently drew out some strong string. "i never go without a bit of cord, a knife and some pins for just such emergencies as these," he said with a laugh. "i never know when i may be shipwrecked on a desert island." ed skillfully sprung the guard back, and as one of the rivets was torn out, he lashed the protector into place. it was only a temporary repair, but it would protect the occupants of the car from a shower of dust or mud. "there," said ed finally. "i guess that will answer. the road ahead is pretty muddy. too much moisture from a sprinkling-cart, i guess. i caught some of it." cora turned to see if everything was in readiness for a start, and was surprised to find mary in close conversation with ida. both girls and sid were in a group an the other side of the whirlwind. and another thing cora noticed was that the faces of both ida and mary were unusually flushed. "that's rather odd--that mary and ida should get so chummy," murmured cora. "sid must have introduced them to each other:" a moment later ida looked over, and seeing cora watching her, she quickly turned away and walked over to where ed was locking up his toolbox. she placed her hand on the seat of his small auto and began talking to him. "i hear you are going into business," cora heard ida say. "well, not exactly business," replied ed. "i'm going to have some interest in the bank at new city." "oh, yes. i heard about it." "say, ed, have you all that--" began jack, and then he stopped quickly. he had been on the point of asking ed if he had with him the twenty thousand dollars in cash and negotiable securities, but he quickly reflected that such a question was not a proper one to ask on a public road. "got what?" inquired ed with a laugh, but at the same time cora saw him frown slightly at her brother. "i meant to say, have you any of those fish with you that we caught last time?" asked jack, laughing rather uneasily. "yes, i have them," replied ed, which was his way of replying to jack's implied question. "going over to new city?" asked sid, coming around from an inspection of the broken radiator. "yes; i've some business over there, and as it's getting late i'll have to hurry. i'll bid you all good-by. hope you get safely home." ed jumped into his car, which he had quickly cranked up, and called a general farewell. "so long," answered jack. "come on," called walter, as ed's car puffed out of sight. "we'll have a load to pull now, cora." "perhaps i had better get in with jack and bess," remarked belle. "we can manage it--if we squeeze some." then she blushed, and everybody laughed. "the more the merrier," replied jack. "i think it will be a good idea, though. we'll get home quicker than cora and her tow will." belle climbed into the get there. this left cora alone with walter in the big car. ida and sid stood on the ground, apparently waiting for an invitation to get in somewhere. "i'll have to steer my car," said sid. "you had better get in cora's machine, ida, for it's no fun riding in a towed auto." "yes, do come in here," said cora quickly, but ida hung back and looked miserably unhappy. "come on," and walter added his invitation. "i'm going to be the 'shuffler,' and i may as well have something worth while to 'shuffle' while i'm at it." ida smiled at this. it was evident that she could not resist after this appeal--especially as it came from walter, who found much favor in her eyes. ida climbed into the big car nimbly enough, and sat on the thick cushions in the roomy tonneau beside mary. "i guess she'd rather be in front," remarked bess in a whisper to belle, but she took care that jack should not hear. walter started cora's car off, and sid's followed, with himself at the wheel, looking very glum. jack brought up in the rear with the pretty twins. the whirlwind easily towed the weight of the disabled runabout, and the autoists were soon approaching town. "let me out at the post-office, please," begged mary of cora, as they rolled through the village streets. "i had better not let madam see me out riding." "why, she gave you permission, didn't she?" asked cora in surprise. "but i would rather get out here," insisted mary, not answering the question directly. "if you'll cast me loose, i'll run my machine in this shop," suddenly called sid, as they passed a rather tumble-down shack on a side street. "but you're not going to let old smith tinker with it, are you?" asked walter. "oh, i don't know what i'll do with it!" snapped sid. "may as well leave it here as anywhere else." smith's place was a second-rate blacksmith shop, while at chelton center, a little farther on, there was a fine garage--newton's--the one at which cora and the twins had met the handsome machinist. "why don't you take it to newton's?" asked cora. "we'll go there with you. i--er--, i know the machinist there." "i prefer to leave it here," said sid shortly. "stop, please, and i'll loosen the rope." "oh!" exclaimed cora shortly. she could not understand sid. walter stopped her car, and before it had come to a full halt sid was detaching the tow rope. mary took this chance to alight from the whirlwind, as they were not far from the post-office, and ida followed her. sid cranked up for the short run into the blacksmith shop. ida and mary were walking down the street together. "go ahead!" sid called to walter. "oh, you're welcome," replied walter sarcastically. "not the least trouble, thank you. glad at any time--" sid shot at him an angry glance over his shoulder. "i'd like to know who had a better right to haul me out of the ditch?" he said sneeringly. jack, with the twins, had run on. as walter started cora's machine off again, they saw a man coming out of the smithy. he helped sid push the car in, and then stood talking with him in a friendly sort of fashion. the man's clothing was unkempt, and his general appearance anything but prepossessing. "who's that?" asked cora. "him, you mean?" inquired walter. "oh, that's lem gildy. or just plain lem, if you like that better." "what does he do?" "nothing. easily said. yet i've heard it remarked that he'd do anything for money." "curious that sid should be on such friendly terms with such a character." "rather," remarked walter, and he turned to see sid pointing at the big car, while lem gildy was nodding his head as if assenting to something. chapter vii twenty thousand dollars lost edward foster, as he ran his machine along the country road toward new city, where he was to transact his business at the bank, was thinking of many things. and not all of them were connected with the large sum of money and the bonds which he was to exchange for stock. a certain bright-eyed girl figured largely in his reveries. "guess i'd better put on a little more speed," he said to himself. "it's going to take some time to get this all straightened out, and i don't like to have such a large sum with me on the road." he speeded up his car, and was soon on the outskirts of the city, where he had to go slower, threading his way in and out among many vehicles. he reached the bank shortly before noon, was greeted by the president and the secretary, who were expecting him, and was shown into a private office. "well, we have the stock all ready for you," said the president genially. it was not every day that his bank disposed of such a large block. "i trust you will find it a good investment." "i believe i will," replied ed as he reached his hand in his inner pocket to take out the wallet that contained the money and bonds. "i looked into--" he stopped suddenly. a blank look came over his face. hurriedly he felt in another pocket. then he began a rapid search through his clothes. "what's the matter?" asked the secretary. "did you mislay your valuables?" "yes--no--i don't see--" murmured ed. all the while he was making a frantic search. his face paled. the bank officials looked anxiously on. "can't you find it?" inquired the president. "i've either lost my wallet,--or it's been stolen!" burst out ed desperately. "how could it have been stolen?" asked the secretary. "i don't know," was the answer. "i don't see how it could have been, as, from the time it was in my pocket until now, i did not leave my auto--" he stopped quickly. the memory of the scene alongside the road, where the machines had collided, came back to him with vivid distinctness. he had alighted there, and-he pursued his reflections no further, but hurriedly got up from the chair. "i must go back at once," he said. "i will make a search. i think i know where the loss may have taken place." "or the theft," suggested the president. "no," said ed slowly, "i don't believe it was a theft." "shall we send for a detective? will you take one of our porters or a watchman with you?" asked the secretary. "no; i think i'll make a search myself, first, thank you. and please don't tell the police--yet. i may have dropped it. i'll let you know as soon--as soon as i go to a certain place and look. there is time enough to notify the authorities afterward. i'll telephone you if i don't find it, and then i'll tell the police in chelton. but i must hurry." "yes; you had better lose no time," advised the president. "the thief--if there, was one--could easily dispose of those securities. as for the money--?" "he would have no trouble in spending that," finished ed. "yes, i'll go back at once." he hurried out to his auto, and was soon speeding back over the road on which he had come. he reached the spot where the auto collision had occurred, and where he had helped fix cora's machine. jumping from the car he looked carefully over the ground, but could find no trace of the missing wallet, containing the equivalent of twenty thousand dollars. "i must hurry to tell the police," he murmured as he urged his machine forward at top speed. a little later cora and walter, who had returned to chelton, saw ed standing on the steps of the police station. "why!" cora exclaimed to walter in some surprise, "i thought ed was in new city, attending to that bank business." "he ought to be," commented walter. then, noting ed's white face, he added: "something's happened!" a moment later jack, who had left the robinson twins at their home, drove up in his runabout, and stopped it beside his sister's larger car. he, too, saw ed foster's white face. "what's the matter, ed?" he called quickly. "are you hurt?" "no," was the answer, and the voice was strained. "but something has happened," insisted cora as she alighted from her car and started up the steps of the police station. "yes," he said, and his voice trembled, "something has happened." "what?" asked jack. "i've lost twenty thousand dollars--or--else it has been stolen!" "twenty thousand dollars!" cried jack. "the money you were taking to the bank?" ed nodded. "where?" was jack's next question. "that's what i don't know. if i did i'd go get it." "but if it was stolen--" began cora. "the thief is far enough away from here now," finished ed, trying to smile. "however, i think i lost it near where the collision took place. i just came from there to report the matter to the police." "but how could you lose it?" asked cora, taking off her heavy driving gloves and fanning her face with them. "i don't know, unless when i leaned over to fix the mud guard of your auto the wallet may have slipped from my pocket. but i've looked every inch about that spot," and then ed related how he had come to miss the money and securities. "oh, we must go back and help you look!" exclaimed cora quickly. "of course we will, won't we, jack--walter?" "sure," replied her brother, and walter gravely nodded. he was trying to recall every incident of the happenings after the collision. "we'll go right away," went on cora. "crank up, walter. few persons go over that road in the afternoon, and maybe we can find it." "oh, i assure you that it's useless," declared ed. "i am only waiting here to report the matter to chief jenkins, and then i'm going to telephone the officials at the bank in new city, as i promised i would." "can't you stop payment?" asked jack. "not on the money, and not very easily on the negotiable securities. that's the unfortunate part of it. if it had been a check i could." "queer, i almost had a premonition that something might happen to that twenty thousand," said jack slowly. "though i suppose if i say that it makes it look bad for me," he added with a smile. "oh, no," ed answered, seriously enough. "of course not." "come on; let's hurry back," suggested cora. she re-entered the car, which shook from the running of the ungeared motor that walter had started for her. "really, cora," began ed, "it is useless for you to take the trouble to go back and hunt for it, though i'm sure it's very kind--" "it's no trouble at all." "but have you been home to dinner?" asked ed. "no. walter and i stopped at a little wayside restaurant and had lunch. come on, we'll hurry back to the place where the collision took place. i'm sure we'll find the wallet. i'm very lucky that way." "let me wish you the best of luck," said ed with an attempt at gallantry. "i'd go with you, only i must give the chief all the particulars, in case it's stolen, you know. then i must telephone to the bank." "that's all right," put in jack. "go ahead. we'll make a hunt for that small fortune. can i do anything for you here?" "no, thanks. i think not. you are going to have a useless errand, though, i fear, but i appreciate what you are doing for me." "come on--hurry!" cried cora, all impatient to be off, and then, when walter climbed in beside her and jack sent his car off, following the big machine of his sister, ed disappeared behind the door of the police station. chapter viii a vain search "here's where the collision occurred!" exclaimed cora a little later, when her car and jack's, having been sent at a fast speed down the road, came to a halt, and she directed her brother's attention to the spot. "no, this isn't it," objected walter. "it's farther on. it's right near an old stump, don't you remember?" "oh, yes," answered cora as she sent her car ahead again. "this is where we nearly ran into the wagon. i'm so excited i can't think straight." "well, be sure you steer straight!" cried jack from the rear. "i don't want to run into you. better let walter take the wheel." "indeed, i'll do nothing of the sort!" cried cora, laughing. "with all due respect to you, walter, of course," she added with a bright look up into the face of her companion. "but don't you think i can manage my machine pretty well?" "more than pretty and more than well," was her escort's reply. "jack is a base defamer of your ability." "oh, you had to say that, walt!" cried jack, the irrepressible. "push on. we want to get that money before some one walks off with it." they were soon at the spot, where many tracks in the road showed that there the collision had taken place. here was where ed had alighted to fix cora's car. his small machine had on a set of peculiar tires, and the impressions and indentations of the rubber shoes, which were new, were plainly, visible in the road. stopping their machines alongside the highway, the three young people began a careful search of the dusty stretch. they went over every inch of the ground, particularly in the vicinity of the place where ed had stopped to fix the broken mud guard. but there was no sign of the pocketbook. "maybe it was dropped farther back," suggested jack. "well, we'll try there," assented cora, and for ten minutes they walked up and down the road, some distance back from the place where ed had alighted. "now try farther on," was walter's suggestion, and they did this. but all to no purpose. they were not rewarded by the welcome sight of a brown leather wallet, bulging with riches. "it's no use," said jack. "oh, let's try a little longer," begged cora. "well, if he dropped it before he got here, or after he left, we might as well make the entire trip to new city, and then reverse and go to chelton," went on jack. "and we can't look over every inch of all the distance." "we can drive along slowly," was cora's idea. "the wallet is so large that it could easily be seen. it's too bad we haven't sid and ida along to help hunt for it. and the robinson girls, and mary. the more eyes, the better. i'll go on to new city, if you'll make a search on the road from here to chelton, jack." "oh, i don't know as it would do any good." "it won't do any harm," said walter. "that is, if cora isn't too tired." "oh, i should love to go. i can't get enough of my new car. will you come, walter?" "of course." "then, jack, you go back to chelton and keep a lookout on both sides of the road." "hard to do that with one pair of eyes," was her brother's reply. "i wish i had some one to ride with me. but go ahead; i'll do the best i can." "it would be a good plan," assented cora, "to have a person with you. if you could pick up some one--" "or run across somebody," added jack with a grin. "no, jack, i'm serious. don't joke. even a stranger would do. some man--" "here comes a man now!" exclaimed walter as an individual came in sight around a bend in the road. the man was not very well dressed. "i don't like his looks," said jack in a low voice. "he seems like a tramp." "i don't blame you for not liking his looks," interrupted walter. "that's lem gildy." "the man we saw talking to sid when he ran his auto into the blacksmith shop?" asked cora. walter nodded. "humph!" mused jack. "i don't exactly fancy telling lem gildy about a pocketbook containing twenty thousand dollars lying alongside the road. he might not admit that he saw it if he happened to spy it while with me, and later on he might come back and pick it up." "well, don't tell him what you're looking for," suggested cora with ready wit. "just say it's--er--a--er--" "say it's a lady's pocketbook," put in walter, "and then he'll know it's got everything in it but money. that's playing a safety with a vengeance." "oh, so that's your opinion of us, is it?" asked cora quickly. "but, after all, jack, i think it's the best plan to ask him to ride back with you, and have him watch one side of the road. of course, he's rather dirty--i mean his clothes--and it's not nice to sit alongside of him, but--" "oh, i don't mind clean dirt," interrupted jack. "it's only garden soil on lem's clothes. he does odd jobs, you know." "not very often," added walter. "but go ahead, jack. he's coming nearer. i don't believe you can do better than ask him to ride back to chelton with you. needn't be too specific about what's in the pocketbook. but two pairs of eyes are better than one, you know." "all right," assented jack. "here goes." lem gildy was shuffling along the road. he was a particularly unprepossessing man, with a reddish growth of whiskers which he never seemed to take the trouble to shave off, and they stuck out like so many bristles in a half-worn toothbrush. his teeth were yellow, and his habit of chewing tobacco was not to be commended. in short, he was a "shiftless" character, and nice persons had very little to do with him. "hello, lem!" called jack pleasantly. "hello," was the rather surly answer, and lem shot a suspicious glance at jack. it was not often that the young and wealthy jack kimball condescended to speak to lem gildy, and lem realized it. "want a ride?" went on jack, trying to make his voice sound natural. "don't look as if you was goin' my way," replied lem with a grin. then he turned his gaze on cora, and the beautiful girl could not repress a shudder as she felt the bold glance of the man. "oh, i'm going to turn around," declared jack. "i'm going back to chelton. that's where you're headed for, i take it?" "sure. that's where i'm goin', and i'm tired, too. i've had a long walk this mornin', and--" "are you working in the blacksmith shop?" asked walter quietly. "no. what made you think that?" asked lem quickly. "if you think--" then he stopped suddenly. an indignant look, that lem had assumed, faded from his face. "no, i wasn't workin' there," he went on. "i--er--i just stopped in to see about gettin' a piece of iron." "well, do you want to ride back with me?" asked jack, who wondered at walter's question. "that's what i do, if you're goin' my way." "yes, i'll turn around in a minute. go ahead, cora and walter. get back as soon as you can." jack cranked up his car, got in, and, running in a half circle, steered it to where lem was standing. "i ain't much in the habit of ridin' in these here kind of wagons," remarked lem with a smirk. "i hope nothin' happens t' us." "i guess nothing will. but, lem, i'm not going to give you a ride for nothing," said jack. the man drew back suspiciously. he had expected something like this, his manner seemed to say. "i ain't got any money," he whined. "no, it's not money," went on jack. "i only want you to help me look for something." "look for suthin'?" "yes; along the road." "what's the matter? lose part of your autymobil?" "no; it's a pocketbook--a wallet." "a wallet?" exclaimed lem, with such suddenness that jack started. "yes," cried the lad. "you don't mean to say you found it?" lem seemed agitated. he shuffled his feet in the dust. "me find a pocketbook?" he said at length with a short laugh. "well, i guess not. i ain't in the habit of findin' such things as that. what kind was it, and what was in it?" "it was a long one of brown leather," replied jack, describing ed's pocketbook and ignoring the question of what was in it. "a friend of mine dropped it along here, and we're helping him hunt for it. my sister and mr. pennington are going to look in one direction, and you and i'll look in the other." jack tried to make his voice sound friendly, but it was difficult work. "you'll look on one side of the road, and i'll keep watch on the other," he went on. "all right; i'm agreeable," said lem with a leer. "i don't believe we'll find it, though--i ain't never very lucky." he got into the auto beside jack, and the two started off slowly. cora and walter also started, and the search for the missing twenty thousand dollars was continued. jack and lem did not talk much on the way back. lem gildy was not an accomplished conversationalist, and jack was too anxious to find the wallet to care for the distraction of talk. several times he thought he saw the pocketbook, but each time it was a flat stone or a clod of dirt that misled him. they reached chelton, and lem asked to be set down in a secluded street. "why?" asked jack curiously. "because if some of me chums saw me ridin' in a swell wagon like this they'd never speak to me again," and lem grinned and showed all his yellow teeth. "i was afraid we wouldn't find that pocketbook," he added. "well, maybe cora will," said jack. "yes," said lem slowly, "maybe she will--or some one else will." his tone was so peculiar that jack asked quickly: "what do you mean, lem?" "oh, nothin'," and the fellow assumed an injured air. "only if a pocketbook is lost, some one's bound to find it, ain't they?" "i suppose so," assented jack, and as he drove his car through the streets of chelton, after the unsuccessful search, he found himself vainly puzzling over lem's strange manner. then, as he was turning a corner, jack caught sight of ed. "hey!" he called. ed turned. there was a momentary look of hope on his face. "did you--" he began. jack sadly shook his head. chapter ix finding the wallet "no luck, eh?" went on ed as he approached jack. "no; that is, lem and i didn't have any." "lem--do you mean to say lem gildy?" "now, don't get nervous. i didn't tell him it was your pocketbook that was lost. you see, i had to have some one keep watch on one side of the road while i looked on the other, and he was the only one available." then jack related the details of the search. "i'm glad lem doesn't know about it," went on ed. "i heard to-day that he and sid wilcox have been seen together several times lately, and i'm not quite ready to have my loss made public--especially to sid." "maybe cora and walter will have better luck," suggested jack hopefully. "we won't hear from them for some time, though. did you 'phone to the bank in new city?" "yes. i told them i couldn't get any trace of the wallet here, and, as you know, i have already notified the chelton police. they have been making a quiet search about town, but i fear it will be hopeless." "the bank people didn't say it had been turned in there, by any chance, did they?" "no such good fortune," and ed laughed uneasily. "well, i'm going home now to get a list of the bonds and their numbers, as well as the numbers of the big bills. the police say they will want them when they send out a general alarm." "but i thought you said you didn't want it generally known." "i don't, until i have made a thorough search at home. it is barely possible that i took up the wrong wallet by mistake when i rushed out this morning. i have two that look exactly alike. i may have picked up the empty one, shoved it into my pocket, and lost that one. the one containing the bonds and cash may still be at my house. i am hurrying there to see. if i don't find it, the police are to send out a general alarm." "i hope you find it." "so do i. it means a big loss to me--almost my entire fortune gone. i don't know what i am going to do." "let's hope for the best," spoke jack as cheerfully as possible, but there was a dubious look on his face as he watched ed turn in the direction of his home. but ed found that he had made no mistake in the wallets. the empty one was safely in his room, but the one containing the twenty thousand dollars was--as he had feared--lost. he communicated this fact to the police, and soon the chief had ordered some handbills printed, describing the pocketbook and the contents, and offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the cash and bonds, ed having agreed to pay this amount and ask no questions. "ha!" exclaimed lem gildy that night as one of the hastily printed bills came into his possession, "so this is the wallet they are lookin' for, eh? twenty thousand dollars! but i knowed it all the while. as if jack kimball an' his sister could fool me! but i'll bleed him--that's what i'll do. i'll make him whack up--or--or i'll tell!" and lem chuckled to himself, while there was a dangerous look on his mean face. the search conducted by cora and walter was, as might be guessed, as unsuccessful as the one undertaken by jack and lem. cora and walter looked carefully over the whole length of the road to new city, but saw nothing of the wallet, and came back disconsolate in the auto. "poor ed!" remarked walter. "it's tough luck!" "yes, i wish we could have found it for him," agreed cora as she skillfully drove the car through the chelton streets at dusk. "i'm beginning to believe that it was stolen." "i think so myself," added walter. "but if he had it when he was fixing your car, and he missed it directly after he left our crowd--" he hesitated a moment, then continued: "well, maybe he thinks that some of us may have--" "better not jump at conclusions," cautioned cora, and at this walter alighted near the street that led to his home. "i won't," he promised cora with a laugh as she sent the car ahead. she was anxious to reach home and learn the details of jack's search, though she and walter knew, from an inquiry they had made at the bank in new city, that it had not been successful. that night nothing was so important a topic of conversation in chelton as the loss of the twenty thousand dollars. speculation was rife, and opinion was equally divided on the question of whether it had been lost or stolen, or both, for that it might have been stolen after it was lost was possible. ed consulted some business friends, but they could give him little help. he was advised to hire private detectives, and said he would do so, in case the police of new city or chelton could do nothing. it was two days after the loss of the money and bonds that cora, with her inseparable friends, the robinson twins, and walter, whom she had picked up on the road, were out for a ride. they took the turnpike, as it was the smoothest highway. "we may meet jack along here," said cora as she turned out to avoid a large rock. "yes?"--asked elizabeth, and she tried to keep down the eagerness in her voice. "yes; he's gone over to see about a concert his mandolin club is going to give, and he said he might bring a couple of the members back with him to stay a few days." "college lads?" asked bess with a laugh. "surely," replied cora; "and charming ones, too, i gathered from jack's talk." "must be some of the never sleep members," spoke walter. "never sleep members?" repeated elizabeth. "yes; i belong. we call ourselves that because we used to be up at all hours. some of the boys play in jack's mandolin club." "i hope we meet them!" exclaimed bess frankly. "i'm dying for some music." "let me sing and save your life," proposed walter. "with pleasure," answered bess, making a little gesture of surprise. "but i didn't know you sang." "only to save life," replied waiter. "but," he added, "if i'm not mistaken that sounds like jack's car." "it is," declared cora, who was getting to be an expert on the puffing sounds of autos. "there he is!" she exclaimed as jack's runabout came in sight. "and it's pretty well crowded, too." it was, for in the car, which would barely hold three, jack had managed to squeeze four--three lads besides himself. "hello, sis!" he called as he caught sight of cora. "you're just in time. take one of these brutes out of here, will you? my springs are breaking." "i'll go!" cried one lad as he caught sight of the robinson twins. "no, i saw 'em first!" exclaimed another. "you did not! it's my turn to ride in a decent car," said the third. "now, just for that you will all three get in cora's car, and i'll take the misses robinson in with me," declared jack. there was laughter at this, and jack introduced his mandolin club friends to cora and the twins. "seriously, though, sis, you'll have to take one or two of 'em," went on jack. "here, diddick, you and parks go in the big car. i want to talk to youmans about the concert we're going to have." diddick and parks gladly made the exchange into the larger car, while youmans tried to look as if he liked to remain with jack. but it was hard work to imagine it when he glanced across at the pretty twins and cora. "hold on a minute," exclaimed walter as he noticed that one of the rear tires of the touring car was flat. "we can't go on like this, cora. that left tire will have to be pumped up." "and you've got good muscles to do it, too, walter," urged diddick, smiling mischievously. "we'll all help," volunteered parks. "come on!" diddick, walter and parks alighted. walter stepped to the tool-box to get out the pump and the lifting-jack. as he was about to take them out he started back excitedly. "hurt yourself?" asked cora, who was looking over the side of the car. walter shook his head. his face was strangely white as he spoke in a husky voice: "the wallet! ed foster's wallet in the tool box--here--see!" he held the pocketbook up to view. "where--where did you get it?" gasped cora. "in--in--your--tool--box!" "what?" the girl's voice was shrill, and there was a tremor in her tones. cora fairly leaped out beside him. she was staring at the brown leather wallet the wallet that had contained the twenty thousand dollars. "how on earth--" she began. she reached out her hand for the pocketbook. walter gave it to her. she raised up the flap, and uttered but a single word: "empty!" the limp wallet fell from her hand to the ground. cora's face turned strangely white, and she began swaying, as does a tree that a woodsman has nearly cut through. a moment later the overwrought girl staggered and almost fell into walter's arms. chapter x suspicions "hello!" cried jack, springing forward to his sister's aid. "i never knew cora to do that before. is she hurt, walt?" "no; only shocked, i guess." "help her into the car and put her on the rear seat," directed belle. "no; keep her head up," advised bess. "somebody get water!" exclaimed diddick, turning around in a circle to look for a spring. jack was rubbing his sister's hands, while walter held her in a reclining position. "there's a spring over by that tree," spoke walter. "one of you get some water." "i will--in my hat!" answered parks, starting off on a run. "here's a cup," called elizabeth, producing a collapsible one from a pocket in the tonneau of the touring car. the lad took it, and came hurrying back with it half full of liquid, having spilled the rest on his hasty trip. jack managed to get a little between cora's lips, and it revived her. she opened her eyes, noted that walter was holding her, and her face flushed slightly. "i'm--i'm all right now," she declared as she tried to stand upright. "better get in the car and sit down," advised jack. she assented, and rather limply got into the tonneau of her machine. she drank some more water, and presently was herself again. "how silly of me to nearly faint," she said with a wan smile. "but when i saw the pocketbook--empty--it was enough--" "i should say so," interrupted belle. "who would ever have thought of finding it in your toolbox, cora?" the words seemed fraught with strange import. "was it really in the tool-box, walter?" cora asked. "on top of the tire pump and the lifting-jack," replied walter. "and empty--that's the queer part of it," commented belle. "i guess that's what shocked you as much as anything, cora. now, if it had had the twenty thousand dollars in it--" "it's strange that the wallet should have been there--in my tool-box--at all," murmured cora. "it certainly is," added jack. "what can it mean--to find it in cora's car?" "is this the one ed foster lost?" asked diddick. "we heard something about it." "the same one," answered walter as he picked the wallet from the road where it had fallen. "see, it has his name on it." "i feel creepy--almost as if something supernatural had put it into my tool-box," said cora in a curiously quiet voice. "more likely some unnatural person did it," spoke jack quickly. "yet who in the world would do it? if i had seen--" he stopped suddenly, leaving the sentence unfinished. "and it was on top of the pump and jack," mused cora, after a quick look at her brother. "i haven't used the pump since--let me see--" "since the day of the collision--the day when the pocketbook was lost," interrupted jack. "you pumped up a tire just before the race, so that the pocketbook must have been placed there right after the robbery." "or loss," added walter. "some one may have found the wallet, taken out the money and bonds, and then thrown the empty pocketbook away." "that some one threw it in a curious place," remarked elizabeth dryly. "indeed, they did," observed cora. "it looks--" she hesitated. "oh, you might as well say it--before some one else does," put in jack. "it looks mighty suspicious, cora." there was a vindictive air about him. he seemed to challenge an accusation against his sister. "i'm sure there was no need to say that," spoke walter. "it may be a mere--er--" "coincidence," finished cora. "a queer coincidence," quoth jack. "incidentally, some one got the money, all right. we must hurry home and tell ed." "i wonder what he'll think?" asked cora. "what can he think?" demanded her brother. "only that some one found or stole his wallet and threw the empty pocketbook into your tool-box." "and i found it," added walter. "which might mean--" he, too, hesitated. "well, what?" asked jack. "that i put it there, and only pretended to find it," finished walter with a laugh. "nonsense!" exclaimed cora. "but come, let's hurry back to chelton. i want to be the first to tell ed." "do you feel all right?" asked jack anxiously. "oh, yes. very well. i never fainted before, that i remember." "yes, you did. once when you burned your hand on the stove," corrected jack. "oh, that was a good while ago." there was a period of silence. "well, as long as i started to pump up the tire i suppose i may as well finish," remarked walter, as he took out the jack and raised the wheel. it was rather a quiet company of young people who made their way back to chelton in the two autos a little later. the gay members of the mandolin club had little to say, and when they did attempt a pleasantry the laughter was soon over. every once in a while some one would refer to the discovery of the empty wallet. "the next thing to find," remarked jack, with a trace of bitterness in his tones, "is the person with the cash and the bonds." "maybe they're in--the tool--box of your car," said diddick jestingly. "it may run in the family--" then he was conscious that he had made rather a bad "break," and he subsided, while every one tried to talk at once to cover it up. jack laughed uneasily, and cora seemed annoyed. one thought was running through the mind of both cora and her brother. who could it have been who tried to injure her in this way by throwing suspicion on her, and what could have been their motive? she tried to reason certain things out. she went over in detail, while walter was driving her car for her, every incident that she could remember in connection with the collision and the subsequent loss of the money. she speculated on the actions of every one. mary's desire to leave the car at the post-office and not go back to her shop was odd, cora thought, though her employer had given mary permission to go for a ride with such well-paying customers as the kimballs and the robinson twins. next cora tried to analyze sid's actions, also those of ida, and she even found herself wondering at sid's seeming intimacy with lem gildy. but it all came to nothing. there was still that unanswered question: "who took the money from the wallet?" that the same person did so who had placed the empty pocketbook in the tool-box seemed evident. jack and cora went together to tell ed. walter wanted to accompany them, but cora insisted that she be allowed to tell the story first. "later ed may want to question you," she declared. the three members of the mandolin club were left at the kimball home until cora and jack returned. ed at first was much startled by the news. then he opened the wallet. "they didn't leave anything," he said slowly. "is that all you want to remark?" asked jack. "all? why, of course. what else can i say?" "well, don't you think--not to put too fine a point upon it--that it looks suspicious?" "for whom?" "us--cora," said jack bluntly. "look here," began ed fiercely; "if it wasn't you who said that--say--look here--oh, what nonsense! i hope, cora, that you haven't for one moment thought that i would have the least suspicion against you." "i--er--i--of course i didn't," she finished quickly. "only jack thought it looked queer." "how foolish!" exclaimed ed. "why, it would be the easiest thing in the world for the thief to throw the empty pocketbook into your tool-box as the car was passing him in the street. the box isn't kept locked, is it?" "no; not always." "then that's how it happened. the thief is around chelton--that's evident. in order to divert suspicion he--" "or she," interrupted jack with a smile. "yes, or she, if you like--he or she opened the box when your car was halted momentarily in the street, and dropped the wallet in. it's as simple as can be." "but not so simple to find the thief," retorted jack. "indeed not," agreed ed with a rueful smile. "but i'll give the police this clue. it's a good one, i should think." "and if they want to arrest me--why, i'll be at home," declared cora with a laugh. "would you like to see walter?" "no; you have told me all that is necessary." cora and jack made a quick run back home, while ed, went to communicate to the police the latest clue. that evening, when jack, cora and the three college lads went down to the post-office, cora happened to look in the window of the millinery shop where mary downs was employed. she was surprised to see on the big plate glass a sign: "apprentice wanted." "that's odd," she mused. "i didn't suppose that madam julia could use two apprentices. i wonder if mary has been discharged--for taking that ride with me. i must inquire." the mail was late, and as the young people waited for it to be sorted they heard in the crowd talk indicating that the news of the finding of the empty wallet was known. ed had told the police, and several reporters had also heard of the matter. "well, it's a very strange and romantic affair," remarked angelina bott, a sentimental sort of girl, to her chum, alice haven. "it would make quite a story." "for the detectives--yes," assented alice. then, speaking so loudly that cora could not help but hear, she added: "i guess hiders make the best finders, after all." cora's face turned red. jack, with an angry retort on his lips, stepped forward, but his sister laid a detaining hand on his arm. "don't, jack," she begged. "but it's as good as saying you took it." "i know; but--but, jack, there will be more or less of--suspicion." jack swallowed a lump in his throat. he glared at alice haven, who looked coldly at him and then turned away. just then the windows were opened, indicating that the mail was sorted, and there was a rush on the part of the waiting crowd. alice and angelina were swallowed up in it. cora, with bitterness in her heart, turned aside. there were tears in her eyes, and she did not want jack to see them. as she looked down a corridor of the post-office, she saw a stooping figure hurrying along. it was that of sid wilcox. and from another corridor, crossing the main one, came a girl, who joined him. the girl was ida giles, and as cora watched them she saw sid hand ida something that showed white in the gleam of an incandescent lamp. it was evidently a letter. chapter xi motoring outfits for days following the loss of the money and the finding of the empty pocketbook every possible clue was followed up, both by the police of new city and chelton, and by many detectives, who were lured on by the offered reward of five hundred dollars. nor were suspicious tongues idle. if cora was not openly accused, it was because she had a brother who would vigorously defend her. nor did the robinson girls altogether escape, though it was generally hinted, in the case of all the young ladies, that they might have hidden the money "just for fun," and when they saw what excitement it caused they were afraid to return it. "as if that was a joke," said cora, when she heard this version. of course, the boys who took part in the race had to answer numerous questions for the police, but at the end of a week, which was an unpleasant one for all concerned, the detectives were as far off the track as ever. sid and ida had their share of the "third degree" of police questioning in a mild form, and though sid was at first indignant and refused to answer questions, he finally gave in. there was an unofficial verdict of "not guilty" in the case of all, and ed's little fortune seemed likely never to be found. when, about two weeks after the loss, cora took a hundred-dollar bill to the bank to get it changed, and the teller looked at it rather longer than seemed necessary, jack, who was with his sister, asked: "what's the matter? isn't that good?" he betrayed some feeling, for the finger of suspicion seemed pointing at his family from every person he met. "why--i hope it's good," was the smiling answer. "if it isn't i have lost faith in the government printing office." "my grandmother gave it to me for my birthday," explained cora. "i haven't had time to spend it since getting my auto. no one ever questioned a bill of hers before." "neither have i questioned it," declared the teller. "i was merely making a note of the number. we have instructions to take a memorandum of all bills of large denomination. i was merely doing that." "since when was that rule in effect?" asked jack. "since the foster robbery." jack started. then he remembered that in ed's wallet were bills of large denomination. "suspicion even here," he muttered to cora as they went out. "hush, jack, dear," she said softly. "some folks will hear you." "well, i don't care if they do. it's fierce--the way people believe that you--and i--had a hand in that robbery." "never mind," replied his sister. "oh," she added quickly, "there are the robinson girls outside," and she hurried down the bank steps. the two sisters were walking slowly along, and from a certain air about bess it was evident that she had something important to tell cora. "any news of the--robbery?" bess asked jack. "not that i know of," he answered rather gloomily. "the trouble is that so many of those who might be able to throw additional light on it are away. sid has gone--no one seems to know where--ida is away visiting, and we haven't been able to find that old farmer that got his team in the way of the race. ed remembers passing him on the road, and he spoke to him, but even that wouldn't account for how the wallet got in cora's car." "no," said elizabeth with a sigh. "but where are you going, cora?" "around to madam julia's. i went in the bank to get grandmother's hundred-dollar bill broken, so i could pay for my things at madam's. i suppose they are done by this time. won't you girls come with me?" "yes," added jack, "and speaking of hundred dollar bills, what do you suppose that bank teller did? he--" "jack, dear," spoke cora softly, and her brother subsided. "do come," she urged the twins: "it will be such fun to see me try on my motor togs." "wait until we tell you something!" burst out belle. "we have--" "a surprise for you," interrupted bess. "a brand-new--" started in belle. "motor car," finished bess triumphantly. "that is, we're going to get it," added her sister. "father has promised it to us;" supplemented bess. "oh, isn't that splendid!" exclaimed cora. "i'm so glad! this is a surprise. now we'll all be motor girls." "yes," added belle; "and mother said we could go this afternoon and select some motor things for ourselves at madam's. isn't that just too sweet of her?" "lovely!" cried cora, giving the twins a little hug in turn. "here, quit that in public. want to make a fellow jealous?" demanded jack. "oh--you--" began belle with an arch look at cora's brother. "now we're going to take a preliminary look at things with you, cora," said bess. "i'm just dying to get a certain bonnet that i saw in the window." "toot-toot! farewell!" cried jack, as he puffed in imitation of an auto and turned up the street. "do you know," began cora as soon as her brother was safely out of sight, "speaking of that robbery, i have been thinking lately how strange it was that ida, mary and sid should have been talking so seriously behind my car when i happened to look around and see them. mary's face flushed, and ida immediately walked away." "is that so?" demanded bess. "yes, and i have been puzzling over it for some time." "i overheard some of the things they said," declared belle. "i think sid was trying to get mary and ida to promise to go out for a ride with him that evening. ida refused, and mary--well, i didn't hear just what she said--but it wasn't no, i'm sure." "but they all three looked so--so guilty," went on cora. "it was exactly as if they didn't want to be discovered." "maybe sid was ashamed to be seen asking mary to go for a ride. you know, he's reported to be well off, and mary--well, she's a dear, sweet little girl, but she works for a living, and you know what a fellow like sid thinks of working girls." "i thought i heard sid saying something about hiring a machine to take them out in," went on belle. "well, maybe we'll get a chance to ask mary about it when we get to madam's," said cora. "she'll be sent in to help us try on our things." they were soon in front of the shop with the big' glass front--the only real, big glass front in chelton--and behind the plate was displayed a single hat--a creation--as madam julia described it. madam julia was very exclusive. the door-boy, a dapper little colored chap, in an exceedingly tight-fitting suit of blue, with innumerable brass buttons on it, in double rows in front, in triple rows behind, and in single rows on sleeves, opened the portal for the young ladies, bowing low as he did so. "i guess this is mary coming now," said cora in a low voice as she heard some one approaching from behind the silken draperies that separated part of the shop. but the three customers looked up in surprise when a strange young girl appeared through the parted curtains. "miss kimball," said cora, announcing her own name, for she had an appointment. "oh, yes," was the girl's answer. "i will tell madam." "where is mary?" whispered bess. "that accounts for the sign i saw," spoke cora, telling her chums of the notice that an apprentice was wanted. "mary must have been discharged. madam would never keep two--in chelton." madam julia, as she was always called, entered with a swish of skirts and leaving a trail of french instructions behind her in the work-room--instructions to her employees as to the trimming on this "effect" and the reshaping of that "creation." "ah, yes, mees kimball," she began. "i am all in readiness--but--pardon--zat marie--she haf left me--in such hastiness--i am all at what you call ze ocean--how you express it?" with a pretty little motion of her hands she looked appealingly at cora. "you mean all at sea, madam." "ah, yes! at sea! how comprehensive! ze sea is always troubled, and so am i. zat marie she left me so suddenness--i know not where are all my things--i depend so much on her--" "has miss downs left?" cora could not refrain from asking. "ha! yes! zat is eet. precisely. so quickly she go away an' leaf me. she does not think much about it, perhaps, but i am too busy to be so annoyed. just some relation not well--indisposition, maybe--well--voila! she is gone--it was not so in my time that a girl must leaf her trade and depart with such quickness--run away. louise! louse! come instantly and for me find zat motor chapeau for mademoiselle kimball." her voice rose to a shrill call. "quick!" she called, and then came a string of french. "i must not be kept waiting--eet was already packed--" louise, who had replaced mary downs, found the bonnet cora had ordered, and handed it to her mistress. cora took her place before a mirror, and madam began patting the motor cap hood affectionately over the girl's black tresses. "it will suit you to perfection!" exclaimed the french woman. "you have ze hair beautiful. zere!" she brushed the hood down over cora's ears. "zat is ze way. do not wear a motor hood as if it was a tiara! zat is of a hatefulness! such bad taste! voila--what is it zat you americans say?--ze fitness of zings. yes, zat is what i mean." the hood certainly looked well on cora. bess and belle nodded their approval. it was of the old-fashioned shaker type, of delicate pongee silk, and showed off to advantage cora's black, wavy fair, as it fell softly about her temples. "es eet not becoming?" demanded madam, and then she became profuse in her native tongue. "zat--what you call shaker--eet is ze prettiest--so chic--voila!" and once more she patted it on cora's head. cora was very well pleased with it. then the mask was brought out. this was a simple affair--cora only wanted such things as were practical. the mask, which had been specially designed to suit the girl, was nothing more than a piece of veiling, with the goggles set in. the veil was secured to the hood by a simple shirr string of elastic. madam slipped it over cora's face. "zere!" the milliner exclaimed. "lovely!" declared bess. "very beautiful!" added belle. louise, the little girl helper, gave a wonder look of admiration. louise had well-trained eyes. "would you know me?" asked cora with a little laugh. "never!" replied bess. "won't it be splendid? suppose we all get things alike? then we can travel--incog!" "oh, jolly!" cried belle. "just fancy walter asking me to have soda, and he thinking i'm some one else!" cora laughed merrily at belle's joke. walter's preference for cora was no secret. "how about my cloak?" asked cora. "not quite ready," replied madam. "you see, zat naughty marie, leaving me so--" "did you say some of her relatives were ill?" ventured bess. "i believe so. some aunt, away in some far place. marie is gone to her." louise took the mask and hood from cora and flitted away with them beyond the silk curtains. there was to be a stitch taken here, and a little, tacking up was needed there. the veil was to be a bit closer, the milliner explained. next madam julia turned to the twins. "my friends wish to see about some motor things, also," remarked cora. "what would you think of having them all alike--for us there?" this brought on such a discussion, madam talking more in french than english, and belle was kept busy translating for her sister. the madam preferred giving the young ladies such hoods and cloaks as would best suit their complexions. bess should have a brown one--just running to the shade of her hair, but not quite reaching it, and belle needed a dark blue--for only a true blond can wear dark blue and not look old in it. so madam explained. but the twins would not decide, after all, until their mother could be consulted, so the order was not definitely placed. when they were about to leave, and madam had vanished behind the silken draperies, bess turned to one of the hat sticks, upon which rested a most conspicuous piece of headgear. "oh, look at that!" she exclaimed. "isn't it awful?" "it certainly is ridiculous!" chimed in belle, taking the motor hood, for such it was, off the support and holding it up for inspection. "that's certainly what madam calls a 'creation,'" said cora. "who in the world would ever wear that?" asked bess with a laugh. "i expected to," unexpectedly replied a voice behind them. the three girls turned quickly to confront ida giles. she had come in so quietly that they had not heard her. cora, belle and bess looked dumfounded. "and perhaps in the future," went on ida in icy tones, "it would be just as well to leave another person's hat alone." "i beg your pardon," cora managed to say, "we--er--we were just--interested in motor hoods." "and making fun of mine!" snapped ida. louise had entered to attend to the new customer. ida turned to her: "i wish to see madam julia!" she exclaimed. outside bess burst into her full, hearty laugh. then the three motor girls made their escape. "i thought i would choke in there!" she exclaimed. "lucky for you that ida didn't take a hand in, helping you out in the choking process," remarked cora. "she looked as if she would like to have done it." "but what in the world do you suppose she wants with a motor hood?" asked belle. "to ride with sid, of course," answered cora. "but his machine is out of order, and he as much as said that he didn't intend to get it fixed right away," persisted belle. "maybe he's going to get a new one," ventured cora. "i don't see how he can," replied belie. "i heard father say he was dreadfully in debt. his folks had some dealings with father, i believe, about advancing him some money that is to come to him when he is a certain age, but it won't be for some time yet. they had to have some to pay his debts." "you ought not to repeat that, belle," cautioned bess. "you know father would be displeased if he knew you had spoken of his private affairs." "well, i'm sure it will go no further--with cora," retorted belle. "i wouldn't mention it to any one else." "of course, i'll not repeat it," promised cora. "but what do you think about mary leaving so suddenly?" "i don't know what to think," replied bess. "it looks odd, to say the least. what reason would she have for leaving town so-well, mysteriously, to put it mildly?" "of course, it may be a mere coincidence," went on cora, "but in connection with her talk with ida and sid--well, i have often noticed that matters conspire to `look strange' whenever there is a chance of making complications." chapter xii a race against time it was a few days after the visit to madam julia that cora was out alone in the whirlwind. she had been feeling very unhappy over the loss of ed's money and the suspicion that naturally attached to her on account of the finding of the empty wallet in her car. she could not dismiss the matter from her mind. but ed foster had done everything in his power to make her feel that she was in no wise concerned. he had called and taken dinner with jack, and had announced that, as far as he could see, he feared he would have to charge the money and bonds up to profit and loss. "principally loss," he remarked with a rueful smile. "i don't believe those detectives will ever get it." jack had offered to go with his sister when she announced that she was about to take a run in her car, but, with a little nod of thanks, she declined his company. "it's a beautiful morning," she said, "and i want to take a good, long ride by myself, jack. i want to--think. i feel that the air will do me more good than anything else." her mother had gone into town, and once his offer was refused, jack took a book and declared that he was going to try to work off some of his college conditions. the robinson girls were at their music lessons, cora knew, so he would not call for them. thus she started off alone. down the turnpike she steered the big machine, confident in her ability to manage it. there were few autos out, and the highway was almost deserted. her pretty shaker hood, which had lately come home from madam julia's, was unbound, and the loose, chiffon strings flew out in the wind like long-legged birds. turning into a broad avenue, cora realized that she was on the road leading to the garage where she had met paul hastings, the handsome chauffeur who had given her such valuable information about her car. "i must see about getting the mud guard fixed," she reflected, for the temporary brace that ed had made, though it had kept the affair in place until the day previous had now come loose. "and this is a good time to have it attended to," thought the girl. paul hastings was in the little front office. he smiled pleasantly at the flushed girl as she told her needs, but somehow he seemed dejected--as if something had happened. even cora, comparative stranger that she was to him, could not help inquiring the cause of his trouble. "is--is there anything the matter?" she asked hesitatingly. "oh--not much. only i--er--i have just ex experienced quite a loss, and it makes me--blue." "that's too bad!" "yes," he went on. "i had an opportunity of getting a first-class position, but another fellow got ahead of me." "how's that?" "well, you see, a firm in new city needs a manager. i have good backing, and was almost certain of the place. but another fellow had just as good a chance, and it was a question of who got there first. i was delayed here and missed the only train that would bring me there on time. he caught it, and is now on his way there. he'll get the place and i--won't." "but why don't you take a machine and go there? you can do it as quickly as the train can." "take a machine?" he repeated. "i wouldn't dare. i'd be sure to lose my place here, and might not get the other. i haven't a car in the place i would dare risk taking out on the road. the owners are too particular about them, and i can't blame them, either." cora thought for a moment. a daring plan came into her mind. "let me take you," she suggested. "oh, indeed, i would not think of such a thing. i should not have mentioned my troubles to you. but they were so--so much to me that i didn't realize what i was doing. but let me look at your car." he soon adjusted the broken bolt of the mud guard, and announced that it was now as good as new. "but why won't you go in the whirlwind?" demanded the girl. "i am only out on a little pleasure spin, and i would be very glad indeed to take you to new city. besides, i'd like to race with the train," she went on with sparkling eyes. "i know i could beat it." paul looked interested. "i guess you could," he said. "it would be a good chance, anyhow." "come on, then! don't waste a moment. let's try it." paul called his assistant, a young lad, and gave him instructions about some cars, and what to do if certain customers came in. it was not a busy part of the day, and he could leave without causing any complications. then he slipped into his long, linen coat and stepped into cora's car. "i'm afraid this is an imposition," he declared, taking the steering wheel, a sort of unconscious habit he had. then he bethought himself. "oh, but i suppose you'll drive," he added quickly, shifting over, rather abashed at having taken his place in the driver's seat without being asked. "you see, i'm so accustomed to being here." "i believe i will drive," answered cora. "i have great faith in the obedience of my machine. it knows my hand." "i shouldn't wonder," agreed the young, man. "i do believe that motor-cars can almost be made to think--under the guidance of very gentle but sure hands." paul looked very handsome, cora thought. he was the type she always admired--a youth with a bronze complexion--a straight, athletic figure, almost classic, cora decided. he cranked up for her, re-entered the car, and they rolled from the garage. once out on the country road cora threw in the high gear and fed the gasolene with a judicious hand, controlling the spark admirably. "a fine machine!" exclaimed paul, noting how perfect was the rhythm of action as it thrilled out beneath them. "there are friends of mine," said cora suddenly as a runabout, containing two young then, came into sight. ed foster and walter pennington raised their caps as they dashed by, but they did not go so quickly but that cora noticed an expression of surprise on their faces. "oh, yes, i know them also," remarked paul. "i've had that machine in the garage." "i wonder where they are going?" went on cora. she also found herself wondering if walter and ed were surprised to see her out alone with a professional chauffeur. it was the first time her conduct in taking paul with her came forcibly to her mind. then, with an independence of spirit that characterized her, she decided she had no apology or explanation to make. "it's hard to say where any person in an auto is going," replied paul pleasantly, "and sometimes almost as hard to say when they'll get there." "that young man on the right is the one who recently lost twenty thousand dollars," observed the girl as she changed to second speed to take a troublesome little hill. "so i understand. and wasn't there some mystery connected with it?" "indeed, there was. you know, they found the empty wallet in the tool-box of my car." "yes, so i heard. quite remarkable. but can't the detectives find out who stole the money and hid the pocketbook there?" cora was grateful for the neat way he put that, to avoid referring to the suspicions that had been cast on her and on her friends. "the police don't appear able to do anything," was her answer. "it does seem very strange." "have they inquired of all the people who were on hand at the time of the robbery--or loss--when, i understand, it was very likely that the empty wallet was put in your tool-box?" "oh, yes, they have questioned all of us--and i can tell you that they were not any too polite about it, either. i thought i would never get over their quizzing." "well, i suppose they have to be sharp," remarked paul. "but i've not yet explained to you the reason why i am in such a hurry and the nature of the position i am after. you see, a firm in new city advertised for a chauffeur to drive their machine across the country in a big race. i replied, and was as good as engaged. i expected to go over this morning, but some one told me that sid wilcox had taken the early train and was going to beat me out--it's a case of first come--get the job, you see." "sidney wilcox!" exclaimed cora in astonishment. "yes. you know him, of course. it seems that he wants to make the trip, and is willing to run the machine without pay. i can't afford to do that, and that gives him an advantage over me. if sid gets there first, and offers to do it for nothing, it means that they'll take him." "well, he'll not get there first!" exclaimed cora very determinedly. suddenly they both heard the distant whistle of the train. "there she is!" cried paul; and a little later they caught sight of the cars, flying over the track. "we're too late," said paul. "not yet," answered cora. "we can take a shorter route, even if they can go faster than we can." she was already running on third speed, and the motor was taking about all the gasolene it could use. she adjusted the spark to give the best service, and now, as an additional means of inducing speed, she cut out the muffler. the explosions of the motor played a tattoo on the dusty road. "i'm going to turn here!" cried cora as she swung around a corner. "look out!" paul needed no warning, for he was an expert autoist. the machine skidded a bit and tilted somewhat, but was soon flying down the straight, level stretch. "i cannot understand why sid wilcox wants to run in a cross-country race--and for nothing," said cora. "because he knows i want the place. he hates me and wants to make trouble for me." "is that so? then we have a double reason for beating him. and i think we'll do it. his train has to wait for the accommodation to pass it at the junction. we'll gain on him there." "that's so." "what time is it now?" cora asked as, with hands firmly gripping the wheel, she leaned forward to peer down the road. she could neither see nor hear the train now. "it's nine-fifty-five," replied the chauffeur. "the train is due at new city at ten-fifteen." "twenty minutes yet. i'm sure we can make it." cora made that declaration with her cheeks flushing and her bright eyes ablaze with excitement. "won't you, let me take the wheel?" asked paul. "i am afraid that this heavy driving is too much for you." "oh, no, indeed! this is my race, you know. i want to beat him." she looked at paul frankly. "very well. only don't distress yourself too much--on my account." "don't worry. i love this. at what place in new city do you wish to go?" "directly in the center, next to the bank. the office of the whitehall motor company." "then we'll take this road," decided the girl. "i'm sure it cuts through a park, and will bring us out right at the center of the city." "it does, and it's the nearest way. you're getting to be quite a driver." "i mean to be. hark, there's the train again!" "yes, and we're ahead of it!" exclaimed paul as he caught sight of the cars. "we've gained on them!" "but they're going down grade, and we have a hill to climb," spoke cora a little despairingly. but she would not give up. on and on rushed the car. there was but five minutes left, and the railroad; station was very close to the building where the automobile concern was located. sid's chances were very good--paul's not quite so much so. "we'll have to be a little careful now," paul reminded her as they swung around a curve. "we'll have to go slow through the city." "yes, but i have been counting on that. we still have a few minutes. oh, isn't it a pity that a motor isn't like a horse? when you get a machine going just so fast it can't go any faster, but a horse can always be depended on for a spurt." "yes," answered paul quietly. he was busy thinking. "how many minutes lift now?" asked cora. "two," was the grim answer. with keen eyes, that took note of every obstruction or vehicle that might block her, cora drove her car on. around corners, and through busy streets she piloted it. they were but a block from the center of the town. "there's the train," spoke paul quietly as the engine pulled into the station. "and we're at the building of the whitehall auto concern!" exclaimed cora triumphantly a few seconds later, as she guided the car up to the curb. "hurry!" she called to paul. as if he needed to be told that! he leaped from the car and ran across the pavement to the office. as he entered the door sid wilcox, coming leisurely from the direction of the station, saw him. sid started, and then, with a quick motion, hurried after paul. but the chauffeur was ahead of him, and the door slammed shut in the face of the owner of the streak. paul, thanks to cora's aid, had won the race against time. "oh, i do hope he gets the place," she said as she stopped her engine and prepared to rest while paul was within the office of the motor company. chapter xiii the stolen ride cora was of a very independent character. she felt that she had done right, and she did not care who knew it. but, for all that, she could not help whispering to herself: "i'm glad sid didn't see me bringing paul here. he evidently thought he had plenty of time. he didn't look my way, and, besides, i had my veil down." sid had disappeared after paul. she decided that she would not wait in the main street for paul, as he might be kept some time, but would spin through the park. she was about to start when sid wilcox reappeared. his face showed his anger, but at the sight of cora in her car he called up a smile to his countenance. "why, good-morning," he said pleasantly, stepping up to the auto. "you look as though you had been speeding," for her face was flushed from the wind. "a little," was her smiling response. she could afford to smile now. "waiting for some one?" he asked. "yes." it was too late to start off now: "i'm waiting, too. suppose i get in and take a turn around the park with you? you've never invited me to try your new car." cora was surprised. she knew very well she had not asked him to ride in the whirlwind, and she had no intention of doing so. she was about to reply, when sid jumped in beside her. "i see you're not going to ask me," he went on, "and, as i have no idea of losing the chance for a spin, i'll get in without an invitation." with a quick motion he shoved over the spark lever and the motor started, for a charge had remained in one of the cylinders, obviating the necessity of cranking up. "there, we're all ready to go," he said. cora was dumfounded. but she felt it would not do to make a vigorous protest in such a public place. for a moment her feelings threatened to master her. then she regained control of herself, threw in the clutch and turned the car in the direction of the park. after all, it might be better to humor sid. "so you brought paul hastings over?" drawled the youth. then he had seen her, after all. cora's precautions were useless. she nodded coldly. she was offended by her companion's impertinent tone. she started to turn off the power and apply the brake. she would not ride with him. "oh, you needn't get mad," continued sid quickly. "i did not mean to offend you, though if it had not been for you paul would not have gotten here ahead of me. you're a plucky girl, as well as a pretty one." cora flashed an indignant look at him. "i suppose you meant that for a compliment," she said, "but you don't quite understand the art. it requires a certain delicacy--" "such as paul hastings might have," sneered sid. cora felt that she could not bear with him a moment longer. "i have a purchase to make here," she said with as much frigidness in her tones as she could call up. "i'll not ask you to wait," and she stopped the car in front of a dress-goods store. "oh, it's no trouble to wait." "i'd rather you wouldn't." "well, i will." he was smiling now. "i never like to leave a young lady when she is in a--temper." cora was positively angry. but again came that detestation of making a scene, which every well-bred girl feels, no matter how strong the provocation. she would make a purchase to gain time, and then turn back to the bank building. she bought something she was in no need of, and prolonged the transaction to an interminable length, to the no small disgust of the salesgirl. when she got back to the machine, sid was smiling more broadly than before. he had taken her place at the wheel. "you won't mind me driving as far as the bank building, will you?" he said. "i really must get a new car. i miss mine so much, and it's in bad shape since you--er--tried to smash me." "i did nothing of the sort. it was your own fault." "there, there," he said soothingly. "we mustn't quarrel." cora felt herself growing pale. she repressed a stinging reply, and without a word took a seat in the tonneau. "oh, so you won't sit beside me?" he asked as he started the car. "what makes you dislike me so, cora? you and i used to pull a pretty good stroke, but lately you simply won't look at me." "i don't dislike you. at least, i did not until this morning." "still angry," he taunted. "now, i call that mean. why do you go off riding with a common mechanic?" "mr. hastings is a gentleman!" she flared back at him, like an explosion of one of the cylinders of her car. "he would never dream of acting as you are now, even if he is a common mechanic." "no?" his tone was tantalizing. "please turn this corner," she said icily. "i want to get back to the bank building." "oh, do you? well, i'm in no hurry to. i can't seem to do any business there, or in the automobile place," and he flashed a meaning look at the girl. "now we'll see, miss cora, who's going to have their own way. i'm driving this car." he threw in the second speed gear, and the auto dashed forward through the city streets. had he suddenly gone mad? what was his object? he was heading for the turnpike road! for a few moments cora held her breath. should she shout for help, no matter what happened? then the fact of her unfortunate entanglement with the missing money came to her mind. should she deliberately place herself in the position of another entanglement? sid wilcox bent lower over the steering wheel and turned on more power. "paul hastings rode out with you," he called over his shoulder to cora, "and i'm going to ride back with you. nothing like having a variety and being a popular young lady." he was positively insulting. "you are running away with my car!" exclaimed cora, stung to desperation. "i shall have you arrested!" "oh, no, you won't!" he sneered. "that would not be at all pleasant--for you!" "why do you say that?" "why? because you might have to explain how that pocketbook got into your car. i heard last night that they were going to have another investigation on new lines." "how dare you!" she cried. "but that has nothing to do with this. if you do not stop my car at once i shall call for help!" "i dare you to!" did he know that she would not? "now, cora, cora," he simpered. "you must not do anything rash. better let me have my little ride with you, and incidentally get ahead of my conceited rival, paul hastings. he may ride back in the car he is to drive across country, for he has probably done me out of that place. it will be a good chance for him to practice." sid's audacity was positively startling. perhaps it would be best to let him have his own way. in fact, how could she help herself? he had the wheel, and was going at a fast rate of speed. she could not climb over to a front seat from the tonneau. if she should shout, who would hear her above the noise of the car? for sid in mere spitefulness had cut out the muffler. cora sank back in utter disgust and despair. what ever would paul hastings think of her? what would walter pennington say? whoever saw her, it would make talk. besides, paul had come to new city in his shop clothes concealed under his duster, a fitting enough suit in which to ride in an auto, but not if he had to go back in the train. perhaps, she thought, he had not brought money enough with him, depending on her to take him back to chelton. and, above all, what would people think of cora kimball riding with sidney wilcox? "this is glorious!" exulted the daring youth, "i have just been pining for a ride in this car, cora, and, incidentally, i may as well admit that i have been pining for a talk with you. when have you heard from your friend, miss downs?" he fairly shot the question at cora. "miss downs?" she said falteringly. "yes." "i don't know that i ever hear from mary downs," was cora's sharp reply. "no?" his voice was queerly questioning. "well, i want to say i think mary a very slick little girl." cora could not mistake his intention. he wanted her to think that he believed mary was not one of her set. by "slick" he probably meant to convey the idea that he considered the former milliner girl might be tricky. "i am sorry miss downs is away," said cora simply. "i intended to take her on a little run with me. she doesn't get many chances to go out in a car." "no, i guess, not. but don't you think it--er--rather risky to take up with--shop girls?" "shop girls? why, any girl is a lady, no matter what her position, as long as she conducts herself like one. what do you mean by your insinuations?" she almost detested herself for asking him this question, but she could not help it. sid laughed. "what have you to say against her character?" demanded cora again. sid seemed a bit uneasy. he had hardly expected to be pinned down so directly. "oh, of course," he finally answered, "if you feel that way about it, i--er--i suppose--nothing. i only wished to caution you. that money matter is still in--er--well, let us say, in an awkward shape." "does mary downs know anything about it?" asked cora directly, determined to face sid down. "i'm sure i don't know," he drawled. "but you know she was--er--there with the--rest of us." chapter xiv just cora and paul as if this had been the entire object of his peculiar actions, sid suddenly stopped the car. "this is as far as i care to go," he said. "i think i'll leave you now. i can't thank you enough for the ride," he added mockingly, and, with a bow that had much of irony in it, he walked down a side path of the park, into which he had directed the machine. cora did not answer him, but her look was sufficient to show what she thought. and in spite of her contempt she felt an overwhelming desire to question him about what he had said of mary downs. did sid wilcox know anything about the robbery? that was a question cora asked herself as she took her place at the wheel, just vacated by the unmannerly youth. "he certainly acts as though he did," she reasoned to herself. "and why should he make such an insinuation against mary?" she found no answer to her question. suddenly looking at her watch she noted that no train had departed from new city since she and paul had reached there. she was yet in time to give, him a ride home as she had planned. turning quickly she made the run back toward the bank building. from behind a clump of bushes sid wilcox watched her. "i wonder if you'll tell your brother?" he mused, "if you do there may be a row over my kidnaping you. but i couldn't help it. no, i don't think you will tell jack. you don't want to see us--quarrel." he added the last word below his breath, and there was a mean smile on his face. as he turned to continue his walk he met a man coming in the opposite direction. "lem gildy! what are you doing here?" he exclaimed. "why--er--i'm sort of lookin' for work." "you--work!" exclaimed sid. "well, i heard you was goin' to take a trip across country, and i thought maybe you'd take me along. you and me's pals, ain't we?" "hush!" exclaimed sid, as if afraid of someone hearing the man's words. "don't you know better than to follow me?" "well, i heard you was comin' for a new job, an' i thought--" "you think entirely too much. now you get hack to chelton, and stay there. i may need you." lem's little, rat-like eyes gleamed. "you'll pay me, won't you?" he asked. "of course." "well, i'm a little short now, an'--" sid extended a bill, which the man took quickly. "now be off," ordered young wilcox, "and don't ever follow me again." he waited until lem had shuffled off, and then he took a different path. "he's getting altogether too familiar," said sid to himself as he strolled along. "but i may find him useful." scarcely had cora, driving her big car, turned into the turnpike leading from the park to new city, than she again encountered ed foster and walter pennington. she instantly realized that they would wonder why she did not stop, for ed was slowing up his car. but she knew she could not get back to the bank building to meet paul if she halted, so, with a smile, as comprehensive as she was able to make it, she sent the whirlwind ahead at a fast speed. she noted the looks of surprise on the faces of her friends as she passed them. "how ever will i be able to explain?" was the thought that flashed into cora's mind. "walter acted as if he wanted to say something--perhaps something about the money. he looked as if he were pleased. maybe he has some good news." it took cora but a short time to make the run back to the city. she turned her machine toward the depot, as she knew a train would shortly leave for chelton, and she fancied paul might try to get it. reaching the station she saw his tall figure, clad in the linen duster, pacing up and down the platform. she was just in time. "did you think i ran away?" she asked as she skillfully turned the car up to the platform and stopped. "oh, no," he replied with a happy laugh. "i happened to see who got into the car, and i guessed that you were run away with." "wasn't it contemptible of him?" she asked, her fate flushing at the recollection of the ride. "but perhaps some day i may be able to make him realize it. he doesn't seem to--now." "no; he isn't that kind." "i was afraid i wouldn't be in time to take you back, after your interview with the automobile people, and i fancied you had not come prepared for a train trip to chelton." "that's very kind of you. i'm sorry you took the trouble to return. you have put yourself out considerably on my account, i'm afraid." "indeed, i have not. i enjoyed it myself--the ride, i mean--er--that is, the first ride," and she laughed nervously. "i'm glad we beat sid. i fancy he acted as he did for revenge. but were you successful?" "very much so, thanks to you." "well, if you want to ride back with me, i'll be very glad to have you. i must get back in time for luncheon or mamma may worry." "well, we mustn't have that happen. i'll get right in," which he did, after cranking up the car for her, for not always could she stop it leaving a charge in one cylinder, so that it would start from the seat. "i'm very glad you got the place," went on cora as she steered out from among a tangle of other autos and carriages about the station. "so am i. it means a great deal to me." "and sid was so disappointed. i could tell by his face, though he pretended not to be. but that's why he--ran away with me--or, rather, with my car." "it would be difficult to understand all his reasons," declared paul with a smile. "he may have had another, equally weighty." "you mean--" cora felt the warm blood mounting to her cheeks. "i think he wanted to boast that he had ridden with you." paul was rather sorry he had said this, the moment after the words were uttered. cora seemed much embarrassed. to give a new direction to her thoughts, paul said: "i want to tell you about my sister. it was on her account that i particularly wished to get this position. hazel wants to go to college, and we couldn't afford to send her. now, with the increase in salary which i shall get, it will be possible." "oh, how nice!" exclaimed cora. "what college is she going to?" "i don't know yet. but she is very ambitious." "i should judge that--from knowing her brother." "that's very nice of you," he said, and then both laughed. "i'd like to meet your sister," cora remarked; without thinking of all her words might imply. "would you?" he asked warmly. "i'll be glad to have you. i think she's a mighty fine girl." "won't you hate to leave her when you make the run across country?" "well, it isn't to start for a month, but i shall have to go to new city to get familiar with the new machine i am to drive. i'm not going away at once. i'll be in new city for some time." "oh," began cora, "i'm glad--" she stopped, and again felt herself blushing. her tone had been a little too warm. she realized that her evident pleasure and polite interest might be misinterpreted. it looked very much as if cora was glad that paul was not going away at once. "then your sister will not be deprived of your company just yet," she managed to say, and she seemed to be paying particular attention to the sparking lever. "no," he replied. "hazel and i are great friends--chums, you might say. in fact, i've never had a boy friend with whom i was able to get along so well as i can with my sister." "that's very nice. it's what jack says about me. he and i are the best of friends. of course, i'm very fond of the robinson girls, but jack comes first. you remember the pretty twins, i've no doubt?" "yes, indeed i do. i could not help thinking how very 'untwinly' they are for twins." "aren't they? but they are the dearest girls! and they are going to have a new car." "is that so? do you happen to know what kind?" paul assumed his professional air. "i believe it has not been decided yet. but they will most likely get it from the whitehall company. would you like to turn in the order?" "it would be quite a help for me to be able to sell a car now, so soon after taking a place with them. and the commission--just as i am starting--" "i think i can manage it easily enough," she said quickly. "they are sure to consult jack about it. couldn't you come over to our house this evening, and--" again she found herself stopping suddenly and blushing. it was rather awkward to ask a young man to call, particularly when one has never been properly introduced to him. if he were only acquainted with jack, now . . . then cora had a bright thought. "you say you are acquainted with walter pennington?" she asked. "oh, yes. our folks and the penningtons are old friends." "then we must fix up a plan--er--to be perfectly proper. not that it makes any difference. first i want to meet your sister. after that i am going to give a small affair. i have been putting it off for some time--it's a positive duty, but i've been so interested in my machine. there--i have it! i think i'll give an auto affair." "great possibilities in it," observed paul. "but please do not trouble yourself to get up one on account of myself or my sister, though i appreciate--" "oh, no, indeed," cora hastened to explain. "i am due to give one, anyhow, and it may as well be that. i will be doubly interested if there should happen to be a matter of business for you involved in it. the twins are in no great hurry about their car. when you can meet them properly, and i will arrange it, i am sure they will give you the order." "that would be splendid. i can't thank you enough." "wait until you get the order," and she laughed, "mother declares i have a positive faculty for business." "i rather agree with her," said paul with a smile, as his fair companion turned the machine into the main street of chelton. "i really feel unable to properly thank you for what you have done for me to-day--" "now, please," interrupted cora. "i was amply repaid in beating sid wilcox. but i cannot understand why he wanted the position. even your explanation will hardly account for his extraordinary conduct. why should he want to run a car across country?" "well, it can't be because he is short of funds," said paul frankly. "i'm positive of that. he took particular pains to display a roll of bills when he was in the auto office, and i think that did not favorably impress the manager, though i was practically sure of the place when he came in." "well, that's just like sid wilcox," and cora shuddered. it was a reaction of the unpleasant ride she had been forced to take with him. "i hope, miss kimball, that you will soon be able to meet my sister," said paul after a little silence, during which the car had run along. they were near the beachwood road, at the end of which, in a little grove of trees, was cora's home. "not on account of what you have done for me," he went on, "but because i am sure you and she would be good friends. hazel is a fine girl, as i said before, and besides that--" paul stopped abruptly. "oh, i'm going to meet hazel," declared cora warmly as paul alighted from the car. "i'll invite her to my affair. i am going to wake up folks around here. do you know, we all seem to be terribly depressed since that money was--lost." "yes, and i don't wonder at it. twenty thousand dollars is a large sum. i'd call it a fortune. but, somehow, i feel sure that mr. foster will recover it. i wish i could help unravel the mystery. i would like to--for more reasons than one." what could he mean by that? his manner was very earnest. cora glanced at him gratefully. "good-by," she said suddenly. "good-by," echoed paul, and he turned up the street. chapter xv three girls reflecting on her strange experience while in new city, seated late that same afternoon on the broad veranda of her handsome home, cora had one gratifying thought. no one whom she knew had seen her while sid wilcox was in possession of her car--and of her. feeling this assurance she decided not to mention to any one at home the fact of his having stolen the ride. she resolved to ask paul to keep it a secret, and she knew he would. as for sid himself, if he did boast of it, few would credit his story, for he did not bear a very good reputation for truth, and he was constantly getting into scrapes. cora especially hoped jack would not hear of the escapade. now cora, who had been sitting in an easy chair, trying to read a book, decided to take the hammock for a change. she did not feel like reading. she wore a simple frock of white muslin, and her hair was let down in a most becoming fashion, in long, loose braids, all combining to make her particularly girlish-looking. cora was taking what she called her "loll." this particular form of rest, she always declared, was the only sort a healthy girl could reasonably enjoy. "when you rest, why, just rest," she used to say to isabel robinson, who, on account of her nervous temperament, had rather been overdone with "rest cure" ideas. isabel delighted in such terms as "relaxation" and "siesta," while cora reveled in her "loll." a box of "deadly chocolates"--that is what isabel would have called them--were at cora's elbow, and she was just reaching for the tenth one, when isabel herself, and her sister, sauntered along the path. "come on up, girls," called out cora. "but please don't ask me to move. i'm in the most delicious heap." "exactly that!" exclaimed isabel, who looked particularly pretty in a soft-blue summer gown, while elizabeth was like some flower, in deep-pink muslin. "you do get into the most awful heaps, cora, dear. but you never can rest without relaxing, and to do that--" "belle!" exclaimed cora, "that is precisely why you never rest--you never relax your brain. you're always thinking of resting and not doing it." bess sank into a wicker chair and smothered the cushions. bess was stout--"when she sat down," as cora expressed it. "got your car ordered yet?" asked the hostess, passing around the box of chocolates. neither girl could resist them. "oh, no," answered belle. "poor papa is in the greatest muddle. every one in new city seems to have the best car to sell, and, as he wants a good one, he doesn't know which one to select." "why not ask jack?" suggested cora. "he's had lots of experience." "just what i proposed," replied belle. "you, know how queer poor, dear papa is. he really dislikes motors." "seen ida lately?" asked bess. "not a sight of her," answered cora. "i was hoping you might bring some news--not particularly about her, though, but some news. i am just pining for a real, choice bit." she passed the chocolates again. bess took one, but her sister shook her head. "well, as to news," remarked bess, "we have heard that sid wilcox has a new machine." this was news indeed, after what that youth had said to cora that very day. or had he been only fooling her? "a new one," repeated cora vaguely, trying to, gather her thoughts. "brand, spick--span new," went on bess. "we haven't seen it, you know, but we've heard that it is a beauty." "what extravagance!" murmured cora,--still busily thinking. "his runabout isn't very old. i wonder where he gets all his money?" "don't you remember he said he had some to invest in the new issue of bank stock?" suggested belle. "but the bank wouldn't let him subscribe," added her sister. "what did he do with his other car--the one that was broken in the collision?" asked cora. "maybe he--pawned it," suggested belle, who had rather vague ideas concerning pawnshops. "very likely he would if he could." this from cora with a light laugh. "i guess sid is very fond of a change--and excitement." she thought of her experience with him. "even a change of girls," commented belle. "aula allen told me that he and ida were `on the outs.'" "indeed!" and cora raised her pretty eyebrows. "i fancied he was too--too convenient a friend for ida to drop. but my dears, as our english teacher says, i have something more important to discuss than ida giles and sidney wilcox. i'm going to have a `doings,' as i used to call them." "goody!" exclaimed bess, helping herself to some more of the chocolates. "make it a lawn party." "well, that's just what i want you to help me with. i know that belle will want to make it a seance with relaxed robes and collapsed masks and relapsed--" "oh, you're mean!" exclaimed the taunted one. "i'm not such a freak as that." "oh, no," drawled bess. "cer-tain-ly not," added cora in a teasing tone. "well, go on with your `doings,'" insisted belle. "i won't make a single suggestion." "not make them; but veto them," persisted cora. "well, then, never mind, sissy. you sometimes have splendid ideas, even if they are all sterilized." "and when they are disclosed the sterilization gets away," put in bess. "that's what mother's nurse declared when we tried on those aprons that come in air-tight packages. but now, cora, let's have a lawn party." "wouldn't it be nicer to have an out-door play?" asked belle, who had forgotten her resolution not to make a suggestion. "oh, dear! i suppose we'll have to have it in the afternoon, when our nurses can be with us," said bess. "we're supposed to be such kiddies--not out yet, and all that. it's detestable--" "indeed," interrupted cora, "mother says i may have an evening affair, and also out of doors, if i like. since my last birthday i've been wonderfully grown up." "out of doors! and after dark!" cried bess. "that's great!" and she clapped her hands. "oh, let's have it a masked affair. i never have been to one in all my life, and i'm just dying to mask!" "now, girls, let's be serious," suggested cora, "for i haven't any too much time to arrange this affair. we ought to have it in june, when we can depend on having a pleasant evening. suppose we plan a masked mythology fete? have a dark, green cavern, presided over by: er--um--let's see--who was the gentleman who had charge of passing shades from earth to some place, and where did he pass 'em to?" "you mean charon," said belle. "but, cora kimball, do you suppose we could make mythological frocks that would stand damp, night air? of course, they would be comfortable." "oh, we'll manage somehow. at any rate, we'll have a masked 'doin',' that's settled." "that's all that really counts," said bess. "masks?" questioned cora. "just mask in order to be of some account? not the blessed boys, and the jealous girls--and the chances of pretending you mistake jack for walter--and you say a lot of things you are just dying to say, and would not dare to say if you weren't masked. all that--but hush! here comes jack!" "hello, girls," greeted her brother, and at the sight of jack, bess and belle adjusted themselves in more conventional attitudes. "how are you all?" he went on. "sis, here's a letter for you. i kept it in my hand all the way from the post-office so as not to forget to give it to you." "awfully kind of you, jack." cora glanced at the postmark, and slipped the missive into the large, loose sleeve of her gown. "oh, you may read it," spoke bess, smiling frankly at jack. "we don't mind." "not in the least," came from jack as he took a chair next to isabel. "in fact, we would be glad to have you do so. go ahead, sis. help yourself," he went on pleasantly, dipping into the chocolate box. "it will keep," said cora quickly. "but, jack, what's new? for mercy's sake, do tell us something new! is there anything more about--" "yes, a lot about it," and jack anticipated his sister's question. "i hear that the sleuths have a straight tip. they told ed this afternoon that they would have his money back inside of a--" "oh, isn't that fine!" broke in belle. "i have been so uncomfortable ever since that affair happened and they found the empty wallet in poor, dear cora's car. it looked just as if we--" "don't!" spoke cora quickly in a low voice. "it certainly was uncomfortable," put in bess. "especially for ed foster," remarked jack with a. significant grin as he took another chocolate. "um--um--these are mighty fine, sis!" "oh, take them all!" cried cora. "but tell us some more about it; do, jack, please!" "yes. do they really think they're on the right track?" asked isabel. "that's all i know about it," answered jack calmly as he finished the last candy. "i heard the detectives had promised to get the money back inside of a week, and that's all. maybe it was only talk. they have to say something for their pay, you know. but i almost forgot. there is another bit of news, girls." "what?" they demanded in chorus. "ed says he knows who took the money." as jack made this announcement he looked around as indifferently as if he had made the most ordinary remark on the most commonplace subject. chapter xvi mary's letter for a moment there was silence. then cora asked: "who does he say took it?" "that's just it," went on her brother. "he doesn't say." "does he know?" "he declares he does." "then why won't he tell?" "you can search me. i don't know. he hasn't even told the police, i understand. he merely made that remark to walter, and i heard about it." "oh, jack, are you sure that's all there is to it?" asked his sister. "sure. i'd tell you more if i knew." at first they thought he was teasing, and the girls, with, all the wiles of which they were capable, besought him to explain, but he could not, and, finally, they accepted his word as final. "well, it's very strange," commented cora. "i hope it will be all cleared up soon--for all our sakes." "so do i," joined in belle. cora again referred to the proposed purchase of a car for the twins, and though they were disappointed that they could not have it at once, cora was rather glad, as she felt it would be a chance for paul to get the order. jack was appealed to, and gave the two sisters so many points about autos that they declared they felt quite bewildered. "well, i think we'd better be leaving, cora, dear," said elizabeth at length, and the good-bys were said, with many whispered promises made to come over the next day to finish up the party plans. "cora," said jack, when the pretty twins had gone down the path, "i want a chance to talk to you. you've been so busy of late that i haven't had an opportunity." "in just a minute, bud," interrupted his sister, feeling in her sleeve for the unread letter. "i must run upstairs for just a moment. then i'll be right down." "yes, and then some one else will come in, and it will be the same thing over to-morrow. no, sis, you're not treating me right," and jack's tone betrayed some grievance. but cora decided that she must read her letter, and she promised that she would soon return to the porch. "i know it's from mary downs," she told herself as she glided up the stairs to the privacy of her oven room. "and i never could read it before any one." she hastily tore open the envelope. yes, the letter was signed with mary's name, and it was dated from silver falls. cora's heart beat expectantly. she had hoped, ever since the day of the eventful ride, that mary might be able to furnish some clue to the missing money. she was such an observing girl. cora began to read the letter. it ran: "my dear miss kimball: i was so sorry to leave you without having a chance to thank you for the pleasant time you gave me, but i was called away unexpectedly that same afternoon. it would only bore you to hear all the details. i simply had to come here, and here i am still. it was most unfortunate, for madam julia will never forgive me, and even to her i dislike to tell the reason for the hurried trip. in fact, i think she would not understand it. well, enough about that. "i just want to thank you for the lovely time you gave me, and i am so sorry i cannot talk with you, for i have read of the loss of mr. foster's money, and surely it was a very strange thing to happen. if i had a chance i might be able to give you a clue but it would not be wise to write it. i expect to be back in chelton soon, and then i will tell you what i think about it, for i know i can trust you. "with kindest regards, "mary downs. "p.s.--i was greatly surprised yesterday to meet mr. wilcox, or, rather, to see him pass in a new automobile. he did not see me. i did not want him to. m. d." "of all things!" exclaimed cora, dropping the letter into her lap. "just like every other girl on earth. tells you what she wants you to know, but never says a word about what you want to find out. i've a good mind to let jack read this letter. he might know what would be best to do." then she hesitated. cora always did hesitate before taking an important step, just as she always stopped and looked around when leaving her room--to see if she had forgotten anything, or if she had left it all right. "but it does look strange," she reasoned. "yet i would trust mary. she has such an honest face. i will just tell jack the whole thing." picking up the letter she hurried back to the porch. there sat walter pennington and ed foster with her brother. concealing one expression of surprise, and another of disappointment that jack was not alone, cora greeted the young men pleasantly and invited them in to dinner, an invitation which jack, in his rough-and-ready fashion had given by asking his chums to stay to dine. mrs. kimball was preparing for a little trip, and though very busy she warmly greeted her son's friends, and entertained them, as she knew so well how to. "you young folks are so taken up with your motors," she said as she took her place at the head of the table, "that we older and less fortunate people scarcely get a chance to speak to you. cora is so enthusiastic over her car and its swift motion that our maid declares she will soon turn into a bird and fly." "a dove," whispered walter, just loud enough to be heard by every one, but softly enough to disguise the platitude. cora laughed lightly. walter had a very taking way of saying things. he seemed to know exactly how to be nice without being silly. the dinner over, the young people went to the porch. mary's letter was in cora's belt, and the edge of the envelope, scratching her hand as she sat down reminded her of her anxiety concerning the contents. should she tell all the boys? ed ought to know, that was her first thought. surely jack ought to know of it, and, as for walter--well, he ought to know also, for he had found the empty pocketbook. ed was making some remark to jack about the lost money. cora listened to see if it had any reference to what her brother had told her that morning. she crushed the letter in her hands. "i've just had a note," she began, "from my friend mary downs." "what i from the pretty runaway?" exclaimed jack. "so that letter was from her, eh? no wonder i didn't recognize the hand." "she did not run away, jack," objected his sister, and there was a warning note in her voice. "oh, no, of course not. but, anyway, she vas pretty. wasn't she, boys?" "a hummer!" declared walter, adjusting a porch steamer chair for cora. "well, if you want to hear about the letter--" began the girl. "hear about it? why, we want to read it for ourselves!" cried jack, and he tried to take it from his sister's hand. cora struggled to retain it, and finding that she was being bested, threw it over jack's head to walter. he grabbed it, and defied his chum to touch it. "now, easy, fellows," begged ed in his quiet way. "if there happens to be news from mistress mary, though she be quite contrary, pray let us hear it." "that's what i say," added walter, handing cora the missive. "now, jack, i'm going to stand on guard, and if you interfere again--" "oh, go ahead. i'll get it, anyway, later, when sis is asleep." "no, you'll not!" declared his sister. "but this is the news," she went on guardedly. "mary intimates that she knows something about the money." "is that so?" cried ed eagerly. "oh, every one is intimating that," declared jack in some contempt. "is that all? what we want is an intimation that makes good, eh, ed?" "yes, i suppose so. but what does mary say?" and he looked sharply at cora. "i think i had better read the letter," she said, "for, like all girls, or most of them, at least, she only hints at the most important statement." "go ahead," ordered jack. "i'll listen and close my eyes to call up a picture of pretty mary. she's pretty, she's witty, she's all a girl--" he began to sing. cora jumped up. "if any one wants to hear this letter he has got to keep--" she began. "i'll be good," promised jack contritely. walter gently slipped his arm around cora's waist. ed, towering above walter, put his arm around his chum and jack's sister. jack managed to edge under her arm. "well, we're a happy family now," said jack. "you may read the letter, cora. we each have you all to ourselves." with a quick move cora freed herself. "oh, you might know she'd duck," pouted jack, "just as we were getting comfortable. keep your old letter. i won't listen to it now," and he moved away. "i've forgotten something in my machine!" exclaimed ed suddenly with a sly wink at cora. "i'll just run and get it, if you'll excuse me." cora knew exactly what he intended to do. quickly, as he came back in his runabout, she ran down the piazza steps, and was in the machine before either walter or jack realized what was taking place. "now i'll hear the letter without being interrupted!" exclaimed ed as he put on speed and escaped with the laughing girl, who waved the missive above her head. chapter xvii a runaway auto when cora finished reading mary's letter to ed, which did not take long, she looked up at him and asked: "well, what do you think of it?" "i--er--i think--would you mind very much if i didn't tell you what i think of it?" he answered her in turn. "no," she said slowly; "not if you don't care to. but i thought perhaps--jack says you know who took the money," she finished hurriedly. she had wanted to get alone with ed more to ask him this than to read mary's letter to him. ed started. "jack said that?" he asked, obviously to gain time. "yes." "i didn't exactly say, that. i said i had my suspicions. he must have misunderstood me." "very likely. jack's rather impetuous. then you don't know?" "not exactly." "i'll not ask you whom you suspect," declared cora, though it was hard work not to, for she had her share of curiosity, and she felt, in a measure, that suspicion for the robbery was upon her and her friends. they were both rather sober after that, and following a short ride around quiet streets ed brought her home. walter and jack were gone. "good-by," said ed as he started away. "if i--er--if i make my suspicions a certainty i'll tell you before i do any one else." "will you--really?" "yes." when the robinson girls called on cora the next afternoon she had about completed her plans for the lawn fete. it was to be a novel affair, and almost all the eligible young folks of chelton were to be invited. "all," declared cora, "except sid wilcox. he simply shall not come." "but how can you leave him out?" questioned bess. "especially as you are going to ask ida and others in that set." "i simply will not have him," insisted cora, "and i don't care what any one thinks about it. he is too--too impertinent to be polite, and i will not run the risk of having him offend some one." secretly cora was thinking of his last transgression, and it afforded her no small consolation to note that her particular friends had not heard of the stolen ride. belle, "relaxing" on the low divan in the library window, just where the sun could help her out on the rest theory, was too deeply buried in thought to make rash comment on cora's decision. she wanted everything simply perfect, and to shape plans with such precision was no easy matter. "of course,--you will ask the sheldons," she finally venture. "of course," answered cora. "but, belle, we expected a more important remark after such forethought on your part." "and the winters," went on the serene one, not noticing the bit of sarcasm. "yes; and i have a new star," said cora quickly. "who ever do you imagine she can be?" "i know," declared bess. "she is paul's sister." "who told you?" demanded cora. "not a soul," bess assured her; "but i saw you out in your car with her this morning. isn't she nice." "very. but being nice is not her strongest point. she is--brainy." "o-h-h-h!" sighed bess. "then let's not take her up. belle has brains enough for one town." "but hazel isn't that kind. isn't that a pretty name?" demanded cora quickly. "she has a different sort of brains. she is a student of nature--biology and evolution, to be exact." "perhaps she could tell what makes bess so--so fat," suggested belle with marked sarcasm. "or what makes you so thin," retaliated bess. "at any rate, she is a very sweet girl," declared cora, "and i'm most anxious for you to meet her. at the same time i am afraid you will like her a lot better than you do me." "cora kimball!" exclaimed bess. "as if any one could be more likable than you--to us!" "oh, i don't know," sighed cora. "there's jack." "well--er--he's nice--just because he's your brother," replied bess a bit awkwardly. "now for plans," said cora suddenly, wishing to change the subject, as it was becoming too personal. "we must get the cards out to-morrow. every one must be masked--that's settled--and we'll try to confine the characters to--" "the roman period," interrupted belle. "that will make it pretty." "i wonder how the boys will take it?" asked bess. "i shouldn't wonder if they all came as gladiators." "or some such character as nero," added belle. "as long as they don't try to emulate him on his burning rome affair," came from cora. "and every one must keep his or her costume a secret," went on belle, who was nervous with enthusiasm. "i am not even going to let bess know whit mine will be." "all right, sister," replied bess, glancing at her tiny, enameled watch; "but pray don't be too--too spirituelle. that is, if there were any roman spirits." "there was roman punch!" laughed cora merrily. "i believe i would like to be roman punch, if it's not too strong." "and served up to--" began bess. "the gentleman with whom she was riding yesterday afternoon," finished belle. "the idea of a young lady going out motoring in a morning dress--" "bareheaded," chimed in bess, and a laugh followed. "come to think of it, girls," spoke cora, making an effort to get back to the party, "i do not think we ought to confine this fete to any particular period. suppose some one wants to be--well, say, priscilla--and has been wanting to be priscilla all her life." "that's right," agreed bess. "it's just like you, cora, to think all around a thing. yes, i vote for a masked fete. any sort of a costume, so long as we are masked." belle also agreed that this would be a better plan than the one first proposed, and then the trio of girls busied themselves over the invitation list. there was no time to spare, as the "doings" must come off before mrs. kimball's trip to bermuda, for which she was preparing. "and you feel you must invite ida?" asked bess. "i am sure she is almost as certain to do something rude as sid would be." "yes, we had better have her," declared cora, putting down ida's name on the long list. "ida is not really mean--she is rather unfortunate--and i think, as she has been in chelton so long it would be unkind to leave her out." "i hardly think she will come," commented belle. "she has been so--so snippy lately." "well, we'll ask her, at any rate. and, now, don't forget, we are all to keep our costumes secret." "oh, won't it be jolly!" sang out bess. "i can scarcely wait." "and to think of having it after dark, without chaperons to look after us!" exclaimed belle. "i doubt if some of the stiff girls will be allowed to come on that account." "then we'll have a better time without the stiffs," declared the young hostess. "i'm sure our patronesses are protection enough, and mother is going to delay her trip a few days on purpose to be on hand." "oh, of course," belle hurried to explain, "i think it is just perfectly all right and delicious, but i was just speculating on the kind who may be jealous." "and is paul coming?" asked bess. she was always so self-conscious when she asked a question like that. "why, of course," answered cora, "and also his sister hazel. i particularly like them both, and jack, who has met paul, agrees that he is a very nice young man." "expert opinion, i suppose," murmured belle. they talked in jolly mood for some time longer, and the twins were about to leave for home when a shout out in the street attracted their attention. "what's that?" asked cora, starting up. "runaway! look out for the runaway!" the girls heard several persons shout. "it's a horse running `away," declared belle. "let's stay where it's safe--up here." but cora had started down the path, and bess followed her. "it's a runaway motor--a car!" exclaimed cora as she caught sight of something flashing through the trees. it was a runabout, dashing along the avenue without a hand to guide it, and as it gathered speed it swerved from side to side. "why, it's jack's car!" cried cora as the auto flashed past her. "can he be hurt? where is he? 'oh, jack!" she started to run, leaving bess on the path. "i must stop it!" thought cora. "it may run into a person or a team and kill some one." before she thought of the uselessness of her act she found herself running down the street, along with a shouting crowd of men and boys. as if she could catch up to an auto! she hardly knew what she was doing. "oh, can't some one stop it?" she cried. "turn off the power! it must be stopped!" "by jove! that's a plucky chap!" exclaimed a stranger. "there! he's lost his hold! he'll be run over!" a young man, who had made a daring attempt to stop the runabout, was seen to be slipping beneath the wheels. but as the car sped on he pulled himself up to the seat. he grasped the wheel just in time to prevent the car from running up on the sidewalk, and an instant later he had shut off the power and applied the brakes. "why, it's ed foster!" exclaimed cora as she came up beside the halted runabout. "oh, ed, are you hurt? i'm so glad you stopped jack's car. there might have been a bad accident." "oh, i'm all right. i nearly slipped out, though. how did it happen?" "i don't know. we were sitting on our piazza when we heard the cry, and i saw the car speeding away." "where's jack?" "i don't know that, either. i'm afraid he's hurt." "the car doesn't seem to be damaged," remarked a man who had been nearly run down. the crowd, rather disappointed, on the whole, that no accident had happened, turned away. cora got in jack's car beside ed, who started the machine back. they were met half way to the kimball home by paul hastings. "any damage done?" he called out as soon as he saw them. he appeared very anxious. "none, but it was a narrow squeak," answered ed. "where's jack?" asked cora. "we took him home." "oh, is he--is he badly hurt?" "no; only a sprained leg, i believe, and some bruises. the doctor is there." "how did it happen?" asked cora quickly. "why, jack brought his machine to the garage to have a little repairing done. i had finished it, and he and i were in the office talking, when a fellow named lem gildy came along and threw in the clutch, starting the car off.' "jack saw him do it and ran out, trying to stop his runabout, but he wasn't quick enough, and was knocked down. i hurried out to pick him up, and i forgot all about the runaway car until i had taken jack home. there was considerable excitement, as there was a brand-new car, a very expensive one, belonging to the blends, in front of our garage, and the runabout nearly crashed into it. if it had, the new machine would have been wrecked." "and what became of lem gildy?" asked ed. "oh, he sneaked off, after whining out that he didn't mean any harm. but i think he did. he's a suspicious character." "hurry home. i want to see jack," begged cora. ed started jack's runabout off again, after telling paul what had happened down the street. the handsome young chauffeur said he would presently call at the house and inquire after jack. cora found her brother in bed, where her mother had insisted that he go, though he declared he was not hurt much. dr. dearborn had examined him, and said he would be all right in a few days. "oh, weren't you awfully frightened, cora?" asked bess, who, with her sister, had remained at the kimball home. "indeed i was, but i knew the car had to be stopped." "and it was going some," added ed. "i can't see what motive lem would have in starting the car," said cora. "i never knew him to be malicious--only worthless." "i believe he planned this," declared paul, who had just arrived. "why so?" asked cora. "well, he's been hanging around the garage for several days past, and numbers of times i've ordered him away. i heard him asking one of the men, the other day, how to throw in a clutch on a car like jack's, and that made me suspicious." "but what could his object be?" asked ed, rubbing one arm, that was strained from his exertion in stopping the car: "i believe him to be in the pay of some one," declared paul with flashing eyes, "and i believe his object was to get me into trouble. as i told you, there stood in front of the garage a valuable new car belonging to the blends. their chauffeur was about to take it out for a run. if jack's car, started by lem, had smashed into it i would have been blamed, for i ran the car out of the garage, for their chauffeur. then i would have lost my position here, and probably would not get that new one in new city, for the garage people would have blacklisted me." "oh, mercy!" gasped belle. "wouldn't that have been dreadful!" "bad for me," admitted paul with a smile. "but i'm sorry jack was hurt." "thank goodness it's no worse!" exclaimed cora. "but, mr. hastings, whom do you think paid lem to do such a mean thing?" "i'd rather not say," answered the young garage manager. "but i shall keep my ears and eyes open, and if i find out what i suspect to be true--well, there'll be trouble for somebody." he spoke with flashing eyes, and cora looked at him admiringly. "well, since we know how your brother is, i think we'll be going, cora," said bess, and she and her sister took their departure, followed by paul and ed. "i wonder why lem gildy did that?" asked cora of herself as she went to her room that night. "who is urging him on? did he want to injure jack, as well as make trouble for paul? well, i'll have to give up thinking of it now," she finished, "but, like paul--i suppose i ought to say mr. hastings--i'm going to keep my eyes and ears on the alert, too." chapter xviii the garden fete it was a perfect evening--the very last of the perfect june days. chelton lay like a contented babe in nature's lap--contented, but not asleep, for it was the evening of the masked garden fete. the bright-colored lanterns throughout the spacious grounds of the kimball home flickered like eager fireflies, and the splendid dancing platform, erected on the broad lawn, fairly glistened with its coat of wax under the strings of tiny electric lights that canopied the pavilion. it was not deemed necessary to have any one at the gate. in chelton there were not many strangers and suppose some urchins did enter, cora said, it would be a pity to deny them a glimpse of the pretty sight. a tall antonio, in a garb of the most somber black, strolled about, hoping to find his portia. priscilla was there, in her collar and cap, but where was john alden? would the dainty little bo-peep, who looked like a bisque doll, ever find her straying sheep? then motor "togs"--a long linen duster, with a cap and goggles--seemed a most convenient mask for so many young men, who were not vain enough to want to don doublet and hose. but there were some courtiers, and they did look romantic. perhaps that stout girl in the white empire gown, with a baby cap on her head, and a rattler around her neck, might be bess robinson. but the winter girls were both stout--as stout as bess. then that thin creature, so tall that she suggested a section of sugar cane (could she actually be in one piece), might be belle. the psyche knot at the back of her head, and the wreath of wild olive, certainly bespoke belle. what had cora done? whom had she impersonated? there were many who wished to know this, and there were so many pretty persons that very likely she might have taken a very simple character. cora disliked too much trouble, where trouble did not seem to count. that splendid figure of liberty might be she. or that indolent cleopatra on the rustic bench under the white birch tree--she made a pretty picture. but cora would not pose as this one was doing. the vacant seat beside the girl was too glaring an invitation for cora to offer. perhaps she might be that suffragette, who went about demanding "votes for women!" see! there she is now, holding up marc anthony! a most attractive figure was night or luna. the coloring would have suited cora--the black hair and the silvery trimmings of the robe to represent the moon but it was not like cora to seek the dark spots of the garden that her moonbeams might be the brighter. the boys had a certain fancy for moonlight--hand made. "i'll wager you are bess," whispered a very handsome adonis in a real greek costume--all but the pedestal. "yes," answered the girl with a titter. "as you please--but, i pray you, fair sir, am i not a good milkmaid?" "the best ever," replied adonis. "pray let us stroll in yonder meadow." slipping his hand into the bare arm of the milkmaid, adonis drew the figure down a pith toward the small lake that was on one edge of the kimball property. "now i have some one to talk to," he declared with evident satisfaction. "oh, is that all?" replied the maid in some contempt "i can't see just why i should fill in that way," and she arose from her seat at the water's edge. "besides," she added, "i hate greeks. they are so vain!" and with this she hurried after a girl in a nun's costume, who was walking along the path to the pavilion. "well!" exclaimed the disappointed youth, "that was hard luck. and just as i was going to say something nice, too. however, it'll keep, i suppose," and he followed the two figures--the nun and the milkmaid--toward the dancing platform. a veritable rosebud was bowing on the porch to the row of unmasked patronesses, several ladies of mrs. kimball's set, who had volunteered to help her receive. the rosebud wore a plaited garb of rose pink, with velvet petals about her waist, and green velvet leaves about her throat. the costume was so beautiful, and the figure so graceful, to say nothing of the natural rose perfume it exhaled, that every one stopped to admire. the bell for the cotillion sounded, and when the ribbons were cast to the gentlemen it was the greek adonis who caught the blue end. he would lead. for his partner he walked up to the saucy milkmaid, and claiming her by right, proudly marched with her on his arm back to the center of the platform. a murmur of disapproval was heard. why had he not chosen cleopatra? but marc anthony was eagerly waiting, and quickly sprang to the fair charmer's side. antonio, the silent, strode over to the market woman--the height of incongruity. a clown somersaulted to the rosebud. night hung back. she seemed particular with whom she danced, and when a very handsomely proportioned courtier stepped up to her she refused him with a toss of her head. a star fell from her black tresses, but the answer seemed final, and the courtier walked away. finally the music started, and the dancers with it. how delightful it was to be some one else! and how splendidly adonis led! at each turn where the waltz varied the figures he effected a wonderful change of partners, and it usually happened just when he was saying something most interesting to the young lady. but this afforded a splendid chance for coquetry--a very pardonable affectation under a mask. the little nun was creeping around the platform. she seemed like a dark spirit in the midst of such merrymaking, almost like a warning of a fate to come. "now!" the rosebud heard her partner whisper as the nun passed. and the rosebud had for a partner--antonio. "who?" psyche heard the nun ask of the same antonio. "who is it to go to?" psyche wondered what it meant. with a quick move, at the signal for a change, antonio was whirling off with the nun, and psyche was left without a partner. but a few moments later antonio came back to her. "i just wanted to see if i could make the little nun dance," he whispered, "and i did--all the way off the platform, for she's gone." "she is standing there by the side of adonis," replied psyche directly. "and she seems to be in the way." "soliciting alms," almost sneered antonio. "that's her business, i suppose." psyche was glad when the waltz ended, and at the next figure she came in contact with rosebud. it was to be a ladies' bouquet, and rosebud made the centerpiece, with all the other pretty sprites in a circle about her. then the boys, in an outer ring, threw their flower-chained hands into the inner circle, thus each capturing a pretty partner. the milkmaid fell into antonio's arms. he almost caught her up from the floor. "don't!" she objected as she felt his hands on her bare arm. "your hands are--are too damp. they'll take all the starch out of my sleeves." "sign of a warm heart," he answered as he led her away. adonis was with rosebud. what a charming couple they made! and how perfectly they both danced! close beside them fluttered night. she was with the clown and seemed to enjoy the contrast. one of the most distinguished masculine figures was hiawatha, the indian lad. his face was made up with real skill, and his bow and quiver hung gracefully at his back as he strode about. he had not danced, but he was evidently having a most delightful time with the moon figure and buttercup. at the intermission a general onslaught was made by the young men to penetrate the disguises worn by the ladies. "plagued awkward," complained hiawatha when he had failed to ascertain who luna was. "i might be making love to my own--" "sister!" snapped the girl, laughing at the youth's discomfiture. "but won't you tell me just this?" he pleaded. "who on earth is the girl in the black robe--the nun? see, there she goes off toward the lake with antonio." "how can i tell?" answered luna. "but if you really want to know, suppose we follow them?" "great idea!" agreed the indian. "there goes rosebud and adonis. my, but they are hitting the trail, if you will pardon the language of an early settler. suppose we go around this way? then we can have a full view of both pairs in this mystery." "as you please," answered luna with some condescension as they started toward the little lake. "shall we sit here?" it was adonis speaking to rosebud. she sank down upon a rustic bench and instantly noticed a couple turn behind the spruce hedge. they were both in black. it was antonio and the nun. chapter xix a strange discovery adonis and rosebud sat for a while at the side of the miniature lake, where the pretty little lights dimpled in the placid waters, and where now a score of merrymakers were clamoring for a ride in the tiny launch which jack kimball and his chums, ed and walter, had rigged up, in order to add picturesqueness to the fete. "don't you want to take a sail?" asked the greek youth of his fair companion. "oh, no, indeed, thank you. i must leave that for the others." "you must?" and he accented the last word, as if to penetrate her disguise by this act of deference to the "others." "oh, well," she answered hesitatingly, "i never did care much for sailing, to tell the truth--especially in a--tub. i prefer a place where there is at least room in which to dip my hands." "then let us walk," he suggested. "i am anxious to see all over the grounds. aren't they splendid? just see that cave formed by the cedars, back of the lighted path. i declare' this place looks like a real fairyland to-night." "i am glad you like it," replied the girl. "i--er--" she clapped her dainty hand over her masked mouth. she was near to betraying her identity. "like it?" he repeated. "how could i do otherwise? but in all this human garden there is no fairer flower than--rosebud," and he brought her hand reverently to his lips. "oh! you--you mustn't be too--too gay!" she expostulated, but she laughed as she said it. "you know the patronesses have specified--" "there!" he exclaimed, interrupting her. "it's all right, rosebud," and he tucked her arm within his own. "i will make love to the trees if it pleases you. but let us walk about the grounds. i am afraid the curtain will be suddenly rung down and leave us again just mortals." rosebud felt that it was, pretty--very pretty. she was entirely satisfied with herself and her friends. then adonis--wasn't he splendid? and how courteous--almost like the brave knights of old. they approached a spot gloomy with shadows. from it they heard voices in a gentle murmur--voices near what adonis had called the cedar cave. involuntarily, at the sound of one voice, rosebud pressed her companion's arm. she heard some one say: "i must go home at once--i am so frightened!" there came an answering whisper, but it was in tones that indicated a youth pleading. "i have--i have done it," again came the girl's frightened whisper. "i did what you asked me to, and i don't see why you don't take me home." there was almost a sob in her voice. "what? just when i'm having a fine time?" objected the other. "why don't you want to stay? no one could have seen you drop it into---" "hush!" cautioned the girl desperately. "oh, you're just nervous--that's all." rosebud felt that she should not hear any more, but she would either have to cross the path near the cave and allow the hidden ones to see her, or she must wait until they had come out, as, if she and her companion retreated now, they would make a noise on the gravel, and it would be heard. adonis seemed to understand the situation, and whispered to his companion: "stay. they'll be gone in a moment." he drew her farther back into the shadows. "if you don't take me home," continued the girl in the cedar cave, "i'll ask some one else to. i certainly shall not stay until supper and have to unmask. i dare not." "just as you like," was the cool response. "and i risked it all for you--spoiled my entire evening. i'll know better next time!" "well, i'm going to make it up to you," said her companion. there was a movement of the cedars, and two figures emerged from amid the trees. they crossed the path. they were antonio and the nun. rosebud drew adonis farther back from the path. the others passed on without seeing them and at once began talking gaily, as if they had been merrymaking with the rest but rosebud and adonis detected the false note in their laughter. adonis pressed the little warm hand on his sleeve. "do you know them?" he asked. "i--suspect them," she replied. "so do i," he almost gasped, "and with good reason. i have just found something in my pocket." "in your pocket?" "yes, quite a bulky package. i did not notice it until this moment." "but how--" "don't ask me how it got there. it's just--there. i did not even know there was a pocket in this cloak i wore. whoever put the package there was more clever than i." "but what is it?" "i'm going to look--cora." "cora? then you know me--ed?" "as you do me. of course. did you think you could deceive me?" "i--i hoped to. but the package--what does, it contain?" "we will look--together." he led her to a dangling electric light, drew, something from the folds of his cloak, and unwrapped the paper. then he gave an exclamation of surprise. "ten thousand dollars of my missing bonds!" he whispered. "really, ed?" he extended them to her. "oh, ed! i'm so glad!" "so am i, yet i have been suspecting it." "suspecting it?" "yes. i may as well admit it, of late i have not worried about my loss. recently i have been convinced that it would come back. and you see i was right." "but this is only half of it." "i know, but the rest will come. it is not so easy to return the cash." "but who could have slipped it into your pocket?" "don't you know? can't you guess--after what we heard?" "the--the nun?" "exactly." "and she is--" "that is a mystery--as yet, but i have my suspicions. she brushed past me in a crowd, and i thought i felt her hand upon my velvet cloak, but as i never suspected the garment contained a pocket, i gave it no further thought. had i the remotest idea--what had happened there might have been a disturbance. but the talk we heard just now gave me a clue." "hush!" exclaimed cora, and she shivered slightly in her rather thin costume. "here come paul and belle. i have penetrated their disguises. isn't paul splendid as marc anthony? and belle makes a perfectly classical psyche." "and walter?" asked ed with a veiled hint of jealousy in his tones. "it was horrid of him to play the clown." "but i like him best in some such humble role," spoke ed. "i wish you had not discovered me," went on cora. "it would be such fun to hear things, and say things, in some other character than ourselves." "but i could not find, even in the rosebud, a fairer type than that of jack's real sister," he replied gallantly. "there's the supper gong!" exclaimed cora; "and i must hurry away, as i have my duties to look after. oh, but i'm so glad about the money. i wish it were all back. are you going to make this public?" "i don't know. we'll talk about it again." "well, run along now," commanded the girl with a pretty air of superiority. "why don't you join in with that milkmaid and pocahontas? they are charming--both of them." "i think i will just run along with--rosebud," he answered, and he drew her arm more firmly within his own as they advanced toward the fairy tables set about all over the lawn, where, as the repast was served, masks were suddenly taken off, and the merrymakers were treated to many surprises. "oh!" cried the pretty milkmaid to hiawatha. "how could you--jack kimball?" "oh!" answered jack, who had quite recovered from his little auto accident. "oh! how could you--bess? and you know perfectly well you did squeeze my hand--once." "oh, you horrid boy, i did not!" "well, you may now, if you like," and he extended it, but bess drew back. "and to think," cried the beautiful psyche, who was belle robinson, "that i have actually been--" "letting a perfectly strange chap make love to you!" added paul, helping her out, for paul was marc anthony, and had spent considerable time with belle. "oh!" cried the girl, recovering herself quickly. "was that--making--love?" and she looked archly at him. "i--er--i rather hoped it was," he replied grimly. night--hazel, you must know--had been flitting around with hiawatha and the clown, but toward the end the latter had attached himself to her, to the exclusion of the indian youth, and now walter pennington, with a shake of his head which set all the foolish little bells to ringing, told paul's sister how delighted he was to renew his acquaintance with her. adonis and rosebud had a table directly under the umbrella tree. "i must run in-doors for a second," cora whispered to ed when the ices were being passed. "i want to speak to jack. i just saw him going in." "may i come?" "with me?" "yes. you see, those bonds are burning a hole in well, in my lace handkerchief, and i wish jack would put them in the safe in the house." "why, certainly. come along. but see, there is antonio--and the nun is not with him." "yes," spoke ed. "i saw her go away with priscilla." "priscilla?" "yes; and john alden never spoke for himself." "priscilla," murmured cora. "do you know who she was?" "no. who?" "mary downs." "mary--why, i thought she was out of town." "she was, but she came back to-day, and i helped her fix up a costume. and so the nun went off with her?" cora walked slowly toward the house, ed following. chapter xx the aftermath ed foster and jack kimball sat in the library of the latter's home until quite late that night--long after the merrymakers had departed. "if you suspect who put the bonds into your pocket," jack was saying, "don't you think the easiest way to clear it up would be directly to accuse the suspect?" "no," answered ed, "for i feel that it will all come out shortly, without any unnecessary publicity. you see, the money and bonds may only have been--er--well, let's say borrowed. just as many banks are robbed. or the person who took it may have thought there was only a small sum in the wallet, and finding such a large one, probably became terribly frightened, and did not know what to do." "well, of course it's your affair," returned jack and looked thoughtful, "but, in a measure, it affects my sister." "it never did affect your sister, jack, and never can. i am sorry about the wallet being found in her car, but there never was the most remote--" "oh, i know, of course not, on your part. but others--" "no one ever really suspected her. and, what is more, i have it from her own lips that she would rather not have the guilty ones punished, for she thinks, as i do, that the money and bonds were not taken as a deliberate robbery." "well, what are you going to do--wait?" "yes. i shall invest these bonds so they will be safe, and then let time do the rest. i do not think we shall have long to wait. they have been holding the bank stock for me, so i have not really suffered--thus far." "well, you certainly are a cool one!" complimented jack. "if i thought some one had my money--some coward, as this person must be, to keep silent all this while--i would never sleep until i had it back." ed smiled rather indulgently and indifferently. "well, you see," he went on, "i have gotten along so many years without the use of that twenty thousand dollars that i did not miss it when it was taken. of course, i am losing interest on it, but i can easily make that up." "then suppose we retire?" suggested jack, for ed was to be his guest for the remainder of the night. "i am actually sweltering in these togs. aren't you in a hurry to get back into yourself and be just ed foster?" "no; i rather like being adonis. i fancy i like him infinitely more than i cotton to that foster chap," and he laughed. "well, you made a hit," complimented jack. "thanks." ed stood up and surveyed himself in a pier glass. he laughed at the figure he presented, but there was a serious look upon his handsome face. fancy adonis being serious! "you also made good, jack," he said after a pause. "i don't know when i've seen a braver brave. do you ever expect to get that stuff off your face in time to go back to college?" "i guess it will wear off. if it doesn't i'll use gasolene from the auto tank, or take a steam bath at some lady beauty doctress's establishment." he rubbed his countenance vigorously with his handkerchief. "if it doesn't remove," he added, "i'll tell 'em i've got the jaundice." "did you see sid this evening?" asked ed. "i thought i saw him, and then i wasn't sure. he wasn't invited. whom do you think he was?" "i--well, i wouldn't be sure, either," answered ed evasively. "i saw so many chaps about his size and build that it was hard to distinguish. hastings was splendid, wasn't he? i like that fellow." "so do i. he's perfectly square, and measures up all right. i managed to get the order for the robinson twins' auto for him." "you did?" "yes. you know, he is going to represent the whitehall automobile concern from the first of the month, over in new city. going to take one of their cars across country, you know. he was mighty pleased to get the order. it was cora's idea, of course. she is just full of such ideas--always thinking of other people." "that's right. she never does lose a chance to do a fellow a good turn. i suppose she told you about the ride when she and paul outdid sidney wilcox?" "no; but paul did. wasn't that plucky of her?" and jack beamed with admiration. "cora has a lot more courage than have some fellows i know." "indeed she has," and ed's voice was earnest. the tall clock was chiming two when the young men left the library. they had so many things in common that they talked like two girls. just as they passed the hall door they were startled by a quick step on the veranda. "hello! who's that?" asked jack, hurrying to the portal. "it's me--paul hastings," answered a voice outside, and as jack swung open the door the young chauffeur, who was still in his costume, entered. he seemed greatly excited. "i was afraid you'd be in bed," he panted, "and i ran until i'm all out of breath." "but what's the matter?" asked ed. "come on in and sit down," invited jack. "we're not particular whether we go to bed or sit up the rest of the night. come and join us. but has anything happened?" "no; i--i can't stay," and paul leaned against the doorway. "but i found this in my coat pocket--it's a diamond ring. i was nearly home when i discovered it. i thought some of the girls or ladies might be frantic over the loss, so i hurried back with it." he handed over the sparkling object. "whew! that's a beauty!" exclaimed jack. "a new one, too! look, ed! if that isn't an engagement ring i'll eat my war club! now, what young lady, do you suppose, could have used our grounds, our hospitality and eaten of our swell supper with the malicious aforethought of becoming pledged to unite herself in the holy bonds of matrimony? who could have done it? and then to lose the guarantee that goes with it! it's past belief!" "it certainly is new," said ed, critically examining the ring with its sparkling stone. "about a carat and a half, i should say. never cost less than three hundred dollars. whoever bought it must have plenty of cash. but how on earth did it get into your pocket, paul?" ed was rapidly thinking of something that had happened to him that nigh. "that's what gets me," replied paul. "of course, these costume rigs are full of holes and corners. a girl might have been dancing with me, and the ring may have slipped from her finger into my pocket. perhaps it was too large for her, being new. but i did not notice that i danced with any one wearing it." "still, it might have happened that way," admitted jack, "especially if she kept the stone turned in so no one, would see it. that's a trick they have." "at any rate, she is sure to come back here for it," went on paul, "and i wanted to save her any possible anxiety. i hope it belongs to some real nice girl, and if it does, don't forget to say that i found it. and you might add that i would be glad to receive a small reward in the shape of permission to show the aforesaid pretty girl the sights around here in the auto i am soon to run." "all right," laughed jack. "that would be some sort of reward. but, as for myself, i must confess i would prefer a smile of gratitude. just fancy the girl receiving back her ring! won't she flop over in a sheer state of collapse!" "have you looked inside the ring?" asked ed. "there might be a name or initials in it." "never thought of it," admitted paul. "hazel, who was with me when i found it, made me hurry right back, and i didn't get a chance." jack lead the circlet, and holding it close to a drop-light, he peered closely at it. "by jove!" he exclaimed. "there are initials!" "whose?" asked ed. "'i.g.' whose are they? 'i.g.' why, of course. `i.g.'--ida giles! whoever would have thought it? ida giles with an engagement ring!" "and why not?" queried ed. "isn't ida the bright-red, dashing sort? lots of fellows would call her dashing, and, from what i have seen of her to-night, she certainly is bright." "well, of all things!" exclaimed jack, who seemed unable to get over it. "and you're on her side, eh, ed? why, man, not a fellow in the whole of chelton ever got through more than one dance with her--except sid wilcox, and i can't see why he sticks to her." "then the chelton fellows are slow," commented ed as he critically examined the ring. "i think ida is quite taking." "was she here to-night?" asked paul. "she was invited," replied jack, "for i saw her name on one of the bids cora sent out. but i did not have the pleasure of a personal interview with her this evening, and so i can't say whether she was here or not." "well," remarked paul, moving toward the door, "i guess i'll be leaving again. take care of the ring, jack, and don't forget to give the lady who calls for it my regards. and say, jack, please thank your sister for me for getting the order for that car for the robinsons. i'm going after it to-morrow morning--no, i mean this morning. it's after three o'clock now." "oh, i'm sure cora was only too glad to be able to get you the chance." "and thank you, also. i know the part you had in it." "oh, i didn't do anything. it was all cora. though of course bess robinson would deny me nothing," added jack and laughed. "she thinks i'm simply perfect. i heard her tell cora so," and jack walked up and down in pretended self-admiration, while the others threatened to pick him up and toss him out into the cold moonlight, where they said he belonged in that particular state of lunacy. "ida's ring," mused jack, after he had calmed down. "just plain ida. now if it had only been bess, belle or--hazel." "no, no!" protested paul. "well, all right," assented jack. "ida's it is." he wrapped the ring carefully in paper and put it in his pocket. "i'll take the best of care of it, paul, of course, and i'll also collect the reward for you, and hand it over personally. you can trust me for that. but i wonder why we haven't had some inquiries from ida before this?" "maybe she is so unused to it that she hasn't missed it," suggested ed. "no girl is ever unused to her first engagement ring," declared paul. "well, i'm going. goodnight." "this finding of things in pockets is growing interesting," remarked ed when the door had closed on paul. "i wonder if any of the girls found valuables in their costumes?" "hardly," declared jack. "no one could ever find their pockets to drop anything in. but i'll put this in the safe and mark it `to be kept until called for.' won't cora and the other girls be surprised!" and he slammed the iron door shut, having, by an odd chance, dropped the diamond circlet into the very compartment that contained the bonds so strangely returned to ed. chapter xxi real motor girls cora was up early the next morning, and went out alone for a spin in her car. she wanted to think over the happenings at the lawn fete, to recall various matters, and to try to straighten out some tangles that confused her. it was delightful to skim along the quiet road, the powerful motor of her car singing a song of speed and progress. "i suppose jack and ed are sleeping yet," she said to herself, "though how ed can, after the strange recovery of his bonds, is more than i can understand." ed was gone when she returned, and jack seemed surprised to see his sister returning from an early morning run. "i thought you'd sleep for hours yet," he said "i've got something to tell you." "is it about the bonds?" "no, not exactly. look at that!" he held out the diamond ring. "jack!" she cried with a little catch in her voice. "you don't mean to tell me that's an engagement ting?" "that's exactly what it is." "but for some girl--" "of course it's for a girl," answered her brother, seeing that his sister was under a misapprehension, and not being able to resist the chance to tease her. "of course it's for a girl. and--" "oh! but jack, what will mother say--you becoming engaged--" "who said i was engaged?" he asked. "look inside and you'll see whose it is." "ida giles!" cried cora. "exactly. she lost it," and to end her increasing wonder, jack told his sister the circumstances. cora wanted to go at once and return the ring to ida, but jack said: "no, we'll wait for her to call. if she wants it very much she'll come." "but why don't you want me to give it to her?" "well, i'll tell you some other time," and with that evasive answer cora had to be content. several days passed, and ida did not come, but jack would not consent to cora returning the ring to her. in the meanwhile the young people had discussed over and over again the beautiful fete given by cora, though the finding of the bonds and the story of the ring was kept within a small, select circle. ed foster took the bonds to the bank and received for them part of the stock for which he had negotiated. the rest, he said, would be held for him. "and i'm pretty sure i'll get the rest of my twenty thousand dollars back soon," he said. "at least, nearly all the cash." mrs. kimball went to the city to prepare for her trip to bermuda, and it was a few days later, when some of the recent excitement had worn off, that cora began to feel a sense of loneliness stealing over her. her mother seldom went away from home. "oh, dear!" she exclaimed as she sat in the library trying to be interested in a book. "i wish something--" out on the driveway a triumphant "honk-honk!" drew her attention. "i hope that's--" she began, but she did not finish, for she saw the robinson twins in a shining, new car, bess at the wheel, as though she had been running one for months, and the sisters both attired in their becoming motoring costumes. "come on!" cried bess as cora leaned out of the window. "get your car and we'll take a spin! isn't ours a beauty?" "oh, isn't it!" cried cora delightedly. "but i thought it wasn't to come for a week." "we couldn't help deceiving you, cora, dear," answered belle. "but you see--" "and you can run it all alone?" interrupted cora. "yes, all by our lonelies," answered bess. "you see, we wanted to surprise you, so we didn't tell you exactly when it was coming. when it arrived we got paul--i mean mr. hastings, of course--we got him to give us lessons along a quiet road, where we never met any one who knew us. and father is not a bit timid about us going out alone since paul--i mean--" "never mind explaining," broke in cora with a laugh. "well, since paul showed us how to run it. papa has taken a great notion to paul," finished bess with the suspicion of a blush. "how about the daughter?" asked cora gaily. "of course, she would never take a notion to the same young man her father happened to favor." "oh, you horrid creature!" exclaimed bess. "he did teach me beautifully, of course. but a girl may look at a chauffeur, i suppose, just as a cat may gaze at a crowned monarch." "oh, certainly," conceded cora. "so you are really going out for a spin? i'll get ready and we'll go together: i was just wondering what i could do until dinner-time. jack is out with some friends, and i was just plain lonesome." "put on your new costume," directed belle. "we want people to look at us. isn't it perfectly splendid to have a regular set of cars?" "yes. we ought to get up an auto show," agreed cora as she hastened off to make ready for her ride. they selected a quiet road. in spite of the shadows of the trees it was hot. the swift motion of the cars, however, relieved the humidity of the atmosphere in a measure. "which way?" asked cora as they came to a turn. "down by the river," suggested bess. "we haven't been out woodbine way all summer. let's go this afternoon." "all right. i guess i'll let you set the pace," answered cora as she held her car back and allowed bess to take the lead, which the fair amateur motorist did gracefully and with no little skill. they attracted some attention as they skimmed along in their new outfits and their new cars, and with their bright faces showing their happiness. many stopped to look and admire and could not but smile at the evident pleasure the motor girls were having. "`far from the maddening crowd,'" quoted belle as they swung down the quiet river road. "but do be careful, bess," she urged. "i know you understand as much about the car as i do, but i always feel that i ought to have a life preserver on when any mere girl--including myself--is at the helm of such a powerful craft." bess laughed and replied lightly. she had perfect confidence in her ability to guide the flyaway, as they had christened the new car. "isn't it close?" called cora as she tried to steer out of the way of a stone and failed, thereby receiving quite a jolt. "i'm afraid we're going to have rain before we get back--a thunder shower, likely. it's sultry." "oh, i hope we don't have a storm," replied bess. "i'll hate to get my new machine all splashed up with mud, to say nothing of spoiling our new auto suits." "then we had better not get too far out and away from shelter," suggested cora. "there! isn't that thunder?" there was a low, distant rumbling. "that or blasting," said belle. "it is thunder," was cora's opinion. "i hope we can find some shelter." "shelter!" exclaimed bess as she looked anxiously up at the gathering clouds. "how could we ever get the cars under any ordinary shelter? "that's what i can't get used to about an auto--the size of it. they're like houses to me, as big as all outdoors." "i know of an old barn out this way, over toward woodbine," went on cora. "we would likely find that open, for when i went past there the other day they were getting ready to put the hay in." "oh, dear!" exclaimed belle as the thunder sounded nearer and louder. "i wish we could get back home. turn around, bess., dear." "i can't," declared her sister with a nervous little laugh. "the road is too narrow for me to make a turn in, and i haven't yet learned how to reverse well. we'll have to keep on until i get to a wide place." "i don't want to do that!" objected belle. "let's stop the car, get out, and push it around. surely we can do that. don't go any farther." "yes, yes!" cried cora. "keep on. it's too late to turn back now. there! it's raining! let me get ahead, and i'll show you the way-a short cut. i know how to get through that lane." her car shot ahead, the girl skillfully guiding it, and the twins timidly following, until, with many a twist and turn, cora piloted them up a little hill to a big red barn, with the wide doors invitingly open. "drive right inside," called cora, slowing down her car. "i guess no one will object, and we haven't any lights to put out, as the warning over the door of the garage says." the rain was falling in torrents now, and before cora could get the whirlwind wholly within the shelter, and while yet the flyaway was entirely out; the girls received quite a wetting. a moment later they were out of the storm in the barn, had stopped their cars, and shut off the engines. "suppose the owner doesn't like it?" suggested belle. "well, we're in, anyway," declared cora, "and i guess they won't put us out. but we must be careful. don't let any gasolene or oil drip out. but i guess it won't, as both the cars are new." no one but themselves seemed to be in the barn, which was odorous with new-mown hay, great mows of it being on either side of the broad floor on which the autos stood. "there are some men coming," announced bess, looking out through the big doors into a mist of rain. "the haymakers," announced cora. "they were getting in the crop, but the rain didn't let them finish. see how they're running." "what shall we do when they come in?" inquired belle, anxiety depicted on her face. "why, nothing, i should say," replied cora. "there is plenty of room for them and us, i'm sure, even if our cars are rather large. we won't eat the men, and i hope they won't eat us." "oh, dear!" sighed belle, but bess laughed. the first to reach the barn was a very tall farmer, of the type designated as lean and lanky. he was headed straight for the open doors, his head bent down to avoid the pelting drops, and he did not see the cars and the young ladies until he had nearly collided with cora. then he straightened up suddenly, and the look of astonishment on his face made cora want to laugh, only she felt, under the circumstances, that she did not dare. "wa'al, i'll be gum-swizzled!" exclaimed the farmer. "what's this, anyhow? auto-mobiles? as i live! wa'al, i swan t' goodness! an' gals a-drivin' of 'em! ho! ho! wa'al, that's what i call rich--yes, sir, rich!" a fringe of curious haymakers gathered behind the one who had entered first. "we only came in out of the rain," explained cora, who was looking her prettiest in the confusion. "we hope we're not in the way." "oh, you're welcome," the man hastened to say. "as welcome as--wa'al, a heap sight more welcome than this thunderstorm is. we calcalated t' git all th' hay in, but we didn't quite make out. we've got lots of room here, you see. there ain't another barn in all woodbine that'd take a locomotive like that in it," and he walked around cora's big car, eying it curiously. "i knew you had a big barn," said cora. "i saw it the other day; then, when the storm came, i remembered it, and so we intruded here." "'tain't no intrusion, nohow," declared the farmer. "i'm mighty glad of a chance t' git a look at them things close by, when they ain't movin' like a blue streak. my gal is jest daffy about 'em. she thinks it would be handy fer her an' me, but i ruther guess she'd git th' most rides outer it." "they are very convenient when you want to get somewhere in a hurry," ventured bess, who thought it time to come to cora's aid in keeping up the conversation. "yes, i expect so; but you see th' trouble on a farm is that you ain't got much of any time t' go anywhere. now, ef i had a machine like thet--" there came such a sharp crash of thunder and such a blinding flash of lightning simultaneously that the farmer's voice was silenced, and every one jumped. "oh, isn't that awful!" fairly screamed belle, and instinctively she ran to the side of the tall, lanky man. "guess you're used t' bein' near yer pa in a thunderstorm," observed the farmer with a chuckle. "i thought the barn was struck," said the girl with a shudder. "it would be terrible if it got on fire, with all this hay in it." "that's what it would; but we're not worryin so much since we got th' new fire apparatus. we've had th' two hose carts for about three weeks now, an' though we've practiced with 'em we ain't never had no real fire. we've got a good water system, with high pressure, an' they can pump more when they need it. all we have t' do is run with those carts t' th' fire, an' attach th' hose t' th' hydrants. but th' funny part of it is that th' carts is so heavy they need hosses t' pull 'em, and we ain't got no reg'lar hosses yet. have t' pull 'em by hand, i expect, an' it's goin' t' be hard work." "do you belong to the department?" asked cora. "you're right, i do." "and is that part of your uniform?" she went on, pointing to some rubber coats and fire hats that hung on the side of the barn. "yep, that's what they be. me an' my two sons. by jimminity crickets! that lightnin' certainly is sharp, though!" flash after flash of the glaring light came through the sheets of rain, and the thunder crashed and vibrated overhead, seeming to, shake the very earth. "where are your sons?" inquired belle, wanting too do her share in the talk; but she waited until there came a lull in the storm. "over in th' south medder, two miles away," replied the man. by this time several of the haymakers, seeing that the storm was likely to continue, and knowing that they could no more work that day, had donned heavy coats and departed, going down the road to the village. this left the farmer and one hired man in the barn. "it certainly is rainin'," remarked the hired man as he looked out through the big doors. at that instant there came a more terrific crash than any that had preceded it, and the whole place seemed a glare of intense light. every one was stunned for a moment, and when they recovered their numbed senses, cora, looking toward the farmhouse, saw a sheet of flame coming from the roof. "fire! fire!" she cried. "your house is afire! it's been struck by lightning!" "by gum! so it has!" yelled the man. "it's blazing, and my old mother is bedridden in it! come on, jake! we'll have t' git her out, anyhow. now what good is our fire department with no hosses t' haul th' hose carts, an' all my animals away off! sech luck! th' men gone, too!" he was rapidly shouting this as--he ran from the barn. "where are the hose carts?" called cora after him. "in si appleby's barn! a mile away, an' it's a bad road." he pointed to the barn, for it was in sight down the hill. "is there a hydrant near your house?" "yes. but what good be they without hose?" returned the farmer. he was on the run, halfway to his burning house, the hired man after him. "we'll bring up the hose carts!" cried cora. "we'll pull them with our autos! come on, bess--belle--quick! we must get the hose here! don't be afraid. put on the rubber coats and the helmets. the rain can't get through them. the worst of the storm is over now. oh, i hope they get that poor woman out! "hurry! hurry!" she cried as she cranked up her car. "back your machine out! reverse it! i'll follow! let's see what the motor girls can do in an emergency!" chapter xxii ida giles bess really surprised herself by the quickness with which she got her machine out of the barn. in the excitement the words of advice paul had given her came back with force. in a few minutes the motor girls were rushing down the muddy roads, splashing through big puddles, but they themselves were kept from the drenching downpour by the firemen's heavy coats and helmets. they gave one look back at the burning house. the blaze had enveloped the entire roof. "oh, if we can only return in time!" cried cora as she threw in the full speed forward. cora said afterward that they reached the barn in less than four minutes, but bess declared they never went as fast as that. mr. appleby did not know what to make of three excited girls, in two panting automobiles, rushing up to him and demanding the fire apparatus, but--he managed to understand what had happened, and why they wanted it. "tie the hose carts to the back of the autos with ropes!" cried cora. "we can pull them up the hill. are there any men around to help with the hose? if there are we'll take them to the fire in our cars." "no, i guess not; but i'll send my boy for some help right away. there'll be lots of men in their houses 'count of the rain. i'll go with you." fortunately there was no need to hunt for ropes, as there were two long ones on the hose carts, and mr. appleby, working with speed, aided by the girls, soon had the apparatus attached. the run back took longer, but it--was made in good time, and cora and bess, at the wheels of their respective cars, guided them and the hose carts into the yard near the burning house. the blaze was fiercer now, but it had not eaten down as far as it would have done had it not been for the heavy rain. the farmer and his hired man had carried the bedridden woman out, placing her on a mattress in the carriage house. "attach the hose to the hydrants!" cried mr. appleby. "i'll turn on th' water." "who'll handle the nozzles?" asked the farmer. "it'll take two men to each one, there's so much force to th' water." "you an' i can handle one!" yelled mr. apple by, "an' your hired man." "he can't manage th' other alone." "then we'll help!" called cora. "come on, girls!" the lines were unreeled, attached to the hydrants, and were soon spurting water. cora and bess, for belle declared herself too nervous to help, aided the hired man in holding one nozzle of the leaping, writhing hose, that seemed like some great snake as it squirmed under the pressure of the water. the farmer and mr. appleby managed the other. the fire burned slowly, and the little force was really setting it under control when some men, summoned by young appleby, arrived and relieved the girls. more lines of hose were run from the hydrants, each one of which could supply water to two, and the blaze was soon out, though the house had been considerably damaged. "well, if it hadn't been fer them young ladies and their machines, maybe you wouldn't have had any house, frank," said mr. appleby to the farmer. "that's right; and land knows i can't begin t' thank 'em. if ever they want a friend, all they've got to do is t' call on frank ettner---that's me." he thrust out his rough hand, and cora clasped--or tried to--the big palm in her own little one. "i--i don't know how to thank you!" he exclaimed fervently. "we couldn't help doing it," said cora, blushing, and then mr. ettner insisted on shaking her hand again, and also with belle and bess. "well, we certainly had an adventure!" exclaimed cora as the motor girls were riding home after the shower had stopped. "whatever will the boys say?" "the boys will be very proud of you, cora," declared belle. it was a few days after this when cora was out alone in her car, trying to understand, among many other things, why ida had not called for her ring. "and why doesn't jack let me take it to her?" she asked herself again. "i declare i can't understand jack," and she shook her head. along the turnpike she guided her car, going on slow speed to more fully enjoy the odor of the wild honeysuckle which in tangled masses lined the roadside, mingling with the wild rose perfume that was wafted on the gentle breezes. she came to a narrow place, where there was room but for one vehicle to pass at a time, and seeing a bunch of wild fern, cora got out of the car to gather some. as she did so she heard a girl's voice pleading in alarmed tones: "let me pass! you must let me pass!" "not until i get some money out of you--or somebody!" exclaimed the rough voice of a man. "i tell you i haven't any money!" "well, you know who has. come on, i want it." there was a sound of breaking sticks, as if the man had taken a step nearer the girl. she retreated, and this brought her into view of cora. it was ida giles! cora leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the man. she was startled to see that he was that good-for-nothing lem gildy. "come on," growled lem, "fork over some cash." "i haven't any. oh, please, lem, let me pass!" he took another step toward her with outstretched hands, and ids shrank back. she screamed, but lem only sneered. "no one'll hear you," he said. "come on, i must have money, or i'll tell some things i know." cora was hidden from the two by a screen of bushes, and on the dirt of the road, with her car running at low speed, they had not heard her. lem laid his hand on ida's wrist. "let me alone!" she screamed. "help! help!" cora saw a stout stick lying on the ground. with hardly a thought of what she was doing she caught it up and stepped forward. "there's nobody here to help you," said lem with a brutal chuckle. "yes, there is!" cried cora in ringing tones. "let go of her arm, lem gildy, or i'll strike you with this!" and the girl raised the stick over the rascal's head. he hesitated a moment, still gripping ida, who was on the verge of collapse. she looked at cora with wonder and fear. "let go!" demanded cora, taking a step nearer. "not for you!" answered lem defiantly. cora brought the stick down with stinging force on his wrist. with a howl of pain he let go and advanced toward cora, but she struck him aver the head with her weapon, and ida, who had recovered her courage, catching up a heavy stone, made it a more even battle. with a muttered snarl lem slunk away and disappeared in the underbrush. cora felt herself trembling violently, but she kept control of herself. "oh, cora!" sobbed ida. "i believe i would have died if you had not come along. i was never afraid of lem gildy, and when i saw him following me along the road i never dreamed that he would molest me." "what did he want?" asked cora. "oh, it's all over that dreadful money! mr. foster's, you know." indeed, cora was beginning to suspect that. sobbing like a child, ida leaned on the arm that cora held out to her, though as a matter of fact cora was in need of assistance herself. "well, never mind," she said to ida. "just get in my car and we'll go right to your home. he was a perfectly horrid man, and should be punished. see what he did to jack, starting off his car and injuring him. now he tries to rob you." "not exactly rob, cora. he says some one--" "now don't go into details until you feel better. come, get in the car with me," and cora led ida back to where the auto waited. "oh; cora! i--i can't get in your car with you--i--i can't accept any kindness from you--after--after what i've done. and to think that you should come to save me from him! i--i feel like a--a thief!" "but you're not!" declared cora stoutly. "no, not exactly, but almost as bad. oh, cora, i--i wish i could tell you, but i--i daren't!" and again ida sobbed hysterically. "well, ida, dear, you don't have to tell me now--maybe not at any time," spoke cora soothingly as she placed her arm about the girl's waist. "come along for a ride in the whirlwind. that will settle your nerves." "where are you going?" asked ida as she noticed they were not heading for chelton. "we'll go to new city, ida," went on cora with sudden resolve. "i want to ask you a question." "yes," spoke ida nervously. "did you lose anything at my party?" and cora's thoughts were on the diamond ring in the safe. "no," replied ida firmly. "didn't you, really?" insisted cora, surprised that ida would not admit ownership of the ring. "i--i didn't lose anything, cora," and cora wondered at the stress ida placed on the word "lose." "well, i have a secret to tell you. jack did not want me to speak of it, but i'm going to, for i'm just consumed with curiosity. paul hastings found a beautiful diamond ring in his pocket after the fete, and your initials were engraved in the gold." cora turned so as to look into ida's face, and she could plainly see that a change came over her countenance. "paul hastings found it?" murmured ida. "the ring with my initials in?" "yes. didn't you really lose it?" for a moment ida did not speak. she was biting her lips, and her fingers were nervously playing with the fringe on the lap robe. "cora," she exclaimed impulsively, "i have been mean--hateful to you--but--you have not deserved it. sid wilcox told me he had you out riding, and he said you spoke of a lot of things about me--" "what!" cried cora. "he dared to say that?" "yes; and people saw you out with him." "so they might have; but the truth was he jumped into my car and ran away with it without my permission. that's how i came to be in the motor with him." "he never told me that!" exclaimed ida. "well, that's just like him. now i will tell you. it was he who forced that ring on me--and i would not take it at first. but he made me. then i determined to get rid of it. i did not lose it, but i slipped it into walter pennington's pocket. oh, cora! you know i--i do like walter, and i--i thought if he saw that i wouldn't keep some one else's engagement ring that--somehow--he might send it back where it came from, and--and--" her tears interrupted her. cora did not understand. "you put it in walter pennington's pocket?" she repeated slowly. "why, it was found in paul hastings' pocket." "wasn't walter dressed up like marc anthony?" demanded ida, ceasing her sobbing and looking up with wonder in her eyes. "no. he was the clown. paul was the roman," and cora began to see how some things had come about. "that explains it," murmured ida. "it was a mistake! and did that that ring actually have my initials in?" "it is marked `i.g.,'" said cora. "we have been expecting you to call for it." "where is it now?" "home, in our safe." "then keep it there!" exclaimed ida, a new determination in her voice. "but we cannot keep it," objected cora. "it is not mine nor jack's. why not give it back to sid?" "neither is it his," went on ida. "he gave it to me, and now i ask you to keep it--in trust." "i don't see how we can do that very well. the reason i mentioned it to you, against jack's wish, was that i wanted to get rid of the responsibility of keeping it. suppose it should be stolen? it is quite valuable." "well, i cannot take it," insisted ida. "mother would not allow me to have it in the house. sid said it cost five hundred dollars." "it is certainly a very valuable ring," admitted cora. "but, ida, if i were you i would give it back to sid." "well, perhaps i shall--some day. but oh, cora, you cannot imagine what i have gone through with in the last month!" and ida pressed her handkerchief to her swollen eyes. "i am sorry," said cora simply. "can i help you, ida?" they had ridden through new city, and were back again in chelton. ida had asked to be let out at the post-office, and as cora--drew up in front of it for her to alight, ida extended her hand, and the two girls looked into each other's eyes, each trying to read her neighbor's thoughts. "coca, you can help me, and i will soon ask you to do so," said ida almost in a whisper; "but now--i cannot tell you now," and she hurried out of the car. chapter xxiii the mystery solved ida giles had always been unpopular, and the kindness shown her by cora kimball, following opt the timely rescue of her from lem gildy, came to the unhappy girl like a revelation. for the first time in her dissatisfied life ida determined to do what her better nature prompted her to do, even at the risk of getting into trouble. she determined to clear up the mystery that had been hanging so heavily over the heads of cora and her friends. "i--i don't care what sid thinks--or says," murmured ida, "i'm done with him forever." she hurried to a select bowling alley, where she was pretty sure she would find sid. within the little office in front one might buy confections or ice cream, and at the same time be able to look in on the alleys, where athletic young men were banging away at the pins. ida sent in word by the clerk, and sid came out at once when he heard who wished to speak to him. ida was struck at his appearance. he looked thin and worn, but, more than that, worried. "sid," she began bravely, "you must come with me at once. i will aid you all i can, but we must go right over to the kimballs', explain everything, and set matters right." "what!" exclaimed the youth in an anxious whisper. "you mean confess?" "yes, that's just it." "but--but--er--i--" "i've promised to help you,", she said slowly. they were talking outside now, for the clerk had come back and was behind the showcase. "you must come, sid, and tell everything. i will do my part. besides, there is really nothing to confess, you know. you really didn't steal the money, but you must tell them--tell ed, cora and all--what you did with it--and about the empty wallet." "oh, ida, i never could do that!" sid's bravery--his gay, sneering, bold manner--were all gone. he was a craven--weak. "you'll have to tell them," he added. "i'm going--going away." "that's just like you!" exclaimed ida. "leave me to shoulder all the shame. no, sid wilcox! i've risked enough for you! i'm done! if you don't go to the kimballs' this very afternoon and tell everything, i shall go to the police and relate to them all that i know about the missing money, the bonds and the wallet. the detectives will be glad enough to get the reward." sid was really afraid now. his face was pale, and his voice shook as he answered: "i'll--i'll make it all good now. i have the money. can't you--can't you give it back to ed, the way the bonds--" "no!" "not to help me out?" "no!" "but you promised--" "i promised too much! will you tell everything, or--" there was a moment's silence. sid was battling with his mean nature. even yet he was trying to find a way of escape--to discover some plan by which he could avoid the shame of making a humiliating confession. "well?" asked ida, and there was a new ring in her voice. "i--i suppose i'll have to," spoke sid in low tones. "come, then. i'll go with you." an hour later cora, jack, ed, sid wilcox and ida gales were seated in the library of the kimball home. sid was uneasy, and ida's eyes showed that she had been weeping. "sid has something to tell you all," began ida, "and so have i. i guess you know what it's about." cora nodded and smiled at ida. then she went over and stood beside the unhappy girl. "i'll make a clean breast of if, fellows," began sid hesitatingly. "i--i really didn't mean to make so much trouble over it, but one thing went to another, and when i started there didn't seem to be any stopping place, or any way to get back. "when ed stooped over to fix the mud guard on cora's car, that day of the race and the collision, the wallet dropped from his pocket into the soft dust of the road. i saw it and picked it up, intending first only to play a joke on him. ida and mary downs saw me, and--well, i don't know what they thought, but i only did it for fun." "queer fun," murmured jack indignantly. "i slipped out the money and bonds," went on sid, "and then ed turned toward me, and i didn't know what to do with the empty wallet. there was only one chance, and i took it. i dropped it in the tool-box of cora's car. i was mean to do it, for i thought it might make a mix-up and add to the joke." jack murmured something inaudible, and cora shot a warning glance at her brother. "yes, it was a poor joke," admitted sid weakly, "but i've learned a lesson. i found out it was going to cost considerable to fix my car, and as i had some other--er--well, expenses to meet, i just used some of ed's cash. i knew i could pay it back later. "that is, i thought i could, but my folks shut down can my allowance, and when i missed getting that job which paul hastings got i was in a bad way. i didn't know where i was to get the cash to repay ed, and i didn't dare say anything, for fear you'd have me arrested for stealing: "then i got mixed in with lem gildy. he saw me with a lot of cash, and he suspected something. the man is sharp, and one day he saw the numbers of one of the bank notes i had. he looked up the numbers which ed gave the police, and it corresponded. then he jumped to the conclusion that i had stolen the ten thousand dollars in cash, and the bonds. nothing i could say about it being a joke could convince him. he began to bleed me for hush money, and i had to give it to him. then i thought of a plan for getting him out of the way. i put him up to start jack's car off, thinking he might be arrested for malicious mischief and put in jail, but i never dreamed you would be hurt, jack. honest, i didn't." jack did not answer. "well, that plan didn't work," went on sid, "and lem kept getting worse. then i didn't know what mary downs might be up to, going away as she did. i believe she thought i really stole the money." "she did," put in cora. "she told me so; but her going away had nothing to do with it. a relative was taken suddenly ill, and she had to leave. she wrote me something about the robbery--excuse me, i'll not call it a robbery now--but mary thought it was, and she imagined both sid and ida were guilty." "i can't blame her much," murmured ida unhappily. "i have treated you very meanly, ida," confessed sid. "i made you keep my secret, and lem found out--at least, he thought he did--that you were in with me." "that's why he followed me and demanded money of me," spoke ida. "i decided then that it must all come out, though i also decided that i would never again have anything to do with you, sid wilcox." "not even after--" began the youth: "no. your--your ring is--here," and she, pointed to the safe. sid started. "i wondered why you didn't wear it," he said: "yes," he went on, "i have been mean to ida, though i--i did ask her to take the ring--to--to make up for it." it was clear that he did care for the girl, as much as it was possible for a person of his selfish nature to care for any one. "i--i spent some of the money for the ring for ida," he went on. "yes, and for that reason, as much as for any other--because i knew you were only a shade removed from a thief--i threw it away!" burst out ida. "when?" asked sid, much astonished. "the same night when, masked as a nun, i slipped back the bonds into ed's pocket--as you asked me to." "so that's how they got there!" exclaimed ed. "then, when ida came and told me a little while ago about lem," went on sid after a pause, "i knew the game was up. he was getting desperate, and he's liable to send word to the police at any moment, accusing me, and i don't want to be arrested." he seemed very anxious. "now here is your ten thousand dollars back," he said to ed, handing him a roll of bills. "i managed to get from my folks the amount i had used, including the sum for the--the diamond ring, and what i had to give lem." "what's become of him?" asked jack. "i guess he's skipped out," answered sid. "after holding up ida it won't be safe for him to linger too close to these parts." "i should say not," commented cora. "now, will you take this money, and--and call it square?" asked sid nervously. "hardly square," murmured jack. "look at the suspicions about my sister--" "hush, jack," pleaded cora, looking at ida, who was weeping. "i think the best way will be to call the incident a closed one," decided ed. "i'll take the money, and--" "what will you tell the police?" asked jack. "i'll tell them the money came back to me in a mysterious way." "they may want to claim the reward." "they can't. there is only one person who will get the reward, and she is--" he paused and walked over until he stood in front of ida, who sat with bowed head. "miss giles, it is due to you, more than to any, one, that this mystery is solved," he said: "will you please accept the reward?" and he took some bills off the roll sid had handed him. "i couldn't oh, i couldn't!" she sobbed. ed looked embarrassed. every one was under a strain. jack went to the safe and took out the diamond ring. "i guess that comes back to you," he said to sid, "as long as you've made up to ed the whole sum." sid took it hesitatingly. then with a quick motion he stepped up to ed. "here," he exclaimed, "this belongs to you." "what for?" "interest on your money. it's more than the ring cost, maybe, considering the loss on the bank stock, but i'll make it up later." "no," said ed after a moment's thought "we'll call it settled." he held the ring in his hand and went over to the weeping girl. "will you--will you accept this for what you have done for me--for all of us?" he asked gently. ida looked up through--her tears. then she shook her head. "let me give it to her," whispered cora, and ed handed over the sparkling gem. "take it from me, ida," whispered jack's sister. "let it be a pledge of--of whatever you like." "a pledge from an up-to-date motor girl!" cried jack gaily, and his words ended the strain that was on them all. sid slipped out, and ida was led away by cora. then such talking as there was between ed and jack! "well, did you ever hear such a yarn?" asked jack. "did you suspect him, ed?" "yes, but i thought his motive was a different one. i had an idea the strain would soon tell on him--or ida. i'm glad it's over." "so am i!" exclaimed cora, coming into the room, having parted from ida. "oh, i feel years younger!" "look out!" warned ed. "you'll soon be a mere infant again if you keep on." "i don't care!" she cried. "come on out and take a long run in the whirlwind. i want to get some of the cobwebs swept off my brain with a glorious breeze. come, jack--ed." they went with her, each one happier than they had been in many days. "oh! there are belle and bess!" cried cora. "i must tell them." "well," remarked ed, when cora and belle had about talked themselves out, "i suppose you motor girls call that quite a series of adventures?" "indeed we do," answered cora. "i don't know that i care to have any more just like them." but, though no adventures just like those narrated here occurred to the motor girls, the possession of their new cars led them into a strange complication not long afterward, and the details of it will be set down in the next book of this series, to be entitled: "the motor girls on a tour; or, keeping a strange promise." "let's have a race!" cried jack, who was handling the new car of the twins. "come on, cora, i challenge you." "not now, jack, dear," replied his sister. "i just want to rest--and think," and she slowed her car down and ran along a quiet country road, with bess and jack trailing in the rear. the end the motor girls on crystal bay or the secret of the red oar by margaret penrose ---------------------------------------------------------------------copyright, 1914, by cupples & leon company ---------------------------------------------------------------------contents chapter page i. a worried girl 1 ii. freda's story 15 iii. crystal bay 26 iv. the red oar 36 v. two men 47 vi. the "chelton" 55 vii. in the motely mote 67 viii. frights or fancies 76 ix. a merry time 83 x. too much joy 93 xi. the rescue 102 xii. the calm 109 xiii. suspicion 120 xiv. an angry druggist 129 xv. an alarm 141 xvi. a bad case of nerves 156 xvii. a little race 164 xviii. more suspicions 171 xix. odd talk 176 xx. the night plot 184 xxi. the breakdown 196 xxii. at the cabin 202 xxiii. unexpected help 208 xxiv. denny's soliloquy 214 xxv. the plotters arrive 220 xxvi. cora's brave resolve 227 xxvii. the red oar again 235 xxviii. the discovery--conclusion 241 ---------------------------------------------------------------------the motor girls on crystal bay chapter i a worried girl four girls sat on four chairs, in four different corners of the room. they sat on the chairs because they were really too tired to stand longer, and the reason for the occupancy of the corners of the apartment was self-evident. there was no other available space. for the center of the chamber was littered to overflowing with trunks, suitcases and valises, in various stages of being packed, and from them overflowed a variety of garments and other accessories of a journey. "oh, dear!" sighed cora kimball, as she gazed helplessly about, "will we ever be finished, bess?" "i don't know," was the equally discouraging reply. "it doesn't seem so; does it?" "i'm sure i can't get another thing in my suitcase," spoke the smallest girl of all, who seemed to shrink back rather timidly into her corner, as though she feared she might be put into a trunk by mistake. "oh, marita! you simply must get more in your suitcase!" exclaimed cora, starting up. "why, your trunk won't begin to hold all the rest of your things unless you crowd more into the case." "the only trouble, cora," sighed marita, "is that the sides and top aren't made of rubber." "there's an idea!" cried a plump girl, in the corner nearest the piano. "a rubber suitcase! what a boon it would be for week-ends, when one starts off with a spartan resolution to take only one extra gown, and ends up with slipping two party dresses and the 'fixings' into one's trunk. oh, for a rubber suitcase!" "what's the sense in sighing after the impossible?" asked the girl opposite the plump one. "why don't you finish packing, bess?" "why don't you?" and the plump one rather glared at her more frail questioner. "now, sisters!" cautioned cora, as she gazed at the robinson twins, "don't get on one another's nerves. let's have another try at it. i'm sure if we go at it with some sort of system we'll be able to get all the things in. and really we must hurry!" she exclaimed, looking at the clock on the mantel, which pointed to the hour of four. "i promised to have all the baggage ready for the man at five. that only gives us an hour----" "cora kimball!" "only an hour!" "why didn't you tell us?" thus the three girls exclaimed in startled tones as they fairly leaped from their chairs in their respective corners, and caught up various garments. then, as the apparent hopelessness of the situation overcame them again, they looked at one another, at the trunks and suitcases that already held their fair share of articles, at the accumulation on the floor, and then they sighed in concert. "it's no use," spoke bess robinson. "i'm not going at all--at least not now. i'm going to take another day to sort out the things i really don't need." "you can't!" exclaimed cora. "our tickets are bought, the bungalow is engaged, and we leave for crystal bay on the morning train, if we have to ship this whole room by freight--just as it is!" "perhaps that would be the easiest way," suggested timid marita osborne. "it certainly would create a sensation in chelton," murmured belle, as she looked at her plump sister. "but come, we really must help you, cora. it's too bad we took advantage of your good nature, and brought our things here to pack. we might better have done it at our own homes." "no, i think you'll find my way best in the end," said cora, with a smile, as she looked about for a place in which to pack her sweater. "by doing this we won't duplicate on the extras. now, girls, try once more. marita, let's begin on your suitcase, for that seems to be the smallest. oh, dear, bess, what are you doing now?" she called, as she noted an unusual activity on the part of the plump girl. "i'm just seeing if i'm heavy enough to close the lid of my trunk," was the answer. "no, i'm not," she exclaimed, as she hopped on and hopped off again. "look out!" called belle. "you nearly stepped on my veil-box, bess." "sorry, sis, but you shouldn't leave it on the floor." the plump one stood looking at the bulging trunk, and then drew a long breath. "girls!" she cried, "i'm losing weight." "how do you know?" asked her sister promptly. "couldn't close my trunk lid. that's the way i can always tell. problem: given a trunk, which requires a force of one hundred and thirty-five pounds to close down the lid, and a girl of one hundred and fifteen, how many chocolates must the said girl eat before she is heavy enough to close the lid? answer--one pound, and here's for a starter," saying which pretty, plump bess rummaged in a pile of her belongings until she found what she was after. then, sinking down in a heap of silk petticoats she began munching bonbons with a contented air. "bess robinson!" gasped cora. "you're never going to do that; are you?" "do what?" came with an innocent air. "sit there and eat chocolates until you're heavy enough to close down the lid of your trunk." "i might as well. i can't check it open that way, and i can't close it at my present weight. i need everything i've squeezed into it; and so what else can i do?" "if we could only get someone to help us," said marita, innocently, seeming to take bess literally. "one of the boys----" she was interrupted by the laughter of the others, for marita was a newcomer in chelton, and though cora and her chums had taken her up, attracted by her nice ways, marita did not yet appreciate her new friends. "don't mind what bess says, my dear," spoke cora, as she saw that marita was a little hurt at the laughter. "as for the boys, please don't suggest such a thing. if they came in now, we'd never get through packing. i hope----" "all hope abandon, ye who enter here!" declaimed a voice in the doorway, and the faces of two young men peered in. "too late!" exclaimed cora, as she saw her brother jack and his chum, walter pennington. "the boys are here! any more of you, jack?" she asked, as she crowded some feminine finery out of sight behind her back. "no. why?" "because i'm going to give general orders for you to depart at once, and i want to include everyone. begone!" "heartless one!" murmured walter, sliding into the room under jack's arm. "just when we came to help you, too!" "here!" called bess, from her position, turkish fashion, amid a billowy pile of garments, "help me up first, wallie, my dear, and then sit on my trunk." "why, is that the throne seat?" he asked, as he extended his hand, and pretended to find it extremely difficult to lift bess to her feet. "no, but the lid needs closing, and i can't do it. sit on it, that's a good fellow," and she extended to him a chocolate from the tips of her fingers, which fingers walter pretended to bite. "now you really must go," said cora, seriously, when walter had managed to close the trunk. "come, jack, we have to get through by five o'clock," and she glanced at her brother, who was in earnest conversation with marita in her corner. jack paid no attention to his sister, and walter was somewhat surprised to see bess, after looking with satisfaction at the trunk he had closed for her, open it again. "well, i like that!" he exclaimed, with pretended indignation, "after me nearly breaking my back to close that lid----" "i just wanted the things compressed, walter dear," said bess, sweetly. "i've got a lot more to put in, and i couldn't squeeze in another piece until they had been crowded down a bit. now run along, little boy." "come on, jack!" called walter, as he turned to go. "we have been insulted!" "they can't insult me," murmured jack, never turning to look at his chum. "don't be so thin-skinned, wal. i'm having a good time." cora's girl chums looked at her. "jack, you must go!" she insisted. "please do. i should think you boys would have lots to do to get ready, too." "all done, sis," murmured jack. "we always travel in light marching order, and sleep on our arms," and he bent closer to the blushing marita. cora bit her lip. really she was provoked at jack this time. she and her chums were in the midst of packing for their annual summer trip, and to be interrupted this way, at the last critical moment, was provoking. "jack!" she began. "i shall tell mother----" "what's he been doing now?" asked a new voice, and with a gesture of despair cora turned to see another young man in the doorway. "come on in, ed," called jack. "didn't know you were in town. you're just in time to assist." "what's it all about?" asked the newcomer. "are you going or coming?" he inquired, as he looked at the partially-filled suitcases and trunks. "both," answered walter. "you're coming and they're going." "good!" was the comment. "hello, cora--bess--belle----" he paused as he nodded to each of the girls, and looked questioningly at marita in the corner with jack. "oh, excuse me," murmured cora. "miss osborne, let me present to you mr. edward foster--just plain ed, mostly." "the plainer the better," observed the newcomer, as he bowed to marita. "but what's it all about, jack?--no, there's no use asking him," he murmured as he noted cora's brother resuming his interrupted conversation with the little girl. "will someone please enlighten me?" "it's our annual flitting," sighed cora. "and really half the pleasure is taken away with this packing. well, as long as you boys are here you might as well make yourselves useful, as well as ornamental." "delighted!" cried walter, looking about. "where shall i put this?" and he caught up a box from the floor. "be careful!" cried belle. "you'll spill it!" "candy?" he asked questioningly, as he rattled the contents. "my manicure set, and you'll have it all upset. give it here!" went on the owner, and walter surrendered it. "no, but seriously, what's it all about?" he asked. "i've just come home." "we girls have taken a bungalow at crystal bay," explained cora. "we're due there to-morrow, leaving on the early morning train. the boys, that is, jack and walter, are to have a tent near us, and they're supposed to go with us in the morning. but unless they're further along with their packing than we are----" cora shrugged her pretty shoulders. "don't worry, sis, we are!" jack threw at her, without turning his head. "camping at crystal bay--that sounds good," murmured ed, who liked life in the open. "can't you come along, old man?" asked walter. "we've got plenty of room, and we were counting on you later, when you got back from your trip. now, as long as you're here, can't you come with us?" "i don't know but what i could. yes, i will. i haven't anything on. i'll go home and pack up right away. you leave in the morning? i guess i can make it." "well, when you go, please take them with you," and cora indicated her brother and walter. "then we'll be able to go on with our packing. really, jack," and she spoke most seriously this time, "you must go!" "all right, sis!" he agreed. "don't forget," he added, to marita, as he rose. "what nonsense has he been telling you now?" asked belle with a laugh. "don't believe him, marita." "don't tell!" cautioned jack. "it's a secret!" somehow the boys were gotten out of the room, and somehow the girls managed to get through with their packing in time for the expressman. from the kimball home driveway the expressman drove with the baggage, and soon the trunks were rattling down the main street of chelton, that pretty new england town, nestling in a bend of the chelton river. "well, that's over, thank goodness!" sighed cora, as she saw the baggage safely off. "now to get ourselves ready for morning. you girls will take supper with me." "oh, that's too much," protested belle. "no, really it isn't. i've told mamma, and she is counting on you. but i'm too excited to eat much." "so am i," chorused the others. "and i'm so anxious to see our new motor boat!" added bess, for the girls had purchased one that had been sent on ahead to crystal bay. "i do hope ed can go," murmured belle. "he's such good company." "yes, i like him, too," confessed marita, with a blush, at which the others laughed. the boys came over to the kimball home that evening, jack having dined with walter pennington. ed came also, to say that he could go, and then the young people talked over plans for summer fun, until the chiming of the clock warned the girls, at least, that they must separate if they were to get up early the next morning. "lottie weaver will meet us at the station," said cora, referring to another of the party, who had not assisted at the packing. "that's good. if we had had her trunk over here, with all our things, we'd never have gotten the baggage off," said bess, with a sigh. "and now, after it's all over," said cora to her mother that night, "i think i would not again have all the packing done in one place. i thought it would save time for the girls to bring their things here, especially as the robinsons are so upset with building that addition to the parlor. but it was a lot of work!" "oh, well," said mrs. kimball, "you meant it for the best, my dear. i'm sure you will have a pleasant summer." they met at the station the next morning--the girls and boys. lottie weaver was there, in the glory of a new maroon sweater, and ed foster was also on time. the express for crystal bay was late, and as cora and her motor girl chums marched up and down the platform, nervously waiting, cora saw a girl coming from the waiting room. "why, freda lewis!" she exclaimed, hurrying up and putting her arms about her. "what are you doing here? i thought you were going back to bar harbor for the summer." "so we were! oh, cora! i'm so glad to see you. i had to change cars here--i got on the wrong train, it seems. i've been traveling all night." "you look it, my dear! oh, if i had only known you were here----" "i haven't been waiting long. i'm to take the shore express." "that's our train. but, freda, you don't look at all well--not a bit as you did at school," for freda was a chum cora had made much of a year or so before, but had not seen of late. "i'm not well, cora," said freda, earnestly. "what is the trouble?" "anxiety, mostly. oh, cora, we've had such a dreadful time, mother and i!" her voice trembled pitifully. "freda, dear, what is the matter?" asked cora in sympathetic tones, for she saw tears in the other's eyes. "oh, it's money matters. you know we own--or at least we thought we did--a large tract of land at crystal bay." "crystal bay!" exclaimed cora, in surprise. "yes. it was grandfather lewis's homestead. well, most of our income has come from that since father's death, and now--oh, i don't know all the details, but some land speculators--land sharks, mother calls them--are disputing our title. "mother has just worried herself sick over it, and i'm afraid she is going into nervous prostration. i've been to see some distant relatives about the matter, but i can't do anything. i'm so sorry for dear little mother. if she should break down----" poor, worried freda could not go on. cora held her close and the thought came to her that freda herself was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. the girl had changed very much from the happy, laughing chum of a year before. "freda, dear, tell me more about it," murmured cora. "perhaps i can help--i have friends--jack and i----" "here comes the train!" interrupted jack. "come on, cora!" "i must see you again, freda," said cora, hastily. "i'll look for you on the train. i've got to get my party together. don't forget--i'll see you again!" and, wondering what was the cause of her friend's worry, cora hastened up the platform, toward her companions, while the train steamed noisily in. chapter ii freda's story "well, are we all here?" "count noses!" "did anybody lose anything?" "if it's a pocketbook it's mine!" "especially if it has money in it!" thus the motor girls, and their boy friends, sent merry quip and jest back and forth as they found seats in the coach, and settled down for the trip to crystal bay. cora, after making sure that the girls had comfortable seats, and noting that jack had pre-empted the place beside marita, leaned over bess and whispered: "i'm going back in the next car for a little while." "what for?" "did you lose anything?" asked belle, who overheard what cora said. "no, but you saw me talking to that girl on the platform; didn't you?" "yes, and i wondered who she was," remarked bess. "she was freda lewis." "freda lewis! why, i never would have known her!" "nor i!" added belle. "how she has changed! of course you were more intimate with her than we were, cora; but she certainly doesn't seem to be the same girl." "she isn't," replied cora. "she and her mother are in trouble--financial trouble. i'm going back and talk to her. i want to help her if i can." and while cora is thus bent on her errand of good cheer, it may not be out of place, for the benefit of my new readers, to tell a little something more about the characters of this story, and how they figured in the preceding books of this series. to begin with the motor girls, there were three of them, though friends and guests added to the number at times. somehow, in speaking of the motor girls, i always think of cora kimball first. perhaps it is because she was rather of a commanding type. she was a splendid girl, tall and dark. her mother was a wealthy widow, who for some years had made her home in the quiet new england town of chelton, where she owned valuable property. and, while i am at it, i might mention that jack was cora's only brother, the three forming the kimball household. bess and belle robinson were twins, the daughters of mr. and mrs. perry robinson. mr. robinson was a wealthy railroad man, associated with large metropolitan interests. bess, belle and cora had been chums since their motoring days began, when cora had been given a car, and, after some persuasion, mr. robinson also had bought one for his daughters. i think i have already intimated that bess was plump and rosy--a little too plump, she herself admitted at times. her sister was just the opposite--tall and willowy, so that the two formed quite a contrast. marita osborne was a newcomer in chelton, who had soon won her way into the hearts of the motor girls, so much so that cora had invited her to come to the bungalow at crystal bay. each year cora and her chums sought some new form of summer vacation pleasure, and this time they had decided on the seashore, in a quiet rather old-fashioned resort, which the girls, on a preliminary inspection trip, had voted most charming. in fact they went into such raptures over it that jack and his chums had decided to go there also. so the boys and girls would be together. speaking of the boys, the two who will come in for the most consideration will be walter pennington and ed foster. walter was perhaps a closer chum of jack's than was ed, the former attending exmouth college with jack, where, of late, ed had taken a post-graduate course. ed was considered quite a sportsman, and was fond of hunting and fishing. the first book of this series, entitled "the motor girls," tells how cora became possessed of her car, the _whirlwind_, and what happened after she got it. in that powerful machine she and her girls chums unraveled a mystery of the road in a manner satisfactory to themselves and many others. when the motor girls went on a tour, they made a strange promise--or rather cora did--and how she kept it you will find fully set forth in the second volume. in the third you may read of the doings of the girls at lookout beach, where came two runaways whom cora befriended. the runaways were two girls--but there, i must not spoil the story for you by telling you their secret. going through new england in their cars, the motor girls had a strange experience with the gypsies, as set forth in the fourth volume. cora was in dire straits for a time, but with her usual good luck, and her good sense, she finally turned the situation to the advantage of herself and her chums. motoring so appealed to the girls that when they got the chance to change from the land to the water they eagerly took it. cora became the owner of a fine motor boat, and in the story "the motor girls on cedar lake," you may read of what she and her friends did with their craft. the hermit of fern island had much to be thankful for, after meeting cora, who did him a great service. longing for wider waters in which to display their skill as amateur motor-boatists, the girls went to the coast the summer following their experiences on cedar lake, and there they found the waif from the sea. again did cora and her chums take advantage of an opportunity to befriend an unfortunate. the experiences of that summer were talked of nearly all of the following winter. now warm weather had come again, and with it the desire to be flitting to a watering place. crystal bay, as i have said, was selected, and of the start for that place i have already told. cora, walking back through the coaches, looking from side to side for freda, found herself wondering what had caused the sudden change in her former companion. "she was considered well-off at school," murmured cora, as she saw her friend half way down the second coach, "but she never appeared fond of money. now the loss of it seems to have changed her terribly. i wonder if it can be--just money?" cora reached the seat where freda was, with her face turned toward the window. "well, i am here, you see," announced cora, pleasantly. "i left them to shift for themselves a while. they do seem to depend so much on me." "that's because you are always doing things for others," said freda, and there was a suspicious brightness in her eyes. "then i hope i can do something for you!" exclaimed cora, earnestly. "come, freda, dear, tell me your troubles--that is, if you would like to," she added quickly, not wishing to force a confidence for which the other might not be ready. "oh, cora, dear, of course you know i want to--it isn't that! only i don't like to pile my worries on you." "go on--it always helps to tell someone else. who knows but what i may help you. is it a real worry, freda?" "so real that sometimes i am afraid to think about it!" there was no mistaking the girl's fear. she looked over her shoulder as though she expected to see some unpleasant object, or person. "suppose you begin at the beginning," suggested cora, with a smile. "then i'll know what we are talking of." "i don't know what the beginning was," said freda slowly, "but i can almost see the--ending," and she seemed to shiver. "but where are you going, cora, you and your friends?" she asked. "i must not be selfish and talk only about myself." "we are going to crystal bay." "crystal bay! how odd, just where mother is, and where i am going. then i shall see you often." "i hope so," murmured cora. "we have a cute little bungalow, and the boys--my brother and his chums--will use a tent. but i want to hear more about your trouble. really, freda, you do look quite ill." "perhaps that is partly because i have been traveling all night. it is always so wearying. but my chief cause of anxiety is for mother. she is really on the verge of a breakdown, the doctor says. oh, if anything happens to her----" "don't think of it," urged cora. "perhaps it will help you if you tell me some particulars." "i will," said freda, bravely. "it is this way. my grandfather was a pioneer land-owner of a large tract at crystal bay. it came to us, after papa died, and we lived well on the income from it, for there was much farm land besides the big house we lived in. but a month or so ago a big land company, that wants to get our property for a factory site, filed a claim against us, saying we had no good title to the estate. they said certain deeds had not been filed, and that we were only trespassers, and must get off." "and did you go?" asked cora, with deep interest. "not yet, but i am afraid we'll have to. you see these men took the matter to court. they got an injunction, i think it is called. anyhow, it was some document that forbade the people who rent the land from us from paying us any more money until the case was settled. and, as we depend on the rents for our living--well, you see we haven't any living now, to speak of," and freda tried to smile through her tears. "oh, that's a shame!" cried cora, impulsively. "and can nothing be done?" "we have tried, mother and i. but we really have no money to hire lawyers, and neither have any of what few friends and relations there are left. i have just been on a quest of that kind, but it was not successful. "there are supposed to be some documents--deeds, mortgages, or something like that, in existence, and if we could only get hold of them we might prove our claim, and force the men to let us have our rent money again. but until we get those papers----" freda paused suggestively. "oh, i wish i could think of a way to help you!" murmured cora. "i can see you have been suffering!" "i don't mind so much about myself," said freda, bravely, "but i am really more worried about mother than i am about the property. if worst came to worst i could go to work, but mother has taken so to heart the actions of the land sharks! she never was strong, you know. you met her; did you not?" "i think not, but perhaps i may have done so. now, freda, i am going to help you!" cora spoke enthusiastically. "are you? how?" asked the other, eagerly. "i don't just know how, but i am. first i'm going to think this over, and then i'm going to talk about it with jack. he has a friend--ed foster--who knows something about law. we may be able to get ahead of these land sharks yet." "oh, i hope so!" gasped freda, with a fond look at cora. "it is so good of you to bother with poor me." "and why shouldn't i?" asked cora. "you look as though you needed bothering with. take care that you don't break down, too, freda." "i shall keep up. i must, for mother's sake. oh, but those men were positively brutal when they told her she had no right to grandfather's property! but it has done me good to talk to you, cora dear." "i am glad of it. you look better already. now wouldn't you like to come forward and meet some of the girls? you know the robinson twins, anyhow." "yes, i know them. but i don't want to see anyone just yet. later on, perhaps. i just want to rest, and think. it was awfully good of you to come to me. we shall see each other at crystal bay." "oh, indeed we shall. well, then, if you won't come i'll go back to my friends. now don't forget--i'm going to help you, freda!" "oh, that's so good of you! i feel more hope and courage now. i--i feel like--fighting those land sharks!" and freda clenched her little hands as though the struggle to come would be a physical one. with a reassuring pat on freda's shoulder cora left her friend, to go to her chums in the other coach. she found them about to organize a searching party to look for her, and they clamored for the reason for her desertion. she told them something of freda's story, and ed foster promised to talk the matter over with mrs. lewis later, and see if he could give any legal aid. "it's too bad!" exclaimed bess. "there ought to be a law to punish such men." "there probably are laws," said cora, "but the trouble is there are so many laws that bad men can often use them for their own ends." "bravo, portia. a daniel come to judgment!" cried ed. "with you on her side, freda is sure to win!" but, though the motor girls tried to be merry, the little cloud of freda's trouble overshadowed them all the way to crystal bay. chapter iii crystal bay "here we are!" "where's the bungalow?" "me for that motor boat of cora's!" cried jack. "no, you don't!" exclaimed his sister. "not till i try her first." they had alighted at the station, and there was the confusion that always follows engaging a carriage and seeing that the baggage has safely arrived. cora found time to slip off for a minute and whisper words of cheer to freda. then she rejoined her chums, and made ready for the trip to the bungalow. the boys, with a fine disregard of housekeeping responsibilities, were already making plans to go fishing that afternoon, having spied a man who took out parties in his launch. but finally order came out of chaos. the girls found themselves at their bungalow, surrounded by their belongings. the boys, after seeing that their possessions were piled in the tent, slipped on their oldest garments and began overhauling their fishing tackle. "aren't you going to do anything toward getting a meal?" asked cora of jack, as she went over to the tent to borrow a corkscrew with which to open some olives. "we thought maybe you'd ask us over," he answered, craftily, as he adjusted a reel on his rod. "oh, jack!" she cried. "we can't! we've got so much to unpack. besides, we're only going to have a light lunch now." "a _light_ lunch! excuse me. i know--crackers, pickles and olives. never! we'll go to the town delicatessen, sister mine!" "thank goodness there is one," murmured cora. she hastened back to the bungalow. and then began a series of strenuous happenings. somehow trunks and suitcases were unpacked; somehow rooms were picked out, rejected, taken again, and finally settled on. then, between the nibblings at the crackers and pickles jack had despised, the girls settled down, and at last had time to admire the place they had selected for their summer stay. a woman had been engaged to open the bungalow for them, and she had provided most of the necessaries of life, aside from those the girls brought with them. cora and her chums had been satisfied to have her attend to everything from buying food to providing an oil stove on which to cook it. there were a number of conveniences at crystal bay. stores were not out of reach, and supplies could be procured with little trouble. a trip across the bay brought one to the shores of a real village, with school house, post-office and other accessories of civilization. a trip down the bay opened into eel pots in august, bluefishing in september and deep sea fishing later on, when the summer colonists had departed. very early in the morning after the arrival of the motor girls at crystal bay, house, tent and bungalow were deserted--it was all a matter of motor boat. moored to the brand new dock, at tangle turn, a brand new motor craft heaved with the incoming waves and tugged at its ropes whenever a sufficiently strong motion of the water gave it excuse to attempt an escape. this was the _chelton_, the "up-to-datest" little-big motor boat possible to own or acquire, according to the verdict of the young men from chelton who had just now passed judgment, and the wise decision of cora and her girl friends who had actually bought the boat, after having taken a post-graduate course in catalogs and hardware periodicals, to say nothing of the countless interviews they had found it necessary to hold with salesmen and yacht agents. they were all there, even freda, who declared she ought to be busy with other matters, but that the call of the colony was too strong for her that one morning, at least. "of course we know how to run her," insisted cora to ed, the latter having expressed doubt as to the girls' ability to manage so important a craft. "didn't we run the _pet_?" "oh, yes, but this--this is a deep-sea boat," ed explained, "and you might run yourselves away to other shores." "and land on a desert island? what sport!" exclaimed lottie, to whom motor boating was an entirely new experience. "i hope we make it holland. i have always longed to see a real, live holland boy. the kind who are all clothes and wooden shoes." "we might make one up for you," suggested belle. "i think wallie would look too cute for anything in skirty trousers and polonaise shirts. just let his locks grow a little--look out there, bess! that's water around the boat. it only looks like an oil painting. it's real--wet!" bess was climbing over the dock edge, and of course the boys could not allow her that much exercise without pretending that she was in danger of going overboard. after belle unhooked the hem of her sister's skirt from an iron bolt, thereby giving bess a sudden drop to the deck of the _chelton_, however, bess declared she knew water when she saw it, and also the difference between a water color and an oil painting. "what did you call her _chelton_ for?" asked walter. "i thought you decided to take the name from the first remark the first stranger should make about her." "yes, and what do you think that was?" laughed belle. "'push'!" promptly answered freda. "an old fisherman came along as jack was arranging the painter, and he just said 'push'!" "that would be a handy little name," commented walter. "next some boys, out clamming, saw her," said jack, "and they said 'peach.'" "either of which would have done nicely," declared ed. "peach would have been the very name--after the girls----" "_chelton_ is dignified and appropriate," interposed cora; "besides, if we should stray off to holland they would know along the dikes that we belonged in chelton." "now don't forget that the wheel is a sea wheel and turns opposite to the direction you want to go," cautioned jack. "how is that?" inquired lottie, who had joined the other in examining the boat. she was shown with patience. the boys were plainly glad that one of the girls, at least, did not know all about running a motor boat. "and oh, what is that?" gasped marita. "that cunning little playhouse!" "playhouse!" repeated cora. "that's our living room--our cabin. those fixtures are to cook with, eat with, live with and do all our housekeeping with." "also die with," added walter. "i think that electric toaster might be all right for fudge, but for real bread--now say, cora, can you really cook pork and beans on that?" "these are the very latest, most improved and most expensive electric attachments on the market," answered cora, with a show of dignity, "and when you boys take a meal here, if we ever invite you to, i think we can easily prove the advantage of electrical attachments over campfire iron pots." the cooking apparatus was examined with interest. a motor boat cabin fitted up with such a "kitchenette" was indeed a novelty. "you see," explained cora, "we have two ways of getting power. we can take it from the storage battery, or from the little dynamo attached to the motor." "lovely!" exclaimed lottie, to whom a "current" meant little, but who wanted to seem interested. "that is to provide for the various kinds of cooking," jack said, jokingly. "now eggs are weak, they cook by storage; but a welsh rabbit is done by the dynamo." "it means something else," captain cora remarked, "namely, if we have company for supper, and the storage current gives out, we will not have to make it a progressive meal, extending into the next day. the course can be continued from the extra current." "for the love of malachi!" exclaimed walter. "what's this?" "our boiler," said bess, who knew something about the boat's fitting up. "we have that for dishwater." "dishwater!" repeated ed. "you've got this down to domestic science all right. that rubber hose runs off the hot water from the cylinder jacket, and----" "oh, never!" cried jack. "they will be making tea with it." "isn't it salty?" innocently asked marita. "likely," said belle, for the girls had all taken an interest in the housework-made-easy-plan, and had arranged to use the boiling water as it came from the motor after cooling the cylinder. "but it won't hurt dishes." "now i call that neat," commented ed, "and to think that mere girls should have thought of it." freda gave cora a meaning glance. "girls ought to think of the housework," she laughed with a wink at belle. "just look at the linen chest." she opened a small box and exhibited a goodly supply of suitable linen. no table cloths; just small pieces, doilies and plenty of neat, pretty towels. "let's board here," suggested walter. "our food was really rude this morning." "do we go out for a sail?" asked ed, attempting to turn on the gasoline. "oh, no indeed!" cora answered quickly. "not a box is unpacked in our place yet, and perhaps, if you boys are all to rights, you wouldn't mind giving us a hand." "oh, of course we're all to rights," replied jack. "i had a bolt of mosquito netting for my blanket last night and wallie's bathrobe for my pillow." "and i made friends with a pretty, little, soft ground mole, jack," put in ed, "and if the rest of our boxes do not arrive and unpack themselves in time for your slumber this eve, that mole has agreed to cuddle up under your left ear. i believe you sleep on your left." "thanks," jack said, "but i see no reason why mere household truck should keep us from a cruise. i am aching to try the _chelton_, cora." cora and freda were talking in whispers in the other end of the boat. it was no "mere household truck" surely that brought the serious expression to their faces. "it isn't far," freda was heard to say, "and he promised to wait for us this morning." "and i do want to be with you," cora answered. "but i won't let them take the boat out the first time without me. it cost too much to run the risk of damaging it by sky-larking." "now what are you two up to?" demanded jack. "just because drayton ward has not arrived, we are held up for his coming. i tell you, sis, that chap may not put in an appearance at all, here. he knows--sweller places." "oh, don't you mind him, cora," ed interrupted. "dray is sure to come. he had his canoe shipped two days ago, besides sending to the cove for his motor boat. i expect some tall times when he gets here. our own innocent little _lassie_ won't know how to skip over the waves at all--she'll be that flustered when the swell, gold-railed, mahogany-bound, carpet-floored _dixie_ gets here." "it would take more than a mere _dixie_ to knock out our _lassie_," declared walter, "but i should like to know why she is not on the scene yet. didn't we plainly say tuesday?" "we did, plainly and emphatically. but a boat builder, letter or seller has a right to make his own day in delivering the goods. we'll be lucky if we get the barge at all without taking the sheriff up to that shipyard." "meanwhile we have the _chelton_," said ed, tugging at cora's sleeve. "and we must get back to the bungalow," she observed. "freda and i have an important appointment for eleven, and if you all promise not to follow us or attempt to go out in the _chelton_, perhaps we will have some interesting news for you this evening." the boys strolled away, talking about the motor boat they had hired. money, for some reason, was not plentiful that summer with jack and his chums, and they had to be content with a second-hand craft, that had been patched and re-patched until there was little of the original left. they were not even sure the _lassie_ would run, but they were anxious to try her. chapter iv the red oar "this way, cora. the sand is so heavy out there it is better to keep near the edge," said freda, as the two girls tramped along in the deep sand of the seashore that banded crystal bay. "but isn't it perfectly beautiful along here?" exclaimed cora, in rapt delight. "i had no idea the little place could be so charming." "oh, yes," returned freda, with a suspicion of a sigh. "over there, just in that splendid green stretch is, or was, grandfather's place. it runs all along to the island, and on the other side there is a stream that has been used for a mill race." "over there!" cora repeated. "why, that looks like the very best part of the bay. and that house on the hill?" "grandfather's own home and--mother's," finished freda. "is it rented now?" "yes, we have rented it for three years, and it has brought us quite a little income," said freda. "but you see that is cut off now. i am sure i do not know who collects the rents." "what a shame!" cried cora. "and all because there is some technical proof of ownership missing. i should think that when your family had undisputed possession for years it ought to be sufficient to establish your rights." "yes, we never dreamed we could lose it," freda explained. "mother and i have lived there in the winter since father died, and we have rented it in summer, as i said. of course the summer is the desirable time here. and we had some of the loveliest old furniture. but when we had to break up we sold most of it." "look out! there's a hole there," cora warned just in time, for in the heavy sand little rivulets were creeping from some rollers tossed in by a passing boat. the bay was dotted with many craft, and the picture it presented gave cora keen delight, for it forecasted a merry summer for the motor girls. "we only have a little farther to go," freda said. "i hope old denny has kept his word and stayed in. he is the queerest old fellow--you will be amused at him, i am sure. but he was always such a staunch friend of grandfather." "i am anxious to meet him," rejoined cora. "somehow i feel we girls ought to get at the bottom of this. wouldn't it be fine if we could?" "more than fine, it would be glorious!" freda replied. "if we lose it all now, i will have to look for work. not that i mind that," she added, "but i intend to take a course in nursing. i have always longed to be a nurse." "and that would be a splendid profession for you," cora agreed. "i do hope you will not have to go to work in some office." "oh, there's denny! denny!" called freda, leaving cora without further ceremony, and hurrying ahead as fast as the soft sand would allow. "see, there he is! just going out in his fishing boat." cora ran after her, and soon they overtook the old fisherman, who was deaf. freda didn't mind getting her shoes wet in order to approach the water's edge. "good morning, denny," she called, "come in here. we want to talk to you." he took his pipe from his mouth, in order that his mind should not be distracted. then he pushed his cap back, and dropped an oar. "freddie, is that you?" he asked. "sure i thought you was comin' up to the shack, and i've bin waitin' for you." "we are on our way up there now. you are not going out, are you?" pleaded freda. "no, freddie," (he always called her freddie), "i'll come right in. i was only goin' acrost to get a few little things; but they can wait." cora now had a chance to see this quaint old fellow. he was irish, with many fine humorous wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. he seemed to breathe through his pipe, so constantly did he inhale it, and just how he kept his sailor's blouse so clean, and his worn clothes so neat, was a trick he had learned in his younger days in the navy. "isn't this a fine day?" he commented, with a nod to cora. "simply perfect," she answered, seeing there was no need for a formal introduction. "i have been telling freda how surprised i was at the beauty of this place." "surprised, is it? sure, there ain't another spot this side of cape cod with as many fine points to it. i wouldn't leave this little bay for a berth on any ocean liner." "my friend, cora kimball, is from chelton, uncle denny. do you know where that is?" asked freda. "chelton? chelton? sure, i do. i went through there once in a parade wagon. we were out with the g. a. r. and i guess the parade got lost, for i remember at chelton we had to put up for the night in an old church they were using for a fire house. but we had a fine time," and he chuckled at the recollection. "and next day we finished up without the need of a wagon. it was like camp days to scatter ourselves about the big ramshackle place." "oh, yes, that's out in the east end," cora said. "we have quite an up-to-date fire house in chelton center." "well, that was good enough for me," he asserted. "but come along and i'll show you my shack. freddie will be surprised at my new decorations." up the little board walk to a path through the woods the three tramped. denny shane was popular with young folks; even the mischievous boys who would occasionally untie his boat before a storm had no reason to fear his wrath, for such pranks were quickly forgotten. "and the mother, freddie?" he asked. "how's she gettin' on?" "well, she worries a good deal," the girl replied. "but i keep telling her it must come right in time." "sure it will. the rascals that would do wrong to a widder couldn't prosper. 'taint lucky. but they're foxy. did you hear anything new?" "yes, but not much that is substantial. my friend and i want to see you to find out all that you may know about it. perhaps there is some clue we have been overlooking, that you could give us." "well, you're welcome to all i know. but here we are. no need to unlock my door," he said as he saw cora smile at his unceremonious entrance to the shack. "them that has nothin' has nothin' to fear." a surprising little place, indeed, the girls were shown into. neat and orderly, yet convenient and practical, was denny shane's home. there was a stove and a mantel, a table, two chairs and a long bench. pieces of rag carpet indicated the most favored spots--those to be lived on. "and now, freddie," began denny, drawing out two chairs, "what do you think of my housekeeping?" "why, you are just as comfortable and neat as possible," she replied. "but i notice one thing has not lost its place--your red oar." "no--indeed!" he said almost solemnly. "that oar will stay with me while denny shane has eyes to see it. it has a story, freddie, and i often promised to tell it to you. this is as good a time as another." he put his pipe down, brought a big chair up to the window, opened a back door to allow the salt air to sweep in; then, while cora looked with quickening interest at the old red oar, that hung over the fireplace, denny shook his head reflectively and started with his story. "that oar," he said, "seems like a link between me and leonard lewis--your grandpa, freddie. and, too, it is a reminder of the night when i nearly went over the other sea, and would have, but for leonard lewis and his strong red oar." a light flashed into the old eyes. plainly the recollections brought up by his story were sacred. he left his chair and went over to the mantel, climbed up on a box and touched the oar that had sagged a little from its position. "the wind rocks this shanty so," he explained, "the oar thinks it's out on the waves again, i guess. i don't like to spoil it with nails or strings." "it looks very artistic," cora declared; "but how curious that an oar should be painted red." "yes, there was only one pair of them, that i know of. one went with the wreck, and this one len lewis held on to. now i'll tell you about it." again he seated himself and this time started off briskly with the tale. "it was a raw january night--in fact, it seemed as if it had been night all day for all the chance the sun had to get out. a howling wind whistled and fairly shrieked at everything that didn't fly fast enough to suit it. len and me had been puttin' in a lot of time together at his house, just chinnin'--there wasn't much else to do but to keep warm. well, along about five o'clock, we heard a rocket! the wind died away for a minute or so, and we dashed out to the beach to get the lay of that distress signal. talk about big city fires!" he digressed. "a fire on land ain't what it is on sea. it always seems like as if death has a double power with the fire and the deep and nothing but the sky above to fan the flame. "we soon saw the smoke. it was from a point just over the turn, where the clouds dip down and touch the waves. a little tail of smoke crawled up and hung black and dirty, not gettin' any bigger nor spreadin' much. when we sighted her, we went to work in the way men of the sea have of working together and never sayin' a word. up the beach we chased, and dragged out the boat we called our 'lifer.' it was a good, strong fishin' boat, and we kept her ready in the rough weather. "'wait!' yelled len to me, just as i was pushin' off. 'i've got a lucky pair of oars. they're bigger and heavier than ours, and i'll toss 'em in. we might need 'em.' "little i thought of the need we would have! and i always laughed at len's idea of luck--and me an irishman, too." "mother always said grandfather was queer about such things," freda remarked. "i remember we had an old jug that he found on one of his birthdays. he would never allow that jug to be thrown out; he said it meant a jug full of good luck." "and it, of course, was an empty jug," cora said, with a smile. "perhaps that is, after all, the luckiest kind." denny chuckled over that remark, and added he had not much use for jugs of any kind. "but i'm gettin' away from my yarn," he said, presently. "we took the big thick oars and pulled out against the wind. by this time the hail was comin' down in chunks that would cut the face off you. sometimes there are a lot of stragglers around here, but when we need a man, of course, there is not one in sight. but we rowed away and somehow managed to get close to the wreck. it was a little steamer, not much bigger than a tug, and it was burning faster than the smoke told us. "'you throw the rope and i'll stick to the oars!' shouted len, his voice sounding like a wheeze in the wind. there were three men on the steamer and they were just about tuckered out. they were clingin' to the rail, their hands blisterin' from the flames that were sweepin' up close to them even as they touched the water's edge. "it's an awful thing to see sufferin' like that," he put in. "i won't ever forget how those fellows tumbled into our boat. they just rolled in like dead men. but my rope got caught in the rudder of the steamer, and i tugged and tugged, but it looked as if we would have to let her burn off before we could free ourselves. just when i decided to make a big haul at it i came near my end. i stood up, gave the rope a yank, and with that--rip! she let go! and i went with it over into the water!" "goodness!" cora exclaimed. "it was bad enough to have to rescue the other men, but for you to go into that roaring ocean!" "it was bad, miss," agreed the narrator. "and the feel of that water as i struck it! it was like a bath of sword-points. well, that's where the oar comes in! bless the bit of wood it was cut from, it sure was a good, strong stick. "when i flopped into the water, like a fish dumped out of a net, your grandpop, freddie, took nary a chance at reachin' me with the rope. he dropped the regular oars and took one of the pair he called lucky. "'here,' he yelled, 'grab to that!' "i can see the red flash now as it nearly hit me on the head, but though i did make a stab at it the water was that cold and the ice so thick on me hands that i couldn't hold on. "it's pretty bad to be floppin' around like that, i can tell you. but len kept shoutin' and when one of the other fellows got enough breath to stand up with, he took a hand at the rescuin'. "it was him who dropped the mate to that oar overboard. mad! i could hear len yell through the thick of it all. but he held the last red oar. "with the effort to keep up me blood heated some, and the next time i saw the flash of red i grabbed it good an' proper. it took three of them to haul me up, but i clung to the red oar and that's how i'm here this minute. likewise, it's why the oar is here with me." there was a long pause. the girls had been thrilled with the simple recital, so void of anything like conceit in the part that denny himself had played in the work of rescue. chapter v two men "and the red oar won out," cora remarked, looking at the old relic with something akin to reverence. "perhaps, after all, there is something in luck." "looked like it," agreed denny. "and after we got back len couldn't pay any attention to the half-frozen men, or to me, that had been pretty well chilled--all he could do was talk about the luck of that oar." "i don't blame him," freda put in. "your rope had nearly burned, your light oar broke, one of the heavy pair went overboard and this one did most of the work getting back, i suppose." "right," said denny, "for while we had another pair to work with, they were slim, and weak, but that fellow, it sure was tough then; but lately when i take it down it seems to have shrunk, for it's gettin' lighter, somehow." "and how did you come to get it?" asked cora. "that's the end of my story," said denny. "when len was taken very sick, of course i used to stay with me friend as much as i could." freda unconsciously pushed her chair nearer the old man. surely to hear of the last days of her good grandfather's life was a matter too important to pass over lightly. "your father was livin' then, freddie," denny went on, "and a fine healthy young man, too." "father died so suddenly," said freda, "mother hardly ever speaks of his death. she always seems overcome after talking of it." "that was a sad thing," denny digressed. "to go off in the morning, a-whistlin' and happy, and to be brought home without a word in him. freddie, dear, i oughtn't to talk of it." freda brushed aside a tear. her father's death had been caused by apoplexy, when she was but a mite of a child. "but the queer part of it was that your grandfather seemed to think i would outlive his son, and john such a strappin'-lookin' fellow," resumed denny. "len called me to him, and him sick and miserable, and he says: 'denny, john's not as strong as he looks, and i want you to do all you can to help louisa,' (your mother of course, freddie), 'for she has the child to raise,' he said. well, he wouldn't let me interrupt him when i tried to speak of john. he would have it that i should keep an eye to things. your grandfather lewis left me no papers, however--i supposed john had them--but he left me the old red oar. he had fairly been playin' with it for years, always polishin' it or shapin' it off here or there. i often look at the marks of his knife on it, and wonder why he seemed fond of it." "i am sure," said freda, earnestly, "you have kept your promise, uncle denny. mother often speaks of how good you were when i was small. father never had any papers about grandfather's land; all he had related to family keepsakes. the strange part of it all is to me that a man of grandfather's intelligence should be so remiss about his property claims." "but, freddie, you don't understand. there seemed no need for deeds and mortgage papers then about here. everybody knew everyone else, and things seemed to be solid forever. but now them plagued land fellows--well, they've got a good cheek, is all i can say." and he emptied an unsmoked pipe of tobacco in his indignation. "but we are going to get after them," cora declared. "we want to go slowly, and, if possible, find out what their intentions are. find what sort of company they claim to have, in the first place, and if they are an honorable set of men they ought to make open claims, instead of sneaking around, and trying to find out things that might cause a flaw in the title. i am suspicious, for one," she finished significantly. "well, good luck to your spunk," said denny, "and i never knew the like of it to fail. but say, tell me about the boat. what did the lads think of the fixin's?" "oh, it was the greatest fun," freda replied. "they could not imagine how we ever thought of using the cylinder water for a dishwater supply. i never gave it away that you suggested it to cora's mechanic." "and i want to thank you, mr. shane----" "mr. shane!" denny interrupted. "say, if you call me that i'll think i'm reading me own death notice in the _beacon_." cora laughed at this, and agreed he should be "uncle denny" to her as well as to the others of the neighborhood. "but it was splendid of you to have the boat all ready for us when we came. i did not suppose freda had a chance to get down to it before we loomed up." "you don't know the risin' hour for us folks at the bay," returned denny, with a sly wink. "freddie couldn't stay abed when the sun is beckonin' on the waves; could you, freddie?" "oh, the early summer mornings are beautiful," replied freda, "and i am sorry i had to lose so many of them. who's that? the girls, looking for us! there's bess puffing, and belle--fluffing. i do think they are the most attractive pair." cora smiled, for her own devotion to the robinson twins was only paralleled by the twins' devotion to cora. "cora! freda!" called youthful voices from the path. "where are you?" "come in--do!" answered denny, who always had a spare chair for visitors. "oh, we can't," replied belle. "cora, the boys are threatening to take out the _chelton_. and oh! i'm completely out of breath. it's dreadful to try to hurry through the sand." "indeed they shall not take the _chelton_ out without my permission," cora declared. "when we make our initial trip i intend to command it. for one thing, uncle denny is to come along; for another--well, that's to be a little surprise. this afternoon at two exactly--will you come, uncle denny?" "i will that," the old sailor replied. "i think it would be a good thing to have a little weight, like my old head, in her when she starts out. them laddies are always up to pranks." "oh, we are just crazy to get out on the water," bess put in, "and what do you think? that vain little lottie went all the way to town to get the exact nautical cap. i wonder if she thinks folks in motor boats run slowly enough to see little white caps on little light girls?" "when we get going i think all that will be seen will be splash, and all that will be heard will be chug," cora remarked. "but come on. let's hurry along. i promised rita to help her with something." "what?" asked bess, curiously. "now, bessie, that would be telling," replied cora, stopping just long enough to empty the sand from her tennis shoe. denny was trudging along after them--he could not resist an excuse to go down to the shore. "well, i'll say good-bye," said freda. "i have to run back to mother. she will think i am lost." "but you are coming this afternoon?" cora insisted. "oh, i really can't, cora, thank you," answered the other. "i have something so important to look after." "what are you girls up to?" demanded belle. "you have been acting mysteriously ever since you met on the train. freda, it is really unpardonable not to take the initial trip with us, but if you really cannot----" "i really cannot," returned freda, decisively, and somehow the girls realized that freda's business was urgent. "now, i'll show you a short cut," said denny. "take that path there--don't be afraid of the sign that the owner put up--he has no right to the beach front; then when you get to the lonely willow--do you know where that is?" not one of them knew, but they were anxious to find out. "you can't miss the lonely willow, for it stands all alone and looks as forlorn as the mast of a sunken steamer," said denny. "it's in the deep hollow by the watercress patch. turn around that tree to your left and you'll see another path. but wait a minute," he broke off, "maybe it's a bit lonely." "oh, there are enough of us to shout if we see bears," cora laughed. "we have to hurry, and we will be glad to explore." "well, good-bye then, and good luck. i'll be at the dock ahead of you." "isn't he the quaintest old man?" asked belle as the little party hurried along. then she added: "you and freda made quite a visit. we began to think you were kidnapped." "we did make a stay," agreed cora, "but denny is a very old friend of freda's family, and, to tell you the truth, we could hardly break away when he started in to tell sea-yarns. ouch! the mud is deep. i guess we must be near the lonely willow." "there it is!" exclaimed belle, who was somewhat in advance of the others. "indeed, it does stand all alone." "isn't it scary here!" whispered bess. "see those two men under the willow." all eyes were turned to the big tree. two men were seated on a branch that made a comfortable seat. as the girls approached one of the men wrapped some papers up and thrust them into his pocket. but the movement was not lost on the girls. no word was spoken for a few moments. belle dropped back a little as if to allow the others to face the strangers first. of course cora, always being the leader, boldly made her way along. they had to pass almost under the tree to reach the path, but there was no halting once the girls started out. finally they had passed in perfect safety, but as they were almost out of earshot one of the men said: "i thought she'd be with him--that old denny!" the rest of the remark was lost, but this fragment served to put cora on her guard. chapter vi the "chelton" "oh, isn't it exciting?" cried marita, who had managed to have jack help her over the dunes on the way to the dock. "you're right!" replied jack, surveying her "nautical" outfit. "couldn't beat it." "silly! i mean going for the cruise." "oh, i thought you meant that rig you're wearing. it is most becoming, but i hope it won't get wet." "oh, the water won't hurt it. i got it on that account. i think the girls' maroon sweaters look dandy--they can be seen for such a distance." "yes, i suppose togs have something to do with a good time, although i must say cora doesn't seem to give much time to hers. look at marita in white. she looks like a french doll." "oh, she is the cutest thing!" replied lottie, in her gushing way. "but cora is simply stunning! just see how she stands out in the crowd." lottie and jack strolled through the moss-padded path that led to the white sands of tangle turn, talking in this vein as they went. it was indeed a merry crowd, and well worth noticing, as was evinced by the number of curious spectators already assembled on the dock to which the _chelton_ was tied. "who's the man?" asked jack, espying a striking figure in the throng. "oh, that's uncle denny; don't you know him? he is the dearest----" "now, lottie, i can see his bald head under his cap at this distance without marine glasses, and it's a rule of the club that 'dears' have special advantages in the matter of healthy heads of hair. but, of course, if you wish to call him 'dear'----" "jack, you are the greatest tease," she pouted. bess, belle and cora had already reached the motor boat. denny was proudly "looking her over," pipe in mouth and hands in pockets. the girls were bustling about, all enthusiasm, while the boys, assuming an air of importance, found many points to investigate. "now take seats," called cora, "we are ready to push off. lottie, don't lean overboard." "oh, i am watching the cutest little fish. see, bess," she exclaimed. ed was on the dock with the rope loose from the cleat. cora was at the steering wheel, while denny insisted on turning the fly wheel, as that seemed about the most difficult thing to do. the gasoline was turned on, jack attending to that, and as denny gave the fly wheel a vigorous turn, ed pushed off and jumped into the boat. the "push" sent the _chelton_ out in the water, but the motor failed to do its duty. again denny tried, but still no response. as this is not unusual with any motor, whether new or old, all hands waited patiently. "oh, there's the _dixie_!" called lottie, jumping up and waving to an approaching boat. at that instant the _chelton_ started with a jerk, and there was a chorus of screams. "lottie's overboard!" cried the girls. "overboard!" repeated the boys. "quick!" begged cora. "she may sink!" to bring the boat to a sudden stop was not an easy matter, and there were some moments of suspense before the _chelton_ passed safely to the other side of the spot where lottie was struggling. the water was not so deep but that she was able to scramble to her feet, but the wash of the boat forced her to work violently to keep her head above water. "the rope!" called cora, who had dashed from her position at the steering wheel to the side of the boat where the mooring rope had been dropped. in the excitement, of course, all crowded to one side of the small craft, which caused it to careen alarmingly. "there! there!" shouted ed. "lottie, grab the rope!" "oh, i can't," came the rather weak and shaky reply. "i can't reach it." by this time the _dixie_, the innocent cause of the accident, was alongside. drayton ward, the wealthy young fellow who could boast of a motor boat that would have aroused comment even at newport, leaned over the side and grasped the arm of the girl in the water. the rest was a simple matter, for soon lottie was assisted over the rail of the _dixie_, and was in the finest boat on crystal bay. "what do you think of that?" gasped bess into cora's ear. "clever!" replied cora, simply. "but the togs?" queried jack, to whom the accident had seemed something of a joke. "what a pity," returned belle, "and she did look so sweet!" all this time the drenched girl was being most carefully looked after by the gallant captain of the _dixie_. he was seeing to it that she did not suffer from a chill, for a big coat had been wrapped around her and her pretty white cap that had merrily floated off was now replaced by one marked "dixie." altogether, for a mere summer dip, lottie was having a magnificent time, as ed took pains to observe. "oh, i can't go with you now!" called lottie. "mr. ward has kindly offered to take me home." there was a pause after that remark. if lottie went back to the bungalow it seemed only reasonable that someone should go with her. but who? everyone wanted to take the trip on the _chelton_. "let us take you up to the point," called cora, "and we can wait for you to change and come back. our trip would be spoiled with one of the party missing." "let's shift," suggested drayton, with a gracious smile at cora. "mine is probably the faster boat. you get in here with us, miss cora, and we will run up and down the bay while your friends are working off the oil smoke. that's a neat little boat you have, a perfect little model," he finished, coming as close as possible to the _chelton_. "yours is all right, too, dray," replied jack, "but it looks too good to be true. doesn't shoot up on land for a change, does it? i have heard of _dixies_ doing that stunt." "oh, dear!" exclaimed lottie. "i am freezing to death. i guess i'll go change my dress." "good idea," agreed cora, who was ready to leave her boat and go back to the bungalow with lottie. "come on," and she jumped to the dock to which her boat had drifted. "i'll run along with you." "nice way to treat a fellow," complained drayton. "well, fellows, i'll race you while we are waiting for the ladies to return. what do you say, jack?" "i'm willing, as long as cora has finally condescended to let me touch the wheel. everybody sit down this time." without a word all hands, keen for a race as soon as one was suggested, took seats, and the two boats veered out into the bay and "lined up" for the start. denny was the proudest engineer imaginable, and constantly looked over the fine mechanism. "ready!" shouted ed, and at the word both throttles were thrown wide open and the boats shot up the bay, emitting clouds of smoke from their newly oiled works, and "chugging" so rapidly that the sounds were drowned in a roar. it was a pretty sight, for in the girls' boat a line of colored sweaters and waving caps lent life to the gray of the waters, while drayton, in his glistening, highly-polished _dixie_, only needed the glint that the sun lent to complete the picture afforded by his fine craft. "oh, isn't this glorious!" exclaimed marita. "i thought i should be frightened, but this is--lovely." "frightened!" repeated belle. "i used to be so afraid of the water i couldn't see anything but the bottom every time i came out; but now i just love it." "hey there, dray!" shouted ed. "you're out of the course. get in from shore!" "he's keeping his eye on those girls on the beach," laughed walter. "those are the lassies who have the white canoe." so saying he waved his own cap and a flutter of handkerchiefs from the beach came back in recognition. "turn at the island," ordered denny. here a white flag fluttered, the stake left from some recent sailing races. gracefully the _chelton_ rounded the stake first. drayton had lost time in running too close to shore. only a minute later the _dixie_ swayed after the _chelton_, then the final stretch was taken up in earnest. spectators on the bank might wave now, but the motorists had no eyes for them. a slight miss in the _chelton's_ explosion brought denny and ed to their feet--there should be no break in the rhythm of that chug. "she's all right," ed called to the old sailor, "only too much oil." denny shook his head lest a word might interfere with the boat's motion. dray stood up and did something that caused the bow of his boat to shoot up, while the stern seemed to bury itself in the waves. "his is a racer," walter told bess, who was as intent as any of the watchers on the result of the trial of speed. "maybe ours will turn out to be a winner," bess responded. "we keep pretty close." jack never took his hand off the steering wheel, denny was watching the engine, and the others were peering down the straight course ahead. "oh, i'm getting all wet," exclaimed marita, for the spray was dashing in on all sides. "get down in the bottom," advised walter, "we can't slacken up now. or go in the cabin if you like and close the ports." this was a signal for all three girls to slip down to the floor of the boat and while they lost the good view afforded from the seats, they evidently enjoyed the change, and craned their necks to see over the sides. "of course dray will win," complained belle. "we couldn't expect to beat the _dixie_." "we might," encouraged bess. "cora said this boat had remarkable speed for its size." "gee, whiz!" shouted walter, "look at that spray deluge dray!" "and she's missing," added ed, for the sounds from the _dixie_ were distinctly out of time. suddenly dray's boat slowed down, and the _chelton_ shot so far ahead that it was plain something had happened to the _dixie_. jack stood up and looked back. "something is wrong," he said. "we had better not get too far ahead. dray is fussing with the carbureter." the race was over. the girls stood up from their hiding place and jack turned the boat about. by this time dray had turned off the gasoline and the _dixie_ merely heaved up and down on the swells. "what's the matter, dray?" called walter. "something given way?" "i don't know," answered dray, "she simply won't 'mote.'" "let me take a look at her," suggested denny, ever eager for a new adventure. "oh, there are cora and lottie!" exclaimed belle. "can't we go in for them, and look after dray's boat afterward?" "that would be a nice way to treat a ship in distress," said denny, "but excuse me," and he showed regret at his remark. "i shouldn't be thinkin' of a lad when the young girls are needin' help." "oh, the girls are all right," jack assured the old seaman; "but say, dray," he called, "what's the matter, anyhow?" "just give me a line and tow me in, then we will hold a post mortem," replied dray, good humoredly. "i don't fancy taking her apart out here." "good!" exclaimed marita, "then we can go for cora and lottie." promptly the brand new rope of the _chelton_ was tossed to the disabled boat and fastened, then the two boats started for shore. cora and lottie were waiting. the latter had shed her wet "garments of vanity," as belle described them, for a simple brown linen frock. "what happened?" called cora, as the boats neared shore. "mis-happened," answered dray. "it was just fate. we couldn't expect to beat the motor girls." "nice of you," acknowledged cora, "but i am sorry if there is anything wrong with your beautiful boat." "it's the boat and not the boy," remarked ed. "well, we'll do as much for you some day, cora. wait until we get our little _lassie_ out. she, being a mere girl, may have a show." "what's the matter, lottie?" asked bess, as they landed and the girls noted that lottie was remarkably quiet, and even a trifle pale. "not a thing," cora hurriedly answered, while she crushed her fingers on lottie's arm. "we were detained at the bungalow, that's all. we'll tell you all about it later on." the girls gathered around cora and lottie at this remark. but cora, by some mysterious signal system, had warned lottie not to say anything, and she soon joined the boys, who had already boarded the _dixie_ to overhaul her. they looked at the engine, at the spark plugs, at the cylinder, but cora, who happened to have more room at the point where the carbureter was situated, suddenly exclaimed: "i've got it! water in the carbureter!" "right-o!" confirmed dray, in another moment. "the spray mixed with the gas--dashed over into the air in-take valve. moral, go slow, for water sometimes is fatal, even in a good cause!" "shame to spoil the race," said ed; "we were just warming up." "it's all right," commented denny, "and a good lesson. i never knew myself that too much speed would do the like of that. well, i must be off doin' some chores. i've been a-galavantin' most of the day, and the fishes of crystal bay are not educated to come up to me door yet. thank you for the sport. it was fine," he concluded, genially. "indeed you must come along again," cora urged. "this was only a baby-trial. we will want to be going out on the deep soon; then you must come along." "thank you, very kindly," denny called, as he started off. "the deep is a bad place for young 'uns, i can tell you. better stick around shore." "tell us what is the matter, lottie," demanded bess, for lottie had not yet recovered her self-possession. "oh, i guess i had a chill," she evaded, glancing at cora. "and the mere sight of a couple of strange men startled her," cora added. "i have warned her there may be lots of strange men around crystal bay." "but not the same strange men every time," lottie put in. this gave a clue to her fright. the men who had secluded themselves under the lonely willow that morning had appeared again, this time in the vicinity of the girls' bungalow, now known as the "motely mote." chapter vii in the motely mote "do you young ladies realize that we have the cares of housekeeping on our shoulders?" asked cora, from a mass of boxes and bags, not to mention trunks, in the alleged living room of the mote. "oh, let us forget it--do," begged bess. "i always hate the summertime when it brings dishes and things." "it's good for you," affirmed marita. bess did know that hard work is considered "good" for stout persons. "maybe, but it is not pleasant," bess answered, flinging herself upon the improvised couch, a matter of hammocks and blankets, still bearing baggage checks and tie-ropes. "but our housekeeper has given notice," announced cora. "and i don't wonder. not one has been on time for a single meal since we arrived. but i must say, i wish she had stayed until the stuff was all unpacked. it's dreadful on the hands," and she looked at hers ruefully. "why not ask the boys to help?" asked lottie, who was doing her best to press her damp clothes by stretching the most important of them over belle's trunk, and holding them there with two suitcases. "if i had not gotten these things wet i should have been glad to unpack, but if i leave them this way over night i shall never be able to wear them again." "if you knew the boys as well as we do," bess put in, "you would know what their help means. they would insist upon trying on every article of clothing they unpacked; wouldn't they cora?" "something like that, bess, if they did unpack at all. but, seriously, if you will give me a little help to drag these empty trunks to the porch, i will tell you of a plan i have evolved. of course we cannot remain this way without a chaperone." "isn't it perfectly silly?" complained belle. "as if we were not all capable of taking care of ourselves." "oh, i don't know about that," objected cora. "i have noticed that in case of emergency, when some strange man happens to poke his nose in at the window, we are all rather glad to acknowledge we are mere babes." "and also when we meet them under willow trees," marita reminded the boastful ones. "i am sure i agree with cora that we need a chaperone, and perhaps a policeman or two." the girls paused in dragging the baggage toward the front door. "just the same," marita went on, "lottie was frightened to-day and she only heard a strange man say, 'they call them the motor girls.' as if that was anything terrifying." "but it was the way they said it," lottie protested. "they just peered at us--and----" "now, lottie," said cora, "you have an idea that everyone who looks at us 'peers' at us. for my part i was rather flattered by their attention. you see the fame of the motor girls is spreading. but let me now make my proposition," and she settled down on the rug that was intended to cover the floor--some time. "let her 'prop'!" cried belle. "well, you know our little friend, freda, has lost some property; that is, her mother and herself have lost a certain claim to it. this little colony around here is fairly bristling with the prosperity implanted in it by such thrifty men as was freda's grandfather, but in spite of that, strangers come in, make a big fuss about riparian rights, and government laws, and property claims and, in so doing, pretend to discover a flaw in a title that for years has been considered perfectly clear." she paused, for bess had opened her mouth twice, and this time cora wanted to hear what she had to say. "we heard some women talking about that to-day," said bess, "and they said it was a shame to take a homestead from mrs. lewis. they were not whispering their opinions, either." "so it is a shame," cora said, "and if we can, in any way, help to get the truth established, we will surely have a good reason to remember this holiday." "how?" queried marita. "we don't understand anything about land, and deeds, and lawyers." at this everyone but marita laughed. she was not acquainted with the daring deeds of the motor girls, as that was what they had undertaken and accomplished in the past. "you see, marita dear," cora explained, "because we seem such harmless babies we are able to get information that others, considered more dangerous, might not have access to. now, let me continue. there are men around here, members of some sort of a land company, who are trying to get hold of certain papers. we don't know whether they exist or not, but in our own quiet, girlish way----" here she was interrupted with a burst of mocking laughter. "your quiet girlish way," repeated belle. "why, cora, i do believe if you thought you could get the better of that land company you would take the _chelton_, and go--pirating! wouldn't it be great to go out on a dark night, steam up the bay, watch for other boats, listen to the smugglers----" "oh, belle," put in lottie, "that's not the way in books. we would have to go out and get kidnapped, and then, when in the cave, we would hear the plot of the men who were going to steal the old homestead." "hurrah!" cried her hearers. "lottie for captain of the kidnapped," suggested cora. "now, lottie, when it gets good and dark you are to go out under the biggest tree on the place and await your captors." "hello there! anybody home?" "the boys!" gasped belle. "now what about having wasted our time? come in!" "nice of you to ask us," groaned jack. "say, we are dead and buried, and the will is now being read. somebody broke into our larder and stole the grub. have you any to put out at interest?" "stole your eatables!" exclaimed marita. "well, you could scarcely call it that," replied jack, espying an undamaged orange on the window sill, and making a lunge for it. "we did intend to eat the stuff, but it was just plain grub--not eatables." "jack, haven't you boys had your supper?" asked cora. "we are on a diet," explained jack. "wallie had the crackers, ed nabbed the dried beef--he's the biggest and needs the most, you know--and i got the pickles. then we followed directions, and each drank three sips of pure spring water. but the trouble arose when dray came in. he said he was to have milk--doctor's orders. we didn't have any but 'pretense' milk, so dray is now out looking for a cow." just then the sound of approaching footsteps was heard. "they come!" announced jack. "i was merely the herald. have you made out the menu, cora dear?" "do you mean to say we have to feed--all you boys?" demanded bess. "feed us? no, we can eat with spoons. just lead us to the eats. really, it is serious with dray. he has already gone dead white. come in, fellows. we are expecting you. the girls are just getting out the best linen!" dray, walter and ed entered, and like jack, showed signs of starvation. they literally fell into the most convenient spot available as they reached the room. "good evening, ladies," panted dray. "we are delighted to accept your kind invitation to dine with you. pray pardon the togs. i feel like a regular 'toff,' don't you know, but my studs are for the moment lost. and what is a frock without the studs!" "well, if this isn't the very utmost," said cora, laughing at the boys' predicament. "do you mean to say that you are really hungry?" "shall we demonstrate?" asked ed. "do you allow us? belle, get out the chronometer and a hunk of something. if you don't soon you will have a case of homicide on your hands." finally believing that the boys were hungry, the girls proceeded to empty the ice box on the back porch. they did not find any too much food there, for the sudden departure of their housekeeper that afternoon had left the girls themselves almost stranded. but, being girls, they managed the living end a little better than the boys did. the boys, it seemed, had laid in a stock of canned stuff, in the usual hit-and-miss way, but some other campers found the "cave" where the food had been hidden. it was out of the question either to take or get ice, so the next best thing considered was the digging of a big hole in a very damp place. into this the boys had sunk a nice, clean, galvanized tub, and in it the victuals had been placed. on top was a cover, made of boards and oil cloth, and over this was placed the limb from a tree, this last to detract attention. "now, wouldn't you think," said jack, as he fortified himself with a sandwich, "that any decent chap would know that we belonged to the union? we are going to form a housewives' league at dawn to-morrow, and then we will find the culprits. they will be offering us our own grub at exorbitant rates." "bright little jackie," commented bess, who was devouring cheese and macaroons. "when you find the culprits you will have a perfectly good movie act in your camp. it will be entitled 'the fate of the kid grubber.'" while the boys were thus engaged in the delightful task of keeping off starvation, the girls were anxious to hear what was the proposition cora had offered to lay before them. "that's just the way," grumbled belle; "we never can get at the interesting things!" "i am going to tell the boys this minute," threatened marita. "we notice, belle, that you brought out that lemon pie that was hidden. looks as if you found the boys rather interesting." "now you know exactly what i mean," insisted belle. "cora said we had to have a chaperone and we all agreed. instead, we have a crowd of noisy boys." "when you boys have finished," cora remarked, "we would like to clear up the debris. also, we have a sad announcement to make. we have lost our housekeeper!" "good!" almost shouted ed. "i apply at once. i can give every qualification, even to a civil service examination. cora, i never tasted such food before----" "mutiny!" yelled jack, making a spring at ed, which ended in such a mixup that the girls fled to the kitchen. "we really cannot stay alone here to-night," cora said. but the boys had come to their feet again, and evidently to terms. jack was hugging walter and dray was smoothing ed's black hair. "will the boys go and leave us?" asked the timid marita. "of course they will, and that right now," declared cora. "we have no time to spare to get someone else to stay with us, however. bess, do you want to come with me? i am going out for our new companion." chapter viii frights or fancies "oh, do hurry," pleaded cora. "i had no idea it was so late. and it is awfully dark." "a nice way to scare me when you have got me out," objected bess. "cora kimball, i have a great mind to run back. i never saw lights look so attractive as they do just now in the mote." "run back if you like," returned cora, "but i will run on. it was unfortunate that the boys came in just as they did. i really have a good reason for not wanting to stay alone to-night." "you have?" asked bess. "i knew you and lottie had had some adventure." "oh, don't be silly, bess," and cora laughed lightly. "everything is perfectly safe and sane at the bay, but what i want is to get over to the little cottage where freda and her mother are living before they retire. it is mrs. lewis i hope to get as our housekeeper." "mrs. lewis!" exclaimed bess in surprise. "yes, but we won't call her housekeeper. i haven't thought it all out yet; in fact, i am not sure they will come, but i hope so." "oh, so do i; that would be fine," and bess almost forgot how black the night was. "i met mrs. lewis the day we came, and i could not help thinking what a fine, wholesome mother freda had." "yes, i have been talking to her and i think she is just that--fine and wholesome. and goodness knows," added cora fervently, "we need some weight at the mote. but they may not consent. i happened to overhear a remark this afternoon that set me to thinking. i am afraid poor freda and her mother are in for further trouble." they hurried along, making their way with difficulty in the deep sand that covered road and path alike. once or twice they paused, startled at the sound of men's voices, then hurried the more to make up for lost time. "why didn't we have one of the boys come with us?" asked bess. "because i am not ready yet to have the boys know all our plans, and to trust one of them--bess robinson, you know our boys. what one knows the rest can guess." "that's so," mused bess. "is that the cottage?" "yes, right over there," and cora indicated a light through the trees. "i am glad they are still up!" it was only a few steps further, and this space was rapidly covered. as the two girls reached the porch, and before they had a chance to touch the knocker, the door was opened by freda. "who is it?" she asked in a frightened voice. "only cora and bess," cora replied, noting the fear in freda's tone. "are we too late to come in?" "no, indeed," freda replied, reassured. "i was afraid it might be unwelcome visitors, but you are heartily welcome." the living room of the cottage was typical of the seashore--a long apartment, with field-stone fireplace and fumed fir trim. the stairway led up from the room and gave it an air of even greater spaciousness. altogether it was most attractive. mrs. lewis, a slim, fine-featured woman, rose from her rocker as the girls entered. "it is late to call," began cora, "but our business is really urgent. we have been left all alone suddenly--our housekeeper says she received a hurried call to go back to her family in the city. i don't question the call, i know how often and faithfully they follow maids who find a country place lonely; but the fact is we girls do not fancy staying alone to-night." "why, of course not," replied mrs. lewis, briskly. "you must have some older person with you." it was plain, now that the girls had become accustomed to the lights, that freda and her mother had both been crying. their eyes were red and their cheeks swollen. freda saw that the girls observed this. "yes, we have been weeping," she said, with an attempt at a smile. "it seems as though we have new troubles daily." "i am so sorry," cora returned. "i wish we could help you." "i am sure you have done so," replied mrs. lewis. "freda has great hopes that you girls will do for us what perhaps lawyers might not be able to do." she hesitated and freda went on: "those horrid men from the land company were here again this afternoon. they say we have no right even to this little cottage." "no right here!" exclaimed cora. "i believe they are just trying to get you to leave the place so that they can go on with their plans without being watched." "i never thought of that," replied mrs. lewis, as though the idea was novel to her. "then, indeed, they will have more trouble than brow-beating to get us to leave crystal bay." "i must hurry with my errand," said cora. "i came to see if it would be possible for you and freda to lock up and come over with us to-night. i am afraid those land sharks have our little place marked, too, for they have been loitering around all day. i don't want to tell the boys. they are hasty and so apt to resent any intrusion that would worry us." "why should the men bother you?" asked mrs. lewis. "i suppose because they know that freda is a friend of ours," replied cora. "but don't worry about them bothering us, all we want is to be able to meet them fairly. of course if they knew we were alone at night they might be mean enough to frighten us, and some of the girls are rather timid." "indeed, we will lock up at once," declared mrs. lewis, "and go right over with you. we have not many treasures now to be afraid of losing." "oh, that is splendid!" cora cried. freda immediately went about fastening the windows and seeing to the general locking up, while mrs. lewis hurried up stairs to pack a small bag. it seemed as though they were ready almost instantly, much to the relief of bess, who kept wondering if the boys would remain at the bungalow with the girls until her own and cora's return. "now we are off," said mrs. lewis, looking back at her home with a wistful sigh. she seemed to have a premonition that leaving it meant more than appeared at the moment. freda walked with bess while mrs. lewis and cora kept close behind them. they had not more than reached the turn that led to the direct path when shouts and laughter were heard. "there are the girls," bess exclaimed. "they are looking for us." the surmise was correct, for directly the answer came back to the familiar camp call. "here we are!" cried cora. "on the pine path." "oh!" gasped belle. "we have had the greatest fright! where have you been?" "making a call," replied cora, calmly. "what was your fright?" "come along and i'll tell you," belle replied. then she saw freda and mrs. lewis. "we have brought protectors," cora said. "mrs. lewis and freda are going to spend the night with us." "oh, splendid!" exclaimed marita. "i was so afraid we would have to stay alone." "where are the boys?" cora asked. "someone from the beach came up and said dray's boat was loose, and of course, they had to all go at once to tie it up." "better than to let it drift," cora said, "but i am sorry if you were timid." "oh, we were not," declared belle, stoutly. "only we distinctly heard someone on the back porch." "at our ice box!" gasped cora. "oh, we never thought of that!" exclaimed belle. "then likely we will be without breakfast," responded cora. "but here we are. who has the key?" belle opened the door. "the light is out!" she whispered. "cora," she said, aside, "i left it burning!" chapter ix a merry time "yes, i say it's a shame!" cried jack, indignantly. "perfectly awful," confirmed dray. "our meeting is at nine," announced walter, "and when i went on the soup shift, i did not agree to do the waiting. that's not my part." ed tucked an end of white mosquito netting in his belt, draped it jauntily, and appeared ready to do the "waiting." walter was frying bacon and eggs on the oil stove. jack threw dishes at the oilcloth-covered table in imitation of a game of quoits, and he rarely missed the mark. they were about to have breakfast, and in spite of the difficulties encountered in the way of modern improvements omitted in the arrangement of camp couldn't (the camp got that name for a million reasons), the boys were having a fine time. "that coffee will be cold," protested dray, "and my doctor says cold coffee is slow poison. i prefer my poison quick." the joke about dray's doctor was that dray never knew a doctor other than the medical inspector at school. he had such astonishingly good health that they used the idea of sickness in reference to him as a "counter irritant." "but this stove is a trifle small," said walter. "what do you say we buy that one from camp cattle? it's a peach." "if the cattle crowd have a good stove they won't sell it," replied jack. "you will likely find a second-hand flue in it, or a rubber hose leader. those boys are brilliant. if we need a new stove let it be from duke's, with a cast-iron guarantee." "right-o," seconded dray. "the cast-iron is always useful about a camp. but i say, what about the racket at the mote last night? that sister of yours, jack, is wasting her talents. she ought to be chief of a detective bureau." "cora is all right," jack returned, proudly. "and while we are on the subject, and not to brag, of course, i might say that some of the other girls are in the same class. first few years they came out to the woods i used to be rather doubtful, but now we often find that the maids can take care of the masters; don't we, wallie? more of that odor, please. i wonder why bacon turns all to odor when it's cooked up!" "there are only two more pieces of odor left," complained walter, "and i'd like the smell myself." "oh, all right. i have had more than enough." jack waved a disdainful hand loftily. "i believe, as it is, i should be more careful what i eat." a huge, very hard bun, the sort found only in bakeries near summer resorts, hit jack squarely in the face. without any comment he caught it, cut it in half, and with a tin spoon plastered it with butter. then he put "the lid on it," and tried to get it between his teeth. it was heroic exercise, but jack had been trained at a reputable college, and had learned to eat what he wanted. "but those duffers, the land men," continued dray, "what are they after the girls for? i had an idea one of them must be trying to claim relationship with the fair freda. he kept so close to her when she was out after denny." "relationship!" jack repeated, with a laugh. "you almost hit it, dray. i guess the bear would like to be her first cousin, for he is trying to get her goods and chattels from her." "how?" "oh, we must not go into that; at least not just yet. i promised cora not to be hasty with moran. he's the 'gent' who is supposed to be president of the company." "the one who wears the panama? i wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. it took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said walter. "i wouldn't like to be his messmate. but i don't like his eye; it's made on the bias." "yes, always looks as if it were going to slip out of the socket," confirmed jack. "well, i hope the girls won't go in too deep with their schemes. those fellows are from little old n'yawk." "quick!" whispered walter. "there's that black. if he lays eyes on your plates he'll lick them." the last morsels of food were crammed into mouths before the call from the neighboring camper was answered. "come right in," ed said, finally, "and help yourself. have you had your grape fruit?" "oh, no," sighed tom black, "i didn't feel exactly right this morning." (he brushed a brown hand across his brow.) "nerves, i guess." "nerves? grub!" shouted jack. "didn't i see a can marked 'soup' in your back yard this a. m.?" "might have, but i didn't. else i would have had soup." "there were grubbers around last night," went on jack, "and we thought we found a thread that matches your sweater, sticking to a nail in our grub box." "my sweater is not ripped that i can see," replied tom, innocently, "but if you are so kind i might take it. don't think we put our sewing boxes in the kit, come to think of it." "it will be ripped presently," announced ed. "we have reason to suspect the cattle; in fact, we have engaged counsel." "the motor girls, i fancy, will defend you," said tom, nonchalantly, "but i assure you, you will have no case. we are absolutely without grub; in fact, our case is pitiable." "and you had a 'doins' last night," dray reminded him. "now, tom, we want to be fair, but we have arranged to form a housewives' league for the purpose of swiping systematically. for instance," (here he got a burnt match and tried to trace something on the oilcloth), "if we have company, and no olives, we could go over to your cupboard, take a bottle and deposit in its stead, say, a can of beans." "great!" shouted tom, tossing up his cap, that landed on the flaming oil stove. "you should not waste oil," he said, as he rescued the cap. "it's always wise to turn out the stove when you take off the pan." "the meeting is to be held in our living room," ed said, pointing outside to a bench made of a tree limb _au naturel_. "when we have formed our committees and settled on our constitution----" this last word seemed to give every boy present a sort of agony, for each began to "feel for his constitution," as if that important part of his physique had been lost in the camp woods. "i wish you could settle my constitution," remarked tom. "once i get that settled, i don't care what happens." "now, quit your fooling," returned walter. "i have an engagement and i would like to get my housework done. tom, help yourself to a towel, and be careful not to wipe the plates on a glass towel. you can tell the difference by the border. the dish towel is all border, the center or hole went up on the oil stove, a little trick our stove has--it does not like towels. the proper towel for the glasses is that one with the black line drawn through the middle. the black line is not important, it was put there with a single wipe of the spark plug from the _lassie_. ed did it, very neatly." tom took the towel tossed to him, and, as only a boy can, began to dry the dishes that walter was piling in front of him. first he patted and rubbed the towel on one side of the dish that lay before him; then he turned the same dish over with a bang and repeated the patting and rubbing on the other side. after that he gave the plate a spin. if it landed right side up he left it so; if the trade-mark showed he counted it a "foul," and tried the trick again. how boys can get work done that way is always a mystery to girls, who find the same play labor. "do i stay for lunch?" tom asked. "i suppose when a fellow helps with the general housework he is entitled to his 'keep.'" "oh, we would just love to have you," replied jack, with mock seriousness, "but the fact is, we are all invited out. we lunch on the _chelton_ to-day," and he strutted around with such wide sweeping curves, and twists, that he knocked from the narrow board table every last bit of butter the "couldn'ts" had in their camp. gingerly he scooped up the top lump, that lay on the store dish, but the scraps had to be scraped up with the egg turner, and the spot on the floor (they had a board floor in the camp) had to be washed up with the dish water, when walter finally relinquished that important commodity. "more careful next time," commanded dray. "i'm off to call the meeting. where's that dinner bell?" the "bell," a very old and very large tray, was found outside under the bench, and with a good strong stick dray beat it furiously, until it might easily be heard by every camper on the grounds. at the first signal boys came scampering from all directions. some carried towels--too much excited to drop them in their camps; others dashed through the woods with sweaters on their arms, and reluctant neckties in their fists, for it was early and the campers had scarcely time to make "careful" toilets. "grub?" they asked in chorus. "let us see it? lead us to it!" "grub nothing!" replied walter. "you just get outside on that bench, the overflow can take the reserved seats on the nice green moss. this meeting has been called for the purpose of organizing the housewives' league of crystal bay." "aoo-oo-ou--oh!" came a groaning reply from those who felt able to groan. "and i left sugar in my coffee cup," wailed he with the dish towel. "and there were perfectly good crumbs at my place," sighed teddy, a boy with so many colors in his face that they called him "rainbow." "come to order!" called jack, banging on the tent table, which was to serve as the chairman's desk. "every camp must qualify." "we do! we do!" shouted the majority, the rest being engaged in a rough and tumble for places near the "door." "the purpose of this meeting," went on jack, ducking a lump of moss tossed in lieu of a bouquet, "is to formulate plans, whereby the humans of prowlers' paradise may continue to defy the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and live in a perfectly human way." "hurrah for the humans!" shouted rainbow, and the cheers that followed did more than merely consume time. "let me explain," interrupted dray, pushing jack from his place, and taking the stand pompously. "we have been the victims of prowlers. we have lost our soup; we also lost our cans of milk--in fact, the cruel ones took everything but our appetites, and now we propose to put a stop to such depredations. we will form a league to borrow and to lend, also to pay back, but he who taketh his brother's soup and returneth not a can of beans shall be expelled from the prowlers' paradise!" "we did lose five small cans of milk," reiterated walter to dave, the head or chief of a big camp called "we-like-it," "and if we find the rowdy who took that he shall be court-martialed." a commotion then started that broke up the meeting. the boys, in rolling and tumbling about, rolled dainty, so-called because he never could get enough to eat, and because his quest showed in unweighable pounds of fat, deliberately down the small hill at the side of camp couldn't. two of the cattle did the rolling, and as dainty made one full turn a can of milk squirmed out of his pocket. "robber! thief! traitor!" screamed the rollers, and then poor dainty was lugged back to the camp. making the charge against him, and making an example of him would be too sad a tale for words; sufficient to say that the meeting adjourned at the request of a peace commission. when the last visitor had been "shooed" away and the couldn'ts had carefully prepared for the lunch to be taken on the _chelton_ (although ed claimed that walter had appropriated his most becoming tie, and that the shade of tan rather marred wallie's own "tannery" effect), the boys finally put the camp flap down good and tight, and were off to the bay. chapter x too much joy far out in the pretty bay the _chelton_ was anchored. it was arranged that the luncheon should be given too far from land to get anything in supplies that might have been forgotten. in fact, it was to be a test meal, such as might be a necessity in case of "shipwreck" or accident. it was such a day as sometimes makes early summer copy spring, when the mists of morning mingle with the sun's rays, and send up shafts of haze to pillar the sky from land or water. there had been great preparations for this salt water lunch. the girls, enthusiastic over the possibilities, had vied with one another in arranging the affair. dray ran his boat, the _dixie_, alongside, and together the fleet of two comprised what the boys termed a "white house lunch." the cooking was all done on the _chelton_ and the eatables were handed over the brass rail to lottie and marita, who served as waitresses on the _dixie_. first there were lettuce sandwiches, rolled. any girl who can successfully roll bread and lettuce is termed proficient by the cooking teachers, and it was a tie between belle and cora as to who did the most and best of the rolling. with the lettuce came the greatest treat to the boys--homemade crab salad--home caught crabs and handmade dressing thereon. "i caught the biggest crab," declared lottie, handing the wooden plate to belle. "isn't that fine!" "finest!" she repeated, enthusiastically. "but say! why don't the boys catch crabs?" the boys did not waste time asking questions. lettuce sandwiches! crab salad! they would be serving frappã© next! "eat plenty of salad," cora ordered. "we spent all yesterday evening crabbing." "will--we--eat--it?" exclaimed walter. "i won't dare look at a frying pan again this week, and my term ends with the week," he said, between bites. next came baked potatoes. these had been done on the electric toaster, right aboard the _chelton_, and while scarcely a correct following for salad, the first was given as an appetizer, and the potatoes as food. the latter were served on the smallest of wooden plates, with the most extravagant little butter plates--really sauce or cream "thimbles," all fluted and shaped from white paper. a dozen of these cups had been belle's contribution to the feast. she spied them at the news stand, over at the point, and could not leave them. dried beef went with the potatoes, also dill pickles, and while cora kept the electric toaster going, and saw to it that the "kitchen" did not run out of hot water from a reserve tank, the other girls took turns eating their own lunches. of course, as the boys were guests, it was important their wants should be first supplied, a matter not easily managed, as the girls soon found out. "more! more!" called ed, who was eating the browned potato skin, or bark, with unmistakable relish. "potatoes are good for the nerves!" "robber!" shouted jack, grabbing a second supply that had just been adjusted on ed's plate. "potatoes are good for the lungs, and i am--winded." "i should like just a tiny bit more crab," simpered dray. "fish is good for----" "we have something more," cora announced, "don't each too much solid stuff." "we couldn't," declared belle, "not if we kept eating for the rest of our mortal lives, it wouldn't be too much." "there are the 'likes'!" announced lottie, indicating a canoe gliding up the bay, in which were two members of the "we-like-it" camp. "now we will have to hide things." "hide things!" belle tossed her sweater over her plate as she saw the canoe. "we are lost!" "oh, let us invite them alongside," suggested lottie, who, up to that moment had been so busy with setting out plates that she had scarcely spoken to the visitors. "we have plenty of stuff." "nix, nary, not much!" cried ed, in protest. "that's 'dainty' there, the stroke, and if he gets in here he'll eat the dish pan and the cooker. i say, young ladies should be most careful what sort of fellows they associate with." but in spite of this the "likes" were invited. possibly they smelled the eatables, for they came up to the side of the _chelton_ as nicely as if they had set out from shore with that intention. "thanks," called dainty, the fat one, "we would be pleased to," although no one had asked him to do anything. "delighted," affirmed kent, the other of the party. "we sent our cards by messenger." the canoe bobbed up and down, until cora took an extra rope from the _chelton_ and threw it to dainty, who in turn tied it to a small hook in the green _snake_. this served to keep the canoe from capsizing as dainty and kent crept into the _chelton_. just what saved all three boats from being turned upside down in the racket that followed only neptune knows, for in their delight at seeing real food the boys from the "likes" grew so impetuous that the "couldn'ts" felt called upon to interfere. crabs, sandwiches, potatoes--each in turn were hailed with gales of glee, until the girls fell back exhausted with the strain of providing and cooking. "let me, let me," begged dray, "i know exactly how to handle electric appliances. i press my neckties--with an electric iron." he was over into the _chelton_, and piling more potatoes under the little tin cover on the toaster, before anyone had time to answer. "turned or unturned?" he asked, surveying a smoking potato critically. "both or neither," answered the famished dainty between gasps. "i'll take my coffee now," announced jack, sitting back in the cushions, and flicking an imaginary speck from his sweater. "now, you must wait," cora ordered. "we have not caught up to you yet. we are only at the entree." lottie declared she never had such a splendid time in her life, and the brightness of her cheeks catching the flame from her eyes bore out this statement. marita, too, seemed to have "shook her cocoon," jack said, his economy of language scarcely making up for the little difference in "shook" and "shaken." certainly she managed to climb from one boat to another with remarkable alertness, while bess, belle and cora acted like up-to-date society maidens, only they acted a little in advance of the "date" usually adhered to. "and do we have to leave these shores?" wailed ed, sipping a real good cup of coffee. "why not anchor here for now and for eternity!" "i thought you liked camping," said belle. "surely you are not tired of housekeeping. doesn't it run smoothly?" "sure," replied ed, "but the grub is the trouble. i wonder why mammas, with good moral intentions, train little boys to eat?" "do you see those clouds," remarked cora, "they are just swooping down on us, and we are miles from home. my, but it is going to be a quick shower!" the young people had been enjoying themselves so much that not until cora spoke did they realize that the sky had become overcast. "oh, i'm scared to death," cried marita. "those clouds are so near--you would think they would touch the water!" "oh, aren't they black!" gasped belle. "come, get everything under cover," called jack, thinking first of the danger to the girls and their boat. "dray can get his awning up quickly enough, but this one has not been opened yet." "you boys just tie your canoe tight to us," cora said, as the two visitors were about to climb into their frail skiff. "you would be washed out during the storm that's coming. here, bess, hold this," handing bess one end of the awning tie. "belle, can you keep that rope taut?" it was astonishing how quickly the scene of enjoyment turned to one of alarm. those of the girls who were active and eager to assist in making things safe, did not suffer so much from fright as did they who took time to watch the clouds. the first severe storm of summer usually has a more terrifying effect upon the timid ones than those that may follow, and this one certainly was a "star" for a starter. the lightning soon began to flash intermittently and the thunder to rumble. the clear expanse of horizon afforded such a wide view of the storm that it was small wonder those out in the bay feared for their safety. "oh!" wailed marita, as one flash of lightning seemed to dart directly at the brass rail of dray's boat. "i thought i was struck!" her words had not been uttered before the clap of thunder followed. this had that queer, deep sound peculiar to the water, and certainly the heart of the storm seemed to hover over the little fleet. all over the bay sail boats, canoes, motor boats, row boats and every sort of craft were making for shore, but in most of these there were little or no goods that might be damaged by rain or waves, while both the _dixie_ and the _chelton_ would have suffered severely had they encountered a down-pour uncovered. the awnings were up at last, and jack had started the _chelton_. directly after that the chug of the _dixie_ was heard. then it was all storm! raging! roaring! which way could two small motor boats hope to plough their way in such a fury of wind, rain and lightning? the waves had assumed the proportions of billows, and every time a boat lifted with the crest, a huge bank of water would break over it. jack clung to the steering wheel, and cora never took her eyes off the engine. but how they whirled and twirled! there was the _dixie!_ it was keeping near--one good thing. the canoe had broken loose and was soon lost to sight. no one bewailed it; there was too serious work at hand for that. "let me look after the gas!" begged kent of cora. he was at her elbow, but she had insisted on personally attending to the machine. "i know it better, perhaps," she shrieked back, "but stay close. if i cannot manage i will let you know!" one terrific clap, then a roar sounded in the ears of all, but seemed to paralyze lottie. she fell in a heap and lay speechless. up to this time she had been half sitting in the bottom of the boat. "she's struck!" shrieked belle. then cora left the engine to kent and took charge of the senseless girl. chapter xi the rescue the coffee that stood on the still warm electric stove proved a valuable aid in restoring the stunned lottie. she had not been struck; her nerves had simply given out, and she had collapsed. finally she opened her eyes. "i'm all right now," she said faintly, and it was evident the shock had dulled her terror, at least. "just lie still," whispered cora, encouragingly. "the storm will soon be over." "the storm?" lottie repeated. then she closed her eyes again, but this time it was only exhaustion, not faintness. the other girls had been roused to activity by lottie's condition. they could now see a rift in the clouds, and one after another hurried to say that the storm was breaking, and it was not so bad; that boats could be seen, and perhaps they would soon sight land. but those at the wheels of the boats knew how little they could do in the way of steering. every time the wheel was turned one way the force of the rollers would wash it completely around. in fact they were making absolutely no progress, and might almost as well have allowed the powerless craft to submit to the fury of the waters. cora realized this, as did the boys, but the other girls, except perhaps bess, felt more secure as the sound of the motor indicated motion. the clouds were lifting, but the force of the storm seemed to be coming in from sea, and had little to do with the appearance of the sky. "oh, if help would only come!" cora whispered to bess. "i'm afraid another and worse storm is gathering!" "don't give up," replied the girl, her own face gray in the mist and spray that covered the deck even under the awnings. "i--see--something bobbing up and down over there!" cora continued. "see! it is--a big, strong boat, perhaps a lifeboat!" "let us hope so," answered bess, fervently. not one word could cora exchange with jack, he was too far from her to hear her voice. the _dixie_ was still near enough to be sighted, but how the boys managed to keep her so was as remarkable to themselves as to those on the _chelton_. "that's a boat, all right," said bess with more vigor in her voice, "and it looks like one from the life-saving station." cora peered anxiously in the direction of the speck that played upon the waves. "hey!" yelled jack, "there comes denny!" "denny!" repeated cora wonderingly. "oh, there's freda!" called belle, jumping up from the bottom of the boat and promptly falling back again. "it's freda and denny, and someone else?" asked bess, breathlessly. "oh, what a mercy!" "it's a boy," declared kent. "see the rain-hat and slicker?" "yes, and see freda's hair floating out from under that rubber hat!" insisted bess. "oh, i know it's freda, and i can see denny plainly!" the boat was coming nearer. on the crest of a roller it fairly soared towards them. then cora saw it was denny and freda, with another man whom they did not know. "head up into it!" came a voice from the dory, for even in a storm denny knew how to make his voice carry over the water. jack heard, and swung the wheel toward the left. that would put them "into the storm," instead of on the edge of it. at that moment the _dixie_ shot past and dashed right up to the dory. "here," called jack, "can you make it to get in here?" this was called to those in denny's boat. "not now!" shouted back the man. "keep close!" the roar of the storm increased. just as cora had predicted, the new squall was worse than the first. for some moments all three boats tossed and tumbled as if they had neither master nor man, but it was the _chelton_ that righted herself first. by an ungiven signal the three boats got into line. the dory was directly in the center and the two motor boats served to shield it from the waves that lashed them on either side. "quick! freda!" yelled cora, grasping the line denny tossed to her. "you can climb in! we can hold it tight!" like a sprite, the girl in the yellow slicker and rubber hat made for the highest end of the boat, measured her distance to the _chelton_, and while kent and cora strained to hold the rope steady, sprang. it was not the distance, which was but a few feet, but the uncertainty of the boats' motion that made the leap perilous. but freda landed safely in the _chelton_. "none too soon!" gasped cora, pressing her arms around the wet oilskin coat. "see where they have gotten to now!" the boats had drifted apart again. the girls clung to freda as if she had really brought them safely to shore, instead of adding her own weight to their burden, but it was the message from land that reassured them. "isn't it dreadful!" moaned lottie, still trembling from her collapse. "no!" replied freda, cheerfully. "it isn't so bad out there. but we knew what it was on this bar, and could tell by the wind just about where you were drifting. if jack will let me take the wheel i will follow denny's orders and ride into it. then we can go around the island--and see a blue sky!" "blue sky!" came the exclamation from the girls in unison. "certainly. but i must have the wheel, jack." having satisfied them that she could run the boat, freda changed places with jack, while cora let her brother take up her watch beside kent. then cora went to the steering wheel with freda. "don't be afraid," the latter said. "i have ridden out worse storms than this with denny. they have a way of turning things upside down, but you are all right as long as you can keep well on top." she was driving directly into the smother. the girls shut their eyes, and it must be admitted that more than one put their fingers in their ears, for indeed the roar was deafening. "there are denny and the man getting into the _dixie_!" breathed cora. "oh, i am so glad, for it must have been dreadful to row that boat." "it _was_ no joke, but denny likes hard work," freda answered. "now here is where we ride it out!" every bit of power was turned on and with one well directed plunge the _chelton_ was shot through what seemed to be a "comber" as if she had been a submarine. "oh!" gasped cora. freda dropped into the "v" space at the base of the wheel. still, she did not take her hands from the spokes. it was a serious moment. what if the boat could not ride those waves? the time it took to get out of the harder waves could not be estimated by the hands of a clock or watch; but in gasping breaths, thumping hearts, pale faces and fears--for boys as well as for girls--it must have been a long, long time. finally freda stood up. "there!" she exclaimed. "what did i tell you?" "sky!" they all shouted, clapping their hands like children. "and--it--took a girl--to--do it!" exclaimed jack, who would not have been blamed for hugging freda had the opportunity offered. instead, however, he made his way back to the wheel and allowed freda and cora a chance to look at their blistered hands, for both girls had been tugging at the spokes. "who would believe a storm would end like that?" said belle, with the relief that comes so quickly upon intense strain. "we have got to keep in out of the rain for a while," cora cautioned. "there are enough water-loaded clouds over there yet to dampen our enthusiasm." this proved to be true, for torrents of rain followed in the wake of the vanishing thunder clouds. but the wind had ceased, and the waves soon quieted. with more than a sigh of relief the _chelton_ girls and boys fell into the course made now by the _dixie_, for in that boat denny shane was at the wheel. chapter xii the calm a more delightful scene than crystal bay presented, two hours after the squall, could scarcely be imagined. to the motor girls it was particularly effective, as may easily be imagined. coming back around the island the _dixie_ picked up the lost canoe, so this left nothing to be worried over in the record of adventure. "how do you feel, lottie?" cora asked, when all had landed safely and stood looking over the waters that could be so deceptive. "oh, i am all right, really," answered lottie, a little ashamed that she should have allowed herself to give way. "but be careful," cautioned cora. "take it easy for the rest of the day, at least. it doesn't do to try too much." "grandmother!" lottie answered, with an affectionate squeeze of cora's arm. "what about you? who did all the engineering in the storm? and who is still 'on deck' giving orders?" "oh, i am strong," replied cora, though strong as she was the last few hours had told in the paler tint of her cheeks. the return of the storm-stricken ones attracted crowds of bungalowers and campers to the beach; for, of course, craft of all sorts had been caught in the gale. the center of interest, however, was the _chelton_, for that boat had already gained a reputation at crystal bay. not one person came in from the bay in dry clothes; in fact, many were drenched, and naturally the girls showed the effects of the storm more conspicuously than did the boys. bess happened to be the one "who got the worst of it," among the motor girls--perhaps because there was more of her for the waves to hit. "you are certainly a beauty," commented belle, who had been more fortunate in dodging the water. "you look like a swimming lesson in the first stage." "i feel as if i needed artificial respiration," replied bess, good-humoredly, "but i want to forget it all--all but this. isn't this wonderful?" "almost enough to make up for the danger," belle returned. "but wasn't freda splendid? what good training she must have had to be able to manage that boat. no one else except cora could have done it, and she was unfamiliar with the tricks of the bay. i do feel so sorry for freda and her mother!" this last was said with a wistful sigh, for all the members of the mote were now much attached to the motherly mrs. lewis. "cora must have known those men were going to put the 'for sale' sign on the cottage, when she hurried so to get freda and her mother over to our place the other night," went on bess. "i knew there was something more important than merely taking care of us." "oh, of course, that's just like cora. fancy mrs. lewis never hearing a word about it. if she had been in the house when they tacked that sign on----" "it must be perfectly awful to lose everything that way; to feel it is all an injustice, yet not to be able to prove one's own claim," said belle. "tricky business men are worse to watch than spiteful girls, and we always thought _they_ were about all that we could handle. there's ted and jean. just look at their boat!" among the last of the storm-bound ones to "enter port" were ted and jean, members of "camp all alone." they certainly presented a sorry spectacle, as they came up to the dock. "how do you feel?" asked lottie, who was down near the water's edge, in spite of cora's admonition. "i feel like playing a spaghetti obligato on a big hot bowl of soup," replied jean. "that would be the song to reach my heart." "the sun is clucking, girls," announced walter. "she may set at any time. is there aught to eat at the mote? let us thither. we intended to go to the store before tea." "after giving you your lunch!" exclaimed cora, in surprise. "but, don't you see, that is why we didn't get to the store. you are really liable for our suppers. don't you think so, fellows?" he asked. "not only liable, but accountable," added ed. "of course we will go home and dress. i wonder what on earth the squall did to headquarters?" he asked, suddenly realizing that the camp had had need of secure moorings during the last two hours. "let's look," suggested dray, who had now moored the _dixie_ securely, while jack and cora had attended to the _chelton_. "oh, you ought to see your tent," sang out a little fellow, who wore little beside a shirt and bathing trunks. he had been out in the squall and had, very likely, enjoyed it immensely. "what's the matter with it?" inquired jack. "oh, it's all flippy-floppy," replied the urchin. "but some lady saw it goin' and she tied it back to the stakes." "some lady?" repeated jack. "mrs. lewis, likely," suggested cora. "i hope she did not go out in that down-pour to tie the tents." "i rather hope she did," admitted her brother. "i had some things in that tent not warranted rainproof. hey, fellows!" he called to the other members of camp couldn't. "hurry up. our tent was struck, they say." at the word the crowd from the beach ran helter-skelter through the woods toward the camp colony. surely there was enough excitement around crystal bay that afternoon to last for some time, and there was every prospect now of new adventures developing. "any tents down?" asked dainty, as he puffed along. "thinking of spilled grub?" queried walter. "nothing doing. we have a salvage corps department to our housewives' league, you know, and they are bound to protect the members from bandits. so you may just run along and see what is going on at the cattle." the storm had played havoc in the woods. pine branches had scratched deep furrows in the white sand paths, beautiful bushes of blooming mountain laurel and mountain pinks were shorn of every bloom, and the wild roses were scattered like pink butterflies on the catch leaves of shrubs. the first camp to be met by the boys was camp hyphen. this was quite a pretentious establishment with a smaller tent adjunct. the adjunct stood for the hyphen, and it now lay in a heap like a discarded potato sack, its store of supplies settled uncertainly in nearby bushes. "my, and they had just joined the league," wailed jack. "i suppose we will all have to put up for the reinforcements." "we are not an insurance company," ed objected. "why should we make good for a storm?" "because we have a calamity clause. you had better look up your rules and regulations, young man. the last time i saw them they were pasted with a daub of good family flour on our back door." "thank goodness the rain will have suspended our constitution," ed replied. "that back door never could have gone dry through the torrent. don't you remember how the small showers doused it?" "we do," walter answered, "and as we have the only written rules, that same fact of the back door may stand us in well." "pikers!" jack called them with a laugh. "but will you observe the hys! they are going to rebuild!" a hyphenated name seemed the worst of luck for this camp, for there was no strong pole or cast iron bar to hold the two tents together, and the "hy" was merely a strip of ground that gave extra play to the wind. the smaller tent was now being dragged from the bed of wet sand into which it had partly buried itself, and the campers were struggling heroically to get it back to its pegs. "too bad!" called walter, sympathetically. "worse than that," replied one fellow, who looked as if he might have been shipwrecked. "but we are insured--in the league, you know," shouted another member of the demolished camp. "we are coming up for supper." "you are?" returned dray. "say, fellows," to his own camp company, "the best thing we can do is to take what stuff we find left and hide up at the mote. those fellows will come down on us and won't believe about the washed-away constitution. who on earth put that indemnity clause in, anyhow?" "oh, clem did. he's studying engineering, and i suppose he is lonesome for his math. we ought to make him pay the assessment. but i agree with dray," continued walter. "we ought to 'beat it' up to the mote, quick. there are other tents flopping around, and everybody will be good and hungry, you can be sure." "queer how old denny made for his shack as soon as we got in," ed remarked. "i wonder if he thought that would be demolished?" "no, not likely," jack said, "but the old fellow was pretty wet and played out. he's plucky, all right, and i don't believe we would be in yet but for him and freda. but he is old, just the same, and only his pluck keeps him up to it. i would like to have been more decent to him, but he won't give one a chance. we must fix it up some way, though." "we sure must," agreed the others. "there's another," announced jack, as a perfectly flat tent almost blocked their way. this was evidently deserted, for not a boy was to be seen, either lamenting or trying to right the canvas. "funny," commented ed. "they must have gone to the hotel." "hotel!" exclaimed jack. "why, they borrowed a pint of our kerosene this morning. they may have gone to jail." "let's run," suggested ed. "this funeral march is getting on my nerves. besides, i am anxious to see the couldn't." in a few minutes the boys sighted their own tent. it looked all right. "thank goodness!" breathed dray, fervently. "i really couldn't stand any more nerve-racking experiences." "we look intact," said walter. "i wonder if my dress suit is still unwrinkled." "your overalls?" asked jack, mimicking walter's tone of voice. "oh, i am sure they are perfectly all right, for i saw them in the wood box just before we left." "brute!" responded walter. "but i say! what's that? we are inhabited!" sounds of voices issued from inside the tent. jack dashed ahead and raised the flap. "robbers! thieves! police!" he yelled, then he had to dodge something. "we are here for our rights," sang out a strong voice. "we demand our insurance!" "seems to me the demand is rather violent," replied ed, as the couldn'ts saw what was going on. the entire tent was filled with boys from the wrecked camps, and they were making away with practically everything in the line of eatables they could lay their hands on. "clear out!" ordered dray, "or we will call the police. what sort of way is this to keep law and order?" "the only way," replied hal, a boy from the "mist." "we couldn't even keep up in starvation, but with something to sustain us we might be able to keep the law. as a matter of fact, it was civic pride that compelled us to come in here and eat." there was no help for it now, the couldn'ts had been robbed. even their party paper napkins were being made into balls. "isn't it awful!" moaned jack, falling into the one dry spot on the sandy floor. "and we were the real benefactors of this ranch. that's the way goodness is repaid in this hard, cruel world." nobody noticed the sermon--everyone was too busy looking for food. finally walter and ed, after a private conference with dray and jack, decided to give to the unfortunates all the food they possessed, "in order to avert worse damage to their property." "but we are dining out," ed put in, "and it's only fair that you should take the provender home. we want to wash our little faces, you know. we dine with ladies." "oh, we will pay it all back," declared clem, who was scooping up empty boxes in the hope of being agreeably disappointed in their contents as compared with their weight. "yes--you--will!" mocked jack, "when we can skate on the sand of the desert. but hustle. there's not another scrap around. land that oil can, ted. it's empty." after considerable urging, ordering and coaxing, the couldn'ts rid themselves of their uninvited guests, and were once again in possession of their own tents. "did the girls invite us?" asked dray. "i hate to intrude." "they did not," replied jack, "and we are not going to intrude. we are just going over to thank mrs. lewis for saving this camp from destruction. she hammered down those stakes. look at them!" he ordered. "ed, did you ever wield a hammer as truthfully as that?" chapter xiii suspicion "of course we can get supper for everyone," declared mrs. lewis, cordially, when cora spoke of the determination of the boys to come down upon the mote for tea. "we have plenty of food." "you are a wonder, mrs. lewis," declared cora. "you always have a full larder. i don't see where it comes from, for you don't even use up the budget." "it's a matter of experience," answered mrs. lewis. "when one has to do things, my dear, one learns how. i am so glad we have macaroni cooked. boys love big, steaming dishes." cora gave a sigh of relief. what a blessing mrs. lewis had proven to be! after finding themselves shut out of their house by a trick of the land agents she and her daughter had taken up a permanent residence in the girls' camp. freda, in spite of all opposition, had installed herself as "maid." she insisted on waiting on the table, and attending to rooms, and helping her mother generally, although the girls wanted her to be one of them. everyone declared that her mother, with her wonderful management and activity, more than made up for freda being a visitor at the mote. freda seemed happier now than when she shared the little cottage with her mother, but this was easily understood. under the new arrangement mrs. lewis was earning an honest and comfortable living, and freda was more than willing to assist her in every way possible. before, they had lived in constant dread of the land agents putting them out of their home. even the fact that the sign "for sale" had been placed on the cottage did not seem so unbearable, for the girls and boys had insisted that that was only a "scare" on the part of the land agents, and that while the town constable would not interfere to the extent of taking down the sign, he had promised to investigate the rights of those who put it up. but town constables are slow and timid when strangers, with big-brimmed hats, and plenty of cigars, come from the city, and order papers signed at so much per sign--for the constable. the boys had come, and the supper was almost ready. lottie looked as pretty and as well as ever, for she had dressed in a chic pink frock, and with a pink snood binding her brow looked as fresh as though she had just come from the hands of a beauty specialist. after all, such vigorous treatment and baths of spray as the girls had encountered all that afternoon amounted to just that--beauty treatment; and lottie was not the only one whose cheeks glowed, and in whose eyes shone the light that comes only from youth and health. the rumpus that always followed the boys' arrival was in full sway, jack and ed chasing bess around the bungalow to make her give up an imaginary lost scarf pin, while dray and walter contented themselves with the less violent exercise of rocking on the front porch, where the other girls were scattered. they certainly were "scattered," for there was so much to tell and hear of the afternoon's adventure that each girl chose her own listener and her own corner. everyone seemed deeply absorbed in this when freda appeared at the door with the warning bell. that meant that in five minutes the tea bell would ring--only it was going to be dinner to-night. "that sounds fine," dray told freda, who in her blue linen sailor suit looked quite as well as the young ladies who put in most of their time "leisuring." "our belle is not nearly as aristocratic as that." "i hope dinner will bear out the reputation," freda replied, a bit shyly, for dray was somewhat of a stranger to her. "dinner will make that reputation immortal," jack declared, as he and ed gave up their chase and joined the others on the porch. "but hello! here comes denny! and he has no pipe! something surely is wrong." everyone ceased chattering as denny shane appeared on the tan bark path. "hello, there, denny!" called jack, getting up from his porch chair. "what's up?" "a-plenty," answered denny with a sweep of his cap that took everyone in the greeting. "where's the widder lewis?" "oh, what's the matter, denny?" asked freda, aghast. "can't you tell me first? you know how weak mother is." "'tis nothing bad," replied denny, as he sat down on the bottom step of the porch, in spite of all invitations to come up and have a chair. he settled his cap more securely on his gray head. "i just want to--tell her something." "but what?" insisted freda, who now sat beside the old sailor on the step. "i know all about the business, you know." "do come in, denny," pleaded cora. "it will be easier to talk in the living room. we young folks can go into the dining room and start our dinner while you settle it all quietly among yourselves." "thank you, miss," denny replied, promptly accepting cora's invitation. "that will be the best way, i guess." famished as everyone seemed to be, the visit of denny somewhat shifted the interest from appetites, and curiosity strayed from the dining room toward the living room. "what can have happened?" whispered belle to marita. "denny looks positively--angry." "doesn't he?" marita replied. "i suppose it is something about freda's property; don't you think so?" "likely." the voices from the other room, that had been subdued, now rose in tones of surprise. freda and her mother were both trying to talk at the same time, evidently. cora was serving the dinner and endeavoring not to spoil it. the boys were too hungry and too glad to eat to allow any interruption to interfere with their pleasure, but the girls were prone to whisper, and even to listen when a voice penetrated the room. "it was them!" they heard denny exclaim, "and i'll have the law on them!" then freda said something like: "can't be sure!" "sure as me name's dinny shane!" exclaimed the old man. "who else would have tied up little brian, the dog that was never tied before in his life! sure i'd like to 'a caught them at it," and he brought his fist down hard on something. the boys and girls exchanged glances. "something doing," ventured jack. "i'll bet denny has seen the witches." "no--banshees," corrected ed. "witches aren't ripe this time of year. but cora, don't let us keep you. really, walter would love to take your place up head there, when you have finished." cora was anxious to join in the conversation with freda and her mother, freda having whispered to her that they would like to have her do so as soon as the dinner was over. "then i will be excused," she said, "although i hope you won't hurry." "don't be alarmed," said walter. "it's very bad to eat in a hurry." "i'll serve," proposed bess, "i know just how much everyone has had, and how much more they _ought_ to have. dray, you cannot have another bit of pudding." dray was stretching far out for the dish. he did love apple slump. and mrs. lewis knew just the right amount of cinnamon to season with. a hush followed cora's entrance to the living room. not a single word or exclamation escaped through the summer hangings that hid the narrow door. "do you think it's a conspiracy?" remarked walter. "i'm glad we had dinner first. i had no idea that a hurricane went straight to the hunger zone like that." "you would be a star to go up north," commented ed. "just fancy carrying stuff in your pockets and starving because the exact latitude for grub had not been reached--wow!" "i would insist upon being made chairman of the latitude committee," replied walter, "and my moves would be swift and certain." the door opened and freda entered. she was not exactly all smiles, but the serious look on her face was not deep enough to cause comment. "i came to fetch your coffee," she announced, cheerfully. "you must think we are planning to dynamite something," she added. "oh, worse than that," replied dray, getting one more spoonful of slump on the sly. "we thought you were taking a negative vote on the coffee. nerves, at night, you know." "let me help you," insisted belle. "i am almost stiff from sitting, or maybe it is from the way i _wasn't_ sitting in the bottom of the boat." "very likely," affirmed jack. "i would not be surprised if we had to come around in the morning with nippers to get the kinks out. i see one forming, right now, in lottie's cheek." "we will be stiff, i am sure," added bess, "although our muscles ought to be in good form." "when you have finished," freda whispered to belle, "we want to give denny something." "of course," belle replied. "how selfish we are, sitting here 'gabbing,' and neither you nor your mother has had supper yet. i'll serve coffee at once." "don't hurry," freda said. "we have time enough." everyone, however, seemed to guess at once that they should make room for the next "table," and the coffee was swallowed, hastily. "what is it?" lottie ventured to ask freda. "we are just dying of curiosity. what has happened?" "oh, i can't tell you now," freda answered, evasively. "i guess everyone knew we were shipwrecked this afternoon." cora appeared at the door. "may we come to eat now?" she asked. "i have only succeeded in making denny stay with the understanding that we won't keep him long. he is anxious to get back to his cabin." "i am that," said denny, following cora into the dining room. "can't tell what'll happen now." "then something _did_ happen," bess said aside, to marita. "i can't imagine what." "now you must eat a good meal," mrs. lewis insisted to denny. "i remember well how you always loved macaroni and cheese." "and i remember well how you fixed it up," answered denny, gallantly. "this is a bit like the old days; isn't it? when i used to eat you out of house and home, when len would fetch me into your house to tempt me appetite," and he chuckled at the recollection. "freddie, you were only a tot then, but you could climb on my knee right smart. i guess you were always a romp." this last was plainly intended as a compliment, for denny smiled at freda as she handed him his steaming coffee. if the young folks thought that by special attention to denny and his wants at the table they might get an inkling of the mystery that had so excited the old man they were disappointed, for he never betrayed a word of it, and only an occasional absent look in his sober gray eyes betokened anything unusual. he scarcely took time to swallow the tempting food, however, when he jumped up and declared he could not stay another minute, although cora, freda, and mrs. lewis urged him to remain. "i must run--i really must," he insisted, "and mind what i tell you," to freda and cora, "look out for yourselves!" chapter xiv an angry druggist "we didn't want to make a fuss over it before the boys," cora explained to a number of the girls, who, next morning, were seated about the bungalow side porch, trying to get in a few stitches of embroidery. "they would be sure to go straight at those land fellows, and we think--denny and all of us--that the best way to do is to watch them carefully for a while." "but what happened?" demanded lottie, impatiently. "we don't know exactly what, but it appears that while denny was out, fishing us in, someone entered his shack and ransacked it." "burglars! what for? in that hut!" exclaimed belle. "we don't know that, either," continued cora. "we can only surmise. they must have been after something that was neither money nor table silver." she laughed a little at the idea of anyone trying to rob the humble cabin of a fisherman. "the little terrier is never tied up and never troubles anybody, but it seems he did object to the intrusion, for he has a cut on one leg, made, possibly, by a heavy shoe, and when denny found him he was tied tight to a hook in the woodshed. denny will never forgive whoever tied brian." "but did the thieves take anything?" bess wanted to know. "not a thing. of course there was nothing an ordinary thief would have any use for; but it looks as if they were searching for something in particular, for everything was turned inside out. every strip of carpet was pulled up and loose boards in the floor pried away. it really is too bad for denny. he will have a lot of trouble getting things in order again, and you know he is neat, for a lone fisherman." "isn't that outrageous!" exclaimed belle. "i think, cora, we should have told the boys and had them make a charge against whoever may be guilty. they will be ransacking here next." "oh, goodness! i hope not," cried marita. "i think we should have police protection." "and have officers ringing our door bell all hours of the night because someone forgot to turn out the dining room light, or the side window was found unlocked," said cora. "they have very few officers here, i should imagine, and if we really gave them something to do they might insist on doing it." "tell us more about it," begged marita, who was naturally fascinated with the "scary" part. "i only know that his shack was entered and all but torn down," said cora. "as to who did it, or why it was done, we can only surmise. but don't talk too much about it. we want to keep it quiet." "why?" demanded marita. "because by letting other people talk about it we may be able to trace the perpetrators. we could easily find out who knew it had happened, in that way." "oh, i see," marita answered vaguely, although her tone did not indicate comprehension. "freda and mrs. lewis are going out; aren't they?" this question implied "why" also. "yes," cora answered again. "they have some business to attend to. i told them not to hurry back for lunch--we would attend to it. we really need the exercise." "but i am going canoeing directly after lunch," lottie objected. "after lunch?" repeated belle. "this will be before lunch--the getting ready." "oh, you know what i mean," lottie grumbled. "it makes one's hands so horrid to handle cooking things." "were you going to paddle?" asked cora, innocently. "i was going to try," admitted lottie. "then your hands will be in better shape from some active work," cora added, mischievously. "it is awful to try to paddle with soft hands." "oh, i guess mine are not any too soft," lottie retorted, a bit abashed that she should have fallen into the trap. "where are you going, lottie?" asked marita. "you know it is only safe to canoe near the shore. the water can be very rough sometimes." "i don't think you ought to go in a canoe until you can swim," said cora. "you know a canoe is the most uncertain of craft, except that it is absolutely certain to upset if you draw a breath in, when you should send a breath out. jack says a canoe is more than human, but i won't shock your ears by saying what he thinks it is." "i am sure there is no danger when one sits still," lottie insisted, "but if you don't want me to go, cora----" "of course i want you to go, and have a nice time," cora explained, "but i don't want you to upset. you should wear a bathing suit and be ready to swim in case of a spill." "oh, i couldn't do that!" exclaimed lottie, rather shocked. "i am going with clem." "well, i hope clem will put you in the very bottom of the boat, and not trust to a seat. even a big cushion is wobbly," finished cora. "now, young ladies, are you ready for a tramp? we have to walk to the old village this morning to shop, unless you want to go to the dock and take frank's ferry. he will take us across for ten cents each, and we need things to eat." "oh, do let us walk," begged bess. "i haven't seen half the things that grow around here." "do _you_ grow around here?" asked belle, maliciously, inferring that the desired walk was needed to "reduce." a withering look was the answer she received from her twin sister. just the same the walk was decided upon, and a little later the wintergreen path was alive with voices. it was one of the delights of summer to tramp and ramble; and in spite of the joys of motor boating the girls were not slow to appreciate the pleasures of dry land decked in various shades of foliage green and floral tints. the mountain laurel was at its best--that little tasselled thing we call "pfingster," but which looks quite aristocratic enough to belong to the orchid family, made bouquets of itself in every appropriate spot, while the glorious rhododendrons put forth a display sufficiently beautiful and courageous to last all summer. "oh, my, look at the style!" lottie exclaimed as a party of young folks appeared before them. they were evidently coming from the cliff hotel, and made the most of that fact. "there's hilda hastings!" cora said, in surprise. "i didn't know she was down here." a remarkably pretty girl, light-haired and wearing lilac shades, with a parasol that reflected that becoming tint, was hilda. she evidently saw, and recognized cora just as the latter spied her. "cora kimball!" cried hilda, in the delighted way that usually marks a meeting with a home friend in the midst of vacation time. "where did you come from?" "oh, hilda!" answered cora, advancing to meet the girl who almost ran to greet her, "i am so glad to see you. we are stopping at our own little bunk--the motely mote--on pine shade way. and where do you put up?" introductions followed, and girls from the mote were plainly delighted to meet the others from a fashionable hotel. the meeting also resulted in a general invitation from the cliff girls to the motes to attend a hop to be given the next evening at the hotel. "and do bring every boy you can scrape up," hilda enjoined. "we shall be sure to need them." "what dress?" asked lottie the vain. "linen or lace, doesn't matter in the least," declared a young girl whom they called madge. "we will wear whatever we fall into for dinner." "all right," answered lottie for all, fluttering at the prospect of a real hotel hop. "we will wear whatever we may find pressable--we have the awfullest time with wrinkles down here." "don't mind them," answered hilda. "wrinkled clothes are a seaside fad, you know. if you have none you will be suspected of being the press club trust. that's a clothing club--not literary." with other pleasantries the two sets parted, but not until all sorts of invitations to come and visit had been extended and accepted. "what nice girls," the timid marita remarked as the fashionable ones turned into the lane. "isn't hilda pretty? are they from chelton?" "she is and they are," answered cora. "but i do not see how we are going to that hop. the boys were going to take us out in a sail boat, you know." "oh, i would be frightened to death in a sail boat," objected lottie. "and perfectly safe in a canoe," observed belle. "charlotte, that is scarcely understandable." "well," said lottie, turning a deeper shade of pink, "i am afraid of that big pole in a sail boat. it looks as if it would sweep one's head off every time it veers around." "just duck," advised belle. "it's a great teacher of the proper mode of ducking; and that is not to be despised, lottie, whether one has to duck harsh words, or big poles. but i want to go sailing. i can't see what fun there is in going into a stuffy hotel on a beautiful moonlight evening when we can go out on the water and see something." "don't you think we would see something in the cliff ball room?" challenged lottie. "peace!" called cora, good-naturedly. "it looks as if we might have to take a vote on the question. but i can't say that the boys would be willing to accept a negative answer." "oh, won't they come?" lottie asked in surprise. "i don't believe they will forego the sail," replied cora. "however, we won't decide until we ask them. if they want to postpone the water sport we may take in the hop." this was looked upon as a reasonable solution of the problem, and while some of the girls hoped for the sail, perhaps an equal number wished to go to the dance. it was a delightful morning, and the woods were fairly alive with young folk. it seemed there could be very few mothers or chaperones at crystal bay, for even in marketing hours it was always the girls with baskets, or the boys with huge paper bags, who were encountered. on benches along the beach, to be sure, "elders" might be found sunning themselves and ruining their fading sight with alleged art embroideries, but in the matter of housekeeping it was youth that prevailed at the bay. it was a long walk to the general store at the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. belle and lottie usually took a twirl while bess and cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water's edge and watched others try the newest steps. around the drug counter a number of men were engaged in earnest conversation with the salesman. belle needed cold cream and was waiting her turn to tell the clerk so. "we just about have it," said one man to the man behind the counter. "there is no question about the legal right; it is only a matter of a lost document. we may get along without it, but we understood you were a life-long resident, knew the people, and thought perhaps you could tell us something about it. of course we don't want anyone's time for nothing." the clerk scratched his head and looked over his glasses. the scale was tipping with white stuff and a customer was waiting. "that may be so," he replied, slowly, "but i should think, young fellow, that them folks themselves would know more about their own business than anyone else. why don't you go to them?" "do you think for a moment that anyone is going to do themselves out of house and home like that?" asked the taller man, angrily. "oh, that's the game; is it? well, see here! do you think for one moment that i, bill sparks, am going to do a poor widow out of house and home to suit you!" he had raised his voice to angry tones, a remarkable thing for bill to do in business hours, but those around who heard had no blame for him. the strangers left without taking up their cigars or paying for them. bill looked after them quizzically. "that's the way to answer that sort," he remarked to no one in particular. "too many of them speculators around the bay, lately. cold cream?" he inquired of bess. cora had seen the men, although she was in the grocery department, and when bess told her what she had overheard she looked troubled. "we must not put that off another day," she told bess. "i am convinced that those men are dishonest, for why should they go sneaking around that way? why not ask for information from the proper persons?" scarcely had she spoken than mrs. lewis and freda appeared in the doorway that led from the boat landing. freda's face was flushed, and mrs. lewis's was pale. "what is it?" cora asked, hurrying up to them. "they have started a mill dam across the creek," replied freda. "if they turn that water into use for mill purposes the whole shore of the bay will be ruined!" "don't go so fast, daughter," urged mrs. lewis. "we can stop them; we must get a lawyer at once." "of course," answered cora, "i think they call it an injunction, or restraining papers. who is your lawyer, mrs. lewis?" "we haven't any," freda replied for her mother. "we were told if we engaged counsel they would eat up the whole thing. oh, isn't it dreadful!" and the brave freda was on the verge of tears. "i'll see jack at once," declared cora, "and if there are not trustworthy lawyers here we will fetch our own down from chelton. the senior member of the firm would do anything reasonable for our family, and when mother is away she leaves jack and me full discretion. let us hurry back before the boys get out on the water. bess, call belle and lottie." the look of relief that spread over the widow's face was a more eloquent form of thanks than words could have been, so without further delay they all hurried to the motor boat in which mrs. lewis and freda had come over. it was from a bay front hotel and had come over for the eleven o'clock mail. the boy at the wheel started up as soon as all were seated, and as the launch was a good-sized one the trip across the bay was both comfortable and enjoyable. of course belle and lottie wanted to know more than they could be told about the coming of freda and mrs. lewis, so they had to content themselves with a word and a look from cora. the boys were at the landing as the boat came in. this was exactly what cora had wished for. chapter xv an alarm "i will go to lamberton this afternoon," declared mrs. lewis, after having conferred with cora and jack. "i know a man there who was a great friend of my husband. he told me to come to him any time i needed advice, and he is a prominent lawyer. i have never troubled him--had no good cause to until now." "i think that would be a good plan," jack agreed. "i fancy as soon as we come down on those fellows good and hard, they will be forced to show their hand." so it was arranged that mrs. lewis should go to the town, some twenty-five miles away. "and freda," she said, "don't worry if i am not back until the last train, for if he should happen to be in new york i will wait for him." "be careful of that cut in the old road," freda warned. "mother, you know it is always dark through there, even in broad daylight, and after dark it is pitchy." "i can't get any train until one o'clock," went on mrs. lewis, "so, freda, we will hurry back to the bungalow and leave everything ready for tea. we can prepare things while the girls are lunching." "now, you needn't do anything of the kind," objected cora, "we girls can well enough take care of ourselves once in a while. why, mrs. lewis, you have us all spoiled. we are supposed to do most of our own housekeeping in summer camp, you know." "indeed, you do that now," returned mrs. lewis, who was more than grateful for the opportunity for work that cora had afforded to her. "i like housekeeping when there is someone to keep for." "you had freda," jack reminded her. "and she wouldn't let me do enough to keep in practice," replied mrs. lewis. "here we are, and the young ladies are stringing beans!" "now that is what i call sweet of you," jack observed as he greeted the four girls, all seated around a low porch table with knives and beans plying from basket to pan. "who told you we were coming to dine?" "you positively are not, brother jack," cora declared. "you boys think our place is an elastic delicatessen. why, we never know whether we are going to have enough for another meal or not, and we can't go to the point again to-day." "all right, little sister. if you have the heart to eat good string beans from old henry's garden, and know that your brother is starving for a single spoonful, just go ahead. they will rest heavy on your heart, though. i warn you." "you may help!" offered lottie. "just take that paper bag and scoop up the ends. bess spilled them." "i absolutely refuse," replied jack, haughtily, "to be a scraper-up for such mean people. no, sir! i have just been manicured," and he gazed lovingly at his much-neglected hands. "it does seem as if all we do is to get ready to eat and then eat," said belle with a sigh. "i would never keep house for myself if i starved. at least, i would manage on fewer meals. we have only been to the point since breakfast and now it is time to eat again." cora had gone in with freda and mrs. lewis and very soon afterward luncheon was announced--the beans were laid over for the evening meal. jack stayed, of course, and wondered (so he said) why the other fellows did not come in search of him. an hour or two later mrs. lewis hurried off to the little station, after promising freda that she would be most careful of the dark road known as the "cut." "for, mother dear," warned freda, "i do believe those land sharks would do almost anything to scare the information out of us. they have threatened to have it at any cost, you know." "oh! i am surprised at you being so nervous, dear," replied the mother, kissing freda reassuringly. "i never felt less nervous. in fact, i think now things will soon be righted. good-bye, dear. and have a good time with your friends." freda watched the little woman step lightly away over the white path. then, with a sigh, she turned back to the bungalow. "freda! freda!" called bess. "you have not eaten yet, and i'm to do the dishes. hurry this minute and just fill up! i must be finished in time for a nap, for i am nearly dead." freda did eat, though somehow she felt unusually depressed. even cora's encouraging words, given into freda's ear when no one else was at hand, did not seem to cheer her. "just come down to the bay and go out with me," urged cora. "i want to try the boat with the new control, and i don't want to go out alone!" "of course i will go with you," assented freda. "i have only to change my blouse." the motor trip was delightful. the _chelton_ seemed to have missed the guiding hand of its fair owner, for while the new piece of mechanism was being put in cora had not been using the boat. "how different from the one we rode in this morning," freda remarked. "i always feel as if something were going to explode when i sit near a noise such as that old engine made. i wonder that a big house like the laurel can keep such a tub." "guests are always glad to get on the water," answered cora, "and i suppose they are not particular as long as they do not have to pay extra for the sail. most of the hotels down here hire out their launches, i believe." they headed straight for the island, and then ran around it to come back on the east shore. in many of the passing boats were young friends of cora, and all sorts of messages were shouted back and forth. "i guess i had better go in early," cora remarked, "as we really have not decided on this evening's plans. some want the hop and others want the sail." "and i have a lot to do, too," freda said. "mother and i have to take so much time from what we would like to do for you girls." cora protested against this, of course, declaring that the girls never had such help before, and regretting that freda should take the matter so seriously. "i cannot get over the attempt to rob denny," cora went on, as they neared the bungalow. "i am glad they chose a time when he was not around, for he would certainly fight. he thinks he has the same strength he enjoyed years ago, and i hate to think what might have happened had he met those fellows." "wasn't it awful?" commented freda. "and to think that it must have been on our account, for i am convinced that those men were searching for papers they believe denny has." "no doubt about it," said cora. "but he has none; has he?" "he has never mentioned such a thing, and with us worrying as we are, i am sure that if he had any of our papers he would show them to mother. i know my grandfather trusted him more than he even trusted my father, his own son; but that is easy to understand, for denny had settled for life here, near the property, while father was likely to go to any part of the world, had he lived. he always wanted to travel." "this is a splendid afternoon to write letters," cora remarked, "and i owe a very long one to mother. that, at least, i will get off on the last mail." "i have some to write, too," freda rejoined. "i had that very task in mind. i have to write to those 'in-laws' i interviewed last week. they will think i am very ungrateful not to have written since my return. so long," she called out cheerily. "i hope when mother comes back we will all have cause to rejoice. that friend of father's is a very good lawyer." "but he may not be able to say much until he has had a chance to look into the case," said prudent cora. "we must not expect results so soon." "oh, i do," persisted freda. "i know when he hears all that mother has to tell him he will be able to say something quite definite." so the girls parted, cora to go to her letter writing, and freda to hers. it seemed the entire household at the mote was very busy that afternoon, some resting for the evening, others arranging the fussy trifles so important to young girls. it was getting dark when freda came out at the side porch and looked anxiously down the road. "mother should have come on that train," she told herself. then she waited to hear the train pass at the second crossing. "she would be on her way up now if she came," freda reflected, "i'll get my things on and go to meet her." coming down the stairs she called cora, but receiving no reply she did not wait to find her. she expected to be gone only a few minutes and it was not worth while to wait to tell cora where she was going. the dusk came down quickly. even as freda passed under the big elm tree she could not see the moss at its trunk. she hastened on, and was almost startled into a scream as she heard a noise. it was but the tinkle of a bell. "someone on a bicycle!" exclaimed freda, in relief. the bell tinkled again, and through an opening in the trees she caught a glimpse of the messenger boy from the railroad station. he saw her and called: "a message for you!" "a message for me?" she repeated in surprise. "who can it be from?" at once she thought of her mother. "i don't know," answered the lad. "mr. burke, at the station, took it over the telephone, and wrote it out. here it is," and he held up an envelope. "it's all paid, and you don't have to sign the book; it isn't a regular telegram." with trembling fingers freda tore open the envelope. there was a single slip of paper inside and on it was written in the hand of the station agent: "if you would do your mother a service come to wickford junction at once." * * * * * "wickford junction!" gasped freda, as the messenger boy rode away. "why, how did mother get there? that's in the opposite direction from lamberton. oh, there must have been some accident, and she has been taken there! i must go to her!" hastily freda looked in her purse. she had barely money enough for the ticket, but she would go. on eager and anxious feet she sped toward the railroad depot. it was getting much darker. "oh, mr. burke!" freda gasped, when she saw the agent behind his little wicket gate, "i've got to go to wickford junction. mother is there." "she is, freda? why i sold her a ticket to lamberton this morning." "i know. but there must have been some accident. i just got a message from wickford junction." "i know, for i wrote it down. the person wouldn't give any name, but i'm sure it wasn't your mother." "no, it couldn't have been! she's hurt!" "hurt?" "well, of course i'm not sure, but i fear she is. she must have told someone to send it. i've got to go. how much is a ticket?" "eighty-five cents. the train's due now. there she comes," he added, as a distant whistle sounded. freda had barely time to get her ticket and hurry aboard. "don't worry," the agent called out to her. "there hasn't been any accident, or i'd have heard of it." but freda did worry. all the way in the train she was a prey to nervous fears, and when the junction was finally reached she was hardly able to keep up. but there was no sign of an accident, and her mother was not there when she alighted--the only passenger to get off. wickford junction was hardly more than a flag station, and there was an agent there only part of the time. he was not there now, but in the dingy waiting room, where freda went to make inquiries, she found a shabbily dressed woman. "are you freda lewis?" the latter asked, starting forward. "yes, i am. but how did you know? where is my mother? did you send me a message? oh, tell me quickly, please!" "now, dearie, don't get excited," soothed the woman in accents that only made freda worry more. "it will be all right. i sent for you to come here because i wanted to have a chance to talk to you alone. now if you'll sit down----" "what do you mean?" asked freda, quickly. "i don't know you. what do you want?" "just to have a little talk with you. i thought it better to take this means than to go to your house. sit down. you and your mother are trying to establish a claim to some property; aren't you?" "yes, that is well known. but what do you----" "never mind about that. i will tell you all in due time. have you any papers to prove your claim?" "any papers?" asked freda, suspiciously. "yes--deeds, mortgages or the like. i have studied law, and i may be able to help you. i have had experience in many disputed claims." "we don't know where----" freda was about to say that they did not know where the papers were, when she thought better of it. was it right to confide thus in a stranger? "now, dearie, tell me everything," said the woman. "you can trust me. or, better still, if you will come with me to the country hotel where i am stopping we will not be disturbed. better come with me," and in her eagerness she caught freda by the arm. "no, no! i'll not go!" gasped the girl. "i want to find my mother. who are you, and why do you ask me these questions? did you send me that false message? what was your purpose in so deceiving me?" "i did not deceive you!" replied the woman, sharply. "it was for the good of your mother that i asked you to meet me here. i will explain all to you later, but not here. i can do you good. only trust me. come with me. i have a carriage waiting outside." again she caught freda's arm. then the harassed and nervous girl burst into tears. a kindly-faced hack driver, waiting outside in the hope of having some belated traveler hire him, heard. dick bently was a benevolent sort of chap, with daughters of his own. hearing a girl crying he went into the depot. "what's the matter, miss?" he asked, and his tone was reassuring. "oh, it's my mother!" gasped freda. "she isn't here, and this--this person sent me a message----" "it was for your good, my dear," interrupted the strange woman, with an evil smile. "i'm trying to settle that property matter for you, my dearie!" "who are you, anyhow?" asked dick belligerently. he did not like the appearance of the woman, nor her tone. "it is not necessary for me to tell you anything," she replied, with assumed dignity. "if i am not wanted, i will go." "maybe it would be better," said the hackman. "now, can i help you, young lady?" he asked kindly, as the woman hurried off. "i only want to go home to crystal bay, and to my mother," said freda, and she briefly explained the circumstances. "well, it's too bad, but i'm afraid you can't get back to crystal bay to-night," declared the hackman. "the last train has gone." "the last train gone!" gasped freda. "oh, what am i to do?" "now don't you worry a mite," replied dick. "i'll just take you home to my wife, and she'll look after you. don't you worry," and, after some persuasion he prevailed on freda to go in his ramshackle rig to his home, where she was kindly received by his wife. "i'll go back to the station to meet the express that sometimes stops at the junction," explained dick, "and, miss, if there come any inquiries for you i'll tell where you are. but you'll have to stay with us till mornin', i reckon." freda's mind was easier now, but she could not imagine what had been the object of the strange woman, nor why she had sent the telegram. meanwhile, back in the bungalow, there was much alarm when freda was missed. and when her mother came home safely, and found her daughter gone, she almost collapsed. "where can she have gone?" she wailed. hasty inquiries were made, and one of the boatmen told of having seen freda start out through the woods, and meet the station messenger boy. after that it was easy to trace her. mr. burke told of the 'phone message, and of having seen freda board the train for the junction. and then a new difficulty arose. there was no train to the junction that night; but mrs. lewis was in such a state that nothing short of a visit to the place would satisfy her. there was no telephone available then, the junction station being closed. cora solved the trouble. "we can go to hartford in our boat," she said, "and from there it is only a short trip to the junction. we could hire an auto." this was done. in the _chelton_, the motor girls and the boys went to hartford, making good time in getting there. a neighbor came over to the bungalow to stay with mrs. lewis, who grew more alarmed as the night deepened. the trip by auto, which was taken only by jack, cora and the chauffeur, was marked by the mishap of a blown-out tire, but that was all. when the junction was finally reached, there, true to his promise, was the hackman, and to cora's excited inquiries he gave reassuring answers. yes, freda was all right, and safe at his house. he directed jack and cora there, and soon all were reunited. then explanations were offered, freda's fears about her mother were quieted, and the trip back to hartford made, where the motor boat party was anxiously waiting. "and now for the bungalow!" sighed cora, as she took her place at the familiar wheel. a little later it was reached, and mother and daughter were together again telling their stories, and speculating much about freda's strange message and the mysterious woman. but the puzzle could not be solved. chapter xvi a bad case of nerves "would the boys have anything in their camp, do you suppose?" asked bess, with a long sigh. "anything for what?" asked lottie, as she looked surreptitiously into the mirror of her vanity box. lottie was always worried about the effect of late hours. "is it something to eat?" asked marita in her timid way. "if you want that, bess, i'll go over and help you carry it." "gracious, i hope we don't need anything in the food line," said cora. "i thought we stocked up with enough to last the rest of the week." "i want something for my nerves," went on bess. "they're on the ragged edge, and i jump at every sound." "and no wonder," agreed belle, as she went over to a hammock suspended between two trees. "get something for mine, while you're at it, bess. i think they use bromide, or something like that. but i doubt if the boys would have any. they don't seem to have a nerve in their bodies, though goodness knows they're 'nervy' enough at other times. pardon the colloquialism," she murmured as she sank back. it was the morning after freda's return, and the night had been rather a troubled one. no one in the girls' camp felt much like eating breakfast, though they managed to nibble at a bit of toast and drink some coffee. the alarm about freda had giver the motor girls the keenest anxiety, and while jack and the boys tried to make freda and the girls believe the woman and the telephone message had been a joke, it looked to be too serious a matter to be lightly passed off. the odd woman who had met freda at the country junction had shown, by her questions, that she knew much about the disputed property. and her manner had been, in a way, rather threatening. it was too unusual to have been accidental, at any rate. but freda had reached home in safety. the motor girls were glad of that, but they were all suffering from a bad case of nerves, though, so far, bess and belle had been the only ones to admit it openly. "i wouldn't take any of that bromide, if i were you, bess," said cora, as she straightened out some of the things in the living room. the usually homelike apartment had taken on a most woebegone appearance since the previous night. everyone had left everything just where she had happened to let it fall. "but i've got to do something!" declared the plump twin. "my hand shakes--see, i can't hold it still," and in proof she held it out. "it does shake," spoke marita, in an awed whisper. "maybe she had better have a doctor." "doctor! nonsense!" laughed belle. "her hand trembles because she had her arm up so long this morning, trying to do her hair up that new way. sit down, bess, and you'll be all right in a few minutes." "but i can't sit still, that's the trouble. i'm so nervous!" and bess hastily arose from a chair in which she had seated herself, and began pacing up and down the broad bungalow porch. "i have an idea!" exclaimed cora. "don't let it die of lonesomeness," suggested belle, with a laugh. "think up another and have a pair of ideas." "i will," replied cora, promptly. "i think if we go out for a little spin in the boat it will do us all good. it's a lovely day--too lovely to let our nerves get the best of us. what do you say?" "i'll do anything rather than sit here and think of what might have happened," sighed bess. "oh, you're taking it entirely too seriously," put in lottie, as she used a buffer on her already pink and polished nails. "what could have happened?" "why, they might have taken freda away!" "who would?" "those persons--men or women--or both--who are trying to get possession of the lewis property. and, in a way, we might have been involved," went on bess. "i don't see how," observed cora. "why, we've given advice to freda and her mother, and if things went wrong some persons might say we had an object in it." "nonsense!" exclaimed belle. "you've surely got a case of nerves, all right. come on, let's do as cora says and take a trip on the water." she got out of the hammock--belle could accomplish this difficult feat more gracefully than anyone else, cora always said. then they all went down to the little dock where the _chelton_ was tied, and cora, with a quickness born of long experience, ascertained that there was plenty of gasoline and oil in the craft. she tested the vibrator and found the current good, though at times, when not suffering from a fit of stubbornness, the engine had been known to start with the magneto. but it was not safe to depend on it. "are you all ready?" asked cora. "i guess so," answered bess. "i guess i won't have to have bromide, after all. i feel better already." "i thought you would," laughed cora. "marita, just straighten out that stern flag, will you? thank you. you're a dear!" "look out!" laughed belle. "when cora begins calling names there is no telling when she will stop." "don't worry," was cora's answer, as she stooped over to crank the motor. it started on the first turn and soon the _chelton_ was chugging a course over the sun-lit waters of crystal bay. "do you see anything of the boys?" asked cora, as she turned to the others from her place at the steering wheel. "no, there's their boat--at least jack's apology for one--tied to the stake," said lottie. "does that boat ever go out two days in succession, cora?" "i don't believe it does," answered jack's sister. "it was a sort of makeshift, anyhow. jack only got her running because someone said it couldn't be done--it was a sort of dare. but the poor old boat seems to suffer from some intermittent fever. it runs one day and rests the next." "and the _dixie_--she's resting, too," went on bess, as she looked down the bay to where dray ward's fine racing craft was moored. "the boys are not around yet." "probably sleeping," murmured belle. "the indolent creatures!" "folks who live in glass houses--and all the rest of it," said cora. "it's nearly eleven, and we haven't been long away from the breakfast table ourselves." "it's a case of carrying coals to newcastle; isn't it?" asked lottie, drying with her filmy handkerchief a drop of water on her dress. "you mean the pot calling the kettle black," laughed cora. lottie never could get her proverbs just right. "oh, well, it's all the same as long as there's black in it," responded lottie. "i knew i had part of it right." on went the _chelton_, and she had that part of the bay all to herself for the time being. a little breeze ruffled the water, and the sun shone brightly. under these calming influences of nature the girls--even nervous bess--felt themselves growing calm, and at peace with the world. the trouble of the night before seemed to melt away, and assume a less sinister aspect. but cora could not get over the feeling that something akin to a tragedy had nearly happened. "and it may again," she thought. "i do wish we could help freda and her mother, but i don't see how. land troubles are always so complicated." as cora turned the wheel and swung the boat about in a wide circle, she was aware of another craft coming toward her. she did not remember having seen it before, and as it drew nearer she noted that it contained but a single occupant--a young man, who, as lottie said afterward, was not at all bad-looking. the young fellow guided his boat closer to the _chelton_, and after she had done making mental notes of the new craft's characteristics, cora had an idea that the stranger wanted to speak to them. such evidently was his intention, for he slowed down his engine, so as to muffle the noise of the exhaust, and called out: "on which point is bayhead, if you please?" "over there," answered cora, pointing to a promontory that jutted out into the bay. "but be careful and go well out when you round it. there are some dangerous rocks at low tide. how much do you draw?" "thirty-four inches." "that's too much to try the short cut." "thank you for telling me," went on the young man. he certainly was good-looking. even cora, conservative as she always was, had to admit that. "we are going over that way," went on cora. "if you like, i will pilot you." "you are very good," returned the young man. "if it will not be too much trouble, and not take you out of your way, i would like very much to have you show me the course. i'm a stranger here." cora and the motor girls had been on so many trips on land and water that they had learned how to meet and accept the advances of strangers, even when they were good-looking young men. there was, too, a sort of comradeship about a motor boat that lent a chaperonage to the effect of girls talking to men to whom they had never been introduced. cora's chums realized this and thought nothing of her offer. "follow me," cora called, as she opened the throttle a little wider, and the _chelton_ shot ahead. the other boat came right after, with a promptness that caused cora to think it had more speed than she at first suspected. "my nerves are much better--now," said bess in a whisper to lottie, as she stole a surreptitious glance at the young man. chapter xvii a little race for some time cora held the lead in her boat, with the other following in her wake. the girls talked among themselves, speculation being rife as to what the young man wanted in bayhead. "it's an awfully swell place," said lottie. "i spent one summer there, and it was nothing but dress, dress, dress all the while! either for motoring, tennis or bridge. oh, i got so weary of it!" "but you liked it--especially the dressing," put in belle. "i should have, my dear, i don't mind admitting that, if only i had had enough gowns," went on lottie, with a sigh. "but i didn't have half enough. papa was dreadfully poor that year. i believe he said there had been a 'slump in the market,' whatever that means. "anyhow i know i couldn't begin to dress as those in my set did. so that's how i remember bayhead. i should like to go there again. it's perfectly stunning." "that young fellow doesn't look to be any too well dressed," remarked bess. "naturally he wouldn't--going out in a boat," said cora. "something seems to be the matter with his engine," she added, for the stranger was bending over it. whatever it was did not seem to be serious, for the lone motorboatist straightened up again presently. he increased his speed, and came alongside the _chelton_. "we seem to be some distance from the point," he said, with a smile. "don't you want a little race? you can call it off before we get near the danger spot." cora was rather taken aback by the proposal. it was one thing to direct a stranger, even when he was a youth good to look at, and it was all right, too, to even pilot him on his way in strange waters; but it was quite another matter to have the aforesaid stranger invite himself to a race. it was like having a beggar apply at your front door, and when given a sandwich, calmly ask for soup. "i don't believe----" began cora, but bess slid up to her on the long seat and whispered: "oh, do, cora! it won't do any harm, and it will complete the nerve cure you have begun so well. besides, we need a little practice in racing. we may take part in the water carnival down here." "well, if the rest of you are willing, i'm not going to be the one to object," returned cora, smilingly. "will--will it be dangerous?" faltered timid marita. "not a bit--you dear little goose!" exclaimed belle, putting her arm about the shrinking one. "we've raced lots of times--and won, too!" "against such appealing strangers?" asked lottie, raising her eyebrows in a rather affected way. "oh, it's all in the game!" laughed bess. certainly her nerves seemed all right now. the young man--he had refrained from giving his name, either by accident or design--had been bending over his motor during the whispered talk among the girls. now he looked up again. "well," he asked, pleasantly, "is it to be a race?" "if you like," answered cora, calmly. "i certainly do like. i'm going to enter some of the bayhead races, and i'd like to see how my boat will go." "but it's a lighter boat than ours," returned cora, who was not willing to give nor take an unfair advantage. "and we have five passengers." "i've thought of that," the young man went on. "i'm willing to accept a handicap. i'll drop back about five hundred feet and allow you that much." "that would be fair," assented cora, who, from having taken part in various races knew what would be about right. "then here goes!" cried the stranger, as he throttled down his motor. "i'll give you a hail when i'm coming on." the _chelton_ at once began drawing away from the _pickerel_, which was the name of the stranger's boat. this craft, it seemed, had a clutch arrangement, so that the motor could be allowed to run without the propeller revolving. cora's boat was likewise equipped. "are you going to beat him?" asked lottie, as she moved back where no drop of spray could spot her blue dress. "i am certainly going to try," said cora with a smile. "what does a race amount to if you don't try to win?" "oh, of course, but then i thought this was only in fun." "it's a race for keeps," announced cora. "and i think we'll win. that last gasoline we got is the best we ever had. it gives us more power, and the _chelton_ is running like a sewing machine, as jack says. i think we're going to win!" she opened the throttle a little wider and the _chelton_ responded instantly. a moment later there came a hail from the rear. "distance enough! i'm coming!" cora glanced back. "he certainly was generous," she said. "that's a good five hundred feet." "he looks like a generous chap," murmured lottie. she was again polishing her nails. possibly she thought she might be introduced to the stranger, later on. there was the sound of a louder exhaust from the boat astern. the young man evidently was going to try his best to win. but cora had no intention of letting him do so. she had shrewdly estimated the ability of his boat, as well as she could, though of course it was difficult, in the case of a craft she had never before seen. "sit on the other side; will you, lottie dear?" asked cora, as, grasping the steering wheel with firmer fingers she looked at the course ahead of her. "oh, i'm so comfortable here," objected lottie. "i know, but the boat isn't trimmed properly, and she can't do her best unless she is." "like us girls," remarked belle. "we, too, must be properly trimmed to do our best." "trimmed!" exclaimed lottie. "i don't see any frills on the _chelton_." "you may later, if we win the race," said bess. "but what cora means is that the boat isn't properly balanced. there is too much weight on the starboard side." "oh, then i'm on the starboard side," said lottie. "yes, or on the right, according to the new navy rules," agreed cora. "but, really, someone must shift." "but if i go over there i'm afraid the spray will get on my dress," objected lottie. "and it spots terribly, especially with salt water." "i'll change over," said marita. "i don't mind if my dress does get wet." "you're a dear," sighed lottie, as she settled back among the cushions. "and you're a bit selfish," thought cora. the _chelton_, now in better trim, skimmed over the bay. behind her came the _pickerel_. and, as cora looked back she noted that the young man's craft was slowly overtaking her. "he has more speed than i thought he had," she mused. foot by foot the young man urged his boat onward. clearly he was not of that false chivalrous type that permits a lady to win whether she has the ability or not. to a really athletic girl, pitted against a man in an equal contest, nothing is more humiliating than to realize that her opponent is not putting forth all his powers. there are some men who will never try too hard to win from a woman. this stranger was evidently not of that type, and cora valued him accordingly. "can you get up any more speed?" asked belle, anxiously. "i've got a bit left," said cora, as she opened the throttle a little wider. "and i think i'll need it," she added. "he certainly is coming on," added belle in a low voice. "are we getting too near the rocks, cora?" "no, it's safe so far. but i think i'll go out a bit. i want to win this race." chapter xviii more suspicions cora kimball well knew the capabilities of the _chelton_. she had steered other motor craft in many races, and was aware, almost to a revolution, just how much speed was available in a boat of this kind. and while she did not know what the rival boat could do, she was too expert at water sports to use up her last reserve of speed. so, even while she watched the other boat creep up on her, she did not open the throttle to its fullest extent, nor did she advance the timer, which controlled the spark, to the limit. "i'm going to be in shape to spurt if i have to," reasoned cora. foot by foot the other boat crept on. "he's going to win!" exclaimed bess, in disappointed tones. "don't be so sure," laughed cora. "remember, we have been in races before, and in many a seeming hopeless one we have come out ahead." "you girls are just--wonderful!" breathed marita, as she crouched on the seat she had taken. "you don't know us yet," laughed bess. "wait until you see some of the things cora can do." "don't believe her!" exclaimed cora, turning for an instant to smile at the girl who always seemed to be effacing herself for others. then as she saw the spray coming up against the bows, and dashing over marita, she added: "oh, you poor child! why didn't you say you were getting wet?" "oh, i don't mind," was the brave answer. "but you must," insisted cora. "here, put this on," and from a forward locker she pulled an oilskin coat, flinging it back to marita, as at that moment the boat yawed when a big wave hit the bows, necessitating a firm hand on the wheel. "oh, it's getting rough!" exclaimed lottie, apprehensively. "put away your nail-buffer and hang on," advised bess. "it may be rougher before it's calmer." "i--i wish i hadn't come," mourned lottie. "you aren't going to be ill, i hope," said cora, quickly. "no, but my dress may be all spotted----" "here, take this," offered marita. "no, indeed, you keep that," said cora, quickly. "there are more in the lockers. belle, will you get them out? it is a bit rough out here." they had gotten beyond the protection of the arm of land that enclosed the bay, and with a strong tide running there were more waves than there had been at first. but the girls did not mind, save perhaps lottie, and her chief anxiety was for her dress. an oilskin coat, however, averted this danger, and she settled back in her place. cora looked back at the oncoming boat of the young man. it was within ten feet of her now, and as she opened the throttle of the _chelton_ a trifle more, she tried to get a glimpse of the controlling mechanism of her rival's craft. she stood up to do this, and, as she did so there came a slapping wave against the bow of her boat. cora staggered at the wheel, and lottie screamed. "be quiet!" commanded cora. "it's all right." "but we roll so!" "there _is_ a bit of a sea on," admitted cora, calmly. "it will be over in a few minutes, though. i'll have to tell him we're close to the danger point, and will have to slow down." determining to end the race in good style, cora opened up the throttle full, and advanced the spark to the limit. the _chelton_ responded with a sudden burst of speed that carried her some distance ahead of the rival craft. but the young man was evidently not going to take his defeat easily. the louder exhaust from his engine told that he, too, had put on more power. but it was not enough, for as cora raised her hand, in automobile-signal fashion, to warn her follower of an impending stop, the end of the impromptu race course was reached. the girls had won. "what is it?" called the young man as he stood up at his wheel. "the rocks," answered cora. "we can't race any more." "we don't need to," he replied. "you won. i congratulate you!" his tone was sincere, his manner courteous, but, as cora looked into his boat, when it rushed up alongside her slowed-down craft, she noted that his throttle was still partly closed. instantly a suspicion came to her. "he did not try to win!" was the suggestion that flashed to her mind. "he didn't try!" for a moment her brain was in a whirl, and she had an idea that she ought to tell her chums what she had in mind. then she decided to be cautious--to wait and watch a little longer. she wanted to find out his reason. who was this strange young man who seemed so friendly? what did he want in bayhead? why had he proposed a race? and then, after proposing it, why had he not won it when, clearly, he might have done so? these were the questions that cora asked herself as she slowed down her motor. she had used up her limit of power in an honest endeavor to win, but the young man had not. he had held back purposely. why had he done it? chapter xix odd talk "sorry i couldn't beat you!" called the young man, waving his hand to the girls in cora's boat. "you had more speed than i thought." "are you sure it was a fair race?" asked cora, looking at him sharply. her tone was peculiar. "a fair race? what do you mean?" he asked, wonderingly. "do you think i should have given myself more of a handicap?" "oh, no indeed!" exclaimed cora, blushing that he should have mistaken her meaning. "you were generous--too generous, i think." "oh, that's all right. i'm not complaining. of course it was a fair race. the faster boat won." "i'm glad you think so," spoke cora, meaningly, as she thought of the partly-closed throttle. "oh, yes indeed. i'm satisfied!" he exclaimed in generous tones. "but is the dangerous place you spoke of near here?" "right ahead," answered cora, pointing to where the water was swirling in over some partly-hidden rocks. "keep well out, and when you round the point you'll be at bayhead." "i'm greatly obliged to you," was his reply. but cora did not look at him, nor return his bow. she swung her boat around and started back for the bungalow. the young man, with a curious glance at her, bent over his motor to make some adjustment. in another instant his craft shot ahead, seemingly at greater speed than it had made at any time during the race. "i don't think much of him," observed lottie, as she took a more comfortable position on the cushions. "why not?" belle asked. "because he didn't even invite us to a tennis game, to say nothing of ice cream sodas, and there's a place in bayhead where they have the most delicious chocolate!" "lottie!" gasped marita. "would you have gone with him?" "oh, well," with a shrug of her shoulders, "i don't know as i would, only--he might have asked us." "no, he wouldn't," said cora, and the manner in which she spoke caused her chums to look curiously at her. "what makes you think so?" inquired bess, merely for the sake of argument. she had stopped eating sweets--for the time being. "because he had a special object in view in asking us to race, and once that was accomplished he had no further use for us." "why, cora kimball!" cried belle. "what makes you say that?" "because i think it. you didn't see all that i did." "what did you see?" asked bess, eagerly. "did he have some sort of weapon? or do you think he tried to get us over this way, hoping we would be wrecked on the rocks? maybe he was a wrecker, cora. i've heard that there are some of those terrible people in this section." "nonsense!" exclaimed cora. "i only mean that his boat is a very powerful one. he did not 'let her out,' as jack says, to the limit. he could easily have beaten us if he had wanted to." "the idea!" cried belle. "i don't like that kind of young man." "nor i," agreed cora. "not because he refused to win when he could, but because of what may be his object. that he had one i'm certain." the girls turned to look at the other motor boat. it was rounding the point to bayhead now, and seemed to be going at remarkable speed. "how fast it goes!" exclaimed lottie. "yes, much faster than the _chelton_," responded cora. "i told you he was holding back." "what could have been his object?" asked belle. and that was a question all the girls asked themselves. "well, my nerves are better, anyhow," observed bess, as she threw back the clustering hair from her face so that the wind might caress her cheeks, now flushed with excitement. "that's good," spoke cora. "the antidote of the race and the excitement of the mystery, as to why the nice young man didn't want to win, are guaranteed to cure nerves or money refunded," said lottie with a laugh. "where are you going, cora?" "back to the bungalow, of course. mrs. lewis may be anxious about us. it is nearly lunch time, anyhow." "then it is time for us to be anxious about ourselves," said bess. "but i don't believe mrs. lewis will worry. you know she went away right after doing up the breakfast things. she said she was going to consult some friends, for those she saw last night could not help her, and she may not be back yet. so there's no need to hurry." "then i have an idea!" cried cora. "we have our tea outfit with us, and some crackers. why not go ashore and have a little picnic? it will complete the nerve treatment, perhaps," and she smiled at bess. "good!" cried that girl. "it will be just the thing. are you sure you have enough crackers, cora? if not we could stop at the store on the point and get some." "oh, there are more than are good for you," was the answer. cora changed the course of the boat to send the craft over toward a pretty little wooded cove where the girls had often gone ashore for luncheon. they always carried in the boat an alcohol stove, with the necessary ingredients for tea. soon the _chelton_ was beached at a place where the small waves would do her no damage, and the girls were preparing luncheon. they carried their own fresh water with them, not depending on finding a spring. condensed milk, sugar and some tins of sweet crackers completed the meal, which was served on the grass for a table, paper napkins adding to the luxury of the occasion. the picnic place was on a spit of land that jutted out into crystal bay. it could be approached from either side, and on one side there was some dense shrubbery that hid the water from sight. it was when cora and her chums were in the midst of their impromptu luncheon that they heard a boat grate on the beach that was hidden from view by the bushes. "someone is coming!" exclaimed bess. "maybe it's the boys," remarked belle. "it's about time they followed us," suggested lottie. "they don't give us a moment's peace." "do you want it?" asked cora pointedly, for lottie had been rather taken up with jack, of late. "oh, i don't know," answered the girl. "of course the boys are nice, and----" "'handsome is as handsome does,'" quoted belle. "but that doesn't happen to be the boys." "how do you know?" asked bess. "i just had a glimpse of them through the bushes. it's a strange motor boat--neither the _dixie_ nor the _lassie_." "who is in her?" asked cora. "i can't make out. listen!" she raised her hand for silence, but there was no need. the girls ceased chatting at once, and silently followed cora toward a hedge of underbrush, some little distance from where their luncheon was spread. then they heard some odd talk--at least it seemed odd until they understood the meaning of it. "so you had a race with them?" one voice asked. "yes," replied another, who had just landed on the spit of the land. "i raced 'em, but i didn't beat 'em!" "couldn't you?" "couldn't i? say, you know what the _pickerel_ can do when she's pushed to it. i held back the throttle." cora started. her suspicions were unexpectedly confirmed. "you can see them from over here," whispered belle, pulling cora's sleeve. cora moved to where an opening in the bushes afforded a glimpse of the strangers. she saw three men, and one of them she knew in an instant to be the young chap who had raced with her. his boat, too, was on the beach. it was from her that the men had come. "well, you know how fast the _chelton_ can go now, that's sure," spoke a voice. "yes," answered the young man, "i know. we needn't fear her if it comes to a chase. that's what i wanted to make sure of." "then all we have to do is to get the rest of the evidence, and the property is ours." "yes. we can turn the widow and the daughter out, all right, if we get the necessary papers. then we can go ahead and build the dam across the brook." "that's going to arouse a lot of opposition!" exclaimed the third member of the trio. "it will spoil the park." "well, we can't help it. we need the dam for power for our factory, and the people don't really need the park. we'll do it." "you mean we'll make shane do it!" exclaimed the young man who had raced with cora. chapter xx the night plot the girls looked at one another with startled glances. cora bent forward eagerly in order to better hear what else was said. she had no compunctions as to eavesdropping, feeling that it was justified under the circumstances. "they must mean denny shane, the old fisherman," whispered bess. "hush!" cautioned cora. not only did she want to listen, but she was fearful lest the men on the other side of the hedge discover the presence of herself and her chums. "yes," resumed the speaker, "we must make old shane do it. once we get him in the proper frame of mind he'll testify just as we want him to. and we need some testimony to offset that of the widow and her girl. otherwise we'll never get the property without a long delay." "but how can we get shane in the proper frame of mind to testify as we want him to?" asked another of the trio. "leave that to me," answered the one who had been in the fast motor boat. and cora started as she noted the difference in his tone now. it was hard and cruel, while, in speaking to her, his accents had been those of a cultured gentleman, used to polite society. there was a metallic ring to his voice now that boded no good to denny shane. "yes, i guess we'll leave it to you, bruce," said a voice, "though maybe kelly could put it over him with a bit of blarney. you know shane is irish." "hush! no names, and not so loud!" cautioned the one who had been addressed as bruce. "who'd be listening?" asked the other. "you never can tell, moran," was the retort. "there you go!" exclaimed bruce, fretfully, and the girls knew it must have been the one called kelly who spoke that time. there was a movement on the other side of the bush, and cora, with a sudden motion, crouched down, signalling the others to do the same. it was only just in time, too. fortunately for the girls they were in a sort of depression, and by crouching down they got out of sight, as one of the men came forward to peer through the underbrush. he saw nothing, as was evidenced by his report a moment later. "there's not a soul here," he said. "there's been some picnic party around, but they've gone. it's as deserted as a graveyard." "i'm glad we came away from our luncheon," whispered cora, as the men resumed their talk. the wind sprang up, for a moment, and carried their tones away from the girls, so that only an indistinct murmur could be heard. then there came clear talk again. "well, what's the program, then?" asked one whom the girls could tell was moran. he was the same man they had seen before in the drug store. "get at shane first of all," decided kelly. "i'm willing to let bruce do it, even if i am irish." "we'll all have to call on him," said bruce, grimly, "but only one need actually do the business. we've got to deal with him in two ways. we've got to make him tell what we want brought out in court, and we've got to scare him so that he won't tell what we don't want known. and there are two ways of doing that." "how?" asked kelly. "first we can offer him a reward. it will be worth it, even if we have to pay something to have him testify as we wish. the committee allowed us a certain sum for--well, let us say for witness fees. i'd rather pay him a hundred dollars and have it all over with. it's better to have a friend than an enemy, and you never can tell which way a thing like this is going to swing." "sposin' he won't take the cash?" asked moran. "then i have another plan," and bruce laughed bitterly. "i guess i don't need to say what it is." "i'm wise," remarked kelly. "only--not too rough, you understand. he's a feeble old man." "no rougher than's necessary," agreed bruce. cora clasped her hands, and looked with fear in her eyes at her chums. "we----we mustn't let them harm dear old denny!" whispered belle, shivering with nervousness. "hush!" cautioned cora. "don't talk--think!" there was a movement on the other side of the screen of bushes, as indicating that the men were about to leave. "well, we'll let it go until to-night then," said kelly. "until to-night," agreed bruce. "and we know, in case of a slip-up, that there's no motor boat around here that can catch us when we make our get-away." "there's the _dixie_," suggested moran. "she's out of commission, i heard," responded bruce. "and she won't be in shape for a day or so. the _chelton_--well, i gave her a try-out a while ago, and i know what she can do." "oh, do you?" thought cora. "perhaps you don't." "i have to laugh when i think how i took those girls in," went on bruce. "i pretending that i was a stranger in these waters, and they kindly offering to pilot me. i guess they took me for some society swell of bayhead." "the mean thing!" hissed lottie. "well, you can do the society act when you have to," said kelly. "only i guess we won't need that now. shane doesn't move in society circles. how'd the game with the widow's daughter work out?" "it didn't work at all. 'confidence kate' didn't gain her confidence. that's why i'm switching to shane," answered bruce. "but we'd better be going. there's lots to be done." cora and the motor girls listened in silence as the men crunched their way down the beach to their boat. a little later they were chugging away in the speedy _pickerel_. "isn't that just awful!" gasped belle. "it's a villainous plot!" exclaimed bess. "oh, i'm so nervous! i know i'm going to cry--or laugh--or do both." "bess robinson, if you do anything foolish, or faint, you shan't do a thing toward helping to save denny shane!" exclaimed cora, vigorously. "and i know you do want to help him." "i certainly do. i'll behave. oh, let me have a cup of tea." "i think we'll all be better for it," assented cora. "come, girls, let's eat and then we'll get back. we, too, have a great deal to do." "do you mean that you girls are going to try to----to outwit those desperate men?" asked marita, her eyes opened wide. "we certainly do mean to!" insisted cora. "who else would do it?" "why, the police." "there are only constables in a place like this. we can do better than they--especially with the boys to help." "oh, of course, the boys!" agreed marita, and she seemed relieved. "i must say it was most providential that we heard what they said," spoke lottie, looking to see if there were any grass stains on her dress. "indeed it was," assented cora. it was rather an excited little luncheon, but the hot tea did them all good, and then, rapidly talking over what they had just gone through, and making all sorts of plans to outwit the schemers, the girls got into their boat again, and headed for the bungalow. "of course we must warn denny at once," said cora, and to this the girls agreed. "then we'll tell the boys, and see what they suggest. but i almost know what jack will say!" "what?" asked lottie. she was very much interested in jack. "oh, he'll want to hide and capture the villains 'red-handed,' as he calls it." "and i don't know but what that's as good a plan as any," remarked belle. "i'd like to see them do it!" cora and her chums found mrs. lewis rather worried over their absence from the bungalow. she had returned, unsuccessful, from seeing her friends. freda was recovering from the shock and fright of the day before. "where have you been?" mrs. lewis asked cora. "oh, just off on a little picnic," was the answer, and cora motioned to her chums to say nothing of what they had heard. they had agreed that it would be better for the widow not to know, at least for the present. "dinner will be ready soon," suggested mrs. lewis. "we'll have it a little late to-day," replied cora. "we have had some tea, and i want to go over and see jack. they haven't been around here since we left; have they?" "oh, yes," answered freda. "they were all here, wanting to know where you'd gone; but of course i couldn't say. then they went out in your brother's boat, but they didn't get far before they had a breakdown." "it's the _lassie_'s day off again," laughed belle. "why didn't they take the _dixie_?" asked bess. "something is the matter with her, too," replied freda. cora and her chums exchanged meaning glances. the talk of the men was confirmed. evidently they had their own way of getting information. "well, we'll go over to camp couldn't," suggested cora, after a pause. "they're probably there now." they found the boys grouped about, in and out of the tent. "here they come!" "where have you been, girls?" "we've been lonesome for you!" "how bright the day seems now, to what it was before!" thus chanted jack, walter, ed and dray ward, as they saw the advancing girls. "oh, stop that nonsense, jack!" exclaimed cora, as her brother waltzed forward to do a two-step on the moss with timid marita. "why, what is wrong?" "lots!" she exclaimed, and her manner must have impressed jack, for he grew grave at once. "has anything more happened since last night?" he asked. "there has. we've discovered the meanest plot to harm denny shane. listen." "we list!" recited walter, but cora quieted him with a look. then began the telling of the overheard conversation. "well, what do you know about that?" "the nerve of that chap wanting a race!" "we'll race _him_, all right!" "and so they're going to do up old denny, eh?" "well, i guess we'll have a hand in that!" these were the comments of jack and his chums. "now don't do anything rash," begged cora. "we've got to do _something_," insisted jack. after some consultation it was agreed that the boys should go over and have a talk with the fisherman, and then, among themselves, they would decide on what was best to be done. meanwhile the girls would go back to the bungalow, there to await the report of the boys. nothing would be said to mrs. lewis, for she had had alarm enough. it was anxious waiting for the girls, and they were so nervous that they did not enjoy the dinner mrs. lewis had prepared, at which lack of appetite she wondered much. but she ascribed their distraction, and their rather strange comments, to the alarm of the day before. finally the _lassie_, which had somehow been induced to "mote," was descried coming across the bay from the direction of the old fisherman's cabin. "come on, girls!" called cora as she saw the boys. "we'll go down and meet them." she did not want mrs. lewis to hear the talk. "well, jack?" asked cora, as the boat came in. "not well--bad," he said. "denny wasn't at home, and no one knew where he had gone. so we left a note for him, and we'll be on hand to-night." "what about us?" asked bess. "you'd better stay here," said jack. "no telling what sort of a row we may run into, and you're better at home." "i think so, too," agreed cora, but the look she gave her chums had more meaning in it than the mere words indicated. bess and the others understood. "and now," went on jack, "we'll proceed to find out why the _dixie_ won't mote. we want her in shape to-night." "that's right," assented dray. "i think it's the carbureter. i'll get a man from the garage to look it over." "we'll want a fast boat if the one those fellows have is as speedy as you girls say," remarked walter. "couldn't we take the _chelton_?" asked ed. "the _pickerel_ beat us to-day," said cora. "besides, it might be good to have her in reserve. try and have the _dixie_ fixed up." "we will!" promised her owner. the remainder of the day seemed like a dream to the girls. never had time passed so slowly. they were waiting for what the night might bring. the boys made several other trips to the fisherman's cabin, going afoot through the woods, as the _lassie_ had again gone on a strike, and a man from the garage was working over the _dixie_. the fisherman's cabin could be reached in two ways, but the water route was preferred by the young people, even though it was longer. the boys could not find denny at home, however, and planned to be at his cabin just at dusk, and to remain there until something happened. "so we'll be sure to be there when the men arrive," said jack. finally twilight came, and with the falling of night the repairs to the _dixie_ were completed. she seemed to be running better than in some time. "well, here we go!" remarked walter, as the boys took their places in the swift craft. "we'll let you girls know what happens--as soon as it happens." "you'd better!" laughed cora. "we'll be very anxious." she and her chums had come down to the dock to see the boys leave on their trip to save denny from an unknown danger. then came more anxious waiting. chapter xxi the breakdown "well, he hasn't come back yet." "no. it's sort of queer, too. i wonder where he can be keeping himself, all day?" "maybe those fellows have got to him after all." jack kimball and his chums, landing at the fisherman's dock from the _dixie_, thus commented when they paid another visit to denny's cabin, and found him still absent. "no, i don't imagine anything has happened," said jack. "you know he often goes off and stays a long time in his boat. he's got a crazy sort of motor in it, that runs about as often as the one does in the _lassie_. he may be stuck somewhere." "or else waiting the turn of the tide," suggested ed. "that's right," chimed in dray. "i've heard him say that certain fish won't bite when the tide's running out, and that you can catch others only when it's coming in. maybe he is hanging around for that." "then he ought to be back soon," declared jack, "for the tide turned a half-hour ago." "if he's far out in the bay it will take him a long while to come in. his boat doesn't make very good time," observed walter. the boys walked around the cabin. it was closed and locked, and the warning note they had left for the fisherman was still pinned to the door. "which shows that those men haven't been here," said jack. "that makes me fear that they may have gotten to him before us." "why so?" asked ed. "well, it's evident that the men haven't been here since the girls gave us the alarm. if they had they'd have torn up that note. then, too, you'd think, if they were going to try to make denny do what they wanted in the way of giving testimony, they'd be getting at it. he goes to bed early, as everybody around here knows, and locks up. if those fellows wanted to get at him without breaking in they'd come early. all of which makes me think that they may already have had a serious interview with him." "i hope not," observed walter. "i'm more inclined to believe that he's out on the bay somewhere. if he is he's all right." "say, fellows, i've got an idea!" cried jack. "hold fast to it--they're scarce," remarked ed. "no, but seriously. suppose we cruise about a bit. we needn't go far from the shore, and we can have an eye on the cabin. in case denny is out on the water we may pick him up. then we could tell him what was on, and warn him. we could do it even better than on shore here, for there's no telling but what some of those fellows may be in hiding around here," and jack cast a look about. it was dark, but a full moon was coming up to make a light that revealed most objects. "then if there is a possibility that someone may be in ambush here," said walter, "we'd better keep a bit more mum. but i think jack's plan is a good one. let's cruise about a bit, but keep within sight of the cabin." no one had any objections so, after making a casual search about the cabin, and not finding anyone in hiding, the boys again got aboard the _dixie_ and started to cruise on the bay, that was now sparkling in the moonlight. jack and his chums kept a careful watch for denny shane's boat. there were several motor craft out, for the night was one that invited trips on the water--calm and still, with a gentle breeze that had in it the tang of salt mingled with the sweet odors of summer. "i feel just like singing," remarked ed, after a pause during which the _dixie_ cruised about, not too far from the cabin. "have some regard for our feelings," begged jack. "remember that we are under a great strain." "and ed would be, too, if he sang," said walter. "at least i would feel constrained to remonstrate with him." "huh! think no one can sing but yourself!" retorted ed. "moonlight always did have a queer effect on him," remarked jack. round about they cruised, and they were thinking of returning to make sure that denny had not reached his cabin by some other route, unseen by them, when the motor of the _dixie_ gave a combined cough, groan and sneeze, and stopped short. "there she goes!" exclaimed ed. "you mean there she _doesn't_ go!" corrected walter. "get the talcum powder," suggested jack. "i'm sure dray didn't use the tooth brush on her before we came out," spoke jack, accusingly. the boys had a way of doing the most absurd things, from a mechanical standpoint, whenever their motors refused to mote. they would dust talcum powder on the cylinder tops, or tie a piece of baby-blue ribbon on the pet-cock when they had exhausted every other means of making a rebellious motor operate. and the odd part of it was that, often, when they had done these seemingly silly things, the boat would start. so they were rather superstitious about it, and they did carry a tin of talcum powder with them, much to the amusement of the girls. in turn the usual sources of trouble were looked for and eliminated one after the other. no wires seemed to have broken, the current was good, the vibrator buzzed when the contact was made and there was plenty of gasoline in the tank. "put in a new spark plug," suggested jack. "new ones went in to-day," answered dray. "they can't have sooted already. it isn't there." "give her a little more air," proposed walter. "i think she's getting too rich a gasoline mixture." "i'm not going to touch the carbureter!" declared the young owner of the _dixie_. "it was trouble enough to get her fixed before. hand me that talcum." gravely he dusted some on the pump rod. then another attempt was made to start the motor, but it only sighed dismally, and refused to do its duty. "i say!" cried jack, looking up from where he had been examining the carbureter with an electrical pocket flash, "we're drifting out to sea!" "so we are!" agreed ed. "say, can't you get her going?" "can't seem to," replied drayton. "i'll sell this boat and get another as soon as i can. she's a nuisance!" "well, we sure are broken down," sighed jack, "and how we are going to get back to the cabin is more than i can figure out." "let's whistle for help," suggested walter. "look!" exclaimed jack, pointing in the direction of shore. "there's a light in denny's cabin!" they all looked, and saw a flickering gleam of fire near the shack that had been deserted all day. "something's doing!" cried ed. "and we're stuck out here!" chapter xxii at the cabin "girls," declared cora kimball, "i can't stand it any longer! i've got to do something--or have nervous prostration." "and that's just the way i feel!" said bess. "waiting is the most nervous thing in the world." "have another chocolate," suggested lottie, helping herself from the box on a table near her. "how dare you suggest such a thing?" demanded bess. "as if i wasn't trying to do all i could to reduce." "oh, well, i was thinking of your nerves," observed lottie. "but what is it you want to do, cora, dear?" asked marita. "i want to go to denny's cabin, and see what has happened," was the answer. "what!" cried belle, with an exclamation of surprise and alarm. "tramp through the woods at this hour of night?" "it isn't any such great, or late, hour of night," replied cora, calmly, "and the woods are not dark. there's a lovely moon. but i don't propose to go through the woods. what is the _chelton_ for if we can't use her?" "cora kimball, do you mean to say that you'd go out on the bay, and over to denny's cabin, after dark, with the prospect that some desperate men are going to attack him?" asked bess. "the boys are going to be there," answered cora, still refusing to become excited. "besides, they may need our help. we could take a prisoner or two in our boat." there was a chorus of screams. "cora kimball--how dare you?" demanded belle. "oh, i meant if he was tied hand and foot," went on the leader of the motor girls. "villains are always tied hand and foot, you know. they can't move. they're gagged, too. i think i should insist on having our villain gagged. it might happen to be that young man who raced with us to-day, and he might get sarcastic if he could talk. yes, i think he must be gagged." "oh, cora, you're hopeless," sighed lottie. "what would my mother say if she could see me now." "she'd tell you to stop eating chocolates and come with me," returned cora, firmly. "i'm going to the cabin." "i--i'll go with you," volunteered marita, and then she blushed at the attention she attracted. "well, if marita isn't afraid to go, i'm not," announced lottie, with spirit. "come on, cora." "oh!" gasped bess. "oh, dear!" echoed belle. "do we have to stay here all alone?" "either that, or come with us," invited cora. "i'm going over to the cabin in our boat." there was a step at the door of the living room, and mrs. lewis looked in. "did i hear you girls say you were going out?" she inquired. "just for a little trip on the water," replied cora, signing to her chums to keep silent. "it is so lovely with the moon, and we won't go far." it was not a great way to denny's cabin. "well, don't be gone too long," cautioned the widow. "you must remember that i am, in a way, responsible for you girls." "oh, we'll be careful," cora promised. "we'd take freda with us, but perhaps she had better stay with you." "yes, i think so. besides, she is so nervous after what nearly happened last night, that i'd rather she wouldn't go out. oh, if only things were settled! if only we were sure we could get that property back, and not have to worry about it being taken away from us!" "have they been annoying you of late?" asked cora, thinking perhaps there had been some developments of which she was unaware. "no, nothing special, since that horrid woman. but it is a constant worry to me." "it must be," returned cora, sympathetically. "well, we will hope for the best." cora did not say so--even to her chums, but she had great hopes that something might develop from the events of this night. if the unscrupulous men could only be caught in some wrong-doing a hold might be obtained over them that would enable them to be defeated in court. thus their claim to the property--which claim cora felt sure was a false one--might be disproved. that there were papers in existence which would show the widow and her daughter to be the rightful owners cora did not doubt. freda's grandfather, from all accounts, was a careful business man, if eccentric in some ways. he would not have come into possession of property without having the papers to prove his claim. and he was not a man to put them in some safe deposit vault and leave no memorandum as to finding the key. perhaps they were concealed in some nook or cranny in the widow's home. cora made up her mind to have a search made after this night was over. then, too, denny might be able to come upon them. eccentric in some ways, as freda's grandfather had been, he might have hidden the papers in denny's cabin. that was a new thought. perhaps the scheming men knew this, and that is why they wanted to attack the old fisherman. "we simply must go to his cabin," decided cora, "and find out what has happened. i can't wait any longer." wraps were quickly donned, and down to the dock went the girls. the _chelton_ was in running order, and soon they were out on the moonlit waters of the bay. "there's a light in his cabin," said cora, as they came out from behind a point, and had a view of the little cove where nestled denny's cottage. "i hope the boys are there," remarked bess, "and that they have the villains all tied up and ready for delivery." "ugh!" exclaimed belle. "if they have i wish they'd send them by parcel post instead of asking us to take charge of them." "they'll be harmless," guaranteed cora. "besides, the _dixie_ can't hold more than the boys; our boat is larger." "we could let the boys run this one, after the men are tied in her," suggested lottie, "and we could come home in the _dixie_." "never!" exclaimed cora. "you can't rely on her. i'll stick to the _chelton_." but if the girls had only known that, at that moment, far out on crystal bay, was the ill-fated _dixie_, drifting to sea, while the boys tooted hopelessly for aid on the compressed air whistles! the _chelton_ made a quick and uneventful trip to the fisherman's cabin. from it a light peacefully glowed. "there's no one here," announced bess. "not even the boys." "be careful," warned cora. "it may be a trap. let us go up softly." "but what about those men?" asked belle. "maybe they have taken denny away with them, and the boys, too." "don't be silly," advised cora. "let's go up and look in." as they peered in the cabin window they saw denny seated in an easy chair. he was alone, and across his knees was the red oar of which he seemed so fond. chapter xxiii unexpected help "well, we certainly are up against it--good and proper!" exclaimed jack. "and i'm glad the girls aren't along!" "why?" asked walter, leaning back against the gunwale to rest after laboring over the refractory engine of the _dixie_. "because they can't call me down for my slang. and believe muh--as the telephone girls say--i can use slang now and then--some!" "it is aggravating; isn't it?" asked dray. "aggravating, my dear chap, is hardly the word," drawled ed. "it's humiliating!" he brought that out in such a droll way that the others laughed. for the engine of the motor boat still refused to be coaxed into going. they were being carried out toward the mouth of the bay on the outgoing tide, which was now running strongly. soon they would be out to sea, and though the moon still shone brightly there was a haze in the sky that betokened a coming storm. but it was not so much the fact of the stalled engine, nor that they were being carried out to sea, and were in some danger, that worried the boys. "we're falling down on what we said we'd do," declared jack. "we promised the girls that we'd save denny from those fellows, and we can't do it. they may be at him now." "we certainly saw a light at his cabin," ventured ed. "but we can't see it now," added jack, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the spot where the fisherman's shack stood. "well, there's no use worrying over what can't be helped," observed walter, philosophically. "we're here and not there. denny will have to look out for himself--i guess he's able." "that isn't the point," rejoined jack. "there we took the case out of the girls' hands, so to speak. we said we were the big noise, and that we'd look after things. then we go and get stuck miles from shore where we can't do a thing. they'll laugh at us when we do get back, if they don't do any worse." "but we didn't know we were going to get stuck when we came out for a little run, after we found denny wasn't home," said dray. "that's no excuse," returned jack. "it's like a child breaking the looking glass and then saying he didn't mean to. well, i know one thing cora will say when we get back--if we ever do--and own up that we weren't on hand when the play came off." "what will she say?" asked dray. he was not well acquainted with the doings and sayings of the motor girls, as yet. "she'll say that she and bess and belle and the rest of them could have done better themselves, if we'd left it to them. and i guess she'd be more than half right," sighed jack. "well, there's no use crying over a bridge before you come to it," observed dray. "let's have another go at that engine." they began their labors all over again. they even took out the spark plugs, though they had been new that afternoon. nothing could be found wrong there. the feed pipe from the gasoline tank was examined, but it seemed to provide a good flow. the timer was adjusted and readjusted. the coil was looked to. everything, in short, that the boys could think of, or that previous trouble had taught them to look for, was tried, and all with no effect. they even did more absurd things, such as the talcum powder act, while jack spouted some latin verses at the forward cylinder. but the motor refused to mote. "and, all the while, we're going out to sea," remarked walter. "out to sea to see what we can see," said jack. "oh, hush-a-bye-baby on the jokes," exclaimed dray, a bit petulantly. "if ever i buy a speed boat again you'll know it! a good old-fashioned make-and-break motor for mine after this--one you can depend on." "haven't you an oar or a paddle?" asked ed. "not a thing that we could use to work against the tide," answered dray, gloomily. "there's a boat hook, but that isn't any better than a straw. i left the oars out after the man got through fixing the motor to-day. he said i wouldn't need them." "the regard that individual has for the truth is something scandalous!" said walter, grimly. "i shall acquaint him with the fact on my return." "when we _do_ return," returned jack, gloomily. "oh, we're bound to be picked up--sooner or later," declared walter. "mostly later," went on jack, more gloomily. "well, here goes for another try," said dray. "that's right. maybe the machine has just been giving us a try-out," suggested ed. "we certainly have said mean things about you, old mote!" he went on sarcastically. "kindly forgive us and go. 'see by moonlight 'tis 'most midnight, time boat and us were home hour-and-a-half ago,'" he said, quoting from the old nursery rhyme. but the motor only coughed and sighed and wheezed like an old man with the asthma, and the boat still drifted. they called, they blew on the compressed air whistle until all the reserve supply of oxygen was exhausted from the tank, and then they had to resort to their voices again. "well, there's one thing left," answered jack, tragically. "what is it?" begged ed. "we can swim for it. that's better than being carried out to sea. let's swim before it is too late." "that's what i say!" exclaimed dray. "let the _dixie_ go--she's no good!" the others were considering jack's startling proposal, when ed looked up, and exclaimed: "hark! don't you hear something?" the others listened. faintly from the direction of the sea came a sound--unmistakable. "a boat!" cried jack. "i'll not take off my coat yet." "a motor boat, too," added ed. "and coming this way," went on walter. "come on, fellows, give 'em a hail!" suggested dray. up to now, with all their shouting and blowing of the whistle, they had neither seen nor heard of a craft. they had drifted too far out. if any had come within hearing distance the occupants had paid no heed to the calls for help. now there was one approaching, that was evident. "all together, now!" called jack, and they united their voices in a shout. "there are her lights!" called dray. "yes, and she's heading right over here," agreed ed. a little later the red and green lights came nearer. then, as the craft surged up to the stalled dixie, and came to a stop, the engine still running with the clutch thrown out, a voice asked: "do you fellows want a tow?" "do we?" came in a chorus. "we don't want anything any more." "fling us your rope," was the curt order. unexpected help had arrived. but it was too late. chapter xxiv denny's soliloquy "what shall we do?" asked cora, in a whisper. "it _is_ rather a puzzle," admitted bess. the motor girls were standing outside denny shane's cabin, looking in on him as he sat at his ease, with the red oar over his knees. "he doesn't seem to be in any danger," went on cora. "no, those men either haven't harmed him, or they haven't arrived yet," returned belle. "oh, but suppose they should come while we are here?" suggested marita, shrinking against cora. "don't go to supposing such uncanny things," objected cora, as she put her arm about the other. "are you afraid?" "i don't know," was the hesitating answer. "i suppose one ought to be afraid, coming at night to a cabin where some horrible men are expected. and yet, somehow, i don't seem to be," replied marita. "i know i would have been a few months ago, but since i have met you girls, and seen the things you do, why it's queer, but really i--i rather like it!" and she laughed. "see what your influence has done," whispered cora. they had all spoken in low tones, for denny was sometimes sharp of hearing, and they did not want to arouse him. the girls were really puzzled, not only at the peaceful surroundings at denny's cabin, but at the absence of the boys. of course they could not know that jack and the others had been there and gone, not finding denny at home. nor did they know anything of the note left pinned to the door. "do you suppose it could all be over?" asked lottie. "all over? what do you mean?" asked cora. "i mean could the men have been here, and been captured by the boys and taken to jail?" "oh, it's possible, but not very probable," returned cora. "they surely would have managed to get some word to us if anything like that had happened." "but what are we going to do?" asked bess. "we ought not to stay here." "no, i suppose not," admitted cora, slowly. "it might be a good thing, though, just to stop and speak to denny. then we'd know, soon enough, what had happened. suppose we do that?" the others agreed. they had stepped away from the window for a moment, but now cora walked toward it again. denny was still holding the oar, but he must have gotten up, for the window was now partly open, and it had not been so at first. denny was talking to himself. he was indulging in a soliloquy, apparently addressing himself to the oar. "if you could only talk," he said, "if you could only talk, what a tale you could tell. yes, indeed!" and he sighed. "a tale of the sea and the land--of calm and storms." "he's very poetical; isn't he?" whispered bess. "hush!" cautioned cora. "listen to what he says." denny was evidently in a talking mood, and was living the past over again. "if only grandfather lewis were here, what tales he could tell, too," denny went on. "and there's one tale i'd be glad to listen to. he could tell where the land papers were. if only i could find 'em everything would be all right, and the factory men--ha! we could laugh in our sleeves at 'em. laugh in our sleeves! ha! ha! no, we could laugh in their faces, so we could; couldn't we?" he held up the oar, speaking to it as one might to a favorite dog. denny swung it above his head, as though testing its weight as a club. "'twas so he swung it the night of the storm--the night he saved my life!" murmured denny. "my, what a night that was! what a night!" he seemed lost in recollection for a moment, and then resumed his self-communion. "'twas so he held it--held it out to me in the smother of foam and spray when i was goin' under. and what was it he said? "'grab holt!' says he. 'grab holt and i'll pull you in. don't be afraid, the oar is strong!' and so it is--a grand, strong oar. as strong as old len lewis himself. what a grand old man he was! a fine old man! "but he's gone, and we all have to go. i'll have to go with the rest, i suppose. but before i do go i wish i could find them land papers. what in the world did grandfather lewis do with 'em anyhow? "they must be around here. he ought to have kept 'em in the bank, or in a strong box; but he was always like that. hidin' his things away in curious places. he even did it with his tobaccy. a strange man! "but i'll wager the papers aren't far from the land. that would be his way--to keep the papers near the land. 'a place for everything and everything in its place,' he used to say. what more natural than that he'd have the papers near the land? "i wonder, though, did he stick 'em anywhere around me cabin? he come over here often enough to sit and chat. ah, many's the good old talk we used to have--a talk of the old days. often i'd come in from me boat, and find him here. he might have brought the papers an' hid 'em here when i was out. i wonder if he did?" denny looked around his simple cabin. he laid the oar down gently, as a thing revered. he walked about the room, looking in various places. "no, the papers wouldn't be here," he mused. "i'd have found them before this. and those fellows, who came and upset my place when i wasn't home--they'd have found 'em if they was here. i wonder what grandfather lewis did with them papers?" it was a puzzle that others than denny shane would have given much to solve. cora and her chums looked at one another in the moonlight outside denny's cabin. his talk had revealed something to them, but there was no clue to the missing papers which could prove the title of mrs. lewis to the valuable land. "well, there's one thing sure, denny hasn't been attacked as yet," whispered bess. "and the boys haven't been here to warn him, or he'd show some signs of it." "i think you're right," agreed cora. "what had we better do? tell him ourselves?" "that's what i say--let's warn him," suggested belle. the girls started for the cabin door, but paused midway as they heard the approach of a motor boat near the fisherman's little dock. "wait," suggested cora. "that may be the boys now." chapter xxv the plotters arrive "what's the trouble?" asked one of the four men in the boat that had come to the rescue of jack and his chums. "engine broken, or are you out of gasoline?" "we've got gas, but there may be water in it," replied dray. "i watched the fellow when he filled the tank, though, and he used the chamois all right." "you can't always go by that," said another of the accommodating strangers. "there's an awful sight of poor gasoline being palmed off nowadays. have you got a long rope?" "we sure have," answered jack. "it's mighty good of you to stop and give us a tow." "that's all right," laughed one of the men. "we never can tell when we might want a helping hand ourselves. pass us the rope." it was flung over. the two boats were now bobbing side by side, for they were well out in the bay, and the sea was quite choppy. the tide was running out, and help had come to the boys not any too soon. the rope, passing from the bow of the _dixie_, where it was made fast to a ring bolt in the deck, was caught on to a cleat in the stern of the other boat. "you'll look after the steering; will you?" asked one of the men. "surely," answered dray. "because there's nothing harder than towing a boat that yaws from side to side," the man went on. "we'll keep a straight course," declared the owner of the speedy boat that had proved such a disappointment of late. "we know something about gasoline craft." "glad to hear it," remarked one of the occupants of the rescuing boat, in a grumbling sort of voice. "there's so many launched on the bay now, with a lot of chaps running them who don't know any more than to turn on the gasoline and switch on the spark." "and girls, too," added another of the men. "though i must say there are some girls here who----" "easy there!" called one of the rescuers sharply. he might have been speaking to his companion, who was attending to the fastening of the towing rope, but to jack it seemed as though there was an injunction to be careful of what was said. somehow or other, though why he could not tell, jack's suspicions were aroused. he tried to get a good look at the faces of the men, but the moon was hidden behind some clouds just then, and it was out of the question. the light was too baffling. "well, i guess we're ready," announced the man who was making fast the towing rope. "now where do you fellows want to go? we can't promise to take you home, as we have some business of our own to attend to." jack always said, afterward, that nothing could have been more providential than the way the moon shone out brightly just as he was about to reply. he had it on the tip of his tongue to ask that, if possible, they be landed near denny's cabin, when a ray of moonlight glinted on the name of the rescuing boat, painted on her stern. there jack read the word: _pickerel._ "great scott!" he almost ejaculated aloud. "the boat that raced with cora! the same men who are after old denny!" jack made up his mind in a flash. it would never do for the men to know that he and his friends were on their way to save denny from the very fate the men had in store for him. "oh, if you can land us anywhere near buler's pavilion, it will answer," said jack, naming a place not far from the entrance to the bay, and not far from where they were at that moment. "buler's pavilion!" cried ed. "why that's----" "it's probably closed, by this time, i know that!" answered jack, quickly, giving ed a sly kick. "but we can get somebody up, i guess." then, in a tense whisper he hissed into ed's ear: "these are the men after denny. i know them by their boat. don't let on who we are. we're going to buler's." "sure, we can rouse somebody up if they are closed," answered ed, quickly falling in with jack's scheme. "that will do us, all right," he added to the men. "that is, if it won't be too much out of your way." "not at all," said one. "we'll be glad to leave you there. maybe you can find somebody to fix your boat. all ready?" "let her go," said jack. he wanted the _pickerel_ to get far enough ahead so that he could talk to his chums without the danger of being overheard. the engine of the rescuing boat was set going more rapidly, and the clutch was thrown in. the craft forged ahead, and soon the _dixie_ was under way again. she was being brought back from the sea which had so nearly claimed her, and in a strange manner. "why did you want to say we'd like to be landed at buler's?" asked dray of jack. "because i want to fool these fellows," and jack quickly told how he had seen the name of the boat that had raced with his sister's. "if we do land there," he went on, "they won't know who we are. we can tell them to cut us off before we get to the dock, in case the place should happen to be open and lighted up. then they can't see us." "good idea," said dray. "you're a wise boy, jack." "i just saw that name in time," went on cora's brother. "otherwise it would have been all up with us." "but what about denny?" asked ed. "how are we going to save him if we land at buler's, and let these fellows go on?" "i've thought of that," answered jack. "we'll have to get another boat, if we can, and go to denny's cabin in her. the _dixie_ is no good. oh, excuse me!" he said quickly to dray. "i didn't mean that--exactly." "it's all right, old man, the _dixie_ is certainly no good to-night. say all you please about her, you can't hurt my feelings." "if only the _reliance_ is at buler's we can get her and go to the cabin flying," went on jack. "if not, we'll do the best we can. maybe denny can stand them off until we arrive." "say, what's the matter with up and telling these fellows we know who they are, and who we are," suggested walter. "we can tell them we know what they're up to, and threaten them. won't that stop them from bothering denny--at least to-night?" "not a bit of it," returned jack, quickly. "do you know what they'd do as soon as they found out who we were?" "what?" asked ed. "they'd know at once we were working against them, and they'd cut us adrift. then we would be out of it. and i haven't any desire," added jack, with a shrug of his shoulders, "to go out to sea again." "we land at buler's," said walter, decidedly. and a little later they landed at that resort, which had closed unusually early, for some reason. "all right--cast off!" jack had called as they neared the dock, and the _dixie_, with trailing rope, ran up to it under her own momentum, while the other craft swung off into the darkness, the boys calling their thanks to the men. "and if they only knew who it was they had given a tow to!" chuckled walter. "they'll know, soon enough," replied jack. "we've got to look up a boat to take us to denny shane's. we've simply got to get there." and while the boys were thus looking for a boat to take the place of the disabled _dixie_, the plotters, in their swift _pickerel_, were hastening toward the little cove where the fisherman's cabin stood. the men in the boat were moran, the slow-moving character whom cora had seen in the store; bruce, the "society" chap; kelly, a blunt and unscrupulous irishman, who handled the money for the factory interests, and a man to run the boat. he had been brought in at the last minute. "we lost a lot of time, towing those chumps," grumbled moran, as the _pickerel_ forged ahead. "well, we were early," said bruce. "i've had a man keeping watch on shane's shack, and he was late getting in. he telephoned to me. it's just as well to let shane get a bit settled before we tackle him. he was out fishing until long after dark." then the engineer slowed down the powerful motor as they came up to the dock. it was this sound that cora and her chums heard. chapter xxvi cora's brave resolve when the girls heard cora's remark, that the approaching motor boat might contain the boys, lottie said: "oh, we're all right now!" and she sighed in relief. "how much you depend on them!" observed belle, in a low voice. "when you've been with us a little longer you'll learn that we can do almost as well by ourselves." "but i am glad the boys have arrived," agreed cora. "i never was so pleased to know that they were on hand." but a moment later, as they saw the forms of four men leaving the motor boat, which had been made fast to the dock, cora shrank back, at the same time whispering a warning. "girls, something is wrong! those aren't the boys. quick, get out of sight!" she pulled bess behind a row of bushes, and the others followed silently. they had started down to the beach from the cabin, but fortunately managed to conceal themselves in time. the men, walking up the little slope toward the cabin, had not seen them. trembling with nervousness, cora and her chums awaited the new turn of events. that it would come soon seemed likely, for the men appeared bent on something. they had made fast their boat, and came up the slope openly, as though their errand was the most innocent in the world. the light still glowed in the cabin. "oh, cora!" gasped marita. "suppose they do----do something!" "which is very likely they will do," replied cora. "but don't talk--i want to watch." from behind the screen of bushes cora watched the men coming forward. the moon still gave a good light, though it was declining in the west. "is he there?" cora heard one of the men ask. "he seems to be--there's a light going, anyhow," was the answer. "i'd rather found him in bed, but we can't have all we want." "oh, where are the boys!" cried bess, frantically. "why don't they come?" "i don't know," answered cora. "surely they should have been here. but there must be a good reason why they are not. jack wouldn't disappoint us." "why don't you include walter and the others?" asked belle. "of course you know i meant them," cora retorted. "i can't understand it--really i can't." "perhaps they are in hiding," ventured lottie. "they'd have been out before this, if they were," declared cora. there came a sudden knock. it was one of the men striking on the door of denny's cabin. from their hiding place in the bushes the girls heard it plainly. "listen!" whispered cora. they heard the voice of the old fisherman call: "who's there? what do you want at this time of night?" "we've come to see you," was answered in tones cora recognized as those of the young man who had raced with her. "what about?" inquired denny. "i have no fish to sell." "and we don't want fish," was the retort. "come, shane, open your door. we want to talk to you. it's important, and there may be something in it for you." "yes--trouble, more or less. i can't see anything else," was the grumbling response. "wait a minute." cora looked over the bushes. she could see the men grouped in front of the cabin door. then she saw it open, and a broad beam of light shoot out. "come in," invited denny, and the plotters entered. "now's our chance!" exclaimed cora, her heart beating rapidly. "we must see what those men do. we may have to give evidence." "oh, dear!" sighed marita. "i never could do it. i'd faint, sure." "do what?" asked cora. "give evidence." "don't worry. you won't have to do anything hard, dear," was the gentle answer, as cora slipped her arm about the timid girl. "oh, i'll do anything you girls do," was the quick answer. "i want to help." "and we want your help," whispered bess. "but, cora, can't we go closer? we ought to look in and see what happens." "brave bess!" murmured lottie. "you are certainly coming on finely." the plotters were now inside the cabin, so that it was safe for the girls to advance. this they did until they were once more in a position where they could look in the window of the cabin. they saw a strange sight. old denny shane, brave and rugged, confronted the four men who had called on him. in one hand he grasped the red oar, while the other rested on the back of the chair from which he had risen. "well, mr. shane," said the man cora knew as bruce. "we come to see you on business." "what kind?" asked the old man, and the girls could see him look around as though seeking help or a means of escape. but there was no fear in his eyes. only defiance. "we might as well get to business at once," said one of the men, sharply. that was kelly. "that's right," agreed moran. "make him an offer. if he doesn't want to take it then we'll talk another kind of talk. and be quick about it." "i want no business with you!" cried denny, sharply. "why do you come here bothering me?" "you know why!" exclaimed bruce. "you are concerned in the lewis land matter. you can testify as to who owns it." "well, supposin' i can?" asked the old man, defiantly. "what is that to you?" "lots to us, and it may mean a great deal to you, also!" snapped out kelly. "you may have some papers, too." "i may," returned denny, "but you'll not get 'em." cora and the others, listening, knew that denny would only be too glad if he did have the documents in question. but the girls had heard him lamenting that he did not know where they were. why did he now let the men think he did know? it was a puzzle to the girls. "not get them, eh?" cried bruce. "that's to be seen. now look here, shane. we came here to do business, and we're going to do it. by fair means if we can, if not----" he paused suggestively. "ah! i know you and your breed!" cried the old fisherman. "by fair means or foul! but try it on! i'm not afraid of you." he stepped back a pace, the better to defend himself in case he had to. the red oar was still in his firm hands. "now wait a minute," put in moran. "we'll try the fair means first. what do you say to that? show him the bills." with a quick gesture bruce drew out a roll of greenbacks. "here you go, shane!" he exclaimed. "there's a cool hundred here, and it's yours if you testify that the widow lewis has no claim on the land. and she hasn't any claim that she can prove. all we want you to testify to is that her husband's father sold the land some time before his death. we'll do the rest." "but he didn't sell it!" cried denny. "it was his on his dyin' day, and it belongs to his son's widder and daughter now. that's the law, an' you know it." "she can't prove that the land is hers," sneered kelly. "maybe she can," returned denny, quietly. "well, she can't unless you tell what you know," broke in bruce. "we've found out that much. now the factory wants that land, and it's going to get it. here, i'll make it a hundred and fifty if you do as we want you to." "an' testify to a lie?" cried denny. "it wouldn't be exactly a lie. besides, we're willing to pay the widow a small sum." "not what the land's worth. that's valuable property," insisted denny, "and it will keep her in her old age if she manages right. be off with you! i'll stick to the widder lewis, so i will. be off!" and he motioned them to the door. "you wouldn't have got this close if it hadn't been that my dog was dead. be off!" "not so fast," cora and her chums heard bruce say. "we haven't said all we intend to." "oh, i'm sure something will happen now," quavered bess. "hush," cautioned cora. "we must do something!" "do something?" questioned marita. "oh, why don't the boys come?" cora and her chums were close to the cabin now. they could look in the door, and through the uncurtained window, and see plainly all that went on. they could also hear plainly, for the men and old denny spoke loudly. and, as yet, the girls had not been noticed. "now, look here!" said bruce, and there was a snarl in his voice. "this is our last offer, shane. either you take the hundred and fifty dollars, and testify the way we want you to, or we'll find means to make you, and you won't get the money. and i'll say this, that we'll treat the widow lewis as fair as we can." "which won't be fair at all!" burst out denny. "not at all!" "well, what's your answer?" cried kelly. "we can't stay here all night. give him the money, bruce. when he feels it he'll hate to let it go." bruce held out the roll of bills. to the surprise of cora and the girls the fisherman took them. was he going to betray freda and her mother? the next instant they knew denny for the brave-souled man he was. "that's me answer!" he cried, throwing the bills in the face of bruce. "take your evil money and get out. i'll stick to the widder!" for a moment the men were nonplussed. then, with an angry exclamation, bruce started forward. "come, girls," said cora, "we've got to go to the aid of denny. for some reason the boys aren't here. we've got to save him!" and with this brave resolve she moved toward the cabin. chapter xxvii the red oar again "cora kimball, what are you going to do?" gasped lottie, trying to hold back her chum. "i'm going to go to denny's aid. why shouldn't i? it's four to one, but even if we are girls we can perhaps turn the tide in his favor." "oh, cora, i don't dare!" admitted belle. "nor i," added her plump sister. "i'll faint if you go in where those horrid men are." "faint if you like," returned cora, calmly. "somebody else will have to look after you, then, for i'm going." "but why?" asked lottie. "we ought not to interfere when men are going to fight, and i think that's what's going to happen in there." "that is what's going to happen," said cora, "but perhaps we can prevent it. for some unknown reason, though the boys promised to come here and defend denny, they haven't done so. therefore, it's our place to do it." "yes, and i'm going with you!" announced marita, determinedly. all this talk had taken but a few seconds of time, and, as it had been in whispers, the men in the cabin had not heard it. the situation, however, was rapidly becoming acute. with one accord, after bruce had stepped toward old denny, the others advanced. they were evidently going to lay violent hands on him. but the sturdy fisherman was not afraid. "stand back!" he cried. "stand back or i'll do you harm--you cowards!" "no use calling names!" sneered kelly. "we're here to do you. we made you a fair offer, and you wouldn't take it. now you'll have to abide by the consequences." "get behind him," said bruce. "i can take him from where i stand." "get back! get out of here!" ordered the old man. he raised the red oar over his head, threateningly. "grab him!" cried moran. "grab that oar!" "you'll get it over the head before you grab it!" threatened denny. "mind that, now!" the fisherman swung his weapon, but he either had not calculated on the length of it, or he forgot that he was nearer to the wall than he had been at first. the blade of the oar caught in a hanging picture, and was entangled in the wire. denny, putting all his strength into the blow he had hoped would disable one of his assailants, was thrown off his balance. he toppled and nearly fell. "now we've got him!" yelled kelly. the cowardly men, attacking the single fisherman with overwhelming numbers, made a leap forward. "stop! let him alone. we'll call the police!" screamed cora, and the other girls added their shrill voices to hers. they rushed into the cabin. "the girls i raced with!" muttered bruce. "we've no time to fool with them. don't mind them. get at shane!" "get at me, is it?" cried the fisherman. he had by this time disentangled the oar from the picture wire. again he raised it over his head, intending to bring it down on kelly. as the red weapon descended kelly shot up his hand and caught it. he twisted on the oar to wrest it from denny's grasp, and the two suddenly went to the floor, jarring the whole cabin. and at that instant there was a sound of splintering, breaking wood. some red slivers flew out from between the two prostrate men who were struggling for possession of the weapon. "the red oar! it's broken!" cried denny. "me old red oar, that saved me life in the hands of grandfather lewis! the red oar is broken, bad luck to you! cowards that you are!" the girls were screaming, but even cora, brave as she was, dared go no nearer to the two desperately struggling men. bruce and moran were seeking an opening that they might get hold of denny. the fourth man had gone back to the boat, seemingly. he had leaped out of the window as the girls entered. the cabin was a place of wild excitement. "get that oar away from him!" cried bruce. "here's some rope. tie him up, and then we'll get what we want out of him!" "don't you dare hurt him!" screamed cora. "ah, would you?" gasped denny, as he rolled out from under kelly, who had sought to pass a rope about the old man's wrists. "i'm not down and out yet!" he panted. "the red oar is broken, but i've got the best end yet." he staggered to his feet, holding the handle of the red oar. one end was splintered where it had been broken from the blade. "come on! i'm not afraid!" yelled denny. "come on. you girls had better leave----there's going to be trouble!" "we won't go! help is on the way. the boys are coming!" cried cora, though she did not know when jack and the others would arrive. "oh, if they were only here now! when we need them so!" gasped lottie. again denny swung what was left of the red oar around his head. he aimed a blow at the face of bruce, but it fell short and struck the man on the shoulder. then a strange thing happened. the handle of the oar split lengthwise, and from a hollow place inside there flew out a roll of papers, yellow with age. and on one of them was a red seal--a legal-looking seal. bruce staggered at the blow, and a strange look came over his face. it might have been that he was dazed, but his eyes lighted on the roll of papers that had fallen to the floor. there they lay--a curious roll that had come from the secret crevice in the red oar. the struggle had come to a sudden end. the girls ceased screaming and stood looking on dumbly, unable to understand what had happened. as for the men they, too, seemed startled by the strange turn of events. kelly rose to his feet, and was creeping up on denny from behind. his arms were outstretched, and his fingers worked convulsively, as though they would like to close about the fisherman's throat, and force him to testify as the plotters desired. cora wanted to scream a warning, but some strange force seemed to hold her dumb. "the red oar--it's broken--broken! me old red oar, that saved me life!" murmured denny shane. "but i never knew 'twas hollow. never! i wonder did grandfather lewis----" he did not complete the sentence, for at that instant bruce leaped forward and caught up the roll of yellow papers from the floor. "give me those!" cried denny leaping at him with the jagged piece of the red oar in his gnarled hands--the hands that had, so many years ago, grasped the same oar in what was little short of a death-grip. "give me those papers!" fairly roared denny. "i don't know what they are, but they're not yours. give 'em to me!" "give you these! i guess not!" sneered bruce. "they are just what we want--the land papers. they're the only ones by which the widow could prove her shadowy claim to the property, and with them out of the way it's all clear sailing for us. "this is the luckiest thing that could have happened for us! the breaking of the red oar came at the right time. kelly, give me a match and we'll make a little bonfire of these same papers." "don't you dare!" cried denny, and, making a leap forward he snatched from kelly's hands the precious documents that had so strangely come from the secret hiding place in the red oar. chapter xxviii the discovery--conclusion wild with rage the three men with one accord made a leap for denny shane. but the old fisherman was not to be easily taken. holding the precious papers close to him, he made a jump for a corner of the room, where hung an old musket. "oh, he's going to shoot!" screamed bess. "and small blame to him if he did," declared cora. "oh, those men must not destroy those papers, if i have to take them in charge myself!" denny shane had reached the corner where hung his musket. it was not loaded. cora knew this, for the old fisherman had said he was always afraid of some accident happening, and he never kept a charge in the gun. it was for the effect of it, he said, that he had it hanging on his wall. now it would be useful as a club, at least--more useful than the easily shattered red oar had been. but before denny could reach the gun kelly was upon him. with a fierce motion the desperate plotter grasped the fisherman around the neck. holding him thus with one arm, he snatched the papers from him with his other hand. "here you go!" kelly cried to bruce. "take the papers while i hold him. burn 'em if you want to, but be sure you do the job well! then we'd better get out of here. i think i hear a boat coming. this place will soon be too hot for us!" bruce took the papers from his crony. hastily scanning them, to make sure he had the right ones, he struck a match that moran handed him. kelly and denny were struggling in the corner of the room. but poor old denny had not much strength left. the events of the night had been too much for him, and he was giving way under the cruel pressure of kelly's arms. "these are the very papers we want--or don't want, rather!" exulted bruce. "with them out of the way the property is ours." the match flickered in his fingers. "don't you dare burn them!" cried cora. one corner of the papers had caught fire. then from without the cabin sounded a chorus of cries. "come on, fellows!" "we're just in time!" "the girls are here ahead of us!" "what a night!" they were the voices of jack and his chums. "oh, the boys have come! the boys have come!" cried lottie. "jack! jack! in here! quick!" screamed cora. "he's burning the papers! get them from him!" into the cabin, already crowded, the boys flung themselves. "just in time!" cried cora, motioning to jack. "get those papers from him before they burn!" over in the corner poor denny had fallen unconscious under the attack of kelly. "cut it and run!" advised moran, making for the door. "no, you don't!" shouted walter, blocking it. "guard the windows, dray--ed!" he called. "the papers! the papers!" voiced cora. "get them before they burn, or mrs. lewis will lose the land!" "i'll get them!" shouted jack. he flung himself upon bruce as he had often flung himself upon a player in tackling him on the football field. "look out for yourself!" threatened bruce. but jack was not afraid. he twisted himself about bruce, and sought to reach the papers. bruce, to get them out of jack's reach, held them high in the air, over his head. the two were struggling. moran and kelly were wrestling with ed and walter, while the other girls cowered behind dray, who had caught up a chair as a weapon. cora saw her chance. she slipped around behind bruce, and with a leap that had often enabled her to outwit an opponent in playing basket ball, the plucky motor girl snatched the papers from the man's hand. full and clean was her jump, and the smouldering papers came away in her grasp. "i have them, jack!" she cried. "look out for the men!" and with that, to make sure that she would not lose the precious documents, cora held them tightly under her arm and ran out of the cabin door, after putting out the little blaze. "all over!" cried jack, putting out his foot, and tripping up bruce, who aimed a savage blow at him. "all over!" bruce went down heavily. at the same time, from without the cabin there flashed several lights, and the voices of men were heard asking: "what's going on here?" "who's been screaming?" the plotters gathered together. bruce leaped from the floor. "come on!" he cried desperately. "it's all up. get away!" he leaped out of the window, followed by the other two. "get them!" yelled ed. "no, let them go--it's the easiest way," advised jack. "cora has the papers." "but maybe they've hurt denny!" said walter. "i'm all right," asserted the fisherman, as he slowly arose. "he just cut off my wind for a minute. i'm all right. but where are the papers?" and he looked about the floor, on which were scattered pieces of the broken red oar. "they're safe," answered jack. "cora, my sister, has them. guess we'd better look for her though." there was no need, as cora, holding the papers in her hand, re-entered the cabin at that moment. only one edge of the legal documents was burned, and no real harm had been done. while the motor girls, and the boys and the neighboring men, who had come to the rescue all but too late, were looking at one another there was heard, at the dock, the puffing of a motor boat. "there they go!" exclaimed walter. "well, that's the best way," said jack. "we're glad to get rid of them." "how did you girls get here?" asked ed. "how was it you boys _didn't_ get here?" demanded cora, still panting from her exertions. explanations were then in order. i will be as brief with them as i can. how the girls came to go to the cabin is already known. and how the boys, foolishly perhaps, went out on the bay while waiting for denny to come back, and how they became stalled, is likewise known to my readers. in the meanwhile denny came to his cabin. then came the unexpected help in the shape of a tow from the plotters themselves. "they left us at buler's," said jack, "and then we had our own troubles. we tried to get a boat to come on, for the _dixie_ still refused to move. but we couldn't get one for love or money, and it was too rough to row." "what did you do?" asked cora, looking at denny, who was examining the broken red oar. "we hired a horse and carriage, and came around the land way," replied walter. "it took us a long time, too, for we missed the road." "but we finally got here," spoke ed. "and just in time," added cora. "we were wild about you--couldn't imagine what happened." "didn't you get the note we left pinned to the door?" asked dray of denny. "nary a note," he said. later it was found where it had blown into a clump of bushes. so that accounted for denny's not being warned in time. "but everything seems to be coming out right," said cora, with a rather wintry smile. all the girls were pale, and a trifle weak. the boys, too, were tired. "and what are those papers?" asked jack, taking them from cora. "those prove mrs. lewis's title to the land the plotters tried to get," she said. "oh, i'm so glad we found them." "who found them?" asked walter, giving cora's hand a surreptitious squeeze. "they were in the red oar," said denny. "and to think i never knew it! they were there all these years, and all of us worrying about them and wondering where they were. but i understand now. grandfather lewis must have hollowed out a hole in the handle, hid the papers in it, and then plugged it up. then he gave the oar to me to keep. i remember well at the time he said it would prove valuable some day. i often wondered what made the oar lighter than it had been. it was because it was hollowed out. "i asked him what he meant by sayin' the oar was valuable, but he kept puttin' me off. he said he'd tell me some time, but he never did. then the day he died he sent for me, and was trying to tell me, i guess, but he couldn't. i remember i wondered what was on his mind, but he was too weak to explain. so he died with his secret, and the red oar had it and kept it all these years. "but the oar broke, or those men and myself broke it between us, and the papers fell out. now the widder will get her rights." and the widow lewis did. leaving the valuable documents with denny, the motor girls and the boys went back to their stopping places--the girls to the bungalow, the boys to the tent. and such a time as cora and her chums had in telling the good news to mrs. lewis and freda! the latter could hardly believe it at first. "oh, how can we ever thank you!" cried freda, as, with tears in her eyes, she embraced cora. "don't try," was the whispered answer. and so everything came out right after all. the papers so oddly hidden in the red oar proved the widow's title to the valuable land beyond the shadow of a doubt. as for the plotters, they were not seen again in that part of the country. they realized that the sharp trick they had tried to play had failed, thanks to the activities of cora and her friends. mrs. lewis easily established her claim to the land, moved back to her cottage, and the project of spoiling the public park was abandoned. the factory company was beaten in court and the members of the corporation were forced to pay heavy costs. old denny came in for his share of credit, and he was very happy. his one lament was that the red oar was broken, but he managed to patch it together, after a fashion. and the motor girls got him another dog. the opening by which the papers had been put in the hollow handle had been cleverly concealed, and, only for the accidental breaking of the oar, might never have been discovered. it had probably been the intention of grandfather lewis to disclose the secret hiding place of the land papers, but he had died before he could do this. "but 'all's well that ends well,'" quoted cora the next day, at a late breakfast. "we have done a little good here by our vacation at crystal bay." "a _little_ good!" exclaimed freda. "i never can thank you enough, cora." "and we'll soon have to go back home--that's the worst of it!" sighed lottie. "it is so lovely here!" "oh, well, we can come back next year," spoke bess. "and then, too, winter's coming on--something is sure to happen then," added belle. "something always does." and what did happen that winter will be told of in the volume to follow this, which will be called "the motor girls on waters blue; or, the strange cruise of the _tartar_." it was the next day. the girls disposed themselves about the bungalow in picturesque attitudes, and the boys sat on the broad porch, telling over again the adventures of the night. "there's only one point we're shy on," said jack, when everything had been told and retold. "and that's what?" asked ed. "we haven't found out yet who the strange woman was who tried to get information out of freda, and who sent her the 'phone message." "oh, we're just as well off without knowing that," said cora. "i'm sure she was in with the plotters. you know that man bruce called her 'confidence kate,' as if he knew her well." "you must have been terribly frightened, when you found out there was no way of getting home from the junction," said marita. "i think i should have gone out of my mind." "don't believe her, freda," laughed cora, putting her arm around the timid girl. "marita is braver than she thinks. she offered to go into the cabin with me when those horrid men were there, and none of the others would." "come on over to buler's and see 'em dance," proposed jack. "the _dixie_ is running again." "we'll go in the _chelton_," spoke cora firmly, and in that boat they went. and now for a time, we will take leave of the motor girls. the end [illustration: the room we girls were to occupy was a great square chamber with a large window looking on a cobbled street. (_frontis_) (_tripping with the tucker twins_)] tripping with the tucker twins by nell speed author of "the molly brown series," "the carter girls series," etc. [illustration] a. l. burt company publishers new york printed in u. s. a. copyright, 1919, by hurst & company, inc. made in u. s. a. contents chapter page i. assets and liabilities 5 ii. earning a living 24 iii. a tempest in a teapot 38 iv. what zebedee said 48 v. a trip to charleston 64 vi. through the grille 82 vii. the abandoned hotel 98 viii. tucker tact 111 ix. churchyards 124 x. the heavenly vision 143 xi. the guitar 161 xii. moral courage 172 xiii. engaging board 189 xiv. the clerk of the council 206 xv. who won the bet? 215 xvi. letters 231 xvii. miss arabella 244 xviii. a chance for louis 261 xix. a red, red rose 280 xx. more letters 287 xxi. the summing up 300 tripping with the tucker twins chapter i assets and liabilities after our boarding-school burned on that memorable night in march, it seemed foolish to start to school again so late in the season; at least it seemed so to the tucker twins and me. their father and mine were rather inclined to think we had better enter some institute of learning in richmond or take extra classes, do something besides loaf; but we earnestly pleaded to be let off for the rest of the year, and they succumbed to our entreaties. my ankle gave me a good deal of trouble. you remember, no doubt, how i sprained it getting out of the second-story window when the false alarm of fire rang, the afternoon before the real _bona fide_ fire. dee's first aid to the injured was all very well for the time being, but when we arrived in richmond a surgeon had to be called to attend to it, and the ankle was put in plaster. "a sprain can be much more serious than a break," the surgeon said solemnly as he looked at the much swollen foot and ankle. "i shall have to take an x-ray of this to be sure no bones are broken, and then, young lady, you will have to be quiet for some days, how many i can't yet tell." never having been disabled in my life, i had no idea how irksome it could become. on no account to put your foot to the ground and to feel perfectly well is about as hard a job as could be given me, an active country girl. father came up from milton and heartily agreed with the surgeon in charge. "i have set a carload of broken legs in my time and bandaged a wagonful of ankles, and i am sure i have had less trouble from the legs than the ankles. it is because, as a rule, a sprain is not treated seriously enough. now, honey, you have got to sit still and take it." i sat still all right, although it nearly killed me to do it. not even crutches were allowed for a week for fear i might be tempted to bear my weight on the offending member. the tuckers, father and twins, were goodness itself to me. i was afraid to express a wish, because no matter how preposterous it was they would immediately rush off and try to get whatever silly thing i had in a careless moment expressed a desire for. for instance, one day dum came in enthusiastic over a new drugstore drink she had discovered: "vanilla ice cream with fresh pineapple mixed up with it, orange syrup and lots of bubbly soda! the best mess you ever sucked through a straw!" "ummm-ummm! sounds good to me! when i can trust this old limb of satan i am going to make straight for that drugstore and drink three of them." mr. tucker had just arrived from the newspaper office where he labored many hours a day. he must have been tired sometimes, but he never looked it and never complained of work. eternal youth seemed to belong to him, and undying energy. "good? i think it sounds awful!" he exclaimed. "you girls must astonish your poor little insides with the impossible mixtures you put in 'em." "i think it sounds fine, and i am surely going to have three of them just as soon as i can toddle." mr. tucker laughed and left the room, and i wearily resumed a not very interesting book i was reading while dum followed her father. i read on, hoping to come to something better. i fancy not more than ten minutes had elapsed when father and daughter burst into the room, dum carrying two foaming soda-water glasses and zebedee one. the dauntless pair had actually cranked up henry ford, as they dubbed their little old automobile, and speeded down to the drugstore where they knew how to make that particular mixture, and brought them back to me. "your blood be on your own head if you drink them. they look pizen to me." but drink them i did, all three, much to the wonderment of zebedee, who declared that girls were fearfully and wonderfully made. i did feel slightly fizzly, but after my kind friends had brought them to me and even braved the danger of arrest and fine for speeding, trying to get the drinks to me with the foam on, i felt it was up to me to show my appreciation. the only way to show it was to drink the soda. what if i did burst in the effort? the tucker twins and i were almost seventeen, our birthdays coming quite near together, and their father, now zebedee to all of us, was about thirty-seven, i think, almost thirty-eight. the tuckers were so irresponsible in some ways that i often felt myself to be older than any of them, although i was certainly not very staid myself. zebedee always declared he was just grown up enough to keep out of debt, but keep out of debt he would no matter what temptations he had to withstand. tweedles regarded debt as the only lawful state, and hard they found it to keep within their allowance, but the one time when zebedee was really severe was when they exceeded that allowance. dum was worse about it than dee, as her artistic temperament made it hard for her to keep up with money. "it just goes, and i don't know where!" she would exclaim. when we got back to richmond after the fire, one day when zebedee was in norfolk attending a convention of newspaper men, to be gone several days, the sisters realized that a day of reckoning had arrived and they must take stock of their assets and liabilities. each one had borrowed small sums from various friends at school, intending to pay back out of allowances forthcoming, and also expecting to realize large sums from old clothes that our washerwoman would sell on commission to the colored contingent in the village. colored people for some unknown reason would much rather have clothes that have been worn by white people than new ones out of shops. of course the fire had interrupted this traffic and tweedles never expected to see the money owed them by our washerwoman's clients. "i could have worn that corduroy skirt for months longer, but i thought i could get two dollars and a half for it at least and help get out of debt," wailed dee. "and i just loved my blue linen shirtwaist and the frayed cuffs hardly showed at all, and now the old washerwoman has got my shirt and the fifty cents, too--to say nothing of my old-rose dinner dress that i am scared to death about every night for fear zebedee will ask me why i don't wear it. he always liked the color of it so much," and dum looked ready to weep. "well, girls, count it all up and see where you stand; maybe i can lend you enough to get you out," i said. "you sound like we were in jail," declared dee ruefully. "i don't see how on earth you keep on top so yourself. you seem to do as many things as we do and always pay your share, and still you don't get in debt." "i don't know how it is," i laughed, "unless i am like the yankee who left his wife a large fortune, much to the astonishment of his neighbors, who did not know he had anything. when questioned as to the way her husband had made the money, the wife said: 'wal, you see my husband was powerful fond of oysters, and whenever he went up to the city he just didn't get any.' you girls don't know how free you are with money. if you buy a paper that costs a penny you always say, 'keep the change!' and then when a tip of ten cents is all that is necessary, you invariably give twenty-five." "i know that's so," they contritely tweedled. "count up and see where you're at," and then they figured in silence for a few minutes. "i owe five dollars and seventy-three cents," said dee, getting hers added up first and emptying her purse; "i've got just thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket between me and the penitentiary." "and i owe seven dollars and twenty-three cents and i haven't got anything but a green trading stamp and a transfer to ginter park that i did not use," and dum searched in the corners of her purse for a possible penny that might have escaped her. "i've three dollars and will have some more soon, as father is going to send me a check for a spring suit. you let me pay you both out of debt." "we just can't. it only puts off the evil hour. we can't let you give us the money, and how will we ever pay it back?" "why don't you earn it?" i ventured. "earn it! splendid! but how? dum earned fifty cents once making paper dolls to sell at the arts and crafts, and zebedee pays us both to dust the books and put them back in the right places, something the housemaids are incapable of doing; but this money we must earn without letting zebedee get on to it. where's the morning paper?" but dum had already got it and was poring over the want ads. dee had to content herself with the news section, while dum monopolized the "help wanted--female" part. "what's this?" demanded dee, reading headlines: "'ordinance to prohibit the drivers of jitney cars!' that is a sin and a shame. i can't see why they can't let the poor men make a little money without issuing ordinances. oh, it is only under consideration! they may not pass it---"by the great jumping jingo, i've got a scheme! i'm going to turn henry ford into a jitney bus. zebedee'll be away for two more days, and by the time he comes back i bet i'll have enough to pay my debts and blow us all to the swellest supper at rueger's." jitneys had just reached richmond that spring, and every man or boy out of work who could beg, borrow or steal an old tumbled-down car had gone into the business of running a jitney. the streets were swarming with them, and the public, pleased with the novelty, patronized them to the neglect and chagrin of the trolleys. of course there were some drivers who would hardly have been trusted with coal carts, and there were many accidents by reason of this. we adored the jitneys. of course, i had not been able to ride in them because of my ankle keeping me house-bound, but i loved to see them swing around the corner, and always had my chair or sofa in the bay window where i could get a good view of them. there seemed to be such a happy, good-natured crowd of passengers; and certainly many a shopgirl and workingman got to ride in a jitney who had despaired before of ever being fortunate enough to get into an automobile. the tuckers were strong upholders of the poor man's rights and patronized the jitneys whenever their own henry ford was out of commission or in use by some other member of the family. "but what will your father say?" "more than likely he will say something that won't bear repetition, but by that time i will have paid my debts." "but will they let girls run one?" "how are they going to help it? the ones who are running them are liable to be stopped any day, but so far there are no laws one way or the other about it, and i am going to get in my licks before they have time to make any. besides, i am not going to look very feminine." "that's what i get for being a pig and snatching up the want column before you could get it. now if i had let you have it like a lady i could have got the jitney scheme first," grumbled dum. "what difference does that make? you can go in on it, you goose!" "but i'm not going in. i think i ought to earn something my own way. that was your scheme, and i am not going to butt in on it." "well, you know you are welcome; but suit yourself." "but, dee, you say you are not going to look very feminine. surely you are not going to wear pants?" i asked, aghast at what these heavenly twins would do next. "oh, no! i have no intention of landing in the pen. i'm just going to make up the upper half to look mannish. i'll wear zebedee's big coat, which i tried to make him take to norfolk with him and he wouldn't, just to be stubborn. now ain't i glad?" and she put it on to show how well it fitted. "if it is a nice cool day i can keep the collar turned up so! now there is no law about a lady's hat, and i am going to wear zebedee's chauffeur's cap." she accordingly put it on, pulling it well down over her ears. "now all i need is a dirty face. i've never yet seen a jitney driver who did not have a shady face. i wonder if i had not better just acquire it by the natural method of gradual accumulation, or if i could smudge it on tomorrow morning." by this time dum and i were reduced to a pulp with the giggles. dum had for the time being abandoned her search for a lucrative job and had entered with zest into her sister's plans. "your hair is too lumpy-looking under your cap and it rides up too high on your head." "well, it shall have to be cut off then. it will grow out again." "dee! no! you mustn't! that would make your father really angry. plait it in a tight rope and put it down your neck, inside your collar." no sooner said than done, and now the cap came down to meet the upturned collar. "you must wear zebedee's gloves and take off your ring. your hands look mighty sissy. you'll do fine if henry ford will just behave and you don't have to get out to crank him. it's too bad about the pants. you would be perfect if you could just wear pants. if you should have to get out, it would sho' be a joke if you got arrested for wearing skirts. you look terribly like a bad boy," and so she did. "and now i must get back to the task of finding a job for myself," and dum returned wearily to the want column. dee's delightful get-rich-quick scheme made everything else seem very colorless. "'wanted--a mother's helper to mind four children and wash dishes.' what do you reckon the lazy thing would be doing while i was doing all that for her? 'wanted--woman to wash only by the day.' does the idiot think i could keep it up all night? here we are! 'wanted--twenty able-bodied young women to apply between the hours of three and five p. m. to make house-to-house canvass, selling a number of household novelties.'" dum grabbed her hat and began to draw on her gloves. "here, page, cut this out for me. it is ten minutes to three now and i can just get there!" dum was out of the house before we could say jack robinson, the clipping from the want column grasped tightly in her hand and her chin set in its determined, square, do-or-die lines. "when dum looks like that she always gets what she goes after," said dee, looking admiringly after her twin as she jumped in henry ford, who spent a large part of his waking life parked in front of the apartment house or newspaper office. "maybe going in a car, even a bum one like henry, will queer her game. if she will only have sense enough to stop a little to one side of the place!" we waited in almost breathless silence for dum's return, dee experimenting with her hair for the morrow's fray and i gazing out of the window at the whirling jitneys skidding around the corner, making hair-breadth escapes. "there she is!" and henry ford sure enough threaded his way jauntily through the crowded street, turned himself about like a graceful skater and parked himself in good order just one inch from the curb. the tuckers were all born chauffeurs, and, like most born chauffeurs or riders or drivers, they showed their skill by going faster than the law allows. they prided themselves on being able to go very close to things without touching them, and indeed i have seen henry ford almost take the buttons off the fat traffic cop at seventh and broad. that time zebedee was driving, and as he skimmed by the grinning policeman he called out: "if it had been after dinner i would have hit you," and the delighted officer shook his fat sides and patted his bay window with its row of gleaming buttons, showing he understood mr. tucker's joke. "there are two classes of persons i always keep in with--policemen and cooks. you can get into no very serious trouble when you have them on your side," zebedee had laughed gaily. "i've got a job! i've got a job!" cried dum, almost breathless with haste and excitement as she rushed into the room where dee and i waited. "what is it?" "selling household novelties, of course. i'm to report at eight in the morning. i was the third girl to get in to see the boss. you never saw such a pompadoured, gum-chewing crowd in your life. i felt so ladylike i hardly knew myself. the boss was sure some household novelty himself. he is fat and soft, looks powerful like a dough ball, wears button shoes and an embroidered vest, curly black hair done up in a roach and stewed prune eyes and a full set, upstairs and down, of false teeth that look like "'thirty white horses on a red hill, now they dance, now they prance, now they stand still.'" "but, dum, what on earth are household novelties?" i gasped. "and how much are you to get?" demanded dee. "one at a time! there is a whole bunch of novelties: one is a little plug to keep windows from rattling; another a needle-threader; another a silver polish; another a spot-knocker; a patent batty-cake turner that makes the batty-cake do the flipflap by pressing a button--either for cakes or omelettes; then there's mrs. rand----" "no, not really!" mrs. rand was a miscellaneous implement we had taken to boarding-school that had been purchased from a street fakir and we had named for the landlady at willoughby beach, who had been very irate over the tuckers having lost the one she had in the cottage they rented from her. it was a combination apple-corer, can-opener, cheese-grater, potato-parer, and what not. it was the kind of thing you could use for everything but the things it was intended for. it was a great screw-driver and tack hammer and invaluable to gouge things out of deep cracks. "i'll buy a mrs. rand with pleasure," i promised. "i have never ceased to regret that i did not save ours in the fire and let the pincushion cousin park garnett gave me perish in the flames." "well, that's one sale already! that means five cents. i get five cents on every sale i make." "i'll take a batty-cake turner just to see it do the flipflap, if it takes a whole trip of fares to pay for it." "good for you, dee! i'll ride in your jitney if my work takes me in the west end." chapter ii earning a living we were up bright and early the next morning. i was dressed and tenderly cared for, with my easy chair dragged into the bay window, where i could command a view of the street east and west as far as the eye could reach. a housemaid, whose duty it was in the morning to do up the tuckers' apartment, was cautioned to look in on me every half-hour to see that i wanted for nothing. "zebedee would kill us for leaving you this way," declared dum as she embraced me good-by. "nothing but the exigencies of the case excuse us." "'my poverty and not my will consents,'" quoted dee. "we'll be in for lunch. we've got to eat, and it might just as well be here." the maid was instructed to bring a generous supply of lunch up to the apartment at one o'clock. "if we have it up here i won't have to wash my face. i have worked so hard to make the dirt on it look casual that i can't contemplate going all over it again." of course my meals had to be brought up to me from the cafã© because of my old ankle, and the girls often had theirs brought up, too, although they preferred going down as a rule. they insisted they missed too many tricks by having them sent up. "no second and third helps to pie, and the one help you get too dainty for us." "look out the window for me every ten minutes or so and pray that henry won't get cranky and have to be cranked and have me expose my skirts to the rude gaze of the public," begged dee as she hugged me good-by. she had to forego the kiss as she was afraid of rubbing off her dirty make-up, and i was quite willing to have it thus. brindle, her beloved bulldog, was not so squeamish as i, however, and gave her an affectionate and disastrous lick. "brindle can keep you company, honey. good-by, darling," to the dog. "i'm going to take you down to your household necessity, dum, and i am going to do it for nothing, too. i am loaded to the guards with gas. i reckon i won't put out my sign until i get downtown. i'll start my trade from down there." dum had lettered the jitney sign for her the evening before. it was most artistic, done in large blue letters on white cardboard: ----------------- | monument avenue | | | | 5c jitney 5c | -----------------dee was not a day too soon in her venture, for already the authorities were taking the matter of the jitney business in hand, and the privilege of running a jitney without special license and a $5,000 bond was on the verge of being withdrawn from the legion of owners of broken-down fords. my morning was far from dull. the attentive maid came popping in every few minutes, i had a pile of new magazines and papers, and there was the never-dying excitement of watching for dee and her blue-and-white sign. on her return trip, after taking dum to the household necessities, she had a lone passenger--certainly not enough money in that to pay for the gas; but on the downtown trip she caught many an early worm, and her car was actually running over. at that time there were no rules about standing on the steps and overcrowding, and dee had taken in every one who had raised a finger. i counted thirty-five cents, which was going some for a five-passenger car. dee had a small plaid shawl which she had wrapped around her legs to conceal her skirt. she looked as much like a boy as zebedee himself must have at her age. she never forgot to look up at my window, and, on seeing me, would touch her cap in a most gentlemanly way, a grin on her funny, dirty face. up to nine-thirty her downtown trips were all crowded, while her outgoing ones were but sparsely patronized. then there was a lull in her traffic until about eleven, when the shoppers began to pour downtown. women and babies! women and babies! sometimes women and dogs! brindle, who never left the window, and seemed to be watching for dee and henry ford as eagerly as i was, resented the dogs very much. he felt that his rightful place was in that car, and any dog who dared get in it was to be disciplined through the window glass if he could not reach him in any other way. every time dee raised her dirty face and grinned at us brindle would tremble all over with excitement and joy. i trembled, too, for fear that he would break the great pane of glass, he scratched on it with such vigor. before the hordes of shoppers were disposed of the men and business women began to jitney their way back to their homes for luncheon. it was actually almost one o'clock. i could hardly believe it. the morning had been fraught with excitement to me as i had kept account of dee's earnings, and in watching for her and keeping up with her gains i had had little time for literature. at one o'clock sharp, henry ford, shorn of his gorgeous blue-and-white placard, parked in front of the apartment house, and in a moment a breathless and excited dee was hugging first brindle and then me, quite careless of her make-up. "gee, but i am tired and hungry! it is a sin to be wasting all those fares. just see how crowded the jitneys are! but i am so hungry i'm fittin' to bust. where's dum? here, count my earnings while i scrape off enough dirt to eat." she poured into my lap a pile of silver and nickels. "four dollars and fifteen cents!" i called to her in the bathroom, where she was punishing her begrimed face. "i counted more than that; i kept watching and saw you every time you passed." "oh, yes, i took a load of old soldiers out to the soldiers' home for nothing. i gave them the time of their lives. they were so tickled, i took them down and back again. that made sixty cents short." that was so like dee and explained the many old men i had seen in the car. dum came bursting in just as the maid brought a tray laden with food. "lord love us, but i'm tired! i have had a rip-roaring time, though. i can get off a spiel that would sell household novelties to fiji islanders. mrs. rand has taken like hot cakes, and the batty-cake turner went with it to turn those cakes." she had with her a disreputable-looking canvas telescope that contained her samples. her job was to go from house to house and take orders, to be delivered later. her pocket was bursting with signed agreements to pay for said wares on delivery. "here, page, please count 'em up and see how rich i am. what did you make, dee? i am dying to hear all about your morning! you tell first and then i'll tell." "i made four dollars and fifteen cents. i can't tell you about my morning now because i've got to eat with my mouth. i'm missing fares until it makes me sick," and dee jumped into her lunch with such vim that dum and i deemed it wiser to eat, too, for fear there would be nothing left from the voracious jitneur. "henry did not have to be cranked but once, and that was when we were at the end of the line up at robinson street and there were no passengers in. i bumped over a high car track, and you know how indignant that makes old henry. i was awfully glad i had just dumped my last fare. not a soul saw my skirts." this was mumbled with a full mouth as dee steadily stoked up, accomplishing in about ten minutes one of the largest meals i ever saw. "dee, i am afraid you will have apoplexy or something," dum remonstrated. but dee declared that a workingman must eat a lot. she could easily digest anything she could accommodate, and she was not quite full yet. finding i had not tasted my consommã©, for being shut up as i was my appetite was nothing to boast of, dee drank it down on top of cocoanut pie and currant jelly, the dessert she had just finished. "to fill up the cracks!" she exclaimed, and with a whirl she was out of the apartment and back in her jitney once more, alert for fares. "isn't she a great girl, though?" said dum, a little wistfully. "four-fifteen was a good haul. have you counted up my pledges yet?" "yes, you have twenty-seven. at five cents apiece that makes one dollar thirty-five cents. that's not a bad morning's work." "no, that's not so bad, and maybe i can do better this afternoon. i am going to kick for another part of town tomorrow. they gave me the swellest part of franklin street, and so many of the houses were where our friends live that it was hard to be businesslike. i put it up to them as a perfectly businesslike proposition, however, and would not let them sign up unless they wanted my wares for their own sake, not mine. i had an awful time with your cousin, park garnett. she made out she did not know me, and i did not force my acquaintance on her, but i just talked and talked and made her look at everything i had--mrs. rand, batty-cake flapper, and all the needle-threaders, spot-knockers, and silver polish--and, what's more, i did not leave her ugly, ponderous old house until i had made her sign up for fifteen cents' worth of household necessities--i mean fifteen cents for me. i expatiated on mrs. rand until there was nothing for her to do but own one, and i played battledore and shuttlecock with her ball of gray yarn (of course she was knitting another shawl with purple scallops) and the batty-cake turner until she was dizzy and would have signed up to get me out of the house, i think. she bought some silver polish, too, because i took her fat old pug up in my lap and showed her how much his collar needed rubbing. jeremiah, the blue-gummed butler, was fascinated by my wares, and kept tiptoeing back into the room to fix the fire or pretend he heard the bell or something. that put it into my head to make the rest of the rounds in the backs of the houses, where the servants can see my novelties, and i had fine luck. i am going to stick to the alleys and back doors all afternoon." dum was, as usual, perfectly open and straightforward, with absolutely no idea of concealing her identity. i had not dreamed that she was contemplating going into the homes of her friends and acquaintances with her peddling job. i couldn't help wondering what mr. tucker would say to it. he was accustomed to the scrapes of his progeny and used to say just so long as they told the truth and kept out of jail, he could stand it; but these new escapades did seem to be a little more serious than any they had heretofore plunged into. they were certainly not doing anything wrong from a moral standpoint, but they were giving mrs. grundy a chance to do a lot of gabbling. i could not help laughing over cousin park, although i secretly wished that dum could have started her back-door canvassing before she reached that ponderous edifice belonging to my relative. it merely meant that mrs. garnett would have some tangible grievance against my friends, for whom she held a prejudice that no politeness on their part seemed to do away with. certainly zebedee had been very kind and pleasant to her on several occasions, and he had been quite attentive to her on that memorable picnic the summer before. he had also done all that was required of him toward entertaining her guest, mabel binks, in the early part of the winter. in fact, tweedles and i felt that he had done more than common politeness required toward the amusement of that flashy young woman. "did you tell cousin park i was in town?" i asked. "no, indeed; i never claimed acquaintance with her, i tell you! she made out that she had never seen me before and i fell in with her mood and just be'ed an agent, only that and nothing more. sometimes i think maybe she really did not know me. you know she won't wear glasses all the time and i believe her eye-sight is bad." i devoutly hoped this to be the case. i had not informed cousin park of my presence in richmond and had father's consent to this concealment, as we both of us knew that she would be tearing around and drag me out of the tuckers' apartment and incarcerate me in her prison-like mansion, whether i would or no. father and i felt the same way about her house. father always said he was afraid the butler, jeremiah, would bite him, and every one brought up by a mammy knew that "to be bit by a blue-gummed nigger was certain death." jeremiah was really a very nice old man in spite of his lugubrious air of officiating at your funeral while he was actually serving the very heavy viands with which mrs. garnett's oiled walnut table was laden. "maybe she didn't know you, after all," i ventured cheerfully. "well, if she didn't or did, it is all one to me. i don't have to deliver the novelties, as that is done by some trustworthy person employed steadily by the boss, and in the meantime i have earned fifteen cents at the funereal mansion. i must tear myself away now and begin a systematic visiting of the back doors of the homes fronting monroe park. good-by, honey," and dum, too, was gone. brindle and i were left to watch for the meteoric appearances of dee and to get through the afternoon as best we might. dee did a thriving business. as the afternoon went on she never passed without a car full and sometimes running over. her face was tense and as often as not she forgot to look up and salute brindle and me. "she will be a tired little girl when the day is over," i said to brindle, and he wagged his tail and snuffled his appreciation of my noticing him. dee had just passed, the back seat of henry two-deep with passengers and on the front seat a very dressy looking young woman who seemed to be sitting very close to the stern young jitneur. that was one of the times dee had forgotten to look up and poor brindle was in deep distress. chapter iii a tempest in a teapot it was almost dark and still the twins had not returned. the maid came in and turned on the electric light and brought me the menu from the cafã©. i ordered a substantial dinner for the three of us and with the assistance of the good-natured girl got myself into another dress and smoothed myself up a bit. a quick step sounded in the hall just as i settled in my chair and the maid went down to order dinner. tweedles at last--one of them, anyhow! it turned out to be mr. tucker, and i was covered with confusion! what on earth was i to say to him? what business did he have coming home before he was expected? "hello, little friend! where are those girls? you don't mean that both of them have had the heartlessness to go out at one time and leave you all by yourself? i wouldn't have thought it of them!" "oh, they--they--i reckon they'll be in soon. i haven't been lonesome at all. brindle and i have been looking out of the window at the jitneys--" dangerous ground! if the girls wanted to tell their father of their escapades they were to be allowed to do so, but it was not my business. why didn't they come on in? i knew they would sooner or later divulge to their beloved zebedee, but they had certainly meant to get all over with their schemes while he was away. "we weren't looking for you until day after tomorrow," i stammered. "well, is that any reason why you shouldn't be glad to see me now?" "oh, no! we are glad to see you--that is, i am." "that is to say, tweedles will not be?" he questioned. "of course they will be." why, oh, why didn't they come on? weary footsteps dragging along the hall and dum appeared. her hat was on one side, not at a jaunty angle but just at that hopelessly out-of-plumb slant. her face was dirty enough to suit dee's idea of a jitney driver. her hair was dishevelled and her shoes very dusty. "oh, page, only fifteen orders in all the afternoon and i am nearly dead! i'll never be able to make a living peddling household no---what,--you!" and her mouth formed itself into a round o as she spied her wonderful parent. "yes, i!" "you!" "yes, me! if you understand that better." "oh!" "is that all you can say when i chased back from the meeting in norfolk expecting to find three lone ladies so glad to see me? page greets me with an icy mitt, and now all you can say is 'you!' and 'oh!' where is dee? maybe she will at least ask me how i am." more tired footsteps dragging along the hall, and in came dee. "i am rolling in wealth but i am so tired that nobody had better say 'boo' to me or i'll weep." "'boo!'" said zebedee. "oh, you?" and dee proceeded to burst into tears which certainly did not improve her begrimed countenance. "great heavens! what is the matter?" he cried, turning fiercely on dum. dum did the most natural thing in the world for a poor little half-orphan who had been trying to pay her debts by honest toil, selling household novelties at back doors and tramping up and down cobble-stoned alleys until she had worn a blister on her heel--she just burst out crying, too. zebedee looked hopelessly at me, evidently expecting me to be dissolved in tears, too, but the ludicrous side of things had struck my risibles and, willy-nilly, i succumbed to laughter. brindle, however, was sympathetic with his beloved mistress, and set up such a howling as never was heard before. "by the great jumping jingo! what is the matter? have i done something? is anybody dead? what do you mean, dee, by having on my coat and cap? what do you mean, dum, by fifteen orders? page, you can speak; tell me what's up." "i--i----" "go on and tell him, page!" tweedled the twins, trying to control their emotions. "well, tweedles got a little behind with their finances and the fire came along at gresham at a rather inopportune moment as they were expecting to save up on allowances----" "and the old clothes! don't forget the old clothes!" from a very crumpled-up dee. "they also were negotiating some sales with the laundress, of cast-off clothing." zebedee was looking me through and through with his ice-blue eyes. i had never had the least fear of him from the moment i had met him, but now i felt, to say the least, quite confused. he looked stern, and his eyes, which had been only the color of blue, blue ice, but always seemed warm, were now as cold as ice, too. "well, go on!" "the fire broke out and now the old laundress has the clothes and the money, too. so tweedles were all broken up over owing so much money and i suggested that they turn in and earn some." "you suggested it?" still very coldly. "yes, i suggested it, and i would do the same thing again. i think it is a great deal better for people to get to work and pay off their debts at any honest labor than to keep on owing them----" i gulped and got red. i was tired of having mr. tucker look at me with his cold expression of a criminal judge. i had done nothing wrong, and neither had the girls, for that matter. i felt a great wave of anger rising in me, and i stood up on my bad ankle, forgetting all about having one, and faced my host, ready for battle. he looked rather startled, and the twins stopped sobbing and began to dry their eyes on two very grimy handkerchiefs. i do not often get very angry, but there was something about being looked at as zebedee looked at me, that made me lose all control of myself. he made me feel that i was a bad little girl while he considered himself a superior old gentleman. now up to this time the father of my two best friends had always treated me like a grown-up young lady, and had never made me feel that there was any difference to speak of between his age and mine, and he had no right with one wave of his hand to put me back in the kindergarten class. "why, page----" "don't 'why, page' me! you came back before we expected you and startled us somewhat, as tweedles hoped to get the money earned before you returned. the girls are dead tired and need their dinner and kind sympathy instead of being bullyragged----" "page! please! i only wanted to know how tweedles went to work to make all the money you say they owe. i am not a bit angry, not the least little bit. i think you are very unkind to me." "well, you looked at me so coldly and sneered so." "no! you are mistaken!" "yes, you did, when i said i suggested it." "i am awfully sorry, little friend," and now his ice-blue eyes melted, literally melted, as he, too, began to leak, as the tuckers call their free giving way to tears. you remember, it was a trait of the family. they thought no more of weeping than of laughing or sneezing. they wept when they felt weepy just as they laughed when anything amused them or sneezed when they felt sneezy. "i tell you what you do, girls: you go on and wash up and change your dresses, and then we'll have dinner, and after dinner we'll talk it all over like sensible people without getting angry or huffy or anything that we might get." zebedee wiped his eyes and gave his girls a hug and kiss in spite of their grimy, soiled countenances, and then he turned to me as they flew to the bathroom to do his bidding. i had become conscious of my ankle as i stood there disobeying the doctor's commands, and now that it was all over i flopped back in my chair, feeling very grateful for its support. "now you have gone and put your weight on your foot and it is all my fault." "oh, no! not at all!" "it is just as much my fault as that tweedles came in worn out with making a living and had dirty faces and were hungry----" "nobody said that was your fault!" "well, what was my fault, then?" "it was your fault for looking at me so disapprovingly. you were what tweedles call mr. tuckerish. you were so cold and grown-up and made me feel so young and naughty, and as i had not done a thing on earth but just suggest to the girls that they try to earn some money, not specifying how they should go about it, it did seem hard that you should be so hard on me. it hurt my feelings." "well, on the other hand, little girl, how about my feelings? here i had come tearing home from norfolk expecting to find three charming girls, all of them overjoyed to see me, and what do i find? nothing but 'what, yous!' from first one and then the other--stammered greetings, and then tears and flashing eyes and false accusations." at that i burst out laughing, and zebedee did the same. it was such a tempest in a teapot! i was ahead of him, however, and by my sudden anger over nothing or almost nothing i had unwittingly turned his attention from tweedles and their misdemeanors, and now i was sure he would be only amused over their escapade. "we are all of us mighty glad to have you back. i don't see what made you think we weren't." "foolish of me, wasn't it? i realize now that it was excess of emotion and delight that made all of you behave as you did." chapter iv what zebedee said we ate dinner very quietly. the twins began to perk up a bit in the salad course, and by the time we got to brown betty and the roman punch they were quite themselves, except for a langour that might have come from overeating as much as from overexertion. zebedee avoided the subject of money-making with great tact. he had much to tell us of mr. and mrs. robert gordon and their little home in norfolk and their happiness and hospitality. mrs. gordon was or had been our beloved miss cox, a teacher at gresham. she had married mr. gordon at willoughby beach the summer before while she was chaperoning us, and all of us felt that we had been instrumental in making the match and were in a measure responsible for the great happiness of the couple. the maid had removed all traces of dinner and we were seated snugly around the drop light on the library table, a table that had been converted into a dinner table when the tuckers decided to dine in their apartment, which boasted no housekeeping arrangements. there was a deep silence broken only by a smothered yawn from dee. running a jitney for almost eleven hours is some sleep-provoker. "well, girls, aren't you going to take your poor old father in out of the cold?" and zebedee looked appealingly at his daughters. "well, it was this way----" they started in the same breath. "one at a time, please! dum, you begin." "well, you see i owe seven dollars and twenty-three cents to different girls at gresham and i didn't have a red cent and no telling how long before allowances are due, so i just thought i'd try to earn something. i found an ad for twenty young women to sell household novelties and so i applied for the job." "that was rather ambitious as a starter. were you going to be all twenty right from the first?" "silly and flippant! i got the job, at least one twentieth of it, and started out this morning at eight o'clock. i am to get five cents on every sale. i went up and down franklin and grace streets all morning, going in the front doors, but this afternoon i tried the back doors because naturally the servants are more interested in these labor-saving devices than the mistresses; besides, i saw so many people we know when i went in the front way that i was afraid if they bought from me they would do it from pity or something, and i wanted to be very businesslike and create a burning desire for the really excellent articles i am selling. i didn't want to hold up anyone." "that's right!" i was trembling for what zebedee would say about dum's meeting all the friends on her canvassing jaunt, but i realized that i did not really know that gentleman as well as i thought i did. he did not seem to mind in the least if perhaps everyone in richmond knew that one of his girls had been out going from house to house in the most fashionable residential districts selling batty-cake flappers and spot-knockers. "i have made in all on commissions two dollars and ten cents, i think. i have completely worn out my shoes on the cobblestones in the alleys and have got a blister on my heel as big as all my commissions put together." "have you collected your money yet?" "no! i don't get it until the goods are delivered and my customers pay up." "how long does your job last?" "oh, until the whole town is combed with a fine tooth comb. our boss wants every lady in richmond to have the advantage of these household novelties." dum unconsciously took on the tone usual with the house-to-house canvasser. zebedee gave a smile but there was no divining what his real thoughts were any more than if he had been the sphynx herself. he looked to me rather like a man who was seeing a real good show and was deeply interested but reserving his final opinion of the merits of the actors and the playwright until the curtain. "now, dee, let's hear from you!" "well,--while dum was looking at the want column, i saw on the front page that the poor men who run jitneys were in a fair way to be crowded out of their business by all kinds of ordinances and things that were likely to be put on them." "yes, they won't have long to run without giving bonds, etc." "i just knew how much you felt for the poor men and approved of their venture, and so i just decided i'd run a jitney myself for a day or so and get myself out of debt. i owe five dollars and seventy-three cents to schoolmates and did not have but thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket. i wanted to let dum in on my scheme but she said she would get out and earn her own money. i did not dream i could make so much, and indeed i couldn't have, if i had not speeded like fun. the cops knew henry in spite of his sign, and i believe they knew me through the dirt and make-up, and they never once stopped me. "of course i had to run in high a lot and it took gas, but i am going to pay for that out of my earnings. i made four dollars and fifteen cents this morning and i have not counted yet what i took in this afternoon." she turned the pockets of her father's greatcoat inside out into my lap and the bills and coin made such a showing that i thought it no wonder she had announced she was rolling in wealth. i counted six dollars and thirty-five cents. that made ten dollars and fifty cents for the day's work. "i think being a jitneur is mighty hard work. there is a nerve-racking something about it that sho' does you up. in the first place there are always some idiots on board, the kind that rock the boat, and they will sit on the doors and are liable at any time to go spinning into the street. then there are some old ladies who always drop their nickels and then you stand chugging away, scared to death for fear henry will give up the ghost, and that means getting out to crank up when you have got on skirts and don't want to flaunt them." "i have been wondering what you did about your skirts." "did nothing! just ignored them! i didn't have to crank up but once this morning, and that was when i hit a hole out on robinson street and henry blinked out; but i had just got rid of my last fare and no one saw my disgrace. this afternoon i had awful bad luck. there were three funerals and every single one of them crossed my route and i had to wait for them to pass. you know how henry gets mad and stops playing when he has to stand still too long--well, every one of those funerals got me in bad. one of them i was glad to see, as i was having an awful time. a girl dressed up to beat the band had got on the front seat with me and she was lollapalusing all over me, and i had no room to drive. she would talk to me, although i never encouraged her with anything sweeter than a grunt. i had made an awful mash and was up against it. she got me so hacked i let a fare get away from me,--man just got out and walked off without paying. i felt like rosalind must have felt when phebe pursued her or like viola when olivia got soft, but this girl was more of the phebe type. i was afraid she was going to spend the afternoon with henry and me. she had just intimated that she would go on downtown with us again and make a round trip when we struck the funeral. henry chugged away and then stopped off short. i dropped the plaid shawl i had my skirts wrapped up in and climbed over the foolish virgin, and i tell you i blessed the day i was born a girl then. i wish you could have seen the minx. i cranked up and climbed back, and there was no more lollapalusing from her. she scrouged herself over into her own corner and laughed a scornful laugh. the people on the back seat had been amused by her goings-on before, but when they found out i was a girl, they roared with laughter and my mash got out on the next corner. she gave me a dime and told me i could keep the change, so i did not lose anything after all from the man who sneaked off." "you didn't really keep it?" exclaimed dum. "keep it! o course i did! it would have been very melodramatic to hurl it after her. i was not driving a jitney for my health. i was out for money--rocks--spondulix--tin--the coin--and that idiot's dime was just as good as any man's. besides, she had taken up more than her share of room and owed me something for letting the sneak get off. "that dollar bill! i bet you can't guess who paid me that,--mrs. barton alston. she got in and handed me the dollar and said: 'here, boy! just ride me until that is used up!' it was ten round trips so she was with me a good part of the afternoon. she said she never did get out in automobiles much these days, that her friends sometimes come and drive her out to the cemetery, but she is tired of graveyards and wants to cheer up some. she told me all this when we were having a little spin alone, but i heard her telling some of the fares the same thing. she was real nice and jolly and took people on her lap and did the honors of the jitneys with as much graciousness as she used to entertain before they lost their money. i was sorry she was so broad-beamed, as it was difficult to get three on the seat while she stayed with me, and of course when you are running a jitney every inch counts. when her ten round trips were up, i hated to tell her and took her another for luck. some day let's go get her, zebedee, and take her out to the country club or something and give her a good time. she is mighty tired of being supposed to be in retirement, mourning for mr. alston. she never did recognize me, although i talked to her quite freely. she called me 'boy' all the time. gee whilikins, but she can talk!" "there are others!" put in dum. "do you know you have not stopped once for half-an-hour?" "well, i'm not out of gas yet." "no, i reckon not! you are some self-starter, too. nobody has to get out and crank you up and persuade you to get going. funerals don't stop you. you go in high all the time, go so fast a traffic cop can't see your number." "well, i'm afraid i have monopolized the conversation some but it has been a very exciting day. i'm going to divide up with you, dum. i believe between us we can get all of those debts paid." "oh, dee, that would be too good of you!" "nonsense! you worked just as hard as i did. i believe in an equal distribution of wealth. count up, page, and see where we stand." "let's see! you made ten dollars and fifty cents; dum made two dollars and ten cents--that makes twelve dollars and sixty cents. you owe five dollars and seventy-three cents--dum owes seven dollars and twenty-three cents. that makes twelve dollars and ninety-six cents. you are thirty-six cents short." "oh, but i've got thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket. that leaves a penny over, to say nothing of the ticket. hurrah! hurrah!" and those irresponsible tuckers, all three of them, got up and danced the lobster quadrille with me in the middle. when they stopped, completely out of breath, dee exclaimed: "oh, zebedee! i am awfully sorry, but i am afraid you will have to pay for the gas after all. i charged it." and all zebedee said was: "i'll be----" and just as dee said would be the case, what he said does not bear repetition and certainly is not to be printed. mrs. barton alston had many a treat from the tuckers. dum did not collect her two dollars and ten cents until she had made many trips to the boss. he tried to persuade her to accept a steady job with him as an agent for household novelties, and while she naturally could not do it, she declared it gave her a very comfortable feeling that if she should have to earn her living there was at least one avenue open to her. the day after dee's success as a jitneur the paper came out with headlines that the jitneys were no longer within the law. bonds must be furnished, licenses must be paid, etc. dee had been not a day too soon in her venture. zebedee never said one word of reproach to tweedles. when he gave voice to the unprintable remark above he was through. "i know i ought to do something about it," he moaned to me several days after when he caught me alone. "it was a very risky thing for both of my girls--they might have got in no end of scrapes--but what am i to do? if i row with them and get mr. tuckerish even you get out with me, and somehow i feel as long as the girls tell me everything, that they can't get into very serious mischief. i know i have not done my part by them. if i had been the right kind of unselfish father i would have married long ago when they were tiny little tots and have had some good, sensible woman bring them up." "they don't look at it that way." "well, you could hardly expect them to 'kiss the rod'." i laughed aloud at that. "what's the matter?" "i am wondering what the 'good, sensible woman' would think at being called a rod. i wonder if there is any woman good enough to undertake the job of rod." "perhaps not," he said ruefully. "you see when my little virginia died, all my friends and hers got busy and found a roomful of worthy ladies that they considered the proper persons to marry me and bring up the twins, but all of them were rather rod-like in a way, and somehow i never could make up my mind to kiss 'em either. the trouble about me is i can't grow up, and anyone whom my friends consider a suitable age for me now, i look upon as a kind of mother to me." "i think tweedles are getting on pretty well without a stepmother," i managed to say. i felt about as bad as the twins themselves would have at the thought of zebedee's marrying again. "they never do anything too bad to tell you, but they do lots of things i fancy they would not tell a stepmother." "well, little friend, if you think that, i reckon i'll worry along 'in single blessedness' for a while yet." the tucker twins had been living in dread of a stepmother ever since they had been conscious of living at all. it was a theme with all of their relations and friends and one that was aired on every occasion. "jeffry tucker should marry again!" was the cry and sometimes the battle cry of every chaperone in richmond. as mr. tucker said, it was always some good, settled lady who needed a home and was willing to put up with the twins who was selected as his mate. "i don't want to run an old ladies' home. if i ever marry i shall do it for some reason besides furnishing a stepmother to my family and giving a haven of refuge to some deserving lady." "i don't want to seem disloyal to dum and dee, but i think it might be rather salutary if you talk to them just as you have to me, i mean about stepmothers and things. it might make them a little more circumspect." "all right, i'll try; but i am afraid i have cried 'wolf!' too often and they would just laugh at me." tweedles did listen to him quite seriously when he broached the subject of his duty to marry again and give them the proper chaperonage. "oh, zebedee, please don't talk about such terrible things. we'll be good and learn how to sew," wailed dum. "i'm going to make some shirts the very first thing." "oh please, please spare me! i couldn't bear for you to get so good that i'd have to wear home-made shirts!" and so the threat of a stepmother was withdrawn for the time being. chapter v a trip to charleston my ankle improved rapidly and in another week i was able to walk and still another to dance. i had been patience itself, so my friends declared, and i am glad they thought so. i had really been impatience itself but had kept it to myself. "girls, i've got a scheme!" exclaimed zebedee one evening after dinner. "i want to send a special correspondent to south carolina to write up the political situation and i am thinking about sending myself. if i do, i am going to take all of you. i have written your father, page, and an answer came from him today. he says you may go, as he knows it would do you good. i haven't said anything about it to you girls until i was sure i could work it." "oh goody, goody, goody! where will we go first?" "charleston first! i may leave you there awhile, as i have to do some knocking around, but it will not be for very long, not more than a day at a time." we plunged into shopping the very next day. father had sent me a check for necessary clothes, and the all-important matter had to be attended to speedily. "let's get all of our things exactly alike and pass for triplets! it would be such a scream on zebedee," suggested dee. "triplets, much! we'd just look like a blooming orphan asylum and get in a book. it seems to me that every book i pick up lately is about orphan asylums. chauffeurs and orphans and aviators form the theme for every book or magazine story i read. no, indeed! let's get our clothes just as different as possible," said dum, rapidly turning the pages in _vogue_. "all right. then we can wear each other's. i'm going to get brown." "i'm crazy for dark green, if you don't think it will make my freckles show on my nose too much. my nose and its freckles are a great trial to me." "nonsense! you've got the cutest nose in virginia and zebedee says he likes freckles," said dee, always tactful. "well, he can have them, i'm sure i don't want them. what color are you going to get, dum?" "anything but blue. there is a refinement about blue that i can't stand right now. i want something dashing and indicative of my sentiments of its being my bounden duty to have a good time." "red?" "no, red's too obvious! i think i'll get lavender or mauve. then i can wear violets (when i can get them). i think lavender suits my mood all right. it is kind of widowish and widows when they get into lavender are always out for a good time. i tell you when widows get to widding they are mighty attractive. i don't see why they don't stay in their pretty white crãªpe linings, though. they are so terribly becoming. i mean to make a stunning widow some day." "first catch your flea before you kill him," taunted dee. "well, i can't see the use in having your hair grow in a widow's peak on your forehead if you can't ever be a widow. it seems such a waste." "there's time yet! you are only seventeen," i laughed. "seventeen is old enough to know what style suits me best. weeds are my proper environment." in spite of dum's conviction about weeds she purchased a most becoming and suitably youthful suit in a soft mauve. dee got exactly the same style in brown and i in green. we deviated in hats, however, and each girl thought her own was the prettiest, which is a great test of hats. hats are like treats at soda fountains: you usually wish you had ordered something you didn't order and something your neighbor did. spring was late in making its appearance in virginia that year, but since we were going to south carolina we bravely donned our new suits and hats. zebedee declared he was proud of us, we were so stylish. "i have a great mind to grow some whiskers so people won't think i am your little nephew," he said as he settled us in our section. the three of us girls were to occupy one section, two below and one above, lots to be cast how we were to dispose ourselves. "nephew, much! you've got three gray hairs in your part now," declared dee. "each of you is responsible for one of them." mr. tucker often classed me with his own girls and really when i was with them i seemed to be a member of the family. he treated me with a little more deference than he did tweedles because he said i seemed to be older. i was really a few days younger. dee got the upper berth in the casting of lots and dum and i slept in the lower, at least, dum slept. i was conscious of much jerking and bumping of the train, and dum seemed to be demonstrating the batty-cake flipflapper all night. we had left richmond with a belated sprinkling of snow, but as we were nearing charleston at about five-thirty in the morning we ran through a fine big thunder storm, and then torrents of rain descended, beating against the windows. of course some bromide who got off the train with us, said something about "the back-bone of winter." what a rain! it seemed to be coming down in sheets, and such a thing as keeping dry was out of the question. tweedles and i regretted our new spring suits and straw hats, but since we had been so foolhardy as to travel in them we had to make the best of it and trust to luck that they would not spot. the train had reached charleston at six and by rights it should have been dawn, but it was as dark as pitch owing to the thunder clouds that hung low over the city. zebedee hustled us into a creaking, swaying bus that reminded us somewhat of the one at gresham. other travelers were there ahead of us and as everyone was rather damp the odor of the closed vehicle was somewhat wet-doggish. we rattled over the cobblestones through narrow streets, every now and then glimpsing some picturesque bit of wall when we came to one of the few and far between lamp posts. but it was generally very dim and would have been dreary had we not been in a frame of mind to enjoy everything we saw and to look at life with what dee called "behind-the-clouds-the-sun's-still-shining" spirit. the bus turned into better lighted streets with smoother paving. "meeting street," read dum from a sign. "doesn't that sound romantic? do you reckon it means lovers meet here?" "it may, but i am very much afraid it just means the many churches that abound on this street," laughed zebedee. i wondered who the people were in the bus with us, but they seemed to take no interest at all in us. there were two pale old ladies in black crãªpe veils drawn partly over their faces; a dignified old gentleman in a low-cut vest and a very high collar with turned-down flaps that seemed especially designed to ease his double chin; and a young girl about sixteen or seventeen who had evidently been in a day coach all night and was much rumpled and tousled therefrom. she seemed to belong to the pompous old gentleman, at least i gathered as much, as i had seen him meet her at the station and noticed he gave her a fatherly peck of greeting. not a word did they utter however on that bumpy bus ride, and although the two pale old ladies in crãªpe veils had stiffly inclined their shrouded heads as father and daughter entered the vehicle and they in turn had acknowledged the bow, not one word passed their lips. evidently a public conveyance was not the proper place for charlestonians to converse. the girl, who was very pretty in spite of being so tired and dishevelled, smiled a sympathetic smile when dum enthused over meeting street. i had a feeling if we could get her by herself she would chatter away like any other girl. perhaps the old man won't be so stiff when he gets his breakfast. it is hard to be limber on a wet morning and an empty stomach. when one has so much stomach it must be especially hard to have it empty, i thought. it seemed very impertinent of the omnibus to bump this dignified old gentleman so unmercifully. he held on to his stomach with both hands, an expression of indignation on his pompous countenance, while his double chin wobbled in a manner that must have been very trying to his dignity. the pale old ladies in crãªpe veils took their bumping with great elegance and composure. when the sudden turning of a corner hurled one of them from her seat plump into zebedee's arms, if she was the least disconcerted she did not show it. a crisp "i beg your pardon!" was all she said as she resumed her seat. she did pull the crãªpe veil entirely over her face, however, as though to conceal from the vulgar gaze any emotion that she might have felt. of course we giggled. we always giggled at any excuse, fancied or real. the pretty girl giggled, too, but turned it into a cough as her father pivoted his fat little person around and looked at her in evident astonishment. the bus backed up to our hotel where a grinning porter was in readiness to capture our bags. our fellow travelers were evidently relieved at our departure. i saw through the window that both ladies put back their stuffy veils and that the old gentleman relaxed his dignified bearing somewhat and entered into conversation with them. the young girl, however, peered rather wistfully through the drenched pane at us as we gaily took possession of the hotel lobby. "wasn't she sweet! maybe we will see her again sometime," said dee. "i couldn't see her at all from where i sat," declared zebedee. "her old father's embonpoint obstructed my view." the hotel where zebedee had decided to take us was not the newest and most fashionable in charleston, but he had heard it was the most typical and that the cooking was quite good. it had been built years before the famous earthquake, and had still marks of that calamity. the floors, many of them, had a down-hill tendency, and there were cracks under the doors and i believe not one right angle in a single wall of the house. the room we girls were to occupy was a great square chamber with a large window looking out on a cobbled street. there were picturesque doors, and walls with mysterious shuttered windows, where one could occasionally see eyes peering forth. it is against the charleston code of manners to open shutters or raise the blinds of windows that look out on the street. the floor of our room was on a decided slant and this caused a very amusing accident. there was a large armchair with broad substantial rockers into which dum sank to rest her weary bones until breakfast. the chair was pointed down-hill and over dum went backwards, and nothing in the world but her fine new spring hat saved her from getting a terrible bump on her head. "it's like living in the tower of pisa!" she exclaimed as we pulled her up. "you had better remember to rock up-hill next time," admonished dee. "i bet you, we will all develop a mountain leg living on such a slant. but isn't it fascinating? as soon as breakfast is over, let's go out and explore. i want to peep in the shutters all along the way and see what everybody is having for breakfast and going to have for dinner." "that's just the way i feel! if anything is shut, i want to peep in. if it is locked, i want to get in." our hotel was run on the american plan and our grinning waiter insisted upon bringing us everything on the bill of fare. i think he saw in zebedee the possibilities of a liberal tip. in south carolina there is a law against tipping. in all of the rooms of hotels the guests are reminded of this by large printed placards, but like most laws of the kind it seems made only to be broken. "the tight-wads who kicked against tipping the poor colored servants now have the law on their side and can get out of it gracefully, but the people who tip because they feel that the servants have earned some little acknowledgment of their faithful services, go on tipping just as though no law had been made," said zebedee, as he slipped some silver under the side of his plate in view of the watching darky, who pounced upon it with a practiced hand, while making a feint of removing finger bowls. "i am going to turn you girls loose now to find your way around and seek out the wonders of charleston. i have work to do and politicians to see." "all right! don't worry about us!" tweedled the twins. "i want to get a map of the city first," said dee, "so we can get our bearings," but dum and i cried down this project. "let's find out things for ourselves and then get a map and guide book to verify us. it's lots more fun to go at it that way." "well, all i know is that this hotel is on meeting street, and on our right is church street and on our left king. the street under your window is queen, and if you walk south down meeting you come to the battery. you can't get lost and can't get in any trouble unless you try to climb the spiked fences or get over the walls covered with broken bottles. i'll meet you at luncheon at one," and zebedee took himself off to find out things from some of the political lights of the city. we were left to our own devices. the sun had come out and if we had not been in the rain we would not have believed it could have come down in such torrents only a short while ago. our dresses did not spot. "let's not go in any place this morning but just walk around and see from the outside. it would be low of us to do the graveyards and things without zebedee. he loves those things and will want to see them," said dee. it was a strange taste for one so cheerful, but it was the truth that mr. tucker was especially fond of poking around musty old churches and reading epitaphs on tombstones. we walked to st. michael's, looking longingly through the iron gates at the quaint old tombstones, but refrained from going in for zebedee's sake. we passed many beautiful old houses, some of them in perfect repair, brave in fresh paint, with trimmed hedges and gravel walks in their lovely old gardens that we could see by peering through the wrought-iron gates. some of the houses, though, looked as though they had not been painted since the revolution, and their gardens were grown up with weeds, with ragged, untrimmed hedges and neglected paths. almost every house, big or little, boasts a southern gallery or porch. the houses are built right on the street, but the large door opens from the street to the porch and not to the house. the gardens are to the side and back, and, as a rule, are surrounded by great brick walls with either iron spikes across the top or ferocious broken bottles cemented to the bricks. the windows, opening on the street, are kept shuttered closely, and iron bars give you to understand that there is no breaking into charleston society by night or day. the corners of the houses, where the porches are, also are protected from possible interlopers by great iron spikes, a foot long and sharp enough to pierce the hide of a rhinoceros. the porches are also shuttered, partly to protect the inmates from the rude gaze of the passer-by and partly to protect them from the ruder gaze of the southern sun. there was almost no one on the street. the charleston men had gone to their places of business, leisurely to pursue a desultory living, and charleston ladies do not go on the street in the morning, so we were afterwards told. we met several darkies crying their wares and saw an occasional housewife making a furtive purchase from some of these hucksters. these ladies, we judged, only came out because their establishments did not boast servants. as a rule, however, the old cooks seemed to do the buying. the charleston darky has a very peculiar lingo, so peculiar, in fact, that tweedles and i found it difficult to understand. it is very different from the speech of our virginia negroes. they seem to clip the words off very short, and their voices are lighter and higher than our colored people's. a shrimp seller was very interesting to us. we did not know what he had or what he was calling, and followed him down the street trying to find out. he held up high on his open hand a great flat basket and he sounded as though he were trying to give a college yell: "rah, rah, rah, shrimpy! rah, rah, shrimpy! rah!" "what on earth are you selling?" asked dum. "rah shrimp! rah shrimp! buysome, missy! buysome, missy!" then we saw his squirming wares and understood. "but we couldn't do anything with raw shrimps," we declared regretfully. "well den, missy lak nig sing fer heh?" "why, yes, that would be fine," and the boy held high his basket of squirming raw shrimps and sang in a strange falsetto the following song: "shrimpy, shrimpy; rah, rah, shrimpy! who wants shrimp ter-day? when you hear de shrimp man holler, better come dis way. "shrimpy, shrimpy; rah, rah, shrimpy! sho' i'll heap de plate. ain't i see my gal dere waitin' stannin' by de gate? "shrimpy, shrimpy; rah, rah, shrimpy! all de cooks in town, when i holler 'i got shrimpy' mus' be tunnin' roun'." we applauded him vigorously and each one gave him a dime, thereby doing a very foolish thing, as ever after during our stay in charleston we were pursued by the little darkies who wanted to sing to us. chapter vi through the grille none of us had ever been so far south before and the palmetto trees were a great astonishment to us. "they don't look natural to me, somehow," declared dum, "but kind of manufactured. the trunks with that strange criss-cross effect might have been made by kindergarten children and as for the leaves--i don't believe they are real." "it does seem ridiculous for people to have these great things twenty feet high, growing in their back yards when we nurse them with such care at home and are so proud if we can get one to grow three feet. mammy susan has a palm, 'pa'm' she calls it, that she has tenderly cared for for four years and it is only about up to my waist now. i wish she could see these trees." "i feel like the lady from minnesota who came on a visit to richmond and was so overcome by the magnolia trees. she remarked: 'i have never seen such large rubber plants.' but don't these palmetto trees have a strange swishy sound? they make me feel like 'somebody's a-comin',' kind of creepy." dee was peering into a garden belonging to one of the old houses that had not known paint since the revolution. the garden, however, was not neglected but evidently cared for with loving hands. there were borders of snowdrops and violets; purple and white hyacinths primly marked the narrow gravel walk, and clumps of rhododendron and oleander were so well placed that one felt that a landscape gardener must have had the planting of them. two large palmetto trees stood like sentinels on each side of the wrought-iron gate, which was hung from great square brick pillars. a massive brick wall surrounded the garden with an uninviting coping of ferocious spikes. we had our faces close to the grille trying to see a little more of the garden while the above conversation was going on. all of us longed to get in like alice in wonderland. how to do it was the problem! if that we could see was so enchanting, what we couldn't see must be even more so. "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore ye pipes play on." no doubt it was very rude of us to stand there peering in, but we were so enthralled by the beauty of the garden and so filled with the desire to get in that we forgot mr. manners entirely. just as dee said that the palmetto trees made her feel like somebody was coming, somebody did come. we heard a voice, a very irate voice indeed, behind the wall declaiming in masculine tones: "there is no use in discussing the matter further, claire! i tell you i shall never give my consent to louis' going into such a profession. planting gardens, forsooth! that is work for negroes, negroes directed by women." "but, papa, it is a very honorable profession, and louis has such a love for flowers and such marvelous taste in arranging them. just see what he has done for our garden! he could do the same for others, and already he is being sought by some of the wealthy persons of charleston to direct the planting of their gardens." the second voice evidently belonged to a young girl. there was a sweet girlishness about it and the soft, light accent of the charlestonian was very marked. i don't know how to give an idea of how she said charleston, but there was no r in it and in its place i might almost put an i. "chailston" is as near as i can come and that seems 'way off. "bah! pish! _nouveau riches! parvenues!_ what business have they to ask a gaillard to dig in their dirt? it is not many generations since they have handled picks themselves and now they want to degrade one of the first charleston families." "but, papa, what is he to do? louis is nineteen and you know there is no money for college. he cannot be idle any longer. he must have a profession." it was a strange thing that three girls who prided themselves on being very honorable should have deliberately stopped there and listened to a conversation not intended for their ears, but in talking over the matter later we all agreed that we did not realize what we were doing. it seemed like a bit out of a play, somehow: the setting of the garden, the strange ante-bellum sentiments of the old gentleman and all. "what is he to do? there have never been but three ways for a gentleman to earn a living: the church, law, the army. now, of course, the last avenue is closed to a southern gentleman as he could hardly ally himself with the enemies of his land. the church and the law are all that are left for one of our blood. since, as you are so quick to inform me, there is no money for louis to go to college and a degree is quite necessary for one expecting to advance himself by practice of law, i see nothing for him to do but go into the ministry." "louis be a preacher, papa! why, he has not the least calling." "he has more calling to occupy a pulpit than to be down on his hands and knees planting gardens for these vulgar yankees." "but, papa, what pulpit? are we not huguenots? has not louis been brought up in that faith and how could he preach any other? the huguenot church here is the only one in the united states, and it has only forty members, and you know yourself now that so many of those members live in other cities that we often have a congregation of only six, counting our own family. there certainly is no room for him in that pulpit." and then the old man did what men often do when they are worsted in an argument, he became very masculine and informed the girl that she had much better attend to her household duties and leave man's business to man. "but, papa, i must say one more thing,--i think louis is very despondent and needs encouragement. he hates to be idle and he is forced to be. i was shocked by his appearance this morning. i am very sorry i went on the visit to aunt maria. i am afraid he has needed me." papa gave a snort and then we had a shock. he had evidently walked away from claire in disgust, and suddenly there loomed in sight a familiar low-cut waistcoat enveloping the portly embonpoint of our early morning companion in the bus. we did not wait to see his double chin. the glimpse we had of the low-cut vest made us beat a hasty retreat. we walked down the street with what dignity we could assume. "i'm pretty ashamed of myself," said dum. "me, too! me, too!" from dee and me. "i don't know what made us stay and listen, it was so thrilling somehow. aren't you sorry for claire? and poor louis! to think of having only one profession open to you and that to be preaching to six persons including your own family." "yes, and no doubt there is already an incumbent," i suggested. "i'd love to know claire. didn't she sound spunky and at the same time respectful. i hope she can bring the old fat gentleman around." "she might bring him around, but she can't get around him, he's too fat," laughed dee. "i tell you i'd like to know louis. i fancy he must be interesting. isn't their name romantic? gaillard sounds like it ought to go with poignard: louis gaillard drew his poignard and defended himself from the cannaille." "isn't it funny that we should have peeped into the very garden belonging to the pretty rumpled girl in the bus? now i s'pose we will run against the pale old dames in the crãªpe veils." i had hardly spoken before we did run against the very old ladies. they had darted out of a large shabby old house about a block from the gaillard's home and were in the act of purchasing "rah, rah, rah, shrimpy! shrimpy! rah, rah, rah!" their veils were off now but they still had an air of being shrouded in crãªpe, although their dresses were made of black calico. it seemed to take two of them to buy a dime's worth of shrimps, and the shrimp vender stood patiently by while they picked over his wares. "they are quite small, sam," complained the taller of the two. "yes, miss laurens, but yer see dese hyar is shrimpys, dey ain't crabs, nor yit laubsters." "poor things! i just know they have a hard time getting along," sighed dee. "they look so frail and underfed. just look back at their house! it is simply huge. and look at their porches! big enough for skating rinks! do you suppose those two little old ladies live there all by themselves?" "i fancy they must have a lot of servants," ventured dum. "of course they haven't any or they wouldn't be buying shrimps themselves. they live all alone in that great house and eat a dime's worth of shrimps a day. they have just been off burying their last relative who did not leave them a small legacy that they have, in a perfectly decent and ladylike way, been looking forward to. i have worked out their whole plot and mean to write 'em up some day." "oh, page, you are so clever! do you really think that is the truth about them? what are they going to do now?" asked dum. "do? why, of course they are going to take boarders, 'paying guests.' don't you know that there are only two ways for a charleston lady to make a living? the men have three according to his eminence of the tum tum. women as usual get the hot end of it and there are only two for them: taking boarders and teaching school." "well, i only wish we could go board there. i am dying to get into one of these old houses. i bet they are lovely. did you notice they had an ugly, new, unpainted, board gate? i wonder where their wrought-iron one is. they must have had one sometime. their house looks as though a beautiful gate must have gone with it." dum had an eye open for artistic things and the iron gate had taken her fancy more than anything we had yet seen in charleston. "when i write them up i am going to use that, too, in my story. of course they sold the gate to some of the _parvenu_ yankees, that the old gentleman scorned so. i can write a thrilling account of their going out at night to bid the beautiful gates good-by forever, those gates that had played such an important part in their lives. through their portals many a coach (claret-colored, i think, i will have the coaches be) has rolled, bearing to their revels the belles of the sixties. (everyone in the sixties was a belle.) i have an idea that the smaller miss laurens was once indiscreet enough to kiss her lover through the bars of that gate but the taller one never got further than letting her young man lightly touch her lily hand with his lips." "oh, page, you are so ridiculous to make up all of that about two snuffy old ladies. now i want you to write a real story about claire and her brother louis. i am sure they are interesting without making up. i still wish i could see louis. i'd tell him to spunk up and go dig for the nice people all he wants to. i know they are nice if they are only twice removed from a pick and shovel, according to old mr. gaillard," said dee, ever democratic. we had reached the battery, a beautiful spot with fine live-oaks and palmettos. spanish moss hung in festoons from some of the trees. it was the first any of us had seen. "they say it finally kills the trees if too much of it grows on them, but it is certainly beautiful," said dum. "it is like these old traditions, worn out and senseless; a few of them are all right and give a charm to the south, but when they envelop one as they do his eminence of the tum tum they simply prove deadly," philosophized dee. "good for you, dee! please remember what you have just said and when i get home i'm going to put it in my note book. it would come in dandy in the story i am going to write about the old ladies and their gate." i had started a note book at the instigation of mr. tucker, who said it might prove invaluable to me in after years if i meant to write. i believe charleston is the only city in the united states that has a direct view of the ocean. you can look straight out from the battery between fort sumter and sullivan's island to the open sea. fort moultrie is on sullivan's island and on the battery is a fine statue of sergeant jasper who stands with hand extended, pointing to the fort where he so gallantly rescued and replaced the flag, with the words: "we cannot fight without a flag!" fort sumter is a spot made famous by the war between the states. it was bombarded in 1861 and i believe is noted as having stood more bombarding than any port in history up to the time of port arthur. "now don't you wish we had a guide book and map? i want to know what those places are out in the harbor. next time i am going to do my way!" exclaimed dee, but a kindly park policeman, the only living creature on the battery, told us all we could have got out of a guide book and more perhaps. he pointed out where the steps had been that princess louise descended to embark with her brilliant cortã¨ge after her memorable visit to charleston in '83. he showed us sullivan's island, nothing more than a misty spot on the horizon, where poe laid the scene of "the gold bug." he led us up to the old gun from the _keokuk_, patting it lovingly and reverently. he was a charming old man and seemed to take a personal interest in everything on the battery. his accent was fine and had the real charleston softness. i wondered if he, too, did not belong to a fine old family and unlike mr. gaillard had discovered that there were more ways than three for a gentleman to earn a living. next he showed us the bust of william gilmore simms, south carolina's great author, novelist, historian, poet. and then he put my mind entirely at rest about his being somewhat out of his element in serving as a park policeman by quoting simms at length in his beautiful poem: "the grape vine swing "lithe and long as the serpent train, springing and clinging from tree to tree, now darting upward, now down again, with a twist and a twirl that are strange to see; never took serpent a deadlier hold, never the cougar a wilder spring, strangling the oak with the boa's fold, spanning the beach with the condor's wing. "yet no foe that we fear to seek, the boy leaps wild to thy rude embrace; thy bulging arms bear as soft a cheek as ever on lover's breast found place; on thy waving train is a playful hold thou shalt never to lighter grasp persuade; while a maiden sits in thy drooping fold, and swings and sings in the noonday shade! "o giant strange of our southern woods! i dream of thee still in the well-known spot, though our vessel strains o'er the ocean floods, and the northern forest beholds thee not; i think of thee still with a sweet regret, as the cordage yields to my playful grasp, dost thou spring and cling in our woodlands yet? does the maiden still swing in thy giant clasp?" what a dear old man he was! we could hardly tear ourselves away, but it was twelve o'clock and we had promised to meet zebedee for a one o'clock luncheon. we told him good-by, and promised to come to see him some more and then made our way along the eastern walk of the battery. the breezes always seem to be high down on the charleston battery, as it is exposed to the four winds of heaven. the sky had clouded over again and quite a sharp little east wind was blowing, whistling rather dismally through the palmetto trees that grow all along the beautiful street that runs beside the waterfront. very handsome houses are on this street, with beautiful gardens. the walls are not so high there, and we wondered if the owners were as aristocratic as those enclosed by high walls. "maybe every generation puts another layer of brick on the wall," suggested dee, and i made a mental reservation that that, too, would go in my notebook about charleston. chapter vii the abandoned hotel as we followed this street, east bay street it is called, we came upon a great old custard-colored house built right on the water's edge so that the waves almost lapped its long pleasant galleries. "isn't this a jolly place?" we cried, but when we got closer to it we decided jolly was certainly not the name for it. the window panes of its many windows were missing or broken. the doors were open and swinging in the strong breeze that seemed to develop almost into a hurricane as it hit the exposed corner of the old custard-colored house. a tattered awning was flapping continuously from one end of the porch, an awning that had been gaily striped once, but now was faded to a dull gray except one spot where it had wrapped itself around one of the columns and in so doing, had protected a portion of itself from the weather to bear witness to its former glory. "what a dismal place! what could it have been?" "it is open! let's go in and see what we can see." "it is positively weird. i am afraid of ghosts in such a place even in broad daylight," i declared half in earnest, but tweedles wanted to go in and i was never one to hang back when a possible adventure was on foot. the creaking door swung in as if propelled by unseen hands and we found ourselves in a hall of rather fine proportions with a broad stairway leading up. doors opening into this hall were also swinging in the wind, so we entered the room to the right, the parlor, of course, we thought. the paper was hanging in shreds from the wall, adding to the dismal swishing sound that pervaded the whole building. from this room we entered another hall that had a peculiar looking counter built on one side. "what do you fancy this thing is for?" demanded dum. "i've got it! i've got it!" exclaimed dee. "this is an old inn or hotel or something and that is the clerk's desk. look, here is a row of hooks for keys and here is a rusty key still hanging on the hook." "it must have been a delightful place to stay with such a view of the harbor and those beautiful porches where one could sit and watch the ships come in. this room next must have been the dining room, and see where there is a little stage! that was for the musicians to sit on," enthused dum. "when they finished supper they put the tables against the wall and danced like this," and dee pirouetted around the dusty, rotting floor. "isn't it awful to let a place like this go to pieces so? i don't believe there is a whole pane of glass in the house, and i am sure no door will stay shut. it's too gloomy for me; let's get out in the street again," i begged. "you can go, but i am going upstairs before i leave. i should think a would-be author would want to see all the things she could, and if there are any ghosts meet them," and dee started valiantly up the creaking stairs. of course dum and i followed. a silence settled on us as we mounted. the wind that had been noisy enough below was simply deafening the higher we got. the paper that was hanging from the ceilings rattled ceaselessly and the wind was tugging at what was still sticking tenaciously to some of the side walls making a strange whistling sound. "gee whiz! i feel like jane eyre!" whispered dum. "no; 'the fall of the house of usher'!" i gasped. "just think of such a place as this being right here in sight of all those grand houses!" "i know it's haunted! i feel a presence!" and dee stopped suddenly on the landing. "who's a 'fraid cat now?" i taunted. "let the would-be author go in front. 'infirm of purpose, give me the dagger!'" at that dee ran lightly on ahead of us and disappeared in a room to the right. we followed in time to see her skirts vanishing through a door beyond. "this must have been the bridal chamber, it is so grand. just look at the view of the harbor through this window," said dum, still whispering, as there was something about the place, a kind of gruesomeness, that made one feel rather solemn. i thought of poe's "haunted palace" and whispered some of the stanzas to dum, for the moment both of us forgetting dee, who had rushed off so precipitately. "'in the greenest of our valleys by good angels tenanted, once a fair and stately palace- radiant palace--reared its head. in the monarch thought's dominion, it stood there; never seraph spread a pinion over fabric half so fair. "'but evil things in robes of sorrow, assailed the monarch's high estate; (ah, let us mourn, for never morrow shall dawn upon him desolate!) and round about his home, the glory that blushed and bloomed is but a dim-remembered story of the old time entombed. "'and travelers now, within that valley, through the red-litten windows see vast forms that move fantastically to a discordant melody; while like a ghastly, rapid river, through the pale door a hideous throng rush out forever, and laugh--but smile no more.'" i had hardly finished the last stanza of what is to me the most ghastly poem in the english language, when a strange blood-curdling shriek was heard echoing through the rattle-trap old house. "dee!" we shouted together and started on a run through the door where we had last seen her new brown suit vanishing. it opened into a long corridor with doors all down the side, evidently bedrooms. numbers were over the doors. all the doors were shut. where was dee? the wind had stopped as quickly as it had started and the old house was as quiet as the grave. "dee! dee!" we called. "where are you, dee?" our voices sounded as though we had yelled down a well. no answer! my eye fastened on the door with no. 13 over it. all of us have some superstitions, and anyone brought up by a colored mammy is certain to have many. "no. 13 is sure to be right," i thought, and pushed open the door. a strange sight met my gaze: dee, with her arms thrown around a youth who crouched on the floor, his face buried in his hands while his whole frame was shaken with sobs! from the chandelier hung a rope with a noose tied in the dangling end, and under it a pile of bricks carefully placed as though some child had been building a house of blocks. the bricks had evidently been taken from among others that were scattered over the hearth near a chimney that had fallen in. our relief at finding dee and finding her unharmed was so great that nothing mattered to us. dee put her finger on her lips and we stopped stock-still. the slender figure of the young man was still convulsed with sobs, and dee held him and soothed him as though he had been a baby and she some grandmother. finally he spoke, with his face still covered: "claire must never know!" claire? then this was louis gaillard! dee had said several times she would like to know him, but she had had no idea of her idle wish being granted so quickly and in such a manner. when the boy said "claire must never know," dee arose to the occasion as only dee could and said in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone: "no, louis, i promise you that claire shall never know from me." this calling him by name at the time did not seem strange to him. he was under such stress of emotion that the use of his christian name by an unknown young girl seemed perfectly natural to the stricken youth. it seems that when dee went on ahead of us while i was so grandiloquently spouting poetry, she had flitted from room to room. the doors had been open all along the corridor except in no. 13. she had had a fancy to close them after each exploration until she had come to 13. on opening that door she had met a sight to freeze her young blood, but instead of freezing her young blood she had simply let out a most normal and healthy yell. louis gaillard was standing on the pile of bricks that he had placed with great precision under the chandelier, and as dee entered he was in the act of fitting the noose around his poor young neck. his plan of course had been to slip the noose and then kick the pile of bricks from under him and there to hang until he should die. the realization of what had occurred came to dum and me without an explanation, which dee gave us later when we could be alone with her. dee, in the meantime, continued to pat the boy's shoulder and hold him tight in her courageous arms until the sobs ceased and he finally looked up. then he slowly rose to his feet. he was a tall, slender youth, every inch of him the aristocrat. his countenance was not weak, just despondent. i could well fancy him to be very handsome, but now his sombre eyes were red with weeping and his mouth trembling with emotion. "i don't know what made me be so wicked," he finally stammered. "i know. you are very despondent over your life. you are tired of idleness and see no way to be occupied because your father opposes the kind of thing you feel yourself fitted to do," and dee, ordinarily the kind of girl who hated lollapalusing, as she called it, took the boy's nerveless hand in both of hers. she said afterwards she knew by instinct that he needed flesh and blood to hang to, something tangible to keep his reason from leaving him. he looked at her wonderingly and she continued: "claire has been away on a trip and while she was gone your father has nagged you. he thinks working in flowers is not the work for a gaillard and wants you to be a lawyer or preacher. you have no money to go to college, and he seems to think you can be a preacher without the education necessary to be a lawyer--which is news to me. you have offers to plant gardens right here in charleston, but your father will not permit you to do it. you have become despondent and have lost appetite and are now suffering from a nervousness that makes you not quite yourself." "but you--how do you know all this?" "i am ashamed to tell you how i know it. i am afraid you will never be able to trust me if you know." "i not trust you! you seem like an angel from heaven to me." "well, first let me introduce my sister and friend to you." dee had a wonderful power of putting persons at their ease and now in these circumstances, to say the least unconventional, she turned and introduced us to mr. louis gaillard with as much simplicity as she would have shown at a tennis game or in a ball-room. he, with the polished manners of his race, bowed low over our proffered hands. all of us ignored the pile of bricks and the sinister rope hanging from the chandelier. "we are twins and this is our best friend, page allison. we have got some real long names, but dum and dee are the names we go by as a rule, dum and dee tucker. we are down here in charleston with our father jeffry tucker, zebedee for short. and now i want you to do us a big favor----" "me? a favor for you?" dee had proceeded rather rapidly and the dazed young man had some difficulty in following her. "yes, a favor! i want you, all of us want you, to come up to the hotel and have lunch with us and meet zebedee. it is lunch time now almost, and we promised to be back in time,--you see, if you come with us, zebedee can't row with us about being late. he will be awfully cut up over our being late--nothing makes him so cross. i know if you are with us he will be unable to rag us. just as soon as he gets something to eat he will be all right." what was dee driving at? zebedee cross! had she caught the young man's malady and gone a little off her hooks? dum and i looked at each other wonderingly--then a light dawned on us: she wanted to get the young man entirely away from this terrible room, and felt if she made him think that he was to go along to protect us from an irate father, he would do it from a sense of chivalry. having more experience with an irate father than any other kind, louis was easily persuaded. "certainly, if i can be of any assistance!" "well, you can! now let's hurry!" chapter viii tucker tact it was quite a walk back to the hotel but we did it in an inconceivably short time. it was only 1.10 as we stepped into the lobby. we walked four abreast wherever the sidewalk permitted it and when we had to break ranks we kept close together and chatted as gaily as usual. louis was very quiet but very courteous. the fresh air brought some color back to his pale cheeks and the redness left his eyes. he was indeed a very handsome youth. he seemed to be in a kind of daze and kept as close to dee as he could, as though he feared if she left him, he might again find himself in the terrible dream from which she had awakened him. what was dee to say to her father? how account for this young man? i was constantly finding out things about the tuckers that astonished me. the thing that was constantly impressing me was their casualness. on this occasion it was very marked. what father would simply accept a situation as zebedee did this one? we three girls had gone out in the morning to his certain knowledge knowing not one single person in the whole city, and here we were coming back late to lunch and bringing with us a handsome, excited looking young man and introducing him as though we had known him all our lives. mr. tucker greeted him hospitably and took him to his room while we went to ours to doll up a bit for lunch. he had no opportunity to ask us where we got him or what we meant by picking up forlorn-looking aristocrats and bringing them home to lunch. he just trusted us. to be trusted is one of the greatest incentives in the world to be trustworthy. anyone with half an eye could see that louis gaillard needed a friend, and could also see that all of us had been under some excitement. zebedee not only had more than half an eye, but was argus-eyed. louis must have been very much astonished at the irate old parent he had been led to expect. mr. tucker never looked younger or more genial. he had had a profitable morning himself, digging up political information that he considered most valuable, and now he was through for the day and had planned a delightful afternoon to be spent with us seeing the sights of charleston. "was anyone in all the world ever so wonderful as our zebedee?" asked dum as she smoothed her bronze black hair and straightened her collar, getting ready for luncheon. "i'm so proud of him, but i knew he would do just this way! not one questioning glance! i know he is on tenter hooks all the time, too. the cat that died of curiosity has got nothing on zebedee. i tell you, page, dum and i will walk into the dining room ahead with louis and you make out you are expecting a letter and stop at the desk and try to put him wise. he is sure to wait for you." "all right! but must i tell him everything? it will take time." "oh, don't go into detail, but just summarize. give a synopsis of the morning in a thumb-nail sketch. you can do it." "i can try." we found mr. tucker and the youth waiting for us in the lobby. the appearance of the guest was much improved by soap and water and a hair brush. whose appearance is not? we started into the dining room, and as per arrangement i had to go back to the desk. zebedee of course went with me, and the twins kept on with louis. "i know you are not expecting a letter but want to tell me what's up," he whispered. "exactly! we were peeping into a garden and overheard the old fat man we saw in the bus this morning telling the pretty daughter that he intended that his son louis should be a preacher at the huguenot church here, where they often have a congregation of only six, boasting a membership of forty, many of them out-of-town members. louis wants to be a landscape gardener, anyhow, to plant gardens, for which he has a great taste, but old tum tum thinks that is beneath the dignity of a gaillard. claire, the daughter, was very uneasy about louis, as he seemed despondent. we were ashamed of having listened. eavesdropping is not our line, but we did it before we knew we were doing it." zebedee smiled, and i went on talking a mile a minute. "we walked around the battery and then went into an old deserted hotel, where all the doors were open and all the windows gone. we wandered around and then went upstairs. "dee left us and went down a long corridor, where the bedrooms were, and when she got to number thirteen she went in and found louis getting ready to hang himself. the rope was on the chandelier, and he had a pile of bricks to stand on. he was putting the noose on his neck when she opened the door, and then she screamed bloody murder, and we heard her and ran like rabbits until we got to thirteen, and i knew it was the right door just because it was thirteen. we found poor louis crouching down on the floor, and dee had her arms around him and was treating him just like a poor little sick kitten. he was sobbing to beat the band, and as soon as he could speak, he said: 'claire must never know!' and then we knew that he was the boy who wanted to plant gardens. dee called him louis and talked to him in such a rational way that he pulled himself together. he seemed like some one out of his head, but we chatted away like we always do, and he kind of found himself. dee asked him to come home to lunch to protect us from your rage at our being late. she knew you wouldn't mind, and she felt that if she put it up to him that way he would think he ought to come. she said you would not give way to anger before strangers. we are mighty proud of you for being so--so--zebedeeish about the whole thing." "two minutes, by the clock!" cried zebedee, when i stopped for breath. "how i wish i had a reporter who could tell so much in such a short time! i am mighty glad you approve of me, for i certainly approve of my girls. now we will go in and eat luncheon and louis shall not know i know a word. i will see what i can do to help him. gee whiz! that would make a great newspaper story, but i am a father first and then a newspaper man." we actually got in and were seated at the table before tweedles and louis had settled on what to order. zebedee pretended to be very hungry and to be angry, and only his sense of propriety with a guest present seemed to hold back his rage at being kept waiting. he acted the irate, hungry parent so well that we almost exploded. louis ate like a starving man. as is often the case after a great excitement, a desire for food had come to him. his appetite, however, was not so much larger than ours. all of us were hungry, and i am afraid the hotel management did not make much on running their place on the american plan. wherever there was a choice of viands, we ordered all of them. "you must know charleston pretty well, mr. gaillard, do you not?" asked our host, when the first pangs of hunger were allayed. "know it? i know every stone in it, and love it. but i do wish you would not call me mr. gaillard." "all right, then, louis! i wonder if you would not show us your wonderful old city this afternoon--that is, all of it we could see in an afternoon. you must not let us take up your time if you are occupied, however." "i haven't a thing to do. i finished at the high school in february, and have nothing to occupy me until the graduating exercises in june. i'd think it a great honor and privilege to show you and the young ladies all i can about charleston," and louis looked his delight at the prospect. "i must let my sister know first, though. she may be wondering where i am." "'phone her!" tweedled the twins. "we haven't a telephone," simply. no telephone! we might have known to begin with that such a modern vulgarity as a telephone would not be tolerated in the house belonging to his eminence of the tum tum. "you have plenty of time to walk down and tell her, and i think it would be very nice if she would consent to come with you. we should be overjoyed to have her join our party," said the ever hospitable zebedee. "i should like that above all things if she can come." of course we knew that the obstacle to her coming would be the old father who would no doubt demand our pedigrees before permitting a member of his family to be seen on the street with us. "mr. tucker, i should like to have a few minutes' talk with you when we finish luncheon." "i am through now, even if these insatiate monsters of mine have ordered pie on top of apple dumpling, so you come on with me, louis, while they finish. no doubt they will be glad to get rid of us so they can order another help all around." "what do you reckon he wants to say to zebedee?" said dee, biting a comfortable wedge out of her pie, which, in the absence of zebedee, she picked up in her fingers to eat as pie should be eaten. "why, he is going to tell him all about this morning. don't you see, he feels that maybe your father will not think he is a reliable person or something; anyhow, he is such a gentleman that he knows the proper thing to do is to make a clean breast of his acquaintance with us." "well, now, how do you know that?" asked dum. "i don't know it. i just imagine it." "do you know, page, i believe you will be an author. you've got so much imagination." "it is just nothing but thinking what you would do in a person's place provided you had the nature of that person. now you are high-minded, too; fancy yourself in louis' place--what would you do?" "go tell zebedee all about it, of course." "exactly! so would anyone if he expected to continue the acquaintance begun in such a strange way." "i want to see louis before he goes for his sister. you see, we never did tell him how we happened to know his name and all about his affairs. i must tell him that and also let him know that we came up in the bus with his father and sister this morning. he can let her know something about us without divulging the terrible thing that came so near happening at the old hotel." dee devoured the last morsel of pie and we went to the parlor, where we found zebedee clasping hands with louis, who was flushed and shiny-eyed but looked very happy. "poor boy!" exclaimed zebedee to me, as dee turned to louis and drew him to a seat by the window. "he has told me the whole thing like the gentleman he is. he says he must have been demented. he has been very nervous lately, and all the time his sister was away his father has nagged him to death, and this morning, evidently after you monkeys listened to the talk in the garden, the old gentleman got him in a corner and pronounced the ultimatum: either law or the ministry. of course, the ministry is out of the question, and the law means years of waiting, even if he had the money to go to college. he could begin and earn a livelihood tomorrow laying out these gardens and planting them, but the obdurate parent says if he does not obey he will withdraw the light of his countenance." "i'd say withdraw it; the sooner the better." "so would i; but i could not give that advice to louis until i know more about him and his people. i hope the sister can come." she did come, although i believe she did not inform her father of what she was going to do. she was more than a year younger than her brother, and he was evidently the pride of her heart. i prayed that she might never know the terrible calamity that had come so near to her life. i believe she could never have breathed a happy breath again as long as she lived if that knowledge had been hers. louis had just told her some virginians whom he had met on the battery--mr. tucker, his two daughters and their friend--had made friends with him, and had asked him to accompany them in their sightseeing expedition and had suggested his bringing her. he let drop that we had arrived that morning in the bus, and she immediately concluded that we were her companions in misery on that wet, bumpy drive. chapter ix churchyards graveyards seemed a strange place to want to spend the afternoon after our experience of the morning, but the cheerful zebedee always made for them, just as a sunbeam seems to be hunting up the dark and gloomy corners. "saint michael's first, as that is the nearest," suggested louis. we entered the churchyard through massive old iron gates, and, turning to the right, followed louis to perhaps the most unique grave stone in the world: the headboard of an old cedar bed. it is a relic of 1770. the story goes that the woman buried there insisted that her husband should go to no trouble or expense to mark her grave. she said that she had been very comfortable in that same bed and would rest very easy under it and that it would soon rot away and leave her undisturbed. she little dreamed that more than a century later that old cedar bed would be preserved, seemingly in some miraculous way, and be intact while stones, reverently placed at the same time, were crumbling away. "it seems like john keats' epitaph: 'here lies one whose name was writ in water.' keats thought he was dead to the world, and see how he lives; and this poor woman's grave is the first one that tourists are taken to see," i mused aloud. "i have often thought about this woman," said claire, in her light, musical voice. "i have an idea that she must have been very hard-worked and perhaps longed for a few more minutes in bed every morning, and maybe the husband routed her out, and when she died perhaps he felt sorry he had not given her more rest." "you hear that, page?" asked dum. "you had better have some mercy on me now. i may 'shuffle off this mortal coil' at any minute, and you will be so sorry you didn't let me sleep just a little while longer." (it had been my job ever since i started to room with the tucker twins to be the waker-up. it was a thankless job, too, and no sinecure.) "see that my little brass bed is kept shiny, zebedee dear." "i wonder why it is that no one ever seems to feel very sad or quiet in old, old graveyards?" i asked, all of us laughing at dum's brass bed. "i think it is because all the persons who suffered at the death of the persons buried there are dead, too. no one feels very sorry for the dead; it is the living that are left to mourn. old cemeteries are to me the most peaceful and cheerful spots one can visit," said zebedee, leaning over to decipher some quaint epitaph. "i think so, too!" exclaimed claire, who had fitted herself into our crowd with delightful ease. "new graves are the ones that break my heart." louis turned away to hide his emotion. he had been too near to the great divide that very morning for talk of new-made graves and the sorrow of loved ones not to move him. there was much of interest in that old burying ground, and louis proved an excellent cicerone. he told us that the church was started in 1752; that the bells and organ and clock were imported from england, and that the present organ had parts of the old organ incorporated in it. the bells were seized during the revolution and shipped and sold in england, where they were purchased by a former charleston merchant and shipped back again. during the civil war they were sent to columbia for safekeeping, but were so badly injured when columbia was burned that they had to be again sent to england and recast in the original mold. they chimed out the hour while louis was telling us about them as though to prove to us their being well worth all the trouble to which they had put the worthy citizens of charleston. "saint philip's next, while we are in the churchly spirit," said louis; "and then the huguenot church." st. philip's was a little older than st. michael's. the chimes for that church were used for making cannon for the confederacy, and for lack of funds up to the present time they have not been replaced. on top of the high steeple is a beacon light by which the ships find their way into the harbor. we had noticed at the hotel, both at our very early breakfast and at luncheon, a very charming couple who had attracted us greatly and who, in turn, seemed interested in us. the man was a scholarly person with kind, brown eyes, a very intelligent, comely countenance, and a tendency to baldness right on top that rather added to his intellectual appearance. his wife was quite pretty, young, and with a look of race and breeding that was most striking. her hair was red gold, and she had perhaps the sweetest blue eyes i had ever beheld. her eyes just matched her blue linen shirtwaist. what had attracted me to the couple was not only their interesting appearance, but the fact that they seemed to have such a good time together. they talked not in the perfunctory way that married persons often do, but with real spirit and interest. as we entered the cemetery of st. philip's, across the street from the church, we met this couple standing by the sarcophagus of the great john c. calhoun. the lady bowed to us sweetly, acknowledging, as it were, having seen us in the hotel. we of course eagerly responded, delighted at the encounter. we had discussed them at length, and almost decided they were bride and groom; at least tweedles had, but i thought not. they were too much at their ease to be on their first trip together, i declared, and of course got called a would-be author for my assertion. "i hear there is a wonderful portrait of calhoun by healy in the city hall," said the gentleman to zebedee, as he courteously moved for us to read the inscription on the sarcophagus. "yes, so i am told, but this young man who belongs to this interesting city can tell us more about it," and in a little while all of us were drawn into conversation with our chance acquaintances. louis led us through the cemetery, telling us anything of note, and then we followed him to the huguenot church, accompanied by our new friends. a huguenot church has stood on the site of the present one since 1667. many things have happened to the different buildings, but the present one, an edifice of unusual beauty and dignity, has remained intact since 1845. the preacher, a dear old man of over eighty, who is totally blind, has been pastor of this scanty flock for almost fifty years. he now conducts the service from memory, and preaches wonderful, simple sermons straight from his kind old heart. "oh, edwin, see what wonderful old names are on these tablets," enthused the young wife--"mazyck, ravenel, porcher, de sasure, huger, cazanove, l'hommedieu, marquand, gaillard----" "yes, dear, they sound like an echo from the old world." "this gaillard is our great, great grandfather, isn't he, louis?" asked claire. "my brother knows so much more about such things than i do." "oh, is your name gaillard?" and then the introductions followed, zebedee doing the honors, naming all of us in turn; and then the gentleman told us that his name was edwin green and introduced his wife. i fancy claire and louis had not been in the habit of picking up acquaintances in this haphazard style, and the sensation was a new and delightful one to them. the tuckers and i always did it. we talked to the people we met on trains and in parks, and many an item for my notebook did i get in this way. zebedee says he thinks it is all right just so you don't pick out some flashy flatterer. of course we never did that, but confined our chance acquaintances to women and children or nice old men, whose interest was purely fatherly. making friends as we had with louis was different, as there was nothing to do but help him; and his sex and age were not to be considered at such a time. "are you to be in charleston long?" asked zebedee of mr. green. "i can't tell. we are fascinated by it, but long to get out of the hotel and into some home." "if i knew of some nice quiet place, i would put my girls there for a few days while i run over to columbia on business. i can't leave them alone in the hotel." "i should love to look after them, if you would trust me," said mrs. green, flushing for fear zebedee might think her pushing. "trust you! why, you are too kind to make such an offer!" exclaimed zebedee. "we have some friends who have just opened their house for--for--guests," faltered claire. "they live only a block from us, and are very lovely ladies. we heard only this morning that they are contemplating taking someone into their home." tweedles and i exchanged glances; mine was a triumphant one. the would-be author had hit the nail on the head again. "their name is laurens." i knew it would be before claire spoke. "oh, miss gaillard, if you could introduce us to those ladies we would be so grateful to you!" said zebedee. "you would like to stay there, wouldn't you, girls?" "yes! yes!" "and mrs. green perhaps will decide to go there, too, and she will look after you, will you not, mrs. green?" "i should be so happy to if the girls would like to have me for a chaperone." "oh, we'd love it! we've never had a chaperone in our lives but once, and she got married," tweedled the twins. and so our compact was made, and claire promised to see the misses laurens in regard to our becoming her "paying guests." mr. green, who, as we found out afterward, was a professor of english at the college of wellington and had all kinds of degrees that entitled him to be called doctor, seemed rather amused at his wife's being a chaperone. "she seems to me still to be nothing but a girl herself," he confided to zebedee, "although we have got a fine big girl of our own over a year old, whom we have left in the care of my mother-in-law while we have this much talked-of trip together." "oh, have you got a baby? do you know, dum and i just stood page down that you were bride and groom!" "molly, do you hear that? these young ladies thought we were newlyweds." "i didn't!" "and why didn't you?" smiled the young wife. "i noticed you gave separate orders at the table and did not have to pretend to like the same things. i believe a bride and groom are afraid to differ on even such a thing as food." "oh, edwin, do you hear that? do you remember the unmerciful teasing kent gave you at fontainbleu because you pretended to like the mustard we got on our roast beef in the little english restaurant, just because i like english mustard?" "yes, i remember it very well, and i also remember lots of other things at fontainbleu besides the mustard." mrs. green blushed such a lovely pink at her husband's words that we longed to hear what he did remember. "kent is my brother--kent brown." "oh! oh!" tweedled the twins. "are you molly brown of kentucky?" "yes, i was molly brown of kentucky." "and did you go to wellington?" i asked. "yes, and i still go there, as my husband has the chair of english at wellington." "girls! girls! to think of our meeting molly brown of kentucky! we have been hearing of you all winter from our teacher of english at gresham, miss ball." "mattie ball! i have known her since my freshman year at college. edwin, you remember mattie ball, do you not?" "of course i do. an excellent student! she had as keen an appreciation of good literature as anyone i know of." "she used to tell us that she owed everything she knew to her professor of english at wellington," said dee, who knew how to say the right thing at the right time, and professor green's pleased countenance was proof of her tact. then mrs. green had to hear all about miss ball and the fire at gresham, which tweedles related with great spirit, laying rather too much stress on my bravery in arousing the school. "i deserve no more credit than did the geese whose hissing aroused the romans in ancient times," i declared. "why don't you tell them how you got miss plympton out of the window in her pink pajamas?" the greens laughed so heartily at our adventures that we were spurred on to recounting other happenings, telling of the many scrapes we had got ourselves in. claire listened in open-eyed astonishment. "it must be lovely to go to boarding-school," she said wistfully. "it sounds lovelier than it is. we tell about the scrapes and the fun, but there are lots of times when it is nothing but one stupid thing after another. it's lots lovelier just to be at home with your father." claire shook her head doubtfully, and, remembering her father, we did not wonder at her differing with dum. "i have always held that home was the place for girls until they were old enough for college," said mrs. green. "that is, if they mean to go to college." "but we don't!" zebedee and professor green had walked on ahead. louis was sticking close to dee, so close that dum whispered to me that he must think she had him on a leash. claire and dum and i were having the pleasure of flocking around mrs. green. "you see, we haven't got a piece of mother among us, and we had to go somewhere, as zebedee--that's our father, you know--had his hands so full of us he couldn't ply his trade of getting out newspapers. dee and i are some improved since we first were sent off to school, and now that gresham is burned, we don't want to break into a new school. i tell you, it is some job to break into a school. page allison lives in the country, and she had to go to boarding-school or not at all." "well, why don't you go to college now? wellington would just suit you, i am sure." "somehow i have never been crazy to go to college. i want to do something else. you see, i want to model. i feel as though i just had to get my hands in clay and form things out of it." "and you?" said the sweet young woman, turning to me. this molly brown of kentucky certainly had the charm of sympathy. you found yourself telling her all kinds of things that you just couldn't help telling her. she seemed so interested, and her eyes were so blue and so true. "oh, i mean to be a writer!" i blurted out. "that's the reason i don't want to go to college. if i am going to write, i had better just write, i think, and not wear myself to a frazzle over higher mathematics." "that's the way i used to feel. the only good i could ever get out of that hated study was just knowing i had done my best. my best seemed so feeble by the side of the real mathematicians that it was a constant mortification to me. i used to call mathematics my hair shirt. no matter how well i got along in other things, i was always conscious of a kind of irritation that i was going to fail in that. i just did squeeze through in the end, and that was by dint of wet towels around my head and coaching and encouragement from my friends. i think it is quite natural to dislike a subject that always makes you appear at your worst. certainly we are not fond of people who put us in that position!" i might have known our new friend would hate mathematics. i have never yet been attracted very much by any woman who did get along very well in it, except, of course, miss cox. i don't mean to say that female mathematicians cannot be just as lovely and charming as any other females, but i mean that i have never hit it off with them, somehow. "what are you going to write?" asked claire. "write short stories and long novels, when i find myself. i'm still flopping around in a sea of words. don't you write, mrs. green? it seems to me miss ball said you did." "yes, i write a little--that is, i write a lot, but i have published only a little. i send and send to magazine after magazine. every mail is an event to me--either it brings back a manuscript or it doesn't bring one, and sometimes it brings an acceptance slip, and then i carry on like one demented. edwin says he is jealous of the postman and wishes uncle sam would have women deliver the mail." "it must be wonderful to get into a magazine. my only taste of it is seeing myself in print in our school paper. don't you write poetry, mrs. green?" "well, i have melted into verse, but i think prose is more in my line. the first money i ever made was a prize for a real estate advertisement in poetry, and of course after that i thought that i must 'lisp in numbers' on all occasions; but it was always lisping. and you--do you write poetry, too?" "yes, she does," broke in dum; "and zebedee thinks it is bully poetry. he said he was astonished that she could do it. and he is a newspaper writer and knows." "i am sure he does. some day we will have a tournament of poetry, and you will show me yours and i will show you mine. and you, miss gaillard? are you counting upon going to college?" mrs. green turned to claire, who had been very quiet as we strolled along church street, on our way to washington park, which is a small enclosure by the city hall. "oh, no, i--i will not pursue my studies any more. i keep house for my father, who does not approve of higher education for women," and the girl sighed in spite of herself. "i could not go, anyhow," she continued, "as louis and papa need me at home." not one word of lack of money, which we knew was an insurmountable obstacle with the gaillards, but i believe a charlestonian would as soon speak of lack of ancestry as lack of money. money is simply something they don't mention except in the bosom of the family. they don't mention ancestry much, either; not nearly as much as virginians do. they seem to take for granted that anyone they are on speaking terms with must be well born or how did they get to be on speaking terms? the gaillards left us at washington park as claire thought she must hurry back to her papa, who no doubt by that time was in a fret and a fume over her long, unexplained absence. mr. gaillard was the type of man who thought a woman's place was in her home from morning until night, and any little excursion she might make from her home must be in pursuit of his, the male's, happiness. claire promised to see the misses laurens and find out from them if we could get board in their very exclusive home. louis asked to be allowed to take us to other points of interest on the morrow, and with feelings of mutual esteem we parted. chapter x the heavenly vision that little park in the heart of charleston is a very delightful spot. it is a tiny park, but every inch of it seems teeming with interest, historical and poetical. in the center is the shaft erected by the washington light infantry to their dead in '61-'65. the obelisk is in three sections of granite, representing the three companies. on the steps of the square pedestal are cut the twelve great battles of the war. zebedee dared us to recite them, but we fell down most woefully, except dum, who named all but secessionville. little darkies were playing on the steps, running around the shaft and shouting with glee as they bumped their hard heads together and rolled down the steps. "black rascals!" exclaimed zebedee. "if it had not been for you, that monument need never have been erected." but the little imps kept up their game with renewed glee, hoping to attract the attention of the tourists. tourists were simply made of pennies, in the minds of the charleston pickaninnies. seeing we had noticed them, they flocked to where we had settled ourselves on some benches facing the monument and began in their peculiar south carolina lingo to demand something of us--what it was it took some penetration to discover. there were five of them, about the raggedest little monkeys i ever saw. their clothes stayed on by some miracle of modesty, but every now and then a streak of shiny black flesh could be glimpsed through the interstices. (i got that word from professor green, which i put down in my notebook for safekeeping.) "do' white fo'ks wan' we-all sin' li'l' song?" "what?" from all of us. "sin' li'l' song! la, la, la, tim chummy loo!" and the blackest and sassiest and most dilapidated of them all opened his big mouth with its gleaming teeth and let forth a quaint chant. "oh, sing us a little song?" and we laughed aloud. "why, yes, we do," assented professor green, "but don't get too close. the acoustics would be better from a short distance, i am sure." "edwin is enough of a yankee not to like darkies coming too close," laughed mrs. green. "you know a northerner's interest in the race is purely theoretical. when it comes right down to it, we southerners are the only ones who really understand them. i remember what one of the leaders of the negroes said: 'a northerner loves the negro but has no use for a nigger, while a southerner can't stand the negro but will do anything on earth for a nigger.'" "that's right, i believe," said zebedee; "but i must say i agree with doctor green, and think under the circumstances that a short distance will help the acoustics." the five song birds formed a half-circle a few feet from us, and, led by the sassy black one, poured forth their souls in melody. the leader seemed to be leader because he was the only one with shoes on. his shoes were ladies' buttoned shoes, much too long and on the wrong feet, which gave their proud possessor a peculiar twisted appearance. having good black legs of his own, he needed no stockings. "it must be a great convenience to be born with black legs," sighed dee. "you can go bare-legged when you've a mind to, and if you should be so prissy as to wear stockings, when they get holes in them they wouldn't show." the following is the song that the little boys sang, choosing it evidently from a keen sense of humor and appreciation of fun: "how yer git on wid yer washin'? 'berry well,' yer say? better charge dem yankee big price fo' dey gits away. dey is come hyar fer de wedder, pockets full ob money. some one got ter do dey washin', glad it's me, my honey. wen i ca'y in de basket, eb'y week i laff des ter see dem plunkin' out dollah an' a ha'f. co'se i ain't cha'ge home fo'ks dat, eben cuff an' collah, tro' in wid dey udder clo's- all wash fer a dollah. soon de yankees will be gone, an' jes de po' fo'ke here; cha'ge dem, honey, all yer kin ter las' yer trou' de year." when they finished this song, which was given in a high, peculiar, chanting tune, the little boy of the shoes began to dance, cutting the pigeon wing as well as it had ever been done on a vaudeville stage, i am sure, while the other four patted with such spirit and in such excellent time that zebedee got up and danced a little _pas seul_, and mrs. green declared it was all she could do to keep from joining him. "i learned to jig long before i did to waltz," she said, "and i find myself returning to the wild when i hear good patting." "so did i," i said; "tweedles can pat as well as a darky. we will have a dancing match some day, too." the minstrels were remunerated beyond their dreams of avarice, and cantered off joyfully to buy groun'-nut cakes from the old mauma on the corner, where she sat with her basket of goodies on her lap, waving her palmetto fan, between dozes, to scare away the flies. "who's the old cove over there with the venus de milo effect of arms?" asked zebedee, pointing to a much-mutilated statue near the meeting street entrance of the park. "why, that's william pitt. louis gaillard told me we would find it here," explained dee. "he said it was erected in seventeen-sixty-nine by the citizens of charleston in honor of his promoting the repeal of the stamp act. his arm got knocked off by a cannon ball in the siege of charleston." "this over here is valentine's bust of henry timrod," called dum from a very interesting-looking bronze statue that had attracted her artistic eye all the time the little nigs were singing. "timrod! oh, edwin, he is the one i am most interested in in all south carolina," and mrs. green joined dum to view the bust from all angles. of course, all of us followed. "'through clouds and through sunshine, in peace and in war, amid the stress of poverty and the storm of civil strife, his soul never faltered,'" read mrs. green from the inscription on the monument of one of the truest poets of the south. "'to his poetic mission he was faithful to the end. in life and in death he was "not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."'" i whipped out my little notebook and began feverishly to copy the tribute. i found mrs. green doing the same thing in a similar little book. "'not disobedient to the heavenly vision'! i should like to have such a thing on my monument. i used to think that just so i could make a lot of money i wouldn't mind what kind of stuff i wrote; but now i do want to live up to an ideal," she exclaimed to me. "do you feel that way?" "i don't know whether i do or not. i don't believe i could stand the stress of having my manuscript rejected time after time and the storm of returning it again and again. i am afraid i'd be willing to have written the elsie books just to have made as much money as they say the author of them has made. i know that sounds pretty bad, but----" "i understand, my dear. i fancy my feeling as i do is something that has come to me just because the making of money is not of as much importance to me as it used to be. there was a time in my girlhood when i would have written elsie books or even worse with joy just to make the money." "i can't quite believe it. you look so spirituelle, and i believe you have always been obedient to the heavenly vision." "look on this side," said my new friend, laughing and blushing in such a girlish way that it seemed ridiculous to talk of her girlhood as though it had passed. "this inscription is more utilitarian: "'this memorial has been erected with the proceeds of the recent sale of a very large edition of the author's poems, by the timrod memorial association, of south carolina.' "and then: "'genius, like egypt's monarch, timely wise, erects its own memorial ere it dies.' "oh, edwin, look! here is the ode that mother sings to little mildred, here on the back of the monument. mildred is my baby, you know," she said, in explanation to us, "and mother sings the most charming things to her." "please read it to us, molly; i didn't bring my glasses." that is what professor green said, but when we had known him longer we found out he was not so very dependent on glasses that he could not read an inscription carved in one-inch letters, but that he always made his wife read aloud when he could. when she read poetry, it was music, indeed. it seems he first realized what he felt for her when she read the "blessed damosel" in his class at college. he had been her instructor, as he had miss ball's. "this ode of timrod's was sung for the first time on the occasion of decorating the graves of the confederate dead at magnolia cemetery, here in charleston, in sixty-seven, so i am told." no wonder professor edwin wanted his molly to read the poem! her voice was the most wonderfully sympathetic and singularly fitted to the reading of poetry that i have ever heard. i longed for my father to hear her read. he could make me weep over poetry when i would go dry-eyed through all kinds of trouble, and now mrs. green had the same power: "'sleep sweetly in your humble graves, sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; though yet no marble column craves the pilgrim here to pause. "'in seeds of laurel in the earth the blossom of your fame is blown, and somewhere, waiting for its birth, the shaft is in the stone! "'meanwhile, behalf the tardy years which keep in trust your storied tombs, behold! your sisters bring their tears, and these memorial blooms. "'small tributes! but your shades will smile more proudly on these wreaths today, than when some cannon-moulded pile shall overlook this bay. "'stoop, angels, hither from the skies! there is no holier spot of ground than where defeated valor lies, by mourning beauty crowned!'" we were all very quiet for a moment and then st. michael's bells rang out six-thirty o'clock, and in spite of poetical emotions we knew the pangs of hunger were due and it was time for dinner. we were to sit together at a larger table that evening at dinner, to the satisfaction of all of us. "it is a mutual mash," declared dee, when we went to our room to don dinner clothes. "the greens seem to like us, and don't we just adore the greens, though!" "i believe i like him as much as i do her," said dum. "of course, he is not so paintable. she makes me uncertain whether i want to be a sculptor or a painter. i have been thinking how she would look in marble, and while she has good bones, all right, and would show up fine in marble, she would certainly lose out if she had to be pure white and could not have that lovely flush and those blue, blue eyes and that red-gold hair." "i don't see why you talk about mrs. green's bones!" exclaimed dee, rather indignantly. "i can't see that her bones are the least bit prominent." "well, goose, i mean her proportions. beauty, to my mind, does not amount to a row of pins if it is only skin deep; it's got to go clean through to the bones." "well, i don't believe it. i bet you mrs. green's skeleton would look just like yours or mine or miss plympton's or anybody else's." "you flatter yourself." "well, girls," i cried, feeling that pacific intervention was in order, "there's no way to prove or disprove except by x-ray photography so long as we have mrs. green on this mundane sphere. i certainly would not have a row over it. mrs. green's bones are very pleasingly covered, to my way of thinking." "they are beautiful bones, or their being well covered would not make any difference. just see here"--and dum began rapidly sketching a skull and then piling up hair on it and putting in a nose and lips, etc.--"can't you see if the skull is out of proportion with a jimber jaw and a bulging forehead that all the pretty skin on earth with hair like gold in the sunset would not make it beautiful?" "well, i know one thing," put in dee: "i know you could take a hunk of clay and start to make a mouse and then change your mind and keep on piling clay on, and shaping it, and patting it, and moulding it until you had turned it into a cat. if you can do that much, i should like to know why the almighty couldn't do the same thing. couldn't he start with chunky bones, and then fill them out and mould the flesh, pinching in here and plumping out there until he had made a tall and slender person?" "dee, you make me tired--you argue like a sunday school superintendent who is thinking about turning into a preacher. the idea of the almighty's changing his mind to start out with! don't you know that from the very beginning of everything the almighty has planned our proportions, such as they are, and he would no more put a little on here and pull a little off there than he would start to make a mouse and turn it into a cat?" "all right, if you think a beauty doctor can do more than the almighty, then i think your theology needs looking after." "i know one thing," i said: "i know it is after seven and you will keep your father waiting for his dinner when we already kept him waiting for his luncheon. the greens are to have dinner with us, and it is mighty rude to keep them waiting." tweedles hurriedly got into their dinner dresses and were only ten minutes late, after all. "what made you girls so late?" demanded zebedee, when we were seated around the table, encouraging our appetites with soup, which is what the domestic science lecturers say is all that soup does. "we were having a discussion, dum and i. page was the dove of peace, or we would be going it yet." "tell us what the discussion was about and we will forgive you," said professor green. "it was about mrs. green's bones," blurted out dum. "my bones! i thought i had them so well covered that casual observers would not be conscious of them," laughed the beautiful skeleton, who was radiant in a gray-blue crãªpe de chine dress that either gave the selfsame color to her eyes or borrowed it from them, one could never make out which. "oh, we did not mean you were skinny," and dum explained what the trend of the argument had been, much to the amusement of the owner of the bones in question and also of her husband and zebedee. "miss dum's argument reminds me of something that du maurier says in that rather remarkable little book, 'trilby,'" said professor green. "he says that trilby's bones were beautiful, and even when she was in the last stages of a wasting disease, the wonderful proportion of her bones kept her beautiful." "there now, dee, consider yourself beaten!" and dee acknowledged her defeat by helping dum to the heart of the celery. we had a merry dinner and found our new friends as interesting as they seemed to find us. we discussed everything from shakespeare to the movies. professor green was not a bit pedagogic, which was a great comfort. persons who teach so often work out of hours--teach all the time. if preachers and teachers would join a union and make a compact for an eight-hour workday, what a comfort it would be to the community at large! "edwin, miss allison----" "please call me page!" "well, then, page--it certainly does come more trippingly on my tongue--page is meaning to write, and she, too, is putting things down in a notebook." "i advised that," said mr. tucker. "it seems to me that if from the beginning i had only started a notebook, i would have a valuable possession by now. as i get older my memory is not so good." when zebedee talked about getting older it always made people laugh. he sounded somehow as little boys do when they say what they are going to do when they put on long pants. i fancy he and professor green were about the same age, but he certainly looked younger. he must have been born looking younger than ever a baby looked before, and eternal youth was his. "i know a man in new york, newspaper man, who began systematically keeping a scrap-book when he was a youth. he indexed it and compiled it with much care, and now that he is quite an old man he actually gets his living--and a very good living at that--out of that scrap-book," declared zebedee. "he has information at hand for almost any subject, and the kind of intimate information one would not find in an encyclopedia. he will get up an article on any subject the editors demand, and that kind of handy man commands good pay." "it is certainly a good habit to form if you want to do certain kinds of writing, but it takes a very strong will for a writer of fiction who runs a notebook not to be coerced by that notebook. i mean in this way: make the characters do certain things or say certain things just to lead up to some anecdote that the author happens to have heard and jotted down in his notebook. anecdotes in books should happen just as naturally as they do in life: come in because there is some reason for them. the author who deliberately makes a setting for some good story that has no bearing on the subject-matter is a bore just as the chronic joke-teller is. if you can see the writer leading up to a joke, can see the notebook method too plainly, it is bad art. i'd rather have puns--they are at least spontaneous." "please lend me your pencil, zebedee," i entreated. "what are you going to do with it?" "write down what professor green has just said in my notebook. i think some day it may come in handy." "you mean as a warning to all young authors?" questioned the professor. "oh, no, i think i may have my characters all sitting around a table at a hotel in charleston and gradually work up to the point and have some one get it off." and mrs. green, also an advocate of the notebook system as a memory jogger, applauded me for my sauciness to her wise husband. chapter xi the guitar "page," whispered dee to me, "do you know, i can't sleep tonight unless i know that the awful rope hanging to that chandelier has been taken away. i have a terrible feeling that louis might get despondent again and go back there and try to do the same thing. i can't call the thing by name--it seems so horrible." i knew that dee was still laboring under quite a strain. during dinner she had been very quiet, and now that we had adjourned to the pleasant courtyard on which the dining room opened, where the gentlemen were indulging in coffee and cigars and the rest of us were contenting ourselves with just coffee, she seemed to be nervous and fidgety. zebedee noticed it, too, and every now and then i caught him watching her with some anxiety. to catch a young man in the nick of time and keep him from making away with himself is cause for congratulation but not conducive to calmness, when one happens to be only seventeen and not overly calm at that. "why don't you tell your father?" i whispered back. "he'll think i am silly, and then, too, i don't want him to think that i think louis is likely to repeat his performance. it might give him an idea that louis is weak and make him lose interest in him. i don't consider him weak, but he is so down in the mouth there is no telling how the thing will work out. can't you make up some plan? couldn't we sneak off and go down there? would you be afraid?" "afraid! me? you know i am not afraid on the street, but i must say that old custard-colored house is some gruesome." while i was wavering as to whether i could or couldn't go into the deserted hotel at night with no one but dee, professor green proposed that all of us should take a walk down on the battery. "there is a wonderful moon rising this minute over there in the ocean and not one soul to welcome it." so we quickly got into some wraps, as we remembered what a breeze could blow on the battery, and dee concealed under her coat her electric flashlight and i put my scissors in my pocket. "we can shake the crowd and get our business attended to without anyone's being the wiser," i whispered. a place that is ugly by day can be beautiful by moonlight, and a place that is beautiful by day can be so wonderful by moonlight that it positively hurts like certain strains of the violin in the "humoresque" or tones of a great contralto's voice. charleston on that night was like a dream city. we passed old st. michael's churchyard, where the old cedar bed loomed like a soft, dark shadow among the white tombstones. "how it shows up even at night!" said zebedee. "it reminds me of what a friend of mine once said: that the way to make yourself heard in a noisy crowd and to attract the attention of everyone is to whisper. the noisy crowd will be quiet in a moment and everybody will try to hear what you are saying. the low-toned whisper of that old bedstead is heard above all the clamor of the snow-white, high-toned tombstones." "humph! isn't our pa poetical tonight!" teased dum. "i should say i am! i bet you are, too, but you are too old to confess it. i glory in it." we turned down tradd street to legare, which is, i fancy, the most picturesque street in the united states. we had learned that afternoon to pronounce legare properly. we had naturally endeavored to give it the finest french accent, but were quietly put on the right track by claire gaillard. "lagree" is the way, and now we aired our knowledge to the greens, who were pronouncing it wrong just as we had. "tradd street was named for the first male child born in the colony, so the guide-book tells me," said mrs. green. "if there were any females born, they did not see fit to commemorate the fact." "perhaps the early settlers did not consider the female of the race anything to be walked on--maybe they were not the downtrodden sex that they are in the present day. a street is no good except to walk on or ride over, and surely a female's name would not be appropriate for such an object. my wife is very jealous for the rights of women, whether they be alive or dead," said professor green. "they might at least name something after us besides things to eat. sally lunn and lady baltimore cake are not much of a showing, to my mind," laughed mrs. green. "there's elizabethan ruff, and de medici collar, and queen anne cottage, and alice blue," i suggested. "yes, and catherine wheels, and minnie balls, and molly-coddles----" "i give up! i give up! i was thinking of charleston and the first male baby." and so we chatted on as we turned the corner into legare. we soon came to the beautiful smyth gateway and then to the simonton entrance. they vie with each other in beauty of design. the shutters of all the houses on the street were tightly closed, although it was a very mild evening, but we could hear light laughter and gay talk from some of the walled gardens; and occasionally through the grilles we caught glimpses of girls in light dresses seated on garden benches among the palmettos and magnolias, their attendant swains behaving very much as attendant swains might behave in more prosaic surroundings. "i can't think of the girls who live in these walled gardens as ever being dressed in anything but diaphanous gauze, playing perhaps with grace hoops or tossing rose leaves in the air," said the professor. "it seems like a picture world, somehow." "yes, but behind the picture no doubt there is a dingy canvas and even cobwebs, and maybe it is hung over an ugly old scar on the paper and has to stay there to hide the eye-sore--there might even be a stovepipe hole behind it," i said, sadly thinking of the gaillards and how picturesque they were and what sad things there were in their lives. "mercy, how forlorn we are!" exclaimed zebedee. "let's cheer up and merrily sing tra-la! right around the corner here on king street is the old pringle house. they say there has been more jollity and revel in that mansion than almost anywhere in the south." the pringle house looked very dignified and beautiful in the mellow light that the moon cast over it. it is of very solid and simple design, with broad, hospitable door and not quite so formidable a wall as some of its neighbors; at least one can see the entrance without getting in a flying machine. "ike marvel was married in that front parlor there--the room to the right, i believe it was," said professor green. "i wonder if he wrote his 'reveries of a bachelor' before or after the ceremony?" "i'd like to get in there and poke around," i sighed. "and so should i," chimed in mrs. green. "i am sure it is full of possible plots and counterplots for you and me, my dear." "do you young ladies know where the misses laurens live?" questioned the professor. "we might take a view of our possible abode as 'paying guests' and see how it looks by moonlight." and so we left the pringle house and wended our way back to meeting street, where we had only that morning seen the pale, sad ladies buying ten cents' worth of shrimps and regretting that they were not as big as lobsters. we hoped when they got the paying guests they would not be quite so economical in their purchases. the house was still and dark except for a gleam of light from an upper chamber. "a wax candle, i'll be bound, in an old silver candlestick!" i thought. the unpainted board gates were uncompromisingly ugly by moonlight as well as by day; but the old house with its long galleries and chaste front door was even more beautiful. "oh, edwin, do you think we will really get into that house? it is to me even lovelier than the much-vaunted pringle place. but how sad about these gates! they look so new and ugly." "page has a lovely story she has made up about the gates," said dum. dee was still quiet, with little to say on that moonlight walk. "she is sure the pale old ladies sold them for a fabulous sum to some rich yankee. she also says she knows the younger and less pale of the old ladies used to kiss her beau through the grille of the old wrought-iron gate----" "beau! why, dum tucker, i never used such a word in connection with an inmate of this old aristocratic mansion! i said lover. beau, indeed! i should as soon think of saying she was chewing gum or doing something else equally plebeian." "hush! listen! i hear a guitar," from zebedee. from the stillness of the garden behind the high brick wall where the ugly board gate flaunted its newness we could hear the faint twanging of a guitar. it sounded faint and cracked, but very sweet and true, and then a plaintive old soprano voice began to sing. we were afraid to breathe or move. it had the quality of a lunar rainbow it was once my joy and privilege to behold: a reflection of a reflection, the raindrops reflecting the moon, the moon reflecting the sun. i can give no idea of that experience without repeating the song she sang. i could not remember it, and had never seen it in print, but professor green, who seemed to be a person who knew many things worth while knowing, told us it was a poem of dinah maria mulock craik's, called "in our boat." he sent me a copy of it after we got back to richmond: "'stars trembling o'er us and sunset before us, mountains in shadow and forests asleep; down the dim river we float on forever, speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep. "'come not, pale sorrow, flee till tomorrow; rest softly falling o'er eyelids that weep; while down the river we float on forever, speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep. "'as the waves cover the depths we glide over, so let the past in forgetfulness sleep, while down the river we float on forever, speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep. "'heaven shine above us, bless all that love us; all whom we love in thy tenderness keep! while down the river we float on forever, speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep.'" nobody said a word. we softly crept down the street. "now you understand how we happened to listen when claire and her father were talking," i whispered to zebedee. "it seemed no more real than this old lady's song did." zebedee wiped his eyes. of course the song and its setting had made all the tuckers weep. molly brown was not dry-eyed, and one might have spied a lunar rainbow in my eyes, too. chapter xii moral courage the battery was wonderful, wonderful, and out of all whooping. the moon was high up over the water, having made her dã©but sooner than professor green had calculated. the tide was coming in, or rather rolling in, and every wave seemed to rise up to catch a little kiss from the moon. the palmettos were, as is their way, rustling and waving their leaves like ladies of olden times in swishing silks using their fans as practiced flirts. the live-oaks did very well as cavaliers bending gallantly to catch the tender nothings of the coquettes. the spanish moss on one particularly twisted oak hung like a great beard from the chin of some ancient, and as the slender palmetto swayed in the breeze and waved her tresses provokingly near, the gray beard mingled with them for a moment. "the old rip!" exclaimed zebedee to me. "why, i was just thinking that! it does look just like an old man." mr. tucker and i, as no doubt i have remarked before, often came out with exactly the same thought almost as though we were able to read each other's minds. "of course she should not have led him on if she did not want to be kissed. she certainly came very near chucking him under the chin. a girl can't expect a man to withstand temptation forever. just because a man is looked upon as a gray-bearded loon is no sign he feels like one." the others had gone on ahead and were standing under the monument of sergeant jasper, who was still patiently pointing to fort moultrie. "do you think it is a girl's fault always if a man kisses her?" "well, no, not exactly. i certainly don't think it is a girl's fault for being kissable--but it seems to me her instinct might tell her when she is getting too kissable and she might--wear a veil--or do something to protect the poor man a little." "why should he not put on smoked glasses or look the other way? i can't see that it is up to the poor palmetto." "perhaps you are right," he said, more soberly, it seemed to me, than the conversation warranted. "i am going to columbia tomorrow," rather sullenly. "are you, really? tweedles and i are going to miss you terribly. we do wish you didn't have to go." "'we'! can't you ever say i? do you have to lump yourself with dum and dee about everything?" what a funny, cross zebedee this was! i looked at him in amazement. he was quite wild-eyed, with a look on his face that was new to me. if i had not known that he was a teetotaler, or almost one, i might have thought he had been drinking. i must have presented a startled appearance, for in a moment he pulled himself together. "excuse me, page! i think the moon must have gone to my head. the full moon makes me act queer sometimes, anyhow. you have heard of persons like that, haven't you? that's where lunatic got its name--luna, the moon, you know," he rattled on at a most astonishing pace. "how old do you reckon mrs. green is? she looks very young. do you think professor green is as old as i am?" "older, i should think; but then he is so--so--high-foreheaded it makes him look older." "he was her teacher at college, so they tell me. she must have been quite young when he first knew her." "yes, she was only sixteen when she entered wellington, i believe." "they seem very happy," with a deep sigh that made me feel so sorry for him. "he must be thinking of his little virginia," i thought. she had lived only a year after her marriage and had been only nineteen when she died--he only a year or so older. "i suspect the moonlight reminds him of her. i know he did not mean to pick me up so sharply, and i am just not going to notice it." dee, who was biding her time hoping to get the crowd settled somewhere so we could slip off to the custard-colored hotel, now called to us to see the bust of william gilmore simms, and to tell her father about the nice, aristocratic old policeman who had so enthralled us by reciting the "grape-vine swing" that morning. finally, with much maneuvering on her part, everyone was seated on some benches looking out over the water, with a clump of palmettos protecting them from the wind and at the same time hiding the road to the old house on the corner. professor green and zebedee had entered into an amicable discussion of the political situation, and mrs. green was in the midst of an anecdote about her friend and sister-in-law, judy kean, now mrs. kent brown, an anecdote told especially for dum's benefit, since it was of art and artists. "now's the time! hurry!" whispered dee. in a moment we had slipped away and were sprinting along the walk to the custard-colored house. it was not much of a run, about two city blocks, i fancy, and we did it in an incredibly short time. the old house looked very peaceful and still from without, but as we entered the door we found that, as was its habit, a wind was imprisoned in its walls and was whistling dolorously. the moonlight flooded the hall and stairs, making it quite light. dee clutched my hand, and we went up those steps very quietly and quickly, through the bridal chamber and on into the corridor beyond, on which the numbered doors opened. no. 13 was open! we paused for a moment as we approached it. hark! certainly there was someone in the room. it seemed to me as though i weighed a million pounds and had only the strength of a kitten. fascinated, we crept closer, although i do not see how the kitten in me lifted the great weight i felt myself to have. there was a dim light in the room from a small kerosene lantern. louis gaillard was there, standing tiptoe upon the pile of bricks. was he trying to fit that awful noose around his neck again? i felt like screaming as dee had in the morning, but no sound would come from my dry throat. louis' face, that could be seen in the light of the lantern, did not look like the face of one who meant to make away with himself. there was purpose in it, but it was the purpose of high resolve. grasping the rope as high up as he could with one hand, with the other he gave it a sharp cut with a knife. dee and i leaned against each other for support. the rope was down, and now the thing for us to do was get out of that building as fast as we could. louis must never know we had been there. we blessed the wind, which made such a noise rattling the shutters and streamers of hanging wall paper that the boy remained absolutely unconscious of our presence. he had begun to destroy the pile of bricks as we crept away, taking them carefully back to the hearth where he had found them. we sailed down the steps of that old hotel as hungry boarders might have done in days gone by "when they heard the dinner bell." we were out on the sea-wall and racing back to our friends before louis had finished with the bricks, i am sure. "page," panted dee, "don't you think louis had lots of moral courage to go back there where he had so nearly come to grief and take down that rope and unpile those bricks?" "courage! i should say he had! i was nearly scared to death when i saw him there, weren't you?" "i have never gone through such a moment in my life. it was worse than this morning, because this morning i did not know what to expect, while tonight i almost knew what was coming--the worst. when i saw the lantern and realized louis was there, i could almost see him with the noose around his neck!" dee shivered and drew her coat more closely around her. her face looked pale and pinched in the moonlight, while i was all in a glow from our race along the sea-wall. "dee, i believe you are all in." "oh, i'm all right--just a bit cold." "all right, much! you are having a chill this very minute--you are, dee--a nervous chill, and no wonder!" we had been gone such a short time that no one seemed to have missed us. professor green was still on the subject of initiative and referendum, and mrs. green had just finished a thrilling tale of art students' life in paris when we sank on the bench beside them. dee was shaking like an aspen, although she still insisted there was nothing the matter. "zebedee, dee must go home immediately. she is sick, i believe." "dee sick?" and he sprang to his feet. "what's the matter with you, honey? where do you feel sick? what hurts you?" "nothing! oh, nothing!" and poor dee's overwrought nerves snapped and she went off into as nice a fit of hysterics as one could find outside of a big boarding-school for girls. "dee, dee, please tell me what is the matter!" begged her frantic father. "she can't talk, but i can! she must go home and be put to bed. she has had too much excitement for one day." "where have you and she just been?" rather sternly, while dee sobbed on with occasional giggles, mrs. brown and dum taking turns patting her. "we have been back to the custard-colored house," i faltered. "oh, you little geese! what did you want there, please?" "dee could not sleep until she knew the rope was cut from the chandelier. we went back to cut it down." "oh, i see. did you cut it down?" "no; louis was there cutting it down when we got there. we didn't let him see us. but at first when we saw him we thought--we thought--maybe--he--he----" i could go no further. i could not voice our apprehensions before the greens, who knew nothing of our experience of the morning. "you poor babies! why didn't you ask me to attend to it?" "i wanted to, but dee said you might think it was silly of us; and then she did not want you to think that maybe louis was not trustworthy. she felt he needed all the friends he had--not to lose any." "loyal old dee! now, honey baby, you put your arm around me and i'll put my arm around you, and we will get over to the king street car and be back to the hotel in a jiffy. the rest of you can walk, if you want to." none of us wanted to, as we felt some uneasiness about dee, although she had calmed down to an occasional sob that might pass for a hiccough. we piled on the trolley and were back at the hotel in short order. the good breeding of the greens was very marked during this little mix-up. never once by word or look did they show the slightest curiosity as to what we were talking about. they were kind and courteous and anxious to help dee have her chill and get over the hysterics, but that was all. "hadn't i better get a doctor for dee?" poor zebedee inquired, almost distracted, as he always was when one of his girls had anything the matter. "i really do not think so," said mrs. green. "if you will let me take dee in charge, i am sure i can pull her through. doctor mclean, at wellington, complains that i have lessened his practice by taking charge of so many cases where a doctor is not really needed." "you had better trust her, tucker; she has healing in her wings." (professor green and zebedee had sealed their rapidly growing friendship by calling each other green and tucker.) tweedles always said that no one ever called their father mr. tucker longer than twenty-four hours unless he got to acting mr. tuckerish. so mrs. green came to our room and had dee in bed after a good hot bath and a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia. she brought her own hot-water bag and put it to her feet, and then, tucking her in, gave her a motherly kiss. as she was certainly not very much older than we were, i might have said big-sisterly, but there is a difference, and that kiss was motherly. i know it was because i got one, too, and it seemed to me to be the female gender of the kind father gives to me, only on rare occasions, however, as we are not a very kissy family. "now, dear, you must go to sleep and not dream even pleasant dreams. don't dream at all." and our kind friend prepared to leave us. "well, i feel fine now--but--but--i can't go to sleep until i tell you all about louis and what happened today." "but, my dear, you need not tell me. i think you must be quiet now. you see, i told your father i would be the doctor, and i must not let you do things to excite you. talking about a trying experience would be the worst thing in the world for you." "but i have been thinking it all over and i feel that you and professor green would be the ones of all others to take an interest in louis and advise what to do about him." "all right--in the morning!" "no! tonight. i want you to talk it over with your husband tonight." "if you feel that way about it, just shut your eyes and go to sleep; dum and i will do the telling without your assistance," i said; and dee, who was in the last stages of exhaustion, gave in and was asleep almost before we got the light off. dum and i followed mrs. green to her room, where we told her the whole frightful business. she was all interest and solicitude. "the poor boy! i just know edwin will think of something to do for him. although edwin has taught girls always, he does understand boys thoroughly. if we can get board with the laurens ladies we will be quite near louis and his sister, and as we get to know them we can find out how to help the boy without hurting his pride. i think all of you girls have shown the 'mettle of the pasture' in the way you have grappled with this very trying occasion." "'twas dee! she thought of asking louis to lunch and everything. dee has so much heart, i wonder she is not lop-sided," said dum, who was as upset as zebedee over dee's going to pieces. "you see, dee and i have lots of fusses, but it is almost always my fault, because i am so mean. dee is the most wonderfullest person in the world." mrs. green smiled and hugged the enthusiastic dum. "yes, i know what a sister can be. my sister, mildred, is not my twin in reality, but the siamese twins cannot be closer than we are in spirit. i hardly ever see her now, either, as she lives in the northwest and i am at wellington all winter and in kentucky in the summer. fortunately, love can work by wireless at any distance, so absence does not affect our affection for each other." we told our lovely lady good night, and then it was she gave us the selfsame kind of kiss she had given dee. "doesn't it seem ridiculous that we have known her only since this afternoon? i feel as though i had known her all my life. if i go to new york to study at the league, she is going to have me meet her sister-in-law, mrs. kent brown. she is the one miss ball told us about who got in such funny scrapes at college--you remember, judy kean, who dyed her hair black?" dum and i were in the elevator, on our way downstairs to hunt up zebedee to tell him how dee was faring. we found him in the lobby, still talking to professor green. he was greatly relieved that dee was herself again, and i assured him that by morning she would be better than herself. "i have been telling green all about that poor louis gaillard," he confessed. "i did not feel it to be a breach of confidence, after the way dee had flopped, letting the cat out of the bag half-way, anyhow; besides, i want him to talk the matter over with his wife. i feel that perhaps they will know how to help the boy." "molly will, i feel sure. she always sees some way to help." dum and i burst out laughing at professor green's words. "that is just what she said about you," i laughed. "dee wanted us to tell her all about louis so she could talk it over with you, thinking there might be something you could suggest about helping him, and she said: 'edwin will think of something to do for him. he understands boys thoroughly, if he does teach girls.'" and so ended our first day in charleston. what a day it had been! rain and sunshine, wind and moonlight, poetry and prose, fiction and fact! a young life saved, and friendship born! dee going off in hysterics, and dum and i so tired at last that we could hardly crawl back into the elevator to be borne to our room! we found dee sleeping like a baby, and in five minutes we were sleeping like two more babies. i wonder if louis gaillard slept. chapter xiii engaging board whether louis slept or not on that night after his near-extinction, he was with us early the next morning to bring the glad news that the misses laurens would consent to receive us in their home. the greens were as delighted as we were. zebedee was to take the first available train to columbia, and as professor green had some important mail to get off, arrangements were left to the females. we were to call on the misses laurens at eleven o'clock, accompanied by claire gaillard. "just to think that we are actually going to live in that old house!" exclaimed mrs. green, who was quite as enthusiastic over anything that pleased her as any of us girls. "do you think we can ever know the one who sang, well enough to ask her to sing to us?" "i doubt it!" from dum. "if they are as top-loftical in their home as they were in the bus the other morning, i doubt their even speaking to us. but i want to see their furniture and portraits whether they speak to us or not. i bet that house is just running over with beautiful things." claire, whom we picked up at her home on the way to the misses laurens', endeavored to prepare us for the stilted dignity of our prospective hostesses. we had seen them in the bus and knew how they could conduct themselves; but we had also seen them haggling for shrimps, so we knew they had their weaknesses; and we had heard one of them sing, and knew that she at least had a heart. in answer to the bell, which, by the way, was the old-fashioned pulling kind that made a faint jangle 'way off in the most remote end of the house, a gawky, extremely black girl opened the door that led from the street to a great long porch or gallery. steps from this porch led to a tangled old garden with palmettos and magnolias shading the walks, sadly neglected and grass-grown, that wound around flower beds long since given over to their own sweet will. a fat stone cupid, heavily draped in cumbersome stone folds, was in the act of shooting an iron arrow at a snub-nosed psyche some ten feet from him. there was a sun-dial in the center of the garden, and every now and then one spied an old stone bench, crumbling and moss-grown, through the tangle of vines and shrubs. "oh!" came from all of us with one accord. it was very lovely and very pathetic, this old garden, so beautiful and so neglected and gone to seed! "louis is wild to restore it," whispered claire. "you know, he can do the most wonderful things with a garden." we did know, having peeped into their garden so rudely the day before, but we kept very quiet about that. the gawky black girl plunged ahead of us and ushered us into the house door. this door was smaller than the one on the street, but followed the same chaste style of architecture. the hall was astonishingly narrow, but the room we were told to "jes' go in an' res' yo'se'fs in yander!" we found to be of fine proportions, a lofty, spacious room. the fiddle-backed chairs and the spindle-legged tables and claw-footed sofas in that room would have driven a collector green with envy. curtains hung at the windows that were fit for bridal veils, so fine they were and so undoubtedly real. the portraits that lined the walls were so numerous and so at home that somehow i felt it an impertinence that i, a mere would-be boarder, should look at them. they belonged and i didn't, and if by good luck i could obtain an introduction to them, then i might make so bold as to raise my eyes to them, but not before. there was a dim, religious light in the room, and the portraits, many of them needing varnishing and cleaning, had almost retired into their backgrounds. they peered out at us in some indignation, those great soldiers and statesmen, those belles and beauties. i don't know why it is that ancestors always attained eminence and were great whatever they tried to do, while descendants have to struggle along in mediocrity, no matter how hard they try. the misses laurens glided into the room, and claire introduced us. i don't know how the girl had accounted for her acquaintance with us. perhaps she had not been compelled to account at all. we were received with courtesy but with a strange aloofness that made me feel as though i had just had the pleasure of being presented to one of the portraits, not real flesh and blood. arabella and judith were their names. to our astonishment the elder, miss arabella, turned out to be the sentimental one with the voice, while miss judith, the younger, was the sterner of the two and evidently the prime mover in this business of taking "paying guests." usually it is the younger sister who goes off to romance and the elder who is more practical; at least, it is that way in fiction. "we have come to you, hoping you will take us to"--mrs. green, who was spokesman for us, faltered; could she say "board" to those two? never!--"will let us come to stay with you." that was better. "we shall be very pleased to offer you the hospitality of our home during your stay in charleston," from miss judith. "yes, we charlestonians are always sorry when guests to our city have to accept entertainment at a hostelry," fluttered miss arabella. "for a long time the better element of our community was greatly opposed to the establishment of such places. we argued that when visitors came to charleston, if they were distinguished and worthy they should be entertained in private homes; and if they were not distinguished and not worthy, we did not care for them to sojourn here under any circumstances." "we are a party of six," continued mrs. green, doing her best to be businesslike in the interview. "my husband and i, these three young ladies, and mr. tucker, the father of these two," indicating tweedles, who were breathing heavily, a sure sign of laughter that must come sooner or later. "mr. tucker is now in columbia," she went on to explain, "but will shortly return." "we shall be pleased to see him whenever his affairs permit him to leave the capital of our state." "you will have room, then, for all of us?" "certainly; we have entertained as many as twenty guests quite often. not recently; but we still can accommodate that number without inconvenience or crowding." miss judith was spokesman now, while miss arabella glided from the room. in a moment the ungainly girl who had opened the door came in, evidently in response to a signal from the mistress, bearing a silver tray with a bohemian glass decanter and beautiful glasses with slender stems and a plate of wafers that were so thin and delicate one could easily have eaten a barrel of them without feeling stuffed. "that will do, dilsey," said miss judith, evidently knowing better than to trust the handmaiden, who certainly had the appearance of what mammy susan called "a corn fiel' nigger," with the rare old bohemian glass. miss judith served us herself to apricot cordial, the most delicious thing i ever tasted. "we brewed it ourselves from a recipe that has been in our family for centuries," she said, with the simplicity that one might use in saying "like the pies mother used to make." still there was no talk of terms or question of our viewing our rooms. such things are not discussed with guests. the guests are simply given the best the house affords, and of course are too well-bred to do anything but be pleased. "when may we come?" ventured dum. "at any time that suits your convenience." "after luncheon today, then, will be a good time," suggested mrs. green, and i thought the two ladies breathed a small sigh of relief. maybe they thought the philistines were already upon them and come to stay. "we three girls can sleep in one room!" i exclaimed, not having opened my mouth before except to take in the cordial and wafers. my voice sounded strange and harsh to me, somehow. "we are under no necessity for crowding," quietly from miss judith, who looked at me, i thought, in disapproval. what business was it of guests to dictate to the hostess what their sleeping arrangements should be? i subsided. "you will have your boxes sent when it suits you. i am sorry we have no one to send for them." a boarding-house keeper to send for your luggage! what next? there seemed no reason to linger longer since the ladies made no move to show us the rooms we were to occupy, and we all of us felt that to mention money would be too brutal. mrs. green rose to take leave, and all of us followed suit. "we will return at about four, if that is convenient." "we shall be pleased to see you at any time." we bowed, the ladies bowed, and the portraits seemed to incline their painted heads a bit. dilsey was standing in readiness to show us out of the street door, and the sight of her grinning human countenance did me good. she at least was alive. once on the street, we looked at one another knowingly, but the presence of claire barred us from saying anything. we walked the block to her house, talking of the pleasure it would be to be so near her, and expressing to her our appreciation of the trouble she had taken to place us with her friends. "oh, we are too delighted to have you near," she declared. "louis and i can talk of nothing else. of course we are hoping to see a great deal of you." we wondered if the pompous old father seconded this, and how the young gaillards would get by with us. we were not, according to his ideas, desirable acquaintances. at least we fancied we would not be. surely, however, mrs. green could pass muster anywhere. "louis wants to take you to see the old oak in magnolia cemetery just as soon as you feel like going." "oh, we couldn't go to a cemetery without zebedee," declared dee. "he loves them so!" "well, how about the magnolia gardens this afternoon? he is eager to be your guide there as well." "is that where the azaleas are so beautiful?" asked dum. "yes, and they are just right to see now. i hear they were never more beautiful than now." "see them without zebedee? never!" dee still objected. "he adores flowers as much as he does old tombstones." "well, then, sullivan's island, where poe's 'gold bug' was written?" laughed claire. "go somewhere that is interesting on account of edgar allan poe without zebedee! we could never be so heartless. why, he knows poe by heart." "well, dee, i don't see any place we could go without zebedee, according to you, unless it is back at school or to a dry goods shop." "well, virginia tucker, we could go see some pictures or something close by that he can run in on any time." "certainly you could! there's the wonderful collection of paintings at the city hall," suggested claire courteously, wondering a little, no doubt, at dee's persistency in waiting for her father for all sight-seeing, and at her evident impatience with dum. when the twins called each other virginia and caroline, it was, as a rule, something quite serious. so we settled on the city hall as entertainment for the afternoon before our installment in our new quarters. "dum, i didn't mean to be grouchy," said the repentant dee, as soon as we got out of sight of claire. "i was trying to head off a trip where carfare would be necessary. you know louis never has any money of his own, and he would be wanting to pay for all of us, and i know would be cut to the quick if we didn't let him. you see, zebedee is so bumptious he just naturally steps up and pays the fare before anybody else has time even to dig down in their jeans." "my husband might have held his own with louis," suggested mrs. green. "yes, i know; i thought of that, but then i did not know whether he would go or not. i think your husband is just lovely. i didn't mean he'd be the kind to hang back." dee spoke so ingenuously and sincerely that the young wife had to forgive any fancied slight to her edwin. it turned out, however, that professor green was still writing letters, and had decided to spend the afternoon finishing them up, so he would not have been able to hold his own digging in his jeans. it was like dee to think of that matter of carfare. she had so much sympathy for the poor and miserable of creation that she seemed to be able to put herself in their places as it were. i fancy there is no more miserable person on earth than a youth who aspires to be squire of dames and has no money to pay the fare. professor green was writing in the palmetto-shaded court of the hotel, and had seen us from there as we came up the street. he begged us to join him and tell him what success we had met with the misses laurens. "oh, edwin, it was lovely! you never saw such a beautiful old house and furniture. the garden is a dream, has a sun-dial and stone benches and statues!" "the portraits are splendid, and there was a wedgewood pitcher on the mantelpiece that i wouldn't trust zebedee alone with if i were those ladies," exclaimed dum. "they had a lovely cat, too; so clean and soft, and he came to me in the friendliest way," from dee. "they gave us apricot cordial in bohemian glass tumblers, and wafers you could see through," i put in. "well, all this sounds fine. how about the bedrooms? were they attractive, too?" "bedrooms! we didn't see them." "oh, then you expect to sleep on the stone benches, perhaps." "i wanted to ask to see them, but the ladies were so funny and stiff and seemed to want us to pretend to be guests, so that naturally we just pretended." "i see. you came to terms with them, however, of course." "terms! you mean money terms? why, edwin, we could no more mention money in their presence than we could rope in a house where the father has been hanged." professor green went off into a fit of laughter that made me think that after all maybe he was younger than zebedee. he kissed his wife twice right before us and in plain view of the passersby on meeting street, but he couldn't help it. she was so adorably girlish in her reasons for engaging board from charleston aristocrats without even seeing the bedrooms, and with absolutely no idea of what remuneration those unbending dames would expect. "i did say that tweedles and i could sleep three in a room, and i wish you could have seen the way they jumped at me. it was miss judith. 'we are under no necessity for crowding,'" i mimicked her. "i did not like to insist, but of course i meant it might make our board a little cheaper. if you had been there, you would have knuckled under just like the rest of us." "do you think it would be wise to go without knowing? i don't want to seem mercenary with all of you high-minded ladies, but i do think there would be a certain satisfaction in knowing just what one was paying for sun-dials and wafers that can be seen through." "well, then, you can do the asking! i can't. was there ever a moment when we could broach the subject, girls?" "never!" we chorused loyally. "we will just go 'buying a pig in a poke,' as it were, and maybe after a night on the garden bench i can muster up courage to ask them what i owe them for the privilege," teased the professor. "i don't like betting on a certainty, but i don't believe you will be able to do it, and am willing to wager almost anything that you can't get yourself to the point any more than we could. you might ask miss arabella, but if you tackle miss judith and she looks at you as she did at me when i suggested three in a room, i bet you father's copy of timrod's poetry that you change the subject." "done! i bet you the volume of j. gordon coogler's 'purely original verse' that i am living at the maison laurens on a purely business basis within the next seven hours. i am going to settle it before tonight." "will it be miss judith?" i asked, fearing miss arabella might be the cause of my losing the timrod poetry, which i was anxious to write father i had found for him at the second-hand book store. "miss judith and no other! i should feel very sneaky if i got my information through the easier channel of miss arabella. miss judith, and by seven o'clock." "i hope we will know before zebedee comes back," said dee. "we shall never hear the last of it if he finds us boarding for untold sums." "i shall feel myself a failure as a chaperone surely," remarked mrs. green. "we think you a tremendous success," tweedled the twins. chapter xiv the clerk of the council we had a wonderful time at the city hall that afternoon with louis. it was quite near our hotel, so dee's agony over louis' feelings about carfare was assuaged. my idea of a city hall had always been that it was a very ugly and stiff place where city fathers wrangled about sewerage and garbage collections, and whether they should or should not open up such and such a street or close such and such an alley,--a place where taxes were paid or evaded, and where one kicked about the size of the gas bill. the charleston city hall was quite different. there may have been places where discontented persons contended about gas and taxes, but we did not see them. we were told that charleston had but recently gone through what was a real riot on the subject of the election of the mayor, but there was a dignity and peace breathing from the very stones of that old edifice that made us doubt the possibility of dissension having been within its walls. city fathers could not have mentioned such a thing as sewerage and garbage in the presence of those wonderful and august portraits and busts. as for opening streets that never had been opened before! why do it? and alleys that had always been closed! let well enough alone. louis gaillard was quite a friend of the clerk of the council, a very scholarly and interesting young man with a french name, who was kindness itself in showing us the treasures of the city hall. he knew and loved every one of them, and cornelia, the mother of the gracchi, could not have been more eloquent in praise of her jewels. he might well be proud of them, as i doubt there being a more complete collection of things of civic and historical interest in any city hall in all the world, certainly not in america. in the mayor's office there hung a peculiarly interesting fragment of a painting by sir godfrey kneller. it was queen anne's hand resting on a crown. the rest of the picture had been cut away by some vandal after the wonderful painting had gone through various vicissitudes during the revolutionary war. queen anne was always a dead, dull person to my mind, and the only thing that ever interested me about her was the fact that she did have a crown, and perhaps if the picture was to be destroyed the crown was about the most interesting part to preserve. i don't want to sound like a guide-book, and i am afraid i might if i tell of all the treasures in that council chamber. i must mention trumbull's portrait of washington, however. it is very wonderful. the great general stands in continental uniform by his white charger, every inch a soldier. "it does not look exactly like the gilbert stuart portraits," said dum. "no," explained the young man ingenuously, "stuart painted washington after he had false teeth, and that changed his appearance a great deal. this picture is valued at $100,000, but of course no money could induce the city of charleston to part with it." then there was healy's portrait of john c. calhoun, a wonderful painting. dum and mrs. green thought that from an artistic standpoint it was of more value than the trumbull portrait of washington. i am frankly ignorant of what is best in pictures, but i am trying to learn. i certainly liked the healy portrait very much, though. the hands were wonderful, and dum said that was a true test of painting; that if an artist was not a top-notcher he could not draw hands, and usually made the model sit on them or put them in his pocket, or if it happened to be a woman, covered them up with drapery. the clerk of the council seemed very much amused by dum's remarks and delighted with her interest, and we noticed he addressed most of his explanations to her while we trailed along in their wake. there was a portrait of francis marion which rather amused us, as he is dressed in uniform with a brigadier general's hat. now we all knew that marion never wore anything more tony than a coon skin cap, and he looked as funny as daniel boone would painted in a tuxedo with an opera hat. portraits of president monroe, andrew jackson, zachary taylor, general moultrie, beauregard, wade hampton, and five mayors who held the civic reins of charleston in troublous times adorn the walls. there were many other charlestonians of note whom their city had delighted to honor, but i am afraid of getting too guide-booky if i dwell on them. the cablegram queen victoria sent at the time of the earthquake, expressing her sympathy for the sufferers has been carefully preserved. it is the original autograph copy, which, together with the letters from mayor courtney, secretary of state bayard, and e. j. phelps, united states minister to the court of st. james, which were written in regard to obtaining the original message, are embodied in a book and handsomely bound. the message reads: "to the president of the united states: i desire to express profound sympathy with the sufferers by the late earthquake, and await with anxiety further intelligence which, i hope, may show the effects to have been less disastrous than expected. (signed) "victoria, regina." we took leave of the very agreeable clerk of the council regretfully. he had been so pleasant, and was so interesting that we hoped we might see him again. "it seems a sin," sighed dum, "to meet such a nice man as that and never to see him again." "i always feel that i am going to meet persons like again," said mrs. green; "if not here, in the hereafter. kindred souls must manage to get together or 'what's a heaven for?'" "that's the way i like to think of heaven, a place where you find the persons you naturally like, not a place where you just naturally like all the persons you meet. i don't see why just because you are good enough to go to heaven you should lose all your discrimination. i could go to heaven a million years and not like mabel binks. cat!" and dum scowled. "who is mabel binks?" laughed mrs. green. "oh, she's a person dee and i can't abide. page hates her, too, only she won't say so. she was at gresham with us the first year we were there, and she started in making a dead set at zebedee and has kept it up ever since." "is she pretty?" "oh, she's handsome enough in a kind of oochy-koochy style, but she is too florid to suit me. there's a letter from her to zebedee now. she's always writing to him and trying to get him into something or other." "how do you know it's from her?" i asked. i was not very joyful myself when our one-time schoolmate made too free with mr. tucker. i didn't really and truly think he cared a snap for her, but i well knew how persistent effort on the part of a designing female could eventually work wonders on the male heart. "how do i know? i'd like to know who but mabel binks writes on burnt orange paper, with brown ink, with an envelope big enough to hold all the documents in the city hall, and that smelling like a demonstration counter of cheap perfumes. i'd hate to think zebedee could put up with two female admirers as gaudy as she is." dum always stormed like that when mabel binks was in question, or any woman under fifty who happened to like her father. dee was walking with louis or she, too, would have joined in the tirade against their _bãªte noir_. "i shouldn't think you would feel the slightest uneasiness about your father. i am sure you can trust his good taste if he should ever marry," and mrs. green drew dum to her. i didn't know about that. i thought it was quite possible for the wrong person to hoodwink zebedee into not knowing his taste from hers. i had been brought up by mammy susan, who was somewhat of a cynic in her way, and she used to say: "th' ain't no countin' on what kin' er wife a widderman is goin' ter pick out. one thing you may be sho' of, a man nebber picks out two alike. if the fus' one was tall an' thin the nex' one is sho' ter be sho't an' fat. i tell yer, men is pow'ful weak an' women is mighty 'suadin'." that phrase that mammy susan was so fond of, "men is weak an' women is 'suadin'," made me tremble sometimes for what the father of the twins might do. he had talked to me about marrying again, and had given me to understand many times that mabel binks was not his style, but sometimes i used to think that maybe "he doth protest too much." we were missing zebedee greatly, and were very glad when we got back to the hotel to learn from a long distance message that he would be with us the next morning. chapter xv who won the bet? we arrived at the misses laurens, bag and baggage, at the appointed hour. those ladies greeted us with studied courtesy, but it was evident from their manner that they looked upon us as yankee invaders. the fact that tweedles and i were from virginia and mrs. green from kentucky, all of us with as good confederate records as one could wish, had no weight with them. we were all clumped as northerners in their minds. but we were guests under their ancestral roof and must be treated with punctilious politeness. tweedles and i were shown into two large adjoining rooms, the greens across the hall from us, with a room beyond theirs for mr. tucker. the beds were great four-posters that looked as though there should be little stepladders furnished to climb into them, like those the porter brings you to scramble into an upper berth. "just 'spose you should fall out of bed! 'twould be sure death," declared dee. "look at this mahogany candle-stand! did you ever in all your life see anything quite so lovely? and look, only look at this silver candlestick! it looks like it had been looted from some old spanish church," and dum reverently picked up the heavy old silver to examine the quaint design beaten around its base. "but this wardrobe! i'm sure there's a skeleton in it hiding behind rustling old silks. it is big enough to go to housekeeping in. i wonder if miss arabella and miss judith ever played in it when they were children." "old page, always romancing." "well, if anyone is ever going to romance she would do it here. it smells like romance even. i know there are jars of dried rose leaves in every room. i am sure there is lavender in the sheets and i am positive there is a ghost around somewhere." "can you smell it, too? how does a ghost smell? not like a rat, i hope," teased dee. "how are we going to sleep? if there is a ghost flaunting his fragrance around, i hope i shall not draw the lonesome singleton," said dum. "i'll take the room by myself," i said magnanimously, the truth of the matter being that while i approved of our custom of drawing straws or tossing up for everything, i was afraid that dee might draw the lonesome singleton, and i did not think that after the experience she had so recently been through she should be put off by herself. i did not want to say anything about my reasons, but decided that i would simply install myself in the far room. "are you aware of the fact, girls, that there is no gas in these rooms? these candlesticks are not meant for ornaments, but to light us to our couches. shades of bracken! i wonder if there is any plumbing!" like most persons born and brought up without plumbing, i thought more of it than daily bread. i had my own great english bathtub at bracken, but plumbingless houses were not always equipped with individual tubs. "i thought of asking miss arabella where the bathroom was, but somehow it was as difficult as asking her how much she charged for board, and i could not muster courage," laughed dee. "where does that door go? if it is not locked, we might explore a little." it yielded and proved to be the opening into an old-fashioned dressing-room that had been converted into a bathroom as an afterthought. it was big enough for four ordinary bathrooms, and had, besides the copper-lined bathtub, with plumbing that must have been the first to be installed in south carolina, a wardrobe, bureau, washstand and several chairs. another door opening into a narrow hall must have been meant for the other occupants of the house. "thank goodness for the tub, even if it is reminiscent of a preserving-kettle," i sighed. "i had visions of our making out with bird dishes, and had begun to regret that i had not taken several more baths at the hotel, where the arrangements were certainly perfect." "it's an awful pity a body can't save up cleanliness like she can save up dirt," said dee. "wouldn't it be nice if we could take seven baths in one day at a nice hotel and then come stay a week in a delightful old house like this, delightful in every way but tubs, and not have to wash all that time?" "i knew a girl in richmond who was one of these once-a-weekers, and she was going abroad for the summer and decided to get a turkish bath before sailing. do you know she saved up two weeks so as to get her money's worth? but we had better get unpacked and into our dinner dresses," and dum began to pull things out of her suitcase with her unpacking manner--not calculated to improve the condition of clothes. we found professor and mrs. green walking in the garden. "edwin is as pleased as we were, and has forgiven us for not seeing the bedrooms, now that he finds he shall not have to sleep on a stone bench. we have a bed big enough for an old-fashioned family of fifteen to sleep in. i hope you girls are comfortably placed." "yes, indeed, beautifully!" we exclaimed in chorus. "only look at this old sun-dial, molly! '_tempus fugit_' carved around it! i don't believe time has flown here for many a year. i think he has stood stock-still." the garden was wondrously sweet in the soft evening light. waxen white japonicas gleamed through the shrubbery and lilacs, lavender, purple and white were in a perfect tangle, meeting overhead, almost concealing an overgrown walk that led to a rustic summer house in the far corner. wherever there was nothing else, there was honeysuckle. it seemed to be trying to over-run the place, but periwinkle was holding its own on the ground, asserting itself with its darker green leaves, and snow balls and syringa bushes, shaking off the honeysuckle that had tried to smother and choke it, rose superior with their masses of whiteness. hyacinths, narcissi, lilies-of-the-valley, snowdrops and violets filled the beds to overflowing, a floral struggle for the survival of the fittest. "won't zebedee love it, though!" said dee. "it seems almost as peaceful as a graveyard. listen! listen! a mocking-bird!" "we might have known a mocking-bird would build here," whispered mrs. green. "there he is on that oleander, and there's his mate still busy with her household duties, carrying straw for her nest. it must be hard to be a female bird and not to be able to pour forth your soul in song, no matter how bursting you are with the joy of living. i always thought that it was unfair. no doubt that little newlywed mocking-bird feels as deeply as the male, but all she can do to show it is just drag straw and hairs and build and build, and then sit patiently on her eggs, and then teach the little ones to fly after she has worn herself to skin and bone grubbing worms for them. no doubt if she should begin to sing she would astonish her little husband to such an extent that he would call her a suffragette, and tell her a lady bird's place was in her nest and he could make noise enough for two, thank you!" "well, it certainly would be a pity for her to sing if she couldn't sing," objected professor green. "i suppose long ages of thinking she couldn't sing has put her where she can't. perhaps she can sing, and mr. cock mocking-bird has told her she can't because he wants the floor, or rather the swinging limb, himself." "edwin is trying to get me into an argument on feminism, but the evening is too perfect, and the mere male bird is singing too wonderfully to tempt me to bring discord into the garden." "have you talked business yet with either of the ladies, professor green? i am getting ready to tell my timrod good-by." "well--er--not yet. i have not had an opportunity." "why, edwin, you have seen both of them several times since we arrived." "yes, but the subject of our conversation was such that it did not seem an appropriate time to broach the matter of board." all of us laughed at our masculine contingent's being as bad as we had been, and i felt more secure than ever that father would get his timrod and i would own a volume of j. gordon coogler. dilsey, the corn-field hand, almost fell down the steps announcing supper. of course we were hungry, and even though the garden was so lovely we were glad to go to supper. we hoped its loveliness would keep, and we knew that food could not be trusted to. the ladies of the house were dressed in stiff grosgrain silk. mrs. green knew the name of the kind of silk; we had never seen it before. she said she had an aunt clay in kentucky who wore it on state occasions. they did not look nearly so funereal, as they had bits of fine old lace in necks and sleeves. lace is a wonderful fabric for lightening up sombreness. it can cheer up dripping black. it seems that i was wrong about the misses laurens having suffered recent bereavement. they had the mourning habit. claire gaillard had told us that they had had no deaths in the family for at least ten years, but that they always wore mourning, poor old things. when we met them in the bus, the morning of our arrival, they were not coming from the funeral of a relative who had not left them the legacy they had been counting on, as i had made up about them; on the contrary, they were coming from the wedding of a young cousin in a neighboring town. so the would-be author fell down that time in her surmises. surely persons who expect to figure in plots of stories have no business looking as though they were coming from funerals when they have been to weddings. it is hard on real authors to have to contend with such contrariness, and simply impossible for would-bes. the dining-room was even lovelier than the parlor. the walls were papered with a hunting scene that had faded very little, considering it must have been there half a century. it was a peculiar paper that seemed to have been varnished, no doubt thus preserving it. the sideboard was worth a king's ransom, whatever that is. it was not the eternal colonial that is of course beautiful, but it has come to the pass that americans think there is no other style worth considering. it was very old florentine, as were also the chairs and table. the carving on the sideboard could only be equalled by the cimabue gates, i am sure. the chairs were upholstered in deep red genoese velvet. it seems a remote huguenot ancestor had been united states consul in florence and had brought home with him this dining-room furniture. there were no pictures in this room, as with paper of that type pictures are out of place, but polychrome sconces were hung at intervals, half a dozen in all. the candles in them were not lighted, as it was still daylight, and a great silver candelabrum on the table gave what additional light was needed. the table was set with the finest sevres china, cobweb mats and thin old teaspoons that looked a little like the old ladies themselves. the forks, however, were as big as two ordinary forks of the day; so big in fact that one might have been forgiven if, like sam weller, he "handled his wittles with cold steel." miss judith looked flushed, and i was afraid she had been cooking the supper herself, while miss arabella had on a fresh thumb-stall that suggested a possible burn on her thin, blue-veined old hand. supper consisted of fried chicken, hot rolls, four kinds of preserves, the inevitable rice that is served twice a day in south carolina, as though to encourage home industries, and gravy, of course, to go on the rice, another thing that is the rule in the best families, so i have been told. it is very funny how different sections of the country establish their aristocracy by the way certain favorite dishes are served. i heard a lady from plymouth, massachusetts, say once that some of her townsmen were not really very good people; they put too much molasses in their baked beans. i am sure a south carolinian would consider any one po' white trash who liked rice cooked mushy and not dry with every grain standing out like a pearl. certainly anywhere in the south sugar in the cornbread would label any family as not to the manor-born, while in the north sugar in the cornbread is a regular thing, born or not born. everything was delicious on that table, and the hostesses quite warmed up into a pleasant glow of hospitality. it is difficult to be stiff, even if you have swallowed a heredity poker, when gay, happy, hungry young people are at your board, showing their appreciation of your culinary skill by devouring everything handed to them. dilsey waited on table as though it had been set on ploughed ground, every now and then almost falling down in an imaginary furrow. the misses laurens completely ignored her awkwardness, although in all probability, being human, they were in agony for fear she would shoot the rolls across the room, or pour the coffee down a guest's back or do something else equally trying. dilsey seemed delighted with her prowess, and every time she safely landed some article of food to the destination to which her mistresses had sent it, she gave a pleased cluck. she would come up to you and lean over your shoulder in a really most engaging manner, and say: "now do hab a lil' mo' 'sarves! try dem quinches dis time." she was especially lively with the "graby," and handed it every time there was a lull in operations. professor green refused it so often that it really became embarrassing, but still the girl persisted in her endeavors. "jes' lil' graby on yo' rice!" finally miss arabella interfered to prevent further persecution, and this is where professor green "broke his 'lasses pitcher" with the misses laurens. "perhaps you do not care for gravy," she suggested. "won't you have some butter on your rice? the butter to professor green, dilsey." "thank you, no butter! i should like some sugar and cream on my rice, however. i am very fond of it that way." "sugar and cream! on rice!" came in gasps from both ladies. oh, ye gods and little fishes! what had our masculine contingent done? flown in the face of customs older than time! dilsey's awkward waiting, taking boarders, nothing had upset the well-bred equanimity of these descendants of ancestors like this awful alien fact. "sugar on rice! cream on rice! the yankees are upon us! hide the spoons!" that was the manner they had when almost tearfully they instructed dilsey to pass the rice, pass the sugar and cream. the professor ate it with about as much relish as proserpine must have eaten the dried-up pomegranate that pluto obtained for her. he knew he had done something terrible, but, man-like, he did not know just exactly what it was. he knew that rice and sugar and cream were mixed up in it, but how? had he realized as i did that his request for a peculiar combination of food had lost him the bet, perhaps it would have choked him outright. it was a difficult feat to accomplish at best, to tackle these old aristocrats on the subject of remuneration, but now that he had done such a terribly plebeian thing as to want his rice mushy and sweet, there was no possible way to get back in their good graces, certainly no quick way of doing it. a reconstruction period would have to be gone through with and then after much burying of many hatchets perhaps cordial relations could be re-established. professor green looked scared and rather boyish. his molly was bubbling over with suppressed merriment, while dum and i had to assume a deep gloom to keep from exploding. dee came to the rescue, of course, with rhapsodies over the garden, jumping from that to the pictures in the city hall and back to praise claire gaillard, who was evidently a favorite of the old ladies. the clock on the mantelpiece chimed seven and st. michael's bells verified its strike. i looked up at professor green as he choked down the last of the fatal rice. "i'll give you another hour," i whispered. "thank you, but i believe another year would not help me." i now own j. gordon coogler and father will have his timrod, which, after all, had never really been in jeopardy. chapter xvi letters from mrs. edwin green to mrs. kent brown, new york city. meeting street, charleston, s. c., april .., 19... my dearest judy: no doubt you and kent will be astonished to find that edwin and i are actually on the long talked-of trip to this wonderful old city. mother is taking care of little mildred in our absence, and dr. mclean is to be called if she sneezes or coughs or does anything in the least out of the way. she is such a blooming, rosy baby, and so thoroughly normal that i am sure it is perfectly safe to leave her. mother says she is more like kent than any of her babies. charleston is more delightful even than it has been pictured. we only got here yesterday morning, and already we love it as though we belonged here. we went to a hotel for one night, but by rare good chance have found board in one of the real old charleston homes. you will laugh when i tell you that after an acquaintance of about twenty-four hours i find myself the chaperone of three girls about seventeen years old. i know you and kent are grinning and saying to each other: "some more of molly's lame ducks!" but i can assure you they are as far from being that as any girls you ever saw. they are the tucker twins, dum and dee, otherwise known as virginia and caroline, and their friend, page allison--all from virginia. they have come down here with mr. tucker, the father of the twins, a newspaper man from richmond, but he has had to go to columbia on his paper's business and i volunteered to look after the girls in his absence. he is a delightful man, and he and edwin are already greening and tuckering each other, which means that they struck up quite a friendship. he is the most absurdly young person to be the father of these strapping twins. he looks younger than edwin, but i fancy he must be a little older. you know edwin's "high forehead" makes him look older than he is. the tucker twins are bright, handsome, generous, original--everything you like to see in young girls. their mother died when they were tiny babies and their young father has had the raising of them. a pretty good job he has made of it, too, although he declares he has done nothing toward bringing them up but just remove obstacles. they call their father zebedee, because of the old joke about "who's the father of zebedee's children?" they say nobody ever believes he is their father. dum is most artistic, wants to be a sculptor. she hopes to study in new york next winter. dee is as fond of lame ducks as you used to say i was, and may make a trained nurse of herself, or perhaps a veterinary surgeon. their friend, page allison, is a delightful girl. she is the daughter of a country doctor, and has been the twins' room-mate at boarding school. by the way, these girls had heard of you, and me too, from mattie ball, who has been teaching them english literature at gresham. (mattie had been most complimentary to us both, so they have an exalted idea of us.) page is lots of fun. she is in for anything that is going, but at the same time acts as a kind of balance wheel for the twins, who are a harum-scarum pair. page has a writing bee in her bonnet, which of course appeals to me. you would have been amused to see both of us whip out our notebooks to take down things that we did not want to forget. mr. tucker is evidently very much interested in this little girl, more interested than he knows himself, and she is perfectly unconscious of his feeling in any way differently from the way he feels for his own daughters. i may be mistaken, however. i know when one is so happily married as i am it is a great temptation to be constantly match-making. i fancy you and kent are wondering why i should go to as interesting a place as charleston and then find nothing to write about but three schoolgirls. charleston is thrilling indeed, but you know i always did think more of people than things. we are seeing the sights very thoroughly--have deciphered every inscription on the old tombstones in three cemeteries, and are going tomorrow to magnolia cemetery. they say there is the most wonderful old live oak tree there in the world. now that we are settled in a boarding-house, kept by two old befo'-the-war ladies, we may stay here quite a little while. edwin needs this rest that the easter recess fortunately offered him. i wish i could picture these old ladies to you, but they are too wonderful to try to describe. whistler's mother does not belong in the frame in which her artist son placed her any more than these ladies belong in this old house. they hate boarders. you can see it in spite of their punctilious manners and old-world courtesy. i believe we are the first they have had, and if they only knew how much nicer we are than most boarders, i fancy they would not hate us quite so much. mother always says that being a boarder changes one's whole nature--the gentlest and most generous becoming stern and exacting. at any rate, edwin and i have not been boarders long enough to become very hateful, and these three girls could board forever and never become professionals in that line. please write to me soon. i am so glad kent's firm won the competition for that great hotel. tell him it is too bad i can't be there to tell him where the closets ought to be and which way the doors should open. he and i never agree on these points, you remember. it is splendid that you keep up your painting. i have no patience with these persons who insist that a career and matrimony cannot go hand in hand. of course my little mildred is very engrossing, but i do not intend to let her take every moment of the day and night. i find if i am going to write, however, that i cannot sew, but you know sewing was never one of my strong points. giving it up is like huck finn's giving up stealing green persimmons. if occasionally, and only occasionally, i can persuade a magazine to see how worth printing one of my stories is, and i can make an honest penny that way, it is surely no extravagance to get someone to make mildred's little clothes and to buy mine ready-made. but edwin is rearing and champing for me to go walking with him, and i must also look up these dear girls i am chaperoning, so good-by, my dear sister-in-law. my best love to "that 'ere kent," as aunt mary used to call him. poor old aunt mary! how we shall miss her! yours with all the love in the world, molly brown green. to dr. james allison, milton, va., from page allison. meeting street, charleston, s. c. my dearest father: i can't get over how good it was in you to let me go tripping with the tuckers. it has been a wonderful experience, and we are having the most gorgeous time. already, of course, we have plunged into adventures, as is always the case if you train with the tucker twins. i am not going to tell you of these adventures until i come back to bracken; they are too thrilling for mere pen and ink. as you see by the above address, we have left the hotel and are now installed in a boarding-house on meeting street. it seems absurd to call such a place a boarding-house--indeed, a sacrilege. it has just become a boarding-house in the last twelve hours, as i am sure we are the first "paying guests" the poor misses laurens have ever had. we are being chaperoned by a perfectly lovely young woman, a mrs. edwin green. she and her husband were at the hotel and we scraped up an acquaintance with them, and as mr. tucker had to go over to columbia on business she offered to look after us while he was away. tweedles and i have not been chaperoned before to any great extent, as miss cox was our one experience, and we think chaperones are pretty nice, lots nicer than we had been led to expect. certainly no one could be more charming than miss cox, unless it were this lovely mrs. green. in the first place, she is so sympathetic, then she is so kind, then she is so pretty, then she is so intelligent and so extremely well-bred,--on top of it all she has married one of the nicest men i ever saw; he really is almost as nice as mr. tucker and you. (i should have said you and mr. tucker, but you were an afterthought, as you well know!) afterthought or not, i do wish you were here, my dearest father. you would delight in the quaintness of this old city. i am getting all the postal cards i can find, which i will not send you, but will bring you, and make you sit down and listen to me while i tell you all about it. i am also going to bring you a volume of henry timrod's poetry, which you must duly appreciate, as it was difficult to find it. it seems that although the south carolinians are very proud of him, none of them have seen fit to get out a new edition of his poetry, and the old editions are very expensive. this i was told by the very pleasant man who has opened a second-hand book shop here. i found a book there i was crazy to get for you, but as it was a first edition, and that a limited one, i could not afford it. by an amusing chance it has since become my property. i will tell you about that some day. it is entitled "purely original verse," by j. gordon coogler. he, too, was a south carolinian, and such ridiculous stuff you have never imagined. the kind man who owned the shop let me copy a few of the poems before i dreamed of possessing the book. what do you think of these? a couplet alas for the south, her books have grown fewer- she was never much given to literature. byron oh! thou immortal bard! men may condemn the song that issued from thy heart sublime, yet alas! its music sweet has left an echo that will sound thro' the lone corridors of time. thou immortal byron! thy inspired genius let no man attempt to smother- may all that was good within thee be attributed to heaven, all that was evil--to thy mother. a pretty girl on her beautiful face there are smiles of grace that linger in beauty serene, and there are no pimples encircling her dimples as ever, as yet, i have seen. but, father dear, do not be too hard on this bard, or you will come under this ban: oh, jealous heart that seeks to belittle my gentle muse, and blow your damnable bugle in my lonely ears; you'll lie some day in expressing your recognition of this very song you disowned in other years. surely you must have sympathy for the person who could write the following stanza, especially when your only child goes tripping with the tuckers when she ought to be down in the country with her old father: i feel like some lone deserted lad, standing on the shore of life's great ocean, casting pebbles in its billows, as if to excite some past emotion. please give mammy susan my dearest love. i wish she could see the flower gardens down here. they are very wonderful. every house almost has porch-boxes, and no place is too poor or mean to have some bright flowers around it. we went through some real slummy parts yesterday where no one but darkies lived; beautiful old foreign-looking houses that have belonged in days gone by to the wealthy. i don't believe a single window was without flowers. they were growing in tomato cans and old broken jars and pots, but flowers don't mind what they are in just so the people who plant them love them and know how to attend to them. they seemed to me to be making a braver show than they do when they boast brass jardiniã¨res. i can't help thinking what cousin park garnett would say if she knew that mr. tucker had left us alone in charleston with a perfectly strange lady to chaperone us. i reckon she would throw about a million aristocratic fits. i don't know how long we will be here. it will depend on mr. tucker. i think he needs a rest. he seems to me to be not quite himself. i have noticed that he is in a way irascible. that, you know, is not like him, as there never was but one better tempered man in all the world. you see, you were not an afterthought this time, but came first. i must stop now without telling you about the dear ladies where we are boarding. they are like rare editions of old forgotten poetry, or odd pieces of china no one has used for generations but has kept in a cabinet until one has forgotten whether they are meant for tea or coffee. they are very dignified with us, but i have a notion that the tucker twins will be able to limber 'em up by hook or crook. i saw the younger one almost smile when dee took her cat in her arms. your devoted daughter, page. chapter xvii miss arabella no ghosts came to disturb my slumbers in the great four-poster, but the early morning sun awoke me long before tweedles gave any indication of coming to life. i thought for a while i was at bracken. it must have been the lavender in the sheets and the mocking-bird, who was singing like caruso just outside of my window. an odor will carry more suggestion than any sight; and sound comes next, i believe. i lay there wondering how long it would be before mammy susan would come bringing my bath-water, devoutly praying she would not "het" it up, but let me have it stinging cold from the well. the realization that i was in charleston came over me gradually; also, that no one would bring me bath-water, and that if i wanted first to go in the preserving-kettle i had better get up and take it. i had to go through the twins' room to get to the bathroom, and i found them sleeping like infants, looking ridiculously alike with their eyes shut and their chins snuggled down in the bed clothes. the squareness of dum's chin and the dimple in dee's was more of a differentiation in their case than even the eyes. dum's were hazel while dee's were gray, but the shape and setting were similar, if not identical. i stood a moment gazing at them, and it came over me with an added realization what their friendship had meant to me; theirs and their father's. i had known them according to the calendar only twenty months, not quite two years, but counting time by "heart throbs," i had known them since the beginning of time. god grant nothing should ever come between us! mr. tucker had certainly been a little snappy with me before he went to columbia, but i was never the kind to go around with a chip on my shoulder hunting for trouble, so if it was an accident i was perfectly willing to let it go at that. the truth of the matter was, that the tuckers had one and all spoiled me. they were so lovely to me on all occasions that a slight let-up on the part of any one of them was more noticeable because of their usual kindness. he was to come back that day, and i was very glad, as indeed all of us were, although we were expecting a good teasing for having so bravely undertaken the business of getting board and then moving in without any business arrangement. the copper tub was not so bad, after all, and the charleston water is always a delight to bathe in. it is strangely soft, as though it had just fallen from a summer cloud, and it has a peculiar sweetish taste. i dressed in a great hurry and soon found myself in the garden. the sun that had made his way into my window had not yet reached the garden, because of the high wall. "one morning, very early, before the sun was up, i rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; but my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed." that was what i thought as i stepped out into that wonderful old garden. there was a misty haze of early morning, and the freshness of the new-born day that few persons know of. early rising is a habit that it is a pity ever to lose, and still it is something that the civilized world seems to fight against. children naturally wake early, but as one grows older the sunrise is such a rarity that many grown-ups cannot remember ever having seen this wonderful spectacle which takes place every morning. father says that one of the signs of advancing years is waking quite early in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep. when he is called in to doctor old persons, who complain of waking early, he always tells them not to try to go back to sleep, but to get up and go out in the morning and see how glorious creation is. nature may be asserting herself in these old persons so they can get back some of the spirit of childhood before they are called to the great beyond. he always tells them to eat something, however, before they go to commune with nature. the mocking-bird was not holding the fort alone that morning, as he had the evening before. his little wife was still carrying building materials for their home, and he was helping, but every now and then he left off work, although he had heard no whistle blow to tell him it was time to stop. then such a stream of melody as he would pour forth would put caruso to the blush. other birds were in the garden, and all of them very busy. a tiny song sparrow had something to say with remarkable volume considering his size, and mr. mocking-bird listened intently, determined to learn the new song. a thrush broke in and then a stylish robin. i thought i heard the notes of a bobolink, but it turned out to be the mocking-bird, who seemed intent on singing down all the others. it reminded me rather of the sextette from "lucia de lammermoor" when the artists all seem to be trying to outdo each other and still harmony is the result. i had brought down all the combings from our three heads, well knowing how the birds delight in hair as a building material. of course mammy susan had done her best all my life to keep me from letting birds get any of my hair for nests, as it is supposed to be the very worst luck that can befall one, and terrible headaches are sure to be the lot of a person whose hair helps make a nest. nevertheless, i had always sneaked my hair to the birds at bracken, and this morning, feeling sure that i was the only person astir, i had quite openly brought a wad of hair, dum's burnished black, dee's blue black, and my curly brown, all mingled together. i put some on a lilac bush and some on the path where i noticed the builders had found some straw and would no doubt soon spy the more desirable material. "i wish i had some of molly brown's," i said to myself. we had got in the habit of speaking of mrs. green as molly brown, and no doubt would soon begin to call her molly to her face. "hers would make the dear birds feel that they were weaving sunshine into their nests. i'm going to ask her for some." i made my way very slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb the busy homemakers, along the overgrown path to the summer house. i was mistaken in thinking i was the only human being astir in that enchanted garden. as i lifted a great branch of snowballs that, heavy with its own beauty, had fallen across the path, i saw that miss arabella was before me. she was seated in the summer house. the great gray cat was on the ground in front of her, looking up into her face with a sly expression in his round, yellow eyes. "now, grimalkin, i give you fair warning. if you dare so much as look at one of these birds i will shut you up in the house for the rest of the day! you hear me, sir?" "me-i-ou----!" and he tried to slink off, deceit in every curve of his handsome body. "no, you don't, sir!" and with astonishing agility for an old lady who had swallowed a hereditary poker, she swooped forward and caught the cat up into her lap. how different this was from the miss arabella of the evening before! her soft gray hair, with a glint of gold in it, was all loosened about her face. there was a little flush on her cheeks, and instead of the sombre black dress she now wore a loose lavender wrapper. if it had been possible to back out and get up the garden path without being seen, i would have done it. i felt like peeping tom and lady godiva. somehow this was miss arabella's naked soul i had come on, and i was afraid she would be terribly cut up. there was nothing for me, however, but to speak. i made a little scratching on the path with my toe and shook the snowball branch. she looked up, startled, and loosened her hold on grimalkin, who immediately took advantage of her and sprang from her lap. this was no time for dignity! the cat at liberty in the garden meant havoc for the nesting birds. "i'll catch him!" i cried, and then such a chase ensued! grimalkin thought all the world moved as slowly as the dear ladies who had raised him, and at first scorned me as a pursuer, but i soon gave him to understand that a country girl with gym training added to her natural agility is a match for a fat old tomcat. i cornered him just as he started up the high wall, and, catching him by the back of his neck, in the proper place for a cat to be held, i carried him back to his smiling mistress, who, all unmindful of his unsheathed claws, caught him to her bosom, where he soon dropped asleep, purring away as though that was where he meant to go all the time. "you are very kind! i am exceedingly grateful to you!" "oh, not at all! it was my fault the cat got away. i thought i was all alone in the garden and did not mean to come on you this way. i fancied the birds and i were the only creatures awake." "i always come down in the garden very early in the morning. i can't trust grimalkin alone out here while the birds are nesting. after they have hatched and the little ones can fly they can escape from him, he is so fat, but i am always afraid he will drive the mocking-birds away. i can't sleep in the early morning, anyhow. do you usually arise so early?" "not always, but i am a country girl, and country people always get up earlier than city people. my friends, the tuckers, have to be dragged out of bed unless there is some especial reason for getting up, and then they are energetic enough. i did not disturb them this morning as they were sleeping so peacefully." miss arabella had made a place for me on the stone bench, and was still smiling at me in a very encouraging way. perhaps she was as eager to find out things about me as i was about her. "my sister was sleeping, too, at least she seemed to be trying to. both of us, as a rule, awaken very early, but she lies still trying to get back to sleep, while i feel that it is best to get up and take advantage of the beautiful morning light. you must excuse my being _en dã©shabillã©_. i did not expect to be seen." "oh, i think you look lovely!" she didn't mind a bit, but blushed and patted my hand. "i am very fond of young girls, but never see any nowadays but claire gaillard. she is the only one who comes to our sad old house." "sad! not sad, it is too beautiful to be sad." "it is its very beauty that seems sad to me," she sighed. "and the garden! i feel like a traitor to let it get so unkempt. i am not strong enough to keep it weeded. all i have strength to do now is to keep grimalkin from devouring the birds. judith thinks i am very foolish. she lays more stress on having the furniture rubbed and keeping up the inside of the house, but to me the garden and birds are more important. i'd like to see the garden looking as it used to, with trim flower beds and the dead wood all cut away." miss arabella seemed to forget i was there, or to forget i was a stranger, perhaps. i am sure she had no intention of unburdening her soul to me. she closed her eyes and i knew she was picturing the garden as it had been years ago, and perhaps she was even seeing the lover of the past as he looked when she kissed him through the gate. a thought wave seemed to have gone from me to her. i no sooner put my mind on the iron gates that i felt sure must have been where the ugly board ones were now, ere she began talking of those very gates. the sun had reached the garden now, and was lifting the soft mist that hung over it like a tulle veil. i felt somehow that the veil of the past was being lifted, too, and miss arabella was letting me catch a glimpse of her true self. "i hate that ugly gate," she mused. "i miss the beautiful old grille that had been there for so many years--where our friends and ancestors had come and gone so often." "i was sure there must have been an iron gate there." "yes, my dear, one of the most beautiful in charleston. we had to let something go. i thought the stuart portrait of general laurens would be the best, but judith felt that the gates would be the thing to give up. she rather likes having the board ones that no one can see through. i hate them, as i like to look out on the street sometimes. the gates were very valuable, being wrought-iron of a most delicate and intricate pattern. there was hardly a spot where one could so much as get a hand through." i gasped here and had a vision of miss arabella, young and beautiful, trying to get her hand through and ending by finding a place where her rosy lips with some pouting could reach her lover, locked out no doubt by a stern parent. "i don't know why i should speak of these things to you, child. it would provoke sister judith very much if she knew----" "but she won't know," and i took the frail old hand in mine. "i long to hear about the gates and the garden as it used to be. it is so lovely now that i can well picture what it must have been. please go right on and tell me everything about it, and let me be your friend, as well as claire." and the old lady, with her eyes all soft, sat on the stone bench in that early morning, the purring grimalkin clasped with one hand and the other holding mine, and told many wonderful tales of olden times. it was an hour never to be forgotten by me. the birds hopped close to us, some in search of the early worm and some intent on building material, stopping every now and then to pour forth the joy of living in song. they seemed to trust the lady of the garden to keep the enemy from them. i hoped the stern miss judith was sleeping peacefully, and would not come stalking into our dreams like a great grimalkin herself. miss arabella was enjoying herself immensely. she lived in the past, and her mind was like some old chest filled with faded souvenirs of a happier time. she had opened this wonder-box for me and was having the time of her life taking out treasure after treasure, shaking out the folds of some rare silken memory, or unwrapping some quaintly set jewel of experience. i listened entranced, only occasionally dropping a word to show my interest or pressing the little hand, so thin now that perhaps it might have slipped through the grille. dilsey, opening the shutters of the dining-room, brought us back to the present. the household was astir! miss judith must be up and doing by now. the sun had found the garden out with his searching rays, and the last bit of mist had disappeared. "my goodness! it must be getting quite late!" exclaimed my old new friend. "i am afraid you are sadly bored with my tales," she added penitently. "bored! why, miss arabella, it has been lovely. i do thank you for talking to me and please do it some more." "well, another morning then, child! i must hurry in now and dress myself and be a sad old woman some more. i thank you for making me forget it for once,--being a sad old woman, i mean." she certainly did not look like a sad old woman as she tripped down the path to the house, her lavender draperies brushing the syringa and lilacs as she passed. she seemed to me more to be the spirit of eternal youth and spring. miss arabella might swathe herself in black again and remember to respond to the hereditary poker, but i had glimpsed the real miss arabella and knew now that the sad old woman was merely the body in which a radiant spirit dwelt. it was this spirit that we had heard singing that night in the garden, "speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep." tweedles were opening their eyes when i came in, and, uncovering their chins, so they did not look so much alike. "dressed already, page?" yawned dum. "yes, dressed and out in the garden for hours! i took down all the combings for the birds and they are crazy about them. can't you hear their hymn of thanksgiving?" "pig! why didn't you call me?" and dee rolled out of bed to beat dum to the copper-kettle-like bathtub. "i hate to wake you up when i have to, and goodness knows i am not going to do any gratuitous waking," i laughed. "girls! i have had the time of my life, and have got to know miss arabella real well. she is simply a darling!" and i rummaged for my notebook. i was afraid to put off for a moment jotting down in my little book some of the impressions of the morning. if i should forget anything miss arabella had told me i would never forgive myself. i wrote like mad all the time the twins were dressing, but it is strange about the things miss arabella divulged to me that morning; although i know that what an author or a would-be author hears in this life belongs to him, and is his property to be twisted and turned in his writing as he sees fit to use it, somehow those memories i have held sacred always, and i can't believe in my writing i could ever get so hard-pressed that i'd feel at liberty to make copy of what miss arabella told me on that enchanted morning in the garden. chapter xviii a chance for louis contrary to our expectations, zebedee did not tease us at all for engaging board without knowing what it was. he said he was in thorough sympathy with all of us for shying at the subject, and for his part he was perfectly willing to trust the dear old ladies to do exactly the right thing. he blew in, his usual manner of arriving, while we were at luncheon, and as we might have known, took the misses laurens by storm. the hereditary pokers melted as if by magic and even miss judith succumbed to his charms and promised to go to a moving picture show with him some night. as for miss arabella: her poker was only an imitation one, anyhow, and it did not take much to limber her up. it was rather astonishing, though, to find her unbending to the extent that she and zebedee sang gilbert and sullivan operas together that evening in the garden, zebedee doing dick deadeye with his usual abandon and miss arabella singing: "i'm called little buttercup, dear little buttercup, though i could never tell why- but still i'm called buttercup, dear little buttercup, sweet little buttercup, i." "i wouldn't be at all astonished to see miss judith dance a jig after this," whispered dum to me. "isn't our young father a wonder?" he was certainly that. professor green looked on in envy and amazement, still bitterly regretting the sugar-on-the-rice episode. it is a strange thing what makes a "mixer." professor green was quite as kind as zebedee, and quite as eager to make people happy. he was as intelligent, as well-bred, better educated, more traveled, but when the time came to make old persons forget their dignity and years or make young persons forget their youth and callowness, zebedee certainly could put it all over the learned professor. i remember hearing one of the twins say that he could make crabs and ice cream agree, and surely i believe he could. "i have never met any one like him but once," said mrs. green as the singers finished a duet from "pinafore" and began humming some tunes from "patience," while miss judith sat smiling, and even occasionally supplying a missing word. "i used to know a young newspaper man named jimmy lufton, and he could keep a crowd happy and make the most impossible people mingle and enjoy themselves. it is only a very kind-hearted person who can do it, but of course, having a kind heart does not mean you have that power." "thank you, my dear, for that," said professor green, smiling whimsically if somewhat ruefully. "i remember very well how miserable that very jimmy lufton made me on that hay ride we went on in kentucky, you remember, when it poured so that the creek almost carried us away, four-horse wagon and all. he made everybody gay and happy but me. i was so green with jealousy i almost sprouted." mrs. green blushed one of her adorable blushes that always made her look so lovely, we did not blame her husband for gazing at her as though she were a ripe peach and meant to be eaten up that moment. "if you girls go to new york to pursue your studies i am going to write to jimmy lufton and send him a letter of introduction to you, that is, if you would care to meet him." "if he is anything like zebedee, i should say we would!" exclaimed dee. "i don't mean he is like him in every way, but just that he has that quality of mixing. i don't know how it is done. it is a talent as elusive as that of a born mayonnaise maker. i have seen persons who labored to have guests enjoy themselves, taking the greatest pains to seat them a certain way and introduce subjects congenial to all present, and still have the most dismal and doleful failures of parties; while others seem to be perfectly haphazard in their methods, and with a certain social charm make the lion and the lamb get on finely. the same way with mayonnaise makers--some people can have the oil ice cold, the eggs on ice for days, chill the bowl and the fork even, drop the oil in half a minim at the time and beat and stir like the demented, and still turn out runny dressing, not fit for axle grease. others can waive all precautions of having everything cold and pour in oil with perfect recklessness, stirring leisurely, dump in vinegar or lemon at the psychological moment with a pinch of salt and a dash of cayenne, and, behold! a smooth, beautiful mayonnaise is the result." "speaking of lemons! who's here?" from dum. it was his eminence of the tum tum, in all the glory of a starched piquã© vest, followed by claire and louis, both of them rather ill at ease in their father's presence. miss judith introduced the paying and non-paying guests with all the ceremony of a presentation at the court of st. james. "now i am afraid mr. tucker's mayonnaise is going back on him," whispered mrs. green to me; "i don't believe he and jimmy lufton together could beat in that old man and make him into a smooth, palatable mixture." but i was betting on zebedee. miss judith and miss arabella were looking around for their pokers so they could swallow them again, but zebedee had hidden them, and with his inimitable good nature and tact he drew old mr. gaillard into his charmed circle. by some strange legerdemain he soon had the stiff old man telling tales of charleston before the earthquake. he drew from him his opinion of the political situation of south carolina and agreed with him that it was a pity that politics was no longer a gentleman's game. i happened to know that he felt it was the duty of every man to make it his game, but he evidently deemed it not the part of wisdom to voice his conviction to the old man. we had agreed that we would do all in our power to make mr. gaillard like us, as in that way we hoped to be of some use to louis. zebedee and professor green had been discussing the boy quite seriously that very afternoon, and had thought of several ways to benefit him. they had decided, however, to make friends with the father first and not spring their plans too suddenly. mr. gaillard was evidently enjoying himself hugely. the greens were most flattering in their attention as he pompously recounted his tales. mrs. green was looking her loveliest, and one could see with half an eye that he soon began to direct his conversation to her. he pulled down his starched vest that had an annoying way of riding up over his rotundity, and smoothed his freshly shaven double chin with the air of being quite a ladies' man. tweedles and i drew claire and louis over to the summer house away from their father's disconcerting presence. their easy manners returned then and we spent a merry, happy hour. professor green joined us after a while. he seemed anxious to make friends with louis and to fathom the boy. i felt sure he had some plan for helping him and was sounding him, in a way. louis was natural and simple in his attitude toward professor green, and i could see was making a very good impression. "you would like to go to college, would you not?" "beyond everything. i am prepared to enter college now, but i am nineteen and feel if i do not go soon it will be too late. i am rather late graduating at the high school but had to miss a year because of an illness." "i think nineteen is a very proper age to enter college," said the professor kindly. "i wonder if you would like my old college, exmoor? it is a small college, but of excellent standing." "i am sure i should like any college," and louis sighed. "i am commissioned by the faculty of exmoor to find a young southern gentleman to take pity on a scholarship that has been endowed for their college. it seems that this scholarship can only be used by a southerner, and he must be a gentleman born and bred. it was presented four years ago by a man whose only son was rescued from drowning by a daring young southern boy. the father had more money than he could use, and he wanted to send the brave youth to college to show in some measure his appreciation of what he had done. to make the gift one that the boy could not hesitate to accept, he established a permanent scholarship at exmoor. of course no one is too proud or high-born to accept a scholarship. that boy graduates this year with high honors after four very creditable years at college, and now the faculty must find another southerner to fill his place. the president asked me to be on the lookout for one while i am on this trip, and if you would like to take it, i should be proud and gratified to be the means of presenting it to you." through this long speech louis stood wide-eyed and flushed. claire caught him by one hand and impulsive dee by the other. "oh, sir!" was all he could falter. "you must, you must!" exclaimed dee. "louis, louis, if you only can!" and claire raised his hand to her cheek. "but what will my father say?" "we are going to leave him to mr. tucker, at least he is going to prepare the way. i have had a long talk with tucker this afternoon, and we have mapped out a plan of campaign." "but your father surely could have no objection," said dum. "a scholarship is something that everybody accepts." "but father is very--very--well--proud, i might say," and poor claire looked exceedingly uncomfortable. "well, this can make him prouder than ever," i put in. "he can be proud that his son is chosen to have this scholarship because of his being the nice southern gentleman he is." by this time louis could command his voice, and he said: "i can hardly tell you, sir, how much i appreciate the interest you have shown in me and your kindness in making this offer, and i hope to be able to accept it. i wish it might have been because of something i am in myself, and not just because i am the descendant of gentlemen." "but you are what you are partly because of that descent," i insisted. "persons of low extraction accomplish something in spite of it sometimes; but i must say it is pleasant to have scholarships thrust upon one because of being a southern gentleman. i think in this day and generation our ancestors do precious little for us--just sit back in their gilt frames and make us uncomfortable--i am glad for some of them to be getting to work." louis laughed and said he didn't know but that i was right. we all of us wanted to hear more of exmoor, and professor green told us it was a small college, quite old and of excellent standing among educators, and that it was in walking distance of wellington, where he occupied the chair of english. it turned out, however, that the professor was a great walker, and that exmoor and wellington were more than ten miles apart. "exmoor has a very fine course in agriculture and one of the greatest landscape gardeners in the united states is a graduate of that college, and boasts that he got his start there." "oh, louis, that will be splendid, and you can specialize in that and come back to charleston and do all the things you dream of doing!" exclaimed dee, who still had louis by the hand but was totally oblivious of the fact. she was so excited over the offer professor green had made her friend that she might even have hugged him without knowing she was doing it. louis was not quite so unconscious as dee, but was making the best of his opportunity. dee's attitude toward louis was very much one that she had toward oliver, the kitten she saved from drowning our first year at boarding-school, a purely maternal feeling, looking upon herself as his protector and elderly friend (being about two years his junior). louis, however, was tumbling head over heels in love with her, as dum and i could plainly see. there had not been many meetings, but when there were he stuck much closer than a brother to her side. claire could see it as plainly as we could, and no doubt went through all the heartaches an only sister would. she evidently liked dee very much, however, and was willing to efface herself completely if it would make louis happy. but dee would have been quite as astonished if the kitten, oliver, had stood up on his hind legs and sworn undying love for her; or pharaoh's daughter, if the infant moses had burst forth in amorous rhapsodies from his wicker basket after she had saved him from the waters of the nile. she dropped his hand to pick up grimalkin, and i am sure at the time she had no more sensations about the one than the other. "if i might advise you young people," said professor green, "i think it will be just as well to say nothing to your father yet about the scholarship, but wait and mr. tucker and i will formally suggest it to him and ask his permission." of course the young gaillards agreed heartily with professor green, and glad they were, no doubt, to have the office of approaching their pompous relative delegated to someone else. in the meantime, the pompous relative was making himself vastly agreeable, and the two arch conspirators, molly and zebedee, were doing all in their power to flatter and soft-soap him with a view to gaining his confidence and putting in an entering wedge toward helping his son. "claire," said his eminence of the tum tum, "have you extended an invitation to tea in the garden of our home to the misses laurens and their guests?" we had joined the rest of the party, attracted by the gay laughter and evident enjoyment of the older members. "no, father," said claire timidly. i haven't a doubt that he had told her not to ask us until he found out whether we were worthy or not. "we shall be most pleased to have all of you to afternoon tea tomorrow." of course we were most pleased to accept, as no doubt that would be the occasion on which louis' fate would be decided. zebedee and the professor could put it up to him then. "mrs. green, i came mighty near hugging your husband tonight," declared dee, after the guests had departed and the dear old ladies had taken their bedroom candles and gone to their colonial couches, with strict admonitions to zebedee to lock up. already they were trusting him with that sacred rite of locking up. "why did you only come near doing it?" laughed the young wife. "well, i just grabbed louis' hand instead. it was so dear of him to think of giving the scholarship to louis. he was so lovely and gentle in his way of doing it, too. now nothing lies between louis and certain success. i just know if he can get the chance he will do something with himself. it will develop him to get away from his old father, too. how could anybody grow with that--that ponderous weight on him?" "mr. gaillard is really not nearly so bad as i feared. he is very agreeable and very gallant." "oh, molly darling, i did not think you would be taken in by flattery," teased the husband. "but i did like him, not just because he flattered me, but because he was very nice to miss judith and miss arabella, too, and because---oh, just because!" the truth of the matter was that mrs. green had a tendency to like everybody. it amounted to almost a fault with her, but since there were degrees of liking and she did not like everybody in exactly the same way, we could not quite put it down as a fault. i must say, though, that i do like to see a little wholesome hatred possible in a character. i like people, too, lots and loads of people, but there are some kinds of people i just naturally don't like. i don't like horse-faced people with their eyes set up too high in their heads; i don't like men who wear club-toed button shoes, and i never could stand girls who toss their curls. now mr. gaillard did not come under any of those heads of hatred, but somehow i did not like him one little bit: a case of dr. fell, i fancy. "i do not like thee, dr. fell! the reason why i cannot tell. but one thing 'tis, i know full well- i do not like thee, dr. fell." father had certain types he could not stand. i have heard him say: "i can stand a fool; i can stand a fat fool; but a fat fool with a little mouth i can't abide." i think mr. gaillard came under his ban. he was fat and had a little mouth, and certainly while he was not a fool on all subjects, he was a big enough fool on the subjects he was a fool on to spread over all the things he was not a fool on. i dreaded going to tea with the gaillards. i had a terrible feeling that i might "sass" his eminence of the tum tum. there was something about the way he pulled down his vest and wiped off his chin that deprived me of reason. i could well understand the temporary aberration that is the plea of criminals who say that some instinct over which they have no control compels them to commit murder. i could have punched mr. gaillard one with all the joy on earth. "i feel the same way," declared zebedee, when i voiced the above sentiments to him. "me, too! me, too!" tweedled the twins. "do you know, green, i think if mrs. green likes mr. gaillard, she had better broach the subject of the scholarship for louis." "oh, mr. tucker! you can do it so much better than i can." "now i don't want to be a shirker and will do it with joy, as i don't regard the old cove one way or the other. i'd just as soon ask him to come be printer's devil on my newspaper as not. but this is the thing: we want him to consent and let louis have this chance, and i believe your husband will bear me out that it is good psychology for a person who really likes another to ask a favor rather than one who only pretends to. now you say you like mr. gaillard----" "so i do--that is, i don't dislike him, and i think he has some fine points." "it would take an x-ray to discover them through all that plumpness," put in dee flippantly. "you, as the wife of the man who was commissioned by the president of exmoor to bestow this honor on a southern boy, would be the appropriate person, anyhow--that is, unless green himself will do it." "not i! i feel toward him just as miss page does, and speaking of psychology--my astral body is at war with his astral body to such an extent that a pricking in my thumb tells me he will grant no request of mine and molly must bell the cat." "all right! i am willing to do anything my lord and master puts on me, if you really think i can succeed." "succeed! of course you can!" we chorused. "tomorrow afternoon, then, when we have tea with them in their garden, will be 'the time, the place, and the girl.' he will have to be nice under his own vine and fig tree," suggested zebedee. "there is one thing i ask of you," begged dum. "and what is that? i feel myself to be very important," and mrs. green wasted another beautiful blush. "wear blue! your own blue! i know he is the kind of old man who can't resist a beautiful woman in blue." chapter xix a red, red rose i don't know whether it was the blue of her eyes or her dress or perhaps the fact that they matched so beautifully, but at any rate mrs. green put the proposition up to mr. gaillard with such adroitness that he consented to the scholarship, and so quickly that she could hardly believe the battle was won. "i had not half used up my arguments," she said afterward, "and felt that i must go on persuading when he was already persuaded." she had started out with the premises that of course he must feel sorry for the benighted north, so sadly in need of the softening influence of the south. she descanted on how a little leaven of good manners would leaven a whole lump of bad manners, and how popular southern students were in northern schools and colleges because of the good manners and breeding they brought with them. (this was particularly hard on mrs. green, as she firmly held the opinion that people were the same all over the world, that good manners were the same everywhere. she felt, however, that she would use any argument to make mr. gaillard see the light.) she then told the story of the grateful man who had established the scholarship at exmoor for the four years of the academic course and expatiated on his opinion of southern youths. she lauded the college as having turned out such good men. gradually she got to the subject of louis and how close wellington was to exmoor, and before the old man knew what he was doing he had consented to louis' accepting the scholarship. he did it with an air of having loaded the yankees with benefits in allowing one of his exalted position and azure blood to stoop and mingle with them; but it made no difference to us what he felt on the subject, just so he would let louis accept. we were having tea in their lovely garden and louis was showing us his flowers while mrs. green was wheedling "papa." she looked so lovely i verily believe the old gentleman would have accepted the scholarship himself just to be only ten miles from her for four years. i believe claire was even happier than louis when "papa's" ultimatum was pronounced. she was going to miss him more than even she could divine, but her love for him was so deep that she was willing to give up anything for him. louis was glad and grateful, but the truth of the matter was he was so taken up with dee that mere college and scholarships meant little to him. "his eyes look just like brindle's when he looks at her that way," sniffed dum, who did not relish too much lovering toward her twin. "i shouldn't be in the least astonished if he began to whine to be taken up next." "why, dum, i thought you liked louis!" "so i do. i like brindle, too, and oliver, the kitten; but i like them in their places, and that is not everlastingly glued to dee's side. i must say i think he had better get out and hustle some before he comes lollapalusing around dee." i was awfully afraid someone would hear dum, and stirred my tea very loudly to drown her tirade. "but, dum, dee grabbed his hand herself last night; she said she did," i whispered, trying to set the conversation in a lower tone. "yes, i know that! but don't you reckon i saw him holding on to it for dear life? he was mighty limp on claire's side and mighty strenuous on dee's. when he had to put back a lock of hair, i saw him let go of his sister's hand and swing to dee's. and dee with about as much feeling for him as a wooden indian!" the tuckers were, father and daughters, very strict about one another's admirers. i remembered how dee had sniffed over reginald kent's admiration for dum, and zebedee, too; and how dum and dee carried on over any attention their father paid any female or any female paid him. zebedee had not yet scented out louis as a possible lover, but when he did i was sure to hear from him. they one and all brought their grievances to me. i used to think if any of them ever should unite themselves to anyone in the holy bonds of matrimony, they would have to have a triple wedding to keep the persons the tuckers were marrying from getting their eyes scratched out. if they were all in the same boat, they would have to behave and sit steady. in the meantime, dee's influence over louis was certainly a wholesome one. whether his love for her was of the undying brand or just the calf kind, it was very sincere and ardent, so ardent that dee must soon wake up and realize that she had done a right serious thing when she put out her girlish hand and drew back that poor boy's soul just as it was getting ready for the journey to the great beyond. she was in a measure responsible for him now, and the time would come when she would have to be a woman and no longer a wooden indian, have to treat louis with a different manner from the one she had for brindle and oliver; that is, of course, provided louis' love turned out to be the undying brand and not the calf kind. when it was said that dee tucker treated anyone like a dog, it meant the highest praise for that person. she treated all dogs with a great deal more consideration than she did most people. every flower dee admired, louis immediately wanted to give her, but she persuaded him to let them go on blooming where they belonged. he had a greenhouse in the back of the garden, where some wonderful roses bloomed all the year round. a great jaqueminot filled one side of the house, its crimson blooms beautiful to behold. louis cut one and brought it out to dee. i was glad i was the only one who heard him as he gave it to her, as i am sure dum would have "acted up," as mammy susan calls it. dum had gone to the tea table to put down her cup, and mrs. green had detained her a moment, while i wandered on in the maze of gravel walks. an oleander hid me from louis and dee as he handed her the marvelous open rose, and with a voice that even a wooden indian would have remarked, he said: "when i send thee a red, red rose, the sweetest flower on earth that grows, think, dear heart, how i love thee. listen to what the red rose saith with its crimson leaf and fragrant breath: 'love, i am thine in life and death! oh, my love, doth thou love me?'" "humph! going some!" i thought, and backed down the walk, thereby running into dum, who smeared a lettuce sandwich on my back in the encounter; but she did not know what i had heard. chapter xx more letters mrs. edwin green, from mrs. kent brown. new york, april .., 19... molly darling: your letter was good to get. kent and i had begun to feel like -in-laws, it had been so long since you had written. mother brown, the usually faithful chronicler of all the doings and sayings of the family, had cut us off with a postal. now that we know she is "keepin' keer" of little mildred, we can understand her silence better. when mother brown does anything, she does it all over, and i am sure when she is doing such a thing as attend to anything so precious as her beloved grandchild she has no time for mere letter writing. kent and i were greatly interested in what you had to tell us of the charming virginians you have met in charleston. it was almost uncanny, in a way, to hear from you of these people, as we had just been hearing of them from a very nice young man with whom kent has struck up an acquaintance at the y. m. c. a. gym, where kent goes regularly to keep from getting flabby. the young man's name is reginald kent. it was the name kent that they had in common (one in front and one behind) that first brought them together. they were always getting mixed up on account of it, my kent answering when the other kent was called, and vice versa. this young mr. kent is an illustrator and advertising artist. he really is very clever and very wide-awake. he was dining with us at the very time that your letter was brought to me, on the last mail. i had to open it and read part of it aloud. he had just been telling us of some cousins named winn he visits in the country in virginia, and of some richmond girls whom he has met staying with page allison, and these girls are no other than your tucker twins. he says the first time he met them he went on a deer hunt and that miss dum tucker actually shot a deer. i was slightly incredulous, he thought, and to prove his story he took out of his pocketbook two kodak pictures, one of a very handsome, spirited-looking girl with her hair coming down and a rifle raised to her shoulder, and the other a fallen buck with a young girl kneeling beside him, her arms around his neck and her face buried on his shoulder. that one, he said, was miss dee, who wept buckets over the death of the buck, but managed afterward to partake of some of the venison. i have an idea mr. reginald kent thinks that miss dum tucker is about the most attractive person he ever met. he is certainly very attractive himself, singularly wholesome and clean in appearance and mind. he seemed very happy at the prospect of this paragon of a girl's coming to new york to study. i will be very glad to be of any use to your friends i can, and if they do decide to come i will find board for them and mother them, too, if they need it. i know you are grinning at the idea of my mothering anything--i, the harum-scarum, the flibberty-jibberty--but i am really very much settled down. i am so steady and good that kent is afraid i am sick. caroline is doing the work very well for us. i am the envy of all the people we know because i can boast a really, truly kentucky bluegrass cook. she is awfully funny about new york, but i think is beginning to like it very well. gas scared her nearly to death for a few days. she seemed to think there was some kind of magic in it, and i had to light the stove for her a million times a day. i found she was just keeping it burning all the time to save matches, and when i told her to turn it out if she wasn't using it, she almost cried, because, it seems, she was afraid of the pop it gave when she lit it. then she began calling on me every time she wanted to light it, but after a week or so of such humoring she has learned to do it herself, and now everything is going along swimmingly. i find she is saving the burnt matches, though, to make some kind of bracket with--something she saw back in "kaintucky." i think the greatest shock she ever had was when she found out that in new york you had to pay for onions. "i nebber hearn tell of no sich a place. if'n you ain't made out ter grow none yo'se'f, looks ter me lak some er yo' neighbors mought be ginerous enough to gib yer a han'ful fer seasonin', not fer fryin' or b'ilin'. i wouldn' spec a whole mess er onions as a gif'--but it do seem a shame ter hab ter buy a dash er seasonin'." she almost got her head knocked off with the dumb-waiter the other day. she thought it was down, and it was up, and she put her head in the shaft to watch for it, all the time giving the most vigorous pulling to the rope. the dumb-waiter descended with great force and hit her squarely on the top of the head. i heard a great bump and flew to the kitchen. "caroline! caroline! what is the matter?" i cried. "'tain't nothin' much, miss judy, but it mought 'a' been. that there deaf-and-dumb dining-room servant done biffed me a lick that pretty near knocked a hole in his flo'." "did it hurt very badly?" "no'm, it didn't ter say hurt none. it jes' dizzified me a leetle. you see, miss judy, it jes' hit me on the haid." just on the head! i think caroline is almost as much afraid of aunt mary's disapproval now that the old woman is dead as she was in her lifetime. whenever she passes the picture i did of aunt mary on the back porch of chatsworth shelling peas, she suddenly gets in a great hurry. she is not as a rule very energetic, but at the sight of aunt mary she gets a great move on her. she came in the other day from some jaunt she had been on, it being her afternoon off, and said: "looks lak wherever i goes folks seem to 'vine i'm from de souf. i ast a colored gemman how he guessed it an' he said it was my sof' accident what gimme away. i's goin' ter try ter speak mo' yankeefied an' see if'n i can't pass fer noo york." caroline's first attempt at being yankeefied was almost fatal. she made friends with some of the white maids in the apartment house, some scandinavians, and in her endeavor to become new yorky she swapped recipes with them, and the next morning served for breakfast the result: corn bread with sugar in it! you can picture kent. kent and i are seeing some very pleasant people, but both of us are working very hard. i work every morning at the art students' league from 9 to 12. that means i leave the house with kent. i go to market on the way to the league and get back to luncheon. sometimes he comes in to luncheon, too, but he is usually too busy. in the afternoon i sew or read or go shopping or to the matinee, always something to do in new york, and then we have dinner at 6:30 and long, delightful evenings together, usually at home; but sometimes we take in a show and sometimes we dine at a restaurant. we have callers in the evening often and also return calls, but kent is not much of a caller, as you know. we have company to dinner, too, quite often now that caroline has found herself. kent delights in bringing home unexpected company. he has a notion he is still living in kentucky and that this little two-by-four flat is chatsworth itself. caroline is fortunately accustomed to it, but i am afraid she will soon become corrupted by these scandinavians, who would not put up with it one moment. of course i don't mind how many companies he brings home, and if we are short on rations i can do like the immortal mrs. wiggs and just put a little more water in the soup. this idiosyncrasy of my young husband, however, has taught me to keep a supply of canned soups, asparagus tips, etc., in the store-room. my friends among the young married set tell me they market day by day and never have anything like that on the shelves as it makes the servants wasteful. maybe it does, but i feel quite safe with caroline and the canned goods, as she has never yet learned how to use a can-opener. please give the learned professor my best love. kent sends his love to you both. this is such a long letter i am sure it will take two stamps to send it. your ever devoted, judy kean brown. page allison from dr. james allison of milton, va.: bracken, april .., 19... my dear daughter: mammy susan and i were very glad to hear from you. you are a nice girl to write such a fine, long letter to a mere afterthought. if you write that splendid a letter to a mere afterthought, what would you do for a beforethought? your new friends sound delightful. i wish i might know them. the only kick i have about being nothing but a country doctor is that i meet so few new people. of course it is interesting work, and i am not out of love with it, but sometimes i do get a weeny, teeny bored with poor sally winn's aches and pains, and wish either she had some new aches or she could tell about them in a more scintillating manner. some new people are moving into our neighborhood, the carters. of course, as the name indicates, they are not new people except to our neighborhood. they have taken the old overseer's cottage on the grantly estate, leased it from the two miss grants for a year, and are coming bag and baggage in a few days. i don't know how many of them there are, but i believe it is quite a family of girls and one or more boys and a mother and father, one of them an invalid. more pink pump water to be concocted by yours truly, i fancy. i hope they will be agreeable, since no doubt we will have to see something of them. the cottage is in miserable repair, and i only hope it will not tumble down on them. if they are coming to our county for fresh air, they will get it there winter and summer, as there are cracks in the walls as big as those in a corn crib. pretty lawn, though, about the prettiest i know of anywhere, and trees that make me think of tennyson's "immemorial elms." i shall not call on these new neighbors until you come home--that is, unless i am sent for to come and bring some pink pump water. i have had a letter from general price, harvie's grandfather, asking for the pleasure of your company in the month of july on a house-party he is giving his grandson. it is such a dignified, ponderous epistle that i am afraid i shall have to send to richmond for the proper stationery with which to reply. nothing less than crested vellum could possibly carry my acceptance. the king of england could not observe more form were you being invited to put in two weeks at windsor. it is very kind of him, however, to ask my little girl, and i hope by the aid of the dictionary to express myself with ease and verbosity in acknowledging the honor. of course you want to go? i shall be pleased to have the volume of henry timrod's poems. i'd like to see the coogler poems, too. i enjoyed the extracts immensely. i have often heard of him and remember reading some reviews of his stuff when it came out years ago, before you were born, but i have never seen any of it. his efforts were so impossible that the reviewers treated him, one and all, with mock seriousness, and i believe i have heard he took them all seriously and thought he was being praised when they were only poking fun at him. it is rather pathetic, i think, although of course he was an awful blockhead. mammy susan was pleased at your account of the flowers in charleston, and hopes you can send her a few clippin's. her things are doing very well, and her lemon verbena has grown so that i tell her we shall have to build a lean-to to keep it in. she misses you very much and is beginning to count the days to the middle of may, when i assure her you will be back with us. i hope your ankle is behaving itself. you do not mention it, so i fancy it is. please remember me most kindly to all the tuckers--father and daughters. i hope you are not bothering jeffry tucker by being with them too much. i think there is such a thing as the best friend wearing out her welcome by staying too long. i am sending you a check for your expenses. you have not divulged how much your board will be, but if i do not make the check large enough, please inform me directly. a sickly winter means a little more money in the bank in the spring for a country doctor. thank goodness, however, the spring seems to be a healthy one. i'd like to be a chinese doctor and be paid only when my patients stay well. sometimes it saddens me to feel that my living depends on disease. good-by, my dear little daughter. father. chapter xxi the summing up charleston had taken a strong hold on all our affections. the spirit of the place seemed to possess us as we lazed away the hours in miss arabella's tangled old garden or in louis' more combed and brushed one. our friendship for the greens grew stronger and deeper, and we were soon addressing mrs. green as molly and her husband as 'fessor. all of us were staying in the beautiful old southern city longer than we had intended. zebedee said he had no excuse for lingering longer, as he had threshed out the political situation to his own satisfaction and the dissatisfaction of the south carolina "ring." he should be back on his job in richmond, but he said he felt like one of the lotus-eaters and nothing much made any difference to him. 'fessor also had overstayed his holiday, but he declared that his assistant at wellington could do the work as well as he could, which amused molly greatly as she said it was the first time he had acknowledged that his assistant could do anything at all; he looked upon him usually as purely ornamental and not intended for use. i knew father and mammy susan were wondering if i had forgotten them entirely, but my conscience, too, was lulled to rest, and i felt as though i could spend the rest of my days dreaming and dozing. tweedles, of course, had nothing to do but stay with a light heart as no one was expecting them home but poor brindle; and as brindle was left in care of the elevator boy, who spoiled him outrageously, even treating him to ice cream cones, i really believe he did not mind being left nearly so much as dee liked to think he did. every day we lengthened our stay in charleston was as another pearl on the string to poor louis, and to claire, too, i think. thanks to molly and zebedee, his eminence of the tum tum had accepted the whole crowd as desirable, and that meant that we could see as much of his children as we wanted to; and as we wanted to see them all the time, we did. we went on wonderful jaunts with them, and saw everything that could be seen, louis acting as guide. sometimes we even persuaded one of the dear old ladies to go with us. i am sure they saw things they had not seen for a decade. we noticed one thing, that when zebedee was along they always left their pokers behind. sullivan's island thrilled us, and dum and zebedee tried to work out the whole scene of poe's "gold bug," but as the island is now a popular summer resort, it was not an easy matter to do. there is no use in trying to describe the magnolia gardens. the azaleas were in full bloom, and nowhere else in the world, i verily believe, is there such a sight. some of the bushes are thirty feet high and look like giant bouquets. "i feel like the country woman at the circus the first time she saw a hippopotamus," declared zebedee; "i don't believe there's no sich thing! it doesn't seem possible that these are growing plants and that in richmond at easter i have had to pay five dollars for a little azalea not much more than two feet high." the dark green of the magnolia and live-oak trees enhanced the glory of the flowers. it was so beautiful it hurt. molly said it made her feel as she did the first time she ever saw an opera at the metropolitan in new york. it was her freshman year at wellington, and she had been invited to visit in new york during the christmas holidays. "it was 'madame butterfly,' and the scenery was so wonderful to me i could hardly listen to the music. i fancy cherry-blossom time in japan must be almost as beautiful as this, but i can't believe it is quite so brilliant." magnolia cemetery, which is just outside of charleston and which dee had refused to see without zebedee, certainly would be a nice place to be buried in. it was sadder to visit because of the new graves there, and zebedee had to abandon his usual cheerful graveyard spirits. he was quite solemn and kept his hat off all the time. louis skirted us around the outer edge of the cemetery first and saved the great old oak for the last. it burst upon us with such force that as a crowd we were left breathless. the beauty of the azaleas at magnolia gardens, compared to this hoary old monarch, were as a cheap obituary poem to the twenty-third psalm. and in saying that i do not mean to belittle the beauty of the gardens, but i have to put them in that category to make a place high enough in the scale of comparison for that tree. it was huge, but bent over with years like some old man, and one great limb was resting on the ground, giving it the look of one kneeling in prayer. the foliage was vigorous and glossy, deeper and richer in color than that of many younger trees, just as the wonderful words of some grand old man, john burroughs or his ilk, will make the utterances of younger men seem pale and feeble. in kneeling and coming so in touch with mother earth, this father of the forest had borrowed of her fullness, and now his trunk and huge limbs were covered with an exquisite ferny growth. wild violets and anemones bloomed happily in the crotches of his great arms, and i saw a tiny wild strawberry ripening on his knee, having escaped the vigilance of the many birds nesting in the upper branches. spanish moss hung in festoons from some of the limbs, seeming like a venerable beard. i have never had anything affect me as that tree did. it was so gallant and brave, so kindly and beneficent! it had the spirit of youth and the kindliness of old age; the playfulness of a child and the wisdom of centuries. it must have seen the indians crowded out by the white men; looked out across the harbor at the storming of fort moultrie, and almost a century later at the defence of fort sumter. wars and rumors of wars were nothing to this veteran. while we were there a perky wren pounced down on the defenceless strawberry and gobbled it up, and i am sure the gray beard thought no more of the gobbling up of the redmen than he did of that red berry. his comparisons were of ã¦ons and not of decades or mere centuries. "there is no use in talking about it!" exclaimed zebedee. "i've got to climb that tree, if it means one hundred dollars' fine and a month in jail." that was exactly the way i felt. it seemed to me as though i simply had to get up that tree. the park policeman was nowhere in sight, and zebedee ran lightly up the bent back of the ancient giant, dum after him. it was easy climbing, and i would have followed suit in spite of my ankle, that i could not yet quite trust, if i had not seen the helmet of the policeman looming up over a near-by sepulchre. claire was shocked at what seemed to her a desecration, but louis said afterward he knew just how mr. tucker felt. he had always wanted to get up that tree, and he considered it a kind of homage due the old oak. trees were meant to climb, and it was no more a desecration to climb one even if it did happen to be in a cemetery, than it was to smell a rose that bloomed there. the policeman, all unconscious of the coons he had treed, came ambling up and stood and talked to us for quite a while until dee tactfully drew him off to descant on the glories of the william washington monument. zebedee and dum sat very still in their leafy bower, so still that zebedee declared a bird came and tweaked some of dum's hair out to help line his nest; but dum said he did it himself until she had to make a noise like a catbird to make him stop. there is no telling what fine and punishment would have been imposed on the miscreants. it was not that it was such a terribly naughty thing to do, but just that it had never been done before. they slipped down, however, while the policeman's back was turned and came up smiling around the other side with the innocent expression a cat assumes when he has been in the cream jug. "it was worth it," whispered zebedee to me; "i am so sorry you couldn't get up, too. the old fellow was glad to have us up there. he told me that no children had climbed up to hug him for at least a hundred years. i didn't tell him that i was grown up, but just let him treat me like a little child. he didn't know the difference." "i shouldn't think he would," i laughed, "when there isn't any difference." * * * * * and now it is time to stop, and i shall have to close my story of charleston. all of us wanted to dream on there forever. it had been a wonderful time. we had made lifelong friends of molly brown and 'fessor green. we had flopped into the lives of the gaillards and expected to stay. we had made our way into one of the most difficult and exclusive homes in the city of exclusive homes, and miss judith and miss arabella laurens had taken us to their fluttering hearts. their thin pocketbooks had also opened to take in a fair and generous recompense for their kind hospitality--but it had been zebedee and not edwin green who had finally and tactfully completed our business arrangements. now zebedee said he must get back to his newspaper. he felt it calling him, as he had discovered an advertisement on the editorial page--a crime in newspaperdom that was deserving of capital punishment. he must get back and chop off somebody's head. then 'fessor green began to fear his assistant was not able to do his work, and molly couldn't wait another day to see little mildred, her baby. i knew it was selfish for me to stay any longer from father, who did have a stupid time of it when all was told. dee began to feel that brindle missed her. dum said it was because louis had the same expression in his eyes that brindle did and it made dee feel that she must get back to her pet. we parted from our friends with many assurances of meeting again. the greens asked us to visit them at wellington or in kentucky, where they spent their summers, and of course we asked them to come see us in virginia. molly was to send us letters of introduction to her friends in new york, and louis was planning to stop in richmond on his way to exmoor. parting was only planning for future meetings. i was to stay at bracken for several months and then meet my friends at price's landing, so sometime i shall tell you my experiences there, in "a house party with the tucker twins." the end the girl scouts series [illustration: the girl scouts canoe trip by edith lavell] by edith lavell a new copyright series of girl scouts stories by an author of wide experience in scouts' craft, as director of girl scouts of philadelphia. clothbound, with attractive color designs. price, 65 cents each. the girl scouts at miss allen's school the girl scouts at camp the girl scouts' good turn the girl scouts' canoe trip the girl scouts' rivals the girl scouts on the ranch the girl scouts' vacation adventures the girl scouts' motor trip for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york marjorie dean high school series [illustration: marjorie dean high-school freshman] by pauline lester author of the famous marjorie dean college series these are clean, wholesome stories that will be of great interest to all girls of high school age. all cloth bound copyright titles price, 65 cents each marjorie dean, high school freshman marjorie dean, high school sophomore marjorie dean, high school junior marjorie dean, high school senior for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york marjorie dean college series [illustration: marjorie dean: college sophomore] by pauline lester. author of the famous marjorie dean high school series. those who have read the marjorie dean high school series will be eager to read this new series, as marjorie dean continues to be the heroine in these stories. all clothbound. copyright titles. price, 65 cents each. marjorie dean, college freshman marjorie dean, college sophomore marjorie dean, college junior marjorie dean, college senior for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york the camp fire girls series [illustration: the campfire girls in the maine woods] by hildegard g. frey a series of outdoor stories for girls 12 to 16 years. all cloth bound copyright titles price, 65 cents each the camp fire girls in the maine woods; 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or, shirley willing to the rescue. the blue grass seminary girls' christmas holidays; or, a four weeks' tour with the glee club. the blue grass seminary girls in the mountains; or, shirley willing on a mission of peace. the blue grass seminary girls on the water; or, exciting adventures on a summerer's cruise through the panama canal. the mildred series [illustration: mildred at home] by martha finley for girls 12 to 16 years. all cloth bound copyright titles price, 65 cents each a companion series to the famous "elsie" books by the same author. mildred keith mildred at roseland mildred and elsie mildred's married life mildred at home mildred's boys and girls mildred's new daughter for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york the radio boys series [illustration: the radio boys on the mexican border] by gerald breckenridge a new series of copyright titles for boys of all ages. cloth bound, with attractive cover designs price, 65 cents each the radio boys on the mexican border the radio boys on secret service duty the radio boys with the revenue guards the radio boys' search for the inca's treasure the radio boys rescue the lost alaska expedition the radio boys in darkest africa the radio boys seek the lost atlantis for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york the ranger boys series [illustration: the ranger boys to the rescue ] by claude h. la belle a new series of copyright titles telling of the adventures of three boys with the forest rangers in the state of maine. handsome cloth binding. price, 65 cents each. the ranger boys to the rescue the ranger boys find the hermit the ranger boys and the border smugglers the ranger boys outwit the timber thieves the ranger boys and their reward for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street, new york the boy troopers series [illustration: the boy troopers on the trail] by clair w. hayes author of the famous "boy allies" series. the adventures of two boys with the pennsylvania state police. all copyrighted titles. cloth bound, with attractive cover designs. price, 65 cents each. the boy troopers on the trail the boy troopers in the northwest the boy troopers on strike duty the boy troopers among the wild mountaineers for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street, new york the golden boys series [illustration: the golden boys in the maine woods] by l. p. wyman, ph.d. dean of pennsylvania military college. a new series of instructive copyright stories for boys of high school age. handsome cloth binding. price, 65 cents each. the golden boys and their new electric cell the golden boys at the fortress the golden boys in the maine woods the golden boys with the lumber jacks the golden boys rescued by radio the golden boys along the river allagash the golden boys at the haunted camp for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york the jack lorimer series [illustration: jack lorimer's champions] by winn standish for boys 12 to 16 years. all cloth bound copyright titles price, 65 cents each captain jack lorimer; or, the young athlete of millvale high. jack lorimer is a fine example of the all-around american high-school boys. his fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy among athletic youths. jack lorimer's champions; or, sports on land and lake. there is a lively story woven in with the athletic achievements, which are all right, since the book has been o.k'd. by chadwick, the nestor of american sporting journalism. jack lorimer's holidays; or, millvale high in camp. it would be well not to put this book into a boy's hands until the chores are finished, otherwise they might be neglected. jack lorimer's substitute; or, the acting captain of the team. on the sporting side, this book takes up football, wrestling, and tobogganing. there is a good deal of fun in this book and plenty of action. jack lorimer, freshman; or, from millvale high to exmouth. jack and some friends he makes crowd innumerable happenings into an exciting freshman year at one of the leading eastern colleges. the book is typical of the american college boy's life, and there is a lively story, interwoven with feats on the gridiron, hockey, basketball and other clean honest sports for which jack lorimer stands. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a. l. burt company 114-120 east 23rd street new york * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. varied hyphenation was retained. this includes words such as sight-seeing and sightseeing. page 10, "vllage" changed to "village" (in the village) page 124, "keat's" changed to "keats'" (john keats' epitaph) page 164, two missing letters filled in blank space "bal more" changed to "baltimore" (lady baltimore cake) page 217, "perserving" changed to "preserving" (of a preserving-kettle) page 259, word "i" inserted into text (if i should forget) page 310 "allens" changed to "allen's" (at miss allen's school) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 42748-h.htm or 42748-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42748/42748-h/42748-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42748/42748-h.zip) transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [illustration: for nearly ten miles the autos were close together.] the motor boys overland or a long trip for fun and fortune by clarence young author of "the motor boys," "the motor boys in mexico," etc. new york cupples & leon co. * * * * * * books by clarence young =motor boys series= 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cents, postpaid the motor boys or chums through thick and thin the motor boys overland or a long trip for fun and fortune the motor boys in mexico or the secret of the buried city the motor boys across the plains or the hermit of lost lake the motor boys afloat or the stirring cruise of the dartaway the motor boys on the atlantic or the mystery of the lighthouse =the jack ranger series= 12mo. finely illustrated. price per volume, $1.00, postpaid jack ranger's schooldays or the rivals of washington hall jack ranger's western trip or from boarding school to ranch and range jack ranger's school victories or track, gridiron and diamond (other volumes in preparation) * * * * * * copyright, 1906, by cupples & leon company the motor boys overland contents. chapter. page i. an automobile race 1 ii. ho for the west! 10 iii. the old mill on fire 18 iv. a chase after a rascal 26 v. the mystery of the miner 34 vi. a hold-up 42 vii. a fruitless pursuit 49 viii. in the windy city 56 ix. a shot in the dark 64 x. encircled by cowboys 72 xi. capturing a horse thief 79 xii. the auto on fire 87 xiii. at dead man's gulch 95 xiv. noddy steals a march 103 xv. in the nick of time 111 xvi. a rush of gold seekers 119 xvii. over the mountains 126 xviii. a trick of the enemy 133 xix. the auto stolen 140 xx. attacked by indians 147 xxi. over a cliff 154 xxii. the chase 161 xxiii. wrecked 169 xxiv. forward once more 176 xxv. a race to the mine 183 xxvi. gold! 191 xxvii. besieged at the mine 198 xxviii. winning the claim 205 xxix. the fight at the mine 212 xxx. an escape--conclusion 220 list of illustrations. for nearly ten miles the autos were close together. “take that!” ned cried. they rushed to one side, thundering past the auto. the savages began circling about the machine. preface. _dear boys_: here we have the second volume of "the motor boys series," a line of books relating to the doings of some bright and up-to-date youths, on wheels, at home and abroad. in the first volume of the series, called "the motor boys," the writer told how bob, ned and jerry won several important races, including that which brought to them a much-wished-for prize, a grand touring car. the car won, there was nothing to do but to take a long trip, and in this present book, "the motor boys overland," are given the particulars of a journey in the automobile to the great west. on the way the boys fall in with an old miner, who has the secret of a lost gold mine of great value. the lads decide to take the miner to the lost mine in their touring car, and the long and perilous journey among the mountains is begun. enemies also hear of the wonderful lost mine, and then begins a wild race, to see who shall get there first and claim the riches. this "motor boys series" will be continued by a third volume, to be called "the motor boys in mexico." i earnestly hope the boys will find the stories to their liking. i can assure all it has been a pleasure to pen them, for the writer is something of an automobile enthusiast himself, and some of the experiences on the road have been taken from life. clarence young. _march 22, 1906._ the motor boys overland. chapter i. an automobile race. there was a whizz of rubber-tired wheels, a cloud of dust and the frightened yelping of a dog as a big, red touring automobile shot down the road. "you nearly ran over him, chunky!" exclaimed jerry hopkins, to the stout youth at his side. "that's what you did, bob baker!" chimed in ned slade, leaning over from the rear seat of the auto. "i thought you said you were an expert." "i didn't come within five feet of the pup," answered bob baker, giving the steering wheel a twist to avoid a chicken that scooted across the country road. "never mind--miss as good as a mile--we certainly are skating along--never say die--hit a dog, biff! bang! up in the air--down again--bust a tire--break your leg--kill the animal--off again--whoop!" "say, andy rush, if you're going to talk as fast as that the first time chunky speeds the machine, i'm going to get out!" cried jerry, with a laugh. "there's excitement enough without you making any more." "all right, fellows, i'll keep quiet," agreed andy, who was a small, nervous chap, never still for a moment, and so full of energy that he talked, as jerry sometimes said, "like a house afire." bob leaned forward and pulled one of the levers. the auto slowed down, as the low-speed gear came into play, and bowled along under a stretch of shady trees. "fifteen miles in thirty minutes," remarked the stout lad, pulling out his watch. "not so bad for a starter, eh, ned?" "the machine certainly can go!" observed jerry. "i didn't have the full-speed lever on, either," remarked bob, who was called "chunky" by his companions, because of his fleshiness. he turned off the gasolene as the auto came under a large chestnut tree, and the four boys stretched out comfortably on the leather-upholstered seats. there was bob baker, a lad of fifteen years, son of andrew baker, a rich banker; ned slade, sixteen years old, the only son of aaron slade, a department store proprietor, and jerry hopkins, the son of a widow, mrs. julia hopkins. these three were faithful chums, seldom apart. with them was a mutual friend, andy rush. all the boys lived in the village of cresville, not far from boston. the three first named had, the week before the story opens, come into possession of a fine touring car, which they had won as the first prize of a motor-cycle meet, given by the cresville athletic club, as related in the first volume of this series, entitled "the motor boys." in that was told how they had incurred the enmity of noddy nixon, a town bully, who had robbed the mill of amos judson of one thousand dollars, which crime the motor boys were instrumental in fastening on noddy. in consequence of the pending disclosure of his guilt, noddy had fled from town, a short time before the races, in his father's automobile. bill berry, a town ne'er-do-well, accompanied him. not long after noddy had fled in the terror of his guilt being found out, he sent back a letter threatening vengeance on the three boys, whom he accused as being responsible for the fact that he had to leave home. but the motor boys, as they now called themselves, cared little for this in view of the pleasures they anticipated when they got the automobile. it had come in due time; a fine affair, with all the latest improvements and attachments, and was a car capable of making a trip almost anywhere. the company from whom the auto was purchased sent an expert out to cresville with it, to instruct the boys in the running of the machine. they learned readily, and were soon able to make short trips on the country roads surrounding the village. this was the first time they had made an extended trip, and the drawing of lots had given bob the chance to drive the auto, with the result that he nearly came to grief when the dog unexpectedly ran across the road. for about half an hour the three chums and andy rested in the shade. it was a pleasant fall afternoon, and though the sun was warm there was a cool breeze. "whose turn to crank her up?" asked bob, for, of course, it could not be expected of him, in charge of the steering wheel, to start the engine. "i guess it's mine," came from ned, with a sort of groan. his arm still ached from the previous turning of the flywheel. "i'll do it--lots of fun--first time i ever had a chance--let me--good for my muscle--whoop!" exclaimed andy, bustling from the car. "oh, it's good for your muscle, all right enough," observed ned. "go on, i'll not stop you." it was harder work than andy had anticipated, but he managed to give the crank a few turns and spin the heavy flywheel around. bob switched on the spark, turned the gasolene into the cylinders, and soon there was a throbbing that told the engine had started. andy jumped to one side and nearly toppled over. "did you think i'd run you down?" asked bob. "i don't know anything about autos," answered andy. "she can't go until i connect the speed-gears," explained bob, with something of a superior air. "hop in, andy!" andy climbed back to his rear seat, bob threw the lever forward to first speed, and the car, moving slowly at first, but with increasing swiftness, started down the road. "look out for dogs!" advised ned. "we don't want roast chicken for supper, so you needn't bother to kill any," came from jerry. "i can steer as good as either of you," exclaimed the stout lad. "you nearly hit a man the other day, jerry, and i guess you've forgotten, ned, how you broke down one of mr. smith's shade trees. i'm not as bad as that." honk! honk! sounded down the road in the rear of the boys. "here comes another auto," said jerry. "keep over to one side, bob." honk! honk! this time it was bob who blew his horn to let the oncomers know some one was ahead of them. the noise of the approaching car sounded nearer. "better keep well over, chunky," advised ned. "i'm not going to give 'em more than half the road," answered bob, firmly. "if they want a race they can have it, too." he threw the third-speed clutch into place, and the boys' car shot ahead so suddenly that andy was nearly toppled out of his seat. the red auto dashed down the road. behind it, at a swift pace, there came a big, green affair, almost twice the size of the cresville machine. it was going at a great pace, a lone man occupying the steering seat, and no one being in back. as the green car shot past the red one, the solitary rider gave three toots to his horn. bob answered, and then, before the other boys could stop him he advanced his spark, turned on more gasolene, and was away after the green dragon like a streak of red fire. "what are you going to do?" yelled ned. "see if i can beat him!" exclaimed bob. "you're crazy! that's a ninety horse-power car and ours is only forty!" "i'm going to try," repeated bob, between his clenched teeth. it looked like a hopeless undertaking. the green car was a quarter of a mile ahead before bob could get his machine speeded up. when he did, however, the new auto ran along swiftly and easily. bob shut off his power temporarily and then, with a quick yank, pulled the lever to full speed ahead. then he turned on the spark and gasolene. the red auto seemed to double its already swift motion. the car swayed from side to side, and the boys, except bob, who had a firm grip of the wheel, were bounced up into the air, again and again. bob had on big goggles, and, with head bent low, was watching the road like a hawk ready to pounce on a chicken. "we're gaining on him!" he muttered, and he tooted the horn. back a faint, answering blast came. indeed, it was evident that the red auto, though a smaller and less powerful machine, was creeping up on its rival. the lone chauffeur glanced back, saw the pursuing car, and turned on full power. for a few moments he increased his lead. but bob advanced his spark further, and turned on a trifle more of gasolene. the red auto once more leaped forward. "we've got him!" cried bob. "he can't get another inch out of his, and i haven't used the accelerator pedal yet. we'll beat him!" "if we don't all break our necks!" exclaimed jerry, holding to his seat. "terrible fast--takes your breath--shakes the liver-pin out of you--loosens all your teeth--great sport--smash the machine--never say die--don't give up the ship--whoop!" yelled andy, as he slid down to the bottom of the car, unable any longer to remain upright. slowly the red car crept up on the green one. the dust arose in clouds about both machines. the autos swayed from the terrific speed, but bob held the wheel firm and was ready to shut off power and apply the emergency brake in a second. the man in front again glanced back, and did not seem to relish being passed by mere boys in a smaller car than his. he was making desperate efforts to draw away. the distance between the machines lessened. bob was watching his opportunity. "now we've got him!" he cried. "here we go!" he pushed down the accelerator pedal, used only to give a momentary burst of speed. the red car shot forward and the front wheels almost lapped the rear ones of the machine in the lead. there was a slight turn to the road, just where bob had decided to pass his rival. a clump of trees hid the view, excepting for a short distance ahead. just as the boys' auto was on the point of making the turn and passing the green one, ned glanced up and gave a shout of terror. right in front was a load of hay, overturned in the road, and both cars, at full speed, were dashing straight for it! chapter ii. ho for the west! "put on the brake!" yelled ned. "shut off the power!" shouted jerry. a frightened cry came from the farmer whose load of fodder had overturned in the road. he was unhitching his horses, and jumped to one side as he saw two big autos bearing down on him. "you're in for a spill, lads!" called the man in the green car. at that instant he applied his emergency brake and shut off the power. his car came to such a sudden stop that he was thrown from his seat, high into the air. bob seemed unable, from the very terror of fright, to make a move to stop the auto he was steering, and clung to the wheel like grim death. "put on the brake!" yelled ned again. "we'll be killed!" the load of hay was not ten feet in advance. bob gave the wheel a sudden twist. the red car shot to one side, out into a ditch along the road. it skidded on two wheels, the boys were nearly thrown out, and bounced high in the air. with another quick twist, bob sent the car straight ahead. then another turn of the wheel and he was back in the road again! he had passed the obstruction, going between it and the green auto, and had reached the highway in safety after as daring a bit of steering as ever a boy undertook. then he shut off the power and applied the brakes hard, the car coming to a stop with a groan and screech as the emergency band gripped the axle. "whew! that was a close shave!" came from jerry, as he drew a long breath. "a little too near for comfort!" was ned's opinion. "bet your life!" was all andy could say, his rapid fire of words failing to discharge this time. "i thought it was the only thing to do," remarked the stout steersman. "i was afraid to stop too suddenly, and i figured we just had room enough to get through. but i wouldn't do it again." "speaking of sudden stops, i wonder what has become of the man in the green car?" spoke jerry. "we must go back and find out." the four lads leaped from their machine and ran back past the load of hay. the farmer was rapidly walking about in a circle, wringing his hands and crying: "he's killed! he's killed! i know he is!" with rather anxious hearts the boys hurried around to the other side of the big pile of dried grass. as they reached the place they saw a man attired in an automobile suit, with big goggles on, wiggle out from the mass of hay. he pulled several wisps from his hair and then saw the boys. "did you shoot right through the pile and come out on the other side?" he asked. "we ran around it," explained bob. "we beat you," he added, not without pride. "so i see. it came pretty near being the end of all of us. you're a plucky lad. i don't mind being beaten by you. i thought i had a good car, but yours is better." "ours is much lighter; i guess that's why we went ahead," returned jerry, willing to concede something to a vanquished rival. "but are you hurt?" the man carefully felt of different parts of his body. then he took off his goggles and looked over as much as he could see of himself. "i don't seem to be," he said, finally, with a laugh. "it was like falling into a feather bed to land in that hay-pile the way i did. that's all that saved me. i wonder how my machine stood the emergency brake." he examined his car carefully, and was apparently satisfied that no injury had been done by the sudden stopping of it. "where is he?" asked the farmer, suddenly appearing from behind the hay. "is he dead?" and then he seemed to realize his error and joined in the laugh that followed. "no, i'm not dead yet," replied the owner of the green car. "well," he went on, "i must be going. are you boys coming along? if you are, no more races." "we'll have to go back to cresville," answered bob. "we promised to return for supper." the man bade the boys good-by and soon the big, green dragon was throbbing down the road in a cloud of dust. the boys, finding they could not help the farmer in his trouble, got in their machine and, promising to send help from the first farmhouse they passed, they left the owner of the hay and were soon speeding toward cresville. "isn't this glorious!" exclaimed jerry, as the auto sped along. "i wish we could take a long trip." "why can't we?" asked ned. "we talked of a tour when we found we had a chance to get a car," put in chunky. "i for one would like to go out west." "ho for the west!" piped up andy. "over the plains--herds of cattle--cowboys in chase--rattlesnakes and horned toads--sandy deserts--indians--bang! shoot 'em up! lots of excitement--take me along--whoop!" "easy!" pleaded jerry. "one thing at a time, andy. haven't we had excitement enough for one day?" "we ought to make a strike to go on a western trip, though," spoke ned, in serious tones. "here we have a car that we could cross the continent in. let's speak about it at home. it can't do any harm. maybe the folks will let us go." "it's worth trying for," said jerry. "what do you say, chunky?" "i'm with you," replied bob. "it will be the best sport ever. but wouldn't we have to wait until next spring? it's fall, and if we go west it may be very cold, with lots of snow soon." "we can bear off to the south," said jerry. "sure enough," agreed chunky. that night, when the automobile had been safely put away in the barn at bob's house, three anxious boys broached the subject to their respective parents. so insistent were they that it was not long before a general council was arranged. mrs. hopkins and mr. slade were induced to call at mr. baker's house, where, with the three boys, the whole subject was gone over. "i'm afraid it's too much of an undertaking," said mr. baker. "that's my idea," agreed mr. slade, and mrs. hopkins nodded to indicate that that was her view. the boys set up a chorus of pleadings. the parents had many objections. the distance was too great, the boys did not know enough about automobiles, they would lose their way and break down far from help. in fact, so many negative reasons were given that it looked as if the plan would not go through. "will you please wait ten minutes before you make a final decision?" asked jerry, appealing to the trio of parents. they agreed, wondering what he was about to do. jerry got his hat and hurried from mr. baker's house. in a little while he returned, all out of breath. "he'll be here in five minutes," said the boy. "who?" asked mr. slade. "mr. wakefield." jerry referred to horace wakefield, an instructor at the athletic club, who was quite a friend of the boys, and who himself had recently purchased an automobile. he lived near mr. baker. "what's all this i hear about a trip to the west these boys are going to take?" asked mr. wakefield, a few minutes later, coming into the parlor where the conference was going on. "you mean the trip they think they are going to take," corrected mr. slade, with a laugh. "i suppose jerry told you it was all settled." "to be honest, he wanted me to come over and settle it for him and his chums," replied the instructor. "he said there was some doubt about the feasibility of making the trip." mr. baker explained how matters stood. he and the other parents were willing the boys should have a good time, he said, but did not want them to run into danger. "do you think they could make a trip away out west in their car?" asked mr. baker. "from what i know of the boys, and from the build of their car, i have no doubt it could be done with perfect safety, as far as ordinary conditions are concerned," said mr. wakefield. "of course, there will be some few troubles, but none that cannot be overcome with a little work. i think the trip is perfectly possible. in fact, you know, autos have gone clear across the continent." "then you think we ought to let the boys go?" asked mr. slade. "i--think--you--ought to," replied the instructor, with purposed deliberateness, smiling at the anxious lads. "hurrah!" yelled bob, forgetting that he was in the house. "lucky i thought to go and get him," spoke jerry to ned. "i might add," went on mr. wakefield, "that i am going to make a trip as far as chicago. if you decide to let the boys go, they could accompany me that far, at least. it would be a good experience for them." "oh, dad! please let us go!" pleaded bob. "yes, yes!" chimed in jerry and ned. there was a moment of silence, while the parents were gravely considering the matter. during it the boys could almost hear the beating of their own hearts. "well," began mr. baker, "i'm willing, if the rest of you are." "i suppose i may as well say yes," spoke mr. slade. "then the only thing left for me to do is to agree with the majority," said mrs. hopkins, with a laugh. "westward ho!" fairly shouted bob, and he began to do an impromptu jig until his father stopped him. "we'll take andy rush along," said ned, "and we'll start the first of the week!" "hark! what was that?" asked mr. baker, suddenly. out on the night air sounded an alarm. "fire! fire! fire!" chapter iii. the old mill on fire. they all rushed to windows and looked out into the night. off to the north a dull red glare lighted the sky. "what is it?" asked mr. baker. "i can't see from here," replied jerry. "come on, fellows! let's go!" exclaimed ned. he started for the door. "take the auto," suggested bob. "no telling how far off it is." the next instant the three boys were in the automobile shed, getting the machine ready for a start. the red glow in the sky increased. people began running past on their way to the fire. there was a clatter and bang, a ringing of bells, and the one engine the town possessed, in all the glory of its brass and nickel plate, rushed past, as fast as the horses could drag it. the hose-cart followed. "hurry up or we'll miss the fun!" cried ned to bob, who was cranking the auto. somehow, chunky could not get the engine started. at last he succeeded and the boys climbed to their seats. "it's my turn to steer!" cried jerry, and no one disputed him. he ran the car out of the side path, past the baker home. on the stoop stood mr. slade, mrs. hopkins and mr. baker, watching the fire. "want to come along?" asked ned. "let's go," exclaimed mr. slade, and he and mr. baker got their hats and were soon in the rear seat with ned. mrs. hopkins, with a laugh, declined the trip. jerry speeded the car ahead and soon was chugging on toward the fire, which was some distance outside of town. on the road the automobilists passed scores of men and boys who were running at top speed. in their excitement many were yelling at the top of their voices. "where is it?" asked bob of a group of boys. "the old windmill!" was the answer. "the place where we found the box noddy nixon stole from mr. judson!" cried jerry, turning to his companions. "queer, isn't it?" "maybe he got his toady, jack pender, to set the place afire so nothing would ever come out about it," suggested bob. "hardly," ventured jerry. "but what's the trouble up ahead?" in advance could be seen quite a crowd of people in a group about some object. just then came a long-drawn-out whistle of a steam engine. "the fire apparatus is stuck!" cried ned. "the horses can't pull it!" "i always thought that machine was too heavy for two horses," said mr. slade. the auto soon came up to the scene of the trouble. the fire-engine had sunk deep down in a rut of the road and, pull as they did, the horses could not budge it. "lay hold of the wheels, boys!" called the driver of the apparatus. "everybody give a hand!" willingly enough the crowd tried to aid. but the roads were soft and the engine was heavy. it seemed bound to stick fast. "hold on!" cried jerry. "let us through, will you? i have an idea!" the crowd parted, the attention of the men and boys being attracted from the stranded engine. "what are you going to do?" asked mr. baker. "give 'em a lift," replied jerry. "i say, have you a rope?" the boy called to the driver of the steamer. "yes!" was the reply. "but we need more than a rope to get out of here." "no, you don't! i'll show you!" shouted jerry. he had brought the machine to a halt by throwing out the gear, but did not stop the gasolene engine. he quickly fastened the rope to the rear axle of the auto. "now tie the other end to the engine and we'll pull you to the fire," the boy said. the driver saw the feasibility of the scheme at once. he unhitched the straining horses, attached the cable to the pole and gave the word. jerry threw on the clutch, there was a tightening of the rope and slowly but surely the engine was dragged from the mud hole. then, once on solid ground, jerry put on more speed, and, amid the cheers of the crowd, he started off at a swift pace, dragging the engine to the fire. the hose-cart had gone on ahead and was waiting for the steamer. power was soon up in the apparatus, and soon two streams were directed toward the mill, which was now a mass of flames. there was no chance of saving it, such a start had the fire gained, and, in fact, the loss would be small if it burned down, but the fire company could not let slip a chance of going to the blaze. so the crew continued to squirt water, though most of it did little good. however, there was plenty of excitement, which suited the boys. those in the auto watched the old mill gradually being consumed. to the boys it brought a recollection of the time they had there made the final discovery of noddy nixon's villainy, and had practically forced him to admit his guilt. at last the roof fell in, with a big shower of sparks, and the fire was practically out, though the steamer continued to pump water. "let's go home," suggested mr. baker. "we've seen enough." "oh, stay a while longer!" pleaded his son. "it's a fine moonlight night and it will be fun going home later." "you boys can stay if you like," said the banker, "but home's the place for me, eh, mr. slade?" the merchant agreed. so jerry turned the auto toward cresville and made a quick run, leaving mr. baker and mr. slade at their respective homes, and then he and the boys came back in the machine to the fire. they found most of the crowd gone, and the engine about to return to quarters. "do you want us to trail along and pull you again if you get stuck?" asked bob of the engineer. "well, you might come in handy," was the answer. "we're much obliged to you, boys." "glad we were on deck," said jerry. "however, i guess you will not need us again," and he sent the auto ahead at a good speed. "we'll take a little ride before we go home," he added to his chums. it was a bright moonlight night, rather warm for the close of september, and the road was a fairly good one, so the boys skimmed along, their thoughts on the western trip they were soon to make. for several miles they kept on. suddenly jerry yanked the levers and put on the brakes. "what's the matter?" asked bob, as the auto came to a stop. "there," replied jerry, pointing ahead. the boys looked and saw, a little in advance, a tumble-down hut, from the window of which a light gleamed. "that's queer," observed jerry. "what is, to see a light in a hut?" asked bob. "no; but in that particular one," replied jerry. "i came past there day before yesterday and i noticed that the place is almost ready to fall apart. no one can be living in it, and any one who is there at night with a light is there for no good purpose." "let's take a look," suggested bob. jerry shut off the power, took out the spark plug and the boys advanced cautiously, leaving the machine on one side of the road. "maybe there are tramps in there who won't like being spied on," said ned. "don't make any noise," was jerry's answer. "be ready to run when i give the word." on tiptoes the boys drew near the hut. suddenly bob grabbed jerry by the arm. "what is it?" asked jerry. "smell that?" "acetylene gas! some one has been here with a gas lamp, and within a few minutes," agreed jerry, sniffing the peculiar odor. "isn't that a motor cycle leaning against the building?" asked ned. "sure enough!" said jerry. "go slow, boys." walking like cats, they reached the window from which the light streamed. as they glanced inside they saw a sight that startled them. lying on a pile of rags in one corner of the bare room, in the glare of a candle, was an old man, with matted and unkempt hair and beard. his face showed pain and suffering. his clothes were old and ragged. but what attracted the attention of the boys was the fact that he wore about his waist a wide leather belt, with several compartments or pockets in it. the pockets were open and in them, as well as scattered on the floor in front of the man, were little piles of yellow, gleaming gold. "he's a miner!" whispered bob, hoarsely. as the boys watched they heard the old man moan: "don't rob me! don't take what little i have left! if i wasn't sick and suffering no one would dare play this trick on jim nestor!" the next instant the boys heard a sound from the farther corner of the room. out of the semi-darkness came a figure. it stooped over the old miner. there was the sound of a blow, a deep groan--and then came darkness as the candle was extinguished. some one ran rapidly from the hut. "help! help!" called the miner, feebly. "help! he's robbed me!" chapter iv. a chase after a rascal. "after him!" cried jerry. "catch the miserable thief!" "you and bob chase him, whoever he is!" called ned. "i'll stay with the old miner here in the hut. he may be badly hurt." "hurry back to the auto!" shouted jerry. "we can catch the thief in that." as he spoke he looked ahead. a dark figure crossed the patch of moonlight in the rear of the hut. then came a sound of a motor-cycle being started, and soon the chug-chug of the machine on the road told that the thief was escaping that way. jerry and bob ran to the auto. in a trice jerry had the engine cranked up. bob jumped in, followed by his companion, and they put off down the road after the fleeing motor-cyclist, whom the moonlight plainly revealed. "he can't get away from us!" exclaimed jerry. "we will overhaul him in a jiffy!" but jerry reckoned without knowing who he was after. he did not dare put on full speed, while the cyclist rashly had his machine going as fast as the explosions could follow one after the other. besides, the thief had a good start with his light apparatus. but jerry determined to make the capture. he threw in the second speed gear and in a little while had lessened the distance between the auto and the motor-cycle. "i wonder who it is?" asked bob. "maybe we can tell," answered his chum. jerry switched on the searchlight in the front of the auto. a dazzling pencil of illumination shot down the road. in the white glare the figure of the motorist stood out sharply, and the red motor he rode could be plainly seen. at the sight both boys gave a start. "jack pender!" exclaimed bob. "as sure as guns!" cried jerry. "we must catch him!" he was about to take chances and put on the third gear, when pender, on his cycle, suddenly turned from the main road, and took a path leading through the fields. "that ends it!" exclaimed jerry. "no use trying to follow him. our auto isn't built for 'cross-country riding." he slowed up, turned around, and, with a last glance in the direction noddy nixon's former toady and friend had taken, sent the car back toward the lonely hut. meanwhile, ned, after his companions had started on the chase, had struck a match and lighted the candle in the cabin. he found the old miner, for such the boys correctly guessed him to be, lying unconscious in a corner. the belt, with the gold-dust was gone, though a few grains of the precious metal were scattered over the floor. ned found a pail of water in the place. he bathed the old man's head and poured some of the fluid down his throat. "where am i? what happened?" asked the old man, opening his eyes. then he passed his hand over his head. his fingers were stained with blood. "you're all right," spoke ned. "i'll take care of you. what's your name and where did you come from?" "don't let him rob me!" pleaded the old miner. "i have only a little gold, but i need it. i know where there is more, much more. i'll tell you, only don't hit me again. i'm sick, please don't strike poor jim nestor!" "no one is going to hurt you," said ned, in soothing tones, but the old man did not seem to comprehend. ned felt of the miner's head, and found he had a bad cut on the back. he washed it off with some water and bound his handkerchief around it. this seemed to ease the old man, and he sank into a doze. "well, of all the queer adventures, this is about the limit," spoke ned, to himself. the boy glanced about the hut. there was nothing to throw any light on the strange happenings. the candle flickered in the draught from the open door, and cast weird shadows. the man breathed like a person in distress. ned was about to bathe the wounded man's head again, when the sound of the automobile returning was heard. "what luck?" asked ned, running to the door. "did you get him?" whereupon jerry told of the fruitless chase after jack pender. the three boys entered the hut, and ned told his chums what he had done to relieve the miner. "he's got a bad wound on the head," he went on. "i guess pender must have hit him. jack probably came this way, saw the old man in here sick, and unable to help himself, and watched his chance to rob him. there must have been considerable gold-dust in that belt." jerry stooped down and gathered a little from the floor. "there is some mystery here," he said. "i think we had better get a doctor for the old miner. after he gets better he may talk. i'd like to get my hands on pender for a little while." "so would i," chorused ned and bob. "the question is, shall we take the old man back in the auto with us, or run back to town and bring out a doctor?" went on jerry. "i think we'd better go get a doctor and fetch him here," was ned's opinion. "it might injure the old man to move him." this was voted the best plan. they made the unconscious miner as comfortable as possible on the bed of rags, placed the pail of water where he could reach it, and prepared to run back to town. ned volunteered to stay with the miner until they returned, but jerry advised against it, as the hut was on a lonely road. it did not take long to reach cresville. dr. morrison was routed out of bed by the boys, and agreed to return with them in the auto, when the case had been explained to him. "just wait until i get dressed," he said, "and pack up some instruments and i'll be with you." while waiting, jerry examined the auto to see that there was plenty of water and gasolene in the tanks. he found everything all right. while dr. morrison was making ready to relieve the sufferings of the miner in the hut, jack pender, on his motor-cycle, was still speeding on, to get as far away as possible from those in pursuit of him. when he turned from the road and cut across lots he thought very likely that the auto would not follow. but he was taking no chances, and, when he emerged into the highway again, about a mile farther on, he still ran his machine at full speed. "that was a close call!" he exclaimed. "who would ever have thought that those boys, the same ones who made all the trouble for noddy, would be after me! i escaped just in time. i hope i didn't kill the old man, though it was a hard blow i struck him!" pender slowed down his machine and listened. no sound of pursuit came to him on the quiet night air. he stopped alongside of the road, under a big oak tree. "guess i'll light up and see how i made out," he said to himself. he lighted his acetylene lamp and, standing in the glare of it, drew from his pocket the belt he had stolen from the old miner. "feels heavy," he muttered. "ought to be plenty of gold in it. well, i need the money if i am to join noddy. i must read his letter again." he pulled out a sheet of paper and began glancing over it. "dated new york," he said. "he says he's having lots of fun and no end of larks with bill berry. i don't care much for bill, myself. he never was any good around town, and he's a desperate man. hum! let's see!" he turned to the letter again. "'come and join me, jack. we'll go west and have a good time. bring some money.' well, i've got the money, all right. now to start west. i'll ride the motor as far as the depot and take a train." replacing the letter and the belt of gold in his pockets, pender remounted his machine and started off down the road, dark shadows from the trees soon hiding him. it was just about this time that dr. morrison had completed his preparations to visit the injured miner. the physician took a seat in the auto beside bob, ned and jerry being in front, the latter steering. "now, don't go too fast," cautioned the doctor to jerry. "you know i'm an old-fashioned man, and not used to making professional visits any faster than my horse, old dobbins, can take me. i don't want an upset." jerry promised to be cautious. the moon had begun to go down, and it was no easy task steering along the shadowy road, but the boy managed it, and soon the deserted hut was reached. "now to see what sort of a case i have," spoke the doctor. "i'll bring one of the oil lamps," said jerry, unfastening a lantern from the dashboard, after stopping the automobile engine. "you can see to work by it." the boys and dr. morrison entered the hut. jerry held the lamp up high to illuminate the place. "now i'm ready," announced the physician. "where is the patient?" and he opened his medical case. in wonderment the boys gazed around the hut. to their astonishment, there was not the slightest sign of the wounded miner. he had disappeared! chapter v. the mystery of the miner. "he's gone!" exclaimed ned. "are you sure he was here?" inquired the physician. of that the boys had not the slightest doubt, and they speedily convinced the medical man. the lantern was flashed in every corner of the hut, but there was not a sign of the miner. "it's rather queer," commented dr. morrison, when he had listened to the details the boys gave him. "do you suppose some one came and carried him off?" asked bob. "more likely he was not as badly hurt as you supposed," replied dr. morrison. "he may have been only stunned by a blow on the head. when he regained his senses he probably feared another attack, and so he hurried from the hut. let me take the lamp." the physician flashed the lantern outside the door of the cabin, holding it close to the ground. "i thought so," he said. "see, there are a few grains of the gold-dust showing on the door sill, and here are more, farther along the path. the man has gone away, and has left a little golden trail." the physician attempted to follow it, but the yellow specks soon disappeared and there was no other clew. "depend on it, he has run away in fear," said the doctor. "rather disappointing, too. i believe he could tell a queer story. who robbed him, i wonder?" "it was----" began bob, but a nudge from jerry stopped him. "we saw some one run from the hut," explained jerry. "we gave chase in the automobile, but the fellow cut across lots and we couldn't follow." "i suppose i may as well go back," announced the doctor. "there is no use staying here. i don't believe the miner will return and solve the mystery for us." the auto was turned toward cresville and a quick trip was made, the boys speculating among themselves on what might be revealed if the wounded man could be found. the physician was left at his home, and then the boys began thinking of their beds, as it was growing late. "queer that both noddy and jack should turn thieves, isn't it?" remarked jerry. "and that we should happen to be mixed up in both cases," put in ned. "i wonder if we will meet either of them again." if the boys could have looked into the future they would have seen that they were destined to soon encounter noddy and jack, and under the strangest of circumstances. the auto was put away and three tired boys were soon snoring in their beds. they were up bright and early the next morning and in consultation about the proposed trip to chicago. they called on mr. wakefield to learn his plans. he said he expected to start for the windy city by way of new york, on thursday. it was then tuesday, and the boys realized that they had little time to spare in which to make their preparations. the three parents, who had somewhat reluctantly given their consent to the project, were soon almost as enthusiastic as the boys. stocks of clothing were looked over, money matters were arranged, and the boys packed their dress-suit cases with what they thought would do them on the trip. they were each given a fairly liberal allowance of funds. then the automobile was got ready. it was given a thorough overhauling, and an extra supply of tools, together with a full new set of tires, was provided. andy rush was told to prepare to go, it having been decided to take him as far as new york or chicago, he having relatives in both cities. at last the time came to start. it was a fine, crisp september morning, and the boys were up early enough to see the sun rise. the suit-cases had been strapped to the machine, tires were pumped up, there was plenty of water and gasolene in the tanks, the batteries were renewed, and every bit of machinery had been gone over carefully. andy rush, the night previous, had sent his things over to bob's house, from whence the trip was to be begun. andy himself arrived right after breakfast. "hurrah!" he shouted. "here we go--all aboard--blow the horn--get out of the way--turn on the gasolene--off brakes--break the records--mile a minute--whoop!" "you'll have all the excitement you want for once, i hope, andy," said jerry. "betcherlife!" exclaimed andy, in one breath. the boys piled into the auto; good-byes were called, over and over again. then came a toot of a horn as mr. wakefield came up the road in his machine, a friend, who intended making the trip, accompanying him. "all ready, boys?" he called. "all ready!" replied jerry, who was going to steer for the first stage. with a blaring of the automobile trumpets, a waving of hands from those who had gathered to see the start, and a chorus of cries, wishing every one good luck, the little party rode away. mr. wakefield, who knew the road better than did the boys, took the lead. his car was of the same pattern as theirs and both machines were of equal speed. for several miles the two autos puffed along over the pleasant country roads. no attempt to make time was tried, and at noon the travelers found themselves in providence, rhode island, that being the first stopping place mr. wakefield had decided on. the machines were run up in front of a quiet but good hotel, and every one was hungry enough to do full justice to the meal. "how do you boys like it?" asked mr. wakefield at the table. "do you think you can stand it as far as chicago?" they were all sure they could run the machine to san francisco, if necessary, and mr. wakefield and his friend laughed at their enthusiasm. "we have come about seventy miles without a mishap," said mr. wakefield, "but there are many miles ahead of us yet." after a short rest the journey was again taken up, and throughout the afternoon the autos were speeded along. the way was through a pleasant country, and the boys enjoyed the scenery and fresh air. several times they stopped at farmhouses to get drinks of cold milk, and once a motherly-looking woman filled the boys' pockets with newly baked doughnuts that were delicious. "we'll spend the night in norwich, conn.," said mr. wakefield, when the two autos were ready to start, after a momentary stop at a farmhouse. "norwich--norwich! i know norwich!" exclaimed andy. "i saw it in a book once--years ago--i was a little fellow--man in the moon came down too soon to inquire the way to norwich--went by the south--burnt his mouth--eating cold bean porridge!" "you remember your nursery rhymes well," said mr. wakefield, with a laugh, in which all joined. on and on chugged the autos. the afternoon waned to dusk and frequent signboards told that the distance from norwich was constantly lessening. mr. wakefield was about half a mile in advance, on a straight, level road. suddenly came a sound as of a pistol shot. "tire busted!" exclaimed jerry, shutting off the power. mr. wakefield heard the noise and turned back. "accident?" he inquired. jerry explained that one of their inner tubes had blown out. "want any help?" asked the athletic instructor. "we may as well begin now as any other time to mend our own breaks," spoke jerry. "you go ahead. we'll catch up to you soon." "all right," said mr. wakefield. he felt that it would be a good thing to accustom the boys to depend on themselves. so, telling them that the road to norwich was now a straight one, and that the town was about ten miles off, he left them to their own devices. the boys started in on the not very easy task of taking off the heavy outer shoe and inserting a new inner tube, of which they carried a supply. it finally became so dark that they had to light the lamps to see to work. at length they were finished and the tools were put away. the new tire was pumped up and the engine started. the boys took their seats, and, at bob's request, he was allowed to steer. "go slow at first," advised jerry, "until we see how the new tube holds." bob started off at first speed. it was now quite dark, but the oil and acetylene lamps gave a good light. all at once bob, who was peering ahead, shut off the power with a jerk and put the brakes on hard. "what's the matter?" asked jerry. "something in the road," replied the steersman, pointing to a dark object. the next instant three figures loomed up in the glare of the auto lamps. "climb out of that gasolene gig!" exclaimed a rough voice. "we're hard up an' we need help!" chapter vi. a hold-up. "who are you?" asked jerry, boldly. "never mind who we are!" exclaimed the same voice. "just git out of that choo-choo wagon an' hand over what spare change you have." "is this a hold-up?" demanded ned. "if it isn't it's a good imitation of one," was the answer, accompanied by a laugh. "come, now! look lively!" one of the men came around to the side of the auto and grabbed bob by the arm. at the same time another of the tramp trio attempted to seize jerry. ned was in the rear seat. "let go of me!" exclaimed jerry, striking at the man who had climbed up on the step of the machine. the boy's blow fell on the man's arm. "oh, that's your game, is it?" cried the ruffian. he drew back his fist as though to fell jerry. "help! help!" yelled bob. he was being pulled from the car by the tramp who had grabbed him. it looked bad for the motor boys. ned sprang up from the rear. he had been fumbling in a valise on the floor of the tonneau. he leaned forward over the front seat. in each hand he held some object, bright and shining, and he aimed them full in the faces of the two tramps on either side of the auto. "take that!" ned cried. [illustration: "take that!" ned cried.] there was a sharp, hissing sound, a click, and the air was filled with a pungent odor. "i'm killed! he's blinded me!" yelled the tramp, who had grabbed bob. "oh! oh! my head is blown off!" yelled the other ruffian. both of them toppled from the steps of the auto and rolled over and over in the road, screaming with pain and fright. "and there's one for you!" shouted ned, taking aim at the tramp in front of the machine, and once more the hissing sound was heard. "wow!" cried the fellow, and, whirling around, he dashed off, full speed, down the road. "bully for you! hit 'em again--knock 'em out--smash--bang--never say die--hear 'em yell--do it again--siss--boom--ah! whoop!" cried andy, standing on the seat and waving his cap. the two tramps who had fallen to the road got up, and, still yelling in pain, followed their companion. "start off!" exclaimed ned to bob. "i guess they won't bother us again very soon." "what in the world did you do to them?" asked jerry. "used an ammonia squirt-gun on each one," said ned. he showed the boys two affairs that looked like small revolvers, only the ammunition was liquid spirits of ammonia, quite strong, contained in a rubber bulb in the handle. by pressing the bulb a fine stream of ammonia could be shot for quite a distance. "i saw 'em advertised in a magazine," said ned. "they were just the things for vicious dogs and men, it said, for they blind a person temporarily and make his face smart like sixty, but no permanent injury is done. i had 'em in my valise and i just happened to think of them when those chaps held us up." "lucky you did," commented jerry. "i thought we were surely going to be robbed." "i guess they thought they were killed when they felt that ammonia," said bob. "ned, you're all right, that's what you are!" he finished, heartily. "i guess we'd better move along, or mr. wakefield may be worried about us," suggested jerry. so bob threw the gear into place and the machine moved away. no further sign of the tramps was seen, and the boys reached norwich without further incident. they found the hotel mr. wakefield had arranged to meet them at, and soon were eating a good supper. the adventure with the tramps was related, and mr. wakefield congratulated the boys on their pluck. an early start was had next morning and good progress was made, so that by noon the travelers were in waterbury, conn., where dinner was eaten. mr. wakefield said that by swift traveling new york could be reached late that night, but he did not advise it. instead, the night was spent in danbury. by noon the next day more than half the distance between their last stopping place and new york had been covered, and late that afternoon found the two autos speeding down riverside drive, leading to the metropolis. not an accident had occurred since the hold-up by the tramps and the blowing out of the tire on the boys' auto, and each one was congratulating himself that the trip was being made under the best of luck. the travelers were about opposite grant's tomb, and were moving along slowly, when suddenly, with a noise like a shot, one of mr. wakefield's tires burst. a young woman, driving a spirited horse, was passing his auto at the time, and the animal, taking fright, took the bit in his teeth and bolted. the young woman screamed in fright, lost her hold on the reins and clung desperately to the seat. there were no vehicles on the drive in that vicinity just then, excepting the two autos and the runaway. "quick!" cried mr. wakefield to the boys, as he brought his machine to a stop. "take after her! there may be an accident! i can't go on until i mend this break!" ned was steering, and made a turn. like a flash he threw on the third gear and the auto sprang forward like an unleashed hound. bob, andy and jerry clung to the seats, while ned steered the machine after the runaway horse. the animal was now galloping at top speed, but the auto was creeping up on him. it made scarcely a sound, only a purring as the cylinders exploded, one after another. "what are you going to do?" asked jerry. "go close enough so one of us can jump in the carriage?" "watch!" was all ned replied. faster and faster went the auto. at length it passed the galloping steed, and the boys could see the young woman clinging in desperation to the seat. then, as ned steered the machine ahead of the horse, the boys saw what his plan was. the animal was now directly behind the auto, coming on like the wind. ned gave one glance back. then he quickly threw the gears to first speed. so quickly was it done that the horse nearly rammed his nose into the rear of the tonneau. the animal did not think of dashing to one side and so passing the car. instead he kept his place behind it. then ned shut off the power and allowed the machine to drift along. the horse, seeing the obstruction continually in front of him, gradually reduced his speed, and finally, when the auto came to a stop, the animal did likewise. jerry jumped from his seat and, running back, grasped the bridle. he spoke soothingly to the animal, and soon had him quieted. the young woman, pale and trembling, regained her composure. "i'm so much obliged to you," she said. "really, i don't know what possessed dexter. he never was frightened at autos before. i'm a little ashamed of myself, too. i ought to have kept hold of the reins and i could have managed him." "are you sure you will be all right now?" asked jerry. "if not, one of us will go with you." "oh, i can take care of him now," replied the lady. "dexter will be all right. i thank you boys very much," she added, sweetly, and a moment later drove off. the boys turned the auto around and speeded back to where they had left mr. wakefield. he had repaired the break in the tire in the meanwhile and was ready to proceed. in a short time the travelers steered for the hotel, uptown, where mr. wakefield had engaged rooms for all. the machines were sent to a garage, and the boys prepared to wash up for supper. it was getting quite dark, and the electric lights in the streets were gleaming. jerry was looking from the window of the sitting-room of the suite which the boys had on the third floor. suddenly he gave a start and cried: "there he goes!" "who?" asked ned. "noddy nixon!" replied jerry, dashing from the room. chapter vii. a fruitless pursuit. for a few seconds the other boys did not know whether jerry was joking or in earnest. but when he did not return in a little while they knew he must have meant what he said. "i don't see anything of noddy," spoke ned, looking out of the window whence jerry had spied their enemy. "it's getting too dark to see anything," said bob. "well, i guess if jerry said he saw noddy he meant it," put in andy. "i hope he catches him and gives him a good thrashing!" "well, boys," exclaimed mr. wakefield at that instant, entering their room, "are you all ready for supper?" "we are," answered ned. "where is jerry?" asked the athletic instructor, looking around. "he went out for a little while," replied ned, quickly, not wishing to state jerry's real errand. "i guess he'll be back in a short time." "he doesn't know his way around new york; i hope he will not get lost," spoke mr. wakefield. "trust jerry to find his way back," said ned. then the party went down to supper without waiting for the missing member. meanwhile, jerry was in hot pursuit of noddy. "i wonder what he is doing in new york?" thought jerry, as he jumped into an elevator that was just going down, and got out on the ground floor. the boy ran out into the street and glanced in the direction he had seen noddy taking. the thoroughfare was not crowded, and, though it was getting quite dark, jerry caught a glimpse of noddy's back. "i'll catch him and ask him what he meant about that note he wrote, threatening to get even with us," he thought, as he hurried on. noddy had quite a start, and jerry had some difficulty in getting close to him. he lost a little time at a street crossing, where there were a number of vehicles, and noddy got farther ahead. jerry broke into a run when he saw a passage, and hurried on. noddy happened to glance back just as jerry passed beneath an electric light, and seeing he was pursued, started forward at a rapid rate. the pursuit was getting hot. they had passed from a busy part of the city and were on a street containing only old buildings. there were less people, too, and jerry had a good view of noddy. suddenly noddy turned, shook his fist, and disappeared into a dilapidated tenement house, which he was in front of at the time. with a cry, jerry bounded forward. as he entered the hallway he bumped into a roughly dressed man, as he could see by the dim light of a lamp suspended at the rear end of the passage. "now, then, wot's all this rush about?" demanded the man. "i beg your pardon," said jerry, halting. "be you the doctor?" asked the man. "the doctor? no. why?" "'cause he's took bad, an' we've sent fer the doctor. i t'ought you was him." "who's sick?" inquired the boy, forgetting for the moment what had brought him to the place. "he's an old miner. i don't know him, but he come to me, sick an' dead broke, an' i let him sleep in my room. he's off his trolley, i guess, but he says his name is jim nestor." "jim nestor!" exclaimed jerry. he remembered that was the name of the miner in the hut, whom pender had robbed. "that's the name he gave." "off his trolley?" went on the youth, wondering what form of disease that was. "yep. nutty, you know; bug-house, wheels, crazy, if that suits you better." "oh!" replied jerry, understanding. "if you ain't the doc. no use of me wastin' my time on you," the man went on. "i'll have to chase out after one." "i saw the sign of a doctor's office a little way back on this street as i came along," volunteered the boy. "i'll go and stay with the man while you run there." "bully for you!" said the man. "some of the people in this house is afraid of him 'cause he talks in his sleep. you'll find him on the second floor front." jerry went up. in a dimly lighted room he saw an old man lying on a bed, covered with ragged quilts. one glance showed jerry that the man was the miner who had mysteriously disappeared from the hut when they sought to aid him. suddenly the sick man opened his eyes. he looked sharply at jerry and exclaimed: "oh, you've come back, have you? where is the boy who took my gold?" "he got away," explained jerry, realizing that the sick man was in his right senses, for a time at least. "i remember you," went on the miner. "you and some other boys helped me after i was struck. you left me alone in the cabin. i was afraid the one who took my gold would come back, so i crawled out. the air made me feel better. i walked to the railroad, got on a freight train, and came here. then i got sick again. "gold! gold! gold!" exclaimed the miner, suddenly. "i see it all around. millions and millions of it! there is gold for all of us! do not rob me!" jerry knew the man was wandering again. just then the doctor came in and jerry, after promising to come back, hurried around to the hotel, where he found his friends worried over his absence. he explained about his chase and the finding of the mysterious miner. "did you catch noddy?" asked andy. "i forgot all about him when i saw nestor," replied jerry. "i guess noddy got away, all right, probably out of a back door." "what are you going to do about the miner?" asked mr. wakefield, after supper. "i'd like to befriend him if we could," said jerry. "he seems like an honest man." "i'll go around and see him," remarked the athletic instructor. "perhaps we can arrange to do something for him." it was quite late that night when mr. wakefield returned from his visit to jim nestor. he found the boys up waiting for him. "it's a queer story," said mr. wakefield. "part of it i want you to hear for yourselves from him, part i will tell you. it seems that james nestor, which is his name, found quite a rich claim out in arizona. he staked it out and, with some of the gold in his possession, came east to see if he could find a former partner he wanted to share in his good luck. "he reached cresville and there he was taken sick. he went to the old hut, where you found him, and there, while he was helpless, some one, whom you boys know to be jack pender, came along and robbed him. "nestor made his way to new york, after his mysterious disappearance from the hut, and he found poor but faithful friends in the tenement house." "what part of the story do you want him to tell us himself?" asked ned. "about his claim--his gold mine," said mr. wakefield. "i would rather you get that from him direct." "is he very sick?" asked jerry. "the doctor thinks he will be around in a few days." "and what do you propose?" asked bob, who could see that mr. wakefield had something on his mind. "i think if you boys are going to make a western trip you cannot do better than take this miner along with you," answered the gentleman. "i talked to him about it, after the doctor had given him some quieting medicine, and he said he would be glad of a chance to get out west." "shall we wait here until he gets well?" asked jerry. "my plan would be for you boys to make up his fare to chicago," said mr. wakefield, "and let him join you there, say in a week. you can go by auto and he can go by train." this plan met with the approval of the three chums. they made up a purse for jim nestor and arranged for mr. wakefield to take it to the miner. the latter did so, and planned for the miner to come on to chicago when he was well and strong. "the boys will put up at the grand hotel," said mr. wakefield, passing over the money, which was to be nestor's fare to chicago. "and i'll meet 'em there an' put 'em up against the greatest proposition they ever heard of," promised the miner. chapter viii. in the windy city. five days later the automobile travelers were in chicago. no serious accidents had occurred on the road, and they finished the first part of their trip in good shape. all the boys thought of was whether they would be allowed to proceed farther west. andy rush was obliged to leave them, for he had promised to visit a relative of his mother. he did not relish being separated from his chums. "tough!" he exclaimed. "wish i could go along--bully fun--shoot indians--lasso the cowboys--kill the buffalos--ride a wild bull--break a bucking mustang--chase over the prairies--lots of sport--whoop!" "we'd like to have you come," said jerry, "but your folks said you could go no farther, and we have agreed to leave you here and take mr. nestor. so we have to keep our word." andy agreed that this was right, but the galvanic youth certainly did hate to part from his friends. the three chums put up at the grand hotel, and mr. wakefield, after some parting words of advice, left them, as he had some business to transact. he said he did not expect to see them again before he returned to cresville, and wished them all sorts of good luck. "what's the first thing to do?" asked bob, when the boys found themselves alone in their hotel rooms. "wire home that we are safe and ask if we can go farther west," suggested jerry. "but don't say anything about the miner. he may not show up, and they'll laugh at us if they find that we have been fooled." the wires were soon busy with messages from each of the three boys. a day of anxious waiting ensued. then, on the second afternoon the bellboy brought three yellow envelopes to their rooms. with trembling fingers the boys tore the missives open. "hurrah! i can go!" cried jerry. "so can i!" exclaimed ned. "me, too!" put in bob. the boys executed an impromptu war-dance in their delight. "ho for the west and the gold mines!" cried ned, trying to hug jerry and chunky at the same time and finding it was too much of a contract. there came a knock on the door. "i guess that's some one to tell us to stop our noise," remarked jerry. "i thought you chaps were cutting up too rough." "as if he didn't make as much of the row as any of us!" exclaimed ned. bob opened the door. a well-dressed man, with iron-gray moustache and hair, entered. "here i be!" he announced, "an' i see you boys are right on deck!" "i guess you've made a mistake," said jerry, gently. "ain't this the grand hotel, where i was to meet the boys that befriended old jim nestor?" the man asked. then the boys saw it was their friend, the miner. but he had so changed in appearance, with a new suit of clothes, and with his hair and whiskers trimmed, that they did not recognize him. they greeted him heartily. "i got well quicker than i expected," went on nestor, "an' i couldn't stand new york any longer. mr. wakefield left me a tidy sum. he grub-staked me, so to speak, an' i come west. got a quick train an' made chicago 'most as soon as you boys did in your auto wagon." "we're glad to see you," remarked jerry. "no more than i am to see you," put in the miner. "now let's git right down to business. that's my way. no beatin' around the bush for jim nestor. "i told your friend, mr. wakefield, that i'd put you boys up against a good big proposition. now i'm goin' to do it. can you go as far as arizona in that wagon of yours?" "farther if need be," replied ned. "good! now will your folks let you go?" for answer the boys held out their telegrams. "good, again i see it's all right. now i want you boys to know i ain't so poor as i looked to be when you found me. i'm rich, that's what i am, only i can't git at my money. "the long and short of it is that i discovered down in the southern part of arizona a rich gold mine. it assays high. in fact, if you saw the gold i had in the hut, you saw some of the yellow stuff that came from my mine. it's a lost mine." "a lost mine?" exclaimed bob, blankly. "then what good is it?" "it was lost, but i found it again," explained nestor. "there's millions in it. it's up in the mountains, about a hundred miles from tucson. the gold is there, but it's hard to reach. "now what i want to know is, can you boys go there, or near there, in your choo-choo cart? if you can, and we are successful, there's a chance for us all to make our fortunes, for i'll give you boys a share apiece for what you did for me when i was in trouble." "i guess we can go," said jerry. "it'll be a hard trip, full of trouble an' some danger," warned the miner. "we'll risk it," said ned. "when can you start?" asked nestor. "let's go right now!" exclaimed bob, with such earnestness that the other laughed. "to-morrow or next day will do," said nestor. "i have a few things to attend to. i'll meet you here, say day after to-morrow." at the agreed time nestor was on hand. in the meantime the auto had been thoroughly overhauled, put in shape for a long, hard trip, and extra supplies purchased. it was a bright, sunny day when the start from chicago was made. "let her go!" exclaimed nestor, as he climbed into the rear seat with bob. jerry, who was steering, threw in the gear clutches and the machine moved off on its long and what was destined to be eventful trip. "hold on!" cried nestor, suddenly. "what's the matter?" asked jerry, stopping the car. "have you boys got guns?" "guns?" repeated jerry, somewhat in bewilderment. "well, revolvers, then," went on the miner. in answer, ned rather sheepishly took from his valise three new double-action revolvers of excellent make. "i thought we might need 'em," he said, "but i was afraid you'd laugh at me and say it was foolish." "it's all right!" exclaimed nestor. "i was going to tell you to git some. you see, you don't always need a gun in arizona, but when you do, as the man in the story said about texas, you need it mighty bad an' mighty sudden. so it's a prime thing you have 'em. i've got mine," and he showed two big .45 calibre ones. well armed, as well as otherwise provided for, the little expedition started off again, the automobile wending in and out through the busy chicago streets. "we'll make as straight a course as we can for tucson," said nestor. "i know the roads pretty well, 'cause i traveled 'em in a stage years ago, when chicago was only a village." the machine was puffing along at a fair rate of speed and had almost reached the outskirts of the city when a policeman, mounted on a motor-cycle, dashed up. "i'll have to take you in," he announced. "what for?" asked ned. "riding too fast in the city limits." "but we were going slow," objected jerry. "if you know anything about automobiles you can see the lever is only on the first-speed notch, and that only goes ten miles an hour at best." "can't help it," replied the officer. "i timed you and you went too fast." "dog-gone his hide, let me git my gun out an' i'll show him who he's a-holdin' up!" exclaimed nestor, in a whisper. "no, no!" expostulated ned, who overheard the miner's threat. "this isn't out west. don't pull any guns!" "well," put in jerry, speaking to the officer, "if you think we were violating the law i suppose we'll have to go back with you. shall i turn around and accompany you?" he asked, politely. "that's what you better do. i don't want no fuss, but if you want trouble i'll make it for you." the other boys wondered at jerry's easy compliance with what they knew was an unreasonable and unjust command. the steersman started the machine slowly ahead, and, as the road was wide, began to turn in a circle, to head back to chicago. but when the auto was half way around, and pointed in the direction of the windy city, jerry did not continue on the way the officer expected. instead, the boy widened his circle, made a complete revolution and then, throwing in the second speed, dashed away down the road, leaving the discomfited motor-policeman to rage over the trick that had been played on him. "i wasn't going to submit to arrest when i knew we were not guilty," said jerry. in a little while chicago was left behind, and the auto dashed along a pleasant country road and was making good time toward the west. suddenly there came a puffing from behind that told of another machine coming. it passed the boys, who had slowed down a bit, and as it went by the occupants of the cresville machine had a good view of those in the other car. "did you see them?" cried jerry, in amazement. "who?" asked bob, who had not given much heed to the other auto. "noddy nixon was in that machine, and with him were jack pender and bill berry!" chapter ix. a shot in the dark. as jerry spoke, the other boys looked and saw noddy turn to stare at them. the bully rose in his seat and shook his fist at the motor boys, while the wind bore back some indistinguishable words he shouted. "let's take after him!" cried ned. "what would be the use?" asked jerry. "we don't want trouble if we can avoid it. the farther off those fellows are the better we'll be." the boys explained to nestor something about the character of noddy, berry, and pender, the miner listening, gravely. "well, on the whole," he remarked, "it's better to have an enemy in front of you than at your back. i guess we can make out to beat 'em at whatever game they play. but i'd like to catch the chap as took my gold." jerry started his machine up again, but made no effort to catch up with noddy, who was now far in advance. the cresville auto bowled along, and at noon a stop was made in a small village, where dinner was eaten. they traveled along all the afternoon. toward dusk they struck a lonely stretch of country, and inquiry at a log cabin brought out that the nearest town was ten miles ahead. "we must push for it," said nestor; "that is, if we intend to sleep in beds to-night." ned was steering, the boys having agreed to take turn and turn about. it became quite dark, and the auto was shooting along at reduced speed, for, even with the gas and oil lamps, the road was dim. suddenly a shot rang out in the darkness. it was followed by a louder report as one of the auto tires burst, punctured by a bullet. the car careened to one side and bumped along on the flattened rubber. "they're shooting at us!" cried nestor. "two can play at that game!" he whipped out his revolver and fired three shots straight ahead, the flashes cutting the darkness. "they're behind, not ahead!" yelled jerry, who was in the rear seat with the miner. "it was one of the back tires that burst!" ned had shut off power and the auto came to a halt. the boys got out, and jerry took off one of the oil lamps to see what damage had been done. a new inner tube would be needed, and it would be hard work inserting it in the dark. "that's some of noddy's or pender's work," observed ned. "they must be following us, and yet they started off ahead." "there are so many roads around here that they could go off to one side, wait, and then come up behind us," said nestor. "but what's to be done?" "we can't go ahead until we fix the tire," said jerry. "don't try to do it in the dark," advised the miner. "tell you what to do. i'll camp here with the machine, for i'm used to sleeping outdoors nights. it's only about two miles into town now, and you boys can walk it. in the morning you can come back and fix things up." "what will you do for supper?" asked jerry. "don't you worry about that," replied the miner. "i've got a couple of sandwiches in my pocket. i got 'em at the place we had dinner, 'cause i always like to travel with a little grub about me. they'll do until morning." so it was arranged. the lights on the auto were put out and nestor curled up in the tonneau, with some lap-robes over him. the boys started afoot for the town, promising to come back as soon as it was light enough to see to put the new tube in the tire. "i wonder what noddy's game is?" asked ned of his companions. "and how did he and pender come together?" "there's no telling what those two may do," said jerry. "i'm afraid we're in for trouble." they were to meet it sooner than they expected. about this time, a mile from where the crippled auto was stalled, two figures were sneaking along the road. "are you sure you hit the tire, bill?" asked a voice, which, if the motor boys had heard, they would have recognized at once as noddy nixon's. "course i winged 'em," replied bill berry. "it was easy. all i had to do was to jump out from behind the bushes where we were hid and pop at 'em. i could hear the tire bust." "i wonder if it made 'em lay up for repairs?" "it sure did. i heard 'em shut off the power. now we'll hustle back to our car and continue the trip." "i'll teach those cresville cubs to come meddling after me," spoke noddy. "i'll follow 'em close and make all the trouble i can. as you say, we may as well start off again. i hope pender isn't tired waiting alone for us in the car. how far ahead is it now?" "half a mile, i guess." as the motor boys knew, noddy had made for new york after running away from home with bill berry. he wrote to the boys and to pender from there, and later pender joined the rascally pair. noddy was preparing for a trip with his companions, and was just about to start when jerry spied him from the hotel window. he escaped through the tenement house and at once got ready to leave new york in a hurry. it was by the merest chance that he passed the cresville auto on leaving chicago, and at once had formed the plan of annoying the three chums. as nestor had said, noddy and his companions had taken a side road, allowed the cresville auto to get ahead and then, at berry's suggestion, had ambushed themselves to try and do some damage as the motor boys passed. the chief conspirators were now on their way to where they had left their auto. they reached it, found pender half asleep, curled up on a seat, and started slowly off in the darkness. by keeping to the diverging road they were on, they passed around the disabled machine, and came out into the main highway again, ahead of the three boys who were tramping toward the town. noddy was steering, and with a reckless disregard of the dangers of the road was going very fast. suddenly there was a crash and the auto stopped. "you've gone an' done it now!" exclaimed bill. "what if i have?" snapped noddy. "it's my machine, ain't it?" "an' it's my neck you're tryin' to break," replied bill. "what's the trouble, anyhow?" noddy got out to look. something had gone wrong with the sliding gear and he had to crawl under the machine to fix it, while pender held a light. bill obstinately refused to lend a hand, as he said it was all noddy's fault. "i'm goin' to walk on to the next town," declared berry. "you can stop an' pick me up on your way through. i'll be at the hotel." he went off in the darkness, while noddy and jack continued to work at the auto. it took more than half an hour to fix the break, but at last the machine was ready to start. noddy was about to crank it up when he heard the sound of some persons coming along the road, voices mingling with the footsteps. he looked up, and was much surprised to see, in the glare of the lamps, jerry, bob and ned. "oh!" said noddy, faintly, for he did not know what else to say. on their part the motor boys were as much startled as was noddy at the unexpected meeting. "so you're here, are you?" asked jerry. "can't you see without having to be told?" inquired noddy, with a surly growl. "now you've seen us, you'd better go on and mind your own business." "i guess this is a free country, and we have as much right on this road as you have," spoke ned. "you haven't any right to follow me all the while!" burst out the former bully of cresville. "we wouldn't be following you if you hadn't fired at us and punctured the tire!" cried bob. "who says i fired a shot?" demanded noddy. "i do!" exclaimed ned. "you don't know what you're talking about!" exclaimed the bully. "if you say another word i'll lick you!" he was mad clear through, and made a rush at ned. jerry sprang forward and met noddy with a blow straight from the shoulder. the bully went down. he got up quickly, and the two boys went at each other, "hammer and tongs." jerry kept his head and landed twice, heavily, on noddy. the latter gave jerry a bad blow on the right eye, but the latter retaliated by making noddy's nose bleed. as noddy felt the warm blood trickling down his face he became frightened. "help! help!" he cried. "why don't you help me, jack?" pender had discreetly remained in the car. at this he jumped out. ned was ready, however, and stepped in front of him. jack aimed a blow at ned. the latter dodged it and sent a straight left for pender's head. it caught him on the jaw and he went down heavily. by this time noddy had broken away from jerry and ran toward the auto. jerry was satisfied with the punishment he had inflicted and did not follow. noddy quickly cranked up his machine and leaped to the steering seat. "come on, jack!" he cried. pender wiggled from the grip in which ned held him, jumped into the car beside the bully and the next instant the two enemies of the motor boys were chugging off down the road. chapter x. encircled by cowboys. for a few moments the three chums stood staring at the vanishing auto. then jerry, with a grunt, felt of his damaged eye. "i guess i don't owe noddy anything," he remarked, drily. "i paid off some old scores to pender," said ned, with a grin. "wish i'd got a chance at one of them!" observed bob. "you're just as well off, chunky," spoke jerry. "we may as well keep on to town, now the excitement is over. it's getting late, and i'm hungry." in about half an hour they were in the village, where they found a good hotel. they caught no sight of noddy and his companions. the next morning the boys made a hasty breakfast and hired a man to drive them out to their stranded auto. they found nestor just awakening from what he declared had been a refreshing sleep. the punctured tire was soon repaired, and, dismissing the driver of the wagon, the boys and the miner sped to town in the machine. they put up at the hotel, where nestor made a good breakfast. as a few supplies were needed for the auto, it was decided to lay over for a day in the town. jerry attended to the purchases, while nestor and the other boys took things easy in the room they had hired at the hotel. "i'm sure glad i met you, boys," said the old miner, stretching out in a comfortable chair. "i'm jest countin' the days 'till we git out to the gold mine." "will it take long now?" asked ned. "we ought to reach tucson in about two weeks now. of course it's going to be a little hard gittin' over the new mexico mountain range, but i guess the choo-choo wagon will do it. we may have a little trouble findin' the mine, too." "i thought you said you had it all staked out," observed chunky. "so i have," answered nestor. "but you see it's in a part of the mountains not very well traveled. i've lost my way more than once there. but i reckon i can find the mine. once i strike the trail leadin' out of dead horse gulch i'm all right. the mine isn't far from there." if the miner could have looked into the next room he would not have talked so freely concerning the mine. for, in the adjoining apartment was bill berry. he listened intently to what nestor said, and soon was able to tell, from the conversation, who the occupants in the room next to him were. "a gold mine, eh?" said bill, softly. "i reckon noddy and i will get in on that deal. we must profit by this. i wish noddy would hurry up. we must follow those young cubs." bill, in a measure, was stranded at the hotel. he had reached it after leaving noddy the night previous, and expected his companion to follow, after repairing the auto, and pick him up. but the encounter between noddy and the motor boys made the former change his plans, and he ran the machine through the village without stopping for berry. later, however, noddy came back and got his companion. for some time nestor and the boys conversed about the gold mine, the man telling the lads many stories of western life. jerry had completed his purchases by dusk, the auto tanks were refilled with gasolene and water, and the start was made early the next morning. a few hours of travel brought the adventurers to the mississippi river, and crossing it, they found themselves in missouri. for several days the auto journeyed on, and kansas was more than half traversed. one hot afternoon, passing over a road that led across the rolling prairie, bob, who was steering, looked ahead and noticed quite a cloud of dust. "looks like a whirlwind coming," he remarked. nestor stood up and peered forward. "so it is, but not the kind you're used to," he said. "what kind is it?" "cowboys, an' they're headed right for us. i expect there'll be some fun presently," and the miner began loading his big revolver. "will they--will they kill us?" asked bob. "well, no; not exactly kill you," spoke the miner, slowly, "but they'll try to scare you to death, and that's about as bad." the wind now bore to the ears of the boys a thundering sound. it was the rapid hoof-beats of the cowboys' ponies as they raced along. as yet nothing of the riders could be seen because of the dust. suddenly there came from the center of the cloud a series of terrific yells, punctuated by a score of revolver shots. at the same time forty cowboys were disclosed to the astonished gaze of the cresville lads. bob stopped the machine, for it was fairly surrounded by a circle of the rough riders. "throw up your hands!" yelled one who seemed to be the leader of the herders. he was astride a black pony, and as he spoke he leveled two big revolvers at the party in the auto. tremblingly, the boys obeyed. "i mean you, too, you old greaser on the back of this new-fangled stage coach!" exclaimed the leader, waving his gun at nestor. "put up your hands, an' do it mighty suddint!" nestor's reply was a shot from his revolver, and the hat of the leader went spinning in the air. "here!" cried the cowboy, angrily, but not returning the fire, "don't you know better than to shoot a gentleman's hat off?" "gentlemen?" inquired nestor, standing up and surveying the bunch of cattlemen, with a smile. "i don't see any." there was a laugh among the herdsmen at the discomfiture of their leader, and seeing the joke was against him, the man on the black pony joined in the merriment. "we didn't intend no harm nohow," he said. "we're jest out for a lark, an' we seen your old nick wagon comin' along. no offense i hope. we was only jokin'!" "don't mention it," said nestor, who seemed to know how to take the cowboys. "i suppose my friends may now lower their hands," for jerry, ned and bob still held their arms aloft. "sure!" cried the leader, quickly. "come on, boys, three cheers for the tenderfeet!" he exclaimed, turning to his companions. the cheers were given with a will, some of the more exuberant of the cow-punchers firing their guns in the air. "some of us boys would like mighty well to take a little spin in that shebang," spoke the leader to nestor. "s'pose we could take a few turns?" "i reckon so," answered the miner, and he spoke a few quick words to jerry, advising that the wish of the cowboys be complied with, as they might, in their recklessness, make trouble if they were denied. jerry took bob's place at the wheel, the others got out and the leader of the cowboys and two of his companions got into the auto. they were delighted with the way jerry spun the machine along. by turns nearly all of the cattle rustlers were given a short journey in the car. then three, who seemed full of the spirit of mischief, took their seats. no sooner had jerry started off with them than the cowboy in the seat with him tried to grab the steering wheel. "hold on there!" exclaimed the boy. "that's all right, sonny," said the cowboy. "i reckon i can run this as well as you. let me have a turn at it. i'll show you what's what!" jerry was firm in his refusal to let the man run the machine. he knew the cattle-puncher would speedily come to grief. nestor observed the little difficulty and appealed to the leader to use his persuasion on the refractory fellow. but the latter's two companions now joined in his demand, and jerry was being roughly handled as the men sought to put him from his seat. suddenly the boy brought the car to a stop. he had a plan in mind. "did you ever see an automobile turn a somersault?" he asked the man who had first wanted to steer. "no, i didn't, sonny," was the answer. "would you like to see it?" "bet your boots." "i can't do it with you in, it takes experts to work that trick," went on jerry. "if you will kindly get out and allow my friends to get back in, i think i can surprise you." "whoop!" yelled the cowboys in the auto, as they descended. "whoop! now for some fun!" jerry drove the car to where nestor, bob and ned were standing. he motioned them to get in, and they obeyed, wondering what he was going to do. the cowboys, gathered in a wide circle about the machine, looked on in anticipation of seeing the auto do a flip-flop. "hold fast!" cautioned jerry to his companions in the car. they did so. the next instant the boy put on full power and dashed straight at the encircling ring of cattlemen. chapter xi. capturing a horse thief. "whoop! watch it turn over!" yelled some of the cowboys. but jerry kept straight on. nearer and nearer he came to the ring. at length, ten feet away, when he feared he would have to put on the emergency brake to avoid a collision, the nervous mustangs in front of the car broke into a frightened run and dashed over the prairie, while jerry guided the car away from the herdsmen, who were soon left far behind. "i told them i'd give 'em a surprise, and i did," said jerry. "i didn't promise to make the auto turn a flip-flop, i only asked them if they ever saw it done. well, i never did, either. i guess things are about evened up." the astonished cries of the cattlemen left no doubt but that jerry's trick to escape from them had been very much of a surprise. "they didn't intend any harm," said nestor. "i know the character of cowboys. they're full of fun an' thoughtless. it's jest as well we got away, though. no tellin' what damage they'd have done to the machine." the auto rolled along for several miles and the occupants were beginning to think of supper, which they planned to eat in a small town about three miles further on. "what's that?" asked ned, pointing off to the left of the road. the others looked, and saw strolling over the prairie a peculiar figure. it was that of a little man, wearing a big, flapping brimmed hat. the old fellow held a big butterfly net in his right hand, and a large, green box in the other. on his back was slung a bag. every now and then the stranger would raise the net high in the air and bring it down with a swoop. "that's funny," remarked jerry. "looks to me like he was looney," suggested nestor. jerry brought the machine to a stop. the queer little man came nearer. his eyes were staring in front of him at something he seemed to desire to capture in the net. whatever it was it continually escaped him. at length the odd figure was close to the automobile. yet the little man did not notice the car. suddenly his eyes glanced at one of the big front tires. the boys looked and saw perched on the rubber a small, brown butterfly. "softly--softly!" exclaimed the little man, speaking to himself. "easy now. i have you, my beauty. long have you escaped me, but i am on your trail. ah! don't move now. softly! there!" he banged the net down on the tire, sprang forward and caught the meshes between his fingers. through his bespectacled eyes he peered eagerly at what he thought he had captured. a disappointed look came on his face. "got away again!" he muttered. then he looked up and saw the party in the auto watching him. he did not seem in the least surprised. at once his eyes fastened on jerry. "don't move! don't move! i beg of you!" he cried to the boy. "don't stir as you value your life. i'll lose one thousand dollars if you move the hundredth part of an inch! easy now. ah! there you are, my little brown beauty. don't move, my boy, and i'll catch it in a second!" somewhat puzzled at the little man's words, jerry sat still. his companions saw on his back the little brown butterfly that had escaped from the tire. quickly the little man brought his net down on jerry's shoulders. once more the meshes were eagerly grasped, and this time it seemed with success, for the little man set up a yell of delight and capered about like a boy who has found a hornets' nest. "i've got it! i've got it!" he cried. "one of the rarest butterflies that exist. i've been chasing after this one all day. i knew i'd get it. but pardon me, gentlemen. no doubt you are surprised. allow me to introduce myself. professor uriah snodgrass, a. m., ph.d., m. d., f. r. g. s., etc." "is that all, pardner?" asked nestor, with a grin. "i contemplate taking the degree of b. a. this winter, when i have completed my study of the fauna and flora of the prairies," replied the little man. jerry introduced himself and his companions, and said they were making a tour across country. "just what i am doing myself," said professor snodgrass. "i am collecting specimens of rare plants, stones, bugs, butterflies, in fact, anything that can add to knowledge and science. i have been out all day----" he stopped talking and made a sudden grab at the sleeve of nestor's coat. "what's the matter?" exclaimed the miner. "rattlesnake?" "pardon me!" replied the professor. "there was a very scarce specimen of what is commonly called the potato bug on you, and i wanted it." "i'd rather you'd have it than me," observed nestor. "thank you," replied professor snodgrass, as he placed the bug, together with the butterfly, in his green box. "what was i saying?" "that you had been out all day," repeated jerry. "oh, yes! i left town early this morning, and my labors have been richly repaid. see, i have my box and bag nearly full." he showed the box. through the glass top the boys could see that it was full of toads, grasshoppers, small snakes, lizards, bugs, butterflies and bees. the bag was loaded with stones, grass, pieces of wood, plants and flowers. "it has been a grand day," went on the professor, enthusiastically, "and i haven't had a bit of dinner." "none of that for mine," put in nestor. "i wouldn't go without my meals for all the bugs and stones in the world." "ah, but you are not a naturalist," observed the professor, wiping his bald head. "did you walk all the way?" asked ned. "no; i had a horse. and, bless my soul, i've forgotten what i did with the beast. i got off him early this morning to chase after that brown butterfly and i left the horse standing somewhere on the prairie." "he evidently was too fond of your company to leave you, however," said jerry. "why so, young man?" and the professor gazed up through his spectacles. "because that is evidently him coming along back there," and jerry pointed to a horse slowly approaching. "ah, yes! there he is. i'm glad i didn't lose him, for i suppose the man from whom i hired him would have been angry." "i guess yes," spoke nestor, in a whisper. "if you are going into town we'll ride along with you," said ned. "that is, if your horse isn't afraid of automobiles." "i don't think he is afraid of anything," replied the professor. "i captured a fine specimen of grasshopper on his left ear this morning, and he never shied when i put the net over his head." the little man, seeing that his bag and box were safely strapped to his back, and folding up his net, mounted the horse that had approached where he was standing and started off alongside of the auto, which jerry ran slowly. the boys learned that the professor was stopping in the same town where they planned to spend the night. "we'll be there very soon now," observed the little man, "and i'll be glad of it, for i'm hungry." suddenly, from behind, there came a wild chorus of yells and shouts, revolver shots mingling with the noise. "it's the cowboys coming back!" cried ned. "nonsense; they are miles behind us," observed nestor. "well, they're some kind of cowboys, anyhow," cried jerry. "and they're after us." bang! bang! went the guns. "whoop!" yelled the cattlemen who were riding like mad. "stop the horse thief!" they shouted. nearer and nearer came the cattlemen, a bunch similar to those who had wanted to run the auto. "they seem to be after us," observed bob. "we haven't stolen any horses," said ned. "what's all the noise about?" asked professor snodgrass, suddenly becoming aware that there was some commotion. he was riding close to the auto. there came a hissing, whistling sound in the air. a long, thin line shot forward. a loop settled around the professor's neck. the next instant he was jerked, none too gently, from the back of his horse and fell to the ground. he had been lassoed from behind by one of the cowboys. jerry shut off the power and the auto stopped. in a few seconds it was surrounded by a crowd of angry men. several of them drew their revolvers, while two or three busied themselves in securely binding the poor professor. "what's all this for?" asked nestor, getting ready to draw his gun. "i don't know as it's any of your business, unless you're in on the game," spoke a dark-complexioned cowboy, who seemed to be the leader. "what game?" asked the miner. "stealing horses," was the reply. "who's stolen any nags around here?" demanded nestor. "that bald-headed galoot!" exclaimed the cowboy. "we want him for taking that pony he was riding. it belongs to one-eyed pete." "he never stole that!" exclaimed jerry. "he didn't, eh? well, he can tell that to judge lynch. there's only one thing happens to horse thieves in this country." "swing him up!" yelled the cowboys, yanking professor snodgrass to his feet. chapter xii. the auto on fire. "can't we save him?" cried jerry to nestor. "he never took that horse. it's all a mistake." "it's no use to reason with those brutes," said the miner. "they evidently believe they're right. it's too bad, but we'd only git into trouble if we interfered." "bring him along, boys!" cried the leader. "there's a tree that will do to swing him from, and i've got the rope!" the boys were almost horror-stricken at the scene they were about to witness. it was bad enough to see any one hanged, but to witness the death of the little bug-hunting man they all believed innocent was too much. the cowboys, with the poor professor in their midst, rode across the prairie to where a single tree grew. they had quieted down, now that their man-hunt was over. jerry started the auto and steered it across the rolling land toward the scene of the prospective lynching. "what are you going to do?" asked nestor. "i can't desert him," replied jerry. "maybe we can get the cowboys to let him go." nestor shook his head pityingly. he knew the rough western men too well. they never let even a suspected horse thief escape. little time was lost in preparation. once beneath the tree the men formed in a circle. the rope was thrown over a limb and a noose made. the professor was placed beneath it, and the other end of the rope was grasped by a dozen hands. "have you anything to say before we string you up?" asked the leader. aside from a little paleness, which hardly showed in the waning afternoon, professor snodgrass gave no sign of what must be a terrible ordeal for him. he did not seem to appreciate what was taking place. suddenly, as he stood beneath the fatal noose, he leaned forward. one hand sought the green box which was still strapped to his back. the other went out with a cautious gesture to the arm of the leader of the cowboys. "don't stir! don't move for the world!" exclaimed the professor, in a strained whisper. "just a second and i'll have him!" his hand closed on something on the leader's coat-sleeve and he uttered a cry that was more of delight than fear. "i've got it! i've got it!" he cried. "got what?" asked the cowboy. "one of the rarest specimens of a prairie lizard that exists!" replied the professor, as, all unconscious of the dangling noose, he thrust the specimen into his green box. "this is certainly a lucky day for me." "i'd say it was particularly unlucky," observed the leader, with a grim smile, adjusting the noose about the neck of the naturalist. "why, what's all the fuss about?" asked the professor, noticing for the first time that he was in a crowd. "has anything happened?" "well, i'll be jiggered!" exclaimed nestor, who overheard the conversation. "the poor professor is so absent-minded that he don't know he's been lassoed and is all ready to be strung up!" "hold fast!" exclaimed jerry, suddenly. "i'm going to rescue him!" "how?" asked nestor. "i'm going to run the auto in close to him. when i do, you reach out and grab him up." "sure, i'm on!" said nestor. jerry gave a loud blast on the horn. the cowboys, who did not know exactly what to do about hanging a man who didn't seem to mind being lynched, turned to see what was going on, having forgotten all about the auto. there was a living lane between the men right up to where the bug collector stood. jerry sent the machine ahead with a rush. straight at the professor he steered it. then, when very close to the bug hunter he gave the wheel a twist. nestor, who was in the rear seat, on the side nearest mr. snodgrass, leaned over. as he swept past the professor the miner grabbed him up, box, basket, net and all, and lifted him into the auto. "full speed ahead!" yelled nestor, and jerry threw on all the power he had. the little, bald-headed man was yanked from under the tree, and, as the noose was about his neck the rope came along with him, pulled from the surprised and unresisting hands of the cowboys. they gave a great shout of astonishment, and several leaped on their horses to give pursuit. others drew their revolvers and fired at the fast-vanishing auto, but the machine was soon out of reach of the bullets. "that's what i call pullin' off a pretty neat trick," observed nestor. "they'd have hung you in another minute, professor." "i'm sure i'm much obliged to you," observed the little man, calmly. "i hope my specimens are not injured, for i have some very valuable ones." "well, he is the limit!" said nestor, half to himself. "he gits pulled out of the very jaws of death an' all he cares about is his bugs an' butterflies!" soon they were nearly at the town where they were to stop overnight. the professor, who seemed a little dazed from what he had gone through, was gazing at the rope that had been taken from his neck and tossed to the floor of the tonneau. all at once he stood up and shot a glance at a horse that was grazing beside the road. "hold on!" he cried. "what's the matter--want to take another nag?" asked nestor. "no; but that is the horse i hired. i recognize him by the extra butterfly net i fastened to the saddle. i was afraid i might lose one. the other horse wasn't mine." "wasn't yours?" fairly shouted the miner. "then whose was it?" "it must have belonged to the cowboys," was the answer. "you see, i forgot all about my horse until i met you. then i took the first animal i saw. i supposed, of course, it was mine." "then you really were a horse thief after all," said ned, laughing, "though you didn't know it." "and the cowboys were right, as far as they knew," observed jerry. "they saw you on one of their horses and naturally thought you stole it. however, it all came out right, and i guess i did the best thing when i rescued you, for they might have hanged you before the mistake was found out." the auto created no little surprise as it puffed through the western town, though a sign, "gasolene for sale," exhibited in front of the drug store, indicated that machines sometimes paid a visit. the hotel where professor snodgrass was stopping was soon reached, and every one washed up and had supper. the next morning, after a few minor repairs had been made to the auto, and the gasolene tank replenished, the travelers prepared to start away again. the professor was up to see them off. "i wish i was going with you," he said, with a pleasant smile, after they had told him something of the trip they had in view. "why can't you?" inquired jerry. "we are going into somewhat new territory, and you may be able to collect some fine specimens. we can easily make room for you." "i might go along with you on a horse," ventured the little man. "that's too risky," observed nestor. "take the boys' offer and come along without a horse." "i believe i will; i have nothing to keep me here," said the bug collector, and so it was arranged. a good stock of provisions was laid in, the auto being piled with all it could hold and still leave room for the five passengers. nestor said they would probably have to camp out a few nights, as on leaving kansas and skirting down into new mexico, settlements were few and far between. so some rubber and woolen blankets were added to the outfit. so far the weather had been fine, but this morning there was a haze in the sky that denoted a storm. it did not worry any one, however, and made the professor smile. "there'll be so many more grasshoppers and bugs for me after the shower," he observed. an hour passed, and the auto was bowling along at a good pace on a level stretch of road. soon nestor, who was sitting in front with bob, who was steering, jumped up. "what's the matter?" inquired jerry. "one of the professor's grasshoppers bite you?" "the seat seems to be gittin' too hot for comfort," said the miner. from beneath the auto there came a muffled explosion, followed by a big cloud of smoke. then flames shot out, and the whole under side of the car was enveloped. "we're on fire!" yelled bob, preparing to jump. "sit still!" exclaimed jerry. "don't let go the wheel whatever you do!" "turn off the gasolene!" cried ned. "the tank is leaking and the gasolene is burning!" there was great excitement. the only person who kept his head was professor snodgrass. he did not seem to know the auto was on fire, but was calmly examining a small bug crawling on the cushion near him. "what shall we do?" wailed bob. "the auto will be destroyed!" "we're in a bad fix!" muttered the miner. bob reached over to shut off the power, and was making ready to jump. "sit still!" exclaimed jerry. "and be killed?" objected bob. the smoke became more dense and the flames spouted up higher around the car. "quick! there's a small creek! steer for it!" yelled jerry, pointing ahead. bob saw the water and realized jerry's plan. he quickly turned the auto toward the water. there was a sort of ford turning off from the main road, which latter led over a small bridge. into the creek dashed the burning machine. there was a hiss as the water reached the flames, and clouds of steam arose. then, amid a swish of spray, the machine shot out on the opposite bank, only the machinery, as far up as the under side of the floor of the car, having been submerged. the fire was put out as good as if a whole city department had been called to battle with the flames. chapter xiii. at dead man's gulch. bob brought the auto to a stop under a big sycamore tree. the engine was still smoking, and there was considerable heat. jerry jumped out and examined the car. "not much damage done," he said, after a long inspection. "i guess we can fix it up." "can we go on?" asked ned, anxiously. "it will take a good hour to mend things," replied jerry. "that will give me a chance to gather some bugs," observed the professor. "pardon me," he exclaimed to nestor. "there is a beautiful specimen of a katydid on your leg," and, with a deft gesture, the bug collector captured the insect and transferred it to his box. "i hope you didn't want it yourself," said the naturalist, looking rather anxiously at the miner, who seemed surprised. "oh, land, no!" was the reply. "help yourself whenever you see any of the crawlin' things on me. it's a favor, more than anything else. i hate bugs an' things." while the professor wandered about with his net, jerry proceeded to repair the leak to the gasolene tank. bob and ned decided they were hungry, and got out some lunch, of which, a little later, all were glad to partake. "there," announced jerry, "i guess we can go on again." "there's a good place to camp about twenty miles farther on," said nestor. "what place is it?" asked ned. "dead man's gulch," was the grim reply. "doesn't sound very pleasant," observed bob. "it's a better locality than it sounds, chunky," went on nestor. "there's a little town there, if you want to sleep in beds." the boys decided to push for the gulch, not that sleeping in beds was an inducement, for they rather liked the idea of resting in the open. but the gathering clouds indicated rain, and that would make camping out rather damp. without further mishap the machine was sent along. ned was at the wheel and he turned on plenty of gasolene so that the car fairly skimmed over the roads. as they passed a stone post on the highway, nestor called out: "good-by, kansas!" "what's that for?" asked ned. "because that's the boundary mark between kansas and indian territory," replied the miner. "we are now on the old indian ground, pretty soon we'll be in texas, and then we'll land in new mexico." "we're getting to be travelers for fair!" remarked bob. the gathering clouds became blacker and a strong wind sprang up. there was every prospect of a severe storm, and ned sent the machine ahead still faster. as it came to the top of a little hill, nestor exclaimed: "there's dead man's gulch!" looking down into the valley, the boys saw a small settlement. "hold the machine back," cautioned the miner. "it may get away from you on the grade." ned shut off the power and coasted down. in half an hour they reached the level and started up the road, which led into the main street, and, in fact, the only thoroughfare in the town. just as they reached the solitary hotel in the settlement the rain came down in torrents. the auto was run under a shed and the occupants entered the hostelry, to the no small surprise of the inmates of the place, who had not heard the car come up. "howdy, strangers?" called the clerk, a big man, with an immense black moustache. "howdy?" responded nestor, who seemed much at his ease, though the boys were rather startled to find themselves in what was evidently rough company. "where ye from?" asked the clerk. "east," replied nestor. "where ye goin'?" "west." "ain't much on the talk, be ye, stranger?" sneered the clerk. "i am when it suits me." "aw! he's one of them stuck-up automobilists!" put in a tall, thin, dark-complexioned man, who was sitting in one chair, with his feet in another. "an' who might you be?" asked nestor, turning to him. "pud stoneham, at your service," and the dark man bowed with elaborate grace, a sneering smile spreading over his face. "well, you'd better be mindin' your own business!" snapped nestor, turning away. "what's that!" exclaimed stoneham, who was a gambler, hanging around the hotel on the lookout for victims. "i don't allow any man to insult me!" and he reached his hand to his hip-pocket, with a quick gesture. before he could draw his gun, which was his intention, nestor had him covered with a weapon. "no shootin', gentlemen!" called the clerk. "against the rules. put up your gun, stranger." "not unless he agrees to put up his," stipulated nestor. "i'll make him," said the clerk. and, with a scowl, stoneham promised to be peaceable. in a little while he sneaked out. nestor and the boys registered and were assigned to rooms for the night. the hotel was not a very stylish one, but they were glad even for the rough accommodations when they heard the torrent of rain outside. while they were washing up for supper, ned suddenly called out: "hark!" "what is it? the place on fire?" asked jerry. "i thought i heard an automobile horn," replied ned. "maybe some boys are monkeying with our machine," came from bob. "no, it isn't that, chunky," went on ned, looking from a window. "what then?" "it's another automobile coming up the road. my, how the mud and water splashes! and, say! good land! who do you suppose is in the car?" "the president?" answered jerry, sozzling his face in the water. "it's noddy nixon, jack pender and bill berry!" "no!" "yes, it is!" the others crowded to the windows to look. sure enough, there were the three enemies of the motor boys. they ran their machine up under the shed where stood the red auto, and then ned lost sight of them. "well, it's a free country," observed nestor. "it looks as if they were following you, but there's no law to prevent it. i guess they won't stay here long, though, after that chap that robbed me knows i'm stopping at this hotel. wait until i get my hands on him." "perhaps it would be better not to let him know who you are," suggested jerry. "they may be up to some trick, and we can work to better advantage against them by keeping quiet." "right you are," admitted the miner, after thinking the matter over. "he wouldn't know me if he saw me, since i got shaved. we'll just lay low an' watch." the motor boys, with nestor and professor snodgrass, were the first ones down to the dining-room to supper. in a little while noddy, jack and bill entered. the three latter started in surprise at beholding the cresville boys, and for a moment seemed undecided what to do. then, at a whispered word from berry, they filed to the other side of the room and took their seats at a table. "i wonder if they really followed us," jerry said. "must have," was nestor's opinion. "but i reckon they didn't expect to find you here." "but what can their object be?" "i don't think they exactly know themselves," replied the miner. "i guess they hope to annoy you, or they may expect to get a line on what our plans are. but we'll try to fool 'em." before the meal was over, pud stoneham came in and took a seat at noddy's table. in a little while the gambler seemed to be on good terms with bill berry and his companions. it was still raining hard when the three boys, with the professor and nestor, went up to bed. the naturalist and the boys had two rooms, while nestor was by himself. noddy and his chums disappeared after the meal, pud stoneham accompanying them. it must have been about midnight when nestor was awakened by hearing voices in the room next to his. at first he paid no attention to them, for he was sleepy. but he sat up suddenly when he heard some one say: "they're on the trail of a rich gold mine. i know, for i heard the old man talking about it." "are you sure, bill?" asked a second voice, which nestor recognized as noddy's. "sure as i am that my name is berry," was the reply. "then, count me in on the game," said a third man, whom the miner had no difficulty in knowing was pud stoneham. "i've got money. we'll go in this together and win out. i owe that miner something for insulting me, an' i'll pay him back, too!" chapter xiv. noddy steals a march. nestor sat up in bed, listening with all his might. but though he could hear a murmur of voices in the next room, and though he was certain noddy and his companions were plotting against him and his friends, the miner could hear nothing more definite. "forewarned is forearmed," he said, softly. "we'll see who'll win out, pud stoneham!" nestor was up early the next morning. the weather had cleared and it was a beautiful day. the boys came down to breakfast with heavy eyes, for they had slept soundly. professor snodgrass, too, had arisen early, and was already searching for rare bugs. "i want to get a red tree-toad," he explained, as he strolled up at the sound of the breakfast gong, "but i am afraid they are not to be had." suddenly he grabbed ned's arm as the boy was walking toward the automobile shed. "one moment, i beg of you!" exclaimed the professor. "steady now! ah! i have the beauty. he was right on the back of your neck!" and he reached over and took from ned's coat a small insect. "it's an extremely choice specimen of a sand flea," said the professor, proudly, popping the little animal into a glass case. "i hope i did not discommode you in removing it from you." "not at all," laughed ned, and the others smiled at the simple earnestness of the bug collector. "i want to have a talk with you boys after breakfast," spoke nestor. his grave manner somewhat alarmed them, and they started to ask questions, but he would say nothing until after the meal. then he told about what he had heard. "what worries me," said the miner, "is that i saw about the hotel a fellow that tried to follow me an' my pardner one day, and locate the lost mine. this chap's name is tom dalsett, and i saw him talking to stoneham, the gambler, just before we came in to breakfast. some mischief is in the wind when two such fellows whisper together." "do you suppose they will try to get to the mine ahead of us?" asked jerry. "i haven't a doubt of it," replied the miner. "we've got to look sharp from now on." "had we better start right away?" inquired ned. "it will do no harm to wait until the roads dry up a bit," was nestor's opinion. "in the meanwhile, see to the machine. look over every part. they may have damaged it during the night. see to your guns, too. we're going to have trouble from now on, or my name isn't jim nestor." his words rather alarmed the boys, but they were not going to back out now, and rather relished, than otherwise, a conflict with their old enemy, noddy nixon. jerry went to the shed where the automobile had been left for the night. as he opened the door he uttered a cry of surprise. "what's the matter, have they taken our machine?" asked ned. "no, they haven't done that, but they've skipped in their own," said jerry. "i wonder if they have done any mischief to ours?" "that gang has stolen a march on us, all right," spoke nestor. "they've gone on ahead. well, they may get to the mine first, but we'll give them the hardest kind of a fight for the possession of it. i'm not going to lose a fortune if i can help it." jerry soon ascertained that the red machine was not damaged. nestor made inquiries and learned that the other party had left before daybreak, pud stoneham accompanying them. "what became of that chap with one eye and a scar on his left cheek?" asked nestor of the hotel clerk, the description fitting dalsett. "oh, he went off with the others in the gasolene gig this morning," was the reply. it was plain now that noddy and his gang were going to make a bold strike to discover the lost mine ahead of nestor and his friends. how the cresville bully had trailed the motor boys as far as he had was somewhat of a mystery, though it was afterward learned that he had been closer behind them after they left chicago than they supposed. the meeting at the hotel was an accident, though. a stiff breeze sprang up, and soon dried the muddy roads. an early dinner was eaten and once more the party started forward, this time in pursuit of noddy. "it's too bad to have to leave without getting that red tree-toad," said professor snodgrass. "we'll take you to a place where you can get horned toads," said nestor. "oh, that will be fine!" exclaimed the naturalist, with a boy's enthusiasm. the roads were none of the best, and the auto could not be speeded with safety. nestor explained that the best plan would be to steer straight south for a while, after reaching new mexico, and skirt around the edge of the mountain range, rather than attempt to make their way across the rockies. "it will take a little longer," he said, "but sometimes the longest way 'round is the shortest way home. we'll aim for messilla, which is not far from el paso, and it's somewhat civilized there, so we can get supplies if we need 'em." the boys voted this plan a good one. by noon the auto had crossed the narrow stretch of land which is part of indian territory, lying between texas and colorado. then they were in the big state of texas, and, when night came on, they found themselves on a vast plain. "it's a case of camp out to-night," said the miner. "now we'll see what sort of stuff you boys are made of." but if nestor expected to find the motor boys tenderfeet, he was mistaken. they had camped out too many times before not to know what to do. the auto was run under the brow of a little hill, and jerry took charge of things. bob gathered wood for a fire and ned went on a hunt for water. he found a little stream that answered admirably. jerry got out the coffee-pot and frying-pan, and soon had supper cooking. there was fried canned chicken, with crisp slices of bacon, some thick biscuits, a jar of pickles and steaming hot coffee ready in a few minutes. bob got out the tin dishes, and, seating themselves on the ground, the adventurers made a hearty meal. "well, i must give you boys credit for knowin' a wrinkle or two," spoke nestor. "i couldn't have done any better myself." "it's a good thing i bought some of those canned goods," said jerry. "i thought that would be better than depending on what we could hunt." supper over, and the things put away, the boys got out their blankets in readiness for the night. nestor lighted his pipe and was puffing away, while in the fast-gathering dusk professor snodgrass went searching for rare specimens. he was successful in capturing two odd grass snakes, and seemed quite delighted. then, as night settled down, each one rolled himself up in his blanket and fell asleep. ned awoke first the next morning, and soon had the fire going and coffee made. the aromatic smell of the beverage greeted the others as they roused themselves, and soon a simple but satisfying breakfast was served. then the journey was continued. it was a fine day, and the adventurers breathed in great whiffs of the pure air as their car dashed along. they passed through one or two small settlements, but inquiries failed to develop any traces of noddy and his companions. "they may be going straight over the mountains," said nestor. "well, even if they do i think we'll beat them in the race for the mine. mountain climbing is mighty onsartin' in one of these machines." but, had they only known it, noddy and his gang were not aiming for the mountains, and were but a little way in advance of our friends. however, the motor boys soon learned, to their cost, where their enemy was. it was well along in the afternoon, and dinner had been eaten at a rude shack of a hotel in a small village, that the auto was skimming along, due south. off to the right were the foothills of the mighty rocky mountains, while to the left was a vast rolling plain. jerry was steering, with bob on the seat beside him, while in the rear were the others, professor snodgrass busily engaged in sorting over some of his specimens. all at once a low, rumbling sound was heard. "is that thunder?" asked ned. "can't be," replied nestor. "there's not a cloud in the sky." then he stood up and glanced behind him. "great scott!" he yelled. "put on all the speed you've got!" "what's the matter?" asked jerry. "matter?" shouted the miner. "there's a herd of stampeded cattle coming straight for us. if they're not turned aside they'll go over us like a locomotive over a fly! quick! turn over toward the hills! maybe we can escape them!" in terror, the boys looked behind them. coming on with a mad rush, with a thunder of thousands of hoofs, and deep-mouthed bellows, were the steers, galloping like the wind! chapter xv. in the nick of time. jerry headed the machine toward the foothills. once among them the adventurers might escape. the auto was going almost at full speed, swaying from side to side on the rough road. nestor, who was keeping watch of the herd, cried out: "i'm afraid it's no use. they have turned and are right after us!" the steers had changed their course to follow the red auto, which they probably took for an enemy. the thunder of their hoofs came nearer. fast as the auto was going, its speed was not enough to take it out of reach of the infuriated animals, for the rough prairie was retarding it, but it was just the kind of country the cattle loved. even nestor, familiar as he was with danger, seemed much alarmed at the plight. the boys' hearts were well-nigh terror-stricken, but as for professor snodgrass, he did not appear at all frightened. he still kept on sorting his specimens. the auto topped a little hill, having to slow up a bit at the grade. down it went on the other side, but still the steers came on. a long level stretch of country appeared. "we ought to be able to get away from them here!" cried jerry, turning on more gasolene and increasing the current from the batteries. the auto seemed to jump forward. "look out! stop!" yelled nestor, seizing jerry by the arm. "we can't! we'll be killed if we do!" shouted the boy, thinking the miner had lost his head through fear. "and we'll be dashed to death if we keep on! we're running straight for a precipice three hundred feet high! shut down the machine or we'll go over the cliff!" with a yank at the levers, jerry turned off the power and put on the brakes. and it was only just in time, for, not one hundred feet ahead, the prairie came to an abrupt end, terminating in a sheer bluff, over which the auto and those in it would have been dashed had not the miner's practiced eye told him what to expect. he recognized the conformation of the land and knew what was coming. the adventurers were now between two dangers. they could not go on because of the precipice, and their escape to the rear was cut off by the maddened steers that now were but a quarter of a mile away, thundering on fiercely. to turn to the left or right was impossible, as the line of cattle was a curving one, like a pair of horns, and to go to either side meant to run straight into the midst of the beasts. "let's get out of the machine and shoot as many as we can!" cried ned, drawing his revolver. "maybe we can scare them away!" "don't think of it!" exclaimed nestor. "cattle are used to seeing men only on horseback or in wagons. once on the ground we'd be trampled under foot in an instant. our only hope is to stay in the machine. it will protect us somewhat when they rush over us." "shall we shoot?" asked jerry. "our only chance is to turn them to one side, and shooting at them may do it," replied the miner. "get ready and we'll all fire at once." each one drew his revolver, even professor snodgrass taking an extra one nestor had. the cattle were now about eight hundred feet away. "fire!" cried nestor. the five revolvers spurted slivers of flame, smoke and bullets. in rapid succession every chamber was emptied, but the rush of the steers was not checked. in fact, none of the cattle seemed to have been killed, or, if any were, they fell down and were trampled under the hoofs of the others. "i guess we're done for!" groaned nestor. "crouch down on the bottom of the car!" the galloping animals were almost at the auto. suddenly there sounded a fusillade of shots, mingled with wild yells. jerry peered up over the edge of his seat. he saw a man on a horse, riding straight across in front of the line of cattle. in one hand the stranger held a big revolver, which he fired right into the faces of the steers. in the other he held his coat, which he was waving like a flag. at the same time he was yelling like a man gone mad. the reins of his horse lay loose on the animal's neck, but the beast knew what was expected of him. it seemed that the stranger would be knocked down and trampled under thousands of sharp hoofs. but he did not seem afraid, riding closer and closer to the line of steers. he emptied one revolver and drew another, never ceasing to yell or wave his coat. suddenly, with wild bellows, the leaders of the cattle turned. they were frightened at the strange figure before them. for a few seconds there was great confusion amid the mass of steers. those behind the line of leaders tried to go straight ahead, but the latter, once having made up their minds that they would turn to the left did so. then, like sheep following the bell-wether of the flock, the beasts took after their leaders. they rushed to one side, thundering past within twenty feet of the auto, while the stranger, pulling up his horse, still continued to wave his coat and shout. [illustration: they rushed to one side, thundering past the auto.] "he's saved our lives!" exclaimed nestor. "he's stampeded the cattle away from us in the nick of time!" on and on galloped the steers until the last one disappeared over the rolling hills of the prairie. then the man on the horse rode over to the auto. "howdy!" he called. "howdy!" replied nestor. "got ye in kind of a tight place, didn't they?" went on the horseman. "we would have been killed only for you," spoke jerry and his voice told how thankful he was. "oh, shoo! that wa'n't nothin'," replied the stranger. "i seen ye comin' up in that there shebang of yours an' then i seen the cows chasin' ye. i was a leetle afraid ye'd go over the cliff, but ye stopped in time. then i see it was up to me to stop them critters, an' i done it." "lucky for us you did," put in nestor. "i happened to be out huntin'," went on the horseman, "or i wouldn't have seen ye. i know cattle an' their ways an' i knowed there was only one way to head 'em off, an' that was to skeer 'em." "i'm jim nestor," said the miner, and he told the names of his companions. "glad to meet ye," said the horseman, dismounting and shaking hands with each one. "i'm hank broswick." nestor told the hunter something of the trip they were making, and broswick in turn related how he was a free-lance hunter, roving over the prairies and among the mountains as suited his whims. "had yer suppers?" broswick asked. "no; an' i don't see any place around here to git 'em," spoke nestor. "we've got some grub, though, an' we'd be pleased to have your company." "thanks. i can add my share to the meal," replied broswick. "i'd jest shot some prairie chickens afore ye come up, an' we'll roast 'em." while he went over to where he had left the fowls, jerry backed the auto, turned it around, and sent it down the hill to the level plain. "it's a case of camp out again to-night," observed nestor. "that suits me," spoke ned, and the other boys agreed with him. a fire was soon made, the prairie chickens were prepared for roasting, coffee was set on to boil, and with some tinned biscuits the adventurers made a hearty meal. sitting around the camp-fire as night came on, the hunter told several of his adventures while on the trail. once he had a terrible fight with a grizzly bear, the scars of the combat being visible on his face and arms. "are there any bears around here?" asked bob. "not getting afraid, are you, chunky?" queried ned. "no; i only just wanted to know," replied the stout youth, looking over his shoulder in as careless a manner as he could assume. "waal, there's a few now an' agin'," answered the hunter, "but they don't bother me much, not while i have this along," and he patted a rifle which he had left with his game before he rode out to stampede the cattle. "are you bound for any particular place?" asked nestor of hank. "nope; i'm my own boss." "then, why not come along with us?" proposed the miner. "we may need your help, for there's a bad gang ahead of us." he told something of the plans of himself and the boys, in regard to the gold mine, and related how there were enemies in front, and added that he might pay the hunter for his time. "i'll go 'long!" exclaimed the hunter, after a moment's thought. "i used to be a prospector myself." more fuel was heaped on the fire, the adventurers wrapped themselves in their blankets and prepared to spend the night in the open. it was past midnight when bob was suddenly awakened by feeling some one trying to turn him over. "go 'way," he said, sleepily. "let me alone." something cold and clammy was thrust against his face, and he heard the breathing and noted the peculiar smell of some wild animal. with a shout of terror he sat upright. in the glow from the fire he saw, rearing up on his haunches before him, a big, black bear! chapter xvi. a rush of gold seekers. "help! help!" screamed bob. the bear made a dive for him and the boy cast himself forward on his face. "what's the matter? what is it?" cried hank broswick, springing to his feet. "indians! indians!" exclaimed professor snodgrass, rolling himself tightly up in his blanket. "it isn't indians! it's a bear killing bob!" cried jerry. the animal, with savage growls, had pounced on the unfortunate boy and was trying to get hold of him with the powerful claws. bob, after his first wild screams, became quiet, digging his fingers into the earth to hold himself down. "wait a minute! i'll kill the brute!" cried the hunter. he had seized his ever-ready rifle and rushed over toward the bear. but the fierce beast was so close to bob that broswick could not fire without danger of hitting the lad. "here, boy, take the gun!" yelled the hunter to jerry. "if you see me getting the worst of it, fire!" "what are you going to do?" exclaimed jerry. "i'm going to kill that brute with my knife!" cried broswick. drawing a keen blade from the sheath at his belt, he jumped straight on the bear's back. the beast, with a fierce growl of rage, turned and tried to bite the legs of the strange enemy that was plunging something terrible and sharp into his shoulders. ned threw some wood on the fire. it blazed up brightly and, by the light of it, the boys and nestor saw the bear rear on his haunches, with broswick still clinging to his back. the hunter had one hand clasped in the shaggy fur of the brute, and the other was sending the knife, again and again, into the thick skin, trying to reach a vital spot. bob had rolled to one side, out of harm's way, and suffered no more than a rough mauling by the brute. but broswick was not to escape so easily. with a sudden movement the bear turned, shook the hunter loose, and then, before the brave fellow could defend himself, the savage animal had clasped him in the terrible and powerful claws. "help! he's squeezing me to death!" broswick cried. his arms were pinned to his sides and he could not get a chance to use his knife, which he still held. jerry saw his chance. approaching close to the bear from behind, the boy placed the muzzle of the gun against the brute's head. there was a loud report, a last fierce growl, and the animal, with a convulsive hug of the hunter, dropped over, dead. jerry had shot just in time. broswick, too, fell to the earth and at first the boys thought he was killed. but in a little while he arose and felt of his arms and legs. "i'm all here," he said. "guess there ain't much harm done, but it was a pretty tight squeeze!" "i thought you were a goner," spoke jerry. "that ain't nothin'," answered the hunter. "you ought to hev seen me fight a grizzly once!" in the light of the fire, which was now blazing brightly, it was seen that the bear was a big specimen. as he lay stretched out on the ground he measured eight feet from his nose to his short tail. "you know i tole ye there was a few bears now an' agin'," remarked the hunter, as he gave his former foe a kick. "waal, i reckon some of 'em must 'a' heard me an' wanted to show i was tellin' the truth," he added, with a drawl. no one felt much like sleep after this excitement, so they sat around the camp-fire until it began to get light. then coffee was made, and the hunter proceeded to skin his prize. he cut off some choice steaks, which were broiled over the coals. the boys thought they had never tasted anything so good. after breakfast the tires were pumped up, the baggage was packed into the auto and preparations made for the start. "where's professor snodgrass?" asked ned, noticing the absence of the naturalist. then they all remembered that they had not seen him since the morning meal. "he's probably off gathering some bugs or stones," said jerry. "let's give a yell to call him in." in a chorus they gave a loud hallo, and in reply received a faint call from a small ravine. "he's over there," said broswick, pointing in the direction the voice had come from. "but hark! sounds like he was in trouble!" faintly the wind bore to the adventurers the sound of the professor's voice pleading with some one. "now, please don't!" he was saying, or rather calling aloud. "you know you shouldn't do that! let me alone, i say! get out of my way or i'll throw a stone at you!" "the indians are after him!" exclaimed bob. "there are no indians around here, chunky," spoke jerry. "you must have redskins on the brain." broswick and nestor hurried over to the ravine. as they reached it they could be heard laughing long and heartily. soon a small, wild goat was seen to run from the cut, leaping away over the plain. out of the defile came the professor, nestor and broswick. "the wild goat had him treed," spoke nestor. "truly that was a savage brute," said the professor. "i was gathering some specimens, and had my arms full, when along comes this beast, with lowered horns, and nearly knocked me over. i had barely time to run for my life and climb a tree before he was after me again. his sharp horns scraped my shoe as i climbed. there i was, treed. i didn't dare come down, for fear he would eat me, or horn me to death. i don't know what i should have done if you gentlemen hadn't come along." "oh, we only scared him away!" said broswick. "pardon me, just a moment," interrupted the professor, making a quick motion toward nestor and picking something from his shoulder. "there, i have it. i am very much obliged to you." "what sort of game did ye git this trip?" asked the hunter, somewhat amused at the naturalist. "a rare specimen of the fly that lives in the wool of wild goats," replied the professor. "the insect is very valuable. it must have jumped from the goat to you." after a little consultation the party started off, the auto making a pace slow enough so the hunter's horse could easily keep up. for several days the journey was continued, with no accidents to mar the way. the adventurers had reached well down into new mexico by this time and had about one hundred miles farther to go before they could make the spur of the mountain and avoid going over the range. one afternoon, following a good day's run, ned brought the machine to a stop below a little hill, where it was decided to spend the night, as the place was sheltered. jerry happened to glance to the rear, over the back trail, as he was getting out the supper utensils, and uttered a cry. "what's that?" he asked, pointing to a long line of men that were filing along a road that joined the main one about where the camp was to be made. "looks like a procession," observed broswick. "they're miners, that's what they are!" cried nestor, after a long look. "every one has his pack on his back, his washing-pan and his pick and shovel." "what are they coming this way for?" asked ned. "they are on the rush, seeking gold," explained the miner. "word has come to the camp where they were that rich pay-dirt has been struck in some locality. they all want to get at it, so they pack up and leave for the new field. many's the time i've done it." in a little while the foremost of the miners reached the auto camp. they seemed surprised to see the machine, but did not stop. "what's your hurry, mate?" asked nestor, of one big, brawny chap who was walking fast. "want to make as many miles as i can before sundown," was the reply. "there's rich diggin's ahead, an' i want to stake a good claim." "where might they be located?" asked nestor. "why, ain't you heard? i thought every one had," answered the other. "they're in the lower part of arizona, in what they call the hop toad district." nestor gave a start. the miner passed on, fearful lest even his brief stop would cost him his place in the cavalcade. "the hop toad district!" muttered nestor. "that's the district where my lost mine is located! i hope that hasn't been discovered. if it has it means all our work has gone for nothin'!" chapter xvii. over the mountains. on and on the stream of miners hurried. several paused to stare at the automobile in wonder. others passed by with never a glance. one man was mounted on a lame mule that made but little better speed than some of the pedestrians. three men, who seemed to form a party by themselves, came to a halt in front of the machine. they whispered together a few moments and then one stepped forward and addressed nestor. "will you sell that machine for three thousand dollars?" he asked. "i'm not the boss. you'll have to speak to one of these boys," replied the miner. "how about it?" asked the man of jerry. "i hardly believe we want to sell," answered the latter. "that's right," whispered nestor. "there's some game afoot. don't sell. there must have been a big gold strike lately to cause this rush!" the three miners saw that the boys would not part with their machine, which the prospectors wanted in order to make a quick trip to the new mining region. so they turned away and continued afoot on the trail. for nearly an hour the stream of miners continued to march by. then, as the last stragglers were lost to view, nestor said: "boys, we're in a tight place. we'll have to hustle. somehow or other news of the rich mining region near where my mine is located has leaked out. there's a rush, and we'll have to travel fast. we can't stick to our original plan. we've got to go over the mountains." "must we start right away?" asked ned. "the sooner the better," answered nestor. "we'll have supper and travel night and day from now on. we'll have to race against not only noddy nixon and his gang, but these miners who have gone on ahead of us." from what was intended to be a peaceful camp, that of the motor boys and their friends was turned into a mere resting place. every one was filled with excitement, and professor snodgrass forgot to start on a collecting tour. he did not open his green box, and, with the others, ate a hasty meal. as soon as jerry had finished his supper he gave the auto a thorough overhauling. plenty of oil was put on the bearings, the water tank was refilled from a convenient spring and the tires pumped up. then the holder for the carbide, from which the acetylene gas for the lamps was generated, was packed with the chemical. "i'm ready when you are," announced jerry. by this time each one had finished his meal. the dishes were placed in the basket, professor snodgrass stowed his specimens carefully away and hank broswick tightened the saddle girths on his horse. "forward!" cried nestor. with a series of chug-chugs the machine darted ahead. the hunter urged his horse on and the adventurers were once more moving toward the hidden mine. it was going to be a bright, moonlight night, as could be told by the silver disk that was already rising above the trees. "we'll hardly need the gas lamps," observed ned. "but it's better to have them," remarked jerry, who had been selected to do the steering. leaving the broad and level road that led south over the plains, the adventurers headed due west. in a little while it was evident that the machine was going uphill, for the motor began puffing laboriously, and jerry shifted the gear to first speed. "we've struck the foothills," observed nestor. "in a short time we'll be going up the mountain. then, look out!" broswick rode along just behind the machine on his horse. the animal was a steady trotter and managed to keep up to the auto, which was obliged to move slowly, as it had quite a heavy load on a steep grade. for several hours the machine kept going. all the while the ascent became more and more steep until, at length, the adventurers found themselves well above the foothills and among the mountains. "we'll keep on until about ten o'clock," said nestor. "then we'll camp for the night. we must get some sleep or we'll be all tired out." up, up, up went the auto. after quite a climb a small plateau or level stretch was reached, and there the going was easier. jerry took advantage of it to run on the second gear. it was quiet, save for the mournful hooting of an owl now and then, as the machine made little noise, and no one felt like talking. all at once there came from the rear seat a strange sound. "what's that?" asked jerry. "chunky has fallen asleep and is snoring," answered broswick, who was riding beside the machine. "i reckon it's time we camped for the night," put in nestor. "here's a good stopping place. we'll make an early start in the morning." the machine was halted, blankets were gotten out and a small camp-fire started. tired and weary, the adventurers prepared for bed. broswick, who carried his blankets on his horse, said he would stand the first watch, and nestor agreed to take the second, so the boys could get a full night's rest. "i'll do my share," said professor snodgrass, anxious to be of service. but nestor said there was no need for the naturalist to sit up. to tell the truth, the miner was afraid that if the professor was left on guard he would forget what he was doing and wander off in search of specimens. silence soon settled over the little camp in the mountains. the three boys were slumbering peacefully, as was the professor. broswick sat by the fire, keeping watch, and nestor was rolled up in his blanket. suddenly, from down the slope up which the auto had come, sounded the blast of a trumpet. "what's that?" cried nestor, springing to his feet, for he was a light sleeper. he came over to where the hunter sat. "sounded like gabriel's trumpet," replied the hunter, quietly. "no; it was an auto horn," spoke nestor. "a machine is coming up the trail. we must watch out. it may be noddy nixon and his gang." once more silence settled down, but to the trained ears of the miner and hunter there came the faint throbbing that told an automobile was approaching. nestor loosened the revolver in his belt and broswick reached over for his rifle, which he always kept near him. nearer and nearer came the machine. it reached the level stretch on which the adventurers were encamped and then the speed of the engine could be heard to increase. nestor threw some light wood on the fire. it blazed up brightly, and the miner quickly drew broswick back into the shadows of a big oak tree. "we'll watch as they go past," he said. a minute later an auto dashed by. "there they are!" exclaimed nestor. "there's that gambler, pud stoneham, and with him is tom dalsett, the man who knows where my mine is. i wonder how they got behind us. i thought they were ahead." "i reckon we can keep 'em behind if we want to," whispered broswick. he raised his gun. "hold on! we don't want to murder any one!" exclaimed nestor, in a whisper, knocking the weapon up. he was too late, as the hunter had fired. "i wasn't goin' to do any damage," spoke the old man. "i only aimed to bust a tire. however, you spoiled my mark. the bullet went over their heads." "i thought you were goin' to shoot one of them," said nestor. noddy, who, from the brief glimpse nestor had, could be seen at the steering wheel, increased his speed at the sound of the report, as could be told by the faster explosions of the motor. the noise of the rifle going off awoke jerry. "what's the matter?" he cried, sitting up. "your friend noddy just passed by," replied nestor, "and the hunter gave him a salute." "i thought he was far away," said jerry. there was nothing that could be done, and the camp again settled down to quietness and slumber. there were no more disturbances, and at midnight nestor relieved broswick. almost before the boys knew it morning had come. then, after breakfast, they were off once more. there were no signs of noddy's machine save the marks of the broad tires in the dust of the road. leaving the plateau the adventurers were soon mounting toward the clouds again. all the morning they hurried forward as fast as the auto could be urged. broswick's horse kept well to the trail, for it was used to mountain climbing. at noon a stop was made beside a swiftly running brook and dinner was eaten. then, after a rest beneath the trees, the journey was resumed. about five o'clock another halt was made for supper, thirty miles having been reeled off during the afternoon. "we'll do a bit of traveling as we did last night," said nestor. chapter xviii. a trick of the enemy. the gas and oil lamps were lighted, and, as the sun sank to rest behind the hills, the auto began the night trip. the way was still upward, for the summit of the mountains had not yet been reached. ned was steering and jerry was on the seat beside him. the machine topped a long rise and came to the brow of a small incline, the descent of which, on the other side, was quite steep. it was now dark, for the moon had gone behind a cloud. the road was not of the best, and ned had the machine pretty well under control. down it went on the slope. suddenly jerry gave a cry and reached over to shut off the power. "jam on the brakes!" he cried to ned. the steersman obeyed, and, with a grinding sound, the auto came to a halt, with a sort of jar. "what's the matter?" asked nestor. "some obstruction on the road; looks like a log," answered jerry. "i just happened to see it in time." he got out and ran ahead. "it's a tree cut down right across the path," he called back. "a big one, too. if we'd hit it, running as we were, we'd have gone to smash." they all got out of the car and gathered about the obstruction. broswick alighted from his horse and made a close inspection. "this was done on purpose," he declared. "it has been freshly cut and was chopped on the side next to the road so's to fall right across an' block our way." "i wonder who did it?" asked bob. "there's only one gang who could have an object in such a trick as this," said ned. "who?" inquired bob. "noddy nixon's crowd. they want to delay us as much as possible so they can reach the mine first." "i believe jerry is right," put in nestor. "this is one of the enemy's tricks, all right." for a little while the adventurers stood and looked at the tree that obstructed their further progress. "well, what's to be done?" asked ned. "it's too big for us to lift out of the way," said bob. "we'll have to wait until morning and then go get some axes and chop it in two." "don't do that," exclaimed professor snodgrass, so earnestly that the boys thought he might have some other plan to propose. "why not?" asked jerry. "because there may be some valuable specimens of insects on that tree, little green or brown toads, katydids or other things. let it stay there until morning so i may gather them." "the tree is likely to stay there until morning, all right enough," observed nestor, "so you'll have all the time you want, professor." "there's no need of delay," spoke jerry, suddenly. "how you goin' to git rid of the tree?" asked nestor. "i'll show you," replied the boy. he ran to the back of the auto, took out a long, stout rope and fastened this to the tree, near the branch end. the other end of the cable jerry brought back to the machine. this he now tied to the rear axle of the automobile, and then, getting into the front seat, he turned the machine around. gradually increasing the speed, he sent the auto ahead. the rope tightened, there was a straining, cracking sound and the tree was pulled to one side of the road by the power of the auto. the thoroughfare was left free for passage. "i guess they didn't think of that," remarked jerry, as he replaced the rope and turned the machine around. "now we can go ahead." "good for you!" cried nestor. "we'll beat 'em yet, an' at their own game!" they piled into the auto, and with jerry at the wheel, went forward again, broswick's horse keeping up. they traveled for about an hour longer and then nestor suggested that as they had reached a good spot it might be wise to camp there for the rest of the night. it was not long before every one was snoring in slumber. ned was the first one to awake, and he did so as the result of a vivid dream he had that he was sliding downhill on top of a barrel, when it collapsed and threw him into a snow-bank. he opened his eyes to find the ground all white about him, and about three inches of snow covering his rubber blanket. "where are we?" he called out, his voice awakening the others. "a snow squall!" cried broswick. "i thought we were gittin' high enough to have 'em. waal, it won't amount to much." "are snow storms common here the end of september?" asked jerry. "they are when you git high enough in the mountains," replied the hunter. "many's the night i've gone to bed thinkin' it was summer, to wake up an' find it winter, an' me sleepin' under a foot of snow. the storms come up so easy you don't know anythin' about 'em." "will it last long?" asked ned. "no; it'll melt when the sun strikes it," was the answer. "but snow or no snow, we must have breakfast." broswick scraped away a place amid the white blanket and found some wood. a blaze was soon kindled, and the appetizing smell of coffee filled the crisp air. a hasty but substantial meal was made, and then the travelers, urged on by the call of gold in the mine they were striving to reach, took up their journey again. as broswick had said, as soon as the sun rose the snow began to melt and soon the landscape showed no signs of the winter costume it had masqueraded in. the adventurers were now close to the top of the mountain, and would shortly begin descending on the other slope. they had dinner beside a swift, cold brook, from which broswick caught several large trout that made an excellent and very welcome addition to the meal, broiled as they were over the coals. it was late that afternoon when the hunter, who was riding somewhat in the rear, came galloping up on his horse. "i'm afraid we're in for it," he said. "in for what?" asked nestor. "a rippin' old thunder storm," was the answer. "the clouds back there are as black as ink an' the wind's drivin' 'em right this way. if i know anythin' of signs, an' i ought to, considerin' i've hunted in these mountains for nigh onto twenty years, we're goin' to have a regular rip-snorter." "snow one day and a thunder storm the next," observed jerry. "this is a queer country." events soon proved the old hunter was right. the wind began to blow a regular gale and the clouds made the sky almost as dark as night. the auto was going downhill; jerry was taking it along as easily as he could. suddenly the storm burst with a terrific peal of thunder that accompanied a blinding flash of lightning. it seemed to shake the very earth. then came a regular deluge of rain. "run the machine under a tree," advised nestor. "we'll be washed away if we stay in the road." "there's a good place, just ahead!" shouted broswick. "under the oak. leave the auto there and run for the cave!" "what cave?" cried jerry. "there's one on the left side of the road, a little above the tree," said broswick. "i've stayed in it often when i was caught in a storm. it'll hold all of us an' the horse." the machine was halted beneath the oak. then, after rubber blankets had been spread to keep dry the baggage in the auto, the adventurers raced for the cave, led by broswick. they found the cavern to be a dry, roomy one, a natural hole scooped out of the side of the mountain. once inside, the war of the elements could not harm them. they drew back from the mouth of the cave and listened to the heavy rumble of thunder and watched the brilliant lightning. it seemed as if the very flood-gates were opened. the wind blew a regular hurricane, and the lightning was incessant. suddenly there came a dull rumbling and the cave was jarred by a shock. then it grew as black as night. "that struck somewhere!" cried jerry. "and near here!" exclaimed broswick. "i'm afraid it was too close for comfort." "are we in any danger?" asked professor snodgrass, calmly. broswick had groped his way forward. he seemed to be fumbling in the darkness at the mouth of the cave. "what's happened?" shouted nestor. "a rock has fallen and closed the mouth of the cavern!" cried the hunter. chapter xix. the auto stolen. for a few moments the silence of despair was on every one. the knowledge that they were imprisoned in the cave came as a terrible shock. "is there no way out?" asked nestor. "now don't you folks go to worryin'," spoke broswick, in a more cheerful voice than seemed warranted under the circumstances. "i've been in tighter places than this, an' come out on top!" "but we're buried!" cried professor snodgrass, who, for once, seemed to have forgotten all about his beloved specimens. "that's nothin'," spoke broswick. "you thought you was all goners when them cattle was comin' after you, but i got you out, an' i'm goin' to do the same now!" "you can't burrow out like a rabbit," said ned. "i've got a little instrument here that will help me," said the hunter. "i never travel without a spade on my saddle. i've lost too many rabbits an' woodchucks through not havin' the means to dig 'em out, so i always carry a shovel along. i reckon it will come in handy. if i only had a light now----" "no need to worry about that," put in nestor. "it would be a pretty poor miner that traveled without a bit of candle and some matches with him. i always go prepared for emergencies." he struck a match, a yellow glow filled the cave, and soon a candle gave good illumination. the boys could see that the cavern was of large size. "i've often stayed in here to keep out the rain," said broswick, as he got his spade, "but i never was ketched like this before." guided by the candle, the hunter went to the mouth of the cave and began digging away the mass of earth and rocks that had slid down and obstructed the opening. "goin' to be quite a job," remarked the miner, as he looked over the mass. "it'll take a good while." "there's plenty of us to do the work," replied broswick. he attacked the pile and made the dirt fly. after he had labored fifteen minutes nestor relieved him. the miner, from his experience in digging into the earth, made more progress than had the hunter. nestor kept at it for more than half an hour, refusing to yield the spade to any one. "there," he said, when he stopped to rest, "i've made quite a hole." the boys and professor snodgrass took turns, and then nestor went at it again. "i wish i had a drink," remarked the miner. "this is dry work." "nothin' easier," said broswick. he took a second candle, which the miner had, and walked to the rear of the cave. in a little while he returned with a big gourd full of cold water. "what sort of a magician are you?" asked jerry. "there's a spring back there," explained broswick. "many's the time i've taken a drink at it and the last time i was here i brought this gourd for a dipper. now it comes in handy." each one took a draught of the cool water and felt the better for it. then nestor insisted that he was going to continue the digging. the others wanted to relieve him, but he would not let them. he plied the spade vigorously and the dirt was scattered to one side. "light! light!" the miner cried, suddenly. "i can see light! we're nearly out!" a few more strokes of the shovel made the opening larger and then, with a shout and hurrah, the imprisoned adventurers rushed forward. "why! why! it's night!" exclaimed bob, as he emerged from the cavern and saw the stars shining. "of course it is," answered nestor. "it was late afternoon when we took shelter in the cave, and we were there more than three hours." "well, we're out now," said jerry. "i wonder if the auto was damaged." the storm had ceased and the night was a fine, clear one. the moon was shining from a cloudless sky and thousands of stars were out. jerry ran on ahead to the tree under which the auto had been left, for the machine was his chief concern. he paused as he reached the spot. then he rubbed his eyes and wondered if he was seeing straight. he even pinched himself to see if he was awake. "what's the matter?" asked ned, who was following close behind his chum. "the auto is gone!" cried jerry. "gone?" "yes. stolen!" "what's that?" exclaimed nestor, running up. jerry pointed under the tree. there was not any sign of an automobile. "that's funny," observed broswick. "it couldn't fly away, that's sure." he led his horse from the cave up to the road and stooped down to examine the path closely. "let's have one of those candles," the hunter called to nestor. lighting the wick the old man examined the road with care, moving about in a circle and then going backward and forward for quite a distance. "well?" inquired nestor, when the hunter straightened up. "some one came along in another auto while we were in the cave," said the hunter, "pulled up here alongside of yours, hitched on to it and pulled it away, or else rode off in it." "what makes you think so?" asked jerry. "i haven't hunted an' trapped twenty years for nothin', young man," was the answer. "i can see the tracks your machine made as it stopped under a tree. then along comes another machine, with tires a leetle mite smaller'n yours. auto no. 2 stops. some one gits out from it an' looks over your auto, for i kin see marks of hob-nailed shoes, an' none of us wear 'em." "hob-nails, did you say, eh?" here interrupted nestor. "that's what i said." "then tom dalsett has been here." "how do you know?" "look an' see if the soles of the hob-nailed shoes didn't have a cross in each one." "they did," replied the hunter, inspecting the tracks. "then it's tom dalsett for sure. he always wore shoes like that, an' i seen 'em on him when he was at dead man's gulch." "then noddy and his gang have stolen our auto!" cried jerry. "that's about it," assented nestor. "however, we mustn't give up yet. we'll take after 'em." "not much chance of getting them, though," put in ned. "you're welcome to my horse," said broswick. "he ain't very fast, but he's better than nothin'." "there's no use doin' anythin' to-night," was the miner's opinion. "we'd only get lost on the road, and i don't know but what we're lost already. we'll have to camp until mornin'." after some consideration this was voted the best thing to do. it was a sorrowful band of adventurers that gathered about the fire which broswick made, for the hearts of the boys were dispirited over the theft of their machine, and the men sympathized with them. fortunately, the hunter had some bacon left, and a meal, such as it was, the travelers made on this. then, selecting the driest places they could find, they prepared to spend the night in the open, without coverings. it was cold, but by keeping a good fire going some comfort was had. when the sun rose the adventurers got up, stretched themselves and wondered what they were going to do for breakfast. "leave it to me," said broswick. "i'm used to providing meals." he was gone some little time, and when he came back he had several plump birds. these were cleaned and were soon roasting over the fire on sticks. it was a good deal better meal than might have been expected under the circumstances. then, with the hunter riding his horse, and the others following, the journey in search of the stolen auto was begun. the marks made by the broad tires of the two machines could be plainly seen. "i wouldn't care if i had my valuable specimens," wailed professor snodgrass. "we'll git 'em, an' the auto, too," said broswick. "don't you worry." they had covered several miles and were descending a long hill, when jerry called out: "what's that ahead, there?" they all stopped and peered down the road. "there are two autos!" cried nestor. "one looks like ours. i'm going to see about it." and he started off on a run. chapter xx. attacked by indians. "here, come back!" yelled broswick. "what for?" shouted nestor. "take my horse," said the hunter. "that's better than going afoot." nestor returned, mounted the animal and set off at a gallop toward the two autos, which were down in the valley. "he'll never catch them," said bob, in a despairing tone. "you let him alone," came from broswick. "he'll git 'em, all right. there's some trouble down there. one machine can't go." "how can you tell?" asked jerry. "i've got sharp eyes, boy," was the answer. "i use 'em in my business." in fact, as the boys observed closely, they could see that the two machines were not moving. they could also note men walking about the cars. "something's out of kilter," said ned. "i guess they found plenty of trouble running two machines. i'll bet one of 'em is ours." they watched nestor descend the slope and approach the cars. as he came closer to them it was observed that there was some commotion among the persons grouped around the machines. they saw the miner raise his hand in the air, and little clouds of smoke arose. "he's firing over their heads!" cried broswick. then, all at once, the persons down in the valley, who, as the boys afterward learned, were noddy nixon and his gang, made a rush for the head auto, jumped into it and made off at top speed. nestor rode up to the remaining machine and waved his hat back to his friends. taking this as a signal that all was right, they hurried forward. "it was them, all right!" cried nestor, when jerry and the others had joined him. "i scared them off by firing in the air. there seemed to be something the matter with our auto, for they were trying to fix it." the boys were worried lest some harm had befallen their machine. jerry made an examination, however, and found things in good shape. there was some damage, and a battery wire had become disconnected, which had brought the machine to a stop, thus foiling the plans of noddy. "that was a lucky break for us," said bob. "you bet it was, chunky," agreed ned. "if we hadn't recovered the auto we would have had to walk back home, and home is a good ways from here." repairs to the machine were quickly made, and then, with light hearts, the adventurers took their places and started forward once again. nothing in the car had been disturbed, and even the collection of insects made by professor snodgrass had not been harmed. the steady chug-chug and puff-puff of the motor was heard as the adventurers moved on up the mountain. they stopped for dinner on top of a little hill in the midst of a grove of trees. a fire was kindled, coffee made, and some canned provisions set out. "this is something like," observed bob, smacking his lips over some preserved tongue. "i'd have given five dollars for a cup of coffee last night," spoke nestor. "me, too," said the hunter. "i am so thankful my specimens are safe i could go without eating for a week," put in professor snodgrass, at which they all laughed. taking a comfortable rest under the trees until the afternoon sun went down a little, the adventurers were thoroughly enjoying the pleasant day. suddenly broswick started up. "what is it?" asked nestor, viewing with alarm the look of fear on the hunter's face. "indians!" was the answer. "you don't mean real indians?" "that's what i do. there's a reservation of some kind about fifty miles from here, and they break loose every now and again." "what makes you think some are loose now?" "hear 'em yellin' an' screechin'!" said the hunter, raising his hand to caution silence. straining their ears the adventurers noted the faint sound of some weird chant borne to them on the east wind. then, as they watched, they saw, coming over the slope of the hill, a band of redskins, mounted on ponies. "hurry to the auto!" cried ned. he ran for the machine, followed by jerry and bob. broswick picked up his gun and looked to the loading of it, as nestor did to his revolvers, but neither of the men offered to retreat. professor snodgrass was intent on capturing some kind of grasshoppers, and did not seem to care whether there were indians about or not. more and more of the savages came into view. "hadn't we better skip?" asked nestor of the hunter. "there are a few more than i reckoned on," was the reply. "i guess we may as well skedaddle if we don't want trouble. i don't know how my nag will run, compared to the indian ponies, but----" "better get in the auto," suggested nestor. "it will hold six on a pinch." by this time ned was frantically cranking up the machine. but, though he turned the flywheel with all his strength, while bob attended to the spark and gasolene levers, the machine would not start. "what's the matter?" cried jerry, who had delayed, to pick up some of the baggage that was unloaded for dinner. "she's stuck!" yelled bob. jerry sprang to the cranking handle. his success was no better than ned's. there were a few faint compressions, but that was all. "better start if you're goin' to," said broswick, coming up. "they're almost here now." "we can't start!" exclaimed jerry. "then we'll have to fight!" observed broswick, coolly. suddenly the air was filled with fierce howls and yells. "you boys git in the back part of the machine," cautioned the hunter. "we men will attend to the redskins. maybe they are only off on a holiday junket, account of bein' paid off by the government. in that case they may let us alone. but they might be ugly, an'----" just then a bullet, with an angry zip, passed over broswick's head. "they're out fer business an' not fun!" he exclaimed. at the same instant he threw up his rifle and fired. a howl of pain came in answer, and one indian fell from his horse. "i only took him in the leg," said the hunter, grimly. "no use killin' any if we can avoid it." jerry, bob and ned sank down in the tonneau. nestor and the hunter lined up in front of the auto and stood with ready weapons. professor snodgrass, with a revolver, which nestor had given him, seemed more afraid of the weapon than of the indians. then, with savage yells, the band of redskins, who, as it afterward developed, had gone on a rampage from their reservation because they were dissatisfied with the government rations, closed around the auto. they fired their guns off as fast as they could load them. but, either because they were poor shots, or because they didn't want to hit the adventurers, the indians did no damage. several bullets came uncomfortably close, and one or two grazed the auto, but no one was hurt. then the savages, with whoops and yells, began circling about the machine. around and around they went, riding their ponies at top speed. suddenly, as if in response to some signal, they withdrew quite a distance, but still hemmed the travelers in a circle. [illustration: the savages began circling about the machine.] "they're up to some mischief," said nestor. "shall we wing one or two just to show we have bullets?" "not for the world," replied broswick. "our only hope is not to get them too riled. they may draw off an' leave us alone." but this was not the indians' intention. once more they began making a wide circle about the auto. "i see what the trouble was!" cried jerry, looking over from the tonneau to the front of the dashboard. "the sparking plug was out. no wonder we couldn't start the machine." he reached over and put the small brass pin in the proper socket. "now i'm going to have another try!" he called to broswick and nestor. "get ready to jump in the machine!" before nestor could stop him, jerry had leaped to the ground. he ran around to the front of the auto, seized the cranking handle and gave several vigorous turns. as he did so a chorus of savage yells arose from the indian ranks, and several more shots were fired. chapter xxi. over a cliff. the bullets struck all around jerry, but none of them struck him. some of the leaden missiles hit the ground and made little clouds of dust, and others zipped on all sides of the auto. all at once the explosions of the auto motor mingled with the banging of the indians' guns. jerry had started the engine. "get in!" he cried, leaping to the steering seat. broswick, nestor and professor snodgrass obeyed the command. "what about my horse?" cried the hunter. "let him go! it's you or the nag!" yelled the miner. in another instant the whole party was in the auto and jerry yanked the levers to full speed ahead. off the car shot, jerry steering for an opening in the circle of indians. with wild yells the redmen watched the auto glide away. they fired shots at it, and one indian hit broswick, but the wound was only a slight one. "here comes your horse!" shouted bob, glancing behind, and, sure enough, broswick's steed was galloping after the swiftly moving auto as though he was on the race track. in a little while the adventurers left the indians behind and were at a safe distance from any bullets. the hunter's horse, too, kept running, and got away. "well, we didn't bargain for this when we left home," remarked jerry, as he slowed up the machine after an hour's run. "i should say not," put in bob. "being attacked by indians was the last thing i ever thought of." "you're out in the wild an' woolly west," observed nestor. "you'll see stranger things before you get through." "i'd like to see something to eat right now," came from bob. "there goes chunky," said ned. "he's always as hungry as he was at home." in spite of poking fun at the stout youth, every one felt the need of food. so a stop was made, a fire built, and soon coffee was boiling. broswick went off in the woods with his rifle and came back with a brace of birds and a jack rabbit. what the boys voted was the finest meal they ever ate was quickly prepared. "we must be careful not to lose the auto again," said jerry. "we have had trouble enough with noddy. the next time he may beat us altogether." when camp was made that night a system of watches was arranged so that some one would be on guard all through the dark hours. nothing disturbed the adventurers, however, and in the morning they started again on their trip across the mountains, which, it seemed, would never come to an end. several days, including sunday, passed without incident. no very fast time was made, and the machine had to be sent along carefully, as the roads were bad and the trail was uncertain to them. one morning broswick announced that he was going off on a hunt. nestor and professor snodgrass said they would go with him. accordingly, the hunter's horse was tied near the auto and the three men set off, while the three boys remained behind to make some repairs to the machine and do a little necessary overhauling. "we'll be back by dinner-time," announced broswick; "that is, if something doesn't happen to us." the boys were so busy that they scarcely noted the passage of time. it was not until jerry looked at his watch and announced that it was two o'clock that the lads wondered what had happened to their friends. "it's long past meal time," said ned. "maybe they're not hungry," suggested bob. "more likely they're in trouble," spoke jerry, an anxious look on his face. "i think we had better hunt them up." this the boys decided to do, after getting themselves a light lunch. they ran the auto along the track the three men had taken, but after riding half an hour found no sign of their friends. "maybe we're on the wrong track," said bob. "or else they didn't come this way," put in ned. they turned the machine around and rode back slowly, looking for marks along the road. "there's something!" exclaimed jerry. he pointed to a small match-box lying on the ground. "nestor always carried that," he said. "it must have dropped from his pocket. the men have been here." "hark! what's that?" cried bob. all listened. to their ears came a faint but unmistakable cry. "help!" "there they are!" called jerry. "over to the left! we must hurry to them!" he sent the machine ahead at a swift pace. the road led along the top of a plateau and ran close to the edge of a cliff. as the machine neared this spot the cries became louder. near the edge of the precipice jerry brought the machine to a stop. "they are down there," he announced, after listening carefully. the boys dismounted from the car and approached the ledge. it went down straight for about fifty feet and then bulged out into a shelf before making a sheer descent to the valley, three hundred feet below. near the edge of the precipice the earth and rocks were freshly torn away, showing that something had gone over. jerry got down on his hands and knees and crept to the edge. what he saw as he looked down made him spring to his feet and shout in mingled fear and astonishment. there, on a jutting spur of the mountain, hardly large enough to hold them, were the three missing men. "are you hurt?" jerry called down. "bruised and scratched, but no bones broken," shouted nestor. "you'll have to haul us up some way, for we can't get down nor crawl up." "git a rope!" shouted broswick, "an' lower it down." "a rope! i don't believe there's one long enough within ten miles of here!" exclaimed ned. "yes, there is," said jerry, quickly. "we have the one they tried to hang professor snodgrass with--the same we used on the tree. it's in the auto. you get it, bob." in a few minutes a long rope was dangling over the edge of the cliff, and when the end reached the men imprisoned on the ledge they set up a joyful shout. the boys retained their end and at a signal from nestor, who had tied the cable about the professor, under his arms, bob, ned and jerry began to haul away. they strained and pulled, but the man at the other end did not budge. "it's caught!" exclaimed ned. jerry ran forward, telling ned and bob to retain their hold of the rope. he found that the cord rasped against an edge of rock as it passed up from the depths below, and this produced so much friction that great force would have to be used in pulling the men up. then, too, there was the danger of the rope fraying and being cut in two. jerry thought over the problem a few seconds. "what's the matter up there?" asked nestor. "never mind!" shouted back jerry. "we'll have you up in a jiffy now." he hurried over to a little clump of trees and came back with a short section of a round limb. "this will be a roller for the rope to pass over, just like a pulley," he announced. then he proceeded to put his plan in operation. lying down on his face, he held the log in position, the rope passing over it. then he told bob and ned to pull. but even with this advantage there was trouble. the two boys managed to get the professor up a short distance, but they were not strong enough to hoist him all the way. "help! help!" the naturalist cried, as he felt himself dangling. "this will not do!" exclaimed jerry. "let him down easy, boys; i'll have to think of another plan." it began to look as though the rescue of the men on the ledge was to be a harder task than at first supposed. at jerry's direction, the end of the rope the boys had was fastened to a stake driven into the ground. "now i wonder what we'd better do?" mused jerry. "we'll have to use the limb of the tree as a roller, and some one has to hold it in place. yet it will take all three of us to pull one man up. if only one of the men was up here to give a hand we could manage. as it is----" "i have it!" cried ned, suddenly, and he ran back to where the auto stood. chapter xxii. the chase. ned reached the machine, cranked it up, and a few minutes later steered it close to where bob and jerry stood. "the auto can do what we can't," he said. "what do you mean?" came from jerry. "i mean it can pull the men up over the cliff!" "hurrah! so it can!" exclaimed jerry. "i see your plan." the car was turned around so the rear of it was close to the edge of the precipice. then the rope was fastened to the axle. "get ready, down below!" called jerry. "we're ready!" came back the answer. jerry and bob stretched out on the ground, each one holding an end of the improvised roller. ned started the auto slowly. the rope strained and tightened. then, as the car gathered speed, the cable was pulled up, and professor snodgrass, tied to the other end, was hauled from his perilous position. as his head came into view over the edge of the precipice, jerry shouted to ned to stop the car. the next instant the naturalist was helped to solid ground by the two boys. the plan had worked. in quick succession nestor and the hunter were pulled up in the same fashion. "well, i must say you boys are smart chaps," spoke the miner. "automobiles are useful critters in more ways than to ride in." "how did you ever get down there?" asked jerry. "it was all my fault," said professor snodgrass. "we were walking along, and i saw a particularly rare specimen of a little garter-snake. it was moving through the grass and i raced after it. it went over the edge of the cliff, and i reached down and tried to get it. it was so far over that i had to lie down flat on my face and stretch my arms. then----" "yes, an' when he found he couldn't reach the critter even then," interrupted broswick, "he asked nestor an' me to hold his heels while he stretched down. blamed if i ever do such a thing ag'in." "why not?" asked bob. "'cause jest as soon as me an' nestor got hold of his heels an' was easin' him over the cliff, i'll be jiggered if the whole top didn't give way an' there we was, slidin' down the mountain at about forty miles a minute. i thought we was gone coons sure, but we struck on the ledge an' that saved us." "we'd been there yet if you boys hadn't come along," said nestor. "but say, i'm mighty hungry." "there isn't much to eat," spoke jerry. "yes, there is," came from the hunter. "i shot some partridge jest afore we had that bloomin' old snake hunt." he walked over to where he had left his game and came back with a double brace of fine birds. it was not long before the partridges were roasting over a fire and every one with a good appetite prepared to eat. "where's my specimen box?" suddenly exclaimed the professor, after an inspection of the auto. "it's gone!" "no; i just laid it to one side when i wanted to use the machine to haul you up with," explained ned. "it is safe. but what do you want of it now?" "to put my snake in, of course," and the scientist showed a tiny serpent grasped in his hand. "so you got it after all, eh?" asked broswick. "i thought you missed it when them rocks an' dirt slid an' let us all down kersmash over the cliff." "i wouldn't have lost that snake for ten thousand dollars," said the professor, as he put it safely away with his other curiosities. after dinner the journey toward the lost gold mine was again taken up. in a short time the auto and its occupants, as well as broswick on his horse, were making good speed. presently it was noticed that the road was sloping downward. jerry remarked on the fact. "we've crossed the divide," announced nestor. "from now on, until we get to the mine, we'll be going downhill. there's another rise of the mountains after we pass the mine, though." it was now about five o'clock, and as the adventurers had eaten dinner rather late they decided not to stop for supper, but to keep on until it was time to camp for the night and have another meal then. when it got too dark to go any further on the road, even though the gas and oil lamps gave a glaring light, a halt was made. supper was eaten and soon all but broswick, who mounted first guard, was slumbering. next morning the travelers came to a long, level stretch, on top of a vast plateau, and here good speed could be made. jerry was steering the car, his turn having come around, and broswick's horse was keeping up well, for the boys would not leave the hunter behind, and regulated their pace to that of his steed. as they went around a curve and came to a straight stretch, jerry cried out and pointed ahead. they all looked, to behold another automobile speeding away from them. "that's noddy's car, i'm sure of it!" jerry shouted. "i'd know it anywhere by this time." "i'd like to catch those rascals!" exclaimed nestor. "they've made trouble enough for us, an' they'll make more if they can. besides, i have my score to settle with that chap pender. i'd have overlooked it if they'd let us alone, but now i want to git even!" "there's no reason why you shouldn't," said broswick. "your machine is as good as theirs. give 'em a chase. if you catch 'em, put their auto out of business until you have enough of a start to get to the mine first. besides, we could have the law on 'em for stealin' this machine." "but what about leaving you behind?" questioned jerry, to whom the thought of a chase after his old enemies was not unwelcome. "leave me behind; i'll catch up to you later," spoke the hunter. jerry looked at nestor. the miner nodded his head in approval. the next instant the auto fairly sprang forward, as jerry threw on the high-speed gear and opened wide the flow of gasolene. the chase was on. jerry sent out a challenging "honk" on the horn, and it was answered by the auto ahead. that machine, too, as soon as the occupants became aware of the pursuit, went forward at top speed. fortunately for all, the road was much better than the average. it was wide and level, and as soon as the machines had warmed up they fairly flew along. "aren't--we go-going a--a--trifle fast?" asked professor snodgrass, in a frightened tone, as he held fast to the car-side to avoid being bounced out. "that's the intention," said nestor. "the other fellows are doin' it an' we have to do likewise. hold tight!" as he spoke, the auto went over a rock and every one was tossed from his seat, to fall back with a jarring bump. the pace was now very fast. with straining eyes jerry watched his rivals in front. slowly but surely he could see that the distance between them was lessening. once or twice some one in the forward car looked back to note the progress of the chase. "we'll catch them!" yelled ned. faster and faster went the auto. the trees and rocks seemed to shoot past. the distance between the two machines was constantly lessening until now it was but a quarter of a mile. "they may use guns," ventured bob. "i reckon they will, son," replied nestor, "but if they try that game they'll find we can shoot a bit ourselves." he got out his brace of revolvers and saw to it that they were loaded. "not that i'm anxious to hurt any one," the miner went on, "but we must protect our lives and our machine." soon but an eighth of a mile separated the pursued and pursuing forces. the occupants of the other car could be plainly seen, and ned, who was riding beside jerry, noticed jack pender stand up in the rear seat and shake his fist. "he wouldn't do that if we were a little closer," observed ned. jerry now saw victory before him. he prepared to run to one side ahead of noddy's machine and so block its further progress. he was about to press the accelerating lever to give his car a momentary burst of speed when there suddenly sounded a great roaring. it seemed to come from the side of a small mountain along the base of which the plateau road now ran. then the air seemed to fill with dust. the very earth trembled and all at once a section of the mountain slipped down right on top of the pursuing auto, fairly overwhelming it. it was a big landslide, and it had come just in time to catch jerry and his friends and let the other machine escape, for the auto noddy and his gang were in got out of the way of the rush of rocks and earth. there was a resounding crash. then all seemed to become black to jerry. chapter xxiii. wrecked. when jerry recovered consciousness he found himself sitting on the ground, while ned and nestor were bathing his head with water that professor snodgrass was bringing up in his hat. "where am i? what happened?" asked jerry. "you're still on the map," said the miner, "and as for what happened, it was what often happens out here. part of the mountain parted company from the main hill, that's all." "is the auto smashed?" asked jerry. "it appears to be damaged some," replied the miner, and jerry felt his heart sink. "but never mind that. it's lucky we're not all killed. you were struck on the head by a stone and knocked unconscious. the rest of us were just spilled out when the machine turned over. but how do you feel?" "i'm all right, only a little weak," replied the boy. he stood up, and, aside from a little dizziness, he found himself in good shape. his head ached from the blow and was cut slightly, but he was too anxious about the machine to mind his hurts. with legs that trembled somewhat, he made his way to where the auto had overturned from the force of the landslide. the machine presented a sorry sight. the baggage was spilled out and things were scattered all about. there was a break in the water tank and the fluid had run out. the steering-post was also bent, and one chain was broken. what other damage was done could not be seen until some of the dirt was removed. "i wish broswick would come along with his spade," said nestor. "we need him." "there he comes now," spoke up ned, pointing back on the road they had come. at the top of a gentle slope a figure on horseback could be made out. the man waved his hand. it was the hunter, and in a short time he came up to the wreck. "waal," he remarked, "looks like ye had trouble." "we did," replied nestor, and he told of the landslide. "but," he went on, "i reckon these boys know how to git us out of it. i'll stake my last dollar on these boys," and he smiled in a way that made the down-hearted lads feel better. broswick's spade did good service, and soon the machine was cleared of the dirt sufficiently to allow of its being righted. then jerry made a more careful examination. as he went around on the right side of it he uttered a despairing cry. "what's the matter?" asked ned. "the battery box is gone!" exclaimed jerry. "it was carried away in the landslide, and we haven't another cell. we're stranded, sure enough." he pointed to where, on the right step, a small, square box had rested. in this box were the dry batteries that supplied the spark. without the vital spark the auto could not advance a foot, and, as jerry had said, the last of the spare batteries had been used and no new ones procured. the adventurers were certainly in dire straits. "maybe we can find the batteries somewhere in the dirt," suggested nestor. acting on this idea, the boys and men made a careful search among the rocks and gravel that covered the road. they found the battery box, but it was splintered to pieces and not a single cell could be located. they went over every inch of the debris with no better result. "well, i reckon we're booked for a stay at this summer resort," said nestor, with forced cheerfulness. "it will be a good chance for me to get some specimens," said the naturalist, as if nothing mattered so long as he got some bugs or snakes. "i reckon you'll have all the time you want," put in the hunter. "but speakin' of specimens reminds me that i'm hungry. i think i'll take my gun an' see if i can't pot somethin' for dinner." "we've got to eat if we can't travel," observed nestor. "supposin', bob, you an' ned make a fire, while jerry tinkers over the auto. perhaps he can make it go, after all. we've had good luck so far, all but this." jerry shook his head. he knew that without the batteries the machine could not be operated. it was like trying to run an engine without a fire under the boiler. however, he set to work to repair what damage he could. with a small soldering outfit he mended the hole in the water tank, stopping the leak. then, with an extra link, of which several were carried, the broken chain was mended. by this time broswick came back with some partridges and rabbits and a meal, though it lacked many extras, was soon in preparation. after eating, jerry went back to the machine. he took out the steering-post, and, with the help of nestor, straightened it. then some other small repairs were made, and, though the auto looked rather battered and battle-scarred, the paint being scratched in many places, it was still serviceable. all that was lacking was the battery box. jerry even filled the water tank from a nearby spring, and then, not being able to do anything more, sat down on a stone and contemplated the useless auto, with sad eyes. "no use cryin' over spilt milk," said nestor, with rude philosophy. "what can't be cured must be endured. it's a long lane that has no turns, an' the longest way 'round is the shortest way home." "git a hoss! git a hoss!" exclaimed broswick, suddenly. "what's the matter with you?" asked nestor. "gone crazy or are you gittin' your second childhood?" "git a hoss!" repeated the hunter, capering about like a schoolboy. "what ails you?" demanded nestor. "ain't that what the kids cry when they see a busted auto?" asked the hunter. "seems to me i've read that in the funny papers. am i right?" "you be," said nestor. "but what's the use of rubbin' our misfortune in?" he grumbled. "i wasn't." "then what made you yell 'git a horse'?" "'cause that jest's what you're goin' to do!" "say, did you sleep in the moonlight last night, 'cause you must have, an' gone looney!" exclaimed nestor. "you----" and then he stopped suddenly, as he caught the hunter's idea. "well, i'll be ding-busted!" he finished, weakly. "that's jest what you're goin' to do," went on the miner. "my kate is as strong a hoss as you'd want. we're goin' downhill most of the way, anyhow, an' it'll be easy for kate to pull the machine an' us in it. there's a town about fifty miles ahead, an' maybe you can git some of them batter-cakes there." "batter-cakes?" repeated ned. "yes. ain't them what you want?" "batteries--dry electric batteries," said jerry, with a smile. "waal, that's what i meant, only i spelled it wrong. they keep minin' supplies in this town, and they'll be sure to have batteries. kate can pull us that far if we go slow." broswick's suggestion was voted a good one. the spirits of all were raised, and soon the hunter and nestor busied themselves making a rude sort of rope harness for the horse. the animal did not seem to mind pulling the auto, and, after everything had been collected, and some of the game the hunter had shot was packed to be taken along for supper at the next stopping place, the start was made. it was slow traveling, compared to the former speed, but it was sure. the slight down-grade helped the animal dragging the heavy machine, which otherwise would have proved too much for one horse. the adventurers rode in the car, and ned steered. it was decided there would be no night traveling now, for they wanted to spare the horse as much as possible, and there was too much danger with the uncertain method of locomotion. so, when it grew dusk, camp was made and a fire built. supper over, the travelers discussed the events of the day until, one by one, they fell asleep, after posting ned as guard. the boy took up his position in the shadow of a big tree where he could watch the auto and observe any one approaching within the circle of firelight. he was sleepy, but he fought off the drowsiness. again and again his head would nod and he would just catch himself falling off into a doze. "come, this will never do," he said, shaking himself wide awake. "i must get a drink of water. maybe that will make me feel more lively." he walked over to where a pail of the liquid had been placed and took a long draught. as he was walking back to his place he started as he saw a bright shaft of light glaring through the trees about half a mile off to the left. "that looked like a searchlight," whispered the boy. the next instant the unmistakable chug-chug of an automobile could be heard. chapter xxiv. forward once more. "if that's an auto, maybe we can get some batteries," thought ned. he hurried back to the camp-fire and awoke jerry. "there's an auto coming!" exclaimed ned. "where is it?" asked jerry, at once alive to the situation, and thinking of the batteries, just as ned had. the two boys listened. the chugging of the motor had ceased, but the searchlight was still playing over the trees. "maybe they're wrecked, too," spoke ned. "let's go over and see what it is." "better tell nestor," suggested jerry. they woke up the miner and told him what they had seen and heard. "go slow," he cautioned. "here, i'll tell you what to do. jerry and i will take a look. no use runnin' into danger. it may be noddy nixon an' his gang, an' if it is, we've got to be careful." neither of the boys had thought of this. however, they realized the force of it. bidding ned to be on guard, nestor set out, accompanied by jerry. the miner had his revolvers ready and jerry carried the hunter's gun. they did not intend to shoot to kill or injure any one, but thought the weapons would be useful in an emergency to scare off the enemy, if they should happen to meet one. with great caution they moved in the direction from which the sounds had come. the white, glaring light was now stationary, and, like a giant finger, was pointing up toward the sky. it served as a guiding star for jerry and nestor. "let me go ahead," suggested the miner, when they had come quite close to where the light had its source. taking the advance, nestor made his way through the underbrush and trees with great quietness. jerry followed as best he could. suddenly the miner stopped. "i see them!" he whispered. "who are they?" asked jerry. "we've got to play a trick," said nestor, without answering the boy. "here, you go over there to the right, about five hundred feet, and fire your gun. leave the rest to me, and as soon as you've pulled the trigger hurry back to our camp." jerry did not question the advice. he turned to the right, and, when he had gone what he thought was the required distance, he discharged his revolver. a loud report crashed out on the silence of the night. jerry heard a crackling of underbrush and several shouts. then, as nestor had told him, he made the best of his way back to camp. as for the miner, he had remained where he was when jerry left him. he was watching the other automobile, and something seemed to strike him as funny, for he chuckled silently. "i reckon there's goin' to be some surprises here pretty soon," he remarked. at the report of jerry's gun, those about the automobile rushed off in the direction of the shot. at the same time nestor, who was waiting for just this very move, ran in. he fumbled about the machine for a few minutes and then, clasping something tightly in his arms, hurried back through the woods to the camp, reaching there shortly after jerry. those who had been left sleeping were aroused by the gun, and they were anxious to know what the matter was. ned told his part and then jerry related what had befallen him and nestor. "but what have you there?" asked broswick of the miner, observing that nestor carried something. "a box of batteries," was the reply. "i took them off the other automobile. now we can go ahead under our own power." "but what--why--how?" began jerry, with a puzzled look. "i'll explain it all," said nestor; "but, first, hadn't you better fix these batteries on our machine? we may want to start soon." it did not take long for jerry to make the necessary connections. then, with the cresville auto again in shape for flight, nestor told his story. "who do you think the crowd in charge of the other auto was?" he asked. "give it up," exclaimed bob, the quicker to find out. "noddy nixon and his gang! as soon as i saw through the trees i made up my mind it was better to use cunning than force. i happened to see on their auto the same kind of a box that was taken off ours by the landslide. i figured that they had made so much trouble for us, the least thing they could do would be to lend us their batteries. so i jest reckoned i'd borrow 'em. "i sent jerry off to one side to fire a gun and draw their attention there. i knew they'd run when they heard the noise. they did, and i sailed in and yanked off the batteries. there they be." nestor seemed quite proud of his work. the boys were very glad to have their auto in shape again, and it was felt that noddy and his crowd got no more than they deserved. "they may trace us and make trouble," suggested jerry. "i reckon they'll have hard enough work in the dark," said nestor. "but perhaps we'd better move on, an' git a good start of 'em. they may have extra batteries an' set out to chase us." so, breaking camp, though it was still dark, the adventurers went forward once more, broswick riding on his horse, that, no doubt, was glad to be relieved of the task of pulling the auto. the machine worked well, the batteries transferred from noddy's auto doing good service. it was daybreak before the travelers halted, and by this time they were well beyond where noddy and his companions had camped. "here's a good place to stop," said nestor, indicating a little clearing near a mountain stream. "we ought to get breakfast now." for several days after this the trip went on without incident. the weather continued fairly good, with only an occasional rainstorm. the adventurers heard of the big rush of gold seekers to the district where nestor's mine was located; but so far, they were ahead of the big crowd they had seen some time before. "we'll git there fust, after all," said broswick, as he sat astride his horse, that was now getting rather bony and thin from the long journey. "no tellin'," rejoined nestor. "there's a lot of miners in this region, an' if they git to that mine ahead of us there's goin' to be trouble." one afternoon, following a good day's run, the auto came to the end of the long mountain slope down which the adventurers had been riding for so long. they were now on a vast plain, or rather level valley, lying between two of the big mountain ranges. it was a pleasant country to travel in, and every one felt in good spirits. "we're gittin' near to the place," said nestor, on reaching the level stretch. "we'll keep on due west for a little while. i've sort of lost my bearin's, but i'll git 'em back in a little while." he seemed somewhat worried, and was continually peering first to one side, then the other. for several miles the auto journeyed on. no sign of human life was seen, though there were plenty of small animals and insects that professor snodgrass wanted to gather. but nestor would hear of no delay. "hold on!" cried the miner, suddenly, as the auto passed a sort of trail leading up the valley. "this looks as if i'd seen it before." jerry brought the machine to a stop, and nestor got out. he looked at the trees on either side of the trail and then came running back to the machine. "it's all right!" he cried. "what is?" asked ned. "we've found the lost trail to the mine," replied nestor. "i didn't think i'd strike it this way, but we have. forward! now for the richest gold mine in the rockies!" "hurrah!" shouted the boys, and professor snodgrass and the hunter joined in the cheers. "leave your horse here, broswick," advised nestor. "he'll be safe and the trail ahead is a hard one on animals. get in the auto with us." the hunter agreed to the plan, and his faithful steed was turned loose where there was plenty of food and water. then, with the six in the auto, though they were rather crowded, the machine was started off toward the long-sought mine. suddenly, from down the valley, sounded the noise of another machine approaching. ned turned around. "here comes noddy nixon!" he shouted. chapter xxv. a race to the mine. before long noddy nixon and his crowd in their auto shot up alongside the motor boys and their friends. noddy looked over and grinned, while pud stoneham raised his hat in mocking politeness. "hurry up!" said nestor to jerry, in a low voice. "they are going to give us a race to the mine. we must get there first!" "what difference does it make?" asked the boy, as he speeded up his machine. "all the difference in the world," replied the miner. "i've staked my claim, but i haven't filed the papers in the government office, as the law requires. the first man who comes along could jump my claim now. i was relyin' on the mine bein' hard to find, but i see it has been discovered. we must beat them!" "we'll do it if possible," said jerry, with determination in his voice. "i wonder how they got in shape so quickly after we took their batteries?" "probably had another set," was nestor's opinion. the two machines were now moving almost side by side, up the defile which led to the mine. the autos were about two hundred feet apart and going at about the same rate of speed, which was not very fast, as the road was not of the best. "how are you?" called out jack pender. "none the better for seeing you," replied ned. "thought you was smart to take our batteries, didn't you?" went on pender. "well, we'll show you a trick or two. we'll get to that mine before you!" "you've got another guess comin', young man!" cried nestor. "when i git through with you there won't be enough left to fill a hollow tooth. i've got a score to settle with you." at this, jack sank back in his seat. bill berry, who had been eyeing the motor boys, shouted out: "if you cubs are lookin' fer trouble there'll be plenty of it. we're not in cresville now, where all your friends are." "i'm a born trouble-hunter!" exclaimed hank broswick, rising in his seat and carelessly leveling his rifle at the wheels of noddy's auto. "i kin hit trouble a mile off!" "don't shoot!" yelled noddy, trying to duck behind the dash-board and steer at the same time, with the result that he nearly overturned the auto. "i wasn't goin' to," replied the hunter, with a grim chuckle. "i only wanted to let you know i was on hand in case i might be wanted." after this the taunts from noddy's gang ceased. in stern determination the race now settled down into a contest to see who should be first at the mine, for on that depended everything. for nearly ten miles the two autos were close together, neither gaining any advantage. it began to get dusk, and the boys considered whether they should stop for the night or keep on. "i think we had better camp until morning," advised broswick. "we might git ahead of 'em, an', again, we might not. the chances are we'd bust a tire or sumthin', an' then we'd be worse off than before. slow an' sure is better than quick an' never." so, somewhat to nestor's disappointment, the auto came to a stop when the road was no longer visible because of darkness. "they're goin' on; i don't see why we can't," grumbled the miner. "too risky," replied broswick. "we'll make better time in the end." "then we've got to start bright an' early in the mornin'," stipulated nestor. to this they all agreed. supper was prepared and the guard set. the other auto, with a last mocking toot of the horn, had disappeared. when the first indication of light in the east told that dawn was at hand, broswick, who had the last watch, awoke his companions. a hasty breakfast was made and, even before the sun was up, the journey was renewed. "i'd feel easier if i could git a sight of them other fellers," said nestor. "do you s'pose they kept on goin' all night?" asked broswick. "let's see if we can't pick up their trail," suggested professor snodgrass. "we can easily tell if an auto has preceded us." jerry stopped the machine and broswick got out. he made a careful examination of the road and soon gave a yell that told he had discovered something. "they're ahead," he announced, "but they made a stop here. the ground is all trampled up. i wouldn't wonder if they had a breakdown, an' had to halt for fixin' their shebang up. they can't be very far in advance." with lighter hearts the adventurers started off once more, keeping a sharp lookout for the other auto. the sun rose high in the heavens, and it was hot in the valley. mile after mile was reeled off, but noddy's machine was not in view. it was almost noon when professor snodgrass, who was peering intently ahead, suddenly uttered a cry. "what is it?" asked jerry. "i thought i saw a specimen of the almost extinct herds of buffalo," answered the naturalist. "buffalo!" cried nestor, standing up to get a good view. "that's the other automobile you see!" "so it is!" admitted the professor, taking a second glance. "put on all the steam you've got!" cried the miner. "we must catch them before night or the mine is lost! we're close to it now!" jerry opened the throttle wide and shortened the intervals of sparking. the automobile fairly jumped ahead, but so rough was the road that the travelers were bounced about like peas in a pod. "we're gaining on them!" ned shouted. "we'll soon be up to them!" in a little while not more than an eighth of a mile separated the two machines, and this distance was gradually being lessened. stoneham and dalsett, who were in the rear seat, looked back and shook their fists. "not very pleasant chaps," commented nestor. "well, we don't mind how they look." five minutes later the autos were even, racing along the valley toward the coveted riches. the excitement of the race was too keen to admit of the wasting of breath in useless taunts. a tense silence was preserved, broken only by the throbbing of the rival motors. "have we any water aboard?" asked bob, about ten minutes after the two machines got on even terms. "i guess there's plenty in the tanks," answered ned. "i mean to drink," went on chunky. "i'm as dry as a fish." "now that you speak of it, i would like a cool cupful myself," admitted ned. "have we any, jerry?" "not a drop." the subject was not mentioned again for some time. but once the idea had been broached it seemed impossible for bob or ned to get rid of it. their thirst grew amazingly under the hot sun, and soon all the others were thinking how delicious some cold water would be. "i've simply got to have a drink," said poor bob at length. "i'll die if i don't get one." he certainly looked as if he needed it. the others, too, were suffering the torments of thirst, for they had drunk nothing since early morning. "can't we stop and get some water?" asked ned. "if we do we'll lose several minutes," said nestor, "and seconds will count now. try and stand it a little longer. make believe you are shipwrecked and can't get a drink. sometimes sailors go for days without a drink." "but they couldn't get it if they wanted to," spoke bob, "and as for us, there's a spring right alongside of the road," and he pointed to one ahead. jerry was about to turn up to it and stop, but nestor urged him to keep the auto going. "we don't want to lose everything, when we're jest about succeedin', all fer a little water," he said. "three hours more will see us at the mine. if we stop now they'll beat us." "i'll give my share in the mine for a good drink," wailed bob. "so will i!" chimed in ned. in truth, the boys were suffering severely. so were the men, but they were used to hardships, and the thought of the gold ahead made them indifferent to the wants of the body. "see, we're coming to a river," went on ned, pointing to where a bridge could be seen spanning a stream. "we can get water there." "and lose the gold mine!" exclaimed nestor, fiercely. "no, sir! we don't stop until we're on the ground. then you can get all the water you want." he seemed so excited that the boys were somewhat afraid of him, though they knew it was all due to the strain of the moment. to add to their discomfiture, they could see the other gold seekers in their auto taking copious drinks from bottles of water. "my throat is all parched up!" cried bob. "i must have water!" "so you shall!" shouted jerry. chapter xxvi. gold! "do you mean to stop the car and let them git ahead of us?" demanded nestor. "i'm going to stop the car," replied jerry, "but they're not going to get ahead of us." "how you goin' to prevent it?" "i'll show you. wait until we get to the bridge." the two machines were close together and the bridge was now about an eighth of a mile ahead. suddenly jerry shifted the lever to throw the third gear into place, at the same time opening the throttle. the red auto fairly sprang forward, leaving the other behind. at first, noddy, who was steering his machine, was too surprised at jerry's move to know what to do. when he did attempt to speed up, the other car was several hundred feet in advance. two minutes later jerry had reached the bridge and brought his auto to a stop. "there!" he exclaimed. "i guess we can hold them here as long as we like. the other car can't beat us, can it?" "i should say not," answered nestor. "you're a slick one, jerry!" for the bridge was so narrow that there was but room on it for one auto at a time. with noddy's car in the rear, it could not go ahead until jerry was ready. "we'll all have a drink!" exclaimed broswick. "i'm as dry as a powder-horn myself." there was a general rush to the stream, which proved to be a clear, cold, mountain brook, and never did liquid taste better than that to the thirsty adventurers. they had not half enough when noddy's machine came puffing up, but was forced to stop. "pull your machine out of there or i'll ram you!" he exclaimed. "oh, i guess not!" said nestor, slowly. "this is a public road." "i'll show you whether it is or not," went on the bully, in a blustering tone, reaching for the lever to send his car ahead. his intention was to push the other auto off the bridge. "not so fast," spoke nestor, slowly, carelessly drawing his revolver from the holster. "those are very pretty tires of yours, but it's no fun ridin' on 'em when the wind is out. so go easy, mr. noddy nixon!" "we'll fix you for this!" cried dalsett. "oh, it's you, is it?" asked nestor, in seeming surprise. "well, i wouldn't crow too soon if i was you. it might not be altogether healthy, you know." the other remained silent. the boys finished drinking, and, at broswick's suggestion, filled several cans with water, and placed them in the auto. "come, are you going to stay there all day?" growled noddy. "as long as we please," answered nestor. "we know what you're up to, but we'll beat you yet." "the mine belongs to whoever stakes it first," put in dalsett. "i see you know the law right enough," spoke nestor. "but i wouldn't advise you to get too well acquainted with it. there are some little matters in new mexico the law might want you to explain," and he smiled at his former helper, whereat dalsett turned pale and muttered beneath his breath. but, having satisfied their thirst, the adventurers had no longer any motive for blockading the bridge. they started off, jerry getting the motor up to a good speed before throwing in the gear, so that the car moved off swiftly at the start. like a flash, noddy was after them. once more the race was on. the sun reached the zenith and began to decline in the west. nestor was greatly excited. he was on familiar ground now, and saw landmarks on every side. as the auto passed a dead sycamore tree he shouted: "only two miles farther now! then, hurrah for the gold!" the other machine clung doggedly to the cresville auto. jerry was going as fast as he dared, and noddy was close behind. a few minutes more would tell the tale. "one mile farther!" shouted nestor. the next instant there came a report like a revolver shot. every one started, thinking they had been fired at. "they've busted a tire!" shouted broswick. "i reckon that puts them out of the race!" noddy was obliged to bring his machine to a sudden stop. there was a scene of confusion as the crippled machine was forced to give up the pursuit. berry and dalsett seemed to be urging noddy to continue in spite of the accident, but, rash as the bully was, he knew better than to go on with a collapsed tire. jerry never slackened the speed of his auto, and rushed on, intent on the goal that was now so near. ten minutes later the road came to an abrupt end against a slope of the mountain. "well?" asked jerry, throwing out the gear and leaving the auto with the motor still running, panting like one who has run a long race. "what next? we can't go any farther." "we don't need to," replied nestor. "why not?" "we're at the mine. it's on top of that hill," and nestor indicated a little knob that rose about two hundred feet away. "come on, we'll take a look at it." jerry shut off the power and, leaving professor snodgrass in charge of the machine, the others climbed up to the mouth of the shaft of the long-lost mine that nestor had so luckily discovered. a rude ladder led down into the depths below. lighting some candles he had with him, nestor descended, telling the others to come, but to use caution, as the ladders were old and rotten. with hearts that beat high in hope, the boys went down into the mine. the first level was about fifty feet under the surface. coming to a halt, nestor lit several more tallow ends. "look!" he exclaimed. the boys stared in wonder. gold, gold, gold seemed to be on every side of them. it cropped out in the dirt and rocks; big yellow veins that glowed with a dull gleam in the flickering lights. the sides of the mine were traversed with the streaks of precious metal. most of it was very pure, and it could be dug out with a knife. "it's the richest mine i ever saw or heard of," said nestor. "there's enough gold in sight to make us all rich, even if no more develops as we dig farther down. it's a great strike!" "it certainly is," agreed jerry. "but can we establish a claim to it?" "the mine will stand in our joint names before another day," replied nestor. "i'll start for the government office the first thing in the morning, after i've staked a claim for each of us." "providin' noddy nixon an' his crowd don't make more trouble," spoke broswick. "they're broke down," answered nestor. "nothin' to prevent 'em from walkin' here," went on the hunter. "howsomever, if they come we'll be ready for 'em. now let's git supper." taking a last look for the day at the riches around them, the adventurers climbed to the surface. they went to where they had left the automobile, made a fire and were soon preparing a simple meal. broswick's ready gun provided enough for supper and also insured a feast of rabbit and partridge for the next day. the adventurers were so filled with thoughts of their success at reaching the mine first that they sat around the camp-fire until almost midnight, going over the happenings that had befallen them on their journey. then, the first watch having been assigned to nestor, all the others sought their blankets, and stretched out on the ground to sleep. the hours of the night passed without incident. there were no sounds save, now and then, mournful hootings of the owls and the bark of foxes. jerry had the last watch, from three until six o'clock. he was sleepy when broswick aroused him to take his place, but soon was wide awake enough. "anything happened?" he asked the hunter. "no; but keep your eyes open. we have to deal with a hard crowd, especially dalsett. if you hear any one approaching, fire in the air first and then challenge." jerry took up his vigil. to keep himself awake he walked back and forth out of range of the light from the camp-fire. once or twice he thought he heard sounds as of some one approaching, and he nerved himself for a struggle. but each time it proved to be only timid foxes that, with startled eyes, came to see who had invaded their woods and glens. just as dawn was about to herald itself by a pale light in the east, jerry heard a sound as of some heavy body coming through the underbrush. he was on the alert in a moment. peering forward, he saw the dim outlines of a man approaching between the trees. the next instant jerry fired in the air, and called out: "who goes there?" the reply was a volley of shots. chapter xxvii. besieged at the mine. in an instant every one at the gold camp was on his feet. broswick reached for his ever-ready rifle and nestor had his revolvers out in a jiffy. "what is it?" called the miner to jerry. "i heard some one coming, and i fired," replied the boy. "did you see any one?" "i thought i saw a man, but i'm not sure." "you're right! it was a man, and that man is on deck now!" replied a mocking voice, but no one was in sight. "that's dalsett!" cried nestor. "i know his voice. come out where i can see you, dalsett!" went on the miner. "but i s'pose you're afraid to show your sneakin' face!" "it's healthier where i am," said dalsett, "but, just to show you that we have the advantage--how's that?" a shot followed his voice, and a twig was clipped from the tree above nestor's head. instinctively, the miner ducked. "we've got you surrounded," went on dalsett. "you may have the mine, but we have you, and a heap of good the claim will do you when you can't file your papers!" in a rage, nestor fired in the direction of the voice, aiming high, as he did not wish to seriously wound even an enemy when there seemed to be no need. a mocking laugh followed. at the same time there were several shots from different points surrounding the camp, showing that it was indeed encircled. "it looks as if they had us, don't it?" asked broswick. "not by a long shot!" replied nestor, heartily. "i've only just begun to play this here game. before i'm through i'll make noddy nixon and tom dalsett wish they'd never bothered me." "what shall we do?" inquired jerry. "get breakfast," answered nestor, promptly. "we'll need food for what's ahead of us." a stealthy movement in the bushes attracted his attention. "so that's their plan, eh?" he murmured. "hank, take your gun and go up to the mouth of the mine shaft. if any of that gang tries to approach, shoot to wound but not to kill. they were trying to sneak up to the mine and gain possession," explained nestor, in reference to his directions to the hunter. broswick hurried up the slope. jerry and the other boys proceeded to get the morning meal. as for professor snodgrass, he was walking around, gathering specimens, as though danger was a thousand miles away. nestor, with weapons ready, kept sharp watch. they ate breakfast by turns, keeping a lookout lest the enemy might attempt to rush the position. but this did not seem to be the plan of the besiegers. they were content to keep close watch so that those in possession of the mine could not leave. as an experiment, nestor tried it. he walked a little way down the valley. he had not proceeded far before there was a spurt of dust at his feet and a voice cried: "better go back, jim. you'll be all right as long as you stay in bounds, but if you go out there'll be trouble; so i advise you to keep quiet." "wait till i git hold of you, tom dalsett!" cried the miner, shaking his fist in the direction of his invisible foe. "oh, i expect to be here some time, so i'll wait," was the reply, and nestor could only turn back. just before noon the miner called a council of war. he explained that it was very necessary for him, or some one, to get to a government office and file a claim on the mine. "it's a case of first come, first served in this minin' business," explained nestor. "those chaps may be on the way now to register their papers, an' if they are we'll lose the claim. i'll bet that's their plan, an' that's why they're keepin' us cooped up here!" "how far is it to the government office?" asked jerry. "a matter of thirty miles," replied nestor. "it's about five miles beyond where we turned up into this valley. but what's the use talkin'? we can't git away while they're on guard with guns." "we all can't, but one of us might," suggested jerry. "what do you mean?" "i mean that i will go and file the papers." "how will you manage it?" jerry explained his plan. nestor nodded in approval, and hurriedly told him how to comply with the necessary legal forms. the miner hastily filled out a paper, gave it to the boy, and remarked: "now we'll try that trick of yours, jerry." in accordance with the plan jerry had proposed, every one but himself started toward the top of the hill where the mine shaft was located. jerry stayed near the automobile. the others took no pains to move quietly, but laughed and talked. reaching the top of the slope, at a word from nestor, they made a rush down the other side, at the same time firing their revolvers wildly in the air. as jerry had expected, the ruse worked. the force of besiegers, thinking an escape was being attempted, ran around the other side of the hill to intercept it. led by dalsett, noddy and his crowd drew up in the underbrush at the opposite foot of the slope to trap the supposed fugitives. at that instant jerry sprang to the auto. like a flash he had the motor going, and a second later he had leaped into the seat and was off down the valley. a ringing cheer by his comrades, together with the chugging of the motor, told the enemy what had happened. they realized that they had been fooled, and had been drawn away on a false alarm. "quick! after him, noddy!" cried dalsett. "jump in your auto! you must overtake him before he reaches the government office, for he's going there to file the claim. that's what we'd ought to have done instead of monkeying here." noddy needed no second bidding. his auto stood ready a short distance down the valley. he ran to it, started the motor, and was after jerry in a few minutes. it was another race for the possession of the gold mine. returning to their camp, much pleased at the success of their stratagem, nestor, the boys and professor snodgrass got dinner. broswick was still on guard at the shaft, but nestor relieved the hunter a little later, allowing him to eat and take some rest. as for the besiegers, they seemed to have settled down to dogged waiting, for they gave no sign, though an occasional movement in the underbrush showed they were still on guard. meanwhile, jerry and noddy were racing on. jerry had a good start and sent his car along at a fine speed. the road was rough, and several times he struck large stones that caused the auto to bounce unpleasantly. now and then jerry would glance back to see if his enemy was in sight. after a run of about two miles he caught a glimpse of noddy's machine coming after him. "now we'll see who has the best car, and who is the best driver," reasoned jerry, and his spirits rose at the prospect of the race. for several miles jerry held his lead. then he noticed that noddy was gaining slightly. jerry could feel that his motor was not running as smoothly as it should, and no wonder, for it had been through strenuous times. he used all his skill in operating the various valves, gears, levers, but, do the best he could, he saw noddy slowly though surely creeping up on him. "he must not win!" exclaimed jerry, fiercely, to himself. then, though it was a dangerous thing to do, for the road was very rough, he opened the gasolene throttle still wider, and the car bounded forward at greater speed. this temporary advantage was soon lost, however, and noddy came on relentlessly. for an hour the race continued. the autoists left the small valley leading to the mine and turned into the broad defile. "five miles more!" thought jerry, recalling nestor's directions. the next instant, with a rush and rattle, noddy's car came up alongside that of jerry's. they were now on even terms. "i s'pose you thought you'd beat me!" sneered the bully. "the race isn't over yet," answered jerry. but in truth it looked as if it was, as far as jerry was concerned. noddy gained inch by inch, until his car was a good length ahead. the bully looked back with a mocking smile. one mile was reeled off, and but four remained of the distance to the little town where the government office was located. another mile; then another. noddy's car was now five hundred feet ahead, and jerry was running his machine as fast as he dared, though not to the limit. there remained but another mile as the cars shot into a long, straight stretch. in the distance jerry could see a small town. noddy was an eighth of a mile in advance. "i'm going to lose!" exclaimed jerry, and he felt his heart sink. chapter xxviii. winning the claim. there was but half a mile more. the two autos were now on the outskirts of the settlement, and men gathered in the single main street to watch the race. suddenly noddy's car skidded and he was forced to shut off the power. this allowed jerry to gain a little. he quickly saw his chance. resolving to risk everything, he turned on full speed and pressed down the accelerator pedal. his car lurched forward with such suddenness that the youth was almost pitched from his seat. but he caught up to noddy. the latter saw the advantage that had been gained and tried a desperate measure. turning his steering wheel he swerved his auto over toward jerry's, intending to strike him a glancing blow and upset him. but jerry was too quick for him. he got out of the way, though only just in time. then he glanced up and saw, about one hundred feet in advance, a white building, with a sign reading: government assay office. he brought up his machine with a jerk by applying the emergency brake. almost before it stopped he leaped out, but his coat caught on the steering wheel and he fell in the dusty road. at that instant noddy dashed up in his machine. he was quick to see what had befallen jerry, and like a flash was out of his car, and, with a proof of claim in his hand, he rushed for the door of the assay office. "no, you don't!" yelled jerry, springing to his feet. he took after noddy and caught him just as the bully was about to enter the office. but one thought flashed through jerry's mind. he must beat noddy. he drew back his fist and, with a powerful blow that caught the bully right on the chin, sent him sprawling away from the doorway and into the dusty street. "i want to file this claim," panted jerry, an instant later, handing the astonished government clerk the proof nestor had made out. the boy had done the only thing possible under the circumstances to enable him to get into the office. he had knocked noddy aside and gone in ahead of him, winning by the margin of a second. the commotion caused by the two automobiles racing into town, the conduct of the two boys, and jerry's action had attracted quite a crowd about the assay office. people fairly filled the rough shack in which the agents of uncle sam did business, and the claim clerk was so startled by the suddenness of the whole transaction that he stood motionless. "aren't you going to file and record that claim?" asked jerry, looking out of the window and seeing noddy limp to his feet. "i--i don't know--of course i am--that is----" "he isn't goin' to do anythin' until i have somethin' to say," interrupted a rough voice. "i'm sheriff of this county, an' i'd have you automobilists know that you can't come here lickity split an' not pay the damage. i'll arrest you both for exceedin' the speed limits." "what is the legal limit?" asked jerry, anxious only about getting his paper filed. "seventy miles an hour." "my machine can't make over fifty if i was to run it at full speed on a beach track," replied jerry, hotly. "well--er--maybe i'm a leetle off on figgers," admitted the sheriff. "it may be seven miles, but you're both arrested--er--um--fer disturbin' the peace. there, i guess you can't git around that. i may be a leetle mite hazy on law, but i ain't on fact. do you deny that you disturbed the peace?" and he turned to jerry. "i admit i knocked him down," said the boy, nodding toward the bully, who was entering the room. "i'm willing to pay a fine for that if i may file this paper. how much do i owe you?" "we can't do business in that loose way," spoke the sheriff, with a great sense of his own importance. "this must go through a regular form. you'll both have to go before the judge. i'll arrest you both." "but can't i file this paper?" insisted jerry. "you can arrest me just the same." "one thing at a time," went on the sheriff. "you come with me; let the judge hear the case, an' if he finds you not guilty you can come back here an' file fifty papers if you want to. but you can't now, an' i forbid this clerk to take any papers from anybody until i come back." jerry fretted at the delay. it was easy to see that in this rough, western town the authority of the sheriff was paramount. at first jerry thought it might be a trick put up to benefit noddy, but when he saw the bully was not allowed to file his papers either, he became convinced that the sheriff thought he was acting within his legal rights. followed by a big crowd, the officer led his two prisoners toward the rude shanty where the judge held court as often as it was necessary. noddy was plainly in a great rage, but jerry took it all as good-naturedly as he could. "you wait till pud stoneham and tom dalsett hear of this!" blustered noddy to the sheriff. "they'll make trouble, for they told me to be sure and file that paper as soon as i could." "what names did you say?" asked the sheriff. noddy repeated them. "i'd give a good bit to see pud stoneham just now," remarked the officer, in a peculiar voice. "but i guess he don't want to see me." "i'll tell you where you can find him," spoke jerry, quickly, surmising how the land lay. "where? tell me, quick, boy! are you tryin' to fool me?" in a few words jerry told about the mine, and how he had left his friends besieged there by the gambler and his companions. "it's our mine, and i tried to file the claim before noddy nixon did," finished jerry. "and you'll do it yet," said the sheriff, heartily. "here," he called to the crowd, which came to a halt, "this case is adjourned indefinitely." "ain't there goin' to be a trial?" asked several, disappointed in what they thought would furnish excitement. "not now," replied the officer. "this boy, jerry hopkins, is paroled in my custody. noddy nixon is paroled in the custody of bill lamson, an' i'll appoint you a special deputy for the occasion, bill. you take charge of noddy until sundown, when you kin let him go. an', mind, if he escapes i'll court-martial you, bill." "he won't git away," said the new deputy, confidently. the crowd had already begun to disperse, finding there was to be nothing to interest them. lamson went away with noddy, who vainly protested against being detained. "now take me to pud stoneham," said the sheriff to jerry. "i've been lookin' for him for 'most a month. he's wanted for a dozen crimes. well, well, this is luck!" "what about filing the claim?" asked jerry, not losing sight of his important mission. "you kin attend to that right off," was the answer. "then take me to the mine an' i'll attend to pud stoneham." jerry lost no time in filing a formal proof of claim to the mine, and saw the record made in the government books. then, with a lighter heart than he had known for many a day, feeling that at least part of the hard work was over, he went to the auto, where the sheriff was waiting. "i'll take you out in the car," said jerry. "i'd a heap sight rather have a mule," commented the officer, eyeing the machine with a suspicious glance, "but i s'pose this is quicker. don't upset, now." "i won't," promised jerry. "but, mr. sheriff, hadn't you better take some help along? pud and dalsett are well armed." "that's so. i'll swear in a couple of deputies," said the officer. "here, you," he called to two men passing by, "come with me, i may need you. hold up your right hands. you swear to do whatever i tell you to, all right. i owe you fifty cents apiece, but you'll have to git change. never mind now, jump in the shebang. we're after a man." then the sheriff paused to take a much-needed breath. the two men, who didn't seem surprised at being so suddenly called on to act, took their places in the machine and jerry started off. he exulted in his success, for he knew that, no matter what happened now, the mine stood in the names of nestor and the adventurers, including himself. all that now remained was to get the gold out. jerry sent the machine along at a good clip. mile after mile was covered and at last the auto turned up the little valley leading to the mine. as the machine neared the hill in which the shaft was sunk a sound of firing was heard. "they're fighting!" cried the boy, as he increased the speed. chapter xxix. the fight at the mine. as the auto came near, the shots became more distinct. it seemed as if a small-sized battle was in progress. jerry stopped the car about a thousand feet away from where the camp had been. "take it easy until we see where we're at," advised the sheriff. "there's too many bullets flyin' around for comfort." he got out of the machine and began creeping along on the ground on hands and knees. his deputies followed his example, and jerry thought it well to do likewise. it was soon evident that an attack was being made on the hill, where the forces of nestor seemed to have entrenched themselves. stoneham, dalsett, berry and pender were drawing nearer under cover of the underbrush and were firing as they advanced. nestor and his crowd were replying with shot after shot, though most of the bullets were high in the air. "if i could only get a line on where they are," muttered the sheriff, "i'd be all right, but i can't see a thing in these bushes." all at once the firing from the top of the hill ceased. "i guess they're out of ammunition," said jerry. "they didn't have very much when i came away." "then it's time we did somethin'," remarked the sheriff. "there, i see 'em now. come on, boys!" the two deputies followed him on the run, and jerry kept as close as he could. suddenly the sheriff came to a halt. he motioned with his hand for the others to keep quiet. then the officer began creeping at a slow pace. he halted once more and waved to the others to approach. they did so with all the caution possible. "we've got 'em!" exclaimed the sheriff. "pud stoneham and the rest of 'em are down in a little hollow just below us. they are gettin' ready to make a rush, i think." peering over the edge of a little bluff on which the sheriff's party stood, jerry looked down and saw the gambler, bill berry and jack pender, each with a revolver, crouching down and peering forward. they were within a few hundred feet of the shaft, and jerry could dimly observe nestor and his friends grouped about the mine. they seemed to be making a last stand. the truth of the matter was that, as jerry had surmised, they were out of ammunition and could no longer reply to the fusillade that stoneham and his crowd kept up. for a time there was a lull in the firing. then the shots began again, coming from stoneham, berry and pender. but they did not seem to be aiming to kill or even wound those guarding the mine. desperate as the gambler was, and great as was his wish to get the gold claim, he would not resort to extreme measures. so he and the others were firing over the heads of those they were attacking. they hoped to scare them away. if they could do this, and rush in, securing possession of the claim, they would, under the mining laws, provided that noddy had filed the claim, be masters of the situation. but something was about to happen. the sheriff was watching stoneham like a cat. the gambler and his friends were unaware how close they were to danger, and continued to fire above the heads of the party at the shaft. from their point of vantage the sheriff, his deputies and jerry watched what was going on below them. they saw nestor, broswick and the others waver, for the firing was hot, and they did not know it was a harmless one. "come on!" yelled stoneham, suddenly. "we've got 'em! come on, an' take the mine!" the gambler leaped to his feet, flourishing his revolver. pender, berry and dalsett prepared to follow him. "no, you don't!" cried the sheriff. the officer leaped forward, over the bluff, and shot downward. full and true he fell, right on the back of stoneham, bearing him to the earth. "i say! what's this? oh, let me up!" yelled the gambler. "not until i've fixed you so's you can't do any damage!" exclaimed the officer, drawing out a pair of handcuffs and fastening them on stoneham. the gambler struggled hard for a few seconds. then, finding it was of no avail, he lay quietly at the sheriff's feet. "where'd you come from?" he asked the officer. "oh, i took a little run up here in one of them new-fangled gasolene gigs," replied the sheriff, with a grin. "i heard you were up here an' i felt i couldn't get along without havin' a little conversation with you." "um!" grunted stoneham. dalsett disappeared into the bushes at the instant the sheriff had jumped on the gambler's back, and was soon lost to sight. "never mind him," said the officer, when he saw that capture was not possible. "i didn't want him, anyhow. it was pud i was after, an' i got him." "what'll we do with this lad?" asked one of the deputies who had grabbed pender. "pl-pl-please don't ki-kill me!" cried the boy, a coward, now that his side had lost. "kill you!" exclaimed the sheriff. "the worst that'll happen to you will be a good spankin'. that's what we do to babies out here!" pender showed no inclination to escape, nor did bill berry, who stood sullenly to one side. "get up!" the sheriff commanded stoneham, and the gambler struggled to his feet. his air of bravado was gone and he hung his head. "i'll take you back to town in a little while," the officer announced. there was a crackling in the bushes and, cautiously parting them, nestor stepped into view. "what's happened?" he asked jerry. "it's all right," replied the boy. "i filed the claim, i beat noddy, and this is the sheriff, who has arrested mr. stoneham." "good for you!" cried the miner. "we've been havin' a pretty lively time since you went away, an' you got back just in time. so the papers are filed, eh? well, that gives us the mine now, an' we're all rich!" "i'd rather have mr. stoneham here than a gold mine," remarked the sheriff. "is he so valuable?" asked nestor. "he is to me," was the answer. "there's a reward of five thousand dollars for his capture for counterfeitin' money, an' besides that he's wanted on half a dozen charges. when i heard he was here, i jest hustled, i tell you." it was getting dusk now, and, after a little thought, the sheriff decided not to take his prisoner back to town that night. "if you don't mind, i'll camp out here with you," the officer said to nestor, and the miner extended a hearty invitation. soon supper was prepared and partaken of sitting around the camp-fire. stoneham's hands were unshackled long enough to enable him to eat, but the sheriff guarded him closely. he was not going to have his captive escape if he could help it. pender and berry ate in dogged silence. after supper, when the men had lighted their pipes, nestor told the sheriff the story of the trip to the gold mine. the official was much interested. "it's a good thing you have the claim to your mine filed," he said. "i understand there's a great rush of diggers this way. they were at eagleville yesterday, a town about twenty miles from here, and i expect they'll be stragglin' in here to-morrow. whenever there's news of a gold strike the miners are on the trail like a hound after a fox." the moon rose over the trees and made the glow of the camp-fire seem like a tallow candle beside an electric light. the forest was flooded with the radiance and it was almost as bright as day. "i could almost go out and gather some specimens," remarked professor snodgrass, who had said little since the exciting events of the afternoon. "what do you want most?" asked the sheriff. "i'd like to get--look out, there! don't move for the life of you! wait until i get my net!" cried the professor, suddenly, staring at something close to the officer. "what is it, a rattlesnake?" asked the sheriff, somewhat alarmed at the professor's excitement. "don't move! don't move!" was all the naturalist replied. "well, if it's a snake you can bet your boots i won't stir until you've got it," answered the sheriff. "i seen a man bit by one once and he didn't last half an hour. but say, my friend, don't be any longer than you can help. it's sort of a strain on my nerves, you know." "softly! easy!" spoke the professor. he had his net now and was tiptoeing up to where the officer sat, close beside stoneham. "there!" cried the professor, slapping the meshes down on the ground. "i've got him!" "have you got the rattlesnake?" asked jerry. "rattlesnake?" inquired the naturalist, gathering something carefully in the folds of the net. "who said anything about a snake? i've just captured a white lizard, one of the rarest that exists. it's worth one thousand dollars." "well," exclaimed the sheriff, "it nearly scared me to that amount, the way you acted. i thought sure i was goin' to be hit by a snake." after the excitement, unintentionally caused by the professor, had quieted down, and he had put his lizard away with his other specimens, it was voted time to turn in. blankets were brought from the automobile to serve as coverings, and the fire was replenished. in order to be sure his prisoner would not escape, the sheriff tied stoneham to a big tree. as an additional precaution the officer passed one end of the rawhide thong about his own arm, so that the slightest movement on the gambler's part would be noted. then nestor, who agreed to take the first watch, began pacing up and down in front of the camp, while the others fell asleep. chapter xxx. an escape--conclusion. at midnight nestor awoke broswick, who was to take the next watch. "all quiet?" asked the hunter. "as a churchyard," replied the miner. "how about berry and pender?" "they haven't moved." "all right; turn in." nestor was soon snoring, and broswick began his vigil. the moon began to move over toward the west, and the only sounds heard were the hoots of owls or the barking of foxes. suddenly the hunter paused in his walk about the camp. his trained ear told him somebody or something was approaching. he could hear the breaking of twigs and the rattle of stones as they were stepped on. "that's a human being," decided the hunter. "no animal would be as clumsy as that in making an approach." he waited, with his rifle ready. "if it's some one coming to rescue stoneham they'll get a warm reception," he whispered to himself. the noise came nearer. then the bushes off to the left parted cautiously, and broswick heard a soft whisper: "hey, bill! hey, jack! where are you?" "it's that noddy nixon chap," broswick muttered. "he must have come back in his automobile after the deputy sheriff released him at sundown. now i wonder what i'd better do?" "hey, bill!" noddy called, in a little louder whisper, "can you sneak away? i have the machine ready." this time a movement near where bill berry and pender were lying told that they had heard the summons. broswick silently drew back into the shadows and waited to see what would happen. he did not think it necessary to arouse the others yet. berry rose to his feet and peered about him. jack followed. they were trying to locate noddy's whereabouts. "here i am!" whispered noddy. "right by the oak tree." as quietly as they could, pender and berry began sneaking off to one side, avoiding the light cast by the camp-fire. "shall i let 'em go or stop 'em?" debated broswick with himself. "guess i'll let 'em go. we don't want 'em, for they're more trouble than they're worth. but i'll give 'em a good scare." he raised his gun and fired two shots in the air, over the heads of the escaping man and boy. their frightened yells told how startled they were. in an instant the camp was in confusion. every one awoke, nestor standing ready with a revolver in either hand. "what's the matter?" he cried. "only noddy coming back for his two friends," replied broswick. "have they escaped?" the hunter raised his hand to indicate silence. a crashing of the underbrush told in which way the fugitives were heading. "there they go," said broswick. the sheriff had quickly assured himself that stoneham was still securely bound. "shall we take after noddy and pender?" asked broswick. "what's the use?" asked nestor. "if we had them arrested it would only make trouble for us. let 'em go. i got some of my gold back from pender." "yes, let 'em go," assented jerry. "hark!" exclaimed ned. all listened. the faint chugging of an automobile was heard, gradually dying away in the distance. "i guess that's the end of 'em," remarked nestor. once more quiet settled down on the camp, and there were no other disturbances that night. the shining of the sun through the trees awoke the campers, and soon coffee was made and a simple breakfast ready. "now if one of you will run down to town in the automobile, with me and my friend stoneham here," said the sheriff, "i'll be obliged to you." jerry agreed to make the trip, and nestor said he would go along, as he wanted to do some business at the government assay office. the mine was left in charge of broswick, professor snodgrass, ned and bob. "don't let anybody jump the claim," cautioned the miner with a laugh, as he rode off, jerry steering the automobile down the valley. "there'll be trouble if they try it," said the hunter, looking at his gun. no accidents occurred during the automobile trip. town was safely reached, and the sheriff lodged his prisoner in jail. nestor transacted his business with the government agent, and then jerry headed the machine back for the camp. there they found everything in good shape. "now that our troubles are about over, an' we're in possession of our mine, it won't be a bad idea to dig out a few nuggets for luck," said nestor. "can we have one?" asked bob. "why, sure, chunky," replied the miner. "the claim's part yours, jest as it is mine. we're goin' to share an' share alike in this deal. i'd never have got to this mine if it hadn't been for you boys. have a nugget? well, i guess yes." they went to the top of the hill, and nestor and jerry descended the shaft. this second trip more than confirmed the first view of the richness of the mine. the rocky sides of the shaft were fairly studded with small nuggets. nestor dug out some with his knife, and jerry did likewise. "there's about one hundred dollars," remarked the miner after half an hour's work, showing a handful of dull, golden pebbles. jerry had about the same amount. "now we've got to git ready to work this claim," said nestor. "i'll attend to all that, seein' as how i'm familiar with the business. but, first, we'll go up an' show the others what we have." as they neared the top of the shaft they heard quite a commotion on the surface. the voices of men in dispute could be heard. "i wonder what's the trouble now?" nestor said. coming out of the shaft he found the summit of the hill surrounded by fifty or more roughly dressed men, all bearing mining tools on their backs. they stood in a circle while broswick, with cocked rifle, was holding them at bay. "what's the matter?" asked nestor. "they allowed they was goin' to jump this claim," said the hunter. "excuse me, pardner," spoke one of the crowd, who seemed to be a sort of leader, addressing his remarks to nestor. "i take it you're in charge here?" "that's what," replied the miner. "waal, we ain't goin' to jump nobody's claim. we're a bunch of miners, an' we've come all the way from spread eagle valley to this region, hearin' as how there was good claims here. are we right?" "you be," replied nestor, "an' you're welcome. there's the stakes of our claim," and he indicated them. "all filed reg'lar an' 'cordin' to law, i s'pose?" went on the spokesman. "right," answered nestor. "you can locate anywhere you like outside of my claim." "that's all we wanted to know," went on the other. "come on, boys!" he called to his companions. "it's all right!" the whole valley was soon a scene of great activity, with miners staking claims on every side. they were eager with the desire for gold. within a week the whole region fairly swarmed with the gold seekers, for the section was rich with the precious metal. but no claim was as valuable as that of the lost mine which nestor and the boys had found. arrangements were made for working the claim, machinery was ordered, and soon pay-dirt was being taken out in large quantities. a more comfortable log cabin was erected in place of the rude shack that served as a temporary shelter, and the boys began to enjoy life in the new diggings. one of the first things they had done when they were sure of the possession of the mine was to write back home and tell their parents of the good luck. jerry suggested that in the missives each one should ask permission to remain at the gold mine for some time longer, and perhaps make a further trip before returning to cresville. "i wonder if we'll get any letters by this mail?" asked ned one evening, when, after the day's work was done, they all sat about the camp-fire. "we'll soon know," said jerry. "here comes nestor back from town, and it looks as if he had something in his hand." the miner approached, riding broswick's horse. "here's the postman!" he cried, waving some papers in the air. "letters for each of ye!" three anxious boys opened three envelopes and soon were busy reading the missives. then came three simultaneous whoops of delight. "i can stay!" yelled bob. "me, too!" exclaimed jerry. "and me!" came from ned. "i don't blame your folks for lettin' ye stay," put in nestor. "you're makin' money here every day out of this mine." the parents of the boys had wisely concluded that it would be a good experience for their sons to develop the mine further, since they seemed to be in good hands under nestor's guidance, and able to take care of themselves. "we'll have no end of good times," said bob, trying to turn a handspring on the grass, but tumbling down in the effort. "i'd feel better if i was sure we had seen the last of noddy and pender, as well as bill berry and that dalsett chap," spoke jerry. "oh, they'll never bother us again," came from ned. "they're running like scared rabbits. we'll never see them again." but ned was wrong. they did meet noddy and his three companions once more, and under strange circumstances, as will be related in the next volume of this series, to be entitled "the motor boys in mexico; or, the secret of the buried city." "let's go to bed," suggested jerry, as the camp-fire died out. and they went to their bunks in the log cabin as the moon rose over the trees and cast a silver gleam over the machinery at the shaft of the gold mine. the motor boys' trip overland had panned out very well, indeed. the end. _the motor boys series_ _by clarence young_ =handsomely illustrated. bound in cloth, stamped in colors. price per volume, 60 cents.= the motor boys _or, chums through thick and thin_ in this volume is related how the three boys got together and planned to obtain a touring car and make a trip lasting through the summer. the motor boys overland _or, a long trip for fun and fortune_ with the money won at the great motorcycle race the three boys purchase their touring car and commence their travels. the motor boys in mexico _or, the secret of the buried city_ from our own country the scene is shifted to mexico, where the motor boys journey in quest of a city said to have been buried centuries ago by an earthquake. the motor boys across the plains _or, the hermit of lost lake_ unraveling the mystery surrounding an old hermit and a poor boy. the motor boys afloat _or, the stirring cruise of the dartaway_ in this volume the boys take to a motorboat, and have many adventures. the motor boys on the atlantic _or, the mystery of the lighthouse_ how the lads foiled the bad men who wanted to wreck a steamer by means of false lights is dramatically related. the motor boys in strange waters _or, lost in a floating forest_ telling of many adventures in the mysterious everglades of florida. the motor boys on the pacific _or, the young derelict hunters_ the derelict was of great value, and the hunt for it proved full of perils. _cupples & leon co., publishers, new york_ _the jack ranger series_ _by clarence young_ _author of the motor boys series_ =cloth. illustrated, $1.00 per volume= jack ranger's schooldays _or, the rivals of washington hall_ =cloth, beautifully decorated. illustrated, $1.00= [illustration] you will love jack ranger--you simply can't help it. he is so bright and cheery, and so real and lifelike. a typical boarding-school tale, without a dull line in it. jack ranger's school victories _or, track, gridiron and diamond_ in this tale jack gets back to washington hall and goes in for all sorts of school games. there are numerous contests on the athletic field, and also a great baseball game and a football game, all dear to a boy's heart. the rivalry is bitter at times, and enemies try to put jack "in a hole" more than once. jack ranger's western trip _or, from boarding school to ranch and range_ this volume takes the hero and several of his chums to the great west. jack is anxious to clear up the mystery surrounding his father's disappearance. at the ranch and on the range adventures of the strenuous sort befall him. jack ranger's ocean cruise _or, the wreck of the polly ann_ here is a tale of the bounding sea, with many stirring adventures. how the ship was wrecked, and jack was cast away, is told in a style all boys and girls will find exceedingly interesting. there is plenty of fun as well as excitement. _cupples & leon co., publishers, new york_ _the boy hunters series_ _by captain ralph bonehill_ =cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cents= [illustration] four boy hunters _or, the outing of the gun club_ a fine, breezy story of the woods and waters, of adventures in search of game, and of great times around the campfire, told in captain bonehill's best style. in the book are given full directions for camping out. guns and snowshoes _or, the winter outing of the young hunters_ in this volume the young hunters leave home for a winter outing on the shores of a small lake. they hunt and trap to their hearts' content, and have adventures in plenty, all calculated to make boys "sit up and take notice." a good healthy book; one with the odor of the pine forests and the glare of the welcome campfire in every chapter. young hunters of the lake _or, out with rod and gun_ another tale of woods and waters, with some strong hunting scenes and a good deal of mystery. the three volumes make a splendid outdoor series. _cupples & leon co., publishers, new york_ _boys of business series_ _by allen chapman_ =illustrated, 12mo. cloth, 60 cents per volume= [illustration] the young express agent _or, bart stirling's road to success_ bart's father was the express agent in a country town. when an explosion of fireworks rendered him unfit for work, the boy took it upon himself to run the express office. the tale gives a good idea of the express business in general. two boy publishers _or, from typecase to editor's chair_ this tale will appeal strongly to all lads who wish to know how a newspaper is printed and published. the two boy publishers work their way up, step by step, from a tiny printing office to the ownership of a town paper. mail order frank _or, a smart boy and his chances_ here we have a story covering an absolutely new field--that of the mail-order business. how frank started in a small way and gradually worked his way up to a business figure of considerable importance is told in a fascinating manner. a business boy _or, winning success_ this relates the ups and downs of a young storekeeper. he has some keen rivals, but "wins out" in more ways than one. all youths who wish to go into business will want this volume. _cupples & leon co., publishers, new york_ * * * * * * transcriber's note: --punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. --archaic and variable spellings have been preserved. --variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 43509-h.htm or 43509-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43509/43509-h/43509-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43509/43509-h.zip) transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [illustration: the bear was trying to climb up on the engine hood.] the motor boys across the plains or the hermit of lost lake by clarence young author of "the motor boys," "the motor boys overland," "the motor boys in mexico," "jack ranger's schooldays," etc. illustrated new york cupples & leon co. * * * * * * books by clarence young =the motor boys series= (_trade mark, reg. u. s. pat. of._) 12mo. illustrated price per volume, 60 cents, postpaid the motor boys or chums through thick and thin the motor boys overland or a long trip for fun and fortune the motor boys in mexico or the secret of the buried city the motor boys across the plains or the hermit of lost lake the motor boys afloat or the stirring cruise of the dartaway the motor boys on the atlantic or the mystery of the lighthouse the motor boys in strange waters or lost in a floating forest the motor boys on the pacific or the young derelict hunters the motor boys in the clouds or a trip for fame and fortune =the jack ranger series= 12mo. finely illustrated price per volume, $1.00, postpaid jack ranger's schooldays or the rivals of washington hall jack ranger's western trip or from boarding school to ranch and range jack ranger's school victories or track, gridiron and diamond jack ranger's ocean cruise or the wreck of the polly ann jack ranger's gun club or from schoolroom to camp and trail * * * * * * copyright, 1907, by cupples & leon company the motor boys across the plains contents chapter page i. ramming an ox cart 1 ii. a nest of serpents 11 iii. the deserted cabin 20 iv. news from the mine 30 v. trouble ahead 39 vi. on a strange road 46 vii. the rescue of tommy bell 55 viii. pursued by enemies 65 ix. into the cave 72 x. attacked by a cougar 81 xi. a runaway auto 90 xii. tommy finds a friend 98 xiii. the colored man's ghost 107 xiv. trouble with a bad man 117 xv. the story of lost lake 127 xvi. a lonely cabin 135 xvii. the indian and the auto 144 xviii. lost lake found 152 xix. the ghost of the lake 161 xx. the mysterious woman 169 xxi. the den of the hermit 175 xxii. a revelation 185 xxiii. searching for the hermit 195 xxiv. the hermit's identity 203 xxv. attacked by the enemy 212 xxvi. on the road again 221 xxvii. trouble at the mine 227 xxviii. all's well that ends well 237 preface _dear boys_: here it is at last--the fourth volume of "the motor boys series," for which so many boys all over our land have been asking during the past year. to those who have read the other volumes in this line, this new tale needs no special introduction. to others, i would say that in the first volume, entitled, "the motor boys," i introduced three wide-awake american lads, ned, bob and jerry, and told how they first won a bicycle race and then a great motor cycle contest,--the prize in the latter being a big touring car. having obtained the automobile, the lads went west, and in the second volume, called, "the motor boys overland," were related the particulars of a struggle for a valuable mine, a struggle which tested the boys' bravery to the utmost. while in the west the boys heard of a strange buried city in mexico, and, in company with a learned college professor, journeyed to that locality. the marvellous adventures met with are told in "the motor boys in mexico." leaving the buried city, the boys started again for the locality of the mine, and in the present tale are told the particulars of some strange things that happened on the way. a portion of this story is based on facts, related to me while on an automobiling tour in the west, by an old ranchman who had participated in some of the occurrences. with best wishes, and hoping we shall meet again, i leave you to peruse the pages which follow. clarence young. _march 1, 1907._ the motor boys across the plains chapter i ramming an ox cart mingled with the frantic tooting of an automobile horn, there was the shrill shrieking of the brake-band as it gripped the wheel hub in a friction clutch. "hi, bob! look out for that ox cart ahead!" exclaimed one of three sturdy youths in the touring car. "i should say so! jam on the brakes, bob!" put in the tallest of the trio, while an elderly man, who was in the rear seat with one of the boys, glanced carelessly up to see what was the trouble. "i have got the brake on, jerry!" was the answer the lad at the steering wheel made. "can't you and ned hear it screeching!" the auto was speeding down a steep hill, seemingly headed straight toward a solitary mexican who was moving slowly along in an antiquated ox-drawn vehicle. "then why don't she slow up? you've got the power off, haven't you?" "of course! do you take me for an idiot!" yelled bob, or, as his friends sometimes called him, because of his fatness, "chunky." "of course i've shut down, but something seems to be the matter with the brake pedal." "have you tried the emergency?" asked ned. "sure!" _toot! toot! toot!_ again the horn honked out a warning to the mexican, but he did not seem to hear. the big red touring car was gathering speed, in spite of the fact that it was not under power, and it bore down ever closer to the ox cart. "cut out the muffler and let him hear the explosions," suggested jerry. bob did so, and the sounds that resulted were not unlike a gatling gun battery going into action. this time the native heard. glancing back, he gave a frightened whoop and jabbed the sharp goad into the ox. the animal turned squarely across the road, thus shutting off what small chance there might have been of the auto gliding past on either side. "we're going to hit him sure!" yelled ned. "i say professor, you'd better hold on to your specimens. there's going to be all sorts of things doing in about two shakes of a rattlesnake's tail!" "what's that about a rattlesnake?" asked the old man, who, looking up from a box of bugs and stones on his lap, seemed aware, for the first time, of the danger that threatened. "hi there! get out of the way! move the cart! shake a leg! pull to one side and let us have half the road!" yelled jerry as a last desperate resort, standing up and shouting at the bewildered and frightened mexican. "oh pshaw! he don't understand united states!" cried ned. "that's so," admitted jerry ruefully. "vamoose, is the proper word for telling a mexican to get out of the road," suggested the professor calmly. "perhaps if you shouted that at him he might--" what effect trying the right word might have had the boys had no chance of learning, for, the next instant, in spite of bob's frantic working at the brake, the auto shot right at the ox cart. by the merest good luck, more than anything else, for bob could steer neither to the right nor left, because the narrow road was hemmed in by high banks, the machine struck the smaller vehicle a glancing blow. the force of the impact skidded the auto on two wheels up the side of the embankment, where, poking the front axle into a stump served to bring the car to a stop. the car was slewed around to one side, the ox was yanked from its feet, and, as the cart overturned, the mexican, yelling voluble spanish, pitched out into the road. nor did the boys and the professor come off scathless, for the sudden stopping of their machine piled the occupants on the rear seat up in a heap on the floor of the tonneau, while bob and jerry, who were in front, went sprawling into the dust near the native. for a few seconds there was no sound save the yelling of the mexican and the bellowing of the ox. then the cloud of dust slowly drifted away, and bob picked himself up, gazing ruefully about. "this is a pretty kettle of fish," he remarked. "i should say it was several of 'em," agreed jerry, trying to get some of the dust from his mouth, ears and nose. "you certainly hit him, chunky!" "it wasn't my fault! how did i know the brake wasn't going to work just the time it was most needed?" "is anybody killed?" asked the professor, looking up over the edge of the tonneau, and not releasing his hold of several boxes which contained his specimens. "don't seem to be, nor any one badly hurt, unless it's the ox or the auto," said ned, taking a look. "the mexican seems to be mad about something, though." by this time the native had arisen from his prostrate position and was shaking his fist at the motor boys and the professor, meanwhile, it would appear from his language, calling them all the names to which he could lay his tongue. "i guess he wants bob's scalp," said jerry with a smile. "it was as much his fault as mine," growled chunky. "if he had pulled to one side, i could easily have passed." the mexican, brushing the dust from his clothes, approached the auto party, and continued his rapid talk in spanish. the boys, who had been long enough in mexico to pick up considerable of the language, gathered that the native demanded two hundred dollars for the damage to himself, the cart and the ox, as well as for the injury to his dignity and feelings. "you'd better talk to him, professor," suggested jerry. "offer him what you think is right." thereupon professor snodgrass, in mild terms explained how the accident had happened, saying it was no fault of the auto party. the mexican, in language more forcible than polite, reiterated his demand, and announced that unless the money was instantly forthcoming, he would go to the nearest alcade and lodge a complaint. the travelers knew what this meant, with the endless delays of mexican justice, the summoning of witnesses and petty officers. "i wish there was some way out," said jerry. as the mexican had not been hurt, nor his cart or ox been damaged, there was really no excuse for the boys giving in to his demands. "let's give him a few dollars and skip out," suggested ned. "he can't catch us." this was easier said than done, for the auto was jammed up against a tree stump on a bank, and the ox cart, which, the native by this time had righted, blocked the road. but, all unexpectedly, there came a diversion that ended matters. professor snodgrass, with his usual care for his beloved specimens before himself, was examining the various boxes containing them. he opened one containing his latest acquisition of horned toads, big lizards, rattlesnakes and bats. the reptiles crawled, jumped and flew out, for they were all alive. "diabalo! santa maria! carramba!" exclaimed the mexican as he caught sight of the repulsive creatures. "they are crazy americanos!" he yelled. with a flying leap he jumped into his ox cart, and with goad and voice he urged the animal on to such advantage that, a few minutes later, all that was to be seen of him was a cloud of dust in the distance. "good riddance," said bob. "now to see how much our machine is damaged." fortunately the auto had struck a rotten stump, and though with considerable force, the impact was not enough to cause any serious damage. under the direction of jerry the boys managed to get the machine back into the road, where they let it stand while they went to a near-by spring for a drink of water. while they are quenching their thirst an opportunity will be taken to present them to the reader in proper form. the three boys were bob baker, son of andrew baker, a banker, ned slade, the only heir of aaron slade, a department store proprietor, and jerry hopkins, the son of a widow. all three were about seventeen years of age, and lived in the city of cresville, not far from boston, mass. their companion was professor uriah snodgrass, a learned man with many letters after his name, signifying the societies and institutions to which he belonged. those who have read the first book of this series, entitled, "the motor boys," need no introduction to the three lads. sufficient to say that some time before this story opens they had taken part in some exciting bicycle races, the winning of which resulted in the acquiring of motor cycles for each of them. on these machines they had had much fun and had also many adventures befall them. taking part in a big race meet, one of them won an event which gave him a chance to get a big touring automobile, the same car in which they were now speeding through mexico. their adventures in the auto are set forth at length in the second volume of the series entitled, "the motor boys overland," which tells of a tour across the country, in which they had to contend with their old enemy, noddy nixon, and his gang. eventually the boys and jim nestor, a miner whom they befriended, gained some information of a long lost gold mine in arizona. they made a dash for this and won it against heavy odds, after a fight with their enemies. the mine turned out well, and the boys and their friends made considerable money. the spirit of adventure would not drown in them. just before reaching the diggings they made the acquaintance of professor snodgrass, who told a wonderful story of a buried city. how the boys found this ancient town of old mexico, and the many adventures that befell them there, are told in the third book, called "the motor boys in mexico." therein is related the strange happenings under ground, of the sunken road, the old temples, the rich treasures and the fights with the bandits. also there is told of the rescue of the mexican girl maximina, and how she was taken from a band of criminals and restored to her friends. these happenings brought the boys and the professor to the city of mexico, where the auto was given a good overhauling, to prepare it for the trip back to the united states. the boys and the professor, the latter bearing with him his beloved specimens, started back for civilization, keeping to the best and most frequented roads, to avoid the brigands, with whom they had had more than one adventure on their first trip. it was while on this homeward journey that the incident of the mexican and the ox cart befell them. having slaked their thirst the boys and the professor went back to the auto where, gathering up the belongings that had become scattered from the upset, they prepared to resume their journey. "get in; i'll run her for a while," said jerry. "one minute! stand still! don't move if you value my happiness!" exclaimed the professor suddenly, dropping down on his hands and knees, and creeping forward through the long grass. chapter ii a nest of serpents "what is it; a rattlesnake?" asked bob, in a hoarse whisper. "or a gila monster?" inquired ned. "quiet! no noise!" cautioned the professor. "i see a specimen worth ten dollars at the lowest calculation. i'll have him in a minute." "is it a bug?" asked chunky. "there! i have him!" yelled the scientist, making a sudden dive forward, sliding on his face, and clutching his hand deep into the grass. as it happened there was a little puddle of water at that point, and the professor, in the excess of his zeal, pitched right into it. "oh! oh my! oh dear! phew! wow! help! save me!" he exclaimed a moment later, as he tried to get out of the slough. the boys hurried to his aid, but the mud was soft and the professor had gone head first into the ooze, which held fast to him as though it was quicksand. "get him by the heels and yank him out or he'll smother!" cried jerry. the other boys followed his advice, and, in a little while the bug-collector was pulled from his uncomfortable and dangerous position. as he rolled about in the grass to get rid of some of the mud, he kept his right hand tightly closed. "what's the matter, are your fingers hurt?" asked bob. "no sir, my fingers are not hurt!" snapped the professor, with the faintest tinge of impatience, which might be excused on the part of a man who has just dived into a mud hole. "my fingers are not hurt in the least. what i have here is one of the rarest specimens of the mexican mosquito i have ever seen. i would go ten miles to get one." "i guess you're welcome to 'em," commented jerry. "we don't want any." "that's because you don't understand the value of this specimen," replied the professor. "this mosquito will add to my fame, and i shall devote one whole chapter of my four books to it. this indeed has been a lucky day for me." "and unlucky for the rest of us," said bob, as he thought of the spill. it was found that a few minor repairs had to be made to the auto, and when these were completed it was nearly noon. "i vote we have dinner before we start again," spoke bob. "there goes chunky!" exclaimed ned. "never saw him when he wasn't thinking of something to eat!" "well, i guess if the truth was known you are just as hungry as i am," expostulated chunky. "this mexican air gives me a good appetite." bob's plan was voted a good one, so, with supplies and materials carried in the auto for camping purposes, a fire was soon built, and hot chocolate was being made. "i'm sick of canned stuff and those endless eggs, frijoles and tortillas," complained bob. "i'd like a good beefsteak and some fish and bread and butter." "i don't know about the other things, but i think we could get some fish over in that little brook," said the professor, pointing to a stream that wound about the base of a near-by hill. a minute later the boys had their hooks and lines out. poles were cut from trees, and, with some pieces of canned meat for bait they went fishing. they caught several large white fish, which the professor named in long latin terms, and which, he said, were good to eat. in a little while a savory smell filled the air, for ned, who volunteered to act as cook, had put the fish on to broil with some strips of bacon, and soon there was a dinner fit for any king that ever wielded a scepter. sipping their chocolate, the boys and the professor watched the sun slowly cross the zenith as they reclined in the shade of the big trees on either side of the road. then each one half fell asleep in the lazy atmosphere. jerry was the first to rouse up. he looked and saw it would soon be dusk, and then he awakened the others. "we'll have to travel, unless we want to sleep out in the open," he said. thereupon they made preparations to leave, the professor gathering up his specimens, including the mexican mosquito that had caused him such labor. "i think we'll head straight for the rio grande," said jerry. "once we get into texas i expect we'll have some news from nestor, as i wrote him to let us know how the mine was getting on, and, also, to inform us if he needed any help." "i'll be glad to see old jim again," said bob. "so will i," chimed in ned. the auto was soon chug-chugging over the road, headed toward the states, and the occupants were engaged with their thoughts. it was rapidly growing dusk, and the chief anxiety was to reach some town or village where they could spend the night. for, though they were used to staying in the open, they did not care to, now that the rainy season was coming on, when fevers were prevalent. the sun sank slowly to rest behind the big wooded hills as the auto glided along, and, almost before the boys realized it, darkness was upon them. "better light the lamps," suggested ned. "no telling what we'll run into on this road. no use colliding with more ox carts, if we can help it." "i'll light up," volunteered bob. "it will give me a chance to stretch my legs. i'm all cramped up from sitting still so long." jerry brought the big machine to a stop while bob alighted and proceeded to illuminate the big search lamp and the smaller ones that burned oil. he had just started the acetylene gas aglow when, glancing forward he gave a cry of alarm. "what is it?" cried jerry, seeing that something was wrong. "is it a mountain lion?" "it's worse!" cried bob in a frightened voice. "what?" "a regular den of snakes! the horrible things are stretched right across the road, and we can't get past. ugh! there are some whoppers!" bob, who hated, above all creatures a snake, made a jump into the auto. "there's about a thousand of 'em!" he cried with a shudder. "great!" exclaimed the professor. "i will have a chance to select some fine specimens. this is a rare fortune!" "don't go out there!" gasped bob. "you'll be bitten to death!" just then there sounded on the stillness of the night a strange, whirring buzz. at the sound of it the professor started. "rattlers!" he whispered. "i guess none of us will get out. probably moccasins, cotton-mouths and vipers! there must be thousands of them!" as he spoke he looked over the side of the car, and the exclamation he gave caused the boys to glance toward the ground. there they beheld a sight that filled them with terror. as the professor had said, the ground was literally covered with the snakes. the reptiles seemed to be moving in a vast body to some new location. there were big snakes and little ones, round fat ones, and long thin ones, and of many hues. "let's get out of this!" exclaimed ned. "start the machine, jerry!" "no! don't!" called the professor. "you may kill a few, but the revolving wheels of the auto will fling some live ones up among us, and i have no desire to be bitten by any of these reptiles. they are too deadly. so keep the car still until they have passed. they are probably getting ready to go into winter quarters, or whatever corresponds to that in mexico." "it will be lucky if they don't take a notion to climb up and investigate the machine and us," put in jerry. "i have--" he gave a sudden start, for, at that instant one of the ugly reptiles, which had twined itself around the wheel spokes, reared its ugly head up, over the side of the front seat, and hissed, right in jerry's face. "here's one now!" the boy exclaimed as he made a motion to brush the snake aside. "don't touch it as you value your life!" yelled the professor. "it's a diamond-backed rattler, and one of the most deadly!" "here is another coming up on my side," called bob. "yes, and there are some coming up here!" shouted ned. "they'll overwhelm us if we don't look out!" for a time it seemed a serious matter. the snakes began twining up the sides of the car, and, though most of them dropped back to the ground again, a few maintained their position, and seemed to exhibit anger at the sight of the boys and the professor. "what shall we do?" asked bob. "we can't run ahead, or go backward, and, if we stay here we're likely to be killed by the snakes." jerry, who was feeling around in the bottom of the car for his rifle, gave a cry as his hand came in contact with something. "get bitten?" asked the professor in alarm. "no, but i found this lariat," said jerry in excited tones. "are you going to lasso the snakes?" asked ned, wondering if jerry had gone crazy. "no, but you see this lariat is made of horse hair, and i think i can keep the snakes away with it." "how; by shaking it at 'em?" "no. i read in some book that snakes hated horse hair, and would never cross even a small ring of it." "well?" "well, if i run this lariat all around the auto the snakes will not cross it to come to us. then we can stay here until they all disappear." "good!" exclaimed ned. "that's the ticket!" the reptiles that had climbed up the wheels had gone from sight. with the help of ned and bob, jerry began to spread the horse-hair lariat in a circle about the car. chapter iii the deserted cabin in a few minutes the hair rope was all about the auto, spread out on the ground in an irregular circle. as the boys dropped it over the sides of the car the lariat struck several of the big snakes, and the reptiles shrunk away as though scorched by fire. "they're afraid of it all right!" exclaimed ned. "i guess it will do the business." sure enough, there seemed to be a desire on the part of the snakes to clear out of the vicinity of the hair rope. they glided off by scores, and soon there was a clear space all about the car, where, before, there had been hundreds of the crawling things. "shake the lasso," suggested bob, "and maybe it will scare them farther off." "yes and we might try shooting a few now they are at a safe distance," put in ned. "it's too bad i can't get some specimens," lamented the professor, "but i suppose you had better try to get rid of them." so jerry, who had retained one end of the long lasso vibrated it rapidly, and, as it wiggled in sinuous folds toward the reptiles they made haste to get out of the way. then bob and ned opened fire, killing several. in a little while there were no snakes to be seen. "i guess we can go ahead now," said jerry. "who'll crank up the car? don't all speak at once." "my arm is a bit sore," spoke ned, rubbing his elbow. "then you do it, chunky," asked the steersman. "i think i have a stone in my foot," said bob, making a wry face. "ha! ha!" laughed jerry. "why don't you two own up and say you're afraid there's a stray rattler or two under the machine, and you think it may bite you?" the two boys grinned sheepishly, and both made a motion to get out. "stay where you are," called the professor preparing to leave from the side door of the tonneau. "i'm used to snakes. i don't believe there are any left, but if there are i want them for specimens. i'll crank the car." so he got out and peered anxiously under the body, while the boys waited in anxiety. "no," called the scientist, in discouraged tones, "there are none left." he crawled out, covered with dust, which fact he did not seem to mind, and then turned the crank that sent the fly wheel over. jerry turned on the gasolene and threw in the spark, and, the next instant the familiar chug-chug of the engine told that the auto was ready to bear the boys and professor snodgrass on their way. they were headed on as straight a road as they could find to the rio grande, but, because of the conditions of the thoroughfares it would be several days before they could cross the big river and get into texas. their main concern now was to reach some place where there was shelter for the night. "keep your eyes peeled for villages," called ned. "we don't want to pass any. i think a good bed would go fine now." "a supper would go better," put in bob. "oh, of course! it wouldn't be chunky if he didn't say something about eating," remarked jerry with a laugh. "but there seems to be something ahead. it's a house at all events, and probably is the mark of the outskirts of the village." on the left side of the road, about a hundred yards ahead they saw an adobe, or mud hut. they could see no signs of life about in the half-darkness, illuminated as it was by the powerful search light, but this gave them no concern, as they knew the native mexicans retired early. when they came opposite the hut jerry brought the machine to a stop, and he and the other boys jumped out. the professor, who, as usual was arranging some specimens in one of the many small boxes he carried, remained in the car. "hello!" shouted bob. "is any one home? show a light. can we get a supper here?" "why don't you ask for a bed too?" inquired ned. "supper first," replied chunky, rubbing his stomach with a reflective air. no replies came to the hail of the boys, and, in some wonder they approached nearer to the hut. then they saw that the door was ajar, and that the cabin bore every appearance of being deserted. "nobody home, i guess," said jerry. "no, and there hasn't been for some time," added ned. "maybe there's a place to build a fire where we can cook a good meal," put in bob, whereat his companions laughed. they went into the hut, and found, that, while it was in good condition, and furnished as well as the average native mexican's abode, there was no sign of life. "might as well make ourselves to home," said ned. "come on in, professor," he called. "we'll stay here all night. no use traveling further when there is such a good shelter right at hand." it was now quite dark, and the boys brought in the two oil lamps from the auto, as well as a lantern, to illuminate the place. as they did so they disturbed a colony of bats which flew out with a great flutter of wings. "there's a charcoal stove, and plenty of fuel," said bob, as he looked at the hearth. "now we can cook something." "well, seeing you are so fond of eating, we'll let you get the meal," said jerry, and it was voted that chunky should perform this office. meanwhile the others brought in blankets to make beds on the frame work of cane that formed the sleeping quarters of whoever had last lived in the hut. "rather queer sort of a shack," remarked jerry, as he sat down in a corner on a pile of rugs. "seems to have been left suddenly. they didn't even stop to take the dishes, and here is the remains of a meal," and he pointed to some dried frijoles in one corner of the main room or kitchen. "perhaps the people who lived here were frightened away," came from ned. "well i'm tired enough not to let anything short of a regiment of soldiers in action scare me awake to-night," said jerry. under bob's direction supper was soon ready, and the travelers sat down to a good, if rather limited meal as far as variety went. there were no dishes to be washed, for they ate off wooden plates, of which they had a quantity and which they threw away after each meal. then, after a good fire had been built on the hearth--for the night was likely to be chilly--the boys and the professor wrapped themselves up in their blankets and soon fell asleep. jerry must have been slumbering for several hours when he suddenly awakened as he heard a loud noise. "who's there?" he called involuntarily, sitting up. it was so dark that at first he could distinguish nothing, but, as his eyes became used to the blackness he managed to make out, by the glow of the fire, a shadowy figure gliding toward the door. "who's there?" called the boy sharply, feeling under the rolled up blanket that served for a pillow, for his revolver. "stop or i'll fire!" the shadowy figure halted. then jerry saw it drop down on all fours and begin to creep toward him. though he was not a coward the boy felt his heart beating strangely, and he had a queer, creepy sensation down his spine. "what's the matter?" asked ned, who was awakened by jerry's voice. "get your revolver, quick!" called jerry. "there is some one in the hut besides ourselves! look over by the fire!" "i see it! shall i shoot?" asked ned. there came a sudden crash, followed by a wild yell. "help! help! i'm killed! they are murdering me!" shouted bob's voice. "they are choking me to death!" _bang!_ went ned's gun. fortunately it was aimed at the ceiling, or some one might have been hurt. "what's the trouble?" inquired the professor, who only just then awoke. "robbers!" yelled bob. "brigands!" exclaimed ned. "some one is in the cabin!" cried jerry. by this time he had managed to creep over toward the fire, on which he threw some light wood. the glowing embers caught it, and as the blaze flared up it revealed a big monkey tangled up amid the folds of bob's blanket, while chunky was buried somewhere beneath the pile. the beast was struggling wildly to escape, but bob, in his terror, had grabbed it by a leg. "stop your noise!" commanded jerry. "you're not hurt, chunky!" "are you sure they haven't killed me?" asked bob, releasing his hold on the beast, which, with a wild chatter of fear, fled from the hut. "you ought to be able to give the best evidence on that score," said jerry, as he lighted one of the lamps. "the fellow tried to choke me," sputtered bob. "i guess the poor beast was as badly scared as you were," remarked the professor. "it was probably attracted in here by the light and warmth. well, we seem bound to run up against excitement, night as well as day." "the monkey must have knocked something over," said jerry. "i was awakened by the sound of something falling." they looked and saw that the beast had tried to eat the remains of the supper, and had upset a big pot. "i was sure it was a man, at first," explained jerry, "and when i saw it go down and start over toward me i was afraid it was some of those mexican brigands that traveled with vasco bilette and noddy nixon, when those rascals were on our trail." it was some time before the excitement caused by the monkey's visit died down sufficiently to allow the travelers to go to sleep again. it was morning when they awoke, and prepared to get breakfast. "we need some water to make coffee," said jerry, who had agreed to get the morning meal. "as chief cook and bottle washer i delegate bob to find some. take the pail in the auto." bob started for the receptacle, and, as he reached the door of the hut he gave a cry. "what's the matter?" called jerry and ned. "there's a man out here," replied bob. "well, he won't bite you," said jerry. "who is he?" "pardon, senors," called a voice, and then, into the hut staggered a mexican, who bore evidences of having passed through a hard fight. his face was cut and bruised, one arm hung limply at his side, and his clothing was torn. "what's the matter?" cried jerry. before the stranger could reply he had fallen forward in a faint. "bring some water! quick!" called ned. "let me see to him! i have a little liquor here!" exclaimed the professor, kneeling down beside the prostrate form. chapter iv news from the mine by the use of the strong stimulant the mexican was revived. his eyes opened, and he sat up, muttering something in spanish which the boys could not catch. the professor, however, made reply, and, at the words the stranger seemed to brighten up. he drank some water, and then, at the suggestion of mr. snodgrass the boys brought him some food, which the native ate as if he had fasted for a week. his hunger satisfied, he began to talk rapidly to the professor, who listened attentively. "what's the trouble?" asked jerry at length. "it seems that the poor man lives in this hut," explained the scientist. "night before last some robbers came in, took nearly everything he had and beat him. then, driving him into the forest they left him. only just now did he dare to venture back, fearing to find his enemies in possession of his home. he is weak from lack of food and from the treatment he received." the boys felt sorry for the mexican, and, at jerry's suggestion they gave him a sum of money, which, while it was small enough to the travelers, meant a great deal to the native. he poured forth voluble thanks. as the boys and the professor were anxious to get under way, a start was made as soon as it was found that the native was not badly hurt, and that he was able to summon help from friends in a near-by village if necessary. with final leave-takings the travelers started off. for several days and nights they journeyed north, toward the rio grande, which river separated them from the united states. once they crossed that they would be in texas. "and we can't get there any too soon," remarked bob, one morning after a sleepless night, passed in the open, during which innumerable fleas attacked the travelers. it was toward dusk, one evening, about a week after having left the city of mexico that the boys and the professor found themselves on a road, which, upon inquiry led to a small mexican town, on the bank of the rio grande, nearly opposite eagle pass, texas. "shall we cross over to-night or wait until morning?" asked the professor of the boys. "probably it would be better to wait until daylight. i could probably gather a few more specimens then." this was something of which the scientist, who rejoiced in such letters as a.m.; ph.d.; m.d.; f. r. g. s.; a. g. s., etc., after his name, all indicating some college honor conferred upon him, never seemed to tire. he was making a collection for his own college, as well as gathering data for four large books, which, some day, he intended to issue. "i'd rather get over on our land if we can," said ned, and he seemed to voice the sentiments of the others. so it was decided, somewhat against the professor's wish, to run the automobile on the big flat-bottomed scow, which served as a ferry, and proceed across the stream. quite a crowd of villagers came out to see the auto as it chug-chugged up to the ferry landing, and not a few of the children and dogs were in danger of being run over until ned, who was steering, cut out the muffler, and the explosions of the gasolene, unconfined by any pipes, made so much noise that all except the grown men were frightened away. there was no one at the ferry house, and after diligent inquiries it was learned that the captain and crew of the boat had gone off to a dance about five miles away. "i guess we'll have to stay on this side after all," remarked the professor. "i think--" what he thought he did not say, for just then he happened to catch sight of something on the shoulder of one of the mexicans, who had gathered in a fringe about the machine. "stand still, my dear man!" called the professor, as with cat-like tread he crept toward the native. "diabalo! santa maria! carramba!" muttered the man, thinking, evidently, that the old scientist was out of his wits. "don't move! please don't move!" pleaded mr. snodgrass, forgetting in his excitement that his hearer could not understand his language. "there is a beautiful specimen of a mexican katy-did on your coat. if i get it i will have a specimen worth at least thirty dollars!" he made a sudden motion. the mexican mistook the import of it, and, seemingly thinking he was about to be assaulted, raised his hand in self defense, and aimed a blow at the professor. it was only a glancing one, but it knocked the scientist down, and he fell into the road. "there, the katy-did got away after all," mr. snodgrass exclaimed, not seeming to mind his personal mishap in the least. this time the professor spoke in spanish. the mexican understood, and was profuse in his apologies. he conversed rapidly with his companions, and, all at once there was a wild scramble after katy-dids. so successful was the hunt that the professor was fairly burdened with the insects. he took as many as he needed, and thanked his newly found friends for their efforts. matters quieted down after a bit. darkness fell rapidly and, the mexican on whom the professor had seen the katy-did invited the travelers to dine with him. he proved to be one of the principal men of the village, and his house, though not large, was well fitted up. the boys and the professor enjoyed the best meal they had eaten since leaving the city of mexico. "do me the honor to spend the night here," said the mexican, after the meal. "thank you, if it will not disturb your household arrangements, we will," replied the professor. "we must make an early start, however, and cross the river the first thing in the morning." "it will be impossible," replied senor gerardo, their host. "why so?" "because to-morrow starts the feast of san juarez, which lasts for three days, and not a soul in town, including the ferry-master, will work in that time." "what are we to do?" asked mr. snodgrass. "if you do not cross to-night you will not be able to make the passage until the end of the week," was the answer. "then let's start to-night," spoke jerry. "we went over the rio grande after dark once before." "yes, and a pretty mess we made of it," said ned, referring to the collision they had with the house-boat, as told of in "the motor boys in mexico." "but i thought they said the ferry-master was away to a dance," put in bob. "he is, senor," replied their host, who managed to understand the boy's poor spanish. "however, if he knew the americanos wanted him, and would go for him in their big marvelous--fire-spitting wagon, and--er--that is if they offered him a small sum, he might be prevailed upon to leave the dance." "let's try it, at all events," suggested jerry. "i'm anxious to get over the line and into the united states. a stay of several days may mean one of a week. when these mexicans get feasting they don't know when to stop." he spoke in english, so as not to offend their kind friend. it was arranged that jerry and senor gerardo should go in the auto for the ferry-master, and summon him to the river with his men, who could come on their fast ponies. this was done, and, though the master of the boat demurred at leaving the pleasures of the dance, he consented when jerry casually showed a gold-piece. he and his men were soon mounted and galloped along, jerry running the auto slowly to keep pace with them. the five miles were quickly covered and, while half the population of the village came out to see the strange machine ferried over, the boys and the professor bade farewell to the country where they had gone through so many strange adventures. it was nearly ten o'clock when the big flat-bottomed boat grounded on the opposite shore of the rio grande. "hurrah for the united states!" exclaimed bob. "now i can get a decent meal without having to swallow red peppers, onions and chocolate!" "there goes chunky again," laughingly complained ned. "no sooner does he land than he wants to feed his stomach. i believe if he had been with christopher columbus the first thing he would have inquired about on landing at san salvador would be what the indians had good to eat." "oh you're as bad as i am, every bit!" said bob. eagle's pass, where the travelers landed, was a typical texas town, with what passed for a hotel, a store and a few houses where the small population lived. it was on the edge of the border prairies and the outlying districts were occupied by cattle ranches. nearly all, if not quite all, of the male population came down to the dock to see the unusual sight of a big touring automobile on the ferry boat. many were the comments made by the ranchmen and herders. after much pulling and hauling the car was rolled from the big scow, and the travelers, glad to feel that they were once more in their own country, began to think of a place to spend the night. "where is the nearest hotel?" asked jerry of a man in the crowd. "ain't but one, stranger, an' it's right in front of you," was the reply, as the cowboy pointed to a small, one story building across the street from the river front. "is professor driedgrass in that bunch?" asked a voice as the travelers were contemplating the hostelry. "if he is i have a letter for him." "i am professor snodgrass," replied the scientist, looking toward the man who had last spoken. "beg your pardon, professor snodgrass. i kinder got my brands mixed," the stranger went on. "anyhow i'm th' postmaster here, an' i've been holdin' a letter for ye most a week. it says it's to be delivered to a man with three boys an' a choo-choo wagon, an' that description fits you." "where's it from?" asked mr. snodgrass. "come in a letter to me, from a feller named nestor, up at a place in the mining section," was the reply. "th' letter to me said you might likely pass this way on your journey back." chapter v trouble ahead "i remember now, i did write to nestor, telling him we were about to start back, and would probably cross the river at this place," spoke the professor. "i had forgotten all about it." "well, here's your letter," said the postmaster. "now allow me to welcome you to our city, which i do in the name of the mayor--which individual you see in me--and the common council, which consists of pete blaston, only he ain't here, in consequent of bein' locked up for disturbin' th' peace an' quiet of the community by shootin' a greaser." "glad to meet you, i am sure," replied the scientist politely, as he received the letter from the dual official. "what is the news from nestor?" asked jerry anxiously. "is the mine all right?" "i'll tell you right away," replied mr. snodgrass, as, by the light of the gas lantern on the auto he read the letter. as he glanced rapidly over the pages his face took on an anxious look. "is there anything wrong?" asked ned. "there is indeed," replied the professor gravely. "the letter was written over a week ago, and, among other things nestor says there is likely to be trouble over the mine." "what kind? is noddy nixon trying to get it away from us again?" asked jerry. "no," replied mr. snodgrass. "it appears our title is not as good as it might be. there is one of the former owners of the land where the mine is located who did not sign the deed. he was missing when the transfer was made, but nestor did not know this, so there is a cloud on our title." "but i thought we claimed the land from the government, and were the original owners," put in ned. "it seems that a company of men owned the mine before we did, but they sold out to nestor and some of his friends. they all signed the deed but this one man, and now some one has learned of this, and seeks to take the mine, on the theory that they have as good a claim to the holding as we have." "i should say that was trouble," sighed bob. "to think of losing what we worked so hard to get!" "well, there's no use crossing a bridge until you come to it," professor snodgrass went on. "nestor and his friends are in possession yet, and that, you know, is nine of the ten points of the law." "then if we can't do anything right away i move we have something to eat," suggested bob. "it's a good suggestion," agreed the scientist. they had drawn a little to one side from the crowd of townspeople while talking about the letter from nestor, but, having decided there was nothing to be done at present, they moved toward the hotel. "i reckon i've got some more mail for your outfit, professor hayseed--er i beg yer pardon--snodgrass," said the postmaster-mayor. "there's letters fer chaps named baker, slade and hopkins. nestor sent 'em along with that other," and the dual official handed over three envelopes. "they're from home!" cried the boys in a chorus. and in the glare of oil lamps on the porch of the hotel they read the communications. the missives contained nothing but good news, to the effect that all the loved ones were well. each one inquired anxiously how much longer the travelers expected to stay away, and urged them to come home as soon as they could. "now for that supper!" exclaimed bob, as he put his letter away. if the meal was a rough one, prepared as it was by the chinese cook, it was good, and the travelers enjoyed it thoroughly. as they rose from the table a cowboy entered the dining room and drawled out: "i say strangers, be you th' owners of that there rip-snortin' specimen of th' lower regions that runs on four wheels tied 'round with big sassages?" "do you mean the automobile?" asked jerry. "i reckon i do, if that's what ye call it." "yes, it's our machine," replied jerry. "then if ye have any great love for th' workin' of it in the future, an' any regard or consideration for it's feelin' ye ought t' see to it." "why so?" "nothin'," drawled the cowboy as he carefully pared his nails with a big bowie knife; "nothin' only bronco pete is amusin' his self by tryin' t' see how near he can come to stickin' his scalpin' steel inter th' tires!" "great scott! we must stop that!" exclaimed jerry, running from the hotel toward where the auto had been left in the street. the other boys and the professor followed. they found the machine surrounded by quite a crowd that seemed to be much amused at something which was taking place in its midst. making their way to the inner circle of spectators the boys beheld an odd sight. a big cowboy, who, from appearances had indulged too freely in something stronger than water, was unsteadily trying to stick his big knife into the rubber tires. "here! you mustn't do that," cried jerry, sharply, laying his hand on the man's shoulder. "look out for him! he's dangerous!" warned some of the bystanders. "i can't help it if he is," replied jerry. "we can't let him ruin the tires." "this is the time i do it!" cried bronco pete, as he made a lunge for the front wheel. jerry sprang forward and the crowd held its breath, for it seemed as if the boy was right in the path of the knife. but jerry knew what he was about. with a quick motion he kicked the cowboy lightly on the wrist, the blow knocking the knife from his hand, and sending it some distance away. "look out now, sonny!" called a man to jerry. "no one ever hit pete an' lived after it." it seemed that jerry was in a dangerous position. pete, enraged at being foiled of his purpose, uttered a beast-like roar, and reached back to where his revolver rested at his hip in a belt. jerry never moved an inch, but looked the man straight in the eye. "here! none of that pete!" called a voice suddenly, and a big man pushed his way through the crowd, and grabbed the cowboy's arm before he had time to draw his gun. "if you don't want to get into trouble move on!" "all right, marshall; all right," replied pete, the desire of shooting seeming to die out as he looked at the newcomer. "i were only havin' a little fun with th' tenderfoot." "you didn't appear to scare him much," remarked the town marshall, who had seen the whole thing. "you had your nerve with you all right, son," he added, to jerry. "that's what he had," commented pete. "there ain't many men would have done what he did, an' i admire him for it. put it there, stranger," and pete, all the anger gone from him, extended a big hand, which jerry grasped heartily. "three cheers for the 'tenderfoot,'" called some one, and they were given with a will for jerry, as pete, under the guidance of the marshall, moved unsteadily away. "i wouldn't have been in your boots one spell there, for a good bit," observed the postmaster as he came up. "pete's about as bad as they come." "i didn't stop to think of the danger, or maybe i wouldn't have done as i did," said jerry. "all i thought of was that he would spoil the tire, and it would take a long while to fix it." "yes, and we don't want to delay any longer than we can help," spoke ned in a low voice. "i'm anxious to get back to the mine and see what we can do to perfect our title." chapter vi on a strange road for several days they made good progress, for the roads were in fair condition. the machine was kept headed as nearly as possible toward arizona, though they often had to go some distance out of their way to get rid of bad places, or find a ford or bridge to cross a stream. "we'll soon be out of texas," remarked bob one afternoon, when they had passed through a small ranch town where they had dinner. "and i think we're going to get a wetting before we leave the big state," put in ned. "i think you're right," agreed the professor, as he turned and looked at a bank of ugly dark clouds in the southwest. "a thunder shower is coming up, if i'm any judge. there doesn't seem to be any shelter, either." as far as they could see there was nothing but a vast stretch of wild country, though, far to the north, there was a dark patch which looked as if it was a forest. "it's coming just at the wrong time," remarked jerry, who was steering. "i was in hopes the storm would hold off a bit. well, we shan't melt if it does rain." and that it was soon going to pour in the proverbial buckets full was evident. the wind began to blow a half gale, and the clouds, from which angry streaks of jagged lightning leaped, scurried forward. at the same time low mutterings of thunder were heard. "we're in for it," cried bob. the next instant the storm broke, and the whole landscape was blotted out in a veil of mist and rain which came down in sheets of water. now and then the darkness would be illuminated by a vivid flash of fire from the sky artillery, and the thunder seemed to shake the earth. jerry could barely see where to steer, so fiercely did the rain beat down. fortunately they had time to put on their raincoats before the deluge hit them. the provisions and other things in the auto had, likewise, been covered up with canvas, so little damage would result from the downpour. "look out!" yelled ned suddenly to jerry. "there's something ahead of us!" jerry partially shut off the power, and, as the machine slowed down, he and the others peered forward to see what the object was. "it's some sort of an animal!" cried bob, who had sharp eyes. "it's running along on four legs, right in front of the car!" "it's a bear, that's what it is!" shouted ned. "a big black bear!" "let me get it for a specimen!" exclaimed the professor, in his enthusiasm, not considering the size of the animal, nor the difficulties in the way of capturing it. "let me get out! it's worth forty dollars if it's worth a cent!" at the sound of the excited voices, which the animal must have heard above the roar of the storm, the bear turned suddenly and faced the occupants of the car. so quickly was it done that jerry had barely time to jam on the brakes in order to avoid a collision. "why didn't you run him down, and we could have some bear steaks for supper?" asked bob. "because i don't think it's just healthy to run into a three hundred and fifty pound bear with a big auto," replied jerry. "we might kill the bear, but we'd be sure to damage the car." the beast did not appear to be frightened at the sight of his natural enemies. raising on its haunches the animal slowly ambled toward the stalled machine, growling in a menacing manner. "i believe he's going to attack us!" exclaimed the professor. "let me get out my rifle!" but this was easier said than done. the weapons and ammunition were all under the canvas, and it would require several minutes to get at them. in the meanwhile the bear, showing every indication of rage was trying to climb up on the engine hood, despite the throbbing of the engine, which was going, though the gears were not thrown in. "start the car and run over him!" exclaimed bob. "back up and get out of his way!" was ned's advice to jerry. "i've got to do something," muttered the steersman. matters were getting critical. the storm was increasing in violence, with the wind lashing the rain into the faces of the travelers. the growls of the angry beast mingled with the rumble and rattle of thunder, and the machine was shaking under the efforts bruin made to climb over the hood and into the front seat. "hold on tight! i'm going to start!" yelled jerry suddenly. he threw in the intermediate gear and opened wide the gasolene throttle. the car sprang forward like a thing alive. but the bear had too good a hold with his long sharp claws sticking in the ventilator holes of the hood, to be shaken off. "i should think he'd burn on the water radiator," said ned. "his fur's too thick i guess," was bob's reply. on went the auto, the boys and the professor clinging to it for dear life, while bruin hung on, half crazed with fear and anger. "how you going to get rid of him?" shouted ned above the roar of the storm. "i'll show you," replied jerry grimly. some distance ahead the steersman had seen a sharp curve in the road. it was dimly discernible through the mist of water. "hold tight everybody!" shouted jerry a second or two before the turn was reached. then, suddenly swinging around it, at as sharp an angle as he dared to make and not overturn the car, jerry sent the auto skidding. the next instant, unable to stand the impetus of the turn, the bear lost its hold on the hood, and was flung, like a stone from a catapult, far off to the left, rolling over and over on the muddy ground. "there, i guess it will be quite a while before he tries to eat up another live automobile," remarked jerry as he slowed up a bit. off in the distance they heard a sort of reproachful whine, as if bruin objected to such treatment. then the rain came down harder than ever, and all sight of the bear was lost. "let's get out of this!" exclaimed ned, as he felt a small stream of water trickling down his back. "can't we strike for those woods we saw a while ago?" "i'm headed for them," spoke jerry. "i just want to get my bearings. guess we'd better light up, as it will soon be dusk." after some difficulty in getting matches to burn in the wind and rain, the big search lights and the oil lanterns were lighted, and then, with four shafts of light cutting the misty darkness ahead of them the travelers proceeded. the roads seemed to be getting worse, but there was nothing to do except to keep on. every now and then the machine would lurch into some hollow with force enough to almost break the springs. "hello!" cried jerry suddenly. "here are two roads. which shall we take?" "the right seems to go a little more directly north," said the professor, peering forward. "suppose we take that?" "especially as it seems to be the better road," added jerry. he turned the machine into it, and, to the surprise of all they felt the thoroughfare become hard and firm as the auto tires rolled over it. it was almost as smooth as asphalt, and the travelers were congratulating themselves on having made a wise choice. all at once the rain, which had been coming down in torrents, seemed to let up. "i believe it's clearing up," said bob. "no, it's because we've run into a dense forest, and the trees above keep the rain off," spoke the professor. the others looked about them and saw that this was so. on every side the glare of the lamps showed big trunks and leafy branches, while ahead more trees could be observed. "why it's just like a tunnel in the woods," said bob. "see, the trees seem to meet in an arch overhead." "and what a fine road it is," put in ned. "an altogether strange sort of road," agreed jerry. "suppose we stop and look about before we go any further? i don't like the looks of it." accordingly the machine was brought to a halt, and the travelers alighted. they found it just as bob had said, almost exactly like an immense tunnel in the forest. beneath their feet the road was of the finest macadam construction. "and to think of finding this in the midst of texas," observed jerry. "some one built this road, and cut the trees to make this tunnel," remarked the professor. "i wonder what sort of a place we have stumbled into." "at all events it doesn't rain anything to speak of in here," said bob, "and it's a good place to stay until the storm is over." jerry, in the meanwhile had walked on ahead some distance. in a few minutes he came hurrying back. his manner showed that he had seen something. "what is it?" asked the professor. "don't make any noise, but follow me," replied the lad. in silence, and wondering what was about to happen, bob, ned and the scientist trailed after jerry. he led them several hundred feet ahead of the automobile, and away from the glare of the lamps, the tunnel curving somewhat. "see!" whispered jerry, hoarsely. "well, i never!" "that's queer!" there, about three hundred feet to the left of the main road and on a sort of side path, the travelers saw a small hut, brilliantly lighted up. through an open window, a room could be seen, and several figures moving about in it. chapter vii the rescue of tommy bell "i wonder who they can be, to hide off in the woods this way," whispered bob. the next instant there floated out from the hut a cry of anguish. it was the voice of a boy, seemingly in great pain or fear, and the travelers heard the words: "oh don't! please don't! you are killing me! i don't know! i can't tell you, for i would if i could! oh! oh! please don't burn me again!" "it's a gang torturing some one!" almost shouted ned. "let's go to the rescue!" he would have sprung forward had not jerry laid a detaining hand on his arm. "wait, ned," counseled jerry. "some one there evidently needs our help, but we must go with caution. first we must get our guns. we may need them!" once more the appealing cry burst out. "quick!" whispered jerry. "professor, you and bob go back for the rifles, and bring the bulls-eye lantern that has the dark slide to it. ned and i will stay here and watch!" mr. snodgrass and bob lost no time. in less than five minutes they had rejoined ned and jerry. "has anything happened?" asked bob. "nothing since," whispered jerry. "now we will go forward. every one have his gun ready. i will carry the lantern." almost as silently as shadows the four figures stole forward, jerry showing a cautious gleam now and then to guide them on their way. they found there was a fairly good path leading up to the hut. they had covered half the distance when once more the cries of anguish burst out. this time they were followed by angry shouts, seemingly from several men, and voices in dispute could be heard. "one of us had better creep forward and see what is going on inside the cabin," whispered jerry. "we must know what sort of enemies we have to meet." "i'll go," volunteered bob. "better let me," suggested the professor. "i have had some experience in stalking animals, and i can probably advance more quietly than you can." they all saw the reasonableness of this and the scientist started off. like a cat he made an advance until he was so close to the hut that he could peer into the uncurtained window. what he saw made him start back in terror. in the room were half a dozen roughly dressed men, all armed, and with brutal faces. the room was filled with smoke from cigars and pipes, and cards were scattered over a rough table in the middle of the apartment. but what attracted the attention of the professor and made his heart beat fast in anger, was the sight of a small, pale boy, bound with ropes up against a big stone fireplace, on the hearth of which logs were burning. in front of the lad stood one of the largest and strongest of the tough gang, and in his hand he held a redhot poker, which, as the scientist watched, he brought close to the bare legs of the terror-stricken lad. then came again those heart-rending cries: "oh don't! please don't! i would tell you where he is if i knew! please don't burn me again!" the professor's blood boiled. "we'll soon put a stop to this horrible work!" he exclaimed to himself as he glided back to where the boys were and quickly made them acquainted with what he had seen. "come on!" cried jerry. "we must rescue that boy!" as softly as they could, the travelers advanced toward the hut. they found the door and, while the others with rifles in readiness stood in a semi-circle about it, jerry made ready to knock and demand admittance. "if they don't open the door we must burst it in," said the boy. "the professor and i will look to that, while you and ned, bob, must stand ready to rush in right after us with your guns ready. but don't shoot unless your life is in danger, and then fire not to kill, but to wound." there was a minute of hesitation, for they all realized that it was taking a desperate chance to tackle such a rough gang in the midst of woods, far from civilization. but the sound of the poor boy's cries nerved them on as, once more, the pitiful appeal for mercy rang out. jerry sprang forward and gave several vigorous blows on the door with the butt of his gun. all at once silence took the place of the confusion inside the hut. "who's there? what do you want?" asked a gruff voice. "open the door! we want that boy!" cried jerry. confused murmurs from within told that the gang had been taken by surprise. "i don't know who you are, but whoever you are you had better move on, if you don't want a bullet through you," called the man who had first answered the knock. "this is none of your affair." "open the door or we'll burst it in!" cried jerry, knowing the best way to be successful in the fight was to act quickly and take the men by surprise. there was a laugh from within the hut. it was answered by a rending, crashing splintering sound as jerry and the professor, using the stocks of their guns, began a vigorous attack on the portal. the door was strong enough, but the hinges were not, and, in less than half a minute the barrier had given way and, with a bound the travelers found themselves tumbling into the hut. instantly confusion reigned. the men shouted hoarsely, and several tried to reach their guns, which were stacked in one corner. "hands up!" commanded jerry sharply, leveling his gun at the man who seemed to be the leader. "why, they're nothing but boys! knock 'em out of the way!" cried one of the gang. at the same time another began creeping up behind jerry, his intention being to grab the lad from the back and disarm him. but bob saw the movement, and, leveling his rifle at the fellow, told him to halt. "i guess you've got the drop on us," growled the man whom jerry was covering with the gun. "what's the game anyhow? are you stage robbers?" "we want you to stop torturing that boy," cried jerry. "why, that's my kid, and i was only givin' him a taste of the rod because he wouldn't mind me; 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' is a good saying, you know." "not from you!" snapped the professor. "is this man your father?" the scientist asked the bound boy. "speak up now! ain't i your daddy?" put in the leader, scowling at the boy. "tell the truth! don't let him scare you!" said the professor reassuredly. "we are in charge here now. is he your father?" "no--no--sir," stammered the poor little lad, and then he burst into tears. "i thought so!" commented the scientist. "now you scoundrels clear out of here before we cause your arrest!" "you're talkin' mighty high," sneered the leader, "but look out! this matter is none of your affair, and that boy belongs to us!" "take me away! oh, please take me away! they'll kill me!" sobbed the lad. there was such a fiery look in the professor's eye as he leveled his gun at the gang of men that they started back, evidently fearing to be fired upon. "come on!" called one. "we'll get some of the mexicans and then we'll see who's runnin' things around here!" with that the gang sneaked out of the door, leaving the boys and the professor master of the situation. their first act was to unbind the lad, who was almost fainting from pain and fear. "are there any more of them?" asked jerry. "yes," said the boy faintly. "there are a lot of half-breed mexicans in the gang. they are in a hut about a mile farther up the road, where they keep a lot of horses on a ranch." "then perhaps we'd better get out of here while we have a chance," said the professor. "we can't fight a score or more. let's take the boy and hurry away." "come on then," said jerry. "we'll get back to the auto. i only hope these men don't discover it and damage the car." but when an attempt to start was made it was found that the boy, who said, in response to an inquiry from ned, that his name was tommy bell, was unable to walk. the ropes bound about his legs had caused the blood to stagnate in the veins. "here!" exclaimed jerry. "bob, you and ned go ahead with the lantern, and the professor and i will carry tommy. step lively now!" moving in that order the procession started, and in a few minutes the travelers were back at the machine, which did not seem to have been disturbed. there was no sight or sound of the gang. tommy was made as comfortable as possible, and then there was a brief consultation. "which way had we better go?" asked jerry. "i think it would be best to turn around," said bob. "we'll run up against the gang if we go ahead." "the best road is straight ahead through this woods," spoke tommy. "if you take the other your machine will get stuck." "then we'll take this one, and trust to luck not to have any trouble with the gang," decided jerry, as he cranked up the car. just as they started the moon came out from the clouds, for the rain had ceased, and, though not many of the silver beams shone through the thick foliage, it was much lighter than it had been. jerry threw in the gear and the next instant the car glided forward and shot along the tunnel of trees, leaving the hut where tommy bell had been a prisoner. "is the mexican camp near this main road?" asked the professor of tommy. "about three hundred feet in," answered the boy, who was feeling much better. "how many men are at it?" "about one hundred, i guess, from what i heard them say." "then i guess we'd better go past it on the fly," muttered jerry, as he speeded up the machine until it was skimming along at a fast rate. in a little while there was a gleam of light through the trees ahead. "there's the camp!" exclaimed tommy. a minute later the travelers were made well aware of it, for, as they whizzed past in the auto, they heard shouts of anger, mingling with the sounds of rushing feet, while an occasional pistol shot rang out, the flash of fire cutting the darkness. "they saw us," spoke bob. "lucky it was pretty dark, or they might have damaged the auto." "to say nothing of ourselves," added ned. chapter viii pursued by enemies as the auto sped along, professor snodgrass asked tommy bell how he had come to the hut in the forest. "those men took me there," replied the boy. "and what did they try to make you do?" asked jerry. "they wanted me to tell them where my father was," went on tommy. "i could not because i did not know, and they burned me, because they did not believe i was telling the truth." "what did they want of your father?" inquired mr. snodgrass. "they want him to sign some papers connected with some property," went on tommy. "i don't know much about it, except that father used to work with those men developing a mine. it didn't pay, and they left it, after selling it to some other men. i lived with my father, and my mother was alive then." the boy stopped, and, at the mention of his mother's name began to cry softly. "poor little lad," muttered the professor, putting his arm, with a sort of caressing motion about tommy. "don't cry, lad," the scientist went on, in what seemed a sort of husky voice, for he was very fond of children; "don't worry, we'll look out for you; won't we, boys?" "you bet!" exclaimed jerry, ned and bob in one voice. the auto was slowed down now, as there seemed to be no danger of pursuit. "after mother died," tommy resumed, "and the mine did not pay, father started prospecting with nat richards and the others in that crowd. but they were bad men, and soon got the better of my dad, taking away what little money he had left. "this ruined my father, and he grew discouraged, for he was old, and in poor health. he wandered away and i haven't seen him for nearly a year. i traveled about, doing what little work i could get to do, until i struck texas. one day, about a week ago, i passed a ranch, the same one we just came by. i asked for work, and got it. then i found the same men owned it that had ruined my father. "as soon as nat richards saw me he demanded to know where dad was. i couldn't tell, and then he promised me one hundred dollars if i would tell. he said they needed my father's signature to a paper. "i don't know as i would have told them where dad was if i did know. when i kept on refusing to give them the information, nat richards grew ugly. he had me taken off to the hut where you found me, and said he'd starve me to death if i didn't tell. "i almost did die from hunger," tommy went on with a catch in his voice. "then they tried torture. they burned me on the legs with a hot poker. that's what they were doing when you came in," and, overcome again by the thought of all he had suffered tommy cried bitterly. the boys and the professor did all they could to comfort the friendless lad, and, soon tommy's grief wore off. "we'll take you along with us," said jerry heartily, "and we'll try to help you find your father. where did you see him last?" "he was in arizona," answered tommy. "that's just where we're headed for," exclaimed bob. "we'll take you there all right." jerry leaned forward to throw in the higher speed gear when there was a sudden ripping, breaking sound, and the auto began to slow up. "what's the matter?" asked ned. "stripped the gear, i'm afraid," replied the steersman. "this is a nice pickle to be in." "won't it run on the low or intermediate gear?" asked bob. jerry tried them, and found they were all right. "i guess we'd better stop here for the night," he said. "we may need the high gear any minute, and perhaps i can fix it in the morning. i have a spare wheel." "then let's camp and have supper," said bob eagerly. "i haven't eaten in a week by the way i feel." "same here! i agree with you for once, chunky," spoke jerry. "it has been a long time since dinner, but with the excitement of the storm, the bear, and rescuing tommy i didn't notice it before." in a little while the camping outfit was taken from the automobile, and a fire started in the sheet-iron stove, with the charcoal that was carried to be used in emergencies, such as being unable to find dry wood after a rain. ned ground the coffee, while bob went in search of water, using the lantern to aid him in the somewhat dim forest, though the moon helped some. he found a spring close at hand, and soon a fragrant beverage was steaming under the trees. then some bacon was placed in the frying pan, and the hard tack was taken from the tin and other things prepared. "fall to!" commanded ned, who was acting as cook, and fall to they all did, with a will. "do you often camp out and eat in the woods like this?" asked tommy. "i think it's jolly fun," and the lad, who was about twelve years old, laughed for the first time since his rescue. he, too, was eating with an appetite that showed he needed the food. jerry briefly related some of their travel adventures, at which tommy opened his eyes to their widest extent. "cracky! but you have had stunning times!" he exclaimed. the meal having been finished, they began to think of getting some sleep. blankets were brought out, and rolling themselves up in them the boys and the professor were soon in the land of nod. it was nearly dawn when jerry was suddenly awakened by the far off baying of a dog. at first he could not imagine what the sound was, and sat up to listen more intently. then a long, mournful howl was borne to him on the wind. "that's strange," he muttered. "there are very few dogs about here. i wonder what it is." at the same time tommy bell roused up, and he, too, heard the sound. "it's the gang after us!" he exclaimed. "they have a lot of hounds on the ranch! hurry up! let's get out of this!" "hark!" exclaimed jerry, raising his hand. then the boys heard, faint and far off, the sound of galloping horses. "they're coming!" cried jerry. his cry awakened the others, who sat up bewildered and heavy from sound sleep. "lively's the word!" called jerry. "they're after us!" no further explanation was needed, for all knew what jerry meant. there was a hasty piling of blankets into the auto; the stove was packed up, and, while the travelers jumped into the car, jerry went in front to crank it up. the cheerful chug-chug told that the machinery was in good working order, and then, the boy, leaping into the steersman's seat, threw in the low gear for the start. as he did so ned glanced back and saw, coming around the bend of the forest road a score of horsemen and a pack of dogs. "speed her up, jerry!" called bob. "i will!" was the exclamation, as jerry leaned forward to throw in the high gear. a mournful screeching of the engine was the only response. "i forgot! the high gear is broken!" the steersman cried. "we can only use the intermediate, and that is not very fast!" "it's the best we can do, though!" said bob. "we may get away from them!" on the intermediate cogs the auto made good speed, and, for a while, distanced the gang, the members of which, with shouts of rage, put their horses to their best effort. chapter ix into the cave the sun began to peep up from beneath the eastern hills, throwing a rosy light over the earth. the woods began to thin out, and the sides of the "tunnel," which had been dense, became more open, so that glimpses of the country could be seen now and then. the chase was now on in earnest. for some time, however, the auto kept well in advance of the horsemen, for jerry used all the power possible on the differential gear. if the high speed one had been in working order there would have been no question of the outcome, but, for once, luck was against the boys. nearer and nearer came the gang on horseback. they got so close that their shouts to halt could be plainly heard. but jerry was not going to give up. he gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel with a firmer grasp. "we seem to be slacking up," observed ned. "that's what we are," spoke jerry. "the auto is going back on us." the car did seem to be dragging, and there was no excuse for it in the condition of the road, which was a fine level one. "the car needs repairing," said jerry, "and the way i have to run it isn't the best thing in the world for it." "do you think they'll catch up to us?" asked bob. "i'm afraid so," muttered jerry. "we are going the limit now." the thunder of the horses sounded nearer and the shouts of the pursuing gang came more plainly on the morning breeze. the auto coughed and wheezed, seeming like a man who has run far and is about to collapse. the explosions became less frequent, and finally one of the cylinders ceased to work altogether, leaving only three in commission. "now we're in for it!" muttered jerry, as, by a hasty glance back he saw the men spurring their horses on. "you'd better give up!" one of the gang shouted. "not yet, you scoundrels!" cried jerry, as he advanced the sparkling lever to the final notch. this seemed to be the last straw to the auto engine, for with a dismal snort it stopped short. "this settles it," muttered ned grimly. "we are done for." fortunately, however, they were on a slight slope now, and the car, with the impetus it had gathered, began to glide down the hill under its own momentum. but the horsemen were not one thousand feet in the rear and were drawing nearer. there seemed to be no help at hand and there was every indication that the boys would fall into the hands of their desperate enemies. "how much farther can we go?" asked tommy suddenly. "to the foot of the hill," replied jerry. "why do you ask?" "that's far enough!" exclaimed tommy. "i guess we can escape them." "how?" "steer straight for that dead pine tree," replied the young lad, "and when you get almost to it, make a wide turn to the right." "what good will that do?" "there's a big cave right at the foot of the hill," replied tommy. "i know for i passed it as i was tramping toward the ranch. it is large enough to take in the auto, and maybe we can hold it against the gang." "hurrah!" shouted jerry, as he shifted the wheel to conform with tommy's directions. "we'll beat 'em yet!" straight toward the dead pine jerry aimed, and, as he came to the bottom of the slope, he saw an opening in the bush-lined side of the hill, that told him the cave was at hand. into it, by a skillful turn, he steered the auto, and the machine, running in about one hundred feet from the opening came to a stop, just as the horsemen came dashing up, much surprised by the sudden disappearance of those they were pursuing. "we're safe!" whispered ned. "not yet," said jerry. "we must arm ourselves," and he began to get out the rifles from the bottom of the car, and hand them around to his companions. outside the cavern, which was a natural one in the rocky side of the hill, there came confused shouts. "where did they go?" they heard a voice ask. "must have gone over some ledge and been killed," was the reply. "then that settles it," said the first one. "that's just our bad luck!" then came a curious cry, and, by it, the boys knew their hiding place was discovered. "here are the tracks of the wheels!" the travelers heard some one shout. "they turned off somewhere about here." "then they're in that cave," was the rejoinder. "dismount!" came a sharp order. the boys could hear the men getting off their horses, and the animals being led away. "get your carbines ready!" was the next command. "it's time for us to act!" whispered jerry. "we must each one take a gun, and stand at the mouth of the cave. we'll warn them not to enter. if they persist we will have to fire, but we must try not to hurt any one mortally. aim at their legs!" in the half darkness of the cavern the boys and the professor each took a rifle and crept to the mouth of the opening. no sooner had they reached it than they heard the tramp of feet, and shadows told them the bad men were advancing. "halt!" cried jerry, who had naturally assumed command. "who are you?" asked the leader of the gang. "never mind who we are," replied jerry. "we are in possession of this cave, and we warn you not to come in!" "big words for a kid!" sneered the leader. "you'll find we can back them up," spoke jerry. then, in lower tones, he bade his comrades stand in readiness. there was a consultation in whispers among the members of the gang, and then, seeming to feel that they had nothing to fear, they made a rush. "fire!" cried jerry. remembering his instructions, the boys and the professor aimed low. to the reports of the rifles there succeeded howls of pain. several of the gang shot back, but, as it was dark in the cave they could not see to aim, and they did no damage. "give them another volley!" yelled jerry. again the rifles spoke, and this time, to the chorus of howls there was added a command from the leader to retreat, and the men rushed from the cave, which was filled with smoke. "are--are any of them killed?" asked tommy. "i don't believe so," replied jerry. "we fired too low to do much damage. i only wanted to let them know we were ready for them." waiting several minutes to see if there would be any further attack, jerry cautiously advanced to the mouth of the cavern. in the semi-light he saw several blood stains, but the absence of any bodies told him the battle had not resulted fatally, for which he was thankful. though the men were desperate characters, who, perhaps, would not stop at murder, the boy did not want the responsibility of killing any of them. "they seem to have retreated," jerry reported when he joined the others. "but i don't suppose they have gone for good. this probably will only make them more anxious to get tommy away from us, for it is him they are after." "do you think they want me?" asked the younger lad. "i am pretty sure, after what you have told us about the mine, that they would give a good deal to get you," replied jerry. "perhaps your signature may be as good as that of your father's in case--in case--" and jerry stopped suddenly. "you mean in case dad is dead?" asked tommy quietly. "yes," answered jerry. "i don't believe my father is dead," spoke the boy bravely. "somehow i feel that he is alive, and that i will find him. but if the gang is after me, it is not right for you all to be in danger on my account. give me up to them, i'm not afraid--that is, i'll try not to be. let me go out and surrender, and perhaps they'll go away." "i'd like to see myself!" exclaimed jerry. "you don't stir out of this cave, tommy bell, until we go! i'm not afraid of that gang. we've been in tighter places than this and gotten out; haven't we, fellows?" "you bet!" echoed bob and ned. "then give me a gun and let me help fight," begged tommy. "can you shoot?" asked jerry. "my father taught me," was all tommy said, and jerry gave him a rifle, at which tommy's eyes sparkled. a cautious glance from the mouth of the cave showed that the gang had withdrawn some distance away. but that they had no notion of giving up the fight was evidenced by the fact that they were constructing a camp so as to command the entrance to the cavern. "i guess they're going to try and starve us out," remarked the professor. "lucky we have plenty of provisions and ammunition on hand for a siege." "well, i guess we're just as well off here as anywhere," observed jerry. "we'd have to lay up a few days at any rate, to fix the machine, and it might as well be in a good roomy cave, where the rain can't wet us." the boys waited an hour before laying aside their arms. then, as the gang showed no signs of renewing the attack, they proceeded to make themselves more comfortable. "might as well get ready to camp out," said ned. "i'll set up the stove, and we'll have breakfast, though it is a little late." so while he set up the sheet iron apparatus, jerry instructed bob to stand guard at the mouth of the cavern, and to give instant notice of any activity on the part of the enemy. "but what will we do about eating breakfast?" asked bob in a sorrowful voice. "don't worry about that, 'chunky,'" said jerry. "i'll relieve you, or some one will, in time to get a meal. in the meantime keep a good watch." then jerry went back to help ned, and, at the same time, make ready to repair the machine. chapter x attacked by a cougar "i say, jerry," called ned, "we're in a sort of a pickle." "how's that?" "why, i started to make coffee and i got along all right until i came to the water." "well?" "no, it's not at all well. in fact we ought to have a well here." "what do you mean?" "i mean there's no water in the cave!" "great scott! is that so?" exclaimed jerry. "i never thought of such a thing. are you sure there's not a spring away in the rear?" "the professor and i made a good search," replied the temporary cook. "the cave comes to an end about three hundred feet back, and there's not a sign of water." for a few seconds jerry was silent. then he gave an exclamation. "i have it!" he cried. "we can use the emergency water supply on the auto. it is not very fresh, but it will do for coffee." "the very thing!" ejaculated ned. it was fortunate that the auto carried an extra tank of water, as well as one of gasolene. they had often found it useful in getting a supply of the fluid for the radiator in places far from a supply, and the reserve tank had been built with that purpose in view. it held about ten gallons. drawing on this ned had a supply for his coffee which was soon boiling merrily on the stove, while some canned chicken and bacon were put on to fry. "i say, is anybody going to relieve me?" called bob from his post on guard. he smelled the breakfast in preparation, and it added to his hunger. "i'll go," volunteered the professor. "i'm in no hurry to eat, and perhaps i may pick up a specimen or two. this cave ought to be a good place for them." accordingly he took bob's place, and soon the four boys were eating ravenously, and with as good appetites as if a band of bad men was not outside, ready to attack them at the first opportunity. "now to fix the machine," said jerry as he rose from the ground that served as a table. "light all the lamps, ned, and then you and bob come and help me. tommy and the professor can take turns standing guard." it was no easy matter to take the automobile engine apart, and substitute a new gear for the broken one. it was also found necessary to insert new spark plugs, which had become covered with a coating of carbon; and the cylinders also needed cleaning, while the pistons had to be adjusted. the afternoon was spent in working at the auto, and by night such good progress had been made that jerry said by the next evening it would be in shape to start. "that is if the gang let's us," spoke ned. "we'll make a dash for it," replied jerry. "we needn't fear them with the car in good order, for we can leave them behind in less than half an hour. we'll try to escape to-morrow about midnight." "in the meanwhile let's eat," suggested bob, and his cry brought forth the usual chaffing about "chunky's" appetite. ned started to get supper. he went to the tank of the auto to draw some water for the tea, when he gave a cry of surprise. "what's the trouble?" called jerry. "the water's gone!" exclaimed ned. "that's a leak in the tank!" they all rushed to the car. there, on the ground under the reserve tank was a muddy spot, showing where the precious fluid had dripped away. a quick examination showed there was a small hole in the reservoir. "now we are up against it," murmured bob. "not quite yet," said jerry. "how can we get water without being shot?" asked ned. "there is quite a bit left in the pipe coils of the radiator," answered jerry. "it will be pretty poor stuff to drink i guess, but it's better than nothing." there was considerable of the fluid in the big brass radiator on the front of the car, and, though it was stale, and had been heated many times, as it circulated about the cylinders, still, it was better than none. made into tea, which was served as a change from coffee, it did not taste so very bad. but the situation was grave. with only water enough on hand to last about half a day, the plight of the travelers was a critical one. "we'll have to have water for the car, as well as ourselves," spoke ned. "we can't run the machine without water." "that's so," admitted jerry dubiously. "something will have to be done." after the evening meal jerry resumed his labors on the car, working at double speed, in which he was assisted by ned and bob. the professor and tommy took turns watching at the cavern's mouth. but there seemed to be no need of this, as the men showed no inclination to make a second attack. they appeared to know that the boys were caught in a trap; a trap that contained no water. so they evidently felt sure of success sooner or later, and that without the danger of being wounded. jerry and his comrades worked to such advantage that shortly after midnight the auto was in shape to be used, and with the new high gear wheel in place. the car was given a good oiling, and was repacked in readiness for a quick start. "now if we only had water," sighed jerry, "we could slip out, and, i believe get away." but he knew it was useless to proceed without at least a full radiator. the extra tank, which had been repaired, could be filled later. the radiator coils were empty however. what had not been used for cooking had been made up into weak tea, as it was not considered healthful to drink the water as it came from the pipes. "we've got to do something," said jerry decidedly. "if we stay here much longer we'll die of thirst. if we could only make a dash and get some water we could manage. two pails full would do." "let me go after them," exclaimed tommy. "i'm not afraid. i can run fast. maybe i can get out there by the brook, get the water and come back before any of them see me." "no you couldn't," spoke jerry, pointing to where one of the men, as sentry, could be seen, from the mouth of the cave, walking up and down near the camp fire. "if any one goes i will, and i think i'd better start." bob and ned both offered to make the dangerous attempt, and the professor insisted that he be allowed to try, as he knew how to move over ground very silently. but jerry was firm in his determination. "i'm going to make the try about two o'clock," he said. "they'll be sounder asleep then." as he was very tired he stretched out in some blankets until it would be time to make the try. he fell asleep soon, and the others moved away, talking in whispers lest they disturb him. almost exactly at the appointed hour jerry awakened. he sat up, and, slipping a pair of indian moccasins over his shoes, to enable him to move as silently as possible, he cautiously approached the mouth of the cavern, carrying two water pails with him. the moon had gone down and it was quite dark, which was favorable to jerry's plans. as he got to the entrance of the cavern the boy looked toward the gang's camp. there seemed to be no sign of life, and jerry thought perhaps the sentry had fallen asleep. as silent as a cat the lad made his way toward the stream, which he could hear gurgling and splashing over the stones. his throat was dry, for the last of the cold tea had been drunk, and his exertions had made him very thirsty. as he heard the sound of the brook he felt a fierce desire for water, so strong was it that he felt he would brave anything to get it. foot by foot he advanced, crouching down as low as he could. he was beginning to feel that he would be successful, and not be detected. he could see the sparkle of the water about three hundred feet away, and his parched mouth and throat seemed to be as dry as leather. he could hardly swallow. on and on he went. now he was about two hundred feet away and he was getting ready to make a dash for the brook. suddenly he heard a clicking sound, and knew it was a rifle being cocked. next there rang out on the night air the command: "halt or i'll fire!" poor jerry was detected! he came to a stop, sick at heart at the failure of his plan. for a moment there was no other sound. the boy could not see who had discovered him, though he instinctively felt the eyes of the man on him. suddenly there was a shaking in the tree somewhat to jerry's left, and about one hundred feet away. then came a rustle of the leaves on the ground and the boy made out the figure of a man, dimly, standing with rifle aimed straight at him. "throw up your hands!" was the next order, and, letting the pails fall to the ground, jerry obeyed. then, all at once, there burst out on the air a most terrifying sound. it was a blood-curdling yell, a screech as if from some one in mortal agony. jerry felt the cold chills go down his back. the next instant there was a crashing sound, and, from the tree under which the man stood who had aimed at the boy a dark body shot downward. the screech of the cougar, for such it was, mingled with the terrific yells of the sentry. jerry dimly saw a confused tangle of man and beast. he heard the man shout for help. he heard his rifle go off, and then came sounds that told that the camp had been aroused. the attack of the cougar had come just in time. jerry, taking advantage of the diversion, grabbed up his pails, and running to the brook filled them with water. then, as fast as he could go, he ran toward the cave. chapter xi a runaway auto behind the boys sounded the yells and shouts of the men in camp, mingled with rifle shots and the screeching of several of the cougars, for, it developed, a band of three, grown desperate by hunger, had made an attack. "are you hurt, jerry?" cried bob and ned, as, with his pails of water, the boy staggered into the cave. "not a bit, but i had a close shave," was the answer. "but we must be quick! here! help fill the radiator with the water." "can't we drink any?" asked bob who, like the others, was very thirsty. "not a drop," said jerry firmly. "we need every bit for the automobile. without it we can't get away from here, and now is the only chance we may have to escape. we can drink later." while jerry and ned filled the radiator the other boys and the professor made ready for the escape. everything was packed up and placed in the car, which, as soon as the coil was filled, would be ready to start and dash from the cave. "i'm afraid this is not going to be water enough," spoke jerry as the second of the pails was emptied into the radiator. "can't i make a dash for some more? there seems to be excitement enough in the camp to keep them from watching me," said ned. "i'm going to try." there was considerable activity among the ranch men. the cougars, though wounded, seemed to have temporarily lost all fear and made attack after attack on the men, who had to fire several volleys from their rifles. "go ahead," said jerry. "i'll start the engine slowly." grabbing up the pails ned walked from the cave. "i'm going to help, also," said tommy. "no, you stay here," commanded jerry. "bob can go if he wants to." bob joined ned. they ran to the stream and had filled the pails when, just as they started on the way back, the wounded cougars, driven from the camp, came dashing after the boys. "now we're in for it!" exclaimed ned. "run, bob!" and run they did, as they had never run before, and left the beasts behind. "have you the water?" asked jerry eagerly as the boys came in. "we have!" exclaimed bob. "and hard enough work we had getting it." "good!" jerry hurriedly poured most of it into the radiator, though every one in the cave looked at the fluid with longing eyes. "i must get a drink soon, or i shall go half crazy!" said the professor suddenly. "i never was so thirsty in my life." "i'm saving just a little bit for each of us," spoke jerry. "but it is a very small quantity, and will only serve to wet our mouths. if all goes well we shall soon have plenty." he distributed about a pint of the water among his companions, and though each one got only a little it brought welcome relief. "now we're ready to skip out!" announced jerry as he screwed the cap on the radiator tank, and increased the speed of the engine. "but first we had better take a look outside to see if any of that gang are in sight." the professor, who had good eyes, went to the mouth of the cave, and, coming back, reported that he could see a dark mass moving on the further bank of the stream. "they have evidently gotten over their scare about the cougars," mr. snodgrass said, "and are waiting to bag us. what are we going to do?" "there's only one thing to do," replied jerry. "and that is what?" "we must make a dash for it. the road is fairly good, and i guess we can speed up enough to get out of the range of their bullets in a short time. they can't be very good shots or they would have killed the three cougars, with all the bullets they fired." so it was decided. they all took their places in the car, and jerry, who, as if by mutual consent, assumed the place of steersman, leaned forward to throw in the gear clutches. "here we go!" he cried. "look out everybody!" slowly at first, but gathering speed, the auto moved out of the cave. the lamps lighted up the path, and, though the boys realized that the lanterns disclosed their position to their enemies, they had to use them for their own safety. it was too dark to do without them. a few seconds later and the car emerged from the cavern. as it shot out there came a chorus of angry cries from the camp of the ranchmen, and several shots were fired, though none of them came close enough to be uncomfortable. "here we go!" cried jerry again, as he increased the speed, and the auto fairly leaped forward. it swayed from side to side, and struck several ruts, so that the occupants were tossed about. but the main thing was that they went ahead, and away from their enemies. jerry, peering as best he could into the darkness ahead, made a course for the stream, intending to go close to it, and then run along the bank, or near it, as he had noted in the afternoon that there was a fairly good road there. gradually the shouts of the men, and the firing of their guns died away, and the travelers began to breathe more freely. they had made their escape, and, for the present, were safe. "oh do let's stop and get a drink!" pleaded bob. "not yet!" exclaimed jerry. "five minutes more will not kill you, and it may save all our lives," for he did not want to slack up while there was any danger of the ranchmen coming after them. the five minutes seemed like an hour to bob, and the others, too, were impatient. but at last jerry shut off the power and the machine came to a halt not far from the creek. out scrambled the boys and the professor, and then, in spite of the danger of drinking snakes and lizards in the darkness, they all made for the stream, where they quenched their thirst from small collapsable cups which each one had been holding in readiness for just that chance. "that's better than an ice cream soda!" exclaimed ned. "you bet!" agreed bob heartily. "i never tasted such fine water." "very good!" said the professor. "i guess we can stop long enough to lay in a supply now," remarked jerry. "we can start off again in five minutes, and in that time they can not catch up to us." so the radiator was filled to the top, and the auxiliary tank likewise, while the boys indulged freely in the liquid, thinking, perhaps, they might have some of the characteristics of the camel, and could drink enough at one time to last a week or more. then they started forward again, and the auto soon carried them beyond the possibility of capture that night. they camped out in the open, and, in spite of their rather exciting adventures they slept soundly, awaking as the sun rose. ned was given a chance to run the machine, and he took the front seat with tommy, who was delighted to be there for the first time. they had not been going long before they found the land was rising. "we're coming into the mountains now," said jerry. up a long hill, with a gradual assent, puffed the auto. on either side were broad fields where tall pampas grass was growing, amid which thousands of grasshoppers, or some similar insect, were singing. "better be sure your brake is in good working order," suggested jerry, as they came to the steep descent on the other side. "we don't want any more accidents." ned tried the ordinary brake. there was a clicking sound, followed by a snapping one. "brake's busted!" exclaimed jerry. "try the emergency!" ned did so. that, too, gave out only a faint screech, and did not grip the axle as it should. "look out now!" yelled jerry. "we're in for it!" an instant later the auto began to move forward at a rapid pace. all ned's efforts to check it were in vain. "we're running away!" cried frightened tommy. "i wish i'd stayed in back!" "keep to the middle of the road!" jerry cried above the noise of the auto rushing down the steep hill. at the bottom the road took a sharp turn, and the hearts of all beat rapidly with fear as they beheld it. chapter xii tommy finds a friend so rapidly did the machine shoot down the descent that it almost seemed the curved road was rushing to meet the travelers. again and again ned tried the brakes, but without avail. he had shut off the power at the first indication that something was wrong. "we can never make that turn!" exclaimed bob. "i'm afraid not," agreed jerry. they were all clinging to the sides of the car, while ned gripped the steering wheel with a desperate hold. "look out for the turn!" cried the professor as they came to the sharp curve. but, to the surprise of all, ned, instead of shifting the wheel in at least an attempt to swing around the half circle kept straight on the course. the boy had resolved on another plan. directly in front of him, and to the left of the road was a big field of tall waving pampas grass, the plumes nodding eight feet above the ground. it was shut off from the thoroughfare by a frail wooden fence. "i'm going to steer into the grass!" cried ned. "it's our only chance!" the next instant there was a splintering sound as the auto crashed through the fence, which offered no more resistance, because of the great speed, than a paper hoop does to a circus performer. then it seemed to the travelers as though they had been plunged into a tossing, waving sea of grass. the tall pampas plumes and the stems wrapped themselves about the boys and the professor, almost choking them by the pollen that was shaken off. the feathery-like tops tickled them in the eyes, nose and mouth as, carried by the runaway auto, they were dashed through them. but the grass had just the effect ned had intended and hoped for. it clogged the wheels of the machine, and though soft, offered so much resistance that the machine soon began to slow down, as does a locomotive when it runs into a snow drift. after plowing through the field for about two hundred feet the car came to a final stop, with a little jolt. "santa maria! caramba!" yelled a voice and then followed such a string of spanish that the boys thought they had run down a whole camp of mexican herders. "did we hit any one?" asked jerry, peering forward as well as he could through the tall grass. "caramba! hit any one! the americano pirates have killed don elvardo!" exclaimed the unseen one. "you have broken--!" and then followed such a confusion of words that the boys could not understand. "have we broken your leg?" asked jerry, speaking in spanish this time. "santa maria! no! you have broken the cigarette i just rolled!" and with that the grass parted in front of the auto, and a little mexican, wearing a suit profusely trimmed with silver braid, showed himself. the boys felt like laughing as they beheld the woe-begone face of don elvardo. in his hand he held the remains of a cigarette. "behold!" he went on tragically. "i am peacefully walking in my field, looking over my crop of pampas, when i feel a desire to smoke. i sit me down and roll a cigarette. i am about to light it, when--santa maria! there is a rushing sound of ten thousand imps of darkness. my grass is mowed down as if by a sickle in the hands of a giant. i turn in fear! i see something coming! i can not tell what it is, for the tall grass hides it! i turn to flee! the infernal thing keeps after me! presto! caramba! it hits me so--" don elvardo illustrated by slapping himself vigorously on the thigh. "then i fall! i am crushed! i am killed! i die in pain and fear! i arise! behold, senor americanos, my cigarette is broken!" "we're very sorry, of course," said jerry politely. "but you see our auto ran away on the hill, and as the brakes would not work, the only thing to save our lives was to steer into this field. we did not know you were here, or we would have sent around to your house to ask permission to enter," added the lad sarcastically. "but i am here!" snapped the mexican. "so we see," admitted jerry. "we are willing to pay for any damage we have done." the mexican's eyes sparkled, and he rubbed his hands as if in anticipation. "that alters the case," said don elvardo. "the americano senors are welcome ten thousand times to my field. i bid you welcome. i salute you. pay. oh, yes! it is but right that you should pay!" again he rubbed his hands together. "about what would you say it was worth?" asked ned. "i am no miser," replied the mexican. "i do not wish to insult my friends the americanos. i will only charge them for the damage to the grass. the broken fence is of no moment. pay me one hundred dollars and i will say no more about the affair." "he's a robber!" said jerry in a low voice. "we haven't done five dollars' damage to his crop and the fence combined." "i guess he will whistle for his one hundred dollars," said ned. don elvardo heard him. "so!" he exclaimed. "you will not pay me one little hundred dollars for the damage. caramba! then it is i who shall at once lodge a complaint with the authorities. we will see if there is a law in the land, or if crazy americanos can spoil a poor man's crop and pay nothing. we shall see!" "offer him ten dollars," suggested bob. the boys consulted together a minute or two. they wanted to be fair, but they did not care to be robbed. the professor had taken no part in the discussion. he seemed to be intently examining the tall grass on either side of the machine. suddenly the scientist stepped from the side of the car, and rapidly made his way to the front, where don elvardo stood. mr. snodgrass gazed intently at the mexican. then he gave a leap toward the don, exclaiming as he did so: "there it is! right on your hat! don't move an inch or it will jump away! i have it now! this is indeed a lucky day! just a second and i'll have it!" with that the professor made a leap toward the mexican with outstretched hands. "santa maria! diavolo?" screamed don elvardo as he saw the scientist coming for him. "caramba! it is to murder me that you come!" then, calling for help at the top of his voice, the mexican turned and fled in terror, his course being marked through the tall grass by the wave-like motion he imparted to the plumes in his haste. "why--why what in the world ails him?" asked mr. snodgrass. "he probably thought you were going to choke him to death," said jerry with a laugh. "in fact your actions were not so very far from giving that idea." "why bless my soul!" ejaculated the professor. "all i wanted was to get a fine specimen of a blue grasshopper from his big hat, where the insect had alighted. it was worth about forty dollars." "i saw some just as good in a city once for twenty dollars," put in tommy, "and they had more silver braid on." "what! a grasshopper with silver braid on?" cried the scientist. "i thought you said his hat was worth forty dollars," went on tommy, somewhat embarrassed. "i was speaking of the blue grasshopper," explained mr. snodgrass. "my, i am sorry to have missed that one." "but you did a good service in scaring this mexican away, as you did the chap with the ox cart," spoke ned. "he might have made trouble for us." "and we had better get out of here while we have the chance," said jerry. "he may come back any minute." accordingly the auto was turned around, and run over the same course by which it had entered the field. otherwise it would have been almost impossible to have advanced, so thick was the grass. the road regained, the machine was sent along it at good speed, for fear don elvardo or some of his friends might appear. "we had better stop and fix the brakes," suggested ned, after an hour's run. "and get dinner at the same time," put in bob. "we'll kill two stones with the same automobile, as the poem says." "i guess you're a little twisted," remarked ned, "but your intentions are good." a halt was made under a big tree, near a little stream, and soon a good fire was built and dinner was being cooked. it was found that some nuts had become loose on the brakes, and this trouble jerry soon remedied. after the meal they sat about and talked a while. "we'll soon be in new mexico," remarked jerry, consulting a small map. "will we?" asked tommy. "i'm so glad." "why?" "because there's a man who was once a friend of my father at a place called las cruces. it's near the rio grande river. if we could go there i know mr. douglass would take care of me." "then we'll go there," said jerry. "it will be right on our route." they all agreed this would be a good plan. that night the travelers stopped in a small village where they had good beds and meals. they resumed the journey next day, and for several days thereafter met with no mishaps as they speeded toward las cruces. they had left the lowlands and were well up among the hills by this time. one day, just at dusk, they rolled into las cruces and, after a little inquiry found mr. douglass, who was very glad to see tommy. "i will be glad to take care of him for the present," he said. chapter xiii the colored man's ghost the travelers found the town where tommy's friend lived such a pleasant place that they spent several days there. it was a thriving place, and the auto was a source of endless wonder to most of the inhabitants, who had never seen one. had the boys wished they could have made considerable money taking parties out in the car for short trips, but they knew they had a long journey before them and they wished to save the machine all they could. it needed some repairs which were made by the local blacksmith, and then the travelers were ready to move forward again. "i don't know how to thank you for all you did for me," said tommy, as the boys were leaving. "you saved my life. maybe i will have a chance to do you a good turn some day. if i have, you can bet i'll do it." "we know you will, tommy," said jerry. "well, good-by. i hope we see you again." "same here!" exclaimed bob and ned. they did not know how soon they were to meet their friend again, nor in what a peculiar manner he was able to aid them in return for what they had done for him. for several days the auto skimmed along through a somewhat lonely country. the roads were not very good and a number of times progress was so slow that only a few miles were made between sunrise and sunset. now and then the travelers would come to a lonely cabin, where they could replenish their food supply or get a night's lodging. but, in the main, they had to depend on their own resources. occasionally they would reach a little settlement, where their arrival never failed to produce as much excitement as a fire and circus combined. every day brought them nearer their gold mine, concerning which they were very anxious, as they had heard nothing further from jim nestor. "the mine may have been taken away from him for all we know," chafed jerry as he fretted at the delay caused by bad roads. "we'll hope for the best," said ned. "no use crossing a bridge until you come to it." the travelers were well up among the lower mountains now, though compared with the heights they had still to scale the range was one of mere hills. one evening just at dusk, after a particularly hard day of travel, during which the auto had broken down several times, necessitating minor repairs, the motor boys came to a place where two roads divided. "i wonder which we had better take?" asked bob, who was at the wheel. "the right," said jerry. "the left," advised ned. "toss up a cent," suggested the professor. "make it heads right and tails left." they did so. the coin came down heads up, and bob turned the machine to the right. it had not proceeded far on this road when, about a mile ahead, the travelers saw a couple of log cabins. "well, there's shelter for to-night, at all events," jerry remarked, "and, i hope, supper as well. i'm getting a little tired of bacon and coffee." they found one of the cabins occupied by a negro, his wife, and seven children, the oldest a boy of sixteen and the youngest a little girl, just able to toddle. "good evening," greeted the professor, "can we get supper and lodging anywhere about here?" "i reckon i kin fix yo' up on th' eatin' question, boss," remarked the darkey as he stood in the cabin door as the auto drew up, "but i 'clare t' goodness i can't find no room t' stable that there rip-snortin' beast ye got." "we don't expect you to take the auto in," spoke jerry. "if you give us beds for ourselves, or even a room to sleep in we'll pay for it and glad to do it." "land sakes, i'd like t' 'blige yo', deed 'n i would boss," went on the negro, "but my cabin am jest crowded t' th' doah wif me an' my fambily. yo' am welcome t' suthin' t' eat, but land a' massy whar i'se goin' t' have yo' sleep hab got me cogitatin'." "what's the matter with that other cabin?" asked ned. "what other cabin?" asked the negro, not turning to look in the direction of the second shack, about a quarter of a mile down the road. "that one," went on ned, pointing to it. "there may be room in it." "oh i reckon there's room enough," replied the colored man, "only--well to tell you th' truff, boss, it ain't exackly healthy t' sleep in that cabin, er even t' talk about it. 'scuse me but i don't want even t' look at it." "why not?" the colored man seemed to hesitate. he fidgeted and seemed ready to go back into his house. "why not?" asked ned again. "kase it's--it's got ghosts an' it's hanted!" exclaimed the negro, "an' it ain't safe fer any one to go near it, let alone sleep in it." "nonsense," remarked the professor. "there are no such things as ghosts." "yo' wouldn't say so if yo' went to that there cabin after dark," persisted the colored man. "'tain't safe t' talk about it, so yo'll please 'scuse me." "but what sort of a ghost is it?" asked jerry. "it's big an' it's white, an' it rattles chains an' groans sumthin' turrible," said the negro. "did you ever see it?" asked ned. "did i ever see it, boss? couse i done see it. only t'other night it near skeered me to deff." "how long has it been there?" asked bob. "'bout a week i reckon," replied the negro. "ever since rastus johnson moved away from th' cabin." "i guess we'll take a chance with the ghost for the sake of spending a night under shelter," said jerry. "meanwhile we can get supper here." and a fine supper they had. mrs. jones, wife of the colored man, proved an excellent cook. she fried some chicken, made some corn bread, and that, with preserves and some good coffee, made up a meal which the travelers voted one of the finest they had eaten in many months. "can we get breakfast here, also?" asked jerry when supper was finished. "if yo' am alive," replied jones solemnly. "if we're alive? what do you mean?" "well i reckon ef yo' sleeps in that hanted cabin, there won't be any of yo' left t' want a meal in th' mo'nin'," explained jones. "it's takin' yo'uns' lives in yo' hands t' go nigh it suah yo' is boahn!" all they could say did not induce the man to change his mind. he was plainly afraid of the cabin and the "ghost." but the travelers were determined not to let a little thing like that interfere with a chance to sleep under shelter. accordingly they covered the auto with the tarpaulin provided for that purpose, and moved their blankets into the deserted cabin, which was fairly clean and in good condition. one of the big oil lamps gave sufficient light. the cabin contained only two rooms, one on the ground floor, and the other above it, reached by a movable ladder. "i think we had better sleep upstairs," said jerry. "the door doesn't fasten very securely, and besides i think it will be drier there." so they mounted the ladder, spread their blankets out on the floor, and were all soon fast asleep. none of them expected to be disturbed, for they laid the story of the ghost to an overwrought imagination of the colored man. so it was with a sudden feeling of terror that jerry was awakened in the middle of the night by hearing a deep groan, seeming to come from the room below. he sat up, rubbing his eyes to further awaken himself, and then he became aware that bob was also sitting up. he could see because of the moonlight streaming in through a window. "did you hear anything?" asked jerry. "i thought so," answered bob. "i thought i did," put in ned, who, it seems had been awakened at the same time the others were. once more there sounded an unmistakable groan. it came from the ground floor, and was so loud, penetrating and, in spite of the would-be bravery of the boys, so awful coming out of the darkness, that they shuddered. "what's that?" asked the professor, who also, this time, was roused from his slumbers. before either of the boys could answer the groan was repeated and this time it was followed by the unmistakable clanking of chains. "the colored man's ghost!" whispered bob. "nonsense!" exclaimed the professor, but, no sooner had he spoken than there came another weird noise, and the chains rattled louder than ever. "light the lantern," whispered jerry. "we must see what it is. perhaps it's only some one playing a joke." "let me take a look before you make a light," suggested the professor. "i can look down the ladder hole." softly he crawled over to the opening and peered down. as he did so the noises were repeated. the professor uttered an exclamation. "it bears the other descriptive marks of the creature the negro told about," he said, crawling back to where the boys were huddled together. "it is big and white and it seems to be trying to climb up the ladder." "wait until i get my revolver," whispered jerry. "we'll soon see if it's a ghost or not." "don't fire," cautioned the professor. "it may be some one trying to scare us, but we have no right to fire at any one." "i'll give 'em a warning, at any rate," said the lad. he went to the opening and called down: "tell us who you are or i'll shoot, do you hear?" a groan and the clanking of chains was the only answer. this was followed by a violent agitation and shaking of the ladder. "bang!" went jerry's revolver. he had fired into the air. succeeding the report there was a silence. this was broken by a further clanking of chains. then came a crash, and when the echo of this died away the sound of feet running away could be heard. "pretty solid footsteps for a ghost," commented ned. "look! look!" cried bob, pointing out of the window. there, running down the moon-lit road the boys saw a big white mule, to the neck of which was fastened a chain that rattled with every step. "there's the ghost," said the professor. "i thought i recognized the voice as that of a quadruped with which i was familiar. the animal has probably broken loose from the field and came here in search of food." "well it certainly scared me all right," admitted bob. the others did not commit themselves, but there was no doubt but that they had several heart-flutters. "i wonder what that crash was?" asked ned. the professor glanced down the hole leading to the first floor. "the ghost made it by kicking our ladder away," the scientist replied. "i wonder how we can get down." but the boys did not worry about this, being too sleepy. soon they were all snoring again, and did not awaken until the sun was streaming in the window. chapter xiv trouble with a bad man "this is a nice pickle!" exclaimed bob, who was the first to rise. "what's the matter, lost your collar button?" sleepily inquired jerry. "no, but the mule knocked the ladder down, and we'll have to jump or stay here." "it isn't far to the ground in this shanty," remarked jerry. "go ahead and drop down." "it may not be very far," said bob, "but i don't want to take the chance." "afraid you'll sprain your ankle?" "no, but i don't want to fall into the cistern." "cistern? what are you talking about?" "well," went on bob, "there's a cistern right under this ladder opening. the mule pulled the cover off last night, and whoever drops down is going to land goodness knows where." the others soon confirmed what bob had said. when the cabin was built a cistern had been sunk in the middle of the ground floor. this had been covered, and the ladder rested on it when the travelers went to bed, but the mule, probably in search for a drink, uncovered it. "can't get down without a ladder," observed ned. "what's the matter with jumping from one of the outside windows?" asked jerry. they thought the idea a good one until they saw that the only one there was opened onto a pile of sharp rocks, into which even a jump of fifteen feet might be dangerous. "what's to be done?" asked bob. "guess we'll have to wait until jones comes to see if we are dead," replied jerry. "then he can cover the cistern and raise the ladder." "i guess we'll have a long wait for jones," commented ned. "he's so afraid of this place that he'll never come within hearing distance of it." "let's yell out of the window," suggested bob. they did so, uniting their voices in a volume of sound. it seemed to have no effect though, for there was no movement about the colored man's cabin. "once more," urged the professor. this time they produced a result, for, down the road they could see jones come to the door of his shack and peer out. thereupon they waved their hands to him, and in a few minutes the colored man was standing as close as he seemed to dare to come to their shelter. "is yo' all daid?" he asked in awed accents. "not quite all of us," answered the professor, "but we will be unless you come in and hoist the ladder for us." "did th'--th' ghost knock it down?" asked jones. "it did," replied bob, solemnly. "i knowed it! i knowed it! maybe you'll believe me next time. golly! i ain't goin' t' stay here," and jones was about to run off down the road. "here! come back!" commanded the captives, and the colored man reluctantly did so. "i doan laik t' stay round yeah!" pleaded the negro. "'tain't no ways healthy. what yo' done want, anyhow?" "we want you to hoist the ladder for us," said the professor. "come now, don't be silly. the only ghost there was, and we saw it, was an old white mule with a chain on its neck." "co'se it were! dat's de form it took when i seed it!" cried jones. "but it can take on any shape, dat ghost can. next time it'll be a lion er a tiger er a elephant. monstrous terrible things, ha'nts is. so de ghost done knocked de ladder down! i knowed it would do suthin'." amid a show of genuine fear the colored man entered the cabin, and after replacing the cistern cover cautiously raised the ladder. then he ran out as if the ghost were after him. "i guess we'll never be able to convince jones that there isn't a ghost here," said jerry as they came down and started down the road toward the colored man's cabin, where they were to have breakfast. "here's something that may prove to him that the mule was the ghost," spoke ned, picking up a horse shoe, which was on the cabin floor. they showed it to the negro, but he only shook his head. "it looks like a hoss shoe, dat i admit," said jones, "but it's enchanted. it'll turn inter a snake er a tiger er suthin' terruble 'fore long. i don't want nothin' t' do with it," and he cast it into the bushes by the side of the road. the excitement of the night had taken none of the travelers' appetites away, and they made a good meal. then, once more they took the road, disappearing in a cloud of dust, while jones, his wife, and the seven children stood and stared in wonder. they traveled all that day with only an occasional glimpse of civilization in the shape of some house or cabin. no villages were reached, it being a centre of vast grazing lands, where only a lonely herder, or, perhaps two, remained to guard the cattle. that night they camped in the open, and found it rather uncomfortable, for it began to rain about midnight. "i wish we were back in the cabin, with the ghost-mule and everything else," muttered jerry, as he tried to find a dry spot to lie down on. but troubles can not last forever, and morning came finally, bringing a clear day and a bright sun which was very welcome. breakfast over they took the road once more. about noon they came to a small town that boasted of what was called the "imperial hotel." "i suppose we'd better try the imperial," suggested ned. "it don't look very scrumptious, but you can't always tell by the appearance of a toad how far he can jump." the auto drew up in front of the inn with a noise that brought a score of men from the barroom. "jumpin' gila monsters and rattlesnakes!" cried one of the men, evidently a miner from his dress. "i've read about them satan go-carts, but i never believed in 'em. sakes alive, but they do look funny without a hoss in front." he and the others gathered about the car, asking so many questions that it took all the boys and the professor as well to answer them. when curiosity had been partially satisfied the boys went into the hotel. while there was nothing to make a weary traveler glad he had found it, the place was not as bad as many where the motor boys had stopped. they had a good meal, and decided to rest a few hours before proceeding. it was along about three o'clock. the crowd of men in the barroom had become larger as new comers arrived. it was also noisier and loud voices, and occasional threats to shoot, made the travelers think it was about time to move on. they were about to go to their machine when they were approached on the porch where they were sitting, by the miner who had first remarked about the auto. he had evidently been drinking more than was good for him, and was in a quarrelsome mood. "if you don't want to play with me you needn't," he called, evidently to some one inside. "i can find some one to shuffle the cards with me. here, you kid"--to jerry, "you come an' we'll have a little game." "thank you, i don't play," said jerry quietly. "what's that?" came the sharp return. "i said i didn't play." "why hang my buttons! you got to play when i tell you to," cried the miner. "pete simmons ain't used to bein' told no. here, sit down to this table an' deal the cards," and he grabbed jerry by the arm, and attempted to force him into a chair. "let go my arm!" exclaimed jerry. "you do as i tell you or i'll make you!" exclaimed the brute. "i'm used to havin' my way!" "take your hand off!" commanded jerry, drawing back his fist, for he was strong and hot tempered. "now be nice, be nice!" sneered the man. "let go of him!" exclaimed ned coming forward and standing beside his chum, while bob also ranged up alongside. "we'll all take a hand in this if you force us to." "i can tackle the three of you with both hands tied behind my back," cried the miner, flushing with anger at being defied by the boys. "count me in too," spoke professor snodgrass, joining the lads. "i don't want to fight, but i will if i have to." now the professor, though a mild man, was, by reason of his out-of-door life, in fine physical condition, and no mean antagonist, which fact the miner saw. "oh well, i was only foolin'," the ugly chap remarked with a poor attempt at a smile. but his face showed his rage. he moved away in a few seconds, and shuffled to the end of the porch, where he soon fell asleep on a bench. bob looked over and saw him, as the boys were discussing the program for the remainder of the day. "let's play a trick on that brute," said bob. "what kind?" asked jerry. "you watch," replied chunky. "you'll see some fun." now it happened that the professor had among his collection of specimens several large stuffed snakes, for he was an expert taxidermist. there were also several horned toads and big lizards. bob got several of the ugliest ones and, with the aid of the scientist, who entered into the plan to pay a well deserved lesson to the miner, arranged the things about the sleeper, on the bench and on the floor of the porch. by this time most of the crowd at the hotel was aware what was going on, and, as few of them had any too much love for simmons they waited the outcome with interest. when the reptiles were placed in a circle about the sleeping miner, one of the men fired his revolver in the air. at the sound simmons awoke. at first he did not notice the reptiles, as he was on his back, staring up at the sky. then he suddenly sat up, and caught a glimpse of the ugly looking things. for a moment he seemed to be in doubt as to what he beheld. then he let out a yell that could have been heard almost a half mile. "wow!" he cried. "take 'em away. i'll never drink another drop! honest i won't! oh! oh! the horrible snakes! i'll shut my eyes so i can't see 'em!" but when he opened them again the reptiles were still there. "oh! oh! i see 'em still!" he yelled. "take 'em away, somebody, please do. oh i forgot! they ain't real! i only imagine i see 'em!" he got up on the bench and was dancing about in terror. then he drew his revolver, and was about to fire into the midst of the snakes. "he'll ruin my specimens!" cried the professor. one of the men ran forward, and began collecting the reptiles. simmons saw them being gathered up, and noticed that they were not wiggling. then the truth of it dawned on him, and he knew he had been fooled. his companions laughed loud and long. but simmons, unable to stand the jokes and jibes he knew would be poked at him, leaped over the porch railing and ran down the road as fast as he could go. "serves him right!" was the general verdict. chapter xv the story of lost lake the trick bob had played seemed to be much appreciated among the crowd of miners and herdsmen who were gathered at the hotel. they laughed loud and long over the sight simmons had presented. "i guess he'll know better than to fool with the next lad that comes along in one of them choo-choo wagons," was the hotel proprietor's comment. bob gathered up the specimens that belonged to the professor and they were put in the car, together with a fresh supply of provisions that were purchased at the village store. "i guess we'll be traveling," suggested the professor. the boys agreed with him, for though they knew the pleasures of sleeping beneath a roof, yet the character of the men who stayed at the hotel was so rough that they feared further rows. so, in spite of the entreaties of the hotel keeper they started off, having inquired the best roads to take. through the afternoon they bowled over a well elevated table land. the air was fine and bracing. off in the distance to the west could be seen the first ranges of the big mountains. "that's where our mine is," said jerry, his eyes shining. "maybe it isn't ours after all," put in bob. "now there you go, chunky. what do you want to call up unpleasant subjects for?" asked ned reproachfully. "anyhow it's our mine until some one takes it away from us, and i guess they'll have quite a fight, with nestor on guard." the others thought so too. jerry, who was steering, was sending the auto forward at a fast clip, when the professor, who always had his eyes open called out: "what's that just ahead of us? looks like a bear." "where?" asked ned. "right in line with that big rock," went on the scientist, who had very good eyes and could see a long distance. "it's only a tree stump," spoke bob. "i didn't know tree stumps could move," went on mr. snodgrass, "for this one is certainly coming toward us. it's not a bear after all," he continued, now that the object was nearer. "it's a bull! that's what it is! it looks as if it meant to go for us!" the boys could now see that the beast was one of the big, long-horned western cattle. it had evidently strayed from the herd, or had been made an outcast because of a bad temper and a perpetual desire to fight. the latter seemed more likely, for, as the auto proceeded, and the bull came on, lessening the distance between the two, a defiant bellow of rage sounded. "i hope he don't try to ram us," spoke jerry. "we don't want any more collisions." "see if you can't run away from him," suggested ned. by this time the bull was about one hundred yards away. it was coming straight for the auto. jerry opened the muffler and at the sound of the explosions the bull stopped short. at this point the road ran in a sort of depression, with hills rising on either side. it was rather narrow, so there was no chance to turn to one side. jerry had to bring the machine to a stop or else run the risk of hitting the bull. he thought the animal might run away if it saw the machine coming toward him, but there was nothing sure about this. "well, this is a regular hold-up," said the professor. "i wonder whether the bull wants to collect toll?" the animal seemed to be growing angrier and angrier every minute. it bellowed loudly, pawed the earth with its hoofs, and shook the lowered head, armed with sharp horns. occasionally the keen points would tear up the ground. "i wouldn't want him to strike one of our tires," remarked ned. "it would be all up with it." "hurrah! i have it!" cried bob at length. he dove beneath the rear seat and pulled up a shining object. "the ammonia squirt gun!" he exclaimed. "the same we used on the hold-up tramps. give the bull a dose of it!" "good idea," commented jerry. the bulb of the automatic pistol was still filled with the fiery liquid, for the boys kept it loaded in readiness for use. bob handed it over to jerry. the latter took careful aim, and pressed the rubber. a fine stream of the powerful stuff struck the bull full in the face. with a bellow that fairly shook the ground near-by the bull reared up in the air, and coming down on all fours snorted with rage, shook its head to rid its eyes of the terrible burning, and then dashed madly away. "now i guess we can get past," remarked bob, "and get some supper. i'm as hungry as a bear." a good fire was soon started and ned began to prepare the meal. while the others were setting out the dishes, or getting ready for the night camp, since it seemed there was no place for shelter in the neighborhood, the travelers were startled by a voice: "evenin' strangers," called a tall, thin man who strolled down the slight hill at the foot of which the party were encamped. "have you got a bite to spare?" "plenty," replied the professor cheerfully. "come right along. supper will be ready in a little while. are you hungry?" "hungry? i should say so. i haven't had a bit to eat for two days, except what berries and old nuts i could gather." "what's the matter? get lost?" asked jerry. "exactly," replied the stranger. "my name's johnson," he went on. "i was prospecting up in the hills, and got lost there." "anybody with you?" asked ned. "nary a soul; i'm all alone. i used up the last of my grub in trying to find the trail, and i guess i'd been looking for it yet if i hadn't heard the noise of your steam engine here, and smelled the cooking. i s'pose you're huntin' for it, same as me." "hunting for what?" asked the professor, struck by johnson's manner. "why lost lake, to be sure. nobody comes out this far unless they're huntin' for the lake, but you're the first to come in a steam car without rails." "well, it's a free country," remarked the scientist, wishing to evade giving a direct answer, in the hope of learning something. "i guess we have a right to hunt for the lake." "of course, of course you have, strangers," went on johnson. "no offense. have you struck a trace of it yet?" "not yet," replied mr. snodgrass. "to tell you the truth," the professor went on, "we don't know much about this lost lake." "nor no one else," said johnson. "i'll tell you all i know, which isn't much. i've been looking for it 'most a year now." "suppose we have supper first," suggested the professor as he noted the eyes johnson was casting at the food. "we can talk afterward." "that's the best word i've heard in a good while," said the newcomer. he ate with a rapidity that left no doubt about his hunger. nor were the others far behind him, as the crisp air of the mountain region had given them all famous appetites. "now for lost lake," spoke jerry when all had their fill. "it's supposed to be in those mountains over there," began johnson, pointing to the range off in the west, now dimly discernible in the dusk. "it's said to be a beautiful sheet of water, with high peaks all around it. it was discovered forty years ago by a prospector, and he came to the nearest village with the news. but when he went to lead a party back they couldn't find the trail. ever since then people have tried to find lost lake, but no one has ever succeeded. many have been killed trying." "but why does any one want to find a lake hidden in the mountains?" asked mr. snodgrass. "yes, tell us?" asked ned. "why, for the gold on its banks, of course," said johnson. "didn't i say that? i meant to. the man who discovered it said there were pebbles of gold on the shores. he brought back a pocket full to prove it. i got the fever quite a few months ago, but nothing has come of all my efforts, and this time i nearly died. it was terrible up in the mountains. there's not a soul there i believe." "and you didn't even get a glimpse of the lake?" asked ned. "nary a look, young man. but i'm sure it's there. i'm going back to town, get a new outfit and some provisions, and have another try." he was another example of how the gold fever grips one. "maybe we'll come across the lake, though we're not looking for it," said jerry. "maybe you will," assented the prospector. "that's generally the way. the first man was not hunting for it, but he came upon it one night when the moon was shining. if you do find it, look out for the old hermit, that's all." chapter xvi a lonely cabin "what hermit?" asked jerry. "why you haven't heard half the story of lost lake," went on johnson. "there's supposed to be a sort of wild man who lives on the shores of the lake, and he murders travelers. at least that's the yarn they tell." "was the hermit always there?" asked ned. "no, only the last few years," replied johnson. "he is said to be an old man with white hair. but i don't believe that part. let me find the lake and the gold, and i won't worry about hermits." the prospector camped with the travelers that night. they were all up early the next morning, and, at the professor's suggestion the boys gave johnson plenty of provisions to last him until he could get back to civilization. "maybe you would like to go along with us and look for the lake?" suggested bob. "no, thank you," replied johnson. "i'm afraid your chances of finding it are slimmer than mine are. i'll have another try all by myself. i'm much obliged for the help you've given me." then, shouldering his pack, he started off down the trail, while the travelers, packing their things in the auto, set forward again. the boys talked about little save the story of lost lake, but the professor was too busy arranging his latest specimens to join in the conversation. "i'd like to find it and see the wild hermit," said bob. "i don't s'pose you'd care anything about the gold," put in ned. "of course i would," replied bob. "but we've got one gold mine now, what do we want of another?" "it might be well to have a second in case we lose the first," jerry ventured. "nothing like having plenty while you're at it." "i wouldn't like to be a hermit," went on bob. "think of always being hungry." "chunky is thinking of misers, i guess," laughed ned. "there's nothing to prevent a hermit from living off the fat of the land. if it wasn't for being lonesome i'd be a hermit for a while." "stop the auto!" called the professor suddenly. "i just saw a fine specimen of a snapping turtle scoot across the road. i must have it. it's worth about twenty dollars to me. stop the car! i must get out!" ned, who was running the auto, shut off the power and the machine came to a stop. before it had ceased to move mr. snodgrass had leaped out and was running back. he began a hurried but careful search over the ground. then he was seen to spring forward. "he's got it, i guess," remarked jerry. an instant later there came a howl from the scientist, who was hidden from sight by the tall grass. "help, boys! help!" "what's the matter? won't he let you catch him?" cried ned. "he's caught me!" yelled the professor. "come quick and bring a knife to cut his head off with!" the boys piled out of the auto in a hurry, jerry stopping to grab up a big carving knife from the camp utensils. when they came up to the professor they hardly knew whether to laugh or not. the turtle, which was a big one, had grabbed the scientist by the thumb, and was clinging so tightly that it was suspended in the air, swaying to and fro. meanwhile mr. snodgrass was dancing about in pain. "why don't you take hold of the turtle's shell in the other hand, and you won't feel the weight so much!" called jerry. "i can't," replied the professor. "i have a rare specimen of a toad in my other hand, and i don't want to lose it. oh boys! hurry up, and pry the turtle's jaws open, but don't hurt him, for he's valuable." "can't you put the toad in your pocket?" asked ned, knowing the scientist had no scruples about loading his garments up with all sorts of things. "then you would have one hand free." "i never thought of that," said mr. snodgrass. "i can do that, can't i?" he did so, and, once the toad was secure he took hold of the turtle, which relieved his lacerated thumb from the dragging weight. "he won't let go!" exclaimed the professor, after a vain attempt to pull the turtle loose. "it is a genuine snapper, and they have a grip like a bull dog. i am glad i found it, in spite of the pain," he added, though just then, the turtle took a fresh hold and the professor squirmed in agony. "here; i'll cut its head off," said jerry, coming forward with the knife. "no, no!" exclaimed the professor. "it is too valuable to spoil. just take the point of the blade, and pry the jaws open while i hold it steady." jerry tried to do this, but the turtle only seemed to grip the tighter, and the professor's thumb was bitten through nearly to the bone. "what shall i do?" wailed mr. snodgrass. "i don't want to kill it." "i have it!" exclaimed ned. "there's a little puddle of water over there beside the road. dip the turtle in it, and he'll think he can swim. then he'll let go." "good!" cried the professor as he proceeded to put the plan in operation. "then i can save him alive." the scheme worked well. as soon as the turtle felt the water it let go, and started to swim off. but the puddle was too shallow, and the professor, watching his chance, grabbed the reptile again. this time he took care to catch it at the middle of the shell, where the turtle could not reach around and bite. "i have it, after all," remarked the scientist as he deposited his prize in a box, and proceeded to put some salve and a rag on his thumb. "it's a rare specimen. i'm glad i got it." "and we're all glad we didn't get it," spoke jerry with a laugh in which the others joined. but the professor took it good naturedly. he was used to such accidents he said. resuming their journey, the travelers made only one more stop, that at noon, to get dinner. they had seen no signs of human habitation, and, as the afternoon wore on, and no house or cabin was seen, they began to feel that they might as well prepare to camp out again. as they were descending a gentle, sloping hill that led down into a small valley, just as the sun was setting, they saw, about a mile ahead a lonely cabin. the sight of smoke coming from the chimney told them there was some one at home. "i hope whoever lives there can accommodate us," remarked chunky. "my appetite's getting the upper hand of me again." "it don't look large enough to hold us all," observed jerry. "there's a barn, or some sort of building, in the rear," remarked ned. "some of us can use that if the man or woman lets us." a few minutes later the auto came to a stop in front of the cabin, which was indeed a lonely one, not another dwelling, large or small, showing in the whole valley. "good evening," greeted an old man, with snow-white hair falling over his shoulders. he came to the door of the shack, and seemed to regard the coming travelers as a matter of course. "i am glad to see you," he went on. "you are just in time." "time for what?" asked mr. snodgrass. "for the great final and successful experiment," proceeded the aged man. "the test is about to begin. come in and see me make gold from common earth. at last i have found the long-lost secret!" the eyes of the lonely man glowed with a strange light, and he seemed so excited that the boys did not know what to do. "humor him," advised the professor in a whisper. "he is probably a harmless lunatic. let him have his way, and pretend to agree with all he says." "will you come in?" went on the old man. "i must proceed with my work." "we'll be glad to," went on the scientist. "that is, if we will not disturb you at your labors." "my labors are now ended," the man said. "i have worked for twenty years on the secret of making gold from the baser metals. at last i have the correct method. i will be a millionaire in another month. but come in! come in!" the boys, obeying mr. snodgrass's advice, went in, the scientist following them. they saw that the cabin, though small, was neat and clean. nearly all of the first of two rooms was occupied by a large, rudely made furnace, while on a table near it stood all sorts of chemical apparatus. on the furnace a pot was boiling furiously. "now for the last act in the drama of life," said the aged man. "see, i place in the pot these pieces of brass," and he showed the travelers some chunks of the yellow stuff. he put them in the pot, from which arose a cloud of steam. "next i throw in this powder, which i have labored on for years. it is the secret that men would give their lives for." he threw the powder into the pot, which boiled more furiously than before, and a white cloud of steam arose. then it died away, and the pot seemed to cool off. "now for the gold!" exclaimed the chemist. he lifted the pot from the furnace, and, holding it with some thick cloths poured the water off into a hole in the ground floor of the cabin. out toppled the pieces of brass which had been thrown in, but while they had been dull before, they now glittered with the yellow gleam of gold. "the test! the test!" exclaimed the old man in a voice that trembled with eagerness. he placed one of the yellow pieces on the table, and put a few drops of gold-testing acid on it. there was a little hissing sound, and then, on the shiny surface of the piece of metal there came a dull black spot. the old man uttered a despairing cry. "another failure!" he exclaimed. "it is brass still. i thought it would turn to gold! i must have made a mistake in mixing the powder." chapter xvii the indian and the auto for a few moments the scientist who hoped he had discovered the fabled power to transmute metals stared at the result of his latest trial. he appeared lost in thought. then he seemed to recollect that there were strangers present. "i am sorry my experiment did not succeed," he said in a more quiet voice than he had yet used. "i hoped to show you what i can do. well, i must try again. i think i know where i made the error. i had too much soda in the powder. i will use less next time." "we are sorry to interrupt your experiments," put in the professor, "but we are travelers, and our object in stopping here was to find out if you could take us in for the night." "gladly," replied the old man. "there is a barn in the rear, but it has not been occupied in years; not since i came here. you are welcome to use that. some of you can spend the night in the rear room. as for me i shall not go to bed. i must start at once and make up some fresh powders." "i think perhaps we had all better sleep in the barn," said the professor. "then we will not disturb you at your labors." the truth of it was mr. snodgrass saw that the aged man was not altogether right in his head, and he preferred not to be too near in case the fellow should suddenly become violent. "just as you like, just as you like," was the reply to the professor's decision, and the chemist seemed to be dreaming over some problem he was trying to solve. "may we cook some of our food on your stove?" asked jerry. "why certainly. i beg your pardon for not mentioning supper," spoke the man, "but you see i am so used to getting a bite whenever i need it, so as not to interrupt my work, that i forgot there is such a thing as hospitality. make yourselves at home, and, if you find anything in the cupboards help yourselves. meanwhile please excuse me if i do not join you. i must go out and gather some roots and herbs i need in my experiments." he left the cabin, and, after bringing in some provisions from the auto, having first ascertained that there were few in the cabin, the travelers proceeded to make a meal. "do you suppose he can be the hermit of lost lake?" asked bob. "well, he's certainly a hermit," spoke the professor, "but i don't believe there's a lake of any kind about here. certainly if he was the hermit of the lake he would not be away off here. no, i am inclined to think we shall never see the lost lake or the hermit either." "do you think it will be safe to stay here all night?" inquired chunky. "i think so," was the professor's reply. "you see we will be out in another building, and we can fasten the door. if he tries to get in, which i am sure he will not, he will make noise enough to awaken us." "we could mount guard," suggested ned. "it will not be necessary," mr. snodgrass said. nor did the travelers find it so. after their meal, having left a good supply of victuals for the old man in case he came back, they retired to the rear building where they slept soundly. after breakfast, which the old man did not spend more than five minutes over, the travelers prepared to resume their trip. "you had better stay one more night," urged the owner of the cabin. "i feel sure that i shall be successful to-night. i have discovered a new root. see, i call it gold threads," and he held up some bulbs that had been dug from the ground. clinging to them were small yellow fibres or roots. "i found them last night, down in the hollow by the mineral spring," the man went on. "i am sure they are just what i need. please stay; won't you?" but the professor told him, as gently as possible, that they must keep on. so, after bidding the gold-seeker good bye, and wishing him success, the boys and mr. snodgrass proceeded, the auto puffing along at a good rate. the weather continued fine and the air was bracing and cool, for they were well up among the foothills now. during the morning the road led up a gentle slope, but at noon they camped on a sort of ridge that marked the divide. on the other side was a vast plain, bounded at the further side by tall mountains. it was well along in the afternoon, when having descended to the plain, the travelers found themselves bowling along a fine road, on either side of which were rolling fields. mile after mile was covered, everyone enjoying the trip very much. the professor, however, was beginning to show signs of uneasiness. he fidgeted about in his seat, and seemed unable to remain quiet. "what's the matter?" asked bob at length. "to tell you the truth," said the scientist, "i want to get out and get some specimens, but i did not like to ask you, for i do not want to delay the party." they all voted that the professor should be given a chance to get as many specimens as he wanted. accordingly jerry brought the car to a stop, and the boys and the scientist got out. as the engine had not been running as smoothly as was desirable jerry did not shut off the power, merely throwing out the gear clutches. he said he wanted to have the cylinders warm up, and so the engine was left going, though the car itself stood still. the professor was soon busy gathering insects of various kinds from the tall grass, and even crawling on his hands and knees over the ground. the boys walked some distance off, to stretch their legs, for they were a little tired of sitting still so long. suddenly bob, who happened to glance back toward the auto, uttered a cry. "look!" he shouted. "some one is stealing our car and going off in it!" the others looked. the sight that met their eyes was enough to astonish any one. climbing into the automobile was a big indian, attired in gay colored blankets, a rifle slung across his back, while near him stood a pinto pony, clean-cut and wiry. while they watched they saw the red man seat himself comfortably at the steering wheel, reach forward to throw the gear clutch in place, and then the car moved off, taking the indian with it. "here! come back!" "stop that auto!" "get out of that!" these were some of the things the boys yelled at the bold thief. but all of no avail. the indian threw in the second gear, and the auto went faster than before. "come on! we must catch him!" cried jerry, and he began to run in the direction the auto was fast disappearing in, down the road. "we can never catch him," called bob. "yes we can! he can't know anything about running an auto!" panted jerry. "he'll put on the brake or pull the wrong lever next, and the machine will stop!" "that is unless he blows it up first or smashes it," said bob. "what's the matter?" asked mr. snodgrass, appearing at this juncture. bob was the only one left to tell him, as jerry and ned were running down the road at top speed. but it seemed that their race would be useless, for the auto was now running on third gear. and, strangest of all, the indian seemed to know how to operate it. he kept a straight course, and the puffing of the exhaust told jerry that the engine was running to perfection, with a good supply of gasolene, and the spark coming regularly. [illustration: the indian seemed to know how to operate it.] "who--ever--heard--of--an--indian running--an--auto," panted ned. "running--away--with--one--you--mean," said jerry, his breathing labored. further and further away from the pursuing boys the auto went. it seemed hopeless to keep after it, but neither jerry nor ned would give up. they realized what it meant to lose their machine, though they could not understand how an indian, in all his wild regalia, would think of getting into an auto. suddenly there sounded down the road the patter of hoof beats. "maybe that's more indians," said jerry turning around and slowing up in his running. "no," he added, "it's bob on the indian's pony. i wonder you or i didn't think of that." "he couldn't catch up with the auto if he had two ponies," growled ned. "the only chance is that the gasolene may give out, or the sparker refuse to work, or that he may run into a sand bank," lamented jerry. "and there don't seem to be much chance of either taking place right off," put in ned. "hark! what's that?" from down the road sounded the _toot! toot!_ of the auto horn. "it sounds as if he was coming back," said jerry. just then bob caught up to them on the pony. chapter xviii lost lake found "let me past! i'll catch him!" cried bob. "wait a minute! maybe that's him coming back?" replied jerry. sure enough the next instant the auto, which had been lost to sight by reason of a turn in the road, came into view. straight up the highway it came, the figure of the indian, wrapped in his blanket, with his headdress of feathers, an altogether brilliant figure, seated at the wheel; a strange enough combination as any one will admit. the red man acted as though he had been used to running autos all his life. he sat straight as an arrow, his hands grasping the wheel, which was sending the car straight for the boys. "he's just doing this to taunt us!" exclaimed jerry. "i have a good notion to take a shot at one of the tires with my revolver and scare him into stopping." "don't do it! you might kill him," said ned, "and you wouldn't want to do that. but what does he mean by stealing the car, and then bringing it back?" a few seconds later the auto drew up in front of the boys, who had come to a halt. with an ease that bespoke long experience the indian brought the machine to a stop, and then, while the lads looked on, so full of wonder at the whole occurrence that they did not know what to say, the red man grunted: "heap fine wagon. ugh! indian like um, he buy um! how much?" "look here!" burst out jerry, so angry that he hardly took note of what the red man had said. "do you know you are a--" then a strange thing happened. wrapping his blankets closely about him, and drawing himself up to his full height of over six feet, the indian said calmly: "i really beg your pardon for the unwarranted liberty i took with your car, but when i saw it standing out here, so far from civilization, i could not resist the temptation to take a ride. i trust you will overlook it." for a moment the boys were speechless, for the indian they had supposed one from the half-wild plain tribes, and whose every appearance indicated that, had spoken in english as cultured as that of a college professor. "what--why--when--where?" stammered jerry, and the indian burst into a laugh. "i see i must explain," he said. "i am not what i seem." "aren't you an indian?" asked ned. "a full blooded one, and the chief of a tribe," spoke the red man. "but i am not the half dime library sort. "you see," he went on, "i have just come back from the school at carlisle, where i am taking a post graduate course. i felt a sudden longing to don the dress of my ancestors, and roam the broad fields. i did so, starting from my home on the reservation this morning. i came along and saw the auto. as i said, the temptation was too strong to resist. i got in and took a little spin, as you saw. i am sorry if i caused you annoyance, or made you fear your machine had been stolen." the eyes of the indian twinkled and, beneath the paint on his face, the boys could see a smile coming. "but how in the world did you learn to run a car?" asked jerry. "easy enough," was the answer. "i acted as chauffeur for several months this vacation to earn money enough to continue my studies. i got to be quite an expert. that is a fine car you have." "well i'm stumped!" exclaimed bob. "how do you like my pony?" asked the red man. "i think we made a sort of unfair exchange, though, in spite of the fact that the animal is valuable. now let me apologize once more, and then i will take my animal and go home." "you are welcome to the ride," said jerry. "we were so surprised at first that we took you for a thief." "i don't blame you," spoke the indian. "the sight of a red man in an automobile is enough to make any one wonder. well, heap big chief, whistling wind in the pine, must go." "is that your name?" asked ned. "it's my indian one," was the answer, "but at the school i am known as paul rader. now let me bid you good day, and a pleasant journey." then, before they could ask him to take a ride with them, the boys saw the indian leap on his pony, from which bob had dismounted, and ride away at a smart gallop, his blanket flying out behind him in the wind. "well, that's the limit!" exclaimed ned. "to think of a wild-civilized indian playing a trick like that." "i certainly thought he was as wild as they come," put in bob. "i was afraid it was all up with us." then the professor appeared and they told him the story. "i wish i had met him," said the professor. "what for; did you know him?" asked jerry. "no, but he would probably be able to tell me where to get some fine specimens," remarked the scientist. in a short time they were all in the auto again, and were bowling along over the table land, the machine humming in a way that told that the cylinders were working well. they camped for supper, and then, as it was a fine moon light night they determined to continue on slowly, as they wanted to make up for lost time. the moon rose early, a big silver disk shining among the trees, when the autoists started on their night journey. "this is great!" exclaimed bob, who seemed to have forgotten his desire for a bed under shelter. "wouldn't it be fun to have a lot of indians chase us now?" "it might if they were tame ones," put in jerry, who was steering, "but excuse me from any wild ones." the road soon began a gentle ascent, and the auto ran more slowly up the hill. the road, too, became narrower, winding in and out. the trees, which had been scattering, were thicker, and the travelers could see they were getting well up among the mountains. "how late are you going to travel?" asked bob of jerry. "until nearly midnight," was the answer. "the moon begins to go down then and it will not be very safe. but i think we ought to cover as big a distance as possible while we can. we have had delays enough." the only noise, besides the puffing of the machine, were the cries of owls, the chirping of crickets and katy-dids, with, now and then, the howl of a wolf or fox. in spite of the number in the party, there was a feeling of loneliness about being so far from civilization among the wilds of the mountain region. up and up went the car, until the ascent became so steep that jerry was obliged to run on the low gear. this made progress slow, and, because of the uneven road, so risky, that it seemed unwise to proceed further that night. "i'll slow up when we get to the top of this hill," said jerry, "and we'll go into camp." but he reckoned without knowing what sort of a hill it was, nor did he calculate on the auto failing to stop as soon as he expected. for that was what happened. reaching the summit of the slope jerry shut off the power. but something went wrong with the mechanism. the auto continued on, slowly to be sure, but with enough momentum to send it over the brow of the hill. then it plunged down on the other side, gathering speed every minute. "is she running away?" asked ned. "seems so to me." "she's not behaving as well as she should," replied jerry, "but i have her under control. the brake is working all right," which fact he soon ascertained. faster and faster, however, in spite of the brake, did the auto plunge down the slope. jerry kept his head, however, and was working to bring the machine to a halt. all at once bob, looking up, saw where the road made a sudden turn to the left. "look out for that!" he cried, pointing. jerry tried to make the turn, but the steering wheel suddenly became a little stiff, so that, instead of the car being turned to the left, and around the bend, it kept straight on. there was a crackling of brush and tree branches, and the big machine left the road and began plowing up the side of a slope, around the lower edge of which the road wound. "duck!" cried ned, as a tree branch hit him in the face. they all did so, and the next instant the big machine crashed through some briars, bending down several saplings in its journey. then, having exhausted the momentum, the auto came to a stop, at the summit of the little slope, and jerry jammed on the brakes to hold it there, the band this time gripping the axle firmly. "look! oh look!" cried ned, pointing ahead and down below them. there, in a sort of basin formed by high hills, lay a body of water, sparkling and beautiful in the moonlight, the shadows of tall black mountains reflected in its calm surface. "it's lost lake!" exclaimed jerry, softly. "boys! we have found lost lake! i am sure of it!" for a few seconds no one spoke after that, for they were all lost in wonder at the beauty and strangeness of the sight. it was so quiet that it seemed almost as if it was but a picture painted by a master's hand. suddenly bob, who was staring intently at the upper end of the lake, grasped ned by the arm. "see," he whispered. "what's that? that thing in white?" chapter xix the ghost of the lake they all looked to where bob pointed. at first they could make out nothing, but bob insisted that he had seen some tall, white object moving. "it was just like the description of ghosts," he said, with a queer little laugh. "i see it," said jerry, softly. "right by the big white birch." "sure enough," remarked the professor. then they all beheld a tall white form in the pale moonlight, gliding from tree to tree, on the shore of the lake. "look, it is picking up something from the shore," said ned. "maybe it's the hermit the miner told us about, gathering gold." "nonsense," said jerry. "it's probably a bit of fog, or it may be a white fox, or a wolf." "no fox or wolf is as big as that," insisted ned. "i'll bet it's the hermit." "whatever it is, it's gone now," put in bob. and, sure enough, the object suddenly disappeared among the trees, and there was nothing in sight but the lake, the mountains and the moonlight. "well, we seem to have stumbled onto the lake," remarked jerry. "if the auto had not misbehaved we would have taken the regular road, and lost lake would still be lost. as it is we have found it." "i hope we find some of the gold, as well," put in ned. "we may need the yellow pebbles if our mine is gone." "whatever we do, we shall stay here until morning," said jerry. "it will be a good place to camp, anyhow, gold or no gold." so they all busied themselves in preparing to stay there for the rest of the night. a fire was built and a midnight supper was soon in preparation. they had good appetites, and, tired with the day's journey and events, they got out their blankets and slept soundly. by daylight the lake was seen to be a large sheet of water, rather irregular in outline, with many small bays and coves. shimmering in the sunlight the water made a beautiful picture. "here goes to see if there are any golden pebbles on the shore," remarked bob, with a whoop as soon as he had crawled from the improvised bed. he did not have to stop and dress for the travelers slept in their clothes. chunky climbed down the slope, along a rather rough path to the water. some time later jerry and ned were about to follow, when they heard bob yelling at the top of his voice. "what's the matter?" called jerry. "have you found the gold?" cried ned. "maybe the hermit has attacked him," suggested the professor. they all ran to the water's edge. when they reached the shore bob was nowhere in sight. "hi, bob! where are you?" cried jerry looking around. "here!" exclaimed chunky, suddenly, bobbing up from beneath the little waves about one hundred feet from shore. "did you fall in?" asked the professor, anxiously. "no, i jumped in," replied the boy. "i'm in swimming. come on in, the water's fine!" "good for you!" called ned and the next instant he was undressed and splashing out toward bob. jerry soon joined them, and even the professor took a dip. the water was somewhat cool, but after they were once in it was invigorating, and they swam about for half an hour, greatly enjoying the luxury of a bath. "hark! what was that?" asked ned, suddenly. there came a whirring of wings and a rustling of the leaves of the bushes off to the left. then a bevy of birds sailed through the air. "partridge, or some similar bird, i would say," was the professor's opinion. "and there goes a big rabbit!" cried bob. "yes, and there's another!" exclaimed jerry. "say, we have struck a game country if we haven't a gold one. i say, what's the matter with having a hunt?" "good!" cried bob and ned. "i think it would do no harm to replenish the larder with something fresh," remarked the professor. accordingly, after breakfast, guns were gotten ready and the boys and the professor tramped off through the woods, taking care not to go too far from the lake, as the trees were thick, and, as there were no trails blazed, it would be easy to get lost. ned bagged the first partridge, and bob came second, getting two in succession. jerry had hard luck, for twice he missed easy shots. a little later, however, he bowled over a plump rabbit, and followed it up with a second. then ned got one, and jerry succeeded in bagging a couple of fine birds. some of the game was served for dinner, which was eaten by a campfire, and very fine it was voted. then some was packed away in salt, against a possible time when provisions might be hard to get. "what do you say, shall we stay here another night or push on?" asked jerry, about the middle of the afternoon. "if you ask me," said the professor, "i should say to remain here. i saw a number of fine and rare specimens i would like to gather." "the only thing is, perhaps we had better join nestor as soon as possible," remarked ned. "i think a few days' delay can do no harm," mr. snodgrass said. "from the tone of nestor's letter i would say there was no immediate danger of the mine being claimed by others." "then we'll stay," said jerry. "i would like to investigate the lake a little more. we did not go very far along the shore. perhaps there might be an outcropping of gold somewhere around this locality." "and maybe we will see the hermit, or the ghost, or whatever it is," added ned. "let's stay." "then we ought to rig up some kind of shelter," went on jerry. "it may rain in the night, and it's not the most pleasant thing in the world to sleep in a mud puddle." "we can build a shack of boughs," said bob. and this they did. they had often done the same thing before. branches from a pine tree, stacked up against a sapling cut to fit between the crotches of two trees, with the same sort of boughs for a roof and floor, made a very good shelter. rubber blankets on top insured the rain being kept out, and with woolen coverings for inside, beds were made that were very comfortable. when these preparations had been made it was growing dusk. while bob and ned were getting supper, and the professor was busy arranging his specimens gathered that day, jerry removed one of the big search-lights from the auto. "what are doing that for?" asked bob. "i'm going to try and find out what that white thing is," said jerry. "i'm going to rig up a lantern in front of the shack, facing the lake, and if the hermit or whatever it is, shows up, i'm going to flash the light on it." "maybe it won't come to-night," suggested bob. but it did. it was along about midnight when ned felt a light touch on his arm. "what's the matter?" he asked, sitting up. "come on," whispered jerry. "i see something down by the lake, and i want to investigate. be careful, don't make any noise." bob and the professor were both sleeping so soundly that they did not hear jerry and ned leave the shack. "where is it?" asked ned. "there," replied jerry, pointing to a spot about three hundred feet away, and on the shore of the lake. "it was there a minute ago, but it's gone now. watch, it will come back." he busied himself over the search-light, making ready to light it quickly and flash the beams on the ghost or hermit, or whatever it should prove to be. "there it is!" called ned, in a hoarse whisper. "right by that big rock that runs out into the water." "i see!" said jerry, softly. there was a hissing sound as jerry turned on the acetylene gas, a snapping sound as he lit the match, and then a slight puff as the vapor ignited. the next instant a glaring shaft of light shot down toward the lake, glint on a strange object. there in the glare of the white beams stood the figure of an old man. his hair was snow white, and hung down long over his shoulders. he seemed bent with age, and this was made more pronounced because he bore a heavy bag on his back. he was right at the edge of the water. the sudden glare had startled him, and he turned in surprise and fear to see whence it came. his face stood out in strong relief, and jerry started, for he dimly remembered seeing some one who looked like that some time before. then, all at once the stillness of the night was broken by a shrill scream. ned and jerry were startled, and bob and the professor, in the shack, were awakened. chapter xx the mysterious woman "look!" exclaimed ned. then, as he and jerry watched what took place in the circle of light, they beheld a woman, her long hair streaming down her back, run from the woods up to the old man. in her hand she held a big club, and with it she endeavored to strike the aged man. the latter dropped his sack, and seemed to engage in a struggle with the woman. "he's killing her!" exclaimed ned. "this is the hermit we were warned against." "come on!" cried jerry. "we must see what it means." but, just as he started down the slope, the search-light went out, leaving the place in utter blackness, for the moon was under a cloud. when jerry had succeeded in getting the light going again, the man and woman were nowhere to be seen. "well, that certainly was a queer sight," remarked ned. "i wonder what it all means?" "i guess we'll have to stay here until we find out," said jerry. "it looked as if there was going to be trouble, at one time." "what's all the excitement about?" asked the professor, coming out of the shack, followed by bob. jerry related what they had seen, and the professor agreed that it would be better to remain and make an investigation. "i say, you fellows are mean to go off alone and have a cracking adventure like that," objected bob, in a grieved tone. "we didn't want to disturb your slumbers," said ned. "don't eat so much supper next time, and you will not sleep so sound," advised jerry. but bob was not to be appeased until promised that the next time ned and jerry went ghost hunting they would take him with them. having been so thoroughly aroused from their sleep the travelers decided to sit up a while and see if they could catch another glimpse of the strange man and woman. but, though they sat and talked for more than an hour, there was no further sign of the two queer creatures. "i'm going to bed," announced bob at length, and the others decided to follow his example. they slept soundly until morning, though jerry said afterward that he dreamed he was being chased across the frozen lake by a white haired man on a black horse. he got stuck in the ice, and was freezing to death, when he awakened to find that his blanket had slipped from him, and that a cold rain was blowing in through the cracks of the shack. morning had dawned cold and dreary. "wow! this isn't exactly pleasant!" exclaimed jerry, as he poked his head out of the front of the screen of branches. "i wish there was a hotel handy." the others crawled from beneath the blankets, not in any too good humor at the dismal prospect. "and i'll bet there isn't any dry wood to be had," said bob. "that means a cold breakfast." a search proved that he was right. nor was there any charcoal, since the last had been used some days before, and they had been to no place where they could get more. "just when a fellow needs a hot cup of coffee," went on bob. "i never saw such beastly luck." jerry said nothing. he seemed to be studying over some matter. "i have it," he exclaimed. "what? some dry wood?" asked ned with much eagerness. "no, but i know how to make some hot coffee," was the answer. jerry lost no time in explaining. he first went to the auto where he got out rubber coats for himself and his companions. then, ready to defy the rain, which was coming down at a good clip, jerry hunted about until he found two large stones. these he set up a short distance apart, placing another each at the front and rear of the first two. "there's the stove," he remarked. "a heap of good it will do, with no fire in it," growled bob. "wait," advised jerry. taking the big search-light, which he had used the night previous, he removed the top, so that the flame could be used for cooking purposes. they prepared a good meal and enjoyed it. it continued to rain, and to fill in time the boys went fishing in the lake. luck was with them and within half an hour they had ten fine fish, and then, though they could have taken many more, they did not, as jerry said they would have no use for them. "fish for dinner for me to-day," said bob, while the others laughed at his usual exhibition of how fond of eating he was. the fish did prove an excellent dish, fried in corn meal on jerry's improvised stove. some bacon gave them a relish, and with hot coffee they felt they had as good a meal as many a hotel could serve. "i wonder where the professor is?" said ned, when the meal was almost over. "i forgot that he wasn't with us." "he's off gathering birds, bugs or reptiles," said jerry. "he'll come when he feels good and hungry." "he's more likely to forget all about being hungry if he gets chasing a fine specimen," remarked ned. "i think i'll just take a stroll and see if i can come across him." "we'll go along," said jerry and bob. so the three started off together. they could easily follow the professor's trail, as he had broken through the underbrush, snapping off many twigs and breaking small branches. the boys wandered on for nearly a mile, but saw no sign of the scientist. they were about to turn back, and wait for him at camp, when jerry held up his hand to indicate silence. "hark!" he whispered. the others stood still, and, listening intently, heard above the patter of the raindrops, voices in conversation. "that's the professor," said ned. "some one is with him then," put in jerry. "they are coming this way." the sounds of persons advancing through the bushes could be heard. the voices also sounded plainer. a minute later the brush was parted and the professor, followed by a woman, came out into the little clearing where the boys were. at the sight of the woman, jerry started, for he recognized her as the strange person who had been with the old man the night previous. the professor seemed excited about something. "boys, this lady has just told me some strange news," he said. "what is it?" asked ned. "beware of the hermit of lost lake!" the woman exclaimed suddenly. "have a care of him. many poor travelers has he murdered. he would have murdered you last night if i had not prevented him." "so that's what it was all about," said jerry, half aloud. the woman heard him, and turned: "did you see him?" she asked. "did you see me?" "i--we--" began jerry. "you have been spying on me!" exclaimed the woman, growing much excited. chapter xxi the den of the hermit "no, no!" said the professor calmly. "the boys were not spying. they happened to see a man and a woman on the shore of the lake last night, and they thought it might have been you." "it was me," said the woman. "i was trying to prevent him from coming and killing you all in your sleep." the boys began to feel a queer creepy sensation run up their spines, as if some one had poured cold water down their backs. "it's true," the strange creature went on. "i will tell you all about it. listen to me," and she sat down on a stump. "perhaps we had better go where there is shelter," suggested jerry, for it was raining hard again, though the boys and the professor in their rubber coats did not mind it. the woman was drenched. "no," she said. "i can go to no place save these woods. i am safe from him here." she seemed nervous and excited, and her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. "the old man is a hermit," she went on. "he has lived near this lake for many years. he kills travelers and takes their money. he tried to kill me but i escaped from him because i can run fast. since then he has been after me. last night he started for your camp, but i got a big club and stopped him. then he ran away." "what was in the bag?" asked ned. "what bag?" asked the woman. "the one the old man had on his back?" "hush! don't speak about it," was the reply. "he had a murdered man's body in there, and he threw it into the lake." "are you sure?" asked the professor, thinking the woman might, perhaps, be trying to scare them away. "positive," she replied. "i saw him kill the poor fellow, but the hermit did not know i was watching." "where does he live?" asked the professor. "he has a den in the darkest part of the woods," was the answer. "he takes travelers there and kills them. he does not know that i know where it is, but i do. would you like to see it?" "not if he is the kind of a person you say he is," spoke jerry. "i think we had better steer clear of him." "i can take you there when he is not at home," said the woman. "listen, once each week he takes a long trip over the mountain, to bury the gold he has taken from travelers. i can hide and watch him go. then i could come and bring you to his den. shall i?" "it might be a good plan," mused the professor. "if this man is a murderer he should be taken in charge by the authorities. yes, come and let us know when he goes away. perhaps we could capture him ourselves." "i'll come," said the woman. "now i must go, for i hear some one coming," and, rising suddenly, she ran off at top speed through the woods. the boys listened intently but could hear no one approaching, and began to think the woman must have been mistaken. "where did you meet her?" asked jerry of the professor, when it was seen that the woman was not coming back. "she saw me while i was gathering some specimens," was the reply, "and she came up to warn me about the hermit. it seems that she lives not far away, and roams through the woods. besides telling me about the old man, and to be on our guard against him, she showed me where to get some beautiful tree toads," and the scientist opened his pocket and showed it full of the little creatures. "do you think she is telling the truth about the hermit?" asked jerry. "there may be some exaggeration to it," rejoined the professor, "but i have heard of old half crazed men who lived in the woods as this one does, and who occasionally murdered lone travelers. we can't be too careful." "besides, it did look as though she was trying to prevent him doing something last night," put in jerry. "well, we'll keep a good lookout," suggested the professor. "that's all we can do now, unless we decide to move on away from this place." "i would rather like to solve the mystery," said jerry. "i do not think we have much to fear. he is an old man, and i guess we four are a match for him." "then we had better do as the woman says, wait until she comes to lead us to his hut, or cabin, or whatever it is," the professor advised after a moment's thought. that plan settled on, they made their way back to camp and the professor was given his rather late dinner. but he did not seem to mind this in the least. "are you going to keep watch again to-night?" asked bob of jerry. "of course. i want to get at the bottom of this. there is a mystery somewhere, and i think the hermit, the lost lake and the strange woman, together, can explain it." the rain stopped after supper, though it remained cloudy, and jerry again prepared the gas lamp. it was arranged that he and ned would stay up on guard until twelve o'clock and that bob and the professor would take the rest of the night. whichever party saw the hermit was at once to notify the other. jerry and ned began their vigil. several hours passed and it seemed they were to have their trouble for their pains. at length, however, just as they were preparing to turn in and let the others take their turn, jerry saw a movement in the bushes about five hundred feet away, and down near the edge of the lake. the moon, shining faintly through the clouds, illuminated the scene. "be ready to turn on the light when i say so," said jerry to ned. ned was all alert. jerry, with his eyes straining to catch the slightest movement of the underbrush, peered through the darkness. something white attracted him. "now!" he whispered to ned, and the light, that had been burning low, was suddenly turned on at full power. in its glare the two boys saw again the white haired hermit stealing along the edge of the water, the big bag on his back. "call the others!" whispered jerry to ned. "i'll keep watch!" "all right." ned softly went back to the shack where he awakened the professor and bob. they were out in an instant, and made ready to go quietly down as close as they could to where the hermit was, while jerry showed the way by the searchlight. but again they were doomed to disappointment, for, no sooner had jerry turned the light so that it shown full on the old man, than he jumped as though struck by lightning and made a dive for the woods, into the black depths of which he disappeared. "i guess that's the last we'll see of him," said ned. "he dropped his bag," cried bob. "let's get that and see what's in it." at this the professor and ned ran down to the edge of the water, and soon returned with the sack the old man had carried on his back. "open it and let's see if there are any murdered persons in it," said jerry, with an uneasy laugh. ned untied the string, and, not without some misgivings, peered inside. "well i never," he exclaimed. "what is it?" asked bob. "fish! nothing but fish!" replied ned. "fine ones at that. i guess all we have done is to have scared the poor old man away from his fishing grounds." "certainly there is nothing suspicious in having a bag of fish," put in the professor. "i wonder if that strange woman could have been telling the truth." "we'll know better if she keeps her word and comes to take us to the hermit's den," said jerry. there seemed nothing more to do that night, so they all went to bed, not being disturbed until morning. they were awakened by the sun peeping in through the chinks in the shack, and they got up to find a fine day had succeeded the rainy one. the beams of old sol were bright and warm, and the first thing the travelers did was to go down and have a dip in the lake. then breakfast was served, and when it was over jerry and ned started to overhaul the machine. "for," said jerry, "we may want to leave at any time, and the car is in none too good condition since we plowed up the side of the mountain." several minor repairs were made and the auto was run down to the main road, where it stood in readiness for a quick start. it was some time after dinner before all this was done, and along about three o'clock the four travelers stretched out under the trees and took a well earned rest. "now if that strange woman would--" began ned. "hush!" cautioned the professor, "some one is coming." hardly had he ceased speaking before the bushes opened and there appeared the figure of the queer woman, with her long hair hanging loose down her back. "hush!" she whispered, placing her finger on her lips. "i have come to keep my promise. the hermit has gone over the mountain. come, and i will take you to his hut, and you can see where he has murdered travelers." the boys hardly knew whether to obey or not, but a nod from professor snodgrass, to whom they looked, indicated they were to do as the woman wanted. so they arose and prepared to follow her. the professor brought up the rear. through the woods their strange guide went, for several miles. at length she reached a thick part of the woods. "it is very close now," she said. "wait until i take a look." the travelers halted, while the woman crept softly forward. she peered through the brush into a sort of clearing, and apparently seeing that everything was safe, she motioned for the others to advance. they did so, and, a moment later emerged from the woods into a place where many trees had been cut down. in the centre of this space was a small log cabin, and toward it the woman pointed. "there is his hut," she said. "come on, i will lead the way." she advanced with great caution, as though she feared to disturb some one. closer and closer to the door she went, the others close behind her. "he never locks it, so we can go right in," she said. by this time she was near enough to grasp the latch. she raised it, and was about to enter, when the door suddenly swung back, and the old hermit himself, stepping out, stood before the astonished travelers. "there he is! there he is! there is the murderer!" cried the woman, pointing her finger at the hermit. the old man did not appear greatly surprised. he looked from the woman to the boys and the professor, and remarked: "to what am i indebted for the honor of this visit?" "i we,--er--that is--we--er--i--" began the professor, finding it was hard to tell the truth. "oh, it's poor old kate," went on the hermit. "she has probably been telling you some strange stories. will you not come into my cabin?" "don't go into the murderer's hut!" cried the woman, as she turned and fled back through the underbrush, leaving the travelers in a somewhat queer situation. chapter xxii a revelation the professor did not know what to do. he and the boys expected to find the hut deserted, but, through some cause, the woman had evidently made a mistake as to the absence of the hermit. nor did mr. snodgrass care to accept the invitation of the old man and enter the hut, not knowing what he might find there. "you must not mind what kate says," the hermit went on, seeing that his unexpected visitors hesitated. "she means well, but she exaggerates a little sometimes." the professor thought that a rather cool manner in which to reply to accusation of murder, but, he reflected, if the hermit was as bad as the woman made him out to be, he would naturally, be rather a bold sort of person. the boys, too, were somewhat embarrassed by their position. to come suddenly upon a man you expect to bind and hand over to the authorities as a criminal of the worst kind and then to find him calmly inviting you into his house, is something out of the ordinary. how much longer the travelers might have stood outside the hut, after the invitation to enter had been given, will always be a cause for speculation, because, the next instant something happened. the professor, who had been glancing from the aged hermit to the hut, and then back to the old man, suddenly uttered an exclamation, and made a dive for the door. "there he goes!" cried the scientist. "there is the one i've been looking for for nearly a month!" and, a second later, he had disappeared inside the cabin. "what's the matter? is some one after you?" asked the old man hastening in the footsteps of the scientist, while the boys trailed in behind. "what do you want?" "i have it! i have it!" called the professor's voice. "it's a beauty, and a rare one." "what does he mean?" asked the hermit, turning to the boys. "it's a pink-winged dragon fly," cried the professor, coming back at that point and hearing the question. he had penetrated to the farther side of the cabin. "i saw the insect on the cabin door," he went on, explaining to the old man. "then i saw it go in. i knew it would not stay long, so the only thing to do was to make a jump for it, without waiting to explain. i am very glad i got it, for it's worth at least seven dollars, and perhaps more. i must apologize for running into your cabin in that hasty manner," the scientist went on, turning to the old man. "i guess that was the best way of getting you into it," said the hermit with a smile, which, the boys admitted, was a very pleasant one for a murderer. "but now you are here, do not be in a hurry to get out again." "if you have no objections i will stay until i have put away this dragon-fly specimen in a case," said the professor, pulling out a small flat box in which he placed his precious specimens temporarily. "let me ask you to supper," went on the old man, seeming to the boys to be very eager to have them remain. "it is so seldom that i have company that i appreciate it very much. stay and have a meal with me." the boys and the professor hardly knew what answer to make. they did not want to stay, yet did not care to offend by saying no. "i'm afraid we might inconvenience you," began mr. snodgrass. "you know what it is when company comes unexpectedly, and the larder is empty." "have no fears on that score," replied the old man with a short laugh. "i have plenty for all of us," and throwing open a cupboard he showed it well stocked with many victuals. as no other excuse offered, the travelers could do nothing else but agree to stay, though bob said afterwards that he kept his hand on his revolver, in his outside coat pocket, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. so, in a little while, supper was being prepared by the hermit, who seemed to be quite an expert cook. as he busied himself about the stove the boys had time to glance over the cabin. the first thing that impressed them was that the place was well planned for defense. it was built somewhat like the old block houses the early settlers constructed, with the upper story projecting over the first, so that the indians who besieged the place, could be attacked from above. then the lads noted that the sides were pierced with small loop holes, while on the walls were several rifles, and belts full of cartridges. "one might think that you were in an enemy's country," observed mr. snodgrass to the hermit, as he took note of the means of defense. "i have to be on guard," responded the hermit, quickly. "my life is not safe a moment. i do not know what minute i may be attacked. i am surrounded by spies on every hand." "it is a wonder that you let us in then," said jerry. "how do you know that we will not betray you?" "i am too good a reader of human character as shown in the face to fear anything like that," the old man went on. "i can trust you; i know i can." "who are you in danger from?" asked the professor, wondering what sort of story the hermit could tell. "all kinds of bad men," was the answer. "they had me in their power once, but i got away. i came here because it was a place well hidden from general observation. i have lived here several years, and you are the first persons beside poor kate, that i have been friendly with in that time." "then why do you keep ready to repel an enemy if none has molested you in that period?" asked mr. snodgrass. "because there is no telling when the men will attack me," replied the old man. "there are several who would like to get control of me, but i think i can prevent it. i will never let them get me into their power again, as long as i have a shot in the gun." supper was ready by this time, and the travelers, not very much reassured by the talk of the strange old hermit sat down to the rude table. the food, contrary to their expectation, proved very good. when the meal was over the hermit began to question the travelers about their journey and asked why they came to the lake, which, he said, was seldom if ever visited. they told him how they had unexpectedly found the sheet of water. "that generally is the way in this world," said the old man. "if you look for a thing you never find it, but if you do not, sometimes it comes to you in the most unexpected manner. i have sought something for many years, but i have not found it, and my heart will break if i do not succeed soon." "what is it you are looking for?" asked ned, softly, as he saw the hermit was affected. "i can not tell you now," was the answer. "later i may, and perhaps you can help me in the quest." "we would be glad to," said the professor. "but i think we must be going now. it is getting late and we must get back to the automobile. besides, i am afraid we will have trouble finding our way through the woods." "have no fear," said the hermit. "i will call kate and she will take you back, just as she brought you here." "but i thought she was--" began uriah snodgrass. "that is only a notion of hers, that i am a murderer," spoke the hermit, with a smile. "kate pretends to be very much afraid of me, but she will come to me when i call her. probably you are wondering who i am, and why i live out in these lonely woods. if you care to i will tell you my story briefly." they all said they would be glad to listen, so the hermit began by saying, for reasons of his own, that he would not tell his name. "i do not want it to be known who i am," he said. "but, as i said, i was once in the power of a number of bad men. i used to be a prospector, and made considerable at it, until trouble came. then i came to this lonesome place. i had heard the legend of lost lake, and the gold supposed to be on its shores, but i never expected to find this body of water. however, i did come across it, though i never have found any gold. i have been here ever since, and that is about three years. i manage to hunt and fish, and so get enough to live on. occasionally i go to the nearest village, and sell a few articles i make out of wood, and so get a little money." "i should think you would be very lonesome at times," said bob. "i am glad to be alone when i think of all i suffered from those men," was the reply. "would you mind telling us about the woman?" asked mr. snodgrass. "she seems a queer creature." "she is," answered the hermit. "she is harmless enough, except when aroused, and her great trouble is in thinking that i am a murderer." "what makes her think such a thing?" asked jerry. "because she is slightly crazy," said the hermit. "she was in these woods when i came here, and, in time we grew to be good friends. it seems that years ago her whole family was killed by the indians, she alone escaping. it turned her brain, and ever since then, she imagines that nearly all men are murderers. i wonder she has not accused you of the crime," and the hermit smiled a little. "she certainly acted queer," admitted the professor, "but i thought it was because she took you to be--er--" "oh, i don't mind having you refer to it," put in the old man. "she often accuses me of the crime to my face. i humor her, and admit sometimes that i am a desperate criminal, and that i am going to give myself up to the authorities. it sort of calms her down." "what did you mean by saying that she would come whenever you called her?" asked jerry. "is she near by?" "she stays in a little cabin i built for her, not far off," replied the hermit. "when i want her to go on an errand for me, for she is very swift and reliable, i merely blow this horn," and he showed a big conch hanging on the wall. "i will call her to show you the way back to your camp when you are ready." the professor and the boys thought it was about time to leave. they promised the hermit they would come and see him again, and then the old man, taking down the horn, unbarred the door, and, stepping out blew three shrill blasts that reverberated through the woods. it was just getting dusk, and the echoes, ringing back from the distant hills, sounded weird in the gathering darkness. for a few seconds no answer came, then, from far off in the woods sounded a faint cry. "here she comes," said the hermit. "she will take you the shortest way." in a little while the crackling of the brush could be heard, and, a few seconds later kate appeared. she did not seem surprised not to find the travelers all murdered. "will you show them the way back to camp?" asked the old man. "yes," said kate, simply. "follow me," she added, turning to the boys and the professor. they started off after the strange woman, and, at that instant the old hermit uttered an exclamation. "some one is coming!" he cried. "it may be some of my enemies!" a moment later he turned and fled into the dark woods! chapter xxiii searching for the hermit "let's go to his help!" exclaimed bob. "come on!" cried ned. "you had better not," said the woman, in a calm voice. "it is probably only the police after him for the many murders he has committed, and we had better not interfere. besides if you want me to take you to your camp you had better come, as i have my house work to do before sunrise." she started to lead the way, and, though the boys felt inclined to follow and see what became of the hermit, they concluded it would be better to go back to camp. kate seemed to have lost much of her excited manner as she led them through the woods, over a scarcely discernible path. neither the fast gathering darkness nor the maze of trees seemed to confuse her. she made better progress than did the boys or the professor, as they were not familiar with the ground. "well of all the queer adventures we've had," remarked ned to jerry, who had lagged somewhat in the rear with him, "this is the worst. think of going to capture a murderer and then being led home by an insane woman! i wonder what will come next?" the journey to camp took some time, as the path was hard for the boys and professor to follow, and several times kate had to wait for them to catch up to her. at last, however, she brought them out near the little open place where the auto stood, and the boys breathed a sigh of relief. "our car is safe, anyhow," said jerry. "now for some sleep." "ain't we going to have something to eat first?" demanded bob in an aggrieved tone. the others laughed at chunky's sorrowful voice. "we'll see," said jerry. "perhaps you would like a cup of chocolate," he went on, turning to kate. "no, thank you," she said. "i must not stay here. i want to see if they have captured the murderer, so i will go back," and, turning suddenly, she returned over the path they had come, her footsteps growing fainter and fainter. "come on, let's make the chocolate," said bob, when kate had gone. jerry soon had the beverage in preparation, and they all enjoyed it. then they fixed up the beds in the shack, and soon were slumbering, too tired even to post a guard, though, as events proved, there was no need for one. "well," remarked jerry, after breakfast had been eaten, "i suppose we may as well push on for arizona. no use staying here since the mystery is solved." "i don't believe it is solved," spoke professor snodgrass, suddenly. "i'm not altogether satisfied about that hermit." "you don't think he's a murderer, do you?" asked ned. "no, but there is something odd about him. i can not get over the feeling that i have met him before, or some relative of his. yet i can not recall it clearly. he has certain queer little actions that remind me of some one. i would like to see him again." "if you want to, i think i could find our way back to the cabin in the day time," spoke ned. "i took pretty good notice of the trail when we went over." "i wish you could," said the professor, eagerly. "i want to have a talk with that old man. besides, i think i can get some more specimens at his hut. i saw a fine lizard around the door step in the afternoon." so it was decided they would pay another visit to the hermit's cabin. accordingly they started off after dinner, and, led by ned, followed the trail. they went astray several times, and had to search about for the path, but finally they came to the place where kate had halted them the day before to go forward and peer at the hut. "shall we go right on now?" asked ned, pausing to see what the rest wanted to do. "the cabin is just ahead." "go on," said mr. snodgrass. they came out into the little glade, in which the cabin stood. as they emerged from the woods they saw kate standing in front of the hut, crying. "what is the matter?" asked the professor. "they have taken the poor old man away and killed him!" sobbed the woman. "it's another of her imaginations," said ned, softly. "probably the hermit is inside." but when they looked he was not to be seen, and his bed showed that it had not been slept in that night. "will you help me hunt for him?" asked kate. "certainly we will," answered the professor. "then follow me!" exclaimed the woman, striding off into the woods. she led the way, explaining in disjointed sentences, yet so that she could be understood, that the old man frequently imagined some one was after him. at such times he would go to one or another of his hiding places, of which he had a number in the different parts of the woods. but this time he was not to be found easily. place after place, including caves and deep ravines, were visited by the searchers, but there was no sign of the hermit. "i am sure he has been killed," said kate in a sorrowful tone. "and he was the kindest man that ever lived." "i thought you said he was a murderer," spoke the professor, wondering in what strange channels the woman's mind ran. "so he is!" exclaimed kate, "but he is a good murderer, and not one of the bad kind." "poor woman," sighed mr. snodgrass. "her mind is hopelessly gone." kate started off in a different direction, and the boys and the professor followed her. she went at a rapid pace, and soon the travelers were aware that they were going up hill. the trail became more steep as they advanced, until they were panting from their exertions. yet the crazy woman did not seem to become exhausted by the hard pace in the least. "there is the hill!" she exclaimed at last, pointing upward, and the boys saw ahead of them a big half round mound, at the very summit of which was an immense tree. "he sometimes stays in that tree," spoke kate, as they neared the big forest giant. "in the tree? i presume you mean he has a sort of platform built among the branches," said the professor. "a number of indian tribes live that way." "he lives right inside the tree what little time he does live up here," replied kate. "the trunk is hollow, and he crawls into it, and hides until all danger is past. we will soon see if he is there." an examination of the hollow trunk, however, showed that the hermit was not within, nor did the place disclose any signs of his having been there recently. kate showed the despair she felt and the professor and the boys could not help feeling disappointed. for a while they stood beneath the spreading branches, wondering what would be best to do. all at once the professor, who had been intently gazing up into the leafy branches, gave utterance to an exclamation. "there it is!" he cried. "a regular beauty! i must secure that if i never get another. keep quiet, every one." "it's another specimen," said jerry. "can't you forget them for once, professor?" "this seems to be a sloth or an ant-bear," replied the scientist, as he made preparations to climb the tree. "it has long white whiskers, a black body and no tail. wait until i crawl up and get it." "never mind coming up, i'm coming down," spoke a voice, seeming to come from the animal, the capture of which the professor was intent upon. "bless my soul, it's a combined sloth and parrot!" exclaimed the professor. "that is a rare animal-bird. i must secure it at all hazards. help me, boys." but there was no need for help, as, the next instant, two dangling legs descended from the lower branches of the tree, to be followed, a little later by a body, and then came a mass of white hair and whiskers. "it's the old hermit!" cried bob. "yes! it's him! it's him!" cried kate. "he is safe! we have found him." "be quiet!" cautioned the old man, when he had reached the ground. "there may be spies all around, though i think i have escaped them for the time being." "how did you get here?" asked kate. "i ran as soon as i heard the noise of men coming after me," replied the aged man. "but i did not dare get into the hollow trunk, for fear of being seen. so i just crawled up into the branches, and there i'd be yet if the professor had not mistaken me for a specimen." "you can come down in safety," said mr. snodgrass, "as there seems to be no one in the neighborhood but ourselves." "that's good," was the rejoinder, "but there is no telling when some one may come. i think i will go back to my own cabin." the hermit started off with kate, the others following. he had not proceeded far when he uttered an exclamation: "there is one of them!" at the same instant a roughly dressed man appeared in the narrow path, as if by magic. at sight of him the hermit turned and fled back into the woods. chapter xxiv the hermit's identity "catch him! i want him! bring him back!" exclaimed the stranger as he saw the hermit disappearing into the depths of the forest. "what do you want of him?" asked the professor, not liking the man's looks. "what's that your business?" inquired the stranger. "trot along now, and don't bother me." "i'll do nothing of the kind," retorted mr. snodgrass. "that old man is a friend of ours, and we'll see that no harm comes to him." "well, i'm going to catch him," replied the rough looking man, "so stand aside." he made as if to go in pursuit of the hermit, but kate, with flashing eyes and defiant gestures, stood in front of the stranger. "you let him alone!" she exclaimed. "if you go after him i'll scratch your eyes out!" and she looked fierce and strong enough to put her threat into execution as she stood her ground. "mind," she went on, "don't you dare to stir a step after him!" "so that's the way the land lays, eh?" sneered the fellow. "well, we'll see about that." putting his finger to his lips he blew a shrill whistle. hardly had the echo died away than two more men, more roughly dressed, if possible, than the first man, made their appearance from behind bushes where they had evidently been hiding. "i've found him," said the first man to his companions. "now these people want to interfere." "knock 'em out of the way," growled one of the late comers. "look here!" began jerry who was beginning to get angry. "if there's any knocking to be done i guess we can do our share." "when did you leave home?" asked the first man, with a sneer. "look out, young tenderfoot, how you mix up in this matter." "what right have you to follow this old man?" asked the professor, for he began to believe the strangers to be some of the enemies of which the hermit had been fearful. "that's none of your affair," was the answer. "we want that man and we're going to have him. he got away from us once, and we're going to take care it does not happen again. come on, boys. let's trail after the old chap. he can't have gone very far." the three turned and were about to take after the hermit when kate, who had stepped aside, made a sudden spring, and confronted the leader of the three men. "don't you dare go after that poor old man!" she cried. "there! take that!" and before the man could raise his hand in defense kate gave him a forceful push. it was followed by a curious happening. the three men were standing on the very edge of the knoll, upon the summit of which was the tree where the hermit had been hiding. so steep was the descent that when kate shoved the man he toppled over backward. right behind him were the other two men, and falling against them, their leader bowled them down like the remaining pins in a game of skittles. all three of them went slipping, sprawling, tumbling head over heels down the steep slope, vainly trying to dig their hands into the earth and so save themselves. "there!" exclaimed the woman, as she saw the men roll down. "i guess they will not defy me again in a hurry!" "i don't believe they will," observed the professor drily. in fact the men seemed to have had enough of kate for, having rolled to the bottom of the hill, where they arrived somewhat the worse for wear, they got up, but made no attempt to return. instead they shuffled off through the woods, contenting themselves with shaking their fists at the party on top of the hill. "what had we better do now?" asked ned. "go back to our camp," spoke jerry. "i think perhaps we had," counseled the professor. "i thought the poor old hermit was merely wandering in his mind when he talked about men being after him, but, it seems he was right. now that we have had an encounter with these men, and incurred their hate, it would be best if we did not leave our automobile unguarded. there is no telling what will happen in the next few hours." "what can we do to save the hermit?" asked bob. "nothing right away, i fear," replied mr. snodgrass. "we could not find him in the night, for it will soon be dark, and i think he can look after himself better than we can, for the present." "i think so too," put in kate, who seemed to have calmed down after her attack on the men. "we will go back to your camp, and take up the search to-morrow." it was getting dusk now, and the travelers made the best speed they could, following kate's guidance, back to their shack near the lake. they found the camp undisturbed and soon were preparing a supper, which the woman shared. then she bade them good night, and promised to come in the morning. "i guess we had better post a guard to-night," said jerry, as he and the others were thinking of turning in. "there may be a lot of those men after the hermit, and they will not feel any too friendly toward us for what we have done. what do you say, professor?" uriah snodgrass thought the scheme a good one, and, lots having been drawn, the first watch fell to ned. he got out his rifle, and, having provided a quantity of wood for the fire, and making the search-light ready so it could be set going quickly, he prepared to spend part of the night on guard. it was rather lonesome, especially as the others soon fell asleep, as was evidenced by their heavy breathing and an occasional snore. but ned knew that perhaps the lives of his comrades might depend on his vigilance, so he fought against the feeling of dread, as well as the inclination to sleep, for he was very tired. as the night wore on a stronger feeling of dread took possession of the lad. he started at every sound, and the bark of a fox, the howl of a distant wolf, and even the hooting of an owl was enough to make him jump. he was very glad, therefore, when his trick was up and jerry took his place. "did you see or hear anything?" asked jerry. "nary a thing except the wild animals," replied ned. "there's a regular menagerie around here, by the sound in the woods." for several hours jerry remained on guard. he was wide awake, for the sleep earlier in the evening had rested him considerably. part of the time he sat on a log near the fire, and again, he would get up and pace back and forth looking around anxiously. jerry replenished the fire and then, feeling somewhat chilly, began to walk rapidly up and down, pacing about ten feet in either direction from the blaze. once, when he had gone a little further, and stood near a big elm tree he fancied he heard a noise among the branches. glancing up he was startled by hearing some one utter: "hist! hist!" "who's--who's there?" faltered jerry, for he was taken by surprise. "sh! not so loud! have they gone?" asked a voice. "who?" asked the lad, wondering who was speaking. "the men who were after me?" was the reply, and then jerry recognized the hermit's voice. "yes, they have gone. come down, you are safe now," said jerry. there was a scrambling among the branches and soon the white-haired old man stood on the ground beside the boy. his clothing was torn, and his beard was matted with briers and brambles. his face and hands were cut, and he bore the appearance of having raced through the thick underbrush. "i had a hard time escaping them," said the hermit. "have you any water? i have not had a drink in several hours, and my throat is parched." jerry ran to the water pail to get the hermit a drink. the noise he made aroused the others. "what is it? are they attacking us?" asked mr. snodgrass. "no, the hermit has come back," replied jerry. "he was hiding up in a tree." the professor hurried out of the shack, and joined the old man, who seemed very glad to get back among his new friends. he said he had been wandering around ever since he ran away when the stranger appeared, and, at last, had determined to try and find the boys' camp. "now you are here we will take good care of you, mr.--er--mr.--" stammered the professor, forgetting that the hermit had refused to disclose his identity. the old man noticed the hesitating tones. "there is no reason why i should keep my name a secret from you any longer," he said. "you probably never heard of me, and never will again. i only desire to remain hidden from my enemies, and i think you are my friends." "what is your name?" asked the professor. "jackson bell," was the reply. "i am an old gold miner." "jackson bell," repeated jerry, wondering if he had heard aright. "jackson bell," repeated the professor. "where have i heard that name before?" "why you must be tommy bell's father," exclaimed ned. "what's that!" fairly shouted the hermit. "do you know tommy bell? have you seen my dear son? tell me quickly! do not keep a poor old man in suspense," and he seemed greatly agitated. "i thought i had seen some relative of his somewhere," said the professor. chapter xxv attacked by the enemy "are you sure the boy we have in mind is your son?" asked mr. snodgrass. "we do not want to raise false hopes. perhaps you may be mistaken." "something tells me i can not be mistaken," exclaimed the hermit. "tommy bell is not a common name. besides, i can describe my son, and then you will know whether he is the one you know," and he rapidly gave a short description of tommy. "that's him all right," said jerry, and the others agreed that the lad they had rescued from the hands of the rough men was, indeed, the son of the hermit. "and i thought him dead," said the old man. "after i had been abused by the wicked gang that got me in their control i lost sight of poor tommy. as soon as i could i made a search for him, but it was of no use." "tommy thought you had wandered away from him," said ned. "he told us his story after we had rescued him." "then you saved his life, just as you have mine," broke in mr. bell. "i have much to thank you for. but first i must find my son. where did you leave him?" "at a place called las cruces," replied the professor. thereupon he told briefly how they had taken tommy from the hands of the lawless gang and left him with a friend. "i must go to him at once," exclaimed the old man. "i can hardly wait to start. to think that the boy i thought was dead is alive! and i suppose he thinks i am dead also," mr. bell went on. "he was going to search for you," replied bob, "but he did not know where to start. we can send him word now." "i'll take him word myself!" cried mr. bell. "i'll start as soon as it is daylight." "then you had better get some rest and sleep now," observed mr. snodgrass. "come into the shack, and we will make you some hot coffee." the hermit begged them to go to no trouble on his account, but they insisted, and soon the coffee was boiling on the coals of the camp fire. "i'm too excited to sleep," remarked mr. bell, as he went inside the rough shelter to lie down. and so it would seem, for, every few minutes he would rouse up from his position, and ask some particular about his son. he appeared scarcely able to believe the good news. at length, however, he grew weary, and along toward morning fell into a doze. the others were so tired and sleepy from being awake the night before that they slumbered late, and the sun was quite high when jerry roused himself, and sat up, wondering what day it was. he got up, took a plunge in the lake, and came back to start breakfast, finding that, in the meanwhile, the others in the camp, including mr. bell, had arisen. "now to start and find my son," cried the hermit. "you had better have something to eat first," suggested mr. snodgrass. "then perhaps we can think of some plan to aid you." though impatient to be gone the old man consented to remain to breakfast. he did not eat much, however, and seemed ready any minute to start on the long search for tommy. "how would it be if we took you to the nearest town in our automobile," suggested the professor, when the meal was over. "from there you can get conveyances and reach las cruces in a short time. if you need any money--" "thank you, i think i have enough for the present," interrupted mr. bell. "i do not need much. when i find tommy i will bring him back with me, and we will be together once more. it seems too good to be true!" "what will become of kate in the meanwhile?" asked mr. snodgrass. "though she has queer ideas concerning you i think she is your friend. will she be able to live in these woods all alone?" "kate is able to take care of herself," was the reply. "she was in these woods before i came and she may be here after i am gone. but i will tell her where i am going, and that i expect to return." a trip was made to the hermit's hut, and, after several blasts had been blown on the conch horn, kate appeared. she was overjoyed to see the aged man again, and was told of the latest developments. "you had better hurry up then, and get away from these woods," said the woman. "why so?" asked jerry. "because there are a number of strange men lurking about," was the answer. "i think they are after this good old man. so be on your guard." "it is the same crowd," said mr. bell. "they hate to give me up." "what do they want of you?" asked jerry. "you said you might tell us the secret some day, adding that perhaps we could help you. maybe we can help you now." "you can help me, and you have helped me," said mr. bell. "i can tell you the rest of my story now. as i said i have long been in quest of some one. that some one is my son tommy. i did not want to tell you of him before, as i was afraid the news would get out. nor did i tell you why the gang wanted me in their power. it is because i hold the final title to a piece of valuable property, and they can not get possession of it until i sign off, which i refused to do!" "why so?" asked mr. snodgrass. "because i understand the property is now claimed by persons who, if not in the eyes of the law, are, still the rightful owners. if i should sign my rights away to the gang they would take the property away from the innocent holders now. so i refused to sign, and they have ruined me for it." "never mind," said the professor, cheerfully. "we will get you out of their power, never fear." "i wonder if the gang that had tommy is not the same one that had mr. bell in their power," suggested bob. "he told us about men wanting him to sign papers that would give them control of some land." "they must be the same," commented mr. bell. "i will be on my guard now. neither tommy nor i will sign a single document. but now i must start." "very well," said ned. there was no further cause for delay, so jerry got the automobile ready, and, the various belongings having been stowed away, the engine was started, after a somewhat longer rest than usual, and, puffing away in a manner that awoke all the echoes of the forest, the car started toward the village at the foot of the slope. from there, it was arranged mr. bell would go forward to las cruces by stage coach, or whatever other means of travel presented themselves. once fairly on the road the spirits of all in the party rose. it was a fine day, and the fresh mountain air, crisp and cool, put new life into their veins. they were bowling along the road at a good clip with jerry at the wheel, when, suddenly in the air above their heads, there sounded a shrill buzz. "that's a new kind of a bumble bee," cried uriah snodgrass. "i must have it for my collection." "i guess you wouldn't want many of that kind," said mr. bell, quietly. "why not? i like all kinds." "that was a lead one," went on the old man. "you mean a bullet?" asked bob. "is some one firing at us?" "i'm afraid so," answered the hermit. then came a distant report, followed by the peculiar buzzing sound. "speed her up!" cried bob to jerry. "let's get out of this danger zone. it's too much like being on the firing line to suit me." the auto, all this while was speeding along, and, soon, the shooters, whoever they were, had been left far in the rear. the sound of the bullets was no longer heard. "the reason they are doing it," answered mr. bell, "is that they want to get me alive. if i was to be killed their last chance of getting me to sign the papers would be gone." "but there is your son, tommy," said jerry. "he told us they wanted him to sign. if you were dead, he would be your heir, and his signature would be legal when he became of age. perhaps the men could make use of it even before then." "i see! i see!" exclaimed mr. bell. "it is important then that i live so i can beat them at their own game." "unless you don't care about living on your own account or that of your son's," said the professor, grimly. they kept on steady after this and at last reached the bottom of the mountain slope. "now for the village," exclaimed mr. bell. "i shall soon see my boy!" faster and faster went the auto. the traveling was good, and jerry speeded the car to the last notch. about six o'clock they rolled into town, to the surprise of many of the inhabitants, who had never seen one of the puffing, snorting things, though they had read of them. a knot of curious persons gathered around the machine as jerry brought it to a stop in front of the post-office. several boys began to inspect every part. the travelers were about to alight when a shrill voice cried out. "hey, jerry! and bob! and ned! hey there! oh, how glad i am to see you!" for a moment the motor boys did not recognize the voice. then ned saw a lad trying to break through the crowd. "it's tommy! it's tommy bell!" exclaimed ned. "hey, tommy! you can't guess who we have with us!" "tommy bell! did you say tommy bell!" exclaimed the hermit. "where is he? let me see him!" but tommy had heard his parent's voice, and the next instant the boy had made a flying leap into the car, and was clasped in his father's arms. [illustration: the next instant the boy had made a flying leap into the car.] chapter xxvi on the road again "where in the world did you come from?" asked jerry of tommy. "how did you get here?" inquired ned. "how did you know where to find us?" bob wanted to know. but to all these questions tommy turned a deaf ear. he was so overjoyed at seeing his father, and the hermit was so excited at seeing his son once more, that neither had eyes nor ears for anything or any one except the other. the crowd looked on curiously, the interest divided between the automobile and the meeting between father and son. finally, when mr. bell and tommy had, temporarily, exhausted the theme of telling each other how glad they were at being united, the boys had a chance to get a word in edgeways, and tommy answered a few of their questions. he told them that he had remained for several days with his friend in las cruces, and how a traveling miner had, in a general conversation, mentioned the lake and told of the queer hermit that lived on the shores. something in the description of this odd character impressed tommy with the belief that the hermit might be his father, who had taken that method to escape the gang which wanted him to sign away his rights. accordingly, the boy had started from las cruces and made his way to deighton, the town where mr. bell expected to start in search of his son. "i got here this morning," said tommy, "and i found a little work to do to earn some money. i was going to start up the mountain to-morrow and try and find the lake." "now you don't have to," said mr. bell. "well, it certainly is a queer world." the travelers spent the night at the deighton hotel, and, in the morning, after a good breakfast, assembled to talk over their plans for the future. "do you intend to go back to lost lake, mr. bell?" asked the professor. "if you do, you and your son can ride that far in the automobile, since we are going back in that direction." "where are you going after you leave lost lake?" asked mr. bell. "to arizona," answered jerry. "we have a mine there, and we must go to see how things are getting on." "that's rather odd," commented the hermit. "i have an interest in some mining property in arizona, though i don't suppose it is anywhere near yours. but i have made up my mind not to go back to lost lake, except to bring away a few things that i left in the cabin. i would also like to provide for poor kate. after that i think tommy and i will go to arizona and try our fortunes over again." "then why not go with us?" spoke jerry. "we have plenty of room in the machine, and we'd be glad of your company." "i would like to very much," said mr. bell, "if i thought i would not bother you." he was assured that he would be very welcome, and then he consented to go. a new stock of provisions was purchased, together with some ammunition and some other supplies for the auto. then, amid the cheers of more than half the populace of deighton, the travelers began their journey toward lost lake again. mr. bell had made arrangements with a family in the town to take charge of kate whom he promised to send to them, for he knew he could depend on the woman to obey him and make the journey alone. lost lake was reached on the second day, for the travelers were delayed by a landslide, and had to camp out one night. they found the camp and the hermit's hut undisturbed. "i guess none of the gang has been around lately," remarked jerry. "i hope we have seen the last of them," put in mr. bell. "they certainly caused enough trouble." a few blasts on the horn brought kate, and the poor demented woman was overjoyed to see her friends again. she made much of tommy, who, she said, looked enough like his father to be recognized on the darkest night. at first the crazy woman objected to being sent to deighton, but mr. bell knew how to reason with her, and after some argument, she consented to go. she started away on the second morning, and, as the travelers learned later, eventually reached the family that had consented to care for her. under skillful medical treatment kate partly recovered her reason, and continued to live in deighton for many years. "now," remarked the professor, when they had seen kate started off on her journey, "i suppose it is time for us to move. so let's get started toward our mine, for i'm sure nestor must be quite anxious to see us." "onward it is, then!" exclaimed ned. "all aboard, and may we have a safe trip!" with ned at the steering wheel the auto was started off. the way was rather rougher than any they had yet traveled over, and for some distance the ascent was steep. but with a new set of batteries and spark plugs, and with everything on the car well adjusted, matters went along smoothly, though no very great speed could be attained. mile after mile was covered, the auto mounting higher and higher amid the mountains. there were no signs of human habitation, not even a deserted miner's hut being passed the first two days of the trip. of course there was no shelter to be had, and nights were spent in the open. but as the weather was mild, and as it did not rain, this was considered more a pleasure than a hardship. the third day they began to see signs that told them they were approaching a town. now and then cabins and huts would be passed, mostly the lonely homes of solitary miners, who were prospecting for gold. sometimes they would pass quite good sized camps, and about noon of the fourth day they were invited to come in and have a meal, which they were glad to do. the miners told them the nearest town was sleighton, seventy-five miles away, and that it was the centre of activity for a large area of country round about. "and i wouldn't advise you folks to speed that there machine of yours when you strike the village," said one of the miners. "why not?" asked jerry. "because the marshal is very strict, and he ain't got no very great hankerin' fer choo-choo wagons." "we'll look out," promised jerry. "we are in too much of a hurry to want any delays." "i wonder if we'll hear anything more of that gang," said ned as they rode away from the mining camp. "it seems queer that they would drop the thing when they seemed so anxious to capture mr. bell." "we'll hear of them again, and in a way we won't like, i'm afraid," said the former hermit. "we'll have to be on the lookout." chapter xxvii trouble at the mine several days' travel brought the party over the line into arizona. they passed through a small village one noon, and, on inquiring their where-abouts were told that they were well within the borders of the state where their gold mine was located. it began to rain shortly after this, and their trip was rather unpleasant, but, well wrapped up in rubber coats, they managed to keep fairly dry. as for the auto it did not seem to mind what kind of weather it was. they camped that night under a clump of pine trees which served as a partial shelter, and it was so wet that no fire could be built. jerry resorted to the stove made from one of the search-lights, and made some hot chocolate that warmed them all up. the next day dawned clear, however, and with a better feeling the travelers took up their journey again. the way was becoming familiar to them, and they recognized many landmarks they had observed in their great race across the continent to secure the gold mine before noddy nixon and his crowd could win the claim, as told in detail in "the motor boys overland." that night they stayed in the town where the government assay office was located and to reach which there had been such an exciting brush between the two automobiles, the one run by noddy, and that run by the motor boys. they saw several men whom they knew slightly, and who appeared much surprised to see them again. "well, well, well, where in the world did you come from?" asked the proprietor of the hotel, as the auto drew up in front of his place. he had been quite friendly with the boys while they stayed at the mine, and had sold them many supplies. "we've been down to mexico for a change of air," said jerry. "i suppose it didn't agree with you, or you wouldn't be coming back so soon," went on the proprietor. "well, we thought our mine needed looking after," jerry remarked. "looking after? i should say it did," the proprietor continued. "jim nestor was here the other day and he said if you didn't come back pretty soon and do something, there wouldn't be any mine." "is that right?" asked ned, thinking the man might be trying to scare them for a joke. "straight as a string," was the answer. "it seems that the title to the place is in doubt." "i know, nestor wrote us about that," put in jerry. "but he is still in possession, isn't he?" "can't say," replied the hotel man. "he was very anxious the last time i saw him, and that was a week ago. if i was you i'd look after it the first thing in the morning." "we will," said jerry. "i wonder if the government office is closed." "long ago," said the proprietor of the inn. "why?" "i was thinking i could go there and find out what sort of claim there was against our property," answered the boy. "you'll have to wait until ten o'clock to-morrow morning," went on the man. "they've got a new official in charge and he takes more time off than he puts in. some one ought to write to the president about it. there's lots of kicks about the way he acts." neither the boys nor the professor did much sleeping that night, because of worry over the mine tangle. they made an early breakfast and then started for their claim, which they expected to reach in about two hours unless something unexpected occurs. the way was familiar to them, and recalled many old memories of the exciting times they had in locating and proving their claim. they pointed out to mr. bell the various landmarks as they passed them, but the former hermit seemed to have fallen into a sort of stupor. his eyes had a vacant stare and he took no interest in what was being said. "i'm afraid he's going to be sick," said jerry to the professor. "he has hardly spoken since we came into arizona, and he used to be quite a talker." "i guess it is only the excitement wearing off," said mr. snodgrass. "he will be all right in a day or two. he has had a pretty hard life the last few weeks." tommy was worried about his father, and sat beside him, holding his hand, now and then looking up into his face, as if he feared to lose his parent again. as they neared the mine mr. bell seemed to become more dazed. yet he appeared to be struggling to recall something that he had once known and forgotten. suddenly he stood up in the automobile, as the car passed a deserted and tumbled down hut and exclaimed: "see! there it is! there is the place!" "what place, father? what do you mean?" asked tommy. but mr. bell sat down again, and seemed to have forgotten that he had spoken. the professor could note, however, that there was a struggle going on in the old man's mind. "i hope he does not become raving mad, yet it looks bad for him," the professor thought to himself. "ten minutes more and we'll be there!" exclaimed jerry, crowding on a little more speed. "i do hope nestor is having no trouble." they were in the midst of a wild mountainous country now. on either side of the road were great bowlders, while a little further back was scrub timber which extended for a mile or more before the deeper woods were reached. they were just rounding the last turn of the road to swing into the straight stretch that would take them to the mine when there sounded on the air the crack of a rifle. an instant later mr. bell gave a convulsive start and fell over in his seat. "they've killed him! they've shot him!" cried tommy, while jerry suddenly brought the machine to a stop. glancing across to the left a small curling cloud of smoke could be seen floating above a big stone. "there's where the shot came from," said ned. "is he badly hurt?" asked jerry of professor snodgrass, who was bending over mr. bell. "it is hard to say," was the answer. "the bullet struck him on the head, but there is so much blood i can't tell how bad the wound is. push on to the mine. perhaps nestor can help us." jerry started the machine again. it had attained a good speed when, from the side of the road came a hail. "motor boys, ahoy!" "there's nestor!" cried ned, pointing to a man who stood in front of a small shanty. "hello, nestor!" he called. "hello!" responded the miner, running down to the road. "well, i am certainly glad to see you." "quick, nestor!" exclaimed mr. snodgrass. "we have a wounded man here, and must get him to the shanty at the mine as soon as possible." "we can't do it," replied nestor. "why not?" "didn't you get my letter?" "only the one saying there might be a possibility of trouble." "well trouble came all right. i've been driven from the mine, and it's in possession of a bad gang. so we can't take the wounded man there." "what are we to do?" asked jerry, seeing that mr. bell was bleeding badly. "bring him into my cabin," said nestor. "i came here after the gang drove me out. i can put you up, i guess." jerry ran the car up close to the shanty and mr. bell, who was unconscious, was carried in and laid as tenderly as possible on the single bunk of which the place boasted. "now some warm water and clean clothes," said mr. snodgrass. "i must wash the wound and see how bad it is." "i haven't a bit of hot water," said nestor. "there's plenty in the radiator of the auto," spoke jerry. "give me a pail and i'll soon get some." he soon had a plentiful supply that was almost boiling, and, cooling it somewhat, the naturalist carefully washed the blood from the wounded man's head. then he examined the hurt. "will he die?" asked tommy, as he stood around, tearfully. "not this time," replied mr. snodgrass, cheerfully. "the bullet appears to have only grazed the scalp a bit, but it probably gave him a pretty hard knock. he'll soon come around right i guess." mr. bell was made as comfortable as possible, and, as there was nothing to do but wait until he became conscious, he was left in charge of his son. tommy was told to call as soon as his father showed signs of awakening, and then the others surrounded nestor, eager to hear about the mine. "i guess it's gone," said the old prospector. "as i wrote you, the title seems to have some flaw in it, and this gang, which came from somewheres to the southeast, found it out, and served papers on me. it appears that there is a man missing who holds the key to the situation, and who owns the majority of the mine, but he can't be found, and so our title is no good." the news depressed the spirits of all. they had been hoping that the trouble was small and temporary and that nestor would find a way out. now they stood to lose the mine they had struggled so hard to get. "did you resist their claim?" asked mr. snodgrass. "you bet i did," replied nestor. "i went to court over it, but the judge said though it was morally wrong to put me out, yet the others had the law on their side, and he had to decide against me. "i didn't give up even then, for i barricaded the place and defied 'em to get me out. but the sheriff came and said that was no way to do. he had the law with him, and he said it would be his duty to shoot me if i resisted. he advised going to a higher court, and so, rather than have any bloodshed i gave up, and decided to camp out here until you came. i've been here about two weeks now." "then the mine's gone," remarked jerry, sorrowfully. "we can try the courts," said nestor, hopefully. "it would take years to settle the case," put in mr. snodgrass. "no, i guess you are beaten, boys." "i will not give up yet," said jerry. "what are you going to do?" asked ned. "i'm going to town, hire the best lawyer i can get, and see what he says. there may be a way out of this yet." "that's the way to talk!" exclaimed bob. "i'm with you." jerry lost no time. he hurried to the auto, and with bob for company made the run to town in record time. he was directed to a lawyer's office, and, finding the attorney, who was a young chap, in, paid him a retainer and stated the case briefly. "i just want to know how we stand, what sort of a claim there is against our title, and what we can do to perfect it," said jerry. "it's quite a lot of information to get at in a hurry," said the lawyer, "but i'll do my best. i'll be ready for you at four o'clock this afternoon." "i'll call for you then," went on jerry, "and take you back to nestor's shanty, where you can explain the whole thing to us." then the boys, with a feeling of dread that their mine was gone forever, in spite of all they could do, went back to where the others were. chapter xxviii all's well that ends well they found mr. bell in much the same condition as before, though mr. snodgrass said the wounded man's breathing was a little easier, which was a good sign. "and what about the mine?" asked the naturalist. jerry told him the lawyer was coming. "i'm afraid it will be of little use," said the professor. "nestor says they had a big lawyer to represent the gang, and they also have a large force in charge of the mine, taking out gold." "and it's our gold," exclaimed jerry. "oh, why didn't we get back sooner?" "it wouldn't have done much good," spoke nestor. "i did all i could, but the law was on their side." "of course, i didn't mean that you failed," jerry hastened to add, for fear of hurting the old miner's feelings. "it's too bad, that's all." after a somewhat gloomy dinner, which the professor tried to liven up by telling jokes and funny stories, jerry oiled the machine, and, about two o'clock started back to town for the lawyer. he found the attorney waiting for him, with several big law books in a valise. "any luck?" asked jerry. "not a great deal," was the answer. "well, don't tell us until we are all together," went on jerry. "i don't want to stand it all alone." when, on arrival at nestor's cabin, the lawyer proceeded to tell what he had learned, there were six very attentive listeners. the attorney went over the ground carefully, and told the boys, nestor and professor snodgrass, much that they had already heard. how, because of a missing owner who held more than a half interest in the mine, the title was not good when the boys preã«mpted it. in fact it was still the property of others, though about to lapse. "i don't understand all them legal terms," put in nestor, "but didn't we make a good claim to the government for that mine?" "you did, as far as it went," replied the lawyer. "uncle sam gave you a title, but did not guarantee that some one did not have a better one, which it seems is the case." "but that gang hasn't a good title either, not if the owner of over half the shares is missing," went on nestor. "no, but it seems, according to the records, that they have some sort of an agreement from this missing man that they are empowered to work the claim until he comes to demand his share." "if that's the case i'm for going up there and driving them out with a gun!" exclaimed nestor. "they haven't any more right than we have, and we can at least make them go shares with us until this missing man shows up. what's the matter with attacking them to-night." "if you're going to resort to lawless means i'll have to throw up the case," said the attorney. "that is no way to talk." "nestor doesn't mean it at all," put in jerry. "of course we will have no battle with that gang." "there are two ways we might proceed," the lawyer went on. "there may be more, but they are the only ones that suggest themselves to me from what time i was able to give to the case." "what would you advise?" asked mr. snodgrass. "you can apply to the courts for an injunction to prevent the working of the mine until the missing half-owner shows up." "but that would bar us as well as them," put in jerry. "yes, it would have that effect, if you secured the injunction, which is doubtful. it would be a long and costly litigation, i fear." "and what is the other plan?" "you might try to find the missing man, and buy him out, or make some arrangement with him. from what i can learn he and the others have quarreled and are opposed to each other." "where is the missing man?" asked bob. "that is something on which i can not be of the least help to you," was the reply. "there is nothing to show where he is." "then it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to search for him, and as long and costly as the injunction means," commented mr. snodgrass. "i'm afraid it would," was the lawyer's answer. "what is the man's name?" asked jerry. "i have it here," proceeded the attorney. "it is mr. well, no, that's not it. oh yes! here it is. bell, that's it. mr. jackson bell." "what?" fairly shouted the three boys at once. "what name?" inquired the professor, wondering if he had heard aright. "jackson bell," repeated the lawyer. "why, do you know him?" "know him?" went on jerry, jumping up in his excitement. "why he is in the next room this very minute! well of all the strange pieces of luck!" then they all tried to tell the lawyer at once the story of the hermit and his son, making such a jumble that the attorney had to beg them to stop, while he listened to one at a time. finally the tale was related, and the boys and the professor as well, greatly excited, paused to see what the lawyer would say. "then i don't see any further trouble to your getting possession of the mine," said the attorney. "if mr. bell is on your side, and you make a joint application to the court or even to the government agent, i am sure you will be given instant charge of the claim." "there is only one difficulty," said mr. snodgrass. "mr. bell is wounded. his mind was not strong before the shooting, and it may be altogether gone when he recovers consciousness. in that case--?" "in that case i'm afraid you are as badly off as before," finished the lawyer. the door to the inner room, where mr. bell was in the bunk, opened, and tommy came out, looking worried. "is he worse, tommy?" asked the professor. "he's acting very queer," replied the boy. "he is sitting up in bed, and is trying to get something out from under his shirt. he's talking something about a mine." "he is probably delirious," said mr. snodgrass. "we must have a doctor. i'm afraid it looks bad for us, boys." at that instant the form of mr. bell, weak and tottering, showed in the doorway. he seemed greatly excited. "there you are!" he cried tearing open his shirt and throwing a bundle, done up in oiled silk on the table. "there are the papers. there are the proofs to the mine. the gang did not get them after all!" "calm yourself," spoke mr. snodgrass, in a soothing tone that one uses to sick children or fever patients. "i'm all right!" exclaimed mr. bell. "don't think i'm crazy. i was a little off my head, but the wound the bullet gave me, and the blood i lost, accomplished just what was needed. there, i tell you, are the papers proving my claim to the mine." "what mine?" asked the professor, while the others waited in anxiety for the answer. "the mine we were going to," responded the old man. "from the description you boys gave of it i recognize it as the same one i have more than a half share in. all the way up here i was trying to recall when i had been here before. i recognized the places, but my mind would not serve me. i had suffered so much that i was almost crazy. then came the shot, and i did not know anything more, until i just woke up in that room, and remembered all about it. now we will beat that gang." "hurrah!" cried jerry, seizing ned by the arms and starting to dance a hornpipe. "are you sure you can not be mistaken about the mine?" asked mr. snodgrass, for it seemed hardly possible that the old hermit, whom they had rescued, should turn out to be the much-wanted missing owner. "there are the papers, you can see for yourself," replied mr. bell. the lawyer, at a sign from the professor, made a careful examination of the documents. "they seem to be all right," he said. "i have no doubt but that you can fully establish your claim, mr. bell." "it isn't my claim, sir." "why i thought you said--" "everything i have or own is the property of these noble boys and professor snodgrass," went on the former hermit. "they saved my life, and that of my son's. if i gave them a hundred mines i could not repay them." "but we do not want your share," said mr. snodgrass. "it don't make any difference what you want, you've got to take it," said mr. bell, firmly. "we can settle that part later," put in the lawyer. "the thing to do now is to get possession of the mine. if you wish i will act for you." "of course we want you to," said jerry. "very well. i will take these papers, and go to court with them. if i am successful, as i have no doubt i shall be, i will apply to the sheriff to oust the crowd that is in charge of the mine. then you and mr. bell can take possession." "that's the way to talk!" fairly yelled nestor, who was anxious to get back to the "diggings." the lawyer was hurried back to town in the auto. nothing could be done that afternoon, as the court was closed. he promised to be on hand early in the morning. the boys could hardly sleep that night. mr. bell seemed to have fully recovered, and, beyond a slight pain where the bullet had hit him, he did not suffer. it was late when they went to bed, and somewhat late when they arose. "i'm going into town and see what's doing," said jerry after breakfast. "so am i," cried ned and bob. "better not," went on jerry. "if i have to bring back the lawyer, and the sheriff and some of his deputies to read the riot act to the gang, i'll need all the room there is." so jerry went off alone in the car. he did not find the lawyer in, but the attorney's clerk said he was at court. "i'll wait until he comes back," said jerry, and he sat down in the office. two hours later, the lawyer came in. "what luck?" asked jerry. "the very best. i have a peremptory order commanding that crowd to turn the mine over to your party and mr. bell. come on, we'll get the sheriff and finish the thing right up." the sheriff was only too glad of a chance for some activity. he and three deputies, well armed, got into the car, and jerry started off. to the boy the machine never seemed to move so slowly, but several times one of the deputies threatened to jump out if the auto did not slacken up a bit. arriving at the cabin, nestor, the two boys, and professor snodgrass were found anxiously waiting. "now for the mine!" cried jerry, as he rapidly explained the success of the mission. "wait till i get my gun," said nestor. "no shooting unless we have to," warned the sheriff. then they advanced on the mine. an eighth of a mile away they were halted by a guard. but an order from the sheriff, and a sight of the command from the court, made the guard give in, and he was sent back to the cabin, in custody of one of the deputies. then, without any warning, the party descended on the others of the gang, who were all gathered in the main cabin at dinner. at first it looked as if there was going to be trouble. several made an attempt to get their guns, but nestor, the sheriff, and his man, had covered them, and they saw that the game was up. "i'll read you this court order," said the sheriff. "you needn't bother," spoke the leader, whom the boys recognized as one of the men who had held tommy a captive. others in the gang were recognizable as men who had tried to capture mr. bell at lost lake. "we played a bold game, but we lost," said the leader, as he and his companions, gathering up their baggage, left the cabin, and made their way toward town. they did not go there, however,--since they feared further proceedings,--and were never heard of again. "hurrah, now we have our mine back again!" cried jerry. "i wonder if it is paying?" "better than ever, by the looks of this stuff," answered jim nestor, picking up some newly-mined ore that lay on ground. "no wonder that crowd wanted to keep possession of the mine." there followed a general jollification. the boys got up a fine dinner, at which the sheriff, his men, and the lawyer were guests. an arrangement was made whereby mr. bell should retain a large interest in the mine, while the other share was divided between our friends as before. the lawyer received a generous fee, and the sheriff and his men were not forgotten. "well," said jerry, a week later, "we came out all right, didn't we? i presume our adventures are all over now." "don't be too sure," put in bob. "something else may turn up soon." and bob was right, as we shall learn in another volume, to be called, "the motor boys afloat; or, the stirring cruise of the _dartaway_," a tale of land and sea. the days to follow were busy ones for jim nestor and the boys. the mine was started up in better shape than ever before, new machinery put in, and extra workmen engaged. letters were sent to the boys' folks, telling of all that had happened. "i want to say one thing," said jerry, one day. "and that is, that it feels mighty good to be back in the united states again." "exactly what i say," returned ned. "right you are," came from chunky. he rubbed his hands together. "and as we are back, and all is well, why--er--let us have some dinner." and then, with a merry laugh at the lad who never wanted to miss a meal, the others followed chunky to the table; and here as they sit down to a well-earned repast, we will take our departure. the end. _the motor boys series_ (_trade mark, reg. u. s. pat. of._) _by clarence young_ =cloth. 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cents, postpaid= [illustration] the motor boys _or, chums through thick and thin_ in this volume is related how the three boys got together and planned to obtain a touring car and make a trip lasting through the summer. the motor boys overland _or, a long trip for fun and fortune_ with the money won at the great motorcycle race the three boys purchase their touring car and commence their travels. the motor boys in mexico _or, the secret of the buried city_ from our own country the scene is shifted to mexico, where the motor boys journey in quest of a city said to have been buried centuries ago by an earthquake. the motor boys across the plains _or, the hermit of lost lake_ unraveling the mystery surrounding an old hermit and a poor boy. the motor boys afloat _or, the stirring cruise of the dartaway_ in this volume the boys take to a motorboat, and have many adventures. the motor boys on the atlantic _or, the mystery of the lighthouse_ how the lads foiled the bad men who wanted to wreck a steamer by means of false lights is dramatically related. the motor boys in strange waters _or, lost in a floating forest_ telling of many adventures in the mysterious everglades of florida. the motor boys on the pacific _or, the young derelict hunters_ the derelict was of great value, and the hunt for it proved full of perils. the motor boys in the clouds _or, a trip for fame and fortune_ the boys fall in with an inventor and invest in a flying machine. after a number of stirring adventures in the clouds they enter a big race. cupples & leon co., publishers, new york * * * * * * transcriber's note: --punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. --archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. --variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 25865-h.htm or 25865-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/5/8/6/25865/25865-h/25865-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/5/8/6/25865/25865-h.zip) patty's summer days by carolyn wells author of "idle idylls," "patty in the city," etc. illustrated [illustration] new york dodd, mead & company 1909 copyright, 1906, by dodd, mead & company published, september, 1906 to eleanor shipley halsey contents chapter page i a gay household 1 ii wedding bells 13 iii atlantic city 27 iv lessons again 40 v a new home 53 vi busy days 66 vii a rescue 79 viii commencement day 92 ix the play 105 x a motor trip 118 xi dick phelps 130 xii old china 143 xiii a stormy ride 155 xiv pine branches 169 xv miss aurora bender 182 xvi a quilting party 195 xvii a summer christmas 208 xviii at sandy cove 221 xix rosabel 234 xx the rolands 246 xxi the crusoes 259 xxii the bazaar of all nations 271 xxiii the end of the summer 287 illustrations "patty fairly reveled in nan's beautiful trousseau" 8 "'there, you can see for yourself, there ain't no chip or crack into it'" 147 "although a successful snapshot was only achieved after many attempts" 176 "patty arrayed herself in a flowered silk of dresden effect" 203 "in a few minutes patty was feeding rosabel bread and milk" 234 patty's summer days chapter i a gay household "isn't mrs. phelps too perfectly sweet! that is the loveliest fan i ever laid eyes on, and to think it's mine!" "and _will_ you look at this? a silver coffee-machine! oh, nan, mayn't i make it work, sometimes?" "indeed you may; and oh, see this! a piece of antique japanese bronze! isn't it _great?_" "i don't like it as well as the sparkling, shiny things. this silver tray beats it all hollow. did you ever see such a brightness in your life?" "patty, you're hopelessly philistine! but that tray is lovely, and of an exquisite design." patty and nan were unpacking wedding presents, and the room was strewn with boxes, tissue paper, cotton wool, and shredded-paper packing. only three days more, and then nan allen was to marry mr. fairfield, patty's father. patty was spending the whole week at the allen home in philadelphia, and was almost as much interested in the wedding preparations as nan herself. "i don't think there's anything so much fun as a house with a wedding fuss in it," said patty to mrs. allen, as nan's mother came into the room where the girls were. "just wait till you come to your own wedding fuss, and then see if you think it's so much fun," said nan, who was rapidly scribbling names of friends to whom she must write notes of acknowledgment for their gifts. "that's too far in the future even to think of," said patty, "and besides, i must get my father married and settled, before i can think of myself." she wagged her head at nan with a comical look, and they all laughed. it was a great joke that patty's father should be about to marry her dear girl friend. but patty was mightily pleased at the prospect, and looked forward with happiness to the enlarged home circle. "the trouble is," said patty, "i don't know what to call this august personage who insists on becoming my father's wife." "i shall rule you with a rod of iron," said nan, "and you'll stand so in awe of me, that you won't dare to call me anything." "you think so, do you?" said patty saucily. "well, just let me inform you, mrs. fairfield, that is to be, that i intend to lead you a dance! you'll be responsible for my manners and behaviour, and i wish you joy of your undertaking. i think i shall call you _stepmamma_." "do," said nan placidly, "and i'll call you stepdaughter patricia." "joking aside," said patty, "honestly, nan, i am perfectly delighted that the time is coming so soon to have you with us. ever since last fall i have waited patiently, and it seemed as if easter would never come. won't we have good times though after you get back from your trip and we get settled in that lovely house in new york! if only i didn't have to go to school, and study like fury out of school, too, we could have heaps of fun." "i'm afraid you're studying too hard, patty," said mrs. allen, looking at her young guest. "she is, mother," said nan, "and i wish she wouldn't. why do you do it, patty?" "well, you see, it's this way. i found out the first of the year that i was ahead of my class in some studies, and that if i worked extra hard i could get ahead on the other studies, and,--well, i can't exactly explain it, but it's like putting two years' work into one; and then i could graduate from the oliphant school this june, instead of going there another year, as i had expected. then, if i do that, papa says i may stay home next year, and just have masters in music and french, and whatever branches i want to keep up. so i'm trying, but i hardly think i can pass the examinations after all." "well, you're not going to study while you're here," said mrs. allen, "and after we get nan packed off on thursday, you and i are going to have lovely times. you must stay with me as long as you can, for i shall be dreadfully lonesome without my own girl." "thank you, dear mrs. allen, i am very happy here, and i love to stay with you; but of course i can stay only as long as our easter vacation lasts. i must go back to new york the early part of next week." "well, we'll cram all the fun possible into the few days you are here then," and patty's gay little hostess bustled away to look after her household appointments. mrs. allen was of a social, pleasure-loving nature. indeed, it was often said that she cared more for parties and festive gatherings than did her daughter nan. nobody was surprised to learn that nan allen was to marry a man many years older than herself. the surprise came when they met mr. fairfield and discovered that that gentleman appeared to be much younger than he undoubtedly was. for patty's father, though nearly forty years old, had a frank, ingenuous manner, and a smile that was almost boyish in its gaiety. mrs. allen was in her element superintending her daughter's wedding, and the whole affair was to be on a most elaborate scale. far more so than nan herself wished, for her tastes were simple, and she would have preferred a quieter celebration of the occasion. but as mrs. allen said, it was her last opportunity to provide an entertainment for her daughter, and she would not allow her plans to be thwarted. so preparations for the great event went busily on. carpenters came and enclosed the wide verandas, and decorators came and hung the newly made walls with white cheese cloth, and trimmed them with garlands of green. the house was invaded with decorators, caterers, and helpers of all sorts, while neighbours and friends of mrs. allen and of nan flew in and out at all hours. the present-room was continually thronged by admiring friends who never tired of looking at the beautiful gifts already upon the tables, or watching the opening of new ones. "there's the thirteenth cut-glass ice-tub," said nan, as she tore the tissue paper wrapping from an exquisite piece of sparkling glass. "i should think it an unlucky number if i didn't feel sure that one or two more would come yet." "what are you going to do with them all, nan?" asked one of her girl friends; "shall you exchange any of your duplicate gifts?" "no indeed," said nan, "i'm too conservative and old-fashioned to exchange my wedding gifts. i shall keep the whole thirteen, and then when one gets broken, i can replace it with another. accidents will happen, you know." "but not thirteen times, and all ice-tubs!" said patty, laughing. "you'll have to use them as individuals, nan. when you give a dinner party of twelve, each guest can have a separate ice-tub, which will be very convenient." "i don't care," said nan, taking the jest good-humouredly, "i shall keep them all, no matter how many i get. and i always did like ice-tubs, anyway." another great excitement was when nan's gowns were sent home from the dressmaker's. patty was frankly fond of pretty clothes, and she fairly revelled in nan's beautiful _trousseau_. to please patty, the bride-elect tried them all on, one after another, and each seemed more beautiful than the one before. when at last nan stood arrayed in her bridal gown, with veil and orange blossoms complete, patty's ecstacy knew no bounds. "you are a picture, nan!" she cried. "a perfect dream! i never saw such a beautiful bride. oh, i am so glad you're coming to live with us, and then i can try on that white satin confection and prance around in it myself." they all laughed at this, and nan exclaimed, in mock reproach: "i'd like to see you do it, miss! prance around in my wedding gown, indeed! have you no more respect for your elderly and antiquated stepmamma than that?" patty giggled at nan's pretended severity, and danced round her, patting a fold here, and picking out a bow there, and having a good time generally. the next day there was a luncheon, to which mrs. allen had invited a number of nan's dearest girl friends. patty enjoyed this especially, for not only did she dearly love a pretty affair of this sort, but mrs. allen had let her help with the preparations, and patty had even suggested some original ideas which found favour in mrs. allen's eyes. over the table was suspended a floral wedding bell, which was supplied with not only one clapper, but a dozen. these clappers were ingenious little contrivances, and from each hung a long and narrow white ribbon. after the luncheon, each ribbon was apportioned to a guest, and at a given signal the ribbons were pulled, whereupon each clapper sprang open, and a tiny white paper fluttered down to the table. [illustration: "patty fairly reveled in nan's beautiful trousseau"] these papers each bore the name of one of the guests, and when opened were found to contain a rhymed jingle foretelling in a humorous way the fate of each girl. patty had written the merry little verses, and they were read aloud amid much laughter and fun. as patty did not know these philadelphia girls very well, many of her verses which foretold their fates were necessarily merely graceful little jingles, without any attempt at special appropriateness. one which fell to the lot of a dainty little golden-haired girl ran thus: your cheeks are red, your eyes are blue; your hair is gold, your heart is too. another which was applied to a specially good-humoured maiden read thus: the longer you live the sweeter you'll grow; your fair cup of joy shall have no trace of woe. but some of the girls had special hopes or interests, and these patty touched upon. an aspiring music lover was thus warned: if you would really learn to play, pray practice seven hours a day, and then perhaps at last you may. and an earnest art student received this somewhat doubtful encouragement: you'll try to paint in oil, and your persistent toil, will many a canvas spoil. patty's own verse was a little hit at her dislike for study, and her taste in another direction: little you care to read a book, but, goodness me, how you can cook! nan's came last of all, and she read it aloud amid the gay laughter of the girls: ere many days shall pass o'er your fair head, your fate is, pretty lady, to be wed; yet scarcely can you be a happy wife, for patty f. will lead you such a life! the girls thought these merry little jingles great fun, and each carefully preserved her "fortune" to take home as a souvenir of the occasion. bumble barlow was at this luncheon, for the barlows were friends and near neighbours of the allens. readers who knew patty in her earlier years, will remember bumble as the cousin who lived at the "hurly-burly" down on long island. although bumble was a little older, and insisted on being called by her real name of helen, she was the same old mischievous fly-away as ever. she was delighted to see patty again, and coaxed her to come and stay with them, instead of with the allens. but mrs. allen would not hear of such an arrangement, and could only be induced to give her consent that patty should spend one day with the barlows during her visit in philadelphia. the short time that was left before the wedding day flew by as if on wings. so much was going on both in the line of gaiety and entertainment, and also by way of preparation for the great event, that patty began to wonder whether social life was not, after all, as wearing as the more prosaic school work. but mrs. allen said, when this question was referred to her, "not a bit of it! all this gaiety does you good, patty. you need recreation from that everlasting grind of school work, and you'll go back to it next week refreshed, and ready to do better work than ever." "i'm sure of it," said patty, "and i shall never forget the fun we're having this week. it's just like a bit of fairyland. i've never had such an experience before." patty's life had been one of simple pleasures and duties. she had a great capacity for enjoyment, but heretofore had only known fun and frolic of a more childish nature. this glimpse into what seemed to be really truly grown-up society was bewildering and very enjoyable, and patty found it quite easy to adapt herself to its requirements. chapter ii wedding bells at last the wedding day arrived, and a brighter or more sunshiny day could not have been asked for by the most exacting of brides. it was to be an evening wedding, but from early in the morning there was a constant succession of exciting events. the last touches were being put to the decorations, belated presents were coming in, house guests were arriving, messengers coming and going, and through it all mrs. allen bustled about, supremely happy in watching the culminating success of her elaborate plans. patty looked at her with a wondering admiration, for she always admired capability, and mrs. allen was exhibiting what might almost be called generalship in her house that day. of course, patty had no care or responsibility, and nothing to do but enjoy herself, so she did this thoroughly. in the morning marian and frank elliott came. they were staying at the barlows', and mr. fairfield was staying there too. it sometimes seemed to patty that her father ought to have played a more prominent part in all the preliminary festivities, but mrs. allen calmly told her, in mr. fairfield's presence, that a bridegroom had no part in wedding affairs until the time of the ceremony itself. mr. fairfield laughed good-humouredly, and replied that he was quite satisfied to be left out of the mad rush, until the real occasion came. like nan, mr. fairfield would have preferred a quiet wedding, but mrs. allen utterly refused to hear of such a thing. nan was her only daughter, and this her only chance to arrange an entertainment such as her soul delighted in. mr. allen was willing to indulge his wife in her wishes, and was exceedingly hospitable by nature. moreover, he took great pride in his charming daughter, and wanted everything done that could in any way contribute to the success or add to the beauty of her wedding celebration. patty fluttered around the house in a sort of inconsequent delight. now in the present-room, looking over the beautiful collection, now chatting with her cousins, or other friends, now strolling through the great parlours with their wonderful decorations of banked roses and garland-draped ceilings. dinner was early that night, as the ceremony was to be performed at eight o'clock, and after dinner patty flew to her room to don her own beautiful new gown. this dress delighted patty's beauty-loving heart. it was a white tulle sprinkled with silver, and its soft, dainty glitter seemed to patty like moonlight on the snow. her hair was done low on her neck, in a most becoming fashion, and her only ornament was a necklace of pearls which had belonged to her mother, and which her father had given her that very day. the first mrs. fairfield had died when patty was a mere baby, so of course she had no recollection of her, but she had always idealised the personality of her mother, and she took the beautiful pearls from her father with almost a feeling of reverence as she touched them. "i'm so glad it's nan you're going to marry, papa," she said. "i wouldn't like it as well if it were somebody who would really try to be a stepmother to me, but dear old nan is more like a sister, and i'm so glad she's ours." "i'm glad you're pleased, patty, dear, and i only hope nan will never regret marrying a man so much older than herself." "you're not old, papa fairfield," cried patty indignantly; "i won't have you say such a thing! why, you're not forty yet, and nan is twenty-four. why, that's hardly any difference at all." "so nan says," said mr. fairfield, smiling, "so i dare say my arithmetic's at fault." "of course it is," said patty, "and you don't look a bit old either. why, you look as young as mr. hepworth, and he looks nearly as young as kenneth, and kenneth's only two years older than i am." "that sounds a little complicated, patty, but i'm sure you mean it as a compliment, so i'll take it as such." a little before eight o'clock, patty, in her shimmering gown, went dancing downstairs. the rooms were already crowded with guests, and the first familiar face patty saw was that of mr. hepworth, who came toward her with a glad smile of greeting. "how grown-up we are looking to-night," he said. "i shall have to paint your portrait all over again, and you must wear that gown, and we will call it, 'a moonlight sonata,' and send it to the exhibition." "that will be lovely!" exclaimed patty; "but can you paint silver?" "well, i could try to get a silvery effect, at least." "that wouldn't do; it must be the real thing. i think you could only get it right by using aluminum paint like they paint the letter-boxes with." "yes," said mr. hepworth, "that would be realistic, at least, but i see a crowd of your young friends coming this way, and i feel quite sure they mean to carry you off. so won't you promise me a dance or two, when the time comes for that part of the programme?" "yes, indeed," said patty, "and there is going to be dancing after the supper." mr. hepworth looked after patty, as, all unconscious of his gaze, she went on through the rooms with the young friends who had claimed her. gilbert hepworth had long realised his growing interest in patty, and acknowledged to himself that he loved the girl devotedly. but he had never by word or look intimated this, and had no intention of doing so until she should be some years older. he, himself, was thirty-four, and he knew that must seem old indeed to a girl of seventeen. so he really had little hope that he ever could win her for his own, but he allowed himself the pleasure of her society whenever opportunity offered, and it pleased him to do for her such acts of courtesy and kindness as could not be construed into special attentions, or indication of an unwelcome devotion. among the group that surrounded patty was kenneth harper, a college boy who was a good chum of patty's and a favourite with mr. fairfield. marian and frank were with them, also bob and bumble, the barlow twins, and a number of the philadelphia young people. this group laughed and chatted merrily until the orchestra struck up the wedding march, and an expectant hush fell upon the assembly. at nan's special request, there were no bridesmaids, and when the bride entered with her father, she was, as patty had prophesied, a perfect picture in her beautiful wedding gown. mr. fairfield seemed to think so too, and his happy smile as he came to meet her, gave patty a thrill of gladness to think that this happiness had come to her father. his life had been lonely, and she was glad that it was to be shared by such a truly sweet and lovely woman as nan. patty was the first to congratulate the wedded pair, and mr. hepworth, who was an usher, escorted her up to them that she might do so. patty kissed both the bride and the bridegroom with whole-hearted affection, and after a few merry words turned away to give place to others. "come on, patty," said kenneth, "a whole crowd of us are going to camp out in one of those jolly cozy corners on the verandah, and have our supper there." so patty went with the merry crowd, and found that kenneth had selected a conveniently located spot near one of the dining-room windows. "i'm so glad it's supper time," she said, as they settled themselves comfortably in their chosen retreat. "i've been so busy and excited to-day that i've hardly eaten a thing, and i'm starving with hunger. and now that i've got my father safely married, and off my hands, i feel relieved of a great responsibility, and can eat my supper with a mind at rest." "when i'm married," said helen barlow, "i mean to have a wedding exactly like this one. i think it's the loveliest one i ever saw." "you won't, though, bumble," said patty, laughing. "in the first place, you'll forget to order your wedding gown until a day or two before the occasion, and of course it won't be done. and then you'll forget to send out the invitations, so of course you'll have no guests. and i'm sure you'll forget to invite the minister, so there'll be no ceremony, anyway." bumble laughed good-naturedly at this, for the helter-skelter ways of the barlow family were well known to everybody. "it would be that way," she said, "if i looked after things myself, but i shall expect you, patty, to take entire charge of the occasion, and then everything will go along like clockwork." "are you staying long in philadelphia, miss fairfield?" asked ethel banks, a philadelphia girl, who lived not far from the allens. "a few days longer," said patty. "i have to go back to new york next tuesday, and then no more gaiety for me. i don't know how i shall survive such a sudden change, but after this mad whirl of parties and things, i have to come down to plain everyday studying of lessons,--but we won't talk about that now; it's a painful subject to me at any time, but especially when i'm at a party." "me, too," said kenneth. "if ever i get through college, i don't think i'll want to see a book for the next twenty years." "i didn't know you hated your lessons so, kenneth," said marian. "i thought patty was the only one of my friends who was willing to avow that she was like that 'poor little paul, who didn't like study at all.'" "yes, i'm a paul too," said kenneth, "and i may as well own up to it." "but you don't let it interfere with your work," said patty; "you dig just as hard as if you really enjoyed it." "so do you," said kenneth, "but some day after we have both been graduated, i suppose we'll be glad that we did our digging after all." a little later, mr. and mrs. fairfield went away, amid showers of _confetti_, and after that there was an hour of informal dancing. patty was besieged with partners asking for a dance, and as there was no programme, she would make no promises, but accepted whoever might ask her first at the beginning of each dance. she liked to dance with kenneth, for his step suited hers perfectly, and her cousin bob was also an exceptionally good dancer. but patty showed no partiality, and enjoyed all the dances with her usual enthusiasm. suddenly she remembered that she had promised mr. hepworth a dance, but he had not come to claim it. wondering, she looked around to see where he might be, and discovered him watching her from across the room. there was an amused smile on his face, and patty went to him, and asked him in her direct way, why he didn't claim his dance. "you are so surrounded," he said, "by other and more attractive partners, that i hated to disturb you." "nonsense," said patty, without a trace of self-consciousness or embarrassment. "i like you better than lots of these philadelphia boys. come on." "thank you for the compliment," said mr. hepworth, as they began to dance, "but you seemed to be finding these philadelphia boys very agreeable." "they're nice enough," said patty, carelessly, "and some of them are good dancers, but not as good as you are, mr. hepworth. do you know you dance like a--like a--will-o'-the-wisp." "i never met a will-o'-the-wisp, but i'm sure they must be delightful people, to judge from the enthusiastic tone in which you mention them. do you never get tired of parties and dancing, patty?" "oh, no, indeed. i love it all. but you see i haven't had very much. i've never been to but two or three real dancing-parties in my life. why, i've only just outgrown children's parties. i may get tired of it all, after two or three seasons, but as yet it's such a novelty to me that i enjoy every speck of it." mr. hepworth suddenly realised how many social seasons he had been through, and how far removed he was from this young dã©butante in his views on such matters. he assured himself that he need never hope she would take any special interest in him, and he vowed she should never know of his feelings toward her. so he adapted his mood to hers, and chatted gaily of the events of the evening. patty told him of the many pleasures that had been planned for her, during the rest of her visit at mrs. allen's, and he was truly glad that the girl was to have a taste of the social gaiety that so strongly appealed to her. "miss fairfield," said ethel banks, coming up to patty, as the music stopped, "i've been talking with my father, and he says if you and mr. and mrs. allen will go, he'll take us all in the automobile down to atlantic city for the week-end." "how perfectly gorgeous!" cried patty, her eyes dancing with delight. "i'd love to go. i've never been in an automobile but a few times in my life, and never for such a long trip as that. let's go and ask mrs. allen at once." without further thought of mr. hepworth, save to give him a smiling nod as she turned away, patty went with ethel to ask mrs. allen about the projected trip. mrs. allen was delighted to go, and said she would also answer for her husband. so it was arranged, and the girls went dancing back to mr. banks to tell him so. ethel's father was a kind-hearted, hospitable man, whose principal thought was to give pleasure to his only child. ethel had no mother, and mrs. allen had often before chaperoned the girl on similar excursions to the one now in prospect. as mr. banks was an enthusiastic motorist, and drove his own car, there was ample room for mr. and mrs. allen and patty. soon the wedding guests departed, and patty was glad to take off her pretty gown and tumble into bed. she slept late the next morning, and awoke to find mrs. allen sitting on the bed beside her, caressing her curly hair. "i hate to waken you," said that lady, "but it's after ten o'clock, and you know you are to go to your cousin helen's to spend the day. i want you to come home early this evening, as i have a little party planned for you, and so it's only right that you should start as soon as possible this morning. here is a nice cup of cocoa and a bit of toast. let me slip a kimono around you, while you breakfast." in her usual busy way, mrs. allen fluttered about, while she talked, and after putting a kimono round her visitor, she drew up beside her a small table, containing a dainty breakfast tray. "it's just as well you're going away to-day," mrs. allen chattered on, "because the house is a perfect sight. not one thing is in its place, and about a dozen men have already arrived to try to straighten out the chaos. so, as you may judge, my dear, since i have to superintend all these things, i'll really get along better without you. now, you get dressed, and run right along to the barlows'. james will take you over in the pony cart, and he'll come for you again at eight o'clock this evening. mind, now, you're not to stay a minute after eight o'clock, for i have invited some young people here to see you. i'll send the carriage to-night, and then you can bring your barlow cousins back with you." as mrs. allen rattled on, she had been fussing around the room getting out patty's clothes to wear that day, and acting in such a generally motherly manner that patty felt sure she must be missing nan, and she couldn't help feeling very sorry for her, and told her so. "yes," said mrs. allen, "it's awful. i've only just begun to realise that i've lost my girl; still it had to come, i suppose, sooner or later, and i wouldn't put a straw in the way of nan's happiness. well, i shall get used to it in time, i suppose, and then sometimes i shall expect nan to come and visit me." chapter iii atlantic city patty's day at the barlows' was a decided contrast to her visit at mrs. allen's. in the allen home every detail of housekeeping was complete and very carefully looked after, while at the barlows' everything went along in a slipshod, hit-or-miss fashion. patty well remembered her visit at their summer home which they called the hurly-burly, and she could not see that their city residence was any less deserving of the name. her aunt grace and uncle ted were jolly, good-natured people, who cared little about system or method in their home. the result was that things often went wrong, but nobody cared especially if they did. "i meant to have a nicer luncheon for you, patty," said her aunt, as they sat down at the table, "but the cook forgot to order lobsters, and when i telephoned for fresh peas the grocer said i was too late, for they were all sold. i'm so sorry, for i do love hothouse peas, don't you?" "i don't care what i have to eat, aunt grace. i just came to visit you people, you know, and the luncheon doesn't matter a bit." "that's nice of you to say so, child. i remember what an adaptable little thing you were when you were with us down in the country, and really, you did us quite a lot of good that summer. you taught bumble how to keep her bureau drawers in order. she's forgotten it now, but it was nice while it lasted." "_helen_, mother, i do wish you would call me helen. bumble is such a silly name." "i know it, my dear," said mrs. barlow, placidly, "and i do mean to, but you see i forget." "i forget it, too," said patty. "but i'll try to call you helen if you want me to. what time does uncle ted come home, aunt grace?" "oh, about five o'clock, or perhaps six; and sometimes he gets here at four. i never know what time he's coming home." "it isn't only that," said bob; "in fact, father usually comes home about the same time. but our clocks are all so different that it depends on which room mother is in, as to what time she thinks it is." "that's so," said helen. "we have eleven clocks in this house, patty, and every one of them is always wrong. still, it's convenient in a way; if you want to go anywhere at a certain time, no matter what time you start, you can always find at least one clock that's about where you want it to be." "i'm sure i don't see why the clocks don't keep the right time," said mrs. barlow. "a man comes every saturday on purpose to wind and set them all." "we fool with them," confessed bob. "you see, patty, we all like to get up late, and we set our clocks back every night, so that we can do it with a good grace." "yes," said helen, "and then if we want each other to go anywhere through the day,--on time, you know,--we go around the house, and set all the clocks forward. that's the only possible way to make anybody hurry up." patty laughed. the whole conversation was so characteristic of the barlows as she remembered them, and she wondered how they could enjoy living in such a careless way. but they were an especially happy family, and most hospitable and entertaining. patty thoroughly enjoyed her afternoon, although they did nothing in particular for her entertainment. but aunt grace was very fond of her motherless niece, and the twins just adored patty. at five o'clock tea was served, and though the appointments were not at all like mrs. allen's carefully equipped service, yet it was an hour of comfortable enjoyment. uncle ted came home, and he was so merry and full of jokes, that he made them all laugh. two or three casual callers dropped in, and patty thought again, as she sometimes did, that perhaps she liked her barlow cousins best of all. dinner, not entirely to patty's surprise, showed some of the same characteristics as luncheon had done. the salad course was lacking, because the mayonnaise dressing had been upset in the refrigerator; the ice cream was spoiled, because by mistake the freezer had been set in the sun until the ice melted, and the pretty pink pyramid was in a state of soft collapse. but, as aunt grace cheerfully remarked, if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else, and it didn't matter much, anyway. it was this happy philosophy of the barlow family that charmed patty so, and it left no room for embarrassment at these minor accidents, either on the part of the family or their guest. "now," said patty, after dinner, "if necessary, i'm going to set all the clocks forward, for, helen, i do want you to be ready when mrs. allen sends for us. she doesn't like to be kept waiting, one bit." "never mind the clocks, patty," said helen good-naturedly. "i'll be ready." she scampered off to dress, and sure enough was entirely ready before the carriage came. "you see, patty," she said, "we _can_ do things on time, only we've fallen into the habit of not doing so, unless there's somebody like you here to spur us up." patty admitted this, but told bumble that she was sorry her influence was not more lasting. * * * * * on saturday they started with the banks's on the automobile trip. mrs. allen provided patty with a long coat for the journey, and a veil to tie over her hat. not being accustomed to motoring, patty did not have appropriate garments, and mrs. allen took delight in fitting her out with some of nan's. mr. banks's motor-car was of the largest and finest type. it was what is called a palace touring car, and represented the highest degree of comfort and luxury. patty had never been in such a beautiful machine, and when she was snugly tucked in the tonneau between mrs. allen and ethel, mr. banks and mr. allen climbed into the front seat, and they started off. the ride to atlantic city was most exhilarating, and patty enjoyed every minute of it. there was a top to the machine, for which reason the force of the wind was not so uncomfortable, and the tourists were able to converse with each other. "i thought," said patty, "that when people went in these big cars, at this fearful rate of speed, you could hardly hear yourself think, much less talk to each other. what's the name of your car, mr. banks?" "the flying dutchman," was the reply. "it's a flyer, all right," said patty, "but i don't see anything dutch about it." "that's in honour of one of my ancestors, who, they tell me, came over from holland some hundreds of years ago." "then it's a most appropriate name," said patty, "and it's the most beautiful and comfortable car i ever saw." they went spinning on mile after mile at what patty thought was terrific speed, but which mr. banks seemed to consider merely moderate. after a while, seeing how interested patty was in the mechanism of the car, mr. allen offered to change seats with her, and let her sit with mr. banks, while that gentleman explained to her the working of it. patty gladly made the change, and eagerly listened while mr. banks explained the steering gear, and as much of the motor apparatus as he could make clear to her. patty liked mr. banks. he was a kind and courteous gentleman, and treated her with a deference that gave patty a sudden sense of importance. it seemed strange to think that she, little patty fairfield, was the honoured guest of the well-known mr. banks of philadelphia. she did her best to be polite and entertaining in return, and the result was very pleasant, and also very instructive in the art of motoring. they reached atlantic city late in the afternoon, and went at once to a large hotel, where mr. banks had telegraphed ahead for rooms. patty and ethel had adjoining rooms, and the allens and mr. banks had rooms across the hall from them. patty had begun to like ethel before this trip had been planned, and as she knew her better she liked her more. ethel banks, though the only daughter of a millionaire, was not in the least proud or ostentatious. she was a sweet, simple-minded girl, with friendly ways, and a good comradeship soon developed between her and patty. she was a little older than patty, and had just come out in society during the past winter. as patty was still a schoolgirl, she could not be considered as "out," but of course on occasions like the present, such formalities made little or no difference. "now, my dear," said mr. banks to ethel, "if you and miss fairfield will hasten your toilettes a little, we will have time for a ride on the board walk before dinner." this pleased the girls, and in a short time they had changed their travelling clothes for pretty light-coloured frocks, and went downstairs to find mr. banks waiting for them on the verandah. he explained that the allens would not go with them on this expedition, so the three started off. as their hotel faced the ocean, it was just a step to the wide and beautiful board walk that runs for miles along the beach at atlantic city. in all her life patty had never seen such a sight as this before, and the beauty and wonder of it all nearly took her breath away. the board walk was forty feet wide, and was like a moving picture of gaily-dressed and happy-faced people. although early in april, it seemed like summer time, so balmy was the air, so bright the sunshine. patty gazed with delight at the blue ocean, dotted with whitecaps, and then back to the wonderful panorama of the gay crowd, the music of the bands, and the laughter of the children. "the best way to get an idea of the extent of this thing," said mr. banks, "is to take a ride in the wheeled chairs. you two girls hop into that double one, and i will take this single one, and we'll go along the walk for a mile or so." the chairs were propelled by strong young coloured men, who were affable and polite, and who explained the sights as they passed them, and pointed out places of interest. patty said to ethel that she felt as if she were in a perambulator, except that she wasn't strapped in. but she soon became accustomed to the slow, gentle motion of the chairs, and declared that it was indeed an ideal way to see the beautiful place. on one side was an endless row of small shops or bazaars, where wares of all sorts were offered for sale. at one of these, a booth of oriental trinkets, mr. banks stopped and bought each of the girls a necklace of gay-coloured beads. they were not valuable ornaments, but had a quaint, foreign air, and were very pretty in their own way. patty was greatly pleased, and when they passed another booth which contained exquisite armenian embroideries, she begged ethel to accept the little gift from her, and picking out some filmy needle-worked handkerchiefs, she gave them to her friend. on they went, past the several long piers, until mr. banks said it was time to turn around if they would reach the hotel in time for dinner. so back they went to the hotel, and, after finding the allens, they all went to the dining-room. privately, patty wondered how these people could spend so much time eating dinner, when they might be out on the beach. at last, to her great satisfaction, dinner was over, and mr. allen proposed that they all go out for a short stroll on the board walk. although it had been a gay scene in the afternoon, that was as nothing to the evening effect. thousands,--millions, it seemed to patty,--of electric lights in various wonderful devices, and in every possible colour, made the place as light as day, and the varied gorgeousness of the whole scene made it seem, as patty said, like a big kaleidoscope. they walked gaily along, mingling with the good-natured crowd, noticing various sights or incidents here and there, until they reached the great steel pier, where mr. allen invited them to go with him to the concert. so in they went to listen to a band concert. this pleased patty, for she was especially fond of a brass band, but mrs. allen said it was nothing short of pandemonium. "your tastes are barbaric, patty," she said, laughing. "you love light and colour and noise, and i don't believe you could have too much of any of the three." "i don't believe i could," said patty, laughing herself, as the music banged and crashed. "and that gewgaw you've got hanging around your neck," went on mrs. allen; "your fancy for that proves you a true barbarian." "i think it's lovely," said patty, looking at her gay-coloured beads. "i don't care if i do like crazy things. ethel likes these beads, too." "that's all right," said mrs. allen. "of course you like them, chickadees, and they look very pretty with your light frocks. it's no crime, patty, to be barbaric. it only means you have youth and enthusiasm and a capacity for enjoyment." "indeed i have," said patty. "i'm enjoying all this so much that i feel as if i should just burst, or fly away, or something." "don't fly away yet," said ethel. "we can't spare you. there are lots more things to see." and so there were. after the concert they walked on, and on, continually seeing new and interesting scenes of one sort or another. indeed, they walked so far that mr. allen said they must take chairs back. so again they got into the rolling chairs, and rolled slowly back to the hotel. patty was thoroughly tired out, but very happy, and went to sleep with the music of the dashing surf sounding in her ears. chapter iv lessons again but all this fun and frolic soon came to an end, and patty returned to new york to take up her studies again. grandma elliott was waiting for her in the pretty apartment home, and welcomed her warmly. mrs. elliott and patty were to stay at the wilberforce only about a fortnight longer. then mr. and mrs. fairfield were to return and take patty away with them to the new home on seventy-second street. then the apartment in the wilberforce was to be given up, and grandma elliott would return to vernondale, where her son's family eagerly awaited her. "i've had a perfectly beautiful time, grandma," said patty, as she took off her wraps, "but i haven't time to tell you about it now. just think, school begins again to-morrow, and i haven't even looked at my lessons. i thought i would study some in philadelphia, but goodness me, there wasn't a minute's time to do anything but frivol. the wedding was just gorgeous! nan was a dream, and papa looked like an adonis. i'll tell you more at dinner time, but now i really must get to work." it was already late in the afternoon, but patty brought out her books, and studied away zealously until dinner time. then making a hasty toilette, she went down to the dining-room with grandma, and during dinner gave the old lady a more detailed account of her visit. after dinner, lorraine hamilton and the hart girls joined them in the parlour. but after chatting for a few moments with them, patty declared she must go back to her studies. "it's awfully hard," she said to lorraine, as they walked to school next morning, "to settle down to work after having such a gay vacation. i do believe, lorraine, that i never was intended for a student." "you're doing too much," said lorraine. "it's perfectly silly of you, patty, to try to cram two years' work into one, the way you're doing." "no, it isn't," said patty, "because then i won't have to go to school next year, and that will be worth all this hard work now." "i'm awfully sorry you're going away from the wilberforce," said lorraine. "i shall miss you terribly." "i know it, and i'll miss you, too; but seventy-second street isn't very far away, and you must come to see me often." the schoolgirls all welcomed patty back, for she was a general favourite, and foremost in all the recreations and pleasures, as well as the classes of the oliphant school. "oh, patty," cried elise farrington, as she met her in the cloakroom, "what do you think? we're going to get up a play for commencement. an original play, and act it ourselves, and we want you to write it, and act in it, and stage-manage it, and all. will you, patty?" "of course i will," said patty. "that is, i'll help. i won't write it all alone, nor act it all by myself, either. i don't suppose it's to be a monologue, is it?" "no," said elise, laughing. "we're all to be in it, and of course we'll all help write it, but you must be at the head of it, and see that it all goes on properly." "all right," said patty, good-naturedly, "i'll do all i can, but you know i'm pretty busy this year, elise." "i know it, patty, and you needn't do much on this thing. just superintend, and help us out here and there." then the girls went into the class room and the day's work began. patty had grown very fond of elise, and though some of the other girls looked upon her as rather haughty, and what they called stuck-up, patty failed to discern any such traits in her friend; and though elise was a daughter of a millionaire, and lived a petted and luxurious life, yet, to patty's way of thinking, she was more sincere and simple in her friendship than many of the other girls. after school that day elise begged patty to go home with her and begin the play. "can't do it," said patty. "i must go home and study." "oh, just come for a little while; the other girls are coming, and if you help us get the thing started, we can work at it ourselves, you know." "well, i'll go," said patty, "but i can only stay a few minutes." so they all went home with elise, and settled themselves in her attractive casino to compose their great work. but as might be expected from a group of chattering schoolgirls, they did not progress very rapidly. "tell us all about your fun in philadelphia, patty," said adelaide hart. and as patty enthusiastically recounted the gaieties of her visit, the time slipped away until it was five o'clock, and not a word had been written. "girls, i must go," cried patty, looking at her watch. "i have an awful lot of studying to do, and i really oughtn't to have come here at all." "oh, wait a little longer," pleaded elise. "we must get the outline of this thing." "no, i can't," said patty, "i really can't; but i'll come saturday morning, and will work on it then, if you like." patty hurried away, and when she reached home she found kenneth harper waiting for her. "i thought you'd never come," he said, as she arrived. "your school keeps very late, doesn't it?" "oh, i've been visiting since school," said patty. "i oughtn't to have gone, but i haven't seen the girls for so long, and they had a plan on hand that they wanted to discuss with me." "i have a plan on hand, too," said kenneth. "i've been talking it over with mrs. elliott, and she has been kind enough to agree to it. a crowd of us are going to the matinã©e on saturday, and we want you to go. mrs. morse has kindly consented to act as chaperon, and there'll be about twelve in the party. will you go, patty?" "will i go!" cried patty. "indeed i will, ken. nothing could keep me at home. won't it be lots of fun?" "yes, it will," said kenneth, "and i'm so glad you will go. i was afraid you'd say those old lessons of yours were in the way." patty's face fell. "i oughtn't to go," she said, "for i've promised the girls to spend saturday morning with them, and now this plan of yours means that i shall lose the whole day, and i have so much to do on saturday; an extra theme to write, and a lot of back work to make up. oh, ken, i oughtn't to go." "oh, come ahead. you can do those things saturday evening." patty sighed. she knew she wouldn't feel much like work saturday evening, but she couldn't resist the temptation of the gay party saturday afternoon. so she agreed to go, and kenneth went away much pleased. "what do you think, grandma?" said she. "do you think i ought to have given up the matinã©e, and stayed at home to study?" "no, indeed," said grandma elliott, who was an easy-going old lady. "you'll enjoy the afternoon with your young friends, and, as kenneth says, you can study in the evening." so when saturday came patty spent the morning with elise. the other girls were there, and they really got to work on their play, and planned the scenes and the characters. "it will be perfectly lovely!" exclaimed adelaide hart. "i'm so glad for our class to do something worth while. it will be a great deal nicer than the tableaux of last year." "but it will be an awful lot of work," said hilda henderson. "all those costumes, though they seem so simple, will be quite troublesome to get up, and the scenery will be no joke." "perhaps mr. hepworth will help us with the scenery," said patty. "he did once when we had a kind of a little play in vernondale, where i used to live. he's an artist, you know, and he can sketch in scenes in a minute, and make them look as if they had taken days to do. he's awfully clever at it, and so kind that i think he'll consent to do it." "that will be regularly splendid!" said elise, "and you'd better ask him at once, patty, so as to give him as much time as possible." "no, i won't ask him quite yet," said patty, laughing. "i think i'll wait until the play is written, first. i don't believe it's customary to engage a scene painter before a play is scarcely begun." "well, then, let's get at it," said hilda, who was practical. so to work they went, and really wrote the actual lines of a good part of the first act. "now, that's something like," said patty, as, when the clock struck noon, she looked with satisfaction on a dozen or more pages, neatly written in hilda's pretty penmanship. "if we keep on like that, we can get this thing done in five or six saturday mornings, and then i'll ask mr. hepworth about the scenery. then we can begin to rehearse, and we'll just about be ready for commencement day." while patty was with the girls, her interest and enthusiasm were so great that the play seemed the only thing to be thought of. but when she reached home and saw the pile of untouched schoolbooks and remembered that she would be away all the afternoon, she felt many misgivings. however, she had promised to go, so off she went to the matinã©e, and had a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable time. mrs. morse invited her to go home to dinner with clementine, saying that she would send her home safely afterward. clementine added her plea that this invitation might be accepted, but patty said no. although she wanted very much to go with the morses, yet she knew that duty called her home. so she regretfully declined, giving her reason, and went home, determined to work hard at her themes and her lessons. but after her merry day with her young friends, she was not only tired physically, but found great difficulty in concentrating her thoughts on more prosaic subjects. but patty had pretty strong will-power, and she forced herself to go at her work in earnest. grandma elliott watched her, as she pored over one book after another, or hastily scribbled her themes. a little pucker formed itself between her brows, and a crimson flush appeared on her cheeks. at ten o'clock mrs. elliott asserted her authority. "patty," she said, "you must go to bed. you'll make yourself ill if you work so hard." patty pushed back her books. "i believe i'll have to, grandma," she said. "my head's all in a whirl, and the letters are dancing jigs before my eyes." exhausted, patty crept into bed, and though she slept late next morning, grandma elliott imagined that her face still bore traces of worry and hard work. "nonsense, grandma," said patty, laughing. "i guess my robust constitution can stand a little extra exertion once in a while. i'll try to take it easier this week, and i believe i'll give up my gymnasium work. that will give me more time, and won't interfere with getting my diploma." but though patty gained a few extra half hours by omitting the gymnasium class, she missed the daily exercise more than she would admit even to herself. "you're getting round-shouldered, patty," said lorraine, one day; "and i believe it's because you work so hard over those old lessons." "it isn't the work, lorraine," said patty, laughing. "it's the play. i had to rewrite the whole of that garden scene last night, after i finished my lessons." "why, what was the matter with it?" "it was all wrong. we didn't think of it at the time, but in one place elise has to go off at one side of the stage, and, immediately after, come on at the other side, in different dress. now, of course, that won't do; it has to be arranged so that she will have time to change her costume. so i had to write in some lines for the others. and there were several little things like that to be looked after, so i had to do over pretty nearly the whole scene." "it's a shame, patty! we make you do all the hardest of the work." "not a bit of it. i love to do it; and when we all work together and chatter so, of course we don't think it out carefully enough, and so these mistakes creep in. don't say anything about it, lorraine. the girls will never notice my little changes and corrections, and i don't want to pose as a poor, pale martyr, growing round-shouldered in her efforts to help her fellow-sisters!" "you're a brick, patty, but i will tell them, all the same. if we're all going to write this play together, we're going to do it all, and not have you doing our work for us." lorraine's loyalty to patty was unbounded, and as she had, moreover, a trace of stubbornness in her character, patty knew that no amount of argument would move her from her determination to straighten matters out. so she gave up the discussion, only saying, "you won't do a bit of good, lorraine; and anyway, somebody ought to revise the thing, and if i don't do it, who will?" patty said this without a trace of egotism, for she and lorraine both knew that none of the other girls had enough constructive talent or dramatic capability to put the finishing touches on the lines of the play. that was patty's special forte, just as clementine morse was the one best fitted to plan the scenic effects, and elise farrington to design the costumes. "that's so," said lorraine, with a little sigh, "and i suppose, patty, you'll just go on in your mad career, and do exactly as you please." "i suppose i shall," said patty, laughing at lorraine's hopeless expression; "but i do want this play to be a success, and i mean to help all i can, in any way i can." "it's bound to be a success," said lorraine with enthusiasm, "because the girls are all so interested, and i think we're all working hard in our different ways. of course i don't have anything to do except to look after the incidental music, but i do hope that will turn out all right." "of course it will, lorraine," said patty. "your selections are perfect so far; and you do look after more than that. those two little songs you wrote are gems, and they fit into the second act just exactly right. i think you're a real poet, lorraine, and after the play is over i wish you'd get those little songs published. i'm sure they're worth it." "i wish i could," said lorraine, "and i do mean to try." chapter v a new home great was the rejoicing and celebration when mr. and mrs. fairfield returned from their wedding trip. they came to the apartment to remain there for a few days before moving to the new house. patty welcomed nan with open arms, and it was harder than ever for her to attend to her studies when there was so much going on in the family. the furnishing of the new house was almost completed, but there remained several finishing touches to be attended to. as patty's time was so much occupied, she was not allowed to have any hand in this work. mrs. allen had come on from philadelphia to help her daughter, and grandma elliott assisted in dismantling the apartment, preparatory to giving it up. so when patty started to school one friday morning, and was told that when the session was over she was to go to her new home to stay, she felt as if she were going to an unexplored country. it was with joyful anticipations that she put on her hat and coat, after school, and started home. her father had given her a latch-key, and as she stepped in at the front door, nan, in a pretty house dress, stood ready to welcome her. "my dear child," she said, "welcome home. how do you like the prospect?" "it's lovely," said patty, gazing around at as much as she could see of the beautiful house and its well-furnished rooms. "what a lot of new things there are, and i recognise a good many of the old ones, too. oh, nan, won't we be happy all here together?" "indeed we will," said nan. "i think it's the loveliest house in the world, and mother and fred have fixed it up so prettily. come up and see your room, patty." a large, pleasant front room on the third floor had been assigned to patty's use, and all her own special and favourite belongings had been placed there. "how dear of you, nan, to arrange this all for me, and put it all to rights. i really couldn't have taken the time to do it myself, but it's just the way i want it." "and this," said nan, opening a door into a small room adjoining, "is your own little study, where you can be quiet and undisturbed, while you're studying those terrific lessons of yours." patty gave a little squeal of delight at the dainty library, furnished in green, and with her own desk and bookcases already in place. "but don't think," nan went on, "that we shall let you stay here and grub away at those books much of the time. an hour a day is all we intend to allow you to be absent from our family circle while you're in the house." "an hour a day to study!" exclaimed patty. "it's more likely that an hour a day is all i can give you of my valuable society." "we'll see about that," said nan, wagging her head wisely. "you see i have some authority now, and i intend to exercise it." "ha," said patty, dramatically, "i see it will be war to the knife!" "to the knife!" declared nan, as she ran away laughing. patty looked about her two lovely rooms with genuine pleasure. she was like a cat in her love of comfortable chairs and luxurious cushions, and she fully appreciated the special and individual care with which nan and her father had considered her tastes. had she not been so busy she would have preferred to have a hand in the arranging of her rooms herself, but as it was, she was thankful that someone else had done it for her. hastily throwing off her hat and coat, she flung herself into a comfortable easy chair by her library table, and was soon deep in her french lesson. a couple of hours later nan came up and found her there. "patty fairfield!" she exclaimed. "you are the worst i ever saw! get right up and dress for dinner! your father will be home in a few minutes, and i want you to help me receive properly the master of the house." patty rubbed her eyes and blinked, as nan pulled the book away from her, and said, "why, what time is it?" "time for you to stop studying, and come out of your shell and mingle with the world. wake up!" and nan gave patty a little shake. patty came to herself and jumped up, saying, "indeed, i'm glad enough to leave my horrid books, and i'm hungry enough to eat any dinner you may set before me. what shall i wear, nan?" "put on that pretty light blue thing of yours, with the lace yoke. this is rather a festival night, and we're going to celebrate the first dinner in our new home." so patty brushed her curly hair and tied on a white ribbon bow of such exceeding size and freshness that she looked almost as if wings were sprouting from her shoulders. then she donned her light blue frock, and went dancing downstairs, to find that her father had already arrived. "well, pattikins," he said, "can you feel at home in this big house, after living so long in our apartment?" "yes, indeed," said patty, "any place is home where you and nan are." the dinner passed off gaily enough. only the three were present, as nan did not want any guests the first night. although the dining-room appointments were those that had furnished the fairfields'vernondale home, yet they were so augmented by numerous wedding gifts of nan's that patty felt as if she were at a dinner party of unusual splendour. "it's lovely to live in a house with a bride," she said, "because there are such beautiful silver and glass things on the table, and on the sideboard." "yes," said nan, glancing around her with satisfaction. "i intend to use all my things. i think it's perfectly silly to pack them away in a safe, and never have any good of them." "but suppose burglars break in and steal them," said patty. "well, even so," said nan, placidly, "they would be gone, but it wouldn't be much different from having them stored away in a safe deposit company." "nan's principle is right," said mr. fairfield. "now, here's the way i look at it: what you can't afford to lose, you can't afford to buy. remember that, patty, and if ever you are tempted to invest a large sum of money in a diamond or silver or any portable property, look upon that money as gone forever. true, you might realise on your possession in case of need, but more likely you could not, and, too, there is always the chance of losing it by carelessness or theft. so remember that you can't afford to buy what you can't afford to lose." "that's a new idea to me, papa," said patty, "but i see what you mean and i know you are right. however, there's little chance of my investing in silver at present, for i can just as well use nan's." "of course you can," said nan, heartily; "and whenever you want to have company, or a party of any kind, you've only to mention it, and not only my silver, but my servants and my own best efforts are at your disposal." "that's lovely," said patty, "and i would love to have parties and invite the schoolgirls and some of the boys, but i can't take the time now. why, i couldn't spare an evening from my studies to entertain the crowned heads of europe." "nonsense," said mr. fairfield, "you mustn't work so hard, puss; and anyway you'll have to spare this evening, for i asked hepworth to drop in, and i think two or three others may come, and we'll have a little informal housewarming." "yes," said patty, dubiously, "and kenneth said he would call this evening, and elise and roger may come in. so, as it's friday evening, i'll see them, of course; but after this i must study every evening except fridays." a little later on, when a number of guests had assembled in the fairfields' drawing-room, patty looked like anything but a bookworm, or a pale-faced student. her eyes danced, and the colour glowed in her pretty face, for she was very fond of merry society, and always looked her prettiest when thus animated. she and elise entertained the others by quoting some bits from the school play, nan sang for them, and kenneth gave some of his clever and funny impersonations. mr. hepworth declared that he had no parlour tricks, but patty asserted that he had, and she ran laughing from the room, to return with several large sheets of paper and a stick of drawing charcoal. then she decreed that mr. hepworth should draw caricature portraits of all those present. after a little demurring, the artist consented, and shrieks of laughter arose as his clever pencil swiftly sketched a humorous portrait of each one. "it's right down jolly," said kenneth to patty, "your having a big house of your own like this. mayn't i come often to see you? mrs. nan is so kind, she always has a welcome for me." "you may come and accept her welcome whenever you like," said patty, "but i can't promise to see you, ken, except friday evenings. honestly, i don't have one minute to myself. you see, we rehearse the play afternoons, and evenings i have to study, and saturday is crammed jam full." "but she will see you, kenneth," said nan, who had heard these remarks. "we're not going to let her retire from the world in any such fashion as she proposes; so you come to see us whenever you like, and my word for it, patty will be at home to you." nan passed on, laughing, and patty turned to kenneth with an appealing glance. "you know how it is, don't you, ken? i just have to stick to my work like everything, or i won't pass those fearful examinations, and now that i've made up my mind to try for them, i _do_ want to succeed." "yes, i know, patty, and i fully sympathise with your ambitions. stick to it, and you'll come out all right yet; and if i should call sometimes when you're studying, just say you're too busy to see me, and it will be all right." "what an old trump you are, ken. you always seem to understand." * * * * * but as the days passed on, patty found that other people did not understand. her study hours were continually interrupted. there were occasional callers in the afternoon, and when nan presented herself at the study door, and begged so prettily that patty would come down just this once, the girl hadn't the heart to refuse. then there was often company in the evenings, and again patty would be forced to break through her rules. or there were temptations which she really couldn't resist,--such as when her father came home to dinner, bringing tickets for the opera, or for some especially fine play. then, nan had a day each week on which she received her friends, and on these thursdays patty was supposed also to act as hostess. of course this pleasant duty was imperative, and patty always enjoyed the little receptions, though she felt guilty at losing her thursday afternoons. almost invariably, too, some of the guests accepted nan's invitation to remain to dinner, and that counted out thursday evening as well. altogether, poor patty was at her wits' end to find any time to herself. she tried rising very early in the morning and studying before breakfast, but she found it difficult to awaken early, and neither nan nor her father would allow her to be called. so she was forced to resort to sitting up late, and studying after the rest of the household had retired. as her room was on the third floor, she had no difficulty in pursuing this plan without anyone being aware of it, but burning the midnight oil soon began to tell on her appearance. one morning at breakfast, her father said, "patty, child, what is the matter with you? your eyes look like two holes burnt in a blanket! you weren't up late last night?" "not very," said patty, dropping her eyes before her father's searching gaze. nothing more was said on the subject, but though patty hated to do anything secretly, yet she felt she must continue her night work, as it was really her only chance. so that night as she sat studying until nearly midnight, her door slowly opened, and nan peeped in. she wore a kimono, and her hair was in a long braid down her back. "patty fairfield," she said, "go to bed at once! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to sit up so late when you know your father doesn't want you to." "now, look here, nan," said patty, talking very seriously, "i _have_ to sit up late like this, because i can't get a minute's time through the day. you know how it is. there's always company, or something going on, and i can't wake up early in the morning, and i have to sit up late at night, even if it does make me tired and sleepy and good for nothing the next day. oh, nan, instead of hindering and making fun of me, and bothering me all you can, i think you might try to help me!" patty threw herself on her knees, and burying her face in nan's lap, burst into a convulsive flood of tears. nan was thoroughly frightened. she had never before seen patty cry, and this was more than crying. it was almost hysterical. then, like a flash, nan saw it all. overwork and worry had so wrought on patty's nerves that the girl was half sick and wholly irresponsible for her actions. with a ready tact, nan patted the golden head, and gently soothed the excited child. "never mind, patty, darling," she said, "and try to forgive me, won't you? i fear i have been rather blind to the true state of the case, but i see more plainly now, and i will help you, indeed i will. i will see to it that you shall have your hours for study just as you want them, and you shall not be interrupted. dear little girl, you're all tired out, and your nerves are all on edge, and no wonder. now, hop along to bed, and you'll see that things will go better after this." as she talked, nan had gently soothed the excited girl, and in a quiet, matter-of-fact way, she helped her prepare for bed, and finally tucked her up snugly under her down coverlet. "good-night, dearie," she said; "go to sleep without a bother on your mind, and remember that after this nan will see to it that you shall have other times to study than the middle of the night." "good-night," said patty, "and i'm sorry i made such a baby of myself. but truly, nan, i'm bothered to death with those old lessons and the play and everything." "that's all right; just go to sleep and dream of commencement day, when all the bothers will be over, and you'll get your diploma and your medal, and a few dozen bouquets besides." and with a final good-night kiss, nan left the worn-out girl and returned thoughtfully to her own room. chapter vi busy days nan was as good as her word. instead of trying to persuade patty not to study so hard, she did all she could to keep the study hours free from interruption. many a time when nan wanted patty's company or assistance, she refrained from telling her so, and unselfishly left the girl to herself as much as possible. the result of this was that patty gave herself up to her books and her school work to such an extent that she allowed herself almost no social recreation, and took little or no exercise beyond her walks to and from school. this went on for a time, but patty was, after all, of a sensitive and observing nature, and she soon discovered, by a certain wistful expression on nan's face, or a tone of regret in her voice, that she was often sacrificing her own convenience to patty's. patty's sense of proportion rebelled at this, and she felt that she must be more obliging to nan, who was so truly kind to her. and so she endeavoured to cram more duties into her already full days, and often after a hard day's work in school, when she would have been glad to throw on a comfortable house gown and rest in her own room, she dressed herself prettily and went out calling with her stepmother, or assisted her to receive her own guests. gay-hearted nan was not acutely observant, and it never occurred to her that all this meant any self-sacrifice on patty's part. she accepted with pleasure each occasion when patty's plans fell in with her own, and the more this was the case, the more she expected it, so that poor patty again found herself bewildered by her multitude of conflicting duties. "i have heard," she thought to herself one day, "that duties never clash, but it seems to me they never do anything else. now, this afternoon i'm sure it's my duty to write my theme, and yet i promised the girls i'd be at rehearsal, and then, nan is so anxious for me to go shopping with her, that i honestly don't know which i ought to do; but i believe i'll write my theme, because that does seem the most important." "patty," called nan's voice from the hall, "you'll go with me this afternoon, won't you? i have to decide between those two hats, you know, and truly i can't take the responsibility alone." "oh, nan," said patty, "it really doesn't matter which hat you get, they're both so lovely. i've seen them, you know, and truly i think one is just as becoming as the other. and honest, i'm fearfully busy to-day." "oh, pshaw, patty. i've let you alone afternoons for almost a week now, or at least for two or three days, anyhow. i think you might go with me to-day." good-natured patty always found it hard to resist coaxing, so with a little sigh she consented, and gave up her whole afternoon to nan. that meant sitting up late at night to study, but this was now getting to be the rule with patty, and not the exception. so the weeks flew by, and as commencement day drew nearer, patty worked harder and her nerves grew more strained and tense, until a breakdown of some sort seemed imminent. mr. fairfield at last awoke to the situation, and told patty that she was growing thin and pale and hollow-eyed. "never mind," said patty, looking at her father with an abstracted air, "i haven't time now, papa, even to discuss the subject. commencement day is next week, to-morrow my examinations begin, and i have full charge of the costumes for the play, and they're not nearly ready yet." "you mustn't work so hard, patty," said nan, in her futile way. "nan, if you say that to me again, i'll throw something at you! i give you fair warning, people, that i'm so bothered and worried that my nerves are all on edge, and my temper is pretty much the same way. now, until after commencement i've got to work hard, but if i just live through that, i'll be sweet and amiable again, and will do anything you want me to." patty was half laughing, but it was plain to be seen she was very much in earnest. commencement was to occur the first week in june, and the examinations, which took place the week before, were like a nightmare to poor patty. had she been free to give her undivided attention, she might have taken them more calmly. but her mind was so full of the troubles and responsibilities consequent on the play, that it was almost impossible to concentrate her thoughts on the examination work. and yet the examinations were of far more importance than the play, for patty was most anxious to graduate with honours, and she felt sure that she knew thoroughly the ground she had been over in her studies. at last examinations were finished, and though not yet informed of her markings, patty felt that on the whole she had been fairly successful, and friday night she went home from school with a heart lighter than it had been for many weeks. "thank goodness, it's over!" she cried as she entered the house, and clasping nan around the waist, she waltzed her down the hall in a mad joy of celebration. "well, i am glad," said nan, after she had recovered her breath; "now you can rest and get back your rosy cheeks once more." "not yet," said patty gaily; "there is commencement day and the play yet. they're fun compared to examinations, but still they mean a tremendous lot of work. to-morrow will be my busiest day yet, and i've bought me an alarm clock, because i have to get up at five o'clock in order to get through the day at all." "what nonsense," said nan, but patty only laughed, and scurried away to dress for dinner. when the new alarm clock went off at five the next morning, patty awoke with a start, wondering what in the world had happened. then, as she slowly came to her senses, she rubbed her sleepy eyes, jumped up quickly, and began to dress. by breakfast time she had accomplished wonders. "i've rewritten two songs," she announced at the breakfast table, "and sewed for an hour on hilda's fairy costume, and cut out a thousand gilt stars for the scenery, and made two hundred paper violets besides!" "you are a wonder, patty," said nan, but mr. fairfield looked at his daughter anxiously. her eyes were shining with excitement, and there was a little red spot on either cheek. "be careful, dear," he said. "it would be pretty bad if, after getting through your examinations, you should break down because of this foolish play." "it isn't a foolish play, papa," said patty gaily; "it's most wise and sensible. i ought to know, for i wrote most of it myself, and i've planned all the costumes and helped to make many of them. one or two, though, we have to get from a regular costumer, and i have to go and see about them to-day. want to go with me, nan?" "i'd love to go," said nan, "but i haven't a minute to spare all day long. i'm going to the photographer's, and then to mrs. stuart's luncheon, and after that to a musicale." "never mind," said patty, "it won't be much fun. i just have to pick out the costumes for joan of arc and queen elizabeth." "your play seems to include a variety of characters," said mr. fairfield. "yes, it does," said patty, "and most of the dresses we've contrived ourselves; but these two are beyond us, so we're going to hire them. good-bye, now, people; i must fly over to see elise before i go down town." "who's going with you, patty, to the costumer's?" asked her father. "miss sinclair, papa; one of the teachers in our school. i am to meet her at the school at eleven o'clock. we are going to the costume place, and then to the shops to buy a few things for the play. i'll be home to luncheon, nan, at one o'clock." patty flew away on her numerous errands, going first to elise farrington's to consult on some important matters. hilda and clementine were there, and there was so much to be decided that the time passed by unnoticed, until patty exclaimed, "why, girls, it's half-past eleven now, and i was to meet miss sinclair at eleven! oh, i'm so sorry! i make it a point never to keep anybody waiting. i don't know when i ever missed an engagement before. now, you must finish up about the programmes and things, and i'll scurry right along. she must be there waiting for me." the school was only two blocks away, and patty covered the ground as rapidly as possible. but when she reached there miss sinclair had gone. another teacher who was there told patty that miss sinclair had waited until twenty minutes after eleven, and then she had concluded that she must have mistaken the appointment, and that probably patty had meant she would meet her at the costumer's. so she had gone on, leaving word for patty to follow her there, if by any chance she should come to the school looking for her. patty didn't know what to do. the costumer's shop was a considerable distance away, and patty was not in the habit of going around the city alone. but this seemed to her a special occasion, and, too, there was no time to hesitate. she thought of telephoning to nan, but of course she had already gone out. she couldn't call her father up from down town, and it wouldn't help matters any to ask elise or any of the other girls to go with her. so, having to make a hasty decision, patty determined to go alone. she knew the address, and though she didn't know exactly how to reach it, she felt sure she could learn by a few enquiries. but, after leaving the broadway car, she discovered that she had to travel quite a distance east, and there was no cross-town line in that locality. regretting the necessity of keeping miss sinclair waiting, patty hurried on, and after some difficulty reached the place, only to find that the costumer had recently moved, and that his new address was some distance farther up town. patty did not at all like the situation. she was unfamiliar with this part of the town, she felt awkward and embarrassed at being there alone, and she was extremely sorry not to have kept her engagement with miss sinclair. all of this, added to the fact that she was nervous and overwrought, as well as physically tired out, rendered her unable to use her really good judgment and common sense. she stood on a street corner, uncertain what to do next; and her uncertainty was distinctly manifest on her countenance. the driver of a passing hansom called out, "cab, miss?" and this seemed to patty a providential solution of her difficulty. recklessly unheeding the fact that she had never before been in a public cab alone, she jumped in, after giving the costumer's number to the driver. as she rode up town she thought it over, and concluded that, after all, she had acted wisely, and that she could explain to her father how the emergency had really necessitated this unusual proceeding. it was a long ride, and when patty jumped out of the cab and asked the driver his price, she was a little surprised at the large sum he mentioned. however, she thought it was wiser to pay it without protest than to make herself further conspicuous by discussing the matter. she opened the little wrist-bag which she carried, only to make the startling discovery that her purse was missing. even as she realised this, there flashed across her memory the fact that her father had often told her that it was a careless way to carry money, and that she would sooner or later be relieved of her purse by some clever pickpocket. patty could not be sure whether this was what had happened in the present instance, or whether she had left her purse at home. as she had carried change for carfare in her coat pocket, she had not expected to need a large sum of money, and her confused brain refused to remember whether she had put her purse in her bag or not. she found herself staring at the cabman, who was looking distrustfully at her. "i think i have had my pocket picked," she said slowly, "or else i left my purse at home. i don't know which." "no, no, miss, that won't go down," said the cabman, not rudely, but with an uncomfortable effect of being determined to have his fare. "pay up, now, pay up," he went on, "and you'll save yourself trouble in the end." "but i can't pay you," said patty. "i haven't any money." "then you didn't ought to ride. it ain't the first time i've knowed a swell young lady to try to beat her way. come, miss, if you don't pay me i'll have to drive you to the station house." "what!" cried patty, her face turning white with anger and mortification. "yes, miss, that's the way we do. i s'pose you know you've stole a ride." "oh, wait a minute," said patty; "let me think." "think away, miss; perhaps you can remember where you've hid your money." "but i tell you i haven't any," said patty, her indignation rising above her fear. "now, look here, i have a friend right in here at this address; let me speak to her, and she'll come out and pay you." "no, no, miss; you can't ketch me that way. i've heard of them friends before. but i'll tell you what," he added, as patty stood looking at him blankly, "i'll go in there with you, and if so be's your friend's there and pays up the cash, i've nothing more to say." the hansom-driver climbed down from his seat and went with patty into the costumer's shop. a stolid-looking woman of italian type met them and enquired what was wanted. "is miss sinclair here?" asked patty eagerly. "no, miss, there's nobody here by way of a customer." "but hasn't a lady been here in the last hour, to look at costumes for a play?" "no, miss, nobody's been here this whole morning." "you see you can't work that game," said the cabman. "i'm sorry, miss, but i guess you'll have to come along with me." chapter vii a rescue perhaps it was partly owing to patty's natural sense of humour, or perhaps her overwrought nerves made her feel a little hysterically inclined, but somehow the situation suddenly struck her as being very funny. to think that she, patty fairfield, was about to be arrested because she couldn't pay her cab fare, truly seemed like a joke. but though it seemed like a joke, it wasn't one. as patty hesitated, the cabman grew more impatient and less respectful. patty's feeling of amusement passed as quickly as it came, and she realised that she must do something at once. nan was not at home, her father was too far away, and, curiously, the next person she thought of as one who could help her in her trouble was mr. hepworth. this thought seemed like an inspiration. instantly assuming an air of authority and dignity, she turned to the angry cabman and said, "you will be the one to be arrested unless you behave yourself more properly. come with me to the nearest public telephone station. i have sufficient money with me to pay for a telephone message, and i will then prove to your satisfaction that your fare will be immediately paid." patty afterward wondered how she had the courage to make this speech, but the fear of what might happen had been such a shock to her that it had reacted upon her timidity. and with good results, for the cabman at once became meek and even cringing. "there's a telephone across the street, miss," he said. "very well," said patty; "come with me." "there's a telephone here, miss," said the italian woman, "if you would like to use it." "that's better yet," said patty; "where's the book?" taking the telephone book, patty quickly turned the leaves until she found mr. hepworth's studio number. she had an aversion to speaking her own name before her present hearers, so when mr. hepworth responded she merely said, "do you know who i am?" of course the others listening could not hear when mr. hepworth responded that he did know her voice, and then called her by name. "very well," said patty, still speaking with dignity, "i have had the misfortune to lose my purse, and i am unable to pay my cab fare. will you be kind enough to answer the cabman over this telephone right now, and inform him that it will be paid if he will drive me to your address, which you will give him?" "certainly," replied mr. hepworth politely, though he was really very much amazed at this message. patty turned to the cabman and said, somewhat sternly, "take this receiver and speak to the gentleman at the other end of the wire." sheepishly the man took the receiver and timidly remarked, "hello." "what is your number?" asked mr. hepworth, and the cabman told him. "where are you?" was the next question, and the cabman gave the address of the costumer, which patty had not remembered to do. mr. hepworth's studio was not very many blocks away, and he gave the cabman his name and address, saying, "bring the young lady around here at once, as quickly as you can. i will settle with you on your arrival." mr. hepworth hung up his own receiver, much puzzled. his first impulse was to go to the address where patty was, but as it would take some time for him to get around there by any means, he deemed it better that she should come to him. as patty felt safe, now that she was so soon to meet mr. hepworth, she gave her remaining change to the italian woman, who had been kind, though stolidly disinterested, during the whole interview. the cabman, having given his number to mr. hepworth, felt a responsibility for the safety of his passenger, and assisted her into the cab with humble politeness. a few moments' ride brought them to the large building in which was mr. hepworth's studio, and that gentleman himself, hatted and gloved, stood on the curb awaiting them. "what's it all about?" he asked patty, making no motion, however, to assist her from the cab. but the reaction after her fright and embarrassment had made patty so weak and nervous that she was on the verge of tears. "i didn't have any money," she said; "i don't know whether i lost it or not, and if you'll please pay him, papa will pay you afterward." "of course, child; that's all right," said mr. hepworth. "don't get out," he added, as patty started to do so. "stay right where you are, and i'll take you home." he gave patty's address to the driver, swung himself into the cab beside patty, and off they started. "i wasn't frightened," said patty, though her quivering lip and trembling hands belied her words; "but when he said he'd arrest me, i--i didn't know what to do, and so i telephoned to you." "quite right," said hepworth, in a casual tone, which gave no hint of the joy he felt in being patty's protector in such an emergency. "but i say, child, you look regularly done up. what have you been doing? have you had your luncheon?" "no," said patty, faintly. "and it's after two o'clock," said hepworth, sympathetically. "you poor infant, i'd like to take you somewhere for a bite, but i suppose that wouldn't do. well, here's the only thing we can do, and it will at least keep you from fainting away." he signalled the cabman to stop at a drug shop, where there was a large soda fountain. here he ordered for patty a cup of hot bouillon. he made her drink it slowly, and was rejoiced to see that it did her good. she felt better at once, and when they returned to the cab she begged mr. hepworth to let her go on home alone, and not take any more of his valuable time. "no, indeed," said that gentleman; "it may not be according to the strictest rules of etiquette for me to be going around with you in a hansom cab, but it's infinitely better than for you to be going around alone. so i'll just take charge of you until i can put you safely inside your father's house." "and the girls are coming at two o'clock for a rehearsal!" said patty. "oh, i shall be late." "the girls will wait," said mr. hepworth, easily, and then during the rest of the ride he entertained patty with light, merry conversation. he watched her closely, however, and came to the conclusion that the girl was very nervous, and excitable to a degree that made him fear she was on the verge of a mental illness. "when is this play of yours to come off?" he enquired. "next thursday night," said patty, "if we can get ready for it, and we must; but oh, there is so much to do, and now i've wasted this whole morning and haven't accomplished a thing, and i don't know where miss sinclair is, and i didn't see about the costumes, after all, and now i'll be late for rehearsal. oh, what shall i do?" mr. hepworth had sufficient intuition to know that if he sympathised with patty in her troubles she was ready to break down in a fit of nervous crying. so he said, as if the matter were of no moment, "oh, pshaw, those costumes will get themselves attended to some way or another. why, i'll go down there this afternoon and hunt them up, if you like. just tell me what ones you want." this was help, indeed. patty well knew that mr. hepworth's artistic taste could select the costumes even better than her own, and she eagerly told him the necessary details. mr. hepworth also promised to look after some other errands that were troubling patty's mind, so that when she finally reached home she was calm and self-possessed once more. mr. hepworth quickly settled matters with the cabman, and then escorted patty up the steps to her own front door, where, with a bow and a few last kindly words, he left her and walked rapidly away. the girls who had gathered for rehearsal greeted her with a chorus of reproaches for being so late, but when patty began to tell her exciting experiences, the rehearsal was forgotten in listening to the thrilling tale. "come on, now," said patty, a little later, "we must get to work. get your places and begin your lines, while i finish these." patty had refused to go to luncheon, and the maid had brought a tray into the library for her. so, with a sandwich in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, she directed the rehearsal, taking her own part therein when the time came. so the days went on, each one becoming more and more busy as the fateful time drew near. also patty became more and more nervous. she had far more to do than any of the other girls, for they depended on her in every emergency, referred every decision to her, and seemed to expect her to do all the hardest of the work. moreover, the long strain of overstudy she had been through had left its effects on her system, and patty, though she would not admit it, and no one else realised it, was in imminent danger of an attack of nervous prostration. the last few days nan had begun to suspect this, but as nothing could be done to check patty's mad career, or even to assist her in the many things she had to do, nan devoted her efforts to keeping patty strengthened and stimulated, and was constantly appearing to her with a cup of hot beef tea, or of strong coffee, or a dose of some highly recommended nerve tonic. although these produced good temporary effects, the continued use of these remedies really aggravated patty's condition, and when thursday came she was almost a wreck, both physically and mentally, and nan was at her wits' end to know how to get the girl through the day. at the summons of her alarm clock patty rose early in the morning, for there was much to do by way of final preparation. before breakfast she had attended to many left-over odds and ends, and when she appeared at the table she said only an absent-minded "good-morning," and then knit her brows as if in deep and anxious thought. mr. and mrs. fairfield looked at each other. they knew that to say a word to patty by way of warning would be likely to precipitate the breakdown that they feared, so they were careful to speak very casually and gently. "anything i can do for you to-day, puss?" said her father, kindly. "no," said patty, still frowning; "but i wish the flowers would come. i have to make twenty-four garlands before i go over to the schoolroom, and i must be there by ten o'clock to look after the building of the platform." "can't i make the garlands for you?" asked nan. "no," said patty, "they have to be made a special way, and you'd only spoil them." "but if you showed me," urged nan, patiently. "if you did two or three, perhaps i could copy them exactly; at any rate, let me try." "very well," said patty, dully, "i wish you could do them, i'm sure." the flowers were delayed, as is not unusual in such cases, and it was nearly ten when they arrived. patty was almost frantic by that time, and nan, as she afterward told her husband, had to "handle her with gloves on." but by dint of tact and patience, nan succeeded in persuading patty, after making two or three garlands, to leave the rest for her to do. although they were of complicated design, nan was clever at such things, and could easily copy patty's work. and had she been herself, patty would have known this. but so upset was she that even her common sense seemed warped. when she reached the schoolroom there were a thousand and one things to see to, and nearly all of them were going wrong. patty flew from one thing to another, straightening them out and bringing order from confusion, and though she held herself well in hand, the tension was growing tighter, and there was danger of her losing control of herself at any minute. hilda henderson was the only one who realised this, and, taking patty aside, she said to her, quietly, "look here, girl, i'll attend to everything else; there's not much left that needs special attention. and i want you to go right straight home, take a hot bath, and then lie down and rest until time to dress for the afternoon programme. will you?" patty looked at hilda with a queer, uncomprehending gaze. she seemed scarcely to understand what was being said to her. "yes," she said, but as she turned she half stumbled, and would have fallen to the floor if hilda had not caught her strongly by the arm. "brace up," she said, and her voice was stern because she was thoroughly frightened. "patty fairfield, don't you dare to collapse now! if you do, i'll--i don't know _what_ i'll do to you! come on, now, i'll go home with you." hilda was really afraid to let patty go alone, so hastily donning her hat and coat she went with her to her very door. "take this girl," she said to nan, "and put her to bed, and don't let her see anybody or say anything until the programme begins this afternoon. i'll look after everything that isn't finished, if you'll just keep her quiet." nan was thoroughly alarmed, but she only said, "all right, hilda, i'll take care of her, and thank you very much for bringing her home." patty sank down on a couch in a limp heap, but her eyes were big and bright as she looked at hilda, saying, "see that the stars are put on the gilt wands, and the green bay leaves on the white ones. lorraine's spangled skirt is in miss oliphant's room, and please be sure,--" patty didn't finish this sentence, but lay back among the cushions, exhausted. "run along, hilda," said nan; "do the best you can with the stars and things, and i'll see to it that patty's all right by afternoon." chapter viii commencement day nan was a born nurse, and, moreover, she had sufficient common sense and tact to know how to deal with nervous exhaustion. instead of discussing the situation she said, cheerily, "now everything will be all right. hilda will look after the stars and wands, and you can have quite a little time to rest before you go back to the schoolroom. don't try to go up to your room now, just stay right where you are, and i'll bring you a cup of hot milk, which is just what you need." patty nestled among the cushions which nan patted and tucked around her, and after taking the hot milk felt much better. "i must get up now, nan," she pleaded, from the couch where she lay, "i have so many things to attend to." "patty," said nan, looking at her steadily, "do you want to go through with the commencement exercises this afternoon and the play to-night successfully, or do you want to collapse on the stage and faint right before all the audience?" "i won't do any such foolish thing," said patty, indignantly. "you will," said nan, "unless you obey me implicitly, and do exactly as i tell you." nan's manner more than her words compelled patty's obedience, and with a sigh, the tired girl closed her eyes, saying, "all right, nan, have your own way, i'll be good." "that's a good child," said nan, soothingly, "and now first we'll go right up to your own room." then nan helped patty into a soft dressing gown, made her lie down upon her bed, and threw a light afghan over her. then sitting beside her, nan talked a little on unimportant matters and then began to sing softly. in less than half an hour patty was sound asleep, and nan breathed a sigh of relief at finding her efforts had been successful. but there was not much time to spare, for the commencement exercises began at three o'clock. so at two o'clock patty found herself gently awakened, to see nan at her bedside, arranging a dainty tray of luncheon which a maid had brought in. "here you are, girlie," said the cheery voice, "sit up now, and see what we have for you here." patty awoke a little bewildered, but soon gathered her scattered senses, and viewed with pleasure the broiled chicken and crisp salad before her. exhaustion had made her hungry, and while she ate, nan busied herself in getting out the pretty costume that patty was to wear at commencement. but the sight of the white organdie frock with its fluffy ruffles and soft laces brought back patty's apprehensions. "oh, nan," she cried in dismay, "i'm not nearly ready for commencement! i haven't copied my poem yet, and i haven't had a minute to practice reading it for the last two weeks. what shall i do?" "that's all attended to," said nan,--"the copying, i mean. you've been so busy doing other people's work, that of course you haven't had time to attend to your own, so i gave your poem to your father, and he had it typewritten for you, and here it is all ready. now, while you dress, i'll read it to you, and that will bring it back to your memory." "nan, you are a dear," cried patty, jumping up and flying across the room to give her stepmother a hearty caress. "whatever would i do without you? i'm all right now, and if you'll just elocute that thing, while i array myself in purple and fine linen, i'm sure it will all come back to me." so nan read patty's jolly little class poem line by line, and patty repeated it after her as she proceeded with her toilette. she was ready before the appointed time, and the carriage was at the door, but nan would not let her go. "no, my lady," she said, "you don't stir out of this house until the very last minute. if you get over there ahead of time, you'll begin to make somebody a new costume, or build a throne for the fairy queen, or some foolish trick like that. now you sit right straight down in that chair and read your poem over slowly, while i whip into my own clothes, and then we'll go along together. fred can't come until a little later anyway. sit still now, and don't wriggle around and spoil that pretty frock." patty obeyed like a docile child, and nan flew away to don her own pretty gown for the occasion. when she returned in a soft grey crãªpe de chine, with a big grey hat and feathers, she was such a pretty picture that patty involuntarily exclaimed in admiration. "i'm glad you like it," said nan, "i want to look my best so as to do you credit, and in return i want you to do your best so as to do me credit." "i will," said patty, earnestly, "i truly will. you've been awfully good to me, nan, and but for you i don't know what i should have done." away they went, and when they reached the schoolroom, and patty went to join her classmates, while nan took her place in the audience, she said as a parting injunction, "now mind, patty, this afternoon you're to attend strictly to your own part in the programme. don't go around helping other people with their parts, because this isn't the time for that. you'll have all you can do to manage patty fairfield." patty laughed and promised, and ran away to the schoolroom. the moment she entered, half a dozen girls ran to her with questions about various details, and nan's warning was entirely forgotten. indeed had it not been for hilda's intervention, patty would have gone to work at a piece of unfinished scenery. "drop that hammer!" cried hilda, as patty was about to nail some branches of paper roses on to a wobbly green arbour. "patty fairfield, are you crazy? the idea of attempting carpenter work with that delicate frock on! do for pity's sake keep yourself decent until after you've read your poem at least!" patty looked at hilda with that same peculiar vacantness in her glance which she had shown in the morning, and though hilda said nothing, she was exceedingly anxious and kept a sharp watch on patty's movements. but it was then time for the girls to march onto the platform, and as patty seemed almost like herself, though unusually quiet, hilda hoped it was all right. the exercises were such as are found on most commencement programmes, and included class history, class prophecy, class song and all of the usual contributions to a commencement programme. patty's class poem was near the end of the list, and nan was glad, for she felt it would give the girl more time to regain her poise. mr. fairfield had arrived, and both he and nan waited anxiously for patty's turn to come. when it did come, patty proved herself quite equal to the occasion. her poem was merry and clever, and she read it with an entire absence of self-consciousness, and an apparent enjoyment of its fun. she looked very sweet and pretty in her dainty white dress, and she stood so gracefully and seemed so calm and composed, that only those who knew her best noticed the feverish brightness of her eyes and a certain tenseness of the muscles of her hands. but this was not unobserved by one in the audience. mr. hepworth, though seated far back, noted every symptom of patty's nervousness, however little it might be apparent to others. although she went through her ordeal successfully, he knew how much greater would be the excitement and responsibility of the evening's performance and he wished he could help her in some way. but there seemed to be nothing he could do, and though he had sent her a beautiful basket of roses, it was but one floral gift among so many that he doubted whether patty even knew that he sent it; and he also doubted if she would have cared especially if she had known it. like most of the graduates, patty received quantities of floral tributes. as the ushers came again and again with clusters or baskets of flowers, the audience heartily applauded, and patty, though embarrassed a little, preserved a pretty dignity, and showed a happy enjoyment of it all. as soon as the diplomas were awarded, and patty had her cherished roll tied with its blue ribbon, nan told mr. fairfield that it was imperative that patty should be made to go straight home. "if she stays there," said nan, "she'll get excited and exhausted, and be good for nothing to-night. i gave her some stimulants this noon, although she didn't know it, but the effects are wearing off and a reaction will soon set in. she must come home with us at once." "you are right, mrs. fairfield," said mr. hepworth, who had crossed the room and joined them just in time to hear nan's last words. "patty is holding herself together by sheer nervous force, and she needs care if she is to keep up through the evening." "that is certainly true," said nan. "kenneth," she added, turning to young harper, who stood near by, "you have a good deal of influence with patty. go and get her, won't you? make her come at once." "all right," said kenneth, and he was off in a moment, while mr. hepworth looked after him, secretly wishing that the errand might have been entrusted to him. but kenneth found his task no easy one. although patty willingly consented to his request, and even started toward the dressing-room to get her wraps, she paused so many times to speak to different ones, or her progress was stopped by anxious-looking girls who wanted her help or advice, that kenneth almost despaired of getting her away. "can't you make her come, hilda?" he said. "i'll try," said hilda, but when she tried, patty only said, "yes, hilda, in just a minute. i want to coach mary a little in her part, and i want to show hester where to stand in the third act." "never mind," said hilda, impatiently. "let her stand on the roof, if she wants to, but for goodness' sake go on home. your people are waiting for you." again patty looked at her with that queer vacant gaze, and then lorraine hart stepped forward and took matters in her own hands. "march!" she said, as she grasped patty's arm, and steered her toward the dressing-room. "halt!" she said after they reached it, and then while patty stood still, seemingly dazed, lorraine put her cloak about her, threw her scarf over her head, wheeled her about, and marched her back to where kenneth stood waiting. "take her quick," she said. "take her right to the carriage; don't let her stop to speak to anybody." so kenneth grasped patty's arm firmly and led her through the crowd of girls, out of the door, and down the walk to the carriage. ordinarily, patty would have resented this summary treatment, but still in a half-dazed way she meekly went where she was led. once in the carriage, nan sat beside her and mr. fairfield opposite, and they started for home. no reference was made to patty herself, but the others talked lightly and pleasantly of the afternoon performance. on reaching home, nan put patty to bed at once, and telephoned for the doctor. but when dr. martin came, nan met him downstairs, and told him all about the case. they then decided that the doctor should not see patty, as to realise the fact that she was in need of medical attendance might prove a serious shock. "and really, doctor," said nan, "if the girl shouldn't be allowed at least to try to go through with the play this evening, i wouldn't like to answer for the consequences." "i understand," said dr. martin, "and though i think that with the aid of certain prescriptions i shall give you, she can probably get through the evening, it would be far better if she did not attempt it." "i know it doctor," said nan, "and with some girls it might be possible to persuade them to give it up, but i can't help feeling that if we even advised patty not to go to-night, she would fly into violent hysterics." "very likely," said dr. martin, "and i think, mrs. fairfield, you are right in your diagnosis. if you will give her these drops exactly as i have directed, i think she will brace up sufficiently to go through her part all right." nan thanked the doctor, and hurried back to patty's room to look after her charge. she found patty lying quietly, but in a state of mental excitement. when nan came in, she began to talk rapidly. "it's all right, nan, dear," she said. "i'm not ill a bit. please let me get up now, and dress so i can go around to the schoolroom a little bit early. there are two or three things i must look after, and then the play will go off all right." "very well," said nan, humouring her, "if you will just take this medicine it will brace you up for the evening, and you can go through with the play as successfully as you did your part this afternoon." patty agreed, and took the drops the doctor had left, without a murmur. soon their soothing effect became apparent, and patty's nervous enthusiasm quieted down to such an extent that she seemed in no haste to go. she ate her dinner slowly, and dawdled over her dressing, until nan again became alarmed lest the medicine had been too powerful. poor nan really had a hard time of it. patty was not a tractable patient, and nan was frequently at her wits' end to know just how to manage her. but at last she was ready, and they all started for the school again. although patty's own people, and a few of her intimate girl friends knew of her overwrought state, most of the class and even the teachers had no idea how near to a nervous breakdown she was. for her demeanour was much as usual, and though she would have moments of dazed bewilderment, much of the time she was unusually alert and she flew about attending to certain last details in an efficient and clear-headed manner. chapter ix the play the play went through beautifully. every girl did her part wonderfully well, but patty surpassed them all. buoyed up by excitement, she played her part with a dash and sprightliness that surprised even the girls who had seen her at rehearsal. she was roguish, merry and tragic by turns, and she sang her solos with a dramatic effect that brought down the house. she looked unusually pretty, which was partly the effect of her intense excitement, and though nan and mr. fairfield could not help admiring and applauding with the rest, they were very anxious and really alarmed, lest she might not be able to keep up to these emotional heights until the end of the play. without speaking his thoughts to anyone else, mr. hepworth, too, was very much concerned for patty's welfare. he realised the danger she was in, and noted every evidence of her artificial strength and merriment. seeing dr. martin in a seat near the back of the room, he quietly rose and went and sat beside the old gentleman. "doctor," he said, "i can't help fearing that a collapse of some sort will follow miss fairfield's performance." "i am sure of it," said the doctor, looking gravely at mr. hepworth. "then don't you think perhaps it would be wise for you to go around behind the scenes, presently, and be there in case of emergency." "i will gladly do so," said dr. martin, "if mr. and mrs. fairfield authorise it." mr. hepworth looked at his programme, and then he looked at patty. he knew the play pretty thoroughly, and he knew that she was making one of the final speeches. he saw too, that she had nearly reached the limit of her endurance, and he said, "dr. martin, i wish you would go on my authority. the fairfields are sitting in the front part of the house, and it would be difficult to speak to them about it without creating a commotion. and besides, i think there is no time to be lost; this is almost the end of the play, and in my judgment, miss fairfield is pretty nearly at the end of her self-composure." dr. martin gave the younger man a searching glance, and then said, "you are right, mr. hepworth. it may be advisable that i should be there when miss fairfield comes off the stage. i will go at once. will you come with me?" "yes," said mr. hepworth, and the two men quietly left the room, and hastened around the building to the side entrance. as mr. hepworth had assisted with the scenery for the play, and had been present at one or two rehearsals, he knew his way about, and guided dr. martin through the corridors to the room where the girls were gathered, waiting their cue to go on the stage for the final tableau and chorus. lorraine and hilda looked at each other comprehendingly, as the two men appeared, but the other girls wondered at this apparent intrusion. then as the time came, they all went on the stage, and dr. martin and mr. hepworth, watching from the side, saw them form the pretty final tableau. patty in a spangled dress and tinsel crown, waving a gilt wand, stood on a high pedestal. around her, on lower pedestals, and on the floor, were the rest of the fairy maidens in their glittering costumes. the last notes of the chorus rang out, and amidst a burst of applause the curtain fell. the applause continued so strongly that the curtain was immediately raised again, and the delighted audience viewed once more the pretty scene. mr. hepworth was nearer the stage than dr. martin, in fact, in his anxiety, he was almost edging on to it, and while the curtain was up, and the audience was applauding, and the orchestra was playing, and the calcium lights were flashing their vari-coloured rays, his intense watchfulness noticed a slight shudder pass over patty's form, then she swayed slightly, and her eyes closed. in a flash mr. hepworth had himself rung the bell that meant the drop of the curtain, and as the curtain came down, he sprang forward among the bewildered girls, and reached the tall pedestal just in time to catch patty as she tottered and fell. "she has only fainted," he said, as he carried her off the stage, "please don't crowd around, she will be all right in a moment." he carried her to the dressing-room and gently laid her on a couch. dr. martin followed closely, and mr. hepworth left patty in his charge. "you, miss hamilton, go in there," he said to lorraine, at the door, "and see if you can help dr. martin. i will speak to the fairfields and see that the carriage is ready. i don't think the audience knows anything about it, and there need be no fuss or commotion." quick-witted hilda grasped the situation, and kept the crowd of anxious girls out of the dressing-room, while dr. martin administered restoratives to patty. but it was not so easy to overcome the faintness that had seized upon her. when at last she did open her eyes, it was only to close them again in another period of exhaustion. however, this seemed to encourage dr. martin. "it's better than i feared," he said. "she isn't delirious. there is no threat of brain fever. she will soon revive now, and we can safely take her home." and so when the doctor declared that she might now be moved, mr. fairfield supported her on one side, and kenneth on the other as they took her to the carriage. "get in, mrs. fairfield," said kenneth, after patty was safely seated by her father, "and you too, dr. martin. i'll jump up on the box with the driver. perhaps i can help you at the house." so away they went, without a word or a thought for poor mr. hepworth, to whose watchfulness was really due the fact of dr. martin's opportune assistance. and too, if mr. hepworth had not seen the first signs of patty's loss of consciousness, her fall from the high pedestal might have proved a serious accident. although dr. martin told the family afterward of mr. hepworth's kind thoughtfulness, it went unnoted at the time. but of this, mr. hepworth himself was rather glad than otherwise. his affection for patty was such that he did not wish the girl to feel that she owed him gratitude, and he preferred to have no claim of the sort upon her. when the party reached the fairfield house, patty had revived enough to talk rationally, but she was very weak, and seemed to have lost all enthusiasm and even interest in the occasion. "it's all over, isn't it?" she asked of her father in a helpless, pathetic little voice. "yes, puss," said mr. fairfield, cheerily, "it's all over, and it was a perfect success. now don't bother your head about it any more, but just get rested, and get a good sleep, and then we'll talk it over." patty was quite willing not to discuss the subject, and with nan's assistance she was soon in bed and sound asleep. dr. martin stood watching her. "i don't know," he said to nan, "whether this sleep will last or not. if it does all will be well, but she may wake up soon, and become nervous and hysterical. in that case give her these drops, which will have a speedy effect. i will be around again early to-morrow morning." but the doctor's fears were not realised. patty slept deeply all through the night, and had not waked when the doctor came in the morning. "don't waken her," he said, as he looked at the sleeping girl. "she's all right. there's no fear of nervous prostration now. the stress is over, and her good constitution and healthy nature are reasserting themselves and will conquer. she isn't of a nervous temperament, and she is simply exhausted from overwork. don't waken her, let her sleep it out." and so patty slept until afternoon, and then awoke, feeling more like her old self than she had for many days. "nan," she called, and nan came flying in from the next room. "i'm awful hungry," said patty, "and i am pretty tired, but the play is over, isn't it, nan? i can't seem to remember about last night." "yes, it's over, patsy, and everything is all right, and you haven't a thing to do but get rested. will you have your breakfast now, or your luncheon?--because you've really skipped both." "then i'll have them both," said patty with decision. "i'm hungry enough to eat a house." later, patty insisted on dressing and going downstairs for dinner, declaring she felt perfectly well, but the exertion tired her more than she cared to admit, and when dr. martin came in the evening, she questioned him directly. "i'm not really ill, am i, dr. martin? i'll be all right in a day or two, won't i? it's so silly to get tired just walking downstairs." "don't be alarmed," said the old doctor, "you will be all right in a day or two. by day after to-morrow you can walk downstairs, or run down, if you like, without feeling tired at all." "then that's all right," said patty. "i suppose i did do too much with my school work, and the play, and everything, but i couldn't seem to help it, and if i get over it in a week i'll be satisfied. in fact, i shan't mind a bit, lounging around and resting for a few days." "that's just the thing for you to do," agreed dr. martin, "and i'll give you another prescription. after a week or two of rest, you need recreation. you must get out of the city, and go somewhere in the country. not seashore or the mountains just yet, but away into the country, where you'll have plenty of fresh air and nothing to do. you mustn't look at a book of any sort or description for a month or two at least. will you promise me that?" "with great pleasure," said patty, gaily, "i don't think i shall care to see a book all summer long; not a schoolbook anyway. i suppose i may read storybooks." "not at present," said the doctor. "let alone books of all sorts for a couple of months, and after that i'll see about it. what you want is plenty of fresh air and outdoor exercise. then you'll get back the roses in your cheeks, and add a few pounds of flesh to your attenuated frame." "your prescription sounds attractive," said patty, "but where shall i go?" "we'll arrange all that," said mr. fairfield. "i think myself that all you need is recreation and rest, with a fair proportion of each." "so do i," said patty; "i don't want to go to an old farmhouse, where there isn't a thing to do but walk in the orchard; i want to go where i'll have some fun." "go ahead," said the doctor, "fun won't hurt you any as long as it's outdoor sports or merry society. but don't get up any plays, or any such foolishness, where fun is only a mistaken name for hard work." patty promised this, and dr. martin went away without any doubts as to the speedy and entire recovery of his patient. mr. fairfield and nan quite agreed with the doctor's opinion that patty ought to go away for a rest and a pleasant vacation. the next thing was to decide where she should go. it was out of the question, of course, to consider any strange place for her to go alone, and as mr. fairfield could not begin his vacation until july, and nan was not willing to leave him, there seemed to be no one to accompany patty. the only places, therefore, that mr. fairfield could think of, were for her to go to vernondale and visit the elliotts, or down to the hurly-burly where the barlows had already gone for their summer season. but neither of these plans suited patty at all, for she said that vernondale would be no rest and not much fun. she was fond of her elliott cousins, but she felt sure that they would treat her as a semi-invalid and coddle her until she went frantic. the hurly-burly, she said, would be just the opposite. they would have no consideration down there for the fact that she wanted a rest, but would make her jog about hither and thither, taking long tramps and going on tiresome picnics whether she wanted to or not. so neither of these plans seemed just the thing, and nan's proposal that patty go to philadelphia and spend june with mrs. allen wasn't quite what patty wanted. indeed, patty did not know herself exactly what she wanted, which was pretty good proof that she was not so far from the borders of nervous land as they had believed. and so when elise came over one afternoon, and brought with her an invitation for patty, that young woman showed no hesitation in announcing at once that it was exactly what she wanted. the invitation was nothing more nor less than to go on a long motor-car trip with the farringtons. "it will be perfectly splendid," said elise, "if you'll only go, patty." "go!" said patty, "i should think i would go! it's perfectly splendid of you to invite me. who are going?" "just father and mother, and roger and myself," said elise, "and you will make five. roger can run the car, or father can, either, for that matter, so we won't take a man, and father has had a new top put on his big touring-car and we can pile any amount of luggage up on it, so you can take all the frocks you want to. we'll stop at places here and there, you know, to visit, and of course, we'll always stop for meals and to stay over night." "but perhaps they wouldn't want me," said patty, "where you go to visit." "nonsense, of course they will. why, i wrote to bertha warner that i wanted to bring you, and she said she'd love to have you come." "how could she say so? she doesn't know me." "well, i told her all about you, and she's fully prepared to love you as i do. oh, do you suppose your people will let you go?" "of course they will. they'll be perfectly delighted to have me go." patty was right. when she told her father and nan about the delightful invitation, they were almost as pleased as she was herself, and mr. fairfield gave ready permission. the projected trip entirely fulfilled dr. martin's requisites of fresh air, out-of-door exercise, and a good time, and when he was told of the plan he also expressed his entire approval. chapter x a motor trip preparations began at once. it was now the first of june and they were to start on the sixth. there were delightful shopping excursions for the replenishing of patty's wardrobe, and nan gladly assisted patty to get everything in order for her trip. at last the day of starting came, and a more beautiful day could not be imagined. it was typical june weather, and the sun shone pleasantly, but not too warmly, from a clear blue sky. patty's only experience in motoring had been her trip to atlantic city, but that was only a short ride compared to the contemplated tour of the farringtons. mr. farrington's huge car seemed to be furnished with everything necessary for a long journey. although they would usually take their meals at hotels in the towns through which they passed, mrs. farrington explained they might occasionally wish to have tea or even luncheon on the road, so the car was provided with both tea-basket and luncheon-kit. the novelty of this paraphernalia was fascinating to patty, and she peeped into the well-appointed baskets with chuckles of delight at the anticipated pleasure of making use of them. patty's trunk was put up on top among the others, her hand-luggage was stowed away in its place, and with affectionate good-byes to nan and her father, she took her seat in the tonneau between mrs. farrington and elise, and away they started. mr. farrington and roger, who sat in front, were in the gayest of spirits and everything was promising for a happy journey. as they threaded their way through the crowded city streets, patty rejoiced to think that they would soon be out in the open country where they would have wide roads with comparatively few travellers. "what is the name of your machine, mr. farrington?" she asked, as they whizzed along. "i may as well own up," that gentleman answered, laughing. "i have named it 'the fact.'" "'the fact,'" repeated patty, "what a funny name. why do you call it that? you must have some reason." "i have," said mr. farrington, in a tone of mock despair. "i call it the fact because it is a stubborn thing." patty laughed merrily at this. "i'm afraid it's a libel," she said, "i'm sure i don't see anything stubborn about the way it acts. it's going beautifully." "yes, it is," said mr. farrington, "and i hope it will continue to do so, but i may as well warn you that it has a most reprehensible habit of stopping now and then, and utterly refusing to proceed. and this, without any apparent reason, except sheer stubbornness." "how do you finally induce it to move?" asked patty, interested by this trait. "we don't induce it," said elise, "we just sit and wait, and when the old thing gets ready to move, it just draws a long breath and humps itself up and down a few times, and turns a couple of somersaults, and moves on." "what an exciting experience," said patty. "when do you think it will begin any such performance as that?" "you can't tell," said mr. farrington. "it's as uncertain as the weather." "more so," said roger. "the weather sometimes gives you warning of its intentions, but the fact just selects a moment when you're the farthest possible distance from civilisation or help of any kind, and then it just sits down and refuses to get up." "well, we won't cross that bridge until we come to it," said mr. farrington. "sometimes we run a week without any such mishap." and truly there seemed no danger at present, for the big car drove ahead as smoothly and easily as a railroad train, and patty lay back in the luxurious tonneau, feeling that at last she could get rested and have a good time both at once. the wonderful exhilaration of the swift motion through the soft june air, the delightful sensation of the breeze which was caused by the motion of the car, and the ever-changing natural panorama on either side of her, gave patty the sensation of having suddenly been transported to some other country than that in which she had been living the past few weeks. and so pleasantly friendly were her relations with mrs. farrington and elise that it did not seem necessary to make remarks for the sake of keeping up the conversation. there was much pleasant chat and discussion as they passed points of interest or diverting scenes, but then again there were occasional pauses when they all gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the delightful motion of the car. patty began to realise what was meant by the phrase, "automobile elation." she seemed to feel an uplifting of her spirit, and a strange thrill of exquisite happiness, while all trace of nervousness or petty worry was brushed away like a cobweb. her lungs seemed filled with pure air, and further, she had a whimsical sense that she was breathing the very blue of the sky. she said this to mrs. farrington, and that lady smiled as she answered, "that's right, patty; if you feel that way, you are a true motorist. not everyone does. there are some who only look upon a motor-car as a machine to transport them from one place to another, but to me it is the very fairyland of motion." patty's eyes shone in sympathy with this idea, but roger turned around laughingly, and said, "you'd better be careful how you breathe the blue sky, patty, for there's a little cloud over there that may stick in your throat." patty looked at the tiny white cloud, and responded, "if you go much faster, roger, i'm afraid we'll fly right up there, and run over that poor little cloud." "let's do it," said roger. "there's no fine for running over a cloud, is there, dad?" as he spoke, roger put on a higher speed, and then they flew so fast that patty began to be almost frightened. but her fear did not last long, for in a moment the great car gave a kind of a groan, and then a snort, and then a wheeze, and stopped; not suddenly, but with a provokingly determined slowness, that seemed to imply no intention of moving on again. after a moment the great wheels ceased to revolve, and the car stood stubbornly still, while mr. farrington and roger looked at each other, with faces of comical dismay. "we're in for it!" said mr. farrington, in a resigned tone. "then we must get out for it!" said roger, as he jumped down from his seat, and opened the tool-chest. mrs. farrington groaned. "now, you see, patty," she said, "how the car lives up to its name. i hoped this wouldn't happen so soon." "what is the matter?" asked patty. "why doesn't it go?" "patty," said elise, looking at her solemnly, "i see you have yet to learn the first lesson of automobile etiquette. never, my child, whatever happens, _never_ inquire why a car doesn't go! that is something that nobody ever knows, and they wouldn't tell if they did know, and, besides, if they did know, they'd know wrong." mrs. farrington laughed at elise's coherent explanation, but she admitted that it was pretty nearly right, after all. meanwhile, mr. farrington and roger, with various queer-looking tools, were tinkering at the car here and there, and though they did not seem to be doing any good, yet they were evidently not discouraged, for they were whistling gaily, and now and then made jesting remarks about the hopelessness of ever moving on again. "i think there's water in the tubes," said roger, "but dad thinks it's a choked carburetter. so we're going to doctor for both." "very well," said mrs. farrington, calmly; "as there's no special scenery to look at about here, i think i shall take a little nap. you girls can get out and stroll around, if you like." mrs. farrington settled herself comfortably in her corner, and closed her eyes. elise and patty did get out, and walked up and down the road a little, and then sat down on the bank by the roadside to chat. for the twentieth time or more they talked over all the details of commencement day, and congratulated themselves anew on the success of their entertainment. at last, after they had waited nearly two hours, roger declared that there was no earthly reason why they shouldn't start if they cared to. it was part of roger's fun, always to pretend that he could go on at any moment if he desired to, and when kept waiting by the misconduct of the car, he always made believe that he delayed the trip solely for his own pleasure. likewise, if under such trying circumstances as they had just passed through, he heard other automobiles or wagons coming, he would drop his tools, lean idly against the car, with his hands in his pockets, whistling, and apparently waiting there at his own pleasure. all this amused patty very much, and she began, as elise said, to learn the rules of automobile etiquette. it was not difficult with the farringtons, for they all had a good sense of humour, and were always more inclined to laugh than cry over spilled milk. when roger made this announcement, elise jumped up, and crying, "come on, patty," ran back to the car and jumped in, purposely waking her mother as she did so. mrs. farrington placidly took in the situation, and remarked that she was in no hurry, but if they cared to go on she was quite ready. and so with laughter and gay chatter they started on again, and the car ran as smoothly as it had before the halt. but it was nearly sundown, and there were many miles yet to travel before they reached the hotel where they had expected to dine and stay over night. "shall we go on, mother?" said mr. farrington. "can you wait until nine o'clock or thereabouts for your dinner? or shall we stop at some farmhouse, and so keep ourselves from starvation?" "i would rather go on," said mrs. farrington, "if the girls don't mind." the girls didn't mind, and so they plunged ahead while the sun set and the darkness fell. there was no moon, and a slight cloudiness hid the stars. roger lighted the lamps, but they cast such weird shadows that they seemed to make the darkness blacker than ever. patty was not exactly afraid, but the experience was so new to her that she felt she would be glad when they reached the hotel. perhaps mr. farrington discerned this, for he took especial pains to entertain his young guest, and divert her mind from thoughts of possible danger. so he beguiled the way with jokes and funny stories, until patty forgot her anxiety, and the first thing she knew they were rolling up the driveway to the hotel. floods of light streamed from the windows and the great doors, and strains of music could be heard from within. "thank goodness we're here!" said mrs. farrington. "jump out, girlies, and let us seek shelter at once." roger remained in the car to take it away to the garage, and mr. farrington accompanied the ladies into the hotel. much as she had enjoyed the ride, patty felt glad to get into the warm, lighted house, and very soon the party were shown to their rooms. patty and elise shared a large room whose twin beds were covered with spreads of gaily-flowered chintz. curtains of the same material hung at the windows, and draped the dressing-table. "what a pleasant, homelike room," said patty, as she looked about. "yes," said elise, "this is a nice old country hotel. we've been here before. hurry, patty, let's dress for dinner quickly." but patty was surveying herself in the long pierglass that hung between two windows. nan had selected her motoring outfit, and she had donned it that morning so hastily that she hadn't really had an opportunity to observe herself. but now, as she looked at the rather shapeless figure in the long pongee coat, and the queer shirred hood of the same material, and as she noted the voluminous chiffon veil with its funny little front window of mica, she concluded that she looked more like a goblin in a fairy play than a human being. "do stop admiring your new clothes, patty, and get dressed," said elise, who was on her knees before an open suitcase, shaking out patty's skirt and bodice. "get off those togs, and get ready to put these on. this is a sweet little dresden silk; i didn't know you had it. is it new?" "yes," said patty, "nan bought it for me. she said it wouldn't take much room in the suitcase, and would be useful for a dinner dress." "it's lovely," said elise. "now get into it, and i'll hook you up." so patty got out of what she called her goblin clothes, but was still giggling at them as she hung them away in the wardrobe. less than half an hour later the two girls, spick and span in their dainty dresses, and with fresh white bows on their hair, went together down the staircase. they found mr. and mrs. farrington awaiting them, and soon roger appeared, and they went to the dining-room for a late dinner. then patty discovered what automobile hunger was. "i'm simply ravenous," she declared, "but i didn't know it until this minute." "that's part of the experience," said mrs. farrington, "the appetite caused by motoring is the largest known variety, and that's why i wanted to push on here, where we could get a good dinner, instead of taking our chances at some farmhouse." they were the only guests in the dining-room at that late hour, and so they made a merry meal of it, and after dinner went back to the large parlours, to sit for a while listening to the music. but they did not tarry long, for as patty discovered, another consequence of a motor ride was a strong inclination to go to bed early. chapter xi dick phelps the travellers did not rise early the next morning, and ten o'clock found them still seated at the breakfast table. "i do hate to hurry," said mrs. farrington, comfortably sipping her coffee. "so many people think that an automobile tour means getting up early, and hustling off at daybreak." "i'm glad those are your sentiments," said patty, "for i quite agree with you. i've done enough hustling the last month or two, and i'm delighted to take things more slowly for a change." "i think," said mr. farrington, "that as it is such a pleasant day, it would be a good plan to take some luncheon with us and picnic by the roadside. we could then get to the warners'in time for dinner, though perhaps a little late." "lovely!" cried elise, "i'm perfectly crazy to use that new luncheon-kit. it's great, patty! it has the cunningest alcohol stove, and every little contraption you could possibly think of." "i know it," said patty. "i peeped inside yesterday, and the array of forks and spoons and plates and bottles was perfectly fascinating." "very well," said mrs. farrington to her husband, "ask them to fill the kit properly, and i think myself we will enjoy a little picnic." so mr. farrington went to see about the provisions, and roger to get the car ready, while the ladies sauntered about the piazza. the route of their journey lay along the shore of long island sound, and the hotel where they had stayed over night was not far from new haven, and quite near the water's edge. patty was very fond of the water, and gazed with delight at the sparkling sound, dotted with white steamers and various sorts of fishing-craft. for her part she would have been glad to stay longer at this hotel, but the warners, whom they were going to visit, were expecting them to dinner that evening. these people, patty knew, lived in a beautiful country place called "pine branches," which was near springfield in massachusetts. patty did not know the warners, but elise had assured her that they were delightful people and were prepared to give her a warm welcome. when the car came to the door the ladies were all ready to continue the journey. they had again donned their queer-looking motor-clothes, and though patty was beginning to get used to their appearance, they still seemed to her like a trio of brownies or other queer beings as they took their seats in the car. roger climbed to his place, touched a lever by his side, and swung the car down the drive with an air of what seemed to patty justifiable pride. the freshly cleaned car was so daintily spick and span, the day was so perfect, and the merry-hearted passengers in such a gay and festive mood, that there was indeed reason for a feeling of general satisfaction. away they went at a rapid speed, which patty thought must be beyond the allowed limit, but roger assured her to the contrary. for many miles their course lay along a fine road which followed the shore of the sound. this delighted patty, as she was still able to gaze out over the blue water, and at the same time enjoy the wonderful motion of the car. but soon their course changed and they turned inland, on the road to hartford. patty was surprised at roger's knowledge of the way, but the young man was well provided with road maps and guidebooks, of which he had made careful study. "how beautifully the car goes," said patty. "it doesn't make the least fuss, even on the upgrades." "you must learn the vocabulary, patty," said roger. "when a machine goes smoothly as the fact is doing now, the proper expression is that it runs sweetly." "sweetly!" exclaimed patty. "how silly. it sounds like a gushing girl." "that doesn't matter," said roger, serenely. "if you go on motor trips, you must learn to talk motor-jargon." "all right," said patty, "i'm willing to learn, and i do think the way this car goes it is just too sweet for anything!" they all laughed at this, but their gaiety was short-lived, for just then there was a peculiar crunching sound that seemed to mean disaster, judging from the expressions of dismay on the faces of the farrington family. "what is it?" asked patty, forgetting that she had been told never to ask questions on such occasions. "patty," said roger, making a comical face at her, "my countenance now presents an expression typical of disgust, irritation, and impatience. i now wave my right hand thus, which is a delsarte gesture expressing exasperation with a trace of anger. i next give voice to my sentiments, merely to remark in my usual calm and disinterested way, that a belt has broken and the mending thereof will consume a portion of time, the length of which may be estimated only after it has elapsed." patty laughed heartily at this harangue, but gathered from roger's nonsense the interesting fact that an accident had occurred, and that a delay was inevitable. nobody seemed especially surprised. indeed, they took it quite as a matter of course, and mrs. farrington opened a new magazine which she had brought with her, and calmly settled herself to read. but elise said, "well, i'm already starving with hunger, and i think we may as well open that kit of provisions, and have our picnic right here, while roger is mending the belt." "elise," said her father jestingly, "you sometimes show signs of almost human intelligence! your plan is a positive inspiration, for i confess that i myself feel the gnawings of hunger. let us eat the hard-boiled eggs and ham sandwiches that we have with us, and then if we like, we can stop at hartford this afternoon for a more satisfying lunch, as i begin to think we will not reach pine branches until sometime later than their usual dinner hour." they all agreed to this plan, and roger, with his peculiar sensitiveness toward being discovered with his car at a disadvantage, said seriously: "i see a racing machine coming, and when it passes us i hope you people will act as if we had stopped here only to lunch, and not because this ridiculous belt chose to break itself just now." this trait of roger's amused patty very much, but she was quite ready to humour her friend, and agreed to do her part. she looked where roger had indicated, and though she could see what looked like a black speck on a distant road, she wondered how roger could know it was a racing machine that was approaching. however, she realised that there were many details of motoring of which she had as yet no idea, and she turned her attention to helping the others spread out the luncheon. the beautifully furnished basket was a delight to patty. she was amazed to see how cleverly a large amount of paraphernalia could be stowed in a small amount of space. the kit was arranged for six persons, and contained half-dozens of knives, forks, spoons, and even egg-spoons; also plates, cups, napkins, and everything with which to serve a comfortable meal. there were sandwich-boxes, salad-boxes, butter-jars, tea and coffee cans, salt, pepper, and all necessary condiments. then there was the alcohol stove, with its water-kettle and chafing dish. at the sight of all these things, which seemed to come out of the kit as out of a magician's hat, patty's eyes danced. "let me cook," she begged, and mrs. farrington and elise were only too glad to be relieved of this duty. there wasn't much cooking to do, as sandwiches, cold meats, salad, and sweets were lavishly provided, but patty made tea, and then boiled a few eggs just for the fun of doing it. preparations for the picnic were scarcely under way when the racing-car that roger had seen in the distance came near them. there was a whirring sound as it approached, and patty glanced up from her alcohol stove to see that it was occupied by only one man. he was slowing speed, and evidently intended to stop. long before he had reached them, roger had hidden his tools, and though his work on the broken belt was not completed, he busied himself with the luncheon preparations, as if that was his sole thought. the racing-car stopped and the man who was driving it got out. at sight of him patty with difficulty restrained her laughter, for though their own garb was queer, it was rational compared to the appearance of this newcomer. a racing suit is, with perhaps the exception of a diver's costume, the most absurd-looking dress a man can get into. the stranger's suit was of black rubber, tightly strapped at the wrists and ankles, but it was his head-gear which gave the man his weird and uncanny effect. it was a combination of mask, goggles, hood, earflaps, and neckshield which was so arranged with hinges that the noseguard and mouthpiece worked independently of each other. at any rate, it seemed to patty the funniest show she had ever seen, and she couldn't help laughing. the man didn't seem to mind, however, and after he had bowed silently for a moment or two with great enjoyment of their mystification, he pulled off his astonishing head-gear and disclosed his features. "dick phelps!" exclaimed mr. farrington, "why, how are you, old man? i'm right down glad to see you!" mr. phelps was a friend of the farrington family, and quite naturally they invited him to lunch with them. "indeed i will," said the visitor, "for i started at daybreak, and i've had nothing to eat since. i can't tarry long though, as i must make new york city to-night." mr. phelps was a good-looking young man of about thirty years, and so pleased was he with patty's efforts in the cooking line, that he ate all the eggs she had boiled, and drank nearly all the tea, besides making serious inroads on the viands they had brought with them. "it doesn't matter if i do eat up all your food," said the young man, pleasantly, "for you can stop anywhere and get more, but i mustn't stop again until i reach the city, and i probably won't have a chance to eat then, as i must push on to long island." the farringtons were quite willing to refresh the stranger within their gates, and they all enjoyed the merry little picnic. "where are you bound?" asked mr. phelps as he prepared to continue his way. "to pine branches first," said mrs. farrington, "the country house of a friend. it's near springfield, and from there we shall make short trips, and later on, continue our way in some other direction,--which way we haven't yet decided." "good enough," said mr. phelps, "then i'll probably see you again. i am often a guest at pine branches myself, and shall hope to run across you." as every motorist is necessarily interested in his friend's car, mr. phelps naturally turned to inspect the farrington machine before getting into his own. and so, to roger's chagrin, he was obliged to admit that he was even then under the necessity of mending a broken belt. but to roger's relief, mr. phelps took almost no notice of it, merely saying that a detail defect was liable to happen to anybody. he looked over the vital parts of the motor, and complimented roger on its fine condition. this pleased the boy greatly, and resuming his work after mr. phelps' departure, he patched up the belt, while the others repacked the kit, and soon they started off again. swiftly and smoothly they ran along over the beautiful roads, occasionally meeting other touring-parties apparently as happy as they were themselves. sometimes they exchanged merry greetings as they passed, for all motorists belong to one great, though unorganised, fraternity. "i've already discovered that trifling accidents are a part of the performance, and i've also discovered that they're easily remedied and soon over, and that when they are over they are quickly forgotten and it seems impossible that they should ever occur again." "you've sized it up pretty fairly, patty," said roger, "and though i never before thought it out for myself, i agree with you that that is the true way to look at it." on they went, leaving the miles behind them, and as roger was anxious to make up for lost time he went at a slightly higher speed than he would have otherwise done. he slowed down, however, when they passed horses or when they went through towns or villages. patty was greatly interested in the many small villages through which they rode, as nearly every one showed quaint or humorous scenes. dogs would come out and bark at them, children would scream after them, and even the grown-up citizens of the hamlets would stare at them as if they had never seen a motor-car before, though patty reasoned that surely many of them must have travelled that same road. "when you meet another village, roger," she said, "do go through it more slowly, for i like to see the funny people." "very well," said roger, "you may stop and get a drink at the town pump, if you like." "no, thank you," said patty, "i don't want to get out, but i would like to stop a minute or two in one of them." roger would willingly have granted patty's wish, but he was deprived of this privilege by the car itself. just as they neared a small settlement known as huntley's corners, another ominous sound from the machine gave warning. "that belt again!" exclaimed roger. "patty, the probabilities are that you'll have all the time you want to study up this village, and even learn the life history of the oldest inhabitant." "what an annoying belt it is," said mrs. farrington in her pleasant way. "don't you think, roger dear, that you had better get a new belt and be done with it?" "that's just what i do think, mother, but somehow i can't persuade myself that they keep them for sale at this corner grocery." the car had reached the only store in the settlement, and stopped almost in front of it. patty was beginning to learn the different kinds of stops that a motor-car can make, and she felt pretty sure that this was not a momentary pause, but a stop that threatened a considerable delay. she said as much to roger, and he replied, "patty, you're an apt pupil. the fact has paused here not for a day, but for all time, unless something pretty marvellous can be done in the way of belt mending!" patty began to think that accidents were of somewhat frequent occurrence, but elise said, cheerfully, "this seems to be an off day. why, sometimes we run sweetly for a week, without a word from the belt. don't we, roger?" "yes, indeed," said roger, "but patty may as well get used to the seamy side of motoring, and learn to like it." "i do like it," declared patty, "and if we are going to take up our abode here for the present, i'm going out to explore the town." she jumped lightly from the car, and, accompanied by elise, strolled down the main, and, indeed, the only street of the village. chapter xii old china a few doors away from the country store in front of which the automobile stood, the girls saw a quaint old house, with a few toys and candies displayed for sale in a front window. "isn't it funny?" said elise, looking in at the unattractive collection. "see that old-fashioned doll, and just look at that funny jumping-jack!" "yes," said patty, whose quick eye had caught sight of something more interesting, "but just look at that plate of peppermint candies. the plate, i mean. why, elise, it's a millennium plate!" "what's that?" said elise, looking blank. "a millennium plate? why, elise, it's about the most valuable bit of old china there is in this country! why, nan would go raving crazy over that. i'd rather take it home to her than any present i could buy in the city shop. elise, do you suppose whoever keeps this little store would sell that plate?" "no harm in trying," said elise, "there's plenty of time, for it will take roger half an hour to fix that belt. let's go in and ask her." "no, no," said patty, "that isn't the way. wait a minute. i've been china hunting before, with nan, and with other people, and you mustn't go about it like that. we must go in as if we were going to buy some of her other goods, and then we'll work around to the plate by degrees. you buy something else, elise, and leave the plate part to me." "very well, i think i'll buy that rag doll, though i'm sure i don't know what i'll ever do with it. no self-respecting child would accept it as a gift." "well, buy something," said patty, as they went in. the opening of the door caused a big bell to jingle, and this apparently called an old woman in from the back room. she was not very tidy, but she was a good-natured body, and smiled pleasantly at the two girls. "what is it, young ladies?" she asked, "can i sell you anything to-day?" "yes," said elise, gravely, "i was passing your window, and i noticed a doll there,--that one with the blue gingham dress. how much is it, please?" "that one," said the old lady, "is fifty cents. seems sorter high, i know, but that 'ere doll was made by a blind girl, that lives a piece up the road; and though the sewin' ain't very good, it's a nine-days' wonder that she can do it at all. and them dolls is her only support, and land knows she don't sell hardly any!" "i'll give you a dollar for it," said elise, impulsively, for her generous heart was touched. "have you any more of them?" "no," said the woman, in some amazement. "malviny, she don't make many, 'cause they don't sell very rapid. but be you goin' her way? she might have one to home, purty nigh finished." "i don't know," said elise, "where does she live?" "straight along, on the main road. you can't miss it, an old yaller house, with the back burnt off." it was patty's turn now, and she said she would buy the peppermint candies that were in the window. "all of 'em?" asked the storekeeper, in surprise. "yes," said patty, "all of them," and as the old woman lifted the plate in from the window, patty added, "and if you care to part with it, i'll buy the plate too." "land, miss, that 'ere old plate ain't no good; it's got a crack in it, but if so be's you admire that pattern, i've got another in the keeping-room that's just like it, only 'tain't cracked. 'tain't even chipped." "would you care to part with them both?" asked patty, remembering that this phrase was the preferred formula of all china hunters. "laws, yes, miss, if you care to pay for 'em. of course, i can't sell 'em for nothin', for there's sometimes ladies as comes here, as has a fancy to them old things. but these two plates is so humbly, that i didn't have the face to show 'em to anybody as was lookin' for anteeks." patty's sense of honesty would not allow her to ignore the old woman's mistake. "they may seem homely to you," she said, "but i think it only right to tell you that these plates are probably the most valuable of any you have ever owned." "well, for the land o' goodness, ef you ain't honest! 'tain't many as would speak up like that! jest come in the back room, and look at the other plate." the girls followed the old woman as she raised a calico curtain of a flowered pattern, and let them through into the "keeping-room." "there," she said with some pride as she took down a plate from the high mantel. "there, you can see for yourself, there ain't no chip or crack into it." sure enough, patty held in her hand a perfect specimen of the millennium plate, so highly prized by collectors, and there was also the one she had seen in the window, which though slightly cracked, was still in fair condition. "how much do you want for them?" asked patty. the old woman hesitated. it was not difficult to see that, although she wanted to get as high a price as possible for her plates, yet she did not want to ask so much that patty would refuse to take them. "you tell me," she said, insinuatingly, "'bout what you think them plates is worth." "no," said patty, firmly, "i never buy things that way. you tell me your price, and then i will buy them or not as i choose." "well," said the old woman, slowly, "the last lady that i sold plates to, she give me fifty cents apiece for three of 'em, and though i think they was purtier than these here, yet you tell me these is more vallyble, and so," here the old woman made a great show of firmness, "and so my price for these plates is a dollar apiece." as soon as she had said it, she looked at patty in alarm, greatly fearing that she would not pay so much. but patty replied, "i will give you five dollars for the two,--because i know that is nearer their value than the price you set." "bless your good heart, and your purty face, miss," said the old woman, as the tears came into her eyes. "i'm that obliged to you! i'll send the money straight to my son john. he's in the hospital, poor chap, and he needs it sore." elise had rarely been brought in contact with poverty and want, and her generous heart was touched at once. she emptied her little purse out upon the table, and was rejoiced to discover that it contained something over ten dollars. "please accept that," she cried, "to buy things for your son, or for yourself, as you choose." [illustration: "'there, you can see for yourself, there ain't no chip or crack into it'"] the old woman was quite overcome at this kindness, and was endeavouring brokenly to express her thanks, when the bell on the shop door jangled loudly. patty being nearest to the calico curtain drew it aside, to find roger in the little shop, looking very breathless and worried. "well, of all things," he exclaimed. "you girls have given us a scare. we've hunted high and low through the whole of this metropolis. and if it hadn't been that a little girl said she saw you come in here, i suppose we'd now be dragging the brook. come along, quick, we're all ready to start." "how could you get that belt mended so quickly?" asked elise. "never mind that," said roger, "just come along." "wait a minute," said patty, hastily gathering up her precious plates, while the old woman provided some newspaper wrapping. roger hurried the two girls back to the motor-car, saying as they went, "we're not in any hurry to start, but mother thinks you're drowned, and i want to prove to her that she is mistaken." the sight of the car caused patty to go off into peals of laughter. in front of the beautiful machine was an old farm wagon, and in front of that were four horses. on the seat of the wagon sat a nonchalant-looking farmer who seemed to take little interest in the proceedings. "i wouldn't ask what's the matter for anything," said patty, looking at roger, demurely, "but i suppose i am safe in assuming that you have those horses there merely because you think they look well." "that's it," said roger. "nothing adds to the good effect of a motor-car like having a few fine horses attached to it. jump in, girls." the girls jumped in, and the caravan started. it was at a decidedly different rate of speed from the way they had travelled before. but patty soon learned that roger had found it impossible to fix the belt without going to a repair shop, and there was none nearer than hartford. with some difficulty, and at considerable expense, he had persuaded the gruff old farmer to tow them over the intervening ten miles. patty would have supposed that this would greatly humiliate the proud and sensitive boy, but, to her surprise, roger treated the affair as a good joke. he leaned back in his seat, apparently pleased with his enforced idleness, and chatted merrily as they slowly crawled along. occasionally he would plead with the old farmer to urge his horses a trifle faster, and even hint at certain rewards if they should reach hartford in a given time. but the grumpy old man was proof against coaxing or even bribing, and they jogged along, almost at a snail's pace. perceiving that there was no way of improving the situation, roger gave up trying, and turning partly around in his seat, proceeded to entertain the girls to the best of his ability. patty hadn't known before what a jolly, good-natured boy elise's brother was, and she came to the conclusion that he had a good sense of proportion, to be able to take things so easily, and to keep his temper under such trying circumstances. only once did the surly old farmer address himself to his employers. turning around to face the occupants of the motor-car he bawled out: "whar do ye wanter go in hartford?" "to the largest repair shop for automobiles," answered roger. "thought ye wanted ter go ter the state insane asylum," was the response to this, and a suppressed chuckle could be heard, as the old man again turned his attention to his not over-speedy steeds. though not a very subtle jest, this greatly amused the motor party, and soon they entered the outskirts of the beautiful city of hartford. mr. farrington looked at his watch. "i suppose," he said, "it will take the best part of an hour to have the machine attended to, for there are two or three little matters which i want to have put in order, besides the belt. i will stay and look after it, and the rest of you can take your choice of two proceedings. one is, to go to a hotel, rest and freshen yourselves up a bit, and have some luncheon. the other is, to take a carriage and drive around the city. hartford is a beautiful place, and if patty has never seen it, i am sure she will enjoy it." "it doesn't matter to me," said mrs. farrington, "which we do; but i'm quite sure i don't care to eat anything more just at present. we had our picnic not so very long ago, you know." "i know," said mr. farrington, "but consider this. when we start from here with the car in good order, i hope to run straight through to warner's. but at best we cannot reach there before ten o'clock to-night. so it's really advisable that you should fortify yourselves against the long ride, for i should hate to delay matters further by stopping again for dinner." "ten o'clock!" exclaimed mrs. farrington, "why, they expect us by seven, at latest. it is too bad to keep them waiting like that. can't we telephone to them?" "yes," said mr. farrington, "and i will attend to that while i am waiting for the car to be fixed. now what would you people rather do?" both the girls declared they could not eat another luncheon at present, and they thought it would be delightful to drive around and see the town. so mrs. farrington settled the matter by deciding to take the drive. and then she said, "we can leave the luncheon-kit at some hotel to be filled, then we can pick it up again, and take it along with us, and when we get hungry we can eat a light supper in the car." "great head, mother!" cried roger, "you are truly a genius!" an open landau was engaged, and roger and the three ladies started for the drive. they spent a delightful hour viewing the points of interest in the city, which the obliging driver pointed out to them. they smiled when they came to the insane asylum, and though the grounds looked attractive, they concluded not to go there to stay, even though their old farmer friend had seemed to think it an appropriate place for them. "it's a strange thing," said roger, "that people who do not ride in automobiles always think that people who do are crazy. i'm sure i don't know why." "i wouldn't blame anybody for thinking mr. phelps crazy, if they had seen him this morning," said patty. "that's only because you're not accustomed to seeing men in racing costume," said roger. "after you've seen a few more rigs like that, you won't think anything of them." "that's so," said patty thoughtfully, "and if i had never before seen a farmer in the queer overalls, and big straw hat, that our old country gentleman wore, i daresay i should have thought his appearance quite as crazy as that of mr. phelps." "you have a logical mind, patty," said mrs. farrington, "and on the whole i think you are right." chapter xiii a stormy ride the time passed quickly and soon the drive was over, and after calling for their well-filled luncheon-basket, the quartet returned to the repair shop to find mr. farrington all ready to start. so into the car they all bundled, and patty learned that each fresh start during a motor journey revives the same feeling of delight that is felt at the beginning of the trip. she settled herself in her place with a little sigh of contentment, and remarked that she had already begun to feel at home in the fact, and she only wished it was early morning, and they were starting for the day, instead of but for a few hours. "don't you worry, my lady," said roger, as he laid his hands lightly on the steering-wheel, "you've a good many solid hours of travel ahead of you right now. it's four o'clock, and if we reach pine branches by ten, i will pat this old car fondly on the head, before i put her to bed." the next few hours were perhaps the pleasantest they had yet spent. in june, from four to seven is a delightful time, and as the roads were perfect, and the car went along without the slightest jar or jolt, and without even a hint of an accident of any sort, there was really not a flaw to mar their pleasure. as the sun set, and the twilight began to close around them, patty thought she had never seen anything more beautiful than the landscape spread out before them. a broad white road stretched ahead like a ribbon. on either side were sometimes green fields, darkening in the fading light, and sometimes small groves of trees, which stood black against the sky. then the sunset's colours faded, the trees grew blacker and denser, and their shadows ceased to fall across the darkening road. roger lighted the lamps, and drew out extra fur robes, for the evening air was growing chill. "isn't it wonderful!" said patty, almost in a whisper. "motoring by daylight is gay and festive, but now, to glide along so swiftly and silently through the darkness, is so strange that it's almost solemn. as it grows darker and blacker, it seems as if we were gliding away,--away into eternity." "for gracious' sake, child," said mrs. farrington, "don't talk like that! you give me the shivers; say something more lively, quick!" patty laughed merrily. "that was only a passing mood," she said. "really, i think it's awfully jolly for us to be scooting along like this, with our lamps shining. we're just like a great big fire-fly or a dancing will-o'-the-wisp." "you have a well-trained imagination, patty," said mrs. farrington, laughing at the girl's quick change from grave to gay. "you can make it obey your will, can't you?" "yes, ma'am," said patty demurely, "what's the use of having an imagination, if you can't make it work for you?" the car was comfortably lighted inside as well as out, with electric lamps, and the occupants were, as mr. farrington said, as cozy and homelike as if they were in a gipsy waggon. patty laughed at the comparison and said she thought that very few gipsy waggons had the luxuries and modern appliances of the fact. "that may be," said mr. farrington, "but you must admit the gipsy waggon is the more picturesque vehicle. the way they shirr that calico arrangement around their back door, has long been my admiration." "it is beautiful," said patty, "and the way the stove-pipe comes out of the roof,----" "and the children's heads out 'most anywhere," added elise; "yes, it's certainly picturesque." "speaking of gipsy waggons makes me hungry," said mrs. farrington. "what time is it, and how soon shall we reach the warners'?" "it's after eight o'clock, my dear," said her husband, "and i'm sure we can't get there before ten, and then, of course, we won't have dinner at once, so do let us partake of a little light refreshment." "seems to me we are always eating," said patty, "but i'm free to confess that i'm about as hungry as a full grown anaconda." without reducing their speed, and they were going fairly fast, the tourists indulged in a picnic luncheon. there was no tea making, but sandwiches and little cakes and glasses of milk were gratefully accepted. "this is all very well," said mrs. farrington, after supper was over, "and i wouldn't for a moment have you think that i'm tired or frightened, or the least mite timid. but if i may have my way, hereafter we'll make no definite promises to be at any particular place at any particular time. i wish when you had telephoned, john, you had told the warners that we wouldn't arrive until to-morrow. then we could have stopped somewhere, and spent the night like civilised beings, instead of doing this gipsy act." "it would have been a good idea," said mr. farrington thoughtfully, "but it's a bit too late now, so there's no use worrying about it. but cheer up, my friend, i think we'll arrive shortly." "i think we won't," said roger. "i don't want to be discouraging, but we haven't passed the old stone quarry yet, and that's a mighty long way this side of pine branches." "you're sure you know the way, aren't you, roger?" asked his mother, her tone betraying the first trace of anxiety she had yet shown. "oh, yes," said roger, and patty wasn't sure whether she imagined it, or whether the boy's answer was not quite as positive as it was meant to sound. "well, i'm glad you do," said mr. farrington, "for i confess i don't. we're doubtless on the right road, but i haven't as yet seen any familiar landmarks." "we're on the right road, all right," said roger. "you know there's a long stretch this side of pine branches, without any villages at all." "i know it," said mrs. farrington, "but it is dotted with large country places, and farms. are you passing those, roger? i can't seem to see any?" "i haven't noticed very many, mother, but i think we haven't come to them yet. chirk up, it's quite some distance yet, but we'll keep going till we get there." "oh," said mrs. farrington, "what if the belt should break, or something give way!" "don't think of such things, mother; nothing is going to give way. but if it should, why, we'll just sit here till morning, and then we can see to fix it." mrs. farrington couldn't help laughing at roger's good nature, but she said, "of course, i know everything's all right, and truly, i'm not a bit frightened. but somehow, john, i'd feel more comfortable if you'd come back here with me, and let one of the girls sit in front in your place." "certainly," said her husband, "hop over here, elise." "let me go," cried patty, who somehow felt, intuitively, that elise would prefer to stay behind with her parents. as for patty herself, she had no fear, and really wanted the exciting experience of sitting up in front during this wild night ride. roger stopped the car, and the change was soon effected. as patty insisted upon it, she was allowed to go instead of elise, and in a moment they were off again. "do you know," said patty to roger, after they had started, "when i got out then, i felt two or three drops of rain!" "i do know it," said roger, in a low tone, "and i may as well tell you, patty, that there's going to be a hard storm before long. certainly before we reach pine branches." "how dreadful," said patty, who was awed more by the anxious note in roger's voice, than by the thought of the rain storm. "don't you think it would be better," she went on, hoping to make a helpful suggestion, "if we should put in to some house until the storm is over? surely anybody would give us shelter." "i don't see any houses," said roger, "and, patty, i may as well own up, we're off the road somehow. i think i must have taken the wrong turning at that fork a few miles back. and though i'm not quite sure, yet i feel a growing conviction that we're lost." although the situation was appalling, for some unexplainable reason patty couldn't help giggling. "lost!" she exclaimed in a tragic whisper, "in the middle of the night! in a desolate country region! and a storm coming on!" patty's dramatic summary of the situation made roger laugh too. and their peals of gaiety reassured the three who sat behind. "what are you laughing at?" said elise; "i wish you'd tell me, for i'm 'most scared to death, and roger, it's beginning to rain." "you don't say so!" said roger, in a tone of polite surprise, "why then we must put on the curtains." he stopped the car, and jumping down from his place, began to arrange the curtains which were always carried in case of rain. mr. farrington helped him, and as he did so, remarked, "looks like something of a storm, my boy." "father," said roger, in a low voice, "it's going to rain cats and dogs, and there may be a few thunders and lightnings. i hope mother won't have hysterics, and i don't believe she will, if you sit by her and hold her hand. i don't think we'd better stop. i think we'd better drive straight ahead, but, dad, i believe we're on the wrong road. we're not lost; i know the way all right, but to go around the way we are going, is about forty miles farther than the way i meant to go; and yet i don't dare turn back and try to get on the other road again, for fear i'll really get lost." "roger," said mr. farrington, "you're a first-class chauffeur, and i'll give you a reference whenever you want one, but i must admit that to-night you have succeeded in getting us into a pretty mess." roger was grateful enough for the light way in which his father treated the rather serious situation, but the boy keenly felt his responsibility. "good old dad," he said, "you're a brick! get in back now, and look after mother and elise. don't let them shoot me or anything, when i'm not looking. patty is a little trump; she is plucky clear through, and i am glad to have her up in front with me. now i'll do the best i can, and drive straight through the storm. if i see any sort of a place where we can turn in for shelter, i think we'd better do it, don't you?" "i do, indeed," said his father. "meantime, my boy, go ahead. i trust the whole matter to you, for you're a more expert driver than i am." it was already raining fast as the two men again climbed into the car. but the curtains all around kept the travellers dry, and with its cheery lights the interior of the car was cozy and pleasant. in front was a curtain with a large window of mica which gave ample view of the road ahead. with his strong and well-arranged lights, roger had no fear of collision, and as they were well protected from the rain, his chief worriment was because they were on the wrong road. "it's miles and miles longer to go around this way," he confided to patty. "i don't know what time we'll ever get there." "never mind," said patty, who wanted to cheer him up. "i think this is a great experience. i suppose there's danger, but somehow i can't help enjoying the wild excitement of it." "i'm glad you like it," said roger a little grimly. "i'm always pleased to entertain my guests." the storm was increasing, and now amounted to a gale. the rain dashed against the curtains in great wet sheets, and finally forced its way in at a few of the crevices. mrs. farrington, sitting between her husband and daughter, was thoroughly frightened and extremely uncomfortable, but she pluckily refrained from giving way to her nervousness, and succeeded in behaving herself with real bravery and courage. still the tempest grew. so wildly did it dash against the front curtain that patty and roger could see scarcely a foot before the machine. "there's one comfort," said roger, through his clenched teeth, "we're not in danger of running into anything, for no other fools would be abroad such a night as this. patty, i'm going to speed her! i'm going to race the storm!" "do!" said patty, who was wrought up to a tense pitch of excitement by the war of the elements without, and the novelty of the situation within. roger increased the speed, and they flew through the black night and dashed into the pouring rain, while patty held her breath, and wondered what would happen next. on they went and on. patty's imagination kept pace with her experiences and through her mind flitted visions of tam o'shanter's ride, john gilpin's ride and the ride of collins graves. but all of these seemed tame affairs beside their own break-neck speed through the wild night! "roger," said his mother, "roger, won't you please----" "ask her not to speak to me just now, patty, please," said the boy, in such a tense, strained voice that patty was frightened at last, but she knew that if roger were frightened, that was a special reason for her own calmness and bravery. turning slightly, she said, "please don't speak to him just now, mrs. farrington; he wants to put all his attention on his steering." "very well," said mrs. farrington, who had not the slightest idea that there was any cause for alarm, aside from the discomfort of the storm. "i only wanted to tell him to watch out for railroad trains." and then patty realised that that was just what roger was looking out for! she could not see ahead into the blinding rain, but she knew they were going down hill. she heard what seemed like the distant whistle of a locomotive, and suddenly realising that roger could not stop the car and must cross the track before the train came, she thought at the same moment that if mrs. farrington should impulsively reach over and grasp the boy's arm, or anything like that, it might mean terrible disaster. acting upon a quick impulse to prevent this, she turned round herself, and with a voice whose calmness surprised her, she said, "please, mrs. farrington, could you get me a sandwich out of the basket?" "bless you, no, child!" said that lady, her attention instantly diverted by patty's ruse. "that is, i don't believe i can, but i'll try." patty was far from wanting a sandwich, but she felt that she had at least averted the possible danger of mrs. farrington's suddenly clutching roger, and as she turned back to face the front, the great car whizzed across the slippery railroad track, just as patty saw the headlight of a locomotive not two hundred feet away from them. "oh, roger," she breathed, clasping her hands tightly, lest she herself should touch the boy, and so interfere with his steering. "it's all right, patty," said roger in a breathless voice, and as she looked at his white face, she realised the danger they had so narrowly escaped. those in the back seat could not see the train, and the roar of the storm drowned its noise. "patty," said roger, very softly, "you saved us! i understood just what you did. i felt _sure_ mother was going to grab at me, when she heard that whistle. it's a way she has, when she's nervous or frightened, and i can't seem to make her stop it. but you saved the day with your sandwich trick, and if ever we get in out of the rain, i'll tell you what i think of you!" chapter xiv pine branches there were still many miles to cover before they reached their destination, but there were no more railroad tracks to cross, and as there was little danger of meeting anyone, roger let the car fly along at a high rate of speed. the storm continued and though the party endeavoured to keep cheerful, yet the situation was depressing, and each found it difficult not to show it. roger, of course, devoted his exclusive attention to driving the car, and patty scarcely dared to breathe, lest she should disturb him in some way. the three on the back seat became rather silent also, and at last everybody was rejoiced when roger said, "those lights ahead are at the entrance gate of pine branches." then the whole party waxed cheerful again. mr. farrington looked at his watch. "it's quarter of two," he said, "do you suppose we can get in at this hour?" "indeed we will get in," declared roger, "if i have to drive this car smash through the gates, and _bang_ in at the front door!" the strain was beginning to tell on the boy, who had really had a fearful night of it, and he went dashing up to the large gates with a feeling of great relief that the end of the journey was at hand. when they reached the entrance, the rain was coming down in torrents. great lanterns hung either side of the portal, and disclosed the fact that the gates were shut and locked. roger had expected this, for he felt sure the warners had long ago given up all thought of seeing their guests that night. repeated soundings of the horn failed to bring any response from the lodge-keeper, and roger was just about to get out of the car, and ring the bell at the large door, when patty's quick eye discerned a faint light at one of the windows. "sure enough," said roger, as she called his attention to this, and after a few moments the large door was opened, and the porter gazed out into the storm. "all right, sir, all right," he called, seeing the car; and donning a great raincoat, he came out to open the gates. "well, well, sir," he said, as mr. farrington leaned out to speak with him, "this is a night, sure enough! mr. warner, sir, he gave up looking for you at midnight." "i don't wonder," said mr. farrington, "and now, my man, can you ring your people up, and is there anybody to take care of the car?" "yes, sir, yes, sir," said the porter, "just you drive on up to the house, and i'll go back to the lodge and ring up the chauffeur, and as soon as he can get around he'll take care of your car. i'll ring up the housekeeper too, but she's a slow old body, and you'd best sound your horn all the way up the drive." roger acted on this advice and the fact went tooting up the driveway, and finally came to a standstill at the front entrance of pine branches. they were under a _porte-cochã¨re_, and as soon as they stopped, elise jumped out, and began a vigorous onslaught on the doorbell. roger kept the horn sounding, and after a few moments the door was opened by a somewhat sleepy-looking butler. as they entered, mr. warner, whose appearance gave evidence of a hasty toilet, came flying down the staircase, three steps at a time. "well, well, my friends," he exclaimed, "i'm glad to see you, i am overjoyed to see you! we were expecting you just at this particular minute, and i am so glad that you arrived on time. how do you do, mrs. farrington? and elise, my dear child, how you've grown since i saw you last! this is patty fairfield, is it? how do you do, patty? i am very glad to see you. roger, my boy, you look exhausted. has your car been cutting up jinks?" as mr. warner talked, he bustled around shaking hands with his guests, assisting them out of their wraps, and disposing of them in comfortable chairs. meantime the rest of the family appeared. bertha warner, a merry-looking girl of about patty's age, came flying downstairs, pinning her collar as she ran. "how jolly of you," she cried, "to come in the middle of the night! such fun! i'm so glad to see you, elise; and this is patty fairfield? patty, i think you're lovely." the impulsive bertha kissed patty on both cheeks, and then turned to make way for her mother. mrs. warner was as merry and as hearty in her welcome as the others. she acted as if it were an ordinary occurrence to be wakened from sleep at two o'clock in the morning, to greet newly arrived guests, and she greeted patty quite as warmly as the others. suddenly a wild whoop was heard, and winthrop warner, the son of the house, came running downstairs. "jolly old crowd!" he cried, "you wouldn't let a little thing like a tornado stop your progress, would you? i'm glad you persevered and reached here, even though a trifle late." winthrop was a broad-shouldered, athletic young man, of perhaps twenty-four, and though he chaffed roger merrily, he greeted the ladies with hospitable courtesy, and looked about to see what he could do for their further comfort. they were still in the great square entrance hall, which was one of the most attractive rooms at pine branches. a huge corner fireplace showed the charred logs of a fire which had only recently gone out, and winthrop rapidly twisted up some paper, which he lighted, and procuring a few small sticks, soon had a crackling blaze. "you must be damp and chilly," he said, "and a little fire will thaw you out. mother, will you get something ready for a feast?" "we should have waited dinner," began mrs. warner, "and we did wait until after ten, and then we gave you up." "it's nearer time for breakfast than for dinner," said elise. "i don't want breakfast," declared roger, "i don't like that meal anyway. no shredded whisk brooms for me." "we'll have a nondescript meal," said mrs. warner, gaily, "and each one may call it by whatever name he chooses." in a short time they were all invited to the dining-room, and found the table filled with a variety of delicious viands. such a merry tableful of people as partook of the feast! the warners seemed to enjoy the fact that their guests arrived at such an unconventional hour, and the farrington party were so glad to have reached their destination safely that they were in the highest of spirits. of course the details of the trip had to be explained, and roger was unmercifully chaffed by winthrop and his father for having taken the wrong road. but so good-naturedly did the boy take the teasing, and so successfully did he pretend that he came around that way merely for the purpose of extending a pleasant tour, that he got the best of them after all. at last mrs. warner declared that people who had been through such thrilling experiences must be in immediate need of rest, and she gave orders that they must all start for bed forthwith. it is needless to say that breakfast was not early next morning. nor did it consist as roger had intimated, of "shredded whisk brooms," but was a delightful meal, at which patty became better acquainted with the warner family, and confirmed the pleasant impressions she had received the night before. after breakfast mrs. warner announced that everybody was to do exactly as he or she pleased until the luncheon hour, but she had plans herself for their entertainment in the afternoon. so winthrop and roger went off on some affairs of their own, and bertha devoted herself to the amusement of the two girls. first, she suggested they should all walk around the place, and this proved a delightful occupation. pine branches was an immense estate, covering hundreds of acres, and there was a brook, a grove, golf grounds, tennis court and everything that could by any possibility add to the interest or pleasure of its occupants. "but my chief and dearest possession," said bertha, smiling, "is abiram." "a dog?" asked patty. "no," said bertha, "but come, and i will show him to you. he lives down here, in this little house." the little house was very like a large-sized dog-kennel, but when they reached it, its occupant proved to be a woolly black bear cub. "he's a perfect dear, abiram is," said bertha, as she opened the door, and the fat little bear came waddling out. he was fastened to a long chain, and his antics were funny beyond description. "he's a real picture-bear," said bertha; "see, his poses are just like those of the bears in the funny papers." and so they were. patty and elise laughed heartily to see abiram sit up and cross his paws over his fat little body. "how old is he?" asked patty. "oh, very young, he's just a cub. and of course, we can't keep him long. nobody wants a big bear around. at the end of the summer, papa says, he'll have to be sent to the zoo. but we have lots of fun looking at him now, and i take pictures of him with my camera. he's a dear old thing." bertha was sitting down by the bear, playing with him as with a puppy, and indeed the soft little creature showed no trace of wild animal habits, or even of mischievous intent. "he's just like a big baby," said patty. "wouldn't it be fun to dress him up as one?" "let's do it," cried bertha, gleefully. "come on, girls, let's fly up to the house, and get the things." leaving abiram sitting in the sun, the three girls scampered back to the house. bertha procured two large white aprons and declared they would make a lovely baby dress. and so they did. by sewing the sides together nearly to the top, and tying the strings in great bows to answer as shoulder straps, the dress was declared perfect. a dainty sunbonnet, with a wide fluffy ruffle, which was a part of bertha's own wardrobe, was taken also, and with a string of large blue beads, and an enormous baby's rattle which bertha unearthed from her treasure-chest, the costume was complete. bertha got her camera, and giving elise a small, light chair to carry, they all ran back to abiram's kennel. they found the little bear peacefully sleeping in the sun, and when bertha shook him awake he showed no resentment, and graciously allowed himself to be put into the clothes they had brought. his forepaws were thrust through the openings left for the purpose, and the stiff white bows sticking up from his black shoulders, made the girls scream with laughter. the ruffled sunbonnet was put on his head, and coquettishly tied on one side, and the string of blue beads was clasped around his fat neck. although abiram seemed willing to submit to the greatness that was being thrust upon him, he experienced some difficulty in sitting up in the chair in the position which bertha insisted upon. however, by dint of patty's holding his head up from behind, she herself being screened from view by a tree trunk, they induced abiram to hold the rattle long enough for bertha to get a picture. [illustration: "although a successful snapshot was only achieved after many attempts"] although a successful snapshot was only achieved after many attempts, yet the girls had great fun, and so silly and ridiculous did the little bear behave that patty afterward declared she had never laughed so much in all her life. after luncheon mrs. warner took her guests for a drive, declaring that after their automobile tour she felt sure that a carriage drive would be a pleasant change. after the drive there was afternoon tea in the library, when the men appeared, and everybody chatted gaily over the events of the day. then they all dispersed to dress for dinner, and patty suddenly realised that she was living in a very grown-up atmosphere, greatly in contrast to her schoolgirl life. bertha was a year or two older than patty, and though as merry and full of fun as a child, she seemed to have the ways and effects of a grown-up young lady. elise also had lived a life which had accustomed her to formality and ceremony, and though only a year older than patty in reality, she was far more advanced in worldly wisdom and ceremonious observances. but patty was adaptable by nature, and when in rome she was quite ready to do as the romans did. so she put on one of her prettiest frocks for dinner, and allowed bertha to do her hair in a new way which seemed to add a year or so to her appearance. there were a few other guests at dinner, and as patty always enjoyed meeting strangers, she took great interest in all the details of entertainment at pine branches. at the table she found herself seated between bertha and winthrop. this pleased her, for she was glad of an opportunity to get better acquainted with the young man, of whom she had seen little during the day. although frank and boyish in some ways, winthrop warner gave her the impression of being very wise and scholarly. she said as much to him, whereupon he explained that he was a student, and was making a specialty of certain branches of scientific lore. these included ethnology and anthropology, which names caused patty to feel a sudden awe of the young man beside her. but winthrop only laughed, and said, "don't let those long words frighten you. i assure you that they stand for most interesting subjects, and some day if you will come to my study, i will promise to prove that to you. meantime we will ignore my scientific side, and just consider that we are two gay young people enjoying a summer holiday." the young man's affable manner and kind smile put patty quite at her ease, and she chatted so merrily that when the dinner hour was over she and winthrop had become good friends and comrades. chapter xv miss aurora bender after a visit of a few days, it was decided that mr. and mrs. farrington and roger should continue the motor-trip on to boston, and to certain places along the new england coast, while patty and elise should stay at pine branches for a longer visit. the girls had expected to continue the trip with the others, but bertha had coaxed them to stay longer with her, and had held out such attractive inducements that they decided to remain. patty, herself, was pleased with the plan, because she still felt the effects of her recent mental strain, and realised that the luxurious ease of pine branches would be far more of a rest than the more exciting experiences of a motor trip. so the girls were installed for a fortnight or more in the beautiful home of the warners, and with so many means of pleasure at her disposal, patty looked forward to a delightful period of both rest and recreation. one morning, bertha declared her intention of taking the girls to call on miss aurora bender. "who is she?" inquired patty, as the three started off in bertha's pony-cart. "she's a character," said bertha, "but i won't tell you anything about her; you can see her, and judge for yourself." a drive of several miles brought them to a quaint old-fashioned farmhouse. the house, which had the appearance of being very old, was built of stone and painted a light yellow, with white trimmings. everything about the place was in perfect repair and exquisite order, and as they drove in around the gravel circle that surrounded a carefully kept bit of green lawn, bertha stopped the cart at an old-fashioned carriage-block, and the girls got out. running up the steps, bertha clanged the old brass knocker at what seemed to patty to be the kitchen door. it was opened by a tall, gaunt woman, with sharp features and angular figure. "well, i declare to goodness, bertha warner, if you aren't here again! who's that you've got with you this time? city folks, i s'pose. well come in, all of you, but wipe your feet first. as you've been riding, i s'pose they ain't muddy much, but it's well to be on the safe side. so wipe 'em good and then troop in." miss aurora bender had pushed her heavy gold-bowed glasses up on the top of her head, and her whole-souled smile of welcome belied the gruffness of her tone, and the seeming inhospitality of her words. the girls took pains to wipe their dainty boots on the gaily-coloured braided rug which lay just outside the door. then they entered a spacious low-ceiled room, which seemed to partake of the qualities of both kitchen and dining-room. at one end was an immense fireplace, with an old-fashioned swinging crane, from which depended many skillets and kettles of highly polished brass or copper. on either side of the room was a large dresser, with glass doors, through which showed quantities of rare old china that made patty's eyes shine with delight. a quaint old settle and various old chairs of windsor pattern stood round the walls. the floor was painted yellow, and here and there were braided mats of various designs. "sit down, girls, sit down," said miss bender, cordially, "and now bertha, tell me these young ladies' names,--unless, that is to say, you'd rather sit in the parlour?" "we would rather sit in the parlour, miss bender," said bertha, quickly, and as if fearing her hostess might not follow up her suggestion, bertha opened a door leading to the front hall, and started toward the parlour, herself. "well," said miss bender, with a note of regret in her voice, "i s'pose if you must, you must; though for my part, i'm free to confess that this room's a heap more cozy and livable." "that may be," said bertha, who had beckoned to the girls to follow quickly, "but my friends are from the city, as you suspected, and they don't often have a chance in new york to see a parlour like yours, miss bender." as bertha had intended, this bit of flattery mollified the old lady, and she followed her guests along the dark hall. "well, if you're bound to have it so," she said, "do wait a minute, and let me get in there and pull up the blinds. it's darker than japhet's coat pocket. i haven't had this room opened since mis' perkins across the road had her last tea fight. and i only did it then, 'cause i wanted to set some vases of my early primroses in the windows, so's the guests might see 'em as they came by. seems to me it's a little musty in here, but land! a room will get musty if it's shut up, and what earthly good is a parlour except to keep shut up?" as miss bender talked, she had bustled about, and thrown open the six windows of the large room, into which bertha had taken the girls. the sunlight streamed in, and disclosed a scene which seemed to patty like a wonderful vision of a century ago. and indeed for more than a hundred years the furniture of the great parlour had stood precisely as they now saw it. the furniture was entirely of antique mahogany, and included sofas and chairs, various kinds of tables, bookcases, a highboy, a lowboy and other pieces of furniture of which patty knew neither the name nor the use. the pictures on the wall, the ornaments, the books and the old-fashioned brass candlesticks were all of the same ancient period, and patty felt as if she had been transported back into the life of her great-grandmother. as she had herself a pretty good knowledge of the styles and varieties of antique furniture, she won miss bender's heart at once by her appreciation of her heppelwhite chairs and her chippendale card-tables. "you don't say," said miss bender, looking at patty in admiration, "that you really know one style from another! lots of people pretend they do, but they soon get confused when i try to pin 'em down." patty smiled, as she disclaimed any great knowledge of the subject, but she soon found that she knew enough to satisfy her hostess, who, after all, enjoyed describing her treasures even more than listening to their praises. miss aurora bender was a lady of sudden and rapid physical motion. while the girls were examining the wonderful old relics, she darted from the room, and returned in a moment, carrying two large baskets. they were of the old-fashioned type of closely-woven reed, with a handle over the top, and a cover to lift up on either side. miss bender plumped herself down in the middle of a long sofa, and began rapidly to extract the contents of the baskets, which proved to be numerous fat rolls of gayly-coloured cotton material. "it's patchwork," she announced, "and i make it my habit to get all the help i can. i'm piecing a quilt, goose-chase pattern, and while i don't know as it's the prettiest there is, yet i don't know as 'tisn't. if you girls expect to sit the morning, and i must say you look like it, you might lend a helping hand. i made the geese smaller'n i otherwise would, 'cause i had so many little pieces left from my rising-sun quilt. looks just as well, of course, but takes a powerful sight of time to sew. and i must say i'm sorter particular about sewing. however, i don't s'pose you young things of this day and generation know much about sewing, but if you go slow you can't help doing it pretty well." as she talked, miss bender had hastily presented each of the girls with a basted block of patchwork, and had passed around a needle-cushion and a small box containing a number of old-fashioned silver thimbles. "lucky i had a big family," she commented, "else i don't know what i'd done for thimbles to go around. i can't abide brass things, that make your finger look like it had been dipped in ink, but thanks to my seven sisters who are all restin' comfortably in their graves, i have enough thimbles to provide quite a parcel of company. here's your thread. now sew away while we talk, and we'll have a real nice little bee." although not especially fond of sewing, the girls looked upon this episode as a good joke, and fell to work at their bits of cloth. elise was a dainty little needlewoman, and overhanded rapidly and neatly; patty did fairly well, though her stitches were not quite even, but poor bertha found her work a difficult task. she never did fancywork, and knew nothing of sewing, so her thread knotted and broke, and her patch presented a sorry sight. "land o' goshen!" exclaimed miss aurora, "is that the best you can do, bertha warner? the town ought to take up a subscription to put you in a sewin' school. here child, let me show you." miss bender took bertha's block and tried to straighten it out, while bertha herself made funny faces at the other girls over miss aurora's shoulder. "i can see you," said that lady calmly, "i guess you forget that big mirror opposite. but them faces you're makin' ain't half so bad as this sewin' of yours." the girls all laughed outright at miss bender's calm acceptance of bertha's sauciness, and bertha herself was in nowise embarrassed by the implied rebuke. "there, child," said miss aurora, smoothing out the seams with her thumb nail, "now try again, and see if you can't do it some better." "is your quilt nearly done, miss bender?" asked patty. "yes, it is. i've got three hundred and eighty-seven geese finished, and four hundred's enough. i work on it myself quite a spell every day, and i think in two or three days i'll have it all pieced." "oh, miss bender," cried bertha, "then won't you quilt it? won't you have a quilting party while my friends are here?" "humph," said miss aurora, scornfully, "you children can't quilt fit to be seen." "elise can," said bertha, looking at elise's dainty block, "and patty can do pretty well, and as i would spoil your quilt if i touched it, miss aurora, i'll promise to let it alone; but i can do other things to help you. oh, do have the party, will you?" "why, i don't know but i will. i kinder calculated to have it soon, anyhow, and if so be's you young people would like to come to it, i don't see anything to hinder. s'pose we say a week from to-day?" the date was decided on, and the girls went home in high glee over the quilting party, for bertha told them it would be great fun of a sort they had probably never seen before. * * * * * the days flew by rapidly at pine branches. patty rapidly recovered her usual perfect health and rosy cheeks. she played golf and tennis, she went for long rides in the warners' motor-car or carriages, and also on horseback. there were many guests at the house, coming and going, and among these one day came mr. phelps, whom they had met on their journey out from new york. this gentleman proved to be of a merry disposition, and added greatly to the gaiety of the party. while he was there, roger also came back for a few days, having left mr. and mrs. farrington for a short stay at nantucket. one morning, as patty and roger stood in the hall, waiting for the other young people to join them, they were startled to hear angry voices in the music-room. this room was separated from them by the length of the library, and though not quite distinct, the voices were unmistakably those of bertha and winthrop. "you did!" said winthrop's voice, "don't deny it! you're a horrid hateful old thing!" "i didn't! any such thing," replied bertha's voice, which sounded on the verge of tears. "you did! and if you don't give it back to me, i'll tell mother. mother said if she caught you at such a thing again, she'd punish you as you deserved, and i'm going to tell her!" patty felt most uncomfortable at overhearing this quarrel. she had never before heard a word of disagreement between bertha and her brother, and she was surprised as well as sorry to hear this exhibition of temper. roger looked horrified, and glanced at patty, not knowing exactly what to do. the voices waxed more angry, and they heard bertha declare, "you're a horrid old telltale! go on and tell, if you want to, and i'll tell what you stole out of father's desk last week!" "how did you know that?" and winthrop's voice rang out in rage. "oh, i know all about it. you think nobody knows anything but yourself, smarty-cat! just wait till i tell father and see what he'll do to you." "you won't tell him! promise me you won't, or i'll,--i'll hit you! there, take that!" "that" seemed to be a resounding blow, and immediately bertha's cries broke forth in angry profusion. "stop crying," yelled her brother, "and stop punching me. stop it, i say!" at this point the conversation broke off suddenly, and patty and roger stared in stupefied amazement as they saw bertha and winthrop walk in smiling, and hand in hand, from exactly the opposite direction from which their quarrelsome voices had sounded. "what's the matter?" said bertha. "why do you look so shocked and scared to death?" "n-nothing," stammered patty; while roger blurted out, "we thought we heard you talking over that way, and then you came in from this way. who could it have been? the voices were just like yours." bertha and winthrop broke into a merry laugh. "it's the phonograph," said bertha. "winthrop and i fixed up that quarrel record, just for fun; isn't it a good one?" roger understood at once, and went off into peals of laughter, but patty had to have it explained to her. "you see," said winthrop, "we have a big phonograph, and we make records for it ourselves. bertha and i fixed up that one just for fun, and elise is in there now looking after it. come on in, and see it." they all went into the music-room, and winthrop entertained them by putting in various cylinders, which they had made themselves. almost as funny as the quarrel was bertha's account of the occasion when she fell into the creek, and many funny recitations by mr. warner also made amusing records. patty could hardly believe that she had not heard her friends' voices really raised in anger, until winthrop put the same record in and let her hear it again. he also promised her that some day she should make a record for herself, and leave it at pine branches as a memento of her visit. chapter xvi a quilting party miss aurora bender's quilting party was to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the girls started early in order to see all the fun. they were to stay to supper, and the young men were to come over and escort them home in the evening. when they reached miss bender's, they found that many and wonderful preparations had been made. miss aurora had two house servants, emmeline and nancy, but on this occasion she had called in two more to help. and indeed there was plenty to be done, for a quilting bee was to miss bender's mind a function of great importance. the last of a large family, miss bender was a woman of great wealth but of plain and old-fashioned tastes. though amply able to gratify any extravagant wish, she preferred to live as her parents had lived before her, and she had in no sense kept pace with the progress of the age. when the three girls reached the old country house, they were met at the front door by the elderly nancy. she courtesied with old-time grace, and invited them to step into the bedroom, and lay off their things. this bedroom, which was on the ground floor, was a large apartment, containing a marvellously carved four-post bedstead, hung with old-fashioned chintz curtains and draperies. the room also contained two massive bureaus, a dressing-table and various chairs of carved mahogany, and in the open fireplace was an enormous bunch of feathery asparagus, flecked with red berries. "oh," cried patty in delight, "if nan could see this room she'd go perfectly crazy. isn't this house great? why, it's quite as full of beautiful old things as washington's house at mt. vernon." "i haven't seen that," said bertha, "but it doesn't seem as if anything could be more complete or perfect in its way than this house is. come on, girls, are you ready?" the girls went to the parlour, and there found the quilt all prepared for working on. patty had never before seen a quilt stretched on a quilting-frame, and was extremely interested. it was a very large quilt, and its innumerable small triangles, which made up the goose-chase pattern, were found to present a methodical harmony of colouring, which had not been observable before the strips were put together. the large pieced portion was uppermost, and beneath it was the lining, with layers of cotton in between. each edge was pinned at intervals to a long strip of material which was wound round and round the frame. the four corners of the frame were held up by being tied to the backs of four chairs, and on each of the four sides of the quilt were three more chairs for the expected guests to occupy. almost on the stroke of three the visitors arrived, and though some of them were of a more modern type than miss bender, yet three or four were quite as old-fashioned and quaint-mannered as their hostess. "they are native up here," bertha explained to patty. "there are only a few of the old new england settlers left. most of the population here is composed of city people who have large country places. you won't often get an opportunity to see a gathering like this." patty realised the truth of this, and was both surprised and pleased to find that these country ladies showed no trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness before the city girls. it seemed not to occur to them that there was any difference in their effects, and indeed patty was greatly amused because one of the old ladies seemed to take it for granted that patty was a country girl, and brought up according to old-time customs. this old lady, whose name was mrs. quimby, sat next to patty at the quilt, and after she had peered through her glasses at the somewhat uneven stitches which poor patty was trying her best to do as well as possible, she remarked: "you ain't got much knack, have you? you'll have to practise quite a spell longer before you can quilt your own house goods. how old be you?" "seventeen," said patty, feeling that her work did not look very well, considering her age. "seventeen!" exclaimed mrs. quimby. "laws' sake, i was married when i was sixteen, and i quilted as good then as i do now. i'm over eighty now, and i'd ruther quilt than do anything, 'most. you don't look to be seventeen." "and you don't look to be eighty, either," said patty, smiling, glad to be able to turn the subject by complimenting the old lady. the quilting lasted all the afternoon. patty grew very tired of the unaccustomed work, and was glad when miss bender noticed it, and told her to run out into the garden with bertha. bertha was not allowed to touch the quilt with her incompetent fingers, but elise sewed away, thoroughly enjoying it all, and with no desire to avail herself of miss bender's permission to stop and rest. patty and bertha wandered through the old-fashioned garden, in great delight. the paths were bordered with tiny box hedges, which, though many years old, were kept clean and free from deadwood or blemish of any sort, and were perfectly trimmed in shape. the garden included quaint old flowers such as marigolds, sweet williams, bleeding hearts, bachelors' buttons, jacob's ladder and many others of which patty did not even know the names. tall hollyhocks, both single and double, grew against the wall, and a hop vine hung in green profusion. every flower bed was of exact shape, and looked as if not a leaf or a stem would dare to grow otherwise than straight and true. "what a lovely old garden," said patty, sniffing at a sprig of lemon verbena which she had picked. "yes, it's wonderful," said bertha. "i mean to ask miss bender if i mayn't bring my camera over, and get a picture of it, and if they're good, i'll give you one." "do," said patty, "and take some pictures inside the house too. i'd like to show them to nan." "tell me about nan," said bertha. "she's your stepmother, isn't she?" "yes," said patty, "but she's only six years older than i am, so that the stepmother part of it seems ridiculous. we're more like sisters, and she's perfectly crazy over old china and old furniture. she'd love miss bender's things." "perhaps she'll come up while you're here," said bertha. "i'll ask mother to write for her." "thank you," said patty, "but i'm afraid she won't. my father can't leave for his vacation until july, and then we're all going away together, but i don't know where." just then elise came flying out to them, with the announcement that supper was ready, and they were to come right in, quick. the table was spread in the large room which patty had thought was the kitchen. it probably had been built for that purpose, but other kitchens had been added beyond it, and for the last half century it had been used as a dining-room. the table was drawn out to its full length, which made it very long indeed, and it was filled with what seemed to patty viands enough to feed an army. at one end was a young pig roasted whole, with a lemon in his mouth, and a design in cloves stuck into his fat little side. at the other end was a baked ham whose crisp golden-brown crust could only be attained by the old cook who had been in the bender family for many years. up and down the length of the table on either side was a succession of various cold meats, alternating with pickles, jellies and savories of various sorts. after the guests were seated, nancy brought in platters of smoking-hot biscuits from the kitchen, and miss aurora herself made the tea. the furnishings of the table were of old blue and white china of great age and priceless value. the old family silver too was a marvel in itself, and the tea service which miss bender manipulated with some pride was over a hundred years old. patty was greatly impressed at this unusual scene, but when the plates were removed after the first course, and the busy maid-servants prepared to serve the dessert, she was highly entertained. for the next course, though consisting only of preserves and cake, was served in an unusual manner. the preserves included every variety known to housewives and a few more. in addition to this, miss aurora announced in a voice which was calm with repressed satisfaction, that she had fourteen kinds of cake to put at the disposal of her guests. none of these sorts could be mixed with any other sort, and the result was fourteen separate baskets and platters of cake. the table became crowded before they had all been brought in from the kitchen, and quite as a matter of course, the serving maids placed the later supplies on chairs, which they stood behind the guests, and the ladies amiably turned round in their seats, inspected the cake, partook of it if they desired, and gracefully pushed the chair along to the next neighbour. this seemed to the city girls a most amusing performance, but patty immediately adapted herself to what was apparently the custom of the house, and gravely looked at the cake each time, selected such as pleased her fancy and pushed the chair along. noticing patty's gravity as she accomplished this performance, elise very nearly lost her own, but patty nudged her under the table, and she managed to behave with propriety. the conversation at the table was without a trace of hilarity, and included only the most dignified subjects. the ladies ate mincingly, with their little fingers sticking out straight, or curved in what they considered a most elegant fashion. miss aurora was in her element. she was truly proud of her home and its appointments, and she dearly loved to entertain company at tea. to her mind, and indeed to the minds of most of those present, the success of a tea depended entirely upon the number of kinds of cake that were served, and miss bender felt that with fourteen she had broken any hitherto known record. it was an unwritten law that each kind of cake must be really a separate recipe. to take a portion of ordinary cup-cake batter, and stir in some chopped nuts, and another portion and mix in some raisins, by no means met the requirements of the case. this patty learned from remarks made by the visitors, and also from miss aurora's own delicately veiled intimations that each of her fourteen kinds was a totally different and distinct recipe. patty couldn't help wondering what would become of all this cake, for after all, the guests could eat but a small portion of it. and it occurred to her also that the ways of the people in previous generations, as exemplified in miss bender's customs, seemed to show quite as great a lack of a sense of proportion as many of our so-called modern absurdities. after supper the guests immediately departed for their homes. carriages arrived for the different ones, and they went away, after volubly expressing to their hostess their thanks for her delightful entertainment. the girls expected winthrop and roger to come for them in the motor-car, but they had not told them to come quite so early as now seemed necessary. in some embarrassment, they told miss bender that they would have to trespass on her hospitality for perhaps an hour longer. "my land o' goodness!" she exclaimed, looking at them in dismay, "why i've got to set this house to rights, and i can't wait an hour to begin!" "don't mind us, miss bender," said bertha. "just shut us up in some room by ourselves, and we'll stay there, and not bother you a bit; unless perhaps we can help you?" "help me! no, indeed. there can't anybody help me when i'm clearin' up after a quiltin', unless it's somebody that knows my ways. but i'd like to amuse you children, somehow. i'll tell you what, you can go up in the front bedroom, if you like, and there's a chest of old-fashioned clothes there. can't you play at dressin' up?" "yes, indeed," cried bertha. "just the thing! give us some candles." provided with two candles apiece, the girls followed miss aurora to a large bedroom on the second floor, which also boasted its carved four-poster and chintz draperies. "there," said miss aurora, throwing open a great chest, "you ought to get some fun out of trying on those fol-de-rols, and peacocking around; but don't come downstairs to show off to me, for you'll only bother me out of my wits. i'll let you know when your folks come for you." miss bender trotted away, and the girls, quite ready for a lark, tossed over the quaint old gowns. beautiful costumes were there, of the period of about a hundred years ago. lustrous silks and dainty dimities; embroidered muslins and heavy velvets; patty had never seen such a sight. after looking them over, the girls picked out the ones they preferred, and taking off their own frocks proceeded to try them on. bertha had chosen a blue and white silk of a bayadere stripe, with lace ruffles at the neck and wrists and a skirt of voluminous fulness. elise wore a white empire gown that made her look exactly like the empress josephine, while patty arrayed herself in a flowered silk of dresden effect with a pointed bodice, square neck, and elbow sleeves with lace frills. in great glee, the girls pranced around, regretting there was no one to whom they might exhibit their masquerade costumes. but miss bender had been so positive in her orders that they dared not go downstairs. suddenly they heard the toot of an automobile. [illustration: "patty arrayed herself in a flowered silk of dresden effect"] "that's our car," cried bertha. "i know the horn. let's go down just as we are, for the benefit of winthrop and roger." in answer to miss bender's call from below, the girls trooped downstairs, and merrily presented themselves for inspection. mr. phelps had come with the others, and if the young men were pleased at the picture the three girls presented, miss aurora herself was no less so. "my," she said, "you do look fine, i declare! now, i'll tell you what i'll do; i'll make each of you young ladies a present of the gown you have on, if you care to keep it. i'll never miss them, for i have trunks and chests full, besides those you saw, and i'm right down glad to give them to you. you can wear them sometimes at your fancy dress parties." the girls were overjoyed at miss bender's gift, and bertha declared they would wear them home, and she would send over for their other dresses the next day. so, donning their wraps, the merry modern maids in their antique garb made their adieus to miss aurora, and were soon in the big motor-car speeding for home. chapter xvii a summer christmas although they had intended to stay but a fortnight, patty and elise remained with the warners all through the month of june, and even then bertha begged them to stay longer. but the day for their departure was set in the first week of july, and bertha declared that they must have a big party of some kind as their last entertainment for the girls. so mrs. warner invited a number of young people for a house party during the last few days of patty's stay. "i wish," said bertha, a few days before the fourth, "that we could have some kind of a party on the fourth of july that would be different from just an ordinary party." "have an automobile party," suggested roger, who was present. "i don't mean that kind," said bertha, "i mean a party in the house, but something that would be fun. there isn't anything to do on fourth of july except have fireworks, and that isn't much fun." "i'll tell you what," said mr. phelps, who was at pine branches on one of his flying visits, "have a christmas party." "a christmas party on fourth of july!" exclaimed bertha, "that's just the thing! mr. phelps, you're a real genius. that's just what we'll do, and we'll have a christmas tree, and give each other gifts and everything." "great!" said roger, "and we'll have a yule log blazing, and we'll all wear our fur coats." "no, not that," said bertha, laughing, "we'd melt. but we'll have all the christmas effects that we can think of, and each one must help." the crowd of merry young people who were gathered at pine branches eagerly fell in with bertha's plan, and each began to make preparations for the festival. the girls made gifts which they carefully kept secret from the ones for whom they were intended, and many trips were made to the village for materials. the boys also had many mysterious errands, and mr. and mrs. warner, who entered heartily into the spirit of the fun, were frequently consulted under strict bonds of confidence. fourth of july came and proved to be a warm, though not a sultry summer day. invitations had been sent out, and a large party of young people were expected in the evening; and during the day those who were staying at pine branches found plenty to do by way of preparation. a large christmas tree had been cut down, and was brought into the library. as soon as it was set up, the work of decoration began, and it was hung with strings of popcorn, and tinsel filigree which mrs. warner had saved from previous christmas trees. dozens of candles too, were put on the branches, to be lighted at night. the boys brought in great boughs of evergreen, and cut them up, while the girls made ropes and wreaths and stars, with which to adorn the room. mr. phelps had sent to new york for a large boxful of artificial holly, and this added greatly to the christmas effect. patty was in her element helping with these arrangements, for she dearly loved to make believe, and the idea of a christmas party in midsummer appealed very strongly to her sense of humour. her energy and enthusiasm were untiring, and her original ideas called forth the hearty applause of the others. she was consulted about everything, and her decisions were always accepted. mr. phelps too, proved a clever and willing worker. he was an athletic young man, and he seemed to be capable of doing half a dozen different things at once. he cut greens, and hung wreaths, and ran up and down stepladders, and even managed to fasten a large gilt star to the very top branch of the christmas tree. after the decorations were all completed, everybody brought their gifts neatly tied up and labelled, and either hung them on the tree or piled them up around the platform on which it stood. "well, you children have done wonders," said mrs. warner, looking in at the library door. "you have transformed this room until i hardly can recognise it, and it looks for all the world exactly like christmas. it is hard to believe that it is really fourth of july." "it seems too bad not to have any of the fourth of july spirit mixed in with it," said winthrop, "but i suppose it would spoil the harmony. but we really ought to use a little gunpowder in honour of the day. come on, patty, your work is about finished, let's go out and put off a few firecrackers." "all right," said patty, "just wait till i tack up this 'merry christmas' motto, and i'll be ready." "i'll do that," said roger, "you infants run along and show off your patriotism, and i'll join you in a few minutes." "you must be tired," said winthrop to patty, as they sauntered out on the lawn. "you worked awfully hard with those evergreen things. let's go out on the lake and take our firecrackers with us; that will rest you, and it will be fun besides." the lake, so called by courtesy, was really an artificial pond, and though not large, it provided a great deal of amusement. there were several boats, and selecting a small cedar one, winthrop assisted patty in, sprang in himself, and pushed off. "if it's christmas, we ought to be going skating on the lake, instead of rowing," said patty. "it isn't christmas now," said winthrop, "you get your holidays mixed up. we've come out here to celebrate independence day. see what i've brought." from his pockets the young man produced several packs of firecrackers. "what fun!" cried patty, "i feel as if i were a child again. let me set some off. have you any punk?" "yes," said winthrop, gravely producing some short sticks of punk from another pocket; and lighting one, he gave it to patty. "but how can i set them off?" said patty, "i'm afraid to have them in the boat, and we can't throw them out on the water." "we'll manage this way," said winthrop, and drawing one of the oars into the boat, he laid a lighted firecracker on the blade and pushed it out again. the firecracker went off with a bang, and in great glee patty pulled in the other oar and tried the same plan. then they set off a whole pack at once, and as the length of the oar was not quite sufficient for safety winthrop let it slip from the row-lock and float away on the water. as he had previously tied a string to the handle so that he could pull the oar back at will, this was a great game, and the floating oar with its freight of snapping firecrackers provided much amusement. the noise of the explosions brought the others running to the scene, and three or four more boats were soon out on the lake. firecrackers went snapping in every direction, and torpedoes were thrown from one boat to another until the ammunition was exhausted. then the merry crowd trooped back to the house for luncheon. "i never had such a lovely fourth of july," said patty to her kind hostess. "everything is different from anything i ever did before. this house is just like fairyland. you never know what is going to happen next." after luncheon the party broke up in various small groups. some of the more energetic ones played golf or tennis, but patty declared it was too warm for any unnecessary exertion. "come for a little walk with me," said roger, "we'll walk down in the grove; it's cool and shady there, and we can play mumblety-peg if you like." "i'll go to the grove," said patty, "but i don't want to play anything. this is a day just to be idle and enjoy living, without doing anything else." they strolled down toward the grove, and were joined on the way by bertha and mr. phelps, who were just returning from a call on abiram. "i think abiram ought to come to the christmas party to-night," said bertha, "i know he'd enjoy seeing the tree lighted up." "he shall come," said dick phelps, "i'll bring him myself." "do," said patty, "and we'll tie a red ribbon round his neck with a sprig of holly, and i'll see to it that there's a present on the tree for him." the quartet walked on to the grove, and sat down on the ground under the pine trees. "i feel very patriotic," said patty, who was decorated with several small flags which she had stuck in her hair, and in her belt, "and i think we ought to sing some national anthems." so they sang "the star-spangled banner," and other patriotic airs, until they were interrupted by winthrop and elise who came toward them singing a christmas carol. "i asked you to come here," said roger aside, to patty, "because i wanted to see you alone for a minute, and now all these other people have come and spoiled my plan. come on over to the orchard, will you?" "of course i will," said patty jumping up, "what is the secret you have to tell me? some plan for to-night?" "no," said roger, hesitating a little, "that is, yes,--not exactly." they had walked away from the others, and roger took from his pocket a tiny box which he offered to patty. "i wanted to give you a little christmas present," he said, "as a sort of memento of this jolly day; and i thought maybe you'd wear it to-night." "how lovely!" cried patty, as she opened the box and saw a little pin shaped like a spray of holly. "it's perfectly sweet. thank you ever so much, roger, but why didn't you put it on the tree for me?" "oh, they are only having foolish presents on the tree, jokes, you know, and all that." "oh, is this a real present then? i don't know as i ought to accept it. i've never had a present from a young man before." roger looked a little embarrassed, but patty's gay delight was entirely free from any trace of self-consciousness. "anyway, i am going to keep it," she said, "because it's so pretty, and i like to think that you gave it to me." roger looked greatly gratified and seemed to take the matter with more seriousness than patty did. she pinned the pretty little trinket on her collar and thought no more about it. dinner was early that night, for there was much to be done in the way of final preparations before the guests came to the christmas party. the christmas pretence was intended as a surprise to those not staying in the house, and after all had arrived, the doors of the library were thrown open with shouts of "merry christmas!" and indeed it did seem like a sudden transition back into the winter. the christmas tree with its gay decorations and lighted candles was a beautiful sight, and the green-trimmed room with its spicy odours of spruce and pine intensified the illusion. shouts of delight went up on all sides, and falling quickly into the spirit of it all, the guests at once began to pretend it was really christmas, and greeted each other with appropriate good wishes. mischievous patty had slyly tied a sprig of mistletoe to the chandelier, and dick phelps by a clever manoeuvre had succeeded in getting mrs. warner to stand under it. the good lady was quite unaware of their plans, and when mr. phelps kissed her soundly on her plump cheek she was decidedly surprised. but the explanation amply justified his audacity, and mrs. warner laughingly declared that she would resign her place to some of the younger ladies. the greatest fun came when winthrop distributed the presents from the tree. none of them was expensive or valuable, but most of them were clever, merry little jokes which good-naturedly teased the recipients. true to his word mr. phelps brought abiram in, leading him by his long chain. patty had tied a red ribbon round his neck with a huge bow, and had further dressed him up in a paper cap which she had taken from a german cracker motto. abiram received a stick of candy as his gift, and was as much pleased, apparently, as the rest of the party. many of the presents were accompanied by little verses or lines of doggerel, and the reading of these caused much merriment and laughter. after the presentations, supper was served, and here mrs. warner had provided her part of the surprise. not even those staying in the house knew of their hostess' plans, and when they all trooped out to the dining-room, a real christmas feast awaited them. the long table was decorated with red ribbons and holly, and red candles with red paper shades. christmas bells hung above the table, and at each plate were appropriate souvenirs. in the centre of the table was a tiny christmas tree with lighted candles, a miniature copy of the one they had just left. even the viands partook of the christmas character, and from roast turkey to plum pudding no detail was spared to make it a true christmas feast. the young people did full justice to mrs. warner's hospitality, and warmly appreciated the kind thoughtfulness which had made the supper so attractive in every way. then they adjourned to the parlour for informal dancing, and wound up the party with an old-fashioned virginia reel, which was led by mr. and mrs. warner. mr. warner was a most genial host and his merry quips and repartee kept the young people laughing gaily. when at last the guests departed, it was with assurances that they had never had such a delightful christmas party, even in midwinter, and had never had such a delightful fourth of july party, even in midsummer. chapter xviii at sandy cove when the day came for patty and elise to leave pine branches, everyone concerned was truly sorry. elise had long been a favourite with the warners, and they had grown to love patty quite as well. roger was still there, and mr. and mrs. farrington came for the young people in their motor-car. they were returning from a most interesting trip, which had extended as far as portland. after hearing some accounts of it, patty felt sure that she would have enjoyed it; but then she had also greatly enjoyed her visit at pine branches, and she felt sure that it had been better for her physically than the exertion and excitement of the motor-trip. besides this, the farringtons assured her that there would be many other opportunities for her to go touring with them, and they would always be glad to have her. so one bright morning, soon after the fourth of july, the fact started off again with its original party. they made the trip to new york entirely without accident or mishap of any kind, which greatly pleased roger, as it demonstrated that the fact was not always a stubborn thing. patty was to spend the months of july and august with her father and nan, who had rented a house on long island. the house was near the barlows' summer home at sandy cove, for nan had thought it would be pleasant to be near her friends, who were also patty's relatives. mr. and mrs. fairfield had already gone to long island, and the farringtons were to take patty over there in the motor-car. so, after staying a day or two with elise in new york, patty again took her place in the car for the journey to her new home. mr. farrington and elise went with her, and after seeing her safely in her father's care, returned to the city that same day. patty was glad to see her father and nan again, and was delighted with the beautiful house which they had taken for the summer. "how large it is!" she exclaimed, as she looked about her. "we three people will be lost in it!" "we're going to have a lot of company," said nan, "i've invited nearly everyone i know, and i shall expect you to help me entertain them." "gladly," said patty; "there are no horrid lessons in the way now, and you may command my full time and attention." the day after patty's return to her family, she proposed that they go over to see the barlows. "it's an awful hot afternoon," said nan, "but i suppose we can't be any warmer there than here." so arraying themselves in fresh, cool white dresses, nan and patty started to make their call. the barlows' summer place was called the hurly-burly, and as nan and patty both knew, the name described the house extremely well. as bob barlow sometimes said, the motto of their home seemed to be, "no place for nothin', and nothin' in its place." but as the family had lived up to this principle for many years, it was not probable things would ever be any different with them, and it did not prevent their being a delightful family, while their vagaries often proved extremely entertaining. but when nan and patty neared the house they saw no sign of anybody about. the doors and windows were all open and the visitors walked in, looked in the various rooms, and even went upstairs, but found nobody anywhere. "i'll look in the kitchen," said patty; "surely old hopalong, the cook, will be there. they can't all be away, and the house all open like this." but the kitchen too, was deserted, and nan said, "well, let us sit on the front verandah a while; it must be that somebody will come home soon, and anyway i'm too warm and tired to walk right back in the broiling sun." so they sat on the verandah for half an hour, and then patty said, "let's give one more look inside the house, and if we can't find anybody let's go home." "all right," said nan, and in they went, through the vacant rooms, and again to the kitchen. "why, there's hopalong," said patty, as she saw the old coloured woman busy about her work, though indeed hopalong's slow movements could not be accurately described by the word busy. "hello, hopalong," said patty, "where are all the people?" "bless yo' heart miss patty, chile, how yo'done skeered me! and howdy, miss nan,--'scuse me, i should say missus fairfield. de ladies is at home, and i 'spects dey'll be mighty glad to see you folks." "where are they, then?" said nan, looking puzzled, "we can't find them." "well yo' see it's a mighty hot day, and dem barlows is mighty fond of bein' as comf'able as possible. i'm makin' dis yere lemonade for 'em, kase dey likes a coolin' drink. i'll jest squeeze in another lemon or two, and there'll be plenty for you, too." "but where are they, hopalong?" asked patty, "are they outdoors, down by the brook?" "laws no, miss patty, i done forgot to tell yo' whar dey am, but dey's down in de cellah." "in the cellar!" said patty, "what for?" "so's dey kin be cool, chile. jes' you trot along down, and see for yourselfs." hopalong threw open the door that led from the kitchen to the cellar stairs, and holding up their dainty white skirts, patty and nan started down the rather dark staircase. "look at those white shoes coming downstairs," they heard bumble's voice cry; "i do believe it's nan and patty!" "it certainly is," said patty, and as she reached the last step, she looked around in astonishment, and then burst into laughter. "well, you do beat all!" she said, "we've been sitting on the front verandah half an hour, wondering where you could be." "isn't it nice?" said mrs. barlow, after she had greeted her guests. "it is indeed," said patty, "it's the greatest scheme i ever heard of." the cellar, which had been recently white-washed, had been converted into a funny sort of a sitting-room. on the floor was spread a large white floor-cloth, whose original use had been for a dancing crash. the chairs and sofas were all of wicker, and though in various stages of dilapidation, were cool and comfortable. a table in the center was covered with a white cloth, and the sofa pillows were in white ruffled cases. bumble explained that the intent was to have everything white, but they hadn't been able to carry out that idea fully, as they had so few white things. "the cat is all right," said patty, looking at a large white cat that lay curled up on a white fur rug. "yes, isn't she a beautiful cat? her name is the countess, and when she's awake, she's exceedingly aristocratic and dignified looking, but she's almost never awake. oh, here comes hopalong, with our lemonade." the old negro lumbered down the steps, and bumble took the tray from her, and setting it on the table, served the guests to iced lemonade and tiny thin cakes of hopalong's concoction. "now isn't this nice?" said mrs. barlow, as they sat chatting and feasting; "you see how cool and comfortable it is, although it's so warm out of doors. i dare say i shall get rheumatism, as it seems a little damp here, but when i feel it coming on, i'm going to move my chair over onto that fur rug, and then i think there will be no danger." "it is delightfully cool," said patty, "and i think it a most ingenious idea. if we had only known sooner that you were here, though, we could have had a much longer visit." "it's so fortunate," said bumble, whom patty couldn't remember to call helen, "that you chanced to be dressed in white. you fit right in to the colour scheme. mother and i meant to wear white down here, but all our white frocks have gone to the laundry. but if you'll come over again after a day or two, we'll have this place all fixed up fine. you see we only thought of it this morning. it was so unbearably hot, we really had to do something." soon uncle ted and bob came in, and after a while mr. fairfield arrived. the merry party still stayed in the cellar room, and one and all pronounced it a most clever idea for a hot day. the barlows were delighted that the fairfields were to be near them for the summer, and many good times were planned for. patty was very fond of her barlow cousins, but after returning to her own home, which nan with the special pride of a young housekeeper, kept in the daintiest possible order, patty declared that she was glad her father had chosen a wife who had the proper ideas of managing a house. nan and patty were congenial in their tastes and though patty had had some experience in housekeeping, she was quite willing to accept any innovations that nan might suggest. "indeed," she said, "i am only too glad not to have any of the care and responsibility of keeping house, and i propose to enjoy an idle summer after my hard year in school." so the days passed rapidly and happily. there were many guests at the house, and as the fairfields were rather well acquainted with the summer people at sandy cove, they received many invitations to entertainments of various kinds. the farringtons often came down in their motor-car and made a flying visit, or took the fairfields for a ride, and patty hoped that the warners would visit them before the summer was over. one day mr. phelps appeared unexpectedly, and from nowhere in particular. he came in his big racing-car, and that day patty chanced to be the only one of the family at home. he invited her to go for a short ride with him, saying they could easily be back by dinner time, when the others were expected home. glad of the opportunity, patty ran for her automobile coat and hood, and soon they were flying along the country roads. part of the time they went at a mad rate of speed, and part of the time they went slower, that they might converse more easily. as they went somewhat slowly past a piece of woods, patty gave a sudden exclamation, and declared that she saw what looked like a baby or a young child wrapped in a blanket and lying on the ground. her face expressed such horror-stricken anxiety, as she thought that possibly the child had been abandoned and left there purposely, that mr. phelps consented to go back and investigate the matter, although he really thought she was mistaken in thinking it was a child at all. he turned his machine, and in a moment they were back at the place. mr. phelps jumped from the car, and ran into the wood where patty pointed. sure enough, under a tree lay a baby, perhaps a year old, fairly well dressed and with a pretty smiling face. he called to patty and she joined him where he stood looking at the child. "why, bless your heart!" cried patty, picking the little one up, "what are you doing here all alone?" the baby cooed and smiled, dimpling its little face and caressing patty's cheeks with its fat little hands. a heavy blanket had been spread on the ground for the child to lie on, and around its little form was pinned a lighter blanket with the name rosabel embroidered on one corner. "so that's your name, is it?" said patty. "well, rosabel, i'd like to know where you belong and what you're doing here. do you suppose," she said, turning an indignant face to mr. phelps, "that anybody deliberately put this child here and deserted it?" "i'm afraid that's what has happened," said mr. phelps, who really couldn't think of any other explanation. they looked all around, but nobody was in sight to whom the child might possibly belong. "i can't go away and leave her here," said patty, "the dear little thing, what shall we do with her?" "it is a mighty hard case," said mr. phelps, who was nonplussed himself. he was a most gentle-hearted man, and could not bear the thought of leaving the child there alone in the woods, and it was already nearing sundown. "we might take it along with us," he said, "and enquire at the nearest house." "there's no house in sight," said patty, looking about. "well, there are only two things to choose from; to stay here in hope that somebody will come along, who knows something about this baby, or else assume that she really has been deserted and take her home with us, for the night at least. i simply won't go off and leave her here, and if there was anybody here in charge of her they must have shown up by this time." mr. phelps could see no use in waiting there any longer, and though it seemed absurd to carry the child off with them, there really seemed nothing else to do. so with a last look around, hoping to see somebody, but seeing no one, patty climbed into the car and sitting in the front seat beside mr. phelps, held the baby in her lap. "she's awfully cunning," she declared, "and such a pretty baby! whoever abandoned this child ought to be fearfully punished in some way." "i can't think she was abandoned," said mr. phelps, but as he couldn't think of any other reason for the baby being there alone, he was forced to accept the desertion theory. having decided to take the baby with them, they sped along home, and drew up in front of the house to find nan and mr. fairfield on the verandah. "why, how do you do, mr. phelps?" cried nan. "we're very glad to see you. come in. for gracious goodness' sake, patty, what have you got there?" "this is rosabel," said patty, gravely, as she held the baby up to view. chapter xix rosabel "rosabel who?" exclaimed nan, as patty came up on the verandah with the baby in her arms. "i don't know, i'm sure. you may call her rosabel anything you like. we picked her up by the wayside." "yes," said dick phelps, who had followed patty up the steps. "miss rosabel seemed lonely without anyone to talk to, so we brought her back here to visit you." "you must be crazy!" cried nan, "but what a cunning baby it is! let me take her." nan took the good-natured little midget and sat down in a verandah rocker, with the baby in her arms. "tell a straight story, patty," said her father, "is it one of the neighbour's children, or did you kidnap it?" "neither," said patty, turning to her father; "we found the baby lying right near the edge of a wood, in plain sight from the road. and there was nobody around, and papa, i just know that the child's wretch of a mother deserted it, and left it there to die!" "nonsense," said her father. "mothers don't leave their little ones around as carelessly as that." "well, what else could it be?" said patty. "there was the baby all alone, smiling and talking to herself, and no one anywhere near, although we waited for some time." "it does seem strange," said mr. fairfield, "perhaps the mother did mean to desert the child, but if so, she was probably peeping from some hiding-place, to make sure that she approved of the people who took it." "well," said mr. phelps, "she evidently thought we were all right; at any rate she made no objection." "but isn't it awful," said nan, "to think of anybody deserting a dear little thing like this. why, the wild animals might have eaten her up." "of course they might," said mr. phelps, gravely, "the tigers and wolves that abound on long island are of the most ferocious type." "well, anyway," said patty, "something dreadful might have happened to her." "it may yet," said mr. phelps cheerfully, "when we take her back to-morrow and put her in the place we found her. for i don't suppose you intend to keep miss rosabel, do you?" "i don't know," said patty, "but i know one thing, we certainly won't put her back where we found her. what shall we do with her, papa?" "i don't know, my child, she's your find, and i suppose it's a case of 'findings is keepings.'" "of course we can't keep her," said patty, "how ridiculous! we'll have to put her in an orphan asylum or something like that." "it's a shame," said nan, "to put this dear little mite in a horrid old asylum. i think i shall adopt her myself." little rosabel had begun to grow restless, and suddenly without a word of warning she began to cry lustily, and not a quiet well-conducted cry either, but with ear-splitting shrieks and yells, indicative of great discomfort of some sort. "i've changed my mind," said nan, abruptly. "i don't want to adopt any such noisy young person as that. here, take her, patty, she's your property." patty took the baby, and carried her into the house, fearing that passers-by would think they must be torturing the child to make her scream like that. into the dining-room went patty, and on to the kitchen, where she announced to the astonished cook that she wanted some milk for the baby and she wanted it quick. "is there company for dinner, miss patty?" asked the cook, not understanding how a baby could have arrived as an only guest. "only this one," said patty, laughing, "what do you think she ought to eat?" "bread and milk," said the cook, looking at the child with a judicial air. "all right, kate, fix her some, won't you?" in a few moments patty was feeding rosabel bread and milk, which the child ate eagerly. impelled by curiosity, nan came tip-toeing to the kitchen, followed by the two men. "i thought she must be asleep," said nan, "as the concert seems to have stopped." "not at all," said patty, calmly, "she was only hungry, and the fact seemed to occur to her somewhat suddenly." little rosabel, all smiles again, looked up from her supper with such bewitching glances that nan cried out, "oh, she is a darling! let me help you feed her, patty." in fact they all succumbed to the charm of their uninvited guest. during dinner rosabel sat at the table, in a chair filled with pillows, and was made happy by being given many dainty bits of various delicacies, until nan declared the child would certainly be ill. "i don't believe she is more than a year old," said nan, "and she's probably unaccustomed to those rich cakes and bonbons." "i think she's more than a year," said patty, sagely, "and anyway, i want her to have a good time for once." "she seems to be having the time of her life," said dick phelps, as he watched the baby, who with a macaroon in one hand, and some candied cherries in the other, was smiling impartially on them all. "she's not much of a conversationalist," remarked mr. fairfield. "give her time," said patty, "she feels a little strange at first." "yes," said mr. phelps, "i think after two or three years she'll be much more talkative." "well, there's one thing certain," said patty, "she'll have to stay here to-night, whatever we do with her to-morrow." [illustration: "in a few minutes patty was feeding rosabel bread and milk"] after dinner they took their new toy with them to the parlour, and miss rosabel treated them all to a few more winning smiles, and then quietly, but very decidedly fell asleep in patty's arms. "i can't help admiring her decision of character," said patty, as she shook the baby to make her awaken, but without success. "don't wake her up," said nan. "come, patty, we'll take her upstairs, and put her to bed somewhere." this feat being accomplished, nan and patty rejoined the men, who sat smoking on the front verandah. "now," said patty, "we really must decide what we're going to do with that infant; for i warn you, papa fairfield, that if we keep that dear baby around much longer, i shall become so attached to her that i can't give her up." "of course," said mr. fairfield, "she must be turned over to the authorities. i'll attend to it the first thing in the morning." a little later mr. fairfield and nan strolled down the road to make a call on a neighbour, and patty and dick phelps remained at home. patty had declared she wouldn't leave the house lest rosabel should waken and cry out, so promising to make but a short call, mr. fairfield and nan went away. soon after they had gone, a strange young man came walking toward the house. he turned in at the gate and approached the front steps. "is this mr. richard phelps?" he asked, addressing himself to dick. "it is; what can i do for you?" "do you own a large black racing automobile?" "yes," replied mr. phelps. "and were you out in it this afternoon," continued the stranger, "driving rapidly between here and north point?" "yes," said mr. phelps again, wondering what was the intent of this peculiar interview. "then you're the man i'm after," declared the stranger, "and i'm obliged to tell you, sir, that you are under arrest." "for what offence?" enquired mr. phelps, rather amused at what he considered a good joke, and thinking that it must be a case of mistaken identity somehow. "for kidnapping little mary brown," was the astonishing reply. "why, we didn't kidnap her at all!" exclaimed patty, breaking into the conversation. "the idea, to think we would kidnap a baby! and anyway her name isn't mary, it's rosabel." "then you know where the child is, miss," said the man, turning to patty. "of course i do," said patty, "she's upstairs asleep. but it isn't mary brown at all. it's rosabel,--i don't know what her last name is." mr. phelps began to be interested. "what makes you think we kidnapped a baby, my friend?" he said to their visitor. the man looked as if he had begun to think there must be a mistake somewhere. "why, you see, sir," he said, "mrs. brown, she's just about crazy. her little girl, sarah, went out into the woods this afternoon, and took the baby, mary, with her. the baby went to sleep, and sarah left it lying on a blanket under a tree, while she roamed around the wood picking blueberries. somehow she strayed away farther than she intended and lost her way. when she finally managed to get back to the place where she left the baby, the child was gone, and she says she could see a large automobile going swiftly away, and the lady who sat in the front seat was holding little mary. sarah screamed, and called after you, but the car only went on more and more rapidly, and was soon lost to sight. i'm a detective, sir, and i looked carefully at the wheel tracks in the dust, and i asked a few questions here and there, and i hit upon some several clues, and here i am. now i'd like you to explain, sir, if you didn't kidnap that child, what you do call it?" "why, it was a rescue," cried patty, indignantly, without giving mr. phelps time to reply. "the dear little baby was all alone in the wood, and anything might have happened to her. her mother had no business to let her be taken care of by a sister that couldn't take care of her any better than that! we waited for some time, and nobody appeared, so we picked up the child and brought her home, rather than leave her there alone. but i don't believe it's the child you're after anyway, for the name rosabel is embroidered on the blanket." "it is the same child, miss," said the man, who somehow seemed a little crestfallen because his kidnapping case proved to be only in his own imagination. "mrs. brown described to me the clothes the baby wore, and she said that blanket was given to her by a rich lady who had a little girl named rosabel. the browns are poor people, ma'am, and the mother is a hard-working woman, and she's nearly crazed with grief about the baby." "i should think she would be," said patty, whose quick sympathies had already flown to the sorrowing mother. "she oughtn't to have left an irresponsible child in charge of the little thing. but it's dreadful to think how anxious she must be! now i'll tell you what we'll do; mr. phelps, if you'll get out your car, i'll just bundle that child up and we'll take her right straight back home to her mother. we'll stop at the ripleys' for papa and nan, and we'll all go over together. it's a lovely moonlight night for a drive, anyway, and even if it were pitch dark, or pouring in torrents, i should want to get that baby back to her mother just as quickly as possible. i don't wonder the poor woman is distracted." "very well," said mr. phelps, who would have driven his car to kamschatka if patty had asked him to, "and we'll take this gentleman along with us, to direct us to mrs. brown's." mr. phelps went for his car, and patty flew to bundle up the baby. she did not dress the child, but wrapped her in a warm blanket, and then in a fur-lined cape of her own. then making a bundle of the baby's clothes, she presented herself at the door, just as mr. phelps drove up with his splendid great car shining in the moonlight. a few moments' pause was sufficient to gather in mr. and mrs. fairfield, and away they all flew through the night, to mrs. brown's humble cottage. they found the poor woman not only grieving about the loss of her child, but angry and revengeful against the lady and gentleman in the motor-car, who, she thought, had stolen it. and so when the car stopped in front of her door, she came running out followed by her husband and several children. little sarah recognised the car, which was unusual in size and shape, and cried out, "that's the one, that's the one, mother! and those are the people who stole mary!" but the young detective, whose name was mr. faulks, sprang out of the car and began to explain matters to the astonished family. then patty handed out the baby, and the grief of the browns was quickly turned to rejoicing, mingled with apologies. mr. fairfield explained further to the somewhat bewildered mother, and leaving with her a substantial present of money as an evidence of good faith in the matter, he returned to his place in the car, and in a moment they were whizzing back toward home. "i'm glad it all turned out right," said patty with a sigh, "but i do wish that pretty baby had been named rosabel instead of mary. it really would have suited her a great deal better." chapter xx the rolands "there's a new family in that house across the road," said mr. fairfield one evening at dinner. "the fenwick house?" asked nan. "yes; a man named roland has taken it for august. i know a man who knows them, and he says they're charming people. so, if you ladies want to be neighbourly, you might call on them." nan and patty went to call and found the roland family very pleasant people, indeed. mrs. roland seemed to be an easy-going sort of lady who never took any trouble herself, and never expected anyone else to do so. miss roland, patty decided, was a rather inanimate young person, and showed a lack of energy so at variance with patty's tastes that she confided to nan on the way home she certainly did not expect to cultivate any such lackadaisical girl as that. as for young mr. roland, the son of the house, patty had great ado to keep from laughing outright at him. he was of the foppish sort, and though young and rather callow, he assumed airs of great importance, and addressed patty with a formal deference, as if she were a young lady in society, instead of a schoolgirl. patty was accustomed to frank, pleasant comradeship with the boys of her acquaintance; and the young men, such as mr. hepworth and mr. phelps, treated patty as a little girl, and never seemed to imply anything like grown-up attentions. but young mr. roland, with an affected drawl, and what were meant to be killing glances of admiration, so conducted himself that patty's sense of humour was stirred, and she mischievously led him on for the fun of seeing what he would do next. the result was that young mr. roland was much pleased with pretty patty, and fully believed that his own charms had made a decided impression on her. he asked permission to call, whereupon patty told him that she was only a schoolgirl, and did not receive calls from young men, but referred him to mrs. fairfield, and nan being in an amiable mood, kindly gave him the desired permission. "well," said patty, as they discussed the matter afterward, "if that young puff-ball rolls himself over here, you can have the pleasure of entertaining him. i'm quite ready to admit that another season of his conversation would affect my mind." "nonsense," said nan, carelessly, "you can't expect every young man to be as interesting as mr. hepworth, or as companionable as kenneth harper." "i don't," said patty, "but i don't have to bore myself to death talking to them, if i don't like them." "no," said nan, "but you must be polite and amiable to everybody. that's part of the penalty of being an attractive young woman." "all right," said patty, "since that's the way you look at it, you surely can't have any objection to receiving mr. roland if he calls, for i warn you that i shan't appear." but it so happened that when a caller came one afternoon, nan was not at home, and patty was. the maid brought the card to patty, who was reading in her own room, and when she looked at it and saw the name of mr. charles roland upon it, she exclaimed in dismay. "i don't want to go down," she said, "i wish he hadn't come." "it's a lady, miss patty," said the girl. "a lady?" said patty, wonderingly, "why this is a gentleman's card." "yes, ma'am, i know it, but it's a lady that called. she's down in the parlour, waiting, and that's the card she gave me. she's a large lady, miss patty, with greyish hair, and she seems in a terrible fluster." "very mysterious," said patty, "but i'll go down and see what it's all about." patty went down to the parlour, and found mrs. roland there. she did indeed look bewildered, and as soon as patty entered the room she began to talk volubly. "excuse my rushing over like this, my dear," she said, "but i am in such trouble, and i wonder if you won't help me out. we're neighbours, you know, and i'm sure i'd do as much for you. i asked for mrs. fairfield, but she isn't at home, so i asked for you." "but the card you sent up had mr. charles roland's name on it," said patty, smiling. "oh, my dear, is that so? what a mistake to make! you see i carry charlie's cards around with my own, and i must have sent the wrong one. i'm so nearsighted i can't see anything without my glasses, anyway, and my glasses are always lost." patty felt sorry for the old lady, who seemed in such a bewildered state, and she said, "no matter about the card, mrs. roland, what can i do for you?" "why it's just this," said her visitor. "i want to borrow your house. just for the night, i'll return it to-morrow in perfect order." "borrow this house?" repeated patty, wondering if her guest were really sane. "yes," said mrs. roland; "now wait, and i'll tell you all about it. i'm expecting some friends to dinner and to stay over night, and would you believe it, just now of all days in the year, the tank has burst and the water is dripping down all through the house. we can't seem to do anything to stop it. the ceilings had fallen in three rooms when i came away, and i dare say the rest of them are down by this time. and my friends are very particular people, and awfully exclusive. i wouldn't like to take them to the hotel; and i don't think it's a very nice hotel anyway, and so i thought if you'd just lend me this house over night, i could bring my friends right here, and as they leave to-morrow morning, it wouldn't be long, you know. and truly i don't see what else i can do." "but what would become of our family?" said patty, who was greatly amused at the unconventional request. "why, you could go to our house," said mrs. roland dubiously; "that is, if any of the ceilings will stay up over night; or," she added, her face brightening, "couldn't you go to the hotel yourselves? of course, it isn't a nice place to entertain guests, but it does very well for one's own family. oh, miss fairfield, please help me out! truly i'd do as much for you if the case were reversed." although the request was unusual, mrs. roland did not seem to think so, and the poor lady seemed to be in such distress, that patty's sympathies were aroused, and after all it was a mere neighbourly act of kindness to borrow and lend, even though the article in question was somewhat larger than the lemon or the egg usually borrowed by neighbourly housekeepers. so patty said, "what about the servants, mrs. roland? do you want to borrow them too?" "i don't care," was the reply, "just as it suits you best. you may leave them here; or take them with you, and i'll bring my own. oh, please, miss fairfield, do help me somehow." patty thought a minute. it was a responsibility to decide the question herself, but if she waited until nan or her father came home, it would be too late for mrs. roland's purpose. then she said, "i'll do it, mrs. roland. you shall have the house and servants at your disposal until noon to-morrow. you may bring your own servants also, or not, just as you choose. we won't go to your house, thank you, nor to the hotel. but mr. and mrs. fairfield and myself will go over to my aunt, mrs. barlow's, to dine and spend the night. they can put us up, and they won't mind a bit our coming so unexpectedly." "oh, my dear, how good you are!" said mrs. roland in a burst of gratitude. "i cannot tell you how i appreciate your kindness! are you sure your parents won't mind?" "i'm not at all sure of that," said patty, smiling, "but i don't see as they can help themselves; when they come home, you will probably be in possession, and your guests will be here, so there'll be nothing for my people to do but to fall in with my plans." "oh, how good you are," said mrs. roland. "i will surely make this up to you in some way, and now, will you just show me about the house a bit, as i've never been here before?" so patty piloted mrs. roland about the house, showed her the various rooms, and told the servants that they were at mrs. roland's orders for that night and the next morning. after mrs. roland had gone back home, made happy by patty's kindness, patty began to think that she had done a very extraordinary thing, and wondered what her father and nan would say. "but," she thought to herself, "i'm in for it now, and they'll have to abide by my decision, whatever they think. now i must pack some things for our visit. but first i must telephone to aunt grace." "hello, auntie," said patty, at the telephone, a few moments later. "papa and nan and i want to come over to the hurly-burly to dinner, and to stay all night. will you have us?" "why, of course, patty, child, we're glad to have you. come right along and stay as long as you like. but what's the matter? has your cook left, or is the house on fire?" "neither, aunt grace, but i'll explain when i get there. can you send somebody after me in a carriage? papa and nan have gone off in the cart, and i have two suit cases to bring." "certainly, patty, i'll send old dill after you right away, and i'll make him hurry, too, as you seem to be anxious to start." "i am," said patty, laughing. "good-bye." then she gathered together such clothing and belongings as were necessary for their visit, and had two suit cases ready packed when her aunt's carriage came for her. patty looked a little dubious as she left the house, but she didn't feel that she could have acted otherwise than as she had done, and, too, since their own trusty servants were to stay there, certainly no harm could come to the place. so, giggling at the whole performance, patty jumped into the barlow carriage and went to the hurly-burly. "well, of all things!" said her aunt grace, after patty had told her story. "i've had a suspicion, sometimes, that we barlows were an unconventional crowd, but we never borrowed anybody's house yet! it's ridiculous, patty, and you ought not to have let that woman have it!" "i just couldn't help it, aunt grace, she was in such a twitter, and threw herself on my mercy in such a way that i felt i had to help her out." "you're too soft-hearted, patty; you'd do anything for anybody who asked you." "you needn't talk, aunt grace, you're just the same yourself, and you know that if somebody came along this minute and wanted to borrow your house you'd let her have it if she coaxed hard enough." "i think very likely," said aunt grace, placidly. "now, how are you going to catch your father and nan?" "why, they'll have to drive past here on their way home," said patty, "and i mean to stop them and tell them about it. we can put the horse in your barn, i suppose." "yes, of course. and now we'll go out on the verandah, and then we can see the fairfield turn-out when it comes along." the fairfields were waylaid and stopped as they drove by the house, which was not astonishing, as patty and bumble and mrs. barlow watched from the piazza, while bob was perched on the front gate post, and uncle ted was pacing up and down the walk. "what's the matter?" cried mr. fairfield, as he reined up his horse in response to their various salutations. "the matter is," said patty, "that we haven't any home of our own to-night, and so we're visiting aunt grace." "earthquake swallowed our house?" inquired mr. fairfield, as he turned to drive in. "not quite," said patty, "but one of the neighbours wanted to borrow it, so i lent it to her." "that mrs. roland, i suppose," said nan; "she probably mislaid her own house, she's so careless and rattle-pated." "it was mrs. roland," said patty, laughing, "and she's having a dinner-party, and their tank burst, and most of the ceilings fell, and really, nan, you know yourself such things do upset a house, if they occur on the day of a dinner-party." fuller explanations ensued, and though the fairfields thought it a crazy piece of business, they agreed with patty, that it would have been difficult to refuse mrs. roland's request. and it really didn't interfere with the fairfields'comfort at all, and the barlows protested that it was a great pleasure to them to entertain their friends so unexpectedly, so, as mr. fairfield declared, mrs. roland was, after all, a public benefactor. "you'd better wait," said nan, "until you see the house to-morrow. i know a little about the rolands, and i wouldn't be a bit surprised to find things pretty much upside down." it was nearly noon the next day when mrs. roland telephoned to the hurly-burly and asked for mrs. fairfield. nan responded, and was told that the rolands were now leaving, and that the fairfields might again come into their home. mrs. roland also expressed voluble thanks for the great service the fairfields had done her, and said that she would call the next day to thank them in person. so the fairfields went back home, and happily nan's fears were not realised. nothing seemed to be spoiled or out of order, and the servants said that mrs. roland and her family and friends had been most kind, and had made no trouble at all. "now, you see," said patty, triumphantly, "that it does no harm to do a kind deed to a neighbour once in a while, even though it isn't the particular kind deed that you've done a hundred times before." "that's true enough, patty," said her father, "but all the same when you lend our home again, let it be our own house, and furnished with our own things. i don't mind owning up, now that it's all over, that i did feel a certain anxiety arising from the fact that this is a rented house, and almost none of the household appointments are our own." "goodness, gracious me!" said patty. "i never once thought of that! well, i'm glad they didn't smash all the china and bric-a-brac, for they're mortal homely, and i should certainly begrudge the money it would take to replace them." chapter xxi the crusoes plans were on foot for a huge fair and bazaar to be held in aid of the associated charities. everybody in and around sandy cove was interested, and the fair, which would be held the last week in august, was expected to eclipse all previous efforts of its kind. all three of the fairfields were energetically assisting in the work, and each was a member of several important committees. the barlows, too, were working hard, and the rolands thought they were doing so, though somehow they accomplished very little. as the time drew near for the bazaar to open, patty grew so excited over the work and had such a multitude of responsibilities, that she flew around as madly as when she was preparing for the play at school. "but i'm perfectly well, now," she said to her father when he remonstrated with her, "and i don't mind how hard i work as long as i haven't lessons to study at the same time." aside from assisting with various booths and tables, patty had charge of a gypsy encampment, which she spared no pains to make as gay and interesting as possible. the "romany rest" she called the little enclosure which was to represent the gypsies'home, and patty not only superintended the furnishing and arranging of the place, but also directed the details of the costumes which were to be worn by the young people who were to represent gypsies. the fairfields' house was filled with guests who had come down for the fair. patty had invited elise and roger farrington, and bertha and winthrop warner. mr. hepworth and kenneth harper were there, too, and the merry crowd of young people worked zealously in their endeavours to assist patty and nan. mr. hepworth, of course, was especially helpful in arranging the gypsy encampment, and designing the picturesque costumes for the girls and young men who were to act as gypsies. the white blouses with gay-coloured scarfs and broad sombreros were beautiful to look at, even if, as patty said, they were more like spanish fandangoes than like any gypsy garments she had ever seen. "don't expose your ignorance, my child," said mr. hepworth, smiling at her. "a romany is not an ordinary gypsy and is always clothed in this particular kind of garb." "then that's all that's necessary," said patty. "i bow to your superior judgment, and i feel sure that all the patrons of the fair will spend most of their time at the 'romany rest.'" the day on which the fair was to open was a busy one, and everybody was up betimes, getting ready for the grand event. a fancy dress parade was to be one of the features of the first evening, and as a prize was offered for the cleverest costume, all of the contestants were carefully guarding the secret of the characters their costumes would represent. although roger had given no hint of what his costume was to be, he calmly announced that he knew it would take the prize. the others laughed, thinking this a jest, and patty was of a private opinion that probably mr. hepworth's costume would be cleverer than roger's, as the artist had most original and ingenious ideas. the fair was to open at three in the afternoon, and soon after twelve o'clock patty rushed into the house looking for somebody to send on an errand. she found no one about but bertha warner, who was hastily putting some finishing touches to her own gypsy dress. "that's almost finished, isn't it, bertha?" began patty breathlessly. "yes; why? can i help you in any way?" "indeed you can, if you will. i have to go over to black island for some goldenrod. it doesn't grow anywhere else as early, at least i can't find any. i've hunted all over for somebody to send, but the boys are all so busy, and so i'm just going myself. i wish you'd come along and help me row. it's ever so much quicker to go across in a boat and get it there, than to drive out into the country for it." "of course i will," said bertha, "but will there be time?" "yes, if we scoot right along." the girls flew down to the dock, jumped into a small rowboat and began to row briskly over to black island. it was not very far, and they soon reached it. they scrambled out, pulled the boat well up onto the beach, and went after the flowers. sure enough, as patty had said, there was a luxuriant growth of goldenrod in many parts of the island. patty had brought a pair of garden shears, and by setting to work vigorously, they soon had as much as they could carry. "there," said patty, triumphantly, as she tied up two great sheaves, "i believe we gathered that quicker than if we had brought some boys along to help. now let's skip for home." the island was not very large, but in their search for the flowers they had wandered farther than they thought. "it's nearly one o'clock," said patty, looking at her watch, and carrying their heavy cargo of golden flowers, they hastened back to where they had left their boat. but no boat was there. "oh, bertha," cried patty, "the boat has drifted away!" "oh, pshaw," said bertha, "i don't believe it. we pulled it ever so far up on the sand." "well, then, where is it?" "why, i believe winthrop or kenneth or somebody came over and pulled it away, just to tease us. i believe they're around the corner waiting for us now." patty tried to take this view of it, but she felt a strange sinking of her heart, for it wasn't like kenneth to play a practical joke, and she didn't think winthrop would, either. laying down her bundle of flowers, bertha ran around the end of the island, fully expecting to see her brother's laughing face. but there was no one to be seen, and no sign of the boat. then bertha became alarmed, and the two girls looked at each other in dismay. "look off there," cried patty, suddenly, pointing out on the water. far away they saw an empty boat dancing along in the sunlight! bertha began to cry, and though patty felt like it, it seemed really too babyish, and she said, "don't be a goose, bertha, we're not lost on a desert island, and of course somebody will come after us, anyway." but patty was worried more than she would admit. for no one knew where they had gone, and the empty boat was drifting away from sandy cove instead of toward it. at first, the girls were buoyed up by the excitement of the situation, and felt that somebody must find them shortly. but no other boat was in sight, and as patty said, everybody was getting ready for the fair and no one was likely to go out rowing that day. one o'clock came, and then half-past one, and though the girls had tried to invent some way out of their difficulty they couldn't think of a thing to do, but sit still and wait. they had tied their handkerchiefs on the highest bushes of the island, there being no trees, but they well knew that these tiny white signals were not likely to attract anybody's attention. they had shouted until they were hoarse, and they had talked over all the possibilities of the case. "of course they have missed us by this time," said patty, "and of course they are looking for us." "i don't believe they are," said bertha disconsolately, "because all the people at the house will think we're down at the fair grounds, and all the people there will think we're up at the house." "that's so," patty admitted, for she well knew how everybody was concerned with his or her own work for the fair, and how little thought they would be giving to one another at this particular time. and yet, though patty would not mention it, and would scarcely admit the thought to herself, she couldn't help feeling sure that mr. hepworth would be wondering where she was. "the only hope is," she said to bertha, "if somebody should want to see me especially, about some of the work, and should try to hunt me up." "well," said bertha, "even if they did, it never would occur to them that we are over here." "no, they'd never think of that; even if they do miss us, and try to hunt for us. they'll only telephone to different houses, or something like that. it will never occur to them that we're over here, and why should it?" "i'm glad i came with you," said bertha, affectionately. "i should hate to think of you over here all alone." "if i were here alone," said patty, laughing, "you wouldn't be thinking of me as here alone. you'd just be wondering where i was." "so i would," said bertha, laughing, too; "but oh, patty, do let's do _something!_ it's fearful to sit here helpless like this." "i know it," said patty, "but what can we do? we're just like robinson crusoe and his man friday, except that we haven't any goat." "no, and we haven't any raft, from which to select that array of useful articles that he had at his disposal. do you remember the little bag, that always held everything that could possibly be required?" "oh, that was in 'swiss family robinson,'" said patty; "your early education is getting mixed up. i hope being cast on a desert island hasn't affected your brain. i don't want to be over here with a lunatic." "you will be, if this keeps up much longer," said poor bertha, who was of an emotional nature, and was bravely trying hard not to cry. "we might make a fire," said patty, "if we only had some paper and matches." "i don't know what good a fire would do. nobody would think that meant anything especial. i wish we could put up a bigger signal of some sort." "we haven't any bigger signal, and if we had, we haven't any way of raising it any higher than these silly low bushes. i never saw an island so poorly furnished for the accommodation of two young lady crusoes." "i never did, either. i'm going to shout again." "do, if it amuses you, but truly they can't hear you. it's too far." "what do you think will happen, patty? do you suppose we'll have to stay here all night?" "i don't know," said patty, slowly. "of course when it's time for the fair to open, and we're not there, they'll miss us; and of course papa will begin a search at once. but the trouble is, bertha, they'll never think of searching over here. they'll look in every other direction, but they'll never dream that we came out in the boat." so the girls sat and waited, growing more and more down-hearted, with that peculiar despondency which accompanies enforced idleness in a desperate situation. "look!" cried patty, suddenly, and startled, bertha looked where patty pointed. yes, surely, a boat had put out from the shore, and was coming toward them. at least it was headed for the island, though not directly toward where they sat. "they're going to land farther down," cried patty, excitedly, "come on, bertha." the two girls rushed along the narrow rough beach, wildly waving their handkerchiefs at the occupants of the boat. "it's mr. hepworth," cried patty, though the knowledge seemed to come to her intuitively, even before she recognised the man who held the stroke oar. "and winthrop is rowing, too," said bertha, recognising her brother, "and i think that's kenneth harper, steering." by this time the boat was near enough to prove that these surmises were correct. relieved of her anxiety, mischievous patty, in the reaction of the moment, assumed a saucy and indifferent air, and as the boat crunched its keel along the pebbly beach she called out, gaily, "how do you do, are you coming to call on us? we're camping here for the summer." "you little rascals!" cried winthrop warner. "what do you mean by running away in this fashion, and upsetting the whole bazaar, and driving all your friends crazy with anxiety about you?" "our boat drifted away," said bertha, "and we couldn't catch it, and we thought we'd have to stay here all night." "i didn't think we would," said patty. "i felt sure somebody would come after us." "i don't know why you thought so," said winthrop, "for nobody knew where you were." "i know that," said patty, smiling, "and yet i can't tell you why, but i just felt sure that somebody would come in a boat, and carry us safely home." "whom did you expect?" asked kenneth, "me?" patty looked at kenneth, and then at mr. hepworth, and then dropping her eyes demurely, she said: "i didn't know _who_ would come, only i just knew _somebody_ would." "well, somebody did," said kenneth, as he stowed the great bunches of goldenrod in the bow of the boat. "yes, somebody did," said patty, softly, flashing a tiny smile at mr. hepworth, who said nothing, but he smiled a little, too, as he bent to his oars. chapter xxii the bazaar of all nations "how did you know where we were?" said bertha to her brother. "we didn't know," said winthrop, "but after we had hunted everywhere, and put a squad of policemen on your track, and got out the fire department, and sent for an ambulance, hepworth, here, did a little detective work on his own account." "what did you do?" asked patty. "why, nothing much," said mr. hepworth, "i just tried to account for the various boats, and when i found one was missing, i thought you must have gone on the water somewhere. and so i got a field glass and looked all around, and though i thought i saw your white flags fluttering. i wasn't sure, but i put over here on the chance." "seems to me," said kenneth, "hepworth is a good deal like that man in the story. a horse had strayed away and several people had tried to find it, without success. presently, a stupid old countryman came up leading the horse. when asked how he found it he only drawled out, 'wal, i jest considered a spell. i thought ef i was a horse whar would i go? and i went there,--and he had!' that's a good deal the way hepworth did." they all laughed at kenneth's funny story, but patty said, "it was a sort of intuition, but all the same i object to having mr. hepworth compared to a stupid old countryman." "i don't care what i'm compared to," said mr. hepworth, gaily, "as long as we've found you two runaways, and if we can get you back in time for the opening of the fair." the time was very short indeed, and as soon as they landed at the dock, patty and bertha started for the house to don their costumes as quickly as possible. the fair, or "bazaar of all nations," as it was called, was really arranged on an elaborate scale. it was held on the spacious grounds of mr. ashton, one of the wealthiest of the summer residents of sandy cove. so many people had interested themselves in the charity, and so much enthusiasm had they put into their work, that when it was time to throw the gates open to the public, it was a festive and gorgeous scene indeed. the idea of representing various nations had been picturesquely, if not always logically, carried out. a japanese tea-booth had been built with some regard to japanese fashion, but with even more effort at comfort and attractive colour effects. the young ladies who attended it wore most becoming japanese costumes, and with slanting pencilled eyebrows, and japanese headdresses, they served tea in oriental splendour. in competition with them was an english dairy, where the rosy-cheeked maids in their neat cotton dresses and white aprons dispensed cheese cakes and devonshire cream to admiring customers. the representatives of other countries had even more elaborate results to show for their labours. italy's booth was a beautiful pergola, which had been built for the occasion, but which mr. ashton intended to keep as a permanent decoration. over the structure were beautiful vines and climbing plants, and inside was a gorgeous collection of blossoms of every sort. italian girls in rich-coloured costumes and a profuse array of jewelry sold bouquets or growing plants, and were assisted in their enterprise by swarthy young men who wore the dress of venetian gondoliers, or italian nobles, with a fine disregard of rank or caste. spain boasted a vineyard. mr. hepworth had charge of this, and it truly did credit to his artistic ability. built on the side of a hill, it was a clever imitation of a spanish vineyard, and large grape vines had been uprooted and transplanted to complete the effect. to be sure, the bunches of grapes were of the hothouse variety, and were tied on the vines, but they sold well, as did also the other luscious fruits that were offered for sale in arbours at either end of the grapery. the young spaniards of both sexes who attended to the wants of their customers were garbed exactly in accordance with mr. hepworth's directions, and he himself had artistically heightened the colouring of their features and complexions. germany offered a restaurant where _delicatessen_ foods and tempting savories were served by _frã¤uleins_. helen barlow was one of the jolliest of these, and her plump prettiness and long flaxen braids of hair suited well the white kerchief and laced bodice of her adopted country. the french girls, with true parisian instinct, had a millinery booth. here were sold lovely feminine bits of apparel, including collars, belts, laces and handkerchiefs, but principally hats. the hats were truly beautiful creations, and though made of simple materials, light straw, muslin, and even of paper, they were all dainty confections that any summer girl might be glad to wear. the little french ladies who exhibited these goods were voluble and dramatic, and in true french fashion, and with more or less true french language, they extolled the beauty of their wares. in a swiss chã¢let the peasants sold dolls and toys; in a cuban construction, of which no one knew the exact title, some fierce-looking native men sold cigars, and in a strange kind of a hut which purported to be an eskimo dwelling, ice cream could be bought. the stars and stripes waved over a handsome up-to-date soda-water fountain, as the authorities had decided that ice-cream soda was the most typical american refreshment they could offer to their patrons. but an indian encampment also claimed american protection, and a group of western cowboys took pride in their ranch, and even more pride in their swaggering costumes. altogether the bazaar was a great show, and as it was to last for three days, nobody expected to exhaust all its entertainments in one visit. the romany rest was one of the prettiest conceits, and though an idealised gypsy encampment, it proved a very popular attraction. half a dozen girls and as many young men wore what they fondly hoped looked enough like gypsy costumes to justify the name, but at any rate, they were most becoming and beautiful to look upon. patty was the gypsy queen, and looked like that personage as represented in comic opera. seated on a queerly constructed, and somewhat wobbly throne, she told fortunes to those who desired to know what the future held for them. apparently there was great curiosity in this respect, for patty was kept steadily busy from the time she arrived at her place. other gypsies sold gaily coloured beads, amulets and charms, and others stirred a queer-looking brew in a gypsy kettle over a real fire, and sold cupfuls of it to those who wished in this way to tempt fate still further. it was a perfect day, and the afternoon was progressing most satisfactorily. bertha was one of the swiss peasants, and by dint of much hurrying, she and patty had been able to get ready in time to join the parade of costumed attendants as they marched to their various stations. though had it not been for mr. phelps and his swift motor-car, they could scarcely have reached the fair grounds in time. elise was one of the italian flower girls, and kenneth also wore the garb of italy. mr. hepworth and roger farrington were ferocious-looking indians, and brandished their tomahawks and tossed their feathered heads in fearsome fashion. dick phelps was a cowboy, and his herculean frame well suited the picturesque western dress. and charlie roland flattered himself that arrayed as a chinaman he was too funny for anything. although patty had become better acquainted with young mr. roland, she had not learned to like him. his conceited ways and pompous manner seemed to her silly and artificial beside the frank comradeship of her other friends. he came early to have his fortune told by the gypsy queen, and though, of course, patty was in no way responsible for the way in which the cards fell, and though she told the fortunes strictly according to the instructions in a printed book, which she had learned by heart, she was not especially sorry when mr. roland's fortune proved to be not altogether a desirable one. but the young man was in nowise disconcerted. "it doesn't matter," he said, cheerfully, "i've had my fortune told lots of times, and things always happen just contrary to what is predicted. but i say, miss romany, can't you leave your post for a few minutes and go with me to the japanese tea place, for a cup of their refreshing beverage?" "thank you ever so much," said patty, "but i really can't leave here. there's a whole string of people waiting for their fortunes, and i must stand by my post. perhaps i can go later," she added, for though she did not care for charlie roland's attentions, she was too good-natured to wish to hurt his feelings. "i consider that a promise," said mr. roland, as he moved away to make place for the next seeker after knowledge. patty turned to her work, and thought no more of charlie roland and his undesirable invitation. soon kenneth came to have his fortune told, for it had been arranged that each booth should have plenty of attendants, in order that they might take turns in leaving their posts and promenading about the grounds. this was supposed to advertise their own particular nation, besides giving all a chance to see the sights. kenneth's fortune proved to be a bright and happy one, but he was not unduly elated over it, for his faith in such things was not implicit. "thank you," he said gravely, as patty finished telling of the glories which would attend his future career. "i don't think there's anything omitted from that string of good luck, unless it's being president, and i'm not quite sure i want to be that." "yes, you do," said patty, "every good american ought to want that, if only as a matter of patriotism." "well, i'm patriotic enough," said kenneth, "and i'll want it if you want me to want it. and now, patty, you've worked here long enough for the present. let somebody else take your place, and you come with me for a walk about the grounds. i'll take you to the pergola, and we'll buy some flowers from elise." "i'd love to go, ken, but truly i ought to stay here a while longer. lots of people want their fortune told, and nobody can do it but me, because i learnt all that lingo out of a book. no, i can't go now. run along,--i'm busy." patty spoke more shortly than she meant to, for the very reason that she wanted to go with kenneth, but she felt it her duty to remain at her post. kenneth appreciated the principle of the thing, but he thought that patty might have been a little kinder about it. his own temper was a little stirred by the incident, and rising quickly, he said, "all right, stay here, then!" and turning on his heel, he sauntered carelessly away. patty looked after him, thinking what a handsome boy he was, and how well his italian suit became him. kenneth's skin was naturally rather dark, and his black eyes and hair and heavy eyebrows were somewhat of the italian type. his white linen blouse was slightly turned in at the throat and he wore a crimson silk tie, and sash to match, knotted at one side. a broad-brimmed hat of soft grey felt sat jauntily on his head, and as he swung himself down the path, patty thought she had never seen him look so well. soon after this, charlie roland came back again. "i've brought someone to help you out," he said, as he introduced a young girl who accompanied him. "this is miss leslie and she knows fortune telling from the ground up. give her a red sash, and a bandana handkerchief to tie around her head, and let her take your place, if only for a short time; and you come with me to buy some flowers. do you know, your costume really calls for some scarlet blossoms in your hair, and over in the pergola they have some red geraniums that are simply great. come on, let's get some." patty did want some red flowers, and had meant to have some, but she dressed in such a hurry that there was no time to find any. moreover, she had never known charlie roland to appear to such good advantage. he seemed to have dropped his pompous manner with his civilised dress, and in his comical chinaman's costume, he seemed far more attractive than in his own everyday dress. and since he had provided her with a substitute, patty saw no reason for refusing his invitation. so together they left the romany rest, and walked about the fair, chatting with people here and there, until they reached the pergola. elise was delighted to see them, and while the italian girls besought mr. roland to buy their flowers, the italian young men clustered around patty, and with merry laugh and jest, presented her with sundry floral offerings. there was one exception, however; kenneth stood aloof. for the first time in his life, he felt that patty had intentionally slighted him. he had asked her to come to the pergola for flowers, and she had refused. then a few minutes later she had accepted a similar invitation from that stupid young roland. kenneth was obliged to admit to himself that young roland did not look stupid just at present, for he had some talent as a comedian, and was acting the part of a funny chinaman with success. but that didn't make any difference to kenneth, and he looked reproachfully at patty, as she accepted the flowers and gay compliments from her attendant cavalier. patty had intended to explain to kenneth why it had been possible for her to leave the gypsy camp in charge of another fortune teller, but when she saw the boy's moody expression and sulky attitude her sense of humour was touched, and she giggled to herself at the idea of kenneth being angry at such a trifle. she thought it distinctly silly of him, and being in a mischievous mood, she concluded he ought to be punished for such foolishness. so instead of smiling at him, she gave him only a careless glance, and then devoted her attention to the others. patty was a general favourite, and her happy, sunny ways made friends for her wherever she went. she was therefore surrounded by a crowd of merry young people, some of whom had just been introduced to her, and others whom she had known longer; and as she laughed and chatted with them, kenneth began to think that he was acting rather foolishly, and longed to join the group around the gypsy queen. but the boy was both sensitive and proud, and he could not quite bring himself to overlook what he considered an intentional unkindness on the part of patty. so, wandering away from the pergola, he visited other booths, and chatted with other groups, determined to ignore patty and her perversities. patty, not being an obtuse young person, saw through all this, and chose to be amused by it. "dear old ken," she thought to herself, "what a goose he is! i'll get nan to ask him to have supper with us all in the english dairy, and then i expect he'll thaw out that frozen manner of his." feeling that she ought to return to her own post, patty told her chinaman so, and together they went back to the romany rest; but as patty was about to take her place again at the fortune teller's table, mr. phelps came along and desired her to go with him, and have her photograph taken. at first patty demurred, though she greatly wanted to go, but miss leslie said she was not at all tired of fortune telling, and would gladly continue to substitute for patty a while longer. "come on, then," said dick phelps, "there's no reason why you shouldn't, since miss leslie is kind enough to fill your place." patty still hesitated, for she thought that kenneth would be still more offended if he saw her walking around with mr. phelps, after having told him that she could not leave the gypsy camp. but dick phelps was of an imperious nature. he was accustomed to having his own way, and was impatient at patty's hesitation. "come on," he said. "march!" and taking her by the arm, he led her swiftly down the path toward the photograph booth. as he strode along, cowboy fashion, patty said, meekly, "let go of my arm, please, mr. phelps. i think you've broken two bones already! and _don't_ walk so fast. i'm all out of breath!" "forgive me," said dick phelps, suddenly checking his speed, and smiling down at the girl beside him, "you see this cowboy rig makes me feel as if i were back on the plains again, and i can't seem to adjust myself to civilised conditions." mr. phelps looked very splendid as a cowboy, and patty listened with interest, as he told her of an exciting episode which had occurred during his ranch life, in a distant western territory. so engrossed did they become in this conversation that the photographs were forgotten for the moment, and they strolled along past the various booths, unheeding the numerous invitations to enter. of course kenneth saw them, and from a trifling offence, patty's conduct seemed to him to have grown into a purposed rudeness. as they passed him, patty smiled pleasantly, and paused, saying, "we're all going to have supper in the dairy, and of course you'll be with us, ken?" "of course i won't!" said kenneth, and deliberately turning on his heel, he walked the other way. chapter xxiii the end of the summer "whew!" said dick phelps, in his straightforward way, "he's mad at you, isn't he?" "yes," said patty, "and it's so silly! all about nothing at all. i wish you'd take me back to him, mr. phelps, and leave us alone, and i think i can straighten matters out in two minutes." "indeed, i'll do nothing of the sort," returned mr. phelps, in his masterful way; "you promised to go to the photograph place, and that's where we're going. i don't propose to give you up to any young man we chance to meet!" patty laughed, and they went on. at the photograph booth they found many of the gaily dressed young people, anxious to have pictures of themselves in their pretty costumes. patty and mr. phelps had to wait their turn, but finally succeeded in getting a number of pictures. patty had some taken alone, and some in which she was one of a gay group. some were successful portraits, and others were not, but all were provocative of much laughter and fun. by a rapid process of development, the photographers were enabled to furnish the completed pictures in less than a half hour after the cameras did their work, and as a consequence, this booth was exceedingly popular and promised handsome returns for the benefit of charity. mr. phelps and patty loitered about, waiting for their pictures, when patty caught sight of nan, and running to her she said, "for goodness' sake, nan, do help me out! kenneth's as mad as hops, and all about nothing! now i want you to ask him to come to supper with our crowd, and you must _make_ him come!" "i can't make him come, if he doesn't want to. you've been teasing him, patty, and you must get out of your own scrapes." "ah, nan, dear," coaxed patty, "do be good, and truly, if you'll just persuade him to come to supper with us, i'll do the rest." "i'll try," said nan as she walked away, "but i won't promise that i'll succeed." she did succeed, however, and some time later mr. fairfield gathered the large party whom he had invited to supper, in the english dairy. the supper was to be a fine one, far exceeding the bounds of dairy fare, and mr. fairfield had reserved a long table for his guests. as they trooped in, laughing and talking, and seated themselves for the feast, patty was relieved to see that kenneth was among them, after all. he took a seat between elise and helen barlow, and knowing bumble's good nature, patty went directly to her, and asked her if she wouldn't move, as she wanted to sit there herself. "of course i will," said bumble, and jumping up, she ran around to the other side of the table. then patty deliberately sat down by kenneth, who couldn't very well get up and walk away, himself, though he looked at her with no expression of welcome in his glance. without a word, patty leaned over and selected from a dish of olives on the table one which had a stem to it. with a tiny bit of ribbon she tied the olive to a little green branch she had brought in with her, and then demurely held the token toward kenneth. for a moment the boy looked rather blank, and then realising that patty was offering him the olive branch of peace, and that she had gone to some trouble to do this, and that moreover she had done it rather cleverly, the boy's face broke into a smile, and he turned toward patty. "thank you," he said, as he took the little spray, and attached it to the rolling collar of his blouse. "i accept it, with its full meaning." "you're such a goose, kenneth!" said patty, her eyes dancing with laughter. "there was nothing to get huffy about." "well," said kenneth, feeling his grounds for complaint slipping away from him, "you pranced off with that roland chap, after you had just told me you couldn't leave your gypsy queen business." "i know it," said patty, "but ken, he brought a nice lady to fill my place, and besides, he asked me to go to get red flowers and i really wanted red flowers." "i asked you to go for flowers too," said kenneth, not yet entirely mollified. "yes," said patty, "but you didn't say _red_ flowers. how did i know but that you'd buy pink or blue ones, and so spoil my whole gypsy costume?" kenneth had to laugh in spite of himself, at this bit of audacity. "and then right afterwards you went off again with dick phelps," he continued. "kenneth," said patty, looking at him with an expression of mock terror, "i couldn't help myself that time! honest, i couldn't. mr. phelps is a fearful tyrant. he's an ogre, and when he commanded me to go, i just had to go! he's a man that makes you do a thing, whether you want to or not. why, kenneth, he just marched me off!" "all right," said kenneth, "i'll take a leaf out of his book. after this, when i want you to go anywhere, _i'll_ just march you off." "you can try," said patty, saucily, "but i'm not sure you can do it. it takes a certain type of man to do that sort of thing successfully, and i don't know anybody but dick phelps who's just that kind." but peace was restored, for kenneth realised that patty's explanation was a fair one, and that he had been foolishly quick to take offence. after supper they all went to the grand stand to see the parade of fancy costumes. these were quite separate from the booth attendants, and a prize had been offered for the cleverest conceit, most successfully carried out. when at last the grand march took place, it showed a wonderful array of thoroughly ingenious costumes. of course there were many clowns, historical characters, fairies, and queer nondescript creatures, but there were also many characters which were unique and noteworthy. mr. hepworth, who was in the parade, had chosen to represent the full moon. how he did it, no one quite knew; but all that was visible was an enormous sphere, of translucent brightness and a luminous yellow color. mr. fairfield declared that the medium must be phosphorus, but all agreed that it was a wonderful achievement, and many thought it would surely take the prize. the sphere was hollow, and made of a light framework, and mr. hepworth walked inside of it, really carrying it along with him. it so nearly touched the ground that his feet were scarcely observable, and the great six foot globe made a decided sensation, as it moved slowly along. patty remembered that roger had declared he was going to take the prize, and as she had knowledge of the boy's ability along these lines, she felt by no means sure that it wouldn't eclipse mr. hepworth's shining orb. and sure enough, when roger appeared, it was in the character of a christmas tree! the clever youth had selected just the right kind of a tree, and cutting away enough twigs and branches near the trunk on one side, he had made a space in which he could thrust the whole of his tall slender self. to protect his face and hands from the scratchy foliage, and also to render himself inconspicuous, he wore a tight-fitting robe of dark brown muslin, which concealed even his face and arms, though eyeholes allowed him to see where he was going. in a word, the boy himself almost constituted the trunk of the tree, and by walking slowly, it looked as if the tree itself was moving along without assistance. the tree was gaily hung with real christmas trinkets and decorations, and lighted with candles. the idea was wonderfully clever, and though it had been hard work to arrange the boughs to conceal him entirely, roger had accomplished it, and the gay decorations hid all defects. the judges awarded the prize to roger, who calmly remarked to patty, afterward, "i told you i'd get it, didn't i?" "yes," said patty, "and so then of course i knew you would." it was a rather tired party that went back to the fairfields' house at the close of the evening. nan and mr. fairfield issued strict orders that everybody must go to bed at once, as there were two more strenuous days ahead, and they needed all the rest they could get. but next morning they reappeared, quite ready for fresh exertions, and patty declared that for her part she'd like to be a gypsy all the year round. "well i never want to be a christmas tree again," said roger, "in spite of my precautions, i'm all scratched up!" "never mind," said his sister consolingly, "you took the prize, and that's glory enough to make up for lots of scratches." the second and third days of the fair were much like the first, except that the crowds of visitors continually increased. the fame of the entertainment spread rapidly, and people came, even from distant parts of long island, to attend the festivities. but at last it was all over, and the fairfield verandah was crowded with young people, apparently of all nations, who were congratulating each other on the wonderful success. "of course," said patty, "the greatest thing was that we had such perfect weather. if it had rained, the whole thing would have been spoiled." "but it didn't rain," said nan, "and everything went off all right, and they must have made bushels of money." "well, it was lovely," said patty with a little sigh, "and i enjoyed every minute of it, but i don't want to engage in another one right away. i think i shall go to bed and sleep for a week!" "i wish i were a bear," said kenneth, "they can go to sleep and sleep all winter." "you'd make a good bear," said patty, in an aside to him, "because you can be so cross." but the merry smile that accompanied her words robbed them of any unpleasant intent, and kenneth smiled back in sympathy. "just to think," said nan, "a week from to-day we'll all be back in the city, and our lovely summer vacation a thing of the past." "it has been a beautiful summer," said patty, her thoughts flying backward over the past season. "i've never had such a happy summer in my life. it's been just one round of pleasure after another. everybody has been so good to me and the whole world seems to have connived to help me have a good time." "in so far as i'm part of the whole world, allow me to express my willingness to keep right on conniving," said big dick phelps, in his funny way. "me, too," said kenneth, in his hearty, boyish voice. mr. hepworth said nothing, but he smiled at patty from where he sat at the other end of the long verandah. courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 32 oct. 2, 1909 five cents motor matt's double-trouble or the last of the hoodoo _by the author of "motor matt"_ _street & smith publishers new york_ [illustration: _"stop!" shouted motor matt laying back on the end of the rope_] motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. copyright, 1909, by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ =no. 32.= new york, october 2, 1909. =price five cents.= motor matt's double trouble or, the last of the hoodoo. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. the red jewel. chapter ii. another end of the yarn. chapter iii. shock number one. chapter iv. shocks two and three. chapter v. a hot starter. chapter vi. m'glory is lost--and found. chapter vii. "pocketed." chapter viii. springing a "coup." chapter ix. motor matt's chase. chapter x. the chase concluded. chapter xi. a double capture. chapter xii. another surprise. chapter xiii. baiting a trap. chapter xiv. how the trap was sprung. chapter xv. back to the farm. chapter xvi. conclusion. hudson and the northwest passage. the death bite. migration of rats. some great catastrophes. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, otherwise motor matt. =joe mcglory=, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. a good chum to tie to--a point motor matt is quick to perceive. =tsan ti=, mandarin of the red button, who continues to fall into tragic difficulties, and to send in "four-eleven" alarms for the assistance of motor matt. =sam wing=, san francisco bazaar-man, originally from canton, and temporarily in the employ of tsan ti. by following his evil thoughts he causes much trouble for the mandarin, and, incidentally, for the motor boys. =philo grattan=, a rogue of splendid abilities, who aims to steal a fortune and ends in being brought to book for the theft of a motor car. =pardo=, a pal of grattan. =neb hogan=, a colored brother whose mule, stolen by sam wing, plays a part of considerable importance. neb himself engineers a surprise at the end of the story, and goes his way so overwhelmed with good luck that he is unable to credit the evidence of his senses. =banks and gridley=, officers of the law who are searching for the stolen blue motor. =boggs=, a farmer who comes to the aid of motor matt with energy and courage. =bunce=, a sailor with two good eyes who, for some object of his own, wears a green patch and prefers to have the public believe he is one-eyed. a pal of grattan, who is caught in the same net that entangles the rest of the ruby thieves. chapter i. the red jewel. craft and greed showed in the eyes of the hatchet-faced chinaman. he seemed to have been in deep slumber in the car seat, but the drowsiness was feigned. the train was not five minutes out of the town of catskill before he had roused himself, wary and wide-awake, and looked across the aisle. his look and manner gave evidence that he was meditating some crime. it was in the small hours of the morning, and the passenger train was rattling and bumping through the heavy gloom. the lights in the coach had been turned low, and all the passengers, with the exception of the thin-visaged celestial, were sprawling in their uncomfortable seats, snoring or breathing heavily. across the aisle from this criminally inclined native of the flowery kingdom was another who likewise hailed from the land of pagodas and mystery; and this other, it could be seen at a glance, was a person of some consequence. he was fat, and under the average height. drawn down over his shaven head was a black silk cap, with a gleaming red button sewn in the centre of the flat crown. from under the edge of the cap dropped a queue of silken texture, thick, and so long that it crossed the chinaman's shoulder and lay in one or two coils across his fat knees. yellow is the royal color in china, and it is to be noted that this celestial's blouse was of yellow, and his wide trousers, and his stockings--all yellow and of the finest canton silk. his sandals were black and richly embroidered. from the button and the costume, one at all informed of fashions as followed in the country of confucius might have guessed that this stout person was a mandarin. and that guess would have been entirely correct. to go further and reveal facts which will presently become the reader's in the logical unfolding of this chronicle, the mandarin was none other than tsan ti, discredited guardian of the honam joss house, situated on an island suburb of the city of canton. he of the slant, lawless gleaming eyes was sam wing, the mandarin's trusted and treacherous servant. a chinaman, like his caucasian brother, is not always proof against temptation when the ugly opportunity presents itself at the right time and in the right way. sam wing believed he had come face to face with such an opportunity, and he was determined to make the most of it. sam wing was a resident of san francisco. he owned a fairly prosperous bazaar, and, once every year, turned his profits into mexican dollars and forwarded the silver to an uncle in canton for investment in the land of his birth. some day sam wing cherished the dream of returning to canton and living like a grandee. but wealth came slowly. now, there in that foreign devil's choo-choo car such a chance offered to secure unheard-of riches that sam wing's loyalty to the mandarin, no less than his heathen ideas of integrity, were brushed away with astounding suddenness. tsan ti slept. his round head was wabbling on his short neck--rolling and swaying grotesquely with every lurch of the train. the red button of the mandarin's cap caught the dim rays of the overhead lamps and threw crimson gleams into the eyes of sam wing. this flashing button reminded sam wing of the red jewel, worth a king's ransom, which the mandarin was personally conveying to san francisco, en route to china and the city of canton. already sam wing was intrusted with the mandarin's money bag--an alligator-skin pouch containing many oblong pieces of green paper marked with figures of large denomination. the money was good, what there was of it, but that was not enough to pay for theft and flight. sam wing's long, talon-like fingers itched to lay hold of the red jewel. with a swift, reassuring look at the passengers in the car, sam wing caught at the back of the seat in front and lifted himself erect. he was not a handsome chinaman, by any means, and he appeared particularly repulsive just at that moment. hanging to the seat, he steadied himself as he stepped lightly across the aisle. another moment and he was at the mandarin's side, looking down on him. tsan ti, in his dreams, was again in canton. striding through the great chamber of the honam joss house, he was superintending the return of the red jewel to the forehead of the twenty-foot idol, whence it had been stolen. while the mandarin dreamed, sam wing bent down over him and, with cautious fingers, unfastened the loop of silk cord that held together the front of the yellow blouse. the rich garment fell open, revealing a small bag hanging from the mandarin's throat by a chain. swiftly, silently, and with hardly a twitch of the little bag, two of sam wing's slim, long-nailed fingers were inserted, and presently drew forth a resplendent gem, large as a small hen's egg. a gasping breath escaped sam wing's lips. for a fraction of an instant he hesitated. what if his ancestors were regarding him, looking out of the vastness of the life to come with stern disapproval? a chinaman worships his ancestors, and the shades of the ancient ones of his blood have a great deal to do with the regulating of his life. what were sam wing's forefathers thinking of this act of vile treachery? the thief ground his teeth and, with trembling hands, stowed the red jewel in the breast of his blouse. he started toward the rear door of the car--and hesitated again. sam wing was a buddhist, as the chinese understand buddhism, wrapping it up in their own mystic traditions. this red jewel had originally been stolen from a great idol of buddha. in short, the jewel had been the idol's eye, and the idol, sightless in the honam joss house, was believed to be in vengeful mood because of the missing optic. the idol had marshalled all the ten thousand demons of misfortune and had let them loose upon all who had anything to do with the pilfering of the sacred jewel. who was sam wing that he should defy these ten thousand demons of misfortune? how could he, a miserable bazaar man, fight the demons? but his skin tingled from the touch of the red jewel against his breast. he would dare all for the vast wealth which might be his in case he could "get away with the goods." closing his eyes to honor, to the ten thousand demons, to every article of his heathen faith, he bolted for the rear of the car. opening the door, he let himself out on the rear platform. a lurch of the car caused the door to slam behind him. meanwhile tsan ti had continued his delightful dreaming. his subconscious mind was watching the priests as they worked with the red jewel, replacing it in the idol's forehead. the hideous face of the graven image seemed to glow with satisfaction because of the recovery of the eye. the priest, at the top of the ladder, fumbled suddenly with his hands. the red jewel dropped downward, with a crimson flash, struck the tiles of the floor, and rolled away, and away, until it vanished. a yell of consternation burst from the mandarin's lips. he leaped forward to secure the red jewel--and came to himself with his head aching from a sharp blow against the seat back in front. he straightened up, and the alarm died out of his face. after all, it was only a dream! "say!" cried a man in the seat ahead, turning an angry look at tsan ti. "what you yellin' for? can't a heathen like you let a christian sleep? huh?" "a million pardons, most estimable sir," answered tsan ti humbly. "i had a dream, a bad dream." "too much bird's-nest soup an' too many sharks' fins for supper, i guess," scowled the man, rearranging himself for slumber. "pah!" tsan ti peered across the aisle. the seat occupied by his servant, sam wing, was vacant. sam wing, the mandarin thought, must have become thirsty and gone for a drink. the mandarin heaved a choppy sigh of relief. how real a dream sometimes is! now, if he---his hand wandered instinctively to the breast of his blouse, and he felt for the little lump contained in the bag suspended from his throat. he could not feel it. pulling himself together sharply tsan ti used both hands in his groping examination. then he caught his breath and sat as though dazed. a slow horror ran through his body. his blood seemed congealing about his heart, and his yellow face grew hueless. the red jewel was gone! the front of his blouse was open! then, after his blunted wits had recovered their wonted sharpness, tsan ti leaped for the aisle with another yell. "say," cried the man in the forward seat, lifting himself wrathfully, "i'll have the brakeman kick you off the train if you don't hush! by jing!" the mandarin began running up and down the aisle of the car, wringing his fat hands and yelling for sam wing. he said other things, too, but it was all in his heathen gibberish and could not be comprehended. by then every person in the car was awake. "crazy chink!" shouted the man who had spoken before. "he's gone dotty! look out for him!" at that moment the train lumbered to a halt and the lights of a station shone through the car windows. the brakeman jammed open the door and shouted a name. "motor matt!" wailed tsan ti. "estimable friend, come to my wretched assistance!" "here, brakeman!" cried the wrathful passenger who had already aired his views, "take this slant-eyed lunatic by the collar of his kimono and give him a hi'st into the right of way. chinks ought to be carried in cattle cars, anyhow." tsan ti, however, did not wait to be "hoisted into the right of way." with a final yell, he flung himself along the aisle and out the rear door, nearly overturning the astounded brakeman. once on the station platform, he made a bee line for the waiting room and the telegraph office. there was but one person in all america in whom the mandarin had any confidence, but one person to whom he would appeal. this was the king of the motor boys, who, at that moment, was in the town of catskill. chapter ii. another end of the yarn. on the same night this oriental treachery manifested itself aboard the train bound north through the catskills, a power yacht dropped anchor below the town of catskill. there was something suspicious about this motor yacht. she carried no running lights, and her cabin ports were dark as erebus. she came to a halt silently--almost sullenly--and her anchor dropped with hardly a splash. a tender was heaved over the side, and four men got into it and were rowed ashore by one of their number. when the tender grounded, three of the passengers got out. one of them turned to speak to the man who remained in the boat. "leave the tender in the water, when you get back to the _iris_, pierson. if the tender is wanted here, a light will be shown." "all right, grattan," answered the man in the boat, shoving off and rowing noiselessly back to the yacht. "hide the lantern in that clump of bushes, bunce," went on grattan. "ay, ay, messmate," answered the person addressed as bunce. "look here, grattan," grumbled the third member of the party, "motor matt has cooked our goose for us, and i'll be hanged if i can see the use of knocking around the town of catskill." "there are a lot of things in this world, pardo," returned grattan dryly, "that are advisable and that you haven't sense enough to see." pardo muttered wrathfully but indistinctly. "now," proceeded grattan, "this is the way of it: we got motor matt and his chum, mcglory, aboard the _iris_--lured them there on the supposition that tsan ti had sent motor matt the red jewel to keep safely for him for a time. motor matt and mcglory walked into our trap. we got the red jewel and put the two boys ashore some fifteen or twenty miles below here. half an hour later i put the supposed ruby to some tests and found it was counterfeit----" "are you sure the ruby you stole from the honam joss house was a true gem?" "yes. tsan ti sent motor matt a counterfeit replica for the purpose of getting us off the track. motor matt and mcglory will take the first train for catskill from the place where we put them ashore. we'll lie in wait for them on the path they must take between the railroad station and their hotel. it's a dark night, few passengers will arrive at this hour, and we can recapture the two motor boys and take them back to the _iris_." "what good will that do?" demurred pardo. "motor matt hasn't the real stone--tsan ti must have that." "i'll find out from motor matt where tsan ti is," said grattan, between his teeth, "and then i'll flash a message to the mandarin that he must give up the real gem, or motor matt _will suffer the consequences_!" "you can't mean," gasped pardo, in a panic, "that you will----" "it's a bluff, that's all," snapped grattan. "it will scare the mandarin out of his wits. have you hid the lantern, bunce?" he demanded, as the other member of the party came close. "ay, grattan," was the reply. "first bunch of bushes close to where we came ashore." "all right; come on, then. i've figured out what train motor matt and joe mcglory will catch, and it should soon be at the depot." with grattan in the lead, the party scrambled up the slope through the darkness, passed some ice houses, crossed a railroad track, and finally came to a halt in a lonely part of the town, near the walk leading from the railroad station to the business street and the hotels. a billboard afforded them a secure hiding place. grattan had figured the time of the train pretty accurately. he and his companions waited no longer than five minutes before the "local" drew to a halt at the station. "if those boys are not on the train," muttered pardo, "then we're fooled again. confound that motor matt, anyhow!" "he has my heartiest admiration," returned grattan, "but i'm not going to match wits with him and call myself beaten. hist!" he added abruptly, "here come two people--and maybe they're the ones we're looking for. mind, both of you, and don't make a move till i give the word." breathlessly the three men waited. footsteps came slowly up the walk and voices could be heard--voices which were recognized as belonging to the motor boys. "well, pard," came the voice of mcglory, "new york for ours in the morning. tsan ti, with the big ruby, is on the train, bound for china and heathen happiness, grattan has the bogus stone and is making himself absent in the _iris_, and you and i are rid of the hoodoo at last, and have fifteen hundred to the good. that's what i call----" by then the two lads had passed the billboard and were so far away that spoken words could not be distinguished. and grattan had given no word for an attack! "what's the matter with you, grattan?" whispered pardo. "they're too far off for us to bag them now." "we're not going to bag them." grattan was a man of quick decisions. "we've changed our plans." while the other two mumbled their surprise and asked questions, grattan had taken pencil, notebook, and an electric torch from his pocket. snapping on the torch, he handed it to bunce. "put a stopper on your jaw tackle and hold that," said he crisply. then he wrote the following: "conductor, local passenger, north bound: fat chinaman, answering to name of tsan ti and claiming to be mandarin, on your train. he's a thief and has stolen big ruby called eye of buddha. put him off train in charge of legal officer, first station after you receive this. answer. james philo, detective." "this is a telegram," said grattan, and read it aloud for the benefit of his two companions. "you'll take it down to the railroad station, pardo," he went on, "and have it sent at once to the nearest point that will overtake the train matt and mcglory just got off of. bunce and i will wait here, and you stay in the station till you receive an answer." "but how do you know tsan ti is on that train?" asked pardo. "didn't you hear what was said when the motor boys passed us?" "but nothing was said about the mandarin being on _that_ particular train." "i'm making a guess. if the conductor replies that no such chink is on the train, then my guess is wrong. if he answers that the chink was there, and that he has put him off, red jewel and all, into the hands of the legal authorities, then james philo grattan will play the part of james philo, detective, and fool these country authorities out of their eye teeth--and, incidentally, out of the eye of buddha." the daring nature of grattan's hastily formed plan caused pardo and bunce to catch their breath. grattan was a fugitive from the law, and yet here he was making the law assist him in stealing the red jewel for the second time! "you're a wonder," murmured pardo, "if you can make that game work." "trust me for that, pardo. now you hustle for the railroad station and get that message on the wires. hurry back here as soon as you receive an answer." pardo took the paper and made off down the slope. he was gone three-quarters of an hour--a weary, impatient wait for bunce, but passed calmly by grattan. when pardo returned he came at a run. "your scheme's no good, grattan!" were his first breathless words. "why not?" demanded grattan. "wasn't tsan ti on the train?" "yes--and another chink, as well. fat chinaman, though, jumped off at gardenville, first station north of catskill. here, read the conductor's message for yourself." grattan, still cool and self-possessed, switched the light into his torch and read the following: "two chinamen, one answering description, came through on train from jersey city. fat chinaman jumped off at gardenville, although had ticket reading buffalo. don't know what became of other chinaman. two young men boarded train river view, talked with fat chinaman, got off catskill. conductor." grattan must have been intensely disappointed, but he did not give rein to his temper. while bunce spluttered and pardo swore under his breath, grattan was wrapped in profound thought. "we'll have to change our plans again," he observed finally. "we gave over the idea of capturing motor matt and mcglory for the purpose of getting tsan ti held by the authorities as a thief; now we've got to give that up. why did tsan ti get off the train at gardenville when he was going to buffalo? it was an oriental trick to pull the wool over my eyes. the mandarin is afraid of me. we must proceed at once to gardenville before tsan ti has a chance to get out of the town." "how are we going to get to gardenville?" demanded pardo. "if we take the _iris_----?" "we won't." "if we walk----" "we won't do that, either. we'll take an automobile. it may be, too, that our motor cycles will come in handy. you go down to the bank, pardo, signal the yacht, and have pierson bring the two machines ashore. while you're about that, bunce and i will visit the garage and borrow a fast machine. you know these hills?" "as well as i do my two hands." "on your way to the _iris_ i'll give you something to leave at the hotel for motor matt." grattan did some more scribbling on a blank sheet of his notebook; then, tearing out the sheet, he wrapped it around a small object and placed both in a little box with a sliding cover. "they may recognize me at the hotel," protested pardo. "i don't think so. it will do me good to have you leave this, anyhow. i don't want motor matt to think that i was fooled very long by that bogus ruby. if we're quick, pardo, we're going to catch tsan ti before he can leave gardenville. and when we nab the mandarin we secure the ruby." grattan was a master rogue, and not the least of his shining abilities was his readiness in adjusting himself to changing circumstances. fate, in the present instance, had conspired to place him on the wrong track--but he was following the course with supreme confidence. chapter iii. shock number one. when motor matt and joe mcglory dropped off that "local" passenger train at the catskill station they had just finished a series of strenuous experiences. these had to do with the great ruby known as the eye of buddha. a cunning _facsimile_ of the gem had been sent by tsan ti to matt, by express, with a letter desiring him to take care of the ruby until the mandarin should call for it. this responsibility, entirely unsought by the king of the motor boys, plunged him and his cowboy pard into a whirl of adventures, and ended in their being decoyed aboard the _iris_. here the ruby was taken from matt by force--grattan, who secured it, not learning until some time later that the object matt had been caring for was merely a base counterfeit of the original gem. and matt and mcglory did not find this out until they caught the train at fairview, when they discovered that tsan ti and sam wing were aboard. the twenty-mile ride from fairview to catskill with the mandarin proved quite an eye opener for the motor boys. they learned how tsan ti had deliberately set grattan on their track to recover the bogus ruby, while he--tsan ti--made his escape with the real gem. this part of the mandarin's talk failed to make much of a "hit" with matt and mcglory. the mandarin had used them for his purposes in a particularly high-handed manner, keeping them entirely in the dark regarding the fact that the stone intrusted to matt was a counterfeit. although the boys parted in a friendly way with the mandarin on leaving the train at catskill, yet they nevertheless remembered their grievance and were heartily glad to think that they were done for all time with tsan ti and his ruby. very often it happens that when we think we are done with a thing we have reckoned without taking account of a perverse fate. this was the case with the motor boys with reference to tsan ti and the eye of buddha. while they were climbing the slope from the railroad station to their hotel, glad of the prospect of securing a little much-needed rest, only a few chance remarks by mcglory prevented them from having an encounter with grattan, pardo, and bunce, who were lurking beside the walk. and at that same moment the faithless sam wing was engineering his stealthy theft in the darkened passenger coach. so stirring events were forming, all unheeded by the boys. upon reaching the hotel they proceeded immediately to the room which they occupied, hastily disrobed, and crept into their respective beds. in less than five minutes the room was resounding with mcglory's snores. matt remained awake long enough to review the events of the day and to congratulate himself that he and his cowboy pard were finally rid of the "hoodoo" gem and the "hoodoo" chinaman who had been looking for it. then the king of the motor boys himself fell asleep. it was mcglory's voice that aroused matt. "sufferin' thunderbolts!" matt awoke with a start and turned his eyes toward the other side of the room. the cowboy was sitting up in bed. "talk about your shocking times, pard," he went on, "why, i've been jumping from one shock into another ever since i hit this mattress. thought i was chased by a blind idol, twenty feet high, and sometimes that idol looked like grattan, sometimes it was a dead ringer for tsan ti, and sometimes it was its own wabble-jawed, horrible self. woosh! and listen"--mcglory's eyes grew wide and he became very serious--"the idol that chased me had _red hair_!" "what difference does that make, joe?" inquired matt, observing that the sun was high and forthwith tumbling out of bed. "what difference does it make!" gasped mcglory. "speak to me about that! don't you know matt, that whenever you dream about a person with red hair, trouble's on the pike and you've got up your little red flag?" "oh, gammon!" grunted matt. "pile out and get into your clothes, joe. we're taking the eleven a. m. boat for the big town, and we haven't any too much time to make our 'twilight,' help ourselves to a late breakfast, and amble down to the landing." "hooray!" cried mcglory, forgetting his dream in the prospect called up by his chum's words. "we're going to have the time of our lives in new york, pard! all i hope is that nothing gets between us and that eleven a. m. boat. seems like we never make a start for down the river but johnny hardluck comes along, jolts us with an uppercut, and faces us the wrong way. look here, once." "well?" "if you get a letter from tsan ti, promise me to say 'manana' and give it the cut direct." "what chance is there of our receiving a letter from the mandarin? he's on his way west with the eye of buddha, and grattan is on his way no one knows where with a glass imitation. both of them are satisfied, and i guess you and i, joe, haven't any cause for complaint. the mandarin is too busy traveling to write any letters." "well," insisted mcglory, "give me your solemn promise you won't pay any attention to a letter from the mandarin if you receive one. if you're so plumb certain he won't write, why not promise?" "it's a go," laughed matt, "if that will make you feel any easier in your mind." "it does, a heap. i'd rather have measles than another attack of mandarinicutis, complicated with rubyitis, and----" "oh, splash!" interrupted matt. "we've been well paid for all the time we were ailing with those two troubles. give your hair a lick and a promise, and let's go down to breakfast. they'll be ringing the last bell on us if we wait much longer." "lead on, macduff!" answered mcglory, throwing himself around in the air and then striking a pose, with one arm up, like ajax defying the lightning. "remember monte cristo like that, pard?" he asked. "'the world is mine!' that's how i feel. us for new york, with fifteen hundred of the mandarin's _dinero_ in our clothes! oh, say, i'm a brass band and i've just got to toot!" the cowboy "tooted" all the way downstairs and into the office; then, as they passed the desk on their way to the dining room, the rejoicing died on the cowboy's lips. "just a minute, motor matt!" called the clerk, leaning over the desk and motioning. "lightning's going to strike," muttered mcglory; "i can see it coming." he followed matt to the desk. as they lined up there, the clerk fished a small box out of the office safe. "this was left here for you last night, matt," went on the clerk. "i was told to hand it to you this morning by the night clerk when he went off duty." the little box was placed on the counter. matt and mcglory stared at it. that was not the first time they had seen that small receptacle. with the counterfeit ruby inside, it had first come into matt's hands by express, direct from tsan ti; then, by a somewhat devious course of events, it had gone into the possession of philo grattan. why should grattan have returned the box to matt? how _could_ he have returned it when, as matt and mcglory believed, he was at that very moment hurrying to get out of the country and escape the law? "shock number one," shuddered mcglory. "not much of a shock about this--so far," returned matt, picking up the box. "wait till you see what's inside." "we'll open it in the dining room," and matt turned away. "i'll bet a bowl of birds'-nest soup against a plate of sharks' fins it's going to spoil your breakfast." they went in and took their usual places at one of the tables. all the other guests had breakfasted, and the motor boys had the big dining room--with the exception of two or three waiters--wholly to themselves. "open it quick," urged mcglory. matt sawed through the string with his knife, pulled out the lid of the box, and dropped a gleaming red object on the tablecloth. "sufferin' snakes!" exclaimed mcglory. "the eye of buddha, or i'm a piute! how in blazes did old tsan ti get the thing back to us? when i saw that last it was in a silk bag around the mandarin's neck." "it can't be the eye of buddha, joe," said matt. "it looks to me more like the bogus gem than the real one." "how can you tell the difference?" "from the fact that the real stone could not by any possibility get into our hands again." "neither could the bogus gem--if it's where we think it is." "i guess here's something that will explain," and matt drew a piece of paper from the box. "who's it from?" queried mcglory, in a flutter. "from grattan," answered matt grimly. "listen," and he read: "'motor matt: you don't know what a tight squeak you and mcglory had to-night--not aboard the _iris_, but after you were put ashore. pray accept the inclosed piece of glass with my compliments. i don't think you knew, any more than i did, that it was counterfeit. if tsan ti gets into any more difficulties, you take my advice and let him weather them alone. grattan.'" "shocked?" muttered mcglory. "why, i feel as though somebody had hit me with a live wire. so grattan found out the ruby was an imitation! and he found out in time to send that back to you last night! say, that fellow's the king bee of all the crooks that ever lived. present the jewel to one of these darky waiters, and let's you and i get busy with the ham and eggs. i'm glad we're for new york by the eleven-o'clock boat, and that the mandarin isn't worrying us any more." the cowboy threw the box under the table, and would have reached for the gleaming bit of glass had not matt grabbed it first and dropped it into his pocket. chapter iv. shocks two and three. the motor boys were very much in the dark concerning philo grattan's movements and intentions. "he was right," observed matt, referring to grattan's note, "when he said i was in the dark as much as he was concerning that piece of glass. he wasn't fooled very long." "there's good advice in that note," said mcglory, who was beginning to have apprehensions that he and matt were not yet done with the eye of buddha. "i mean where he says that if the mandarin gets into any more difficulties we'll be wise to let him get out of them alone the best way he can." "that's more than a piece of advice, joe. if i catch the true meaning, it's a threat." mcglory at once saw a light in the general gloom. "then, if it's a threat, pard, grattan must be ready to make another try for the eye of buddha!" "that's the way it strikes me." "but what can grattan do? tsan ti ought to be whooping it up pretty well to the west by now. he's got a good long start of grattan in the run to 'frisco." "what grattan can do," said matt reflectively, "is as hard to understand as what he has already done. we know he has discovered that this red jewel is a counterfeit, we know he sent some one here to return the piece of crimson glass to me, and it's a fair inference that he's going to make another attempt to recover the real ruby. how he has managed to do all this, however, or what he can possibly accomplish in overhauling tsan ti, is far and away beyond me." "we're out of it, anyhow," remarked mcglory, with an airy confidence he was far from feeling. "you've promised not to pay any attention to any four-eleven alarms you receive from the mandarin, and i'd feel tolerably comfortable over the outlook if--if----" he paused. "if what?" queried matt. "why, if i hadn't seen that red-headed idol chasing me in my sleep. i had two good looks at it. one look means trouble, two looks mean double trouble. call me a piegan if i ever knew it to fail." matt laughed. "never trouble trouble," he admonished, "till trouble troubles you." "fine!" exclaimed mcglory; "but it's like a good many of these keen old saws--hard to live up to. i'll bet the inventor of that little spiel died of worry in some poorhouse. i'm always on my toes, shading my eyes with my hat brim and looking for miles along the trail of life to see if i can't pick up a little hard luck heading my way. can't wait till i come company front with it. well, maybe it's all right. life would be sort of tame if something didn't happen now and then to make us ginger up. but we're for new york at eleven o'clock, no matter what happens!" a few minutes later they finished their breakfast and went out into the office. as matt pushed up to the desk to ask the amount of his hotel bill, and settle for it, the clerk shoved a yellow envelope at him. "telegram, matt. just got here." "shock two," groaned mcglory, grabbing at the edge of the desk. "_now_ what? oh, tell me!" matt tore open the envelope, read the message, stared at it, whistled, then read it again. "somebody want us to run an air ship or go to sea in a submarine?" palpitated mcglory. "sufferin' tenterhooks, pard! stop your staring and whistling, and hand it to me right off the bat." matt caught mcglory's arm and conducted him to a corner where there were a couple of easy-chairs. "it's from the mandarin," he announced. "sufferin' chinks!" breathed the cowboy. "didn't i tell you? say, _didn't_ i? what's hit him now?" "i'll read you the message, joe." "go ahead. all i want you to do, pard, is just to remember what you promised me." "'esteemed friend,'" read matt, "'and highly treasured assistant in time of storm----'" "speak to me about that!" grunted the disgusted mcglory. "his word box is full of beadwork." "'again i call from the bottomless pit of distress,'" continued matt, "'and from this place named gardenville announce the duplicity of sam wing, who suddenly absented himself from the train with my supply of cash and the eye of buddha. having no money, i have requested of the honorable telegraph company to receive pay from you. if----'" "he's lost the ruby!" gasped mcglory, "and sam wing is the guilty man! oh, moses, what a throwdown! why, i had a notion sam wing thought the sun rose and set in tsan ti. and sam wing lifted the ruby and the mandarin's funds and hot-footed it for parts unknown! well, _well_!" "'if,'" continued matt, continuing the reading, "'i cannot recover the priceless gem, then nothing is left for me but the yellow cord. hasten, noble youth, and aid in catching the miserable sam wing.' that's all, joe," finished matt, with a frown. "then drop it in the waste basket and let's settle our bill and start for the landing. it's a quarter to eleven. while you're paying up i'll go to the room after our grips." the cowboy started impatiently to his feet. matt continued to sit in his chair, frowning and peering into vacancy. "mosey!" urged joe. "it seems too bad to turn tsan ti down in such cold-blooded fashion," said matt. "there you go! that's you! say, pard, the mandarin thinks he's got a mortgage on you. what's the good of helping a chink who's so locoed he totes a fifty-thousand-dollar ruby around with him rather than hand it over to the express company for transportation? take it from me, you can keep helping tsan ti for the next hundred years, and he'll never get out of the country till he separates himself from the eye of buddha and let some one else take the risk of getting it to canton. are you going?" "the poor old duffer," continued matt, "is always right up in the air when anything goes wrong with him. we know what the safe return of that ruby to the honam joss house means to him, joe. the ruler of china has sent him a yellow cord--a royal invitation for him to strangle himself if the ruby is not found and returned to the forehead of the idol." "look here," snapped mcglory, "time's getting scarce. are you going down the river with me, pard, or have i got to go alone?" before matt could answer, a well-dressed man hurried into the lobby from the street and rushed for the desk as though he had something on his mind. "that's martin," said matt, looking at the man. martin was proprietor of the local garage and had been of considerable assistance to the motor boys during the first days of their stay in catskill. it was martin who owned the two motor cycles which had been stolen from matt and mcglory by bunce and a pal. the boys had had to put up three hundred dollars to settle for that escapade, but tsan ti had made the amount good. martin talked excitedly with the hotel clerk for a moment, and the clerk leaned over the desk and pointed toward the corner where the motor boys had seated themselves. martin, a look of satisfaction crossing his troubled face, bore down on the corner. "look out for shock number three," growled mcglory. "sufferin' hoodoos! we've taken root here in catskill, and i'll bet we won't be able to pull out for the rest of our natural lives." the cowboy, apparently discouraged with the outlook, dropped down into his chair and leaned back in weary resignation. "matt!" exclaimed martin, "you're just the fellow i want to find." "what's wrong, mr. martin?" inquired matt. "a three-thousand-dollar car was stolen out of my garage last night. the night man was attacked, knocked over the head, and then bound hand and foot. it was a most brazen and dastardly piece of work." "too bad," spoke up mcglory, "but things like that will happen occasionally. think of matt and me getting done out of those two motor cycles of yours." "but i'll have to put up ten times what you fellows did for the motor cycles--that is, if we can't get the car back." "_we!_" boomed mcglory, starting forward in his chair. "if _we_ can't get the car back! are motor matt and pard mcglory mixed up in that 'we'?" "well, i thought when you knew the circumstances that----" "don't hem, and haw, and sidestep," cut in mcglory keenly. "you're in trouble, and whenever anybody in the whole country stumbles against something that's gone crosswise, then it's 'hurrah, boys,' and send for motor matt. i wish i had words to tell you how inexpressibly weary all this makes me. didn't you ever stop to think, martin, that, off and on, the motor boys might have troubles of their own?" "but listen. you haven't heard the facts." "what are the facts, martin?" asked matt. "why, the night man recognized one of the scoundrels who struck him down. the rascal was dressed in sailor clothes and had a green patch over one eye." "bunce!" exclaimed matt, starting up. "that's it," cried martin, glad of the impression he was making. "i knew you and mcglory had been mixed up with that sailor, and i naturally thought you'd be glad of a chance to help nab him." "about what time was the car stolen?" asked matt, quieting mcglory with a quick look. "about half-past two," answered martin. "i've got a car ready to chase the scoundrels. have you any notion which way that car ought to go?" "you're a trifle late taking up the pursuit," remarked matt. "here it is nearly eleven, and the automobile was stolen at half-past two--more than eight hours ago." "i was up at cairo," explained martin, "and didn't get back till ten o'clock this morning." "i've something of a clue," said matt, "but it may be too late to follow it." "where does the clue lead?" "to gardenville." "then we'll make a fast run to gardenville. will you go along?" "yes," said matt. "come on, joe." and mcglory dutifully went. as he, and matt, and martin passed out of the hotel, the down-river boat from albany whistled for catskill landing. the cowboy looked at it. "we'll never get to new york," he murmured; "not in a thousand years. we're out for two different kinds of trouble, and we'll be into both of 'em up to our eyes before we're many hours older." chapter v. a hot starter. motor matt disliked any further entanglements with tsan ti and the fateful ruby fully as much as did his cowboy pard, and he was greatly perturbed over the unexpected developments which had again drawn him and mcglory into the plots and counterplots hovering around the valuable gem. but it was impossible for the king of the motor boys to turn his back upon an appeal from any one in distress when it was in his power to be of help. nevertheless, matt might have cut loose from the mandarin, for he did not like his oriental methods, but his temper was stirred by that half-veiled threat in the note from grattan. matt and grattan had been at swords' points ever since the motor boys had been in the catskills. it was largely a battle of wits, with now and then a little violence thrown in for good measure, and up to that moment neither matt nor grattan had scored decisively. through matt's intrepid work, tsan ti had recovered the stolen ruby, but, as in the case where he had lost the counterfeit gem, matt's success had been merely a fortunate blunder. on the other side of the account, grattan could be charged with a theft of the two motor cycles and with sundry other sharp practices which had gone too much "against the grain" for matt to overlook. the daring theft of the automobile from the garage pointed the way not only for matt to help martin recover the machine, but perhaps, also, to recover the motor cycles, to worst grattan, and to be of some assistance to tsan ti. on the way to the garage with martin, matt explained these matters to mcglory. with the whistle of the new york boat still sounding in his ears, the cowboy listened to his chum, at first, with intense disapproval; but, at the back of mcglory's nature, there was as intense a dislike for being worsted by such a crook as grattan as there was at the back of matt's. cleverly the king of the motor boys harped on this chord, and aroused in his chum a wild desire to do something that would curb, finally and effectually, the audacious lawlessness of philo grattan. to such an extent did matt influence mcglory that the latter began to wonder how he could ever have thought of leaving the catskills while grattan was at large. "sufferin' justice!" exclaimed the cowboy. "grattan is trying to bluff us out of helping the mandarin. that's as plain as the pay streak in a bonanza mine. he must have been with bunce when the bubble was lifted, and if we chase the chug cart we can hand the boss tinhorn a black eye by getting back the machine and landing the thieves in the skookum house. say, that would be nuts for me! the mandarin and his idol's eye can go hang--it's grattan we're after this trip." matt left his chum with that impression, well knowing that if grattan could be captured, the affairs of the mandarin would adjust themselves satisfactorily. the night man at the garage, his head bandaged, was lingering in the big room, watching one of the day men give a final wipe to the lamps of a six-cylinder flyer that was to take the trail after grattan. the night man's face flushed joyfully when he saw matt and mcglory. "good!" he exclaimed. "i guess there'll be something doing in these parts, now that motor matt is going to help in the chase." "you're the man who was on duty when the automobile was stolen?" inquired matt. "don't i look the part?" "martin says you identified one of the men as the old sailor who wears a green patch over one of his eyes." "seen him as plain as i do you, this minute." "what did the other thief look like?" "didn't have a chance to tell, the attack was that sudden an' unexpected." "you are sure there were no more than two of the thieves?" "i could take my solemn alfred on that." "all aboard!" called martin, from the car. "i'm going to let you do the driving, matt. you can forget more about automobiles than i ever knew." matt stepped to the side of the car and drew on a pair of gauntlets that lay in the driver's seat; then he climbed to his place, mcglory got in behind, and the car was backed around and glided out through the wide door of the garage. with martin indicating the way, the machine slipped rapidly out of catskill and darted off on the gardenville road. "what sort of clue is taking us to gardenville?" asked martin, as they weaved in and out among the tree-covered hills, catching occasional glimpses of the sparkling waters of the hudson. matt informed martin briefly of tsan ti's predicament and of grattan's persistent attempts to get hold of the ruby. "you think grattan has gone to gardenville to intercept tsan ti?" asked martin. "it would be like grattan," matt answered, "to hire sam wing to steal the ruby from the mandarin. i don't know that grattan has done that, but it would be like him. if he did, then he would travel toward gardenville to pick up sam wing." "this looks too much like guesswork," muttered martin, "and not very bright guesswork, either." "i think the same way, martin; but it's the only clue we have. grattan and bunce certainly had an object in view when they stole the motor car. the theft, happening at the time it did, rather inclines me to think that grattan is beginning a swift campaign to recover the eye of buddha." "since half-past two he has had oceans of time to reach gardenville and pick up sam wing and the ruby--if that was his game." "exactly," returned matt. "i was telling you the same thing back at the hotel. what sort of a car was it that was stolen?" "it was a blue car, six cylinder, and had a tonneau and top. it belonged to a man from new york. he's been telegraphing and telephoning all through the mountains. if the thieves didn't get away last night, they'll have a hard time doing it to-day." matt was watching the road. it was a popular highway for motor-car owners, and the surface bore evidence of the passage of many pneumatic tires. half a dozen cars passed them, going the other way, and inquiries were made as to the blue car. the stolen automobile had not been seen or heard of. at least two of the passing drivers had come from gardenville, and their failure to have seen anything of the stolen machine promised ill for the success of the pursuers when they should reach their destination. "i guess i'm up against it, all right," growled martin. "this grattan is a clever scoundrel, and he'll know what to do to keep from getting captured." "what's that place ahead there?" asked matt. what he saw was a spot where the road curved a little to one side in a valley between two hills. there were two or three hitching posts planted beside the road, and from one of the posts swung a tin bucket. "that's a spring," said martin, "and it furnishes ice-cold water in the very hottest part of the summer. people stop there to water their horses--and to get a drink themselves if they're thirsty." "let's stop, pard," called mcglory, from the tonneau. "i'm dryer than a sand pile and my throat's full of dust." "we're only three miles from gardenville," spoke up martin, his words significant of the fact that there would be plenty of drinking water to be had in the town without delaying the journey at the spring. "we'll only be a minute," said matt, swerving to the side of the road and bringing the car to a halt. all three jumped out, and martin led the way to a small pool, shaded by overhanging trees. from beyond the pool came a tinkle of falling water. "horses are watered from this basin," remarked martin. "the water falls from the rocks, farther on, and we'll find a cup there." a well-worn path followed the rill that supplied the pool, and the three continued onward along the path in single file. half a dozen yards brought them to the rocky side hill where the water welled from a crack in the granite and fell in a miniature cataract to a bowl-shaped depression at the foot of the wall. a man was standing beside the spring when martin, matt, and mcglory emerged from the tangle of brush and vines. the man was just lifting himself erect after filling a tin cup that was chained to the rocks. startled into inaction, the man stood staring at the three newcomers, the filled cup in his hand. the surprise, it may be observed, was mutual. the man by the spring was a chinaman--a lean, hatchet-faced individual whose blouse and baggy trousers gave evidence of rough work in the undergrowth. "sam wing!" yelled mcglory. yes, it was the treacherous celestial, there was not the slightest doubt about that. simultaneously with his shout, mcglory leaped forward, closely followed by matt. sam wing awoke to his peril not a second too soon. casting the cup of water full in the cowboy's face, the chinaman gave vent to a defiant yell, whirled, and vanished among the trees. mcglory sputtered wrathfully as he shook the water out of his eyes. matt bounded on in frantic pursuit of the fugitive. "come back!" cried martin, thinking of nothing but the stolen car. "what's the use of chasing the chink?" "you freeze to the automobile, martin," the cowboy paused to answer. "matt and i will put the kibosh on this yellow grafter and then we'll rejoin you. we'll not be gone long." the words faded in a rattle and crash of violently disturbed bushes, and mcglory had vanished along his chum's trail. chapter vi. m'glory is lost--and found. this unexpected encounter with sam wing was certainly a "hot starter" in the matter of the stolen ruby, although of apparently small consequence in the matter of the stolen car. but motor matt was not particular as to which end of the double thread fortune wafted his way. he followed sam wing just as zealously as he would have followed philo grattan, had it been the white thief instead of the yellow who had fled from the spring. the cold spring water had run down the cowboy's face, under his collar, and had glued his shirt to his wet skin. "speak to me about that!" he breathed angrily, as he labored on. "if the rat-eater hadn't slammed that water into my face, i'd have had him by his yellow throat in a brace of shakes! wow, but it's cold! i feel as though i was hugging an iceberg. where's matt?" mcglory had not seen his chum since he had plunged into the bushes, but had followed blindly in a course he believed to be the right one, trying only to see how much ground he could cover. now, realizing suddenly that he might be on the wrong track, the cowboy halted, peered around him, and listened intently. the timber was thick and the bushes dense on every side. there were no sounds in any direction even remotely suggesting the chinaman's flight and matt's pursuit. "i'm off my bearings and no mistake," reflected the cowboy, searching the ground in vain for some signs of the course taken by sam wing and matt. "matt will have a time overhauling the chink in this chaparral, and the two of us are needed. but which way am i to go?" mcglory had been hurrying along the side hill that edged the valley and the road. he swept his eyes across the narrow valley, and then up the slope toward the top of the hill. "it's a cinch," he ruminated, "that sam wing wouldn't go near the trail, but would do his level best to get as far away from it as he could. that means, if i'm any guesser, that he climbed the hill and tried to lose himself beyond. me for the other side," and the cowboy began pawing and scrambling up the steep slope. ten minutes of hard work brought him to the crest, and here again he halted to peer anxiously around and to listen. he could neither hear nor see anything that gave him a line on matt and the chinaman. "whoop-ya!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "matt! where are you, pard?" a jaybird mocked him from somewhere in the timber, and a frightened hawk took wing and soared skyward. "blamed if this ain't real excitin'!" growled the cowboy. "i'm going to do something to help lay that yellow tinhorn by the heels, though, and you can paste that in your hat. if matt came over the hill, then it stands to reason he went down on this other side. i'll keep on, by guess and by gosh, and maybe something will happen." mcglory kept on for half an hour, floundering through the bushes, making splendid time in his slide to the foot of the hill, and from there striking out on an erratic course that carried him toward all points of the compass. he climbed rocky hills and descended them, he followed ravines, and he sprinted across narrow levels, yelling for matt from time to time, but receiving no answer. then he discovered that something had happened--and that he was lost. trying to locate himself by the position of the sun, he endeavored to return to the road. instead of calling for matt, he now began whooping it up for martin. the sun appeared to be in the wrong place, and the road and the spring had vanished. the farther mcglory went, the more confused and bewildered he became. at last he dropped down on a bowlder and panted out his chagrin and disgust. "lost! me, joseph easy mark mcglory, arizona puncher and boss trailer of the deserts and the foothills! lost, plumb tangled up in my bearings, clean gone off the jump--and in this two-by-twice range of toy mountains where rip van winkle snoozed for twenty years. i wonder if rip was as tired as i am when he laid down to snatch his forty winks. sufferin' tenderfoot! i've walked far enough to carry me plumb to albany, if it had all been in a straight line. matt!" and again he lifted his voice. "martin!" the lusty yell echoed and reverberated through the surrounding woods, but brought no answer. then, suddenly, the cowboy was seized from behind by a pair of stout arms, pulled backward off the bowlder, and flattened out on the ground by a heavy knee on his chest. it had all happened so quickly that mcglory was dazed. he was a moment or two in recovering his wits and in recognizing the sinister face and mocking eyes that bent down over him. "grattan!" he gasped. "ay, messmate," gibed a voice from near at hand; "grattan and bunce. don't forget bunce." the cowboy turned his head and saw the sailor. the green patch decorated one of the sailor's eyes, but the other eye taunted the luckless prisoner with an exultant gleam. mcglory struggled desperately under grattan's hands. "stop it!" ordered grattan. as mcglory had made no headway with his frantic struggles, he decided to obey the command. "what are you doing out here in the woods?" inquired grattan. "ease up on that throat a little," wheezed the cowboy. "want to take the breath all out of me?" the thief's fingers relaxed slightly. "i left the road a spell ago," proceeded mcglory, "and went wide of my bearings somewhere--i don't know just where." "lost, eh?" laughed grattan. "well, my lad, you've been found." "how did you happen to find me?" "how?" jeered bunce. "you was makin' more noise than a foghorn. the way you was askin' motor matt for help, it's a wonder they didn't hear you in catskill." "tie his hands with something, bunce," said grattan. bunce looked taken aback for a space, then whipped his knife laniard from about his neck, removed the knife, doubled the cord, and contrived a lashing that was strong enough to answer the purpose. grattan heaved the cowboy over upon his face and pulled his wrists behind him. in less than a minute the cord was in place, and the prisoner was freed of grattan's gripping hands and allowed to sit up, his back against the bowlder. "this meeting," grinned grattan, "was entirely unexpected, and a pleasant surprise." "a pleasant surprise for you, i reckon," grunted mcglory. "what did you jump onto me for like this? what good is it going to do you?" "what benefit i am to derive from this encounter," replied grattan, "remains to be seen. tell me, my lad, are you and motor matt looking for tsan ti?" an angry denial was on the cowboy's lips, but he thought better of the words before they were spoken. "never you mind who we're looking for, grattan," said he. "it's for tsan ti, i am sure," went on grattan. "he's somewhere in this section, for he left gardenville on foot, early this morning, preceded by his man, sam wing. i don't know exactly what's up, but i'm rather inclined to think that the mandarin is afraid of me, and is trying to get back to catskill and place himself under the wing of his estimable protector, motor matt. you and matt heard he was coming and advanced to meet him. the same man who told me the fat chinaman was in the hills must have given you boys the same information." "who was the _hombre_, grattan?" queried mcglory, secretly delighted to think grattan's speculations were so wide of the mark. "a man in a white runabout with a red torpedo beard." "i wouldn't know a red torpedo beard from a piute's scalplock, but i do recollect a shuffer in a white car." this white runabout was one of the cars matt, martin, and mcglory had passed on the road, and the driver was one of those of whom they had made inquiries. the inquiries, of course, had been all about the stolen automobile and not about the fat chinaman. if grattan had been in the stolen car when asking the man in the white runabout for news of tsan ti, then why hadn't the runabout driver remembered the blue car and told matt something about it? "where were you," went on the cowboy, "when you hailed the man in the white car?" "on foot, by the spring," answered grattan genially. he was an educated man and usually good-natured--sometimes under the most adverse circumstances. that was his way, perhaps on the principle that an easy manner is best calculated to disarm suspicion. "where was the car you and bunce stole from the catskill garage?" asked the cowboy. "we tucked it away in a pocket of the hills that my friend pardo knew about," explained grattan, tacitly admitting the theft and, in his customary fashion, not hesitating to go elaborately into details. "we failed to finish the work that took us to gardenville last night. when we learned at the railroad station in that town that the fat chinaman had started south on foot, about break of day, following another of his countrymen, we rushed the car back into an obscure place. it is not advisable, you understand, to make that car too prominent. we shall have to use it by night. bunce and i rode to the spring on our motor cycles for the purpose of watching the road. the white runabout came along, and the driver told us, he had passed tsan ti, walking this way. we waited for him to pass the spring, but he did not. thinking he had taken to the rough country, bunce and i returned our wheels to the place where we have pitched temporary camp and began prowling around in the hope of finding the mandarin. then, quite unexpectedly, i assure you, we heard you calling. we came to this place, guided by the sound of your voice. you know the rest, and----" grattan bit off his words abruptly. from a distance came a hail, so far off as to be almost indistinguishable. "motor matt!" exclaimed grattan, with a laugh. "he's looking for you, mcglory. if this keeps up, we're going to have quite a reunion. put a hand over his lips, bunce," he added to the sailor. mcglory tried to give a desperate yell before the hand closed over his mouth, but he was not quick enough. grattan, leaning against the bowlder, threw back his head and answered the distant call. the voice in the woods drew closer and closer. "call again, excellent one!" came the weary voice from the scrub. "i heard you shouting some time ago, and you were calling the name of an esteemed friend for whom i am looking. speak loudly to me, so that i may come where you are." the three by the bowlder were astounded. "tsan ti," muttered grattan, "or i don't know the voice. luck, bunce! whoever thought this could happen? the mandarin heard mcglory calling for motor matt--and now the mandarin is looking for mcglory and is going to find _us_." a chuckle came with the words. "lie low, bunce, and watch mcglory. leave the trapping of tsan ti to me." chapter vii. "pocketed." for the cowboy pleasant fancies were cropping out of this surprising turn of events. he reflected that grattan did not know sam wing had stolen the ruby from tsan ti. by entrapping tsan ti, grattan was undoubtedly counting upon getting hold of the eye of buddha. if bunce had known how little love mcglory had for the mandarin, he would not have been at so much pains to keep a hand over his lips. just at that moment nothing could have induced the cowboy to shout a warning to the approaching chinaman. kneeling behind the bowlder, grattan lifted his voice for tsan ti's benefit. presently the mandarin was decoyed around the side of the bowlder, and his capture expeditiously effected. he was a badly demoralized chinaman. his usually immaculate person had been eclipsed by recent hardships, and he was tattered and torn and liberally sprinkled with dust. his flabby cheeks were covered with red splotches where thorny undergrowth had left its mark. he was so fagged, too, that he could hardly stand. at the merest touch from grattan he tumbled over. a most melancholy spectacle he presented as he sat on the ground and stared at grattan with jaws agape. "oh, friend of my friend," wheezed tsan ti, passing his gaze to mcglory, "was it you who shouted?" "first off it was," answered mcglory; "after that, grattan took it up." "and you are a prisoner?" "i wouldn't be here if i wasn't." "i'm the man for you to talk to, tsan ti," put in grattan grimly. "it's me you're to reckon with." "evil individual," answered the mandarin, "my capture will not help you in your rascally purposes. is not my present distress sufficient, without any of your unwelcome attentions? behold my plight! what more can you do to make me miserable?" "i can take the ruby away from you, for one thing." a mirthless smile crossed the mandarin's fat face. a chuckle escaped mcglory. grattan stared hard at the chinaman, and then flashed a quick glance at the cowboy. "what are you thinking of, mcglory?" he demanded. "i'm thinking that you're fooled again, grattan," answered mcglory. "you know so much that i wonder you haven't heard that the mandarin has lost the ruby." "lost it?" a look of consternation crossed grattan's face. "i'll never believe that," he went on. "tsan ti knows where the eye of buddha is, and there are ways to make him tell me." "ay, ay," flared bunce, with a fierce look, "we'll make him tell if we have to lash him to a tree and flog the truth out o' him." "wretches," said the mandarin, "no matter what your hard thoughts may counsel, or your wicked hands contrive, you cannot make me tell what i do not know." grattan would not trust bunce to search the mandarin, but proceeded about the work himself. two chopsticks, a silver cigarette box, an ivory case with matches, a bone-handled back scratcher, a handkerchief, a fan, and a yellow cord some three feet long were the results of the search. there was no ruby. grattan prodded a knife blade into tsan ti's thick queue in his search for the gem, and even ripped out the lining of his sandals, but uselessly. "you know where the ruby is," scowled grattan, giving way to more wrath than mcglory had ever seen him show before; "and, by heaven, i'll make you tell before i'm done with you." tossing the yellow cord to bunce, grattan drew back and ordered the sailor to secure the mandarin's hands in the same way he had lashed the cowboy's. tsan ti seemed to accept the situation philosophically. but that he was in desperate straits and hopeless was evidenced by his remark when bunce was done with the tying: "despicable person, i had rather you put the yellow cord about my throat than around my wrists." "you'll get it around the throat when we get back to the pocket," said grattan brutally. "take charge of mcglory, bunce," he added, "and come with me." tsan ti was ordered to his feet. thereupon, grattan seized his arm and pulled him along through the woods. mcglory would have given something handsome if he could have had the use of his hands for about a minute. bunce would have been an easy problem for him to solve if he had not been hampered by the knife laniard. as it was, however, the cowboy was forced to get to his feet and, with the sailor as guard, follow after grattan and tsan ti. captors and captives traveled for nearly a mile through uneven country, thick with timber, then descended into a ravine, followed it a little way beyond a point where it was crossed by a wagon road, and came to a niche in the gully wall. perhaps the term "cavern" would better describe the place where grattan, pardo, and bunce had pitched their temporary camp. the hole was an ancient washout, its face covered with a screen of brush and creepers. in front of the niche, standing in a place where it had been backed from the road on the "reverse," was the blue automobile. leaning against the automobile were the two motor cycles; and from the tonneau of the car, as grattan and bunce approached with their prisoners, arose the form of pardo. "well, well!" exclaimed pardo, thrusting his head out from under the top. "if we haven't got visitors! where did you pick up the mandarin, grattan?" "between here and the gardenville road," answered grattan. "it was easy work. both the chink and the cowboy were kind enough to yell and tell us where they were." pardo, understanding little of what had really occurred, opened his eyes wide. "tell me more about it," said he. "after i get the prisoners in the pocket. bunce, bring a rope. hold mcglory, pardo, while he's doing it." pardo jumped down from the automobile and caught the cowboy's arm. "i guess you're a heap easier to deal with than your friend, motor matt," was his comment. "no guess about it," said mcglory, "it's a cinch. but i'm not fretting any." the cowboy's eyes were on the stolen car. what a pleasure it would have been to snatch that automobile out of grattan's clutches, leaving him and his rascally companions stranded in the hills! but that was a dream--and mcglory had already had too many dreams for his peace of mind. tsan ti was shoved by grattan through the bushes, under the trailing vines and into the washout. pardo dragged mcglory through, close on their heels. "sit down, both of you," ordered grattan, when the prisoners were in the gloomy confines of the niche. tsan ti and mcglory lowered themselves to the bare earthen floor. bunce came with the rope, and it was coiled around the cowboy's ankles, and then around the mandarin's. "i've taken you in, mcglory," observed grattan, to the cowboy, "for the purpose of finding out what motor matt is doing; and i've captured the mandarin with the idea of getting the ruby. i'm a man who hews steadily to the line, once he marks it out. i'll have my way with both of you before i am done. mark that. you can't get away from here. even if you were not bound hand and foot, you'd have to pass the automobile in order to reach the road--and pardo, bunce, and i will be in the automobile. we're all heeled, which is a point you will do well to remember." having eased his mind in this manner, grattan went out of the niche, bunce and pardo following him. they could be heard climbing into the automobile, and then their low voices came in a mumble to the ears of the prisoners. "fated friend," gulped the mandarin, "the ten thousand demons of misfortune are working sad havoc with tsan ti." "buck up!" returned mcglory. "we're pocketed, all right, but matters might be worse." "what cheering thoughts can i possibly have?" mourned the mandarin. "the eye of buddha has escaped me, gone i do not know where, in the possession of that canton dog, sam wing, who----" "hist!" breathed mcglory, in a warning voice. "grattan doesn't know who has the ruby, and it may be a good thing if we keep it to ourselves. don't lose your nerve. motor matt is around, and you can count on him to do something." "motor matt is both notable and energetic," droned the mandarin, "but for him to secure the ruby from sam wing is too much to hope for." "there you're shy a few, tsan ti. i'll bet my scalp against that queue of yours that matt has already captured sam wing and recovered the eye of buddha." tsan ti stirred restlessly. "do not deceive me with hope, honorable friend," he begged. "well, listen," and mcglory proceeded to tell tsan ti what had happened at the spring. tsan ti's hopes arose. he had been ready to grasp at anything, and here mcglory had offered him undreamed-of encouragement. "there are many brilliant eyes in the plumage of the sacred peacock," he murmured, "but by them all, i vow to you that there is no other youth of such accomplishments as motor matt. and, by the five hundred gods of the temple at----" "cut it out," grunted mcglory. "you've got matt and me into no end of trouble with your foolishness. when you get that ruby into your hands again, stop fumbling with it. pass it over to some one who knows how to look after it, but don't try the job yourself. this is first-chop pidgin i'm giving you, tsan ti, and i don't know why i'm handing it out, after the way you hocused my pard and me with that piece of red glass. but it's good advice, for all that, and you'd better keep it under your little black cap." tsan ti relapsed into thoughtful silence. the mumble of voices continued to creep in through the swinging vines and the bush tops, but otherwise the quiet that filled the "pocket" was intense. the mandarin was first to speak. leaning toward the cowboy, he whispered: "there's a chance, companion of my distress, that we may be able to make our escape." "what's the number?" queried the cowboy. thereupon the mandarin began revealing the plan that had formed in his mind. it was the fruit of considerable reflection and promised well. chapter viii. springing a "coup." stripped of its ornamental trimmings, the mandarin's plan was marvelously simple. mcglory was to roll over with his back to him, and he engaged to gnaw through the knife laniard. when the cowboy's hands were free it would be only a few moments until he removed the ropes from his ankles and set tsan ti at liberty. this accomplished, mcglory was to set up a racket, calling grattan, bunce, and pardo into the pocket. as they crashed through the brush in one direction, the mandarin would crash through it in another, reach the motor cycles, and rush away on one before grattan or his companions had an opportunity to use their firearms. "h'm," reflected mcglory. "that's a bully plan, tsan ti--for you. you're the boy to look out for number one, eh? this surprise party you're thinking of springing reminds me of the way you unloaded that imitation ruby on motor matt, and then sat back and allowed matt and me to play tag with grattan." "what is the fault with my plan, generous sir?" asked the mandarin. "of course," went on the cowboy, with fine sarcasm, "i don't amount to much. i kick up a disturbance in here, and when grattan, pardo, and bunce rush in on me, you make a run for one of the motor cycles. in other words, i hold the centre of the stage and make things interesting for the three tinhorns while you burn the air on a benzine bike and get as far outdoors as you can. fine!" "pardon, exalted friend," demurred tsan ti, "but you overlook the point that i will be pursued." "i don't think i overlook a blessed point, tsan ti. but just answer me this: what's the good of escaping? grattan will have to let us go sooner or later. if we put up with these uncomfortable ropes for a spell, we'll both get clear and without running the risk of stopping a bullet." "accept my excuses, noble youth, and please remember grattan made some remarks about choking me with the cord in case i did not reveal the whereabouts of the ruby. that would not be pleasant." "sufferin' stranglers!" exclaimed mcglory; "i'd forgotten about that. can't say that i blame you for thinking twice for yourself and once for me. i'll help on the game." the cowboy rolled over with his back to the mandarin. "now get busy with your teeth," he added, "and be in a rush. there's no telling when the pallavering outside will be over with, and if those fellows get through before we do, the kibosh will be on us and not on them." the logic of this last remark was not lost upon the mandarin. he grunted and wheezed and used his teeth with frantic energy. while he panted and labored, both he and the cowboy kept their ears sharp for the mumble of talk going on outside. fortunately for the _coup_ the prisoners were intending to spring, the talk continued unabated. the laniard was gnawed in half, and mcglory sat up, brought his hands around in front of him, and rubbed the places where the mandarin's sharp teeth had slipped from the cord. "you've turned part of the trick, tsan ti," commended the cowboy; "now watch me do my share." with his pocket knife he slashed through the coil that held his feet, and he would then have treated the yellow cord about the mandarin's wrists in like manner had he not been stopped by a quick word. "the yellow cord, illustrious one," said the chinaman, "must be untied. it is a present from his imperial highness, my regent, and i may yet be obliged to use it in the customary way." "oh, hang your regent!" grumbled mcglory, but yielded to the mandarin's request and began untying the cord with his fingers. this was slow work, for mcglory's fingers were still numb from the effects of his own bonds. in due course, however, the cord was removed, and the chinaman lifted himself to a sitting posture. the cowboy used the knife on the rope that secured tsan ti's feet, while the latter was solicitously coiling up the yard of yellow cord and putting it away in his pocket. "now, courageous friend," whispered the mandarin, getting up noiselessly and stepping to the swinging green barrier at the mouth of the niche, "we are ready." "you know how to manage a motor cycle?" queried mcglory, suddenly stifling the roar that was almost on his lips. "excellently well, superlative one." "then good luck to you. here goes." above the fearsome commotion mcglory made, the words "help!" and "hurry!" might have been distinguished. startled exclamations came from the automobile, followed by a sound of scrambling as the three thieves tumbled out. then there was a crashing among the bushes and the vines, and mcglory rolled back at full length and shoved his unbound hands under him. "what's the matter?" cried grattan, who was first to enter the pocket. "mandarin tried to knife me!" whooped mcglory. "why didn't you take his knife away from him? i might have been sent over the one-way trail if i hadn't yelled." all three of the men were in the niche by that time. "where is the chink?" shouted grattan. the poppety-pop-pop of a motor in quick action came from without. "he's tripped his anchor and is makin' off!" yelled bunce. "stop him!" fumed grattan, and instantly he followed bunce and pardo back through the swinging screen of vines and bushes. chuckling with delight, mcglory leaped erect, sprang to the vines, and parted them so he could look out. tsan ti, his motor working splendidly, was streaking down the ravine toward the road. bunce, who had led in the rush from the pocket, had mounted the other motor cycle and was coaxing his engine into action with the pedal. "catch him, bunce!" bellowed grattan. bunce's answer was lost in a series of explosions as his motor got to work. as he whirled away, grattan and pardo ran after him to watch the pursuit as long as possible. and thus it chanced that good luck came mcglory's way, after all. he had pretended, when grattan and the other two came into the pocket, that he was tied, and the excitement following bunce's discovery that the mandarin was escaping prevented any examination of the cowboy's bonds. now mcglory had the neighborhood of the pocket to himself, and within a dozen feet of where he stood was the blue touring car, unguarded! a daring plan rushed through the cowboy's head. why not crank up the automobile's engine and rush down the ravine? there was a chance that he could reach the road. if grattan or pardo got in his way, he could run them down; if they drew off to one side and fired at him, he could trust to luck. "nothing venture, nothing win!" muttered the reckless cowboy, and pushed through the vines and bushes and jumped for the front of the car. an angle of the ravine hid grattan and pardo. one look made mcglory certain on this point, and another look showed him the rough surface which the automobile had to get over. there was a fine chance to blow up a tire or come to grief against a jutting rock, but the cowboy had staked everything on a single throw, and he was not to be frightened by difficulties. he gave the crank a couple of turns, and the engine answered with a fierce sputter and an increasing rattle of explosions. that sound, if grattan and pardo were near enough to hear, advertised plainly what mcglory was about. he lost not a moment in scrambling into the driver's seat and getting the car to going. the automobile started with a jump, and lurched and swayed over the uneven ground like a ship in a storm. bending to the steering wheel, mcglory nursed the car onward with the spark. the machine rounded the turn. the road was in plain view--but so were grattan and pardo. consternation was written large in the faces of the two thieves. the car was being hurled toward them, plunging and buck-jumping as it met the high places, and the two men had to throw themselves sideways to clear the path. "stop!" roared grattan, drawing a revolver. mcglory's answer was a defiant yell. as the car rushed by pardo he made a jump for it--and was knocked roughly back toward the ravine wall. _bang!_ that was grattan's weapon, echoing high about the racket of the unmuffled motor. something ripped through the rear of the top and crooned its wicked song within an inch of mcglory's head. but the cowboy laughed. he hadn't blown up a tire or smashed any of the machinery, he was turning into the road, and grattan and pardo were behind him! "we've knocked the hoodoo galley west!" mcglory exulted. "oh, what do you think of this! _what_ do you think of it!" and he let the sixty champing horses under the bonnet snatch him along the road at their best clip. chapter ix. motor matt's chase. meanwhile, the king of the motor boys, without the remotest idea as to what was happening to his cowboy pard, was exacting his own tribute from the realm of exciting events. when he started after sam wing, matt had no time to give to any one else. he supposed that mcglory was following him, but was altogether too busy to look behind and make sure. it was a trifling matter, anyhow. the main thing was to catch sam wing, and matt threw himself into the pursuit with ardor. mcglory, it will be remembered, had worked upon the theory that the chinaman, eager to get as far from the road as possible, had gone over the hill. but this was incorrect. sam wing hustled along the hillside slope, his course paralleling the valley and the road. very early in the chase the chinaman lost his grass sandals, and a little later his stockings, but loss of his footwear seemed to help rather than diminish his speed. motor matt was "no slouch" as a long-distance runner, but sam wing proved a handful for him. from time to time matt would gain, coming so close to the hustling celestial that he shouted a call for him to stop, but the chinaman, gathering himself together for a spurt, ducked away to his usual lead, and the chase went merrily on. once matt nearly had him. a section of treacherous bank broke away under sam wing's feet, and the pursued man flung up his arms and dropped straight downward. matt paused on the brink and looked below for three or four yards to a little shelf gouged from the bankside. sam wing, scarred and apparently senseless, was lying sprawled on the shelf. matt slipped and slid downward, fairly certain that he was at the end of his exciting trail; but, just as his feet struck the shelf, the chinaman rolled over the edge and carromed away in a break-neck descent that finally plunged him into the road. this was the identical road that led past the spring, and matt and sam wing were somewhere between the spring and gardenville. where martin was with the automobile, matt did not know, but if martin had been at that point in the road when the chinaman rolled into it, an easy capture could have been made. there was some one in the road besides sam wing, however, and the traveler was an old colored man, riding toward gardenville on a mule. the mule and the colored man were about a hundred feet away from wing when he got to his feet. as soon as the chinaman's eyes rested on the long-eared brute and its aged rider, he started at speed in their direction. matt jumped into the road with less than twenty-five feet between himself and sam wing. once more he deceived himself with the idea that the chase was narrowing to a close. the mule, throwing its head and swinging its long ears, was ambling leisurely along the way. the old darky appeared to be in a doze. matt, divining sam wing's intentions, gave vent to a warning yell. the darky aroused himself and flung a look over his shoulder. but it was too late, for wing had already grabbed him by one of his dangling feet. another moment and the negro had been roughly pulled into the road. wing scrambled to the mule's back and dug into the animal with his naked heels. probably the mule was as startled as his former rider, for he broke into a lumbering lope. the chase, just then, took on a hopeless outlook for motor matt. if martin had only happened along in the automobile, the fleeing chinaman could have been brought up with a round turn, but matt, with only his feet under him, could not hope to overtake the galloping mule. the darky, as matt came up with him, was gathering in his ragged hat and climbing to an upright position. he wore a look of puzzled astonishment. "ain't dat scan'lous?" he cried. "ah done been slammed into de road by er chinymum! en he's got mah mu-el! he's er runnin' erway wif mah gin'ral jackson mu-el. by golly, whaffur kind ob way is dat tuh treat an ole moke lak me?" "it was pretty rough, uncle, and that's a fact," replied matt, smothering an inclination to laugh at the ludicrous picture the old negro presented. "if we had another mule, i could catch the rascal, but it is too much of a job for me with nothing to ride." "you chasin' dat 'ar chinymum, boss?" inquired the darky. "yes." "has he been up tuh somefin' dat he hadn't ort?" "he has." "den yo' lis'en heah, chile," and a slow grin crept over the wizened, ebony face of the negro. "erbout er mile ahead dar's a bridge ovah a creek, en dat 'ar chinyman ain't gwine tuh ride gin'ral jackson ovah dat bridge." "why not?" "'case dat fool mu-el won't cross no bridge if yo' doan' cotch his off eah en give hit a pull. mu-els is mouty queer daterway, en gin'ral jackson is a heap queerer dan any othah mu-el yo' most evah see. he's skeered ob a bridge, en pullin' his off eah done takes his min' off'n de bridge, lak, en he goes ovah wifout mistrustin'. now, dat yalluh chinymum trash doan' know dat, en ef he try to mek gin'ral jackson cross de bridge wifout pullin' his off eah, dar's suah gwine to be doin's, en----" just at that moment a boy came along on a bicycle. he was evidently making a long journey, for he had a bag strapped to the handle bars. "wait a minute!" called matt to the boy. the bicycle halted, and the lad rested one foot on the ground and looked inquiringly at matt. "i wish you'd lend me your wheel for a few minutes," said matt. "a chinaman just stole this old darky's mule, and i believe i can overhaul the thief if you'll let me take your bicycle." "gee!" exclaimed the boy. "how much of a start has the chinaman got?" "about three minutes. the darky says there's a bridge a mile ahead, and that the mule won't cross the bridge unless he's coaxed. perhaps i can come up with the thief at the bridge." "there you are," said the stranger generously, getting out of the saddle and holding the wheel for matt. "much obliged," returned matt. "you and the darky come on to the bridge, and perhaps you'll find me rounding up the mule and the chinaman." "we'll do it," was the answer. matt mounted easily, thrust his toes into the toe clips, and got under way. when he turned an angle of the road, and vanished behind a screen of timber, he was going like a steam engine. it had been a long time since matt had ridden an ordinary bicycle, but he had by no means forgotten the knack. he was not long in coming within sight of the bridge, and there, sure enough, were the chinaman and the mule at the bridge approach. the chinaman was having trouble. general jackson would not cross the bridge, and he was braced back, immovable as the rock of gibraltar. sam wing was using his heels and the flat of his hand in a furious attempt to force the brute onward. general jackson did not budge an inch, but, from the way he wagged his ears, it was evident that his wrath was growing. matt remained silent and bent to the pedals. while sam wing was busy urging the mule, matt was planning to come alongside and treat the celestial as he had treated the old negro. this design might have been successfully executed had not general jackson interfered with it. the mule's temper suddenly gave way under the rain of kicks and blows, and he put his head down between his forelegs and hoisted the rear half of his body into the air. the manoeuvre was as sudden as it was unexpected, and sam wing went rocketing into space. the bridge was merely a plank affair, without any guard rails at the sides, and after the chinaman had done a couple of somersaults in the air he landed with a thump on the bridge, close to the unprotected edge. he started to struggle upright, and the hurried movement caused him to slip over the brink. he vanished from before matt's eyes just as he had disappeared from the caving bank--there was a flutter, a yell, a splash, and sam wing was gone. matt threw on the brake, jumped from the wheel, and, after leaning the machine against a tree, rushed to the bridge. the creek was narrow, but seemed to be deep, and the chinaman was floating down with the current. there was no time for matt to linger and explain events to the bicyclist and the negro. each would recover his property, however, and that ought to satisfy both of them. springing from the bridge approach, matt hurried down the bank of the little stream. the chinaman, the king of the motor boys thought, must have been made of india rubber to bear so well the series of mishaps that had come his way. he came out of every one with astonishing ability to keep up his flight. matt's rush down the creek bank was not continued for long. sam wing saw him and made haste to effect a landing on the opposite bank. he emerged, a dripping and forlorn spectacle, and left a damp trail up the bank and into the woods. matt did not care to swim the creek in his clothes, and a tree, fallen partly over the stream, afforded him an opportunity to cross dry-shod. the tree was not a large one, and there was a gap of water at the end of it, where the trunk had been splintered and broken away. with a clear, steady brain and sure feet the king of the motor boys passed to the end of his swaying, insecure bridge; then, with a leap, he cleared the stretch of water and landed on the bank. the force he had put into the jump displaced the tree and caused it to tumble into the creek. it had served its purpose, however, and matt, without a backward look, tore away along the watery trail of the chinaman. chapter x. the chase concluded. when matt came near enough to see sam wing, it seemed plain that the celestial was yielding to the "blows of circumstance." his flight dragged. time and time again he cast a wild look over his shoulder at the relentless pursuer, and tried in vain to increase his pace. his random course crossed a road through the timber with a line of telegraph or telephone poles on one side of it. after a moment's hesitation, sam wing chose the road. it was easier going, no doubt, and for that reason probably appealed to him in his fagged condition. but if it was easier for sam wing, so was it for matt. now, at last, the eventful chase was certainly approaching its finish. as the pursuit went on, matt resolutely closing up the gap between him and the chinaman, the timber suddenly broke away to give a view of a farmhouse and a barn. between the house and barn stood a farmer with a rake. sam wing, at the end of his rope and apparently determined on making a last desperate stand, swerved from the road and ran in the direction of the barn. "hi, there!" shouted matt, waving his arms to attract the attention of the farmer, "head him off!" it was not difficult for the farmer to understand enough of the situation to make him useful in the emergency, and he started energetically to do what he could. swinging the rake around his head, he hurried toward a point which would intersect the path of the chinaman. sam wing, even though he was weary and almost spent, continued "game." a small, v-shaped hencoop stood close to the point where he halted and confronted the farmer. "by jerry," threatened the farmer, "yew stop! don't yew try no shenanigin with me, or i'll comb out your pigtail with this here rake. what yew---gosh-all-hemlocks!" it was absolutely necessary for sam wing to do something if he did not want to be trapped between the farmer in front and matt, who was hurrying up behind. calling upon all his strength, wing stooped, grabbed the small coop, and hurled it at the farmer's legs. the coop struck the farmer's shins and doubled his lank frame up like a closed jackknife. he went down, rake and all, and wing passed around him and lumbered on toward the open barn door. the farmer's ire was aroused. getting up on his knees, he began calling, at the top of his lungs: "tige! here, tige!" tige, a brindled bulldog, came scurrying from the direction of the house. "take 'im, tige!" bellowed the farmer, pointing toward sam wing with the rake. the chinaman's waterloo was close upon him. he had time to give one last frantic look behind, and then tige caught him by the slack of his dripping garments and pulled him down. "don't let the dog hurt him!" yelled matt. "watch 'im, tige!" cried the farmer. "good dorg, tige! watch 'im!" the farmer got up and gave the hencoop a vicious kick. "jee-whillikins, mister," said he, "what's that slant-eyed heathen been up to, hey? he looks like he'd dropped outen a wet rag bag." "he's a thief," answered matt. "he barked my shins somethin' turrible with that hencoop. but yew got him now, an' don't yew fergit it. that tige is the best dorg fer tramps an' sich yew ever seen." together they walked to the place where tige, growling savagely and showing his teeth, was standing over the prone chinaman. sam wing dared not make a move. had he so much as lifted a finger, the bulldog would have been at his throat. "order the dog away," said matt to the farmer. "i want to talk with the chinaman, and we'll take him into the barn where we can both sit down on something and rest a little. we've had a hard chase." the farmer spoke to the dog and the animal slunk away, still keeping his glittering eyes on sam wing. "looks purty meachin', don't he?" muttered the farmer, peering at the prisoner. "he's a bad chinaman," returned matt, "and he knows it. get up, sam wing," he added, "and go into the barn. don't try to do any more running. you haven't strength enough to go far, and it won't be best for you." with wary eyes on the dog, wing got up and moved toward the barn door. when they were all inside, matt took down a coil of rope that swung from a nail and started toward the prisoner. "what yew goin' to do, friend?" asked the farmer. "tie him," replied matt. "that ain't necessary. tige is better'n all the ropes that was ever made. all i got ter do is ter tell him ter watch the heathen, an' yew can bet a pair o' gum boots he'll do it." the farmer spoke to the dog, that had followed them into the barn, and the animal drew close to sam wing and sat down within biting distance. matt, satisfied with the arrangement for the time being, dropped the rope and seated himself on the tongue of a wagon. "sam wing," said the king of the motor boys severely, "you're a mighty bad chinaman." "me savvy," answered wing, whose english was far from being as good as the mandarin's. "you stole the ruby from tsan ti," went on matt. sam wing had strength enough left to show some surprise. "how you savvy?" he inquired. "i know it, and that's enough. you're a treacherous scoundrel to turn against the mandarin as you did." "all same," answered sam wing, in extreme dejection. "ten thousand demons makee heap tlouble fol wing. me plenty solly." "you ought to be sorry. tsan ti trusted you with his money and had a lot of confidence in you. and you betrayed that confidence." sam wing groaned heavily and caressed his numerous bruises. one of his hands finally reached the breast of his torn blouse, and he fished from it a very wet alligator-skin pouch. "here tsan ti's money," said he, offering the pouch to matt. "me velly bad chinaman. you takee money, lettee sam wing go?" "i'll take the money," and matt suited his action to the word, "but i can't let you go until you give up the ruby." "no gottee luby," came the astonishing assertion from sam wing. "you took it from the mandarin, didn't you?" demanded matt. "my takee las' night, no gottee now." "where is it?" "me losee when me makee lun flom spling. no savvy where me losee--p'laps where me makee fall down bank, p'laps on load, p'laps in cleek--no savvy. luby gone, me no gottee eye of buddha." it seemed strange to matt that sam wing could carry the alligator-skin pouch safely through all his varied adventures and yet not be able to retain the most valuable part of his cargo--the part which, presumably, he would take care to stow safely. "don't tell any lies, sam wing!" said matt sternly. "no tellee lie--all same one piecee tluth!" protested the chinaman. "i'll have to make sure of that," went on matt. he searched carefully through the chinaman's torn and waterlogged apparel, but without discovering anything of value--much less the missing gem. "where did you have it?" he asked. sam wing showed him the inside pocket where the ruby had been placed. "where have you been since you took the ruby?" a wave of emotion convulsed the chinaman's features. "evel place," he murmured. "my stay in galdenville one piecee time, makee tly keepee 'way flom tsan ti. bymby me makee lun fol countlee. tsan ti makee see, makee lun, too. my makee hide in hills, foolee tsan ti so he no ketchee. my heap hungly, heap thirsty. findee spling to takee dlink. you come." sam wing shook his head sadly. "you had the ruby when you were at the spring?" inquired matt. the chinaman nodded. "and you lost it while i was chasing you?" another nod. matt, oppressed with what he had heard, and which he felt instinctively was the truth, resumed his seat on the wagon tongue. the ruby might be lying anywhere over the wild course sam wing had taken in his flight. perhaps it was mixed with the loose earth of the side hill where the chinaman had fallen, or it might be under the leaves in the woods, or in the dust of the road, or in the bottom of the creek. of one thing matt was sure, and that was that to retrace the exact line of sam wing's flight would be impossible; and, even if it were possible, finding the red gem would be as difficult as looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. the eye of buddha seemed to be lost irretrievably. this was like to prove a tragic event for tsan ti. it was strange what ill luck had attended upon all in any way connected with the idol's eye; and doubly strange was this final loss of the precious stone. while matt was busily turning the catastrophe over in his mind, the farmer suddenly gave a shout and pointed through the open barn door and along the road. "great sassafrass!" he exclaimed. "i never seen sich a day fer chinamen! look there, will yew?" matt looked, and what he saw staggered him. two motor cycles were coming down the road. bunce was riding one and tsan ti the other. here was another flight and pursuit, for the sailor was pushing hard upon the heels of the mandarin. for only a moment was matt at loss. gathering up the coil of rope which he had taken from the nail in the barn wall, he called to the farmer to watch the prisoner and ran out of the barn and toward the road. chapter xi. a double capture. matt was bewildered by the strange turn events were taking. encountering sam wing at the spring was odd enough, in all truth, and the weird happenings during his pursuit had been as novel as they were thrilling; but here, in a most inexplicable way, came the mandarin and the mariner on motor cycles, wabbling down the road, tsan ti in a panic and bunce aggressive and determined. matt shouted, but the two on the motor cycles were so deeply immersed in their own efforts that they paid no attention to the call. to stop the motor cycles was the first step, and the young motorist went about it in his usual resourceful way. swiftly he secured one end of the rope to a telegraph pole at the side of the road; then, bounding back, he took a turn with the free end of the rope around a convenient tree. hanging to the cable that was to form a blockade for the charging wheels, matt once more gave his attention to bunce and tsan ti. the pursuit of the mandarin had reached a crisis. the sailor had come close enough to reach out and grab the chinaman's flying queue, and he was hauling rearward, pulling the mandarin back until his hands had left the handle bars. "stop!" shouted motor matt, laying back on the end of the rope. the command was useless, for pursuer and pursued were obliged to halt in spite of it. the mandarin's swaying motor cycle was first to hit the rope. before the machine could topple over, bunce crashed into it. there followed a rasping volley of gasoline explosions, a roar from the sailor, and a chattering yell from the mandarin. the two were on the ground, tangled up with each other and with the motor cycles. dropping the rope, matt rushed at the struggling pair, seized bunce by the shoulders, and hauled him out of the mix-up. a revolver had fallen from the sailor's pocket. matt sprang to secure it, and then faced bunce, who was on his knees and staring about him dazedly. "noble friend!" cried the mandarin, carefully extricating his head from the frame of one of the motor cycles, "you have again preserved the wretched tsan ti! the evil personage yonder would presently have caught me!" bunce, having finally decided that the situation was one that boded him no good, started to get up and remove himself from the scene. "i don't believe you'd better leave us just yet, bunce," called matt, waving the revolver. "stay right where you are. this is a complication which you can help the mandarin explain." "by the seven holy spritsails!" muttered bunce, falling back in his original position and looking at matt and then at the farmer. "how, in the name o' davy jones," he cried, his gaze returning to matt, "do you happen to be cruisin' in these waters?" "never mind that, for the present. what i want to know is, where have you and the mandarin come from? and why were you chasing him?" "i have escaped, highly appreciated friend whose kindness is much reciprocated," babbled the mandarin, coming blithely to matt's side and carefully knocking the dust out of his little black cap. "i have made a never-to-be-forgotten escape from the hands of evil-minded enemies. it was your friend from the cattle districts who helped me." so far, all that matt had heard and seen had merely bogged him the more deeply in a mire of misunderstanding. at the mandarin's mention of mcglory, his speculations went off at a wild tangent. "did grattan and bunce capture the other car?" he demanded. "where did you find joe and martin? where are they now? what's happened to them?" "peace, distinguished youth," said the mandarin, putting on his cap and fluttering his hand reassuringly. "i know nothing about any car except the blue one by the pocket." "blue car? did you see a blue car?" "even so, my amazed friend. and beside the blue car leaned those go-devil bicycles. mcglory--faithful assistant in my time of need--helped me beguile grattan, pardo, and bunce into the pocket, whereupon i secured one of the go-devil machines and fled swiftly. the one-eyed sailor followed. which way we came i do not know. wherever i saw another road i turned into it. how long we raced is too much for my disturbed faculties to understand. we went, and went, and at last we were here, and i found you! oh, loyal defender of the most wretched of mandarins, to you i owe my peace, my happiness, and my life! may the six thousand peri of the land of enchantment afford you joy in the life to come!" "well, by gum!" muttered the wide-eyed farmer, shifting his rake to the other hand and rubbing a palm against his forehead. "i never seen a heathen that could talk like that before. some remarkable now, ain't it?" matt was too deeply concerned with what tsan ti had said to pay much attention to the farmer. he kept his watchful eyes on bunce, however, while seeking to get deeper into the perplexing situation that so suddenly confronted him. "let's begin at the beginning, tsan ti," said he, "and try and smooth out the knots of this amazing tangle with some sort of system. mcglory and i received your telegram. what happened to you after sam wing stole the ruby?" "i awoke from my dreams in great fright, inquiring friend," responded the mandarin, "and found the ruby gone, and sam wing gone. there was but one thing for me to think, and i thought it. the train was at a station, and i jumped from the steps. i looked for sam wing, but he had vanished; then i sent my telegram and waited until you might arrive. in the gray dawn that came into the east, i saw sam wing suddenly flash by the open door of the railroad station. i shouted and ran after him, but he evaded me. ah, the dreary heart-sickness in my breast as i pursued the traitor!" the mandarin clutched at his frayed yellow blouse and wrung a fold of it in his fat fingers. "who can tell of that? i followed the wagon road through the mountains, looking and listening. then i heard some one, afar off, shouting the name of motor matt. hope leaped high within me, for that name, notable sir, has a magic of its own. i turned from the road, climbed many rocks, and crushed through thick growths of prickly bushes, striving to reach the one who had shouted. also, i shouted myself, and presently, to my great but mistaken delight, other shoutings were returned to me. i went on, in my deceived state, and came to a place where i was captured--made a prisoner by grattan and that contemptible mariner of the single eye! your friend of the cattle districts was likewise a prisoner." "mcglory--captured by grattan!" gasped matt. "how did that happen? why, i thought he was with martin." "not so, deceived friend. he had tried to follow you in the pursuit of sam wing, and he had lost knowledge of his location, and was shouting to hear some speak and tell him where he was. that is what i heard. before i could reach your friend, grattan and bunce had also heard him, and made him a prisoner. then they heard me, and made _me_ a captive. verily, the ten thousand demons have had me under the ban." "i'm beginning to get at this," said matt grimly. "where did you and grattan come from, bunce, that you were placed so handily for entrapping mcglory and the mandarin?" "we'd made port in the hills," replied bunce, "an' was out lookin' for tsan ti an' the ruby." "they, miserable creatures," resumed the mandarin, with a glance of contempt at bunce, "had the blue car and the go-devil bicycles in a gashed-out spot among the mountains. a cavern, named by them a pocket, was in the wall of the rough valley. there were mcglory and i taken and bound. while grattan, bunce, and pardo, birds of evil feather, were plotting in the blue car, i gnawed the cord that secured your unfortunate friend's hands, and he freed himself and me. after that mcglory raised a great clamor. grattan, bunce, and pardo came hastily to observe what might be the trouble, and i went out of the pocket as they came in. then i took the motor cycle, as i have said, and moved away, followed by the mariner. is the matter clear, esteemed friend?" "i'm beginning to understand it," answered matt. "it's the queerest mix-up i ever heard of. strange that you and joe should fall into the hands of grattan and bunce, as you did, and that you should happen to lead bunce this way when you fled on the motor cycle." "matter-of-fact youth," remarked the mandarin earnestly, "do you not realize how strange events happen swiftly in the wake of the eye of buddha? the ten thousand demons are doing their worst continually, and their powers for evil are vast beyond imagining!" "we'll pass over that phase of the matter," said matt dryly, "and try to get at something that will benefit mcglory. can you take me to this 'pocket,' as you call it?" "not so," replied the mandarin. "i have no recollection how i came from it, or what roads i took. the roads were many, and the way was long, and my mind was too greatly disturbed to pay attention." "where's the pocket, bunce?" asked matt, addressing the sailor. "i know, messmate," scowled bunce, "but i'm not showin' ye the course." matt was in a quandary. he could not understand why grattan had captured mcglory, but he was not intending to let his chum remain any longer in the hands of the thieves than was absolutely necessary. a way would be found to make bunce lead him to the pocket. "generous and agreeable friend," spoke up tsan ti, "did you succeed in capturing sam wing?" "i did," replied matt. "then may i request of you the eye of buddha?" "i'll take you to sam wing and you can request it of him," said matt. "get up, bunce," he ordered, "and start yourself for the barn. will you," and matt shot a glance at the farmer, "kindly remove that rope from the road and set the motor cycles upright in a place where they will be safe?" "glad to do anythin' fer yew that i can," answered the farmer, dropping his rake and getting busy with the rope. matt, face to face with the ordeal of acquainting tsan ti with the fact that the ruby was irretrievably lost, was wondering, as he drove bunce toward the barn, what the result of the catastrophe was to be. chapter xii. another surprise. bunce was accepting his hard luck with all the complaisance he could muster. his pursuit of the mandarin had led him into difficulties undreamed of, but he still indulged a hope that the resourceful grattan might come to his aid. he went into the barn, and recoiled a little as a savage growl struck on his ears. tige was still guarding sam wing. "sit down," said matt, to bunce, nodding toward some bags of ground feed lying on the barn floor. "the dog won't molest you; he's looking after sam wing." bunce, plainly uncomfortable, seated himself, watching tige warily. the instant tsan ti came through the barn door and saw sam wing, a cry of rage burst from his lips, and he flew at his treacherous servant. matt grabbed the angry mandarin and held him back. "that won't do, tsan ti," said matt. "sit down and take things calmly. there's your money," and he pointed to the alligator-skin pouch which lay by the wagon tongue. "sam wing turned it over to me. you'd better count it and make sure it's all there. hereafter, it would be wise for you to take care of your money yourself." tsan ti glared at sam wing, then stooped down, and recovered the pouch. the receptacle was filled with soggy banknotes, and, while the mandarin was fingering them over, he kept up a running fire of talk in chinese. the condemnation must have been of the most scathing sort, for the wretched sam wing shivered as he listened. presently sam wing himself began to talk. he spoke at length, and must have been acquainting the mandarin with the dread fact that the eye of buddha was lost, for, suddenly, tsan ti dropped the alligator-skin pouch and the wet bills and reeled back against the barn wall. his eyes became glassy and his face turned white. presently he sank down on the barn floor, listless and staring. "has he told you about the ruby, tsan ti?" asked matt, his pity for the mandarin rising paramount to any other feeling he may have cherished against him. tsan ti did not answer; in fact, he did not seem to hear. he had suffered a blow that paralyzed his faculties. "blow me tight!" breathed bunce, astonished. "hasn't he got the ruby?" "didn't grattan search him?" returned matt. "ah, he looked through his pockets and his sandals, and even tried to find the eye of buddha in his queue, but it wasn't there. for all that, we thought the chink knowed where the stone was an' could be made to tell." "he knew where it was--sam wing had it." "hocused it?" "stole it--then lost it!" "shiver me!" exclaimed bunce, aghast. "then tsan ti ain't got the ruby, an' grattan won't never be able to put hands on it!" "it's gone for good," answered matt. "now you can see, bunce, just how much good grattan's trickery and double-dealing has benefited him. you and he stole the ruby from the honam joss house and brought it to america; tsan ti followed you, under orders from the regent of china to recover the idol's eye or else to strangle himself with the yellow cord; the ruby was recovered for tsan ti here in the catskills, but grattan kept up his wild scheming and committed one piece of lawless villainy after another in his attempts to get the ruby away from tsan ti; now we're at the end of the whole business, and neither grattan nor tsan ti has the ruby, or will ever have it." just at that moment the farmer came into the barn. "i got them machines where they'll be safe," he announced, "an'---gosh all whittaker! what's the fat chinaman doin'?" matt turned to look at tsan ti. he had the yellow cord around his throat, rove into a running bowline, and was pulling at the loose end. the king of the motor boys hurried to him and jerked his hands from the cord with a quick movement. "that will do, tsan ti!" cried matt sternly. "can't you be a man? you're not going to strangle yourself while i'm around!" "there is no hope for tsan ti," mumbled the mandarin. "the august decree of my regent--may his years be many and glorious!--calls for my quick dispatch." matt pulled the cord from the mandarin's neck. "listen, tsan ti," said he; "don't give up until you know the case is really hopeless. we can go back over the ground sam wing covered while i was chasing him, and it is possible we can find the ruby." "not possible, deluded friend," answered the mandarin. "the contemptible canton dog says the gem may be in the water, or in many other places where its recovery is out of the question. the blandishments of hope pale into the heavy darkness of my certain destruction. present me with the cord, i beg of you. tsan ti, mandarin of the red button, is not afraid to join his exalted ancestors in the country dear to true believers." "wrong in the upper story, ain't he?" put in the farmer. "in a way," replied matt. "he sure had himself goin' with that piece o' yellow string. them heathens is queer, anyway." "i'll not give you this cord, tsan ti," declared matt, "until i can look over the course followed by sam wing and make an attempt to find the ruby." "there are other means for performing the quick dispatch," said tsan ti calmly. "i prefer the cord; it is an honor to use an instrument direct from the regent's hands; but, if the cord is not at hand, other means will avail me, ungenerous youth." matt studied the mandarin for a few moments. in his eyes he read determination. matt, matter-of-fact american lad that he was, could not understand the oriental custom now exemplified by tsan ti--he could not understand the thousands of years' usage which had made the custom part of a chinaman's faith, and he had nothing but contempt for the exhibition the mandarin was making of himself. "get the rope, please," said matt to the farmer. "i think we'll use it." the farmer brought the rope, and matt, with his assistance, tied tsan ti's hands and feet. the mandarin yielded passively. "this will not serve," was all he said; "the time for my dispatch will arrive, in spite of you." "if you keep on acting in this foolish way, tsan ti," answered matt, "i'll lose all the respect i ever had for you. face the music, can't you? there's no merit in throwing up your hands and quitting just because you have run into a streak of hard luck." "you don't understand, ignorant one." "i understand, fast enough, that you can't hurt yourself while you're tied up." he turned away. "do you think tige can watch two prisoners?" he asked of the farmer. "yew bet he can," answered the farmer enthusiastically, "two 'r a dozen. why, that dorg's quicker'n chain lightnin'." "then," went on matt, "just give tige to understand that he's to watch the sailor, as well as that other chinaman." the farmer spoke to the dog, and the animal took up a position between sam wing and bunce. the sailor tried to draw back, but tige stopped the movement with a savage snarl and a half move as though he would bite. "keelhaul me!" cried bunce. "is this what ye call treatin' a feller white? why, i wouldn't treat a hottentot swab like this!" "i've got you, bunce," said matt grimly, "and, no matter what becomes of grattan and pardo, the law won't be cheated entirely." "what've i done that ye can send me to the brig for? tell me that!" "isn't the theft of the ruby enough to send you to jail?" "that happened in chiny, an' we're in america now." "well, putting that aside, there remains the criminal work you did at the catskill garage last night. you can be sent to the penitentiary for that, bunce." that was a blow that left bunce gasping. "grattan done that," he cried; "it wasn't me planned it." "you helped grattan, bunce, and you were recognized by the night man. there's a clear case against you, and you'll deserve all the punishment you receive." "say," said bunce, with a sudden inspiration, "if ye'll let me go, i'll take ye to that pocket where mcglory is! i'll do more'n that, sink me if i won't! you let me slip my hawse and slant away clear o' these hills, an' i'll help ye git mcglory away from grattan an' pardo. what d'ye say, mate? it ain't a job ye could do alone, an' it ain't a place ye can find onless i show the way. what's the word?" "i've had enough experience with you, bunce," returned matt, "to know that you're not to be depended on. you'd play some treacherous trick that would----" here a voice--a very familiar voice--came floating through the open barn door. "whoop-ya! any one around? show up, somebody, and tell me where i am and how to go to get to the spring on the trail from catskill to gardenville! whoo-ee!" "woods is full o' strangers to-day, seems like!" exclaimed the farmer. matt bolted past him through the door, then halted, and gazed spellbound at a blue automobile with joe mcglory in the driver's seat. this might have been considered the culminating surprise of the day's events. and it was a mutual surprise, too, judging by the way mcglory acted. leaning over the steering wheel, the cowboy gazed like one in a trance. "matt!" he shouted at last, "is this a dream, or the real thing? say something, you old hardshell. sufferin' tenterhooks! i can't tell how nervous you make me." chapter xiii. baiting a trap. "is that the new york man's automobile, joe?" asked matt, "the one that was stolen from martin's garage last night?' "it's the one, pard," jubilated the cowboy. "i've come through a-smoking with it from that place where grattan had me pocketed with the mandarin. it's queer i stopped here, although i'm off my bearings, haven't the least notion where i am, and this is the first farmhouse i've seen for a dozen miles; but it won't seem quite so queer when i tell you that i saw those machines leaning against the corncrib, and that the familiar look of 'em brought me in to stir up the natives and ask a few questions." mcglory pointed toward a corncrib off at the rear of the barn. the two motor cycles were leaning against the structure, just where the farmer had left them. "i see," said matt. "are those motor cycles the ones that belong to martin, that were stolen from us and that we bled a hundred and fifty apiece for?" "they're the ones." "well, now!" chuckled mcglory, "what sort of a day's work would you call this, pard? we get back the stolen automobile and both motor cycles. i'm ready to hear the whistle blow." "there's something else to be done before we finish this piece of work, joe." "tell me about it." "sam wing is in the barn, there----" "whoop! then you _did_ get the kibosh on him, after all!" "and tsan ti," proceeded matt, "and bunce." "better and better; but i'd almost guessed that just from seeing the motor cycles. what have you been doing since we went two different ways from the spring?" the king of the motor boys sketched rapidly the main points of sam wing's flight and the pursuit, following with the blockade of the road and the capture of bunce. "and tsan ti is in the barn this minute," finished matt, "roped hand and foot to keep him from taking his own life on account of the lost ruby. if possible, i'd like to go over the course of wing's flight and look for the eye of buddha." "might as well look for a nickel in the pacific ocean," scowled mcglory. "it looks like a hopeless case, i'll admit, but i can't leave the poor old mandarin without trying to do something for him." "you're too easy with the crafty old heathen." "you'd be sorry for him, too, joe, if you could see what a plight he's in." "he was as hard-looking a sight as i ever saw when he fell into grattan's clutches a few hours ago. if you're bound to go rainbow-chasing after the eye of buddha, why, of course i'm in on the deal. we'll have to be about it, i reckon, while we've got daylight to help." "we can use this car for a part of the work. wing came along the road from that direction." matt pointed as he spoke. "why," said mcglory, "i came from that direction myself. i don't reckon it's safe to go back that way." "not safe?" echoed matt. "why isn't it safe?" "mainly for the reason, pard, that grattan and pardo are trailing this car. they didn't like to lose it. that hole through the back"--and mcglory turned to point it out--"was made by a bullet that grattan sent after me. i've been traveling roads that automobiles never took before, and the marks this car left would make easy trailing." "do you know positively that grattan and pardo are following the car?" "well, yes, if you want to pin me down. one of the electric terminals got loose when i was a short distance away from the pocket, and i had a time finding out what was wrong. while i was groping around, i saw grattan and pardo chasing toward me. they were a good ways off, but if you want a picture of a chap in a hurry you ought to've had a snapshot of me! i was lucky enough to find the loose wire just in time to screw it to the post, crank up, and fly. the tinhorns were within a hundred feet of the blue car when we jumped away on the high speed. and that's how i know grattan and pardo are after me. besides, now that the motor cycles are gone, those fellows need the blue car to help them make a dash out of the hills. jump in, though, if you want to take chances, and we'll go looking for that hoodoo ruby." but matt was not in so much of a hurry now. leaning against the side of the car, he fell into a brown study. "what's to pay?" asked mcglory. "something else on your mind?" "well, yes," laughed matt; "i'd like to use you and the blue car in baiting a trap." "oh, well, i don't mind. grattan used me for bait in trapping tsan ti, so i'm getting used to it. but what sort of a trap is it?" "if grattan and pardo are really following you," said matt, "why couldn't you go back down the road, stop the car, and pretend you had a breakdown?" "bee-yu-ti-ful!" rapped out mcglory. "i could do all that, pard, and grattan and pardo could show up and gobble me, blue car and all. fine! say, you're most as good a hand at planning as the mandarin." "but suppose," supplemented matt, "that two or three fellows were hid in the tonneau of the car and that they jumped out at the right moment and made things interesting for grattan and pardo?" mcglory lifted his clinched fist and brought it down emphatically on the steering wheel. "speak to me about that! i might have known you had something up your sleeve. i think it would work, pard, but who's to hide in the tonneau? you, for one, of course, but who else?" "the farmer who lives here seems to be rather handy and to have plenty of courage, and he's got a bulldog that's a whole team and something to spare. i guess the farmer, and i, and the dog will be enough." "keno! trot out the rube and the kyoodle and we'll slide back down the road with a chip on our shoulder." matt went into the barn for a talk with the farmer. he listened attentively while matt gave him a rã©sumã© of events and a synopsis of the plan he had evolved. "i'm with yew," cried the farmer, slapping his hands, "but yew'll have to wait till i tell josi' where i'm goin'. if we take the dorg away from the barn, josi' ought to watch these fellers till we git back." "we'll put ropes on the sailor and that other chinaman," said matt, "but it will be a good idea to have them watched, just the same." the farmer got some spare halters and helped with the tying. when it was finished, he hurried away to find "josi'" and to tell him what he was to do. in ten minutes he was back, bringing a long, spare individual clad in a "wamus" and overalls. "here's the fellers yew're to watch, josi'," said the farmer, waving a hand toward tsan ti, bunce, and sam wing. "don't yew let 'em git away, nuther." "if they git away, by jing," answered josi', pushing up the sleeves of his wamus, "they'll have to walk over me to do it. you be kerful, zeke boggs. 'pears mighty like you had the hot end o' this job." "don't yew fret none about me," answered boggs. "i wasn't born yestiddy." he called the dog, and he, and matt, and tige left the barn and crawled into the tonneau of the blue car. "how far down the road am i to go, pard?" queried mcglory, getting out to turn over the engine. "oh, a mile or two," answered matt. "maybe there'll not be anything doing," said joe, as he climbed back to his seat. "grattan and pardo may have become discouraged, and given up the trail. even if they hung to it, we'll have to wait some time for them." "they'll come," said matt. "i never had a day pan out so much excitement as this one has given us. events have been crowding our way so thick and fast that they're not going to stop until we have a chance at grattan and pardo." "i'm agreeable," expanded mcglory. "anything from a fight to a foot race goes with _me_. after the way i starred myself by getting lost in this little bunch of toy mountains, i'm hungry to square myself by doing something worth while." "you've squared yourself already by getting back the blue car," returned matt. "not so you could notice. tsan ti helped me along with that move. the chance jumped up when i wasn't expecting it, and hit me square between the eyes. anyone could have turned that trick." mcglory was pushing the blue car back along the road at a lively clip. matt stood up to look ahead, in the vain hope of getting track of the red jewel. "i know what you're looking for, pard," remarked the cowboy, "and you're not going to find it. a good many peculiar things have happened to-day, and no mistake; but picking that red stone out of a couple of square miles of country would be too uncommon. good luck won't strain itself to that extent. think we're far enough?" "this will do," answered matt, and mcglory halted the blue car in about the loneliest spot in the catskills. there was a marsh on one side of the road, bordered with stunted trees and matted bushes. on the other side was the timber. "maybe," suggested mcglory, "i'd better head the car t'other way? that's how i was going when grattan and pardo saw me last, and----" he cut short his remarks abruptly and peered off along the road. "what's the matter, joe?" asked matt. "car coming," was the reply. "i don't reckon many cars take this road, and it's possible grattan and pardo borrowed one from somebody who wasn't looking and are using it to hunt for the blue automobile. lie low, matt, you, and boggs, and the dog. here's where i begin to pretend--listen while i tinker." "if we have a fight," said boggs, as he and matt crouched down in the tonneau, "by gum, i want yew to let me do my share." "we'll all have plenty to do, mr. boggs," answered matt, well pleased with the farmer's spirit, "if those fellows who are coming are the ones we're after. don't make a move, though, and don't let tige loose until i give the word." silence fell over those in the tonneau. mcglory could be heard pottering around with a wrench, and presently the hum of the approaching car could be heard. "i don't like the looks of things," called the cowboy, in a guarded tone, from the front of the blue car. "why not?" asked matt. "can't tell yet. you fellows stay where you are and keep mum." the noise of the other automobile had grown to proportions which proved that it was almost at hand. mcglory said something, but it was impossible for matt or boggs to hear what it was. the other car stopped so close to the blue automobile that the mud guards almost scraped. matt, from the depths of the tonneau, caught sight of a high-powered roadster with two business-like appearing men on the seats. but they were not grattan and pardo. "that's the car, sure as shooting!" declared one. "get out, gridly," said the second man, "and look at the number." gridly jumped down from the roadster and hurried to the rear of the touring car. "we've won out, banks!" he called. "the number's eighty-one-two-sixty-three." "what's the matter?" inquired matt, rising in the tonneau and looking out from under the top. "matter?" grinned banks. "nothin' much, only i'm the sheriff and all you fellows are arrested. you stole this car from martin's garage in catskill last night. jest be peaceable, and everythin' 'll be fine: but try to make trouble and there'll be warm doings." "sufferin' jonah!" laughed mcglory. "wouldn't this rattle your spurs, matt?" chapter xiv. how the trap was sprung. matt remembered that martin had said the new york man who owned the stolen car had sent telegrams and telephone messages all through the hills. perhaps, if there was any wonderment to be indulged in, it should have been because mcglory had escaped the officers as long as he had. the king of the motor boys opened the tonneau door and stood on the footboard, facing banks. "you've made a slight mistake, mr. banks," said matt. "from your point of view," answered the sheriff, "i guess maybe i have. there happens to be five hundred dollars in this for me an' gridly, though, and we ain't takin' your word for it that there's a mistake. this car answers the description of the one that was stolen, right down to the number." "this is the car, all right," proceeded matt, "but we're not the fellows who stole it." "caught with the goods," jeered gridly, "an' then deny the hull job! nervy, but it won't wash." "where'd the car fall into your hands if you ain't the ones that stole it?" asked banks. "my chum, there, got it away from the thieves." "oh, that's what your chum did, eh?" "you're to get five hundred dollars for recovering the car?" said matt. "_and_ capturin' the thieves," returned banks. "was one of the thieves supposed to be a sailor with a green patch over one eye?" gridly and banks must have experienced something of a shock. for a moment they gazed at each other. "somethin' _was_ said in that telegraft about a sailor with a green patch over one eye, banks," observed gridly. "that's a fact," admitted banks reflectively. "but we've got the car and there ain't no sailor with it. i guess that part of the telegram must have been a mistake." "there's no mistake about it," said matt. "we have captured the sailor, and he's at the farm of mr. boggs, here." matt drew to one side so the officers could see the farmer. "well, if it ain't boggs!" exclaimed banks, startled. "zeke boggs an' his brindled bulldog!" added gridly. "what the young feller says is straight goods, banks," declared the farmer. "the sailor with the patch over his eye is up to my place in the barn. josi's watchin' 'im." "what're you doin' here? that's what i want to know,' said banks. "come out to help these young fellers spring a trap." "what sort of a trap?" "why," put in matt, "a trap to catch two pals of the sailor--one of them is the man who helped the sailor take this car from martin's garage." banks helped himself to a chew of tobacco. "jest for the sake of bein' sociable, an' gettin' at the nub of this thing," he remarked, "you might tell us who you are, young feller, an' what you happen to be doing in this part of the hills?" "my name's king, matt king----" "otherwise," cut in mcglory, "motor matt. maybe you've heard of motor matt?" "i have," said banks; "he's been doing things around catskill for the last few days." the sheriff passed his shrewd eyes over the king of the motor boys as he balanced himself on the footboard. there was nothing in the lad's appearance to indicate that he was not telling the truth. "i'm not doubting your word at all, young feller," remarked banks, "but i'll feel a lot more like believing you if you tell me about this trap you're arrangin' to spring." matt told how mcglory had run away from the pocket, and how grattan and pardo had followed him. he finished by describing the manner in which grattan and pardo were to be lured into the vicinity of the blue automobile and captured. "that sounds like a play of motor matt's, right enough," said gridly. "anyhow, i don't think it'll work," announced banks. "why not?" asked matt. "you can't be sure grattan and pardo are follerin' the car; an', if they _are_ follerin', maybe they've got off the track." "that's possible, of course; but the chances for success, though slight, are worth waiting and working for, don't you think? if the plan fails, we'll be out nothing but our time." "two boys, a farmer, an' a dog ain't enough to make the play if it should come to a showdown," declared banks. "gridly and i will be in on it, i guess. i'll take this machine up the road and tuck it away in the bushes, then i'll come back, an' gridly an' i will crowd into the tonneau with the rest of you. if the game works, i'll be capturin' one of the men i'm arter; if it don't work, then, as you say, all we'll be out is a little time. i'll be back in a minute. pull the crank, gridly." the roadster flashed up the road, and matt could see banks forcing the machine into the bushes at the roadside. in a little while the sheriff was back at the touring car. "the back part of that machine will be a little crowded," said he, "but we'll have to stand it if we make the play you've laid out, motor matt." "suppose you and gridly get into the tonneau," suggested matt, "and leave boggs, and me, and the dog to hide in the bushes at the edge of the marsh? we'll be close enough to help if anything happens, and won't interfere with you if you should have to work in a hurry." there remained in the sheriff's mind a lingering suspicion that this idea was launched with some ulterior purpose in view, but a look into motor matt's face dispelled the unworthy thought. "that's a good suggestion," said banks. "get in here with me, gridly." "you'd better turn the car around, joe," went on matt, as soon as the officers were in the car. mcglory started the engine and threw on the reverse, backing the blue car until he had it headed the other way. "now we're ready for whatever's to come," said banks. "and it can't come too quick, either," supplemented gridly. matt, boggs, and the dog retired to the edge of the marsh and made themselves comfortable among the bushes. the king of the motor boys was well pleased with the way the encounter with the sheriff had turned out. there had been, for a few moments, the promise of a serious complication, but banks had proved reasonable and there was nothing more to worry about. matt's hope now was that grattan and pardo would fall into the trap that was laid for them. if they did, the motor boys' account with the unscrupulous grattan would be settled for all time. they would always have some regrets on account of the poor old mandarin, but after they had looked carefully over the course of sam wing's flight, they would have done everything possible to help tsan ti. "by gum," remarked boggs, while he and matt were waiting, "i never knowed yew was motor matt!" "i didn't suppose you'd ever heard of motor matt, mr. boggs," answered the young motorist. "i take a gardenville paper, and that had a lot to say about what yew been doin' down to catskill. yew've given things quite a stirrin' up in that town. is that fat chink the one that come from chiny to get holt of the idol's eye?" "he's the one." "well, i'm s'prised; i am, for a fact! jest to think all this took place right on my farm! josi' won't hardly know what to think, and the----" "quiet in there, pard!" came the low voice of mcglory. "they're coming." "grattan and pardo?" returned matt. "sure, and they walk as though they were tired. now i've got to rustle around and pretend to be so busy i don't see 'em." the cowboy opened the hood and fell to tinkering with the wrench. all was quiet in the tonneau, but there was a load of danger for grattan and pardo in that blue car had they but known it! peering from the bushes, matt and boggs saw the two men come swiftly and silently along the road. mcglory, with steady nerves, kept at his work. pardo crept up behind the cowboy and caught him suddenly about the shoulders. "i guess that puts the boot on the other leg!" exulted pardo, drawing mcglory roughly away from the machine. "the fellow that laughs last," cried grattan, "laughs best. you've given us a good hard run of it, mcglory, but we just _had_ to have this car. it means everything to pardo and me. what's the trouble with it?" "loose burr," answered the cowboy, with feigned sullenness. "it's been bothering me ever since i left the pocket. if it hadn't been for that, you'd never have caught me." "probably not," said grattan. "small things sometimes lead to big results. show me the loose burr and i'll tighten it. after that, mcglory, we'll bid you an affectionate farewell and show these mountains our heels." "the wrench i've got isn't large enough," went on mcglory. "you'll have to get another out of the tool box." this was a clever ruse on the cowboy's part to draw the thief to the footboard of the car--placing him handily for banks and gridly. the tool box was open. grattan, entirely unsuspicious, went back around the side of the car and stooped over to get the wrench. the next moment banks had thrown himself on top of him, gridly had dropped out the other side of the car, mcglory had whirled on pardo, and matt, boggs, and tige were rushing out of the bushes. the trap had been sprung, and sprung so neatly that neither grattan nor pardo had the slightest chance of getting out of it or of using their firearms. chapter xv. back to the farm. the skirmish--for it amounted to little more than that--was over with in short order. grattan resisted stoutly, but boggs went to banks' assistance, while matt and gridly went to mcglory's. in almost less time than it takes to tell it, handcuffs were snapped on the wrists of the prisoners and they were loaded into the tonneau with the two officers. "it worked as slick as greased lightning, motor matt!" cried the delighted sheriff. "those two crooks never suspected a thing!" pardo was exceedingly bitter. "now, see what your confounded plans have done for me, grattan!" he cried angrily. "i was a fool to ever tie up with you." "if we'd been successful," returned grattan coolly "and secured the ruby, you'd have talked the other way. where's your nerve, pardo?" pardo, still dazed by the suddenness of the capture, sank back into the corner of the tonneau, muttering. "this is your work, is it, motor matt?" inquired grattan, leaning over the side of the car and fixing his gaze on the young motorist. "i helped plan it," said matt. "he was the whole works," spoke up mcglory. "maybe it wasn't _quite_ so clever as the way you played it on me and tsan ti, grattan," and a tantalizing grin accompanied the words; "but i reckon it'll do." "the more i see and learn about motor matt," declared grattan, "the more i admire his shining abilities. he's a wonder. we've matched wits several times, and he's always had a shade the best of it. will you answer a civil question, my lad?" "what is it?" "where's tsan ti and the ruby?" "tsan ti and bunce are at a farm near here, but----" "so that old idiot has got tangled in the net, too!" "but the ruby," finished matt, "has been lost." "lost?" grattan showed considerable excitement. "how was it lost?" "sam wing stole the ruby from tsan ti, on the train, and jumped off at gardenville. the mandarin discovered his loss in time to leave the train at the same station." "oh, thunder!" exclaimed grattan disgustedly. "so _that_ was why tsan ti followed sam wing out of gardenville!" "and you thought the mandarin was afraid of you, and that that was his reason for hot-footing it into the hills," derided pardo. "where and how was the ruby lost?" went on grattan, paying no attention to pardo. "i started out with martin to look for this automobile," said matt, "and we found sam wing at the watering place on the gardenville road. mcglory and i followed him, but my chum got lost and i was left to keep up the chase alone. it was somewhere along the course sam wing led me that the ruby was lost." "sam wing is fooling you!" "i think he's telling the truth, grattan." "bosh! the chink has hidden the ruby and is trying to make you believe he lost it. if you let him go, he'll find the stone and get away with it." "why not turn him loose, an' then follow him?" suggested banks. matt shook his head. "i'm positive sam wing is giving the straight of it," he declared. "well," laughed grattan, but with an undernote of regret, "i hope he is. if i can't have the ruby that i've worked for so long, i'm glad to think that no one else will have it. where are we bound for, gentlemen?" and grattan turned to banks and gridly. "to the boggs farm to pick up the sailor," banks replied, "then for the catskill jail." "very pleasant outlook," observed grattan. "can you drive a motor car, matt?" asked gridly. "_can_ he?" exploded mcglory. "say, pard," he added, turning to matt, "do you know a spark-plug from the carburetor?" "no offense," proceeded gridly hastily. "i was only going to ask matt if he would bring our roadster along." "boggs and i will come in the roadster," said matt. "you take the blue car to the farm, joe." "on the jump, pard!" came heartily from mcglory. "you motor boys are a great team!" exclaimed banks. "they're hard to beat," put in grattan. "if it hadn't been for them, i should have been in paris about now, in very comfortable circumstances." matt waited for no more, but, accompanied by boggs and tige, hurried along the road to the place where banks had left the roadster. matt was cranking when mcglory whirled past on his way to the farm. two minutes later the roadster was crowding the touring car hard, and matt was honking for the cowboy to make better time. "everybody seems to be your friend, motor matt," said boggs, "even that there thief." "grattan is a strange fellow, boggs," answered matt. "he's as talented a chap as you'll find anywhere, but he'd rather steal for a living than work honestly." "some folks is that way," ruminated boggs. "they'll waste more brains an' elbow grease pullin' off a robb'ry that'll bring 'em in a thousand dollars than they'd need for makin' ten thousand honestly. look at me, scrubbin' along on a stony farm, raisin' garden truck for the hotels, when i might go out with a drill an' a jimmy, an'----" "make a nice comfortable home for yourself in a stone house with iron doors and barred windows," laughed matt. "there are lots of worse places than a stony truck farm, boggs." "i guess yew're right." at that moment the touring car turned in at the farmyard and came to a halt near the barn. the roadster followed and stopped alongside. leaving gridly to take care of grattan and pardo, banks accompanied matt and boggs into the barn. josi' met them at the door. "what luck, zeke?" he asked. "best kind, josi'," replied boggs. "got our men, too easy for any use. the sheriff, here, and his deputy, gridly, come along jest in time to help. they want one o' the prisoners we left yew to take keer of." "they're all here, you bet," said josi', with laudable pride. "the' wa'n't any of 'em could git away from _me_." banks cast his eyes over the three men. "what's to be done with the two chinamen?" he asked. "i think they ought to go to catskill, too," said matt. "we can carry the sailor in the tonneau of the big car, and there's room for one of the chinamen on the seat alongside mcglory. t'other chink could go with you, in the roadster. which is the mandarin that got robbed of the ruby?" matt pointed to the dejected figure of tsan ti. "what is he roped for?" asked banks. "so he can't put himself out of the way," said matt. "the regent of china sent him a yellow cord, and told him that if he did not recover the ruby in two weeks he was please to strangle himself. i had to tie the mandarin in that way to keep him from obeying orders." banks was not a hard-hearted man, and something in the mandarin's plight touched him. perhaps it was the celestial's hopeless air, coupled with his torn and dusty garments. the sheriff stood for a few minutes in front of tsan ti, looking down at him and shaking his head. "they're a queer lot, these chinks," he commented finally. "their ideas are not ours, by a long shot, but i don't know as that's anything against them. do you want to take the mandarin with you in the roadster, matt?" "i think i'd better." matt bent down and removed the rope from tsan ti's ankles. the mandarin did not want to get up or make a move, but matt and banks lifted him to his feet and succeeded in getting him out of the barn. as they stood beside the roadster, the mandarin slumping limply in their supporting hands, a cry came from the road. "well, by golly! if dar ain't de man whut got ole gin'ral jackson back fo' me. ah's monsus 'bliged tuh yo', boss, ah is, fer er fac'." matt looked around and saw the old darky ambling toward the barn on his mule. "that's neb hogan," spoke up boggs. "he's got a cabin down beyond about half a mile. do you know him, motor matt?" although old neb hogan did not look it, yet he was, at that moment, engaged upon one of the most important missions of his life. chapter xvi. conclusion. "what can i do for you, neb?" asked matt, facing the darky as he pulled his mule to a halt. "ah dunno as yo' can do nuffin' fo' me, boss," answered neb. "ah reckons yo's done about all fo' dis moke dat he can expec'. yo' done got gin'ral jackson back fo' me, an' dat odder feller found his bicycle, too. ah 'lows yo' must hab been in er hurry, 'case yo' didn't wait fo' me to tell yo' ah was obliged fo' whut yo' done. lucky ah seed yo' while ah was passin' mars boggs' place. close tuh where dat white boy found his bicycle dar was somefin' right on de aidge o' de bridge. ah gaddered it in, en ah thought mebby yo' was de one whut drapped hit. ah was wonderin' en mah ole head how ah was gwine tuh diskibber whedder what ah found belonged tuh you--en heah, right when ah was gittin' clost tuh home, ah done sees yuh! ain't dat fine? somefin' strodinary 'bout dat." a faint hope was rising in motor matt's breast, but it was very faint. the foundation of it was almost too preposterous for belief. "what did you find, neb?" he asked. "ah don't know whedder hit amounts to nuffin' er not, but ah reckons yo' kin tell." thereupon neb shoved one hand into a pocket of his tattered coat and brought out, mixed in his yellow palm with two nails, a fishline, and a piece of chewing tobacco---_the eye of buddha!_ it was almost sunset, and the early shadows were beginning to fly over the eastern borders of the catskills, but there was enough light to strike sparkling crimson gleams from the fateful gem that lay in the old darky's hand. "does dat 'ar thing b'long tuh yo', boss?" said neb hogan. "hold it just that way for a minute, neb," returned matt. then quickly he slipped the cords from the mandarin's wrists. "look up, tsan ti," went on matt. "see here a minute." apathetically the mandarin raised his head. his gaze fell on the red gem, glittering amid the poor treasures which the old negro "toted" in his pocket. the mandarin's body stiffened, his hands flew to his forehead, and he gazed spellbound; then, with a hoarse cry, he caught the ruby from neb's hand, pushed it against his breast, and fell to his knees, muttering wildly in his native tongue. "well, by thunder!" exclaimed banks. "is that the idol's eye, matt?" matt nodded. "you found that red jewel at the edge of the bridge, you say, neb?" "dat's whar ah done picked it up. what is dat thing, anyhow? by golly, dat chinymum ack lak he done gone crazy." "it's a ruby, neb," explained matt, "and very valuable. the chinaman who stole your mule had taken the ruby away from this other chinaman, and was trying to escape with it. general jackson wouldn't take the bridge, and the chinaman on his back kicked and pounded him so that the mule bucked and tossed him to the edge of the bridge. before the chinaman could save himself he fell into the creek. the ruby must have dropped out of his pocket upon the planks of the bridge. i didn't see it, though, and it remained for you to pick it up." "by golly!" breathed neb. "ain't dat a mos' 'sprisin' purceedin'? ah done finds de ruby fo' de feller whut got mah mu-el back fo' me. is we squar' now, boss?" "square?" laughed matt. "why, neb, we're a whole lot more than square. how much do you think that ruby's worth?" "kain't be hit's worf mo' dan ten dollahs, i reckons," he guessed. "it's worth thousands of dollars, neb!" "go 'long wif yo' foolishness! dat red thing kain't be worf all dat money, nohow. yo's foolin' de pore ole moke." "it's the truth, neb." tsan ti, jabbering wildly, arose from his bended knees and pulled his alligator-skin pouch from his blouse. "excellent stranger of the dusky race," said he, "i gather from what i hear that i am in your debt for the recovery of the eye of buddha. will it insult you if i offer, of my goodness of heart, five hundred dollars?" neb hogan nearly fell from general jackson's back. "whut's dat he's er-sayin' tuh me?" he asked, rolling up the whites of his eyes. "talkin' 'bout five--five hunnerd dollahs, en 'bout insultin' me wif it. by golly, ah's brack, but ah don't 'low no yalluh trash tuh mek spo't ob me. somebody hole mah mu-el twill ah climb down. five hunnerd dollahs! ah won't 'low no chinymun tuh say no such thing. ah--ah----" words died on the old negro's lips. tsan ti had pushed a bundle of money up in front of his face, and neb was gazing at the bills like one demented. "accept of my gratitude, illustrious one," chanted the mandarin. "you are worthy--it is little enough." the darky tried to talk, but the words stuck in his throat. mechanically he took the bills, smoothed them out in his hands, and finally pushed them into his pocket. "ah reckons dishyer's a dream," he managed to gasp finally. "ah reckons ah'll wake up tuh heah mandy buildin' de fiah fo' breakfus. eider dat, or ah's suah gone crazy." then, turning general jackson, neb hogan rode out of the gate, looking back fearfully as long as he was in sight, wondering, no doubt, if those he had left were not the phantoms of his disordered imagination. this little scene had been enacted under the eyes of mcglory and the prisoners in the blue touring car. grattan's feelings, perhaps, may be imagined better than described. mcglory was "stumped," as he would have expressed it. "now that tsan ti has got the ruby again, pard," called the cowboy, "i move we pack him in a box, idol's eye and all, and turn him over to the express company for safe transportation to canton. if we don't, something is sure going to happen to him." "nothing will happen to him now," said matt. "the men he had to fear are in the custody of the law, and from now on tsan ti will experience no more trouble." "esteemed friend," palpitated the overjoyed mandarin, "i shall yet deposit the ruby in the express company's care as soon as i get to catskill. the lessons i have had are sufficient." "that's the talk!" approved the cowboy. "what shall we do with sam wing?" asked matt. for an instant a flash of rage drove the happiness from the mandarin's eyes. but the flash died as swiftly as it came. "have you a knife, illustrious youth?" inquired the mandarin. "better keep it, pard!" warned mcglory. "tsan ti's going to do for wing!" but matt believed otherwise. taking his knife from his pocket, he handed it to tsan ti and the latter went into the barn. he reappeared in a few moments, and sam wing, freed of his ropes, accompanied him. harsh words in chinese broke from tsan ti's lips. he talked for perhaps two minutes steadily, the harshness leaving his voice as the torrent of speech flowed on. when he had finished, he reached into his alligator-skin pouch, brought out some money, and placed it in sam wing's hand; then, sternly, he pointed toward the road. "what a fool!" growled grattan. "why didn't he send the thief over the road?" muttered pardo. "speak to me about this!" cried mcglory. "looks like there was a few things we could learn from the chinks," pondered banks. "you're right, mr. banks," said matt. "tsan ti is the right sort, and i'm glad i did what i could to help him. let's start for catskill--i suppose martin is back there, by this time, and wondering what has become of joe and me. ready for new york in the morning, joe?" "i'm ready," was the prompt response, "but will we go?" "i believe we will," said matt, climbing into the roadster. "we've seen the last of the hoodoo. get in, tsan ti, and we'll hit it up between here and catskill. you're to ride with me." the end. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, october 2, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. hudson and the northwest passage. a short time ago the newspapers announced that a feat which for four hundred years stout ships and bold crews have been attempting had been accomplished by a little norwegian vessel of forty tons and seven men. long ago, the news would have thrilled the harbors of england and holland with joy and keen expectancy. coming in the twentieth century, it has created little sensation. perhaps, of all those who read the announcement, only the few to whom "the northwest passage" was a name full of history and heroism and romance realized what an interesting achievement had been made. for the practical value of the discovery had long since been discounted, and no "merchant adventurer" of the present day would have sunk half his fortune in equipping an expedition to solve the riddle that puzzled the brains of the men of long ago. for the search for the northwest passage was from the first a business affair. it was a mercantile question. the whole inquiry arose out of a trade competition between the northern and southern seafaring nations. this was the situation: spain and portugal had been first in the field, as regards over-sea discovery; they had found the way to the treasure house of asia, and the unspoiled riches of the new world. the portuguese held the monopoly of maritime trade with india--the venetians had long governed the overland route, and grown wealthy thereby--and the spaniards looked upon south america as their private property. of the two, the spanish settlements on the american coasts with the mines behind them drew the eyes of the adventurer, who secured his prizes at the sword's point, but asia was the more tempting to the trader. the former dreamed of the sack of opulent cities; the latter dreamed of bustling wharves, and barter, and english ships coming home laden with spices and silks, the peaceful spoils of the market place and the tropical forest and the shark-haunted seas. how to reach india "by a quick route, without crossing the sea paths of the portuguese and the spaniards," this, in a word, was the origin of the long and arduous search for the northwest passage. it was the general belief that america was an island, but the size and shape of it was still only imperfectly known. that there was a water way round the southern end of the great continent had been proved by magellan, who, in his voyage round the world, had passed through the straits that bear his name. the question now was, did a similar waterway exist at the northern end? they believed that america tapered to a point northward, as it did southward. they little realized how the northern continent spread itself out into the cold arctic seas, and with what a network of islands and ice floes it ended. and so they sent out ships to search for a water way through those inhospitable seas, and the first to go was an englishman, martin frobisher. greatly did he dare. we in these days of perfectly appointed ships, built of steel and driven by steam, can appreciate the hardihood of this hero and his crews, setting forth in two tiny craft of twenty-five and twenty tons burden, respectively, to solve the riddle of the northern seas! they sailed away--queen elizabeth herself waving them adieu from the windows of her palace at greenwich--on june 12th, 1576, and a month later they were off the coast of greenland. then came stormy weather. a pinnace with her crew of four was sunk, and frobisher found himself alone--one ship among the never-ending ice. for his consort had gone home, discouraged by the forbidding outlook. but almost immediately after this disappointment there came a gleam of hope. he beheld what appeared to be a passageway trending westward. it seems that this is still called frobisher bay. as he sailed through he thought that he had asia on one side and america on the other. it was but a happy delusion. the projecting corner of asia was far away; he was only abreast of what has since been named baffin's land. frobisher's second voyage, made in 1577, was rather a gold quest than a journey of discovery. a lump of stone (probably iron pyrites) had been brought home by one of the sailors as a souvenir of the first voyage. the particles of gold in it fired the fancies of some londoners with the idea that eldorado might perhaps, after all, be among the northern ice. so frobisher's ships went out again, and brought home something like 200 tons of the black stone. a third time they made the voyage, no less than fifteen ships taking part in the expedition, the object of which was to establish a sort of settlement for the working of the supposed "gold mine." but nothing came of the attempt. bewildering fogs and perilous storms and threatening icebergs beset the puny fleet; sickness followed hard upon the exposure and privations long endured by the poor fellows who manned it, and at last the scheme was abandoned. yet in this disappointing third voyage frobisher had unknowingly come very near the discovery which originally he had in view! for, in the words of the writer before quoted, "the truth was that frobisher's foremost ships had got farther to the south than was realized, and unwittingly he had discovered what is now known as hudson's strait--the sea gate of that very northwest passage on which his waking and sleeping thoughts so long had brooded." he had been carried some sixty leagues up the strait, but as he knew nothing as to whither it led he reaped no advantage. several years went by without another attempt being made to solve the problem, of the northwest passage, but at last, in the summer of 1585, some english merchants planned a fresh expedition. two ships were fitted out--one the _sunshine_, of london, fifty tons; the other the _moonshine_, of dartmouth, thirty-five tons. the command was intrusted to a young devonshire sailor, captain john davis, whose name is familiar to all schoolboys who have drawn maps of the northern parts of north america. though the records of the voyage abound with incidents relating to the various encounters that davis' men had with spouting whales and basking seals, uncouth eskimos, and polar bears, the actual achievements of this expedition were not great. the ships traversed part of what is now called davis strait, and went some way up cumberland gulf, but by the end of september they were back in dartmouth. davis set forth again, next summer, with three ships and a pinnace. the latter and one of the ships were dispatched up the east coast of greenland, while the commander, with the two other vessels, sailed northwest. he got as far as hudson strait and farther. and in a third voyage he reached a headland not far from upernavik. the hardihood and pluck displayed in these attempts to penetrate the ice-encumbered seas were splendid, but the results did not throw much light on the question of how to get northwest by sea to the indies. soon after this the kindred question of a northeast passage forced itself upon the seafaring people of holland, and the city of amsterdam fitted out four ships, and sent them forth under william barents, in the june of 1594. the story of this and subsequent expeditions cannot, however, be told here, though it is full of heroism and strange adventures. it was the idea of a northeast route which first laid hold of henry hudson, the intrepid englishman whose name figures so prominently on the map of north america. like barents, he made his way to nova zembla, but, baffled by the seemingly insuperable difficulties to the eastward, he turned westward in his third voyage, and again when he set forth on his fourth and last voyage. some of his men were evidently less stout of heart than their commander, and when there began to be real prospects of being caught in the ice, the spirit of mutiny got the upper hand. on june 21st, 1610, with a cowardice that was happily in strange contrast to the usual behavior of english crews, it was decided to get rid of the captain. next morning he and his little son, a loyal-hearted sailor (the ship's carpenter), and half a dozen sick and helpless members of the crew, were put over the ship's side into one of the boats, and left to their fate. the years went by. other expeditions were fitted out and sent northward, but the old reasons for finding out the northwest passage were fast disappearing. the portuguese monopoly of the sea-borne trade with india and the supremacy of spain on the ocean highways were things of the past. the ships of other nations had no longer to skulk past these aforetime kings of the sea. arctic exploration went on, but the idea of reaching the north pole was beginning to take the place of the idea of "making" the northwest passage. that old problem, however, was in prospect of being solved by the attempts made to solve the former. so that by the year 1853 collinson was able to sail so far that he came within fifty-seven miles--a mere pin prick on the map--of accomplishing the northwest passage. finally, in 1906, the passage, which, like a mountain tunnel, had been worked at from both ends, was penetrated from one opening to the other by the little _gjã¶a_, a norwegian sloop of forty tons, which sailed from christiania on june 1st, 1903. she was under the command of captain roald amundsen, of that city, and his right-hand man was lieutenant godfred hansen, of the danish navy; the crew numbered seven. she had not been built with a view to arctic work, so that before she went north into the realm of the ice king she had to be fortified somewhat. an ice sheathing of two-inch oak planks added greatly to her resisting power, and her petroleum motor of 13 horse power enabled her, when she put to sea, to attain a traveling speed of three knots in smooth water. but the _gjã¶a_ trusted chiefly, like the stout little barks of other days, to the skillful handling of her sails. the winters of 1903 and 1904 were spent in harbor on the shores of king william's land. only the premature closing in of the ice prevented the little vessel from achieving the passage in 1905. the death bite. "well, ed, let us hear from you to-night. you are always talking of strategy, flanks, and other soldiering knickknacks. now tell us a story." the boys drew their chairs about the roaring fire, which cast its ruddy glow about the room, while without the north wind held revelry in the branches of the trees. ed looked over the top of his paper, and smiled. "what's that you say, bib? i can't tell much of a story." ed drew his chair to the fire. a chorus of supplications came from all parts of the room, and ed laid aside his paper. "in the early spring of 1863 we were encamped near the pamunky river, about the time they were undermining the enemy's fort on the other side of the river. one rainy night a party of us were formed and marched out. it was well known the enemy was not far off, and i felt anything but pleasant. the rain poured down in a deluge, and we picked our way through the woods by the blinding flashes of lightning which now and then illumined the forest. the heavy rains had transformed the ground into a swamp. near the edge of the forest we halted and separated in squads of five. "by good luck i had charge of one squad. from under our overcoats we drew our spades and waited for the rain to slack. "'now, ed,' said the lieutenant, 'you take your men and select a spot and dig a rifle pit, and if anything comes in your way bang away at it, for things are getting hot.' "a few minutes more and the lieutenant and his party were gone. between two huge trees we began to dig, and in a few hours we had finished our pit. the boys tumbled in and all were soon asleep, except barry; he was a down-easter and had been through most of the campaigns. "the rain ceased falling, and no sound reached us save the pattering raindrops as the wind dislodged them from the trees. "i had scarcely taken forty winks, when barry poked me in the ribs. i awoke immediately. "'look there!' he whispered. "i looked over the pit and saw a small light swaying to and fro. i thought at first it was a will-o'-the-wisp. "'will i fire at it?' asked barry. "'you know your orders, don't you?' i replied. 'let us both fire at it.' both of our muskets were shoved over the top of the pit, and taking a hasty aim, we fired. "a loud yell followed the reports, and we saw the light fly upward and fall to the ground; then all was darkness, and the same quietness returned. "'i wonder is he dead?' was the question that arose; and then the boys returned to their corners and slumbered on. "soon the faint gray streaks of morning began to light up the east; and as i felt very thirsty i took my canteen, and clambered out of the pit, and started off. a few minutes' walk brought me to a small creek, and i filled my canteen and stooped to drink. the snapping of a twig caused me to look up; and my hair fairly raised, for not two yards from me stood a powerful man dressed in gray; he had pistols, a musket and an ugly-looking toothpick. a low chuckle came from his lips, and i gave myself up for lost, as i had not even so much as a penknife with me. in my eagerness to get water i forgot all. the confederate seemed to read me through, for he said: "'well, yank, have you got enough water?' "i managed to say 'yes'. "'well,' he said, 'get away from here, and think yourself lucky.' "it did not take me long to get away from that spot. then i noticed, for the first time, that our pit was dug on the top of a little hill. a few yards off on the other side of the creek stood a large barn. i could see forms walking about from where i now stood. the man i had met walked toward the barn. the boys in the pit saw him, and the muzzles of their guns frowned over the top in a minute. at that moment a detachment of men came to relieve us. they had hardly reached us, when from behind the barn a party of soldiers hove in sight, dragging a small fieldpiece, and in a moment more a crashing iron ball came tearing in our midst. with whoops and yells the enemy dashed on our little party, and we were soon engaged hand to hand. i felt myself hurled to the ground and a hand tightening about my throat. then the fear of death stole upon me, and the strength of a hercules took possession of my limbs. i turned my assailant over and placed my knee on his breast. "in vain i looked about for something to put an end to the struggling man whom i held, but could find nothing. in his belt i saw the handle of a knife. i seized it with one hand, but in doing so my grasp relaxed upon his throat, and before i could prevent it he had my finger in his mouth, and his teeth closed upon it. i fairly howled with pain and drove the knife into his heart several times. his jaws grew rigid in death and his teeth cut slowly to the bone and partly bit that, too. how i yelled! if it had been taken off at once the pain would have been nothing, but being bitten slowly off was intense. i had to pry open his jaws with the knife to get my finger out of his mouth." ed paused and the boys crowded about him, and the second finger was minus an inch. we all dispersed that night thinking there has been many an adventure that befell the brave boys of which the public will never know anything. migration of rats. in nearly all countries a seasonal movement of rats from houses and barns to the open fields occurs in spring, and the return movement takes place as cold weather approaches. the movement is noticeable even in large cities. more general movements of rats often occur. in 1903 a multitude of migrating rats spread over several counties of western illinois. they were noticed especially in mercer and rock island counties. for several years prior to this invasion no abnormal numbers were seen, and their coming was remarkably sudden. an eye-witness to the phenomenon informed the writer that as he was returning to his home by moonlight he heard a general rustling in the field near by, and soon a vast army of rats crossed the road in front of him, all going in one direction. the mass stretched away as far as could be seen in the dim light. these animals remained on the farms and in the villages of the surrounding country, and during the winter and summer of 1904 were a veritable plague. a local newspaper stated that between march 20 and april 20, 1904, f. u. montgomery, of preã«mption, mercer county, killed three thousand four hundred and thirty-five rats on his farm. he caught most of them in traps. in 1877 a similar migration occurred into parts of saline and lafayette counties, mo., and in 1904 another came under the writer's observation in kansas river valley. this valley for the most part was flooded by the great freshet of june, 1903, and for about ten days was covered with several feet of water. it is certain that most of the rats in the valley perished in this flood. in the fall of 1903 much of the district was visited by hordes of rats, which remained during the winter, and by the following spring had so increased in numbers that serious losses of grain and poultry resulted. no doubt the majority of the so-called migrations of rodents are in reality instances of unusual reproduction or of enforced migration owing to lack of food. in england a general movement of rats inland from the coast occurs every october. this is closely connected with the closing of the herring season. during the fishing the rodents swarm to the coast, attracted by the offal left from cleaning the herring, and when this food supply fails they hasten back to the farms and villages. in south america periodic plagues of rats have taken place in parana, brazil, at intervals of about thirty years, and in chili at intervals of from fifteen to twenty-five years. these plagues in the cultivated lands follow the ripening and decay of the dominant species of bamboo in each country. the ripening of the seed furnishes for two or more years a favorite food for rats in the forests, where the animals multiply greatly; when this food fails they are forced to the cultivated districts for subsistence. in 1878 almost the entire crops of corn, rice, and mandioca in the state of parana were destroyed by rats, causing a serious famine. an invasion of black rats in the bermuda islands occurred about the year 1615. in a space of two years they had increased so alarmingly that none of the islands was free from them. the rodents devoured everything which came in their way--fruit, plants, and even trees--so that for two years the people were destitute of bread. a law was passed requiring every man in the islands to set twelve traps. in spite of all efforts the animals increased, until they finally disappeared with a suddenness which could have resulted only from a pestilence. some great catastrophes. "it is the general opinion that earthquakes constitute the most terrible of the world's catastrophes, both as regards loss of life and destruction of property," says an english writer. "this, however, is not so. the convulsion in southern italy killed not less than two hundred thousand people, and in this respect it is easily the most dreadful occurrence of its kind. the historic lisbon earthquake, which ranks next below it in regard to the number of fatalities, caused fifty thousand deaths in that one city alone and about an equal number elsewhere. the south american one of 1867 was responsible for thirty thousand. that which destroyed aleppo in 1822 slew twenty thousand. these are the four worst earthquakes concerning which anything like reliable statistics are obtainable, and the total combined loss of life, it will be observed, did not, at any rate, exceed three hundred and fifty thousand. "but when the yellow river burst its banks in september, 1887, more than seven million people were drowned in the resultant great flood, which covered to an average depth of six feet a populous chinese province the size of scotland. thus, in this one catastrophe, more lives were lost than in all the earthquakes recorded in the world's history. then, again, there is pestilence. the black death killed in china, where it broke out, thirteen million people; in the rest of asia, twenty-four million, and thirty million in europe, or sixty-seven million in all. in india alone, and that within the past twelve years, bubonic plague has slain over six million people, and the epidemic still rages. "famines run plagues a close second. the one that raged in bombay and madras in 1877 slew five million people; and that which prevailed in northern china in the same year, and which was due to the same climatic causes, cost nine million five hundred thousand lives." latest issues motor stories the latest and best five-cent weekly. we won't say how interesting it is. see for yourself. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. 25--motor matt's reverse; or, caught in a losing game. 26--motor matt's "make or break"; or, advancing the spark of friendship. 27--motor matt's engagement; or, on the road with a show. 28--motor matt's "short circuit"; or, the mahout's vow. 29--motor matt's make-up; or, playing a new rã´le. 30--motor matt's mandarin; or, turning a trick for tsan ti. 31--motor matt's mariner; or, filling the bill for bunce. 32--motor matt's double-trouble; or, the last of the hoodoo. 33--motor matt's mission; or, the taxicab tangle. tip top weekly the most popular publication for boys. the adventures of frank and dick merriwell can be had only in this weekly. =high art colored covers. thirty-two pages. price, 5 cents.= 691--dick merriwell's dandies; or, a surprise for the cowboy nine. 692--dick merriwell's "skyscooter"; or, professor pagan and the "princess." 693--dick merriwell in the elk mountains; or, the search for "dead injun" mine. 694--dick merriwell in utah; or, the road to "promised land." 695--dick merriwell's bluff; or, the boy who ran away. 696--dick merriwell in the saddle; or, the bunch from the bar-z. 697--dick merriwell's ranch friends; or, sport on the range. 698--frank merriwell at phantom lake; or, the mystery of the mad doctor. 699--frank merriwell's hold-back; or, the boys of bristol. 700--frank merriwell's lively lads; or, the rival campers. 701--frank merriwell as instructor; or, the skill of the wizard. 702--dick merriwell's cayuse; or, the star of the big range. 703--dick merriwell's quirt; or, the sting of the lash. 704--dick merriwell's freshman friend; or, a question of manhood. nick carter weekly the best detective stories on earth. nick carter's exploits are read the world over. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 652--the green box clue; or, nick carter's good friend. 653--the taxicab mystery; or, nick carter closes a deal. 654--the mystery of a hotel room; or, nick carter's best work. 655--the tragedy of the well; or, nick carter under suspicion. 656--the black hand; or, chick carter's well-laid plot. 657--the black hand nemesis; or, chick carter and the mysterious woman. 658--a masterly trick; or, chick and the beautiful italian. 659--a dangerous man; or, nick carter and the famous castor case. 660--castor the poisoner; or, nick carter wins a man. 661--the castor riddle; or, nick carter's search for a hidden fortune. 662--a tragedy of the bowery; or, nick carter and ida at coney island. 663--four scraps of paper; or, nick carter's coney island search. 664--the secret of the mine; or, nick carter's coney island mystery. 665--the dead man in the car; or, nick carter's hair line clue. 666--nick carter's master struggle; or, the battle with the man-monkey. 667--the airshaft spectre; or, nick carter's shrewd surmise. _for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_ street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york =if you want any back numbers= of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. fill out the following order blank and send it to us with the price of the weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =postage stamps taken the same as money.= ________________________ _190_ _street & smith, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city._ _dear sirs: enclosed please find_ ___________________________ _cents for which send me_: tip top weekly, nos. ________________________________ nick carter weekly, " ________________________________ diamond dick weekly, " ________________________________ buffalo bill stories, " ________________________________ brave and bold weekly, " ________________________________ motor stories, " ________________________________ _name_ ________________ _street_ ________________ _city_ ________________ _state_ ________________ a great success!! motor stories every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of motor matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the tip top weekly. matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them. _here are the titles now ready and those to be published_: 1--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. 2--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. 3--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier. 4--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet." 5--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air ship; or, the rival inventors. 10--motor matt's hard luck; or, the balloon house plot. 11--motor matt's daring rescue; or, the strange case of helen brady. 12--motor matt's peril; or, cast away in the bahamas. 13--motor matt's queer find; or, the secret of the iron chest. 14--motor matt's promise; or, the wreck of the "hawk." 15--motor matt's submarine; or, the strange cruise of the "grampus." 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. 25--motor matt's reverse; or, caught in a losing game. 26--motor matt's "make or break"; or, advancing the spark of friendship. 27--motor matt's engagement; or, on the road with a show. 28--motor matt's "short circuit"; or, the mahout's vow. to be published on september 6th. 29--motor matt's make-up; or, playing a new role. to be published on september 13th. 30--motor matt's mandarin; or, turning a trick for tsan ti. to be published on september 20th. 31--motor matt's mariner; or, filling the bill for bunce. to be published on september 27th. 32--motor matt's double-trouble; or, the last of the hoodoo. price, five cents at all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price. street & smith, _publishers_, new york _for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_ street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york =if you want any back numbers= of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. fill out the following order blank and send it to us with the price of the weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =postage stamps taken the same as money.= ________________________ _190_ _street & smith, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city._ _dear sirs: enclosed please find_ ___________________________ _cents for which send me_: tip top weekly, nos. ________________________________ nick carter weekly, " ________________________________ diamond dick weekly, " ________________________________ buffalo bill stories, " ________________________________ brave and bold weekly, " ________________________________ motor stories, " ________________________________ _name_ ________________ _street_ ________________ _city_ ________________ _state_ ________________ a great success!! motor stories every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of motor matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the tip top weekly. matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them. _here are the titles now ready and those to be published_: 1--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. 2--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. 3--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier. 4--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet." 5--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air ship; or, the rival inventors. 10--motor matt's hard luck; or, the balloon house plot. 11--motor matt's daring rescue; or, the strange case of helen brady. 12--motor matt's peril; or, cast away in the bahamas. 13--motor matt's queer find; or, the secret of the iron chest. 14--motor matt's promise; or, the wreck of the "hawk." 15--motor matt's submarine; or, the strange cruise of the "grampus." 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. 25--motor matt's reverse; or, caught in a losing game. 26--motor matt's "make or break"; or, advancing the spark of friendship. 27--motor matt's engagement; or, on the road with a show. 28--motor matt's "short circuit"; or, the mahout's vow. to be published on september 6th. 29--motor matt's make-up; or, playing a new role. to be published on september 13th. 30--motor matt's mandarin; or, turning a trick for tsan ti. to be published on september 20th. 31--motor matt's mariner; or, filling the bill for bunce. to be published on september 27th. 32--motor matt's double-trouble; or, the last of the hoodoo. price, five cents at all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price. street & smith, _publishers_, new york transcriber's notes: added table of contents. italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=. page 3, changed "come, on then" to "come on, then." page 4, added missing period after "asked pardo." page 7, corrected "mat" to "matt" in "matt continued to sit." corrected "let's some one else" to "let some one else." page 8, corrected typo "mardarin" in "bluff us out of helping the mandarin." page 9, corrected "mat" to "matt" in "matt and i will put the kibosh." page 13, corrected typo "tellling" in "no telling when the pallavering." page 14, corrected typo "folowing" in "excitement following bunce's discovery." corrected typo "gardenvile" in "between the spring and gardenville." page 15, expanded ligature in "manoeuvre." ligature is retained in html version. page 18, corrected typo "flutering" in "fluttering his hand reassuringly." corrected "spiritsails" to "spritsails." page 21, corrected typo "your'" in "while you're tied up." page 23, corrected typo "boad" in "marsh on one side of the road." page 25, added missing period after "kept at his work." page 29, removed unnecessary quotes around paragraph beginning "they believed that america tapered..." [illustration: he had insisted upon the two women dancing for his amusement] the motor pirate by g. sidney paternoster with a frontispiece by charles r. sykes new york * * * * * a. wessels company * * * * * * mcmvi _copyright, 1904_ by l. c. page & company (incorporated) * * * * * _all rights reserved_ contents chapter page i. mainly about myself 1 ii. the compton chamberlain outrage 9 iii. wherein i meet the pirate 21 iv. concerning my rival 36 v. the colonel dreams and i awaken 48 vi. i am arrested 59 vii. i make friends with inspector forrest, c.i.d 71 viii. murder 81 ix. explains a mysterious disappearance 92 x. describing a ride with the pirate 104 xi. in which the pirate holds up the brighton mail 113 xii. how we exchange shots with the pirate 123 xiii. of the advantages of being wounded 135 xiv. a cloud appears on love's horizon 145 xv. a clue at last 155 xvi. i commit a burglary 165 xvii. storm 176 xviii. in which the pirate appears in a frolicsome humour 187 xix. a hot scent 196 xx. relates how the pirate holds up an august personage 207 xxi. we plan an ambush 218 xxii. gone away 228 xxiii. saved 240 xxiv. revelations 249 the motor pirate chapter i mainly about myself of course every one has heard of the motor pirate. no one indeed could help doing so unless he or she, as the case may be, happened to be in some part of the world where newspapers never penetrate; since for months his doings were the theme of every gossip in the country, and his exploits have filled columns of every newspaper from the moment of his first appearance until the day when the reign of terror he had inaugurated upon the roads ended as suddenly and as sensationally as it had begun. who the owner of the pirate car was? whence he came? whither he went? these are questions which have exercised minds innumerable; but though there have been nearly as many theories propounded as there were brains at work propounding them, so far no informed account of the man or his methods has been made public. nearly twelve months have now elapsed since he was last heard of, and already a number of myths have grown up about his mysterious personality. for instance, it is not true, as i saw asserted in a sensational evening paper the other day, that the motor pirate was in the habit of abducting every young and attractive woman who happened to be travelling in any of the cars he held up. on only one occasion did he abduct a lady, and in that case there were special circumstances with which the public have never been made acquainted. his deeds were quite black enough without further blackening with printer's ink, and it would be a pity if the real motor pirate were lost sight of in mythical haze such as has gathered about the name of his great prototype, dick turpin. it has occurred to me, therefore, to tell the story of his doings--it would be impossible for any mortal man to give an absolutely detailed account of his life and actions--but i know more than the majority of people about the personality of the man. of one thing my readers may be assured: i personally can vouch for the accuracy of every fact which i chronicle. you see i am not a professional historian. how it happened that i am in a position to give hitherto unknown particulars about the motor pirate will appear in the course of my narrative. sufficient for the moment let it be for me to say that it was purely by chance that the opportunity was thrown in my way; though, as it happened, it was not entirely without my own volition that i became involved in the network of events which finally resulted in the tragedy which closed his career. by that tragedy the world lost a brilliant thinker and inventor, though unfortunately these great talents were accompanied by an abnormal condition of mind, which led the owner to utilise his invention in criminal pursuits. it may probably seem strange that, being in possession of facts as to the identity of this mysterious person, i did not lay them before the police, who, at any time during the three months of his criminal career, would have given their ears to lay him by the heels. you may even think it is their duty to take proceedings against me as an accomplice. well, i am quite prepared to answer any question which the police, or any one else for that matter, desires to put to me. james sutgrove, of sutgrove hall, norfolk, is not likely to change his address. when my poor old governor died he left me sufficient excuse, in the shape of real estate, for remaining in the country of my birth; though, if the necessity had arisen, i should not have hesitated about going abroad. at twenty-five, my age within a few weeks, a man has usually sufficient energy to enable him to carve out a career for himself in a new country, and i do not think i am very different to my fellows in that respect. but the fact is, i have nothing to fear from the police. my criminality was less than theirs. an ordinary citizen may be forgiven if he is blind to the meaning of things which occur under his nose, but the police are expected to be possessed of somewhat sharper vision. the utmost that can be urged against me is, that if my eyes had been keener than those of scotland yard, reinforced by the trained vision of some hundreds of intelligent chief constables throughout the country, i might have been able to lay my hands upon the motor pirate before--but i must not anticipate my story. one word of apology, however, before i begin. in order to make my narrative fully intelligible i shall have to refer to matters which may seem of a purely personal nature. i will make these as brief as possible, but it was entirely through such that i was brought into closer touch with the motor pirate than, perhaps with one exception, any other person in the world. if therefore i seem to be devoting too much attention to what appears to be merely personal interest, i trust i may be excused. to begin, then, at the beginning. * * * * * on the evening of march 31, 19--, i had arranged to dine in town with a couple of friends, both of them neighbours of mine. i am not going to mention the name of the restaurant. it was not one of the fashionable ones, or probably neither the cuisine nor the wines would have been so good as they were, though both would unquestionably have been more expensive. i prefer, therefore, to keep the name to myself. it was in the neighbourhood of soho, however, and the reason i had invited my friends was in order to disabuse their minds of the idea that everything in that neighbourhood was of necessity cheap and nasty. i had determined that their palates should be charmed by the dinner they were to eat, so, in addition to sending a note to the proprietor, i thought it as well to arrive at the restaurant a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, in order to make assurance doubly sure that everything was as i desired it. had my guests been casual acquaintances, i must confess that i should never have taken this trouble. but they were not. one of them was the renowned colonel maitland. i never heard anything about his war service, but i do know that as a gastronomist his reputation is european. the cool way he will condemn an _entrée_, presented to him by an obsequious waiter, merely after casting a single glance upon it, speaks volumes for his critical insight; and as for wines--well, he can tell the vineyard and the vintage of a claret by the scent alone. i verily believe that were he to be served with a corked wine, the result would be instant dissolution between his gastronomic soul and body. naturally i had to make some preparations, in order that such delicate susceptibilities should not be offended. in addition, i had a special reason for seeking to please him. colonel maitland had a daughter. i have only to mention the name of my other guest to reveal his identity to every one with any knowledge of the motoring world. it was fred winter, _the_ fred winter, leading light of the automobile club, holder of more road records than i can count, in fact the most enthusiastic motorist in the country. it was in consequence of this, indeed, that he came to be my guest. there were few questions in regard to motoring upon which winter was not competent to give an opinion, and being myself a victim to the prevailing motor-mania, i was deeply indebted to him for many valuable tips. by this time i had passed my novitiate, and was still driving a neat little 9½-h.p. clément in order to fit myself for a more powerful and speedy car. i arrived then at the restaurant about a quarter to eight, and having had a brief but satisfactory interview with the proprietor, i made my way to the table i had reserved in my favourite corner of the dining-room. finding i had ten minutes to spare, to kill time i ordered a vermouth and the evening papers. the _globe_ was the first upon the pile the waiter brought to me, and following the example of most sane men, i skipped the parliamentary intelligence and turned to the "by the way" column. i remember distinctly there was only one amusing paragraph therein, and i was about to throw the paper aside, with the customary lament as to the decadence of british humour, when my attention was arrested by a paragraph at the bottom of the next column. the heading was "strange highway robbery." this was the paragraph:-"our plymouth correspondent reports a novel highway robbery on the road between tavistock and plymouth. two gentlemen who had been for a run on their motor to tavistock, left the latter town about eight o'clock last night. their journey was uneventful until they reached roborough, where they were suddenly overtaken by a motor-car occupied by a man, who presented a pistol at their heads, and ordered them to stop. thinking that the stranger merely intended to scare them, and that the summons was only an ill-advised piece of pleasantry, they paid no attention to the demand; whereupon the driver of the strange car, with a well-directed shot, so damaged the machinery of their vehicle that they were compelled to obey. their attacker then demanded all the money and articles of value they had in their possession under threat of completely wrecking their car, and after securing his booty the highwayman decamped. in consequence of the damage to their motor, it was not until late at night that they reached plymouth, and were enabled to give particulars of the occurrence to the police. from their description of the stranger's vehicle, identification should not be difficult. it is a long, low, boat-shaped car of remarkable speed, and from the little noise it creates is probably driven by an electric motor. as to the personal appearance of the driver, the gentlemen who were robbed could form no opinion, for he wore the usual leather coat affected by tourists, and his head was completely enveloped in a hood." on reading this paragraph, my first impulse was to lay aside the paper and indulge in a hearty laugh. my impression was that some wag had been hoaxing either the plymouth correspondent or the london editor of the _globe_. however, my curiosity was sufficiently aroused to lead me to take up another paper, to see if the _globe_ was the only paper which reported the occurrence. the next paper on my pile was the _star_, and the moment i unfolded the pink sheet, i perceived that this liveliest of evening journals was not going to be left behind by the _globe_ in providing the public with particulars of the latest sensation. under the heading of "a motor pirate," with descriptive headlines extending across a couple of columns, and as attractively alliterative as the cunning pen of a smart sub-editor could make them, was the account of a similar incident. at first i thought it must be the same occurrence, but a brief perusal showed me that this impression was a wrong one. but i will give the _star_ account in full, and i do so the more readily, not only because it contains the first detailed account of the man whose extraordinary audacity was shortly to raise the interest of the public to fever pitch, but also because it tells the story with a force and colour of which my unpractised pen is incapable. apologising therefore to the editor for the liberty i have taken, i reprint the _star_ account verbatim. i think, however, the story deserves a new chapter. chapter ii the compton chamberlain outrage "a motor pirate "takes toll of travellers in the west. "a veiled stranger on a mysterious motor flies "the black flag near salisbury. "on receipt of the following extraordinary story from the central news agency this morning, the _star_ at once sent a representative to make inquiries on the spot. his inquiries reveal the existence of a new terror to all who travel by road. following are the facts communicated to us by the agency:-"'a daring highway robbery was committed near salisbury late last night. the victims were two gentlemen who had been touring in the west country by motor. they had intended to reach salisbury early yesterday evening, but were delayed by a puncture. when about eight miles from salisbury they were attacked by the occupant of another car, who wrecked their vehicle, and, after robbing them of all their valuables, decamped, leaving them badly injured by the wayside. there they were discovered some time afterwards and removed to the nearest inn at compton chamberlain, where they remain under medical attendance.--_central news._' "the _star_ special correspondent wires:- "compton chamberlain, 12.30. "there is no doubt but that the motor pirate has a real existence. on arriving at salisbury i at once proceeded to make inquiries as to what was known of the outrage, but salisbury generally was sceptical on the subject. i found, however, that the affair had been reported at the county police office; and i at once drove on here, and am now in a position to assert that this quiet wiltshire village has been the scene of the most astounding robbery of modern times. it is safe to prophecy that in a few more months dick turpin will be forgotten. he has a rival in the field whose exploits will soon relegate him into comparative obscurity. "the first visible evidence of the outrage was afforded me about a quarter of a mile from compton. the road dips here slightly, and at the end of the incline a motor-car was drawn to the side of the road, or rather the remains of what had once been a smart daimler of some 7 or 8 h.p. a stonebreaker was at work on an adjacent pile of flints, and when i alighted to examine the wreck, he nailed me with, 'hoy, mister! ye'd better leave thick thur car alone. the p'lice be comin' to tek un up zhortly.' "i gathered from him that he had been told to keep an eye upon the car, but beyond having heard that the owners had met with an accident, he knew nothing. there was no doubt about the accident. the car was so broken up that it looked as if it had been in collision with an armoured train. "compton chamberlain, 2.45 p.m. "i have just succeeded in interviewing the owner of the motor-car, a mr. james bradshaw, of 379, maida vale. his companion was mr. gainsborough roberts, of 200, clapham common. mr. roberts is suffering from severe concussion, and has not regained consciousness; but fortunately mr. bradshaw's injuries, though painful, are not dangerous, and he has been good enough to give me a full account of his unique adventure. it seems the two gentlemen had been touring in the west country for ten days, and were on their way home. they stopped the previous night at exeter, leaving about ten in the morning with the intention of reaching salisbury about five or six yesterday evening. they lunched at ilminster, and afterwards had traversed another twenty-five miles of their journey when one of their tyres unfortunately punctured. this was shortly after they had passed through wincanton. when the tyre was mended, something went wrong with the electric ignition, and altogether the repairs proved such a tedious job that they could not make a fresh start until close upon lighting-up time. "the delay had not troubled them, for the weather was beautifully fine. as, however, they were very hungry, they determined to stop at shaftesbury for dinner before finishing the day's run they had mapped out. there is a particularly long hill into shaftesbury, and they did not reach that town until 8.30. at the hotel they met another party of motorists, and, agreeing to dine together, it was not until after ten that they found themselves once more on their way, with twenty miles of a hilly road to cover. the lateness of the hour did not trouble them much. they had wired to salisbury for rooms; the night was fine and clear; a bright moon was shining; the roads were clear of traffic, and their motor was guaranteed to do its thirty-five miles an hour. they thought that it would be a good opportunity to find out what mr. bradshaw's car was really capable of doing on a hilly track. "mr. bradshaw declares that he had never enjoyed a run more than he did on this occasion. a brisk wind was blowing behind them, they found there was more downhill than up, the road was absolutely clear, and they were able to take the declines at a pace which took the sting out of the ascents." "so for twenty minutes they ran at full speed, and after slowing to pass through a village, they had just put on full speed again when mr. bradshaw's attention was arrested by a curious humming sound which appeared to arise from something behind. he was, of course, unable to glance back, as all his faculties were engaged in driving the car; but mr. roberts, whose attention was attracted at the same moment, informed him that another motor-car was coming up behind. then, to quote mr. bradshaw's own words, 'thinking the other chap was on for a race, i did everything i knew to get every ounce out of my motor. but,' he continued, 'though i'll swear we were running nearer forty than thirty-five, the other fellow swooped up and passed us as if we were standing still.' "for the moment he thought that the stranger was one of those american speed motors specially built for racing on the track, but only for a moment. the strange car slackening speed, allowed them to come alongside. what followed may be best described in mr. bradshaw's own words. "'there was only one occupant of the strange car, and, seeing him slacken speed, i naturally thought he wished to speak to us. so, as he came level, i shouted to him, my exact words being, if i remember aright, "hallo, sir! you've got a flyer there." i fancied i heard a chuckle from beneath his mask (he wore a hood covering the head fitted with a mica plate in front) and he replied, "yes; i fancy my car is fast enough to overtake anything that is to be found on the road." there was something in his tone that struck me as peculiar, but i merely attributed it to the motorist's pride in his car. as however he said nothing further, but continued to keep alongside, in a manner that looked as if he were inclined to gloat over the owner of a less speedy machine, i asked with some little irritation, "is there anything i can do for you, because if not----" he did not allow me to finish my query. "yes, sir," he replied promptly, "there is something i am going to ask you to do for me," and he gave another of his infernal chuckles. "'"well, what is it?" i demanded, with a little warmth. "'"i must request you to hand over all your money and valuables to me," he replied. "'i could not believe my ears. i was so astonished that i gave the wheel a turn that nearly landed us in the ditch. will you believe it? even in that swerve the strange car followed mine, and when i had got her straight in the road, i heard him chuckle again. his manner angered me beyond bearing. "'"what the deuce do you mean?" i shouted. "'"there's no need for you to lose your temper," he answered coolly. "i must, however, trouble you to stop that car at once." "'as he spoke he raised his hand, and i saw the barrel of a revolver glisten in the moonlight. there seemed to be only one way out of the predicament, for i thought i had to deal with a madman, and i took it. i pretended to be so alarmed that i fell over the steering wheel, and made my car swerve again. but this time we swerved towards, instead of away from, the stranger. i doubt whether there was light enough for him to have read my intention in my face, but it was obvious that he anticipated my move, for his car shot forward with such wonderful speed that the fate i intended to force upon him befell myself. i saw his car disappearing ahead, and the next moment i was just conscious of a shock that sent me flying into oblivion. "'exactly how long i remained unconscious i do not know, but when i came to my senses i found myself lying on the grass at the roadside, having fortunately been thrown on the soft turf. roberts was lying unconscious on the road; the car was smashed to bits; our pockets had been turned inside out, and our money, watches, and every article of value we had about us, taken. needless to say, the stranger had disappeared.' "mr. bradshaw was not in a state to be of much assistance to his more badly injured friend, and he was at a complete loss as to what course to pursue, when a trap coming from salisbury fortunately made its appearance on the scene. assistance was procured, and the two injured gentlemen were conveyed to compton, and medical attention quickly provided. though much shaken, and badly bruised, mr. bradshaw has sustained comparatively little injury. mr. roberts, however, is dangerously ill, and his relatives have been telegraphed for. "as regards the appearance of his assailant, mr. bradshaw can give few particulars, save that he was clad in a large leather motoring coat, and his face completely hidden by a mask. the car can, on the contrary, be easily identified. it is boat-shaped, running to a sharp, cutting edge both in front and behind. the body is not raised more than eighteen inches from the ground. the wheels are either within the body, or so sheathed that they are completely hidden. it has apparently seating accommodation for two persons, the seat being placed immediately in the centre of the car. mr. bradshaw is quite convinced that petrol is not the motive force used for its propulsion, and as he cannot imagine that an electric motor of any kind was employed; the rapidity of motion, the perfection of the steering, the absence of noise and vibration, are so remarkable that he is utterly at a loss as to what build of car was driven by the stranger." i had just finished reading this extraordinary story when i felt a tap on the shoulder, and, looking up, saw colonel maitland standing before me. "'pon my word, sutgrove," he remarked, "i have never before seen any one so completely enthralled in a newspaper in my life. i've been standing watching you for nearly a minute." i sprang to my feet, and held out my hand. "what's the latest from mr. justice jeune's division? when you come to my years of discretion you will be more interested in the _menu_." i laughed. "it was not the inanities of the divorce court, colonel," i remarked; "but the most astonishing----" he checked me with uplifted hand. "being a rational being," he said, "i prefer my stories with my cigar. one should come to dinner with a calm mind." at this moment winter entered the room, and, giving a signal to the waiter, the _hors d'oeuvre_ were placed before us as he seated himself at the table. when he had greeted me i had observed that colonel maitland's face had worn a slightly resigned expression that reminded me of a picture i had seen somewhere of christian martyrs being led to the stake. he took a mouthful of caviar and the cloud lifted. after the soup the dominant note of self-sacrifice had vanished entirely. with the fish his features attained repose. when we reached the _entrée_ his face had the radiance of a translated saint's. then, with my mind at rest as to the effect of my little dinner upon my chief guest, i found time to devote a little attention to winter. yet, bearing in mind the colonel's objection to anything but light generalities during the serious business of dinner, i forbore to introduce the topic i was burning to discuss with him. not until the coffee was upon the table, and colonel maitland had expressed his contentment with the dinner, did i venture to refer to it. then, while our senior was dallying with an early strawberry, winter gave me a lead. "by the way, sutgrove," he said, "what's this i saw on the evening paper bills about a motor pirate?" i told him. his interest was awakened to such an extent that he forgot to taste the glass of port which stood before him, and which i had ordered out of compliment to the colonel's ideas of what was desirable. when my story was concluded winter was silent. colonel maitland, however, hazarded the remark that the whole narrative was "a concoction of some of those newspaper fellows. i have been at the war office," he said, "so i ought to know of what they are capable." "i can scarcely imagine that any newspaper would dare hoax its readers to such an extent," remarked winter. "they are capable of anything--anything," replied the colonel, vigorously. "i have known them on more than one occasion to attack even my department." "that of course is scandalous," i replied warmly; "but here the conditions are different. they are referring to people who are able to reply if the facts are not as stated. in your case your mouth, of course, was closed." "umph!" growled the colonel. "at the same time," said winter, "it may very well have happened that consciously or unconsciously the papers have been made the victims of a practical joke. to-morrow is the first of april, remember. or even apart from the joke theory, the event happened after dinner, and mr. bradshaw may have found it necessary to be prepared with an explanation of his accident." "but the robbery?" i objected. "a passing tramp may have thought the opportunity too good to be neglected." "at all events," i persisted, "it is curious that two similar accidents should have occurred the same night in the same part of the country." "certainly the coincidence is remarkable," answered winter. "but do not forget that the two occurrences took place at least a hundred and thirty miles apart within less than three hours of one another. i will swear that no motor yet built would cover those roads inside three hours. i know them. no, sutgrove. the moral seems to me to be that it is unwise for a motorman to look upon the wine when it is red, if he wants to get anywhere afterwards." the colonel stretched his hand across the table and removed the glass which stood on the table before winter. "my young friend," he observed, "you have, i believe, undertaken to bring me safely home to-night?" "you need not fear," replied winter, laughing, "it's only the liquors supplied at country inns which drive motor-cars into ditches." the colonel replaced the glass with a smile and refilled his own from the cradled bottle at his elbow. "i am merely a passenger, but you drive," he remarked. "i think, sutgrove, under the circumstances, i will be responsible for the remainder of this bottle. it is endowed with certain qualities which particularly recommend themselves to me. it would be a sad thing if an accident were to befall us on our journey. in times of stress such as these one never knows when the war office may not require the services of a capable man." though the colonel spoke in jest, in the event his words indicated with a fair amount of accuracy the destination of the port, for while we continued to discuss every point in the story, he sipped and sipped and nodded his head beatifically. i did not replenish my glass, but when we rose the bottle was empty. "well, colonel, what do you say to a music hall?" i asked. "my boy," he replied, as he patted me on the back, "i sleep far more comfortably in my bed." i realized where the contents of the bottle had gone by the sententiousness of my friend's phrasing, the slight turgidity, so to speak, of his articulation. "my dear boy," he continued, "i have never known you until this moment. you are greater than columbus. any one might discover a new continent, but in these days it needs exceptional qualities of enterprise and endurance to discover a fresh restaurant. i am content. let us go home." we donned our overcoats and came into the open air. winter's motor was waiting at the door in charge of a man from the _garage_ where he had left it. we stepped in. chapter iii wherein i meet the pirate we were soon out of the narrow soho street, and i observed that the time was just half-past ten as winter steered us carefully through piccadilly circus. colonel maitland occupied a seat behind while i sat beside winter. the car my friend drove was a magnificent 22-horse daimler, built to his own specification and capable of doing considerably more than any car i had hitherto been privileged to ride upon. of course while passing through the streets there was little chance of exhibiting its capabilities. yet even there, the way the car glided in and out of the traffic, delicately responsive to the slightest touch of the steering wheel, was sufficient evidence of its quality to set the most nervous passenger at ease. as it was as yet too early for the after theatre traffic to fill the streets and compel us to stop every few minutes, we followed the main road up oxford street as far as the marble arch. there we turned to the right. once clear of the narrow part of the edgeware road, winter put on his second speed and a very few minutes seemed to have passed before we were bumping over a rough bit of roadway by cricklewood. "there's not much of this," said winter, cheerily over his shoulder to the colonel. our gastronomic friend merely grunted for reply, and i should have thought him to be asleep had not the red glow of his cigar assured me that he was still awake. winter jammed on his third speed and the hedges began to fly past us. we were in the country now and were able to appreciate the fineness of the night. indeed it was a perfect night. the air was sharp but without sting. the moon shone with a clear brilliance which betokened rain in the near future. the road was clean and dry, and there was no dust in the air except the thin cloud which floated behind us. we passed the welsh harp without a check, and not until we reached edgeware did winter revert to his second speed. we ran through the little town with only momentary slackening of pace, and so we sped onwards until we opened the stretch of road leading to brockley hill. here winter, seeing the road clear ahead, jammed on his highest speed and the wheels droned like a hive of bees as we darted towards the incline. we were half way up the hill before winter found it necessary to transform his speed into power, and we finished the ascent with ease. then once more the order was third speed, and we whirled away through elstree and passed through radlett a bare half hour from the time we started. just at this time i looked back to see how colonel maitland fared. his cigar no longer glowed, though it was still tightly held between his teeth. his head was bent forward, and the regular and gentle murmur which came from his nose proclaimed that he slept. i had just mentioned the fact to winter, and had turned again to assure myself that he was comfortably wrapped in his rug, when i thought i saw on the road behind me another car. "hullo!" i said to winter. "there's another chap coming on behind us. without lights, too!" a slight bend in the road shut out the view, however, and made me doubt whether or no my eyes had been deceiving me. "pooh!" replied winter. "we've passed nothing on the road, and at the pace we've been travelling there's not another car owned in this district we should not have left miles behind us, even if it had started at the same time as ourselves. you must have mistaken some of the shadows from the trees. how much of that port did you drink?" i laughed, but as we had now reached a straight stretch of road i looked back again. "i'm right," i said. "there is another car, and by jove! it's coming up hand over fist." "what?" shouted winter. "what?" he clearly did not appreciate the idea of being overtaken by any one, for he whipped on his highest speed and jammed down the accelerator. the change was enormous. our powerful car, relieved from all restraint, simply leaped through the air. winter gave a pleased laugh as he steadied her with the wheel. "if the stranger can catch us now i shall believe it's the motor pirate himself," he remarked in a pleased tone, that showed how proud he was of his own car. our progress was so exhilarating that i wanted to shout defiance to the stranger; yet i was so fascinated with the pace we were travelling, that i could not take my eyes from the road which uncoiled before us. suddenly a humming sound forced itself upon my ear. for a moment i thought it was due to the whirr of our own wheels. then it struck me that the note was a higher one. i half turned. the other car was within a yard or two of us. in another second it was level and, running without any visible vibration, indeed, without any noise save the snore of the wheels as they raced round, the stranger slackened speed and ran by our side. winter cast a hasty glance at the strange car, and i saw him bite his lip with annoyance at finding his daimler so outpaced. one glance at the stranger was enough to tell me with whom we had to deal. in the brilliant moonlight, the boat-shaped car with its sharp prow, the almost invisible wheels, the masked occupant, assured me that the evening papers had not been the victims of a hoax. "it's the motor pirate himself," i said to winter, and my voice was hoarse with excitement. "motor pirate be d----d!" replied winter. what more he would have said i do not know, for at this moment the stranger turning his mask towards us called out in the most urbane manner-"i must trouble you gentlemen to stop that car." winter at the best of times is of rather a peppery disposition, and whenever any one requires him to pull up, his temper invariably gets the better of his manners. his reply was an unnecessarily verbose, and needlessly forcible negative. i heard the stranger chuckle. "i really must trouble you to obey my wishes," he replied, with ironic courtesy. "otherwise i shall be compelled to do some damage to that car of yours, a proceeding i always try to avoid if possible." "do what you please," was in effect winter's luridly adjectived answer. "if you do not pull up within thirty seconds your fate will be upon your own heads," said the stranger, shortly, as he laid his hand upon a lever. his car leapt away from ours, and though we were running nearly sixty miles an hour, we might have been standing still, he dropped us so rapidly. in fifteen seconds he had vanished in a cloud of dust ahead. "i'm going to stop," said winter, abruptly. he suited the action to the word, and none too soon. again we heard the curious drone of the strange car as it swooped down upon us, coming to a sudden halt a yard distant, with really beautiful precision. "what do you want?" shouted winter, in his gruffest tones. "i'm glad to find you have had the wisdom to do as i desired you," said the motor pirate; for it was indeed he with whom we were now face to face. "it would have deeply grieved me to wreck so good a car as that you have there. a daimler, i believe?" "oh, d----n your compliments! what is it you want?" growled winter. "merely any articles of jewellery and any money you may happen to have about you," remarked the stranger, pleasantly. i saw the moonlight glitter on the barrel of a revolver as he spoke, and he now lifted the weapon and pointed it towards us. "i do not wish to proceed to extremities, and, as i gather from your speech that i am dealing with gentlemen"--really winter's language had fully warranted the sarcasm--"if you will give me your word of honour that you will hand over to me all articles of value in your possession, i will leave your car untouched. if, on the contrary, you decline to oblige me, i shall be under the disagreeable necessity of ruining that very handsome car you are driving. i do not like to hurry you, but i am afraid i must ask you to come to a speedy decision on the matter, for these roads in the vicinity of london are not quite so secluded as one of my profession could wish." he delivered this speech with an air of mock politeness, which made winter writhe. he did not, however, reply. i think he was too angry. "come, gentlemen! make up your minds. your money or your--car!" he made a slight pause before he said the word "car," and his fingers played with the revolver in a manner that sent a cold shiver down my spine. "it's his turn now," i whispered to winter. "it may be ours presently." "come, come, gentlemen!" said the stranger again; "do you give me your words?" "d----n you! i suppose we must," jerked out winter, almost inarticulate with rage. "each of you will dismount in turn and lay the contents of your pockets before me here." he indicated a level shelf, which formed apparently part of the casing of one of the wheels. "i must insist upon seeing the linings of your pockets; and i need hardly warn you that it will be extremely undesirable for you to make any movement liable to misconstruction. this toy"--he lifted his pistol--"has a very delicate touch. now, gentlemen. one at a time, please, and do not wait to discuss the question of precedence. i am quite willing to overlook any little informality." i listened closely to his speech, but the voice was so muffled by the mask he wore, that i felt i should be unable to recognize it again. only one point i was assured upon--that the pirate was an educated man. meanwhile what were we to do? all sorts of wild plans were darting through my brain, and i knew that winter's mind must be equally active. but out of the medley no coherent scheme took shape. winter dismounted, and, throwing off his overcoat, advanced into the brilliant circle of light cast by our lamps, and proceeded to empty his pockets. he laid his note-case, his watch and chain, and sovereign-purse upon the car in front of the highwayman, and, in obedience to a further command, added the diamond which shone upon his little finger, and another which adorned his shirt-front, to the pile. then he resumed his place in the car, and i passed through a similar humiliating ordeal. all the while the stranger kept up a flow of apologies for the inconvenience which his necessities compelled him to occasion us. i kept silence, though i must confess the effort was a considerable strain upon my temper. still, a pistol with a business man at the butt end of it, is of considerable assistance in preventing the exhibition of annoyance. "if the other gentleman will make haste, i shall be the sooner able to relieve you of my unwelcome society," the pirate remarked, as i returned to our car after handing over all the valuables in my possession. in the excitement, i had, until this moment, entirely forgotten the presence of colonel maitland; and now, looking closely at him, i discovered that he was still in happy ignorance of the _contretemps_ which had befallen us. swathed in rugs, he was propped up on the seat behind us slumbering peacefully. a smile was upon his rosy face, and ever and again he smacked his lips. he must have been dreaming of a finer vintage than ever terrestrial vineyard produced. "what the deuce can we do?" i asked winter. "hullo, colonel!" shouted my friend. "what's the matter?" inquired the pirate. "does your friend refuse to acknowledge the compact?" "i'm afraid he can hardly be said to be a party to it," i replied. "he has dined, and now he sleeps." "well, you will awaken him less roughly than i shall," was the retort. "any one who knows colonel maitland is aware that he is exceedingly annoyed if awakened from his after-dinner nap," i urged. "colonel maitland? colonel maitland the gourmet?" "you know him?" said winter. the pirate laughed pleasantly. "i have met him on one occasion, and, as some slight return for a very excellent dinner which he ordered, and for which--doubtless by an oversight--he left me to pay, i will not trouble you to awaken him on this occasion. i wish you good evening, gentlemen." as he finished speaking he backed his car for a few yards. his hand moved to a lever. the car turned. he waved the hand which was disengaged, and in a moment he was gone, attaining at once a speed, which, until then i had thought it impossible for a motor-car ever to achieve. both winter and i sat stock still, gazing after the fast disappearing car. we could not watch it for long; as in fifteen seconds it was out of sight, and even the dust-cloud it had raised in its progress had cleared. then winter turned to me and muttered a few expletives gently in my ear. i followed his example and we both felt better, at least i think so; for, without rhyme or reason, winter burst into a fit of laughter, and i followed his example, though i cannot explain now, any more than i could have done then, why i laughed. when we had done laughing, winter turned to me and said-"sutgrove, old fellow, would you mind punching me? i'm not quite sure whether it is the colonel who is asleep or myself. i feel as if i have just awakened from dreaming of the story those newspapers printed." "it's not much of a dream," i remarked. "i little thought that we were to have the good fortune of so early an introduction to the motor pirate, however. the colonel will be quite cross to think that his bottle of port prevented the renewal of an old acquaintance." then winter laughed again. i think he saw the amusing side of our adventure more clearly than i did, for i said sharply-"hadn't we better be getting on to st. albans, and giving information to the police?" "h--m--m!" he answered meditatively. "i think perhaps we had better not." "not?" i replied in surprise. "in the first place it is after dinner," he said. "what of that? we dined wisely." "one of us knows nothing about it." winter jerked his thumb in the direction of the slumbering warrior. "we could hardly explain the reason why the colonel slept so soundly through the adventure. the explanation could hardly please him, would it?" i muttered an assent. "besides," continued winter, "for three of us to admit that we tamely allowed ourselves to be held up by one man, and forced to hand over to him all our valuables, well it--er--it hardly seems heroic, does it? that wouldn't create a very favourable impression upon miss maitland either." i was compelled to agree with him. "i think perhaps we had best keep the matter to ourselves. i have no desire to provide another sensation for the evening papers to-morrow." "at any rate i'm not going to sit down quietly under my loss if you are," i responded irritably. "that's another matter altogether," replied winter, as he set our car in motion once more. "i did not say that i was going to grin and bear it either." "what do you propose?" i cried eagerly. "that is a question we will discuss over a whisky and soda, when we have deposited the colonel safely at home;" and he refused to say anything further. our car was once more put at full speed, and in five minutes we reached the cross-roads on the outskirts of st. albans, where the road to watford makes a junction with that on which we had come from town. here winter pulled up, and, much to my surprise, dismounted and made a careful examination of the road by the light of our lamps. "i just want to see in which direction the fellow went," he answered, in reply to my inquiry as to the meaning of his action. he was still engaged on the task when we heard in the distance the regular beat of a petrol motor approaching us on the watford road. "if it's another pirate, he won't get much plunder," i remarked. "that's no pirate," replied winter, as a couple of lights came into view. "cannot you recognize the rattle of mannering's old car? i should know it anywhere. he will be able to tell us if any one has passed him on the road." as soon as the new-comer came within range of his voice, winter hailed him. "that you, mannering?" "hullo, winter! got a puncture? can i be of any assistance?" was it indeed mannering's voice, or were my ears deceiving me? the intonation was remarkably like that of the stranger, who so short a time previously had bade us stand and deliver, that i sprang to my feet with an exclamation of astonishment. my eyes at once convinced me that my ears had played me false. there was no mistaking mannering's lumbering old car for the graceful shape of the motor pirate's vehicle. i resumed my seat, taking my nerves seriously to task for generating the suspicion, if suspicion it could be called, which had flashed across my mind. if anything further had been needed to dispel it, the reply vouchsafed to winter's query as to whether he had met any one on the road would have done so. "met any one?" said mannering; "i should think i have. met the most wonderful motor i've ever seen, about a couple of miles back. 'pon my soul, i'm not sure even now whether it was not a big night bird, for it just swooped by me with about as much noise as a humming-top might make. it must have been travelling eighty miles an hour at least. reckless sort of devil the driver must be too. he hadn't a single light. i suppose his lamps must have been put out by the rapidity with which he was travelling. never had such a scare in my life. i'd like to meet the johnny. i'd welcome an opportunity of telling him what i thought of his conduct." "so should i," replied winter, grimly; "and i fancy sutgrove would not be averse to a meeting with him." "why, what has he been doing?" asked mannering. "it's too long a story to tell you now," said winter, as he climbed back into his seat; "but if you will come up to my place as soon as you have put your car to bed, i'll tell you all about it." "right!" sang out mannering, as we once more set out upon our homeward way. we had not much further to go. in two minutes we had pulled up at colonel maitland's door. i leaned back and shouted, "here we are, colonel," in the slumbering warrior's ear. "eh! what--what?" he replied, as he awakened with a start. "when are we going to start?" "start? why we've brought you safely home to your own threshold," said winter. "'pon my soul! i remember now," he answered. "i just shut my eyes to keep the dust out of 'em, and---you will come in for a peg, of course," he continued, as he emerged from the rugs in which he had been enveloped. i glanced at the windows. there was only a light in the colonel's study. if there had been another in the drawing-room, i should have accepted forthwith. as it was, i merely said that i could not think of disturbing miss maitland. "pooh!" said the colonel, with the usual callous disregard of the mere father for his children's beauty sleep. but he did not press the invitation. indeed it was with difficulty he succeeded in repressing a yawn. "i'll call to-morrow, and get a considered opinion upon my soho house of entertainment," i remarked, as the colonel opened his door, and paused at the entrance to bid us a final good night. "glad to see you," he replied, as he grasped my hand and shook it warmly. "but of one thing you may rest assured. so long as that bin of port holds out, your house of entertainment may count upon me as a regular customer whenever i dine in town." "opium isn't in it," commented winter in a low voice, as he set the car in motion and wheeled out of the drive. "how he could have slept so soundly through it all absolutely beats me." i did not reply. my attention was concentrated upon one of the upper windows, at which i thought i had seen a form i knew very well make a brief appearance. but we left the window and house behind us. winter's place was only about a hundred yards further up the road. chapter iv concerning my rival "now, jim, dip your beak into that, and let me see if it will not restore to your classic features their customary repose." so saying, winter handed me a stately tumbler, and the mixture was so much to my liking that i felt an involuntary relaxation of my facial muscles immediately i obeyed the command. i stretched myself at length in the easy chair which i had drawn up before the fire, and felt able to forgive even the motor pirate. we were alone in the apartment which winter called his study, but since the only books he read therein were motor-catalogues, and the lounges with which the snuggery was furnished were much more conducive to repose than to mental exertion, i refused to acknowledge its claim to the title. that, by the way. the fire was burning brightly. winter's red, rugged, honest face was beaming with almost equal radiance. who could help feeling happy? then mannering was announced, and mannering was a man i had learned to passively dislike. why, i scarcely knew. i was aware of nothing against him. indeed, when six months previously, on my first coming to st. albans, i had been introduced to him, i had been rather favourably impressed. he was a tall dark man of thirty-five, with more than the average endowment of good looks. he could tell a good story, had shot big game in most parts of the world, was well-read, intelligent, possessed unexceptionable manners, and yet---well, winter had none of his various qualifications, but i would at any time far rather have had one friend like winter than a hundred like the other man. i had first made his acquaintance at colonel maitland's house, where i had found him on an apparently intimate footing. perhaps it was this very intimacy which formed the basis for my dislike, for--there is no need to mince matters--at this time i was jealous, horribly and unreasonably jealous, of every male person who entered the colonel's house. and here, perhaps, it will be better for me to explain how it happened that i came to be living in a cottage on the outskirts of st. albans in preference to my own house in norfolk. the change in my residence had been entirely due to a tennis party at cromer. there i met evie maitland. she was---no, every one can fill in the blank from their own experience for themselves; and if they cannot, i pity them. fortunately i had an aunt present. she was the most amiable of aunts, and quite devoted towards her most dutiful nephew. with her assistance, i managed not only to improve my acquaintance with miss maitland, but also to effect an introduction to her father. i had only known them a week, however, before the colonel took his daughter back to st. albans. i allowed an interval of a fortnight to elapse, and then i followed. of course i had to be prepared with some excuse, and here luck favoured me. looking through the directory i discovered that winter, whom i knew slightly as having been up at camford about the same time as myself, was also a resident in the delightful st. alban's suburb of st. stephens where the maitlands resided. i sought out winter. i confided my story to him. the upshot of it all was that i took a cottage close to his house, and not far from the colonel's, ostensibly that under winter's tuition i might develop into a first-class motorist. somehow i found that i made a great deal more progress with my motoring than with my love-making. surely a more bewitching, tantalizing, provoking little beauty than evie maitland never tore a man's heart to fragments. if she was kind to me one day, she would be still kinder to mannering the next. but that is neither here nor there. anyhow, i heartily wished him out of the way, for there was no doubt whatever that randolph mannering was a much more attractive person than my insignificant self. his mere advantage in age counted for something; but i could have forgiven him that, had he not made use of the years to see so much and do so much, that he could not help appearing in the light of a hero to a girl who was just at the worshipping age. and he knew so well how to get the fullest value out of his experiences. he never paraded them, i must admit that much in his favour. he was far too clever. an anecdote here and there to illustrate some point in the conversation, a modest account of some thrilling adventure, in which he hardly ever mentioned the part he had personally played, produced a much greater effect than if he had gone about trumpeting the deeds he had done and the dangers he had survived. he had, too, the advantage of a much longer acquaintance with the maitlands than myself. i learned from the colonel that mannering had been living in a house whose garden adjoined his own for a year before my arrival on the scene. his life, until the colonel had recognized him as an acquaintance he had made at the house of a friend some years before, had been that of a recluse, the object of his retirement being to perfect some mechanical invention upon which he was engaged. he had soon developed into a friend of the family, and i had found him firmly installed as such when i made my appearance at st. albans. naturally then i was none too pleased that winter had proposed to take him into our confidence, but i made no absolute objection. i sat smoking quietly while winter told the story of our adventure. he listened most attentively. "it's a most extraordinary story," he remarked, when the narrative was concluded. "you are quite sure neither of you touched any of that port?" winter turned one of his pockets inside out with an expressive gesture. "wine may rob a man of his wits," he replied, "but it does not relieve him of fifty pounds in notes, six in gold, a watch and chain worth fifty, and a diamond which has been valued at a hundred." "the numbers of the notes should enable you to trace the thief," said mannering, thoughtfully. winter laughed. "the fact is, i am such a careless beggar. i always carry notes about with me, replenishing my case when necessary; and really i have nothing to tell me whether those notes i had in my possession were the last batch i had from the bank, or odd ones left over from previous consignments. they may have been in my case for months." "both winter and i could identify our watches," i hazarded. "of course," replied mannering, "if your motor pirate is fool enough to attempt to pawn them you may get the chance; but if he sells them to a receiver, they'll go straight into the melting pot." winter lit a cigarette and mannering turned to me. "what was the extent of your loss?" "ten in gold, thirty in notes, and say thirty for my watch. my loss is comparatively light." "you know the numbers of your notes, i suppose?" he inquired, as he lit a cigarette in turn. "yes," i replied, "i'm not quite so casual as winter." "there's some clue for the police to work upon, then." "it might prove to be so, only winter thinks we show up so badly in the whole affair that he won't hear of my giving information." "the fact is," said winter, "maitland slept soundly through the whole affair, and it wouldn't be sporting to give him away." "i see----" began mannering. winter deftly changed the subject. "what puzzles me," he said, "is the kind of motor the fellow employed to propel his car. i know of nothing at present on the market anything like so effective. i've seen 'em all." "your loss doesn't seem to trouble you much, anyhow," commented mannering. "i would willingly give a hundred times as much for a duplicate of that motor. i should be pretty sure to get my money back once i put it on the market." "if there's all that value in it, why should the owner go in for highway robbery?" i asked. "that's just what i fail to understand," said winter. "from what i could see of it, our friend the motor pirate is possessed of an ideal car, graceful in shape, making no noise, running with a minimum of vibration and a maximum of speed. why, there's a fortune in it." "of course it is quite impossible that the motive power can be electricity?" remarked mannering, gazing into the fire as if he could see a solution of the mystery therein. "quite out of the question. any one who has the slightest knowledge of motoring would know it to be impossible, even if the pirate had devised a storage battery which would knock edison's latest invention into a cocked hat. but supposing he had achieved the feat, remember that, according to the newspaper reports, he was at plymouth yesterday at dusk, near salisbury at eleven the same evening, and holding us up on the confines of st. albans to night. he would be bound to get his batteries recharged somewhere and, with a car of such remarkable shape, how is he to do so without exciting remark? no; electricity is quite out or the question. i should be glad to think that the car was an electric one. his capture would only be a matter of a few hours." an indefinable expression, which might have been a smile, flitted across mannering's face. "i hope, for all our sakes, his motor is an electric one," he said. "at all events it should not be difficult to track a car of so singular a shape. if it were built on the same lines as yours or mine, for instance, the owner might go anywhere without attracting attention." "anyhow," i broke in, "until he is captured i'm going for a run every night with something that will shoot within easy reach. the next time i have the fortune to meet with him i hope i shall be in a position to get a bit of my own back." again a smile appeared on mannering's face as he exclaimed, "i almost feel inclined to follow your example. i have nearly forgotten how to use a pistol since i have resided in this law-ridden land." "surely you won't expose your experimental car to the chance of being rammed by the motor pirate," remarked winter, chaffingly. mannering's car was a stock joke with us. it was a particularly cumbersome vehicle, with heaven only knows what type of body. it might have been capable of twenty miles an hour on the flat, but that would be the extreme limit of its powers. "you fellows," he had explained to us one day, "have taken to motoring for the fun of flying along the high-roads at an illegal speed. i have taken to it for a more utilitarian purpose. i have my own ideas about the motor of the future, and i am working them out down here. my old caravan is heavy, perhaps, but i want a heavy car. it's most useful for testing tyres, and that is one of the special points engaging my attention. besides, in this car i am not tempted to get into trouble with the police. twelve miles an hour is quite fast enough for all my purposes." both winter and myself had frequently asked him how he was progressing with his work, but as he had never returned us any but the vaguest of answers, nor ever invited us into the workshop which had once formed the stables of the house where he resided, we had thought that his story of being engaged in mechanical invention merely an excuse for getting rid of unpleasant visitors. i think we were both surprised when he answered winter's chaff quite warmly. "i should not at all mind exposing my car to any risk if i could get the opportunity to examine the motor pirate's car. if the truth must be told, from what i have seen of his car, and what you have told me, i am rather inclined to think that whoever designed it has forestalled me in an idea which i had thought quite my own. i have long been working to produce a car which would run at least a hundred miles an hour without noise or perceptible vibration." "couldn't you get it completed in a week?" interrupted winter. "we might have a most exciting chase after our friend." mannering shook his head. "i've been absolutely floored on one detail, and if that fellow has solved the problem----" shrugging his shoulders, he rose and held out his hand to winter. i followed his example. "i had no idea that you had anything so important on the stocks," remarked winter, as he accompanied us to the door. "nor would you have done so until you saw the perfect machine on the road, if it had not been for my chagrin at seeing that car to-night. of course i can count upon you both to say nothing of the matter." "on condition that you do not refer to our adventure again," said i, laughing. "agreed," responded mannering, as he smiled again. we both said good night to winter, and in spite of our host's efforts to persuade us to stay for another peg, i followed mannering out, declaring that i should never be able to face mrs. winter again if i kept him up any longer. i found mannering standing at the gate, and i paused beside him to glance at the sky, across which one or two fleecy clouds were hurrying from the west. the moon, brilliant as earlier in the evening, now hung low down over the horizon. the breeze had freshened, and we could hear it whispering amongst the trees. "we shall not be long without rain. if the pirate is still abroad he will leave tracks," said mannering. the beauty of the night held so much of appeal to me that i felt annoyed at the current of my thoughts being turned back to the topic. i answered shortly. my companion took no notice of my petulance. "you have always thought i cared nothing for speed," he remarked, "but you were mistaken. i thought i would keep my desires in the background until i had succeeded in perfecting a car which i knew it would be impossible to outpace. i could not enter into competition with longer purses than my own, and if i had bought the fastest car in the market somebody else would have bought one faster. but to-night---by jove! how i envy that motor pirate. imagine what the possession of that car means on a night like this, with the roads clear from john-o'-groat's to land's end. fancy flying onwards at a speed none have ever attempted. can you not see the road unwinding before you like a reel of white ribbon, hear the sweet musical drone of the wheels in your ears----" he stopped abruptly. he must have observed my natural amazement at the intensity of feeling which his speech displayed, for he observed in a lighter tone-"not being motor pirates, however, the next best thing is, i suppose, to go to bed and dream that we are." he turned on his heel and strode away in one direction, while i went in the direction of my own home. but i was in no hurry to get there. the night was too delightful. in the few hours which had elapsed since we had sat down to dine, a change had come over the face of the land. i could feel the presence of spring in the air, and all the youth in me awoke. the creatures of the earth felt it too. in the silence of the night i could hear the crackle of the buds as they cast off their winter coverings, hear the whisper of the grass, which the countryman declares is the sound of growing blades, hear the murmur of all animate things as they rose to welcome the springtide. my own heart leapt up with a renewal of hope. i stood awhile outside colonel maitland's door, and breathed a prayer that it might be my fortune to protect the fair inmate of the house from all harm through life. i strolled slowly to my own door, but i did not enter. moonbeams beget love-dreams when one is still in the twenties. back again to the colonel's house, back once more to my own. in all probability i should have continued my solitary sentry-go and my reverie until daybreak, had not my thoughts been sharply recalled to earth. on reaching my own doorway for the fifth or sixth time i had just turned, when i saw a black shadow on the road opposite the maitlands' house. one glance was enough; it was the motor pirate again, and i began to count. "one--two--," the car passed me, "three--four;" it had vanished round a turning of the road in the direction of st. albans. even what i had already experienced of the pirate had not prepared me for such an exhibition as this. what mannering had said about the delight of flying along an open road at a hundred miles an hour recurred to me. i had not deemed it possible. but i paced the distance between the colonel's house and the bend where the strange car had passed out of sight. the distance was just about two hundred yards, and it had been covered as near as possible in four seconds. the car must have been travelling just about a hundred miles an hour. i went straight indoors to bed. i am not ashamed to confess that i was not able to continue my dreams in comfort, while pacing the road, by the consideration of what would have happened to me had the motor pirate come along just two seconds before i happened to turn and see him. chapter v the colonel dreams, and i awaken i slept until late the next morning. i have always been accustomed to a clear eight hours' sleep, and, as i did not get between the sheets until about four in the morning, i naturally did not awaken until mid-day. so what with my tub and the necessity for shaving, my early morning call upon the colonel did not come off. i suppose, as a matter of fact, i sat down to breakfast just about the time when the gastronomic warrior was thinking of luncheon. however, when i saw how amply my expectation of a change in the weather had been fulfilled, i did not regret my lengthy sleep. from a sodden grey sky sheets of water were steadily pouring. there was not the slightest chance of any break in the clouds. consequently i felt assured of finding miss maitland at home if i made my call in the afternoon, and since her father oftentimes thought it expedient to take a little repose after luncheon in order to prepare himself for the fatigue of dining, it was possible that i might even be fortunate enough to secure a _tête-à-tête_ with her. i came to my breakfast, therefore, with as good a spirit as appetite, neither being in the slightest degree affected by the memory of the easy way in which i had been plundered by the motor pirate. of course i felt a certain chagrin. still, i could contemplate the adventure with a considerable deal more equanimity than i had managed to display the night before, though i found that my curiosity concerning him had, if anything, increased. i turned with eagerness to the morning papers to see whether they could add to my knowledge concerning him. as every one is aware, all the papers on the morning of the first of april that year devoted columns to his exploits. if i remember aright, the country was at that time engaged upon two of our usual minor wars, parliament was in the midst of an important debate upon the second reading of a measure to secure an extension of the franchise, and a divorce case of more than common interest was engaging the attention of the leading legal lights of the law courts. but all these things received but the scantiest notice. the war news was relegated to the inside pages, the parliamentary intelligence cut down to the barest summary, the _cause célèbre_ dismissed with such a paragraph as ordinarily serves to chronicle an unimportant police court case. the motor pirate had nearly a monopoly of the space at the editorial disposal. there was column after column about him. the plymouth robbery was reported in as great detail as the compton chamberlain affair, while there were particulars of two similar outrages committed at points between these two places. on running my eye over the reports i saw that they added nothing to what i already knew, and i wasted no time in reading the leaders on the subject. i was, however, extremely interested to find from one paper that winter and i had not been the only victims of the scoundrel's rapacity on the previous evening, for a brief telegram reported a similar occurrence a few miles from oxford on the london road. i at once sent my man to purchase any of the early editions of the evening papers which might have reached st. albans, in the hope that they might contain further particulars of these operations. i had finished my breakfast, and was enjoying a cigarette in my library, when he returned. i took the papers from him, and the first glance at one of them made me gasp with amazement. the news which startled me was all in one line--"five more cars held up by the motor pirate." i am not going into details concerning these. if you have a desire to refresh your memory all you have to do is to turn to any newspaper of the date i have named and you will be able to get them _ad nauseam_. but i will venture to give a list of the places where and the times at which the outrages took place, for i made a list of them in the hope that, by carefully studying it with the map, i might get some idea as to where he might next be expected to make his appearance. i found that at five minutes past nine he stopped a car some four miles from oxford. twenty minutes later he was robbing a lonely motorist midway between thame and aylesbury. then for forty minutes he appeared to have been idle, his next two exploits taking place within five minutes of each other, just after ten, in the neighbourhood of amersham. king's langley was the scene of his next adventure, the time given being about a quarter of an hour before he had overtaken us. in addition to the particulars of these robberies there were a host of reports from people who had seen the pirate car pass them on the road. but there was one notable omission from the latter list. not from a single town was there any record of the pirate having been seen passing through it. i got a map of the district, and, after studying the country carefully, i was fain to confess that one of two things was certain: either the motor pirate had the power to make his car invisible at will, or else he had a truly phenomenal knowledge of the bye-roads. how he had even managed to get to oxford, after his exploits in the west of england, without arrest, puzzled me. the car was so unique in shape that it seemed bound to excite observation. it could not have been put up at any hotel, any more than it could have been run through the country by daylight, without exciting remark and its presence being chronicled. what, then, had he done with it? the more i pondered the question the more puzzled i became, and at the same time the more determined to seek a solution of the mystery. but how? i made a dozen plans, all of which, upon consideration, appeared so futile, that i gave up the game in despair, and decided to see if my brain would not become clearer after i had paid my promised visit to colonel maitland. i did not find miss maitland alone, as i expected, or i might probably have been tempted to confide my experience to her, and to have asked the assistance of her woman's wit in putting me on the track of a solution to the mystery. mannering was with her. when i made my appearance in the drawing-room, and found him enjoying a _tête-à-tête_, i cursed myself for delaying my call and thus giving him such an opportunity. my temper was not improved either by the discovery that they were sufficiently engrossed in conversation to have been able very well to dispense with my presence. i did not feel called upon to leave mannering a clear field, however, so i joined in the discussion, and tried my hardest to be pleasant. of course, there was only one possible topic of conversation, the theme which was uttermost in every one's mind throughout the length and breadth of the land. it was a difficult subject for me to discuss, and in a measure it was a difficult subject for mannering, inasmuch as it was hard to refrain from reference to the personal experience we had had with the motor pirate. it became increasingly difficult, when a few minutes after my arrival colonel maitland joined us. "it was lucky for him he did not meet us, hey, sutgrove?" said the colonel. "you, winter, and myself, would soon settle a motor pirate, wouldn't we?" i muttered something which would pass for an assent, while mannering shot an amused smile in my direction. "i wonder though we saw nothing of him," continued maitland; "he must have been very near us last night." "he seems to have been everywhere," i answered. "he has the ubiquity of a de wet," said mannering. "i hope i shall have a chance of meeting him sometime," i continued grimly. colonel maitland chuckled. "heavens! what a fire-eater you are, sutgrove. one might almost take you for a sub in a cavalry regiment." i made no answer, and miss maitland remarked--"i think that is very unkind of you. you spoke of the motor pirate as if you owed him a grudge. i think we all ought to be supremely thankful to him for having made the wettest day we have had this year pass quite pleasantly." bear him a grudge? i should think i did, but at the same time, i had no intention of confessing the reason, so i said-"then we'll drink long life and prosperity to him the next time we have a bottle of that same port your father approved so highly last night." then i turned to the colonel, and made a clumsy attempt to turn the subject of conversation. "is your verdict upon my restaurant equally favourable to-day, sir?" colonel maitland's eyes twinkled. "i have nothing to regret. as for the port with which we finished, it seems to me the sort of stuff dreams are made of. do you know that the glass i drank--was it one glass or two?--gave me the most vivid dream i have enjoyed since my childhood?" "indeed! let's hear it, colonel," i replied. "do tell us," said his daughter, as she rose from her seat, and put her arms coaxingly round her father's neck. "do tell us like a real, good, kind, old-fashioned parent." the colonel passed his hand lovingly over his daughter's sunny hair. "sutgrove and mannering don't want to hear about an old fellow's silly dreams," he said. "besides, it was all about the motor pirate, and i can see that sutgrove for one is quite sick of the subject." i was, and i wasn't, but i speedily declared that i was not when i saw that his daughter was bent upon hearing the story. so he started upon a prosy description as to how the fresh air had sent him to sleep, not saying a word about the port, and i ceased to listen to him, preferring to devote the whole of my attention to his daughter, who had seated herself upon a footstool at his feet, and was looking up into his face with a pretty affectionate glance in her deep blue eyes, enough to set any one longing to be the recipient of similar regard. her form, attitude, expression, all made so deep an impression upon me, that i have only to close my eyes at any time to see her just as she was then--the little witch! she knew full well how to make the most of her attractions, and though she has often declared since to me that the pose was quite unpremeditated, i could never quite believe her. however that may be, i was so fascinated in watching her--there was one stray curl which lay like a strand of woven gold upon her brow. confound it! it's all very well for the fellow who writes fiction for a living to write about people's emotions. he is cold himself. if he were like me, and wished to describe his own feelings, he might find himself in the same difficulty as myself, and give up the attempt. the colonel's voice droned on. suddenly i awoke to the consciousness that he was speaking of me. i think it was the fact of his daughter looking at me which recalled me to attention. "sutgrove had just looked back to see if i was comfortable, when he saw another car on the road behind us. we had not long passed through radlett. you know the straight stretch of road just past the new dutch barn on the left----" my attention did not wander any more, and you may imagine my astonishment at hearing the colonel describe in minute detail everything which had befallen us upon the previous evening. he could tell a story when he liked, and on this occasion his description of the shamefaced manner in which winter had scrambled out of his car, and had handed over his valuables to the motor pirate, was so ludicrous that i was compelled to laugh at the description. when my turn came to be described, miss maitland and mannering were just as much amused, but i am afraid that my attempt to participate in their mirth was rather forced. when the story was done, miss maitland rose from her seat at her father's feet, and, putting a hand on each of his shoulders-"you dear, delightful old fibber!" she remarked. "i don't believe you dreamed that at all. you couldn't." then she wheeled round on me. "now tell me, mr. sutgrove, didn't that dream of father's really happen to you last night?" what course was open to me but confession? i admitted the truth of the story, and the colonel was so choked with merriment, that i feared lest he should be stricken with apoplexy. "the cream of the joke," he explained, when he recovered his powers of speech, "was that neither winter nor sutgrove had the slightest idea that i was foxing. i intended to inform them directly we were clear of the pirate; but when i heard them discussing the matter, and determining to keep silence out of tenderness for my reputation, i could not resist keeping up the joke." "i should think it was their own reputations they were thinking about," said his daughter. "to submit so tamely to one man is not a very heroic proceeding." i heard mannering chuckle, and i felt mad. but i fancy it was not mannering's amusement, but my own consciousness of the truth of the criticism that galled. colonel maitland came to my rescue. "i thought they were very sensible," he said. "even a cripple with a gun is better than six sound tommies unarmed." "sensible--yes," she replied scornfully. "but there are times when one prefers a little less sense, and a little more--shall we say action. i am sure you would not have obeyed so tamely?" she continued, turning to mannering. he smiled, and i felt as if it would give me exquisite pleasure to catch him by the throat, and twist the smile out of his dark, handsome face. "really, miss maitland," he replied, "you flatter me. you should not be too hard on sutgrove. i am sure that it was only the full comprehension of his own helplessness which prevented him making a fight of it. what could he have done?" "oh, a man should always know what to do!" she answered petulantly. "has any one ever tried to hold you up?" "well, yes," he answered. "once when i was out in the west of the states, some of the regulation bands tried the game on a train in which i was travelling. but then, you see, the conductor in the railway-car in which i happened to be seated had a six-shooter. so had i. the other passengers got as near the floor as they possibly could when the shooting began. i was in pretty good practice in those days, don't you know, so the other chaps didn't get much of a look in. we took the four they left behind them when they bolted on to the next station with us. three of them were buried there, if i remember aright." "there," said miss maitland, with an unmistakable look of admiration in her eyes; "i knew you were different." "but then i was armed. if i had not been, i should have been on the floor with the other passengers." in reply she merely gave him one glance. mannering returned it with one equally eloquent. i rose, and stalked to the window. to me mannering's championship was an aggravation which i could not bear. harder still was it for me to observe the understanding which obviously existed between him and miss maitland. hitherto i had imagined that i had as good a chance of winning her love as he had. but at this moment i felt that my hopes had been shattered. i think if i had remained a moment longer in the room, i should have been unable to restrain an impulse to knock some of the self-sufficiency out of my rival. i left. colonel maitland followed me out, and i heard him ask me to dine with him on the following day to wipe off the score he owed me. without thinking, i accepted. then i went out into the rain. chapter vi i am arrested as i went away from the maitlands' house i looked neither to the right hand nor to the left. where i went, whether i trudged along the high road or tramped across country, i have not to-day the slightest idea. i was so enveloped in my own misery, that i was absolutely blind to all external objects. i could think of nothing but my dead hopes. so onward i went, stumbling and splashing through the mud, cursing mannering, cursing the motor pirate, above all cursing myself for my own pusillanimity. why had i listened to winter? why should i have allowed myself to be persuaded to play the part of coward, merely that winter's car should have been saved from injury? for a long while my thoughts were as aimless as my progress, but gradually out of the incoherence one idea crystallized. it was not an idea to be proud of. my bitterness of heart produced the natural result, that was all--a burning desire to be revenged upon somebody. i contemplated revenging myself upon everybody who had anything to do with my discomfiture, upon mannering, upon colonel maitland, upon the motor pirate. finally my choice settled upon the person of the pirate as the most suitable object; for, next to myself, he was primarily responsible for my having made so contemptible a figure. of course the decision was absurd. decisions that are the outcome of any strong emotion usually are. but it fulfilled a useful purpose. it gave my mind something else to feed upon than contemplation of my own unhappiness. it brought me to myself. to-day i can laugh when i recall the childishness of my actions, the outcome of the unreasoned promptings of my puerile jealousy. for when i came to the conclusion to avenge my sufferings upon the motor pirate, i suddenly became aware that it was pitch dark; that i was in the middle of a field; that i was soaked to the skin; that the rain was still falling heavily; and that i had not the slightest idea where i was. however, i added one more to the acts of folly i committed that day: i solemnly held up my hands to the dripping heavens and registered my vow of revenge. then i pushed on again, but with my physical faculties on the alert to discover where i was. i began, too, to feel the discomfort of my position, and became sensible of a sneaking wish to be before a comfortable fire. i crossed two or three fields, and eventually coming to a road i followed it, and, after paddling through the mud half a mile further, i struck a village, and in the village an inn. when i opened the door and walked into the cheerful lamplight of the bar-parlour, the half-dozen occupants of the cosy little room stared at me with astonishment. well they might. i caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass behind the bottles--if you have ever seen a corpse fished up by the drags from a river bed, you will be able to form some idea of the appearance i presented--so that i did not resent their stare. in fact, i was not in a condition to be able to pay much attention to the curious glances of the villagers. the warmth of the room together with the sudden cessation of exertion were for the moment too much for me, and it was as much as i could do to stagger to the nearest chair. fortunately the landlord was a man with some modicum of common sense. i am quite sure that i should have been unceremoniously ejected from nine public houses out of ten. but mine host of the white horse--i learned afterwards that he had been whip to a well-known hunt in the west country--was able to distinguish between fatigue and drunkenness, and he came at once to my assistance. i heard him speak to me, but i was totally unable to respond. for a while indeed i must have verged upon unconsciousness, for the next thing of which i became aware was of a glass at my lips containing something sweet and strong. i sipped. then i drank. my consciousness returned. in a couple of minutes i could sit upright. the landlord was beaming at me with benevolent interest. "take another sup, sir," he said. "there's nothing like maraschino and gin when one is a bit overwrought. i've known many a gentleman in my part of the country who would take nothing else, after a hard day to hounds, to brace him up for those long ten miles home." i took another sup, and a good one. then my powers of speech returning, i asked where i was. i found i had not wandered nearly so far as i expected. i was barely six miles from my home--at king's langley; but this fact was no criterion of the distance i must have traversed in my mad frenzy, for i saw by the clock that the hour was ten. it was about five when i left colonel maitland's house, so that i had been pressing onward for five hours in as wild a night as any on which i have ever been abroad. i leaned back in my chair with the object of resting a few minutes before starting homewards. but, whether owing to the spirit i had swallowed, or to the heavy exertion i had undergone, or merely because of my intense mental fatigue, i felt drowsiness overcoming me so rapidly that i perceived it would never do for me to give way to it. pulling myself together i rose to my feet, at the same time thrusting my hand into my pocket for the money to pay for my drink. the mere act of rising, however, was almost too much for me. my body felt as stiff as if i had been beaten all over. only to move was absolute physical pain. i looked at the landlord. "i'm afraid i am more knocked up than i thought. can you manage a hot bath and a bed for me to-night?" i asked. he glanced at me curiously, and, after a moment's consideration, he replied-"i'll see what the missus'll say." luckily "the missus" said "yes," so ten minutes later i was sluicing hot water over my aching limbs with a stable sponge in the bath which, i suspect, did duty on ordinary occasions for the family washing. whatever it was, it did excellently well for my purpose. gradually a delicious feeling of relaxation stole over me. i tumbled between the sheets and was asleep even before my host entered my room to take away my soaked clothing to be dried. my sleep might have lasted one second. in point of fact i slept until nine o'clock the next morning, and should have continued to sleep if i had not felt a hand on my arm shaking me, and heard a voice bidding me arise. fancying i was at home, and that my man was calling me, i said, "all right, wilson," and turned over for another snooze. "now then, get up out of that!" said the voice. "none of your shamming! we are not to be put off that way." it was not wilson's voice. wondering what was happening, i sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes sleepily. "what the deuce----!" i began. then i stopped suddenly. a couple of constables in uniform stood at the bedside, and i gathered that it was the voice of the sergeant which had so rudely disturbed my slumbers. "what do you want?" i demanded. "you know well enough," replied the sergeant. "you make haste and dress yourself and come along with us." i thought my senses had deserted me. "what in the name of good fortune for?" i asked. "you're not going to kid us, my good feller," he answered. adding facetiously, "if we puts a name to it and calls it piracy on the 'igh road, i wonder what you'll 'ave to say to it, remembering, of course, that anything you do say will be taken down and used in evidence against you." then all that had happened flashed across my mind; my strange appearance and arrival at the inn; my peculiar manner; my possession of plenty of money; the curious glances of the village folk; the fact that somewhere in the vicinity the motor pirate had last been seen. under the circumstances, nothing could be more likely than that the bucolic intelligence should jump to the conclusion that i was the famous criminal. to me, however, the idea seemed so absurd that i fell into hearty laughter. my merriment seemed to annoy the sergeant, for he declared crossly that if i did not dress quickly, he would find himself under the necessity of taking me away as i was. i thought it expedient to temporize, and as a result of a little diplomacy, in which one of the coins from my pocket found another resting-place, i obtained permission to breakfast before i left. i made a hearty meal, the landlord attending upon my wants. i was glad to see that he, at least, had no hand in thrusting upon me the indignity of being arrested. he explained as much, telling my captors they were making idiots of themselves. as he seemed trustworthy, i gave him winter's address, with instructions to wire to him, telling him of my predicament, and asking him to come to my assistance. necessarily i gave the instructions in the presence of the policemen, and directly i had done so i could see that their cocksureness was shaken. they became more polite in their attitude, and the sergeant took the trouble to explain that he was acting under instructions, and had no option but to insist upon my accompanying him to watford. into watford i went accordingly. i am not going to dwell in any detail upon the incidents of the journey; i am naturally of a retiring disposition, and every circumstance attending my progress was in the nature of an outrage upon my diffidence. for instance, upon my departure from the inn, the whole of the population from king's langley, so far as i could judge, had gathered about the door of the white horse to give me a send-off. the crowd was in no sense a hostile one. the majority of its component parts, especially the more youthful units, seemed indeed to view me with admiration not unmixed with envy. only one yokel expressed disbelief in my identity. "ee ain't no pirut," he declared with unconcealed disdain, as he spat into the gutter. "anybody can see he's only a toff." i scarcely knew whether to be pleased with his conclusion or angry that he should find my personal appearance so unimpressive; and before i could make up my mind on the subject, i was seated in the trap provided for us and driven away seated between the two constables. our entry into watford was still more in the nature of a triumph. long before we reached the county police office i was wild enough, at being made such an exhibition of, to have given ten years of my life for the chance of punching the head of any one of the throng of gaping onlookers. then, as a culminating blow to my pride, who should we meet at a point in the high street where it was impossible to avoid recognition, but my rival mannering in his trumpery old motor-car, accompanied by--above all persons in the world, the one i least desired to see--miss maitland. i ground my teeth with rage, and as i alighted and followed the sergeant into the police station, i wished that i were the motor pirate in reality. when i reached the presence of the officer in charge of the station i just managed to control my temper, though i fancy there must have been traces of my rage still visible in my voice as i demanded to know why a peaceable citizen should be subjected to such ignominy. the inspector in reply merely asked me for my name and address. before meeting miss maitland i had cherished the hope that my identity would not be disclosed, but now i had no further reason for desiring to conceal it, i gave both at once. the inspector quietly made a note of them, while another man in plain clothes, who was standing gazing out of the window, suddenly turned on me with the inquiry-"how comes it, mr. sutgrove, that living at st. albans you should choose to spend the night at a little inn at king's langley?" "i suppose i am at liberty to sleep where i like?" i retorted. "perfectly so," replied the stranger. "you will have no difficulty, i presume, in proving your identity?" "not the slightest," i said. "in fact i have already wired to a friend of mine--mr. winter, of hailscombe, st. albans--to come here for the purpose." "i know mr. winter very well," said the inspector. the stranger looked at me keenly, and when his scrutiny was completed he fell to whistling a bar of chopin's _marche funèbre_. then he turned to his colleague in uniform. "it's no go," he said. "this is not our man." again he turned to me. "i am inspector forrest of scotland yard, detailed for special duty in connection with this motor pirate affair. unfortunately i did not reach watford until after arrangements had been made to bring you here, or---i hope you will not take it amiss if we detain you until mr. winter's arrival." this gave me the opening i had been wishing for, and i took it. i said a lot more than i can recall now, though i can remember a good deal. most of it was to the effect that i would make somebody pay dearly for the annoyance to which i had been subjected. inspector forrest listened patiently to me until i had finished. "come, come, mr. sutgrove!" he said then. "you must not bear any malice. surely you must admit that appearances were not altogether in your favour," and he detailed to me the information which had led to my arrest. "you see," he said in conclusion, "that practically we had no option in the matter." i dissented from his view. he said a word to the inspector in uniform, who left us alone in the room. then he came close to me and remarked in a confidential tone. "the fact is, our friend, who has just left us, has been too precipitate. you can make things exceedingly unpleasant for him if you like; but frankly, is it worth while? think it over a little, bearing in mind that if we are to get hold of the motor pirate, we must take the chance of capturing the wrong man, since there is no description of him obtainable. you will not be the only one, i'll swear." since i had relieved my mind i felt better. besides i was rather attracted by the personality of the man who was speaking to me. he did not at all fulfil my idea of a detective. he was a tall, slight, stiffly built man, with a pleasant open face and an agreeable manner. i saw, too, that i had only my own folly to blame for the predicament in which i now found myself. in another ten minutes he was smoking one of my cigars and we were chatting confidentially. before twenty had elapsed, i had confided to him not only winter's and my own experience with the motor pirate, but also the chain of events which had led to my spending the night at the inn. he was exceedingly sympathetic and quite grave throughout, though he appeared more interested in the encounter with the pirate than in the account of my mental tortures. however, when i told him of my vow, he brightened up and asked me if i was still determined to keep it. i had just assured him that i would willingly spend the rest of my life in the quest, when the other inspector entered the room and with him winter. the latter came straight across to me and held out his hand, and never in my life was i so glad to see his honest face and beaming smile. "what have you been up to now, sutgrove?" he remarked. "not emulating the deeds of the motor pirate?" "the police have somehow arrived at the conclusion that i am that distinguished person himself," i replied ruefully. he roared with laughter. it was infectious. there was no help for it. the two inspectors joined in the merriment, and the last of my anger was borne away on the flood. there was of course no question of my further detention. in a few minutes i was seated beside winter in his car, and we were making the mud fly as we dashed towards st. albans. inspector forrest accompanied us. i had promised to find him some lunch if he would do so, and to drive him back afterwards, and he was glad of the opportunity of obtaining from us such particulars as we could furnish him with concerning the person of whom he was in search. chapter vii i make friends with inspector forrest, c.i.d. "the telegraph," said inspector forrest, sententiously "is even more speedy than the motor pirate." "unless you want to send a message from regent street to the city," i remarked; "in which case one would save time by employing a sloth as messenger." the inspector waved aside the objection as frivolous. he occupied an easy chair opposite me; he was smoking one of my best cigars with every sign of active enjoyment; he sipped his glass of claret--he rarely touched anything stronger, he informed me--with the air of a connoisseur. "we shall beat him with the telegraph," said he. "clearly he has one retreat where he can put up his car in safety. probably he has more than one. it is not impossible for him to have several. there might even be a number of motor pirates, members of the same gang, but selecting different parts of the country upon which to prey. the telegraph will soon settle these points for us. when next he makes his appearance we shall be able to keep watch upon him, to note, if not the exact spot, at least in what part of the country he makes his appearance. even if it should be found impossible to arrest him in his progress, he is bound to leave some traces behind him which will enable us to get upon his track." "he does not seem to have left many behind him at present," i replied. "no," said the inspector thoughtfully, as he rose and examined the map spread out upon the table. "yet there are certainly grounds for believing that he has gone to earth somewhere in this neighbourhood. the hertfordshire police may have been nearer the mark than you thought when they arrested you." "you don't mean to say that you still suspect me?" i cried. "not for one instant," he answered promptly. "the meaning i meant to convey was that, quite unknown to you, the motor pirate may very well be your near neighbour. i suppose there is no one residing near whom you would consider a likely object of suspicion?" there flashed across my mind the strange similarity between mannering's voice and the motor pirate's. but the notion was so absurd i was ashamed to mention it. i assured the inspector i knew of no one. "at all events, my belief is strong enough to keep me in this district until i hear something further," he declared, as he finished the contents of his glass and glanced at his watch. just then i caught sight of mannering coming up the path through the garden towards my front door. "you had better stay a little longer," i said to the inspector. "here is another man coming who may be able to give you some more details of the pirate. he has seen him, and as he has been a longer resident here than myself, he may be able to tell you more about the people round than i can." "a motorist?" he asked. "yes, named mannering," i replied. "he is the man i told you about, whom i consider to be my rival, you know." the inspector's eyes twinkled. "i shouldn't let him drive me into any more adventures like last night's, mr. sutgrove," he advised. "if you were ten years older--my age, you know--you wouldn't need the warning, a bout of rheumatic fever would be small consolation for the loss of the lady." i could not reply, for at that moment mannering entered. "glad to see you home again, sutgrove," he said heartily. "i'm not the only one either. miss maitland asked me to call, for after seeing you in such bad company this morning---hullo! i beg your pardon, i thought you were alone." he stopped suddenly on catching sight of inspector forrest. i introduced my guest and mannering acknowledged the introduction easily. "inspector forrest will assure you that i have only been unfortunate enough to have been the object of our local constabulary's misplaced zeal. they took me for our mutual friend the motor pirate." "did they though? what an almighty spoof!" said mannering. "first time i ever heard of a man being run in for robbing himself on the high-road. beats gilbert!" "mr. sutgrove did not see the point of the joke at first," said the inspector. i saw that as he spoke he was taking note of mannering in much the same way as he had taken stock of me at the police office. mannering appeared to be quite unconscious of his regard, for he replied-"don't suppose i should have relished such a mistake myself. anyway," he continued, turning to me, "you have the consolation of knowing that you are not the only victim of police enterprise. i see from the papers quite half a dozen motor pirates have been run in. they may have the real one amongst them; but as his car has so far escaped capture, i doubt it." "so do i," i remarked. "and for the additional reason that i have a sort of presentiment that when his capture is brought about, i am going to have a hand in it." "what do you say to that, inspector?" he answered. "are you going to leave the job to amateurs?" "i never said 'no' to the offer of assistance in running down a criminal," was the reply. "i have sworn," i remarked obstinately, "that i will not rest until he is safe under lock and key." "you had better be prepared," answered mannering. "i should judge him to be a bit of a fighter." "next time i meet him, i'll take all risks to come to close quarters," i continued. "you haven't a car to do a hundred miles an hour, have you?" he said in a bantering voice. "my plan is a simple one. i merely propose to go out for night rides until he finds me," i said. "i had some thoughts of amusing myself in the same way," he answered. "but, judging from your experience this morning, the only thing likely to happen is being arrested on suspicion." "i'll take my chance of that," i said. "but before discussing the matter, perhaps you could tell inspector forrest whether there's any spot in this neighbourhood likely to serve as a hiding-place for the pirate's car?" a smile lit up mannering's face. "there's the old coach-house at the bottom of the paddock next to my cottage. it has a door opening on to the main road. there would be room, too, in my stables, if i had not fitted them up as workshops for my tyre experiments." "stop rotting," i said, "the inspector really means it." he became grave instantly. "sorry i can't suggest a likely spot," he said, and then for a few minutes he answered the questions the detective put to him as to what he had seen of the pirate. he could give little information of any value, and when inspector forrest had elicited all that he could, he thanked mannering and rose to depart. i accompanied him to the garden gate. he appeared a little loth to leave me. twice he turned away and returned to make some objectless remark to me. the third time he blurted out-"about that suggestion of yours--taking night rides on the chance of being held up----" "yes?" i said and waited. "i wish i had a good fast car at my disposal," he continued earnestly; "but the yard would never run to it." i felt a pleasant thrill run through me. it would be good to have his companionship and assistance in working out my self-imposed vow. "if you can make use of it, i will see that the best car money can buy is placed at your disposal," i replied eagerly. he took my hand and shook it warmly. "i'll see what my chief says," he replied. "when can i see you again?" "i shall be leaving here at eight and returning well--between ten and eleven." "expect me about midnight," he said, and without another word or backward glance he stepped out in the direction of st. albans. i returned to mannering, who did not, however, favour me with a very lengthy visit. possibly he found my manner rather cool, but the fact was, that try as i would to curb my feelings, i could not but resent something of an air of proprietorship which i thought appeared in his tone when referring to miss maitland. when he had departed, i got out all the catalogues of motor-cars i could lay my hands upon, and studied them until it was time to dress for dinner. several times i thought of breaking the appointment, for i knew i should have to give some explanation of my arrest, and how to do so without appearing an egregious ass i did not know. finally i determined, if the opportunity were afforded me, to tell the exact truth, at least to the only person whose opinion i cared about. i was glad afterwards that i had not sent my excuses, for i was lucky enough to find miss maitland alone in the drawing-room when i arrived. it seemed, too, as if she had determined to make amends for the mental torture she had unwittingly caused me the previous evening. so it happened that when she questioned me as to how i managed to get into such a predicament, i told her as clearly as i could of the state of my feelings. it was a blundering, halting statement i made, of that i am certain, and before i had completed it colonel maitland's entry closed my mouth. but i think she understood, for there was a little flush on her cheek when we went into dinner which had not been there when i greeted her, and a pretty air of seriousness in the glances she bestowed upon me, which i had never noticed before. as far as the colonel was concerned, he did not worry me for any explanations. he was bent on enlarging my knowledge of gastronomy, and having a new cook, he was much too deeply interested in the _menu_ to spare any thoughts for my erratic movements. i am afraid, though, his teaching was wasted on me; for while i managed to reply to his conversation, i had not the slightest idea what i was eating. my principal longing was to get the meal over in order that i might finish the conversation which had opened so auspiciously. the opportunity was not afforded me on that occasion, however, but the evening did not pass without my obtaining a glimmering of hope. when miss maitland rose i asked her, in a voice which was low enough not to reach her father's ear, whether she would answer me one question. "what is it?" she said, and her face flushed a little as she came to the door. "is there any one else?" i asked, my hand on the knob. "what right have you to ask?" she answered. "no right, i only ask it of your mercy," i replied. she hesitated, then with flushed cheeks and a soft whispered "no one," she escaped through the door. over the port i took my new-found courage in both hands, and asked the colonel's consent to my suit. i gained it. he even expressed the hope that i should succeed, but he warned me at the same time that i must not depend upon him for any assistance. he declared himself to be clay in the hands of his daughter. "evie always had her own way from the cradle," he declared, "and always will have her own way. if i were to say that i thought you would make her a good husband, i'm not sure whether she would not consider it a sufficient excuse to accept mannering straight away. personally i should much prefer you, but there's no counting on a woman's tastes, either in men or wines. and evie is a perfect woman, god bless her!" i drained my glass to the toast and made an excuse to get away to the drawing-room. but i did not see her alone again that evening. winter and his wife had walked over. mannering did not put in an appearance, and his absence was something to be thankful for; and when i held her hand in mine as i bade her good night, i said-"you have told me there is no one else. is there any hope for me?" she made no pretence of misunderstanding my meaning. she looked at me saucily, her lips parted lightly, her eyes brimming with laughter. "come and ask me when--when you have caught the motor pirate," she said, and with that answer i was fain to be content. thus it happened that i found myself fully committed to the work which was at that time engaging the attention of the whole of the police throughout the land. i welcomed the task. luck might be on my side, especially if my new friend the detective inspector's assistance proved to be available. and as regards assurance on this point, i had not long to wait before my mind was at ease. i found him awaiting me at my garden gate when i returned home. i invited him in so eagerly that he smiled. "there's no need to ask if you are still as keen on this job as you were this afternoon," he said, as he entered my snuggery. "keener than ever," i asseverated. "then i hope between us we may be successful in running our man to ground." "have you heard anything further?" i inquired, anxiously. "nothing of the slightest value. a number of people have been through our hands, but of the pirate--not a sign." "perhaps we shall get a clue in the morning," i hazarded. "at present," he declared, "there's not a shred of a clue to work upon. of course at any moment information may come to hand. he may endeavour to dispose of some of his plunder, or he may reappear, but until then----" "what do you suggest?" i asked. "i shall stay and thoroughly explore this district until i hear something further," he answered. "i am thinking of going into town in the morning, to see if a more powerful car than the one i possess at present is to be obtained," i told him later. "i am hoping to get one capable of doing fifty or even sixty miles an hour at a pinch, so as to be prepared for emergencies. meanwhile, if you like to make this house your headquarters, i shall be delighted to put you up." "do you really mean that, mr. sutgrove?" he asked. "of course i do," i replied. he hesitated a moment, then he accepted my invitation. luck was on my side after all. chapter viii murder i learned to know inspector forrest very well during the next fortnight, better perhaps, since during that time the motor pirate gave absolutely no sign of existence. it seemed as if, contented with the sensation he had created and the plunder he had secured, he had retired into the obscurity from which he originally emerged. for two reasons i was not sorry for this interval. in the first place, i found i could not get immediately the type of car i wanted. manufacturers and agents were willing enough to book orders, but none of them had in stock the high-speed automobile such as i required. only after a long day's hunt did i discover an agent who thought that he could obtain for me a 60-h.p. mercédès, and then it would have to be sent from paris. at my suggestion, he telephoned through an order that the car should be despatched to him at once; but two or three days elapsed before its arrival in london, and then there were certain alterations which i required to be made which took a week to complete. i was glad, therefore, that my enemy did not make a reappearance until i was provided for him. when the new mercédès was delivered to me i was delighted with it, especially when i found on my return from the trial run the engines worked as smoothly as when i started. the other reason why i did not regret the pirate's quiescence was because of the opportunity afforded me of cementing the friendship which had grown up between myself and the detective. it became a very real and warm friendship during those long idle days. he upset all my preconceived notions of the police, at least as regards the detective portion of the force, he was such an all-round man. he had not allowed his undoubted powers of observation to be entirely concentrated upon the seamy side of his profession. judging from his conversation, i gathered that he knew quite as much about modern french literature as he did about french criminals, and of the latter his knowledge was both extensive and interesting. i remember on one occasion that he gave me a really acute criticism of the verlain school, with special relation to the effects of decadent literature on national life. but that is only one example of his scope. wherever he had been and whatever he had done, had apparently awakened in him the desire to see all round the case he was investigating, and being possessed of a well-trained memory, his mind was a storehouse of curious knowledge. let me give one instance. one evening when we were driving slowly along a bye-road in the vicinity of uxbridge, in accordance with our preconceived plan--the mercédès had not then arrived, and our progress was additionally slow as the roads were exceedingly heavy, as rain had been falling daily ever since the night i had been arrested--suddenly my companion said-"do you know anything of persian poetry, mr. sutgrove?" as it happened, owing to the fact that a sutgrove had once represented his country at the persian court, i had a slight knowledge of the subject, and i said so. "i am never out of doors on a spring evening," he continued, "without wishing i had the time to acquire a knowledge of it." "why?" i asked. "it's this way," he replied. "on one of my jobs--a show job, attendance on a distinguished visitor, don't you know--i was thrown a great deal into the company of a persian gentleman, and we did our best to learn something of each other's languages. he taught me out of hafiz, and i picked up just enough to make me wish for more. listen to this." he recited to me one of the shorter poems from the divan. "isn't that musical?" he continued. "it seems to me to have the real poetry of the spring evening in it." i agreed with him, and we were silent for a while. later he asked me diffidently not to mention to any one his penchant for persian poetry. "even at the yard," he explained, "i doubt whether they would put it down to my credit." i gave him the assurance he asked for, and from that time forth i came to look upon him as a personal friend. i confided wholly to him the hopes i entertained in regard to my love affair; and he assured me that if he had anything to do with it, i should also have a hand in the arrest of the pirate. all our time was not spent, however, in pleasant excursions about the country. forrest was by no means idle; he had been busy perfecting his scheme for utilizing the telegraph in notifying the pirate's reappearance when it should be made. then he had in addition thoroughly and minutely explored the whole of the country round, to see if any trace of the strange visitor were obtainable. his endeavours were quite fruitless, but he still held to his belief that he could not be far away; and the next time the pirate did make his appearance he was confirmed in his opinion. the weather had been fine for three days in succession, there had been a drying breeze, and the roads from sloppy quagmires became in such perfect condition that i was looking forward to a really good spin. but forrest had other views for the evening of the third day. "i don't think," he remarked, as he sipped his coffee after our early dinner, "we can afford to spend the night ranging the highways. business first and pleasure afterwards." "i thought you were of opinion that our friend will be tempted to make his reappearance to-night?" i remarked. "i am," he answered; "and therefore the best thing, we can do is to wait until we hear in which direction he makes his reappearance. if we wait in st. albans at the end of the telegraph wire, we shall be much more likely to meet him than running about at random." there was so much good sense in the suggestion that i resigned myself to the inevitable waste of time, and i had my reward. about eleven a message came over the wire: "motor pirate seen near towcester going in the direction of daventry." "how far is towcester?" asked forrest, the moment he heard the message. "roughly, i should say forty miles," i answered. "we ought to manage it within the hour, then," he remarked. "come along." without another word we seated ourselves in the car, and with a continuous toot-toot of the horn we rolled out of the town. directly we were clear of the houses, i jammed on the highest speed. i cannot say that i felt quite comfortable, for though i knew the road, the night was very dark, the light we threw ahead was so bright as to dazzle my eyes, and hitherto i had no experience of driving a 60-h.p. motor at top speed through the darkness. my companion's _sang-froid_ soon reassured me, however, and as soon as we were fairly going, the sting of the night air as it whipped my cheeks brought a sense of exhilaration which would have sufficed to banish my fears had there been time to have entertained any. but there was not. if you have ever driven a speedy automobile at top speed through a dark night, you will readily understand that there is little opportunity for the brain to cultivate imaginary perils. if you do not believe me, try it for yourself and see. in about sixteen minutes we were at dunstable. passing through the town slowly, forrest got news that the police were watching all the roads, but that nothing had been seen there of the pirate. another quarter of an hour brought us to fenny stratford. here we wasted another minute or so in obtaining similar negative information. by this time i was feeling confidence in my car and in my powers to manage it. once clear of the houses again, i let her rip for all she was worth; we simply flew along. with my right hand on the wheel, my feet on the two pedals, i sat as tense as a fiddle string, my one object to peer into the road ahead. we had covered ten of the fifteen miles between stratford and towcester, when i became aware of a deeper blotch on the blackness ahead. with one movement i pressed down the clutch and jammed on the breaks. i was just in time. the car pulled up in its own length, though it swerved to such an extent that i thought we should be overturned. there, standing still within the circle of our lights, was another motor-car. it had no lamps burning, but it was shivering with the vibration of its engine running free. "the pirate!" i shouted. "not a bit of it," said forrest, jumping down and approaching the stranger. i followed his example, and the first thing i observed about the car was that all the lights were out, and i wondered that any motorist in his senses should have courted the accident which so nearly occurred. there was one occupant of the car, and he was sitting bolt upright with one hand on a lever beside him. i shouted something at him angrily as i approached, but he made no response. "hullo! are you asleep, sir?" said forrest, as he put one foot on the step and grasped the silent motorist by the arm. there was no reply. i saw forrest leave his hold on the stranger, and, stepping back into the road, draw his hand across his brow. "my god!" he muttered "what is it?" i asked. forrest caught his breath sharply. "a piece more of the motor pirate's work, i fancy," he said slowly; "and this time, i think it spells--murder." for a minute i stood absolutely still. it was one of the most eerie moments of my life. above and about us the black night, beside us the two cars coughing and grunting as if anxious to be moving, and that silent figure sitting up erect upon his seat, utterly unconscious of the two persons standing watching him with horror-stricken faces. forrest's voice, clear, cool, incisive, brought me to myself. "one of your lamps here, sutgrove, if you can manage it." i took a lamp from its socket, and held it while the detective made a brief inspection. it took him a very short time to assure him that his surmise was near the truth. it was murder. right in the centre of the forehead of the silent figure was a small blue hole, so cleanly drilled that it scarcely marred the features of the dead man. one hand still grasped the lever, the other had dropped slightly. when the light fell upon it, i perceived the fingers to be tightly clasped about the butt of a revolver. forrest lifted the hand and glanced at the weapon. "one cartridge discharged," he said. "surely it cannot be a case of suicide?" just at that moment i caught sight of a piece of paper pinned to the dead man's coat. i pointed it out to forrest. he unfolded it, glanced at it, and handed it to me without a word. it was just a half sheet of ordinary paper used for typing, and upon it was typed the following sentence-"this is the fate awaiting those who venture to resist the motor pirate." "that would seem to settle the question as to whether this is a case of suicide or not," i said, handing back the paper to the inspector. "h'm! at all events the inquest will," he replied. "i'm afraid in any case this ends our pursuit for the night," he continued. "i think i must ask you to run on to the nearest town for assistance. have you any idea of our whereabouts?" by calculating the time which had elapsed since leaving stratford with the pace at which we had been travelling, i came to the conclusion we were not very far from towcester, and i suggested i had better go there. "all right; cut along then. revolver handy?" i replied in the affirmative as i mounted my car. "wait one moment," he called as i was starting; "and bring your light on a bit." i did as i was directed. forrest took one of the lamps and walked for five yards up the road, examining carefully every inch of the roadway. at last he paused. "here is where the pirate's motor stopped," he said; and, plumping down upon his knees, he examined the surface carefully. then, taking a tape from his pocket, he made a series of measurements. i inquired what he was doing. he grunted in reply. when he had finished he remarked-"nothing much to be got out of that. judging from my measurements, our friend might be driving a daimler." another thought struck him, and, before starting, he asked me to lend him a hand in getting the other car to the side of the road, in case any one else came along and fell upon the fate we had so narrowly escaped. then i was at liberty to proceed, and, getting once more into my own vehicle, i let the mercédès drive ahead. but my nerve had gone. every moment i fancied weird shapes in the blackness before me. every moment i heard in my ears the strange humming of the pirate. yet i dared not look round, lest i should in that instant come upon him unawares in the shadows in front. fortunately i had no long distance to traverse. soon friendly lights broke the darkness. slackening pace, i found myself in the well-ordered streets of a little town. the second person i met was a policeman, and, hailing him, i bade him jump on the car and direct me to the police-station. nothing loth, he obeyed. i have an idea that the story i told the sergeant in charge was more than a little incoherent, but he understood me sufficiently to become aware that his presence was required immediately at the scene of a crime, and he gave me to understand that he was ready to accompany me forthwith. then i remembered forrest asking me to see that the services of a medical man were obtained, in order that he might make an examination of the body before its removal, and i mentioned the matter to the sergeant. he at once gave instructions to the constable who had guided me to the station to knock up a doctor and follow us at once with him, so there was very little delay before i was once more driving my car at full speed towards the scene of the tragedy. by this time my nerve had returned. one reason may have been that i had taken advantage of the slight delay, occasioned by the sergeant giving instructions to his subordinate, to brace myself with a stiff whisky-and-soda from the small supply i carried on the car for emergencies. now, too, i had the companionship of another able-bodied man on the car with me. i felt that, even if the mysterious murderer were to make his appearance, i should have a better chance of tackling him. we were not long in reaching our destination. in fact a very few minutes elapsed before we came to the spot where the motor-car stood, with the rigid figure of its owner still in the position i had left him. i pulled up beside the derelict. "hallo, forrest!" i shouted. there was no answer. the detective had disappeared. chapter ix explains a mysterious disappearance i sprang to the ground by the side of the death-car. it was standing by the side of the road, just as i had left it, its silent owner sitting rigidly erect, still grasping the lever, and looking fixedly into the darkness. "forrest! forrest!" i shouted again. all was silent as the grave. it was very strange. he had promised to await my return. i looked at my watch. altogether half an hour had not elapsed since my departure. yet many things might happen in half an hour with such a spirit of death abroad as i knew to be hovering around. i shivered. the police sergeant was as much bewildered at forrest's disappearance as myself. on our way, i had explained more fully the circumstances under which we had discovered the crime which had been committed. he knew my companion by name and reputation, and he was quite at a loss to explain his absence. i scanned the road so far as it was revealed by our lights, half expecting yet dreading to see his prostrate form. but there was nothing visible. each taking a lamp from my car, the sergeant and i set out to search the hedges and ditches on each side of the road. we did so conscientiously for a hundred yards up and down the road, and on each side, but found nothing. when we got back to the car, the sergeant said to me-"perhaps mr. forrest has found a clue, and thought he would waste no time in following it up." the suggestion seemed feasible enough, but just at that moment my glance fell on something at my feet which put the idea to flight. lying on the road was a large button. i picked it up. i saw at once that it had been torn violently away from the garment to which it had been attached, for a piece of the cloth had come away with it, i looked at it narrowly--the cloth was of the same material as the overcoat forrest had been wearing. the button had been almost under the wheels of my car, so i backed the mercédès a few yards, and looked about for further traces. in the space thus laid bare there lay a lamp smashed to pieces. i picked up the frame, and saw that it was one of the lamps taken from the other motor. further search only revealed another button similarly attached to a shred of cloth like the first one i had found. that was all. the sergeant looked at me and i at him. one thought was in both our minds, and we gave utterance to it simultaneously. "the motor pirate has been back again." "you must have scared him away the first time, and on his return to complete the job he found the inspector here, and----" the sergeant did not complete his sentence, but glanced apprehensively up and down the road. "if he has returned, i don't see what he can have done with forrest," i replied. "heaven knows!" the man replied, involuntarily lowering his voice. "i--i begin to believe that this motor pirate is--is the devil." "nonsense, man!" i said sharply. to tell the truth, my own nerves, in spite of the whisky, were in none too firm a condition; and i knew it would be fatal to allow myself to become infected by the very obvious funk which had seized upon my companion. i felt, however, i must be doing something unless i wanted to succumb. "look here," i said, "you wait by the car a few minutes, while i go two or three hundred yards further up the road, to see if i can find any other traces." "i--i would much rather you--you didn't leave me," stammered the sergeant. "it's bad enough for there to be only the two of us." "come, pull yourself together," i replied roughly. "there's nothing to be afraid of." "i don't think i can stand being left here alone," repeated the sergeant. "very well; you had better come along with me then," i replied. he jumped into the car beside me with alacrity, and i started the motor, though not until i had arranged my revolver handily at my side. we went for a mile at our slowest pace in the direction of stratford, and finding nothing, we returned, and covered the same distance in the direction of towcester, with a similar result. our progress was brought to a termination by our meeting with a trap containing the doctor, who was accompanied by a couple of constables. when we recognized who was approaching, the change that came over the demeanour of the sergeant was astonishing. all his courage came back to him. he talked to me quite easily as we returned to the scene of the outrage with the trap keeping close behind us; and when we pulled up, he took control of the proceedings as if he had never felt a moment's tremor in his life. he must have observed my astonishment, for he took me aside and said-"i was a bit overcome just now, sir. you won't mention it before my men." "certainly not," i answered. "i was only one degree better myself." "that's enough to make any one feel creepy," he said, jerking his thumb towards the silent figure. we did nothing but stand about and talk in subdued tones, until the doctor had completed his examination of the silent figure by the light of my lamps. it did not last long. "death was instantaneous," he said, as he stepped down from the car. "the bullet appears to have passed straight along the longitudinal sinus, and, as near as i can tell, he must have been dead about an hour." "you would like to make a more extensive examination, i suppose, doctor?" said the sergeant. "if a suitable place were available," he replied. the sergeant mentioned an inn at a village not far distant, and, the doctor acquiescing, arrangements were at once made for conveying the body there, the sergeant and i setting out in advance to provide for its reception. i am not going into any further detail regarding the proceedings of that night. indeed i can to-day scarcely recall them. i know that i waited at the inn for a long while after the melancholy _cortège_ arrived, and that i felt curiously dazed amidst all the bustle caused by the arrival. i remember eventually driving the sergeant back to towcester, and making to him a long statement, which he took down in writing. by the time i had completed this statement day had dawned. i shall never forget my impressions of that early morning as i rode home alone. the birds were twittering in the hedgerows, a soft white mist hung low down over the meadows, all nature was so serene and peaceful that it was difficult to imagine that the night which had passed had been so full of horror and mystery. i felt as one awakened from a dream. but on my way i passed the deserted motor-car. a constable was beside it, and i pulled up to speak to him. "seen nothing of inspector forrest, i suppose?" i asked. "nothing," he replied. i gave him good morning and got on. i made similar inquiries at fenny stratford, and again at dunstable, still without result. i comforted myself with the thought that at st. albans i should certainly hear news of him. but no. i found the police wild with excitement, but entirely without any information as to what had become of the missing detective. i found, however, that they did not share my forebodings as to anything serious having happened to him. their view was that he had discovered some clue, and was hard upon the track of the murderer. i had to give them a complete history of the events of the night. but i got away at last, and reached home as tired as i had ever been in my life. i took a bath as hot as i could bear it, and went straight to bed. i was dead beat, and i fell asleep instantly. i awoke some time in the afternoon, and when i had got the sleep out of my eyes, and the events of the previous night came back to me, i felt inclined to curse myself for having thought of resting. i felt certain that if it had been myself who was missing, forrest would not have slept until he had discovered something concerning my fate. i made a hasty meal while dressing, and ordered my car to be brought round. directly it appeared i hurried off to st. albans. nothing had been seen or heard there of forrest, and once more i set out upon the road i had traversed the previous night. again i rode as far as towcester. i had a chat with the sergeant of police, and found that, though search parties had scoured the country round for miles, no intelligence had been obtained. i made arrangements to appear at the inquest on the following day, and returned to st. albans. still no news. i got home again about seven, sick at heart. i had counted so much upon forrest's assistance in the fulfilment of my vow; but that was only a secondary consideration now. i had grown to like him so much, that the idea that he had met with any mischance knocked me over completely. i went into my study and threw myself moodily into a chair. my man brought me in some whisky, and hovered about until i told him to go. "you were going to dine at mr. winter's to-night, sir, with mr. forrest," he reminded me. the engagement had completely passed from my memory. "i shall be unable to go, wilson," i said. "they haven't found mr. forrest, then, sir?" said the man respectfully. he was simply brimming over with curiosity. "no. i'm afraid we shall never see him alive again," i groaned. "dear me! not so bad as that, i hope, sir," he responded sympathetically, as he still lingered. "not half so bad as that, wilson," remarked a cheery voice just outside the door. my man started, and i jumped to my feet with a shout of welcome. "forrest! forrest!" i cried. "come along in, man." "well, if i may?" replied forrest's voice. "if you may!" i answered. "why--what the----!" my astonishment at the appearance he presented as he entered the room choked my further utterance. the man who entered was a veritable scarecrow. a man with a torn coat and rent trowsers, and a battered hat which barely held together upon his head. he was covered from head to foot with mud. his face was dirty, unshaven, disreputable. "forrest? is it indeed you?" i could not but ask, when my speech returned to me. "i don't ask you to recognize me until i have had a bath and a shave," he replied. "but when i have sacrificed to hygeia, i expect to be presentable enough to dine with mr. winter to-night. i've been wondering all day whether i should manage to get here in time. meanwhile, the least spot of whisky----" i could not express my delight at his return, and unthinkingly i poured out nearly a tumbler of the neat spirit, and felt almost hurt when he returned all but one finger to the decanter. "if you give me a dose like that, i shall certainly be unable to accompany you," he said. i could curb my curiosity no longer. i burst out with a string of questions. "where have you been? what has happened to you? why did you disappear? how----" he stopped me. "so that's why you gave me all that whisky. you wanted to make me talk, eh?" i laughingly disassociated myself from any such intention, and, putting the curb on my curiosity, i turned him over to wilson to be valeted out of the semblance to a tramp. the process took some time, and when he came downstairs in irreproachable evening clothes, there was no time for him to give me the history of his adventures unless we were to miss our dinner. "and that," declared forrest, "i absolutely refuse to do; for, with the exception of sixpenny worth of rum and a crust of bread and cheese, nothing has passed my lips since dinner last night." "then you will be glad to hear that the winters are punctual people," i remarked as we at once set out for my neighbour's house. "i suppose," he said, as we reached our destination, "i may count upon you not referring to the plight in which i returned to your place? i should not care for it to get abroad that the pirate had got the better of me on the first occasion of our meeting." "then you have seen him?" i cried eagerly. "seen him!" forrest ejaculated in reply. "seen him! after dinner you shall have a full, true and particular account of all that's happened. until then--well, assume you know everything but are not at liberty to divulge anything." i was as much at home in winter's house as in my own, so i did not trouble to ring and forrest followed me in. i had forgotten that his appearance was likely to create as great a sensation there as it had caused me. i entered the drawing-room first, forrest being a little behind. mrs. winter, a fluffy-haired little woman with blue baby eyes, baby lips, and a most engaging little baby dimple, was the centre of the party gathered there. the other women were miss maitland and mrs. winter's twin sister, who reproduced the hair, lips, eyes and dimple with such exactness that it was always a puzzle to me how winter had managed to make up his mind between them. about them were gathered colonel maitland, mannering, winter himself, and another man whom he had brought down with him from town that day. the subject of conversation, i learned afterwards, had been entirely devoted to forrest's disappearance, and when they caught sight of him the effect was electrical. the ladies all jumped to their feet, the twin sisters screamed in unison, the men stood stock still. mannering appeared to be the most astonished, for he turned pale and his lips became livid. before any one could say a word, however, the door opened again and the butler announced dinner in an impassive voice, which sent everybody into convulsions of laughter. we filed into dinner a particularly merry party. mrs. winter had arranged for me to take in miss maitland, and the fact that mannering obviously resented the arrangement added a great deal to my good humour. the fact of forrest being the lion of the evening did not disturb me at all. indeed i was glad some one else had to parry the numberless questions put to him respecting his disappearance. he fenced them remarkably well, though of course, when cornered, he could always fall back upon the excuse of his mouth being closed by the official pledge of secrecy. needless to say, only one topic was mooted, and i should not have referred to it had not the man whom winter had brought from town said something which, i found afterwards, had some bearing on future events. this person was a diamond merchant in his business hours, and after the ladies had left us, he expressed the opinion that it was a good thing the motor pirate confined his attentions to fellow motorists. "if, for instance," he remarked, "he were to take it into his head to hold up the brighton parcels mail to-morrow night, he would make one of the best-known firms in hatton garden feel very sick." "how's that?" asked mannering, carelessly. he had quite recovered from the temporary shock which forrest's unexpected appearance had occasioned him. "well, i heard they are sending off a particularly valuable collection of stones by registered parcel post to-morrow," he answered. "seems a silly thing to do," commented winter. "i don't know about that," was the reply. "their theory is that the chances of robbery are infinitely less than by any other method of forwarding. they have followed the practice for years, and hitherto have never made a loss. you see, no one knows anything about it except the principal, who takes the packet to the post office. he registers it at st. martin's, and the packet is immediately placed amongst a number of parcels of all sorts, shapes and sizes; and the chance of a casual thief selecting that particular parcel, even if he had the chance, are at least a hundred to one, while it is well known that the postal employee who steals always lets the registered letter severely alone." the subject was not pursued further, and soon after we joined the ladies. the party broke up early, and i was not sorry, for i could see forrest was tired and i wanted to get his story from him before he turned in. but when we were back in my snuggery, i found that he considered it necessary to report himself at st. albans. i was on the telephone, so i suggested its use, and he jumped at the idea. after some little difficulty we managed to get a message through to the police-station. then settling down into an easy chair with a great sigh of content, he reeled out an account of his adventures. chapter x describing a ride with the pirate "when you left me," forrest began, "i thought i would pass the time until your return in making a still more detailed inspection of the ground than we had already made. i found i had no lights. in order to get over the difficulty, i went to the car in which the dead man was seated and examined the lamps. they were in good working order, and i could see that their extinction had not been due to any mischance. why they should have been put out and the machinery of the car left running puzzled me. i could only conclude that the pirate, after shooting his victim, had approached the car to plunder him, but had been scared away by the sound of our approach. he must have turned out the lights and have just had time to draw the car across the road to make a trap for us, before making his own escape. this impression of mine was confirmed later. i took one of the lamps from its socket, lit it, and looked again at the dead body. i am almost certain he had not been disturbed since the fated bullet struck him. his coat was closely buttoned. his rug was wrapped tightly round him. there were papers in his coat pocket, and i could feel through the coat that his watch and chain were still upon him. when thinking that the pirate could not be far off, i regretted i had not accompanied you; but remembering you were well armed, i reckoned that if you did meet the gentleman, you were quite capable of giving a good account of yourself--and of him." you who happen to have read my account of the state of my mind, as faithfully described in these pages, will be able to judge how far my friend's confidence in me was justified. for myself, i doubt not that had he met me, the pirate would have been able to add a second victim to that night's list with little difficulty. this by the way. "i did not make a very close examination," continued forrest, "since there would be plenty of time for that when the doctor arrived. besides, i wished him to see the body in the position we found it. so i turned my attention to the road again, going over the surface inch by inch in the most methodical manner. you never know, you see, whether some trifling object may not be dropped by the criminal which will provide a clue. i was so engaged when i became aware of a curious humming sound in the air. i stood upright and peered into the darkness. but my eyes had become dazzled by looking at the white road in the brilliant light of the acetylene lamp, and i might as well have expected to be able to see through a brick wall. the most sensible course to have pursued would have been to extinguish the lamp; but, instead of doing so, i stood like a fool in the middle of the road and waited until the pirate--it was he without the slightest doubt--swooped down upon me, and if i had not at the last moment leaped aside i should have been bowled over. as it was, i just escaped being knocked down. the car pulled up with a jerk, and there, within reach, was the person whose capture would have--well, you can guess what it would have meant to me, if i could have managed to get him single-handed. but for the moment i was so astounded at the audacity of the rascal i could do nothing. i was not long in making up my mind to have a shot at capturing him, however. i dropped the lamp to the ground, and clipping my hand into my pocket i grasped my revolver. i knew i had to deal with a desperate character, but i was scarcely prepared to find him as physically powerful as he proved to be. i stepped up close to the car and with my left hand made a grab at him. it was a fruitless attempt. i found my wrist held in a grip of steel. i raised my right with the revolver. i was just a moment late in pulling the trigger, for he knocked up my hand and the bullet went wide. before i had another chance, he twisted the weapon out of my grasp with a wrench that numbed my arm to the shoulder. how he managed to see in the dark was a mystery to me. he must have eyes like a cat--that man." forrest paused to light another cigarette, and after a couple of puffs he resumed-"but the most startling thing was to come. holding me tightly he leaned over towards me and said, 'not this time, inspector forrest. you may think you have the motor pirate, but i can assure you that you were never more mistaken in your life.' astonishment is not the name for my feelings at hearing him address me by my name. i had caught a glimpse of him before i dropped the lamp, but he was so swathed in his leather coat and disguised by his mask, that i should never be able to identify him. but i seemed to recognize something familiar in the intonation of his voice, yet even that was so muffled that i cannot be certain i have ever heard it before. however, i did not allow my astonishment to prevent me taking action. i threw myself suddenly backwards, hoping the weight of my body would upset his balance and drag him from his car to the ground, where we should have been on more equal terms. the jerk moved him about as much as if he had been built into his car. 'no, you don't, inspector,' he said, with an infernal chuckle; and, so saying, he leaned over and, catching me by the coat, lifted me off my feet and swung me up on to the car before him. i'm not a light weight, as you can guess--i turn the scale at something nearer twelve stone than eleven--but he handled me as if i were a baby. i struggled of course, but my right arm was powerless, and he could master me with ease." "i suppose it was during the struggle that you lost the two buttons from your overcoat which you left behind you?" i asked. "most likely," he replied, "though i knew nothing of them. really his strength seemed diabolic. there was something else about him which to my mind scarcely seemed natural. at all my struggles he continued to laugh, but there was no merriment in his laughter, it was merely an even guttural cachinnation, the laugh of a fiend at the aimless struggles of a lost soul. it seemed to give him immense pleasure to see me wriggling on the smooth curved metal plate which formed the front of his car. i grew tired at last and lay still, hoping for a chance to better my position, for i came to the conclusion that in a mere trial of strength he was immeasurably my superior. "when he saw my resistance had ceased, he spoke again. 'i feel inclined to take you for a ride with me, inspector,' he said. 'i can assure you that you will find the experience a thrilling one. it is given to few men to travel with the motor pirate. the pace alone should prove exhilarating, to say nothing of the companionship and--what awaits you at the termination of the entertainment.' he chuckled again as he concluded, and i felt a cold thrill in the region of my spine. "i made no reply. what would have been the use? but i do wish my right arm had been of some use, for i think in my anger i might have stood some chance of turning the tables on him. i quietly tried to rub the feeling back into it, but he did not afford me a chance of doing so for long. he produced a length of rope from somewhere or other, and, before i gathered what he was doing, he had twisted it round me and bound my arms tightly to my sides. i was absolutely powerless, and i gnashed my teeth with rage at the helpless state in which i found myself. there was i, a detective inspector with a reputation at the yard second to none, trussed like a fowl, and lying on the slippery surface of the pirate car i had come out to capture." "not exactly a pleasant position," i remarked, as forrest paused to moisten his throat with the whisky-and-soda at his elbow. "no; but the worst was yet to come. he had no sooner secured my arms than he drew another piece of cord through the band, and fastened it somewhere or other. 'now, if ever you pray, inspector,' he remarked, with some more of his beastly merriment, 'pray that this rope doesn't break; for if it should happen to do so at the pace we shall be travelling, you will go to hell even sooner than i intend you to do.' "with that he set his car in motion, and, judging by the way the wind stung me, the pace was something terrific. at first i attempted to pay some attention to the direction we took. but i soon gave up the idea. my position on the car was not one from which i could observe anything with any degree of comfort. with my arms bound, i sprawled out upon the smooth, curved bonnet of the confounded car, only held on by a cord which i expected to break and send me flying into the next world every time we touched a stone, or crossed a rut. my heart was in my mouth for the next hour or so, but afterwards i think i grew careless or callous. he had pulled the cord round my arms pretty tightly; that numbed me all over, and the exposure to the air did the rest. i fell into a dreamy condition. i only know that never for a moment were we still. there was always the drone of the wheels in my ears, and whenever i made a struggle and opened my eyes, all i could see was the blacker streak in the blackness caused by the hedges flying past. heaven only knows how far and where we went. it seemed an eternity until it ended. but by then i was very near unconsciousness. i have a sort of impression the car did stop. i fancy that i saw the pirate's mask bent closely over me while he examined me, that i heard him say, 'i don't think, mr. inspector, your attentions will trouble me much more.' i do remember distinctly being lifted in his powerful hands. i felt him swing me once, twice, thrice; then i felt myself flying in the air, and the next moment my senses came back to me with a rush, for i plumped into several feet of water." "well?" i ejaculated, as forrest paused to light another cigarette. i was so interested that i grudged him a moment's delay before completing the story. "the curious thing to my mind is that he did not knock me on the head at first," said forrest. "i can only explain it by the conclusion that our friend the motor pirate is a madman. but, if so, i undoubtedly owe my life to the means he took to finish it. the sudden immersion brought me to myself much more rapidly than any other process could have done. in detaching me from the car he must have loosened the knot of the rope binding my arms; possibly the water made it slip further before it became saturated. i felt the rope give, and got one arm free by the time i came to the surface. i floundered into shallow water, and paused. by this time there was just a glimmer of light on the eastern horizon from the dawn, and i could see the bank was only a yard or two distant. somehow or another i managed to scramble out, bringing half the bed of the river, or pond, whichever it was i had been pitched into, with me. when i was on firm ground i collapsed. i did not remain long on the ground, though. i knew very well that if i wanted to escape a severe illness, the only thing to do was to keep moving until my circulation was restored. so i got going. it was hard work at first. my limbs were so cramped and stiff that i was compelled to stop and groan after crawling every six paces. but the stiffness wore off gradually. i went ahead until i struck a village, and found out in what part of the country i was." "why didn't you go to the police-station?" i asked. "wasn't going to make myself a laughing-stock for a lot of country constables," he answered. "no; if i had got my man, i should not have minded what sort of figure i cut, but to turn up such a scarecrow after failing to get my man--not much. i had learned from the post-office window where i was. i had been dropped near shefford, a village a few miles the other side of hitchin on the north road, and i thought if i walked back here i should avoid all likelihood of getting a chill. so i started. i found i had a shilling in my pocket. i had more money about me than that when i started out, but whether our friend helped himself to the balance, or whether it fell from my pockets during the ride, i haven't the slightest idea. but the shilling was sufficient to provide for my requirements. the first public-house i found open i went in, and had six-penny-worth of hot rum. my word! there's nothing like hot rum for putting new life into one. after i had drunk it i reckoned i should get here about noon; but i had not taken the somniferous effects of that sixpenny-worth of rum into the calculation. before i had covered half a dozen miles, i found myself so sleepy that i could not keep my eyes open. i dropped off once or twice as i walked, so at last i made for a convenient haystack, rolled myself up in the loose litter at the base, and let myself go. "that's how it happened i was so late in my arrival," he remarked; "and now, motor pirate or no motor pirate, i am going to finish that snooze." he gave a prodigious yawn, and held out his hand. "good night!" i said. "the story of my adventures will very well keep until to-morrow." chapter xi in which the pirate holds up the brighton mail on joining forrest at breakfast the following morning, i found he had mapped out a programme for the day which promised to keep us pretty busily occupied. "first," he said, "i must get into st. albans, and see whether there is any fresh information to hand. if possible, i should like to run over to shefford, for i want to look at the place where i had my ducking, and recover the piece of cord with which that almighty scoundrel secured me. then there's the inquest at towcester at twelve, and sometime to-day i must put in an appearance at head-quarters to hand in my report. perhaps i had better train from towcester for that. it will be making too great demands on your time." "nonsense!" i replied; "i can run you up to town very nearly as quickly as you could manage the journey by rail." "i hope you won't have to return alone," he remarked. "i am hoping to be able to inflict myself upon you for a few more days; but it is on the cards i may be taken off the job since i have met with so little success." "i hope not," i answered. "i should be sorry, too," he said. "i am more convinced than ever that our friend is living within a twenty-mile radius of this house." "what grounds have you for thinking so?" i asked. "the very slightest at present," he declared frankly; "and until i have seen the police reports from other parts of the country, i will not commit myself definitely to the opinion." i could not get anything more out of him then, but after he had made a note of all the information to be obtained at st. albans--we were on the road by nine-thirty--he became more communicative. the information he obtained did not amount to much. on the previous evening, the motor pirate had not made his appearance anywhere; while on the evening before, the only outrage of which he had been guilty was the murder which we had discovered. on that night, however, his car had been reported as having been seen on various roads in the midlands, one appearance having been recorded as far north as peterborough. "that confirms my opinion," forrest declared. "the peterborough report gives the time of his appearance as about 2.50. the sun rises at five, and it is beginning to be light an hour earlier. it must have been about four when he dropped me into the water at shefford. hitherto he has not been seen by daylight at all. clearly he must have delayed getting rid of me until he thought it was dangerous to carry me about any longer. he may even have been close to his own home, though he would probably select a spot twenty or thirty miles away at least." "it seems likely," i agreed. "certain of it," said forrest. "now we will get along to shefford." we had a very pleasant run, and a mile from the village, forrest stopped me where a deep pool fringed with rushes skirted the road. "this is the spot," he cried. he left me in the car and scrambled through the hedge into an adjoining field. he came running back with a dilapidated overcoat sodden with water in one hand, and a piece of rope in the other. "thought i could not be mistaken," he cried. when he was again in the car he examined the rope carefully. "just an ordinary piece of half-inch cord," he remarked. "it's not of much value as a clue, but as a piece of evidence--i have known a man's life hang upon a slighter thread before now." he chuckled grimly at his own pleasantry. "where next?" i inquired. "towcester," he replied; and i wheeled the car round, and we were soon making the dust fly again. we were not detained very long at the inquest. forrest had a few words with the coroner, so that after formal evidence of identification had been given, and i had made my statement as to the finding of the body, the inquiry was adjourned. thus plenty of time was left at our disposal, and we did not hurry on our way to town, even breaking our journey on the way for lunch. the weather remained delightfully fine. clean roads, blue sky, soft winds, combined to make ideal weather for motoring. we reached town about four, and went straight to scotland yard. forrest went in while i waited for him. then he returned for me, and, taking me up in the lift, he piloted me into the presence of the commissioner, whom i found to be an exceedingly courteous gentleman. he expressed himself indebted to me for the assistance i had rendered the department. i did not see that my assistance had been of much practical value, and i said so; but i added that i was very keen on the motor pirate's capture, and i should be glad to render any service in my power which would tend to such an end. "anything you can do to assist inspector forrest will be greatly appreciated," he declared. "of course, it is not our usual plan to make use of outside assistance, but we are not so bound up in red tape as to refuse such aid as that you offer." we had ten minutes' further conversation, and then forrest and i left together. the detective was in high glee. he had obtained _carte blanche_ to do as he liked. his chief had expressed every confidence in him, while urging him to spare no effort to obtain the pirate's arrest. "the fact is," he said, "the papers have been rubbing it into us for allowing such audacious crimes to be committed right under our noses, and the chief is wild to get the chap. half of the detective force are already engaged on the job. i fancy i should get him myself singlehanded sooner or later if he were a sane man; but, as it is, the cunning of a madman upsets every calculation." "you still hold to the theory that he is mad?" i asked. "cannot explain his treatment of me in any other way," he replied promptly. "well, what's the next move?" i asked, when we had returned to our car. "i suppose we may as well go for a prowl to-night, on the off-chance of finding him." "we might try a new district," answered forrest, "you may have noticed that he breaks fresh ground every time he reappears." "where shall it be then?" forrest answered my question with another. "supposing yourself to be in his place, and the desire to attract notoriety a stronger motive than mere plunder. what should you do?" there flashed into my memory what winter's guest had said about the brighton parcels mail, and i said laughingly-"i fancy i should hold up the brighton mail." "as likely a feat as any for him to attempt," replied forrest, thoughtfully. i glanced up at the clock in the tower of st. stephens; the hands pointed to a quarter before five. "well," i said, "we may as well run down to brighton by daylight and get acquainted with the road, since i have only driven over it once before. we can dine at the metropole comfortably, spend a couple of hours on the front after dinner, and have plenty of time to meet the mail on the road afterwards." "a most excellent suggestion," agreed the inspector, and his eyes twinkled at the thought of the programme i had mapped out. we started forthwith. reaching brighton before sunset, i refilled my tanks with petrol before putting the car up at the metropole and reserving a table for dinner. we had a wash, walked to the hove end of the esplanade, and came back to our dinner with appetites equal to anything. we sat over our coffee a long while, forrest making the time fly by spinning yarns about his experiences. then we smoked a cigar on the pier, and so whiled away the time until eleven. if we had started then we should possibly have reached town before the mail had started, but as we were both tired of dawdling about, i proposed that we should extend our tour. forrest was quite agreeable. "really we are out on a fool's errand," he remarked. "we are just as likely to meet him on one road as another. yet i have a presentiment that we shall hear something further about him to-night. if we do meet him, remember one thing. one of us must get in the first shot, and it must not miss." "don't wait for me to shoot, then," i replied. we got our car, and after a glance at the map, i told my companion where i proposed to go: a run along the coast to worthing, there to strike inland for horsham, from horsham to make for the brighton road about crawley, roughly about a forty-mile run in all, and i reckoned that if we kept to the legal speed limit we should just about meet the mail. forrest made no objection to my suggestion, so we started at our slowest pace. i had very little to do, and the ride was one of the most enjoyable i have ever experienced. the salt breath of the sea was in our faces, and the roar of it in our ears. i was quite sorry when on reaching worthing it became necessary to leave the coast. inland the roads were absolutely deserted. we did not meet a single person between worthing and horsham, and for the first time i realized how easily the motor pirate's movements could evade notice. at horsham we looked in at the police-station, and forrest made a formal inquiry as to whether anything had been heard of our quarry in the neighbourhood; but, as we expected, without result. we remained there a little time to stretch our legs and to drink a cup of tea, which the officer in charge prepared for us, and on leaving we proceeded at the same steady pace, arriving in crawley something after four. there we found that the mail had passed through a quarter of an hour before our arrival, and i questioned whether it would be worth our while to remain any longer on the road. "we may as well make a night of it," said forrest, in reply to my remark on the subject, so i turned the car in the direction of brighton again. we bowled along at about fifteen miles an hour, at which rate i reckoned on catching the mail within half an hour. but we were destined to overtake it in a considerably shorter time, for just after passing the third milestone after leaving the village, our path was blocked by the huge van standing in the middle of the road and all across it. i pulled up at once. apparently the vehicle was not much damaged, but the door was broken open, while the parcels with which it had been laden were scattered all over the roadway. one horse lay on the roadway perfectly still, the others had disappeared. the moment we stopped forrest leaped from the car; i followed his example. the first object which met our eyes was the form of a man. he lay perfectly still, and i thought he was dead, but my companion had sharper eyes. taking a knife from his pocket, he hacked at cords which bound the man hand and foot. "more work of the motor pirate," remarked forrest grimly, as i came to his assistance. the man was not dead, but he had been so roughly gagged that had we arrived ten minutes later he probably would have been beyond human help. in the condition he was, it took us ten minutes working vigorously to restore his respiration; and after that it took the whole of the contents of my pocket flask to restore him sufficiently to enable him to give us an account of the mishap which had befallen him. then we learned that the man was the driver of the mail, and that forrest's surmise that we had happened once more upon the handiwork of the motor pirate was correct. he had, it appeared, been driving quietly along, when his attention had been arrested by the curious high-toned hum which presaged the pirate's approach. he was wondering what the curious noise could be, when he suddenly realized that a long low car was beside him. he did not anticipate any harm either to himself or to his charge, for, though he fancied that the stranger was the noted criminal, he shared the impression, pretty common until then, that the pirate confined his attentions to motorists. the stranger did not even call upon him to pull up. he ran beside the coach, then slightly increasing his speed, he drew level with the wheelers of the team. there was the sound of a pistol shot, the off wheeler fell dead in his tracks, bringing down the other horses in his fall, and swinging the vehicle right across the road. the driver only escaped being pitched from his seat by the strap which held him to it. "then," continued the man, "he ups with 'is pistol an' tells me to come dahn, an' dahn i toddles pretty quick. 'sorry ter inconwenience yer, my good feller,' ee says. 'don't menshing it,' i says, as perlite as you'd be with a pistol a pointing at yer 'ed. 'i want the keys er this 'ere waggin,' ee says. 'sorry they don't trust 'em ter us drivers,' i answers. 'don't matter worth a cent,' ee says. 'i've another w'y er openin' thet strong box. put yer 'ands be'ind yer an' turn rahnd,' ee says. i done it, an' ee trusses me up like a bloomin' chicken, an' sticks my own angkincher dahn me froat. with thet ee walks along ter the door and blows the bloomin' locks orf with 'is pistol. that did it. ee looks inside, an' the w'y ee cleared them parcels aht was a sight--well, yer can see fer yerself wort it's like. the other 'orses were thet mad they kicks theirselves free. ee goes froo the parcels cool as a cowcumber until ee routs aht the registered parcels. ee puts them in 'is car. 'tar, tar!' ee says, wiving 'is 'and, an' orf ee goes jest abaht five minutes afore you gents comed along." when forrest realized how near we had been to coming to close quarters with our quarry, he went aside, and for the first time since i had made his acquaintance, i heard him swear. it was a successful effort. he returned to my side the next moment. "the telegraph is our only chance," he said. "drive like hell back to crawley." i did. there we set the wires throbbing, and begun to scour the countryside for any traces of the pirate. we did not give up our quest until eleven o'clock in the morning. i think we inquired at every house and cottage within a ten-mile radius of the scene of the outrage, but without finding a single person who had seen or heard of the motor pirate. once more he had appeared and disappeared without leaving the faintest clue to his identity. chapter xii how we exchange shots with the pirate after the sudden flurry which the reappearance of the motor pirate caused, and quite as much in the country at large as in my own particular circle, we settled down once again to a condition of comparative quietude. of course there were plenty of facts to keep the public interest alive and to fill the papers. the adjourned inquest on the victim found near towcester supplied columns of copy, while the robbery of the brighton mail afforded unlimited scope for the descriptive reporter as well as for the special crime investigator, who at this time made his permanent appearance on the staff of nearly every paper of any importance in the british isles. my life at home was made a burden to me by these gentlemen. i bear them no malice for their persevering attempts to interview me, but they were an unmitigated nuisance, since i had no wish to air my experiences in the newspapers at this stage of affairs. it was with the utmost difficulty i escaped the attention of the gentlemen of the fourth estate, for they even waited on my doorstep for the chance of button-holing me when i went out in the morning; and pursued me so assiduously, that i dared not look a stranger in the face, lest my glance should be translated into a column of glowing prose. i have said that the pirate left no clue to his identity upon his latest appearance, and, indeed, at the time, such was the opinion both of forrest and myself. but in the light of after events we learned that there was a clue, had we been keen-witted enough to have discovered it. in the course of our inquiries around crawley, we certainly did not succeed in finding any one who had observed the mysterious car which every one had learned to associate with the pirate, but we had been told casually at caterham--we had not returned by the direct road between london and brighton--that we were not the only motorists abroad on that night, since another man had passed through the town early the same morning. when we learned, however, that he had been driving a car of the conventional shape with a tonneau body, we paid no further attention to the information, concluding that he was a sportsman, anxious like ourselves for a brush with the pirate. our blindness was to cost us dear before we had done. there was another supposition which i could not get out of my mind in connection with the latest feat, and a couple of days afterwards i mentioned it to forrest as we waited, according to our invariable custom, at st. albans for news of the pirate's reappearance. "don't you think it particularly strange," i remarked, "that in holding up the brighton mail, our friend at once searched for the registered parcels, and directly he laid his hands upon them at once made off?" "a perfectly natural thing for him to do," replied the detective. "he would guess that, if there were any valuables, they would almost certainly have been registered, and he could scarcely hope to go over the whole contents of the van." "admitted," i replied. "still, does it not strike you as curious that he should have selected the night when a valuable parcel of diamonds was there?" "well?" asked forrest, his attention thoroughly arrested. "it almost seems as if he was possessed of the same information as we were," i ventured. "according to your argument," he answered, "the pirate should be either yourself or myself, colonel maitland, mr. mannering, mr. winter, or his friend." "there remains mannering and the diamond merchant," i said thoughtfully, "and i know the latter has never driven a motor-car in his life. besides, he is scarcely likely to have robbed himself in such an extraordinary fashion." we had seen from the papers that he had, in fact, been referring to his own firm when he had described to us the advantages of the parcel post as a means of transmitting valuables. "he may have other friends beside winter to whom he has mentioned the matter." "there's mr. mannering still to be accounted for," remarked forrest. "no harm can be done by inquiring if he was away from home that evening. what sort of establishment does he keep?" "merely a couple of maids," i answered. "in that case there should be no trouble in ascertaining whether he was out or not," he replied. "i'll see about it in the morning." he made the inquiry accordingly, but as he confessed to me afterwards, without expecting anything to come of it. his expectations seemed to be justified in the result. the maids declared that mannering had gone to his sitting-room after dinner, and had been there with his slippers on when they retired for the night. they had locked up the house as usual, and the doors had been fast when they came down the next morning. this investigation, perfunctory as it was, decided us against any idea of mannering's complicity, and i fell back upon the theory that the diamond merchant must have communicated his methods to some one else. we sought him out in the city, and he assured us that he had never before referred to the subject. he did not object to supplying us with the names of his acquaintances who owned cars, and either forrest or myself made inquiries concerning every one of them. all were to no purpose. when we had finished, we were no nearer discovering anything concerning the pirate than we were when we had begun. then occurred an incident which should have opened our eyes, if anything possibly could have done so, to the personality of the pirate. but again we were absolutely blind. it was the second week of may, and since, in spite of continued fine weather, our unknown terror remained in the seclusion of his hiding-place, wherever it might be, i had persuaded forrest to come with me for a run one afternoon as far as cambridge, proposing to return after sunset. the roads were beginning to be a little dusty, but altogether we had a very pleasant journey without any incident of note. we left the university town about nine, reckoning upon getting home comfortably before midnight. there was a bright slice of moon shining, and we did the dozen miles before reaching royston at a decent pace. we went slowly over the hilly road out of royston and had passed over the worst of it, and i had just put on a higher speed, when i fancied i heard the distant hum which once heard could never be mistaken for anything else. forrest heard it at the same time as myself. "pull up at the side of the road," he cried. "the car must not be damaged." i obeyed, running the bonnet into the hedge and leaving the back of the car extended over the footpath. meanwhile, forrest had drawn his revolver from his pocket, and the moment i brought the car to a standstill i followed his example. "don't stand on ceremony," advised my companion; "shoot on sight!" the words were scarcely out of his mouth when our enemy made his appearance, coming from the direction of buntingford. whether he had any intention of stopping and robbing us, i have no means of telling, but i think not, for he was travelling at his most rapid pace, and gave no signs of slackening as he approached. once more i was astonished at the wonderful steadiness of his machine. he passed us in a flash, the car running as evenly as if it were upon rails. in fact i paid so much attention to this, that i was too late to fire with any prospect of hitting him. forrest was more alert. as the pirate swooped by, the detective's colt spoke twice. so far as we could see, the shots took no effect, for he did not move an inch. "no luck," muttered my companion, as the hum of the pirate's car died away in the distance. i held up a warning finger. "hush!" i said. my ears had told me truly--our enemy was once more approaching us. i leaned over the back of the car, this time determined that i would at least make an endeavour to stop his progress. the road was without a bend for a stretch of at least two hundred yards, and the moment he came into the straight he was clearly visible to us in the light of the moon. i did not wait. the moment i saw him distinctly, i lifted my revolver and pulled the trigger as rapidly as i was able. before i had emptied three chambers he was level. i was just in the act of firing a third time, when a flash of fire spurted from the running car and my pistol dropped from my hand. something had struck me violently on the arm. i felt no pain for the moment, only curiously numbed and cold. i wondered why my companion should continue to fire at the rapidly disappearing form of the pirate, who appeared to me to be swerving from side to side of the road in the most ridiculous fashion. in another moment he was out of sight. i felt extremely sick, and, with something between a groan and a sigh, i sank back into my seat. "i fancy one of us must have got him," said forrest, in an excited tone. "let us get on." "i hope you are right," i answered. "for he has certainly managed to wing me." the shock had passed off, and, with the return of sensation, my arm felt as if a red-hot iron had been run through it, while there was a similar sort of feeling about my chest. "really," said forrest, as he looked closely into my face. he must have seen that i was not joking, for he jumped out of the car and came back with one of the lamps in his hand. "where is it?" he asked, with some anxiety. "merely the arm, i fancy," i replied. he took a knife from his pocket, and, without a moment's hesitation, ripped up the sleeve of the overcoat and under-coat which i was wearing. the shirtsleeve was already soaked with blood, and his face was curiously anxious as he cut away the linen and felt the bone from wrist to shoulder. then his face cleared. "only through the muscle," he remarked. "a fortnight will see the wound completely healed." meanwhile he was tearing his handkerchief into strips, and, with this improvised bandage, he bound up the wound. "sure that is all?" he asked, when he had tightened it to his satisfaction. "i've got much the same sort of feeling here," i replied, tapping my chest gingerly. his face grew grave again, and before doing anything more he fished my flask out of my pocket, and insisted upon my taking a liberal draught of the contents. not until then would he examine me. "your bleeding powers would do credit to a bullock," he commented, as he cut away my shirt: "but beyond loss of blood, i don't think there's much harm done." his first impression was correct. a cursory examination was quite sufficient to convince him that i was not much hurt. "just a nasty furrow," he remarked. "pretty painful, i suppose. the bullet glanced off, turned by that leather coat of yours, i presume. lucky for you; as it is, you will be all right in the fortnight." i felt relieved by his tone, and assured him, when he had patched me up temporarily with strips torn from my shirt-sleeves and my own handkerchief, that i felt very little of the injury. "now take my seat," he said, as he buttoned my coat round me. "i think i have had enough experience of motoring to ensure my taking you in safety to the nearest surgeon. it's infernally bad luck, though," he continued. "i would swear one of us must have hit our friend, and if we were only in a position to follow him up, we should be pretty certain to effect a capture." my mind had been considerably relieved to find that i was not seriously injured, and the dose of whisky i had taken had pulled me together. "you've bound me up pretty tightly?" i asked. "you are right enough until we find a doctor," he answered. "in that case," i said, "if there's any chance of our catching our man to-night, i'm not going to chuck it away. put the light back and let us get on." my mind was made up on the subject. one reason was that physical pain always makes me feel mad, and i would have given a great deal to get even with the pirate for that reason alone. besides, call it vanity or what you will, i wasn't going to let any one say i had allowed a scratch to bowl me over. so the moment forrest had replaced the light, i resumed my seat in the car, asserting that i was fully capable of driving. the detective attempted to dissuade me from the attempt, but i was bent upon having my own way. he did not argue the question at any length, for as soon as he was in the car i backed into the middle of the road and jammed on our highest speed. in three minutes we were at buntingford, and there we nearly ran into a group of people who were gathered in the middle of the road. they were discussing, as it happened, the appearance of the pirate, who had passed through the town twenty minutes previously. here forrest made another futile attempt to persuade me to see a surgeon immediately, but i would not listen to him. we swept onward. i could scarcely see, but i sent the mercédès along recklessly, stopping for nothing until we reached ware. i would never have driven in the manner i did in calmer moments. forrest told me afterwards that his journey on the pirate's car was nothing to it, for the car rocked so from side to side of the road that he was never certain whether i was not steering for the hedges; while at every bend his heart was in his mouth when he realized that the wheels were never on the ground together. on the outskirts of ware we learned that the pirate had been seen approaching the town, but that, instead of passing through the narrow streets, he had doubled back in the direction of stevenage. he had kept his twenty minutes' start and i was for following him. forrest was of another opinion. "according to his usual custom, he is obviously avoiding the towns," he argued; "and if, as i still suspect, his hiding-place is in the vicinity of st. albans, we shall stand some chance of cutting him off if we take the most direct route. he cannot be badly hurt, or we should have picked him up before this, and under any other circumstance we are not likely to overtake him." i saw the force of his reasoning and we flew on. we heard nothing of him neither in hertford nor in hatfield. "our only chance is at st. albans," remarked my companion, and once more i put my car to top speed. we were just about half way between the two towns when we saw the lights of a motor ahead. i sounded the horn, or rather forrest did, but the vehicle made no attempt to get out of the way. we caught up to the stranger hand over fist, and not until we were nearly touching did i slacken speed. as i did so the occupant of the car shouted out, "that you, sutgrove? never more pleased to meet with a friend in my life." it was mannering. "seen anything of the pirate?" shouted forrest, by way of reply. "merely had the pleasure of exchanging shots with him ten minutes ago," was the astounding answer. "unfortunately he appears to have got the better of the exchange, for he has managed to put a bullet in my shoulder." "we have had a similar experience, and mr. sutgrove is the victim," answered forrest. "so i am afraid i cannot offer much assistance." "i think i can get to st. albans all right," he replied. "it's only the left, and i managed to get a handkerchief round it." "if you will let us pass," i said, "i will run on to st albans and see that assistance is sent to you." "oh, i didn't notice i was taking all the road," he remarked, as he drew aside. once more we drove ahead at our speed limit, and five minutes later we stopped before the police office. there we found every one in blissful ignorance of the fact that the pirate was abroad. nor did any one else see him that night. again he had mysteriously vanished under circumstances which convinced the detective more firmly than ever that his retreat was somewhere in the vicinity of my home. chapter xiii of the advantages of being wounded i suppose i must have lost more blood than i had reckoned upon, or else the excitement of the pursuit had been sufficient to keep me going; but whichever it was, no sooner had we pulled up than i collapsed. i was never nearer fainting in my life. in fact i had to take another stiff dose of whisky, and even then i was only too glad to relinquish the steering-wheel to forrest, and let him drive me the rest of the way home. he never left me until i was safely in bed, and the surgeon he had summoned had stitched me up. fortunately my wounds proved, as forrest had foretold, more painful than dangerous. the bullet had carried with it some shreds of cloth; and the removal of these from my arm was the only really painful bit of work the surgeon had to perform. however, the medical man insisted upon my remaining in bed, and i obeyed his orders for a couple of days; but on the third i felt so well that i rebelled against any further confinement, and though still considerably sore, i managed to get out and about. i found i was a little bit shaky, yet i managed to get as far as colonel mainland's house, and there i found my adventure had been a blessing in disguise, for i could see from the manner in which she greeted me, that my last encounter with the pirate had wiped from miss maitland's memory all remembrance of the previous occasion. there was only one thing to mar my enjoyment of the situation thus created. mannering had unfortunately been successful in making himself a candidate for similar solicitude. his injury, however, was even more trivial than mine, the bullet having merely scored his shoulder. i wished devoutly it had missed him altogether, or been a few inches higher and more to the right; for in such case i should have had miss maitland's undivided sympathies and attention, whereas i had perforce to share them with my rival. i knew i had done nothing heroic; but if mannering had not been hit i might at least have posed as half a hero, instead of which i had to be content with being a quarter of one. however, i made the most of what glory i had earned, and i am bound to confess that i traded upon my sore arm in the most shameless fashion. fortunately the motor pirate at this time entered upon a long period of quiescence, so that i was free to make the most of my opportunity, and to devote the whole of my time to miss maitland's society. the detective was firmly of the opinion that this prolonged rest was due to one of our shots having found its billet, and declared that we should hear nothing more of him until he had repaired damages. the inaction, however, soon became very wearisome to him; and when a fortnight had elapsed without a single appearance having been chronicled, he became quite morose. by that time he had searched over the whole district, but not a trace of any other injured person could he discover; and he was as much at a loss for a clue to the identity of the pirate as he had been when he first entered upon the job of running him to earth. the press by this time had nothing but jeers for the police and for the detective force generally. meantime the most extraordinary steps were taken to secure the pirate's arrest when he should renew his career. the automobile club had officially lent their assistance to the police, and night by night the principal roads of the county were patrolled by the members of the club, thirsting for the opportunity of distinguishing themselves by the capture of the marauder. the pirate must have been vastly amused in his retirement as he read of the sensation he had created. i rather think that the man in the street looked upon the whole matter as the great sporting event of the century, and his sympathies were undoubtedly with the man who could so easily snap his fingers at the army of police, amateur and professional, who were engaged in the task of seeking him. in fact, if he had not committed the murder at towcester, i am convinced that the public would have elevated him to the position of a great popular hero. even as it was, he had no lack of apologists; and an eminent ballad-monger celebrated his exploits in some verses, which were immensely applauded when recited by long-haired enthusiasts at smoking concerts and similar gatherings. all this was gall to forrest; and at last one day, three weeks after our encounter with the pirate, he told me he could stand it no longer. "i must try another line of country," he remarked. "what line do you propose?" i asked. "the only thing i can think of," he replied, "is to make inquiries in amsterdam, to see if the diamonds which were taken from the mail, have been offered for sale. i am quite certain they have not been put upon the market this side of the water." i was very loth to let him go alone; but he would not hear of my accompanying him. "what! run away now, and let your friend mannering have a clear field? i wouldn't if i were you," he remarked. "besides, i can manage this sort of work better by myself." his final argument was conclusive, and he went away promising to look me up immediately he returned, and expressing the hope that nothing more would be heard of the pirate until his return. on the very same day it happened that mannering also took his departure from st. stephens. i had mentioned in his hearing that forrest had been called away, and he had then informed us--miss maitland and myself--that he had some business in paris in connection with the patent tyre with which he was still experimenting, which would entail his absence for two or three days. i sincerely trusted that his business would require a much longer period to transact; and as he was leaving by an early train the next morning, i took particular care he should obtain no opportunity for a private leave-taking with miss maitland. it was not a sporting thing to do, perhaps, but i was so much in earnest about my love-making, that i had no scruples about spoiling as many of my rival's chances as i could. however, as it happened, i found somewhat to my surprise that my tactics were not unwelcome to miss maitland. she confessed as much to me the next day. she---but perhaps it will be better for me to give in some detail the conversation we had upon this occasion, since it had a considerable bearing upon after events. the morning after mannering had departed was as brilliant a one as june ever bestowed upon mortal. now that my rival was out of the way, i thought i might dispense with the sling which i had worn hitherto, and directly after breakfast i strolled across to the maitlands', with the intention of persuading miss maitland to come for a ride on the mercédès. i found her on the point of starting for a stroll, with the object of giving her favourite irish setter a run, and i was easily persuaded to abandon my projected ride and accompany her instead. we chose the footpath between st. stephen's church and the village of park street, and, stepping out briskly, we soon reached our destination; and as my companion would not hear of turning back, we continued our walk to bricket wood. there i insisted upon resting. i had never seen her in higher spirits than she was that morning. she bubbled over with gaiety. so much so that i could not help commenting upon the fact. "yes," she replied frankly, in answer to my remarks on the subject, "i do feel gay this morning. i feel as if a load had been removed from my shoulders." "surely you can have no troubles," i remarked, half-banteringly. a shadow alighted for a moment upon her face and was gone again. "nothing which ought to be a trouble. nothing tangible and yet---oh, mr. sutgrove, do you--have you ever experienced a presentiment of something dreadful happening? no; that is not exactly what i mean. i don't know how to explain myself without----" then she paused, and i discreetly kept silence. presently she resumed. "men are so stupid, or i would tell you all about it. you would never understand." i saw my opening and made use of it. "we men may be stupid both individually and collectively," i said. "but i can answer for one man being sympathetic to anything you like to say to him." she laughed. "i am so afraid you will think me silly." "miss maitland--evie----" i began. "hush!" she stopped me with an adorable smile. "you know you haven't caught the motor pirate, yet." i summoned up the most injured expression permitted by my contentment with my surroundings and fell silent again. "poor boy!" she said mockingly. "it is unkind of me to remind you of your vow, when you have already done your best to fulfil it." "not quite my best, yet," i muttered sullenly. "anyhow i think you have done quite enough to warrant my taking you into my confidence." she said this quite seriously, and glancing up at her, i saw she was looking into a glade of the wood with a preoccupied expression on her pretty face, which showed me that it was in reality no petty trouble which worried her. "this scene is so delightfully restful. i love the cool green lights and the cool grey shadows of the woodlands in early summer," she remarked absently. i had no eyes for aught but the face of the speaker, though i was indirectly conscious that there was a good deal of beauty in the wood. to me it seemed an appropriate background, that was all. "yes," i said. "but about this presentiment of yours----" "it is hardly a presentiment; in fact, i don't know what to call it," she replied. then she turned and faced me. "now listen. there's an acquaintance of mine, whom i know very well and used to like a great deal. yes, i think i am right in saying used to like. well, for some undefined reason, my liking has change to something very like fear." "for what reason?" i asked. "none," she replied. "absolutely there is no reason whatever." "a case of dr. fell," i said. "well, avoid your dr. fell." "that is exactly what i am unable to do," she answered, and i could see she was speaking truly. "this fear has grown up in some degree, i think, from a subtle sort of consciousness that the person in question has it in his power to exert a curious influence over me. i seem to be drawn against my will into an attitude towards him which is not only against my judgment, but also against my inclination." "him?" i asked. "him? is it mannering?" "why, what made you think of him? does he affect you in the same way?" she said eagerly. "far from it," i replied. my first feeling was one of delight at discovering that my rival was more feared than loved. but as i thought over the matter, my astonishment grew. i had looked upon mannering as a rival, and as a favoured rival, but i was not prepared to hear that evie maitland was afraid of him, or of any other man for the matter of that, and i said so. "a month ago, i should have laughed at the idea myself," she replied, "but to-day----" she shuddered slightly. "now you know why i feel so gay this morning. the fact is, when on awakening this morning i realized that i should be absolutely free from his presence for two whole days, i hardly knew how to contain myself for joy." "surely you must have some grounds for fearing him, something in his manner----" "no. yet i have thought--but it is nothing. when we have been alone together he has sat once or twice staring at me. i try to speak to him, but he sits and stares and stares, with his eyes so bright and all the time so sombre--so penetrating that i feel that he sees quite through me. just like one does in those unpleasant dreams where one's clothes have somehow disappeared. to-day, and now, it seems very silly, yet i am certain i shall feel exactly the same the next time i meet him. then when he sees how confused i am he gives a sort of a laugh, an unpleasant kind of a chuckle without any merriment in it." "he's a d----d cad!" i cried hotly. "i--i don't know," she answered. "i don't seem to mind at the time. it is just as if i were in a dream, for i am so fascinated in watching him that i have no thoughts left for myself. it is when he has gone that the thought seems unpleasant. then i always think i will never see him again, but the next time he calls i feel bound to do so. there, now i have confided in you, don't tell me i am a weak hysterical girl or i really don't know what will happen to me." she laid one of her little hands on my arm and looked imploringly into my eyes. "i know you are neither weak nor hysterical," i replied. "you will help me, won't you?" she asked. i took both hands in mine and looked straight into her eyes. "the only way i see of helping you," i said deliberately, "is for you to give me the right to do so." she did not take her hands from my grasp. * * * * * "do you know, jim," she said an hour later, when we came out of the wood into the meadow, "that i told you not to speak to me until you had captured the motor pirate." "you could not answer for me, darling," i replied. "but i should not have done so if i----" "had not found the temptation to do so irresistible," she said, taking the words out of my mouth with so bewitching an air, that again i found an irresistible temptation confronting me. we did not revert again to the curious influence which evie had declared mannering exercised. she would not allow of it. she wanted to think that he had gone completely out of her life, and that no more shadows were ever to fall across her path. and i was too happy myself to wish to refer to anything which should bring an unpleasant memory to her mind. i shall never forget our walk home. the silver thread of the ver, the old monastery gate-house and the ruins of sopwell priory in the foreground, the churches of st. stephens and st michaels on either hand, and in the centre of the picture the abbey of st. albans brooding over all. we decided to be married in the abbey. i trod on air. chapter xiv a cloud appears on love's horizon mannering remained absent for a week, and during that time i learned from evie a good deal about the curious dread which he had inspired in her mind. had inspired, i say, for she assured me it had passed away, and that she felt quite safe now she was promised to be my wife. our betrothal had been announced the day after the never-to-be-forgotten walk to bricket wood, and i had hastened to make it known as widely as i could, for i could think of no likelier method of ensuring her against any further annoyance on the part of mannering. when he saw that he had lost, i could not think that he would do otherwise than retire gracefully from the scene. if, however, he failed to take his failure kindly, i should not have the slightest hesitation about sending him about his business. i should have been tempted to do so without further delay, if there had in reality been anything in mannering's conduct to which open exception could have been taken. evie recognized there was nothing of the sort as strongly as myself, and she was even averse to do as i suggested, and ask her father to hint to him that he should, for a while at least, cease his visits to the house. "you see," she remarked, "if he had made himself offensive in any other way, i should have welcomed the opportunity of speaking to papa about it. but he has not. his attitude has been outwardly perfectly courteous, and papa would only laugh at me if i were to tell him what i have told you. he would not believe me if i told him i was afraid of mr. mannering." "besides, you are now no longer afraid?" i said. "no; i am no longer afraid of him. i am quite sure of that," she repeated. the manner in which she made the assertion ought to have warned me that she was not quite so certain on the point as she was willing to believe, but no such thought crossed my mind at the time. "anyhow," i continued, "if when you see mannering again, you feel any recurrence of your dread, it will be easy for me to pick a quarrel with him, and so compel him to absent himself from the house. you see, he will be unable to come here without meeting me." evie pouted a dissent. "you must not do that," she remarked. "a quarrel with him would make both of us look ridiculous. everybody would conclude that you were jealous; and i--i should not like to imagine any one thinking that i gave you cause." "my own darling!" i cried. * * * * * when once more we resumed our conversation, i bethought me of another plan, and i suggested to evie that she could always find a retreat at my home in norfolk, if she wanted to get away from mannering's presence. my aunt, i knew, would be delighted to entertain her. she agreed at once to adopt this course if the occasion should arise. thus i thought i had provided against every contingency for the short period which was to elapse before our wedding-day. when mannering did return, however, it seemed as if we had been making preparations to meet a contingency which was never likely to arise. he learned of evie's engagement from the colonel, the morning after his return to st. albans. he took the news very well. much more coolly than i should have done had i been the disappointed one. in fact, a few minutes after he had been made acquainted with evie's engagement, he came to us where we were in the garden, and congratulated us forthwith. "you are a lucky fellow, sutgrove," he said. "i had cherished a faint hope that your luck might be mine, and now the only consolation i have is that the best man always wins." spoken in a different tone than that which he employed, his words would have made a very pretty compliment, but from his lips the words seemed to be very like a sarcasm. however, i could pardon the expression of a little bitterness under the circumstances, so i made no reply; and, turning to evie, he continued-"i trust your new tie will not put an end to the old friendships, miss maitland?" "why should it?" she asked. "they often do," he replied. "not if the old friendships are the real thing," i interjected. "no; not if they are the real thing," he repeated slowly. "i hope you will find mine to be the real thing." a faint smile fluttered across his face as he spoke, and was gone in an instant. neither evie nor myself knew what to reply, and an awkward pause ensued. he seemed to feel the awkwardness of it just as much as either of us, and he changed the subject with an inquiry as to whether anything further had been heard or seen of the motor pirate during his own absence in paris. "i have been far too busy to even look at the papers," he explained, "and he might have been captured for all i know." "no such luck," i replied. "this time he seems to have disappeared for good." "i see i shall have to take up your job, and devote my energies to the task of his capture," he said laughingly. and, turning to evie, he said, "i presume you will not allow sutgrove to take any risks of that sort now, miss maitland?" again there was something sarcastic in his tone, and i could see by the flush in evie's cheek that the question had angered her. she answered almost hotly-"i am quite sure if any one can capture the pirate, jim can." "i have no intention of giving up the pursuit just at present," i added quietly, with a glance of thanks to my dear one for her ready championship. "i don't think i should trouble myself about any motor pirate if i were in your position," he replied. "i fancy if i were engaged to be married to the best girl in the world, the first thing i should do would be to eliminate every risk from my life, instead of looking about for fresh ones. besides, it seems scarcely fair on the girl, does it?" "surely that depends on what the girl thinks, doesn't it?" asked evie. "a good many girls haven't much admiration for the man who would act as you suggest." "ah, well!" returned mannering. "i see now where sutgrove has succeeded. the prize always goes to the adventurous." again there was a subtle provocation in his tone--something very like a sneer. an angry retort was on the tip of my tongue, but a glance from evie checked it, and soon after he left us together. "you must not be angry with him," she said, as soon as we were alone. "he does not know you as i do; and besides i think he--he must be disappointed." "there's not the slightest doubt about that," i answered emphatically. "he is badly hit, and he takes it pretty well considering. i know i shouldn't have taken my gruel so coolly. in fact, that is just what i don't like about him. one never knows what is going on behind that handsome mask of his." "handsome," she said. "do you call him handsome?" "yes. i should say he was one of the handsomest men of my acquaintance. how could you ever bestow a single glance or thought upon me when----" evie placed her hand upon my lips. "you dear, foolish old boy," she said. "there is only one face in the whole wide world which i think is really handsome, and i have thought so from the first time i caught sight of it." there was another interlude in our conversation--they were pretty frequent in those days--and the subject dropped for a time. it recurred frequently, however, and gradually i perceived that whatever subject we discussed, sooner or later, mannering's name was bound to crop up. at first i rather encouraged evie to talk about him; but, after a while, i discovered that i was ministering to the feeling which i thought had been destroyed. i could not help but notice that, soon after mannering's return, evie's high spirits became subdued--her gaiety less spontaneous. yet when i asked her whether mannering's presence produced any effect upon her, she assured me to the contrary. nor did i see how mannering could possibly exert any influence over her. i took particular care that he should never have a _tête-à-tête_ with her. sometimes she would not even see him for a couple of days at a time, and when she did, it would be merely for a few minutes, and nearly always in the presence of colonel maitland as well as myself. it appeared to me, indeed, as if mannering even took pains to avoid seeing much of her; and, though i watched him closely, his bearing was always studiously correct. he was the same _insouciant_ person who had impressed me so favourably upon my first introduction to him. but whether it was owing to the distrust which evie's fear of him had impressed upon me, or because i could really see things which had before been hidden from my sight, i certainly did observe about him certain singularities which i had never before remarked. i saw, for instance, that, in speaking of his face as a handsome mask, i had been nearer the truth than i had known. on more than one occasion, while his lips were parted in a genial smile, i observed in his eyes an expression strangely at variance therewith. it was the expression of a cat when it crouches to spring upon a mouse. i have seen that look bent upon my betrothed. i have caught it directed at myself. there was a restlessness, too, which gave the lie to his nonchalant manner. i could see that he forced himself to remain still. his fingers were always busy with something or other. these were trifles, and equally trivial seemed the sarcasms which he directed at me now and again. these i attributed to the ebullitions of temper, natural enough in a defeated suitor. in my heart i pitied him, for i fancied i knew what a struggle it must have cost him to stand aside and watch a successful rival's happiness. as the days passed, a certain constraint appeared to have arisen between evie and myself. i told myself that the idea was foolish, and yet i knew that it was not so. mind, i had not the slightest doubt as to the strength of evie's love for me. she expressed it clearly, yet there was something drawing us apart, and i began to be afraid. towards the middle of june the tension became so great, that i could see the time had arrived when it would be necessary to do something; and, one night, i determined to mention the matter. accordingly, after dinner, i persuaded evie to come into the garden, with the intention to speak firmly in my mind. there, however, in the faint light of the summer night, with the sweet scent of the early roses filling the air, i forgot everything in the blissfulness of my lot. we had paced our favourite walk once in silence--my heart was too full of delight for speech--when, as we retraced our steps, to my surprise, evie burst suddenly into passionate tears. some minutes elapsed before i could calm her, and when i managed at last to do so, it needed all my powers of persuasion to get her to confide in me the cause of her outburst. at first she said it was nothing but the hysteria of happiness. then she asked me, with a fierce clutch on my arm, if i should think her unmaidenly if she asked that our wedding-day should be hastened. we had fixed it for september, so i at once suggested july. her mood changed at once. she said she was not feeling well, and that i must not listen to her. but being now thoroughly alarmed at her obviously nervous condition, i questioned her until i elicited from her that all her old dread of mannering had returned, and with double intensity, in that it was accompanied by a presentiment of disaster to myself. "jim," she said, looking up into my face with eyes which glowed in the faint light like stars, "i shall not feel sure of you until i am with you always. i want to be near you to look after you. every moment you are absent from my side, i am imagining all sorts of horrible things happening to you. and it is worse to bear, because, it seems to me, that i am the cause of it all." i strove to laugh away her fears, but, say what i would, i could not dispel the thought in her mind that some disaster threatened our love. probing her mind for the foundation of her belief, i was not surprised to find that mannering had something to do with it. i did my best to make her mind easy, while determining that i would at once take steps to secure change of air and scene for her at some spot where my late rival should not come. she became tolerably composed at last, and i took her back to the drawing-room, where i was glad to find mrs. winter, in whom i recognized a most useful sedative for over-excited nerves. we had a little music, and with that and the commonplaces of conversation, the evening passed until eleven had struck, and the colonel's yawns warned me that the time had arrived for taking my departure. the winters and myself had just risen to leave when we heard a hasty step on the gravel outside, and, turning, we saw a man's figure at one of the french windows opening on to the garden. "hullo!" said the colonel. "who's that?" the new-comer stepped into the room, and, as the light fell upon his face, i recognized forrest. he nodded to me and turned to the colonel. "i trust you will excuse this unceremonious call of mine, colonel maitland," he said. "but i was desirous of seeing mr. sutgrove immediately, and i guessed i should find him here." "i'll excuse you, if you will come to the smoking-room and drink mr. sutgrove's health in a whisky-and-seltzer," replied the colonel, heartily. "i don't think i can spare the time," said the detective, quietly. "nonsense, man! you must drink the health of my future son-in-law!" he declared. "most certainly," remarked forrest. "i can find time for that, even though----" he paused, and then said, with quiet incisiveness, "even though the motor pirate is upon the road again!" chapter xv a clue at last immediately forrest had made his dramatic announcement, i glanced at evie, for in view of the apprehension she had exhibited earlier in the evening, i was just a little doubtful as to whether she would take kindly to the renewal of my attempts to catch the pirate. to my satisfaction, she exhibited no signs of trepidation, if she did not appear altogether delighted that i was to have another opportunity of distinguishing myself. in fact as soon as the detective had followed colonel maitland from the room, she told me that she was glad. "i don't fear for you a scrap, jim. at least not much," she said. "i know you won't do anything foolish, for my sake." i interrupted with, "nor for my own." "and do you know," she continued, "i have a queer sort of impression that when the pirate is captured, this horrible depression which has been hanging over me will disappear altogether." "then captured he must be without delay," i said. "though i don't see how mannering will be affected thereby." "i am not so sure about that," said evie. "you surely cannot think that mannering is in any way connected with the motor pirate?" i inquired in surprise, for any such idea had long passed from my mind. "i don't know," she remarked dreamily; "i don't know. but i should not be surprised. i really could believe anything about him." i reminded her of the steps forrest had taken to assure himself that there were no grounds for such a suspicion, but she was not convinced; so i forbore to continue the discussion, changing the conversation to the arrangements to be made for her proposed visit to norfolk. it was decided that i should write at once to my aunt, and that she should be ready to start the moment i received a reply. we had settled all the preliminaries by the time the colonel and forrest returned, and i bade her good night, feeling quite easy in my mind. "i am delighted to be able to congratulate you," said forrest, the moment we were outside. "i am the luckiest man in the world," i replied. "you are," returned the detective, emphatically. "all the same, i should not have been sorry if miss maitland had stuck to her intention of refusing to listen to you until after the capture of the pirate." "why?" i demanded. "for purely selfish reasons," he replied. "i take it you will not be so keen on the chase. men in your position don't take risks." i held out my hand to him. "put your fist in that," i said. "what i have promised, i stick to; and, to tell the truth, i was never keener on anything in my life." "that's good news for me," he answered, and i could tell from his tone that he meant it. besides, he was not a man given to the paying of idle compliments. we were walking quietly towards my cottage as we talked, and the impulse came upon me to confide to him the presentiment which evie had in regard to the capture of the pirate relieving her from her burden of fear. that necessitated my explaining as well as i could the curious influence which mannering exercised over her. forrest listened attentively. "curious," he muttered, when i had finished. "it is very curious that the fellow should have produced such an impression on miss maitland. by the way, he was not at the colonel's to-night." "no," i replied. "i wonder----" he began. he never finished the sentence, nor did he speak again until he reached my door. there he paused, and said lightly, "i think i should like to discover whether the disappointed lover is at home to-night. are you prepared for a little amateur burglary, sutgrove?" "ready for anything," i assured him. "it seems a little absurd to suspect mannering," he remarked meditatively. "yet there are times when a woman's intuition is a better guide than a man's ratiocination." "you didn't get any clue in amsterdam, then?" i asked tentatively, for i was curious to hear the results of his journey. "no, no. nothing at all in holland." "if mannering were the pirate, and had tried to dispose of his plunder there, you would in all probability have caught him; but he would scarcely have chosen to go abroad at the same time as yourself," i remarked. forrest emitted a long, low whistle. "by jove!" he said. "then it was indeed he whom i saw in vienna." "in vienna?" i queried. "when did he leave england?" asked the detective, ignoring my question. "the very day you left," i replied promptly. "come, this is getting interesting," he said. "tonight we will most certainly let the pirate do his worst on the roads. we will look for a clue to the mystery of his identity nearer home." he looked at his watch. "it's a little too early to pay our call, so if you don't mind, i will come in and we can discuss the matter at leisure." to say that forrest's enigmatic utterances filled me with excitement, very inadequately expresses the state of my mind. he followed me indoors, and, while i mixed a drink for each of us, he saw that the windows and doors were closed. then seating himself in an easy chair, he selected a cigar and remarked-"now we can talk." "i thought you only intended to go to amsterdam," i began. "that was my intention," he replied. "but before giving you the results of my inquiries--it won't take long, by the way--i should like to ask you one or two questions, if i may?" "fire away," i said. "did you mention to any one where i had gone?" "not to a soul. at least certainly not at the time, though i have probably mentioned the matter to miss maitland since." "oh, you young lovers!" he interjected. "she would not speak of the matter, i know. i gave out to every one else that you had been recalled to london." "anyway, it would not have mattered if she had, as mannering left on the same day as myself. where did he say he was going?" "he said he was bound for paris on business connected with some patents he was applying for. he told us he would be absent for two or three days; and as a matter of fact, he was away for ten." "that would about fit in," remarked the detective, after a moment's thought. "but of that you shall judge for yourself." he moistened his lips and pulled at his cigar until it was well alight, and then he commenced his story. "i carried out my original intention, and the night after i left you i caught the 8.30 at liverpool street. the next morning i was in amsterdam. i stayed there three days, until i was quite convinced that no such parcel of diamonds as had been stolen had been offered for sale to any of the dutch dealers. i could not have failed to hear of it if any such attempt had been made. while there i had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a russian agent, whose work i fancy must have been largely political. ivan stroviloff his name was, and he had acquaintances in most european capitals. i discussed the matter with him. he thought that an attempt to dispose of the stones was much more likely to be made in vienna or st. petersburg than anywhere else except paris. i was aware of our agents in paris having been fully informed, and i knew it was not worth my while to go there; but beyond notifying the austrian police, i doubted whether any steps had been taken in regard to vienna, so i determined to proceed to the austrian capital. stroviloff proved a very decent fellow, rather an exception to the general run, for i don't take to those russian agents as a rule; and as i was able to give him a few hints and some introductions over here--he was going on to london--he gave me in return letters to some of his colleagues in vienna and petersburg, thinking they would probably be of more use to me than application through the usual official channels. well, i went on to vienna. i won't weary you with a history of my fruitless inquiries, it would take far too much time. anyhow, i did find eventually that a parcel of diamonds had been disposed of there, and, as stroviloff had predicted, i obtained the information through one of the russian agents and not through the viennese police. i will say that i do not see how the latter could have helped me, for the purchaser was the representative of a petersburg house who happened to be in vienna for the purpose of attending the sale of the princess novikoff's jewels--you probably saw all about it in the papers." it was a remarkable sale, and the extraordinary prices realized are probably fresh in most people's memories. i told forrest i had seen accounts of it, and he continued. "unfortunately i did not get the information until after the representative in question had returned to petersburg. there was nothing left for me to do but to follow him there if i wanted to satisfy myself as to whether the stones of which i had heard were really the ones stolen from the mail. it was rather like a wild goose chase, but i went. it was the day before i started that i saw the man who reminded me so forcibly of your friend mannering. it was a very fleeting glimpse of a face which looked in at the door of a restaurant where i happened to be dining, and i should not like to swear that it was he whom i saw. at the time, i put my fancy down to one of those casual likenesses which sometimes lead even keen observers to accost total strangers in the streets as acquaintances. the likeness was, however, undeniable, in spite of something strange about his appearance. however, i paid no attention to the incident, and the next morning i was on my way to petersburg. there i found no difficulty in obtaining full particulars from the dealer. i have no doubt but that he has purchased the stones which were stolen from the brighton mail. in size, weight, and quality they answered to the description perfectly. i learned from him that the man from whom he had bought the stones had been introduced to him by a well-known viennese jeweller. the price asked, though not very greatly below market value, was low enough to tempt him to purchase. the man who offered them suggested that payment should be made, not to himself, but to his firm in amsterdam. the transaction seemed in every way _bonâ fide_, the explanation as to the low price being that the amsterdam firm was rather pressed for cash, and so compelled to realize some of its stock, but was unable to do so in amsterdam for fear of jeopardizing its credit. the man who sold the stones gave the name of josef hoffman, and the merchant produced his card which bore the name of jacob meyer and meyer, and an address in the de jordaan, amsterdam. he was described to me as a tall, powerful, fresh-coloured, fair-haired german, of pleasant manners and address. the petersburg merchant's representative had given him a draft on an amsterdam bank and, on reaching the russian capital, after examining the stones, his employer had authorized the payment of the draft by telegraph. "as soon as i obtained these particulars, i started once more for the dutch city without wasting much time. needless to say, i was too late to catch my man. the office in the de jordaan i found to be a room which had been taken for a week or two, and then vacated, by a person whom i easily identified as the fair-haired german. the draft had been exchanged for a draft on the banker's london agents by the same man. i came on to london immediately, but hoffman, or whatever his name may be, was a week ahead of me. i traced him to the london bank where he had cashed his draft. he did it in the coolest manner imaginable. he left it one day saying that he required gold, and that if they would get the amount ready--it was over £4000--he would call for it the next day. he actually allowed two days to elapse before doing so. then he came in a cab with a handbag and took away the gold. that at present is as far as i have got. i only learned the last of these particulars this afternoon, and of course i went at once to the yard to make my report and to arrange for the circulation of the description of the fair-haired german throughout the country. then i came on to you." forrest finished his drink and stood up. "now you know as much about the case as i do," he remarked, "and i fancy it is about time for us to pay our proposed visit to our friend mannering." "i don't see how you can connect him in any way with hoffman," i said, as i rose from my seat. forrest smiled. "i omitted to tell you one thing," he observed. "i could not see the hair of the man in vienna whose face seemed familiar to me. but one thing i did remark. the man with mannering's face wore a fair moustache." "but mannering's is dark," i argued. "it was dark when he went away and dark when he returned." forrest held up his hand mockingly. "in these days of scientific progress nothing is easier than for the intelligent leopard to change his spots. ask the brunette when fashion decrees that fair hair is to be worn, and ask again of the blonde how she manages when the exigencies demand raven tresses." that settled me. "there's only one thing more," i said. "when did you hear that the motor pirate was at work again?" "at st. albans. i called at the police office on my way here. he was seen about ten o'clock this side of peterborough and going north." "it will be rather a sell if mannering is at home," i remarked. "he will not be at home," replied forrest with conviction. chapter xvi i commit a burglary the night was moonless, but there was that soft diffused light in the air invariable in june, except on the cloudiest of evenings. there was just enough of it to enable us to see our way as we strolled towards mannering's house. when we reached it everything appeared still. all the windows were dark. i felt my heart beginning to beat faster than ordinarily as forrest lifted the latch of the gate opening on to the strip of garden, which lay between the road and the house. we walked along the turf edging of the path in order that our feet might not crunch upon the gravel. forrest was first. he went straight to the front door and tried it. it was fast. "we will try one of those french windows," he whispered after returning to my side. the house was a two-story cottage with a verandah opening on the south side facing a lawn. on to this verandah windows opened from both the dining and sitting-rooms, the servants' quarters being on the other side of the house. we went round the angle of the building and tried the first window. it was fastened. with cat-like tread forrest glided on to the second. it was one of the two giving entrance to the sitting-room. a sibilant sound from the detective's lips took me to his side. without hesitating a second, he threw back the casement and stepped into the darkness. "come," he muttered, and i followed. heavy curtains veiled the windows and past these the darkness was thick enough to be felt. of a sudden there was a crack which made me start. it was only forrest striking a match. with imperturbable confidence, he stepped towards a table and lit the lamp which stood thereon. i felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but forrest obviously knew no such qualms, for he at once proceeded to examine every object in the room. so far as i could see, there was nothing at all unusual about the place. the room was in exactly the same condition as i had observed it hundreds of times before when i had dropped in for a smoke and a chat. on the table, beside the lamp, was a tantalus and a glass, and a half empty syphon. the glass had been used and the ash on the floor, beside an armchair, showed that a cigar had accompanied the drink. a pair of slippers lay on the hearth rug as if they had been carelessly kicked off. forrest pointed to them. "mannering is not at home," he said. "if he had gone to bed, these would not be here." "i hope he will not return while we are about," i muttered. "it would be a little awkward for him," said forrest, calmly. "i should be compelled to arrest him in self-defence, and i am not prepared to do so at present." he did not, however, hurry his movements in any way as he proceeded to deliberately search the room. only once did he pause, and that was when he discovered a continental time-table of recent date. he brought the book to the light and turned over the pages carefully. a gleam of exultation crossed his face, as he pointed out to me a trace of tobacco ash between the pages which gave details of the train service between vienna and amsterdam. "we are on the right track," he observed. but that one slight piece of evidence was all that the most careful examination of the room revealed, although there was not a drawer nor a shelf which he did not overhaul. "we must try his bedroom," he remarked, when he had finished with the sitting-room. "what about the servants?" i asked. "if they are not asleep, they will merely imagine that it is their master going to bed," he replied, as taking a candlestick, which stood on an occasional table near the door, he passed out of the room. i followed him upstairs, with my heart in my mouth, and pointed out to him the door of the room which mannering occupied. as forrest turned the handle and entered, i was quite prepared to make a bolt for it. i should not have been a bit surprised to have discovered our suspect sleeping quietly within. but forrest turned and beckoned me to enter. the room was empty, and this time i assisted the detective in his search. between us we subjected the bedroom and the adjoining dressing-room to the closest scrutiny, but without result. we could not, unfortunately, make an exhaustive examination, for there were one or two ancient presses which were locked, and the chubb safe let into the wall by the bed head was likewise fastened. the detective shrugged his shoulders when we had done. "as we haven't a burglar's outfit, we shall have to wait until we have a search warrant," he muttered. with a disappointed air he led the way out of the room. on the landing he paused. his keen gaze had rested for a moment on a travelling bag which stood under a table. there were the remains of a number of labels upon it and he scanned them carefully. there was no sufficient of any one of them left for identification. "he's a clever devil," he whispered. then he opened the bag and again his countenance lightened. inside was an empty bottle bearing the label of a london chemist, with the additional superscription--"peroxide of hydrogen." "the fair hair is accounted for," commented forrest. "and as for the dye which would restore his locks to their natural colour, i presume he has it under lock and key." he slipped the bottle into his pocket and returned downstairs, i following at his heels. "there's not enough at present against him to warrant his arrest," he said, when we were again in the sitting-room. "then why not have a look round his workshops," i suggested. "his what?" queried forrest, eagerly. "haven't i ever mentioned them to you? haven't you ever heard that mannering spends all his spare time in experimental motor construction?" i asked in surprise. "i think i have heard it mentioned, but until this moment i have always thought it was chaff," he replied. "good heavens!" i ejaculated. "i should have been inside that shop a couple of months ago," he continued, "if i had thought---whereabouts is the shop?" "just at the back of the house and abutting on the side of the road," i explained. "the old coach-house and stables." then as the thought occurred to me, i continued, "why i heard him tell you of his work himself." "that's precisely the reason why i paid no attention to it," said my companion. "can you take me to the place?" i led the way through the french window, forrest putting out the light before he followed me, and carefully closing the casement behind him as he stepped on to the verandah. a clock, somewhere in st. albans, struck the half after two as we crossed the lawn in the direction of the workshop. "we have only a short time at our disposal," whispered forrest. "the darkness is lifting, and our friend will soon be returning." we passed through a side door, which we found unlocked, into what had once been the stable-yard. but we could get no further. the two doors which gave admission to the building were firmly fastened, and there was no available window by which we might gain entrance. we retraced our steps, and, passing out of the door, approached the stables from the road. by this time the dawn had made such progress that we knew our chances of getting inside before mannering's return were dwindling rapidly. we found no more likelihood of obtaining admission from this side than the other. "i cannot arrest a man on the evidence of a few grains of tobacco dust, and an empty phial," declared forrest, savagely, as he shook the tightly locked door. "listen!" i said. borne on the wind came the throb of a motor. so still was the air that when the sound first reached our ears it must have been a mile away. the sound drew nearer and nearer, and while it was still a quarter of a mile distant, i recognized the familiar noise of mannering's car, a sound as dissimilar to the hum of the pirate car as it was possible to conceive. "forrest," i cried, turning to my companion, "we must be mad to think that mannering could play the part of the motor pirate on that old car of his." there was something so irresistibly ludicrous in the idea, that we both indulged in a hearty fit of laughter, and with one accord we turned and walked down the road. "he may keep his fast car elsewhere," remarked the detective, when his mirth had subsided. "it would be difficult to bring the guilt home to him if we failed to discover the car," i replied. a few seconds later we met the man whom we had so lately suspected. i felt a tinge of shame at the thought that, a few minutes previously, i had been sneaking into his house in the hope that i should find evidence to convict him of a crime. by this time dawn was sufficiently advanced to allow of recognition, and as he came level with us mannering pulled up. "hullo, sutgrove!" he shouted. "you're about betimes. been on the same job as myself?" "what's that, mr. mannering?" asked forrest "looking for an opportunity to pay back this little debt," was the light answer, as the speaker tapped his shoulder gently. "any luck?" said forrest, dryly. "not a scrap," was the ready reply. "you see i'm a bit handicapped with this old car, for unless the fellow happens to take the same road as myself, there's precious little chance of my picking him up. still, if you do not soon succeed in catching him, i think i shall have a good try myself." "i suppose by that you know who he is," i remarked, more in order to see what he would say than in the hope of eliciting anything. "not the slightest idea on the subject," he responded promptly. "i am merely hoping that in a few days i shall be in possession of a new motor from which even the pirate will be unable to escape." i made a gesture of surprise. "fact," he continued. "my experiments have proved successful at last. in a week i shall have delivered to me the new motor i have designed, and then the pirate had better look out. good night." waving an adieu, he set his car in motion, and jogged along until he reached the door of his coach-house. we watched him dismount, unlock the door, and disappear inside. "it beats me," remarked forrest. "surely you do not still harbour any suspicion concerning him?" i inquired in amazement. forrest made no reply. his head was bent, his brow knitted deeply, his hands clasped behind him as we turned and walked back to my place. he did not speak until we stopped on my doorstep. "i wish he had not seen us," my companion then remarked. "he will be bound to tumble to the conclusion that we suspect him, and will be on his guard." "then you do still suspect him," i cried again. "if i had one scrap of direct evidence," replied the detective, emphatically, "i would have him under arrest within half an hour. only one little scrap," he almost groaned. "but, as it is, my reputation would not survive if i made a mistake." "why, you don't imagine that he would go so far as to shoot himself just to avert suspicion," i asked, still incredulous. forrest drew himself up smartly. "good lord! what a fool i am! what--a--blind--dunderheaded--jackass!" he cried. "what's the matter now?" i inquired smiling, for the detective was groping in his pockets. "have you lost anything?" from his waistcoat pocket he produced a small leaden bullet, and he held it outstretched in the palm of his hand. "here have i been wasting weeks on the continent, while with this i might have settled the matter once and for all." "how?" i asked. "i needed but to compare this with the bullet the surgeon extracted from mannering's shoulder. this is the one which killed the poor fellow near towcester. if mannering's bullet is identical with this, i should have nothing more to say; but," he continued meaningly, "both your revolver and mine are of a different calibre to the weapon which fired this. if the bullet which hit mannering should prove to fit either of our weapons, there would be no need to seek for further evidence. i must see that surgeon at once." he started off rapidly down the garden path. i hurried after him and laid my hand on his arm. "steady, old man," i remarked. "you can hardly knock up a hardworked medical man at 3.30 a.m. just to ask him a question." forrest stopped and gave a short laugh. "upon my word, i had entirely forgotten what the time was. no, you are quite right. there is no need for such excessive hurry. mannering is safe enough for the present." "at least, for the next eighteen hours," i observed, after glancing at my watch. "meanwhile, your room has been kept ready for you." "a little sleep will not come amiss," he answered, yawning; "though it seems almost a pity to go to bed on such a morning." he was right. by this time dawn was breaking with a splendour i have never seen equalled before nor since. from east to west the sky was stained and flecked with crimson and gold, and our faces glowed ruddily in the reflected light. we both fell to silence, as with our faces to the east we watched the uprising of the sun; and, until the sky paled as the sun made its appearance above the line of the horizon, we did not stir. then forrest drew a deep breath. "there's been the beauty of destruction in the sunrise," he remarked. "we shall have a storm before nightfall." he followed me indoors, and, leaving him at the door of his room, i went to my own. i got into my pyjamas, but i did not feel inclined to sleep for the sunbeams were glancing in at my window, and all about were the sound and movement of the awakening earth-creatures. i wheeled an easy chair to the window, and wrapping a blanket about me, took a novel i had been reading and strove to fix my attention on the pages. i could not do so. whether it was the reflex action of the brain from the excitement of the evening or not, but the fact was i felt unaccountably depressed. i fought against the feeling as best i could. but i could not get out of my head the idea that some great danger was threatening, not myself, but the one dearest to me in the world. from my window i could see her home, and i drew the chair into a position where my eyes might rest upon the roof which sheltered her. there was some consolation in this, and i watched until i eventually fell into an uneasy slumber, from which i awakened unrefreshed and ill at ease. chapter xvii storm my tub pulled me together to some extent, but i still felt restless when i went downstairs. forrest had already gone out, leaving word that he expected to be back to breakfast at the usual hour. i went into the garden, but the sun was shining in a cloudless sky and there was not a breath of air stirring. it was insufferably hot and i was glad to return into the shade of the house. the detective came in panting, a little later, with disappointment plainly written in his face. "the surgeon out?" i inquired. "no," he answered. "but he was not much use though. mannering kept the bullet. he wanted to retain it, so he said, as a memento of his adventure." "perfectly natural," i commented. "perfectly," returned forrest. "the unfortunate result is, that his doing so prevents me from dismissing the possibility of his being the pirate from my mind. and i ought to be doing something. last night the rascal seems to have been everywhere. apparently he was actuated with a desire to destroy everything which stood in his path. one would judge him to have become absolutely reckless. instead of avoiding the towns, he courted observation by passing through them. this morning at the police office, i heard particulars of at least half a dozen cases of unoffending people being ruthlessly ridden down, and heaven only knows how many more there may be of which the details are not yet to hand. the sheer devilry of his progress is simply amazing. what it comes to is this, sutgrove. if i can't get hold of him within the next week i may as well resign the force at once. if i don't resign i shall be dismissed, and quite deservedly." i tried to say something consolatory, but he would not hear me; and it was not until after he had made a savage attack upon the eggs and rashers and had swallowed three cups of tea, that his usual equanimity returned. "what's the next move?" i asked, when breakfast was done. "i am going to town to see if i can identify the purchaser of this bottle," he replied, holding up the phial he had taken from the bag in mannering's house the night before; "and to inquire whether anything more has been heard of the fair-haired german." "then i can be of no assistance to you, to-day?" i said. "none whatever beyond remaining here and keeping an eye upon our friend. i shall ask for another man to-day to assist in shadowing him, but until his arrival i should be glad for some one to keep me acquainted with his movements. if, as i presume you will, you go over to colonel maitland's, you cannot help seeing whether he leaves his house." i promised to do as he wished, and shortly after he had gone, i took my hat and strolled over to the colonel's place. evie appeared to have quite recovered from her fears of the previous evening, and being busily engaged upon domestic duties, she sent me to join her father under the shade of a big tree on the lawn. there solaced by an iced lemon squash and the newspaper, i managed to pass the morning very comfortably. mannering gave no sign of existence. i took myself home for lunch, remembering letters i had to write. i felt much easier in mind, and made a hearty meal in consequence. the result was that i fell asleep over my cigar afterwards. i awoke suddenly, wondering where i was. then i thought i must have slept for hours, for a blackness only one degree less than that of night brooded over the earth. i took out my watch lazily, and was surprised to see that the hands only pointed to five. i sat still for a minute or two striving to collect my thoughts, for my head was heavy. i held my watch to my ear. it had not stopped. i jumped up and walked to the window, and i saw at once the reason why i had imagined that night had fallen. from east to west and from north to south a dense pall of cloud hung over the earth. not a leaf moved, and except for the shrill chirp of a grasshopper, not a sound broke the uncanny stillness. "by jove!" i muttered, "we are going to have it hot." there came upon me an intense desire to be near evie during the progress of the storm which threatened every moment to break. i did not wait to analyse the feeling, but catching up my hat i bolted straight out of the window. i had only a couple of hundred yards to traverse, but when i reached the colonel's house, so hot and heavy was the air, that i was soaked from head to foot in perspiration. i paused at the gate to wipe my brow with my handkerchief, and at the moment the storm broke. i heard the crackle of the lightning as it slid from the sky, and the thunder clap followed so swiftly that for a moment i felt deafened. i waited no longer, but raced across the lawn and into the open french window of the drawing-room. the apartment was unoccupied, so i passed through into the hall. that was vacant too, and i continued my search through the morning-room to the colonel's sanctum. there i saw the genial warrior standing at the window, and watching the play of the lightning with every appearance of interest. "hullo, colonel!" i said. "where's evie?" "isn't she in the drawing-room? she was there twenty minutes ago," he replied. "she is not there now, i have just come through," i explained. "then i fancy she will be in all probability in her bedroom with her head under the sheets," he said, chuckling. "at all events i will send one of the maids to see," i said. i rang the bell, and after giving a message to the maid who answered the summons, i joined the colonel at the window. he appeared to be very pleased with the progress the storm was making. "thank goodness this will clear the air," he explained, as a reason for his satisfaction. "it was so hot that i could take no lunch but a mayonnaise, iced strawberries, and a glass of hock. don't you think the air is cooler already? i begin to feel quite an appetite for dinner. my only fear is that, if the thunder has not turned everything sour, it will have frightened my cook out of her senses, and there will be nothing to appease my appetite." the window at which we were standing faced towards mannering's house. there was a stretch of lawn outside and, beyond, a thicket of shrubs and small trees between the grounds of the two residences. i was glancing in the direction of these, when i thought i saw something white moving in the shrubbery. i was about to say something to the colonel when a crash of thunder drowned the utterance. at the next flash of lightning, i perceived that my eyes had not deceived me, and in an instant i jumped to the conclusion that it was evie who was out there in the storm. without a moment's hesitation i vaulted through the window and raced across the lawn. the colonel must have thought me mad. it was something of a shock for me to find that i was right in my conjecture. there, huddled up under the spreading branches of a cedar, stood my darling, her eyes wide open, her cheeks blanched with terror. "why, evie, dear heart! what is the matter?" i cried. at the sound of my voice she started, and, with a little cry of delight, she threw herself into my arms. "i knew you would come--i knew you would come!" she sobbed hysterically. the cedar under which she was standing was close to the hedge, and i fancied, as she spoke, that i saw a figure move away from the other side of the hedge. i could not verify my suspicion, for evie needed all my attention. she had fainted. catching her up, i bore her across the lawn to the house. it was some time before she came to herself, and then, at her own request, i left her with her maid and returned to the colonel. needless to say i was very much worried in my mind. why evie should have been sheltering in the shrubbery from the storm, with the house so near, seemed unexplainable, and i awaited with anxiety the time when i could learn the reason from her own lips. the presence of the figure--the figure of a man--on the opposite side of the hedge, was also inexplicable. i should have guessed it to be mannering, but i would have staked my life upon evie's truthfulness when she had told me how much she had learned to detest him. besides, her delight was obvious when i arrived on the scene. not until the evening, however, did i get a chance of speaking to evie again. the colonel and i dined alone, evie sending word to say that the storm had left her with a headache, and that she would join us later. i was so silent during the meal that my host grew quite merry at my expense. "wait till you are married, my boy," he remarked. "there will come times when you will be grateful for these feminine headaches." i hate cheap witticisms of this sort, but i could hardly resent them from the colonel as i could have done had they fallen from any one else's lips; but i fancy he saw at last that they were distasteful to me, for after a while he forebore to comment upon my dour looks. about ten evie came downstairs. by this time the storm had passed away entirely, and the air was deliciously fresh and cool after the rain. it was a strangely subdued girl who came nervously to me, and shrank away from me as i kissed her. "no, jim, no! you mustn't do that," she said. colonel maitland had slipped away upon his daughter's entrance, and we were alone. "why, darling, what ails you?" i asked. "nothing--nothing. oh! don't ask me," she almost wailed in reply. i put my arm about her waist, and drew her down beside me to a seat on a big chesterfield drawn before one of the windows. she resisted faintly at first, but presently i heard her give a sigh of content, and felt her nestle towards me. then i spoke. "tell me, dear, what possessed you to go out into the storm?" "i don't know," she murmured--"i don't know. i--i felt that i must. i didn't think it was going to break so soon, and then the first flash of lightning and the voice of the thunder! it was like judgment day." "it is all passed and over," i remarked, with a man's clumsy attempt at consolation. "i wish it were--i wish it were," she repeated, with an indrawn sigh. "it is all over hours ago," i said. she broke away from me passionately. "oh! jim, you don't know," she cried. "i don't know what?" i inquired, as i attempted to draw her to me again. she pushed my hands away with a gesture of despair. then with an effort she rose to her feet, and looking at me straight in the face, she said-"jim, this must not go on. it is more than i can bear." i rose to my feet too, my heart beating wildly. "i don't understand you," i answered, though i comprehended her meaning only too well. "what must not go on?" "our--our engagement," she faltered. she was white to the lips as she said the words. i staggered back under the blow, then leaning forward i sought to take her hand. "no, jim, no!" she said. "it's no use; i can never be yours. it is impossible--quite impossible. my love would be fatal to you! i know it will! he said so." "he?" i asked. she faltered. "oh! i cannot help believing him. he tells me that i am to be his." she shuddered. "jim, you must leave me, and never see me again. i cannot have your--your blood on my hands." she held out her slender white fingers, and i saw that the ring which i had placed there had been removed. though my brain was awhirl, i tried my utmost to be calm. i think the effort was successful, and that my voice was fairly even when i said-"come, darling, a promise is a promise, and my own little girl is not going to break her promise because of the threats of a jealous rival." she shuddered from head to foot. "you don't know him as i know him," she murmured. "he would stick at nothing, jim. i don't think he is a man; he must be a devil. he can do things no man ever thought of doing." "you exaggerate his capacities for evil," i said, as equably as i was able, for her agitation was so great that i feared for her reason. "what has mannering been saying to you, for it was he whom i saw behind the hedge when i brought you out of the storm, i suppose?" "you saw him?" she queried. "then it is true. i have been hoping you would tell me i had been dreaming again." "i saw nothing very terrible about him," i remarked. "you don't know him," she said again. "he will have cause to know me before many hours have passed," i declared savagely. she clung to me in terror. "no, jim. you must not go near him. you do not know the power he exercises. this afternoon i was sitting thinking of you when i became conscious that he was telling me to come to him. there was no reason why i should have thought so. he was not in sight, but i was bound to go." "and you found him waiting for you?" i asked quietly, though my brain was aflame, for i was determined to ascertain all that had passed between them. "he was waiting for me," she repeated--"waiting for me and the storm. that must have come at his bidding too. it was horrible waiting for him to speak--horrible! i tried to ask him what he wanted, but my tongue was tied. not until after the first peal of thunder did he utter a word. then he told me the time was nearly at hand when he should come for me." i clenched my fists involuntarily, but i did not interrupt my darling's story. "i begged of him to leave me free. he paid no heed. 'i am going away,' he said. 'for three days you will see nothing of me, though all england will be talking of my deeds. on the third i shall return. mind you are ready.'" "did you not mention me?" i remarked weakly. i hardly knew what to say, for it seemed to me that either evie must be the victim of some extraordinary hallucination, or else that mannering was mad. "he mentioned you," she replied. "'tell sutgrove,' he said, 'that he has three days in which to capture the motor pirate and make sure of his bride. after that he will be too late. tell him, too, that death waits on the fool who fails.'" "it's a sporting challenge," i muttered, for i had no doubt now in my mind that mannering and the pirate were identical. my words did not reach evie's ear, for she continued, "now you know why i have put away your ring. he is too strong for us. i must do as he bids me. i----" i interrupted her sharply. "have you everything packed to go away on your visit to norfolk to-morrow?" i asked. the tone of my voice roused her. she looked at me wildly. "why--why----" she said. then the expression faded out of her face. for the second time that day she had fainted. chapter xviii in which the pirate appears in a frolicsome humour the fainting fit which terminated my conversation with evie alarmed me tremendously, and as soon as i could summon assistance i sent for a doctor. she came round before the medical man arrived, but i did not revert to the topic which had agitated her. indeed, she appeared listless and disinclined to say a word on any subject. colonel maitland was less worried than myself, but even he was anxious until after the doctor had seen her and assured him that his daughter was merely suffering from over excitement, and that a sedative and a good night's rest would probably restore her completely. i was not so sure that such would be the case, and when she had retired i thought it well to take the colonel into his study and give him as full an account as i could of all that had led up to the fainting fit. he listened to my story with attention, and when i had done, though i could plainly see that he thought his daughter's fears were due to her own morbid fancy, yet he agreed with me that it would be well that she should have a change of scene at the earliest possible moment. after arriving at this decision i determined to at once seek out mannering, and demand from him some explanation of his conduct, for i could not conceive that evie's story was entirely the outcome of her imagination. it was a delicate subject to discuss, yet i did not hesitate. i was in no humour to mince matters. my anger, though i had kept it well under control hitherto, only needed the slightest fanning to bring it to a white heat, and i longed whole-heartedly that mannering would afford me some excuse for giving physical expression to my feelings. i walked up to his front door, and knocked in a manner to denote with sufficient distinctiveness that the mood of the knocker was the imperative. i could see by the lights within that the inmates of the house had not retired to rest, but i had to repeat my summons before there was any response. then i heard footsteps within, and the door opening an inch or two, a voice inquired who was there. "is mr. mannering in?" i demanded. "mr. sutgrove, is it?" replied the voice, and upon my answering in the affirmative, the door was thrown open, and i saw the two maidservants standing in the hall. "i beg your pardon, sir," said the parlourmaid. "we didn't expect any one at this time of night." "that's all right," i answered. "can i see mr. mannering?" "he's gone away for a day or two, sir," said the girl. "that's very sudden, isn't it?" i asked. "i saw him this afternoon." "yes, sir. he said nothing about it to us until after dinner. then he packed his handbag and went away on his motor." "it's a confounded nuisance," i remarked. "i wanted to see him on important business. did he say where he was going?" "he said cromer, sir, but he did not leave any address." then, after a momentary hesitation, she added, "is--is anything wrong?" i looked at her keenly. she dropped her eyes, and i could see there was something on her mind. "what makes you ask?" i enquired. "i--i don't know," she replied, with obvious embarrassment. "there must be something or you would not have asked," i said encouragingly. "come--out with it." she still hesitated, but the housemaid was bolder. "i'll tell the gentleman if you don't, sarah," she declared. "it's like this, sir," she rattled out volubly: "the master, mr. mannering that is, has been so queer in his ways lately that sarah and me 'as been quite scared. not that he 'asn't been quite the gentleman. he always was that, wasn't he, sarah? but he's been that restless and bound up in himself lately--walking up and down in his room and talking to himself. he always was one to shut himself up in that nasty old coach-house with his experiments and things, but he was quiet, and we never took no account of it. but lately he's been different." "how?" i asked. "well, instead of going to bed like a christian he's up all hours of the night. it ain't only that. he slips out as if he didn't want us to see him, and when we've known he hasn't been at home we've found he's taken the trouble to tumble the bed to make it appear as how he slept in it." "pooh!" i remarked. "if that's all, my servants would probably say the same about me. you need not be alarmed about such trifles." "but it's not all," said sarah, taking up the story. "the nights he goes out are just the nights the pirate makes his appearance." "those are just the nights i am away from home," i said. "but you have the detective gentleman with you," argued the girl, "and when you come back i warrant you do not bring diamond studs back with you that don't belong to you." "what!" i cried. "what!" "it's truth, sir," said the housemaid. "a week ago, just after he came back from paris, i was sweeping the floor of his bedroom, when i sweeps up a diamond stud. now, i knew he never had such a thing----" "i suppose you know exactly what jewellery he has?" i interrupted, laughing. "he always was a very careless gentleman until the last month, before which he left his things lying about all over the place, but then he had a safe put in his bedroom, and he never so much as left the key lying about. however, i mentions the stud to sarah, and we talks it over and puts two and two together, and sarah thinks that if he doesn't ask what has become of it, it might be as well as if we told the detective gentleman about it." "quite right," i remarked. "you might let me look at the stud, though." after a little pressing the girls fetched the trinket, and i perceived that it very closely resembled the stud winter had worn on the night of our first encounter with the pirate. i said nothing about this supposition to the maids, but bidding them to be careful not to mention the matter to any one until they had seen forrest, whom i promised should call upon them, i left the house. though disappointed in my original intention of forcing an explanation from mannering, i was by no means ill pleased with the result of my visit to his house. my suspicions as to his identity with the pirate had become considerably stronger, and once that identity was established i fancied i should have little difficulty in preventing any further annoyance at his hands. yet when i came to think calmly upon the subject i could not fail to see how frail was the foundation upon which my suspicions were built up. the fancies of a girl, the suspicions of a couple of gossiping servants, and the discovery of a stud, which might or might not prove to be the one which had been stolen from winter. i longed for forrest to return, for i felt utterly incapable of resting, and as he had not put in an appearance by midnight, i got out my car and went into st. albans to meet him. at the police station there was no news of him to be obtained, but i did learn that the pirate had been seen, his presence having been reported from the vicinity of bedford. knowing that it would be impossible for me to sleep until i had seen forrest; knowing, too, how unlikely it was that he would now return to st. albans before morning, i thought i might at least have one shot on my own account of bringing off the capture i so ardently desired. so, in case of an untoward accident happening, i scribbled a note to the detective, telling him briefly what i had heard from the servants, and my intentions; and making sure that my revolver was in working order, i bade my friends at the police-station good night, and departed. i knew it would be useless to take the direct road to bedford if i wished to meet the pirate, and, as he had been reported going east, i took the route through hertford, trusting that i might be able to cut him off upon his return. i gleaned nothing concerning him at either hertford or ware, and was so doubtful of proceeding further in that direction that i left it to the arbitrament of a coin to determine whether i should go on by a road with which i was unacquainted to cambridge through bishop's stortford, or take a route i knew through royston. the choice fell upon the stortford road, and later i was glad i had taken it, for about a mile to the south of stortford i discovered that i was upon the right track. i was bowling along at about fifteen miles an hour when i came upon two horses grazing at the road-side. they galloped off at my approach, and, a few seconds later, i came upon a specimen of the pirate's handiwork, which at first sight was irresistibly ludicrous. a brougham was drawn up at the side of the road, and, bound to the wheels, were a coachman and a footman, clad in gorgeous liveries. the coachman was fat and florid, the footman a particularly fine specimen of flunkeydom, and their faces, as the light of my lamps fell upon them--they could not speak, for they were both gagged as well as bound--were so convulsed with terror, that i could see they did not look upon me as a friend. as i dismounted from my car to go to their assistance, i heard a dismal wail from the roof of the vehicle and, looking up, i perceived a portly old lady perched upon the uncomfortable eminence. i made an attempt to explain that my intentions were purely pacific, but as i could elicit nothing from the old lady but appeals to spare her life, i turned my attention to the two men, and speedily released them from their bonds. by the time they were loose they had realized that i was a friend; but it was some time before i managed to obtain from them an account of how they got into such a mess. even when their powers of speech had returned they were unable to give a lucid account of the affair. of course it was the work of the pirate. they had been returning with their mistress--the old lady on the roof of the brougham--from some local coming-of-age festivities, when they had met the rascal. he had bound the servants, set the horses free, and, after robbing the old lady of all the jewellery she wore, he had compelled her to climb to the position where i discovered her, threatening to return and kill her if she moved from her position for an hour. it needed much persuasion before she ventured to descend from her perch; but with the assistance of the coachman, i managed to get her inside the brougham, and further assisting in securing the two horses, i left them. this incident delayed me for nearly half an hour, and it was a good deal past one before i again set out on my quest. the brougham had been stopped just near a bye-road, and as the footman had assured me that the pirate had taken this path when he departed, i thought i would follow. i could see for myself that a motor-car had passed that way, for the thunderstorm of the previous day had left the roads heavy in places, and the marks of his tyres were plainly visible. i had followed the road for about a couple of miles further when i came once more upon some of the pirate's victims. these, too, were returning from the same function at which the old lady had been a guest, when they fell into the clutches of the pirate. in this case my assistance was not required, for the two young ladies of the party had recovered sufficiently from their fright to have already set at liberty their male companion and the coachman. they told me of their experiences, and after i had heard them, i thought that forrest's idea that the pirate was a madman more likely than i had done previously. when stopped by the pirate, the husband of one of the ladies had shown fight until he had been felled by a blow from the butt end of a revolver. the coachman had discreetly made no resistance. then, after securing the jewels the women wore, the pirate had displayed a freakish humour quite new to his character. he had insisted upon the two women dancing for his amusement in the road, threatening to shoot the husband if they did not comply with his request. they assured me that he had sat chuckling with laughter, and urging them on with all sorts of wild threats, until they fell from exhaustion. they were splashed with mud from head to foot, and their dainty frocks presented a sorry sight. in addition they told me that they could barely stand, for their feet were cut to pieces, since, at the first steps of the weird dance, their slippers had stuck in the mud, and they were given no opportunity to stop and recover them. i did not wait to hear more than the barest outline of the story, for i learned that he had left them not more than ten minutes before my arrival on the scene, and with the heavy roads, i thought there was at least a chance of some lucky accident bringing me face to face with my quarry. chapter xix a hot scent i ran on through the night, but i could not make any great progress. i was now involved in a maze of essex bye-roads, totally unknown to me, and every few minutes i was compelled to dismount, and search for the tracks. i never lost them, however, until i came once more to a high-road. the curve of the tyre marks at the junction of the road gave me the direction i needed, and, letting my car go, in four or five minutes i found myself running into the electric-lighted streets of a town. the place was deserted, but eventually i found a policeman, and of him i inquired whether anything had been seen or heard of the pirate. there was no need for me to describe the appearance of the pirate car. it was as well-known throughout the land, as the lord mayor's coach, but he had seen nothing of it, and was quite positive that it had not passed through the town. an ordinary car had passed about half an hour before my arrival, and though the constable's description of the car was not very lucid, it was sufficiently near the mark to make me think of mannering. "i fancy the man you describe is a friend of mine," i said. "which direction did he take?" "he went straight along the colchester road," was the astonishing reply. "the colchester road?" i inquired. "what town is this, then?" "this is chelmsford, sir," he answered, with a surprise equalling my own. i could see my unguarded question had awakened his suspicions of me, so i made haste to remark that i had not realized how quickly i had travelled, adding that i might have known there was no other town of the size thereabouts. "i am afraid," i added, "that if you had met me outside the borough you would have had a case for the bench in the morning." "i don't take no heed of speed myself, sir, when the roads is clear," he remarked; "but when the traffic's thick, it's another matter." i thought his sound common sense deserved a reward. anyway it got one, and with a cheerful good night, i set my car going at a pace which made me hope that any other constable i chanced to meet would prove as intelligent as he from whom i had just parted. it is about twenty-two miles from chelmsford to colchester, and, in spite of the greasy state of parts of the road, i managed the distance in thirty minutes. every one of those minutes i expected to be able to overtake mannering; but i saw nothing of him, and by the time i came to colchester, i began to fancy that he must have given me the slip at some bye-road. from my inquiries at colchester, i learned, however, that i was still on the right scent; but i was mightily puzzled to discover that though he was driving the old car which he had always declared was unable to compass more than twelve or fourteen miles an hour, he was still half an hour ahead of me. he was still going away from town, and i followed. there is no need for me to give in any detail particulars of my journey that night. day was breaking when i came into ipswich, and it was broad daylight when i passed through the long, untidy street of wickham market. mannering still kept ahead, and i followed doggedly. i heard of him at saxmundham, but when i inquired at blythburgh, i found i had missed him, and i had to hark back to yoxford before i got on his track again. he had taken the side route to halesworth, through which he had passed in the direction of beccles. by this time he was an hour ahead of me, and, as he had left beccles by the yarmouth road, i went ahead as fast as i dared. it was not quite my highest speed, for by this time i was both tired and hungry, and the strain of travelling over unknown roads at a high speed at night made my head swim. i knew that unless i could soon get food and rest i should soon be fit for nothing. so immediately i reached yarmouth, i went to a hotel, ordered breakfast, indulged in a hot bath while it was preparing, and went to sleep in my chair directly i had eaten the meal. the waiter awakened me about ten. i went down to the beach and indulged in a swim, and, returning to the hotel, amazed the waiter by ordering and doing justice to a second breakfast before taking my departure. on leaving the hotel, my first consideration was to get my tank refilled, and, that done, i sent off a couple of wires, one to evie and the other addressed to forrest, at my own place, telling each of them to communicate with me at sutgrove hall if anything happened, for it was my intention to call at my home if i could possibly manage to do so. my next business was to search for traces of mannering in yarmouth, but it was some time before i ascertained that the man i imagined to be he, had left by the coast road through caister. it was a tedious job to track him through the norfolk lanes, for he had turned and doubled as if anxious to throw a pursuer off the scent, and it was one o'clock before i eventually struck the high-road between norwich and cromer. there i finally lost him, owing chiefly to the fact that the day was fine, and a large number of motor-cars were on the road in consequence. by this time i was beginning to think my impulsive action to be more than a little foolish, but in order that my journey should not be altogether wasted, i determined to run on to cromer, lunch there, and afterwards proceed to sheringham, near which delightful village my home was situated, and seize the opportunity to make arrangements with my aunt for evie's visit. in pursuance of this plan, in half an hour's time, i walked into the dining-room of the royal hotel at cromer. you may judge of my surprise when i saw mannering seated at a table at one of the windows. he observed my entrance, and, rising, greeted me heartily. "hullo, sutgrove!" he said. "this is indeed a welcome surprise. i had not the slightest idea you were in this part of the country." "if you had, i presume you would not have chosen it for the scene of your exploits," i replied. the expression of astonishment which spread over his features at my rejoinder was so perfect that i felt all my suspicions begin to crumble away. "i don't follow you," he remarked. his manner was either the result of one of the best pieces of acting i had ever seen in my life, or due to absolute unconsciousness of my meaning. it made me remember that though there were undoubtedly suspicious circumstances connecting him with the motor pirate, yet so far there was not one iota of direct evidence. i thought it best to temporize. "oh," i remarked; "i was only referring to your attempts to cut the records with your old car." he smiled calmly before replying. "you may be nearer the truth than you think. i've had a new motor fixed in the car--an idea of my own, and i find she travels at quite a decent pace. that's why i left home last night. after the rain i thought the roads would certainly be clear enough to give me the opportunity of making a fair test. the engine is a model of the one i have designed for the new car which i mentioned--last night was it? no; the night before." i was fairly staggered at his assurance. his demeanour was entirely without the suggestion of his being in any way aware that he was an object of suspicion. "were you not afraid of meeting the pirate? i heard he was abroad last night," i said. "afraid!" he remarked witheringly. "afraid! all i am afraid of is, that some of your scotland yard friends will be beforehand with me in his capture, and that is an adventure which has a particular appeal to me, since he left his mark upon me here." he tapped his shoulder significantly. "i have promised myself to repay this injury with interest." "well, i suppose we are as likely to meet him here as anywhere," i ventured to remark. "i hope so," he answered. "but i am not stopping here for long. i've taken a bed for the night, because i feel confoundedly tired after last night's run. but what brings you down here? are you motoring?" "in the first place i wanted a word with you," i replied. "with me?" the amazement in his voice was obvious. "yes," i said; "that is my principal object." "but how did you discover my address? i left no word with any one." "i'll tell you later," i said. "well, we have plenty of time to talk," he replied. "if there's any little difficulty in which i can be of any assistance, i need hardly assure you i am at your service. but hadn't you better have lunch first?" he lowered the tone of his voice. "unless you wish the waiters to become acquainted with your affairs, i should think what you have to say could be much better said outside. neither pier nor esplanade are much frequented at this time of the year." the suggestion was so natural and reasonable that, after a moment's consideration, i decided to accept it. all through the meal he chatted as easily as if there was not the slightest possibility of anything happening to interrupt the friendship which had always ostensibly existed between us. the longer we talked, the more puzzled i became. his manners were so natural, so fearless, that it was quite impossible for me to believe that i was sitting at lunch with the motor pirate. he was very curious to know how i had learned of his intention to come to cromer, and i was induced to tell him of my experiences on the previous night. i watched his face keenly while i narrated the stories of the pirate's victims. he listened quite gravely, not even the ghost of a smile crossing his face when i told him of the ludicrous pictures presented by the old lady and her two servants. "it is no laughing matter," he observed. "the rascal was bad enough when he confined his attentions to men; but now he has taken to bestowing them upon women, he deserves no mercy, and when i am able to get upon his track, he will get none." "then you are really hoping to join in the hunt?" i asked. "yes," he said. "i'll let you into my secret. at my place at st. stephens, i had a car which only wanted one minor detail to make it complete. i have known for months, that if i could supply that detail, i should be in possession of a car which would outpace even the pirate's. for months i've racked my brains over it. a week ago an idea occurred to me. i worked it out. i tried it for the first time last night. it has proved to be a success. the day after to-morrow i shall join in the pursuit of the motor pirate, so if your scotland yard friend does not make haste, he will be too late." "what power do you propose to use?" i asked. "petrol?" he laughed before replying. "a month ago i would have told nobody; but to-day there is no need of secrecy; my drawings are all ready for deposit at the patent office, so there is no chance of any one forestalling me." "well, what is it?" i said. "i don't want you to tell anybody else just yet," he said; and as i nodded my acquiescence, he continued, "my new motor is on an entirely novel principle. it is a turbine engine, worked by the expansion of liquid hydrogen." "what?" i gasped. the idea was so novel that i could not grasp it. he lifted his hand, checking the questions which started to my lips. "no. no questions, if you please: because, if you ask any, i shall not answer them. meanwhile, you have not yet told me how you learned of my presence here?" i related how, in the course of my inquiries at chelmsford, i had ascertained that a person so like himself had passed through the town, that i had determined to attempt to overtake him, little thinking the chase would prove so stern. he chaffingly congratulated me on my tracking powers, and expressed regret that i had not made my appearance earlier, so that we might have arranged a race; and by the time we had finished lunch, i was as completely convinced as i had ever been of anything in my life, that he had no connection whatsoever with the pirate. still, i was none the less determined to tackle him upon the subject of the influence which evie declared he exerted over her, so when the meal was over, we left the hotel together and, seeing from the front that the pier was practically deserted, i led the way to the far end, determined to have a complete explanation. he was silent during our walk. so was i, for i was deliberating how best to introduce the subject. as it happened, he made the task easy for me, as after finding a comfortable seat and lighting a cigarette, he turned to me with-"now, old fellow, what is it you have on your mind? out with it!" i told him--told him fully and frankly everything that evie had mentioned to me concerning him, and i finished by warning him that i was determined to exercise the right she had given me to protect her. he listened to me attentively and, one might have thought, even sympathetically. when i had concluded, he sat silent awhile; then, looking me full in the eyes, he remarked-"i suppose, sutgrove, if i tell you that this story of the influence i am supposed to exercise over miss maitland is absolute news to me, you will not believe me?" i was staggered, and my astonishment must have been visible in my face, for he continued-"you may be surprised, but not half so much as i have been, by what you have told me. really, the whole story sounds the maddest farrago of nonsense i have ever heard." i was about to make an angry retort, but he checked me with a gesture-"i do not mean any offence," he said; "for i can quite understand what your feelings on the subject must be. i, no more than yourself, would tolerate any unwarrantable interference such as you describe. it is just as well that you should have mentioned the matter to me, however, for you will know so much better how to proceed." "what do you mean?" i gasped. "why, what else than that you will not waste any time before obtaining medical advice for miss maitland," he replied. i felt a grey horror creeping over me--a horror that tied my tongue, to think that evie--my evie--might prove to be--mad. again, he must have divined my thoughts, for he said reassuringly-"you must not take too serious a view of the case. miss maitland is of a highly nervous temperament, and, i should imagine, rather prone to hysteria." then, rising, he clapped me on the shoulder, "take a cheerful view, sutgrove. i'll bet you ten to one that her doctor will inform you that marriage will provide a complete cure." his tone was so hearty, so friendly, that i instinctively grasped his hand, and he returned my grip. the subject was not resumed; and, as we walked back to the hotel, i was completely convinced that i had been an unutterable cad ever to allow a single doubt concerning him to enter my mind, much less to harbour there. i left him at the hotel door and went in search of my car to continue my journey to sutgrove hall. he was still standing where i parted from him when i swept past, and he waved his hand to me, a smile upon his face. chapter xx relates how the pirate holds up an august personage i reached my destination about five, and found, as i hoped, a telegram awaiting my arrival. it read- "ever so much better. do not worry about me. cannot spare you for long though. lots of love.--e." with my mind very much relieved, i was able to devote my attention to my aunt, who was full of questions as to the reason for my unexpected arrival and equally eager for a full account of my doings during the past six months, during which time, she assured me, i had grossly neglected my duties, especially by my failure to keep her adequately posted regarding my engagement. i was anxious, after reading evie's wire, to start forthwith for st. albans; my aunt was equally anxious that i should remain the night at sutgrove, and while we were arguing the point, a second telegram arrived, which settled the matter. i tore open the envelope and read- "meet the 8.49 at cromer with motor. do not fail. most important.--forrest." the message had been handed in at liverpool street at 4.50, and i wondered what could have happened to necessitate forrest's presence in norfolk. there was little use speculating, however, and i settled down to satiate, if it were possible, my aunt's curiosity. she was duly impressed by such of my adventures as i thought fit to relate, but she was not neglectful of what she considered her duties as hostess and, in spite of the fact that i had eaten a hearty lunch about two, i was able shortly after seven to do adequate justice to the early dinner which she provided for me. i left home soon after eight, and, in consequence of my impatience, had to wait ten minutes on the cromer platform for the arrival of the train. as the engine drew into the station, i saw forrest's head thrust out of the window of one of the carriages, and, before the train had come to a standstill, he had leaped from the door and was at my side. he was for him unusually excited, and, without reply to my greeting, save with a silent hand grip, he said-"seen anything of mannering?" "why, yes," i replied directly. "i lunched with him, to-day. he's stopping at the royal." "that's a bit of luck," replied the detective. "come along;" and he pushed on in advance of me through the barrier. "what has happened?" i asked, as i caught him up in the station yard. "i hold a warrant for his arrest, and i am desirous of executing it at the earliest possible moment, that's all," he replied. i could hardly believe my ears. "what in the world for?" i asked. "what should it be for?" said forrest, with a touch of sarcasm in the tone of his voice. "he cannot be the motor pirate. it is impossible. he could not have deceived me so completely," i exclaimed. "i would stake everything i hope for in the future, as well as everything i possess at the present moment, that he is though," returned the detective with conviction. "but we must not waste time. take me to the hotel." without stopping to argue the point, i jumped on my car, forrest took the seat beside me, and we proceeded to the royal. "leave the car and come with me, i may want your assistance," he said, as we pulled up at the entrance to the hotel. he sprang out the moment i stopped and ran briskly up the steps. a porter was in the hall, and to him forrest turned. "i want to see a mr. mannering, who is stopping here, at once, and i do not wish to be announced," he said. the man walked across to the office and made an inquiry of the clerk, then returning, announced that mannering had left an hour previously. "left?" said forrest, and his jaw fell. he stepped across to the office himself, only to learn that though mannering had booked a room for the night, he had after dinner called for his bill, paid it, and left on his motor, without giving any reason for his alteration of plans. forrest stalked out of the hotel, his brow heavy with thought. i followed him. he stepped on to the car, and, taking my seat, i asked him tersely-"where to?" "st. albans," he replied with brevity equal to my own, and without further question we were off. "don't mind taking a few risks," he said presently. "the sooner we can get there the better i shall be pleased." then, leaning back in his seat, he asked me to tell him how i happened to learn of mannering's presence in cromer, and what he had said to convince me that he was in no way connected with the pirate. so while we were still running at a moderate pace, i gave him a brief history of my adventures of the previous night. before i had concluded, however, the road ahead seemed clear, and, pulling my mask over my face, i jammed on my highest speed and conversation became impossible. forrest pulled his cap down over his eyes and, turning his coat-collar about his ears, settled himself apparently to slumber. within half an hour the lights of norwich sparkled in front of us, and it became necessary to slacken speed. forrest immediately resumed the conversation at the point where we had broken off, and questioned me closely with regard to what mannering had said to me. once and again i endeavoured to ascertain what had induced him to take out the warrant; but he would not satisfy my curiosity, declaring that it was of more importance that he should know all that i could tell him first. there seemed little likelihood of my learning anything, for we soon left norwich behind us, and were running at full speed on the road to thetford and newmarket, slackening speed only slightly as we swept through the villages and trusting to the continuous toot-toot of the horn to clear our path. our progress was uninterrupted until we had reached and left the little town of attleborough five or six miles behind us, when forrest was afforded an opportunity, much to his chagrin, of giving me the reasons for his haste. incidentally, i may remark, that the occurrence which afforded this opportunity came very near depriving me of the chance of hearing anything from anybody, or him from ever opening his lips again, for while we swept along at our top speed there was a sudden hissing sound, a sudden succession of jars, and the car swerved violently, nearly overturning. i jammed on both my breaks, and by good fortune the car did not overturn. i guessed what had happened, and there was no need for me to get a light to make sure--my sense of touch informed me that the off back tyre was as flat as a pancake. i hoped that the injury was only slight, but my hopes faded the moment i examined the injury. the tyre had picked up a curved and pointed piece of iron, and had been irreparably damaged. no patching was of any use. there was nothing for it but to replace the tyre with a new one. fortunately, i was prepared with a spare outer cover as well as inner tubes, and, with a muttered curse, i threw off my coat and set about the job. then when that was done, and it took me a good hour to complete the task, i discovered, on restarting the car, that a further misfortune had befallen us. either owing to the jumping of the car when the tyre went, or more likely because of the sudden application, the footbreak had seized, and the transmission was so far injured that i could not get the car along above seven or eight miles an hour. i did my best to put the damage right. i lay on my back in the middle of the road, and used all the language approved by the most fluent members of the automobile club for use on such occasions, but entirely without result. exactly where we were i did not know, and, after i had relieved my feelings, i thought it best to jog along until we came to some town where it would be possible to get skilled assistance. and it was while we were progressing in this humdrum fashion that forrest confided to me the reasons for his anxiety. "in the first place," he said, "your theory as to the stud found by mannering's servants proved to be correct. it was winter's. i arrived at st. albans the first thing this morning, and, after getting your note, went straight away and interviewed the girls. they handed me the trinket. i took it to winter, and he identified it. he will swear to it anywhere. by the time i had done this, your wire for me had arrived, and your man, having seen me go into winter's house, brought it on. i took the next train to town and went straight to the yard, thankful that at last i was able to report something definite. besides, i wanted to take a warrant without any one being aware of it, and i knew i could manage that better in london than in the country. well, i called at the yard, ran across to bow street and got my warrant, and returned to the yard in order to instruct a couple of our men who had been placed at my disposal. while i was there particulars came to hand of a feat which throws all the other doings of the pirate into the shade. you mentioned, i think, that mannering, when he told miss maitland that he was going away, said that all england would be talking of him." "she said so," i replied doubtfully; "but she was so excited----" "she was probably correct in her recollection of what passed," he said. "if further proof were wanted to connect your friend with the motor pirate, those words would be sufficient. if what i know leaks out, the pirate will fill the popular mind more to-morrow than he has done in the past even. yesterday morning, within six miles of sandringham, he held up"--he hesitated--"i must mention no names--he held up, let me say, an august personage----" "the king?" i cried. "an august personage," remarked forrest, severely, "in broad daylight." "let me hear all about it?" i asked eagerly. "i don't know that i can tell you everything, for so far i only know the particulars wired to the yard. but the story is complete enough to enable me to do what i have hitherto failed in, and that is, complete the necessary identification of our friend mannering. and curiously enough, it is owing to the keen powers of observation possessed by the----" "the august personage," i reminded him, a trifle maliciously as he hesitated. forrest laughed. "quite right, you score that time," he remarked, before resuming his tale. "owing to the august personage's keen powers of observation, i am able to lay my finger on the one point which has puzzled me, namely, the manner by which mannering has managed to escape suspicion. it is a simple trick. so simple, in fact, that i cannot conceive how i managed to overlook such a possibility for so long. however, you shall hear the facts as they were told to me, and judge for yourself with what transparent means we have been hoodwinked by the rascal. the august personage, who, as you are probably aware, has been staying at sandringham for some days past, has been in the habit of taking a ride on one of his cars whenever the roads were in good condition, accompanied only by his chauffeur. this morning he started for the customary run shortly after eleven, with the intention of taking a circular trip through hunstanton, burnham, docking and bircham, and returning for luncheon. the intention was not fulfilled since, before reaching hunstanton, the pirate made his appearance, and approaching as usual from behind, overtook the august motor. the august driver did not at first take any notice of the approaching car, but, merely imagining that the driver had recognized him, and felt some delicacy at passing, he signalled with his hand for the stranger to go ahead. what was his surprise to hear the stranger in a loud voice bid him stop his car. he turned to look at the audacious person who had dared take such unwarrantable liberty, and at once observed with whom he had to deal. the pirate had in his hand a revolver, which was levelled at the august head. the august face flushed with anger, and turning away, he contemptuously took no notice of the summons. the pirate thereupon fired two shots, aimed, fortunately, neither at the august personage nor at the chauffeur, but at the tyres of the back wheels. the aim was good, the tyres ran down at once, and the august personage found progress on the rims to be so uncomfortable that he thought it desirable to stop. the stranger ranged alongside, and the chauffeur, rising from his seat, was about to throw himself at the throat of the assailant, when his august master laid a hand upon his arm. "'no, no,' he said, 'i can easily get another car, but i do not know that i could replace my chauffeur.' "thereupon the pirate observed, 'i think, sir, there is so much wisdom in your remark that, in spite of my necessities, i almost feel inclined to forego my usual toll in your case. "the august personage, whose coolness had never for a moment deserted him, replied imperturbably-"'having robbed me of a morning's enjoyment, it seems to me there is nothing of any particular value left for you to take.' "'then, sir,' replied the rascal, 'you will be doubtless glad to purchase my immediate disappearance with the contents of the august pockets?' "august was not the word he used, but it was one which showed that he was acquainted with the personality of his victim. "the august personage shrugged his shoulders, and, searching his pockets, could produce nothing but a cigarette case and a button. to show his _sang-froid_, i need only remark that when he produced the latter article he laughed heartily and said to the chauffeur-"'i hope, p----, you have something to add to the contents of my pockets, or i fear this too eager gentleman will destroy our front tyres as well as the back.' "the chauffeur had some loose gold, a silver matchbox, and a watch, and when these were produced, speaking with the same nonchalance he had retained throughout, the august personage remarked-"'i fear you have drawn a blank this time, mr. pirate; for, upon my word, that is the best i can do for you.' "the pirate took the articles. then he raised his hat. 'i take,' he said, 'the august word as readily as i take these souvenirs of this memorable meeting,' and with these words, he pulled a lever and was speedily out of sight." "by jove!" i muttered. "the fellow's audacity is almost past belief. but you said something of observations made by the august victim?" "yes," said forrest. "the chauffeur was much too agitated to notice anything, but his master was not. he observed four things. first, that the pirate was a man of about six feet in height." "mannering is five feet eleven and a quarter in his socks," i remarked. "secondly, that his hair was black. thirdly, that the nails of the right hand, with which he took his plunder, were bitten to the quick." "the identification becomes nearly perfect," i interrupted. "fourthly, that the car was originally a two-seated car, with a tonneau body, but that the seat had been set back, and the bonnet was enclosed by metal plates shaped into the form of the bow of a canoe, and bolted together in a manner which gave the impression that they might easily be removed. why," continued the detective, "i did not think of so obvious a solution of the pirate's mysterious disappearances before i cannot imagine. it is the trick the black flag merchants have practised since the days of captain kidd." i was silent. i could only wonder at my own blindness. then an excuse occurred to me. "after all," i remarked, "we only met him in the dark." chapter xxi we plan an ambush forrest had just concluded his story when the lights of thetford gleamed in our eyes. the time was 12.30. the last train was gone. the inhabitants were all in bed, and there we were, stranded with a broken car, and no means of putting it right. forrest would not despair, however, and after some difficulty we managed, with the assistance of the local police, to knock up a man who was locally reputed to know all about motors. he was a little surly at first, but the inducement i offered him to make an attempt to put the transmission right, was sufficient to dissipate his very natural disgust at being disturbed in his beauty sleep. fortunately his local reputation had reasonable foundation. he was a very capable mechanician, and the way he set about the job gave me great hopes that the car would run as well as ever when he had done with it. and my expectations were gratified. in less than an hour he had completed the repairs. i paid him and asked him to remain up for ten minutes in case we had another breakdown, telling him that after that period had elapsed, he would be at liberty to return to his bed. whether he waited the ten minutes or not i do not know, for by that time we were halfway to newmarket, flying through the darkness at a pace which two months previously i would not have dared venture upon in broad daylight. and right onward to st. albans, we kept it up, reaching the ancient town just as the birds began to twitter in the hedges at the first grey light of early dawn. at st. albans we stopped at the police-station. a man was waiting at the door. "any news?" asked forrest. the man shook his head. "you know where to bring it?" asked my companion. the man nodded. "let us get on home," said forrest to me. as i wheeled my vehicle into my yard i thought i should drop. the strain of that rush through the night, expecting every moment that something would give way, had been tremendous, and the moment the tension was relaxed i shook like an aspen leaf. when i tried to get in at my own door i found i could not fit the latch-key, and was obliged to hand it to the detective. he saw what was the matter with me, and the moment we were inside, he led the way to my study, thrust me down into a chair and mixed me a whisky-and-soda. i was never more grateful for a drink in my life. it pulled me together, and in less time than i had conceived possible, i felt as if i could have managed another seventy-five miles without a halt. the moment he saw my nerves were steady again, forrest proposed that we should get something to eat. i declared that i did not want anything. "when you haven't time for sleep, the next best thing is to feed well if you want to keep fit," he remarked. "besides, i am as hungry as a hunter has a right to be." "that settles it," i laughed. "we shall have to forage for ourselves. the servants are all asleep." we found our way to the larder and made a hearty meal on a cold pie we found there; and directly we had finished, we set out forthwith in the direction of mannering's home. as soon as we arrived opposite the house, forrest paused and gave a low whistle. it was answered immediately by a man dressed as a labourer, who made his appearance from behind the hedge opposite the house. "any one been here to-night, laver?" asked forrest. "no one," the man answered. "the servants turned in about ten after locking up. no signs of any one about the place since." "that's all right," grunted forrest. "we shall be ready for him when he does come. have you got the tools?" the man was proceeding to scramble through the hedge when forrest checked him. "better stay where you are," he advised. "keep out of sight, and if i whistle, come at once." "all right, sir," replied the man, as he handed through a gap in the hedge a small chamois leather bag. i had no idea as to what steps forrest proposed to adopt in order to effect the arrest, so i asked him, and he explained briefly his plan of campaign. "one can see," he remarked, "that mannering feels so confident of the completeness of his disguise that he will have no hesitation about returning. i am reckoning, too, upon there being an element of truth in the story he has told you about the construction of his motor, in which case his own workshop would be the only place where he would be able to refill his tank. we shall be able to decide that point in a very few minutes. if we do find any plant for the production of liquid gases, we can count upon catching our man within a very few hours." "unless he smells a rat, and makes for some convenient port and gets out of the country," i remarked. "that eventuality is provided against," remarked the detective. "his description is in the hands of the police at every port in the kingdom, and even if he changes the colour of his hair, i don't think he will manage to get away. what i propose is, that we shall remain concealed in his coach-house and await his return." "how are we going to get in?" i inquired. forrest took a bunch of skeleton keys from the bag laver had handed to him and dangled them before his eyes. "there's not a burglar in the kingdom is better provided," he remarked, and set to work upon the lock forthwith. the lock was an ordinary one, and his efforts were speedily successful. the door swung open, and we entered eagerly a bare, stone-paved coach-house. opposite the door by which we had entered from the road was a similar door, which gave upon the inner yard. on the left, a large sliding door had been fixed in place of the wall which had divided the coach-house from the stables. relocking the door by which we had entered, forrest led the way to the door on the left. it was unfastened, and as it swung back a cry of amazement sprang to my lips. "hush--sh--sh!" said the detective warningly. but i could not have repressed the cry, for there before me stood a replica of the car i had seen on two occasions. there was only one point of difference at first apparent. the pirate car had been black. this one was built of aluminium and gleamed silvery white. but although the lines were very similar, i soon came to the conclusion that the car we saw before us was not the one which the pirate had used when engaged upon his nefarious work. one glance at the tyres convinced me that they had never been upon the road, and i fancied that the wheels were smaller and the lines of the body finer altogether. i pointed these things out to forrest, who, while agreeing that this particular car could not have been the one which had been responsible for holding up the "august personage" on the previous day, would not commit himself further. we did not spend much time upon a close examination of the car, for the other contents of the building claimed our attention. we found ourselves in a long workshop. there were no windows in the walls, but the place was amply illuminated by a skylight which ran along nearly the whole length of the northern slope of the roof. on the right of the large door by which we had entered the inner shop was a small room, which had probably once served as a harness-room, for through this another door gave on to the yard, though this exit was evidently never used, for the door was fixed by screws. the contents were a couple of broken chairs, and some coats and rugs hung upon hooks upon the walls, together with a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends upon a shelf. i gave merely a cursory glance at the contents of this apartment, for my attention had been attracted by a plant of machinery, which occupied the far end of the large room. as it happened, i had once had an opportunity of inspecting the laboratory of the royal institution, and i recognized at once that mannering had set up an installation for the preparation of some one or other of the liquid gases. without this experience, i doubt whether it would have been possible for me to guess even the purpose for which the plant had been devised. as it was, i had no hesitation in discovering the receiver into which the liquid gas was distilled; and when i let a little of the liquid with which it was filled run into a glass which i found handy, and saw the air fall in a shower of tiny snow-flakes as the stuff evaporated, i knew that mannering had told me the exact truth when he had informed me that liquid hydrogen supplied the power for his new car. once satisfied on this point, i examined the other contents of the place. i do not think there is any need to particularize all that we discovered, even if my memory served me. practically the workshop contained a sufficient engineering equipment to build such a car as stood in the centre, though i judged that there was no convenience for the forging of the parts of the motor. still, as i pointed out to forrest, there was nothing in all these discoveries to negative the truth of the story mannering had told me about his being engaged in building a car which should serve to outpace the pirate car, but he would not listen to any theorising on the subject. "he can tell that story to the jury," he said, as he significantly drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and clinked them together. then he proceeded to investigate the contents of the harness-room, while i went back to the new car and began a careful examination of the engines. the whole mechanism was, however, so novel to me, that i could only surmise as to the method of its working. i did notice, however, that the driving and steering gear varied very little from that of my own car, so far as it was controlled by the levers and wheel, while the breaks seemed to be particularly powerful. there was only seating accommodation for two, and judging from the size of the tank which was fitted behind the seat, i judged that mannering contemplated runs over distances which would make large demands upon his supply of liquid gas. at the moment i made this discovery, i heard forrest call to me in an excited whisper, and going across to him, i found him contemplating with keen interest a dirty piece of rope. "look here, sutgrove," he said; "this is the piece of cord with which he trussed me up on the occasion when he dropped me into the pond. compare it with this"--he kicked a coil which lay at his feet--"and tell me if they are not identical." i examined them both, and came to the conclusion that forrest was correct in his supposition. next, mounting one of the chairs, he proceeded to rummage amongst the rubbish piled on the shelf. a moment later he observed triumphantly, albeit in subdued tones, "another piece of evidence," and descending from his perch, he handed me a box of cartridges. a glance at the label had apparently been enough, nevertheless, to make sure, he searched again in his pocket, and produced the bullet which had proved fatal to the poor victim at towcester. he compared it with one of the cartridges, and gave a grunt of content. "i fancy we shall soon obtain sufficient evidence to hang him," he murmured. then a shadow crossed his face. "what an infernal dunderhead i have been not to suspect him before," he said, and turning impatiently away, he replaced the box of cartridges on the shelf, before renewing his systematic examination of the rest of the contents of the room. the search revealed nothing further, and at length he desisted. all the while we were keenly on the alert to detect any sound which should tell us of the approach of mannering's car. but the minutes passed and grew into hours without a sign. it must have been about five in the morning when we had entered the coach-house, and when i saw by my watch that it was nearly ten, i began to think that in some way or another mannering had got warning of the danger that threatened him. i suggested to forrest that we might as well leave our hiding-place, but he would not hear of it. "i don't leave this building except in his company, unless i hear that he has been captured elsewhere," he declared obstinately. "at the same time, don't let me detain you." i wanted badly to see evie, whom i thought might be getting anxious concerning me; but i hardly liked the idea of leaving forrest to tackle mannering alone if he should return. however, my first desire triumphed, so i persuaded forrest to let me out of the door, promising to return within as short a time as i could manage. i hurried first to the colonel's house, and had a brief interview with the dear girl, telling her what had happened and what was likely to happen in the near future. next, i went to my own place, and had a basket packed with a plentiful luncheon, not forgetting to provide a couple of bottles of champagne, and thus provided i returned to the coach-house after an absence of less than an hour. when in response to my signal forrest admitted me, his eyes twinkled with satisfaction as he saw my burden. "it is truly thoughtful of you," he remarked, as i lifted the lid of the basket and revealed the contents. "i only hope our friend will not spoil our picnic by arriving in the middle of it." the better to avoid any such _contretemps_, we set about our meal immediately with very good appetites. when we had finished, i do not know how forrest felt, but i was confoundedly drowsy. i tried all sorts of tricks to keep my eyes open, but the quiet of the place, the coolness, and the subdued light of the saddle-room, where forrest thought it best for us to remain, were too much for my powers of resistance and i dropped off to sleep. i must have slumbered for a couple of hours, if not three, when i was suddenly awakened by a hand placed on my mouth, while a voice whispered in my ear-"wake up, man--wake up! there's no time to lose." i came to myself with a start. forrest had hold of me, and was shaking me violently. at the same moment i became aware of the throb of an approaching motor. recognizing the sound, i turned to the detective. "that's mannering," i whispered. "yes," replied my companion. "i could swear to the sound anywhere." chapter xxii gone away "don't stir an inch until i give the signal," whispered forrest in my ear, as soon as he saw i was fully awake. he was perfectly calm, and he closed the door in order to conceal us from the sight of any one entering the workshop. the car pulled up outside. we heard the grate of the key in the lock, and the door creak on its hinges, as it swung open. there was a second grating noise, and i judged that the door of the inner yard had been opened by whoever had entered. there followed a few more pants from the motor, as it passed through the coach-house into the yard, and then everything was silent. the outer door shutting with a snap apprized us that the crucial moment was at hand, and my heart began to thump as i heard footsteps approaching. forrest pointed to a vacant hook over my head, and i recognized why he had selected the harness-room for our hiding-place. the footsteps came slowly nearer, then stopped, and a long low laugh came from the lips of the unseen man. i thought we must have been discovered in our hiding-place and glanced at forrest for instructions. he never moved a muscle. he stood poised like a greyhound about to be slipped from the leash. the footsteps approached again. the door knob rattled as a hand was laid upon it. the door flew open. forrest darted forward. i caught one glimpse of mannering's face, for it was indeed he, and i saw it become suddenly livid. it was not the pallor of fear. his eyes flashed. he had doffed his coat and was holding it in one hand, and quick as was forrest's spring, he was equally swift to meet it. his other hand passed swift as lightning from the door handle, and catching the edge of the coat, spread the garment in front of him. forrest, missing his grip, plunged heavily into the wide folds of the garment. mannering's arms closed as a vice. the door swinging back had momentarily blocked my passage. i thrust it open, and had taken one step forward to forrest's assistance, when mannering with a herculean effort, swung the detective from his feet, and hurled him full at me. it was a magnificent effort, and i went down with a crash amongst the remains of the lunch with forrest on the top of me. the whole incident had not lasted twenty seconds, and before either of us could regain our feet, the door was slammed and locked. forrest was the first to regain his feet, and he rushed at the door furiously. we were trapped. the door was a strong one of oak, and i remembered that it fastened by a couple of bolts on the other side. the detective worried the door like a bear at the bars of his cage, but he could not move it. he gnashed his teeth, and he was white with rage. from the other side we could hear the sound of heavy objects being moved, and we guessed that our enemy was piling the most massive articles his workshop contained against the door to make it more secure. "d----n you, sutgrove!" shouted the detective. "don't stop to think, or we shall lose our man after all. come, both together." i saw his intention, and i could understand and forgive his curse in the excitement of the moment. together we hurled ourselves against the door. it did not move an inch, and a long low chuckle greeted the attempt from the other side. we tried madly again and again, but the barrier was immovable. then i looked round for some tool which would enable me to break down the door itself. there were only the chairs available, and so i tore off the leg of one of them, and, bidding forrest stand back, i swung the piece of wood round my head, and struck as hard as i could against one of the lower panels of the door. the improvised club flew into half a dozen fragments, but the panel had cracked. forrest had provided himself meanwhile with a similar club, and directed his blows so effectively that the panel was driven out. i threw myself at the gap, trusting to be able to force my way through. what i saw filled me with rage. the wheels of the new car were moving, and right before my eyes the car disappeared into the outer coach-house. i made an unavailing attempt to struggle through the aperture, but the attempt was hopeless. it was too narrow to admit even my shoulders. withdrawing, i told forrest what i had seen. "i had entirely forgotten laver," he remarked, and putting his whistle to his mouth, he blew it shrill and clear. then together we renewed our attack upon the door. the sound of a shout from the outside followed by a pistol shot made us work like madmen, and within a minute, another panel gave, and we managed to get at the bolts and draw them. the articles piled against the door toppled in all directions, as we finally forced our way out. we were too late. the outer door was wide open, and just on the threshold, was forrest's unfortunate subordinate lying on the ground, with blood trickling down his arm. he struggled into a sitting position as we came out, and pointed up the road in the direction of st. albans. "gone away, sir," he said. "hurt?" asked forrest, pausing as he did so. "not much; smashed shoulder, i fancy," remarked the sufferer philosophically. "i'll send assistance," said my companion as he rushed after me into the road, where i stood horror stricken at what met my gaze. fifty yards distant, opposite the entrance gate of colonel maitland's house, the new car was standing still. it was empty. the gate was open, and even as i watched, i saw mannering come out of the gate, bearing in his arms the helpless figure of a girl. there was no need to guess who the victim might be. even before i saw him appear, i knew intuitively why he had stopped. had he not told evie that on the third day he would return, bidding her be ready for him? i rushed forward towards the car, but before i had covered half the distance which separated me from it, he was aboard with his burden and i knew pursuit on foot to be hopeless. yet, even as i saw him move away, there flashed across my brain one means by which i might possibly get on terms with my enemy. there was just one chance, and one chance only, of rescuing my darling from the pirate, and that chance depended entirely upon the question as to whether the car upon which mannering had returned was fitted with the same sort of motor as that on which he had departed. with the haste of a madman i returned to the coach-house i had just quitted. my hopes fell to zero. there was an unmistakable scent of petrol about the car. they rose again, however, upon a closer examination, for i saw at once that the motor was a turbine, though petrol was utilized in some way as a means of securing the necessary heat to secure the expansion of the gas for the starting of the engine, though i could see that once started, the expanded hydrogen was, as in the new car, ingeniously utilized to produce the necessary heat. i was glad then that i had spent as much time as i had upon examining the car upon which the pirate had escaped, for i was enabled to see that, if only a supply of the liquid hydrogen were obtainable, i should be able to put my wild plan into execution. as it was, the tank was nearly empty, so putting my shoulder to the car, i shoved it into the workshop where, unless mannering had let it run to waste, i knew i should find a supply of the hydrogen. thank heaven, mannering had forgot to empty the receiver, and filling the tank and tightly screwing down the nuts of the covering, i wheeled the car into the open road. there i saw forrest leaning against the wall of the coach-house, a figure of inexpressible dejection. "come and lend a hand!" i shouted. the light that flashed into his face, as he realized what i would be at, was extraordinary. he sprang forward at once to my assistance. now, in my attempts to get at the machinery of the car, i had discovered the plates with which mannering had been wont to disguise its shape, and it occurred to me that they performed the further purpose of diminishing the wind resistance, so that if i wanted to get the full speed out of the car it would be necessary to fix them in their places. i immediately set to work to join up the various sections, leaving forrest to bolt them together. we worked like niggers at the job, and it was nearly completed when a curious sound came down the breeze. i looked up, and to my surprise i saw the pirate once more approaching. "look!" i shouted to forrest in my excitement, though there was no need to warn him. nearer the pirate came; still nearer. every moment i expected to see him pull up and surrender. but it was a mad hope. he had not the slightest intention of so obliging us. as he approached, he suddenly increased his pace and flashed past us at full sixty miles an hour. forrest fingered a revolver, but he dared not shoot for fear the bullet should find the slender form of evie, who we saw was huddled close to his side. mannering laughed as he passed us and waved his hand in derision. "there are a couple of masks in the coach-house," i said quietly to the detective. he darted into the doorway and returned a moment later with them, thrusting at the same time a bottle into his pocket. it took us no time to climb into the car and as, during his momentary absence, i had succeeded in starting the engine, we were in a position to move at once. for a hundred yards we travelled at the speed at which we were accustomed to see mannering while using the car in the sight of men and in the light of day. then with a word of warning to my companion, i pulled at the change-speed lever. the effect was marvellous. the car seemed to leap forward and the hedges suddenly transformed themselves into long green streaks. a cloud of dust on the road ahead gave the direction mannering had taken, so i jammed down the lever to its limit and commenced the pursuit. at any other time the idea of chasing the pirate on one of his own cars would have delighted me beyond measure, but my thoughts were too much occupied as to the fate which might await evie if we failed to overtake her abductor to allow room for anything else. exactly what speed we made i cannot tell, it must have been nearer eighty than sixty miles an hour, but the smoothness of the motion was wonderful, and i felt not the slightest tremor. mannering had disappeared on the watford road, and in a few minutes we swept through the north end of the town and, directed by a boy at the cross roads, made for rickmansworth. forrest took charge of the horn, and kept it braying continuously. we slackened speed through rickmansworth, for the streets were full of vehicles, and there we learned that the white car was five minutes ahead. once clear of the streets i let the car go again, and we tore away towards uxbridge. on reaching the main oxford road once more a dust cloud in the distance served as a guide, and informed us that mannering had crossed the highway, and gone away in the direction of slough. the going was rough for a while, but i did not slacken pace, though the road was narrow, and to have met a cart would have meant certain destruction. the road broadened after a time, and i fancied we were gaining, for the dust cloud seemed nearer. we skirted slough to the east, the guiding cloud bearing towards dachet. darting through that little riverside town at a pace which set the police whistles blowing behind us, we came to the bridge across the thames, and here we were informed that our quarry was barely a minute ahead, and running in the direction of egham. a mile further on, at a straight piece of road, we first sighted the fugitives, and a cry of triumph escaped my lips. it was a little premature, however. once again the silver car turned into a bye-road so winding that i was compelled, much against my will, to slacken speed. then once more we came out upon a main road, to find our quarry not more than a hundred yards away as we swept out into the broad highway. and here, looking back, mannering for the first time learned that we were on his track. at that moment, too, commenced a race which, i venture to think, will not soon be equalled in the history of the motor world. at all events, i trust it will never be my lot to take part in any similar trial of speed, at least, with such issues depending upon the result. upon emerging from the bye-road we were a mile from egham, and knowing the road, i asked forrest to glance at his watch. the way was clear before us, and three minutes and a quarter later, we flashed through the railway arch at sunningdale railway-station, four miles from the point where the timing commenced. but fast as we had travelled, mannering travelled faster. when we reached bagshot we learned he was half a minute ahead. we flew through the lovely pine country on the wings of the wind, through hook, and so into basingstoke. by this time we were covered from head to foot with white dust, looking more like working masons than anything else; but wherever we went, i knew forrest had the power to make the way easy. if he had been anybody else but a detective from scotland yard, we should never have got through basingstoke, for there the police, warned in some manner of our approach, had drawn a huge waggon across the road, thus completely barring our progress. it was soon drawn aside when forrest produced his badge, and once more we flew westwards. so through whitchurch and andover. how we succeeded in escaping accidents i cannot explain. providence seemed to watch over both pursuers and pursued. we were always on the verge of a collision with somebody or something. cottages, carts, pedestrians, cyclists, seemed to be flying by in a never-ending procession. yet we touched nothing. once past andover the road became clearer, for instead of turning towards salisbury, as i expected, the pirate chose the road through amesbury and stonehenge. we swept over salisbury plain at a magnificent pace, but we did not catch sight of the fugitives, though now and again a glimpse of a distant dust cloud raised my hopes momentarily. at wincanton we learned we were three minutes behind, and setting my teeth, i determined i would not slacken speed again until we overtook the fugitives or reached exeter. the road was admirable hereabouts, and we ran so steadily that, but for the hedges flying past, we might have been sitting in armchairs. after ilminster the road became steeper, though it was yet too early in the year to be very rough. but how is it possible to describe a journey at the pace we were making? our progress became dream-like to me. it was almost monotonous. one could observe so little, just an incident here and there to mark the stages in the journey. thus i remember honiton by the frightened scream of a cur which was swept off its feet by the rush of the air as we passed close at his tail. then nothing of note until we reached exeter. at the cathedral city we were told the white car was only a minute in advance. i began to wonder where the chase was going to end, for mannering was still going westward without pause. still we followed. out on to the launceston road; onward, ever onward until the bare hills of dartmoor frowned upon us, and we had to slacken slightly for the long upward grind. fortunately the hills were free from mist, and on reaching the summit of whiddon down we caught once more a glimpse of the white car before it disappeared in the distance. i was getting reckless, and i took the descent at a pace which blanched even forrest's cheek. then through a streak of white houses, which i fancied must be okehampton. there was no need to inquire the way. at the pace both cars were travelling there was only one road which would serve either mannering or myself. in fifteen minutes launceston came into view. then up again until from the top of bodmin moor we caught fleeting glimpses of the sea on either side of us. on still without pause, through redruth and camborne and hayle. finally a sight of them at last, as we opened up st. michael's bay as we came to marazion. and here i thought the chase had come to an end. i was mistaken. chapter xxiii saved my brain reeled as we rushed along the road into penzance. my forehead seemed to be encircled with a band of steel. my mouth was so parched that my tongue rattled against my palate as i tried to speak to forrest. my fingers were so cramped with the grip on the steering wheel, a grip which had never once been relaxed during our five hours' run, that i could not relinquish my hold. the road became dark, and involuntarily i cut off the supply of the gas to the motor and brought the car to a standstill. "go on, man! go on!" shouted forrest in my ear. i could only gasp for answer. i felt suddenly sick. then forrest gave proof of his ready common sense. he thrust his hand into his pocket and produced the bottle of champagne which had been left over from our lunch, and which he had thoughtfully brought with him in view of some such eventuality as this. tearing off the wire he cut the string. the cork flew out and the liquor creamed from the neck of the bottle. pushing up my mask with one hand he held the bottle to my lips with the other. i spluttered. i choked. but i drank and i drank again. never surely was champagne more grateful or more useful. my strength returned to me instantaneously. my brain cleared. my eyes saw. my hope returned. i drew a deep sigh of relief. forrest handed me the bottle again. "after you," i said. he took a drink and then remarked authoritatively, "finish the bottle." i obeyed and, draining it, tossed it into the hedge and once more set the car in motion. if our progress had been speedy before, when we were once through penzance, it became absolutely reckless. my brain was dancing from the effect of the champagne, and a wild exhilaration throbbed in every artery. the pace was tremendous, and we had not left penzance a couple of miles behind us before the fugitives came once more into view. now for the first time i could see that we were holding our own in the race. it may have been that some bearing had become heated in the car mannering was driving, for undoubtedly his new car was more speedy than the old, but it was clear that he could no longer leave us as he had been able to do in the earlier part of the chase. if only i could increase ever so slightly the speed of my car, i felt confident of overtaking him. i motioned to forrest to bend towards me, and when his ear was level with my mouth, i asked him to throw everything which could be got rid of overboard, in order to lighten the car. he took my meaning at once, and away went the cushions and rugs. the difference was slight, but still there was a perceptible difference. at the pace we were now travelling the car rocked from side to side of the road, and forrest had to brace himself stiffly against the foot-board to prevent himself being thrown out. but we were gaining foot by foot on the fugitives. i felt a thrill of delight when, on reaching the brow of a hill, i saw the white car only two hundred yards ahead, and reckoned that in a couple of minutes we should have overtaken them. but one thing i had overlooked. i became conscious that we should soon be at the end of our journey, for suddenly i saw the sea on the horizon. i knew now where we were, knew that the end was in sight. for mannering there could be no return, and i shouted aloud with exultation when i realized it. we drew closer to him, so close that i fancied i could see his eyes glittering through the mica plate of his mask as he turned to look at us. a sudden horror gripped me by the throat. he surely must know as well as myself that he was near the spot where all roads ended; that we were barely a mile or two from land's end. what if he intended to end his life and his journey together? and what if, not content with destroying himself, he were to carry with him to destruction the girl who rode beside him on his car? we reached within twenty yards of him, and then as if in answer to my thought, i heard him emit a screech of laughter as his car suddenly shot away from us, and in half a minute placed him at least a quarter of a mile ahead. the bitterness of that moment, as my hope died within me, i can never forget. i only continued the pursuit mechanically. we thundered through sennen without pause and so onward until we opened up the hotel and the stretch of green on the brow of the cliff. then i could have shrieked with delight. the white car was standing still and mannering had left his seat and was standing by the side. ten seconds would have brought us to him. five passed. he leaped again to his seat, and as he did so, the white robed figure sprang from the car to the turf. the pirate gave a cry of baffled rage. but he had no time to waste in recovering his escaping victim, for we were within fifty yards of him. his car leaped forward and, leaving the road, tossed like a boat at sea over the uneven boulder-strewn turf. we were within five yards of him, and it was as much as we could manage to do to keep our seats. just in time i realized the danger into which we were being unwittingly drawn, and reversing the gear, i put on both breaks. i was in time, but only just in time, for we were on a treacherous grassy slope and in spite of the breaks our car continued to glide forward under the impulse of the velocity it had attained. "jump for your life!" shouted forrest. i had wit enough to obey without hesitation. as i leaped, my eyes were fixed upon mannering who at that moment had reached the very edge of the cliff. i saw him disappear, and then i rolled over on the turf. i was unhurt, and gathering myself together, i regained my feet just as the car which had carried us so well followed the maker over the cliff. a dozen paces took me to the spot. i shuddered as i glanced downwards and saw the fate i had escaped. two or three hundred feet below the tide was boiling over the jagged rocks. i fancied i could discern a few fragments of the white car and that was all. not ten seconds before i had seen mannering wave his hand at us mockingly as he rode to his death, and i guessed that his intention had been to lure us on to a common destruction. once again he had disappeared, but now i knew it was for all time. a strange calm came upon me. straight in front of us the longships lighthouse made a pillar of black marble against the huge red disc of the setting sun. in the far distance the cassiterides floated cloud-like on the horizon. i gulped down a sob of thankfulness, for the memory came upon me that the one whom i loved had been saved by the merest chance from sharing the fate of the madman who had so unhesitatingly rushed upon his doom. i felt a tap on my shoulder. it was forrest. "our work is done," he said, and with an impatient sigh, he took from his pocket the useless handcuffs and hurled them after the cars. "one thing we have to be thankful for," he continued, "thank god, miss maitland is safe." for reply, i could only grasp his hands and wring them silently. as i did so, i became conscious that a number of excited people had gathered about us. "where--where is she?" i gasped. some one pointed to the hotel a hundred yards or so distant, and forrest and i hurried towards it. i was a prey to the most horrible anxiety. i dreaded to contemplate what the result upon the mind of my darling might be. i had nearly reached the hotel door, when i saw a slight figure step across the threshold and shade her eyes with her hand. with a cry of delight i sprang forward. the next moment evie was in my arms. * * * * * that is the story of the motor pirate. there remain but a few things to say. and first of them, let me explain how it happened that evie managed to fall into the pirate's clutches. i told her later that it was owing to feminine curiosity. she, on the other hand, declares it was entirely owing to her anxiety on my account. whichever was the reason, the moment she had heard mannering's car approach, she had gone to the garden-gate, whence she was able to command a view of the coach-house door. she had seen the man laver rush forward at the sound of the whistle. then the pistol shot rang out, and the next moment mannering had appeared on the new car. he had seen her, and she had attempted to fly to the house, but he had overtaken her and carried her off. once on the car he had proceeded a short distance on the st. alban's road, and then stopped to speak to her, for the first and only time on that day. "i am going to take you for a ride with me, miss maitland," he had observed. "i merely wish to warn you before we start, that at the pace we shall travel, you will find any attempt to escape exceedingly dangerous." it was then from his manner and appearance she had realized that she was in the power of a madman. as regards the ride, she could tell me very little. the pace was so great that, being unprovided with a mask, she was obliged to crouch down on the seat and cover her face with a rug as a protection against the dust. it seemed an interminable time, she said, and the moment the car stopped she made an attempt to regain her liberty, without knowing how near she was to destruction at the time she made it. fortunately the strain had been much less than i expected, so far as evie was concerned, and much more than i anticipated, was its effect upon myself. it was a long time before i completely recovered from the effects of those three adventurous days. and the worst of it was, that everything combined to prevent me obtaining the absolute quiet which i needed. after spending a night at the hotel i, of course, hastened to take train to london in order to restore evie to her father. but when i arrived at my place at st. albans, i found a veritable army of pressmen encamped on my doorstep. they would not give me a moment's peace. i was compelled to remain in bed, and upon sending a message over to evie to inform her of my predicament, she informed me that she was similarly besieged. we exchanged a dozen notes. i rose when it was dark, and slipped out of my back door. i could only see one method of securing quiet. even a hardened pressman has a dislike to intrude upon the privacy of a newly married couple, so the next morning evie and colonel maitland joined me in town, and we were married by special license and, without returning to st. albans, we started for my home in norfolk. so much for myself. forrest was for a long time inconsolable at the final escape of the pirate from the hands of justice. so was his subordinate, laver, whose sentiments on the subject are quite too lurid for publication. as for mannering, no trace of his body was ever found, though i have since heard that certain portions of the cars have been fished up from the pools amongst the rocks at the base of the cliffs at low tide. at present, however, there has not been sufficient of the machinery recovered to enable any one to construct a similar motor. he had apparently made no drawings, or else had destroyed them when they had served his turn, so it would seem as if the secret of the singularly speedy motor he invented is destined to be lost to the world. still, it may be that sufficient will be recovered to give some skilled mechanician sufficient guidance to enable him to reproduce the lost pirate car. if not, well, i don't suppose it matters. some one else will be sure to invent something similar. in fact, from the hints mannering gave me, and owing to the opportunity i had of examining the car in his workshop, i think it is not unlikely that i shall shortly be applying for letters patent myself. chapter xxiv revelations there remains only one thing more. i feel that the story would be incomplete if i kept to myself certain particulars concerning mannering, which have come to my knowledge since the day when he made his sensational flight into eternity from the brow of the cliff at land's end. at the time, both my wife and myself wished never to hear again the name of the man whose actions had provided us with such terrible and nerve-shattering experiences, but afterwards, when we came to think over the matter, it occurred to both of us that in fact we knew very little about the man who had nearly wrecked our lives. to dwell upon that thought naturally awakened our curiosity concerning his past life, and, needless to say, when the opportunity occurred for gratifying our curiosity, we did not for a moment hesitate about accepting it. it is true that we had gathered from his conversation that he had travelled widely, but in what capacity, or with what object, we knew as little as we knew of his birthplace or parentage. we found, too, a difficulty in understanding the motives which had prompted mannering's actions, and, though we often discussed the question, we could never of ourselves have arrived at a satisfactory solution of the problem. on this latter point i must mention the conclusion arrived at by _the speaker_. this sober-minded and extremely british review declared that his animating motive was "the strong rock of equity, or abstract justice," inasmuch as, by principally directing his attention to motorists, he was avenging _the speaker's_ quarrel with a class which this journal held in particular abhorrence. naturally, both evie and myself smiled at the thought that the motor pirate was a conservative gentleman, anxious only to restore to the highways of england something of their pristine calm. for myself, i inclined to the belief that he was a remarkable specimen of the megalomaniac, whose exploits were prompted much more by the desire for notoriety than by any altruistic motive, or even by any sordid consideration regarding the plunder which he secured. certainly had he been a mere criminal, impelled by the desire for the easy acquisition of wealth, he could have pursued his career for a much longer period than he actually did. as for my wife, with a woman's natural tendency to read a romance into any and every development of human activity, she held fast to the opinion that the pirate's extraordinary career was the outcome of an overmastering passion for herself. the probability is, that in his brain all these motives operated at different times. the natural love of plunder, inherent in the criminal mind, is as often as not accompanied by a morbid delight in awakening the wonder of the public by the performance of startling deeds and, in the same temperament, it is not unusual to discover the romantic nature developed to a considerable degree. but, from the data at our command, i fancy it would have been impossible even for the experienced psychologist to decide which, so to speak, was the master impulse. perhaps, however, the few facts concerning him, which came into our possession afterwards, tend to clear up these points to some degree. certainly they left me with a clearer light upon his individuality. to these facts i am indebted to inspector forrest, who, some six months after our famous ride together in pursuit of the pirate, managed to find time to pay a flying visit to our norfolk home, where we had continued to dwell in peaceful seclusion. it was at dinner, on the night of his arrival, that forrest first hinted that he had picked up some details of mannering's life-history, and of course nothing would content evie but a promise that we should hear what he had discovered. so, directly the meal was finished, we adjourned for our coffee and cigars to my sanctum, where, in front of a comfortable fire, forrest made no difficulty about satisfying our curiosity. "you see," he began, when his cigar was once well alight, "i was every bit as curious as mrs. sutgrove." "or myself," i interrupted. "or mr. sutgrove," said the detective, smiling, "for there is precious little difference between the sexes so far as curiosity is concerned, in spite of the generally accepted opinion on the matter. but being curious, i naturally made the most minute search when i searched his place at st. alban's. i didn't find much there, it is true, but i did secure a clue which ultimately led me to some lodgings which he had occupied some three or four years previously, and there, by the merest good luck, i discovered that when he had departed he had left behind him a worn-out travelling-bag, and in that bag was a bundle of papers which supplied me with sufficient information to reconstruct his history to some extent, though i should not like to swear to the absolute accuracy of every detail of his biography as i see it." "was there nothing at all found at st. alban's then?" asked evie. "i fancy you must have seen in the papers a pretty full account of all that the police discovered there?" said the detective. "yes," replied evie. "we read a lot of stories, but they varied to such an extent that we really did not know what to believe." forrest smiled. "now i come to think of it, the reporters did give their imaginations free reins, but you can take it from me that, with the exception of the plunder he amassed after his return from that continental trip, and the apparatus for the production of the liquid hydrogen, there was very little in his house of interest to me or you. there was his bank-book, and some correspondence with a learned professor at the royal institution. i followed up both clues. at the r. i. i discovered nothing. mannering had merely posed as a wealthy amateur in chemistry, and of course he met with every assistance when he had asked for help in following up his researches into the behaviour of liquid gases. at his bank also, very little was known about him. when he had come to st. alban's he had opened an account by a payment into it of six or seven thousand pounds in bank of england notes. he had drawn steadily upon the account until it was nearly exhausted, and, in point of fact, there was only a few pounds to his credit from the time when he commenced his career on the road, until a week or two after his return from amsterdam, when he paid in two thousand pounds in gold, and a fortnight later swelled his balance with a similar amount." "that was the proceeds of the brighton mail robbery," i remarked. forrest nodded. "that was his only really big coup. as for his other plunder, he probably disposed of the proceeds of all his early cruises on the continent, at the same time that he sold the diamonds. that which he obtained afterwards was found intact in the safe in his bedroom. heavens! what an opportunity i missed by not taking out a search-warrant for his house. when we paid our midnight visit, there must have been ample evidence behind the steel door to have convicted him." the detective was silent for awhile, and bit savagely at his cigar. "he was not a wealthy man, then," i remarked. "no," replied forrest. "there was no trace of his owning any property anywhere, and his expenditure on the gas plant and on his motors--we found that the various parts had been made to specification at a variety of works in england and abroad--had eaten heavily into his capital, so that at the time of the commencement of his career he must have been very nearly penniless. whether he built the motor with the idea of utilizing it for the purpose he ultimately put it to, of course i cannot say, but i have a shrewd suspicion that he really did design it for the purpose, since from what i have learned of him the predatory instinct must have been pretty strongly developed in him." the detective paused for a minute, and, flicking the ash off his cigar, gazed meditatively into the fire. "you shall judge for yourselves," he continued. "unfortunately, i cannot begin right at the beginning, for i do not know where he was born, nor who his parents were. i can only guess at these facts from the knowledge that, as a boy, he was at school in the south of england, and that then his name was ram krishna roy." "what?" i asked, in amazement. "a hindu?" "an eurasian, i should fancy," replied forrest. "he had been sent to school in england by one of those petty indian princes, who still exercise sovereignty under british suzerainty." "how did you discover that?" asked evie. "it was like this, mrs. sutgrove," replied forrest. "amongst the papers i spoke about as being in the old portmanteau, were a number of letters written in characters i could not understand. i could see they were oriental, and that was as much as i could make of them, so i took them to a noted oriental scholar who translated them for me. the language was urdu, and the writer was a munshi, who was obviously communicating with an old pupil. there were so many references to scenes with which the person to whom the letters were addressed, as well as the writer, was familiar, that it was quite clear that the former must have been brought up amidst purely native surroundings. there were one or two more obscure allusions which led me to conclude that the boy's mother must have been a white woman, and from what we saw of him there can be no doubt but that he was white on one side." "nobody would have taken him to be aught but an englishman," murmured evie. "no," said forrest. "i was intensely surprised when i discovered these proofs of his identity and at first i thought they could not apply to him, but before i come to the connecting link, let me mention one curious thing in the letters, which may do something to explain the curious influence which mannering exerted over mrs. sutgrove." "he hypnotized me, i am sure," declared evie, decidedly. "very possibly," replied the detective. "in nearly every letter was to be found an admonition to the effect--i cannot give you a verbatim translation--that the writer hoped his old pupil would not forget that to him was entrusted the secret power of siva, which would, by practice, enable him to mould all men to his will." "if he had possessed that," i interrupted, "there would have been no necessity for him to have practised piracy on the high-road." "true," said forrest. "but it is quite possible that mrs. sutgrove's conjecture is correct, and that even at that early age mannering had learnt something about hypnotism from his native instructor, for i am very certain that of these semi-occult sciences, the east has much more precise knowledge than is realized by the western world." "very likely," said my wife, shuddering slightly at the remembrance. "he certainly had a most singular power over me." "he probably increased his knowledge when he returned to his native land, which, i gathered, must have taken place when he was about seventeen. then there is a break for nearly ten years in his history." "i don't quite see how you connect ram krishna roy with mannering," i interpolated. "i'm coming to that," replied forrest. "with these letters was another in its original envelope addressed in the same hand to julian mannering at san francisco. it was the most interesting letter of the lot. it was full of reproaches addressed to the dear pupil, who had cut himself off from the asceticism of the east, and devoted himself to the gross materialism of western civilization. it concluded by the expression of an intention to once more attempt to persuade him to return by a personal appeal. on the back of the letter was a note in mannering's handwriting. 'old chatterji kept his promise. i had quite a long conversation with him in the ballroom last night. everybody thought i was drunk or mad to be talking hindustani, apparently to empty air. however, that's the last of him. i've done with the east.'". "you make him more a man of mystery than ever," i exclaimed. "i can't help it," said forrest. "perhaps his old tutor really did appear to him. perhaps mannering was mad. who knows? both are dead. however, he seems to have carried out his intention of not returning to india. ram krishna roy disappeared from that time forth, and julian mannering took his place. he seems to have been doing nothing at san francisco at the time, but a little later he appears to have accepted an appointment as engineer to a mine in arizona. he left the berth suddenly a few months later, owing to some trouble about the wife of one of the miners. the miner was shot, and his comrades were so incensed that mannering had to depart hot-foot. then for awhile i can only guess at his occupation from some newspaper cuttings which he had preserved. these point to his identification with the leader of a gang of desperadoes whose most notable exploit was the successful holding up of a train which had a considerable quantity of specie on board." "i remember him describing the affair," said evie, "though he represented himself as on the side of the attacked." "the only assistance he gave to the plundered was to assist them to a better land by the aid of his gun. he escaped, though, and made his way to australia, and once again he resumed the practice of his profession,--mining engineering. for three or four years he was engaged at a newly-opened mine in the northern territory of west australia. but instinct was too strong for him. he must really have had a strong dash of the blood of some of those indian hill-tribe freebooters in his veins, for he never seems to have been able to resist the prospect of plunder, and the likelihood of having to fight for it seems to have been an additional inducement. thus, at the mine, under his charge, it was the custom to send, periodically, the gold extracted, under a strong escort, to the nearest town, some forty miles distant. for a long time these consignments were delivered with perfect safety. then, after a particularly rich vein had been struck, it became necessary to forward a very large consignment of bullion. contrary to the usual practice, only two men were sent in charge of it. their dead bodies were afterwards discovered, and the gold was never recovered. no one seems to have had the least suspicion that the gentlemanly engineer at the mine was likely to have had something to do with the business, and when, shortly afterward, he resigned his post and took a passage to europe, he received the highest possible testimonials from his manager and directors. i have no doubt, myself, that he was the prime mover in the robbery, for his salary was a small one, and directly afterwards he spent six months in paris, where his expenditure would have been lavish for a millionaire." "that was where my father met him," remarked evie. "i remember him expressing surprise at the simplicity of mannering's life at st. alban's in view of the luxury with which he had been surrounded when they had met previously." "just so," said the detective. "but his paris career ended as it had commenced. he disappeared suddenly, without a word of farewell to any of his acquaintance, and had it not been for one bit of evidence, i should have had not the slightest idea as to what he had been doing with himself in the interval between that time and his arrival at st. alban's. you may remember that a scientific expedition was despatched by the dutch government about six years ago to make some investigations in the interior of new guinea?" i shook my head. "it started six months after mannering disappeared from paris, and from the time it left batavia _en route_ for new guinea not a word has ever been heard of it." "you cannot mean to infer that mannering had anything to do with that?" i asked, incredulously. "i infer nothing," replied forrest. "but i do know that a pocketbook, which had belonged to a chemist attached to the exploring party, was one of the documents i found in his bag. the book contained a number of notes upon the liquefaction of gases, and these may very likely have first interested mannering in the subject. as i have since discovered from a search of the registers at lloyds that there were quite a number of ships lost about the same time in those seas, i cannot help thinking that our friend had served an apprenticeship under the black flag at sea before taking to land piracy." "at that rate he must have been the greatest criminal on earth," i declared. "he was certainly the biggest i ever came across," replied forrest, "and my only regret is that i was unable to secure him in order that he might have judicially paid the penalty for his crimes." "it was a pity," i said, "though i fancy if we had trapped him he would have found some means of cheating the gallows and making a melodramatic exit from the world." "it is more than likely," said forrest. "he was not the ordinary type of criminal. i was speaking to a big mental specialist the other day, and--but i had better complete the story of his career first. where did we leave him?" "new guinea," i prompted. "the only other reason i have for suspecting him of being engaged in deeds of violence in that quarter of the globe is that he returned to england _via_ singapore, with a considerable quantity of bullion in his possession. the rest of his history you know." "he seems to have had a stirring existence, anyhow," i commented. "and one hardly sees any reason for it save natural sin." "the alienist i was talking to the other day described him as a moral pervert. he said he was a type of insanity usually associated with physical incapacity or a low order of intelligence, but when, as in mannering's case, both physique and intelligence were above the average, the moral pervert is a greater danger to the community than an army of ordinary criminals. if ever i said a prayer it would be when a madman of that type was removed from the world." "amen," said both evie and i, heartily. the end. * * * * * transcriber's note: text uses both st. alban's and st. albans. page 24, "has" changed to "had" (papers had not) page 76, "continue" changed to "continued" (he continued earnestly) page 86, "sang-freid" changed to "sang-froid" (companion's _sang-froid_ soon) page 88, "typeing" changed to "typing" (typing, and upon) page 139, "choose" changed to "chose" (we chose the footpath) page 189, closing quote added (address." then, after) page 242, "couples" changed to "couple" (a couple of minutes) courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction no. 30 sept. 18, 1909 five cents motor matt's mandarin or turning a trick for tsan ti _by the author of motor matt_ _street & smith_ _publishers_ _new york_ [illustration: _certainly it was not a time to laugh but motor matt could hardly help it_] motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction _issued weekly. by subscription $2.50 per year. copyright, 1909, by_ street & smith, _79-89 seventh avenue, new york, n. y._ =no. 30.= new york, september 18, 1909. =price five cents.= motor matt's mandarin; or, turning a trick for tsan ti. by the author of "motor matt." contents chapter i. on the mountainside. chapter ii. the yellow cord. chapter iii. the glass balls. chapter iv. the paper clue. chapter v. putting two and two together. chapter vi. a smash. chapter vii. nip and tuck. chapter viii. tsan ti vanishes again. chapter ix. tricked once more. chapter x. the diamond merchant. chapter xi. the old sugar camp. chapter xii. a tight corner. chapter xiii. a master rogue. chapter xiv. the glass spheres. chapter xv. the eye of buddha. chapter xvi. the broken hoodoo. a real pirate. some queer philippine customs. high leaps by deer. characters that appear in this story. =matt king=, otherwise motor matt. =joe mcglory=, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. a good chum to tie to--a point motor matt is quick to perceive. =tsan ti=, mandarin of the red button, who appeals to motor matt for help in a very peculiar undertaking. =sam wing=, a san francisco chinaman, member of a _tong_ that is amiably disposed toward tsan ti. =kien lung=, courier of the chinese regent, who respectfully delivers the yellow cord to tsan ti. =grattan=, a masterful rogue who consummates one of the cleverest robberies in the annals of crime. =bunce=, a sailor who assists grattan and makes considerable trouble for the motor boys and the mandarin. =goldstein=, a diamond broker with a penchant for dealing in stolen goods. =pryne=, a brother-in-law of grattan, who plays a short but important part in the events of the story. chapter i. on the mountainside. "sufferin' treadmills! say, pard, here's where i drop down in the shade and catch my breath. how much farther have we got to go?" "not more than a mile, joe." "we must have gone a couple of hundred miles already." "we've traveled about six miles, all told." "speak to me about that! a mile up and down is a heap longer than a mile on the straightaway. we've been hanging to this sidehill like a couple of flies to a wall. what do you say to a rest?" "i'm willing, joe; and here's a good place. look out for that tree root. it's a bad one, and runs straight across the road." motor matt and his cowboy pard, joe mcglory, were pop-popping their way up a steep mountainside on a couple of motor cycles. they were bound for the mountain house, a hotel on the very crest of the uplift. a day boat had brought them down the hudson river from albany, and they had disembarked at catskill landing, hired the two machines, and started for the big hotel. the motor cycles were making hard work of the climb--such hard work, in fact, that the boys, time and time again, had been compelled to get out of their saddles and lead the heavy wheels up a particularly steep place in the trail. this was trying labor, and mcglory's enthusiasm over the adventure had been on the wane for some time. the big root of a tree, lying across the road like a half-buried railroad tie, was safely dodged, and under the shade of the tree to which the root belonged matt and mcglory threw themselves down. the cowboy mopped his dripping face with a handkerchief, pulled off his hat, and began fanning himself with it. "one of these two-wheeled buzz carts is all right," he remarked, "where the motor does the work for you; but i'll be gad-hooked if there's any fun doin' the work for the motor. and what's it all about? you don't know, and i don't. we made this jump from the middle west to the effete east on the strength of a few lines of 'con' talk. i wish people would leave you alone when they get into trouble. every stranger knows, though, that all he's got to do is to send you a hurry-up call whenever anything goes crosswise, and that you'll break your neck to boil out on his part of the map and share his hard luck." mcglory finished with a grunt of disgust. "i've got a hunch, joe," answered matt, "that there's a whole lot to that letter." "a whole lot of fake and false alarm. read it again, if you've got breath enough." "i've read it to you a dozen times already," protested matt. "then make it thirteen times, pard. the more you read it, the more i realize what easy marks we are for paying any attention to it. it's fine discipline, pard, to keep thinking where you've made a fool of yourself." matt laughed as he drew an envelope out of his coat pocket. the envelope was addressed, in a queer hand, to "his excellency, motor matt, engaged in aëroplane performances with burton's big consolidated shows, grand rapids, michigan." drawing out the enclosed sheet, matt unfolded it. there was a humorous gleam in his gray eyes as he read aloud the following: "honorable and most excellent sir: it is necessary that i have of your wonderful aid in matters exceedingly great and important. i, a mandarin of the red button, with some store of english knowledge, and much trouble, appeal to king of motor boys with overwhelming desire that he come to me at mountain house, near town named catskill landing, in state of new york. noble and affluent sir, will it be insult should i offer one thousand dollars and expenses if i get my wish for your most remarkable help? not so, for i promise with much goodness of heart. let it be immediately that you come, and sooner if convenient. may your days be fragrant as the blossoms of paradise, your joys like the countless stars, and your years many and many. "'tsan ti, of the red button.'" "sounds like a skin game," grumbled mcglory, as matt returned the letter to its envelope, and the latter to his pocket. "it's the first time a stranger in trouble ever sent me a letter like that," remarked matt. "regular josh. button, button, who's got the button? not us, pard, and we're _it_. there'll be no mandarin at the end of this blooming trail we're running out. you take it from me. now----" mcglory broke off suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pitch of the road above. "great hocus-pocus!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "see what's coming!" matt, turning his eyes in the direction of his pard's pointing finger, was likewise brought up standing by the spectacle that met his gaze. a bicycle was coasting down the steep path, coming with the speed of a limited express train; and some fifty feet behind this bicycle came another, moving at a rate equally swift. in the saddle of the leading machine was a fat chinaman--a chinaman of consequence, to judge by his looks. he wore a black cap, yellow blouse and trousers and embroidered sandals. his thin, baggy garments fluttered and snapped about him as he shot down the road, and his pigtail, fully a yard long, and bound at the end with a ribbon, stood out straight behind him. the celestial behind was leaner and dressed in garments more subdued. it was exceedingly plain to the two boys that his heart was in his work, and that the end and aim of his labors was the overhauling of the man ahead. "wow!" wheezed the fat fugitive. "wow! wow! wow!" for about two seconds this stirring situation was before the eyes of matt and mcglory. then the tree root insinuated itself into proceedings. the fugitive saw the root heaving across his path with a promise of disaster, but going around it was out of the question, and stopping the speeding wheel an impossibility. the inevitable happened. matt and mcglory saw the bicycle bound into the air and turn a half somersault. the fat chinaman landed on his back with the wheel on top of him; then machine and chinaman rolled over and over until the impetus of the flight was spent. the two boys ran to the unfortunate bicyclist, gathered him up, and separated him from the broken wheel. the celestial refused to be lifted to his feet, but contented himself with sitting up. "my cap, excellent friend," he requested, pointing to where the cap was lying. "gee, but that was a jolt!" commiserated mcglory. "how do you feel about now?" "kindest regards for your inquiry," said the chinaman, extracting a small stone from the collar of his blouse, and then emptying a pint of dust from one of his flowing sleeves. "i am variously shaken, thank you, but the terrible part is yet to come. kindly recede until it is over, and add further to my obligations." matt had picked up the black cap. as he handed it to the chinaman, he observed that there was a red button in the centre of the flat top. he was astonished at the chinaman's manner, no less than at his use of english. his clothes were all awry, and soiled with dust, but he seemed to mind that as little as he did his bruises. putting the cap on his head, he took a fan from somewhere about his person, waved the boys aside with it, then opened it with a "snap," and proceeded methodically to fan himself. his eyes were turned up the road. matt and mcglory exchanged wondering glances as they stepped apart. the other chinaman, having a greater space in which to manoeuvre, had managed to avoid the tree root. by means of the brake he had caused his machine to slow down, and had then leaped off. after carefully leaning the bicycle against a tree, he approached his fat countryman in a most deferential manner. the latter nodded gravely from his seat on the ground. the pursuer thereupon flung himself to his knees, and beat his forehead three times in the dust. after that, the fat chinaman said something. presumably it was in his native tongue, for it sounded like heathen gibberish, and the boys could make nothing out of it. but the lean chinaman seemed to understand. lifting himself and sitting back on his heels, he pushed a hand into the breast of his coat, and brought out a little black box about the size of a cigarette case. this, with every sign of respect and veneration, he offered to the other celestial. the fat man took the box, waved his fan, and eased himself of a few more remarks. the lean fellow once more kotowed, then arose silently, regained his wheel, and vanished from sight down the road. the fat mongolian was left balancing the black box in his hand and eying it with pensive interest. "well, speak to me about this!" breathed mcglory. "what do you make out of it, matt?" "not a thing," whispered matt. "that fellow has a red button in his cap." mcglory showed traces of excitement. "glory, and all hands round!" he gasped. "have you any notion that the chink we're looking for has lammed into us in this violent fashion, right here on the mountainside?" "give it up. watch; see what he's up to." the fat chinaman, laying aside his fan, took the box in his left palm, and, with the fingers of his right hand, pressed a spring. the lid flew open. on top of something in the box lay a white card covered with chinese hieroglyphics. the chinaman lifted the card and read the written words. his yellow face turned to the color of old cheese, his eyes closed spasmodically, and his breath came quick and raspingly. mcglory grabbed matt's arm. "there's something on that card, matt," said he, "that's got our fat friend on the run." while the boys continued to look, the chinaman laid aside the card, and drew from the box a pliable yellow cord, a yard in length. that was all there was in the box, just the card and the cord. feeling that there was a deep mystery here, and a mystery in which he and his chum were concerned, the king of the motor boys stepped forward. "tsan ti?" he queried. box and cord fell from the fat chinaman's hands, and he turned an eagerly inquiring look in matt's direction. chapter ii. the yellow cord. "excellent youth," said the chinaman, "you pronounce my name. how is this?" "i'm motor matt," answered the king of the motor boys, "and this is my chum, joe mcglory. you asked us to come, and here we are. there's your letter to me." matt opened the written sheet and held it in front of tsan ti's face. the celestial's face underwent a change. a flicker of hope ran through the fear and consternation. "_omito fuh!_" he muttered, rising slowly to his feet. "the five hundred gods have covered me with much disgrace, this last hour, but now they bring me a gleam of hope from the clouds of despair. by the plumes of the sacred peacock, i bow before you with much gratefulness." he bowed--or tried to. his ponderous stomach interfered with the manoeuvre, and he caught a crick in his back--the direct result, probably, of his recent spill. "you are here to be of aid to the unfortunate mandarin, are you not, illustrious sirs?" went on tsan ti, leaning against a tree, and rubbing his right sandal up and down his left shin. quite likely the left shin was barked, and the right sandal was affording it consolation. "first aid to the injured, tsan," grinned mcglory, getting a good deal of fun out of this novel encounter. the cowboy had met many chinamen, but never before one of this sort. the experience was mildly exciting. "wit," chanted tsan ti, "is the weapon of the wise, the idol of the fool; a runaway knock at laughter's door; arrows from the quiver of genius; intellectual lightning from the thunder clouds of talent; the lever of----" "sufferin' cats!" exploded mcglory. "what is he talking about? in that letter, tsan, you speak about insulting us with a thousand plunks and expenses. was that a rhinecaboo or the real thing?" without changing his countenance by so much as a line, tsan ti lifted the bottom of his blouse, and unbuttoned the pocket of a leather belt around his huge girth. from the pocket he took five gold double eagles in good american money. "have i the understanding," he asked, "that you will be of help to my distress?" "tell us, first," answered matt, a little bewildered by the mandarin's queer talk and actions, "what it is you want." "what i want, notable friend, is the eye of buddha, the great ruby which was stolen from the forehead of the idol in temple of hai-chwang-sze, in the city named canton. i, even i, now the most miserable of creatures, was guardian of the temple when this theft occurred. i fled to find the thief, and kien lung, by order of the son of the morning, our imperial regent, fled after me with that invitation to death, the yellow cord." tsan ti pointed to the ground where the cord was lying. his flabby cheeks grew hueless, and he caught his breath. "an invitation to death?" repeated matt, staring at the yellow cord. "it is so, gracious youth," explained tsan ti. "when our regent wishes one of his officials to efface himself, he sends the yellow cord. it is the death warrant. the card tells me that i have two weeks before it is necessary that i should strangle myself. this happy dispatch must be performed unless, through you, i can recover the eye of buddha. so runs the scroll." "speak to me about this!" muttered mcglory. "but look here, old man, you don't have to strangle yourself because some high mucky muck, a few thousand miles off, sends you the thing to do it with, do you?" "unless it is done," was the calm response, "i shall be disgraced for all time, and my memory reviled." "oh, blazes! i'd rather be a live chinaman in disgrace, than a dead one with a monument a mile high." "you converse without knowledge," said tsan ti. "that's horse sense, anyhow." "let's get at the nub of this thing, tsan ti," said matt, feeling a deep interest in the strange chinaman in spite of himself. "you were in charge of a canton temple in which was an image of buddha. that image had a ruby set in the forehead. the ruby was stolen. you ran away from china to find the thief, and this kien lung, as you call him, trailed after you with the yellow cord from the regent. the cord was accompanied by a written order to the effect that, if you did not succeed in recovering the ruby in two weeks, you must strangle yourself. before the cord was delivered to you, you sent that letter to me." "what you say is true," answered tsan ti. "i have been for a long period endeavoring to keep away from kien lung. i knew what he had to give me, and i did not want it. now that i have the cord, you can understand, out of courtesy i must slay myself--unless, through you, i regain the eye of buddha." "how did you come to pick _me_ out for an assistant?" went on matt. "what you ought to have is a detective. this part of the country is full of detectives." "i cannot trust the detectives. the ruby is valuable, and i am a discredited mandarin in a far country. the detectives would keep the ruby, and then there would be for me only death by the cord. i read in the public prints generous and never-to-be-forgotten things about motor matt, and my heart assures me that you are the one, and the only one, to come to my aid." "you tune up like a professor," remarked mcglory. "where'd you corral so much good pidgin, tsan?" "i was educated in one of your institutions of learning," was the reply. "but, illustrious sirs, shall we return to the hotel on the mountain top? i have this go-devil machine to pay for. it did not belong to me. a dozen of the machines were near the porch of the hotel, where i was drinking tea. i saw kien lung coming toward me along the porch, and i left my tea and sprang to one of the machines. i learned to ride while i was educating myself in this country. kien lung was also able to ride, but that i did not know until i saw him later. shall we go on to the hotel? i am bruised and in much distress." "we might just as well find out all you can tell us about the eye of buddha before we go to the hotel," returned matt. "we are by ourselves, here, and i'd like to get all the information possible." tsan ti picked up the card and the yellow cord. thoughtfully he twisted the cord around and around his fat palm and tucked it into the black box. on the cord he placed the card, and over all closed the box lid. with a rumbling sigh, he dropped the black box into the breast of his blouse. "foreign devils," said he, once more bracing himself against the tree trunk, "call the temple of hai-chwang-sze the honam joss house. it is by the beautiful river, in the suburb named honam. around the temple there is a wall. the avenue of a thousand delights leads from the great gate to the temple courts, and noble banyan trees shade the avenue. at vespers, some weeks ago, two foreign devils were present. the hour was five in the afternoon. one of the foreign devils was english, and wore a tourist hat with a pugree; the other had but a single eye. lob loo, a priest, told me what happened. "the englishman threw a shimmering ball upon the temple floor. odors came from it, quick as an eyeflash. quick as another eyeflash, the priests reeled where they stood, their senses leaving them. lob loo tells me the foreign devils had covered their faces suddenly with white masks. then, after seeing that much, lob loo lost his five senses, and wandered in fields of darkness. "when lob loo opened his eyes, he saw glass fragments on the floor, and a ladder of silk swinging from the neck of the god. the image, renowned sirs, is twenty feet in height, and to reach the ruby eye the foreign devils had to climb. the eye was gone. when lob loo told me these things, i was seized of a mighty fear, and fled to hongkong. there the five hundred gods favored me, and i learned that a man in a tourist hat with a pugree, and another with a single eye, had sailed for san francisco. quickly i caught the next steamer, after sending cable messages to the leaders of a san francisco _tong_ who are cantonese, and friends of mine. when the ship brought the thieves through the golden gate, some of the _tong_ watched the landing. the thieves were in san francisco three days, and sam wing followed them when they left for chicago, then for new york, and then for these catskill mountains. when i reached san francisco, the leading men of the _tong_ had telegrams from sam wing. by use of the telegrams, i followed, and arrived here. wing had left a writing for me at the hotel, telling me to wait. i waited, but wing had disappeared. i kept on waiting, and out of my discouragement, remarkable sir, i wrote to you. that is all, until this morning, when kien lung came with the yellow cord. two weeks are left me. if the eye of buddha is not found in that time, then"--and tsan ti tapped the breast of his sagging blouse--"all that remains is the quick dispatch." both matt and mcglory had listened with intense interest to this odd yarn. although a heathen, and lately keeper of a heathen temple, the mandarin was nevertheless a person of culture and of considerable importance. the sending of the yellow cord was a custom of his country, and it was evident that he intended to abide by the custom in case the eye of buddha was not recovered within two weeks. "shall we turn the trick for him, pard?" asked mcglory. "this palaver of his makes a bit of a hit with me. i'd hate like sam hill to have him shut off his breath with that yellow cord. if----" the hum of an approaching automobile reached the ears of those at the roadside. the machine was coming from above, and matt pulled the broken bicycle out of the road. the boys and the mandarin stood in a group while waiting for the car to pass. tsan ti, seemingly wrapped up in his own miseries, gave no attention to the car, at first. there were two passengers in the car--the driver, and another in the tonneau. the car, on the down grade, was coming at a terrific clip, and the man in the tonneau was hanging on for dear life and yelling at the top of his voice: "avast there, mate, or you'll have me overboard! by the seven holy spritsails----" the voice broke off and gave vent to a frantic yell. although the driver had shut off the power and applied a brake, the car had leaped into the air when it struck the root. the man in the tonneau shot straight up into the air for two or three feet, and matt and mcglory had a glimpse of a grizzled red face with a patch over one eye, a fringe of "mutton-chop" whiskers, and a blue sailor cap. "the mariner!" came in a clamoring wheeze, from tsan ti. as the automobile whirled past, the mandarin flung himself crazily at the rear of the tonneau, only to be knocked head over heels for his pains. as he floundered in the dust, matt rushed for his motor cycle. "is that one of the two men who stole the ruby?" cried matt. "what fortune!" puffed tsan ti. "pursue and capture the villain! if he has the eye of buddha----" but the rest of it was lost. matt, followed by mcglory, was tearing away on the track of the automobile. chapter iii. the glass balls. turning the trick for tsan ti--as mcglory had termed it--was destined to entangle the motor boys in a whirl of the most astounding events; and these events, as novel as they were mysterious, followed each other like the reports of a gatling gun. the journey to albany, and down the river to catskill landing, and thence by motor cycle part way up the mountain, had been monotonous; but from the moment the mandarin and the bicycle went sprawling into the air over the tree root, and the lads had made the chinaman's acquaintance, fate began whirling the wheel of amazing events. matt and mcglory had had no time to discuss the weird tale recounted for their benefit by the mandarin. there was no opportunity to view the theft of the eye of buddha from any angle save that offered by the philosophical tsan ti. no sooner had the ostensible facts connected with the stolen ruby been retailed, than one of the thieves flashed down the mountain road, leaving the boys no choice but to fling away after him. the two motor cycles had absolutely no chance to go wrong on that downhill trail. had either motor "bucked," the weight of the heavy machine would have hurled its rider onward in a breakneck coast toward the foot of the hill. "sufferin' streaks!" cried the cowboy. "if we were to meet anybody coming up, there'd be nothing left but the pieces!" "i'm keeping a lookout ahead, joe!" matt called back, over his shoulder. he was in the lead, and his rear wheel was firing a stream of dust and sand into mcglory's eyes. but the cowboy was too excited to pay much attention to that. "we're goin' off half-cocked, seems to me!" he yelled. "we've known that fat chink for about ten minutes, and here we are, lamming into his game like a couple of wolves. what's the use of brains, pard, if you don't use 'em?" "while we were thinking matters over," matt answered, ripping around a sharp turn, "the one-eyed man would be getting away." "what're we going to do when we overhaul him? make an offhand demand for the eye of buddha? it sounds flat enough, and if the webfoot tells us we're crazy, and gives us the laugh, what're we going to do?" "brakes! brakes!" cried matt, and his motor cycle began to stagger and buck-jump as he angled for a halt. mcglory was startled by the command, but instantly he obeyed it. in order to avoid running his chum down, he not only bore down with the brakes but also swerved toward the roadside. he came to a sudden stop in a thicket of bushes, and extricated himself with some difficulty. matt was in the road, his motor cycle leaning against a tree. a yard in front of him lay a flat cap. he pointed to it. "what's that to do with a breakneck stop like we just made?" snorted the cowboy. "it's not the headgear we want, pard, but the man that owns it." "sure," returned matt. "look farther down the road, joe, and then you'll understand." a straight drop in the road stretched ahead of the boys for a quarter of a mile. halfway along the stretch was the automobile. the machine was at a stop, and the driver and the one-eyed man were leaning over the motor. the hood had been opened, and the driver was tinkering. "something has gone wrong," said matt, "and it happened soon after the sailor had lost his cap. our one-eyed friend, i think, will come back after his property. if he does, we'll talk with him. we can't go too far in this business, you know. i have considerable confidence in tsan ti, but still we're not absolutely sure of our ground." "the poor old duck is bound to snuff himself out with the yellow cord if he don't recover the ruby," returned the cowboy. "that's what hits me close to home. we're going it blind"--and here mcglory dug some of the sand out of his eyes--"and we jumped into this with a touch-and-go that don't seem reasonable; still, i've got a sneaking notion we're on the right track. what's that on the hat ribbon?" matt had picked up the hat, and was turning it over in his hand. "it's the name of a boat, i suppose," answered matt, taking a look at the gilt letters. "'_hottentot_,'" he added, reading the name. "oh, tell me!" exclaimed mcglory. "_hottentot!_ that's a warm label for a boat. but, say! suppose one-eye don't think enough of his cap to come back for it?" "but he will," answered matt. "this will bring him, i'll bet something handsome." as he spoke. matt pulled a square of folded paper out of the crown of the cap. "cowboy trick!" grinned mcglory. "carryin' letters under the sweatband of a stetson reminds me of home." matt had stepped to the roadside, the folded paper to one hand and the cap in the other. "had we better?" he pondered, voicing his thoughts. "better what?" queried mcglory. "why, keep this paper. it may prove important." "sure, keep it! what're you side-stepping for about a little thing like that? we're after the eye of buddha, and if that paper has anything to do with it, the thing's ours by rights." "but suppose tsan ti is working some game of his own? that was a fearsome yarn he gave us, joe." "sufferin' tenderfeet! say, didn't we come all the way from michigan to help him? think of that yellow cord, and what it means to---oh, moses!" the cowboy broke off. "here comes the webfoot, now." matt, taking a chance that the sailor was a thief, that he had guilty knowledge of the whereabouts of the eye of buddha, and that the paper might furnish valuable information, thrust the note into his pocket, and hastily replaced it with a bit of paper quickly drawn from his coat. then, tossing the hat into the road, he stepped out and waited. the sailor was scrambling up the steep ascent with the agility of an a. b. making for the maintop. at sight of matt, appearing suddenly above him, he hesitated, only to come on again at redoubled speed. "ahoy, shipmates!" bellowed the old salt, as soon as he had come close enough for a hail. "seen anythin' of a bit of headgear hereabouts?" "there it is," matt answered, pointing. "blow me tight if there it ain't!" he jumped for the hat, and gathered it in with a sweep of one hand. "obliged to ye," he added, looking into the crown, and then placing the hat on his head with visible satisfaction. he would have turned and made off down the road, had not matt stepped toward him and lifted his hand. "just a minute, my friend," said matt. the sailor flashed a look toward the automobile. the driver had closed the hood, and was waving his arms. "nary a minute have i got to spare, shipmate," the sailor answered. "the skipper of that craft has plugged the hole in her bow, and we're ready to trip anchor and bear away." "wait!" and a sternness crept into matt's voice. "we must have a talk with you. perhaps you'll save yourself trouble if you give us a few minutes of your time." at the word "trouble," the sailor squared around. "now, shiver me," he cried, "i'm just beginning to take the cut of your jib. trouble, says you. are ye sailin' in company with that chink we passed a ways back on our course?" "what do you know about the eye of buddha?" demanded matt. "oh, ho," roared the other, "so that's yer lay, my hearty? well, you take my advice, and keep your finger out o' that pie. i'm not sayin' a word about the eye o' buddha. mayhap i know somethin' consarnin' the same, an' mayhap i don't. but i wouldn't give the fag end o' nothin' mixed in a kittle o' hot water for your chances if you stick an oar in that little matter." there was that about the sailor which convinced matt that he knew more concerning the ruby than he cared to tell. "stop!" cried the king of the motor boys. "not me," was the gruff answer, and both of the sailor's hands dropped into his pockets. "if he won't stop," cried mcglory, "then here's where we make him!" he and matt started on a run toward the sailor. the latter whirled around, his arms drew back, and his hands shot forward. two round, glimmering objects left his palms and tinkled into fragments at the feet of the two boys. an overpowering odor arose in the still air--wafted upward in a cloud of strangling fumes that caught at the throats of matt and mcglory, blinded their eyes, and sapped at their strength. mcglory fell to his knees. "the--glass--balls----" he gasped, and flattened out helplessly, the last word fading into a gurgle. "leave the eye o' buddha alone!" were the hoarse words that echoed in matt's ears. and they were the last sounds of which he was cognizant for some time. he crumpled down at the side of his chum, made one last desperate struggle to recover his strength, and then the darkness closed him in. chapter iv. the paper clue. now and then there are episodes in life which, when they are past and one comes to look back on them, seem more like dreams than actual occurrences. this matter of the chinaman, the eye of buddha, the sailor, and the glass balls looked particularly unreal to motor matt and joe mcglory. when matt opened his eyes, he found himself in a hammock. for a minute or two he lay quiet, trying to figure out how and when he had got into the hammock, and where joe was, and just how much of a dream he had had. the hammock was strung between a couple of trees, and from a distance came a subdued chatter of voices, and the low, soft strains of an orchestra. matt sat up in the hammock and looked in the direction from which the sounds came. the lofty, porticoed front of a huge hotel was no more than two hundred feet away. men in flannels and women in lawn dresses were coming and going about the porticoes, and the music was wafted out from inside the building. the young motorist's bewilderment grew, and he brushed a hand across his eyes. then he looked in another direction. two yards from the tree supporting one end of the hammock, the ground broke sharply into a precipitous descent, falling sheer away for a hundred feet or more. he could look off over a rolling country checkered with meadows and grainland and timber patches, with a river cutting through the vista and holding the scene together like a silver ribbon. he drew a long breath, and swerved his gaze to the right. here there was another hammock, one end of it secured to the same tree that helped support matt's airy couch, and the other end to a third tree which formed an acute angle with respect to the other two. in this second hammock was mcglory. like matt, he was sitting up; and, like matt again, he was staring. leaning against one of the three trees, were the two motor cycles. "joe!" cried matt. "is that you?" "hooray!" exclaimed the cowboy, with sudden animation. "i was just waiting for you to speak, in order to make sure i wasn't still asleep. jumpin' jee-whiskers, what a dream i've had!" "where are we?" inquired matt. a puzzled look crossed the cowboy's face. "don't you _sabe_ that?" he returned. "no." "shucks! that's just the question i was going to bat up to you." "how did we get here?" "i'm by, again. but, sufferin' brain-twisters, what a dream i've had!" he began laughing softly to himself. "what sort of a dream was it?" went on matt. "funnier'n a piute picnic! it was all mixed up with a fat chinaman, and a yellow cord, and a ruby called the eye of buddha, and a one-eyed sailor, and--and a couple of glass balls. oh, speak to me about that! say, pard, but it was a corker! the fat chink was doing all sorts of funny stunts, tumbling off a bike, and all over himself." "there wasn't any dream about it," declared matt, swinging his feet to the ground with sudden energy. the laugh died out of mcglory's face, and a blank look took its place. "go on!" he scoffed, not a little startled. "two fellows couldn't have the same kind of a dream," persisted matt, "and i went through identically the same things you did. that proves they were _real_! but--but," and matt's voice wavered, "how did we get here?" "there are the motor cycles we used when we buzzed out of catskill landing," and mcglory brightened as he pointed to the two wheels. "i see," mused matt, drumming his forehead with his knuckles. "nobody seems to be paying much attention to us," he added, his eyes on the groups around the hotel porches. "not a terrible sight, and that's a fact," agreed mcglory. "but why should they, pard? they don't know us." "somebody must have brought us here and laid us in the hammocks. the last i remember we were down and out. now, joe, a move of that kind would naturally stir up a commotion." "well, yes," admitted the cowboy, going blank again, "are you and i locoed, matt, or what?" "come on and let's try and find out." matt started for a man who was sitting in a canvas chair smoking a cigar and nursing a golf club on his knees. mcglory trailed after him. "i beg your pardon, sir," said matt, halting beside the chair, "but have you been here long?" "two weeks," was the answer with a hard stare. "i come to the mountain house every summer, and spend my va----" "i mean," interrupted matt, "were you sitting here when my friend and i were brought in?" "brought in? you weren't brought in. you two rode in on those motor cycles, leaned them against the tree, and preëmpted the hammocks." "sufferin' lunatics!" breathed mcglory. "i reckon we'd better call somebody in to look at our plumbing, pard." "what appears to be the trouble?" went on the stranger, politely curious. "it just 'appears,' and that's all," rambled the cowboy. "if we could only get a strangle-hold on the trouble, and hog-tie it, maybe we could take it apart, and see what makes it act so." the stranger sprang up, grabbed his golf stick, and looked alarmed. "never mind my friend, sir," said matt reassuringly; "we're just a little bit bothered, that's all." "a little bit!" repeated the stranger ironically; "it looks to me like a whole lot." "this is the mountain house, is it?" went on matt. he was severely shocked himself, but tried manfully to hide it while trying to work out the mystery. "certainly, sir," growled the man with the golf stick. "don't you try to make game of me, young man! i'm old enough to be your father, and such----" "we are not trying to make game of any one," protested matt. "but somebody is making game of _us_," put in mcglory, "and playing us up and down and all across the table. here in these hills is where rip van winkle went to sleep, ain't it? i wonder if he dreamed about fat chinamen, yellow cords, one-eyed sailors, and----" "cut it out, joe!" whispered matt sternly, grabbing his chum by the arm and pulling him toward the hotel. "can't you see he thinks we're crazy?" "_thinks_ we're crazy?" stuttered the cowboy. "then i've got a cinch on him, for i _know_ we are. where next?" "we'll go into the hotel and make some inquiries," replied matt, noting how the man with the cigar and the golf stick turned in his chair to keep an eye on them. "and for heaven's sake, joe," matt added, "let me do the talking. if you don't, we're liable to be locked up." "we ought to be locked up," mumbled mcglory. "we're lost, and we ought to be shooed into some safe corral and kept there till we find ourselves. sufferin' hurricanes! what kind of a brain-storm are we going through, _any_how?" matt and mcglory passed through the chattering groups on the porch and entered the lobby of the hotel. the music, which now came to them in increased volume, was accompanied by a clatter of dishes from the dining room. matt laid a direct course for the counter at one side of the lobby. "can you tell me," he asked, leaning over the counter and addressing the carefully groomed clerk, "if there is a gentleman named tsan ti staying at this hotel?" "come again, please," was the answer. "what was that name?" "tsan ti." "where's he from?" "canton, china." "wears a black cap and a yellow kimono," put in joe. "button in the cap--red button. he's the high old whoop-a-gamus that bossed the temple of what-you-call-um and let the eye of buddha get away from him. he _must_ be here." "such jocosity is out of place," said the clerk chillingly. "sufferin' zero!" muttered mcglory. "i reckon his home ranch is the north pole. what's jocosity, matt?" "then tsan ti isn't here?" asked matt. "certainly _not_. you might try the hotel kaaterskill." "kaaterskill!" minced mcglory. "now, what the blooming----" "joe," muttered matt, grasping his chum's arm, and pulling him away. "what's come over you, anyhow? you're acting like a hottentot." "that's it!" cried joe. "what?" "the name that one-eyed webfoot had on his cap. hottentot! hottentot! hottentot!" "joe!" warned matt, for the cowboy had sung out the word at the top of his voice. "what _ails_ you? great spark plugs!" mcglory brushed a hand across his face. "i feel like i'd taken a foolish powder, pard," he answered huskily. "let's get out of here before i make a holy show of myself." all at sea, they went back to the hammocks and sat down by the two motor cycles. "and this," remarked mcglory, breaking a long silence, "is what you call turning the trick for tsan ti! i told you that letter we received in grand rapids was plain bunk. read it again, pard." "i've read it thirteen times, joe," answered matt. "well, read it fourteen times and break the hoodoo." matt took the envelope from his pocket, and drew out the inclosed sheet. then he stared, then whistled, then leaned back against the tree. "now it's you who's doped," grinned mcglory. "can't you read it?" "sure," answered matt; "listen." "'bunce: be in purling at ten a. m., thursday. show this to pryne at the general store in the village, and pryne will show you to me. important developments. mum's the word. grattan.'" mcglory threw off his hat, and pawed at his hair. "put a chain on us, somebody, _please_!" he gasped. "where, oh, where, did you get that?" "here's a paper clue," said matt. "i took this out of that cap we found in the road, and, by an oversight, i tucked that letter from tsan ti into the cap so the sailor wouldn't notice the original note was missing." "then there _was_ a cap," muttered mcglory, "and it _did_ have 'hottentot' on the ribbon, and you _sure_ took out a note, and it's a cinch there _was_ a sailor. now, if all that's true, then where, in the name of the great hocus-pocus, is the fat chinaman?" chapter v. putting two and two together. with a sudden thought, matt stepped to the motor cycle mcglory had used, and gave the front wheel a critical examination. "what's that for?" asked the cowboy. "i'm only putting two and two together, joe," matt answered, returning to his place at his chum's side. "i reckon they make five, this inning," said mcglory. "i believe i've got the hang of it," went on matt. "you're just getting back to your natural self, joe. ever since we awoke in those hammocks, and up to this minute, you've been a trifle 'flighty.'" "well," acknowledged mcglory, "i felt as though i'd been browsing on loco weed." "how do you account for it?" "i don't. you're doing this sum in arithmetic. what's the answer?" "glass balls," said matt. "speak to me about those glass balls! that webfoot threw two of them, and they smashed right in front of us! and--and---but, say, pard, it's not in reason to think that two things like those balls could lay us out." "remember how the eye of buddha was stolen? the one-eyed sailor and the englishman broke one of the glass balls in the temple, and all the priests were laid out." "oh, well, if you're going to take any stock in that fat chinaman and his yarn, i reckon you----" "now, listen," continued matt earnestly. "strange as it may seem, joe, there _are_ balls like those tsan ti was telling us about. we have had an experience with them, and we _know_. i suppose the glass spheres are filled with some powerful narcotic fumes which are set free the moment the balls are broken." "it's not in reason," protested joe. "it's a hard thing to believe that such objects exist, i'll admit," proceeded matt, "but we have got to credit the evidence of our senses. while one of the balls was enough to overcome the priests, in the temple, it was necessary for the sailor to use two against us, there in the open. the air, naturally, would soon dissipate the fumes. i shouldn't wonder," matt added reflectively, "but those balls were invented by the chinese. they seem to have a knack for that sort of thing." "queerest knock-out drops i ever heard of." "when you and i recovered sufficient strength to get up out of the road," continued matt, "we hadn't yet recovered full possession of our wits. you remember, joe, your front tire was punctured. well, that puncture was neatly mended, and the air pump must have been used to inflate the tire again. you and i must have done that, then rode up here and taken possession of the hammocks." the cowboy whistled. "able to make repairs, and to navigate, but plumb locoed for all that, eh?" he remarked. "that's my idea, joe. when we finally recovered our senses, in these hammocks, all that had happened seemed to have been a dream." "seems so yet, pard. what's become of tsan ti? and the other hatchet boy that brought the yellow cord? they don't know anything about tsan at the hotel, so he must have been overworking his imagination when he told us he had been having tea there. and that other yarn about seeing the man with the yellow cord and ducking on a borrowed wheel to get away from him! say, i reckon they'd have known something about a commotion of that sort if it had happened here." mcglory wagged his head incredulously. "the fat chink is up to something, matt," he finished, "and he's been talking with the double tongue." "i'll admit," said matt, "that there are some parts of the problem that look rather dubious, but, on the whole, tsan ti's story holds together pretty well. that story of the ruby was corroborated, in a way, by the sailor. from the fellow's actions, he must have known a good deal about the eye of buddha. why did he throw the glass balls at us? simply to keep us from following him. if the sailor hadn't been guilty of some treacherous work, he wouldn't have done that." "i'm over my head," muttered mcglory. "but, if the mandarin is so hungry to have us help him, what's the reason he's making himself absent? why isn't he here?" "let's give him time to get here. we weren't on that mountainside for more than two hours. it was nine when we left catskill landing, and about half-past ten, i should say, when we met tsan ti. it's nearly one, now." "well, what's the next move, pard? are you going to that purling place and ask for pryne at the general store?" "not right away. we'll give tsan ti a chance to present himself, first." "you don't think"--and here mcglory assumed a tragic look--"that tsan would go off into the timber and use that yellow cord, do you?" "he has two weeks before he has to do that." "_has_ to do it! why, he don't have to do it at all, except to be polite to that squinch-eyed boss of the flowery kingdom. honest, these chinks are the limit." matt got up and pulled his motor cycle away from the tree. "let's go into the hotel, and have dinner, joe," he suggested. "if we don't hear anything from tsan ti by four, this afternoon, we'll return to catskill." "and not do anything about that paper you got out of the sailor's hat?" asked the cowboy. "if tsan ti doesn't think we're worth bothering with, after we've come all the way from grand rapids to lend him a hand, we'll let him do his own hunting for the ruby." "keno, correct, and then some," agreed the cowboy heartily. "i've thought, all along, there'd be some sort of bobble about this eastern trip. but let's eat. i've been hungry enough to sit in at chuck-pile any time the last three hours." the boys left their wheels in charge of a man who looked after the motor cars belonging to guests, and went into the office for the second time. the clerk surveyed mcglory with pronounced disfavor while matt was registering. the cowboy met the look with an easy grin, and, after he and matt had washed their faces, brushed their hair, and knocked the dust out of their clothes, they went into the big dining room and did full justice to an excellent meal. neither had much to say about tsan ti. matt was half fearing the mandarin's business was a good deal of a wild-goose chase, and that the ponderous celestial, for reasons of his own, had absented himself permanently. following the meal, the boys went out to sit on the veranda. they had hardly taken their chairs when a big red automobile, with a rumble seat behind in place of a tonneau, sizzled up to the front of the hotel and came to a stop. there was one man in the car. as soon as the dust had settled a little, a black cap with a red button, a long queue, and a yellow blouse emerged with startling distinctness upon the gaze of the two boys. mcglory sat in his chair as though paralyzed. "it's tsan ti!" he murmured feebly, switching his eyes to matt. "tsan ti, and no mistake," answered matt. "first he rides a bike," said the cowboy, rapidly recovering, "and now he blows in on us at the steering wheel of a gasoline cart. he's the handiest all-around heathen i ever met up with. and look at him! he acts just as though nothing had happened. well, let me know about that, will you?" tsan ti turned sidewise in the driver's seat, and swept his gaze over the front of the hotel. he was less than half a minute getting the range of the motor boys. lifting a hand, he beckoned for them to come. "he wants us," said matt grimly. "we'd better go, and hear what he has to say for himself." "that's the talk!" agreed mcglory. a bland smile crossed the flabby face of the chinaman as the boys came close. "embark, distinguished friends," said he. after all the rough and tumble of the morning, tsan ti now appeared in perfect condition. he was entirely at his ease, and as well groomed a mandarin as ever left the chinese empire. "just a minute, tsan ti," returned matt coldly. "there are a few things we would like to have explained before we go any farther in this business of yours." "all shall be made transparent to you, most excellent youth," was the reply, "only just now embark, so that we may proceed on our way." "you said you were stopping at the mountain house," said matt severely. "a play upon words, no more. i was staying at the kaaterskill. what says the great confucius? 'the cautious seldom err.' i was cautious. time passes swiftly, and----" "get out and explain everything to us, tsan ti," broke in matt firmly. "if you want us to help you, you've got to take time to set us right on a few important matters. we hadn't talked twenty minutes with you before we jumped in to give you a helping hand--and succeeded in getting ourselves into trouble. as you say, 'the cautious seldom err.' that means us, you know, as well as you." the mandarin heaved a sigh of disappointment, floundered out of the machine, and accompanied the boys in the direction of the three trees and the swinging hammocks. chapter vi. a smash. the hotel kaaterskill was within a stone's throw of the mountain house. so far as situation went, there was small choice between them, but matt resented tsan ti's deception in declaring he was staying at one when he was really staying at the other. it seemed so trivial a matter compared with the mandarin's critical situation--as set forth by himself. "i don't like the way you are acting, tsan ti," said matt, as soon as they had reached the trees. "in your letter to me you asked me to meet you at the mountain house; and on the mountainside, after you received the yellow cord, you spoke about our going up to the mountain house; and again, as i remember it, it was on the porch of the mountain house where you were drinking tea when you saw kien lung coming toward you, and bolted away on the bicycle. what excuse was there for such a deception? and how can we help you if you are not open and aboveboard with us?" "the left hand, honored and exalted sir," returned tsan ti, "must not know what the right hand does when one is so unfortunate as i. sam wing, in leaving word for me at the house named kaaterskill, remarked upon the courier kien lung being after me upon his unhappy errand, and counseled that i keep myself obscurely. but i should have made communication with you at the mountain house had you arrived by that place for meeting me. my intentions were high-minded, albeit secretive." "then, for now," pursued matt, "we will let that pass. why did you vanish from the mountainside after we had been left to chase the one-eyed sailor? he threw two of those glass balls at us, and we were dropped in the road, unconscious. it was not a long distance from where we had left you, and you could easily have come down to us." "_omito fuh!_" muttered tsan ti. "my regret is most consuming! the gods crossed my will, notable one; nothing else could have kept me at a distance from you. it was thus. young men on bicycles, pursuing kien lung and me who had made away at high speed on two of their go-devil machines, swarmed suddenly around me like the sacred rocks in the banyans at honam. in spite of my entreaties, they carried me to the kaaterskill, and there i made repayment for the broken machine, and for the one which kien lung took for himself and did not return. these affairs occupied me profoundly until half an hour since; then i hired yonder devil wagon and started to find you. behold, you were on the veranda of the hotel as i fared past. confucius said, in ancient times, 'when i have presented one corner of a subject, and the pupil cannot of himself make out the other three, i do not repeat my lesson.' so the sight of you informed me the sailor of the single eye had escaped, and i concluded best that we hurry after him. am i not right, honorable friend?" "he's good with his bazoo," remarked mcglory. "i reckon he makes out a clean case for himself." matt was satisfied. still, he thought that instead of attending to his personal appearance and running around hiring an automobile, tsan ti might have taken some quicker method of finding out what had happened down the mountainside. but he was a chinaman, and his ways and means were not those of a caucasian. "where did you learn to drive an automobile, tsan ti?" asked matt. "we have the devil wagons in canton. there are many in the foreign quarter, and i have one of my own." tsan ti fanned himself and looked troubled. "there is something," he went on presently, "of which i must inform you. perhaps, when you know, you will leave me to find the eye of buddha unaided. but it is right that i should tell you." "what is it?" inquired matt. "this, courageous youth: the ten thousand demons of misfortune have been let loose upon those most closely concerned with the loss of the ruby. while the great buddha sits eyeless in the temple at honam, his wrath falls upon me in particular; and, now that you are helping me, it will likewise fall upon you. disasters have crowded upon me, and if you keep on in the search, they will surely overtake you. already you have had experience of them." "sufferin' snakes!" grunted mcglory. "it'll take more'n a heathen idol over in china to get me on the run." "i guess we'll face the music," laughed matt. "that ruby eye may be a hoodoo, but we're not superstitious enough to get scared." "excellent!" wheezed tsan ti. "i have done well to secure your invaluable services. shall we now proceed down the mountain in pursuit of the sailor?" "why, he may be a hundred miles from here by this time." "not so!" was the positive answer. "i have my warning that he is near, and that we must hasten." "warning?" repeated matt. tsan ti poked two fingers down the neck of his blouse and fished up a small black v-shaped object attached to a gold chain. "observe," he said solemnly, "my jade-stone amulet, covered with choice ideographs from the book of auguries. when it burns the skin upon the speaking of a name, then have i a warning. look!" he held the stone on his fat palm. "with it thus i breathe the words 'one-eyed thief' and"--he winced as though from pain--"the amulet nearly burns." mcglory dropped his head, and his shoulders shook with suppressed mirth. never had he met so humorous a person as this mandarin of the red button, with his yellow cord, his jade-stone amulet, and his load of trouble. matt was also possessed of a desire to laugh, but managed to keep his features straight. tsan ti observed the incredulity of the boys, and dropped the amulet back down his blouse. "let us go, doubting ones," he puffed, "and you will see. come, accompany me, and you will not be long in learning why the amulet burns!" "our motor cycles are here, at the garage," demurred matt, "and----" "they will be safely kept until you come for them again. let us, as you say, hustle." he was up and waddling toward the automobile before matt or mcglory could answer. the boys followed him, matt climbing into the front seat at the mandarin's side, and the cowboy getting into the seat behind. "hadn't i better drive?" queried matt. "it is a pleasure for me to guide and control the pounding demon," the chinaman answered. "ha, we start." but they did not start. naturally, the long halt had not left enough gas in the cylinders to take the spark, and tsan ti had neglected to use the crank. matt got down and turned the engine over--and came within one of being run down before he could get out of the way. regaining the car at a flying leap, he snuggled down in his seat and proceeded to hold his breath. of all the reckless drivers he had ever seen, tsan ti was the limit. he banged over the edge of the level into the long slope, engaging the high speed so quickly that matt wondered he did not strip the gear. as the car lurched, and swayed, and bounded tsan ti's joy shone in his puffy face. "glory to glory, and all hands 'round!" yelled the cowboy, from behind. "change seats with him, matt! if you don't, he'll string us from the mountain house clean to catskill." matt leaned over and gave the steering wheel a turn barely in time to keep them from hitting a tree. the wake the machine left behind it looked like a zigzag streak. first they were on one side of the road, and then on the other, juggling back and forth by the narrowest of margins, and keeping right side up in defiance with every law of gravity with which matt was familiar. "cut out the high speed!" shouted matt. "it's suicide to use that gear on such a slope as this. we could coast down this hill without an ounce of power." a mud guard was loose, and it rattled horribly. the chinaman was feeding too much gasoline part of the time, and not enough the rest of the time. now and again, the cylinders would misfire, pop wildly, then jump into a racing hum. that high-powered roadster made as much noise as a railroad train; and what with matt yelling directions, and mcglory whooping like a comanche at every close call they nipped out of, the uproar was tremendous. through it all the fat chinaman glowed and, at intervals, gave vent to ecstatic howls. whenever they escaped a tree that had threatened them, he exploded jubilantly. "i can't stand this, pard!" roared mcglory. "i'm goin' to jump out, if you don't stop him!" to argue with tsan ti, in all that turmoil of sound, was out of the question. hardly had the cowboy ceased speaking when, through the wild hubbub of noise, matt thought he heard a sharp detonation. of this he was not sure, but, almost immediately, a front tire blew up, and the machine swerved wildly. bang--_crash!_ the automobile made a wild effort to climb a tree, and the next thing motor matt realized was the fact that he was turning handsprings in the road. silence, sudden and grim, followed the frantic medley of sound. a bird twittered somewhere off in the woods, and the flutelike notes hit matt's tortured ear-drums like a volley of musketry. he got up, dazedly. his hat was gone, and one of his trouser legs was missing. the back of his head, still tender from a blow he had received in grand rapids, reminded him by a sharp twinge that it had been badly treated. matt limped to the tree that had caused the wreck, and leaned against it. then, and not till then, was he able to make a comprehensive view of the scene. the front of the automobile was badly smashed--so badly that it was a wonder matt had ever escaped with his life. one of the forward wheels had come off. mcglory, in his shirt sleeves--and with one sleeve missing--was on his hands and knees. he was facing the mandarin--staring at that remarkable person with a well-what-do-you-think-of-that expression. the mandarin was sitting up in the road. the black cap with the red button was hanging to one side of his head, one of his embroidered sandals was gone, and the yellow silk blouse and trousers were torn. in some manner the steering wheel had become detached from the post, and tsan ti was hanging to it like grim death. he seemed still to be driving, for the steering wheel was in the correct position. certainly it was not a time to laugh, but motor matt could hardly help it. chapter vii. nip and tuck. "that's right," whooped mcglory, twisting his head to get a look at matt, "laugh--laugh, and enjoy yourself! sufferin' smash-ups! it's a wonder the hospital corps didn't have to shovel us up in a bushel basket." "are you hurt, joe?" inquired matt. "hurt?" snapped mcglory, his gorge rising. "oh, no, of course not! we weren't going more than a hundred and twenty miles an hour when we hit that tree, so how could i possibly have suffered any damage? this comes of trotting a heat with a half-baked rat-eater. here's where i quit. that's right. go on and hunt your idol's eye, if you want to. say, if i could get hold of that yellow cord, i'd strangle the mandarin myself." mcglory climbed to his feet lamely and looked himself over, up and down. his coat was about twenty feet away, in one place, and his hat lay at an equal distance in another. as he moved about collecting his property and muttering to himself, matt stepped to the side of tsan ti. the mandarin, still dazed and bewildered, continued to cling to the steering wheel. matt bent down and took the wheel away from him. "illustrious friend," said the chinaman, blinking his eyes, "the suddenness was most remarkable. once more the thousand demons of misfortune have visited their wrath upon me!" "don't talk about misfortune," returned matt. "we're the luckiest fellows that ever lived to get out of a wreck like that with whole skins. the car's a ruin, tsan ti, and you'll have to pay for it." "of what use is money, interesting youth, to a mandarin who has received the yellow cord? i have rice fields and tea plantations, and millions of taels to my credit. the bagatelle of a cost does not concern me." matt helped him upright and dusted him off. as soon as he had pushed a foot into the missing sandal, he gave vent to a wail, and sat down on the side of the machine. "such vastness of misfortune takes my courage," he groaned. "the eye of buddha can not be recovered with all the thousand demons fighting against me. the jade-stone amulet burns me fiercely----" "wish it had burned a hole clear through you before you'd ever written that letter to matt," cried mcglory. "i have involved two honorable assistants in my so-great ill luck," went on the mandarin. "never mind that," said matt. "i thought you knew how to drive a car?" "he's the craziest thing on wheels when it comes to drivin' a bubble," called out mcglory. "here's where i quit. scratch my entry in the race for the eye of buddha. i always know when i've got enough. we've had four hours of this, and it's a-plenty." motor matt began looking for his cap. where it had gone was a mystery. he finally discovered it hanging to a clump of bushes. as he turned around, he was startled to see tsan ti with the yellow cord coiled about his throat. could it be possible that the mandarin, cast down by his latest accident, was on the point of carrying out the mandate of the regent? "i say!" shouted matt, hurrying forward. but the chinaman was interrupted in his fell purpose by an explosion in the car directly behind him. bang! he jumped about four feet, straight up in the air. matt saw a tongue of flame shoot upward from the car. the gasoline tank had been smashed. the inflammable contents, dripping upon the hot exhaust pipe leading from the muffler, must have caused the blaze. sizz-z-, _bang_, boom! the gasoline was vaporizing. as the startled mandarin watched the blaze, paralyzed and speechless by the unexpected exhibition, the yellow cord swung limply downward from his throat. mcglory rushed up behind him, and jerked the cord away. tsan ti did not seem to notice the manoeuvre--he was all wrapped up in the blaze and the explosions. the fire shot skyward, and matt grabbed the chinaman and hauled him to a safe distance. "bring the wheel, joe," matt yelled, "the one that came off!" mcglory had not the least notion what matt wanted with the wheel, but he got it, and they were all well down the road when a final terrific boom scattered fragments of the wreck every which way and sent little jets of flame from the diffused gasoline spitting in all directions. "good-by, you old benzine buggy!" said mcglory, addressing the flame-wrapped car. "you wasn't worth much, anyways, but i bet the mandarin bleeds for twice your value, just the same. what you looking at that wheel for, matt?" he finished, turning to his chum. "it was punctured by a bullet," replied matt, pointing to a clean-cut rent in the shoe. "bullet?" echoed mcglory. "speak to me about that! i didn't hear any shooting." "the car made so much noise that's not to be wondered at. i wasn't sure that what i'd heard was a shot, but----" matt had lifted his head to speak to mcglory. as he did so, his eyes glimpsed a figure skulking among the bushes at the roadside. the sunshine, and the glare from the fire, caused a ghastly radiance to hover about the bushes. in the weird shadows of the bushes and trees, a face stood out prominently--a face topped with a sailor hat, fringed with mutton-chop whiskers, and with a patch over one eye. the king of the motor boys gave a whoop and darted for the bushes. the face vanished as if by magic, but matt kept furiously on, mcglory chasing after him. "what's to pay, pard?" the cowboy was demanding. "the sailor!" flung back matt. "i saw him in the brush! he must have been the one who put that bullet into our front tire!" "whoop-ya!" yelled mcglory, all his hostility springing to the surface and causing him to forget his announced determination to "quit" and let the mandarin shift for himself. "let's put the kibosh on him! he's the cause of all this. hang the idol's eye! we've got an account of our own to settle. but look out for the glass balls." ahead of him matt could hear the crash and crackle of undergrowth, and now and then he caught a glimpse of the racing sailor. the timber grew more dense, and presently, just as matt thought he had the fellow, he was brought up short with the quarry out of sight and hearing. "he's dodged away," panted the cowboy. "maybe he's doubled back." "i'd have heard him if he'd done that," answered matt. "he has either stopped, and is lying low, or else he has gone on ahead. i thought i had him, for a minute. come on, joe!" matt flung onward, and leaped suddenly from the edge of the timber into a cornfield on a little flat between two shoulders of the mountain. he stopped and listened. the leaves of the corn rustled in the faint breeze, and, in the centre of the field, an ungainly scarecrow half reared itself above the tasseled stalks. "he's in the corn, that's where he is," puffed the cowboy. "mind your eye, pard, and look out for the dope balls." "you go one way across the field," suggested matt, "and i'll go the other. sharp's the word now, old chap. we're giving that fellow the run of his life, and he's having it nip and tuck to get away." the field was not large, and matt and mcglory crossed it rapidly, the king of the motor boys on one side of the scarecrow, and the cowboy on the other. they met on the opposite side of the field, without having seen the sailor. "i reckon he's dodged us!" growled mcglory, in savage disappointment. "the ornery old webfoot has----" he stopped aghast, his eyes on the scarecrow. the tattered figure was moving briskly through the corn, toward the side of the field from which the boys had just come. "there he goes!" shouted matt, darting away again. "he got into the scarecrow's clothes, and didn't have the nerve to wait until we had left the field." "speak--speak to me about--about this!" returned mcglory breathlessly, plunging after his chum through the rustling rows. once more in the woods, the boys found themselves even closer to the fleeting mariner than they had been before. he was in plain sight now, and shedding his ragged disguise as he raced for liberty. up the shoulder of the mountain he went, pawing and scrambling, then down on the other side, matt and mcglory close after him. he was making strenuously for a cleared space at the foot of the little slope. in the centre of the clearing were the remains of a stone wall, and near the wall stood a little stone house. the house appeared to be deserted, and the half-opened door swung awry on one hinge. "he's makin' for the 'dobe!" wheezed the cowboy. the words had hardly left his lips before the sailor vanished within the stone walls. matt ran recklessly after him. "look out for the double-x brand of dope!" warned mcglory. "you know what he did before, matt." but matt was already inside the house. the interior apparently consisted of a hall and two rooms, although the boarded-up windows cast a funereal gloom over the place, and made it difficult to see anything distinctly. matt sprang through one of the two doors that opened off the hall, and mcglory, still clamoring wildly for his chum to beware of the glass balls, followed. slam went the door of the room--probably the only door in the house that was in commission--and rattle-rattle went a key in the lock. then came a husky laugh, and the words: "belay a bit, you swabs! leave the eye o' buddha alone. an' that's a warnin'." feet pattered along the hall and out of it. "nip and tuck," sang out mcglory, while matt wrestled with the door, "and it wasn't the webfoot that got nipped, not so any one could notice. catch your breath, pard, and calm down. old one eye has made his getaway, and we might just as well laugh as be sorry." chapter viii. tsan ti vanishes again. there was wisdom in the cowboy's words, and matt gave over his attack on the door and turned to his chum with a disappointed laugh. "we can get out of here easy enough," said he, "but the sailor gains so much time while we're doing it that he wins out in the race. great spark plugs, but we're having a time! i'm almost tempted to think that those ten thousand demons, the mandarin talks about, are really pestering us." "ten thousand horned toads," scoffed mcglory. "this is what we naturally get for trying to turn an impossible trick for a heathen. what was the good of paying any attention to that letter, in the first place?" "well," answered matt, "we've discussed that point a good many times already, joe. i wanted to go to new york, anyway, and it was only a little out of our road to come down the river and drop off at catskill landing." "suppose we get our wheels, go back to catskill, and then take the next boat down the river? what's the good of all this strain we've taken upon ourselves? if we don't let well enough alone, something is sure going to snap, and like as not it'll be mighty serious. it's a wonder we ever came through that smash-up with our scalps." there was one window in the room. matt had passed to it and was making an examination. the glass was broken out of the sash, and the boards nailed to the outside of the casing were loose. he pushed two of the boards off, leaving a gap through which he and his chum could easily crawl. "if we'd done this in the first place, joe," said he, "we might have picked up the mariner's trail before he had got too far away." "too late now. it was our luck to get into the only room in the 'dobe, i reckon, that had a good door and a usable lock." "well," returned matt, "let's get out and hunt up the mandarin. i hope he won't make 'way with himself while we're moseying around in this part of the woods." the boys climbed through the window and the gap in the boards, and matt made a casual survey of the house's vicinity. of course the sailor was gone, and had left no clue as to the direction of his flight. setting their faces in the direction of the road, the boys started off briskly on their return to the wrecked car. "there's one thing you didn't do, pard," remarked mcglory, while they were on their way through the timber. "what's that?" "why, you didn't lisp a word to the mandarin about that note you took from the hottentot's cap. maybe, if the chinaman knew about that, he'd quit thinking of doing the polite and courteous thing for the regent." "i had intended telling tsan ti about the note," returned matt, struck by the illuminating suggestion, "but i hadn't time. i'll put it up to tsan ti, though, the first thing after we meet him again." "i've got the yellow string. if he has to make the happy dispatch with that, then i've blocked his game for a while. i don't know much about the etiquette of this yellow-cord _game_. do you?" "no." "well, leaving that out of the discussion for now, here's another point. do you reckon old one eye has found out, yet, how you juggled the notes on him?" "i can't see as that makes much difference," answered matt. "he left us in a hurry, there at that stone house. if he'd known we had the note, why didn't he stop and palaver about it?" "we were two against him, and he was in too much of a hurry." "why didn't he use the glass balls and take the note away from us while we were down and out?" "probably his supply of glass balls is running low." "that note is to be shown to the man in purling, and the man in purling is then to show the bearer of the note where this grattan is. now----" "that's a chance for us to find grattan," cut in matt. "you're planning on that, are you? sufferin' trouble! if it wouldn't be actin' more like a hired man than a pard, i'd go on a strike." "we're onto this mandarin's business now, joe," said matt, "and we ought to see it through to a finish." "it'll be our finish, i reckon." at this moment they stepped out onto the road close to the car. the machine was a charred and twisted wreck, and fit only for the junk heap. matt looked around for tsan ti, but he was nowhere in evidence. "vanished again!" exclaimed mcglory. matt threw back his head and shouted the mandarin's name at the top of his voice. no answer was returned, but the echoes of the call had hardly died away before they were taken up by the humming of another motor, and a little runabout came whirling down the road and brought up at the side of the wrecked car. two men were in the runabout, and one of the men was in a tremendously bad humor. the angry individual jumped from the runabout and peered at the number on the smoking board at the rear of the chassis. "it was my car, all right!" he cried. "and look at it! great scott, just look at it! total loss, and only a fat chink to look to for damages. oh, i'm s, t, u, n, g to the queen's taste, all right. who're you?" he demanded, whirling suddenly on the boys. matt told him. "you're from up the mountain, are you?" inquired matt. "where else?" replied the other crossly. "what's become of the chink that hired this car? do you know?" "probably he's gone back to the hotel." "oh, probably," was the sarcastic retort; "yes, probably! i've got money that says he's sloped for good. look here. they say there were two fellows in the car with the chink when it left the mountain house. are you the fellows?" "yes." "then, by jing, i'll hold _you_. twenty-five hundred is what i want, and i want it quick." "oh, rats!" grunted the man in the runabout. "i'll bet those fellows couldn't rake up twenty-five hundred cents. quit foolin', jackson, and let's go back." matt and mcglory, after their recent experiences in the collision and while chasing the sailor, were most assuredly not looking their best. but they could have drawn a draft on chicago for twenty-five hundred dollars and had it honored--had they been so minded. "oh, say moo and chase yourself!" cried mcglory. "you rented the car to the chinaman; you didn't rent it to us." "i'm going to hold you, anyhow," declared the man called jackson. "you'll have a good time trying it," retorted the cowboy truculently. jackson stepped toward mcglory. "don't you get gay with me," he shouted. "i'm not going to lose a twenty-five hundred dollar car and not make somebody smart for it. i told the chink that was what the car was worth." "i know something about cars," put in matt mildly, "and this one is out of date--four years old, if it's a day. if it had been a modern car, with the gasoline tank in the right place, it would never have caught fire, and you could have saved something out of the wreck. the proper feed is by gravity, and the right place for the tank is under the seat----" "oh, you!" sneered jackson, "what do you know about cars?" "he can forget more in a minute about these chug wagons," bristled mcglory, "than you know in a year. put that in your brier and whiff it. this fellow's motor matt, motor expert, late of burton's big consolidated shows, where he's been exhibiting the traquair aëroplane. now bear down on your soft pedal, will you?" "thunder!" breathed the man in the runabout. "is--is that a fact?" queried jackson, visibly impressed. "it's a fact," said matt, "but it needn't make any difference in this case. that car of yours, jackson, would have been dear at a thousand dollars. you'll get every cent the car is worth, too. the chinaman who hired it is a mandarin. he's in this country on private business. he has tea plantations, rice fields, and money in the bank till you can't rest. now, stop worrying about the damages and give my chum and me a lift up the hill. we'll find tsan ti at the kaaterskill. that's where he's been staying for a week or two." jackson was mollified. "of course," said he, "i don't want to be rough with anybody, but you understand how it is. this country is hard on cars, and i have to charge good prices and be sure the cars are hired by men who can put up for them if they go over a cliff or meet with any other kind of a wreck. i'm obliged to you for your information about tsan ti. he's been a good deal of a conundrum at the kaaterskill since he's put up there. a man, riding up from below, passed a couple of chinamen chin-chinning beside this wreck, and he brought word to me. that's how jim and i happened to come down." "you say the man from below passed _two_ chinamen talking near the car?" queried matt, with a surprised glance at mcglory. "that's what he said." "there was only the mandarin in the car when we had the smash," said matt. "where could that other one have come from?" mcglory said nothing, but his face was full of things he might have said--doubts of the mandarin, of course, and vague suspicions of double dealing. jim backed the runabout around, and matt and mcglory crowded into it. there was a hard climb up the hill, overloaded as the runabout was, but finally the mountain house was passed and the other hotel reached. the boys, in their tattered garments, aroused considerable curiosity among the hotel guests as they crossed the colonnaded porches and made their way into the office. they inquired for tsan ti, and bellboys were sent to the chinaman's room and around the porches and grounds, calling his name. but he wasn't to be found. "up a stump some more," growled mcglory, "and all because that jade-stone amulet got overheated and caused the mandarin to look for trouble. oh, blazes! _when_ will we ever acquire a proper amount of horse sense for a couple of our size? you couldn't expect much more of me, matt, but--well, pard, i'm surprised at _you_." chapter ix. tricked once more. matt and mcglory were bruised and sore. they were also pretty tired. from the moment they had met tsan ti on the mountainside that morning, they had been knocked about from pillar to post. "if trouble will please hold off for a couple of hours," said mcglory, "i'll give a good imitation of a fellow snatching his forty winks and getting ready for another round. what do you say, matt? the mandarin isn't here. he may come, but i wouldn't bet on it, as i'm sort of losing faith in the yellow boy with the red button. he has a disagreeable habit of getting out from under whenever anything goes wrong, and we find ourselves stalled. i reckon, though, you'll want to stay here and give him a chance to blow in?" "we can hold on here for two or three hours," answered matt, "take a bath, and a rub down, and a bit of a rest, then fasten our clothes together with a supply of safety pins and motor back to catskill and get another outfit of clothes from our grips. then, after a good night's sleep, we'll go to purling." "no matter whether the mandarin shows up or not?" "no matter what the mandarin does, joe. i've worked up a big interest in that eye of buddha, and i'm going to find out whether it's a fair shake or a myth." "i'll bet all my share of the aëroplane money against two bits that we never see the old hatchet boy again, and also that something hits us before we can get back to catskill." "you're guessing, joe." "well, that's my chirp, in anything from doughnuts to double eagles. that jackson party might as well hang that wrecked bubble in a tree as a memento--the man with the rice fields and the tea plantations, and so on, has started for the high timber just to dodge paying for that pile of scrap down the trail." "you're wrong," said matt confidently. "wait till the cards are all on the table, pard, and then we'll see." they had a most refreshing bath and a long rest in a couple of lazy-back chairs on an upper veranda. orders had been left with the clerk that word should be brought to them at once if tsan ti put in an appearance. mcglory awoke from a drowse to unbosom himself of a subject which had not, as yet, claimed its proper share of attention. "the fellow who came up the mountain and told jackson there was a burning car piled by the roadside," said he, "said there were two chinamen watching the conflagration. think chink number two was kien lung with another yellow cord, matt?" "no." "then who was he?" "i've been thinking that it was sam wing, the san francisco chinaman, who has been keeping track of the two thieves for the mandarin." "that's you!" exclaimed mcglory. "why, i never thought of that dark horse. have you any notion he coaxed the mandarin away on important business?" "that's likely." "anything's likely. for instance, it's quite likely the fat chinaman is a washee-washee boy from 'frisco with a fine, large imagination, and that he's stringing us." "why should he want to do that?" "no _sabe_, but there's a lot of things we can't _sabe_ concerning this layout." "tsan ti has money----" "he showed us all of a hundred in double eagles. but did he let us get our hands on the coin? not any. he allows, in his large and offhand way, that he has millions of taels--but that may be one of his tales," and mcglory grinned. "anyhow," said matt doggedly, "we ride to purling to-morrow and see the man at the general store." matt fell into a drowse again. no one from the office came to announce the arrival of tsan ti, and when the hour arrived for the evening meal the boys had their supper sent to their room. they were not arrayed properly for "dining out." following the meal they patched up their garments with safety pins, settled their bill, and walked over to the mountain house garage. dusk was falling as they trundled their machines into the road and lighted their lamps. "we'll have an easier time of it going down the mountain," said matt, "than we had coming up." "don't be so sure, pard," answered mcglory. "there are a number of things to trouble us besides the road." "don't cross any trouble bridges until you come to them, joe," advised matt. the motor boys were feeling a little stiff and sore, but their engines were humming cheerfully, and there was a joy for them in the downward spin through the woods. they remembered the tree root, and slowed down for it as it came under their headlights; and they also remembered the location of the wrecked automobile and gave it a wide berth. at about the place where they had encountered the one-eyed sailor, with everything going smoothly and a fair prospect of reaching catskill in record time, the crack of a firearm suddenly split the still air to the left of the road. startled, they clamped on the brakes and came to a halt in time to hear a shrill cry of "help! help!" ringing out weirdly from the dark woods. "sufferin' hold-ups!" murmured mcglory. "and here we are with nothing more than a couple of jack-knives to our names." "what do you suppose it can be?" asked matt, dropping the bracket from his rear wheel and letting the motor cycle stand in the road. he moved off toward the left and listened. "there's a row on in there," declared mcglory. "i can hear some one pounding around in the timber." "so can i," said matt. "we've got to do what we can, joe. that may mean robbery--or worse. come on!" the generous instincts of the motor boys prompted them to go at once to the assistance of a possible victim, and they hurried into the timber. the sounds of scuffling which they had heard died out suddenly, and while they were moving around through the gloom, trying to locate the scene of the trouble, there reached their ears the chug-chugging of motors getting under way. "our motor cycles!" exclaimed matt, darting back toward the road. "gad-hook it all!" cried mcglory; "it was a frame-up! a trick to run off our wheels!" although they were only a few moments regaining the road, the lamps of the two motor cycles were gleaming more than a hundred feet away. "stop!" yelled matt, racing down the road. his answer was a raucous laugh--such a laugh as they had heard before. and then came the words, bellowed hoarsely: "leave the eye o' buddha alone!" after that silence, during which the gleaming lamps turned an angle in the road and were blotted from sight. "seems to me," said mcglory grimly, "i've heard that voice before." motor matt did not reply at once. perhaps his feelings were too deep for words. "and i was expecting something, too!" said the cowboy, in a spasm of self-reproach. "sufferin' easy marks! matt, some of the stuff from those glass balls must still be playing hob with our brains. otherwise, how is it these backsets keep happening in one, two, three order? there go a pair of motor bikes that'll stand us in four hundred good big cart wheels. that was right, what you said before we left those wheels and flocked into the timber. that shot and those sounds of a scuffle _did_ mean robbery. that's a lesson for us never to help a person in distress. likewise it's a hint that we'd better pull out and leave the mandarin to manage his own troubles." "it's a hint that we'd better go to purling to-morrow and look for grattan," and there was an unwonted sharpness in motor matt's voice that caused mcglory to straighten up and take notice. "when you tune up that way," said the cowboy, "it means mischief. there was another man with the hottentot. do you think the _hombre_ was this grattan sharp?" "no. grattan is expecting the sailor at purling to-morrow. this was some one else." "the ruby thieves have quite an extensive gang. it's walk for us, from here to catskill." "from here to the first farmhouse," corrected matt. "we'll get some one to take us to catskill with a horse and buggy." he bit off his words crisp and sharp, which, to mcglory, proved how deeply he resented the scurvy trick by which they had been lured away from the motor cycles. "how easy it is to understand things when you look back at' em," philosophized the cowboy, swinging along at matt's side, down the dark road. "the webfoot and his pal fired that shot and raised a yell for help, then they jumped up and down in the bushes, and the result had all the effect of a knock-down and drag-out. one-eye must have had us spotted, and he and his pal were lingering in the trailside brush, watching for our headlights. oh, yes, it was easy. the 'illustrious ones' tumbled over themselves to fall into the trap. if i had that----" "there's a farmhouse," said matt, and indicated a point of light close to the foot of the mountain. "nearly every house in these parts is either a boarding house or a hotel. we can get a rig, all right, i'm pretty sure." chapter x. the diamond merchant. it was midnight before the motor boys were deposited on the walk in front of their hotel in catskill. a team and two-seated wagon had brought them, and they had not left the vicinity of the road at the foot of the mountain until they had driven around for an hour, made inquiries concerning two men on motor cycles, given a description of the sailor, and passed word that the men were thieves and were to be arrested and held if found. matt, according to agreement, paid the driver who had brought them to catskill five dollars for his services. before going to bed matt gathered a little information concerning the village of purling. he learned that it was six miles from cairo, and that cairo was on the railroad and could be reached by a morning train. but the train would not serve. by proceeding to the village in that way, the boys would not be able to arrive before noon, and, according to the note in the sailor's cap, they were expected at the general store by ten o'clock. "we'll hire an automobile," said matt, "and a driver that knows the mountains. i guess we'd better speak for the machine to-night." at the same place where they had secured the motor cycles they arranged for a touring car and a driver who knew the country, but the arrangement was not effected until they had deposited three hundred dollars as a guaranty that the motor cycles would be returned, or the owner indemnified for their loss. "three hundred plunks gone where the woodbine twineth," mourned mcglory, as they were going to bed, "and all because we're helping to turn a trick for tsan ti. good business--i don't think." "this grattan," said matt, "is probably lying low somewhere near purling. if he isn't, he wouldn't be making it so hard for his pal to get at him. the sailor will be there, and he won't get to see grattan without the letter. we'll catch the fellow, and we may catch grattan--say nothing of the possibility of recovering the eye of buddha." "we'll draw a blank in the matter of that idol's eye, pard, you take it from me. but there's a chance of our putting a fancy kibosh on bunce and getting back the go-devil machines. still, there's also a splendid chance for a fall down. listen. the _hottentot_ man examines the note in his cap. he sees it's not the few lines he got from grattan, but a lot of 'con' talk from the mandarin. that leaves one eye in the air, but gives him a line on _us_. what'll happen? i wish i knew." "the sailor may not look at the letter in his hat until he gets to purling, so----" "don't think it, pard. that would be too much luck to come at a time when we're hocussed crisscross and both ways." by seven the boys were up, had overhauled their grips, and got into fresh clothes, and were sitting down to breakfast at the first call. by seven-thirty the touring car was at the door for them, freshly groomed and shining like a new dollar. it was a sixty horse-power machine, and a family carryall for the personal use of the proprietor of the garage. not having been used for hackabout purposes, the car was more dependable than one that had been hammered about over the rough roads by anybody who could tell the spark plug from the magneto and had five dollars an hour to pay for a junket. the proprietor, who was a good fellow at heart and wanted to do everything possible to help the boys recover the stolen motor cycles, made this concession. so, with matt in the driver's seat, the native who knew the way beside him, and mcglory with the tonneau all to himself, the touring car flashed out of catskill landing and took to the hills. of the drive motor matt made that morning, the driver on his left entertained the most enthusiastic recollections. never had he seen a car handled so cleverly; and when the car balked--which the best of cars will do now and then--the way the king of the motor boys located the difficulty and adjusted it was something to think about. at nine-thirty the touring car landed its passengers in front of the general store. two men were sunning themselves on the bench in front, and a sleeping dog looked up lazily, snapped at a fly, and then went to sleep again. "where's mr. pryne?" asked matt, stepping up to the two men on the bench. "i'm pryne," answered one of the two, measuring matt with an expectant light in his faded blue eyes. "look at this," said matt, and presented the letter from grattan. the man, who was roughly dressed and certainly had nothing to do with the store, studied the writing carefully. "this is all right," he remarked; "_all_ right, but"--and his eyes traveled doubtfully over mcglory--"only one was expected." "don't worry about that, mr. pryne," answered matt genially; "this chap," and he lowered his voice to a whisper, "is a pal." "there's another one to go," murmured pryne. matt was startled; then, thinking the other one was the sailor, he braced himself for short, sharp work. "where is the other one, pryne?" "here," and pryne indicated the other man who had been sitting with him on the bench. matt gave more careful attention to this other individual. he was a hebrew--one glance was sufficient to decide that. also, he was ornately clad, wearing many large diamonds and making a fulsome display of heavy gold watch chain. the jew pushed forward with a wink and an ingratiating smile. "goldstein is der name," said he, thrusting out a hand. "i'm der man from new york, yes, der"--and he whispered the rest in matt's ear--"diamond merchant. you know for vat i come." a thrill ran through the king of the motor boys. no, he did not know "for vat" the diamond merchant had come, but he guessed that it was to purchase the eye of buddha. the mandarin's story was being borne out by every fresh development. "we're a little ahead of time," observed pryne, "but i guess it won't make no difference." "not the least," replied matt. "i don't believe it will be necessary for me to take my pal along, so i'll just give him a few instructions about the motor car and we'll be going. this way, joe," and matt took mcglory to one side for a brief talk. "what you going to do when you reach where you're going, with all that gang against you?" whispered the cowboy. "the outfit would be more than a handful for the two of us--and here you're cutting me out of the game right at the start." "no," whispered matt, "i'm not cutting you out of the game. you've got the most important part to play. listen. find a constable, if you can do it in a hurry, and pick up two or three more men and follow us. do it carefully, so that pryne won't suspect. also tell the driver of the car to look out for the one-eyed sailor. if he comes here at ten o'clock, tell the driver to have him captured and held--and the other man, too, if they both come. that's your programme, joe, and everything depends on you." the cowboy's eyes began to glitter and snap as the gist and vital importance of his pard's instructions drifted through his mind. "you know you can bank on me, matt," he answered. "but don't move too fast--make a delay. i've got a lot to do, and you're liable to get so far ahead i'll lose track of you." "i'll delay matters as much as i can." matt returned to goldstein. "where's pryne?" he queried, observing, with a qualm, that the guide had vanished. "he is gone for der team," replied goldstein. "i am sorry," he added, jumping to another subject, "that der price of precious stones is come down. fancy prices don't rule no more for such luxuries." "you'll have to pay something for this treasure from the temple of honam if you get it," answered matt. "i will do all that is in reason, yes, but der chances vas great, and i take them." "haven't grattan and i taken chances, goldstein?" returned matt sharply. "you have, yes. well, we shall see, we shall see." goldstein was carrying a small satchel which he kept in hand continually, whether he was sitting down or standing up. "i come prepared to talk business," he said, with a sly grin, directing his glance at the satchel. "my orders was to wait here until bunce iss arrived with der letter. i had a letter myself," he laughed. at this juncture pryne drove around the corner of the building and drew up at the platform in front of the store. "jump in, gents," said he. "it won't be long till i snake you out to my place." matt and goldstein climbed into the back seat. under the seat was a bag of ground feed. as pryne was driving out of town, matt drew his knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and dropped a hand over the back of the seat. a jab or two with the knife made a hole in the bag. the wagon was an old one, and the boards in the bottom of the box had wide cracks between them. looking back casually, matt saw that a fine trail of "middlings" was leaking into the road. "that will do the trick," he thought exultantly. "my cowboy pard can be depended on to attend to the rest." chapter xi. the old sugar camp. pryne's team was by no means a swift one. the horses jogged slowly out into the hills, pryne constantly plying a gad. "seems to me like," remarked pryne, looking around suddenly, "that grattan allowed bunce had only one eye." "that's another pal of his," said matt coolly. "you've got us mixed, pryne." "waal, mebby. git ap, there," he added to the horses; "you critters are slower'n merlasses in january." for a few minutes they rode in silence, the dust eddying around them and only the creak of the wagon, the thump of the horses' hoofs, and the swish of the gad breaking the stillness. goldstein, his satchel on his knees, kept flicking a gaudy and heavily perfumed handkerchief in front of his face to clear away the dust. matt was busy with his thoughts, and was wondering what was to happen at the end of the journey. abruptly, pryne turned again in his seat. "seems, too," he ventured, "as how grattan said this bunce was a sailor an' wore sailor clothes." "that's the other fellow again, pryne," matt smiled. "you haven't got much of a memory, i guess." "waal, it ain't long, but it's mighty keen." "my cracious," murmured goldstein, "but der dust is bad. how much farther is it yet?" "we turn at the next crossroads and pull up a hill," answered pryne; "then we leave the hill road for a ways, an' we're there. it's my ole sugar camp. trees is mostly played out, though, an' we don't make sugar there no more. it kinder 'pears to me like," he added, another thought striking him, "grattan said bunce had whiskers around his jaws." "that's the other pal," said matt. "git ap, there, prince!" called pryne, slapping the off horse with the gad. "how long have you known grattan, pryne?" inquired matt. "always, since i got married. my wife's his sister. annaballe--that's the old woman--she's english, she is. come over visitin' in cairo, ten year back, an' i up and asked her to marry me. grattan was to the weddin', an' that was the first an' only time we'd met till a few days ago. great traveler, grat is. he's been to ejup, an' rooshia, an' chiny an' all them countries. great traveler. takes pictur's for these here movin'-picture machines." matt heard this with interest. it reminded him of another time when he had encountered a moving-picture man and had had a particularly thrilling experience. and this experience with grattan promised to be even more thrilling. "is the sugar camp a safe place?" asked matt. "nobody ever goes to the old camp now no more," replied pryne. "my cracious, vat a dust!" said goldstein. "how big is der eye?" he whispered to matt. "wait till you see it," matt answered. "pigeon's blood, yes?" matt supposed he meant to ask if the eye of buddha was a pigeon's blood ruby. taking a chance, matt nodded. "she is a true oriental, eh?" went on goldstein, a greedy glint coming into his eyes. "it must be if it comes from china." "so! if she weigh five carat, she is vorth ten times so much as a diamond. but diamonds ain't vorth so much now." matt looked behind him. the sack of middlings was half emptied. "are we halfway to the old sugar camp, pryne?" matt called. "better'n that," was the reply. "here's where we turn for up the hill." the hill was long and high, and the road turned into a little-used trail and ascended through timber. the horses pulled and panted and the gad fell mercilessly. "somethin' of a climb," said pryne casually. "one of them tires back there is loose--the one on the right-hand side. kinder keep an eye on it, will you?" matt looked at the tire, which was on his side of the wagon. as yet, it was all right. matt hoped it would remain so, for if pryne got out to drive it on he might discover the loss of his middlings--and other things which would have a tendency to excite his suspicions. "der dust ain't so much here," observed goldstein, in a tone of relief. "ain't so many wagons to churn it up," said pryne. then fell silence again, matt busy with his thoughts. where was tsan ti? while matt was running down the eye of buddha for him, what was the chinaman, to whom the recovery of the ruby meant so much, doing? these speculations were bootless, and matt fell to thinking of the glass balls. if grattan had a supply of them, all the men mcglory could bring would not be able to prevent him from getting away. success in the king of the motor boys' venture hung by an exceedingly slender thread. "it will be hard business to cut it up," came the voice of goldstein, breaking roughly into matt's somber reflections. "hard to cut what up?" matt asked. "der eye. when it ain't best to sell precious stones in one piece, then we cut them up." matt understood what the jew was driving at. large diamonds are hard to market, especially if the diamonds have been stolen. in order to dispose of them they are often cut up into smaller stones. "you see," proceeded goldstein, "dis ruby is valuable because of its size, yes. der size makes all der difference. if it is cut under fife carat, dere vasn't much sale. anyhow, diamonds is sheaper as they was. i lose a lot of money by der fall in der price of diamonds." "here's where we turn from the hill road an' strike out for the sugar camp," remarked pryne. he swerved from the steep road as he spoke and drove into a bumpy swath cut through the timber. for half a mile or more they jolted and banged along, then pryne pulled to a halt. "i'll hitch here," said he, getting out, "an' i'll leave the rig. the rest of the way we'll go on foot. it ain't fur," he added hastily, noticing the solicitous glance which goldstein threw at his patent-leather shoes. "first time i efer come to a place like this to buy precious stones," remarked the jew, clambering slowly down. matt had a bad two minutes waiting for pryne to hitch the horses and fearing he would come to the rear of the wagon and discover the slashed bag of feed. but pryne was apparently unsuspicious. turning away from the tree to which he had hitched the horses, he called to matt and goldstein to follow him. their path took them through the old sugar "bush," among maples that were dead and dying and whose trunks were deeply scarred by the sap hunters. presently an old log building came into view. "there's the place," said pryne. part of the building was nothing more than a tumble-down shed. one end of the structure, however, was walled in, and seemed to have been made habitable by the use of rough boards. a length of stovepipe stuck up through the roof--about the only visible sign that the place was used as a dwelling. with pryne in the lead, the odd little group moved around the side of the log wall to a door. to say that matt's heart did not beat more quickly, or that visions of violence did not float before his mental gaze, would be to say that he was not human. he had a keen realization of the dangers into which he was about to throw himself. the moment he passed the door deception would be a thing of the past. grattan would recognize him as a stranger--a prying stranger who had come to the sugar camp with the intention of securing the eye of buddha. matt's problem was to engage grattan's attention, and keep him from going to extremes, until mcglory should arrive with reënforcements. just how matt was to do this he did not know. he was trusting to luck--and luck had not been favoring him to any great extent lately. the door of the log hut was closed. pryne rapped on it. "who's there?" demanded a voice from within. "it's pryne, grat," was the answer. "goldstein and bunce with you?" "sure. i've fetched 'em." "then bring them in. i'm ready and waiting." pryne bore down on the wooden latch and threw open the door. "go right in, gents," said he, stepping back. goldstein, with a laugh, passed through the door first. matt followed. pryne brought up the rear and closed the door. what light there was in the one room in which matt found himself came through the broken roof. there were no windows in the log walls. "he was there, all right, grat," cried pryne, with a loud guffaw, "an' he didn't make no bones about comin' with me. he was mighty anxious to come, seemed like, but i don't calculate he guessed he'd find so many folks here." matt's eyes, by that time, had become accustomed to the gloom, and he was able to look around and distinguish various objects. first, he saw a heavy-set man on a bench. this man had a dark face and a sinister eye, and was leaning back against the wall. both his hands clung to a buckthorn cane with a large wooden handle. the cane was crossed against one of his knees and held it slightly elevated. "throw yer binnacle lights this way, my hearty, as soon's ye're done sizin' up my shipmate," came a voice from the opposite side of the room. matt whirled, a startled exclamation escaping his lips. it was the one-eyed sailor who had spoken. the fellow was sitting on another bench, a wide grin on his weather-beaten face. the trap had been sprung--and it was the most complete trap matt had ever been in. "i told ye more'n once to leave the eye o' buddha alone," chuckled bunce, "but ye wouldn't take a warnin'. _now_, see where ye are!" chapter xii. a tight corner. it was a characteristic of motor matt that he never became "rattled." a clear head and steady nerves were absolutely essential in his chosen career. to these he added a quick and sure judgment. "surprised, are you?" asked grattan, with a choppy laugh. "well, yes, in a way," replied matt coolly. "i wonder if you know what you're up against?" "you have a stolen ruby, called the eye of buddha, and goldstein is here to buy it." "my cracious!" gasped the jew, throwing up his hands. there was no doubting his surprise, so matt knew that he, at least, was not in the plot. "close your face, goldstein," scowled grattan. "this business isn't going to bother you. take a seat, motor matt," he added. "we'll have a little chin-chin before we get busy." there was an empty bench along the end wall. matt walked over to it and seated himself, glad that there was to be a "chin-chin." this meant delay, and would give time for mcglory to arrive with reënforcements. "i don't understand what's der matter," gulped goldstein, pressing back against the wall and hugging his satchel in his arms. "i don't like der looks of things, no." "you can't help the looks of things," snapped grattan, "and you'll understand the situation a lot better before you get away from this sugar camp. sit down." there was a three-legged stool close to the jew, and he dropped down on it in a state of semi-collapse. his eyes passed to pryne, who had drawn a revolver and was standing in front of the door. undoubtedly goldstein had a lot of money in his satchel with which to pay for the ruby, so it is small wonder he was worried upon finding himself a participator in such a scene. "i thought der young feller was bunce!" he exclaimed, moistening his dry lips with his tongue. "put a stopper on your jaw-tackle!" yelled the sailor. "that's the line we've run out to you for now, and you'll lay to it." the jew swallowed hard on a lump in his throat and fell limply against the wall behind him. goldstein had even more to lose as the outcome of that desperate situation than had matt, but the king of the motor boys saw at a glance that he was absolutely useless so far as resistance was concerned. grattan dropped his suspended foot on the floor and turned to pryne. "did any one come with motor matt, pryne?" he inquired. "two fellers come with him," was the response. "they got to purling in a automobile." "who were those fellows, motor matt?" demanded grattan, shooting a sharp glance at the young motorist. "the driver of the car, from catskill landing," said matt, "and my chum, joe mcglory." "why did you leave them in purling?" "the driver had to stay to look after the car, and i didn't think it was necessary to bring mcglory along for a bodyguard." grattan threw back his head and peered at matt through half-closed eyes. "you're a cool one," he remarked. "why were you coming here to see me?" "i wanted to get the ruby." bunce roared. grattan commanded silence sharply, and the sailor's merriment ceased as suddenly as it had begun. "did you think," went on grattan, "that you could, single-handed, take the ruby from me by force?" matt was silent. "or did you think you could talk me out of it?" "i hadn't much of an idea what i could do," said matt. "it was just barely possible you'd be generous enough, when you learned the circumstances, to give or sell the eye of buddha to tsan ti." grattan curbed the old sailor's fresh inclination to laugh with a quick look. "what are the circumstances?" he queried. "tsan ti has received the yellow cord. if he does not recover the idol's eye in two weeks, he must destroy himself." "young man," said grattan, "i have been two years planning to get my clutches on the eye of buddha. i have haunted canton, feasted my eyes upon that priceless splash of red in the forehead of the idol in the honam joss house until the itch to possess it fairly drove me mad. but the temple was too well guarded, the priests too many, and the walls too high. it was only when i learned of the balls of ptah and their powers that the feat looked at all feasible. in order to see these balls of ptah for myself, i made the long journey from hongkong to the ruins of karnak on the nile." taking the buckthorn cane under his arm, grattan stepped across the room to a table near the bench where bunce was sitting. on the table rested a small box with a strap handle. grattan opened the lid of the box, and from a nest of cotton picked one of the shimmering glass balls. he handled the ball gently, and a glow came into his eyes as he held it up. "a quantity of these balls," he proceeded, "were unearthed a year ago from among the ruins of karnak. they are of egyptian glass, thousands of years old, and each of the big beads has blown into its surface the _praenomen_ of hatasu, a queen who is conjectured to have lived more than fourteen hundred years before our era. a party of workmen discovered the balls, and chanced to break one of them." grattan paused, turning the shimmering sphere around and around in his hand. "all the workmen," he went on, "were thrown into an unconscious condition, and it was in this manner that the peculiar properties of the balls were discovered. why they are called the balls of ptah i don't know, and what they contain that has such a peculiar effect on living beings, no one has ever been able to discover. but i heard of them, stole a dozen, and tried one on the museum guards in making my escape. it answered the purpose," he went on dryly. "if it had not, i would have been caught." almost reverently he replaced the ball in the cotton-lined case and closed the lid. returning to his bench, he resumed his original position, sweeping an amused glance around him at the awed faces of goldstein, pryne, and matt. "armed with one of the balls of ptah," he proceeded, "i picked up the ancient mariner"--he nodded toward bunce--"and we manufactured a silk ladder twenty feet long, and weighted it at one end. then, one day, we repaired to the honam joss house at five in the afternoon. that ball of egyptian glass, crushed to fragments on the floor, overcame the priests. bunce and i protected our own faces with masks, equipped with oxygen tubes reaching into small tanks of compressed air in our pockets. to throw the weighted end of the ladder over the head of ptah took us possibly a minute; for me to climb the ladder and dig the ruby from the idol's forehead consumed possibly five minutes; and for bunce and me to get out of the temple took five minutes more. we were safely out of canton when the storm broke." matt had listened to all this in supreme wonder. the audacity of the undertaking caused his pulses to stir, but he wondered why grattan should recount such an exploit to him, and in the hearing of pryne and goldstein. "you know now," continued grattan, "what the eye of buddha has cost me, and you say it is just barely possible i would be generous enough to yield the gem to tsan ti in order to save his life!" "or you might sell it to him," suggested matt. "i might, if he could pay what it is worth." "grattan," spoke up goldstein with sudden fervor, "you have promised me der first shance!" "keep still!" growled grattan. "you'll get all the chance you want before you leave here." "the mandarin is a rich man," said matt, who, of course, was parleying merely to gain time. "he has a little money with him, but that is all. every plantation he owns in china, every string of cash in his strong boxes is guarded by the regent. if he does not recover the eye of buddha, the property will be confiscated. and he can't touch a cent of his fortune until he returns the ruby to its place in the idol's head. so, you see, your friend, the mandarin of the red button, is in a bally hard fix. he can't buy the ruby, and certainly i won't give it to him." this was intensely interesting to matt. he was listening, now, in a casual way, for the approach of mcglory and his party, and he was planning what he could do with the balls of ptah in order to keep grattan from using them. "you're a clever lad, motor matt," went on grattan, "and i admire clever people. you performed a neat trick when you removed that folded note from bunce's cap. it was a foolish place to keep such a thing, but bunce is a good deal of a fool. for instance, i reached the catskill mountains with six of the balls of ptah--the only ones of the kind to be had--and the crack-brained sailor man stole two of them and threw them away on you and your chum, gaining little and losing something which might prove of priceless value to us." "now, shipmate," began bunce, in a wheedling voice, "you don't get the right splice on that piece of rope; you----" "that'll do," said grattan, waving his hand. bunce subsided. the power of grattan over the sailor was absolute. it was easy to see whose had been the plotting mind and the guiding hand in the exploits of the two. "you are sharp enough to wonder, i suppose," said grattan, again addressing matt, "why i am going into these private details for your benefit. the answer is simple. our plans are laid to leave here to-day. you can't stop us, no one can stop us. the balls of ptah will disarm all opposition, and the four of them will see us out of the country with goldstein's money." "but if goldstein has the eye of buddha," said matt, "i will know it and can prove it. he can't hold stolen property." "certainly he can't. goldstein gets the ruby and we get goldstein's money. you have goldstein arrested and prove in a court of law that he bought the idol's eye from the original thieves. then----" a howl came from goldstein. "i von't buy, i von't buy! that is a skin game. i von't buy der stone." "oh, yes, you will," and, for the first time, a laugh came from grattan's lips. "you've brought the money and you'll buy before you leave." then, for the first time, goldstein understood the true meaning of the situation. he flashed a wild look at pryne and the revolver, and sank back against the wall and groaned. chapter xiii. a master rogue. "as i said before," resumed grattan, "i admire clever people. goldstein is not clever. i send a letter to him at new york and tell him to come to purling, ask for pryne at the general store, and bring money enough to buy the eye of buddha. his covetous soul prompts him to defy the law, buy the ruby for half its value, and cheat bunce and me. he rushes into the trap. i tell you he is as big a fool as bunce--almost." "mercy!" begged goldstein. "oh, mister grattan, don't rob me! der price of diamonds has gone off, and i lose much money----" "silence!" thundered grattan. goldstein fell whimpering back against the wall. "it was only by a chance, motor matt," went on grattan, "that i discovered your trick in exchanging a letter of your own for one of mine in the ancient mariner's cap. bunce did not know i was harbored in this old sugar camp. pryne knew it, and also my sister, who happens to be pryne's wife. no one else knew it. bunce and i had discovered that we were being trailed by a san francisco chinaman, and that he was firing telegrams back to the slope for tsan ti. from catskill i came here to wait until the ruby could be exchanged for goldstein's money. bunce went around the vicinity of catskill keeping watch for the spying chinaman, and for tsan ti. he didn't find the 'frisco hatchet boy, but he did discover, this forenoon, that the mandarin was staying at the hotel on the mountain. bunce was traveling around in an automobile, and he had my letter asking him to come to purling, which i had mailed to him at the catskill post office. when he found tsan ti was staying in the hotel, bunce thought he would hurry to purling and take his chance of finding me. on the way down the mountain, as ill luck would have it, he passed you and the mandarin. then came that exchange of notes. when bunce discovered that, his panic was still further increased. the road he took to purling passed along the foot of this hill. "i was out taking my constitutional, at the time, and fate threw bunce and me together, for i hailed him as he was passing. the driver of the automobile was a man we both knew we could trust. bunce and i had a talk, and i read the letter you had put in his hat in the place of the one i had sent. the circumstances attending the exchange of that note convinced me that in you i had an uncommonly clever person to deal with. i guessed that you would use the note and try to find out where i was. i didn't want you to do that, but i arranged with pryne, if you did, to bring you out here. i also sent bunce on the rightabout back to the mountainside, and told him to make away with your motor cycles. that, i hoped, would keep you from purling by giving you something else to hunt for instead of the eye of buddha. but i didn't know you--i failed to do your cleverness full justice. "bunce went into hiding at the roadside from the mountain top, knowing you would have to come that way. when you sped down the road in an automobile, with your chum and tsan ti, bunce was rattled. he had been expecting you on motor cycles, and had framed up a little plan which he worked so successfully later. however, he put a bullet into one of the automobile tires and caused a smash. the fool! he came near getting us into the toils of the law so deep we could never have escaped. his folly continued, however, when he skulked close to the burning machine to note the extent of the ruin he had caused. he had a close call when you took after him. more by luck than by any good judgment, he got away from you, and was close enough to see and hear what went on when the owner of the wrecked automobile met and talked with you in the road. "bunce hunted up the driver of the car, who had been waiting for him in a convenient place not far from the road. the two went into hiding in the brush, spotted your motor-cycle lamps, captured your machines, and the wheels are now handily by to help us in our getaway." matt had listened to this talk abstractedly. he was waiting and listening for mcglory and the reënforcements. why didn't they come? they had had ample time, and matt was positive they would pick up the trail he had left and follow without difficulty. mcglory was a good trailer, and he would be quick to understand the sifted line of middlings when he saw it. "shipmate," said bunce, "you haven't given me my proper rating. it wasn't all luck an' touch an' go with me. i done noble, i did." "you mean well, bunce, but you're not clever," said grattan. "my eye! wasn't it clever the way i put on them scarecrow fixin's in the cornfield?" "and then lost your nerve and ducked while motor matt and his chum were looking at you? oh, yes, that _was_ clever." there was scorn in grattan's voice. matt had heard enough to realize that grattan was a master rogue. he was playing a bold game, and with consummate skill. he was willing to talk, to lay bare the innermost details of his work, for he had planned escape and felt sure he would get away. matt wondered if he would not succeed in spite of mcglory and the men he was to bring with him. those balls, those balls of ptah! they appeared to be the key that was to help grattan through the coil of the law. "i am rewarding you, motor matt, for your cleverness," pursued grattan, "and for the narrow escape bunce gave you in that automobile. the reward is the eye of buddha. i sell it to goldstein for the money he has in that satchel; then, while bunce and i are safely out of the hut, i break one of the balls of ptah by hurling it through the open door; you and goldstein become unconscious; you recover and make a prisoner of goldstein; and, finally, by due process of law, you recover the ruby for tsan ti. very simple. so far as i can see, goldstein is the only one to suffer." matt was still listening, listening. where in the world was mcglory? grattan turned toward the shivering jew. "goldstein," said he sternly, "how much money have you in that satchel?" "mercy, mr. grattan!" implored the diamond merchant. "i have lost much money by der decline in----" "how much have you in the satchel?" repeated grattan. "only a little, mr. grattan. i dit not bring much." "didn't you bring enough to pay a good price for the ruby?" "how was i to know vat der ruby was worth? fife thousand dollars is what i brought----" "five thousand! five thousand to pay me for two years of planning, and the risk! you have brought more than that." "where is der ruby, mr. grattan?" "where you'll not find it until i see how much money you have in the satchel. give it to bunce. bunce, you open the grip and count the money." "don't do that, please, mr. grattan! i have lost much money by der drop in----" "take it over and give it to bunce." tremblingly, goldstein got up with his precious satchel. his face was pallid, and he seemed scarcely able to move. he started toward the sailor; then, suddenly, when he was close to pryne, he whirled and grabbed at the exposed revolver. the satchel dropped, and goldstein, with the fury of desperation, fought like a madman. it was his money he was fighting for--money that was, perhaps, dearer to him than life itself. nothing else could have goaded him into such a mad attempt to escape from the hut. bunce sprang toward the struggling pair at the door, and grattan also arose and stepped toward them. this offered matt a chance for a daring _coup_. unseen in the excitement, and unheard because of the noise of the scuffle, he glided to the table and opened the box. deftly he extracted one of the balls and allowed the box-cover to fall into place. the ball passed into his pocket. while he stood by the table, grattan suddenly caught sight of him. "go back to your bench, motor matt!" he ordered. "you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by sitting tight and obeying orders. get back, i tell you." matt backed to the bench and sat down. bunce and pryne flung goldstein to the floor, and while pryne kicked him toward his seat bunce regained his own place with the satchel. "i did not think goldstein had it in him," laughed grattan. "when you take his money, you touch him in a vital place. be sensible, goldstein," he added. "we've got too strong a grip on you." the jew lifted himself to the stool, bruised and battered. his head was bowed and he presented a pitiable sight. "now, then, bunce," said grattan, "look into the satchel. let's see how much goldstein brought with him for purposes of barter. i didn't expect to get anywhere near what the eye of buddha was worth, but----" there came a pounding on the door. instantly all were on their feet, consternation written large in every face but grattan's and matt's. grattan believed that, even with intruders at hand, he was master of the situation. matt, armed with one of the balls of ptah, was inclined to dispute the question with him. "open up!" cried a voice. there was a bar across the door and pryne stood with one hand on the fastening to make sure it held against the attack. grattan fluttered a hand for silence. "who's there?" he demanded. "porter, the constable, from purling, and five other men." grattan leaped to the table and caught up the box. holding it in front of him, the buckthorn cane under his arm, he whispered to his confederates: "bunce, you and pryne stand ready to leave the room. when i give the word, go--and go quick." then, lifting his voice, grattan added: "open the door, pryne, and admit the constable from purling and five men." pryne bent to the bar. "stop!" cried matt. pryne raised himself quickly. he and bunce, grattan and even goldstein stared at the king of the motor boys. matt was standing on the bench, his right hand lifted, and one of the shimmering spheres in his hand. "don't come in here yet, mcglory!" shouted matt. "i'll give the word when i want you to come. you see, grattan," he added, "i'd a little rather have my friends stay on the outside until they can come in here _after_ i break the glass ball." chapter xiv. the glass spheres. tremors shook the one-eyed sailor. the satchel quivered in his hands. pryne was filled with consternation, and showed it as plainly as did bunce. the full meaning of the situation had not dawned on goldstein as yet, but the light was slowly breaking. grattan alone, of all those confronting matt, seemed in full possession of his wits. "don't throw that, don't throw that!" stuttered bunce. "avast, i say!" "where'd he get the thing?" demanded pryne. "clever lad!" murmured grattan. "you must have taken that out of the box during the disturbance caused by goldstein. i saw you by the table, but i didn't think that was your game. well, what are you intending to do? you have one of the balls and i have three. i don't know that i grasp your intentions." "if these glass balls are broken," answered matt steadily, "it means that all of us, every person in this room, will be stretched out on the floor, unconscious and helpless. those outside will escape the effects of the narcotic, or whatever it is contained in the spheres. those who are at the door happen to be my friends. they will wait a space; then, after the fumes have cleared out of the room, they will come in, make prisoners of you, bunce and pryne, save goldstein's money for him, and recover the eye of buddha." "let me understand this fully," continued grattan. "how do you know those outside are your friends?" "listen," said matt. "mcglory!" he called. "on deck, pard!" came the answer of the cowboy. "you're in a nice row of stumps, i must say. who's in there with you?" "grattan, bunce, goldstein, and pryne." "what's the layout?" "i'm on a bench at one side of the room with one of the glass balls. grattan stands opposite me with three more. if i throw the ball i'm holding, then i want you fellows to wait until it's safe to come in." "speak to me about that!" grattan was thoughtful. "how did those fellows manage to find their way here?" he asked. "pryne had a sack of ground feed in the back of the wagon. i slashed it with my knife and we left a plain trail." "jumpin' mariar!" breathed pryne. "you've hit it off nicely, pryne!" scowled grattan. "annabelle ought to be proud of you for that. bunce isn't the only fool i've been tied up with, this time." he turned again to the king of the motor boys. "you're deeper than i imagined, but you're a point shy in your reasoning, son. you'll not get the eye of buddha by proceeding in that fashion. i was dealing generously with you when i offered to trade the ruby for goldstein's money." "you have no right to rob goldstein," said matt. "i couldn't help you without being equally guilty." "goot boy!" applauded goldstein. "that's der truth." "this diamond merchant," argued grattan, "is only a 'fence' for stolen property. he came out here to cheat me, cheat tsan ti, cheat the law. we're simply beating him at his own game." "two wrongs never made a right," answered matt. "you talk foolishly. but, even though you carry out your plan, i say again _you will not get the eye of buddha_. that is safely hidden where it will never be found. besides--look at bunce." matt had been giving his full attention to grattan. he now swerved his eyes toward the sailor and found a revolver leveled in his direction. "here's scoldin' sairy starin' ye in the face," said bunce. "don't tease us no more or she'll speak." "the moment that ball leaves your hand, motor matt," declared grattan, "bunce will fire. the rest of us will be left merely unconscious on the floor, but you--well, you're clever enough to imagine what will happen to _you_. are you willing to talk sense? i promise to leave the eye of buddha with goldstein in exchange for his satchel of money, but we must be allowed to escape with the satchel." "i'll not help you rob goldstein," answered matt. "ye'd rather be sent to davy jones' locker, i suppose?" put in bunce. "that's where ye'll go, as quick an' sure as though ye was wrapped in canvas and thrown over the side with a hundred-pound shot at yer pins." goldstein, palpitating between hope and despair, watched and listened to this crossfire of threat and defiance wherein the fate of his money was at stake. a half-crazy light arose in his eyes and he seemed meditating some desperate move. grattan lifted his voice. "hello, out there! we've got motor matt under the point of a revolver, and if you don't retreat from the vicinity of this hut, there'll be shooting." "is that so, pard!" came wildly from mcglory. "stay where you are," cried matt. "they won't shoot--they don't dare." "bunce," began grattan, "you'd better----" grattan had no time to finish. with a wild yell of fury goldstein flung himself at grattan and seized the buckthorn cane, jerking it away and whirling it about his head. "the buckthorn!" shouted bunce, in more of a panic than the jew's manoeuvre seemed to call for; "he's got the buckthorn cane!" grattan let go of his temper for the first time, and whirled and leaped at goldstein. the jew struck at him viciously, the blow falling short and knocking the box of glass balls out of his hand and upon the floor. "mask! mask!" bellowed grattan. the box flew open as it fell and matt caught a glimpse of broken glass fragments flying out of it, and of something white lifted to the faces of grattan and bunce. all was turmoil in the room. grattan rushed at goldstein and tried to recover the cane. matt flung at him the ball--the last conscious act the king of the motor boys could remember. the pungent odor arose to his nostrils, choking him, blinding his eyes and robbing him of his strength. he crashed down from the bench, and then a mighty hand seemed to sweep over him and drop a black pall of silence. motor matt opened his eyes. he was lying out in the sun, the bare boughs of the maples over him, and mcglory kneeling at his side. "you had a rough time of it, old pard," said mcglory, "but you didn't stop a bullet--and that's some satisfaction." matt groped around in his mind to pick up the trend of events. suddenly all the details flashed through his brain. "what became of grattan and bunce?" he asked, sitting up. "they smashed through a boarded-up window, pard," replied mcglory. "and got away?" "like a couple of streaks. they used our motor cycles." "why don't you follow them?" "follow them? what's the good? that happened an hour ago. the purling constable rushed back to the village to do some telephoning, and it's barely possible the two tinhorns will be corralled. i wouldn't bank on it, though. luck hasn't been coming that way for us since we struck the catskills." "an hour ago!" muttered matt, rubbing his forehead. "it seems as though all this excitement had only just happened." "that's the way those dope balls act. i was afraid of 'em. and it wasn't so blooming pleasant for us fellows to stand out here while all that ruction was going on in the house. when one eye and his pal crashed through the window--or maybe it wasn't a window but a hole in the wall that was just patched up with boards--we all took after 'em. out close to the road they jumped on a couple of motor cycles--ours, by the looks of them--and were off a-smoking. when they came out of the cabin they had white things over their faces----" "masks," said matt. "they had them handy. but for that you'd have found them in the cabin along with goldstein and me. by the way, where _is_ goldstein?" "we left him in the house. we weren't in so much of a hurry to bring him to his senses as we were you." "and pryne--what's become of him?" "stretched out beside the diamond buyer." "did you find the eye of buddha?" "that's a dream, matt. no, we didn't find it. all we found was a satchel of money--the satchel goldstein had with him at the store in purling." "there were six of you--five with the constable. where are the other four?" "the constable miscalled the number," laughed mcglory, "so his talk would have a bigger effect. there were only four of us all told. you see, we left the driver of the car in purling to look after bunce when he showed up there. and he was here, all the time! sufferin' surprises! say, i was sure stumped when i heard the hottentot was in that cabin." "there were three besides you," went on matt, persisting in his attempt to get the matter of numbers straight in his mind, "and the constable has gone to purling. where are the other two?" "here they come," and mcglory pointed to a couple of chinamen, who at that moment emerged from the hut. matt stared and rubbed his eyes. "am i still under the influence of those glass balls?" he muttered, "or is that really tsan ti coming this way?" "it's the mandarin, fast enough," chuckled mcglory, "and the chink that's with him is sam wing." observing that matt had recovered his senses, tsan ti hastened forward. chapter xv. the eye of buddha. tsan ti was not particularly happy. he seemed pleased to meet matt once more, but underlying this pleasure was a deep and settled melancholy. "greetings, astonishing friend," said the mandarin. "you have performed actions never to be forgotten; imperishable deeds which----" "cut out the frills, tsan ti," interrupted matt, "and tell me where you went after joe and i left you at the wrecked car." "sam wing approached me while i was seeking exhaustively for the yellow cord, which i had lost and which i had the overwhelming desire to use. sam wing was ascending the mountain, traveling on foot, to gain the top and find me. he had a report to convey. he conveyed it. he had seen the aged mariner in purling, and he had come at once for me. i stopped for nothing--not even to explain my absence to you who had left me in such hurry. i went with sam wing forthwith, and we found some one to transport us to purling. there we watched out the night in vain, and toward morning repaired to the house of a poor person, who afforded us food and a couch on which to rest. i was resting when sam wing came to my side and declared there was a youth in the place who was hunting for the peace officer. i went out, hoping to meet the peace officer myself and ask for news of the sailor. imagine my marvelous astonishment upon discovering your distinguished friend. he wanted men and he could find few, so sam wing and myself accompanied him. accept my congratulations, eminent friend, upon your escape. it is with sorrow, however, that i view the flight of the sailor and that other, whom i saw, on a former momentous occasion, wearing a sun hat with a pugree. these, i imagine, assisted their escape out of the sense-destroying fumes." from his blouse, tsan ti developed two squares of white cloth with holes clipped in each to fit a pair of eyes. a strong odor of drugs accompanied the display of the masks. "it was objects similar to these," went on the mandarin in pensive retrospection, "with which the thieves covered their faces in the temple at honam. pah!" and he flung the bits of cloth from him in repulsion. "you were a long time getting here, joe," said matt, turning to his chum. "i was a long time getting the constable," answered joe, "and there wasn't another _hombre_ in the town who cared to take the risk of going with me. finally i found the constable, and then tsan ti and sam wing came our way. we started, in a rig the constable borrowed from in front of the general store." "you picked up the trail?" "tell me about that!" laughed mcglory. "sure we picked it up, pard. how could we have missed it?" "it is unfortunate," spoke up tsan ti gloomily, "that the yellow cord was lost at the time the devil car took fire. it was of great importance to me as the means of carrying out the invitation given by our gracious regent. the sailor and his confederate have fled, and the eye of buddha has gone with them. the ten thousand demons of misfortune continue to make me feel their displeasure. there is nothing left but the happy dispatch." "aw, cheer up," growled mcglory. "buy a string of laundries, somewhere, and tell your gracious regent to go hang." "i am bound by ancient ceremony to accept and use the cord," insisted tsan ti, mildly but firmly. "well, you've got a few days yet. don't use the cord until you have to." "i cannot use it until i find it, solicitous friend." "suppose you never find it?" "then kien lung will hunt for me and give me a second." "sufferin' heathens!" murmured mcglory, in disgust. matt got to his feet. "let's go and see how goldstein is getting along," he suggested. "what became of that satchel, joe?" "we left it in the house--thought that was the safest place for it." "we'll have to take care of that. it contains the money goldstein brought to use in buying the eye of buddha." together matt, mcglory, tsan ti and sam wing made their way back to the hut. just as they reached the door goldstein sprang to his feet, the buckthorn cane in his hand. "look at him!" exclaimed mcglory. "he's still locoed, matt, and in about the same state of mind you and i were when we repaired that bursted tire, rode to the mountain house, and went to sleep in the hammocks." the diamond merchant's face was full of anger and apprehension. his clouded faculties were still possessed of the notion, it seemed, that his satchel of money continued to be the object of grattan's designs. jumping at the log wall, goldstein struck a terrific blow with the head of the cane. "i hope he keeps hammering the wall," breathed the cowboy. "if he ever came at one of us like that we'd have to take him down and lash his hands and feet. gee, but he's vicious." again and again goldstein struck the logs with the cane. at last the head of the cane snapped and flew into fragments, and a glittering object flashed toward the door, struck sam wing and dropped downward. a gleam of sun caught the object, and it glowed like a huge drop of blood. a chattering screech went up from tsan ti, and forthwith he slumped to his knees and picked the object up in his trembling hands. startled chinese words came from sam wing; the mandarin answered, and there followed a frantic give and take of native gibberish, mostly whoops, grunts and falling inflections. "sufferin' gold mines!" cried mcglory. "say, pard, is that red thing the eye of buddha?" "it must be," answered matt excitedly, hurrying into the room and picking up the cane and some of the fragments of the head. "great spark plugs!" he exclaimed, examining the pieces. "what do you make out, pard?" demanded mcglory. "why," went on matt, "the head of the cane was hollow, _and the ruby was concealed in it_!" "no!" "fact! here, look for yourself. i wondered why grattan was so careful of that cane. the last thing i remember was seeing him rush at goldstein and try to get the cane away from him. goldstein had grabbed the stick and had knocked the box of glass balls out of grattan's hand with it. of course, at the time grattan tried to get the stick back, the balls were spilling their knock-out fumes all over the room, and he couldn't waste much time getting into his mask and lighting out. he had to leave the cane behind--it was either that or be laid out by the glass balls and captured. perhaps he thought we'd never find out the ruby was in the cane and that he could come back later and recover it." "goldstein has smashed the mystery!" jubilated mcglory, "and when he comes to he won't know a thing about it." matt was dazed, and the two excited chinamen were still gabbling like a couple of frantic ducks; mcglory was walking around, rubbing his eyes, and goldstein was sitting on the stool undergoing the last stage of his awakening. "what's der matter?" inquired the diamond broker. "where is--what is---ach, der satchel, der satchel!" his eyes had alighted on the grip, and he shot off the stool and gathered up the precious object. his first move was to open it and make sure of the contents. "where is grattan?" he asked, with a sudden tremor. "where is der feller that wanted to steal my money?" "you don't have to fret about him any more," said mcglory. "he's lit out--in something of a hurry. i don't reckon he'll be back." "what a lucky escape, what a lucky escape!" chanted goldstein; "mein gracious, what a lucky escape!" matt, observing that tsan ti and sam wing were not yet done with their wild felicitations, strolled around the room. he saw the place where bunce and grattan had crashed through the wall. fire, at some time or other when the sugar makers were boiling their sap, had eaten into the logs, leaving a large hole which had been covered with boards. grattan and bunce, knowing about the weak spot in the wall, had chose to get out of the cabin in that way rather than by attempting to pass through the door. while matt was looking at the breach in the timbers, he heard a series of shouts from the chinamen. a glance in their direction gave him a fleeting glimpse of pryne, forcing his way through the door and over the heads of tsan ti and sam wing. "that tinhorn's getting away!" shouted mcglory. he would have chased after pryne had matt not gripped him by the shoulder and held him back. "let the fellow go," said matt. "he was roped into the game by grattan, and was only a tool, at the most. we've recovered the eye of buddha, and have saved goldstein's money for him, so i guess we're doing well enough." the rough way the chinamen had been treated by pryne appeared to have made them remember that there were others in the cabin besides themselves. tsan ti got up, balanced the ruby on the palm of his hand, and stepped toward matt, as happy a mandarin as could be found, in china or out of it. "see, estimable and glorious friend," he cried. "this is the eye of buddha, which caused me so much misfortune and came near to causing my death. it has been found, and but for you it would have been lost to me forever. my life is yours, illustrious one, my fortune, my lands--everything i own!" matt paid little heed to the mandarin's rapturous talk. his eyes were on the ruby, which was as large as a small hen's egg and of the true pigeon's blood color. its flashing beauty was marvelous to behold. "out of my goodness of heart," went on the mandarin, "and from no desire to insult, believe me, i shall present my eminent friend with a thousand dollars and his expenses. is it well, excellent one?" "quite well, thank you," laughed mcglory, answering for his chum. "here, tsan, take this and send it back to your gracious regent. tell him to use it on himself, and oblige." with that, the cowboy laid the ominous yellow cord across the mandarin's shoulders. chapter xvi. the broken hoodoo. the constable, in leaving the sugar camp for purling to do his telephoning, had taken his own rig. having finished his work in purling, he made his return journey to the sugar camp in the automobile which matt and mcglory had hired. a few words were enough to convince the driver of the car that it was useless for him to wait at the general store for the one-eyed sailor. the automobile could not ascend the rough hill road, but waited at the foot of the slope while the constable climbed to the sugar camp and informed those there that a conveyance was ready to take them wherever they wanted to go. pryne having suddenly recovered and bolted, only matt, mcglory, goldstein, and the two chinamen were in the hut. without loss of time they accompanied the constable down the long wooded slope. "what are the prospects for capturing bunce and grattan, officer?" inquired matt, while they were slipping toward the foot of the hill. "mighty poor," answered the constable, "if you want me to give it to you straight. but i've done everythin' i could. there ain't any telegraft line to purling, so i had to telephone my message to cairo. they're pretty much all over the hills by now." "then what makes you think bunce and grattan will get away?" "why, they'll be goin' so tarnation fast on them pesky machines there won't be any constable in the hills with an eye quick enough to recognize 'em from the description. anyhow, what do you care? the fat chinaman's happy, an' the jew's so glad he walks lop-sided. what is it to you whether them hoodlums git away or not?" "oh, hear him!" muttered mcglory. "it means three hundred cold, hard plunks to us, constable. the two pesky machines that took those tinhorns away have to be paid for by motor matt and pard mcglory." "do tell!" "if you hated to hear it as bad as i hate to tell it you wouldn't ask me to repeat." "noble sir," spoke up tsan ti, "you and your worshipful friend shall not be out a single tael. i, whom you have benefited, will pay for the go-devil machines. that, if you will allow me, comes in as part of your expenses." "now, by heck," said the constable, "that's what i call doin' the han'some thing. i've put in a leetle time myself, to-day," he added, "an' i cal-late i'm out nigh onto ten dollars. but i helped do some good, an' that's enough fer me." "here, exalted sir," observed the mandarin, and dropped a twenty-dollar gold piece into the constable's palm. "i don't believe i got any change," said the officer. "no change would be acceptable to me," answered tsan ti, with dignity. "waal, now, ain't i tickled? there's a dress in that fer s'manthy an' the kids. 'bliged to ye." "the old boy's beginning to get generous, matt," whispered mcglory. "maybe, after all, he really intends to fork over that thousand and expenses." "of course he does," said matt. when they reached the automobile, all six of them crowded into the car. seven passengers--counting the driver--made tight squeezing in accommodations built for five, but goldstein and the constable were dropped at purling, and comfort followed those who remained, thereon. goldstein, following his burst of ecstasy over the recovery of the satchel, had relapsed into a subdued condition. very likely he realized that he was under something of a cloud, inasmuch as he had come to purling to treat with a thief for the loot of a magnificent haul. goldstein remembered that grattan had not been at all backward in giving motor matt the details of everything connected with the eye of buddha, and the reflections of the diamond broker could not have been at all comfortable or reassuring. matt allowed the jew to go his way without a rebuke. he felt that the man had been punished enough; and, besides, he was the cause of their discovering the place where the ruby had been concealed. but for goldstein, the eye of buddha might never have been located. on the way to catskill from purling, matt gave an account of what had taken place in the old sugar camp. grattan had been at considerable pains to explain many things that had been dark to matt and his friends, and the king of the motor boys passed along the explanation. the history of the egyptian balls was particularly interesting to tsan ti, no less than other details connected with the robbery; and the way bunce had played tag up and down the mountainside with matt and mcglory held a deep fascination for the cowboy. "taking this little fracas by and large," observed mcglory, when matt had finished, "i think it's about the most novel piece of business i ever had anything to do with. it began with a lot of 'con' paper talk shoved at pard matt by tsan ti, and from the moment we met up with the mandarin there's been nothing to it but excitement, and a little uncertainty as to just where the lightning was going to strike next." "you two illustrious young men," said tsan ti gravely, "have laid me under staggering obligations. money may pay you for your loss of time, but nothing except my gratitude can requite you for the excellence of your service. you will hear from me through sam wing to-morrow." the boys got out of the automobile at the hotel, and matt had the car take tsan ti and sam wing up the mountain to the kaaterskill. "they're a pair of pretty good chinks, after all," said mcglory, "and i'm glad to think i had a little something to do with keeping the yellow cord from getting in its work on tsan ti." on the following day, tsan ti sent sam wing to catskill with a heavy canvas bag. "me blingee flom tsan ti," explained sam wing. "him takee choo-choo tlain fol san flisco, bymby ketchee boat fol china. heap happy." "he has a right to be happy," said mcglory. "how much did he have to put up for that wrecked motor car, sam?" asked matt. "twenty-fi' hunnerd dol'." "he went and stung him!" whooped mcglory. "the old robber." "no makee hurt. twenty-fi' hunnerd dol' all same tsan ti likee twenty-fi' cent to me. him plenty lichee man." when sam wing went away, matt and mcglory dumped the contents of the canvas sack out on the table. the money was all in gold, and totaled two thousand dollars, even. "he figured out expenses at a thousand dollars," remarked the cowboy. "they're 'way inside that figure." "he's the sort of fellow, joe," said matt, "who'd rather pay a man ten dollars when he only owed him five, than five when he owed ten." "sure! he's the clear quill, but he sure had me guessing, the way he jumped around. i'll bet he connected with more good, hard jolts on this trip to america than he ever encountered in his life before." "we came pretty near it, ourselves," laughed matt. "i can't remember that i ever had a more violent time." "it was some strenuous, and that's a fact. if you live a hundred years, pard, and drive automobiles all the while, you'll never scrape closer to kingdom come, and miss it, than you did when we came down the mountainside with the mandarin at the steering wheel." "i wouldn't go through that experience again for ten times the amount of money there was in that bag." "i wouldn't, either--not for the eye of buddha. there's no easy money in turning a trick for tsan ti. i reckon we earned all we got." the end. the next number (31) will contain motor matt's mariner; or, filling the bill for bunce. "buddha's eye"--the green patch--motor matt, trustee--bunce has a plan--bunce speaks a good word for himself--the home-made speeder--trapped--the cut-out under the ledge--between the eyes--the man from the "iris"--aboard the steam yacht--grattan's triumph--from the open port--landed, and strung--a crafty oriental--the mandarin wins. motor stories thrilling adventure motor fiction new york, september 18, 1909. terms to motor stories mail subscribers. (_postage free._) single copies or back numbers, 5c. each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 one year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =how to send money=--by post-office or express money-order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. at your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage-stamps in ordinary letter. =receipts=--receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. if not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. ormond g. smith, } george c. smith, } _proprietors_. street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city. a real pirate. "at the time i commenced following the sea," said old captain gifford, in relating a thrilling experience of his early life, "there were pirates all about the west indies, and the dread of them was always uppermost in a sailor's thoughts. we didn't mind the yellow fever. when a man died with that, he died--it was a visitation of providence, and his fate was to be thought upon calmly and sorrowfully; there was no horror in the reflection. but to be murdered--murdered upon the high seas--that was a thing which it made one sick to think of. "resistance on the part of a ship's crew, if unsuccessful, was certain death--and often, too, in the most cruel form; for the revengeful, drunken pirates, with their worst passions aroused by the conflict, would in such a case take delight in torturing their victims. and even where no opposition had been attempted, the plea that 'dead men tell no tales' was generally sufficient to insure the massacre of all on board. "so you see it was about as long as it was broad. there was very little encouragement to surrender. it was simply a question as to whether one would die fighting like a lion or be butchered on the deck like a sheep. "of course there were exceptions; but these were not frequent enough to inspire much hope in the event of capture. slaughter was the rule, and if not committed in every instance, the fortunate ones might thank their stars. "in those days we used to hear dreadful stories of such tragedies. sometimes these would come to light through the confessions of condemned pirates; while in other cases a single survivor of some hapless crew of a merchantman would relate the tale of the capture and death of his shipmates--he himself having been spared through some freak of the miscreants, perhaps to serve on board their vessel. "i commenced following the sea at the age of fifteen, making my first voyage in the brig _agenora_, captain christopher allen, bound to trinidad de cuba. in all there were nine persons belonging to her, being the captain, the two mates, and the cook, with five hands before the mast, counting a son of captain allen and myself. but, of course, i did not amount to much at that time. "young argo allen was seventeen, so that he had the advantage of me by two years, besides having made one voyage to the west indies. he was one of the best fellows that ever lived; and having learned on his first voyage to 'hand, reef, and steer' after a fashion, he was always ready to assist me to the extent of his knowledge. indeed, i think one young sailor generally feels a sort of pride in helping another who knows less than himself. "we had a long passage out, with calms and head winds, and argo and i talked much of pirates. he told me how scared he had been upon his former voyage, when the vessel was overtaken by a low, black schooner, which, upon coming up with her, sailed past within a cable's length, with a crew of fifty or sixty horrible-looking wretches staring at the brig in perfect silence. "'after getting a little ahead,' said argo, 'she tacked and came back. my hair rose right up then--it fairly lifted my hat! but she simply repassed us on the other side, and went off about her business.' "'how do you account for it all?' i asked. "'oh, that's easy enough,' he replied. 'we were outward bound, with a cargo of new england produce, and the pirates knew that we were not likely to have money on board. this was all that saved us; but i wouldn't be so scared again for the price of the brig!' "so argo allen had seen a real pirate, and it actually made me look up to him with a kind of admiring awe, not that i had any desire to meet with a like experience; but then it must, i thought, have been so thrilling--such a thing to think of and to tell of! "on arriving at trinidad, we disposed of our cargo at a very high price; while, on the other hand, our return invoice of molasses was purchased at an unusually low figure; so that, after loading for home, captain allen found that he had, above all expenses, a good three thousand dollars in doubloons. "meanwhile argo and i were greatly pleased at meeting with two of our townspeople, a mr. and mrs. howard; and it delighted us still more to learn that they were to take passage with us for the north. they had been sojourning in cuba for a number of months, but were now anxious to go home, as the yellow fever season had arrived and there were already many cases of it in the city. "although captain allen was in high spirits at having made such a profitable voyage, he felt some uneasiness at the idea of sailing with so much money on board. the pirates, he said, had their spies in all the cuban ports, and these secret agents, by watching the run of trade, could easily determine what vessels were likely to offer the most tempting booty. "at length, all being ready, and mr. and mrs. howard coming off to us, we hove up our anchor and made sail. the greatest danger, captain allen believed, would be close off the port, and so he had given out that we should probably remain three or four days longer. it may have been this which saved us from being molested at the start, and i think it was. "but now an unexpected misfortune came upon us. we sailed with the land breeze very early in the morning, and while we were getting under way one of our crew was taken down with the yellow fever. we were only a few miles clear of the land when another was attacked in the same manner, and before night the cook and second mate also took to their berths. we kept on, however, and indeed the course of the wind would have prevented us from returning had we thought of doing so. "there remained, capable of doing duty, only the captain and chief mate, one old seaman, argo, and myself; but captain allen said that should no more of us be disabled, the vessel could still be managed. as a last resort, he added, he might put into havana or key west. "on the second day we passed that famous resort of the west indian pirates, the isle of pines. the _agenora_ gave it a wide berth, i assure you; but our hearts were in our throats for the whole fifty miles of its coast line. it seemed as if the breeze were all the time threatening to die out and leave us becalmed there. however, we ran the gantlet in safety, and continued our course toward cape st. antonio, the most western point of cuba. "during the following night, the chief mate and the remaining seaman were both stricken with the fever, leaving only the captain and us two boys, together with our passenger, mr. howard, to handle the brig, with six dreadfully sick people on board. "this was a sad state of things; but the breeze was bright and fair, and we hoped to double cape st. antonio the next day, thus getting to the northward of cuba, after which it would be easy to reach havana. "on that day, however, it fell entirely calm, with a dense fog covering the sea, so that the vessel lay idle, heading by turns all around the compass. "we had by this time nearly come up with the cape, and it was a bad place to meet with a calm, for this headland was a notorious piratical rendezvous, almost as much so as the isle of pines. however, if we must lie helpless, the fog would be in our favor, the captain said. "in the meantime mrs. howard showed herself an extraordinary woman. she was only twenty-four years old--a mere girl, as it were, and a very beautiful one--but she seemed as if she knew just what to do and how to do it. she cooked for us who were well, and, in spite of her husband's remonstrances, braved all the danger of attending upon the sick, like a veritable florence nightingale. "after lasting for about twenty-four hours the fog disappeared and a light breeze sprang up. a current had taken us along for some miles, and we were directly off cape st. antonio. "at first no water craft of any description was to be seen, but presently we were startled at perceiving a small sloop-rigged vessel putting out from the land and making directly toward us. that she must be a pirate was beyond all question, as no other vessel would have been hiding in such a place. "looking through his glass, the captain saw that, in addition to her sails, she had out a number of long sweeps, or oars, and this at once told us that there was no possibility of escaping from her with the faint breeze which we had. "the _agenora_ carried two six-pounders and a good supply of small arms, yet, with only four of us to handle them, they offered but a forlorn hope against thirty or forty men, with probably a heavy pivot gun and other cannon. nevertheless, there was but one thing to do, and that was to fight to the death if necessary. "'my poor wife!' we heard mr. howard say to the captain; 'she shall never fall into the hands of those wretches while i have a single breath remaining.' "captain allen was pale, but very cool. he and mr. howard loaded the six-pounders, while we boys attended the muskets, putting heavy charges into all of them. "in a short time we were able to count the sweeps which the sloop had out. they were fourteen in number--seven on a side, with two men at each. this made twenty-eight men, besides the fellow at the tiller and six or seven others; so that there were at least thirty-five of them. the only cannon that we could see was one mounted amidships, and no doubt on a pivot. "as they got nearer we brought the _agenora_ around so that both the six-pounders would bear upon them, and then captain allen sighted one of the guns, while mr. howard stood by with a glowing portfire, ready to clap it upon the priming at the word. "'now,' said the captain presently, 'let it go!' "instantly there was a deafening bang! and the recoil of the gun fairly shook the brig. how we watched for the result! skip, skip, skip, went the shot from wave to wave, close to the sloop, yet without touching her. "almost before we could speak or think, a sheet of smoke burst from the pirate vessel, and 'pat, pat, pat,' right on board of us, came a charge of grape shot, and a twelve-pound ball--as we found afterward it must have been, from the hole it made in our bulwarks. "there was no time to lose, and our second cannon was fired as quickly as possible; but its contents missed the pirate, though they struck near enough to throw a shower of spray upon her deck. "again the miscreants fired in return, and redoubled their labor at the sweeps. the breeze was at last wholly gone, so that they had to depend entirely upon their strength of muscle, but of this they had enough and to spare. "argo and myself now opened fire with the muskets--'bang, bang, bang!' but i don't think we hit a single one of the villains. we saw them loading their big gun for a third shot, and it seemed as if, at such short range, they must tear us all to pieces. but captain allen and mr. howard were also loading--cramming one of the six-pounders to the muzzle with grape and cannon balls. "the pirates were just ready to fire as the captain ranged along his gun. "'quick, mr. howard!' he cried. 'touch her off!' "the report rang through our ears, and we could have shouted as we saw the effect. the sloop's long gun was tumbled over, and the men who managed it strewn mangled upon the deck. a number of the heavy sweeps dropped from the hands that held them, or were sent whirling into the air. i think this one discharge must have killed more than a dozen men. "for a few moments the victory appeared to be won; but just then the _agenora_ swung around in such a manner that neither of the cannons could be made to bear upon the enemy. the pirates saw our dilemma, and a few powerful strokes of their sweeps brought them right under our bow. "we ran forward to prevent them from boarding, but they swarmed over the bowsprit and head rail, cutlass in hand, till it was plain that two men and two boys were to be no match for such a number of desperate villains. in spite of all we could do, they were in a fair way to make short work with us, when on a sudden the scene was changed. "mrs. howard had anticipated such an emergency from the very first, and now, with a ladle in one hand and a kettle of boiling hot tar in the other, she ran to our relief. "the tar in such a state could be dipped up as easily as water, and in a quarter of a minute all the headmost pirates had got it full in their faces. filling their eyes and mouths, or running down their half-naked breasts, it must have put them in great agony. they went tumbling back upon those behind them, and as we quickly followed up our advantage, the deck was almost instantly cleared. "in a few minutes the sloop was making all possible speed away from us, but she had out only six sweeps instead of the fourteen with which she had commenced the chase. "all of us except mrs. howard had been more or less wounded, so that we did not attempt to molest the pirates as they retreated; while on their part, as the cannon we had knocked over for them was their only one, they could not fire upon us. i think they must have had nearly twenty men killed or disabled, to say nothing of those who were scalded by the hot tar. "i shall never forget how carefully mrs. howard bound up the ugly cuts in our arms. she seemed to know everything, just like one's own mother--and yet she was such a young woman! "we got a breeze soon after the fight was over, and were thankful for it, too, as we did not know how many more pirates there might be in the neighborhood. it took us around cape st. antonio, and two days later we arrived at key west, where we were put into quarantine. "of our yellow-fever patients, two died just as we dropped anchor, but the remaining four soon after began to improve and finally recovered. we lay in quarantine for a number of weeks, and then, with the vessel thoroughly fumigated, were permitted to sail for home. "upon our arrival there, the good old _agenora_ became an object of much curiosity, while as to mrs. howard, she was visited by a host of friends, anxious to hear the story of our peril from her own lips. "i am sometimes asked if in all my seafaring life it was ever my fortune to meet with a real pirate--one whom i knew to be such. to that question i think myself justified in saying 'yes'--and further, that it was an experience which i never desired to repeat." some queer philippine customs. the occurrence of a death in a filipino family in bulacan is the signal for an immediate celebration. "our brother has gone to a happy land, and we must rejoice," they say. relatives and friends are invited to come, and an orchestra is summoned. then the dancing and feasting begin, and continue until the time of the funeral, which in this climate takes place within twenty-four hours. those who have the means buy a black cloth-covered casket ornamented with spangles and bows of bright blue ribbon. the poor rent the "town coffin," a plain tin box, evidently designed for those of medium stature, for a year or two ago, in a funeral procession, the feet of the deceased, incased in bright blue plush chinelas, were seen sticking out at one end. the orchestra heads the procession through the streets, usually playing some lively air learned from the american soldiers. the popular funeral music is "a hot time," and it keeps the procession moving at a brisk pace. thursday is the favorite day for weddings in bulacan, as it is "bargain day" in the matrimonial market. on thursdays the priest marries many couples at a time, and consequently at less expense to each couple. four o'clock in the morning is the favorite hour. following the ceremony the newly married pair return to the bride's home, where dancing and feasting ensue till sundown. a bride to whose wedding feast some americans were invited had a romantic prelude to her nuptials. the parents of the bride were strenuously opposed to the match, owing to a strong disinclination on the part of the groom to do any sort of labor. so anastasia was sent up into the mountains to visit among relatives, and traces of her whereabouts were carefully concealed from felicidad, the groom elect. but felicidad, although too indolent to support his prospective bride, did not purpose that another should win her, so he summoned several faithful friends to his aid and began an active search. his devotion was rewarded with success, and three weeks later felicidad returned in triumph, with radiant anastasia borne aloft on the shoulders of two of his trusty friends. the following thursday, in company with fifteen other happy couples, they were married. high leaps by deer. mr. gordon boles, a sportsman who has hunted all over the world, has recorded some remarkable leaps taken by deer when pursued. his observations have been chiefly in his native district, exmoor, the land of "lorna doone," in india, and in northwestern canada. uncontrollable fear and partial blindness caused by long pursuit, he gives as reasons for deer taking leaps which usually end in death. once, while hunting with the devon and somerset stag hounds, he saw a hind leap 300 feet from a cliff to the seashore. she was dashed to pieces. in the excitement of the chase one of the hounds followed her. on another occasion a stag made a bold burst for the open, going straight for the sea. he came to the edge of a cliff, some hundreds of feet above the beach, and then dashed restlessly backward and forward, as if seeking a path to descend. he either missed his footing or jumped, and when the hunters came up he was seen below, a shattered mass, with the horns broken into small pieces. mr. boles is inclined to think that the stag committed suicide deliberately. another deer, which made the leap at about the same place, landed safely and swam out to sea. men pursued him in a boat and killed him. in india mr. boles wounded a sambur, which resembles somewhat the common deer. the sambur showed fight on a narrow path overhanging a precipice. mr. boles fired again, but in his excitement aimed too low, the ball passing beneath the deer and striking the ground just back of his hind legs. the deer turned and deliberately leaped over the height. a fine buck he wounded in northwestern canada, when pursued by the dog, jumped from a height of 100 feet into a shallow stream and broke his neck. latest issues buffalo bill stories the most original stories of western adventure. the only weekly containing the adventures of the famous buffalo bill. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 425--buffalo bill's balloon escape; or, out of the grip of the great swamp. 426--buffalo bill and the guerrillas; or, the flower girl of san felipe. 427--buffalo bill's border war; or, the mexican vendetta. 428--buffalo bill's mexican mix-up; or, the bullfighter's defiance. 429--buffalo bill and the gamecock; or, the red trail on the canadian. 430--buffalo bill and the cheyenne raiders; or, the spurs of the gamecock. 431--buffalo bill's whirlwind finish; or, the gamecock wins. 432--buffalo bill's santa fe secret; or, the brave of taos. 433--buffalo bill and the taos terror; or, the rites of the red estufa. 434--buffalo bill's bracelet of gold; or, the hidden death. 435--buffalo bill and the border baron; or, the cattle king of no man's land. brave and bold weekly all kinds of stories that boys like. the biggest and best nickel's worth ever offered. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 338--working his way upward; or, from footlights to riches. by fred thorpe. 339--the fourteenth boy; or, how vin lovell won out. by weldon j. cobb. 340--among the nomads; or, life in the open. by the author of "through air to fame." 341--bob, the acrobat; or, hustle and win out. by harrie irving hancock. 342--through the earth; or, jack nelson's invention. by fred thorpe. 343--the boy chief; or, comrades of camp and trail. by john de morgan. 344--smart alec; or, bound to get there. by weldon j. cobb. 345--climbing up; or, the meanest boy alive. by harrie irving hancock. 346--comrades three; or, with gordon keith in the south seas. by lawrence white, jr. 347--a young snake-charmer; or, the fortunes of dick erway. by fred thorpe. 348--checked through to mars; or, adventures in other worlds. by weldon j. cobb. 349--fighting the cowards; or, among the georgia moonshiners. by harrie irving hancock. 350--the mud river boys; or, the fight for penlow's mill. by john l. douglas. 351--grit and wit; or, two of a kind. by fred thorpe. motor stories the latest and best five-cent weekly. we won't say how interesting it is. see for yourself. =high art colored covers. thirty-two big pages. price, 5 cents.= 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. 25--motor matt's reverse; or, caught in a losing game. 26--motor matt's "make or break"; or, advancing the spark of friendship. 27--motor matt's engagement; or, on the road with a show. 28--motor matt's "short circuit"; or, the mahout's vow. 29--motor matt's make-up; or, playing a new rôle. _for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_ street & smith, publishers, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york =if you want any back numbers= of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. fill out the following order blank and send it to us with the price of the weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =postage stamps taken the same as money.= ________________________ _190_ _street & smith, 79-89 seventh avenue, new york city._ _dear sirs: enclosed please find_ ___________________________ _cents for which send me_: tip top weekly, nos. ________________________________ nick carter weekly, " ________________________________ diamond dick weekly, " ________________________________ buffalo bill stories, " ________________________________ brave and bold weekly, " ________________________________ motor stories, " ________________________________ _name_ ________________ _street_ ________________ _city_ ________________ _state_ ________________ a great success!! motor stories every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of motor matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the tip top weekly. matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them. _here are the titles now ready and those to be published_: 1--motor matt; or, the king of the wheel. 2--motor matt's daring; or, true to his friends. 3--motor matt's century run; or, the governor's courier. 4--motor matt's race; or, the last flight of the "comet." 5--motor matt's mystery; or, foiling a secret plot. 6--motor matt's red flier; or, on the high gear. 7--motor matt's clue; or, the phantom auto. 8--motor matt's triumph; or, three speeds forward. 9--motor matt's air ship; or, the rival inventors. 10--motor matt's hard luck; or, the balloon house plot. 11--motor matt's daring rescue; or, the strange case of helen brady. 12--motor matt's peril; or, cast away in the bahamas. 13--motor matt's queer find; or, the secret of the iron chest. 14--motor matt's promise; or, the wreck of the "hawk." 15--motor matt's submarine; or, the strange cruise of the "grampus." 16--motor matt's quest; or, three chums in strange waters. 17--motor matt's close call; or, the snare of don carlos. 18--motor matt in brazil; or, under the amazon. 19--motor matt's defiance; or, around the horn. 20--motor matt makes good; or, another victory for the motor boys. 21--motor matt's launch; or, a friend in need. 22--motor matt's enemies; or, a struggle for the right. 23--motor matt's prize; or, the pluck that wins. 24--motor matt on the wing; or, flying for fame and fortune. 25--motor matt's reverse; or, caught in a losing game. 26--motor matt's "make or break"; or, advancing the spark of friendship. 27--motor matt's engagement; or, on the road with a show. 28--motor matt's "short circuit"; or, the mahout's vow. to be published on september 6th. 29--motor matt's make-up; or, playing a new role. to be published on september 13th. 30--motor matt's mandarin; or, turning a trick for tsan ti. to be published on september 20th. 31--motor matt's mariner; or, filling the bill for bunce. to be published on september 27th. 32--motor matt's double-trouble; or, the last of the hoodoo. price, five cents at all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price. street & smith, _publishers_, new york transcriber's notes: added table of contents. italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=. throughout this text version, the oe ligature in manoeuvre has been expanded; the ligature is retained in the html version. page 6, changed "consarnin 'the" to "consarnin' the". page 9, removed unnecessary quote before "tsan ti turned sidewise." page 18, corrected "boy's" to "boys'" in "king of the motor boys'." page 24, removed unnecessary quote after "revolver leveled in his direction." page 29, corrected double to single quote before "dead men tell no tales." page 30, corrected typo angenora in "the _agenora_ carried two six-pounders". note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 43204-h.htm or 43204-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43204/43204-h/43204-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43204/43204-h.zip) transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [illustration: the big beast had a monkey in its mouth.] the motor boys in mexico or the secret of the buried city by clarence young author of "the racer boys series" and "the jack ranger series." new york cupples & leon co. * * * * * * * books by clarence young =the motor boys series= (_trade mark, reg. u. s. pat. of._) 12mo. illustrated price per volume, 60 cents, postpaid the motor boys or chums through thick and thin the motor boys overland or a long trip for fun and fortune the motor boys in mexico or the secret of the buried city the motor boys across the plains or the hermit of lost lake the motor boys afloat or the stirring cruise of the dartaway the motor boys on the atlantic or the mystery of the lighthouse the motor boys in strange waters or lost in a floating forest the motor boys on the pacific or the young derelict hunters the motor boys in the clouds or a trip for fame and fortune =the jack ranger series= 12mo. finely illustrated price per volume, $1.00, postpaid jack ranger's schooldays or the rivals of washington hall jack ranger's western trip or from boarding school to ranch and range jack ranger's school victories or track, gridiron and diamond jack ranger's ocean cruise or the wreck of the polly ann jack ranger's gun club or from schoolroom to camp and trail * * * * * * * copyright, 1906, by cupples & leon company the motor boys in mexico contents chapter page i. the professor in trouble 1 ii. the professor's story 9 iii. news of noddy nixon 17 iv. over the rio grande 24 v. a thief in the night 32 vi. into the wilderness 41 vii. a fierce fight 50 viii. the old mexican 58 ix. a view of the enemy 66 x. some tricks in magic 74 xi. noddy nixon's plot 82 xii. noddy schemes with mexicans 90 xiii. on the trail 98 xiv. the angry mexicans 105 xv. caught by an alligator 112 xvi. the laughing serpent 120 xvii. an interrupted kidnapping 127 xviii. the underground city 133 xix. in an ancient temple 141 xx. mysterious happenings 148 xxi. noddy has a tumble 156 xxii. face to face 163 xxiii. bob is kidnapped 171 xxiv. bob tries to flee 179 xxv. an unexpected friend 187 xxvi. the escape of maximina 195 xxvii. a strange message 204 xxviii. to the rescue 212 xxix. the fight 220 xxx. homeward bound 229 preface. _dear boys_: at last i am able to give you the third volume of "the motor boys series," a line of books relating the doings of several wide-awake lads on wheels, in and around their homes and in foreign lands. the first volume of this series, called "the motor boys," told how ned, bob and jerry became the proud possessors of motor-cycles, and won several races of importance, including one which gave to them, something that they desired with all their hearts, a big automobile touring car. having obtained the automobile, the lads were not content until they arranged for a long trip to the great west, as told in "the motor boys overland." on the way they fell in with an old miner, who held the secret concerning the location of a lost gold mine, and it was for this mine that they headed, beating out some rivals who were also their bitter enemies. while at the mine the boys, through a learned professor, learned of a buried city in mexico, said to contain treasures of vast importance. their curiosity was fired, and they arranged to go to mexico in their touring car, and the present volume tells how this trip was accomplished. being something of an automobile enthusiast myself, it has pleased me greatly to write this story, and i hope the boys will like "the motor boys in mexico" fully as well as they appeared to enjoy "the motor boys" and "the motor boys overland." clarence young. _may 28, 1906._ the motor boys in mexico. chapter i. the professor in trouble. "bang! bang! bang!" it was the sound of a big revolver being fired rapidly. "hi, there! who you shootin' at?" yelled a voice. miners ran from rude shacks and huts to see what the trouble was. down the valley, in front of a log cabin, there was a cloud of smoke. "who's killed? what's the matter? is it a fight?" were questions the men asked rapidly of each other. down by the cabin whence the shots sounded, and where the white vapor was rolling away, a chinaman was observed dancing about on one foot, holding the other in his hands. "what is it?" asked a tall, bronzed youth, coming from his cabin near the shaft of a mine on top of a small hill. "cowboys shooting the town up?" "i guess it's only a case of a chinaman fooling with a gun, jerry. shall i run down and take a look?" asked a fat, jolly, good-natured-looking lad. "might as well, chunky," said the other. "then come back and tell ned and me. my, but it's warm!" the stout youth, whom his companion had called chunky, in reference to his stoutness, hurried down toward the cabin, about which a number of the miners were gathering. in a little while he returned. "that was it," he said. "dan beard's chinese cook got hold of a revolver and wanted to see how it worked. he found out." "is he much hurt?" asked a third youth, who had joined the one addressed as jerry, in the cabin door. "one bullet hit his big toe, but he's more scared than injured. he yelled as if he was killed, ned." "well, if that's all the excitement, i'm going in and finish the letter i was writing to the folks at home," remarked jerry. the other lads entered the cabin with him, and soon all three were busy writing or reading notes, for one mail had come in and another was shortly to leave the mining camp. it was a bright day, early in november, though the air was as hot as if it was mid-summer, for the valley, which contained the gold diggings, was located in the southern part of arizona, and the sun fairly burned as it blazed down. the three boys, who had gone back into their cabin when the excitement following the accidental shooting of the chinaman had died away, were jerry hopkins, bob baker and ned slade. bob was the son of andrew baker, a wealthy banker; ned's father was a well-to-do merchant, and jerry was the son of a widow, julia hopkins. all of the boys lived in cresville, mass., a town not far from boston. the three boys had been chums through thick and thin for as many years as they could remember. a strange combination of circumstances had brought them to arizona, where, in company with jim nestor, an old western miner, they had discovered a rich gold mine that had been lost for many years. "there, my letter's finished," announced jerry, about half an hour after the incident of the shooting. "i had mine done an hour ago," said ned. "let's run into town in the auto and mail them. we need some supplies, anyhow," suggested bob. "all right," assented the others. the three boys went to the shed where their touring car, a big, red machine in which they had come west, was stored. ned cranked up, and with a rattle, rumble and bang of the exhaust, the car started off, carrying the three lads to rockyford, a town about ten miles from the gold diggings. "i wonder if we'll ever see noddy nixon or jack pender again?" asked bob, when the auto had covered about three miles. "and you might as well say bill berry and tom dalsett," put in jerry. "they all got away together. i don't believe in looking on the dark side of things, but i'm afraid we'll have trouble yet with that quartette." "they certainly got away in great shape," said bob. "i'll give noddy credit for that, if he is a mean bully." noddy nixon was an old enemy of the three chums. as has been told in the story of "the motor boys," the first book of this series, jerry, ned and bob, when at home in massachusetts, had motor-cycles and used to go on long trips together, on several of which they met noddy nixon, jack pender and bill berry, a town ne'er-do-well, with no very pleasant results. the boys had been able to secure their motor-cycles through winning prizes at a bicycle race, in which noddy was beaten. this made him more than ever an enemy of the motor boys. the latter, after having many adventures on their small machines, entered a motor-cycle race. in this they were again successful, defeating some crack riders, and the prize this time was a big, red touring automobile, the same they were now using. once they had an auto they decided on a trip across the continent, and their doings on that journey are recorded in the second book of this series, entitled "the motor boys overland." it was while out riding in their auto in cresville one evening that they came across a wounded miner in a hut. he turned out to be jim nestor, who knew the secret of a lost mine in arizona. while sick in the hut, nestor was robbed of some gold he carried in a belt. jack pender was the thief, and got away, although the motor boys chased him. with nestor as a guide, the boys set out to find the lost mine. on the way they had many adventures with wild cowboys and stampeded cattle, while once the auto caught fire. they made the acquaintance, on the prairies, of professor uriah snodgrass, a collector of bugs, stones and all sorts of material for college museums, for he was a naturalist. they succeeded in rescuing the professor from a mob of cowboys, who, under the impression that the naturalist had stolen one of their horses, were about to hang him. the professor went with the boys and nestor to the mine, and was still with them. the gold claim was not easily won. noddy nixon, pender, berry and one pud stoneham, a gambler, aided by tom dalsett, who used to work for nestor, attacked the motor boys and their friends and tried to get the mine away from them. however, jerry and his friends won out, the sheriff arrested stoneham for several crimes committed, and the others fled in noddy's auto, which he had stolen from his father, for noddy had left home because it was discovered that he had robbed the cresville iron mill of one thousand dollars, which crime jerry and his two chums had discovered and fastened on the bully. so it was no small wonder, after all the trouble noddy and his gang had caused, that jerry felt he and his friends might hear more of their unpleasant acquaintances. noddy, jerry knew, was not one to give up an object easily. in due time town was reached, the letters were mailed, and the supplies purchased. then the auto was headed back toward camp. about five miles from the gold diggings, ned, who sat on the front seat with bob, who was steering, called out: "hark! don't you hear some one shouting?" bob shut off the power and, in the silence which ensued, the boys heard a faint call. "help! help! help!" "it's over to the left," said ned. "no; it's to the right, up on top of that hill," announced jerry. they all listened intently, and it was evident that jerry was correct. the cries could be heard a little more plainly now. "help! hurry up and help!" called the voice. "i'm down in a hole!" the boys jumped from the auto and ran to the top of the hill. at the summit they found an abandoned mine shaft. leaning over this they heard groans issuing from it, and more cries for aid. "who's there?" asked jerry. "professor uriah snodgrass, a. m., ph.d., f. r. g. s., b. a. and a. b. h." "our old friend, the professor!" exclaimed ned. "how did you ever get there?" he called down the shaft. "never mind how i got here, my dear young friend," expostulated the professor, "but please be so kind as to help me out. i came down a ladder, but the wood was rotten, and when i tried to climb out, the rungs broke. have you a rope?" "run back to the machine and get one," said jerry to bob. "we'll have to pull him up, just as we did the day he fell over the cliff." in a few minutes bob came back with the rope. a noose was made in one end and this was lowered to the professor. "put it around your chest, under your arms, and we will haul you up," said jerry. "i can't!" cried the professor. "why not?" "can't use my hands." "are your arms broken?" asked the boy, afraid lest his friend had met with an injury. "no, my dear young friend, my arms are not broken. i am not hurt at all." "then, why can't you put the rope under your arms?" "because i have a very rare specimen of a big, red lizard in one hand, and a strange kind of a bat in the other. they are both alive, and if i let them go to fix the rope they'll get away, and they're worth five hundred dollars each. i'd rather stay here all my life than lose these specimens." "how will we ever get him up?" asked bob. chapter ii. the professor's story. for a little while it did seem like a hard proposition. the professor could not, or rather would not, aid himself. once the rope was around him it would be an easy matter for the boys to haul him out of the hole. "if we could lasso him it would be the proper thing," said bob. "i have it!" exclaimed ned. he began pulling up the rope from where it dangled down into the abandoned shaft. "what are you going to do?" asked jerry. "i'll show you," replied ned, adjusting the rope around his chest, under his arms. "now if you two will lower me into the hole i'll fasten this cable on the professor and you can haul him up. then you can yank me out, and it will be killing two birds with one stone." "more like hanging two people with one rope," laughed bob. but ned's plan was voted a good one. jerry and bob lowered him carefully down the shaft, until the slacking of the rope told that he was at the bottom. in a little while they heard a shout: "haul away!" it was quite a pull for the two boys, for, though the professor was a small man, he was no lightweight. hand over hand the cable was hauled until, at last, the shining bald head of the naturalist was observed emerging from the black hole of the abandoned mine. "easy, easy, boys!" he cautioned, as soon as his chin was above the surface. "i've got two rare specimens with me, and i don't want them harmed." when jerry and bob had pulled professor snodgrass up as far as possible, by means of the rope, the naturalist rested his elbows on the edge of the shaft and wiggled the rest of the way out by his own efforts. in one hand was a big lizard, struggling to escape, and in the other was a large bat, flapping its uncanny wings. "ah, i have you safe, my beauties!" exclaimed the collector. "you can't get away from me now!" he placed the reptile and bat in his green specimen-box, which was on the ground a short distance away, his face beaming with pride over his achievement, though in queer contrast to his disordered appearance, for he had fallen in the mud of the mine, his clothes were all dirt, his hat was gone and he looked as ruffled as a wet hen. "much obliged to you, boys," he said, coming over to bob and jerry. "i might have stayed there forever if you hadn't come along. seems as though i am always getting into trouble. do you remember the day i fell over the cliff with broswick and nestor, and you pulled us up with the auto?" "i would say we did," replied jerry. "but now we must pull ned up." once more the rope was lowered down the shaft and in a few minutes ned was hauled up safely. "it's almost as deep as our mine shaft," he said, as he brushed the dirt from his clothes, "but i didn't see any gold there, for it's as dark as a pocket. how did you come to go down, professor?" "i suspected i might get some specimens in such a place," replied the naturalist, "so i just went down, and i had excellent luck, most excellent!" "it's a good thing you think so," put in jerry. "most people would call it bad to get caught at the bottom of a mine shaft." "oh, it wasn't so bad," went on the professor, casting his eyes over the ground in search of any stray specimens of snakes or bugs. "i had my candle with me until i lost it, just after i caught the lizard and bat. i could have come up all right if the ladder hadn't broken. it was quite a hole, for a fact. it reminds me of another big hole i once heard about." "what hole is that?" asked ned. "oh, that's quite a story, all about mysteries, buried cities and all that." "tell us about it," suggested jerry. "to-night, maybe," answered the naturalist. "i want to get back to camp now and attend to my specimens." the boys and the professor, the latter carrying his box of curiosities, were soon in the auto and speeding back to the gold mine. that night, sitting around the camp-fire, which blazed cheerfully, the boys asked professor snodgrass to tell them the story he had hinted at when they hauled him from the mine shaft. "let me listen, too," said jim nestor, filling his pipe and stretching out on the grass. then, in the silence of the early night, broken only by the crackle of the flames and the distantly heard hoot of owls or howl of foxes, the naturalist told what he knew of a buried city of ancient mexico. "it was some years ago," he began, "that a friend of mine, a young college professor, was traveling in mexico. he visited all the big places and then, getting tired of seeing the things that travelers usually see, he struck out into the wilds, accompanied only by an old mexican guide. "he traveled for nearly a week, getting farther and farther away from civilization, until one night he found himself on a big level plain, at the extreme end of which there was a curiously shaped mountain. "he proposed to his guide that they camp for the night and proceed to the mountain the next day. the guide assented, but he acted so queerly that my friend wondered what the matter was. he questioned his companion, but all he could get out of him was that the mountain was considered a sort of unlucky place, and no one went there who could avoid it. "this made my friend all the more anxious to see what might be there, and he announced his intention of making the journey in the morning. he did so, but he had to go alone, for, during the night, his guide deserted him." "and what did he find at the mountain?" asked bob. "a gold mine?" "not exactly," replied the professor. "maybe it was a silver lode," suggested nestor. "there's plenty of silver in mexico." "it wasn't a silver mine, either," went on the professor. "all he found was a big hole in the side of the mountain. he went inside and walked for nearly a mile, his only light being a candle. then he came to a wall of rock. he was about to turn back, when he noticed an opening in the wall. it was high up, but he built a platform of stones up and peered through the opening." "what did he see?" asked jerry. "the remains of an ancient, buried city," replied professor snodgrass. "the mountain was nothing more than a big mound of earth, with an opening in the top, through which daylight entered. the shaft through the side led to the edge of the city. my friend gazed in on the remains of a place thousands of years old. the buildings were mostly in ruins, but they showed they had once been of great size and beauty. there were wide streets with what had been fountains in them. there was not a vestige of a living creature. it was as if some pestilence had fallen on the place and the people had all left." "did he crawl through the hole in the wall and go into the deserted city?" asked nestor, with keen interest. "he wanted to," answered the naturalist, "but he thought it would be risky, alone as he was. so he made a rough map of as much of the place as he could see, including his route in traveling to the mountain. then he retraced his steps, intending to organize a searching party of scientists and examine the buried city." "did he do it?" came from bob, who was listening eagerly. "no. unfortunately, he was taken ill with a fever as soon as he got back to civilization, and he died shortly afterward." "too bad," murmured jerry. "it would have been a great thing to have given to the world news of such a place in mexico. it's all lost now." "not all," said the professor, in a queer voice. "why not? didn't you say your friend died?" "yes; but before he expired he told me the story and gave me the map." "where is it?" asked nestor, sitting up and dropping his pipe in his excitement. "there!" exclaimed the professor, extending a piece of paper, which he had brought forth from his possessions. eagerly, they all bent forward to examine the map in the light of the camp-fire. the drawing was crude enough, and showed that the buried city lay to the east of the chain of sierra madre mountains, and about five hundred miles to the north of the city of mexico. "there's the place," said the professor, pointing with his finger to the buried city. "how i wish i could go there! it has always been my desire to follow the footsteps of my unfortunate friend. perhaps i might discover the buried city. i could investigate it, make discoveries and write a book about it. that would be the height of my ambition. but i'm afraid i'll never be able to do it." for a few minutes there was silence about the camp-fire, each one thinking of the mysterious city that was not so very many miles from them. suddenly ned jumped to his feet and gave a yell. "whoop!" he cried. "i have it! it will be the very thing!" chapter iii. news of noddy nixon. "what's the matter? bit by a kissin' bug?" asked nestor, as ned was capering about. "nope! i'm going to find that buried city," replied ned. "he's loony!" exclaimed the miner. "he's been sleepin' in the moonlight. that's a bad thing to do, ned." "i'm not crazy," spoke the boy. "i have a plan. if you don't want to listen to it, all right," and he started for the cabin. "what is it, tell us, will you?" came from the professor, who was in earnest about everything. "i just thought we might make a trip to mexico in the automobile, and hunt for that lost city," said ned. "we could easily make the trip. it would be fun, even if we didn't find the place, and the gold mine is now in good shape, so that we could leave, isn't it, jim?" "oh, i can run the mine, all right," spoke nestor. "if you boys want to go traipsin' off to mexico, why, go ahead, as far as i'm concerned. better ask your folks first, though. i reckon you an' the professor could make the trip, easy enough, but i won't gamble on your finding the buried city, for i've heard such stories before, an' they don't very often come true." "dearly as i would like to make the trip in the automobile, and sure as i feel that we could do it, i think we had better sleep on the plan," said professor snodgrass. "if you are of the same mind in the morning we will consider it further." "i'd like to go, first rate," came from jerry. "same here," put in bob. that night each of the boys dreamed of walking about in some ancient towns, where the buildings were of gold and silver, set with diamonds, and where the tramp of soldiers' feet resounded on the paved courtyards of the palaces of the montezumas. "waal," began nestor, who was up early, making the coffee, when the boys turned out of their bunks, "air ye goin' to start for mexico to-day, or wait till to-morrow?" "don't you think we could make the trip?" asked jerry, seriously. "oh, you can make it, all right, but you'll have troubles. in the first place, mexico ain't the united states, an' there's a queer lot of people, mostly bad, down there. you'll have to be on the watch all the while, but if you're careful i guess you'll git along. but come on, now, help git breakfust." through the meal, though the boys talked little, it was evident they were thinking of nothing but the trip to mexico. "i'm going to write home now and find if i can go," said ned. jerry and bob said they would do the same, and soon three letters were ready to be sent. after their usual round of duties at the mine, which consisted in making out reports, dealing out supplies, and checking up the loads of ore, the boys went to town in the auto to mail their letters. it was a pleasant day for the trip, and they made good time. "it will be just fine if we can go," said bob. "think of it, we may find the buried city and discover the stores of gold hidden by the inhabitants." "i guess all the gold the mexicans ever had was gobbled up by the spaniards," put in jerry. "but we may find a store of curios, relics and other things worth more than gold," added ned. "if we take the professor with us that's what he would care about more than money. i do hope we can go." "it's going to be harder to find than the lost gold mine was," said jerry. "that map the professor has isn't much to go by." "oh, it will be fun hunting for the place," went on bob. "we may find the city before we know it." in due time the boys reached town and mailed their letters. there was some excitement in the village over a robbery that had occurred, and the sheriff was organizing a posse to go in search of a band of horse thieves. "don't you want to go 'long?" asked the official of the boys, whom he knew from having aided them in the battle at the mine against noddy nixon and his friends some time before. "come along in the choo-choo wagon. i'll swear you in as special deputies." "no, thanks, just the same," jerry said. "we are pretty busy up at the diggings and can't spare the time." "like to have you," went on the sheriff, genially. "you could make good time in the gasolene gig after those hoss thieves." but the boys declined. they had been through enough excitement in securing the gold mine to last them for a while. "we must stop at the store and get some bacon," said ned. "nestor told me as we were coming away. there's none at the camp." bidding the sheriff good-by, and waiting until he had ridden off at the head of his forces, the boys turned their auto toward the general store, located on the main street of rockyford. "howdy, lads!" exclaimed the proprietor, as he came to the door to greet them. "what is it to-day, gasolene or cylinder oil?" "bacon," replied jerry. "got some prime," the merchant said. "best that ever come off a pig. how much do you want?" "twenty pounds will do this time," answered jerry. "we may not be here long, and we don't want to stock up too heavily." "you ain't thinkin' of goin' back east, are ye?" exclaimed the storekeeper. "more likely to go south," put in ned. "we were thinking of mexico." "you don't say so!" cried the vendor of bacon and other sundries. "got another gold mine in sight down there?" "no; but----" and then ned subsided, at a warning punch in the side from jerry, who was not anxious to have the half-formed plans made public. "you was sayin'----" began the storekeeper, as if desirous of hearing more. "oh, we may take a little vacation trip down into mexico," said jerry, in a careless tone. "we've been working pretty hard and we need a rest. but nothing has been decided yet." "mexico must be quite a nice place," went on the merchant. "what makes you think so?" asked bob. "i heard of another automobilin' party that went there not long ago." "who was it?" spoke jerry. "some chap named dixon or pixon or sixon, i forget exactly what it was." "was it nixon?" asked jerry. "that's it! noddy nixon, i remember now. he had a chap with him named perry or ferry or kerry or----" "bill berry, maybe," suggested bob. "that was it! berry. queer what a poor memory i have for names. and there was another with him. let's see, i have it; no, that wasn't it. oh, yes, hensett!" "you mean dalsett," put in ned. "that's it! dalsett! and there was another named jack pender. there, i bet i've got that right." "you have," said jerry. "you say they went to mexico?" "you see, it was this way," the storekeeper went on. "it was about three weeks ago. they come up in a big automobile, like yours, an' bought a lot of stuff. i kind of hinted to find out where they was headed for, an' all the satisfaction i got was that that there nixon feller says as how he guessed mexico would be the best place for them, as the united states government hadn't no control down there. then one of the others says mexico would suit him. so i guess they went. now, is there anything else i can let you have?" "thanks, this will be all," replied jerry, paying for the bacon. the boys waited until they were some distance on the road before they spoke about the news the storekeeper had told them. "i wouldn't be a bit surprised if noddy and his gang had gone to mexico," said ned. "that's the safest place for them, after what they did." "i wish they weren't there, if we are to take a trip in that country," put in bob. "it's a big place, i guess they won't bother us," came from jerry. but he was soon to find that mexico was not big enough to keep noddy and his crowd from making much trouble and no little danger for him and his friends. they arrived at camp early in the afternoon and told nestor the news they had heard. he did not attach much importance to it, as he was busy over an order for new mining machinery. there was plenty for the boys to do about camp, and soon they were so occupied that they almost forgot there was such a place as mexico. chapter iv. over the rio grande. a week later, during which there had been busy days at the mining camp, the boys received answers to their letters. they came in the shape of telegrams, for the lads had asked their parents to wire instead of waiting to write. each one received permission to make the trip into the land of the montezumas. "hurrah!" yelled bob, making an ineffectual attempt to turn a somersault, and coming down all in a heap. "what's the matter?" asked nestor, coming out of the cabin. "wasp sting ye?" "we can go to mexico!" cried ned, waving the telegram. "same thing," replied the miner. "ye'll git bit by sand fleas, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, horse-flies an' rattlesnakes, down there. better stay here." "is it as bad as that?" asked bob. "if it is i'll get the finest collection of bugs the college ever saw," put in professor snodgrass. "well, it may not be quite as bad, but it's bad enough," qualified nestor. "but don't let me discourage you. go ahead, this is a free country." so it was arranged. the boys decided they would start in three days, taking the professor with them. "and we'll find that buried city if it's there," put in ned. the next few days were busy ones. at nestor's suggestion each one of the boys had a stout money-belt made, in which they could carry their cash strapped about their waists. they were going into a wild country, the miner told them, where the rights of people were sometimes disregarded. then the auto was given a thorough overhauling, new tires were put on the rear wheels, and a good supply of ammunition was packed up. in addition, many supplies were loaded into the machine, and professor snodgrass got an enlarged box made for his specimens, as well as two new butterfly nets. the boys invested in stout shoes and leggins, for they felt they might have to make some explorations in a wild country. a good camp cooking outfit was taken along, and many articles that nestor said would be of service during the trip. "your best way to go," said the miner, "will be to scoot along back into new mexico for a ways, then take over into texas, and strike the rio grande below where the conchas river flows into it. this will save you a lot of mountain climbing an' give you a better place to cross the rio grande. at a place about ten miles below the conchas there is a fine flat-boat ferriage. you can take the machine over on that." the boys promised to follow this route. final preparations were made, letters were written home, the auto was gone over for the tenth time by jerry, and having received five hundred dollars each from nestor, as their share in the mine receipts up to the time they left, they started off with a tooting of the auto horn. "that's more money than i ever had at one time before," said bob, patting his money-belt as he settled himself comfortably down in the rear seat of the car, beside professor snodgrass. "money is no good," said the naturalist. "no good?" "no; i'd rather catch a pink and blue striped sand flea, which is the rarest kind that exists, than have all the money in the world. if i can get one of them or even a purple muskrat, and find the buried city, that will be all i want on this earth." "i certainly hope we find the buried city," spoke up ned, who was listening to the conversation, "but i wouldn't care much for a purple muskrat." "well, every one to his taste," said the professor. "we may find both." the journey, which was to prove a long one, full of surprises and dangers, was now fairly begun. the auto hummed along the road, making fast time. that night the adventurers spent in a little town in new mexico. their arrival created no little excitement, as it was the first time an auto had been in that section. such a crowd of miners and cowboys surrounded the machine that jerry, who was steering, had to shut off the power in a hurry to avoid running one man down. "i thought maybe ye could jump th' critter over me jest like they do circus hosses," explained the one who had nearly been hit by the car. jerry laughingly disclaimed any such powers of the machine. two days later found them in texas, and, recalling nestor's directions about crossing the rio grande, they kept on down the banks of that mighty river until they passed the junction where the conchas flows in. so far the trip had been without accident. the machine ran well and there was no trouble with the mechanism or the tires. just at dusk, one night, they came to a small settlement on the rio grande. they rode through the town until they came to a sort of house-boat on the edge of the stream. a sign over the entrance bore the words: ferry here. "this is the place we're looking for, i guess," said jerry. he drove the machine up to the entrance and brought it to a stop. a dark-featured man, with a big scar down one side of his face, slouched to the door. "well?" he growled. "we'd like to be ferried over to the other side," spoke jerry. "come to-morrow," snarled the man. "we don't work after five o'clock." "but we'd like very much to get over to-night," went on jerry. "and if it's any extra trouble we'd be willing to pay for it." "that's the way with you rich chaps that rides around in them horseless wagons," went on the ferrymaster. "ye think a man has got to be at yer beck an' call all the while. i'll take ye over, but it'll cost ye ten dollars." "we'll pay it," said jerry, for he observed a crowd of rough men gathering, whose looks he did not like, and he thought he and his friends would be better off on the other side of the stream, on mexican territory. "must be in a bunch of hurry," growled the man. "ain't tryin' to git away from th' law, be ye?" "not that we know of," laughed jerry. "looks mighty suspicious," snarled the man. "but, come on. run yer shebang down on the boat, an' go careful or you'll go through the bottom. the craft ain't built to carry locomotives." jerry steered the car down a slight incline onto a big flat boat, where it was blocked by chunks of wood so that it could not roll forward or backward. by this time the ferrymaster and his crew had come down to the craft. they were all rather unpleasant-looking men, with bold, hard faces, and it was evident that each one of the five, who made up the force that rowed the boat across the stream, was heavily armed. they wore bowie-knives and carried two revolvers apiece. but the sight of armed men was no new one to the boys since their experience in the mining camp, and they had come to know that the chap who made the biggest display of an arsenal was usually the one who was the biggest coward, seldom having use for a gun or a knife. "all ready?" growled the ferryman. "all ready," called jerry. he and the other boys, with the professor, had alighted from the auto and stood beside it on the flat boat. pulling on the long sweeps, the men sent the boat out into the stream, which, at this point, was about a mile wide. once beyond the shore the force of the current made itself felt, and it was no easy matter to keep the boat headed right. every now and then the ferryman would cast anxious looks at the sky, and several times he urged the men to row faster. "do you think it is going to storm, my dear friend?" asked the professor, in a kindly and gentle voice. "think it, ye little bald-headed runt! i know it is!" exploded the man. "and if it ketches us out here there's goin' to be trouble." the sky was blacking up with heavy clouds, and the wind began to blow with considerable force. the boat seemed to make little headway, though the men strained at the long oars. "row, ye lazy dogs!" exclaimed the pilot. "do ye want to upset with this steam engine aboard? row, if ye want to git ashore!" the men fairly bent the stout sweeps. the wind increased in violence, and quite high waves rocked the ferryboat. the sky was getting blacker. jagged lightning came from the clouds, and the rumble of thunder could be heard. "row, i tell ye! row!" yelled the pilot, but the men could do no more than they were doing. the big boat tossed and rocked, and the automobile started to slide forward. "fasten it with a rope!" cried jerry, and aided by his companions they lashed the car fast. "look out! we're in for it now!" shouted the ferryman. "here comes the storm!" with a wild burst of sky artillery, the clouds opened amid a dazzling electrical display, and the rain came down in torrents. at the same time the wind increased to hurricane force, driving the boat before it like a cork on the waves. three of the men lost their oars, and the craft, with no steerage way, was tossed from side to side. then, as there came a stronger blast of the gale, the boat was driven straight ahead. "we're going to hit something!" yelled jerry, peering through the mist of rain. "hold fast, everybody!" the next instant there was a resounding crash, and the sound of breaking and splintering wood. [illustration: the next instant there was a resounding crash.] chapter v. a thief in the night. the shock was so hard that every one on the ferryboat was knocked down, and the auto, breaking from the restraining ropes, ran forward and brought up against the shelving prow of the scow. "here, where you fellers goin'?" demanded a voice from amid the scene of wreckage and confusion. "what do ye mean by tryin' t' smash me all to splinters?" at the same time this remonstrance was accompanied by several revolver shots. then came a volley of language in choice spanish, and the noise of several men chopping away at planks and boards. the wind continued to blow and the rain to fall, while the lightning and thunder were worse than before. but the ferryboat no longer tossed and pitched on the storm-lashed river. it remained stationary. "now we're in for it," shouted the ferryman, as soon as he had scrambled to his feet. "a nice kettle of fish i'm in for takin' this automobile over on my boat!" "what has happened?" asked jerry, trying to look through the mist of falling rain, and seeing nothing but a black object, as large as a house, looming up before him. "matter!" exclaimed the pilot. "we've gone and smashed plumb into don alvarzo's house-boat and done no end of damage. wait until he makes you fellers pay for it." "it wasn't our fault," began jerry. "you were in charge of the ferryboat. we are only passengers. besides, we couldn't stop the storm from coming up." "tell that to don alvarzo," sneered the ferryman. "maybe he'll believe you. but here he comes himself, and we can see what has happened." several mexicans bearing lanterns now approached. at their head was a tall, swarthy man, wearing a big cloak picturesquely draped over his shoulders, velvet trousers laced with silver, and a big sombrero. by the lantern light it could be seen that the ferryboat had jammed head-on against the side of a large house-boat moored on the mexican side of the rio grande. so hard had the scow rammed the other craft that the two were held together by a mass of splintered wood, the front of the ferryboat breaking a hole in the side of the house-boat and sticking there. the automobile had nearly gone overboard. don alvarzo began to speak quickly in spanish, pointing to the damage done. "i beg your pardon," said jerry, taking off his cap and bowing in spite of the rain that was still coming down in torrents. "i beg your pardon, seã±or, but if you would be so kind as to speak in english we could understand it better." "certainly, my dear young sir," replied don alvarzo, bowing in his turn, determined not to be outdone by an _americano_. "i speak english also. but what is this? _diablo!_ i am taking my meal on my house-boat. i smoke my cigarette, and am thankful that i am not out in the storm. presto! there comes a crash like unto that the end of the world is nigh! i rise! i run! i fire my revolver, thinking it may be robbers! my _americano_ manager he calls out! now, if you please, what is it all about?" "the storm got the best of the ferryboat," said jerry. "my friends and myself, including professor uriah snodgrass, of whom you may have heard, for he is a great scientist----" "i salute the professor," interrupted don alvarzo, bowing to the naturalist. "well, we are going to make a trip through mexico," went on jerry. "we engaged this man," pointing to the ferrymaster, "to take us over the river in his boat. unfortunately we crashed into yours. it was not our fault." angry cries from the mexicans who stood in a half circle about don alvarzo on the deck of the house-boat showed that they understood this talk, but did not approve of it. "_americanos_ pigs! make pay!" called out one man. "we're not pigs, and if this accident is our fault we will pay at once," said jerry, hotly. "there, there, seã±or," said the don, motioning to his man to be quiet. "we will consider this. it appears that you are merely passengers on the ferryboat. the craft was in charge of seã±or jenkins, there, whom i very well know. he will pay me for the damage, i am sure." "you never made a bigger mistake in your life!" exclaimed jenkins. "if there's any payin' to be done, these here automobile fellers will have to do it. i'm out of pocket now with chargin' 'em only ten dollars, for three of my oars are lost." "very well, then, we will let the law take its course," said the don. "here!" he called to his men, "take the ferry captain into custody. we'll see who is to pay." "rather than have trouble and delay we would be willing to settle for the damages," spoke up jerry. "how much is it?" "i will have to refer you to seã±or jones, my manager," said the mexican. "what's all the row about?" interrupted a voice, and a tall, lanky man came forward into the circle of lantern light. "people can't expect to smash boats an' not pay for 'em." "we are perfectly willing to pay," said jerry. "well, if there ain't my old friend professor snodgrass!" cried jones, jumping down on the flat-boat and shaking hands with the naturalist. "well, well, this is a sight for sore eyes. i ain't seen ye since i was janitor in your laboratory in wellville college. how are ye?" the professor, surprised to meet an acquaintance under such strange circumstances, managed to say that he was in good health. "well, well," went on jones, "i'll soon settle this. look here, don alvarzo," he went on, "these is friends of mine. if there's any damage----" "oh, i assure you, not a penny, not a penny!" exclaimed the mexican. "i regret that my boat was in their way. i beg a thousand pardons. say not a word more, my dear professor and young friends, but come aboard and partake of such poor hospitality as don miguel fernandez alvarzo can offer. i am your most humble servant." the boys and the professor were glad enough of the turn events had taken. at a few quick orders from jones and the don, the mexicans and the ferry captain's crew backed the scow away from the house-boat. a landing on shore was made, the automobile run off, and the ferryman having been paid his money, with something extra for the lost oars, pulled off into the rain and darkness, growling the while. "now you must come in out of the rain," said don alvarzo, as soon as the auto had been covered with a tarpaulin, carried in case of bad weather. "we can dry and feed you, at all events." it was a pleasant change from the storm outside to the warm and well-lighted house-boat. the thunder and lightning had ceased, but the rain kept up and the wind howled unpleasantly. "i regret that your advent into this wonderful land of mexico should be fraught with such inauspicious a beginning as this outburst of the elements," spoke don alvarzo, with a bow, as he ushered his guests into the dining-room. "oh, well, we're used to bad weather," said bob, cheerfully. in a little while the travelers had divested themselves of their wet garments and donned dry ones from their valises that had been brought in from the auto. soon they sat down to a bountiful meal in which red peppers, garlic and frijoles, with eggs and chicken, formed a prominent part. jones, the don's manager, ate with them, and told how, in his younger days, he had worked at a college where professor snodgrass had been an instructor. supper over, they all gathered about a comfortable fire and, in answer to questions from don alvarzo, the boys told something of their plans, not, however, revealing their real object. "i presume you are searching for silver mines," said the don, with a laugh and a sly wink. "believe me, all the silver and gold, too, is taken out of my unfortunate country. you had much better go to raising cattle. now, i have several nice ranches i could sell you. what do you say? shall we talk business?" but jerry, assuming the rã´le of spokesman, decided they had no inclination to embark in business just yet. they might consider it later, he said. the don looked disappointed, but did not press the point. the evening was passed pleasantly enough, and about nine o'clock, as the travelers showed signs of fatigue, jones suggested that beds might be agreeable. "i am sorry i cannot give you sleeping apartments together," remarked the don. "i can put two of you boys in one room, give the professor another small room, and the third boy still another. it is the best arrangement i can make." "that will suit us," replied jerry. "ned and i will bunk together." "very well; if you will follow my man he will escort you to your rooms," went on the mexican. "perhaps the professor will sit up and smoke." the naturalist said he never smoked, and, besides, he was so tired that bed was the best place for him. so he followed the boys, and soon the travelers were lighted to their several apartments. ned and jerry found themselves together, the professor had a room at one end of a long gangway and bob an apartment at the other end. good-nights were called, and the adventurers prepared to get whatever rest they might. as ned and jerry were getting undressed they heard a low knock on their door. "who's there?" asked jerry. "hush! not so loud!" came in cautious tones. "this is jones. keep your guns handy, that's all. i can't tell you any more," and then the boys heard him moving away. "well, i must say that's calculated to induce sleep," remarked ned. "keep your guns handy! i wonder if we've fallen into a robber's den?" "i don't like the looks of things," commented jerry. "the don may be all right, and probably is, but he has a lot of ugly-looking mexicans on his boat. i guess we'll watch out. i hope jones will warn the others." there came a second knock on the door. "what is it?" called jerry, in a whisper. "i've warned your friends," replied jones. "now watch out. i can't say any more." his footsteps died away down the gangway. jerry and ned looked at each other. "i guess we'll sit up the rest of the night," said ned. they started their vigil. but they were very tired and soon, before either of them knew it, they were nodding. several times they roused themselves, but nature at length gained the mastery and soon they were both stretched out asleep on the bed. about three o'clock in the morning there came a cautious trying of the door of the room where ned and jerry were sleeping. soft footsteps sounded outside. if ever the boys needed to be awake it was now, for there was a thief in the night stealing in upon them. chapter vi. into the wilderness. jerry had a curious dream. he thought he was back in cresville and was playing a game of ball. he had reached second base safely and was standing there when the player on the other side grabbed him by his belt and began to pull him away. "here! stop that! it's not in the game!" exclaimed jerry, struggling to get away. so real was the effort that he awakened. he looked up, and there, standing over him in the darkness, was a dim form. "silence!" hissed a voice. "one move and i'll kill you. remain quiet and you shall not be harmed!" jerry had sense enough to obey. he was wide awake now and knew that he was at the mercy of a mexican robber. the man was struggling to undo the lad's money-belt about his waist, and it was this that had caused the boy's vivid dream. jerry had been kicking his feet about rather freely, but now he stretched out and submitted to the mauling to which the robber was subjecting him. if only ned would awake, jerry thought, for ned, he knew, had his revolver ready in his hand. with a yank the thief took off jerry's belt containing the money. "lie still or you die!" the fellow exclaimed. then he moved over to where ned reclined on the bed. jerry could see more plainly now, for the storm had ceased, the moon had risen and a stray beam came in the side window of the house-boat. the robber stretched out his hand to ned's waist. he was about to reach under the coat and unbuckle the money-belt, when ned suddenly sat upright. in his hand he held his revolver, which he pointed full in the face of the marauder. "drop that knife!" exclaimed ned, for the mexican held a sharp blade in his hand. "bah!" the fellow exclaimed, but the steel fell with a clang to the floor. "now lay the money-belt on the bed, if you don't want me to shoot!" said the boy, pushing the cold steel of the weapon against the mexican's face. "pardon, seã±or, it was all a joke! don't shoot!" the fellow uttered, in a trembling voice, at the same time tossing the belt over to jerry, who had drawn his own revolver from under the pillow where he had placed it. "light the candle, jerry," went on ned, "while i keep him covered with the gun. we'll see what sort of a chap he is." jerry rose to find matches. but the robber did not wait for this. with a bound he leaped to the window. one jump took him through, and a second later a splash in the river outside told how he had escaped. ned ran to the casement and fired two shots, not with any intention of hitting the man, but to arouse his friends. in an instant there was confused shouting, lights gleamed in several rooms, and don alvarzo came hurrying in. "what's the matter? what is it all about? is any one killed?" he cried. "nothing much has happened," said ned, as coolly as possible under the circumstances. "a burglar got in the room and got out again." "a burglar? a thief? impossible! in my house-boat? where did he go? did he get anything?" "he got jerry's money-belt," said ned, "but----" "a money-belt! santa maria! was there much in it?" and ned thought he saw a gleam come into the don's eyes. "oh, he didn't get it to keep!" went on jerry. "we both fell asleep, and the fellow robbed jerry first. i was awakened by feeling jerry accidentally kick me. i saw the robber take his belt, but when he came for mine i was ready for him. i made him give jerry's back----" "made him give it back!" exclaimed don alvarzo, and ned fancied he detected disappointment in his host's face. "you are a brave lad. where did the fiend go?" "out of the window," answered ned. "i fired at him to give him a scare." "i am disgraced that such a thing should happen in my house!" exclaimed the don, and this time it was jerry who noticed jones, the american manager, winking one eye as he stood behind his employer. "i am disgraced," went on the mexican. "but never mind, i shall inform the authorities and they will hang every robber they catch to please me." "i'm robbed! i'm robbed!" exclaimed professor snodgrass, bursting into the room. he was attired in blue pajamas, and his bald head was shining in the candle light. "what did they get from you?" asked the don, his face once more showing interest. "the rascals took three fine specimens of sand fleas from me!" exclaimed the naturalist. "the loss is irreparable!" "_diablo!_" exclaimed the don, under his breath. "three sand fleas! ah, these crazy _americanos_!" "i fancy you can get more, professor," said jones, with a laugh. "well, there seems to be no great damage done. i reckon we can all go back to bed now." the servants, who had been aroused by the commotion, went back to their rooms. in a little while the don, with many and profuse apologies, withdrew, and the professor and bob returned to their apartments. jones was the last to go. "i told you to be on the watch," he whispered, as he prepared to leave. "i overheard some of the rascals making up a game to relieve you of some of your cash. i wouldn't say the don was in on it, but the sooner you get out of this place the better. you can go to sleep now. there is no more danger. lucky one of you happened to wake up in time or you'd have been cleaned out. good-night." "good-night," said ned and jerry, as they locked their door, which had been opened by false keys. they went to bed and slept soundly until daybreak, in spite of the excitement. nor were they disturbed again. don alvarzo talked of nothing but the attempted robbery the next morning at breakfast. he declared he had sent one of his men post-haste to inform the authorities, who, he said, would dispatch a troop of soldiers to search for the miscreant. "i am covered with confusion that my guests should be so insulted," he said. but, somehow, his voice did not ring true. the boys and the professor, however, thanked him for his consideration and hospitality. "i think we must be traveling now," announced jerry. "will you not pass another night under my roof?" asked the don. "i promise you that you will not be awakened by robbers again." "no, thank you," said jerry. afterward, he said the don might carry out his promise too literally, and take means to prevent them from waking if thieves did enter their rooms. so, amid protestations that he was disappointed at the shortness of their stay, and begging them to come and see him again, the don said farewell. "i think, perhaps, we ought to pay for the damage to your boat," said jerry, not wishing to be under any obligations to the mexican. "do not insult me, i beg of you!" exclaimed the don, and he really seemed so hurt that jerry did not press it. then, with a toot of the horn, the auto started off on the trip through mexico. it was a beautiful day, and the boys were enchanted with the scenery. behind them lay the broad rio grande, while off to the right were the foothills that increased in height and size until they became the mighty mountains. the foliage was deep green from the recent shower, and the sun shone, making the whole country appear a most delightful place. "it looked as if our entrance into mexico was not going to be very pleasant," said jerry, "especially during the storm and the smash-up with the house-boat. but to-day it couldn't be better." "that was a close call you and ned had," put in bob. "i wonder why they didn't tackle me?" "because you are so good-natured-looking the robbers knew you never had any money," replied jerry, with a laugh. "i wonder what chunky would have done if a mexican brigand had demanded his money-belt?" "he could have had it without me making a fuss," replied the stout youth. "money is a good thing, but i think more of myself than half a dozen money-belts." "ah, my poor fleas!" exclaimed the professor. "i wonder if the robber killed them." "i guess they hopped away," suggested ned. "no, they would never leave me," went on the naturalist. "well, i'm glad i haven't such an intimate acquaintance with them as that," commented jerry, with a laugh. "oh, they were tame. they never bit me once," the professor said, with pride in his voice. with ned at the steering-wheel, the auto made good time. the road was a fair one, skirting the edge of a vast plain for several miles. about noon the path led into a dense forest, where there was barely room for the machine to pass the thick trees and vines that bordered the way on either side. "i hope we don't get caught in this wilderness," said ned, making a skilful turn to avoid a fallen tree. "supposing we stop now and get dinner," suggested jerry. "it's past noon, and i'm hungry." the plan was voted a good one. the portable stove that burned gasolene was set going, coffee was made and some canned chicken was warmed in a frying pan. with some seasoning and frijoles don alvarzo had given them the boys made an excellent meal. after a rest beneath the trees the boys started off in their auto again. the road widened when they had gone a few miles, and improved so that traveling was easier. about dusk they came to a small village, in the centre of which was a comfortable-looking inn. "how will that do to stop at overnight?" asked ned. "first rate," answered jerry. the auto was steered into the yard, and the proprietor of the place came out, bowing and smiling. "your friends have just preceded you, seã±ors," he said. "our friends?" asked jerry, in surprise. "_si, seã±or._ don nixon and don pender. they were here not above an hour ago. i think they must be your friends, because they were in the same sort of an engine as yourselves." "noddy nixon here!" exclaimed jerry. chapter vii. a fierce fight. the boys glanced at each other in blank astonishment. as for professor snodgrass, he was too occupied with chasing a little yellow tree-toad to pay much attention to anything but the pursuit of specimens. "we seem bound to cross the trail of noddy sooner or later," remarked ned. "well, if he's ahead of us he can't be behind, that's one consolation." "will the honorable seã±ors be pleased to enter my poor inn?" spoke the mexican, bowing low. "i suppose we may as well stop here," said jerry, in a low tone to his companions. "it looks like a decent place, and it will give noddy a chance to get a good way ahead, which is what we want. but i don't see what he means by going on when it will soon be night." the auto was run under a shed, its appearance causing some fright among the servants and a few travelers, who began to mutter their prayers in spanish. the boys, escorted by the mexican, then entered the hostelry. it was a small but decent-looking place, as jerry had said. the boys were shown to rooms where, washing off some of the grime of their journey, they felt better. "supper is ready," announced the innkeeper, who spoke fairly good english. "where is the professor?" asked ned, as the boys descended to the dining-room. "the last i saw of him he was climbing up the tree after that toad," answered bob. "but here he comes now." the naturalist came hurrying into the room, clasping something in his hand. "i've got it! i've got it!" he shouted. "a perfect beauty!" the professor opened his fingers slightly to peer at his prize, when the toad, taking advantage of the opportunity, hopped on the floor and was rapidly escaping. "oh, oh, he's got away!" the professor exclaimed. "help me catch him, everybody! he's worth a thousand dollars!" the naturalist got down on his hands and knees and began crawling after the hopping tree-toad, while the boys could not restrain their laughter. a crowd of servants gathered in the doorway to watch the antics of the strange _americano_. "there! i have you again, my beauty!" cried the professor, pouncing on his specimen in a corner of the room. "you shall not escape again!" and with that he popped the toad into a small specimen box which he always wore strapped on his back. "tell me," began the innkeeper, in a low tone, sidling up to jerry, "is your elderly friend, the bald-headed seã±or, is he--ah--um--is he a little, what you _americanos_ call--er--wheels?" and he moved his finger with a circular motion in front of his forehead. "not in the least," replied the boy. "he is only collecting specimens for his college." the mexican shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in an apologetic sort of way, but it was easy to see that he believed professor snodgrass insane, an idea that was shared by all the servants in the inn, for not one of them, during the adventurers' brief stay in the hotel, would approach him without muttering a prayer. "i wonder what we'll have to eat?" asked ned, as with the others he prepared to sit down. the innkeeper clapped his hands, which signal served in lieu of a bell for the servants. in a little while a meal of fish, eggs, chocolate and chicken, with the ever-present frijoles and tortillas, was served. it tasted good to the hungry lads, though as jerry remarked he would have preferred it just as much if there hadn't been so much red pepper and garlic in everything. "water! water! quick!" cried bob, after taking a generous mouthful of frijoles, which contained an extra amount of red pepper. "my mouth is on fire!" he swallowed a tumblerful of liquid before he had eased the smart caused by the fiery condiment. thereafter he was careful to taste each dish with a little nibble before he indulged too freely. in spite of these drawbacks, the boys enjoyed their experience, and were interested in the novelty of everything they saw. "i wonder how we are to sleep?" said jerry, after the meal was over. "i've heard that mexican beds were none of the best." "you shall sleep the sleep of the just, seã±ors," broke in the mexican hotel keeper, coming up just as jerry spoke. "my inn is full, every room is occupied, but you shall sleep _en el sereno_." "well, as long as it's on a good bed in a room where the mosquitoes can't get in i shan't mind that," spoke bob. "i don't know as i care much for scenery, but if it goes with the bed, why, all right." "you'll sleep in no room to-night," said professor snodgrass, who for the moment was not busy hunting specimens. "by '_en el sereno_' our friend means that you must sleep out of doors, under the stars. it is often done in this country. they put the beds out in the courtyard or garden and throw a mosquito net over them." "that's good enough," said bob. "it won't be the first time we've slept in the open. bring on the '_en el sereno_,'" and he laughed, the innkeeper joining in. the beds for the travelers were soon made up. they consisted of light cots of wood, with a few blankets on them. placed out in the courtyard, under the trees, with the sky for a roof, the sleeping-places were indeed in the open. but the boys and professor snodgrass had no fault to find. they had partaken of a good meal, they were tired with their day's journey, and about nine o'clock voted to turn in. "we'll keep our revolvers handy this time," said bob, "though i guess we won't need 'em." "can't be too sure," was ned's opinion, as he took off his shoes and placed his weapon under his pillow. it was not long before snores told that the travelers were sound asleep. for several hours the inn bustled with life, for the mexicans did not seem to care much about rest. at length the place became quiet, and at midnight there was not a sound to be heard, save the noises of the forest, which was no great distance away, and the vibrations caused by the breathing of the slumberers. it was about two o'clock in the morning when bob was suddenly awakened by feeling a hand passed lightly over his face. "here!" he cried. "get out of that!" "silence!" hissed a voice in his ear. but bob was too frightened to keep quiet. he gave a wild yell and tried to struggle to his feet. some one thrust him back on the cot, and rough hands tried to rip off his money-belt. the boy fought fiercely, and struck out with both fists. "wake up, jerry and ned!" he yelled. "we're being robbed. shoot 'em!" the courtyard became a scene of wild commotion. it was dark, for the moon was covered with clouds, but as jerry and ned sat up, alarmed by bob's voice, they could detect dim forms moving about among the trees. "the mexicans are robbing us!" shouted ned. he drew his revolver and fired in the air for fear of hitting one of his comrades. by the light of the weapon's flash he saw a man close to him. bob aimed the pistol in the fellow's face and pulled the trigger. there was a report, followed by a loud yell. at the same time a thousand stars seemed to dance before ned's eyes, and he fell back, knocked unconscious by a hard blow. jerry had sprung to his feet, to be met by a blow in the face from a brawny fist. he quickly recovered himself, however, and grappled with his assailant. he found he was but an infant in the hands of a strong man. the boy tried to reach for his revolver, but just as his hand touched the butt of the weapon he received a stinging blow on the head and he toppled over backward, his senses leaving him. in the meanwhile bob was still struggling with the robber who had attacked him. fleshy as he was, bob had considerable strength, and he wrestled with the fellow. they both fell to the ground and rolled over. in their struggles they got underneath one of the beds. "let me go!" yelled bob. at that instant he felt the ear of his enemy come against his mouth. the boy promptly seized the member in his teeth and bit it hard enough to make the fellow howl for mercy. bob suddenly found himself released, and the robber, with a parting blow that made the boy's head sing, rolled away from under the bed and took to his heels. "help! help! help!" cried professor snodgrass, as bob tried to sit upright, for it was under the bed of the naturalist that the boy had rolled. in straightening up he had tipped the scientist, who, up to this point, had been sleeping soundly on the cot. "what is it? what has happened? is it a fire? has an earthquake occurred? is the river rising? has a tidal wave come in? santa maria! but what is all the noise about?" cried the landlord, rushing into the courtyard, bearing an ancient lantern. "what has happened, seã±ors? was your rest disturbed?" "was our rest disturbed?" inquired bob, in as sarcastic a tone as possible under the circumstances. "well, i would say yes! a band of robbers attacked us." "a band of robbers! santa maria! impossible! there are no robbers in mexico!" and the innkeeper began to chatter volubly in spanish. chapter viii. the old mexican. "well, if they weren't robbers they were a first-class imitation," responded bob. "there's jerry and ned knocked out, at any rate, and they nearly did for me. they would have, only i bit the chap's ear. i guess i'll know him again; he has my mark on him." "bit his ear! the _americano_ is brave! but we must see to the poor unfortunate seã±ors! robbers! impossible!" by this time the whole inn was aroused and the courtyard was filled with servants and guests. water was brought and with it jerry and ned were revived. "what happened?" began jerry. "oh, i remember now! did they get our money?" "i guess they got yours and ned's," said bob, in sorrowful tones, as he noted his chums' disordered clothing and saw that the money-belts were gone. "they didn't get mine, though, so we're not in such bad luck, after all. how do you feel?" "as if a road-roller had gone over me," replied jerry. "same here," put in ned, holding his head in his hands. "he must have given me a pretty good whack. who was it robbed us?" "are you sure you were robbed, seã±ors?" asked the hotel keeper. "perhaps you may have been dreaming." "does that look as if it was only a nightmare?" asked ned, showing a big lump on his head. "or this?" added jerry, showing his clothing cut with a knife where the robber had slashed it in order to take out the money-belt. "no, it was not a dream," murmured the innkeeper. "there must have been robbers here. i wonder who they were?" "they didn't leave their cards, so it's hard to say," remarked jerry. "i don't suppose the burglars down here are in the habit of sending word in advance of their visit, or of telling the police where to find them after they commit a crime." "never! never!" exclaimed the mexican host. "but speaking of the police, i must tell them about this some time to-morrow." "any time will do," put in ned. "we're in no hurry, you know." "i am glad of that," said the hotel keeper, in all seriousness. "most _americanos_ are in such a rush, and i have to go to market to-morrow. the next day will do very well. i thank you, seã±ors. now i bid you good-night, and pleasant dreams." "well, he certainly does take things easy," said jerry, when the innkeeper and his servants, with many polite bows, had withdrawn. "he don't seem to care much whether we were nearly killed or not. i guess this must be a regular occurrence down here." "i always heard the mexican brigands were terrible fellows," said professor snodgrass. "now i am sure of it. i am glad they did not get any of my specimens, however. all my treasures are safe." "but ned and i have lost five hundred dollars each," put in jerry. "you can get more from the gold mine," went on the professor. "yes; but it may spoil our trip," said ned. "i have my five hundred dollars," said bob. "and i have nearly one thousand in bills," spoke the professor, in a whisper. "we will have enough. the robbers would never suspect me of carrying money. listen; it is in the box with the big lizard and the bat, and no one will ever look there for it," and he chuckled in silent glee. "then i guess we can go on," said jerry. "but i wonder who it was robbed us?" "i suppose it was the mexican brigands that hang about every hotel," said ned. "i'm not so sure of that," went on jerry. "you know noddy nixon and his crowd are not far off. it may have been they." "that's so; i never thought of them," said ned. "did you recognize any one?" "the fellow who grappled with me had a mask on," said jerry. "but i thought i recognized that fellow dalsett. however, i couldn't be sure." "i didn't get a chance to see my man," ned added. "the fellow who came for me had a voice like bill berry's," put in bob. "if i could see his ear i could soon tell." "it will be a good while before you see his ear," continued jerry. "i wonder if it was nixon's crowd, or only ordinary robbers? if we are to be attacked by noddy and his gang all the way through mexico the trip will not be very pleasant." "well, there's only one thing certain, and that is, the money-belts are gone," put in ned, gazing ruefully at his waist around which he had strapped his cash. "the next question is, who took them?" "which same question is likely to remain unanswered for some time," interrupted professor snodgrass. "now, don't worry, boys. we are still able to continue on our search for the buried city. this will teach us a lesson not to go to sleep again unless some one is on guard. the money loss is nothing compared to the possibility that one of us might have been killed, or some of my specimens stolen. now we had better all go to bed again." "shall we stand guard for the remainder of the night?" asked bob. "i think it will not be necessary," spoke the professor. "the robbers are not likely to return." so, extinguishing the lantern which the innkeeper had left, the travelers once more sought their cots, on which they had a somewhat fitful rest until morning. at breakfast the innkeeper urged the travelers to spend a few days at his hotel, saying he had sent for a government officer to come and make an investigation of the robbery. but the boys and the professor, thanking their host for his invitation, called for their bill, settled it, and were soon puffing away through the forest once more. for several hours they journeyed on beneath giant palms which lined either side of the road. the scenery was one unending vista of green, in which mingled brilliant-hued flowers. wild parrots and other birds flitted through the trees and small animals rustled through the underbrush as the automobile dashed by. jerry was at the steering wheel and was sending the car along at a good clip, when, as he suddenly rounded a curve he shut off the power and applied the brakes. not a moment too soon was he, for he stopped the machine only a few feet from an aged mexican, who was traveling along the road, aiding his faltering steps with a large, wooden staff. the mexican glanced at the auto which, with throbbing breath, as the engine still continued to vibrate, seemed to fill him with terror. suddenly he dropped to his knees and began to pray. "be not afraid," professor snodgrass called to him, speaking in the spanish language. "we are but poor travelers like yourself. we will not harm you." "whence do you come in your chariot of fire?" asked the old man. "ye are demons and no true men!" "we will not hurt you," said the naturalist, again. "see, we bring you gifts," and he held out to the mexican a package of tobacco and a small hand-mirror. the old man's eyes brightened at the sight of them. he rose to his feet and took them, though his hands trembled. in a moment he had rolled a cigarette of the tobacco, and, puffing out great clouds of smoke, complacently gazed at his image in the looking-glass. "truly ye are men and not demons," he said. "the tobacco is very good. but whence come ye, and whither do ye go?" "we are travelers from a far land," answered the professor. "whither we go we scarcely know. we are searching for the unknown." the aged mexican started. then he gazed fixedly at the professor. "it may be that i can tell whither ye journey," he said. "for your kindness to me i am minded to look into the future for you. shall i?" "no one can look into the future," answered the naturalist. "no one knows what is going to happen." for the professor was no believer in anything but what nature revealed to him. "unbelievers! unbelievers!" muttered the old man, blowing out a great cloud of smoke. "but ye shall see. i will read what is to happen for you." he sat down at the side of the road. in the dust he drew a circle. this he divided into twelve parts, and in one he placed a small quantity of powder, which he took from his sash. the powder he lighted with a match. there was a patch of fire, and a cloud of yellow smoke. for an instant the old man was hidden from view. then his voice was heard. "ye seek the unknown, hidden and buried city of ancient mexico!" he said, in startling tones. "and ye shall find it. yea, find it sooner than ye think, and in a strange manner. look behind ye!" involuntarily the boys and the professor turned. "nothing there," grunted ned, as he looked to where the old man had been seated. to his astonishment, as well as the surprise of the others, the aged mexican had disappeared. chapter ix. a view of the enemy. "where is he?" cried bob. "he must have gone down through a hole in the earth," said ned. "i didn't have my eyes off him three seconds. he didn't go down the road or we would have seen him, and he couldn't have run into the bushes on either side without making a great racket. he's a queer one." "just like the east indian jugglers i've read about," put in jerry. "i think probably he was something on that order," agreed professor snodgrass. "strange how he should have known about the buried city, and we have spoken to no one about it since we came to mexico." "let's look and see if we can find a trace of him," suggested bob. the boys alighted from the car. they made a careful search around the spot where the old man had sat. there was the circle he had drawn in the dust, and the mark where the powder had burned, but not another trace of the mexican could they find. they looked behind trees and rocks, but all they found was big toads and lizards that hopped and crawled away as they approached. the professor annexed several of the reptiles for specimens. "how do you explain it all?" asked jerry of the naturalist, when they had taken their seats in the automobile again. "have those men any supernatural powers?" "i do not believe they have," replied the professor. "they do some things that are hard to explain, but they are sharp enough to do their tricks under their own conditions, and they disappear before those who can see them have gotten over their momentary surprise." "the disappearing was the funny part of it," went on jerry. "i can understand how he made the smoke. a pinch of gunpowder would produce that. but how did he dissolve himself into thin air?" "he didn't," replied the naturalist. "i'll tell you how that was done. it is a favorite trick in india. when he suddenly called to us to look behind us he took advantage of our momentary glance away to hide himself." "but where?" "behind that big rock," and the naturalist pointed to a large one near where the mexican had been sitting. "but we looked behind that," said ned. "yes, several minutes after the disappearance," went on the professor, with a laugh. "this was how he did it: he wore a long, gray cloak, which, perhaps, you didn't notice. it was exactly the color of the stone and was partly draped over it. it was there all the while he was doing his trick. i saw it, but thought nothing of it at the time. now, when he had finished the hocus-pocus, and when our heads were turned, he just rolled himself up into a ball and got under the cloak by the stone. of course, it looked as if he had dropped down through the earth." "but how about him getting away so completely that our search didn't reveal him?" asked jerry. "i think he waited a while and then, when he heard us getting out of the automobile he took advantage of the confusion to crawl, still under his cloak, into the bushes, perhaps by a path he alone knew. there really is no mystery to it." "how about him telling us we were searching for the buried city?" asked bob. "wasn't that mind-reading?" "i think he knew that part of it," said the professor, "though it seemed strange to me at first. you must remember that the object of our trip was pretty freely talked of back in the gold camp. some one may have come here from there before we started, and, in some manner, this old mexican may have heard of us. he may even have been waiting for us. no; it looks queer when it happens, but reasoned out, it is natural enough. however, i am glad to know we are on the right road and will find what we are searching for, though the old man may be mistaken." "shall we go forward again?" asked jerry, resuming his place at the steering wheel. "forward it is!" cried ned. "ho, for the buried city!" once more the auto puffed along the forest road. it was warm with the heat of the tropics, and the boys were soon glad to take off their coats and collars. even with the breeze created by the movement of the machine, it was oppressive. "i say, when are we going to eat?" asked bob. "i know it's long past noon." "wrong for once, chunky," answered ned, looking at his watch. "it's only eleven o'clock." "well, here's a good place to stop and eat, anyhow," went on the stout lad, to whom eating never came amiss. "all right, we'll camp," put in jerry, bringing the machine to a stop. it was rather pleasant in the shade of the forest in spite of the heat, and the boys enjoyed it very much. the gasolene stove was lighted and ned made some chocolate, for, since their advent into mexico the travelers had come to like this beverage, which almost every one down in that country drinks. with this and some frijoles and cold chicken brought from the inn, they made a good meal. "i'm going to hunt for some specimens," announced the professor. "you boys can rest here for an hour or so." with his green collecting box and his butterfly net the naturalist disappeared along a path that led through the forest. "i suppose he'll come back with a blue-nosed baboon or a flat-headed gila monster," said ned. "he does find the queerest things." it was almost an hour later, when the boys were wondering what had become of the naturalist, that they heard faint shouts in the direction he had taken. "hurry, boys!" the professor's voice called. "hurry! help! help! i'm caught!" "he's in trouble again!" exclaimed ned. "we must go to his rescue!" "have you got your revolver?" asked jerry, as ned was about to rush away. "no; it's in the auto." "better get it. i'll take a rifle along. bob, you bring the rope. no telling what has happened, and we may need all three." with rifle, revolver and rope the three boys rushed into the forest to the rescue of their friend. they could hear his shouts more plainly now. "hurry or he'll kill me!" cried the professor. running at top speed the boys emerged into a sort of clearing. there they saw a sight that filled them with terror. professor snodgrass was standing underneath a tree, from one of the lower branches of which a big snake had dropped its sinuous folds about him. the reptile was slowly winding its coils about the unfortunate man, tightening and tightening them. its ugly head was within a few feet of the professor's face, and the man was striking at the snake with the butterfly net. "we're coming! we'll save you!" shouted jerry. the boy started to run close to the naturalist, intending to get near enough to fire at the snake's head without danger of hitting the professor. "look out!" yelled bob, pointing to the ground in front of the tree. "there's another of the reptiles!" as he spoke a second snake reared its head from the grass, right in the path jerry would have taken. bob had warned him just in time. jerry dropped to one knee. he took quick but careful aim at the snake on the ground and fired. the reptile thrashed about in a death struggle, for the bullet had crashed through its head. "now for the other one!" cried jerry. he ran in close to the reptile that was slowly crushing the professor to death. the unfortunate naturalist could no longer cry for help, so weak was he. jerry placed the muzzle of the rifle close to the snake's head, and pulled the trigger. the ugly folds relaxed, the long, sinuous body straightened out and the professor would have fallen had not jerry, dropping his gun, caught him. the other boys came to his aid, and they carried the naturalist to one side and placed him on the grass. bringing water from a nearby spring, bob soon restored the professor to his senses. "i'm all right," said the collector in a few minutes. "the breath was about squeezed out of me, though." "you had a narrow escape," said ned. "thanks to you boys, it ended fortunately," said the naturalist. "you see, i was trying to capture a new kind of tree-toad, and i didn't see the snake until it had me in its folds. i'll be more careful next time." in a little while the professor was able to walk. jerry recovered his gun and the whole party made their way back to the auto. the camp utensils were soon packed up and the journey was resumed. "i wonder what sort of an inn we'll stop at to-night?" said bob. "i hope they don't have any robbers." "we won't run any chances," spoke ned. "we'll post a guard." for several hours the auto chugged along. as it came to the top of a hill the boys saw below them quite a good-sized village. "there's where we'll spend the night," remarked jerry. "hello! what's that?" and he pointed to some object round a turn of the road, just ahead of them. "it looks like an automobile," said the professor. "it is!" cried ned. "and noddy nixon is in it!" chapter x. some tricks in magic. "you don't mean it!" exclaimed the professor. "noddy nixon, the young man who made all the trouble for us! i thought we had seen the last of him." "i hoped we had," said jerry. "but you can't always get what you want in this world." "no, indeed! there is a purple grasshopper i've been hunting for for nearly five years, and i never found it!" spoke the naturalist. "i wonder if noddy saw us?" asked ned. "it doesn't make much difference," was bob's opinion. "he'll run across us sooner or later. if he stops in the same village we do he's sure to hear about us." "then we may as well put up overnight in this town," said jerry, sending the machine ahead again. though the boys kept a close watch, they saw no more of noddy, for his automobile disappeared around a turn of the road. when the red touring car came up to the village, such a crowd of curious mexicans surrounded the auto that the occupants had difficulty in descending. "i guess noddy couldn't have come here, or these people wouldn't be so curious about our car," said bob. "oh, you can depend on it, he's somewhere in the neighborhood," was ned's opinion. the keeper of the tavern, running out, bowed low to the prospective guests. "enter, seã±ors!" he exclaimed. "you are welcome a thousand times. the whole place is yours." "will you guarantee that there are no robbers?" asked jerry. "robbers, seã±ors? not one of the rascals within a thousand miles!" "and will my bugs, snakes and specimens be safe?" asked the professor. "bugs and snakes! santa maria! what do you want of such reptiles? of course they will be safe. the most wretched thief, of which there are none here, would not so much as lay a finger on them." "then we will stay," said the naturalist. "out of the way, dogs, cattle, swine, pigs and beasts!" cried the innkeeper, brushing the crowd aside. "let the noble seã±ors enter!" at these words, spoken in fierce tones, though mine host was smiling the while, the throng parted, and the boys, accompanied by the professor, made their way to the inn. it was not long before supper was served. there were the frijoles and tortillas, without which no mexican meal of ordinary quality is complete, but the adventurers had not yet become used to this food. then, too, there was delicious chocolate, such as can be had nowhere but in mexico. while the meal was in progress the travelers noticed that there was considerable excitement about the inn. crowds of people seemed to be going and coming, all of them talking loudly, and most of them laughing. "what is it all about?" asked jerry. "to-day is a fãªte day," replied the innkeeper. "no one has worked, and to-night there is an entertainment in the village square. every one will attend. it will be a grand sight." "what sort of entertainment?" "i know only what i heard, that a most wonderful magician will do feats. ah, some of those performers are very imps of darkness!" and the man muttered a prayer beneath his breath. "that sounds interesting. let's go," suggested bob. "i haven't any objection," said jerry. "will you go, professor?" "i will go anywhere where there is a chance i may add to the stock of scientific knowledge," replied the naturalist. "lead on, i'll follow." the meal over, the boys and professor had only to follow the crowd in order to reach the public square. a centre space had been roped off, and in the middle of this a small tent was erected. on the payment of a small sum to some officials, who seemed to be acting as ushers, the travelers managed to get places in the front row. there they stood, surrounded by swarthy mexican men, women and boys, waiting for the performance to begin. suddenly from within the tent sounded some weird music: the shrill scraping of fiddle and the beat of tom-toms. then a voice was heard chanting. a few seconds later a young man, dressed completely in white, stepped from the tent and sat down, cross-legged, on the ground. a score of flaring torches about him gave light, for it was now night. he spread a cloth on the ground, sprinkled a few drops of water on it, muttered some words, whisked away the covering, and there was a tiny dwarfed tree, its branches bearing fruit. "the old indian mango trick!" exclaimed the professor. "i have seen it done better, many times." the next trick was more elaborate. the youth in white clapped his hands and a boy came running from the tent. with him he brought a basket. the youth began to scold the boy, beating him with a stick. to escape the blows, the boy leaped into the basket. in a trice the youth clapped the cover on. then drawing a sword at his side, the youth plunged it into the wicker-work several times. from the basket horrible cries came, growing fainter and fainter at each thrust of the weapon. with a cry of satisfaction the youth finally held his sword aloft. the boys could see that it ran red, as if with blood. "has he stabbed him?" asked bob, in frightened tones. "watch," said the professor, with a smile. the youth opened the basket. it was empty. the boy had disappeared. the youth gave a cry of astonishment, and gazed up into the starlit sky. naturally, every one in the crowd gazed upward, likewise. all at once there was a cry from behind the youth, and the boy who had been in the basket, laughing and capering about as if being thrust through with a sword was the biggest joke in the world, moved among the assemblage, collecting coins in his cap. "another old indian trick," said the professor. "he simply curled up close to the outer rim of the basket and the sword went through the middle, where his body formed a circle." "but the blood!" exclaimed bob. "the boy had a sponge wet with red liquid, and when the sword blade came through the basket he wiped the crimson stuff on it," explained the professor. the tricks seemed to please the crowd very much, for few of them saw how they were done. the mexicans cried for more. the youth and boy retired to the tent. their place was taken by an old man, wrapped in a cloak. he produced a long rope, which he proceeded to knot about his body, tying himself closely. then he signed for two of the spectators to take hold, one at either end of the cord, which extended from under his cloak. two men did as he desired. then the old man began a sort of chant. he waved his hands in the air. with a quick motion he threw something at one of the torches. a cloud of smoke arose. there was a wild cry from the two men who held the rope. when the vapor cleared away the magician was nowhere to be seen, though his cloak lay on the ground and the men still held the ends of the rope that had bound him. an instant later there came a laugh from a tree off to the left. every one turned to look, and the old man jumped down from among the branches. "he tied fake knots," said the professor. "while he was waving his hands he managed to undo them. then he threw some powder in the torch flame, and while the smoke blinded every one he slipped out of his bonds and cloak, went through the crowd like a snake, and climbed a tree. the tricks are nothing to what i have seen in egypt and india." "perhaps there is nothing wonderful but in india or egypt," spoke a voice at the professor's elbow. he turned with a start, to see the old magician standing near him. the naturalist had not spoken aloud, yet it seemed that the mexican had heard him. "there are stranger things in this land than in egypt," went on the trickster. "buried cities are stranger. buried cities, where there is much gold to be had and great riches." "what do you know about buried cities?" asked the professor. "ask him who sat in the road, who drew the circle in the dust. ask him whom ye vainly sought," replied the mexican, with a laugh. the professor started. "it can't be! yes, it is. it's the same mexican we met before, and to whom i gave the tobacco," said the naturalist. "_si, seã±or_," was the answer, as the old man bowed low. "and be assured that though you mock at my poor magic, yet i can look into the future for you. i tell you," and he leaned over and whispered, "you shall soon find what you seek, the mysterious city. you are on the right road. keep on. when ye reach a place where the path turns to the left, at the sign where ye shall see the laughing serpent, take that path. see, the stars tell that you will meet with good fortune." with a dramatic gesture the old man pointed aloft. involuntarily the professor and the boys looked up. then, remembering the trick that had been played on them before, they looked for the mexican. but he had disappeared. chapter xi. noddy nixon's plot. "his old trick again," murmured the professor. "i should have been on my guard. however, it doesn't matter. but come on, boys. if we stand out here our plans will soon be known to every one." the travelers went back to their hotel, but the crowds of people remained at the square, for there were other antics of the entertainers to follow. "i wonder if we'll have to sleep '_en el sereno_' to-night?" said bob. "if we do, i'm going to stay awake." "yes, indeed; if they treat chunky the way they did jerry and myself, we'll be stranded," put in ned. "have you got it all right, chunky?" what "it" was, ned did not say; but bob understood, and, feeling where his money-belt encircled his waist, nodded to indicate that it was still in place. the travelers found there was plenty of room in the hotel. they were given a large apartment with four beds in it, and told they could sleep there together. they found that the room had but one door to it, and all the windows were too high up to admit of easy entrance. so, building a barricade of chairs in front of the portal, the adventurers decided it would not be necessary to stand guard. if any one came into the apartment he would have to make noise enough to awaken the soundest sleeper. thus protected, the travelers went to bed. nor were their slumbers disturbed by the advent of any robbers. however, if they could have seen what was taking place in a small hut on the outskirts of the town, about midnight, they might not have slept as peacefully. within a small adobe house, well concealed in a grove of trees, five figures were grouped around a table on which burned a candle stuck in a bottle. "i'll make trouble for jerry hopkins and his friends yet," spoke a youth, pounding the table with his fist. "that's what you're always saying, noddy nixon," put in a man standing over in the shadow. "well, i mean it this time, tom dalsett. we'd have put them out of business long ago if i'd had my way." "well, what are you going to do this time?" asked a lad, about noddy's age, whom, had the motor boys seen him, they would have at once known for jack pender, though he had become quite stout and bronzed by his travels. "i've got a plan," went on noddy. "i didn't come over to mexico for nothing." "what do you s'pose they come for?" asked bill berry, who was busy cleaning his revolver. "to locate a silver mine, of course," replied noddy. "ain't that so, vasco?" and nixon turned to a slick-looking mexican, who was rolling a cigarette. the fellow was a halfbreed, having some american blood in his veins. "_si, seã±or_," was the reply. "trust vasco bilette for finding out things. i heard them talking about a mine." "of course; i told you so," said noddy. the truth of it was that bilette had heard nothing of the sort, but thought it best to agree with noddy. "i hope we have better luck getting in on this mine than we did on their gold mine," said pender. "well, rather!" put in dalsett. "leave it to me," went on noddy. "i have a plan. and now do you fellows want to stay here all night or travel in the auto?" "stay here," murmured bilette. "it is warm and comfortable. one can smoke here." then, as if that settled it, he rolled himself up in his blanket, and, with a last puff on his cigarette, he went to sleep on the floor. in a little while the others followed his example. bilette slept better than any one, for he seemed to be used to the hordes of fleas that infested the hut. as for noddy, he awakened several times because of the uncomfortableness of his bed. finally he got up and went out to sit up the rest of the night on the cushioned seats of the automobile. so far, the nixon crowd had done nothing but ride on a sort of pleasure trip through mexico. noddy had managed to get some cash from home, and, with what dalsett obtained by gambling, they managed to live. shortly after crossing the rio grande river, noddy had fallen in with a slick mexican, vasco bilette by name, and had added him to his party. bilette knew the country well, and was of considerable assistance. he seemed to have no particular occupation. some evenings, when they would be near a large town, he would disappear. he always turned up in the morning with plenty of cash. how he got it he never said. but once he returned with a knife wound in the hand, and again, limping slightly from a bullet in the leg. from which it might be inferred that vasco used other than gentle and legitimate means of making a livelihood. but noddy's crowd was not one that asked embarrassing questions. with no particular object in view, noddy had driven his car hither and thither. however, accidentally hearing that jerry and his friends had come over into mexico, noddy determined to remain in their vicinity, learn their plans, and, if possible, thwart them to his own advantage. fortunately, the boys and the professor, soundly sleeping at their inn, could not look into the future and see the dangers they were to run, all because of noddy and his gang. if they could have, they might have turned back. bright and early the next morning professor snodgrass awoke. he looked out of the window, saw that the sun was shining, and rejoiced that the day was to be pleasant. then he happened to spy a new kind of a fly buzzing around the room. "ah, i must have you!" exclaimed the naturalist, unlimbering his insect net. "easy now, easy!" on tiptoes he began encircling the room after the fly. the buzzer seemed in no mood to be caught, and the professor made several ineffectual attempts to ensnare it. finally the insect lighted on bob's nose, as the boy still slumbered. "now i have you!" the professor cried. he forgot that bob might have some feelings, and thinking only of the rare fly, he brought the net down smartly on bob's countenance. "help! help! robbers! thieves!" shouted the boy. "keep still! don't move! i have it now!" yelled the professor, gathering up his net with the fly in it. "ah, there you are, my little beauty!" ned and jerry tumbled out of their beds, ned with his revolver ready in his hand. "oh, i thought it was some one after my money-belt," said bob, when his eyes were fully opened and he saw the professor. "sorry to disturb you," said the naturalist. "but it's in the interest of science, my dear young friend, and science is no respecter of persons." "nor of my nose, either," observed bob, rubbing his proboscis with a rueful countenance. there came a loud pounding at the door. "who's there?" asked jerry. "'tis i, the landlord," was the answer. "what is it? have the brigands come? is the place on fire? why did the seã±or yell, as if some one had stuck a knife into him?" "it was only me," called bob. "the professor caught a new kind of fly on my nose." "a fly! on your nose! _diablo!_ those _americanos_! they are crazy!" the innkeeper muttered as he went away. "well, we're up; i suppose we may as well stay up," said ned, stretching and yawning. "my, but i did sleep good!" they all agreed that the night's sleep had been a restful one. they dressed, had breakfast, and, in spite of the entreaties of the landlord to stay a few days, they were soon on the road in the automobile. "i'm glad to know we are on the right path," said the professor, after several miles had been covered. "i only hope that old mexican was not joking with us." "what was that he said about turning to the left?" asked ned. "we are to turn when we come to the place where the laughing monkey is," said bob. "serpent was what he said," observed jerry. "the laughing serpent. i wonder what that can be. i never saw a snake laugh." "it might be a figure of speech, or he may have meant there is a stone image carved in that design set up to mark a road," spoke the professor. "however, we shall see." dinner was eaten in a little glade beside a small brook, where some fish were caught. then, while the boys stretched out on the grass, the professor, who was never idle, took a small rifle and said he would go into the forest and see if he could not get a few specimens. "look out for snakes!" called ned. "i will," replied the naturalist, remembering his former experience. about an hour later, when jerry was just beginning to think it was time to start off, the stillness of the forest was broken by a terrible and blood-curdling yell. "a tiger!" cried bob. "there are no tigers here," said jerry. "but it's some wild beast!" the yell was repeated. then came a crashing of the underbrush, followed by a wild call for help. "that's the professor!" cried jerry, seizing his rifle. chapter xii. noddy schemes with mexicans. the boys crashed through the bushes and under the low branches of trees in the direction of the professor's voice. they could hear him more plainly now. "help! help! come quick!" the naturalist cried. the sight that met the boys' eyes when they came out into a little clearing of the forest was at once calculated to amuse and alarm them. they saw the professor clinging to the tail of a mountain lion, the beast being suspended over a low tree-limb, with the naturalist hanging on one side of the branch and the animal on the other, the brute in the air and the professor on the ground. [illustration: they saw the professor clinging to the tail of a mountain lion.] the infuriated beast was struggling and wiggling to get free from the grip the professor had of its tail. it snarled and growled, now and then giving voice to a fierce roar, and endeavoring to swing far enough back to bite or claw the naturalist. as for professor snodgrass, he was clinging to the tail with both hands for dear life, and trying to keep as far as possible away from the dangerous teeth and claws of the lion. "let go!" yelled jerry. "i dare not!" shouted the professor. "if i do the brute will fall to the ground and eat me up. i can't let go, and i can't hold on much longer. hurry up, boys, and do something!" "how did you get that way?" asked bob. "i'll--tell--you--later!" panted the poor professor, as he was swung clear from the ground by a particularly energetic movement of the beast. "hurry! hurry! the tail is slipping through my fingers!" in fact, this seemed to be the case, and the beast was now nearer the ground, while the length of tail the naturalist grasped was lessened. the big cat-like creature suddenly began swinging to and fro, like a pendulum. at each swing it came closer and closer to the professor. all the while it was spitting and snarling in a rage. suddenly the professor gave a yell louder than any he had uttered. "ouch! he bit me that time!" he cried. "hurry, boys!" the lads saw that the situation now had more of seriousness than humor in it. jerry crept up close and, with cocked rifle, waited for a chance to fire at the beast without hitting the professor. at that instant the lion made a strong, backward swing, and its claws caught in the professor's trousers. the beast tried to sink its teeth in the naturalist's legs, but with a quick movement the professor himself jumped back, and, with his own momentum and that of the lion to aid him, he swung in a complete circle around the limb of the tree, the lion going with him, so their positions were exactly reversed. "steady now! i have him!" called jerry. the change in the positions of man and beast had given the boy the very opportunity he wanted. the animal was now nearest to him. quickly raising the rifle, jerry sent a bullet into the brute's head, following it up with two others. the lion, with a last wild struggle to free itself, dangled limply from the tree-limb, from which it was still suspended by the professor's hold on its tail. seeing that his enemy was dead, and could do him no harm, the naturalist let go his grip and the big cat fell in a heap on the ground. "once more you boys have saved my life," said the collector, as he mopped his brow, for his exertions in trying to keep free from the beast had not been easy. "are you bit much?" asked ned. "nothing more than scratches," was the reply. "how in the world did you ever get in such a scrape?" asked jerry. "i'll tell you how it was," answered the professor. "you see, i was busy collecting bugs and small reptiles, going from tree to tree. when i came to this one i saw what i thought was a small, yellow snake. i believed i had a fine prize. "i approached without making a sound, and when i was near enough i made a grab for what i imagined was the snake. instead, it turned out to be the tail of the mountain lion, which dangled from the limb, on which the beast was crouched. all at once there was a terrible commotion." "i would say there was!" interrupted ned. "we heard it over where we were." "yes, of course," resumed the professor. "well, as soon as i got the tail in my hands i found i had made a mistake. it was then too late to let go, so the only thing to do was to hold on. it was rather a peculiar position to be in." "it certainly was," said jerry, with a laugh. "yes, of course. well, seeing that the only thing to do was to keep my grip, i kept it and yelled for help. i guess the lion was as badly scared as i was first, when it felt me grab its tail. after it found i wasn't going to let go it got mad, i guess." "it acted so, at any rate," put in bob. "yes, of course," went on the professor. "well, anyhow, i knew if i did let go i would be clawed to pieces, so there i hung, like the man on the tail of the mad bull, not daring to let go. then you came, and you know the rest." "are you sure you're not hurt?" asked ned. "sure," was the reply. "i was too lively for the lion. i'm sorry the tail didn't turn out to be a snake, though, for if it had been i'm sure it would have been a rare specimen." leaving the dead body of the animal where it had fallen, the travelers went back to their auto. the camp utensils were packed away, and soon, with ned at the steering wheel, the machine was running off the miles that separated the adventurers from the hidden city they hoped to find. they traveled until nearly nightfall, and came to no village or settlement. it began to look as if they would have to camp in the open, when, just as darkness was approaching, they came to a small adobe hut in the midst of a sugar-cane plantation. "maybe we can stop here overnight," said jerry. an aged mexican and his wife came to the door of the cabin to see the strange fire-wagon pass. speaking to them in spanish, the professor asked if he and his companions could get beds for the night. at first the man seemed to hesitate, but the rattling of a few coins in bob's pockets soon changed his mind, and he bade the travelers enter. the woman quickly got a fairly good meal, and then, after sitting about for an hour or so and talking over the events of the day, the travelers sought their beds. they found themselves in one apartment, containing two small, cane couches, neither one hardly big enough for a single occupant. "however, it's better than sleeping out of doors, where the mosquitoes can carry you away," said ned. contrary to their expectations, the travelers slept good, the only trouble being the fleas, which were particularly numerous. but by this time they had become somewhat used to this mexican pest. while the professor and the boys were taking a well-earned rest, quite a different scene was being enacted by noddy nixon and his companions. following a half-formed plan he had in mind, noddy had hung on the trail of the motor boys. he had followed them from the inn where they last stopped, and now he was camped out, with his followers, about five miles from the adobe hut. but jerry and his friends did not know this. "isn't it pretty near time you told us what you are going to do, noddy?" asked jack pender, as he piled some wood on the camp-fire. "i'll tell you," spoke noddy. "we're going to follow them until they locate their mine, and then we're going to stake a claim right near theirs. they're not going to get all the gold or silver in this country the way they did in arizona." "are you sure it's a mine they're after?" asked bilette, puffing at his cigarette. "of course," replied noddy. "what else could it be? didn't you hear that's what they came for?" "i don't know," went on the slick mexican. "i only asked for information. if it's a mine they're after we'll need a bigger force than we have to run things." "where can we get help?" asked noddy. "i'll show you," replied vasco. he put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. an instant later half a dozen mexicans stepped from the shadow of the trees and stood in a line, in the glare of the fire. "well, you didn't lose any time over it," observed noddy. "where did they come from, and who are they?" and the bully looked a little uneasy. "they came from the greenwood," replied vasco bilette, "for the forest is their home. and they are friends of mine, so now both your questions are answered." "if they're friends of yours i s'pose it's all right," went on noddy. "well, rather!" drawled vasco, lighting another cigarette from the stump of his last one. "will they help us?" went on noddy. bilette addressed something in spanish to his friends who had so mysteriously appeared. "_si, seã±or_," they exclaimed as one man, bowing to noddy. "queer you happened to have 'em on hand," said noddy, accepting the answer to his question, for he had learned a little spanish, and knew that "si" meant yes. "i anticipated we might need them," said bilette. "so i told them to be on hand and in waiting to-night. they are very prompt." "then we'll join forces with them and show jerry hopkins and his crowd that he can't have everything his own way," growled noddy. "come on, we'll follow them now and see what they are doing," and noddy seemed ready to start off. "not to-night; it's time to turn in," objected bilette. "we'll begin early in the morning." he spoke once more to the six men, who disappeared into the forest as quietly as they had come. then bilette, wrapping himself up in his cloak, went to sleep. the others followed his example, and soon the camp was quiet. noddy now had his plans in working order, and he thought, with satisfaction, of the revenge he would have. chapter xiii. on the trail. "come, come, boys! are you going to sleep all day?" exclaimed professor snodgrass, the next morning. his cheery voice awoke the others, and they sat up on the hard cots. "where are we? oh, yes, i remember now!" said bob. "i thought i was back at the gold mine." "i dreamed i was back in cresville," added jerry. "i wonder how all the folks are. we must write some letters home." after breakfast, which the mexican and his wife served in an appetizing style, the travelers decided to delay their start an hour or two, and spend the time writing. professor snodgrass said he had no one to correspond with, so he wandered off with his net and specimen box, but the boys got out paper, pens and ink, and were soon busy scratching away. in about two hours the professor returned, having collected a number of specimens and escaped getting into any difficulties or dangers for once. "we'd better start," he called. "i'm anxious to get to that underground city. if that turns out half as well as i expect, our fortunes are made." "will it be better than the gold mine?" asked bob, with a grin. "the gold mine!" exclaimed the naturalist. "why, i had rather reach this buried city than have half a dozen gold mines!" he was very enthusiastic and seemed anxious to get on with the journey. the automobile was made ready, and, bidding their hosts good-by, the travelers were again under way. as they progressed the road became rougher and more difficult of passage. in places it was so narrow that the automobile could barely be taken past the thick growth of foliage on either side. the forest fairly teemed with animal life, while the flitting of brilliantly colored birds through the trees made the woods look as if a rainbow had burst and fallen from the sky. parrots and macaws, gay in their vari-tinted plumage, called shrilly as the puffing auto invaded their domains. it was necessary to run the car slowly. the professor fretted at the lack of speed, but nothing could be done about it, and, as jerry said, it was better to be slow and sure. so they went on for several miles. about noon the travelers came to the edge of a broad river, which cut in two the road they had been following. "here's a problem," said jerry, bringing the car to a stop. "how are we going to get over that? no bridge and no ferry in sight." "perhaps it isn't as deep as it looks," suggested the professor. "tell you what!" exclaimed ned. "we'll all go in for a swim and then we can tell whether it's too deep to run the auto across." his plan was voted a good one, and soon the boys and professor snodgrass were splashing about in the water. their bath was a refreshing one. incidentally, ned found out that he could wade across, the stream in one place coming only to his knees, while the bottom was of firm sand. while the travelers were splashing about in the cool water, they might not have felt so unconcerned had they been able to look through the thick screen of foliage on the bank of the stream, and see what was taking place there. several dark-complexioned men, in company with vasco bilette, had dismounted from their horses and were watching the bathers. "well, i'm glad they decided to stop," remarked vasco. "our horses are tired from following their trail. they will probably camp for the night on the other bank, for they would be foolish to go farther when they can find good water and fodder." "you forget they do not have a horse to consider," spoke one of the mexicans. "their machine does not eat." "no more it does," said bilette. "but they cannot go much farther. if necessary, we can cross the river and get at them." "is that noddy boy and his puff-puff carriage to join us?" asked one of the crowd of mexicans. "that is the plan," replied vasco. "he thought we could follow the trail on horses better than he could in the automobile, because that makes a noise, and those we are pursuing might hear it. so noddy has kept about five miles behind. as for us, you know that we have been only a mile in the rear, thanks to the slowness with which they had to run their machine. "ah, the _americanos_ have finished their bath. here they come back," went on vasco, as the boys and the professor began wading toward the shore, near which they had left their auto. suddenly the professor set up a great splashing and made a grab under the water. "i've got it! i've got it!" he yelled, holding something aloft. "got what?" asked jerry. "a rare specimen of the green-clawed crab," was the answer, and the naturalist held up to view a wiggling crawfish. "it bit my big toe, but i grabbed it before it got away. this was indeed a profitable bath for me. that specimen is worth one hundred dollars." "if there are crabs in there i don't see why there aren't fish," spoke ned. "i'm going to try, anyhow." quickly dressing, he got out a line and hook, cut a pole and, with a grasshopper for bait, threw in. in three minutes he had landed a fine big fish, and several others followed in succession. "i guess we'll have one good meal, anyhow," observed ned. "shall we stay on this side and eat, or cross the river?" asked the professor. "might as well stay here," was jerry's opinion. so the portable stove was made ready and soon the appetizing smell of frying fish filled the air. the travelers made a good meal, and vasco bilette and his gang, hiding among the trees, smoked their cigarettes and wished they had a portion. "but never mind, when we have the _americanos_ at our mercy we will be the ones who eat, and they will starve," was how vasco consoled himself. dinner over, the travelers took their places in the auto, and, with jerry at the wheel, the passage of the river was begun. following the course ned had tried, the machine was taken safely over the stream, and run up the opposite bank. no sooner had it got on solid ground, however, than, with a loud noise, one of the rear tires burst. "here's trouble!" exclaimed ned, as jerry brought the car to a sudden stop. "might have been worse," commented bob. "it might have blown out while we were in the water, and that would have been no joke." "right you are, chunky," said jerry. "well, i suppose we may as well camp here for a spell; at least until the repairs are made." he set to work to put in a new tube, ned and bob assisting him, while the professor wandered off after any stray specimens that might exist. he found several insects that he said were rare ones. the fixing of the tire proved a harder job than jerry had anticipated. it was several hours before it was repaired to suit him, and by then the sun was getting low. "what do you say that we camp here for the night?" proposed ned. "we can't get on much farther anyhow, and this is a nice place. it's more open than in the forest." this was voted a good plan, so a fire was made and a camp staked out. from their side of the river vasco and his companions viewed these preparations with satisfaction. "they cannot escape us now," said the leader of the mexicans. "we can easily cross the river after dark and get close to them. i wish noddy would hurry up." at that instant there was the sound of wheels in the road, to the left of which vasco and his men were concealed. in a little while noddy, with dalsett, berry and pender, rode up in the machine. "where are they?" asked noddy, eagerly. vasco pointed through the screen of bushes to the other side of the bank, where the professor and boys were encamped. "good!" exclaimed nixon. "we'll pay them a visit to-night." all unconscious of the nearness of their foes, the cresville boys, having had a good supper, sat talking about the camp-fire. the professor was engaged in sorting over the specimens he had gathered during the day. at this same time noddy and dalsett, with vasco and the six mexicans the latter had provided, were preparing to cross the river, under cover of the darkness. they did not undress, but waded in as they were, the gleaming camp-fire on the other side serving as a beacon to guide them. "softly!" cautioned vasco, as the nine crawled up on the opposite bank, and began creeping toward the campers. chapter xiv. the angry mexicans. the professor and the boys were thinking of getting out their blankets and turning in for the night. they sat in a circle about the camp-fire, talking over the events of the day. meanwhile, creeping nearer and nearer, noddy, vasco and their gang were encircling the camp of jerry and his friends. they came so close that they could hear the conversation between the professor and the boys. now, if the mexicans whom vasco had engaged to assist him had not understood something of the english language, or if chance had so arranged matters that they had not come near enough to overhear the talk of jerry and his comrades, this story might have had a different ending. as it was, fate so willed matters that noddy and his gang got close to the camp in time to hear the professor remark: "well, boys, it will not be many more days, i hope, before we reach the buried city we are searching for. and when we do i will be the proudest man in the world. think of discovering a buried town of ancient mexico! why, half the college professors would give their heads to be in my place." "but we haven't found the city yet," said ned. "no; but i am sure we are on the right road," went on the professor. "i am sure of it, not only because of what the old mexican magician told us, but from the map my friend left me. see, here it is," and he drew out the paper with the rude drawing on. the boys drew close to look the map over once more. "there seem to be two roads, one branching off to the right," remarked jerry, pointing to the map. "and it looks as if there was some sort of an image at the parting of the ways." "there is!" exclaimed the professor. "i never noticed it before, but there is the laughing serpent, as sure as you're a foot high!" "we'll reach the buried city all right," spoke bob. "i only hope we don't come upon it too unexpectedly." "well, the mexican prophesied we would find it sooner than we thought," observed ned. "but he may not have meant all he said. anyhow, i'm sleepy and i'm going to turn in." the others followed his example of wrapping themselves up in their blankets, and soon their deep breathing told they were on the road to slumberland. meanwhile, the mexicans who had listened to the above conversation were much disturbed. though they did not understand all that had been said, they caught enough to indicate to them that the boys and the professor were not on a search for gold or silver mines, the only things in which the mexicans were interested. there were angry but low-voiced mutterings among the mexicans. soon they became angry, talked among themselves and grew quite excited. they talked rapidly to vasco, in spanish. "what does all this mean, noddy?" asked bilette. "have you fooled us?" "no, no, it's all right!" exclaimed nixon. "their talk of a buried city is only a bluff to throw us off the track." "hardly, when they don't know we are following them," said vasco. "i'm afraid that's not true, noddy. better own up and say you guessed at the whole thing." "i didn't guess!" exclaimed noddy. "too much talk! not enough do!" exclaimed one of the mexicans, striding forward and pushing noddy to one side. noddy resented this, and drew back his hand as if to strike the mexican. the latter, quick as a flash, drew an ugly-looking knife. "put that up!" exclaimed vasco, noting, in the darkness, his companion's act. "we don't want to begin fighting among ourselves." he stepped between noddy and the mexican, and pushed them away from each other. the mexican muttered angrily, and his companions could be heard growling over the outcome of the affair. they could appreciate a gold or silver mine. a buried city was nothing to them, and they saw no use in pursuing the trail further. they were angry at noddy for having brought them thus far on a foolish errand. "now keep quiet," advised bilette. "the first thing you know you'll have them all aroused and then there'll be trouble." "_diablo!_" exclaimed one of the mexicans, beneath his breath. "are we fools or children? we leave the city and we travel for days through the wilderness. we are told we are to get great riches. santa maria! is this money? is this gold or silver? the crazy _americanos_ talk of nothing but lost cities. what care i for lost cities? what care any of us for lost cities? i hate lost cities!" "and i! and i!" exclaimed his companions, in whispers. "and this fellow, noddy nixon, is to blame for it all!" went on the angry mexican. "he gets us all to come out here. we follow the crazy _americano_ who does nothing but grab bugs and toads. he is man to be afraid of! yet we follow him, and all for what? to find he is looking for some old ruins. i will not stand it!" "clear out of here!" commanded bilette. "if we stand here quarreling much longer they'll wake up." under the guidance of their leader, the mexicans made their way back to the river bank. on the opposite shore they had left their horses and noddy's automobile. "what made you think they were after a mine, noddy?" asked bilette, when the party was well beyond earshot of the campers. "you must have made a mistake." "supposing i did," whispered noddy, in low tones to vasco, "what good will it do to tell every one? i may have failed on this plan, but i have another, even better." "better not try it until you find if it will work," advised bilette. "my men are in no mood to be fooled a second time." disappointed and dejected, the mexicans recrossed the river and made their camp on the opposite shore from professor snodgrass and the boys. the mexicans were still in a surly mood, and vasco had to keep close watch lest some one of them should harm noddy. wet and cold, for if the days were hot the nights were chilly, the nixon gang reached their camp. one of the men lighted a fire and cooked some frijoles and tortillas. the meal, simple as it was, made every one feel better. nixon and pender, as soon as they had finished eating, drew off to one side, leaving the mexicans to talk among themselves. "it looks as if we'd have trouble," said noddy. "it's all your fault," observed pender. "i'm not saying it isn't," put in noddy. "but what's the use of crying over spilled milk? the question is: what are we going to do about it now?" pender was silent a few minutes. then a thought seemed to come to him suddenly. "i have it!" he exclaimed. "what?" asked noddy. jack leaned over and whispered something in his friend's ear. noddy hesitated a moment, and then gave a start. "the very thing!" he exclaimed. "i wonder i didn't think of it before." he hurried to where vasco was sitting, near the camp-fire, smoking a cigarette. to him he whispered what pender had suggested. "it's a risky thing to do," said the mexican. "if it fails, we'll have to leave the country. if it succeeds we'll be in danger of heavy punishment from the authorities. however, i'm ready to risk it if you are. shall i tell the men?" "of course," replied noddy. "i want to make it up to them for being mistaken about the mine." thereupon vasco called his friends to him, and, motioning for silence, said: "our friend noddy," he explained, "has just told me something." "about a gold mine?" asked one of the men, bitterly. "it may prove to be a gold mine," said vasco. "but it concerns one of those across the river," and he nodded toward the other campers. "did you notice one of the boys"--bilette went on--"the fat one; the stout youth; the one they call bob and sometimes chunky?" "_si! si!_" exclaimed the mexicans. "well, his father is a rich banker." "what of it?" asked one of the men. "his money is not in mexico." "but it can be brought to mexico!" cried vasco. "how?" "by kidnapping the boy and holding him for a large ransom. will you do it?" "we will!" yelled the men. "this will provide us with gold. we'll kidnap the fat boy!" chapter xv. caught by an alligator. "easy! easy!" cried vasco bilette. "do you want them to hear you across the river?" under his caution the men subsided. "we must follow them and watch our chance," spoke noddy. "we'll demand a heavy ransom." "_si! si!_" agreed the mexicans. "that's how we get square, jack," whispered noddy to his chum. "you bet, noddy; and get money, too!" said pender. "we'll all have to have a share," put in dalsett. "i'm not here for my health." "me either," remarked bill berry. "i need cash as much as any one." "we'll share the ransom money," said vasco. "now turn in, every one of you." soon the camp became quiet, the only sounds heard being the movements of animals in the forest, or, now and then, the splash of a fish in the river. the sun was scarcely above the horizon the next morning ere vasco bilette was astir. he took a position where he could watch the other camp, and saw the professor and the boys get their breakfast and start off. "we'll give them about an hour's start," said vasco to noddy. "then the men on horses will follow and you can come, about a mile behind, in the auto. at the first opportunity we'll capture this bob baker." meanwhile, jerry and his companions were going along at a moderate pace. the weather was fine though hot, and the road fairly good. for perhaps twenty miles they puffed along, and then they came to another river. "i hope this isn't any deeper than the other," said jerry. "i'll swim across," volunteered ned. his offer was accepted, and, stripping off his outer garments, he plunged into the water. luckily, he found the stream was about as shallow as the first one the auto had forded. he reached the opposite bank and called over. "come on! fetch my clothes with you; i'm not going to swim back." jerry started the machine down into the water. it went along all right until about half way across. then there came a sudden swirl beneath the surface, a jar to the machine, and then the auto came to a stop. "what's the matter?" cried jerry. "have we struck a snag?" "looks more like a snag had struck us," replied bob, leaning over the rear seat and looking down into the water. "something has hold of one of the back wheels." "nonsense!" exclaimed jerry. "do you suppose a fish would try to swallow an automobile, as the whale did jonah?" "well, you can see for yourself," maintained bob. "there's some kind of a fish, or beast, or bird, down under the water, making quite a fuss. it's so muddy i can't make out what it is." jerry climbed over into the tonneau. sure enough, there was some disturbance going on. every now and then the water would swirl and eddy, and the automobile would tremble as if trying to move against some powerful force. jerry had thrown out the gears as soon as he felt an obstruction. professor snodgrass was closely observing the water. "what do you think it is?" asked jerry. "it might be that it is an eddy of the water about a sink-hole, or it may be, as bob suggests, a big fish," replied the naturalist. "i never knew there were fish in these waters big enough to stop an auto, though." "it may be a whole school of fishes," said bob. just then there came a more violent agitation of the water, and the auto began to move backward slightly. "whatever it is, it seems bound to get us," jerry remarked. "wait until i see if i can't beat the fish or whatever it is." he turned on more power and threw in the first speed gear. the auto shivered and trembled, and then moved ahead slightly. but the big fish, or whatever it was, with powerful strokes of its tail began a backward pull that neutralized the action of the automobile. "i see what it is!" cried the professor. "what?" asked jerry. "a big alligator! it has one wheel in its mouth and is trying to drag us back. hand me a rifle!" jerry passed over a gun. the professor, who was a good shot, leaned down over the back of the tonneau. he could just make out the ugly head of the 'gator beneath the surface. in quick succession he sent three bullets from the magazine rifle into its brain. there was a last dying struggle of the beast, the waters swirled in a whirlpool under the lashing of the powerful tail, and then the little waves became red with blood and the alligator ceased struggling. once more jerry threw the gear into place, and this time the machine went forward and reached the opposite bank. "i thought you were never coming," observed ned, who was shivering in his wet undergarments. "what did you stop for? to catch fish?" "we stopped because we had to," replied jerry, and he told ned about the alligator. "i thought you were shooting bullfrogs," observed the swimmer as he got out some dry clothing. "say, if we told the folks at home that a mexican alligator tried to chew up an automobile, i wonder what they'd say?" "the beast must have been very hungry, or else have taken us for an enemy," remarked the professor. "i wish i could have saved him for a specimen. but i suppose it would have been a bother to carry around." "i think it would," agreed jerry. "but now we are safe, i must see if mr. alligator damaged the machine any." he looked at the wheels where the saurian had taken hold, but beyond the marks of the teeth of the beast on the spokes and rim, no harm had been done. "are we ready to go on now?" asked the professor, when ned had finished dressing. "i'd like to take a dip in the river," said bob. "it's hot and dusty on the road, and we may not get another chance." "i think i'll go in, too," observed jerry. "we are in no hurry. will you come along, professor?" "no; i'll watch you," said the naturalist. he sat down on the bank while jerry and chunky prepared for a dip. they splashed around in the water near shore and had a good bath. bob was swimming a little farther out than was jerry. "better stay near shore," cautioned the professor. "no telling when some alligators may be along." at that instant bob gave a cry. he struggled in the water and gave a spring into the air. "something has stung me!" he cried. then he sank back, limp and unconscious, beneath the waves. "hurry!" cried the professor. "get him out, jerry, or he'll be drowned!" but jerry had hurried to the rescue even before the professor called. reaching down under the water he picked up his companion's body, and, placing it over his shoulder, waded to shore with it. bob was as limp as a rag. "is he killed?" asked ned. "i hope not," replied the professor. "still, he had a narrow escape." "did something bite him?" asked jerry. the professor pointed to a small red mark on bob's leg. "he received an electric shock," said the naturalist. "an electric shock?" echoed ned. "yes; from the electric battery fish, or stinging ray, as they are sometimes called. they can give a severe shock, causing death under some circumstances, it is said. but i guess it was a young one that stung bob. they are a fish," the professor went on to explain, "fitted by nature with a perfect electric battery. i wish i had caught one for a specimen." "i didn't think of it at the time this one stung me or i would have caught it for you," said bob, suddenly opening his eyes. "oh, you're better, are you?" asked jerry. "i'm all right," replied bob. "it was quite a jar at first." "i agree with you," put in the professor. "however, you got over it better than i expected you would. i think we had better get out of the neighborhood of this river. it seems unlucky." in a little while bob was sufficiently recovered to dress. then, having delayed only to fill the water tank of the auto from the stream, the travelers resumed their journey. they chugged along until nightfall, and having reached no settlement, they camped in the open, and made an early start the next day. it was about noon when, having made a sudden turn of the road, they came to a place where there was a parting of the ways. "i wonder which we shall take?" asked ned. "look! look!" cried bob, suddenly, pointing to something ahead. chapter xvi. the laughing serpent. "what is it?" asked jerry, bringing the machine up with a sudden jerk. "see! there is the laughing serpent!" exclaimed bob. "the laughing serpent?" inquired ned. "what do you mean?" "don't you remember what the old mexican said?" went on bob. "here is the parting of the ways, and here is the image of the laughing serpent." "sure enough!" agreed the professor. "it's an image cut out of stone, in the shape of a snake laughing. wonderful! wonderful!" right at the fork of the road and about fifteen feet from the automobile was the strange design. it was rudely cut out of stone, a serpent twining about a tree-trunk. there was nothing remarkable in the image itself except for the quaint, laughing expression the sculptor had managed to carve on the mouth of the reptile. "i wonder how it came here?" asked jerry, getting out of the car and going close for a better look. "probably a relic of the aztec race," replied the professor. "they were artists in their way. this must be the image the old mexican mentioned. if it is i suppose we may as well follow his advice and take the road to the left." "the road to the buried city," put in jerry. "we must be close to it now." "isn't that something sticking in the mouth of the image?" asked bob. "it looks like a paper," said ned. "i'll climb up and see what it is." he scrambled up the stone tree-trunk, about which the image of the laughing serpent was twined. reaching up, he took from the mouth of the reptile a folded paper. "what does it say?" called jerry. "it's written in some queer language; spanish, i guess," replied ned. "i can't read it." "bring it here," said professor snodgrass. "perhaps i can make it out." the naturalist puzzled over the writing a few minutes. then he exclaimed: "it's from our old friend, the mexican magician. he tells us to turn to the left, which is the same advice he has given us before, and he adds that we must beware of some sudden happening." "i wonder what he means by that?" asked jerry. "probably nothing," answered the professor. "but if something does happen, and he meets us after it, he'll be sure to say he warned us. it's a way those pretended wonder-workers have." "how do you suppose the note was placed there?" inquired bob. "we left the mexican many miles behind." "they are wonderful runners," answered the naturalist. "the magician may not have placed it here himself, but he may have given it to a friend. perhaps there was a relay of runners, such as used to exist among the ancient mexicans to carry royal messages. the old mexican, who, somehow or other, discovered our object in this country, probably wanted to impress us with his abilities in the mystifying line." the travelers spent a few minutes examining the queer, carved serpent. there were no other evidences of the existence of man at hand, and, except for the two roads, there was nothing to be seen but an almost unbroken forest. it was a wild part of mexico. "well, what are we going to do?" asked jerry. "go on or stay here?" "go on, by all means," said the professor. "why, we may be only a little way from the buried city! just think of it! there will be wealth untold for us!" "one thing puzzles me though," observed bob. "what is it, chunky?" asked ned. "how are we going to know this buried city when we come to it?" "how?" came from jerry. "why, i suppose there'll be a railroad station, with the name of the city on it. or there may be trolley cars, so we can ask the conductors if we are at the underground town. don't you worry about knowing the place when you get to it." "but if it's underground, how are we going to find it?" persisted bob. "it isn't like a mine, for people who know the signs can tell where gold or silver is hidden under the ground. but a city is different." "i confess that question has been a puzzle to me," admitted professor snodgrass. "the only thing to do is to keep on along this road until we come to the place, or see some evidence that a buried city is in the vicinity." "forward, then!" cried jerry, cranking up the auto. they all got into the car and, proceeding at a slow speed, for the path was uncertain, started down the road leading to the left. but all this while noddy nixon and vasco bilette, at the head of their two bands, had not been idle. noddy kept his auto going, and vasco and his mexicans trotted along on horseback, drawing nearer and nearer to the travelers ahead of them. it was about noon when the boys and the professor had started away from the image of the laughing serpent, and it was three hours later that vasco and his men came up to it. "hello!" exclaimed the mexican, staring at the carved stone. "i never saw you before, but you're not remarkable for beauty. i wonder what you're here for?" he had never been in this part of mexico before, and it was like a new country to him. "i wonder which way those chaps took?" asked vasco, dismounting from his horse. "it won't do for us to take the wrong trail." "see!" exclaimed one of the mexicans, pointing to where the tracks of the auto wheels could be seen, imprinted in the dust of the way leading to the left. "see! that way they go!" "sure enough they did, petro!" remarked vasco. "you have sharp eyes. well, we'll just wait here until noddy comes up and sees how things are. i shouldn't wonder but what it would be time to close in on 'em to-night. i'm getting tired of waiting. i want some money." "so are we all tired!" exclaimed one of the gang, speaking in spanish, which was the language vasco always used save in talking to his english acquaintances. "we want gold, and if the fat boy is to be carried off and held for a ransom, the sooner the better." "have patience," advised vasco. "we'll have him quick enough. wait until noddy comes." then he began to roll a cigarette, his example being followed by all the others. in about an hour noddy, pender, dalsett and berry came up in the auto. a consultation was held, and it was decided to have the horsemen follow the party in front more closely. "we'll do the kidnapping to-night," said noddy. "we'll wait until they go into camp, because that's what they'll have to do, for there are no inns down here. we'll be hiding in the bushes and at the proper time we'll grab bob baker and run." "good!" exclaimed vasco. "my men were beginning to get impatient." the plotters made a fire and prepared dinner. then the mexicans got out their revolvers and began cleaning them. several also sharpened their knives. "look here," began noddy, as he saw these preparations, "there's to be no killing, you know, vasco." "killing! bless you, of course not," was the reply, but vasco winked one eye at dalsett. "my men are only seeing that their weapons do not get rusty. now, captain, we're ready to start as soon as you give the word." "then you may as well begin now," was noddy's reply. "they have a pretty good start of us, but we'll travel after dark, if need be, to catch up with them. as soon as they camp out for the night, vasco, surround them so they can't escape. then i'll come up in my car, and we'll take bob away in it." the horsemen started off, noddy following in a little while. the trail made by the auto of the boys and the professor was easily followed. noddy's car had barely turned around a bend in the road before something strange happened. the laughing serpent seemed to tremble and shake. it appeared alive, and about to fall to the ground. then a portion of the base and tree-trunk slid to one side and from the interior, which was hollow, there stepped out an old mexican--the same who had played the part of the magician and who had given prophetic warning to the travelers. "ha! my trick worked!" he exclaimed. "it was a hard journey to travel all that distance and get here ahead of them. only the fleetness of my horse and the fact that i knew all the roads that were short cuts, enabled me to do it. now for the final act in the game!" he placed his fingers to his mouth and blew a shrill whistle. in an instant a milk-white horse came from the bushes, where it had been concealed. "here, my beauty!" called the mexican. he leaped on the animal's back and dashed off like the wind, down the road leading to the right. chapter xvii. an interrupted kidnapping. as the auto containing the naturalist and the boys progressed, the road became more and more difficult to travel. part of the way was overgrown with brush, and several times the travelers had to stop, get out and cut big vines that grew across the path. "i guess there hasn't been much going on along this highway," observed jerry. "and i don't believe it will ever be much in favor with autoists," said ned. "there's too much sand." there was a great deal of the fine dirt and in some places it was so soft and yielding that the wheels of the car sank down half way to the hubs, making it impossible to proceed except at a snail's pace. then, again, would come firm stretches, where the going was easier. in this manner several miles were traversed. the forest on either side of the road became more dense and wilder. thousands of parrots and other birds flew about among the trees, and troops of monkeys followed the progress of the automobile, chattering as if in rage at the invasion of their stamping ground. suddenly the screams and chattering of the monkeys ceased. the birds also stopped their racket, and the silence was weird after the riot of noise. then there came such a series of shrill shrieks from a band of monkeys that it was evident something out of the ordinary had happened. the next instant a long, lithe, yellow animal shot across the road in front of the auto. the big beast had a monkey in its mouth. "a jaguar!" exclaimed the professor. "quick, boys! get the rifle!" ned handed the weapon to the professor, who fired three times, quickly, but the jaguar leaped on, unharmed. "well, we're getting into the region of big game," remarked the naturalist, "and we'll have to be on the lookout now or some of the beasts will be trying that trick on us." "the monkeys must have seen him; that's why they kept so still that time," remarked bob. "but it didn't do that particular one any good," said the professor. "he must have been caught napping. well, mr. jaguar will have a good supper to-night." "that reminds me," spoke bob. "when are we going to eat?" "that's right, speak of eating and you'll be sure to hear from chunky," said jerry. "but i suppose we'll have to camp pretty soon. it's five o'clock and there don't seem to be any hotels in the vicinity," and he glanced at the dense forest on every side and grinned. "we'll camp at the next clearing," said the professor. "better get to a place where there's a little space on every side of you when there are wild animals about." a mile further on the travelers came to a place where the trees were less thick. there was an open space on either side of the road. the auto was placed under the shelter of a wide-spreading palm and then the adventurers busied themselves getting supper. the professor took a gun and went a little way into the woods. he shot a small deer, and in a little while some choice venison steaks were broiling over the camp stove. "this is something like eating," remarked ned. "i was getting tired of those frijoles, eggs and tortillas," and he accepted a second helping of venison. the rubber and woolen blankets were taken from the auto, and the travelers prepared to spend the night in the forest. "i guess we'll mount guard," said the professor. "the forest is full of jaguars. i saw three while i was hunting the deer." "let me stay up," begged jerry. "i'm not sleepy, and i'd like to get a shot at one of the beasts." ned also wanted to remain up, but the professor said he could take the second watch; and, content with this, ned turned in with the others. as the night wore on the forests resounded more and more with the noises made by wild beasts. the howls of the foxes mingled with the more terrifying yells of the jaguars, and of the latter beasts the woods seemed to be full. jerry, with the loaded magazine rifle, was on the alert. he kept up a bright fire, for he knew that unless made desperate by hunger no wild thing would approach a flame. there were queer rustlings and cracklings of the underbrush on every side of the sentinel. now and then through the leaves he caught glimpses of reddish-green eyes reflecting back the shine of the blaze. following the plans they had made, vasco bilette and his mexicans, together with noddy and the crowd in the automobile, had trailed the boys and the professor to the camp. with great caution, vasco had led his men to within a short distance of the fire jerry had kindled, and noddy's auto was in readiness for the kidnapping. so, though jerry did not know it, there were the eyes of dangerous men on his movements as well as the eyes of dangerous beasts. like dark shadows, the mexicans slowly encircled the camp. they were so close they could distinguish the sleeping forms. "which is bob?" whispered vasco to noddy. "that one right at the foot of the big palm tree," replied noddy nixon, pointing out the banker's son. "is everything ready?" the leader of the mexicans asked. "all ready!" replied noddy. vasco was about to steal forward, hoping to be able to grab up bob and make off with him before the camp was aroused. in case of resistance, he had given his men orders to shoot. but at that instant a big jaguar, driven wild with hunger, and braving all danger, had crept to within a few feet of jerry. the animal smelled the meat of the recently killed deer, the carcass of which hung in a tree. the fierce beast determined to get a meal at all hazards. it crouched on the limb of a tree, just above jerry's head, ready for a spring at the body of the deer. jerry happened to glance up. he saw the long, lithe body, tense for a leap, the reddish-green eyes glaring at him. jerry was not a coward, but the sight of the brute, so dangerous and so close to him, scared him greatly for a second or two. then, recovering his nerve, he raised the rifle, took quick aim and fired three shots in rapid succession. with a snarl and roar the jaguar toppled to the ground, tearing up the earth and leaves in a death struggle. "what's the matter?" called out the professor. "are you hurt, jerry?" cried ned. bob, too, roused up, and the whole camp was soon astir, every one grabbing a gun or revolver. jerry fired two more shots into the jaguar, and the struggles ceased. "i got him just in time," he remarked. the others crowded around the brute. "halt!" exclaimed bilette, under his breath, as, ready with his men to rush on the camp, he saw that his plan was spoiled. "if it had not been for that jaguar i would have had the captive. come, we must get out of this!" chapter xviii. the underground city. vasco bilette's warning was received with ill humor by his men. they were angry because the kidnapping had not succeeded, and because the jaguar had alarmed the camp and put every one on guard. "come, let us give them battle now and take the boy!" suggested one. "do you want to be killed?" asked vasco, angrily. "they are all armed now, and would shoot at the least suspicious sound. i, for one, don't care to have a bullet in me. come, let us get out of this." the mexicans saw the force of vasco's arguments. they did not care about being shot at like wild beasts, and they knew that the boys and the professor were ready for anything now. "we will try to-morrow night," said bilette, as, with noddy and his men, he silently withdrew to where the horses and auto had been left. "perhaps we'll have better luck then." the men growled, but had to accept the situation. as for our friends, they were too excited to sleep any more that night, and so they sat around the camp-fire and talked until morning. breakfast over, camp was broken, and once more the auto started on the trip toward the hidden city. professor snodgrass got out the map made by his dead friend and studied it carefully. "i believe we are on the right road," the naturalist said. "here is a highway marked on the drawing that seems to correspond with the one we are on. and there is a place marked where two roads diverge. only there is nothing said about the laughing serpent, though there is something here that might be taken for it," and he pointed to the map. every one was becoming quite anxious, and the boys, as well as the professor, kept close watch on each foot of the way to see if there were any indications that they were close to the underground town. they stopped for dinner near a little brook, in which bob caught several fish that made a welcome addition to the bill of fare. "now, if you boys don't object, i think i'll take a little stroll into the woods and see what i can find in the way of specimens," remarked the naturalist, as he finished the last of his fish and frijoles. "better take a gun along," called ned. "a jaguar may get you." "i'm not going very far," replied the professor. "all i want is my net and box," and with these only he started off. it was about an hour later when jerry observed: "doesn't it seem as if the monkeys were making more noise than usual?" the boys listened for a few seconds. it was evident that something had disturbed these nimble inhabitants of the forest, for they were yelling and chattering at a great rate. "maybe another jaguar is after them," suggested bob. "no; it doesn't sound like that," said jerry. "they seem to be yelling more in rage than in fear." "maybe they're having a fight," put in ned. just then there came a crashing, as if several trees were being crashed down by a tornado. there was a crackling of the underbrush and a rustling in the leaves. then, above this noise and the yells of the monkeys, sounded a single cry: "help, boys!" "the professor's in trouble again!" cried jerry. "i wonder what it is this time?" grabbing up a rifle, which example bob and ned imitated, jerry ran in the direction of the voice. the noise made by the monkeys increased, and there were sounds as if a bombardment of the forest was under way. "where are you?" called jerry. "we are coming!" "under this big rock!" called the professor, and the boys, looking in the direction his voice came from, saw the naturalist hiding under a big ledge of stone that jutted out of the side of a hill in a sort of a clearing. "can't you come out?" called ned. "i tried to several times, but i was nearly killed," replied the professor. "the monkeys are after me. look at the ground." the boys looked and saw, strewn in front of the shallow cave in which the professor had ensconced himself, a number of round, dark objects. as they looked there came a shower of others through the air. several of them hit on the rock, broke, and a shower of white scattered all about. "what in the world are they?" asked bob. he ran toward the professor. no sooner had he emerged out of the dense forest into the clearing than a regular hail of the round objects fell all about him. one struck him on the shoulder and the boy was glad enough to retreat. "what's it all about?" asked ned. "the monkeys are bombarding the professor with cocoanuts," said bob, gasping for breath after his run. "cocoanuts?" "that's what they are. here come some more." he had scarcely spoken before the air was again dark with the brown nuts, which were much larger than those seen in market, being contained in their original husk. at the same time there was a chorus of angry cries from the monkeys. it was evident now why the professor dared not leave his rock shelter. the minute he did so he would run the risk of being struck down and probably killed by a volley of the nuts. nor could the boys go to his rescue, for the moment they crossed the clearing they would be targets for the infuriated animals. "what's to be done?" asked ned. "supposing we shoot some of the monkeys," suggested bob. "i don't think that would be a good idea," said jerry. "in the first place if we kill any of the animals it will make the others all the angrier. and then we would have to keep shooting for several days to make much of an inroad on the beasts. there must be five thousand of them." indeed, the forest was full of the long-tailed and nimble-fingered monkeys, all perched in cocoanut or other trees, ready to resent the slightest movement on the part of their human enemies. "i know a good trick," spoke bob. "what is it, chunky?" asked jerry. "take a big looking-glass and put it on a tree. the monkeys will be attracted by the shine of it; they will all go down to see what it is and when they see a strange monkey in the glass they will fight. that will make enough fuss so that the professor can escape." "that might be a good trick if we had the big mirror, which we haven't," spoke jerry. "you'll have to think of something else, chunky." but there was no need of this, for at that instant the cries of the monkeys ceased. the silence was almost oppressive in its suddenness and by contrast with the previous riot of noise. then came unmistakable screams of fear from the simians. "now what has happened, i wonder?" said ned. "it's a jaguar!" cried bob. he pointed to a tree, on a limb of which one of the animals the monkeys dreaded so much was stretched out. the beast was stalking one of the chattering animals, but his presence had been discovered by the whole tribe. so much in awe did the monkeys hold this scourge of the mexican forests that his presence accomplished what the boys could never hope to. the apes trooped off with a rush, chattering in fright. with a howl of rage the jaguar took after them. "you can come out now, professor," called ned. "the monkeys are gone." in fear and trembling the naturalist came from his sheltering rock. he seemed in momentary fear lest he might be greeted with a shower of the nuts, but none fell. with rapid strides he crossed the clearing and joined the boys. "how did it all happen?" asked jerry, as soon as the professor had recovered his breath. "it was all my fault," explained the naturalist. "i was collecting some butterfly specimens, when i happened to see some monkeys in the cocoanut trees. i had read that if any one threw something at the beasts they would retaliate by throwing down cocoanuts. i wanted to test it, so i threw a few stones at the monkeys. they returned my fire with interest, so i was forced to run under the rock for shelter. "there were only a few monkeys at first, but more came until there were thousands. they kept throwing cocoanuts until the ground was covered. it's lucky you came when i called." "it's luckier the jaguar came along when he did," said jerry. "let's get back to the auto before i get into any more trouble," suggested the professor. "i do seem to have the worst luck of getting into scrapes." half an hour later the travelers were on their way. it was getting well along into afternoon and they were beginning to think of where they would spend the night. they were getting deeper and deeper into the forest, and the way became more and more difficult to travel. but they would not turn back, for they felt they were on the right path. at length they came to a place where creepers and vines were so closely grown across the path that nothing short of hatchets could make a way. the boys got out the small axes kept for such emergencies, and, after an hour's work, made a passage. they started forward once more, and were going along at a pretty good clip, the road having improved in spots. "i wonder when we'll get to that underground city?" said ned, for perhaps the tenth time that day. he had no sooner spoken than the earth trembled under the auto. the machine seemed to stand still. then, with a sickening motion it plunged forward and downward. a big hole had opened in the road and let the car and its occupants through the surface of the earth. the machine slid forward, revealing, near the top of a shaft, a brief glimpse of several ruined buildings. "it is the underground city!" exclaimed the professor. then there came intense darkness. chapter xix. in an ancient temple. the auto seemed to be bumping along downhill, for at the first evidence of danger jerry had shut off the power and applied the brake. but the descent was too steep to have the bands hold. down and down the adventurers went, through some underground passage, it was evident. "are we all here?" called jerry, his voice sounding strange and muffled in the chamber to which they had come. "i'm here and all right, but i don't exactly know what has happened," replied the professor. "the same with me," put in ned, and bob echoed his words. just then the automobile came to a stop, having reached a level and run along it for a short distance. "well, we seem to have arrived," went on jerry. "i wonder how much good it is going to do us?" "supposing we light the search-lamp and see what sort of a place we are in," suggested professor snodgrass. "it's so dark in here we might just as well be inside one of the pyramids of egypt." the acetylene gas lamp on the front of the auto was lighted, and in its brilliant rays the travelers saw that they were in a large underground passage. it was about twenty feet high, twice as broad and seemed to be hewn out of solid rock. "this is what makes it so dark," observed the professor. "i knew it must be something like this, for it was still daylight when we tumbled into the hole and we haven't been five minutes down here. run the auto forward, jerry." the car puffed slowly along surely as strange a place as ever an automobile was in. the boys looked eagerly ahead. they saw nothing but the rocky sides and roof of the passage. "this doesn't look much like an underground city," objected ned. "i think it's an abandoned railway tunnel." at that instant jerry shut off the power and applied the brakes with a jerk. "what's the matter?" asked the professor. "there's some sort of a wall or obstruction ahead," was the answer, and jerry pointed to where, in the glare of the lamp, could be seen a wall that closed up the passageway completely. "i guess this is the end," remarked ned, ruefully. the naturalist got out of the car and ran forward. he seemed to be examining the obstruction carefully. he struck it two or three blows. "hurrah!" he cried. "come on, boys, this is only a big wooden door! we can open it!" in an instant the three lads had joined him. they found that the passage was closed by a big portal of planks, bolted together and swinging on immense hinges. there was also a huge lock or fastening. "can we open the door?" inquired bob. "it looks as if it was meant to stay shut." "we'll soon see," answered jerry. he ran back to the automobile and got a kit of tools. then, while ned held up one of the small oil lamps that was taken off the dashboard of the car, jerry tackled the lock. it was a massive affair, but time had so rusted it that very little trouble was found in taking it apart so that the door was free. "everybody push, now!" called jerry. "those hinges are pretty rusty." they shoved with all their strength, but the door, though it gave slightly, showing that no more locks held it, would not open. it had probably not been used for centuries. "looks as if we'd have to stay here," said the professor. "not a bit of it," spoke jerry. "wait a minute." he ran back to the auto, and soon the others heard him cranking it up. "look out! stand to one side!" he called. the auto came forward slowly. jerry steered the front part of it carefully against the massive door. once he was close to the portal he turned on full power. there was a cracking and splintering of wood, and a squeaking as the rusty hinges gave. then, with the auto pushing against it, the massive door swung to one side. the machine had accomplished what the strength of the boys and the professor could not. slowly but surely the portal opened. wider and wider it swung, until there burst on the astonished gaze of the travelers a flood of light. the sun was shining overhead, though fast declining in the west, but in the bright glare of the slanting beams there was revealed the underground city. there it stood in all its ancient splendor, most of it, however, but mere ruins of what had been fine buildings. there were rows and rows of houses, stone palaces and what had been beautiful temples. nearly all of the structures showed traces of elaborate carvings. but ruin was on every side. the roofs of houses, temples and palaces had fallen in. walls were crumbling and the streets were filled with debris. as the boys looked, some foxes scampered among the ruins, and shortly afterward a jaguar slunk along, crawling into a hole in a temple wall. "grand! beautiful! solemn!" exclaimed the professor, in raptures over the discovery. "it is more than i dared to hope for. think of it, boys! we have at last discovered the buried city of ancient mexico. how the people back in civilization will open their eyes when they hear this news! my name and yours as well will be covered with glory. oh, it is marvelous!" "i guess it will be some time before the people back in cresville hear of this," observed jerry. "there doesn't seem to be any way of sending a letter from here. i don't see any telegraph station, and there's not a messenger boy in sight." "that's funny," said ned. "you'd think a buried city, a dead one, so to speak, would be just the place where a district messenger would like to come to rest." "it's a lonesome place here," remarked bob. "i hope we'll find some one to talk to." "that's just the beauty of the place," said the professor. "what good would an ancient, ruined, buried city be if people were living in it? i hope there isn't a soul here but ourselves." "i guess you'll get your desire, all right," remarked jerry. the first surprise and wonder over, the travelers advanced a little way into the city and looked about them. they saw that the place, which was several miles square, was down in a hollow, formed of high hills. for this reason the location of the city had remained so long a secret. they had come upon it through one of the underground passages leading into the town, and these, as they afterward learned, were the only means of entering the place. there were four of these passages or tunnels, one entering from each side of the city, north, south, east and west. but time and change had closed up the outer ends of the tunnels after the city had become deserted, and it remained for professor snodgrass and his party to tumble in on one. it was as if a city had been built inside an immense bowl and on the bottom of it. the sides of the bowl would represent the hills and mountains that girt the ancient town. then, if four holes were made in the sides of the vessel, close to the bottom, they would be like the four entrances to the old city. "supposing we take a ride through the town before dark," suggested jerry. "we may meet some one." he started the machine, but after going a short distance it was found that it was impracticable to use the machine to any advantage. the streets were filled with debris and big stones from the ruined houses and fallen hills, and it needed constant twisting and turning to make the journey. "let's get out and walk," proposed ned. "then there's a good place to leave the machine," said bob, pointing to a ruined temple on the left. "we can run it right inside, through the big doors. it's a regular garage." the suggestion was voted a good one, and jerry steered the auto into the temple. the place had been magnificent in its day. even now the walls were covered with beautiful paintings, or the remains of them, and the whole interior and exterior of the place was a mass of fine stone carving. the roof had fallen away in several places, but there were spots where enough remained to give shelter. the machine was run into a covered corner and then the travelers went outside. the professor uttered cries of delight at every step, as he discovered some new specimen or relic. they seemed to exist on every side. "look out where you're stepping!" called the naturalist, suddenly, as jerry was about to set his foot down. "what's the matter--a snake?" asked the boy, jumping back. "no. but you nearly stepped on and ruined a petrified bug worth thousands of dollars!" "great scott! i'll be careful after this," promised jerry, as the professor picked up the specimen of a beetle and put it in his box. chapter xx. mysterious happenings. the travelers strolled for some time longer, the professor finding what he called rare relics at every turn. "this is like another gold mine," he said. "there are treasures untold here. i have no doubt we will find a store of diamonds and other precious stones before we are through." "i'd like to find a ham sandwich right now," observed bob. "it wouldn't be chunky if he wasn't hungry," laughed ned. "but i admit i feel somewhat the same way myself." "then we had better go back to the temple and get supper," advised jerry. so back they went, but their progress was slow, because the professor would insist on examining every bit of ruins he came to in order to see if there were not specimens to be gathered or relics to be picked up. his green box was full to overflowing and all his pockets bulged, but he was the happiest of naturalists. it was dark when they reached the ancient place of worship where the auto had been left, and at jerry's suggestion bob lighted the search-lamp and the other two lights on the machine. this made a brilliant circle of illumination in one place, but threw the rest of the temple into a dense blackness. "i wouldn't want to be here all alone," remarked bob, looking about and shuddering a bit. "why, chunky? afraid of ghosts?" asked ned. "what was that?" exclaimed bob, suddenly, starting at a noise. "a bat," replied the naturalist. "the place is full of them. i must get some for specimens." "i don't know but what i prefer ghosts to bats," said bob. "i hope none of them suck our blood while we're asleep." "no danger; i guess none of these are of the vampire variety," remarked the professor. "but now let's get supper." in spite of the strangeness of the surroundings, the travelers managed to make a good meal. the gasolene stove was set up and some canned chicken prepared, with tortillas and frijoles. "we'll have to replenish our larder soon," remarked jerry, looking into the provision chest. "there's only a little stuff left." "we'll have to go hunting some day," said the professor. "we can't starve in this country. game is too plentiful." "i wonder if the people who built this place didn't put some bedrooms in it," said bob, as, sitting on the floor of the temple, he began to nod from sleepiness. "perhaps they did," put in ned. "let's take a look." he unfastened one of the oil lamps from the auto and started off on an exploring trip. a little to the left of the corner where the auto stood he came to a door. though it worked hard on the rusted hinges he managed to push it open. he flashed the light inside. "hurrah! here are some beds or couches or something of the kind!" he shouted. the others came hurrying up. the room seemed to be a sort of resting place for the priests of the ancient temple. ranged about the side walls were wooden frames on which were stretched skins and hides of animals, in a manner somewhat as the modern cot is made. "i wonder if they are strong enough to hold us," said jerry. "let chunky try, he's the heaviest," suggested ned. accordingly, bob stretched out on the ancient bed. it creaked a little, but showed no signs of collapsing in spite of the many years it had been in the place. "this will be better than sleeping on a cold stone floor," remarked the professor. "fetch in the blankets and we'll have a good night's rest." "shall we post a guard?" asked jerry. "i don't think it will be necessary," replied the naturalist. "i hardly believe there is any one in this old city but ourselves, and we can barricade the door to keep out any stray animals." so, in a little while, the travelers were all slumbering. but the professor was wrong in his surmise that they were the only inhabitants of the underground city. no sooner had a series of snores proclaimed that every one was sleeping than from a dark recess on the opposite side of the temple to that where the automobile stood there came a strange figure, clad in white. if bob had seen it he surely would have said it was a ghost. "so you found my ancient city after all," whispered the figure. "you know now that the mexican magician was telling the truth, and you realize that you found the place sooner than you expected, and in a strange manner. but there will be more strange things happen before you go from here, i promise you." "are the _americano_ dogs asleep?" sounded a whisper from the recess whence came the aged mexican, who had so strangely prophesied to the professor. "yes, san lucia, they are asleep," replied the first figure, as another, attired as he was, joined him. "but speak softly, for they have sharp ears and wake easily." "have they the gold with them?" asked san lucia, who was also quite old. "that is what we want, murado. have they the gold?" "all _americanos_ have gold," replied murado. "that is why i lured them on. all my plans were made to get them here that we might take their gold." "and you succeeded wonderfully well, murado. tell me about it, for i have not had a chance to talk to you since you arrived in such breathless haste." "there is not much to tell," replied the other. "i heard of their arrival in a short time after they reached mexico. then, in a secret way, i heard what they were searching for. chance made it possible for me to somewhat startle them by pretending to know more than i did. i met them on the road and told them of what they were in search and how to find it." "that was easy, since you knew so well yourself," interrupted san lucia. "we have not been brigands for nothing, murado. well do i remember the day you and i came upon this buried city. and it has been our headquarters ever since." "as i said, it was easy to mystify them," went on murado. "they traveled fast in their steam wagon, or whatever it is, but i knew several short cuts that enabled me to get ahead of them. i was hidden in the hollow stone image of the laughing serpent and saw, through the little eye-holes, how they came up and took the paper i had written and put between the lips of the reptile. oh, it all worked out as i had planned, and now we have them here where we want them." "and we will kill them and get their gold!" whispered san lucia, feeling of a knife he wore in his belt. "but tell me, how did they happen to stumble on the right underground passage?" "they didn't happen to," replied murado. "that was one point where i failed. but it is just as well. you see, i had so managed things that i knew they would take the road to the left of the image. when i saw them depart i called my horse and galloped off to the right. i wanted to take a short cut and get here ahead of them. "i succeeded. you were away; just when i needed your help, too. but i managed. i went out in the underground passage and waited for them. "that passage, you know, goes right under the road they were traveling on. whoever built this ancient city must have wanted it to remain hidden, for the only way to get to it is by the tunnels. if, by chance, some one approached on the roads leading to the top of the mountains the ancients had a plan to get rid of them." "how?" asked san lucia. "at several places in the upper roadway there were false places. that is, they were traps. a portion of the road would be dug away, making a shaft down to the tunnel. then boards would be placed over the hole and a light covering of dirt sprinkled on the planks. watchers were stationed below, and at the sound of an enemy on the boards above the sentinels would pull a lever. this would take away the supports of the false portion of the road, and it would crash down into the tunnel, carrying the enemy with it. "so i played the part of the watcher, and when i heard the _americanos_ riding over the trap i pulled the lever and down they crashed. "there, as i said, i made my only mistake. i expected the _americanos_ would be killed, but their steam cart is strong, and the fall did not hurt them. besides, only one end of the trap gave way, and the other, holding fast, made an inclined road on which they descended into the tunnel. that is how they came here, and now we must to work if we are to get their gold." "and quickly, too," observed san lucia, "for i learned that another party is following this; they, too, have a steam wagon, and we may trap them also." "i know the crowd of whom you speak," said murado. "they are not far behind. one is a youth called nixy nodnot, or some barbarous thing like it. they will be surprised not to find their friends. but come, they sleep!" then the two mexican brigands began creeping toward the room where the professor and the boys were sleeping. chapter xxi. noddy has a tumble. when vasco and noddy, foiled in their attempt to kidnap bob, retreated through the forest, they went into camp with their crowd in no very pleasant frame of mind. the mexicans whom vasco had hired to assist him were angry at being foiled, and they talked of deserting. "go on, if you want to," said vasco, carelessly rolling a cigarette; "so much the more gold for us when the rich man ransoms his son." this was enough to excite the greed of the men, who talked no more of going away. the next day, after a consultation, noddy and vasco decided to continue on the trail of the boys and the professor. they pursued the same tactics they had previous to the interrupted kidnapping, and were careful not to get too close to those they were trailing. all was not harmonious among the members of the band with which noddy had surrounded himself. the men had frequent quarrels, especially when they were playing cards, which they seemed to do when they were not smoking cigarettes. after dinner one day the mexicans appeared to be much amused as they played their game. they laughed and shouted and seemed to be talking of the automobile, for noddy had brought his machine up to the camp of the horsemen. "what are they talking about?" asked noddy of vasco. "they are making a wager that the one who loses the game must ride, all by himself, in the automobile," replied bilette. "but i don't want them to do that," said noddy. "they don't know how to run the car." "that's the trouble," went on vasco. "no one wants to lose, for they're all afraid to operate the machine. but if one of them tries to do it, you'd better let him, if you don't want to get into trouble." with a shout of laughter the men arose from where they had been playing the game. they seemed to be railing at one chap, who looked at the auto as if he feared it might blow up and kill him. "you're in for it," remarked vasco. "whatever you do don't make a fuss." with a somewhat sheepish air a young mexican, one of vasco's crowd, came near the auto. he made a sign that he wanted to take noddy's place. the latter frowned and spoke in english, only a word or two of which the native understood. "you shan't have this machine," spoke noddy. "it's mine, and if you try to run it you'll break it." but the mexican paid no heed. he came close up to noddy, grabbed him by the collar and hauled him from the car. noddy was the only one in it at that time, berry, dalsett and pender having gone off a short distance. "let go of me!" cried noddy, trying to draw a small revolver he carried. the mexican only grunted and retained his grip. "if you don't let me alone i'll fire!" exclaimed the youth. he had his revolver out, and the mexican, seeing this, allowed his temper to cool a bit. but there was an angry look in his eyes that meant trouble for noddy. "now you fellows quit this gambling," commanded vasco. "we'll have hard work ahead of us in a little while, and we don't want any foolishness. leave noddy alone. don't you know if any one tries to run that machine that hasn't been introduced to it, the engine will blow up!" "_diablo!_" exclaimed the mexican who had lost at cards and who was about to attempt to operate the auto. "i will let it alone!" quiet was restored, but the bad feeling was only smoothed over. it was liable to break out again at any time. the main object of the crowd was not lost sight of, however, and every hour they drew nearer the trail of those of whom they were in pursuit. as it grew dusk, on the day of the quarrel over the auto, noddy and vasco, with their followers, came to a small clearing. they decided to stop and have supper. "if i'm not mistaken, the other auto has been here within a short time," remarked vasco, pointing to marks in the sandy road. "and there seem to be footprints leading over there through the underbrush." he followed the trail, and came to the place where, a short time before, professor snodgrass had battled with the cocoanut-throwing monkeys. "looks as if some one was going to start in the wholesale business," went on the mexican, glancing at the pile of nuts the simians had piled up. "do you think we are close to them?" asked noddy, for, since the experience of the afternoon, he was anxious to get the kidnapping over, and be rid of the mexicans. "they have been here very recently," said vasco. "how can you tell?" asked noddy. "see where the oil has dripped from their machine," replied bilette, pointing to a little puddle of the lubricant in the road. "it has not yet had time to soak away, showing that it must have been there but a short time, since in this sand it would not remain long on top." "shall we go on after them or camp for the night?" asked noddy, following a somewhat lengthy pause. "keep on," replied vasco. "no telling when we may get another chance. get the boy when we can. we'll have to do a little night traveling, but what of it?" noddy assented. he spent some time after supper in oiling up the auto and getting the lamps filled, for darkness was coming on. then, all being in readiness, noddy started off, the horsemen keeping close to him. for a few miles no one in the party spoke. the auto puffed slowly along, the horsemen managing to keep up to it. "how do we know we're on the right road?" asked noddy at length. "we may have gone astray in the darkness." tom dalsett took a lantern and made a careful survey of the highway. he came back presently. "we're all right," he said. "there are auto tracks just ahead of us. we may come up to them any minute now." once more noddy's auto, which he had stopped to let dalsett out, started up. the pace was swift and silent. but as they penetrated farther and farther into the depths of the forest there was no sign of the boys and the professor, who, by this time, were in the underground city. "i don't believe we'll find them," spoke jack pender. "let's camp now and take up the trail in the morning, when you can see better." "no; we must keep on," said vasco, firmly. "it is to-night or never. i can't hold my men together any longer than that." off into the darkness puffed the auto. the men on horseback followed it, the whole party keeping close together, for several jaguars were seen near the path, having been driven from their usual haunts because of the scarcity of game. every one was on the alert, watching for any signs of the travelers they were pursuing. every now and then some one would get out and examine the road to see if the auto marks were still to be seen. they were there, and led straight on to the hidden city. it was some time past midnight and the machine was going over a good patch of road, when jack pender, who was seated beside noddy, suddenly grabbed the steersman's arm. "what's that ahead in the road?" asked jack. "i don't see anything," replied noddy. "it's your imagination. what does it look like?" "like a big black shadow, bigger and blacker than any around here. can't you see it now? there it is! stop the machine, quick!" noddy, peering through the gloom, saw what seemed to be a patch of shadows. he gave the levers quick yanks, jammed down the brakes and tried to bring the machine to a stop. but he was too late. with a plunge the car sank through the earth and rushed along the inclined plane down which jerry and his friends had coasted a few hours before. there were wild cries of fear, mingled with the shrill neighing of horses, for some of the riders and their steeds also went down the trap that had been laid. the auto remained upright and shot along the floor of the tunnel to which it had fallen, undergoing the same experience as had the machine of jerry and his friends. then, with a crash that resounded through the confines of the ancient city, noddy and his machine and all who were in it brought up against the massive door closing the tunnel, which portal jerry had swung shut after he and his friends had passed through. following the crash there came an ominous silence. chapter xxii. face to face. "hark! what was that?" whispered san lucia to murado. the two old brigands paused in their stealthy march upon their sleeping victims, as the sound of the crash noddy's auto made came faintly to their ears. "how should i know?" asked murado, but he seemed alarmed. "it sounded in the tunnel," went on san lucia. "some one is coming! quick! let us hide! another night will do for our work." thereupon the two old villains, alarmed by the terror of the noise caused by they knew not what, hesitated and then fled as silently as they had advanced. for the time the lives of the boys and the professor had been saved. san lucia and murado went to their hiding place in the old temple, the building being so large and rambling that it would have hidden a score of men with ease. it may be added here that they did not dare to touch many things in the ancient city, thinking them bewitched. all unmindful of the danger which had menaced them, our travelers slept on, nothing disturbing them, and they did not hear the noise made by noddy's tumble, though they were not far from the mouth of the tunnel. "i say!" called bob, sitting up and looking at his watch in a sunbeam that came through a broken window. "i say, are you fellows going to sleep all day? it's nearly eight o'clock, and i want some breakfast." "oh, of course it's something to eat as soon as you open your eyes!" exclaimed jerry. "i should think you would take something to bed with you, chunky, and put it under your pillow so you could eat in the night whenever you felt hungry." "that's all right," snapped bob, "but i notice we don't have to call you twice to come to your meals." "is it morning?" called the professor from his cot. "long ago," replied bob, who was dressing. "i wonder if the folks that lived in this temple ever washed. i'd like to strike a bathroom about now." "hark! i hear something!" exclaimed the professor. they all listened intently. "it's running water," said the naturalist, "and close by. perhaps there's a wash-room in this temple." "i'm going to see what's behind this door," said bob, pointing to a portal none of them had noticed in the darkness. he pushed it open and went inside. the next instant he uttered a joyful cry: "come here, fellows! it's a plunge bath!" then they heard him spring in and splash about. jerry and ned soon followed, and the professor came a little later. it was a regular swimming-tank, stone-lined and sunk into the floor. the water came in through a sort of stone trough. "these old chaps knew something about life, after all," observed ned, as he climbed out and proceeded to dry himself. "they were probably a bit like the romans," remarked the professor, "and fond of bathing. but something has given me an appetite, and i wouldn't object to breakfast." the others were of the same mind, and soon ned had the gasolene stove set up and was preparing a meal. bob attended to the brewing of the coffee instead of chocolate, and the aroma of the beverage filled the old temple with an appetizing odor. "what are we going to do to-day?" asked jerry, when they had finished the meal and were sitting comfortably on some low stools that had been discovered in the room where they slept. "we must explore the city in all directions," said the professor. "there are many marvelous things here, and i have not begun to find them yet. it will take weeks and weeks." "are we going to stay here all that while?" asked bob, somewhat dubiously. "i'd like to," answered the naturalist. "but we can get a good load of specimens and relics, run up north and come back for more. this place is a regular treasure-trove." clearing away the remains of the breakfast, and looking over the auto to see that it had suffered no damage in the recent experience, the boys and the professor left the temple and strolled out into the deserted city. they did not know that their every movement was watched by the glittering eyes of san lucia and murado, who were hidden in an upper part of the temple whence they could look down on their intended victims from a small, concealed gallery. by full daylight the ancient city was even more wonderful than it had appeared in the waning light of the previous afternoon. in the days of its glory it was evident it had been a beautiful place. the travelers entered some of the better-preserved houses. they found the rooms filled with fine furniture, of a rude but simple and pleasing character, some of the articles being well preserved. one house they visited seemed to have belonged to some rich man, for it was filled with things that once had been of great beauty. "there is something that should interest me!" exclaimed the professor, as he caught sight of a small cabinet on the wall. "that must contain curios." he found his supposition right, and fairly reveled in the objects that were treasures to him, but not worth much to any one else. there were ancient coins, rings and other articles of jewelry and hundreds of bugs, beetles and minerals. "whoever lived here was a wise and learned man," observed the naturalist. "i shall take his whole collection back with me, since it is going to ruin here, and it belongs to no one." "there will be no room for any of us in the auto if you keep on collecting things," observed jerry. but this seemed to make no difference to the professor. he went right on collecting as if he had a freight car at his disposal. the travelers continued on their way, exploring the different buildings here and there. "i'm tired," announced bob, suddenly. "you fellows can go on, if you want to, but i'm going to sit down and take a rest." he found a comfortable place in the shade, where a stone ledge was built against the side of a ruined house, and sat down. jerry and ned followed his example, for they, too, were leg-weary. "i'll just take a look through this one place, and then we'll go back and have dinner," said the professor. he entered the structure, against which the boys were sitting. it was a small, one-storied affair, and did not look as if it would contain anything of value. the naturalist had not been inside five minutes before the boys heard him calling, in excited tones: "come quick, boys!" they ran in, to behold professor snodgrass with his arm stuck in a hole in the wall. he seemed to be pulling at something. "what is it?" cried jerry. "a gila monster," replied the professor. "i saw him and i got him." "it looks as if he had you," answered ned. "he tried to get away, but i grabbed him by the tail as he was going in his hole," went on the naturalist. "now he's got his claws dug down in the dirt and i can't pull him out. come out of there, my beauty!" he cried, addressing his remarks to the hidden gila monster. "come out, my pet!" then, with a sudden yank the professor succeeded in drawing the animal from its burrow. it was a repulsive-looking creature of the lizard variety, and as the professor held it up by the tail it wiggled and tried to escape. "now i have you, my little darling!" the naturalist cried, popping his prize into his collecting-box. "that would never take a prize at a beauty show," observed ned. "i wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole." "well, this has been a most profitable day," went on the collector, as, with the boys, he turned toward their residence in the old temple. "i must come back this afternoon for the cabinet of curios." without further incident, save that nearly every step of the homeward journey the professor stopped to pick up some relic, the travelers reached the temple. "here goes for another bath!" cried bob, running toward the room where the plunge was. "i'm nearly melted by the heat." "i'm with you!" said jerry. suddenly they heard the professor's voice calling them. "i wonder what in the world is the matter now?" said jerry. he and bob hurried outside where they had left the naturalist and ned. they found the pair gazing down the street toward the tunnel entrance. and as they gazed they saw the big door swing slowly open, while from the passage came noddy nixon, vasco bilette and the others of their crowd. a low cry of surprise broke from noddy as he stood face to face with the very persons he and vasco were seeking. chapter xxiii. bob is kidnapped. for a minute or two the unexpected encounter so astonished all concerned that no one spoke. noddy seemed ill at ease from meeting his former acquaintances, but vasco bilette smiled in an evil way. chance had thrown in his path the very person he wanted. tom dalsett was the first to speak. "well, we meet again," he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "how do you all do?" "i don't know that we're any the better for seeing you," remarked professor snodgrass, who was plain-spoken at times. "oh, but i assure you it's a sight for sore eyes to get a glimpse of you once more," went on tom. "besides, this is a free city, you know, even if it is an old, underground one; and we have as much right here as you have." "true enough," broke in jerry. "but you may as well know, first as last, that we're done fooling with you and your gang, noddy nixon. if you annoy us again there's going to be trouble!" noddy did not reply. he seemed anxious to get away, but dalsett and vasco urged him to stay, and they had secured quite an influence over the youth. "we must have come in by the same passage you did," went on dalsett. "you left it open behind you. we were wandering around in the dark tunnel until we discovered this door a little while ago. lucky, wasn't it?" "for you chaps, yes," commented ned. "some of us were nearly killed in the tumble," went on dalsett. "we got out of it rather well, on the whole." "you'd better come inside and have nothing more to say to him," said the professor to his friends. "this spoils all our plans." "never mind; perhaps we can give them the slip among the ruins," said jerry. he went back into the ancient temple, and the others followed him. noddy continued to stare as if he thought the whole thing was a dream. as for vasco and dalsett, they were much pleased with the turn affairs had taken. but the mexicans were excited. several of them had been bruised by the fall into the tunnel, and they wanted to proceed at once and kidnap bob, so they could get the ransom money. but vasco would not permit this. he did not believe in using force when he could use stealth. besides, he was a coward, and afraid of getting hurt, if it came to a fight. "let them go," he said to his men, who murmured as they saw their prospective captive and his friends retreat into the temple. "let them go. they can't get away from here without letting us know. we are better off than before. we can capture the fat boy whenever we want to now." with that, vasco's followers had to be content. as dalsett had said, noddy and his cronies, after groping about in the dark tunnel for some time, had finally discovered the door by which the boys and the professor had entered the ancient city. they had pushed it open and come face to face with our friends. "bah!" exclaimed one of the mexicans. "it is always to-morrow and to-morrow in this business. let us fight them! let us get the captive and let us share the ransom." "we'll do the trick to-night, sure," promised vasco. "to-night, positively, we will kidnap bob." meanwhile, all unconscious of the fate in store for him, bob was making a substantial meal, for the travelers had begun to get dinner after withdrawing from the front of the temple. they talked of little save the appearance of noddy and his followers. "how do you suppose he ever got here?" asked bob. "simply followed us," said jerry. "we left a plain enough trail. besides, automobiles are scarce in mexico, and any one seeing ours pass by would easily remember it and tell whoever came along afterward, making inquiries." "what had we better do?" asked ned. "stay here or go away?" "there'll be more or less trouble if we stay," was jerry's opinion. "supposing we go away for a while and come back. if noddy is after us we may give him the slip and return." "how are we going to get out of this place?" asked bob. "we can't go back through the tunnel we came in, as they are now on guard there." "there must be more than one entrance to this city," spoke the professor. "i think i'll go and hunt for another. when we find it we can take the automobile with us and escape to-night. i wish to be the first person to announce this discovery to the world." "that's the idea!" exclaimed ned. "i'll go along to help hunt for another passage, while bob and jerry can stay on guard." "in the meanwhile i'm going to have my swim," said bob. he went into the tank-room, and immediately uttered a cry. "what's the matter?" called jerry. "the water has all run out," replied bob, "and there's a big hole here!" the others came in on the run. they saw that the swimming-pool was empty. only a little water remained on the bottom in small puddles. they also saw that the pool was made with an incline of stone leading from the floor level down to the bottom. in the side opposite from where the incline was a big black hole showed itself. when the water was at the normal level this hole was invisible. once the water had lowered it was plain to see. "what made the water go out?" asked bob. "probably a gate at the end of the tunnel leading from the tank was opened," replied the naturalist. "or it may be an automatic arrangement, so that when the tank gets filled up to a certain height the water shuts itself off. so we'll defer our bath until the water rises. perhaps the tides may have some effect on it. we can only wait and see." "that tunnel is big enough to drive our auto through," observed bob. a sudden thought came to jerry. he whispered to the professor. "of course it could be done," replied the scientist after consideration, "but there is the danger of the water rising suddenly while we are in the tunnel. jerry talks of escaping by means of this new shaft," went on the professor. "we could run the auto down the incline and so out. but we must investigate the place." the naturalist walked down the incline. straight in front of them, as they neared it, yawned the black mouth of the passage. the professor would not let the boys come in until he had made an investigation. he walked quite a distance down the shaft and returned. he seemed in deep thought. "it will be safe to use the tunnel," he said. "it appears that the water was siphoned out. there is another tank or reservoir connected with this one. they both seem to be fed by springs. when the other tank, which is below the level and to one side, gets full of water, the fluid is siphoned out. as that tank is connected with the one we used, by a pipe, as soon as the water goes out of the first tank, that in the second follows to keep the first tank filled. and so it goes on, from day to day, repeating the operation once every twenty-four hours, i would judge. so we have plenty of time. the tunnel leads to one like that by which we entered the city. i have no doubt but that we can escape through it." if the professor and the boys could at this time have seen two evil faces peering down at them from a high balcony, they might not have felt so comfortable. san lucia and murado were on the lookout, and every move the travelers made was watched. it was decided to make the escape that night. accordingly, after supper, the automobile was prepared for a long trip. things were packed in it, and the professor took along his beloved specimens. "how are we going to get the car down the incline?" asked bob. "i can take it down, all right," replied jerry. at length all was in readiness. jerry and ned took the front seat, bob cranked up the car, which was still inside the old temple, and then joined the professor on the rear seat. "all ready?" asked jerry. "all ready," replied bob. "yes, and we are ready, too!" came in a whisper from the ruined doorway of the temple, where vasco bilette and his men were in hiding, watching the flight of the travelers. the mexican had guessed some sort of an attempt to escape would be made, and was on hand to frustrate it. but the preparations made for taking the auto down into the empty water pool puzzled vasco. so he was on the alert. "here we go!" called jerry, softly. the auto was vibrating, but almost noiselessly, for the explosions of the motor could scarcely be heard. down the incline jerry took the heavy car, without a mishap. straight for the open mouth of the tunnel he steered it. it was as dark as pitch now, but the lamps on the car gave good illumination. "come on, we have them now!" cried vasco to his followers. "the boy is in the back seat!" the mexicans ran down the incline. by this time the machine was well into the mouth of the shaft. hearing footsteps behind him, resounding on the stone pavement, jerry shut off the power for a moment. as he did so the car was surrounded by ugly-looking brigands, who had run up at a signal from vasco. "quick! grab him!" cried dalsett. "i have him!" replied vasco. he reached up, and, though bob was a heavy lad, the mexican, with the help of dalsett, pulled him over the rear seat. bob fought, kicked and struggled. it was of no avail. then a sack was quickly thrown over his head, and the men ran back out of the tunnel and up the incline, bearing chunky with them. "bob's been kidnapped!" shouted the professor. "turn the auto around, jerry, and chase after them!" chapter xxiv. bob tries to flee. in an instant jerry tried to turn the auto around. he found the passage too narrow. there was nothing to do but to back up the incline. this was a slow process in the darkness. "fire at them!" cried ned. "no. you might hit bob!" said the professor. "we must chase after the brigands. this is what they have been following us for. i wonder what they want of bob?" no one could guess. by this time jerry had run the machine up the inclined plane and into the temple. then he sent it out into the street. it was as dark as a pocket and not a trace of the kidnappers could be seen, nor could they be heard. the capture of bob came as a terrible blow. "let's take to the tunnel where we came in!" cried ned. "perhaps they are hiding there." "if they are, they are well armed, and their force is three times what ours is now," said the professor. "if we are to help bob we will have to do it by strategy rather than by force. come, we had better go back to the temple. we can make our plans from there." "poor chunky!" groaned jerry. "i wonder what they are doing to him now?" "i guess it was his money-belt they wanted more than they did him," put in ned. "you know he carried what was left of the five hundred dollars." "that's so!" exclaimed jerry, with a rueful face. "never mind the money; i have plenty," put in the naturalist. "and don't worry; we'll find bob yet." nothing could be done that night, so the professor and the two boys tried to get what sleep their troubled minds would allow. in the morning they made a hurried breakfast and then held a consultation. it was decided to explore the tunnel by which they had entered the city, and see if it still held the brigands and noddy's crowd. arming themselves, the professor, ned and jerry advanced carefully through the big wooden gate. they proceeded cautiously, but no one opposed them. the tunnel was deserted. they came to the hole where they had tumbled down. the inclined plane of planks was there, in the same position as when the cave-in, produced by murado, had occurred. "they have probably gone back up here and are running across country," remarked ned. "hello!" he exclaimed. "what's that?" he picked up a small object that lay at the foot of the incline, in the glare of the sunlight that streamed in from above. "that's bob's knife," said jerry. "he had it yesterday. that shows he must have been here since. there is no doubt but that they have carried him away from here." the professor agreed that this was probably the case. there was nothing left to do, so they returned to the temple. "i hardly know what to do," said the naturalist. "we might take the automobile and ride off, not knowing where, in a vain endeavor to find bob. or we can stay here on the chance that he may escape and come back. if we went away he would not know where to find us. "then, too, i am hopeful we may hear something from noddy nixon or some of those mexicans he had with him. those fellows are regular brigands, and may have captured bob, thinking we will pay a ransom for his return. on the whole, i think we had better stay here for a few days." this seemed the best thing to do. with heavy hearts, jerry and ned wandered about the old temple, wishing their chum was back with them. the professor began to gather more specimens and made several trips to the old buildings where he got many curios of value. meanwhile, poor bob was having his own troubles. at the first rough attack of the kidnappers, when he was hauled over the back of the auto, he did not know what had happened. he supposed it was some accident, such as the tunnel caving in or the water suddenly rising. but when he found himself held by two men, and the bag thrown over his head, he realized that he was a captive, though he did not know why any one would want him. holding him between them, vasco and dalsett ran back into the bath and up the incline, followed by noddy and the mexicans. berry and pender had been left in charge of the auto and horses, which were in the first tunnel. bob, who had not attempted to struggle after his first involuntary kicking when he was hauled out, decided that his captors were having too easy a time of it. he was by no means a baby, and though he was fat he had considerable muscle. so he began to beat about with his fists, and to kick with his heavy shoes, in a manner that made it very uncomfortable for vasco and dalsett. "quit that, you young cub, or i'll hurt you!" exclaimed vasco. "yes, an' i'll do the same!" growled dalsett, and, recognizing the voice, bob knew for the first time into whose hands he had fallen. he did not heed the command to stop struggling, and it was all the two men could do to hold him. suddenly they laid him down. "look here!" exclaimed dalsett, sitting on bob to keep him still, "if you want us to tie you up like a steer we're willin' to do it. an' we'll gag you into the bargain. if you quit wigglin' you'll be treated decent." "then you take this bag off my head!" demanded bob, with some spirit. "i will if you promise to walk an' not make us carry you," promised dalsett. "i'll walk until i get a good chance to get away," replied bob, determined to give no parole. "mighty little chance you have of gittin' away," remarked dalsett, as he removed the sack. it was as dark as a pocket, and bob wondered where he was. soon one of the men came with a lantern, and by the gleam the captive could see he was in the tunnel. "come on!" ordered vasco. walking in the midst of his captors, bob came to the foot of the incline. there he found noddy, pender and bill berry in the auto. the mexicans had their horses in readiness for a flight. "they're going to take me away," thought bob. "i wonder how i can give the boys and the professor a sign so they will know that?" his fingers came in contact with his knife and that gave him an idea. he dropped the implement on the ground, where it was found by his friends later. "is everything ready?" asked vasco. "i guess so," replied noddy. "shall i run the machine up the incline?" "go ahead," said dalsett. "we'll walk with our young friend here. i reckon the car will have trouble gittin' up the hill if too many gits in it." "come on, you fellows!" ordered vasco of his mexicans. "we have the captive now, and you'll soon be dividing the ransom money." he spoke in spanish, which bob could not understand. the boy was at a loss why so many should be interested in him, but laid it all to a plot of noddy's to get square. it was quite a pull for the auto, up the steep incline, but noddy, by using the low gear, managed it. the horses and their riders had less trouble, and soon the whole party stood in the road near the tunnel that led to the underground city. bob was placed on a small pony, and his hands were tied behind his back. then, with a mexican riding before and after him, and one on each side, the cavalcade started off. for several hours the journey was kept up. no one said much, and poor bob puzzled his brains trying to think what it all meant. one thing he determined on: that he would try to escape at the first opportunity. it came sooner than he expected. he had been working at the bonds on his hands and found, to his joy, that the rope was coming loose. in their hurry, vasco and dalsett had not tied it very securely. in a little while bob had freed his wrists, but he kept his hands behind his back, to let his captors think he was still bound. he waited until he came to a level stretch of land. then, at a time when the mexican in the rear had ridden off to one side to borrow a cigarette of a comrade, bob slipped from the pony's back. he struck the ground rather hard, but here his fat served him in good stead, for he was not hurt much. then he rolled quickly out of the way of the horses' feet. jumping up, he ran at top speed off to the left. instantly the cavalcade was in confusion. vasco and dalsett came riding back to see what the trouble was. they saw bob bounding away. "after him!" shouted vasco, drawing his revolver and firing in the air to scare bob. "after him! he's worth ten thousand dollars!" the mexicans spurred their horses after the fugitive, while noddy, turning the auto around, lighted the search-lamp and sent the light through the blackness to pick out bob so the others could find him in the darkness. on and on ran the boy, and after him thundered the horses of his pursuers, coming nearer and nearer. chapter xxv. an unexpected friend. it was too uneven a chase to last long. bob soon found that his enemies were gaining on him, and he resolved to play a trick. he came to a big rock and dropped down behind it, hiding in the shadow. for a time the mexicans were baffled, but they spread about in a half circle and bob could hear them gradually surrounding him. still he hoped to escape detection. "can't you find him?" he heard noddy call. "he seems to have given us the slip," replied vasco. "but we'll get him yet." noddy sent the searchlight of the automobile all about the rock behind which bob was hidden, but the deep shadow cast protected the boy. at length, however, one of the mexicans approached the place. at the same instant bob was seized with an uncontrollable desire to sneeze. his nose tickled and, though he held his breath and did everything he had ever read about calculated to prevent sneezes, the tickling increased. finally he gave voice to a loud "ka-choo!" "_diablo!_" exclaimed the nearest mexican. "what have we here?" he was at the rock in an instant and lost no time in grabbing bob. the boy tried to struggle and escape again, but his captor held him in a firm grip. the mexican set up a shout at the discovery of his prize, which speedily brought vasco and his comrades to the scene. "so, you didn't care much for our company," observed bilette. "but never mind, we think so much of you that we run after you wherever you go. now we have you again!" and he laughed in an unpleasant manner. "i don't see what you want of me," remarked bob, as he was led back and placed on his pony. "ah, perhaps you are not aware that you are worth much money to us," said vasco. "i'll give you all i have if you'll let me go," said bob. "that is something we overlooked," said dalsett. "take his money, vasco. he may have a few dollars." in another minute bob's money-belt, with the best part of five hundred dollars, was in the possession of the mexicans. he wished he had kept still. "this is doing very well," observed vasco, as he counted over the bills with glistening eyes. "this is very well indeed, and most unexpected. but we want more than this." "it is all i have," answered bob. "but your people, your father has more," went on the mexican. "i think if you were to write him a letter, stating that you were about to be killed unless he sent ten thousand dollars, he would be glad to give us the small amount." "i'll never write such a letter!" exclaimed bob. "you can kill me if you want to!" "you'll think differently in the morning," remarked vasco. "here, you fellows, tie him up so he can't get away again!" this time the ropes were knotted so tightly about the boy's arms and legs that he knew he could not work them loose. he was thrown over the back of the pony and the cavalcade started off again. all night long the march continued, the men on their horses and noddy and his friends in the auto. poor bob felt sick at heart over his failure to escape and the knowledge, conveyed to him in vasco's remarks, that he was being held for ransom. just as day was beginning to break, the party reached a small mexican village and preparations were made to spend some time there. vasco and his men seemed to know the place well, for they were greeted by many of the inhabitants of the place who had arisen early. noddy ran the automobile under a shed and then the whole crowd, taking bob with them, went to a large house at the end of the principal street, where they evidently intended to make their headquarters. bob was taken to a small room on the second floor, facing the courtyard, which is a feature of all mexican homes. his bonds were released and he was thrust roughly inside. the apartment was bare enough. there were a table, a chair and a bed in the room. the only window was guarded by heavy iron bars, and the single door was fastened with a massive lock. "i guess i'll have trouble getting out of here," said bob to himself. "it's a regular prison. i wonder if they're going to starve me?" he began to suffer for want of water, and his stomach cried for food. he had some thought of pounding on the walls and demanding to be fed, when the door opened and a girl quickly entered, setting on the table a tray of food. she was gone before bob had a chance to get a good look at her, but he saw that she was young and pretty, attired as she was in gay mexican colors. though the meal was not very appetizing, it tasted to bob as if it was the best dinner ever served. he felt better after eating it, and more hopeful. for several days he was held a captive in the room. one evening vasco bilette and tom dalsett paid him a visit. "we have brought a paper for you to sign," said vasco. "i will sign nothing," replied bob. "i think you will, my boy," spoke the mexican. "bring in the charcoal, tom." dalsett went out and returned with a small, portable clay stove in which burned some charcoal. heating in the flames was an iron used for branding cattle. "you can take your choice of signing this or of seeing how you look with a hot iron on," said vasco. "this paper is a letter to your father, telling him you have been captured by brigands, who will not let you go excepting they are paid ten thousand dollars." "i'll never sign!" replied bob, firmly. "then brand him!" cried vasco. one of the mexicans took the iron from the fire. it glowed with a white, cruel heat. at the sight of it bob's courage melted away. at the same time a plan came into his head. "i'll sign!" he exclaimed. "i thought you would," observed vasco. "put your name here." he handed bob a letter, written to mr. baker, whose name and address noddy nixon had supplied. in brief, it demanded that ten thousand dollars be sent to the brigands and left in a lonely spot mentioned, if mr. baker did not want to hear of the death of his son. any attempt to capture the writers, the missive stated, would be met with the instant killing of the boy. "sign there," said vasco, indicating the place. bob did so. at the same time he placed beneath his signature a scrawl and a row of figures. to the mexicans figures meant nothing, and it is doubtful if they observed them. but to mr. baker they spelled out the message: "send no money. i can get away." they were figures in a secret cypher bank code that mr. baker sometimes used, and which bob had learned. "i guess that will fool them," thought the boy, as he saw his captors take away the letter. for the next few days nothing occurred. bob was kept a close prisoner in his room, and the only person he saw was the girl who brought him food. he tried to talk to her, but she did not seem to understand english. the captive was beginning to despair. he feared he would never see his friends again, for he did not believe his father would send the money, and without it he was sure the desperate men would kill him. his confidence in his ability to escape lessened as the days went by. he tried to pick the lock on his door, and loosen a bar at the window, but without success. it was the fifth day of his captivity and the mexican girl came to bring him his supper. to bob's surprise, this time she did not hurry away. she set the tray of food down and looked at him anxiously. "you want go?" she asked, in a broken accent. "you mean escape? get away from here? leave?" asked bob, taking sudden hope. "um! go 'way. leave bad mans! maximina help! you go?" "of course," replied bob. "but how are you going to manage it?" "wait till dark. me come. you go, we go. leave bad mans. me no like it here. bad mans whip maximina." by which bob understood that the girl would come when it got dark and help him to escape, accompanying him because she herself had been ill treated by the mexicans. "be good boy! me come. you glad!" she said, in a whisper. just then the sound of voices was heard outside the room, in the corridor. "hush! no tell!" cautioned the girl as she glided from the room. bob began to eat his supper. his heart was in a flutter of hope. "queer why that money don't come," he heard vasco say, outside. "we'll have to do something pretty soon." it was getting dark now, and bob waited anxiously. chapter xxvi. the escape of maximina. several hours passed. bob was beginning to think maximina had forgotten her promise, when he heard a soft footstep outside. then came a gentle tapping at his door. it was unlocked from the outside, opened, and the mexican girl stepped in. "hush!" she whispered. "we go now. all bad mans gone to feast--holiday. we go. put on cloak." she gave bob a long, dark serape, and produced one for herself. little time was lost. led by maximina, bob passed out into the dark corridor, down the stairs and through the courtyard, out of the house, under the silent stars that twinkled in the sky. "this way!" whispered the girl. "we ride ponies. no one here, we take horses. where you live?" bob was at a loss what to do. he wondered how he could make maximina, whose language he could not speak, and who could talk but imperfectly in his, understand about the underground city. equally hard would it be to make her comprehend where he lived and how to start for the nearest large city in order to get help or communicate with his friends. he remembered that his captors had brought him almost directly north as they sped away from the buried city. so he thought the best thing to do would be to ride to the south, when he might see some landmark that would aid him in locating himself. "we'll go this way," he said, pointing in a direction opposite to that of the north star, which he saw blazing in the sky. "all right," exclaimed the mexican girl. she leaped to the back of one of two ponies she had brought from the stable. bob was not so expert, but managed to get into the saddle. so far they had met no one, nor had they heard the sound of any of the mexicans. as maximina had said, all of the men were away to a feast, one of the numerous ones celebrated in the country. even noddy and his friends had gone, so there was no one left to guard bob but the girl. away they rode, urging their ponies to a gallop. bob was fearful that at every turn of the road he would meet with some of vasco's men, but the highway appeared to be deserted. "me glad to go. bad mans steal maximina years ago," said the girl, after half an hour's ride. "me want to get back to own people." "i wish i could help you," said bob, "but i'm about as badly off as you are. the mexicans stole me, too." "we both same, like orphans," said maximina. "never min'. maybe we find our folks." by degrees she brokenly told bob her story, how she had been kidnapped by vasco when she was a child, and how he had kept her because her father was too poor to pay the ransom demanded. she had gradually come to be regarded as a regular inmate of the mexican camp, which, it seemed, was an organized headquarters for kidnappers and brigands generally. she had never thought of escaping before, she said, but when she saw bob she felt sorry for him and resolved to free not only him, but herself. "we ride faster," she said, after several miles had been covered. "gettin' late. men come back from feast find us gone, they ride after." she urged her pony to a gallop and bob's animal followed its leader. "if i only had a revolver or a gun i'd shoot some of them if they tried to take us back," bob said to himself. "i hope we can get away." in a small village, about ten miles from the camp of the mexicans, vasco and his friends were having a great time. there were wild music and dancing, and plenty of food well seasoned with red pepper. the mexicans were having what they called fun. noddy, with jack and bill berry, looked on, taking no part in the revels. they had come over in the automobile, while vasco and his gang rode their horses. it was past midnight when the leader of the mexicans decided that it was time to start for home. "come on," he said. "who knows but what our prisoner has escaped." "not much danger of that," said dalsett. "i told maximina that if he got away we'd hold her responsible and give her a good lashing. she'll not let him get away." but neither dalsett nor vasco knew what they were talking about. the mexicans were reluctant to leave the dance, but vasco insisted. soon the whole party was riding back to camp, noddy being in advance in his auto. he was the first to reach the kidnappers' headquarters. dalsett was with him. "i wonder how our captive is?" said the latter. he went up to the room where bob had been locked up. to his surprise and anger, the apartment was empty. "maximina!" he called. there was no answer. "they've gone!" he exclaimed. "here, noddy, ride back and meet vasco. tell him bob has got away!" the automobile was sent flying down the road. vasco bilette and his party were met and the news quickly imparted. "we'll catch 'em!" cried the mexican. "they have only a few hours' start, and only two slow ponies to ride on. here, i'll go in the auto with noddy. you fellows come after me!" vasco took jack pender's place in the machine and soon the chase was on. vasco rightly concluded that bob and maximina would head for the south, so he, too, took the road leading in that direction. noddy speeded up the car, under vasco's directions. faster and faster it raced, the searchlight throwing out a glaring beam far in advance. meanwhile, bob and maximina were making all speed possible. every now and then the girl would halt her pony and listen intently. "they no come yet," she would say. "no can hear horses comin' after us. we get 'way maybe." bob certainly hoped so. his experience as a captive was not such as to cause him to like the rã´le, and he longed to be with his friends, who, he knew, must be greatly alarmed about him. it seemed to be getting darker as the two traveled on. "be sunrise 'bout hour," said maximina, and bob remembered that he had read about it being darkest just before daybreak. "we mus' hide then," the girl went on. suddenly a sound came to them from over the dark fields that bordered the road. at the same time there was a shaft of light. "there they come!" cried bob. "they're after us in the automobile!" "ride! ride fast!" called maximina, fiercely. "if they catch us they kill!" she lashed her pony with the short whip she carried, and struck bob's animal several smart blows. the two beasts leaped forward. but horses, especially small, mexican ponies, are not built to race against large touring automobiles. bob noticed that the chug-chug of noddy's machine came nearer and nearer. "maybe we can hide from them in the darkness," said bob. "it's our only chance. they'll soon be up to us." "no hide! keep on ride!" exclaimed maximina. "we git away!" but even as she spoke the searchlight picked them up and they were revealed in its blinding glare. a faint shout from their pursuers told that they had been seen. the ponies were tiring. already bob's was staggering along as the pace told on it. maximina's was a little better off. "we have them!" bob heard vasco shout. "they are both together. put a little more speed on, noddy!" the chug-chugs of the auto told that the machine was being sent ahead at a faster clip. the searchlight glared more strongly on the fugitives. "cave somewhere near here," said maximina. "if we could find 'um we be safe. ride more, bob." "this pony can't go much farther," replied the boy. "his legs are shaking now." crack! a flash of reddish fire cut the blackness, and a bullet sang unpleasantly close over bob's head. "they only shoot to scare!" cried maximina. "they no want to kill you. too valuable. want ransom; much money; ten thousand dollars." "all the same, it's no fun to be shot at," remarked bob, urging his pony on. the automobile was now but a few hundred feet away. noddy had to reduce his speed because the ground was getting rougher. "we'll have them in another minute!" cried vasco. at that instant, bob's pony, stepping in a hole, stumbled and fell, throwing the rider over its back. bob struck the ground heavily and was stunned. "me stay with you!" exclaimed maximina, reining in her pony and coming back to where bob was. "no, no! you ride on!" the boy said, faintly. "maybe you can find my friends and send help. they are in the underground city!" "all right. me go! bring help!" the girl whispered, and, leaping on her pony's back, she rode off to one side, getting away from the glare of the searchlight and so escaping observation. two minutes later the auto came up to where bob was stretched out on the ground. vasco leaped out before the machine had fairly stopped and made a grab for bob. "the boy is dead!" he exclaimed. "dead!" faltered noddy. he was beginning to be alarmed over the part he had played. "bring a light here!" commanded the mexican. noddy turned the search-lamp on bob's prostrate form. at that the boy opened his eyes. he had fainted from pain caused by his fall. "shamming, eh?" sneered vasco, striking bob a blow with a rope he carried. "get up, now! no nonsense; you've made trouble enough!" poor bob was too discouraged and felt too bad to reply. the other mexicans rode up. in a few minutes the captive was securely bound, lifted into the auto, and, as dawn broke, the start back to camp was made. "don't you want maximina?" asked dalsett. "let her go," replied vasco. "she was only a bother around, and never liked to work. she can't do any harm." chapter xxvii. a strange message. the days were full of anxiety for the professor, jerry and ned, who still remained in the ancient city after bob had been kidnapped. every night they went to bed, hoping some word would be received by morning, or that the missing one would return. every morning they said to each other: "well, something will happen to-morrow." but nothing happened, and, as day after day went by, they began to lose hope. "we may as well leave here," said ned. "not yet," jerry replied. "i am sure we will have some word from bob soon now." in the meanwhile, they made trips in all directions from the ancient city. but there was no trace of the mexicans. the country was uninhabited for twenty miles in every direction from the buried place, and farther than that the travelers did not venture. "we must be here every night," said the professor. "somehow, i feel that bob will come back at night, or we will hear something from him after dark. so we do not want to be away then, for if he should come, or if he should send some word, we would not be here to receive it." for that reason little was done toward hunting for the kidnapped boy. the travelers did not go so far but that they could get back by nightfall. they explored the city thoroughly and the professor found many more rare and valuable relics. his specimen boxes were full to overflowing, but still he kept searching. the boys occupied themselves by getting the meals and attending to the camp, for the naturalist bothered himself about nothing but his specimens. they still continued to reside in the old temple, which they found a comfortable place. "i wonder what we'll do when our food gives out?" asked ned one day when it was his turn to get the dinner. "why, haven't we got plenty for several weeks yet?" inquired jerry. "it don't look so to me," said ned, glancing in the box where the canned stuff was kept. "that's queer," remarked jerry. "there aren't any tomatoes left. did you cook any since yesterday?" "you cooked yesterday," retorted ned. "were there any then?" "six cans," said jerry. "now there are none left. i wonder if the professor took any?" "any what?" asked the naturalist, coming into the temple just then. "tomatoes," replied jerry, explaining what he and ned had been talking about. "no; i haven't touched a can," said the professor. "then some one has, and it isn't us," was ned's opinion. "i wonder if there is any one in this temple but ourselves?" "now that you speak of it, i think there is," went on the naturalist. "the other night i was restless and could not sleep well. i was looking out of the door of our bedroom, into the main apartment, when i saw something white moving. at first i thought it was one of you boys, but i looked over on your cots and saw you both were sleeping. then i thought it might be a white monkey, for i have heard there are such kinds, though i have never seen any. but when i looked a little closer i saw that it was a man wrapped in a long, white serape. "i didn't give any alarm, for i was afraid of waking you boys. but i watched and saw the man go to our box and take out some cans of provisions. i meant to speak about it the next morning, but i forgot it." "who do you suppose it was?" asked jerry. "probably some poor wandering mexican," replied the professor. "he may have happened along, fallen into the passage leading to this old city and been half starved until he found our camp." "we'll have to look out, though," said ned. "we have hardly enough left for ourselves." "then we must keep watch to-night," decided the professor. "it will not do for us to starve, though we will share what we have with any one who is in distress." and so, that night, they took turns in mounting guard. none of them saw anything out of the ordinary, though had they been able to witness a scene that took place in an obscure gallery of the temple they would have been surprised. san lucia and murado were still hiding in the place, waiting their chance to get something of value from the travelers. the capture of bob had upset the plans of the two aged brigands, and they were a little cautious about proceeding. but for several nights they had made raids on the improvised pantry ned had constructed. "are we to go again to-night?" asked san lucia, on the evening when ned made the discovery that led to the posting of the guard. "it remains to be seen," replied murado. "if we have no better luck than last night it is of little use." "no; tomatoes are a poor substitute for gold," agreed san lucia. "i wonder if they have nothing but things to eat in those cans." "some of them must contain gold," replied murado. "they do it to fool us, but we will get the best of them yet. we will carry off every can they have until we get those containing the treasure." for the two mexicans believed that the travelers had packed their gold in the tin cans, of which there was a number. and each night san lucia and murado had stolen a few, hoping that some of them contained gold. each time, on opening the tins, they had been disappointed. "i will go first to-night," said san lucia. "i feel that i will be successful. once we get the gold we can leave this place." about midnight he crept as softly as a cat upon the travelers. but, to his surprise, he found jerry on guard and armed. san lucia sneaked back to the balcony and told murado. "they are becoming suspicious," said the latter. "we will have to wait a while. perhaps they may be sleeping to-morrow night." but the two aged brigands never got another chance to attempt to rob the boys and the professor. why this was we shall soon see. the next morning, on account of the watch that was kept, nothing was found disturbed. "we fooled somebody that time," observed ned. after breakfast the professor announced that he was going to visit the house where he had, on a previous call, captured the gila monster. "there was a cabinet there i overlooked," he said. "do you boys want to come along?" "there is nothing else to do," said jerry. "how i wish we would hear something from bob! i think we ought to go out on a search for him. it doesn't seem that he will ever come here, after all this time." "i was thinking that myself," said the professor. "if we hear nothing by to-morrow we will leave this place." the boys accompanied the naturalist to the ruined house. it seemed strange to be walking through the streets of a place that had been inhabited thousands of years ago. the city was a silent one, a veritable city of the dead, and the houses and buildings seemed like tombstones that had toppled over from age. as ned was walking about through the lower rooms of the house the professor had marked for exploration, he noticed a ring fastened to a square stone in the courtyard. "i wonder what this is for?" he said. "looks as if it was meant to lift the stone up by," replied jerry. "give us a hand," said ned, "and we'll see what's here." the two boys pulled and tugged, but could not budge the stone. the professor happened along and saw them. "i'll show you how to do it," he said. he took a long pole and thrust it through the ring. then, using the pole as a lever, he easily raised the stone. "now let's see what we have unearthed," he remarked. the stone had covered a small hole. in it was a little casket of lead, the lid of which was locked. "we'll have to break it open," said jerry. "get a stone," put in ned. jerry brought a large one. one or two heavy blows and the lid of the box flew off. there was a sudden sparkle of light and several white objects fell to the ground. "diamonds!" cried the professor. "we have made a valuable discovery!" the box seemed full of jewels. there were stones of many colors, but most of all were the white, sparkling ones. "maybe they're only glass," suggested ned. "no; they are diamonds, rubies, turquoise and other precious stones," replied the professor. "this was probably the jewel case of some aztec millionaire." they returned to their camp, carrying the jewels with them. as they entered the old building, jerry, who was in the lead, started back. "there's some one at our auto!" he exclaimed. "nonsense!" replied the professor. "the place is deserted." but he changed his mind a moment later. as he entered the room he saw a girlish figure clinging to the side of the car. she seemed to be almost dead, and had only strength enough left to mutter: "bob; he want you! vasco bilette have him! come quick!" then she fell over in a faint. chapter xxviii. to the rescue. "who is she?" asked ned. "i don't know," replied the professor, calmly. he seemed to take the appearance of a strange girl in the underground city as a happening that might occur at any time. "where did she come from?" asked jerry. "i can't tell you that, either," went on the naturalist. "one thing i can say, though, and that is, this poor girl needs help. she must be hungry, and she has traveled a long distance. her clothes show that." "what did she mean by speaking about bob, saying vasco bilette had him, and for us to come quick?" asked ned. "all that in good time," replied the professor. "the thing to do now is to bring her out of her faint, and get her something to eat. ned, you make the coffee and jerry will heat some chicken soup. hurry now, boys." but the lads needed no urging. in a jiffy the camp-stove was going and hot coffee was soon ready. in the meanwhile the professor, by use of some simple remedies he always carried, brought the girl out of her faint. she opened her eyes and asked for a drink. the hot coffee, followed by a little of the warm soup, brought the color back to her face, and she was able to sit up. she stared at her strange surroundings and looked at the boys and the naturalist. "me maximina," she said, speaking slowly. "you ned, jerry and mr. snowgrass?" "snodgrass, snodgrass, my dear young lady," replied the professor, bowing low. "professor uriah snodgrass, a. m., ph.d., m. d., f. r. g. s., a. q. k., all of which is at your service." "bob need you," said the girl, simply. "he try to come, but he git ketch." "yes, yes! tell us about him. where can we find him?" asked jerry, eagerly. "me no spik inglis good," the girl replied. "you spik spanish, seã±or?" "_si_," answered the professor. thereupon maximina let forth a torrent of words that nearly overwhelmed the naturalist. yet he managed to understand what she said. maximina told how she had been at the mexicans' camp when bob was brought there, she having been a captive for many years. she determined to help him escape, and did so when the opportunity offered. she told how she knew, in a general way, where the buried city was, as bob had told her something about it, and she had overheard vasco and his men talking about the locality where they had fallen down the tunnel. "but bob's horse fell and threw him off," she explained, in her native tongue. "i wanted to stay with him, but he told me to go on. then vasco came and got him, but i rode away, for i wanted to find you. i had hard work, and i lost my way several times. three days ago my pony died and i walked the rest of the distance." "poor girl! you must be almost tired to death," said the professor. "i was tired, but it is happiness to find you, seã±ors, for i know you will go and help seã±or bob." "of course we will, right away," said the naturalist. "she seems to have taken a sudden liking to our friend bob," commented ned. "she's a mighty pretty girl, too; don't you think so, jerry?" "be careful," laughed jerry. "don't go to having any love affairs with beautiful mexican maidens. i have read that they are a very jealous and quick-tempered nation. besides, you are too young." "i'm a year older than bob," maintained ned. "now, boys, what had we better do?" asked the professor. "maximina can guide us to the place where bob is held captive. shall we go and give battle to these brigands?" "sure!" exclaimed ned. "we have plenty of ammunition." "and they are about ten to our one," put in jerry. "but we've got to do something," he added, seriously. "then we'll start as soon as we can get in shape," decided the professor. "i have a better plan than making a direct attack on the camp of the mexicans, however. we will go to the authorities and ask their aid. maximina says there is a detachment of soldiers stationed about thirty miles from here and on the line we must take to go to the camp, from which they are distant about ten miles." "bully!" cried ned. "with a few soldiers to help us we'll give those brigands and noddy nixon such a licking that they'll never want another." the automobile was soon made ready. in it was packed all that remained of the provisions. the professor did up his precious specimens and curios, not forgetting the lead casket of jewels. the water tank was filled. fortunately, there was still plenty of gasolene left. jerry and ned pumped up the tires, maximina was invited to a seat in the rear, with the professor, and the travelers, taking a last look at the underground city, started off. they went through the tunnel, up the incline, the fall of which had precipitated them into the shaft, and soon were on the level road, speeding to the rescue of bob. after vasco had secured his captive, following bob's and maximina's flight, the brigand took measures to insure that the prisoner would not get away again. bob was placed in a regular dungeon, and outside the door was stationed a man with a gun. the poor lad was in low spirits. he began to give up hope, and the only thing that cheered him was the thought that perhaps maximina might have gotten away and would notify his friends or the authorities. but bob knew it was a remote chance, for he did not believe the frail girl could stand the long journey alone. he tried to learn something about her; whether she had been recaptured or not; but to all questions his guard, and the old woman who brought him food, returned but one answer, and that was: "no spik inglis, seã±or." bob saw it was of no use to try to get out of the dungeon. it was built partially underground, the walls were of stone and the door a massive wooden one, while the single window was heavily barred. it was hot in the small cell, and bob suffered very much. but he tried to keep up a brave heart. one day he heard voices outside of the dungeon window. he listened intently and found that noddy and vasco were talking. vasco, of necessity, had to speak english in talking with noddy, who understood only a little spanish. "have you got the money yet?" asked noddy. "no; and i think we never will get it," replied vasco, angrily. "i don't believe the boy is the son of a rich banker at all. it's another one of your wild dreams, just like the gold mine the crazy professor was going to locate." "bob's father is rich," maintained noddy. "it ain't my fault that he won't send the cash." "well, it's your fault for getting me into this muss," went on vasco, "and it'll be your fault if we don't get some money pretty soon. the men are mad and i won't be able to manage 'em in a few days. they blame it all on you, so you'd better look out!" "do you suppose they--they will ki-kill me?" faltered noddy. "i shouldn't be surprised," said vasco, coldly. at that instant bob heard some one come galloping up on a horse. it seemed to be a messenger, for he heard the steed come to a stop, while a man jumped down and began talking rapidly in spanish. "what is it? has bob's father sent the money?" asked noddy. "money? no!" snapped the leader of the brigands. "but the soldiers are after us! we must get out of here!" bob's heart thrilled with hope. perhaps, after all, maximina had been able to send help. he almost laughed in his happiness, thinking he would soon be free. but his hopes were dashed to the ground when, a few minutes later, his guard came into his cell, quickly bound his hands and feet, wrapped a long cloak about him, and, with the aid of another mexican, carried him out of the cell. bob realized, from the change of air, that he was being carried into the open. he could see nothing because of the cloak about his head, but he could hear much bustle and confusion. men were running here and there, while vasco was giving quick orders. then the sound of the automobile being started was heard. bob felt himself lifted into the car and, a few seconds later, he felt the vibration that told he was being carried away again, this time in noddy's machine. as the messenger had told vasco, the soldiers were on their way to the camp of the kidnappers. the boys and the professor had reached the garrison, and, telling their story, had induced the commander to send a detachment to capture the mexicans. but the troops traveled slowly, and one of vasco's friends, who happened to be hanging about the fort, hearing of the contemplated raid, mounted a swift horse and rode off to give the alarm. so when, a few hours after vasco had fled with his men and his captive, the troops galloped up, led by jerry, ned, maximina and the professor in the automobile, they found the camp deserted. "the birds have flown!" exclaimed the captain of the troopers. "we may as well go back!" "no!" cried jerry. "we must take after them. bob must be rescued!" "but how can we tell where they went?" asked the captain. "that woman can tell you!" exclaimed maximina, pointing to an aged crone who was trying to escape observation in one of the huts. chapter xxix. the fight. "bring her here!" commanded the captain. several of his soldiers ran toward the old woman who set up a loud screaming. "who is she?" asked the leader of the troops of maximina. "an old servant of vasco's," replied the girl. "she knows all his secrets and can tell where he has gone. he has several hiding places about here." protesting and crying that she knew nothing and could tell nothing, the aged servant was brought to the captain. "where is vasco bilette?" he asked. "i know not! i have not seen him these three days!" she exclaimed. "so," commented the captain, smiling. "we will see if we cannot refresh your memory. pedro, fetch my rawhide whip!" at this the woman howled most dismally, and threw herself on the ground, clinging to the legs of the men who held her. "i cannot allow this," interposed professor snodgrass, to whom the conversation, carried on in spanish, was intelligible. "even at the cost of seeing vasco bilette escape i will not stand by and see a woman whipped." "but, seã±or, you do not understand the case," said the captain. "that is the only way i can get the truth out of her. i must give her a few blows to loosen her tongue. that is the only persuasion these cattle understand; blows and money." "why not try the latter?" suggested the naturalist. "who has money to throw away on such as she?" asked the commander, with a shrug of his shoulders. "i will pay her," went on the professor. "see," he went on, taking out some bank-notes. "tell us where vasco went and you shall have fifty dollars." the old woman glanced at the money, looked around on the soldiers and glared at the captain, who was switching a cruel whip. then she said, sullenly: "i will tell you, seã±or, but not for money. it is because you had a kind thought for old julia. listen, vasco has gone to the cave by the small mountain." "i know where that is!" exclaimed the captain. "many a time have we had fights there with the brigands. it is about ten miles off." "then let us hurry there!" cried jerry. the professor handed the old woman the bills. she took them, hiding them quickly in her dress. "the whip would have been cheaper," said the captain, with a regretful sigh. "it is money thrown away." "i have more to throw after it, if you and your men rescue the kidnapped boy!" exclaimed the naturalist, for he understood something of the mexican character. "good!" cried the captain. "come, men, hurry! we will wipe the brigands from the face of the earth!" indeed, new enthusiasm seemed to be infused into the soldiers at the mention of money. those who had dismounted, sprang quickly to the saddles, the bugler blew a lively air, and the troops started off at a smart trot. old julia was left behind in the camp of the kidnappers. the boys and the professor, with maximina, in the automobile, followed the troopers. "i think there will be one big fight," said the girl, in english, speaking to the boys. "vasco has many guns in the cave." "i hope it will be his last fight," said ned. "i don't wish any one bad luck, but i would like to see vasco bilette and his gang put where they can do no more harm." "the soldiers don't seem to take this very seriously," remarked jerry. "hear them singing and laughing." "they probably want vasco to know they are coming, so they will not take him by surprise," spoke the professor. "it's a trait of mexican politeness, i suppose." the captain of the troop came riding back to the automobile, which had kept in the rear of the horsemen. "my compliments, seã±or," said the commander, bowing with a sweep of his helmet to the professor. "my best regards to you," replied the naturalist. "we will be up to the vicinity of the cave in about an hour," went on the captain. "is it your desire to charge in the fire-wagon with my troopers, or do you prefer to stay in the rear and watch us dispose of this brigand?" "we're not the ones to stay in the rear when there's fighting to be done," said the professor. "you will find us in the fore, seã±or captain." "very good; but what about the girl?" "i will stay with my friends," replied maximina. "i am not afraid of vasco bilette." "you may stay with us," consented the naturalist, "but i must insist on you getting down on the bottom of the car when the fighting begins." "fighting? there will be no fighting," said the captain. "aren't you going to tackle the brigands and get bob?" asked jerry, in some surprise. "_caramba!_ the dogs will run when they see my troops," spoke the captain, puffing out his chest. "they will not stand. that is why i said there would be no fighting." "i wouldn't be too sure," remarked the professor. "you shall see, seã±or," went on the commander. "but now i must go back to my men. my compliments, seã±or." "mine to you," responded the professor, not to be outdone in politeness. the cavalcade moved forward for several miles. it was getting hot and horses and men began to suffer. it was a relief when a small stream was reached, where every one could get a refreshing drink. after a short rest the command to move forward was given. "what is that?" cried jerry, suddenly, pointing ahead to where, on a broad, level stretch of country, several small, dark, moving objects could be seen. "i will tell you directly," said the professor, taking a pair of field-glasses from their case. he leveled the binoculars and gazed steadily through them. "it is vasco and his party!" he cried. "i can see noddy in his auto, and there are a number of horsemen. they have not yet reached the cave. quick, jerry, run the machine ahead and tell the captain!" jerry increased the speed of the auto. it ran up beside the trooper captain, who turned about to see what was up. "there are the brigands!" exclaimed the professor, pointing ahead. "hurry up and you can catch them before they get to the cave, where they may barricade themselves." "my compliments, seã±or; i thank you for the information," replied the captain, bowing low. "will you not smoke a cigarette with me?" "i don't smoke!" snapped the professor. "besides, we have no time for that now. we must fight!" "exactly, just so," answered the easy-going mexican. "come, men!" he exclaimed. "the enemy is in front of you! at them, and show what stuff you are made of! bugler, sound the charge!" instantly the troops were full of excitement. men began unslinging their carbines. they got out their ammunition and seemed eager for the fray. the bugler blew a merry blast. "forward, my brave men! cut down the brigands! kill the kidnappers of boys!" shouted the captain, waving his sword. with a shout, the mexican soldiers dashed forward to the fight. they might be slow, and given to too much delay and politeness, but when the time came they were full of action. they yelled as they dug spurs into their horses, and the more excited threw their hats into the air. several discharged their carbines when there was no chance of hitting any of the enemy. they were wild at the thought of battle. by this time the brigands became aware of the pursuit. vasco bilette had, with a powerful field-glass, detected the advance of the horsemen some time back. but an accident to the auto had detained them, and they were three miles from the cave when he saw the soldiers dashing toward him. he and his men strained every nerve, but they soon saw they could not get to their stronghold ahead of their enemies. "we'll have to fight 'em," said vasco. "i guess we can give 'em as good as they send. noddy and dalsett, you keep an eye on bob, and if you get a chance, skip off with him. go back to camp; they won't think of looking for you there." ten minutes later the soldiers were within shooting distance. they opened fire on the mexicans, who, not daunted by the numbers against them, returned the volleys. at first so great was the excitement that no damage was done. but after a few rounds two of the troopers were injured, and one of the mexicans had to withdraw, seriously wounded. "we must never surrender!" cried vasco. "exterminate the brigands!" shouted the soldiers. they came to closer quarters. the soldiers began to use their carbines for clubs, not taking the time to reload. then they drew their sabres and charged the mexicans under vasco, who had drawn his force up in a hollow square. several on both sides were killed in this mãªlã©e. the boys and the professor, who, under the captain's later orders, had kept to the rear, now came dashing up in the automobile. maximina was lying down on the floor of the tonneau, out of harm's way. jerry was keeping an eye on noddy and his auto, and he noticed that the machine, which, as he could see plainly now, held bob, kept well behind the brigands. "we must get bob, no matter what happens," said jerry to ned. "look sharp now. i'm going to try something." "what is it?" asked ned. "just you watch!" exclaimed jerry. "look out!" he ducked, to avoid a bullet that sang over his head. "what's the use of doing that?" asked ned. "the bullet is past when you hear it sing." "can't help it," replied jerry. the fighting was now at its height. though the force on both sides was small, the guns kept up a continuous fusillade, and it sounded as though a good-sized detachment was going into action. "no quarter! not a man must escape!" cried the captain. "charge!" yelled vasco bilette, trying to urge his men to make a rush and overwhelm the soldiers. "charge and the day is won!" with a shout, his men prepared to obey his command. "now is your chance!" whispered the brigand leader to noddy. "away with bob!" noddy headed the machine, containing the bound captive, off to one side. "there he goes!" jerry shouted, catching sight of the movement. "we must take after him, ned. noddy has bob with him." chapter xxx. homeward bound. steering to one side, to avoid running into the mass of men, soldiers and kidnappers that seemed to be mixed up in inextricable confusion, jerry sent his machine after noddy's, which was speeding away. "shall i try a shot at the tires?" asked ned, fingering his revolver. "no; you might hit bob," replied jerry. "i'll catch him." the battle was now divided. on one side the soldiers and the mexicans were fighting. on the other was the race between the two autos; a contest of machinery. at first it seemed that noddy would escape. but jerry, throwing in the high-speed clutch, cut down the distance between his car and noddy's. a few minutes after the chase started it became evident that jerry would win. vasco, seeing how matters were likely to go, had jumped into the car as noddy started off. all this while poor bob was bound, and the cloak was still about his head, so he could not tell what was going on. but he guessed it was some attempt to rescue him. nearer and nearer came jerry's auto. the front wheels overlapped the rear ones of noddy's machine. "stop, or i'll fire!" cried the professor, suddenly, leveling a revolver at noddy's crowd. they paid no heed to him. with a quick motion, vasco leaned over the edge of the seat and fired three times in rapid succession at the tires of jerry's machine. he missed his aim, but jerry saw the danger that threatened him. he increased his speed. in another minute he had come up alongside of noddy's auto. "get ready to grab bob!" jerry yelled to ned and the professor. "then hold on tight!" "i'll pay you for this!" exclaimed vasco, fiercely. he leaned over the edge of the car and made a vicious lunge at jerry with a long knife. jerry swerved his machine the least bit and avoided the blow. the next instant the autos came together with a crash. the shock threw vasco out, for he was already leaning more than half way over the side door, in an endeavor to strike at jerry. the wheels of the heavy machine passed over his legs, making him a cripple for life. seeing how matters were likely to turn out, noddy shut off the power and brought his machine to a stop. ned and the professor took advantage of this to reach over and grab bob. "now we haf rescue him!" exclaimed maximina. "i knew we would haf found bob!" and she laughed and cried by turns. it did not take long to loosen the captive's bonds. the suffocating shawl was taken from his head. poor bob was faint and white. "we'll soon fix him up!" cried the professor, cheerily. "run to one side, jerry." leaving the discomfited noddy and his chum, jack pender, jerry steered off under a clump of trees, where, by the administrations of the professor, bob was soon himself again. meanwhile, the battle between the brigands and the troops was waging furiously. several had fallen on both sides, but the better-trained soldiers knew more about warfare, and slowly but surely they pressed their enemies back. then, when vasco fell and was crushed by the auto, the men lost heart. they faltered, wavered and then turned and fled. dalsett endeavored to rally them. he caught hold of some of the brigands and urged them to stand against the charge of the soldiers. one of the kidnappers resented dalsett's interference. with a wild cry he plunged a knife into the former miner, and dalsett fell, seriously wounded. "they fly! they fly! take after them!" cried the captain of the troopers. "at them, my brave men! hew them down! wipe them off the face of the earth!" it was noticeable that as the tide turned in favor of the soldiers their leader became more bold. he rode hither and thither, waving his sword, but taking care not to get too far to the front. at length, with a last volley, the brigands fled. the troopers took after them, killing several and wounding some. they chased them until the kidnappers came to the foothills, and, as this was a wild country, the troopers did not care to follow. so some of the brigands escaped. but the band was broken up and for many years thereafter no trouble was experienced with them. noddy had not started up his machine after vasco had been knocked from it. the former bully seemed to be in a sort of daze, and he and pender sat staring at the exciting scenes going on all about them. when bob had been made comfortable on a bed of blankets spread under the trees, jerry thought of their former enemy. "what had we better do about noddy?" he asked of the professor. "there he sits in his machine. shall we turn him over to the soldiers?" "i don't know but what it would be a good idea," said the naturalist. "just have an eye to him for a few minutes, anyhow. the captain will be here in a little while, and he'll decide what to do. i suppose the law must take its course." seeing that bob was doing very well under the care of maximina and the professor, ned and jerry ran their machine over to where noddy was. "don't give me up!" pleaded nixon. "i didn't mean to do any harm. it was all dalsett and vasco. see, here is your money-belt, jerry. i never touched a cent of it." "so it was you who took it, eh?" spoke ned. "no--no--i didn't steal it. dalsett made me take it that night," faltered noddy. "but i never took any money out of it. i used my own. please let me go!" "you are a prisoner of the captain, not one of ours," replied jerry. "he'll have to settle your case." at that instant the captain, who, with his men, had ridden to where vasco was stretched out on the ground, called to jerry and ned. they turned the machine toward him. the professor, too, came running over. the captain spoke some command to one of his men, who began a search of the clothing of the kidnapper leader. "ha! there is something!" exclaimed the captain, as his man hauled two money-belts out of vasco's pocket. "i wonder whom they belong to?" "one's mine!" cried ned. "and the other is bob's," said jerry. "i wonder if there is any money left in them?" "look," said the captain, passing them over. the boys and the professor, who had translated the captain's remarks as he had made them, looked over the articles. they found that about half the sum in each belt had been spent. "well, half a loaf is better than no bread," remarked jerry. "we ought to be thankful we're alive, to say nothing of getting part of our cash back." "you all seem to have plenty of money; you are not like the poor mexicans," said the captain, with a sigh, looking at the professor, meaningly. "that reminds me: i promised to reward you and your men if we were successful," spoke the naturalist. he distributed a good-sized sum among the soldiers, who seemed very pleased to get it. their salaries under the government were small, and not always paid regularly, so that any addition was welcome. "what's that?" asked the captain, suddenly, as he shoved his share of the distribution in his pocket. "it's noddy and pender in their auto," said jerry. "they are going to escape." "shall we fire at them?" asked the captain, eagerly. "what's the use?" asked jerry. "let them go. we would only have more bother if we tried to get them punished by law for their crimes. we have bob back, we discovered the underground city, and what more do we want?" "nothing, excepting to get back home," put in ned. "i'll be glad to see cresville again." so no attempt was made to capture noddy and his chum, and they sped off across-country in their machine, running at top speed, as if they feared pursuit. bill berry, slightly wounded, went with them. "is there anything more we can do for you?" asked the captain. "if there is not we will start back to the garrison, as it is growing late." the professor said he thought they could dispense with the services of the troops. so, amid a chorus of good-byes, the horsemen rode away. "well, here we are, all together once more," observed the professor. "and with an addition to our party," put in ned, pointing to maximina. "that's so; we must get her back home next," the professor said. "first, give me something to eat and drink," begged bob. "i'm almost starved." it was so near night that the travelers decided to make a camp. supper was soon ready, and after it had been disposed of, the boys made a small tent out of blankets for maximina. the next morning they started northward. maximina had told them she had relatives in the city of mexico, and they headed for that place. they reached it, without having any accidents, a week later, and left the girl who had befriended bob with her friends. "i wonder if we'll have any more adventures?" said ned, as, after a few days' rest, they started from the city of mexico toward home. "hard to say, but probably you boys will," said the professor. "boys are always having adventures. as for me, i am satisfied with those we had on this trip. we had the most excellent success. my name will be famous when the story of the underground city is told in four large volumes which i intend to issue." "i would think it might," commented ned. "four books are enough to make any one famous." "well, it will take some long letters to tell our folks of all that has happened to us," put in bob. telegrams had already been sent, so that nobody at home might worry further. "i'll be glad enough to get back to the states," said jerry. "mexico is not the best place in the world." "i suppose we'll have more adventures before long," was ned's comment, and he was right. what those adventures were will be told in the next volume of this series, to be called "the motor boys across the plains; or, the hermit of lost lake." here we shall meet all of our young friends again, and also some of their enemies, and learn much concerning a most peculiar mystery. the weather remained fine, and as the auto had been thoroughly repaired in the city of mexico before leaving, rapid progress was made in the journey northward. they kept, as far as possible, to the best and most frequented roads, having no desire to meet any more brigands. "tell you what," said bob, one day, "automobiling is great, isn't it?" "immense!" answered ned. "it's the best sport going," added jerry. "i love this touring car of ours as i would love a brother." and then he put on a burst of speed that soon took them around a bend of the road and out of sight--and also out of my story. the end. the motor boys series (_trade mark, reg. u. s. pat. of._) by clarence young cloth. 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cents postpaid. [illustration: the motor boys] the motor boys or chums through thick and thin the motor boys overland or a long trip for fun and fortune the motor boys in mexico or the secret of the buried city the motor boys across the plains or the hermit of lost lake [illustration: the motor boys afloat] the motor boys afloat or the stirring cruise of the dartaway the motor boys on the atlantic or the mystery of the lighthouse the motor boys in strange waters or lost in a floating forest the motor boys on the pacific or the young derelict hunters [illustration: the motor boys in the clouds] the motor boys in the clouds or a trip for fame and fortune the motor boys over the rockies or a mystery of the air the motor boys over the ocean or a marvellous rescue in mid-air the motor boys on the wing or seeking the airship treasure [illustration: the motor boys after a fortune] the motor boys after a fortune or the hut on snake island the motor boys on the border or sixty nuggets of gold the motor boys under the sea or from airship to submarine (_new_) cupples & leon co., publishers new york the speedwell boys series by roy rockwood author of "the dave dashaway series," "great marvel series," etc. 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid all boys who love to be on the go will welcome the speedwell boys. they are clean cut and loyal to the core--youths well worth knowing. [illustration] the speedwell boys on motor cycles or the mystery of a great conflagration the lads were poor, but they did a rich man a great service and he presented them with their motor cycles. what a great fire led to is exceedingly well told. the speedwell boys and their racing auto or a run for the golden cup a tale of automobiling and of intense rivalry on the road. there was an endurance run and the boys entered the contest. on the run they rounded up some men who were wanted by the law. the speedwell boys and their power launch or to the rescue of the castaways here is a water story of unusual interest. there was a wreck and the lads, in their power launch, set out to the rescue. a vivid picture of a great storm adds to the interest of the tale. the speedwell boys in a submarine or the lost treasure of rocky cove an old sailor knows of a treasure lost under water because of a cliff falling into the sea. the boys get a chance to go out in a submarine and they make a hunt for the treasure. life under the water is well described. cupples & leon co. publishers new york up-to-date baseball stories baseball joe series by lester chadwick author of "the college sports series" cloth 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cts. postpaid. [illustration] ever since the success of mr. chadwick's "college sports series" we have been urged to get him to write a series dealing exclusively with baseball, a subject in which he is unexcelled by any living american author or coach. baseball joe of the silver stars or the rivals of riverside in this volume, the first of the series, joe is introduced as an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and is particularly anxious to make his mark as a pitcher. he finds it almost impossible to get on the local nine, but, after a struggle, he succeeds. a splendid picture of the great national game in the smaller towns of our country. baseball joe on the school nine or pitching for the blue banner joe's great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the school team. he got to boarding school but found it harder making the team there than it was getting on the nine at home. he fought his way along, and at last saw his chance and took it, and made good. baseball joe at yale or pitching for the college championship from a preparatory school baseball joe goes to yale university. he makes the freshman nine and in his second year becomes a varsity pitcher and pitches in several big games. baseball joe in the central league or making good as a professional pitcher in this volume the scene of action is shifted from yale college to a baseball league of our central states. baseball joe's work in the box for old eli had been noted by one of the managers and joe gets an offer he cannot resist. the book shows how the hero "made good" in more ways than one, helping a down-and-out player back to the right path as well as doing his share to win some great victories on the diamond. cupples & leon co., publishers new york the motor girls series by margaret penrose author of the highly successful "dorothy dale series" cloth. 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cts. postpaid. [illustration] the motor girls or a mystery of the road when cora kimball got her touring car she did not imagine so many adventures were in store for her. a tale all wide awake girls will appreciate. the motor girls on a tour or keeping a strange promise a great many things happen in this volume, starting with the running over of a hamper of good things lying in the road. a precious heirloom is missing, and how it was traced up is told with absorbing interest. the motor girls at lookout beach or in quest of the runaways there was a great excitement when the motor girls decided to go to lookout beach for the summer. the motor girls through new england or held by the gypsies a strong story and one which will make this series more popular than ever. the girls go on a motoring trip through new england. the motor girls on cedar lake or the hermit of fern island how cora and her chums went camping on the lake shore and how they took trips in their motor boat, are told in a way all girls will enjoy. the motor girls on the coast or the waif from the sea the scene is shifted to the sea coast where the girls pay a visit. they have their motor boat with them and go out for many good times. the motor girls on crystal bay or the secret of the red oar more jolly times, on the water and at a cute little bungalow on the beautiful shore of the bay. how cora aided frieda and solved the secret of benny shane's red oar, is told in a manner to interest all girls. cupples & leon co., publishers, new york the dorothy dale series by margaret penrose author of "the motor girls series" cloth. 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, 60 cts. postpaid. dorothy dale: a girl of to-day dorothy is the daughter of an old civil war veteran who is running a weekly newspaper in a small eastern town. when her father falls sick, the girl shows what she can do to support the family. [illustration] dorothy dale at glenwood school more prosperous times have come to the dale family, and major dale resolves to send dorothy to a boarding school to complete her education. dorothy dale's great secret a splendid story of one girl's devotion to another. dorothy dale and her chums a story of school life, and of strange adventures among the gypsies. dorothy dale's queer holidays relates the details of a mystery that surrounded tanglewood park. dorothy dale's camping days many things happen in this volume, from the time dorothy and her chums are met coming down the hillside on a treacherous load of hay. dorothy dale's school rivals dorothy and her chum, tavia, return to glenwood school. a new student becomes dorothy's rival and troubles at home add to her difficulties. dorothy dale in the city dorothy is invited to new york city by her aunt. this tale presents a clever picture of life in new york as it appears to one who has never before visited the metropolis. dorothy dale's promise strange indeed was the promise and given under strange circumstances. only a girl as strong of purpose as was dorothy dale would have undertaken the task she set for herself. an absorbing story filled with plenty of fun,--one that will make this series a greater success. cupples & leon co., publishers new york a new line by the author of the ever-popular "motor boys series" the racer boys series by clarence young author of "the motor boys series," "jack ranger series," etc. etc. fine cloth binding. illustrated. price per vol. 60 cts. postpaid. [illustration] the announcement of a new series of stories by mr. clarence young is always hailed with delight by boys and girls throughout the country, and we predict an even greater success for these new books, than that now enjoyed by the "motor boys series." the racer boys or the mystery of the wreck this, the first volume of the new series, tells who the racer boys were and how they chanced to be out on the ocean in a great storm. adventures follow each other in rapid succession in a manner that only our author, mr. young, can describe. the racer boys at boarding school or striving for the championship when the racer boys arrived at the school they found everything at a stand-still. the school was going down rapidly and the students lacked ambition and leadership. the racers took hold with a will, and got their father to aid the head of the school financially, and then reorganized the football team. the racer boys to the rescue or stirring days in a winter camp here is a story filled with the spirit of good times in winter--skating, ice-boating and hunting. the racer boys on the prairies or the treasure of golden peak from their boarding school the racer boys accept an invitation to visit a ranch in the west. the racer boys on guard or the rebellion of riverview hall once more the boys are back at boarding school, were they have many frolics, and enter more than one athletic contest. cupples & leon co., publishers new york _the jack ranger series_ _by clarence young_ author of the motor boys series cloth. 12mo. illustrated. price per volume, $1.00, postpaid [illustration] jack ranger's schooldays _or, the rivals of washington hall_ you will love jack ranger--you simply can't help it. he is so bright and cheery, and so real and lifelike. a typical boarding school tale, without a dull line in it. jack ranger's school victories _or, track, gridiron and diamond_ in this tale jack gets back to washington hall and goes in for all sorts of school games. the rivalry is bitter at times, and enemies try to put jack "in a hole" more than once. jack ranger's western trip _or, from boarding school to ranch and range_ this volume takes the hero and several of his chums to the great west. at the ranch and on the range adventures of the strenuous sort befall him. jack ranger's ocean cruise _or, the wreck of the polly ann_ here is a tale of the bounding sea, with many stirring adventures. how the ship was wrecked, and jack was cast away, is told in a style all boys and girls will find exceedingly interesting. jack ranger's gun club _or, from schoolroom to camp and trail_ jack, with his chums, goes in quest of big game. the boys fall in with a mysterious body of men, and have a terrific slide down a mountain side. jack ranger's treasure box _or, the outing of the school boy yachtsmen_ this story opens at school, but the scene is quickly shifted to the ocean. the schoolboy yachtsmen visit porto rico and other places, and have a long series of adventures including some on a lonely island of the west indies. a yachting story all lovers of the sea will wish to peruse. cupples & leon co., publishers. new york the saddle boys series by captain james carson 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid. all lads who love life in the open air and a good steed, will want to peruse these books. captain carson knows his subject thoroughly, and his stories are as pleasing as they are healthful and instructive. [illustration] the saddle boys of the rockies or lost on thunder mountain telling how the lads started out to solve the mystery of a great noise in the mountains--how they got lost--and of the things they discovered. the saddle boys in the grand canyon or the hermit of the cave a weird and wonderful story of the grand canyon of the colorado, told in a most absorbing manner. the saddle boys are to the front in a manner to please all young readers. the saddle boys on the plains or after a treasure of gold in this story the scene is shifted to the great plains of the southwest and then to the mexican border. there is a stirring struggle for gold, told as only captain carson can tell it. the saddle boys at circle ranch or in at the grand round-up here we have lively times at the ranch, and likewise the particulars of a grand round-up of cattle and encounters with wild animals and also cattle thieves. a story that breathes the very air of the plains. cupples & leon co. publishers new york the fred fenton athletic series by allen chapman author of "the tom fairfield series," "the boys of pluck series" and "the darewell chums series." 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid. a line of tales embracing school athletics. fred is a true type of the american schoolboy of to-day. [illustration] fred fenton the pitcher or the rivals of riverport school when fred came to riverport none of the school lads knew him. but he speedily proved his worth in the baseball box. a true to life picture of school baseball. fred fenton in the line or the football boys of riverport school when fall came the thoughts of the boys turned to football. fred went in the line, and again proved his worth, making a run that helped to win a great game. fred fenton on the crew or the young oarsmen of riverport school in this volume the scene is shifted to the river, and fred and his chums show how they can handle the oars. there are many other adventures, all dear to the hearts of wide-awake readers. fred fenton on the track or the athletes of riverport school track athletics form a subject of vast interest to many boys, and here is a tale telling of great running races, high jumping, and the like. fred again proves himself a hero in the best sense of that term. cupples & leon co. publishers new york the tom fairfield series by allen chapman author of the "fred fenton athletic series," "the boys of pluck series," and "the darewell chums series." 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid. tom fairfield is a typical american lad, full of life and energy, a boy who believes in doing things. to know tom is to love him. [illustration] tom fairfield's schooldays or the chums of elmwood hall tells of how tom started for school, of the mystery surrounding one of the hall seniors, and of how the hero went to the rescue. the first book in a line that is bound to become decidedly popular. tom fairfield at sea or the wreck of the silver star tom's parents had gone to australia and then been cast away somewhere in the pacific. tom set out to find them and was himself cast away. a thrilling picture of the perils of the deep. tom fairfield in camp or the secret of the old mill the boys decided to go camping, and located near an old mill. a wild man resided there and he made it decidedly lively for tom and his chums. the secret of the old mill adds to the interest of the volume. tom fairfield's luck and pluck or working to clear his name while tom was back at school some of his enemies tried to get him into trouble. then something unusual occurred and tom was suspected of a crime. how he set to work to clear his name is told in a manner to interest all young readers. cupples & leon co. publishers new york the dave dashaway series by roy rockwood author of the "speedwell boys series" and the "great marvel series." 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid. never was there a more clever young aviator than dave dashaway, and all up-to-date lads will surely wish to make his acquaintance. [illustration] dave dashaway the young aviator or in the clouds for fame and fortune this initial volume tells how the hero ran away from his miserly guardian, fell in with a successful airman, and became a young aviator of note. dave dashaway and his hydroplane or daring adventures over the great lakes showing how dave continued his career as a birdman and had many adventures over the great lakes, and he likewise foiled the plans of some canadian smugglers. dave dashaway and his giant airship or a marvellous trip across the atlantic how the giant airship was constructed and how the daring young aviator and his friends made the hazard journey through the clouds from the new world to the old, is told in a way to hold the reader spellbound. dave dashaway around the world or a young yankee aviator among many nations an absorbing tale of a great air flight around the world, of hairbreadth adventures in alaska, siberia and elsewhere. a true to life picture of what may be accomplished in the near future. cupples & leon co. publishers new york the webster series by frank v. webster [illustration] mr. webster's style is very much like that of the boys' favorite author, the late lamented horatio alger jr., but his tales are thoroughly up-to-date. the stories are as clean as they are clever, and will prove of absorbing interest to boys everywhere. cloth. 12mo. over 200 pages each. illustrated. stamped in various colors. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid. only a farm boy or dan hardy's rise in life tom the telephone boy or the mystery of a message the boy from the ranch or roy bradner's city experiences the young treasure hunter or fred stanley's trip to alaska bob the castaway or the wreck of the eagle the newsboy partners or who was dick box? two boy gold miners or lost in the mountains the young firemen of lakeville or herbert dare's pluck the boy pilot of the lakes or nat morton's perils the boys of bellwood school or frank jordan's triumph jack the runaway or on the road with a circus bob chester's grit or from ranch to riches airship andy or the luck of a brave boy the high school rivals or fred markham's struggles darry the life saver or the heroes of the coast dick the bank boy or a missing fortune ben hardy's flying machine or making a record for himself harry watson's high school days or the rivals of rivertown comrades of the saddle or the young rough riders of the plains the boys of the wireless or a stirring rescue from the deep cupples & leon co., publishers, new york * * * * * * * transcriber's note: --punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. --archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. --variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. --inconsistencies in formatting and punctuation of individual advertisements were retained. charles franks, and the dp team my life and work by henry ford in collaboration with samuel crowther contents introduction--what is the idea? i. the beginning ii. what i learned about business iii. starting the real business iv. the secret of manufacturing and serving v. getting into production vi. machines and men vii. the terror of the machine. viii. wages ix. why not always have good business? x. how cheaply can things be made? xi. money and goods xii. money--master or servant? xiii. why be poor? xiv. the tractor and power farming xv. why charity? xvi. the railroads xvii. things in general xviii. democracy and industry xix. what we may expect. index introduction what is the idea? we have only started on our development of our country--we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface. the progress has been wonderful enough--but when we compare what we have done with what there is to do, then our past accomplishments are as nothing. when we consider that more power is used merely in ploughing the soil than is used in all the industrial establishments of the country put together, an inkling comes of how much opportunity there is ahead. and now, with so many countries of the world in ferment and with so much unrest every where, is an excellent time to suggest something of the things that may be done in the light of what has been done. when one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. and that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. with all of that i do not agree. i think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields. i think that we have already done too much toward banishing the pleasant things from life by thinking that there is some opposition between living and providing the means of living. we waste so much time and energy that we have little left over in which to enjoy ourselves. power and machinery, money and goods, are useful only as they set us free to live. they are but means to an end. for instance, i do not consider the machines which bear my name simply as machines. if that was all there was to it i would do something else. i take them as concrete evidence of the working out of a theory of business, which i hope is something more than a theory of business--a theory that looks toward making this world a better place in which to live. the fact that the commercial success of the ford motor company has been most unusual is important only because it serves to demonstrate, in a way which no one can fail to understand, that the theory to date is right. considered solely in this light i can criticize the prevailing system of industry and the organization of money and society from the standpoint of one who has not been beaten by them. as things are now organized, i could, were i thinking only selfishly, ask for no change. if i merely want money the present system is all right; it gives money in plenty to me. but i am thinking of service. the present system does not permit of the best service because it encourages every kind of waste--it keeps many men from getting the full return from service. and it is going nowhere. it is all a matter of better planning and adjustment. i have no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. it is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown rather than to rush around in a continuous brainstorm after every new idea. skepticism, if by that we mean cautiousness, is the balance wheel of civilization. most of the present acute troubles of the world arise out of taking on new ideas without first carefully investigating to discover if they are good ideas. an idea is not necessarily good because it is old, or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. almost any one can think up an idea. the thing that counts is developing it into a practical product. i am now most interested in fully demonstrating that the ideas we have put into practice are capable of the largest application--that they have nothing peculiarly to do with motor cars or tractors but form something in the nature of a universal code. i am quite certain that it is the natural code and i want to demonstrate it so thoroughly that it will be accepted, not as a new idea, but as a natural code. the natural thing to do is to work--to recognize that prosperity and happiness can be obtained only through honest effort. human ills flow largely from attempting to escape from this natural course. i have no suggestion which goes beyond accepting in its fullest this principle of nature. i take it for granted that we must work. all that we have done comes as the result of a certain insistence that since we must work it is better to work intelligently and forehandedly; that the better we do our work the better off we shall be. all of which i conceive to be merely elemental common sense. i am not a reformer. i think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. we have two kinds of reformers. both are nuisances. the man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. he is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the buttonhole. it would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. this sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. experience and reform do not go together. a reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. he must discard all facts. since 1914 a great many persons have received brand-new intellectual outfits. many are beginning to think for the first time. they opened their eyes and realized that they were in the world. then, with a thrill of independence, they realized that they could look at the world critically. they did so and found it faulty. the intoxication of assuming the masterful position of a critic of the social system--which it is every man's right to assume--is unbalancing at first. the very young critic is very much unbalanced. he is strongly in favor of wiping out the old order and starting a new one. they actually managed to start a new world in russia. it is there that the work of the world makers can best be studied. we learn from russia that it is the minority and not the majority who determine destructive action. we learn also that while men may decree social laws in conflict with natural laws, nature vetoes those laws more ruthlessly than did the czars. nature has vetoed the whole soviet republic. for it sought to deny nature. it denied above all else the right to the fruits of labour. some people say, "russia will have to go to work," but that does not describe the case. the fact is that poor russia is at work, but her work counts for nothing. it is not free work. in the united states a workman works eight hours a day; in russia, he works twelve to fourteen. in the united states, if a workman wishes to lay off a day or a week, and is able to afford it, there is nothing to prevent him. in russia, under sovietism, the workman goes to work whether he wants to or not. the freedom of the citizen has disappeared in the discipline of a prison-like monotony in which all are treated alike. that is slavery. freedom is the right to work a decent length of time and to get a decent living for doing so; to be able to arrange the little personal details of one's own life. it is the aggregate of these and many other items of freedom which makes up the great idealistic freedom. the minor forms of freedom lubricate the everyday life of all of us. russia could not get along without intelligence and experience. as soon as she began to run her factories by committees, they went to rack and ruin; there was more debate than production. as soon as they threw out the skilled man, thousands of tons of precious materials were spoiled. the fanatics talked the people into starvation. the soviets are now offering the engineers, the administrators, the foremen and superintendents, whom at first they drove out, large sums of money if only they will come back. bolshevism is now crying for the brains and experience which it yesterday treated so ruthlessly. all that "reform" did to russia was to block production. there is in this country a sinister element that desires to creep in between the men who work with their hands and the men who think and plan for the men who work with their hands. the same influence that drove the brains, experience, and ability out of russia is busily engaged in raising prejudice here. we must not suffer the stranger, the destroyer, the hater of happy humanity, to divide our people. in unity is american strength--and freedom. on the other hand, we have a different kind of reformer who never calls himself one. he is singularly like the radical reformer. the radical has had no experience and does not want it. the other class of reformer has had plenty of experience but it does him no good. i refer to the reactionary--who will be surprised to find himself put in exactly the same class as the bolshevist. he wants to go back to some previous condition, not because it was the best condition, but because he thinks he knows about that condition. the one crowd wants to smash up the whole world in order to make a better one. the other holds the world as so good that it might well be let stand as it is--and decay. the second notion arises as does the first--out of not using the eyes to see with. it is perfectly possible to smash this world, but it is not possible to build a new one. it is possible to prevent the world from going forward, but it is not possible then to prevent it from going back--from decaying. it is foolish to expect that, if everything be overturned, everyone will thereby get three meals a day. or, should everything be petrified, that thereby six per cent, interest may be paid. the trouble is that reformers and reactionaries alike get away from the realities--from the primary functions. one of the counsels of caution is to be very certain that we do not mistake a reactionary turn for a return of common sense. we have passed through a period of fireworks of every description, and the making of a great many idealistic maps of progress. we did not get anywhere. it was a convention, not a march. lovely things were said, but when we got home we found the furnace out. reactionaries have frequently taken advantage of the recoil from such a period, and they have promised "the good old times"--which usually means the bad old abuses--and because they are perfectly void of vision they are sometimes regarded as "practical men." their return to power is often hailed as the return of common sense. the primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation. community life is impossible without them. they hold the world together. raising things, making things, and earning things are as primitive as human need and yet as modern as anything can be. they are of the essence of physical life. when they cease, community life ceases. things do get out of shape in this present world under the present system, but we may hope for a betterment if the foundations stand sure. the great delusion is that one may change the foundation--usurp the part of destiny in the social process. the foundations of society are the men and means to _grow_ things, to _make_ things, and to _carry_ things. as long as agriculture, manufacture, and transportation survive, the world can survive any economic or social change. as we serve our jobs we serve the world. there is plenty of work to do. business is merely work. speculation in things already produced--that is not business. it is just more or less respectable graft. but it cannot be legislated out of existence. laws can do very little. law never does anything constructive. it can never be more than a policeman, and so it is a waste of time to look to our state capitals or to washington to do that which law was not designed to do. as long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow. we have had enough of looking to washington and we have had enough of legislators--not so much, however, in this as in other countries--promising laws to do that which laws cannot do. when you get a whole country--as did ours--thinking that washington is a sort of heaven and behind its clouds dwell omniscience and omnipotence, you are educating that country into a dependent state of mind which augurs ill for the future. our help does not come from washington, but from ourselves; our help may, however, go to washington as a sort of central distribution point where all our efforts are coordinated for the general good. we may help the government; the government cannot help us. the slogan of "less government in business and more business in government" is a very good one, not mainly on account of business or government, but on account of the people. business is not the reason why the united states was founded. the declaration of independence is not a business charter, nor is the constitution of the united states a commercial schedule. the united states--its land, people, government, and business--are but methods by which the life of the people is made worth while. the government is a servant and never should be anything but a servant. the moment the people become adjuncts to government, then the law of retribution begins to work, for such a relation is unnatural, immoral, and inhuman. we cannot live without business and we cannot live without government. business and government are necessary as servants, like water and grain; as masters they overturn the natural order. the welfare of the country is squarely up to us as individuals. that is where it should be and that is where it is safest. governments can promise something for nothing but they cannot deliver. they can juggle the currencies as they did in europe (and as bankers the world over do, as long as they can get the benefit of the juggling) with a patter of solemn nonsense. but it is work and work alone that can continue to deliver the goods--and that, down in his heart, is what every man knows. there is little chance of an intelligent people, such as ours, ruining the fundamental processes of economic life. most men know they cannot get something for nothing. most men feel--even if they do not know--that money is not wealth. the ordinary theories which promise everything to everybody, and demand nothing from anybody, are promptly denied by the instincts of the ordinary man, even when he does not find reasons against them. he _knows_ they are wrong. that is enough. the present order, always clumsy, often stupid, and in many ways imperfect, has this advantage over any other--it works. doubtless our order will merge by degrees into another, and the new one will also work--but not so much by reason of what it is as by reason of what men will bring into it. the reason why bolshevism did not work, and cannot work, is not economic. it does not matter whether industry is privately managed or socially controlled; it does not matter whether you call the workers' share "wages" or "dividends"; it does not matter whether you regimentalize the people as to food, clothing, and shelter, or whether you allow them to eat, dress, and live as they like. those are mere matters of detail. the incapacity of the bolshevist leaders is indicated by the fuss they made over such details. bolshevism failed because it was both unnatural and immoral. our system stands. is it wrong? of course it is wrong, at a thousand points! is it clumsy? of course it is clumsy. by all right and reason it ought to break down. but it does not--because it is instinct with certain economic and moral fundamentals. the economic fundamental is labour. labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. it is men's labour that makes the harvest what it is. that is the economic fundamental: every one of us is working with material which we did not and could not create, but which was presented to us by nature. the moral fundamental is man's right in his labour. this is variously stated. it is sometimes called "the right of property." it is sometimes masked in the command, "thou shalt not steal." it is the other man's right in his property that makes stealing a crime. when a man has earned his bread, he has a right to that bread. if another steals it, he does more than steal bread; he invades a sacred human right. if we cannot produce we cannot have--but some say if we produce it is only for the capitalists. capitalists who become such because they provide better means of production are of the foundation of society. they have really nothing of their own. they merely manage property for the benefit of others. capitalists who become such through trading in money are a temporarily necessary evil. they may not be evil at all if their money goes to production. if their money goes to complicating distribution--to raising barriers between the producer and the consumer--then they are evil capitalists and they will pass away when money is better adjusted to work; and money will become better adjusted to work when it is fully realized that through work and work alone may health, wealth, and happiness inevitably be secured. there is no reason why a man who is willing to work should not be able to work and to receive the full value of his work. there is equally no reason why a man who can but will not work should not receive the full value of his services to the community. he should most certainly be permitted to take away from the community an equivalent of what he contributes to it. if he contributes nothing he should take away nothing. he should have the freedom of starvation. we are not getting anywhere when we insist that every man ought to have more than he deserves to have--just because some do get more than they deserve to have. there can be no greater absurdity and no greater disservice to humanity in general than to insist that all men are equal. most certainly all men are not equal, and any democratic conception which strives to make men equal is only an effort to block progress. men cannot be of equal service. the men of larger ability are less numerous than the men of smaller ability; it is possible for a mass of the smaller men to pull the larger ones down--but in so doing they pull themselves down. it is the larger men who give the leadership to the community and enable the smaller men to live with less effort. the conception of democracy which names a leveling-down of ability makes for waste. no two things in nature are alike. we build our cars absolutely interchangeable. all parts are as nearly alike as chemical analysis, the finest machinery, and the finest workmanship can make them. no fitting of any kind is required, and it would certainly seem that two fords standing side by side, looking exactly alike and made so exactly alike that any part could be taken out of one and put into the other, would be alike. but they are not. they will have different road habits. we have men who have driven hundreds, and in some cases thousands of fords and they say that no two ever act precisely the same--that, if they should drive a new car for an hour or even less and then the car were mixed with a bunch of other new ones, also each driven for a single hour and under the same conditions, that although they could not recognize the car they had been driving merely by looking at it, they could do so by driving it. i have been speaking in general terms. let us be more concrete. a man ought to be able to live on a scale commensurate with the service that he renders. this is rather a good time to talk about this point, for we have recently been through a period when the rendering of service was the last thing that most people thought of. we were getting to a place where no one cared about costs or service. orders came without effort. whereas once it was the customer who favored the merchant by dealing with him, conditions changed until it was the merchant who favored the customer by selling to him. that is bad for business. monopoly is bad for business. profiteering is bad for business. the lack of necessity to hustle is bad for business. business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets. things were coming too easily. there was a let-down of the principle that an honest relation ought to obtain between values and prices. the public no longer had to be "catered to." there was even a "public be damned" attitude in many places. it was intensely bad for business. some men called that abnormal condition "prosperity." it was not prosperity-it was just a needless money chase. money chasing is not business. it is very easy, unless one keeps a plan thoroughly in mind, to get burdened with money and then, in an effort to make more money, to forget all about selling to the people what they want. business on a money-making basis is most insecure. it is a touch-and-go affair, moving irregularly and rarely over a term of years amounting to much. it is the function of business to produce for consumption and not for money or speculation. producing for consumption implies that the quality of the article produced will be high and that the price will be low--that the article be one which serves the people and not merely the producer. if the money feature is twisted out of its proper perspective, then the production will be twisted to serve the producer. the producer depends for his prosperity upon serving the people. he may get by for a while serving himself, but if he does, it will be purely accidental, and when the people wake up to the fact that they are not being served, the end of that producer is in sight. during the boom period the larger effort of production was to serve itself and hence, the moment the people woke up, many producers went to smash. they said that they had entered into a "period of depression." really they had not. they were simply trying to pit nonsense against sense which is something that cannot successfully be done. being greedy for money is the surest way not to get it, but when one serves for the sake of service--for the satisfaction of doing that which one believes to be right--then money abundantly takes care of itself. money comes naturally as the result of service. and it is absolutely necessary to have money. but we do not want to forget that the end of money is not ease but the opportunity to perform more service. in my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. none of us has any right to ease. there is no place in civilization for the idler. any scheme looking to abolishing money is only making affairs more complex, for we must have a measure. that our present system of money is a satisfactory basis for exchange is a matter of grave doubt. that is a question which i shall talk of in a subsequent chapter. the gist of my objection to the present monetary system is that it tends to become a thing of itself and to block instead of facilitate production. my effort is in the direction of simplicity. people in general have so little and it costs so much to buy even the barest necessities (let alone that share of the luxuries to which i think everyone is entitled) because nearly everything that we make is much more complex than it needs to be. our clothing, our food, our household furnishings--all could be much simpler than they now are and at the same time be better looking. things in past ages were made in certain ways and makers since then have just followed. i do not mean that we should adopt freak styles. there is no necessity for that clothing need not be a bag with a hole cut in it. that might be easy to make but it would be inconvenient to wear. a blanket does not require much tailoring, but none of us could get much work done if we went around indian-fashion in blankets. real simplicity means that which gives the very best service and is the most convenient in use. the trouble with drastic reforms is they always insist that a man be made over in order to use certain designed articles. i think that dress reform for women--which seems to mean ugly clothes--must always originate with plain women who want to make everyone else look plain. that is not the right process. start with an article that suits and then study to find some way of eliminating the entirely useless parts. this applies to everything--a shoe, a dress, a house, a piece of machinery, a railroad, a steamship, an airplane. as we cut out useless parts and simplify necessary ones we also cut down the cost of making. this is simple logic, but oddly enough the ordinary process starts with a cheapening of the manufacturing instead of with a simplifying of the article. the start ought to be with the article. first we ought to find whether it is as well made as it should be--does it give the best possible service? then--are the materials the best or merely the most expensive? then--can its complexity and weight be cut down? and so on. there is no more sense in having extra weight in an article than there is in the cockade on a coachman's hat. in fact, there is not as much. for the cockade may help the coachman to identify his hat while the extra weight means only a waste of strength. i cannot imagine where the delusion that weight means strength came from. it is all well enough in a pile-driver, but why move a heavy weight if we are not going to hit anything with it? in transportation why put extra weight in a machine? why not add it to the load that the machine is designed to carry? fat men cannot run as fast as thin men but we build most of our vehicles as though dead-weight fat increased speed! a deal of poverty grows out of the carriage of excess weight. some day we shall discover how further to eliminate weight. take wood, for example. for certain purposes wood is now the best substance we know, but wood is extremely wasteful. the wood in a ford car contains thirty pounds of water. there must be some way of doing better than that. there must be some method by which we can gain the same strength and elasticity without having to lug useless weight. and so through a thousand processes. the farmer makes too complex an affair out of his daily work. i believe that the average farmer puts to a really useful purpose only about 5 per cent of the energy that he spends. if any one ever equipped a factory in the style, say, the average farm is fitted out, the place would be cluttered with men. the worst factory in europe is hardly as bad as the average farm barn. power is utilized to the least possible degree. not only is everything done by hand, but seldom is a thought given to logical arrangement. a farmer doing his chores will walk up and down a rickety ladder a dozen times. he will carry water for years instead of putting in a few lengths of pipe. his whole idea, when there is extra work to do, is to hire extra men. he thinks of putting money into improvements as an expense. farm products at their lowest prices are dearer than they ought to be. farm profits at their highest are lower than they ought to be. it is waste motion--waste effort--that makes farm prices high and profits low. on my own farm at dearborn we do everything by machinery. we have eliminated a great number of wastes, but we have not as yet touched on real economy. we have not yet been able to put in five or ten years of intense night-and-day study to discover what really ought to be done. we have left more undone than we have done. yet at no time--no matter what the value of crops--have we failed to turn a first-class profit. we are not farmers--we are industrialists on the farm. the moment the farmer considers himself as an industrialist, with a horror of waste either in material or in men, then we are going to have farm products so low-priced that all will have enough to eat, and the profits will be so satisfactory that farming will be considered as among the least hazardous and most profitable of occupations. lack of knowledge of what is going on and lack of knowledge of what the job really is and the best way of doing it are the reasons why farming is thought not to pay. nothing could pay the way farming is conducted. the farmer follows luck and his forefathers. he does not know how economically to produce, and he does not know how to market. a manufacturer who knew how neither to produce nor to market would not long stay in business. that the farmer can stay on shows how wonderfully profitable farming can be. the way to attain low-priced, high-volume production in the factory or on the farm--and low-priced, high-volume production means plenty for everyone--is quite simple. the trouble is that the general tendency is to complicate very simple affairs. take, for an instance, an "improvement." when we talk about improvements usually we have in mind some change in a product. an "improved" product is one that has been changed. that is not my idea. i do not believe in starting to make until i have discovered the best possible thing. this, of course, does not mean that a product should never be changed, but i think that it will be found more economical in the end not even to try to produce an article until you have fully satisfied yourself that utility, design, and material are the best. if your researches do not give you that confidence, then keep right on searching until you find confidence. the place to start manufacturing is with the article. the factory, the organization, the selling, and the financial plans will shape themselves to the article. you will have a cutting, edge on your business chisel and in the end you will save time. rushing into manufacturing without being certain of the product is the unrecognized cause of many business failures. people seem to think that the big thing is the factory or the store or the financial backing or the management. the big thing is the product, and any hurry in getting into fabrication before designs are completed is just so much waste time. i spent twelve years before i had a model t--which is what is known to-day as the ford car--that suited me. we did not attempt to go into real production until we had a real product. that product has not been essentially changed. we are constantly experimenting with new ideas. if you travel the roads in the neighbourhood of dearborn you can find all sorts of models of ford cars. they are experimental cars--they are not new models. i do not believe in letting any good idea get by me, but i will not quickly decide whether an idea is good or bad. if an idea seems good or seems even to have possibilities, i believe in doing whatever is necessary to test out the idea from every angle. but testing out the idea is something very different from making a change in the car. where most manufacturers find themselves quicker to make a change in the product than in the method of manufacturing--we follow exactly the opposite course. our big changes have been in methods of manufacturing. they never stand still. i believe that there is hardly a single operation in the making of our car that is the same as when we made our first car of the present model. that is why we make them so cheaply. the few changes that have been made in the car have been in the direction of convenience in use or where we found that a change in design might give added strength. the materials in the car change as we learn more and more about materials. also we do not want to be held up in production or have the expense of production increased by any possible shortage in a particular material, so we have for most parts worked out substitute materials. vanadium steel, for instance, is our principal steel. with it we can get the greatest strength with the least weight, but it would not be good business to let our whole future depend upon being able to get vanadium steel. we have worked out a substitute. all our steels are special, but for every one of them we have at least one, and sometimes several, fully proved and tested substitutes. and so on through all of our materials and likewise with our parts. in the beginning we made very few of our parts and none of our motors. now we make all our motors and most of our parts because we find it cheaper to do so. but also we aim to make some of every part so that we cannot be caught in any market emergency or be crippled by some outside manufacturer being unable to fill his orders. the prices on glass were run up outrageously high during the war; we are among the largest users of glass in the country. now we are putting up our own glass factory. if we had devoted all of this energy to making changes in the product we should be nowhere; but by not changing the product we are able to give our energy to the improvement of the making. the principal part of a chisel is the cutting edge. if there is a single principle on which our business rests it is that. it makes no difference how finely made a chisel is or what splendid steel it has in it or how well it is forged--if it has no cutting edge it is not a chisel. it is just a piece of metal. all of which being translated means that it is what a thing does--not what it is supposed to do--that matters. what is the use of putting a tremendous force behind a blunt chisel if a light blow on a sharp chisel will do the work? the chisel is there to cut, not to be hammered. the hammering is only incidental to the job. so if we want to work why not concentrate on the work and do it in the quickest possible fashion? the cutting edge of merchandising is the point where the product touches the consumer. an unsatisfactory product is one that has a dull cutting edge. a lot of waste effort is needed to put it through. the cutting edge of a factory is the man and the machine on the job. if the man is not right the machine cannot be; if the machine is not right the man cannot be. for any one to be required to use more force than is absolutely necessary for the job in hand is waste. the essence of my idea then is that waste and greed block the delivery of true service. both waste and greed are unnecessary. waste is due largely to not understanding what one does, or being careless in doing of it. greed is merely a species of nearsightedness. i have striven toward manufacturing with a minimum of waste, both of materials and of human effort, and then toward distribution at a minimum of profit, depending for the total profit upon the volume of distribution. in the process of manufacturing i want to distribute the maximum of wage--that is, the maximum of buying power. since also this makes for a minimum cost and we sell at a minimum profit, we can distribute a product in consonance with buying power. thus everyone who is connected with us--either as a manager, worker, or purchaser--is the better for our existence. the institution that we have erected is performing a service. that is the only reason i have for talking about it. the principles of that service are these: 1. an absence of fear of the future and of veneration for the past. one who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. there is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. what is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress. 2. a disregard of competition. whoever does a thing best ought to be the one to do it. it is criminal to try to get business away from another man--criminal because one is then trying to lower for personal gain the condition of one's fellow man--to rule by force instead of by intelligence. 3. the putting of service before profit. without a profit, business cannot extend. there is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit. well-conducted business enterprise cannot fail to return a profit, but profit must and inevitably will come as a reward for good service. it cannot be the basis--it must be the result of service. 4. manufacturing is not buying low and selling high. it is the process of buying materials fairly and, with the smallest possible addition of cost, transforming those materials into a consumable product and giving it to the consumer. gambling, speculating, and sharp dealing, tend only to clog this progression. how all of this arose, how it has worked out, and how it applies generally are the subjects of these chapters. chapter i the beginning of business on may 31, 1921, the ford motor company turned out car no. 5,000,000. it is out in my museum along with the gasoline buggy that i began work on thirty years before and which first ran satisfactorily along in the spring of 1893. i was running it when the bobolinks came to dearborn and they always come on april 2nd. there is all the difference in the world in the appearance of the two vehicles and almost as much difference in construction and materials, but in fundamentals the two are curiously alike--except that the old buggy has on it a few wrinkles that we have not yet quite adopted in our modern car. for that first car or buggy, even though it had but two cylinders, would make twenty miles an hour and run sixty miles on the three gallons of gas the little tank held and is as good to-day as the day it was built. the development in methods of manufacture and in materials has been greater than the development in basic design. the whole design has been refined; the present ford car, which is the "model t," has four cylinders and a self starter--it is in every way a more convenient and an easier riding car. it is simpler than the first car. but almost every point in it may be found also in the first car. the changes have been brought about through experience in the making and not through any change in the basic principle--which i take to be an important fact demonstrating that, given a good idea to start with, it is better to concentrate on perfecting it than to hunt around for a new idea. one idea at a time is about as much as any one can handle. it was life on the farm that drove me into devising ways and means to better transportation. i was born on july 30, 1863, on a farm at dearborn, michigan, and my earliest recollection is that, considering the results, there was too much work on the place. that is the way i still feel about farming. there is a legend that my parents were very poor and that the early days were hard ones. certainly they were not rich, but neither were they poor. as michigan farmers went, we were prosperous. the house in which i was born is still standing, and it and the farm are part of my present holding. there was too much hard hand labour on our own and all other farms of the time. even when very young i suspected that much might somehow be done in a better way. that is what took me into mechanics--although my mother always said that i was born a mechanic. i had a kind of workshop with odds and ends of metal for tools before i had anything else. in those days we did not have the toys of to-day; what we had were home made. my toys were all tools--they still are! and every fragment of machinery was a treasure. the biggest event of those early years was meeting with a road engine about eight miles out of detroit one day when we were driving to town. i was then twelve years old. the second biggest event was getting a watch--which happened in the same year. i remember that engine as though i had seen it only yesterday, for it was the first vehicle other than horse-drawn that i had ever seen. it was intended primarily for driving threshing machines and sawmills and was simply a portable engine and boiler mounted on wheels with a water tank and coal cart trailing behind. i had seen plenty of these engines hauled around by horses, but this one had a chain that made a connection between the engine and the rear wheels of the wagon-like frame on which the boiler was mounted. the engine was placed over the boiler and one man standing on the platform behind the boiler shoveled coal, managed the throttle, and did the steering. it had been made by nichols, shepard & company of battle creek. i found that out at once. the engine had stopped to let us pass with our horses and i was off the wagon and talking to the engineer before my father, who was driving, knew what i was up to. the engineer was very glad to explain the whole affair. he was proud of it. he showed me how the chain was disconnected from the propelling wheel and a belt put on to drive other machinery. he told me that the engine made two hundred revolutions a minute and that the chain pinion could be shifted to let the wagon stop while the engine was still running. this last is a feature which, although in different fashion, is incorporated into modern automobiles. it was not important with steam engines, which are easily stopped and started, but it became very important with the gasoline engine. it was that engine which took me into automotive transportation. i tried to make models of it, and some years later i did make one that ran very well, but from the time i saw that road engine as a boy of twelve right forward to to-day, my great interest has been in making a machine that would travel the roads. driving to town i always had a pocket full of trinkets--nuts, washers, and odds and ends of machinery. often i took a broken watch and tried to put it together. when i was thirteen i managed for the first time to put a watch together so that it would keep time. by the time i was fifteen i could do almost anything in watch repairing--although my tools were of the crudest. there is an immense amount to be learned simply by tinkering with things. it is not possible to learn from books how everything is made--and a real mechanic ought to know how nearly everything is made. machines are to a mechanic what books are to a writer. he gets ideas from them, and if he has any brains he will apply those ideas. from the beginning i never could work up much interest in the labour of farming. i wanted to have something to do with machinery. my father was not entirely in sympathy with my bent toward mechanics. he thought that i ought to be a farmer. when i left school at seventeen and became an apprentice in the machine shop of the drydock engine works i was all but given up for lost. i passed my apprenticeship without trouble--that is, i was qualified to be a machinist long before my three-year term had expired--and having a liking for fine work and a leaning toward watches i worked nights at repairing in a jewelry shop. at one period of those early days i think that i must have had fully three hundred watches. i thought that i could build a serviceable watch for around thirty cents and nearly started in the business. but i did not because i figured out that watches were not universal necessities, and therefore people generally would not buy them. just how i reached that surprising conclusion i am unable to state. i did not like the ordinary jewelry and watch making work excepting where the job was hard to do. even then i wanted to make something in quantity. it was just about the time when the standard railroad time was being arranged. we had formerly been on sun time and for quite a while, just as in our present daylight-saving days, the railroad time differed from the local time. that bothered me a good deal and so i succeeded in making a watch that kept both times. it had two dials and it was quite a curiosity in the neighbourhood. in 1879--that is, about four years after i first saw that nichols-shepard machine--i managed to get a chance to run one and when my apprenticeship was over i worked with a local representative of the westinghouse company of schenectady as an expert in the setting up and repair of their road engines. the engine they put out was much the same as the nichols-shepard engine excepting that the engine was up in front, the boiler in the rear, and the power was applied to the back wheels by a belt. they could make twelve miles an hour on the road even though the self-propelling feature was only an incident of the construction. they were sometimes used as tractors to pull heavy loads and, if the owner also happened to be in the threshing-machine business, he hitched his threshing machine and other paraphernalia to the engine in moving from farm to farm. what bothered me was the weight and the cost. they weighed a couple of tons and were far too expensive to be owned by other than a farmer with a great deal of land. they were mostly employed by people who went into threshing as a business or who had sawmills or some other line that required portable power. even before that time i had the idea of making some kind of a light steam car that would take the place of horses--more especially, however, as a tractor to attend to the excessively hard labour of ploughing. it occurred to me, as i remember somewhat vaguely, that precisely the same idea might be applied to a carriage or a wagon on the road. a horseless carriage was a common idea. people had been talking about carriages without horses for many years back--in fact, ever since the steam engine was invented--but the idea of the carriage at first did not seem so practical to me as the idea of an engine to do the harder farm work, and of all the work on the farm ploughing was the hardest. our roads were poor and we had not the habit of getting around. one of the most remarkable features of the automobile on the farm is the way that it has broadened the farmer's life. we simply took for granted that unless the errand were urgent we would not go to town, and i think we rarely made more than a trip a week. in bad weather we did not go even that often. being a full-fledged machinist and with a very fair workshop on the farm it was not difficult for me to build a steam wagon or tractor. in the building of it came the idea that perhaps it might be made for road use. i felt perfectly certain that horses, considering all the bother of attending them and the expense of feeding, did not earn their keep. the obvious thing to do was to design and build a steam engine that would be light enough to run an ordinary wagon or to pull a plough. i thought it more important first to develop the tractor. to lift farm drudgery off flesh and blood and lay it on steel and motors has been my most constant ambition. it was circumstances that took me first into the actual manufacture of road cars. i found eventually that people were more interested in something that would travel on the road than in something that would do the work on the farms. in fact, i doubt that the light farm tractor could have been introduced on the farm had not the farmer had his eyes opened slowly but surely by the automobile. but that is getting ahead of the story. i thought the farmer would be more interested in the tractor. i built a steam car that ran. it had a kerosene-heated boiler and it developed plenty of power and a neat control--which is so easy with a steam throttle. but the boiler was dangerous. to get the requisite power without too big and heavy a power plant required that the engine work under high pressure; sitting on a high-pressure steam boiler is not altogether pleasant. to make it even reasonably safe required an excess of weight that nullified the economy of the high pressure. for two years i kept experimenting with various sorts of boilers--the engine and control problems were simple enough--and then i definitely abandoned the whole idea of running a road vehicle by steam. i knew that in england they had what amounted to locomotives running on the roads hauling lines of trailers and also there was no difficulty in designing a big steam tractor for use on a large farm. but ours were not then english roads; they would have stalled or racked to pieces the strongest and heaviest road tractor. and anyway the manufacturing of a big tractor which only a few wealthy farmers could buy did not seem to me worth while. but i did not give up the idea of a horseless carriage. the work with the westinghouse representative only served to confirm the opinion i had formed that steam was not suitable for light vehicles. that is why i stayed only a year with that company. there was nothing more that the big steam tractors and engines could teach me and i did not want to waste time on something that would lead nowhere. a few years before--it was while i was an apprentice--i read in the _world of science_, an english publication, of the "silent gas engine" which was then coming out in england. i think it was the otto engine. it ran with illuminating gas, had a single large cylinder, and the power impulses being thus intermittent required an extremely heavy fly-wheel. as far as weight was concerned it gave nothing like the power per pound of metal that a steam engine gave, and the use of illuminating gas seemed to dismiss it as even a possibility for road use. it was interesting to me only as all machinery was interesting. i followed in the english and american magazines which we got in the shop the development of the engine and most particularly the hints of the possible replacement of the illuminating gas fuel by a gas formed by the vaporization of gasoline. the idea of gas engines was by no means new, but this was the first time that a really serious effort had been made to put them on the market. they were received with interest rather than enthusiasm and i do not recall any one who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. all the wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam. they never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. that is the way with wise people--they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. that is why i never employ an expert in full bloom. if ever i wanted to kill opposition by unfair means i would endow the opposition with experts. they would have so much good advice that i could be sure they would do little work. the gas engine interested me and i followed its progress, but only from curiosity, until about 1885 or 1886 when, the steam engine being discarded as the motive power for the carriage that i intended some day to build, i had to look around for another sort of motive power. in 1885 i repaired an otto engine at the eagle iron works in detroit. no one in town knew anything about them. there was a rumour that i did and, although i had never before been in contact with one, i undertook and carried through the job. that gave me a chance to study the new engine at first hand and in 1887 i built one on the otto four-cycle model just to see if i understood the principles. "four cycle" means that the piston traverses the cylinder four times to get one power impulse. the first stroke draws in the gas, the second compresses it, the third is the explosion or power stroke, while the fourth stroke exhausts the waste gas. the little model worked well enough; it had a one-inch bore and a three-inch stroke, operated with gasoline, and while it did not develop much power, it was slightly lighter in proportion than the engines being offered commercially. i gave it away later to a young man who wanted it for something or other and whose name i have forgotten; it was eventually destroyed. that was the beginning of the work with the internal combustion engine. i was then on the farm to which i had returned, more because i wanted to experiment than because i wanted to farm, and, now being an all-around machinist, i had a first-class workshop to replace the toy shop of earlier days. my father offered me forty acres of timber land, provided i gave up being a machinist. i agreed in a provisional way, for cutting the timber gave me a chance to get married. i fitted out a sawmill and a portable engine and started to cut out and saw up the timber on the tract. some of the first of that lumber went into a cottage on my new farm and in it we began our married life. it was not a big house--thirty-one feet square and only a story and a half high--but it was a comfortable place. i added to it my workshop, and when i was not cutting timber i was working on the gas engines--learning what they were and how they acted. i read everything i could find, but the greatest knowledge came from the work. a gas engine is a mysterious sort of thing--it will not always go the way it should. you can imagine how those first engines acted! it was in 1890 that i began on a double-cylinder engine. it was quite impractical to consider the single cylinder for transportation purposes--the fly-wheel had to be entirely too heavy. between making the first four-cycle engine of the otto type and the start on a double cylinder i had made a great many experimental engines out of tubing. i fairly knew my way about. the double cylinder i thought could be applied to a road vehicle and my original idea was to put it on a bicycle with a direct connection to the crankshaft and allowing for the rear wheel of the bicycle to act as the balance wheel. the speed was going to be varied only by the throttle. i never carried out this plan because it soon became apparent that the engine, gasoline tank, and the various necessary controls would be entirely too heavy for a bicycle. the plan of the two opposed cylinders was that, while one would be delivering power the other would be exhausting. this naturally would not require so heavy a fly-wheel to even the application of power. the work started in my shop on the farm. then i was offered a job with the detroit electric company as an engineer and machinist at forty-five dollars a month. i took it because that was more money than the farm was bringing me and i had decided to get away from farm life anyway. the timber had all been cut. we rented a house on bagley avenue, detroit. the workshop came along and i set it up in a brick shed at the back of the house. during the first several months i was in the night shift at the electric-light plant--which gave me very little time for experimenting--but after that i was in the day shift and every night and all of every saturday night i worked on the new motor. i cannot say that it was hard work. no work with interest is ever hard. i always am certain of results. they always come if you work hard enough. but it was a very great thing to have my wife even more confident than i was. she has always been that way. i had to work from the ground up--that is, although i knew that a number of people were working on horseless carriages, i could not know what they were doing. the hardest problems to overcome were in the making and breaking of the spark and in the avoidance of excess weight. for the transmission, the steering gear, and the general construction, i could draw on my experience with the steam tractors. in 1892 i completed my first motor car, but it was not until the spring of the following year that it ran to my satisfaction. this first car had something of the appearance of a buggy. there were two cylinders with a two-and-a-half-inch bore and a six-inch stroke set side by side and over the rear axle. i made them out of the exhaust pipe of a steam engine that i had bought. they developed about four horsepower. the power was transmitted from the motor to the countershaft by a belt and from the countershaft to the rear wheel by a chain. the car would hold two people, the seat being suspended on posts and the body on elliptical springs. there were two speeds--one of ten and the other of twenty miles per hour--obtained by shifting the belt, which was done by a clutch lever in front of the driving seat. thrown forward, the lever put in the high speed; thrown back, the low speed; with the lever upright the engine could run free. to start the car it was necessary to turn the motor over by hand with the clutch free. to stop the car one simply released the clutch and applied the foot brake. there was no reverse, and speeds other than those of the belt were obtained by the throttle. i bought the iron work for the frame of the carriage and also the seat and the springs. the wheels were twenty-eight-inch wire bicycle wheels with rubber tires. the balance wheel i had cast from a pattern that i made and all of the more delicate mechanism i made myself. one of the features that i discovered necessary was a compensating gear that permitted the same power to be applied to each of the rear wheels when turning corners. the machine altogether weighed about five hundred pounds. a tank under the seat held three gallons of gasoline which was fed to the motor through a small pipe and a mixing valve. the ignition was by electric spark. the original machine was air-cooled--or to be more accurate, the motor simply was not cooled at all. i found that on a run of an hour or more the motor heated up, and so i very shortly put a water jacket around the cylinders and piped it to a tank in the rear of the car over the cylinders. nearly all of these various features had been planned in advance. that is the way i have always worked. i draw a plan and work out every detail on the plan before starting to build. for otherwise one will waste a great deal of time in makeshifts as the work goes on and the finished article will not have coherence. it will not be rightly proportioned. many inventors fail because they do not distinguish between planning and experimenting. the largest building difficulties that i had were in obtaining the proper materials. the next were with tools. there had to be some adjustments and changes in details of the design, but what held me up most was that i had neither the time nor the money to search for the best material for each part. but in the spring of 1893 the machine was running to my partial satisfaction and giving an opportunity further to test out the design and material on the road. chapter ii what i learned about business my "gasoline buggy" was the first and for a long time the only automobile in detroit. it was considered to be something of a nuisance, for it made a racket and it scared horses. also it blocked traffic. for if i stopped my machine anywhere in town a crowd was around it before i could start up again. if i left it alone even for a minute some inquisitive person always tried to run it. finally, i had to carry a chain and chain it to a lamp post whenever i left it anywhere. and then there was trouble with the police. i do not know quite why, for my impression is that there were no speed-limit laws in those days. anyway, i had to get a special permit from the mayor and thus for a time enjoyed the distinction of being the only licensed chauffeur in america. i ran that machine about one thousand miles through 1895 and 1896 and then sold it to charles ainsley of detroit for two hundred dollars. that was my first sale. i had built the car not to sell but only to experiment with. i wanted to start another car. ainsley wanted to buy. i could use the money and we had no trouble in agreeing upon a price. it was not at all my idea to make cars in any such petty fashion. i was looking ahead to production, but before that could come i had to have something to produce. it does not pay to hurry. i started a second car in 1896; it was much like the first but a little lighter. it also had the belt drive which i did not give up until some time later; the belts were all right excepting in hot weather. that is why i later adopted gears. i learned a great deal from that car. others in this country and abroad were building cars by that time, and in 1895 i heard that a benz car from germany was on exhibition in macy's store in new york. i traveled down to look at it but it had no features that seemed worth while. it also had the belt drive, but it was much heavier than my car. i was working for lightness; the foreign makers have never seemed to appreciate what light weight means. i built three cars in all in my home shop and all of them ran for years in detroit. i still have the first car; i bought it back a few years later from a man to whom mr. ainsley had sold it. i paid one hundred dollars for it. during all this time i kept my position with the electric company and gradually advanced to chief engineer at a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. but my gas-engine experiments were no more popular with the president of the company than my first mechanical leanings were with my father. it was not that my employer objected to experiments--only to experiments with a gas engine. i can still hear him say: "electricity, yes, that's the coming thing. but gas--no." he had ample grounds for his skepticism--to use the mildest terms. practically no one had the remotest notion of the future of the internal combustion engine, while we were just on the edge of the great electrical development. as with every comparatively new idea, electricity was expected to do much more than we even now have any indication that it can do. i did not see the use of experimenting with electricity for my purposes. a road car could not run on a trolley even if trolley wires had been less expensive; no storage battery was in sight of a weight that was practical. an electrical car had of necessity to be limited in radius and to contain a large amount of motive machinery in proportion to the power exerted. that is not to say that i held or now hold electricity cheaply; we have not yet begun to use electricity. but it has its place, and the internal combustion engine has its place. neither can substitute for the other--which is exceedingly fortunate. i have the dynamo that i first had charge of at the detroit edison company. when i started our canadian plant i bought it from an office building to which it had been sold by the electric company, had it revamped a little, and for several years it gave excellent service in the canadian plant. when we had to build a new power plant, owing to the increase in business, i had the old motor taken out to my museum--a room out at dearborn that holds a great number of my mechanical treasures. the edison company offered me the general superintendency of the company but only on condition that i would give up my gas engine and devote myself to something really useful. i had to choose between my job and my automobile. i chose the automobile, or rather i gave up the job--there was really nothing in the way of a choice. for already i knew that the car was bound to be a success. i quit my job on august 15, 1899, and went into the automobile business. it might be thought something of a step, for i had no personal funds. what money was left over from living was all used in experimenting. but my wife agreed that the automobile could not be given up--that we had to make or break. there was no "demand" for automobiles--there never is for a new article. they were accepted in much the fashion as was more recently the airplane. at first the "horseless carriage" was considered merely a freak notion and many wise people explained with particularity why it could never be more than a toy. no man of money even thought of it as a commercial possibility. i cannot imagine why each new means of transportation meets with such opposition. there are even those to-day who shake their heads and talk about the luxury of the automobile and only grudgingly admit that perhaps the motor truck is of some use. but in the beginning there was hardly any one who sensed that the automobile could be a large factor in industry. the most optimistic hoped only for a development akin to that of the bicycle. when it was found that an automobile really could go and several makers started to put out cars, the immediate query was as to which would go fastest. it was a curious but natural development--that racing idea. i never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the automobile in any light other than as a fast toy. therefore later we had to race. the industry was held back by this initial racing slant, for the attention of the makers was diverted to making fast rather than good cars. it was a business for speculators. a group of men of speculative turn of mind organized, as soon as i left the electric company, the detroit automobile company to exploit my car. i was the chief engineer and held a small amount of the stock. for three years we continued making cars more or less on the model of my first car. we sold very few of them; i could get no support at all toward making better cars to be sold to the public at large. the whole thought was to make to order and to get the largest price possible for each car. the main idea seemed to be to get the money. and being without authority other than my engineering position gave me, i found that the new company was not a vehicle for realizing my ideas but merely a money-making concern--that did not make much money. in march, 1902, i resigned, determined never again to put myself under orders. the detroit automobile company later became the cadillac company under the ownership of the lelands, who came in subsequently. i rented a shop--a one-story brick shed--at 81 park place to continue my experiments and to find out what business really was. i thought that it must be something different from what it had proved to be in my first adventure. the year from 1902 until the formation of the ford motor company was practically one of investigation. in my little one-room brick shop i worked on the development of a four-cylinder motor and on the outside i tried to find out what business really was and whether it needed to be quite so selfish a scramble for money as it seemed to be from my first short experience. from the period of the first car, which i have described, until the formation of my present company i built in all about twenty-five cars, of which nineteen or twenty were built with the detroit automobile company. the automobile had passed from the initial stage where the fact that it could run at all was enough, to the stage where it had to show speed. alexander winton of cleveland, the founder of the winton car, was then the track champion of the country and willing to meet all comers. i designed a two-cylinder enclosed engine of a more compact type than i had before used, fitted it into a skeleton chassis, found that i could make speed, and arranged a race with winton. we met on the grosse point track at detroit. i beat him. that was my first race, and it brought advertising of the only kind that people cared to read. the public thought nothing of a car unless it made speed--unless it beat other racing cars. my ambition to build the fastest car in the world led me to plan a four-cylinder motor. but of that more later. the most surprising feature of business as it was conducted was the large attention given to finance and the small attention to service. that seemed to me to be reversing the natural process which is that the money should come as the result of work and not before the work. the second feature was the general indifference to better methods of manufacture as long as whatever was done got by and took the money. in other words, an article apparently was not built with reference to how greatly it could serve the public but with reference solely to how much money could be had for it--and that without any particular care whether the customer was satisfied. to sell him was enough. a dissatisfied customer was regarded not as a man whose trust had been violated, but either as a nuisance or as a possible source of more money in fixing up the work which ought to have been done correctly in the first place. for instance, in automobiles there was not much concern as to what happened to the car once it had been sold. how much gasoline it used per mile was of no great moment; how much service it actually gave did not matter; and if it broke down and had to have parts replaced, then that was just hard luck for the owner. it was considered good business to sell parts at the highest possible price on the theory that, since the man had already bought the car, he simply had to have the part and would be willing to pay for it. the automobile business was not on what i would call an honest basis, to say nothing of being, from a manufacturing standpoint, on a scientific basis, but it was no worse than business in general. that was the period, it may be remembered, in which many corporations were being floated and financed. the bankers, who before then had confined themselves to the railroads, got into industry. my idea was then and still is that if a man did his work well, the price he would get for that work, the profits and all financial matters, would care for themselves and that a business ought to start small and build itself up and out of its earnings. if there are no earnings then that is a signal to the owner that he is wasting his time and does not belong in that business. i have never found it necessary to change those ideas, but i discovered that this simple formula of doing good work and getting paid for it was supposed to be slow for modern business. the plan at that time most in favor was to start off with the largest possible capitalization and then sell all the stock and all the bonds that could be sold. whatever money happened to be left over after all the stock and bond-selling expenses and promoters, charges and all that, went grudgingly into the foundation of the business. a good business was not one that did good work and earned a fair profit. a good business was one that would give the opportunity for the floating of a large amount of stocks and bonds at high prices. it was the stocks and bonds, not the work, that mattered. i could not see how a new business or an old business could be expected to be able to charge into its product a great big bond interest and then sell the product at a fair price. i have never been able to see that. i have never been able to understand on what theory the original investment of money can be charged against a business. those men in business who call themselves financiers say that money is "worth" 6 per cent, or 5 per cent, or some other per cent, and that if a business has one hundred thousand dollars invested in it, the man who made the investment is entitled to charge an interest payment on the money, because, if instead of putting that money into the business he had put it into a savings bank or into certain securities, he could have a certain fixed return. therefore they say that a proper charge against the operating expenses of a business is the interest on this money. this idea is at the root of many business failures and most service failures. money is not worth a particular amount. as money it is not worth anything, for it will do nothing of itself. the only use of money is to buy tools to work with or the product of tools. therefore money is worth what it will help you to produce or buy and no more. if a man thinks that his money will earn 5 per cent, or 6 per cent, he ought to place it where he can get that return, but money placed in a business is not a charge on the business--or, rather, should not be. it ceases to be money and becomes, or should become, an engine of production, and it is therefore worth what it produces--and not a fixed sum according to some scale that has no bearing upon the particular business in which the money has been placed. any return should come after it has produced, not before. business men believed that you could do anything by "financing" it. if it did not go through on the first financing then the idea was to "refinance." the process of "refinancing" was simply the game of sending good money after bad. in the majority of cases the need of refinancing arises from bad management, and the effect of refinancing is simply to pay the poor managers to keep up their bad management a little longer. it is merely a postponement of the day of judgment. this makeshift of refinancing is a device of speculative financiers. their money is no good to them unless they can connect it up with a place where real work is being done, and that they cannot do unless, somehow, that place is poorly managed. thus, the speculative financiers delude themselves that they are putting their money out to use. they are not; they are putting it out to waste. i determined absolutely that never would i join a company in which finance came before the work or in which bankers or financiers had a part. and further that, if there were no way to get started in the kind of business that i thought could be managed in the interest of the public, then i simply would not get started at all. for my own short experience, together with what i saw going on around me, was quite enough proof that business as a mere money-making game was not worth giving much thought to and was distinctly no place for a man who wanted to accomplish anything. also it did not seem to me to be the way to make money. i have yet to have it demonstrated that it is the way. for the only foundation of real business is service. a manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. he has then only started with his customer. in the case of an automobile the sale of the machine is only something in the nature of an introduction. if the machine does not give service, then it is better for the manufacturer if he never had the introduction, for he will have the worst of all advertisements--a dissatisfied customer. there was something more than a tendency in the early days of the automobile to regard the selling of a machine as the real accomplishment and that thereafter it did not matter what happened to the buyer. that is the shortsighted salesman-on-commission attitude. if a salesman is paid only for what he sells, it is not to be expected that he is going to exert any great effort on a customer out of whom no more commission is to be made. and it is right on this point that we later made the largest selling argument for the ford. the price and the quality of the car would undoubtedly have made a market, and a large market. we went beyond that. a man who bought one of our cars was in my opinion entitled to continuous use of that car, and therefore if he had a breakdown of any kind it was our duty to see that his machine was put into shape again at the earliest possible moment. in the success of the ford car the early provision of service was an outstanding element. most of the expensive cars of that period were ill provided with service stations. if your car broke down you had to depend on the local repair man--when you were entitled to depend upon the manufacturer. if the local repair man were a forehanded sort of a person, keeping on hand a good stock of parts (although on many of the cars the parts were not interchangeable), the owner was lucky. but if the repair man were a shiftless person, with an adequate knowledge of automobiles and an inordinate desire to make a good thing out of every car that came into his place for repairs, then even a slight breakdown meant weeks of laying up and a whopping big repair bill that had to be paid before the car could be taken away. the repair men were for a time the largest menace to the automobile industry. even as late as 1910 and 1911 the owner of an automobile was regarded as essentially a rich man whose money ought to be taken away from him. we met that situation squarely and at the very beginning. we would not have our distribution blocked by stupid, greedy men. that is getting some years ahead of the story, but it is control by finance that breaks up service because it looks to the immediate dollar. if the first consideration is to earn a certain amount of money, then, unless by some stroke of luck matters are going especially well and there is a surplus over for service so that the operating men may have a chance, future business has to be sacrificed for the dollar of to-day. and also i noticed a tendency among many men in business to feel that their lot was hard--they worked against a day when they might retire and live on an income--get out of the strife. life to them was a battle to be ended as soon as possible. that was another point i could not understand, for as i reasoned, life is not a battle except with our own tendency to sag with the downpull of "getting settled." if to petrify is success all one has to do is to humour the lazy side of the mind but if to grow is success, then one must wake up anew every morning and keep awake all day. i saw great businesses become but the ghost of a name because someone thought they could be managed just as they were always managed, and though the management may have been most excellent in its day, its excellence consisted in its alertness to its day, and not in slavish following of its yesterdays. life, as i see it, is not a location, but a journey. even the man who most feels himself "settled" is not settled--he is probably sagging back. everything is in flux, and was meant to be. life flows. we may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there. and out of the delusion that life is a battle that may be lost by a false move grows, i have noticed, a great love for regularity. men fall into the half-alive habit. seldom does the cobbler take up with the new-fangled way of soling shoes, and seldom does the artisan willingly take up with new methods in his trade. habit conduces to a certain inertia, and any disturbance of it affects the mind like trouble. it will be recalled that when a study was made of shop methods, so that the workmen might be taught to produce with less useless motion and fatigue, it was most opposed by the workmen themselves. though they suspected that it was simply a game to get more out of them, what most irked them was that it interfered with the well-worn grooves in which they had become accustomed to move. business men go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot bring themselves to change. one sees them all about--men who do not know that yesterday is past, and who woke up this morning with their last year's ideas. it could almost be written down as a formula that when a man begins to think that he has at last found his method he had better begin a most searching examination of himself to see whether some part of his brain has not gone to sleep. there is a subtle danger in a man thinking that he is "fixed" for life. it indicates that the next jolt of the wheel of progress is going to fling him off. there is also the great fear of being thought a fool. so many men are afraid of being considered fools. i grant that public opinion is a powerful police influence for those who need it. perhaps it is true that the majority of men need the restraint of public opinion. public opinion may keep a man better than he would otherwise be--if not better morally, at least better as far as his social desirability is concerned. but it is not a bad thing to be a fool for righteousness' sake. the best of it is that such fools usually live long enough to prove that they were not fools--or the work they have begun lives long enough to prove they were not foolish. the money influence--the pressing to make a profit on an "investment"--and its consequent neglect of or skimping of work and hence of service showed itself to me in many ways. it seemed to be at the bottom of most troubles. it was the cause of low wages--for without well-directed work high wages cannot be paid. and if the whole attention is not given to the work it cannot be well directed. most men want to be free to work; under the system in use they could not be free to work. during my first experience i was not free--i could not give full play to my ideas. everything had to be planned to make money; the last consideration was the work. and the most curious part of it all was the insistence that it was the money and not the work that counted. it did not seem to strike any one as illogical that money should be put ahead of work--even though everyone had to admit that the profit had to come from the work. the desire seemed to be to find a short cut to money and to pass over the obvious short cut--which is through the work. take competition; i found that competition was supposed to be a menace and that a good manager circumvented his competitors by getting a monopoly through artificial means. the idea was that there were only a certain number of people who could buy and that it was necessary to get their trade ahead of someone else. some will remember that later many of the automobile manufacturers entered into an association under the selden patent just so that it might be legally possible to control the price and the output of automobiles. they had the same idea that so many trades unions have--the ridiculous notion that more profit can be had doing less work than more. the plan, i believe, is a very antiquated one. i could not see then and am still unable to see that there is not always enough for the man who does his work; time spent in fighting competition is wasted; it had better be spent in doing the work. there are always enough people ready and anxious to buy, provided you supply what they want and at the proper price--and this applies to personal services as well as to goods. during this time of reflection i was far from idle. we were going ahead with a four-cylinder motor and the building of a pair of big racing cars. i had plenty of time, for i never left my business. i do not believe a man can ever leave his business. he ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night. it is nice to plan to do one's work in office hours, to take up the work in the morning, to drop it in the evening--and not have a care until the next morning. it is perfectly possible to do that if one is so constituted as to be willing through all of his life to accept direction, to be an employee, possibly a responsible employee, but not a director or manager of anything. a manual labourer must have a limit on his hours, otherwise he will wear himself out. if he intends to remain always a manual labourer, then he should forget about his work when the whistle blows, but if he intends to go forward and do anything, the whistle is only a signal to start thinking over the day's work in order to discover how it might be done better. the man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed. i cannot pretend to say, because i do not know, whether the man who works always, who never leaves his business, who is absolutely intent upon getting ahead, and who therefore does get ahead--is happier than the man who keeps office hours, both for his brain and his hands. it is not necessary for any one to decide the question. a ten-horsepower engine will not pull as much as a twenty. the man who keeps brain office hours limits his horsepower. if he is satisfied to pull only the load that he has, well and good, that is his affair--but he must not complain if another who has increased his horsepower pulls more than he does. leisure and work bring different results. if a man wants leisure and gets it--then he has no cause to complain. but he cannot have both leisure and the results of work. concretely, what i most realized about business in that year--and i have been learning more each year without finding it necessary to change my first conclusions--is this: (1) that finance is given a place ahead of work and therefore tends to kill the work and destroy the fundamental of service. (2) that thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business--it makes a man afraid of competition, of changing his methods, or of doing anything which might change his condition. (3) that the way is clear for any one who thinks first of service--of doing the work in the best possible way. chapter iii starting the real business in the little brick shop at 81 park place i had ample opportunity to work out the design and some of the methods of manufacture of a new car. even if it were possible to organize the exact kind of corporation that i wanted--one in which doing the work well and suiting the public would be controlling factors--it became apparent that i never could produce a thoroughly good motor car that might be sold at a low price under the existing cut-and-try manufacturing methods. everybody knows that it is always possible to do a thing better the second time. i do not know why manufacturing should not at that time have generally recognized this as a basic fact--unless it might be that the manufacturers were in such a hurry to obtain something to sell that they did not take time for adequate preparation. making "to order" instead of making in volume is, i suppose, a habit, a tradition, that has descended from the old handicraft days. ask a hundred people how they want a particular article made. about eighty will not know; they will leave it to you. fifteen will think that they must say something, while five will really have preferences and reasons. the ninety-five, made up of those who do not know and admit it and the fifteen who do not know but do not admit it, constitute the real market for any product. the five who want something special may or may not be able to pay the price for special work. if they have the price, they can get the work, but they constitute a special and limited market. of the ninety-five perhaps ten or fifteen will pay a price for quality. of those remaining, a number will buy solely on price and without regard to quality. their numbers are thinning with each day. buyers are learning how to buy. the majority will consider quality and buy the biggest dollar's worth of quality. if, therefore, you discover what will give this 95 per cent. of people the best all-round service and then arrange to manufacture at the very highest quality and sell at the very lowest price, you will be meeting a demand which is so large that it may be called universal. this is not standardizing. the use of the word "standardizing" is very apt to lead one into trouble, for it implies a certain freezing of design and method and usually works out so that the manufacturer selects whatever article he can the most easily make and sell at the highest profit. the public is not considered either in the design or in the price. the thought behind most standardization is to be able to make a larger profit. the result is that with the economies which are inevitable if you make only one thing, a larger and larger profit is continually being had by the manufacturer. his output also becomes larger--his facilities produce more--and before he knows it his markets are overflowing with goods which will not sell. these goods would sell if the manufacturer would take a lower price for them. there is always buying power present--but that buying power will not always respond to reductions in price. if an article has been sold at too high a price and then, because of stagnant business, the price is suddenly cut, the response is sometimes most disappointing. and for a very good reason. the public is wary. it thinks that the price-cut is a fake and it sits around waiting for a real cut. we saw much of that last year. if, on the contrary, the economies of making are transferred at once to the price and if it is well known that such is the policy of the manufacturer, the public will have confidence in him and will respond. they will trust him to give honest value. so standardization may seem bad business unless it carries with it the plan of constantly reducing the price at which the article is sold. and the price has to be reduced (this is very important) because of the manufacturing economies that have come about and not because the falling demand by the public indicates that it is not satisfied with the price. the public should always be wondering how it is possible to give so much for the money. standardization (to use the word as i understand it) is not just taking one's best selling article and concentrating on it. it is planning day and night and probably for years, first on something which will best suit the public and then on how it should be made. the exact processes of manufacturing will develop of themselves. then, if we shift the manufacturing from the profit to the service basis, we shall have a real business in which the profits will be all that any one could desire. all of this seems self-evident to me. it is the logical basis of any business that wants to serve 95 per cent. of the community. it is the logical way in which the community can serve itself. i cannot comprehend why all business does not go on this basis. all that has to be done in order to adopt it is to overcome the habit of grabbing at the nearest dollar as though it were the only dollar in the world. the habit has already to an extent been overcome. all the large and successful retail stores in this country are on the one-price basis. the only further step required is to throw overboard the idea of pricing on what the traffic will bear and instead go to the common-sense basis of pricing on what it costs to manufacture and then reducing the cost of manufacture. if the design of the product has been sufficiently studied, then changes in it will come very slowly. but changes in manufacturing processes will come very rapidly and wholly naturally. that has been our experience in everything we have undertaken. how naturally it has all come about, i shall later outline. the point that i wish to impress here is that it is impossible to get a product on which one may concentrate unless an unlimited amount of study is given beforehand. it is not just an afternoon's work. these ideas were forming with me during this year of experimenting. most of the experimenting went into the building of racing cars. the idea in those days was that a first-class car ought to be a racer. i never really thought much of racing, but following the bicycle idea, the manufacturers had the notion that winning a race on a track told the public something about the merits of an automobile--although i can hardly imagine any test that would tell less. but, as the others were doing it, i, too, had to do it. in 1903, with tom cooper, i built two cars solely for speed. they were quite alike. one we named the "999" and the other the "arrow." if an automobile were going to be known for speed, then i was going to make an automobile that would be known wherever speed was known. these were. i put in four great big cylinders giving 80 h.p.--which up to that time had been unheard of. the roar of those cylinders alone was enough to half kill a man. there was only one seat. one life to a car was enough. i tried out the cars. cooper tried out the cars. we let them out at full speed. i cannot quite describe the sensation. going over niagara falls would have been but a pastime after a ride in one of them. i did not want to take the responsibility of racing the "999" which we put up first, neither did cooper. cooper said he knew a man who lived on speed, that nothing could go too fast for him. he wired to salt lake city and on came a professional bicycle rider named barney oldfield. he had never driven a motor car, but he liked the idea of trying it. he said he would try anything once. it took us only a week to teach him how to drive. the man did not know what fear was. all that he had to learn was how to control the monster. controlling the fastest car of to-day was nothing as compared to controlling that car. the steering wheel had not yet been thought of. all the previous cars that i had built simply had tillers. on this one i put a two-handed tiller, for holding the car in line required all the strength of a strong man. the race for which we were working was at three miles on the grosse point track. we kept our cars as a dark horse. we left the predictions to the others. the tracks then were not scientifically banked. it was not known how much speed a motor car could develop. no one knew better than oldfield what the turns meant and as he took his seat, while i was cranking the car for the start, he remarked cheerily: "well, this chariot may kill me, but they will say afterward that i was going like hell when she took me over the bank." and he did go.... he never dared to look around. he did not shut off on the curves. he simply let that car go--and go it did. he was about half a mile ahead of the next man at the end of the race! the "999" did what it was intended to do: it advertised the fact that i could build a fast motorcar. a week after the race i formed the ford motor company. i was vice-president, designer, master mechanic, superintendent, and general manager. the capitalization of the company was one hundred thousand dollars, and of this i owned 25 1/2 per cent. the total amount subscribed in cash was about twenty-eight thousand dollars--which is the only money that the company has ever received for the capital fund from other than operations. in the beginning i thought that it was possible, notwithstanding my former experience, to go forward with a company in which i owned less than the controlling share. i very shortly found i had to have control and therefore in 1906, with funds that i had earned in the company, i bought enough stock to bring my holdings up to 51 per cent, and a little later bought enough more to give me 58-1/2 per cent. the new equipment and the whole progress of the company have always been financed out of earnings. in 1919 my son edsel purchased the remaining 41-1/2 per cent of the stock because certain of the minority stockholders disagreed with my policies. for these shares he paid at the rate of $12,500 for each $100 par and in all paid about seventy-five millions. the original company and its equipment, as may be gathered, were not elaborate. we rented strelow's carpenter shop on mack avenue. in making my designs i had also worked out the methods of making, but, since at that time we could not afford to buy machinery, the entire car was made according to my designs, but by various manufacturers, and about all we did, even in the way of assembling, was to put on the wheels, the tires, and the body. that would really be the most economical method of manufacturing if only one could be certain that all of the various parts would be made on the manufacturing plan that i have above outlined. the most economical manufacturing of the future will be that in which the whole of an article is not made under one roof--unless, of course, it be a very simple article. the modern--or better, the future--method is to have each part made where it may best be made and then assemble the parts into a complete unit at the points of consumption. that is the method we are now following and expect to extend. it would make no difference whether one company or one individual owned all the factories fabricating the component parts of a single product, or whether such part were made in our independently owned factory, _if only all adopted the same service methods_. if we can buy as good a part as we can make ourselves and the supply is ample and the price right, we do not attempt to make it ourselves--or, at any rate, to make more than an emergency supply. in fact, it might be better to have the ownership widely scattered. i had been experimenting principally upon the cutting down of weight. excess weight kills any self-propelled vehicle. there are a lot of fool ideas about weight. it is queer, when you come to think of it, how some fool terms get into current use. there is the phrase "heavyweight" as applied to a man's mental apparatus! what does it mean? no one wants to be fat and heavy of body--then why of head? for some clumsy reason we have come to confuse strength with weight. the crude methods of early building undoubtedly had much to do with this. the old ox-cart weighed a ton--and it had so much weight that it was weak! to carry a few tons of humanity from new york to chicago, the railroad builds a train that weighs many hundred tons, and the result is an absolute loss of real strength and the extravagant waste of untold millions in the form of power. the law of diminishing returns begins to operate at the point where strength becomes weight. weight may be desirable in a steam roller but nowhere else. strength has nothing to do with weight. the mentality of the man who does things in the world is agile, light, and strong. the most beautiful things in the world are those from which all excess weight has been eliminated. strength is never just weight--either in men or things. whenever any one suggests to me that i might increase weight or add a part, i look into decreasing weight and eliminating a part! the car that i designed was lighter than any car that had yet been made. it would have been lighter if i had known how to make it so--later i got the materials to make the lighter car. in our first year we built "model a," selling the runabout for eight hundred and fifty dollars and the tonneau for one hundred dollars more. this model had a two-cylinder opposed motor developing eight horsepower. it had a chain drive, a seventy-two inch wheel base--which was supposed to be long--and a fuel capacity of five gallons. we made and sold 1,708 cars in the first year. that is how well the public responded. every one of these "model a's" has a history. take no. 420. colonel d. c. collier of california bought it in 1904. he used it for a couple of years, sold it, and bought a new ford. no. 420 changed hands frequently until 1907 when it was bought by one edmund jacobs living near ramona in the heart of the mountains. he drove it for several years in the roughest kind of work. then he bought a new ford and sold his old one. by 1915 no. 420 had passed into the hands of a man named cantello who took out the motor, hitched it to a water pump, rigged up shafts on the chassis and now, while the motor chugs away at the pumping of water, the chassis drawn by a burro acts as a buggy. the moral, of course, is that you can dissect a ford but you cannot kill it. in our first advertisement we said: our purpose is to construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear--business, professional, and family use; an automobile which will attain to a sufficient speed to satisfy the average person without acquiring any of those breakneck velocities which are so universally condemned; a machine which will be admired by man, woman, and child alike for its compactness, its simplicity, its safety, its all-around convenience, and--last but not least--its exceedingly reasonable price, which places it within the reach of many thousands who could not think of paying the comparatively fabulous prices asked for most machines. and these are the points we emphasized: good material. simplicity--most of the cars at that time required considerable skill in their management. the engine. the ignition--which was furnished by two sets of six dry cell batteries. the automatic oiling. the simplicity and the ease of control of the transmission, which was of the planetary type. the workmanship. we did not make the pleasure appeal. we never have. in its first advertising we showed that a motor car was a utility. we said: we often hear quoted the old proverb, "time is money"--and yet how few business and professional men act as if they really believed its truth. men who are constantly complaining of shortage of time and lamenting the fewness of days in the week--men to whom every five minutes wasted means a dollar thrown away--men to whom five minutes' delay sometimes means the loss of many dollars--will yet depend on the haphazard, uncomfortable, and limited means of transportation afforded by street cars, etc., when the investment of an exceedingly moderate sum in the purchase of a perfected, efficient, high-grade automobile would cut out anxiety and unpunctuality and provide a luxurious means of travel ever at your beck and call. always ready, always sure. built to save you time and consequent money. built to take you anywhere you want to go and bring you back again on time. built to add to your reputation for punctuality; to keep your customers good-humoured and in a buying mood. built for business or pleasure--just as you say. built also for the good of your health--to carry you "jarlessly" over any kind of half decent roads, to refresh your brain with the luxury of much "out-doorness" and your lungs with the "tonic of tonics"--the right kind of atmosphere. it is your say, too, when it comes to speed. you can--if you choose--loiter lingeringly through shady avenues or you can press down on the foot-lever until all the scenery looks alike to you and you have to keep your eyes skinned to count the milestones as they pass. i am giving the gist of this advertisement to show that, from the beginning, we were looking to providing service--we never bothered with a "sporting car." the business went along almost as by magic. the cars gained a reputation for standing up. they were tough, they were simple, and they were well made. i was working on my design for a universal single model but i had not settled the designs nor had we the money to build and equip the proper kind of plant for manufacturing. i had not the money to discover the very best and lightest materials. we still had to accept the materials that the market offered--we got the best to be had but we had no facilities for the scientific investigation of materials or for original research. my associates were not convinced that it was possible to restrict our cars to a single model. the automobile trade was following the old bicycle trade, in which every manufacturer thought it necessary to bring out a new model each year and to make it so unlike all previous models that those who had bought the former models would want to get rid of the old and buy the new. that was supposed to be good business. it is the same idea that women submit to in their clothing and hats. that is not service--it seeks only to provide something new, not something better. it is extraordinary how firmly rooted is the notion that business--continuous selling--depends not on satisfying the customer once and for all, but on first getting his money for one article and then persuading him he ought to buy a new and different one. the plan which i then had in the back of my head but to which we were not then sufficiently advanced to give expression, was that, when a model was settled upon then every improvement on that model should be interchangeable with the old model, so that a car should never get out of date. it is my ambition to have every piece of machinery, or other non-consumable product that i turn out, so strong and so well made that no one ought ever to have to buy a second one. a good machine of any kind ought to last as long as a good watch. in the second year we scattered our energies among three models. we made a four-cylinder touring car, "model b," which sold for two thousand dollars; "model c," which was a slightly improved "model a" and sold at fifty dollars more than the former price; and "model f," a touring car which sold for a thousand dollars. that is, we scattered our energy and increased prices--and therefore we sold fewer cars than in the first year. the sales were 1,695 cars. that "model b"--the first four-cylinder car for general road use--had to be advertised. winning a race or making a record was then the best kind of advertising. so i fixed up the "arrow," the twin of the old "999"--in fact practically remade it--and a week before the new york automobile show i drove it myself over a surveyed mile straightaway on the ice. i shall never forget that race. the ice seemed smooth enough, so smooth that if i had called off the trial we should have secured an immense amount of the wrong kind of advertising, but instead of being smooth, that ice was seamed with fissures which i knew were going to mean trouble the moment i got up speed. but there was nothing to do but go through with the trial, and i let the old "arrow" out. at every fissure the car leaped into the air. i never knew how it was coming down. when i wasn't in the air, i was skidding, but somehow i stayed top side up and on the course, making a record that went all over the world! that put "model b" on the map--but not enough on to overcome the price advances. no stunt and no advertising will sell an article for any length of time. business is not a game. the moral is coming. our little wooden shop had, with the business we were doing, become totally inadequate, and in 1906 we took out of our working capital sufficient funds to build a three-story plant at the corner of piquette and beaubien streets--which for the first time gave us real manufacturing facilities. we began to make and to assemble quite a number of the parts, although still we were principally an assembling shop. in 1905-1906 we made only two models--one the four-cylinder car at $2,000 and another touring car at $1,000, both being the models of the previous year--and our sales dropped to 1,599 cars. some said it was because we had not brought out new models. i thought it was because our cars were too expensive--they did not appeal to the 95 per cent. i changed the policy in the next year--having first acquired stock control. for 1906-1907 we entirely left off making touring cars and made three models of runabouts and roadsters, none of which differed materially from the other in manufacturing process or in component parts, but were somewhat different in appearance. the big thing was that the cheapest car sold for $600 and the most expensive for only $750, and right there came the complete demonstration of what price meant. we sold 8,423 cars--nearly five times as many as in our biggest previous year. our banner week was that of may 15, 1908, when we assembled 311 cars in six working days. it almost swamped our facilities. the foreman had a tallyboard on which he chalked up each car as it was finished and turned over to the testers. the tallyboard was hardly equal to the task. on one day in the following june we assembled an even one hundred cars. in the next year we departed from the programme that had been so successful and i designed a big car--fifty horsepower, six cylinder--that would burn up the roads. we continued making our small cars, but the 1907 panic and the diversion to the more expensive model cut down the sales to 6,398 cars. we had been through an experimenting period of five years. the cars were beginning to be sold in europe. the business, as an automobile business then went, was considered extraordinarily prosperous. we had plenty of money. since the first year we have practically always had plenty of money. we sold for cash, we did not borrow money, and we sold directly to the purchaser. we had no bad debts and we kept within ourselves on every move. i have always kept well within my resources. i have never found it necessary to strain them, because, inevitably, if you give attention to work and service, the resources will increase more rapidly than you can devise ways and means of disposing of them. we were careful in the selection of our salesmen. at first there was great difficulty in getting good salesmen because the automobile trade was not supposed to be stable. it was supposed to be dealing in a luxury--in pleasure vehicles. we eventually appointed agents, selecting the very best men we could find, and then paying to them a salary larger than they could possibly earn in business for themselves. in the beginning we had not paid much in the way of salaries. we were feeling our way, but when we knew what our way was, we adopted the policy of paying the very highest reward for service and then insisting upon getting the highest service. among the requirements for an agent we laid down the following: (1) a progressive, up-to-date man keenly alive to the possibilities of business. (2) a suitable place of business clean and dignified in appearance. (3) a stock of parts sufficient to make prompt replacements and keep in active service every ford car in his territory. (4) an adequately equipped repair shop which has in it the right machinery for every necessary repair and adjustment. (5) mechanics who are thoroughly familiar with the construction and operation of ford cars. (6) a comprehensive bookkeeping system and a follow-up sales system, so that it may be instantly apparent what is the financial status of the various departments of his business, the condition and size of his stock, the present owners of cars, and the future prospects. (7) absolute cleanliness throughout every department. there must be no unwashed windows, dusty furniture, dirty floors. (8) a suitable display sign. (9) the adoption of policies which will ensure absolutely square dealing and the highest character of business ethics. and this is the general instruction that was issued: a dealer or a salesman ought to have the name of every possible automobile buyer in his territory, including all those who have never given the matter a thought. he should then personally solicit by visitation if possible--by correspondence at the least--every man on that list and then making necessary memoranda, know the automobile situation as related to every resident so solicited. if your territory is too large to permit this, you have too much territory. the way was not easy. we were harried by a big suit brought against the company to try to force us into line with an association of automobile manufacturers, who were operating under the false principle that there was only a limited market for automobiles and that a monopoly of that market was essential. this was the famous selden patent suit. at times the support of our defense severely strained our resources. mr. selden, who has but recently died, had little to do with the suit. it was the association which sought a monopoly under the patent. the situation was this: george b. selden, a patent attorney, filed an application as far back as 1879 for a patent the object of which was stated to be "the production of a safe, simple, and cheap road locomotive, light in weight, easy to control, possessed of sufficient power to overcome an ordinary inclination." this application was kept alive in the patent office, by methods which are perfectly legal, until 1895, when the patent was granted. in 1879, when the application was filed, the automobile was practically unknown to the general public, but by the time the patent was issued everybody was familiar with self-propelled vehicles, and most of the men, including myself, who had been for years working on motor propulsion, were surprised to learn that what we had made practicable was covered by an application of years before, although the applicant had kept his idea merely as an idea. he had done nothing to put it into practice. the specific claims under the patent were divided into six groups and i think that not a single one of them was a really new idea even in 1879 when the application was filed. the patent office allowed a combination and issued a so-called "combination patent" deciding that the combination (a) of a carriage with its body machinery and steering wheel, with the (b) propelling mechanism clutch and gear, and finally (c) the engine, made a valid patent. with all of that we were not concerned. i believed that my engine had nothing whatsoever in common with what selden had in mind. the powerful combination of manufacturers who called themselves the "licensed manufacturers" because they operated under licenses from the patentee, brought suit against us as soon as we began to be a factor in motor production. the suit dragged on. it was intended to scare us out of business. we took volumes of testimony, and the blow came on september 15, 1909, when judge hough rendered an opinion in the united states district court finding against us. immediately that licensed association began to advertise, warning prospective purchasers against our cars. they had done the same thing in 1903 at the start of the suit, when it was thought that we could be put out of business. i had implicit confidence that eventually we should win our suit. i simply knew that we were right, but it was a considerable blow to get the first decision against us, for we believed that many buyers--even though no injunction was issued against us--would be frightened away from buying because of the threats of court action against individual owners. the idea was spread that if the suit finally went against me, every man who owned a ford car would be prosecuted. some of my more enthusiastic opponents, i understand, gave it out privately that there would be criminal as well as civil suits and that a man buying a ford car might as well be buying a ticket to jail. we answered with an advertisement for which we took four pages in the principal newspapers all over the country. we set out our case--we set out our confidence in victory--and in conclusion said: in conclusion we beg to state if there are any prospective automobile buyers who are at all intimidated by the claims made by our adversaries that we will give them, in addition to the protection of the ford motor company with its some $6,000,000.00 of assets, an individual bond backed by a company of more than $6,000,000.00 more of assets, so that each and every individual owner of a ford car will be protected until at least $12,000,000.00 of assets have been wiped out by those who desire to control and monopolize this wonderful industry. the bond is yours for the asking, so do not allow yourself to be sold inferior cars at extravagant prices because of any statement made by this "divine" body. n. b.--this fight is not being waged by the ford motor company without the advice and counsel of the ablest patent attorneys of the east and west. we thought that the bond would give assurance to the buyers--that they needed confidence. they did not. we sold more than eighteen thousand cars--nearly double the output of the previous year--and i think about fifty buyers asked for bonds--perhaps it was less than that. as a matter of fact, probably nothing so well advertised the ford car and the ford motor company as did this suit. it appeared that we were the under dog and we had the public's sympathy. the association had seventy million dollars--we at the beginning had not half that number of thousands. i never had a doubt as to the outcome, but nevertheless it was a sword hanging over our heads that we could as well do without. prosecuting that suit was probably one of the most shortsighted acts that any group of american business men has ever combined to commit. taken in all its sidelights, it forms the best possible example of joining unwittingly to kill a trade. i regard it as most fortunate for the automobile makers of the country that we eventually won, and the association ceased to be a serious factor in the business. by 1908, however, in spite of this suit, we had come to a point where it was possible to announce and put into fabrication the kind of car that i wanted to build. chapter iv the secret of manufacturing and serving now i am not outlining the career of the ford motor company for any personal reason. i am not saying: "go thou and do likewise." what i am trying to emphasize is that the ordinary way of doing business is not the best way. i am coming to the point of my entire departure from the ordinary methods. from this point dates the extraordinary success of the company. we had been fairly following the custom of the trade. our automobile was less complex than any other. we had no outside money in the concern. but aside from these two points we did not differ materially from the other automobile companies, excepting that we had been somewhat more successful and had rigidly pursued the policy of taking all cash discounts, putting our profits back into the business, and maintaining a large cash balance. we entered cars in all of the races. we advertised and we pushed our sales. outside of the simplicity of the construction of the car, our main difference in design was that we made no provision for the purely "pleasure car." we were just as much a pleasure car as any other car on the market, but we gave no attention to purely luxury features. we would do special work for a buyer, and i suppose that we would have made a special car at a price. we were a prosperous company. we might easily have sat down and said: "now we have arrived. let us hold what we have got." indeed, there was some disposition to take this stand. some of the stockholders were seriously alarmed when our production reached one hundred cars a day. they wanted to do something to stop me from ruining the company, and when i replied to the effect that one hundred cars a day was only a trifle and that i hoped before long to make a thousand a day, they were inexpressibly shocked and i understand seriously contemplated court action. if i had followed the general opinion of my associates i should have kept the business about as it was, put our funds into a fine administration building, tried to make bargains with such competitors as seemed too active, made new designs from time to time to catch the fancy of the public, and generally have passed on into the position of a quiet, respectable citizen with a quiet, respectable business. the temptation to stop and hang on to what one has is quite natural. i can entirely sympathize with the desire to quit a life of activity and retire to a life of ease. i have never felt the urge myself but i can comprehend what it is--although i think that a man who retires ought entirely to get out of a business. there is a disposition to retire and retain control. it was, however, no part of my plan to do anything of that sort. i regarded our progress merely as an invitation to do more--as an indication that we had reached a place where we might begin to perform a real service. i had been planning every day through these years toward a universal car. the public had given its reactions to the various models. the cars in service, the racing, and the road tests gave excellent guides as to the changes that ought to be made, and even by 1905 i had fairly in mind the specifications of the kind of car i wanted to build. but i lacked the material to give strength without weight. i came across that material almost by accident. in 1905 i was at a motor race at palm beach. there was a big smash-up and a french car was wrecked. we had entered our "model k"--the high-powered six. i thought the foreign cars had smaller and better parts than we knew anything about. after the wreck i picked up a little valve strip stem. it was very light and very strong. i asked what it was made of. nobody knew. i gave the stem to my assistant. "find out all about this," i told him. "that is the kind of material we ought to have in our cars." he found eventually that it was a french steel and that there was vanadium in it. we tried every steel maker in america--not one could make vanadium steel. i sent to england for a man who understood how to make the steel commercially. the next thing was to get a plant to turn it out. that was another problem. vanadium requires 3,000 degrees fahrenheit. the ordinary furnace could not go beyond 2,700 degrees. i found a small steel company in canton, ohio. i offered to guarantee them against loss if they would run a heat for us. they agreed. the first heat was a failure. very little vanadium remained in the steel. i had them try again, and the second time the steel came through. until then we had been forced to be satisfied with steel running between 60,000 and 70,000 pounds tensile strength. with vanadium, the strength went up to 170,000 pounds. having vanadium in hand i pulled apart our models and tested in detail to determine what kind of steel was best for every part--whether we wanted a hard steel, a tough steel, or an elastic steel. we, for the first time i think, in the history of any large construction, determined scientifically the exact quality of the steel. as a result we then selected twenty different types of steel for the various steel parts. about ten of these were vanadium. vanadium was used wherever strength and lightness were required. of course they are not all the same kind of vanadium steel. the other elements vary according to whether the part is to stand hard wear or whether it needs spring--in short, according to what it needs. before these experiments i believe that not more than four different grades of steel had ever been used in automobile construction. by further experimenting, especially in the direction of heat treating, we have been able still further to increase the strength of the steel and therefore to reduce the weight of the car. in 1910 the french department of commerce and industry took one of our steering spindle connecting rod yokes--selecting it as a vital unit--and tried it against a similar part from what they considered the best french car, and in every test our steel proved the stronger. the vanadium steel disposed of much of the weight. the other requisites of a universal car i had already worked out and many of them were in practice. the design had to balance. men die because a part gives out. machines wreck themselves because some parts are weaker than others. therefore, a part of the problem in designing a universal car was to have as nearly as possible all parts of equal strength considering their purpose--to put a motor in a one-horse shay. also it had to be fool proof. this was difficult because a gasoline motor is essentially a delicate instrument and there is a wonderful opportunity for any one who has a mind that way to mess it up. i adopted this slogan: "when one of my cars breaks down i know i am to blame." from the day the first motor car appeared on the streets it had to me appeared to be a necessity. it was this knowledge and assurance that led me to build to the one end--a car that would meet the wants of the multitudes. all my efforts were then and still are turned to the production of one car--one model. and, year following year, the pressure was, and still is, to improve and refine and make better, with an increasing reduction in price. the universal car had to have these attributes: (1) quality in material to give service in use. vanadium steel is the strongest, toughest, and most lasting of steels. it forms the foundation and super-structure of the cars. it is the highest quality steel in this respect in the world, regardless of price. (2) simplicity in operation--because the masses are not mechanics. (3) power in sufficient quantity. (4) absolute reliability--because of the varied uses to which the cars would be put and the variety of roads over which they would travel. (5) lightness. with the ford there are only 7.95 pounds to be carried by each cubic inch of piston displacement. this is one of the reasons why ford cars are "always going," wherever and whenever you see them--through sand and mud, through slush, snow, and water, up hills, across fields and roadless plains. (6) control--to hold its speed always in hand, calmly and safely meeting every emergency and contingency either in the crowded streets of the city or on dangerous roads. the planetary transmission of the ford gave this control and anybody could work it. that is the "why" of the saying: "anybody can drive a ford." it can turn around almost anywhere. (7) the more a motor car weighs, naturally the more fuel and lubricants are used in the driving; the lighter the weight, the lighter the expense of operation. the light weight of the ford car in its early years was used as an argument against it. now that is all changed. the design which i settled upon was called "model t." the important feature of the new model--which, if it were accepted, as i thought it would be, i intended to make the only model and then start into real production--was its simplicity. there were but four constructional units in the car--the power plant, the frame, the front axle, and the rear axle. all of these were easily accessible and they were designed so that no special skill would be required for their repair or replacement. i believed then, although i said very little about it because of the novelty of the idea, that it ought to be possible to have parts so simple and so inexpensive that the menace of expensive hand repair work would be entirely eliminated. the parts could be made so cheaply that it would be less expensive to buy new ones than to have old ones repaired. they could be carried in hardware shops just as nails or bolts are carried. i thought that it was up to me as the designer to make the car so completely simple that no one could fail to understand it. that works both ways and applies to everything. the less complex an article, the easier it is to make, the cheaper it may be sold, and therefore the greater number may be sold. it is not necessary to go into the technical details of the construction but perhaps this is as good a place as any to review the various models, because "model t" was the last of the models and the policy which it brought about took this business out of the ordinary line of business. application of the same idea would take any business out of the ordinary run. i designed eight models in all before "model t." they were: "model a," "model b," "model c," "model f," "model n," "model r," "model s," and "model k." of these, models "a," "c," and "f" had two-cylinder opposed horizontal motors. in "model a" the motor was at the rear of the driver's seat. in all of the other models it was in a hood in front. models "b," "n," "r," and "s" had motors of the four-cylinder vertical type. "model k" had six cylinders. "model a" developed eight horsepower. "model b" developed twenty-four horsepower with a 4-1/2-inch cylinder and a 5-inch stroke. the highest horsepower was in "model k," the six-cylinder car, which developed forty horsepower. the largest cylinders were those of "model b." the smallest were in models "n," "r," and "s" which were 3-3/4 inches in diameter with a 3-3/8-inch stroke. "model t" has a 3-3/4-inch cylinder with a 4-inch stroke. the ignition was by dry batteries in all excepting "model b," which had storage batteries, and in "model k" which had both battery and magneto. in the present model, the magneto is a part of the power plant and is built in. the clutch in the first four models was of the cone type; in the last four and in the present model, of the multiple disc type. the transmission in all of the cars has been planetary. "model a" had a chain drive. "model b" had a shaft drive. the next two models had chain drives. since then all of the cars have had shaft drives. "model a" had a 72-inch wheel base. model "b," which was an extremely good car, had 92 inches. "model k" had 120 inches. "model c" had 78 inches. the others had 84 inches, and the present car has 100 inches. in the first five models all of the equipment was extra. the next three were sold with a partial equipment. the present car is sold with full equipment. model "a" weighed 1,250 pounds. the lightest cars were models "n" and "r." they weighed 1,050 pounds, but they were both runabouts. the heaviest car was the six-cylinder, which weighed 2,000 pounds. the present car weighs 1,200 lbs. the "model t" had practically no features which were not contained in some one or other of the previous models. every detail had been fully tested in practice. there was no guessing as to whether or not it would be a successful model. it had to be. there was no way it could escape being so, for it had not been made in a day. it contained all that i was then able to put into a motor car plus the material, which for the first time i was able to obtain. we put out "model t" for the season 1908-1909. the company was then five years old. the original factory space had been .28 acre. we had employed an average of 311 people in the first year, built 1,708 cars, and had one branch house. in 1908, the factory space had increased to 2.65 acres and we owned the building. the average number of employees had increased to 1,908. we built 6,181 cars and had fourteen branch houses. it was a prosperous business. during the season 1908-1909 we continued to make models "r" and "s," four-cylinder runabouts and roadsters, the models that had previously been so successful, and which sold at $700 and $750. but "model t" swept them right out. we sold 10,607 cars--a larger number than any manufacturer had ever sold. the price for the touring car was $850. on the same chassis we mounted a town car at $1,000, a roadster at $825, a coupe at $950, and a landaulet at $950. this season demonstrated conclusively to me that it was time to put the new policy in force. the salesmen, before i had announced the policy, were spurred by the great sales to think that even greater sales might be had if only we had more models. it is strange how, just as soon as an article becomes successful, somebody starts to think that it would be more successful if only it were different. there is a tendency to keep monkeying with styles and to spoil a good thing by changing it. the salesmen were insistent on increasing the line. they listened to the 5 per cent., the special customers who could say what they wanted, and forgot all about the 95 per cent. who just bought without making any fuss. no business can improve unless it pays the closest possible attention to complaints and suggestions. if there is any defect in service then that must be instantly and rigorously investigated, but when the suggestion is only as to style, one has to make sure whether it is not merely a personal whim that is being voiced. salesmen always want to cater to whims instead of acquiring sufficient knowledge of their product to be able to explain to the customer with the whim that what they have will satisfy his every requirement--that is, of course, provided what they have does satisfy these requirements. therefore in 1909 i announced one morning, without any previous warning, that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model was going to be "model t," and that the chassis would be exactly the same for all cars, and i remarked: "any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." i cannot say that any one agreed with me. the selling people could not of course see the advantages that a single model would bring about in production. more than that, they did not particularly care. they thought that our production was good enough as it was and there was a very decided opinion that lowering the sales price would hurt sales, that the people who wanted quality would be driven away and that there would be none to replace them. there was very little conception of the motor industry. a motor car was still regarded as something in the way of a luxury. the manufacturers did a good deal to spread this idea. some clever persons invented the name "pleasure car" and the advertising emphasized the pleasure features. the sales people had ground for their objections and particularly when i made the following announcement: "i will build a motor car for the great multitude. it will be large enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run and care for. it will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. but it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one--and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in god's great open spaces." this announcement was received not without pleasure. the general comment was: "if ford does that he will be out of business in six months." the impression was that a good car could not be built at a low price, and that, anyhow, there was no use in building a low-priced car because only wealthy people were in the market for cars. the 1908-1909 sales of more than ten thousand cars had convinced me that we needed a new factory. we already had a big modern factory--the piquette street plant. it was as good as, perhaps a little better than, any automobile factory in the country. but i did not see how it was going to care for the sales and production that were inevitable. so i bought sixty acres at highland park, which was then considered away out in the country from detroit. the amount of ground bought and the plans for a bigger factory than the world has ever seen were opposed. the question was already being asked: "how soon will ford blow up?" nobody knows how many thousand times it has been asked since. it is asked only because of the failure to grasp that a principle rather than an individual is at work, and the principle is so simple that it seems mysterious. for 1909-1910, in order to pay for the new land and buildings, i slightly raised the prices. this is perfectly justifiable and results in a benefit, not an injury, to the purchaser. i did exactly the same thing a few years ago--or rather, in that case i did not lower the price as is my annual custom, in order to build the river rouge plant. the extra money might in each case have been had by borrowing, but then we should have had a continuing charge upon the business and all subsequent cars would have had to bear this charge. the price of all the models was increased $100, with the exception of the roadster, which was increased only $75 and of the landaulet and town car, which were increased $150 and $200 respectively. we sold 18,664 cars, and then for 1910-1911, with the new facilities, i cut the touring car from $950 to $780 and we sold 34,528 cars. that is the beginning of the steady reduction in the price of the cars in the face of ever-increasing cost of materials and ever-higher wages. contrast the year 1908 with the year 1911. the factory space increased from 2.65 to 32 acres. the average number of employees from 1,908 to 4,110, and the cars built from a little over six thousand to nearly thirty-five thousand. you will note that men were not employed in proportion to the output. we were, almost overnight it seems, in great production. how did all this come about? simply through the application of an inevitable principle. by the application of intelligently directed power and machinery. in a little dark shop on a side street an old man had laboured for years making axe handles. out of seasoned hickory he fashioned them, with the help of a draw shave, a chisel, and a supply of sandpaper. carefully was each handle weighed and balanced. no two of them were alike. the curve must exactly fit the hand and must conform to the grain of the wood. from dawn until dark the old man laboured. his average product was eight handles a week, for which he received a dollar and a half each. and often some of these were unsaleable--because the balance was not true. to-day you can buy a better axe handle, made by machinery, for a few cents. and you need not worry about the balance. they are all alike--and every one is perfect. modern methods applied in a big way have not only brought the cost of axe handles down to a fraction of their former cost--but they have immensely improved the product. it was the application of these same methods to the making of the ford car that at the very start lowered the price and heightened the quality. we just developed an idea. the nucleus of a business may be an idea. that is, an inventor or a thoughtful workman works out a new and better way to serve some established human need; the idea commends itself, and people want to avail themselves of it. in this way a single individual may prove, through his idea or discovery, the nucleus of a business. but the creation of the body and bulk of that business is shared by everyone who has anything to do with it. no manufacturer can say: "i built this business"--if he has required the help of thousands of men in building it. it is a joint production. everyone employed in it has contributed something to it. by working and producing they make it possible for the purchasing world to keep coming to that business for the type of service it provides, and thus they help establish a custom, a trade, a habit which supplies them with a livelihood. that is the way our company grew and just how i shall start explaining in the next chapter. in the meantime, the company had become world-wide. we had branches in london and in australia. we were shipping to every part of the world, and in england particularly we were beginning to be as well known as in america. the introduction of the car in england was somewhat difficult on account of the failure of the american bicycle. because the american bicycle had not been suited to english uses it was taken for granted and made a point of by the distributors that no american vehicle could appeal to the british market. two "model a's" found their way to england in 1903. the newspapers refused to notice them. the automobile agents refused to take the slightest interest. it was rumoured that the principal components of its manufacture were string and hoop wire and that a buyer would be lucky if it held together for a fortnight! in the first year about a dozen cars in all were used; the second was only a little better. and i may say as to the reliability of that "model a" that most of them after nearly twenty years are still in some kind of service in england. in 1905 our agent entered a "model c" in the scottish reliability trials. in those days reliability runs were more popular in england than motor races. perhaps there was no inkling that after all an automobile was not merely a toy. the scottish trials was over eight hundred miles of hilly, heavy roads. the ford came through with only one involuntary stop against it. that started the ford sales in england. in that same year ford taxicabs were placed in london for the first time. in the next several years the sales began to pick up. the cars went into every endurance and reliability test and won every one of them. the brighton dealer had ten fords driven over the south downs for two days in a kind of steeplechase and every one of them came through. as a result six hundred cars were sold that year. in 1911 henry alexander drove a "model t" to the top of ben nevis, 4,600 feet. that year 14,060 cars were sold in england, and it has never since been necessary to stage any kind of a stunt. we eventually opened our own factory at manchester; at first it was purely an assembling plant. but as the years have gone by we have progressively made more and more of the car. chapter v getting into production if a device would save in time just 10 per cent. or increase results 10 per cent., then its absence is always a 10 per cent. tax. if the time of a person is worth fifty cents an hour, a 10 per cent. saving is worth five cents an hour. if the owner of a skyscraper could increase his income 10 per cent., he would willingly pay half the increase just to know how. the reason why he owns a skyscraper is that science has proved that certain materials, used in a given way, can save space and increase rental incomes. a building thirty stories high needs no more ground space than one five stories high. getting along with the old-style architecture costs the five-story man the income of twenty-five floors. save ten steps a day for each of twelve thousand employees and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion and misspent energy. those are the principles on which the production of my plant was built up. they all come practically as of course. in the beginning we tried to get machinists. as the necessity for production increased it became apparent not only that enough machinists were not to be had, but also that skilled men were not necessary in production, and out of this grew a principle that i later want to present in full. it is self-evident that a majority of the people in the world are not mentally--even if they are physically--capable of making a good living. that is, they are not capable of furnishing with their own hands a sufficient quantity of the goods which this world needs to be able to exchange their unaided product for the goods which they need. i have heard it said, in fact i believe it is quite a current thought, that we have taken skill out of work. we have not. we have put in skill. we have put a higher skill into planning, management, and tool building, and the results of that skill are enjoyed by the man who is not skilled. this i shall later enlarge on. we have to recognize the unevenness in human mental equipments. if every job in our place required skill the place would never have existed. sufficiently skilled men to the number needed could not have been trained in a hundred years. a million men working by hand could not even approximate our present daily output. no one could manage a million men. but more important than that, the product of the unaided hands of those million men could not be sold at a price in consonance with buying power. and even if it were possible to imagine such an aggregation and imagine its management and correlation, just think of the area that it would have to occupy! how many of the men would be engaged, not in producing, but in merely carrying from place to place what the other men had produced? i cannot see how under such conditions the men could possibly be paid more than ten or twenty cents a day--for of course it is not the employer who pays wages. he only handles the money. it is the product that pays the wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages. the more economical methods of production did not begin all at once. they began gradually--just as we began gradually to make our own parts. "model t" was the first motor that we made ourselves. the great economies began in assembling and then extended to other sections so that, while to-day we have skilled mechanics in plenty, they do not produce automobiles--they make it easy for others to produce them. our skilled men are the tool makers, the experimental workmen, the machinists, and the pattern makers. they are as good as any men in the world--so good, indeed, that they should not be wasted in doing that which the machines they contrive can do better. the rank and file of men come to us unskilled; they learn their jobs within a few hours or a few days. if they do not learn within that time they will never be of any use to us. these men are, many of them, foreigners, and all that is required before they are taken on is that they should be potentially able to do enough work to pay the overhead charges on the floor space they occupy. they do not have to be able-bodied men. we have jobs that require great physical strength--although they are rapidly lessening; we have other jobs that require no strength whatsoever--jobs which, as far as strength is concerned, might be attended to by a child of three. it is not possible, without going deeply into technical processes, to present the whole development of manufacturing, step by step, in the order in which each thing came about. i do not know that this could be done, because something has been happening nearly every day and nobody can keep track. take at random a number of the changes. from them it is possible not only to gain some idea of what will happen when this world is put on a production basis, but also to see how much more we pay for things than we ought to, and how much lower wages are than they ought to be, and what a vast field remains to be explored. the ford company is only a little way along on the journey. a ford car contains about five thousand parts--that is counting screws, nuts, and all. some of the parts are fairly bulky and others are almost the size of watch parts. in our first assembling we simply started to put a car together at a spot on the floor and workmen brought to it the parts as they were needed in exactly the same way that one builds a house. when we started to make parts it was natural to create a single department of the factory to make that part, but usually one workman performed all of the operations necessary on a small part. the rapid press of production made it necessary to devise plans of production that would avoid having the workers falling over one another. the undirected worker spends more of his time walking about for materials and tools than he does in working; he gets small pay because pedestrianism is not a highly paid line. the first step forward in assembly came when we began taking the work to the men instead of the men to the work. we now have two general principles in all operations--that a man shall never have to take more than one step, if possibly it can be avoided, and that no man need ever stoop over. the principles of assembly are these: (1) place the tools and the men in the sequence of the operation so that each component part shall travel the least possible distance while in the process of finishing. (2) use work slides or some other form of carrier so that when a workman completes his operation, he drops the part always in the same place--which place must always be the most convenient place to his hand--and if possible have gravity carry the part to the next workman for his operation. (3) use sliding assembling lines by which the parts to be assembled are delivered at convenient distances. the net result of the application of these principles is the reduction of the necessity for thought on the part of the worker and the reduction of his movements to a minimum. he does as nearly as possible only one thing with only one movement. the assembling of the chassis is, from the point of view of the non-mechanical mind, our most interesting and perhaps best known operation, and at one time it was an exceedingly important operation. we now ship out the parts for assembly at the point of distribution. along about april 1, 1913, we first tried the experiment of an assembly line. we tried it on assembling the flywheel magneto. we try everything in a little way first--we will rip out anything once we discover a better way, but we have to know absolutely that the new way is going to be better than the old before we do anything drastic. i believe that this was the first moving line ever installed. the idea came in a general way from the overhead trolley that the chicago packers use in dressing beef. we had previously assembled the fly-wheel magneto in the usual method. with one workman doing a complete job he could turn out from thirty-five to forty pieces in a nine-hour day, or about twenty minutes to an assembly. what he did alone was then spread into twenty-nine operations; that cut down the assembly time to thirteen minutes, ten seconds. then we raised the height of the line eight inches--this was in 1914--and cut the time to seven minutes. further experimenting with the speed that the work should move at cut the time down to five minutes. in short, the result is this: by the aid of scientific study one man is now able to do somewhat more than four did only a comparatively few years ago. that line established the efficiency of the method and we now use it everywhere. the assembling of the motor, formerly done by one man, is now divided into eighty-four operations--those men do the work that three times their number formerly did. in a short time we tried out the plan on the chassis. about the best we had done in stationary chassis assembling was an average of twelve hours and twenty-eight minutes per chassis. we tried the experiment of drawing the chassis with a rope and windlass down a line two hundred fifty feet long. six assemblers traveled with the chassis and picked up the parts from piles placed along the line. this rough experiment reduced the time to five hours fifty minutes per chassis. in the early part of 1914 we elevated the assembly line. we had adopted the policy of "man-high" work; we had one line twenty-six and three quarter inches and another twenty-four and one half inches from the floor--to suit squads of different heights. the waist-high arrangement and a further subdivision of work so that each man had fewer movements cut down the labour time per chassis to one hour thirty-three minutes. only the chassis was then assembled in the line. the body was placed on in "john r. street"--the famous street that runs through our highland park factories. now the line assembles the whole car. it must not be imagined, however, that all this worked out as quickly as it sounds. the speed of the moving work had to be carefully tried out; in the fly-wheel magneto we first had a speed of sixty inches per minute. that was too fast. then we tried eighteen inches per minute. that was too slow. finally we settled on forty-four inches per minute. the idea is that a man must not be hurried in his work--he must have every second necessary but not a single unnecessary second. we have worked out speeds for each assembly, for the success of the chassis assembly caused us gradually to overhaul our entire method of manufacturing and to put all assembling in mechanically driven lines. the chassis assembling line, for instance, goes at a pace of six feet per minute; the front axle assembly line goes at one hundred eighty-nine inches per minute. in the chassis assembling are forty-five separate operations or stations. the first men fasten four mud-guard brackets to the chassis frame; the motor arrives on the tenth operation and so on in detail. some men do only one or two small operations, others do more. the man who places a part does not fasten it--the part may not be fully in place until after several operations later. the man who puts in a bolt does not put on the nut; the man who puts on the nut does not tighten it. on operation number thirty-four the budding motor gets its gasoline; it has previously received lubrication; on operation number forty-four the radiator is filled with water, and on operation number forty-five the car drives out onto john r. street. essentially the same ideas have been applied to the assembling of the motor. in october, 1913, it required nine hours and fifty-four minutes of labour time to assemble one motor; six months later, by the moving assembly method, this time had been reduced to five hours and fifty-six minutes. every piece of work in the shops moves; it may move on hooks on overhead chains going to assembly in the exact order in which the parts are required; it may travel on a moving platform, or it may go by gravity, but the point is that there is no lifting or trucking of anything other than materials. materials are brought in on small trucks or trailers operated by cut-down ford chassis, which are sufficiently mobile and quick to get in and out of any aisle where they may be required to go. no workman has anything to do with moving or lifting anything. that is all in a separate department--the department of transportation. we started assembling a motor car in a single factory. then as we began to make parts, we began to departmentalize so that each department would do only one thing. as the factory is now organized each department makes only a single part or assembles a part. a department is a little factory in itself. the part comes into it as raw material or as a casting, goes through the sequence of machines and heat treatments, or whatever may be required, and leaves that department finished. it was only because of transport ease that the departments were grouped together when we started to manufacture. i did not know that such minute divisions would be possible; but as our production grew and departments multiplied, we actually changed from making automobiles to making parts. then we found that we had made another new discovery, which was that by no means all of the parts had to be made in one factory. it was not really a discovery--it was something in the nature of going around in a circle to my first manufacturing when i bought the motors and probably ninety per cent. of the parts. when we began to make our own parts we practically took for granted that they all had to be made in the one factory--that there was some special virtue in having a single roof over the manufacture of the entire car. we have now developed away from this. if we build any more large factories, it will be only because the making of a single part must be in such tremendous volume as to require a large unit. i hope that in the course of time the big highland park plant will be doing only one or two things. the casting has already been taken away from it and has gone to the river rouge plant. so now we are on our way back to where we started from--excepting that, instead of buying our parts on the outside, we are beginning to make them in our own factories on the outside. this is a development which holds exceptional consequences, for it means, as i shall enlarge in a later chapter, that highly standardized, highly subdivided industry need no longer become concentrated in large plants with all the inconveniences of transportation and housing that hamper large plants. a thousand or five hundred men ought to be enough in a single factory; then there would be no problem of transporting them to work or away from work and there would be no slums or any of the other unnatural ways of living incident to the overcrowding that must take place if the workmen are to live within reasonable distances of a very large plant. highland park now has five hundred departments. down at our piquette plant we had only eighteen departments, and formerly at highland park we had only one hundred and fifty departments. this illustrates how far we are going in the manufacture of parts. hardly a week passes without some improvement being made somewhere in machine or process, and sometimes this is made in defiance of what is called "the best shop practice." i recall that a machine manufacturer was once called into conference on the building of a special machine. the specifications called for an output of two hundred per hour. "this is a mistake," said the manufacturer, "you mean two hundred a day--no machine can be forced to two hundred an hour." the company officer sent for the man who had designed the machine and they called his attention to the specification. he said: "yes, what about it?" "it can't be done," said the manufacturer positively, "no machine built will do that--it is out of the question." "out of the question!" exclaimed the engineer, "if you will come down to the main floor you will see one doing it; we built one to see if it could be done and now we want more like it." the factory keeps no record of experiments. the foremen and superintendents remember what has been done. if a certain method has formerly been tried and failed, somebody will remember it--but i am not particularly anxious for the men to remember what someone else has tried to do in the past, for then we might quickly accumulate far too many things that could not be done. that is one of the troubles with extensive records. if you keep on recording all of your failures you will shortly have a list showing that there is nothing left for you to try--whereas it by no means follows because one man has failed in a certain method that another man will not succeed. they told us we could not cast gray iron by our endless chain method and i believe there is a record of failures. but we are doing it. the man who carried through our work either did not know or paid no attention to the previous figures. likewise we were told that it was out of the question to pour the hot iron directly from the blast furnace into mould. the usual method is to run the iron into pigs, let them season for a time, and then remelt them for casting. but at the river rouge plant we are casting directly from cupolas that are filled from the blast furnaces. then, too, a record of failures--particularly if it is a dignified and well-authenticated record--deters a young man from trying. we get some of our best results from letting fools rush in where angels fear to tread. none of our men are "experts." we have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert--because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. a man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. the moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. i refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities. i cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. the right kind of experience, the right kind of technical training, ought to enlarge the mind and reduce the number of impossibilities. it unfortunately does nothing of the kind. most technical training and the average of that which we call experience, provide a record of previous failures and, instead of these failures being taken for what they are worth, they are taken as absolute bars to progress. if some man, calling himself an authority, says that this or that cannot be done, then a horde of unthinking followers start the chorus: "it can't be done." take castings. castings has always been a wasteful process and is so old that it has accumulated many traditions which make improvements extraordinarily difficult to bring about. i believe one authority on moulding declared--before we started our experiments--that any man who said he could reduce costs within half a year wrote himself down as a fraud. our foundry used to be much like other foundries. when we cast the first "model t" cylinders in 1910, everything in the place was done by hand; shovels and wheelbarrows abounded. the work was then either skilled or unskilled; we had moulders and we had labourers. now we have about five per cent. of thoroughly skilled moulders and core setters, but the remaining 95 per cent. are unskilled, or to put it more accurately, must be skilled in exactly one operation which the most stupid man can learn within two days. the moulding is all done by machinery. each part which we have to cast has a unit or units of its own--according to the number required in the plan of production. the machinery of the unit is adapted to the single casting; thus the men in the unit each perform a single operation that is always the same. a unit consists of an overhead railway to which at intervals are hung little platforms for the moulds. without going into technical details, let me say the making of the moulds and the cores, and the packing of the cores, are done with the work in motion on the platforms. the metal is poured at another point as the work moves, and by the time the mould in which the metal has been poured reaches the terminal, it is cool enough to start on its automatic way to cleaning, machining, and assembling. and the platform is moving around for a new load. take the development of the piston-rod assembly. even under the old plan, this operation took only three minutes and did not seem to be one to bother about. there were two benches and twenty-eight men in all; they assembled one hundred seventy-five pistons and rods in a nine-hour day--which means just five seconds over three minutes each. there was no inspection, and many of the piston and rod assemblies came back from the motor assembling line as defective. it is a very simple operation. the workman pushed the pin out of the piston, oiled the pin, slipped the rod in place, put the pin through the rod and piston, tightened one screw, and opened another screw. that was the whole operation. the foreman, examining the operation, could not discover why it should take as much as three minutes. he analyzed the motions with a stop-watch. he found that four hours out of a nine-hour day were spent in walking. the assembler did not go off anywhere, but he had to shift his feet to gather in his materials and to push away his finished piece. in the whole task, each man performed six operations. the foreman devised a new plan; he split the operation into three divisions, put a slide on the bench and three men on each side of it, and an inspector at the end. instead of one man performing the whole operation, one man then performed only one third of the operation--he performed only as much as he could do without shifting his feet. they cut down the squad from twenty-eight to fourteen men. the former record for twenty-eight men was one hundred seventy-five assemblies a day. now seven men turn out twenty-six hundred assemblies in eight hours. it is not necessary to calculate the savings there! painting the rear axle assembly once gave some trouble. it used to be dipped by hand into a tank of enamel. this required several handlings and the services of two men. now one man takes care of it all on a special machine, designed and built in the factory. the man now merely hangs the assembly on a moving chain which carries it up over the enamel tank, two levers then thrust thimbles over the ends of the ladle shaft, the paint tank rises six feet, immerses the axle, returns to position, and the axle goes on to the drying oven. the whole cycle of operations now takes just thirteen seconds. the radiator is a complex affair and soldering it used to be a matter of skill. there are ninety-five tubes in a radiator. fitting and soldering these tubes in place is by hand a long operation, requiring both skill and patience. now it is all done by a machine which will make twelve hundred radiator cores in eight hours; then they are soldered in place by being carried through a furnace by a conveyor. no tinsmith work and so no skill are required. we used to rivet the crank-case arms to the crank-case, using pneumatic hammers which were supposed to be the latest development. it took six men to hold the hammers and six men to hold the casings, and the din was terrific. now an automatic press operated by one man, who does nothing else, gets through five times as much work in a day as those twelve men did. in the piquette plant the cylinder casting traveled four thousand feet in the course of finishing; now it travels only slightly over three hundred feet. there is no manual handling of material. there is not a single hand operation. if a machine can be made automatic, it is made automatic. not a single operation is ever considered as being done in the best or cheapest way. at that, only about ten per cent. of our tools are special; the others are regular machines adjusted to the particular job. and they are placed almost side by side. we put more machinery per square foot of floor space than any other factory in the world--every foot of space not used carries an overhead expense. we want none of that waste. yet there is all the room needed--no man has too much room and no man has too little room. dividing and subdividing operations, keeping the work in motion--those are the keynotes of production. but also it is to be remembered that all the parts are designed so that they can be most easily made. and the saving? although the comparison is not quite fair, it is startling. if at our present rate of production we employed the same number of men per car that we did when we began in 1903--and those men were only for assembly--we should to-day require a force of more than two hundred thousand. we have less than fifty thousand men on automobile production at our highest point of around four thousand cars a day! chapter vi machines and men that which one has to fight hardest against in bringing together a large number of people to do work is excess organization and consequent red tape. to my mind there is no bent of mind more dangerous than that which is sometimes described as the "genius for organization." this usually results in the birth of a great big chart showing, after the fashion of a family tree, how authority ramifies. the tree is heavy with nice round berries, each of which bears the name of a man or of an office. every man has a title and certain duties which are strictly limited by the circumference of his berry. if a straw boss wants to say something to the general superintendent, his message has to go through the sub-foreman, the foreman, the department head, and all the assistant superintendents, before, in the course of time, it reaches the general superintendent. probably by that time what he wanted to talk about is already history. it takes about six weeks for the message of a man living in a berry on the lower left-hand corner of the chart to reach the president or chairman of the board, and if it ever does reach one of these august officials, it has by that time gathered to itself about a pound of criticisms, suggestions, and comments. very few things are ever taken under "official consideration" until long after the time when they actually ought to have been done. the buck is passed to and fro and all responsibility is dodged by individuals--following the lazy notion that two heads are better than one. now a business, in my way of thinking, is not a machine. it is a collection of people who are brought together to do work and not to write letters to one another. it is not necessary for any one department to know what any other department is doing. if a man is doing his work he will not have time to take up any other work. it is the business of those who plan the entire work to see that all of the departments are working properly toward the same end. it is not necessary to have meetings to establish good feeling between individuals or departments. it is not necessary for people to love each other in order to work together. too much good fellowship may indeed be a very bad thing, for it may lead to one man trying to cover up the faults of another. that is bad for both men. when we are at work we ought to be at work. when we are at play we ought to be at play. there is no use trying to mix the two. the sole object ought to be to get the work done and to get paid for it. when the work is done, then the play can come, but not before. and so the ford factories and enterprises have no organization, no specific duties attaching to any position, no line of succession or of authority, very few titles, and no conferences. we have only the clerical help that is absolutely required; we have no elaborate records of any kind, and consequently no red tape. we make the individual responsibility complete. the workman is absolutely responsible for his work. the straw boss is responsible for the workmen under him. the foreman is responsible for his group. the department head is responsible for the department. the general superintendent is responsible for the whole factory. every man has to know what is going on in his sphere. i say "general superintendent." there is no such formal title. one man is in charge of the factory and has been for years. he has two men with him, who, without in any way having their duties defined, have taken particular sections of the work to themselves. with them are about half a dozen other men in the nature of assistants, but without specific duties. they have all made jobs for themselves--but there are no limits to their jobs. they just work in where they best fit. one man chases stock and shortages. another has grabbed inspection, and so on. this may seem haphazard, but it is not. a group of men, wholly intent upon getting work done, have no difficulty in seeing that the work is done. they do not get into trouble about the limits of authority, because they are not thinking of titles. if they had offices and all that, they would shortly be giving up their time to office work and to wondering why did they not have a better office than some other fellow. because there are no titles and no limits of authority, there is no question of red tape or going over a man's head. any workman can go to anybody, and so established has become this custom, that a foreman does not get sore if a workman goes over him and directly to the head of the factory. the workman rarely ever does so, because a foreman knows as well as he knows his own name that if he has been unjust it will be very quickly found out, and he shall no longer be a foreman. one of the things that we will not tolerate is injustice of any kind. the moment a man starts to swell with authority he is discovered, and he goes out, or goes back to a machine. a large amount of labour unrest comes from the unjust exercise of authority by those in subordinate positions, and i am afraid that in far too many manufacturing institutions it is really not possible for a workman to get a square deal. the work and the work alone controls us. that is one of the reasons why we have no titles. most men can swing a job, but they are floored by a title. the effect of a title is very peculiar. it has been used too much as a sign of emancipation from work. it is almost equivalent to a badge bearing the legend: "this man has nothing to do but regard himself as important and all others as inferior." not only is a title often injurious to the wearer, but it has its effect on others as well. there is perhaps no greater single source of personal dissatisfaction among men than the fact that the title-bearers are not always the real leaders. everybody acknowledges a real leader--a man who is fit to plan and command. and when you find a real leader who bears a title, you will have to inquire of someone else what his title is. he doesn't boast about it. titles in business have been greatly overdone and business has suffered. one of the bad features is the division of responsibility according to titles, which goes so far as to amount to a removal altogether of responsibility. where responsibility is broken up into many small bits and divided among many departments, each department under its own titular head, who in turn is surrounded by a group bearing their nice sub-titles, it is difficult to find any one who really feels responsible. everyone knows what "passing the buck" means. the game must have originated in industrial organizations where the departments simply shove responsibility along. the health of every organization depends on every member--whatever his place--feeling that everything that happens to come to his notice relating to the welfare of the business is his own job. railroads have gone to the devil under the eyes of departments that say: "oh, that doesn't come under our department. department x, 100 miles away, has that in charge." there used to be a lot of advice given to officials not to hide behind their titles. the very necessity for the advice showed a condition that needed more than advice to correct it. and the correction is just this--abolish the titles. a few may be legally necessary; a few may be useful in directing the public how to do business with the concern, but for the rest the best rule is simple: "get rid of them." as a matter of fact, the record of business in general just now is such as to detract very much from the value of titles. no one would boast of being president of a bankrupt bank. business on the whole has not been so skillfully steered as to leave much margin for pride in the steersmen. the men who bear titles now and are worth anything are forgetting their titles and are down in the foundation of business looking for the weak spots. they are back again in the places from which they rose--trying to reconstruct from the bottom up. and when a man is really at work, he needs no title. his work honours him. all of our people come into the factory or the offices through the employment departments. as i have said, we do not hire experts--neither do we hire men on past experiences or for any position other than the lowest. since we do not take a man on his past history, we do not refuse him because of his past history. i never met a man who was thoroughly bad. there is always some good in him--if he gets a chance. that is the reason we do not care in the least about a man's antecedents--we do not hire a man's history, we hire the man. if he has been in jail, that is no reason to say that he will be in jail again. i think, on the contrary, he is, if given a chance, very likely to make a special effort to keep out of jail. our employment office does not bar a man for anything he has previously done--he is equally acceptable whether he has been in sing sing or at harvard and we do not even inquire from which place he has graduated. all that he needs is the desire to work. if he does not desire to work, it is very unlikely that he will apply for a position, for it is pretty well understood that a man in the ford plant works. we do not, to repeat, care what a man has been. if he has gone to college he ought to be able to go ahead faster, but he has to start at the bottom and prove his ability. every man's future rests solely with himself. there is far too much loose talk about men being unable to obtain recognition. with us every man is fairly certain to get the exact recognition he deserves. of course, there are certain factors in the desire for recognition which must be reckoned with. the whole modern industrial system has warped the desire so out of shape that it is now almost an obsession. there was a time when a man's personal advancement depended entirely and immediately upon his work, and not upon any one's favor; but nowadays it often depends far too much upon the individual's good fortune in catching some influential eye. that is what we have successfully fought against. men will work with the idea of catching somebody's eye; they will work with the idea that if they fail to get credit for what they have done, they might as well have done it badly or not have done it at all. thus the work sometimes becomes a secondary consideration. the job in hand--the article in hand, the special kind of service in hand--turns out to be not the principal job. the main work becomes personal advancement--a platform from which to catch somebody's eye. this habit of making the work secondary and the recognition primary is unfair to the work. it makes recognition and credit the real job. and this also has an unfortunate effect on the worker. it encourages a peculiar kind of ambition which is neither lovely nor productive. it produces the kind of man who imagines that by "standing in with the boss" he will get ahead. every shop knows this kind of man. and the worst of it is there are some things in the present industrial system which make it appear that the game really pays. foremen are only human. it is natural that they should be flattered by being made to believe that they hold the weal or woe of workmen in their hands. it is natural, also, that being open to flattery, their self-seeking subordinates should flatter them still more to obtain and profit by their favor. that is why i want as little as possible of the personal element. it is particularly easy for any man who never knows it all to go forward to a higher position with us. some men will work hard but they do not possess the capacity to think and especially to think quickly. such men get as far as their ability deserves. a man may, by his industry, deserve advancement, but it cannot be possibly given him unless he also has a certain element of leadership. this is not a dream world we are living in. i think that every man in the shaking-down process of our factory eventually lands about where he belongs. we are never satisfied with the way that everything is done in any part of the organization; we always think it ought to be done better and that eventually it will be done better. the spirit of crowding forces the man who has the qualities for a higher place eventually to get it. he perhaps would not get the place if at any time the organization--which is a word i do not like to use--became fixed, so that there would be routine steps and dead men's shoes. but we have so few titles that a man who ought to be doing something better than he is doing, very soon gets to doing it--he is not restrained by the fact that there is no position ahead of him "open"--for there are no "positions." we have no cut-and-dried places--our best men make their places. this is easy enough to do, for there is always work, and when you think of getting the work done instead of finding a title to fit a man who wants to be promoted, then there is no difficulty about promotion. the promotion itself is not formal; the man simply finds himself doing something other than what he was doing and getting more money. all of our people have thus come up from the bottom. the head of the factory started as a machinist. the man in charge of the big river rouge plant began as a patternmaker. another man overseeing one of the principal departments started as a sweeper. there is not a single man anywhere in the factory who did not simply come in off the street. everything that we have developed has been done by men who have qualified themselves with us. we fortunately did not inherit any traditions and we are not founding any. if we have a tradition it is this: everything can always be done better than it is being done. that pressing always to do work better and faster solves nearly every factory problem. a department gets its standing on its rate of production. the rate of production and the cost of production are distinct elements. the foremen and superintendents would only be wasting time were they to keep a check on the costs in their departments. there are certain costs--such as the rate of wages, the overhead, the price of materials, and the like, which they could not in any way control, so they do not bother about them. what they can control is the rate of production in their own departments. the rating of a department is gained by dividing the number of parts produced by the number of hands working. every foreman checks his own department daily--he carries the figures always with him. the superintendent has a tabulation of all the scores; if there is something wrong in a department the output score shows it at once, the superintendent makes inquiries and the foreman looks alive. a considerable part of the incentive to better methods is directly traceable to this simple rule-of-thumb method of rating production. the foreman need not be a cost accountant--he is no better a foreman for being one. his charges are the machines and the human beings in his department. when they are working at their best he has performed his service. the rate of his production is his guide. there is no reason for him to scatter his energies over collateral subjects. this rating system simply forces a foreman to forget personalities--to forget everything other than the work in hand. if he should select the people he likes instead of the people who can best do the work, his department record will quickly show up that fact. there is no difficulty in picking out men. they pick themselves out because--although one hears a great deal about the lack of opportunity for advancement--the average workman is more interested in a steady job than he is in advancement. scarcely more than five per cent, of those who work for wages, while they have the desire to receive more money, have also the willingness to accept the additional responsibility and the additional work which goes with the higher places. only about twenty-five per cent. are even willing to be straw bosses, and most of them take that position because it carries with it more pay than working on a machine. men of a more mechanical turn of mind, but with no desire for responsibility, go into the tool-making departments where they receive considerably more pay than in production proper. but the vast majority of men want to stay put. they want to be led. they want to have everything done for them and to have no responsibility. therefore, in spite of the great mass of men, the difficulty is not to discover men to advance, but men who are willing to be advanced. the accepted theory is that all people are anxious for advancement, and a great many pretty plans have been built up from that. i can only say that we do not find that to be the case. the americans in our employ do want to go ahead, but they by no means do always want to go clear through to the top. the foreigners, generally speaking, are content to stay as straw bosses. why all of this is, i do not know. i am giving the facts. as i have said, everyone in the place reserves an open mind as to the way in which every job is being done. if there is any fixed theory--any fixed rule--it is that no job is being done well enough. the whole factory management is always open to suggestion, and we have an informal suggestion system by which any workman can communicate any idea that comes to him and get action on it. the saving of a cent per piece may be distinctly worth while. a saving of one cent on a part at our present rate of production represents twelve thousand dollars a year. one cent saved on each part would amount to millions a year. therefore, in comparing savings, the calculations are carried out to the thousandth part of a cent. if the new way suggested shows a saving and the cost of making the change will pay for itself within a reasonable time--say within three months--the change is made practically as of course. these changes are by no means limited to improvements which will increase production or decrease cost. a great many--perhaps most of them--are in the line of making the work easier. we do not want any hard, man-killing work about the place, and there is now very little of it. and usually it so works out that adopting the way which is easier on the men also decreases the cost. there is most intimate connection between decency and good business. we also investigate down to the last decimal whether it is cheaper to make or to buy a part. the suggestions come from everywhere. the polish workmen seem to be the cleverest of all of the foreigners in making them. one, who could not speak english, indicated that if the tool in his machine were set at a different angle it might wear longer. as it was it lasted only four or five cuts. he was right, and a lot of money was saved in grinding. another pole, running a drill press, rigged up a little fixture to save handling the part after drilling. that was adopted generally and a considerable saving resulted. the men often try out little attachments of their own because, concentrating on one thing, they can, if they have a mind that way, usually devise some improvement. the cleanliness of a man's machine also--although cleaning a machine is no part of his duty--is usually an indication of his intelligence. here are some of the suggestions: a proposal that castings be taken from the foundry to the machine shop on an overhead conveyor saved seventy men in the transport division. there used to be seventeen men--and this was when production was smaller--taking the burrs off gears, and it was a hard, nasty job. a man roughly sketched a special machine. his idea was worked out and the machine built. now four men have several times the output of the seventeen men--and have no hard work at all to do. changing from a solid to a welded rod in one part of the chassis effected an immediate saving of about one half million a year on a smaller than the present-day production. making certain tubes out of flat sheets instead of drawing them in the usual way effected another enormous saving. the old method of making a certain gear comprised four operations and 12 per cent. of the steel went into scrap. we use most of our scrap and eventually we will use it all, but that is no reason for not cutting down on scrap--the mere fact that all waste is not a dead loss is no excuse for permitting waste. one of the workmen devised a very simple new method for making this gear in which the scrap was only one per cent. again, the camshaft has to have heat treatment in order to make the surface hard; the cam shafts always came out of the heat-treat oven somewhat warped, and even back in 1918, we employed 37 men just to straighten the shafts. several of our men experimented for about a year and finally worked out a new form of oven in which the shafts could not warp. in 1921, with the production much larger than in 1918, we employed only eight men in the whole operation. and then there is the pressing to take away the necessity for skill in any job done by any one. the old-time tool hardener was an expert. he had to judge the heating temperatures. it was a hit-or-miss operation. the wonder is that he hit so often. the heat treatment in the hardening of steel is highly important--providing one knows exactly the right heat to apply. that cannot be known by rule-of-thumb. it has to be measured. we introduced a system by which the man at the furnace has nothing at all to do with the heat. he does not see the pyrometer--the instrument which registers the temperature. coloured electric lights give him his signals. none of our machines is ever built haphazardly. the idea is investigated in detail before a move is made. sometimes wooden models are constructed or again the parts are drawn to full size on a blackboard. we are not bound by precedent but we leave nothing to luck, and we have yet to build a machine that will not do the work for which it was designed. about ninety per cent. of all experiments have been successful. whatever expertness in fabrication that has developed has been due to men. i think that if men are unhampered and they know that they are serving, they will always put all of mind and will into even the most trivial of tasks. chapter vii the terror of the machine repetitive labour--the doing of one thing over and over again and always in the same way--is a terrifying prospect to a certain kind of mind. it is terrifying to me. i could not possibly do the same thing day in and day out, but to other minds, perhaps i might say to the majority of minds, repetitive operations hold no terrors. in fact, to some types of mind thought is absolutely appalling. to them the ideal job is one where the creative instinct need not be expressed. the jobs where it is necessary to put in mind as well as muscle have very few takers--we always need men who like a job because it is difficult. the average worker, i am sorry to say, wants a job in which he does not have to put forth much physical exertion--above all, he wants a job in which he does not have to think. those who have what might be called the creative type of mind and who thoroughly abhor monotony are apt to imagine that all other minds are similarly restless and therefore to extend quite unwanted sympathy to the labouring man who day in and day out performs almost exactly the same operation. when you come right down to it, most jobs are repetitive. a business man has a routine that he follows with great exactness; the work of a bank president is nearly all routine; the work of under officers and clerks in a bank is purely routine. indeed, for most purposes and most people, it is necessary to establish something in the way of a routine and to make most motions purely repetitive--otherwise the individual will not get enough done to be able to live off his own exertions. there is no reason why any one with a creative mind should be at a monotonous job, for everywhere the need for creative men is pressing. there will never be a dearth of places for skilled people, but we have to recognize that the will to be skilled is not general. and even if the will be present, then the courage to go through with the training is absent. one cannot become skilled by mere wishing. there are far too many assumptions about what human nature ought to be and not enough research into what it is. take the assumption that creative work can be undertaken only in the realm of vision. we speak of creative "artists" in music, painting, and the other arts. we seemingly limit the creative functions to productions that may be hung on gallery walls, or played in concert halls, or otherwise displayed where idle and fastidious people gather to admire each other's culture. but if a man wants a field for vital creative work, let him come where he is dealing with higher laws than those of sound, or line, or colour; let him come where he may deal with the laws of personality. we want artists in industrial relationship. we want masters in industrial method--both from the standpoint of the producer and the product. we want those who can mould the political, social, industrial, and moral mass into a sound and shapely whole. we have limited the creative faculty too much and have used it for too trivial ends. we want men who can create the working design for all that is right and good and desirable in our life. good intentions plus well-thought-out working designs can be put into practice and can be made to succeed. it is possible to increase the well-being of the workingman--not by having him do less work, but by aiding him to do more. if the world will give its attention and interest and energy to the making of plans that will profit the other fellow as he is, then such plans can be established on a practical working basis. such plans will endure--and they will be far the most profitable both in human and financial values. what this generation needs is a deep faith, a profound conviction in the practicability of righteousness, justice, and humanity in industry. if we cannot have these qualities, then we were better off without industry. indeed, if we cannot get those qualities, the days of industry are numbered. but we can get them. we are getting them. if a man cannot earn his keep without the aid of machinery, is it benefiting him to withhold that machinery because attendance upon it may be monotonous? and let him starve? or is it better to put him in the way of a good living? is a man the happier for starving? if he is the happier for using a machine to less than its capacity, is he happier for producing less than he might and consequently getting less than his share of the world's goods in exchange? i have not been able to discover that repetitive labour injures a man in any way. i have been told by parlour experts that repetitive labour is soul--as well as body--destroying, but that has not been the result of our investigations. there was one case of a man who all day long did little but step on a treadle release. he thought that the motion was making him one-sided; the medical examination did not show that he had been affected but, of course, he was changed to another job that used a different set of muscles. in a few weeks he asked for his old job again. it would seem reasonable to imagine that going through the same set of motions daily for eight hours would produce an abnormal body, but we have never had a case of it. we shift men whenever they ask to be shifted and we should like regularly to change them--that would be entirely feasible if only the men would have it that way. they do not like changes which they do not themselves suggest. some of the operations are undoubtedly monotonous--so monotonous that it seems scarcely possible that any man would care to continue long at the same job. probably the most monotonous task in the whole factory is one in which a man picks up a gear with a steel hook, shakes it in a vat of oil, then turns it into a basket. the motion never varies. the gears come to him always in exactly the same place, he gives each one the same number of shakes, and he drops it into a basket which is always in the same place. no muscular energy is required, no intelligence is required. he does little more than wave his hands gently to and fro--the steel rod is so light. yet the man on that job has been doing it for eight solid years. he has saved and invested his money until now he has about forty thousand dollars--and he stubbornly resists every attempt to force him into a better job! the most thorough research has not brought out a single case of a man's mind being twisted or deadened by the work. the kind of mind that does not like repetitive work does not have to stay in it. the work in each department is classified according to its desirability and skill into classes "a," "b," and "c," each class having anywhere from ten to thirty different operations. a man comes directly from the employment office to "class c." as he gets better he goes into "class b," and so on into "class a," and out of "class a" into tool making or some supervisory capacity. it is up to him to place himself. if he stays in production it is because he likes it. in a previous chapter i noted that no one applying for work is refused on account of physical condition. this policy went into effect on january 12, 1914, at the time of setting the minimum wage at five dollars a day and the working day at eight hours. it carried with it the further condition that no one should be discharged on account of physical condition, except, of course, in the case of contagious disease. i think that if an industrial institution is to fill its whole role, it ought to be possible for a cross-section of its employees to show about the same proportions as a cross-section of a society in general. we have always with us the maimed and the halt. there is a most generous disposition to regard all of these people who are physically incapacitated for labour as a charge on society and to support them by charity. there are cases where i imagine that the support must be by charity--as, for instance, an idiot. but those cases are extraordinarily rare, and we have found it possible, among the great number of different tasks that must be performed somewhere in the company, to find an opening for almost any one and on the basis of production. the blind man or cripple can, in the particular place to which he is assigned, perform just as much work and receive exactly the same pay as a wholly able-bodied man would. we do not prefer cripples--but we have demonstrated that they can earn full wages. it would be quite outside the spirit of what we are trying to do, to take on men because they were crippled, pay them a lower wage, and be content with a lower output. that might be directly helping the men but it would not be helping them in the best way. the best way is always the way by which they can be put on a productive par with able-bodied men. i believe that there is very little occasion for charity in this world--that is, charity in the sense of making gifts. most certainly business and charity cannot be combined; the purpose of a factory is to produce, and it ill serves the community in general unless it does produce to the utmost of its capacity. we are too ready to assume without investigation that the full possession of faculties is a condition requisite to the best performance of all jobs. to discover just what was the real situation, i had all of the different jobs in the factory classified to the kind of machine and work--whether the physical labour involved was light, medium, or heavy; whether it were a wet or a dry job, and if not, with what kind of fluid; whether it were clean or dirty; near an oven or a furnace; the condition of the air; whether one or both hands had to be used; whether the employee stood or sat down at his work; whether it was noisy or quiet; whether it required accuracy; whether the light was natural or artificial; the number of pieces that had to be handled per hour; the weight of the material handled; and the description of the strain upon the worker. it turned out at the time of the inquiry that there were then 7,882 different jobs in the factory. of these, 949 were classified as heavy work requiring strong, able-bodied, and practically physically perfect men; 3,338 required men of ordinary physical development and strength. the remaining 3,595 jobs were disclosed as requiring no physical exertion and could be performed by the slightest, weakest sort of men. in fact, most of them could be satisfactorily filled by women or older children. the lightest jobs were again classified to discover how many of them required the use of full faculties, and we found that 670 could be filled by legless men, 2,637 by one-legged men, 2 by armless men, 715 by one-armed men, and 10 by blind men. therefore, out of 7,882 kinds of jobs, 4,034--although some of them required strength--did not require full physical capacity. that is, developed industry can provide wage work for a higher average of standard men than are ordinarily included in any normal community. if the jobs in any one industry or, say, any one factory, were analyzed as ours have been analyzed, the proportion might be very different, yet i am quite sure that if work is sufficiently subdivided--subdivided to the point of highest economy--there will be no dearth of places in which the physically incapacitated can do a man's job and get a man's wage. it is economically most wasteful to accept crippled men as charges and then to teach them trivial tasks like the weaving of baskets or some other form of unremunerative hand labour, in the hope, not of aiding them to make a living, but of preventing despondency. when a man is taken on by the employment department, the theory is to put him into a job suited to his condition. if he is already at work and he does not seem able to perform the work, or if he does not like his work, he is given a transfer card, which he takes up to the transfer department, and after an examination he is tried out in some other work more suited to his condition or disposition. those who are below the ordinary physical standards are just as good workers, rightly placed, as those who are above. for instance, a blind man was assigned to the stock department to count bolts and nuts for shipment to branch establishments. two other able-bodied men were already employed on this work. in two days the foreman sent a note to the transfer department releasing the able-bodied men because the blind man was able to do not only his own work but also the work that had formerly been done by the sound men. this salvage can be carried further. it is usually taken for granted that when a man is injured he is simply out of the running and should be paid an allowance. but there is always a period of convalescence, especially in fracture cases, where the man is strong enough to work, and, indeed, by that time usually anxious to work, for the largest possible accident allowance can never be as great as a man's wage. if it were, then a business would simply have an additional tax put upon it, and that tax would show up in the cost of the product. there would be less buying of the product and therefore less work for somebody. that is an inevitable sequence that must always be borne in mind. we have experimented with bedridden men--men who were able to sit up. we put black oilcloth covers or aprons over the beds and set the men to work screwing nuts on small bolts. this is a job that has to be done by hand and on which fifteen or twenty men are kept busy in the magneto department. the men in the hospital could do it just as well as the men in the shop and they were able to receive their regular wages. in fact, their production was about 20 per cent., i believe, above the usual shop production. no man had to do the work unless he wanted to. but they all wanted to. it kept time from hanging on their hands. they slept and ate better and recovered more rapidly. no particular consideration has to be given to deaf-and-dumb employees. they do their work one hundred per cent. the tubercular employees--and there are usually about a thousand of them--mostly work in the material salvage department. those cases which are considered contagious work together in an especially constructed shed. the work of all of them is largely out of doors. at the time of the last analysis of employed, there were 9,563 sub-standard men. of these, 123 had crippled or amputated arms, forearms, or hands. one had both hands off. there were 4 totally blind men, 207 blind in one eye, 253 with one eye nearly blind, 37 deaf and dumb, 60 epileptics, 4 with both legs or feet missing, 234 with one foot or leg missing. the others had minor impediments. the length of time required to become proficient in the various occupations is about as follows: 43 per cent. of all the jobs require not over one day of training; 36 per cent. require from one day to one week; 6 per cent. require from one to two weeks; 14 per cent. require from one month to one year; one per cent. require from one to six years. the last jobs require great skill--as in tool making and die sinking. the discipline throughout the plant is rigid. there are no petty rules, and no rules the justice of which can reasonably be disputed. the injustice of arbitrary discharge is avoided by confining the right of discharge to the employment manager, and he rarely exercises it. the year 1919 is the last on which statistics were kept. in that year 30,155 changes occurred. of those 10,334 were absent more than ten days without notice and therefore dropped. because they refused the job assigned or, without giving cause, demanded a transfer, 3,702 were let go. a refusal to learn english in the school provided accounted for 38 more; 108 enlisted; about 3,000 were transferred to other plants. going home, going into farming or business accounted for about the same number. eighty-two women were discharged because their husbands were working--we do not employ married women whose husbands have jobs. out of the whole lot only 80 were flatly discharged and the causes were: misrepresentation, 56; by order of educational department, 20; and undesirable, 4. we expect the men to do what they are told. the organization is so highly specialized and one part is so dependent upon another that we could not for a moment consider allowing men to have their own way. without the most rigid discipline we would have the utmost confusion. i think it should not be otherwise in industry. the men are there to get the greatest possible amount of work done and to receive the highest possible pay. if each man were permitted to act in his own way, production would suffer and therefore pay would suffer. any one who does not like to work in our way may always leave. the company's conduct toward the men is meant to be exact and impartial. it is naturally to the interest both of the foremen and of the department heads that the releases from their departments should be few. the workman has a full chance to tell his story if he has been unjustly treated--he has full recourse. of course, it is inevitable that injustices occur. men are not always fair with their fellow workmen. defective human nature obstructs our good intentions now and then. the foreman does not always get the idea, or misapplies it--but the company's intentions are as i have stated, and we use every means to have them understood. it is necessary to be most insistent in the matter of absences. a man may not come or go as he pleases; he may always apply for leave to the foreman, but if he leaves without notice, then, on his return, the reasons for his absence are carefully investigated and are sometimes referred to the medical department. if his reasons are good, he is permitted to resume work. if they are not good he may be discharged. in hiring a man the only data taken concerns his name, his address, his age, whether he is married or single, the number of his dependents, whether he has ever worked for the ford motor company, and the condition of his sight and his hearing. no questions are asked concerning what the man has previously done, but we have what we call the "better advantage notice," by which a man who has had a trade before he came to us files a notice with the employment department stating what the trade was. in this way, when we need specialists of any kind, we can get them right out of production. this is also one of the avenues by which tool makers and moulders quickly reach the higher positions. i once wanted a swiss watch maker. the cards turned one up--he was running a drill press. the heat treat department wanted a skilled firebrick layer. he also was found on a drill press--he is now a general inspector. there is not much personal contact--the men do their work and go home--a factory is not a drawing room. but we try to have justice and, while there may be little in the way of hand shaking--we have no professional hand shakers--also we try to prevent opportunity for petty personalities. we have so many departments that the place is almost a world in itself--every kind of man can find a place somewhere in it. take fighting between men. men will fight, and usually fighting is a cause for discharge on the spot. we find that does not help the fighters--it merely gets them out of our sight. so the foremen have become rather ingenious in devising punishments that will not take anything away from the man's family and which require no time at all to administer. one point that is absolutely essential to high capacity, as well as to humane production, is a clean, well-lighted and well-ventilated factory. our machines are placed very close together--every foot of floor space in the factory carries, of course, the same overhead charge. the consumer must pay the extra overhead and the extra transportation involved in having machines even six inches farther apart than they have to be. we measure on each job the exact amount of room that a man needs; he must not be cramped--that would be waste. but if he and his machine occupy more space than is required, that also is waste. this brings our machines closer together than in probably any other factory in the world. to a stranger they may seem piled right on top of one another, but they are scientifically arranged, not only in the sequence of operations, but to give every man and every machine every square inch that he requires and, if possible, not a square inch, and certainly not a square foot, more than he requires. our factory buildings are not intended to be used as parks. the close placing requires a maximum of safeguards and ventilation. machine safeguarding is a subject all of itself. we do not consider any machine--no matter how efficiently it may turn out its work--as a proper machine unless it is absolutely safe. we have no machines that we consider unsafe, but even at that a few accidents will happen. every accident, no matter how trivial, is traced back by a skilled man employed solely for that purpose, and a study is made of the machine to make that same accident in the future impossible. when we put up the older buildings, we did not understand so much about ventilation as we do to-day. in all the later buildings, the supporting columns are made hollow and through them the bad air is pumped out and the good air introduced. a nearly even temperature is kept everywhere the year round and, during daylight, there is nowhere the necessity for artificial light. something like seven hundred men are detailed exclusively to keeping the shops clean, the windows washed, and all of the paint fresh. the dark corners which invite expectoration are painted white. one cannot have morale without cleanliness. we tolerate makeshift cleanliness no more than makeshift methods. no reason exists why factory work should be dangerous. if a man has worked too hard or through too long hours he gets into a mental state that invites accidents. part of the work of preventing accidents is to avoid this mental state; part is to prevent carelessness, and part is to make machinery absolutely fool-proof. the principal causes of accidents as they are grouped by the experts are: (1) defective structures; (2) defective machines; (3) insufficient room; (4) absence of safeguards; (5) unclean conditions; (6) bad lights; (7) bad air; (8) unsuitable clothing; (9) carelessness; (10) ignorance; (11) mental condition; (12) lack of cooperation. the questions of defective structures, defective machinery, insufficient room, unclean conditions, bad light, bad air, the wrong mental condition, and the lack of cooperation are easily disposed of. none of the men work too hard. the wages settle nine tenths of the mental problems and construction gets rid of the others. we have then to guard against unsuitable clothing, carelessness, and ignorance, and to make everything we have fool-proof. this is more difficult where we have belts. in all of our new construction, each machine has its individual electric motor, but in the older construction we had to use belts. every belt is guarded. over the automatic conveyors are placed bridges so that no man has to cross at a dangerous point. wherever there is a possibility of flying metal, the workman is required to wear goggles and the chances are further reduced by surrounding the machine with netting. around hot furnaces we have railings. there is nowhere an open part of a machine in which clothing can be caught. all the aisles are kept clear. the starting switches of draw presses are protected by big red tags which have to be removed before the switch can be turned--this prevents the machine being started thoughtlessly. workmen will wear unsuitable clothing--ties that may be caught in a pulley, flowing sleeves, and all manner of unsuitable articles. the bosses have to watch for that, and they catch most of the offenders. new machines are tested in every way before they are permitted to be installed. as a result we have practically no serious accidents. industry needs not exact a human toll. chapter viii wages there is nothing to running a business by custom--to saying: "i pay the going rate of wages." the same man would not so easily say: "i have nothing better or cheaper to sell than any one has." no manufacturer in his right mind would contend that buying only the cheapest materials is the way to make certain of manufacturing the best article. then why do we hear so much talk about the "liquidation of labour" and the benefits that will flow to the country from cutting wages--which means only the cutting of buying power and the curtailing of the home market? what good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? no question is more important than that of wages--most of the people of the country live on wages. the scale of their living--the rate of their wages--determines the prosperity of the country. throughout all the ford industries we now have a minimum wage of six dollars a day; we used to have a minimum of five dollars; before that we paid whatever it was necessary to pay. it would be bad morals to go back to the old market rate of paying--but also it would be the worst sort of bad business. first get at the relationships. it is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he? whenever a man finds the management of a business too much for his own time or strength, he calls in assistants to share the management with him. why, then, if a man finds the production part of a business too much for his own two hands should he deny the title of "partner" to those who come in and help him produce? every business that employs more than one man is a kind of partnership. the moment a man calls for assistance in his business--even though the assistant be but a boy--that moment he has taken a partner. he may himself be sole owner of the resources of the business and sole director of its operations, but only while he remains sole manager and sole producer can he claim complete independence. no man is independent as long as he has to depend on another man to help him. it is a reciprocal relation--the boss is the partner of his worker, the worker is partner of his boss. and such being the case, it is useless for one group or the other to assume that it is the one indispensable unit. both are indispensable. the one can become unduly assertive only at the expense of the other--and eventually at its own expense as well. it is utterly foolish for capital or for labour to think of themselves as groups. they are partners. when they pull and haul against each other--they simply injure the organization in which they are partners and from which both draw support. it ought to be the employer's ambition, as leader, to pay better wages than any similar line of business, and it ought to be the workman's ambition to make this possible. of course there are men in all shops who seem to believe that if they do their best, it will be only for the employer's benefit--and not at all for their own. it is a pity that such a feeling should exist. but it does exist and perhaps it has some justification. if an employer urges men to do their best, and the men learn after a while that their best does not bring any reward, then they naturally drop back into "getting by." but if they see the fruits of hard work in their pay envelope--proof that harder work means higher pay--then also they begin to learn that they are a part of the business, and that its success depends on them and their success depends on it. "what ought the employer to pay?"--"what ought the employee to receive?" these are but minor questions. the basic question is "what can the business stand?" certainly no business can stand outgo that exceeds its income. when you pump water out of a well at a faster rate than the water flows in, the well goes dry. and when the well runs dry, those who depend on it go thirsty. and if, perchance, they imagine they can pump one well dry and then jump to some other well, it is only a matter of time when all the wells will be dry. there is now a widespread demand for more justly divided rewards, but it must be recognized that there are limits to rewards. the business itself sets the limits. you cannot distribute $150,000 out of a business that brings in only $100,000. the business limits the wages, but does anything limit the business? the business limits itself by following bad precedents. if men, instead of saying "the employer ought to do thus-and-so," would say, "the business ought to be so stimulated and managed that it can do thus-and-so," they would get somewhere. because only the business can pay wages. certainly the employer cannot, unless the business warrants. but if that business does warrant higher wages and the employer refuses, what is to be done? as a rule a business means the livelihood of too many men, to be tampered with. it is criminal to assassinate a business to which large numbers of men have given their labours and to which they have learned to look as their field of usefulness and their source of livelihood. killing the business by a strike or a lockout does not help. the employer can gain nothing by looking over the employees and asking himself, "how little can i get them to take?" nor the employee by glaring back and asking, "how much can i force him to give?" eventually both will have to turn to the business and ask, "how can this industry be made safe and profitable, so that it will be able to provide a sure and comfortable living for all of us?" but by no means all employers or all employees will think straight. the habit of acting shortsightedly is a hard one to break. what can be done? nothing. no rules or laws will effect the changes. but enlightened self-interest will. it takes a little while for enlightenment to spread. but spread it must, for the concern in which both employer and employees work to the same end of service is bound to forge ahead in business. what do we mean by high wages, anyway? we mean a higher wage than was paid ten months or ten years ago. we do not mean a higher wage than ought to be paid. our high wages of to-day may be low wages ten years from now. if it is right for the manager of a business to try to make it pay larger dividends, it is quite as right that he should try to make it pay higher wages. but it is not the manager of the business who pays the high wages. of course, if he can and will not, then the blame is on him. but he alone can never make high wages possible. high wages cannot be paid unless the workmen earn them. their labour is the productive factor. it is not the only productive factor--poor management can waste labour and material and nullify the efforts of labour. labour can nullify the results of good management. but in a partnership of skilled management and honest labour, it is the workman who makes high wages possible. he invests his energy and skill, and if he makes an honest, wholehearted investment, high wages ought to be his reward. not only has he earned them, but he has had a big part in creating them. it ought to be clear, however, that the high wage begins down in the shop. if it is not created there it cannot get into pay envelopes. there will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity of work. nature has seen to that. idle hands and minds were never intended for any one of us. work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. so far from being a curse, work is the greatest blessing. exact social justice flows only out of honest work. the man who contributes much should take away much. therefore no element of charity is present in the paying of wages. the kind of workman who gives the business the best that is in him is the best kind of workman a business can have. and he cannot be expected to do this indefinitely without proper recognition of his contribution. the man who comes to the day's job feeling that no matter how much he may give, it will not yield him enough of a return to keep him beyond want, is not in shape to do his day's work. he is anxious and worried, and it all reacts to the detriment of his work. but if a man feels that his day's work is not only supplying his basic need, but is also giving him a margin of comfort and enabling him to give his boys and girls their opportunity and his wife some pleasure in life, then his job looks good to him and he is free to give it of his best. this is a good thing for him and a good thing for the business. the man who does not get a certain satisfaction out of his day's work is losing the best part of his pay. for the day's work is a great thing--a very great thing! it is at the very foundation of the world; it is the basis of our self-respect. and the employer ought constantly to put in a harder day's work than any of his men. the employer who is seriously trying to do his duty in the world must be a hard worker. he cannot say, "i have so many thousand men working for me." the fact of the matter is that so many thousand men have him working for them--and the better they work the busier they keep him disposing of their products. wages and salaries are in fixed amounts, and this must be so, in order to have a basis to figure on. wages and salaries are a sort of profit-sharing fixed in advance, but it often happens that when the business of the year is closed, it is discovered that more can be paid. and then more ought to be paid. when we are all in the business working together, we all ought to have some share in the profits--by way of a good wage, or salary, or added compensation. and that is beginning now quite generally to be recognized. there is now a definite demand that the human side of business be elevated to a position of equal importance with the material side. and that is going to come about. it is just a question whether it is going to be brought about wisely--in a way that will conserve the material side which now sustains us, or unwisely and in such a way as shall take from us all the benefit of the work of the past years. business represents our national livelihood, it reflects our economic progress, and gives us our place among other nations. we do not want to jeopardize that. what we want is a better recognition of the human element in business. and surely it can be achieved without dislocation, without loss to any one, indeed with an increase of benefit to every human being. and the secret of it all is in a recognition of human partnership. until each man is absolutely sufficient unto himself, needing the services of no other human being in any capacity whatever, we shall never get beyond the need of partnership. such are the fundamental truths of wages. they are partnership distributions. when can a wage be considered adequate? how much of a living is reasonably to be expected from work? have you ever considered what a wage does or ought to do? to say that it should pay the cost of living is to say almost nothing. the cost of living depends largely upon the efficiency of production and transportation; and the efficiency of these is the sum of the efficiencies of the management and the workers. good work, well managed, ought to result in high wages and low living costs. if we attempt to regulate wages on living costs, we get nowhere. the cost of living is a result and we cannot expect to keep a result constant if we keep altering the factors which produce the result. when we try to regulate wages according to the cost of living, we are imitating a dog chasing his tail. and, anyhow, who is competent to say just what kind of living we shall base the costs on? let us broaden our view and see what a wage is to the workmen--and what it ought to be. the wage carries all the worker's obligations outside the shop; it carries all that is necessary in the way of service and management inside the shop. the day's productive work is the most valuable mine of wealth that has ever been opened. certainly it ought to bear not less than all the worker's outside obligations. and certainly it ought to be made to take care of the worker's sunset days when labour is no longer possible to him--and should be no longer necessary. and if it is made to do even these, industry will have to be adjusted to a schedule of production, distribution, and reward, which will stop the leaks into the pockets of men who do not assist in production. in order to create a system which shall be as independent of the good-will of benevolent employers as of the ill-will of selfish ones, we shall have to find a basis in the actual facts of life itself. it costs just as much physical strength to turn out a day's work when wheat is $1 a bushel, as when wheat is $2.50 a bushel. eggs may be 12 cents a dozen or 90 cents a dozen. what difference does it make in the units of energy a man uses in a productive day's work? if only the man himself were concerned, the cost of his maintenance and the profit he ought to have would be a simple matter. but he is not just an individual. he is a citizen, contributing to the welfare of the nation. he is a householder. he is perhaps a father with children who must be reared to usefulness on what he is able to earn. we must reckon with all these facts. how are you going to figure the contribution of the home to the day's work? you pay the man for his work, but how much does that work owe to his home? how much to his position as a citizen? how much to his position as a father? the man does the work in the shop, but his wife does the work in the home. the shop must pay them both. on what system of figuring is the home going to find its place on the cost sheets of the day's work? is the man's own livelihood to be regarded as the "cost"? and is his ability to have a home and family the "profit"? is the profit on a day's work to be computed on a cash basis only, measured by the amount a man has left over after his own and his family's wants are all supplied? or are all these relationships to be considered strictly under head of cost, and the profit to be computed entirely outside of them? that is, after having supported himself and family, clothed them, housed them, educated them, given them the privileges incident to their standard of living, ought there to be provision made for still something more in the way of savings profit? and are all properly chargeable to the day's work? i think they are. otherwise, we have the hideous prospect of little children and their mothers being forced out to work. these are questions which call for accurate observation and computation. perhaps there is no one item connected with our economic life that would surprise us more than a knowledge of just what burdens the day's work. it is perhaps possible accurately to determine--albeit with considerable interference with the day's work itself--how much energy the day's work takes out of a man. but it is not at all possible accurately to determine how much it will require to put back that energy into him against the next day's demands. nor is it possible to determine how much of that expended energy he will never be able to get back at all. economics has never yet devised a sinking fund for the replacement of the strength of a worker. it is possible to set up a kind of sinking fund in the form of old-age pensions. but pensions do not attend to the profit which each day's labour ought to yield in order to take care of all of life's overhead, of all physical losses, and of the inevitable deterioration of the manual worker. the best wages that have up to date ever been paid are not nearly as high as they ought to be. business is not yet sufficiently well organized and its objectives are not yet sufficiently clear to make it possible to pay more than a fraction of the wages that ought to be paid. that is part of the work we have before us. it does not help toward a solution to talk about abolishing the wage system and substituting communal ownership. the wage system is the only one that we have, under which contributions to production can be rewarded according to their worth. take away the wage measure and we shall have universal injustice. perfect the system and we may have universal justice. i have learned through the years a good deal about wages. i believe in the first place that, all other considerations aside, our own sales depend in a measure upon the wages we pay. if we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity, provided, however, the higher wages are paid for higher production. paying high wages and lowering production is starting down the incline toward dull business. it took us some time to get our bearings on wages, and it was not until we had gone thoroughly into production on "model t," that it was possible to figure out what wages ought to be. before then we had had some profit sharing. we had at the end of each year, for some years past, divided a percentage of our earnings with the employees. for instance, as long ago as 1909 we distributed eighty thousand dollars on the basis of years of service. a one-year man received 5 per cent. of his year's wages; a two-year man, 7-1/2 per cent., and a three-year man, 10 per cent. the objection to that plan was that it had no direct connection with the day's work. a man did not get his share until long after his work was done and then it came to him almost in the way of a present. it is always unfortunate to have wages tinged with charity. and then, too, the wages were not scientifically adjusted to the jobs. the man in job "a" might get one rate and the man in job "b" a higher rate, while as a matter of fact job "a" might require more skill or exertion than job "b." a great deal of inequity creeps into wage rates unless both the employer and the employee know that the rate paid has been arrived at by something better than a guess. therefore, starting about 1913 we had time studies made of all the thousands of operations in the shops. by a time study it is possible theoretically to determine what a man's output should be. then, making large allowances, it is further possible to get at a satisfactory standard output for a day, and, taking into consideration the skill, to arrive at a rate which will express with fair accuracy the amount of skill and exertion that goes into a job--and how much is to be expected from the man in the job in return for the wage. without scientific study the employer does not know why he is paying a wage and the worker does not know why he is getting it. on the time figures all of the jobs in our factory were standardized and rates set. we do not have piece work. some of the men are paid by the day and some are paid by the hour, but in practically every case there is a required standard output below which a man is not expected to fall. were it otherwise, neither the workman nor ourselves would know whether or not wages were being earned. there must be a fixed day's work before a real wage can be paid. watchmen are paid for presence. workmen are paid for work. having these facts in hand we announced and put into operation in january, 1914, a kind of profit-sharing plan in which the minimum wage for any class of work and under certain conditions was five dollars a day. at the same time we reduced the working day to eight hours--it had been nine--and the week to forty-eight hours. this was entirely a voluntary act. all of our wage rates have been voluntary. it was to our way of thinking an act of social justice, and in the last analysis we did it for our own satisfaction of mind. there is a pleasure in feeling that you have made others happy--that you have lessened in some degree the burdens of your fellow-men--that you have provided a margin out of which may be had pleasure and saving. good-will is one of the few really important assets of life. a determined man can win almost anything that he goes after, but unless, in his getting, he gains good will he has not profited much. there was, however, no charity in any way involved. that was not generally understood. many employers thought we were just making the announcement because we were prosperous and wanted advertising and they condemned us because we were upsetting standards--violating the custom of paying a man the smallest amount he would take. there is nothing to such standards and customs. they have to be wiped out. some day they will be. otherwise, we cannot abolish poverty. we made the change not merely because we wanted to pay higher wages and thought we could pay them. we wanted to pay these wages so that the business would be on a lasting foundation. we were not distributing anything--we were building for the future. a low wage business is always insecure. probably few industrial announcements have created a more world-wide comment than did this one, and hardly any one got the facts quite right. workmen quite generally believed that they were going to get five dollars a day, regardless of what work they did. the facts were somewhat different from the general impression. the plan was to distribute profits, but instead of waiting until the profits had been earned--to approximate them in advance and to add them, under certain conditions, to the wages of those persons who had been in the employ of the company for six months or more. it was classified participation among three classes of employees: (1) married men living with and taking good care of their families. (2) single men over twenty-two years of age who are of proved thrifty habits. (3) young men under twenty-two years of age, and women who are the sole support of some next of kin. a man was first to be paid his just wages--which were then on an average of about fifteen per cent. above the usual market wage. he was then eligible to a certain profit. his wages plus his profit were calculated to give a minimum daily income of five dollars. the profit sharing rate was divided on an hour basis and was credited to the hourly wage rate, so as to give those receiving the lowest hourly rate the largest proportion of profits. it was paid every two weeks with the wages. for example, a man who received thirty-four cents an hour had a profit rate of twenty-eight and one half cents an hour--which would give him a daily income of five dollars. a man receiving fifty-four cents an hour would have a profit rate of twenty-one cents an hour--which would give him a daily income of six dollars. it was a sort of prosperity-sharing plan. but on conditions. the man and his home had to come up to certain standards of cleanliness and citizenship. nothing paternal was intended!--a certain amount of paternalism did develop, and that is one reason why the whole plan and the social welfare department were readjusted. but in the beginning the idea was that there should be a very definite incentive to better living and that the very best incentive was a money premium on proper living. a man who is living aright will do his work aright. and then, too, we wanted to avoid the possibility of lowering the standard of work through an increased wage. it was demonstrated in war time that too quickly increasing a man's pay sometimes increases only his cupidity and therefore decreases his earning power. if, in the beginning, we had simply put the increase in the pay envelopes, then very likely the work standards would have broken down. the pay of about half the men was doubled in the new plan; it might have been taken as "easy money." the thought of easy money breaks down work. there is a danger in too rapidly raising the pay of any man--whether he previously received one dollar or one hundred dollars a day. in fact, if the salary of a hundred-dollar-a-day man were increased overnight to three hundred dollars a day he would probably make a bigger fool of himself than the working man whose pay is increased from one dollar to three dollars an hour. the man with the larger amount of money has larger opportunity to make a fool of himself. in this first plan the standards insisted upon were not petty--although sometimes they may have been administered in a petty fashion. we had about fifty investigators in the social department; the standard of common sense among them was very high indeed, but it is impossible to assemble fifty men equally endowed with common sense. they erred at times--one always hears about the errors. it was expected that in order to receive the bonus married men should live with and take proper care of their families. we had to break up the evil custom among many of the foreign workers of taking in boarders--of regarding their homes as something to make money out of rather than as a place to live in. boys under eighteen received a bonus if they supported the next of kin. single men who lived wholesomely shared. the best evidence that the plan was essentially beneficial is the record. when the plan went into effect, 60 per cent. of the workers immediately qualified to share; at the end of six months 78 per cent. were sharing, and at the end of one year 87 per cent. within a year and one half only a fraction of one per cent. failed to share. the large wage had other results. in 1914, when the first plan went into effect, we had 14,000 employees and it had been necessary to hire at the rate of about 53,000 a year in order to keep a constant force of 14,000. in 1915 we had to hire only 6,508 men and the majority of these new men were taken on because of the growth of the business. with the old turnover of labour and our present force we should have to hire at the rate of nearly 200,000 men a year--which would be pretty nearly an impossible proposition. even with the minimum of instruction that is required to master almost any job in our place, we cannot take on a new staff each morning, or each week, or each month; for, although a man may qualify for acceptable work at an acceptable rate of speed within two or three days, he will be able to do more after a year's experience than he did at the beginning. the matter of labour turnover has not since bothered us; it is rather hard to give exact figures because when we are not running to capacity, we rotate some of the men in order to distribute the work among greatest number. this makes it hard to distinguish between the voluntary and involuntary exits. to-day we keep no figures; we now think so little of our turnover that we do not bother to keep records. as far as we know the turnover is somewhere between 3 per cent. and 6 per cent. a month. we have made changes in the system, but we have not deviated from this principle: if you expect a man to give his time and energy, fix his wages so that he will have no financial worries. it pays. our profits, after paying good wages and a bonus--which bonus used to run around ten millions a year before we changed the system--show that paying good wages is the most profitable way of doing business. there were objections to the bonus-on-conduct method of paying wages. it tended toward paternalism. paternalism has no place in industry. welfare work that consists in prying into employees' private concerns is out of date. men need counsel and men need help, oftentimes special help; and all this ought to be rendered for decency's sake. but the broad workable plan of investment and participation will do more to solidify industry and strengthen organization than will any social work on the outside. without changing the principle we have changed the method of payment. chapter ix why not always have good business? the employer has to live by the year. the workman has to live by the year. but both of them, as a rule, work by the week. they get an order or a job when they can and at the price they can. during what is called a prosperous time, orders and jobs are plentiful. during a "dull" season they are scarce. business is always either feasting or fasting and is always either "good" or "bad." although there is never a time when everyone has too much of this world's goods--when everyone is too comfortable or too happy--there come periods when we have the astounding spectacle of a world hungry for goods and an industrial machine hungry for work and the two--the demand and the means of satisfying it--held apart by a money barrier. both manufacturing and employment are in-and-out affairs. instead of a steady progression we go ahead by fits and starts--now going too fast, now stopping altogether. when a great many people want to buy, there is said to be a shortage of goods. when nobody wants to buy, there is said to be an overproduction of goods. i know that we have always had a shortage of goods, but i do not believe we have ever had an overproduction. we may have, at a particular time, too much of the wrong kind of goods. that is not overproduction--that is merely headless production. we may also have great stocks of goods at too high prices. that is not overproduction--it is either bad manufacturing or bad financing. is business good or bad according to the dictates of fate? must we accept the conditions as inevitable? business is good or bad as we make it so. the only reason for growing crops, for mining, or for manufacturing, is that people may eat, keep warm, have clothing to wear, and articles to use. there is no other possible reason, yet that reason is forced into the background and instead we have operations carried on, not to the end of service, but to the end of making money--and this because we have evolved a system of money that instead of being a convenient medium of exchange, is at times a barrier to exchange. of this more later. we suffer frequent periods of so-called bad luck only because we manage so badly. if we had a vast crop failure, i can imagine the country going hungry, but i cannot conceive how it is that we tolerate hunger and poverty, when they grow solely out of bad management, and especially out of the bad management that is implicit in an unreasoned financial structure. of course the war upset affairs in this country. it upset the whole world. there would have been no war had management been better. but the war alone is not to blame. the war showed up a great number of the defects of the financial system, but more than anything else it showed how insecure is business supported only by a money foundation. i do not know whether bad business is the result of bad financial methods or whether the wrong motive in business created bad financial methods, but i do know that, while it would be wholly undesirable to try to overturn the present financial system, it is wholly desirable to reshape business on the basis of service. then a better financial system will have to come. the present system will drop out because it will have no reason for being. the process will have to be a gradual one. the start toward the stabilization of his own affairs may be made by any one. one cannot achieve perfect results acting alone, but as the example begins to sink in there will be followers, and thus in the course of time we can hope to put inflated business and its fellow, depressed business, into a class with small-pox--that is, into the class of preventable diseases. it is perfectly possible, with the reorganization of business and finance that is bound to come about, to take the ill effect of seasons, if not the seasons, out of industry, and also the periodic depressions. farming is already in process of reorganization. when industry and farming are fully reorganized they will be complementary; they belong together, not apart. as an indication, take our valve plant. we established it eighteen miles out in the country so that the workers could also be farmers. by the use of machinery farming need not consume more than a fraction of the time it now consumes; the time nature requires to produce is much larger than that required for the human contribution of seeding, cultivating, and harvesting; in many industries where the parts are not bulky it does not make much difference where they are made. by the aid of water power they can well be made out in farming country. thus we can, to a much larger degree than is commonly known, have farmer-industrialists who both farm and work under the most scientific and healthful conditions. that arrangement will care for some seasonal industries; others can arrange a succession of products according to the seasons and the equipment, and still others can, with more careful management, iron out their seasons. a complete study of any specific problem will show the way. the periodic depressions are more serious because they seem so vast as to be uncontrollable. until the whole reorganization is brought about, they cannot be wholly controlled, but each man in business can easily do something for himself and while benefiting his own organization in a very material way, also help others. the ford production has not reflected good times or bad times; it has kept right on regardless of conditions excepting from 1917 to 1919, when the factory was turned over to war work. the year 1912-1913 was supposed to be a dull one; although now some call it "normal"; we all but doubled our sales; 1913-1914 was dull; we increased our sales by more than a third. the year 1920-1921 is supposed to have been one of the most depressed in history; we sold a million and a quarter cars, or about five times as many as in 1913-1914--the "normal year." there is no particular secret in it. it is, as is everything else in our business, the inevitable result of the application of a principle which can be applied to any business. we now have a minimum wage of six dollars a day paid without reservation. the people are sufficiently used to high wages to make supervision unnecessary. the minimum wage is paid just as soon as a worker has qualified in his production--which is a matter that depends upon his own desire to work. we have put our estimate of profits into the wage and are now paying higher wages than during the boom times after the war. but we are, as always, paying them on the basis of work. and that the men do work is evidenced by the fact that although six dollars a day is the minimum wage, about 60 per cent. of the workers receive above the minimum. the six dollars is not a flat but a minimum wage. consider first the fundamentals of prosperity. progress is not made by pulling off a series of stunts. each step has to be regulated. a man cannot expect to progress without thinking. take prosperity. a truly prosperous time is when the largest number of people are getting all they can legitimately eat and wear, and are in every sense of the word comfortable. it is the degree of the comfort of the people at large--not the size of the manufacturer's bank balance--that evidences prosperity. the function of the manufacturer is to contribute to this comfort. he is an instrument of society and he can serve society only as he manages his enterprises so as to turn over to the public an increasingly better product at an ever-decreasing price, and at the same time to pay to all those who have a hand in his business an ever-increasing wage, based upon the work they do. in this way and in this way alone can a manufacturer or any one in business justify his existence. we are not much concerned with the statistics and the theories of the economists on the recurring cycles of prosperity and depression. they call the periods when prices are high "prosperous." a really prosperous period is not to be judged on the prices that manufacturers are quoting for articles. we are not concerned with combinations of words. if the prices of goods are above the incomes of the people, then get the prices down to the incomes. ordinarily, business is conceived as starting with a manufacturing process and ending with a consumer. if that consumer does not want to buy what the manufacturer has to sell him and has not the money to buy it, then the manufacturer blames the consumer and says that business is bad, and thus, hitching the cart before the horse, he goes on his way lamenting. isn't that nonsense? does the manufacturer exist for the consumer or does the consumer exist for the manufacturer? if the consumer will not--says he cannot--buy what the manufacturer has to offer, is that the fault of the manufacturer or the consumer? or is nobody at fault? if nobody is at fault then the manufacturer must go out of business. but what business ever started with the manufacturer and ended with the consumer? where does the money to make the wheels go round come from? from the consumer, of course. and success in manufacture is based solely upon an ability to serve that consumer to his liking. he may be served by quality or he may be served by price. he is best served by the highest quality at the lowest price, and any man who can give to the consumer the highest quality at the lowest price is bound to be a leader in business, whatever the kind of an article he makes. there is no getting away from this. then why flounder around waiting for good business? get the costs down by better management. get the prices down to the buying power. cutting wages is the easiest and most slovenly way to handle the situation, not to speak of its being an inhuman way. it is, in effect, throwing upon labour the incompetency of the managers of the business. if we only knew it, every depression is a challenge to every manufacturer to put more brains into his business--to overcome by management what other people try to overcome by wage reduction. to tamper with wages before all else is changed, is to evade the real issue. and if the real issue is tackled first, no reduction of wages may be necessary. that has been my experience. the immediate practical point is that, in the process of adjustment, someone will have to take a loss. and who can take a loss except those who have something which they can afford to lose? but the expression, "take a loss," is rather misleading. really no loss is taken at all. it is only a giving up of a certain part of the past profits in order to gain more in the future. i was talking not long since with a hardware merchant in a small town. he said: "i expect to take a loss of $10,000 on my stock. but of course, you know, it isn't really like losing that much. we hardware men have had pretty good times. most of my stock was bought at high prices, but i have already sold several stocks and had the benefit of them. besides, the ten thousand dollars which i say i will lose are not the same kind of dollars that i used to have. they are, in a way, speculative dollars. they are not the good dollars that bought 100 cents' worth. so, though my loss may sound big, it is not big. and at the same time i am making it possible for the people in my town to go on building their houses without being discouraged by the size of the hardware item." he is a wise merchant. he would rather take less profit and keep business moving than keep his stock at high prices and bar the progress of his community. a man like that is an asset to a town. he has a clear head. he is better able to swing the adjustment through his inventory than through cutting down the wages of his delivery men--through cutting down their ability to buy. he did not sit around holding on to his prices and waiting for something to turn up. he realized what seems to have been quite generally forgotten--that it is part of proprietorship every now and again to lose money. we had to take our loss. our sales eventually fell off as all other sales fell off. we had a large inventory and, taking the materials and parts in that inventory at their cost price, we could not turn out a car at a price lower than we were asking, but that was a price which on the turn of business was higher than people could or wanted to pay. we closed down to get our bearings. we were faced with making a cut of $17,000,000 in the inventory or taking a much larger loss than that by not doing business. so there was no choice at all. that is always the choice that a man in business has. he can take the direct loss on his books and go ahead and do business or he can stop doing business and take the loss of idleness. the loss of not doing business is commonly a loss greater than the actual money involved, for during the period of idleness fear will consume initiative and, if the shutdown is long enough, there will be no energy left over to start up with again. there is no use waiting around for business to improve. if a manufacturer wants to perform his function, he must get his price down to what people will pay. there is always, no matter what the condition, a price that people can and will pay for a necessity, and always, if the will is there, that price can be met. it cannot be met by lowering quality or by shortsighted economy, which results only in a dissatisfied working force. it cannot be met by fussing or buzzing around. it can be met only by increasing the efficiency of production and, viewed in this fashion, each business depression, so-called, ought to be regarded as a challenge to the brains of the business community. concentrating on prices instead of on service is a sure indication of the kind of business man who can give no justification for his existence as a proprietor. this is only another way of saying that sales should be made on the natural basis of real value, which is the cost of transmuting human energy into articles of trade and commerce. but that simple formula is not considered business-like. it is not complex enough. we have "business" which takes the most honest of all human activities and makes them subject to the speculative shrewdness of men who can produce false shortages of food and other commodities, and thus excite in society anxiety of demand. we have false stimulation and then false numbness. economic justice is being constantly and quite often innocently violated. you may say that it is the economic condition which makes mankind what it is; or you may say that it is mankind that makes the economic condition what it is. you will find many claiming that it is the economic system which makes men what they are. they blame our industrial system for all the faults which we behold in mankind generally. and you will find other men who say that man creates his own conditions; that if the economic, industrial, or social system is bad, it is but a reflection of what man himself is. what is wrong in our industrial system is a reflection of what is wrong in man himself. manufacturers hesitate to admit that the mistakes of the present industrial methods are, in part at least, their own mistakes, systematized and extended. but take the question outside of a man's immediate concerns, and he sees the point readily enough. no doubt, with a less faulty human nature a less faulty social system would have grown up. or, if human nature were worse than it is, a worse system would have grown up--though probably a worse system would not have lasted as long as the present one has. but few will claim that mankind deliberately set out to create a faulty social system. granting without reserve that all faults of the social system are in man himself, it does not follow that he deliberately organized his imperfections and established them. we shall have to charge a great deal up to ignorance. we shall have to charge a great deal up to innocence. take the beginnings of our present industrial system. there was no indication of how it would grow. every new advance was hailed with joy. no one ever thought of "capital" and "labour" as hostile interests. no one ever dreamed that the very fact of success would bring insidious dangers with it. and yet with growth every imperfection latent in the system came out. a man's business grew to such proportions that he had to have more helpers than he knew by their first names; but that fact was not regretted; it was rather hailed with joy. and yet it has since led to an impersonal system wherein the workman has become something less than a person--a mere part of the system. no one believes, of course, that this dehumanizing process was deliberately invented. it just grew. it was latent in the whole early system, but no one saw it and no one could foresee it. only prodigious and unheard-of development could bring it to light. take the industrial idea; what is it? the true industrial idea is not to make money. the industrial idea is to express a serviceable idea, to duplicate a useful idea, by as many thousands as there are people who need it. to produce, produce; to get a system that will reduce production to a fine art; to put production on such a basis as will provide means for expansion and the building of still more shops, the production of still more thousands of useful things--that is the real industrial idea. the negation of the industrial idea is the effort to make a profit out of speculation instead of out of work. there are short-sighted men who cannot see that business is bigger than any one man's interests. business is a process of give and take, live and let live. it is cooperation among many forces and interests. whenever you find a man who believes that business is a river whose beneficial flow ought to stop as soon as it reaches him you find a man who thinks he can keep business alive by stopping its circulation. he would produce wealth by this stopping of the production of wealth. the principles of service cannot fail to cure bad business. which leads us into the practical application of the principles of service and finance. chapter x how cheaply can things be made? no one will deny that if prices are sufficiently low, buyers will always be found, no matter what are supposed to be the business conditions. that is one of the elemental facts of business. sometimes raw materials will not move, no matter how low the price. we have seen something of that during the last year, but that is because the manufacturers and the distributors were trying to dispose of high-cost stocks before making new engagements. the markets were stagnant, but not "saturated" with goods. what is called a "saturated" market is only one in which the prices are above the purchasing power. unduly high prices are always a sign of unsound business, because they are always due to some abnormal condition. a healthy patient has a normal temperature; a healthy market has normal prices. high prices come about commonly by reason of speculation following the report of a shortage. although there is never a shortage in everything, a shortage in just a few important commodities, or even in one, serves to start speculation. or again, goods may not be short at all. an inflation of currency or credit will cause a quick bulge in apparent buying power and the consequent opportunity to speculate. there may be a combination of actual shortages and a currency inflation--as frequently happens during war. but in any condition of unduly high prices, no matter what the real cause, the people pay the high prices because they think there is going to be a shortage. they may buy bread ahead of their own needs, so as not to be left later in the lurch, or they may buy in the hope of reselling at a profit. when there was talk of a sugar shortage, housewives who had never in their lives bought more than ten pounds of sugar at once tried to get stocks of one hundred or two hundred pounds, and while they were doing this, speculators were buying sugar to store in warehouses. nearly all our war shortages were caused by speculation or buying ahead of need. no matter how short the supply of an article is supposed to be, no matter if the government takes control and seizes every ounce of that article, a man who is willing to pay the money can always get whatever supply he is willing to pay for. no one ever knows actually how great or how small is the national stock of any commodity. the very best figures are not more than guesses; estimates of the world's stock of a commodity are still wilder. we may think we know how much of a commodity is produced on a certain day or in a certain month, but that does not tell us how much will be produced the next day or the next month. likewise we do not know how much is consumed. by spending a great deal of money we might, in the course of time, get at fairly accurate figures on how much of a particular commodity was consumed over a period, but by the time those figures were compiled they would be utterly useless except for historical purposes, because in the next period the consumption might be double or half as much. people do not stay put. that is the trouble with all the framers of socialistic and communistic, and of all other plans for the ideal regulation of society. they all presume that people will stay put. the reactionary has the same idea. he insists that everyone ought to stay put. nobody does, and for that i am thankful. consumption varies according to the price and the quality, and nobody knows or can figure out what future consumption will amount to, because every time a price is lowered a new stratum of buying power is reached. everyone knows that, but many refuse to recognize it by their acts. when a storekeeper buys goods at a wrong price and finds they will not move, he reduces the price by degrees until they do move. if he is wise, instead of nibbling at the price and encouraging in his customers the hope of even lower prices, he takes a great big bite out of the price and gets the stuff out of his place. everyone takes a loss on some proposition of sales. the common hope is that after the loss there may be a big profit to make up for the loss. that is usually a delusion. the profit out of which the loss has to be taken must be found in the business preceding the cut. any one who was foolish enough to regard the high profits of the boom period as permanent profits got into financial trouble when the drop came. however, there is a belief, and a very strong one, that business consists of a series of profits and losses, and good business is one in which the profits exceed the losses. therefore some men reason that the best price to sell at is the highest price which may be had. that is supposed to be good business practice. is it? we have not found it so. we have found in buying materials that it is not worth while to buy for other than immediate needs. we buy only enough to fit into the plan of production, taking into consideration the state of transportation at the time. if transportation were perfect and an even flow of materials could be assured, it would not be necessary to carry any stock whatsoever. the carloads of raw materials would arrive on schedule and in the planned order and amounts, and go from the railway cars into production. that would save a great deal of money, for it would give a very rapid turnover and thus decrease the amount of money tied up in materials. with bad transportation one has to carry larger stocks. at the time of revaluing the inventory in 1921 the stock was unduly high because transportation had been so bad. but we learned long ago never to buy ahead for speculative purposes. when prices are going up it is considered good business to buy far ahead, and when prices are up to buy as little as possible. it needs no argument to demonstrate that, if you buy materials at ten cents a pound and the material goes later to twenty cents a pound you will have a distinct advantage over the man who is compelled to buy at twenty cents. but we have found that thus buying ahead does not pay. it is entering into a guessing contest. it is not business. if a man buys a large stock at ten cents, he is in a fine position as long as the other man is paying twenty cents. then he later gets a chance to buy more of the material at twenty cents, and it seems to be a good buy because everything points to the price going to thirty cents. having great satisfaction in his previous judgment, on which he made money, he of course makes the new purchase. then the price drops and he is just where he started. we have carefully figured, over the years, that buying ahead of requirements does not pay--that the gains on one purchase will be offset by the losses on another, and in the end we have gone to a great deal of trouble without any corresponding benefit. therefore in our buying we simply get the best price we can for the quantity that we require. we do not buy less if the price be high and we do not buy more if the price be low. we carefully avoid bargain lots in excess of requirements. it was not easy to reach that decision. but in the end speculation will kill any manufacturer. give him a couple of good purchases on which he makes money and before long he will be thinking more about making money out of buying and selling than out of his legitimate business, and he will smash. the only way to keep out of trouble is to buy what one needs--no more and no less. that course removes one hazard from business. this buying experience is given at length because it explains our selling policy. instead of giving attention to competitors or to demand, our prices are based on an estimate of what the largest possible number of people will want to pay, or can pay, for what we have to sell. and what has resulted from that policy is best evidenced by comparing the price of the touring car and the production. year price production 1909-10 $950 18,664 cars 1910-11 $780 34,528 " 1911-12 $690 78,440 " 1912-13 $600 168,220 " 1913-14 $550 248,307 " 1914-15 $490 308,213 " 1915-16 $440 533,921 " 1916-17 $360 785,432 " 1917-18 $450 706,584 " 1918-19 $525 533,706 " (the above two years were war years and the factory was in war work). 1919-20 $575 to $440 996,660 " 1920-21 $440 to $355 1,250,000 " the high prices of 1921 were, considering the financial inflation, not really high. at the time of writing the price is $497. these prices are actually lower than they appear to be, because improvements in quality are being steadily made. we study every car in order to discover if it has features that might be developed and adapted. if any one has anything better than we have we want to know it, and for that reason we buy one of every new car that comes out. usually the car is used for a while, put through a road test, taken apart, and studied as to how and of what everything is made. scattered about dearborn there is probably one of nearly every make of car on earth. every little while when we buy a new car it gets into the newspapers and somebody remarks that ford doesn't use the ford. last year we ordered a big lanchester--which is supposed to be the best car in england. it lay in our long island factory for several months and then i decided to drive it to detroit. there were several of us and we had a little caravan--the lanchester, a packard, and a ford or two. i happened to be riding in the lanchester passing through a new york town and when the reporters came up they wanted to know right away why i was not riding in a ford. "well, you see, it is this way," i answered. "i am on a vacation now; i am in no hurry, we do not care much when we get home. that is the reason i am not in the ford." you know, we also have a line of "ford stories"! our policy is to reduce the price, extend the operations, and improve the article. you will notice that the reduction of price comes first. we have never considered any costs as fixed. therefore we first reduce the price to a point where we believe more sales will result. then we go ahead and try to make the price. we do not bother about the costs. the new price forces the costs down. the more usual way is to take the costs and then determine the price, and although that method may be scientific in the narrow sense, it is not scientific in the broad sense, because what earthly use is it to know the cost if it tells you you cannot manufacture at a price at which the article can be sold? but more to the point is the fact that, although one may calculate what a cost is, and of course all of our costs are carefully calculated, no one knows what a cost ought to be. one of the ways of discovering what a cost ought to be is to name a price so low as to force everybody in the place to the highest point of efficiency. the low price makes everybody dig for profits. we make more discoveries concerning manufacturing and selling under this forced method than by any method of leisurely investigation. the payment of high wages fortunately contributes to the low costs because the men become steadily more efficient on account of being relieved of outside worries. the payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made, and the six-dollar day wage is cheaper than the five. how far this will go, we do not know. we have always made a profit at the prices we have fixed and, just as we have no idea how high wages will go, we also have no idea how low prices will go, but there is no particular use in bothering on that point. the tractor, for instance, was first sold for $750, then at $850, then at $625, and the other day we cut it 37 per cent, to $395. the tractor is not made in connection with the automobiles. no plant is large enough to make two articles. a shop has to be devoted to exactly one product in order to get the real economies. for most purposes a man with a machine is better than a man without a machine. by the ordering of design of product and of manufacturing process we are able to provide that kind of a machine which most multiplies the power of the hand, and therefore we give to that man a larger role of service, which means that he is entitled to a larger share of comfort. keeping that principle in mind we can attack waste with a definite objective. we will not put into our establishment anything that is useless. we will not put up elaborate buildings as monuments to our success. the interest on the investment and the cost of their upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced--so these monuments of success are apt to end as tombs. a great administration building may be necessary. in me it arouses a suspicion that perhaps there is too much administration. we have never found a need for elaborate administration and would prefer to be advertised by our product than by where we make our product. the standardization that effects large economies for the consumer results in profits of such gross magnitude to the producer that he can scarcely know what to do with his money. but his effort must be sincere, painstaking, and fearless. cutting out a half-a-dozen models is not standardizing. it may be, and usually is, only the limiting of business, for if one is selling on the ordinary basis of profit--that is, on the basis of taking as much money away from the consumer as he will give up--then surely the consumer ought to have a wide range of choice. standardization, then, is the final stage of the process. we start with consumer, work back through the design, and finally arrive at manufacturing. the manufacturing becomes a means to the end of service. it is important to bear this order in mind. as yet, the order is not thoroughly understood. the price relation is not understood. the notion persists that prices ought to be kept up. on the contrary, good business--large consumption--depends on their going down. and here is another point. the service must be the best you can give. it is considered good manufacturing practice, and not bad ethics, occasionally to change designs so that old models will become obsolete and new ones will have to be bought either because repair parts for the old cannot be had, or because the new model offers a new sales argument which can be used to persuade a consumer to scrap what he has and buy something new. we have been told that this is good business, that it is clever business, that the object of business ought to be to get people to buy frequently and that it is bad business to try to make anything that will last forever, because when once a man is sold he will not buy again. our principle of business is precisely to the contrary. we cannot conceive how to serve the consumer unless we make for him something that, as far as we can provide, will last forever. we want to construct some kind of a machine that will last forever. it does not please us to have a buyer's car wear out or become obsolete. we want the man who buys one of our products never to have to buy another. we never make an improvement that renders any previous model obsolete. the parts of a specific model are not only interchangeable with all other cars of that model, but they are interchangeable with similar parts on all the cars that we have turned out. you can take a car of ten years ago and, buying to-day's parts, make it with very little expense into a car of to-day. having these objectives the costs always come down under pressure. and since we have the firm policy of steady price reduction, there is always pressure. sometimes it is just harder! take a few more instances of saving. the sweepings net six hundred thousand dollars a year. experiments are constantly going on in the utilization of scrap. in one of the stamping operations six-inch circles of sheet metal are cut out. these formerly went into scrap. the waste worried the men. they worked to find uses for the discs. they found that the plates were just the right size and shape to stamp into radiator caps but the metal was not thick enough. they tried a double thickness of plates, with the result that they made a cap which tests proved to be stronger than one made out of a single sheet of metal. we get 150,000 of those discs a day. we have now found a use for about 20,000 a day and expect to find further uses for the remainder. we saved about ten dollars each by making transmissions instead of buying them. we experimented with bolts and produced a special bolt made on what is called an "upsetting machine" with a rolled thread that was stronger than any bolt we could buy, although in its making was used only about one third of the material that the outside manufacturers used. the saving on one style of bolt alone amounted to half a million dollars a year. we used to assemble our cars at detroit, and although by special packing we managed to get five or six into a freight car, we needed many hundreds of freight cars a day. trains were moving in and out all the time. once a thousand freight cars were packed in a single day. a certain amount of congestion was inevitable. it is very expensive to knock down machines and crate them so that they cannot be injured in transit--to say nothing of the transportation charges. now, we assemble only three or four hundred cars a day at detroit--just enough for local needs. we now ship the parts to our assembling stations all over the united states and in fact pretty much all over the world, and the machines are put together there. wherever it is possible for a branch to make a part more cheaply than we can make it in detroit and ship it to them, then the branch makes the part. the plant at manchester, england, is making nearly an entire car. the tractor plant at cork, ireland, is making almost a complete tractor. this is an enormous saving of expense and is only an indication of what may be done throughout industry generally, when each part of a composite article is made at the exact point where it may be made most economically. we are constantly experimenting with every material that enters into the car. we cut most of our own lumber from our own forests. we are experimenting in the manufacture of artificial leather because we use about forty thousand yards of artificial leather a day. a penny here and a penny there runs into large amounts in the course of a year. the greatest development of all, however, is the river rouge plant, which, when it is running to its full capacity, will cut deeply and in many directions into the price of everything we make. the whole tractor plant is now there. this plant is located on the river on the outskirts of detroit and the property covers six hundred and sixty-five acres--enough for future development. it has a large slip and a turning basin capable of accommodating any lake steamship; a short-cut canal and some dredging will give a direct lake connection by way of the detroit river. we use a great deal of coal. this coal comes directly from our mines over the detroit, toledo and ironton railway, which we control, to the highland park plant and the river rouge plant. part of it goes for steam purposes. another part goes to the by-product coke ovens which we have established at the river rouge plant. coke moves on from the ovens by mechanical transmission to the blast furnaces. the low volatile gases from the blast furnaces are piped to the power plant boilers where they are joined by the sawdust and the shavings from the body plant--the making of all our bodies has been shifted to this plant--and in addition the coke "breeze" (the dust in the making of coke) is now also being utilized for stoking. the steam power plant is thus fired almost exclusively from what would otherwise be waste products. immense steam turbines directly coupled with dynamos transform this power into electricity, and all of the machinery in the tractor and the body plants is run by individual motors from this electricity. in the course of time it is expected that there will be sufficient electricity to run practically the whole highland park plant, and we shall then have cut out our coal bill. among the by-products of the coke ovens is a gas. it is piped both to the rouge and highland park plants where it is used for heat-treat purposes, for the enamelling ovens, for the car ovens, and the like. we formerly had to buy this gas. the ammonium sulphate is used for fertilizer. the benzol is a motor fuel. the small sizes of coke, not suitable for the blast furnaces, are sold to the employees--delivered free into their homes at much less than the ordinary market price. the large-sized coke goes to the blast furnaces. there is no manual handling. we run the melted iron directly from the blast furnaces into great ladles. these ladles travel into the shops and the iron is poured directly into the moulds without another heating. we thus not only get a uniform quality of iron according to our own specifications and directly under our control, but we save a melting of pig iron and in fact cut out a whole process in manufacturing as well as making available all our own scrap. what all this will amount to in point of savings we do not know--that is, we do not know how great will be the saving, because the plant has not been running long enough to give more than an indication of what is ahead, and we save in so many directions--in transportation, in the generation of our power, in the generation of gas, in the expense in casting, and then over and above that is the revenue from the by-products and from the smaller sizes of coke. the investment to accomplish these objects to date amounts to something over forty million dollars. how far we shall thus reach back to sources depends entirely on circumstances. nobody anywhere can really do more than guess about the future costs of production. it is wiser to recognize that the future holds more than the past--that every day holds within it an improvement on the methods of the day before. but how about production? if every necessary of life were produced so cheaply and in such quantities, would not the world shortly be surfeited with goods? will there not come a point when, regardless of price, people simply will not want anything more than what they already have? and if in the process of manufacturing fewer and fewer men are used, what is going to become of these men--how are they going to find jobs and live? take the second point first. we mentioned many machines and many methods that displaced great numbers of men and then someone asks: "yes, that is a very fine idea from the standpoint of the proprietor, but how about these poor fellows whose jobs are taken away from them?" the question is entirely reasonable, but it is a little curious that it should be asked. for when were men ever really put out of work by the bettering of industrial processes? the stage-coach drivers lost their jobs with the coming of the railways. should we have prohibited the railways and kept the stage-coach drivers? were there more men working with the stage-coaches than are working on the railways? should we have prevented the taxicab because its coming took the bread out of the mouths of the horse-cab drivers? how does the number of taxicabs compare with the number of horse-cabs when the latter were in their prime? the coming of shoe machinery closed most of the shops of those who made shoes by hand. when shoes were made by hand, only the very well-to-do could own more than a single pair of shoes, and most working people went barefooted in summer. now, hardly any one has only one pair of shoes, and shoe making is a great industry. no, every time you can so arrange that one man will do the work of two, you so add to the wealth of the country that there will be a new and better job for the man who is displaced. if whole industries changed overnight, then disposing of the surplus men would be a problem, but these changes do not occur as rapidly as that. they come gradually. in our own experience a new place always opens for a man as soon as better processes have taken his old job. and what happens in my shops happens everywhere in industry. there are many times more men to-day employed in the steel industries than there were in the days when every operation was by hand. it has to be so. it always is so and always will be so. and if any man cannot see it, it is because he will not look beyond his own nose. now as to saturation. we are continually asked: "when will you get to the point of overproduction? when will there be more cars than people to use them?" we believe it is possible some day to reach the point where all goods are produced so cheaply and in such quantities that overproduction will be a reality. but as far as we are concerned, we do not look forward to that condition with fear--we look forward to it with great satisfaction. nothing could be more splendid than a world in which everybody has all that he wants. our fear is that this condition will be too long postponed. as to our own products, that condition is very far away. we do not know how many motor cars a family will desire to use of the particular kind that we make. we know that, as the price has come down, the farmer, who at first used one car (and it must be remembered that it is not so very long ago that the farm market for motor cars was absolutely unknown--the limit of sales was at that time fixed by all the wise statistical sharps at somewhere near the number of millionaires in the country) now often uses two, and also he buys a truck. perhaps, instead of sending workmen out to scattered jobs in a single car, it will be cheaper to send each worker out in a car of his own. that is happening with salesmen. the public finds its own consumptive needs with unerring accuracy, and since we no longer make motor cars or tractors, but merely the parts which when assembled become motor cars and tractors, the facilities as now provided would hardly be sufficient to provide replacements for ten million cars. and it would be quite the same with any business. we do not have to bother about overproduction for some years to come, provided the prices are right. it is the refusal of people to buy on account of price that really stimulates real business. then if we want to do business we have to get the prices down without hurting the quality. thus price reduction forces us to learn improved and less wasteful methods of production. one big part of the discovery of what is "normal" in industry depends on managerial genius discovering better ways of doing things. if a man reduces his selling price to a point where he is making no profit or incurring a loss, then he simply is forced to discover how to make as good an article by a better method--making his new method produce the profit, and not producing a profit out of reduced wages or increased prices to the public. it is not good management to take profits out of the workers or the buyers; make management produce the profits. don't cheapen the product; don't cheapen the wage; don't overcharge the public. put brains into the method, and more brains, and still more brains--do things better than ever before; and by this means all parties to business are served and benefited. and all of this can always be done. chapter xi money and goods the primary object of a manufacturing business is to produce, and if that objective is always kept, finance becomes a wholly secondary matter that has largely to do with bookkeeping. my own financial operations have been very simple. i started with the policy of buying and selling for cash, keeping a large fund of cash always on hand, taking full advantage of all discounts, and collecting interest on bank balances. i regard a bank principally as a place in which it is safe and convenient to keep money. the minutes we spend on a competitor's business we lose on our own. the minutes we spend in becoming expert in finance we lose in production. the place to finance a manufacturing business is the shop, and not the bank. i would not say that a man in business needs to know nothing at all about finance, but he is better off knowing too little than too much, for if he becomes too expert he will get into the way of thinking that he can borrow money instead of earning it and then he will borrow more money to pay back what he has borrowed, and instead of being a business man he will be a note juggler, trying to keep in the air a regular flock of bonds and notes. if he is a really expert juggler, he may keep going quite a long time in this fashion, but some day he is bound to make a miss and the whole collection will come tumbling down around him. manufacturing is not to be confused with banking, and i think that there is a tendency for too many business men to mix up in banking and for too many bankers to mix up in business. the tendency is to distort the true purposes of both business and banking and that hurts both of them. the money has to come out of the shop, not out of the bank, and i have found that the shop will answer every possible requirement, and in one case, when it was believed that the company was rather seriously in need of funds, the shop when called on raised a larger sum than any bank in this country could loan. we have been thrown into finance mostly in the way of denial. some years back we had to keep standing a denial that the ford motor company was owned by the standard oil company and with that denial, for convenience's sake, we coupled a denial that we were connected with any other concern or that we intended to sell cars by mail. last year the best-liked rumour was that we were down in wall street hunting for money. i did not bother to deny that. it takes too much time to deny everything. instead, we demonstrated that we did not need any money. since then i have heard nothing more about being financed by wall street. we are not against borrowing money and we are not against bankers. we are against trying to make borrowed money take the place of work. we are against the kind of banker who regards a business as a melon to be cut. the thing is to keep money and borrowing and finance generally in their proper place, and in order to do that one has to consider exactly for what the money is needed and how it is going to be paid off. money is only a tool in business. it is just a part of the machinery. you might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. more lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. a business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get. the point is--cure the misuse. when that is done, the business will begin to make its own money, just as a repaired human body begins to make sufficient pure blood. borrowing may easily become an excuse for not boring into the trouble. borrowing may easily become a sop for laziness and pride. some business men are too lazy to get into overalls and go down to see what is the matter. or they are too proud to permit the thought that anything they have originated could go wrong. but the laws of business are like the law of gravity, and the man who opposes them feels their power. borrowing for expansion is one thing; borrowing to make up for mismanagement and waste is quite another. you do not want money for the latter--for the reason that money cannot do the job. waste is corrected by economy; mismanagement is corrected by brains. neither of these correctives has anything to do with money. indeed, money under certain circumstances is their enemy. and many a business man thanks his stars for the pinch which showed him that his best capital was in his own brains and not in bank loans. borrowing under certain circumstances is just like a drunkard taking another drink to cure the effect of the last one. it does not do what it is expected to do. it simply increases the difficulty. tightening up the loose places in a business is much more profitable than any amount of new capital at 7 per cent. the internal ailments of business are the ones that require most attention. "business" in the sense of trading with the people is largely a matter of filling the wants of the people. if you make what they need, and sell it at a price which makes possession a help and not a hardship, then you will do business as long as there is business to do. people buy what helps them just as naturally as they drink water. but the process of making the article will require constant care. machinery wears out and needs to be restored. men grow uppish, lazy, or careless. a business is men and machines united in the production of a commodity, and both the man and the machines need repairs and replacements. sometimes it is the men "higher up" who most need revamping--and they themselves are always the last to recognize it. when a business becomes congested with bad methods; when a business becomes ill through lack of attention to one or more of its functions; when executives sit comfortably back in their chairs as if the plans they inaugurated are going to keep them going forever; when business becomes a mere plantation on which to live, and not a big work which one has to do--then you may expect trouble. you will wake up some fine morning and find yourself doing more business than you have ever done before--and getting less out of it. you find yourself short of money. you can borrow money. and you can do it, oh, so easily. people will crowd money on you. it is the most subtle temptation the young business man has. but if you do borrow money you are simply giving a stimulant to whatever may be wrong. you feed the disease. is a man more wise with borrowed money than he is with his own? not as a usual thing. to borrow under such conditions is to mortgage a declining property. the time for a business man to borrow money, if ever, is when he does not need it. that is, when he does not need it as a substitute for the things he ought himself to do. if a man's business is in excellent condition and in need of expansion, it is comparatively safe to borrow. but if a business is in need of money through mismanagement, then the thing to do is to get into the business and correct the trouble from the inside--not poultice it with loans from the outside. my financial policy is the result of my sales policy. i hold that it is better to sell a large number of articles at a small profit than to sell a few at a large profit. this enables a larger number of people to buy and it gives a larger number of men employment at good wages. it permits the planning of production, the elimination of dull seasons, and the waste of carrying an idle plant. thus results a suitable, continuous business, and if you will think it over, you will discover that most so-called urgent financing is made necessary because of a lack of planned, continuous business. reducing prices is taken by the short-sighted to be the same as reducing the income of a business. it is very difficult to deal with that sort of a mind because it is so totally lacking in even the background knowledge of what business is. for instance, i was once asked, when contemplating a reduction of eighty dollars a car, whether on a production of five hundred thousand cars this would not reduce the income of the company by forty million dollars. of course if one sold only five hundred thousand cars at the new price, the income would be reduced forty million dollars--which is an interesting mathematical calculation that has nothing whatsoever to do with business, because unless you reduce the price of an article the sales do not continuously increase and therefore the business has no stability. if a business is not increasing, it is bound to be decreasing, and a decreasing business always needs a lot of financing. old-time business went on the doctrine that prices should always be kept up to the highest point at which people will buy. really modern business has to take the opposite view. bankers and lawyers can rarely appreciate this fact. they confuse inertia with stability. it is perfectly beyond their comprehension that the price should ever voluntarily be reduced. that is why putting the usual type of banker or lawyer into the management of a business is courting disaster. reducing prices increases the volume and disposes of finance, provided one regards the inevitable profit as a trust fund with which to conduct more and better business. our profit, because of the rapidity of the turnover in the business and the great volume of sales, has, no matter what the price at which the product was sold, always been large. we have had a small profit per article but a large aggregate profit. the profit is not constant. after cutting the prices, the profits for a time run low, but then the inevitable economies begin to get in their work and the profits go high again. but they are not distributed as dividends. i have always insisted on the payment of small dividends and the company has to-day no stockholders who wanted a different policy. i regard business profits above a small percentage as belonging more to the business than to the stockholders. the stockholders, to my way of thinking, ought to be only those who are active in the business and who will regard the company as an instrument of service rather than as a machine for making money. if large profits are made--and working to serve forces them to be large--then they should be in part turned back into the business so that it may be still better fitted to serve, and in part passed on to the purchaser. during one year our profits were so much larger than we expected them to be that we voluntarily returned fifty dollars to each purchaser of a car. we felt that unwittingly we had overcharged the purchaser by that much. my price policy and hence my financial policy came up in a suit brought against the company several years ago to compel the payment of larger dividends. on the witness stand i gave the policy then in force and which is still in force. it is this: in the first place, i hold that it is better to sell a large number of cars at a reasonably small margin than to sell fewer cars at a large margin of profit. i hold this because it enables a large number of people to buy and enjoy the use of a car and because it gives a larger number of men employment at good wages. those are aims i have in life. but i would not be counted a success; i would be, in fact, a flat failure if i could not accomplish that and at the same time make a fair amount of profit for myself and the men associated with me in business. this policy i hold is good business policy because it works--because with each succeeding year we have been able to put our car within the reach of greater and greater numbers, give employment to more and more men, and, at the same time, through the volume of business, increase our own profits beyond anything we had hoped for or even dreamed of when we started. bear in mind, every time you reduce the price of the car without reducing the quality, you increase the possible number of purchasers. there are many men who will pay $360 for a car who would not pay $440. we had in round numbers 500,000 buyers of cars on the $440 basis, and i figure that on the $360 basis we can increase the sales to possibly 800,000 cars for the year--less profit on each car, but more cars, more employment of labour, and in the end we shall get all the total profit we ought to make. and let me say right here, that i do not believe that we should make such an awful profit on our cars. a reasonable profit is right, but not too much. so it has been my policy to force the price of the car down as fast as production would permit, and give the benefits to users and labourers--with resulting surprisingly enormous benefits to ourselves. this policy does not agree with the general opinion that a business is to be managed to the end that the stockholders can take out the largest possible amount of cash. therefore i do not want stockholders in the ordinary sense of the term--they do not help forward the ability to serve. my ambition is to employ more and more men and to spread, in so far as i am able, the benefits of the industrial system that we are working to found; we want to help build lives and homes. this requires that the largest share of the profits be put back into productive enterprise. hence we have no place for the non-working stockholders. the working stockholder is more anxious to increase his opportunity to serve than to bank dividends. if it at any time became a question between lowering wages or abolishing dividends, i would abolish dividends. that time is not apt to come, for, as i have pointed out, there is no economy in low wages. it is bad financial policy to reduce wages because it also reduces buying power. if one believes that leadership brings responsibility, then a part of that responsibility is in seeing that those whom one leads shall have an adequate opportunity to earn a living. finance concerns not merely the profit or solvency of a company; it also comprehends the amount of money that the company turns back to the community through wages. there is no charity in this. there is no charity in proper wages. it is simply that no company can be said to be stable which is not so well managed that it can afford a man an opportunity to do a great deal of work and therefore to earn a good wage. there is something sacred about wages--they represent homes and families and domestic destinies. people ought to tread very carefully when approaching wages. on the cost sheet, wages are mere figures; out in the world, wages are bread boxes and coal bins, babies' cradles and children's education--family comforts and contentment. on the other hand, there is something just as sacred about capital which is used to provide the means by which work can be made productive. nobody is helped if our industries are sucked dry of their life-blood. there is something just as sacred about a shop that employs thousands of men as there is about a home. the shop is the mainstay of all the finer things which the home represents. if we want the home to be happy, we must contrive to keep the shop busy. the whole justification of the profits made by the shop is that they are used to make doubly secure the homes dependent on that shop, and to create more jobs for other men. if profits go to swell a personal fortune, that is one thing; if they go to provide a sounder basis for business, better working conditions, better wages, more extended employment--that is quite another thing. capital thus employed should not be carelessly tampered with. it is for the service of all, though it may be under the direction of one. profits belong in three places: they belong to the business--to keep it steady, progressive, and sound. they belong to the men who helped produce them. and they belong also, in part, to the public. a successful business is profitable to all three of these interests--planner, producer, and purchaser. people whose profits are excessive when measured by any sound standard should be the first to cut prices. but they never are. they pass all their extra costs down the line until the whole burden is borne by the consumer; and besides doing that, they charge the consumer a percentage on the increased charges. their whole business philosophy is: "get while the getting is good." they are the speculators, the exploiters, the no-good element that is always injuring legitimate business. there is nothing to be expected from them. they have no vision. they cannot see beyond their own cash registers. these people can talk more easily about a 10 or 20 per cent. cut in wages than they can about a 10 or 20 per cent. cut in profits. but a business man, surveying the whole community in all its interests and wishing to serve that community, ought to be able to make his contribution to stability. it has been our policy always to keep on hand a large amount of cash--the cash balance in recent years has usually been in excess of fifty million dollars. this is deposited in banks all over the country, we do not borrow but we have established lines of credit, so that if we so cared we might raise a very large amount of money by bank borrowing. but keeping the cash reserve makes borrowing unnecessary--our provision is only to be prepared to meet an emergency. i have no prejudice against proper borrowing. it is merely that i do not want to run the danger of having the control of the business and hence the particular idea of service to which i am devoted taken into other hands. a considerable part of finance is in the overcoming of seasonal operation. the flow of money ought to be nearly continuous. one must work steadily in order to work profitably. shutting down involves great waste. it brings the waste of unemployment of men, the waste of unemployment of equipment, and the waste of restricted future sales through the higher prices of interrupted production. that has been one of the problems we had to meet. we could not manufacture cars to stock during the winter months when purchases are less than in spring or summer. where or how could any one store half a million cars? and if stored, how could they be shipped in the rush season? and who would find the money to carry such a stock of cars even if they could be stored? seasonal work is hard on the working force. good mechanics will not accept jobs that are good for only part of the year. to work in full force twelve months of the year guarantees workmen of ability, builds up a permanent manufacturing organization, and continually improves the product--the men in the factory, through uninterrupted service, become more familiar with the operations. the factory must build, the sales department must sell, and the dealer must buy cars all the year through, if each would enjoy the maximum profit to be derived from the business. if the retail buyer will not consider purchasing except in "seasons," a campaign of education needs to be waged, proving the all-the-year-around value of a car rather than the limited-season value. and while the educating is being done, the manufacturer must build, and the dealer must buy, in anticipation of business. we were the first to meet the problem in the automobile business. the selling of ford cars is a merchandising proposition. in the days when every car was built to order and 50 cars a month a big output, it was reasonable to wait for the sale before ordering. the manufacturer waited for the order before building. we very shortly found that we could not do business on order. the factory could not be built large enough--even were it desirable--to make between march and august all the cars that were ordered during those months. therefore, years ago began the campaign of education to demonstrate that a ford was not a summer luxury but a year-round necessity. coupled with that came the education of the dealer into the knowledge that even if he could not sell so many cars in winter as in summer it would pay him to stock in winter for the summer and thus be able to make instant delivery. both plans have worked out; in most parts of the country cars are used almost as much in winter as in summer. it has been found that they will run in snow, ice, or mud--in anything. hence the winter sales are constantly growing larger and the seasonal demand is in part lifted from the dealer. and he finds it profitable to buy ahead in anticipation of needs. thus we have no seasons in the plant; the production, up until the last couple of years, has been continuous excepting for the annual shut downs for inventory. we have had an interruption during the period of extreme depression but it was an interruption made necessary in the process of readjusting ourselves to the market conditions. in order to attain continuous production and hence a continuous turning over of money we have had to plan our operations with extreme care. the plan of production is worked out very carefully each month between the sales and production departments, with the object of producing enough cars so that those in transit will take care of the orders in hand. formerly, when we assembled and shipped cars, this was of the highest importance because we had no place in which to store finished cars. now we ship parts instead of cars and assemble only those required for the detroit district. that makes the planning no less important, for if the production stream and the order stream are not approximately equal we should be either jammed with unsold parts or behind in our orders. when you are turning out the parts to make 4,000 cars a day, just a very little carelessness in overestimating orders will pile up a finished inventory running into the millions. that makes the balancing of operations an exceedingly delicate matter. in order to earn the proper profit on our narrow margin we must have a rapid turnover. we make cars to sell, not to store, and a month's unsold production would turn into a sum the interest on which alone would be enormous. the production is planned a year ahead and the number of cars to be made in each month of the year is scheduled, for of course it is a big problem to have the raw materials and such parts as we still buy from the outside flowing in consonance with production. we can no more afford to carry large stocks of finished than we can of raw material. everything has to move in and move out. and we have had some narrow escapes. some years ago the plant of the diamond manufacturing company burned down. they were making radiator parts for us and the brass parts--tubings and castings. we had to move quickly or take a big loss. we got together the heads of all our departments, the pattern-makers and the draughtsmen. they worked from twenty-four to forty-eight hours on a stretch. they made new patterns; the diamond company leased a plant and got some machinery in by express. we furnished the other equipment for them and in twenty days they were shipping again. we had enough stock on hand to carry us over, say, for seven or eight days, but that fire prevented us shipping cars for ten or fifteen days. except for our having stock ahead it would have held us up for twenty days--and our expenses would have gone right on. to repeat. the place in which to finance is the shop. it has never failed us, and once, when it was thought that we were hard up for money, it served rather conclusively to demonstrate how much better finance can be conducted from the inside than from the outside. chapter xii money--master or servant? in december, 1920, business the country over was marking time. more automobile plants were closed than were open and quite a number of those which were closed were completely in the charge of bankers. rumours of bad financial condition were afloat concerning nearly every industrial company, and i became interested when the reports persisted that the ford motor company not only needed money but could not get it. i have become accustomed to all kinds of rumours about our company--so much so, that nowadays i rarely deny any sort of rumour. but these reports differed from all previous ones. they were so exact and circumstantial. i learned that i had overcome my prejudice against borrowing and that i might be found almost any day down in wall street, hat in hand, asking for money. and rumour went even further and said that no one would give me money and that i might have to break up and go out of business. it is true that we did have a problem. in 1919 we had borrowed $70,000,000 on notes to buy the full stock interest in the ford motor company. on this we had $33,000,000 left to pay. we had $18,000,000 in income taxes due or shortly to become due to the government, and also we intended to pay our usual bonus for the year to the workmen, which amounted to $7,000,000. altogether, between january 1st and april 18, 1921, we had payments ahead totaling $58,000,000. we had only $20,000,000 in bank. our balance sheet was more or less common knowledge and i suppose it was taken for granted that we could not raise the $38,000,000 needed without borrowing. for that is quite a large sum of money. without the aid of wall street such a sum could not easily and quickly be raised. we were perfectly good for the money. two years before we had borrowed $70,000,000. and since our whole property was unencumbered and we had no commercial debts, the matter of lending a large sum to us would not ordinarily have been a matter of moment. in fact, it would have been good banking business. however, i began to see that our need for money was being industriously circulated as an evidence of impending failure. then i began to suspect that, although the rumours came in news dispatches from all over the country, they might perhaps be traced to a single source. this belief was further strengthened when we were informed that a very fat financial editor was at battle creek sending out bulletins concerning the acuteness of our financial condition. therefore, i took care not to deny a single rumour. we had made our financial plans and they did not include borrowing money. i cannot too greatly emphasize that the very worst time to borrow money is when the banking people think that you need money. in the last chapter i outlined our financial principles. we simply applied those principles. we planned a thorough house-cleaning. go back a bit and see what the conditions were. along in the early part of 1920 came the first indications that the feverish speculative business engendered by the war was not going to continue. a few concerns that had sprung out of the war and had no real reason for existence failed. people slowed down in their buying. our own sales kept right along, but we knew that sooner or later they would drop off. i thought seriously of cutting prices, but the costs of manufacturing everywhere were out of control. labour gave less and less in return for high wages. the suppliers of raw material refused even to think of coming back to earth. the very plain warnings of the storm went quite unheeded. in june our own sales began to be affected. they grew less and less each month from june on until september. we had to do something to bring our product within the purchasing power of the public, and not only that, we had to do something drastic enough to demonstrate to the public that we were actually playing the game and not just shamming. therefore in september we cut the price of the touring car from $575 to $440. we cut the price far below the cost of production, for we were still making from stock bought at boom prices. the cut created a considerable sensation. we received a deal of criticism. it was said that we were disturbing conditions. that is exactly what we were trying to do. we wanted to do our part in bringing prices from an artificial to a natural level. i am firmly of the opinion that if at this time or earlier manufacturers and distributors had all made drastic cuts in their prices and had put through thorough house-cleanings we should not have so long a business depression. hanging on in the hope of getting higher prices simply delayed adjustment. nobody got the higher prices they hoped for, and if the losses had been taken all at once, not only would the productive and the buying powers of the country have become harmonized, but we should have been saved this long period of general idleness. hanging on in the hope of higher prices merely made the losses greater, because those who hung on had to pay interest on their high-priced stocks and also lost the profits they might have made by working on a sensible basis. unemployment cut down wage distribution and thus the buyer and the seller became more and more separated. there was a lot of flurried talk of arranging to give vast credits to europe--the idea being that thereby the high-priced stocks might be palmed off. of course the proposals were not put in any such crude fashion, and i think that quite a lot of people sincerely believed that if large credits were extended abroad even without a hope of the payment of either principal or interest, american business would somehow be benefited. it is true that if these credits were taken by american banks, those who had high-priced stocks might have gotten rid of them at a profit, but the banks would have acquired so much frozen credit that they would have more nearly resembled ice houses than banks. i suppose it is natural to hang on to the possibility of profits until the very last moment, but it is not good business. our own sales, after the cut, increased, but soon they began to fall off again. we were not sufficiently within the purchasing power of the country to make buying easy. retail prices generally had not touched bottom. the public distrusted all prices. we laid our plans for another cut and we kept our production around one hundred thousand cars a month. this production was not justified by our sales but we wanted to have as much as possible of our raw material transformed into finished product before we shut down. we knew that we would have to shut down in order to take an inventory and clean house. we wanted to open with another big cut and to have cars on hand to supply the demand. then the new cars could be built out of material bought at lower prices. we determined that we were going to get lower prices. we shut down in december with the intention of opening again in about two weeks. we found so much to do that actually we did not open for nearly six weeks. the moment that we shut down the rumours concerning our financial condition became more and more active. i know that a great many people hoped that we should have to go out after money--for, were we seeking money, then we should have to come to terms. we did not ask for money. we did not want money. we had one offer of money. an officer of a new york bank called on me with a financial plan which included a large loan and in which also was an arrangement by which a representative of the bankers would act as treasurer and take charge of the finance of the company. those people meant well enough, i am quite sure. we did not want to borrow money but it so happened that at the moment we were without a treasurer. to that extent the bankers had envisaged our condition correctly. i asked my son edsel to be treasurer as well as president of the company. that fixed us up as to a treasurer, so there was really nothing at all that the bankers could do for us. then we began our house-cleaning. during the war we had gone into many kinds of war work and had thus been forced to depart from our principle of a single product. this had caused many new departments to be added. the office force had expanded and much of the wastefulness of scattered production had crept in. war work is rush work and is wasteful work. we began throwing out everything that did not contribute to the production of cars. the only immediate payment scheduled was the purely voluntary one of a seven-million-dollar bonus to our workmen. there was no obligation to pay, but we wanted to pay on the first of january. that we paid out of our cash on hand. throughout the country we have thirty-five branches. these are all assembling plants, but in twenty-two of them parts are also manufactured. they had stopped the making of parts but they went on assembling cars. at the time of shutting down we had practically no cars in detroit. we had shipped out all the parts, and during january the detroit dealers actually had to go as far a field as chicago and columbus to get cars for local needs. the branches shipped to each dealer, under his yearly quota, enough cars to cover about a month's sales. the dealers worked hard on sales. during the latter part of january we called in a skeleton organization of about ten thousand men, mostly foremen, sub-foremen, and straw bosses, and we started highland park into production. we collected our foreign accounts and sold our by-products. then we were ready for full production. and gradually into full production we went--on a profitable basis. the house-cleaning swept out the waste that had both made the prices high and absorbed the profit. we sold off the useless stuff. before we had employed fifteen men per car per day. afterward we employed nine per car per day. this did not mean that six out of fifteen men lost their jobs. they only ceased being unproductive. we made that cut by applying the rule that everything and everybody must produce or get out. we cut our office forces in halves and offered the office workers better jobs in the shops. most of them took the jobs. we abolished every order blank and every form of statistics that did not directly aid in the production of a car. we had been collecting tons of statistics because they were interesting. but statistics will not construct automobiles--so out they went. we took out 60 per cent. of our telephone extensions. only a comparatively few men in any organization need telephones. we formerly had a foreman for every five men; now we have a foreman for every twenty men. the other foremen are working on machines. we cut the overhead charge from $146 a car to $93 a car, and when you realize what this means on more than four thousand cars a day you will have an idea how, not by economy, not by wage-cutting, but by the elimination of waste, it is possible to make an "impossible" price. most important of all, we found out how to use less money in our business by speeding up the turnover. and in increasing the turnover rate, one of the most important factors was the detroit, toledo, & ironton railroad--which we purchased. the railroad took a large place in the scheme of economy. to the road itself i have given another chapter. we discovered, after a little experimenting, that freight service could be improved sufficiently to reduce the cycle of manufacture from twenty-two to fourteen days. that is, raw material could be bought, manufactured, and the finished product put into the hands of the distributor in (roughly) 33 per cent. less time than before. we had been carrying an inventory of around $60,000,000 to insure uninterrupted production. cutting down the time one third released $20,000,000, or $1,200,000 a year in interest. counting the finished inventory, we saved approximately $8,000,000 more--that is, we were able to release $28,000,000 in capital and save the interest on that sum. on january 1st we had $20,000,000. on april 1st we had $87,300,000, or $27,300,000 more than we needed to wipe out all our indebtedness. that is what boring into the business did for us! this amount came to us in these items: cash on hand, january $20,000,000 stock on hand turned into cash, january 1 to april 1 24,700,000 speeding up transit of goods released 28,000,000 collected from agents in foreign countries 3,000,000 sale of by-products 3,700,000 sale of liberty bonds 7,900,000 total $87,300,000 now i have told about all this not in the way of an exploit, but to point out how a business may find resources within itself instead of borrowing, and also to start a little thinking as to whether the form of our money may not put a premium on borrowing and thus give far too great a place in life to the bankers. we could have borrowed $40,000,000--more had we wanted to. suppose we had borrowed, what would have happened? should we have been better fitted to go on with our business? or worse fitted? if we had borrowed we should not have been under the necessity of finding methods to cheapen production. had we been able to obtain the money at 6 per cent. flat--and we should in commissions and the like have had to pay more than that--the interest charge alone on a yearly production of 500,000 cars would have amounted to about four dollars a car. therefore we should now be without the benefit of better production and loaded with a heavy debt. our cars would probably cost about one hundred dollars more than they do; hence we should have a smaller production, for we could not have so many buyers; we should employ fewer men, and in short, should not be able to serve to the utmost. you will note that the financiers proposed to cure by lending money and not by bettering methods. they did not suggest putting in an engineer; they wanted to put in a treasurer. and that is the danger of having bankers in business. they think solely in terms of money. they think of a factory as making money, not goods. they want to watch the money, not the efficiency of production. they cannot comprehend that a business never stands still, it must go forward or go back. they regard a reduction in prices as a throwing away of profit instead of as a building of business. bankers play far too great a part in the conduct of industry. most business men will privately admit that fact. they will seldom publicly admit it because they are afraid of their bankers. it required less skill to make a fortune dealing in money than dealing in production. the average successful banker is by no means so intelligent and resourceful a man as is the average successful business man. yet the banker through his control of credit practically controls the average business man. there has been a great reaching out by bankers in the last fifteen or twenty years--and especially since the war--and the federal reserve system for a time put into their hands an almost limitless supply of credit. the banker is, as i have noted, by training and because of his position, totally unsuited to the conduct of industry. if, therefore, the controllers of credit have lately acquired this very large power, is it not to be taken as a sign that there is something wrong with the financial system that gives to finance instead of to service the predominant power in industry? it was not the industrial acumen of the bankers that brought them into the management of industry. everyone will admit that. they were pushed there, willy-nilly, by the system itself. therefore, i personally want to discover whether we are operating under the best financial system. now, let me say at once that my objection to bankers has nothing to do with personalities. i am not against bankers as such. we stand very much in need of thoughtful men, skilled in finance. the world cannot go on without banking facilities. we have to have money. we have to have credit. otherwise the fruits of production could not be exchanged. we have to have capital. without it there could be no production. but whether we have based our banking and our credit on the right foundation is quite another matter. it is no part of my thought to attack our financial system. i am not in the position of one who has been beaten by the system and wants revenge. it does not make the least difference to me personally what bankers do because we have been able to manage our affairs without outside financial aid. my inquiry is prompted by no personal motive whatsoever. i only want to know whether the greatest good is being rendered to the greatest number. no financial system is good which favors one class of producers over another. we want to discover whether it is not possible to take away power which is not based on wealth creation. any sort of class legislation is pernicious. i think that the country's production has become so changed in its methods that gold is not the best medium with which it may be measured, and that the gold standard as a control of credit gives, as it is now (and i believe inevitably) administered, class advantage. the ultimate check on credit is the amount of gold in the country, regardless of the amount of wealth in the country. i am not prepared to dogmatize on the subject of money or credit. as far as money and credit are concerned, no one as yet knows enough about them to dogmatize. the whole question will have to be settled as all other questions of real importance have to be settled, and that is by cautious, well-founded experiment. and i am not inclined to go beyond cautious experiments. we have to proceed step by step and very carefully. the question is not political, it is economic, and i am perfectly certain that helping the people to think on the question is wholly advantageous. they will not act without adequate knowledge, and thus cause disaster, if a sincere effort is made to provide them with knowledge. the money question has first place in multitudes of minds of all degrees or power. but a glance at most of the cure-all systems shows how contradictory they are. the majority of them make the assumption of honesty among mankind, to begin with, and that, of course, is a prime defect. even our present system would work splendidly if all men were honest. as a matter of fact, the whole money question is 95 per cent. human nature; and your successful system must check human nature, not depend upon it. the people are thinking about the money question; and if the money masters have any information which they think the people ought to have to prevent them going astray, now is the time to give it. the days are fast slipping away when the fear of credit curtailment will avail, or when wordy slogans will affright. the people are naturally conservative. they are more conservative than the financiers. those who believe that the people are so easily led that they would permit printing presses to run off money like milk tickets do not understand them. it is the innate conservation of the people that has kept our money good in spite of the fantastic tricks which the financiers play--and which they cover up with high technical terms. the people are on the side of sound money. they are so unalterably on the side of sound money that it is a serious question how they would regard the system under which they live, if they once knew what the initiated can do with it. the present money system is not going to be changed by speech-making or political sensationalism or economic experiment. it is going to change under the pressure of conditions--conditions that we cannot control and pressure that we cannot control. these conditions are now with us; that pressure is now upon us. the people must be helped to think naturally about money. they must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few. money, after all, is extremely simple. it is a part of our transportation system. it is a simple and direct method of conveying goods from one person to another. money is in itself most admirable. it is essential. it is not intrinsically evil. it is one of the most useful devices in social life. and when it does what it was intended to do, it is all help and no hindrance. but money should always be money. a foot is always twelve inches, but when is a dollar a dollar? if ton weights changed in the coal yard, and peck measures changed in the grocery, and yard sticks were to-day 42 inches and to-morrow 33 inches (by some occult process called "exchange") the people would mighty soon remedy that. when a dollar is not always a dollar, when the 100-cent dollar becomes the 65-cent dollar, and then the 50-cent dollar, and then the 47-cent dollar, as the good old american gold and silver dollars did, what is the use of yelling about "cheap money," "depreciated money"? a dollar that stays 100 cents is as necessary as a pound that stays 16 ounces and a yard that stays 36 inches. the bankers who do straight banking should regard themselves as naturally the first men to probe and understand our monetary system--instead of being content with the mastery of local banking-house methods; and if they would deprive the gamblers in bank balances of the name of "banker" and oust them once for all from the place of influence which that name gives them, banking would be restored and established as the public service it ought to be, and the iniquities of the present monetary system and financial devices would be lifted from the shoulders of the people. there is an "if" here, of course. but it is not insurmountable. affairs are coming to a jam as it is, and if those who possess technical facility do not engage to remedy the case, those who lack that facility may attempt it. nothing is more foolish than for any class to assume that progress is an attack upon it. progress is only a call made upon it to lend its experience for the general advancement. it is only those who are unwise who will attempt to obstruct progress and thereby become its victims. all of us are here together, all of us must go forward together; it is perfectly silly for any man or class to take umbrage at the stirring of progress. if financiers feel that progress is only the restlessness of weak-minded persons, if they regard all suggestions of betterment as a personal slap, then they are taking the part which proves more than anything else could their unfitness to continue in their leadership. if the present faulty system is more profitable to a financier than a more perfect system would be, and if that financier values his few remaining years of personal profits more highly than he would value the honour of making a contribution to the life of the world by helping to erect a better system, then there is no way of preventing a clash of interests. but it is fair to say to the selfish financial interests that, if their fight is waged to perpetuate a system just because it profits them, then their fight is already lost. why should finance fear? the world will still be here. men will do business with one another. there will be money and there will be need of masters of the mechanism of money. nothing is going to depart but the knots and tangles. there will be some readjustments, of course. banks will no longer be the masters of industry. they will be the servants of industry. business will control money instead of money controlling business. the ruinous interest system will be greatly modified. banking will not be a risk, but a service. banks will begin to do much more for the people than they do now, and instead of being the most expensive businesses in the world to manage, and the most highly profitable in the matter of dividends, they will become less costly, and the profits of their operation will go to the community which they serve. two facts of the old order are fundamental. first: that within the nation itself the tendency of financial control is toward its largest centralized banking institutions--either a government bank or a closely allied group of private financiers. there is always in every nation a definite control of credit by private or semi-public interests. second: in the world as a whole the same centralizing tendency is operative. an american credit is under control of new york interests, as before the war world credit was controlled in london--the british pound sterling was the standard of exchange for the world's trade. two methods of reform are open to us, one beginning at the bottom and one beginning at the top. the latter is the more orderly way, the former is being tried in russia. if our reform should begin at the top it will require a social vision and an altruistic fervour of a sincerity and intensity which is wholly inconsistent with selfish shrewdness. the wealth of the world neither consists in nor is adequately represented by the money of the world. gold itself is not a valuable commodity. it is no more wealth than hat checks are hats. but it can be so manipulated, as the sign of wealth, as to give its owners or controllers the whip-hand over the credit which producers of real wealth require. dealing in money, the commodity of exchange, is a very lucrative business. when money itself becomes an article of commerce to be bought and sold before real wealth can be moved or exchanged, the usurers and speculators are thereby permitted to lay a tax on production. the hold which controllers of money are able to maintain on productive forces is seen to be more powerful when it is remembered that, although money is supposed to represent the real wealth of the world, there is always much more wealth than there is money, and real wealth is often compelled to wait upon money, thus leading to that most paradoxical situation--a world filled with wealth but suffering want. these facts are not merely fiscal, to be cast into figures and left there. they are instinct with human destiny and they bleed. the poverty of the world is seldom caused by lack of goods but by a "money stringency." commercial competition between nations, which leads to international rivalry and ill-will, which in their turn breed wars-these are some of the human significations of these facts. thus poverty and war, two great preventable evils, grow on a single stem. let us see if a beginning toward a better method cannot be made. chapter xiii why be poor? poverty springs from a number of sources, the more important of which are controllable. so does special privilege. i think it is entirely feasible to abolish both poverty and special privilege--and there can be no question but that their abolition is desirable. both are unnatural, but it is work, not law, to which we must look for results. by poverty i mean the lack of reasonably sufficient food, housing, and clothing for an individual or a family. there will have to be differences in the grades of sustenance. men are not equal in mentality or in physique. any plan which starts with the assumption that men are or ought to be equal is unnatural and therefore unworkable. there can be no feasible or desirable process of leveling down. such a course only promotes poverty by making it universal instead of exceptional. forcing the efficient producer to become inefficient does not make the inefficient producer more efficient. poverty can be done away with only by plenty, and we have now gone far enough along in the science of production to be able to see, as a natural development, the day when production and distribution will be so scientific that all may have according to ability and industry. the extreme socialists went wide of the mark in their reasoning that industry would inevitably crush the worker. modern industry is gradually lifting the worker and the world. we only need to know more about planning and methods. the best results can and will be brought about by individual initiative and ingenuity--by intelligent individual leadership. the government, because it is essentially negative, cannot give positive aid to any really constructive programme. it can give negative aid--by removing obstructions to progress and by ceasing to be a burden upon the community. the underlying causes of poverty, as i can see them, are essentially due to the bad adjustment between production and distribution, in both industry and agriculture--between the source of power and its application. the wastes due to lack of adjustment are stupendous. all of these wastes must fall before intelligent leadership consecrated to service. so long as leadership thinks more of money than it does of service, the wastes will continue. waste is prevented by far-sighted not by short-sighted men. short-sighted men think first of money. they cannot see waste. they think of service as altruistic instead of as the most practical thing in the world. they cannot get far enough away from the little things to see the big things--to see the biggest thing of all, which is that opportunist production from a purely money standpoint is the least profitable. service can be based upon altruism, but that sort of service is not usually the best. the sentimental trips up the practical. it is not that the industrial enterprises are unable fairly to distribute a share of the wealth which they create. it is simply that the waste is so great that there is not a sufficient share for everyone engaged, notwithstanding the fact that the product is usually sold at so high a price as to restrict its fullest consumption. take some of the wastes. take the wastes of power. the mississippi valley is without coal. through its centre pour many millions of potential horsepower--the mississippi river. but if the people by its banks want power or heat they buy coal that has been hauled hundreds of miles and consequently has to be sold at far above its worth as heat or power. or if they cannot afford to buy this expensive coal, they go out and cut down trees, thereby depriving themselves of one of the great conservers of water power. until recently they never thought of the power at hand which, at next to nothing beyond the initial cost, could heat, light, cook, and work for the huge population which that valley is destined to support. the cure of poverty is not in personal economy but in better production. the "thrift" and "economy" ideas have been overworked. the word "economy" represents a fear. the great and tragic fact of waste is impressed on a mind by some circumstance, usually of a most materialistic kind. there comes a violent reaction against extravagance--the mind catches hold of the idea of "economy." but it only flies from a greater to a lesser evil; it does not make the full journey from error to truth. economy is the rule of half-alive minds. there can be no doubt that it is better than waste; neither can there be any doubt that it is not as good as use. people who pride themselves on their economy take it as a virtue. but what is more pitiable than a poor, pinched mind spending the rich days and years clutching a few bits of metal? what can be fine about paring the necessities of life to the very quick? we all know "economical people" who seem to be niggardly even about the amount of air they breathe and the amount of appreciation they will allow themselves to give to anything. they shrivel--body and soul. economy is waste: it is waste of the juices of life, the sap of living. for there are two kinds of waste--that of the prodigal who throws his substance away in riotous living, and that of the sluggard who allows his substance to rot from non-use. the rigid economizer is in danger of being classed with the sluggard. extravagance is usually a reaction from suppression of expenditure. economy is likely to be a reaction from extravagance. everything was given us to use. there is no evil from which we suffer that did not come about through misuse. the worst sin we can commit against the things of our common life is to misuse them. "misuse" is the wider term. we like to say "waste," but waste is only one phase of misuse. all waste is misuse; all misuse is waste. it is possible even to overemphasize the saving habit. it is proper and desirable that everyone have a margin; it is really wasteful not to have one--if you can have one. but it can be overdone. we teach children to save their money. as an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that has a value. but it is not positive; it does not lead the child out into the safe and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. to teach a child to invest and use is better than to teach him to save. most men who are laboriously saving a few dollars would do better to invest those few dollars--first in themselves, and then in some useful work. eventually they would have more to save. young men ought to invest rather than save. they ought to invest in themselves to increase creative value; after they have taken themselves to the peak of usefulness, then will be time enough to think of laying aside, as a fixed policy, a certain substantial share of income. you are not "saving" when you prevent yourself from becoming more productive. you are really taking away from your ultimate capital; you are reducing the value of one of nature's investments. the principle of use is the true guide. use is positive, active, life-giving. use is alive. use adds to the sum of good. personal want may be avoided without changing the general condition. wage increases, price increases, profit increases, other kinds of increases designed to bring more money here or money there, are only attempts of this or that class to get out of the fire--regardless of what may happen to everyone else. there is a foolish belief that if only the money can be gotten, somehow the storm can be weathered. labour believes that if it can get more wages, it can weather the storm. capital thinks that if it can get more profits, it can weather the storm. there is a pathetic faith in what money can do. money is very useful in normal times, but money has no more value than the people put into it by production, and it can be so misused. it can be so superstitiously worshipped as a substitute for real wealth as to destroy its value altogether. the idea persists that there exists an essential conflict between industry and the farm. there is no such conflict. it is nonsense to say that because the cities are overcrowded everybody ought to go back to the farm. if everybody did so farming would soon decline as a satisfactory occupation. it is not more sensible for everyone to flock to the manufacturing towns. if the farms be deserted, of what use are manufacturers? a reciprocity can exist between farming and manufacturing. the manufacturer can give the farmer what he needs to be a good farmer, and the farmer and other producers of raw materials can give the manufacturer what he needs to be a good manufacturer. then with transportation as a messenger, we shall have a stable and a sound system built on service. if we live in smaller communities where the tension of living is not so high, and where the products of the fields and gardens can be had without the interference of so many profiteers, there will be little poverty or unrest. look at this whole matter of seasonal work. take building as an example of a seasonal trade. what a waste of power it is to allow builders to hibernate through the winter, waiting for the building season to come around! and what an equal waste of skill it is to force experienced artisans who have gone into factories to escape the loss of the winter season to stay in the factory jobs through the building season because they are afraid they may not get their factory places back in the winter. what a waste this all-year system has been! if the farmer could get away from the shop to till his farm in the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons (they are only a small part of the year, after all), and if the builder could get away from the shop to ply his useful trade in its season, how much better they would be, and how much more smoothly the world would proceed. suppose we all moved outdoors every spring and summer and lived the wholesome life of the outdoors for three or four months! we could not have "slack times." the farm has its dull season. that is the time for the farmer to come into the factory and help produce the things he needs to till the farm. the factory also has its dull season. that is the time for the workmen to go out to the land to help produce food. thus we might take the slack out of work and restore the balance between the artificial and the natural. but not the least benefit would be the more balanced view of life we should thus obtain. the mixing of the arts is not only beneficial in a material way, but it makes for breadth of mind and fairness of judgment. a great deal of our unrest to-day is the result of narrow, prejudiced judgment. if our work were more diversified, if we saw more sides of life, if we saw how necessary was one factor to another, we should be more balanced. every man is better for a period of work under the open sky. it is not at all impossible. what is desirable and right is never impossible. it would only mean a little teamwork--a little less attention to greedy ambition and a little more attention to life. those who are rich find it desirable to go away for three or four months a year and dawdle in idleness around some fancy winter or summer resort. the rank and file of the american people would not waste their time that way even if they could. but they would provide the team-work necessary for an outdoor, seasonal employment. it is hardly possible to doubt that much of the unrest we see about us is the result of unnatural modes of life. men who do the same thing continuously the year around and are shut away from the health of the sun and the spaciousness of the great out of doors are hardly to be blamed if they see matters in a distorted light. and that applies equally to the capitalist and the worker. what is there in life that should hamper normal and wholesome modes of living? and what is there in industry incompatible with all the arts receiving in their turn the attention of those qualified to serve in them? it may be objected that if the forces of industry were withdrawn from the shops every summer it would impede production. but we must look at the matter from a universal point of view. we must consider the increased energy of the industrial forces after three or four months in outdoor work. we must also consider the effect on the cost of living which would result from a general return to the fields. we have, as i indicated in a previous chapter, been working toward this combination of farm and factory and with entirely satisfactory results. at northville, not far from detroit, we have a little factory making valves. it is a little factory, but it makes a great many valves. both the management and the mechanism of the plant are comparatively simple because it makes but one thing. we do not have to search for skilled employees. the skill is in the machine. the people of the countryside can work in the plant part of the time and on the farm part of the time, for mechanical farming is not very laborious. the plant power is derived from water. another plant on a somewhat larger scale is in building at flat rock, about fifteen miles from detroit. we have dammed the river. the dam also serves as a bridge for the detroit, toledo & ironton railway, which was in need of a new bridge at that point, and a road for the public--all in one construction. we are going to make our glass at this point. the damming of the river gives sufficient water for the floating to us of most of our raw material. it also gives us our power through a hydroelectric plant. and, being well out in the midst of the farming country, there can be no possibility of crowding or any of the ills incident to too great a concentration of population. the men will have plots of ground or farms as well as their jobs in the factory, and these can be scattered over fifteen or twenty miles surrounding--for of course nowadays the workingman can come to the shop in an automobile. there we shall have the combination of agriculture and industrialism and the entire absence of all the evils of concentration. the belief that an industrial country has to concentrate its industries is not, in my opinion, well-founded. that is only a stage in industrial development. as we learn more about manufacturing and learn to make articles with interchangeable parts, then those parts can be made under the best possible conditions. and these best possible conditions, as far as the employees are concerned, are also the best possible conditions from the manufacturing standpoint. one could not put a great plant on a little stream. one can put a small plant on a little stream, and the combination of little plants, each making a single part, will make the whole cheaper than a vast factory would. there are exceptions, as where casting has to be done. in such case, as at river rouge, we want to combine the making of the metal and the casting of it and also we want to use all of the waste power. this requires a large investment and a considerable force of men in one place. but such combinations are the exception rather than the rule, and there would not be enough of them seriously to interfere with the process of breaking down the concentration of industry. industry will decentralize. there is no city that would be rebuilt as it is, were it destroyed--which fact is in itself a confession of our real estimate of our cities. the city had a place to fill, a work to do. doubtless the country places would not have approximated their livableness had it not been for the cities. by crowding together, men have learned some secrets. they would never have learned them alone in the country. sanitation, lighting, social organization--all these are products of men's experience in the city. but also every social ailment from which we to-day suffer originated and centres in the big cities. you will find the smaller communities living along in unison with the seasons, having neither extreme poverty nor wealth--none of the violent plagues of upheave and unrest which afflict our great populations. there is something about a city of a million people which is untamed and threatening. thirty miles away, happy and contented villages read of the ravings of the city! a great city is really a helpless mass. everything it uses is carried to it. stop transport and the city stops. it lives off the shelves of stores. the shelves produce nothing. the city cannot feed, clothe, warm, or house itself. city conditions of work and living are so artificial that instincts sometimes rebel against their unnaturalness. and finally, the overhead expense of living or doing business in the great cities is becoming so large as to be unbearable. it places so great a tax upon life that there is no surplus over to live on. the politicians have found it easy to borrow money and they have borrowed to the limit. within the last decade the expense of running every city in the country has tremendously increased. a good part of that expense is for interest upon money borrowed; the money has gone either into non-productive brick, stone, and mortar, or into necessities of city life, such as water supplies and sewage systems at far above a reasonable cost. the cost of maintaining these works, the cost of keeping in order great masses of people and traffic is greater than the advantages derived from community life. the modern city has been prodigal, it is to-day bankrupt, and to-morrow it will cease to be. the provision of a great amount of cheap and convenient power--not all at once, but as it may be used--will do more than anything else to bring about the balancing of life and the cutting of the waste which breeds poverty. there is no single source of power. it may be that generating electricity by a steam plant at the mine mouth will be the most economical method for one community. hydro-electric power may be best for another community. but certainly in every community there ought to be a central station to furnish cheap power--it ought to be held as essential as a railway or a water supply. and we could have every great source of power harnessed and working for the common good were it not that the expense of obtaining capital stands in the way. i think that we shall have to revise some of our notions about capital. capital that a business makes for itself, that is employed to expand the workman's opportunity and increase his comfort and prosperity, and that is used to give more and more men work, at the same time reducing the cost of service to the public--that sort of capital, even though it be under single control, is not a menace to humanity. it is a working surplus held in trust and daily use for the benefit of all. the holder of such capital can scarcely regard it as a personal reward. no man can view such a surplus as his own, for he did not create it alone. it is the joint product of his whole organization. the owner's idea may have released all the energy and direction, but certainly it did not supply all the energy and direction. every workman was a partner in the creation. no business can possibly be considered only with reference to to-day and to the individuals engaged in it. it must have the means to carry on. the best wages ought to be paid. a proper living ought to be assured every participant in the business--no matter what his part. but, for the sake of that business's ability to support those who work in it, a surplus has to be held somewhere. the truly honest manufacturer holds his surplus profits in that trust. ultimately it does not matter where this surplus be held nor who controls it; it is its use that matters. capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labour better and the reward of daily labour more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. the highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life. unless we in our industries are helping to solve the social problem, we are not doing our principal work. we are not fully serving. chapter xiv the tractor and power farming it is not generally known that our tractor, which we call the "fordson," was put into production about a year before we had intended, because of the allies' war-time food emergency, and that all of our early production (aside, of course, from the trial and experimental machines) went directly to england. we sent in all five thousand tractors across the sea in the critical 1917-18 period when the submarines were busiest. every one of them arrived safely, and officers of the british government have been good enough to say that without their aid england could scarcely have met its food crisis. it was these tractors, run mostly by women, that ploughed up the old estates and golf courses and let all england be planted and cultivated without taking away from the fighting man power or crippling the forces in the munitions factories. it came about in this way: the english food administration, about the time that we entered the war in 1917, saw that, with the german submarines torpedoing a freighter almost every day, the already low supply of shipping was going to be totally inadequate to carry the american troops across the seas, to carry the essential munitions for these troops and the allies, to carry the food for the fighting forces, and at the same time carry enough food for the home population of england. it was then that they began shipping out of england the wives and families of the colonials and made plans for the growing of crops at home. the situation was a grave one. there were not enough draft animals in all england to plough and cultivate land to raise crops in sufficient volume to make even a dent in the food imports. power farming was scarcely known, for the english farms were not, before the war, big enough to warrant the purchase of heavy, expensive farm machinery, and especially with agricultural labour so cheap and plentiful. various concerns in england made tractors, but they were heavy affairs and mostly run by steam. there were not enough of them to go around. more could not easily be made, for all the factories were working on munitions, and even if they had been made they were too big and clumsy for the average field and in addition required the management of engineers. we had put together several tractors at our manchester plant for demonstration purposes. they had been made in the united states and merely assembled in england. the board of agriculture requested the royal agricultural society to make a test of these tractors and report. this is what they reported: at the request of the royal agricultural society of england, we have examined two ford tractors, rated at 25 h. p., at work ploughing: first, cross-ploughing a fallow of strong land in a dirty condition, and subsequently in a field of lighter land which had seeded itself down into rough grass, and which afforded every opportunity of testing the motor on the level and on a steep hill. in the first trial, a 2-furrow oliver plough was used, ploughing on an average 5 inches deep with a 16-inch wide furrow; a 3-furrow cockshutt plough was also used at the same depth with the breast pitched 10 inches. in the second trial, the 3-furrow plough was used, ploughing an average of 6 inches deep. in both cases the motor did its work with ease, and on a measured acre the time occupied was 1 hour 30 minutes, with a consumption of 2 gallons of paraffin per acre. these results we consider very satisfactory. the ploughs were not quite suitable to the land, and the tractors, consequently, were working at some disadvantage. the total weight of the tractor fully loaded with fuel and water, as weighed by us, was 23 1/4 cwts. the tractor is light for its power, and, consequently, light on the land, is easily handled, turns in a small circle, and leaves a very narrow headland. the motor is quickly started up from cold on a small supply of petrol. after these trials we proceeded to messrs. ford's works at trafford park, manchester, where one of the motors had been sent to be dismantled and inspected in detail. we find the design of ample strength, and the work of first-rate quality. we consider the driving-wheels rather light, and we understand that a new and stronger pattern is to be supplied in future. the tractor is designed purely for working on the land, and the wheels, which are fitted with spuds, should be provided with some protection to enable them to travel on the road when moving from farm to farm. bearing the above points in mind, we recommend, under existing circumstances, that steps be taken to construct immediately as many of these tractors as possible. the report was signed by prof. w. e. dalby and f. s. courtney, engineering; r. n. greaves, engineering and agriculture; robert w. hobbs and henry overman, agriculture; gilbert greenall, honorary directors, and john e. cross, steward. almost immediately after the filing of that report we received the following wire: have not received anything definite concerning shipment necessary steel and plant for cork factory. under best circumstances however cork factory production could not be available before next spring. the need for food production in england is imperative and large quantity of tractors must be available at earliest possible date for purpose breaking up existing grass land and ploughing for fall wheat. am requested by high authorities to appeal to mr. ford for help. would you be willing to send sorensen and others with drawings of everything necessary, loaning them to british government so that parts can be manufactured over here and assembled in government factories under sorensen's guidance? can assure you positively this suggestion is made in national interest and if carried out will be done by the government for the people with no manufacturing or capitalist interest invested and no profit being made by any interests whatever. the matter is very urgent. impossible to ship anything adequate from america because many thousand tractors must be provided. ford tractor considered best and only suitable design. consequently national necessity entirely dependent mr. ford's design. my work prevents me coming america to present the proposal personally. urge favorable consideration and immediate decision because every day is of vital importance. you may rely on manufacturing facility for production here under strictest impartial government control. would welcome sorensen and any and every other assistance and guidance you can furnish from america. cable reply, perry, care of harding "prodome," london. prodome. i understand that its sending was directed by the british cabinet. we at once cabled our entire willingness to lend the drawings, the benefit of what experience we had to date, and whatever men might be necessary to get production under way, and on the next ship sent charles e. sorensen with full drawings. mr. sorensen had opened the manchester plant and was familiar with english conditions. he was in charge of the manufacture of tractors in this country. mr. sorensen started at work with the british officials to the end of having the parts made and assembled in england. many of the materials which we used were special and could not be obtained in england. all of their factories equipped for doing casting and machine work were filled with munition orders. it proved to be exceedingly difficult for the ministry to get tenders of any kind. then came june and a series of destructive air raids on london. there was a crisis. something had to be done, and finally, after passing to and fro among half the factories of england, our men succeeded in getting the tenders lodged with the ministry. lord milner exhibited these tenders to mr. sorensen. taking the best of them the price per tractor came to about $1,500 without any guarantee of delivery. "that price is out of all reason," said mr. sorensen, "these should not cost more than $700 apiece." "can you make five thousand at that price?" asked lord milner. "yes," answered mr. sorensen. "how long will it take you to deliver them?" "we will start shipping within sixty days." they signed a contract on the spot, which, among other things, provided for an advance payment of 25 per cent. of the total sum. mr. sorensen cabled us what he had done and took the next boat home. the 25 five per cent. payment was, by the way, not touched by us until after the entire contract was completed: we deposited it in a kind of trust fund. the tractor works was not ready to go into production. the highland park plant might have been adapted, but every machine in it was going day and night on essential war work. there was only one thing to do. we ran up an emergency extension to our plant at dearborn, equipped it with machinery that was ordered by telegraph and mostly came by express, and in less than sixty days the first tractors were on the docks in new york in the hands of the british authorities. they delayed in getting cargo space, but on december 6, 1917, we received this cable: london, december 5, 1917. sorensen, fordson, f. r. dearborn. first tractors arrived, when will smith and others leave? cable. perry. the entire shipment of five thousand tractors went through within three months and that is why the tractors were being used in england long before they were really known in the united states. the planning of the tractor really antedated that of the motor car. out on the farm my first experiments were with tractors, and it will be remembered that i was employed for some time by a manufacturer of steam tractors--the big heavy road and thresher engines. but i did not see any future for the large tractors. they were too expensive for the small farm, required too much skill to operate, and were much too heavy as compared with the pull they exerted. and anyway, the public was more interested in being carried than in being pulled; the horseless carriage made a greater appeal to the imagination. and so it was that i practically dropped work upon a tractor until the automobile was in production. with the automobile on the farms, the tractor became a necessity. for then the farmers had been introduced to power. the farmer does not stand so much in need of new tools as of power to run the tools that he has. i have followed many a weary mile behind a plough and i know all the drudgery of it. what a waste it is for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of horses when in the same time a tractor could do six times as much work! it is no wonder that, doing everything slowly and by hand, the average farmer has not been able to earn more than a bare living while farm products are never as plentiful and cheap as they ought to be. as in the automobile, we wanted power--not weight. the weight idea was firmly fixed in the minds of tractor makers. it was thought that excess weight meant excess pulling power--that the machine could not grip unless it were heavy. and this in spite of the fact that a cat has not much weight and is a pretty good climber. i have already set out my ideas on weight. the only kind of tractor that i thought worth working on was one that would be light, strong, and so simple that any one could run it. also it had to be so cheap that any one could buy it. with these ends in view, we worked for nearly fifteen years on a design and spent some millions of dollars in experiments. we followed exactly the same course as with the automobile. each part had to be as strong as it was possible to make it, the parts had to be few in number, and the whole had to admit of quantity production. we had some thought that perhaps the automobile engine might be used and we conducted a few experiments with it. but finally we became convinced that the kind of tractor we wanted and the automobile had practically nothing in common. it was the intention from the beginning that the tractor should be made as a separate undertaking from the automobile and in a distinct plant. no plant is big enough to make two articles. the automobile is designed to carry; the tractor is designed to pull--to climb. and that difference in function made all the difference in the world in construction. the hard problem was to get bearings that would stand up against the heavy pull. we finally got them and a construction which seems to give the best average performance under all conditions. we fixed upon a four-cylinder engine that is started by gasoline but runs thereafter on kerosene. the lightest weight that we could attain with strength was 2,425 pounds. the grip is in the lugs on the driving wheels--as in the claws of the cat. in addition to its strictly pulling functions, the tractor, to be of the greatest service, had also to be designed for work as a stationary engine so that when it was not out on the road or in the fields it might be hitched up with a belt to run machinery. in short, it had to be a compact, versatile power plant. and that it has been. it has not only ploughed, harrowed, cultivated, and reaped, but it has also threshed, run grist mills, saw mills, and various other sorts of mills, pulled stumps, ploughed snow, and done about everything that a plant of moderate power could do from sheep-shearing to printing a newspaper. it has been fitted with heavy tires to haul on roads, with sledge runners for the woods and ice, and with rimmed wheels to run on rails. when the shops in detroit were shut down by coal shortage, we got out the _dearborn independent_ by sending a tractor to the electro-typing factory--stationing the tractor in the alley, sending up a belt four stories, and making the plates by tractor power. its use in ninety-five distinct lines of service has been called to our attention, and probably we know only a fraction of the uses. the mechanism of the tractor is even more simple than that of the automobile and it is manufactured in exactly the same fashion. until the present year, the production has been held back by the lack of a suitable factory. the first tractors had been made in the plant at dearborn which is now used as an experimental station. that was not large enough to affect the economies of large-scale production and it could not well be enlarged because the design was to make the tractors at the river rouge plant, and that, until this year, was not in full operation. now that plant is completed for the making of tractors. the work flows exactly as with the automobiles. each part is a separate departmental undertaking and each part as it is finished joins the conveyor system which leads it to its proper initial assembly and eventually into the final assembly. everything moves and there is no skilled work. the capacity of the present plant is one million tractors a year. that is the number we expect to make--for the world needs inexpensive, general-utility power plants more now than ever before--and also it now knows enough about machinery to want such plants. the first tractors, as i have said, went to england. they were first offered in the united states in 1918 at $750. in the next year, with the higher costs, the price had to be made $885; in the middle of the year it was possible again to make the introductory price of $750. in 1920 we charged $790; in the next year we were sufficiently familiar with the production to begin cutting. the price came down to $625 and then in 1922 with the river rouge plant functioning we were able to cut to $395. all of which shows what getting into scientific production will do to a price. just as i have no idea how cheaply the ford automobile can eventually be made, i have no idea how cheaply the tractor can eventually be made. it is important that it shall be cheap. otherwise power will not go to all the farms. and they must all of them have power. within a few years a farm depending solely on horse and hand power will be as much of a curiosity as a factory run by a treadmill. the farmer must either take up power or go out of business. the cost figures make this inevitable. during the war the government made a test of a fordson tractor to see how its costs compared with doing the work with horses. the figures on the tractor were taken at the high price plus freight. the depreciation and repair items are not so great as the report sets them forth, and even if they were, the prices are cut in halves which would therefore cut the depreciation and repair charge in halves. these are the figures: cost, fordson, $880. wearing life, 4,800 hours at 4/5 acres per hour, 3,840 acres 3,840 acres at $880; depreciation per acre .221 repairs for 3,840 acres, $100; per acre .026 fuel cost, kerosene at 19 cents; 2 gal. per acre .38 1 gal. oil per 8 acres; per acre .075 driver, $2 per day, 8 acres; per acre .25 -- cost of ploughing with fordson; per acre. .95 8 horses cost, $1,200. working life, 5,000 hours at 4/5 acre per hour, 4,000 acres 4,000 acres at $1,200, depreciation of horses, per acre. . . . 30 feed per horse, 40 cents (100 working days) per acre . . . . . 40 feed per horse, 10 cents a day (265 idle days) per acre. . . 2.65 two drivers, two gang ploughs, at $2 each per day, per acre. . 50 --- cost of ploughing with horses; per acre. . . . . . . . . . . 1.46 at present costs, an acre would run about 40 cents only two cents representing depreciation and repairs. but this does not take account of the time element. the ploughing is done in about one fourth the time, with only the physical energy used to steer the tractor. ploughing has become a matter of motoring across a field. farming in the old style is rapidly fading into a picturesque memory. this does not mean that work is going to remove from the farm. work cannot be removed from any life that is productive. but power-farming does mean this--drudgery is going to be removed from the farm. power-farming is simply taking the burden from flesh and blood and putting it on steel. we are in the opening years of power-farming. the motor car wrought a revolution in modern farm life, not because it was a vehicle, but because it had power. farming ought to be something more than a rural occupation. it ought to be the business of raising food. and when it does become a business the actual work of farming the average sort of farm can be done in twenty-four days a year. the other days can be given over to other kinds of business. farming is too seasonal an occupation to engage all of a man's time. as a food business, farming will justify itself as a business if it raises food in sufficient quantity and distributes it under such conditions as will enable every family to have enough food for its reasonable needs. there could not be a food trust if we were to raise such overwhelming quantities of all kinds of food as to make manipulation and exploitation impossible. the farmer who limits his planting plays into the hands of the speculators. and then, perhaps, we shall witness a revival of the small flour-milling business. it was an evil day when the village flour mill disappeared. cooperative farming will become so developed that we shall see associations of farmers with their own packing houses in which their own hogs will be turned into ham and bacon, and with their own flour mills in which their grain will be turned into commercial foodstuffs. why a steer raised in texas should be brought to chicago and then served in boston is a question that cannot be answered as long as all the steers the city needs could be raised near boston. the centralization of food manufacturing industries, entailing enormous costs for transportation and organization, is too wasteful long to continue in a developed community. we shall have as great a development in farming during the next twenty years as we have had in manufacturing during the last twenty. chapter xv why charity? why should there by any necessity for almsgiving in a civilized community? it is not the charitable mind to which i object. heaven forbid that we should ever grow cold toward a fellow creature in need. human sympathy is too fine for the cool, calculating attitude to take its place. one can name very few great advances that did not have human sympathy behind them. it is in order to help people that every notable service is undertaken. the trouble is that we have been using this great, fine motive force for ends too small. if human sympathy prompts us to feed the hungry, why should it not give the larger desire--to make hunger in our midst impossible? if we have sympathy enough for people to help them out of their troubles, surely we ought to have sympathy enough to keep them out. it is easy to give; it is harder to make giving unnecessary. to make the giving unnecessary we must look beyond the individual to the cause of his misery--not hesitating, of course, to relieve him in the meantime, but not stopping with mere temporary relief. the difficulty seems to be in getting to look beyond to the causes. more people can be moved to help a poor family than can be moved to give their minds toward the removal of poverty altogether. i have no patience with professional charity, or with any sort of commercialized humanitarianism. the moment human helpfulness is systematized, organized, commercialized, and professionalized, the heart of it is extinguished, and it becomes a cold and clammy thing. real human helpfulness is never card-catalogued or advertised. there are more orphan children being cared for in the private homes of people who love them than in the institutions. there are more old people being sheltered by friends than you can find in the old people's homes. there is more aid by loans from family to family than by the loan societies. that is, human society on a humane basis looks out for itself. it is a grave question how far we ought to countenance the commercialization of the natural instinct of charity. professional charity is not only cold but it hurts more than it helps. it degrades the recipients and drugs their self-respect. akin to it is sentimental idealism. the idea went abroad not so many years ago that "service" was something that we should expect to have done for us. untold numbers of people became the recipients of well-meant "social service." whole sections of our population were coddled into a state of expectant, child-like helplessness. there grew up a regular profession of doing things for people, which gave an outlet for a laudable desire for service, but which contributed nothing whatever to the self-reliance of the people nor to the correction of the conditions out of which the supposed need for such service grew. worse than this encouragement of childish wistfulness, instead of training for self-reliance and self-sufficiency, was the creation of a feeling of resentment which nearly always overtakes the objects of charity. people often complain of the "ingratitude" of those whom they help. nothing is more natural. in the first place, precious little of our so-called charity is ever real charity, offered out of a heart full of interest and sympathy. in the second place, no person ever relishes being in a position where he is forced to take favors. such "social work" creates a strained relation--the recipient of bounty feels that he has been belittled in the taking, and it is a question whether the giver should not also feel that he has been belittled in the giving. charity never led to a settled state of affairs. the charitable system that does not aim to make itself unnecessary is not performing service. it is simply making a job for itself and is an added item to the record of non-production. charity becomes unnecessary as those who seem to be unable to earn livings are taken out of the non-productive class and put into the productive. in a previous chapter i have set out how experiments in our shops have demonstrated that in sufficiently subdivided industry there are places which can be filled by the maimed, the halt, and the blind. scientific industry need not be a monster devouring all who come near it. when it is, then it is not fulfilling its place in life. in and out of industry there must be jobs that take the full strength of a powerful man; there are other jobs, and plenty of them, that require more skill than the artisans of the middle ages ever had. the minute subdivision of industry permits a strong man or a skilled man always to use his strength or skill. in the old hand industry, a skilled man spent a good part of his time at unskilled work. that was a waste. but since in those days every task required both skilled and unskilled labour to be performed by the one man, there was little room for either the man who was too stupid ever to be skilled or the man who did not have the opportunity to learn a trade. no mechanic working with only his hands can earn more than a bare sustenance. he cannot have a surplus. it has been taken for granted that, coming into old age, a mechanic must be supported by his children or, if he has no children, that he will be a public charge. all of that is quite unnecessary. the subdivision of industry opens places that can be filled by practically any one. there are more places in subdivision industry that can be filled by blind men than there are blind men. there are more places that can be filled by cripples than there are cripples. and in each of these places the man who short-sightedly might be considered as an object of charity can earn just as adequate a living as the keenest and most able-bodied. it is waste to put an able-bodied man in a job that might be just as well cared for by a cripple. it is a frightful waste to put the blind at weaving baskets. it is waste to have convicts breaking stone or picking hemp or doing any sort of petty, useless task. a well-conducted jail should not only be self-supporting, but a man in jail ought to be able to support his family or, if he has no family, he should be able to accumulate a sum of money sufficient to put him on his feet when he gets out of jail. i am not advocating convict labour or the farming out of men practically as slaves. such a plan is too detestable for words. we have greatly overdone the prison business, anyway; we begin at the wrong end. but as long as we have prisons they can be fitted into the general scheme of production so neatly that a prison may become a productive unit working for the relief of the public and the benefit of the prisoners. i know that there are laws--foolish laws passed by unthinking men--that restrict the industrial activities of prisons. those laws were passed mostly at the behest of what is called labour. they are not for the benefit of the workingman. increasing the charges upon a community does not benefit any one in the community. if the idea of service be kept in mind, then there is always in every community more work to do than there are men who can do it. industry organized for service removes the need for philanthropy. philanthropy, no matter how noble its motive, does not make for self-reliance. we must have self-reliance. a community is the better for being discontented, for being dissatisfied with what it has. i do not mean the petty, daily, nagging, gnawing sort of discontent, but a broad, courageous sort of discontent which believes that everything which is done can and ought to be eventually done better. industry organized for service--and the workingman as well as the leader must serve--can pay wages sufficiently large to permit every family to be both self-reliant and self-supporting. a philanthropy that spends its time and money in helping the world to do more for itself is far better than the sort which merely gives and thus encourages idleness. philanthropy, like everything else, ought to be productive, and i believe that it can be. i have personally been experimenting with a trade school and a hospital to discover if such institutions, which are commonly regarded as benevolent, cannot be made to stand on their own feet. i have found that they can be. i am not in sympathy with the trade school as it is commonly organized--the boys get only a smattering of knowledge and they do not learn how to use that knowledge. the trade school should not be a cross between a technical college and a school; it should be a means of teaching boys to be productive. if they are put at useless tasks--at making articles and then throwing them away--they cannot have the interest or acquire the knowledge which is their right. and during the period of schooling the boy is not productive; the schools--unless by charity--make no provision for the support of the boy. many boys need support; they must work at the first thing which comes to hand. they have no chance to pick and choose. when the boy thus enters life untrained, he but adds to the already great scarcity of competent labour. modern industry requires a degree of ability and skill which neither early quitting of school nor long continuance at school provides. it is true that, in order to retain the interest of the boy and train him in handicraft, manual training departments have been introduced in the more progressive school systems, but even these are confessedly makeshifts because they only cater to, without satisfying, the normal boy's creative instincts. to meet this condition--to fulfill the boy's educational possibilities and at the same time begin his industrial training along constructive lines--the henry ford trade school was incorporated in 1916. we do not use the word philanthropy in connection with this effort. it grew out of a desire to aid the boy whose circumstances compelled him to leave school early. this desire to aid fitted in conveniently with the necessity of providing trained tool-makers in the shops. from the beginning we have held to three cardinal principles: first, that the boy was to be kept a boy and not changed into a premature working-man; second, that the academic training was to go hand in hand with the industrial instruction; third, that the boy was to be given a sense of pride and responsibility in his work by being trained on articles which were to be used. he works on objects of recognized industrial worth. the school is incorporated as a private school and is open to boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen. it is organized on the basis of scholarships and each boy is awarded an annual cash scholarship of four hundred dollars at his entrance. this is gradually increased to a maximum of six hundred dollars if his record is satisfactory. a record of the class and shop work is kept and also of the industry the boy displays in each. it is the marks in industry which are used in making subsequent adjustments of his scholarship. in addition to his scholarship each boy is given a small amount each month which must be deposited in his savings account. this thrift fund must be left in the bank as long as the boy remains in the school unless he is given permission by the authorities to use it for an emergency. one by one the problems of managing the school are being solved and better ways of accomplishing its objects are being discovered. at the beginning it was the custom to give the boy one third of the day in class work and two thirds in shop work. this daily adjustment was found to be a hindrance to progress, and now the boy takes his training in blocks of weeks--one week in the class and two weeks in the shop. classes are continuous, the various groups taking their weeks in turn. the best instructors obtainable are on the staff, and the text-book is the ford plant. it offers more resources for practical education than most universities. the arithmetic lessons come in concrete shop problems. no longer is the boy's mind tortured with the mysterious a who can row four miles while b is rowing two. the actual processes and actual conditions are exhibited to him--he is taught to observe. cities are no longer black specks on maps and continents are not just pages of a book. the shop shipments to singapore, the shop receipts of material from africa and south america are shown to him, and the world becomes an inhabited planet instead of a coloured globe on the teacher's desk. in physics and chemistry the industrial plant provides a laboratory in which theory becomes practice and the lesson becomes actual experience. suppose the action of a pump is being taught. the teacher explains the parts and their functions, answers questions, and then they all troop away to the engine rooms to see a great pump. the school has a regular factory workshop with the finest equipment. the boys work up from one machine to the next. they work solely on parts or articles needed by the company, but our needs are so vast that this list comprehends nearly everything. the inspected work is purchased by the ford motor company, and, of course, the work that does not pass inspection is a loss to the school. the boys who have progressed furthest do fine micrometer work, and they do every operation with a clear understanding of the purposes and principles involved. they repair their own machines; they learn how to take care of themselves around machinery; they study pattern-making and in clean, well-lighted rooms with their instructors they lay the foundation for successful careers. when they graduate, places are always open for them in the shops at good wages. the social and moral well-being of the boys is given an unobtrusive care. the supervision is not of authority but of friendly interest. the home conditions of every boy are pretty well known, and his tendencies are observed. and no attempt is made to coddle him. no attempt is made to render him namby-pamby. one day when two boys came to the point of a fight, they were not lectured on the wickedness of fighting. they were counseled to make up their differences in a better way, but when, boy-like, they preferred the more primitive mode of settlement, they were given gloves and made to fight it out in a corner of the shop. the only prohibition laid upon them was that they were to finish it there, and not to be caught fighting outside the shop. the result was a short encounter and--friendship. they are handled as boys; their better boyish instincts are encouraged; and when one sees them in the shops and classes one cannot easily miss the light of dawning mastery in their eyes. they have a sense of "belonging." they feel they are doing something worth while. they learn readily and eagerly because they are learning the things which every active boy wants to learn and about which he is constantly asking questions that none of his home-folks can answer. beginning with six boys the school now has two hundred and is possessed of so practical a system that it may expand to seven hundred. it began with a deficit, but as it is one of my basic ideas that anything worth while in itself can be made self-sustaining, it has so developed its processes that it is now paying its way. we have been able to let the boy have his boyhood. these boys learn to be workmen but they do not forget how to be boys. that is of the first importance. they earn from 19 to 35 cents an hour--which is more than they could earn as boys in the sort of job open to a youngster. they can better help support their families by staying in school than by going out to work. when they are through, they have a good general education, the beginning of a technical education, and they are so skilled as workmen that they can earn wages which will give them the liberty to continue their education if they like. if they do not want more education, they have at least the skill to command high wages anywhere. they do not have to go into our factories; most of them do because they do not know where better jobs are to be had--we want all our jobs to be good for the men who take them. but there is no string tied to the boys. they have earned their own way and are under obligations to no one. there is no charity. the place pays for itself. the ford hospital is being worked out on somewhat similar lines, but because of the interruption of the war--when it was given to the government and became general hospital no. 36, housing some fifteen hundred patients--the work has not yet advanced to the point of absolutely definite results. i did not deliberately set out to build this hospital. it began in 1914 as the detroit general hospital and was designed to be erected by popular subscription. with others, i made a subscription, and the building began. long before the first buildings were done, the funds became exhausted and i was asked to make another subscription. i refused because i thought that the managers should have known how much the building was going to cost before they started. and that sort of a beginning did not give great confidence as to how the place would be managed after it was finished. however, i did offer to take the whole hospital, paying back all the subscriptions that had been made. this was accomplished, and we were going forward with the work when, on august 1, 1918, the whole institution was turned over to the government. it was returned to us in october, 1919, and on the tenth day of november of the same year the first private patient was admitted. the hospital is on west grand boulevard in detroit and the plot embraces twenty acres, so that there will be ample room for expansion. it is our thought to extend the facilities as they justify themselves. the original design of the hospital has been quite abandoned and we have endeavoured to work out a new kind of hospital, both in design and management. there are plenty of hospitals for the rich. there are plenty of hospitals for the poor. there are no hospitals for those who can afford to pay only a moderate amount and yet desire to pay without a feeling that they are recipients of charity. it has been taken for granted that a hospital cannot both serve and be self-supporting--that it has to be either an institution kept going by private contributions or pass into the class of private sanitariums managed for profit. this hospital is designed to be self-supporting--to give a maximum of service at a minimum of cost and without the slightest colouring of charity. in the new buildings that we have erected there are no wards. all of the rooms are private and each one is provided with a bath. the rooms--which are in groups of twenty-four--are all identical in size, in fittings, and in furnishings. there is no choice of rooms. it is planned that there shall be no choice of anything within the hospital. every patient is on an equal footing with every other patient. it is not at all certain whether hospitals as they are now managed exist for patients or for doctors. i am not unmindful of the large amount of time which a capable physician or surgeon gives to charity, but also i am not convinced that the fees of surgeons should be regulated according to the wealth of the patient, and i am entirely convinced that what is known as "professional etiquette" is a curse to mankind and to the development of medicine. diagnosis is not very much developed. i should not care to be among the proprietors of a hospital in which every step had not been taken to insure that the patients were being treated for what actually was the matter with them, instead of for something that one doctor had decided they had. professional etiquette makes it very difficult for a wrong diagnosis to be corrected. the consulting physician, unless he be a man of great tact, will not change a diagnosis or a treatment unless the physician who has called him in is in thorough agreement, and then if a change be made, it is usually without the knowledge of the patient. there seems to be a notion that a patient, and especially when in a hospital, becomes the property of the doctor. a conscientious practitioner does not exploit the patient. a less conscientious one does. many physicians seem to regard the sustaining of their own diagnoses as of as great moment as the recovery of the patient. it has been an aim of our hospital to cut away from all of these practices and to put the interest of the patient first. therefore, it is what is known as a "closed" hospital. all of the physicians and all of the nurses are employed by the year and they can have no practice outside of the hospital. including the interns, twenty-one physicians and surgeons are on the staff. these men have been selected with great care and they are paid salaries that amount to at least as much as they would ordinarily earn in successful private practice. they have, none of them, any financial interest whatsoever in any patient, and a patient may not be treated by a doctor from the outside. we gladly acknowledge the place and the use of the family physician. we do not seek to supplant him. we take the case where he leaves off, and return the patient as quickly as possible. our system makes it undesirable for us to keep patients longer than necessary--we do not need that kind of business. and we will share with the family physician our knowledge of the case, but while the patient is in the hospital we assume full responsibility. it is "closed" to outside physicians' practice, though it is not closed to our cooperation with any family physician who desires it. the admission of a patient is interesting. the incoming patient is first examined by the senior physician and then is routed for examination through three, four, or whatever number of doctors seems necessary. this routing takes place regardless of what the patient came to the hospital for, because, as we are gradually learning, it is the complete health rather than a single ailment which is important. each of the doctors makes a complete examination, and each sends in his written findings to the head physician without any opportunity whatsoever to consult with any of the other examining physicians. at least three, and sometimes six or seven, absolutely complete and absolutely independent diagnoses are thus in the hands of the head of the hospital. they constitute a complete record of the case. these precautions are taken in order to insure, within the limits of present-day knowledge, a correct diagnosis. at the present time, there are about six hundred beds available. every patient pays according to a fixed schedule that includes the hospital room, board, medical and surgical attendance, and nursing. there are no extras. there are no private nurses. if a case requires more attention than the nurses assigned to the wing can give, then another nurse is put on, but without any additional expense to the patient. this, however, is rarely necessary because the patients are grouped according to the amount of nursing that they will need. there may be one nurse for two patients, or one nurse for five patients, as the type of cases may require. no one nurse ever has more than seven patients to care for, and because of the arrangements it is easily possible for a nurse to care for seven patients who are not desperately ill. in the ordinary hospital the nurses must make many useless steps. more of their time is spent in walking than in caring for the patient. this hospital is designed to save steps. each floor is complete in itself, and just as in the factories we have tried to eliminate the necessity for waste motion, so have we also tried to eliminate waste motion in the hospital. the charge to patients for a room, nursing, and medical attendance is $4.50 a day. this will be lowered as the size of the hospital increases. the charge for a major operation is $125. the charge for minor operations is according to a fixed scale. all of the charges are tentative. the hospital has a cost system just like a factory. the charges will be regulated to make ends just meet. there seems to be no good reason why the experiment should not be successful. its success is purely a matter of management and mathematics. the same kind of management which permits a factory to give the fullest service will permit a hospital to give the fullest service, and at a price so low as to be within the reach of everyone. the only difference between hospital and factory accounting is that i do not expect the hospital to return a profit; we do expect it to cover depreciation. the investment in this hospital to date is about $9,000,000. if we can get away from charity, the funds that now go into charitable enterprises can be turned to furthering production--to making goods cheaply and in great plenty. and then we shall not only be removing the burden of taxes from the community and freeing men but also we can be adding to the general wealth. we leave for private interest too many things we ought to do for ourselves as a collective interest. we need more constructive thinking in public service. we need a kind of "universal training" in economic facts. the over-reaching ambitions of speculative capital, as well as the unreasonable demands of irresponsible labour, are due to ignorance of the economic basis of life. nobody can get more out of life than life can produce--yet nearly everybody thinks he can. speculative capital wants more; labour wants more; the source of raw material wants more; and the purchasing public wants more. a family knows that it cannot live beyond its income; even the children know that. but the public never seems to learn that it cannot live beyond its income--have more than it produces. in clearing out the need for charity we must keep in mind not only the economic facts of existence, but also that lack of knowledge of these facts encourages fear. banish fear and we can have self-reliance. charity is not present where self-reliance dwells. fear is the offspring of a reliance placed on something outside--on a foreman's good-will, perhaps, on a shop's prosperity, on a market's steadiness. that is just another way of saying that fear is the portion of the man who acknowledges his career to be in the keeping of earthly circumstances. fear is the result of the body assuming ascendancy over the soul. the habit of failure is purely mental and is the mother of fear. this habit gets itself fixed on men because they lack vision. they start out to do something that reaches from a to z. at a they fail, at b they stumble, and at c they meet with what seems to be an insuperable difficulty. they then cry "beaten" and throw the whole task down. they have not even given themselves a chance really to fail; they have not given their vision a chance to be proved or disproved. they have simply let themselves be beaten by the natural difficulties that attend every kind of effort. more men are beaten than fail. it is not wisdom they need or money, or brilliance, or "pull," but just plain gristle and bone. this rude, simple, primitive power which we call "stick-to-it-iveness" is the uncrowned king of the world of endeavour. people are utterly wrong in their slant upon things. they see the successes that men have made and somehow they appear to be easy. but that is a world away from the facts. it is failure that is easy. success is always hard. a man can fail in ease; he can succeed only by paying out all that he has and is. it is this which makes success so pitiable a thing if it be in lines that are not useful and uplifting. if a man is in constant fear of the industrial situation he ought to change his life so as not to be dependent upon it. there is always the land, and fewer people are on the land now than ever before. if a man lives in fear of an employer's favor changing toward him, he ought to extricate himself from dependence on any employer. he can become his own boss. it may be that he will be a poorer boss than the one he leaves, and that his returns will be much less, but at least he will have rid himself of the shadow of his pet fear, and that is worth a great deal in money and position. better still is for the man to come through himself and exceed himself by getting rid of his fears in the midst of the circumstances where his daily lot is cast. become a freeman in the place where you first surrendered your freedom. win your battle where you lost it. and you will come to see that, although there was much outside of you that was not right, there was more inside of you that was not right. thus you will learn that the wrong inside of you spoils even the right that is outside of you. a man is still the superior being of the earth. whatever happens, he is still a man. business may slacken tomorrow--he is still a man. he goes through the changes of circumstances, as he goes through the variations of temperature--still a man. if he can only get this thought reborn in him, it opens new wells and mines in his own being. there is no security outside of himself. there is no wealth outside of himself. the elimination of fear is the bringing in of security and supply. let every american become steeled against coddling. americans ought to resent coddling. it is a drug. stand up and stand out; let weaklings take charity. chapter xvi the railroads nothing in this country furnishes a better example of how a business may be turned from its function of service than do the railroads. we have a railroad problem, and much learned thought and discussion have been devoted to the solution of that problem. everyone is dissatisfied with the railways. the public is dissatisfied because both the passenger and freight rates are too high. the railroad employees are dissatisfied because they say their wages are too low and their hours too long. the owners of the railways are dissatisfied because it is claimed that no adequate return is realized upon the money invested. all of the contacts of a properly managed undertaking ought to be satisfactory. if the public, the employees, and the owners do not find themselves better off because of the undertaking, then there must be something very wrong indeed with the manner in which the undertaking is carried through. i am entirely without any disposition to pose as a railroad authority. there may be railroad authorities, but if the service as rendered by the american railroad to-day is the result of accumulated railway knowledge, then i cannot say that my respect for the usefulness of that knowledge is at all profound. i have not the slightest doubt in the world that the active managers of the railways, the men who really do the work, are entirely capable of conducting the railways of the country to the satisfaction of every one, and i have equally no doubt that these active managers have, by force of a chain of circumstances, all but ceased to manage. and right there is the source of most of the trouble. the men who know railroading have not been allowed to manage railroads. in a previous chapter on finance were set forth the dangers attendant upon the indiscriminate borrowing of money. it is inevitable that any one who can borrow freely to cover errors of management will borrow rather than correct the errors. our railway managers have been practically forced to borrow, for since the very inception of the railways they have not been free agents. the guiding hand of the railway has been, not the railroad man, but the banker. when railroad credit was high, more money was to be made out of floating bond issues and speculating in the securities than out of service to the public. a very small fraction of the money earned by the railways has gone back into the rehabilitation of the properties. when by skilled management the net revenue became large enough to pay a considerable dividend upon the stock, then that dividend was used first by the speculators on the inside and controlling the railroad fiscal policy to boom the stock and unload their holdings, and then to float a bond issue on the strength of the credit gained through the earnings. when the earnings dropped or were artificially depressed, then the speculators bought back the stock and in the course of time staged another advance and unloading. there is scarcely a railroad in the united states that has not been through one or more receiverships, due to the fact that the financial interests piled on load after load of securities until the structures grew topheavy and fell over. then they got in on the receiverships, made money at the expense of gullible security holders, and started the same old pyramiding game all over again. the natural ally of the banker is the lawyer. such games as have been played on the railroads have needed expert legal advice. lawyers, like bankers, know absolutely nothing about business. they imagine that a business is properly conducted if it keeps within the law or if the law can be altered or interpreted to suit the purpose in hand. they live on rules. the bankers took finance out of the hands of the managers. they put in lawyers to see that the railroads violated the law only in legal fashion, and thus grew up immense legal departments. instead of operating under the rules of common sense and according to circumstances, every railroad had to operate on the advice of counsel. rules spread through every part of the organization. then came the avalanche of state and federal regulations, until to-day we find the railways hog-tied in a mass of rules and regulations. with the lawyers and the financiers on the inside and various state commissions on the outside, the railway manager has little chance. that is the trouble with the railways. business cannot be conducted by law. we have had the opportunity of demonstrating to ourselves what a freedom from the banker-legal mortmain means, in our experience with the detroit, toledo & ironton railway. we bought the railway because its right of way interfered with some of our improvements on the river rouge. we did not buy it as an investment, or as an adjunct to our industries, or because of its strategic position. the extraordinarily good situation of the railway seems to have become universally apparent only since we bought it. that, however, is beside the point. we bought the railway because it interfered with our plans. then we had to do something with it. the only thing to do was to run it as a productive enterprise, applying to it exactly the same principles as are applied in every department of our industries. we have as yet made no special efforts of any kind and the railway has not been set up as a demonstration of how every railway should be run. it is true that applying the rule of maximum service at minimum cost has caused the income of the road to exceed the outgo--which, for that road, represents a most unusual condition. it has been represented that the changes we have made--and remember they have been made simply as part of the day's work--are peculiarly revolutionary and quite without application to railway management in general. personally, it would seem to me that our little line does not differ much from the big lines. in our own work we have always found that, if our principles were right, the area over which they were applied did not matter. the principles that we use in the big highland park plant seem to work equally well in every plant that we establish. it has never made any difference with us whether we multiplied what we were doing by five or five hundred. size is only a matter of the multiplication table, anyway. the detroit, toledo & ironton railway was organized some twenty-odd years ago and has been reorganized every few years since then. the last reorganization was in 1914. the war and the federal control of the railways interrupted the cycle of reorganization. the road owns 343 miles of track, has 52 miles of branches, and 45 miles of trackage rights over other roads. it goes from detroit almost due south to ironton on the ohio river, thus tapping the west virginia coal deposits. it crosses most of the large trunk lines and it is a road which, from a general business standpoint, ought to pay. it has paid. it seems to have paid the bankers. in 1913 the net capitalization per mile of road was $105,000. in the next receivership this was cut down to $47,000 per mile. i do not know how much money in all has been raised on the strength of the road. i do know that in the reorganization of 1914 the bondholders were assessed and forced to turn into the treasury nearly five million dollars--which is the amount that we paid for the entire road. we paid sixty cents on the dollar for the outstanding mortgage bonds, although the ruling price just before the time of purchase was between thirty and forty cents on the dollar. we paid a dollar a share for the common stock and five dollars a share for the preferred stock--which seemed to be a fair price considering that no interest had ever been paid upon the bonds and a dividend on the stock was a most remote possibility. the rolling stock of the road consisted of about seventy locomotives, twenty-seven passenger cars, and around twenty-eight hundred freight cars. all of the rolling stock was in extremely bad condition and a good part of it would not run at all. all of the buildings were dirty, unpainted, and generally run down. the roadbed was something more than a streak of rust and something less than a railway. the repair shops were over-manned and under-machined. practically everything connected with operation was conducted with a maximum of waste. there was, however, an exceedingly ample executive and administration department, and of course a legal department. the legal department alone cost in one month nearly $18,000. we took over the road in march, 1921. we began to apply industrial principles. there had been an executive office in detroit. we closed that up and put the administration into the charge of one man and gave him half of the flat-topped desk out in the freight office. the legal department went with the executive offices. there is no reason for so much litigation in connection with railroading. our people quickly settled all the mass of outstanding claims, some of which had been hanging on for years. as new claims arise, they are settled at once and on the facts, so that the legal expense seldom exceeds $200 a month. all of the unnecessary accounting and red tape were thrown out and the payroll of the road was reduced from 2,700 to 1,650 men. following our general policy, all titles and offices other than those required by law were abolished. the ordinary railway organization is rigid; a message has to go up through a certain line of authority and no man is expected to do anything without explicit orders from his superior. one morning i went out to the road very early and found a wrecking train with steam up, a crew aboard and all ready to start. it had been "awaiting orders" for half an hour. we went down and cleared the wreck before the orders came through; that was before the idea of personal responsibility had soaked in. it was a little hard to break the "orders" habit; the men at first were afraid to take responsibility. but as we went on, they seemed to like the plan more and more and now no man limits his duties. a man is paid for a day's work of eight hours and he is expected to work during those eight hours. if he is an engineer and finishes a run in four hours then he works at whatever else may be in demand for the next four hours. if a man works more than eight hours he is not paid for overtime--he deducts his overtime from the next working day or saves it up and gets a whole day off with pay. our eight-hour day is a day of eight hours and not a basis for computing pay. the minimum wage is six dollars a day. there are no extra men. we have cut down in the offices, in the shops, and on the roads. in one shop 20 men are now doing more work than 59 did before. not long ago one of our track gangs, consisting of a foreman and 15 men, was working beside a parallel road on which was a gang of 40 men doing exactly the same sort of track repairing and ballasting. in five days our gang did two telegraph poles more than the competing gang! the road is being rehabilitated; nearly the whole track has been reballasted and many miles of new rails have been laid. the locomotives and rolling stock are being overhauled in our own shops and at a very slight expense. we found that the supplies bought previously were of poor quality or unfitted for the use; we are saving money on supplies by buying better qualities and seeing that nothing is wasted. the men seem entirely willing to cooperate in saving. they do not discard that which might be used. we ask a man, "what can you get out of an engine?" and he answers with an economy record. and we are not pouring in great amounts of money. everything is being done out of earnings. that is our policy. the trains must go through and on time. the time of freight movements has been cut down about two thirds. a car on a siding is not just a car on a siding. it is a great big question mark. someone has to know why it is there. it used to take 8 or 9 days to get freight through to philadelphia or new york; now it takes three and a half days. the organization is serving. all sorts of explanations are put forward, of why a deficit was turned into a surplus. i am told that it is all due to diverting the freight of the ford industries. if we had diverted all of our business to this road, that would not explain why we manage at so much lower an operating cost than before. we are routing as much as we can of our own business over the road, but only because we there get the best service. for years past we had been trying to send freight over this road because it was conveniently located, but we had never been able to use it to any extent because of the delayed deliveries. we could not count on a shipment to within five or six weeks; that tied up too much money and also broke into our production schedule. there was no reason why the road should not have had a schedule; but it did not. the delays became legal matters to be taken up in due legal course; that is not the way of business. we think that a delay is a criticism of our work and is something at once to be investigated. that is business. the railroads in general have broken down, and if the former conduct of the detroit, toledo & ironton is any criterion of management in general there is no reason in the world why they should not have broken down. too many railroads are run, not from the offices of practical men, but from banking offices, and the principles of procedure, the whole outlook, are financial--not transportational, but financial. there has been a breakdown simply because more attention has been paid to railroads as factors in the stock market than as servants of the people. outworn ideas have been retained, development has been practically stopped, and railroad men with vision have not been set free to grow. will a billion dollars solve that sort of trouble? no, a billion dollars will only make the difficulty one billion dollars worse. the purpose of the billion is simply to continue the present methods of railroad management, and it is because of the present methods that we have any railroad difficulties at all. the mistaken and foolish things we did years ago are just overtaking us. at the beginning of railway transportation in the united states, the people had to be taught its use, just as they had to be taught the use of the telephone. also, the new railroads had to make business in order to keep themselves solvent. and because railway financing began in one of the rottenest periods of our business history, a number of practices were established as precedents which have influenced railway work ever since. one of the first things the railways did was to throttle all other methods of transportation. there was the beginning of a splendid canal system in this country and a great movement for canalization was at its height. the railroad companies bought out the canal companies and let the canals fill up and choke with weeds and refuse. all over the eastern and in parts of the middle western states are the remains of this network of internal waterways. they are being restored now as rapidly as possible; they are being linked together; various commissions, public and private, have seen the vision of a complete system of waterways serving all parts of the country, and thanks to their efforts, persistence, and faith, progress is being made. but there was another. this was the system of making the haul as long as possible. any one who is familiar with the exposures which resulted in the formation of the interstate commerce commission knows what is meant by this. there was a period when rail transport was not regarded as the servant of the traveling, manufacturing, and commercial publics. business was treated as if it existed for the benefit of the railways. during this period of folly, it was not good railroading to get goods from their shipping point to their destination by the most direct line possible, but to keep them on the road as long as possible, send them around the longest way, give as many connecting lines as possible a piece of the profit, and let the public stand the resulting loss of time and money. that was once counted good railroading. it has not entirely passed out of practice to-day. one of the great changes in our economic life to which this railroad policy contributed was the centralization of certain activities, not because centralization was necessary, nor because it contributed to the well-being of the people, but because, among other things, it made double business for the railroads. take two staples--meat and grain. if you look at the maps which the packing houses put out, and see where the cattle are drawn from; and then if you consider that the cattle, when converted into food, are hauled again by the same railways right back to the place where they came from, you will get some sidelight on the transportation problem and the price of meat. take also grain. every reader of advertisements knows where the great flour mills of the country are located. and they probably know also that these great mills are not located in the sections where the grain of the united states is raised. there are staggering quantities of grain, thousands of trainloads, hauled uselessly long distances, and then in the form of flour hauled back again long distances to the states and sections where the grain was raised--a burdening of the railroads which is of no benefit to the communities where the grain originated, nor to any one else except the monopolistic mills and the railroads. the railroads can always do a big business without helping the business of the country at all; they can always be engaged in just such useless hauling. on meat and grain and perhaps on cotton, too, the transportation burden could be reduced by more than half, by the preparation of the product for use before it is shipped. if a coal community mined coal in pennsylvania, and then sent it by railway to michigan or wisconsin to be screened, and then hauled it back again to pennsylvania for use, it would not be much sillier than the hauling of texas beef alive to chicago, there to be killed, and then shipped back dead to texas; or the hauling of kansas grain to minnesota, there to be ground in the mills and hauled back again as flour. it is good business for the railroads, but it is bad business for business. one angle of the transportation problem to which too few men are paying attention is this useless hauling of material. if the problem were tackled from the point of ridding the railroads of their useless hauls, we might discover that we are in better shape than we think to take care of the legitimate transportation business of the country. in commodities like coal it is necessary that they be hauled from where they are to where they are needed. the same is true of the raw materials of industry--they must be hauled from the place where nature has stored them to the place where there are people ready to work them. and as these raw materials are not often found assembled in one section, a considerable amount of transportation to a central assembling place is necessary. the coal comes from one section, the copper from another, the iron from another, the wood from another--they must all be brought together. but wherever it is possible a policy of decentralization ought to be adopted. we need, instead of mammoth flour mills, a multitude of smaller mills distributed through all the sections where grain is grown. wherever it is possible, the section that produces the raw material ought to produce also the finished product. grain should be ground to flour where it is grown. a hog-growing country should not export hogs, but pork, hams, and bacon. the cotton mills ought to be near the cotton fields. this is not a revolutionary idea. in a sense it is a reactionary one. it does not suggest anything new; it suggests something that is very old. this is the way the country did things before we fell into the habit of carting everything around a few thousand miles and adding the cartage to the consumer's bill. our communities ought to be more complete in themselves. they ought not to be unnecessarily dependent on railway transportation. out of what they produce they should supply their own needs and ship the surplus. and how can they do this unless they have the means of taking their raw materials, like grain and cattle, and changing them into finished products? if private enterprise does not yield these means, the cooperation of farmers can. the chief injustice sustained by the farmer to-day is that, being the greatest producer, he is prevented from being also the greatest merchandiser, because he is compelled to sell to those who put his products into merchantable form. if he could change his grain into flour, his cattle into beef, and his hogs into hams and bacon, not only would he receive the fuller profit of his product, but he would render his near-by communities more independent of railway exigencies, and thereby improve the transportation system by relieving it of the burden of his unfinished product. the thing is not only reasonable and practicable, but it is becoming absolutely necessary. more than that, it is being done in many places. but it will not register its full effect on the transportation situation and upon the cost of living until it is done more widely and in more kinds of materials. it is one of nature's compensations to withdraw prosperity from the business which does not serve. we have found that on the detroit, toledo & ironton we could, following our universal policy, reduce our rates and get more business. we made some cuts, but the interstate commerce commission refused to allow them! under such conditions why discuss the railroads as a business? or as a service? chapter xvii things in general no man exceeds thomas a. edison in broad vision and understanding. i met him first many years ago when i was with the detroit edison company--probably about 1887 or thereabouts. the electrical men held a convention at atlantic city, and edison, as the leader in electrical science, made an address. i was then working on my gasoline engine, and most people, including all of my associates in the electrical company, had taken pains to tell me that time spent on a gasoline engine was time wasted--that the power of the future was to be electricity. these criticisms had not made any impression on me. i was working ahead with all my might. but being in the same room with edison suggested to me that it would be a good idea to find out if the master of electricity thought it was going to be the only power in the future. so, after mr. edison had finished his address, i managed to catch him alone for a moment. i told him what i was working on. at once he was interested. he is interested in every search for new knowledge. and then i asked him if he thought that there was a future for the internal combustion engine. he answered something in this fashion: yes, there is a big future for any light-weight engine that can develop a high horsepower and be self-contained. no one kind of motive power is ever going to do all the work of the country. we do not know what electricity can do, but i take for granted that it cannot do everything. keep on with your engine. if you can get what you are after, i can see a great future. that is characteristic of edison. he was the central figure in the electrical industry, which was then young and enthusiastic. the rank and file of the electrical men could see nothing ahead but electricity, but their leader could see with crystal clearness that no one power could do all the work of the country. i suppose that is why he was the leader. such was my first meeting with edison. i did not see him again until many years after--until our motor had been developed and was in production. he remembered perfectly our first meeting. since then we have seen each other often. he is one of my closest friends, and we together have swapped many an idea. his knowledge is almost universal. he is interested in every conceivable subject and he recognizes no limitations. he believes that all things are possible. at the same time he keeps his feet on the ground. he goes forward step by step. he regards "impossible" as a description for that which we have not at the moment the knowledge to achieve. he knows that as we amass knowledge we build the power to overcome the impossible. that is the rational way of doing the "impossible." the irrational way is to make the attempt without the toil of accumulating knowledge. mr. edison is only approaching the height of his power. he is the man who is going to show us what chemistry really can do. for he is a real scientist who regards the knowledge for which he is always searching as a tool to shape the progress of the world. he is not the type of scientist who merely stores up knowledge and turns his head into a museum. edison is easily the world's greatest scientist. i am not sure that he is not also the world's worst business man. he knows almost nothing of business. john burroughs was another of those who honoured me with their friendship. i, too, like birds. i like the outdoors. i like to walk across country and jump fences. we have five hundred bird houses on the farm. we call them our bird hotels, and one of them, the hotel pontchartrain--a martin house--has seventy-six apartments. all winter long we have wire baskets of food hanging about on the trees and then there is a big basin in which the water is kept from freezing by an electric heater. summer and winter, food, drink, and shelter are on hand for the birds. we have hatched pheasants and quail in incubators and then turned them over to electric brooders. we have all kinds of bird houses and nests. the sparrows, who are great abusers of hospitality, insist that their nests be immovable--that they do not sway in the wind; the wrens like swaying nests. so we mounted a number of wren boxes on strips of spring steel so that they would sway in the wind. the wrens liked the idea and the sparrows did not, so we have been able to have the wrens nest in peace. in summer we leave cherries on the trees and strawberries open in the beds, and i think that we have not only more but also more different kinds of bird callers than anywhere else in the northern states. john burroughs said he thought we had, and one day when he was staying at our place he came across a bird that he had never seen before. about ten years ago we imported a great number of birds from abroad--yellow-hammers, chaffinches, green finches, red pales, twites, bullfinches, jays, linnets, larks--some five hundred of them. they stayed around a while, but where they are now i do not know. i shall not import any more. birds are entitled to live where they want to live. birds are the best of companions. we need them for their beauty and their companionship, and also we need them for the strictly economic reason that they destroy harmful insects. the only time i ever used the ford organization to influence legislation was on behalf of the birds, and i think the end justified the means. the weeks-mclean bird bill, providing for bird sanctuaries for our migratory birds, had been hanging in congress with every likelihood of dying a natural death. its immediate sponsors could not arouse much interest among the congressmen. birds do not vote. we got behind that bill and we asked each of our six thousand dealers to wire to his representative in congress. it began to become apparent that birds might have votes; the bill went through. our organization has never been used for any political purpose and never will be. we assume that our people have a right to their own preferences. to get back to john burroughs. of course i knew who he was and i had read nearly everything he had written, but i had never thought of meeting him until some years ago when he developed a grudge against modern progress. he detested money and especially he detested the power which money gives to vulgar people to despoil the lovely countryside. he grew to dislike the industry out of which money is made. he disliked the noise of factories and railways. he criticized industrial progress, and he declared that the automobile was going to kill the appreciation of nature. i fundamentally disagreed with him. i thought that his emotions had taken him on the wrong tack and so i sent him an automobile with the request that he try it out and discover for himself whether it would not help him to know nature better. that automobile--and it took him some time to learn how to manage it himself--completely changed his point of view. he found that it helped him to see more, and from the time of getting it, he made nearly all of his bird-hunting expeditions behind the steering wheel. he learned that instead of having to confine himself to a few miles around slabsides, the whole countryside was open to him. out of that automobile grew our friendship, and it was a fine one. no man could help being the better for knowing john burroughs. he was not a professional naturalist, nor did he make sentiment do for hard research. it is easy to grow sentimental out of doors; it is hard to pursue the truth about a bird as one would pursue a mechanical principle. but john burroughs did that, and as a result the observations he set down were very largely accurate. he was impatient with men who were not accurate in their observations of natural life. john burroughs first loved nature for its own sake; it was not merely his stock of material as a professional writer. he loved it before he wrote about it. late in life he turned philosopher. his philosophy was not so much a philosophy of nature as it was a natural philosophy--the long, serene thoughts of a man who had lived in the tranquil spirit of the trees. he was not pagan; he was not pantheist; but he did not much divide between nature and human nature, nor between human nature and divine. john burroughs lived a wholesome life. he was fortunate to have as his home the farm on which he was born. through long years his surroundings were those which made for quietness of mind. he loved the woods and he made dusty-minded city people love them, too--he helped them see what he saw. he did not make much beyond a living. he could have done so, perhaps, but that was not his aim. like another american naturalist, his occupation could have been described as inspector of birds' nests and hillside paths. of course, that does not pay in dollars and cents. when he had passed the three score and ten he changed his views on industry. perhaps i had something to do with that. he came to see that the whole world could not live by hunting birds' nests. at one time in his life, he had a grudge against all modern progress, especially where it was associated with the burning of coal and the noise of traffic. perhaps that was as near to literary affectation as he ever came. wordsworth disliked railways too, and thoreau said that he could see more of the country by walking. perhaps it was influences such as these which bent john burroughs for a time against industrial progress. but only for a time. he came to see that it was fortunate for him that others' tastes ran in other channels, just as it was fortunate for the world that his taste ran in its own channel. there has been no observable development in the method of making birds' nests since the beginning of recorded observation, but that was hardly a reason why human beings should not prefer modern sanitary homes to cave dwellings. this was a part of john burroughs's sanity--he was not afraid to change his views. he was a lover of nature, not her dupe. in the course of time he came to value and approve modern devices, and though this by itself is an interesting fact, it is not so interesting as the fact that he made this change after he was seventy years old. john burroughs was never too old to change. he kept growing to the last. the man who is too set to change is dead already. the funeral is a mere detail. if he talked more of one person than another, it was emerson. not only did he know emerson by heart as an author, but he knew him by heart as a spirit. he taught me to know emerson. he had so saturated himself with emerson that at one time he thought as he did and even fell into his mode of expression. but afterward he found his own way--which for him was better. there was no sadness in john burroughs's death. when the grain lies brown and ripe under the harvest sun, and the harvesters are busy binding it into sheaves, there is no sadness for the grain. it has ripened and has fulfilled its term, and so had john burroughs. with him it was full ripeness and harvest, not decay. he worked almost to the end. his plans ran beyond the end. they buried him amid the scenes he loved, and it was his eighty-fourth birthday. those scenes will be preserved as he loved them. john burroughs, edison, and i with harvey s. firestone made several vagabond trips together. we went in motor caravans and slept under canvas. once we gypsied through the adirondacks and again through the alleghenies, heading southward. the trips were good fun--except that they began to attract too much attention. * * * * * to-day i am more opposed to war than ever i was, and i think the people of the world know--even if the politicians do not--that war never settles anything. it was war that made the orderly and profitable processes of the world what they are to-day--a loose, disjointed mass. of course, some men get rich out of war; others get poor. but the men who get rich are not those who fought or who really helped behind the lines. no patriot makes money out of war. no man with true patriotism could make money out of war--out of the sacrifice of other men's lives. until the soldier makes money by fighting, until mothers make money by giving their sons to death--not until then should any citizen make money out of providing his country with the means to preserve its life. if wars are to continue, it will be harder and harder for the upright business man to regard war as a legitimate means of high and speedy profits. war fortunes are losing caste every day. even greed will some day hesitate before the overwhelming unpopularity and opposition which will meet the war profiteer. business should be on the side of peace, because peace is business's best asset. and, by the way, was inventive genius ever so sterile as it was during the war? an impartial investigation of the last war, of what preceded it and what has come out of it, would show beyond a doubt that there is in the world a group of men with vast powers of control, that prefers to remain unknown, that does not seek office or any of the tokens of power, that belongs to no nation whatever but is international--a force that uses every government, every widespread business organization, every agency of publicity, every resource of national psychology, to throw the world into a panic for the sake of getting still more power over the world. an old gambling trick used to be for the gambler to cry "police!" when a lot of money was on the table, and, in the panic that followed, to seize the money and run off with it. there is a power within the world which cries "war!" and in the confusion of the nations, the unrestrained sacrifice which people make for safety and peace runs off with the spoils of the panic. the point to keep in mind is that, though we won the military contest, the world has not yet quite succeeded in winning a complete victory over the promoters of war. we ought not to forget that wars are a purely manufactured evil and are made according to a definite technique. a campaign for war is made upon as definite lines as a campaign for any other purpose. first, the people are worked upon. by clever tales the people's suspicions are aroused toward the nation against whom war is desired. make the nation suspicious; make the other nation suspicious. all you need for this is a few agents with some cleverness and no conscience and a press whose interest is locked up with the interests that will be benefited by war. then the "overt act" will soon appear. it is no trick at all to get an "overt act" once you work the hatred of two nations up to the proper pitch. there were men in every country who were glad to see the world war begin and sorry to see it stop. hundreds of american fortunes date from the civil war; thousands of new fortunes date from the world war. nobody can deny that war is a profitable business for those who like that kind of money. war is an orgy of money, just as it is an orgy of blood. and we should not so easily be led into war if we considered what it is that makes a nation really great. it is not the amount of trade that makes a nation great. the creation of private fortunes, like the creation of an autocracy, does not make any country great. nor does the mere change of an agricultural population into a factory population. a country becomes great when, by the wise development of its resources and the skill of its people, property is widely and fairly distributed. foreign trade is full of delusions. we ought to wish for every nation as large a degree of self-support as possible. instead of wishing to keep them dependent on us for what we manufacture, we should wish them to learn to manufacture themselves and build up a solidly founded civilization. when every nation learns to produce the things which it can produce, we shall be able to get down to a basis of serving each other along those special lines in which there can be no competition. the north temperate zone will never be able to compete with the tropics in the special products of the tropics. our country will never be a competitor with the orient in the production of tea, nor with the south in the production of rubber. a large proportion of our foreign trade is based on the backwardness of our foreign customers. selfishness is a motive that would preserve that backwardness. humanity is a motive that would help the backward nations to a self-supporting basis. take mexico, for example. we have heard a great deal about the "development" of mexico. exploitation is the word that ought instead to be used. when its rich natural resources are exploited for the increase of the private fortunes of foreign capitalists, that is not development, it is ravishment. you can never develop mexico until you develop the mexican. and yet how much of the "development" of mexico by foreign exploiters ever took account of the development of its people? the mexican peon has been regarded as mere fuel for the foreign money-makers. foreign trade has been his degradation. short-sighted people are afraid of such counsel. they say: "what would become of our foreign trade?" when the natives of africa begin raising their own cotton and the natives of russia begin making their own farming implements and the natives of china begin supplying their own wants, it will make a difference, to be sure, but does any thoughtful man imagine that the world can long continue on the present basis of a few nations supplying the needs of the world? we must think in terms of what the world will be when civilization becomes general, when all the peoples have learned to help themselves. when a country goes mad about foreign trade it usually depends on other countries for its raw material, turns its population into factory fodder, creates a private rich class, and lets its own immediate interest lie neglected. here in the united states we have enough work to do developing our own country to relieve us of the necessity of looking for foreign trade for a long time. we have agriculture enough to feed us while we are doing it, and money enough to carry the job through. is there anything more stupid than the united states standing idle because japan or france or any other country has not sent us an order when there is a hundred-year job awaiting us in developing our own country? commerce began in service. men carried off their surplus to people who had none. the country that raised corn carried it to the country that could raise no corn. the lumber country brought wood to the treeless plain. the vine country brought fruit to cold northern climes. the pasture country brought meat to the grassless region. it was all service. when all the peoples of the world become developed in the art of self-support, commerce will get back to that basis. business will once more become service. there will be no competition, because the basis of competition will have vanished. the varied peoples will develop skills which will be in the nature of monopolies and not competitive. from the beginning, the races have exhibited distinct strains of genius: this one for government; another for colonization; another for the sea; another for art and music; another for agriculture; another for business, and so on. lincoln said that this nation could not survive half-slave and half-free. the human race cannot forever exist half-exploiter and half-exploited. until we become buyers and sellers alike, producers and consumers alike, keeping the balance not for profit but for service, we are going to have topsy-turvy conditions. france has something to give the world of which no competition can cheat her. so has italy. so has russia. so have the countries of south america. so has japan. so has britain. so has the united states. the sooner we get back to a basis of natural specialties and drop this free-for-all system of grab, the sooner we shall be sure of international self-respect--and international peace. trying to take the trade of the world can promote war. it cannot promote prosperity. some day even the international bankers will learn this. i have never been able to discover any honourable reasons for the beginning of the world war. it seems to have grown out of a very complicated situation created largely by those who thought they could profit by war. i believed, on the information that was given to me in 1916, that some of the nations were anxious for peace and would welcome a demonstration for peace. it was in the hope that this was true that i financed the expedition to stockholm in what has since been called the "peace ship." i do not regret the attempt. the mere fact that it failed is not, to me, conclusive proof that it was not worth trying. we learn more from our failures than from our successes. what i learned on that trip was worth the time and the money expended. i do not now know whether the information as conveyed to me was true or false. i do not care. but i think everyone will agree that if it had been possible to end the war in 1916 the world would be better off than it is to-day. for the victors wasted themselves in winning, and the vanquished in resisting. nobody got an advantage, honourable or dishonourable, out of that war. i had hoped, finally, when the united states entered the war, that it might be a war to end wars, but now i know that wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard. when our country entered the war, it became the duty of every citizen to do his utmost toward seeing through to the end that which we had undertaken. i believe that it is the duty of the man who opposes war to oppose going to war up until the time of its actual declaration. my opposition to war is not based upon pacifist or non-resistant principles. it may be that the present state of civilization is such that certain international questions cannot be discussed; it may be that they have to be fought out. but the fighting never settles the question. it only gets the participants around to a frame of mind where they will agree to discuss what they were fighting about. once we were in the war, every facility of the ford industries was put at the disposal of the government. we had, up to the time of the declaration of war, absolutely refused to take war orders from the foreign belligerents. it is entirely out of keeping with the principles of our business to disturb the routine of our production unless in an emergency. it is at variance with our human principles to aid either side in a war in which our country was not involved. these principles had no application, once the united states entered the war. from april, 1917, until november, 1918, our factory worked practically exclusively for the government. of course we made cars and parts and special delivery trucks and ambulances as a part of our general production, but we also made many other articles that were more or less new to us. we made 2 1/2-ton and 6-ton trucks. we made liberty motors in great quantities, aero cylinders, 1.55 mm. and 4.7 mm. caissons. we made listening devices, steel helmets (both at highland park and philadelphia), and eagle boats, and we did a large amount of experimental work on armour plate, compensators, and body armour. for the eagle boats we put up a special plant on the river rouge site. these boats were designed to combat the submarines. they were 204 feet long, made of steel, and one of the conditions precedent to their building was that their construction should not interfere with any other line of war production and also that they be delivered quickly. the design was worked out by the navy department. on december 22, 1917, i offered to build the boats for the navy. the discussion terminated on january 15, 1918, when the navy department awarded the contract to the ford company. on july 11th, the first completed boat was launched. we made both the hulls and the engines, and not a forging or a rolled beam entered into the construction of other than the engine. we stamped the hulls entirely out of sheet steel. they were built indoors. in four months we ran up a building at the river rouge a third of a mile long, 350 feet wide, and 100 feet high, covering more than thirteen acres. these boats were not built by marine engineers. they were built simply by applying our production principles to a new product. with the armistice, we at once dropped the war and went back to peace. * * * * * an able man is a man who can do things, and his ability to do things is dependent on what he has in him. what he has in him depends on what he started with and what he has done to increase and discipline it. an educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history--he is one who can accomplish things. a man who cannot think is not an educated man however many college degrees he may have acquired. thinking is the hardest work any one can do--which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers. there are two extremes to be avoided: one is the attitude of contempt toward education, the other is the tragic snobbery of assuming that marching through an educational system is a sure cure for ignorance and mediocrity. you cannot learn in any school what the world is going to do next year, but you can learn some of the things which the world has tried to do in former years, and where it failed and where it succeeded. if education consisted in warning the young student away from some of the false theories on which men have tried to build, so that he may be saved the loss of the time in finding out by bitter experience, its good would be unquestioned. an education which consists of signposts indicating the failure and the fallacies of the past doubtless would be very useful. it is not education just to possess the theories of a lot of professors. speculation is very interesting, and sometimes profitable, but it is not education. to be learned in science to-day is merely to be aware of a hundred theories that have not been proved. and not to know what those theories are is to be "uneducated," "ignorant," and so forth. if knowledge of guesses is learning, then one may become learned by the simple expedient of making his own guesses. and by the same token he can dub the rest of the world "ignorant" because it does not know what his guesses are. but the best that education can do for a man is to put him in possession of his powers, give him control of the tools with which destiny has endowed him, and teach him how to think. the college renders its best service as an intellectual gymnasium, in which mental muscle is developed and the student strengthened to do what he can. to say, however, that mental gymnastics can be had only in college is not true, as every educator knows. a man's real education begins after he has left school. true education is gained through the discipline of life. there are many kinds of knowledge, and it depends on what crowd you happen to be in, or how the fashions of the day happen to run, which kind of knowledge, is most respected at the moment. there are fashions in knowledge, just as there are in everything else. when some of us were lads, knowledge used to be limited to the bible. there were certain men in the neighbourhood who knew the book thoroughly, and they were looked up to and respected. biblical knowledge was highly valued then. but nowadays it is doubtful whether deep acquaintance with the bible would be sufficient to win a man a name for learning. knowledge, to my mind, is something that in the past somebody knew and left in a form which enables all who will to obtain it. if a man is born with normal human faculties, if he is equipped with enough ability to use the tools which we call "letters" in reading or writing, there is no knowledge within the possession of the race that he cannot have--if he wants it! the only reason why every man does not know everything that the human mind has ever learned is that no one has ever yet found it worth while to know that much. men satisfy their minds more by finding out things for themselves than by heaping together the things which somebody else has found out. you can go out and gather knowledge all your life, and with all your gathering you will not catch up even with your own times. you may fill your head with all the "facts" of all the ages, and your head may be just an overloaded fact-box when you get through. the point is this: great piles of knowledge in the head are not the same as mental activity. a man may be very learned and very useless. and then again, a man may be unlearned and very useful. the object of education is not to fill a man's mind with facts; it is to teach him how to use his mind in thinking. and it often happens that a man can think better if he is not hampered by the knowledge of the past. it is a very human tendency to think that what mankind does not yet know no one can learn. and yet it must be perfectly clear to everyone that the past learning of mankind cannot be allowed to hinder our future learning. mankind has not gone so very far when you measure its progress against the knowledge that is yet to be gained--the secrets that are yet to be learned. one good way to hinder progress is to fill a man's head with all the learning of the past; it makes him feel that because his head is full, there is nothing more to learn. merely gathering knowledge may become the most useless work a man can do. what can you do to help and heal the world? that is the educational test. if a man can hold up his own end, he counts for one. if he can help ten or a hundred or a thousand other men hold up their ends, he counts for more. he may be quite rusty on many things that inhabit the realm of print, but he is a learned man just the same. when a man is master of his own sphere, whatever it may be, he has won his degree--he has entered the realm of wisdom. * * * * * the work which we describe as studies in the jewish question, and which is variously described by antagonists as "the jewish campaign," "the attack on the jews," "the anti-semitic pogrom," and so forth, needs no explanation to those who have followed it. its motives and purposes must be judged by the work itself. it is offered as a contribution to a question which deeply affects the country, a question which is racial at its source, and which concerns influences and ideals rather than persons. our statements must be judged by candid readers who are intelligent enough to lay our words alongside life as they are able to observe it. if our word and their observation agree, the case is made. it is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. the first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. and that is precisely the item which our critics choose to evade. readers of our articles will see at once that we are not actuated by any kind of prejudice, except it may be a prejudice in favor of the principles which have made our civilization. there had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting down of standards was felt everywhere. it was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy, say, of shakespeare's characters, but a nasty orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression--and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. the fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with, not by us only, but by the intelligent people of the race in question. it is entirely creditable to them that steps have been taken by them to remove their protection from the more flagrant violators of american hospitality, but there is still room to discard outworn ideas of racial superiority maintained by economic or intellectually subversive warfare upon christian society. our work does not pretend to say the last word on the jew in america. it says only the word which describes his obvious present impress on the country. when that impress is changed, the report of it can be changed. for the present, then, the question is wholly in the jews' hands. if they are as wise as they claim to be, they will labour to make jews american, instead of labouring to make america jewish. the genius of the united states of america is christian in the broadest sense, and its destiny is to remain christian. this carries no sectarian meaning with it, but relates to a basic principle which differs from other principles in that it provides for liberty with morality, and pledges society to a code of relations based on fundamental christian conceptions of human rights and duties. as for prejudice or hatred against persons, that is neither american nor christian. our opposition is only to ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people. these ideas proceed from easily identified sources, they are promulgated by easily discoverable methods; and they are controlled by mere exposure. we have simply used the method of exposure. when people learn to identify the source and nature of the influence swirling around them, it is sufficient. let the american people once understand that it is not natural degeneracy, but calculated subversion that afflicts us, and they are safe. the explanation is the cure. this work was taken up without personal motives. when it reached a stage where we believed the american people could grasp the key, we let it rest for the time. our enemies say that we began it for revenge and that we laid it down in fear. time will show that our critics are merely dealing in evasion because they dare not tackle the main question. time will also show that we are better friends to the jews' best interests than are those who praise them to their faces and criticize them behind their backs. chapter xviii democracy and industry perhaps no word is more overworked nowadays than the word "democracy," and those who shout loudest about it, i think, as a rule, want it least. i am always suspicious of men who speak glibly of democracy. i wonder if they want to set up some kind of a despotism or if they want to have somebody do for them what they ought to do for themselves. i am for the kind of democracy that gives to each an equal chance according to his ability. i think if we give more attention to serving our fellows we shall have less concern with the empty forms of government and more concern with the things to be done. thinking of service, we shall not bother about good feeling in industry or life; we shall not bother about masses and classes, or closed and open shops, and such matters as have nothing at all to do with the real business of living. we can get down to facts. we stand in need of facts. it is a shock when the mind awakens to the fact that not all of humanity is human--that whole groups of people do not regard others with humane feelings. great efforts have been made to have this appear as the attitude of a class, but it is really the attitude of all "classes," in so far as they are swayed by the false notion of "classes." before, when it was the constant effort of propaganda to make the people believe that it was only the "rich" who were without humane feelings, the opinion became general that among the "poor" the humane virtues flourished. but the "rich" and the "poor" are both very small minorities, and you cannot classify society under such heads. there are not enough "rich" and there are not enough "poor" to serve the purpose of such classification. rich men have become poor without changing their natures, and poor men have become rich, and the problem has not been affected by it. between the rich and the poor is the great mass of the people who are neither rich nor poor. a society made up exclusively of millionaires would not be different from our present society; some of the millionaires would have to raise wheat and bake bread and make machinery and run trains--else they would all starve to death. someone must do the work. really we have no fixed classes. we have men who will work and men who will not. most of the "classes" that one reads about are purely fictional. take certain capitalist papers. you will be amazed by some of the statements about the labouring class. we who have been and still are a part of the labouring class know that the statements are untrue. take certain of the labour papers. you are equally amazed by some of the statements they make about "capitalists." and yet on both sides there is a grain of truth. the man who is a capitalist and nothing else, who gambles with the fruits of other men's labours, deserves all that is said against him. he is in precisely the same class as the cheap gambler who cheats workingmen out of their wages. the statements we read about the labouring class in the capitalistic press are seldom written by managers of great industries, but by a class of writers who are writing what they think will please their employers. they write what they imagine will please. examine the labour press and you will find another class of writers who similarly seek to tickle the prejudices which they conceive the labouring man to have. both kinds of writers are mere propagandists. and propaganda that does not spread facts is self-destructive. and it should be. you cannot preach patriotism to men for the purpose of getting them to stand still while you rob them--and get away with that kind of preaching very long. you cannot preach the duty of working hard and producing plentifully, and make that a screen for an additional profit to yourself. and neither can the worker conceal the lack of a day's work by a phrase. undoubtedly the employing class possesses facts which the employed ought to have in order to construct sound opinions and pass fair judgments. undoubtedly the employed possess facts which are equally important to the employer. it is extremely doubtful, however, if either side has all the facts. and this is where propaganda, even if it were possible for it to be entirely successful, is defective. it is not desirable that one set of ideas be "put over" on a class holding another set of ideas. what we really need is to get all the ideas together and construct from them. take, for instance, this whole matter of union labour and the right to strike. the only strong group of union men in the country is the group that draws salaries from the unions. some of them are very rich. some of them are interested in influencing the affairs of our large institutions of finance. others are so extreme in their so-called socialism that they border on bolshevism and anarchism--their union salaries liberating them from the necessity of work so that they can devote their energies to subversive propaganda. all of them enjoy a certain prestige and power which, in the natural course of competition, they could not otherwise have won. if the official personnel of the labour unions were as strong, as honest, as decent, and as plainly wise as the bulk of the men who make up the membership, the whole movement would have taken on a different complexion these last few years. but this official personnel, in the main--there are notable exceptions--has not devoted itself to an alliance with the naturally strong qualities of the workingman; it has rather devoted itself to playing upon his weaknesses, principally upon the weaknesses of that newly arrived portion of the population which does not yet know what americanism is, and which never will know if left to the tutelage of their local union leaders. the workingmen, except those few who have been inoculated with the fallacious doctrine of "the class war" and who have accepted the philosophy that progress consists in fomenting discord in industry ("when you get your $12 a day, don't stop at that. agitate for $14. when you get your eight hours a day, don't be a fool and grow contented; agitate for six hours. start something! always start something!"), have the plain sense which enables them to recognize that with principles accepted and observed, conditions change. the union leaders have never seen that. they wish conditions to remain as they are, conditions of injustice, provocation, strikes, bad feeling, and crippled national life. else where would be the need for union officers? every strike is a new argument for them; they point to it and say, "you see! you still need us." the only true labour leader is the one who leads labour to work and to wages, and not the leader who leads labour to strikes, sabotage, and starvation. the union of labour which is coming to the fore in this country is the union of all whose interests are interdependent--whose interests are altogether dependent on the usefulness and efficiency of the service they render. there is a change coming. when the union of "union leaders" disappears, with it will go the union of blind bosses--bosses who never did a decent thing for their employees until they were compelled. if the blind boss was a disease, the selfish union leader was the antidote. when the union leader became the disease, the blind boss became the antidote. both are misfits, both are out of place in well-organized society. and they are both disappearing together. it is the blind boss whose voice is heard to-day saying, "now is the time to smash labour, we've got them on the run." that voice is going down to silence with the voice that preaches "class war." the producers--from the men at the drawing board to the men on the moulding floor--have gotten together in a real union, and they will handle their own affairs henceforth. the exploitation of dissatisfaction is an established business to-day. its object is not to settle anything, nor to get anything done, but to keep dissatisfaction in existence. and the instruments used to do this are a whole set of false theories and promises which can never be fulfilled as long as the earth remains what it is. i am not opposed to labour organization. i am not opposed to any sort of organization that makes for progress. it is organizing to limit production--whether by employers or by workers--that matters. the workingman himself must be on guard against some very dangerous notions--dangerous to himself and to the welfare of the country. it is sometimes said that the less a worker does, the more jobs he creates for other men. this fallacy assumes that idleness is creative. idleness never created a job. it creates only burdens. the industrious man never runs his fellow worker out of a job; indeed, it is the industrious man who is the partner of the industrious manager--who creates more and more business and therefore more and more jobs. it is a great pity that the idea should ever have gone abroad among sensible men that by "soldiering" on the job they help someone else. a moment's thought will show the weakness of such an idea. the healthy business, the business that is always making more and more opportunities for men to earn an honourable and ample living, is the business in which every man does a day's work of which he is proud. and the country that stands most securely is the country in which men work honestly and do not play tricks with the means of production. we cannot play fast and loose with economic laws, because if we do they handle us in very hard ways. the fact that a piece of work is now being done by nine men which used to be done by ten men does not mean that the tenth man is unemployed. he is merely not employed on that work, and the public is not carrying the burden of his support by paying more than it ought on that work--for after all, it is the public that pays! an industrial concern which is wide enough awake to reorganize for efficiency, and honest enough with the public to charge it necessary costs and no more, is usually such an enterprising concern that it has plenty of jobs at which to employ the tenth man. it is bound to grow, and growth means jobs. a well-managed concern is always seeking to lower the labour cost to the public; and it is certain to employ more men than the concern which loafs along and makes the public pay the cost of its mismanagement. the tenth man was an unnecessary cost. the ultimate consumer was paying him. but the fact that he was unnecessary on that particular job does not mean that he is unnecessary in the work of the world, or even in the work of his particular shop. the public pays for all mismanagement. more than half the trouble with the world to-day is the "soldiering" and dilution and cheapness and inefficiency for which the people are paying their good money. wherever two men are being paid for what one can do, the people are paying double what they ought. and it is a fact that only a little while ago in the united states, man for man, we were not producing what we did for several years previous to the war. a day's work means more than merely being "on duty" at the shop for the required number of hours. it means giving an equivalent in service for the wage drawn. and when that equivalent is tampered with either way--when the man gives more than he receives, or receives more than he gives--it is not long before serious dislocation will be manifest. extend that condition throughout the country, and you have a complete upset of business. all that industrial difficulty means is the destruction of basic equivalents in the shop. management must share the blame with labour. management has been lazy, too. management has found it easier to hire an additional five hundred men than to so improve its methods that one hundred men of the old force could be released to other work. the public was paying, and business was booming, and management didn't care a pin. it was no different in the office from what it was in the shop. the law of equivalents was broken just as much by managers as by workmen. practically nothing of importance is secured by mere demand. that is why strikes always fail--even though they may seem to succeed. a strike which brings higher wages or shorter hours and passes on the burden to the community is really unsuccessful. it only makes the industry less able to serve--and decreases the number of jobs that it can support. this is not to say that no strike is justified--it may draw attention to an evil. men can strike with justice--that they will thereby get justice is another question. the strike for proper conditions and just rewards is justifiable. the pity is that men should be compelled to use the strike to get what is theirs by right. no american ought to be compelled to strike for his rights. he ought to receive them naturally, easily, as a matter of course. these justifiable strikes are usually the employer's fault. some employers are not fit for their jobs. the employment of men--the direction of their energies, the arranging of their rewards in honest ratio to their production and to the prosperity of the business--is no small job. an employer may be unfit for his job, just as a man at the lathe may be unfit. justifiable strikes are a sign that the boss needs another job--one that he can handle. the unfit employer causes more trouble than the unfit employee. you can change the latter to another more suitable job. but the former must usually be left to the law of compensation. the justified strike, then, is one that need never have been called if the employer had done his work. there is a second kind of strike--the strike with a concealed design. in this kind of strike the workingmen are made the tools of some manipulator who seeks his own ends through them. to illustrate: here is a great industry whose success is due to having met a public need with efficient and skillful production. it has a record for justice. such an industry presents a great temptation to speculators. if they can only gain control of it they can reap rich benefit from all the honest effort that has been put into it. they can destroy its beneficiary wage and profit-sharing, squeeze every last dollar out of the public, the product, and the workingman, and reduce it to the plight of other business concerns which are run on low principles. the motive may be the personal greed of the speculators or they may want to change the policy of a business because its example is embarrassing to other employers who do not want to do what is right. the industry cannot be touched from within, because its men have no reason to strike. so another method is adopted. the business may keep many outside shops busy supplying it with material. if these outside shops can be tied up, then that great industry may be crippled. so strikes are fomented in the outside industries. every attempt is made to curtail the factory's source of supplies. if the workingmen in the outside shops knew what the game was, they would refuse to play it, but they don't know; they serve as the tools of designing capitalists without knowing it. there is one point, however, that ought to rouse the suspicions of workingmen engaged in this kind of strike. if the strike cannot get itself settled, no matter what either side offers to do, it is almost positive proof that there is a third party interested in having the strike continue. that hidden influence does not want a settlement on any terms. if such a strike is won by the strikers, is the lot of the workingman improved? after throwing the industry into the hands of outside speculators, are the workmen given any better treatment or wages? there is a third kind of strike--the strike that is provoked by the money interests for the purpose of giving labour a bad name. the american workman has always had a reputation for sound judgment. he has not allowed himself to be led away by every shouter who promised to create the millennium out of thin air. he has had a mind of his own and has used it. he has always recognized the fundamental truth that the absence of reason was never made good by the presence of violence. in his way the american workingman has won a certain prestige with his own people and throughout the world. public opinion has been inclined to regard with respect his opinions and desires. but there seems to be a determined effort to fasten the bolshevik stain on american labour by inciting it to such impossible attitudes and such wholly unheard-of actions as shall change public sentiment from respect to criticism. merely avoiding strikes, however, does not promote industry. we may say to the workingman: "you have a grievance, but the strike is no remedy--it only makes the situation worse whether you win or lose." then the workingman may admit this to be true and refrain from striking. does that settle anything? no! if the worker abandons strikes as an unworthy means of bringing about desirable conditions, it simply means that employers must get busy on their own initiative and correct defective conditions. the experience of the ford industries with the workingman has been entirely satisfactory, both in the united states and abroad. we have no antagonism to unions, but we participate in no arrangements with either employee or employer organizations. the wages paid are always higher than any reasonable union could think of demanding and the hours of work are always shorter. there is nothing that a union membership could do for our people. some of them may belong to unions, probably the majority do not. we do not know and make no attempt to find out, for it is a matter of not the slightest concern to us. we respect the unions, sympathize with their good aims and denounce their bad ones. in turn i think that they give us respect, for there has never been any authoritative attempt to come between the men and the management in our plants. of course radical agitators have tried to stir up trouble now and again, but the men have mostly regarded them simply as human oddities and their interest in them has been the same sort of interest that they would have in a four-legged man. in england we did meet the trades union question squarely in our manchester plant. the workmen of manchester are mostly unionized, and the usual english union restrictions upon output prevail. we took over a body plant in which were a number of union carpenters. at once the union officers asked to see our executives and arrange terms. we deal only with our own employees and never with outside representatives, so our people refused to see the union officials. thereupon they called the carpenters out on strike. the carpenters would not strike and were expelled from the union. then the expelled men brought suit against the union for their share of the benefit fund. i do not know how the litigation turned out, but that was the end of interference by trades union officers with our operations in england. we make no attempt to coddle the people who work with us. it is absolutely a give-and-take relation. during the period in which we largely increased wages we did have a considerable supervisory force. the home life of the men was investigated and an effort was made to find out what they did with their wages. perhaps at the time it was necessary; it gave us valuable information. but it would not do at all as a permanent affair and it has been abandoned. we do not believe in the "glad hand," or the professionalized "personal touch," or "human element." it is too late in the day for that sort of thing. men want something more than a worthy sentiment. social conditions are not made out of words. they are the net result of the daily relations between man and man. the best social spirit is evidenced by some act which costs the management something and which benefits all. that is the only way to prove good intentions and win respect. propaganda, bulletins, lectures--they are nothing. it is the right act sincerely done that counts. a great business is really too big to be human. it grows so large as to supplant the personality of the man. in a big business the employer, like the employee, is lost in the mass. together they have created a great productive organization which sends out articles that the world buys and pays for in return money that provides a livelihood for everyone in the business. the business itself becomes the big thing. there is something sacred about a big business which provides a living for hundreds and thousands of families. when one looks about at the babies coming into the world, at the boys and girls going to school, at the young workingmen who, on the strength of their jobs, are marrying and setting up for themselves, at the thousands of homes that are being paid for on installments out of the earnings of men--when one looks at a great productive organization that is enabling all these things to be done, then the continuance of that business becomes a holy trust. it becomes greater and more important than the individuals. the employer is but a man like his employees and is subject to all the limitations of humanity. he is justified in holding his job only as he can fill it. if he can steer the business straight, if his men can trust him to run his end of the work properly and without endangering their security, then he is filling his place. otherwise he is no more fit for his position than would be an infant. the employer, like everyone else, is to be judged solely by his ability. he may be but a name to the men--a name on a signboard. but there is the business--it is more than a name. it produces the living--and a living is a pretty tangible thing. the business is a reality. it does things. it is a going concern. the evidence of its fitness is that the pay envelopes keep coming. you can hardly have too much harmony in business. but you can go too far in picking men because they harmonize. you can have so much harmony that there will not be enough of the thrust and counterthrust which is life--enough of the competition which means effort and progress. it is one thing for an organization to be working harmoniously toward one object, but it is another thing for an organization to work harmoniously with each individual unit of itself. some organizations use up so much energy and time maintaining a feeling of harmony that they have no force left to work for the object for which the organization was created. the organization is secondary to the object. the only harmonious organization that is worth anything is an organization in which all the members are bent on the one main purpose--to get along toward the objective. a common purpose, honestly believed in, sincerely desired--that is the great harmonizing principle. i pity the poor fellow who is so soft and flabby that he must always have "an atmosphere of good feeling" around him before he can do his work. there are such men. and in the end, unless they obtain enough mental and moral hardiness to lift them out of their soft reliance on "feeling," they are failures. not only are they business failures; they are character failures also; it is as if their bones never attained a sufficient degree of hardness to enable them to stand on their own feet. there is altogether too much reliance on good feeling in our business organizations. people have too great a fondness for working with the people they like. in the end it spoils a good many valuable qualities. do not misunderstand me; when i use the term "good feeling" i mean that habit of making one's personal likes and dislikes the sole standard of judgment. suppose you do not like a man. is that anything against him? it may be something against you. what have your likes or dislikes to do with the facts? every man of common sense knows that there are men whom he dislikes, who are really more capable than he is himself. and taking all this out of the shop and into the broader fields, it is not necessary for the rich to love the poor or the poor to love the rich. it is not necessary for the employer to love the employee or for the employee to love the employer. what is necessary is that each should try to do justice to the other according to his deserts. that is real democracy and not the question of who ought to own the bricks and the mortar and the furnaces and the mills. and democracy has nothing to do with the question, "who ought to be boss?" that is very much like asking: "who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" obviously, the man who can sing tenor. you could not have deposed caruso. suppose some theory of musical democracy had consigned caruso to the musical proletariat. would that have reared another tenor to take his place? or would caruso's gifts have still remained his own? chapter xix what we may expect we are--unless i do not read the signs aright--in the midst of a change. it is going on all about us, slowly and scarcely observed, but with a firm surety. we are gradually learning to relate cause and effect. a great deal of that which we call disturbance--a great deal of the upset in what have seemed to be established institutions--is really but the surface indication of something approaching a regeneration. the public point of view is changing, and we really need only a somewhat different point of view to make the very bad system of the past into a very good system of the future. we are displacing that peculiar virtue which used to be admired as hard-headedness, and which was really only wooden-headedness, with intelligence, and also we are getting rid of mushy sentimentalism. the first confused hardness with progress; the second confused softness with progress. we are getting a better view of the realities and are beginning to know that we have already in the world all things needful for the fullest kind of a life and that we shall use them better once we learn what they are and what they mean. whatever is wrong--and we all know that much is wrong--can be righted by a clear definition of the wrongness. we have been looking so much at one another, at what one has and another lacks, that we have made a personal affair out of something that is too big for personalities. to be sure, human nature enters largely into our economic problems. selfishness exists, and doubtless it colours all the competitive activities of life. if selfishness were the characteristic of any one class it might be easily dealt with, but it is in human fibre everywhere. and greed exists. and envy exists. and jealousy exists. but as the struggle for mere existence grows less--and it is less than it used to be, although the sense of uncertainty may have increased--we have an opportunity to release some of the finer motives. we think less of the frills of civilization as we grow used to them. progress, as the world has thus far known it, is accompanied by a great increase in the things of life. there is more gear, more wrought material, in the average american backyard than in the whole domain of an african king. the average american boy has more paraphernalia around him than a whole eskimo community. the utensils of kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and coal cellar make a list that would have staggered the most luxurious potentate of five hundred years ago. the increase in the impedimenta of life only marks a stage. we are like the indian who comes into town with all his money and buys everything he sees. there is no adequate realization of the large proportion of the labour and material of industry that is used in furnishing the world with its trumpery and trinkets, which are made only to be sold, and are bought merely to be owned--that perform no service in the world and are at last mere rubbish as at first they were mere waste. humanity is advancing out of its trinket-making stage, and industry is coming down to meet the world's needs, and thus we may expect further advancement toward that life which many now see, but which the present "good enough" stage hinders our attaining. and we are growing out of this worship of material possessions. it is no longer a distinction to be rich. as a matter of fact, to be rich is no longer a common ambition. people do not care for money as money, as they once did. certainly they do not stand in awe of it, nor of him who possesses it. what we accumulate by way of useless surplus does us no honour. it takes only a moment's thought to see that as far as individual personal advantage is concerned, vast accumulations of money mean nothing. a human being is a human being and is nourished by the same amount and quality of food, is warmed by the same weight of clothing, whether he be rich or poor. and no one can inhabit more than one room at a time. but if one has visions of service, if one has vast plans which no ordinary resources could possibly realize, if one has a life ambition to make the industrial desert bloom like the rose, and the work-a-day life suddenly blossom into fresh and enthusiastic human motives of higher character and efficiency, then one sees in large sums of money what the farmer sees in his seed corn--the beginning of new and richer harvests whose benefits can no more be selfishly confined than can the sun's rays. there are two fools in this world. one is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured. they are both on the wrong track. they might as well try to corner all the checkers or all the dominoes of the world under the delusion that they are thereby cornering great quantities of skill. some of the most successful money-makers of our times have never added one pennyworth to the wealth of men. does a card player add to the wealth of the world? if we all created wealth up to the limits, the easy limits, of our creative capacity, then it would simply be a case of there being enough for everybody, and everybody getting enough. any real scarcity of the necessaries of life in the world--not a fictitious scarcity caused by the lack of clinking metallic disks in one's purse--is due only to lack of production. and lack of production is due only too often to lack of knowledge of how and what to produce. * * * * * this much we must believe as a starting point: that the earth produces, or is capable of producing, enough to give decent sustenance to everyone--not of food alone, but of everything else we need. for everything is produced from the earth. that it is possible for labour, production, distribution, and reward to be so organized as to make certain that those who contribute shall receive shares determined by an exact justice. that regardless of the frailties of human nature, our economic system can be so adjusted that selfishness, although perhaps not abolished, can be robbed of power to work serious economic injustice. * * * * * the business of life is easy or hard according to the skill or the lack of skill displayed in production and distribution. it has been thought that business existed for profit. that is wrong. business exists for service. it is a profession, and must have recognized professional ethics, to violate which declasses a man. business needs more of the professional spirit. the professional spirit seeks professional integrity, from pride, not from compulsion. the professional spirit detects its own violations and penalizes them. business will some day become clean. a machine that stops every little while is an imperfect machine, and its imperfection is within itself. a body that falls sick every little while is a diseased body, and its disease is within itself. so with business. its faults, many of them purely the faults of the moral constitution of business, clog its progress and make it sick every little while. some day the ethics of business will be universally recognized, and in that day business will be seen to be the oldest and most useful of all the professions. * * * * * all that the ford industries have done--all that i have done--is to endeavour to evidence by works that service comes before profit and that the sort of business which makes the world better for its presence is a noble profession. often it has come to me that what is regarded as the somewhat remarkable progression of our enterprises--i will not say "success," for that word is an epitaph, and we are just starting--is due to some accident; and that the methods which we have used, while well enough in their way, fit only the making of our particular products and would not do at all in any other line of business or indeed for any products or personalities other than our own. it used to be taken for granted that our theories and our methods were fundamentally unsound. that is because they were not understood. events have killed that kind of comment, but there remains a wholly sincere belief that what we have done could not be done by any other company--that we have been touched by a wand, that neither we nor any one else could make shoes, or hats, or sewing machines, or watches, or typewriters, or any other necessity after the manner in which we make automobiles and tractors. and that if only we ventured into other fields we should right quickly discover our errors. i do not agree with any of this. nothing has come out of the air. the foregoing pages should prove that. we have nothing that others might not have. we have had no good fortune except that which always attends any one who puts his best into his work. there was nothing that could be called "favorable" about our beginning. we began with almost nothing. what we have, we earned, and we earned it by unremitting labour and faith in a principle. we took what was a luxury and turned it into a necessity and without trick or subterfuge. when we began to make our present motor car the country had few good roads, gasoline was scarce, and the idea was firmly implanted in the public mind that an automobile was at the best a rich man's toy. our only advantage was lack of precedent. we began to manufacture according to a creed--a creed which was at that time unknown in business. the new is always thought odd, and some of us are so constituted that we can never get over thinking that anything which is new must be odd and probably queer. the mechanical working out of our creed is constantly changing. we are continually finding new and better ways of putting it into practice, but we have not found it necessary to alter the principles, and i cannot imagine how it might ever be necessary to alter them, because i hold that they are absolutely universal and must lead to a better and wider life for all. if i did not think so i would not keep working--for the money that i make is inconsequent. money is useful only as it serves to forward by practical example the principle that business is justified only as it serves, that it must always give more to the community than it takes away, and that unless everybody benefits by the existence of a business then that business should not exist. i have proved this with automobiles and tractors. i intend to prove it with railways and public-service corporations--not for my personal satisfaction and not for the money that may be earned. (it is perfectly impossible, applying these principles, to avoid making a much larger profit than if profit were the main object.) i want to prove it so that all of us may have more, and that all of us may live better by increasing the service rendered by all businesses. poverty cannot be abolished by formula; it can be abolished only by hard and intelligent work. we are, in effect, an experimental station to prove a principle. that we do make money is only further proof that we are right. for that is a species of argument that establishes itself without words. in the first chapter was set forth the creed. let me repeat it in the light of the work that has been done under it--for it is at the basis of all our work: (1) an absence of fear of the future or of veneration for the past. one who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. there is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. what is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress. (2) a disregard of competition. whoever does a thing best ought to be the one to do it. it is criminal to try to get business away from another man--criminal because one is then trying to lower for personal gain the condition of one's fellow-men, to rule by force instead of by intelligence. (3) the putting of service before profit. without a profit, business cannot extend. there is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit. well-conducted business enterprises cannot fail to return a profit but profit must and inevitably will come as a reward for good service. it cannot be the basis--it must be the result of service. (4) manufacturing is not buying low and selling high. it is the process of buying materials fairly and, with the smallest possible addition of cost, transforming those materials into a consumable product and distributing it to the consumer. gambling, speculating, and sharp dealing tend only to clog this progression. * * * * * we must have production, but it is the spirit behind it that counts most. that kind of production which is a service inevitably follows a real desire to be of service. the various wholly artificial rules set up for finance and industry and which pass as "laws" break down with such frequency as to prove that they are not even good guesses. the basis of all economic reasoning is the earth and its products. to make the yield of the earth, in all its forms, large enough and dependable enough to serve as the basis for real life--the life which is more than eating and sleeping--is the highest service. that is the real foundation for an economic system. we can make things--the problem of production has been solved brilliantly. we can make any number of different sort of things by the millions. the material mode of our life is splendidly provided for. there are enough processes and improvements now pigeonholed and awaiting application to bring the physical side of life to almost millennial completeness. but we are too wrapped up in the things we are doing--we are not enough concerned with the reasons why we do them. our whole competitive system, our whole creative expression, all the play of our faculties seem to be centred around material production and its by-products of success and wealth. there is, for instance, a feeling that personal or group benefit can be had at the expense of other persons or groups. there is nothing to be gained by crushing any one. if the farmer's bloc should crush the manufacturers would the farmers be better off? if the manufacturer's bloc should crush the farmers, would the manufacturers be better off? could capital gain by crushing labour? or labour by crushing capital? or does a man in business gain by crushing a competitor? no, destructive competition benefits no one. the kind of competition which results in the defeat of the many and the overlordship of the ruthless few must go. destructive competition lacks the qualities out of which progress comes. progress comes from a generous form of rivalry. bad competition is personal. it works for the aggrandizement of some individual or group. it is a sort of warfare. it is inspired by a desire to "get" someone. it is wholly selfish. that is to say, its motive is not pride in the product, nor a desire to excel in service, nor yet a wholesome ambition to approach to scientific methods of production. it is moved simply by the desire to crowd out others and monopolize the market for the sake of the money returns. that being accomplished, it always substitutes a product of inferior quality. * * * * * freeing ourselves from the petty sort of destructive competition frees us from many set notions. we are too closely tied to old methods and single, one-way uses. we need more mobility. we have been using certain things just one way, we have been sending certain goods through only one channel--and when that use is slack, or that channel is stopped, business stops, too, and all the sorry consequences of "depression" set in. take corn, for example. there are millions upon millions of bushels of corn stored in the united states with no visible outlet. a certain amount of corn is used as food for man and beast, but not all of it. in pre-prohibition days a certain amount of corn went into the making of liquor, which was not a very good use for good corn. but through a long course of years corn followed those two channels, and when one of them stopped the stocks of corn began to pile up. it is the money fiction that usually retards the movement of stocks, but even if money were plentiful we could not possibly consume the stores of food which we sometimes possess. if foodstuffs become too plentiful to be consumed as food, why not find other uses for them? why use corn only for hogs and distilleries? why sit down and bemoan the terrible disaster that has befallen the corn market? is there no use for corn besides the making of pork or the making of whisky? surely there must be. there should be so many uses for corn that only the important uses could ever be fully served; there ought always be enough channels open to permit corn to be used without waste. once upon a time the farmers burned corn as fuel--corn was plentiful and coal was scarce. that was a crude way to dispose of corn, but it contained the germ of an idea. there is fuel in corn; oil and fuel alcohol are obtainable from corn, and it is high time that someone was opening up this new use so that the stored-up corn crops may be moved. why have only one string to our bow? why not two? if one breaks, there is the other. if the hog business slackens, why should not the farmer turn his corn into tractor fuel? we need more diversity all round. the four-track system everywhere would not be a bad idea. we have a single-track money system. it is a mighty fine system for those who own it. it is a perfect system for the interest-collecting, credit-controlling financiers who literally own the commodity called money and who literally own the machinery by which money is made and used. let them keep their system if they like it. but the people are finding out that it is a poor system for what we call "hard times" because it ties up the line and stops traffic. if there are special protections for the interests, there ought also to be special protections for the plain people. diversity of outlet, of use, and of financial enablement, are the strongest defenses we can have against economic emergencies. it is likewise with labour. there surely ought to be flying squadrons of young men who would be available for emergency conditions in harvest field, mine, shop, or railroad. if the fires of a hundred industries threaten to go out for lack of coal, and one million men are menaced by unemployment, it would seem both good business and good humanity for a sufficient number of men to volunteer for the mines and the railroads. there is always something to be done in this world, and only ourselves to do it. the whole world may be idle, and in the factory sense there may be "nothing to do." there may be nothing to do in this place or that, but there is always something to do. it is this fact which should urge us to such an organization of ourselves that this "something to be done" may get done, and unemployment reduced to a minimum. * * * * * every advance begins in a small way and with the individual. the mass can be no better than the sum of the individuals. advancement begins within the man himself; when he advances from half-interest to strength of purpose; when he advances from hesitancy to decisive directness; when he advances from immaturity to maturity of judgment; when he advances from apprenticeship to mastery; when he advances from a mere _dilettante_ at labour to a worker who finds a genuine joy in work; when he advances from an eye-server to one who can be entrusted to do his work without oversight and without prodding--why, then the world advances! the advance is not easy. we live in flabby times when men are being taught that everything ought to be easy. work that amounts to anything will never be easy. and the higher you go in the scale of responsibility, the harder becomes the job. ease has its place, of course. every man who works ought to have sufficient leisure. the man who works hard should have his easy chair, his comfortable fireside, his pleasant surroundings. these are his by right. but no one deserves ease until after his work is done. it will never be possible to put upholstered ease into work. some work is needlessly hard. it can be lightened by proper management. every device ought to be employed to leave a man free to do a man's work. flesh and blood should not be made to bear burdens that steel can bear. but even when the best is done, work still remains work, and any man who puts himself into his job will feel that it is work. and there cannot be much picking and choosing. the appointed task may be less than was expected. a man's real work is not always what he would have chosen to do. a man's real work is what he is chosen to do. just now there are more menial jobs than there will be in the future; and as long as there are menial jobs, someone will have to do them; but there is no reason why a man should be penalized because his job is menial. there is one thing that can be said about menial jobs that cannot be said about a great many so-called more responsible jobs, and that is, they are useful and they are respectable and they are honest. the time has come when drudgery must be taken out of labour. it is not work that men object to, but the element of drudgery. we must drive out drudgery wherever we find it. we shall never be wholly civilized until we remove the treadmill from the daily job. invention is doing this in some degree now. we have succeeded to a very great extent in relieving men of the heavier and more onerous jobs that used to sap their strength, but even when lightening the heavier labour we have not yet succeeded in removing monotony. that is another field that beckons us--the abolition of monotony, and in trying to accomplish that we shall doubtless discover other changes that will have to be made in our system. * * * * * the opportunity to work is now greater than ever it was. the opportunity to advance is greater. it is true that the young man who enters industry to-day enters a very different system from that in which the young man of twenty-five years ago began his career. the system has been tightened up; there is less play or friction in it; fewer matters are left to the haphazard will of the individual; the modern worker finds himself part of an organization which apparently leaves him little initiative. yet, with all this, it is not true that "men are mere machines." it is not true that opportunity has been lost in organization. if the young man will liberate himself from these ideas and regard the system as it is, he will find that what he thought was a barrier is really an aid. factory organization is not a device to prevent the expansion of ability, but a device to reduce the waste and losses due to mediocrity. it is not a device to hinder the ambitious, clear-headed man from doing his best, but a device to prevent the don't-care sort of individual from doing his worst. that is to say, when laziness, carelessness, slothfulness, and lack-interest are allowed to have their own way, everybody suffers. the factory cannot prosper and therefore cannot pay living wages. when an organization makes it necessary for the don't-care class to do better than they naturally would, it is for their benefit--they are better physically, mentally, and financially. what wages should we be able to pay if we trusted a large don't-care class to their own methods and gait of production? if the factory system which brought mediocrity up to a higher standard operated also to keep ability down to a lower standard--it would be a very bad system, a very bad system indeed. but a system, even a perfect one, must have able individuals to operate it. no system operates itself. and the modern system needs more brains for its operation than did the old. more brains are needed to-day than ever before, although perhaps they are not needed in the same place as they once were. it is just like power: formerly every machine was run by foot power; the power was right at the machine. but nowadays we have moved the power back--concentrated it in the power-house. thus also we have made it unnecessary for the highest types of mental ability to be engaged in every operation in the factory. the better brains are in the mental power-plant. every business that is growing is at the same time creating new places for capable men. it cannot help but do so. this does not mean that new openings come every day and in groups. not at all. they come only after hard work; it is the fellow who can stand the gaff of routine and still keep himself alive and alert who finally gets into direction. it is not sensational brilliance that one seeks in business, but sound, substantial dependability. big enterprises of necessity move slowly and cautiously. the young man with ambition ought to take a long look ahead and leave an ample margin of time for things to happen. * * * * * a great many things are going to change. we shall learn to be masters rather than servants of nature. with all our fancied skill we still depend largely on natural resources and think that they cannot be displaced. we dig coal and ore and cut down trees. we use the coal and the ore and they are gone; the trees cannot be replaced within a lifetime. we shall some day harness the heat that is all about us and no longer depend on coal--we may now create heat through electricity generated by water power. we shall improve on that method. as chemistry advances i feel quite certain that a method will be found to transform growing things into substances that will endure better than the metals--we have scarcely touched the uses of cotton. better wood can be made than is grown. the spirit of true service will create for us. we have only each of us to do our parts sincerely. * * * * * everything is possible ... "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." the book ends index absentees discharged, accidents, safeguarding against; causes of advancement, personal advertisement, first, of ford motor co. agents, agriculture, a primary function ainsley, charles alexander, henry, drives ford car to top of ben nevis, 4,600 feet, in 1911 antecedents, a man's, of no interest in hiring at ford factory assembly of a ford car; first experiment in a moving assembly line, april 1, 1913; results of the experiment automobile, public's first attitude toward automobile business, bad methods of; in its beginnings bankers play too great a part in business; in railroads banking, bedridden men at work, benz car on exhibition at macy's in 1885, birds, mr. ford's fondness for blind men can work, bolshevism, bonuses--_see_ "profit-sharing" borrowing money; what it would have meant to ford motor co. in 1920 british board of agriculture, british cabinet and fordson tractors, burroughs, john business, monopoly and profiteering bad for; function of buying for immediate needs only, cadillac company, capital, capitalist newspapers, capitalists, cash balance, large charity, professional city life, "classes" mostly fictional, classification of work at ford plants, cleanliness of factory, coal used in ford plants from ford mines, coke ovens at river rouge plant, collier, colonel d. c. competition, consumption varies according to price and quality, convict labour, cooper, tom cooperative farming, cork, ireland, fordson tractor plant corn, potential uses of costs of production, records of; prices force down; high wages contribute to low country, living in courtney, f. s. creative work, creed, industrial, mr. ford's cripples can work, cross, john e. dalby, prof. w. e., deaf and dumb men at work, _dearborn independent_, dearborn plant, democracy, detroit automobile co., detroit general hospital, now ford hospital, detroit, toledo and ironton railway, purchased by ford motor co., in march, 1921, development, opportunity for, in u. s., diamond manufacturing co. fire, discipline at ford plants, "dividends, abolish, rather than lower wages," dividends, small, ford policy of, doctors, dollar, the fluctuating, drudgery, eagle boats, economy, edison, thomas a., educated man, an; definition of, education, mr. ford's ideas on, educational department, electricity generated at ford plants, "employees, all, are really partners," employment department, equal, all men are not, experience, lack of, no bar to employment, experiments, no record of, kept at ford factories, "experts," no, at ford plants, factory, ford, growth of, factory organization, function of, failure, habit of, farming, lack of knowledge in, no conflict between, and industry, future development in, farming with tractors, fear, federal reserve system, fighting, a cause for immediate discharge, finance, financial crisis in 1921, how ford motor co. met, financial system at present inadequate, firestone, harvey s., flat rock plant, floor space for workers, flour-milling, foodstuffs, potential uses of, ford car- the first, no. 5,000,000, the second, introduction of, in england in 1903, about 5,000 parts in, sales and production--_see_ "sales" ford, henry- born at dearborn, mich., july 30, 1863, mechanically inclined, leaves school at seventeen, becomes apprentice at drydock engine works, watch repairer, works with local representative of westinghouse co. as expert in setting up and repairing road engines, builds a steam tractor in his workshop, reads of the "silent gas engine" in the _world of science_, in 1887 builds one on the otto four-cycle model, father gives him forty acres of timber land, marriage, in 1890 begins work on double-cylinder engine, leaves farm and works as engineer and machinist with the detroit electric co., rents house in detroit and sets up workshop in back yard, in 1892 completes first motor car, first road test in 1893, builds second motor car, quits job with electric co. august 15, 1899, and goes into automobile business, organization of detroit automobile co., resigns from, in 1902, rents shop to continue experiments at 81 park place, detroit, beats alexander winton in race, early reflections on business, in 1903 builds, with tom cooper, two cars, the "999" and the "arrow" for speed, forms the ford motor co., buys controlling share in 1906, builds "model a," builds "model b" and "model c," makes a record in race over ice in the "arrow," builds first real manufacturing plant, in may, 1908, assembles 311 cars in six workings days, in june, 1908, assembles one hundred cars in one day, in 1909, decides to manufacture only "model t," painted black, buys sixty acres of land for plant at highland park, outside of detroit, how he met the financial crises of 1921, buys detroit, toledo & ironton ry., march, 1921, "ford doesn't use the ford," ford, edsel, ford hospital, ford motor co., organized 1903, henry ford buys controlling share in 1906, how it met financial crisis in 1921, thirty-five branches of, in u. s. "ford, you can dissect it, but you cannot kill it," fordson tractor, prices, genesis and development of, cost of farming with, 5,000 sent to england in 1917-18, foreign trade, gas from coke ovens at river rouge plant utilized, "gold is not wealth," "good feeling" in working not essential, though desirable, government, the function of, greaves, r. n., greed vs. service, greenhall, gilbert, grosse point track, "habit conduces to a certain inertia," highland park plant, hobbs, robert w., hospital, ford, hough, judge, renders decision against ford motor co. in selden patent suit, hours of labour per day reduced from nine to eight in january, 1914, "human, a great business is too big to be," human element in business, ideas, old and new, improvements in products, interstate commerce commission, inventory, cutting down, by improved freight service, investment, interest on, not properly chargeable to operating expenses, jacobs, edmund, "jail, men in, ought to be able to support their families," jewish question, studies in the, jobs, menial, "john r. street," labour, the economic fundamental, and capital, potential uses of, labour leaders, labour newspapers, labour turnover, "lawyers, like bankers, know absolutely nothing about business," legislation, the function of, licensed association, "life is not a location, but a journey," light for working, loss, taking a; in times of business depression, manchester, eng., ford plant at, strike at, machinery, its place in life, manufacture, a primary function, medical department, mexico, milner, lord, models- "a," "b," "c," "f," "k," "n," "r," "s," "t," changing, not a ford policy, money, chasing, present system of, what it is worth, invested in a business not chargeable to it, fluctuating value of, is not wealth, monopoly, bad for business, monotonous work, motion, waste, eliminating, northville, mich., plant, combination farm and factory, oldfteld, barney, opportunity for young men of today, organization, excess, and red tape, overman, henry, otto engine, overhead charge per car, cut from $146 to $93, parts, about 5,000, in a ford car, paternalism has no place in industry, "peace ship" philanthropy, physical incapacity not necessarily a hindrance to working, physicians, piquette plant, poverty, power-farming, price policy, mr. ford's, producer depends upon service, production, principles of ford plant, plan of, worked out carefully, (for production of ford cars, _see_ "sales" and table of production on p. 145) professional charity, profiteering, bad for business, profit-sharing, property, the right of, profit, small per article, large aggregate, profits belong to planner, producer, and purchaser, price raising, reducing, "prices, if, of goods are above the incomes of the people, then get the prices down to the incomes," "prices, unduly high, always a sign of unsound business," prices of ford touring cars since 1909, prison laws, "prisoners ought to be able to support their families," railroads, active managers have ceased to manage, suffering from bankers and lawyers, folly of long hauls, reactionaries, red tape, "refinancing," reformers, repetitive labour, "rich, it is no longer a distinction to be," right of property, river rouge plant, routine work, royal agricultural society, rumours in 1920 that ford motor co. was in a bad financial condition, russia, under sovietism, safeguarding machines, "sales depend upon wages," sales of ford cars in 1903-4, 1,708 cars, in 1904-5, 1,695 cars, in 1905-6, 1,599 cars, in 1906-7, 8,423 cars, in 1907-8, 6,398 cars, in 1908-9, 10,607 cars, in 1909-10, 18,664 cars, in 1910-11, 84,528 cars, see also table of production since 1909, saturation, point of, saving habit, schools, trade, henry ford trade school, scottish reliability trials, test of ford car in scrap, utilization of, seasonal unemployment, selden, george b., selden patent, famous suit against ford motor co., in 1909, service, principles of, "the foundation of real business," "comes before profit," simplicity, philosophy of, social department, sorensen, charles e., standard oil co., standardization, statistics abolished in 1920, steel, vanadium, strelow's carpenter shop, strike, the right to, strikes, why, fail, suggestions from employees, surgeons' fees, sweepings, saving, nets $6,000 a year, titles, no, to jobs at ford factory, tractor--_see_ "fordson" trade, foreign, trade schools, henry ford trade school training, little, required for jobs at ford plants, transportation, a primary function, turnover of goods, union labour, universal car, essential attributes of, vanadium steel, ventilation of factory, wages, minimum of $6 a day at all ford plants, are partnership distributions, fallacy of regulating, on basis of cost of, living, sales depend upon, minimum of $5 a day introduced in january, 1914, danger in rapidly raising, cutting, a slovenly way to meet business depression, high, contribute to low cost, abolish dividends rather than lower, war, opposition to, ford industries in the, waste, vs. service, eliminating, weeks-mclean bird bill, weight, excess, in an automobile, welfare work--_see_ "social department," "medical department," and "educational department." winton, alexander, women, married, whose husbands have jobs, not employed at ford plants, work, its place in life, the right to +-------------------------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: | | | |obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ [illustration: into the water splashed the big touring car. _dick hamilton's touring car._ _frontispiece_--(_page 168._)] dick hamilton's touring car or a young millionaire's race for a fortune by howard r. garis author of "dick hamilton's fortune," "dick hamilton's steam yacht," "from office boy to reporter," "larry dexter and the stolen boy," etc. _illustrated_ the saalfield publishing co. akron, ohio new york made in u. s. a. copyright, 1913, by _grosset & dunlap_ preface my dear boys: i am not going to detain you long over this, for, if you are anything like i was, when i was your age, you don't want a lengthy introduction. but i just want a moment or so of your time, to explain something of the kind of story this is--a sort of bill of fare, as it were. this is an account of how the young millionaire, dick hamilton, unexpectedly did a great service for a stranger, and how, later learning that this same stranger needed help in saving his fortune, dick took strenuous action. for excellence in his studies at the kentfield military academy, dick's father gave him his choice of any automobile he wished. dick found just the kind of a touring car he wanted--one large enough to sleep and live in, as he and his friends traveled about. in this car, which dick named the _last word_, the boys set out for san francisco. what happened to them on the way, how they foiled the plans of dick's uncle ezra, how they came upon the strange man in the great salt desert, and how, in an exciting race, they tried to save him and blocked the plans of those who would take mr. wardell's fortune from him--all this you may read of in this book. it is the fifth volume of the "dick hamilton series," and that you will like it as well as you have the preceding ones is the sincere wish of your friend, howard r. garis. contents chapter page i queer actions 1 ii uncle ezra 11 iii good news 20 iv to the auto show 28 v the big car 41 vi the ruined millionaire 48 vii on the road 56 viii uncle ezra laughs 64 ix dick makes plans 73 x mr. wardell's confession 81 xi off on the trip 89 xii uncle ezra plots 96 xiii the hand in the dark 105 xiv a blocked road 114 xv puzzled 121 xvi the lame man 129 xvii giving him a lift 137 xviii a disappearance 142 xix a simple trick 147 xx down hill 155 xxi marooned 164 xxii an engineering problem 169 xxiii off again 176 xxiv a night encounter 182 xxv into the loneliness 189 xxvi bad news 198 xxvii the man in the desert 206 xxviii important information 211 xxix on to 'frisco 221 xxx pursued 229 xxxi a breakdown 236 xxxii the race 244 xxxiii just in time 249 xxxiv the fortune saved 255 dick hamilton's touring car chapter i queer actions "here's cheerful news--not!" exclaimed dick hamilton, as he tossed a letter on the bed of the room occupied by himself and his chum, paul drew, at the kentfield military academy. "nice, rich, juicy news, paul!" "what's the matter, old man? has some one sent you a bill?" "no, but it's a note from my uncle ezra larabee, of dankville, saying he's coming to pay me a visit. whew!" "a visit from uncle ezra; eh? isn't he that sour-faced man who hates your bulldog, grit, and who thinks football is a waste of time?" "that's the man, paul. and he's the same uncle who tried to kidnap me, to teach me how sinful it was to go off and have a good time on my yacht. oh, he's the limit!" "but if there isn't any love lost between you, why is he coming here, dick? i think you told me he was about as near to being a miser as it's possible to get, and it costs money to come here from dankville." "oh, he isn't coming specially to see me--you can make up your mind to that, paul. i'm only a side issue. let's see what he says," and dick took up the letter again. "'dear nephew richard,'" he read--"he never calls me anything but richard, you know. 'i hope you are doing well in your studies'--no, that isn't it--'i trust you have gotten rid of your savage dog'--no, it isn't there--quiet, grit!" he called to a handsome-homely dog in one corner of the room, the intelligent beast having growled instinctively at the mention of uncle ezra's name. "let's see, where is that part of his note?" went on dick, leafing over the sheet. "he's wasteful enough of paper, ink and words, if he isn't of money. oh, here it is. 'i have some business to attend to near kentfield, and after i have finished i will run over and see you.' "there you are, paul. you see he's only coming to see me as an after-thought. probably he knows i'll ask him to take dinner with me in the mess hall, and he can save the price of a sandwich and a cup of coffee. oh, uncle ezra is mighty saving!" "he must be." "well, he won't be here until afternoon, paul. so let's take advantage of it and go for a walk. you haven't anything on; have you?" "no; drill's over and i'm through with lectures. i'm with you. where do you want to go?" "oh, anywhere. let's walk out toward the hills. it's more like the country there, and with summer almost here i always want to get out in the woods and fields." "the same with me. it won't be long until vacation now. what are you going to do, dick?" "i don't know," replied the young millionaire, musingly, as he donned a fatigue uniform. "dad did think of going to europe, and if he does i shall probably go with him. but i'd rather put in a good time on this side, with some of the fellows. what's your programme, paul?" "it's up to the folks, and they haven't made up their minds yet. it's always a toss-up between the mountains and the seashore. i generally vote for the shore, though i wouldn't mind a trip across the mill-pond. however, i suppose i'll have to stick with the family. well, are you ready?" "yes. come along, grit!" and dick had to brace himself against the demonstrative leaps of the fine animal that was delighted at going on a jaunt with his master. "i guess i'll leave word that if uncle ezra should come in while we're out, he can wait here for us," went on dick, and on his way out he spoke to the care-taker in charge of the dormitory. "i have to be decent to him, if he did treat me pretty mean," went on dick. "after all, he thinks he's doing right, and he is my dead mother's brother." "did he say what his business was around here?" asked paul. "no, but you can be pretty sure it is something to do with money. probably uncle ezra is coming to collect some bill." "i'm glad i don't owe him anything, dick." "the same here. he'd get the last penny from you. i pity anyone who does owe him, if he can't pay. here, grit, you never mind that cat," for the bulldog, with a low growl and a raising of the hair on the ridge of his back, had shown an inclination to chase a cat that scuttled across the drive from the barrack stables where the troop horses of the military academy were kept. "that must be a strange feline," remarked paul. "grit knows all the regulars." "guess you're right, paul. there goes beeby. hi, innis!" dick called to a tall cadet, crossing the parade ground. "want to come for a walk?" "can't--i've got some work to do." "'work was made for slaves,'" quoted paul. "then i'm a slave," retorted innis beeby. "see you later," and he turned into his dormitory. paul and dick kept on by themselves, meeting chums and acquaintances occasionally, until they were well away from the military academy, swinging along a country road at a good pace--heads up, shoulders back and with a true military carriage, attained only after long practice. "which way?" asked paul, as they came to a place where the road branched off, one highway leading to lake wagatook, and the other to a small town about two miles away. "let's go in to westville. i want to see about getting a new collar for grit. no, i didn't call you," he said to the bulldog, who came back on hearing his name. "on to westville then," assented paul, and not until some time afterward did either of them realize how their choice of roads that day had to do with an important epoch in the life of a certain young man. about half way to westville the highway was crossed by a railroad embankment, the road being carried under it by a big culvert. it was on approaching this embankment that paul, looking up, and seeing the figure of a man on the tracks, called dick's attention to him. "look there!" he exclaimed. "that fellow's acting mighty queer, dick. i've been noticing him ever since we came in sight of the railroad. watch him." dick looked up. the man on the track above them did not seem aware of their presence. he would walk along the embankment a short distance, pause, and seem to be contemplating the rails; then, with an odd gesture would retrace his steps. "you're right, paul, he does act queer," agreed dick. "i wonder what he's up to?" "i don't know. let's watch him a bit longer. he doesn't seem to be paying any attention to us." as they looked, the man sat down on a pile of stones near the edge of the track, and began looking through his pockets. he seemed to find what he wanted--a bit of paper that fluttered in the wind--and then, placing it on his knee he began to write. "he's making notes," said dick. "maybe he's a track walker, and he's found some defect in the rails," suggested paul. "track-walkers don't dress that way. he's got a tailor-made suit on." "that's so, dick. i wonder who he is?" whatever the man was writing did not seem to take long, for he soon arose. then the two cadets saw him carefully pin the paper he had written to the inner pocket of his coat. "well, what do you know about that?" demanded dick. "it looks strange," admitted paul. "he sure isn't going to lose that paper." as he spoke the man resumed his pacing of the track. he came to the edge of the concrete bridge that carried the railroad over the highway, paused a moment, and then, with a shake of his head, retraced his steps. then he came to a pause at the place where he had rested to write the note. he looked down the embankment, and once more shook his head. suddenly the whistle of an approaching train was heard, though it was some distance off, and would not be along for several minutes. at the sound the man on the tracks threw his hands upward with a tragic gesture. "paul!" cried dick, "there's something wrong with that man! maybe he's partly insane and doesn't realize his danger. i'm going up and tell him to get off the track." "maybe it would be a good idea, dick. go ahead--i'm with you." the cadets scrambled up the yielding ashes and earth that formed the elevated embankment. as they advanced they could hear the distant rumbling of the approaching train. the man who had acted so strangely now saw them, but only regarded them with a sort of melancholy smile, and did not hasten away. "i beg your pardon," panted dick, as he walked toward the stranger somewhat winded after his climb, "but it's dangerous up here. there's a train coming." "thank you, i know it." the man spoke calmly, in contrast with his queer actions. "i thought perhaps you might be a stranger around here," the young cadet resumed. "there are two trains that pass here about the same time. you might get out of the way of one, and step in the path of the other." "thank you for the warning," said the man. "i--er--i----" he hesitated, and seemed to be struggling with some emotion. "perhaps i had better get off the track--for the present," he said, slowly. "you had, if you don't want to be killed!" exclaimed dick, with a laugh that took the grim meaning from the words. "i guess we'd all better. the trains are getting nearer, and it's too good a world to leave by way of the iron route." "is it a good world?" asked the man, suddenly. "i find it so," answered the cadet. "especially in this kind of weather, and vacation so near at hand; eh, paul?" "that's right!" "you are students at the kentfield academy then?" "yes. better move a bit faster. here comes the express. it will pass the local on the bridge, i guess. yes, there they both come." whistles from the locomotives of the two approaching trains, which rounded curves at this point, showed that the two engineers had seen the figures on the track. "that's for us!" exclaimed paul, quickly. the stranger did not answer, but slowly followed dick, who scrambled down the embankment. ere they reached the lower level the trains rushed thunderously past in a cloud of dust and cinders. "now you can walk the track with more safety," remarked dick to the man. "there won't be another train for three hours." "thank you, i think i'll go the rest of my journey by the highway," and the man, with a little bow, turned aside, going in the direction from which the boys had come. as he walked along paul turned in time to see him take from his pocket the note he had pinned there and tear it up, scattering the fragments along the road. for a few moments paul and dick walked along in silence, grit following at their heels. then paul spoke. "dick!" he exclaimed, "do you know i think you saved that man from committing suicide!" "suicide! nonsense, paul!" "that's right. if i ever saw despair and hopelessness on a man's face it was on his." "well, he didn't look very happy, that's a fact. but what had that to do with an intention to take his own life?" "lots, when you think of the way he acted." "oh, you imagine it." "i do not! i believe he came here with the intention of throwing himself under a train, or at least allowing himself to be struck by one. i believe he wrote a note of farewell, and pinned it in his pocket so it wouldn't get lost. just see how queer he acted! no one would stay on the track the way he did, with two trains coming, unless he had it in mind to get hurt. no, dick, you can say what you like, but i believe your going up when you did, and talking to him, saved his life." "well, i'd like to think that i did that for a fellow being, paul; but i still can't admit it." "it's true, whether you admit it or not. you saved his life, and some day you'll know it, or i'm mistaken." "oh, nonsense!" "no nonsense at all. you'll see. that man was at the end of his rope--he was all in. he was in despair, and he wasn't a common sort, either. he comes of a good family, i can see that. and the way you talked to him, just at the right moment--saying this was a pretty good old world after all--you saved his life, dick--at least for a time." "get out!" but in spite of his denial dick felt glad that he had done what he had. and it was not until some time after that he learned what really had taken place. under strange circumstances he was to meet that man again. chapter ii uncle ezra "quiet, grit! what's the matter, old fellow?" "he seems to think some one is in our room," said paul drew. he and dick had returned from their walk, grit resplendent in a new, brass-studded collar, and the dog had shown signs of resentful excitement on nearing the door of the room where the two chums lodged. "i wonder----?" began dick, and then, as he opened the door, and saw a rather grizzled man standing near the window--a man with a queer little tuft of whiskers on his chin--dick exclaimed: "uncle ezra!" "yes, nephew richard. i am here. i got through my business sooner than i expected and came over." "i'm glad you did, uncle ezra. quiet, grit, or i'll send you to the stable," for the dog was uttering low growls, and sidling closer and closer to the aged man, who still remained standing. it might be noticed that our hero did not say that he was glad to see his uncle. he was not, and he did not believe in saying what was not so, even to be polite. "have you got that savage cur still?" demanded mr. larabee, while he bowed slightly in response to a salutation from paul. "i expect to have grit for a long time yet," replied his nephew, coldly. "though if he annoys you i'll have him taken away," and he pushed a button on the wall. "he does annoy me! you know i can't abide dogs. useless critters, eatin' almost as much as a man, all covered with fleas, and no good anyhow! send him away!" "grit, i guess you'd better go," said dick, softly, as a janitor came in response to his ring. "take him to the stable, hawkins. i'll have him back--later," he added in a low voice. grit was led off, whining in protest as he looked at dick, and then shifting his tones to a menacing growl as he glared at uncle ezra, who, he well knew, was the cause of his banishment. "ugly brute!" muttered mr. larabee. "i've been waiting quite some time for you, nephew richard," he went on. "i was afraid i'd have to go back without seeing you. i've got a limited excursion ticket, and if i didn't use it back to dankville to-day i'd lose the value of it. leastwise i might have to sue the railroad company to recover, and lawsuits is dreadful expensive--dreadful." "we just went for a walk," dick explained. "i did not know exactly what time you would come." "no, i couldn't tell, myself. but i got through my business sooner than i expected, even with attending to some after i got through with the deal that brought me on here." "it came out all right, i hope," ventured dick. "yes--oh, yes. my business allers does come out satisfactory--leastwise mostly." perhaps uncle ezra was thinking of the time he had interfered with dick's yachting trip, with disastrous results to himself. "i got all that was coming to me," the aged man went on, "though i did have a fight for it." "did some one owe you money?" asked dick. "well, yes, in a way. you see it was a young fellow who had been left more money than was good for him. he didn't know enough to take care of it, and now i've got it." uncle ezra chuckled grimly. "i hope you didn't take all he had, uncle ezra," spoke dick. "why shouldn't i?" mr. larabee asked, indignantly. "this chap didn't know the value of money--i do. he made certain investments, and i told him that i'd insist on having my last dollar if they failed. they did fail, just as i knew they would, and now i have his money. it was mine by right, though, for business is business, and he's young enough to start over again. it will do him good. ha! ha! i'll never forget how blank he looked when he asked me if i wouldn't give him another chance. another chance! ho! ho! he had his chance and didn't use it. another chance! i guess not! i want what's mine!" and uncle ezra ground his teeth and clenched his bony fists in a way that was not pleasant to contemplate. "then you cleaned him out, uncle ezra?" asked dick. "not i--no. he cleaned himself out by his foolish investments. you can't have your cake and eat it too, you know. you can't be a 'sport' and not pay attention to your business, and expect to keep your money. you've got to be on the watch all the while. i made a pretty penny out of it--er--that is, not too much!" uncle ezra added quickly, as if fearful lest some one should attempt to borrow something from him. "but a legitimate profit--yes, a legitimate profit. "and, as i got through sooner than i expected, nephew richard, i came over to see you, as i promised. but i'll soon have to be getting back. i've got a new hired man, and i know he'll feed too much to the stock, and ruin 'em, to say nothing of wasting grain. i must get back before feeding time." "i hope you'll stay and take lunch with me," suggested dick, as he thought he saw a hungry look in his uncle's face. "yes, i might," was the answer, as though mr. larabee was doing dick a favor. "then i'll send word to have a place laid for you at our table. you know some of my friends, i think." "humph! yes, i do, and i can't say i altogether approve of 'em, nephew richard. they spend too much money." "well i guess they've got plenty to spend," said dick, for kentfield academy was attended by the sons of many rich men, though it was in no sense a snobbish institution. "yes," went on uncle ezra, with a grim chuckle, "i came here to meet a young man, and i met him. i came to teach him a lesson, and i taught it. i guess mr. frank wardell won't be so high and mighty after this. i cleaned him out--and it was all done in a regular way, too. i cleaned him out." "ruined him, you mean, uncle ezra?" "well, _he_ accused me of that, but it wa'n't my fault. he brought it on himself, and he can start over again. he's young yet." "but what will become of him, uncle ezra, if he hasn't any money?" "i don't know, and he didn't either by the way he rushed off after i got through with him," and the old man chuckled. "but i reckon he can go to work like the rest of us. i offered him a place in my woolen mill at dankville. i said i could pay him five dollars a week to start, though i know he wouldn't be wuth it. but he might learn the trade." dick said nothing, but the thought of a ruined man, who must have had a considerable fortune, going to work for uncle ezra in the woolen mill for five dollars a week, struck our hero as being rather pathetic. "did he take your offer, mr. larabee?" asked paul. "he did not!" exclaimed dick's uncle. "he said he'd become a tramp first. wa'al, he kin if he wants to--there's no law ag'in' it!" and again he chuckled mirthlessly. "i'll go see about lunch," volunteered dick. "oh, something for me, toots?" he exclaimed, as he opened the door, and saw an old sergeant standing there with an envelope in his hand. "yes, a letter, mr. hamilton." "it's from dad!" exclaimed our hero, as he noted the writing. "i hope he has taken my advice, and will withdraw you from this useless military academy," spoke uncle ezra. "it is time you went to work, nephew richard." "i'll be back in a little while," replied dick, not taking the trouble to answer his uncle directly, and he hurried off down the corridor to arrange about having his guest at luncheon in the mess hall. while preparations for the meal are under way i shall ask for a few minutes of your time--you my new readers--while i briefly explain about dick hamilton, and introduce you more formally to him, as he has appeared in the previous volumes of this series. dick was the only son of mortimer hamilton, of hamilton corners, in new york state. mr. hamilton was a millionaire, with varied interests, and dick had a fortune in his own right, left to him by his mother. in my first book, called "dick hamilton's fortune," i related how this inheritance came to the youth, and under what peculiar conditions, so that he really had to work hard to deserve it. and he nearly lost it at that. the second volume deals with dick's life at a well-known military academy--kentfield--and is entitled, "dick hamilton's cadet days." how he had to struggle against heavy odds, and how he won out, is related in the story. in "dick hamilton's steam yacht," our hero found himself confronted with a queer problem. how he worked it out, and defeated the aims of uncle ezra, you will find fully set forth. uncle ezra larabee was a curious character. he was quite rich, perhaps not so much so as mr. hamilton, but with a large fortune. he did not seem to enjoy life, however, and was continually preaching economy. he had a particular aversion to the bulldog, grit, and, it might be said in passing, grit returned the compliment, so to speak. when dick and his chums at kentfield found that their football challenge to the blue hill academy was treated as a joke, they were quite angry, and justly so. true, the former military academy team was in poor shape, but the lads were eager to do better. and in "dick hamilton's football team," the fourth book of the series, i related how the young millionaire made a big change at kentfield, and what came of it, and i also related how he was instrumental in helping his father in a business transaction. the fall and football were things of the past, and now the long summer vacation was approaching. baseball had the call, and dick was acting as the academy pitcher with great success. a few weeks more and kentfield would close until fall, and what to do in the interim was puzzling not only dick, but some of his chums. "well, uncle ezra," said the cadet, as he came back into the room a little later, to find his chum paul fidgeting about, for it was no joke to entertain mr. larabee, "i've arranged to have our lunch a little ahead of the rest. i know you want to catch your train." "yes, i do. i don't want to waste my return ticket. i'll go down at once." paul gave a sigh of relief, and winked at dick. the three moved toward the dining hall, dick making inquiries about his aunt, and some other distant relatives in dankville, a place he hated above all others,--for his uncle's house there was almost the personification of gloom. "wa'al, your aunt's as well as she can expect to be," remarked mr. larabee. "she suffers consid'able from stomach misery, and the doctor don't seem to do her no good. he charges enough too, and he's allers changin' the medicine. i should think he could take one kind and stick to it." "he has to try different kinds to see what is the best," suggested dick. "i know, but you ought to see the bottles, only half-took, that i have to throw away. i tried to git a rebate on 'em, but the druggist said he couldn't use 'em. so i'm that much out," and mr. larabee drew a deep sigh. "any news from home, dick?" asked paul, as the three sat alone in the mess hall, at a special table for visitors. "how is your father?" "by jove! i forgot to read the letter!" exclaimed dick, pulling it from his pocket. "excuse me while i look at it," and he ripped open the envelope. chapter iii good news "will you have some more of this roast beef, mr. larabee?" asked paul, doing the honors for dick, who was busy over the letter from his father. "wa'al, i might have a bit more. it seems like pretty tender meat." "yes, we get the very best at kentfield." "hum! if i was runnin' this place i'd buy the cheaper cuts, and save money. tough meat is better for growing lads, anyhow. i wouldn't give 'em such expensive meat." "but we pay for it, mr. larabee." "it's a waste of money," replied the miser, and went on with the meal, which, to do dick justice, was exceptionally good. dick never believed in starving even his ill-natured relatives. "hurray! this is great!" suddenly exclaimed the young millionaire. "whoop! oh, i say, excuse me, uncle ezra!" he added, quickly. "i didn't mean to startle you," for the aged man had jumped at dick's exclamation, and some potato, covered with gravy, had fallen on his trousers. "that's jest like you boys--allers shoutin' and makin' a noise," rasped out mr. larabee. "i'll have to pay for havin' that spot taken out," and he scrubbed vigorously at it with a napkin. "that is, unless my hired man can start it with some of my harness soap. i guess i'll have him try when i get back. no use payin' a cleaner if my hired man can do it." "i'm sorry, uncle ezra," spoke dick, contritely, and trying not to smile at paul drew. "we can take it out here for you. a little ether will do the trick. it will dissolve the grease. i'll take you to the chemical laboratory after lunch." "no, the ether might eat a hole in my pants, and they're my second best ones. i'll wait until i git hum, and try the harness soap. next time please don't yell so." "i won't, uncle ezra. but dad sent me some good news, and i just couldn't help it." "is he going to take you to europe this vacation?" asked paul. "europe! you don't mean to tell me that mortimer hamilton is going to waste money on another trip to europe?" cried mr. larabee, in horror. "no, it isn't that," answered dick. "he writes that as he sees by my reports i have done well this term, i may have just what i've been wanting a long time." "to go into some business, i hope," said mr. larabee. "that would be a sensible present, and i could offer you a place in my woolen mill at a salary of----" "no, thank you, uncle ezra," laughed dick. "i think i'll stay here at kentfield for another term yet." "but what is it your father is going to give you?" asked paul. "don't keep us in suspense." "it's a touring car!" cried dick, in delight. "he says i can select the best and biggest car made, and send the bill to him. hurray! isn't that great news? say, i can just about see where my vacation is coming in now, paul." "that's right. you are in luck!" "a touring car!" cried mr. larabee. "you mean an automobile, dick? why you've got one already. it would be a shameful waste of money to buy another. you can take what a touring car would cost, and invest the sum in some good securities. i have some that i acquired from that young man i spoke of to-day." "i haven't a touring car," said dick. "i have that little runabout; but it isn't much use. a touring car for mine!" "oh, the sinful waste of this rising generation!" murmured uncle ezra, shaking his head, sadly. "what kind of a car is he going to give you, dick?" asked paul. "he says i can pick it out myself. i'll read you that part of the letter," and dick quoted from the missive: "'i have been thinking of something you might like, dick, as a sort of reward for your good work at school this winter. i know you have studied hard. i had a man come here to look over your runabout, thinking perhaps it could be fixed up, but he says it is hardly worth it. he advised trading it in for a new and up-to-date machine, and i think that best myself. "'i want you to be satisfied with what i get you, and i think the best way would be to let you pick it out yourself. so if you will look over some catalogues, which you can send for yourself, and let me know the make of car, i will attend to the rest'" "that's great!" cried paul. "a terrible waste!" muttered mr. larabee. "sinful!" "good old dad!" exclaimed dick, as he put the letter in his pocket. "i wonder what sort of a car i ought to take?" "one that you can cross the country in," advised paul. "that's what i'll do--i'll get a big touring car, and take some of you fellows with me. we'll have a great and glorious trip this summer!" "more waste! you would much better get work somewhere, dick, and pay part of your expenses here," declared mr. larabee. "my mother arranged all that before she died," said the young cadet. "she wanted me to attend a military school, and left the funds for it. my tuition is all paid for." "well, my sister never did know what she was doing," declared mr. larabee, bitterly. "hold on!" exclaimed dick, hotly. "remember that she was _my_ mother," and he spoke the word softly, for she had not been dead many years. "ahem! wa'al, i didn't mean anything," stammered mr. larabee. "say, i've got to hustle to get my train," he added, quickly, looking at an ancient silver watch, which he pulled out of his pocket by means of a leather thong. "come and see us at dankville, nephew richard. your aunt will be glad to have you, but you can't expect such meals as this," he went on hastily. "you know she has the dyspepsia, and she can't eat much, so i don't buy much. but come and see us." dick mumbled something not quite distinguishable, and the meal came to an end. "i guess i'll just take some of this meat that's left over, and make myself a couple of sandwiches," said mr. larabee, suiting the action to the word. "no use in letting it go to waste," he added. "and i might get hungry before we get to dankville. this will save me buying anything on the train," and wrapping up the sandwiches in a piece of newspaper he thrust them into his pocket. "thank goodness i didn't take him to one of the tables with the fellows!" whispered dick, as he winked at paul. "he sure is the limit!" "this way to the trolley that goes to the depot," said dick, as he escorted his uncle across the parade ground, paul having excused himself. "i'm not going to take the trolley, nephew richard. i have plenty of time to walk the distance, and there is no use wasting five cents. it is grass most of the way, and i won't wear out my shoes none to speak of. i'm going to walk." "all right," assented dick, with a shrug of the shoulders. "good-bye. i'd go with you, but we have guard mount soon, and i'm officer of the day." "foolishness, all foolishness!" snorted mr. larabee, feeling in his pocket to make sure he had the sandwiches. "you had better think twice about wasting money on that touring car, too, nephew richard. don't take it--take the money and invest it." "i would rather have the car, uncle ezra. remember me to aunt samanthy." "um!" mumbled mr. larabee, as he walked off in the direction of the railroad. a trolley car was coming, and it was quite a distance to the station, but he did not signal for it to stop. "he's happy," mused dick. "he didn't have to pay for his lunch, he got his supper for nothing, and he's saving a nickel carfare. oh, he's happy all right. but, excuse me!" just then grit, who had been released from his kennel near the stable, came rushing out to meet his master. then the dog caught sight of the vanishing figure of uncle ezra, and with a growl sprang in that direction. "here! come back, grit!" yelled dick. "come back!" the bulldog paused. mr. larabee looked back. the temptation was too much for the animal. he made another rush. "call him back! call him back!" yelled mr. larabee, breaking into a run. "if he bites me, nephew richard, i'll sue your father for damages! call him back!" "grit!" called the cadet, and the dog knew the consequences of disobeying that voice. reluctantly he turned, but he sent menacing growls and barks in the direction of his traditional enemy. mr. larabee was still running as dick turned back toward the parade ground, with grit following reluctantly. "grit, have you no manners?" asked dick, but he could not help smiling. the dog wagged his tail, as though answering that he had not, and was glad of it. dick turned to look after his uncle, who, casting occasional fearful glances back, was hurrying toward the station. and, as dick looked, he saw a man turn from a cross road, and meet his uncle. the two stopped at the same time, and the stranger seemed to be questioning mr. larabee. if such was the case he got little satisfaction, for dick's uncle could be seen to shake his head vigorously in disapproval, and then, with a gesture, to dismiss the other. the stranger hesitated a moment, and soon turned away. "he looks just like the man paul and i met on the railroad," mused dick. "the one paul said acted as if he was going to commit suicide. i wonder what he wanted of uncle ezra?" but dick was not to know that for some time. chapter iv to the auto show "come on now, dick! give him a teaser!" "you know how to make him bite!" "two down! only one more dick, old man!" the occasion was the last of a series of baseball games between the kentfield military academy and the blue hill cadets, a rival organization. it was for the championship of the league, which coveted honor lay between kentfield and blue hill, with the chances in favor of the former. each nine had won a game in the final series of the best two out of three, and to-day would decide the matter. "that's the stuff, dick old man!" "that's got him going!" "make him fan again!" these cries greeted dick's delivery of the ball to lem gordon, who was up for blue hill, for lem had struck and missed. "only two more like that dick!" called paul drew, "and we'll be all to the merry." "watch lem poke it, though!" called joe bell, the plucky little captain of the blue hill nine. "a home run, lem, or a broken bat." the lad at home plate nodded, and kept a close watch on dick, who was winding up for another delivery. "two balls--one strike," innis beeby called. "watch yourself, dick." dick nodded comprehendingly. this was several days after the visit of uncle ezra larabee, and the time had been devoted to getting the kentfield team in shape for the final contest. it was an important one, for, as i have said, it would carry with it the championship of the military league. the game had run along with nothing remarkable to distinguish it, and was now at the beginning of the ninth inning. blue hill had six runs to kentfield's seven, and if dick could strike this last man out the game would be ended in favor of the kentfield nine, since they would not play out their half of the ninth. blue hill had two out, but lem gordon, the cadet at the bat, was a doughty hitter. had he gone in earlier in that inning there might have been a different story to tell. "strike two!" called the umpire, and a wave of cheering seemed to roll over the grandstand--cheers in which the shrill voices of girls could be heard. "oh, i do hope dick strikes him out!" exclaimed mabel hanford, one of a party of pretty girls in the main stand. "isn't he fine?" "who--dick or lem?" asked nellie fordice. "dick, of course, though lem is very nice, and he's a dandy dancer." "so is dick," declared nettie french. "oh girls! are you going to the graduation ball?" "if we're asked," answered mildred adams. "oh, let's watch the game," suggested mabel, and the four girls, with whom dick and his chums were on friendly terms, gave their attention to the contest. the interest on the part of the big crowd present was now intense. the next ball might tell the tale, for if dick struck out the batter, the game would end. on the other hand if gordon got a safe hit, he would be followed by another good batsman, and the game might go at least another half inning, and in case kentfield could not make a winning run, continue on for some time longer. dick felt a bit nervous as he got ready to deliver the next ball. it was two and two now. "i've got to get it over the plate, and yet fool him," thought dick. "i wonder if i dare risk a little slow twister. if he hits it, we're goners though--that is, we'll have to fight it out the rest of this inning. well, here goes!" as he was about to deliver the ball he heard the barking of grit over in one of the grandstands, where a chum, who was not playing, was keeping the bulldog. "good old grit!" mused dick. "that's his way of cheering, i guess!" swiftly the ball left dick's fingers, shooting toward the batter. lem stepped back a trifle, and then lunged forward to meet the horsehide. and he did meet it with his bat, full and true. with a vicious "ping!" the ball shot back, out over the diamond, shooting upward, and laying a course just between the left and centre fielders. both players converged to meet it, but the ball passed over their heads, as they had to run back. "go on, lem! sprint for it!" "show 'em how you can run!" "leg it, old man! leg it!" "a home run! a home run!" "we'll beat 'em yet! go on! go on!" but lem needed not the hoarse cries to urge him on. he needed not the frantic cheers of his comrades in arms nor those who sat in the grandstands. no sooner had he felt the magic of that meeting between his bat and the ball, than he sprang forward like some stone from an ancient catapult, tossing the stick to one side. and how he did run! the second baseman stood ready to relay the ball home, as soon as the frantic rightfielder should get it. but the horsehide had rolled into the deep grass. there was some delay in finding it, and by that time lem was at second. as he rounded that the centrefielder got his fingers on the ball. like a flash he threw. "come on! come on!" screamed the blue hill captain, and lem came. he beat the ball to third base, and kept on. he heard the thud of the horsehide striking the mit of the third baseman, and thought all was lost, but he dared not turn to see. then a groan--a groan of despair from the kentfield stand--told him what had happened. the third baseman had muffed it. there was still a chance for the runner. lem's feet and legs scarce could carry him onward, but he forced them to. the shortstop was racing madly for the ball. he and dick collided, and when the ball was finally recovered by the chagrined third baseman himself, lem was so near home that it was a foregone conclusion that he would tally the tieing run. and he did. the ball came with a "plunk" into the catcher's big mit, and then the umpire called out: "safe!" joyful pandemonium broke loose in the blue hill ranks. "we've got a chance to beat 'em!" they yelled. and truly this was so, but it was a very slim chance. "never mind, dick," consoled beeby. "you can strike out ed mayfield." "don't let him get a look in, and we can easily pull one run out when we get to the bat," urged paul drew. "all right," answered dick, shortly. he had taken a chance on lem not hitting that ball, but the unexpected had happened. dick pulled himself together, and faced ed mayfield, the next batter up, who was nervously dancing about the plate, trying by means of grins and gibes to disconcert the pitcher. but dick was not built that way. calmly he sized up his opponent and sent in a ball that fooled him. then came something in the nature of a fizzle, when the umpire called a ball. it began to look a bit dubious when the next was a ball also. "careful, dick," warned the captain. "we can't afford to go to pieces now." dick did not answer, but there was a grim tightening of his lips. then he sent in a viciously swift ball. "strike two!" called the umpire, sharply. "ah!" came as a sort of chorus from the big crowd. "dick's all right now," declared paul drew, in a low voice. and so it proved. without giving another ball, dick put over another delivery, which resulted in a strike, and to it the umpire added: "strike three--batter's out!" the score was a tie. "now, kentfield!" came the excited cry. "show 'em how to win this game! one run will do it!" the home team came pouring in from the various parts of the diamond, ready to bat. paul drew was to start off, and managed to get to first. but he was caught stealing second. then teddy naylor got to third, but was held there as hal foster struck out. "two down," came the mournful cry. it began to look as though the game would go ten innings, with the ever-increasing chance that blue hill would win, or at least improve her opportunity. the score was still a tie. "hamilton up!" called the scorer. "dick, you've just got to make a hit!" "bring in naylor!" was implored. "knock the cover off, dick!" these were only a few of the cries that greeted our hero as he stepped to the plate. ordinarily dick was a good safe hitter, in contrast to many pitchers, but this time, when so much depended on his skill, he found himself feeling nervous. "here, this won't do!" he told himself. "brace up. think of that big touring car you're going to get and the fun you'll have. think of grit--and uncle ezra." the memory of how the aged man had hurried away from grit's threatened attack brought a smile to dick's face. he could feel his nervousness leaving him, but he was brought to a realizing sense of the importance of paying more strict attention to baseball, by hearing the umpire call sharply: "strike one!" dick had let the first ball pass him without making a motion toward it, though it was just where he wanted it. "watch yourself," called paul drew, in a low voice. dick saw that he must. he looked narrowly at the pitcher and, from previous experience, he thought he knew what kind of a ball was coming. "i'm going to hit it!" said dick fiercely to himself. he stepped right into it, before the curve had time to "break," and when he felt the impact of his bat on the horsehide he knew that he had made a hit. "it's good for two bags anyhow!" he murmured as he sprinted toward first, and had a vision of naylor racing in from third. "go on dick! go on!" "run! run old man!" "a homer--a homer!" "and a homer it's going to be!" cried dick, as he passed second, and saw the right fielder vainly racing after the ball which had been sent away over his head and back of him. it was a better hit than that of gordon. dick saw naylor cross the home plate and then he was at third himself. the ball was slowly coming in from the fielder, but the throw was such a long one that the second baseman had to run out to meet it. "they'll never get it home in time," thought dick, as he staggered onward, for he had run hard and his legs were trembling. "i can beat it home." and he did, crossing the rubber before the ball was in the catcher's hands. then such cheering as broke out. naylor's run had put kentfield one ahead, and dick's made two. it was sensational playing, with two home runs so close together, and the crowd appreciated it. kentfield had the championship now. "kentfield! kentfield! kentfield! rah! rah! rah! boom! boom! _boom!_ ah! ah! ah! kentfield!" thus the school cry was given, coming from a thousand hoarse throats, and then came: "three cheers for dick hamilton!" the grandstands rocked and swayed and creaked with the stress of emotion displayed. "it was great, old man! great!" cried paul, clapping his panting chum on the back. "thanks. i knew i had to do it to save the game." "and you did!" exclaimed beeby. "somebody punch me--i'm too happy to last!" some one obliged him with such force that beeby stumbled, and to save himself he had to execute a forward somersault, at which trick he was an adept. "armstrong up!" called the scorer, when he could make himself heard. "oh, what's the use of playing it out?" asked beeby. "let's sweeten the score if we can," urged dick, who did not like doing anything by halves. but there was little interest in the game now, for kentfield had won, and nothing could take it from her. still armstrong got up, and promptly fanned out, over which fact there was no regret, rather gladness on the part of the champions, who wanted to quit and celebrate. dejectedly blue hill filed off the field, after they had cheered and been cheered. the great game was over, the crowds thronged down from the grandstands. the kentfield nine and the substitutes got together, and cheered dick to the echo. then with a singing of the song that always followed a victory they dispersed to the dressing rooms. their baseball season was over. "you certainly did yourself and us proud, dick," said paul, as he and his chum walked away together. "i wish uncle ezra could have seen you." "oh, he'd probably say that the money spent on baseball might better be used to buy interest-bearing bonds," laughed dick. "but say, i thought i saw some of the girls here." "they are. we'll look 'em up after we tidy up a bit." and then came the shower baths, a changing into clean raiment and a gladsome time with the girls, who crowded around the hero of the day. "well, i suppose we'll soon be away from here," remarked paul that night as he, dick and innis beeby sat in the room of the latter, and talked over the great game. "yes, my folks wrote to say that the cottage by the sea was open, and i'm expected there soon," said innis. "i'm booked for the white mountains this trip," said paul, "and i'm not very keen for it, either." dick was silent for a few seconds, looking over some papers. "what are you going to do, old man?" asked paul. "fellows, i've got the best scheme yet!" exclaimed dick. "i've just got it worked out. what do you say to a trip to california with me in the new auto i'm going to get? will you come?" "will we!" cried innis without a moment's hesitation. "will a duck swim?" "put her there, old man!" yelled paul, slapping his hand into that of dick. "when do we start?" "do you mean it?" asked dick, hardly believing his chums were in earnest. they assured him that they did. "then here's my game," he went on. "dad wrote to me to get some catalogues and pick out the auto i wanted. i'm going to go him one better." "what's that?" asked paul. "have a car made to order?" "no, that would take too long. but the new york automobile show is on, in madison square garden. there are lots of cars there that can be bought for immediate delivery. and i can pick out a car twice as good from seeing it, rather than by looking at a picture of it. "now we three will take in that auto show. i'll pick out the car i want, dad will foot the bill, according to his promise, and we'll start on our tour across country. how does that strike you?" "great!" declared innis. "bully!" assented paul. "dick, you're a gentleman and a scholar. this is too much!" and he pretended to weep on beeby's shoulder. "then pack up, and we'll leave day after to-morrow for new york," said dick. "i'll write to dad. i'd go to-morrow only i don't want to miss the graduation dance." "no, and i fancy someone else doesn't either," said paul, with a significant glance at the picture of a pretty girl on the bureau. so it was arranged. the dance was a success, as all such affairs at kentfield were, but we shall not concern ourselves with that. the day after it saw dick and his chums, with grit, on the way to the big auto show in new york. chapter v the big car "what kind of a car have you in mind, dick?" "get a six cylinder, anyhow." dick hamilton looked at paul and innis, who were in the parlor car with him, speeding on to new york. "i haven't exactly made up my mind," answered the young millionaire. "i want a powerful car; if we're going to cross the rockies i'll need power. but i want a comfortable one, too. it wants to be enclosed, and so arranged that if we have to we can sleep in it." "say, you want a traveling hotel; don't you?" asked paul. "something like that, yes," assented dick. "but i don't want such a heavy machine that we'll be having tire trouble all the time. i'm not going to make up my mind as to any particular car until i see what kinds there are in the garden." the boys talked of many things as the train sped on. dick had engaged rooms for himself and his friends at the hotel where he and his father always stopped on coming to the metropolis, and a few hours more would see them at their destination. the porter came up to dick, his honest black and shining face wearing a broad grin, as he remarked: "'scuse me, but does one ob yo' gen'mans own a bulldog what is in de baggage car?" "i do!" exclaimed dick, quickly. "what about him?" "den yo' presence am earnestly requested up dere by de baggageman," went on the porter. "is grit hurt?" demanded the young millionaire. "no, sah, leastaways he wasn't when i seed him. he were feelin' mighty peart!" "then what's the trouble?" asked dick, as he prepared to follow the colored man to the car ahead. "why dere's a man in de car, an' yo' dog won't let him go out." "won't let him go out?" asked dick, wonderingly. "no, sah! he jest completely won't let him go out ob dat car, and he's keepin' him right by de do, so de baggage man can't slide out no trunks, no how. an' we's comin' to a station soon, where dem trunks hab jest natchally gotter be put off." "i'll see what's the matter," promised dick, hurrying on. "be back in a minute," he called to his chums. "if you want any help, send for us!" suggested paul, "though," he added in a lower voice, "if grit is on a rampage i'd rather not interfere--that is, personally." dick found matters as the porter had described. a rather flashily dressed young man stood close against one of the side doors of the baggage car, while grit, who had broken his chain, stood in front of him, with his bowed front legs far apart, and his black lips drawn back from his teeth. from time to time the bulldog growled menacingly, especially whenever the young man moved. the baggageman, with a puzzled expression on his face, had placed some trunks in the middle of the car, ready to be put out of the side door when the next station stop should be reached. "but every time i try to get out of the way," said the flashily dressed man, "this confounded dog of yours acts as if he was going to eat me up. i daren't move. call him off or i'll kick him, and break his jaw." "i wouldn't," said dick, quietly. "it would probably be your last kick--with that foot, anyhow." "something has to be done," declared the baggage man. "i must put these trunks off soon. that door's on the station side, and the other door opens against a high concrete wall. i can't get a trunk off there." "i'll take care of grit," said dick. "what did you do to him?" he asked the young fellow. "nothing." "oh, yes you did," said dick, quietly. "grit doesn't act that way for nothing. come here," he called, and the dog obeyed, though with fierce backward glances at the man by the door. "now you can move," went on dick. "what did they do to you, old fellow?" he asked, as he bent over his pet. grit's neck was bleeding slightly where his collar had cut him as he wrenched against the chain, and broke it. "he pulled his tail--that's what he did," asserted the now relieved baggageman. "i told him to let the dog alone, for i saw it was a thoroughbred, and was nervous. but he got funny with the animal, and then your dog broke loose, and drove him against the door." "you're lucky he didn't bite you," said dick, as he loosened the chafing collar. "he only wanted to teach you a lesson, i guess. next time don't fool with a bulldog." "if he'd a' bit me i'd a' had the law on you," threatened the young man, as he hurried out of the car, followed by the resentful glare of grit. "all right," assented dick. "only i guess you might have had to wait until you came out of the hospital. it was your own fault. will he be all right with you?" he asked of the baggage man, referring to grit. "oh, yes, he and i are good friends. i was in another part of the car, making out some records, or i'd have stopped that young idiot from pinching his tail. but he got all that was coming to him. he was mighty scared. i thought it best to send for you, though." "that was right. grit, old man, i can't blame you, but try and hold yourself in," said dick, patting his pet. the dog whined, and licked his master's hands, and then, having made sure that grit and the baggageman would get along well together, dick left his pet, having brought him some water, and bound up the cut on his neck with a spare handkerchief. grit whined lonesomely as dick left, and the young millionaire called back: "it'll only be a little while now, old fellow. we'll soon be at the hotel." grit's joy was unbounded when he was released from the car, and soon with his master, and the latter's two chums, was speeding across new york in a taxicab. arrangements were made at the hotel to have grit cared for, and he was to be allowed in dick's room at certain times during the day, the young millionaire having ascertained that no nervous old ladies were near enough to be annoyed. "and now for the auto show!" exclaimed dick after dinner that night. "we'll make a preliminary survey, and see what we can find." madison square garden was a brilliant place, with the thousands of electric lights, the glittering cars and the decorative scheme, which was unusually elaborate that year. "say, this is great!" gasped beeby, as the three entered through the crowd at the doors. "i should say yes!" added paul. "it's gorgeous! how are you going to pick out a car among so many, dick?" "oh, there's only one kind i want. i hope i find it here. but there's no hurry. let's look about." and indeed the sights were well worth viewing. there seemed to be every kind of car represented, from little runabouts to palatial enclosed vehicles that would carry eight persons. and there were trucks, from small three-wheeled ones, that could be used to deliver a lady's hat, to monsters that could shift a five-ton safe with ease. there was the hum of motors, electricity driven, for gasoline was not allowed in the building on account of the fire danger. there was the snapping of spark-plugs, some of which were being shown at work under water, to prove how hard it was to short circuit them. and there was the crackle of a wireless outfit in use, to demonstrate how it could be attached to an army-auto in war time. the boys roved about the big space, visiting exhibit after exhibit. several times dick thought he saw what he wanted, but he always decided to look further, in the hope of finding something a little better. as he and his chums passed a place where they had lingered long over some beautiful enclosed cars, powerful and efficient with many new appliances, dick's eye was caught by a big car standing by itself in an open space. it was painted dark green, and for a moment its size almost made dick believe it was a sort of dummy, used for advertisement purposes. then, as he saw the heavily tired wheels and caught a glimpse of the engine under the open hood, he exclaimed: "that's the car for me, boys!" the three crowded closer to the big auto, and their wonder grew as they noted how it was fitted out. chapter vi the ruined millionaire "what a car!" "it's got folding bunks in, as sure as you're born!" "and that looks like a small kitchen!" "those tires are a new kind, too--cushion instead of pneumatic!" "say, you could drive that through a hail storm and you'd never know it!" "that's the car for me, boys, if dad will stand for it, and i can get it!" thus exclaimed dick hamilton, the other exclamations coming from his two chums as they stood admiring the big car. nor were they the only ones, for a throng had gathered about the space where the peculiar auto was being exhibited. in general shape it was like any large enclosed car, but it exceeded in size any dick had ever seen. and in the interior appointments, certainly it was the "last word" in auto construction. briefly described, for i shall go more into details later, it was a six-cylinder machine, with the whole body back of the engine itself enclosed in wood and glass. there was no division back of the steering wheel, the whole interior of the car, save for a space that paul described as the "kitchen," being thrown into one compartment. and that apartment contained, as beeby had said, folding bunks or berths, that served as long seats in the day time, while at night they made comfortable beds. there was a small stove, evidently operated by an electric current; there were electric lights, and the car could be started by the same agency, as dick noted. then there were displayed dishes with which to set a folding table, and utensils for cooking on the electric stove. there was ample room for food and bed clothing, as well as for garments. "that's the nearest thing to a traveling parlor and dining car that i've seen!" exclaimed dick; "with sleeping berths thrown in. that's the car i want. i wonder if it's for sale, boys?" and he looked questioningly at a man who seemed to be in charge. "yes, it is," was the answer. "it has just been put on the market. in fact the car has been on exhibition only since this morning, when we got instructions to dispose of it." "do you make those up for stock?" asked paul. "no, this is the only car like it in the world, we believe. it was made to order for a gentleman, but now he does not want it, and he authorized us to dispose of it for him. it has never been used, though it has been thoroughly tested." "what's the matter?" asked dick. "didn't he like it?" "maybe it wasn't big enough," suggested beeby. "as to that i can't say," went on the salesman. "i only was told to dispose of it, and i'm afraid i'm going to have my own troubles. it's too large for use in the city. it was built for touring purposes exclusively, and it is very complete. but few persons would want a car like it, i am afraid. would you like to look it over more closely?" he asked, seeing how interested dick and his chums were. "we sure would!" exclaimed paul. "and if dad doesn't keep his word, and get this for me," added dick, "why--i'll get it myself. this car positively must be mine!" "i'm afraid it will be more than the average young man can afford," remarked the agent, with a smile. "the beauty of it, though," said paul to the man in a low voice, as they slipped under the ropes, "is that he isn't an average young man." "no?" "that's mortimer hamilton's son," went on paul. "the millionaire?" paul nodded. "great scott!" whispered the man. "i came near making a break," and he hurried after dick to explain the points of the car. while dick, his chums and others in the interested crowd looked on, the agent showed how the bunks could be utilized as seats in the day time, or even folded up out of the way and camp stools used when it was desired to eat. the table was let down from the "ceiling" and could be folded and raised with but little effort when not wanted. there were enough dishes to feed six persons at a time, though four was all the car would "sleep." more could travel in it during the day, however. the electric stove, operated by a current from a dynamo, as well as from a storage battery, was very efficient, and a fairly complete meal could be cooked on it. there was also ample storage room for supplies. the engine, in which dick was also greatly interested, was of a new and very powerful type. it was almost "trouble-proof," and would stand up well under hard usage. the use of a new type of cushion tires, instead of those inflated with air, insured freedom from punctures and blowouts, and would, because of the weight of the car, and a new kind of springs, make riding very easy. "in short, it's a car for a long tour," said the agent. "and it's the car for me!" exclaimed dick. by this time most of the crowd had gone to look at other exhibits, leaving the agent and the three boys comparatively alone. "but why did not the man who ordered it take it after it was completed?" asked dick. "was he dissatisfied with it?" "not at all!" exclaimed a voice back of the boys. "i couldn't take the car after i ordered it, for the simple reason that i didn't have the money to pay for it. i lost my fortune between the time i contracted for the _last word_ and the time it was finished. that's all." "oh," said dick blankly. he was rather surprised to be taken up so quickly. he turned to see who had spoken, and, as he did so, he uttered an exclamation of surprise that was echoed by paul drew. for, standing near the big car which he could not now possess, was the young man whom paul and dick had seen acting so strangely on the railroad tracks--the young man who, according to paul, had been prevented from committing suicide by dick's prompt action. the stranger, too, was as much surprised as were dick and paul. he paused as he was about to continue his explanation, and an odd look came over his face. then he held out his hand, saying: "i believe i have met two of you boys before." "that's right," agreed dick. "i'm glad to see you again. so this is your car?" "it _was_," he replied with a little smile. "now it's for whoever can raise the money. i can't." "i came on from kentfield," dick explained. "the academy has closed for the summer, and i'm looking for a touring car. my father is giving me one as a sort of reward for not flunking in class." "i see. well, you couldn't get a better car than this. i know the firm well, and, while it is rather peculiarly built, from ideas of my own, still it can compete with any of the regular machines, and beat most of them, though it has not abnormal speed, of course." "i'm not looking for speed," laughed dick. "i want comfort." "it's rather odd that we should meet again," went on the young man. "i live out near kentfield, but i thought i would take a run in to new york, to see if there was a chance of getting rid of the car. i haven't paid for it yet, but i believe i am, in a way, responsible, since i agreed to take it. i wouldn't like to see the firm lose money on it, but if it comes to getting it out of me they'll have hard work. i'm dead broke--cleaned out. "three months ago i was worth over a million. now i have barely enough to live on. but i'm going to make my pile again!" he exclaimed with energy. "i'm not going to give up, and when i come into my own again i'll have another car like this. i've been foolish once, but i'm through now. they don't catch me twice on the same bait. no more speculation for frank wardell!" and he slapped the big tire of one of the wheels determinedly. dick hamilton started. "what--what did you say your name was?" he asked. "wardell--frank wardell. i'll give you a card," and he produced one. "mine's hamilton--dick hamilton," said dick. "glad to meet you. i know your father slightly--mortimer hamilton?" "yes." "this is odd, a ruined millionaire and a successful one," and he laughed grimly. "never mind, i'll be in your class soon again," and he shook hands with dick, who had introduced his chums. "wardell--frank wardell," murmured dick to paul. "do you recognize that name?" "i can't say that i do. why?" "don't ask me now. i'll tell you later. to think it should come out this way," went on dick. "frank wardell! the man i met on the track--a ruined millionaire. no wonder he acted so strangely. oh, if i could only help him! i hope he doesn't ask too much about my family. i'd hate to have to admit that i'm uncle ezra's nephew," and with this rather mystifying ejaculation, dick gave his attention to what mr. wardell was saying--explaining some points about the car that had escaped the attention of the boys. "i do hope you will take it, mr. hamilton," the ruined millionaire went on. "i don't know of anyone i'd rather would get it than you. i know you'll appreciate it." "i think very likely i shall take it," said dick. "then you'll take a load off my shoulders," the other went on, "for i feel, in a measure, responsible for the price, and the land knows i could never raise the cash." and dick, as he looked over the wonderful touring car, could not help thinking how strangely fate had ordered matters. paul looked at his chum, anxious to hear why the name "wardell" should make such an impression on the young millionaire. chapter vii on the road "then you have fully made up your mind to take it, mr. hamilton?" asked the agent, of dick. "yes, it is just what i want. i will wire my father to-night, and i'm sure he will agree, though the price may be more than he first decided on. but i'll make up the difference myself." "then i'll let mr. wardell know," for the former millionaire, after declining an invitation to come to supper with dick and his chums, had left the auto show. "say, what about him?" asked paul, when he got a chance. "who is this wardell, anyhow?" "don't you remember," answered dick. "that's the man uncle ezra came on from dankville to see--to clean up, in other words--take his money away, you know. don't you remember, paul, hearing him tell about how a certain party didn't know enough to hold on to his wealth, and all that?" "is this the man--this wardell?" "the very same one, i believe. he must be. it couldn't be that there were two of the same name, both of whom had lost their fortunes at the same time. uncle ezra ruined the man whose auto i'm going to take, paul." "well, i guess you're right, dick. it's a strange coincidence. are you going to tell him it was your uncle who got all his money away from him?" "i certainly am not, paul. it's not a thing to be proud of, and if i keep him from finding it out until we get this car, and leave, i'll be glad of it. of course if he asks me i'll have to tell him. but i don't believe he will. larabee and hamilton are different names, and mr. wardell will not be likely to trace any connection, though he may. "i thought sure you'd let out something about uncle ezra when you heard the name wardell, paul." "no, it didn't strike me. but then you know i wasn't in the room all the while you and your uncle were talking. i don't recall hearing him mention wardell at all." "well, i did, and i was startled when i found out who this man was," went on dick. "i suppose it's a sort of puzzle to you, innis," the young millionaire added, while the auto salesman was making out some papers for dick to sign. "somewhat, yes," admitted beeby, and then dick and his other chum explained. "well, i know one thing i didn't know before," said paul, as they were ready to depart. "what's that?" "i know why this young mr. wardell was thinking of ending his life on the railroad track that day you saved him." "why was he?" "because he'd lost his fortune," went on paul in a low voice. "just think of it--a millionaire one week, and practically without a cent the next! i suppose that's the way it sometimes goes with rich men who make their living by speculation, but it's hard, just the same. and to know he couldn't pay for this fine car he'd ordered--no wonder he was tired of life." "and to think that some member of my family was responsible," added dick. "it makes me mad! i hope he doesn't connect me with uncle ezra." "do you suppose your uncle took advantage of him?" asked innis. "i don't mean exactly that, either," he added hastily, thinking dick might take the question as a reflection on his relative. "oh, you can't fuss me--saying things about uncle ezra," laughed the young millionaire. "while i don't believe he would do anything that was unlawful--that is, as _he_ regards the law--i do think that he'd want every last cent that he could claim by any stretch of the statutes. he's a hard man, uncle ezra is, especially where money is concerned. i don't just know what sort of dealings he had with this mr. wardell, but he got his fortune, that's sure, and maybe by a trick, for all i know. "that's why i'm not at all anxious to have it known that i'm mr. larabee's nephew. i'm not at all proud of the connection, and i certainly would feel bad to have mr. wardell know it. legally uncle ezra might be well within his rights, but morally i wouldn't be surprised if he was a good way outside of them. but let's forget all about such an unpleasant matter. i'll see when we can get this car, and try it." a talk with the agent brought out the fact that dick could take the big auto at any time after the money had been paid down. it was not a part of the regular auto show, and the space it occupied could be utilized by other machines. "very well then," said dick. "i'll probably hear from my father in the morning. he'll likely send an order to his new york bankers to pay over the money, and then the machine will be mine." "and i congratulate you," said the agent. "it is a car to be proud of, and if you intend making a long trip it will be just what you want." "we'll go across the continent in her!" cried dick. "boys, are you with me?" "that's what!" exclaimed paul and innis. they spent some more time in looking at the various exhibits, and dick sent his father a message from the telegraph office temporarily set up in the garden. then they drifted back to the big car, which dick had christened _last word_, on learning that mr. wardell had tentatively selected that title. "it sure is a peach!" exclaimed our hero. "think you can drive it?" asked paul. "one of the company's engineers will be glad to demonstrate it on the road for you," suggested the agent. "thanks," replied dick. "i think i shall be glad to have a few lessons. i can drive an ordinary car, but this is an extraordinary one." dick's anticipation of his father's action was confirmed next morning. a telegram came, saying: "congratulations. big car--big price. i'm satisfied if you are." "that's like dad," remarked dick. "but he doesn't say anything about the money," remarked paul, who was anxious to have a ride in the big machine. "oh, trust dad not to overlook that part," spoke the young millionaire. "we'll go see that agent. probably he has already heard from my father." and so it proved. dick's purchase of the car was confirmed in a telegram to the makers, and the information was added that mr. hamilton's bankers had been instructed to send a certified check for the price. "i have sent for one of our engineers," the salesman told dick, when the latter and his two chums visited the garden after breakfast. "you can go for a spin on the road this afternoon." "good!" cried dick. "get ready, fellows!" matters went through without a hitch. the price was paid over, and the car formally became dick's. then the professional chauffeur arrived, and after some manipulation the big touring machine was run out of the garden, while a crowd gathered around to see the novel sight. "it looks almost as big as a pullman coach," declared innis beeby. "well, let's get in and see if it rides like one," suggested dick. "look at the auto swells!" cried a newsboy. "hurray!" "as long as our heads aren't swelled we're all right," remarked paul. the oil and gasoline tanks had been filled, and, after looking over the various parts, the chauffeur got in, taking the driver's seat, the boys disposing themselves comfortably on the long, leather-covered benches, that would later be made into sleeping berths. "isn't he going to crank up?" asked innis in some surprise, for the motor was not running when the chauffeur took his place. "you don't have to, on this car," the man explained. "it is a self-starter. it has two systems--an electric motor, operated by an accumulated current, that will turn over the engine, and even run the car on its own power for some distance. then there is also an acetylene gas motor, so in case one fails the other will work. i'll start it by electricity now." he pressed a button on the dash. there was a low humming from somewhere beneath the car, and then the gasoline motor took up the song of progress. the machine vibrated with the power of the engine, until the driver slowed it down. then throwing in the gear, he let the clutch slip into place, and the big machine glided slowly forward. "we're off!" cried dick. "like a charm!" added paul. "i never saw a big car start so easily." "this machine has a new style of clutch," explained the chauffeur. "you'll find a number of the very latest wrinkles on her," he added with a smile. "now, where do you want to go?" "out toward the bronx," replied dick. "get us into something like the country--that is, as much as there is near new york," and soon they were spinning ahead at good speed. it did not take them long to get in the upper part of manhattan, and a little later they were out on what might be called a country road. "this is great!" exclaimed dick, as he gazed from the plate glass windows of his touring car on the landscape that fairly flew past. "it sure is!" agreed his chums. "but wait until we start across the continent," went on the young millionaire. "then we'll have some real fun!" chapter viii uncle ezra laughs "suppose you try it now, mr. hamilton," suggested the chauffeur, when they had gone several miles, the professional giving the new owner various instructions about the car. "yes, go ahead, dick," urged paul. "the sooner you get to know how to run it, the quicker we'll be off on our trip." "well, i want you fellows to pick up some of the fine points, too," said dick. "i don't intend to run the car all the while." "oh, we'll do our share," agreed innis. "sit up now, dick and show us what you can do." it was not without a feeling of nervousness that dick took the wheel, for certainly driving this big and powerful car was no light matter. but they were on a broad and straight highway, where there was not much traffic, so dick took his place at the wheel and levers, with the chauffeur near by in case of emergency, and paul and innis looking on, as anxious to learn as was dick. "she steers easier than i thought she would," remarked the wealthy youth, when he had driven for a mile or so. "yes, and that's one danger," the chauffeur explained. "you're likely to give too much of a twist. just a little turn of the wheel answers." "look out for that dog, dick!" yelled paul, as a yellow cur shot from a yard, diagonally across the road, barking at the big car. "i see him!" came the answer. "and there's a goose on the other side!" added innis, as dick swerved the machine to one side. "there, you ran over its foot!" a series of "honks-honks!" apprised the young driver that something had happened. quickly he shut off the power and jammed on the foot and hand brakes. a woman rushed out of a rather dilapidated house crying: "oh, you've run over heinie! you've run over heinie! oh, you've killed him!" dick turned pale. "is--is any one under the car?" he faltered. "my heinie! oh, my heinie!" cried the woman again. "you haf runned ofer my heinie!" with a bound dick was out of the car through the sliding door in front, and peering between the wheels. he could see no child, and gave a sigh of relief. "who is heinie?" he asked the woman. "who is heinie? he is my best goose, and you haf runned over him mit your steam roller. you shall pay mit him yet!" "oh, if it's only a goose that's all right," said dick as he took out his pocketbook. "how much?" "heinie was worth more as a dollar," she exclaimed, as she picked up the goose, which was still protestingly honking. "his feets is broken. he was worth more as two dollar." "here are five," said dick, generously. "i couldn't help it. i steered out to avoid the dog, and your goose got in the way. i thought it was a child, by the way you called." "heinie is more as a child by me. i haf him more as five years now, and always--always he is careful mit der autos. but yours! it is not a auto--it is a house!" "well, maybe he'll get better. his foot isn't much hurt," said dick with a laugh, as he passed over the money. "i'm sorry." "poor heinie," murmured the woman, as she gathered her apron about the goose and went into the house. "he was worth more as fife dollar!" "you're starting in great, dick," laughed paul, as his chum got back into the touring car. "at this rate you'll need to take a big pocketbook along every time you go out." "he aimed at the dog and hit a goose," added innis. "lucky it was no worse," said dick. "i sure thought i was in bad by the way she yelled about 'heinie.'" "you don't yet quite appreciate how easily the car steers, i guess," suggested the chauffeur. "try it some more." they went on a little more slowly, and had no more accidents. dick soon became familiar with the mechanism, and rapidly acquired confidence in himself. then paul and innis took turns, under the watchful eye and ready hands of the chauffeur. they stopped for dinner at a wayside hotel, and then drove back to new york, dick arranging to have the car kept in a nearby garage. the next day he went out again, on a longer run, taking grit with him. the bulldog seemed to take kindly to the new car, and made himself at home in it. the chauffeur had it easier now, for dick felt confident enough to do all the operating himself. "we ought to stock up and live in it one night," suggested paul, the third day. "time enough for that," replied the delighted owner of the _last word_. "i'm going to drive it to hamilton corners in a few days." "you are?" "sure. that won't be much of a run, compared with our trip across the continent." another week saw dick so improved in skill that the chauffeur declared he need have no hesitation in taking the car on any trip. then a license having been procured, and the tanks refilled, dick and his chums started on the trip to hamilton corners. it was accomplished without accident, an early morning start enabling them to arrive shortly before dark. as they drove into the side entrance of dick's house a voice called from the library: "what's this, mortimer? it looks like a railroad coach coming in." "uncle ezra's here!" exclaimed the son of the house as he recognized the tones. "i expect that is dick's new touring car," replied mr. hamilton. "mortimer! you don't mean to say you let your son get an expensive auto like that?" "i gave it to him, yes, ezra," the boys heard mr. hamilton reply. "well, of all the sinful, foolish wasting of money, this is the worst! why, such a car as that must have cost nigh onto a thousand dollars!" "if he only knew!" murmured dick, with a chuckle. "come on in, fellows. you'll stay with me a few days, and then we'll arrange about our trip." "well, nephew richard, i see you haven't learned economy yet," rasped uncle ezra, as our hero entered the library with his chums. "where do you expect to end your days?" "i hope i don't have to think of that so soon, uncle ezra," replied dick. "i guess you know my two chums; don't you?" "um! is that dog in here?" the crabbed man asked quickly, as a low growl sounded from under a chair near the door. "send him out at once, or i shall go." "take grit away, gibbs," dick said to the butler. "he and uncle ezra seem to get on each other's nerves," he added in a low voice. dick briefly related the incidents of his trip, and thanked his father for the generous gift of the car. then, as the young men were rather dusty and tired from their journey, they went to their rooms to dress for dinner, which would soon be served. dick was ready first, and going downstairs he heard his father and uncle talking in the library. as he went toward the handsome room, intending to join them, he heard mr. hamilton remark: "so you got possession of all his securities, ezra?" "every one, mortimer. i cleaned young wardell out from head to foot, and it was all his own fault. he put up the stock as collateral for a loan. i supplied the money, and when the time came to pay me back he couldn't--he didn't have the cash." "because he bought some other stock that you controlled, and you so manipulated that market that the latter stock was worthless; wasn't that it, ezra?" and mr. hamilton spoke coldly. "well, mortimer, i didn't do nothin' unlawful; did i? i only did what other folks do every day. i had a right to swing my own market the way i liked; didn't i?" "i suppose so" "and if this wardell didn't know enough to protect himself, that wasn't my fault; was it?" "perhaps not." "he ought to have more sense." "perhaps. still i feel sorry for him." "wa'al, i don't! he brought it on himself. ha! ha! i won't forget how he begged me to hold off, and not close him out! ha! ha!" and uncle ezra laughed heartily, in a sort of rasping chuckle. "i told him i wasn't no philanthropist, and he went away mighty mad, i reckon. "but i'm not in business for my health. the funny part of it is, mortimer, that even now, if wardell only knowed enough, he could get back his fortune?" "he could? how?" asked mr. hamilton, eagerly. "wa'al, i wouldn't tell everybody, but i know it will be safe with you. you see, when he got that big loan off me, to do what he calls speculatin', he gave me as security for the money some stock in that western railroad--that california branch you know. citrous junction, i believe it's called." "yes," assented mr. hamilton. "wa'al, it was valuable stock, and i was hopin' all the while that something would turn up so's i could keep it, for i had some of their stock, and this would give me the control of the road. "wa'al, it did. wardell turned up broke, and i got a hold on his stock. but the queer part of it is that there's some tangle in the matter--some legal complications that my lawyer is figuring out--and if wardell only knowed enough he could file an injunction against havin' any of that stock transferred--even his lot that he put up with me as security. that would halt matters until he could make good on something else, and then he could pay me what he owes, and get this railroad stock back. but he don't know that he can do this, and i ain't goin' to tell him. "it ain't up to me to do so. so all i've got to do is to hold on to his stock until a certain time, and then it will be too late for him to file any papers, and the stock will be mine forever, and i'll control the road. ha! ha! it's a good joke on wardell; ain't it?" "i suppose you think so," said mr. hamilton, coldly, "but it seems like hard lines for him." "wa'al, he brought it on himself; didn't he? i didn't ask him to borrow my money. he asked me for it. i didn't ask him to go into any of these deals; he went into them himself with his eyes open. now i'm not goin' to tell him he has a chance to get back his fortune, if he was only smart enough! no, sir. ha! ha! "i'm just goin' to keep quiet, and say nothin'. if the time limit expires, and he doesn't file that injunction, or whatever legal paper it is, with the california courts by a certain day, then his security railroad stock is mine, and it will be twice as valuable as when wardell owned it. it'll be worth nigh onto a million! that's what i call business, i do!" "oh, yes, it's business--of a certain kind," admitted mr. hamilton. "and so he has a chance to get back his fortune?" "yes, but he don't know it, mortimer! he don't know it! ha! ha! that's the joke of it! he don't know it! he don't know it! he! he!" and uncle ezra went off into a fit of laughter that nearly choked him. dick, in the hall, heard, though not intending to play the eavesdropper. "so, wardell doesn't know; eh?" mused the young man. "he doesn't know, and uncle ezra thinks that's a joke. a queer joke. wardell doesn't know what chance he has to get back his fortune. but _i_ know, and uncle ezra, unless i'm very much mistaken, i'm going to put a spoke in your wheel!" and then dick went silently upstairs to join his two chums. chapter ix dick makes plans "well, dick, so you think you have the very car you want?" "yes, dad, and i can't thank you enough for it. it's a dandy, and we're soon going to make a big trip in it--all the way across to san francisco." "more expense! more expense!" exclaimed uncle ezra, raising his hands in protest. they were at the dinner table, talking over dick's plans for the coming summer. "it won't be much more expensive than going to some resort, uncle ezra," remarked dick, thinking over what he had heard a little while before. "and i think it will do the boys more good," said mr. hamilton. "they'll see something of life, and the experience will be a new one for them. do you think you can make your car a base of supplies, dick, and live in it without going to hotels, as you plan?" "i think so, but we're not going to bind ourselves down by any hard and fast rules. if we want to go to a hotel we'll go; otherwise we'll camp out in the _last word_." "more expense! more expense!" protested mr. larabee. "oh, what is the present generation coming to?" no one answered him. "when do you expect to start?" asked mr. hamilton. "just as soon as the boys can get ready," replied dick. "it's up to them." "i'll have to write home," said paul. "i've no doubt, though, but what my folks will let me." "same here," observed innis. "what is that?" suddenly demanded uncle ezra. "who is kicking my legs?" he moved his feet about under the table, but as he sat at some distance from the others it was difficult to understand who could be kicking him. the mystery was solved a moment later, however, for a low growl came from beneath the oak table. "it's that dratted dog!" exclaimed the crabbed old man. "mortimer, if i can't eat my dinner in peace----" "i didn't know he was in here," said dick, apologizing. "gibbs, have grit taken to the stable." "yes, mr. dick," answered the butler, and again the unfortunate dog was led away, casting a sad look at dick and a vindictive one at uncle ezra. "it's lucky he didn't bite you," spoke mr. hamilton. "he must have sneaked in here after he was put out before." "if he had bitten me----" began uncle ezra. "he'd have done it at once, if he had any such intention, i think," interrupted dick. "grit isn't savage----" "isn't savage!" cried mr. larabee. "i'd like to know what you do call it?" "you don't understand him," suggested the young millionaire. "he's as gentle as a cat with--his friends." "then i'm glad i'm not one of his friends!" exclaimed uncle ezra. the dinner went on, the talk being divided among the boys on one side, and mr. hamilton and his brother-in-law on the other, with occasional interchanges. then the millionaire and mr. larabee went to the library to talk over some business, and the three chums went out to the garage to look over the new car, and see how it had stood the journey. "it seems all right," said dick. "of course we didn't put much strain on it. when we get out west, trying to cross deserts, ford streams and climb mountains, then we'll see how she stands up. jove! but i'm anxious to start. "say, can't you fellows get your folks on the long distance telephone, and see when you can go?" dick was always planning how to make short cuts. "it's too late to call 'em up now," said paul. "they'd think something had happened. we'll write." "then do it now," urged dick. "you'll get an answer so much quicker. explain everything and tell 'em you simply must go! it will do you good." "oh, we'll go, all right!" declared innis, and they went back into the house to write the letters. dick got out a big map and began to figure on a tentative route. not much preparation would be necessary, at least on this side of the rockies, for he knew he could buy supplies of food and gasoline almost anywhere. time was no object, so they could go along leisurely, and he made his plans accordingly. the route would have to be decided on as they went from state to state, for dick realized that local conditions might vary, and a stream that would be fordable at one time might not be at another. "it will be a great trip!" he remarked to himself. "but if i could only do something for mr. wardell i'd feel better. it doesn't seem fair, the way uncle ezra acted, though maybe it's all right according to law. and it doesn't seem right that mr. wardell should lose his fortune when he can save it, if he only knew how. i wonder if it would be wrong to act on the information i overheard by accident? i'm going to ask dad." mr. larabee retired early that night, as he always did, and he piled some chairs against his locked door. "i'm not going to have that pesky bulldog getting in!" he declared. "drat him! i wish he'd run away." "dad!" exclaimed dick a little later, "i want a little talk with you." "want another auto, dick?" asked mr. hamilton, with a smile. "no, the _last word_ suits me right down to the ground. it's about mr. wardell and uncle ezra." "what do you know about them, dick?" asked the millionaire, quickly. "well, i overheard something to-night," and dick related it. "do you know this mr. wardell?" he went on. "i bought the car from him, you remember." "yes. well, i don't know that i can say i know him. i used to know his father, and a fine man he was, though he had rather queer notions of business. he was strictly honest, though, and perhaps if he had taken advantage of every legal trick he might have left more money." "tricks like uncle ezra's?" "well, dick, we won't talk about them. uncle ezra is responsible to himself, and, as he says, he is strictly within the law. we all have different standards. but, dick, what is it you want to do?" "i want to save mr. wardell's fortune for him. you heard what uncle ezra said. can't you take a hand, and change matters?" mr. hamilton thought a moment. "dick," he said, "what your uncle told me was in confidence. i can't violate that. i'm sorry--in a way--that you overheard what you did, and yet it may be for the best in the end. i can't act, and yet----" "is there anything to prevent me, dad?" "no-o-o-o," was the answer, slowly given. "i don't know as there is." "and you can advise me; can't you?" "well, dick, if you ask me questions, i suppose i'll have to answer them," and there was a twinkle in mr. hamilton's eyes. "but uncle ezra won't like it if he finds it out," the father concluded. "he won't find it out!" declared dick, with energy. "now here is how i size it up," the young man went on. "uncle ezra got mr. wardell's fortune--which consisted mostly of railroad stock--in exchange for a loan." "yes, he took the stock, or, rather he has had his lawyers take it, because the money was not repaid to him." "and it wasn't paid because mr. wardell bought other stock that proved worthless. is that it?" "that's about it, dick." "and uncle ezra sold mr. wardell this worthless stock?" "well, his representatives did. but look here, dick, your uncle didn't force mr. wardell to buy this worthless stock, you know. mr. wardell did that with his eyes open." "i know, but he didn't know it was worthless?" "probably not." "and uncle ezra did?" "well, i wouldn't go so far as to say that. there is a lot of stock in the market that is practically worthless, but which is sold with the best intentions in the world. it may be worth a fortune some day." "all right. anyhow, mr. wardell gave up some good stock, got bad stock, and lost his good stock." "yes." "and now it develops that if, within a certain time, he makes a sort of legal protest--files a paper in court or something like that--he has a chance to get his stock back?" "provided, of course, he gives back the money." "and he is practically assured of his money if he does make that protest, dad?" "yes. it's quite complicated, but, to state it simply, if he files that paper, protesting against losing his old stock, the new stock that he bought will be worth considerable, and out of the money he gets from selling that he can get back his old stock, which will be worth twice as much." "it sounds like a chinese puzzle, dad, but the main thing to do is, i take it, to file this protest." "yes, if it's filed in time." "that's what i wanted to know, dad. i see my way clear now." "what are you going to do, dick?" asked mr. hamilton as he saw his son preparing to write a letter. "i'm going to tell mr. wardell that there's a chance to save his fortune, and i'm going to offer my services to do it for him!" was the quick answer. "i want to have a talk with him." "dick, i don't know----" "mortimer!" exclaimed a voice in the hall, "i can't sleep with the howling of that pesky bulldog. i shall have to ask you to have him taken farther off." "great peter!" gasped dick. "uncle ezra!" chapter x mr. wardell's confession the tableau which presented itself to the view of mr. larabee showed mr. hamilton gazing at dick, and our hero, with a strange expression on his face, looking at his father. he was wondering just how much his uncle had overheard. "can't sleep; eh?" repeated mr. hamilton, after a pause. "no, that dog of nephew richard's makes such a noise. can't he be sent farther off?" "i--i'll have grit taken away, uncle ezra," promised dick, quickly. "i'll attend to it right away. i'm sorry he annoyed you." "huh!" snorted the visitor. "i never could see the use of dogs, anyhow. they eat 'most as much as humans, and never do any work." "they keep tramps away," said dick, in defense of his pet. "huh! a good shotgun near the door, where a tramp can see it, beats all your dogs, and it don't cost anythin' either," declared mr. larabee, with a sniff of disdain. "one charge of powder--not too much--and a little salt and pepper, will do for a whole season of tramps. you don't have to shoot the gun off, you know," he explained. "sometimes one load will do for several seasons, and think of the money you save." "i'd rather have grit," said dick, simply. "sittin' up rather late; aren't you, mortimer?" went on mr. larabee, who was attired in a faded dressing gown, rather too short for him. it showed his lean legs, the feet encased in ancient slippers, which, uncle ezra boasted, had lasted him many years. "i seldom go to bed early," spoke the millionaire. "but it's late for nephew richard," went on the old man. "growin' boys should be a-bed early. when i was a lad we went to bed soon after sundown--we had to, for we had to git up at four o'clock to milk. but the present generation has it too easy--they're pampered too much." "dick and i were talking business," said mr. hamilton, and he glanced sharply at his brother-in-law, to see if he had overheard any of the conversation. if mr. larabee had done so, he showed no signs of it. "business!" he exclaimed. "wa'al, of course that's a good thing if nephew richard profits by what he hears. i hope he does. but i've lost considerable sleep over that pesky dog. i wish you'd attend to him." "i will!" exclaimed dick, hurrying out to the stable. "i guess grit hasn't done much sleeping, either," he murmured, "not while he knew uncle ezra was in the house, anyhow. i don't see why he has to be so mean--uncle ezra, i'm thinking of," went on dick, reflectively. "i suppose it comes natural, but it isn't very pleasant. "there's that mr. wardell--he's practically ruined him, just on account of a greed for money, when he's already got more than he knows what to do with. well, i'm going to help that young fellow if i can--i'm going to try to help him get back his fortune. i know how i'd feel if i lost mine--especially by some trick like this. "yes, i'll get in touch with him, and see if we can't beat uncle ezra at his own game. come on, grit," he went on, speaking to the dog, who vainly tried to break his chain the quicker to get near dick. "you've got to go into exile for the rest of the night, anyhow, all on account of uncle ezra. i'm sorry, but it has to be, old man." caressing his dog, dick took him to a distant tool house in the garden, far enough off so that should grit bark or whine mr. larabee would not hear him. the dog whimpered a bit when dick went away, but soon accustomed himself to the new situation. "to-morrow i'll write to mr. wardell," decided dick, as he rejoined his father, mr. larabee having gone back to his room. mr. hamilton approved of this plan, and dick went to bed to dream of saving the fortune of an unfortunate man, and shooting across country in his big touring car. "i'll sort of combine business with pleasure," remarked the youth next morning, as he arose and recalled his dream. the letter to mr. wardell having been written, dick and his two chums took the new car out for a spin. mr. hamilton consented to be driven to the railroad depot in it, as he had to go to a distant city on some business. mr. larabee, who was going back to dankville, much to the satisfaction of dick, refused an invitation to try out the _last word_. "trust myself in that? never!" he exclaimed. "i'd as soon think of riding on a fire engine. you mark my words, nephew richard, you'll come to grief in that car yet. it's too big and heavy." "it has to be, for what i want of it," replied our hero. "i'm going to cross the continent in it, and sometimes we may be stuck where there are no hotels. in that case we'll have a hotel with us." "oh, the sinful shame and waste of money!" cried uncle ezra, dolefully shaking his head. dick and his chums, with grit as a mascot, had a fine ride for a considerable distance out into the country and back. the car behaved perfectly, and dick found she had more speed than he had suspected. the luxury of it appealed to the three young men, and they were looked on with envious eyes as they sped along the broad highways. dick posted his letter to mr. wardell, and then there was nothing to do but await an answer. paul and innis planned to go to their homes, to arrange for the long trip with dick, and were to return to hamilton corners in about a week. in the meantime the young millionaire would perfect his plans for the continental tour. there was considerable to be done in the way of laying out a route, and arranging to communicate with his father at certain points. also dick wanted to have plenty of time to aid mr. wardell in recovering his fortune. "and i've got to do it without uncle ezra knowing anything about it," decided dick. "if he found it out he might find a way, law or no law, to prevent us from filing that protest in time. oh, i've got to be as foxy as uncle ezra himself." but dick little realized the resourcefulness of his relative. a few days after dick's chums had gone to their homes, when the former was wondering when he would hear from the man whose car he had purchased, gibbs came to him in the library one afternoon with the information that a visitor wanted to see dick. "bring him in here," he requested the butler. "oh, hello, mr. wardell!" dick exclaimed when he saw who his caller was. "i'm real glad to see you. i was getting ready to come on to new york and meet you, as soon as you sent me word." "were you, indeed? i thought i had better take a run up here, though, as i haven't any permanent address in new york at present. i haven't my plans made, and i may go away at any time. but i am curious to know what good news you have to tell me," for dick had not given the particulars in his letter. "i don't see how there can be any good news for me any more," went on mr. wardell, rather despondently. "well, there is," said dick, simply. "what would you say if i told you there was a chance to get back your fortune?" "i'd say, i'm afraid, that you were dreaming." "i never was more wide awake. listen," and dick quickly related the gist of what he and his father had talked over. "you don't mean it!" exclaimed mr. wardell. "if the papers are filed in time i can save my fortune?" "that's about it. can you arrange to file them?" "i can, i think--no, by jove! dick, i can't, either. at least i'm afraid i can't. i'll tell you how i'm fixed. i am about to go to south america for a mining concern. it's a good opening, and it's too good to turn down. i can make my living at it, and in time i may get rich by it. it's a bird in the hand, and it's worth two in the bush, where my former fortune seems to be at present. i don't see how i can go out to san francisco and to south america, too. and yet i would like to get back my fortune, for i am beginning to believe that it wasn't taken from me altogether fairly." "we won't go into that now," spoke dick. "but can you arrange with your lawyer to furnish the necessary papers?" "yes. i guess mr. tunison would do that for me, even if i can't pay his regular fee. he's done enough business for our family in the past. but, look here, mr. hamilton, what good will the papers do me when i can't go to san francisco to file them? at least, i don't think i ought to give up a certain, sure thing for one that's only a chance. i can't file the papers after i get them." "well, then, i can!" cried dick. "you can? what do you mean?" "i mean that my chums and i are going to take a tour to california. i can combine business with pleasure, and file those papers for you. if i can do it in time, you'll get a chance to recover your fortune." "and will you do that for me?" "i certainly will!" mr. wardell clasped dick's hand in a hearty grasp. "look here, old man," he said feelingly, "you've done too much for me already." "oh, pshaw! i haven't done anything worth mentioning!" exclaimed dick, who disliked having a fuss made over him. "i bought your car as much for myself as to help you out of a hole." "oh, it isn't that i mean!" cried mr. wardell, quickly. "dick, i've a confession to make. you may not know it, but you saved my life that day on the railroad tracks." "saved your life?" "yes, i was down and out! i didn't see a thing to live for, and i wasn't going to look for a reason. i was going to cash in when you and your chum came along, and i didn't have the nerve to do what i was going to do--shuffle off this mortal coil. you saved my life, dick hamilton, and now you are going to save my fortune for me. you're doing too much!" and the visitor seemed much affected. chapter xi off on the trip "that's all right now, mr. wardell," said dick, after a rather painful pause. "i'm sure i'm only too glad that i can do something for you. it isn't going to be any trouble--filing this paper, as it's on my way. and, as for saving your life----" "oh, you did it--there's no question about that!" interrupted the other. "i was miserable enough to do anything rash, but the kind way in which you spoke to me, and the cheerfulness of yourself, and your chum, made me ashamed to do what i had contemplated. it started me on a new road, thinking of you, and i made up my mind i'd begin over again. "now it might seem to you that i ought to look after this matter myself--going out there and filing this paper--but the truth of the matter is that i'm quite disgusted with myself--not knowing enough to take care of my money when i had it. i deserve to lose it. but if you can save it i'm willing to give you whatever share your lawyer thinks fair." "i'm not doing it for that," declared dick. "i'm doing it for--well, i'll tell you later," he finished. but to himself he said: "i'm doing this for the honor of my family. if he ever finds out it was my uncle who ruined him he'll not think much of my father and myself, even if i was instrumental in saving his life. no, i've got to keep still about that part of it, and save _his_ fortune for the honor of _our_ family. and i'll do it, too, in spite of uncle ezra!" "well, it's awfully good of you," went on mr. wardell, after a pause. "now i'll see our old family lawyer, mr. william tunison, and have him arrange with you. you say the papers have to be filed on a certain date?" "yes." "then why can't they be sent out there, and held until it is time to present them to the court?" "because the law in this matter is peculiar. the documents have to be filed between certain dates--they can't be presented before the one, nor after the other. there is a period of a few days during which they can legally be presented to the courts, and in that time only. if you sent them out there now they might get filed away in some pigeon-hole, and be forgotten until it was too late." "i see." "so the only thing to do is for some one to look after the matter personally. and i'll do it!" "it's very good of you. i suppose i might do it myself, but i hate to lose this south american chance. it may never come again, and i want to show folks that, even if i have lost one fortune, i can make another. otherwise i'd go west myself." "you don't need to. i'll act as your agent," promised dick. "very well, then. i'll arrange with my lawyer. i was so angry and discouraged when i found that my fortune was wiped out that i didn't go into details over it. all i knew was that a fellow named larabee had cleaned me out. a queer sort of chap he was, too. about as mean as they make 'em, i thought, and quite a financier into the bargain. ever meet him?" "i--i have heard of him," stammered dick. then he quickly added: "suppose you give me power of attorney to act for you, and a letter to your lawyer. then i can see him myself," for dick did not want to get on dangerous ground as regards uncle ezra. "then you can go to south america whenever you get ready, and i'll look after the rest," he added. "it seems sort of cowardly, to run away and leave you to face the music," and mr. wardell hesitated. "not at all!" dick assured him. "i'll be glad of the chance to do this business for you. it will be good training for me. my father is willing. and," dick added to himself, "it will give me a chance to get back at uncle ezra for some of the mean things he has done to me." "all right," spoke mr. wardell after a moment or two of thought. "i'll give you power to act for me, as my attorney, or representative, or whatever is necessary. and i'll write to my lawyer. he can fix up the papers. do you want him to come here?" "no, i am going to new york in a few days, to arrange some details about our trip. i'll see him then. will you stay to dinner, and meet my father? we can put you up for the night." "no, thank you. i'll stay for dinner, but i must go back to new york on the midnight train. there is no telling when this south american berth may be open for me." a little later mr. wardell and mr. hamilton went over details with dick, and it was arranged that the latter should complete his plans with mr. tunison, the lawyer. a few days later saw our hero once more in new york. he went by train, as his chums had not yet arrived from their homes, and dick did not want to drive his big car by himself. mr. tunison proved to be an agreeable gentleman, who readily entered into dick's plan to try to recover the wardell fortune. "though i'm afraid you're going to have a hard task, mr. hamilton," the lawyer said. "this mr. larabee is a hard customer. by the way, he is some relation to you; isn't he? i've been looking him up." "he is," admitted dick, "but i'm not proud of it. i would just as soon mr. wardell did not know it--at least, until i am successful. i am doing this, in a measure, for the honor of my family." "hum! well, i'll keep your secret. now it appears from the investigation i have made since i got mr. wardell's letter, that this mr. larabee isn't appearing in this matter openly himself." "no?" asked dick in some surprise. "no. whether he is ashamed of what he did, or whether he has sold out his claim to someone else, i can't learn. but he is represented by a mr. harrison black, and i want to warn you against him." "warn me?" "yes. mr. black, while a lawyer, is one of the most unscrupulous attorneys i have ever met, or had dealings with. he is a sharper, just keeping well enough within the law not to be caught. now, he is handling this matter for your uncle, it seems, and he knows about this time limit." "i suppose so." "yes. he'll do all in his power to prevent us from filing the papers that would give mr. wardell a chance to claim his fortune again. so you must be on your guard." "i will. what sort of a man is this mr. black?" "i will describe him to you," and the lawyer did so. "but he probably will not appear openly himself," resumed mr. tunison. "he has other shyster lawyers who do his evil work for him. probably you will encounter one of his tools, and as he has a number i can't say which one it will be. only be on your guard, mr. hamilton." "i will." "now then, i will give you the necessary papers, which must be filed with the supreme court not before september first and not later than midnight september third." "three days!" exclaimed dick. "that is all. a short period. to be sure of making no mistake, you had better file them the first day. don't take any chances. at the same time, it would not be fair to you to have you give up all the pleasure of your trip to be in san francisco before the first day of next september. "i understand you are going to make a tour in the big car mr. wardell had built for himself before his fortune was lost. my advice is to do this, and so arrange your programme that you will reach san francisco september first. that will give you plenty of time. i have a lawyer friend there, mr. whitfield ainslie, who will attend to the california legal end for you. now i will prepare the papers." it did not take long, and after getting a few more detailed instructions from mr. tunison, dick left for hamilton corners. when he got home he found paul and innis waiting for him. "well, when do we start?" asked paul. "yes; we've been doing nothing but dream of this trip!" cried the other. "we'll leave this week!" declared dick. and he was as good as his word. his plans were completed, the route finally decided on, and, with the auto thoroughly in shape, the boys started off early one morning, grit sitting proudly beside dick, who was at the wheel. "take care of yourself, my boy," cautioned mr. hamilton, as he shook hands with his son and his chums. "i will, dad. if uncle ezra asks for me--well, tell him i'll see him later!" "i will. have you the papers safe?" "yes, they're in the auto where no one can find them. i'll write as often as i can. all ready, boys?" "let her go, dick!" cried paul. "start off!" exclaimed innis beeby. dick pressed the button of the electric starter. there was a hum, a throb of the powerful motor, and the big car moved slowly out of the yard. dick and his chums were off on their long trip. chapter xii uncle ezra plots "what's our time-table, dick?" asked paul, as they swung out of hamilton corners into the less-populated country. "we haven't any. that is, we're not going to try to make any special time, as long as we get to 'frisco by september first," for dick had told his chums of the endeavor he was going to make to save mr. wardell's fortune. "what's our programme, then?" innis beeby wanted to know. "are we going to run along, hit or miss, or have we some definite plan?" "i thought i gave you our route." "well, old man, we went over it so often, and made so many changes, that i don't know now whether we're going by way of new orleans or alaska." "more like alaska this time of year!" exclaimed paul. "shall i start the electric fan, dick?" "yes, do. there isn't much breeze to-day," and soon a big electric fan near the roof of the touring car was stirring the air, making the three travelers more comfortable. "this is the schedule the way i have worked it out," went on dick, as he steered out to avoid a load of hay being driven along the country road. "we'll go to buffalo, and from there on to cleveland. next, in the order as they come, will be chicago, des moines, omaha, denver, leadville, salt lake city, carson city, sacramento, and then 'frisco." "all good places to visit," observed innis, reflectively. "well, we may not strike all of them," dick went on. "if we have to change our route because of bad roads, or from other causes, we may cut out the big cities, and just go somewhere near them. but that route will give us plenty of travel." "i should say so!" agreed paul. "nearly four thousand miles, i guess. well, your car looks good for it, dick!" and indeed the _last word_ appeared able to navigate to the arctic regions if called on to do so. "are we going to put up at a hotel for lunch?" asked innis, when they had gone on several miles farther. "that isn't a hint that i'm hungry!" he hastened to add, "but i was just wondering, dick." "i think we'll try camping out a bit," said that young man. "we might as well get used to it, and the weather is good now." "that's right," agreed paul. "i have some grub stowed away in back," dick resumed. "we will stop at some butcher shop and grocery in the next town, get some steak and bacon, and cook it on our electric stove. then we can eat it alongside the road. there will be plenty of chances to go to hotels later." the boys laughed and joked, thoroughly enjoying themselves in the big touring car. it rode easily, even over rough roads, and it was roomy enough so that they could move about in it, not having to stay cramped up in one seat. paul and innis took turns at driving, as dick wanted them to become familiar with the mechanism. * * * * * but perhaps if dick and his chums could have been made aware of a little scene that had taken place in the office of a certain lawyer in dankville that morning they would not have felt so care-free and light-hearted. about the time dick started off on his tour a crabbed old man might have been seen going into this law office, on the door of which was the name: harrison black. "ah, good morning, mr. larabee!" the lawyer greeted his visitor. "come right in," and the two were closeted together for some time. when they came out, mr. black said: "now don't you have a bit of worry, mr. larabee. i'll attend to the matter for you, and this young man will never see his money again." "he don't deserve to, anyhow. folks that is as careless as he was, don't deserve no pity." "that's right, so they don't, mr. larabee. ha! ha! you have exactly the right idea." "and now about this foolish young nephew of mine," went on mr. larabee. "i didn't hear all he and his father talked about that night when i came down on 'em unexpected-like, but i'm sure my nephew has some crazy notion about helping this wardell. it mustn't be allowed--he must be stopped!" and uncle ezra clenched his fist and struck a desk a smart blow. "i agree with you, mr. larabee. he must be stopped. but does he know of this time limit?" "he might. i wouldn't take any chances. he's fooled me more than once. don't take any chances, black." "i won't. if he has any papers to file inside the time limit, he won't be allowed to do so. we'll take some means to stop him. wait, i'll call one of my men who--er--who attends to all these little matters for me. jake, here, i want you!" from an outer room came a man with a hard face, and a jaw like that of a prize fighter. he had little, shifty eyes that seemed never to look one in the face. "jake this is mr. larabee," went on mr. black. "this is jake morton," to uncle ezra. "he'll see that your foolish nephew doesn't do anything rash." "that's what i want." "it--er--it may cost something, mr. larabee." "cost something?" and uncle ezra clapped his hand on his pocket. "not much, i hope!" "well, of course your nephew has started off in an auto, i believe you mentioned that." "yes, in a great big touring car like a steam coach--him and two other spendthrifts. oh, the money they waste!" and uncle ezra shook his head. "well, if they're in an auto, i presume they'll have to be followed in an auto," went on mr. black, "and auto hire costs money." "couldn't--couldn't they be followed on a bicycle?" asked the crabbed old man. "i wouldn't mind buying a second-hand bicycle for your man, and he could follow them on that. bicycle riding is healthy." "say, if you expect me to trail along after a touring car on a bicycle--and a second-hand one at that--you can get some one else to do this job!" exclaimed jake morton. "i'm done! what! maybe chase half way to san francisco on an old wheel? i guess not." "wa'al, maybe i could stand a new one," whined uncle ezra. "no, nor a new one, either. it's a touring car for me, or nothing!" "oh, the sinful waste of money!" exclaimed mr. larabee. "the awful waste!" "you'd much better spend a few dollars to hire a touring car for my clerk than to lose all this money," said mr. black. "and, mind you, if your nephew files that paper it may result in a lawsuit, which would be very expensive, and, at the same time might go against you." "well, then, if you think it wise, perhaps i'd better. i don't want to lose this money i've worked so hard for." a smile of something like contempt curled the lip of mr. black. he knew just how hard mr. larabee had "worked" for his money, for many a mortgage he had foreclosed for him, and many a transaction he had consummated--transactions that never got into the law courts. "then if you don't want to run any chances, you'd better do as i say," went on the lawyer. "my man will look after matters. you say your nephew and his chums have gone off on a tour. do you know the route they are going to take?" "not exactly, for, though i looked and listened the young spendthrifts changed their plans so often i wasn't able to keep track of them. but they are going to the main cities. why, would you believe it, they'd think nothing of going hundreds of extra miles, just to get to some place to see the sights! and gasoline is gettin' more and more expensive every day, to say nothin' of tires. oh, the waste of it!" "well, i suppose your nephew is well off?" "yes; too much so for his own good!" snapped uncle ezra. "if i had the handlin' of his wealth, there'd be a different story to tell." "i can well believe that," remarked the lawyer, drily. "now to get down to business. pay attention, jake morton. you will have to follow this party of young fellows in the big touring car as best you can, since mr. larabee doesn't know the exact route they will take." "no, i couldn't find out," mumbled uncle ezra, "though i heard something of buffalo, cleveland, and so on." "i guess i can get on their trail, all right," said the lawyer's henchman. "if it's a big touring car, as you describe, it ought to be pretty conspicuous. folks will notice it and i can make inquiries as i go along." "yes, but keep your wits about you. don't let them suspect, for they are sharp lads, i take it." "oh, i'll play foxy, all right. i'll hang back for a few days and watch my chance." "but don't delay too long," cautioned uncle ezra. "automobile hire is expensive, and i'm not as rich as mortimer hamilton. don't go wastin' my money." "well, i'm not going to starve on the trip," laughed the man. "i've got to live decently if i'm to pose as a touring autoist." "oh, dear!" groaned uncle ezra. "this is going to cost a pile of money--a dreadful pile!" "but you're going to make a lot out of it!" insisted the shyster lawyer. "maybe--maybe," assented the old man. "and say," he went on to morton, "you'll get that paper away from him. i know he has some sort of a paper to file, to cheat me out of my hard-earned money. i was sharp enough to find that out, though he and his father think they fooled me. but i was too much for 'em--i was so--ha! ha!" and he chuckled so that he went into a coughing fit, and had to be thumped on the back to bring his breath into his lungs again. "you--you'll get that paper; won't you?" he pleaded. "sure i will," declared jake morton. "and they won't know i have it until it's too late to file it." "good!" exclaimed uncle ezra. "and maybe, while you are at it, you could get that auto away from my nephew, or wreck it, or something like that." "good land, mr. larabee! you don't mean that; do you?" cried mr. black. "wreck your nephew's auto?" "oh, not with him in it, of course. but if it could be disabled some way, maybe he'd desert it, and we could get it, and fix it up and sell it. i might get enough out of it to pay for the expenses of this trip, for it's goin' to cost a lot--a dreadful lot." "i wouldn't advise you to try that," said the lawyer, significantly. "we're taking enough chances as it is. you don't want to make yourself criminally liable; do you?" "oh, my good land, no! sakes alive! no! no!" cried uncle ezra. "i've always kept within the law. we ain't goin' to do nothin' unlawful; are we?" and he gazed anxiously at the lawyer. "oh, no. i'm not any too fond, myself, of overstepping the law. but i'll take all it allows!" he declared, thrusting out a lean and claw-like hand. "oh, so will i!" exclaimed uncle ezra. "all the law allows--yes; all the law allows! ha! ha! i guess you'll find, nephew richard," he went on, "that two of us can play at that little game you started. two of us; yes-um! we'll see who wins out! ha! ha!" and, chuckling in a cackling sort of voice, mr. larabee left the lawyer's office, while mr. black and his henchman looked at each other. "what do you think of him?" asked mr. black. "i don't like to think. but, as long as he pays our price, we'll do his work; eh?" "yes. now come in here and we'll talk over what's best to do. we must get that paper away from dick hamilton." chapter xiii the hand in the dark "say, this is a little bit of all right; isn't it?" "it certainly is. i'll have some more of that steak." "another morsel of bacon would just about suit me." "those eggs aren't so bad. that electric stove cooks quick enough." "i should say yes. any more coffee left?" question and comment thus went back and forth among the three chums as they sat in dick hamilton's big touring car, under a great oak tree at one side of a pleasant country road. they had traveled many miles from hamilton corners before stopping at a village grocery and meat market and buying what they wanted for dinner. "going camping?" the man had asked them, as he wrapped up the parcels. "no, just on a tour," dick said. "oh, then you're going to cook over an open fire?" "no, we're going to cook it right in the auto," the young autoist said. "ha! ha!" laughed the man. "joking; eh? well, i know you auto fellows have some new wrinkles, but i didn't think you were up to that. going to broil the steak on your over-heated engine, i suppose, and make coffee with the hot water from your radiator? ha! ha!" "not exactly," replied dick. "though that might be done. no, we have a stove of our own," and he showed the man the little electrical apparatus in the rear of the enclosed tonneau, on which a good meal could be prepared. and the boys had just finished their culinary operations and were now enjoying the fruits of their labors. they were in a secluded place, and the day was all that could be desired. the little table had been let down from the roof, and the three sat about it, laughing and joking. farmers and others passing along the highway paused to look in some astonishment, not only at the big car, which was of a type and size seldom seen, but at the boys themselves, who seemed to be taking their ease in regular gypsy fashion, yet in a style never approached by the dark-skinned nomads. "some class to this," remarked paul, as he passed his plate for more steak and bacon. "i should say yes," agreed innis. "i say, old boy, you're not going to take that egg; are you?" "why not, i'd like to know?" retorted paul, pausing in the act of helping himself to a nicely browned one, nestling amid a pile of crisp bacon. "because you've had three, and that's mine--or dick's, if he wants it." "no, i don't want it," said the latter. "but it isn't worth quarreling over. we can fry some more." "i guess we'll have to if paul is going to develop that kind of an appetite," remarked innis. "three eggs, twice on the steak, and no end of bacon----" "i did not!" snapped paul. "did not what?" asked innis, with a smile. "did not have three eggs. it was only two, and----" "well, this'll be three," retorted innis. "oh, well, then i'll split it with you," and paul cut the egg in half, thus settling the dispute. "well, there's one consolation in eating this way," remarked dick, as the auto-meal came to an end. "we don't have many dishes to wash," and he tossed from the window of the car the wooden plates from which they had dined. "that's right," agreed paul. "washing dishes is the worst part of camp life. some day i'm going to invent a set of dishes that wash themselves." "these are just as good," said dick. though there was in the auto a small set of porcelain dishes, the boys had decided that, except for food that actually needed other styles, they would use the wooden plates, that could be thrown away after each meal. they carried a supply of these, as well as paper napkins, and more could be bought whenever needed. of course there were pans and other utensils for the stove, and these were cleaned after being used, and stowed away in the proper compartments. "well, i guess we're all ready to start again," announced dick, as they got out and walked about a bit, pausing to get a drink at a roadside spring. "where to?" asked paul. "i'll take a look at our map and see," went on the young millionaire. "i think we can make hosford by evening, and stay there over night. there's no use journeying after dark until we have to." "that's right; not until we find we have to put on speed to file that paper in time," added paul. "but is there a hotel in hosford?" inquired innis. "we'll not bother with a hotel," suggested dick. "as long as we have the bunks in our auto we might as well use them. we'll just pull up at some quiet place, off the road, get our supper, and turn in. we're independent of hotels, unless we want to go to one now and again to have more room to stretch. that's why i got this kind of a car." "sure enough!" exclaimed innis. "we'll bunk here then." and they did that night. at first it was a bit awkward, but soon they got used to the not too large apartment into which the auto was turned, and they found the bunks very comfortable. the curtains were drawn over the glass doors and windows and with an electric light glowing in the roof, the boys went to sleep, well satisfied with their first day's trip. they were under way soon after breakfast and traveled a good distance by noon, stopping for their meal in a little grove of trees just off a country road. "what's the programme for to-day?" asked paul, as they started off again, leaving a pile of wooden plates behind them as a souvenir of their stop. "hand me that road map, and i'll decide," spoke dick. "it's in the flap pocket of that side door, nearest you, paul." paul pulled from the leather compartment on the door an envelope, and handed it to dick. "no, that isn't it," said the young man. "those are the papers i'm going to file with the court to save mr. wardell's property. the map is in the same place, in an envelope just like that. now you've got it," as paul pulled out another bulky envelope. "do you think it's safe to keep the law papers in such a place?" asked innis. "i don't see why not," replied dick. "i don't want them in my pocket, for they might slip out when i walk around. and if i put them anywhere else in the auto i couldn't get at them in a hurry in case we caught fire, or had any accident. no one would think of looking in there for them, and if we leave the auto at any time we can take the documents with us. now let's have a squint at this map. i think we can make flagtown to-night." "flagtown!" exclaimed innis, looking over his chum's shoulder. "that's quite a run." "well, we haven't tried out this car much as to speed yet," replied dick. "there are good roads to flagtown, and we might as well see what she can do. we'll hit up the pace a little." and they did make flagtown, the _last word_ proving that she had speed as well as other qualities, though she was essentially not a racing car. supper followed, in due time, and then, sitting about the auto in the quiet of the evening, the boys talked over their adventures of the day, and speculated on what lay before them. "it will be a good joke on your uncle ezra, to get mr. wardell's fortune away from him; won't it?" remarked paul. "it sure will," declared dick. "and the best of it is that he doesn't know that i'm going to do it. uncle ezra is pretty sharp, but i think we got ahead of him this time." but if dick could have known that a few miles back, in an auto that had closely followed the course of the big touring car since the day before, was a certain mean-faced man, perhaps the young millionaire would not have felt so confident. especially could he have known that the man in the rear auto was constantly making inquiries about the _last word_--when she had passed through certain towns, and which way she was headed. but knowing none of these things, dick and his chums turned into the bunks with a feeling of peacefulness and ease, and slept soundly. all too soundly, it would seem. too soundly to have heard a car pull up behind them shortly after midnight. the car came to a halt some distance away from dick's, the red tail-lamp on the latter disclosing its presence. from the rear car a man silently alighted to the dusty road. "are you sure that's the machine?" a whispered voice asked. "yes, i'll stake my reputation on it. we've followed it too close to be mistaken, and they haven't had time to shake us." "that's right. well, jake, do your best. mr. black expects us to make a record on this job." "i know he does. that old skinflint of a larabee isn't going to pay very heavy, though. it was all we could do to squeeze this car out of him." "well, now we've got it we can do as we please. think you can pull off anything?" "i don't know. i can sneak up there and see how the land lays, anyhow. if we can't get the papers now we will have to some other time. but i think those lads will sleep well to-night--they had quite a day of it." "i should say so! it was all i could do to drive this old car to keep up with 'em, and this isn't a slow machine, either. well, if you're going, go ahead. i'll wait here." "and be ready for a quick get-away in case--well, in case anything happens." "sure, i'll be on the job." the figure in the road stole quietly toward the big touring car. as he came nearer he walked more and more slowly, and getting to within a short distance of the _last word_, he remained silent--listening. "'all quiet along the potomac,'" he quoted. "i guess i'll take a chance." again he stole forward. in the darkness of the night a hand stole softly out toward one of the side doors of the big car. a pair of evil eyes looked in on the sleeping lads. then the hand stole down in through the opening in the door, an opening as in a coach, covered with glass, but which glass had been dropped down to let in the air. "i'll see what luck i have," murmured the voice of the man in the dark. lower stole in the hand in the night. the fingers encountered the flap of a pocket. there was a start of surprise. "by jove!" whispered the voice. "i have it--first crack out of the box!" the hand withdrew itself, with a bulky envelope, and, hesitating a moment to be sure that none of the sleepers had awakened, the man of darkness put in the same pocket another envelope of the same size as the one removed, and hurried back down the road to the waiting car. "what luck?" his companion asked. "best in the world. i got it, and switched another bundle of papers in place of those i took. now speed her, but--but run silently until you get some distance off." "i get you all right. hop in." and the car sped away in the darkness, while dick and his chums slept on. chapter xiv a blocked road "oh! ah! um!" "who said get up?" "gee-whiz, but i'm tired!" "so is the auto--rubber tired." "joke! ha! ha! everybody snicker!" the three chums turned over on their bunks in the _last word_, and looked one at the other. "well, if you fellows are going to lie abed all day, i'm not!" exclaimed paul, he and his two companions having just indulged in the little morning "roundelay" i have used to introduce this chapter. he sprang from the bunk. "'up, up, lucy!'" he quoted. "'the sun is up, and i am up too!' first reading lesson. come on, fellows!" and he pulled the covers from dick. "it's too comfortable here," said that youth, gazing at the ceiling of the car where the electric light was yet glowing. reaching out his hand dick switched it off. "and yet i suppose we might as well get up," he went on. "innis, you're nearest to it, turn on the stove, will you, and set the coffee to boiling? then we'll have grub and see what the day will bring forth." a storage battery in the car furnished current for the stove. the coffee had been put in the pot the night before, with cold water on it, and now all that remained was to shove it over on top of the electric stove, and set it boiling by the turn of a switch. "the simple life--this," remarked innis, as he complied with his host's request. then, as the grateful aroma of coffee filled the car the lads dressed, and were soon washing at a nearby spring, which they had discovered the night before in a patch of woods, not far from the road. breakfast over, they were once more ready to proceed. dick started the car from his seat, and sent it going at a moderate pace. they had no special objective point in view, and were content to take dinner wherever noon found them. through villages and towns they passed, attracting no little attention as they scurried along. once an officious constable warned them against speeding. "you went a leetle too fast comin' in," he said, throwing back the lapel of his coat to display his badge. "you fellers want t' be careful goin' out." "all right," agreed dick, with a laugh. "we'll be careful. are the roads pretty good now?" "yep. fine! that's why i warned you fellers. it's a great temptation t' speed. only last week a feller was caught outside of town. we've got one of the finest speed traps in the country," he went on proudly. "i don't s'pose i ought t' tell you 'bout it, but i will, seein' as how you're strangers, an' that's a kind of car we don't often see around here. "it's like this. i've got a man stationed near the fust mile post outside th' village proper. when he sees an auto comin' he marks down th' time it passes him, and then he telefoams to another of my men at the next mile post. "now if that there auto gits to the second mile post too quick, we know it's exceedin' th' speed limit, so we jest stop 'em an' collect th' fine. squire bradley is always ready t' hear the case. he'll come in from his hay field, or even stop plowin', t' hold court." "i suppose it pays him," remarked paul, while dick was seeing about renewing the supply of gasoline, a stop having been made for that purpose. "oh, yes, it pays middlin' well," admitted the constable. "th' squire gits half th' fine, an' th' other half goes t' me an' my assistants." "how do you stop the speeding autos when they get to the second mile post?" innis wanted to know. "ha! that there's my patent. i've got a long rail fixed on a sort of hinge, like an old-fashioned well-sweep, you know. when an auto ain't exceedin' the legal rate of speed the long pole sticks straight up in the air alongside the road. but when my man at the first mile post telefoams to hank selby at the second post that a car is comin' too fast, hank jest yanks on a rod, down comes th' pole across th' road, an' th' car can't go on no further." "i see," laughed paul. "hank yanks!" "that's it! i see you fellers will have your leetle joke!" and the constable laughed with them. "but supposing the car didn't stop?" asked innis. "that pole across the road wouldn't be hard to break; would it?" "no, i don't s'pose 'twould. but when they bust that pole they're bustin' th' law, too, an' that's a more serious offence. squire bradley jest doubles th' fine then." "but how do you catch the autoists once they are past the second mile stone, supposing they have broken the pole?" paul asked, much interested in this sort of a speed trap. "that's easy," said the constable. "as soon as any one is rash enough t' bust our pole, hank jest telefoams to his brother, who lives down the road a piece. his brother runs out and drops a lot of boards, with sharp nails in 'em, in th' dust. an auto ain't goin' fur after it runs over a few sharp pointed nails. no, sir-ee!" "you 'nail' 'em; is that it?" asked innis. "that's what we do. we nail 'em! ha! ha! i never thought of that. it's another joke, by ginger!" "it must be pretty expensive, keeping two telephones working," suggested paul. "oh, the county pays for it," said the constable. "anyhow, if they didn't, we could clear enough on fines to do it. squire bradley could raise the rate a leetle." "i suppose so," agreed innis, "well, we'll be getting on, i guess," he added, as dick came out of the garage after paying for the gasoline. "an' don't try any speedin'," cautioned the representative of the law. "we won't!" promised dick. their trip up to noon was uneventful. they were in a section where good roads abounded, and a local automobile club had posted the route so they did not have to stop to ask their directions. they went to a local country hotel for dinner, as the place was well advertised as giving a good chicken and mushroom dinner, and this was a menu that the boys did not care to undertake on their small electric stove. "jove! that was good!" exclaimed dick, as they came out of the hostelry. "that's right," agreed innis. "i think i'll see if they have a couple of roast fowls that we could take along with us, and eat cold for supper," suggested the young millionaire, and he carried out his plan, a brace of well browned chickens being stowed away in the "kitchen" locker. late that afternoon they came to a place where two main roads forked. either one would take them to the place where they had decided to stay over night. "this one's a little the shorter," explained a farmer, whom they asked about it, "and it's a good road. the only thing is that there's no crossroad leading from it for about eight miles, and you may git stuck in the middle, and have to come back." "how so?" asked dick. "why bill simpson is moving his house along this road. he's changing the location, and he may not be off the highway by the time you get there. i did hear, though, that he expected to have it off the road and on the new foundation by night." "well, we'll take a chance," said dick. "if the house blocks the road maybe we can go around it." "maybe," assented the farmer, and the big car went on. they had nearly reached the end of the fine, level road, and were congratulating themselves on soon getting to a fair-sized town where they intended to put up for the night, when paul, looking ahead, exclaimed: "there it is. just our luck!" "what?" inquired dick from the back of the car, for innis was steering. "bill simpson's house--it's blocking the whole road, and it looks as if the men had given up work for the day, for they're getting a red lantern ready to display. we can't get past, dick." "pshaw!" exclaimed the young millionaire. "we'll have to turn around and go back, i guess. lose a lot of time, too. drive up, and let's see what it looks like." chapter xv puzzled "looks bad enough." "yes, the more so as you come closer." "i don't see any way but to go back." "that's right. lucky we've got room to turn." thus paul and innis exchanged remarks and criticisms as they approached the house which, being moved from one site to another, now blocked the entire road. "there's no chance of getting past, without running the risk of getting fast in the ditch," decided dick, as he got out of the car and took a careful survey. "i guess we're stuck, boys." "funny they're quitting work so soon," observed paul, looking at his watch. "why, it's only four o'clock, and they're getting ready to leave, and hanging out a red light." "we've got to do it," said one of the workmen. "our windlass busted just now, and we can't do anything until it's fixed. no way of moving the shebang." "you could if you had enough horses," said dick. "why can't you hitch two or three teams directly on the pulling rope, and yank the house a little further along--or even back--that would give us room to pass." "it can't be done, young feller," said the man. "why not?" "because we ain't got the horses to do it. there'd be four teams needed, at the very most, to snake this house ahead or back, without a windlass to give us leverage. that's what we need--leverage." "you've got ropes and pulleys; haven't you?" asked dick. "sure we have." "can you attach them to the back of the house as well as on the front?" "sure we can. but what good is that going to do? there ain't enough horses that we can get now to snake the old building out of the way. we'll have to wait until morning, and then we can get a blacksmith to mend the windlass." "yes, and in the meantime i'm stuck here!" exclaimed dick. "well, that is too bad, but you can turn around and go back to the other main road." "that's eight miles or more, and i won't get to fullerton until long after dark, even if i break the speed limits." "well, what can we do?" appealed the man, while his fellows prepared to go to their several homes. "i'll tell you what we can do!" cried dick, with sudden energy. "put your tackle on the back here and i'll pull the house far enough this way so i can get past. it's just at the wrong point in the road for me to do that now. ten feet either way will let me pass." "i s'pose it will, but land sakes! you can't pull that house with anything you can rig up now. where's your horses?" "horses? i don't need horses. i've got seventy-five of 'em right here with me." the man's face was a picture of startled surprise. he looked from dick to paul and innis, who were silently laughing, and then he inquired: "which one of you is his keeper?" "what's that?" cried dick. "do you think i'm crazy?" "i'm sure of it," said the man, confidently. "move this house--seventy-five horses--got 'em with you! where? in your pocket?" "in there!" replied the young millionaire, pointing to the hood covering the engine of his auto. "i'll pull the house out of the way." by this time a crowd of workmen had gathered. dick stood in front of his big car, not at all put out by the curious glances cast at him. "what's the matter here?" asked a man who seemed to be in charge. "this young feller wants to get past," explained the man who had been about to hang up the red lantern. "he can't 'count of simpson's house bein' in the road. says he'll snake it fo'rd or back so's to make room." "back, not forward," said dick. "i can't get past to hitch on to the front end or i'd haul it ahead for you. but, as it is, you won't lose more than ten feet, and i really have a right to half the road." "yes, i s'pose you have," agreed the foreman. "but i don't see how we're going to give it to you. i never thought that windlass would bust so soon. i knowed it was an old one, but i figured it would last until we got bill's house moved. howsomever----" "i tell you i can move the house!" exclaimed dick. "if you'll have your men attach the tackle to this end i'll pull it far enough back so i can get past." "how?" demanded the foreman, dubiously. "he says he's got seventy-five horses," put in the man with the red lantern. "i guess he's from some asylum," he added in a whisper loud enough for dick to hear. the latter smiled and answered: "perhaps i should have explained. my auto is about seventy-five horsepower. if you'll fix the ropes so i can hitch them to my rear axles i can pull the house far enough back so i can pass. i think i have a right to ask that." "yes, i guess you have," assented the foreman. "we'll let you try. we can pull her back again in the morning after the windlass is fixed. get busy, boys!" he exclaimed. "put the ropes on this end." "but what about the windlass?" asked the lantern man, referring to the spindle on which the rope was wound. "i won't need it," declared dick. "i can get enough purchase with the pulleys. i'll be turning the car around, and by that time you can have the ropes in place." turning the big car in rather a restricted roadway was no easy matter, but dick accomplished it, and soon he had it backed up toward the rear of the house, to which the men were attaching the ropes, rove through heavy blocks. the house was elevated on piles of short crossed beams and jack screws, and was being slid along big timbers, common yellow soap and tallow making the ways slippery enough so that friction would, in a measure, be overcome. dick took a long rope, and put it around the rear of his car so as to strain it as little as possible. then this rope was bent on to the one connecting with the system of pulleys. "are you all ready?" called the young man to the foreman, who had had his men rearrange the beams. "all ready!" came the answer. dick's motor was running. with himself at the wheel, while three of the heaviest workmen had been added to paul and innis in the tonneau to give weight and trackage to the machine, dick threw in the speed gears and released the clutch. there was a whining, groaning noise. the roped tautened, the pulley blocks shrilled out a protest and then the house was seen to quiver. "she's moving!" cried the lantern-man. "by jupiter! so she is!" agreed the foreman, in surprise. "watch out!" warned dick, "and let me know when i have her far enough!" he turned on more power, threw in the second speed gear and then the house began moving more quickly, while the astonished men looked on. in a short time, pulling directly on the main rope as he was, dick had moved the house back far enough so that he could pass to one side, the building having been halted in a particularly narrow part of the road. "that'll do!" shouted the foreman. "all right," answered dick, bringing his machine to a stop. "now we'll try to get past." it did not take long to disengage the ropes, turn the auto, and negotiate a way to one side of the building. dick came to a halt on the now unblocked road, and called his thanks to the foreman for being allowed to do as he had done. "don't mention it!" was the answer. "you saved me ten dollars. i'd been fined that by the county authorities for blocking the road over night." "then we're even," laughed dick. "good night!" "huh! he ain't half as crazy as i thought he was," observed the man with the red lantern as he hung it on the rear of the house to warn night-drivers of the danger. dick and his chums sped on, and soon reached the town for which they were headed. they bought some more food, which, with the cold chickens, made a good supper. then, as they did not like the looks of the only hotel in the place, they drove out a little way into the country and prepared to spend the night. dick was the first up the next morning. "what's the route to-day?" asked paul, turning over in the bunk. "i'm going to try to make buffalo." "what! buffalo?" "sure, we can do it by taking short cuts, i think. let me have a look at that road map. hand it over, innis." from his cot innis reached into the pocket on the inner side of the door, and hauled out an envelope. this he handed to dick. "what's this? where did this come from?" asked the latter, as he pulled out several blank sheets of legal paper. "this is a funny trick. our road map has been transformed into nothing." "maybe i got hold of the wrong envelope," suggested innis. "here's another," and he pulled out a second. "no, those are the legal papers," said dick, after an examination. "see if the map isn't there." it was not, and a search of the other places in the auto where it might have been put did not reveal it. "this is queer," exclaimed dick. "our road map disappears, and we have some blank papers in its place." "but the legal papers are safe!" exclaimed paul. "what do you mean?" "i mean that there's been some crooked work here. some one tried to get those legal papers, and took the road map by mistake." chapter xvi the lame man for a moment dick stared at his chum uncomprehendingly. then a light came over his face, and he said: "by jove, old man! i believe you're right." "i'm sure of it," declared paul. innis looked at the two in some bewilderment. "i wish you'd kindly explain," he said. "i may be bright looking, but i guess i'm an awful dunce when it comes to making a stab at what you two are getting at. the road map is gone--i get as far as that--and the legal papers are safe. but how do you decide that a change has been made?" "easy," answered paul, showing a bundle of the kind of paper known as "legal cap," with red lines down the side. "these were in the envelope containing the road map. the map and the legal documents were in the same pocket on the auto door. i remember, for i looked at the map to see how many miles we had made after we crossed that river." "maybe it dropped out on the road," suggested innis. "mind you!" he said, quickly, "i'm not saying this to be stubborn, but i want to make sure that we're not overlooking anything. for if it's true, what paul says, it means that there's something wrong going on, and that we've got to be on our guard." "i believe you," asserted dick, "and i'm just as glad to have you raise all the objections you can. we want to be very sure of what we're about. now it's pretty well settled that none of us have had the road map since it was put in the flap pocket last night. the envelope of legal papers looks just like the road map, and any one putting their hand in after dark, might get one in place of the other." "and, lucky for you he got the wrong envelope," said innis. "it's a good joke on whoever it is." "yes," agreed dick, "and i'm beginning to have an idea of who it is." "who?" demanded his two chums. "my uncle ezra, of course. who else would have an object in preventing me from trying to save mr. wardell's fortune?" "ha! ha!" laughed innis. "i can just see his face when he looks in that envelope and sees nothing but a road map. that's a rich one; eh, grit?" and he patted the bulldog, who wagged his stump of a tail energetically. "yes, it's a good joke," mused dick; "but i don't believe uncle ezra will be the first one to appreciate it." "what do you mean?" asked paul. "why, that my uncle didn't personally take that envelope," went on dick. "he must have hired some one to do it for him, just as he tried to get me off my yacht that time." "and he got badly stung, too!" exclaimed innis. "just as he did this time." "but we mustn't let that make us careless," went on dick, "uncle ezra, if it was he, won't give up so easily. he'll have another try." "but if he does get the papers so long before the time when you have to turn them over to the courts, dick, can't you get other copies?" asked paul. the young millionaire shook his head. "mr. wardell has left for south america by this time," he said. "it would be almost impossible to trace him now, in time to get him to execute new papers, in case these were lost or taken," and dick looked at the valuable packet. "of course i could cable him, if i knew on what ship he had sailed, but i don't. "to find that out i'd have to go back home, and maybe even then his lawyer wouldn't know. you see mr. wardell was so ashamed of how easily he had been fooled that he wanted to get off by himself somewhere. maybe he didn't leave his address. so i'd have quite a task tracing him. "he depends on me to do this business for him, since i have undertaken it. he didn't do it himself for two reasons. he didn't have much idea that he could ever get his fortune back, i guess; and, for another reason, he didn't want to lose the only chance he might have to make another in this south american matter. if that is successful, i understand, mr. wardell will come in for a big share of the profits. "now then, since he has trusted me, and since so much depends on these papers, we've got to take good care of them. i'll hide them in a new place. i guess under the cushions of one of the bunks will do. they can't be gotten away in the night without one of us knowing it," and dick proceeded to carry his plan into execution. "but how do you suppose the map was taken last night?" asked paul. "it would only be guess work," replied dick. "probably some one in an auto sneaked up near us after we were sound asleep, reached in and took the first envelope his fingers met with. that's the most plausible theory, though i don't say it's right." "but why an auto?" asked paul. "that's about the only way uncle ezra's agents could keep after us. they must have our route down pretty fine, and now i'm sorry i didn't keep quieter about it when we were laying it out. i talked freely before uncle ezra, and, now i recall it, he was at our house more often since we began getting ready for this trip, than ever before. he must have overheard what dad and i planned to do." "it looks so," admitted paul drew. "but why does he make all this fuss about it? why doesn't he wait until the time comes, and then file in court a legal paper that would offset the one you have for mr. wardell, dick?" "because this is a peculiar case," explained his friend, who had gone over it in detail with mr. wardell's lawyer. "no papers can be filed before a certain date, and only within certain times. all uncle ezra could do in the meanwhile would amount to nothing, unless he could get these papers away from me. and that wouldn't be so important if mr. wardell hadn't left the country and gone to a place where i can't get at him in time to have him execute a new power of attorney. so we've got to take good care of these papers, boys." "and we've got to get a new road map," said paul. they stopped at the next town they came to and got a fine map, showing the best roads to take. then, in furtherance of his original plan, dick headed for buffalo, which he hoped to make before nightfall. "couldn't you change your route, and fool your uncle ezra, dick?" asked innis, after dinner that day. "i could in some ways, but the cities we have planned to pass through are on the best route to san francisco. of course i could switch off on side roads here and there, but my idea is that if uncle ezra makes any other attempts they'll be made in or near the big cities. he knows every one where i'm going to touch." "and this car is a regular landmark," complained paul. "everyone will remember it once they see it." "well, there's no use worrying until we have to," observed dick. "we'll keep the papers as well hidden as we can, and a sharp watch out." "it's a wonder grit didn't give the alarm last night," said innis. "that's so," exclaimed dick. "but the trouble with grit is that he's too friendly with everyone except uncle ezra. he got that from the boys at school making such a fuss over him. he thinks everyone is his friend, and if a chap was only to speak gently to him grit would wag his head off. that's probably what our night visitor did. grit, you're no good!" grit barked happily, as though he had just been paid the greatest compliment in the world. they drove the car hard that day, and had the satisfaction of arriving on the outskirts of buffalo just as dusk was settling down. and then they had their first bit of bad luck. from lack of oil, one of the bearings became heated and an inspection in a garage disclosed the fact that some new babbitt, or anti-friction metal, would have to be put in. "a two days' job," the repair man said. "punk!" exclaimed dick. "well, we'll have to lay over, that's all. come on, fellows, we'll go to a hotel and take a run out to niagara falls to-morrow." so, after all, the accident had its advantages, for they quite enjoyed the trip to the big cataract. the auto was repaired on time, and in the interim dick kept the valuable papers in his own pocket. "if we only knew what sort of a man, or men, to be on the watch against, it would be easier," remarked paul, when they were ready to proceed again. "that's just it," admitted dick. "we can't tell who uncle ezra will send, nor when they'll appear. but i think, after once being fooled, they'll go a bit slow. we won't worry, anyhow." they were on the main road out of buffalo, and were counting on making cleveland their next big stop. their schedule called for leisurely traveling, for they were in no special hurry, desiring to enjoy the trip as much as possible. "here's a good chance to make speed," remarked paul, as he sighted the long, straight road ahead of them, after they had turned out of a bad stretch. "yes, let her out a bit," suggested dick, who had turned the wheel over to paul. they sped along at a rapid pace, keeping a watchful eye out for motorcycle speed-officers, when, as they rounded a curve, which paul took at rather too great speed, they saw just ahead of them an auto drawn diagonally across the road. "look out!" cried dick. "there isn't room to get past. what did he want to stop that way for?" "maybe he had a breakdown," suggested innis. "it looks so," admitted paul, as he slowed up. as he did so a man walking with a perceptible limp came from the other side of the car, where he had evidently been tinkering with the mechanism, and held up his hand as a signal of distress. "what's the matter?" asked dick, as his big car came to a stop. "steering gear's broken," said the lame man, "and i can't push the car out of the road myself. it's a mean place to have an accident." "yes, especially as it makes the road impassable," said paul. "well, i guess we can get you out of the way all right. is the break a bad one?" "yes, the steering knuckle has gone all to pieces. i tried to fix it, but i don't dare drive the car with that out of commission." "i should say not," agreed dick. "you'd be climbing a tree before you knew it," and he walked toward the disabled car, the lame man following closely, after a sharp glance at dick's handsome machine. chapter xvii giving him a lift dick hamilton bent over the disabled steering gear of the car that was slewed across the roadway. as he did so he gave a start that was noticed by paul, who was directly back of him. "what is it?" asked his chum. "nothing--er that is--i should say it _was_ a smash!" finished the young millionaire in louder tones, speaking to the lame man. "it looks as if something hit it." "something did hit it," went on the other autoist, limping up. "i ran over a piece of iron lying in the road. my wheel kicked it up, and the first thing i knew one end had hit the steering knuckle. "it cracked as though i had struck it with the hammer, and i found myself shooting across the road. i brought up standing, with both brakes set, and i jumped out in such a hurry that i gave my ankle a twist. it hurts like the mischief, too! i was trying to see if i could patch up the steering gear in any way, when you came along. i didn't want to block up the highway any longer than i had to. but if you'll give me a hand i think we can push the car out of the way." with the boys and the lame man pushing at the disabled auto it was soon rolled to one side, allowing a free passage, which a few minutes later was taken advantage of by several cars. the occupants looked curiously at the broken machine, but, seeing that the unfortunate autoist had assistance, they did not stop. "well, that's done!" exclaimed dick, as he and the others rested from their labors. "can we do anything else for you, mr.--er--?" and he paused suggestively. "brockhurst is my name," said the man, quickly. "samuel brockhurst. i'm from buffalo, and i was out on a little run when this accident happened. it comes just at a wrong time, too. i had an appointment with a man in hazelton," naming a town about twenty-five miles away, "and now i can't keep it in time, i'm afraid. i can't get back to the city in time to catch a train, and there's no garage around here where i can hire a car. i do seem to have the worst luck! "but there's no use in burdening you with my troubles," he added, with a frank smile. "i'm very thankful to you for what you've done for me. if you wouldn't mind stopping at the first garage you come to, and telling them to send out for this machine, i'll be obliged to you." "of course we will," said dick, quickly; "but can't we give you a lift on your way? we're going close to hazelton, and if it will be any accommodation to you we can just as well make that town." "oh, no, i wouldn't think of troubling you. i've delayed you enough at it is. i might go on to the garage with you, if you don't mind, and then i could tell the man just what the trouble is. he might even have a car i can hire, though, as i remember it, the nearest garage is a small, one-horse sort of a place. still, they can mend the steering knuckle i should think." "come on then," urged dick. "we'll take you as far as there, and if you can't hire a car you're welcome to ride to hazelton with us." "oh, mr.----" "hamilton--dick hamilton," supplied our hero. "i couldn't think of it, mr. hamilton. i wouldn't put you to that trouble for the world." "it's no trouble," dick assured him. "i believe in being helpful whenever i can. i might be in the same boat myself some day." "it doesn't look as though your car would ever break down," said the lame man. "it certainly is a beauty. what make is that?" "it was built to order," said dick, "and i got it in a deal when the owner couldn't take it. it just suits me." "i should think it would suit anyone. it's a peach! are you going far?" "to san francisco!" "you don't tell me! that _is_ a tour, all right. my car looks small alongside yours, though my machine is considered a pretty good one." it was a good one, dick and his chums could see, and the small break could easily be repaired. after making sure that the disabled car was well out of the way of traffic, and leaving a written notice on it to show to whom it belonged, dick, his chums, and mr. brockhurst entered the _last word_, with the first named at the wheel, and once more they were under way. mr. brockhurst proved an agreeable companion. he had traveled much, and could talk well of the places he had visited, telling a number of funny stories that kept the cadets laughing. on reaching the garage the man in charge, promised to send out and get the car. "but as for renting you one, i can't do it," he said to mr. brockhurst. "there isn't a one in the place, except colonel carter's, and he'd have my head off if i loaned that, though he only drives it about once a week." "i wonder if i couldn't see him and make some deal with him?" asked the lame man. "it's important that i get to hazelton this morning." "say!" interrupted dick. "what's the use of going to all that bother. i'll be glad to run you down. it's only ten miles out of our way, and we are ahead of our schedule. anyhow, a day or so doesn't matter to us. come on, mr. brockhurst." "oh, i don't want to put you out----" "it will be a pleasure to have you," said dick, and he meant it. his chums, too, were glad of the man's company. "and i'll show you how the electric stove works," went on dick, for the lame man had been much interested in the fittings of the big car. "all right--if you insist!" and he laughed in an engaging manner. he left orders about his car, and was soon in the big machine with dick and his chums, who resumed their journey. they had purchased some supplies in the village where the garage was situated, and, reaching a secluded place on the road, they began the preparation of a meal on the electric stove. "now i insist on you letting me help," said mr. brockhurst. "i'm a sort of old bachelor myself, and used to cooking. shall i bring up a scuttle of coal, or a pail of water?" "we don't need coal," said dick, "though we might have some water. that looks like a spring over there." "i'm the water-boy!" cried the lame man, as, with all the exuberance of youth, he limped off with a collapsible rubber pail toward the spring. chapter xviii a disappearance "well, you boys certainly know how to live! this is great!" thus exclaimed mr. brockhurst as he sat in the shade of a big tree on the edge of the country road, eating lunch with dick and his chums. it had been cooked in the little "kitchen" of the auto, but as it was rather warm they had elected to eat out in the open air, and a board, laid across two stumps, served excellently as a table. paul, whose turn it was to cook, also acted as waiter. "this isn't half bad," admitted innis, reaching for some more chicken sandwiches and olives. "you'd have to go a good way to find anything better, in my opinion," spoke the lame man. "i never realized before what chances there were in a big touring car. it's better than traveling by train, for you can stop and start when you like. and with the outfit you have here you're independent of almost anything--even the weather." "yes, we can close ourselves up in the car," said dick, "and rain or snow, up to a certain limit, won't bother us." "i wish i was going all the way with you," went on the lame man. "but i've got my business to attend to. if this deal in hazelton goes through i may be able to have a car like yours. it certainly is a dandy!" "perhaps we are delaying here too long," suggested dick. "no, i've got considerable lee-way yet," said mr. brockhurst. "i can meet my man in time, and this lunch is too good to miss. by the way, there's a fine view to be had from the hill over there. suppose we stroll over and take it in. it won't take long, and it's well worth seeing." "as long as we'll be in time for your appointment, all right," assented dick. "our time is our own." "don't worry about me. come along," and, lunch being over, mr. brockhurst led the way along a path that went up a rather steep hill. "do you live around here?" asked paul, wondering how the lame man knew of the view so far out from buffalo. "no, not exactly. i used to, when i was a boy, but the city is my home now. i don't often get out into the country, and when i do i like to take advantage of it." "that's the idea," said dick. they walked on, chatting about various subjects. dick had taken a certain electric switch out of his car, without which it was impossible to start it, so he had no worries about leaving the auto in the roadway unprotected. "are we walking too fast for you?" inquired dick, and his two chums, who happened to be looking at him, thought the young millionaire regarded their visitor with a rather strange glance. "oh, no, i can keep up this pace," he said, though he seemed to be walking more and more slowly. "i did give my ankle a bad twist," he went on, "and i'll have it looked to as soon as we get to hazelton. it isn't much farther to the top of the hill now." they had gone only a few steps more, when, with an exclamation of pain, mr. brockhurst came to a halt. his face was screwed up in an expression of anxiety. "i'm afraid i'd better not go on any further," he said, sitting down on a grassy place. "i don't want to strain my foot too much. i'll wait for you here. go on and get a look at that view. you wouldn't want to miss it. lots of people go miles out of their way for it. i'll just sit here and rest." "are you sure you'll be all right?" asked dick. "oh, sure. go ahead. don't mind me. i'll wait until you come back. and there's a good spring on that hill. it's supposed to have some medicinal virtue. i don't take much stock in that, but i know it's good and cold, for i used to drink there when i was a boy." "i'm going to have some," asserted paul. "i'm as dry as codfish." though the boys somewhat regretted not having mr. brockhurst to accompany them, the thought of a cool drink at the summit of the hill hurried them on, for the day was warm. they looked back to see the lame man still sitting on the grass plot, gazing up at them. he waved his hand in a friendly fashion. "say, this is some view!" exclaimed paul, as they reached the summit. "i should say yes!" assented dick. "i'm glad we came up." down before them, rolling in a series of gentle slopes, was a vast extent of country. there was a great plain, and, in the distance, mountains arising, blue and purple in the haze of the summer day. "it's magnificent!" murmured innis. "it makes a fellow feel--well, like poetry," he finished for want of something better to say. "it makes me more thirsty to see that water," added paul, pointing to a little stream, that, like a silver ribbon, made its tortuous way through a distant green meadow. "let's look for that spring," suggested dick, after a few minutes of gazing at the view, which was really superb. but the spring was not as easy to find as they had supposed. they finally located a small brook, and, tracing it back some distance, they came upon the spring. it justified all that mr. brockhurst had said of it, and the boys drank long and deep. "it's got a queer taste," said dick. "that's the medicinal virtues of it, i guess," laughed innis. "well, it's all right when you're thirsty," assented paul, "for it's good and cold, but i'd have to get used to it before i'd want it steady. well, shall we go back?" "might as well," said dick, looking at his watch. "we've been here half an hour. mr. brockhurst will be getting tired." they started down the slope, and, when they got to a point where they should have seen the lame man he was not there. "he's gone!" cried innis. "probably got tired of waiting, and went back to the auto," spoke dick. "he'll be waiting for us." but his chums thought they detected a strange note in his voice. the three hurried on, and when the auto came in sight they peered eagerly toward it for a sight of their visitor. "maybe he's inside," said paul, when they could not see him. "maybe," said dick--rather grimly. they reached the car. the side door was open, but there was no sign of the lame man. "he's gone!" gasped paul. "i thought that was his game," said the young millionaire, quietly. chapter xix a simple trick dick's chums looked at him for a moment without speaking. he was quite cool while they were much excited. "what's that you said?" asked paul, thinking perhaps he had not heard aright. "you expected him to skip out; did you?" asked innis. "i did," replied dick, calmly. "that is, after he sent us on to see the view alone. i thought maybe he might wait until we got nearer to hazelton, but he evidently got what he wanted--a good chance--and took advantage of it." "yes, and maybe he took something else, too!" cried paul. "have you looked for your papers, dick?" and he peered into the car. "that's so--those legal papers!" added innis. "he was one of your uncle's agents, dick!" "don't worry," said the young millionaire with a quizzical smile. "i have the papers safe," and he pulled an envelope from his pocket. "i've been carrying them there ever since i saw that broken steering knuckle," he went on. "what in the world had the broken steering knuckle to do with it?" asked paul. "because it had been deliberately smashed with a hammer, to knock his car out of commission," went on dick. "he wanted a breakdown, and he made it to order. he knew we were coming along and would give him a lift, and he counted on getting possession of what he wanted. so i've been suspicious of him ever since. i thought it safer to carry the papers with me, and i guess i did right. innis, just see if our road map isn't missing again." the cadet put his hand in the flap pocket where the map was kept. his fingers came out empty. "cã¦sar's pineapples!" he cried. "it's gone, dick!" "yes, and i expect mr. brockhurst, or whatever his name happens to be, is bemoaning his poor luck. score another miss for uncle ezra." "be careful, though, dick," warned paul. "three times and out, you know." "that's right, old man. i've got to be careful. we'll have to adopt some new system of hiding it, i guess." "but say, dick, how did you get onto that fellow's curves?" inquired innis. "you didn't tip us off." "no, i wanted to see just how far he would go, and i didn't want him to get suspicious. i knew i had the game in my own hands as long as i held the papers. you see it was this way: "when i first saw his stalled car i didn't think anything but that he was a fellow motorist in hard luck. but when he told that yarn about a piece of iron in the road flying up and cracking the steering knuckle i knew he wasn't telling the truth. no piece of iron could fly up with sufficient force to do that. besides, the dent of the blow was inside, where no flying missile, unless it could turn a corner, could hit. so i deduced that a hammer had been used." "regular detective," laughed paul. "i should say so," agreed innis. "well," went on dick, "then i noticed his limp. he had a no more sprained ankle than i had." "if he wasn't lame, he was a good actor," declared innis. "that's it--he really was lame!" exclaimed dick, quickly. "it wasn't put on at all, and i knew then that he was permanently disabled, and that it wasn't from the jar of suddenly leaping out of a car." "how could you tell that?" asked paul. "by his shoes. you know how a shoe will get full of wrinkles if it's walked in in a certain way for any length of time. a lame person's shoe will get wrinkles in it that no other person's would. it was that way with this man. when he limped i could see certain wrinkles on the side of his shoe, and the wrinkles had been there for some time, showing he had been lame longer than since to-day." "good boy!" cried paul. "then i was sure i had him," resumed dick, "and it was only a question of time when he would make a break." "and he was playing all that time to get possession of those papers?" asked innis. "that's what," answered dick, "only he got the wrong bunch. i guess i'll have to charge my road maps up to uncle ezra if this keeps up." "but how did he know you were coming along the road where he disabled his car?" asked innis. "and how could he figure out that you'd give him a lift?" "i don't know," replied the young man, frankly. "but it might be easy enough to lay such a trap for us. you see my uncle knows our route almost as well as we do ourselves. he could tip off some unscrupulous man, and he could be on the watch for us. our arrival in buffalo would soon become known, for, as i've said before, this car is rather conspicuous. then it was easy enough to figure which road we'd leave by. all that was necessary was to be in waiting, and the little trick of the disabled car did the rest." "only you were too sharp for him," put in paul. "i was lucky," was the way dick put it. "you see he wanted to get us away from the car, and that talk about the view and the spring did it. then he pretended he was tired out, and, as soon as we were out of sight, he hiked back to my auto, and rummaged it." "i hope he didn't take any of our grub!" exclaimed innis. "i have what the english call a 'rare old twist on,' i'm hungry, in other words." "it was papers--not food--he was after," said dick. "but when you knew his game, and suspected what he was up to, weren't you afraid to let him go to your car, and you remain at the spring?" asked paul. "no, for i felt sure he wouldn't do any damage. i knew he couldn't start it, and i had the documents. those were the only two things to worry about." "i see!" exclaimed innis. "well, what's to be done next? i mean after eating," he added quickly. "we'll have to think up a plan," remarked dick. "i guess, too, we might change our route a bit. if uncle ezra's men are going to make trouble for us, let's put as many hurdles in their way as we can." "that's what i say," agreed paul. they discussed this matter at length as they prepared a simple meal. before they could decide on a change of route, however, they would need a new road map, and this dick said he would get in the next town. soon they were under way again, there being no signs of mr. brockhurst in the neighborhood. he had probably made the best time to get out of sight; then he could take matters more leisurely. "though when he sees nothing but a road map in that envelope, marked 'legal papers,' he'll have a 'rare old fit,' as perhaps some of your english friends would say, innis," and paul smiled at his chum. "did you mark that road map envelope 'legal papers'?" asked paul. "sure i did. i wanted to fool them. and the papers are marked 'road map,'" said dick. "i just changed envelopes, see!" "then i've just thought of the best way to fool any more men your uncle ezra may set after us!" exclaimed paul. "listen, dick. you remember that story of edgar allan poe's--'the purloined letter'; don't you?" "i think so--yes." "what was it?" inquired innis, who was not much of a reader. "why, poe tells of some one who had a certain important letter which the police were after. this man was foxy, and knowing the police would search his rooms for it, he didn't hide it in any out-of-the-way place, such as the leg of a bed, or in a secret recess in the wall, for he knew the police would search there." "did they?" asked innis. "they did. but they didn't find the letter. it was right in plain sight, all the while, though." "in plain sight?" "sure. this man just took an old crumpled envelope, that didn't look good enough to hold a receipted gas bill, and stuck this important letter in it. then he jabbed it into a card rack, where everyone could see it. the police never suspected for a moment that their man would do such a simple thing, and they passed over this old envelope a dozen times. you see they were looking in the hard places, while, all the while, it was in the easiest place." "well, what's the answer?" asked innis, as paul came to a stopping place. "why can't dick do the same thing?" asked his chum. "how do you mean?" that young man wanted to know. "why, just get an old advertising envelope, put your papers in that, and jab it up back of that looking glass," and paul indicated a mirror on a side of the car. "let part of the envelope stick out, dick, and if those men search until doomsday they'll never find it." "i believe you're right!" dick cried. "i'll do it." "it will be safer than carrying the papers in your pocket," went on paul, "for there's no telling when you may be held up, and searched. your uncle might hire some one to pose as a road agent just to get a chance to go through your clothes." "that's right," agreed innis. "but they'll never think of taking an old advertisement envelope, that looks as though it was just stuck away behind the mirror and forgotten," went on paul. "you're right--we'll fool 'em!" cried dick, and at the next stopping place this simple trick was carried out. chapter xx down hill "you'd never suspect it was there; would you?" "not at first glance." "and unless we meet with some one who was as clever as the amateur detective that poe tells about, who looked in the simplest place for the letter instead of in the hardest, we'll be safe," said paul. the three chums had just finished carrying out their little plan. back of the mirror there stuck, half-way out, an envelope bearing in large type the name of an auto firm. it was obviously an envelope meant to contain a circular, but into it dick had slipped the important papers. "we'll leave,'em there until we go to sleep in some hotel," he explained, "and then i'll hide them somewhere in the room. but i'm not going to carry them about with me." "you couldn't come to a wiser decision," declared paul. "did you get a new road map?" "yes, and a better one than our lame friend took. i'll have a joke with uncle ezra when i see him again. i'll send him a bill for two maps, and he'll wonder what's up." "i don't want to say mean things about your relatives, dick," began innis, "but----" "go as far as you like!" interrupted the young millionaire. "you can't hurt my feelings by saying anything about uncle ezra. what is it?" "well, i was just going to remark that he had an awful lot of nerve to try to stop you from saving this wardell's fortune. don't you think so yourself?" "i do, innis. but you must remember that my uncle is a peculiar man. money is more to him than anything else. he hates to see it 'wasted,' as he calls it, though i believe in enjoying the good things that money can buy--to a limited extent, of course. but, no doubt, uncle ezra feels that he is doing right, that he is well within the law, and that he has a claim on this man's fortune, though i think he got it away from him by unfair means. or, rather, he is going to try to get it away from him. but he won't if i can stop him." "that's the way to talk, dick! but how can your uncle think it is right to send men to search your auto for papers?" "i suppose because my uncle thinks he has a right to the papers." "maybe so," agreed paul. "but say, if we're going to reach plattsville by night, we'd better get a move on." they had come to a halt a little way out of the town, not far from buffalo, where they had bought a new road map, and secured the envelope into which the legal papers were slipped. they had abandoned the plan of going to hazelton, when they found out the trick that had been played on them, and were now counting on making plattsville in time to stay just outside it over night. they did not travel after dark, unless it was to reach some predetermined point of their journey, and on this occasion, as there was no good hotel in plattsville, they had voted to sleep in the big auto. once more they started off, paul driving, while dick and innis overhauled the stores in the "kitchen," in preparation for getting a meal in case they did not find a good restaurant in the next town. "the beauty of this way of traveling," said innis, "is that you can do as you please. if you want a course dinner you can get it--if not in one town, then in another. or if you want simple grub, it's here ready for us." "that's right," agreed paul. "it was mighty white of dick to ask us along." "i'm sure i was only too glad to have you," said the latter. "i wouldn't have gone alone for a farm; would we, grit?" and the bulldog barked his answer. "i guess you're hungry," went on dick. "innis, open some of that canned chicken." "what! are you going to eat so near supper time?" "i am not. it's for grit." "shades of uncle ezra! what would he say if he were here? canned chicken for a dog! oh, the sinful waste!" "that's just what uncle ezra would say if he _were_ here," laughed dick. "and i half wish he was, so i could tell him what i think of him. "but there! it's best to keep peace in the family if you can. uncle ezra is trying to ruin a young man, financially, and i'm trying to save him. it may come out even in the end, and that will be all right. there you are, grit!" and the bulldog barked in delight as dick gave him a generous helping of canned chicken. "that makes me hungry," called paul, from the steering seat. "we'll soon be at plattsville," answered dick. "say, you are hitting up the pace, all right!" he exclaimed, as the big car swung around a curve and careened down the straight road. "this is a good place to make time," answered paul. "don't get caught in one of those speed traps the old constable was telling us about," warned innis. "i don't want to waste good money on some justice of the peace." "i'll be careful," promised paul, and he slowed down a bit. they found a good restaurant in plattsville, and so decided they would not get their own supper, as they were rather weary with the day's journey. the big auto was left outside, and to keep the curious crowd that gathered from going inside it, dick locked the doors. the legal papers were left in plain sight, and while perhaps an older person might not have taken that risk, the boys thought they were doing the best thing. grit was allowed to roam about while the travelers were eating, and later, after dick and his chums had gone up the street a little way, to buy some things they needed, they missed the dog. "why, where is grit?" asked dick, as they got in the auto again, to drive to the outskirts of the town, where they decided to "camp" for the night. "i haven't noticed him since coming from the restaurant," said paul. "i took it for granted that he was following us." "so did i," said innis. dick leaped from his seat and went back. there was no sign of his pet, and the waiters said the bulldog had gone out after them. dick looked up and down the street. not far from the restaurant was a stable, setting back some distance, and reached by an alley. "maybe he's in there," suggested paul. "it may remind him of the barracks at kentfield academy." "maybe," assented dick. "i'll take a look." as he neared the stable he heard the muffled barking of a dog. a burly man sauntered out of a shed and demanded: "whatcher want here?" "have you seen anything of a bulldog?" asked dick. "naw." "that sounds like my dog barking." "aw, that's me own pup. he's allers barking." something in the man's manner made dick suspicious. "would you mind letting me see him?" he asked, quietly. "perhaps my dog got in there by--er--mistake." "naw, he ain't there. an' dis is private property--see? you'd better vamoose!" "i think i'll take a look just the same," insisted dick. he glanced about and saw that paul and innis were coming into the alley. "reinforcements," thought dick. "did you locate him?" called paul. "i think so." the surly man came forward. "hi, bill!" he called to some one in the shed he had left. "here's a couple of fresh guys that need lookin' after." "oh, we can look after ourselves; thank you," said dick. then, raising his voice, he called sharply: "here, grit! hi, old man!" a perfect chorus of barks answered him. the young millionaire sprang toward the stable, but before he could reach the door there was the sound of a rattling chain, that seemed to snap. then came a choking gurgle, and the next moment the door burst open and grit, leaping and bounding, rushed out. "grit!" called dick. the dog barked an answer, and then, trailing the broken chain after him, made a rush at the surly man. "look out!" called paul. "if he gets hold of you----" the man did not stop to hear the rest of the warning. with a leap he made for the shed he had left, pushing his companion before him, and slamming the door shut in time to cause grit to bound fiercely up against it. "he's a lucky chap," murmured innis, while the dog leaped and bounded about the closed portal, barking with rage. "here, grit!" called dick. his pet, after a moment of hesitation, and a longing look at the shut door, came to him limping. "the brutes!" exclaimed dick, as he saw where his dog had been kicked. "i've a notion to have them arrested." "it will only make a lot of trouble, and delay us, to testify against them," said paul. "let's get out of here." "i guess that's best," assented dick. "they tried to keep my dog, though. but you were too much for 'em; eh, grit?" the bulldog nearly turned himself inside out trying to wag his short tail, and fawned about his master and the latter's chums. a crowd had collected at the alley entrance, and through it the boys pushed their way, the assemblage giving respectful room to grit, who was in no gentle humor. it was plain that the stablemen, seeing a valuable dog, had enticed grit into the barn--no hard task, since he was fond of horses--and had tried to prevent dick from recovering his pet. but all's well that ends well, and soon the trio, with grit on the seat of honor in front, were speeding to the outskirts of the town, where the auto was drawn to one side of the road, and preparations made to spend the night. they were off early the next morning. cleveland was their next big city, and in accordance with dick's plan they changed their route slightly, taking seldom-traveled roads to throw off any spies whom uncle ezra might send after them. shortly before noon something occurred which nearly put an end to their journey. they had come through a bad stretch of roads and had ascended a steep hill, at the other side of which, according to a local guide, began a good highway. "then we can make some speed!" exclaimed dick. "we've been crawling all morning." he was at the wheel, and as he started to descend the slope he looked to see that the brake levers were clear. there were three on the big car--the ordinary foot-pedal brake, a hand one for hard stops, and an emergency that locked all four wheels. the _last word_ started down the slope, and half way to the bottom something snapped. "what's that?" cried innis. "one of the brakes, i'm afraid," answered dick. the car gathered speed. the young millionaire had shut off all power and was coasting. now he reached for the emergency brake, but the handle was loose in his hand. the hill was steep--the car heavy, and it was acquiring speed. the foot and ordinary hand brake were powerless to check it. "we're running down hill!" cried innis. "that's what we are," agreed dick, grimly. as they flashed past a house a man rushed out. "look out for that bridge!" he cried, pointing to the foot of the slope. "it's weakened by a flood. you'll never get over it if you hit it that fast!" his words died away as the car rushed on down hill, dick vainly trying to check its speed by the two brakes still in commission. chapter xxi marooned "can't you hold her, dick?" "is there anything we can do?" paul and innis shouted their questions at their chum, as he sat at the wheel, guiding the ponderous car on its perilous way. every stone that could be avoided dick steered away from, yet to make too much of a swerve, he knew, would be disastrous. "i'm afraid--it's getting--away from me," he called through his clenched teeth. "the emergency brake is broken, and the others don't seem to hold." "can't you put on the reverse?" asked innis. "it would only strip the gears. i guess we've got to chance it, boys!" a man ran out at the foot of the hill, dancing up and down near the approach to the bridge, and waving a red handkerchief. "are you going to try the bridge?" shouted paul. "i don't see how i can help it," replied dick. "if i turn into the ditch we'll sure upset." "maybe the bridge is stronger than they think," suggested innis. "it looks all right." "that's the way with those country bridges," said paul, bitterly. "they never keep 'em in repair, and even a heavy truck may go through. it's a shame!" "well, get ready for something, fellows!" said dick, grimly. "do you want to jump?" "i guess it's the only thing to do," declared paul. "there's grass on both sides of the road, and we can't be much hurt. you go first, dick." "no, you fellows try it. i've got to hold this wheel. the minute i let go this auto is going to be like a wild horse, trying to climb the first tree in sight. jump, while i hold her steady. then i'll take my chance." "i'll steer for you," offered innis, gallantly. "no, let me!" insisted paul. "i tell you i'll stick to my machine until she smashes!" cried dick, sharply. "you fellows jump while you've got the chance. i'll try and hold her until she gets to the bridge, and then i may be able to land in the water. go ahead." "it's a shame!" cried paul. "to see this dandy car go to smash." "it can't be helped," replied dick, sadly. paul opened the door on one side, and innis on the other. they got in good positions to make their leap. the man on the bridge was still waving his signal of danger, uselessly it seemed, for the big car was headed straight for the structure. dick gave a sharp glance ahead, and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. then he called out, hoarsely: "wait a minute, fellows! hold on! don't jump yet! maybe there's a way out yet!" "how?" yelled paul. "see! there's a ford at one side of the bridge!" and dick nodded his head toward a place where the road over the structure branched off, dividing; one side going down a slope into the stream of water, and up again on the other side, to join the highway past the bridge. this path was used by those who wished to water their horses, or swell their dried wagon-wheels. it was also a ford in case the bridge was out of commission for heavy loads, as at present. "what's your game?" cried innis. "i'm going to try to send the auto down that ford-road," replied the young millionaire. "it's soft and sandy. if i can make the change the soft dirt may clog the wheels enough, and slacken our speed, so that we can get over the creek safely. it's worth trying--in fact, it's the only thing we can do. hold on!" nearer and nearer to the bridge thundered the big car. the man with the red handkerchief had leaped out of the way now, fearing the collapse of the structure. but dick did not intend to trust himself to the weakened beams and king-braces. narrowly watching the road where it forked into the ford, or crossing, dick swerved the steering wheel ever so little at a time. a sudden change in the course, he knew, would mean an overturned auto, and possibly serious injury to all of them. "that's it! that's the way to do it!" cried the man who had waved a warning. "the water isn't very deep!" "i hope not," murmured dick. "hold hard, boys!" with tense face he watched the path before him. his hands were gripped on the steering wheel so hard that it seemed as though he had no fingers at all--as if they were all in one. the car thundered on. it vibrated and trembled. the brakes that had been set--exclusive of the broken one--were bringing forth a shrill protest from the axle bands. "i--i guess you'll make it, dick!" shouted paul. "it won't be from lack of trying, anyhow," agreed innis. though he and paul had come partly back into the car they were still ready to leap in case dick's plan miscarried. but it seemed likely to succeed. there was a sudden twist to the steering wheel, and the _last word_ swerved dangerously. paul and innis clutched the sides. then they saw that the auto was on the short slope that led down to the water. dick had made the diversion in safety--so far. what would happen when he struck the stream, with its uneven bed, was a matter of conjecture. but the deep sand of the slope leading down to the water was already having its effect. no better brake could have been devised than that clinging material. "she's slacking up!" cried paul. "we're all right!" added innis. into the water splashed the big touring car. a shower of spray shot up on either side. the machine was slackening speed. dick was beginning to relax his grip on the steering wheel, and his chums breathed easier. then, with a jolt that threw them all forward in a heap, the auto seemed to strike some obstruction in the bed of the creek. it careened to one side, so that they feared it was about to topple over. then it righted itself, surged forward, and came to a groaning stop in the middle of the water, stuck fast in the cloying mud that formed the bed of the creek. "safe!" exclaimed paul. "not a bone broken!" added innis. "but we're marooned!" murmured dick, gloomily. "it will take ten horses to pull us out of this mudhole. hang the luck!" chapter xxii an engineering problem after their exciting ride down hill--a ride that might have ended disastrously but for dick's good judgment and prompt action--the three chums were content to sit still in the stalled auto for a few moments. they were about in the middle of a small stream, that flowed under the partly wrecked bridge, and the water came up nearly to the tops of the big-tired wheels. this did not represent its real depth, however, as the weight of the car had caused it to sink down in the soft mud, which served to hold it fast. paul, dick and innis looked about them. "well, this is the limit!" grumbled the young millionaire. "it sure is," assented paul. "what'd you want to come down hill so fast for?" asked the man with the red flag. "we didn't mean to," said dick. "one of the brakes went out of commission, and i couldn't hold the car with the other two, though they're supposed to be able to. must be something wrong with 'em. i'm going to have 'em looked at when we get out of here." "if we ever do," suggested innis. "we sure are stuck fast." "that's awful sticky mud," volunteered the flagman. "didn't bill hockey, at the top of the hill, warn you about this bridge?" "yes, but it was too late, then, to stop," answered dick. "well, i'm here to let only light loads over the bridge," the man went on. "it'll hold a horse and carriage, but not much else. your auto would sure have gone through it." "then i'm glad we didn't chance it," remarked paul. "the county is getting bids on having a new bridge built, but when it'll be done nobody seems to know," said the man. "i don't s'pose you mind, as long as you have a job here flagging," suggested innis, with a smile. "well, 'tain't so much fun in wet weather. i'm thinkin' of havin' a shelter made. but you sure are stuck fast. you'd better go over and see if you can hire some horses. there's a farm just around the turn of the road. porter hanson owns it, and he's got a couple of teams." "i guess it will take more than two teams to get us out," said dick. "i'd rather trust to a block and fall. could i get one around here, do you imagine?" "you might. some of the farmers has 'em." "it's going to be quite a problem even at that," said paul, looking across to the other shore with a critical eye. "we can't get a very good hold for the block." "then we'll have to make one," decided dick. "fellows, we'll pretend this is one of the engineering problems we used to get at kentfield, and we'll see how we can work it out. "we've got a weight here to move of approximately four thousand pounds, and the distance, up to the road, is about twenty-five feet. innis, how much moving force do we require?" "not prepared!" answered the cadet, giving one of the stock answers of the class room, and his chums laughed. "where are you fellows from?" asked the man with the flag. "new york," answered dick, which was true enough, and he did not want to go into details about himself and his chums. "we're students on our vacation." "well, it looks as though you were goin' to get your feet wet," remarked the bridge guardian with a chuckle. "if you want to wait i'll go down the creek a ways, and borrow a boat. but you'll have to warn any teams, heavier than a single carriage, not to go over the bridge." "all right--we will," agreed dick. "and we'll pay you for your trouble. we'll probably need a boat anyhow when we start to haul the car up on dry land again." "well, shall we go ashore?" asked paul, as their new friend started off down the bank of the stream. "and get our feet wet doing it," added innis. "i'm going to wade barefoot, anyhow," and he prepared to take off his shoes. "let's sit here and eat first," suggested dick. "it's about dinner time, and we've got some hard work ahead of us. i do hope we can get a block and fall." dick's plan met with instant favor, and then, in the big car the three marooned travelers began to prepare a meal on the electric stove. they were busily engaged at this when their new friend came rowing up the stream. he saw the boys sitting comfortably about the table which had been let down from the roof of the car, and his eyes grew big with astonishment. "wa'al, i swan t' goodness!" he gasped. "there ain't nothin' slow about you boys; be there?" "not so as you could notice it," assented dick, with a laugh. "will you have a fried egg sandwich?" "what? be you cookin' in there?" cried the man in astonishment. "sure!" laughed paul. "wait, i'll put an egg on for you in a jiffy!" and he broke one in the aluminum frying pan, while the man was tying the boat to the stranded auto. "wa'al, i swan t' goodness!" exclaimed the man, who had said his name was peter kinsey. "this beats th' dutch! why, you've got a regular sleepin' an' dinin' car here; ain't you?" "somewhat," admitted dick, while paul passed out the egg sandwich on a wooden plate. "gosh all sizers!" exclaimed mr. kinsey, as he bit into it. "it's hot, all right! but it's mighty good jest th' same!" he added quickly. he ate it with such evident relish that paul at once fried him another. then, as the three chums had eaten enough, they put away their cooking apparatus, tossed the wooden plates into the stream, and prepared to get their auto out of the mud. "the first thing to do," decided dick, when they had gone ashore in the boat mr. kinsey had borrowed for them, "is to see if we can get that tackle. there's no use bothering with horses until we have something rigged up so we can use their strength to the best advantage. where would we be likely to get a rope and pulleys?" he asked the flagman. "wa'al, josiah mcintyre might have some," was the answer. "he moved his barn last week, and i don't believe they took the rigging away." "where does he live?" "down the road a piece. second house on the right. it's painted red and sets back a ways from the road. you can tell him what you want, and say i sent you." "all right," agreed dick. "paul, i'll delegate you to get the rope and pulleys. push 'em here in a wheelbarrow, and see if we can hire a team when we need it." "all right, my hearty!" "innis, you and i'll look about for a place where we can hitch the pulley. we may have to set a post. i suppose we could borrow a shovel?" he asked mr. kinsey. "yes, i've got one here myself. i was digging worms for fish bait. had to do something settin' here all day. what do you want a shovel for?" "to dig a hole to set a post in." "i see. well, i'll get the shovel, and i reckon you can take one of the busted beams from this bridge. there's a lot of 'em over on the other side." with the post and shovel provided, dick and his chums began to see a way out of their difficulty. paul started down the road after the tackle, and dick decided to wait and see how long the rope was before setting the post that was to support the pull of the falls against the weight of the auto. meanwhile he and innis awaited the return of their chum, who had gone down the road whistling. the fine big car remained in the middle of the stream, the water swirling between the spokes of the wheels. "it'll do it good to soak up a bit," said dick, "it's been so dry lately that the wood was shrinking." "yes, it has been terrible dry," agreed mr. kinsey. "the farmers have begun prayin' for rain. an' it looks as if we'd get some soon." several boys, who had, in some mysterious way, heard of the accident, came running down the road to stand along the bank of the creek and stare at the odd sight. dick's big car was something new and strange to them, and they made the most of the exhibition. "here comes paul!" exclaimed innis, as he saw a figure make the turn of the road. "and he's got some one to push the wheelbarrow for him," he added, as he saw a man walking beside the youth. "oh, you can trust paul to get out of the hardest part of the work," laughed dick. "never mind, we'll need a man's help anyhow, and i was going to suggest that he hire some one." "he's evidently done it," remarked innis. "looks as though he had plenty of tackle," commented mr. kinsey. "i guess it's what josiah used for his barn, all right." "what luck?" called dick, as his chum came within hearing distance. "good!" was the answer. "i've got a long tackle, and we can get two teams if we need 'em. i hired a man to help us rig it up, too." "fine!" exclaimed the young millionaire. "now, innis, we'll get busy on a practical engineering problem instead of figuring it out on paper." chapter xxiii off again "how's that post now?" called paul, who with innis had been tamping dirt about a short beam stuck in the ground some distance back from the edge of the water. "that's got a better slant to it," answered dick. "it would have pulled out as it was." "how are you going to fasten the tackle to the car?" asked innis, as he and his chum finished their part of the work. "take a hitch around the front axle. here, give me a hand and we'll do that now. paul, you can go see about the horses. tell the farmer we won't need them long, and we'll pay him what he thinks they're worth." "aye--aye, sir," answered paul, saluting in the most approved kentfield military academy style, as he started off down the road. the three chums, with the aid of mr. kinsey, and such of the gathered farm lads as volunteered, had been busy the last half-hour rigging up the tackle to pull the big car from the creek. a stout post had been set up to give a fixed purchase, for dick found that the tackle and fall was of a good type, with one fixed and one movable pulley--the former with two, and the latter with three wheels. this gave great power, and it would be needed, for the car was deep in the mud, and there was quite a slope to negotiate to the road. "if she hadn't settled so deep in the mud, i could get her out under her own power," said dick, as he and innis fixed about the axle of the car a loose rope, into which could be fastened the hook of the movable pulley. the fixed pulley would be made fast to the post, the boys, after some discussion, having decided that this was the best plan to follow. the ropes were adjusted, the pulleys were looked after to make sure that they would not foul, and then all that remained was to wait for the horses to come. quite a crowd had gathered by this time, a number of boys and men, as well as some women and girls, having been drawn from their houses by the report of the stalled auto. "what about those papers, dick?" asked innis, as they finished making fast the auxiliary rope, and rowed to shore to await the return of paul. "they're in the auto." "do you think they're safe there?" "sure. safer than if i had 'em in my pocket, where they'd fall out into this muddy creek. then they would be gone forever." "have you the doors locked?" "surest thing you know. see anything of paul?" "yes, there he comes, with four horses instead of two, and i'm blessed if he isn't riding one of the nags." "sure. what else did you expect? paul is learning how to take life easy. he'll live longer that way." "but why four horses? i thought two would be enough?" "so they might, but i guess paul doesn't believe in taking chances. four will be sure to pull us out of the ruck, and two mightn't." "to say nothing of the fact that the farmer saw a chance to hold you up for a double price." "oh, that's all right," said the young millionaire. "i don't mind paying for actual work, and it will be a blessing to get started again." as usual, when a crowd gathers about anything that is going on, there was plenty of advice offered. one man insisted that dick had the pulleys arranged wrong, and another held that the auto should have been pulled out backwards instead of by the front. "but i don't want to go backwards," said dick. "i'm going on ahead. i want to get on the other side of the bridge. i had trouble enough trying to cross the stream. i might as well finish up, now that i'm at it." "you'll only get stuck deeper in the mud!" declared this pessimist. "i guess the horses can get us out," said dick. "i'll take a chance, anyhow." the tackle was in shape, and all that remained was to hitch the four steeds to the free end of the rope, and start them. dick rowed out to his car, and sat at the steering wheel. two men had been hired to lay planks under the wheels to prevent them from sinking in the soft shore of the stream as soon as they should emerge from the water. paul and innis were to have general charge of matters on shore, one to see that the horses pulled when urged ahead, and the other to call a halt in case anything showed signs of going wrong. "all ready?" asked innis from his position near the heads of the horses, which the owner was to drive. "all right here," answered paul, who was on the shore. "let her go!" cried dick, taking a firmer grip of the steering wheel. there was a creaking of the ropes and pulleys. the cables tautened; the blocks were lifted up from the ground by the strain. the rope around the axle of the car straightened out. there was a snapping, tugging sound, and then the car began to move slowly. "she's coming!" cried paul. "keep moving!" urged dick. he turned the steering gear about to free the front wheels from the clinging mass of mud. the car moved faster. then, as the horses settled to their collars, the big touring machine was slowly pulled from the water. then the front wheels struck the planks laid down to receive them, splitting one of the boards. up the slope went the _last word_ amid the cheers of the assembled farmers. up the slope and out on the road, where dick called for a halt, and jammed on the brakes. "whew! i'm glad that's over!" exclaimed paul. "the same here!" added innis. "is she all right, dick?" "i don't know. i'm just going to have a look," and the young man bounded out of his car, and cast a hasty glance over the running gear. that seemed to be intact, save for the broken brake. the engine was next looked to, dick starting it, with the gears unmeshed. it ran as soon as the electrical switch was turned, and the hum and throb told that it was in perfect condition. "so far--so good!" exclaimed dick. "now, after we have that defective brake looked to, i guess we can get under way again." "there's a garage about a mile further along," said mr. kennedy, who had supplied the horses. "i guess they can fix you up." "i'll try for it," said dick. then he paid the men who had helped him, not forgetting the bridge tender who had gotten the boat for them, without which dick and his chums would have had wet feet. "where are you bound for?" asked a man in the crowd. he seemed to be a stranger, since none of the others talked to him. he addressed dick. "oh, we're just on a tour," replied our hero, with a sharp glance at the chap. "looks as though you could go all the way to 'frisco in that car," the man went on, as he stepped to the door and peered into the interior of the _last word_. "we could--if we wanted to," said dick, coolly. "please don't touch anything," he added sharply, as he saw the man fingering various levers and switches. "huh! i didn't mean anything," was the surly response. "perhaps not, but you don't know when you might do some damage," went on dick, "and the car's been through enough for one day. come along, boys," he added to his chums. "we'll get a move on." with thanks to those who had helped them out of their predicament, the boys drove off toward the garage where dick intended to have the broken brake repaired. chapter xxiv a night encounter "did you think there was anything queer about that man, dick?" asked paul, as the three chums sat about the garage, while the chief mechanician looked over the big auto. "which man was that? there were so many around us when we got stuck in the creek that i don't remember any special one." "i mean the chap that suggested you could make a trip to 'frisco." "oh, him. well, yes, in a way, i did. at least i didn't think i'd give him the satisfaction of letting him guess where we were going." "i'm glad you didn't." "why, paul?" "because i was a bit suspicious of him. did you notice what he did after we started away?" "i did not, because i was so busy thinking how lucky we were to get off as we did. what happened?" "why, that man--the fellow with the droopy eyes, i'll call him, because his eyes were sort of sleepy looking--he pulled out a note book as we started off, and seemed to be making a record in it." "maybe he was a constable, and he thought we might try to speed up after being delayed. he might be looking to get a share of the fine if we were caught," suggested innis. "no, he wasn't a constable," declared paul. "what makes you so sure?" "if he was a constable in a country town he'd be some pumpkins, a sort of a poo-bah. instead, no one paid the least attention to him. he might be a constable from somewhere else, but he didn't belong here. he was a stranger, and yet he seemed mightily interested in your car." "well, it's a good car--if i do say it myself," responded dick. "no, it wasn't that," continued his chum. "that man had some object in view. dick, do you know what i think?" "i give up, paul. you think so much that you have me guessing. what is it now?" "i think that man was one of uncle ezra's spies!" "what!" cried dick. paul repeated his words. "whew!" exclaimed dick in a whisper, as he pretended to wipe his brow. "this is the limit! aren't we ever to get away from my uncle ezra?" "don't misunderstand me," said paul, quickly. "i'm not an alarmist, and i don't want to be a false prophet, but that fellow acted suspiciously to me." "i think so too," added innis. "queer i didn't notice it," said dick, slowly, "but i guess i was so busy thinking about my car that i didn't pay much attention to him. i noticed that he looked in our parlor, so to speak, and----" he interrupted himself to cross the garage, and peer into the interior of the big machine, underneath which was a workman taking out the damaged brake, ready to put in a new one. "it's there, all right," said our hero, with an air of relief. "what?" asked innis. "the envelope with the legal papers. paul's talk gave me a scare. i thought that man might have made off with 'em!" "no, he didn't get a chance for that," said paul. "i watched him too closely. but he did get me suspicious, all right. however, we're here, and we'll soon be far enough away." "maybe," said dick. "i'm not going to take any chances on those brakes after the experience we had. they've got to be perfect, and if we have to lay over a day or so, we'll do it. how about it?" he asked the man, who was crawling out from under the big car. the talk of the young men had been carried on in low tones until dick asked this question. "she'll have to come out, and a new band be put on," the workman said. "how long will it take?" "two days. i've either got to send for a new one, or forge one myself." "then make it here," said dick. "if you send for one there may be a factory delay, and i don't want that. if you can fix it do so." "i can," said the garage man. "this is a special type of car, and no one would probably have that brake in stock. i can make it." dick then arranged with him to do the work, and the three chums, after getting some of their belongings out of the car, started off toward the village. "where are we going to stay to-night?" asked innis, as they walked slowly along the country road. "in our car!" said dick, quickly. "what? when there's a fairly good hotel in the village?" asked innis. "this talk of paul's has made me a bit nervous," went on our hero. "i think i'd feel safer if i slept in the _last word_. i can fix it with the garage man, i think. and if any of uncle ezra's spies are hanging about they may try to disable my car if they can't get their hands on the legal papers. they might do it out of spite." "that's right," agreed innis. "where are the papers now, dick?" "back in the car." "don't you think that's risky?" "no more so than carrying them about with me. i'm a sort of fatalist. i believe if a thing is going to happen it will happen. but i'll do all i can to stop it. "they're less likely to think the papers are in the car than that i have them. and even if they do pull out that advertising envelope, and look in it, all they'll see at first glance will be an auto catalog. i took the precaution of slipping the legal sheets between the pages of the booklet." "good, dick. but supposing the place catches fire?" asked paul. "oh, you've got to take some chances in this world, old man; eh, grit?" and he patted the head of the bulldog that trotted along with the boys toward the village. the boys found the town to be a picturesque one, well worth visiting, and there was a good restaurant in it. there they got a meal, sort of half-way between dinner and supper, and they arranged to come back later for something to eat before turning in on the bunks of the auto. "and there's a moving picture show in town," exclaimed innis, as they were walking back to the garage. "i vote we take that in." "all right," assented dick. "it will relieve the monotony if we have to lay over here two days." the owner of the garage readily gave the boys permission to occupy their car while it was in his establishment, and the lads made a change of clothes, for they were rather disheveled by the work of getting the auto out of the creek. shortly before dusk they made their way to the village again, and after a good supper they headed for the moving picture theatre. in spite of the small size of the town, the exhibition was a good one. it was interspersed with vaudeville acts, and as this happened to be "amateur" night, it was quite late when our friends came out. "well, it was pretty good; wasn't it?" remarked dick, as he linked his arms in those of his chums. "not half bad--for a change," assented innis. "what's the game for to-morrow?" "oh, we'll have to hang over here, i guess. but i understand there's a baseball game between two country nines and we can take that in. it will be sport." "that's the cheese!" exclaimed paul. they were in the midst of the crowd that had thronged from the moving picture show. a number of pretty girls were bunched together, and from their midst came voices that could be heard to remark about the identity of our heroes, as the youths were spoken of as "the millionaire autoists." "we're getting a reputation already," whispered innis. "that's dick's fault," said paul. "i haven't said a word," retorted that youth. "you fellows must have been talking." gradually the crowd thinned out, and the three chums found themselves walking along a rather dark country road toward the garage where the _last word_ had been left. for a while they talked among themselves of the adventures of the day, and then a silence settled down. they were all tired and anxious to get to bed. "is that some one ahead of us, or behind us?" suddenly asked dick, coming to a halt. "i don't hear anything," said innis. "me either," added paul. "walk on a bit and then listen," suggested dick. "there is some one sort of keeping time to our footsteps, fellows," spoke paul a little later. "but are they ahead or behind us?" asked dick. "i've been hearing it for some time." "ahead of us," said innis. "behind," was paul's opinion. the three came to a halt in the roadway and listened. this time, instead of the footsteps becoming silent, they were more plain. "they're coming," whispered paul. a voice hailed them from the darkness. "say, is this the road to centreville?" "no, you're going the wrong way," replied dick. "centreville is behind you." "huh! that's funny!" some one remarked. "we must be all twisted up. wait a second, will you," and from the darkness could be heard footsteps quickly approaching. chapter xxv into the loneliness "have you the time?" it was the voice of one of those who were approaching our hero and his two chums, they having come to a halt at the request for information. "oh, what does it matter?" some one else asked, and then dick could see that three men were hurrying toward them out of the darkness. "i just wanted to see how late it was," went on the one who had apparently spoken first. "sorry to trouble you," he added, "but we're strangers here, and we seem to have lost our way." "it's no trouble--if we can direct you," said the young millionaire. "we're strangers here ourselves." "it's a little after eleven," announced paul, looking at his watch as well as he could by the starlight. as he spoke one of the men made a sudden motion toward him. "not him! the other!" some one exclaimed sharply. before the three knew what was happening they were seized by the three men--seized and roughly mauled. "here! what does this mean?" demanded dick, hotly, as he struck out vigorously. "it's a hold-up!" yelled innis. "lay into 'em, fellows!" "let go of me!" insisted paul, as he swung himself loose from his antagonist and dealt him a stinging blow that staggered the fellow. the man, with a smothered exclamation, recovered himself, and rushed back at paul. in the meanwhile innis and his assailant were having a tussle. as for dick, after that first outcry, he had held his voice, but he was struggling desperately with the man in the darkness. he could feel hands moving over his body, inserting themselves in his various pockets. "they're thieves!" he cried. "help! help!" there was no answer save the echo of his own voice, broken by the panting breaths of the three men, who seemed to want to do their work in silence. by a powerful right-hand swing paul sent his man to the ground with a thud that knocked the breath from his body, and the fellow did not get up again immediately. "let go of me!" yelled innis. "keep your hands out of my pockets!" he tore himself loose from the man's grip, and shoved the fellow aside, so that he fell on top of the one paul had knocked down. "help! help!" yelled innis. "thieves! grit! grit!" "grit isn't here!" panted dick, wishing with all his heart that his pet had not been left in the garage to keep watch and ward over the auto. our hero was struggling fiercely with his man. by this time the one paul had knocked down was getting up, being assisted by the fellow innis had pushed from him. dick managed to get one arm free and he dashed his clenched fist full into the face of his attacker. he could feel the force of the blow, and he knew he must have caused the footpad considerable pain, for there was a grunt of protest. "here they come again!" said innis, fiercely. "back to back, fellows, and we can stand 'em off!" now that the first instinctive fear at the attack in the dark had passed off, the three youths felt a fierce joy in the coming conflict. it was like a battle on the football gridiron, only with greater odds. dick, paul and innis moved close together, being free for the moment from their assailants. then from down the road could be heard the sound of footsteps running rapidly. the men paused, listened a moment, and then the one who had attacked dick exclaimed: "come on. he hasn't it with him!" at once the three men turned and raced off in the darkness, away from the sound of the approaching footsteps. for a moment the three chums remained in a sort of triangular posture of defense, hardly knowing what it was all about, since it had taken place so quickly. "are--are we all here?" dick finally managed to gasp. "it seems so," replied paul. "what happened, anyhow? was it a joke?" "my nose doesn't feel that way," said innis. "no, and i guess i gave one of those fellows something that he'll remember for a day or so," went on paul. "but what in the world were they after?" "something that i left back in the auto," replied dick, grimly. "what! those papers?" "that's it. the fellow who had me went all through my pockets while he was rough-housing me. first i thought he was after my watch and money, but when he didn't take them, i knew what he wanted." "they went through my pockets, too," confessed innis. "same here," added paul. "did they get anything?" asked dick, quickly. the lads made a hasty search, and both reported that they had lost nothing. at that moment a man came running up. instinctively the three chums got ready for a renewal of hostilities, but they soon saw they had nothing to fear, even had not the man spoken, for he was an honest-appearing chap. "what--what's the matter?" he panted. "did you call for help?" "we did," replied dick, "but we don't need any now; thank you." "what was it?" "somebody tried to hold us up," went on the young millionaire, not caring to go into all the details. "but we beat 'em off." "that's good. were they three rough-looking fellows?" "there were three of 'em, all right," said paul, "and i guess they're a little more rough-looking than they were at first; eh, boys?" "sure thing," remarked innis, tenderly touching some of his bruises. "i'm a watchman down the road a ways, at a new building just going up," the man went on. "i saw these fellows go past, and i didn't like their looks and actions. they were talking about getting something off some one, and----" "i guess they were talking about us," interrupted dick. "they probably saw us in the moving picture place, and followed us. they asked for the time, and pretended they had missed their way. that was only to get us to halt, of course. but we're well out of it, all right." "did they get much?" "nothing," said paul. "we're much obliged to you for coming." "i came as soon as i heard you call. oh, you're the fellows with the big auto; aren't you?" he went on, as he came close and made out the faces of the three in the starlight. "that's us," said dick. "i guess we might as well go on, boys," he added to his chums. "i want some arnica for this bump i got." "which way did the men go?" the watchman wanted to know, and when the boys had indicated it, and had themselves started to go in the same direction, to reach the garage where the _last word_ was waiting for them, the watchman went on: "aren't you afraid they'll tackle you again? they may be waiting down the road for you." dick shook his head. "they found out we didn't have what they wanted," he remarked, "and they won't bother us any more. come on, boys." "huh! queer robbers," observed the watchman, and he turned away after the boys had thanked him for his prompt response to their calls for help. "do you really think those men were after the papers, dick?" asked paul. "i'm sure of it," answered his friend. "it was all part of the game uncle ezra is playing, but i'm getting tired of it. this is the limit! it's got to stop!" "are you going to tell him so?" asked innis, as they walked along. "no, but i'm going to make a change in our plans. we'll fool 'em--we'll get off the beaten track and go off into the unknown until we put plenty of space behind us. then they'll have their own troubles tracing us." "that does seem the best way," assented paul. "it's no fun to be on the verge of an attack at any time. the game is too one-sided. we'll make it harder for them." "that's my idea," said dick, as they neared the garage, having seen no further signs of the three men. they found the big car undisturbed, with grit ready to give them a noisy welcome. "i wish we'd had you along a while ago, old fellow," remarked dick, as he patted his dog. "i guess those fellows wouldn't have been quite so fresh. but maybe it's just as well as it is, for i wouldn't want any of them chewed up." "how do you figure it out?" asked paul, as they got themselves a little lunch before turning in. "why, uncle ezra, or whoever he's hired to turn this trick, knew where we would be at a certain day, i suppose," said dick. "the men were on the watch, and, when we arrived, they just kept tabs on us. the rest was easy enough." "only you didn't happen to carry the papers with you," added innis. "no, it was a good trick to leave 'em here," assented our hero, as he looked in the advertising envelope behind the mirror, to make sure that the documents were safe. "well, they won't try it on again in a hurry. in the morning we'll figure out a new route that will bring us to 'frisco in time to file the papers." it was no very difficult task, with their road maps, to do this, and having seen the garage man start on the work of repairing the brakes, dick and his chums strolled into town. they managed to find some points of interest, and also took in the ball game, and, though the repairs took three days, instead of two, they did not regret their little stop-over. "we've got plenty of time," said dick, "and from now on we'll shift about on our route. i'm anxious to get out in the west." "so am i!" added paul. once more they were under way, but they did not head for chicago, as they had intended. "too much is likely to happen there," decided dick. "we might as well have a brass band with us, as this big car. so the thing to do is to avoid the big cities." this they did. as events of very little interest occurred during the next week, i shall skim over that period, only saying that the lads had no further trouble, except an occasional bad road to travel, and a storm to journey through. farther and farther west they worked their way, until one morning saw them in salt lake city, utah. this was on their original schedule, but dick and his chums figured that they had so shifted about that their enemies must have lost their trail by this time. "of course they may be waiting for us here," said dick, "but they won't get much chance at us. we'll keep on the outskirts of town, and after we get what supplies we need we'll strike out into the desert." "the desert!" exclaimed paul. "that sounds lonely enough." "it will be," asserted the young millionaire, "and we'll have to take along an extra amount of water and gasoline. but we'll keep near the line of the western pacific railroad, and in case of trouble we can get help." that afternoon they started off, having stocked the big car well. they made a quick run to the great salt lake, paused to wonder at it, and then headed for the great desert. off into its loneliness they steered, wondering what lay before them. chapter xxvi bad news "say it sure is lonesome; isn't it?" "no mistake about it. if this isn't the jumping-off place, it's next door to it." "i'd hate to be caught here without water or a means of getting away." thus, in turn, dick, paul and innis expressed themselves as they sat in the big car, panting and uncomfortable from the heat of a summer day, making a pretense of eating. it was almost too warm for that, however. "well, there's one consolation, we can leave whenever we like," remarked dick. "i'll start whenever you fellows say so." "well, let's get a move on," suggested paul. "there's a little breeze when we're in motion, but there isn't any now." they put away the remains of the meal and were soon moving over the great salt desert of utah, it being their second day on it. they had been delayed by a slight accident or they would have made better time across it. however, they did not regret the time spent, for it was a new and wonderful experience for them, and one they would long remember. the big car, aside from the slight break which dick and his chums had been able to mend themselves, was behaving to perfection. in it they could cross with ease and comparative comfort this terrible stretch of country, where many of the early settlers had given up their lives. dick had taken the precaution to put on, over the big cushion tires, a sort of steel-studded leather shoe, which gave a larger surface, so that the wheels would not sink down so far in the sand, for the _last word_ was of no light weight. in addition, strips of canvas were carried so that when they came to a particularly sandy place these strips could be laid down, like boards across a mud puddle, and the auto sent over them, turn and turn about. of course that would be slow progress, but it was better than stalling. they saw little of other travelers. occasionally a mule team would be observed, and now and then they came in sight of the railroad, and watched a train dash along it. but, in the main, they picked out their own route, having learned in salt lake city of the one most available for autos. at no time were they very far from the railroad line, but they did not follow it too closely. for, as dick said, "what was the use of coming out on a tour if you kept in touch with civilization all the while?" so they broke their own trail as far as was practicable, and enjoyed the experience. water--for themselves and the car--was their main worry, but they had a goodly supply with them. to drink dick had provided several large vacuum bottles of ice-cold lemonade, and, though of course the frigid temperature could not be retained indefinitely, the liquid was still quite cool and refreshing after several hours of bottling. "well, this sure has been a great experience for us," declared paul, as the big car moved off over the desert. "i should say yes," agreed dick. "i wouldn't have missed it for a farm." "not even with all the trouble uncle ezra made?" asked innis. "no, even with that. but he hasn't bothered us lately," said our hero, patting grit, who sat on the seat beside him, paul driving the car for a change. "i guess he's lost track of us," suggested innis. "we haven't had a sight of any of his pesky men since that encounter in the dark." "no," assented dick, "but you never can tell where he will crop up. he may be laying low for us. though i don't expect there'll be any more fighting until it comes time to file those papers. then he may try to block me in a legal way." "what can you do?" asked paul. "i don't know, until the time comes. dad told me to wire him in case of trouble, and ask his advice. maybe i'll have to depend somewhat on mr. ainslie, the california lawyer." "say, it seems to me you're going to a lot of trouble to save a fortune for a fellow you don't know very well, and who doesn't seem to take much interest in it himself," observed innis. "who, wardell?" asked dick. "sure. that's who i mean." "you don't understand," said the young millionaire, softly. "in the first place, mr. wardell would make the biggest kind of a fight for himself, if he were here. but i think he's doing the right thing, to try to start life over again, for there's nothing sure about saving his fortune for him. the courts may decide against him at the last minute. but there's a chance in his favor, and i'm taking it for him. "some day mr. wardell is going to know that it's my uncle who played him this trick, but if he knows that i did my best to offset it, why, that's going to square it; isn't it?" "i suppose so," agreed innis. "and wardell is a mighty fine chap," went on dick. "of course that day when paul and i saw him on the railroad bank he had sort of lost his nerve. you can't blame him for that. i'm not a bit sorry over what i'm trying to do for him." "oh, no, of course not. only it's a lot of trouble for a stranger." "well, i'm not doing it altogether for him," said dick. "i'm thinking of the honor of our family. i wouldn't want it said that any of my relatives ruined a man, even if it was legal." "good for you!" cried paul. "say, the trail is leading us back toward the railroad, i think." "yes, it does come near the line about here," agreed dick, as he consulted a map. "so much the better. we may strike a water tank. our supply isn't any too large." the big car slowly made its way over the desert. they were not trying for any speed, since the clinging sand made progress difficult, and they did not want to put too much of a strain on the wheels and motor. it seemed to get hotter as they proceeded, though the breeze of the electric fan in the car was grateful. but even the air in motion seemed to come out of some oven, laden with the smell of baking earth. "whew!" exclaimed paul, when they had gone on about a mile further, and had come in sight of the railroad. "take her a while, innis. my hands are tired from trying to hold the wheel steady. she wabbles a lot." "i'll guide," said dick. "no, let me," urged his other chum, so he was given charge. the _last word_ ran along well, and they were beginning to think of looking for a good location to spend the night, since it was evident that they would need another day to cross the desert. suddenly dick, who had been looking ahead, uttered an exclamation, and made a grab for the gasoline lever. "stop her!" he cried to innis. but it was too late. the car sank down several inches into a particularly soft and yielding stretch of sand. "wow!" cried innis, as he saw into what he had steered. "never mind," consoled dick. "it couldn't be helped. i didn't see it in time. i guess we'll have to use the canvas strips to cross this stretch. it's as wide as all get-out, and we might get into something worse if we tried to go around it. come on, fellows; get busy!" they leaped out, taking light wooden shovels from the back of the auto, where they had been fastened on purpose to be used on the desert sand. then the canvas strips were brought into use, paul and innis stretching them in front of the wheels, while dick drove the car over them. the broad surface of the sail cloth, coupled with the wide tires, served to keep the machine from settling much, but their progress was slow, and after an hour or so of it dick announced: "let's give up until morning. i'm dead tired, and it's too hot to work any more. we'll just camp here, have grub, and go to sleep. there's going to be a moon, and when it comes up we can work in the cool of the night." "that's the ticket!" exclaimed innis. "though don't stop on my account," he urged. "i got you into this hole, and i'll help to get you out." "you didn't get us in at all," declared dick. "i'd have run into this soft stretch as soon as you. knock off and we'll eat." the rest was welcome. as the sun began to set they looked over toward the distant railroad, the rails of which could be seen glittering in the fading light. something not far off stirred in a faint breeze. "what's that?" asked paul. "part of a newspaper," said dick, as he caught sight of it. "probably some passenger tossed it out of a car window. i'm going to have a look at it. maybe it isn't more than a month old, and there'll be something in it to read. the next time i come touring i'm going to bring along part of a library." he strolled toward the fragment of paper, which was held down by a little mound of shifting sand. paul and innis were getting the meal ready. suddenly they were startled by a cry from dick. he was staring at the paper. "what's the matter?" asked paul. "matter, fellows! look here! if this isn't bad news i don't know what is." "somebody dead you know?" inquired innis. "no, but this paper is only two days old. it must have been tossed away to-day. and it's got something in it about that railroad in which wardell's fortune is tied up." "what is it?" demanded paul. "why, it says that a new turn has been given the fight for the control of the stock. instead of waiting until september to settle the case, it's going to be forced to a settlement now. new information has been given that puts an entirely different light on matters, and certain eastern interests are said to be going to gobble up the whole outfit. "fellows, i can see uncle ezra's hand in this. he's found out he can't get those papers away from me, and he's going to make them of no use by hurrying this game to a finish before i have time to get to 'frisco!" "how's that?" asked paul. "why, the whole thing, according to this paper, is scheduled to be settled a week from to-day." "you can get to 'frisco before then!" exclaimed innis. "yes, i know i can, but what good will it do me? i can't file these papers before the date set. you see they've stolen a march on us. uncle ezra has had his lawyers act and they've brought matters to a head sooner than was expected. "these legal papers i have are useless after all our work in saving them, and wardell's fortune will be lost! hang it all! did you ever see such bad luck?" and dick vigorously shook the newspaper he had picked up on the desert. chapter xxvii the man in the desert "say, dick," requested paul, "just calm down a bit, and sort of explain things." "yes, he's got me going," added innis, pausing in the act of frying some eggs for supper. "why, it's plain enough," said dick. "here is a piece of a san francisco paper, and it has in it an account of this railroad lawsuit. the case come up in 'frisco, you know," he added. "the paper was probably tossed out of the car window by some man who got tired of it, and i almost wish i hadn't found it." "why?" paul wanted to know. "because it makes me feel bad. to think that all my hard work is thrown away." "but is it?" asked innis. "it looks so. this is how i figure it out. as soon as uncle ezra finds out he couldn't block my game to save mr. wardell's fortune by getting the legal papers away from me, he starts off on a new tack. he has his lawyers look up other means for getting control of this railroad, and they find one, it seems. "from what i can gather, by reading this article, a new witness has cropped up. he gave testimony in court that knocks out wardell, and makes his claim valueless. under the new ruling, uncle ezra and those associated with him can go ahead and, inside of a week, get possession of the railroad stock so that mr. wardell can't redeem it. "you see, it was this way: this wardell had this stock left to him by his father. it was worth considerable. in fact, it virtually made him owner of the railroad, though of course he didn't operate it. then, foolishly, he puts up that stock as security for a loan with uncle ezra, and invests the money in something else. "he loses it--i guess uncle ezra intended he should, and of course if he can't pay it back uncle ezra will get the railroad. but from what my dad and i understood there was a time limit set by which wardell would have another show for his white alley--i mean that he'd get a chance to go to court, and say he had been cheated and would like more time to raise the money to buy back his railroad stock. "that's the plan i've been working on, and that's what these legal papers covered. now it seems this new witness makes it all look like an ice cream cone on a hot day. unless the money is paid inside of a week wardell will forfeit all his stock to uncle ezra. oh, it's a cute game, all right, and there doesn't seem to be any way to beat it," said dick, bitterly. "maybe if we hurried into san francisco," suggested paul, "and saw this witness, we could explain things to him, and ask him to hold off until mr. wardell could get here." "no chance of that," said dick. "wardell is in south america--the land knows where. we can't reach him in time." "but if we could find this witness," persisted paul. "he's disappeared, so this newspaper article says," remarked dick. "that's another funny part of it. it looks like a hold-off game, spiriting the witness away in that fashion, and yet what can we do? even if we got to 'frisco before the end of the week, which we could easily do, by abandoning the car and taking a train, what good would it do? we couldn't offset the testimony of this witness." "it does look as though we were up against it," assented paul. "good and hard," agreed dick. "well, let's have grub," suggested innis, practically. "it's almost ready. and maybe after supper we'll find a way out." but even after the meal, eaten amid the silence of the salt desert, their gloomy thoughts were not dispersed. they sat about, moody and quiet, until paul, with a sarcastic exclamation, cried out: "say, this is the limit. let's do a song and dance, or something like that." "there is a phonograph stowed away somewhere among my things," said dick with a laugh that had no mirth in it. "trot it out and give us a tune," urged innis, and, after a moment's thought, dick complied. anything was better than sitting about, thinking gloomy thoughts. and really he felt keenly his failure so unexpectedly disclosed by that stray piece of newspaper. all his hard work--his skill in keeping the legal documents away from the cunning emissaries of uncle ezra--had gone for naught, in case it were true what he had read. and he had no reason to doubt it. the paper was a reliable publication, and the names of lawyers were mentioned who had a national reputation. of course, in a measure, it was a case of "high finance," perhaps not strictly moral, but perfectly legal. certain interests wanted control of the railroad, and even uncle ezra might be simply a catspaw in the game. yet it seemed certain that unless something were done--some sort of legal protest or injunction entered--the wardell fortune would be wiped out. and this dick did not want to see happen. paul was at the phonograph, adjusting the mechanism. he had slipped in a record containing "my old kentucky home," and soon its strains were vibrating out on the desert air. the phonograph was not particularly good, for it was too small to have any sweetness, and yet, even with that handicap, the boys enjoyed the "canned music," as dick called it. as the chorus welled out, they joined in with the voice of the singer coming from the horn. "'my old kentucky home--good night!'" there was a pause, and as the chorus was repeated more softly, the boys lowered their voices. they had sung in the glee club at kentfield military academy, and their tones were true and pure. in the darkness of the starlight night, on that lonely desert, the music seemed to gather strength and sweetness. then, as the chorus neared the end, the three chums were startled to hear, off in the distance, another voice joining in with theirs, blending perfectly, in a rich baritone. they stopped singing, so startled were they, for they thought themselves all alone, and the unseen voice carried the air alone, accompanied only by the phonograph. then, as the last echoes died away, dick hamilton jumped to his feet and called out: "who is there?" chapter xxviii important information for a moment, following dick's challenge, there was no answer, and then, off in the darkness, beyond the circle of light from the campfire, made of pieces of a broken wagon the boys had found, came a voice, saying: "i am a stranger in a strange land. who are you that you make the night melodious with your music and song?" the boys felt the tension leave them as they heard the note of culture in the voice, for plainly they had to deal with a gentleman of birth and breeding. "come on up, and make yourself at home," invited dick. "are you lost? hungry or thirsty, perhaps?" "neither one nor the other, may it please you," was the somewhat whimsical retort. "yet i will join you if only for a little while. then i must get back, or my guards will be thinking that i have escaped." "guards," murmured paul, in a low voice. "he must be a prisoner--but in this lonely place----" "i thought we were the only ones here," added innis. "hush! here he comes!" cautioned our hero. a man advanced into the glare of the firelight. he was seen to be a young fellow, of about twenty-five perhaps, of rather frail build, dressed in a negligee costume, well suited to that hot climate, and yet his clothing, as innis instinctively noticed, was well tailored and fitted him perfectly. innis was more fastidious about his dress than either of his chums, and naturally noticed the garments of others more closely. "greeting, fair sirs!" exclaimed the newcomer. "it is very kind of you to extend your hospitality to a stranger, and i thank you. permit me to make myself known to you. i am harry cameron, sometime of san francisco, at present of the desert waste; an engineer by profession, a dilly-dallier of verse by avocation, and actually in durance vile for the time being. such is my brief but not unhappy history." the three chums looked at one another, hardly knowing what to make of their visitor, who took a seat on part of the old broken wagon--a "prairie schooner" of a bygone age--and stretched out his legs in a comfortable attitude, gazing at dick's party. "an escaped lunatic," thought innis, rather thankful that the stranger seemed to be of the mild type. "somebody who has been crazed by the heat perhaps," was paul's mental comment. yet he could not account for the freshness of the man's appearance and attire. "he's stringing us," was dick's thought. "well, if he is, i'll give him as good as he sends." then he spoke: "we are college professors, searching in the desert for traces of a lost glacier, last reported to be headed for the salt lake. we want to get some specimens of the tail." the young man started, looked keenly at dick, and then, with a quizzical smile, remarked: "you are pleased to joke, i see. i wish i had the chance to accompany you on your search. but it is denied me. still, lest perchance you think that i, too, am a jester, there is my card," and, with a quick and skillful motion, he scaled a bit of pasteboard over so that it fell exactly on dick's outstretched leg. "he who sits may read," went on mr. cameron. dick picked up the card, feeling a little ashamed of his bantering retort. by the light of the fire he read the name as given by their visitor. there was also an address in san francisco, and, the letters c. e.--denoting his profession. "i beg your pardon!" exclaimed dick, quickly. "i--er--i thought----" "you thought i was stringing you, i guess," interrupted mr. cameron, with a smile. "i was not. i'll tell you----" "i beg your pardon," interrupted dick. "let me introduce myself and my friends," and he presented paul and innis in turn, and mentioned his own name. "and the glacier?" asked mr. cameron. "was a joke, too," said dick. "we are merely traveling for pleasure. that is our car," and he waved toward where the _last word_ was fast in the sand. "we ran into a sort of bog hole and decided to wait until morning to extricate ourselves. but where are you staying?" dick asked, looking around on the sandy waste, now shrouded in darkness. "over there," replied mr. cameron, with an indefinite wave of his hand in the direction whence he had come. "we are camping out." "camping out!" exclaimed paul. "in this desert?" "it does seem rather foolish; doesn't it?" asked their visitor. "and the reasons are peculiar. i was thinking so myself as i strolled out after supper, and saw the gleam of your campfire. i wanted to see who else was as foolish as my friends." "then you have friends with you?" asked innis. "they call themselves such," was the answer, "but i prefer to think of them as my guards." "guards!" cried dick. "i surprise you, i see. let me explain why i am out in this sandy waste. i am a lost man!" and he waved his hand with a gentle air, as though being lost was the most delightful of occupations. "lost!" murmured paul, again wondering whether they did not have an insane man to deal with. "legally lost, perhaps i should have said," went on mr. cameron. "as you are not likely to interfere with the plans of my--er--friends, and as you will probably never think of the matter again, i shall tell you the circumstances. particularly as those who call themselves my friends don't want me to. "i like being different, and doing the unexpected," he continued. "also because it will give those fellows back there something to worry about, i am going to tell you a secret. i won't even ask you not to repeat it, because i don't see what object you could have in doing so. "know, then, that i am sequestered here in this desert in order that i may not jeopardize certain interests in giving testimony in a big lawsuit. i am to be kept out of the way for a certain time, and i am well paid for being lost. i have promised, for a certain stipulated sum, and because of certain representations made to me, not to go back to beloved 'frisco until after september third. "should i go, certain persons who are antagonistic to those who have hired me, might get hold of me, compel me to give certain testimony in court, and then--as the poet would say--all the fat would be in the fire. so i have to stay here where the other fellows can't find me, and--well, i am as happy as i can be, in such a dog's hole! it is the most out-of-the-way place they could find to conceal me, and yet be within touch of civilization. there you have the story in a nutshell. and when september third comes, i shall hie me back to civilization." during this recital dick's wonder had been growing. he could scarcely believe what he heard, and the odd part of it was that it fitted so in with the scheme he had undertaken to help mr. wardell. paul and innis also felt a growing wonder, for they knew some of the details of dick's plan to save the wardell fortune. "now you understand why i am here," went on mr. cameron. "there is a water hole about a mile from here, and one of those rare occurrences in the desert, a little oasis of trees, and a hill. there we have made a camp, which not one in a thousand would ever find. we are comfortable enough, in a way, but i lack for society. "that is why, wandering away, i saw the gleam of your fire, and hearing the music, i could not help but join in. i trust you will pardon me. but when you have with you two men who do nothing all day but smoke cigarettes, and play some mysterious card game known as 'seven-up' and whose only conversation seems to be along the line of said game--why, life gets rather monotonous, you see." "i should say so," agreed dick. and then he resolved on a bold plan. mr. cameron had revealed something without being asked. dick was under no promise of silence. and he saw a chance to defeat the enemies of mr. wardell. "can it be, by any chance, mr. cameron," the young millionaire asked, "that your case has any connection with the citrous junction railway?" "it has!" cried the engineer, springing to his feet. "but how did you guess it? i never mentioned it--i was careful about that." "no, you did not," agreed dick, "but your mention of the date--september third--gave me the clue." "you are looking for clues, then?" "in a way, yes. i am seeking some means of getting back to mr. wardell the control of the railroad that is about to be taken from him. i was on my way to san francisco to file a certain paper before september third--the date you mentioned. by the merest accident, happening to pick up a newspaper, probably tossed from a train, i learned that my efforts would be of no avail, because of testimony given by a new witness. and you----" "i am that witness!" cried mr. cameron. "great scott! but this is queer. to think of me telling the secret to some one--in all the world--who knew the other half of it. it's astounding! may i ask how you figure in it?" "because my uncle, mr. ezra larabee, is the man who is trying to get mr. wardell's fortune, and, for the honor of the family, i am trying to prevent him." "you ezra larabee's nephew! well, of all things in the world that i should meet you here! why, young man, ezra larabee--or, rather, his agent--is paying me to remain away so that the other side can't get hold of me. for, you must know that mr. wardell does not own all the stock in the railroad. there are some minor shareholders, and it is they who are trying to get me to go to court on their behalf. but i have accepted money from mr. larabee, and, as far as i know, he is in the right. i cannot go back on him, merely because you happen to be for the other side. "and so you are larabee's nephew. you don't look much like him, which is a consolation." "have you seen him?" asked dick. "he came to 'frisco to see me," explained mr. cameron. "he made a flying trip, and hurried back so as to save the other half of his excursion ticket, which was limited." "that's like him," laughed dick. "it seems so. well, he made certain representations, and it seemed that he was in the right. he hired me to disappear, and so you behold--a lost man." dick thought for a moment. "would you mind telling me," he said, "just what your testimony consists of?" "well, since you know so much, perhaps it can do no harm to tell you more. i am, as i said, a civil engineer. when this contest over the railroad came up, i was engaged to make certain maps and copies of records. it seems that the citrous junction is a short line, connecting two important trunk lines in a well-known orange region. that is what gives it its importance. "accidentally, while going over some old records, i came across some papers that changed the whole situation. i am not enough of a lawyer to know just how, except that if the papers were produced in court this mr. wardell and the other stockholders, no matter what was done by the other side, would get their rights. mr. larabee and his crowd could not keep them from so doing. "i showed to those who had hired me the papers i had found, and at once there was a great how-de-do. it was plainly seen that if they were allowed to get into court your uncle's case would be knocked higher than gilderoy's kite, even if wardell did not file certain papers which, i understand, could, at one time, have been filed. "your uncle and his lawyers determined on a bold move. they had me give certain testimony that would knock out the other side if they should file certain papers, and then they had me disappear, so i could not be brought into court to give the rest of my evidence and tell of the old document i had accidentally discovered. so i agreed to come to this lonely place, to live until after september third. after that date nothing wardell can do will save the railroad for himself and the others associated with him." "and you agreed to do this?" asked dick, bitterly. "you consented to see a man cheated out of his fortune?" "not at all," said mr. cameron, calmly. "as it was represented to me this mr. wardell tried to do others out of their holdings, and he got caught at his own game. that is why i agreed to do something that, while perfectly legal, might be considered a trick. i did it to help out your uncle ezra." "if i were to show you," went on our hero, "that matters had been misrepresented to you, and that you were doing mr. wardell a grave injustice, what would you do?" "misrepresented!" cried mr. cameron. "if you can prove to me that they've been fooling me--telling me things that aren't so--for the purpose of keeping me out of court, why, dick hamilton, i'll go back to san francisco to-morrow and rip their case apart in the highest court in the land! that's what i'll do!" and he leaped to his feet at the words. "then," said dick, quietly, "that is just what i am going to prove to you!" chapter xxix on to 'frisco the young millionaire started for the auto that was stalled in the sand. he intended to get from it the bundle of legal papers and prove to mr. cameron the statement just made about misrepresentation. but before he reached the _last word_ he heard the sound of some one coming toward the fire. and out of the desert darkness a voice hailed, saying: "hello there, mr. cameron! we were looking all over for you." "i'm here," said the young man, quickly. "enjoying myself. won't you come up and meet my new friends?" then to paul, who sat near him, he said in low tones: "my guards--as i call them! say nothing of this, and warn young hamilton. i will see you to-morrow." "wait a minute, dick!" called paul, as he glided off in the gloom toward the car which dick was approaching. "we thought you were lost," went on one of the two men who had come up. "lost in the desert, mr. cameron." "oh, no," he answered, lightly. "i was just strolling along, and i came to the concert." "concert!" exclaimed the other man. "is that another of your jokes?" from which it would appear that mr. cameron was in the habit of indulging in persiflage. "not at all," was the answer. "boys, will you start up the phonograph again for my friends?" "phonograph--out here in this desert!" exclaimed one of the two newcomers. "say, that sounds like 'frisco. can you give us some ragtime?" "we haven't a very choice selection of records," spoke innis, paul and dick being engaged in a whispered conversation near the car. "i'll play what we've got," and he started toward the car. "i'll have to get another record from the the machine," he added. "machine!" exclaimed one of the men. "have you an auto here, too?" "a big car," said mr. cameron. "it could swallow our modest six-cylinder, from the looks of it." "oh, then you also came in an auto?" asked dick of the engineer, who, with paul, had come back to the fire. "yes, i believe i forgot to mention that," said mr. cameron. "we escaped into the desert in a gasoline chariot, unlike the children of israel, who walked." "mr. cameron!" exclaimed one of the men, "i--ahem--i hope you'll excuse me mentioning it, but you know you promised not to do too much talking. it was the agreement----" "there are agreements--and agreements," said the young engineer, with peculiar emphasis. "you need have no fear of me, sam martin. and, while i am about it, let me present to you my new friends. boys, these are sam martin and bill wickford, my--er--my camp-mates," and he named the three chums in turn. "pleased to see you," said sam, with a jerky bow. "mr. cameron is camping out here for--er--for his health. bill and i are running things for him. it's no fun to be in the desert alone." "that's right," chimed in bill. "have you got any ragtime?" he asked, as innis came back with a record. then the phonograph was played again, sounding strangely in that lonely desert. mr. cameron seemed at his ease, but the two men were plainly nervous, and dick was much excited, though he tried not to show it. he had heard what paul said, and refrained from bringing out any of the papers. "that's fine!" exclaimed bill wickford, as the tune came to an end. "i wish we had one of those at our camp." "it might interfere with the seven-up tournament," observed mr. cameron, drily. "oh, we'd have time for that," said sam. "but i guess we'd better be getting back. it's late." "don't be in a hurry," urged dick, hospitably. "well, we may be over to see you again. we didn't know we had any neighbors so close by." "you might come over and see us," added bill, somewhat awkwardly. "we can't offer you much in the way of entertainment, but we'll do our best." "thanks," answered dick. "we may come, but we're going to pull out of this to-morrow, i hope. as soon as we can get out of this sand bog we'll travel." "we struck one of those places," volunteered sam, "and we had quite a time of it. well, so-long," and he and his companion seemed to hover around mr. cameron as though they were afraid he would let out something of the secret that had already been told, had they only known it. good-nights were said, and the three disappeared in the darkness. the chums stood for a moment silent about their dying camp fire. "well, what do you know about that?" asked paul. "it's a queer go," assented innis. "those men are just like guards," said dick. "uncle ezra, or his agents, must be afraid mr. cameron will go back on his promise." "if it was a promise given under misrepresentation then he is released from it--that holds in law," said paul. "i believe it does," agreed our hero. "i hope i get a chance to speak to him to-morrow. the idea of hiding him away out in this desert to prevent him from going to court. it's outrageous." "do you think he'll testify for mr. wardell if you show him the facts?" asked paul. "i sure do. well, let's turn in. to-morrow will be another day. there's a lot of hard work ahead of us." they were up early the next morning, the night having passed without incident, though grit growled several times as though intruders--human or otherwise--were about the camp. but he gave no decided alarm, and the boys did not pay much attention. soon after breakfast they resumed work on getting the auto out of the clinging sand, by using the canvas strips. while they were engaged on this, mr. cameron and his two guards came up. "we came to see if we could help you any," he said, with a wink. "at the same time i'd like to get a look at your car." he passed close to dick, and found a chance to whisper: "where are the papers?" "in the old envelope, back of the mirror," replied dick in the same low voice. then, in louder tones, he added: "we'd be glad of some help. it's hard work." "sam, and bill, don't you want to get busy?" went on the young engineer. "sure!" said sam. in fact, he and his companion seemed anxious to get the three boys away from the vicinity. the men helped spread and fasten down the canvas strips, and as dick got in the car to drive it forward, he saw mr. cameron looking over the legal papers that proved how he had been deceived. "by jove, hamilton!" he exclaimed, "you were right. they have put up a great game on me." "then will you turn them down?" "i certainly will. i'm on your side from now on. i didn't understand it. these papers make it plain." he and dick could talk without being regarded suspiciously, since the two men were working with paul and innis, spreading the strips of canvas. once or twice the two men looked at the car, as though wondering why mr. cameron was riding in it. he guessed their thoughts, and, putting back the papers, said to dick: "you may not need these, with my testimony. still, keep them safe. now i'd better leave you. those fellows are paid to watch me as a cat does a mouse. how can i get away and reach 'frisco?" "we'll take you," said dick, promptly. "we've accommodations for four in this car. can you manage to escape?" "yes, and it had better be to-night. there is a gully about a mile from here, near a dried water hole. you'll get to it if you keep straight on. can you wait for me there?" "yes," said dick, quickly. "then i won't say any more. here comes sam. i guess he's getting suspicious." mr. cameron left the car, which dick had stopped to allow him to alight, the engineer added in louder tones: "you certainly have a fine machine there, mr. hamilton. i envy you. now i'll give you a hand in getting under way again. perhaps i may see you some day in 'frisco." the canvas strips proved just the thing needed, and after about an hour's work the _last word_ was on firmer ground. then, bidding their new acquaintances good-bye, during which farewells dick winked at mr. cameron, to indicate that the arrangements made would be carried out, the big car was sent on over the desert. the two men seemed much relieved as it went off. dick easily found the gully mr. cameron had referred to. driving several miles past it, to throw off suspicion in case they were followed, the young millionaire came to a halt. "we'll wait here until night," he said, making his chums acquainted with the plan to be followed. the boys thought night would never come, but it did finally, and carefully they ran their car back nearly to the dry gully. then, stopping at a safe distance, dick went back to hold the rendezvous with mr. cameron. an hour passed, and dick was beginning to think that perhaps the plan had failed, when he heard a cautious whistle. it was a strain from "my old kentucky home." he answered in like manner, and then a voice called: "here i am. but we'd better be quick. they may follow me as they did last night." "come on," urged dick. they went back toward the car on the run. it was the work of but a moment to start it, and with four passengers now, instead of three, the _last word_ shot over the desert in the darkness, no lights being set aglow, as they wanted to remain concealed for some time yet. they were on their way to 'frisco, and with a better chance of saving mr. wardell's fortune than dick had imagined could be had, following the revelation in that stray newspaper. chapter xxx pursued "well, we got away in good shape!" "we sure did; and fooled those fellows." thus spoke paul and innis. "i'll show you that my car can go some, mr. cameron," said dick, as he turned on more power. "it may need to," answered the engineer. "why so?" "sam and bill aren't going to give up so easily. and they have a speedy machine." "you mean they may follow us?" "i wouldn't be a bit surprised if they did. you know they were paid to see that no hostile interests got at me." "and we might be regarded as 'hostile interests'; is that it?" inquired dick, with a smile. "somewhat; yes. so put as many miles between them and us as you can. they're sure to discover, sooner or later, that i have gone, and they'll pursue us. but i think i put one over on them at that." "how?" asked paul, from the rear of the car, for dick was driving. "i poured water in the gasoline tank. they may be able to run for a few miles, but they're sure to stall sooner or later." "then there's no use in worrying," said our hero, and he had almost slowed down his car, when mr. cameron said: "don't bank too much on that. they carry an extra supply of the 'gas,' and they're sure to find out, in a little while, what the trouble is. they're both experts, and they were sent off with me on that account. also, your uncle ezra's agents considered that it might be necessary for me to make a quick shift, so they provided a powerful car, and plenty of gasoline, though he did object most strenuously to the price." "i can imagine him doing that," agreed dick, with a laugh. "well, then, we'll keep on for a while longer, and remain dark. it won't be so easy for them to trace us then, as this car makes very little noise for its size." "i noticed that," said mr. cameron. on they shot, over the desert. it was about an hour since they had left the dry gully where they had picked up the young engineer, and they had covered several miles. once dick halted his machine, while they listened for any sounds of pursuit, but they heard none. if the other car was coming after them it was either following silently, or was so far back that no sound of its motor carried over the desert. "and so you put water in their gasoline tank?" chuckled dick, as he recalled what his guest had said. "yes, they were both playing 'seven-up,' and disputing over some intricate point, when i just took one of the water cans, and emptied it into the gas tank. i thought i ought to do something after their having taken most of the tricks so far." "that was all right!" rejoined dick. "i'd like to see them when they stall." "well, really i owed them something like that," went on the young engineer. "they had things their own way long enough. to think how i let them fool me makes me mad! and yet i believed what they told me--that they were in the right--i mean your uncle ezra and his friends--and of course as long as i was paid for my legitimate work, i saw nothing wrong in not coming to court to testify, particularly when they said that the other side had been guilty of the same kind of practice. "but i see their game now. they thought i would never hear the other side. it was the luckiest thing in the world that i stumbled into your camp last night. it was fate. do you believe in fate?" he asked dick. "i certainly do," answered that young man. "that is why i stuck those valuable papers--at least, they were valuable at one time--back of that glass where anyone could see them," and he told of the experiences he and his chums had gone through. in turn mr. cameron related some of his life's story. he was all alone in the world, having been left a small inheritance by his father. he took up the study of civil engineering, and made a success of it. it was by accident that he had been hired by mr. larabee's agents to make the survey, and the rest followed by a "trick of fate," as he described it. "i needed the money they promised to give me," he said, "or perhaps i should not have gone into the matter at all. i am intending to set up in business for myself, and the amount the lawyer named was very acceptable. i never stopped to think that i might be doing some one an injustice. the fact of the matter is, that i thought the trickery was on wardell's side." "i hope you are convinced now that it was not," said dick. "i am, perfectly. i think your uncle ezra, not to put too fine a point upon it, as the celebrated mr. snagsby would say--i think your uncle ezra rather put one over on me." "i believe he did," said dick, "and i'm glad i can be the means of correcting the wrong." "and what will uncle ezra say when he finds it out?" asked paul, with a chuckle. "i'm afraid," answered the young millionaire, "that he'll have a fit; won't he, grit?" the animal growled, as he nearly always did at the mention of mr. larabee's name. grit and mr. cameron, however, had made friends at once. they drove on for a few miles farther, stopping now and then to listen for sounds of an auto coming after them, but they heard nothing. then, as the way was getting rough, dick decided to light the lamps, since it was hardly possible now for the two men to see them over the desert. a short halt was made for this purpose, and then they got under way again. there was the coming of a pale light in the east, and dick, looking toward it, said: "the sun will soon be up. we'll keep on as far as we can in the cool of the day, and then halt in the best place we can find, for the engine easily gets overheated on this sandy desert. after rest, and a breakfast, we'll keep on." all thought this was a good plan, and it was followed. they had put many miles between themselves and the two men when they slackened speed for the morning meal. the sun seemed to come up with a "pop" from the sandy waste, and immediately it was warm. "thank goodness we haven't much more of this desert," said dick, as he helped his chums to prepare breakfast. "we can make better time when we get on harder ground." "are you going right into 'frisco?" asked innis. "as straight as i can," answered dick. "i don't want to run any more chances than i have to, and there's no telling what the other fellows may do when they find that mr. cameron has deserted them." "would they telegraph in to the lawyers?" asked paul. "very likely they would." "then they may be waiting for us when we arrive," said dick. "we'll have to be careful." "i agree with you," spoke mr. cameron. "once they know i have gone over to the other side--the right side--they will do their best to discredit me. they may even cause my arrest on some trumped-up charge, to prevent me from going into court and giving my evidence to save mr. wardell's fortune." "then we'll be careful that they don't get you," said dick, with a laugh. "i'll have some more coffee, paul." they were putting away the breakfast things, playfully scattering the wooden plates over the sand, when innis, who had gone to the rear of the car, to look at the brake band, that needed a slight adjusting, called out: "i say, dick, they're after us!" "who?" "mr. cameron's guards. there's a car coming over the desert behind us." they all ran to look, and there, in the distance, could be seen a cloud of dust. "maybe it's a stage coach," suggested paul. dick focussed a pair of field glasses on the cloud. then he exclaimed: "it's an auto, all right, and it must be after us, though i can't make out the kind of a car it is. still, we'll take no chances. come on, fellows, let's get a move on!" they tumbled into the _last word_ and were soon speeding off over the sand. "lucky there isn't much more of this," said paul. "we can't make any time here." "and if we don't run into another sand-bog we'll be lucky," added innis. "we simply mustn't do that," declared dick. "you fellows watch out, and so will i. we don't want to be delayed, for they would catch up to us then." "they'll have hard work to get me to go back with them," spoke mr. cameron, grimly. "well, we don't want a fight if we can help it," said our hero. "if we can beat them, so much the better," and he glanced back to where the other auto was coming on in pursuit of the big car. then dick turned on more power, and watched the road ahead keenly. he wanted no accidents now. but the auto behind was coming on swiftly. it was a powerful car, and was traveling light, while the _last word_ carried a heavy load. "but they sha'n't catch us!" murmured dick. from behind there sounded a report like that of a gun. "a blow-out!" cried paul. "no, they're trying to signal us--with revolvers," said mr. cameron, with a chuckle. chapter xxxi a breakdown each one of dick's chums said, afterward, that he thought the same thing at the moment mr. cameron made his statement--that the affair was more desperate than they had at first suspected. true, the men racing after them in the swift car might only be trying to attract their attention by the firing of revolver shots, but, knowing what he did, dick was more inclined to think that it was done with the intention of injuring some one. "do you really think they're shooting at us?" asked innis. "well, not so much at us, as at our car," said the young engineer. "the tires!" cried paul, with sudden thought. "what kind have you?" asked mr. cameron. "not pneumatic!" exclaimed dick, as he put on a little more power. "cushions instead. it won't hurt them to get a few bullets inside." "good! for i think that's their intention," went on mr. cameron. "they're not in effective range yet, though. but they think they can disable us, and then get me back in their control again. they're going to have their own troubles doing that though!" and he shut his teeth grimly. his former light-hearted manner seemed to have left him. paul took a backward glance at the oncoming car. behind it there floated a little haze of smoke from the firing of the revolver. "they're coming on," murmured the youth. "can you get any more speed up, dick?" "i think so. i'm sort of doing it gradually, though, for this going is hard on the running gear, and i don't want a breakdown." the _last word_ responded well to the demand made on her for increased speed. faster and faster she raced over the sandy stretch of the desert, and now, innis, looking back, reported: "we're giving them the go-by, dick, old man!" "glad of it. i thought we would. i have something left in reserve, too. i guess we'll make a get-away, all right." "that water in the gasoline ought to work pretty soon, i should think," said mr. cameron. "they must have used up all that was in the feed pipe and carbureter, and the small auxiliary tank." "i guess that's what's the trouble now, all right!" went on innis. "see, they have stopped." "then they're stuck!" cried the engineer, joyfully. "it's all right, boys. they won't be able to find out what's the matter for an hour or more. they'll tinker with every part of the engine, and when they do find it's the gas we'll be far enough off." "that's right," agreed dick. "it was a good thing to do." "the nerve of them, though--firing at us!" exclaimed paul. "they might have hit one of us." "i don't believe they would have done so intentionally," spoke the engineer. "the men are not as desperate as that. but the bullets might have glanced off. i imagine they fired low, just at the tires. but they had nerve even to chase after us, as if i were an escaping criminal." "do you think they had orders to prevent you from going away?" asked dick. "i believe they did," was the answer, "and to use force, if necessary. i didn't realize it before, but those men, including your uncle ezra, mr. hamilton, are probably desperate at the fear of losing control of this road. it means a big thing to them, and they want to beat mr. wardell if possible. but they shan't, if i can prevent it." dick, now that he realized that the chase was over for the time being, slowed up his car. they looked back along the level desert road, and saw, in the dim distance, the two men busy about their stalled machine. "that will hold them for a while," said mr. cameron. "now we can take our time about getting away." four hours later they had reached the end of the desert and had passed into nevada. "into civilization once more," remarked paul, as they saw the different nature of the country before them. "and i'm glad of it," exclaimed dick. "i've had enough of desert travel for a while." "what is your programme?" asked mr. cameron, as they came to a pleasant place, where dick decided they would stay for the night. it was sufficiently far from the main road to preclude the possibility of their pursuers finding them, even should they be able to get under way again. and that part of nevada was not thickly populated. "i think we'll head for carson city," said our hero. "it will be the most direct route to reach san francisco, and now that the matter of filing the papers within a certain date isn't so important, i want to get to the court as soon as possible." "that's right," agreed the young engineer. "as soon as i can make affidavit to what i know your friend wardell will be safe. then it will be a matter of fighting it out legally, but he'll have a chance for his white alley, as the boys say. it won't be all one-sided. he'll have an opportunity to put his side of the case in, and i think the courts will restore his fortune to him. i'll do all i can for him, anyhow." "that's very good of you," said dick. "not at all. it's up to me to do that much, especially after what i did to knock him out--though i didn't mean to, and it was because i was deceived. i'll have a talk with your uncle, when i see him, dick hamilton," he added significantly. "i don't imagine uncle ezra will show up around these parts, once he knows he is likely to be defeated," said the young millionaire, with a smile. "he'll rather have it in for you; won't he, dick?" asked paul, as he patted grit on the head. "well, he may," dick admitted, with a peculiar smile; "but i'm not as afraid of my uncle as i used to be. i may tell him some things, too, the way i did when he tried to kidnap me." "how was that?" asked mr. cameron, interestedly. "oh, when i went on a cruise in my ship," answered the owner of the _last word_, and he related the main incidents as i have set them down in "dick hamilton's steam yacht." "he's as bold as an old-fashioned pirate--your uncle," remarked the young engineer when dick had finished. "but, say, this is something like living!" he exclaimed, as he saw the preparations under way for getting a meal. "i'm glad i eloped with you boys. can i help at anything?" "you might see if you can get some water," suggested dick. "that in the tanks is a bit stale, i fancy." soon they were merrily eating, and talking over their plans for the next few days. they slept that night in the auto, and in the morning were off again, no signs of their pursuers having been seen. in due time they reached carson city, and laid in a supply of food and gasoline. then they hurried onward again. the road was fine in some places, and miserable in others, but they made fairly good time. they were in california now, and the end of their journey was almost in sight. they might have taken a train, and gotten to san francisco sooner, perhaps, and very likely it would have been safer to do so, considering the risks they ran. but if this occurred to them they did not give it a second thought. besides, dick did not want to abandon his car, and he had a sort of pride in sticking to it throughout the whole journey across the continent. true, mr. cameron might have gone on by himself, but when dick suggested this the engineer said: "no, i'm going to stick by the ship. i don't believe those fellows can get ahead of us. anyhow, i want your testimony, dick, to go in with mine. besides, i hold the trump cards, so to speak. they can't do anything without me, and the evidence i will give is the most important in the case. "another thing, i feel as if i needed protection, and you boys can provide it. if i started for 'frisco all alone they might get hold of me somehow, and keep me out of the way until it was too late to do anything. so i'll just stick with you. four are harder to handle than one, as they'll find if they come any of their funny tricks on us." "that's right!" agreed paul, while innis clenched his fists suggestively. the way was rougher now, and they were proceeding more slowly. the trip across the desert had somewhat delayed them, for the heavy car sank deeper into the sand than they had counted on, and the trip had consumed nearly three times as much time as it ordinarily does. they were within a few hours' run of sacramento, passing through a rather lonely region, when dick, who was at the wheel, leaned forward, and through the open front windows of the car seemed to be listening to the chug-chug of the motor. "what's the matter?" asked paul. "she doesn't seem to be running just right," he answered. "something seems to be out of gear. maybe it's one of the timers. i guess i'll have a look." as he put out his hand to shut off the gasoline by the lever provided for that purpose, the big car came to a sudden stop of its own accord. "a breakdown, i guess," murmured dick. "and a bad place to have it in," he added as he looked about him. as he alighted, followed by the others, there came up behind them a powerful auto containing three men. this car stopped, and two of the strangers got out, approaching dick and his friends. chapter xxxii the race "something gone wrong?" asked one of the men, pleasantly, while the third member of the trio was getting out of the powerful car that had pulled up back of dick's. "yes, the motor stopped without any reason, as far as i can see," said our hero. he gave a hasty glance at the men. as far as he could tell he had never seen any of them before. a look at mr. cameron showed that he was not perturbed at their arrival, for he was looking at some queer rocks at the side of the roadway. "perhaps i can be of some service," said another of the trio. "i know something of autos." "we'll take a look," agreed dick, as he opened the bonnet over the motor. "it's the first time it's gone back on me since i had it, except for a little brake trouble," he went on. "it's a mighty fine car," said the stranger. "i don't know as i ever saw one like it." "she was built to order," said dick, not caring to go into details. yet he had no intention of concealing anything, for he realized that their enemies, if they desired to keep track of their progress, could do so anyhow, since the car was not one to be easily forgotten. while dick and the man who had admitted that he was something of an auto expert, were going over the motor, looking for the trouble, the other two strangers had gone back to their car. "want any help?" asked paul, as he and innis strolled about. "i guess not," said dick. "make yourselves comfortable. we'll start as soon as we can." mr. cameron was walking idly about, examining different geological specimens. then the two men who had gone back to their car discovered that one of the tires had a puncture, and was down almost flat. they called this information to the one who was with dick, and the latter answered: "better put in a new inner tube. we'll want to make time when we get away from here." "don't let me keep you," said dick, quickly. "i think i may be able to locate the trouble myself." "well, i am in something of a hurry," the man admitted. "but, since my own car needs attention i'll stay with you until they get the tire fixed. have you looked at the carbureter?" "no, i was just going to." together they inspected that important part of an auto's mechanism. they found it a little out of adjustment, and proceeded to remedy it. "i imagine the trouble, as much as anything, is in the gasoline," said the stranger. "it's an awful poor quality they supply nowadays. it'll get so, after a while, that we'll have to use kerosene. in fact, i'm thinking of getting a car that has a two-jet carbureter on it, to mingle gasoline and kerosene. that's what we'll come to, after a while." he and dick talked interestedly of the mechanical side of autos, while the carbureter was put in shape for a test. meanwhile the two men were working away at their tire. they seemed to be having trouble with it, and paul and innis were just going to ask if they did not want some help in return for the service their friend was rendering dick, when mr. cameron exclaimed: "i'll lend 'em a hand. i want to learn how to change a tire. i may have an auto of my own some day." with the three of them at work, the tire was soon in shape and pumped up. but dick's car would not respond. the self-starter was tried again and again, but, though the motor flywheel was turned over rapidly, the cylinders would not take up their work. "she doesn't seem to be getting a spark," said the man. "how is your magneto?" "it never has been out of order," said dick. "still, there is always a first time." "let's have a look at that," the stranger suggested, and he and dick went around on the other side of the car where the electrical mechanism was located under the bonnet. as they reached it there came from the other car the staccato sound of the exhaust. one of the men had started it going. "now don't let me keep you!" exclaimed dick. "it's getting late, and we can bunk here all night if we have to. you can't." "no, that's where you have the advantage of us. but i'll just have a look at your magneto, and then i'm afraid i'll have to be getting on. i'll be with you in a minute!" he called to his two friends. "are you ready to start?" "we will be in a minute," came back the answer. mr. cameron was standing near the machine, while paul and innis had strolled over to a spring and were drinking. suddenly, as dick looked, he saw one of the men at the other auto make a jump for mr. cameron. the latter leaped back, but not in time to avoid being caught. the young millionaire had a glimpse of a white cloth being pressed over his friend's face, and a moment later the two men had lifted him into the tonneau. then, while one held the struggling engineer there, the other leaped to the steering wheel. "come on!" he cried, evidently to the man with dick. "we're ready now!" "good!" and with that the third man raced from dick's side and the next instant was in the moving auto. a moment later it passed dick's car with a burst of speed, and went down the road in a cloud of dust, bearing off mr. cameron. for a moment dick could not find his voice. then as the significance of what had occurred dawned on him he cried out: "paul--innis! they've got mr. cameron! it was a trick! those are some of uncle ezra's agents! they're going to get mr. cameron out of the way and spoil our case. come on!" the two cadets came running back, surprise showing on their faces. "we've got to get him back!" cried dick. "but how can you, with our car stalled?" asked paul. the young millionaire made a gesture of despair. then with a last hope he sprang to the steering wheel and pressed the button of the self-starter. with a whizz and a roar the motor began running. by some trick dick and the man had remedied the trouble without knowing it. the _last word_ could proceed again. "good luck!" cried innis. "come on!" yelled dick. "we've got to chase them!" the three made flying leaps for the car, and a moment later the strange race was on. but the other auto was out of sight. chapter xxxiii just in time "say, they're regular kidnappers!" "that's what! wanting to help us was all part of the trick." "i wonder how they overpowered him? he was a strong man." "chloroform, i guess." "that's right," agreed dick, the foregoing remarks having been made by his chums as the big car dashed along in pursuit of the other. "i smelled it," the young millionaire added. "i do hope we can catch the scoundrels!" murmured paul. "it's a handicap, though, with night coming on," said innis. "well, we won't stop until we have to," said dick, grimly. "how do you suppose they worked it?" asked paul, as the _last word_ careened on over the uneven way. "they must have been trailing us," suggested dick, as he held to the vibrating steering wheel. "martin and wickford probably got in touch with their crowd by telegraph after we got away from them, and very likely mapped out the course we would probably take. they knew we had to come to san francisco. then they dropped out of the game--martin and wickford did--and some others took up the chase. the object was to get hold of mr. cameron so he couldn't testify." "and they've done it," said innis, gloomily. "but we'll get him back!" asserted paul. "that's what!" declared dick. "we'll keep on their trail until we get him away from them. fate rather played into their hands this trip. if we hadn't become stalled they might not have caught up with us, as i was thinking of laying up over night, and they might have passed us in the evening. "however, it can't be helped. we'll do the best we can. as soon as they saw us, when they came dashing up, they must have laid their plans. they knew our car the moment they laid eyes on it, and we were at a disadvantage, for we'd never seen them before." "and we didn't suspect," added paul, gloomily. "no," went on our hero. "i even believe they punctured that tire on purpose." "they might have," admitted innis. "it's a wonder that fellow didn't put your motor out of commission for keeps, dick, while he was working over it." "he might easily have done so. i never suspected a thing. but i was watching him pretty closely, for all that, for he didn't know as much about machinery as he pretended to. he couldn't have tried any trick without my seeing him, and i guess he didn't care to take any chances. "his game was to hold my attention while his confederates worked things so as to get mr. cameron near their car. then they grabbed him, stuck a chloroformed rag over his nose to take the fight out of him, and made their get-away." "it's lucky your motor started when it did," remarked innis, as he clung to the sides of the swaying car. "that's right," agreed dick. "we might have been stalled yet, only that luck was with us. i suppose monkeying with it the way we did, we put back into adjustment some little thing that was out of gear. she's running like a sewing machine now." and indeed the big car was responding nobly to the demands made on her. the road was very good, fortunately. it was getting dusk, but the boys had no thought of even halting for supper. there were some sandwiches they could eat later on. dick switched on the powerful searchlights and the path ahead of them was illumined by a brilliant glow. mile after mile they covered, and as it happened, the only crossroads they passed were so poor that it would have been dangerous for the car ahead of them to have turned off. "though they may slip into some side lane, and trust to us to run past," said paul. "maybe," assented dick. "the odds are against us, but we'll keep on." "look!" suddenly cried innis, pointing ahead. through the darkness they could see a single gleam of red, like some big ruby. "their tail light!" cried dick. "unless it's some other car," said paul. "we haven't passed any, though maybe we're catching up to one that came in from some side road," admitted dick. "here goes for a spurt. maybe we can catch 'em!" he threw on all the power that was safe on such a road at night, and the _last word_ forged ahead. it was their one best chance to catch the other car, if indeed that was it, and they were taking advantage of it. on and on they raced, the big auto swaying dangerously. fortunately they did not have to worry about tire trouble, and this was something that might handicap the other car at a moment's notice. on and on they raced. "the light seems to be brighter now," said paul. "i think we are catching up to them," agreed innis. "i hope so," murmured dick. he peered ahead for a sign of any possible obstruction into which they might crash. at the speed they were keeping up, to hit anything, or have even a slight accident, would be serious. but the big lights made the road very plain. "they must have seen us," observed paul. "i fancy so," agreed dick. "i wish we had some way of puncturing one of their tires." almost as he spoke there came from the car ahead of them a loud report. "they're firing at us, just as those other fellows did!" cried paul. "no, that wasn't a shot!" yelled dick. "fellows, it's a tire blow-out. we've got 'em." he gave the laboring motor of the _last word_ a little more gasoline and adjusted the spark lever. the car responded promptly. "we're overhauling 'em!" cried innis. the red tail light was growing more bright every moment. it could be seen that the other auto was losing speed. there was the sound of another tire giving way, and then the screech as brakes were quickly applied. "we've got 'em!" yelled dick. "luck's with us to-night, all right!" the other car was in full glare of the search-lamps of dick's car now. three figures were seen to leap out and make for the woods on one side of the highway. "mr. cameron! mr. cameron!" yelled dick. "are you all right?" there was no answer. a moment later the big car shot up alongside the stalled one. the boys leaped out, and a glance inside the auto they had pursued showed them the figure of the engineer huddled up on the floor of the tonneau. "are you all right? have they harmed you?" asked dick, opening one of the side doors. a murmur was the only answer he got. "they've gagged him!" cried paul. a moment later the boys had the rag from the mouth of their friend, and had cut the cords that bound him. they helped him to his feet, and one of them brought him a drink of water from the big car. "how are you?" asked dick, anxiously. "all--right--now," was the hesitating answer. "a little--knocked out, but still in the ring. you came just in time, boys." "how is that?" inquired dick. "ten minutes later they would have been at the railroad station, and had me aboard a train. then they'd have taken me into the unknown again, and you'd never have gotten me until it was too late. you were just in time." chapter xxxiv the fortune saved little time was lost in transferring mr. cameron to dick's big car. the young engineer was soon himself again, the slight feeling of illness, caused by the chloroform, passing off. "those blowouts came just in time to let us get you," remarked dick, as he looked at the stalled car. "yes," agreed mr. cameron. "they ran so fast they overheated the shoes. i didn't think you could catch us." "oh, the _last word_ can go some when she has to," said dick, proudly. "i never called on her for as much speed as this before though. what did they do to you?" "nothing much, after they took me by surprise, and bundled me into their car. then they gagged me, as i found out when i recovered my senses, and they trussed me up pretty well with the ropes. i could hear them talking, though." "were they some of uncle ezra's gang?" asked dick. "yes, they were taking the place of my two former guards, sam and bill. i guess they had their orders to hide me away somewhere so you boys couldn't find me until it was too late. but what are you going to do now?" "get something to eat, and then head for san francisco as fast as the car will take us," said dick. "we won't waste another minute. no telling what trick they may try next." the meal, served in the big auto, revived them, for they were tired with the chase and worn by anxiety. soon they all felt better and a little later they were on the move again, leaving the stalled car where doubtless the men would come back and get it. "it's a wonder they didn't show fight when they found we were overhauling them," said paul. "i guess they didn't dare risk it," said mr. cameron. "they were taking enough chances with the law as it was. well, i'll be glad when this is over so i can settle down to business again. i'll give my testimony as soon as i can, and then the case will be over." as mr. cameron knew the roads well they made a night journey of it, coming at dawn to a fair-sized city where they stopped for gasoline. then they continued on, and in due time came to san francisco. "now what's the program?" asked paul, when they realized that they were at the end of their journey. they had crossed this great continent. "get to a good lawyer, explain the case to him and have him fix matters up so your friend wardell won't lose his fortune," said mr. cameron, and this was done, a call being made on mr. whitfield ainslie, who was recommended by mr. tunison. the lawyer agreed that no time was to be lost. matters were put in shape for presentation to the courts, and mr. cameron's affidavits were filed. the papers dick had taken such care of came in useful, though their importance was not as great as they would have been had not mr. cameron been able to tell what he knew. then came the day in court, when the other side, with the lawyers representing mr. larabee fighting in every way their trained legal minds could think of. the judge heard all the testimony, including how mr. cameron had discovered the unexpected evidence, and how, under a misapprehension, he had agreed to keep silent about it. the manner in which mr. wardell gave up his railroad stock was also recited. "why is he himself not here to give testimony?" the judge asked. "because, your honor," said mr. ainslie, "he is really not needed. he has given mr. hamilton power of attorney to act for him. besides mr. wardell is, i am informed by credible authority, in south america, trying to make a new fortune for himself." "well," remarked the judge with a little smile, "in that case i think we shall have to give him back his old one. i find for mr. wardell, let judgment be entered accordingly," and he signed the papers and turned them over to his clerk for formal filing. "what does that mean?" whispered dick to his lawyer. "it means that you have saved mr. wardell's fortune for him. i congratulate you." "well, i had a race for it!" said dick, grimly. "but it was fun after all." of course uncle ezra's lawyers tried their best to upset the judgment in mr. wardell's favor, but they were ruled out of court. uncle ezra even came on himself, crabbed and angry at having spent money on railroad fare. "and so you're responsible for my losing all this money, be you, nephew richard?" he snarled, when he found he had lost his case. "it wasn't yours by rights," declared dick. "i'm sorry to have to go against you, but it was the only thing i could do." "humph!" sniffed mr. larabee. "don't you let that pesky dog of yours nip me, or i'll sue you for damages!" he cried, as grit growled and showed a desire to get nearer to uncle ezra's legs. "down, grit," said dick, quietly. "i don't suppose, uncle ezra," he went on, "that you'll want to ride back with us in the big auto. we'll be touring back after we see something of california." "i wouldn't ride with you for a farm!" snapped the old man. "besides, i've got a return ticket an' i'm not goin' to let the railroad get the best of me. i've lost enough money as it is." "you might sell the ticket," suggested dick, but he hoped his relative would not ride back with him. "huh! yes, and lose nigh half of it. no, sir, i'm going back in the cars!" "thank goodness!" exclaimed paul in a low voice. and then, as mr. larabee left dick's chum asked: "well, what's next on the program, old man? do you think we'll have any more adventures like those we've just passed through?" "i don't know," remarked, dick, musingly. and what new adventures befell him and his friends will be related in the next book of this series, to be called "dick hamilton's airship; or, a young millionaire in the clouds." uncle ezra departed for the east next day, a very much put-out man. he said he never would forgive his nephew. "now look here, uncle ezra," remarked our hero, solemnly. "i don't care what you think, for i know i did right in this matter. you may have been fully within the law in what you did----" "i was, nephew richard. i had the law with me." "but not the moral law," went on dick. "you might have been the cause of mr. wardell taking his life. he actually contemplated that as he was in such despair at losing his fortune. i was lucky enough to prevent him, and i saved his fortune for him, for the honor of my family." "humph!" sniffed uncle ezra, as he went for his train, grit growling a good-bye. "wa'al, maybe it's all for the best," he added grudgingly. "i've lost a pile of money, but still i wouldn't want anybody to suicide on my account." "and now let's forget law and legal papers and all such stuff!" cried dick, a little later. "we're going to have a good time the rest of the summer." and that they did need not be doubted. dick informed his father by telegraph of the success of the trip, and later wrote the main facts to him. in turn mr. hamilton sent dick a letter that had come from mr. wardell in south america. thus in possession of the address dick wrote telling of the saving of the fortune. and, as mr. wardell had not been as successful in south america as he had hoped to be, he came on home, and took up the management of his affairs, so luckily preserved to him. mr. cameron, in recognition of his services, was made chief engineer of the railroad, a position that exactly suited him. mr. wardell offered dick a substantial sum, but the young millionaire turned it over to charity. criminal action might have been taken against the men who practically kidnapped him, but it was decided best to drop the matter, so they were not sought out, nor were those who had annoyed and tried to get the papers from dick. "and now let's tour california," said dick one day, some time after all court matters were over. "we'll see the sights and start back across the continent so as to get to kentfield when the football season opens!" "that's the talk!" cried paul drew. and here we will take leave of dick hamilton and his friends. the end note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 17342-h.htm or 17342-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/3/4/17342/17342-h/17342-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/3/4/17342/17342-h.zip) the motor maid * * * * * books by c. n. and a. m. williamson lord loveland discovers america set in silver the lightning conductor the princess passes my friend the chauffeur lady betty across the water rosemary in search of a father the princess virginia the car of destiny the chaperon * * * * * the motor maid by c. n. and a. m. williamson authors of "lord loveland discovers america," "my friend the chauffeur," "the princess virginia," etc. with four illustrations in color by f. m. du mond and f. lowenheim [illustration: "we raced along a clear road, the etang shimmering blue before us"] a. l. burt company publishers new york all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian copyright, 1910, by doubleday, page & company published, august, 1910 the country life press, garden city, n.y. to the three gertrudes illustrations "we raced along a clear road, the etang shimmering blue before us" _frontispiece_ facing page "while i wrestled ... with a bodice as snug as the head of a drum, the lord of all it contained appeared in the doorway" 48 "it took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest" 272 "jack's hand, inside mr. stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets" 328 chapter i one hears of people whose hair turned white in a single night. last night i thought mine was turning. i had a creepy feeling in the roots, which seemed to crawl all the way down inside each separate hair, wriggling as it went. i suppose you couldn't have nervous prostration of the hair? i worried dreadfully, it kept on so long; and my hair is so fair it would be almost a temptation for it, in an emergency, to take the one short step from gold to silver. i didn't dare switch on the light in the _wagon-lit_ and peep at my pocket-book mirror (which reflects one's features in sections of a square inch, giving the survey of one's whole face quite a panorama effect) for fear i might wake up the bull dog. i've spelt him with capitals, after mature deliberation, because it would be nothing less than _lèse majesté_ to fob him off with little letters about the size of his two lower eye-tusks, or chin-molars, or whatever one ought to call them. he was on the floor, you see, keeping guard over his mistress's shoes; and he might have been misguided enough to think i had designs on them--though what i could have used them for, unless i'd been going to venice and wanting a private team of gondolas, i can't imagine. i being in the upper berth, you might (if you hadn't seen him) have fancied me safe; but already he had once padded half-way up the step-ladder, and sniffed at me speculatively, as if i were a piece of meat on the top shelf of a larder; and if half-way up, why not all the way up? _il était capable du tout._ i tried to distract my mind and focus it hard on other things, as christian scientists tell you to do when you have a pin sticking into your body for which _les convenances_ forbid you to make an exhaustive search. i lay on my back with my eyes shut, trying not to hear any of the sounds in the _wagon-lit_ (and they were not confined to the snoring of his majesty), thinking desperately. "i will concentrate all my mentality," said i to myself, "on thoughts beginning with p, for instance. my past. paris. pamela." just for a few minutes it was comparatively easy. "dear past!" i sighed, with a great sigh which for divers reasons i was sure couldn't be heard beyond my own berth. (and though i try always even to _think_ in english, i find sometimes that the words group themselves in my head in the old patterns--according to french idioms.) "dear past, how thou wert kind and sweet! how it is brutalizing to turn my back upon thee and thy charms forever!" "oh, my goodness, i shall certainly die!" squeaked a voice in the berth underneath; and then there was a sound of wallowing. she (my stable-companion, shall i call her?) had been giving vent to all sorts of strange noises at intervals, for a long time, so that it would have been hopeless to try and drown my sorrows in sleep. away went the gentle past with a bump, as if it had knocked against a snag in the current of my thoughts. paris or pamela instead, then! or both together, since they seem inseparable, even when pamela is at her most american, and tells me to "talk united states." it was all natural to think of pamela, because it was she who gave me the ticket for the _train de luxe_, and my berth in the _wagon-lit_. if it hadn't been for pamela i should at this moment have been crawling slowly, cheaply, down riviera-ward in a second-class train, sitting bolt upright in a second-class carriage with smudges on my nose, while perhaps some second-class child shed jammy crumbs on my frock, and its second-class baby sister howled. "oh, why did i leave my peaceful home?" wailed the lady in the lower berth. heaven alone (unless it were the dog) knew why she had, and knew how heartily i wished she hadn't. a good thing cerberus was on guard, or i might have dropped a pillow accidentally on her head! just then i wasn't thanking pamela for her generosity. the second-class baby's mamma would have given it a bottle to keep it still; but there was nothing i could give the fat old lady; and she had already resorted to the bottle (something in the way of patent medicine) without any good result. yet, _was_ there nothing i could give her? "oh, i'm dying, i _know_ i'm dying, and nobody cares! i shall choke to death!" she gurgled. it was too much. i could stand it and the terrible atmosphere no longer. i suppose, if i had been an early christian martyr, waiting for my turn to be devoured might have so got on my nerves eventually that i would have thrown myself into the arena out of sheer spite at the lions, and then tried my best to disagree with them. anyway, bull dog or no bull dog, having made a light, i slid down from my berth--no thanks to the step-ladder--dangled a few wild seconds in the air, and then offering--yes, offering my stockinged feet to the minotaur, i poked my head into the lower berth. "what are you going to do?" gasped its occupant, _la grosse femme_ whose fault it would be if my hair did change from the gold of a louis to the silver of a mere franc. "you say you're stifling," i reminded her, politely but firmly, and my tone was like the lull before a storm. "yes, but----" we were staring into each other's eyes, and--could i believe my sense of touch, or was it mercifully blunted? it seemed that the monster on the floor was gently licking my toes with a tongue like a huge slice of pink ham, instead of chewing them to the bone. but there are creatures which do that to their victims, i've heard, by way of making it easier to swallow them, later. "you also said no one cared," i went on, courageously. "_i_ care--for myself as well as for you. as for what i'm going to do--i'm going to do several things. first, open the window, and then--_then i'm going to undress you_." "you must be mad!" gasped the lady, who was english. oh, but more english than any one else i ever saw in my life. "not yet," said i, as i darted at the thick blind she had drawn down over the window, and let it fly up with a snap. i then opened the window itself, a few inches, and in floated a perfumed breath of the soft april air for which our bereaved lungs had been longing. the breeze fluttered round my head like a benediction until i felt that the ebbing tide of gold had turned, and was flowing into my back hair again. "no wonder you're dying, madam," i exclaimed, switching the heat-lever to "froid." "so was i, but being merely an upper berth, with no rights, i was suffering in silence. i watched you turn the heat full on, and shut the window tight. i saw you go to bed in _all_ your clothes, which looked terribly thick, and cover yourself up with both your blankets; but i said nothing, because you were a lower berth, and older than i am. i thought maybe you _wanted_ a turkish bath. but since you don't--i'll try and save you from apoplexy, if it isn't too late." i fumbled with brooches and buttons, with hooks and eyes. it was even worse than i'd supposed. the creature's conception of a travelling costume _en route_ for the south of france consisted of a heavy tweed dress, two gray knitted stay-bodices, one pink jaeger chemise, and a couple of red flannel petticoats. my investigations went no further; but, encouraged in my rescue work by spasmodic gestures on the part of the patient, and forbearance on the part of the dog, i removed several superfluous layers of wool. one blanket went to the floor, where it was accepted in the light of a gift by his majesty, and the other was returned to its owner. "now are you better, madam?" i asked, panting with long and well-earned breaths. she reposed on an elbow, gazing up at me as at a surgeon who has performed a painful but successful operation; and she was an object _pour faire rire_, the poor lady! she wore an old-fashioned false front of hair, "sunning over with curls" (brown ones, of a brown never seen on land or sea), and a pair of spectacles, pushed up in an absent-minded moment, were entangled in its waves. her face, which was large, with a knot of tiny features in the middle, shone red with heat and excitement. she would have had the look of an elderly child, if it hadn't been for her bright, shrewd little eyes, which twinkled observantly--and might sparkle with temper. nobody who was not rich and important would dare to dress as badly as she did. altogether she was a figure of fun. indeed, i couldn't help feeling what quaint mantelpiece ornaments she and her dog would make. yet, for some reason, i didn't feel inclined to laugh, and i eyed her as solemnly as she eyed me. as for his majesty, i began to see that i had misunderstood him. after all, he had never, from the first, regarded me as an eatable. "yes, i _am_ better," replied his majesty's mistress. "people have always told me it came on treacherously cold at night in france, so i prepared accordingly. i suppose i ought to thank you. in fact, i do thank you." "i acted for myself as much as for you," i confessed. "it was so hot, and you were suffering out loud." "i have never travelled at night before," the lady defended herself. "indeed, i've made a point of travelling as little as possible, except by carriage. i don't consider trains a means of conveyance for gentlefolk. they seem well enough for cattle who may not mind being herded together." "or for dogs," i suggested. "nothing is too good for beau--my _only_ beau!" (at this i did not wonder). "but i wouldn't have moved without him. he's as necessary to me as my conscience. i was afraid the guard was going to make a fuss about him, which would have been awkward, as i can't speak a word of french, or any other silly language into which latin has degenerated. but luckily english gold doesn't need to be translated." "it loses in translation," said i, amused. i sat down on my bag as i spoke, and timorously invited beau (never was name less appropriate) to be patted. he arose from the blanket and accepted my overtures with an expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. i have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a door-knocker. "i don't think i ever saw him take so to a stranger," exclaimed his mistress, suddenly beaming. "i wonder you risked him with me in such close quarters then," said i. "wouldn't it have been safer if you'd had your maid in the compartment with you----" "my maid? my tyrant!" snorted the old lady. "she's the one creature on earth i am afraid of, and she knows it. when we got to dover, and she saw the channel wobbling about a little, she said it was a great nasty wet thing, and she wouldn't go on it. when i insisted, she showed symptoms of seasickness; and in consequence she is waiting for me in dover till i finish the business that's taking me to italy. i had no more experience than she, but i had _courage_. it's perhaps a question of class. servants consider only themselves. you, too, i see, have courage. i was inclined to think poorly of you when you first came in, and to wish i'd been extravagant enough to take the two beds for myself, because i thought you were afraid of beau. yet now you're patting him." "i _was_ rather afraid at first," i admitted. "i never met an english bull dog socially before." "they're more angels than dogs. their one interest in life is love--for their friends; and they wouldn't hurt a fly." "larger game would be more in their way, i should think," said i. "but i'm glad he likes me. i like to be liked. it makes me feel more at home in life." "h'm! that's a funny idea!" remarked the old lady. "'at home in life!' you've made yourself pretty well at home in this _wagon-lit_, anyhow, taking off all your clothes and putting on your nightgown. i should never have thought of that. it seems hardly decent. suppose we should be killed." "most people do try to die in their nightgowns, when you come to think of it," said i. "well, you have a quaint way of putting things. there's something very original about you, my dear young woman. i thought you were mysterious at first, but i believe it's only the effect of originality." "i don't know which i'd rather be," i said, "original or mysterious, if i couldn't afford both. but i'm not a young woman." "goodness!" exclaimed the old lady, wrinkling up her eyes to stare at me. "i may be pretty blind, but it can't be make-up." i laughed. "i mean _je suis jeune fille_. i'm not a young woman. i'm a young girl." "dear me, is there any difference?" "there is in france." "i'm not surprised at queer ideas in france, or any other foreign country, where i've always understood that _anything_ may happen. why can't everybody be english? it would be so much more simple. but you're not french, are you?" "half of me is." "and what's the other half, if i may ask?" "american. my father was french, my mother american." "no wonder you don't always feel at home in life, divided up like that!" she chuckled. "it must be so upsetting." "everything is upsetting with me lately," i said. "with me too, if it comes to that--or would be, if it weren't for beau. what a pity you haven't got a beau, my dear." i smiled, because (in the americanized sense of the word) i had one, and was running away from him as fast as i could. but the thought of monsieur charretier as a "beau" made me want to giggle hysterically. "you say 'was,' when you speak of your father and mother," went on the old lady, with childlike curiosity, which i was encouraging by not going back to bed. "does that mean that you've lost them?" "yes," i said. "and lately?" "my father died when i was sixteen, my mother left me two years ago." "you don't look more than nineteen now." "i'm nearly twenty-one." "well, i don't mean to catechize you, though one certainly must get friendly--or the other way--i suppose, penned up in a place like this all night. and you've really been very kind to me. although you're a pretty girl, as you must know, i didn't think at first i was going to like you so much." "and i didn't you," i retorted, laughing, because i really did begin to like the queer old lady now, and was glad i hadn't dropped a pillow on her head. "that's right. be frank. i like frankness. do you know, i believe you and i would get on very well together if our acquaintance was going to be continued? if beau approves of a person, i let myself go." "you use him as if he were a barometer." "there you are again, with your funny ideas! i shall remember that one, and bring it out as if it were my _own_. i consider myself quite lucky to have got you for a travelling companion. it's such a comfort to hear english again, and talk it, after having to converse by gesture--except with beau. i hope you're going on to italy?" "no. i'm getting off at cannes." "i'm sorry. but i suppose you're glad?" "not particularly," said i. "i've always heard that cannes was gay." "it won't be for me." "your relations there don't go out much?" "i've no relations in cannes. aren't you tired now, and wouldn't you like me to make you a little more comfortable?" "does that mean that _you're_ tired of answering questions? i haven't meant to be rude." "you haven't been," i assured her. "you're very kind to take an interest." "well, then, i'm _not_ tired, and i _wouldn't_ like to be made more comfortable. i'm very well as i am. do you want to go to sleep?" "i want to, but i know i can't. i'm getting hungry. are you?" "getting? i've _got_. if simpkins were here i'd have her make us tea, in my tea-basket." "i'll make it if you like," i volunteered. "a french--a half french--girl make tea?" "it's the american half that knows how." "you look too ornamental to be useful. but you can try." i did try, and succeeded. it was rather fun, and never did tea taste so delicious. there were biscuits to go with it, which beau shared; and i do wish that people (other people) were obliged to make faces when they eat, such as beau has to make, because if so, one could add a new interest to life by inviting even the worst bores to dinner. i was fascinated with his contortions, and i did not attempt to conceal my sudden change of opinion concerning beau as a companion. when i had humbly invited him to drink out of my saucer, which i held from high tide to low, i saw that my conquest of his mistress was complete. already we had exchanged names, as well as some confidences. i knew that she was miss paget, and she knew that i was lys d'angely; but after the tea-drinking episode she became doubly friendly. she told me that, owing to an unforeseen circumstance (partly, even largely, connected with beau) which had caused a great upheaval in her life, she had now not a human being belonging to her, except her maid simpkins, of whom she would like to get rid if only she knew how. "talk of the old man of the sea!" she sighed. "_he_ was an afternoon caller compared with simpkins. she's been on my back for twenty years. i suppose she will be for another twenty, unless i slam the door of the family vault in her face." "couldn't beau help you?" i asked. "even beau is powerless against her. she has hypnotized him with marrow bones." "you've escaped from her for the present," i suggested. "she's on the other side of the channel. now is your time to be bold." "ah, but i can't stop out of england for ever, and i tell you she's waiting for me at dover. a relative (a very eccentric one, and quite different from the rest of us, or he wouldn't have made his home abroad) has left me a house in italy, some sort of old castle, i believe--so unsuitable! i'm going over to see about selling it for i've no one to trust but myself, owing to the circumstances of which i spoke. i want to get back as soon as possible--i hope in a few weeks, though how i shall manage without any italian, heaven may know--i don't! do you speak it?" "a little." "well, i wish i could have you with me. you'd make a splendid companion for an old woman like me: young, good to look at, energetic (or you wouldn't be travelling about alone), brave (conquered your fear of beau), accomplished (three languages, and goodness knows what besides!), presence of mind (the way you whisked my clothes off), handy (i never tasted better tea)--altogether you sum up ideally. what a pity you're rich, and out of the market!" "if i look rich my appearance must be more distinguished than i supposed--and it's also very deceiving," said i. "you're rich enough to travel for pleasure in _wagon-lits_, and have silver-fitted bags." "i'm not travelling for pleasure. you exaggerate my bags and my _wagon-lits_, for i've only one of each; and both were given me by a friend who was at the convent with me." "the convent! good heavens! are you an escaping nun?" i laughed. "i went to school at a convent. that was when i thought i _was_ going to be rich--at least, rich enough to be like other girls. and if i _am_ 'escaping' from something, it isn't from the arms of religion." "if you're not rich, and aren't going to relatives, why not take an engagement with me? come, i'm in earnest. i always make up my mind suddenly, if it's anything important, and hardly ever regret it. i'm sure we should suit. you've got no nonsense about you." "oh yes i have, lots!" i broke in. "that's all i have left--that, and my sense of humour. but seriously, you're very kind--to take me on faith like this--especially when you began by thinking me mysterious. i'd accept thankfully, only--i'm engaged already." "to be married, i suppose you mean?" "thank heaven, no! to a princess." "dear me, one would think you were a man hater!" "so i am, a _one_-man hater. what simpkins is to you, that man is to me. and that's why i'm on my way to cannes to be the companion of the princess boriskoff, who's said to be rather deaf and very quick-tempered, as well as elderly and a great invalid. she sheds her paid companions as a tree sheds its leaves in winter. i hear that europe is strewn with them." "nice prospect for you!" "isn't it? but beggars mustn't be choosers." "you don't look much like a beggar." "because i can make my own dresses and hats--and nightgowns." "well, if your princess sheds you, let me know, and you may live yet to deliver me from simpkins. i feel you'd be equal to it! my address is--but i'll give you a card." and, burrowing under her pillow, she unearthed a fat handbag from which, after some fumbling, she presented me with a visiting-card, enamelled in an old-fashioned way. i read: "miss paget, 34a eaton square. broomlands house, surrey." "now you're not to lose that," she impressed upon me. "write if you're scattered over europe by this russian (i never did believe much in princesses, excepting, of course, our _own_ dear royalties), or if you ever come to england. even if it's years from now, i assure you beau and i won't have forgotten you. as for your address--" "i haven't any," i said. "at present i'm depending on the princess for one. she's at the hotel majestic palace, cannes; but from what my friend pam--the comtesse de nesle--says, i fancy she doesn't stop long in any town. it was the comtesse de nesle who got me the place. she's the only one who knows where i'm going, because--after a fashion, i'm running away to be the princess's companion." "running away from the man?" "yes; also from my relatives who're sure it's my duty to be _his_ companion. so you see i can't give you their address. i've ceased to have any right to it. and now i really think i _had_ better go back to bed." chapter ii at half-past ten this morning we parted, the best of friends, and i dropped a good-bye kiss into the deep black gorge between the promontories of beau's velvet forehead and plush nose. we'd had breakfast together, miss paget and i, to say nothing of the dog, and i felt rather cheerful. of course i dreaded the princess; but i always did like adventures, and it appeared to me distinctly an adventure to be a companion, even in misery. besides, it was nice to have come away from monsieur charretier, and to feel that not only did he not know where i was, but that he wasn't likely to find out. poor me! i little guessed what an adventure on a grand scale i was in for. already this morning seems a long time ago; a year at the convent used to seem shorter. i drove up to the hotel in the omnibus which was at the station, and asked at the office for the princess boriskoff. i said that i was mademoiselle d'angely, and would they please send word to the princess, because she was expecting me. it was a young assistant manager who received me, and he gave me a very queer, startled sort of look when i said this, as if i were a suspicious person, and he didn't quite know whether it would be better to answer me or call for help. "i haven't made a mistake, have i?" i asked, beginning to be anxious. "this _is_ the hotel where the princess is staying, isn't it?" "she was staying here," the youth admitted. "but--" "has she _gone_?" "not exactly." "she must be either here or gone." again he regarded me with suspicion, as if he did not agree with my statement. "are you a relative of the princess?" he inquired. "no, i'm engaged to be her companion." "oh! if that is all! but perhaps, in any case, it will be better to wait for the manager. he will be here presently. i do not like to take the responsibility." "the responsibility of what?" i persisted, my heart beginning to feel like a patter of rain on a tin roof. "of telling you what has happened." "if something has happened, i can't wait to hear it. i must know at once," i said, with visions of all sorts of horrid things: that the princess had decided not to have a companion, and was going to disown me; that my cousin madame milvaine had somehow found out everything; that monsieur charretier had got on my track, and was here in advance waiting to pounce upon me. "it is a thing which we do not want to have talked about in the hotel," the young man hesitated. "i assure you i won't talk to any one. i don't know any one to talk to." "it is very distressing, but the princess boriskoff died about four o'clock this morning, of heart failure." "oh!" ... i could not get out another word. "these things are not liked in hotels, even when not contagious." the assistant manager looked gloomily at me, as if i might be held responsible for the inconvenient event; but still i could not speak. "especially in the high season. it is being kept secret. that is the custom. in some days, or less, it will leak out, but not till the princess has--been removed. you will kindly not mention it, mademoiselle. this is very bad for us." no, i would kindly not mention it, but it was worse for me than for them. the hotel majestic palace looked rich; very, very rich. it had heaps of splendid mirrors and curtains, and imitation louis xvi. sofas, and everything that a hotel needs to make it happy and successful, while i had nothing in the world except what i stood up in, one fitted bag, one small box, and thirty-two francs. i didn't quite see, at first sight, what i was to do; but neither did the assistant manager see what that had to do with him. once i knew a girl who was an actress, and on tour in the country she nearly drowned herself one day. when the star heard of it, he said: "how _should_ we have played to-night if you'd been dead--without an understudy, too?" at this moment i knew just how the girl must have felt when the star said that. "i--i think i must stay here a day or two, until i can--arrange things," i managed to stammer. "have you a small single room disengaged?" "we have one or two small north rooms which are usually occupied by valets and maids," the young man informed me. "they are twelve francs a day." "i'll take one," i replied. and then i added anxiously: "have any relatives of the princess come?" "none have come; and certainly none will come, as it would now be too late. her death was very sudden. the princess's maid knows what to do. she is an elderly woman, experienced. the suite occupied by her highness will be free to-morrow." "oh! and had she no friends here?" "i do not think the princess was a lady who made friends. she was very proud and considered herself above other people. would you like to see your room, mademoiselle? i will send some one to take you up to it. it will be on the top floor." i was in a mood not to care if it had been on the roof, or in the cellar. i hardly knew where i was going, as a few minutes later a still younger youth piloted me across a large square hall toward a lift; but i was vaguely conscious that a good many smart-looking people were sitting or standing about, and that they glanced at me as i went by. i hoped dimly that i didn't appear conspicuously pale and stricken. just in front of the lift door a tall woman was talking to a little man. there was an instant of delay while my guide and i waited for them to move, and before they realized that we were waiting. "they say the poor thing is no worse than yesterday, however, my maid tells me--" the lady had begun in a low, mysterious tone, but broke off suddenly when it dawned upon her that she was obstructing the way. i knew instinctively _who_ was the subject of the whispered conversation, and i couldn't help fixing my eyes almost appealingly on the tall woman; for though she was middle-aged and not pretty, her voice was so nice and she looked so kind that i felt a longing to have her for a friend. she had probably been acquainted with princess boriskoff, i said to myself, or she would not be talking of her now, with bated breath, as a "poor thing." evidently the lady had been waiting for the lift to come down, for when my guide rang and it descended she took a step forward, giving a friendly little nod to her companion, and saying, "well, i must go. i feel sure it's _true_ about her." then, instead of sailing ahead of me into the lift, as she had a perfect right to do, being much older and far more important than i, and the first comer as well, she hesitated with a pleasant half smile, as much as to say, "you're a stranger. i give up my right to you." "oh, please!" i said, stepping aside to let her pass, which she did, making room for me to sit down beside her on the narrow plush-covered seat. but i didn't care to sit. i was so crushed, it seemed that, if once i sat down i shouldn't have courage to rise up again and wrestle with the difficulties of life. the lady got out on the second floor, throwing back a kindly glance, as if she took a little interest in me, and wanted me to know it. i suppose it must have been because i was tired and nervous after a whole night without sleep that the shock i'd just received was too much for me. anyway, that kind glance made a lump rise in my throat, and the lump forced tears into my eyes. i looked down instantly, so that she shouldn't see them and think me an idiot, but i was afraid she did. the young man who was taking me up to the top floor, and treating me rather nonchalantly because i was a north roomer and a twelve francer, waved the lift boy aside to open the door himself for the lady; so that i knew she must be considered a person worth conciliating. shut up in my ten-by-six-foot room, i tried to compose myself and make plans; but to make plans on thirty-two francs, when you've no home, and would be far from it even if you had one; when you've nobody to help you, and wouldn't want to ask them if you had--is about as hard as to play the piano brilliantly without ever having taken a lesson. with princess boriskoff dead, with pamela de nesle sailing for new york to-morrow morning, and no other intimate friends rich enough to do anything for me, even if they were willing to help me fly in the face of providence and madame milvaine, it did seem (as pamela herself would say) as though i were rather "up against it." the thought of miss paget suddenly jumped into my head, and the wish that, somehow, i had kept her up my sleeve as a last resort, in case she really were in earnest about her offer. but she hadn't told me where she was going in italy, and it would be of no use writing to one of her english addresses, as i couldn't stop on where i was, waiting for an answer. altogether things were very bad with me. after i had sat down and thought for a while, i rang, and asked for the housekeeper. a hint or two revealed that she was aware of what had happened, and, explaining that i was to have been princess boriskoff's companion, i said that i must see the princess's maid. she must come to my room. i must have a talk with her. presently, after an interval which may have been meant to emphasize her dignity, appeared a pale, small russian woman whose withered face was as tragic and remote from the warmth of daily life as that of the eldest fate. she could speak french, and we talked together. yes, her mistress had died very suddenly, but she and the doctors had always known that it might happen so, at any moment. it was hard for me, but--what would you? life was hard. it might have been that i would have found life hard with her highness. what was to be, would be. i must write to my friends. it was not in her power to do anything for me. her highness had left no instructions. these things happened. well! one made the best of them. there was nothing more to say. so we said nothing more, and the woman moved away silently, as if to funeral music, to prepare for her journey to russia. i--went down to luncheon. one always does go down to luncheon while one is still inclined to keep up appearances before oneself; but the restaurant was large and terribly magnificent, with a violent rose-coloured carpet, and curtains which made me, in my frightened pallor, with my pale yellow hair and my gray travelling dress, feel like a poor little underground celery-stalk flung into a sunlit strawberry-bed, amid a great humming of bees. the vast rosy sea was thickly dotted with many small table-islands that glittered appetizingly with silver and glass; but i could not have afforded to acknowledge an appetite even if i'd had one. my conversation with the russian woman had made me rather late. most of the islands were inhabited, and as i was piloted past them by a haughty head waiter i heard people talking about golf, tennis, croquet, bridge, reminding me that i was in a place devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. the most desirable islands were next the windows, therefore the one at which i dropped anchor (for i'd changed from a celery-stalk into a little boat now) was exactly in the middle of the room, with no view save of faces and backs of heads. one of the faces was that of the lady who had gone up with me in the lift; and now and then, from across the distance that separated us, i saw her glance at me. she sat alone at a table that had beautiful roses on it, and she read a book as she ate. one ordered here _à la carte_: there was no _déjeuner à prix fixe_; and it took courage to tell a waiter who looked like a weary young duke that i would have _consommé_ and bread, with nothing, no, _nothing_ to follow. oh! the look he gave me, as if i had annexed the table under false pretences! suddenly the chorus of an american song ran with mocking echoes through my brain. i had heard pamela sing it at the convent: the waiter roared it through the hall: "we don't give bread with _one_ fish-ball! we-don't-_give_-bread with one fish-_ba-a-ll_!" i half expected some such crushing protest, and it was only when the weary duke had turned his back, presumably to execute my order, that i sank into my chair with a sigh of relief after strain. just at that moment i met the eye of the lady of the lift, and when the waiter reappeared with a small cup, on a charger large enough to have upheld the head of john the baptist, she looked again. in five minutes i had finished the _consommé_, and it became painful to linger. rising, i made for the door, which seemed a mile away, and i did not lift my head in passing the table where the lady sat behind her roses. i heard a rustling as i went by, however, a crisp rustling like flower-leaves whispering in a breeze, or a woman's silk ruffles stroking each other, which followed me out into the hall. then the pleasant voice i had heard near the lift spoke behind me: "won't you have your coffee with me in the garden?" i could hardly believe at first that it was for me the invitation was intended, but turning with a little start, i saw it repeated in a pair of gentle gray eyes set rather wide apart in a delicate, colourless face. "oh! thank you!" i hesitated. "i--" "do forgive me," went on the lady, "but your face interested me this morning, and as we're all rather curious about strangers--we idle ones here--i took the liberty of asking the manager who you were. he told me--" "about the princess?" i asked, when she paused as if slightly embarrassed. "he told me that you said you had come to cannes to be her companion. he didn't tell me she was dead, poor woman, but--there are some things one knows by instinct, by intuition, aren't there? and then--i couldn't help seeing, or perhaps only imagining, that you looked sad and worried. you are very young, and are here all alone, and so--i thought perhaps you wouldn't mind my speaking to you?" "i'm very grateful," i said, "for your interest. and it's so good of you to ask me to have coffee with you." (i was almost sure, too, that she had hurried away in the midst of her luncheon to do this deed of kindness.) "perhaps, after all, you'll come with me to my own sitting-room," she suggested. "we can talk more quietly there; and though the garden's quite lovely, it's rather too glaring at this time of day." we went up in the lift together, and the moment she opened the door of her sitting-room i saw that she had contrived to make it look like herself. she talked only about her books and photographs and flowers until the coffee had come, and we seemed better acquainted. then she told me that she was lady kilmarny--"irish in every drop in her veins"; and presently set herself to draw me out. i began by making up my mind not to pour forth all my troubles, lest she should think that i wanted to take advantage of her kindness and sponge upon her for help; but she was irresistible, as only a true irishwoman can be, and the first thing i knew, i had emptied my heart of its worries. chapter iii "you will have to go back to the cousins you've been living with in paris," pronounced lady kilmarny. "you're much too young and pretty to be _anywhere_ alone." "i can't go on living with them unless i promise to marry monsieur charretier," i explained. "i'd rather scrub floors than marry monsieur charretier." "you'd never finish one floor. the second would finish you. i thought french girls--well, then, _half_ french girls--usually let their people arrange their marriages." "perhaps i'm not usual. i _hope_ monsieur charretier isn't." "is he such a monster?" "he is fat, especially in all the places he oughtn't to be fat. and old. but worse than his _embonpoint_ and his nose, he made his money in--you could never guess." "i see by your face, my poor child: it was liver pills." "something far more dreadful." "are there lower depths?" "there are--corn plasters." "oh, my dear, you are _quite_ right! you couldn't marry him." "thank you so much! then, i can't go back to my cousins. they--they take monsieur charretier seriously. i think they even take his plasters--gratuitously." "is he so very rich?" "but disgustingly rich. he has an awful, bulbous new château in the country, with dozens of incredibly high-powered motor-cars; and in the most expensive part of paris a huge apartment wriggling from floor to ceiling with _nouveau art_. the girl who marries him will have to be smeared with diamonds, and know the most appalling people. in fact, she'll have to be a kind of walking, pictorial advertisement for the success of charretier's corn plasters." "he must know some nice people, since he knows relations of yours." "thank you for the compliment, which i hope you pay me on circumstantial evidence. but it's deceiving. my mother, i believe, was the only nice person in her family. these cousins, husband and wife, brought mamma to europe to live with them when she was a young girl, quite rich and an orphan. they were furious when she fell in love with papa, who was only a lieutenant with nothing but a very old name, the ruins of a castle that tourists paid francs to see, and a ramshackle house in paris almost too dilapidated to let. it was a mere detail to them that he happened to be one of the best-looking and most agreeable young men in the world. they did nothing but say, 'i told you so!' for years, whenever anything disastrous happened--as it constantly did, for poor papa and mamma loved each other so much, and had so much fun, that they couldn't have time to be business-like. my cousins thought everything mamma did was a madness--such as sending me to the most fashionable convent school in france. as if i hadn't to be educated! and then, when the castle fell so to bits that tourists wouldn't bother with it any more, and nobody but rats would live in the paris house unless it was repaired--and poor papa was killed in a horrid little saturday-to-monday war of no importance (except to people whose hearts it broke)--oh! i believe the cousins were glad! they thought it was a judgment. that happened years ago, when i was only fifteen, and though they've plenty of money (more than most people in the american colony) they didn't offer to help; and mamma would have died sooner than ask. i had to be snatched out of school, to find that all the beautiful dreams of being a happy _débutante_ must go by contraries. we lived in the tumble-down house ourselves, mamma and i, and her friends rallied round her--she was so popular and pretty. they got her chances to give singing lessons, and me to do translating, and painting _menus_. we were happy again, after a while, in spite of all, and people were so good to us! mamma used to hold a kind of _salon_, with all the brightest and best crowding to it, though they got nothing but sweet biscuits, _vin ordinaire_, and conversation--and besides, the house might have taken a fancy to fall down on their heads any minute. it was sporting of them to come at all!" "and the cousins. did they come?" "not they! they're of the society of the little brothers and sisters of the rich. their set was quite different from ours. but when mamma died nearly two years ago, and i was alone, they did call, and cousin emily offered me a home. i was to give up all my work, of course, which she considered degrading, and was simply to make myself useful to her as a daughter of the house might do. that was what she _said_." "you accepted?" "yes. i didn't know her and her husband as well as i do now; and before she died mamma begged me to go to them, if they asked me. that was when monsieur charretier came on the scene--at least, he came a few months later, and i've had no peace since. lately, things were growing more and more impossible, when my best friend, comtesse de nesle, came to my rescue and found (or thought she'd found) me this engagement with the princess. as i told you, i simply ran away--_sneaked_ away--and came here without any one but pamela knowing. and now she--the comtesse--is just sailing for new york with her husband." "the comtesse de nesle--that pretty little american! i've met her in paris--and at the dublin horse show," exclaimed lady kilmarny. "well, i wish i could take up the rescue work where she has laid it down. i think you are a most romantic little figure, and i'd love to engage you as my companion, only my husband and i are as poor as church mice. like your father, we've nothing but our name and a few ruins. when i come south for my health i can't afford such luxuries as a husband and a maid. i have to choose between them and a private sitting-room. so you see, i can't possibly indulge in a companion." people seemed to be always wanting me as one, and then reluctantly abandoning me! "your kindness and sympathy have helped me a lot," said i. "they won't pay your way." "i have no way. so far as i can see, i shall have to stop in cannes, anonymously so to speak, for the rest of my life." "where would you like to go, if you could choose--since you can't go to your relations?" again my thoughts travelled after miss paget, as if she had been a fat, red will-o'-the-wisp. "to england, perhaps," i answered. "in a few weeks from now i might be able to find a position there." and i went on to tell, in as few words as possible, my adventure in the railway train. "h'm!" said lady kilmarny. "we'll look her up in _who's who_, and see if she exists. if she's anybody, she'll be there. and _who's who_ i always have with me, abroad. one meets so many pretenders, it's quite dangerous." "how can you tell i'm not one?" i asked. "yet you spoke to me." "why, you're down in a kind of invisible book, called 'you're you.' it's sufficient reference for me. besides, if your two eyes couldn't be trusted, it would be easy to shed you." lady kilmarny said this smilingly, as she found the red book, and passed her finger down the columns of p's. "yes, here's the name, and the two addresses on the visiting-card. she's the honourable maria paget, only daughter of the late baron northfield. yes, an engagement with her would be safe, if not agreeable. but how to get you to england?" "perhaps i could go as somebody's maid," i reflected aloud. she looked at me sharply. _"would_ you do that?" "it would be better than being an advertisement for corn plasters," i smiled. "then," said lady kilmarny, "perhaps, after all, i can help you. but no--i should never dare to suggest it! the thought of a girl like you--it would be too dreadful." chapter iv when my father had been extravagant, he used to say gaily in self-defence that "one owed something to one's ancestors." certainly, if it had not been for several of his ancestors, he would not have owed so much to his contemporaries. but in spite of their agreeable vices, or because of them, i was brought up in the cult of ancestor worship, as religiously as if i had been chinese. to be a d'angely was a privilege, in our eyes, which not only supplied gilding for the gingerbread, but for the most economical substitutes. "ne roi je suis, ne prince aussi, je suis le sire d'angely," calmly remarked the gentleman of louis xi.'s time, who became famous for hanging as many retainers as he liked, and defending his action by originating the family motto. mother also had ancestors who began to take themselves seriously somewhere about the time of the _mayflower_, though for all we know they may have secured their passage in the steerage. "a courtenay can do anything," was their rather ambiguous motto, which suggested that it might have been started in self-defence, if not as a boast; and it (the name, not the motto) had been thoughtfully sandwiched in between my lys and my d'angely by my sponsors in baptism, that if necessary i might ever have an excuse at hand for any dark deed or infra dig-ness. i used often to murmur the consoling mottoes to myself when pattering through muddy streets, too poor to take an omnibus, on the way to sell--or try to sell--my translations or my _menus_. but now, after all that's happened, if it is to strike conviction to my soul, i shall be obliged to yell it at the top of my mental lungs. (that expression may sound ridiculous, but it isn't. we could not talk to ourselves as we do, in all kinds of voices, high or low, if we hadn't mental lungs, or at the least, sub-conscious-self lungs.) _je suis_ the daughter of the last sire d'angely; and a courtenay can do anything; so of course it's all right; and it's no good my ancestors turning in their graves, for they'll only make themselves uncomfortable without changing my mind. i, lys d'angely, am going to be a lady's-maid; or rather, i am going to be the maid of an extremely rich person who calls herself a lidy. it's perfectly awful, or awfully comic, according to the point of view, and i swing from one to the other, pushed by my fastidiousness to my sense of humour, and back again, in a way to make me giddy. but it's settled. i'm going to do it. i had almost to drag the suggestion out of lady kilmarny, who turned red and stammered as if i were the great lady, she the poor young girl in want of a situation. there was, said she, a quaint creature in the hotel (one met these things abroad, and was obliged to be more or less civil to them) who resembled monsieur charretier in that she was disgustingly rich. it was not corn plasters. it was liver pills, the very same liver pills which had dropped into the mind of lady kilmarny when i hesitated to put into words the foundation of my _pretendant's_ future. it was the liver pills which had eventually introduced into her brain the idea she falteringly embodied for me. the husband of the quaint creature had invented the pills, even as monsieur charretier had invented his abomination. because of the pills he had been made a knight; at least, lady kilmarny didn't know any other reason. he was sir samuel turnour (evolved from turner), just married for the second time to a widow in whose head it was like the continual frothing of new wine to be "her ladyship." lady turnour had lately quarrelled with a maid and dismissed her, lady kilmarny told me. now, she was in immediate need of another, french (because french maids are fashionable) able to speak english, because the turnour family had as yet mastered no other language. lady kilmarny believed that this was the honeymoon of the newly married pair, and that, after having paused on the wing at cannes, for a little billing and cooing, they intended to pursue their travels in france for some weeks, before returning to settle down in england. "her ladyship" was asking everybody with whom she had contrived to scrape acquaintance (especially if they had titles) to recommend her a maid. lady kilmarny, as a member of the league against cruelty to animals, had determined that nothing would induce her to throw any poor mouse to this cat, even if she heard of a mouse plying for hire; but here was i in a dreadful scrape, professing myself ready to snap at anything except corn plasters; and she felt bound to mention that the mousetrap was open, the cheese waiting to be nibbled. "do you think she'd have me?" i asked--"the quaint creature, her ladyship?" "only too likely that she would," said lady kilmarny. "but remember, the worst is, she doesn't _know_ she's a quaint creature. she is quite happy about herself, offensively happy, and would consider you the 'creature.' a truly awful person, my dear. a man in this hotel--the little thing you saw me talking to this morning, knows all about them both. i think they began in peckham or somewhere. they _would_, you know, and call it 's.w.' she was a chemist's daughter, and he was the humble assistant, long before the pill materialized, so she refused him, and married a dashing doctor. but unfortunately he dashed into the bankruptcy court, and afterward she probably nagged him to death. anyway he died--but not till long after sam turner had taken pity on some irrelevant widow, as his early love was denied him. the widow had a boy, to whom the stepfather was good--(really a very decent person according to his lights!) and kept on making pills and millions, until last year he lost his first wife and got a knighthood. the old love was a widow by this time, taking in lodgers in some neighbourhood where you _do_ take lodgers, and sir samuel found and gathered her like a late rose. naturally she puts on all the airs in the world, and diamonds in the morning. she'll treat you like the dirt under her feet, because that's her conception of her part--and yours. but i'll introduce you to her if you like." after a little reflection, i did like; but as it seemed to me that there'd better not be two airs in the family, i said that i'd put on none at all, and make no pretensions. "she's the kind that doesn't know a lady or gentleman without a label," my kind friend warned me. "you must be prepared for that." "i'll be prepared for anything," i assured her. but when it came to the test, i wasn't quite. lady kilmarny wrote a line to lady turnour, and asked if she might bring a maid to be interviewed--a young woman whom she could recommend. the note was sent down to the bride (who of course had the best suite in the hotel, on the first floor) and presently an answer came--saying that her ladyship would be pleased to receive lady kilmarny and the person in question. suddenly i felt that i must go alone. "please leave me to my fate," i said. "i should be too self-conscious if you were with me. probably i should laugh in her face, or do something dreadful." "very well," lady kilmarny agreed. "perhaps you're right. say that i sent you, and that, though you've never been with me, friends of mine know all about you. you might tell her that you were to have travelled with the princess boriskoff. that will impress her. she would kiss the boot of a princess. afterward, come up and tell me how you got on with 'her ladyship.'" i was stupid to be nervous, and told myself so; but as i knocked at the door of the suite reserved for millionaires and other royalties, my heart was giving little ineffective jumps in my breast, like--as my old nurse used to say--"a frog with three legs." "come in!" called a voice with sharp, jagged edges. i opened the door. in a private drawing-room as different as the personality of one woman from another, sat lady turnour. she faced me as i entered, so i had a good look at her, before casting down my eyes and composing my countenance to the self-abnegating meekness which i conceived fitting to a _femme de chambre comme il faut_. she was enthroned on a sofa. one could hardly say less, there was so much of her, and it was all arranged as perfectly as if she were about to be photographed. no normal woman, merely sitting down, with no other object than to be comfortable, would curve the tail of her gown round in front of her like a sickle; or have just the point of one shoe daintily poised on a footstool; or the sofa-cushions at exactly the right angle behind her head to make a background; or the finger with all her best rings on it, keeping the place in an english illustrated journal. i dared not believe that she had posed for me. it must have been for lady kilmarny; and that i alone should see the picture was a bad beginning. she is of the age when a woman can still tell people that she is forty, hoping they will exclaim politely, "impossible!" it is not enough for her to be a ladyship and a millionairess. she will be a beauty as well, or at all costs she will be looked at. to that end are her eyebrows and lashes black as jet, her undulated hair crimson, her lips a brighter shade of the same colour, and her skin of magnolia pallor, like the heroines of the novels which are sure to be her favourites. once, she must have been handsome, a hollyhock queen of a kitchen-garden kingdom; but she would be far more attractive now if only she had "abdicated," as nice middle-aged women say in france. her dress was the very latest dream of a neurotic parisian modiste, and would have been seductive on a slender girl. on her--well, at least she would have her wish in it--she would not pass unnoticed! she looked surprised at sight of me, and i saw she didn't realize that i was the expected candidate. "lady kilmarny couldn't come," i began to explain, "and--" "oh!" she cut me short. "so you are the young person she is recommending as a maid." i corrected miss paget when she called me a "young woman," but times have changed since then, and in future i must humbly consent to be a young person, or even a creature. for a minute i forgot, and almost sat down. it would have been the end of me if i had! luckily i remembered what i was, and stood before my mistress, trying to look like patience on a monument with butter in her mouth which mustn't be allowed to melt. "what is your name?" began the catechism (and the word was "nime," according to lady turnour). "n or m," nearly slipped out of my mouth, but i put satan with all his mischief behind me, and answered that i was lys d'angely. "oh, the surname doesn't matter. as you're a french girl, i shall call you by your first name. it's always done." (the first time in history, i'd swear, that a d'angely was ever told his name didn't matter!) "you seem to speak english very well for a french woman?" (this almost with suspicion.) "my mother was american." "how extraordinary!" (this was apparently a _tache_. evidently lady's-maids are expected _not_ to have american mothers!) "let me hear your french accent." i let her hear it. "h'm! it seems well enough. paris?" "paris, madame." "don't call me 'madame.' any common person is madame. you should say 'your ladyship'." i said it. "and i want you should speak to me in the third person, like the french servants are supposed to do in good houses." "if mad--if your ladyship wishes." (thank heaven for a sense of humour! my one wild desire was to laugh. without that blessing, i should have yearned to slap her.) "what references have you got from your last situation?" "i have never been in service before--my lady." "my word! that's bad. however, you're on the spot, and lady kilmarny recommends you. the poor princess was going to try you, it seems. i should think she wouldn't have given much for a maid without any experience." "i was to have had two thousand francs a year as the princess's com--if the princess was satisfied." "preposterous! i don't believe a word of it. why, what can you _do_? can you dress hair? can you make a blouse?" "i did my mother's hair, and sometimes my cousin's." "_your_ mother! _your_ cousin! i'm talking of a lidy." my sense of humour _did_ almost fail me just then. but i caught hold of it by the tail just as it was darting out of the window, spitting and scratching like a cross cat. it was remembering monsieur charretier that brought me to my bearings. "i think your ladyship would be satisfied," i said. "and i make all my own dresses." "that one you've got on?--which is _most_ unsuitable for a maid, i may tell you, and i should never permit it." "this one i have on, also." "i thought maybe it had been a present. well, it's _something_ that you speak both english and french passably well. i'll try you on lady kilmarny's recommendation, if you want to come to me for fifty francs a month. i won't give more to an _amateur_." i thought hard for a minute. lady kilmarny had said it would not be many weeks before the turnours went to england. there, if miss paget (who seemed extremely nice by contrast and in retrospect) were still of the same mind, i might find a good home. if not, she was as kind as she was queer, and would help me look further. so i replied that i would accept the fifty francs, and would do my best to please her ladyship. she did not express herself as gratified. "you can begin work this evening," she said. "i was obliged to send away my last maid yesterday, and i'm _lost_ without one." (this was delightful from a "lidy" who had kept lodgers for years, with the aid perhaps of one smudgy-nosed "general"!) "but have you no more suitable clothes? i can't let a maid of mine go flaunting about, like a mary-jane-on-sunday." i mentioned a couple of plain black dresses in my wardrobe, which might be made to answer if i were allowed a few hours' time to work upon them, and didn't add that they remained from my mourning for one dearly loved. "you can have till six o'clock free," said lady turnour. "then you must come back to lay out my things for dinner, and dress me. what about your room? had the princess taken something for you in the hotel?" i evaded a direct answer by saying that i had a room; and was inwardly thankful that, evidently, the turnours had not noticed me in the restaurant at luncheon, otherwise things might have been awkward. "very well, you can keep the same one, then," went on her ladyship, "and let the hotel people know it's sir samuel who pays for it. to-morrow morning we leave, in our sixty-horse-power motor car. we are making a tour before going back to england. sir samuel's stepson joins us in paris or perhaps before and travels on with us. he is staying now with some french people of very high title, who live in a château. you will sit on the front seat with the chauffeur." this was a blow! i hadn't thought of the chauffeur. "but," thought i, "chauffeur or no chauffeur, it's too late now for retreat." talk of prometheus with his vulture, the spartan boy with his decently concealed wolf! what of lys d'angely with an english chauffeur in her pocket? chapter v when i was dismissed from the presence, i ran to lady kilmarny with my story, and she agreed with me that the thing to dread most in the whole situation was the chauffeur. "of course he'll naturally consider himself on an equality with you," she said, "and you'll have to eat with him at hotels, and all that. once, when my husband and i were touring in france, and used to break down near little inns, we were obliged to have a chauffeur at the same table with us, because there was only one long one (table, i mean, not chauffeur) and we couldn't spare time to let him wait till we'd finished. my dear, it was ghastly! you would never believe if you hadn't seen it, how the creature swallowed his knife when he ate, and did conjuring tricks with his fork and spoon. i simply _dared_ not look at him gnawing his bread, but used to shut my eyes. i hate to distress you, poor child, but i tell you these things as a warning. _are_ you able to bear it?" i said that i, too, could shut my eyes. "you can't make a habit of doing so. and he may want to put his arm round your waist, or chuck you under the chin. i used to have complaints from my maid, who was comparatively plain, while you--but i don't want to frighten you. he _may_ be different from our man. some, they say, are most respectable. i love common people when they're nice, and give up quite pleasantly to being common; and of course irish ones are too delightful. but you can't hope for an irish chauffeur. i hear they don't exist. they're all french or german or english. let us hope this one may be the father of a family." it was well enough to be told to hope; and lady kilmarny meant to be kind, but what she said made me "creep" whenever i thought of the chauffeur. she advised me not to take my meals with the maids and valets at the majestic palace, because a change, so sudden and cinderella-like, after lunching in the restaurant, would cause disagreeable talk in the hotel. as my living in future would be at the charge of the turnours, i might afford myself a few indulgences to begin with, she argued; and deciding that she was right, i made up my mind to have my remaining meals served in my own room. i hastily stripped a black frock of its trimming, dressed my hair more simply even than usual, parted down the middle, and altogether strove to achieve the air of a _femme de chambre_ born, not made. but i'm bound to chronicle the fact for my own future reference (when some day i shall laugh at this adventure) that the effect, though restful to the eye, suggested the stage _femme de chambre_ rather than the sober reality one sees in every-day life. however, i was conscious of having done my best, a state of mind which always produces a cool, strawberries-and-cream feeling in the soul; and thus supported i tripped (yes, i _did_ trip!) downstairs to adorn lady turnour for dinner. the door was open between her bedroom and the sitting-room. waiting in the former i could hear voices in the latter. lady turnour and her husband were talking about the arrival of the stepson whose name, i soon gleaned from their conversation, is herbert. naturally, it _would_ be. people like that are always named herbert, and are familiarly known to those whom they may concern as "bertie." presently, her ladyship came into the bedroom, and said, as a queen might say to her tirewoman, "put me into my dressing-gown." if there were a feminine word for "sirrah," i think she would have liked to call me it. my eye, roving distractedly, pounced upon a gold-embroidered, purple silk kimono, perhaps more appropriate to pooh-bah than to a stout english lady of the lower middle class. i released it from its hook on the door, and would that her ladyship had been as easy to release from her bodice! she had not one hook, but many; and they were all so incredibly tight that, to put her into the dressing-gown as ordered, i feared it would be necessary to melt and pour her out of the gown she had on. while i wrestled, silent and red faced, with a bodice as snug as the head of a drum, the lord of all it contained appeared in the doorway, and stopped, looking at me in surprise. he is common, too, this sir samuel, millionaire maker of pills; but he is common in a good, almost pathetic way, quite different from his wife's way--or monsieur charretier's. he has stick-up gray hair curling all over his round head, blue eyes, twinkling with a mild, yet shrewd expression (which might be merry if encouraged by her ladyship), and a large, slouching body with stooped shoulders. "what young lady have we here?" he inquired. "not a young lady at all," explained his wife sharply. "my new french maid." "i beg your pardon, i'm sure," said sir samuel, though it wasn't quite clear whether it was my forgiveness or that of his spouse he craved, for his mistake in supposing me to be a "young lady." "what's her name?" he wanted to know, evidently approving of me, if not as a maid, at least as a human being. "something ridiculous in french that sounds like 'liz,'" sniffed her ladyship. "but i shall call her elise. also i shall expect her to stop dyeing her hair." "but, madame, i do not dye it!" i exclaimed. "don't tell me. i know dyed hair when i see it." (she ought to, having experience enough with her own!) "nature is the dyer, then," i ventured to persist, piqued to self-defence by the certainty that her object was to strip me of my wicked mask before her husband. "i'm not used to being contradicted by my servants," her ladyship reminded me. "my dear, do let the poor girl know whether she dyes her hair or not." sir samuel pleaded for me with more kindness than discretion. "i'm sure she speaks beautiful english." [illustration: "while i wrestled ... with a bodice as snug as the head of a drum, the lord of all it contained appeared in the doorway"] "as if that had anything to do with it! she may as well understand, to begin with, that i won't put up with impudence and answering back. hair that colour doesn't go with dark eyes. and eyelashes like that aren't suitable to lady's-maids." "if your ladyship pleases, what am i to do with mine?" i asked in the sweetest little voice; and i would have given anything for someone to whom i might have telegraphed a laugh. "wash the dark stuff off of them and let them be light," were the simple instructions promptly returned to me. there was no more to be said, so i cast down the offending features (are one's lashes one's features?) and swallowed my feelings just as lady turnour will have to swallow my hair and eyelashes if i'm to stop in her service. if they stick in her throat, i suppose she will discharge me. for a leopard cannot change his spots, and a girl will not the colour of her locks and lashes--when she happens to be fairly well satisfied with nature's work. chapter vi pamela's mother-in-law, _la comtesse douairière_, wears a lovely, fluffy white thing over her own diminishing front hair, which i once heard her describe, when struggling to speak english, as her "combination." pam and i laughed nearly to extinction, but i didn't laugh this morning when i was obliged to help lady turnour put on hers. they say an emperor is no hero to his valet, and neither can an empress be a heroine to her maid when she bursts for the first time upon that humble creature's sight, without her transformation. it _did_ make an unbelievable difference with her ladyship; and it must have been a blow to poor sir samuel, after all his years of hopeless love for a fond gazelle, when at last he made that gazelle his own, and saw it running about its bedroom with all its copper-coloured "ondulations" naively lying on its dressing-table. poor miss paget's false front was one of those frank, self-respecting old things one might have allowed one's grandmother to wear, just as she would wear a cap; but a transformation--well, one has perhaps believed in it, if one has not the eye of a lynx, and the disillusion is awful. of course, a lady's-maid is not a human being, and what it is thinking matters no more than what thinks a chair when sat upon; so i don't suppose "her ladyship" cared ten centimes for the impression i was receiving and trying to digest in the first ten minutes after my morning entrance. as my hair waves naturally, i've scarcely more than a bowing acquaintance with a curling-iron; but luckily for me i always did cousin catherine's when she wanted to look as beautiful as she felt; and though my hands trembled with nervousness, i not only "ondulated" lady turnour's transformation without burning it up, but i added it to her own locks in a manner so deft as to make me want to applaud myself. even she could find no fault. the effect was twice as _chic_ and becoming as that of yesterday. she looked younger, and nearer to being the _grande dame_ that she burns to be. i saw various emotions working in her mind, and attributed her silence on the subject of my personal defects (unchanged despite her orders) to the success i was making with her toilet. in her eyes, i began to take on lustre as a treasure not to be lightly thrown away on the turn of a dye. when she was dressed and painted to represent a "lady motorist," it was my business to pack not only for her but for sir samuel, who is the sort of man to be miserable under the domination of a valet. there were a round dozen of trunks, which had to be sent on by rail, and there was also luggage for the automobile; such ingenious and pretty luggage (bran new, like everything of her ladyship's, not excepting her complexion) that it was really a pleasure to pack it. as for the poor motor maid, it was broken to her that she must, figuratively speaking, live in a bag during the tour, and that bag must have a place under her feet as she sat beside the driver. it might make her as uncomfortable as it liked, but whatever it did, it must on no account interfere with the chauffeur. we were supposed to start at ten, but a woman of lady turnour's type doesn't think she's making herself of enough importance unless she keeps people waiting. she changed her mind three times about her veil, and had her dressing-bag (a gorgeous affair, beside which mine is a mere nutshell) reopened at the last minute to get out different hatpins. it was half-past ten when the luggage for the automobile was ready to be taken away, and having helped my mistress into her motoring coat, i left her saying farewell to some hotel acquaintances she had scraped up, and went out to put her ladyship's rugs into the car. i had not seen it yet, nor the dreaded chauffeur, my galley-companion; but as the front door opened, _voilà_ both; the car drawn up at the hotel entrance, the chauffeur dangling from its roof. never did i see anything in the way of an automobile so large, so azure, so magnificent, so shiny as to varnish, so dazzling as to brass and crystal. perhaps the windows aren't really crystal, but they were all bevelly and glittering in the sunshine, and seemed to run round the car from back to front, giving the effect of a cinderella coach fitted on to a motor. never was paint so blue, never was crest on carriage panel so large and so like a vague, over-ripe tomato. never was a chauffeur so long, so slim, so smart, so leathery. he was dangling not because he fancied himself as a tassel, but because he was teaching some last piece of luggage to know its place on the roof it was shaped to fit. "thank goodness, at least he's not fat, and won't take up much room," i thought, as i stood looking at the back of his black head. then he jumped down, and turned round. we gave each other a glance, and he could not help knowing that i must be her ladyship's maid, by the way i was loaded with rugs, like a beast of burden. of my face he could see little, as i had on a thick motor-veil with a small triangular talc window, which lady kilmarny had given me as a present when i bade her good-bye. i had the advantage of him, therefore, in the staring contest, because his goggles were pushed up on the top of his cap with an elastic, somewhat as miss paget's spectacles had been caught in her false front. his glance said: "female thing, i've got to be bothered by having you squashed into the seat beside me. you'd better not be chatty with the man at the wheel, for if you are, i shall have to teach you motor manners." my glance, i sincerely hoped, said nothing, for i hurriedly shut it off lest it should say too much, the astonished thought in my mind being: "why, leather person, you look exactly like a gentleman! you have the air of being the master, and sir samuel your servant." he really was a surprise, especially after lady kilmarny's warning. still, i at once began to tell myself that chauffeurs _must_ have intelligent faces. as for this one's clear features, good gray eyes, brown skin, and well-made figure, they were nothing miraculous, since it is admitted that even a lower grade of beings, grooms and footmen, are generally chosen as ornaments to the establishments they adorn. why shouldn't a chauffeur be picked out from among his fellows to do credit to a fine, sixty-horse-power blue motor-car? besides, a young man who can't look rather handsome in a chauffeur's cap and neat leather coat and leggings might as well go and hang himself. the leather person opened the door of the car for me, that i might put in the rugs. i murmured "thank you" and he bowed. no sooner had i arranged my affairs, and slipped the scent-bottle and bottle of salts, newly filled, into a dainty little case under the window, when lady turnour and sir samuel appeared. i have met few, if any, queens in daily life, but i'm almost sure that the queen of england, for instance, wouldn't consider it beneath her dignity to take some notice of her chauffeur's existence if she were starting on a motor tour. lady turnour was miles above it, however. so far as she was concerned, one would have thought that the car ran itself; that at sight of her and sir samuel, the arbiters of its destiny, its heart began to beat, its body to tremble with delight at the honour in store for it. "tell him to shut the windows," said her ladyship, when she was settled in her place. "does he think i'm going to travel on a day like this with all the wind on the riviera blowing my head off?" the imperial order was passed on to "him," who was addressed as bane, or dane, or something of that ilk; and i was sorry for poor sir samuel, whose face showed how little he enjoyed the prospect of being cooped up in a glass box. "a day like this" meant that there was a wind which no one under fifty had any business to know came out of the east, for it arrived from a sky blue as a vast, inverted cup of turquoise. the sea was a cup, too; a cup of gold glittering where the esterel mountains rimmed it, and full to the frothing brim of blue spilt by the sky. perhaps there was a hint of keenness in the breeze, and the palms in the hotel garden were whispering to each other about it, while they rocked the roses tangled among their fans; yet it seemed to me that the whispers were not of complaint, but of joy--joy of life, joy of beauty, and joy of the spring. the air smelled of a thousand flowers, this air that lady turnour shunned as if it were poison, and brought me a sense of happiness and adventure fresh as the morning. i knew i had no right to the feeling, because this wasn't my adventure. i was only in it on sufferance, to oil the wheels of it, so to speak, for my betters; yet golden joy ran through all my veins as gaily, as generously, as if i were a princess instead of a lady's-maid. why on earth i was happy, i didn't know, for it was perfectly clear that i was going to have a horrid time; but i pitied everybody who wasn't young, and starting off on a motor tour, even if on fifty francs a month "all found." i pitied lady turnour because she was herself; i pitied sir samuel because he was married to her; i pitied the people in the big hotel, who spent their afternoons and evenings playing bridge with all the windows hermetically sealed, while there was a world like this out of doors; and i wasn't sure yet whether i pitied the chauffeur or not. he didn't look particularly sorry for himself, as he took his seat on my right. i was well out of his way, and he had the air of having forgotten all about me, as he steered away from the hotel down the flower-bordered avenue which led to the street. "anyhow," said i to myself, behind my little three-cornered talc window, "whatever his faults may be, appearances are _very_ deceptive if he ever tries to chuck me under the chin." there we sat, side by side, shut away from our pastors and masters by a barrier of glass, in that state of life and on that seat to which it had pleased providence to call us, together. "we're far enough apart in mind, though," i told myself. yet i found my thoughts coming back to the man, every now and then, wondering if his nice brown profile were a mere lucky accident, or if he were really intelligent and well educated beyond his station. it was deliciously restful at first to sit there, seeing beautiful things as we flashed by, able to enjoy them in peace without having to make conversation, as the ordinary _jeune fille_ must with the ordinary _jeune monsieur_. "and is it that you love the automobilism, mademoiselle?" "but yes, i love the automobilism. and you?" "i also." (hang it, what shall i say to her next?) "and the dust. it does not too much annoy you?" (oh, bother, i do wish he'd let me alone!) "no, monsieur. because there are compensations. the scenery, is it not?" "and for me your society." (what a little idiot she is!) and so on. and so on. oh yes, there were consolations in being a motor maid, sitting as far away as possible from a cross-looking if rather handsome chauffeur, who would want to bite her if she tried to do the "society act." but after a while, when we'd spun past the charming villas and attractive shops of cannes (which looks so deceitfully sylvan, and is one of the gayest watering-places in the world) silence began to be a burden. it is such a nice motor car, and i did want to ask intelligent questions about it! i was almost sure they would be intelligent, because already i know several things about automobiles. the milvaines haven't got one, but most of their friends in paris have, and though i've never been on a long tour before, i've done some running about. when one knows things, especially when one's a girl--a really well-regulated, normal girl--one does like to let other people know that one knows them. it's all well enough to cram yourself full to bursting with interesting facts which it gives you a vast amount of trouble to learn, just out of respect for your own soul; and there's a great deal in that point of view, in one's noblest moments; but one's noblest moments are like bubbles, radiant while they last, then going pop! quite to one's own surprise, leaving one all flat, and nothing to show for the late bubble except a little commonplace soap. well, i am like that, and when i'm not nobly bubbling i love to say what i'm thinking to somebody who will understand, instead of feeding on myself. it really was a waste of good material to see all that lovely scenery slipping by like a panorama, and to be having quite heavenly thoughts about it, which must slip away too, and be lost for ever. i got to the pass when it would have been a relief to be asked if "this were my first visit to the riviera;" because i could hastily have said "yes," and then broken out with a volley of impressions. seeing beautiful things when you travel by rail consists mostly on getting half a glimpse, beginning to exclaim, "oh, look _there_!" then plunging into the black gulf of a tunnel, and not coming out again until after the best bit has carefully disappeared behind an uninteresting, fat-bodied mountain. but travelling by motor-car! oh, the difference! one sees, one feels; one is never, never bored, or impatient to arrive anywhere. one would enjoy being like the famous brook, and "go on forever." other automobiles were ahead of us, other cars were behind us, in the procession of nomads leaving the south for the north, but there had been rain in the night, so that the wind carried little dust. my spirit sang when we had left the long, cool avenue lined with the great silver-trunked plane trees (which seemed always, even in sunshine, to be dappled with moonlight) and dashed toward the barrier of the esterels that flung itself across our path. the big blue car bounded up the steep road, laughing and purring, like some huge creature of the desert escaped from a cage, regaining its freedom. but every time we neared a curve it was considerate enough to slow down, just enough to swing round with measured rhythm, smooth as the rocking of a child's cradle. perhaps, thought i, the chauffeur wasn't cross, but only concentrated. if i had to drive a powerful, untamed car like this, up and down roads like that, i should certainly get motor-car face, a kind of inscrutable, frozen mask that not all the cold cream in the world could ever melt. i wondered if he resorted to cold cream, and before i knew what i was doing, i found myself staring at the statuesque brown profile through my talc triangle. evidently animal magnetism can leak through talc, for suddenly the chauffeur glanced sharply round at me, as if i had called him. "did you speak?" he asked. "dear me, no, i shouldn't have dared," i hurried to assure him. again he transferred his attention from the road to me, though only a fraction, and for only the fraction of a second. i felt that he saw me as an eagle on the wing might see a fly on a boulder toward which he was steering between intervening clouds. "why shouldn't you dare?" he wanted to know. "one doesn't usually speak to lion-tamers while they're engaged in taming," i murmured, quite surprised at my audacity and the sound of my own voice. the chauffeur laughed. "oh!" he said. "or to captains of ocean liners on the bridge in thick fogs," i went on with my illustrations. "what do you know about lion-tamers and captains on ocean liners?" he inquired. "nothing. but i imagine. i'm always doing a lot of imagining." "do you think you will while you're with lady turnour?" "she hasn't engaged my brain, only my hands and feet." "and your time." "oh, thank goodness it doesn't take time to imagine. i can imagine all the most glorious things in heaven and earth in the time it takes you to put your car at the next corner." he looked at me longer, though the corner seemed dangerously near--to an amateur. "i see you've learned the true secret of living," said he. "have i? i didn't know." "well, you have. you may take it from me. i'm a good deal older than you are." "oh, of course, all really polite men are older than the women they're with." "even chauffeurs?" it was my turn to laugh now. "a chauffeur with a lady's-maid." "you seem an odd sort of lady's-maid." "i begin to think you're an odd sort of chauffeur." "why?" "well--" i hesitated, though i knew why, perfectly. "aren't you rather abrupt in your questions? suppose we change the subject. you seem to have tamed this tiger until it obeys you like a kitten." "that's what i get my wages for. but why do you think i'm an odd sort of chauffeur?" "for that matter, then, why do you think i'm an odd lady's-maid?" "as to that, probably i'm no judge. i never talked to one except my mother's, and she--wasn't at all like you." "well, that proves my point. the very fact that your mother _had_ a maid, shows you're an odd sort of chauffeur." "oh! you mean because i wasn't always 'what i seem,' and that kind of _family herald_ thing? do you think it odd that a chauffeur should be by way of being a gentleman? why, nowadays the woods and the story-books are full of us. but things are made pleasanter for us in books than in real life. out of books people fight shy of us. a 'shuvvie' with the disadvantage of having been to a public school, or handicapped by not dropping his h's, must knock something off his screw." "are you really in earnest, or are you joking?" i asked. "half and half, perhaps. anyway, it isn't a particularly agreeable position--if that's not too big a word for it. i envy you your imagination, in which you can shut yourself up in a kind of armour against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." "you wouldn't envy me if you had to do lady turnour's hair," i sighed. the chauffeur laughed out aloud. "heaven forbid!" he exclaimed. "i'm sure sir samuel would forbid, anyhow," said i. "do you know, i don't think this trip's going to be so bad?" said he. "neither do i," i murmured in my veil. we both laughed a good deal then. but luckily the glass was expensively thick, and the car was singing. "what are you laughing at?" i asked. "something that it takes a little sense of humour to see, when you've been down on your luck," said he. "a sense of humour was the only thing my ancestors left me," said i. "i don't wonder you laugh. it really is quaintly funny." "do you think we're laughing at the same thing?" "i'm almost sure of it." "do tell me your part, and let's compare notes." "well, it's something that nobody but us in this car--unless it's the car itself--knows." "then it is the same thing. they haven't an idea of it, and wouldn't believe it if anyone told them. yes, it is funny." "about their not being--" "while you--" "and you--" "thanks. a lady--" "a gentleman--" "and the only ones on board--" "are the two servants!" "as long as _they_ don't notice--" "and we do!" "perhaps we may get some fun out of it?" "extra--outside our wages. would it be called a 'perquisite'?" "if so, i'm sure we deserve it." i sighed, thinking of her ladyship's transformation, and lacing up her boots. "well, there's a lot to make up for." and he gave me another look--a very nice look, although he could see nothing of me but eyes and one third of a nose. "if i can ever at all help to make up, in the smallest way, you must let me try," he said. i ceased to think that his profile was cross, or even stern. i was glad that the chauffeur and i were in the same box--i mean, the same car. chapter vii all the same, i wondered a great deal how he came there, and i hoped that he was wondering the same sort of thing about me. in fact, i laid myself out to produce such a result. that is to say, i took some pains to show myself as little like the common or parlour lady's-maid as possible. i never took so much pains to impress any human being, male or (far less) female, as i took to impress that mere chauffeur--the very chauffeur i'd been lying awake at night dreading as the most objectionable feature in my new life. all the nice things i'd thought of by the way, before we introduced ourselves to each other, i trotted out (at least, as many as i had presence of mind to remember); and though i'm afraid he didn't pay me the compliment of trying to "brill" in return, i told myself that it was not because he didn't think me worth brilling for, but because he's english. it never seems to occur to an englishman to "show off." i believe if sir samuel turnour's chauffeur, mr. what's-his-name, knew twenty-seven languages, he could be silent in all of them. he did let me play the car's musical siren, though; a fascinating bugbear, supposed to warn children, chickens, and other light-minded animals that something important is coming, and they'd better look alive. it has two tunes, one grave, one gay. i suppose we would use the grave one if the creature hadn't looked alive? although he didn't say much, the chauffeur (or "shuvvie" as he scornfully names himself) knew all about robert macaire and gaspard de besse--knew more about them than i, also their escapades on this road over the esterels, and in the mountain fastnesses, when highwaymen were as fashionable as motor-cars are now. i'd forgotten that it was this part of the world where they earned their bread and fame; and was quite thrilled to hear that the ghost of de besse is supposed to keep on, as a permanent residence, his old shelter cave near the summit of strangely shaped mont vinaigre. i'm sure, though, even if we'd passed his pitch at midnight instead of midday, he wouldn't have dared pop out and cry "stand and deliver!" to a sixty-horsepower aigle. i almost wished it were night, as we swooped over mountain tops, our eyes plunging down the deep gorges, and dropping with fearful joy over precipices, for the effect would have been more solemn, more mysterious. i could imagine that the fantastically formed rocks which loomed above us or stood ranged far below would have looked by moonlight like statues and busts of titans, carved to show poor little humanity such creatures as a dead world had known. but it is hard for one's imagination to do the best of which it feels capable when one is dying for lunch. even the old "murder inn," which my companion obligingly pointed out, didn't give me the thrill it ought, because time was getting on when we flew past it, and i would have been capable of eating vulgar bread and cheese under its wickedly historic roof if i had been invited. "do you suppose they know anything about the road and its history?" i asked the chauffeur, with a slight gesture of my swathed head toward the solid wall of glass which was our background. "they? certainly not, and don't want to know," he answered with an air of assurance. "why do they go about in motors then," i wondered, "if they don't take interest in things they pass?" "you must understand as well as i do why this sort of person goes about in motors," said he. "they go because other people go--because it's the thing. the 'other people' whom they slavishly imitate may really like the exhilaration, the ozone, the sight-seeing, or all three; but to this type the only part that matters is letting it be seen that they've got a handsome car, and being able to say 'we've just come from the riviera in our sixty-horse-power motor-car.' they'd always mention the power." "lady turnour did, even to me," i remembered. "but is sir samuel like that?" "no, to do him justice, he isn't, poor man. but his wife is his juggernaut. i believe he enjoys lying under her wheels, or thinks he does--which is the same thing." "have you been with them long?" i dared to inquire. "only a few days. i brought the car down for them from paris, though not this way--a shorter one. we're new brooms, the car and i." "all their brooms seem to be new," i reflected. "i wonder what the stepson is like?" "luckily it doesn't matter much to me," said the chauffeur indifferently. "nor to me. but his name's herbert." "his surname?" "i don't know. there's a herbert lurking somewhere. it always suggests to me oily hair parted in the middle and smeared down on each side of a low, narrow forehead. could you know a 'bertie'?" "i did once, and never want to again. he was a swine and a snob. hope you never came across the combination?" i forgot to answer, because, having left the mountain world behind, a formidable line of nobly planned arches began striding along beside us, through the sun-bright fields, and i was sure it must be the giant roman aqueduct of fréjus. instead of discussing such little things as the turnours and their bertie, we began to talk of phoenicians, ligurians, and of romans; of pliny, who had a beloved friend at fréjus; and all the while to breathe in the perfume of a land over which a vast tidal wave of balsamic pines had swept. fréjus we were not to see now: that was for the dim future, after lunch; but we turned to the left off the main road, and ran on until we saw, bathed in pines, deliciously deluged and drowned in pines, the white glimmer of classic-looking villas. these meant valescure, said the chauffeur; and the grand hotel--not classic looking, but pretty in its terraced garden--meant luncheon. the car drew up before the door, according to order, or rather, according to hypnotic suggestion; for it seems that it is the chauffeur who alone knows anything of the way, and who, while appearing to be non-committal, is virtually planning the tour. "valescure might be a good stopping-place for lunch," he had murmured, an eye on the road map over which his head bent with sir samuel's. "very beautiful--rather exclusive. you may remember mr. chamberlain stopped there." the exclusiveness and the chamberlain-ness decided lady turnour, behind sir samuel's shoulder (so the chauffeur told me); consequently, here we were--and not at st. raphael, which would have seemed the more obvious place to stop. i say "we," but lady turnour would have been surprised to hear that her maid dared count herself and a chauffeur in the programme. creatures like us must be fed, just as you pour petrol into the tanks of a motor, or stoke a furnace with coals, because otherwise our mechanism wouldn't go, and that would be awkward when we were wanted. the chauffeur opened the door of the car as if he had been born to open motor-car doors, and lady turnour allowed herself to be helped out by her husband. her jewel-bag clutched in her hand (she doesn't know me well enough yet to trust me with it, and hasn't had bagsful of jewels for long), she passed her two servants without expending a look on them. sir samuel followed, telling his chauffeur to have the automobile ready at the door again in an hour and a quarter; and we two worms were left to our own resources. "i shan't garage her," said my fellow worm of the car. "i'll just drive her out of the way, where i can look over her a bit when i've snatched something to eat. i'll take the fur rugs inside--you're not to bother, they're big enough to swamp you entirely. and then you--" "yes, then i--" i repeated desolately. "what is to become of me?" "why, you're to have your lunch, of course," he replied. "i thought you said you were hungry." "so i am, starving. but--" "well?" "aren't you going to have a proper lunch?" "a sandwich and a piece of cheese will do for me, because there are one or two little things to tinker up on the car, and an hour and a quarter isn't long. i think i shall bring my grub out of doors, and--but is anything the matter?" "i can't go in and have lunch alone. i simply can't," i confessed to the young man whose society i had intended to avoid like a pestilence. "you see, i--i never--this is the first time." a look of comprehension flashed over his face. "yes, i see," he said. "of course, the moment i heard your voice i realized that this wasn't your sort of work, but i didn't know you were quite so new to it as all that. you've never taken a meal in the couriers' room of an hotel?" "no," i confessed. "at the majestic palace lady kil--that is, i decided to have everything brought up to my room, there." "by jove, we are a strange pair! this is my first job, too, and so far i've been able to feed where i chose; but that's too good to last on tour. one must accommodate oneself to circumstances, and a man easily can. but you--i know how you feel. however, it's the first step that costs. do you mind much?" "it's the stepping in alone that costs the most," i said. "well, i'm only too delighted if i can be of the least use. let the car rip! i'll see to her afterward. now i'm going to take care of you. you need it more than she does." what would lady kilmarny have said if she had heard my deliberate encouragement of the chauffeur, and his reckless response? what would she have thought if she could have seen us walking into the couriers' dining-room, side by side, as if we had been friends for as many years as we'd really been acquaintances for minutes, leaving the car he was paid to cherish in his bosom sulking alone! that sweet lady's face, surprised and reproachful, rose before my eyes, but i had no regrets. and instead of trembling with apprehension when i saw that the couriers' room was empty, i rejoiced in the prospect of lunching alone with the redoubtable chauffeur. it was too early for the regular feeding hour of the _pensionnaires_, maids, and valets, and we sat down opposite each other at the end of a long table. a bored young waiter, with little to hope for in the way of _pourboires_, ambled off in quest of our food. i began to unfasten my head covering, and after a search for various fugitive pins i emerged from obscurity, like the moon from behind a cloud. with a sigh of relief, i smiled at my companion; and it was only his expression of surprise which reminded me that he had been seeing me "as through a glass darkly." i suppose, unless you are a sort of sherlock holmes of physiognomy, you can't map out a woman's face by a mere glimpse of eyes through a triangular bit of talc, already somewhat damaged by exposure to sun and wind. it mayn't be good manners to look a gift motor-veil in the talc, but i must admit that, glad as i was of its protection, mine was somewhat the worse for certain bubbles, cracks, and speckles; so whether or no mr. bane or dane may combine the science of chauffeuring with that of physiognomy, it's certain that he had the air of being taken aback. of course, i know that i'm not exactly plain, and that the contrast between my eyes and hair is a little out of the common; so, as soon as i remembered that he hadn't seen me before, i guessed more or less what his almost startled look meant. still, i suppose most girls--anyway, half-french, half-american girls--would have done exactly what i proceeded to do. i looked as innocent as a fluffy chicken when it first sidles out of its eggshell into the wide, wide world; and said: "oh, i do hope i haven't a smudge on the end of my nose?" "no," replied the chauffeur, instantly becoming expressionless. "why do you ask?" "only i was afraid, from your face, that there was something wrong." "so far as i can see, there's nothing wrong," said he, calmly, and broke a piece of bread. "very good butter, this, that they give to _nous autres_," he went on, in the same tone of voice, and my respect for him increased. (men are really rather nice creatures, take them all in all!) as he had sacrificed his duty to the car for me, i sacrificed my duty to my digestion for him, and bolted my luncheon. then, when released from guard duty, he returned to his true allegiance, and i ventured to walk on the terrace to admire the view. far away it stretched, over garden, and pineland, and flowery meadow-spaces, to the blue, silver-sewn sea, which to my fancy looked homeric. nothing modern caught the eye to break the romance of the illusion. all was as it might have been twenty or thirty centuries ago, when on the mediterranean sailed "phoenicians, mariners renowned, greedy merchantmen with countless gauds in a black ship." i had just begun to play that i was a young woman of tyre, taken on an adventurous excursion by an indulgent father, when presto! lady turnour's voice brought me back to the present with a jump. there's nothing homeric about her! she and sir samuel had finished their luncheon, and so had several other people. there was an exodus of well-dressed, nice-looking women from dining-room to terrace, and conscious that i ought to have been herding among their maids, i fled with haste and humility. what right had i, in this sweet place divinely fit to be a rest-cure for goddesses tired of the social diversions of olympus? i scuttled off to the car, and stood ready to serve my mistress when it should please her to be tucked under her rugs. despite delays, the chauffeur had finished whatever had to be done, and soon we were spinning away from valescure, far away, into a world of flowers. black cypresses soared skyward, so clean cut, so definite, that i seemed to hear them, crystal-shrill, like the sharp notes in music, as they leaped darkly out from a silver monotone of olives and a delicate ripple of pearly plum or pear blossom. mimosas poured floods of gold over the spring landscape, blazing violently against the cloudless blue. bloom of peach and apple tree garlanded our road on either side; the way was jewelled with roses; and acres of hyacinths stretched into the distance, their perfume softening the keenness of the breeze. "are they going to let you pass fréjus without pausing for a single look?" i asked mournfully. but at that instant there came a peal of the electric bell which is one of the luxurious fittings of the car. it meant "stop!" and we stopped. "aren't there some ruins here--something middle-aged?" asked sir samuel, meaning mediæval. "roman ruins, sir," replied his chauffeur, without changing countenance. "are they the sort of things you ought to say you've seen?" "i think most people do stop and see them, sir." "what is your wish, my dear?" sir samuel gallantly deferred to his bride. "i know you don't like out-of-door sightseeing when it's windy, and blows your hair about, but--" "we might try, and if i don't like it, we can go on," replied lady turnour, patronizing the remains of roman greatness, since it appeared to be the "thing" for the nobility and gentry to do. the chauffeur obediently turned the big blue aigle, and let her sail into the very centre of the vast arena where cæsar saw gladiators fight and die. it was very noble, very inspiring, and from some shady corner promptly emerged a quaintly picturesque old guardian, ready to pour forth floods of historic information. he introduced himself as a soldier who had seen fighting in mexico under maximilian, therefore the better able to appreciate and fulfil his present task. but her ladyship listened for awhile with lack-lustre eyes, and finally, when dates were flying about her ears like hail, calmly interrupted to say that she was "glad she hadn't lived in the days when you had to go to the theatre out of doors." "i can't understand more than one word in twelve that the old thing says, anyhow," she went on. "elise must give me french lessons every day while she does my hair. i hope she has the right accent." "he's saying that this amphitheatre was once almost as large as the one at nîmes, but that it would only hold about ten thousand spectators," explained the chauffeur, who was engaged partly for his french and knowledge of france. "it's nonsense bothering to know that now, when the place is tumbling to pieces," sneered her ladyship. "i beg your pardon, my lady; i only thought that, as a rule, the best people do feel bound to know these things. but of course--" he paused deferentially, without a twinkle in his eye, though i was pressing my lips tightly together, and trying not to shake spasmodically. "oh, well, go on. what else does the old boy say, then?" groaned lady turnour, _martyrisée_. mr. bane or dane didn't dare to glance at me. with perfect gravity he translated the guide's best bits, enlarging upon them here and there in a way which showed that he had independent knowledge of his own. and it was a feather in his cap that his eloquence eventually interested lady turnour. she made him tell her again how fréjus was claustra gallæ to cæsar, and how it was the "caput" for this part of the wonderful via aurelia, which started at rome, never ending until it came to arles. "why, we've been to rome, and we're going to arles," she exclaimed. "we can tell people we've been over the whole of the via aurelia, can't we? we needn't mention that the automobile didn't arrive till after we got to cannes. and anyway, you say there were once theatres there, and at antibes, like the one at fréjus, so we've been making a kind of roman pilgrimage all along, if we'd only known it." "it is considered quite the thing to do, in roman amphitheatres, to make a tour of the prisoners' cells and gladiators' dressing-rooms, the guide says," insinuated the chauffeur. and then, when the bride and bridegroom, reluctant but conscientious, were swimming round the vast bowl of masonry, like tea-leaves floating in a great cup, he turned to me. "why don't you thank me?" he inquired. "i was doing it for you. i knew you hated to miss all this, and i saw she meant to go on, so i intervened, in the only way i could think of, to touch her." "if you're always as clever as that, i don't see why this shouldn't be _our_ trip," i said. "that will be a consolation." "i'm afraid you'll often need more consolation than that," he answered. "lady turnour is--as the americans say--a pretty 'stiff proposition.'" "still, if you can hypnotize her into going to all the places, and stopping to look at all the nicest things, this will at least be a cheap automobile tour for us both." i laughed, but he didn't; and i was sorry, for i thought i deserved a smile. and he has a nice one, with even white teeth in it, and a wistful sort of look in his eyes at the same time: a really interesting smile. i wondered what he was thinking about that made him look so grave; but i conceitedly felt that it was something concerning me--or the situation of us both. chapter viii the tidal wave of pines followed us as, having had one glance at the porte dorée, we left fréjus, old and new, behind. it followed us out of gay little st. raphael, lying in its alluvial plain of flowers, and on along the coast past which the ships of augustus cæsar used to sail. not in my most starry dreams could i have fancied a road as beautiful as that which opened to us soon, winding above the dancing water. graceful dryad pines knelt by the wayside, stretching out their arms to the sea, where charming little bays shone behind enlacing branches, blue as the eyes of a wood-nymph gleaming shyly through the brown tangle of her hair. pine balsam mingled with the bitter-sweet perfume of almond blossom, and caught a pungent tang of salt from the wind. what romance--what beauty! it made me in love with life, just to pass this way, and know that so much hidden loveliness existed. i glanced furtively over my shoulder at the couple whose honeymoon it is--our master and mistress. lady turnour sat nodding in the conservatory atmosphere of her glass cage, and sir samuel was earnestly choosing a cigar. suddenly it struck me that providence must have a vast sense of humour, and that the little inhabitants of this earth, high and low, must afford it a great deal of benevolent amusement. all too soon we swept out of the forest, straight into a little town, st. maxime, with a picturesque port of its own, where red-sailed fishing boats lolled as idly as the dark-eyed young men in cafés near the shore. a few tourists walking out from the hotel on the hill gazed rather curiously at us in our fine blue car; and we gazed away from them, across a sapphire gulf, to the distant houses of st. tropez, banked high against a promontory of emerald. i should have liked to run on to st. tropez, for i knew his pretty legend; how he was one of the guards of st. paul in prison, and was converted by the eloquence of his captive; but the chauffeur said that, after la foux (famed home of miniature horses) the coast road would lose its surface of velvet. it would be laced in and out with crossings of a local railway line, and there would be so many bumps that lady turnour was certain to wake up very cross. "for your sake i don't want to make her cross," said he, and turned inland; but the way was no less beautiful. the pines were tired of running after us, but great cork trees marched beside the road, like an army of crusaders in disarray, half in, half out, of armour. above, rose the mountains of the moors, whose very name seemed to ring with the distant echo of a saracen war song; and here and there, on a bare, wild hillside, towered all that was left of some ancient castle, fallen into ruin. cogolin was fine, and grimaud was even finer. up a steep ascent, through shadowy forests we had passed, now and then coming suddenly upon a little red-roofed village nestling among the trees as a strawberry among its leaves, when abruptly we flashed out where spaces of sky and silver sea opened. between hills that seemed to sweep a curtsey to us, we flew down an apple-paring road toward hyères. the turnours had lunched, if not wisely, probably too well, at valescure about one o'clock, and it wasn't yet four; but the air at the beautiful costebelle hotels is said to be perpetually glittering with royalties and other bright beings of the great world, so her ladyship wouldn't have been persuaded to miss the place. not that anyone tried to persuade her, for the two powers behind the throne (and in front of the car) wanted to go--not to see the royalties, but the beauties of costebelle itself. we slipped gently through the town of hyères, whose avenues of giant palms looked like great sea anemones turned into trees, and then spurted up a hill into a vast and fragrant grove that smelled of a thousand flowers. in the grove stood three hotels, with wide views over jade-green lagoons to an indigo sea; and at the most charming of the trio we stopped. nothing was said about tea for the two servants, but while the "quality" had theirs on an exquisite terrace, the chauffeur brought a steaming cup to me, as i sat in the car. "this was given me for my _beaux yeux_," he said, "but i don't want any tea, so please take it, and don't let it be wasted." i was convinced that he had paid for that cup of tea with coin harder if not brighter than the _beaux yeux_ in question; but it would have hurt his feelings if i had refused, therefore i drank the tea and thanked the giver. "you are being very kind to me," i said, "mr. bane or dane; so do you mind telling me which it is?" "dane," he replied shortly. "not that it matters. a chauffeur by any other name would smell as much of oil and petrol. it's actually my real name, too. are you surprised? i was either too proud or too stubborn to change it--i'm not sure which--when i took up 'shuvving' for a livelihood." "no, i'm not surprised," i said. "you don't look like the sort of man who would change his name as if it were a coat. i've kept mine, too, to 'maid' with. you 'shuv,' i 'maid.' it sounds like an exercise in a strange language." "that's precisely what it is," he answered. "a difficult language to learn at first, but i'm getting the 'hang' of it. i hope you won't need to pursue the study very thoroughly." "and you think you will?" "i think so," he said, his face hardening a little, and looking dogged. "i don't see any way out of it for the present." i was silent for almost a whole minute--which can seem a long time to a woman--half hoping that he meant to tell me something about himself; how it was that he'd decided to be a professional chauffeur, and so on. i was sure there must be a story, an interesting story--perhaps a romantic one--and if he confided in me, i would in him. why not, when--on my part, at least--there's nothing to conceal, and we're bound to be companions of the road for weal or woe? but if he felt any temptation to be expansive he resisted it, like a true englishman; and to break a silence which grew almost embarrassing i was driven to ask him, quite brazenly, if he had no curiosity to know my name. "not exactly curiosity," said he, smiling his pleasant smile again. "i'm never curious about people i--like, or feel that i'm going to like. it isn't my nature." "it's just the opposite with me." "we're of opposite sexes." "you believe that explains it? i don't know. man may be a fellow creature, i suppose--though they didn't teach me that at the convent. but tell me this: even if you have no curiosity, because you hope you can manage to endure me, _do_ you think i look like an 'elise'?" "somehow, you don't. names have different colours for me. elise is bright pink. you ought to be silver, or pale blue." "elise is my professional name; lady turnour is my sponsor. my real name's lys--lys d'angely." "good! lys _is_ silver." "i wish i could coin it. let me see if i can guess what you ought to be? you look like--like--well, jack would suit you. but that's too good to be true. i shall never meet a 'jack' except in books and ballads." "my name is john claud. but when i was a boy, i always fought any chap who called me 'claud,' and tried to give him a black eye or a bloody nose. you may call me jack, if you like." "certainly not. i shall call you mr. dane." "shuvvers are never mistered." "not even by the females of their kind? i always supposed that manners were very toploftical in the servants' hall." "we may both soon know." "elise, take that cup at once where you got it from, and come back to your place. we are ready to start." this from lady turnour. (really, if she takes to interfering every time we others have got to the middle of an interesting conversation, i don't know what i shall do to her! perhaps i'll put her transformation on side-wise. or would that be blackmail?) silently the chauffeur took the cup from my frightened fingers, and marched off with it into the hotel, without a "by your leave" or "with your leave." "my word, your chauffeur might have better manners!" grumbled lady turnour to sir samuel, as she climbed into the car; but there was no scolding when the rude young man came briskly back, looking supremely unconscious of having given offence. "now we must make good time to marseilles, if we're to get there for dinner," he said, when he had started the car, and taken his place. "we shall stop there to-night, or rather, just outside the town, in one of the nicest hotels on earth, as you will see." "whose choice?" i asked. "mine," he laughed, "but i don't think sir samuel knows that!" down to hyères we floated again, on the wings of the aigle, i looking longingly across the valley where the old town climbed a citadeled hill, and lay down at the foot of a sturdy though crumbling castle. if this were _really_ my own tour, as i am trying to play it is, i would have commanded a long stop at costebelle, to make explorations of the region round about. i can imagine no greater joy than to be able to stay at beautiful places as long as one wished, and to keep on doing beautiful things till one tired of doing them. but life is a good deal like a big busybody of a policeman, continually telling us to get up and move on! our world was a flower world again, ringed in like a secret fairyland, with distant mountains of extraordinarily graceful shapes--charming lady-mountains; and as far as we could see the road was cut through a carpet of pink, white, and golden blossoms destined by and by for the markets of paris, london, berlin, and vienna. before i thought it could be so near, we dashed into toulon, a very different toulon from the toulon of the railway station, where i remembered stopping a few mornings (which seemed like a few years) ago. now, it looked a noble and impressive place, as well as a tremendously busy town; but my eye climbed to the towery heights above, wondering on which one napoleon--a smart young officer of artillery--placed the batteries that shelled the british out of the harbour, and gained for him the first small laurel leaf of his imperial crown. i thought, too, of all the french novels i'd read, whose sailor heroes were stationed at toulon, and there met romantic or sensational adventures. they were always handsome and dashing, those heroes, and as we threaded intricate fortifications, i found myself looking out for at least one or two of them. yes, they were there, plenty of heroes, almost all handsome, with splendid dark eyes that searched flatteringly to penetrate the mystery of my talc triangle. they didn't know, poor dears, that there was nothing better than a lady's-maid behind it. what a waste of gorgeous glances! i laughed to myself at the fancy, and the chauffeur sitting beside me wanted to know why; but i wouldn't tell him. one really can't say everything to a man one has known only for a day. and yet, the curious part is, i feel as if we had been the best of friends for a long time. i never felt like that toward any man before, but i suppose it is because of the queer resemblance in our fates. beyond toulon we had to slow down for a long procession of gypsy caravans on their way to town; quaint, moving houses, with strings of huge pearls that were gleaming onions, festooned across their blue or green doors and windows; and out from those doors and windows wonderful eyes gazed at us--eyes full of secrets of the east, strange eyes, more fascinating in their passing glance than those of the gay young heroes at toulon. so we flew on to the village of ollioules, and into the dim mountain gorge of the same musical name. the car plunged boldly through the veil of deep blue shadow which hung, ghostlike, over the serpentine curves of the white road; and out of its twilight-mystery rose always the faint singing of a little river that ran beside us, under the steep gray wall of towering rock. at the top of the gorge a surprise of beauty waited for us as our way led along a sinuous road cut into the swelling mountain-side. far off lay the sea, with an army of tremendous purple rocks hurling themselves headlong into the molten gold of the water, like a drove of mammoths. all the world was gold and royal purple. hills and mountains stood up, darkly violet, out of a golden plain, against a sky of gold; and it was such a picture as only heaven or turner could have painted. nor was there any break in the varied splendor of the scene and of the sun's setting until we came to the dull-looking town of aubagne. after that, the southern darkness swooped in haste, and while we wound tediously through the immense, never-ending traffic of marseilles, it "made night." all the length and breadth of the cannebière burst into brilliance of electric light, as if in our honor. the great street looked as gay as a paris boulevard; and as we turned into it, we turned into an adventure. to begin with, nothing seemed less likely than an adventure. we drew up calmly before the door of a hotel whence a telephonic demand for rooms must be sent to la reserve, under the same management. it was the chauffeur who had to go in and telephone, for the bridegroom is even more helpless in french than the bride; and before mr. dane could stop the car, sir samuel called out: "keep the motor going, to save time. you needn't be a minute in there. her ladyship is hungry, and wants to get on." the chauffeur raised his eyebrows, but obeyed in silence, leaving the motor hard at work, the automobile panting as impatiently to be off as if "she" suffered with lady turnour. no sooner was the tall, leather-clad figure out of sight than a crowd of small boys and youths pressed boldly round the handsome car. her splendour was her undoing, for a plain, every-day sort of automobile might have failed to attract. laughing, jabbering _patois_, a dozen young imps forced their audacious attentions on the unprotected azure beauty. what was i, that i could defend her, left there as helpless as she, while her great heart throbbed under me? it was easy to say "_allez-vous en--va!_" and i said it, not once, but again and again, each time more emphatically than before. nobody paid the slightest attention, however, except, perhaps to find an extra spice of pleasure in tormenting me. if i had been a yapping miniature lap-dog, with teeth only _pour faire rire_, i could not have been treated with greater disdain by the crowd. i glanced hastily round to see if sir samuel had not taken alarm; but, sitting beside his wife in the big crystal cage, he seemed blissfully unconscious of danger to his splendid aigle. instead, the couple looked rather pleased than otherwise to be a centre of attraction. "perhaps," i thought, "they're right, and these young wretches can work no real harm to the car. they ought to know better than i--" but they didn't; for before the thought could spin itself out in my mind, a gypsy-eyed little fiend of twelve or thirteen made a spring at the driver's seat. with a yelp of mischievous glee he proved his daring to his comrades by snatching at the starting-lever. he was quick as a flash of summer lightning, but if i hadn't been quicker, the big car might have leaped into life, and run amuck through the most crowded street in busy marseilles. i felt myself go cold and hot, horribly uncertain whether my interference might work harm or good, but before i quite knew what i did, i had sent the boy flying with a sounding box on the ear. he squealed as he sprawled backward, and i stood up, ready for battle, my fingers tingling, my heart pounding. the imp was up again, in half a breath, pushed forward by his friends to take revenge, and i could hear sir samuel or her ladyship wrestling vainly with the window behind me. what would have happened next i can't tell, except that i was in a mood to fight for our car till the death, even if knives flashed out; and i think i was gasping "police! police!" but at that instant mr. jack dane hurled himself like a catapult from the hotel. he dashed the weedy youths out of his way like ninepins, jumped to his seat, and the car and the car's occupants were safe. "you are a trump, miss d'angely," said he, as we boomed away from the hotel, scattering the crowd before us as an eddy of wind scatters autumn leaves. "you did just the right thing at just the right time. it was all my fault. i oughtn't to have left the motor going." "it was sir samuel's fault," i contradicted him. "no. whatever goes wrong with the car is always the chauffeur's fault. sir samuel wanted me to do a foolish thing, and i oughtn't to have done it. i had your life to think of--" "and theirs." "theirs, of course. but i would have thought of yours first." it made my heart feel as warm as a bird in a nest to be complimented by the man at the helm for presence of mind, and then to hear that already i'd gained a friend to whom my life was of some value. since my mother died, there has been no one for whom i've come first. i wanted badly to do something to show my gratitude, but could think of nothing except that, by and by, when we knew each other better, i might offer to sew on his buttons or mend his socks. chapter ix "i suppose we'll meet by-and-by at dinner?" i said (i'm afraid rather wistfully) to the chauffeur as he drove the car up a steep hill to the door of la reserve, on the corniche. "well, no," he answered, "because you needn't fear anything disagreeable here, and i'm going to stop at a less expensive place. you see, i pay my own way, and as i really have to live on my screw, it doesn't run to grand hotels. this one _is_ rather grand; but you will be all right, because, although it's a famous place for food, at this season few people stop overnight, and i've found out through the telephone that the turnours are the only ones who have taken bedrooms. that means you'll have your dinner and breakfast by yourself." "oh, that will be nice!" i said, trying to speak as if i delighted in the thought of solitude and reflection. "i wish i were paying my own way, too; but i couldn't do it on fifty francs a month, could i?" "fifty francs a month!" he echoed, astonished. "is that your compensation for being a slave to such a woman? by jove, it makes me hot all over, to think that a girl like you should--" "well, this trip is thrown in as additional compensation," i reminded him. "and thanks to you and your kindness, i believe i'm going to find my place more than tolerable." the car stopped, and duty began. i couldn't even turn and say good night to the chauffeur, as i walked primly into the hotel, laden with my mistress's things. she and sir samuel had the best rooms in the house, a suite big enough and grand enough for a king and queen, with a delightful _loggia_ overlooking the high garden and the sea. but of course lady turnour would die rather than seem impressed by anything, and would probably pick faults if she were invited to sleep at buckingham palace or windsor castle--a contingency which i think unlikely. she was snappish with hunger, and did not trouble to restrain her temper before me. poor sir samuel! it is he who has snatched her from her lodging-house, to lead her into luxury, because of his faithful love of many years; and this is the way she rewards him! if i'd been in his place, and had a javelin handy, i think i might suddenly have become a widower. she was better after dinner, however, so i knew she must have been well fed: and in the morning, after a gorgeous _déjeuner_ on the loggia, she was in an amiable mood to plan for the day's journey. at ten o'clock the chauffeur arrived, and was shown up to the turnours' vast louis xvi. salon. he looked as much like an icily regular, splendidly null, bronze statue as a flesh-and-blood young man could possibly look, for that, no doubt, is his conception of the part of a well-trained "shuvver"; and he did not seem aware of my existence as he stood, cap in hand, ready for orders. as for me, i flatter myself that i was equally admirable in my own _métier_. i was assorting a motley collection of guide-books, novels, maps, smelling-salts, and kodaks when he came in, and was dying to look up, but i remained as sweetly expressionless as a doll. the bronze statue respectfully inquired how its master would like to make a little _détour_, instead of going by way of aix-en-provence to avignon, as arranged. within an easy run was a spot loved by artists, and beginning to be talked about--martigues on the etang de berre, a salt lake not far from marseilles--said to be picturesque. the prince of monaco was fond of motoring down that way. at the sound of a princely name her ladyship's mind made itself up with a snap. so the change of programme was decided upon, and curious as to the chauffeur's motive, i questioned him when again we sat shoulder to shoulder, the salt wind flying past our faces. "why the etang de berre?" i asked. "oh, i rather thought it would interest you. it's a queer spot." "thank you. you think i like queer spots--and things?" "yes, and people. i'm sure you do. you'll like the etang and the country round, but _they_ won't." "that's a detail," said i, "since this tour runs itself in the interests of the _femme de chambre_ and the chauffeur." "we're the only ones who have any interests that matter. it's all the same to them, really, where they go, if i take the car over good roads and land them at expensive hotels at night. but i'm not going to do that always. they've got to see the gorge of the tarn. they don't know that yet, but they have." "and won't they like seeing it?" "lady turnour will hate it." "then we may as well give it up. her will is mightier than the sword." "once she's in, there'll be no turning back. she'll have to push on to the end." "she mayn't consent to go in." "queen margherita of italy is said to have the idea of visiting the tarn next summer. think what it would mean to lady turnour to get the start of a queen!" "you are machiavelian! when did you have this inspiration?" "well, i got thinking last night that, as they have plenty of time--almost as much time as money--it seemed a pity that i should whirl them along the road to paris at the rate planned originally. you see, though there are plenty of interesting places on the way mapped out--you've been to tours, you say--" "what of that?" "oh, the trip might as well be new for everybody except myself; and as you like adventures--" "you think it's the turnours' duty to have them." "just so. if only to punish her ladyship for grinding you down to fifty francs a month. what a reptile!" "if she's a reptile, i'm a cat to plot against her." "do cats plot? only against mice, i think. and anyhow, _i'm_ doing all the plotting. i've felt a different man since yesterday. i've got something to live for." "oh, _what?_" the question asked itself. "for a comrade in misfortune. and to see her to her journey's end. i suppose that end will be in paris?" "no-o," i said. "i rather think i shall go on all the way to england with lady turnour--if i can stand it. there's a person in england who will be kind to me." "oh!" remarked mr. dane, suddenly dry and taciturn again. i didn't know what had displeased him--unless he was sorry to have my company as far as england; yet somehow i couldn't quite believe it was that. all this talk we had while dodging furious trams and enormous waggons piled with merchandise, in that maelstrom of traffic near the marseilles docks, which must be passed before we could escape into the country. at last, coasting down a dangerously winding hill with a too suggestively named village at the bottom--l'assassin--the aigle turned westward. the chauffeur let her spread her wings at last, and we raced along a clear road, the etang already shimmering blue before us, like an eye that watched and laughed. then we had to swing smoothly round a great circle, to see in all its length and breadth that strange, hidden, and fishy fairy-land of which martigues is the door. once the phoenicians found their way here, looking for salt, which is exploited to this day; marius camped near enough to take his morning dip in the etang, perhaps; and jeanne, queen of naples, held martigues for herself. but now only fish, and fishermen, and a few artists occupy themselves in that quaint little world which one passes all regardlessly in the flying "_côte d'azur_." as we sailed round the road which rings the sleepy-looking salt lake, lady turnour had a window opened on purpose to ask what on earth the prince of monaco found to admire in this flat country, where there were no fine buildings? and her rebellion made me take alarm for the success of our future plots. but the chauffeur (anxious for the same reason, maybe, that she should be content) explained things nicely. why, said he, for one thing the best fish eaten at the best restaurants of monte carlo came out of the etang de berre. the _bouillabaise_ which her ladyship had doubtless tasted at la reserve last night, originally owed much to the same source; and talking of _bouillabaise_, martigues was almost as famous for it as la reserve itself. one had but to lunch at the little hotel paul chabas to prove that. and then, for less material reasons, his serene highness might be influenced by the fact that corot had loved this ring of land which clasped the etang de berre--ziem, too, and other artists whose opinion could not be despised. these arguments silenced if they didn't convince lady turnour, though she had probably never heard of ziem, or even corot, and we two in front were able to admire the charming scene in peace. crossing bridges here and there we saw, rising above sapphire lake and silver belt of olives jewelled with rosy almond blossom, more than one miniature carcassonne, or ruined castle small as if peeped at through a diminishing glass. there was port le bouc, the mediterranean harbour of the etang, or watergate to fairyland, as martigues was the door; istre on its proud little height; miramas and berre, important in their own eyes, and pretty in all others when reflected in the glassy surface of blue water. there were dark groups of cypresses, like mourning figures talking together after a funeral--ancient trees who could almost remember the romans; and better than all else, there was pont flavian, which these romans had built. even lady turnour condescended to get out of the car to do honour to the bridge with its two corinthian arches of perfect grace and beauty; but she had nothing to say to the poor little, tired-looking lions sitting on top, which i longed to climb up and pat. she wanted to push on, and her one thought of aix-en-provence was for lunch. was dane sure we should find anything decent to eat there? very well, then the sooner we got it the better. what a good thing there was someone on board the car to appreciate provence, someone to keep saying--"we're in provence--_provence!_" repeating the word just for the joy and music of it, and all it means of romance and history! if there had not been someone to say and feel that, every turn of the tyres would have been an insult to provence, who had put on her loveliest dress to bid us welcome. among the olives and almonds, young trees of vivid yellow spouted pyramids of thin, gold flame against a sky of violet, and the indefinable fragrance of spring was in the air. we met handsome, up-standing peasants in red or blue _beréts_, singing melodiously in _patois_--provençal, perhaps--as they walked beside their string of stout cart-horses. and the songs, and the dark eyes of the singers, and the wonderful horned harness which the noble beasts wore with dignity, all seemed to answer us: "yes, you are in provence." we talked of old provence, my fellow worm and i, while our master and mistress wearied for their luncheon; of the men and women who had passed along this road which we travelled. what would madame de sévigné, or lady mary wortley montagu, or george sand have said if a blue car like ours had suddenly flashed into their vision? we agreed that, in any case, not one of them--or any other person of true imagination--would call abominable a wonderful piece of mechanism with the power of flattening mountains into plains, triumphing over space, annihilating distance; a machine combining fiercest energy with the mildest docility. no, only old fogies would close their hearts to a machine fit for the gods, and pride themselves on being motophobes forever. we felt ourselves, car and all, to be worthy of this magic way, lined with blossoms that played like rosy children among the strange rocks characteristic of provence--rocks which seemed to have boiled up all hot out of the earth, and then to have vied with each other in hardening into most fantastic shapes. even we felt ourselves worthy to meet a few troubadours, as we drew near to aix, where once they held their courts of love; and we had talked ourselves into an almost dangerously romantic mood by the time we arrived at the hotel in the cours mirabeau. there, in the wide central _place_, sprayed a delicious fountain splashed with gold by the sunlight that filtered through an arbour of great trees; and there, too, was a statue of good king rené. perhaps, if i hadn't known that aix-en-provence was the home of the troubadours, and that its springs had been loved by the romans before the days of christianity, i might not have thought it more charming than many another ancient sleepy town of france; but it is impossible to disentangle one's imagination and sentiment from one's eyesight; therefore, aix seemed an exquisite place to me. now that i knew how knight-errantry in some of its branches was likely to affect mr. dane's pocket, i resolved that nothing should tempt me to encourage him in the pursuit. no matter how many flirtatious smiles were shed upon me by enterprising waiters, no matter how many conversations were begun by couriers who took me for rather a superior sample of "young person," i would bear all, all, without a complaint which might seem like a hint for protection. when lady turnour had forgotten me, in the dazzling light that beat about the thought of luncheon, i almost bustled into the hotel, and asked for the servants' dining-room. i knew that there was little hope of eating alone, for several important-looking motor-cars were drawn up before the hotel; but i was hardly prepared for the gay company i found assembled. three chauffeurs, a valet, and two maids were lunching, and judging from appearances the meal was far enough advanced to have cemented lifelong friendships. wine being as free as the air you breathe, in this country of the grape, naturally the big glass _caraffes_ behind the plates were more than half empty, and the elder of the two elderly maids had a shining pink knob on her nose. i hadn't yet taken off my diving-bell (as i've named my head covering), and every eye was upon me during the intricate process of removal. conversation, which was in french, slackened in the interests of curiosity; and when the new face was exposed to public gaze the three gallant chauffeurs jumped up, as one man, each with the kind intention of placing me in a chair next himself. "_voilà une petite tête trop jolie pour être cachée comme ça!_" exclaimed the best looking and boldest of the trio. the ladies of the party sniffed audibly, and raised their somewhat moth-eaten eyebrows at each other in virtuous disapproval of a young female who provoked such remarks from strangers. the valet, who had the air of being engaged to the maid with the nose, confined himself to a non-committal grin, but the second and third chauffeurs loyally supported their leader. "_vous avez raison_," they responded, laughing and showing quantities of white teeth. then they followed up their compliment by begging that mademoiselle would sit down, and allow her health to be drunk--with that of the other ladies. "yes, sit down by me," said number one, indicating a chair. "this is the queen's throne." "by me," said number two. "i'll cut up your meat for you." "by me," said number three. "i'll give you my share of pudding." by this time i was red to the ears, not knowing whether it were wiser for a lady's-maid to run away, or to take the rough chaff good-humouredly, and make the best of it. i fluttered, undecided, never thinking of the old adage concerning the woman who hesitates. in an instant, it was forcibly recalled to my mind, for number one chauffeur, smelling strongly of the good red wine of provence, came forward and offered me his arm. this was too much. "please don't!" i stammered, in my confusion speaking english. "_ah, mademoiselle est anglaise!_" the two others exclaimed, "_vive l'entente cordiale!_ we are frenchmen. you are italian. she belongs to our side." "let her choose," said the handsome italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been maxim guns i should have fallen riddled with bullets. "i'll sit by nobody," i managed to answer, this time in french. "please take your seats. i will have a chair at the other end of the table." "you see, mademoiselle is too polite to choose between us. she's afraid of a duel," laughed good-looking number one. "i tell you what we must do. we'll draw lots for her. three pellets of bread. the biggest wins." "beg your pardon, monsieur," remarked mr. dane, whom i hadn't seen as he opened the door, "mademoiselle is of my party. she is waiting for me." his voice was perfectly calm, even polite, but as i whirled round and looked at him, fearing a scene, i saw that his eyes were rather dangerous. he looked like a dog who says, as plainly as a dog can speak, "i'm a good fellow, and i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. but put that bone down, or i bite." the italian dropped the bone (i don't mind the simile) not because he was afraid, i think, but because mr. john dane's chin was much squarer and firmer than his; and because such sense of justice as he had told him that the newcomer was within his rights. "and i beg mademoiselle's pardon," he replied with a bow and a flourish. "i'm so glad you've come--but i oughtn't to be, and i didn't expect you," i said, when my chauffeur had pulled out a chair for me at the end of the table farthest from the other maids and chauffeurs. "why not?" he wanted to know, sitting down by my side. "because i suppose it's the best hotel in town, and--" "oh, you're thinking of my pocket! i wish i hadn't said what i did last night. looking back, it sounds caddish. but i generally do blurt out things stupidly. if i didn't, i shouldn't be 'shuvving' now--only that's another story. to tell the whole truth, it wasn't the state of my pocketbook alone that influenced me last night. i had two other reasons. one was a selfish one, and the other, i hope, unselfish." "i hope the selfish one wasn't fear of being bored?" "if that's a question, it doesn't deserve an answer. but because you've asked it, i'll tell you both reasons. i'd stopped at la reserve before, in--in rather different circumstances, and i thought--not only might it make talk about me, but--" "i understand," i said. "of course, lady turnour isn't as careful a chaperon as she ought to be." then we both laughed, and the danger-signals were turned off in his eyes. when he isn't smiling, mr. dane sometimes looks almost sullen, quite as if he could be disagreeable if he liked; but that makes the change more striking when he does smile. "you needn't worry about that pocket of mine," he went on, as we ate our luncheon. "it's as cheap here as anywhere; and when i saw all those motors before the door, i made up my mind that you'd probably need a brother, so i came as soon as i could leave the car." "so you are my brother, are you?" i echoed. "don't you think you might adopt me, once for all, in that relationship? then, you see, the chaperoning won't matter so much. of course, it's early days to take me on as a brother, but i think we'd better begin at once." "before i know whether you have any faults?" i asked. and just for the minute, the french half of me was a little piqued at his offer. that part of me pouted, and said that it would be much more amusing to travel in such odd circumstances beside a person one could flirt with, than to make a pact of "brother and sister." he might have given me the chance to say first that i'd be a sister to him! but the american half slapped the french half, and said: "what silly nonsense! don't be an idiot, if you can help it. the man's behaving beautifully. and it will just do you good to have your vanity stepped on, you conceited little minx!" "oh, i've plenty of faults, i'll tell you to start with--plenty you may have noticed already, and plenty more you haven't had time to notice yet," said my new relative. "i'm a sulky brute, for one thing, and i've got to be a pessimist lately, for another--a horrid fault, that!--and i have a vile temper--" "all those faults might be serviceable in a _brother_," i said. "though in any one else--" "in a friend or a lover, they'd be unbearable, of course; i know that," he broke in. "but who'd want me for a friend? and as for a lover, why, i'm struck off the list of eligibles, forever--if i was ever on it." after that, we ate our luncheon as fast as we could (a very bad habit, which i don't mean to keep up for man or brother), and even though the others had begun long before we did, we finished while they were still cracking nuts and peeling apples, their spirits somewhat subdued by the englishman's presence. "the great folk won't have got their money's worth for nearly an hour yet," said mr. dane. "don't you want to go and have a look at the cathedral? there are some grand things to see there--the triptych called 'le buisson argent,' and some splendid old tapestry in the choir; a whole wall and some marble columns from a roman temple of apollo--oh, and you mustn't forget to look for the painting of st. mitre the martyr trotting about with his head in his hands. on the way to the cathedral notice the doorways you'll pass. aix is celebrated for its doorways." (evidently my brother passed through aix, as well as along the corniche, under "different circumstances!") "you mean--i'm to go alone?" "yes, i can't leave the car to take you. i'm sorry." the french half of me was vexed again, but didn't dare let the sensible american half, which knew he was right, see it, for fear of another scolding. i thanked him in a way as businesslike as his own, and said that i would take his advice; which i did. although i hate sightseeing by myself, i wouldn't let him think i meant to be always trespassing on his good nature; and afterward i was glad i hadn't yielded to my inclination to be helpless, for the cathedral and the doorways were all he had promised, and more. it was a scramble to see anything in the few minutes i had, though, and awful to feel that lady turnour was hanging over my head like a sword. the thought of how she would look and what she would say if i kept the car waiting was a string tied to my nerves, pulling them all at once, like a jumping-jack's arms and legs, so that i positively ran back to the hotel, more breathless than cinderella when the hour of midnight began to strike. but there was the magic glass coach, not yet become a pumpkin; there was the chauffeur, not turned into whatever animal a chauffeur does turn into in fairy stories; and there were not sir samuel and her ladyship, nor any sign of them. "thank goodness, i'm not late!" i panted. "i was afraid i was. that dear verger wouldn't realize that there could be anything of more importance in the world than the statue of ste. martha and the tarasque." "nothing is, really," said mr. dane, glancing up from some dentist-looking work he was doing in the aigle's mouth under her lifted bonnet. "but you _are_ a little late--" "oh!" i gasped, pink with horror. "you don't mean to say the turnours have been out, and waiting?" "i do, but don't be so despairing. i told them i thought i'd better look the car over, and wasn't quite ready. that's always true, you know. a motor's like a pretty woman; never objects to being looked at. so they said 'damn,' and strolled off to buy chocolates." "it's getting beyond count how many times you've saved me, and this is only our second day out," i exclaimed. "here they come now, as they always do, when we exchange a word." i trembled guiltily, but there was no more than a vague general disapproval in lady turnour's eyes, the kind of expression which she thinks useful for keeping servants in their place. i got into mine, on the front seat; the car's bonnet got into its, the chauffeur into his, and at just three o'clock we turned our backs upon good king rené. the morning had drunk up all the sunshine of the day, leaving none for afternoon, which was troubled with a hint of coming mistral. the landscape began to look like a hastily sketched water-colour, with its hills and terraces of vine; and above was a pale sky, blurred like greasy silver. the wind roamed moaning among the tops of the tall cypresses, set close together to protect the meadows from one of "the three plagues of provence." and even as the mistral tweaked our noses with a chilly thumb and finger, our eyes caught sight of the second and more dreaded plague: the deceitfully gentle-seeming durance, which in its rage can come tearing down from the alps with the roar of a famished lion. far above the wide river, the aigle glided across a high-hung suspension bridge, the song of the water floating up to our ears mingling with the purr of the motor--two giant forces, one set loose by nature, the other by man, duetting harmoniously together, while the wind wailed over our heads. but for the third and last plague of provence we would have had to search in vain, for the land is no longer tormented by parliament. always the road had stretched before us, up hill after hill, as straight drawn between its scantily grass-covered banks as the parting in an old man's hair; and always, far ahead, wave following wave of hill and mountain had seemed to roll toward us like the sea as we advanced to meet them. after the vineyards had come wild rocks, set with crumbling forts, and towers, and châteaux; then the mild interest of fruit blossom spraying pink and white among primly pollarded olives; then grape country again, with squat, low-growing vines like gnomes kicking up gnarled legs as they turned somersaults; then a break into wonderful mountain country, with orgon's ruins towering skyward, dark as despair, a wild romance in stone. but before we reached the great suspension bridge, the pont de bonpas, the landscape appeared exhausted after its sublime efforts, and inclined to quiet down for a rest. it was only near avignon that it sprung up refreshed, ready for more strange surprises; and the grim grandeur of the scenery as we approached the ancient town seemed to prophesy the mediæval towers and ramparts of the historic city. skirting the huge city wall, the blue car was the one note of modernity; but hardly had we turned in at a great gate worthy to open in welcome for queen jeanne of naples, or bertrand du guesclin, than we were in the hum of twentieth-century life. i resented the change, for one expects nothing, wants nothing, modern in avignon; but in a moment or two we had left the bright cafés and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ages. anything, it seemed, might happen in the queer, shadowed streets of tall old houses with mysterious doorways, through which the aigle cautiously threaded, like a glittering crochet needle practicing a new stitch. then, in the quiet _place_, asleep and dreaming of stirring deeds it once had seen, we stopped before a dignified building more like some old ducal family mansion than a hotel. but it was a hotel, and we were to stop the night in it, leaving all sightseeing for the next morning. lady turnour was tired. she had done too much already for one day--with a reproachful glance at the chauffeur whom she thus made responsible for her prostration. nothing would induce her to go out again that evening, and she thought that she would dine in her own sitting-room. she didn't like old places, or old hotels, but she supposed she would have to make the best of this one. she was a woman who _never_ complained, unless it really was her duty, and then she didn't hesitate. this was her mood when getting out of the car, but inside the quaint and charming house a look at the visitors' register changed it in a flash. there was one prince and one duke; there were several counts; and as to barons, they were peppered about in rich profusion. each noble being was accompanied by his chauffeur, so evidently it was the "thing" to stop in the hotel de l'europe, and the _haut monde_ considered avignon worth wasting time upon. instantly her ladyship resolved to recover gracefully from her fatigue, and descend to the public dining-room for dinner. so fascinated was she by the list of great names, that she lingered over the reading of them, as one lingers over the last strawberries of the season; and i had to stand at attention close behind her, with her rugs over my arm, lest any one should miss seeing that she had a maid. "dane says the best thing is to make avignon a centre, and stop here two or three nights, 'doing' the country round, before going on to nîmes or arles," she said to sir samuel, who was clamouring for the best rooms in the house. "i didn't feel i should like that plan, but thinking it over, i'm not sure he isn't right." i knew very well what her "thinking it over" meant! they stood discussing the pros and cons, and as i didn't yet know the numbers of our rooms, i was obliged to wait till i was told. i was not bored, however, but was looking about with interest, when i heard the teuf-teuf of a motor-car outside. "there goes mr. jack dane with the aigle," i thought; and yet there was a difference in the sound. i'm too amateurish in such matters to understand the exact reason for such differences, though chauffeurs say they could tell one make of motor from another by ear if they were blindfolded. perhaps it wasn't our car leaving, but another one coming to the hotel! i had nothing better to do than to watch for new arrivals. my eyes were lazily fixed on the door, and presently it opened. a figure, all fur and a yard wide, came in. it was the figure of monsieur charretier. chapter x for a minute everything swam before me, as it used to at the convent after some older girl had twisted up the ropes of the big swing, with me in it, and let me spin round. also, i felt as if a jugful of hot water had been dashed over my head. i seemed to feel it trickling through my hair and into my ears. if i could have moved, i believe i should have bolted like a frightened rabbit, perfectly regardless of what lady turnour might think, caring only to dart away without being caught by the man i'd done such wild deeds to escape. but i was as helpless as a person in a nightmare; and, indeed, it was as unreal and dreadful to me as a nightmare to see that fat, fur-coated figure walking toward me, with the bearded face of monsieur charretier showing between turned-up collar and motor-cap surmounted by lifted goggles. they say you have time to think of everything while you are drowning. i believe that, now, because i had time to think of everything while that furry gentleman took a dozen steps. i thought of all the things he and my cousins had ever done to disgust me with him during his "courtship." i asked myself whether his arrival here was a coincidence, or whether he'd been tracking me all along, step by step, while i'd been chuckling to myself over my lucky escape. i thought of what he would do when he recognized me, and what lady turnour would say, and sir samuel. and although i couldn't see exactly what good he could do in such a situation, i wished vaguely that my brother the chauffeur were on the spot. then suddenly, with a wild rush of joy, i remembered that i was facing the danger through my little talc window. any properly trained heroine of melodrama would have ejaculated "saved!" but i haven't a tragedy nose, and i gave only a stifled squeak, more like the swan-song of a dying frog than anything more romantic. nobody heard it, luckily; and monsieur charretier, who had just come into the twilight of the hall from the brighter light out of doors, bustled past the retiring figure of the lady's-maid without a glance. i had even to take a step out of his way, not to be brushed by his fur shoulder, so wide he was in his expensive motoring coat; and trembling from the shock, i awkwardly collided with lady turnour. she, in her turn, avoiding my onslaught as if i'd been a beggar in rags, stepped on monsieur charretier's toe. he exclaimed in french, she apologized in english. he bowed a great deal, assuring madame that she had not inconvenienced him. she accused her maid, whose stupidity was in fault; and because each one looked to the other rich and prosperous they were extremely polite to one another. even then, though her ladyship snapped at me, "what _has_ come over you, elise? you're as clumsy as a cow!" he had no notice to waste upon the _femme de chambre_. yet i dared not so much as murmur, "pardon!" lest he should recognize my voice. fortunately my mistress and her husband were now ready to go up to their rooms, and we left monsieur charretier engaging quarters for himself and his chauffeur. evidently he was going to stop all night; but from his indifference to me i judged joyfully that he had not come to the hotel armed with information concerning my movements. he might be searching for his lost love, but he didn't know that she was at hand. all my pleasure in the thought of sightseeing at avignon was gone, like a broken bubble. i shouldn't dare to see any sights, lest i should be seen. but stopping indoors wouldn't mean safety. lady's-maids can't keep their rooms without questions being asked; and if i pretended to be ill, very likely lady turnour would discharge me on the spot, and leave me behind as if i were a cast-off glove. yet if i flitted about the corridors between my mistress's room and mine, i might run up against the enemy at any minute. i tried to mend the ravelled edges of my courage by reminding myself that monsieur charretier couldn't pick me up in his motor-car, and run off with me against my will; but the argument wasn't much of a stimulant. to be sure, he couldn't use violence, nor would he try; but if he found me here he would "have it out" with me, and he would tell things to lady turnour which would induce her to send me about my business with short shrift. he could say that i'd run away from my relatives, who were also my guardians, and altogether he could make out a case against me which would look a dark brown, if not black. then, when lady turnour and sir samuel had washed their hands of me, and i was left in a strange hotel, practically without a sou--unless the turnours chose to be inconveniently generous, and packed me off with a ticket to paris--i should find it very difficult to escape from my corn plaster admirer. this time there would be no kind lady kilmarny to whom i could appeal. between two evils, one chooses that which makes less fuss. it wasn't as intricate to risk facing monsieur charretier as it was to eat soap and be seized with convulsions; so i went about my business, waiting upon her ladyship as if i had not been in the throes of a mental earthquake. she was not particularly cross, because the gentleman whose acquaintance i had thrust upon her might turn out to be somebody, in which case my clumsiness would be a blessing in disguise; but if she had boxed my ears i should hardly have felt it. bent upon dazzling the eyes of potentates in the dining-room, and outshining possible princesses, the lady was very particular about her dress. although the big luggage had gone on by train to some town of more importance (in her eyes) than avignon, she had made me keep out a couple of gowns rather better suited for a first night of opera in paris than for dinner at the best of provincial hotels. she chose the smarter of these toilettes, a black _chiffon_ velvet embroidered with golden tiger-lilies, and filled in with black net from shoulder to throat. then the blue jewel-bag was opened, and a nodding diamond tiger-lily to match the golden ones was carefully selected from a blinding array of brilliants, to glitter in her masses of copper hair. round her neck went a rope of pearls that fell to the waist whose slenderness i had just, with a mighty muscular effort, secured; but not until she had dotted a few butterflies, bats, beetles and other scintillating insects about her person was she satisfied with the effect. at least, she was certain to create a sensation, as sir samuel proudly remarked when he walked in to get his necktie tied by me--a habit he has adopted. "i wonder if i ought to trust elise with my bag?" lady turnour asked him, anxiously, at last. "so far, since we've been on tour, i've carried it over my arm everywhere, but it doesn't go very well with a costume like this. what do you think?" "why, i think that elise is a very good girl, and that your jewels will be perfectly safe with her if you tell her to take care of the bag, and not let it out of her sight," replied sir samuel, evidently embarrassed by such a question within earshot of the said elise. "perhaps i'd better have dinner in my own room, so as to guard it more carefully?" i suggested, brightening with the inspiration. "that's not necessary," answered her ladyship. "you can perfectly well eat downstairs, with the bag over your arm, as i have done for the last two days. i don't intend to pay extra for you to have your meals served in your room on any excuse whatever." i couldn't very well offer to pay for myself. that would have raised the suspicion that i had hidden reasons of my own for dining in private, and i regretted that i hadn't held my tongue. lady turnour ostentatiously locked the receptacle of her jewels with its little gilded key, which she placed in a gold chain-bag studded with rubies as large as currants; and then, reminding me that i was responsible for valuables worth she didn't know how many thousands, she swept away, leaving a trail of white heliotrope behind. in any case i would wait, i thought, until i could be tolerably certain that all the guests of the hotel had gone down to dinner. if i knew monsieur charretier, he would be among the first to feed, but i couldn't afford to run needless risks. i lingered over the task of putting my mistress's belongings in order, almost with pleasure, and then, once in my own room, i took as long as i could with my own toilet. i was ready at last, and could think of no further excuse for pottering, when suddenly it occurred to me that i might do my hair in a demurer, less becoming way, so that, if i should have the ill luck to encounter a sortie of the enemy, i might still contrive to pass without being recognized. i pinned a clean towel round my neck, barber fashion, and pulling the pins out of my hair, shook it down over my shoulders. but before i could twist it up again, there came a light tap, tap, at the door. "there!" i thought. "some one has been sent to tell me the servants' dinner will be over if i don't hurry. perhaps it's too late already, and i'm _so_ hungry!" i bounced to the door, and threw it wide open, to find mr. john dane standing in the passage, holding a small tray crowded with dishes. "here you are," he said, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if bringing meals to my door had been a fixed habit with him, man and boy, for years. "hope i haven't spilt anything! there's such a crush in our feeding place that i thought you'd be safer up here. so i made friends with a dear old waiter chap, and said i wanted something nice for my sister." "you didn't!" i exclaimed. "i did. do you mind much? i understood it was agreed that was our relationship." "no, i don't mind much," i returned. "thank you for everything." i shook back a cloud of hair, and glanced up at the chauffeur. our eyes met, and as i took the tray my fingers touched his. his dark face grew faintly red, and then a slight frown drew his eyebrows together. "why do you suddenly look like that?" i asked. "have i done anything to make you cross?" "only with myself," he said. "but why? are you sorry you've been kind to me? oh, if you only knew, i need it to-night. go on being kind." "you're not the sort of girl a man can be kind to," he said, almost gruffly, it seemed to me. "am i ungrateful, then?" "i don't know what you are," he answered. "i only know that if i looked at you long as you are now i should make an ass of myself--and make you detest or despise me. so good night--and good appetite." he turned to go, but i called him back. "please!" i begged. "i'll only keep you one minute. i'm sure you're joking, big brother, about being an ass, or poking fun at me. but i don't care. i need some advice so badly! i've no one but you to give it to me. i know you won't desert me, because if you were like that you wouldn't have come to stop at this hotel to watch over your new sister--which i'm sure you did, though that may sound ever so conceited." "of course i won't desert you," he said. "i couldn't--now, even if i would. but i'll go away till you've had your dinner, and--and made yourself look less like a siren and more like an ordinary human being--if possible. then i'll run up and knock, and you can come out in the passage to be advised." "a siren--with a towel round her neck!" i laughed. "if i should sing to you, perhaps you might say--" "don't, for heaven's sake, or there would be an end of--your brother," he broke in, laughing a little. "it wouldn't need much more." and with that he was off. he is very abrupt in his manner at times, certainly, this strange chauffeur, and yet one's feelings aren't exactly hurt. and one feels, somehow, as i think the motor seems to feel, as if one could trust to his guidance in the most dangerous places. i'm sure he would give his life to save the car, and i believe he would take a good deal of trouble to save me; indeed, he has already taken a good deal of trouble, in several ways. when he had gone i set down the tray, shut the door, and went to see how i really did look with my hair hanging round my shoulders. my ideas on the subject of sirenhood are vague; but i must confess, if the creatures are like me with my hair down, they must be quite nice, harmless little persons. i admire my hair, there's so much of it; and at the ends, a good long way below my waist, there's such a thoroughly agreeable curl, like a yellow sea-wave just about to break. of course, that sounds very vain; but why shouldn't one admire one's own things, if one has things worth admiring? it seems rather ungrateful to providence to cry them down; and ingratitude was never a favourite vice with me. one would have said that the chauffeur knew by instinct what i liked best to eat, and he must have had a very persuasive way with the waiter. there was crême d'orge, in a big cup; there were sweetbreads, and there was lemon meringue. nothing ever tasted better since my "birthday feasts" as a child, when i was allowed to order my own dinner. my room being on the first floor, though separated by a labyrinth of quaint passages from lady turnour's, there was danger in a corridor conversation with mr. dane at an hour when people might be coming upstairs after dinner; but he was in such a hurry to escape from me that i had no time to explain; and i really had not the heart to make myself hideous, by way of disguise, as i'd planned before his knock at the door. as an alternative i put on a hat, pinning quite a thick veil over my face, and when the expected tap came again, i was prepared for it. "are you going out?" my brother asked, looking surprised, when i flitted into the dim corridor, with lady turnour's blue bag dutifully slipped on my arm. "no," i answered. "i'm _hiding_. i know that sounds mysterious, or melodramatic, or something silly, but it's only disagreeable. and it's what i want to ask your advice about." then, shamefacedly when it came to the point, i unfolded the tale of monsieur charretier. "by jove, and he's in this house!" exclaimed the chauffeur, genuinely interested, and not a bit sulky. "you haven't an idea whether he's been actually tracking you?" "if he has, he must have employed detectives, and clever ones, too," i said, defending my own strategy. "is he the sort of man who would do such a thing--put detectives on a girl who's run away from home to get rid of his attentions?" "i don't know. i only know he has no idea of being a gentleman. what can you expect of corn plasters?" "don't throw his corn plasters in his face. he might be a good fellow in spite of them." "well, he isn't--or with them, either. he may be acting with my cousin's husband, who values him immensely, and wants him in the family." "is he very rich?" "disgustingly," said i, as i had said to lady kilmarny. "yet you bolted from a good home, where you had every comfort, rather than be pestered to marry him?" "oh, what do you call a 'good home,' and 'every comfort'? i had enough to eat and drink, a sunny room, decent clothes, and wasn't allowed to work except for cousin catherine. but that isn't my idea of goodness and comfort." "nor mine either." "yet you seem surprised at me." "i was thinking that, little and fragile as you look--like a delicate piece of dresden china--you're a brave girl." "oh, thank you!" i cried. "i do love to be called 'brave' better than anything, because i'm really such a coward. you don't think i've done wrong?" "no-o. so far as you've told me." "what, don't you believe i've told you the truth?" i flashed out. "of course. but do women ever tell the whole truth to men--even to their brothers? what about that kind friend of yours in england?" "what kind friend?" i asked, confused for an instant. then i remembered, and--almost--chuckled. the conversation i had had with him came back to me, and i recalled a queer look on his face which had puzzled me till i forgot it. now i was on the point of blurting out: "oh, the kind friend is a miss paget, who said she'd like to help me if i needed help," when a spirit of mischief seized me. i determined to keep up the little mystery i'd inadvertently made. "i know," i said gravely. "_quite_ a different kind of friend." "some one you like better than monsieur charretier?" "_much_ better." "rich, too?" "very rich, i believe, and of a noble family." "indeed! no doubt, then, you are wise, even from a worldly point of view, in refusing the man your people want you to marry, and taking--such extreme measures not to let yourself be over persuaded," said mr. dane, stiffly, in a changed tone, not at all friendly or nice, as before. "i meant to advise you not to go on to england with lady turnour, as the whole situation is so unsuitable; but now, of course, i shall say no more." "it was about something else i wanted advice," i reminded him. "but i suppose i must have bored you. you suddenly seem so cross." "i am not in the least cross," he returned, ferociously. "why should i be?--even if i had a right, which i haven't." "not the right of a brother?" "hang the rights of a brother!" exclaimed mr. dane. "then don't you want to be my brother any more?" he walked away from me a few steps, down the corridor, then turned abruptly and came back. "it isn't a question of what i want," said he, "but of what i can have. sometimes i think that after all you're nothing but an outrageous little flirt." "sometimes? why, you've only known me two days. as if you could judge!" "far be it from me to judge. but it seems as though the two days were two years." "thank you. well, i may be a flirt--the french side of me, when the other side isn't looking. but i'm not flirting with _you_." "why should you waste your time flirting with a wretched chauffeur?" "yes, why? especially as i've other things to think of. but i don't _want_ your advice about those things now. i wouldn't have it even if you begged me to. you've been too unkind." "i beg your pardon, with all my heart," he said, his voice like itself again. "i'm a brute, i know! it's that beastly temper of mine, that is always getting me into trouble--with myself and others. do forgive me, and let me help you. i want to very much." "i just said i wouldn't if you begged." "i don't beg. i insist. i'll inflict my advice on you, whether you like it or not. it's this: get the man out of avignon the first thing to-morrow morning." "that's easy to say!" "and easy to do--i hope. what would be his first act, do you think, if he got a wire from you, dated genoa, and worded something like this: 'hear you are following me. i send this to avignon on chance, to tell you persecution must cease or i will find means to protect myself. lys d'angely.'" "i think he'd hurry off to genoa as fast as he could go--by train, leaving his car, or sending it on by rail. but how could i date a telegram from genoa?" "i know a man there who--" "elise, i'm astonished at you!" exclaimed the shocked voice of lady turnour. "talking in corridors with strange young men! and you've been out, too, without my permission, and _with_ my jewel-bag! how dare you?" "i haven't been out," i ventured to contradict. "then you were going out--" "and i had no intention of going out--" "don't answer me back like that! i won't stand it. what are you doing in your hat, done up in a thick veil, too, at this time of night, as if you were afraid of being recognized?" i had to admit to myself that appearances were dreadfully against me. i didn't see how i could give any satisfactory explanation, and while i was fishing wildly in my brain without any bait, hoping to catch an inspiration, the chauffeur spoke for me. "if your ladyship will permit me to explain," he began, more respectfully than i'd heard him speak to anyone yet, "it is my fault ma'mselle is dressed as she is." "what on earth is he going to say?" i wondered wildly, as he paused an instant for lady turnour's consent, which perhaps an amazed silence gave. i believed that he didn't know himself what to say. "i wanted your ladyship's maid, when she had nothing else to do, to put on her out-of-door things and let me make a sketch of her for an illustrated newspaper i sometimes draw for. naturally she didn't care for her face to go into the paper, so she insisted upon a veil. my sketch is to be called, 'the motor maid,' and i shall get half a guinea for it, i hope, of which it's my intention to hand ma'mselle five shillings for obliging me. i hope your ladyship doesn't object to my earning something extra now and then, so long as it doesn't interfere with work?" "well," remarked lady turnour, taken aback by this extraordinary plea, as well she might have been, "i don't like to tell a person out and out that i don't believe a word he says, but i do go as far as this: i'll believe you when i see you making the sketch. and as for earning extra money, i should have thought sir samuel paid good enough wages for you to be willing to smoke a pipe and rest when your day's work was done, instead of gadding about corridors gossiping with lady's-maids who've no business to be outside their own room. but if you're so greedy after money--and if you want me to take elise's word--" "i'll just begin the sketch in your ladyship's presence, if i may be excused," said mr. dane, briskly. and to my real surprise, as well as relief, he whipped a small canvas-covered sketch-book out of his pocket. it was almost like sleight of hand, and if he'd continued the exhibition with a few live rabbits and an anaconda or two i couldn't have been much more amazed. "i'd like to have a look at that thing," observed lady turnour, suspiciously, as in a business-like manner he proceeded to release a neatly sharpened pencil from an elastic strap. without a word or a guilty twitch of an eyelid he handed her the book, and we both stood watching while the fat, heavily ringed and rosily manicured fingers turned over the pages. he could sketch, i soon saw, better than i can, though i've (more or less) made my living at it. there were types of french peasants done in a few strokes, here and there a suggestion of a striking bit of mountain scenery, a quaint cottage, or a ruined castle. last of all there was a very good representation of the aigle, loaded up with the turnours' smart luggage, and ready to start. my lips twitched a little, despite the strain of the situation, as i noted the exaggerated size of the crest on the door panel. it turned the whole thing into a caricature; but luckily her ladyship missed the point. she even allowed her face to relax into a faint smile of pleasure. "this isn't bad," she condescended to remark. "i thought of asking your ladyship and sir samuel if there would be any objection to my sending that to a society motoring paper, and labelling it 'sir samuel and lady turnour's new sixty-horse-power aigle on tour in provence.' or, if you would prefer my not using your name, i--" "i see no reason why you should _not_ use it," her ladyship cut in hastily, "and i'm sure sir samuel won't mind. make a little extra money in that way if you like, while we're on the road, as you have this talent." she gave him back the book, quite graciously, and the chauffeur began sketching me. in three minutes there i was--the "abominable little flirt!" in hat and veil, with lady turnour's bag in my hand, quite a neat figure of a motor maid. "you may put, if you like, 'lady turnour's maid,'" said that young person's mistress, "if you think it would give some personal interest to your sketch for the paper." "oh, this is for quite a different sort of thing," he explained. "not devoted to society news at all: more for caricatures and _funny_ bits." "oh, then i should certainly not wish my name to appear in _that_," returned her ladyship, her tone adding that, on the other hand, such a publication was as suitable as it was welcome to a portrait of _me_. "now, elise, i wish you to take those things off at _once_, and come to my room," she finished. "mind, i don't want you should keep me waiting! and you can hand over that bag." no hope of another word between us! mr. jack dane saw this, and that it would be unwise to try for it. pocketing the sketch-book, he saluted lady turnour with a finger to the height of his eyebrows, which gesture visibly added to her sense of importance. then, without glancing at me, he turned and walked off. it was not until he had disappeared round the bend of the corridor that her ladyship thought it right to leave me. i knew that she had made this little expedition in search of her maid with the sole object of seeing what the mouse did while the cat was away--a trick worthy of her lodging-house past! and i knew equally well that before i tapped at her door a little later she had examined the contents of the blue bag to make sure that i had extracted nothing. how i pity the long procession of "slaveys" who must have followed each other drearily in that lodging-house under the landlady's jurisdiction. they, poor dears, could have had no chauffeur friends to save them from daily perils, and it isn't likely that their mistress allowed such luxuries as postmen or policemen. chapter xi i decided to have my breakfast very early next morning, and would have thought it a coincidence that mr. dane should walk into the couriers' room at the same time if he hadn't coolly told me that he had been lying in wait for me to appear. "i thought, for several reasons, you would be early," he said. "so, for all the same reasons and several more, i thought i'd be early too. i had to know what the situation was to be." "the situation?" i repeated blankly. "between us. am i to understand that we've quarrelled?" "we had," i said. "but even on good grounds, it's difficult to keep on quarrelling with a person who has not only brought up your dinner and sauced it with good advice, but saved you from--from the _dickens_ of a scrape." "i hope she didn't row you any more afterward?" "no. she was too much interested, all the time i was undressing her, in speculating about monsieur charretier to sir samuel. it seems that they struck up an acquaintance over their coffee on the strength of a little episode in the hall. "inadvertently i introduced them--threw them at each others' heads. monsieur charretier--alphonse, as he once asked me to call him!--told her he was on his way to cannes, where he heard that a friend of his, whom it was very necessary for him to see, was visiting a russian princess. he had stopped in avignon, he said, because he was expecting the latest news of the friend, a change of address, perhaps; and--i don't know who proposed it, but anyway he arranged to go with sir samuel and lady turnour to the palace of the popes at ten o'clock. her ladyship was quite taken with him, and remarked to sir samuel that there was nothing so fascinating as a french gentleman of the _haut monde_. also she pronounced his broken english '_sweet_.' she wondered if he was married, and whether the friend in cannes was a woman or a man. little did she know that her maid could have enlightened her! their joining forces here is, as my american friend pamela would say, 'the _limit_.'" "don't worry. the palace of the popes won't see him to-day," said the chauffeur. "he's gone. got a telegram. didn't even wait for letters, but told the manager to forward anything that came for him, poste restante, genoa." "oh, then you--" "acted for you on my own responsibility. there was nothing else to do, if _anything_ were to be done; and you'd seemed to fall in with my suggestion. it would have been a pity, i thought, if your visit to avignon were to be spoiled by a thing like that." "meaning monsieur charretier? i hardly slept last night for dwelling on the pity of it." "it's all right, then? i haven't put my foot into it?" "your foot! you've put your _brains_ into it. you said the other night that i had presence of mind. it was nothing to yours." "all's forgotten and forgiven, then?" "it's forgotten that there was anything to forgive." "and the 'motor maid' business? you didn't think it too clumsy?" "i thought it most ingenious." "it wasn't a lie, you know. i haven't a happy talent for lying. i do, or rather did when i had nothing else on hand, send occasional sketches to a paper. but the more i look at my 'motor maid,' the more i feel i should like to keep her--in my sketch-book--if you're willing i should have her?" "then i don't get my promised five shillings?" i laughed. "i'll try and make up the loss to you in some other way." "i have you to thank that i didn't lose my situation. so the debt is on my side." "you owe me the scolding you got. i oughtn't to have lured you into the corridor." "it was on my business. and there was no other way." "it was my business to have thought of some other way." "are you your sister's keeper?" "i wish i--look here, mademoiselle _ma soeur_, i'm all out of repartees. perhaps i shall be better after breakfast. i shall be able to eat, now that i know you've forgiven me." "i don't believe you would care if i hadn't," i exclaimed. "you are so stolid, so phlegmatic, you englishmen!" "do you think so? well, it would have been a little awkward for me to have taken you about on a sightseeing expedition this morning if we were at daggers drawn--no matter how appropriate the situation might have been to avignon manners of the middle ages, when everybody was either torturing everybody else or fighting to the death." "_are_ you going to take me about?" "that's for you to say." "isn't it for lady turnour to say?" "sir samuel told me last night that i shouldn't be wanted till two o'clock, as he was going to see the town with her ladyship. he wanted to know if we could sandwich in something else this afternoon, as he considered a whole day too much for one place. i suggested vaucluse for the afternoon, as it's but a short spin from avignon, and i just happened to mention that her ladyship might find use for you there, to follow her to the fountain with extra wraps in case of mistral. i thought, of all places you'd hate to miss vaucluse. and we're to come back here for the night." i feared that monsieur charretier's sudden disappearance might upset the turnours' plans, but mr. dane didn't think so. he had impressed it upon sir samuel that no motorist who had not thoroughly "done" avignon and vaucluse would be tolerated in automobiling circles. he was right in his surmise, and though her ladyship was vexed at losing a new acquaintance whom it would have been "nice to know in paris," she resigned herself for the morning to the society of husband and baedeker. it was kind old sir samuel's proposal that i should be left free to do some sight-seeing on my own account while they were gone (i had meant to break my own shackles); and though my lady laughed to scorn the idea that a girl of my class should care for historical associations, she granted me liberty provided i utilized it in buying her certain stay-laces, shoe-strings, and other small horrors for which no woman enjoys shopping. when she and sir samuel were out of the way, as safely disposed of as monsieur charretier himself, i felt so extravagantly happy in reaction, after all my worries, that i danced a jig in her ladyship's sacred bedchamber. then i prepared to start for my own personally conducted expedition; and this time i took no great pains to do my hair unbecomingly. naturally, i didn't want to be a jarring note in harmonious avignon, so i made myself look rather attractive for my jaunt with the chauffeur. he was sauntering casually about the _place_ before the hotel, where long ago marshal brune was assassinated, and we walked away together as calmly as if we had been followed by a whole drove of well-trained chaperons. when one has joined the ranks of the lower classes, one might as well reap some advantages from the change! "what we'll do," said mr. dane, "is to look first at all the things the turnours are sure to look at last. by that plan we shall avoid them, and as i know my way about avignon pretty well, you may set your mind at rest." i can think of nothing more delightful than a day in avignon, with an agreeable brother and--a mind at rest. i had both, and made the most of them. when her ladyship's shoe-strings and stay-laces were off my mind and in my coat pocket, we wandered leisurely about the modern part of the wonderful town, which has been busier through the centuries in making history than almost any other in france. seen by daylight, i no longer resented the existence of a new--comparatively new--avignon. the pretty little theatre, with its dignified statues of corneill and molière, seemed to invite me kindly to go in and listen to a play by the splendidly bewigged gentlemen sitting in stone chairs on either side of the door. the clock tower with its "jacquemart" who stiffly struck the quarter hours with an automatic arm, while his wife criticized the gesture, commanded me to stop and watch his next stroke; and the curiosity shops offered me the most alluring bargains. people we met seemed to have plenty of time on their hands, and to be very good-natured, as if rich provençal cooking agreed with their digestions. sure that the turnours would be at the palace of the popes or in the cathedral, we went to the museum, and searched in vain among a riot of roman remains for the tomb of petrarch's laura, which guide-books promised. in the end we had to be satisfied with a memorial cross made in the lovely lady's honour by order of some romantic englishmen. "yet you say we're stolid and phlegmatic!" muttered mr. dane, as he read the inscription. (evidently that remark had rankled.) we had not a moment to waste, but the turnours had to be avoided; so my brother proposed that we combine profit with prudence, and take a cab along the road leading out to port st. andré. where the ancient tower of philippe le bel crowns a lower slope i should have my first sight of that grim mountain of architecture, the palace of the popes. it was the best place from which to see it, if its real grandeur were to be appreciated, he said--or else to go to villeneuve, across the rhône, which we dared not steal time to do; but the turnours were certain not to think of anything so esoteric in the way of sight-seeing. the vastness of the stupendous mass of brick and stone took my breath away for an instant, as i raised my eyes to look up, on a signal of "now!" from mr. dane. it seemed as if all the history, not alone of old provence, but of france, might be packed away behind those tremendous buttresses. of what romances, what tragedies, what triumphs, and what despairs could those huge walls and towers tell, if the echoes whispering through them could crystallize into words! there queen jeanne of naples--that fateful marie stuart of provence--stood in her youth and beauty before her accusers, knowing she must buy her pardon, if for pardon she could hope. there the wretched bishop of cahors suffered tortures incredible for plots his enemies vowed he had conceived against the pope. there came messages from western kings and eastern emperors; there bertrand du guesclin, my favourite hero, was excommunicated: and there great rienzi lay in prison. "now i think we might risk going to the palace," said mr. dane, when we had stood gazing in silence for more minutes than we could well afford. so we made haste back, and walked up to the rochers des doms, where we lurked cautiously in the handsome modern gardens, glorying in the view over the old and new bridges, and to far off villeneuve, where the man in the iron mask was first imprisoned. when we had admired the statue of althen the persian, with his hand full of the beneficent madder that did so much for provence, we were rewarded for our patience by seeing sir samuel and lady turnour rush out from the papal palace, looking furious. "they look like that, because they've been inside," said the chauffeur. "their souls aren't artistic enough to resent consciously the ruin and degradation of the place, but even they can be depressed by the hideous whitewashed barracks which were once splendid rooms, worthy of kings. you will look as they do if you go in." "i hope my cheeks wouldn't be dark purple and my nose a pale lilac!" i exclaimed. "you're twenty, at most, and lady turnour's forty-five, at least," said my brother. "you can stand the pinch of mistral; but the inside of that noble old pile is enough to turn the hair gray. it would be much more original to let your imagination draw the picture." "then i will!" i cried, knowing that nothing pleases a man more in a girl than taking his advice. by the lateness of the hour we judged that the turnours must have visited the cathedral before they "did" the palace, so we went boldly on to notre dame des doms, beloved of charlemagne. no wonder, i said, that he had thought it worth restoring from the ruins saracens had left! nothing could be more glorious than the situation of the historic church, once first in importance, perhaps, in all christendom; and nothing could be more purely classic than the west porch. we strained the muscles of our necks staring up at ancient, fading frescoes, and rested them again in gazing at famous tombs; then it was time to go, if we were not to start for vaucluse too hungry to feed satisfactorily on thoughts of laura and petrarch. "now to our own trough with the other beasts," i sighed. "what an anti-climax! from the cathedral to the couriers' dining-room." "i thought that we might have our own private trough, just this once, if you don't object," said the chauffeur, almost wistfully. "it would be a shame to spoil the memory of a perfect morning, wouldn't it, so don't you think you might accept my humble invitation?" i hesitated. "is it conventionality or economy that gives you pause?" he asked. "if it's the latter, or rather a regard for my pocket, your conscience can be easy. my pocket feels heavy and my heart light to-day. i remember a little restaurant not far off where they do you in great style for a franc or two. will you come with me?" he looked quite eager, and i felt myself unable to resist temptation. "yes," said i, "and thank you." a biting wind, more like march than flowery april, nearly blew us down into the town, and i was glad to find shelter in the warm, clean little restaurant. "_is_ my nose lilac after all?" i inquired, when a dear old smiling waiter had trotted off with our order, murmuring benevolently, "doude de zuide, m'sieur," like a true compatriot of tartarin. "a faint pink from the cheeks is undeniably reflected upon it," admitted the chauffeur. "we're going to be let in for a cold snap as we get up north," he went on. "i read in the papers this morning that there's been a 'phenomenal fall of snow for the season' on the cevennes and the mountains of auvergne. do you weaken on the gorges of the tarn now i've told you that?" "mine not to reason why. mine but to do or die," i transposed, smiling with conspicuous bravery. "not at all. it's yours to choose. i haven't even broken the gorges, yet, to the slaves of my hypnotic powers. i warn you that, if all the papers say about snow is true, we may have adventures on the way. would you rather--" "i'd rather have the adventures," i broke in, and had as nearly as possible added "with you," but i stopped myself in time. we lunched more gaily than double-dyed millionaires, and afterward, while my host was paying away his hard-earned francs for our food, i slipped out of the restaurant and into a little shop i had noticed close by. the window was full of odds and ends, souvenirs of avignon; and there were picture-postcards, photographs, and coins with heads of saints on them. in passing, on the way to lunch, i'd noticed a silver st. christopher, about the size of a two-franc piece; and as the aigle carries the saint like a figure-head, a glittering, golden statuette six or seven inches high, i had guessed that st. christopher must have been chosen to fill the honourable position of patron saint for motors and motorists. "what's the price of that?" i asked, pointing to the coin. it was ten francs, a good deal more than i could afford, more than half my whole remaining fortune. "could not madame make it a little cheaper?" i pleaded with the fat lady whose extremely aquiline nose proclaimed that she had no personal interest in saints. but no, madame could not make it cheaper; the coin was of real silver, the figure well chased; a recherché little pocket-piece, and a great luck-bringer for anybody connected with the automobile. no accident would presume to happen to one who carried _that_ on his person. madame had, however, other coins of st. christopher, smaller coins in white metal which could scarcely be told from silver. if mademoiselle wished to see them-but mademoiselle did not wish to see them. it would be worse than nothing to give a base imitation. instead of feeling flattered, st. christopher would have a right to be annoyed, and perhaps to punish. recklessly i passed across the counter ten francs, and made the coveted saint mine. then i darted out, just in time to meet mr. dane at the door of the restaurant. "this is for you," i said. "it's to give you luck." i pressed the coin into his hand, and he looked at it on his open palm. for an instant i was afraid he was going to make fun of it, and my superstition concerning it, which i couldn't quite deny if cross-questioned. but his smile didn't mean that. "you've just bought this--to give to me?" he asked. "yes," i nodded. "why? not because you want to 'pay me back' for asking you to lunch--or any such villainous thing, i hope, because--" i shook my head. "i didn't think of that. i got it because i wanted to bring you luck." then he slipped the coin into an inside pocket of his coat. "thank you," he said. "but didn't i tell you that you'd brought me something better than luck already?" "what _is_ better than luck?" "an interest in life. and the privilege of being a brother." chapter xii it would be a singularly hard-headed, cold-hearted person who could set out for vaucluse without the smallest thrill; and hard heads and cold hearts don't "run in our family." as we spun away from the hotel de l'europe soon after two o'clock that afternoon i felt that i was largely composed of thrill. cold as the wind had grown, the thrill kept me warm, mingling in my veins with ozone. inside the car the middle-aged honeymooners had an air of desperate resignation which the consciousness of doing their duty according to baedeker gives to tourists. the tap was turned on in the newly invented heating-apparatus in the car floor, through which hot water from the radiator can be made to circulate; and i wondered, if this extreme measure were resorted to already, what would be left to do when we reached those high, white altitudes of which the chauffeur had been speaking. i prayed that lady turnour might not read in the papers about the "phenomenal fall of snow" in those regions, for if she did i was afraid that even mr. dane's magnetic powers of persuasion might fail to get her there. he might dangle queen margherita of italy over her head in vain, if worst came to worst: for what are queens to the most inveterate tuft-hunters if the feet be cold? yet now that "adventures" were vaguely prophesied, i felt i could not give up the promised gorges and mountains. out of avignon we slid, past the old, old ramparts and the newer but impressive walls, and turned at the right into the marseilles road. "vaucluse!" said a kilometre-stone, and then another and another repeated that enchanted and enchanting word, as we flew onward between the rhône and the durance. this was our own old way again, as far as the pont de bonpas; then our road wound to the northeast, away from the world we knew--i said to myself--and into a world of romance, a world created by the love of petrarch for laura, and sacred to those two for ever more. the ruined castle, with machicolated towers and haughty buttresses, on the great rampart of a hill, was for me the porter's lodge at the entrance gate of an enchanted garden, where poetic flowers of love bloomed through seasons and centuries; laurels, roses, and lilies, and pansies for remembrance. we didn't see those flowers with our bodies' eyes, but what of that? what did it matter that to the turnours in their splendid glass cage this was just a road, with queer little gnome dwellings scooped out of solid rock to redeem it from common-placeness, with a fringe of deserted cottages farther on, and some ugly brickworks? my spirit's eyes saw the flowers, and they clustered thicker and brighter about pieverde, where i insisted to mr. dane that laura had been born. he was inclined to dispute this at first, and bring up the horrid theory that the pure white star of petrarch's life had been a mere madame de sade, with a drove of uninteresting children. but eagerly i quoted petrarch himself, using all the arguments on which pamela and i prided ourselves at the convent; and by the time we had got as far as that sweet "little venice full of water wheels," l'isle, i'd persuaded him to agree with me. in the midst of all that lovely, liquid music of running, trickling, fluting water, who could go on callously insisting that laura resisted petrarch merely because she was a fat married woman with a large family? all was green and pastoral here, and we seemed to have come into eternal spring after the bleak, windy plains encircling avignon. it was beautiful to remember petrarch's description of his golden-haired, dark-eyed love, fair and tall as a lily, sitting in the grass among the violets, where her bare feet gleamed whiter than the daisies when she took off her sandals. even nicolete, flower of provençal song, had no whiter feet than laura, i am sure! we were slipping past the banks of a little river, clear as sapphires and emeralds melted and mingled together. the sound of its singing drowned the sound of the motor, so that we seemed to glide toward vaucluse noiselessly and reverently. at the inn of petrarch and laura the car had to stop; and looking up, we could see on the height above the castle home of petrarch's dearest friend, philippe de cabassole, guardian of queen jeanne of naples. up there on the cliff petrarch's eyes must often have turned toward pieverde with longing thoughts of laura, that "white dove" who was always for him sixteen, as when he met her first. no farther than the inn could any wheeled thing go; and having justified my presence by buttoning lady turnour up in her coat, and finding her muff under several rugs, i stood by the car, gazing after the couple as they trudged off along the path to the hidden fairy fountain of vaucluse. when they should have got well ahead i meant to go too, for if a cat may look at a king, a lady's maid may try to drink--if she can--a few drops from the cup of a great poet's inspiration. at first i resented those two ample, richly clad, prosaic backs marching sturdily toward the magic fountain; then suddenly the back of sir samuel became pathetic in my eyes. hadn't he, i asked myself, loved his emily ("emmie, pet," as i've heard him call her) as long and faithfully as petrarch loved his laura? perhaps, after all, he had earned the right to visit this shrine. rocks shut out from our sight the distant fountain, and the last windings of the path that led to it, clasping the secret with great stone arms, like those of an othello jealously guarding his young wife's beauty from eyes profane. "aren't you going now?" asked my brother, with a certain wistfulness. "ye-es. but what about you?" "oh, i've been here before, you know." "don't you believe in second times? or is a second time always second best?" "not when--of course i want to go. but i can't leave the car alone." my eyes wandered toward the inn door. "there's a boy there who looks as if he were born to be a watch-dog," said i, basely tempting him. "couldn't you--" "no, i couldn't," he said decidedly. "at a place like this, where there are a lot of tourists about, it wouldn't be right. it was different at valescure, when i took you in to lunch." "you mean i mustn't make that a precedent." "i don't mean anything conceited." "but you won't desert mr. micawber. i believe i shall name the car micawber! well, then, i must go by myself--and if i should fall into the fountain and be drowned--" "don't talk nonsense, and don't do anything foolish," said mr. dane, sternly, whereupon i turned my back upon him, and plunged into the cool shadows of the gorge. the great white cliff of limestone was my goal, and always it towered ahead, as i followed the narrow pathway above the singing water. i sighed as i paused to look at a garden which maybe once was petrarch's, for it was sad to find my way to fairyland, alone. even a brother's company would have been better than none, i thought! soon i met my master and mistress coming back. there was nothing much to see, said her ladyship, sharply, and i mustn't be long; but sir samuel ventured to plead with her. "let the girl have ten minutes or so, if she likes, dear," said he. "we'll be wanting a cup of hot coffee at the inn. and it is a pretty place." there was something in his voice which told me that he would have felt the charm--if his bride had let him. pools of water, deep among the rocks, were purple-pansy colour or beryl green; but the "source" itself, in its cup of stone, was like a block of malachite. there was no visible bubbling of underground springs fighting their way up to break the crystal surface of the fountain,--this fountain so unlike any other fountain; but to the listening ear came a moaning and rushing of unseen waters, now the high crying of arethusa escaping from her pursuing lover, now rich, low notes as of an organ played in a vast cavern. above the gorge, the towering rocks with their huge holes and archways hollowed out by turbulent water in dim, forgotten ages, looked exactly as if the whole front wall had been knocked off a giant's castle, exposing its secret labyrinths of rough-hewn rooms, floor rising above floor even to the attics where the giant's servants had lived, and down to the cellars where the giant's pet dragons were kept in chains. i hadn't yet exhausted my ten minutes, though i began to have a guilty consciousness that they would soon be gone, when i heard a step behind me, and turning, saw mr. dane. "they're having coffee in the car," he said. "sir samuel proposed it to his wife, as if he thought it would be rather more select and exclusive for her than drinking it in the inn; but i have a sneaking suspicion that it was because he wanted to let me off. not a bad old boy, sir samuel." so we saw the fountain of vaucluse together, after all. i don't know why that should have seemed important to me, but it did--a little. we didn't say much to each other, all the way back to avignon, but i felt that the day had been a brilliant success, and was sure that the next could not be as good. "what--not with st. remy and les baux?" exclaimed my brother. but i knew very little about st. remy, and still less about les baux. for a minute i was ashamed to confess, but then i told myself that this was a much worse kind of vanity than being pleased with the colour of one's hair or the length of one's eyelashes. mr. jack dane was too polite to show surprise at my ignorance; but that evening, just as i was getting ready to go down to dinner, up he came with a tray, as he had the night before; and on the tray, among covered dishes, was a book. "two of your chauffeur-admirers from aix are in the dining-room," he said, "so i thought you'd rather stop up in your room and read t.a. cook's 'old provence,' than go downstairs. anyway, it will be better for you." i was half angry, half flattered that he should arrange my life for me in this off-hand way, whether i liked it or not; but the french half of me will do almost anything rather than be ungracious; and it would have been ungracious to say i was tired of dining in my room, and could take care of myself, when he had given himself the trouble of carrying up my dinner. so i swallowed all less obvious emotions than meek gratitude for food, physical and mental; and was soon so deeply absorbed in the delightful book that i forgot to eat my pudding. i sat up late with it--the book, not the pudding--after putting lady turnour to bed (almost literally, because she thinks it refined to be helpless), and when morning came i was no longer disgracefully ignorant of st. remy and les baux. mr. dane had mapped out the programme of places to see, using avignon as a centre, and there were so many notabilities at the hotel de l'europe following the same itinerary, with insignificant variations, that lady turnour was quite contented with the arrangements made for her. morning was for st. remy; afternoon was for les baux, "because the thing is to see the sunset there," i heard her telling an extremely rich-looking american lady, laying down the law as if she had planned the whole trip herself, with a learned reason for each detail. the way to st. remy was along a small but pretty country road, which had a misleading air, as if it didn't want you to think it was taking you to a place of any importance. and yet we were in the heart of mistral-land; not mistral the east wind, but mistral the poet of provence, great enough to be worthy of the land he loves, great enough to carry on the glory of it to future generations. at any moment we might meet a fellore. i looked with interest at each man we saw, and some looked back at me with flattering curiosity; for a woman's eyes are almost as mysterious behind a three-cornered talc window as behind a yashmak, or zenana gratings. st. remy itself--birthplace of nostradamus, maker of powders and prophecies--was charming in the sunlight, with its straight avenue of trees like the pillars of a long gray and green corridor in a vast palace; but we swept on toward the "plateau des antiquities," up a steep slope with st. remy the modern at our backs; then suddenly i found myself crying out with delight at sight of the splendid triumphal archway and the gracious monument we had come out to see. both looked more greek than roman, but that was because greek workmen helped to build them for julius cæsar, when he determined that posterity should not forget his defeat of great vercingetorix, and should do justice to the memory of marius. when i was small i used to dislike poor vercingetorix, and be glad that he had to surrender, so that i might be rid of him, owing to the dreadful difficulty of pronouncing his name; but when we had got out of the car, and i saw him on the archway, a tall, carved captive, who had kept his head through all the centuries, while cæsar (with a hand on the prisoner's shoulder) had lost his, my heart softened to him for the first time. i thought the triumphal monument to marius even more beautiful than the archway, and felt as angry as marius must, that the guide-books should take it away from the hero and wrongfully call it a mausoleum for somebody else. but mr. dane assured me with the obstinate air people have when learned authorities back their opinions, that the arch was really the more interesting of the two--the first triumphal archway set up outside italy, said he, and bade me reflect on that; still, i would turn my eyes toward the graceful monument, so wickedly annexed by the three julii, and then away over the wide plain that lay beneath this ragged spur of the alpilles. in the distance i could see avignon, and the pale, opal-tinted, gold-veined hills that fold in the fountain of vaucluse. never, since we came into provence, had i been able so clearly to realize the wild fascination of her haggard beauty. "here marius stood in his camp," i thought, "shading his eyes from the fierce sun, and looking out over this strange, arid country for the barbarians he meant to conquer." my heart beat with an intoxicating excitement, such as one feels on seeing great mountains or the ocean for the first time; and then down i tumbled, with a bump, off my pedestal, when lady turnour wanted to know what i supposed she'd brought me for, if not to put on her extra cloak without waiting to be told. watches are really luxuries, not necessities, with the turnours, because their appetites always strike the hour of one, and if they're sometimes a little in advance, they can be relied upon never to be behindhand. i knew before i glanced at the little bracelet-watch pamela gave me (hidden under my sleeve) that it must be on the stroke of half-past twelve when her ladyship began to complain of the sharp wind, and say we had better be getting back to st. remy. she was cross, as usual when she is hungry, and said that if i continued to go about "like a snail in a dream" whenever she fetched me to carry her things on these short expeditions, she would leave me in the hotel to mend her clothes; whereupon i became actually servile in my ministrations. i brushed a microscopic speck of dust off her gown; i pushed in a hairpin; i tucked up a flying end of veil; i straightened her toque, and made myself altogether indispensable; for the bare idea of being left behind was a box on the ear. i could not endure such a punishment--and the front seat would look so empty, so unfinished, without me! as we went back down the steep hill from old glanum, st. remy appeared a little oasis of spring in the midst of a winter which had come back for something it had forgotten. all its surrounding orchards and gardens, screened from the shrewish mistral by the shoulders of the alpilles, and again by lines of tall cypress trees and netted, dry bamboos, had begun to bloom richly like the earlier gardens on the riviera. there was a pinky-white haze of apple blossoms; and even the plane trees in the long main street were hung with dainty, primrose-coloured spheres, like little fairy lanterns. not only did every man seem a possible felibre, but every girl was a beauty. some of them wore a charming and becoming head-dress, such as i never saw before, and the chauffeur said it was the head-dress of the women of arles, where we would go day after to-morrow. impertinent chauffeurs or couriers would have been more out of place in poetic st. remy than the sensational nostradamus himself; and there was no trouble of that sort for me in lunching at the pleasant, quiet hotel. mr. dane had bought a french translation of mistral's "memoires," and as we ate, he and i alone together, he read me the incident of the child-poet and his three wettings in quest of the adored water-flowers. nothing could be more beautiful than the wording of the exquisite thoughts, yet i wished we could have seen those thoughts embodied in provençal, the language practically created by mistral, as italian was by dante and petrarch, or german by goethe. not far away lay mas du juge, described in the book, where he was born, and maillane, where he lives, and i longed to drive that way; but as the turnours would be sure to say that there was nothing to see, the chauffeur thought it wiser not to turn out of our road. we might find the poet at arles, perhaps, in his museum there, or lunching at the hotel du forum, a favourite haunt of his on museum days. starting for les baux, we turned our faces straight toward the wild little mountains loved by mistral, his dear alpilles. they soon surrounded us in tumbling gray waves, piled up on either side of the road as the red sea must have tumultuously fenced in the path of the israelites. strange, hummocky mountains were everywhere, as far as we could see; mountains of incredible, nightmare shapes, and of great ledges set with gigantic busts of ancient heroes, some nobly carved, some hideously caricatured, roughly hewn in gray limestone, or red rock that looked like bronze. on we went, climbing up and up, a road like a python's back; but not yet was there any glimpse of the old "robber fortress" of les baux about which i had read, and later dreamed, last night. i knew it would be wonderful, astonishing, a dead city, a pompeii of the feudal age, yet different from any other ancient town the whole world over--a place of tangled histories; yet i tried vainly to picture what it would be like. then, suddenly, we reached a turn in that strange road which, if it had led downhill instead of up, would have seemed like the way orpheus took to reach hades. we had come face to face with a huge chasm in the rock, a gap with sheer walls sliced clean down, like a cut in a great cheese; and i felt instinctively that this must be the dark doorway through which we should see les baux. through the cut in the stone cheese our road carried us; and the busts on the rocky ledges were so near now we could almost have put out our hands and touched them--but curiously enough, in this place of all others, they were the likenesses of modern men. mr. dane and i picked out an unmistakable gladstone on the right, a characteristic beaconsfield on the left; and farther on mr. chamberlain's head was fantastically grafted on to the body of a prehistoric animal. we were just tracing pierpont morgan's profile, near a few of hannibal's elephants, when the car sprang clear of the chasm, out upon the other side of the doorway; and there rose before us les baux, a hundred times more wonderful, more tragic, than i had hoped to find it. far, far below our mountain road lay a valley so flat that it might have been levelled on purpose for the tilting of knights in great tournaments. above and around us (for suddenly we were in as well as under it) was a city of ghosts. huge masses of rock, like titan babies' playthings, had been hollowed out for dwellings, fit houses for our late cousins the cave-dwellers. there were colossal pillars and dark, high doorways such as one sees in pictures of the temples at thebes; but all this, said mr. jack dane, was merely a preface for what was yet to come, only an immense quarry whence the stones to build les baux had been torn. we were still on the road to the real les baux; and even as he spoke, the aigle was clawing her way bravely up a hill steeper than any we had mounted. at the top she turned abruptly, and stopped in a queer, forlorn little place, where to my astonishment our journey ended in front of a small house ambitiously named hotel monte carlo. then i remembered the story i had read: how a young prince of the grimaldi family came begging louis xiii. to protect him from spain; how louis, who didn't want spain to grab monaco, promptly gave soldiers; how the grimaldi's shrewd wit did more to get the spanish out of the little principality than did the fighting men from france; and how louis, as a reward, turned poor, war-worn les baux into a grimaldi marquisate. that little episode in history accounted for the hotel monte carlo; and i wondered if it were put up on the site of the grimaldis' miniature pleasure-palace, which the forest-burning revolutionists tore down just before les baux, after all its strange passings from hand to hand, became the property of the nation. against the rocks a few mean houses leaned apologetically, but on every side rose the ruins of a proud, dead past: a past beginning with the ruts of chariot-wheels graven on the rock-paved street. i thought, as i looked at the sordid little village of to-day, which had crawled into the very midst of the fortress, of some words i'd read last night: "a rat in the heart of a dead princess." strange, haggard hill, whispered about by history ever since christians ran before alaric the visigoth, and hid in its caverns already echoing with legends of mysterious phoenician treasure! strange robber house of les baux, founded thirteen hundred years ago, and claiming half provence two centuries later! no wonder, after all the fighting and plundering, loving and hating, that all it asks now is for its bleached, picked bones to be left in peace! i thought this, standing by the little hotel monte carlo, waiting for my mistress and her husband to be supplied with a guide. he was the most intelligent and efficient-seeming guide imaginable, who looked as if he had the whole history of les baux behind his bright dark eyes; and i hoped that the humble maid and chauffeur might be allowed to follow the "quality" within respectful earshot. soon they began to walk on, and i turned to look at my brother, who was lingering by the car. already the guide had begun to be interesting. i caught a few words: "celtic caverns"--"leibulf, the first count"--"the terrible turenne, called the 'fléau de provence'--the lady alix's guardian"--which made me long to hear more; but i didn't want to crawl on until my fellow worm could crawl with me. "i can't go," he said. "it wouldn't do to leave the car here. there are several gipsy faces at the inn window, you see. why there should be gipsies i don't know; but there are, for those are gipsies or i'll eat my cap. and i've got to keep watch on deck." "how horrid to leave you here alone, seeing nothing--not even the sunset!" i exclaimed. "i think i shall stop with you, unless _she_ calls me--" "you'll do nothing of the kind," he had begun, when the summons came, sooner than i had expected. chapter xiii "elise, come here and put what this guide is saying into english," was the command, and i flew to obey. to hear him tell what he knew was like turning over the leaves of the book of les baux; and i tried to do him justice in my translation; but it was disheartening to see lady turnour's lack-lustre gaze wander as dully about the rock-hewn barracks of roman soldiers as if she had been in her own lodging-house cellar, and to be interrupted by her complaints of the cold wind as we went up the silent streets, past deserted palaces of dead and gone nobles, toward the crown of all--the château. nothing moved her to any show of interest in this grave of mighty memories, of mighty warrior princes, and of lovely ladies with names sweet as music and perfume of potpourri. wandering in a splendid confusion of feudal and mediæval relics--walls with carved doorways, and doorways without walls; beautiful, purposeless columns whose occupation had long been gone; carved marvels of fireplaces standing up sadly from wrecked floors of fair ladies' boudoirs or great banqueting halls, the stout, painted woman broke in upon the guide's story to talk of any irrelevant matter that jumped into her mind. she suddenly bethought herself to scold sir samuel about "bertie," from whom a letter had evidently been forwarded, and who had been spending too much money to please her ladyship. "that stepson of yours is a regular bad egg," said she. "never you mind," retorted sir samuel, defending his favourite. "many a bad egg has turned over a new leaf." my lip quivered, but i fixed my eyes firmly upon the guide, who was now devoting his attention entirely to his one respectful listener. i was ashamed of my companions, but i couldn't help catching stray fragments of the conversation, and the involuntary mixing of bertie's affairs with the religious wars, and the destruction of les baux by richelieu's soldiers, had a positively weird effect on my mind. bertie, it seemed--(or was it richelieu?) was invited to visit at the château of a french marquis called de roquemartine (or was it good king rené, who inherited les baux because he was a count of provence?), and the château was near clermont-ferrand. lady turnour was of opinion that it would be well to make a condition before sending the cheque which bertie wanted to pay his bridge debts (or was he in debt because the lady douce and her sister stephanette of les baux had quarrelled?). if the advice of dane, the chauffeur, were taken, they would be motoring to clermont-ferrand; and why not say to bertie: "no cheque unless you get us an invitation to visit the roquemartines while you are there?" (or was it that they wanted an invitation to the boudoir of queen jeanne, rené's beloved wife, who lived at les baux sometimes, and had very beautiful things around her--tapestries and eastern rugs, and wondrous rosaries, and jewelled books of hours?) really, it was very bewildering; but in my despair one drop of comfort fell. that château near clermont-ferrand would prove a lodestar, and help mr. jack dane to lure the turnours through chill gorges and over snowy mountains. "lodestar" really was a good word for the attraction, i thought, and i would repeat it to the chauffeur. but it rose over the horizon of my intellect probably because the guide talked of countess alix, last heiress of the great house of les baux. "as she lay dying," he said, "the star that had watched over and guided the fortunes of her house came down from the sky, according to the legend, and shone pale and sad in her bedchamber till she was dead. then it burst, and its light was extinguished in darkness for ever." eventually sir samuel's eye brightened for the tudor rose decoration, in the ruined château, relic of an alliance between an english princess and the house of les baux; and lady turnour didn't interrupt once when the guide told of the latest important discovery in the city of ghosts. "near the altar of the virgin here," he began, in just the right, hushed tone, "they found in a tomb the body of a beautiful young girl. there she lay, as the tomb was opened, just for an instant--long enough for the eye to take in the picture--as lovely as the loveliest lady of les baux, that famed princess cecilie, known through provence as passe-rose. her long golden hair was in two great plaits, one over either shoulder, and her hands were crossed upon her breast, holding a book of hours. but in a second, as the air touched her, she was gone like a dream; her sweet young face, white as milk, and half smiling, her long dark eyelashes, even the book of hours, all crumbled into dust, fine as powder. only the golden hair, tied with blue ribbon, was left; and when you go to arles you can see it in the museum of monsieur mistral." "make a note of hair for arles, sam," said her ladyship, gravely; and just as solemnly he obeyed, scribbling a few words in the pocket memorandum-book in which the poor man industriously puts down all the things which his wife thinks he ought to remember. "anything else interesting ever been found here?" she wanted to know. "any jewels or things of that sort?" i passed the question on to the guide. many things had been found, he said: coins, vases, pottery, and mosaics. occasionally such things were turned up, though usually, nowadays, of no great value; but it was the hope of finding something which brought the gipsies. often there were gypsies at les baux. they would go to les saintes maries, the place of the sacred church where the two sainted maries came ashore from palestine in their little boat, and they would pray to sarah, whose tomb was also in that wonderful church. had we seen it yet? no? but it was not far. many people went, though the great day was on may twenty-fourth, when the archbishop of aix lowered the ark of relics from the roof, and healed those of the sick who were true believers. it was for sarah, though, that the gipsies made their pilgrimages. they thought that prayers at her tomb would bring them whatever they desired; and sometimes, when they were able to come on as far as les baux, they would wish at the tomb to find the buried phoenician treasure, for which many had searched generation after generation, since history began, but none had ever found. i did not say anything about the gipsies at the inn-window, but i saw now that mr. dane had done wisely in sticking to his post. a sixty-horse-power aigle might largely make up for a disappointment in the matter of treasure, even if she had to be towed down into the valley by a horse. "calvé, and all the great singers, come here sometimes by moonlight in their motors," went on the guide, "after the great musical festival of orange in the month of august. they stand on the piles of stone among the ruins when all is white under the moon, and they sing--ah! but they sing! it is wonderful. they do it for their own pleasure, and there is no audience except the ghosts--and me, for they allow me to listen. yet i think, if our eyes could be opened to such things, we would see grouped round a noble company of knights and ladies--such a company as would be hard to get together in these days." "well, i would rather sing here in august than april!" exclaimed lady turnour, with the air of a spoiled prima donna. and then she shivered and wanted to go down to the car without waiting for the sunset, which, after all, could only be like any other mountain sunset, and she could see plenty of better ones next summer in switzerland. she felt so chilled, she was quite anxious about herself, and should certainly not dare to start for avignon until she had had a glass of steaming hot rum punch or something of that sort, at the inn. did the guide think she could get it--and have it sent out to her in the car, as nothing would induce her to go inside that little den? the guide thought it probable that something hot might be obtained, though there might be a few minutes' delay while the water was made to boil, as it would be an unusual order. a few minutes! thought i, eagerly, looking at the sun, which was hurrying westward. i knew what "a few minutes" at such an inn would mean--half an hour at least; and apparently i was no longer needed as an interpreter. without a thought of me, now that i had ceased to be useful, lady turnour slipped her arm into her husband's for support (her high-heeled shoes and the rough, steep streets had not been made for each other), and began trotting down the hill, in advance of the guide. they had finished with him, too, and were already deep in a discussion as to whether rum punch, or hot whisky-and-water with sugar and lemon were better, for warding off a chill. i didn't see why i shouldn't linger a little on the wide plateau, with the dead city looming above me like a skeleton seated on a ruined throne, and half southern france spread out in a vast plain, a thousand feet below. it was wonderful there, and strangely, almost terribly still. once the sea had washed the feet of the cliff, dim ages ago. now my eyes had to travel far to the mediterranean, where marseilles gloomed dark against the burnished glimmer of the water. i could see the etang de berre, too, and imagine i saw the aurelian way, and gloomy old aigues-mortes, which we were to visit later. at lunch we had talked of a poem of mistral's, which a friend of mr. dane's had put into french--a poem all about a legendary duel. and it was down there, in that far-stretching field, that the duel was fought. as i looked i realized that the clouds boiling up from some vast cauldron behind the world were choking the horizon with their purple folds. they were beautiful as the banners of a royal army advancing over the horizon, but--they would hide the sun as he went down to bathe in the sea. he was embroidering their edges with gold now. i was seeing the best at this moment. if i started to go back, i should have time to pause here and there, gazing at things the turnours had hurried past. i went down slowly, reluctantly, the melancholy charm of the place catching at my dress as i walked, like the supplicating fingers of a ghost condemned to dumbness. there was one rock-hewn house i had wanted to see, coming up, which lady turnour had scorned, saying "when you've been in one, you've been in all." and she had not understood the guide's story of a legend that was attached to this particular house. perhaps if she had she would not have cared; but now i was free i couldn't resist the temptation of going in, to poke about a little. you could go several floors down, the guide had said; that was certain, but the tale was, that a secret way led down from the lowest cellar of this cave house, continuing--if one could only find it--to the enchanted cavern far below, where taven, the witch, kept and cured of illness the girl loved by mireio. i didn't know who mireio was, except that he lived in songs and legends of old provence, but the story sounded like a beautiful romance; and then, the guide had added that some people thought the kabre d'or, or phoenician treasure, was hidden somewhere between les baux and the "fairy grotto," or the "gorge of hell," near by. caves have always had the most extraordinary, magical fascination for me. when i was a child, i believed that if i could only go into one i should be allowed to find fairyland; and even in an ordinary, every-day cellar i was never quite without hope. the smell of a cellar suggested the most cool, delightful, shadowy mysteries to me, at that time, and does still. it was as if the ghostly hand that had been pulling me back, begging me not to leave les baux, led me gently but insistently through the doorway of the rock house. it was not yet dark inside. i tiptoed my way through some rough bits of debris, to the back of the big room, crudely cut out of stone. there were shelves where the dwellers had set lights or stored provisions, and there was nothing else to see except a square hole in the floor, below which a staircase had been hewn. a glimmer of light came up to me, gray as a bat's wing, and i knew that there must be some opening for ventilation below. i felt that i would give anything to go down those rough stone stairs, only half way down, perhaps; just far enough to see what lay underneath. it was as if taven herself had called me, saying: "come, i have something to show you." i put a foot on the first step, then the other foot wanted a chance to touch the next step, and so on, each demanding its own turn in fairness. i had gone down eight steps, counting each one, when i heard a faint rustling noise. i stopped, my heart giving a jump, like a bird in a cage. there were no windows in the underground room, which was much smaller and less regular in shape than the one above, but a faint twilight seemed to rain down into it in streaks, like spears of rain, and i guessed that holes had been made in the rock to give light and ventilation. something alive was down there, moving. i was frightened; i hardly dared to look. and i had a nightmare feeling of being struck dumb and motionless. i tried to turn and run up the stairs but i had to look, and the gray filtering light struck into a pair of eyes. chapter xiv they were great black eyes, sunken into the face of an old woman. she stood in a corner, and it occurred to me that she had perhaps run there, as much afraid of me as i was of her. no eyes were ever like those, i thought, except the eyes of a gipsy. "what are you doing?" i stammered, in french, hardly expecting her to understand and answer me; but she replied in an old, cracked voice that sounded hollow and unreal in the cavern. "i have been asleep," she said. "i am waiting for my sons. we are in les baux on business. i thought, when i heard you, it was my boys coming to fetch me. i can't go till they are here, because i have dropped my rosary with a silver crucifix down below, and the way is too steep for me. they must get it." "do they know you are here?" i asked. "oh, yes," she returned. "they will come at six. we shall perhaps have our supper and sleep in this house to-night. then we will go away in the morning." "it is only a little after five now," i told her. "you frightened me at first." she cackled a laugh. "i am nothing to be afraid of," she chuckled. "i am very old. besides, there is no harm in me. if you have the time, i could tell your fortune." "i'm afraid i haven't time," i said, though i was tempted. to have one's fortune told in a cavern under a rock house where romans had lived, told by a real, live gipsy who looked as if she might be a lineal descendant from taven, and who was probably fresh from worshipping at the tomb of sarah! it would be an experience. no girl i knew, not even pam herself, who is always having adventures, could ever have had one as good as this. if only i need not miss it! "it would take no more than five minutes," she pleaded in her queer french, which was barely understandable, and evidently not the tongue in which she was most at home. "well, then," i said, hastily calculating that it was no more than ten minutes since lady turnour and sir samuel left me, and that the water for their punch couldn't possibly have begun to boil yet. "well, then, perhaps i might have five minutes' fortune, if it doesn't cost too much; but i'm very poor--poorer than you, maybe." "that cannot be, for then you would have less than nothing," said the old woman, cackling again. "but it is your company i like to have, more than your money. i have been waiting here a long time, and i am dull. no fortune can be expected to come true, however, unless the teller's hand be crossed with silver, otherwise i might give it you for nothing. but a two-franc piece--" "i think i have as much as that," i cut her short, as she paused on the hint; and deciding not to ask her, as i felt inclined, to come to the upper room lest we should be interrupted, i went down the remaining five or six high steps, and got out my purse under a long, straight rod of gray light. there were only a few francs left, but i would have beggared myself to buy this adventure, and thought it cheap at the price she named. i found a two-franc piece--a bright new one, worthy of its destiny--and looking up as i shut my purse, i saw the old woman's eyes fixed on me, and sharp as gimlets. used to the dusk now, i could see her dark face distinctly, and so like a hungry crow did she look that i was startled. but it was only for a second that i felt a little uncomfortable. she was so old and weak, i was so young and strong, that even if she were an evil creature who wanted to do me harm, i could shake her off and run away as easily as a bird could escape from a tied cat. "make a cross with the silver piece on my palm," she said. i did as she told me, and it was a dark and dirty palm, in the hollow of which seemed to lie a tiny pool of shadow. her eyes darted to the bracelet-watch as my wrist slipped out of the protecting sleeve, and i drew back my hand quickly. she plucked the coin from my fingers, and then told me to give her my left hand. "you can't see the lines," i said. "it's too dark." "i see with my night eyes," she answered, as a witch might have answered. "and i feel. i have the quick touch of the blind. i can feel the pores in a flower-petal." impressed, i let her hold my hand in one of her lean claws while she lightly passed the spread fingers of the other down the length of mine from the tips to the joining with the palm, and then along the palm itself, up and down and across. it was like having a feather drawn over my hand. "you have foreign blood in your veins," she said. "you are not all french. but you have the charm of the latin girl. you can make men love you. you make them love you whether you wish or not, and whether _they_ wish or not. sometimes that is a great trouble to you. you are anxious now, for many reasons. one of the reasons is a man, but there is more than one who loves you. you make one of them unhappy, and yourself unhappy, too. the man you ought to love is young and handsome, and dark--very dark. do not think ever of marrying a fair man. you are on a journey now. something very unexpected will happen to you at the end--something to do with a man, and something to do with a woman. be careful then, for your future happiness may depend on your actions in a moment of surprise. you are not rich, but you have a lucky hand. you could find things hidden if you set yourself to look for them." "hidden treasure?" i asked, laughingly, and venturing to break in because she was speaking slowly now, as if she had come to the end of her string of prophecies. "perhaps. yes. if you looked for the hidden treasure here, you might be the one to find it after all these hundreds of years. who knows? these things happen to the lucky ones." "well, if i believed that i'd been born for such luck, i'd try to come back some day, and have a look," i said. "i should begin in this house, i think." "it is never so lucky to return for things as to try and get them at the right time," the old woman pronounced. "if you would like to wait till my sons come--" "no, i wouldn't," i said. "i must go now." "if you would at least do me a favour, for the good fortune i have told you so cheap," she begged. "i, who in my day have had as much as two louis from great ladies who would know their fortune!" "what is the favour?" i asked. "oh, it is next to nothing. only to go down to the foot of the stairs in the cellar below this, and pick up my rosary, which i dropped, and which i know is lying there." "it's too dark," i said. "i couldn't see to find it--and you said your sons were coming soon." "not soon enough, for when you are gone, and i am alone, i should like to pray at the time of vespers. and it is not so dark as you think. besides, this will be the test of the fortune i have just told you. if it's true that you have the lucky hand for finding you will put it on the rosary in an instant. that will be a sign you can find anything. unless you are afraid, mademoiselle--" "of course i'm not afraid," i said, for i always have been ashamed of my fear of the dark, and have forced myself to fight against it. "if the rosary is at the foot of the staircase i'll try and get it for you, but i won't go any farther." her corner was close by the opening where more steps were cut into the rock. i could see the bottom, i thought, and started down quickly, because i was in a hurry to come back and be on my way home--to the aigle. six, seven steps, and then--crash! down i came on my hands and knees. oh, how it hurt! and how it made my head ring! fireworks went off before my eyes, and i felt stupid, inclined to lie still. but suddenly the idea flashed into my brain, like lightning darting among dark clouds, that the old woman had made me do this thing on purpose. she had played me a trick--and if she had, she must have some bad reason for doing it. those two sons of hers! i scrambled up, shocked and jarred by the fall, my hands and knees smarting as if they were skinned. "i've fallen down," i cried. "do you hear?" no answer. i called again. it was as still as a grave up above. it seemed to me that it could not be so unnaturally, so inhumanly still, if there were a living, breathing creature there. i was sure now that the horrible old thing had known what would happen, had wanted it to happen, and had gone hobbling away to fetch her wicked gipsy sons. how she had looked at my poor little purse! how she had looked at pamela's watch! i saw now how it was that i had been so stupid. the dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar. the lower steps had been hewn away--perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stone not far off, which had once been the end of the rocky stairway. it was lucky that i hadn't struck my forehead against it in falling--the only bit of luck which the fortune-teller had brought me! as it was, i was not seriously hurt. perhaps i had torn my dress, and i should certainly have to buy a new pair of gloves, whether i could afford them or not; otherwise i didn't think i should suffer, except for a few black-and-blue patches. but how was i to get out of this dark hole? that was the question. i was too hot with anger against the sly old fox of a woman, who had pretended that she wanted to say her prayers, to feel the chill of fear; but i couldn't help understanding that she had got me into this trap with the object of annexing my watch and purse or anything else of value. perhaps the gipsy sons would rob me first, and then murder me, rather than i should live to tell; but if they meant to do that they would have to come and be at it soon, or i should be missed and sought. this last fancy really did turn me cold, and the nice hot anger which had kept me warm began to ooze out at my fingers and toes. i thought of my brave new brother, who would fight ten gipsy men to save me if he only knew; and then i wanted to cry. but that would be the silliest thing i could do. soon they would begin to look for me (oh, how furious lady turnour would be that i should dare keep her waiting, and at the fuss about a servant!) and if i screamed at the top of my voice maybe some one would hear. i took a long breath, and gave vent to a blood-curdling shriek which would have made the fortune of an actress on the stage. odd! i couldn't help thinking of that at the time. one thinks of queer things at the most inappropriate moments. it was a glorious howl, but the rock walls seemed to catch it as a battledore catches a shuttlecock, and send it bounding back to me. i knew then that a cry from those depths would not carry far; and the fear at my heart gave a sharp, rat-like bite. if i could scramble up! i thought; and promptly tried. it looked almost easy; but for me it was impossible. a very tall woman might have done it, perhaps, but i have only five foot four in my frenchiest french heels; and the broken-off place was higher than my waist. with good hand-hold i might have dragged myself up, but the steps above did not come at the right height to give me leverage; and always, though i tried again and again, till my cut hands bled, i couldn't climb up. and how silly it seemed, the whole thing! i was just like a young fly that had come buzzing and bumbling round an ugly old spider's web, too foolish to know that it was a web. and even now how lightly the fly's feet were entangled! a spring, and i should be out of prison. "oh, the little more, and how much it is! and the little less, and what worlds away!" the words came and spoke themselves in my ears, as if they were determined to make me cry. i was desperately frightened and homesick--homesick even for lady turnour. i should have felt like kissing the hem of her dress if i could only have seen her now--and i wasn't able to smile when i thought what a rage she'd be in if i did it. she would have me sent off to an insane asylum: but even that would be much gayer and more homelike than an underground cellar in the ghost city of les baux. dear old sir samuel, with his nice red face! i almost loved him. the car seemed like a long-lost aunt. and as for the chauffeur, my brother--i found that i dared not think of him. as in my imagination i saw his eyes, his good dark eyes, clear as a brook, and the lines his brown face took when he thought intently, the tears began running down my cheeks. "oh, jack--jack, come and help me!" i called. that comes of _thinking_ people's christian names. they will pop out of your mouth when you least expect it. but it mattered little enough now, except that the sound of the name and the echo of it fluttering back to me made my tears feel boiling hot--hotter than the punch which the turnours must have finished by this time. "jack! jack!" i called again. then i heard a stone rattle up above, somewhere, and a sick horror rushed over me, because of the gipsy men coming back with their wicked old mother. it was only a very dark gray in the cellar, to my unaccustomed eyes, but suddenly it turned black, with purple edges. i knew then i was going to faint, because i've done it once or twice before, and things always began by being black with purple edges. chapter xv "for heaven's sake, wake up--tell me you're not hurt!" a familiar voice was saying in my ear, or i was dreaming it. and because it was such a good dream i was afraid to break it by waking to some horror, so i kept my eyes shut, hoping and hoping for it to come again. in an instant, it did come. "child--little girl--wake up! can't you speak to me?" his hand, holding mine, was warm and extraordinarily comforting. suddenly i felt so happy and so perfectly safe that i was paid for everything. my head was on somebody's arm, and i knew very well now who the somebody was. he was real, and not a dream. i sighed cozily and opened my eyes. his face was quite close to mine. "thank god!" he said. "are you all right?" "now you're here," i answered. "i thought they were coming to kill me." "who?" he asked, quite fiercely. "an old gipsy woman and her sons." "those people!" he exclaimed. "why, it was they who told me you were in this place. if it hadn't been for them i shouldn't have found you so soon--though i _would_ have found you. the wretches! what made you think--" "the old woman was in the room above," i said, "waiting for her sons; and she begged me to look down here for a rosary she dropped. she must have known the bottom steps were gone. she _wanted_ me to fall; and though i called, she didn't answer, because she'd probably hobbled off to find her sons and bring them back to rob me. i haven't hurt myself much, but when i found i couldn't climb up i was so frightened! i thought no one would ever come--except those horrible gipsies. and when i heard a sound above i was sure they were here. i felt sick and strange, and i suppose i must have fainted." "i heard you call, just as i got into the upper room. then, though i answered, everything was still. jove! i had some bad minutes! but you're sure you're all right now?" "sure," i answered, sitting up. "did i call you 'jack'? if i did, it was only because one can't shriek 'mister,' and anyway you told me to." "now i _know_ you're all right, or you wouldn't bother about conventionalities. i wish i had some brandy for you--" "i wouldn't take it if you had." "that sounds like you. that's encouraging! are you strong enough to let me get you up into the light and air?" "quite!" i replied briskly, letting him help me to my feet. "but how are we to get up?" "i'll show you. it will be easy." "let's look first for the wicked old creature's rosary. if it isn't here, it's certain she's a fraud." "i should think it's certain without looking. i'd like to put the old serpent in prison." "i wouldn't care to trouble, now i'm safe. and anyway, how could we prove she meant her sons to rob me, since they hadn't begun the act, and so couldn't be caught in it?" "she didn't know you had a man to look after you. when the guide and i came this way, searching, we met a gipsy woman with two awful brutes, and asked if they'd seen a young lady in a gray coat. they were all three on their way here, as you thought; but when they saw us close to this house, of course, they dared not carry out their plan, and the old woman made the best of a bad business. no doubt they're as far off by this time as they could get. it might be difficult to prove anything, but i'd like to try." "_i_ wouldn't," i said. "but let's look for that rosary. have you any matches?" "plenty." he took out a match-case, and held a wax vesta for me to peer about in the neighbourhood of the broken stairway. "here's something glittering!" i exclaimed, just as i had been about to give up the search in vain. "she said there was a silver crucifix." i slipped my fingers into a crack where the rock had been split in breaking off the lower steps. a small, bright thing was there, almost buried in débris, but i could not get my fingers in deep enough to dislodge it. impatiently i pulled out a hat-pin, and worked until i had unearthed--not the rosary, but a silver coin. "somebody else has been down here, dropping money," i said, handing the piece up for mr. dane to examine. "then it was a long time ago," he replied, "for the coin has the head of louis xiii. on it." "oh, then she was right!" i cried. "i _can_ find lost treasure. i'm going to look for more. i believe that piece must have fallen out of a hole i've found here, which goes back ever so far into the rock. i can get my arm in nearly to the elbow." "_who_ was 'right'?" my brother wanted to know. "the gipsy. she told my fortune. that was why i didn't refuse to look for her rosary." "i should have thought a child would have known better," he remarked, scornfully; and his tone hurt my sensitiveness the more because his voice had been so anxious and his words so kind when i was fainting. he had called me "child" and "little girl." i remembered well, and the words had been saying themselves over in my mind ever since. i rather thought that they betrayed a secret--that perhaps he had been getting to care for me a little. that idea pleased me, because he had been abrupt sometimes, and i hadn't known what to make of him. every girl owes it to herself to understand a man thoroughly--at least, as much of his character and feelings as may concern her. besides, it is not soothing to one's vanity to try--well, yes, i may as well confess that!--to _try_ and please a man, yet to know you've failed after days of association so constant and intimate that hours are equal to the same number of months in an ordinary acquaintance. now, after thinking i'd made the discovery that he really had found me attractive, it was a shock to be spoken to in this way. "oh, you _are_ cross!" i exclaimed, still poking about in the hole under the stairway. "i'm not cross," he said, "but if i were, you'd deserve it, because you know you've been foolish. and if you don't know, you ought to, so that you may be wiser next time. the idea of a sensible young woman chumming up in a lonely cave, with a dirty old gipsy certain to be a thief, if not worse, letting her tell fortunes, and then falling into a trap like this. i wouldn't have believed it of you!" "i think you're perfectly horrid," said i. "i wish you had let the guide find me. he would have done it just as well, and been much more polite." "doubtless he would have been more polite, but he isn't as young, and might have had trouble in getting you out. there! that's my last match, and you mustn't waste any more time looking for treasure which you won't find." "which i _have_ found!" i announced. "i've got something more--away at the back of the hole. not that you deserve to see it!" however, i held up my hand in its torn, bloodstained glove, with two silver pieces displayed on the palm. "a child's hidey-hole, i suppose," he said without showing as much interest as the occasion warranted. "otherwise there would be something more valuable. a young servant of the grimaldis, perhaps; these coins are all of the same period--of no great value as antiques, i'm afraid." "they're of value to me," i retorted. "they'll bring me luck." i would of course have given him one, if he hadn't been so disagreeable; but now i felt that he shouldn't have anything of mine if he were starving. "you are very superstitious, among other childlike qualities," he replied, laughing. so _that_ was what he thought of me, and _that_ was why he had called me "child"! it was all spoiled now, from the beginning; and the guide might as well have found me, as i had said, without _quite_ meaning it at the time. "if you don't like lucky things, you can throw away my st. christopher," i said, coldly. "you must have thought it very silly." "i thought it extremely kind of you to give it, and i've no intention of throwing it away, or parting with it," said he. "now, are you ready?" "yes," i snapped. in an instant he had me by the waist between two hands which felt strong as steel buckles, and swung me up like a feather on to the first step of the broken stairs. then, in another second, he was at my side, supporting me to the top without a word, except a muttered "don't be childish!" when i would have pushed away his arm. strange to say, i forgot lady turnour and sir samuel until we saw the guide, to whom long ago mr. dane had called up a reassuring _"tout va bien!_" then, suddenly, the awful truth sprang into my mind. all this time they had been waiting for me! what would they say? what would they do? in my horror, i even forgot my righteous anger with the chauffeur. "oh!" i gasped. "_the turnours!_" then mr. dane spoke kindly again. "don't worry," he said. "it's all right. they've gone on." "in the car?" i cried. "no. sir samuel can't drive the car. and as lady turnour thought she had a chill, rather than wait for me to find you they took a carriage which was here, and drove down to st. remy. they'll go on by rail to avignon, and--" "there must have been a dreadful row!" i groaned. "not at all. you're not to worry. lady turnour behaved like a cad, as usual, but what can you expect? sir samuel did the best he could. he would have liked to wait, but if he'd insisted she would have had hysterics." "how came there to be a carriage here?" i asked the guide. "the gentleman paid three young men who had driven up in it a good sum to get it for himself," he explained, "and they are walking down. they are of germany." "was it a long time?" i went on. "oh, it _must_ have been. it's nearly dark now, except for the moonlight." "it is perhaps an hour altogether since mademoiselle separated herself from the others," the guide admitted. "but they have been gone for more than half that time. they did not delay long, after the little dispute with monsieur about the car." "oh, there was a dispute!" i caught him up, wheeling upon the chauffeur. "you _must_ tell me." "it was nothing much," he said, still very kindly, "and it was her ladyship's fault, of course. if you were plain and elderly she'd have more patience; but as it is, you've seen how quick she is to scold; so, of course, she was angry when she'd finished her grog and you didn't turn up." "what did she say," i asked. he laughed. "she was quite irrelevant." "i must know!" "well, she seemed to lay most of the blame on the colour of your hair and eyelashes." "she said--" "what could be expected of a girl that dyed her hair yellow and her eyelashes black?" "_horrid_ woman! you don't believe i do, do you?" "i must say it hadn't occurred to me to think of it." then i remembered how angry i was with him, and didn't pursue that subject, but turned again to the other. however, i made a mental note that there was one more thing to punish him for when i got the chance. "what else did she say?" "she began to turn purple when sir samuel would have defended you, and said she wouldn't stand your taking such liberties. that it was monstrous, and a few other things, to be kept freezing on mountains by one's domestics, and that she should be ill if she waited. sir samuel persuaded her to give you fifteen minutes' grace, but after that she was determined to start. of course, she didn't know that an accident had happened. she thought you were simply dawdling, and wanted sir samuel to arrange for you to drive down with the newly arrived german tourists. sir samuel and i objected to this, and later it was settled for the turnours to do what her ladyship planned for you, without the company of the tourists. lady turnour resents _lèse-majesté_." "it's a miracle she consented to leave the car," i said. "she couldn't use it without a chauffeur, and naturally i refused to go without knowing what had happened to you." "you refused!" i stammered. "of course. that was where the row came in. we had a few words, and eventually i was deputed to look you up." "deputed!" i echoed, desperately. "they never 'deputed' you to do it, i'm sure." "they jolly well couldn't help themselves. you can't make a man drive a car if he won't. so they went off in the germans' carriage, and the germans were enchanted." "oh!" i exclaimed, so miserable now that anger leaked out of my heart like water through a sieve. "it's all my fault. did they discharge you?" "i didn't give them the chance. after a few little things her ladyship said, i felt rather hot in the collar, and discharged myself. that is, i gave them notice that i would go as soon as they could get another chauffeur. it would have been bad form to leave them in the lurch, without anyone, on tour." the tears came to my eyes, and i was thinking so little about myself that i let them roll down without bothering to wipe them away. "do, do forgive me," i implored. "but you never can, of course. all through my foolishness you're out of an engagement. and you depended upon it, i know, from what you said." "there's nothing to forgive, my dear little sister," he said. "it's you who must forgive me, if i've distressed you by telling the story in a clumsy way. it wasn't your fault. i couldn't stand that bounderess's cruel tongue, so i have myself to blame, if anyone. and it's sure to turn out right in the end." "you refused to drive their car because you would stay behind and find me--" "any decent chap would do that--even a chauffeur." he spoke lightly to comfort me. "besides, i wanted to stop. you're the only sister i ever had." "you must hate me," i moaned. "i don't. please don't cry. i shall faint if you do." i was obliged to laugh a little through my tears. "come," he said, gently. "let me take you down. just a word with the guide about those gipsies, and--" "oh, leave the wretched gipsies alone!" i begged. "who cares, now? if you say anything, they may call us as witnesses at st. remy or some town where we don't want to stop. let them go." "i suppose we might as well," he said, "for we can't prove anything worth proving. come, then." he slipped some money into the guide's hand, and thanked him for his courtesy and kindness. but another pang shot through my remorseful heart. more money spent by this man for me, when he had so little, and had lost the engagement which, though unworthy his rank in life, was the only present means he had of earning a livelihood. i came, obeying in forlorn silence, and could not answer when he tried to cheer me up as we walked down to the hotel monte carlo. there stood the aigle in charge of a youth from the inn, and there was more money to be paid to him. i wanted to give it, but saw that if i insisted mr. dane would be vexed. he suggested putting me inside, as the air was now very cold, with the chill that falls after sunset; but i refused. "i want to sit by you!" i implored, and he said no more. with the glass cage behind us empty, and the great acetylene lamps alight, the aigle turned and flew down the hill. chapter xvi for some time we did not speak, but my thoughts moved more quickly than the beating of the engine. at last i said meekly, "of course, i may as well consider myself discharged, too. and even if i weren't, i should go." "i've been thinking about that," mr. dane answered. "it was the first thought that came into my head when the row began. it isn't likely she'll want you to leave, because she won't like getting on without a maid. i think, in the circumstances, unless she is brutal, you'd better stay with her till your friends can receive you. someone _must_ come forward and help you now." "i wouldn't ask anyone but pamela, who's gone to america," i protested. "besides, i can't stand lady turnour after what's happened--with you gone." (as i said this, i remembered again how i had dreaded to associate with the chauffeur, and planned to avoid him. it was rather funny, as it had turned out; but somehow i didn't feel like laughing.) "of course _you_ won't mind," i went on. "it's different for a man. if you were left and i going, it wouldn't matter, because you'd have the car. but i've nothing--except lady turnour's 'transformation.' luckily, she won't want me to stop." "i think she will," he said, "because your only fault was in having an accident. you weren't impudent, as she thinks i was in refusing to drive the car. also in letting her see that i thought her willingness to leave a young girl in a place like this, alone for hours (she did propose to let me drive back for you) was the most brutal thing i'd ever heard of." "oh, how good you were, to sacrifice yourself like that for me!" i exclaimed. "it wasn't entirely for you," he said. "one owes some things to oneself. but when we get to avignon, and it's settled between you and lady turnour, promise to let me know what you mean to do and give me a chance to advise you." i promised. but i was so melancholy as to the future and so ashamed of myself for the trouble brought upon my only friend, that his efforts to cheer me were hopeless as an attempt to let off wet fireworks. mine were soaked; and instead of admiring the moonlight, which soon flooded the wild landscape, it made me the more dismal. the drive by day had seemed short, but now it was long, for i was in haste to begin the expected battle. "courage! and be wise," said mr. dane, as he helped me out of the car in front of the hotel de l'europe. "i shall bring up your dinner again--it's no use saying you don't want anything--and we'll exchange news." when lions have to be faced, my theory is that the best thing is to open the cage door and walk in boldly, not crawl in on your knees, saying: "please don't eat me." i expected lady turnour to have a fine appetite for any martyrs lying about loose, but to my surprise a faint "come in!" answered my dauntless knock, and i beheld her prostrate in bed. she said that i had nearly killed her, and that she would probably not be able to move for a week; but the story of my adventures with the gipsy interested her somewhat, and she brightened when she heard of the old coins found in a hole in the rock. there was not a word about sending me away, and i suspected that a scene with sir samuel had crushed the lady. even a worm will turn, and sir samuel may be one of those mild men who, when once roused, are capable of surprising those who know them best. quite meekly she desired that i would show her the coins, and having seen them, she said that she would buy them off me. not that they were of any intrinsic value, but they might be "lucky," and she would give me a sovereign for the three. then an idea came and whispered in my ear. i thanked lady turnour politely, but said i thought i had better keep the coins and show them to an antiquary. they might be more valuable than we supposed, and i should need all the money, as well as all the luck possible, now that i was leaving her ladyship's service. "leaving!" she echoed. "but as you had an accident i've made up my mind to excuse you this time, and not discharge you as i intended. you don't know your business too well, but any maid is better than no maid on a tour like this, as sir samuel pointed out to me." "but, begging your ladyship's pardon," i ventured, "i understand that the chauffeur is to go because he stopped at les baux to look for me. as he very likely saved my life, i couldn't be so ungrateful as to stay on in my situation when he is losing his for my sake." "what nonsense!" snapped her ladyship. "as if that had anything to do with you, and if it has, it _oughtn't_. besides, if he will apologize, he can stop. sir samuel says so." "he doesn't seem to think he was in the wrong, my lady," said i. "as your ladyship will probably be at avignon some time before finding another chauffeur, it will be easy to look for a maid at the same time." "be here some time!" she cried. "i won't! we want to get on to a château where my stepson's visiting." "i should be delighted to offer your ladyship two of the lucky coins for nothing," said i, my impertinence wrapped in honey, "if she would persuade sir samuel to _ask_ the chauffeur to stay." "why, that's just what sir samuel wants to do, if i would hear of it!" the words popped out before she had stopped to think. "it might be too late after this evening," i suggested. "the chauffeur will perhaps take steps at once to secure some other engagement; and i fear that a good man is always in great demand. i hope that your ladyship will kindly understand that it would be nothing to _me_, if he hadn't got into trouble for my sake." "you can leave the coins, and call sir samuel, who is in his room next door," remarked lady turnour with dignity. "i will talk with him." the greedy creature was delighted to have the coins without paying for them, and delighted with the excuse to do what she would have liked to do without an excuse, if obstinacy had not forbidden. i kept one coin for my own luck; i called sir samuel, who was sulking in his den, was dismissed with an order for her ladyship's dinner, which she would have in bed, and told to return with the menu. a few minutes later, coming back, i met mr. jack dane in the corridor. "have you seen sir samuel yet?" i inquired. "no. he's sent for me, and i'm on my way to him now." "he's going to ask you to stay," i said. "i think you're mistaken there," replied the chauffeur. "the old boy himself has a strong sense of justice, and would like to make everything all right, no doubt, but his wife would give him no peace if he did." "if he does, though, what shall you do?" i inquired anxiously. mr. dane looked into space. "i think i'd better go in any case." "why?" if he'd been a woman, i think he would have answered "because," but being a man he reflected a few seconds, and said he thought it would be better for him in the end. "do you want to go?" i asked, drearily. "no. but i ought to want to." "please stay," i begged. "please--brother." "sir samuel mayn't ask me; and you wouldn't have me crawl to him?" "but if he does ask you." "i'll stay," he said. impulsively, i held out my hand. he took it, and pressed it so hard that it hurt, then dropped it suddenly. his manner is certainly very odd sometimes. i suppose he doesn't want me to flatter myself that i am of any importance in his scheme of existence. but he needn't worry. he has shown me very plainly that he is one of those typical, unsusceptible englishmen french writers put in their books, men with hearts whose every compartment is warranted love-tight. chapter xvii lady turnour opened her heart and her wardrobe and gave me a blouse the first thing in the morning, which act of generosity was the more remarkable as morning is not her best time. i have found that it is the early maid who catches the first snub, which otherwise might fall innocuously upon a husband. the blouse was one which i had heard her ladyship say she hated; but then her idea of true charity, combined, as it should be, with economy, is always to give to the poor what you wouldn't be found dead in yourself, because it is more blessed to give than to receive badly made things. on the same principle i immediately passed the gift on to a chambermaid of the hotel, who perhaps in her turn dropped it a grade lower in the social scale, and so it may go on forever, blouse without end; but all that is apart from the point. the important part of the transaction was the token that the dead past was to bury its dead; and possibly sir samuel timidly offered a waistcoat or a pair of boots to the chauffeur. instead of lying in bed, as lady turnour had threatened to do for a week, she was up earlier than usual, as well as ever she had been, and not more than half as disagreeable. although the sky looked as if it might burst into tears at any moment, and although orange has nothing but historic remains and historic records to show, she was ready to start, almost cheerfully, at ten o'clock. i was allowed to be of the party, laden with mackintoshes for my master and mistress; and i didn't admire the triumphal arch at orange nearly as much as i had admired the smaller and older one at st. remy. but lady turnour admired it far more, and was so nice to sir samuel that he thought it _the_ arch of the world. they put their heads together over the same volume of baedeker, which was an exquisite pleasure to the poor man, and he was so pathetic i could have cried into his footsteps, as he read (pronouncing almost everything wrong) about the building of the arch of tiberius. "why, that's just like a sweet little statuette i used to have standing on a table in my drawing-room window!" exclaimed lady turnour, looking up at the beautiful winged victory. "you might think it was a copy!" although the histories say orange wasn't very important in roman days, it has taken revenge by letting everything not roman fall into decay, except, of course, its memories of the family through which william the silent of holland became william of orange. the house of the first william of orange, the hero of song who rode back wounded from roncesvalles to his waiting wife, is gone now, save for a wall and a buttress or two on a lonely hill of the old town; yet the arch, which was old when his château was begun, still towers dark yellow as tarnished etruscan gold against the sky; and the roman theatre is the grandest out of italy. lady turnour could not see why the comédie française should produce plays there, even once a year, when they could do it so much more comfortably at any modern theatre in the provinces if they _must_ travel; and as to the gathering of the felibres, she didn't even know what felibres were, nor did she care, as she was unlikely to meet any in society. she would have proposed going on somewhere else, as there was so "little to see in orange," but that rain came sweeping down, cold from the east, when i had followed the pair a quarter of a mile from the motor. they fled into their mackintoshes as a hermit-crab flees into his borrowed shell, and i was the only one the worse for wear when we reached the car. i didn't much mind the wetting, but it was rather nice to be fussed over by a brother, and forced into a coat of his, whether i liked or not. "the quality" must have seen me in it, through the glass, but lady turnour ignored the sight. altogether, everything was agreeable, and the thunder-storm of last night, in clearing, had turned us into quite a happy family party. it rained all day, and i sat in my room before a blazing fire of olive wood which a dear old waiter, exactly like a confidential servant of a pope, bestowed upon me out of sheer provençal good nature. as he's been in the hotel for thirty years, he is a privileged person, and can do what he likes. lady turnour gave me a pile of stockings to look over, lest satan should find some more ornamental use for my idle hands; so i asked mr. dane for his socks too; and pretended that i should consider it a slight upon my skill if he refused. that was our last night at avignon, and early in the morning i packed for arles, where we would sleep. but on the way we stopped at tarascon, so splendid with its memories of du guesclin, and the towers of king rené's great château reflected in a water-mirror, that no tartarin could be blamed if he were born with a boasting spirit. and there are other things in tarascon for its tartarins to be proud of, besides the noble old castle where king rené used to spend his springs and summers when he was tired of living in state at aix. there is the church of saint martha, and the beautiful hotel de ville, and--almost best of all for its quaintness, though far from beautiful--the great tarasque lurking in a dark and secret lair. we couldn't go into the château, but perhaps it was better to see it only from the outside, and remember it always in a crystal picture, framed with the turquoise of the sky. besides, not going in gave us more time for beaucaire, just across the river--beaucaire of the fair; beaucaire of sweet nicolete and her faithful lover aucassin. i know a song about nicolete of the white feet and hair of yellow gold, and i sang it below my breath, sitting beside my brother jack, as we crossed the bridge. although i sang so softly, he heard, and turned to me for an instant. "you _can_ sing!" he said. "you don't like singing," i suggested. "only better than most things--that's all." "yet you didn't want me to sing the other night." "that was because your hair was down. i couldn't stand both together." "i don't know what you mean." "don't you? all the better. never mind trying to guess. let's think about the fair. wouldn't you have liked to come here in the days when it was one of the greatest shows in all france?" "i couldn't have come in a motor then." "you're getting to be an enthusiast. you'll have to marry a millionaire with at least a forty-horse-power car." "i happen to be running away from one now, in a sixty-horse-power car. but i don't want to think of him in this romantic country. the idea of corn plasters, near the garden where nicolete's little feet tripped among the daisies by moonlight, is too appalling." "up on the hill are the towers of the castle where aucassin was in prison for his love of nicolete," said the chauffeur. "if only i can induce them to go there, and walk in the garden on the battlements! it's beautiful, full of great perfumed provençal roses, and quantities of fleur-de-lys growing wild under pine trees and peering out of formal yew hedges. you never saw anything quite like it. oh, i must manage the thing somehow." "i think you could, in their present mood," said i. "they're quite properly honey-moony since the storm, which was a blessing in disguise. they'll go up, and feel romantic and young; but as for me--" "you'll go up, and _be_ the things they can only feel. i should like to go with you there--" he broke off, looking wistful. "oh, do get some one to guard the car, and come," i begged him. "you've seen it all before?" "yes." "you look as if the place had sentimental memories for you." he smiled. "there is a sentiment attaching to it. someday i may tell you--" he stopped again. "no, i don't think i'll do that." suddenly the thought of the garden was spoiled for me. i imagined that, in happier days, he must have walked there with a girl he loved. perhaps he loved her still, only misfortune had come to him, and they could not marry. in that case, i'd been misjudging him, maybe. his bluntnesses and abruptnesses and coldnesses didn't mean that the compartments were "love-tight," as i'd fancied, but that they were already full to overflowing. he did induce the turnours to see the garden on the old battlements, and he did find a suitable watch-dog for the car in order to be my companion. and he was less self-conscious and happier in his manner than he had been since the first day or two of our acquaintance. also the garden, starred with spring flowers, was even more lovely than i had expected. i ought to have enjoyed every moment there; but--it is never pleasant to be with a man when you think he is wishing that you were another girl. "was she pretty?" i couldn't resist asking. for an instant he looked bewildered; then he understood. "very," he replied, smiling. "about the prettiest girl i ever saw. the description of nicolete would fit her very well. 'the clear face, delicately fine,' and all that. but i don't let my mind dwell much on girls in these days, when i can help it, as you can well imagine." "and when you can't help it?" i wanted to know. "oh, when i can't help it, i feel like a bear with a sore head, and no honey in my hollow tree." so that is why he is so disagreeable, sometimes! he is thinking of the girl of the battlemented garden at beaucaire. i shall try and find out all about her; but i don't know that i shall feel better satisfied when i have. chapter xviii the garden on the battlements at beaucaire seemed to bring out all that's best in lady turnour, and she was--for her--quite radiant when we arrived at arles. not that it was much credit to her to be radiant, when the road had been perfect, and the car had behaved like an angel, as usual; but small favours from small natures are thankfully received; and just as it is a blight upon the spirits of the whole party when her ladyship frowns, so do we cheer up and hope for better things when she smiles. as we were to spend the night at arles, and arrived at the quaint, delightful hôtel du forum before lunch, even the working classes (meaning my alleged brother and myself) could afford that pleasant, leisured feeling which is the right of those more highly placed. the moment we arrived i knew that i was going to fall in love with arles, and i hurried to get the unpacking done, so that i might be free to make its acquaintance. lady turnour, still in her garden mood, told me to do as i liked till time to dress her for dinner, but to mind and have no more accidents, as all her frocks hooked at the back. i am getting to be quite a skilled lady's-maid now, and am not sure it ought not to be my permanent _métier_, though i do like to think i was born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. i unpacked my master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. in a twinkling everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as if it were growing wings as i flew off to my luncheon. the whole afternoon free, and the saints only knew what nice, unexpected adventures might happen! cousin catherine used to say, not meaning to be complimentary, that i "attracted adventures as some people seem to attract microbes," and i could almost hear them buzzing round my head as i ran down-stairs. there, waiting for me as if he were an incarnate adventure, was the chauffeur, who appeared to be quite excited. "you must have a peep into the dining-room," he said. "the door's open. you can look in without being noticed, and see the walls, which are painted with pictures from mistral's works. also there's something else of interest, but i won't tell you what it is. i want to see if you can discover it for yourself." i peeped, and found the pictures charming. after following them with my eyes all round the green walls which they decorate effectively, my gaze lit upon a man sitting at one of the small tables. he was with two or three friends who hung upon the words which he accompanied by the most graceful, spirited, yet unconscious gestures. old he may have been as years go, but the fire of eternal youth was in his vivid dark eyes, and his smile, which had in it the tenderness of great experience, of long years lived in sympathy and love for mankind. his head was very noble; and its shape, and the way he had of carrying it, would alone have shown that he was someone. "who is that man?" i whispered to jack dane. "that one who is so different from all the others." "can't you guess?" he asked. "not mistral?" "yes. it's one of his days here. he'll be in the museum after lunch. i'll take you there, and if he sees that you're interested in things, he'll talk to you." "oh, how glorious!" i breathed, quite awed at the prospect. "but if he should find out that we're only lady's-maid and chauffeur?" "do you think it would matter to him _who_ we were--a great genius like that? he wouldn't care if we were beggars, if we had souls and brains and hearts." "well, we have got _some_ of those things," i said. "do let's hurry, and get to the museum before our betters. they can always be counted upon to spend an hour and a half at lunch if there's a good excuse, such as there's sure to be in this place, famous for rich provençal cooking. whereas monsieur mistral looks as if he would grudge more than half an hour on an occupation so prosaic as eating." "nothing could be prosaic to him," said mr. dane. "and that's the secret of life, isn't it? i think you have it, too, and i'm trying to take daily lessons from you. by the time we part i hope i shan't be quite such a sulky, discontented brute as i am now." "by the time we part!" the words gave me a queer, horrid little prick, with just that nasty ache that comes when you jab a hatpin into your head instead of into your hat, and have got to pull it out again. i have grown so used to being constantly with him, and having him look after me and order me about in his dictatorial but curiously nice way, that i suppose i shall rather miss him for a week or two when this odd association of ours comes to an end. it is strange how one ancient town can differ utterly from its neighbour, and what an extraordinary, unforgettable individuality each can have. the whole effect of avignon is mediæval. in arles your mind flies back at once to rome, and then pushes away from rome to find greece. all among the red, pink, and yellow houses, huddled picturesquely together round the great arena, you see rome in the carved columns and dark piles of brick built into mediæval walls. the glow and colour of the shops and houses seem only to intensify the grimness and grayness of that roman background, the immense wall of the arena. greece you see in the eyes of the beautiful, stately women, young and old, in their classic features, and the moulding of their noble figures. (no wonder epistemon urged his giant to let the beautiful girls of arles alone!) you feel greece, too, in the soft charm of the atmosphere, the dreamy blue of the sky, and the sunshine, which is not quite garish golden, not quite pale silver; a special sky and special sunshine, which seem to belong to arles alone, enclosing the city in a dream of vanished days. the very gaiety which must have sparkled there for happy greek youths and maidens gives a strange, fascinating sadness to it now, as if one felt the weight of roman rule which came and dimmed the sunlight. it was delightful to walk the streets, to look at the lovely women in their becoming head-dresses, and to stare into the windows of curiosity shops. but there was the danger of committing _lèse-majesté_ by running into the arms of the bride and groom at the museum, so "my brother" hurried me along faster than i liked, until the fascination of the museum had enthralled me; then i thanked him, for mistral was there, for the moment all alone. mr. dane hadn't told me that they had met before, but monsieur mistral greeted him at once as an acquaintance, smiling one of his illuminating smiles. he even remembered certain treasures of the museum which the chauffeur--in unchauffeur days--had liked best. these were pointed out and their interest explained to me, best of all to my romantic, latin side being the "cabelladuro d'or," the lovely golden hair of the dead beauty of les baux, that enchanted princess whose magic sleep was so rudely broken. we all talked together of the exquisite venus of arles, agreeing that it was wicked to have transplanted her to the louvre; and mistral's eyes rested upon me with something like interest for a moment as i said that i had seen and loved her there. i felt flattered and happy, forgetting that i was only a servant, who ought scarcely to have dared speak in the presence of this great genius. "she seems to understand something of the charm of provence, which makes our country different from any other in the world, does she not?" the poet said at last to my companion. "she would enjoy an august fête at arles. some day you ought to bring her." mr. dane did not answer or look at me; and i was thankful for that, because i was being silly enough to blush. it was too easy so see what monsieur mistral thought! "why didn't you tell me you knew him already?" i asked, when we had reluctantly left the museum (which might be invaded by the philistines at any minute) and were on our way to the famous church of st. trophime. that we meant to see first, saving the theatre for sunset. "oh," answered the chauffeur evasively, "i wasn't at all sure he'd remember me. he has so many admirers, and sees so many people." "i have a sort of idea that your last visit to this part of the world was paid _en prince_, all the same!" i was impertinent enough to say. he laughed. "well, it was rather different from this one, anyhow," he admitted. "a little while ago it made me pretty sick to compare the past with the present, but i don't feel like that now." "why have you changed?" i asked. "partly the influence of your cheerful mind." "thank you. and the other part?" "another influence, even more powerful." "i should like to know what it is, so that i might try to come under it, too, if it's beneficent," that ever-lively curiosity of mine prompted me to say. "i am inclined to think it is not beneficent," he answered, smiling mysteriously. "anyhow, i'm not going to tell you what it is." "you never do tell me anything about yourself," i exclaimed crossly, "whereas i've given you my whole history, almost from the day i cut my first tooth, up to that when i--adopted my first brother." "or had him thrust upon you," he amended. "you see, you've nothing to reproach yourself with in your past, so you can talk of it without bitterness. i can't--yet. only to think of some things makes me feel venomous, and though i really believe i'm improving in the sunbath of your example, which i have every day, the cure isn't complete yet. until i am able to talk of a certain person without wanting to sprinkle my conversation with curses, i mean to be silent. but i owe it to you that i don't _want_ to curse her any more. a short time ago it gave me actual pleasure." so it is to a woman he owes his misfortunes! as alice said in wonderland, it grows "mysteriouser and mysteriouser." also it grows more romantic, when one puts two and two together; and i have always been great at that. the "sentimental association" of the battlement garden plus the inspiration to evil language, equal (in my fancy) one fair, faithless lady, once loved, now hated. i hate her, too, whatever she did, and i should like to box her ears. i hope she's _quite_ old, and married, and that she makes up her complexion, and everything else which causes men to tire of their first loves sooner or later. not that it is anything to me, personally; but one owes a little loyalty to one's friends. the porch and cloisters of st. trophime's were too perfectly beautiful to be marred by a mood; but my brother jack's mysteriously wicked sweetheart would keep coming in between me and the wonderful carvings in the most disturbing way. some women never know when they are wanted! but i did my best to make mr. dane forget her by taking an intelligent interest in everything, especially the things he cared for most, though once, in an absent-minded instant, i did unfortunately say: "i don't admire that type of girl," when we were talking about a sculptured saint; and although he looked surprised i thought it too complicated to try and explain. the afternoon light was burnishing the ancient stone carvings to copper when we left the cloisters of st. trophime, took one last look at the porch, and turned toward the amphitheatre. we were right to have waited, for the vast circle was golden in the sunset, like a heavy bracelet, dropped by atlas one day, when he stretched a weary arm; and the beautiful fragments of coloured marbles, which the greeks loved and christians destroyed, were the jewels of that great bracelet. the place was so pathetically beautiful in the dying day that a soft sadness pressed upon me like a hand on my forehead, and echoes of the long-dead past, when greek arles was a harbour of commerce by sea and river, or when it was roman arelate, rich and cruel, rang in my ears as we wandered through the cells of prisoners, the dens of lions, and the rooms of gladiators, where the young "men about town" used to pat their favourites on oiled backs, or make their bets on ivory tablets. "if we were here by moonlight, we should see ghosts," i said. "come, let us go before it grows any darker or sadder. the shadows seem to move. i think there's a lion crouching in that black corner." "he won't hurt you, sister una," said my brother jack. "there's one thing you must see here before i take you home--back to the hotel, i mean; and that is the saracen tower, as they call it." so we went into the saracen tower, and high up on the wall i saw the presentment of a hand. "that is the hand of fatima," explained the guide, who had been following rather than conducting us, because the chauffeur knew almost as much about the amphitheatre as he did. "you should touch it, mademoiselle, for luck. all the young ladies like to do that here; and the young men also, for that matter." instantly my brother lifted me up, so that i might touch the hand; and then i would not be content unless he touched it too. i had dinner in the couriers' room that evening, with my brother, when i had dressed lady turnour for hers. we were rather late, and had the room to ourselves, for the crowd which had collected there at luncheon time had vanished by train or motor. there was a nice old waiter, who was frankly interested in us, recognizing perhaps that, as a maid and chauffeur, we were out of the beaten track. he wanted to know if we had done any sight-seeing in arles, and seemed to take it as a personal compliment that we had. "mademoiselle touched the hand of fatima, of course?" he asked, letting a trickle of sauce spill out of a sauce-boat in his friendly eagerness for my answer. "oh, yes, i saw to it that she did that," replied mr. dane, with conscious virtue in the achievement. "it is for luck, isn't it?" i said, to make conversation. "and more especially for love," came the unexpected answer. "for love!" i exclaimed. "but yes," chuckled the old man. "if a young girl puts her hand on the hand of fatima at arles, that hand puts love into hers. her fate is sealed within the month, so it is said." "nonsense!" remarked mr. dane, "i never heard that silly story before." and he went on eating his dinner with extraordinary nonchalance and an unusual, almost abnormal, appetite. chapter xix i shall always feel that i dreamed aigues mortes: that i fell asleep at night--oh, but fell very far, so much farther than one usually falls even when one wakes with the sensation of dropping from a great height, that i went bumping down, down from century to century, until i touched earth in a strange, drear land, to find i had gone back in time about seven hundred years. not that there is a conspicuous amount either of land or earth at aigues mortes, city of dead waters--if the place really does exist, which i begin to doubt already; but i have only to shut my eyes to call it up; and in my memory i shall often use it as a background for some mediæval picture painted with my mind. for with my mind i can rival raphael. it is only when i try to execute my fancies that i fail, and then they "all come different," which is heart breaking. but it will be something to have the background always ready. the dream did not begin while we spun gaily from arles to aigues mortes, through pleasant if sometimes puerile-seeming country (puerile only because we hadn't its history dropping from our fingers' ends); but there was time, between coming in sight of the huge, gray-brown towers and driving in through the fortified gateway, for me to take that great leap from the present far down into the past. to my own surprise, i didn't want to think of the motor-car. it had brought us to older places, but within this walled quadrangle it was as if we had come full tilt into a picture; and the automobile was not an artistic touch. ingrate that i was, i turned my back upon the aigle, and was thankful when sir samuel and lady turnour walked out of my sight around the corner of the picture. i pretended, when they had disappeared, that i had painted them out, and that they would cease to exist unless i relented and painted them in again, as eventually i should have to do. but i had no wish to paint the driver of the car out of my picture, for in spite of his chauffeur's dress he is of a type which suits any century, any country--that clear-cut, slightly stern, aquiline type which you find alike on roman coins and in modern drawing-rooms. he would have done very well for one of st. louis's crusaders, waiting here at aigues mortes to sail for palestine with his king, from the sole harbour the monarch could claim as his on all the mediterranean coast. i decided to let him remain in the dream picture, therefore, and told him so, which seemed to please him, for his eyes lighted up. he always understands exactly what i mean when i say odd things. i should never have felt _quite_ the same to him again, i think, if he had stared and asked "what dream picture?" i had been brought on this expedition strictly for use, not for ornament. we were going from aigues mortes to st. gilles and from st. gilles to nîmes, therefore arles was already a landmark in our past. i could walk about and amuse myself if i liked, but i must be at the inn before the return of my master and mistress to arrange a light repast collected at arles, as we should have to lunch later at nîmes, and the resources of aigues mortes were not supposed to be worthy of millionaires in search of the picturesque. there were several neat packages, the contents of which would aid and abet such humble refreshment as the city of dead waters could produce; but i had more than an hour to play with; and much can be done in an hour by an enthusiast with a good circulation. i had not quite realized, however, how largely my brother's companionship contributed to my pleasure on these excursions. we had seen almost everything together, and suddenly it occurred to me that i was taking his presence too much for granted. he would not go with me now, because in so small a round we were certain to run up against the turnours, and her ladyship might be pleased to give me another lecture like that of evil memory at avignon. i would have risked future punishment for the sake of present pleasure, and it was on my tongue to say so; but i swallowed the words with difficulty, like an over-large pill. so it fell out that i wandered off alone, sustaining myself on high thoughts of crusaders as i gazed up at the statue of st. louis, and paced the sentinels' pathway round the gigantic ramparts, unchanged since boccanegra built them. looking down from the ramparts the town, enclosed in the fortress walls, was like a faded chessboard cast ashore from the wreck of some ancient ship; and round the dark walls and towers waves of yellow sand and wastes of dead blue waters stretched as far as my gaze could reach, toward the tideless sea. louis bought this tangled desert of sand and water in the middle of the thirteenth century from an abbot of psalmodi, so the guide told me, and i liked the name of that abbot so much that i kept saying it over and over, to myself. abbot of psalmodi! it was to the ear what an old, illuminated missal is to the eye, rich with crimson lake, and gold, and ultramarine. it was as if i heard an echo from king arthur's day, that dim, mysterious day when history was flushed with dawn; the abbot of psalmodi! the heart of aigues mortes for me was the great tower of constance, but a very wicked heart, full of clever and murderous devices, which was at its wickedest, not in the dark ages, but in the glittering times of louis xiv. and of other louis after him. that tower is the bad part of the dream where horrors accumulate and you struggle to cry out, while a spell holds you silent. in the days when aigues mortes was not a dream, but a terrible reality to the prisoners of that cruel tower, how many anguished cries must have broken the spell; cries from hideous little dungeons like rat-holes, cries from the far heights of the tower where women and children starved and were forgotten! i was almost glad to get away; yet now that i am away i shall often go back--in my dream. alexander dumas the elder went from aigues mortes to st. gilles, driving along the beaucaire canal, on that famous tour of his which took him also to les baux; and we too went from aigues mortes to st. gilles, though i'm sure the turnours had no idea that it was a pilgrimage in famous footprints. only the humble maid and chauffeur had the joy of knowing that. we had both read dumas' account of his journey, and we laughed over the story of the little saint he stole at les baux. it was a pleasant run to st. gilles, though there was a shrewish nip in the wind which made me hope that lady turnour's mind was not running ahead to the mountains and gorges in front of her, not far away by days or miles now. i wanted her to get tangled up in them before she had time to think of the cold, and then it would be too late to turn tail. i had just begun to call the little town of st. gilles an "ugly hole," and wonder what st. louis saw to love in it, when, coming out of a squalid, hilly street through which i had tried to pick my way on foot, alone, suddenly the façade of the wonderful old church burst upon my sight, a vision of beauty. no self-respecting motor-car would have condescended to trust itself in such a street, and as a rabble of small male st. gillesites swarmed round the aigle when she stopped at the beginning of the ascent, mr. dane had to play guardian angel. "i've been here before," he said, as usual, for this whole tour seems to be a twice-told tale for him. a few days ago i should have pitied him aloud for not being able to blow the dust off his old impressions; but now, when he speaks of past experiences, i think: "oh, i wonder if this is another place associated in his mind with that _horrid_ woman?" for on mature deliberation i have definitely niched her among the horrors in my mental museum. in front of me walked sir samuel and lady turnour, whose very backs cried out their loathing of st. gilles; but abruptly the expression of their shoulders changed; they had seen the façade, and even they could not help feeling vaguely that it must be unique in the world, that of its kind nothing could be more beautiful. that was before i saw it, for a respectful distance must be maintained between those who pay and those who work; but i guessed from the backs that something extraordinary was about to be revealed. then it was revealed, and i would have given a good deal to have some one to whom i could exclaim "isn't it glorious!" still, i am luckily very good chums with myself, and it is never too much trouble to think out new adjectives for my own benefit, or to indicate quaint points of view. i was soon making the best of my own society in the way of intelligent companionship, shaking crumbs of half-forgotten history out of my memory, and finding a dried currant of fact here and there. in convent days there was hardly a saint or saintess with whom i hadn't a bowing acquaintance, and although a good many have cut me since, i can generally recall something about them, if necessary, as title worshippers can about the aristocracy. i thought hard for a minute, and suddenly up rolled a curtain in my mind, and there in his niche stood st. gilles. he was born in athens, and was a most highly connected saint, with the blood of greek kings in his veins, all of which was eventually spilled like water in the name of religion. it seemed very suitable that such perfection of carving and proportion as was shown in steps, towers, façade, and frieze should be dedicated to a greek saint, who must have adored and understood true beauty as few of his brother saints could. mr. dane had said, just before i started, that there was a gem of a spiral staircase, called the vis de st. gilles, which i ought to see, and a house, unspoiled since mediæval days; but the question of these sights was settled adversely for me by my master and mistress. the frieze they did admire, but it sufficed. their inner man and woman clamoured for a feast, and the eyes must be sacrificed. as for me, i did not count even as a sacrifice, of course, but i followed them back to the car as i'd followed them from it, and the car flew toward nîmes. just at first, for a few moments which i hate to confess to myself now, i was disappointed in nîmes. the town looked cold, and modern, and conceited after the melancholy charm of arles and the mediæval aspect of avignon; but that was only as we drove to our stately hotel in its large, dignified square. afterward--after the inevitable lunching and unpacking--when i started out once again in the society of my adopted relative, i prayed to be forgiven. a gale was blowing, but little cared we. a toque or a picture-hat make all the difference in the world to a woman's impressions, even of paradise--if the wind be ever more than a lovely zephyr there. lady turnour had insisted on changing her motoring hat for a gainsborough confection which would, i was deadly certain, cause her to loathe nîmes while memory should last; but the better part was mine. toqued and veiled, the mistral could crack its cheeks if it liked; it couldn't hurt mine, or do unseemly things to my hair. in the gardens of louis xiv. i gave myself to nîmes as devotee forever; and as the glories of the past slowly dawned upon me, that past round which the king had planted his flowers and formal trees, and placed vases and statues, i wished i were a worthier worshipper at the shrine. i think that there can be no more beautiful town in the world than nîmes in springtime. the wind brought fairy perfumes, and lovely little green and golden puff-balls fell from the budding trees at our feet, as if they wanted to surprise us. the fish in the crystal clear water of the old roman baths, which king louis tried to spoil but couldn't, swam back and forth in a golden net of sunshine. we two children of the twentieth century amused ourselves in attempting to reconstruct the baths as they must have looked in the first century; and the glimmering columns under the green water, now lost to the eye, now seen again, white and elusive as mermaids playing hide and seek, helped our imagination. far easier was it to go back to rome in the temple of diana, so beautiful in ruin and so little changed except by time, as to bring to the heart a pang of mingled joy and pain, of sadness which women love and men resent--unless they are poets. doves were cooing softly there, the only oracles of the temple in these days; and what they said to each other and to us seemed more mysterious than the sayings of common doves, because their ancestors had no doubt handed down much wisdom to them, from generation to generation, ever since diana was taken seriously as a goddess, or perhaps even since the dim days when celtic gods were reigning powers. from the gardens we went slowly to that other temple which unthinking people and guide-books have named the maison carrée, the most lovely temple out of greece, and the one which has suffered most from sheer, uncompromising stupidity in modern days. now it rests from persecution, though it shows its scars; and i wondered dully, as i stood gazing at the corinthian columns--strong, yet graceful--how so dull a copy as the madeleine could possibly have been evolved from such perfection. inside in the museum was the dearest old gentleman in a tall hat, who explained to us with ingenuous pride and dignity the splendid collection of coins which he himself had given to the town. it was easy to see that they were the immediate jewels of his soul; there was not one piece which he did not know and love as if it had been his child, though there were so many thousands that he alone could keep strict count of them. he insisted gravely upon the superlative value of the least significant in appearance, but he could joke a little about other things than coins. there was an old mosaic which we admired, with a faded god of love riding a winged steed. "_l'amour s'en va_," he chuckled, pointing to the half-obliterated figure. "_n'est pas?_" and he turned to me for confirmation. "i don't know yet," i answered. "mademoiselle is very fortunate--but very young," said the dear old gentleman, looking like a late eighteenth-century portrait as he smiled under his high hat. "and what thinks monsieur?" "that it is better not to give him a chance to fly away, by keeping the door shut against him in the beginning," replied mr. dane, as coldly as if he kept his heart on ice. sunset was fading, like love on the mosaic, when we came to the amphitheatre; but the sky was still stained red, and each great arch of stone framed a separate ruby. it was a strange effect, almost sinister in its splendour, and all the air was rose-coloured. "is it a good omen or an evil one for our future?" i asked. "means storms, i think," the chauffeur answered in the laconic way he affects sometimes, but there was an odd smile in his eyes, almost like defiance--of me, or of fate. i didn't know which but i should have liked to know. chapter xx the wind sang me to sleep that night in nîmes--sang in my dreams, and sang me awake when morning turned a white searchlight on my eyelids. i was glad to see sunshine, for this was the day of our flight into the north, and if the sky frowned on the enterprise lady turnour might frown too, in spite of bertie and his château. it was cold, and i trembled lest the word "snow" should be dropped by the bridegroom into the ear of the bride; but nothing was said of the weather or of any change in the programme, while i and paint and powder and copper tresses were doing what nature had refused to do for her ladyship. "cold morning, madame!" remarked the porter, who came to bring more wood for the sitting-room fire before breakfast. he was a polite and pleasant man, but i could have boxed his ears. "madame departs to-day in her automobile? is it to go south or north? because in the north--" with great presence of mind i dropped a pile of maps and guide-books. "what a clumsy creature you are!" exclaimed her ladyship, playing into my hands. "i couldn't understand the last part of what he said." luckily by this time the man was gone; and my memory of his words was extraordinarily vague. but a dozen things contrived to keep me in suspense. every one who came near lady turnour had something to say about the weather. then, for the first time, it occurred to the aigle to play a trick upon us. just as the luggage was piled in, after numerous little delays, she cast a shoe; in other words, burst a tyre, apparently without any reason except a mischievous desire to be aggravating. another half hour wasted! and fat, silvery clouds were poking up their great white heads over the horizon in the north, where, perhaps, they were shaking out powder. the next thing that happened was a snap and a tinkle in our inner workings, rather like the sound you might expect if a giantess dropped a hairpin. "chain broken!" grumbled the chauffeur, as he stopped the car on the level of a long, straight road, and jumped nimbly down. "we oughtn't to have boasted yesterday." "who's superstitious now?" i taunted him, as he searched the tool-box in the same way a child ransacks a christmas stocking. "oh, about motor-cars! that's a different thing," said he calmly. "cold, isn't it? my fingers are so stiff they feel as if they were all thumbs." "et tu, brute," i wailed. "for _goodness_' sake, don't let _her_ hear you. she's capable even now of turning back. the invitation to the château hasn't come--and we're not safely in the gorges yet." "nor shan't be soon, if this sort of thing keeps on," remarked the chauffeur. "we shall have to lunch at alais." "you say that as if it was the devil's kitchen." "there's probably first rate cooking in the devil's kitchen; i'm not so sure about the inns at alais." "but it's arranged to picnic on the road to-day for the first time, you know. they put up such good things at nîmes, and i was to make coffee in the tea-basket." "that's why i wanted to get on. picnic country doesn't begin till after alais. who could lunch on a dull roadside like this? only a starving tramp wouldn't get indigestion." it was true, and i began to detest the unknown alais. perhaps, after all, we might sweep through the place, i thought, without the idea of lunch occurring to the passengers. but mr. dane's heart-to-heart talk with the aigle resulted in quite a lengthy argument; and no sooner did a town group itself in the distance than sir samuel knocked on the glass behind us. "what place is this?" he asked. "alais," was the answer the chauffeur made with his lips, while his eyebrows said "i told you so!" to me. "i think we'd better lunch here," sir samuel went on. and the arrival of a princely blue motor car at the nearest inn was such a shock to the nerves of the landlady and her staff that the interval before lunch was as long and solemn as the dead march in saul. to show what he could do in an emergency, the chef slaughtered and cooked every animal within reach for miles around. they appeared in a procession, according to their kind, when necessary disguised in rich and succulent sauces which did credit to the creator's imagination; and there were reserve forces of cakes, preserves, and puddings, all of which coldly furnished forth the servants' meal when they had served our betters. it was nearly three o'clock when we were ready to leave alais, and the chauffeur had on his bronze-statue expression as he took his seat beside me after starting the car. "what's the matter?" i asked. "nothing," said he, "except that i don't know where we're likely to lay our heads to-night." "where do you want to lay them?" i inquired flippantly. "any gorge will do for mine." "it won't for lady turnour's. but it may have to, and in that case she will probably snap yours off." "cousin catherine has often told me it was of no use to me, except to show my hair. but aren't there hotels in the gorge of the tarn?" "there are in summer, but they're not open yet, and the inns--well, if fate casts us into one, lady turnour will have a fit. my idea was: a splendid run through some of the wildest and most wonderful scenery of france--little known to tourists, too--and then to get out of the tarn region before dark. we may do it yet, but if we have any more trouble--" he didn't finish the sentence, because, as if he had been calling for it, the trouble came. i thought that an invisible enemy had fired a revolver at us from behind a tree, but it was only a second tyre, bursting out loud, instead of in a ladylike whisper, like the other. down got mr. dane, with the air of a condemned criminal who wants every one to believe that he is delighted to be hanged. down got i also, to relieve the car of my weight during the weird process of "jacking up," though the chauffeur assured me that i didn't matter any more than a fly on the wheel. our birds of paradise remained in their cage, however, lady turnour glaring whenever she caught a glimpse of the chauffeur's head, as if he had bitten that hole in the tyre. but before us loomed mountains--disagreeable-looking mountains--more like _embonpoints_ growing out of the earth's surface than ornamental elevations. on the tops there was something white, and i preferred having lady turnour glare at the chauffeur, no matter how unjustly, than that her attention should be caught by that far, silver glitter. suddenly my brother paused in his work, unbent his back, stood up, and regarded his thumb with as much intentness as if he were an indian fakir pledged to look at nothing else for a stated number of years. he pinched the nail, shook his hand, and then, abandoning it as an object of interest, was about to inflate the mended tyre when i came forward. "you've hurt yourself," i said. "i didn't know you were looking," he replied, fixing the air-pump. "your back seemed to be turned." "a girl who hasn't got eyes in the back of her head is incomplete. what have you done to your hand?" "nothing much. only picked up a splinter somehow. i tried to get it out and couldn't. it will do when we arrive somewhere." "let me try," i said. "nonsense! a little flower of a thing like you! why, you'd faint at the sight of blood." "oh, is it bleeding?" i asked, horrified, and forgetting to hide my horror. he laughed. "only a drop or two. why, you're as white as your name, child." "that's only at the thought," i said. "i don't mind the _sight_, although i _do_ think if providence had made blood a pale green or a pretty blue it would have been less startling than bright red. however, it's too late to change that now. and if you don't show me your thumb, i'll have hysterics instantly, and perhaps be discharged by lady turnour on the spot." at this awful threat, which i must have looked terribly capable of carrying out, he obeyed without a word. a horrid little, thin slip of iron had gone deep down between the nail and the flesh, and large drops of the most sensational crimson were splashing down on to the ground. "the idea of your driving like that!" i exclaimed fiercely. but my voice quivered. "one, two, three!" i said to myself, and then pulled. i wanted to shut my eyes, but pride forbade, so i kept them as wide open as if my lids had been propped up with matches. out came the splinter of metal, and seeing it in my hand--so long, so sharp--things swam in rainbow colours for a few seconds; but i was outwardly calm as a stoic, and wrapped the thumb in my handkerchief despite my brother's protests. "brave child," he said. "thank you." i looked up at him, and his eyes had such a beautiful expression that a queer tenderness began stirring in my heart, just as a young bird stirs in a nest when it wakes up. i couldn't help having the impression that he felt the same thing for me at the moment. it was as if our thoughts rushed together, and then flew away in a hurry, frightened at something they'd seen. he dashed back to his tyre pumping, and i pranced away down the road to look intently at a small white stone, as if it had been a pearl of price. afterward i stooped and picked it up. "you're a kind of little milestone in my life," i said to it. "i think i'd like to keep you, i hardly know why." and i slipped it into the pocket of my coat. every sort of work that you do on a motor-car always seems to take exactly half an hour. you may _think_ it will be twenty minutes, but you know in your heart that it will be thirty, to the last second. the people in the glass-house lost count of time after the first, through playing some ghastly kind of double dummy bridge, and as they seemed cheerful lady turnour and her dummy were evidently winning. but mr. dane did not lose count, i was sure; and when we had started again, and got a mile or two beyond alais, he looked somewhat sternly at the mountains which no longer appeared ill-shapen. we mounted toward them over the heads of their children the foothills, and came into a region which promised wild picturesqueness. there was an extra thrill, too, because the mountains were the cévennes, where robert louis stevenson wandered with his modestine, and slept under the stars. judging from the gravity of the chauffeur's face he was not sure that we, too, might not have to sleep under the stars (if any), a far less care-free company than "r.l.s." and his donkey. sir samuel has now exchanged cards for a taride map, which he often studied with no particular result beyond mental satisfaction, as he generally held it upside down and got his information by contraries. but at a straggling hillside village where two roads bifurcated he suddenly became excited. down went the window, and out popped his head. "you go to the left here!" he shouted, as the aigle was winging gracefully to the right. "i think you're mistaken, sir," replied the chauffeur, stopping while the car panted reproachfully. "i know the 'routes de france' says left, but they told me at alais a new road had now been finished, and the old one condemned." "well, i'd take anything i heard there with a grain of salt," said sir samuel. "how should they know? motor-cars are strange animals to them. if there were a new road the 'routes' would give it, and _i_ vote for the left." "whose car is it, anyway?" lady turnour was heard to murmur, not having forgiven my fellow worm two burst tyres and a broken chain. since chauffeurs should be seen and not heard, mr. jack dane looked volumes and said not a word. backing the big aigle, who was sulking in her bonnet, he put her nose to the left. now we were making straight, almost as the crow flies, for the cevennes; but luckily for lady turnour's peace of mind the snowy tops were hidden from sight behind other mountains' shoulders as we approached. a warning chill was in the air, like the breath of a ghost; but it could not find its way through the glass; and a few cartloads of oranges which we passed opportunely looked warm and attractive, giving a delusive suggestion of the south to our road. it was gipsy-land, too, for we met several tramping families: boldly handsome women, tall, dark men and boys with eagle eyes, and big silver buttons so well cared for they must have been precious heirlooms. "'steal all you can, and keep your buttons bright,' is a gipsy father's advice to his son," said jack dane, as we wormed up the road toward a pass where the brown mountains seemed to open a narrow, mysterious doorway. so, fold upon fold shut us in, as if we had entered a vast maze from which we might never find our way out; and soon there was no trace of man's work anywhere, except the zigzag lines of road which, as we glanced up or down, looked like thin, pale brown string tied as a child ties a "cat's-cradle." we were in the ancient fastnesses of the camisards; and this world of dark rock under clouding sky was so stern, so wildly impressive, that it seemed a country hewn especially for religious martyrs, a last stand for such men as fought and died praying, calling themselves "enfants de dieu." bending out from the front seat of the motor, my gaze plunged far down into the beds of foaming rivers, or soared far up to the dazzling white world of snow and steely sky toward which we steadily forged on. oh, there was no hope of hiding the snow now from those whom it might concern! but lady turnour still believed, perhaps, that we should avoid it. the higher the aigle rose, climbing the wonderful road of snakelike twistings and turnings above sheer precipices, the more thrilling was the effect of the savage landscape upon our souls--those of us who consciously possess souls. we had met nobody for a long time now; for, since leaving the region of pines, we seemed to have passed beyond the road-mender zone, and the zone of waggons loaded with dry branches like piled elks' horns. still, as one could never be sure what might not be lurking behind some rocky shoulder, where the road turned like a tight belt, our musical siren sang at each turn its gay little mocking notes. after a lonely mountain village, named st. germain-en-calberte, and famous only because the tyrant-priest chayla was burned there, the surface of the road changed with startling abruptness. till this moment we'd known no really bad roads anywhere, and almost all had been as white as snow, as pink as rose leaves, and smooth as velvet; but suddenly the aigle sank up to her expensive ankles in deep, thick mud. "hullo, what's this bumping? anything wrong with the car?" out popped sir samuel's anxious head from its luxurious cage. "the trouble is with the road," answered the chauffeur, without so much as an "i told you so!" expression on his face. "i'm afraid we've come to that _déclassée_ part." poor sir samuel looked so humble and sad that i was sorry for him. "my mistake!" he murmured meekly. "had we better turn after all?" "i fear we can't turn, or even run back, sir," said mr. dane. "the road's so bad and so narrow, it would be rather risky." this was a mild way of putting it; and he was considerate in not mentioning the precipice which fell abruptly down under the uneven shelf he generously called a road. sir samuel gave a wary glance down, and said no more. luckily lady turnour, sitting inside her cage, on the side of the rock wall we were following up the mountains, could not see that unpleasant drop under the shelf, or even quite realize that she was on a shelf at all. her husband sat down by her side, more quietly than he had got up, even forgetting to shut the window; but he was soon reminded of that duty. "are you frightened?" the chauffeur asked me; and i thought it no harm to answer: "not when you're driving." "do you mean that? or is it only an empty little compliment?" he catechized me, though his eyes did not leave the narrow slippery road, up which he was steering with a skill of a woman who aims for the eye of a delicate needle with the end of a thread a size too big. "i mean it!" i said. "i'm glad," he answered. "i was going to tell you not to be nervous, for we shall win through all right with this powerful car. but now i will save my breath." "you may," i said, "i'm very happy." and so i was, though i had the most curious sensation in my toes, as if they were being done up in curl papers. on we climbed, creeping along the high shelf which was so untidily loaded with rough, fallen stones and layers of mud, powdered with bits of ice from the rocky wall that seemed sheathed in glass. icicles dangled heavy diamond fringes low over the roof of the car; snow lay in dark hollows which the sun could never reach even in summer noons; and as we ploughed obstinately on, always mounting, the engine trembling, our fat tyres splashed into a custardy slush of whitish brown. the shelf had been slippery before; now, slopping over with this thick mush of melting snow or mud, it was like driving through gallons of ice pudding. the great aigle began to tremble and waltz on the surface that was no surface; yet it would have been impossible to go back. i saw by my companion's set face how real was the danger we were in; i saw, as the car skated first one way, then another, that there were but a few inches to spare on either side of the road shelf; the side which was a rocky wall, the side which was a precipice; i saw, too, how the man braced himself to this emergency, when three lives besides his own depended on his nerve and skill, almost upon his breath--for it seemed as if a breath too long, a breath too short, might hurl us down--down--i dared not look or think how far. yet the fixed look of courage and self-confidence on his face was inspiring. i trusted him completely, and i should have been ashamed to feel fear. but it was at this moment, when all hung upon the driver's steadiness of eye and hand, that lady turnour chose to begin emitting squeaks of childish terror. i hadn't known i was nervous, and only found out that i was highly strung by the jump i gave at her first shriek behind me. if the chauffeur had started--but he didn't. he showed no sign of having heard. i would not venture to turn, and look round, lest the slightest movement of my body so near his arm might disturb him; but poor sir samuel, driven to desperation by his wife's hysterical cries, pushed down the glass again. "good lord, dane, this is appalling!" he said. "my wife can't bear it. isn't it possible for us to--to--" he paused, not knowing how to end so empty a sentence. "all that's possible to do i'm doing," returned the chauffeur, still looking straight ahead. and instead of advising the foolish old bridegroom to shake the bride or box her ears, as surely he was tempted to do, he added calmly that her ladyship must not be too anxious. we were going to get out of this all right, and before long. "tell him to go back. i _shall_ go back!" wailed lady turnour. "dearest, we can't!" her husband assured her. "then tell him to stop and let me get out and walk. this is too awful. he wants to kill us." "_can_ you stop and let us get out?" pleaded sir samuel. "to stop here would be the most dangerous thing we could do," was the answer. "you hear, emmie, my darling." "i hear. impudence to dictate to you! whatever _you_ are willing to do, _i_ won't be bearded." one would have thought she was an oyster. but she was quite right in not wishing to add a beard to her charms, as already a moustache was like those coming events that cast a well-defined shadow before. for an instant i half thought that mr. dane would try and stop, her tone was so furious, but he drove on as steadily as if he had not a passenger more fit for bedlam than for a motor-car. seeing that dane stuck like grim death to his determination and his steering-wheel, sir samuel shut the window and devoted himself to calming his wife who, i imagine, threatened to tear open the door and jump out. the important thing was that he kept her from doing it, perhaps by bribes of gold and precious stones, and the aigle moved on, writhing like a wounded snake as she obeyed the hand on the wheel. if the slightest thing should go wrong in the steering-gear, as we read of in other motor-cars each time we picked up a newspaper--but other cars were not in charge of mr. jack dane. i felt sure, somehow, that nothing would ever go wrong with a steering-gear of whose destiny he was master. not a word did he speak to me, yet i felt that my silence of tongue and stillness of body was approved of by him. he had said that we would be "out of this before long," so i believed we would; but suddenly my eyes told me that something worse than we had won through was in store for us ahead. chapter xxi all this time we'd been struggling up hill, but abruptly we came to the top of the ascent, and had to go sliding down, along the same shelf, which now seemed narrower than before. looking ahead, it appeared to have been bitten off round the edge here and there, just at the stiffest zigs and zags of the nightmare road. and far down the mountain the way went winding under our eyes, like the loops of a lasso; short, jerky loops, as we came to each new turn, to which the length of our chassis forced us to bow and curtsey on our slippery, sliding skates. forward the aigle had to go until her bonnet hung over the precipice, then to be cautiously backed for a foot or two, before she could glide ticklishly down the next steep gradient. involuntarily i shrank back against the cushions, bit my lip, and had to force myself not to catch at the arm of the seat in those giddy seconds when it felt as if we were dropping from sky to earth in a leaky balloon; but if the blood in your veins has been put there by decent ancestors who trail gloriously in a long line behind you, i suppose it's easier for you not to be a coward than it is for people like the turnours, who have to be their own ancestors, or buy them at auctions. the first words my companion spoke to me came as the valley below us narrowed. "look there," he said, nodding; and my gaze followed the indication, to light joyously upon a distant _col_, where clustered a friendly little group of human habitations. the sight was like a signal to relax muscles, for though there was a long stretch still of the appalling road between us and the _col_, the eye seemed to grasp safety, and cling to it. "beyond that _col_ we shall strike the _route nationale_, which we missed by coming this way," said mr. dane; and then it was the motor only which gave voice, until we were close to the oasis in our long desert of danger. that comforting voice was like a song of triumph as the aigle paused to rest at last before a _gendarmerie_ and a rough, mountain inn. some men who had been standing in front of the buildings gave us a hearty cheer as we drew up at the door, and grinned a pleasant welcome. "we have been watching you a long way off," said a tall gendarme to the chauffeur, "and to tell the truth we were not happy. that road has been _déclassée_ for some time now, and is one of the worst in the country, even in fine weather. it was not a very safe experiment, monsieur; but we have been saying to each other it was a fine way to show off your magnificent driving." laughing, jack dane assured the gendarme that it was not done with any such object, and sir samuel, out of the car by this time, with the indignant lady turnour, wanted the conversation translated. i obeyed immediately, and he too praised his chauffeur, in a nice manly way which made me the more sorry for him because he had succeeded in marrying his first love. "i should like to pay you compliments too," said i hurriedly, in a low voice, when sir samuel and lady turnour had gone to the inn door to revive themselves with blood-warming cordials after their thrilling experience. "i should like to, only--it seems to go beyond compliments." "i hate compliments, even when i deserve them, which i don't now," replied the young man whom i'd been comparing sentimentally in my mind with the sun-god, steering his chariot of fire up and down the steeps of heaven from dawn to sunset. "and i'd hate them above all from my--from my little pal." nothing he could have named me would have pleased me as well. during the wild climb, and wilder drop, we had hardly spoken to each other, yet i felt that i could never misunderstand him, or try frivolously to aggravate him again. he was too good for all that, too good to be played with. "you are a man--a real _man_," i said to myself. i felt humble compared with him, an insignificant wisp of a thing, who could never do anything brave or great in life; and so i was proud to be called his "pal." when he asked if i, too, didn't need some cordial, i only laughed, and said i had just had one, the strongest possible. "so have i," he answered. "and now we ought to be going on. look at those shadows, and it's a good way yet to florac, at the entrance of the gorge." already night was stretching long gray, skeleton fingers into the late sunshine, as if to warm them at its glow before snuffing it out. it was easier to say we ought to go, however, than to induce lady turnour to get into the car again, after all she had endured, and after that "bearding" which evidently rankled still. she had not forgiven the chauffeur for the courage which for her was merely obstinacy and impudence, nor her husband for encouraging him; but the glow of the cordial in her veins warmed the cockles of her heart in spite of herself (i should think her heart was _all_ cockles, if they are as bristly as they sound); and as it would be dull to stop on this _col_ for the rest of her life, she at last agreed to encounter further dangers. "come, come, that's my brave little darling!" we heard sir samuel coo to her, and dared not meet each other's eyes. the road, from which we ought never to have strayed, was splendid in engineering and surface, and we winged down to earth in a flight from the clouds. ice and snow were left behind on the heights, and the aigle gaily careered down the slopes like a wild thing released from a weary bondage. as we whirled earthwards, embankments and railway bridges showed here and there by our side, but we lost all such traces of feverish modern civilization as we swept into the dusky hollow at the bottom of which florac lay, like a sunken town engulfed by a dark lake. we did not pause in the curiously picturesque place, which looked no more than a village, with its gray-brown houses and gray brown shadows huddled confusedly together. probably it looked much the same when the camisards used to hide themselves and their gunpowder in caves near by; and certainly scarce a stone or brick had been added or removed since stevenson's eyes saw the town, and his pen wrote of it, as he turned away there from the tarn region, instead of being the first englishman to explore it. and what a wild region it looked as we and the aigle were swallowed up in the yawning mouth of the gorge! in an every-day world, above and outside, no doubt it was sunset, as on other evenings which we had known and might know again; but this hidden, underground country had no place in an every-day world. it seemed almost as if my brother and i (i can't count the turnours, for they were so unsuitable that they temporarily ceased to exist for us) were explorers arriving in an air-ship, unannounced, upon the planet mars. the moon, a glinting silver shield, shimmered pale through ragged red clouds like torn and blood-stained flags; and the walls of the gorge into which we penetrated, bleakly glittering here and there where the moon touched a vein of mica, were the many-windowed castles of the martians, who did not yet know that they had visitors from another world. there were fantastic villages, too, whose builders and inhabitants must have drawn their architectural inspiration from strange mountain forms and groupings, after the fashion of those small animals who defend themselves by looking as much as possible like their surroundings. and if by some mistake we hadn't landed on mars, we were in gnome-land, wherever that might be. there was no ordinary twilight here. the brown-gray of rocks and wild rock-villages was flushed with red and shadowed with purple; but as the moon drank up the ruddy draught of sunset, the landscape crouched and hunched its shoulders into shapes ever more extraordinary. the white light spilled down from the tilted crescent like silver rain, and bleached the few pink peach-blossoms, which bloomed timidly under the shelter of snow-mountains, to the pallor of fluttering night-moths, throwing out their clusters in sharp contrast against dark rocks. the river tarn, gliding onward through the gorge toward the garonne, was scaled with steel on its emerald back, like a twisting serpent. over a bed of gravel, white as scattered pearls, the sequined lengths coiled on; and the snake-green water, the strange burnt-coral vegetation like a trail of blood among the pearls, the young foliage of trees, filmy as wisps of blowing gauze, were the only vestiges of colour that the moon allowed to live in the under-world which we had reached. but above, on the roof of that world--"les causses"--where we had left ice and snow, we could see purple chimneys of rock rising to an opal sky, and now and then a mountain bonfire, like a great open basket of witch-rubies, glowing beneath the moon. "this is the last haunt of the fairies," i said under my breath, but the man by my side heard the murmur. "i thought you'd find that out," he said. "trust you to get telepathic messages from the elf-folk! why, this gorge teems with fairy tales and legends of magic, black and white. the rhine valley and the black forest together haven't as many or as wonderful ones. i should like you to hear the stories from some of the village people or the boatmen. they believe them to this day." "why, _of course_," i said, gravely. then, a question wanted so much to be asked, that when i refused it asked itself in a great hurry, before i could even catch it by its lizard-tail. "was _she_ with you when you were here before?" "she?" he echoed. "i don't understand." "the lady of the battlement garden," i explained, ashamed and repentant now that it was too late. he did not answer for a moment. then he laughed, an odd sort of laugh. "oh, my romance of the battlement garden? yes, she was with me in this gorge. she is with me now." "i wonder if she is thinking about you to-night?" i asked, knowing he meant that the mysterious lady was carried along on this journey in his spirit, as i was in the car. "not seriously, if at all," he answered, with what seemed to me a forced lightness. "but i am thinking of her--thoughts which she will probably never know." then i did wish that i, too, had a hidden sorrow in my life, a man in the background, but as unlike monsieur charretier as possible, for whose love i could call upon my brother's sympathy. and i suppose it was because he had some one, while i had no one, in this strange, hidden fairyland like a secret orchard of jewelled fruits, that i felt suddenly very sad. he pointed out castlebouc, a spellbound château on a towering crag that held it up as if on a tall black finger, above a village which might have fallen off a canvas by gustave doré. farther on lay a strange place called prades, memorable for a huge buttress of rock exactly like the carcass of a mammoth petrified and hanging on a wall. then, farther on still, over the black face of the rocks flashed a whiteness of waving waters, pouring cascades like bridal veils whose lace was made of mountain snows. "here we are at ste. enemie," said mr. dane. "don't you remember about her--'king dagobert's daughter, ill-fated and fair to look upon?' well, at this village of hers we must either light our lamps or rest for the night, which ever sir samuel--i mean her ladyship--decides." so he stopped, in a little town which looked a place of fairy enchantment under the moon. and as the song of the motor changed into jogging prose with the putting on of the brakes, open flew the door of an inn. nothing could ever have looked half so attractive as the rosy glow of the picture suddenly revealed. there was a miniature hall and a quaint stairway--just an impressionist glimpse of both in play of firelight and shadow. with all my might i willed lady turnour to want to stay the night. the whole force of my mind pressed upon that part of her "transformation" directly over the deciding-cells of her brain. the chauffeur jumped down, and respectfully inquired the wishes of his passengers. would they remain here, if there were rooms to be had, and take a boat in the morning to make the famous descent of the tarn, while the car went on to meet them at le rosier, at the end of the gorge? or would they, in spite of the darkness, risk-"we'll risk nothing," lady turnour promptly cut him short. "we've run risks to-day till i feel as if i'd been in my grave and pulled out again. no more for me, by dark, _thank_ you, if i have to sleep in the car!" "i hope your ladyship won't have to do that," returned my fellow worm, alive though trodden under foot. "i have never spent a night in ste. enemie, but i've lunched here, and the food is passable. i should think the rooms would be clean, though rough--" "i don't find this country attractive enough to pay us for any hardships," said the mistress of our fate. "i never was in such a dreary, god-forsaken waste! are there no decent hotels to get at?" patiently he explained to her, as he had to me, how the better hotels which the gorge of the tarn could boast were not yet open for the summer. "if we had not had such a chapter of accidents we should have run through as far as this early in the day, and could then have followed the good motoring road down the gorge, seeing its best sights almost as well as from the river; but--" "whose fault were the accidents, i should like to know?" demanded the lady. but obviously there was no answer to that question from a servant to a mistress. "shall i inquire about rooms?" the chauffeur asked, calmly. and it ended in sir samuel going in with him, conducted by a smiling and somewhat excited young person who had been holding open the door. they must have been absent for ten minutes, which seemed half an hour. then, when lady turnour had begun muttering to herself that she was freezing, sir samuel bustled back, in a cheerfulness put on awkwardly, like an ill-fitting suit of armour in a pageant. "my dear, they're very full, but two french gentlemen were kind enough to give up their room to us, and the landlady'll put them out somewhere--" "what, you and i both squashed into one room!" exclaimed her ladyship, forgetful, in haughty horror, of her lodging-house background. "but it's all they have. it's that or the motor, since you won't risk--" "oh, very well, then, i suppose it can't _kill_ me!" groaned the bride, stepping out of the car as if from tumbril to scaffold. what a way to take an adorable adventure! i was sorry for sir samuel, but dimly i felt that i ought to be still sorrier for a woman temperamentally unable to enjoy anything as it ought to be enjoyed. next year, maybe, she will look back on the experience and tell her friends that it was "fun"; but oh, the pity of it, not to gather the flowers of the present, to let them wither, and never pluck them till they are dried wrecks of the past! i was ready to dance for joy as i followed her ladyship into the miniature hall which, if not quite so alluring when viewed from the inside, had a friendly, welcoming air after the dark mountains and cold white moonlight. i didn't know yet what arrangements had been made for my stable accommodation, if any, but i felt that i shouldn't weep if i had to sit up all night in a warm kitchen with a purry cat and a snory dog. the stairs were bare, and our feet clattered crudely as we went up, lighted by a stout young girl with bared arms, who carried a candle. "what a hole!" snapped lady turnour; but when the door of a bedroom was opened for her by the red-elbowed one, she cried out in despair. "is _this_ where you expect me to sleep, samuel? i'm surprised at you! i'm not sure it isn't an insult!" "my darling, what can _i_ do?" implored the unfortunate bridegroom. the red-elbowed maiden, beginning to take offence, set the candlestick down on a narrow mantelpiece, with a slap, and removed herself from the room with the dignity of a budding jeanne d'arc. we all three filed in, i in the rear; and for one who won't accept the cup of life as the best champagne the prospect certainly was depressing. the belongings of the "two gentlemen" who were giving up their rights in a lady's favour, had not yet been transferred to the "somewhere outside." those slippers under the bed could have belonged to no species of human being but a commercial traveller; and on the table and one chair were scattered various vague collars, neckties, and celluloid cuffs. there was no fire in the fireplace, nor, by the prim look of it, had there ever been one in the half century or so since necessity called for an inn to be built. i snatched from the chair a waistcoat tangled up in some suspenders, and lady turnour, flinging herself down in her furs, burst out crying like a cross child. "if this is what you call adventure, samuel, i hate it," she whimpered. "you _would_ bring me motoring! i want a fire. i want hot water. i want them now. and i want the room cleared and all these awful things taken away this instant. i don't consider them _decent_. whatever happens, i shan't dream of getting into that bed to-night, and i don't feel now as if i should eat any dinner." distracted, sir samuel looked piteously at me, and i sprang to the rescue. i assured her ladyship that everything should be made nice for her before she quite knew what had happened. if she would have patience for _five_ minutes, _only_ five, she should have everything she wanted. i would see to it myself. with that i ran away, followed by sir samuel's grateful eyes. but, once downstairs, i realized what a task i had set myself. the whole establishment had gone mad over us. there had been enough to do before, with the house full of _ces messieurs_, _les commis voyageurs_, but it was comparatively simple to do for them. for _la noblesse anglaise_ it was different. there were no men to be seen, and the three or four women of the household were scuttling about crazily in the kitchen, like hens with their heads cut off. the patronage was so illustrious and so large; there was so much to do and all at once, therefore nobody tried to do anything but cackle and plump against one another. enter me, a whirlwind, demanding an immediate fire and hot water for washing. landlady and assistants were aghast. there had never been anything in any bedroom fireplace of the inn less innocent than paper flowers; bedroom fireplaces were for paper flowers; while as for washing it was a _bêtise_ to want to do so in the evening, especially with hot water, which was a madness at any time, unless by doctor's orders. besides, did not mademoiselle see that everybody had more than they could do already, in preparing dinner for the great people! there was plenty of time to put the bedroom in order when it should be bedtime. if the noble lady were so fatigued that she must lie down, why, the bed had only been slept in for one night by two particularly sympathetic messieurs. it would be _presque un crime_ to change linen after so brief an episode, nevertheless for a client of such importance it should eventually be done. for a moment i was dashed by this volume of eloquence, but not for long, for i was pledged. a wild glance round the kitchen showed me a kettle standing empty in a corner. i seized it, and though it was heavy, swung it to an open door near which i could see a ghostly pump. i flew out, and seized that ghost by its long and rigid arm. "let me," said a voice. it was the voice of mr. jack dane. chapter xxii "you dear!" i thought. but i only said, "how sweet of you!" in a nice, ladylike tone. and while he pumped the wettest and coldest water i ever felt, he drily advised me to call him "adversity" if i found his "uses sweet," since he wasn't to be jack for me. what if he had known that i always call him "jack" to myself? he not only pumped the kettle full, but carried it into the kitchen, and bullied or flattered the goddesses there until they gave him the hottest place for it on the red-hot stove. meanwhile, as my eyes accustomed themselves to darkness after light, i spied in the courtyard of the pump a shed piled with wood; and my uncomfortably prophetic soul said that if lady turnour were to have a fire, the woodpile and i must do the trick together. souls can be mistaken though, sometimes, if consciences never can; and brother adversity contradicted mine by darting out again to see what i was doing, ordering me to stop, and doing it all himself. i ran to beg for immediate bed-linen while he annexed a portion of the family woodpile, and we met outside my mistress's door. on the threshold i confidently expected her grateful ladyship to say: "what _are_ you doing with that wood, dane?" but she was too much crushed under her own load of cold and discomfort to object to his and wish it transferred to me. i'd knelt down to make a funeral pyre of paper roses, when in a voice low yet firm my brother ordered me to my feet. this wasn't work for girls when men were about, he grumbled; and perhaps it was as well, for i never made a wood fire in my life. as for him, he might have been a fire-tamer, so quickly did the flames leap up and try to lick his hands. when it was certain that they couldn't go stealthily crawling away again, he shot from the room, and in two minutes was back with the big kettle of hot water under whose weight i should have staggered and fallen, perhaps. by this time i had made the bed, and tumbled all reminders of the two "sympathetic messieurs" ruthlessly into no-man's land outside the door. things began to look more cheerful. lady turnour brightened visibly; and when appetizing smells of cooking stole through the wide cracks all round the door she decided that, after all, she would dine. it was not until after i had seen her descend with her husband, and had finished unpacking, that i had a chance to think of my own affairs. then i did wonder on what shelf i was to lie, or on what hook hang, for the night. i had no information yet as regarded my own sleeping or eating, but both began to assume importance in my eyes, and i went down to learn my fate. where was i to dine? why, in the kitchen, to be sure, since the _salle à manger_ was in use as a sitting-room until bedtime. as for sleeping--why, that was a difficult matter. it was true that the english milord had spoken of a room for me, but in the press of business it had been forgotten. what a pity that the chauffeur and i were not a married couple, _n'est pas?_ that would make everything quite simple. but--as it was, no doubt there was a box-room, and matters would arrange themselves when there was time to attend to them. "matters have already arranged themselves," announced mr. jack dane, from the door of the pump-court. "i heard sir samuel speak about your accommodation, and i saw that nothing was being done, so i discovered the box-room, and it is now ready, all but bed-covering. and for fear there might be trouble about that, i've put lady turnour's cushions and rugs on the alleged bed. would you like to have a look at your quarters now, or are you too hungry to care?" "i'm not too hungry to thank you," i exclaimed. "you are a kind of genie, who takes care of the poor who have neither lamps nor rings to rub." "better not thank me till you've seen the place," said he. "it's a villainous den; but i didn't think any one here would be likely to do better with it than i would. anyhow, you'll find hot water. i unearthed--literally--another kettle. and it's the first door at the top of the back stairs." i flew, or rather stumbled, up the ladder-like stairway, with a candle which i snatched from the high kitchen mantelpiece, and at the top i laughed out, gaily. in the narrow passage was a barricade of horrors which my knight had dragged from the box-room. on strange old hairy trunks of cowhide he had piled broken chairs, bandboxes covered with flowered wall-paper, battered clocks, chipped crockery, fire-irons, bundles done up in blankets, and a motley collection of unspeakable odds and ends that would have made a sensational jumble sale. i opened the low door, and peeped into the room with which such liberties had been taken for my sake. although it was no more than a store cupboard, my wonderful brother had contrived to give it quite an air of coziness. the tiny window was open, and was doing its best to drive out mustiness. a narrow hospital cot stood against the wall, spread with a mattress quite an inch thick, and piled with the luxurious rugs and cushions from the motor car. i was sure lady turnour would have preferred my sitting up all night or freezing coverless rather than i should degrade her possessions by making use of them; but mr. dane evidently hadn't thought her opinion of importance compared with her maid's comfort. two wooden boxes, placed one upon another, formed a wash-hand stand, which not only boasted a beautiful blue tin basin, but a tumbler, a caraffe full of water, and a not-much-cracked saucer ready for duty as a soap-dish. the top box was covered with a rough, clean towel, evidently filched from the kitchen, and this piece of extra refinement struck me as actually touching. a third box standing on end and spread with another towel, proclaimed itself a dressing-table by virtue of at least half a looking glass, lurking in one corner of a battered frame, like a sinister, partially extinguished eye. other furnishings were a kitchen chair and a small clothes-horse, to compensate for the absence of wall-hooks or wardrobe. on the bare floor--oh, height of luxury!--lay the fleecy white rug whose high mission it was to warm the toes of lady turnour when motoring. on the floor beside the box wash-hand stand, a small kettle was pleasantly puffing, doing its best to heat the room with its gusty breath; and the clothes-horse had a saddle of towels which i shrewdly suspected had been intended for her ladyship or some other guest of importance in the house. how these wonders had been accomplished in such a short space of time, and by a man, too, would have passed my understanding, had i not begun to know what manner of man the chauffeur was. and to think that there was a woman in the world who had known herself loved by him, yet had been capable of sending him away! if he would do such things as these for an acquaintance, at best a "pal," what would he not do for a woman beloved? i should have liked to duck that creature under the pump in the court, on just such a nipping night as this. he had not forgotten my dressing bag, which was on the bed, but i could not stop to open it. i had to run down to the kitchen again, and tell him what i thought of his miracles. he was not there, but, at the sound of my voice, he appeared at the door of the court, drying his hands, having doubtless been making his toilet at the accommodating pump. in the crude light of unshaded paraffin lamps with tin reflectors, he looked tired, and i was sharply reminded of the nervous strain he had gone through in that ordeal on the mountains, but he smiled with the delight of a boy when i burst into thanks. "it was jolly good exercise, and limbered me up a bit, after sitting with my feet on the brake for so long," said he. "may i have my dinner with you?" my answer was rather enthusiastic, and that seemed to please him, too. a quarter of an hour later i came down again, having made myself tidy meanwhile, in the room which he had retrieved from the jungle. had the landlady but had the ordering of the change, my quarters would have been fifty per cent. less attractive, i was sure, and told my brother so. we were both starving, but there was too much to do in the dining-room for domestics to expect attention. as for monsieur le chauffeur, he was informed that the presence of a mechanician would be permitted in the _salle à manger_, though a _femme de chambre_ might not enter there. i begged him to go, but, of course, i should have been surprised if he had. "i have a plan worth two of that," he said to me. "do you remember the picnic preparations we brought from nîmes? it seems about a week ago, but it was only this morning. we might as well try to eat on a battlefield as in this kitchen, at present, and if we're kept waiting, we may develop cannibal propensities. what about a picnic _à deux_ in the glass cage, with electric illuminations? the water's still hot in the automatic heater under the floor, and you shall be as warm as toast. besides, i'll grab a jug of blazing soup for a first course, and come back for coffee afterward." i clapped my hands as i used to when a child and my fun-loving young parents proposed an open air fête. "oh, how too nice!" i cried. "if you don't think the turnours would be angry?" "i think the labourers are worthy of their hire," said he. "i'll fetch your coat for you. no, you're not to come without it." the car, it appeared, was lodged in the court; and my brother's prophecies for the success of the picnic were more than fulfilled. never was such a feast! i got out the gorgeous tea-basket, trembling with a guilty joy, and jack washed the white and gold cups and plates at the pump between courses, i drying them with cotton waste, which the car generously provided. besides the cabbage soup and good black coffee, foraging expeditions produced apricot tarts, nuts, and raisins. we both agreed that no food had ever tasted so good, and probably never would again; but i kept to myself one thought which crept into my mind. it seemed to me that nothing would ever be really interesting in my life, when the chauffeur--the terrible, dreaded chauffeur--should have gone out of it forever. in a few weeks--but i wouldn't think ahead; i put my soul to enjoying every minute, even the tidying of the tea-basket after the picnic was over, for that business he shared with me, like the rest. and when i dreamed, by-and-by in my box-room, that he was polishing my boots, lady turnour's boots, the boots of the whole party, i waked up to tell myself that it was most likely true. chapter xxiii "you selfish little brute!" was my first address to myself as i realized my me-ness, between waking and sleeping, in the morning at ste. enemie. i had never asked jack where and how he was going to spend the night. think of that, after all he had done for me! it was only just dawn, but already there was a stirring under my window. perhaps it was that which had roused me, not the early prick of an awakening conscience. the first thing i did to-day was (as it had been yesterday) to bounce up and climb on to a chair to look out of the high window; but it was a very different window and a very different scene. i now discovered that my room gave on the pump court, and to my surprise, i saw that through the blue silk blinds of the aigle which were all closely drawn, a light was streaming. this was very queer indeed, and must mean something wrong. my imagination pictured a modern highwayman inside, with the electric lamps turned on to help him rifle the car, and i stood on tiptoe, peering out of the tiny aperture which was close under the low ceiling of the box-room. ought i to scream, and alarm the household, since i knew not where to go and call the chauffeur? to be sure, there was very little, if anything, of value, which a thief could carry away, but an abandoned villain might revenge himself for disappointment by slashing the tyres, or perhaps even by setting the car on fire. at the thought of such a catastrophe, which would bring the trip to an end and separate me at once from the society of my brother (i'm afraid i cared much more about losing him than for the turnours' loss of their aigle) i was impelled to run down in my nightgown and _mules_ to do battle single-handed with the ruffian; but suddenly, before i had quite decided, out went the light in the blue-curtained glass cage. in another instant the car door opened, and jack dane quietly got out. in a second i understood. i knew now, without asking, where he had spent his night. poor fellow--after such a day! someone spoke to him--someone who had been making that disturbing noise in the woodshed. the household was astir, and i would be astir, too. i didn't yet know what was to happen to-day, but i wanted to know, and i was prepared to find any plan good, since, in a country like this, all roads must lead to adventures. my one fear was, that if the turnours took to a boat, i should have to go with them to play cloak-bearer, or hot-water-bag-carrier, while the car whirled away, free and glorious. the thought of a whole day in my master's and mistress's society, undiluted by the saving presence of my adopted brother, was like bolting a great dry crust of yesterday's bread. what an indigestion i should have! i was too wise, however, to betray the slightest anxiety one way or the other; for if her ladyship suspected me of presuming to have a preference she would punish me by crushing it, even if inconvenient to herself. i was exquisitely meek and useful, lighting her fire (with wood brought me by jack) supplying her with hot water, and wrangling with the landlady over her breakfast, which would have consisted of black coffee and unbuttered bread, had it not been for my exertions. breakfasts more elaborate were unknown at ste. enemie; but coaxings and arguments produced boiled eggs, goats' milk, and _confiture_, which i added to the repast, and carried up to lady turnour's room. no definite plans had been made even then; but harassed sir samuel told his chauffeur to engage a boat, and have it ready "in case her ladyship had a whim to go in it." the motor was to be in readiness simultaneously, and then the lady could choose between the two at the last moment. thus matters stood when my mistress appeared at the front door, hatted and coated. at last she must decide whether she would descend the rapids of the tarn (quite safe, kind rapids, which had never done their worst enemies any harm), or travel by a newly finished road through the gorge, in the car, missing a few fine bits of scenery and an experience, but, it was to be supposed, enjoying extra comfort. there was the big blue car; there was the swift green river, and on the river a boat with two respectful and not unpicturesque boatmen. "ugh! the water looks hideously cold and dangerous," she sighed, shivering in the clear sunlight, despite her long fur coat. "but i have a horror of the motor, since yesterday. i _may_ get over it, but it will take me days. it's a hateful predicament--between _two_ evils, one as bad as the other. i oughtn't to have been subjected to it." "dane says everyone does go by the river. it's the thing to do," ventured sir samuel, becoming subtle. "they've put a big foot-warmer in the boat, and you can have your own rugs. there's a place where we land, by the way, to get a hot lunch." with a moan, the bride pronounced for the boat, which was a big flat-bottomed punt, as reliable in appearance as pictures of john bull. i fetched her rugs from the car. she was helped into the boat, and then, as my fate remained to be settled, i asked her in a voice soft as silk what were her wishes in regard to her handmaiden. "why, you'll come with us in the boat, of course. what else did you dream?" she replied sharply. down went my heart with a thump like a fish dropping off its hook. but as i would have moved toward the pebbly beach, a champion rode to my defence. "your ladyship doesn't think a load of five might disturb the balance of the boat?" mildly suggested the chauffeur. "the usual load is two passengers and two boatmen; and though there's no danger in the rapids if--" she did not give him time to finish. "oh, very well, you must stop with the car, elise," said she. "it is only one inconvenience more, among many. no doubt i can put up with it. get me the brandy flask out of the tea-basket." i would have tried to scoop all the green cheese out of the moon for her, if she had asked me, i was so delighted. and part of my joy was mixed up with the thought that _he_ wanted me to be with him. he had actually schemed to get me! i envied no one in the world, not even the lovely lady of the battlement garden. he was mine for to-day, in spite of her--so there! sir samuel got into the boat, and wrapped his wife in rugs. the boatmen pushed off. away the flat-bottomed punt slid down the clear green stream, the sun shining, the cascades sparkling, the strange precipices which wall the gorge, copper-tinted in the morning light. it was the most wonderful world; yet lady turnour was cackling angrily. was she afraid? had she changed her mind? no, the saints be praised! she was only burning holes in her petticoat on the brazier supplied by the hotel! i turned away to hide a smile almost as wicked as a grin, and before i looked round again, the swift stream had swept the boat out of sight round a jutting corner of rock. we were safe. this time it really _was_ our world, our car, and our everything. we didn't even need to "pretend." ste. enemie is only at the gates of the gorge--a porter's lodge, so to speak, and in the aigle we sped on into the fairyland of which we'd had our first pale, moonlit peep last night. there were castles made by man, and castles made by gnomes; but the gnomes were the better architects. their dwellings, carved of rock, towered out of the river to a giddy height, and some were broken in half, as if they had been rent asunder by gnome cannon, in gnome battles. there were gnome villages, too, which looked exactly like human habitations, with clustering roofs plastered against the mountain-side. but the hand of man had not placed one of these stones upon another. there were gigantic rock statues, and watch-towers for gnomes to warn old-time gnome populations, perhaps, when their enemies, the cave-dwellers, were coming that way from a mammoth-hunt; and there was a wonderful grotto, fitted with doors and windows, a grotto whose occupants must surely have inherited the mansion from their ancestors, the cave-dwellers. every step of the way history, gaunt and war-stained, stalked beside us, followed hot-foot by his foster-mother, legend; and the first stories of the one and the last stories of the other were tangled inextricably together. legend and history were alike in one regard; both told of brave men and beautiful women; and the people we met as we drove, looked worthy of their forebears who had fought and suffered for religion and independence, in this strange, rock-walled corridor, shared with fairies and gnomes. the men were tall, with great bold, good-natured eyes and apple-red cheeks, to which their indigo blouses gave full value. the women were of gentle mien, with soft glances; and the children were even more attractive than their elders. tiny girls, like walking dolls, with dresses to the ground, bobbed us curtseys; and sturdy little boys, curled up beside ancient grandfathers, in carts with old boots protecting the brakes, saluted like miniature soldiers, or pulled off their quaint round caps, as they stared in big-eyed wonder at our grand, blue car. for them we were prince and princess, not chauffeur and maid. sometimes our road through the gorge climbed high above the rushing green river, and ran along a narrow shelf overhanging the ravine, but clear of snow and ice; sometimes it plunged down the mountain-side as if on purpose to let us hear the music of the water; and one of these sudden swoops downward brought us in sight of a château so enchanting and so evidently enchanted, that i was sure a fairy's wand had waved for its creation, perhaps only a moment before. when we were gone, it would disappear again, and the fairy would flash down under the translucent water, laughing, as she sent up a spray of emeralds and pearls. "of course, it isn't real!" i exclaimed. "but do let's stop, because such a knightly castle wouldn't be rude enough to vanish right before our eyes." "no, it won't vanish, because it's a most courteous little castle, which has been well brought up, and even though its greatness is gone, tries to live up to its traditions," said jack. "it always appears to everyone it thinks likely to appreciate it; and i was certain it would be here in its place to welcome you." we smiled into each other's eyes, and i felt as if the castle were a present from him to me. how i should have loved to have it for mine, to make up for one poor old château, now crumbled hopelessly into ruin, and despised by the least exacting of tourists! coming upon it unexpectedly in this green dell, at the foot of the precipice, seeing it rise from the water on one side, reflected as in a broken mirror, and draped in young, golden foliage on the other, it really was an ideal castle for a fairy tale. a connoisseur in the best architecture of the renaissance would perhaps have been ungracious enough to pick faults; for to a critical eye the turrets and arches might fall short of perfection; and there was little decoration on the time-darkened stone walls, save the thick curtain of old, old ivy; but the fairy grace of the towers rising from the moat of glittering, bright green water was gay and sweet as a song heard in the woods. "some beautiful nymph ought to have lived here," i said dreamily, when we had got out of the car. "a nymph whose beauty was celebrated all over the world, so that knights from far and near came to this lovely place to woo her." "why, you might have heard the story of the place!" said jack. "it's the château de la caze, usually called the castle of the nymphs, for instead of one, eight beautiful nymphs lived in it. but their beauty was their undoing. i don't quite know why they were called 'nymphs,' for nymphs and naiads had gone out of fashion when they reigned here as queens of beauty, in the sixteenth century. but perhaps in those days to call a girl a 'nymph' was to pay her a compliment. it wouldn't be now, when chaps criticize the 'nymphery' if they go to a dance! anyhow, these eight sisters, were renowned for their loveliness, and all the unmarried gentlemen of france--according to the story--as well as foreign knights, came to pay court to them. the unfortunate thing was, when the cavaliers saw the eight girls together, they were all so frightfully pretty it wasn't possible to choose between them, so the poor gentlemen fought over their rival charms, and were either killed or went away unable to make up their minds. the sad end was, if you'll believe me, that all the eight maidens died unmarried, martyrs to their own incomparable charms." "i can quite believe it," i answered, "and it wasn't at all sad, because i'm sure any girl who had once had this place for her home would have pined in grief at being taken away, even by the most glorious knight of the world." "come in and see their boudoir," said the knight who worked, if he did not fight, for me. so we went in, without the trouble of using battering rams; for alas, the family of the eight nymphs grew tired of their château and the gorge in the dreadful days of the religious wars, and now it is an hotel. it would not receive paying guests until summer, but a good-natured caretaker opened the door for us, and we saw a number of stone-paved corridors, and the nymphs' boudoir. their adoring father had ordered their portraits to be painted on the ceiling; and there they remain to this day, simpering sweetly down upon the few bits of ancient furniture made to match the room and suit their taste. they smiled amiably at us, too, the eight little faces framed in henrietta maria curls; and their eyes said to me, "if you want to be happy, _m'amie_, it is better not to be too beautiful; or else not to have any sisters. or if providence _will_ send you sisters, go away yourself, and visit your plainest friend, till you have got a husband." gazing wistfully back, as one does gaze at places one fears never to see again, the castle of the nymphs looked like a fantastic water-flower standing up out of the green river, on its thick stem of rock. then it was gone; for our time was not quite our own, and we dared not linger, lest the boat with our betters should arrive at the meeting place before we reached it in the car. but there were compensations, for almost with every moment the gorge grew grander. cascades sparkled in the sun like blowing diamond-dust. the rocks seemed set with jewels, or patterned with mosaic; and there were caves--caves almost too good to be true. yet if we could believe our eyes, they were true, even the dark cavern where, once upon a time, lived a scaly dragon who terrorized the whole country for miles around, and had no relish for his meals unless they were composed of the most exquisite young maidens--though he would accept a child as an _hors d'oeuvre_. in such a strange world as this, after all, it was no harder to believe in dragons, than in hiding countesses, fed and tended for months upon months by faithful servants, while the red revolution raged; yet the countess and her cave were vouched for by history, which ignored the dragon and his. not only had each mountain at least one cavern, but every really eligible crag had its ruined castle; and each ruin had its romance, which clung like the perfume of roses to a shattered vase. there were rocks shaped like processions of marching monks following uplifted crucifixes; and farther on, one would have thought that half the animals had scrambled out of the ark to a height where they had petrified before the flood subsided. as we wound through the gorge the landscape became so strange, hewn in such immensity of conception, that it seemed prehistoric. we, in the blue car, were anachronisms, or so i felt until i remembered how, in pre-motoring days, i used to think that owning an automobile must be like having a half-tamed minotaur in the family. as for the aigle, she was a friendly, not a vicious, monster, and as if to make up for her mistakes of yesterday, she was to-day more like a demi-goddess serving an earthly apprenticeship in fulfilment of a vow than a dragon of any sort. swinging smoothly round curve after curve, the noble car running free and cooing in sheer joy of fiery life, as she swooped from height to depth, i, too, felt the joy of life as i had hardly ever felt it before. the chauffeur and i did not speak often, but i looked up at him sometimes because of the pleasure i had in seeing and re-seeing the face in which i had come to have perfect confidence; and i fancied from its expression that he felt as i felt. so we came to les vignes, and lunched together at a table set out of doors, close to the car, that she might not be left alone. we had for food a strange and somewhat evil combination; wild hare and wild boar; but they seemed to suit the landscape somehow, as did the mystical music of the conch-shells, blown by passing boatmen. it was like being waked from a dream of old-time romance, by a rude hand shaking one's shoulder, to hear the voices of sir samuel and lady turnour, he mildly arguing, she disputing, as usual. poetry fled like a dryad of some classic wood, scared by a motor omnibus; and, though the gorge as far as le rozier was magnificent, and the road all the way to millau beautiful in the sunset, it was no longer _our_ gorge, or _our_ road. that made a difference! chapter xxiv there was a telegram from "bertie" at millau. the invitation to the château where he was stopping near clermont-ferrand, had been asked for and given. i heard all about it, of course, from the conversation between the bride and groom; for lady turnour prides herself on discussing things in my presence, as if i were deaf or a piece of furniture. she has the idea that this trick is a habit of the "smart set"; and she would allow herself to be tarred and feathered, in directoire style, if she could not be smart at smaller cost. nothing was ever more opportune than that telegram, for her ladyship had burnt her frock and chilled her liver in the boat, and though the hotel at millau was good, she arrived there with the evident intention of making life a burden to sir samuel. the news from bertie changed all that, however; and though the weather was like the breath of icebergs next morning, lady turnour was warmed from within. she chatted pleasantly with sir samuel about the big luggage which had gone on to clermont-ferrand, and asked his advice concerning the becomingness of various dresses. the one unpleasant thing she allowed herself to say, was that "certainly bertie wasn't doing this for nothing," and that his stepfather might take her word for it, bertie would be neither slow nor shy in naming his reward. but sir samuel only grinned, and appeared rather amused than otherwise at the shrewdness of his wife's insight into the young man's character. i was conscious that my jacket hadn't been made for motoring, when i came out into the sharp morning air and took my place in the aigle. i was inclined to envy my mistress her fur rugs, but to my surprise i saw lying on my seat a scotch plaid, plaider than any plaid ever made in scotland. "does that belong to the hotel?" i asked the chauffeur, as he got into the car. "it belongs to you," said he. "a present from millau for a good child." "oh, you mustn't!" i exclaimed. "but i have," he returned, calmly. "i'm not going to watch you slowly freezing to death by my side; for it won't be exactly summer to-day. let me tuck you in prettily." i groaned while i obeyed. "i've been an expense to you all the way, because you wouldn't abandon me to the lions, even in the most expensive hotels, where i knew you wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for me. and now, _this!_" "it cost only a few francs," he tried to reassure me. "we'll sell it again--afterward, if that will make you happier. but sufficient for the day is the rug thereof--at least, i hope it will be. and don't flaunt it, for if her ladyship sees there's an extra rug of any sort on board she'll be clamouring for it by and by." northward we started, in the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until i began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of _les causses_, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. from snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. we felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. we swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent came. soon we were on the flat plateau of the causse, where last year's faded grass was frosted white, and a torn winding-sheet wrapped the limbs of a dead world. there was no beauty in this death, save the wild beauty of desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. before us grouped the mountains of auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed over mountain and foothill. "the people at millau told me i should get up to st. flour all right, in spite of the fall of snow," said the chauffeur, his eyes on the great white waves that piled themselves against a blue-white sky, "but i begin to think there's trouble before us, and i don't know whether i ought to have persisted in bringing you." "persisted!" i echoed, defending him against himself. "why, do you suppose wild horses would have dragged lady turnour in any other direction, now that she's actually invited to be the guest of a marquis in a real live castle?" "a railway train could very well have dragged her in the same direction and got her to the castle as soon, if not a good deal sooner than she's likely to get in this car, if we have to fight snow. i proposed this way originally because i wanted you to see the gorge of the tarn, and because i thought that you'd like clermont-ferrand, and the road there. it was to be _your_ adventure, you know, and i shall feel a brute if i let you in for a worse one than i bargained for. even this morning it wasn't too late. i could have hinted at horrors, and they would have gone by rail like lambs, taking you with them." "lady turnour can do nothing like a lamb," i contradicted him. "i should never have forgiven you for sending me away from--the car. besides, lady turnour wants to teuf-teuf up to the château in her sixty-horse-power aigle, and make an impression on the aristocracy." "well, we must hope for the best now," said he. "but look, the snow's an inch thick by the roadside even at this level, so i don't know what we mayn't be in for, between here and st. flour, which is much higher--the highest point we shall have to pass in getting to the château de roquemartine, a few miles out of clermont-ferrand." "you think we may get stuck?" "it's possible." "well, that _would_ be an adventure. you know i love adventures." "but i know the turnours don't. and if--" he didn't finish his sentence. higher we mounted, until half france seemed to lie spread out before us, and a solitary sign-post with "paris-perpignans" suggested unbelievable distances. the aigle glided up gradients like the side of a somewhat toppling house, and scarcely needed to change speed, so well did she like the rarefied mountain air. i liked it too, though i had to be thankful for the plaid; and above all i liked the wild loneliness of the causse, which was unlike anything i ever saw or imagined. the savage monotony of the heights was broken just often enough by oases of pine wood; and the plains on which we looked down were blistered with conical hills, crowned by ancient castles which would have rejoiced the hearts of mediæval painters, as they did mine. severac-le-château, perched on its naked pinnacle of rock, was best of all, as we saw it from our bird's-eye view, and then again, almost startlingly impressive when we had somehow whirled down below it, to pass under its old huddled town, before we flew up once more to higher and whiter levels. never had the car gone better; but lady turnour had objected to the early start which the chauffeur wanted, and the sun was nearly overhead when many a huge shoulder of glittering marble still walled us away from our journey's end. the cold was the pitiless cold of northern midwinter, and i remembered with a shiver that millau and clermont-ferrand were separated from one another by nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres of such mountain roads as these. oh yes, it was an experience, a splendid, dazzling experience; nevertheless, my cowardly thoughts would turn, sunflower-like, toward warmth; warm rooms, even stuffy rooms, without a single window open, fires crackling, and hot things to drink. still, i wouldn't admit that i was cold, and stiffened my muscles to prevent a shudder when my brother asked me cheerfully if i would enjoy a visit to the gouffre de padirac, close by. a "gouffre" on such a day! not all the splendours of the posters which i had often seen and admired, could thrill me to a desire for the expedition; but i tried to cover my real feelings with the excuse that it must now be too late to make even a small détour. mr. jack dane laughed, and replied that he had no intention of making it; he had only wanted to test my pluck. "i believe you'd pretend to be delighted if i told you we had plenty of time, and mustn't miss going," said he. "but don't be frightened; this isn't a gouffre de padirac day, though it really is a great pity to pass it by. what do you say to lunch instead?" and we rolled through a magnificent mediæval gateway into the ancient and unpronounceable town of marvejols. before he had time to make the same suggestion to his more important passengers, it came hastily from within the glass cage. so we stopped at an inn which proudly named itself an hotel; and chauffeur and maid were entertained in a kitchen destitute of air and full of clamour. nevertheless, it seemed a snug haven to us, and never was any soup better than the soup of "marvels," as sir samuel and lady turnour called the place. the word was "push on," however, for we had still the worst before us, and a long way to go. the quality had promised to finish its luncheon in an hour; and well before the time was up, we two worms were out in the cold, each engaged in fulfilling its own mission. i was arranging rugs; the chauffeur was pouring some libation from a long-nosed tin upon the altar of his goddess when our master appeared, wearing such an "i haven't stolen the cream or eaten the canary" expression that we knew at once something new was in the wind. he coughed, and floundered into explanations. "the waiter, who can speak some english, has been frightening her ladyship," said he. "after the day before yesterday she's grown a bit timid, and to hear that the cold she has suffered from is nothing to what she may have to experience higher up, and later in the day, as the sun gets down behind the mountains, has put her off motoring. it seems we can go on from here by train to clermont-ferrand and that's what she wants to do. i hate deserting the car, but after all, this _is_ an expedition of pleasure, and if her ladyship has a preference, why shouldn't it be gratified?" "quite so, sir," responded the chauffeur, his face a blank. "my first thought on making up my mind to the train was to have the car shipped at the same time," went on sir samuel, "but it seems that can't be done. there's lots of red tape about such things, and the motor might have to wait days on end here at marvels, before getting off, to say nothing of how long she might be on the way. whereas, i've been calculating, if you start now and go as quick as you can, you ought to be at the château" (he pronounced it 'chattoe') "before us. our train doesn't leave for more than an hour, and it's a very slow one. still, it will be warm, and we have cards and tauchnitz novels. then, you know, you can unload the luggage at the château and run back to the railway station at clermont-ferrand, see to having our big boxes sent out (they'll be there waiting for us) and meet our train. what do you think of the plan?" "it ought to do very well--if i'm not delayed on the road by snow." "do you expect to be?" "i hope not. but it's possible." "well, her ladyship has made up her mind, and we must risk it. i'll trust you to get out of any scrape." the chauffeur smiled. "i'll try not to get into one," he said. "and i'd better be off--unless you have further instructions?" "only the receipt for the luggage. here it is," said sir samuel. "and here are the keys for you, elise. her ladyship wants you to have everything unpacked by the time she arrives. oh--and the rugs! we shall need them in the train." "isn't mademoiselle going with you?" asked my brother, showing surprise at last. "no. her mistress thinks it would be better for her to have everything ready for us at the 'chattoe.' you see, it will be almost dinner-time when we get there." "but, sir, if the car's delayed--" "well," cut in sir samuel, "we must chance it, i'm afraid. the fact is, her ladyship is in such a nervous state that i don't care to put any more doubts into her head. she's made up her mind what she wants, and we'd better let it go at that." if i'd been near enough to my brother i should have stamped on his foot, or seized some other forcible method of suggesting that he should kindly hold his tongue. as it was, my only hope lay in an imploring look, which he did not catch. however, in pity for sir samuel he said no more; and before we were three minutes older, if her ladyship had yearned to have me back, it would have been too late. we were off together, and another day had been given to us for ours. the chauffeur proposed that i should sit inside the car; but i had regained all my courage in the hot inn-kitchen. i was not cold, and didn't feel as if i should ever be cold again. the road mounted almost continuously. sometimes, as we looked ahead, it seemed to have been broken off short just in front of the car, by some dreadful earth convulsion; but it always turned out to be only a sudden dip down, or a sharp turn like the curve of an apple-paring. at last we had reached the highest peak of the roof of france--a sloping, snow-covered roof; but steep as was the slant, very little of the snow appeared to have slipped off. the cévennes on our right loomed near and bleak; the auvergne stretched endlessly before us, and the virgin snow, pure as edelweiss, was darkened in the misty distance by patches of shadow, purple-blue, like beds of early violets. at first but a thin white sheet was spread over our road, but soon the lace-like fabric was exchanged for a fleecy blanket, then a thick quilt of down, and the motor began to pant. the winds seemed to come from all ways at once, shrieking like witches, and flinging their splinters of ice, fine and small as broken needles, against our cheeks. still i would not go inside. i could not bear to be warm and comfortable while jack faced the cold alone. i knew his fingers must be stiff, though he wouldn't confess to any suffering, and i wished that i knew how to drive the car, so that we might have taken turns, sitting with our hands in our pockets. in the deepening snow we moved slowly, the wheels slipping now and then, unable to grip. then, on a steep incline, there came a report like a revolver shot. but it didn't frighten me now. i knew it meant a collapsed tyre, not a concealed murderer; but there couldn't have been a much worse place for "jacking up." nevertheless, it's an ill tyre that blows up for its own good alone, and the forty minutes out of a waning afternoon made the chauffeur's cold hands hot and the hot engine cold. starting on again, we had ten miles of desolation, then a tiny hamlet which seemed only to emphasize that desolation; again another ten-mile stretch of desert, and another hamlet; here and there a glimpse of the railway line, like a great black snake, lost in the snow; now and then the gilded picture of an ancient town, crowning some tall crag that stood up from the flat plain below like a giant bottle. and there was one thrilling view of a high viaduct, flinging a spider's web of glittering steel across a vast and shadowy ravine. "garabit!" said the chauffeur, as he saw it; and i remembered that this road was not new for him. he did not talk much. was he thinking of the companion who perhaps had sat beside him before? i wondered. was it because he thought continually of her that he looked at me wistfully sometimes, often in silence, wishing me away, maybe, and the woman who had spoilt his life by his side again for good or ill? suddenly we plunged into a deep snow-bank which deceitfully levelled a dip in the road, and the car stopped, trembling like a horse caught by the hind leg while in full gallop. on went the first speed, most powerful of all, but not powerful enough to fight through snow nearly up to the hubs. the aigle was prisoned like a rat in a trap, and could neither go back nor forward. "well?" i questioned, half laughing, half frightened, at this fulfilment of the morning's prophecy. "sit still, and i'll try to push her through," said jack jumping out into the deep snow. "it's only a drift in a hollow, you see; and we should have got by the worst, just up there at st. flour." i looked where his nod indicated, and saw a town as dark and seemingly as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. as i gazed, struck with admiration, which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. the car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move, then changed her mind and refused to budge. in a second, before he could guess what i meant to do, i had flashed out of my seat into the snow, and was wading in his tracks to help him when he snatched me up--a hand on either side of my waist--and swung me back into my place again. "little wretch!" he exclaimed. "how dare you disobey me?" then i was vexed, for it was ignominious to be treated as a child, when i had wanted to aid him like a comrade. "you are very unkind--very rude," i said. "you wouldn't dare to do that, or speak like that to _her_." he laughed loudly. "what--haven't you forgotten 'her?'" (as if i ever could!) "well, i may tell you, it's just because i did dare to 'speak like that' to a woman, that i'm a chauffeur stuck in the snow with another man's car, and the--" "the rest is another epithet which concerns me, i suppose," i remarked with dignity, though suddenly i felt the chill of the icy air far, far more cruelly than i had felt it yet. i was so cold, in this white desolation, that it seemed i must die soon. and it wouldn't matter at all if i were buried under the drifts, to be found in the late spring with violets growing out of the places where my eyes once had been. "yes," said he, in that cool way he has, which can be as irritating as a chilblain. "it was an epithet concerning you, but luckily for me i stopped to think before i spoke--an accomplishment i'm only just beginning to learn." i swallowed something much harder and bigger than a cannon ball, and said nothing. "of course you're covered with snow up to your knees, foolish child!" he was glaring ferociously at me. "it doesn't matter." "it does matter most infernally. don't you know that you make no more than a featherweight of difference to the car?" "i feel as if i weighed a thousand pounds, now." "it's that snow!" "no. it's you. your crossness. i _can't_ have people cross to me, on lonely mountains, just when i'm trying to help them." his glare of rage turned to a stare of surprise. "cross? do you think i was cross to you?" "yes. and you just stopped in time, or you would have been worse." "oh, i see," he said. "you thought that the 'epithet' was going to be invidious, did you?" "naturally." "well, it wasn't. i--no, i _won't_ say it! that would be the last folly. but--i wasn't going to be cross. i can't have you think that, whatever happens. now sit still and be good, while i push again." i weighed no more than half the thousand pounds now, and the cannon ball had dissolved like a chocolate cream; but the car stood like a rock, fixed, immutable. "there ought to be half a dozen of me," said the chauffeur. "look here, little pal, there's nothing else for it; i must trudge off to st. flour and collect the missing five. are you afraid to be left here alone?" of course i said no; but when he had disappeared, walking very fast, i thought of a large variety of horrors that might happen; almost everything, in fact, from an earthquake to a mad bull. as the sun leaned far down toward the west, the level red light lay like pools of blood in the snow-hollows, and the shadows "came alive," as they used when i was a child lying awake, alone, watching the play of the fire on wall and ceiling. long minutes passed, and at last i could sit still no longer. gaily risking my brother's displeasure, now i knew that he wasn't "cross," i slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof. then, swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a kettleful of snow. as soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose and azure flame of alcohol, i added more snow, and still more, until the kettle was filled with water. by the time i had warmed and dried my feet on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets of steam began to pour from the spout i saw six figures approaching, dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow. "tea for seven!" i said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups were few. it took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest. when she stood only a foot deep, she consented readily to move. we bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past st. flour. it was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only said, "i thought so!" when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on. "what a good thing lady turnour isn't here!" said i, as he doctored the wounded aigle. [illustration: "_it took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest_"] "lots of girls would be in a blue funk," said he. "i could shake that beastly woman for not taking you with her." "oh!" i exclaimed. "when i'm not doing you _any_ harm!" he glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse, left the chain to come and stand beside me, as i sat wrapped up in his gift "for a good girl." he gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and i wonderingly returned the gaze, not knowing what was to follow. the moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. the soft, pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had never looked so handsome. "you don't mean to do _me_ any harm, do you?" he said. "i couldn't if i would, and wouldn't if i could," i answered in surprise. "yet you _do_ me harm." "you're joking!" "i never was further from joking in my life. you do me harm because you make me wish for something i can't have, something it's a constant fight with me, ever since we've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to think of. yet you say i'm cross! now, do you know what i mean, and will you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of tempting me--tempting me, however unconsciously, to--to wish--for--for--what a fool i am! i'm going to finish my mending." i sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were _my_ chain, not the car's, which had broken! of course if it hadn't been for all his talk of _her_, i should have known, or thought that i knew, well enough what he meant. but how could i take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to suggest, knowing as i did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then thrown him over! i longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but i dared not. no words would come; and perhaps if they had, i should have regretted them, for i was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one woman to tumble into love for another, that i didn't know what to make of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of myself. if i hadn't quite known before, i knew suddenly, all in a minute, that i was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! it seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms to catch her as she fell. but the chauffeur hadn't the slightest intention of holding out his arms to the poor little motor maid. he went on mending the chain, and when he got into the car beside me again he began to talk about the weather. chapter xxv it was ten o'clock when we came into clermont-ferrand, which looked a beautiful old place in the moonlight, with the great, white puy de dome floating half way up the sky, like a marble dream-palace. i trembled for our reception at the château, for everything would be our fault, from the snow on the mountains to lady turnour's lack of a dinner dress; and the consciousness of our innocence would be our sole comfort. not for an instant did we believe that it would help our case to stop at the railway station and arrange for the big luggage to be sent the first thing in the morning; nevertheless, we satisfied our consciences by doing it, though we were so hungry that everything uneatable seemed irrelevant. a young woman in a book, who had just pried into the depths of her soul, and discovered there a desperate love, would have loathed the thought of food; but evidently i am unworthy to be a heroine, for my imagination called up visions of soup and steak; and because it seemed so extremely important to be hungry, i could quite well put off being unhappy until to-morrow. it is only three miles from clermont-ferrand to the château de roquemartine, and we came to it easily, without inquiries, jack having carefully studied the road map with sir samuel. he had only to stop at the porter's lodge to make sure we were right, and then to teuf-teuf up a long, straight avenue, sounding our musical siren as an announcement of our arrival. it was only when i saw the fine old mansion on a terraced plateau, its creamy stone white as pearl in the moonlight, its rows upon rows of windows ablaze, that i remembered my position disagreeably. i was going to stay at this charming place, as a servant, not as a member of the house-party. i would have to eat in the servants' hall--i, lys d'angely, whose family had been one of the proudest in france. why, the name de roquemartine was as nothing beside ours. it had not even been invented when ours was already old. what would my father say if he could see his daughter arriving thus at a house which would have been too much honoured by a visit from him? i was suddenly ashamed. my boasted sense of humour, about which i am usually such a pharisee, sulked in a corner and refused to come out to my rescue, though i called upon it. funny it might be to eat in the kitchens of inns, but i could not feel that it was funny to be relegated to the servants' brigade in the private house of a countryman of my father. what queerly complicated creatures we little human animals are! an avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. a knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and i can't believe this was simply because i'm female. i shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel exactly the same--or more so. "oh, dear!" i sighed. "it's going to be horrid here. but"--with a stab of remorse for my self-absorption--"it's just as bad for you as for me. _you_ don't need to stay in the house, though. you're a man, and free. don't stop for my sake. i won't have it! please live in an inn. there's sure to be one near by." "i'm not going to look for it," said my brother. "you needn't worry about me. i've got pretty callous. i shall have quarters for nothing here--you're always preaching economy." but i wouldn't be convinced. "pooh! you're only saying that, so that i won't think you're sacrificing yourself for me. do you know anything about the roquemartines?" "a little." "good gracious, i hope you've never met them?" "i believe i lunched here with them once three years ago, with a motoring friend of theirs." he stated this fact so quietly, that, if i hadn't begun to know him and his ways, i might have supposed him indifferent to the situation; but--i can hardly say why--i didn't suppose it. i supposed just the contrary; and i respected him, and his calmness, twenty times more than before, if that were possible. besides, i would have loved him twenty times more, only that was impossible. how much stronger and better he was than i--i, who blurted out my every feeling! i, a stranger, felt the position almost too hateful for endurance, simply because it was ruffling to my vanity. he, an acquaintance of these people, who had been their guest, resigned himself to herding with their servants, because--yes, i knew it!--because he would not let me bear annoyances alone. "you can't, you _shan't_ stop in the house!" i gasped. "leave me and the luggage. drive the car to the nearest village." "i don't _want_ to leave you. can't you understand that?" he said. "i'm not sacrificing myself." we were at the door. we had been heard. if i had suddenly been endowed with the eloquence of demosthenes, the gift would have come too late. the door was thrown open, not by servants, but by a merry, curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen, anxious to see the arrival of the belated, no doubt much talked of, automobile. light streamed out from a great hall, which seemed, at first glance, to be half full of people in evening dress, girls and young men, gay and laughing. everybody was talking at the same time, chattering both english and french, nobody listening to anybody else, all intent on having a glimpse of the car. i believe they were disappointed not to see it battered by some accident; sensations are so dear to the hearts of idle ones. sir samuel turnour came out, with two young men and a couple of girls, while lady turnour, afraid of the cold, remained on the threshold in a group of other women among whom she was violently conspicuous by the blazing of her jewels. the others were all in dinner dress, with very few jewels. she had attempted to atone for her blouse and short skirt by putting on all her diamonds and a rope or two of pearls. poor woman! i knew her capable of much. i had not supposed her capable of this. instinct told me that one of the young men with sir samuel was the marquis de roquemartine, and i trembled with physical dread, as if under a lifted lash, of his greeting to jack. but the _pince-nez_ over prominent, near-sighted eyes, gave me hope that my chauffeur might be spared an unpleasant ordeal. joy! the marquis did not appear to recognize him, and neither did the marquise, if she were one of the young women who had run out to the car. maybe, if he could escape recognition now, he might escape altogether. once swept away among the flotsam and jetsam below stairs, he would be both out of sight and out of mind. i did not care about myself now, only for him, and i was beginning to cheer up a little, when i noticed that the other young man was gazing at the chauffeur very intently. his flushed face, and small fair moustache, his light eyes and hair, looked as english as the marquis' short, pointed chestnut beard and sleek hair _en brosse_, looked french. "bertie!" i said to myself, flashing a glance at him from under my veil. bertie, if bertie it was, did not speak. he simply stared, mechanically pulling an end of his tiny moustache, while sir samuel talked. but he was so much interested in his stepfather's chauffeur that when the really very pretty girl near him spoke, over his shoulder, he did not hear. "well, we began to think you'd tumbled over a precipice!" exclaimed sir samuel, with the jovial loudness that comes to men of his age from good champagne or the rich red wines of southern france. jack explained. the fair-haired young man let him finish in peace, and then said, slowly, "isn't your name dane?" "it is," replied my brother. "thought i knew your face," went on the other. "so you've taken to chauffeuring as a last resort--what?" he was intended by providence to be good looking, but so snobbish was his expression as he spoke, so cruelly sarcastic his voice, that he became hideous in my eyes. a bleached skull grinning over a tall collar could not have seemed more repulsive than the pink, healthy features of that young man with his single eye-glass and his sneer. jack paid no more attention than if he had not heard, but the slight stiffening of his face and raising of his eyebrows as he turned to sir samuel, made him look supremely proud and distinguished, incomparably more a gentleman in his dusty leather livery, than bertie in his well-cut evening clothes. "i called at the railway station, and the luggage will be here before eight to-morrow morning," he said, quietly. "all right, all right," replied sir samuel, slow to understand what was going on, but uncomfortable between the two young men. "i didn't know that you were acquainted with my stepson, dane." "it was scarcely an acquaintance, sir," said the chauffeur. "and i wasn't aware that mr. stokes was your stepson." "if you had been, you jolly well wouldn't have taken the engagement--what?" remarked bertie, with a hateful laugh. this time jack condescended to look at him; from the head down, from the feet up. "really," he said, after an instant's reflection, "it wouldn't have been fair to sir samuel to feel a prejudice on account of the relationship. if one of the servants would kindly show me the garage--" chapter xxvi if it hadn't been for the hope of seeing jack again, i should have said that i wanted nothing to eat, when i was asked; but i thought that he might come to the servants' dining-room, if only because he would expect to find me there; and i was right: he came. "what an imbroglio!" i whispered, as he joined me at the table, where hot soup and cold chicken were set forth. "not at all," said he, cheerfully. "things are better for me than i thought. roquemartine didn't recognize me, i'm sure, for if he had, he would have said so. he isn't a snob. but i rather hoped he would have forgotten. i came as a stranger, brought by a friend of his and mine, was here only for a meal (we were motoring then, too)--and it's three years ago." "but the marquise?" "she's a bran new one. i fancied i'd heard that the wife died. this one has the air of a bride, and i should say she's an american." "yes. she is. the maid who showed me my room told me. the other girl who came out of doors, is her sister. they're fearfully rich, it seems, and that young brute wants to marry her." "thank you for the descriptive adjective, my little partizan, but you're troubling yourself for me more than you need. i don't mind, really. it's all in a life-time, and i knew when i went in for this business, that i should have to take the rough with the smooth. i was down on my luck, and glad to get anything. what i have got is honest, and something that i know i can do well--something i enjoy, too; and i'm not going to let a vulgar young snob like that make me ashamed of myself, when i've nothing to be ashamed of." "you ought to be proud of yourself, not ashamed!" i cried to him, trying to keep my eyes cold. "heaven knows there's little enough to be proud of. you'd see that, if i bored you with my history--and perhaps i will some day. but anyhow, i've nothing which i need to hide." "as if i didn't know that! but bertie hates you." "i don't much blame him for that. in a way, the position in which we stand to each other is a kind of poetical justice. i don't blame myself, either, for i always did loathe a cad and stokes is a cad par excellence. he visited, more or less on suffrance, at two or three houses where i used to go a good deal, in my palmy days. how he got asked, originally, i don't exactly know, for the people weren't a bit his sort; but money does a lot for a man in these days; and once in, he wasn't easy to get rid of. he had a crawling way with any one he hoped to squeeze any advantage out of--" "i suppose he crawled to you then," i broke in. "he did try it on, a bit, because i knew people he wanted to know; but it didn't work. i rather put myself out to be rude to him, for i resented a fellow like that worming himself into places where he had no earthly right to be--no right of brains, or heart, or breeding. i must admit, now i think of it, that he has several scores to wipe off; and judging from the way he begins, he will wipe hard. let him!" "no, no," i protested. "you mustn't let him. it's too much. you will have to tell sir samuel that he must find a new chauffeur at once. it hurts me like a blow to think of such a creature humiliating you. i couldn't see it done." he looked at me very kindly, with quite all a brother's tenderness. "my dear little pal," he said, "you won't have to see it." "you mean--you will go?" of course, i wanted him to take my advice, or i wouldn't have offered it, yet it gave me a heartache to think he was ready to take it so easily. "i mean that i'm not the man to let myself be humiliated by a bertie stokes. possibly he may persuade his stepfather to sack me, but i don't think he'll succeed in doing that, even if he tries. sir samuel, i suppose, has given him every thing he has; sent him to oxford (i know he was there, and scraped through by the skin of his teeth), and allows him thousands enough to mix with a set where he doesn't belong; but though the old boy is weak in some ways, he has a strong sense of justice, and where he likes he is loyal. i think he does like me, and i don't believe he'd discharge me to please his stepson. not only that, i should be surprised if the promising bertie wanted me discharged. it would be more in his line to want me kept on, so that he might take it out of me." i shuddered; but jack smiled, showing his white teeth almost merrily. "you may see some fun," he said, "but it shan't be death to the frogs; not so bad as that. and i shall have you to be kind to me." "kind to you!" i echoed, rather tremulously. (if he only knew how kind i should like to be!) "yes, i will be kind. but i can't do anything to make up for what you'll have to bear. you had better go." "perhaps i would, if i could take you away with me, but that can't be. and, no, even in that case, i should prefer to stick it out. i shouldn't like to let that young bounder drive me from a place, whether i wanted to go or not. and do you think i would clear out, and leave him to worry you?" "he can't," i said. "i wish i were sure of that. when the beast sees you without your veil--oh, hang it, you mustn't let him come near you, you know." "he isn't likely to take the slightest notice of his stepfather's wife's maid," said i, "especially as he's dying to marry the american heiress here." "anyhow, be careful." "i shan't look at him if i can help it. and we shall be gone before long. i believe the turnours' invitation, which their bertie was bribed to ask for, is only for two or three days. how you _must_ have been feeling when you were told to drive here! but you showed nothing." "i had a qualm or two when i was sure of the place; but then it was over. it's far worse for you than for me. and i told you i've been learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. i was merely a stoic before." "it's nothing for me, comparatively," i said, and by this time, i was quite sincere; but i didn't know then what the next twenty-four hours were to bring. we were not left alone for long, but in ten minutes we had had our talk out, while we played at eating the meal we had looked forward to with eagerness before our appetites were crowded into the background. a fat _sous chef_ flitted about; maids and valets glanced in; nevertheless, we found time for a heart-warming hand pressure before we parted for the night. altogether, i had not had more than fifteen minutes in the dining-room; yet when i left i felt a hundred times braver and more cheerful. already i had been to my mistress's quarters. the maid who took charge of me on my arrival showed me that room before she showed me mine, and explained the way from one to the other. my "bump of locality" was tested, however, in getting back to her ladyship's part of the house, for the castle has its intricacies. the word "château," in france, covers a multitude of comfortable, unpretentious family mansions, as i had not to find out now, for the first time; and the dwelling of the roquemartines, though a fine old house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high, slate roof, than many another. it is lady turnour's first experience, though, as a visitor in the "mansions of the great," and when i had been briskly unpacking for half an hour or so, she came in, somewhat subdued by her new emotions. i think that she was rather glad to see a familiar face, to have someone to talk to of whom she did not feel in awe, with whom she need not be afraid of making some mistake; and she seemed quite human to me, for the first time. never had i seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave me the blouse. instead of the cross words i had braced myself to expect, she was almost friendly. she had felt a fool, she said, not being able to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels; and didn't every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she hadn't put on her tiara, as that wouldn't have been suitable with a blouse and short skirt! sir samuel's stepson had been quite nasty and superior about the jewels, when he got at her, afterward, and she believed would have been rude if he'd dared, but luckily he didn't know her well enough for that; and he'd better be careful how far he went, or he'd find things very different from what they'd been with him, since his mother married sir samuel. as if men knew when women ought to wear their jewels, and when not! but he was green with jealousy of the things his stepfather had given her; wanted everything himself. she went on to describe the other members of the house party, and mouthed their titles with delight, though she had only her own maid to impress. everyone had a title, it seemed, except bertie, and the american girl he wanted to marry, miss nelson, a sister of the young marquise. some of the titles were very high ones, too. there were princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses all over the place, mostly french and italian, though one of the duchesses was american, like the marquise and her sister. "not the duchesse de melun!" i exclaimed, before i stopped to think. "yes, that's the name," said her ladyship, twisting round to look up at me, as i wound her back hair in curling-pins. "what do you know about her?" how i wished that i knew nothing--and that i hadn't spoken! the name had popped out, because the duchesse de melun is the only american-born duchess of my acquaintance, and because i was hoping very hard that the duchess of the château de roquemartine might _not_ be the duchesse de melun. what bad luck that the roquemartines had selected that particular duchess for this particular house party, when they must know plenty, and could just as well have chosen another specimen! "i have heard her name," i admitted, primly. and so i had, too often. "a friend of mine was--was with her, once." "as her maid?" "not exactly." "another sort of servant, i suppose?" as her ladyship stated this as a fact, rather than asked it as a question, i ventured to refrain from answering. fortunately she didn't notice the omission, as her thoughts had jumped to another subject. but mine were not so readily displaced. they remained fastened to the duchesse de melun; and while lady turnour talked, i was wondering whether i could successfully contrive to keep out of the duchess's way. she is quite intimate with cousin catherine; and i told myself that she was pretty sure already to have heard the truth about my disappearance. or, if even with her friends, cousin catherine clings to conventionalities, and pretends that i'm visiting somewhere by her consent, people are almost certain to scent a mystery, for mysteries are popular. "if that duchess woman sees me, she'll write to cousin catherine at once," i thought. "or i wouldn't put it _past_ her to telegraph!" ("put it past" is an expression of cousin catherine's own, which i always disliked; but it came in handy now.) i tried to console myself, though, by reflecting that, if i were careful, i ought to be able to avoid the duchess. the ways of great ladies and little maids lie far apart in grand houses and-"there is going to be a servants' ball to-morrow night," announced lady turnour, while my thoughts struggled out of the slough of despond. "and i want you to be the best dressed one there, for _my_ credit. we're all going to look on, and some of the young gentlemen may dance. the marquise and miss nelson say they mean to, too, but i should think they are joking. _i_ may not be a french princess nor yet a marquise, but i _am_ an english lady, and i must say i shouldn't care to dance with my cook, or my chauffeur." her chauffeur would be at one with her there! but i could think of nothing save myself in this crisis. "oh, miladi, i _can't_ go to a servants' ball!" i exclaimed. she bridled. "why not, i should like to know? do you consider yourself above it?" "it isn't that," i faltered. (and it wasn't; it was that duchess!) "but--but--" i searched for an excuse. "i haven't anything to wear." "i will see to that," said my mistress, with relentless generosity. "i intend to give you a dress, and as you have next to nothing to do to-morrow, you can alter it in time. if you had any gratitude in you, elise, you'd be out of yourself with joy at the idea." "oh, i am out of myself, miladi," i moaned. "well, you might say 'thank your ladyship,' then." i said it. "when you have unpacked the big luggage in the morning, i will give you the dress. i have decided on it already. sir samuel doesn't like it on me, so i don't mind parting with it; but it's very handsome, and cost me a great deal of money when i was getting my trousseau. it is scarlet satin trimmed with green beetle-wing passementerie, and gold fringe." my one comfort, as i gasped out spasmodic thanks, was this: i would look such a vulgar horror in the scarlet satin trimmed with green beetle-wings and gold fringe, that the duchesse de melun might fail to recognize lys d'angely. chapter xxvii i dusted and shook out every cell in my brain, during the night, in the hope of finding any inspiration which might save me from the servants' ball; but i could think of nothing, except that i might suddenly come down with a contagious disease. the objection to this scheme was that a doctor would no doubt be sent for, and would read my secret in my lack of temperature. when morning came, i was sullenly resigned to the worst. "kismet!" said i, as i unfolded her ladyship's dresses, and was blinded by the glare of the scarlet satin. "try it on," commanded my mistress. "i want to get an idea how you will look." naturally, the red thing was a directoire thing; and putting it on over my snug little black frock, i was like a cricket crawling into an empty lobster-shell. but to my surprise and annoyance, the lobster-shell was actually becoming to the cricket. i didn't want to look nice and be a credit to lady turnour. i wanted to look a fright, and didn't care if i were a disgrace to her. but the startling scarlet satin was liberty satin, and therefore had a sheen, and a soft way of folding that redeemed it somewhat. its bright poppy colour, its emerald beetle-wings shading to gold, and its glittering fringes that waved like a wheat-field stirred by a breeze, all gave a bizarre sort of "value," as artists say, to my pale yellow hair and dark eyes. i couldn't help seeing that the dreadful dress made my skin pearly white; and i was afraid that, when i had altered the thing, instead of looking like a frump, i should only present the appearance of a rather fast little actress. i should be looked at in my scarlet abomination. people would stare, and smile. the duchesse de melun would say to the marquise de roquemartine: "who is that young person? she looks exactly like someone i know--that little lys d'angely the millionaire-man, charretier, is so silly about." "you see, you can alter it very easily," said lady turnour. "yes, miladi." "have you got any dancing slippers?" "no--that is--i don't know--" "don't be stupid. i will give you ten francs to buy yourself a pair of red stockings and red slippers to match. the stockings needn't be silk. they won't show much. dane can take you in the car to clermont-ferrand this afternoon. i want you to be all right, from head to feet--different from any of the other maids." i didn't doubt that i would be different--very different. tap, tap, a knock at the door. "ontray!" cried her ladyship. the door opened. mr. herbert stokes stood on the threshold. "i say, lady t--" he began, when he saw the scarlet vision, and stopped. "what is it?" inquired the wife of his stepfather--rather a complicated relation. "i--er--wanted--" drawled bertie. "but it doesn't matter. another time." "you needn't mind _her_," said lady turnour, with a nod toward me. "it's only my maid. i'm giving her a dress for the servants' ball to-night." bertie gave vent to the ghost of a whistle, below his breath. he looked at me, twisting the end of his small fair moustache, as he had looked at jack dane last night; and though his expression was different, i liked it no better. "thought it was a new guest," said he. "i suppose you didn't take her for a lady, did you?" my mistress was curious to know. "you pride yourself on your discrimination, your stepfather says." "there's nothing the matter with my discrimination," replied the young man, smiling. but his smile was not for her ladyship. it was for me; and it was meant to be a piquant little secret between us two. how well i remembered asking the chauffeur, "_could_ you know a bertie?" and how he answered that he had known one, and consequently didn't want to know another. here was the same bertie; and now that i too knew him, i thought i would prefer to know another, rather than know more of him. yet he was good-looking, almost handsome. he had short, curly light hair, eyes as blue as turquoises, seen by daylight, full red lips under the little moustache, a white forehead, a dimple in the chin, and a very good figure. he had also an educated, perhaps too well educated, voice, which tried to advertise that it had been made at oxford; and he had hands as carefully kept as a pretty woman's, with manicured, filbert-shaped nails. "you're making her jolly smart," he went on. "she'll do you credit." "i want she should," retorted her ladyship, gratified and ungrammatical. "she must give me a dance--what?" condescended the gilded youth. "does she speak english?" "yes. so you'd better be careful what you say before her." bertie telegraphed another smile to me. i looked at the faded damask curtains; at the mantelpiece with its gilded clock and two side-pieces, louis seize at his worst, considered good enough for a bedroom; at the drapings of the enormous bed; at the portière covering the door of sir samuel's dressing-room; at the kaleidoscopic claret-and-blue figures on the carpet; in fact, at everything within reach of my eyes except mr. herbert stokes. "i've nothing to say that she can't hear," said he, virtuously. "i only wanted to know if you'd like to see the gardens? the marquise sent me to ask. several people who haven't been here before are goin'. it's a lot warmer this mornin', so you won't freeze." lady turnour said that she would go, and ordered me to find her hat and coat. as i turned to get them, bertie smiled at me again, and threw me a last glance as he followed my mistress out of the room. i begin to be afraid there is an innate vanity in me which nothing can thoroughly eradicate without tearing me up by the roots; for when i was ready to alter that red dress, instead of trying to make it look as ridiculous as possible, something forced me to do my best, to study fitness and becomingness. i do hope this is self-respect and not vanity; but to hope that is, i fear, like believing in a thing which you know isn't true. i worked all the morning at ensmalling the gown (if one can enlarge, why can't one ensmall?) and by luncheon time it was finished. i had seen jack at breakfast, but had no chance for a word with him alone, although he succeeded valiantly in keeping other chauffeurs, and valets, from making my acquaintance. as i stopped only long enough for a cup of coffee and a roll, i didn't give him too much trouble; but at luncheon it was different. everyone was chattering about the ball in the evening (a privilege promised, it seemed, as a reward for hard work on the occasion of a real ball above stairs), and house servants and visitors alike were all so gay and good-natured that it would have been stupid to snub them. jack saw this, and though he protected me as well as he could in an unobtrusive way, he put out no bristles. the general excitement was contagious, and if it hadn't been for the panic i was in about the duchess, i should have thrown myself wholly into the spirit of the hive, buzzing like the busiest bee in it. even as it was, i couldn't help entering into the fun of the thing, for it was fun in its queer way. something like being on the stage of a third-rate theatre in the midst of a farce, where the actors mistake you for one of themselves, calling upon you to play your part, while you alone know that you are a leading member of the comédie française, just dropped in at this funny place to look on. here, the stage was on a much grander scale, and the play more amusing than in the couriers' dining-rooms at the hotels where i had been. at the hotels, the maids and valets scarcely knew each other. some were in a hurry, others were tired or in a bad humour. here the little company had been together for days. meals were a relaxation, a time for flirtation and gossip about their own and each other's masters and mistresses. each servant felt the liveliest interest in the "monsieur" or "madame" of his or her neighbour; and the stories that were exchanged, the criticisms that were made, would have caused the hair of those _messieurs_ and those _mesdames_ to curl. if i was openly approved by the gentlemen's gentlemen, mr. jack dane had the undisguised admiration of the ladies' ladies; and he received their advances with tact. dances for the evening were asked for and promised right and left, among the assemblage, always dependent upon summons from above. it was agreed that, if a monsieur or madame wished to dance with you, no previous engagement was to stand, for all the castles and big houses from far and near would be emptied in honour of the ball, from drawing-rooms to servants' halls, and quality was to mingle with quantity, as on similar occasions in england, whence--the chef explained--came the fashion. it was a feature of _l'entente cordiale_, and the same agreeable understanding was to level all barriers, for the night, between high and low. some of the visitors' _femmes de chambres_ were pretty, coquettish creatures, and i was delighted to find that they were all called by their mistresses' titles. the maid of my _bête noire_ was "duchesse"; she who pertained to our hostess was "marquise," and i blossomed into "miladi." the girls were looking forward to rivalling their mistresses in _chic_, and also in the admiration of the real princes and dukes and counts; that they would have an exclusive right to the attentions of these gentlemen's understudies also seemed to be expected. after half an hour at table in the servants' hall, there was nothing left for me to find out about the owners of the castle and their guests; but the principal interest of everyone seemed to centre upon the affair between mr. herbert stokes and the heiress sister of madame la marquise. there were even bets among the valets as to how it was to end, and bertie's man, who looked as if he could speak volumes if he would, was a person of importance. all the men admired miss nelson extremely, but the women were divided in opinion. her own maid, a bilious frenchwoman, with a jealous eye, said that the american miss was _une petite chatte_, who was playing off mr. stokes against the duc de divonne, and it was a pity that the handsome young english monsieur could not be warned of her unworthiness. the duke was not handsome, and he was neither young nor rich, but--these americans were out for titles, just as titles were out for american money. why else had the marriage of madame la marquise, miss daisy's elder sister, made itself? miss daisy liked mr. stokes, but he could not give her a title. the duke could--_if_ he would. but would he? she was rich, but there were others richer. people said that he was wary. yet he admired miss daisy, it was true, and if by her flirtation with mr. stokes she could pique him into a proposal, she would have her triumph. this was only one of many dramas going on in the house, but it was the most interesting to me, as to others, and i determined to look with all my might at the duke and at pretty miss nelson, of whom i had only had a glimpse on arriving. if she were really nice, i did hope that bertie wouldn't get her! my costume pressed as weightily on her ladyship's mind, as if i had been a favourite poodle about to be sent, all ribboned and clipped, to a dog show. she did not forget the slippers and stockings, and the chauffeur was ordered to take me into clermont-ferrand to buy them. fortunately she didn't know how much i looked forward to the excursion! at precisely three o'clock i walked out to the castle garage, near the stables, and found jack getting the car ready; but i did not find him alone. the garage is a big and splendid one, and not only were the three household dragons in their stalls, but four or five strange beasts, pets of visitors; and the finest of these (after our blue aigle) was the white majestic of the duc de divonne. that gentleman, whom i recognized easily from a description breathed into my ear by a countess's countess, at luncheon, was in the garage when i arrived, showing off his automobile to miss nelson. the ducal chauffeur lurked in the background, duster in hand, and mr. herbert stokes occupied as large a space as possible in the foreground. nobody deigned to take any open notice of me, though bertie threw me a stealthy smile of recognition, carefully screened from miss nelson, but as the aigle was swallowing a last refreshing draught of petrol, i had time to observe the actors in the little drama whose plot i had already heard. yes, though miss daisy nelson looked even prettier than i thought her last night, i could quite believe the bilious maid's statement that she was _une petite chatte_. her green-gray eyes, very effective under thick masses of auburn hair, were turned up at the outer corners in a fascinating, sly little way; and her cupid-bow lips, which turned down at _their_ corners, were a bit redder than nature's formula ordains. nevertheless i couldn't help liking her, just as one likes a lovely, playful persian kitten which may rub its adorable nose against your hand, or scratch with its naughty claws. and she was enjoying herself so much, the pretty, expensive-looking creature! as pamela would say, it was evident that she was "having the time of her life," revelling in the admiration and rivalry of the two men; delighted with her own power over them, and her importance as a beauty and an heiress, the only unmarried girl in the house party; amusing herself by making one man miserable and the other happy, sending them up and down on a mental sea-saw, by turns. as for the little duc de divonne, his profile is of the roman emperor order, and his eyes like the last coals in a dying fire. i said to myself that, if miss nelson should become a duchess, she would have to pay for some of her girlish antics in pre-duchess days. still, i decided that if i had to choose, it would be the duke before bertie. the girl kept both her men busy, and after the first glance bertie ignored my existence: but the duke, fired by a moment's neglect, flamed out with an inspiration. he "dared" miss nelson to take a lesson from him in driving his car, with no other chaperon than the chauffeur. "all right, i will," said she, "and i bet you i'll be an expert after one trial." "what do you bet?" asked the duke. she smiled flirtatiously in answer and bertie stood forlorn, his nice pink complexion turning an ugly salmon colour. in a minute the white car was off, miss nelson beside the duke, the chauffeur like a small nut in a large shell, lolling in the tonneau. bertie turned to us, and having looked kindly at me, sharply demanded of jack where he was going. "mademoiselle has an errand." "ah! then i'll drive mademoiselle. wish i had a tenner for every time i've driven an aigle! you can sit inside, in case there's work to do." my eyes opened widely, but i said nothing. i glanced at jack, and saw his face harden. "i have been told to drive the car, and it is my duty to drive it unless i receive different orders," said he. "i'm giving you different orders," said bertie. "i take my orders only from the owner of the car." "you're beastly impertinent," snapped bertie, "and i'll report you to sir samuel." "as you choose," returned jack, turning the starting-handle. "why don't you say 'sir' when you speak to me? you don't seem to have trained into chauffeur manners yet." "if i were your chauffeur, you would have the right to criticize. as i'm not, and never will be, you haven't. mademoiselle, the car's ready. will you get in?" i jumped into my usual place, beside the driver's seat. "ah, you sit by the chauffeur, do you?" said bertie. "i don't wonder he wants to keep his job." for an instant i was afraid that jack would strike him. my blood rushed to my head, and i half rose from the seat, with a choked, warning whisper of "jack!" it was the first time i'd called him that, except to myself, and i saw him give the faintest start. he looked at the other man, and then, though bertie stepped quickly forward as if to open the car door and jump in, he sprang to his place, and we were off. "he means mischief," i said, when i felt able to speak. "so do i, if he does," answered jack. "i wish you'd do me a favour," i went on. "keep away from that awful ball to-night." "what! with you there? i know my business better." i couldn't help laughing. "your present business, i believe," said i, "is that of a chauffeur." "with extra duty as watch-dog." "i can't bear to have you see me in the ridiculous get-up lady turnour is making me wear, that's the selfish part of my reason--and--and it will be so _horrid_ for you, in every way." "i'm callous to anything they can do now, except one thing." "what?" "if you don't know already, i mean where you're concerned." "you're very kind to me." "kind? yes, i am very 'kind.' a man has to be abnormally 'kind' to want to look after a girl like you." "how bitterly you speak!" i exclaimed, hardly understanding him. "i feel bitter sometimes. do you wonder? but for heaven's sake, don't let's talk of me. let's talk of something pleasant. would you care to do a little sight-seeing in clermont-ferrand, if your shopping doesn't take us too long?" i assured him that it would not take ten minutes; and it didn't take more. i saved a franc on the transaction, too, which would console her ladyship if i got back a few minutes late; and with that thought in my mind, i abandoned myself to the joy of the expedition. we went to the petrifying fountain, and inspected its strange menagerie of stone animals; we made a dash into the cathedral where st. louis was married, and looked at the beautiful thirteenth-century glass in the windows, and the strange frescoes; we rushed in and out of notre dame du port, stopping on the way in the _place_ where the first crusade was proclaimed, and to gaze at the house and statue of pascal. jack would squander some of his extremely hard earned money on a box of the burnt almonds for which clermont-ferrand is celebrated; and when we had seen everything i dared stop to see, he ran the car to montferrand, to show me some ancient and wonderful houses, famous all over france. eventually he threatened to spin me out to royat, but i pleaded the certainty that lady turnour would wish to change into her smartest tea-gown for "feef oclocky" and that i must be there to assist at the ceremony. so we turned castleward, with all the speed the law allows, if not a little more; and i arrived with a pair of red stockings, cheap high-heeled slippers, a franc in change, and a queer presentiment of dangerous things to happen. chapter xxviii although a good many neighbours were coming to the château de roquemartine to look on at the servants' ball, they were all to drive or motor over in their ordinary dinner dress; it was only the servants themselves who were to "make toilettes." lady turnour, however, who regretted having missed the smart ball for the great world, given a few nights before, determined that people should be forced to appreciate her wealth and position; and the wardrobe of solomon in all his glory could hardly have produced anything to exceed her gold tissue, diamanté. when i had squeezed, and poked, and pushed her into it, and was bejewelling her, sir samuel came, as usual, to have his white cravat tied by me. bertie, too, appeared, dressed for dinner, and watched me with silent amusement as i performed my evening duty for his stepfather. "pretty gorgeous, aren't you?" he remarked to lady turnour; but she was flattered rather than annoyed by the criticism, and sailed away good-natured, leaving me to gather up the few jewels of her collection which she had discarded. lately i had been trusted with her treasures, and felt the responsibility disagreeably, especially as my mistress--when she remembered it--counted everything ostentatiously over, after relieving me of my charge. to-night i had just begun picking up the brooches, bracelets, diamond stars, coronets and bursting suns which illuminated the dressing-table firmament, when bertie walked in again, through the door that he had left ajar. "i came back because my necktie's a failure," said he. "my man must be in love, i should think. probably with you! anyhow, something's the matter; his fingers are all thumbs. but you turned out my old governor rippin'ly. you'll do me, won't you?" as he spoke, he untied his cravat, and produced another. "i'm sorry," i said. "i don't know how to do _that_ kind of tie." "what--what?" he stared. "it's just the same as the governor's--only a little better. come along, there's a dear." he had pushed the door to; now he shut it. i walked to the other end of the room, and began folding a blouse. "you'd better give your valet another trial," i said. "i'm _not_ a valet. i'm lady turnour's maid." "she's in luck to get you." "i'm engaged to wait upon _her_." "you are stiff! you do the governor's tie." "sir samuel's very kind to me." "well, i'll be kind, too. i'd like nothing better. i'll be a lot kinder than he'd dare to be. i say, i've got a present for you--something rippin', that you'll like. you can wear it at the ball to-night, but you'd better not tell anyone who gave it to you--what? you shall have it for tyin' my necktie. now, don't you call that 'kind'?" i stopped folding the blouse, and increased my height by at least an inch. "no," i said, "i call it impertinent, and i shall be obliged if you will leave lady turnour's room. that's the only thing you can do for me." "by jove!" said bertie. "what theatre were you at before you took to lady's maidin'?" to this i deigned no answer. "anyhow, you're a rippin' little actress." silence. "and a pretty girl. as pretty as they make 'em." i invented a new kind of sigh, a cross between a snarl and a moan. "tell me, what's the mystery? there is a mystery about you, you know. not a bit of good tryin' to deceive me.... you might as well own up. i can keep a secret as well as the next one." a tapping of my foot. a slamming of a wardrobe door, which was able to squeak furiously without loss of dignity. "what _were_ you before my lady took you on?... look here, if you don't answer, i shall begin to think the secret's got to do with _those_." and he pointed to the dressing table, where the jewels still lay. he even put out his hand and took up the bursting sun. (how i sympathized with it for bursting!) "worth somethin'--what?" "you can think whatever you like," i flashed at him, "if only you'll go out of this room." "pity your chauffeur isn't at hand for you to run to," bertie half sneered, half laughed, for he was keeping his hateful, teasing good nature. "and by the way, talkin' of him, since you're such a little prude, i'll just warn you in a friendly way to look out for that chap. you don't know his history--what? i'm sure the governor doesn't." "sir samuel knows he can drive, and that he's a _gentleman_," said i, with meaning emphasis. "well, i've warned you," replied bertie, injured. "you may see which one of us is really your friend, before you're out of this galley. but if you want to be a good and happy little girl, you'd best be nice to me. i shall find out all about you, you know." that was his exit speech; and the only way in which i could adequately express my opinion of it was to bang the door on his back. * * * * * the ball was in a huge vault of a room which had once been a granary. the stone floor had been worn smooth by many feet and several centuries, and the blank gray walls were brightened with drapery of flags, yards of coloured cotton, paper flowers and evergreens, arranged with an effect which none save latin hands could have given. dinner above and below stairs was early, and before ten the guests began to assemble in the ballroom. all the servant-world had dined in ball costume, excepting jack and myself, and it was only at the last minute that the cricket hopped upstairs and wriggled into its neatly reduced lobster shell. i had visions of my brother lurking gloomily yet observantly in obscure corners, ready at any moment for a _sortie_ in my defence; but when i sneaked, sidled, and slid into the ballroom, making myself as small as possible that i might pass unobserved in spite of my sensational redness, i had a surprise. near the door stood the chauffeur in evening dress, out-princing and out-duking every prince and duke among the marquise de roquemartine's guests. and i, who hadn't even known that he possessed evening clothes, could not have opened my eyes wider if my knight had appeared in full armour. i had broken the news of the scarlet dress to him, nevertheless i saw it was a shock. to each one, the other was a new person, as we stood and talked together. i said not a word about my scene with bertie, for there was trouble enough between the two already; but when jack told me that, if i were asked to dance by anyone objectionable, i must say i was engaged to him, i knew which one loomed largest and ugliest in his mind. a glance round the big, bright room showed me many strangers. all were servants, however, for the grand people had not yet come down to play their little game of condescension. a band from clermont-ferrand was making music, but the ball was to be opened by the marquise and her guests, who were to honour their servants by dancing the first dance with them. each noble lady was to select a cook, butler, footman, chauffeur, or groom, according to her pleasure; and each noble lord was to lead out the female worm which least displeased his eye. hardly had i time to dive deep into the wave of domesticity, when the great moment arrived, and a spray of aristocracy sprinkled the top of that heavy wave, with the dazzling sparkle of its jewels and its beauty. really it was a pretty sight! i had to admire it; and in watching the play of light and colour i forgot my private worries until i saw bertie bowing before me. the marquise had just honoured her own butler. the marquis was offering his arm to the housekeeper; the duc de divonne had led out miss nelson's bilious maid, appalling in apple-green: miss nelson was returning the compliment by giving her hand to his valet: why should not this young gentleman dance with his step-mother-in-law's maid? there seemed no reason why not, except the maid's disinclination; and sudden side-slip of the brain caused by the glassy impudence in mr. stokes's eye so disturbed my equilibrium that i forgot jack's offer. he did not forget, however--it would hardly have been jack, if he had--but stepped forward to claim me as i began to stammer some excuse. "oh, come, that isn't playin' the game," said bertie. "we're all dancin' with servants this turn. go ask a lady, dane." "i have asked a lady, and she has promised to dance with me," said jack. "miss d'angely--" "oh, that's the lady's name, is it? i'm glad to know," mumbled bertie, as jack whisked me away from under his nose. "by jove, i oughtn't to have let that out, ought i?" said jack, remorseful. "the less he knows about you, the better; and as lady turnour has no idea of pronunciation, if it hadn't been for my stupidity--" "don't call it that," i stopped him, as we began to dance. "it doesn't matter a bit--unless it should occur to the duchesse de melun to ask him questions about me. and i'd rather not think about that possibility, or anything else disagreeable, to spoil this heavenly waltz." "you _can_ dance a little, can't you?" said jack, in a tone and with a look that made the words better than any compliment any other man had ever paid me on my dancing, though i'd been likened to feathers, and vine-tendrils, and various poetically airy things. "you aren't so bad yourself, brother," i retorted, in the same tone. "our steps suit, don't they?" he muttered something, which sounded like "just a little better than anything else on earth, that's all"; but of course it couldn't really have been what my ears tried to make my vanity believe. when we stopped--which we didn't do while there was music to go on with--i was conscious that people were looking at us, and nobody with more interest than the duchesse de melun. i glanced hastily away before my eye had quite caught hers; but no female thing needs to give a whole eye to what is going on around her. i knew, although my back was soon turned in her direction, that the duchesse de melun was talking to lady turnour, and i guessed the subject of the conversation. thank goodness, my mistress's mind had never compassed more than a misleading "elise," and thank goodness, also, many of the great folk were preparing to leave us humble ones to ourselves, now that their condescension had been proved in the first dance. would the duchess go? yes--oh joy!--she gets up from her seat. she moves toward the door. lady turnour has risen too, but sits down again, lured by the proximity of a princess. all will be well, perhaps! the duchess mayn't think of catechizing bertie, now that my mistress has put her off the track. he, with several other young men, evidently means to stop and see the fun out. if only he would sit still, now, beside the marquise! but no. miss nelson and the duc de divonne are going out together. bertie must needs jump up and dash across the room for a word with the girl. discouraged by some laughing answer flung over her shoulder, he almost bumps against the duchess. horror! she speaks to him quite eagerly. she puts a question. he replies. she bends her head near to him. they walk slowly out of the room, talking, talking. all is up with lys d'angely! the next thing that meddlesome matty of a duchess will do, is to wire cousin catherine milvaine. crash! thunder--lightning--hail!--monsieur charretier on my track again. * * * * * i resolved, as i saw myself lying shattered at my own feet, to pick up the bits and say nothing to jack, lest he should blame his own inadvertent dropping of my name for all present and future mischief. being a man, he can see things only with his eyes; and as he happened to be looking at me, he missed the pantomime at the other end of the room. i was looking at him too, but of course that didn't prevent me from seeing other things; and while i was chatting with him, and wondering how long it might be before the thunderbolt (monsieur charretier) should fall, i received another invitation to dance. this time it was from a delightful old boy who looked sixty and felt twenty-one. he was ruddy-brown, with tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. if anyone had told me that he was not an english admiral i should have known it was a fib. "i hope you aren't engaged for this next waltz?" said he. "i should like very much to have it with you." and he spoke as nicely as he would to a young girl of his own world, although he must have heard from someone that i was a lady's maid. i glanced at jack, but evidently he approved of admirals as partners for his sister. he kept himself in the background, smiling benevolently, and i skipped away with my brown old sailor, as the music for the dance began. "heard you spoke english," said he, encircling my directoire waist with the arm of a sea-going hercules, "otherwise i shouldn't have had the courage to come up and speak to you." i laughed. "a dreadnought afraid of a fishing-smack!" "my word, if you were a fishin'-smack, my little friend, you wouldn't lack for fish to catch," chuckled the old gentleman, who was waltzing like an elderly angel--as all sailors do. now, if bertie had said what he said, i should have been offended, but coming from the admiral it cheered me up. "you _are_ an admiral, aren't you?" i was bold enough to ask. "who told you that?" he wanted to know. "my eyes," said i. "they're bright ones," he retorted. "but i suppose i do look an old sea-dog--what? a regular old salt-water dog. but by george, it's hot water i've got into to-night. d'ye see that stout lady we're just passin'?--the one in the red wig and yellow frock covered with paste or diamonds?" (if she could have heard the description! it was lady turnour, in her gold tissue, her bond street jewellery shop, and, my charge, her beautifully undulated, copper-tinted transformation.) "yes, i see her," i said faintly, as we waltzed past; and i wondered why she was glaring. "i suppose you didn't notice me doin' the first dance with her? well, i asked her because they said we'd all got to invite servants to begin with, and as the best were snapped up before i got a chance, i walked over to her like a man. give you my word, where all are dressed like duchesses, i took her for a cook." i laughed so much that i shook my feet out of time with the music. "did you treat her like a cook, too?" i gurgled. "ask her to give you her favourite recipe for soup?" "heaven forbid, no. i treated her like a countess. one would a cook, you know. it was afterward i got into the hot water. i popped her down in a seat when we'd scrambled through a turn or two of the dance, and that was all right; but instead of stoppin' where she was put, she must have stood up with some other poor chap when my back was turned, and been plamped down somewhere else. anyhow, i danced the end of the waltz with the marquise de roquemartine, when she'd finished doin' the polite to the butler, and when we sat down to breathe at last, for the sake of somethin' to say i asked if the fat lady in yellow was her own cook, or a visitor's cook. anyhow, i was certain of the _cook_: fancied myself on spottin' a cook anywhere. well, the marquise giggled 'take care!' and nearly had a fit. and if there wasn't my late partner close to my shoulder. 'that's lady turnour, one of my guests,' said the marquise. little witch, she looked more pleased than shocked; but 'pon my honour, you could have knocked me down with a feather. i hope the good lady didn't hear, but my friends tell me i talk as if i were yellin' through a megaphone, so i'm afraid she got the news." "what did you do?" i gasped. "do? i jumped up as if i'd been shot, and trotted over to ask you to dance. but i expect it will get about." now i knew why lady turnour had glared. poor woman! i was really sorry for her--on this, her happy night! chapter xxix "it never rains, but it pours, after dry weather," says pamela de nesle. and so it was for the turnour family. they had had their run of luck, and everything determinedly went wrong for them that night. for her ladyship, there was the dreadful douche of the admiral's mistake, and the marquise de roquemartine's coming to hear of it. (wicked little witch, i'm sure she couldn't resist telling the story to everyone!) for bertie, the blow of an announcement, before the ball was over, that miss nelson was going to marry the duc de divonne (she went out of the room to get engaged to him). for sir samuel, a telegram from his london solicitors advising him to hurry home and straighten out some annoying business tangle. after all, however, i doubt that the telegram ought to be classed among disasters, as it gave the family a good excuse to escape without delay from the château which they had so much wished to enter. lady turnour had hysterics in her bedroom, having retired early on account of a "headache." she pretended that her rage was caused by a rent in her golden train, made by "that clumsy admiral gray who came over with the frasers, and had the impudence to almost _force_ me to dance with him--gouty old horror!" but i know it was the rent in her vanity, not her dress, which made her gurgle, and wail, and choke, until frightened sir samuel patted her on the back, and she stopped short, to scold him. bertie came in, ostensibly to learn his father's plans, but really, i surmised, to suggest some of his own; and lady turnour relieved her feelings by stirring up evil ones in him. "so sure you were going to get the girl! why, you wrote your stepfather the other day, you were practically engaged," she sneered, delighted that she was not the only one who had suffered humiliations at the castle. "if she hadn't seen you, i believe it would have been all right," growled bertie, vicious as a chained dog who has lost his bone. and then lady turnour had hysterics all over again, and sir samuel told bertie that he was an ungrateful young brute. the three raged together, and i could not go, because i had to hold sal-volatile under her ladyship's nose. lady turnour said that the marquise was no lidy, and for her part she was glad she wasn't going to have that cat of a sister in _her_ family. she'd leave the beastly chattoe that night, if she could; but anyhow, she'd go the first thing in the morning as ever was, so there! people that let their visitors be insulted, and did nothing but laugh!--_she'd_ show them, if they ever came to london, _that_ she would, though she mightn't be a marquise herself, exactly. not one of the lot should ever be invited to her house, not if they were all married to bertie. and who was bertie, anyhow? sir samuel said 'darling' to her, and quite different words that began with "d" to his stepson; and bertie, seeing the error of his ways, apologized humbly. his apologies were eventually accepted; and when he had intimated to her ladyship that she should be introduced to all his "swell friends" in england, it was settled that he should make one of the party in the car, his valet travelling by train. as this arrangement completed itself, mr. bertie suddenly remembered my presence, and flashed me a look of triumph. i, listening silently, had been rejoicing in the development of the situation as far as i was concerned; for the sooner we got away from the château, the less likely was monsieur charretier to succeed in catching us up. but when i heard that we were to have bertie with us, my heart sank, especially as his look told me that i counted for something in his plan. the chauffeur counted for something, too, i feared. in any case, the rest of the tour was spoiled, and if it hadn't been for the thought that when it was over, jack and i might meet no more, i should have wished it cut short. good-byes were perfunctory in the morning, and nobody seemed heartbroken at parting from the turnour family. the big luggage, packed early and in haste, was sent on to paris; and when the chauffeur had disposed of bertie's additions to the aigle's load, hostilities began. "put down that seat for me," said mr. stokes to mr. dane, indicating one of the folding chairs in the glass cage, and carefully waiting to do so until i was within eye and earshot. they glared at each other like two tigers, for an instant, and then jack put the seat down--i knew why. a refusal on his part to do such a service for his master's stepson would mean that he must resign or be discharged--and leave me to deal unaided with a cad. i think bertie knew, too, why he was unhesitatingly obeyed; and racked his brain for further tests. it was not long before he had a brilliant idea. the car stopped at a level crossing, to let a train go by, and bertie availed himself of the opportunity to get out. "sir samuel's going' to let me try my hand at drivin'," said he. "i don't think much of your form, and i've been tellin' him so. my best pal is a director of the aigle company, and i've driven his car a lot of times. her ladyship will let elise sit inside, and i'll watch your style a bit before i take the wheel." not a word said jack. he didn't even look at me as he helped me down from the seat which had been mine for so many happy days. i crept miserably into the stuffy glass cage, where, in the folding chair, i sat as far forward as my own shape and the car's allowed; sir samuel's fat knees in my back, lady turnour's sharp voice in my ears. and for scenery, i had bertie's aggressive shoulders and supercilious gesticulations. the road to nevers i scarcely saw. i think it was flat; but bertie's driving made it play cup and ball with the car in a curious way, which a good chauffeur could hardly have managed if he tried. we passed riom, gannat, aigueperse, i know; and at moulins, in the valley of the allier, we lunched in a hurry. to nevers we came early, but it was there we were to stop for the night, and there we did stop, in a drizzle of rain which prevented sight-seeing for those who had the wish, and the freedom, to go about. as for me, i was ordered by lady turnour to mend mr. stokes's socks, he having made peace by offering to "give her a swagger dinner in town." bertie's cleverness was not confined to ingratiating himself with her ladyship. he contrived adroitly to damage the steering-gear by grazing a wall as he turned the aigle into the hotel courtyard, and by this feat disposed of the chauffeur's evening, which was spent in hard work at the garage. such dinner as jack got, he ate there, in the shape of a furtive sandwich or two, otherwise we should not have been able to leave in the morning at the early hour suggested by mr. stokes. warned by the incidents of yesterday, sir samuel desired his chauffeur to take the wheel again from nevers to paris. but--no doubt with the view of keeping us apart, and devising new tortures for his enemy--bertie elected to play wolf to jack's spartan boy, and sit beside him. this relegated me to the cage again, with back-massage from sir samuel's knees. before fontainebleau, i found myself in a familiar land. as far as montargis i had motored with the milvaines more than once, conducted by monsieur charretier, in a great car which might have been mine if i had accepted it, not "with a pound of tea," but with two hundred pounds of millionaire. i knew the lovely valley of the loing, and the forest which makes the world green and shadowy from bourrau to fontainebleau, a world where poetry and history clasp hands. i should have had plenty to say about it all to jack, if we had been together, but i was still inside the car, and by this time bertie had induced his stepfather to consent to his driving again. he pleaded that there had been something wrong with the ignition yesterday. that was why the car had not gone well. it had not been his fault at all. sir samuel, always inclined to say "yes" rather than "no" to one he loved, said "yes" to bertie, and had cause to regret it. close to fontainebleau mr. stokes saw another car, with a pretty girl in it. the car was going faster than ours, as it was higher powered and had a lighter load. naturally, being himself, it occurred to bertie that it would be well to show the pretty girl what he could do. we were going up hill, as it happened, and he changed speed with a quick, fierce crash. the aigle made a sound as if she were gritting her teeth, shivered, and began to run back. bertie, losing his head, tried a lower speed, which had no effect, and lady turnour had begun to shriek when jack leaned across and put on the hand-brake. the car stopped, just in time not to run down a pony cart full of children. no wonder the poor dear aigle had gritted her teeth! several of them turned out to be broken in the gear box. "we're done!" said jack. "she'll have to be towed to the nearest garage. pity we couldn't have got on to paris." "can't you put in some false teeth?" suggested lady turnour, at which bertie laughed, and was thereupon reproached for the accident, as he well deserved to be. then the question was what should be the next step for the passengers. i expected to be trotted reluctantly on to paris by train, leaving jack behind to find a "tow," and see the dilemma through to an end of some sort, but to my joyful surprise bertie used all his wiles upon the family to induce them to stop at fontainebleau. it was a beautiful place, he argued, and they would like it so much, that they would come to think the breakdown a blessing in disguise. in any case, he had intended advising them to pause for tea, and to stay the night if they cared for the place. they would find a good hotel, practically in the forest; and he had an acquaintance who owned a château near by, a very important sort of chap, who knew everybody worth knowing in french society. if the governor and "lady t." liked, he would go dig his friend up, and bring him round to call. maybe they'd all be invited to the château for dinner. the man had a lot of motors and would send one for them, very likely--perhaps would even lend a car to take them on to paris to-morrow morning. i listened to these arguments and suggestions with a creepy feeling in the roots of my hair, for i, too, have an "acquaintance" who owns a château near fontainebleau: a certain monsieur charretier. he, also, has a "lot of motors" and would, i knew, if he were "in residence" be delighted to lend a car and extend an invitation to dinner, if informed that lys d'angely was of the party. could it be, i thought, that mr. stokes was acquainted with monsieur charretier, or that, not being acquainted, he had heard something from the duchesse de melun, and was making a little experiment with me? perhaps i imagined it, but it seemed that he glanced my way triumphantly, when lady turnour agreed to stay in the hope of meeting the nameless, but important, friend; and i felt that, whatever happened, i must have a word of advice from jack. the discussion had taken place in the road, or rather, at the side of the road, where the combined exertions of jack and bertie had pushed the wounded aigle. the chauffeur, having examined the car and pronounced her helpless, walked back to interview a carter we had passed not long before, with the view of procuring a tow. now, just as the discussion was decided in favour of stopping over night at fontainebleau, he appeared again, in the cart. we were so near the hotel in the woods that we could be towed there in half an hour, and, ignominious as the situation was, lady turnour preferred it to the greater evil of walking. i remained in the car with her, the chauffeur steered, the carter towed, and sir samuel and his stepson started on in advance, on foot. at the hotel jack was to leave us, and be towed to a garage; but, in desperation, i murmured an appeal as he gave me an armful of rugs. "i _must_ ask you about something," i whispered. "can you come back in a little less than an hour, and look for me in the woods, somewhere just out of sight of the hotel?" "yes," he said. "i can and will. you may depend on me." that was all, but i was comforted, and the rugs became suddenly light. rooms were secured, great stress being laid upon a good sitting-room (in case the important friend should call), and i unpacked as usual. when my work was done, i asked her ladyship's permission to go out for a little while. she looked suspicious, clawed her brains for an excuse to refuse, but, as there wasn't a buttonless glove, or a holey stocking among the party, she reluctantly gave me leave. i darted away, plunged into the forest, and did not stop walking until i had got well out of sight of the hotel. then i sat down on a mossy log under a great tree, and looked about for jack. a man was coming. i jumped up eagerly, and went to meet him as he appeared among the trees. it was mr. herbert stokes. chapter xxx "i followed you," he said. "i thought so," said i. "it was like you." "i want to talk to you," he explained. "but i don't want to talk to you," i objected. "you'll be sorry if you're rude. what i came to say is for your own good." "i doubt that!" said i, looking anxiously down one avenue of trees after another, for a figure that would have been doubly welcome now. "well, i can easily prove it, if you'll listen." "as you have longer legs than i have, i am obliged to listen." "you won't regret it. now, come, my dear little girl, don't put on any more frills with me. i'm gettin' a bit fed up with 'em." (i should have liked to choke him with a whole mouthful of "frills," the paper kind you put on ham at christmas; but as i had none handy, i thought it would only lead to undignified controversy to allude to them.) "i had a little conversation about you with the duchesse de melun night before last," bertie went on, with evident relish. "ah, i thought that would make you blush. i say, you're prettier than ever when you do that! it was she began it. she asked me if i knew your name, and how lady t. found you. her ladyship couldn't get any further than 'elise,' for, if she knew any more, she'd forgotten it; but thanks to your friend the shuvver, i could go one better. when i told the duchess you called yourself d'angely, or something like that, she said 'i was sure of it!' now, i expect you begin to smell a rat--what?" "i daresay you've been carrying one about in your pocket ever since," i snapped, "though i can't think what it has to do with me. i'm not interested in dead rats." "this is your own rat," said bertie, grinning. "what'll you give to know what the duchess told me about you?" "nothing," i said. "well, then, i'll be generous and let you have it for nothing. she told me she thought she recognized you, but until she heard the name, she supposed she must be mistaken; that it was only a remarkable resemblance between my stepmother's maid and a girl who'd run away under very peculiar circumstances from the house of a friend of hers. what do you think of that?" "that the duchess is a cat," i replied, promptly. "most women are." "in _your_ set, perhaps." "she said there was a man mixed up with the story, a rich middle-aged chap of the name of charretier, with a big house in paris and a new château he'd built, near fontainebleau. she gave me a card to him." "he's sure not to be at home," i remarked. bertie's face fell; but he brightened again. "anyhow you admit you know him." "one has all sorts of acquaintances," i drawled, with a shrug of my shoulders. "you're a sly little kitten--if you're not a cat. you heard me say i thought of calling at the château." "and you heard me say the owner wasn't at home." "you seem well acquainted with his movements." "i happened to see him, on his way south, at avignon, some days ago." "did he see you?" "isn't that my affair--and his?" "by jove--you've got good cheek, to talk like this to your mistress's stepson! but maybe you think you won't have difficulty in finding a place that pays you better--what?" "i couldn't find one to pay me much worse." "look here, my dear, i'm not out huntin' for repartee. i want to have an understanding with you." "i don't see why." "yes, you do, well enough. you know i like you--in spite of your impudence." "and i dislike you because of yours. oh, do go away and leave me, mr. stokes." "i won't. i've got a lot to say to you. i've only just begun, but you keep interruptin' me, and i can't get ahead." "finish then." "well, what i want to say is this. i always meant we should stop at fontainebleau." "oh--you damaged your stepfather's car on purpose! he would be obliged to you." "not quite that. i intended to get them to have tea here, and while they were moonin' about i was going to have a chat with you. i was goin' to tell you about that card to charretier, and somethin' else. that the duchess asked me where we would stop in paris, and i told her at the best there is, of course--hotel athenée. she said she'd wire her friends you'd run away from, that they could find you there; and if charretier wasn't at fontainebleau when we passed through, these people would certainly know where to get at him. i warned you the other night, didn't i? that if you wouldn't be good and confide in me i'd find out what you refused to tell me yourself; and i have, you see. clever, aren't i?" "you're the hatefullest man i ever _heard_ of!" i flung at him. "oh, i say! don't speak too soon. you don't know all yet. if you don't want me to, i won't call on charretier. lady t. and her tuft-huntin' can go hang! and you shan't stop at the athenée to be copped by the duchess's friends, if you don't like. that's what i wanted to see you about. to tell you it all depends on yourself." "how does it depend on myself?" i asked, cautiously. "all you have to do, to get off scot free is to be a little kind to poor bertie. you can begin by givin' him a kiss, here in the poetic and what-you-may-call-'em forest of fontainebleau." "i wouldn't kiss you if you were made of gold and diamonds, and i could have you melted down to spend!" i exclaimed. and as i delivered this ultimatum, i turned to run. his legs might be longer than mine, but i weighed about one-third as much as he, which was in my favour if i chose to throw dignity to the winds. as i whisked away from him, he caught me by the dress, and i heard the gathers rip. i had to stop. i couldn't arrive at the hotel without a skirt. "you're a cad--a _cad_!" i stammered. "and you're a fool. look here, i can lose you your job and have you sent to the prison where naughty girls go. see what i've got in my pocket." still grasping my frock, he scooped something out of an inner pocket of his coat, and held it for me to look at, in the hollow of his palm. i gave a little cry. it was lady turnour's gorgeous bursting sun. "i nicked that off the dressin' table the other night, when you weren't looking. has lady t. been askin' for it?" "no," i answered, speaking more to myself than to him. "she--she's had too much to think of. she didn't count her things that night; and at nevers she didn't open the bag." "so much the worse for you, my pet, when she does find out. she left her jewels in your charge. when i came into the room, they were all lyin' about on the dressin' table, and you were playin' with 'em." "i was putting them back into her bag." "so you say. jolly careless of you not to know you hadn't put this thing back. it's about the best of the lot she hadn't got plastered on for the servants' ball." "it was careless," i admitted. "but it was your fault. you came in, and were so horrid, and upset me so much that i forgot what i'd put into the bag already, and what i hadn't." "lady t. doesn't know i went back to her room." "i'll tell her!" i cried. "i'll bet you'll tell her, right enough. but i can tell a different story. i'll say i didn't go near the room. my story will be that i was walkin' through the woods this afternoon on my way to charretier's château when i saw you with the thing in your hands, lookin' at it. probably goin' to ask the shuvver to dispose of it for you--what? and share profits." "oh, you coward!" i exclaimed, and snatched the diamond brooch from him. instantly he let go my dress, laughing. "_that's_ right! that's what i wanted," he said. "now you've got it, and you can keep it. i'll tell lady t. where to look for it--unless you'll change your mind, and give me that kiss." i was so angry, so stricken with horror and a kind of nightmare fear which i had not time to analyze, that i stood silent, trembling all over, with the brooch in my hand. how silly i had been to play his game for him, just like the poor stupid cat who pulled the hot chestnut out of the fire! i don't think any chestnut could ever have been as hot as that bursting sun! i wanted to drop it in the grass, or throw it as far as i could see it, but dared not, because it would be my fault that it was lost, and lady turnour would believe bertie's story all the more readily. she would think he had seen me with the jewel, and that i'd hidden it because i was afraid of what he might do. "to kiss, or not to kiss. _that's_ the question," laughed bertie. "is it?" said jack. and jack's hand, inside mr. stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like a large, boiled beetroot. i had seen jack coming, long enough to have counted ten before he came. but i didn't count ten. i just let him come. bertie could not speak: he could only gurgle. and if i had been a roman lady in the amphitheatre of nîmes, or somewhere, i'm afraid i should have wanted to turn my thumb down. "what was the beast threatening you with?" jack wanted to know. "the beast was threatening to make lady turnour think i'd stolen this brooch, which he'd taken himself," i panted, through the beatings of my heart. "if you didn't kiss him?" "yes. and he was going to do lots of other horrid things, too. tell monsieur charretier--and let my cousins come and find me at the hotel athenée, in paris, and--" "he won't do any of them. but there are several things i am going to do to him. go away, my child. run off to the house, as quick as you can." i gasped. "what are you going to do to him?" "don't worry. i shan't hurt him nearly as much as he deserves. i'm only going to do what the head must have neglected to do to him at school." [illustration: "_jack's hand, inside mr. stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets_"] bertie had come out into the woods with a neat little stick, which during part of our conversation he had tucked jauntily under his arm. it now lay on the ground. i saw jack glance at it. "ah!"--i faltered. "do--do you think you'd _better_?" "i know i had. go, child." i went. i had great faith in jack, faith that he knew what was best for everyone. chapter xxxi unfortunately i forgot to ask for instructions as to how i should behave when i came to the hotel. and i had the bursting sun still in my hand. i thought things over, as well as i could with a pounding pulse for every square inch in my body. if i were a rabbit, i could scurry into my hole and "lay low" while other people fought out their destiny and arranged mine; but being a girl, tingling with my share of american pluck, and blazing with french fire, rabbits seemed to me at the instant only worthy of being made into pie. bertie, at this moment, was being made into pie--humble pie; and i don't doubt that the chauffeur, whom he had consistently tortured (because of me) would make him eat a large slice of himself when the humble pie was finished--also because of me. and because it was because of me, i knocked at the turnours' sitting-room door with a bold, brave knock, as if i thought myself their social equal. they had had tea, and were sitting about, looking graceful in the expectation of seeing bertie and his french friend. it was a disappointment to her ladyship to see only me, and she showed it with a frown, but sir samuel looked up kindly, as usual. i laid the bursting sun on the table, and told them everything, very fast, without pausing to take breath, so that they wouldn't have time to stop me. but i didn't begin with the bursting sun, or even with the beating that bertie was enjoying in the woods; i began with the princess boriskoff, and lady kilmarny; and i addressed sir samuel, from beginning to end. somehow, i felt i had his sympathy, even when i rushed at the most embarrassing part, which concerned his stepson and the necktie. just as i'd told about the brooch, and bertie's threat, and was coming to his punishment, another knock at the door produced the two young men, both pale, but jack with a noble pallor, while bertie's was the sick paleness of pain and shame. "i've brought him to apologize to miss d'angely, in your presence, sir samuel, and lady turnour's," said the chauffeur. "i see you know something of the story." "they know all now," said i. for bertie's face proved the truth of my words, if they had needed proof. his eyes were swimming in tears, and he looked like a whipped school-boy. but suddenly a whim roused her ladyship to speak up in his defence--or at least to criticize the chauffeur for presuming to take her stepson's chastisement into his hands. "what right have you to set yourself up as elise's champion, anyway?" she demanded, shrilly. "have you and she been getting engaged to each other behind our backs?" "it would be my highest happiness to be engaged to miss d'angely if she would marry me," said jack, with such a splendidly sincere ring in his voice that i could almost have believed him if i hadn't known he was in love with another woman. "but i am no match for her. it's only as her friend that i have acted in her defence, as any decent man has a right to act when a lady is insulted." then bertie apologized, in a dull voice, with his eyes on the ground, and mumbled a kind of confession, mixed with self-justification. he had pocketed the brooch, yes, meaning to play a trick, but had intended no harm, only a little fun--pretty girl--lady's-maids didn't usually mind a bit of a flirtation and a present or two; how was he to know this one was different? sorry if he had caused annoyance; could say no more--and so on, and so on, until i stopped him, having heard enough. poor sir samuel was crestfallen, but not too utterly crushed to reproach his bride with unwonted sharpness, when she would have scolded me for carelessness in not putting the brooch away. "let the girl alone!" he grumbled, "she's a very good girl, and has behaved well. i wish i could say the same of others nearer to me." "of course, sir samuel, after what's happened, you wouldn't want me to stay in your employ, any more than i would want to stay," said jack. "unfortunately the aigle will be hung up two or three days, till new pinions can be fitted in, at the garage. i can send them out from paris, if you like; but no doubt you'll prefer to have my engagement with you to come to an end to-day. mr. stokes has driven the car, and can again." "not if i have anything to say about it," murmured her ladyship. "scattering the poor thing's teeth all over the place!" "there are plenty of good chauffeurs to be got at short notice in paris," jack suggested, "and you are certain to find one by the time you're ready to start." "you're right, dane. we'll have to part company," said sir samuel. "as for elise here--" "she'll have to go too," broke in her ladyship. "it's most inconvenient, and all your stepson's fault--though she's far from blameless, in my humble opinion, whatever yours may be. don't tell me that a young man will go about flirting with lady's maids unless they encourage him!" "i shall leave of course, immediately," said i, my ears tingling. "who wants you to do anything else? though nobody cares for _my_ convenience. _i_ can always go to the wall. but thank heaven there are maids in paris as well as chauffeurs. and talking of that combination, my advice to you is, if dane's willing to have you, don't turn up your nose at him, but marry him as quickly as you can. i suppose even in your class of life there's such a thing as _gossip_." i was scarlet. somehow i got out of the room, and while i was scurrying my few belongings into my dressing bag, and spreading out the red satin frock to leave as a legacy to lady turnour (in any case, nothing could have induced me to wear it again), sir samuel sent me up an envelope containing a month's wages, and something over. i enclosed the "something over" in another envelope, with a grateful line of refusal, and sent it back. thus ends my experience as a motor maid! * * * * * what was going to become of me i didn't know, but while i was jamming in hatpins and praying for ideas, there came a knock at the door. a pencilled note from the late chauffeur, signed hastily, "yours ever, j.d.," and inviting me down to the couriers' dining-room for a conference. there would be no one there but ourselves at this hour, he said, and we should be able to talk over our plans in peace. what a place to say farewell forever to the only man i ever had, could or would love--a couriers' dining room, with grease spots on the tablecloth! however, there was no help for it, since i was facing the world with fifty francs, and could not afford to pay for a romantic background. after all that had happened, and especially after certain impertinent references made to our private affairs, i felt a new and very embarrassing shyness in meeting the man with whom i'd been playing that pleasant little game called "brother and sister." he was waiting for me in the couriers' room, which was even dingier and had more grease spots than i had fancied, and i hurried into speech to cover my nervousness. "i don't know how i'm going to thank you for all you've done for me," i stammered. "that horrible bertie--" "let's not talk of him," said jack. "put him out of your mind for ever. he has no place there, or in your life--and no more have any of the incidents that led up to him. you've had a very bad time of it, poor little girl, and now--" "oh, i haven't," i exclaimed. "i've been happier than ever before in my life. that is--i--it was all so novel, and like a play--" "well, now the play's over," jack broke in, pitying my evident embarrassment. "i wanted to ask you if you'd let me advise and perhaps help you. we _have_ been brother and sister, you know. nothing can take that away from us." "no," said i, in a queer little voice. "nothing can." "you want to go to england, i know," he went on. "and--if you'll forgive my taking liberties, you haven't much money in hand, you've almost told me. i suppose you haven't changed your mind about your relations in paris? you wouldn't like to go back to them, or write, and tell them firmly that you won't marry the person they seem to have set their hearts on for you? that you've made your own choice, and intend to abide by it; but that if they'll be sensible and receive you, you're willing to stop with them until--until the man in england--" "_what_ man in england?" i cut him short, in utter bewilderment. "why, the--er--you didn't tell me his name, of course, but that rich chap you expected to meet when you got over to england. don't you think it would be better if he came to you at your cousins', if they--" "there _isn't_ any 'rich chap'," i exclaimed. "i don't know what you mean--oh, _yes_, i do, too. i did speak about someone who was very rich, and would be kind to me. i rather think--i remember now--i _guessed_ you imagined it was a man; but that seemed the greatest joke, so i didn't try to undeceive you. fancy your believing that, all this time, though, and thinking about it!" "i've thought of it on an average once every three minutes," said jack. "you're chaffing now, of course. why, the person i hoped might be kind to me in england is an old lady--oh, but such a funny old lady!--who wanted me to be her companion, and said, no matter when i came, if it were years from now, i must let her know, for she would like to have me with her to help chase away a dragon of a maid she's afraid of. i met her only once, in the train the night before i arrived at cannes; but she and i got to be the greatest friends, and her bulldog, beau--." "her bulldog, beau!" "a perfect lamb, though he looks like a cross between a crocodile and a gnome. the old lady's name is miss paget--" "my aunt!" i stared at jack, not knowing how to take this exclamation. the few englishmen i met when mamma and i were together, or when i lived with the milvaines, were rather fond of using that ejaculation when it was apparently quite irrelevant. if you told a youthful englishman that you were not allowed to walk or bicycle alone in the bois, he was as likely as not to say "my aunt!" in fact, whatever surprised him was apt to elicit this cry. i have known several young men who gave vent to it at intervals of from half to three-quarters of an hour; but i had never before heard jack make the exclamation, so when i had looked at him and he had looked at me in an emotional kind of silence for a few seconds, i asked him, "why 'my aunt'?" "because she is my aunt." "surely not my miss paget?" "i should think it highly improbable that your miss paget and my miss paget could be the same, if you hadn't mentioned her bulldog, beau. there can't be a quantity of miss pagets going about the world with bulldogs named beau. only my miss paget never does go about the world. she hates travelling." "so does mine. she said that being in a train was no pursuit for a gentlewoman." "that sounds like her. she's quite mad." "she seemed very kind." "i'm glad she did--to you. she has seemed rather the contrary to me." "oh, what did she do to you?" "did her best to spoil my life, that's all--with the best intentions, no doubt. still, by jove, i thank her! if it hadn't been for my aunt i should never have seen--my sister." "thank you. you're always kind--and polite. do you mean it was because of _her_ you took to what you call 'shuvving'?" "exactly." "but i thought--i thought--" "what?" "i--don't dare tell you." "i should think you might know by this time that you can tell me anything. you _must_ tell me!" "i thought it was the beautiful lady who was with you the first time you saw the battlement garden at beaucaire, who ruined your life?" "beautiful lady--battlement garden? good heavens, what extraordinary things we seem to have been thinking about each other: i with my man in england; you with your beautiful lady--" "she's a different thing. you _talked_ to me about her," i insisted. "surely you must remember?" "i remember the conversation perfectly. i didn't explain my meaning as a professor demonstrates a rule in higher mathematics, but i thought you couldn't help understanding well enough, especially a vain little thing like you." "i, vain? oh!" "you are, aren't you?" "i--well, i'm afraid i am, a little." "you could never have looked in the glass if you weren't. didn't you see, or guess, that i was talking about an ideal whom i had conjured into being, as a desirable companion in that garden? i can't understand from the way the conversation ran, how you could have helped it. when i first went to the battlement garden i was several years younger, steeped with the spirit of provence and full of thoughts of nicolete. i was just sentimental enough to imagine that such a girl as nicolete was with me there, and always afterward i associated the vision of the ideal with that garden. i said to myself, that i should like to come there again with that ideal in the flesh. and then--then i did come again--with you." "but you said--you thought of her always--that because you couldn't have her--or something of the sort--" "well, all that was no surprise to you, was it? you must have known perfectly well--ever since that night at avignon when you let your hair down, anyhow, if not before, that i was trying desperately hard not to be an idiot about you--and not exactly radiant with joy in the thought that whoever the man was who would get you, it couldn't be i?" "o-oh!" i breathed a long, heavenly breath, that seemed to let all the sorrows and worries pour out of my heart, as the air rushed out of my lungs. "o-oh, you _can't_ mean, truly and really, that you're in love with me, can you?" "surely it isn't news to you." "i should think it was!" i exclaimed, rapturously. "oh, i'm so happy!" "another scalp--though a humble one?" "don't be a beast. i'm so horribly in love with you, you know. it's been hurting so _dreadfully_." then i rather think he said "my darling!" but i'm not quite sure, for i was so busy falling into his arms, and he was holding me so very, very tightly. we stayed like that for a long time, not saying anything, and not even thinking, but feeling--feeling. and the couriers' dining-room was a princess's boudoir in an enchanted palace. the grease spots were stars and moons that had rolled out of heaven to see how two poor mortals looked when they were perfectly happy. just a poor chauffeur and a motor maid: but the world was theirs. chapter xxxii after a while we talked again, and explained all the cross-purposes to each other, with the most interesting pauses in between the explanations. and jack told me about himself, and miss paget. it seems that her only sister was his mother, and she had been in love with his father before he met the sister. the father's name was claud, and jack was named after him. it was miss paget's favourite name, because of the man she had loved. but the first claud wasn't very lucky. he lost all his own money and most of his wife's, and died in south america, where he'd gone in the hope of making more. then the wife, jack's mother, died too, while he was at eton. after that miss paget's house was his home. whenever he was extravagant at oxford, as he was sometimes, she would pay his debts quite happily, and tell him that everything she had would be his some day, so he was not to bother about money. accordingly, he didn't bother, but lived rather a lazy life--so he said--and enjoyed himself. a couple of years before i met him he got interested, through a friend, in a newly invented motor, which they both thought would be a wonderful success. jack tried to get his aunt interested, too, but she didn't like the friend who had invented it--seemed jealous of jack's affection for him--and refused to have anything to do with the affair. jack had gone so far, however, while taking her consent for granted, that he felt bound to go on; and when miss paget would have nothing to do with floating the new invention, jack sold out the investments of his own little fortune (all that was left of his mother's money), putting everything at his friend's disposal. miss paget was disgusted with him for doing this, and when the motor wouldn't mote and the invention wouldn't float, she just said, "i told you so!" it was at this time, jack went on to tell me, that miss paget bought beau. she had had another dog, given her by jack, which died, and she collected beau herself. only a few days after beau's arrival, jack went down into the country to see his aunt and talk things over; for she had brought him up to expect to be her heir; and as she wanted him with her continually, as if he had been her son, she had objected to his taking up any profession. now that he'd lost his own money in this unfortunate speculation, he felt he ought to do something not to be dependent upon her, his income of two hundred a year having been sunk with the unfloatable motor invention. he meant to ask miss paget to lend him enough to go in as partner with another friend, who had a very thriving motor business, and to suggest paying her back so much a year. but everything was against him on that visit to his aunt's country house. in the first place, she was in a very bad humour with him, because he had gone against her wishes, and she didn't want to hear anything more about motors or motor business. then, there was beau, as a _tertium quid_. beau had been bought from a dreadful man who had probably stolen, and certainly ill-treated him. the dog was very young, and owing to his late owner's cruelty, feared and hated the sight of a man. since she had had him miss paget had done her very best to spoil the poor animal, encouraging him to growl at the men-servants, and laughing when he frightened away any male creature who had come about the place. while she and jack were arguing over money and motors, who should stroll in but beau, who at sight of a stranger--a man--closeted with his indulgent mistress, flew into a rage. he seized jack by the trouser-leg and began to worry it, and jack had to choke him before the dog would let go his grip. the sight of this dreadful deed threw miss paget into hysterics. she shrieked that her nephew was cruel, ungrateful--that he had never loved her, that he cared only for her money, and now that he grudged her the affection of a dog with which _he_ had had nothing to do; that the dog's dislike for him was a warning to her, and made her see him in his true light at last. "go--go--out of my sight--or i'll set my poor darling at you!" she cried, and jack went, after saying several rather frank things. at heart he was fond of his aunt, in spite of her eccentricities, and believed that she was of him, therefore he expected a letter of apology for her injustice and a request to come back. but no such letter ever arrived. perhaps miss paget thought it was _his_ place to apologize, and was waiting for him to do so. in any case, they had never seen each other again; and after a few weeks, jack received a formal note from his aunt's solicitor saying that, as she realized now he had "no real affection for her or _hers_" he need look for no future advantages from her, but was at liberty to take up any line of business he chose. miss paget would "no longer attempt to interfere with his wishes or direct his affairs." this must have been a pleasant letter for a penniless young man, just robbed of all his future prospects. his own money gone, and no hope of any to put into a profession or business! jack lived as he could for some months, trying for all sorts of positions, making a few guineas by sketches and motoring articles for newspapers, and somehow contriving to keep out of debt. he went to france to "write up" a great automobile race, as a special commission; but the paper which had given the commission--a new one devoted to the interests of motoring--suddenly failed. jack found himself stranded; advertised for a position as chauffeur, and got it. there was the history which he "hadn't inflicted on me before, lest i should be bored." he was interested to hear of miss paget's journey to italy, and knew all about the cousin who had died, leaving her money which she didn't need, and a castle in italy which she didn't want. he laughed when i told him how the redoubtable simpkins refused to trust herself upon that "great nasty wet thing," which was the channel: but nothing could hold his attention firmly except _our_ affairs. for his affairs and my affairs were not separate any longer. they were joined together for weal or woe. whatever happened, however imprudent the step might be, he decided that we must be married. we loved each other; each was the other's world, and nothing must part us. besides, said jack, i needed a protector. i had no home, and he could not have me persecuted by creatures who produced corn plasters. his idea was to take me to england at once, and have me there promptly made mrs. john dane, by special licence. he had a few pounds, and a few things which he could sell would bring in a few more. then, with me for an incentive, he should get something to do that was worth doing. i said "yes" to everything, and jack darted away to converse with a nice man he had met in the garage, who had a motor, and was going to paris almost immediately. if he had not gone yet, perhaps he would take us. luckily he had not gone, and he did take us. he took us to the gare du nord, where we would just have time to eat something, and catch the boat train for calais. we should be in london in the morning, and jack would apply for a special licence as early as possible. i stood guarding our humble heap of luggage, while jack spent his hard-earned sovereigns for our tickets, when suddenly i heard a voice which sounded vaguely familiar. it was broken with distress and excitement; still i felt sure i had heard it before, and turned quickly, exclaiming "miss paget!" there she was, with a dressing bag in one hand, and a broken dog-leash in the other. tears were running down her fat face (not so fat as it had been) under spectacles, and her false front was put on anyhow. "oh, my dear girl!" she wailed, without showing the slightest sign of astonishment at sight of me. "what a mercy you've turned up, but it's just like you. have you seen my beau anywhere?" "no," i said, rather stiffly, for i couldn't forgive her or her dog for their treatment of my jack. "oh, dear, what shall i do!" she exclaimed. "he hates railway stations. you can't think the awful time we've had since you left me in the train at cannes. and now he's broken his leash, and run away, and i can't speak any french, except to ask for hot water in italian, and i don't see how i'm going to find my darling again. they'll snatch him up, to fling him into some terrible, murderous waggon, and take him to a lethal home, or whatever they call it. for heaven's sake, go and ask everybody where he is--and if you find him you can have anything on earth i've got, especially my italian castle which i can't sell. you can come to england with me and beau, when you've got him, and i'll make you happy all the rest of your life. oh, go--_do_ go. i'll look after your luggage." "it's half your own nephew's, jack dane's, luggage," said i, breathless and pulsing. "i'm going to england with him, and _he's_ going to make me happy all the rest of my life, for we mean to be married, in spite of your cruelty which has made him poor, and turned him into a chauffeur. but--here he comes now. and--why, miss paget, there's _beau_ walking with him, without any leash. beau must remember him." "beau with jack dane!" gasped the old lady. "jack dane's found beau? _beau's_ forgiven him! then so will i. you can both have the italian castle--and everything that goes with it. and everything else that's mine, too, except beau." "hello, aunt, here's your dog," said jack. beau licked his foot. * * * * * transcriber's note: in converting this book the following evident typographical errors were corrected, causing differences from the original: p. 65, correct spelling of "gaspard de besse"; p. 79, correct accent in "hyères"; p. 102, correct spelling of "le buisson ardent"; p. 140, insert t in "at first"; p. 291, change "be began" to "he began." [illustration: cover of the western story library no. 41, ted strong's motor car, by edward c. taylor] ted strong's motor car or, fast and furious by edward c. taylor author of the ted strong stories 1915 ted strong's motor car chapter 1. talking about smart hogs! carl schwartz burst into the living room of the moon valley ranch house with fire in his eye and pathos in his voice: "as sheur as i standing here am, dot schwein i'm going to kill!"' "i'll jest bet yer a million dollars ter a piece o' custard pie yer don't," said bud morgan, rising from the lounge where he had been resting after a strenuous day in the big pasture. "i'll pet you," shouted carl. "der pig pelongs mit me der same as you." "go ahead, then," said bud, lying down again. "but i want ter tell yer this, and take it from me, it's ez straight ez an injun's hair, yer kin kill yer own part o' thet hawg if yer want ter, but if my part dies i'll wallop yer plenty. i've spent too much time teachin' thet pig tricks ter lose it now." "vich part der pig you own, anyvay?" "ther best part; ther head." "den i dake der tail. by chiminy, i get skvare yet so soon. i cut der tail off, und dot vill make der pig not able to valk straight ven he can't der tail curl in der opposite direction. den ve see how mooch der tricks he done. vat?" "i'll hev ther law on yer if yer interfere with thet pig." "what's the matter with you two fellows?" asked ted strong, the leader of the broncho boys, who was writing some letters at the big oak table in the center of the room. "der pig, he moost die," cried carl tragically. "why, what has 'oof' done now?" "he has ate all mein gabbages," answered carl, with almost a sob. "well, s'posin' he hez," said bud. "what in thunder is cabbages fer, if they ain't ter be et by pigs?" "yes, you, but not fer dose kind of pig. maybe you might eat dem und it vould be all right, but not der pig mit four feet." carl had a small garden back of the ranch house, in which he had been raising cabbages, devoting all his spare time to them and good-naturedly taking the joshing the boys gave him. they were of the opinion that a cow-puncher was degrading himself by working in a garden. "jumpin' sand hills, he'll be takin' up knittin' when winter comes on, an' makin' of his own socks," said bud, in disgust. "no, he's going in for tatting," said ben tremont. "he's going to make a lot of doilies for the chairs so we won't soil the satin upholstery with our oily hair." as all the chairs in the living room were very plain, made of solid oak, with bullhide seats and backs, this remark was received with laughter. "go aheadt!" said carl. "ven you ain'dt drough, let me know. i know your own bizziness. ven der vinter comes und i haf dot deliciousness sauerkraut, und am eating it, und ven your mouts vater so dot you slobber like a colt off der clover, den--ah, den, i gifs you der ha-ha, ain'dt it? den you see who der knitting und der tatting do, eh?" carl laughed at the thought of how the boys would miss the sauerkraut which he was going to make. but now "oof," the pet pig of the establishment, had eaten them nearly all, and was standing in his sty too full even for the utterance of his usual lazy grunt. he looked like an animated keg of sauerkraut with four pegs at the corners for him to stand on, so full was he of carl's cherished and esculent cabbages. "how in the world did he get into the cabbage patch?" asked ted. "i thought you had made it pig tight." "so did i," answered carl. "no pig but vun mit der teufel inside him vould haf got der fence over." "got over ther fence!" snorted bud. "why, yer feeble-minded son of a downtrodden race, thet thar pig couldn't hev got over ther fence without a balloon. thet fence is six feet high. a deer couldn't jump it." "i didn't saying so. he cannot yump, dot pig. he cannot moof, so full mit gabbages are he. no, he didn't yump, he yoost sving himself over mit dot fence." "slush! yer gittin' plumb dotty. no pig could swing hisself over thet fence." "but it's der only vay vat he could, und song, der chineser cook, saw him did it." "you don't believe what a chinyman tells yer, do yer?" "what did song say? how did the pig do it?" asked the boys, roused to interest in the squabble by this statement. "vell, song he say dot he vos looking der vinder ouid und he saw der pig take der end of dot long rope vot hangs down mit der roof of der hay house in his teeth, und he svings on it some. song say he t'ought it vas some of pud's foolishment he vas teaching dot pig, und didn't no more look at him for a leetle vile. ven he looked again der pig vas svinging avay oop high by der rope. den i coom along und see der pig in der gabbages, und i takes me a stick und vallops him goot ofer der hams, und drife him his pen into." "shucks! is that all ther story? that don't prove nothin'. thet pig, oof, is a animile of high intelligence. he wuz needin' exercise before dinner. he found a hole in ther fence, er maybe he tunneled one fer hisself, an' he wuz jest kinder doin' some gymnasium work ter git up a good appetite. yer cain't make me believe a chinyman, nohow." "i don't know," said ben thoughtfully, "pigs are mighty smart. he might have swung himself over by the rope, and, if so, i think he was entitled to his dinner as a reward for his ingenuity." "i don't pay for no pig's inchenoomity mit my gabbages," said carl hotly. "vere i get more gabbages fer der sauerkraut, tell me dot?" "yer don't git no sauerkraut, that's all," growled bud. "but speakin' about pigs bein' smart, i jest reckon they aire." "there are three animals that people persist in calling stupid, when they are only strong-minded and more intelligent than the other animals," said kit summers, quietly breaking into the conversation. "what aire they?" asked bud. "the pig, the mule, and the goose," answered kit. "come ter think o' it, yer right ez a book," said bud, rising from the lounge and joining the other boys in front of the fireplace. "why, i remember onct down on the pecos--" ben tremont rose lazily and stretched himself. "well, so long, boys," he said. "if i ain't back for supper don't wait for me." "whar yer goin'?" asked bud, with a black look from under his brows. "i've got some work to do this evening, and i don't want to be getting drowsy," answered ben, with a wink at kit. "go then, yer varmint," said bud savagely. "this yere incerdent what i'm goin' ter relate is fer intelligent persons only." "in that case i shall have to remain," said ben, throwing his huge bulk into a chair, that creaked like a house in a high wind. "how about that pecos story?" said ted. "'tis erbout pigs." "i didn't know there were any pigs down in that country," said ted, with a sly smile. "oh, yes, there aire. some folks calls them peccaries, an' others alludes ter them ez wild hawgs. yer pays yer money an' chooses what yer likes best." "well, what about them?" "'tain't noways what ye'd call much o' a story, but it 'lustrates ther intelligence o' ther hawg, which in my 'pinion ez almost ez great ez thet o' some collidge gradooates what i hev mixed with." bud stopped and looked hard at ben, who seemed to be taking a nap in his big chair. with a snort of disgust bud turned his back on the big fellow and began: "me an' 'peep-o'-day' thompson wuz ridin' herd on a bunch o' cattle belongin' ter ole man bradish. all we hed ter do wuz ter keep 'em from driftin' too fur, which nat'rally left us much time fer meditation an' conversation. "but it wa'n't long before i'd told all my stories, an' peep bed plumb fergot i'd tole them ter him, an' wuz tellin' them all over ter me, claimin' they'd happened ter him. "i stood it fer a spell because i didn't want ter make no friction betwixt him an' me, but it made me sore jest ther same, because ther derned lump allays got ther story balled up so's i hed trouble in reconnizin' it sometimes. an' he inveribly got ther p'int o' ther story hindside fore, which made me jest bile. but when yer on a long watch with a feller, an' got ter see him from sunup ter moonrise, it's better ter overlook a lot o' things. "well, 's i wuz sayin', we wuz on this stunt, an' had been out all o' three month, takin' turns cookin' an' watchin' so's one o' us could git erway from ther other fer a spell, an' go off an' sit down an' tell hisself what a awful chump ther other wuz, an' how yer hated him. "we hed a chuck wagon with us filled with flour, salt sowbelly an' saleratus, with some coffee an' a few pounds o' fine terbaccer fer makin' cigareets. i ain't sayin' nothin' erginst sowbelly ez ther national food o' ther plains an' ther staff o' life in farmin' communities, but ez a steady diet it begins ter pall when taken day in an' day out with nothin' ter wash it down with but weak coffee made outer alkali water. "i reckon both me an' peep wuz gittin' tired o' one another's cookin', if ther truth wuz knowed, fer peep could make ther wust biscuit i ever et. "my biscuit jest suited me ter a ty-ty, an' i reckon peep felt ther same way erbout hisn. every time we set down ter vittles, if it wuz my week ter cook, peep w'd begin ter talk o' ther fine cookin' his wife uster do before she run erway with er sant' fe conductor down ter raton, noo mex. he'd tell me how she'd make beef stoo an' hot biscuit thet would melt in yer mouth. 'i don't like them kind,' sez i, one day. 'i like somethin' i kin chew on. what'd ther lord give us teeth fer if grub is ter melt in ther mouth? no, sir; give me mine gristle an' hide. ther tougher they be ther better i like 'em,' sez i. "'is thet thar meant ez a reflection on my wife?' sez peep, bristlin' up. "'i never met yer wife,' sez i, 'an' we'll let thet part o' it pass, fer ye knows me well enough thet i never make no remarks erbout wimminfolks what ain't smooth an' complimentary. but i stands on ther gristle-an'-hide propersition ontil i'm ready ter fight fer it.' "yer see, i wuz gettin' some peevish erbout peep. ole man bradish hed left us alone tergether too long. it ain't right fer two fellers ter camp side by each fer so long without a third party buttin' in ter break ther monotony. "'all right,' sez he, unlimberin' his six foot three o' len'th from ther ground. 'thet,' sez he, real dignified, 'is either a challenge or a invitation ter fight.' "'it be,' sez i. 'either way yer wanter take it.' "we both riz up. "'how d'yer want it?' sez he. "'please yerself,' sez i. 'any ole holt is my fav'rite.' "'anythin' goes, then,' sez he, makin' a rush at me. "jest then we hear a turrible noise, gruntin', squealin', an' sich. we both stopped an' looked eround, an' thar stood watchin' us a big band o' wild hawgs. "'fresh meat!' we both hollers simultaneous. at this ther hawgs ups an' runs. "it wuz my day off, an' hostilities stopped right thar ez i runs an' gits my rifle an' leaps my cayuse an' takes after ther hawgs, peep hollerin' after me ez friendly ez yer please. "i chased them hawgs a couple o' miles ter ther river bank, whar they hid in ther canebrake. i couldn't get ther cayuse ter go in after them, so i gits down an' breaks my way in tryin' ter git a shot at one o' them, my mouth waterin' fer fresh pork so's i wuz almost wadin' in it. "purty soon i come in sight o' them. a ole boar wuz in charge o' them, an' he wuz a hard-lookin' citizen, i want ter tell yer. he hed tushes five inches long an' both o' 'em ez sharp ez razors. i took a shot at him, but his hide wuz so tough thet ther ball just glanced off him, an' he made a break fer me. i turned an' fled. ther river wuz not fur erway, an' i knowed thet if i beat them hawgs ter it i wuz safe. "i jest did it, an' waded out ez fur ez i could an' started ter swim. 'when i gits ter ther other side i'll take some long shots at yer,' thinks i, 'an' we'll hev hawg meat yit.' "i gits out inter ther middle o' ther stream when i hears a puffin' an' a gruntin' behind me. i looks over my shoulder an' here comes ther whole herd swimmin' right after me as--" "that settles it," said ben, as he rose with a snort of disgust. "what's ther matter with yer?" asked bud calmly. "yer story is what i thought it would be--wild and woolly and full of cockleburs." "how is thet ag'in?" "it's rotten. don't you know, as long as you have been on earth, that swine cannot swim without committing suicide?" "go ahead. will you kindly tell us fer why, perfessor?" "certainly. the hoofs of pigs are so sharp, and their forelegs are set so far under their bodies, that when they attempt to swim their hoofs strike their fat throats, cutting them, and they die from loss of blood." "thet's c'rect, my son. every schoolboy knows thet thar p'int in nat'ral history." "then why are you insulting our intelligence by stating that a herd of hogs followed you into the water and swam after you? now don't spring any such flower of your fancy on us as to say that the hogs all killed themselves crossing and that you and peep-o'-day had all the fresh meat you wanted during the rest of your stay on the pecos, for we won't stand for it. i don't believe there is any such thing as a pecos, anyway." bud looked so crestfallen that the other boys felt sorry for him. "you think you're smart, don't you?" said kit, taking bud's finish out of his own mouth. "you big chump, it wasn't your story, anyhow." "don't worry, kit," said bud, smiling confidently. "ben's so intellectooal thet it hurts him ter pack his knowledge eround in thet pinhead o' hisn. but he didn't finish ther story none. i knows ez well ez him thet hawgs can't swim fer ther reasons he give. but these yere hawgs i am tellin' erbout wuz different." "how was that?" "yer see, thet thar ole boar wuz ez smart ez a copperation lawyer. he'd fixed them hawgs ter swim. first they got thar hoofs all balled up with gumbo, er sticky clay, then they worked ther dry grass inter ther clay and mixed 'em good an' stiff, lettin' 'em dry in ther sun. this made a hard ball on their toes thet jest slipped off their throats when they struck." ben slipped into his chair with a grunt. "o' course, i didn't know thet when i was swimmin'," continued bud, 'an' i thinks i've run ercross a new web-footed breed o' hawgs. when we come ter ther other side i waited fer them ter land, then i turns an' swims back, ther hawgs follerin'. back ercross i goes erg'in, an' ther pork keeps right on my trail. "purty soon i see they ain't swimmin' so spry, an' i allow they're gittin' some tired. ther last time over ter our side o' ther river they come slow, an' i picks out ther kind o' pork i likes best, an' ez they land i nails what i want an' slits thar throats, an' i hev my pork. but when ther rest o' them lands they's full o' fight ez ever, an' i takes ter ther water ag'in, but they won't foller me. this seems strange, an' i looks ter see what ther matter is. "ther ole boar wuz mighty smart, but he'd overlooked one p'int. he'd fergot thet ther water would melt his balls o' clay, which it did, an' they couldn't swim no more. i jest stood hip high in the water with my winchester an' popped erway at them until they got tired an' run off, leavin' me enough fresh pork ter start a packin' house." a hollow groan escaped from ben. "what's the use?" he moaned. "you can't beat him." chapter ii. bud's bad bronchos. it was time for the fall round-up, and stella had written from her uncle's ranch, in new mexico, that she and her aunt, mrs. graham, were coming north to do their winter shopping in denver, and would visit the moon valley ranch to take part in the round-up and the festivities which the boys always held at that time. her letter did not say when she would be there, but the boys knew her well enough to expect her at any moment following the letter. therefore they were not surprised to hear a clear, high imitation of the moon valley yell one morning while they were all sitting at the breakfast table. they did not need to be told that stella fosdick had come, and without ado they sprang from the table, overturning chairs in their haste to get out of the house to greet her and her aunt. "hello, boys!" she called from the carriage, in which she and mrs. graham had driven over from soldier butte. "you're a gallant lot of young fellows not to meet us at the station, particularly when i wrote you that i was coming this morning. i'm real mad." but her smiling face belied the statement. "you didn't say when you were coming," said big ben, who was the first to reach the carriage step and was helping mrs. graham to descend. "if we had taken your general statement that you were coming, to meet you at the station we would have camped right there forever. never can tell about your movements, young lady." "but i did write that i was coming this morning, and to meet us and take breakfast with us in the butte." "we didn't get that letter. when did you write?" "last night." "that's good. always take time by the fetlock. we'll get that letter some time to-morrow. why didn't you wait and write us to meet you after you got here?" "saucy as ever, ben. but we're positively starved. hello, song!" she called to the chinese cook, who was standing on the veranda grinning like a heathen idol, "got anything good to eat?" "yes, missee, plenty good glub. mebbeso you likee some fried ham and eggs?" said song, shaking hands with himself and bowing low. "ham and eggs! no! positively, no! i'll be turning into a ham and egg if i get any more of it. that's all the cook at the ranch knows how to do. anything else?" "yes, missee. plenty paltlidge, what misto ted shootee lesterday. i cookee you some plenty quick." "all right, song, cook us some partridges." the boys stood around in a group of admiring servitors waiting to carry stella's hand bag and gun and saddle and other things with which she was burdened. suddenly she looked toward the porch. "who's that?" she asked breathlessly, pointing to a little girl who stood shyly beside a post looking on. "why, that's lilian," said ted. "i didn't know you were up yet," he called to the little girl. "come here, dear, and see stella. you haven't forgotten stella, have you?" "if it isn't lilian!" cried stella, rushing toward the child with wide-open arms and folding her within them. "i wouldn't have known you, honey," said stella. "what have you boys been doing to her? she's improved so much. where did you get all these clothes, and who takes care of her?" "isn't she a little beauty?" asked ted strong proudly, patting the head of the blushing little girl. "but how did you do it?" persisted stella. "oh, i went over and saw mrs. bingham, the major's wife, at the fort, and asked her to come and advise us what to do. she came and was delighted with lilian, and promised to oversee her wardrobe. she was going down to omaha, and when she returned she had a trunk full of things for lil. she also brought a colored woman to look after her, and mirandy has proved a blessing and a treasure." "but the clothes didn't make themselves." "no, and none of us made them, either, although bud said he could sew, and insisted upon trying. he cut up several yards of cloth, and at the end of the week, when we saw the product of his needle, he narrowly escaped lynching. if lilian had not interceded for uncle bud, of whom she is very fond, i'm afraid we'd have no little buddy now. no, we sent down to omaha for a dressmaker and boarded her in town until she had lil all fixed up, as becomes the heiress of the la garita mines." "whose idea is this way of making the things?" demanded stella, who was looking lilian over with critical eyes. "oh, we all had a finger in it. i sent away for a lot of fashion magazines and things of that sort, and we sat up nights as a board of strategy and picked out the sort of thing we wanted, and i reckon there isn't a better-dressed kid in the state." "i agree with you. well, ted strong, you're a constant wonder to me. where in the world did you learn to do all the things you do so well?" "the honeyed flatterer. quit your joshing, stella; hand it to ben. he likes it, and the thicker it is the more he can stand of it." "hello! breakfast!" called song from the veranda, and they all trooped back to the living room to finish breakfast and talk about the things they had passed through, and to lay plans for the coming round-up festivities. after breakfast ted and stella went out to the corral to look at the saddle stock. "why, there's old 'calamity jane,'" cried stella, as a bay pony came trotting across the corral and put its velvet nose in the hand she held out. "jane knows you, all right," said ted. "sure. why shouldn't she? i rode her all one season down here. i believe she wants me to choose her for my own again. do you, calamity, old girl?" calamity jane, which had at one time been the wickedest and stubbornest mare on the ranch, nickered and again rubbed stella's hand with her nose. "talk about your smart horses," said stella. "calamity can do everything except talk. who's been riding her?" "kit. he's wrangler, and he won't let any one on her. he's light, you know, and he was saving her for you. you'll find that she hasn't been spoiled at all." "then, if kit has been riding her, she's all right, for if there ever was a horseman it's kit." "isn't she getting fierce?" said a quiet voice behind them. "say, she's getting to be one of these regular society jolliers. she didn't used to be that way." they wheeled around to see kit, who had come up to them in his usual quiet manner. "yes," said ted. "she tried to hand me a package this morning." "you mean things. that's what a girl gets for being civil and confidential, and talking as she would like to fellows she thinks are her friends. i'm going back to the house. i don't like you very much this morning." the boys winked at one another. "say, kit, i want sultan after a while. i'm going to ride down to the lower end of the ranch to look at that bunch of new horses," said ted carelessly. "oh, may i go with you?" asked stella eagerly. "i thought you were mad at us, or i would have asked you." "i was only fooling. i'll be ready in ten minutes. let's take lilian with us." "that was what i was going to do. it is time for lilian's regular riding lesson. i am trying to make her as good a rider and all-around cowgirl as you, stella, but i doubt if ever she will." "who is jollying now, mister ted?" cried stella, with a laugh, but she was blushing with pleasure at the compliment. that is the difference between a boy and a girl. a healthy, well-conditioned boy becomes embarrassed and cross at a well-meant compliment spoken in the presence of another, believing that the person who is complimenting him is making fun of him in some unknown and covert way. but to a girl a compliment that is sincere is as grateful as dew to a rose, and stella always felt much elated when ted complimented her on her prowess in any of the arts of the range. they rode away with lilian, who was learning to ride well for her age and experience under the best of riding teachers, ted strong. as they were nearing the lower pasture they observed a great commotion among the horses that were huddled in a fence corner. "hello, what's going on there?" exclaimed ted. "looks like the worst sort of a riot," said stella. "i believe those boys need help." they could see bud and ben and several cowboys circling around the bunch of ponies, evidently trying to get into it, and break it up and scatter it. "what's the row?" asked ted, galloping up. "thar's a cayuse in thar thet i'd plumb like ter electrocute," said bud, who was mad clear through. "my, but he's got er bad dispersition." "which one?" asked ted, laughing. "from what i can see there isn't one of them you could call angelic." "thar's ther meanest bunch o' horse meat thet ever come ter this man's ranch, bar none, an' ther prize devil o' ther lot is thet black demon in thar. he near broke my pony's leg a minute ago with a stem-windin' kick sech ez i never see before. thet hoss is shore double-j'inted." the horses were bunched, heads in, heels out, around a splendid-looking black stallion, which was biting and kicking at everything that came near him. "let him kick his foolish head off," said ted, viewing the squealing, struggling throng. "i reckon they're just showin' off because stella got here this mornin'," said bud disgustedly. "they're tryin' ter knock us, stella, by showin' yer thet we aire a bum lot o' horsemen fer not makin' them behave first off." stella laughed and nodded. she understood. "where did you pick up such a mean bunch of horses?" she asked. "them hosses is intended fer ther tourneymint what takes place after ther round-up. we're goin' ter hev some roughridin' fer fair here, an' if we all git out with whole bones we shore kin send up a balloon in celebraytion." "but where did you get them? were they bred mean on purpose?" "i reckon not. i bought 'em from ther wild range in montana. they ain't seen men closer than a mile, except'n' it wuz injuns, an' they don't count, until we butted in on 'em. they belonged ter ole man stallings. i reckon you remember him, what we met on our way ter fort grant, when yer run erway an' got lost on red mesa." stella nodded. "i wuz lookin' fer a bunch o' cow hosses. we sold a big run o' 'em ter a newbrasky cowman who was short o' saddle stock, an' who said he'd heard we had the best-broke cow ponies in ther west, an' i reckon we had. he was willin' ter pay a good price fer our spare stock, an' we unloaded." "then you will have to break in a lot of new ones. isn't that a waste of time?" "young woman, we're ranchmen, not rockin'-chair gents. it's part o' our business ter take somethin' what ain't much good, an' make it better. that's the way we earn our bread an' bacon." "so i see." "ted says ter me ter go up inter montana an' pick up a lot o' good, gingery hosses, an' i struck john stallings. he says ter me, when i made my wants known, 'go out on ther range an' he'p yerself,' says he. 'they're all mine, an' ted strong an' his boys kin hev anythin' i've got except my fam'ly. but,' says he, 'you'll find some purty lively stock out there.'" "well, you did," said stella, laughing. "i reckon i picked out ther orneriest hosses in the whole west, an' i'm savin' them fer some o' these smart-aleck cowboys who'll be here from ther ranches round, who think they kin ride," and he winked wisely. "gracious, look there!" she cried. "what's ted trying to do. he'll be hurt, bud." "no, i reckon not, but i'll git in thar handy ter help him if he needs it. keep the kid outer ther way if that bunch breaks." ted had done what none of the others had succeeded in doing. he had forced his way into the very center of the bunch of wild horses, wheeling and doubling and riding like a circus performer, to avoid the batteries of flying heels, until he was close to the wicked black stallion, which was all that held the bunch together and prevented it from being broken up and driven to the upper end of the ranch, where it belonged. there was not a moment when he was not in danger. a chance kick might break his leg, or bring down his horse, in which event he must be kicked to death or badly hurt by being trampled on. but so far they had not been able to reach him. "be careful, ted," cried stella. he waved his hand at her with a smile, and she hurried lilian beyond the reach of danger. ted wheeled his horse to face the black brute, which stood looking at him with wicked eyes, its ears flattened like those of a panther. in spite of its evil temper ted admired it for its lithe beauty. it was as clean of limb as a thoroughbred, and its black skin shone like polished ebony. while he was looking at it thus it suddenly sprang at him, reared on its hind legs, striking at him like a boxer. had he not wheeled on the instant it would have killed him. ted was thoroughly angry, and went to the attack himself, beating the horse about the head with his quirt. when the horse rushed at him through a rain of blows across its nose ted retreated beyond reach of its hoofs, then attacked it again. suddenly the black horse wheeled and presented its heels, and ted rode around it, lashing it well, everywhere the whip could reach. although the horse continued to lash out with his heels he struck nothing, and always his enemy was at his side or in front. at last ted resolved to bring the unequal combat to an end, as sultan was tiring of the exercise, so instead of riding around the enraged horse, he pivoted with it, keeping in front of it all the time and whipping it on the nose. the "insurgent" stopped kicking at last and stood with drooping head, trying to shield its face from that cruel, relentless, stinging thing which the man creature wielded. he was cowed, but not conquered. taking advantage of the moment, ted drove him backward and clear of his companions. seeing their leader retreat, the other horses broke their close formation, and allowed themselves to be driven down the valley, not without an occasional rebellious kick, however. chapter iii. stella goes to the "rent rag." "oh, joy, an' pickled pelicans!" said bud morgan, skipping onto the veranda one evening, when all the boys were sitting around stella and mrs. graham. bud had just returned from soldier butte, where he had been spending the afternoon. "what's devouring you now?" asked ben tremont. "or is it just one of your weekly sillies?" "who are yer alludin' at?" asked bud loftily. "as you were going to say--" suggested kit, looking at bud. "boys, thar's goin' ter be a 'rent rag' in the butte ter-morrer night, an' we all have an urgent bid ter be present." "a what?" asked stella. "a 'rent rag.'" "who tore it?" asked stella innocently. at this the boys laughed loud and long, then apologized when they saw stella's embarrassment. "it ain't tore yet," said bud, "but it's lierble ter be before ther rosy dawn." "what are you talking about?" said stella impatiently. "i never saw such provoking boys. you say such strange things, then cackle over it as though there was a joke in it, which nobody seems to see except yourself." "a 'rent rag' is a--'rent rag,'" said kit, trying to explain. "that sounds as sensible as the conundrum, 'why is a hen?'" said stella. "must i ask the question and get caught? all right, here goes. what is a 'rent rag'? now, don't tell me, some one, that it is a rag that has been torn, for i exploded that one myself." "a 'rent rag,'" said bud slowly and carefully, "is a rag for rent. a--a--er--well, it's a--" "tell me, ted," said the girl, turning to the leader of the outfit, who was leaning back in his chair smiling at the ridiculous conversation. "well, as near as i can make out it is a bit of slang that means this: the word 'rag' is the slang for a public dance. when a man in town who is popular enough falls behind in paying his rent, through some misfortune or other, and owes so much he cannot hope to pay it, he hands out a flag that he wants help. in other words, it is an invitation to his friends to organize a public ball for his benefit. it depends upon his honesty and popularity whether or not they do so." "that's the strangest thing i ever heard of." "well, if the thing goes through, a hall is rented and music is engaged, the cost of which is to be deducted from the money taken at the door. then the man for whose benefit the ball is given and his wife prepare a lot of sandwiches, fried chicken, and other eatables, and a tub or two of lemonade, and help their profits along." "so that is a 'rent rag,' eh? who is the man for whom the dance is to be given, bud?" asked stella. "a feller named martin, whose wife has been sick all summer," answered bud. "from what they say, i reckon he's all right. jest ter be a good feller i bought ten tickets, at one bean per ticket." "is that all they are?" asked stella. "only one bean? gracious, they'll have to dispose of an awful lot of tickets to get enough beans to sell to pay their rent with! why don't they make it something else? i'd like to contribute a dollar, at least. a bean a ticket, pshaw! how awfully cheap! i guess he doesn't owe much." at this remark the boys fairly cackled. "now, what are you laughing at?" cried stella, almost angry. "i seem to be more humorous to-night than i ever thought possible. i can hardly say a word but you all start to laugh at me." this was too much for the boys. they couldn't restrain themselves and went off into peals of laughter. when they saw the danger signals of two bright spots in stella's cheeks, they realized that they had gone too far, and all hastily tried to explain. but ted was before them, and quietly told stella that in the expressive, if scarcely lucid, language of the day a "bean," in the sense in which bud had used it, meant a dollar. "such silly slang," said stella, restored to good humor once more. "i don't mind slang if it's clever and reveals or conceals or twists a word in some sensible way, but a bean for a dollar--no, it won't do. the fellow who invented that should try again. the only fun i can see in slang is its aptness." the boys murmured something to the effect that it wasn't a particularly witty bit of slang, but they continued to grin at one another. "suppose we all go to the 'rent rag,'" said stella suddenly. "i never saw anything of the sort, and i'm crazy to go." "it's likely to be pretty rough, and break up in a row before its natural time," said ted. "we'll only stay a short while," said stella. "but i should like to do my share toward helping the poor fellow." "it's done already. i bought ten tickets. thet's as much ez they expect from ther moon valley ranch, an' it goes inter ther running expenses o' ther ranch, anyhow, in ther charity account." "i don't care, i want to go." "i move we go," said ben. "it will add some tone to the proceedings." "ben wants to air his spike-tailed coat and low-neck vest," said kit. "not for me," said ben, laughing. "i wonder what those cow-punchers and miners and gamblers would do with a chap who sauntered in there in evening dress." "he shore would come up ter stella's conception of a rent rag, which is a torn rag," said kit. "ted, won't we go?" pleaded stella. "sure, if you want to; you are our guest, and whatever you want, all you have to do is to ask for it," answered ted. it was agreed that they should wear their everyday uniforms, and stella was for going in her distinctive cowgirl costume, but this mrs. graham would not permit, and insisted that she should wear a frock which she had had made in denver. when, the next night, stella walked into the living room, where the boys were waiting to escort her and mrs. graham to the ball, there was a general exclamation of wonder and admiration, at which stella hesitated with a blush, then came forward with smiling assurance. instead of the bold and dashing stella in her bifurcated riding skirt and bolero jacket, the boys saw a beautiful young woman in a pale-blue gown of silk and chiffon, with her pretty hair piled on top of her head, instead of flowing over her shoulders. for a moment they were awed. they had never seen her so, and perhaps had never thought of her as being a young lady. most of them were content to regard her just as stella, their girl pard, and to-night she had given them a surprise. at her throat was a superb sapphire set in a brooch, which had come out of the broncho boys' sapphire mines on yogo creek, and in her hair was an ornament of diamonds and rubies which the boys had made from jewels which had come as their share of the treasures of the montezumas, which they had discovered beneath the castle of chepultapec, near the city of mexico. altogether stella was very stunning, and in their admiration of her in this new rã´le of society girl the boys were between two preferences, as she was now, and as they knew her in the saddle, throwing her lariat or handling her revolver. most of them, however, came to the conclusion that she was still stella, no matter what she wore. "say, stella, that's not fair," drawled ben, "to dress up like that and make us wear our working togs. i've got a good mind to go and get into my spike." "if you do, i won't go," said stella. "unless the other boys wear theirs also. you and i would look fine going in there dressed up, and the other boys as they are now. no, i wouldn't have worn this dress if aunt hadn't insisted upon it, and this time i couldn't shake her determination. i hate it, and would much rather have my working clothes on. but, never mind, it won't be for long. how do you like me in this?" she revolved slowly before them. "scrumptious!" said ben appreciatively. "prettier than a basket of peaches," ejaculated kit. "thar ain't nothin' in art er nature what kin show up more gaudy," said bud. "except, mebbe, it might be a pink rose in er garden at airly mornin' with ther dew on it." "say, hasn't bud got us all faded?" said ben. "i didn't know the old sandpiper had so much poetry in his soul." "so perfectionately lofely a younk lady nefer did i saw," exclaimed carl, clasping his hands and holding them before him, while he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "she's all thet," said bud. "but come down ter airth. stella ain't up among ther rafters." ted had said nothing, and stella looked at him. he was regarding her attentively. her look said: "what do _you_ think?" he answered it with a look of admiration that satisfied her that he thought her perfect. "i think i like you best in the everyday clothes," he said quietly. "but that gown is as if you were made for it and it was made for you." the thought had come into ted's mind that some day, in the far future, they would lose their girl pard, and society or duties elsewhere would claim her. stella understood him and agreed with him. soon they were ready to start for the ball. the carriage was got out and carl volunteered to drive the horses, while the other boys rode. just as they were about to start stella cried: "where is jack slate? i don't see him. isn't he coming to the ball?" "haven't saw him," said bud. "i reckon he'll be moseyin' erlong after a while. we won't wait fer him. he knowed when we wuz goin' ter start." "he came in a little while ago from the lower pasture," said kit, "and went to his room. he said he had been thrown by his horse, and that the jar had given him a headache." "oh, don't let us wait for him," said ben. "if he gets to feeling better he'll be along. you couldn't keep jack away from a ball with an injunction." so they proceeded to town, the boys acting as outriders to the girl, whom they were convinced would be the belle of the ball. when they arrived at the hall in soldier butte they found the people flocking in, as martin, the beneficiary, was a very popular fellow, and any man in hard luck in the west always gets all the help he needs, if he deserves it. ted escorted stella into the ballroom, while ben followed with mrs. graham, the other boys taking the horses around to the corral. as ted and stella entered the room there was a hum of admiration, and conversation stopped as men and women craned their necks to look at the handsome couple. ted was both proud and pleased, but a little bit embarrassed at the attention they received, while stella held her head up proudly, with a look of indifference on her face, as if she had been used to admiration all her life. the ball certainly was a mixed affair. in one corner were a lot of army officers and their ladies. all down the sides of the ballroom cowboys were sitting with girls from the ranches. town girls and boys had a corner to themselves. the gamblers flocked together, and miners and others wandered here and there, mixing with cavalrymen from the fort. when the boys returned from the corral they found that mrs. graham and stella and their escorts had preã«mpted a vacant corner. there was a piano in the room, but no one to play it. soon, however, a fellow dressed after the cowboy fashion entered and took a seat on a raised platform, producing a fiddle from a green bag. a round of applause greeted him. he tuned his instrument, and after a few preliminary scrapes began to play a monotonous tune, repeating over and over again the same few bars. at the first scrape the cowboys and their girls leaped to the floor and began to dance, but none of the people from the fort cared to dance to such music. suddenly the door flew open and a band of a dozen cow-punchers walked into the room, and were greeted by joyous shouts by the other cowboys in the hall. at their head was a handsome young fellow, slender and dark, with a resolute face and a pair of piercing eyes that flashed around the room for the purpose of seeing and locating his possible enemies. "who is that?" asked stella. "that's billy sudden," answered ted. "and who is he?" "foreman at 'cow' suggs' ranch. that's the suggs bunch of cow-punchers. there'll be something doing here to-night." "why?" "there are a lot of fellows in this part of the country who don't like billy, and some of them are liable to tread on his feet." "oh, is he quarrelsome?" "no, billy is the best sort of a fellow, but he won't let any one hobble him. when he first went to the dumb-bell ranch, as the circle-bar circle is called, they took him for a kid and tried to run over him. he kicked them, then fired them, and they don't like him." "did you see him look around the room?" "yes, he has every man who is likely to make trouble for him spotted and located. but we won't wait long enough to see the trouble. i never did like trouble myself." "well, for a chap who gets into it as often as you do--" "what's the trouble now, over there?" interrupted ted, looking at the door. around the entrance to the hall was a crowd of young town fellows led by a youth named wiley creviss, the son of the local banker, a dissipated and reckless young man, and a crowd of cow-punchers. they were shoving some one here and there, making a punching bag of him, at the same time laughing uproariously. just then ted saw the head of jack slate in the mix-up. "excuse me," said ted, turning to stella. "ben, take care of the ladies until i return." he strode across the floor toward the door. as he neared it he heard billy sudden say: "be careful, there. that is one of ted strong's fellows." "i don't care if it is," said some one. "i'd give it to strong just as hard if he was here." "here i am," said ted, pushing through the crowd. chapter iv. the trouble is started. the crowd of men and youths opened out in front of ted, and he strode into the circle. there he saw jack slate in a much disheveled condition, dressed in his evening clothes. ted gasped as he stared for an instant at the youth from boston. he wanted to tell jack that "it served him right," but that was not the part of loyalty, and in the presence of the enemy it did not make any difference to a broncho boy if his pard was right or wrong, if he was in need of help. "where is the fellow who was going to throw me around?" asked ted, looking into the faces about him. no one replied, although ted waited for a moment or two before looking at billy sudden. billy winked at him, but said nothing. "seems as if somebody's sand has run out," said ted contemptuously. "oh, i don't know," said wiley creviss. "there's plenty of sand left if you need any to prevent your wheels from slipping downhill." "no, my sand box is always full," said ted quietly. "but there is some sneak in this bunch who hasn't the nerve to back up his brag." "are you talking to me?" said creviss, swelling up as to chest. "oh, are you the misguided chump whom i heard make the remark about pushing me about, as i came up?" said ted, in a tone of surprise. the cowboys from suggs' ranch were snickering. "well, what if i was?" "i'm going to make you try it." "oh, i can do it, all right." "well, why don't you? i'm the easiest proposition you ever saw to be hazed by a bunch of hoodlums, such as you and your pals are!" "for two cents i'd punch your nose." "you're too cheap. i'll give you a heap more than that if you will. it's been so long since my nose was punched that it feels sort of lonesome. i'll pay you well for the job, if you succeed in pulling off the stunt." "you think you're the whole works because you've got a crowd of dudes around you. you're not the only dent in the can." ted flushed at this allusion to his pards. "i'll put a dent in you if you open your face to remark about my friends again," he said, with some heat. "see here, you town rough, you better take in your slack and clear out for home, or you'll begin to taste the sorrows that come from inexperience and bad judgment," said billy sudden to creviss. "it's up to you to mind your own business," snarled creviss. "what are you but a lot of greasy cow-punchers. we haven't much use for your sort in this town, anyway." "now, son, keep quiet and behave yourself," said billy paternally. "if you get me riled i won't be as patient with you as ted strong has been. i'll fix you so as to keep two doctors busy the best part of the night." "what are you fellows butting in for, anyhow?" said creviss angrily. "can't this freak that comes here in a dress suit and tries to lord it over us take care of himself?" "surest thing you know," drawled jack slate. "but there are ladies here, a thing you don't seem to realize. if you'll step outside, i'd be glad to whip you right and propah." "what's the use, jack, of fussing with these rowdies?" said ted. "let it go until some other time." "you bet," said creviss, courage returning when he heard ted propose peace. "i guess you'd like to let it go forever." "that settles it," said ted. "go to him, jack, and if you don't give him what's coming to him, i'll finish the job." "git!" said billy sudden, opening the door and shoving creviss out into the street. the rest followed. as jack stepped into the open air he peeled off his swallow-tailed coat and threw it over ted's arm. he had no sooner done so than wiley creviss made a rush at him from the front, while one of the crowd ran in on him from the rear. it seemed an unequal beginning, and ted was preparing to take on the second fellow. but jack had seen him out of the corner of his eye, and as he came on the boston boy stepped backward and threw his right elbow up. it was a timely and masterly trick, for the sharp elbow caught creviss' ally full in the nose, and he dropped like a limp rag to the ground, with a howl of anguish. at the same moment jack swung his left. creviss had struck at him and missed when he back-stepped, and coming on swiftly ran into jack's fist with a thud that jarred him into a state of collapse. "finish him!" shouted the cow-punchers, who stood about the fighters in a circle. "go to him," said ted, in a low voice. "i saw him signal his pal to tackle you from behind." creviss had partially recovered from the blow and was getting ready for another rush, when jack slipped in and to one side and hit like a blacksmith at the anvil. this time creviss went down and out. "hooray fer ther bantam!" shouted a big cow-puncher, slapping jack on the back. "say, i hear them say you're from bosting. i'm goin' ter buy a hundred-pound sack o' beans myself ter-morrer an' begin trainin'. if beans'll do that fer you, a sack o' them will make me fit ter lick jess willard." but jack was busy smoothing down his ruffled hair and pulling his white lawn tie around into its proper place, and when he had put on his coat he and ted walked into the ballroom as calmly as if they had just stepped out to view the stars. "what was the trouble?" asked stella, when they reached her side. "some town rowdies became noisy, and they were put out," answered ted carelessly. but jack's dress suit was the joy of the cow-punchers, who had never seen anything like it before, although they all knew that it was the way well-groomed men dressed for evening in the big cities. "say, pard," said a cowboy to jack, as he crossed the room, "i axes yer pardon fer buttin' in, but yer lost ther front part o' yer coat tails." "that's all right," answered jack. "can't help it, don't you know. i left the blooming coat hanging on the line at home to air, and a goat came along and ate the front half of the tails off before i could get to it. i was just on my way to apologize to the master of ceremonies for it. you see, it is the only coat i have, and i was bound to come to the ball." "ha, ha! that's on you, 'honk,'" laughed the cowboy's friends, who had overheard the conversation, and jack passed on, the boys alluding to him as a "game little shrimp," for the news of his summary punishment of creviss had got abroad. but jack was not through yet. he went into the men's dressing room to leave his hat. as he was coming out he was met by a crowd of town youths, friends of creviss. there was no one else about. they scowled and sneered at jack, and one of them bumped into him. "heah, fellah, that will do," said jack, with his bostonese drawl. "you're solid; you're no sponge." "i ain't, eh?" answered the bully. "i'll tell yer, mr. slate, you're covered with bad marks what i don't like, an' i'm just the sponge to wipe them off." "step lively, then," said jack, "for i've an engagement to dance the next waltz." "i'll waltz you all you'll need this evenin'." but before he had finished speaking ben tremont stepped around the corner. "hello, jack! what is this i see?" said ben. "disgracing yourself by talking with these hoodlums." "yas, deah boy," drawled jack. "this--er, what shall i call him?--stopped me to tell me he was going to rub the marks off me, at the same time wittily making a pun on my name. i was just telling him to hurry, or i'd miss the next waltz." "well, i'll take the job off your hands. stella was asking for you a moment ago." "yes, run along to your stella," said the hoodlum. "i reckon she's pining for the sassiety o' another dude." that was where he made the mistake of his life. it didn't really make much difference what these fellows said about themselves, but the boys would not permit stella's name to be bandied about by the roughs. so swiftly, that they didn't know what had happened to them, both ben and jack sailed into them. they went sprawling like tenpins before the ball as ben jumped in among them and mowed them down with his powerful blows, while jack, hovering like a torpedo boat around a battleship, sent in several of the telling blows ted had taught him during the boxing lessons at moon valley. the fight was soon over, and ben and jack slipped quietly back into the ballroom, leaving a well-thrashed crowd to stanch bloody noses, and patch up swollen lips and black eyes as best they could. meanwhile, a diversion had been created in the hall by the joshing that the suggs' ranch outfit had directed toward the fiddler, who knew only one tune, and sawed that off for a waltz, quadrilles, and two-steps, without fear or favor. the musician had been engaged because he was a friend of the beneficiary, and had volunteered his services. as the ball grew more and more hilarious the cow-punchers felt the restraint of the folks from the fort and moon valley the less, and began to take it out of the fiddler, who paid no attention to them, but kept on scraping. suddenly there was a crack from a revolver and the top of the fiddler's bow was knocked off, and the playing and dancing stopped simultaneously. there was more or less commotion, but the women did not scream or get panic-stricken. they were used to that sort of thing. nobody knew who had fired the shot, but the cowboys and soldiers were mad clear through because there was no more music to dance by. the shot had come from the part of the hall in which the coatroom was situated, and directly afterward two slender young fellows climbed out a rear window, and a few moments later billy sudden and clay whipple came calmly through the front door and joined the throng about the musician, who said: "honest, folks, i don't blame no hombre fer takin' a shot at thet fiddle bow o' mine, fer i never could make it work right. i know it was bum music, but it was the best i could do." ted strong had observed the quiet entrance of billy and clay directly after the shooting, and he put this and that together. he knew that both of them were finished musicians. clay whipple was an exceptionally good violin player, and ted had often heard billy sudden make a piano fairly sing. evidently they had got to the point where they could stand the fiddler's music no longer, and had put a stop to it. but for all the badness of the music the people should not be deprived of their dance. he hunted up the culprits, who were hovering on the outskirts of the crowd, listening to the threats against and denouncing the vandals who had "shot up" the fiddler. "see here, you hombres, i'm on to you," said ted. "now you've got to do the square thing. you've beaten the dancers out of the music, and you've got to get in and furnish it, or i'll tell these punchers who plugged the fiddler's bow." "how did you get on to it?" said clay, with a grin. "never mind. is it a go?" "i reckon it'll have to be," said clay, looking suggestively at billy sudden. "all right," said billy. the cow-punchers, who had come to dance with the girls from the ranches, were growing angry, and were telling what they would do to the fellow who had spoiled their fun if they caught him, when ted strong stepped upon the platform, and, holding up his hand for silence, said: "gentlemen, please do not get obstreperous. you shall have all the dancing you want. ladies, please be patient; the music that is to follow is such as has never been heard at a dance in this part of the country. mr. clay whipple, of the moon valley ranch, and mr. billy sudden, of the dumb-bell ranch, will play the violin and piano respectively. both of them are cow-punchers, so don't take any liberties with them, or some one will get hurt." there was such cheering that the roof almost went off as clay hunted up a violin and tuned it. then began a waltz such as they had never heard, and in a moment the floor was covered with dancers, the officers in their uniforms, and the ladies in their light dresses, adding beauty to the scene. but the finest-looking couple on the floor was stella and the leader of the broncho boys. just before the dance began bud approached stella, and said: "see that gal over thar? ther one with ther corn-silk bang? she is mine, an' i'm goin' ter dance this with her; see? she's ther kind o' girl i admire. she's shore corn-fed, an' some woman." "don't you know who that is?" asked stella. "'deed an' i don't, but i soon will. who is she?" "that's sophy cozak, from over on the bohemian prairie. she's rich, bud." "i don't care nothin' erbout thet. she's shaped up jest erbout right. yaller hair, and soft as feathers. watch my smoke." bud sauntered over to the girl, who was really pretty and fat and pink. apparently he was talking his usual nonsense to her, for she smiled, then arose from her chair, and went sailing around the room, bud's partner in the waltz, and every time they passed ted and stella in the waltz bud winked at them. later, however, he met the irate escort of the girl, when he took her back to her seat, and they glared at one another for a moment; then the escort walked off, leaving bud master of the situation. after this came the "sour-dough" quadrille, in which only old-timers were permitted to dance, and bud led it with mrs. "cow" suggs to the tune of "turkey in the straw." but finally, as the ball was drawing to a close, ted heard stella utter a slight scream, and saw her trying to draw her hand away from a young fellow, whose back was turned to him. he was across the room in an instant, and had the fellow by the shoulders and swung him around. it was wiley creviss, who had been drinking. "what has this cur been doing?" asked ted. "he insisted on dancing with me, and when i told him i would not, he said he'd make me," answered stella. "then he caught hold of me, and i suppose i cried out, although i didn't mean to. that is what comes of wearing these clothes. if i'd had on my others, i'd have had my gun with me." ted had heard enough. there was a window close by, which was about ten feet above the sidewalk. ted rushed the struggling and cursing creviss toward it, and by sheer strength lifted him to the sill and threw him out. "i guess we've had about enough of this," he said quietly, when he returned to stella. "no more mixed balls for mine." as ted was escorting stella to the carriage, billy sudden ranged up alongside of him. "look out for creviss and his bunch on the way home. they're telling around what they're going to do with you. want any help?" "no, i reckon not, billy. our bunch can take care of them." "they are going to try to kill you to-night." chapter v. shots from the dark. as the broncho boys swung through the streets of soldier butte, after leaving the ball, ted strong was in the lead, and bud, ben, kit, and clay were riding on either side of the carriage, while jack slate, with his black coat tails flapping in the breeze, brought up the rear. they were passing an alley, at the corner of which an electric lamp shed a path of light across the street, when a revolver shot cracked out, and ted's hat left his head. the ball had just grazed his scalp, and the merest fraction of an inch lower would have killed him. instantly every one pulled up, and ted, wheeling suddenly, rode at full speed for the mouth of the alley. as he did so another shot came from the alley. ted's revolver was in his hand, and he fired at the spot where he had seen the flash from the muzzle of the assassin's weapon. he heard mrs. graham scream, and turned back to the side of the carriage only to find that one of the horses attached to it had been hit by the bullet, and was down, but that neither stella nor mrs. graham had been injured, and he rode straight into the dark alley, followed by bud and kit, leaving ben and the other boys to guard the carriage, for he did not know from what direction another attack might come. the alley was as dark as a pocket, and as ted rode into it he well knew that he was taking his life in his hands. at the far end of the alley he heard the beat of feet running swiftly, and fired his revolver several times in that direction, and heard a yell of pain. "come on, fellows," he called. "i think i got one of them that time." as he said this they saw two dark figures dart out of the alley into the street at the end opposite that at which the boys had entered, and they spurred in that direction. but when they came to the street there was no one in sight, but splotches of blood on the sidewalk testified to the fact that a wound had been inflicted upon some one. they rode up and down the block, but without discovering where their attackers had taken refuge. it was a low part of the town, and there was scarcely a house on either side of the street into which a criminal would not be taken and concealed. "we'll have to give it up," said ted, at last. "we could hunt here all night without being any the wiser." disappointed, they rode back, after tracing the bloodstains along the sidewalk to where they were lost in the dusty street. they found that the carriage horse had been so badly hurt that its recovery was impossible, and ted mercifully put a bullet into its brain. the carriage was surrounded by people from the dance hall, who had been brought by the shots. among them was billy sudden. "i reckon i called the turn," said he, as ted came up. "you sure did," said ted. "i ain't presuming to give advice none," said billy, "but if it was me that got his sky piece knocked off and had a horse shot i believe i'd almost be tempted to round up this yere man's town and capture every hoodlum in it, and sweat them to find out who fired them shots." "it wouldn't do any good, billy," said ted. "the people in this town have got it in for the ranch people. they think the ranches are taking trade away from them. they'd sooner see the ranches split into farms of forty acres each. they'd have so many more farmers to rob that way." "i reckon so. but what are you going to do? i want to tell you that me and my boys stand with you till the burning pit freezes over, whenever and wherever you need us." "may have to call on you one of these days, but not now." "ain't you going after that young imp, creviss? say, he's the meanest boy i ever saw. if i was his father i'd make him behave, or i'd bust him wide open." "i understand his father thinks wiley is just smart and spirited, and is ready to back him up in anything he does." "ought to make the old man popular." "not so you can see it. but that boy is a tough citizen, and getting tougher every day." "i'm hearing a good deal about that kid these days. he trains with a bunch of bad ones over at strongburg." "for instance?" "lately he's been running with 'skip' riley, a crook who has the reputation of having made more money out of holding up trains than by working." "i know his record. how long has he been there?" "several months. he came there from the nebraska penitentiary, and he was smooth enough to work the reformed-criminal, first-offense racket on the women there until they finally got him a job in the fire department. he seems to be a hero in the eyes of a lot of tough young fellows here and in strongburg, and they follow him in anything he suggests." "that's not a healthy proposition for a boy. mr. riley ought to be conducted out of town." "the worst of it is he has banded them into some sort of secret organization." "what do they call it?" "i did know, but i've plumb forgotten. there's a young fellow uptown whom i'm trying to keep straight on account of his folks back east. i know his sister." ted could see billy's face get red as he said this. "his name is jack farley. perhaps you know him." ted shook his head. "well, he's a good kid, but he got into bad company at home and skipped. i corresponded once in a while with his sister, and she wrote me about him, and one day i run across him in a gambling house here. i hadn't seen him since he was a kid, but i knew him straight off because he looks so much like kate--miss farley i mean--and i called him outside and had a talk with him. he was mighty uppy at first, and threw it into me so hard that i had to turn in and whale some sense into him." "that's one way of doing it," said ted dryly. "it was the only way for him. he thought he'd get sympathy by writing home about it, but all he got was that they reckoned he deserved it or he wouldn't have got it. after that he was good. but he'd got in with that creviss bunch and didn't seem able to get out of it, so i let him stay, only i made him come to me every day or two and tell me what he'd been up to, and that's as far as i've got." "send him out to me." "he won't work on a ranch, or i'd had him out at the dumb-bell long ago. he likes to work in town, so i got him a job, and so far he has stuck to it. but the gang keeps him from doing any good for himself. he knows the name of this organization of boys under skip, and the next time i see him i'll find out what it is. then you keep your eye peeled for it, for creviss is one of the leaders, and i'm afraid, after to-night, he'll do all he can to make things lively for you. he's a mean, vindictive little cuss." "i'll keep a weather eye out for him, never fear. thank you for the tip. this is the first time i've heard of the bunch, i've been away from the ranch so much lately." the boys had hitched jack slate's horse into the carriage, and he got on the seat with carl, and they were ready to start. with an "adios" to billy sudden and his boys, they were off, and arrived at the ranch house without further incident. mrs. graham and stella had retired for the night, and the boys were sitting before the fire in the living room, for the night was chilly and song had built up a good blaze against their return. naturally, the conversation drifted to the shots fired at them from the alley. "while i wuz ambulatin' eround ter-night i overheard some conversation what wuz interestin'," remarked bud, who was sprawling on a bearskin in front of the fire. "what was it?" asked ted, who had been turning over in his mind what billy sudden had told him of the organization of tough boys under the guidance of the ex-convict. "i wuz standin' clost ter one o' ther winders what opens out onter ther alley when i hears two fellers talkin' below me," said bud. "what were they saying?" "i wuzn't aimin' ter listen ter no one's privut conversation, but i caught your name, an' i tried ter hear what wuz said erbout yer." "naturally." "one feller wuz talkin' pritty loud, ez if he'd been hittin' up ther tangle juice, an' ther other feller wuz tryin' ter make him put on ther soft pedal, what clay calls talkin' pianissimo. but when the booze is in ther wit is out, an' ther feller would shut it down some fer a while, then he'd get a good lungful o' air an' bust out ergin." "what was it all about?" "erbout runnin' us off'n ther reservation." "they'd have a fine chance to do that," said ted, laughing. "it seems they hev some sort o' a club, ther 'flyin' somethin' er other'--i couldn't jest catch what. to hear them fellers talk they're holy terrors." "how do they propose to run us off? did you hear that?" "no; they didn't discuss ways an' means, but they said as how ther boss, they mentioned his name, but it's clear got erway from me, hed riz up on his hind legs an' hed give it out straight to ther gang thet ez long ez we wuz in ther country they couldn't do no good fer theirselfs, consequentially we must skidoo, ez they needed this part o' ther country fer their own elbowroom. they wuz real sassy erbout it, too." "i suppose they thought all they had to do was to serve notice on us, and we'd vacate." "i reckon thet's ther way they hed it chalked up." "well, that bears out what billy sudden told me to-night after we were shot at." then ted related what billy had told him about skip riley and his influence on the boys of soldier butte and strongburg. "thet thar's ther very feller they wuz talkin' erbout, thet skip riley. now i recolict it, an' ther name o' their sweet-scented aggergation is ther 'flyin' demons.'" "oh, mercy! aren't they just awful?" said ben, with a grin. "but which way are they expected to fly, toward you or from you?" "if they come monkeyin' eround these broad acres they'll be flyin' fer home," said bud. "or to jail, if we can prove what i believe against them," said ted thoughtfully. "what is that?" asked kit. "you haven't forgotten the mysterious robbery of the strongburg trust company's office, have you?" "nope." "you remember that a great many people to this day disbelieve that the office was robbed at all, because everything was found locked and barred, and the most careful examination showed that no one could have broken into the room from which a box containing twenty thousand dollars in currency and a package of negotiable bonds was stolen." "shore, i remember. that's allays been ther greatest mystery in these parts." "you haven't forgotten the robbery soon afterward of the soldier butte post office and the disappearance of the registered mail pouch that came in on the train at two o'clock in the morning. it was thrown into the inner office by the carrier, and the office securely locked. yet in the morning it could not be found, and there was nothing to show that the post office had been entered." "i reckon i haven't. we lost a bunch o' money in it ourselves." "but we got it back." "that's so, but the carrier is still in jail, awaitin' trial fer stealin' the sack, an' i don't believe he had any more ter do with it than i had." "and yet the most careful examination by the post-office inspectors failed to show that the place had been forcibly entered, and, although the carrier, jim bliss, had witnesses to show that he went into the post office with the sack, and came right out without it, still he is in jail, accused of stealing it," said kit. "there are several other cases of mysterious robberies which i might cite, but those are enough," said ted. "but the curious thing about it all is that the robbers left not the slightest trace, not a broken lock, not a mark to show that a window was forced or a hole bored. when the place is closed up at night there is the money, when it is opened in the morning the money is gone. and again, these robberies only occur when valuables are accidentally left out of the vaults." "it is curious. everything yer say is true, but i never thought erlong it ez much ez you, an' i didn't figger out how near they wuz alike." "well, what's your theory?" asked ben. "you started to tell us." "yes, who do you think committed these robberies?" asked kit. "who but a gang of bad boys under the leadership and tutelage of a criminal?" answered ted. "who but the gang of strongburg and soldier butte young toughs who go by the silly name of 'the flying demons'? if they get gay around this ranch, we'll have to tie a can to them and head them for the reform school or the penitentiary." chapter vi. the "flying demons'" message. when ted strong stepped out on the veranda the morning after the ball he found stella staring curiously at a large, square piece of paper stuck on the wall of the ranch house. nobody in the house had risen early, as they had all been up very late, except song, the cook, who, when he saw that no one was disposed to turn out for an early breakfast, had gone out to work in the garden, in which he had with much skill raised an abundance of vegetables that year. "good morning, stella; what is so interesting?" said ted. "it beats me," answered stella. "i wonder if this is one of ben's witticisms. if it is, he ought to be spanked." ted was standing by her side, reading what had been printed on the paper. "h'm! this is good," said he, and read aloud, as if to himself, the following warning: "ted strong and broncho boys: you ought to know by this time that you are not wanted in this part of the country. advise you to sell out and skip. if you stay your lives will be made a hell on earth, and we have the stuff that will do it. this is no bluff, as you will find out if you disregard this word of friendly warning. you will be given a short time to sell your stock, then git. this means business. "the flying demons." "that's a pretty good effort for a lot of kids," said ted. "wait, here's a watermark in the paper. let's see what it is?" ted took the paper from the wall and held it up to the light. in the paper was the representation of the fabulous monster, the griffin, and woven into the paper were the words "griffin bond." "that's as easy as shooting fish in a tub," said ted, as he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. "the fellow who put that warning up certainly left his footprints behind him," said stella, with a smile. "he did, but even without that i should have known the authors of it." "how?" ted then told stella the substance of the conversation between the boys the night before, and of his suspicions as to the guilt of creviss and his gang in the mysterious robberies that had occurred in the two towns. "but," he concluded, "it is not up to me to get at the matter. it is work for the sheriff. however, if those boys try any of their foolishness with us, we'll turn in and send them to the reform school, where they belong." "they're certainly a bad lot. i was talking to a lady at the 'rent rag' last night, and she was telling me what a horrid boy young creviss is." "i wish i knew at what time this notice was put up here. it must have been done in daylight, for it was getting light in the east when we turned in." "perhaps some one was so quiet as to put it there while you were all inside talking." "i hardly think so, for we were all sitting near the fireplace, and the room was so warm that kit opened the door, and it stood open until we separated to go to bed." "sure you could have heard them? some of you were talking pretty loud, for i heard you in my room just before i went to sleep." "well, of course, i couldn't be certain about it; but i came out on the veranda to take a look at the sky just before i turned in, and i didn't see it then. surely, as i turned to come back into the house my eye would have caught that big piece of white paper beside the door." "what time was it that the most important part of your conversation took place?" "just before we broke up. i remember we were going over the mysterious robberies, and i expressed the opinion that they were the work of the gang under skip riley and creviss." "that was probably the time the fellow who put up that notice was about. you see, if he followed you from soldier butte he wouldn't get here much earlier than that, for he wouldn't dare ride a pony the length of the valley at that time of the morning, so he had to walk from the south fence." "by jove! i believe you are right." "if my theory is true, the fellow who brought the warning also carried back your conversation to the gang." "then they surely will have something to fight us on." "yes, fear that you will get on their trail will compel them to try to make their bluff good, as expressed in that message." "i'd give something to know when this thing was put up." "let's see; it was about four o'clock when you turned in, wasn't it?" "just about." "and just about that time song gets up to cook for the boys in the bunk house who get out to relieve the night watch in the big pasture. doesn't he?" "those are the orders." "then have song in, and we'll ask him if he saw a strange man around the place when he got up. he might have seen him and thought nothing of it, and would never think of reporting it." "good idea. wait here and i will call him." in a few minutes the chinaman came shuffling in from the garden." "see here, song," said ted. "did you see a strange man here early this morning?" "stlange man!" said song meditatively, with a smile of innocence on his broad, yellow face. "no savvy stlange man." "man no b'long here," said stella, "oh, yes, i savvy. no see stlange man." "what time you get up?" "me gettee up fo' clock." "did you go outside?" "yes, me go out an' call cowbloy. tell gettee up, p. d. q. no gettee up, no bleakfast." "what did you see outside that you don't see every morning?" "evely moling? no savvy." "yesterday morning, day before that, day before that, all mornings." "lesterday moling, evely moling?" "oh, the deuce! you try him, stella." "say, song, you see something makee you flaid this moling?" said stella, imitating song's pidgin english. "oh, yes, me lookee out, plenty jump in." "what you see?" "plenty wolf. he sneakee lound side house. i lun like devil." "what wolf look like?" "plenty big wolf. when he see me he lise up on hind legee, and lun likee man." "ah ha! there's your clew," said stella, turning to ted. "the fellow who posted this notice was disguised in a wolfskin so that he could sneak up to the house unnoticed by the chinaman, or, if seen, he would make a bluff at scaring song." "stella, you're a wonder." "say, song, you no likee wolf?" "no, me plenty flaid wolf," answered the chinaman, shaking his head violently. "all right, song. i givee you shotgun. next time you see wolf, plenty shoot. savvy?" "all light. you givee me gun, i shootee wolf plenty. makee go 'ki-yi' and lun belly fast." song went away with a grin on his face like a crack in a piece of stale cheese. "stella, you've solved it. i believe whoever put that message there heard our conversation, and at least they'll hate us a bit worse than before, if that is possible." "let them bark, the wolves. i never was afraid of a wolf, anyhow. if you want to throw me into spasms show me a bobcat. that's the fighting animal." during breakfast the boys were shown the warning that had been posted beside the door, and it was decided to pay no attention to it, but to watch for the appearance of a messenger from the "flying demons," and if one was caught to make it hot for him. ted had no doubt but creviss and his gang would try to injure the broncho boys by every means in their power, but until they committed some overt act the boys could hardly afford to become the aggressors. for several days nothing happened, and the moon valley ranch went the even tenor of its way. preparations were under way for the fall round-up, and ted had received letters from several heavy stock buyers that they would be present at that time to make their selections of such cattle as they desired to buy. it had always been the custom at the ranch to have an entertainment of some sort at the ranch afterward. this was started for the purpose of amusing the buyers with cowboy tricks and that sort of thing, but it had developed into something far greater, until now all the world was invited to the barbecue and the "doings" afterward. no one was barred who behaved himself. this year ben tremont had charge of the entertainment, and he was not limited as to expense, for every fellow was on his honor to provide the best entertainment for the least money. the manager's plans were generally kept secret from every one except ted and stella, who were the exceptional ones and were in every one's secrets and confidence. ben had declared himself as to the superlative excellence of his show this year. "it's going to be hard to beat," said he, in boasting about it. "we've had some pretty good shows, but nothing like the one i'm getting up now." kit had charge of the cowboy end of it, the races, the bronchobusting, the roping and tying contests; in fact, all the arena acts. this year clay whipple attended to the inner man, and was to provide a genuine old southern barbecue, with trimmings. the round-up was to begin in less than a week, and the festivities were to follow immediately. invitations had been sent broadcast into nebraska, colorado, wyoming, idaho, montana, and the pacific coast states; everywhere, in fact, where the boys had friends, and from the responses received an enormous crowd would be present. three days elapsed after the finding of the warning beside the door before anything more was heard from the flying demons. then ted found another message from them near the front door. it was as follows: "ted strong and others: you think you know who committed the mysterious robberies, but you are on the wrong track. you will never find out, while your secrets are known to us. this is warning number two. the third and last will come soon; then look out. "the flying demons." "now, why in the world do they call themselves the flying demons?" asked ted reflectively, as they were reading the second screed from their enemies. "it seems to me that there is the secret of the whole thing. you never can tell what a pack of boys like that are going to do. they are more to be feared than older criminals, for they have no judgment, and will rush into the most reckless things just to show off before one another." "pay no attention to them," advised stella. "that's what i think they are doing now--showing off. i doubt if they think they can frighten us, but they are afraid of us." "oh, by the way," said ted, suddenly thinking of something. "you remember i looked at the watermark on that first warning we received from these terrible demons. well, this screed has the same mark--'griffin bond.' when i was in town to-day i went into the bank. old man creviss was behind the counter, and that precious son of his was beside him. i had a check cashed, and mr. creviss asked me why we didn't keep our bank account there. i told him we had thought something about it, but i didn't mention that we had decided not to. then i asked him for a couple of sheets of paper on which to write a note, and he handed them to me. i took them to the window and held them up to the light to see the watermark." "and what was it?" asked stella eagerly. "the griffin." "then the paper on which these things were written came from the bank?" "they certainly did. after i had looked at the watermark i turned to young creviss and looked him square in the eye. he turned as white as chalk, and his lip trembled." "he's a coward," said stella positively. "why didn't he bluff it out?" "he had nothing to stand on; but, as you say, he's a rank coward, and it's my opinion that it's only fear of skip riley that keeps him at it, anyway. at all events, i gave him a good scare, for instead of writing the note i folded up the paper and put it into my pocket. he stepped forward as if he would interfere and make me give the paper back, not having used it, but i gave him a glassy glare and walked out." "then it was he who wrote the warnings." "of course, and he knows that i have him dead to rights. that is another mark against me with the gang." "better watch out." "they can have me if they can get me." chapter vii. song shoots a wolf. early one morning the broncho boys were startled out of their beds by the double explosion of a shotgun, followed by excited yells and screams of agony. "that chinaman has shot somebody," thought ted, as he rapidly skipped out of bed and pulled on his trousers. in the living room he met all the boys, as scantily clad as himself, hurrying out to see what the noise was all about. they could hear song behind the house screaming in chinese at the top of his voice, and in an ear-splitting falsetto, which showed that he was tremendously excited. thither they rushed, and for a moment the ludicrous scene far outbalanced the seriousness of what had happened. on the ground was a young fellow about seventeen years of age. he was writhing with pain, and the blood was oozing through his clothes in fifty places. "ha, ha!" shrieked song. "me shootee wolf, turnee into man light away. ha, ha, me allee same plenty smart man, likee magician." "yes, you're a hot magician," said bud; "you've made this feller second cousin ter a porous plaster. that's what you've done." "who is he, song?" asked ted. "me no savvy him. me comee out chicken house getee eggs fo' bleakfast. i cally gun, shotee plenty wolf all samee mliss stella say." "but this is not a wolf." "all samee wolf. i open chicken house do'. i see wolf. plenty glowl at song. i no likee gun. shutee my eye. pull tligger, an' gun goee off. all samee wolf no mo' glowlee, him yellee like thundeh. when smokee blow way wolf gonee, all samee man comee. i plenty magician, i thinkee." ted looked in the chicken house, and on the floor lay the dried hide of a big gray wolf. now he understood. the message had come the third time from the flying demons. "kit, run around to the front door and see if there is a message there for us from our friends the demons." in a moment kit was back, holding a piece of paper in his hand. ted took it from him, and read it. it was the third and last warning. it said: "ted strong: we have warned you twice before to leave this part of the country, but you have made no move to do so. this is the third warning. if you are not away from here in a week the vengeance will fall upon you. beware! "the flying demons." "did you bring this?" asked ted, of the wretched youth, who still lay upon the ground groaning from his numerous wounds. there was no reply. the fellow could only toss his head from side to side and rub his legs, into which the bulk of the shot had been fired by the excited chinaman. "you won't answer, eh? well, we'll find a way to make you. i'm glad you've given us a week," said ted, laughing. "that will at least give us time to hold our round-up and festivities." "oh, if i live through this i'll never go into anything like it again," moaned the youth upon the ground. "here, stand up," said ted to him. "you're not badly hurt. you're only stung, twice. get on your feet and we'll see what we can do for you. you're a long way from dead yet. what's your name?" "jack farley. oh, if i could only be sure that i wasn't going to die!" exclaimed the youth. he was the young fellow billy sudden had spoken about. "we can't tell how badly you are hurt until you get up," said ted. "rise, and we'll go into the house and examine your wounds." slowly young farley got to his feet, but when he tried to walk he uttered a howl of pain, and sank down again. "yellow all through," said ben, in a tone of disgust. "ever have about three ounces of duck shot pumped into yer system through yer hide?" asked bud. "never had." "then yer don't know all ther joys o' life. i've had one ounce shot inter my leg, an' if ther contents o' two shells gives double ther pain one does, then excuse me. an' mine wuz only snipe shot, at that." "pick him up, boys, and lay him on the lounge in my room," said ted. "i'll take a look at him after a while, meantime some of you watch him to see that he doesn't get away. we need him for evidence." when bud and ben had carried the wounded boy into ted's room and laid him on the lounge, bud stood over him regarding him with interest. "i sorter envy yer, kid," he said at last. "you can have 'em, but i don't see why you envy me," said farley. "i wuz thinkin' how happy you'll be all through these lonesome winter evenings, pickin' ther shot out o' yer legs." when farley had been carried into the house, ted called kit to him and said: "kit, i wish you'd ride over to suggs' ranch and tell billy sudden that his protã©gã© is over here with his hide peppered with bird shot, and ask him to ride over and take a look at him." during breakfast they related to stella the story of song's wolf hunt in the chicken house, and the result. song was as proud as a peacock, and wore "the smile that won't come off" as he flitted around the table waiting on every one. "say, missee stella," he said, "song all samee one cowbloy now, eh? what you sayee?" "yes, song, you have certainly followed instructions. you got your wolf that time, sure. how you likee shootee?" "no likee, missee stella. makee too much noisee, all samee too much plenty fiahclackers. kickee like blazes. plitty near knockee arm outee song." the boys stripped farley after breakfast, and found his legs in pretty bad condition. they looked as if song's gun had been loaded with smallpox, and all of it had lodged in the lad's legs. "boys, we'll have to take relays in picking the shot from our first victim," said ted. "there's too much work here for one man." "he's a turrible-lookin' demon now with a hide full o' shot. ther punctured demon of demonville! say, kid, i'd hate ter laugh at yer, but yer a sight. why didn't yer fix it so's them two charges o' shot would hev been distributed among ther gang? then yer could sit down o' evenings an' pick shot out o' one another instid o' plottin' agin' ther whites." "let him be, bud, he's having all he can do to think about these shots, as it is. the things for us to do now is to pick them out of him." "we'll let him count 'em ez they come out. that'll help take his mind off his troubles, but he'll hev ter hev a great head fer figgers." they went to work on him with their penknives, as most of the shot were just beneath the skin. but it was painful enough, at that, and every time a shot came out farley groaned deeper. while they were engaged in this, to them, pleasing occupation, billy sudden arrived. "hello, kid," he said to farley. "so you got it at last. i could have told you to keep away from ted strong and his bunch. they're bad medicine for a herd o' mavericks like you to graze with. you tackled the wrong outfit. they're too many fer you, and if you'll all take a fool's advice you'll keep away, or else some of you will be looking through a griddle in a door up at the penitentiary." farley made no reply, only hid his face and groaned at every extracted shot. "say, kid, what about this gang you belong to?" the boy shook his head. "d'ye mean to say you're not going to tell me about it?" the boy nodded. "what's the reason you won't?" "the oath." "slush with the oath. you had no business to take it. what'll the home folks think when i tell them about this. shot by a chinaman in the chicken house at dawn!" billy paused to let the ignominy of it sink in. it did sound pretty bad and mean and cheap. there were no heroics in this, such as farley had at first considered his rã´le. he hid his face on his arm, and his body shook. billy had probed deep into his pride. "well, come on," said billy. "this is no time for a conspirator to do the baby act. i suppose you thought it was to be a spotlight scene where you stood in the center doing the heavy stunt, and all the rest sat on the bleachers and applauded. by gee! peppered by a chinaman, and with snipe shot, at that." "oh, quit it!" said farley. "i know i was a chump for sticking with those fellows, but i needed the money." "what money?" "my share of the--" "what?" "oh, nothing." "yes, there is something. what robbery was it you shared in?" "i didn't steal anything." "i suppose not. you did the dirty work of being lookout, or something like that, and they threw you the bone while they kept the meat and fat, eh?" "what shall i do with him?" asked ted. "keep him locked up as a hostage. that may bring those young fools to their senses," said billy. "i'm disgusted with him for not making a clean breast of the whole foolish business, and if it wasn't for his sister, i'd toss him up in the air and forget him." the rest of the day was spent in picking shot out of farley, and by evening he was relieved of the last one. "we'll put him in that empty room at the corner of the house, and take turns watching him through the night," said ted. until bedtime farley sat in the living room with the rest of them, and they were unusually guarded in their conversation. when it came time to retire farley was conducted to the room which was to be his prison, and it fell to carl to take the first watch, and to call ben at one o'clock. in the room there was a lounge and a pair of blankets for farley, a table and a lamp, and a chair for the watch. "whatever you do, don't go to sleep, carl," said ted. "the reason i'm putting you on the first watch is because you're such a sleepyhead." "don'd vorry aboud me," said carl, with a yawn. "i pet you i vas der sleepinglessness feller in der whole bunch. if he gets avay on my vatch it vill not be pecause i don'd sleep." "i guess you mean all right, but i swear i can't understand you. only keep awake." "oh, yah; i avake keeping all der time." carl sat in the chair watching his prisoner, and soon saw farley's chest heaving regularly and heard his deep breathing as he slept. then things seemed to waver and fade away. carl started up at hearing some one beating on the door, and sat rubbing his eyes. it was broad daylight. "all right, i'll get up pooty soon yet. is preakfast retty?" "here, open the door. this is ted." "vait a minute." carl staggered sleepily to the door and unlocked it. "where is your prisoner?" asked ted, stalking into the room, and looking at the open window. "my vat? ach, gott in himmel, vat haf i dided? i am schoost coming avake. he iss gone! i haf slept on vatch. i am foreffer disgraced. kill me, ted! i haf no appetite to live any more alretty," cried carl. ted had been angry at discovering the escape of farley, for he had conceived a plan to use him against creviss. he had risen early, and when he found that all the boys were in bed except carl, he immediately suspected the truth. but carl's despairing manner turned him from anger. "never mind, carl," he said. "it was my fault for putting you on watch. you were not cut out for a watchman. or, perhaps, you were, according to the funny papers, but not of prisoners." during breakfast carl was compelled to endure the jokes of the boys at his failure to guard the prisoner, which he did with a lugubrious countenance; then, at a signal from ted, the subject was dropped. about ten o'clock billy sudden rode up to the ranch house. there was something in his manner that betokened news of importance, and he strode unbidden into the living room, where ted was sitting at his desk. "where's the kid?" he asked abruptly. "who, farley?" asked ted, looking up from his work. "yes." "skipped." "what?" "i said skipped." "great scott! i'd give a hundred dollars if he hadn't." "why?" "what time did he get away?" "don't know, exactly. carl was watching him, but he fell asleep almost as soon as they were in the room together, and didn't wake up until six o'clock this morning, and farley was gone. no one knows how he got away or at what time. it might have been any time. he probably woke up in the night and saw that carl was dead to the world, and opened the window, dropped to the ground, and hit the trail. that's all i know about it. but what makes you so anxious about it?" "then you haven't heard the news?" "guess not. what is it?" "the first national bank was robbed last night." "great guns! creviss' bank! that's the united states depository!" "the same." "what are the details?" "i rode through town this morning on my way over here to see if being confined for the night wouldn't make the kid talk, when i saw a bunch of men standing in front of the bank. i butted in and asked what the excitement was, and they told me that the bank had been robbed." "but how?" "that's what nobody knows. when the cashier, mr. henson, got to the bank this morning everything apparently was all right. the doors and windows were fastened, and there was no sign anywhere that the bank had been forcibly entered. of course, he didn't look at these things first. he went to the vault and opened it at the proper time and examined its contents casually. everything seemed to be as usual. but when, a few minutes later, he went to get out the currency, it was all gone. he hadn't counted up when i left there, so no one knows the exact amount, but it was large." chapter viii. the battle with the bull. the excitement incident to the mysterious robbery of the creviss bank was intense. how had it been done? this was the question that every one was asking his neighbor. but none could answer it. the evening before the robbery had taken place the bank had been closed by the cashier, and by mr. creviss himself. the money, books, and papers, with which the business of the day had been conducted, had been carried into the vault by the cashier, and mr. creviss, who was an unusually cautious man, looked into the vault after the cashier came out, to see that everything was in. then he closed the vault doors, and turned the handle of the combination, setting the time lock, thus securing the doors from being opened until nine o'clock the next morning. the only way in which it could be opened, and an almost impossible way, at that, was by blowing it open. and yet the vault had been robbed, and the vault lock had apparently not been tampered with. it had the appearance of necromancy. ted rode into town with billy sudden, arriving about noon. billy rode on to the dumb-bell ranch, and ted stopped at the bank. it seemed deserted. but as he entered the door he saw a big man, dressed in the flashy clothes affected by managers of cheap circuses and fake shows, standing at the end of the counter talking to wiley creviss. "i can't do anything with that check," ted heard creviss say. "you'll have to come in when the cashier is here. the safe is locked, and i can't get into it, anyway, and all the currency is in it. i'm only staying here until the cashier gets back from dinner." "when will that be?" asked the stranger. "in about half an hour." the stranger picked up his valise, which seemed to be heavy, and walked out grumbling about banks that closed up for dinner. ted said nothing to wiley, but he took a good look about the bank, disregarding the other lad's scowls. he observed that the vault door stood open, but that there was no money in sight, and the place had an air of desertion, as if business was slack. when strong had seen all that he wanted of the apparent entrances to the bank that a criminal might use to force his way in, he left with two distinct impressions on his mind. one was that the vault door had been open when he came in, and that wiley creviss had abruptly closed it when he saw ted staring at it. the other was the remarkable appearance of the showman, for without doubt he was that. as before, the mysterious robbery of the bank proved to be too hard a nut for the citizens to crack, and when they had thrashed out all the theories advanced and knocked them to pieces again, they forgot it. not so ted strong. this succession of robberies, none of them leaving behind the slightest clew to the perpetrators, interested him. its very difficulty of solution, which had made the lesser brains abandon it, compelled his attention and interest. had it been his business to tackle the problem, he gladly would have done so. but the only federal end to it was the robbery of the post office, which the inspectors of that department were working on, unless, perhaps, it might be found that the funds of the government for general purposes at fort rincon had been stolen. then the case would come under the operations of the united states marshal's office. but other and more pressing things of a personal nature gradually took his attention from crime, and he devoted himself to the coming round-up. all the spare room in the moon valley ranch house was occupied by visiting cattle buyers, who had come to the round-up. the rooms of the boys had been given up to guests, while they camped on the prairie behind the house. at last the great day came. early in the morning the boys were out, and with them was stella. cow suggs had loaned ted his outfit for the day, and ted was glad to have the boys, for there was no cleverer cowman in the country at a round-up, saving ted himself, who was king of them all, and so conceded, than the dark, lithe cow-puncher, billy sudden, who had been through college and had traveled in europe before he deserted the east for the toil, freedom, and excitement of the range. it was now time to round up all the stock on the moon valley range, cut out the marketable stuff, and brand the yearlings. this is not only a troublesome task, but it is dangerous, and not a moment of the time until the task is accomplished but has its exciting adventures and escapes from death. the boys did not know exactly how many head of cattle they owned. they had been selling and replenishing their stock from time to time, and the increase of calves had been very large, for moon valley, situated in the lee of dent du chien, or dog tooth mountain, with its rich grass, the richest in the black hills, and its abundance of fresh, clear spring water, was an ideal breeding place. there were on the ranch at that time several dangerous bulls, and this added to the hard work of the day, because the monarchs of the range did not like to be disturbed and have their following broken up and scattered. in the big pasture, which lay at the foot of deni du chien mountain, was the largest herd in the valley. the king of this herd was known as "gladiator." he was always looking for a fight, and never refused a challenge, whether from another bull or from what he considered his natural enemy, man. a man on foot in that pasture would have stood no more chance for his life than if he tried to stand in front of the engine that hauls the empire state express going at top speed. gladiator would kill him just as quickly and as surely. so it was that strangers were kept out of the big pasture, whether they were mounted or not, unless they were escorted by some member of the broncho boys, or one of the older cowboys about the place. stella, with her red bolero, nearly caused a tragedy one day by coming within the vision of gladiator, who took the bolero for a challenge. stella turned in time and fled, and had it not been for the fleetness of her pony and her own superb riding, there had been no more to relate of the adventures of the girl pard of the moon valley boys. the morning of the round-up ted undertook personally to turn the herd to the rendezvous. stella insisted upon accompanying him, and at last he was persuaded to give his consent, but only on the condition that she wear subdued colors, which she did, with skirt and jacket of a light-dun color. the herd was grazing in the noble range that stretched for miles along and across the valley in the shadow of the splendid mountain. it was widely scattered, and as the band of horsemen rode out toward it the cattle lifted their heads for a moment and took a quiet survey, then returned to their feeding. not so gladiator. the great white-and-black bull raised his head proudly, and his fierce, steady eyes regarded them without fear. indeed, gladiator knew no fear, whether of man or beast, wolf pack or mountain lion, serpent or bird of prey. he was monarch of that herd, and no one said him nay except ted strong, who ruled the ranch and all that was on it, by the general consent of his comrades and his own fitness for his rulership. ted and gladiator had had numerous differences, and it was the bull that had backed down every time. yet he did not fear ted. rather he hated him because he could not conquer this quick, brave, and resourceful fellow. "that bull will be the death of you some of these days," said stella to ted once when gladiator, resenting ted's intrusion into the herd for the purpose of cutting out some calves, charged him. but ted in the end threw the bull with his rope, humiliating him before all the herd. from that time forth gladiator's eyes always became red with anger when he saw ted, but he did not misbehave, because he respected ted's lariat and quirt, and the strong arm that wielded them. when they got to the herd the boys circled it from behind, riding in slowly. ted and stella were on the left point, with bud and kit opposite. bill sudden was in the rear to drive, while the other moon valley cowboys and billy sudden's boys came in from the sides. at the first interruption of their grazing the cattle moved along sluggishly, but gladiator did not move. the big bull stood his ground, with eyes gazing steadily at ted and stella, who were approaching him slowly and persistently. suddenly gladiator threw up his head and gave a low, menacing bellow. "the old chap is waking up," said ted. "be careful, ted," said stella. "he's not in very good humor." "i see he isn't. but if we go at him easily he'll be all right." "don't take any chances with him alone, ted." "still, i'm not going to let him boss this job. he's got to lead this herd out, and that's all there is to it, for it's a cinch that they won't go without him." stella knew that it was useless to say anything more, as when ted made up his mind to do a thing, it would be done if everything broke. billy sudden had got the herd moving up from the rear, but the forward end of the herd was stagnant. gladiator refused to budge, and stood with his stubborn forefeet planted on the sod, his head raised insolently. but it could be seen that his anger was working within him, and would soon break forth. bud was working the cattle nearest him gently on the move, but when they saw that their leader was standing still they ceased their progress and began to crowd and mill, and the steers were getting reckless and beginning to throw their tails in the air and utter low, growling bellows. it was a critical moment. who was to be the master must be decided quickly. if the bull conquered then the cattle would get to milling generally, and the mischief would be to pay. it would not take long for them to stampede, if the bull started the panic, or made a charge. ted saw the danger, and knew that the condition must be treated diplomatically, which was the easier way, or with force, of which the outcome was most uncertain. it depended, in a measure, on the temper of the bull himself. the cattle were crowding up from the rear, and those nearest the bull were beginning to feel the pressure and were pushing toward gladiator, who was fifteen feet in advance of the herd. when he noticed that the herd was moving, his anger increased, and he lowered his head and began to paw the ground. ted held up his hand to billy sudden as a signal to cease pushing the animals, but they had got the impetus and would not stop. in a moment they had begun to crowd upon the bull, who, with legs planted stubbornly, would not be crowded, and began to gore aside those who were being pushed upon him. ted saw instantly that this was going to result in disaster if not stopped, as the frightened steers, feeling gladiator's sharp horns, turned back on the herd, and were pushing their way frantically into the center of it, while others, coming up, were forced upon the bull's horns. "darn a stubborn bull, anyhow!" exclaimed ted. "i've got to get in and put a stop to that, or gladiator will have the herd to milling or running in less than ten minutes." "be careful," was all stella said, but there was a world of anxiety in her voice. "you better get out of the way, stella," said ted "ride to the rear. you will see it all, and have just as much fun, and will be out of danger." "what are you going to do?" "i'm going to make that bull move along or bust a string." ted's jaw was set with determination, and when stella saw that she knew that it would be useless for her to say anything more. ted loosened his rope, grasped his quirt firmly, and rode slowly toward the bull, while stella signaled to billy sudden to ride up to the head of the herd. the boys, observing ted's actions, knew what he was about to do, and ceased moving the cattle and sat on their horses to watch for the outcome of the contest. most of them felt like spectators at a performance of a specially hazardous feat, and held their breath. but each was on the alert to rush to ted's assistance the moment he seemed to need it. as the bull looked up, and saw ted approaching him, he ceased pawing, and stood with watchful eyes. occasionally he sent forth a challenging bellow. his tail was switching from side to side, like that of an angry cat. ted was coming alertly. no one knew the danger of openly attacking the bull better than himself, and yet it must be done. it was rule or kill, so far as the bull was concerned, for if the boys could not manage him they would be compelled to kill him so that they might be able to handle the herd, substituting a more amiable bull in his place. a cowman cannot always tell what a bull is going to do when it is faced on the range. it may dodge the issue or it may attack, and ted was wary enough to be on the watch for the latter contingency. therefore, when gladiator, without so much warning as the lowering of his head, sprang at ted when he was not more than ten feet away, he covered the distance in two or three lumbering bounds, and ted had just sufficient time to wheel his pony to one side to avoid being bowled over. but the horns of the bull struck the gaiter on his left leg, as it rushed past, and tore it off, almost unseating him. stella, breathlessly watching the encounter, gasped as she saw ted reel in his saddle. but she breathed easier as she saw him straighten up and turn his horse rapidly to face the bull again. with almost incredible agility, the bull turned and came rushing at ted again, but the leader of the broncho boys rode swiftly away from him, tolling him away from the herd. finally the bull stopped and began to paw the earth. ted, to tempt him to another attack, directed sultan toward him at full speed, intending to swerve when he got close to his bullship, and dodge him and infuriate him further, so that he would follow. he knew that sultan could outrun gladiator. but, as he got close to the bull, in spite of the warning cries from stella and bud, gladiator swerved to meet the attack, and before the fleet-footed pony could escape he was struck, and went rolling over the ground. a cry of horror went up from the boys as they all dashed to the scene. ted strong was on the ground. the pony had scrambled to his feet, and stood trembling a few feet distant. the bull, with lowered head, was charging upon ted. chapter ix. ted gets an assignment. to the horror-stricken onlookers it appeared that ted's end had come. he lay prone upon the sod with his face turned to the sky, evidently stunned. the bull, with all the ferocity of his kind when goaded to anger, was charging upon him, his needle-like horns a few inches from the ground, and the foam flecking from his lips. stella, her face white and drawn, was galloping toward him as fast as her pony could go, while bud was lashing his pony to the height of its speed as he crossed the face of the herd. billy sudden was neck and neck with stella, calling to her to hold back. suddenly ted strong came to life, and looked over his shoulder. he saw his danger, and quick as thought he rolled over, away from the bull. but that was all. every one could see that it would do no good. he could not expect to escape from the infuriated beast in that manner, and a hollow groan escaped the lips of more than one. ted surely was doomed. the bull's horns caught ted in the side as he continued to roll away from it, and it stopped for an instant, settling itself to toss him. stella turned her head away with a muttered prayer, and even the cowboys, used to accidents in the round-up, gasped. but suddenly they saw a cloud of dust fly upward, and thought at first that ted had fired his revolver into the face of the infuriated beast, and it seemed strange that they had not heard the report of the weapon. then, miracle of miracles, the bull, with a snort of pain, threw up its head, and ted was not impaled upon its horns. there was another cloud of dust, and the bull began backing away, slowly but surely, shaking its head, as if in pain. "screamin' catamounts, did yer see thet, stella?" cried bud morgan, as he rode alongside the girl, "what did he do?" asked stella. "he's saved hisself by blindin' ther bull. he throwed dust inter its eyes. i'm dinged if i see how thet feller kin think o' things like thet when he's down an' out. look at him!" as the bull rubbed its face in the grass ted rolled over twice, then leaped to his feet and ran to where sultan was awaiting him. a mighty cheer went up from the boys, and the color came back into stella's face with a rush, but she could not have uttered a sound to save her life. in the meantime, the bull had recovered, having rubbed the dust from its eyes in the short grass, and looked about for its enemy. it caught sight of ted in the act of mounting, and sprang toward him with the swiftness of a deer. then stella recovered her voice. "run, ted! run!" she cried. but ted had seen the necessity of that himself, and, wheeled sultan and dashed off, looking over his shoulder at the enraged monster that was following him, while he rapidly uncoiled his lariat. having run several hundred yards and outdistanced the bull, he turned and stopped with his rope in his hand, closely calculating the animal's distance and speed. bud and stella were following the bull closely, both of them preparing their lariats for the throw. as the bull charged, ted's rope was seen to leave his hand and go sailing through the air in graceful loops and curves that lengthened out one after the other. one of the most difficult throws a cow-puncher can make with a lariat was that which ted attempted. he had to calculate to a degree the speed with which the bull was advancing toward him, and that at which the rope was leaving him. to calculate the point where the two would come together would seem an almost impossible task. but so nicely had ted estimated it, that the open noose fell over the bull's head and settled down, and, turning swiftly, ted spurred sultan to one side, and the bull, shaking his head and emitting short, angry bellows, rushed past. the intelligent pony had suddenly come to a stop, bracing himself for the shock, and when gladiator came to the end of the rope he turned completely over, and landed on his back with a thud that shook the earth. bud had galloped forward, and was about to throw himself from the saddle to tie the brute, when, with the agility of a cat, the bull was on its feet, shaking its head and stamping the earth in a perfect fury of anger and desperation. but it was by no means beaten, and ran at bud, who took to his heels. when again it arrived at the end of the rope, it went head over heels, much to its loss of wind and dignity. this time it did not rise so briskly, and ted gave it all the time it wanted. suddenly stella dashed out and rode toward the bull, and when a few feet from it curved off, with the angry brute in full pursuit. had her pony stumbled it would have been all up with her, for gladiator was wild with rage, and when it was again thrown its fury knew no bounds. "a few more throws like that will settle him, i think," shouted ted. "bait him again, bud." again bud rode out, and the bull took after him as before, and, when he was jerked onto his back by the rope, he lay there. ted rode rapidly up to him, and, detaching a rope which had been knotted around his waist, tied the bull's legs fore and aft, and the exhausted brute did not make an objection. for several minutes the bull lay panting, then it recovered. when it came to its normal condition at last, it struggled furiously to get to its feet, but each time it got up ted jerked it to its side, standing close to it so that it could see him. time and again it thus fruitlessly struggled. it seemed to realize suddenly that it had been a very foolish bull, and that it had met its master, who now stood over him ready to tumble him over at any moment. so he lay quite still, following ted's movements with its great, dark eyes, out of which all the ferocity had vanished. ted stepped up to it and patted its head, and it made no objection to these attentions. then he began to untie the bonds that held its legs together. "look out fer him, he's treacherous," called bud. "he's all right," answered ted. "i'll bet he'll eat out of my hand." when it felt that it was free again, the bull got slowly to his feet and walked sedately in the direction of the herd. "you've broken the spirit of that bull," said stella. "you bet i have," said ted. "that's just what he needed. he'll be a good bull now. if he isn't, i'll give him some more." ted now rode to the head of the herd with stella, and the other boys took their places. "all right, billy. send them forward," shouted ted to the rear of the herd. skillfully ted set the herd to moving toward the south, where the other herds were gathering under the management of the boys. at first gladiator threw up his head arrogantly, and did not stir. ted again rode toward him, swinging his lariat. the bull saw him as well as the rope, and, recognizing the agents of his defeat, moved off briskly at the head of the herd. "say," said bud, across the head of the herd, "yer could slap that old duffer across the face with your hat, and he'd apologize." they were almost at the rendezvous, where thousands of cattle had been gathered into a huge herd, and in every direction could be seen dust clouds announcing that others were on the way. "here comes carl hotfoot," said stella. "he looks as if something had happened, and he was an extra edition with 'a full account of the terrible disaster.'" "hello, carl! what is it?" asked ted. "der united states marshal vaiting for you on der veranda iss," answered carl solemnly. "well, what do i care?" asked ted. "he's come at a mighty busy time if he just wants to swap a little conversation. did he say what he wanted?" "no, but he say it is very important vork, an' for you to hurry." "my compliments to the marshal, and tell him i'm busy, and will see him as soon as i get through. you entertain him for a while." "but he der boss iss." "not on this ranch. this is a free and unadulterated republic, where there are no bosses. tell him to make himself at home, and i'll be there as soon as i can." now the cattle were all rounded up, and the cutting out of the two and three-year olds began. this was intensely exciting work, in which stella joined, as she was as skilled at it as any of the boys. outside of the big herd, the cowboys were picking up the cut-outs and driving them to the branding pens, for many of them were acquired stock, and even many of the home yearlings had never been branded. then the cows with calves were cut out, so that the youngsters might get a touch of life by feeling the sting of the hot iron with the crescent v brand on it. the buyers were circulating in the herds, looking over the stock. several of the buyers had brought their own cow-punchers with them, and these went to work cutting out the selections of their employers. the sky was thick with dust, and the air rang with the shouts of the cowboys and the lowing and bellowing of the cattle. the rattle of countless hoofs on the hard soil added to the din, and the cattle weaving in and out ceaselessly, and the dashing riding of the cowboys as they swooped out of the mass occasionally to drive back an escaping steer, made a scene of excitement, movement, and noise never seen anywhere, except at a western cattle round-up and cut-out. soon the work was pretty well in hand, and, leaving bud morgan as segundo, ted went to the house to see the marshal. he found that officer sitting on the veranda, quietly smoking a cigar, an interested witness of the proceedings. "how are you, mr. easton?" said ted, shaking hands with the marshal. "i must apologize for not coming sooner, but my hands were full." "so i see," said the marshal cordially. "i was watching you work out there. say, i believe i'd like to be a cow-puncher if i wasn't so old." "it's a young man's job," said ted, laughing; "and even at that it is about all a young fellow can stand at times. but this to-day is a mere picnic to what we are up against sometimes." "well, you seem to be right in it." "yes, i love my business. i wouldn't be anything in the world except a cow-puncher." "but, remember, you are also a government officer." "i never forget that. but, if it came to being compelled to quit one or the other of the occupations, i'd still be a cow-puncher, and let the marshalship go." "that's the very thing i came to see about." "you want my resignation?" asked ted, his spirits falling to zero. "by no means," laughed the marshal. "not that, but to ask you to undertake a somewhat difficult job. it transpires that when the soldier butte bank was robbed the other night, a large amount of money belonging to the government was taken. i didn't know this until early this afternoon, when i received a telegram from washington to go after the robbers and land them." "that'll be somewhat of a job," said ted, drawing his chair closer to the marshal, so that he couldn't be overheard by passing people. "i'm well aware of that, and that's the reason i come to you. you and your boys must undertake the duty of clearing up the mystery of the robbery, and, if possible, recovering the money." "i have a very probable theory as to who the robbers are, but it will be entirely another matter to fasten it on them." "i leave it all to you. i don't want to have anything to do with it. all i want are results." "but i shall not have time to tackle it for a day or two. unfortunately our fall round-up is in progress, and, as this is the time we sell the product of our business, we can't leave it until everything is cleared up." "that's all right, mr. strong. but when you do get busy, don't come back home until you land the thieves." chapter x. a visitor in the night. a great deal of money changed hands that day. the stock buyers had their wallets loaded with cash when they came a-buying, for, when they had cut out the cattle they wanted, and the price was struck, they were prepared to drive them off at once. the sales at the round-up had been large, and ted and the boys sat up late that night, after those guests who had elected to remain over for the festivities of the next day were safely in bed, counting the money and going over the books. "it has been a mighty good year for us, boys," said ted, as he contemplated the total of their sales. "yes, and, best of all, it leaves us with all the old stock disposed of, and nothing but young and vigorous animals with which to begin building up again," said kit, who had a great head for the cattle business and a faculty for seeing into the future. "what aire we goin' ter do with all this yere mazuma?" asked bud, looking over the stacks of fifties, twenties, tens, and fives that lay on the table around which they were sitting in the living room, and which was flanked by piles of gold and a few hundred-dollar bills. "can't get it into the bank until day after to-morrow," said ted. "we'll be too busy to-morrow looking after our guests, and i don't suppose we'll be free until after the dance to-morrow night. still, i'm not worrying about it. we know everybody here to-night, and i'll take care of it till we can ride over to strongburg and bank it." just then the door blew open with a bang, and big ben scurried in, bringing with him a blast of prairie wind, crisp and chill from the mountain, that scattered the greenbacks all over the room, and two or three of the fives were blown into the fire and incinerated before any one could rescue them. "close that door!" shouted bud, grasping frantically at the money that was capering over the top of the table. ben closed the door with a slam that shook the house. "'a fool and his money is soon parted,'" quoted ben, when he saw the havoc wrought by the wind. "you bet," said kit "three fives blew into the fireplace, and are no more. we'll just charge them to your account." "like dolly, you will!" said ben. "if it hadn't been for you they wouldn't be there. what's the reason we won't?" "because you won't. i didn't make the wind." "no, but consarn ye, ye let it in, an' ye're an accessory before er after ther fact. i reckon both," said bud. "let it go, boys," said ted. "pick up the bills, and we'll count and stack them again." "where have you been, anyway?" asked kit, addressing ben. "down beddin' my show for the night. they're about all in now. all except the music, which will be here in the morning," replied ben. "i'm not at all stuck on myself, but--" "oh, no, you've got a very poor opinion of yourself, i guess," said kit. "but i want to say that i think i got the bunkie-doodelest show that ever paced the glimmering, gleaming, gloaming grass of moon valley." "listen to the hombre explode," said bud. "he's tryin' ter be a feeble imitation o' a real showman. i'll bet he shows up ter-morrer like a ringmaster in a sucuss, with high, shiny boots an' a long whip an a tall, slick hat, an' crack his whip an' say: 'what will ther leetle lady hev next?'" ben blushed, for his ambitions in the show line, now that he had had a taste of it, had really been in that direction, only he wouldn't have had the boys know it for the world. "how about the show, anyhow, ben?" asked ted. "what have you got? you might as well let us know now." "not on your autobiography," answered ben haughtily. "i want to say, though, that your eyes will bulge like the knobs on a washstand drawer when you see what i've got, and then come to look at the bill for such a stupendous, striking, and singularly successful aggregation of freaks, acts, and divertisements embodied in this colossal and cataclysmic congregation of--" "oh, cheese it," said kit. "you give me the pip." "all right, have it your own way," sighed ben. "this is what a fellow gets for serving his country, from thomas jefferson to john d. rockefeller." "come on," said ted persuasively. "loosen up and tell us what we are to have to-morrow. this is an executive session of the whole." "you're like a lot of kids the day before christmas. you've just got to see what mamma's hidden in the closet," said ben. "well, i'll let you in on a little of it." "shoot when you're ready," said kit. "i was over at strongburg about a month ago, and, knowing that i'd have to rustle up a show soon, i wrote to a theatrical agent in chicago to let me know if he could furnish me with a good amusement company at small cost. he wrote me that he had the very thing, and offered me one of these bum 'wild west' shows, with a bunch of spavined ponies, a lot of imitation cowboys, fake indians, and coney island target shooters." "an' yer didn't take 'em?" asked bud, in surprise. "tush! well, i was up against it, when morrison, the hotel man, told me that there was a showman in town, and perhaps i might get something out of him. "i hunted him up. he was a typical showman. big fellow, large as a noah's ark, dressed like a sunset, and loud as an eighteen-inch gun." "i saw the fellow in soldier butte the other day. he was talking to wiley creviss in the bank," said ted. "you've described him more picturesquely than i should, but i'm convinced he's the same man." "i asked him what he had, and he told me he could furnish me on short notice anything from a three-ring circus to a hand organ and monkey," continued ben. "i told him how much money i wanted to spend, and he said he'd fix me up a show that would make everybody delighted, and i told him to go ahead. the show blew in to-night, and ran up their tents down near the corral." "how many have you got in it?" "i've got a balloon ascension for the afternoon, a giant and a midget, a magician, an egyptian fortune teller, a trick mule, a circassian beauty, and a strong man." ben looked around proudly, and the boys burst into peals of laughter. "have you scraped the mold off of them yet?" asked kit. "how's that?" asked ben haughtily. "have you pulled the burs off the chestnuts?" "see here, what do you mean? are you casting aspersions on my show?" "not exactly, but i think you've been stung by some old stranded side show that was taking the tie route back home. circassian beaut! ho-ho, likewise ha-ha! and some more." "ter say nothin' o' a egyptian fortune teller from popodunk, ioway, an' a wild man from ther quaker village. oh! give me ther smellin' salts. i'm goin' ter hev ther histrikes," laughed bud. "haf you not got a echukated vooly pig und a feller vot 'eats 'em alife'?" asked carl. "that's right, dutchy. it's a bum show what ain't got them," laughed bud. the boys were laughing until the house rang with it, and stella poked her pretty head out of the door to ask to be told the joke. bud complied, with many humorous embellishments. "don't pay any attention to them, ben," said stella sympathetically, "i'll take in the show from start to finish." "could friendship go any farther than that?" asked kit pathetically. "oh, you fellows give me a pain," said ben, rising and stalking off to bed. he was soon followed by the others, ted and kit remaining behind to gather up the money and slip rubber bands around each of the packages of currency. "we ought to have a safe in the house, ted," said kit, looking over the pile of money. "we often have large sums of money in the house, and some time we might get robbed." "there's not much danger of that, kit," answered ted. "there are not many fellows who would have the nerve to come into this house. too many guns, and too many fellows who are not afraid to shoot them. i'm not afraid." "what was that?" kit was staring at the rear window. "what?" "i just looked up and thought i saw a face at the window." "you're getting imaginative." just then the clock struck twelve. "no, i don't think so. i heard a slight cracking noise and looked up. something white appeared at the window for an instant. it looked like the face of a child." "nonsense. a child couldn't look through that window. it's seven feet from the ground." "well, i suppose i was mistaken. let's hide that money and go to bed." "where shall we put it?" kit looked around the room, then smiled. "why, in the cubby-hole, of course. there's a safe for you. we haven't used it for so long that i'd almost forgotten it." "the very thing. nobody'd find it there in a blue moon." they crossed over to a corner of the room and threw back the corner of a rug. where the baseboard was mortised at the corner there appeared to have been a patch put in. ted placed his hand against this, near the top, and it tipped back. it was hung on a pivot, and, as its top went in and the bottom came out, there was revealed a boxlike receptacle about two feet long and six inches deep. "this is a bully place," said ted, placing the packages of money within it. "it is known to only five of us, and i'll bet that most of us have forgotten its very existence." the board was turned back into place and the rug spread out again. "safe as in the strongburg bank," said kit. "well, me for the feathers. we're going to be kept humping to-morrow. _buenas noches_." in a few minutes the big ranch house was dark and quiet; every person in it was sound asleep. ted strong had sunk into a deep and untroubled sleep, for his day had been very active, and he was tired when he lay down. but he had not been sleeping more than a half hour when he found himself sitting straight up in bed, very wide-awake, and wondering why. "something wrong in the house," he muttered to himself. he sniffed the air to discover the smell of smoke. but it was not that. had he locked up? he went over his actions just before retiring, and was sure that he had attended faithfully to everything. the money! the thought came to him like a blow. something had happened to the money. he was out of bed in a jiffy and slipped into his trousers, and, grabbing his revolver from beneath his pillow, he opened the door and walked softly along the hall in his bare feet. the hall opened into the living room through an arch in which a portiã¨re, made of small pieces of bamboo strung together, was hung. as he looked cautiously into the living room his elbow struck this, and it rattled sharply in the stillness. he had heard a faint creak, and, as he peeped around the corner of the arch, he saw dimly the figure of a man near the door, evidently just in the act of opening it. with a succession of noiseless leaps ted was across the room, and arrived at the door just as it swung open and the man was about to depart. but ted was upon his back with the swiftness of a bobcat, and they came together to the floor with? a crash. the burglar was beneath, but this did not prevent him from fighting with a desperation that lent strength to his already strong and lithe body. he was slenderer and younger than ted, who could feel it in the fellow's build as they struggled. "let me out, or i'll kill you," said the burglar, and ted saw the flash of a knife. at the same moment something rushed past them in the dark, and out of the door. as ted saw it dimly it was small, and its motions were awkward and lumbering. he thought it was a dog, and was about to raise his revolver to fire at it when he thought better of it, as he did not want to arouse the household if he could conquer his man without making a noise. "don't shoot," said the man, who had observed ted's motion with the gun. at this extraordinary request ted paused. he had twisted the man's wrist until he dropped the knife, and then shoved it beyond reach with the muzzle of his revolver. his strong left hand was in the nape of the fellow's neck, and ted had his nose ground into the rug. he had found a gun in the fellow's hip pocket, and relieved him of it. then ted rose, and told his captive to get up slowly he did so, and ted made him move to the center of the room. bud's golden head appeared around the corner of the doorway. ted could just distinguish it. "who's that?" asked bud. "it's ted. come in and strike a light. i've caught something." in a moment a light flared up. "jack farley!" exclaimed ted, in astonishment. "yes, blast you, jack farley," replied the youth. "couldn't keep away, eh?" "a feller'd think thet once was enough," said bud. "i couldn't help myself. i had to come," growled farley. "well, this time you'll stay. you shan't abuse our hospitality again. bud, get a rope and tie our friend. he's skittish, and is likely to run away if he's turned loose." farley was soon tied securely. "keep an eye on him, bud," said ted. "i want to look over the premises." ted went directly to the corner and pushed back the pivot door, struck a match, and looked into the box. it was empty. then, turning back to farley, he searched him thoroughly. there was no money in his pockets. ted called up kit, and the three of them ransacked the living room thoroughly, but not a dollar could be found. "what did you do with the money you stole from that hole?" said ted, gazing fiercely into farley's eyes. "i haven't seen a dollar of it," was the reply. chapter xi. ted strong has a theory. after farley had been securely locked up in a storeroom without windows, they went to bed, feeling secure that there would be no further attempt to enter the house that night. at breakfast they discussed the robbery after their guests had left the house. "i don't understand what became of the money," said ted. "it looks to me like one of those mysterious robberies, and the capture of farley puts it up to the riley and creviss gang. now that we've been touched personally we will take some interest in the gang, and i have a large crayon picture of about a dozen hitherto respectable young fellows learning useful trades in a reformatory institution." "but that doesn't bring back our money, neither does it tell us how it was stolen or what became of it," said ben. "i can't get a thing out of farley," said ted. "i tackled him this morning as soon as i got up, but he wouldn't open his mouth. my belief is that he is in deadly fear of some one, probably skip riley." "well, we've got him where the hair is short, anyway," said kit. "he was caught in the act, and will come out of prison an older and a wiser man." "what else besides farley did you see in the room, ted?" asked stella. "i really couldn't say what it was," said ted. "it was dark, and there was only the faintest kind of light outside from the stars. the room was perfectly dark. i was sitting on farley's back holding him down. he had thrown the door open, and we were in the doorway, but there was a space between us and the door-jamb. "suddenly i heard a faint noise beside me and could just see something scud past me onto the veranda." "what did it look like?" "it was about as high as a small dog, only shorter and thicker than a dog, and ran with a clumsy, heavy, sideways motion." "are you sure it was a dog?" "no, i'm not sure, for i didn't see it plainly. all i could see was that it looked like some kind of an animal, but just what kind i couldn't determine." "your description would lead me to believe that it was a coon." "no, i don't think it was a coon, or i would have been able to distinguish it by its smell." "i didn't know but that it might be a coon trained to steal and sneak out. i've heard of such things, and it is by no means impossible, for you know that coons, like crows, are natural-born thieves." "by jove, that gives me an idea. i think it was a dog, and that its strange gait was due to the fact that the money had been tied upon him so that he would get away with it in case farley was caught." "no, the dog theory is wrong. what about a trained monkey?" stella looked around the table to see how this was taken. "c'rect!" shouted bud. "stella, yer struck ther problem a solar plexus thet time." "that does seem reasonable, and if it is true it solves the mysterious robberies of the strongburg trust company's office, the post office, and creviss' bank," said ted. "it's worth looking into, anyway," said ben. "now i wonder if there is such a thing as a trained monkey in my marvelous and magnificent gathering of the splendors of the orient out there. by jove, i'm going through that camp with a fine-tooth comb, and if i find a monk, i'll habeas-corpus him, and we'll hang him to the rafters." "well, mum's the word about the money," warned ted. "we don't want this thing to leak out. if it does, there's a chance against us." although they all felt pretty blue about the loss of the money, they had nothing but hearty welcomes and smiles for their guests, who began to arrive from all parts of the county, and from far-distant states and territories, to help rejoice with the boys for a prosperous year, not knowing that all the prosperity had fallen into the hands of thieves. the grounds about the ranch house had been gayly decorated for the occasion. an enormous american flag flapped and snapped in the fresh breeze from the top of a tall staff in front of the house, and the belle fourche band was playing in a gayly decorated stand. the showmen had erected their tents, and already the boys and girls from the ranches and towns were going in and out, witnessing the wonders to be beheld in them. stella was receiving her girl guests on the veranda, for she was a great favorite among the cowgirls in the country on account of her friendliness and unaffected ways. mrs. graham was welcoming the older women, while ted and jack slate were shaking hands with the ranchmen and cowboys. clay's fires were going well, and the steer and sheep were being roasted for the noontime feast. ben had gone on a still-hunt among the tents belonging to the showman, and, while he found three small dogs, there was no sign of a monkey, and by adroit questioning he learned that they had had a monkey, but that it had died at leadville, because the air in that altitude was too cold and rare for it. these facts he communicated to ted, and seemed to explode the monkey-thief theory. during the morning there was a baseball game between the cowboys and the clerks from the stores in soldier butte and strongburg, in which the score was forty-one to three in favor of the clerks. the cowboys couldn't play ball any more than a rabbit, encumbered as they were by their chaps, high-heeled boots, and spurs. it took a home-run hit to get one of them to first base. after dinner the cowboy sports were to come off. when ted could get away from his duties as host for a few minutes he sauntered through the crowd, extending greetings to all whom he knew, but at the same time keeping a close watch over everything. the theft of the money from the cubby-hole had aroused in him all his detective instincts. he saw two or three of the young fellows who had been with wiley creviss the night of the ball, but he paid no attention to them. they were welcome to come to the festivities, and to remain so long as they behaved themselves. but he determined to have them watched. soon he came upon some more of the creviss gang and saw them mingle with several boys, whom he knew to be tough characters, from strongburg. "the clan is gathering," he said to himself. "we're likely to have trouble with those fellows before the day is over. i'll put bud next to them, and have the boys watch them." "whom do you suppose i saw just now?" it was stella's voice, and she was standing at his elbow. "who?" he asked. "wiley creviss." "is that so? i have been watching for him to come along. a lot of his fellows are here, and they are sticking pretty well together. where did you see him?" "i told ben i'd take in his show even if no one else did, and i've kept my promise. when i was in that biggest tent i suddenly came upon creviss in close conversation with the boss showman. when they saw me looking at them they separated in a hurry, and creviss left the tent." "h'm! i wonder if ben knows this fellow who owns the show." "don't know, i'm sure. it wouldn't be a bad scheme to find out something about him in view of the robbery last night." "you're right, stella. another thing i've been thinking about: i've been looking for skip riley, the strongburg fireman, the supposed leader of the flying demons. if they are going to try any of their monkey business to-day he ought to be here." "haven't you heard the news? i intended to tell you, but must have forgotten. the last time i was in strongburg i heard that riley had resigned, and left the town for the east." "i hadn't heard it. then that puts it up to creviss." "but who is the fellow who runs the show? ben says his name is colonel ben robinson, and that he is an old circusman down on his luck temporarily." "look around and find out what you can. they will not suspect you if you ask questions as they would me. if you find out anything, let me know." "all right, ted, i'll circulate, and report." ted wandered over to the show tents, and entered them all, with kindly greetings to the performers, who all knew him as the leader of the broncho boys, and asked him if they could be excused from performing while the riding and other cowboy stunts were going forward, and ted told them to lay off if they wanted to, as most of the guests would be out in the grand stand, anyhow. in the last tent he entered he found the strong man lifting weights against a lot of husky cow-punchers, and the giant and midget. but it was the midget that struck him most forcibly. he had a sly, cunning face and a bad eye, and when ted came in he tried to hide behind the giant, who picked him up as one would a baby in arms. but the little fellow wriggled free and climbed down the big man like a monkey down a tree. then he slipped across to the middle of the tent and shinned up the pole to the top, and hung there, looking down at ted. "what's the matter with the little fellow?" ted asked the giant. "oh, he ain't got real good sense," rumbled the giant. "his brain stopped growing with his body, i reckon. but you can teach him tricks the same as you can a dog or a monkey, and he'll do them all right. i reckon he's afraid of you. he is of some people, the boss in particular." "how long have you been with the boss?" "not very long. he just took the show over from the old boss a month ago. we were going to pieces over to cheyenne, and he come along and bought us. he's been a showman in his time, but says he hasn't been in the biz for several years. he knows the biz, though, and has scads of money. we are well fed and get our salaries regular. him and prince carl, that's the midget, are great pals. the midget sleeps in his tent, and the boss seldom lets him out of his sight." "say, bellows, how many times have i got to tell you not to stand there gassing with patrons of the show? every one don't want to bother with your theories and troubles." ted turned, to face the boss showman. "oh, it's you, mr. strong?" he went on. "i didn't recognize your back. it's all right to talk to you. but i've got to call the giant down once in so often for taking up people's time, for he's an awful gabber." he walked away, but when ted tried to get the giant to tell him some more about the midget and the boss, he would not say a word. but the giant had planted the seed of a theory in ted's mind. presently ted saw stella beckoning to him in the crowd, and forced his way to her side. she took his arm, and they got out of the crowd. ted saw that she had something to communicate. "well?" he said, smiling down on her. "there's going to be something doing here," said she. "the boss showman has been talking with several of the gang." "all right. did you hear anything about skip riley?" "yes. he's been gone from strongburg about a month." "learn anything else about him?" "skip riley is not his name at all." "that so? what is it? did you learn?" "i was talking to a lady from strongburg, one of those who got him a job on the fire department." "what did she know about him?" "she said that she was appointed a committee of one by the ladies' aid society over there to look up the new fireman's career." "and i suppose she ran onto some hot stuff?" "it seems that the ex-convict, skip riley, had been a circus performer once upon a time, before he took to being a burglar." "was burglary the crime for which he was put in prison?" "yes, so she says. he was an aã«ronaut and acrobat." "good! and what was his stage name? did she say?" "robinson--ben robinson. she says that she was told that he was quite famous in his day as a circus performer, but that he couldn't resist the temptation to steal, and so had to quit the business, as none of the circus proprietors would have him around." "did she say where she got this information?" "yes. it was sent to her by the warden of the penitentiary in which riley was confined before he came to strongburg." "then her information is probably correct. stella, thanks to you, we've got them dead to rights. we've solved the mystery hanging around all these recent robberies." "nearly, but not quite. how were they accomplished?" "that i don't know positively, but i have a theory which i believe will turn out to be correct." "but about riley?" "ben robinson, the proprietor of this show, and skip riley, burglar and ex-convict, are one and the same man." chapter xii. aloft after a prisoner. "all ready for the big show," cried kit, riding up to ted. "when will we begin the sports?" ted looked over the grand stand, which was built around an arena in which the cowboy sports were to come off. this was the most important event of the day, for while bronchobusting and cattle roping are a cowboy's business, yet he finds unending amusement in doing these same things if his girl and friends are there to witness his skill. after some ordinary feats of trick riding by the visiting cowboys, several really dangerous steers were turned loose in the arena, and for several minutes a very fair imitation of a spanish bullfight, minus the killing of the animals, took place. after several of the steers had been roped, thrown, and tied, there still remained in the arena a sullen and difficult brute, which was as tricky as a rat, and the boys gave him up one at a time. "why don't you give the girls a chance at him?" shouted a cowgirl derisively, from the seats. "any girl who wants to tackle him is at liberty to do so," ted shouted back through his megaphone. instantly three girls leaped into the arena, and borrowed ponies from their cowboy acquaintances. ted motioned to sophy cozak, the pretty and buxom girl from the bohemian prairie, whom bud had admired at the dance; she rode forward on bud's own particular horse, ranger. sophy had several brothers who had taught her the cow business, and she had few equals on the range. as she rode out she was greeted with a round of applause from her admirers. she gathered up her rope and sent the horse forward at an easy lope toward the steer, which looked at her a moment and trotted off. sophy followed him, and made three casts of the rope, and every time the brute dodged it, and the rope fell to the ground. that settled it with sophy, and she rode in, and another girl took her place. she, too, was unsuccessful, as was the third, and the audience was distinctly disappointed. "ladies and gentlemen," cried ted, through the megaphone. "it was not the intention of any one living on the moon valley ranch to take part in these contests, but if there are no other young ladies in the grand stand who would like to try their ropes on the steer, we can produce one whom we think can rope and tie it at the first trial. i refer to miss stella fosdick. i have not consulted her wishes in the matter, but will ask her if she will undertake it." at this a wild cheer went up, and ted dashed out of the arena to find stella. in a moment he was back, and announced that miss fosdick would try it. presently stella rode in on custer at a hard gallop, gathering up her rope as she rode. there was a sort of gay self-confidence in her manner that captivated the throng, and the cheers split the air. stella rode straight at the steer, which, seeing her approach; galloped down the arena with her in pursuit. swinging her rope above her head, she chased it back until it was about in the middle of the field, and suddenly the rope left her hand unerringly and shot through the air, seemed to hesitate for an instant, then fell over the steer's head. custer came to a stop the moment the rope left her hand, with his body well braced. the steer went to the end of the rope as fast as it could go, then was flung in the air, and lay upon his back sprawling like some ridiculous four-legged crab, while the girl leaped from her saddle, ran swiftly across the intervening space, tied his legs together, and held up her hand. the crowd fairly went wild with enthusiasm at her feat, as she mounted again, leaving the steer to the tender mercies of the cow-punchers, who flocked about her. then she dashed out of the arena, waving her hat in recognition of the applause. then the bunch of wild montana horses, which never had felt the saddle, were driven in, and ted offered a twenty-dollar gold piece to any puncher who could rope, saddle, and bridle, and ride one of the bronchos ten minutes without being thrown. "easy money!" shouted the cowboys, flocking into the arena. the black, which had caused ted so much trouble when the bunch first came to the ranch, was not with them. he was considered too dangerous an animal to be handled at an entertainment where there were so many women and children. only two cow-punchers succeeded in even getting their saddles on the bronchos without throwing them and hog-tying them, and only one, billy sudden, stayed the required ten minutes, and he said afterward that it wasn't his fault, because the broncho wouldn't let him get off. ted then announced that there was another animal in the herd that he would ask no man to ride, but that he would try to do so himself. another great cheer went up as ted rode away after the black demon, to whom the boys had given the name lucifer, for his supposed resemblance to his satanic majesty. but it was found impossible to drive lucifer into the arena. "never mind," said ted, "we'll throw the saddle on him here, and i'll ride him in." a crowd of men and boys was standing around, and ted removed his saddle and handed it to a young fellow in the crowd to hold until he had thrown lucifer. the animal was standing in the center of the circle, his wary eyes taking in the crowd, and letting fly with his heels at the approach of any one. "now, bud," called ted, "ride in on him and rope him. you, kit, get him by the leg and throw him, and i'll slip a bridle on him." it was not much of a trick to rope and hold him so that he couldn't kick. but when ted tried to slip the bit between his teeth, he fought like the demon that he was, biting and kicking, so that he had to be thrown to his side and his head held down before the bridle could be put on him. then he was allowed to rise. there was no doubt but that the horse was insane with rage and fear, and several cowmen came forward and tried to persuade ted from attempting to ride him, but ted was as obstinate as the horse, and said that he would conquer the black, or die in the attempt. he finally found the fellow who had been holding his saddle, although he had left his stand and was found back behind the crowd talking to a gang of young fellows, among whom ted recognized several of creviss' companions. this delayed and angered him, and he called the saddle bearer down for deserting his post, and was answered with sneers and laughter. after many trials, and the exertion of a great deal of patience, ted got the saddle on lucifer and hastily cinched, and as he sprang to the brute's back the ropes were loosed. with a bound and a snort of terror the black dashed forward, and it was with the greatest difficulty that ted swung it so it went through the gates and into the arena without dashing him against the posts. once inside the arena, the brute began to exhibit terrible ferocity. stella and bud had followed in his wake, and when the girl saw how the brute was behaving, she whispered to bud: "that demon will kill him yet." "if he don't kill it," answered bud. "why did you let him ride it? i got there a moment too late, and he was already in the saddle, or i should have stopped it." "what could i do? he had told the people he would ride it, and that settled it with him." lucifer was exercising all the tricks known to wild and terrified bronchos when they first feel saddle and bridle, and which seem to be inbred in them. he bucked, but there was never a horse that could buck ted off. he reared, he kicked, rolled, and fell backward. but every time he stopped for a moment to note the result, there the unshakable enemy was on his back again. clearly he was puzzled. then a new paroxysm of rage would shake him, and he would go through the same performances again, but with no better success. suddenly ted brought his quirt down on the brute's flanks, and it leaped high into the air in an agony of fear and pain. it had felt that stinging thing before, and hated it. then it started to run away from this terrible thing that bestrode its back. "by heaven! it's running away," muttered bud. "it'll be an act o' providence if ted isn't killed." down the arena they dashed, ted sitting in the saddle as if he and it and the stallion were all of a piece. when the brute came to the arena's end, and saw before him the shouting multitude, it suddenly swerved to come back, and ted realized that something had happened to the saddle. it was slipping, and yet he was sure he had cinched it tight. back they came tearing again, and passed stella and bud like a rocket. "great guns!" cried bud, "his saddle's loose. he's a goner now, shore." every one saw ted's danger, for ted was leaning well over, and the saddle was on the horse's side. a hollow groan went up. at bud's first words stella was off after ted like a shot. the horse, as every one could now see, was trying its best to kill ted, and many of the spectators were positive that it would do so. now the cinch had parted. "the cinch has broken," the shout went up. "it will kill him, sure!" ted was now leaning far over on the horse's side, his left leg well under the horse's belly and his foot in the stirrup, while the heel of his left, boot was clinging to the edge of the tipped saddle. it was a most precarious position, for if the saddle slipped farther he would go under and be trampled and kicked to death before any one could reach him. the powerful brute was bent on ted's destruction, and seemed about to accomplish it, when stella galloped to his side, and, grasping his hand, held him safe. "the cinch is off," she called to him. "i'll help you up, then kick the saddle loose." slowly but surely ted worked himself up until he could release his foot from the stirrup. then, with a sudden wrench that almost pulled stella to the ground, he was again on top. with a kick he sent the saddle to the ground, and was riding bareback, while the brute stumbled and almost went to his knees as the saddle fell between his legs. but now ted took charge of the situation. with quirt and spur he drove the beast here and there, punishing it, giving it no rest, allowing it to do nothing in its own way until it staggered and heaved and swayed with fatigue and lack of breath, and yet he urged it. "he'll kill that horse yet," said billy sudden. "no, he knows what that horse will stand, and he's going to make him stand it," said bud. the people had never seen such riding as this, and when they realized that ted had conquered the stallion and was now rubbing it in, they shouted until their throats cracked. at last the horse could go no farther, and ted let it stop, as he slipped to the ground and gave the brute a slap with his hand. "i reckon you'll know better next time, old fellow," was all he said, and walked to where his saddle was lying. as he picked it up, he was seen to stop and look at the cinch carefully, then hurry to where the boys were awaiting him. "fellows," he said solemnly, throwing the saddle on the ground, "that cinch did not break, it was cut." a dozen of the boys leaped to the ground and examined the cinch. it was true. the cinch had been cut almost through with a sharp knife, and the strain upon it had parted it. there could be no doubt as to what had been intended. as stella came riding up, she shouted: "the cinch was cut. i saw it. wiley creviss did it. i didn't realize at the time what he was doing or know that it was ted's saddle, and when i did find out, he was mounted and away." a howl of indignation went up at this. "scatter out, boys, and round up creviss," shouted billy sudden. "we know what to do with him when he's caught." ted's adventure with lucifer ended the performances in the arena, and, as the balloon was inflated and ready to ascend, the people flocked to where it was straining at the ropes. ted had mounted sultan again, and left the arena surrounded by stella and the boys. "who's going up in her?" asked ted. "ben robinson, the boss," answered ben. "do you know who he is?" asked ted. ben stared at him without replying. "i'll tell you," said ted. "he's skip riley, thief and ex-convict, the leader of the flying demons. he is the man who caused us to lose our money last night, and who engineered all the mysterious robberies hereabouts. do you reckon he intends to come back?" ben's eyes started from their sockets in surprise. "i--i don't know," he stammered. "by jove! we must stop him. maybe he's going to skip." the boys had crowded about ted as he spoke. "we'll have to hurry if we get him," shouted ben. "he's in the basket now." with shouts of warning ted and the boys pushed their horses through the crowd, which rushed aside to let them through. they could see skip riley lift a large tin box into the basket from the ground. as he was getting ready to start there was a shrill cry, and the midget came waddling through the crowd and climbed over the side of the car and up riley's body until it clung to his shoulder like a monkey. a great many of the thoughtless laughed at this. they did not understand the significance of the move. "get ready to cut her loose," shouted riley. two or three men stood by with sharp knives in their hands. riley saw ted and the boys pushing rapidly through the crowd. "cut her loose!" shouted riley, and the balloon shot upward, amid the shouts of the people. "too late,'" said ben. "not yet," cried ted, spurring through the crowd. a long guide rope was dragging from the car of the balloon. "follow me, bud. the balance of you catch creviss and the rest of them. i'm going with riley." before they knew exactly what he meant, ted grasped the guide rope as it passed over his head, and was swung out of the saddle and dangled in the air, to the horror of the people, who expected to see him fall and be dashed to pieces at any minute, for the balloon had shot up rapidly and was now several hundred feet above the ground. but riley, looking over the country and taking account of the direction in which the balloon was traveling, was unaware that he had taken on another passenger. hand over hand ted climbed steadily, until at last he reached the car and looked over the edge of it. riley's back was toward him, and noiselessly ted slipped over the side and into the basket. then the midget happened to turn his head, and saw ted and uttered a frightened cry, which brought riley around so that he found himself looking into the cold, dark bore of ted's forty-four. "got you!" said ted coolly. "how did you get here?" said riley, trying to smile. "if i'd known that you wanted to come i'd have waited for you." "i don't think," said ted. "but now we'll go down." "no, i've got to give the people a run for their money. we must go a little farther." "i said we'd go down." "but we can't until the gas gets cool and exhausts. i have no escape valve." "then i'll shoot a hole in the bag. i guess we'll go down then." "for heaven's sake, don't do that! you'd blow us all to pieces." "then down with her. i mean what i say." riley looked at ted for a moment, then pulled a string. there followed a hissing noise, and the balloon began to sink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. ted did not dare take his eyes off riley to see how close they were to the ground. but he heard the moon valley long yell, and knew that they were near the earth, and that bud morgan was not far away. suddenly the car bumped on the ground, bounced and struck again, then stopped, and ted heard bud's cheerful voice right behind him. "jumpin' sand hills, so yer got him, eh? come, climb out," said bud to riley, "we need yer on terry firmy." "cover him, bud, while i search him. if he makes a break, kill him. he's an ex-convict, so don't take any chances with him," said ted. riley yielded up a gun and a knife and then he was hustled out of the car, with the midget still clinging to him, and ted took charge of the tin box. billy sudden and some of his men had come up, and so had ben and kit, and riley was conducted back to the ranch house strongly guarded. once inside with their prisoners and the boys, ted closed the doors on the curious crowd. the first thing he did was to open the tin box. on top were the packages of bills stolen from the cubby-hole, and beneath it a large amount of money and the bonds taken from the strongburg trust company, as well as registered letters from which the money had not yet been extracted, and a large amount of brand-new treasury notes which answered the description of the government funds stolen from creviss' bank. "it's all here," said ted, "and the evidence is complete." "but how did he manage to do it without leaving a mark or a broken lock behind him?" asked ben. "how? by means of this," and ted placed his hand on the head of the midget, who shrank from him with a snarling cry. "still i don't understand it." "the day i saw him in the creviss bank he marched out with the plunder under my very eyes. the day before the robbery this fellow went into the bank with the dwarf in his valise. wiley creviss was alone. the valise was opened, and the dwarf slipped out of the valise and into the vault, and concealed himself. "during the night the dwarf collected all the money and bonds he could, and made himself comfortable. when it came time for the bank to open in the morning he again concealed himself, and remained in hiding until noon, when wiley creviss again came on watch while the cashier went to dinner. then riley, here, entered with his valise, and the dwarf crept into it, and was carried out of the bank with the money." "but what had the midget to do with the theft of our money?" "that's simple. farley and the dwarf were to do the job. the dwarf was sent up to the roof, for he can climb like a monkey, and came down the chimney and opened the door for farley. that was a mistake, for they would not have been caught, except for farley." "how did they know where you hid the money?" "the dwarf saw us through the window, and kit saw him, but i thought it was all imagination. that was how they robbed the post office. the dwarf was lowered down the chimney. that is about the size of it. am i correct, riley?" "correct enough, so far as i'm concerned. i guess it's back to 'the stir' for me. but this midget didn't know what he was doing, and ought to be sent to an asylum instead of the prison," said riley. at that moment there was a great commotion without, and a crowd of cowboys rode up. in the center of the circle made by them was wiley creviss and several of his gang. in all, with riley and the dwarf, there were eight of them in custody, and without ado they were hurried to the strongburg jail. the united states marshal was in strongburg when ted came in with his prisoners. "what is all this, strong?" asked the marshal. "that bank-robbing gang you ordered me to bring in," answered ted. "you made quick work of it. get any of the money?" "all of it. it is in the strongburg bank. you see, they made the mistake of robbing us last night. but for that they would have got away, and we would have had a hard time catching them. as it was, they walked right in to us." skip riley went back to the penitentiary for a long term of years, and the midget was sent to an asylum for the feeble-minded. jack farley turned state's evidence, and creviss and ten other young reprobates were sent to a reformatory. as for lucifer, he turned out, next to sultan and custer, the best horse on the ranch. chapter xiii. the anonymous letter. a very short time after the capture of skip riley, ted strong was standing in the waiting room of the union station at st. louis, the metropolis of missouri, whither he had been summoned by a letter from the chief of the united states secret service. he was waiting for bud morgan, who had gone to the baggage room to inquire about a trunk which had become lost on the way from moon valley, and which contained a number of valuable papers, including both their commissions as deputy united states marshals. the enormous waiting room was crowded with passengers from the incoming trains, with which the numerous tracks were full from end to end. as ted strong leaned over the iron railing, looking down into the lower waiting room, he was conscious that a woman had stepped to his side. glancing up sideways, he saw that close to him was a very beautiful young girl, who wore a traveling cloak of pearl gray, and a long feather boa, which the draft had blown across his sleeve. his glance intercepted one from her, and not wishing her to think that he was idly staring at her, he directed his gaze once more to the surging crowd below. as his eyes wandered over the throng, he saw a man look up, and make the most imperceptible gesture with his head. he did not know the man. turning swiftly to the young lady at his side, he caught sight of a smile and a slight uplifting of her eyebrows. undoubtedly a signal had passed between the two, and ted, not wishing to be an eavesdropper, looked away again. but in the swift glance he had given the young girl--for now he saw that she was little else--he made a mental note of her. the gray eyes with the long, dark lashes, the oval face, beautiful in shape and of an ivory tint; the scarlet, curving lips, the slender, trim figure, and the strange, subtle perfume which she exhaled, one would never forget. he also noted the appearance of the man who had signaled the girl. the man was five feet seven inches in height; his face was well rounded, but not too fat. he had a brown, pointed beard; the eyes were pale, almost colorless; the forehead, broad and high, a fact which ted noted when the man lifted his hat to wipe his brow. he had the air of a well-bred man of the world, and was probably a resident of new york. there was something familiar about the man that made ted think that he had seen him before. ted saw bud come through the door into the waiting room from the midway of the station, look up and wave his hand, with a frown and a shake of the head that told him his pard's quest for the missing baggage had been fruitless. at the same time, the girl at his side seemed to bump into him, and as he turned to her she muttered an apology and hurried away. although he followed her with his eyes a few moments, she was soon lost in the crowd. he slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and, with his back to the railing, prepared to wait until bud reached him. as his left hand sank into his pocket, his fingers came in contact with a piece of paper. he knew that he had not placed the paper in his pocket, and glanced around with his usual caution to see if any one was watching him. he saw that wonderful pair of gray eyes with the dark lashes--irish eyes, he called them--watching him over the shoulders of a man a dozen feet away in the crowd. but the moment the woman realized that she was being observed, she disappeared. "deuced strange," he muttered to himself, fumbling with the paper, which he had not withdrawn from his pocket. "that girl placed this paper in my pocket. i wonder why. there is something out of the way here, for the paper was not there before she stood beside me." one less wise than ted, and not so modest, might have thought that the girl was trying to flirt with him. but to ted there was something more important and mysterious than that in her actions. if he read them aright, she had placed the paper in his pocket when she apparently accidentally bumped into him, and had gone away only to come back to see if he had discovered it. although he searched the crowd with eager eyes, he did not see her again, and was confident that she had disappeared as soon as she had accomplished her mission, which was to convey some message to him. although he was somewhat curious to know what, if anything, was written on the paper, he restrained himself until he could be alone, for he did not know who might be in that crowd looking for just such a move on his part. just then bud brushed his way through the crowd and came up to ted. "them things ain't come yit," he said, in a tone of discontent, "an' me stranded in st. looey with no more clean shirt than a rabbit." "you can easily get a clean shirt," said ted, "but it's not so easy to get a new commission. that's what's worrying me, for there is no telling how soon we may need one." "well, let's git out o' this mob, er i'll begin ter beller an' mill, an' if they don't git out o' my way i'll cause sech a stampede thet it'll take ther police all day ter round 'em up ag'in." ted said nothing to bud about the paper he had discovered in his pocket, but picked up his valise. they then made their way to the street and rode uptown in a car, where they registered at a quiet hotel. ted went immediately to the room assigned to him, locked the door, and drew out the paper. he could not conceive what it would contain, for he was far above the vanity of thinking that the young woman who had stood by his side would interest herself in him enough to write him a silly note. "the man with the pointed beard!" thought ted. of course, it was he who had caused the note to be slipped into his pocket. but why? taking a chair by the window, he slowly opened the note, observing at the time that the same fragrance came from it as had filled the air while the girl stood beside him in the station. it was a sheet of pale-blue letter paper folded three times. in the upper left-hand corner was an embossed crest, the head of a lion rampant, and beneath it a dainty monogram, which he made out to be "o. b. n.," or any one of the combinations of those letters. he could not tell which combination was the correct one. the writing was in a fashionable feminine hand, and written with a pencil. it was as follows: "t. s.: this is a friendly warning from one who dare not communicate with you personally, for reasons which you will discover and understand later on, if things turn out as we"--the word "we" had been scratched out and "i" written above it--"anticipate. be very careful while you are in st. louis. do not go on the streets alone, and go armed. your mission is known, and you will be watched by persons who will seek to get you out of the way. we--that is, i, also know of your mission, and take this means of warning you of your danger, as you have done me services in the past without knowing it. now, the sting of this note lies in this, and don't forget it, don't get into any fights, no matter what the provocation, for i have it straight that that, is the lay to do you. if you do so, not being able to avoid it, shoot straight, and you will come out all right in the end. i will see to that part of it at the right time. "a friend." ted read the letter through three times, trying to clarify it, but each time his mind became more confused over it. what did it mean, and how could any stranger know his business when he had not told a soul about it? even bud did not know why they were in st. louis; that is, he did not know the real reason. ostensibly, they were there to inspect the local horse market. there was a loud rap on the door, and ted went to it and unlocked it. throwing the door open, he saw a stranger standing on the threshold, just about to step in. he looked at ted in apparent surprise, then up at the number on the door, but his eyes fell to the letter which ted still held in his hand, and he stared at it like one fascinated. ted noticed this, and put the letter behind his back. as the stranger did not speak, ted broke the spell by saying, in a sarcastic tone: "well?" "oh, i beg your pardon," said the stranger hastily, "but isn't mr. fowle in? i expected him to come to the door, and was surprised to see you, don't you know." "i don't know any mr. fowle," said ted, with a smile that must have told the stranger that he was not taken in by the question. the fellow threw a quick glance around the room, but did not retreat from his place in the doorway. ted was starting to shut the door, considering the incident closed, when the stranger, who was a large, powerful man, well dressed and with the air of a prosperous business man, started to enter. "this is not mr. fowle's room; it is mine," said ted, blocking the way, "i'll just step in and wait for him," said the man. "the clerk downstairs said it was his room." "wait a minute," said ted sternly. "i don't know you, and i don't know fowle. if you have any business with me, state it from the hall." the warning in the letter flashed through his mind. suddenly the man sprang upon ted, and they fell to the floor together. "give me that letter, curse you!" hissed the man, "i saw you get it, and i saw it just now. give it to me, i tell you." ted had managed to put the letter back into his pocket. his right arm was twisted under his body, and he could not release it. he looked up into the face of the man, who was straddling his body, and saw a gleam of malignant hatred in his eyes. "let me up, you cur," said ted. "after i get the letter," was the reply. "it's a private letter, and not for you. let me up!" now ted saw that the man had a knife in his hand--a long, keen knife, with a pearl hilt and a silver guard. "if you don't give me that letter at once, you'll not get another chance, but i'll have it," snarled the man. ted began to struggle, but he soon saw that he could do nothing with one arm out of commission. the man was not only powerful, but heavy, and it was all ted could do to more than wriggle his body. "i tell you you shan't have it," said ted. the knife went above the man's head, and in the wielder's face was a look of the most diabolical hatred ted had ever seen in a human countenance. "for the last time," said the man hoarsely. there was something about the fellow's actions that told ted he was desperate, yet at the same time afraid of the act he was about to commit. the knife was about to descend when ted cried out an alarm, the first he had sounded. he heard some one running in the hall. his assailant heard it, also, and hesitated, looking around with frightened eyes. "yi-yipee!" it was bud's voice, and ted breathed a prayer of thankfulness. "i'll give it to you, anyhow," muttered the man, and again the knife went up in the air. but it did not make a strike, for at that moment bud bounded into the room, and, taking in the situation with a lightning glance, his foot flew out, and the toe of his heavy boot struck the man on top of ted fairly in the ribs. there was a cracking sound, and with a groan the fellow dropped the knife and struggled to his feet. rushing at bud, he bowled that doughty individual over like a tenpin, and dashed into the hall, along which he ran swiftly and lightly, for so large a man. when bud had picked himself up and run to the stairway, he could hear the fellow clattering down the stairs three flights below. "well, dash my hopes," said bud, "if he didn't get clear away. he shore treated me like a leetle boy. but i reckon he's in sech a hurry because he's on his way ter a drug store fer a porious plaster fer them ribs o' hisn." ted had picked himself up and was rubbing his arm, which had been strained by his falling on it. "what's this yere all erbout?" asked bud. "i'm comin' up ter call on yer when i hears yer blat, an' i come runnin', an' what do i see? a large, pale stranger erbout ter explore yer system with er bowie. yer mixin' in sassiety quicker'n usual, seems ter me." ted had picked up the knife, which had fallen beneath the bed, and was looking at it. "i wonder where this came from," he said, turning it over in his hand. "wherever it came from, it's a wicked-lookin' cuss," said bud. "but what wuz ther feller goin' ter explore yer with it fer?" "this letter," said ted, taking the crumpled paper from his pocket and handing it to bud. "jumpin' sand hills, ther plot thickens," said bud, when he had finished reading it. "i don't seem ter be in it at all. what's it all erbout? ye've got my coco whirlin' shore." chapter xiv. the abandoned motor car. "i'll tell you," said ted, "if you'll take a seat and keep quiet until i get the thing straightened out in my own mind, for the incidents of the past hour certainly have got me going." bud sat down and waited patiently for ted, who was thinking deeply. "i didn't tell you the precise object of our visit to st. louis," began ted, "not because i didn't trust your ability to keep a secret, but in order to keep every one else in the dark." "d'yer mean ter say that ye hev stalled me along ter this town ter give me a leetle airin', an' not ter sell hosses?" asked bud indignantly. "not exactly. i want to sell the horses for the top price, but there was something else behind it." "a large man astraddle o' ye with a keen an' bitin' bowie at yer throat. yer must be hard up fer amoosement." "not that, either," said ted, laughing. "i manage to get all the amusement that's coming to me." "i'm still gropin' fer enlightenment." "here goes, then. for a couple of months the trains on the union pacific, in nebraska and wyoming, have been running the gantlet between bands of train robbers. if a train missed being robbed at one place, it was almost sure to get it at another, especially if it carried wealth of any description." "but ther railroads is erbout ther biggest chumps ter stand fer all this monkeydoodle business o' train robbin' ez long ez they hev. why don't they get inter ther exterminatin' business, an' clean up ther last o' them?" "too busy making money, i guess. but this time it is not the railroads who are going after them." "who is it, me an' you?" "almost. by orders of the government." "that's more like it. i don't hev no love fer a train robber, fer all i ever come in contact with wuz a bunch o' cowardly murderers, who fight like rats when they're cornered, an' kill innercent express messengers fer amoosement er devilment. but if uncle sammy sez so, an' needs my help, he's got it right swift an' willin'." "well, he seems to need it, for just before we left moon valley i received a letter from the united states secret service, telling me about the robberies, of which i had heard something, but not much, as they have been kept away from the newspapers as much as possible." "hev there been so many of them?" "as i tell you, they have been so numerous as to lead one to believe that there was a chain of train robbers clear across the continent, and strong and capable robbers they have proved themselves to be." "did they git much?" "they have got away with a vast amount of money belonging to individuals. they seem to have had information in advance of all the big shipments of treasure leaving san francisco and carson city, nevada, as well as of private shipments." "wise injuns, eh?" "i should say so. they have even been able to spot shipments of united states gold en route from the mints in frisco and carson to washington, and in two instances have got away with it." "wow! there's where your uncle samuel reaches out his long arms and takes a hand in the game. how much did they get away with?" "the chief did not say. that is not for us to know, i guess, or he doesn't think it will make any difference with us in our enthusiasm for our work of running down and capturing that gang, or gangs, as the ease may be." "but it wouldn't do a feller no harm ter know. i'd feel a heap more skittish if i wuz runnin' after a million than if it wuz thirty cents." "there's something in that, but we won't let it interfere with the performance of our duty." "how does the chief put it up to us?" "he tells the facts briefly, and says: 'go and get the robbers.'" "that's short an' ter ther p'int. anything else?" "he says that the worst bunch of train robbers in ten years has been organized, with men operating on various railroads, and that from past performances it would seem that they had inside and powerful friends who were keeping them informed as to what trains to rob. in other words, the thing seems to be a syndicate of robbers operated and directed from a central point by men of brains and resource." "an' whar's ther central p'int?" "st. louis." "ah, i begins ter smell a mice. so yer gradooly led up ter this place, pretendin' ter sell hosses, eh?" "no; we'll kill two birds with one stone. we'll sell the horses if we can get our price for them, and it will be an excellent cloak to hide our real purpose, which is to try to get next to the headquarters of the train robbers." "good idee. but how aire yer goin' ter go erbout it?" "to tell you the truth, i haven't an idea. we will have to do our own scouting. if the chief knew, it is not likely that he would employ us to find out." "thet's so. well, let's be on ther scout." "we'll still pose as ranchers with pony stock to sell, and let folks know it. we'll go over to the stockyards right now." "all right, but the stunt is ter keep our eyes peeled fer ther train-robber syndicate's office." "that's it. one never can tell when he will run onto just the thing he's looking for when he least expects it." "we're being shadowed," said ted, a short time after they had left their hotel and were walking through the streets toward the bridge that spans the mississippi river to east st. louis. "how d'yer know?" asked bud, sending a cautious eye around. "see that fellow with the checked suit, on the opposite side of the street?" "uh-huh!" "he's on our trail. don't give him a hint that we're on to him, and if he chases us all day he'll see that we are what we represent ourselves to be, just plain cow-punchers." "i'm on." the man in the checked suit got on the same trolley car with them at the bridge, and while they were walking through the stockyards they saw him frequently, not always in evidence, but always somewhere in their vicinity. they visited the offices of the commission merchants who dealt in horseflesh, and got their prices for the sort of stock the boys had to sell, and before the day was over they had disposed of six carloads of horses for immediate delivery. while they were talking the deal over with the purchaser, they noticed that the man in the checked suit hovered around, and ted purposely permitted him to overhear part of the conversation about the delivery of the ponies. ted then sent a telegram to kit summers, informing him of the sale, and telling him to select the sort of horses from the herds that were wanted, and to come through with them, bringing a sufficient number of the boys with him to protect the stock and deliver it. when the operator took the message and began to send it, ted noticed that the man with the checked suit was leaning against the wall, apparently not paying any attention to what was going on. but ted knew by the way he was holding his head that he was a telegraph operator also, and that he was reading the message as it went onto the wire. "say, bud, we've had enough of that gentleman for one day, haven't we?" "i shore hev." "then let's give him the slip." "easier said than done. thet thar feller sticks like a leech ter a black eye." "i think we can do it." "and how?" "see that automobile over there? in front of that office." "i see a long, low, rakish craft painted like an eyetalian sunset. if thet is yer means o' communication with ther other side o' ther river, oxcuse me." "why, what's the matter with that? that's a mighty fine car." "i reckon it is, but walkin's good ernuf fer me." "but you'll never walk away from that shadow." "i'll bet i kin run erway from 'his checkers' before we're halfway ter st. looey, even if i am a cow-puncher, an' muscle bound from straddlin' a saddle fer so many years." "what's the use, when we can run away from him in a gasoline wagon. that machine is standing in front of the office of truax & wells, and they have sold a lot of cattle for us in times past. it wouldn't surprise me if the car belonged to one or the other of them, and that if we asked for a lift to the other side they would be glad to let us have it." "all right, if you're so keen on it, tackle 'em. you'll find me game ter ride ther ole thing. i've rid everything from a goat ter a huffier, an' yer kin bet yer gold-plugged tooth i ain't goin' ter welsh fer no ole piece o' machinery." they entered the office, and were at once greeted by an elderly man, mr. truax, in a warm manner. after talking over things in general, ted said: "that's a fine car of yours out there, mr. truax." "funny thing about that car," said the commission merchant. "that's not my car, and nobody seems to know whose car it is." "that certainly is strange," said ted. "how does it come to be standing out there?" "it was this way, and it's a good story, but none of the newspaper boys have been in to-day, and so i couldn't give it out: right back of us here is a railroad station. there's an eastbound train through here at seven-thirty every morning. she was just pulling into the station this morning as i was unlocking the office door, and i heard a chugging behind me. i looked up, and here came the car with only one man in it. he pulls up short, picks up a bag, which was very heavy, for it was all he could do to stagger along with it. "the bell on the engine was ringing for the start when he runs through the arcade there as fast as he could with the heavy bag, and just catches the rear of the train as it comes along. he manages to hoist the bag onto the rear platform steps, and is running along trying to get on, and the train picking up speed with every revolution of the wheels. i thought sure he would be left, or killed, for he wouldn't let go, when the conductor came out on the rear platform, saw him, and jerked him aboard by the collar." "didn't he say anything about his machine?" asked ted. "not a word. that's what i thought so strange about it. but, thinks i, some one will come for it after a while. perhaps, thinks i, he was in such a hurry to make the train that he left home without a chauffeur, who will be along when he wakes up." "and no one has appeared?" "there she lays, just as he left her. when my partner came down, i spoke to him about it. he's a fan on motoring. that's his car over there; that white one. when i spoke to him about it, he went out and looked it over. "'that car don't belong here,' says he. 'there's no number of the maker on it, and everything that would serve to identify it has been taken off. besides, i don't think the license number is on the square.' "that excited my curiosity, and i called up the license collector's office and asked him whose motor car no. 118 was. in a few minutes he calls me and says it belongs to mr. henry inchcliffe, the banker. i gets mr. inchcliffe on the phone and asks him if his car is missing, and he says he can look out of the window as he is talking and see it beside the curb with his wife sitting in it. 'what is the color of your car?' says i. 'dark green, picked in crimson. why do you ask?' says he. i tells him that an abandoned car is standing in front of our place with his number on it. but he says he guesses not, for his number looms up like a sore thumb, hanging on the axle of his car in front of the bank, and i rings off. that's the story of the car." "since it belongs to no one in particular, i've a mind to borrow it, and put it in a garage over on the other side. it'll be ruined if it stays out here in the weather," said ted. "i don't care," said mr. truax. "it wasn't left in my care, and i haven't got much use for the blamed thing, anyhow. take it along. if the owner comes and proves property, i suppose you'll give it up?" "sure thing. i'll telephone you the name and address of the garage where i leave it, so that if there is any inquiry for it you may direct inquirers there. but i've got a hunch that this car was thrown away, having served its purpose." "great scott! that's a valuable thing to throw away." "yes, but the man who abandoned it probably thought it a good sacrifice." "how is that?" "what do you suppose was in that bag he carried?" "couldn't say, but it was pretty heavy." "it would hold a good deal of paper money, wouldn't it?" "if the bills were of big enough denomination, i should say you could pack away a million in it, for it was a powerful big sack." "well, suppose the man whom you saw jump out of the car and get aboard the train had stolen the car, or even if he had owned it, and had made a big haul, and it was contingent upon his getting away with the money that he abandon the car." "that's possible. but there has been no big robbery to cover that part of the theory." "you don't know. there may have been a big robbery, and it has not been made public. not all robberies are reported to the public. if they were, there would be slim chance for the authorities to catch the thieves." "perhaps so. say, mr. strong, you're a deputy united states marshal, ain't you?" "yes. both mr. morgan and i are in the government service." "i've been thinking over what you said about a possible robbery, and perhaps you've got it right. i believe you'd better take that car along. you might need it as evidence some day." "that occurred to me." "can you run the pesky thing." "yes; i learned to run a motor car long ago. it is, like everything else a fellow can know, mighty useful to me in my business." "all right, take her along." the man in the checked suit was nowhere in sight, but as ted started up the abandoned motor car he came running out of a doorway. "hi, there! come back with that car!" he yelled, running after them in the middle of the road. but ted let her out a couple of links, and in a moment the man in checks was out of sight. chapter xv. the lodging-house battle. "what aire ye goin' ter do with ther blamed thing, now yer got it?" asked bud, as they sped across the eads bridge into st. louis. "i haven't made up my mind yet. it certainly doesn't belong in this town, and if we use it here we will have to get a local license." "jumpin' sand hills, yer not goin' ter run it yere?" "why not?" "whoever owns it is li'ble ter come erlong some day, an--" "then i'll give it to him, if he can prove it is his, but i don't think it will ever be claimed." "how's that?" "because the owner is a thief, and if he finds it is in the hands of an officer he will let it go rather than face an investigation. besides, i need it." "ted strong, aire yer goin' dotty over them derned smell wagons, too?" "no, i can't say that i am, but if i lived in a town like this, and could afford it, you bet i'd have one." "but where aire yer goin' ter keep it? we shore can't take it up ter our room." "not exactly," laughed ted. "you forget that we have friends in this man's town." "not a whole heap." "what's the matter with don dorrington?" "by ginger, that's so. ther young feller what was with us down in mexico when we found ther jewels and things under ther president's palace." "yes, and we're heading right for his house now." "what fer? goin' ter try ter git him inter trouble, too?" ted piloted the machine through the thronged downtown streets, and coming at last to pine street boulevard, he let her out, and went skimming over the smooth pavement until he came to newstead avenue, and was ringing the bell of don dorrington's flat before the astonished bud could recover his breath from the swift ride. dorrington himself came to the door, having looked through the window and seen ted arrive. "well, by all that's glorious," exclaimed don, as he grasped ted by the hand. "where are you from, and why? hello, bud, you old rascal! get out of that car and come in. where did you get the bubble?" ted and bud entered the house and were taken into don's workroom, where he was soon put in possession of the facts concerning the motor car, although ted said nothing about the real object of his visit lo st. louis. "well, what can i do for you?" asked don. "have you a place where i can store this car for a while?" asked ted. "i sure have," said don. "you can run it right into the basement from the back yard. when these flats were built it was intended that the basement be used as a garage, but so far none of the tenants have shown a disposition to get rich enough to buy one. no one will be able to get the machine out of there," "that's the only thing i fear," said ted. "it's a cinch that the owner, if he is a thief who has escaped with a pot of money, as i strongly suspect, will have his pals try to get it back. and i don't want them to get it until i have used it to try to trace them." "i'll bet a cooky ther feller with ther checked suit wuz after ther machine himself," said bud. "when we eloped with it he came holler in' after us ter bring it back, but we gave him the glazed look an' left him fannin' ther air in our wake." the boys rolled the motor car into the basement, which was securely locked. then ted and bud returned to town on a street car. as they got closer to the downtown section, they could hear the shouts of the newsboys announcing an "extra" newspaper in all the varieties of pronunciation of that word as it issues from the mouths of city "newsies." "wonder what the 'extra' is all about?" said ted. "oh, same old thing, i reckon," said bud. "'all erbout ther turribul disaster.' an' when yer buys a paper yer see in big letters at ther top, 'man kills,' and down below it, 'mother-in-law!' but in little type between them yer read ther follerin', to wit, 'cat to spite.' i've been stung by them things before." "i'm going to buy one, anyway," laughed ted. "i don't mind being stung for a cent." he beckoned to a newsboy, bought a paper, and opened it. "what's this?" he almost shouted. great black letters sprawled across the top of the page. "express messenger found dead," was the first line, and below it was the confirmation of ted's belief that a great robbery had taken place. it was "forty thousand dollars taken from the safe." "there's the owner of the abandoned automobile, the fellow who boarded the train with the heavy grip," said ted to bud, who was staring over his shoulder. the article following the startling headlines told the circumstances of the robbery. the train that entered the union station at six o'clock that morning had been robbed in some mysterious manner between a junction a short distance out of st. louis, where the express messenger had been seen alive by a fellow messenger in another car. when the car was opened in the station, after being switched to the express track, the messenger was found lying on the floor of the car with a bullet through his head. the safe had been blown open and its contents rifled. the express company had kept silent about the murder and robbery until late in the day, when the body of the messenger was found by a reporter in an undertaker's establishment. as for the other details, a policeman at the union station said that he had noticed a man come out of the waiting room carrying a grip that seemed more than ordinarily heavy. a red motor car was waiting outside the station, and the man got into it and drove away at a fast pace. the policeman had not noticed the number on the car. how the robber and murderer got into the express car was a mystery, as the car was locked when it was switched into the express track, and there were no marks of a violent entry on the outside of the car. "what aire yer goin' ter do erbout it?" asked bud. "aire yer goin' ter turn over ther motor car an' give yer infermation ter ther police?" "not on your life," answered ted. "at least, not yet. i'm going to work on it a bit myself first." "but won't mr. truax tip it off?" "i'll warn him not to." "but how erbout ther feller in ther check suit what wuz so kind an' attentive ter us?" "he's hiding out, now that the robbery has become public. i'm not afraid of him." "what's ther first move?" "locate and identify the car." ted called mr. truax up on the telephone. the commission merchant had read about the express robbery, and had connected the man in the red car with it, but promised to say nothing about it until ted had had an opportunity to unravel the mystery. ted lay awake a long time that night thinking the matter over, and in the morning awoke with a plan in his mind. "well, hev yer determined what ter do erbout ther red car?" asked bud at the breakfast table. "i'm shore gittin' sore at myself fer a loafer, sittin' eround here doin' nothin' but eat an' look at ther things in ther stores what i can't buy." "i've got a scheme that i'm going to try," answered ted. "what is it?" "i'm going to run that car all over this town until i get some of the train-robbing syndicate anxious about it and to following it. then i'm going to get on to their place of doing business and their methods." "wish yer luck," was bud's cheerless comment. bud had been out wandering restlessly around the streets all morning, and ted was writing letters. when he got through he thought about the missing trunk, and concluded that he would go to the union station to see if it had been received. the words of warning in the note not to go on the street alone were clear in his memory; but this he took to mean at night, for in a crowded street in the daytime he could see no danger. after he had waited an hour or more for bud, and the yellow-haired cow-puncher had not returned, ted decided to delay no longer, and started off at a brisk walk for the station, which was six or seven blocks distant. his hotel being on pine street, he chose that for his route. he had walked three blocks when he stopped to watch a man who was slightly in advance of him. it was the fellow he had seen in the checked suit. he had just come out of a saloon. in the middle of the block he stopped to talk with another man, who looked as if he worked on the railroad, and ted loitered in a doorway until the two separated, and the man in the checked suit continued on his way. a block farther on ted observed two men standing on the corner talking. a policeman stood on the opposite corner. the two men on the corner ted knew instantly for "plain-clothes men," as the headquarters detectives are called. he was well aware that the police by this time were on the alert to find the express robber and murderer, and knew that every available man on the city detective force was on the watch, like a cat at a rat hole. to capture the train robber meant a reward and promotion. ted stood on the corner opposite the detectives and watched proceedings. when the man in the checked suit had gone about ten paces beyond the detectives, one of them started after him, and the other signaled the policeman in uniform to cross over. the detective called to the man in the check suit to halt, but instead of obeying he started to run. but he had not gone more than ten feet when he was seized by the detective, and was dragged back to the corner. "take him to the box, casey," said the detective, turning his prisoner over to the policeman. at that moment the two detectives were joined by a third, and they entered into an earnest conversation, drawn closely together and looking over their shoulders occasionally in the direction of the house into which the man in the checked suit was about to enter when arrested. "i have stumbled right into it," said ted to himself. "the check-suit man is the spy for the train robbers, and their headquarters are in that house. the detectives are going to raid it, and i'm in on it. this certainly is lucky." he was glad now that he had not waited for bud. the three detectives moved slowly down the street, the policeman stood on the corner holding his man, waiting for the patrol wagon. the scene was vividly impressed on ted's mind, for it had happened so quickly, so easily, so quietly, and not at all like his own strenuous times when he had gone after desperadoes in his capacity of deputy marshal. the detectives did not notice that they were being followed by a youth, and it is doubtful if they would have paid any attention to him if they had. the foot of the first detective was on the lower step of the stairway leading to the door of the suspected house when suddenly a shrill whistle cut the air from the direction of the corner, and ted turned to see the policeman strike the man in the check suit a blow with his club. "curse him, he's tipped us off," said the detective. "come on, we've got to rush them now." quickly the three sprang up the steps, threw the door open, and entered a long hall. "back room," said one. ted was following them as closely as he could without being noticed and warned away. he saw a big, fine-looking policeman entering by a back door. "that's it," said one of the detectives, motioning to a door. the policeman walked boldly to the door and threw it open. as he did so a shot rang out, and the policeman staggered back and fell, a crimson stain covering his face. he was dead before he struck the floor. without a word, the three detectives ran to the door, and within a moment or two at least fifteen shots were fired within the room. they were so many and so close together that it sounded like a single crash. then there was silence for a few moments, followed by a few desultory shots which seemed to pop viciously after the crash that had gone before. it all happened so suddenly that ted had hardly time to think, and stood rooted to the spot until he was aroused by the cry of "help!" in a feeble voice, and, drawing his revolver, he sprang into the room. as he did so, a shot rang out, and a ball sped close to his head. the room was so dense with suffocating powder smoke that he could not see across it, but he had seen the dull-red flash from the muzzle of a revolver and shot in that direction. "i'm done," he heard, followed by a deep groan. "get me out of here," said a man, trying to struggle to his feet, and ted hurried to his side. it was one of the detectives, and ted helped him to his feet and supported him to the hall. "let me down. i've got mine. go in and help dunnigan," said the wounded man. there was a spot, red and ever widening, on his breast. ted laid him on the floor and reã«ntered the room. another shot came in his direction, and missed, although he could feel the wind of it as it passed close to his head, and he returned it with two shots, and there was silence. the smoke had by this time cleared away somewhat, and ted saw five men lying prone in the room. one of the detectives lay on his face across the bed, and ted tried to raise him up, but he was a dead weight. ted finally got him turned over on his back, and then he saw that the detective was dead. kneeling on the floor with his head in his arms, which were thrown across a chair, was the third detective. he was breathing hard, and every time he moved the blood gushed from his mouth. he had been shot through the stomach. but on the other side of the bed lay three men, apparently all of them dead. while he was observing this there was a commotion in the hall, and a policeman rushed in, followed by a large man who wore an authoritative air. "oh, this is too bad; this is too bad," he kept repeating, as he went from man to man. it was chief of detectives desmond. turning to the policeman, he said: "they've killed the boys, but the boys got the whole gang except two, 'checkers' out there, and a man in the red automobile." chapter xvi. the man in the yellow car. a patrol wagon full of policemen had dashed up in front of the house, and they came running down the hall, followed by a horde of eager reporters, who stood aghast at the slaughter of a few minutes. the only participant in the fight who could talk was the detective whom ted had carried to the hall, and he was telling the chief of detectives in whispers what had occurred. "that young fellow followed us in," he said, pointing to ted. "he took me out, and then went in and finished the gang. he's a game one, he is. i don't know who he is, but, by jove! he's a game un." "who were the gang?" asked the chief. "'big bill' minnis, 'bull' dorgan, and 'feathers' lavin," was the reply. "checkers we caught on the corner, and the other member of the gang, dude wilcox, got away. i guess it was him that rode off with the swag in the automobile, but where he went we couldn't get." "i can tell you about that," said ted quietly to the chief. desmond looked up at him curiously. "not now," he said. "don't go. i want to talk to you after a while. now, brace up, tom; you're going to come out all right. the ambulance is out here, and we'll get you to the hospital." "it ain't no use to jolly me, chief," said the man on the floor. "i'm all in. i'm bleedin' inside. i've seen too many fellows with a shot like this ever to have any hopes. send for my wife and a priest. i ain't afraid to go, chief, but i hate to leave maggie like this." "we'll take care of her, tom. get that off your mind." "all right, chief. if you say so, i know it'll be all right. poor girl, it's hard luck for her." "that's right, tom, but brace up and don't let her see that you're worried." a woman's scream sounded through the hall, and a slender, girlish figure pushed its way toward the prostrate man. "tom," she cried, and knelt beside him. "are you hit? did they get you at last?" "oh, i ain't bad, maggie," said the dying detective bravely. "the chief's going to have me sent to the hospital, and i'll be all right in a week." but before midnight he died. an hour later ted met the chief of detectives. "get into my car," said the chief, "and come down to my office, and we'll have a talk." in a short time they were at the four courts, the big central police station of st. louis, and when they were in the chief's private office and the door barred to intruders the great detective turned inquiringly to ted. "now, who are you, and how did you happen to be mixed up in that mess?" asked desmond. "my name is ted strong," began ted. suddenly chief desmond sat up straight and looked at ted sharply. "not the leader of the broncho boys, are you?" he asked. "the same," said ted. "i know about you. what were you doing near those detectives, that you should have got in so handily?" "i'm a deputy united states marshal, as perhaps you know." desmond nodded. "yes, i know," he said. "i was working on this very case," said ted, "and i had got hold of one end of it, and was about to follow it to a conclusion, when i saw the man checkers on the street, and was following him. he led me to the detectives. the minute i saw them and him, i knew there would be something doing." "what did you know of checkers?" "nothing at all, except that he knew somehow that i was working on the express-robbery cases, and yesterday he shadowed my partner and me to east st. louis, where we left him behind in an automobile." ted then told the chief how he had come about taking possession of the red car, to which desmond listened carefully. when ted had finished, desmond rose and paced the room for a minute. "young man, you've got the big end of the chase," he said. "dude wilcox is the man who we are positive killed the messenger and got away with the swag. if it were you who found out how he got away with it, you will have got the last of the gang." "is that all there is to it?" asked ted. "lord bless you, no. that's only the bunch that has been working in st. louis. the big end of it is operating from some town farther west. there's where dude wilcox came from. i don't know where they make their headquarters, and it is out of my territory. i have all i can do to take care of st. louis." "the government officers were of the opinion that st. louis was headquarters." "that was true up to a few weeks ago, but we made it so hot for them here that they emigrated." "well, there's no use in my staying here any longer. i might as well hike out west. i'm not much good in a big town, anyway. i suppose you'll have no trouble in handling checkers without any word from me." "oh, yes. but let's have checkers up and hear what he has to say for himself." the chief pushed a button and presently an officer entered. "go down to the hold-over and bring checkers to me," ordered the chief. in less than ten minutes the officer was back again. "the jailer says he has no such man, chief," was the report. "where is he?" "i'll inquire." back he came in a few minutes. "casey had him on the corner waiting for the wagon, sir, but in the excitement during the fight casey let go of checkers for a moment, and he got away." ted could see that the chief was very angry, but he controlled his temper admirably. "very well," was all he said. he turned and gave ted a sharp look. "if you stay around here much longer, you'll have to look out for checkers. he's a dangerous man, as well with a knife as with a gun." "i guess i can take care of him," answered ted. "you look as if you could, lad," said the chief. after a few more minutes of conversation regarding the red motor car, during which the chief advised ted to keep the car until he was through with it, ted took his leave, and returned to the hotel. there he found bud pacing the floor. "peevish porcupines," grunted the old cow-puncher, "but you've got yourself in up to ther neck in printer's ink." "how's that?" asked ted. "haven't you seen the evening papers?" "i've been too busy to look at them." "i reckon you be. busier than a cranberry merchant. look at this." bud handed ted a bundle of evening papers. of course, the fight between the detectives and the bandits was given an immense amount of space in the extras which followed one another rapidly from the presses. in all of them were accounts of ted's going to the rescue of the detectives, and the statement that balls from ted's revolver had killed two of the gang. "rubbish!" said ted. "i didn't kill any bandits. i took a couple of shots at them after they had fired on me, that's all." "well, yer won't be able to get away from these newspaper stories. if any of ther gang run across yer, they'll shore go after yer with a hard plank. ye've placed ther black mark on yerself with ther gang." "all right. i can stand it if they can. i've got a few up my sleeve for them." then ted related exactly how the thing happened, and of his talk with desmond. "and they let that fellow checkers get away," sighed ted. "the chief says he's the most dangerous of them all, and warned me to look out for him. bud, i've got a hunch." "let her flicker. i'm kinder stuck on yer hunches; they pay dividends right erlong." "the fellow in the check suit was the man who tried to stab me because i wouldn't let him see the anonymous letter. i don't know which was the real man, checkers or the other. but there were many points of similarity between them, and when checkers called for us to stop the automobile, it was the voice of the man who commanded me to give him the letter. keep checkers in your mind." the next morning they went out to don dorrington's house and got out the automobile. "we'll circulate around pretty well in this," said ted, "and if checkers is in town he'll spot us, and we may get a chance at him yet." "what do you want with him?" "i'm depending on him to lead us to headquarters." for an hour or more they rode about the town, making the machine as conspicuous as possible. "bud, we're being followed," said ted, nodding toward a yellow car that had been in evidence oftener than mere chance made possible. "yep. i've had him spotted fer some time," answered bud. "why didn't you say something about it?" ted laughed at bud's silence. "oh, i knew that you were on to it, too," was the characteristic reply. "what do you suppose he's chasing us for? he must know that he can't harm us." "he don't want us. he wants that red car. it's a beautiful piece of red evidence against him an' his gang. yer see, it's ther best kinder a clew." "right again. but he needn't think he can steal it, for he can't." they put the car up during the middle of the day. "we'll let it rest for a while," said ted, as they ran it into a public garage. "this evening we'll take it out again, and if we're followed then we'll be sure that it is checkers, and that he is on our trail." it was seven o'clock when they trundled forth again. a bright moonlight night made motoring highly enjoyable, and after they had run about for a couple of hours bud got out, saying that he was tired of the sport, and would return to the hotel, and leave ted to take the machine back to don dorrington's basement. they had been followed by the yellow car again, but in going through forest park they had managed to give their trailer the slip among the intricate roads and bypaths, and had seen nothing of him for half an hour. as soon as ted had let bud out, he hit up the speed, for the boulevard was comparatively free of traffic, and he fairly spun along to the western part of the city. cutting off the boulevard, he entered upon a side street to make a short cut to dorrington's house. he noticed, as he turned into the side street, a light-colored car standing close to the curb as he passed, but so many cars were standing in front of houses here and there that he paid no attention to it. but he had no sooner passed than the light-colored car glided after him noiselessly. ted's own machine was making so much noise that he was not aware of the presence of another car until it was abreast of him, and so close that he could reach out his hand and touch it. he thought the car was trying to pass him close to the curb, and started to turn out to give it more steerage room. "sheer off, there," he called, "until i can get out of here." suddenly something wet struck him in the face. he gave a gasp, as a fearful suffocating pain filled his head and lungs, and he sank down into the bottom of the car, insensible. at the same instant the man in the other car reached over and throttled the red car, then stopped his own. leaving his own car in the middle of the road, he leaped into the red car and gave her her full head. in half an hour the red car had left the city and was speeding along a smooth country road in the moonlight. ted still lay in a stupor in the bottom of the car, and the only sound that came from him was an occasional gasp as his lungs, trying to recover from a shock, took in short gulps of air. it was midnight before the red car slowed down. ahead in the moonlight rose the black bulk of a building. it presented the appearance of a country house of some pretensions. the house was dark. not a light appeared at any of the windows. the red car approached it cautiously, running into the deep shadow cast by a high brick wall. a dog on the other side of the wall barked a warning. the man in the red car whistled softly in a peculiar way. a window was raised somewhere, and the whistle was answered by another. in a few minutes there was the sound of a man walking on a graveled path, then the creak of rusty iron and a gate swung open. "all right?" asked a voice at the gate. "you bet. got them both," answered the man in the red machine. "bully for you. run her in." the red machine, with ted still lying in the bottom, ran into a large yard, and the gate was closed again, and the car was stopped in front of the house. "come, help me carry him in," said the man in the car. "he'll be coming around all right in a few minutes, then we may have some trouble with him, for he's the very devil to fight." ted was dragged out of the car in no gentle manner, and carried into the house, which was unlighted save where the moonlight shone through the windows. "into the strong room with him," said the man of the house. ted was carried into a room and dumped upon a lounge. then a light was struck, and both men bent over the prostrate form of the leader of the broncho boys. both of them started back. "whew! you must have given him an awful dose, checkers," said the man of the house. "had to do it, dude. if i hadn't, i'd never got him here, that's a cinch." "well, get his gun off before he comes to." ted was stripped of his weapons, a glass of water was thrown into his face, and he began to regain consciousness. he had been shot down with an ammonia gun, and the powerful alkaloid gas had almost killed him. for a long time he breathed in gasps, but his splendid constitution pulled him through. when they saw that he was recovering, the two men left the room, after examining the iron-barred windows, and as they went out they locked and barred the door behind them. chapter xvii. murder in the haunted house. ted lay for a long time only half conscious. but gradually his senses returned, and he opened his eyes to find himself in darkness, trying hard to think what had happened to him. he knew that he had been felled by something powerful and terrible, that had knocked him in a heap so suddenly that he hardly knew what had happened to him. slowly the consciousness of it all came to him. some one in an automobile had ridden alongside him and thrown ammonia in his face. his eyes were still smarting with it, and he wondered, seeing no light, if it had blinded him, and he was now lying in the dark when there was light all around him. he struggled with this thought for a moment, because the idea of going blind was terrible to him. he wondered where he was, and felt around and learned that he was lying on a couch. then he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. the ammonia had left him still weak, but gradually he became stronger, and got to his feet and began to explore the room with his fingers. he found a chair and a table, and presently came to the door, which he tried to open, but could not. passing around the room, he arrived at the window, and, looking through the glass, saw a star, and thanked heaven that he could see. he tried the fastenings of the window, unlocked it, and threw it up, stretching out his hand. the window was closed with iron bars. he had made the circuit of the room, and had discovered that he was securely shut in. he went back to the lounge and lay down to think matters over. he felt quite sure that the man checkers had been his assailant. the warning had not been without reason, after all. as he lay quietly he heard footsteps in the next room. two men evidently had entered it. they were talking, and occasionally, when their voices rose higher than usual, he could catch a word or two. from the tones of their voices he learned that the conversation was not of the most pleasant nature. they were quarreling about something. by degrees their voices grew higher, and occasionally ted caught such words as "money," "half," "thousand," enough to tell him that they were dividing something. "they're quarreling over the swag," said ted to himself. "good! 'when thieves fall out, honest men get their dues,'" he quoted. "keep it up, and i'll get you yet." they did keep it up. it was the voice of checkers that rose high. "i tell you i'll have half or i'll split on you, if i go to the 'stir' for the rest of my life." "if you do split, you won't go to the 'stir.' the boys will kill you before you get the chance." "well, what's your proposition?" "i'll give you five thousand. that's enough for putting me next to the train. what do you want? the earth? didn't i do the dirty work? if i'd been caught, who'd have been soaked? you? i guess not. it would have been me who would have been killed, for i'm like the other fellows--i'd have fought until they killed me. you're not entitled to more than five thousand, and that's all you'll get." "i won't take it. half or i squeal." "squeal, then." there was a sudden trampling of feet in the other room, the crash of an overturning table, followed by a yell of death agony, and the thud of a falling body. "great scott, one of them is dead," said ted, with a shudder. he was listening intently, and heard a scuffle of feet, then hurried footsteps died away and a door slammed somewhere. deep silence followed. then the horror of the situation burst upon ted, the house had been deserted by the only living creature, except himself, who was left to starve to death in this prison, with a dead man in the next room. one or the other of the two men who had held him captive had done murder and escaped with the stolen money. ted lay speculating which was dead and which had escaped, but he could make nothing of it. the night dragged wearily on for ted could not sleep, for thinking of the dead man in the next room, and his own precarious position. he reviewed the chances of his being rescued. they were very slim, indeed. bud and chief desmond would start a hunt for him about the city, but would not find him, and no one would think of looking for him in this deserted house. but at last the night passed, and ted watched with a grateful heart the gradual dawning of the day. at last it was light enough to see, and he looked around the room. it was old-fashioned and high. through the window he could see a bit of the high brick fence, and a few trees and long, tangled, dead grass. that was the extent of his view from the window. he examined the door, which was the only other means of exit from the room. it was very heavy, and made of oak. the lock on it was massive and old-fashioned, and set into the oak frame so that an examination of it dispelled all hope of getting it off. if he was to escape there was only one way, to cut a hole in the door. he felt for his knife. it was gone, and ted wandered disconsolately to the couch and sat down to ponder. but the more he racked his brains the further he got from a plan of escape. the day dragged slowly on, but he would not sleep for fear that he might miss some one passing to whom he could call and bring assistance. late in the afternoon he stepped to the window and looked at an apple tree in the grounds beyond. it was full of red apples, and he was very hungry, but they were not for him. he wondered that he had not heard any one pass along the road on the other side of the brick wall. suddenly he noticed that the leaves in an apple tree were being violently agitated, although there was not a breath of wind stirring. some one was in the tree, and his first impulse was to yell for help, then he reflected that if it was a boy pilfering apples the cry would scare him, and his only chance for rescue would be ruined by the boy running away. he would wait for the boy to come to the ground, and would then speak to him. but as he was watching the tree intently the movement of the leaves ceased, and soon he perceived a peering face and two dark, roguish eyes. they reminded him of a bird, so bright and inquiring were they. ted smiled at the eyes, and thought he saw an answering twinkle in them. they disappeared after a few moments. the leaves shook again, and a boy of about ten years, incredibly ragged, with a dirty face, hands, and bare feet and legs, dropped to the ground. his head was covered with a tangled mop of brown hair in lieu of a hat. the boy stared at the window, all the while munching an apple, while from the bulges in his scant trousers it was evident that he had others for future consumption. "hello, boy!" said ted, with a friendly way. "hello! who are you?" said the boy, coming a few steps nearer, to get a better view. "do you mean what's my name?" "uh-huh!" "my name is ted strong. what's yours?" "napoleon bonaparte." ted laughed at the solemnity of the boy when he gave this answer. "well," said the boy, "it's just as much napoleon as yours is ted strong." "but my name is ted strong." "aw, come off." "all right, if you don't believe me, ask me any questions you like to prove it." "where do you come from?" "moon valley, south dakota." "that's right. what's the names of some of ted strong's fellers?" ted named them all, the boy giving a nod after every name. "now, what's the name of your horse? the one you ride most?" "sultan. you seem to know something about me." "you bet. well, maybe you're all right, but what are you doing here? i always thought you stayed out west--away out west." "usually i do." "then what are you doing in the haunted house?" "is this a haunted house?" "you bet. there was a feller killed there once, and nobody will live in it no more." "honest, now, what _is_ your name?" "my name's-say, are you sure enough ted strong?" "certainly i am." the boy came closer, looking at ted fixedly. "gee, i wouldn't go inter that house fer a hundred million dollars." "i've been here all night, and it didn't scare me any." "that settles it. i reckon you must be ted strong. he's the only feller i ever heard of that wouldn't be scared to stay in a haunted house. how did you get there?" without hesitation, ted told the boy how he had been held up by a man in an automobile, and knocked out by ammonia fumes, and then locked up in the house. but he said nothing about the murdered man in the next room. "now i've told you all about myself, it's only fair that you should tell me about yourself." "oh, i ain't nothin'. i'm just 'scrub.'" "haven't you got any other name?" "nary one that i know of that's fastened to me all the time." "how's that?" "when i'm living with old man jones, i'm scrub jones, and when i'm with mr. foster, i'm scrub foster, and that way. i don't belong to nobody, an' i just live around doing chores for my keep. just now i ain't got no place to stop, and i'm sleeping in hay-stacks and living on apples and turnips and potatoes, when i make a fire and bake 'em, and once in a while i trap a rabbit. but, gee, what a good time you must have!" "how would you like to go with me out to moon valley?" "aw, quit your kiddin'." "i mean it i'd just like to take you out there and give you a good time for once in your life." "would you? by golly, you can." "then i'll tell you what to do. go around to the front door and come in, and back to this room, and unlock the door and let me out, and we'll go together." "gee, i wouldn't go into that house for four thousand barrels of hoarhound candy. say, are you a prisoner?" "i am, and if you don't come in and let me out i can't take you with me to moon valley." "that's so. but i'm scared of the ghost." "oh, so you're afraid, are you?" at this the boy flushed and fiddled with his toes in the grass. "no kid that's afraid could live in moon valley. he'd be scared to death in a week." "are there ghosts there?" "there are no such things as ghosts. bet you never saw one yourself." "no, i never did. but all the folks around here say there is ghosts in that house." "well, say there are, they wouldn't come out in the daytime, would they?" "i reckon not. gee, i'll come in." the boy disappeared like a flash, and in a few moments ted heard the front door open, then a scream. "i'll bet he's found the dead man," said ted, aloud, in a tone of annoyance. "that's just my luck." the door slammed, and all was silent. the boy evidently had run away, and ted was left alone in the house with the dead man. once more darkness descended upon the earth, and ted took up another hole in his belt, and tried to believe that he was not hungry. about nine o'clock ted, who was lying on the couch looking at the ceiling, saw a faint flicker of light pass across it, and sprang to his feet. it was the light cast by a lantern somewhere outside. he sprang to the window and looked out. behind the brick wall he could see the reflection of a bobbing lantern, and hear the shuffle of many feet. "ho, there!" he cried. the shuffle stopped, and a voice that was trembling with fear answered him. "come in here, and let me out," called ted. "we'll be thar in a minute," was the answer, and presently the front door was thrown open, followed by exclamations, as whoever had come in viewed the body in the next room. then the voices were outside his door. "you open it an' go in," said a voice. "you're the constable." "well, supposin' he's got a gun?" asked the constable tremulously. "don't be afraid," said ted. "i have no gun. they took everything away from me." "there! ain't that enough? open the door." ted heard the bar being taken down, then the key grate in the lock, and the door was thrown open with a bang. he found himself looking into the barrels of a shotgun. "if yer makes a motion, i'll blow yer head plumb off, blame yer," shouted the man with the gun. "honest," said ted, "i'm not armed." "how come yuh here?" "i was made insensible by ammonia fumes and brought here last night." "how come yuh ter kill that man in ther next room?" "i didn't kill him." "that's a likely story. i find yuh alone in ther house with him. yuh'll hev ter answer ter ther magistrate fer this." "see here, my friend, how could i have killed that man, then come in here, and locked and barred the door on the outside?" "he's got yuh there, si," said one of the men. "look here," said ted, showing his star. "i'm an officer of the law. the fellows who captured and brought me here were robbers, and i was on their trail. that's all there is to it. now, let me pass. i want to see what is in the next room." chapter xviii. stella adopts a brother. taking up a lantern, ted entered the room. beside the overturned table lay the body of a man. it was not checkers. there was nothing in the room except the table, two chairs, a broken lamp, which lay in a pool of kerosene on the floor, and the body of the murdered man. wait, what was this? beneath the table was a scrap of green. it was a bank bill, and, drawing it forth, ted found it to be a fifty-dollar note issue'd by the first national bank of green river, nebraska. a valuable clew, this. when he had searched the body of the dead man, and found several letters and a small memorandum book, he left the room and locked it. "notify the coroner," said he to the constable, "and give him this key. if he wants me as a witness in his inquest, he will find me at the stratford hotel, in st. louis." the constable promised to carry out ted's instructions. "where is that boy scrub?" asked ted. "here i am," said the boy, emerging from the crowd. "who knows anything about this boy?" ted asked. "he's just a loose kid," said the constable. "his father died when he was young, and his mother left him a few years ago. since then no one has claimed him." "then i will. do you want to come with me?" ted asked the boy. "i will give you a good home and clothes, teach you something, and make a useful man of you. is he a good boy?" ted turned to the men about him. "yes, scrub is a good boy, only he never ain't had no chance," seemed to be the universal verdict. "say the word, scrub. do you want to come with me?" "you bet," said scrub fervently. "good! come along! we'll be getting back to st. louis." "but yuh can't get back to-night. the last train has gone." "never mind. i'll get there somehow. some one lend me a lantern for a few minutes." ted was given one, and he went out into the yard and outhouses to search for the red motor car. he could not find it anywhere. "did any of you folks see a red automobile going down the road any time to-day?" he asked. "yes, there's a red machine down in the lane running over to the rock road," said one of the men. "but i reckon it's bust." "come on, scrub, we'll take a look at it," said ted, leading off with the man who had seen the car, and followed by the whole crowd, ted made his way to the lane. standing in the middle of it was the red car with its no. 118 swaying from the rear axle in the wind. evidently checkers had started away in it, using it as a swift means of escape, but it had stopped, and, as he could go no farther in it, he had abandoned it in the road. ted examined the machinery carefully, but could find nothing wrong with it until he discovered that it had exhausted its supply of gasoline. but he learned that the grocer at the village, half a mile away, had gasoline for sale, and two young fellows volunteered to go after some while ted overhauled the car. in half an hour he was ready to start. he made scrub get into the seat, and, shaking hands with the constable and shouting a merry good-by to the others, he started for st. louis. it was past midnight when he drew up in front of the stratford hotel, hungry and tired. scrub was fast asleep, and, taking him in his arms, ted entered the hotel. as he stepped inside, the clerk stared at him as if he had seen a ghost. "how's everything?" asked ted of the clerk. "great scott, where did you come from?" asked, the clerk, and added hastily: "better hurry upstairs to your room. everybody is crazy about your disappearance." ted went up in the elevator with the boy still sleeping in his arms. there was a light in his room and a confused murmur of voices. without the formality of a knock he opened the door and entered. as he appeared in the doorway there was silence for a moment, then such a bedlam of shouts and laughter burst forth that every one on the floor was aroused. "it's ted! it's ted!" they shouted, and crowded around him. the place was full of them. across the room he saw the shining face of stella, smiling a welcome at him. ben and kit, carl, clay, and all of them were there, and sitting at the table was the chief of detectives. "hello! holding a post-mortem over me?" asked ted. "it comes pretty near that," said bud. "dog-gone you, what do you mean by goin' erway an' hidin' out on us that way? what in ther name o' sam hill an' billy patterson hev yer picked up now?" bud was looking curiously at the bundle of rags in ted's arms, for the boy still slept. "this is a new pard," said ted. "if it hadn't been for this kid you'd probably never seen me again." "erlucerdate," demanded bud. "not until some one goes out to the nearest restaurant and orders up a stack of grub for scrub and me. i haven't had anything to eat or drink for thirty-six hours, and i'm almost all in, and this kid has been living on apples and water for a couple of weeks. now, hustle somebody and let me put this kid on the bed---my back's nearly broke--or maybe it's my stomach, they're so close together now i can't tell which it is that hurts." while ted was laying the boy on the bed he woke up, and, finding himself in a strange place, and a finer room than he had ever been in before, surrounded by a lot of rather boisterous young men, he leaped to the floor and started to the door. but ted caught him by the arm and drew him back. "what's the matter with you, you young savage?" said ted. "oh, i'm all right now," said the boy. "when i woke up i got rattled, i guess, but as long as you're here it's all right." the food came up now borne by two waiters and piloted by kit. there were oysters and steak and potatoes and biscuit and a lot of what missouri folk call "fixin's," and a big pot of coffee. scrub's eyes stood out like doorknobs as he viewed this wonderful array of things to eat. the table was cleared, the waiters set out the food, and the boys stood back to give ted and the boy "room to swell," as bud expressed it. the way they tucked into the good things was a caution. after their hunger was satisfied and the waiters had restored order to the table, ted began the story of his adventures since he had let bud out of the automobile. as he talked, stella wooed the small boy to her side, and listened to the story with her arm around his shoulder, and long before it was done scrub was her worshiper forever. chief desmond listened with close attention, and when ted finished and exhibited the bill of the green river bank, which he examined carefully, he said: "mr. strong, you've beaten us all to it. i will go out to-morrow--i mean to-day, for it's one o'clock now--and view the body myself. if it is, as seems almost certain to be, dude wilcox, one of the most dangerous men in the west is gone, but he has left behind for us to fight, and you to find, the man checkers. this bill is your clew to the gang, but it is a counterfeit. as i have the thing figured out, the gang knew that forty thousand dollars was going to be shipped, but for some reason or other they dared not hold up the train out there, and telegraphed the gang in st. louis to get it. dude was at the head of the bunch here, and as it was a one-man game so near to st. louis, dude was elected to pull it off, which he did to the queen's taste. perhaps the bill you have is the only counterfeit in the lot. perhaps not. that is for you to work out." "but how he managed to get away with the swag i haven't managed to figure out yet," said ted. "of course, i don't know either, but deducing facts from what i know of the gang's methods, and from long experience with gentlemen of the road, i would say that the members of the gang who were killed in their rendezvous in pine street by my unfortunate men were awaiting the arrival of dude with the swag. checkers had secret knowledge that you had been put on their trail, and when he saw you pick up that red car in east st. louis he was sure that you knew about the robbery and that you were on to dude." "that's likely," said ted. "i hadn't thought of that." "well, he got into communication with dude, and warned him against coming to the pine street place. you see, they had another rendezvous out in the country, a haunted house, the reputation of which would keep prying country boys away from it." "best sort of a place for a criminal hangout," said ted. "you're right, and now that you have discovered it, i'll take pains to see that it's never used for such again. but, as i was going to say, dude's intention was to get out of town, return, go to the pine street room, divide the swag, and skip. he probably left the train at somerset, or some other little town down the line, hid in the cornfields until dusk, stole a horse and buggy, and drove across the country to the haunted house, and later was joined by checkers, who had been trailing you, and later succeeded in getting you. had it not been for the quarrel between dude and checkers, it is more than likely that you would have been murdered by checkers. but one murder was enough for his nerve, and, forgetting you, he vamosed." the detective arose to take his departure, again congratulating ted on the outcome of his adventure. "keep your eye peeled for checkers, and if you do run across him, have your gun at half cock," he said, and, bidding good night to all, went away. "and now, good fellows, all to bed," said ted. "to-morrow we start for the west, and the capture of the head men of the train-robber syndicate, and the extermination of the business." in the morning, before the others were up, ted made scrub take a bath, and then they sallied forth to a clothing store. when they came out, instead of the ragged and dirty little boy, there walked proudly by ted's side a fine, clean, fresh-looking lad in a well-fitting serge suit, and other appointments that transformed him completely. when they arrived at the hotel the boys professed not to know scrub. "hello, picked up another kid?" asked bud. "i swow, yer allers goin' round pickin' up mavericks. i reckon yer aim ter brand this one as well ez ther one yer brought in last night." "why, here's another kid," said ben, looking over scrub's new outfit with interest. "he don't look much like the one you brought in last night. i reckon that one has run away, i don't see him anywhere." poor scrub was standing first on one foot and then on the other, fairly squirming with embarrassment. ted gave the boys the nod to cease teasing the boy. "don't mind those fellows, they're only joshing," said ted. "oh, i don't mind it if they can get any fun out of it," said scrub, with a smile. "maybe, some day i can get back at them, when i know them better." stella came down in the elevator at that moment, and, catching sight of scrub, gave a little scream of astonishment at his altered appearance. "goodness, what a fine-looking addition to the family!" she said, shaking hands with the boy, who blushed and looked pleased. "i don't like the name scrub a bit. i'm going to change his name." "this isn't leap year, stella," said ben. "you hush! what name would you rather have than scrub? that's no name for a broncho boy," she said to the boy. "i don't know," answered the boy. "what name do you like?" "i think she likes ben better than any," said ben, posing in a very handsome manner. "don't listen to him, he's always teasing. you want something short and easy to say." "what's the matter with 'say'?" said ben. "that's always easy to remember. i notice that when a man wants to call another on the street he just hollers 'say,' and half a dozen fellows turn around." "then that makes it too common," decided stella. "what name would you suggest, ted? he's got to have two names." "let us get one of the newspapers to start a voting contest on it." "ben, if you don't stop your foolishness, i won't play," said stella. "you name him, stella," said ted. "anything you say goes." "then we'll call him dick, after my father," said stella. "he never had a boy, and always wanted one. i'm going to adopt this boy as a brother. his name shall be dick fosdick. that sounds funny, doesn't it, but i didn't do it on purpose." there was a tear in her eye at the thought of her father, and the boys looked rather solemn, for while they hoped for the best, they didn't as yet know the lad, and perhaps they had saddled themselves with a future regret, but stella trusted and believed in the little chap, who was very proud that at last he had thrown off and buried forever the name of scrub. that evening they took the train for the west, their destination being green river. the automobile ted sent on by express that he might have it not only for use, for he was becoming attached to it, but as a clew to the detection of the express robbers. chapter xix. ezra, the life-saving goat. ted had engaged several sections on the through sleeping car to north platte, nebraska, the old home of colonel william cody, known all over the world as "buffalo bill." but they were to leave the train at green river, ostensibly to buy cattle for their ranch. this, of course, was to avert suspicion from their real purpose of hunting down the express robbers. for mrs. graham and stella the stateroom of the car _orizaba_ had been engaged, and the boys made it a sort of ceremonial chamber. the car was well filled with other passengers, many of them tourists on the way to colorado or the pacific coast, and they were much amused at the free-and-easy spirit with which the boys conducted themselves, and when it became generally known that they were the broncho boys, with ted strong at their head, they received a great deal of attention, which was not particularly to ted's liking. as usual, wherever they were, bud morgan, ben tremont, and carl schwartz provided a fund of amusement for everybody. little dick fosdick had never known such happiness as he was now experiencing. he worshiped stella, admired ted, and looked upon bud as the greatest pal a boy ever had. he and bud were inseparable, and bud never tired of telling him yarns about cow-punching and indian fighting, while the boy proved a breathless listener, hanging upon every word that fell from the yellow-haired cowboy's lips. he knew by heart many of the adventures through which ted strong had passed, and often surprised ted by correcting some inaccuracy which, through a lapse of memory, ted had made. they were sailing across missouri toward the west, and the boy kept his face glued to the window, watching for the first glimpse of the golden west of his fancy. just at present he saw only farms and little towns, through which the fast train whizzed without stopping. the boy knew this sort of country well, and was rather disappointed that the boundless prairie did not roll before him from horizon to horizon. then he turned his attention to the luxury of the car, but being a healthy boy, this did not impress him long, and he turned to his heroes for relief. bud was sitting comfortably sprawled out on two seats, singing softly to himself. bud could not sing a little bit, but he thought he could, which served his purpose personally quite as well as if he could. ben was in the seat behind him, reading. after a while bud's music, or the lack of it, got on ben's nerves, and he reached over and poked bud on top of his golden head with the corner of his book. "say," said he, "put on the soft pedal, won't you? perhaps you can sing, and maybe some one told you you could, but take it from me you have no more voice or musical ability than a he-goat." "oh, mercy!" retorted bud. "does my music annoy you?" "it certainly does," snapped ben. "then why don't yer move away?" "bah! you're an old goat." "thanks fer ther compliment, although yer don't mean it thet away. but when yer likens me ter a goat yer do me proud. if yer were more goatlike yerself ye'd be a heap more wiser." "i'm glad you like it. the pleasure's all yours. but if a fellow called me a goat, i know what i'd do." "maybe, perhaps. but yer needn't be afraid that any one will liken yer ter a goat. any self-respectin' goat would get sore at it. if i wuz ter pick out yer counterpart in ther animile world, i'd say yer most resembled the phillaloo?" "what's a phillaloo?" "a phillaloo is a cross between a penguin and a jassack." "say, you long-haired lobster!" cried ben, leaping to his feet, apparently in great anger, "don't you call me anything like that." "well, didn't yer jest call me a goat?" "yes, but--" "then sit down an' git back ter yer love story; we're square. nothin' is lost on both sides. but callin' me a goat don't make me sore none. i jest dote on goats. if i wasn't jest what i am, i'd sooner be a goat than a collidge gradooate." "i've heard about enough, if you're alluding to me." "take it er leave it. but, ez i wuz goin' ter say before my conversation was cut inter by a loud an' empty noise, speakin' o' goats reminds me o' a time down on ther pecos--" "by jove! i'm going to ask the conductor to move me into another car. this is too much. i might, perhaps, stand for being called a phillaloo, but i swear i'll not be compelled to stay here and listen to one of those silly and impossible stories of this insane cow-puncher." at first some of the passengers thought that bud and ben were really angry at one another, but the wise ones soon saw that it was all bluff, as, of course, the broncho boys knew. but it was very real to dick fosdick, who had yet many things to learn about the boys and their ways, and while the little chap was far too clever naturally to show his feelings, he sided with bud, and thought that ben was very unreasonable, especially as the boys, and some of the passengers, had flocked around bud, who appeared not to notice them. "i reckon, dick, you'd like ter hear thet thar story erbout the time i lied down on ther pecos in the summer o'--" "conductor," said ben, detaining that official as he was passing through the car, "is there no way of stopping the noise this person is making? i cannot take my nap on account of his chatter." several persons who were not in the secret were for interfering in behalf of bud and his story, which they wanted to hear, but were headed off by the conductor, who said: "sorry, but i cannot interfere with the gentleman. he does not seem to be annoying the other passengers. if you wish to take a nap you are at liberty to go up ahead in the smoking car." at this bud began to gloat. "i hear they've put a cattle car up next ter ther injine fer sech sensitive people like you. yer might enj'y a leetle siesta on ther straw." ben sank back into his seat, and began to snore gently. "what about the story down on the pecos, bud?" said dick. "you'd like to hear it, eh? then i'll tell it to you. of course, the other folks may listen to it, but it is understood betwixt me an' you thet it's all yours, an' whatever goes inter their ears is jest ther leavin's. is that a go?" the boy nodded eagerly, even though he didn't understand the drift of bud's remarks. "what's the story about?" asked the boy. "the goat, my boy. perhaps you don't know it, but the goat is one of the noblest animals what walks. he is also one o' ther smartest, an' in former years used ter be able ter talk, but ez soon ez he got ter be so popular in secret societies ther gift o' speech was withdrawed from him, so thet he wouldn't be able ter give erway ther secret things what he saw an' heard at ther meetin's." "but, bud, are they really smart?" asked dick. "smart ain't no name fer it. all yer got ter do to find out if they're smart is ter look at their whiskers. the smartest o' all animiles is man, an' don't he wear whiskers? an' i want ter ast yer what other animile hez whiskers exceptin' ther goat. ther goat knew what he was about when he begin ter raise whiskers. he says ter hisself--" "what bosh!" exclaimed ben, snorting in his sleep. "aire you addressin' yer remarks ter me?" asked bud, looking over the back of the seat at bud. but the only answer was a gentle snore. "what did he say?" asked dick eagerly. "'why,' says he, 'if they won't let me talk they can't keep me from bein' ez near a man ez i kin go; by gravy, i'll raise whiskers like deacon smith,' who was a member o' ther lodge in which ther goat officiated; and, by jinks, he did, an' ther fashion wuz follered, an' they wear them ter this day. "there ain't no question o' their smartness, an' their prominence. ain't one o' ther signs o' the zodiac up in ther heavens named after ther goat--capricornus is ther feller ter what i refer--an' them heathen chaps what wuz half man an' half goat? didn't they come pretty near bein' ther whole thing?" "but about the pecos?" inquired dick, who was not partial to preaching, but wanted to get at the heart of the story. "oh. yes. i wuz leadin' up ter it gradooal, fer what i'm goin' ter relate--if thet yap will choke off on thet moosical snore--" "here, wake up, you're snoring so loud we can't hear ourselves holler," said kit, reaching over and shaking ben. "i can't keep awake while that fellow persists in yarning away like a fanning machine. it's so monotonous i can't keep awake," and ben stretched and yawned. "let's get away from here and go to some other part of the car," whispered dick. "no, we'll just stay here an' spite him. he'll wake up after a while an' be glad to listen to ther story. so here goes! "i was punchin' cow's down on the pecos one summer fer ther crazy b ranch. we had eight punchers in ther bunch, a good chuck wagon, an' easy work, so i wuz pretty well suited, an' thet summer i gained twelve pounds, even if it wuz a hundred an' forty in ther shade, which we hed forgotten ter bring along with us." "forgotten to bring what?" asked the boy. "our shade. yer see, down in thet country ther sun is so strong thet every one carries his own shade, fer there isn't a tree in ther whole country big enough ter cast a shadder o' any sort. out on ther ranches, at certain seasons o' ther year, they serve out shade ter ther men jest ther same ez they do bacon an' saleratus ter ther outfit thet goes out herdin'." dick looked seriously at bud for a moment, hardly knowing whether or not to doubt him, but bud's face was as grave as a deacon's. "i don't understand it, i'm sure," he said. "but where do they get the shade to give to the men?" "that's easy enough. it's always gathered on dark nights, generally late in ther fall er in ther winter, so thet it'll be real cool." "but where do they get it?" "what--ther shade? why, they just go out an' gather it off the ground in thin shapes, kinder longer than broad. it can be rolled up just like a blanket, an' carried behind ther saddle. it's gathered in ther cold months. ye've heard o' ther 'cool shade.' well, that's why they gather it late in the year. summer shade is no good, because it's too warm." "but what is it like?" "oh, it's black, an' i hear they strip it off close ter ther ground. we don't get no shade like it in this part o' ther country. ther only place what hez it is ther west, whar it's needed most." "but how about the pecos?" "sho! i almost fergot it, didn't i, while teachin' yer something erbout ther way they do things in arizony an' her sister-in-law, noo mexico? now i'm off, shore. "ping-pong martin wuz in ther outfit thet year. mebbe yer knows him?" bud looked at the small boy inquiringly, much to his embarrassment. "no, sir, i never heard of him before." "well, no matter, but this ping-pong cuss, he had a personal friend, a goat, what couldn't no more be shook than a sore thumb, and had follered ping off ter ther wars, so to speak. "ping run off from home on ther quiet ter join our outfit, leavin' ther goat to home, locked up in ther barn. ping thought he hed ther goat faded, but one day, when we wuz half asleep in our saddles, a feller over on ther other side come a-runnin' in. "'what's ther matter?' sez i. "thar's a funny animile over here. he shore is ther devil, fer he wears horns, an' hez a face exactly like thet o' ole man pillsbury. i ain't bettin' none it ain't him. but if it is pillsbury, he better not go home lookin' like thet 'thout lettin' his wife know first.' "ping an' me rode over ter ther other side, an' thar stood a goat, lookin' so nice an' socierble. "'great hevings!' shouted ping, makin' a rush fer ther goat, 'thet's my goat ezra, ain't you?'" "did the goat understand him?" "did he understand him? well, i should whisper sweetly. why, thet goat jest jumped all over ping, a-runnin' his whiskers inter his eyes, an' laughin', he wuz so glad ter see him. he'd traced ping plumb ercross ther desert ter get ter us, an', o' course, we couldn't sic him home after that. "we all got ter love ezra fer his lovely ways; that is, all except 'boney bill' henderson." "why? didn't the goat like him?" "well, it wuz this way: boney bill had a habit o' beggin' ther grease from ther fryin' pan every night ter ile his boots. this made 'em good an' strong, ez well ez easy ter chew on. one night, ezra bein' fond o' boots, finds 'em an' chews ther tops off'n 'em. they wuz ther only boots bill hed, an' we wuz two hundred mile ter another pair, so bill hed ter go through ther season barefoot, an' ther sun jest nacherly warped his feet out o' all shape. "but thet wuzn't what i wuz goin' ter tell yer erbout. that fall ther utes went on ther warpath, an' wuz headin' our way, an' i want ter tell yer we wuz some scared. we hed several brushes with ther injuns, an' ther courier we sent ter ther fort fer help wuz killed an' scalped. "thar we wuz, in a little valley entirely surrounded by injuns thirstin' fer our gore. how long we could hold out agin' 'em wuz ther problem. but whenever one o' 'em showed his head we took a pop at it, an' they returned ther compliment. we wuz prayin' fer ther comin' o' ther soldiers, which wuz ther only thing what could save us from a horrible death. "ther injuns got next ter ther fact thet our ammunition wuz runnin' short, an' they wuz gittin' some gay; sorter takin' advantage o' us in a way. i could see thet they wuz gettin' ready ter make a rush down inter ther valley an' massacree us all, an' we prepared ter sell our lives dearly. "one mornin' we missed ezra, ther goat. i'll never fergit ther misery on ther face o' ping-pong when he finds it out. "'bud,' he says ter me, 'i'm goin' out ter find ezra, an' if them injuns hez got him, i'm goin' ter bust ther whole tribe wide open.' "i tried ter persuade him not ter go, but he will, so i goes with him. we sneaks up ther side o' ther hill, an' looks over ther ridge right down inter ther injun village. the sight what met our gaze almost, but not quite, made me bust open with laughin'. "ther injuns wuz all down on their hands an' knees, bowin' ter ezra, who wuz walkin' eround on his hind legs, sashayin' sideways an' noddin' his head jest like a live bock-beer sign. yer see, ther injuns hed never seen a goat before, an' when ezra walks onto them, waggin' his whiskers in a wise sort o' way, they thinks he's some kind o' a god, er somethin' like that. but when he got up on his hind legs an' begin ter sashay thet settled it. they wuz shore o' it then. "we watched ther performance fer a while, then ther injuns got up an' begin ter mosey. in an hour thar wuzn't a injun within twenty mile. they jest hit ther high places fer home. "thet wuz ther way ezra saved our party. after thet he could hev et every boot in ther outfit, an' thar wouldn't hev been a kick." "what became of him?" asked kit. "oh, he went back home with ping an' raised a large family, an' they wuz talkin' o' runnin' him fer ther legislature an account o' his whiskers an' his smartness." "he was a smart goat, wasn't he?" said dick. "you bet. thet's why i said that some goats wuz jest ez smart ez lots o' collidge gradooates what i hev met." chapter xx. the counterfeit bank note. when they arose in the morning the train was speeding over the prairie, and dick could hardly be pulled away from the window long enough to go to breakfast with stella and mrs. graham, so great was his delight at being in the "really and truly" wild west. when they were all back in the car again, ted, for the first time, noticed a large man, flashily dressed, who wore a flaming red necktie, and who evidently thought himself irresistible to the ladies. he walked up and down the aisle on the slightest pretext, ogling every pretty woman in the car, and ted was getting very tired of it, especially as once or twice he had the impertinence to stop and look into the stateroom in which stella and mrs. graham were sitting. "i'll take a fall out of that fellow if he keeps up that sort of thing much longer," said ted, who was sitting beside kit. "i was thinking of the same thing," said kit. "he makes me tired. i wonder what he is, anyway?" "he has the make-up of a gambler or a saloon keeper," answered ted. "he better keep away from me if he knows when he's well off." at a town farther down the line a young lady entered the car, and took a seat directly in front of kit, who was alone, ted having gone to the front of the train to consult the conductor about a mistake that had been made in their tickets. presently the flashy man with the red necktie spied her and sauntered past her down the aisle. in a few moments he came back, twirling his black mustache, which evidently was dyed, and casting glances at the young lady. stopping in front of her, he said: "is this seat taken, lady?" the young lady looked up, and answered coldly: "no, sir; but there are plenty of other seats in the car which are unoccupied." "this one looks good to me," said the fellow, with a smile which was supposed to be very fetching. without further excuse he plumped himself down in the seat beside her, and threw his arm familiarly over the back of it, at the same time hitching closer to her. then he tried to draw her into conversation, but she turned from him and looked out of the window. but he persisted, and she showed that his attentions were annoying her. kit watched the proceedings, and was boiling with anger, but he did not feel that he had the right to interfere until the young lady showed by her manner that she desired assistance. presently the man said something to the young lady in a low voice that seemed to arouse her anger, for she rose hastily to her feet, her face burning. "let me pass!" she said. "don't leave me like this," said the fellow, blocking the way with his knees. "sit down. we'll soon be good friends. you'll find me a good fellow." "i insist, sir, that you allow me to pass," said the girl, growing pale, her voice rising a little. kit could stand it no longer. he reached over and tapped the fellow on the shoulder. "allow the lady to pass," he said quietly. the hawk turned his head and sized kit up. this did not take much time, for kit was small and slender, his black eyes being the largest part of him, proportionately. "what the deuce have you got to do with this?" he sneered, looking savagely at kit. "just enough to make sure that you do it," said kit, rising. "well, i don't allow no pups like you to interfere with me. you sit down an' let this gal an' me attend to our own business, er i'll bend you an' tie you into a knot an' throw you out of the window." kit did not reply, but he reached over and got the fellow by the coat collar and jerked him into the aisle, and, twisting him around, planted his toe between his coat tails with a force that sent him halfway down the length of the car. "you're on the wrong train," said kit. "the cattle train is on the other track." the fellow soon regained his balance, and came rushing back like a charging bull. "you little snipe!" he roared, "i'll kill you for that." but as he got near kit dodged into the space between the seats, and as the fellow rushed past, carried on by the momentum of his run, kit swung at him with his right fist. it caught the fellow back of the ear, and the force behind the blow, as well as the rate at which he had been coming, sent him headlong between two seats, where he lay crumpled up like a rag. the commotion had attracted the attention of bud and ben, and they were by kit's side in a moment. "need any help?" asked bud. "not a bit," replied kit. "i'm not very large, but no man of that sort can call me a pup." the fellow lay where he fell, and bud warned away several passengers who wanted to go to his assistance. "he's all right," he said. "a crack like that never injured any one permanently, but sometimes it wakes them up ter ther foolishness of insulting a lady when ther broncho boys are around." kit lifted his hat to the young lady. "pardon me for making a disturbance," he said. "i don't think you'll be bothered again." the young lady was profuse in her thanks, and resumed her seat. presently the fellow on the floor got up and sneaked into another car, without looking again at either kit or the young lady. "hello, kit! what was it all about?" asked ted entering the car. "oh, i never could stand for red neckties, nohow," answered kit apologetically. when the train stopped for dinner they all trooped into the station dining room, and secured for themselves a long table, around which they sat like a big and happy family. as ted and kit were walking along the platform toward the dining room ted suddenly halted and stared at a man who was leaning against the wall of the station. "by jove, i believe it's him!" he muttered. "who's him?" asked kit. "the express robber, checkers," answered ted. "and yet i'm not sure. if it is him it's one of the best disguises i ever saw. look at your friend of the red necktie hurrying up to him. by jove, they're a good pair! i wish i could hear that fellow in the checked suit speak." "that fellow will get caught up yet if he persists in wearing checked suits," said kit. "it seems to be his badge, or a disease with him." "i suppose that's why they call him checkers," said ted. "i wish i knew. i'd take a chance at arresting him." at that moment the man in the checked suit looked up and caught ted and kit staring at him. hastily calling the attention of the man with the red necktie to them, he hurried around the corner, and the other followed. ted ran to the corner of the station, but all he could see of either was through a swirl of dust as the motor car in which they were riding flew up the street. "by crickey! i'll bet anything that was checkers," grumbled ted. "i'm always too late to get to him. but next time i'll take a long chance with him." the train pulled into green river at eight o'clock that night, and they all went to the leading hotel, and ted registered them as coming from the ranch. during the evening the boys mingled with the crowd in the hotel lobby, talking cattle, and met many of the representative women of the section. they were out after a bunch of stockers, and promised to be in the neighborhood for several days and to visit the ranches and look over the stock. one of the men whom they met was introduced to them as colonel billings, ranch owner and speculator in cattle. he was a middle-aged man of most pleasant features--benign, good-natured, and yet shrewd. he dressed well for a cowman, and from his pink, bald crown and gray chin whiskers down to his neat shoes, he looked the part of the prosperous business man. "i have a lot of stock such as i think you boys need out at my ranch," he said to ted, when he learned that they wanted to buy. "i'd like to have you bring your party out to the place and stay several days as my guests. you would then have plenty of time to look the stock over, and if you like them i'm sure we can strike a bargain." ted thanked him and promised to go out to look at the stock, but as for the invitation for the whole party to stop at the ranch, he would have to consult the wishes of the party. he rather liked the colonel, who was, apparently, bluff and sincere. as ted was on his way to the bank which had issued the bill which he had found in the haunted house, he stopped suddenly. he had just seen a young woman enter a store hurriedly, and look at him over her shoulder as she did so. she it was who had slipped the note of warning into his pocket in the union station, in st. louis. evidently she was trying to avoid him. but why? he wanted to thank her for that kindly service, and, quite naturally, he had some curiosity to know who she was. without apparently hurrying he followed her into the store, and looked around for her. she was not in sight, and he walked up and down the aisles between the counters, but could not find her. then he observed that there was a back door to the store, which opened onto an arcade. she had escaped him through that, and ted looked up and down the arcade. at the far end, where it opened out into the public square, a carriage stood, and a young lady was getting into it. it was the young lady of the subtle perfume and the note. in a moment she was gone. he was not far from the bank, and giving the young woman no more thought, for he was sure he would see her again, for she seemed to be mixed up in his fortunes in some manner, he made his way to the financial institution and asked for the president. "you will find mr. norcross in his private office at the end of the corridor," said the clerk. at the door of the office ted found a colored messenger, who stopped him and asked his business. "is mr. norcross in his office?" asked ted. "yes, sah, but he is busy," answered the messenger. "well, take my card in to him, and tell him i would like to see him when he is at leisure." the negro went away, and in a few moments returned to say that mr. norcross would be glad to see mr. strong presently. while ted waited he stood looking out of the window into the street. the door behind him opened, and he turned. walking rapidly down the corridor was the man with the pointed beard, whom he had seen in the union station in st. louis give the signal to the girl who had slipped the note into his pocket. ted stared after him. the mystery of the note was getting thicker. but he would try to think it out later. he found mr. norcross an elderly, but active man. "what can i do for you, mr. strong," said the banker, referring to ted's card. "i come to you for information concerning a recent robbery and the murder of an express messenger in an express car in st. louis," said ted. "in what capacity do you come?" "as an officer of the government." "oh, ah, rather young for such work, aren't you?" "pardon, but that has nothing at all to do with it. i am a deputy united states marshal, and have received instructions to examine into certain matters regarding the recent robberies from express trains in this part of the country." "i suppose you have your credentials as an officer." "i think i can convince those who have the right to know that i am what i profess to be." "very well. i meant no offense, but there have been so many violent things done out here, that naturally a banker desires to at least know something of his callers. what can i do for you?" "did your bank make a shipment of currency to the east, last week?" "yes, sir, that is a well-known fact." "what was the amount?" "forty thousand dollars. it was to meet some paper which was due in st. louis." "and it was stolen from the express car?" "yes. the express company has reimbursed us for it." "what sort of currency was it?" "mostly of our own issue." "do you recognize this bill?" ted took from his pocket the counterfeit bill of the bank, and handed it to the president, who looked at it a moment and handed it back. "yes, that is one of the bills. the money sent was all in that series of numbers." ted picked the bill up, and put it in his pocket. "here, you mustn't take that," said the president. "that is the property of the bank. give it to me. the express company will need it for evidence." "then i will keep it. it will be safer with me." a suspicion had entered ted's mind, which was strengthened by the conduct of the president, who was white-faced and trembling. "from your examination of the bill, you are positive that it was one of those shipped to st. louis?" "i am not certain, of course, but as i said, it is within the series of numbers which we sent. why do you ask?" "because it is a counterfeit." the president sank down in his chair. he had suddenly become pale, and was trembling like a leaf. "what will you take for that bill, young man? name your own price," said mr. norcross. "it is not for sale, and you have not money enough to buy it," replied ted strong. chapter xxi. a crime within a crime. "well, friend, have you decided to come out to my ranch, and look my stock over?" it was colonel billings, the genial ranchman, who addressed ted, meeting him in the lobby of the hotel. "yes, i think i will," answered ted. "when will it be convenient for you to be there?" "i am going out to-morrow, and will be glad to see you and your friends." "there are a good many of us," said ted, laughing. "the more the merrier. the house is large, and i could drop you all down into it, and the house would hardly know it." "how do we get out there?" "i see you have a couple of ladies with you, and i shall telephone over to my manager to send a carriage in for them, and horses for the use of you boys. how many horses and saddles will you need? there are plenty at the ranch." "we will need eight horses. one of the ladies prefers to ride, and we'll need a gentle pony for the small boy, whose experience is limited." "sidesaddle for the lady?" "no," said ted, with a grin, "this young lady will not use one. she is a cowgirl, and rides a man's saddle." "all right, my boy. the outfit will be here in the morning. by the way, i am going to have some other guests. i suppose you will not object." "certainly not." "one of them is a young new yorker, who has come west to invest in ranch property, and who has brought his sister with him. charming people. the other is a rather uncouth person, but you will forgive his eccentricities, i am sure. to tell you the truth, he often grates on me, but i overlook it because he has lacked advantages. he made his money in the liquor business, in which he has been all his life. but he is a good fellow at heart, and is my partner in a way, having invested a large sum of money with me in cattle." "i shall be very glad to meet them, although, i'm afraid i shall not be able to see much of them, as i shall be very busy." "when you are under my roof, sir, you are as free as if you had been born there. i am glad you and your friends are coming. it does my old heart good to have young people around me. i will see you in the morning, and shall feel honored to escort you to my home." with this they parted. "jolly old chap," said ted to himself. "i know just how he feels about having a lot of people come to visit him. i like it myself." stella had been out for a ride with little dick. she had secured a couple of ponies from the stable connected with the hotel, and had given dick his first riding lesson. ted met them as they were dismounting in front of the hotel. "ted, that boy is going to be a second edition of you in the saddle," cried stella enthusiastically. "i never saw such a seat for a kid. why he takes to a horse like a young duck to water." "that's good," said ted. "do you like to ride, scrub, i mean dick?" the boy flushed at the name scrub, but he recovered himself immediately. "yes, it's fine," he answered. "i like horses, and they seem to take to me. i'd like to ride a horse all the time." "well, you'll have all you want of it when you get out to moon valley," said ted. "would you like to go out again? if you do, go ahead. i guess we can trust you not to break your neck." the boy smiled and nodded, and climbed into his saddle again, and was off. "ted, that boy is going to be a credit to us all," said stella. "but he must have an education. although he speaks well and doesn't use much slang, that is, for a boy, he knows absolutely nothing that he hasn't picked up. he must go to school some day, but not now, for he hardly knows his alphabet, and as for other branches of knowledge, why, he doesn't know they exist, and he is as full of superstition as a cocopo squaw. wherever he got his beliefs, i can't imagine." "all right, stella, he shall go to school. it doesn't really matter much, that he has never been to school before. he'll learn so fast that he'll make up for lost time, don't fear. that boy has a good head." "i'm going to teach him myself until he is able to take his place in school with boys of his own age. he's just crazy to learn." "his early education is up to you. i'm not afraid he will learn anything he shouldn't from you. go at him slowly and sensibly. don't try to stuff it all into him at once. meanwhile, i'll teach him to ride, shoot, herd, rope, and all that, occasionally impressing upon him the cardinal principles of the broncho boys--truth, honesty, sincerity, courage, and kindness." "he'll be a fine fellow some of these days, ted, and a good-looking and good-tempered one." "i think he will. suppose we take a little walk, if you have nothing better to do. i want to get your opinion on some matters." "the very thing. i saw a pretty little park on the bank of a river. we'll walk there." "i have promised to go out to colonel billings' ranch to-morrow, and i took the liberty of accepting the invitation for you all, as there is nothing to do around here, and i have a hunch that something good will come of it." "i'll be glad to go. you know how much i like the town. i wouldn't care if i never saw one again." "it's all right, then. we'll start in the morning. i am more than anxious to go now, especially as billings tells me he has invited several other people to be his guests." "who are they?" "you remember the girl who slipped the note into my pocket in the st. louis station, and the young fellow with the pointed beard. well, i saw them both in town this morning. the girl ran away from me on the street, jumped into a carriage, and drove away." "there's nothing about you to cause a girl to run." stella looked up at ted in a teasing way. "that'll be all right," said he. "but a few minutes after i saw the fellow with the pointed beard coming out of the private office of norcross, the president of the bank that was robbed of the forty thousand dollars. he went by me like a rocket, as if he were afraid of me." "sure it was he?" "positive. but the strange part of it was my interview with the banker. he acknowledged that the bank had been robbed of the money, and identified the bill dropped by checkers in his flight, as one of the shipment, but when i announced that it was a counterfeit, he went all to pieces, and, after trying to bluff me into giving him the note, wanted to buy it, asking me to name my own price." "what does that mean, i wonder?" "it means, that this case of the robbery and the murder of the express messenger is not the simple thing i thought. there is a crime within a crime." "what in the world do you mean?" "just this, norcross, the banker, is mixed in the crime, and heaven only knows how many more men quite as prominent as he. the express-robbing syndicate is a strong one, and hard to beat." "but you'll beat it yet. i know you." "thank you for your faith and encouragement, stella. but it's going to be a hard pull, and it will take all of us to do it." "what do you think of it now?" "my idea is, that the alleged forty thousand dollars was not real money at all, and that norcross was trying to double-cross the very men he was standing in with." "still, i hardly understand." "well, norcross agreed with the members of the syndicate to ship forty thousand dollars to st. louis, which was to be stolen en route by the syndicate's own men. they would then have their forty thousand back, and the forty thousand which they could make the express company pay them. the original forty thousand would come back to norcross, and he would get his share of the money which the express company would pay." "that was easy." "it would have been, but for the fact that norcross insisted upon being insured for the use of his forty thousand in case anything else happened to it. in this way he got another large sum." "i see. but from what you have found out so far, i don't quite understand how you figure it out." "all i have to go by is my own way of deducing things. the forty thousand dollars which was to be stolen was supposed by the other members of the syndicate to be real money. it was for this that the syndicate insured norcross. but, instead, he substituted counterfeits, if, indeed, most of the supposed money was not just blank paper." "he is a real financier, eh?" "yes, but he didn't take into consideration that he had scoundrels just as shrewd as himself to deal with. for instance, i believe when the truth is known, it will be found out that the syndicate was going to beat norcross. but that is mere supposition. the tug of war is coming soon. it will take place at the ranch of colonel billings." "i thought you believed in him." "i do. i have made a few inquiries about him. i wanted to find out what sort of a chap he was before taking you and your aunt out to his place. every one speaks of him as one of the leading men in the county and state." "then why should he be drawn into this mess?" "i think he has done it unconsciously. he has a partner who has invested money in billings' cattle. do you remember the fellow in the train whom kit knocked down? the chap who insulted that pretty girl." "yes." "from the description given me of one of his coming guests by the colonel, i believe the man with the red necktie is he." "what? that horrid thing." "i didn't tell you, but kit and i saw him talking to a man at the station where we stopped for dinner, whom i am convinced was no other than checkers himself." "whew! that looks suspicious." "in addition to that, the colonel has invited a man and his sister to visit him while we are there. this man is a new yorker; i don't know his name, but the colonel says he is out here to buy a ranch. who do you suppose it is?" "haven't an idea." "the girl who dropped the warning note into my pocket, and the young man with the pointed beard." "whew! again." "looks pretty complicated, doesn't it?" "worse than that. ted, are you sure about this colonel billings?" "one is sure of nothing in this world, but i have taken a fancy to billings, and when i like a man he generally turns out all right, making allowances for minor faults and habits. yes, i think i can trust billings." "but not his friends. ted, do you want to know what i think?" "certainly." "i feel that the invitation out there is a trap to catch you, and possibly keep you away from the town." "nonsense! why should they want to keep me away from the town? there doesn't seem to be anything wrong in town that i could bother them in, except the norcross incident, and if, as i suspect, he has duped his partners, he will say nothing to them about me." "suppose they want to get out there to do away with you." "they wouldn't ask all of you out there with me in that case." "that is where you are mistaken. they are too shrewd to excite your suspicions by inviting you alone. it will not be hard for them to get you away from the ranch to look at some cattle and then kill you. ted, you are too dangerous to them to be let alone." "well, it can't be helped now, and being right in among them is a hope i did not expect to see realized so easily. but they will have no advantage over me, for none of the syndicate, i take it, know of the counterfeits as yet, except norcross and the inevitable checkers. but at that, i don't think they will resort to violence. we are too strong for them, at the ranch, at least i believe they will use diplomacy." "well, we can play at the game ourselves. there, perhaps, i can help you." "you bet you can. but let us go down to the station and see if the red motor car, 118, has arrived yet." when they reached the station, ted went to the express agent and asked for the car. "yes," said the agent, "the car arrived this morning, mr. strong, and i delivered it according to your instructions. the charges are not paid yet. your messenger said you would call later and settle for them, and, knowing you by reputation, i let it go." ted was staring at the agent. "you delivered it according to my instructions?" "yes, sir." "i didn't give any one an order for the car." "why, you must have forgotten it. here it is. i happened to see one of your boys down here, and called him to one side and asked him if it was your signature, and he very promptly identified it." "let me see that order." the agent produced an order written on the note paper of the hotel. ted stared at it incredulously. "it looks like my writing, but i didn't write it. i'll swear to that. look at this, stella. is that my hand?" stella looked at the paper studiously for a minute or two, then handed it back. "a casual look at it would deceive me, but you did not write it. it lacks several of your individualisms, and has others that are not yours." "that is right. this order is a forgery. i did not write it. the express-robber syndicate is getting bolder every minute. they'll come in and steal you some day," ted said to the agent. "notify your company that my car has been stolen, and that i want it restored to me." "great scott!" was all the agent could say. "what sort of looking chap was it that presented the order?" asked ted. "well, he was an ordinary-looking chap. he had on a--" "checked suit?" "yes, sir. how did you know?" "checkers has come into his own at last," said ted, turning to stella. chapter xxii. ted in the toils. the following morning an impressive cavalcade set out for the ranch of colonel billings, led by the genial owner himself. behind him came ted and stella, between whom rode little dick. then came mrs. graham in a well-appointed carriage, and acting as her outriders and escorts were the boys. when they arrived at the ranch, after passing numerous herds of fine cattle on the way, they found one of the finest ranch houses in the west. it was a great, white modern structure that could be seen for miles across the level prairie, which showed hardly a single rise or depression in all the miles they had ridden. none of the guests whom the colonel had told ted would be present accompanied the party. the colonel explained this by saying that other matters had detained them in town, and that he preferred to permit them to follow, rather than defer the pleasure of being their escort. this was said with so much sincerity that ted could not doubt him. mrs. graham and stella were ensconced in a large apartment on the first floor, with large windows opening upon a wide veranda. both expressed themselves as delighted with their room, much to the gratification of their host. the broncho boys found quarters in the spacious second floor, which had as many rooms as the average hotel. "well, what do you think of colonel billings now?" ted asked of stella, when they met on the broad lawn in front of the ranch house after they had seen their rooms. stella simply shook her head. "what do you mean by that?" asked ted. "that you don't know, or that you don't care to say?" "i can't tell you yet, ted. i like him somehow for his genial ways, and yet something tells me to beware." "well, i'd sooner trust your intuition than my judgment. i'll keep an eye on him. and--yet, i feel the same as you in a way. but i hate to distrust any one." "i know you do, ted, and that is why you get fooled on some people sometimes." "but not on all people all the time?" "that's it." "then what does one's first impression amount to, anyway?" "not much, unless they can make good a good first impression." "i'm not going to worry about him. the other fellows are the ones for that." "that's what i think." "i'm going to ride out over the range, and take a look at the cattle. want to go along?" "of course i do." they found their horses in the corral, and after telling colonel billings that they would be back for dinner, departed. "when you go through the west gate into the big pasture, look out for a big hereford bull in there," colonel billings called after them. ted nodded and waved his hand, and they were off. colonel billings certainly did have a splendid ranch. they rode for miles within the fences before they came to the west gate. "think we better go any farther?" asked ted, when they had come this far. "yes. let us go on," replied stella. "we have plenty of time, and i would like to see just how big this ranch is." "don't forget the red bull," said ted, as he closed the gate behind them. "i've seen many a dangerous bull before," laughed stella. "if we find him and he takes after us, keep on the far side of me. i don't much fancy that pony you're on." "i don't myself. i wish we had a bunch of moon valley ponies here to ride. i've never seen any that could come up to them." they were following a trail that led directly into the west. it was a cattle trail, and ted's practiced eye told him that it led to water. several miles to the west he saw the plain became broken. "there's water over there," he said. "that's where we'll find the cattle," answered stella. "do you want to go that far and look at them?" "i will if you think you can stand it." stella looked at him scornfully. "i guess this beast will go the distance," she answered, giving the little gray a clip with her quirt, and galloping ahead of ted, who was not slow to follow. as they proceeded the ground became more and more broken. "i believe there is a bit of 'bad land' over there," said ted, pointing forward. still they saw no cattle, although colonel billings had told him that morning that his greatest herd, the one he wished the boys to examine with the view to purchase, lay in the big west pasture. but all they could see so far was the broad stretch of green prairie and the low line of the rough land in the distance. not a living thing was in sight. the only movement was the flying shadows of the white clouds over the prairie, and the waving of the deep, rich grass when a vagrant breeze swept by. but suddenly ted pulled in his pony, and shaded his eyes with his hand, staring into the west. "what is it?" asked stella, reining in. "i thought i saw something red shoot across the horizon to the west, where you see those gray rocks," answered ted. "a cow--or, perhaps, the dangerous red bull," laughed stella. "nothing like that. it wasn't the right color. did you ever see a scarlet cow?" "never did." "well, the thing i saw was scarlet, and it was not shaped like a cow." he was still looking intently into the west. "there it is again!" he exclaimed, unlimbering his field glasses. after a moment of intense scrutiny, he raised the glasses suddenly to his eyes. "by jove!" he cried, "it's a motor car, and i believe it's 118." "impossible!" cried stella. "no, entirely possible," said ted intensely. "don't you see if it was this fellow checkers who got the machine from the agent by false pretenses he would take it as far away from town as possible?" "yes, i see that." "then which direction would he take if, as i think, he is in league with the train-robbing syndicate, which we have persuaded ourselves to think made their headquarters at green river, but in this direction? we have learned that others of those we believe to be in it are to be the guests of this ranch, and--" "i see. he could not well bring the red car to the ranch house." "that's it." "then where do you suppose he's going with it?" "there's no better place to hide it than in those very 'bad lands,' if i am guessing right, at the rough land yonder." "true. what are you going to do about it?" "i'm going to find that red car and my friend, checkers." "not alone, ted. you're going to get the other boys to help you, aren't you?" "now is the accepted time. i'm going right away now. but it would be a good scheme for you to ride back to the ranch and tell bud and the boys quietly what i am about, and have them come out in case i should need help." "i hate to see you ride away alone, ted. you can't tell what there is over there. better let me go along." "no, stella, it would be no use. you know that i appreciate your courage and skill in every way, but this, probably, will be no work for girls." stella pouted at this. she did not like the idea of the long ride back to the ranch house alone. she looked at ted to see if he really was in earnest, and when she saw the look in his face she turned back with a wave of the hand and a "so long!" and started for the ranch house. "tell bud to bring three or four of the boys out here with him," shouted ted after her. "thank you, stella." but she only nodded her head and pursued her way, and ted, after looking after her for a moment, rode forward. he had not seen the red car for several minutes, it having disappeared behind a rocky butte. having a fair horse, he gave it the gad and struck into a gallop. soon he entered upon the rough land, and from a rise saw a stream below and a herd of cattle beyond, where the prairie began again; the railroad, and a small red station house, with two or three low buildings about it. he now understood that he had seen the red car on the far side of the ravine, through which the stream flowed, and went down to the stream, his horse sliding on its haunches amid a clatter of broken clay and pebbles. he was soon across and clambered up the other wall of the ravine, and there in the clay found the impression of the tires of the red car. "i'm all right now," he muttered to himself. "on the track of checkers and the robbers' automobile. i wonder where it will end." he had no difficulty in following the tracks of the automobile for a considerable distance, when the ravine ran out on that side and the bank of the stream flattened; and he rode along it, following the trail with ease. then the bank of the stream rose again, and the water flowed through a ravine, into which the red car had entered. it could not escape him, and ted chuckled, and examined his revolver, loosening it well in its holster, for he had not forgotten the warning against checkers given him by chief desmond. the ravine grew deeper as he advanced, and soon it became tolerably dark at the bottom where the high walls shut out the light. suddenly his horse stumbled, and, as ted shot over its head, he heard the twang of a broken wire that had been stretched across the path. he had fallen into a trap. as he struck the earth, he was stunned for a moment, then a heavy weight was upon him. he twisted around and felt for his revolver, but it had fallen from his holster, and he felt his arms grasped and a thong passed around his wrists, and then around his ankles. the weight was lifted from him and he rolled over on his back. standing above him was the man whom he knew as checkers. "well, my lad, you delivered yourself like a lamb to the slaughter," said checkers, with a smile. ted could say nothing. he was too busy wondering how easily he had fallen into the toils. "you went up against a tough proposition when yon tackled me," continued the man. "it would have been a good thing for you if you had never run across me. you know too much to be left alive. i shall see that you are properly taken care of." checkers issued a shrill whistle. "come," he said to ted, "get to your feet." ted arose as three men came around an elbow of the wall of the ravine. "take care of this boy," said checkers to them. "and if he escapes--" he finished the sentence with a smile that made the men wince. chapter xxiii. stella imitates santa claus. "come on, fellow," said one of the men, jerking ted along by hops. "we'll attend to him all right, boss," said another. "he'll get all that's coming to him," said the third, with a grin that was almost as diabolical as that of checkers. around the elbow of the ravine wall, in a small cove was a log cabin with a lean-to shed, under which was sheltered the fatal red car which had lured him to captivity. the cabin was backed up against the wall of the ravine, and was small and dirty as to interior. a fire burned in a big stone fireplace at one end, filling the room with a suffocating smudge. the room was almost dark, but ted, from the corner into which he had been flung, was soon able to make out that the men were cooking something over the glowing embers, at the same time taking swigs from a black bottle, and smoking reeking pipes of vile tobacco. after the food was cooked they began to eat, but did not offer ted any of it, all the while making jokes at his expense, and vaguely hinting at his fate. ted wished now that he had taken stella's advice, and had not rushed in so rashly. had he waited for bud and two or three of the boys to come to his assistance, he could easily have caught the whole lot for their cabin was in a perfect pocket from which they could not have escaped. who were these rough fellows with whom checkers would not associate, for ted could hear his archenemy pacing up and down outside, and he had not forgotten how he had addressed these men? probably they were only ordinary villains who did the dirty work planned by the wiser heads of the syndicate. he wondered if the boys would be able to find him before they settled with him, as they had promised. after the men had finished their meal the voice of the leader summoned them outside. ted could hear commands being given in a low voice, and mumbles from the men. it appeared from what ted could gather from the tones of the voice, rather than from any words that he caught, that one of the men was protesting against what checkers was ordering. suddenly there was a cry of agony. "don't do that, boss," said one of the men. "shut up, or you'll get a taste of the same knife," came the voice of checkers in a tone of rage. "when i say a thing must be done it is as good as done. now go ahead and do as i tell you." "but, boss--" "go on, and do it. are you a coward? you've done it before," ted heard checkers say. "i'm going away now, and if you can't show me what i want when i get back, well--you know." in a moment ted heard the chug of the motor car, then the grating of the tires on the earth as it started away. "remember what i said," the voice of checkers came floating back. "say, bill, this is a derned outrage," said one of the men outside. "i, fer one, am not in favor of standin' for it." "well, if yer don't, you'll get the same," said other man. "i never see any one so handy with that bloomin' knife o' his." "look out you don't get a taste o' it, then." "is he dead, bill?" there was a shuffling of feet outside, and ted knew that they were turning a body over. "yes, he's stone-dead." "pore dick! he had his faults, but he was a good pal." "he wuz, but too derned soft-hearted. he didn't want ter kill a feller in cold blood never." "an' yet he wa'n't no coward. i never see ther time dick w'd refuse ter fight if ther other feller had some show, an' he wa'n't squeamish about holdin' up a train er runnin' off a bunch o' cattle, but i always hear him say thet he didn't take no stock in plain, straight murder." "that's so, but it's not murder, tom, when yer kills ther feller what's yer enemy. now, honor bright, is it?" "i dunno. i was brought up ter fight, an' fight like ther devil hisself when it come ter fightin', but i reckon i'm too much o' a derned coward ter murder cold." "well, this is one o' ther times when it's got ter be did, an' i reckon we might as well be about it. git ready." "no, sir, i'm not goin' ter do it." "tom, yer a fool. do yer know what'll happen when ther boss comes back an' finds out that it ain't been did?" "i do." "an' aire yer goin' ter resk it?" "i be." "then ye're a bigger fool than i am. i'm goin' ter carry out orders. what's ther difference? a couple of good slashes an' it's all over." "but think o' the death cry, bill. i've heerd too many o' them already. i hears them when i sleep and they wake me up." "tom, yer talk ter me like a sick canary peeps. i always thought yer wuz a man." "an' don't yer think so now, bill?" "not from ther way yer talkin'." "well, if yer has any doubts erbout it i'll give yer a chanct ter prove it, any way yer like." "now, what's ther use o' talkin' that away, tom? dick's dead by ther hand o' ther boss. what's thar in it fer you or me if ther cub in thar dies er not? be sensible." "it ain't matterin' a chaw o' terbaccer ter me whether he dies er not, but he's got a right ter die in a natural way, so to speak." "an' how is that, my sunday-school friend?" "in a fair fight, by gosh!" "an' who's goin' ter give him a fair fight? i don't want none o' it." "so that's ther way yer built, is it, bill? i always thought yer was a game man." "i reckon i be, but that's not in this question. here's an enemy ter ther gang what lays bound in the cabin. why should i resk my life in a fight with him er fer him. it's so derned easy fer a feller ter go in thar an' stick a knife inter him, an' then, yer see, it's all over with." "yer wrong, bill." "i'd sooner do that than have ther boss come back an' stick his knife inter me." "aire yer afraid ter fight ther boss?" "he's ther only man i be afraid of." there was a long silence following this, and ted understood the terrible power of checkers over his men, and desmond's warning. "well, i'm tired o' chewin' erbout ther virtue o' killin' a man one way or another, an' i'm goin' ter foller orders. if you don't want ter jine in i reckon as how i'll have ter tell ther boss that yer flunked." there was no response to this, and a few moments elapsed in which ted listened hopefully for his champion's voice. suddenly something dropped in the fireplace, and ted, straining his eyes in that direction, saw a tiny pair of tan riding boots come into view, followed by a tan skirt, and stella dropped noiselessly into the room. she held up a warning finger as she saw ted in the corner. "sh, sh!" she whispered, as she felt for his bonds and cut them. ted was on his feet on the instant, and stella pressed a revolver into his hand. "i didn't go back to the ranch house, but followed you here. i saw the red car go out, and hid. then i sneaked along until i heard those fellows quarreling. i was on the top of the bluff here, and guessed that you were inside the cabin, as i couldn't see you anywhere outside, so i just dropped in." as stella whispered this she smiled, and ted could only look his thanks. the fellow named tom, who had been opposed to killing ted, had evidently been doing some hard thinking, and the threat of his mate to expose him to checkers evidently convinced him that he would rather be alive than perish for a mere sentiment. "all right, bill," he said; "i don't like it, but we've got to share it." "sure," said the other. "it'll be blow and blow. we both strike together." "come on, then." "now," said ted, putting stella behind him and crouching in the darkness. the two men entered the cabin noisily, knowing that they had nothing to fear from an unarmed boy bound hand and foot and lying in the corner with nothing to hope for. as they approached the corner they were surprised to see a stalwart young form arise suddenly and a pair of revolvers gleam through the darkness as a voice rang out commandingly: "hands up!" the hands of both went up very promptly. "drop those knives!" a pair of knives clattered to the floor. "face about, both of you, and go out. the first to make a break gets a shot in the back." at ted's command both men obeyed. when they were outside in the sunlight, ted looked them over. both had revolvers in their holsters. "take their revolvers away from them, stella," said ted. as the girl moved forward to comply with the request of ted strong, the men stared at her in amazement. "now, which of you is tom?" asked ted. "i am," said one of them. "you lie!" answered ted. "i know you by your voice. you are not tom:--you are bill." "yes, i'm tom," said the other fellow. "that's right," said ted. "now, see here, tom, if i give you the chance will you dig out of this and escape? it won't be very long before you are caught, anyway, and you know what that means." "you bet i will," said the fellow, who had protested against the murder of ted. "all right, i'll give you the chance. i'll take your friend in charge myself. you can take down your hands, tom." the fellow was in a state of wonderment as he did so. "who are you, anyway?" asked the fellow called bill. "i am ted strong." "then it's all up. we're done for," said the train robber, in a resigned voice. chapter xxiv. ted holds a profitable bag. tom signaled to ted to step aside, and, telling stella to keep the other fellow covered with her revolver, ted accompanied him. "thank yer fer turnin' me loose," said tom. "i've been tryin' ter get away fer months, but couldn't. here's a tip: they're goin' ter rob ther overland express t'-night right out yon at that little station yer can see from ther top o' ther rise. ther loot is ter be hid near bubbly spring until things blow over, but ther gang will come here. thar's my tip. good-by. i'm off." the fellow disappeared up the bank of the stream. ted bound the other upon the back of his pony, which he found not far from the scene of his own downfall, and conveyed him to green river, where he placed him in jail, with instructions that he should be allowed to communicate with no one. then he and stella returned to the billings ranch house. "say nothing whatever about our adventure," said ted, as he and stella rode along discussing the matter. "i think there will be something doing there to-night." when they got back to the ranch, ted simply explained their absence by saying that they had ridden farther than they had at first intended. ted was introduced to the other guests, who had arrived in his absence. there was mr. norcross, the banker, who looked a little sheepish when ted shook hands with him and acted as if he had never seen him before. the man with the black mustache and the red necktie was mr. dennis corrigan, of chicago, and neither he nor the boys appeared to have seen him before. the young man with the pointed beard was mr. van belder, of new york. colonel billings was full of hospitable notions, and made the afternoon pass delightfully. "they tell me there is very good shooting in the neighborhood at times," said mr. corrigan, as they all sat on the veranda in the afternoon. "excellent," said the colonel. "at this time of the year the snipe shooting is fine." "what is the best time to shoot them?" asked van belder. "i should say after dark," said the host, with an imperceptible wink at mr. corrigan. "i don't see how you can shoot snipe after dark," said ted. "you don't exactly shoot them," explained mr. corrigan. "it's this way, and a fine game, and often practiced in south chicago: the party goes out, and one holds the bag while the rest go along and drive the birds in, and the fellow who holds the bag catches them in it. it's lots easier than shooting them, and you get more birds." "by jove, that's a new experience to me!" said ted. "i'd like to try it." mr. van belder looked at him curiously, but drawled that he thought it very fine sport. so it was agreed that that night they should go on a snipe-bagging expedition. the party was to be made up of ted, who was eager to hold the bag for the snipe to run into; mr. corrigan, the colonel, mr. van belder, and a few others. most of the boys declined absolutely to go. "say, aire ye gittin' plumb dotty?" asked bud, when he got ted out of hearing. "tell me, is it possible thet yer eyeteeth aire so far secreted up inter yer head thet yer don't know erbout baggin' snipe?" but all the answer bud got was a wink. "now, what hez ther hombre got up his sleeve, i wonder?" said bud, as he wandered off. ted and stella had an animated conversation a few minutes later out of the sight and hearing of the others. but stella walked off, smiling. she knew. it was just getting dark when the party left the ranch house. ted carried a large, empty sack over his shoulder. with the organizers of the party went bud, ben, kit, carl, and clay. the maddest person in the house that evening was stella, because she couldn't go, too. but as she said good-by to the party from the steps of the ranch house she smiled comprehensively at ted. a walk of a half mile brought the party to the edge of a small creek. "now," said mr. corrigan, "here's where you wait with the bag while we go up to the creek and chase them down. you may have to wait a little while, and you must have patience." "don't worry about me," answered ted; "i have plenty of that. i'll be here when the snipe come down, and if any of them get away, charge them to me." after they had been gone some time ted lit a match and looked at his watch. it was a quarter to nine. the overland express was due in green river at nine-twenty. the little red station of polifax would foe passed by ten minutes after she left green river. while he was in green river that afternoon ted had been very careful to find the exact location of bubbly spring. he was more than two miles from it in his blind to wait for the snipe. as soon as the crashing of the feet of the snipe drivers and the shouts and laughter had died away, ted left his hiding place and darted through the dark woods and swampy ground for bubbly spring. long before he got there he heard the long screech of the whistle of the overland express announcing its approach at green river, and a few minutes later its whistle that it was on its way. he had just reached bubbly spring and concealed himself in the bushes when the whistle gave a long shriek of danger. the signal of the train robbers had been given at polifax. the engineer had seen the red light and had whistled to the trainmen that danger was ahead, and that he was going to stop. in a few moments ted heard a few pops, and knew that the train robbers were firing their revolvers alongside of the train to prevent interference. what if the train robbers should fail? the train started up again, and ted knew by that that nobody had been killed, and it added to his anxiety as to the success of the robbery. he wanted it to occur, for if he could secure the loot he could destroy the train robbers surely. all he wanted now was tangible evidence. he lay back breathlessly in the bushes, waiting. soon he heard the rapid hoofbeats of horses, then a crashing in the bushes. these noises were approaching him rapidly. the crisis was at hand. in a moment the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the little valley through which the small stream from the spring flowed, and ted crept into closer cover. then into the glade galloped ten men. between two of them was swung a small, square thing, which was dropped at the foot of a cottonwood tree not a dozen feet from where ted was concealed. a man leaped from the back of a horse. he had a spade in his hand, and as he advanced ted drew in his breath sharply. it was corrigan, the chicago millionaire. behind him was norcross, the banker. ted looked vainly for checkers. if he had been with the robbers at the holdup, he had not come here with them. meanwhile, the dirt was flying, and a hole was being dug at the foot of the cotton wood. after it was deep enough an iron box was dropped into it and covered with earth, and silently the men remounted and rode away. ted waited about fifteen minutes to be sure that none of them would return. then he dug into the freshly laid earth and soon had exhumed the iron box. it was somewhat of a heavy load, but he packed it manfully, and in about half an hour carried it in his bag into the living room of the ranch house. he was greeted with shouts of laughter from corrigan and several of the others. but stella looked at him anxiously, and he gave her a reassuring glance. "ha, ha!" laughed corrigan. "what do you think of snipe hunting now?" "it was a good joke," said the colonel, "but i'm sure you will take it good-naturedly." "yes," said mr. norcross, the banker. "it's quite a favorite amusement out here." only the new yorker said nothing, but gave ted a peculiar glance. ted looked around at the group with a foolish smile. "it was a good joke, gentlemen," said he, "and i have never been sore because i have been handed one." another burst of satisfied laughter greeted this from the big three--corrigan, norcross, and the colonel. but stella and the boys looked glum that ted was being made the butt of a joke. then ted put his sack on the floor and opened it and lifted something out and placed it on the table. it was the iron box he had dug from the earth at bubbly spring, with the fresh earth still sticking to it. corrigan's face turned white. norcross had to lean against the corner of the table to keep from falling. ted easily opened the lock of the box, and threw it open. "you left me to hold the bag, did you?" he asked of the astounded conspirators. "well, what do you think of these for snipe?" the room was as quiet as a church. "gentlemen, you are all under arrest. boys, get into your saddles. we are going to ride to the rendezvous of the gang of robbers which to-night robbed the overland express and stole the money i have here," and he lifted out package after package of stolen currency. stella was laughing and waving her hat. "i knowed yer had somethin' up yer sleeve when yer consented ter go snipe huntin'! yer ther limit," said bud. only mr. van belder of all the conspirators was calm. he ripped a beard from his face, and there stood darby o'neill, the united states secret agent! "say, ted, give me that counterfeit of the green river national bank. it is all i need to take norcross away for a long term. i've been working on him for a long time, but you knocked the persimmon at last." "you had me guessing," said ted. "when i got that note that was slipped into my pocket in st. louis i ought to have guessed that it was you, but you are so clever at disguise that you always fool me." "but you've never fooled me yet," was the reply. "i've banked on you every time, and every time you've come back with the goods." "but who was the young lady who slipped me the note?" "my sister, who is a very clever girl detective, as you may know some day." after the boys had made secure the three men at the head of the train robbers' syndicate, they went to the cabin in which ted had so nearly lost his life, and secured the rest of the robbers. next morning at daylight they found the body of checkers lying beside the fatal red car not far from the scene of the holdup. he had been killed by a stray shot fired by one of his own men. thus was the train robbers' syndicate wiped out through the acumen and courage of ted strong, and the loyal backing of his comrades. the broncho boys decided that more stock was needed at the moon valley ranch, and the entire outfit set out for no man's land, in northern texas. chapter xxv. the magpie pony. "say, podner, might i be so free an' onquisitive ez ter inquire ez ter whar yer got thet thar palfrey yer ridin'?" the speaker was a tall, gaunt old man with a tangled mass of grizzled whiskers, and the "podner" he addressed was bud morgan. "yer might," answered bud, eying the questioner keenly. "well!" "why don't yer?" "oh, i see. whar did yer git it?" "i traded a waterbury watch fer it, an' ther feller what made ther trade throwed in a pack o' cigareets." "oh!" "anything else ye'd like ter know?" "well, seein' ez yer so communicative, i'd like ter hev yer tell me how fur it's ter yeller fork." "betwixt grub." "come ergin." "ez fur ez yer kin ride betwixt 'arly breakfast an' dinner." "well, i'm obleegin' ter yer. i reckon we'll be hikin'." "who's ther kid?" "thet boy is my grandson. we come outer missouri ter see what could be did in this yere new country, an' it's mighty hard sleddin'." "what's ther trouble?" "well, stranger, so long ez yer kind ernuff ter inquire, i'll tell yer." "i'm listenin'." "i'm too old ter work at ther only thing what seems ter be out yere--cow-punchin'--an' ther kiddie is too young. now, if 'twas farmin', we'd be in it." "thar ain't no more farmin' out yere than a rabbit, thet's shore. what might yer bizness be at home?" "i'm a hoss trader." "thar ought ter be somethin' doin' out yere fer yer, then. all thar is in this country is hosses an' cattle." "they ain't my kind o' hosses." "yer don't seem ter fancy cow ponies, eh?" "i reckon they're all right in their way, podner, but they're a leetle too wild fer me to break, an' the kid's not strong enough." "askin' questions seems ter be fash'n'ble. whar did yer git thet magpie hoss?" bud was looking over the old man's mount, a beautiful little black-and-white-spotted pony, as clean limbed as a racer, and with a round and compact body. it was a bizarre-looking little animal, with a long, black mane and tail, at the roots of which was a round, white spot. it was the sort of animal that would attract attention anywhere. "magpie! podner, i riz her from a colt." "she's shore a showy beast." "she is some on ther picture, ain't she?" asked the old man, looking the pony over admiringly. "she's all right, but--" "but what, podner?" the old man looked at bud with a frown. "well, i ain't none on knockin' another man's hoss, but i never see one o' them black-an'-white-spotted animiles what could do more than lope, an' out in this yere country hosses hez got ter run like a scared coyote ter be any good in ther cow business." "yer reckon this yere magpie can't run?" asked the old man, bristling. "i ain't said so." "well, yer alluded ter a magpie hoss as couldn't do nothin' but lope." "i ain't never see none what could do much more." "you ain't never see magpie split ther wind, then." "i ain't." "mebbe ye'd like ter." "mebbe i would." "i reckon yer thinks ther cow what yer a-straddlin' of now kin run some." "a leetle bit. but, yer see, when i got him he was a broken-down cow hoss what hed been ridden ter death an' fed on sand an' alkali water so long thet he wa'n't much good nohow." "jest picked him up wanderin'?" "not eggsactly. yer see, it wuz this way: i was coming ercross noo mexico about a month back, when i runs foul o' a hombre what is all in. he hadn't et fer so long thet yer could see ther bumps made by his backbone through his shirt. i hed some grub in my war bag, an' i fed an' watered him. this yer nag wuz all in, too, an' he hed a long way ter go, so when ther feller ups an' perposes ter trade ponies i give him ther merry cachinnation." "ther what?" "ther laugh." "go ahead, podner, yer shore hez a splendid education." "i see thet he'll never git ter whar he's goin' on ther nag, an' i thinks i'll do him a favor by sittin' him on a piece o' live hossmeat, an' i said i'd trade if he hed anythin' ter boot. now, what do yer think he hed?" "i ain't got a notion." "a pack o' mexican cigareets what burned like a bresh fire an' smelled like a wet dog under a stove." "haw, haw! an' yer traded?" "i thought some fust, an' then i thinks what's ther odds? thar's plenty o' hosses in camp, an' it'll probably save ther feller's life ter let him hev ther pony, what ain't none out o' ther common, so i says, 'it's a go, pard.' i clumb down an' we changed saddles, an' he handed over ther pack o' cigareets an' we went our ways." "yer shore is a kind-hearted man." "i ain't, neither. i jest knows a hoss when i sees one." "yer don't call thet a hoss yer a-straddlin', i hope?" "i shore do. he ain't much fer ter gaze on admirin', i agree, but he's a good little cayuse. i reckon, now, yer some proud o' thet magpie hoss." "i be. it kin outrun anythin' this side o' ther state o' newbrasky." "p'r'aps yer lookin' fer a race ter see what ther best we've got in camp kin do, no?" "thar ain't nary time what i won't run a race if i think thar's ary merit in my hossflesh. how erbout ther animile what yer sits on so graceful?" "oh, i reckon he kin ride rings eround ther magpie hoss," said bud, who was a trifle nettled at the old man's jeering tone. "yer certain got a lot o' confidence in a dead one." "i reckernize ther fact that he ain't none pretty, but handsome is as handsome does. hatrack is some shy on meat an' he's got a temper like a disappointed woman, ter say nothin' o' havin' had ther botts, ringbone, heaves, an' spavin', but he's a good nag, fer all thet, an' would be good-lookin' ernough if his wool wasn't wore off in so many places." "haw, haw! he ain't what ye'd call a show animile." "he ain't, but, say, stranger, he _kin_ run." "what d'ye say ter a leetle brush betwixt magpie an' yer hatrack?" "i'm ther gamest thing what ever yer see when it comes ter a hoss race." "what'll we race fer?" "nag an' nag. if yer beats me, yer takes hatrack, an' if he gits away with ther spotted pony, why, yer turns her over ter me. is it a go?" "if yer throw in a six-shooter fer odds." "all right, pard, jest ter show yer thet i ain't no shorthorn, i'll go yer. i've got a shooter in my war-bag up ter camp what'll kick ther arm outer yer socket every time yer pulls ther trigger, but she'll send a bullet through a six-inch oak beam." "anything, so it's odds. i'll go yer. i reckon i could sell it fer a dollar er so." "i reckon yer could," said bud sarcastically. "i wuz offered ten dollars fer it by a hombre down ter las vegas a month ago. but he was a husky feller, an' wanted a strong shooter. he wanted ter go out huntin' fer a feller with it, an' i wouldn't let him hev it. is it a go, shore enough?" "it be." "all right; come over ter ther camp an' stay overnight, an' fill yer pale american hides with ther best grub what ever wuz cooked on ther range. our cook is an artist." bud led the way on his little, flea-bitten skeleton of a pony that snorted and reared, kicked, and showed the whites of its eyes when he woke it from the drooping position it had held while he was talking to the old man. in half an hour they were in sight, from the hill they had topped, of a vast band of cattle grazing in a broad valley. in a sheltered spot below the hill was a typical cow camp. a white-covered chuck wagon shone in the rays of the departing sun, and the smoke arose from the cook's fire, where he was baking biscuit in a dutch oven, while the fragrant odors of frying bacon and steaming coffee filled the air. "what have you found this time?" asked ben tremont, as bud came into camp. "this yere gent is a maverick from missouri what i found wanderin' across the peerarie searchin' fer yaller fork, an' he hez bantered me ter a hoss race, i ast him ter come in an' stay overnight, an' eat, an' we'll run ther hosses in ther mornin'." "what horses?" "i'm goin' ter run hatrack agin' thet magpie mare o' hisn, an' throw in a six-shooter with hatrack if i lose." "say, are you going altogether dippy?" growled ben. "why, that little mare will run away from you as if hatrack was tied to a post." "reckon so? well, maybe i want to lose hatrack, an' maybe all i want is ter capture thet magpie pony." "oh, what a lovely pony!" stella fosdick had ridden into camp, and her exclamation of admiration for the magpie pony drew the attention of the boys to her. "d'ye like thet thar pony?" asked bud. "i think it's beautiful," answered stella enthusiastically. "then it's yours." "what do you mean?" "this old gent an' me is goin' ter hev a race in ther mornin', hoss fer hoss, an' when it's over ther magpie hoss is yours." a peal of rippling laughter greeted this. "see yere, gal, what is all this noise about?" asked bud huffily. "if yer laughin' at ther idea o' hatrack beatin' ther magpie hoss, don't yer do it, fer thet's showin' ignerance o' hossflesh, an' i thought yer wuz too well brought up at moon valley ter think thet pretty spots on a hoss hez anythin' ter do with his ability ter make a race er hold a cow." "forgive me, bud, i didn't mean to laugh at hatrack, but, really, he doesn't look as if he could run any faster than a lame dog." "oh, i reckon he'll git over ther ground fast ernough," said bud, with a sly wink at the girl. "but he won't do it with me on his back. i'm a trifle heavy fer fast work. i'll hev ter git kit ter pilot him, i reckon." "i reckon you won't," said stella. "if any one rides him it will be me. i'm a good many pounds lighter than kit." "all right, stella. i wanted yer ter ride him, but i didn't like ter impose on good nature by askin' yer ter do it." "why, i'd love to ride the race. you ought to know me by this time." "it's a go, an' if yer win, as win yer must, ther magpie hoss is yours." "oh, bud, you don't mean it! then i'll certainly ride to win." so it was settled, and the old man and his grandson were accorded the hospitality of the camp. after a hearty supper, while they were all sitting around the fire, and the old man was telling stories of his trip into the southwest, for the broncho boys were now herding a big bunch of range cattle in what is known as no man's land, an arm of northern texas lying west of oklahoma, and claimed by both, the day watch rode into camp, and, stripping their saddles from their ponies, turned them loose. then the boys threw themselves upon the ground to rest after several hours of constant riding. one of the cowboys in the outfit, sol flatbush by name, stood staring at the old man and the boy. he was scratching his forelock in a meditative sort of way, as if trying to remember something. "what is it, solly? i reckon what yer tryin' ter think of is that ye've forgot yer supper," said bud. "no, 'tain't that," said the cow-puncher, staring harder at the old man. "hear about ther race, sol?" asked ben. "now, don't yer expect me ter ask yer what race an' then spring thet ole gag about ther 'human race.' i won't stand fer it. i've got troubles enough. thet buckskin pony o' mine hez hed ther very divil in him all day, an' i ain't feelin' none too amiable." "this is on the square." "well, cut loose." "bud is going to race hatrack against that magpie horse grazing out there, and throw in a six-shooter if the old gent wins." sol flatbush turned and looked at the magpie pony, then at the old man. suddenly a gleam of intelligence illuminated his face, and he grinned. "say, bud, i wisht ye'd come over yere an' look at this buckskin's off hind foot, an' tell me what ye thinks o' it. he's been actin' powerful queer on it all day." bud rose lazily and followed sol out of camp. the buckskin was grazing peacefully a few hundred yards away, and as they walked toward it sol flatbush said: "bud, d'ye know that ole maverick?" "i shore don't. never even ast him his name," answered bud. "well, i do. that's ole 'cap' norris. he's a hoss sharp fer fair. he an' that boy don't do nothin' but ride the country with that magpie hoss, pickin' up races at cow camps an' ranches an' in towns. that hoss o' hisn is a 'ringer.' his real name is idlewild, an' he's a perfessional race hoss. boy, yer stung!" chapter xxvi "vamose!" "oh, i don't know," said bud quietly, as sol flatbush made this announcement of the ability of magpie, or idlewild, as he was known elsewhere. "but i do," urged sol. "i see that hoss run at ponca city on ther fo'th o' july a year ago, an' he jest run away from ther best indian racers what ther osages could bring over, an' yer knows they kin go some." "sol, my son, don't git excited. yer uncle bud knows what he's doin' when he's going inter this yere race. he ain't tellin' ther ole man, nor none o' you fellers, what thar is in thet hatrack hoss." "got somethin' up yer sleeve?" "i reckon i hev. if i was a bettin' man, i'd wager my share o' moon valley that hatrack would win this yere race." "sho; yer don't say!" "ted seen him run. ask him. now, don't you worry none about me. i know a hoss when i see one standin' on its four legs. that magpie hoss is a good one, whether his name is magpie or idlewild. ther name don't make him run no better. but hatrack is some, too, an' i want that magpie pony for stella. she ain't got no hoss of her own down yere, an' that spotted pony is jest ther sort o' showy hoss what a gal likes." "well, i ain't wantin' ter be buttin' in none," said sol, in a crestfallen way. "yer ain't butted in none, sol. i'm obliged ter yer fer givin' me ther tip erbout ther old sharp. when he fust braced me i sized him up fer a sharp, an' when he told me he was a hoss trader from missouri i had a straight line on him." they returned to camp, where the old man was still regaling the boys with anecdotes, having proved himself a most entertaining story-teller. the boy sat close beside him listening, but never saying a word, except when he was addressed. he was small and slender, and evidently weighed much less than a hundred pounds. his face was small and thin, and apparently youthful, but his eyes were old and shrewd, and there was a crafty look about his face at times when the old man brought out a point in a story. evidently he had heard these stories many times before. when he smiled it was in a sly and furtive way. ted strong had come in from riding around the herd, having inspected it before it was bedded down for the night. he had heard all about the proposed race, and smiled quietly as ben joshed bud about the loss of his pony hatrack on the morrow. he had looked the boy over carefully, and his impression was not pleasant. "i tell yer what, boys," said the old man, when conversation began to lag. "s'posin' we put this race off until to-morrow afternoon, an' run it over at snyder, across the line in oklahomy?" "what's ther occasion?" asked bud. "jest ter give ther people over thar a chance ter see a real live race. besides, i'm out o' money, an' i reckon we could have a reg'lar race, an' charge admission. that would enable me an' my grandson ter git back ter ole missou' again. we ain't much use out here. what d'yer say?" "i ain't no professional racer," said bud slowly, "an' i ain't in this race fer what i kin make out o' it. yer made yer brag about yer hoss an' slurred mine, an' i'm jest game enough ter lose him if he can't beat that calcimined hoss o' yours, but i don't go in fer bettin' er none o' thet sort o' thing." "i ain't said nothin' about bettin'," said the old man, in an injured tone. "i know yer ain't, an' i ain't accused yer o' it none. what i wuz goin' ter say wuz thet if yer hard up an' need ther money ter take yer home i'm ther first feller ter jump in ter help yer." "we're all willing to help on a thing like that," said ted. "then ye'll consent ter pull off ther race in snyder?" asked the old man eagerly. "i am, if ther other boys will consent ter it," said bud. "all right with me," said ted, and the other boys voiced their assent. it looked as if there was a good bit of fun in prospect. "thanks, boys," said the old man, with a catch in his voice, as if he was deeply touched. "ye'll do a good turn fer me an' little bill here. bill, we'll git home fer christmas yit." "if you're going to make it a public race, you'll have to get over to snyder early to make arrangements," said ted. "i'll leave before sunup in ther mornin', an' we'll have the race at three o'clock. is that all satisfactory?" this proved satisfactory to the boys, and, having agreed to be on hand in time with hatrack, every one turned in. when the boys turned out in the morning the blankets which the old man and the boy had occupied were empty and cold, showing that they had departed long before daylight. "there's something fishy about that old chap," said ben tremont, as they were at breakfast. "of course, there is," said ted. "he's an old horse sharp. sol flatbush knows him. he wants a race in town, thinking he can draw us into betting. he doesn't know that we never gamble, but he evidently believes that in the excitement of the moment he will be able to get some of our money." "well, he'll get fooled on that," said ben. "he'll git fooled in several other ways, too," grunted bud. after breakfast bud went out and roped hatrack, and after a tussle that lasted several strenuous minutes, brought him into camp. hatrack certainly was a sorry-looking beast. his long, dirty, yellowish-brown hair was rumpled and fluffed up. his ribs showed sharp, and his tail was full of burs, while his short and scraggy mane was missing in spots. his flanks had been rubbed bare of hair where he had lain for many nights on the rocks and in the sands of the desert. "well, dog my cats, if he ain't ther orneriest-lookin' beast what ever toted a saddle," said bud, looking him over, as hatrack stood with drooping head and ears. "bud, he isn't worth making cat's meat out of," said ben. "i guess you made that race to get rid of him. it's easier and more humane than shooting him or abandoning him to the prairie wolves." "reckon so?" asked bud, looking at ben out of the corner of a twinkling eye. "oh, dear me, but he's awfully ugly," said stella, coming from the tent which she and her aunt, mrs. graham, occupied a short distance from the camp. she was as spick and span as a new dollar, nattily dressed in a bifurcated riding skirt, from beneath which peeped a pair of high tan riding boots. her white stetson had just the right curl of brim to be most becoming, and her wavy hair fell in profusion over her shoulders. she was pulling on a pair of fringed gauntlets, and her braided quirt, with a silver knob for a handle, hung by its thong from her slender wrist. "now, see here, stella, don't yer go ter feelin' knocky about yer mount, er yer won't hev no confidence in him, an' will lose. i want ter say ter yer right now that this hoss what looks like ther last rose o' summer, ther last run o' shad, an' ther breakin' up o' a hard winter in a last year's bird's nest, is all right, an' he can't lose this race. ride him true, an' don't give him ther gad none. all yer got ter do is ter encourage him by a word now an' then, an' pilot him straight ter ther wire." "all right, bud. i was only joking," laughed stella. "it isn't the prettiest horse that wins the race. i know that well, but, you see, like every girl, i like pretty things, and a horse might as well look good as run fast. it has always seemed to me that the two go together." during the middle of the forenoon the broncho boys started for the town of snyder to attend the race. bud led hatrack, and a troublesome job he had of it, for the animated skeleton objected to being on the halter, as any self-respecting range horse would, and he pulled back and sideways and almost dragged bud from his saddle several times. "ding bat yer," bud would shout, "yer ornery, unsanctified, muley, harebrained, contaminated son o' a zebra, git down on yer feet an' foller. ye'll git all that's comin' ter yer when ther race starts. save yer sweat until then." but hatrack thought differently, and before they were halfway to snyder it took all the efforts of bud in the lead and ben, kit, and clay whipple in the rear, to keep him moving in a forward direction. only enough boys were left with the herd to keep it from scattering. ted and stella rode in the lead as they entered the town, which was crowded with a motley assemblage of cow-punchers, gamblers, and indians in their gay blankets and with painted faces. the indians of the plains are keen on horse racing, and among the various tribes are to be found some of the fleetest horses in the west, many of them trained to all the tricks of racing. an indian jockey is the shrewdest of his class, and is an adept at all the tricks of the trade. "hi! look at the livin' skeleton!" bud swung around in his saddle and stared at a cow-puncher standing on the sidewalk in snyder, as he rode into town dragging behind him the dejected hatrack, who looked as if he had been living on two oats for dinner and a spear of grass for supper all his life. he ambled along like a tired and footsore dog behind bud, with his ears drooping and his toes kicking up the dust. he was a sad-looking animal, and the word having gone abroad that he was the horse that was to enter the race with magpie, he was jeered from one end of the street to the other, as bud led him to the corral at the edge of the town. bud pretended to be angry at the joshing his steed received, but when he had turned his back upon the jokers he would wink gently to himself in a way that would have been puzzling to the supporters of the spotted horse. cap norris had done his work well. every one in town knew of the coming race, and word had been sent to the ranches in the surrounding country, so that before noon the streets were crowded with people. "say, fellows," said ted, when the boys met at the hotel for dinner, "this fellow norris is sure a sharp. that talk about his wanting to get enough money to take him back home was a lie. he's a gambler, and is in league with a bunch of gamblers in this town." "how do you know?" asked ben. "how do i know? why, man alive, they're betting on magpie all over town. the tip seems to have gotten out that bud morgan and the broncho boys have a surprise up their sleeves, and that they are going to ring in another horse than hatrack." "how is that?" "they believe we're going to slip in another horse, a professional racing horse with a record." "let 'em think so. it won't be a professional race horse--at least, not in this country--that we will put in, but jest ole hatrack, an' if he don't win the race by a city block i'll eat him, hoofs an' all." "put us next, bud," said ben. "that's what," said kit. "you've sure got a trick concealed somewhere. what is it?" "no, i haven't," said bud. "but if i wuz a bettin' man i know what hoss i'd back to win." that was all the boys could get out of him on the subject, but they were convinced none the less that bud had a secret concerning the horse, and that they would learn what it was in good time. the race was to be held at the fair grounds, and was to be a dash of three hundred yards. cap norris would not consent to a longer race, although bud said he would run hatrack any distance up to a quarter of a mile, but the innocent old man with the long whiskers objected to running his horse a long distance. as the hour approached for the race, the grounds began to fill up. several races between indian ponies took place to keep the crowd amused until the big race of the day was to come off. "they've been working us," said ted, coming up to where stella and the boys were standing beside hatrack, which looked more sad and dejected than ever. "in what way?" asked bud. "this race is a gambling game to get the money away from the innocents," answered ted. "they've had men going among the people from the country and the cow-punchers, telling them that it is a put-up job on our part, and that we're sure to win. in that way they have got a lot of people to bet on hatrack. i've a good mind to draw out of it altogether and spoil their game." "for fear the innocents will lose their money?" asked bud. "yes. i don't want to be a party to robbing those fellows." "don't you worry. if you want to punish norris and his friends, don't interfere. let it go on, i tell you. they'll be the worst-beaten lot o' crooks that ever robbed a town." "all right, bud, if you say so." it was now time for the race of the day, and bud and norris marked off the course. ben was appointed judge, with a large man, apparently a stranger in the town, who was chosen by norris, and the two selected a third. the third man was a stranger to ben, but he picked him out of the crowd, and the other judge accepted him. as stella climbed into the saddle, hatrack gave two or three kittenish jumps, and the crowd yelled. it had not expected this added feature to the race, a girl jockey. shout after shout went up as she rode over the course slowly, hatrack having settled down into his usual dejected manner. the cheers and some of the jeers that greeted him came from the men who had been induced to bet on him. "now, stella," said bud, as stella rode back again, "when you start, shout 'vamose!' in hatrack's ear. that's the word he has always been sent away with. stick tight, an' let him go. don't forget the word 'vamose!'" chapter xxvii. the great chiquita. hatrack and magpie were now brought up to the starting point. the boy who traveled with old man norris was on the back of the latter horse, sitting in a regular jockey's saddle and stripped of all superfluous clothing. he was the typical jockey now. he had put away all the appearance of youth, and was a crafty and sly man. it was apparent that the whole outfit was in the racing business, and as the crowd looked at the discrepancy between the two horses, and observed that on the best-looking horse was a professional jockey, while on the crowbait was only a girl, something like a groan went up. but some of them were game, and cheered stella to the echo. "you're all right!" shouted her supporters. "hurrah fer ther girl jockey," yelled the cow-punchers. "i got a month's wages that says she'll win the race." but the other side had something to say, also. they made all sorts of fun of hatrack, and roars of laughter went up as he ambled, stiff-legged, onto the course. clay whipple was chosen to start the race, and stood beside the track with a red flag in his hand. the two horses were jockeyed back and forth for several minutes. "are you ready?" shouted clay, as they came up. "no!" shouted stella. "no!" answered the jockey. back again they went, and came up neck and neck, the riders nodding to clay. "go!" cried clay, bringing down the red flag with a swish through the air. "vamose!" stella's clear young voice rang out. then an amazing thing happened. hatrack seemed to be suddenly galvanized into life. he straightened out, and shot to the front with great, long horizontal leaps. his body seemed to be gliding close to the earth. his head was between his legs, and he was running like a greyhound. stella was bent low upon his neck, and every moment or two she would shout in spanish, "go it! vamose!" or, "you're winning! vamose!" and winning hatrack surely was. now he was half a length ahead of the fleet magpie, who was running the race of her life. behind her stella could hear the crowd yelling like mad. the air fairly shook with the shouts of the multitude as the two horses shot forward. but it was a short race, and seemed to stella to have ended almost as soon as it began. as she flew past bud, she got a fleeting glimpse of him jumping up and down in a very ecstasy of glee, and she knew that she had won, and began pulling in hatrack. looking over her shoulder, she saw that magpie was already down to a walk a short distance from the wire, and that cap norris and the jockey were talking earnestly. in a moment she had hatrack turned, and was going back to where bud was waiting for her. "bully for you, stella," shouted bud. "yer rode a great race. jest ez i wanted it run. nobody couldn't hev done it better. i told yer ye'd win." "that was too easy," laughed stella. "i wish it had been four times as long." "that makes it all the better." "how much did i beat him?" "a whole length." "that ought to be enough." "it was, but i'll bet a cooky they'll make a kick. these crooks always lay out to win, and won't race unless they can win. if they don't, they set up a cry of foul, or something of that sort." "but they can't do that in this case, because i didn't foul him." stella became indignant at the very thought. "sure you didn't, but that won't keep those wolves from claiming some sort of a foul." "you're not going to stand for it, are you?" "not in a blue moon. i've got the boys posted. here comes norris and his jockey back." the old racing sharp walked up to bud, leading magpie. "well, magpie's mine," said bud, not giving the other a chance to speak first. "sorry for your sake that you lost, cap, but the fortunes of racing often turn unexpectedly, eh?" "you haven't won," said the old man excitedly. "oh, i reckon we won, all right," answered bud lazily, although there was an ugly gleam in his eye. "no, sir, you didn't win fair. thar wuz a foul at ther start. i see it, all right; i wasn't shore until i talked with my boy thar, an' he says as how ther young lady bumped him outer his stride jest ez they wuz gittin' off." "oh, no, you can't work me like that, cap. they were five feet apart when the flag fell." "i tell yer i see it with my own eyes. 'twas a foul, an' i claim ther race, er it hez got ter be run over ag'in." "never, on yer life. the race goes to the young lady. but i'm not going to stand here and chew the thing over with you. it's up to the judges." they all approached the judges' stand, where apparently a lively argument was in progress. ben and the big man who had been chosen by norris were talking excitedly, and the other man was listening. all about the stand an angry crowd of men was surging, all talking at once, so that nothing could be made out of the babel of shouts, except when some person with unusually good lungs made himself heard in a denunciation of one or the other riders. ted had joined the crowd, waiting for the arrival of bud and stella. bud was walking by the side of stella, whose face showed the disappointment she felt at not being declared at once the winner. it was so evidently a job to steal the race from hatrack that the leader of the broncho boys was both angry and disgusted. "this is what you get for having anything to do with this mob of gamblers and thieves," he said to kit, who was standing by his side. "what's that you said, young feller?" said a man, edging up. "i wasn't talking to you, my friend," answered ted coolly. "no, but you was talkin' at me," said the other. "why, are you a thief and a gambler?" asked ted, with a lifting of his eyebrows that expressed a great deal that he did not say. "i guess it's the other way around," answered the fellow, snarling. "i don't see how you make that out." "well, i do. the gal bumped the rider o' magpie." "she did nothing of the sort. i stood beside the starter of the race, and i was nearer to the horses than you were, and if any one could see them i could. the horses were several feet apart when they started." "why, sure. you and your pals are interested in the bone heap that went in first through a foul." "that will be about enough of that." a bright red spot burned on each of ted's cheeks, the danger signal of his wrath. "now, see here, young fellow, you can't throw any bluff into me," said the fellow, approaching ted with one shoulder raised. "you let him alone. he's all right, and has got as much right to talk as you have," said another man, elbowing his way up. he was one of those who had bet on hatrack, and ted recognized him as the foreman of the running water horse ranch. "well, the gal stole the race fer these fellers, an' we ain't goin' ter stand fer it. they needn't think they kin bring any o' their gals in here to do their dirty work. they all look alike to us." "see here," said ted coolly, "let me give you a piece of advice. leave the young lady out of it, or i'll give you something else to think about for a while." "rats fer you," said the fellow, snapping his fingers under ted's nose. he picked himself from the ground ten feet away, wiping his bleeding nose and wondering what had happened to him. "say, boy," said the foreman of the running water, "that was as pretty and clean a blow as ever i see. you can handle them mitts o' yours right handy." a score of men had rushed up and surrounded ted and kit, all shouting and gesticulating at the same time. meantime, ben was having his troubles in the judges' stand. he had, of course, decided in favor of hatrack, while the big man had declared for a foul and no decision, and the third judge stood wavering. on the face of it the whole thing was a steal on the part of the gamblers, who had evidently decided beforehand that if the race went against them to claim a foul and bluff it through. but they had argued without their host. they did not know what they were opposing when they ran against ted strong. ted was sorry that he had gone into the affair at all, but once in he was there to stick to the finish. the fellow whom he had knocked down had retired to the rear to attend to his broken nose, and to give his friends an opportunity to fight his battle. the foreman of the running water had disappeared. he had foreseen trouble when the gamblers got together, and attempted to force the race through, and had gone to collect the cow-punchers and others who had been induced to bet on hatrack. ted stood his ground patiently, waiting until a decision should be handed down by the judges before declaring himself. stella was sitting in her saddle on hatrack a few feet away from the stand watching the proceedings, and listening to the arguments on both sides made by the angry men. bud and kit stood on either side of her, to protect her from the remarks of the disgruntled gamblers. suddenly a man pushed his way through the throng, mounted on a spanish mule. he was a fine-looking man, dressed after the manner of the plainsman, and might have been either a cow-puncher in prosperity or a ranch owner. as the crowd made way for him he caught sight of bud, and stopped and stared for several moments without speaking. bud had not noticed him, but when he did look up he returned the stare, and his forehead was wrinkled in thought. somewhere in the back part of his head he carried a picture of this man, but under different circumstances. who could he be, and where had he been met, were the things that were puzzling bud. "hello, pard, you don't seem to place me," said the man on the spanish mule. "but i haven't forgotten you by a dern sight. think hard." "i've saw yer som'er's," said bud thoughtfully, "but it wa'n't like this. you're som'er's in my picture gallery o' faces, but yer ain't ther same as when i saw yer last." "right ye are," said the man. "how's chiquita getting along?" "ah, i've got yer now. how did yer come out? middlin' well, ter jedge from ther mule yer ridin', an' yer ginral appearance o' prosperity." "you bet i be," said the man, "an' if it hadn't been fer you i wouldn't have been nowhere. i've come a long ways ter hunt yer up, ter thank yer, an' to get better acquainted with yer." "well, ye've got me inter a heap o' trouble," said bud, laughing. "so i see, an' i'll help yer get out o' it. what seems ter be the trouble?" "well, old chiquita, er hatrack, ez ther boys in ther outfit calls him, won a race just now, an' ther gamblers won't stand by it. they sent out word that hatrack was a sure winner, an'--" "same old thing. chiquita fooled them all." "i didn't know he could do it myself, but i remembered what you said about him, an' when an ole maverick come along an' banters me fer a race i jest took him up, an' this is how it come out. he took us fer a bunch o' gillies, an' used us to try to fleece the people." "what's his name?" asked the man on the spanish mule softly. "cap norris." "oh, ole pap norris, eh? calls hisself cap now, does he?" "that's what he does, an' he's a derned ole skin." "none skinnier. but where is he? i should like to see him." "he's sashayin' around here som'er's attendin' ter his dirty work. lookin' after his grandson, little willie, i reckon." "what, is that thief still hangin' on to him?" "yes. i see you seem to know him." "know him! well, i should gurgle i do know him. i thought every hoss man in the country knew him. little willie, the orphaned grandson, is almost old enough to be a grandfather himself. he's an outlawed jockey, an' he an' pap go about the country skinning countrymen and cow-punchers with his fake races. he never won a square race in his life. i should say i did know him. here he comes now. watch me wake him up." the old fellow was bustling up to the crowd. "see here, young fellow, get ther gal offen that hoss, he's mine, er as good as mine in a moment. the jedges are goin' ter award ther race ter me on account o' ther foul," he shouted to bud. "i reckon ther hoss stays right with me," said bud smoothly. "but i want ter tell yer thet yer better bring in that magpie hoss so's i kin git him quick. he ain't yours no more." "come, come! none o' yer foolishness with me," blustered the old man. "git ther gal off before she's pulled off." "you or any other man put your finger on thet young lady if yer dare," said bud. "jest try it once if yer think i'm bluffin', men." "hello, pap," said the man on the spanish mule. "up ter yer ole tricks, i see." the old man looked up at the man on the mule, then turned pale and slunk away without another word. "men," said the man on the mule, addressing the crowd, "you've been stung. this old bag o' bones is chiquita, the best race horse ever produced in mexico, an' i brought him over here, where i traded him for a plain cayuse an' gave something ter boot. if any o' you men know anything about hosses ye'll recognize ther great chiquita, what made an' lost more money fer ther people o' mexico than any one other thing. pap didn't know it until he see me, then he suddenly remembered a little deal me an' him was in. i know this magpie hoss well, an' it couldn't stand no more show of winnin' a race from chiquita than a snail would. take it from me that ye've been caught at yer own game, an' have been done." at the name of chiquita a groan went up from the gamblers. "and who are you?" asked bud. "come nearer, an' i'll tell you in your ear," was the reply. bud went close to him, and the man stooped in his saddle and whispered a word in his ear, at which the old cow-puncher looked startled, then burst into a fit of laughter. chapter xxviii ted's great victory. "i tell you i'll never stand for it." the voice of big ben tremont could be heard roaring above the noise made by the crowd around the judges' stand. "it's a go. the race goes to magpie on a foul." the big man in the stand made this announcement in a voice of thunder. "bully for you, shan rhue!" yelled the gamblers, crowding to the stand in a body. at the same moment bud caught hatrack by the bridle and led him out of the crowd, for he knew what was impending. "i say it don't go," shouted ben. "this man, who is in league with that old crook, norris, declares a foul. i say there was no foul." "how does the other judge go?" called a voice. "he declines to give a voice in the matter," answered ben. "throw the coyote down here, and we'll help him make up his mind," called the foreman of the running water. "if he's too much of a coward to decide for the right, we'll help him. throw him over." the foreman of the running water was a formidable-looking man. he was tall and sinewy, with a seamed and scarred face, a map of many battles with the elements, the wild animals of mountain and plain, and with his fellow men. he was heavily armed, and the town gamblers knew him for a bad fighter when he was aroused. "stick fer ther big show," he said to ted, who was standing beside him. "i've got the boys bunched back there on the edge of the crowd. when it comes to a show-down we'll all be here. but it's no place fer wimmin an' children." "i don't want to get into a fight if we can help it," said ted. "yer ain't afraid o' these cattle, aire ye?" asked the foreman, looking at ted curiously, but with a shade of disappointment in his eyes. "not for a minute," said ted, throwing a straight glance into the other's eyes. "there's nothing to be afraid of, that i can see. but what's the use if we can get at it in some other way?" "well, i reckon yer right, bub," said the other slowly. "some one is shore liable ter git hurt. but i'd sooner see ther whole crowd hurt than have this bunch o' thieves git away with their game." "they won't do that. never fear." the crowd was now watching the men in the judges' stand. evidently ben and shan rhue were wrestling in spirit with the third judge, who was still wavering. he knew that the right was with ben, but he was afraid of the big bully shan, and the gamblers, who were most in evidence. he did not know that the cow-punchers and the townspeople who had bet on hatrack were being organized on the outskirts of the crowd, and that kit and clay and the other broncho boys were with them to direct them to the attack when it might seem necessary to assert their rights. suddenly there was a roar from the crowd. shan rhue had struck ben tremont a staggering blow. they heard ben let out a roar like a wounded bull, as he threw the great bulk of his body upon the man who had struck him. now they were wrestling, and the frail stand in which they were, fifteen feet above the ground, swayed with their struggle. "kill him!" shouted the gamblers. "throw him down here!" "let us finish him!" "stay with him, shan!" these and other cries and threats were shouted by the mob. but ted strong said nothing. he was watching the struggle intently and quietly. he had no fear but that ben would be able to hold his own. his great strength hardly matched that of shan rhue, who was a giant, and the most feared man in the wichita mountains. but ben was more than his match in wrestling skill, and, moreover, he was younger and more supple for all his bulk, and his work on the football gridiron when in college had taught him tricks of the tackle of which the big bully did not dream. he had a hold on the bully now, and was gradually forcing him backward toward the frail railing that inclosed the floor of the stand. ted saw his intention. it was to throw shan rhue against the railing, then spring away. rhue evidently divined the same thing, for he struggled with all his force against it, striking ben in the ribs and occasionally in the face. but his blows were not very effective, as ben had him caught so closely that his blows lost their power. thus the struggle went on for a few moments. then, when it was least expected, there was a crash of breaking wood. a yell went up from the crowd as it surged back, and the gigantic body of shan rhue came hurtling through the railing, which went into splinters from the impact of his bulk. shan rhue grasped at the air, as with a roar he went over. he turned a complete somersault as he descended and landed on his shoulders. for a moment he lay quivering, half stunned. there was dead silence in the crowd and none dared go to his assistance. but presently the bully sat up and passed his hand over his eyes. with a roar of pain and rage he sprang to his feet and looked around. the nearest person to him was the leader of the broncho boys, who stood on the edge of the crowd, alert and smiling. ted knew that it meant fight now. he was convinced that ben was in the right, but right or wrong, ben had started it, and it was now up to the broncho boys to see that their side did not get the worst of it. realizing that ted was an enemy, shan rhue made a rush at him. those beside ted turned and ran. but ted did not move. he only stood a little tenser. it took but a moment for the bully to cross the distance that lay between him and ted. his rush was like that of a bull, and as irresistible. but ted did not propose to take the brunt of it. he knew several tricks better than that. as rhue was about to launch himself upon ted, the latter stepped lightly aside. so sure was rhue of landing on ted and bearing him to the ground that he had leaped into the air, and, finding nothing to stop his progress, was overbalanced. a sweep of ted's foot completed it, for the legs of the bully were swept from under him, and he went to the sod on his face with a crash that seemed to shake the earth. like an eagle upon its prey, ted was on the back of the bully. the crowd shouted like mad, eager to go to the rescue of their champion. but ted heard the voice of the foreman of running water high above the din. "it's the boy's fight, an' any man that breaks through the line will get a ball from my forty-four plumb through him. stand back, you cattle!" "let 'em go, fellers. shan will kill him in a minute," shouted one of the gamblers. shan rhue had been badly shaken up by the jolt that had been his when he struck the ground. for several moments he did not stir, and ted thought he had been knocked out. many of the men in the crowd knew things about shan rhue which ted did not. rhue was considered the strongest man in the southwest at that time. he was barely forty years old, in the prime of his life, and a man who had never dissipated. but he was a thoroughly bad man for all that, and the number of men whom he had killed had been forgotten. his feats of strength were the talk of barrooms and bunk houses. he had been seen many times to break horseshoes with his hands, and as for bending a bar of iron by striking the muscles of his forearm with it, that was one of his ordinary tricks. but the thing of which he was proudest was his ability to buck a man off his back. in this feat he barred none, no matter how heavy. he would get on his hands and knees, place a surcingle around his body under his arms for his rider to hold on by, and then proceed to buck. it would seem impossible for a man to stick to him under such circumstances, and no one had been found yet who could do so. thus it was that those of the crowd who had witnessed this feat sometimes in a fight, and more often in friendly contest, looked to see ted sailing through the air, and then the finish, for shan rhue was a merciless enemy. ted was now straddling the prostrate bully, who was breathing heavily, his body heaving as his lungs tried to get back into commission. presently he was all right again, and, feeling a weight upon him, shook himself. this not having the effect of relieving him of his burden, he twisted his head around and saw ted sitting on him. with a growl like a wounded bear he slowly lifted himself to the height of his arms, then slowly rose to his knees. "by golly, he's goin' ter buck him off," shouted one in the crowd. "look out fer some fun, lads," cried another. "he'll kill ther kid sure," said a third. in a moment ted realized what was coming off. the hold he had on the back of shan rhue was none of the most secure at best, but he got a clutch on the fellow's shirt under the arm, just back of the armpits, and he felt that he had in his fingers great bunches of the bully's muscles. by the merest chance he had secured the only hold by which he could hope to stick to the giant's back. then the fun began. shan rhue plunged back and forth, sideways and up and down. the movement was incessant. he reared and pitched, and, having cunning and intelligence, he was able to distinguish when ted's seat was least secure and take advantage of it. ted had ridden many bucking bronchos, but shan rhue beat any of them in the surprises which he furnished. but ted stuck grimly to him. he knew that if the bully succeeded in throwing him off his life would not be worth a rushlight, for shan was a rough fighter and would not hesitate to kick him brutally, if he did not shoot him to death before the boys could come to his assistance. thus the struggle went on for several minutes, shan doing his utmost and ted hanging on. but the big fellow was getting winded by his exertions. he was not in the best condition, for all his tremendous power. he was going fast, and ted was badly shaken up and out of breath, also. if shan held out a few minutes longer ted must be thrown, for his hold on the muscles under his antagonist's arms had begun to loosen, and he dared not let go for an instant to get a fresh grip. it was close to the finish, and the crowd knew it. "he's goin', shan. a few more will finish him," shouted the gamblers. "stick to him, ted. he's almost in," cried the boys. ted took heart at this, although his body was racked with pains, caused by the innumerable wrenchings to which it had been subjected. suddenly shan rhue was all in. his body flattened out upon the ground, and he lay there panting laboriously. ted sprang to his feet gasping. thus for a few minutes both remained, amid intense silence from the crowd. shan rhue's body was heaving painfully. it was evident that he had never had before a struggle like this. little by little he recovered, but ted's recovery was quicker than that of the man. his youth and strength were responsible for this. but finally shan rhue was himself again, and suddenly he leaped to his feet and glared around. his eyes fell upon ted, and he looked him up and down in a sort of amazement. had this stripling accomplished what older and stronger men had failed in? shan rhue could hardly believe it, but it took some of the conceit out of him at that. however, his anger at ted had not been in the least assuaged by the fact that the first honors had gone to this youth who now stood watching him with a smile on his lips, but with the light of battle in his eyes. with a sneer shan rhue rushed at ted. this time he would annihilate him. but ted was crouching, awaiting him. his muscles were like steel springs. his breath had come to him again, and he was ready to fight for his life, for it had come to that now. suddenly there was a smack, sharp and clear in the silence that hung over the crowd. shan rhue staggered back on his heels. the blow from ted's fist had struck him fairly below the eye. before he could recover ted was upon him like a panther. one, two, three, blows fell with a sharp, sickening sound upon the face and throat of the famous shan rhue, as he lurched backward, vainly trying to defend himself. his body went to the earth with a crash, and he lay there moaning and quivering, beaten, discredited, and no more the hero, for he had been conquered by a boy. chapter xxix. kit makes a capture. shan rhue lay prostrate for a long time, but no one went to his assistance. as he fell the gamblers raised a shout, and made a motion to attack ted. but the foreman of running water sprang in front of them, and as if by magic the broncho boys and the cow-punchers and other supporters of hatrack were by his side. ted had leaped to the fore and was standing shoulder to shoulder with the foreman of running water. he heard a ripple of laughter, and looked up to see stella standing by his side. "bully for you, ted," she said. "you did that fine." ted smiled back at her, then turned his eyes upon the surprised and angry gamblers. there was something there that demanded all his attention. the gamblers only needed a leader to make them a dangerous proposition. but their leader was down and out by reason of a few neat and handy blows, and none other had the courage to come to the front. it was the psychological moment. ted strong took advantage of it. without a moment's hesitation, he stepped in front of the foreman of running water, who moved back to give him the place of vantage. ted had not even taken his six-shooter from its holster, but stood with his hands resting lightly on his hips, while his eyes roved inquiringly over the menacing crowd. "any of you gentlemen like to have some of the same sort of medicine?" he asked, nodding toward the prostrate rhue. there was no reply. "because if any of you would, i, or any of my friends, will be glad to accommodate you," he added. an ominous growl came from some one back in the crowd. "would you like some of it?" asked ted, turning suddenly in that direction. he waited for several moments for an answer, but none came. "now, you fellows, i want to say that this incident is closed," said he firmly. "you are beaten every way from the jack, as you would say. you put up this race to skin innocent parties, and you thought to use my friends for your purposes, and have failed. the face was fairly won by our horse, and that goes. if any man doubts it, i will prove it to him by any means he wishes, from fists up to howitzers. you have made a lot of fools of yourselves by allowing an old crook like norris to play in with you. i haven't a bit of sympathy for you. i'm glad you lost your money, and i'd feel gladder if you all went broke. this is the end of this adventure. where's norris? we want that magpie horse which we won." the men dispersed after this speech, which closed with a ringing cheer from the broncho boys and the cow-punchers and other friends of hatrack. but norris could not be found. he and the horse and the jockey had disappeared. ted rounded the boys up, and all were present except kit. "where's kit?" he asked. "don't know," said bud. "he was around here a few minutes ago. reckon he's somewhere about." the crowd having dispersed uptown, a search was made for kit, but he could not be found. "i wonder if some of that gang hasn't got square with us by some foul play on kit," said ted. "it would be like the coyotes. kit was the smallest of the lot, and naturally the cowards would pick him." "kit's small, all right," said stella stoutly, for she and kit were great friends, and stella was always one to stick up for those she liked. "if they pick kit for his size, and think they have got an easy thing, they will find that they have gathered up a red-hot chile pepper. he'll give them the hottest fight they ever had, as long as he lasts." "hurray fer you, stella," exclaimed bud. "you speak for fair. kit's not much on size, but he's a whirlwind." shan rhue was slowly getting on his feet. his broad, brutal face was badly discolored where ted's fists had come in contact with it. one of his eyes was bloodshot and rapidly taking on a green-and-purple hue, and his upper lip stuck out like an overhanging roof. as he looked around and saw that the broncho boys were alone, and that he had been left to recover as best he might by those whom he had called his friends and supporters, he growled deep in his chest. "the skunks," he muttered, between his swollen lips. "they'd make me fight an' steal fer them, an' then leave me in the hole, would they? well, i'll make them hump fer this." then he looked unsteadily at ted out of his good eye, as if he was wondering how it all had happened. but while his glance was not as belligerent as it had been, still there was nothing but hatred in his expression. ted eyed him back fearlessly, but this time his hand rested upon the handle of his revolver, and stella, by his side, was on the alert also. shan rhue was not one to be trusted, especially after he had met defeat. after staring for a moment he spoke. "i reckon yer beat me fair, young feller," he said, "although i don't know yet how yer did it. but i want ter say ter yer now that this ain't the end, by no means." "that's all right," said ted easily. "you keep out of my way, and you will be all right." "i go where i please, an' do what i please, an' ask ther right o' no man," retorted shan rhue truculently. "all right, go where you please, but don't run afoul of me," said ted sharply. "i don't want to have anything to do with such cattle as you, and i don't propose to. keep off my trail if you know when you're well off. this is a friendly tip--take it or leave it." "i don't want none o' yer tips," growled shan rhue. "ye've beaten me, an' i hate yer. look out fer me next time, that's all." "yes, that's all. skidoo! you're not pretty to look at." ted turned his back upon the defeated bully, but stella did not, and had shan rhue made a motion toward his gun there would have been one with a pearl handle and trimmed with silver in commission in an instant. with a long, malignant look after ted, the bully turned and hobbled slowly from the fair grounds. "i'm going to start on the trail of norris," said ted. "want to come along, stella?" "you bet i do," said the girl. "wait till i catch my pony." "ben, you and bud ride through the town and see if you can't get on to the movements of that old rip norris, also, and look out for kit. if we don't get norris, and make him give up that magpie pony, our work has not been half done. as long as we have won out all around, we might as well have the fruits of our victory," said ted. "what'll we do to ther coyote?" asked bud. "part his coat tails and give him a good, swift kick," answered ted. "but don't get into any fights with these town gamblers. we can't afford anything of that sort, you know." "all righty; but i'd shore like ter git a crack at some o' them mavericks," said bud grudgingly. "they're all licked in their minds already," said ted. "of course, they're sore at losing their money, and if a dozen or more of them were to tackle you, you'd have a hard time getting away with it. when the fight comes off, if ever it does, we all want to be in on it." they parted, and ted and stella rode into the town. "say, friend, have you seen anything of that old skin norris?" asked ted, meeting one of the running water outfit on the street. "yep. i wuz jest goin' ter look yer up an' post yer," was the reply. "which way did he go, or is he still in town?" "jest after yer put ther finish onto shan--an', say, that wuz a beaut, if any one should ask you--i see norris an' ther jock makin' fer ther gate, leadin' ther magpie bronc. i thinks they're goin' ter put him in ther corral fer yer, an' didn't pay much 'tention ter him." "then he's up at the corral?" "no, he ain't. he's foggin' along to'rds ther wichita mountains as fast as he kin go." "how do you know?" "i met one o' our outfit a bit ago, an' he was sore because yer let ther old feller git away with ther magpie, after yer won him fair. yer see, he thinks ye flunked on collectin' ther pony." "not on your life. we don't do business that way." "that's what i was thinkin', so i ast him whichever way ther ole man was headin'. he says inter ther east, tickity-brindle." "which road?" "right out ther east end o' ther main street." "thank you, pard." "yer almighty welcome. good luck. if yer ketch up with ther coyote, bring him in an' let us have a good squint at him." "oh, i'll bring him in, all right, if i get him." "so long!" "so long! come on, stella, we'll have to kick dust if we're going to connect with that old party." they dashed down the street, followed by an equal mingling of smiles and frowns. smiles from the cow-punchers and townspeople whose champion he had been, and frowns from the gamblers. but they saw neither, for they were intent upon their business. they made a mighty handsome couple as they dashed along, for they were well mounted and both were perfect riders. many a young girl walking along the street looked enviously after stella, and wished she could ride as well and was as beautiful. and many a lad looked after his ideal of a hero of the west, dashing and brave ted strong, who had so lately vanquished the bully who had been feared of all men, and who could ride like a centaur, and shoot perfectly. it did not take long for them to clear the town, and dash out onto the prairie road which led into the wichita mountains. they did not spare their horses, for ted knew that if norris once succeeded in reaching the mountains it would be almost impossible to find him among the many fastnesses and deep and rough caã±ons which abound in those most picturesque hills and peaks. while ted knew the wichita mountains well, he was also aware that even the most expert scout did not know all about them, and that there were places in them that had never been explored, unless, perhaps, by renegade indians and white outlaws, with which the mountains had at times been infested. they had ridden an hour or more when ted pulled in his pony. "no use riding our ponies to death the first heat," he said to stella, with a smile. "my cayuse is good for another hour," said stella; "i can tell by the way he's going under me." "yours would last because you're such a light and easy rider. you take weight off a pony. but i'm a good deal heavier, and i can feel this fellow tiring, although he'd go until he dropped in his tracks if i'd let him." they walked their ponies over the springy sod beside the road, which was becoming fainter the farther they got from the town. in the distance they could see the mountains, a dark mass against the sky. "some one on the road," said stella, pointing ahead. "it is a little hazy. dust, i guess," said ted. "i think we better hit it up a bit. perhaps it is norris and his precious 'grandson,' and if it is we'll get to them before they get to the mountains." they put their ponies, at a lope, and seemed to be catching up with the dust cloud rapidly. soon they were able to distinguish two riders. "by jove, i believe we are on the right track," said ted. stella's bright eyes had been watching the riders in front of them for some time. "ted, it's not norris. there are two riders, one behind the other, and they are coming this way," she said. ted reined in his pony, and took a long look. "you're right, stella," he said. "but, perhaps, we can get some news of the fugitives from them." again they spurred forward. "ted, that's kit, as sure as you live," cried stella, "i'd know him anywhere." in a few minutes they were within hailing distance, and ted gave the long yell, which was answered, and in a few minutes they were reining in beside kit. behind him, securely bound to the back of magpie, was old man norris, who looked very crestfallen. "hello, kit, you rascal, i see that you got him," said ted. "you bet, and a merry chase i had after him," answered kit. "why, kit, what's the matter with your arm?" cried stella. kit's arm was hanging by his side, and his coat sleeve near his shoulder was stained with blood. "shot!" answered kit laconically. "bad?" asked stella anxiously. "not so very. just touched the bone. but it has been bleeding like the deuce." "ted, take charge of the prisoner. kit, get off that horse and let me see that wound." stella's commands were promptly obeyed, and kit groaned slightly as stella helped him off with his coat and cut away his sleeve. he had received a nasty flesh wound near the shoulder, made by a ball of large caliber, which had passed clear through. as soon as she had washed the wound with water from ted's canteen, and had bound it up, kit felt much more comfortable. "how did it happen?" asked stella. "i heard that the old man and the jockey had made a sneak from the grounds when ted was having his fun with the big fellow, and i got my bronc and followed them. i came up with them a ways back, and made the old duffer halt, but the jock potted me and got away. that's all." chapter xxx. kit's troublesome prisoner. "kit, you're the most reckless boy i ever knew," said stella, as he climbed into his saddle with some effort, for his arm was stiff and swollen, and it was all he could do to keep from groaning with every jump of his pony. "what in the world made you start after them alone?" asked ted. "well, you were busy with the big bully, and, although i felt certain that you would get the best of him in the end, i thought it wouldn't be good policy to take any of the boys with me, in case there should be a general fight. i know you would need all the fellows." "well, but, dog-gone you, you ought to have taken some one," said ted. "how did you know but the old man and the jockey were not dangerous fellows? men in their business are generally bad actors when it comes to a scrimmage." "oh, i thought i could handle them," laughed kit. "and i could, too, only i got careless, and let that jockey get the drop on me. the old man knuckled under gracefully when i presented my card." "did you get the old man after you were shot?" "yes. you see, this was how it was: i got sight of them a short ways ahead of me. they were evidently saving their horses, for they were traveling slowly." "didn't they get next that they were being followed?" "i don't think so. they saw only one rider, and i suppose they thought that if they were pursued at all it would be by several men, and they were confident that with their horses they could run away from anything we had except hatrack." "it's a wonder they didn't light out quick." "i think they figured to save their horses until they were sure they were being followed." "then what happened?" "i saw them look back at me several times, but they did not hit up their speed any." "were you fogging along pretty fast?" "not so very. you see, i didn't want them to think that i was on their trail. i went just fast enough to overtake them gradually. if they had got on to me they would have been out of sight before i could gather up my reins." "foxy kit," said stella. "and they let you come right up with them?" asked ted. "yep. i was right up on them before they got on to me." "they recognized you, eh?" "they did when i was about twenty feet away. then i heard the old man holler, 'it's one o' them dern broncho boys.'" "and then what?" "well, you see, i didn't have my gun out, and, as he says that, the jockey pulls and fires one shot, which landed in my arm. then, before i can reach around and get my gun out with my left hand, he gets away. but the action was too quick for the old man, and he sat still until i had him covered, when i had sent a couple of balls after the jock to make him hit up the pace a bit." "the old man was easy, eh?" "easiest kind. but he might have got away from me if he had the nerve." "well, kit, you did a great stunt. i'm mighty glad you landed the old coot. but i don't know what to do with him now that we have him." "well, we better take him to town, anyway. he'd get lost if we turned him loose out here. let his friends take care of him, when he gets there." "all right; let's move on." not much was said as they made their way back to town. old man norris did not open his mouth, but looked dejected and sad, as if he was brooding over what would happen to him when he arrived at his destination. he was plainly uneasy, and probably wished they would turn him loose. when they were within a mile of the town they saw a cloud of dust approaching them rapidly, and watched it curiously. it was a horseman, fogging along at a rapid pace. finally out of the dust emerged bud morgan, and as he came abreast of them he pulled his horse down on its haunches. "howdy?" he said. "how?" answered the others. "so yer got ther ole pelican, eh?" said bud, with a grin. "kit did," said ted. "bully for you, kit," said bud heartily. "i was in town, an' a feller from over to running water told me you and stella had come out this way, an' i follered. what's the matter with your arm, kit?" "got a shot through it." "sho! did that old pirate give it to you?" "no, the jockey, and then he flew." "i've got a good mind to go after him, an' bring him in." "wouldn't do any good. at the rate he was going when i sent a message after him, he's clear into the suburbs of chicago by this time." they were soon on the outskirts of the town, and as they entered the main street they saw a crowd of men coming toward them. "here comes a reception committee," said ted. "wonder who they are, and what they want." "by jove, there's that big fellow shan rhue," exclaimed kit. "i wonder what he's after." "i thought he had enough o' our kind o' medicine not to want ter tackle us so soon again," said bud. "i don't like the looks of that gang," said ted. "neither do i," said stella. "i've a hunch that they mean mischief." "in what way?" asked ted. "well, i can't exactly define the feeling i have, but somehow i think they don't want _us_." "eh? whom do they want?" for reply stella made a motion toward norris. ted looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then comprehended. "i see," he said seriously. "well, they won't get him." "bud, where are the other boys?" asked stella. "uptown som'er's. why?" said bud. "they ought to be here," said the girl seriously. "i think we'll be needing them soon." "i tumble, an' i'll jest fog on ahead an' gather them up." "yes," said ted. "and while you're about it see if you can't find that foreman of the running water ranch, and have him round up his boys or a few good fellows who will back us up if it comes to trouble. i don't know what his name is, do you?" "yes, his name is andy bowles, an' he's as good as three ordinary men." "then fly. there's no telling what's coming off." bud gave his pony the rowels, and in a moment was out of sight in a cloud of dust. ted and the others rode steadily forward, the two parties approaching nearer every moment. the party headed by shan rhue had taken to the middle of the road, and soon they had come together, and both halted. for a moment nothing was said. ted was in advance, holding the reins of the pony on which norris was tied hand and foot, stella was on one side of norris, and kit on the other. "well?" said ted inquiringly, as they came face to face. he looked directly at shan rhue as he said it, then allowed his eyes to wander over the crowd. in it he saw some of the toughest characters in that part of the country. they were men who bore the reputation of being cattle rustlers on provocation, and who had been suspected of horse stealing and other crimes. "we want that man," said shan rhue shortly and roughly. "is that so?" said ted, with feigned surprise. "yes, that's so," was the surly reply. "then why didn't you go out and get him?" "we left that to you," said shan, with a nasty laugh. "then you'll still leave him to me." "well, we want him, and that's all there is to it." "what do you want with him?" "we'll show you when we get him." "it's a cinch you won't get him until you do show me." "now, i don't want to have any trouble with you, young feller, but--" "i shouldn't think you would." at this retort a snicker went up in the crowd, and shan turned upon his followers with a brow like a thundercloud. but he said nothing, as the snicker subsided as soon as it began. "and i don't want any of your lip, either. give us the old man peaceable, an' you can go." "say, that's real good of you. but i want to tell you one thing, shan rhue, before you lose any more breath in conversation, you don't get him unless you tell me what you propose doing with him, and perhaps not then. it's up to me to say who gets him, or what is done with him. you seem to forget that he's my prisoner, not yours." "well, i'll tell you what we're going to do with him," said the bully, with a blustering air. "we're goin' to hang him as high as that telegraph pole out thar." "bet you anything you've got you don't," said ted, with a pleasant smile. there was a murmur of anger in the crowd. "don't let them get me," wailed old norris. "dry up!" said stella sternly. "don't you see he's trying to save you." "why do you want to hang this old man?" asked ted. "because he whipsawed us all. he's the only one who got any money out of that race. we gave him five hundred dollars to pull it off. he was broke, and couldn't have bet a cent on it, anyway. that's why. he said his horse would win in a walk, and every one of us went broke on it." "good! i'm glad to hear it," said ted heartily. "you ought to have lost. but i'll tell you one thing, the old man really thought his horse would win. he didn't know that bud's horse was the old mexican racer, chiquita; neither did any of us except bud, who kept the matter to himself, and there you are. the old man is a professional skin, i'm free to confess, but he was out to skin us, not you. you've got nothing against him. you were beaten by gambler's luck, and now you're not game to stand by it. but there is one sure thing, you'll not get old norris from me until you kill me. that's a cinch." "you're a game kid, all right," said shan rhue, "but you're committing suicide with that kind o' talk. i didn't lose so much myself, an' i ain't got nothin' agin' the ole man; it's you i'm after--" "why didn't you come alone if you wanted me? was it necessary for you to bring a whole posse with you?" "now, the less i hear of that kind o' talk, the easier it will be for you. hand over the old gaffer, an' go your way peaceful. you'll get that much chance." "thank you for nothing. i stay by the old man." farther up the street ted saw a commotion out of which evolved a party of men moving in his direction. he had no doubt it was bud and andy bowles, the foreman of the running water ranch. "for the last time, give up that man!" commanded shan rhue. "no." "then we'll take him." kit had cut the old man's bonds, and thrust a revolver into his hand. "fight for your life," he said. with a roar the mob was upon them. revolvers were drawn, and as they rushed forward the dauntless three surrounded norris--three against fifty. "halt!" cried ted. "the first man to lay a hand on any of us is a dead one." "go on an' take him. i'll attend to the kid," shouted shan rhue. "get him!" "string him up!" "lynch the old thief!" these were the cries with which the mob advanced. out of the mob came several shots. ted heard a cry of pain behind him, and turned to see stella reel in her saddle, pale to the lips, with her hand pressing her head, then she fell. with a cry of horror and rage, ted turned toward her, but just then he felt himself seized and dragged from his saddle. something struck him on the back of the head, and all became black. but as he was going off into unconsciousness he heard a shout. it was the old moon valley yell, and he knew that norris would be safe. bud was coming with reã«nforcements. ted had dropped to the road under the feet of the terrified ponies, and it was a miracle that he was not trampled to death. all about him the fight was going on. bud and andy bowles, and about twenty men whom they had hastily got together, had come to the rescue, and the gamblers' gang was soon on the run. they had not been able to get near norris, for kit had fought them off with his one good arm until, finding themselves attacked in the rear, the would-be lynchers ran for their lives. the fight was swift and decisive, and several men lay in the dust when it was over, for andy bowles and bud and ben had fought like tigers. when ted recovered consciousness again he found himself lying in the road beside shan rhue, who had been knocked senseless by a blow from the butt of bud's pistol. ted staggered to his feet. "where's stella?" he cried. the other boys looked around. just before the fight began they had seen her, kit, and the old man, but now she was gone. "stella was wounded," cried ted. "where is she? scatter, men, and find her. she cannot be far away. if anything has happened to her, some one will suffer." chapter xxxi. stella a captive. we will leave ted and the broncho boys, to follow the misadventures of stella. after securing magpie, which was taken back to the cow camp by kit, who, much against his inclinations, was compelled to go into retirement until his arm healed, ted released old man norris, who secured a pony and rode rapidly out of town. when stella fell from the back of her pony to the road she became insensible. a ball from the weapon of one of shan rhue's gang had clipped a lock of hair from her forehead, creasing the skull. by a miracle her life was saved, for the merest fraction of an inch lay between her and death. during the hurly-burly of the fight, and as ted was grasped in the powerful arms of shan rhue, one of the gang rushed up to her as she lay in the dust and picked her up. he was a powerful man, and carried stella's light body as if she had been a child. that he was not seen by some member of the running water outfit was due to the fact that they were too busily engaged in fighting to pay attention to anything else. when stella regained her senses she was conscious of a racking headache, and, placing her hand to her forehead, brought it away wet and sticky. it was quite dark, and she groaned feebly. the pain was excruciating, and the motion of her body made her deathly sick. she felt around her, and her hand came in contact with a cold, hard, yet yielding substance. then she heard the rumble of wheels, and knew that she was in a vehicle of some sort. the motion of the couch on which she was lying was such that she came to the conclusion that she was in one of those old stagecoaches hung on leather springs, which were so much in use in the west before the advent of the railroads. as her mind grew clearer she tried to remember all that had occurred. suddenly it flashed upon her. the capture of old norris, the attempt of shan rhue and his gang to take him away to lynch him, and the beginning of the fight. how it had been finished she did not know. neither did she know whether or not she was in the care of her friends or in the custody of her enemies. probably the latter, for if ted and the boys were taking her somewhere, surely she would have more attention, and the blood would have been washed from the wound on her forehead. the curtains of the stage were down, and she did not know whether it was day or night. outside she heard the voices of men. "hurry up them mules, bill," a man's voice came to her gruffly. "can't get any more out o' them. we've come nigh twenty mile on the run. i tell you, the mules is 'most all in," said a man, evidently the driver of the stage. "well, we ain't got much farther to go," said the other. "but we got to get there before moondown, er we'll be up against it." "what time is the bunch goin' to be at the lone tree?" "ten o'clock." "then we've got just about an hour, eh?" "just about. but we're a long ways off yet. git all y'u can out o' them mules. kill 'em if y'u have to get them there on time." "they're doin' all they can. y'u don't want me to kill them before we get there, do y'u?" asked the driver crossly. "no, but if y'u miss the bunch y'u know what will happen. shan ain't much on the sweet temper since the kid bumped him so hard, an' he don't like y'u too well, nohow. i'm just givin' y'u a friendly tip." "keep it. i ain't so stuck on shan myself as i used to be." "only don't let him know it. we ain't none of us in love with him, an' yet we come up an' eat out o' his hand when he calls us, just like a lot o' hound dogs." the conversation told stella the truth she had dreaded. she had been captured by shan rhue's ruffians, and she knew that she was in a precarious predicament, for she could hope for no mercy from ted's merciless and beaten enemy. she would be used to punish ted, and she sighed at the thought of what grief her disappearance would cause her aunt and the boys. suddenly the curtain on the window was drawn aside. it was bright moonlight without, and in it she saw the villainous face of a man looking in upon her. her eyes met his, and she uttered an exclamation. "hello!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "come to, have y'u?" stella made no reply. "thought fer a while that y'u'd slipped over the great divide," the fellow continued. "no fault of yours that i didn't," said stella weakly, for the pain and nausea to which she was being subjected had taken all her strength. "i ain't had nothin' to do with it, lady. i'm just guidin' the outfit. i don't know y'u, er how y'u got hurt. feelin' better?" "i would be much better if i could get out and walk. the motion of this carriage makes me deathly sick." "can't let y'u do that, lady. we're in too much of a hurry to stop now." "but you might let me have a drink of water. i am dying of thirst." "i reckon i can do that." the flap over the stage window dropped, and in a moment she heard hushed voices outside. then a canteen was thrust through the window. "take all y'u want, lady, an' drink hearty," said her guide. stella wet her handkerchief and bathed her throbbing forehead, then took a deep draft, and felt much refreshed. "here's your canteen," she said. again the flap was thrust aside, and the ugly face looked in upon her with a leer. "where are we, and where are we going?" asked stella. "we're in the wich--" "hey, jack, stow that," cried the driver. "but it won't do no harm--" "you know what the orders is," said the other significantly. "sorry i can't tell y'u, lady. orders is orders." "oh, well, i don't suppose it would do me any good to know where i am, anyway, but you might as well tell me what you are going to do with me. it would relieve my anxiety, and make me feel better." "there ain't no harm comin' to y'u, lady, while i am with y'u," said the fellow, with a hateful leer that made stella shudder. "thank you," she said faintly, as with a sigh she laid her head back again with her wet handkerchief on her brow. so the stage rumbled on for almost an hour, with stella the prey of sickness and pain. she doubted if she could have walked even if she had been permitted to leave the stage. but as she lay there she thought, and from the scraps of conversation she had heard, and from what her guide was about to tell her when he was interrupted by the driver, she knew that she had been captured and abducted during the fight by shan rhue's men, and that she was in the wichita mountains. that much, at least, she knew, but what caused her much anxiety was that she did not know the result of the fight. she came to the conclusion that the broncho boys and their friends must have lost in the encounter, else she would not be in her present predicament. but what of poor old norris, for in spite of his rascality she was sorry that he had fallen into the hands of the ruthless shan rhue. "keep off to the left," shouted the guide. "we're almost there. down into that coulee y'u go. there ain't another crossin' this side o' three mile, an' we ain't got time to go so far out o' our way." "say, we're liable to turn over down there. better get the gal out, an' let her walk down. i can get safe up the other side." "all right. stop 'er." the stage stopped, and the cessation of the swaying, swinging motion was a blessed relief to the tortured girl. "come on out," said the guide, as he threw the door open. "we'll have to ask you to walk to the bottom o' this coulee, if y'u don't want to be scrambled about on the bottom o' the coach." stella was glad to get out, but when her feet were on the ground she swayed and staggered like a drunken person from sheer sickness and weakness. beside her was her guide on his horse, and she was compelled to lean against it for a moment until she recovered herself. the stage had gone lumbering and swaying down the bank of the coulee, and before it reached the bottom it turned on its side. the driver leaped in safety to the ground, and the guide went scrambling down the bank to his assistance. the mules were plunging and kicking, and threatened to break their harness to pieces. stella was mutely thankful that she had not been in the stage when it went over, as she sat down on a rock to rest and watch the efforts of the swearing and angry men to right the stage. once she thought of trying to escape while the men were engrossed in their work, and she arose eagerly. but when she got to her feet she realized the impossibility of such a thing, for she almost fell. then she sank down again, and resigned herself to her fate. but soon the stage was put back on its wheels again, and the guide called to her to come down. this was a slow and painful operation, during which the driver swore impatiently at the delay. but she accomplished it, and crawled into the stage and sank down on the pallet which had been made for her with the seat cushions. now they were off again, faster than before, and with correspondingly more discomfort to stella. oh, if the journey would only end, she thought. "here we are," she heard the guide's voice in a shout. the stage stopped, and stella heard a rush of feet. "got her?" some one demanded gruffly. "yep, but she's all in," replied the guide. "her forehead was creased by a bullet, an' the trip has about finished her." "can't help that. get her out. we've got to be moving. the soldiers are out to-night." "what's the matter?" "injuns.". "uprisin'?" "not yet, but the agent over to fort sill has a tip that they are putting on paint." "what's the trouble?" "somethin' about beef issue. the last cows issued to the injuns were no good, an' the injuns made a kick, an' the agent told them to go to the deuce. old flatnose an' his son moonface, the apache chiefs, have always been bad actors, an' now they are tryin' to scare up a muss." "reckon they'll do it?" "the commandant at fort sill seems to think they will, for he's got two companies out on the scout." "the boys better look out, then. the injuns don't like the gang over at the hole in the wall none too good." "we stand all right with flatnose and his son, an' it's their band that's actin' bad." "well, y'u better get a move on y'u. the moon will be down in an hour." "get the gal out, then, an' we'll be movin'." "all right," said the guide, poking his head into the coach. "here's where you get out. boss said to treat her well," he continued, turning to the man with whom he had been talking. "oh, we'll do that, all right," was the reply. stella scrambled painfully out of the coach. all about her were mounted men, both whites and indians. there were a score or more of them. "can you ride?" asked one of them of stella. "yes," she replied, "if you don't go too fast. i'm sick and weak." "we'll do the best we can," said the man shortly. then he called back to his followers: "jake, bring up that spare hoss." in a moment, and with a staggering weakness, stella climbed into the saddle. with a man on each side of her, she took up the march again. through dark defiles in the black mountains the cavalcade made its way, stella clinging to the saddle, and often in danger of falling off. presently they came into a glade, or park, which was surrounded by towering mountain walls. for half an hour they traversed this, then came to the end, and before them yawned an opening in the wall less than ten feet wide. they entered this, and after traversing it a short distance stella found herself in a circular chamber in the mountains with the starry sky for a roof. several fires were burning in the chamber, around which indians and white men were sprawling, playing cards, talking, or silently smoking. in one corner was a corral, in which many horses were confined. "you can get down now," said the leader of the party that had conducted her to the place. "there is a shelter for you over there." he pointed to a small tent on the farther side of the chamber. "you will be perfectly safe here. you do not seem well. i will send you assistance." "where am i?" asked stella. "you are a prisoner in the hole in the wall," was the reply. "then heaven help me," said stella, sobbing. chapter xxxii. a hole in the herd. the herd of cattle which ted and the broncho boys were herding in no man's land he had branded circle s, named after stella. there were more than two thousand head of them, which ted was feeding on the rich range grasses of the southwest to drive to the moon valley ranch to winter, for it was well known to cowmen that a southern or southwestern beef animal will do better for a winter on the northern range. after stella's disappearance ted and the boys searched every nook and cranny of the town of snyder, but were unable to get the slightest trace of her. dividing into bands, they scoured the country roundabout, being assisted by the cow-punchers and the ranchers in the neighborhood. but stella had disappeared as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. with all his ingenuity, backed by the strong desire he had to find her, ted was making no headway, and he hardly slept or ate during the long days and nights, but was in the saddle almost continuously. naturally, he suspected shan rhue of knowing something about stella's absence, if, indeed, he was not actually responsible for it. but he could not fasten anything on the man whom he had come to regard as his greatest enemy, and whom he knew hated him. whenever he sought shan rhue, he was always to be found at his haunts. tired of the inaction, ted met shan rhue on the street one day, and resolved to have it out with him. "shan rhue, i want to speak with you," said ted, stopping him. "well, what is it you want?" asked shan rhue. "i want you to tell me where stella is," said ted. shan rhue stared at him in apparent amazement. "how should i know where she is?" asked shan rhue, with a wicked twinkling in his eye. "i don't know," answered ted; "but i think you do know." "so i supposed, from the way in which you have had me followed. i suppose you miss her a good deal." "her aunt, mrs. graham, is distraught with grief and anxiety. surely you have no fight on her, or on miss fosdick, either, that you should keep them apart." "no. i have no fight with a woman. but why should i know where the young lady is?" "there are several reasons why you should have had her taken away. but i think the principal reason is that you think you can get square with me by doing so." "there might be something in that. mind me, i am not confessing that i took her away, or that i know who did take her away, or where she is. you have seen me in town every day since the little trouble we had over that old thief norris, haven't you?" "yes, but that tells me nothing. it might not be necessary for you to leave this town to have her hidden somewhere." "but you and your friends searched the town from one end to the other, and you did not find her." "true, but for all that i am satisfied that you know where she is. suppose we call it off, and that you tell me where she is." "if i knew, i would not tell you," said shan rhue, his voice intense with hatred. "what do you mean? are you such a coward that you will punish a woman for your spite against a man? i did not think that of you. i believe stella fosdick was carried off by you, of your men, acting under your instructions." shan rhue's only reply was a sneering laugh. "if i discover that what i say is true," said ted, in a low voice so full of purpose that it was in itself a warning, "you will be the sorriest man in all this country. i will make you suffer by it even as you have caused suffering to others." "so you have suffered, eh? that is good! now i am a little better satisfied. but my debt to you is not yet paid. there are other things in store for you." "what do you mean, you dog? by heaven, i know now that you did cause her abduction, and i shall find her. you cannot keep me away from the place in which you have hidden her. i shall find her if she is at the end of the earth. when i do find her, if anything has harmed her, you, shan rhue, gambler, thief, and murderer, shall pay for it, and pay heavier than for any amusement you have had in all your miserable lying, thieving career." as the epithets addressed to shan rhue left ted's lips, the bully sprang back, and made a motion to draw his six-shooter. but before he had his hand on his hip his eyes were looking into the bore of ted's forty-four. instead of drawing a gun, therefore, he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his dry lips. shan rhue feared ted strong. "remember," said ted, before turning away, "i know that you have spirited stella fosdick away. but i shall find her, and when i am sure of it you better leave the country before i reach the place where you are, for as sure as i am standing here i will make my previous experience with you so tame that you will be glad to crawl in the dust on your face to be forgiven." "ha, ha!" laughed shan rhue. "so it hurts as bad as that, eh? good!" he went away laughing, and it was all ted could do to control himself, and keep from leaping upon him and punching him. instead, he jumped into his saddle and rode sultan like the wind out to the cow camp. for several days he had paid no attention to the herd, leaving it under the general direction of bud, while he stayed in town trying to hear some news of stella, or was riding all over the country with one or another of the boys, searching for her. as he rode into camp with disappointment and dejection written on his face, he was met by mrs. graham, who had grown pale and wan with anxiety. "any news of her?" she asked ted. "none, but i haven't given up hope by any means. don't worry so, mrs. graham. i think i am on the track at last, and that we shall soon have her with us again." but mrs. graham only walked away with the tears coursing down her cheeks. the herd was grazing to the west of the camp, and ted rode out to it, and to where bud was sitting quietly in his saddle watching it. there was an air of dejection about bud, also. indeed, every fellow in the outfit was secretly worrying and grieving for stella. "say, ted," said bud, as ted rode up, "i think thar's somethin' wrong with ther dogies." cow-punchers call the small southwestern cattle "dogies." "what do you mean?" asked ted. "i was looking them over this morning. rode through the bunch. they seemed to be all right then." "oh, they're eatin' well, an' aire as likely a lot o' beef ez ever i see," replied bud. "well, what then?" "thar ain't so many o' them ez there wuz, er my eye hez gone back on me." "any of them get away?" "i figger it so." "what have you found out?" "some one is liftin' our cattle. that's what i mean." "great scott! what makes you think so?" "ted, ther herd has shrunk." "you judge by the eye, i suppose." "yes. that is the only way i have o' judgin'. we hev never had a count o' them since we drove them onto this range." "how many do you think we are shy?" "my eye tells me erbout five hundred." "great guns! how could five hundred head get away from us? and right under our noses, too." "easy enough. you must remember that since stella has been gone we've paid no more attention to the herd than if we didn't own them." "that's true. as for myself, i confess that i've given them no attention. and i've kept you fellows so busy that we've left the cattle to take care of themselves, almost." "well, it's time we woke up ter ther situation, er soon we won't hev no more cattle than a rabbit." "that's so. we'll run a count of them in the morning." "it's shore got me puzzled. i can't think whar they could hev gone." "strayed, possibly." "p'r'aps. ever hear o' there bein' any rustlers in this part o' ther country?" "no, i never have. but there are some pretty bad citizens in this section, who, if they never have rustled cattle, certainly are capable of it." "alludin' to who?" "well, there's shan rhue and his gang, for instance." "they're pretty bad actors, fer shore. but i ain't positive thet they're ther kind what would rustle. they're jest plain town thieves an' gamblers. they ain't cow-punchers. it gen'rally is fellers what has been in ther cow business at some time er another what rustles stock." "oh, it doesn't take much of a man to steal cattle. a thieving gambler could do it as well as another." "but our brand and ear crop? they shore couldn't get away from them." "they're not so hard, bud. a good man could run our stock out of this part of the country and alter the brand without any trouble." "shore, ther brand is not so hard to alter." "let's ride back to camp and look at the brand book, and see if any one has a similar brand to ours, or one that they could alter without trouble. but, remember, i'm not going to give myself any uneasiness in the matter, and i think we will find the herd all there. i can't see how so many cattle as you think could get away from us." "i do." "in what manner could they?" "well, yer see, thar ain't ary o' us fellers been ridin' herd at night since stella was taken away." "yes; go on." "ther fellers what hev been guardin' ther herd at night we picked up around here when we drove ther herd up from ther south." "true. they were all local cow-punchers. i realize that we have made a mistake. one of us ought to have had charge of every night watch since we have been on this range." "shore. it's a cinch they wouldn't attempt to run 'em off in ther daytime." "that's the idea. it would be as easy as shooting fish in a rain barrel for a crooked night foreman to drift a few cattle away from the herd in the dark, to be picked up by fellows waiting on the outside, and driven into the hills until the brands and marks could be changed." they were at the camp now, and ted got out the brand book and turned its leaves over in an attempt to find a brand similar to their own, the circle s, which was a circle with the letter s in the center. in every western state or territory in which cattle-raising is a business the law makes it imperative that every ranchman who uses the open range shall select a brand for his cattle which is registered. this brand is his own, and every head of cattle found with his brand on it belongs to him. on the open range the cattle get mixed more or less, and in the spring there is a general round-up of the cattle, after the calves have been born and are following their mothers. the cow-punchers go into the vast herds and drive out the calves. of course, the mother follows the calf, lowing piteously for it. when the cow is out with the calf, it can be plainly seen to whom she belongs by the brand on her. her owner, or his men or representatives, promptly throw her and the calf into their own herd, and later put their brand on the calf. calves which are motherless and are unbranded are known as mavericks, and belong to whoever finds them. the cowman who finds a maverick promptly puts his own brand on it and it belongs to him. the safety of the system is in choosing a brand that cannot be easily altered, and which will not be easily confounded with the brand of another. when the boys had chosen the brand circle s for this herd in honor of stella, they had spoken of this, and bud had remarked that it would be easily altered by making an eight of the s, but they had found no circle 8 in the brand book, and took the chance, especially as stella now insisted upon having no other brand for the herd than circle s, her "own brand," as she called it. ted and bud could find no brand in the texas or oklahoma brand books at all like theirs, and dismissed the matter from their minds. the next morning early all hands turned out for a count of the herd. the herd was split, and the broncho boys took turns at the count, as the bunches of cattle were split and driven slowly past them on the point. from the books, there should be two thousand three hundred cattle, or thereabouts, in the herd. a few cattle more or less would not have been surprising, for a great herd of cattle will, like a magnet, draw to it all the individual strays in the country roundabout. it was well in the afternoon before the count was finished, and the boys rode into camp to count up and compare with the books. ted totaled the figures, while the boys hung eagerly over him to learn the result. "well, what d'yer make it?" asked bud, as ted, with an expression of perplexity on his face, looked up from his work. "the count is seventeen hundred and fifty," answered ted slowly. "gee! and that's how many shy?" "five hundred and fifty. bud, you have a good eye." "orter hev. i've been runnin' my eye over herds fer many a year. so, we've been done out o' more'n five hundred head, eh? well, stella comes fust, an' then ther man what thinks he kin rustle cattle from the broncho boys had better take a runnin' jump outer this man's country." chapter xxxiii. little dick in trouble. little dick fosdick had been forgotten by ted and the broncho boys in their anxiety over the absence of stella. they had seen him around the camp, but as it was impossible for him to accompany them on their hard rides, he had been left to his own devices. he spent his days riding with one of the cowboys on the herd, and grieving in his own way for stella. he was a sensible little chap, and seldom complained at his loneliness. his life alone had made him patient, and he took it out in thinking. he was now well able to take care of himself, although stella insisted in "mothering" him when she was in camp. little dick, as most of the boys called him, felt himself quite a man, for he could now catch his own pony and saddle it whenever he wanted to ride, and no one paid any attention to him as he came and went. ted had bought for him a little, wiry bay cayuse, and both he and stella had taught him to ride, and dick could now throw a rope with reasonable accuracy and speed. ted had given him a small revolver, and they had had great fun learning to shoot at a target, which was usually a bleached skull of a cow that had died long since on the prairie, and its bones picked clean by the coyotes. dick's revolver was only of thirty-two caliber, as befitted his strength, but the youngster had a good eye and the steady nerves of youth, and he soon got so that he could hit the skull with reasonable accuracy. "putting the shot through the eye" was one of the jokes of these shooting tournaments, in which stella, and sometimes bud, joined. one day when they were shooting at a skull target, bud missed--probably intentionally, for bud was a crack shot. dick jumped up and down in glee, for he had just knocked a chip of bone from the skull himself. "bud missed! bud missed!" he shouted, in glee. "bud, you're an old tenderfoot. couldn't hit a skull as big as the head of a barrel a hundred feet away." "didn't miss, neither," said bud, in a tone of mock anger. "there's where you're fooled. that is what i call a good shot. see that left eye hole? well, i aimed at that, and the bullet went through it. ha! that's where the joke is on you." he grinned, and winked at stella. a few minutes later dick shot and missed the skull. "yah!" shouted bud. "goody! you missed. you shoot like a hayseed. couldn't hit a skull as big as the head of a barrel." "that's where you're left," said the boy. "see that right eye hole? that's what i aimed at." the laugh was on bud. "all right, kiddie," he laughed. "you're on. we'd be in a dickens of a fix if that ole cow hadn't left two eye holes when she died." so it was that dick had made great progress in the rudiments of a cow-puncher's life, and it exactly suited him, but, in the meanwhile, stella was teaching him to read, and telling him the story of the rise and grandeur of his own country, and of the lands that lay beyond the seas. so it was that dick was unconsciously getting a better education than if he had gone to school, for he had a mind for the absorption of all sorts of knowledge like a sponge, and once a thing was told him he never forgot it. the morning of the count he had started onto the range with the other boys, but as there would be great confusion, and perhaps danger of a stampede, ted sent him back to camp. "run on back, dick," ted said kindly. "i'm afraid that pony of yours isn't quick enough to get out of the way if these dogies should take it into their heads to act ugly." dick never thought of rebelling when ted spoke, for he knew that ted was boss, and that he knew what was good for him. "all right, ted," he said. "would it be any harm if i took a ride away from the camp?" "of course not, dick," answered ted kindly. he felt a little sore at himself for sending the boy away, but he knew that it was for the best. there would be plenty of time and many occasions for dick to run into danger when he grew up. dick went back to camp, which was deserted save for bill mccall, the cook, who was asleep under the chuck wagon, and mrs. graham, who was lying down in her tent. dick buckled on his belt and holster, and, mounting his pony spraddle, set out for a long ride across the prairie. in the boot of his saddle rested his little remington, a present from stella. he was going to look for an antelope, and he thought how proud ted would be if he brought one back with him. he knew how hard it was to get close enough to an antelope to shoot it, but he had just enough gameness to think that he could get one if he came within range of it. anyhow, there were coyotes and jack rabbits. he rode across the prairie at a smart gallop, occasionally changing his course to chase a jack rabbit, which generally disappeared over a rise in the ground like a streak of gray dust, and was seen no more. at noon he stopped for a few minutes to eat the biscuit and piece of bacon which he had taken from the rear of the chuck wagon before setting forth. he found a spring not far away, and, having given spraddle a good, deep drink, and filling his small canteen, which was tied to the cantle of his saddle, he set forth again. it was about two o'clock when he came in sight of the first real game of the day. on the top of the rise ahead of him he saw an animal about the size of a dog. as he rode toward it, it raised its head and gave a long, low, mournful howl. "coyote," exclaimed dick to himself breathlessly. "i'll get that fellow, and take him back to camp. won't ted be surprised when he sees it?" he took his remington out of the boot, slipped in the necessary cartridges to fill the magazine, and rode forward slowly and cautiously. the coyote watched him sharply, occasionally raising its head to utter its mournful cry. when dick thought he had got within shooting distance, he stopped spraddle, took a good, long aim at the coyote, and fired. the ball kicked up the dust several feet in advance of the coyote, which, with another howl, this time one of derision, as it seemed to dick, turned and trotted away. "that was a bum shot," muttered dick. "i'm glad ted or stella did not see it. better luck next time." the coyote ran a short distance, then stopped and looked over its shoulder to see if dick was following, and, seeing that he was, took up its lope again. it had got some distance from dick, when, on the top of another rise, it stopped again, and dick heard once more its luring cry. it seemed to be an invitation to follow him. dick had not paid any attention to the direction in which he was going, and had kept no track of time. that he was following game, and that he intended to get it if it took all day, was all he thought of. soon the coyote stopped again, and looked at dick in a tantalizing sort of way, and again dick approached it cautiously. when he thought he was within range, he raised his remington, and, taking a long, deliberate aim, fired. again he missed. but he had the satisfaction of seeing that the ball had struck the earth several feet nearer the coyote than the first. the coyote realized it, too, for he did not wait for another invitation, but started on his way in a hurry, with dick riding pell-mell after him. dick for the first time realized that the day was going when he noticed the long shadow cast by himself and the pony on the prairie sod. he had not the slightest idea how far he had come, and there crept into his mind a sort of dread. he pulled spraddle down to a walk, and looked about him. behind him there was no trace of the cow camp, nothing but the everlasting rise and fall of the prairie. but ahead was the ragged line of the blue mountains. these he knew to be the wichita mountains, for, although he had never seen them before, he had heard the boys talking about them in camp. then he saw the coyote on a hill a little ways ahead, looking at him in the most aggravating way. the coyote's lips were curled back from his teeth in a contemptuous sort of a smile, it seemed to dick, and as he started forward again the coyote threw up its head and actually laughed at him. that settled it with dick. no coyote that ever trotted the plains could laugh at him, but as this thought came to him he felt the dread of being lost on the prairie, or even having to stay alone in this waste all night. dick had heard the boys talk of the danger of being alone at night, for there were wolves and other animals that would daunt a man, to say nothing of a small boy. he thought he would follow the coyote only long enough to get another shot at him, and then retrace his way back to the camp. by putting spraddle through his paces he ought to be able to reach it before dark. so he set forth again in the wake of the coyote, which was becoming more and more aggravating every minute. suddenly the coyote disappeared altogether. it had done this before when it had gone down into the trough between two of the great, rolling swales of the prairie, but always it had come into sight again in a few minutes. this time, however, it did not, and dick wondered why. in a few minutes he understood why, for he found himself at the edge of a coulee which had been washed deep by the storms of many winters. dick looked up and down the coulee for the wolf, and saw a form, gray and lithe, slinking among the bowlders with which it was filled. dick forced spraddle down the steep bank of the coulee, and was soon at the bottom. hastily he set after the coyote, but suddenly stopped, for a man stepped from behind a shoulder of rock and clay and caught his bridle. spraddle stopped so quickly that dick was almost unseated. but he soon recovered himself, and stared in amazement at the man who had thus stopped him. he was an indian. dick had often seen indians in the towns through which the broncho boys had passed, and occasionally they had come into the camps they had established on the drive of the herd up from texas. but this was the first time dick had ever come in contact with an indian when he was alone. for a moment his heart stopped beating, for he was afraid. "how?" grunted the indian. it was all dick could do to reply with a feeble, quavering "how?" many times around the camp fire, with the boys all about, when bud was telling one of his tales of indians, dick had thought what he would do if he ever came in contact with a real, live, sure-enough redskin, and always he had thought how brave he would be. but now that he had actually met one, he felt his nerve ooze away. however, the indian was not aware of it, for dick had a way of keeping his feelings to himself, and he seldom showed whether he was surprised or angry, although he never hesitated to let his friends know his pleasure at their kindness, or gratitude for what they did for him. he was looking at the indian steadily, taking stock of him, and this is what he saw: a broad, dirty face, in which burned two small, narrow eyes. the cheek bones were prominent, and on each one was a spot of red paint. the long, black, coarse hair was braided with pieces of otter fur, and covered with an old cavalry cap, in which was stuck a crow's wing feather, and around his neck hung a small, round pocket mirror attached to a red string, by way of ornament. the indian wore a dirty cotton shirt and a pair of brown overalls, and his feet were covered with green moccasins, decorated with small tubes of tin, which jingled every time he took a step. a belt and holster hung at his hip, and the handle of a colt forty-four was within easy reach. "white papoose where go?" asked the indian, showing a row of sharpened teeth. "hunt coyote," replied dick, in a voice that trembled. "heap fool. no catch coyote," said the indian, reaching over and lifting dick's remington from the saddle. he sighted it, turned it around in his hand, and then coolly slung it over his shoulder. "here, give that to me," said dick sturdily. with this act of theft all his courage came back to him. no dirty indian should have the rifle stella had given him. but the indian only grinned. "me heap brave," said the indian. "me pokopokowo." he looked at dick as if he expected the boy to be deeply impressed. "i don't care who you are. i want my rifle," cried dick. "papoose heap fool. get off pony." the indian was scowling now, and looked very ferocious, and once more dick's courage oozed. the indian did not seem to be a bit frightened. as dick was slow in descending from the saddle, the indian grasped him by the arm and jerked him to the ground. dick was as angry as he ever got, but was sensible enough to know that he could not fight the indian, and that all he could do was to escape as rapidly as possible. he turned and ran up the coulee. but he had not gone far when he was overtaken, and knocked flat with a cuff on the side of the head. as he rose slowly with his head ringing, pokopokowo grasped him by the shoulder, and bound his hands behind him. in a moment he was back at the pony's side, and was thrown upon its back, but not in the saddle. this was occupied by the indian, who directed it down the coulee, and in the direction of the mountains. dick fosdick was a prisoner. chapter xxxiv. a message from stella. dick had some difficulty in keeping his seat on the pony's back, for he could not hold on to the cantle of the saddle, and spraddle wabbled dreadfully, as he stumbled among the bowlders in the coulee. but before long they were out on the prairie again, and dick observed that they were headed toward the mountains. they had several miles to go to reach the mountains, and it was just getting dusk when they entered upon a broad and beautiful valley, which, as it ran east and west, was flooded with the light from the setting sun. here the indian turned in the saddle and looked at dick with a malevolent smile. "turn white boy loose," he grunted. dick twisted around, and the indian untied the cord that bound his wrists. "white boy try to run away, i kill um," said the indian, showing his teeth in a horrible look of ferocity that chilled dick to the bone. "all right," he said; "i'll not try to run away again." "kill um if do," growled the indian, hissing, at the pony, which is the indian way of making a pony go forward, and means the same as a white man's "get up!" dick was dreadfully hungry, but he said nothing, clinging to the cantle of the saddle with both hands, for the pony was now loping. they had gone up the valley for several miles, when suddenly the indian turned aside down a dark and narrow defile, still at a lope. even dick realized the danger of this, for the floor of the defile was covered with large, loose stones, over which spraddle was continually stumbling, for he had come a long way and was tired, besides the added weight of the indian was more than he was accustomed to carry. it had grown very dark, and dick could not see the pony's ears when he twisted around to look past the indian. he knew that it was to be a moonlight night, but the moon was not up yet, and would not be for an hour or more. in fact, it was doubtful if the light of the moon would penetrate to the bottom of the defile until it was high in the heavens, so deep was the defile and so steep its walls. dick had given up wondering and worrying, and had forced himself to be content with his situation, as he knew that he could not better it any. suddenly he became aware that the indian was asleep, for he was drooping in the saddle, and was breathing deeply and steadily. now, thought dick, was the time to escape, if any. he tried to slip from the pony's back, but in an instant the indian was awake, and, reaching around, grasped dick's wrist, twisting it until the boy gave a sharp cry of pain. the indian slipped from the back of the pony, and again bound dick's wrists behind him, and with a grunt climbed into the saddle and urged spraddle on, slapping him across the face with the end of the rein. "don't you do that," cried dick, who never abused spraddle himself, and couldn't stand it to see any one else, particularly a dirty indian, beat his pet. "white boy shut up, or pokopokowo beat him plenty," growled the indian. "if you dare beat me, ted strong will fix you when he gets you," said dick hotly. but the indian only laughed, and continued to beat poor spraddle over the face, to the pain and anger of dick, who, however, realized that he was absolutely helpless. but pokopokowo was soon to be paid for his cruelty, and by poor spraddle himself. spraddle, stung by the blows, was stumbling along at a good pace over the bowlders that lay in his way, with the indian urging him faster all the time. suddenly there was a great heave. spraddle went down, almost turning a somersault, as his tired feet struck a larger bowlder than he had encountered before. the indian, who was dozing again, shot over his head as if from a catapult, and dick went sprawling forward over the saddle onto the neck of the pony. fortunately, the pony righted itself in time to save dick from a hard fall, and he stayed on spraddle's back, talking to him gently. at the sound of dick's voice the pony became quiet, and dick half sprawled, half fell to the ground. the boy was in a pretty bad fix, for the indian had tied his hands securely. he thought of ways by which he might cut the cord, but it seemed hopeless. he had heard somewhere of bound men releasing themselves by wearing their bonds asunder against the rough edge of a rock, and determined to try it for himself. if he could only get his hands free, he might escape yet. backing up to the wall of the caã±on, he felt with his hands for a rock, and soon knew that he was against one. as he sawed his hands back and forth, he was listening for some sound from the indian, but heard none. could it be that the fall had killed pokopokowo? to his joy, he felt the cord part, and his hands were free. at that moment there came a flood of light into the defile, for the moon had risen overhead. lying on the floor of the defile, lay the indian, with a deep gash across his forehead, where it had struck a sharp rock. his ugly face was covered with blood, making it additionally hideous. by the side of the indian lay dick's precious rifle, and he stooped to pick it up. as he did so, something glistened beside it, and dick picked it up. it was the little, round mirror that the indian had worn around his neck. dick pocketed it for proof of his adventure when he should again reach camp, and, picking up his rifle, climbed upon spraddle's back, turned him around, and drove down the defile. when he reached the open valley it was as bright as day, and under his coaxing and kind words the tired little pony, relieved of the indian's weight, picked up his feet and set forth at a brisk pace into the west, in which direction dick knew the cow camp lay. it was almost daylight when bill mccall, the cook, roused from his blankets to begin the preparations for breakfast. he leaped to his feet and listened. not far away he heard the sound of the pony's footsteps approaching. bill was an old cow-puncher, and he knew instantly that the pony was tired, and that he was under saddle, and also that the saddle was occupied. the footsteps came nearer, and just as they were close to the camp daylight came on with a rush, as it does on the plains, and bill gave a great shout of joy which brought every puncher in camp scrambling out of his blankets, for there rode in a very tired little boy on a very tired little, pony. the boy was pale and tired from hunger and his long hours in the saddle, and it was all the pony could do to stagger in. "it's little dick," shouted bud. "well, jumpin' sand hills, whar you-all been all night? takin' a leetle pleasure pasear?" "oh, bud, i'm so tired and hungry," said dick, as bud lifted him from the saddle. "here you, bill, git busy in a hurry. this kid ain't hed nothin' ter eat in a week. he's 'most starved. bile yer coffee double-quick, an' git up a mess o' bacon an' flapjacks pretty dern pronto, if yer don't want me ter git inter yer wool." bud was rubbing the cold and chafed wrists of the boy beside the fire, which one of the boys had replenished. the boys surrounded little dick with many inquiries, but bud shooed them away. "don't yer answer a bloomin' question until yer gits yer system packed with cooky's best grub. i reckon, now, yer could eat erbout eighteen o' them twelve-inch flapjacks what bill makes, an' drink somethin' like a gallon o' ther fust coffee what comes out o' ther pot." little dick smiled, as he watched with glistening eyes the rapid movements of bill mccall as he hustled over his fire, the air redolent with the odors of coffee and bacon and griddle cakes, so that his mouth fairly watered. when bill shouted breakfast, ted and bud sat dick down and loaded his plate with good things, which he caused to disappear in a hurry. but after a while he was stuffed like a christmas turkey, and put his tin plate away with a sigh, and absolutely cleaned. "now," said ted, when he saw this good sign, "where have you been all day and all night? we've been scared about you. thought we had lost you, too." dick went ahead with his story from the very beginning, and told of the downfall of pokopokowo, and his escape, and of his all-night ride into the west, to accidentally stumble, at daylight, into camp. the boys listened in amazement to this record of courage on the part of its youngest member, and some seemed to doubt the indian part of it. "sho, yer dreamin', kid," said sol flatbush, the cow-puncher. "thar ain't no injuns like that in this yere part o' ther country. why, an injun wouldn't dare carry off a kid like that." "you don't believe it, eh?" exclaimed dick hotly. "i believe yer," said bud soothingly, for the boy was very nervous from being up all night and his hard ride, which would have taxed the energies of a grown man. "don't yer mind what thet ole pelican says. he ain't got no more sense than a last year's bird's nest, nohow." "the indian had this around his neck," said dick, "and when he fell it came loose from his neck, and i picked it up, for i thought some one might think i wasn't telling the truth. now, i'm tired, and i can't keep my eyes open." his head began to nod, and his eyes closed. bud picked him up and carried him to a pair of blankets which had been spread on the shady side of mrs. graham's tent, and laid him down and left him dead to the world. dick had placed the little, round looking-glass in ted's hand. as he took it, ted uttered an exclamation. "by jove," he exclaimed, "i believe this is the little glass stella used to carry in her pocket. why, what is this?" ted was holding the little mirror up to the sky, apparently in an endeavor to look through it. "what is it?" asked bud, approaching the fire. "dick has brought back stella's little pocket mirror," said ted. "i'd know it anywhere. but the back has been torn off it." "tooken off ther neck o' an injun?" said bud, dropping his usual jolly manner. "i thought yer said thar wa'n't no bad injuns eround yere, sol flatbush. what d'yer make o' that?" sol flatbush got a little pale. "thar ain't none," he said. "all ther injuns on the reservation is peaceable. they knows they couldn't do no monkey business with all them sojers at fort sill." "yet here's a kid run off with by an injun, and he brings back a pocket mirror what belonged to stella fosdick. sol flatbush, ye've got ter give a better defense o' ther injuns than that." "what hev i got ter do with ther injuns?" asked flatbush defiantly. "search me. but ye've made a wrong diagnosis, an' i don't like yer brand o' talk none. i think myself thet yer too friendly ter ther redskins." "what d'ye mean?" cried flatbush, springing to his feet. "i mean thet i don't trust yer none. i think ye're a skunk, an' i don't like ter see yer face eround this yere camp. how much do this outfit owe yer?" "three months' wage," answered the cow-puncher sourly. bud went down into his leather pouch and extracted a roll of bills, and skinned off several. "thar it is. skidoo! an' don't try ter mingle with this outfit none hereafter. thar'll be a new foreman o' ther night herd what ain't got so many friends in this yere locality." "what d'yer mean by that?" flatbush's hand sprang to his side. but bud was quicker, and in the flash of an eye had the muzzle of his six-shooter under the nose of the night foreman, who shrank from it. "i mean thet yer a crook, an' i'll give yer jest three minutes ter rope yer hoss an' git." flatbush turned and hurried to the remuda, caught and saddled his horse, and rode out of camp. "i've had my eye on that maverick fer quite some time," said bud, turning to the boys after he had watched flatbush fade into the distance. "i've suspected him o' turnin' off our cattle every night. i haven't caught him at it, or thar wouldn't've been no necessity o' chasin' him out. he'd've gone feet foremost." "what do you think of it, bud?" asked ted, handing the little mirror over to the golden-haired puncher. bud took it in his hand, and looked at it a long time. "it shore is stella's," he said. "i reckernize it by this leetle dent on ther side o' it." he was holding it in the palm of his hand, looking down at it intently. "hello, what's this?" bud held the mirror against the sleeve of his blue shirt. "pipin' pelicans," he muttered, "if thar ain't some kind o' a pitcher on it." ted went to his side and looked at the mirror. "i believe you're right," he said. "let me look at it." "what do you make of it?" asked bud. all the boys crowded around, watching ted eagerly. "this is evidently intended for the picture of a stone wall," said ted, "and that wavy line behind it is meant for mountains." "what's that?" asked bud, pointing to the picture. "i guess it is meant for a hole in the stone wall," said ted. "wow!" said bud. "that's as easy as livin' on a farm. don't yer see? it is a message from the hole in the wall." "by jove, you're right. the hole in the wall in the wichita mountains." "what is that right below it?" "it looks like a star. it is a star." "it is stella's signature," said ben. "stella is the latin for star. don't you see, she has sent this message out from the hole in the wall, where she is a prisoner? it's as plain as day to me." "you're right," shouted ted. "into your saddles, boys; we're off to the hole in the wall at once." chapter xxxv. "hole in the wall." "kit, you will stay and take care of the herd," said ted, just before the boys galloped off. "all right, but i'd mighty well like to go with you," said kit, who, although he was eager to be in the fight that he knew would come off if ted found that shan rhue had anything to do with the abduction of stella, was not one to get disgruntled. ted would have been well pleased to have kit with him, but kit's arm was not yet well enough to risk in a possible rough-and-tumble adventure. "say, ted," kit called after the leader of the broncho boys. "what?" asked ted, riding back. "don't you think you better take stella's pony, magpie, along with you? she'll have to have something to ride coming back." he did not say "if you find her," for he knew that if she was anywhere in the wichita mountains ted would find her. "glad you spoke of it," said ted. it did not take long to rope the magpie pony and throw stella's saddle on it. now they were off into the northeast, where the wichita mountains lay. none of them knew just where the hole in the wall was, but ted felt confident of finding it if there was such a place. they rode so hard, only stopping at noon to water the ponies, that early in the afternoon they entered the mountains. as they were going up the valley they saw the flying figure of a man on horseback coming toward them. as he approached, they saw that he was a cavalryman. "hello, what's up?" said bud. "i never see a sojer goin' so fast, except there was somethin' doin'." a few minutes later the soldier rode up to them. he proved to be a sergeant of cavalry. "where are you going?" he asked, pulling his horse to its haunches. "what's that ter you?" asked bud jovially. "just this: the indians are threatening to rise, perhaps to-night, perhaps not until to-morrow. but when they do, this will be no place for white men." "where is the place called the hole in the wall?" asked ted. "do you want to go there, or do you want to avoid it?" asked the sergeant. "we want to go there as soon as we can." "i'd advise you to keep away until the troops get there and clean things up." "why?" "that is where the dissatisfied indians are camped. i do not know it officially, but i understand that flatnose and moonface, the two chiefs, are there now, and that the orders from washington are to send us in to drive them out." "when is this to take place?" "the indians have made no open declaration of war as yet, but it is looked for at any time." "how will it be announced?" "by the signal fires on the hills. a detachment of our men picked up early this morning a wounded indian, named pokopokowo. he was wounded, and was taken to the post surgeon to be cared for. he has just confessed that it is the intention of the indians to rise and kill all the white settlers they can lay their hands on. i am on my way to send out the alarm." "and you say the indians are camped at the hole in the wall?" "yes, the detachment sent out early this morning were on a scouting expedition when they picked up pokopokowo." "where is this hole in the wall, and how do you get there?" "you are bound to go there? i would advise you not to." "we must go. a young lady belonging to our party has been captured and taken there. we did not know there were any indians there, but only white outlaws." "that is different. i suppose you must go. but why don't you wait and go in with the troops? the hole in the wall is the rendezvous for all the white outlaws in this part of the country, and they are believed to be in league with the indians, and will use the uprising of the indians as a cover under which to run off all the stock in the country." "there is no use of our waiting for the troops when the young lady is in there, we don't know under what indignities. the troops put off attacking the indians as long as they can for the sake of policy. we are all deputy united states marshals, and we get quicker action. tell us where the hole in the wall is, and we will go in and get our own. the troops can do what they please later." "weil, pardner, you talk straight, and you feel about the young lady as i would if she was a friend of mine. but they are a bad bunch in there." "i appreciate your warning, but it will not stop us." "all right; go ahead, and good luck to you. about a mile farther on you will come to a narrow defile leading to the north, cutting the range. that leads into a broad valley, at the west end of which is the place called the hole in the wall. it is practically impregnable. it is entered by a narrow passage which one man could hold against an army. it can be approached at night by riding down the valley, dismounting, and crawling over the mountain until you are above the hole in the wall, when every man can be wiped out by a few rifles." "thanks, sergeant. we will take to the hills." with mutual good wishes, they parted, and the boys were soon riding in single file up the defile. in the valley they secreted themselves and their horses, while ted and bud went forward to reconnoiter. it was rapidly growing dark in the mountains as ted and bud crawled along the mountain paths toward the end of the valley. suddenly ted placed his hand on bud's arm. "some one right ahead of us," he whispered. "sentinel, i reckon," answered bud. ted nodded: "you stay here. i'm going forward. i'll be back soon." ted glided away into the gloom. presently bud heard a muffled cry. then all was still again. he waited a few minutes, and was about to go forward, when he heard a slight rustle beside him, and there stood ted. "it was a guard," he said. "i jumped him, and gagged him, but he gave me a pretty good fight. i've rolled him away where his pals won't find him. i guess we can go on now, but we must go slowly and quietly. i don't know how many more of them are about." "get a line on where the hole is?" "yes, we're on the right track. it is ahead of us." on they went, and, having proceeded about half a mile, they suddenly became aware of the neighing of horses and the voices of men, which seemed to come from beneath them, and it was not long before they saw a glare of light against the rocks not far ahead. they went more cautiously now, crawling forward on their hands and knees. ted, in advance, soon threw up his hand and lay flat on the rocks, and bud crawled to his side. they found themselves looking down into a circular little valley, in reality a hole in the wall of the mountain. several camp fires were burning here and there, and about fifty indians and white men were lounging about. near the rear wall was a small tent, before which sat a fat old squaw. as ted was looking, the flap of the tent was pushed aside, and ted clutched bud's arm, for stella had come forth, and stood looking up at the sky. "by jove, if we could only attract her attention," muttered ted. "it would help her a lot if she knew we were so close to her," said bud. the glare from the fires flaring upward fell full upon their faces, and they knew that if she looked in their direction she would not fail to see them. they saw her cast her eyes all around the sky, and in their direction. ted dared not make a noise, but he nodded his head several times so that she would know who it was, should she chance to see him. evidently she did not, for she turned away, and again her eyes swung around in the circle with her back to them. "i've a mind to throw somethin' down at her, and attract her attention ter us," said bud. "and have every one of those cutthroats get on to us. don't you do it," said ted. in a moment stella looked up again, and this time they saw her start, then stare fixedly at them. ted nodded his head again, and this time she made a gesture that told them that she had seen them, and knew that they were there. "duck yer head quick," said bud, rapidly getting out of sight himself. "what's the matter?" asked ted. "i saw shan rhue walking toward stella." "but she saw us, just before she ducked into her tent. now it's up to us to get her out of there." "you bet. but it will be a big job to get in there." "i've got a plan that ought to work out." "what is it?" "you go back and get the boys. put ben and clay down in the valley to hold the entrance to the hole in the wall. bring the rest up here. hurry! i'll stay here on guard. if any man attempts to touch stella, i'll pot him from here. bring your lariat with you." bud hurried away as he was bid, and in the course of half an hour, during which ted, looking over the edge of the hole, saw the men preparing to retire for the night, he returned with seven of the boys. "now, fellows," said ted, "i'm going down into the hole to send stella up on the rope." "jeering jackals!" exclaimed bud. "don't you ever do that. it means sure death ter you, an' p'r'aps ter stella, too." "no, i don't think so. at any rate, i'm going to take a chance. it will be up to you fellows to keep the bunch down there busy while i'm at work. three of you will stay on this side of the hole, and four on the other. if you do your firing right, you will keep those fellows jumping from side to side so fast that they won't have any time for me." "i see yer scheme, but i wouldn't like ter undertake it myself." "did you bring the rope?" "here it is," said bud, unwinding it from around his waist. ted took it from him while the boys distributed themselves in their firing positions as he had directed. ted looped the rope under his arms. "you'll lower me down, bud," he said. "maybe i'll come up hand over hand if i can, and you will pull away when i give the rope two jerks." he took another look over the edge. all the men were rolled up in their blankets asleep, except an old indian who sat crouched over the fire. ted carefully lowered himself over the edge for the descent. down he went slowly and quietly, and soon his feet touched the ground just back of stella's tent. "hiss-t!" he gave a low, sibilant warning of his presence, and in a moment the corner of the tent moved aside, and he saw stella's bright eyes looking into his. he motioned her to come out, and the flap was gently lowered again. in a few moments, which seemed hours, the flap was raised again, and stella crawled forth. "oh, ted," she whispered, pressing his hand. he held up a warning finger as he rapidly tied the rope beneath her arms. "bud will pull you up. good luck," he whispered. "are you going to stay down here?" she whispered back. "yes, i must. hurry!" he gave the rope two jerks, and it at once began to tighten, and stella's feet left the ground as she slowly ascended skyward. ted, concealed against the wall back of the tent, saw her go up and up. she was more than halfway to the top when an old indian woman crawled out of the tent, and, casting her eyes aloft, saw stella. a sudden scream rang through the hole. it was the indian's warning. the rope began to go faster, and before the sleepy men in the hole had been able to sit up and rub their eyes, ted saw stella reach the top and disappear over its edge. but the old indian woman had run among the men crying out something in her native tongue. evidently she was telling of the escape of stella, for in an instant all sleep vanished and the place was full of men running about or staring up at the edge of the wall over which stella had gone. then shan rhue came forth, swearing horribly. he caught the old squaw by the arm and threw her down. "so you let the white squaw go, did you?" he asked. "and how much was you paid for it?" but the poor old wretch only shrank closer to the ground and moaned her protests that she had nothing to do with the escape of the white squaw. shan rhue strode toward the tent, behind which ted was crouching with his hand on his revolver. shan rhue threw open the front of the tent and looked within. then he straightened up, and caught a glimpse of ted, whom he did not at first recognize in the gloom. he reached in his powerful right arm to pull the intruder out, and looked into the muzzle of ted's six-shooter, behind which he now saw ted's smiling face. at that he straightened up with a loud laugh that filled the hole in the wall and reverberated from side to side. "well, of all the luck," he shouted. "this has worked out just as i expected. i knew that if i got ther gal in yere that you'd be after her, an' here you are. well, my bucko, you remember what i said about getting even with you. now is the time. you've come to the end." "oh, i don't know," said ted coolly. "i'm a long ways from a dead one yet. be careful what you do. this six-shooter of mine is mighty sensitive on the trigger." he heard a soft, swishing noise behind him, and knew that bud was lowering the rope again. as he thrust his gun forward into the face of shan rhue, the bully backed away a few feet. at that moment the rope swung down in front of his face, and, hastily putting his revolver into his pocket, ted grasped it and went sailing up into the air hand over hand, assisted by bud and carl, who were pulling on the rope for all they were worth. chapter xxxvi. the altered brand. as ted went up into the air, shan rhue shouted a command, and the white men in the hole in the wall ran to him. "that boy must not get to the top," he shouted. "i want him." "what will we do?" asked one of them. "here, sol flatbush, you are the best shot of us all. see if you can't bring him down. but don't shoot him. i need him for other things. shoot the rope in two." this was easier said than done, for the rope was so high that it was almost out of the light cast by the fires. flatbush was, indeed, a splendid shot, and he fired twice at the rope with his revolver, but missed each time on account of the uncertain light and the swaying motion of the rope. "give me my rifle," he called, and one of the men fetched it for him. ted was within fifteen feet of the top when flatbush, leaning against the opposite wall, took deliberate aim and fired. at the second shot ted, who was aware that some one was trying to cut the rope, felt it vibrate suddenly beneath his hand. before the last thread was severed he reached up and began to climb, hand over hand. in a few seconds he was at the top, and the boys were helping him over the edge. for a moment or two he could say nothing; he could only listen to the yells of rage and disappointment below. now he was surrounded by his friends, and stella was free. away on a mountain peak a light flared up. "what does that mean?" asked stella, pointing to it. "it is the signal that the indians have gone on the warpath," said ted. "the sergeant was right. it is up to us now to do stunts." "in what way?" asked stella. "we must keep those indians and renegades confined in the hole in the wall. if we can keep them there until the arrival of the troops we can end the uprising without shedding a drop of blood. see, there is another fire!" ted pointed to a blaze upon another peak, and this was followed by others until there was a ring of fires on the crests of the mountains for miles around. "it is up to us to do a good thing here," he said. "bud, take two or three of the boys and go to ben's assistance. hold the mouth to the entrance to the hole at all hazards. from what the sergeant said i have no doubt but the troops will be here at least by daylight. we will keep them busy down there from this place." bud hurried away with two of the boys, and ted and the others composed themselves to await developments. in the meantime, stella told ted the details of her capture. since she had been a prisoner she had been well treated, so far as most of the men were concerned, although shan rhue had insisted on seeing her every day, and had told her that he was going to take her away to the north and make her marry him. she had defied him, and had scorned him so scathingly that he had put many petty persecutions on her, and had deprived her of her liberty for revenge. "how did you happen to find me?" asked stella, after she told all that had happened to her. "little dick was captured by an indian, and while he was being brought here the pony spraddle stumbled and threw him. a small looking-glass which was slung around his neck fell off, and dick picked it up and brought it to camp." "the indian was pokopokowo," said stella. "that was his name." "i tried in every way to get a message out to you, but it seemed impossible. then i hit upon the mirror, ripped the back off it, and made my cryptogram on it with a pin. i let pokopokowo see it, and when he saw that there was a picture on it, and i told him it was good medicine, he wanted it. of course, i let him take it, hoping that it would be taken outside, and that you would chance to see it, and so learn where i was." "it was a very clever idea, and i doubt but for the mirror we should have been able to get here in time. it was little dick who saved you." "yes, little dick and big ted. ted, you are wonderful!" below, in the hole, there were signs of activity. men were rushing here and there, saddling horses, packing mules, filling their cartridge belts, and getting ready for some sort of action. "they have seen the war fires on the hills," said ted, "and are getting ready for their raid upon the settlers. evidently they do not know that the gate to the outside is guarded, and they think that we are gone, having succeeded in getting you." having finished their preparations for departure, an old indian rode forth on a pony decorated with eagle feathers. "that is old flatnose, the head chief," said ted. flatnose was painted for war, and as he rode toward the passage from the hole in the wall he swung his rifle above his head and shouted a guttural command, at which a war whoop, shrill and terrifying, went up from the indians, followed by a hoarse shout from the white renegades. "now, we'll see some fun," whispered ted to stella, who was lying on the crest of the hole beside him, watching the proceedings below. "i guess bud has got there by this time, and is ready to protect the opening out to the valley." only a few minutes had passed before there came to their ears a volley of rifle shots, followed by yells of fear, and the whites and indians came rushing back into the hole, scrambling and falling over one another in confusion. "i thought so," chuckled ted. "they are trapped and they know it. they can defend the hole against all comers by that passage, but it didn't seem to occur to them that they might be made prisoners by the same means." the inmates of the hole were in the confusion of terror, but at last flatnose and his son, moonface, succeeded in pacifying them, and a consultation was under way. "where is shan rhue?" asked stella. "i haven't seen him for some time." "that's so," answered ted. "i don't see him." he scanned the hole carefully, but shan rhue was not there. "is there any secret passage by which he might escape?" asked ted. "do you see that little shelter of canvas over against the wall?" said stella. ted nodded. "i believe there is a way out there known only to shan rhue. that is where he slept," she continued. "then he has escaped by it. sol flatbush is not in evidence, either. i'll bet a cooky they've skipped." it was getting light in the east, and the indians rode once more into the passage, firing their rifles. then they charged. but soon they came rushing back; the boys at the entrance had again repulsed them. from far away came the soft but clear call of a bugle. "the troops!" cried ted, springing to his feet. "the cavalry is coming from fort sill. this thing will soon be over now." he and stella went to the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley, and far away saw a dark mass, in the midst of which they caught the flash of the rising sun on polished swords and carbines, and a gleam of color from the flag that fluttered in the fresh morning breeze. the indians in the hole had heard the bugle also, and now there was confusion indescribable. on came the troops, and ted and stella went down to meet them. captain hendry was in command, and it did not take him long to get in possession of the facts. "so you've got them bottled up, eh?" he said to ted. "yes; all you have to do is to make them surrender," answered ted. "which i don't think will be such an easy thing." "i don't think you'll have any trouble about it. come with me, and bring a firing squad of your men." the captain gave the order, and followed ted to where he could look down into the hole. then the captain laughed. "you have done better than i expected," he said. raising his voice, captain hendry shouted: "flatnose, you know me. this is captain hendry. i have got you in that hole like a rat in a trap. if you are wise, you will throw down your arms and surrender. i have my men here with me, and if you do not surrender, we will have to shoot you to death one by one. will you surrender?" the old chief looked up and saw the captain leaning over the edge above. for several minutes he stared upward, then he threw his rifle to the ground and gave a hoarse command, and his followers threw their arms upon that of their leader. one of the troopers ran down into the valley with a command, while those above lay flat on the edge with their carbines in a ring pointed at the throng below. in a few minutes the bugle sounded again, and the troops were seen marching into the hole. the war was at an end without a fatal shot having been fired. as captain hendry marched away with his prisoners, he thanked ted for the great service which he had done the government by holding the indians and renegades until the arrival of the troops. "well, that's over," said ted, as the last of them faded out of sight at the end of the valley. "but _our_ work is just begun. we've got to find those five hundred head of stolen circle s cattle." "i suggest that we take a look behind that shelter of shan rhue's, and see if there is a passage leading from it," said stella. "good idea," said ted, and they climbed down into the valley and entered the hole in the wall, where the other boys were waiting for them. ted went at once to the shelter, which was only a piece of canvas which had been at one time a wagon cover, and tore it away. there was revealed a hole in the rock wall, and beside it a small mound of earth. evidently the hole had been known to the white desperadoes who had used the hole as a hiding place for many years, and that it had been their habit to conceal it by means of a stopper of earth. this shan and sol had removed, and had made their escape while the indians and renegades were preparing for their raid on the settlements. ted at once showed it to the other boys, and it was decided to follow the passage and find out what was at the other end. the hole was so small that ted was compelled to enter it on his hands and knees. bud followed him, and then came stella. ben remained with carl to guard the entrance in case any of the white renegades should return. a short distance in, the passage, or tunnel, became larger, and soon opened out into a natural cave, so that they were able to assume an upright position. ted lighted his pocket electric searchlight and led the way. they walked for some distance when they saw a gleam of light ahead, and a few minutes later walked out of the cave into another valley, larger than that which they had just left. "great scott! look at that," said ted, pointing to where a large herd of cattle was grazing. "what?" asked stella, who could see nothing unusual in a bunch of cattle grazing in the valley. "i believe they're ours." ted strode toward the cattle, which seemed to become uneasy at seeing a man on foot, which range cattle will not tolerate. "don't go any closer, ted," said stella. "wait until bud goes back after the horses." "i just want to get a glimpse of the brand. by jove, here's our lost circle s brand, i believe. but look at it. it has been altered." "how?" "see those two perpendicular lines drawn through the s, making the brand circle dollar-mark. that's a most ingenious thing. it has been done with a running iron. the fellow who stole our cattle has just changed it by running a curved hot iron through the s." "yer shore right," said bud. "that circle dollar brand hez been registered somewhere. it's up to us ter find out who registered it, an' we've got ther thief. i'll skip out fer ther hosses an' ther boys. i reckon we kin git in here by ridin' across ther backbone o' ther hills." "all right, get back as soon as you can, and we'll wait for you in the cave." bud and the boys were back within half an hour, having found a pass into the valley through the hills which inclosed it. "it's as plain as the face of the sun to me," said ted, when they were mounted and were riding toward the cattle. "shan rhue would have had those cattle over the border in a day or two, had he not been so unwise as to have abducted stella. it's up to us now to get that bunch back to the herd." it did not take the boys long to get the bunch together, and ted and stella rode out to the front of it to point it down the valley, while the other boys started back to the rear to drive up. suddenly they heard yells in the rear, accompanied by pistol shots and the cracking of quirts. in an instant the herd was up with distended eyeballs and lifted tails. the poison of fear was in them. looking back, ted saw several men riding toward the herd at a terrific pace. at the head of the band rode shan rhue and sol flatbush. then a remarkable thing happened: every man of them produced a red blanket. they dashed among the cattle waving the blankets in the faces of the now terrified cattle. "look out for trouble," shouted ted, for he saw at once the intention of shan rhue. it was to stampede the herd. the effort was immediately successful, for the terrified animals, with a deafening roar that expressed abject fear, started forward on a gallop, with a front as resistless as the prow of a battleship. stella was on the side of the herd opposite ted. she heard his warning cry, and then looked back at the herd. if she stayed where she was, there was no escape from death, for by her side was the sheer wall of the valley. there was only one way to safety, to ride across to the side of ted. she gave one look, then started. stella rode quartering the path of the stampede, and would have made it in safety had it not been for a prairie-dog hole, into which her pony's foot went. magpie went down. the thundering host of frantic cattle was upon her when she felt herself caught in mid-air. the thought of death was still ringing in her head, and everything swam before her eyes. "you're all right! stick close!" it was the reassuring voice of ted, who, at the imminent risk of his own life, had ridden out and plucked her from the jaws of death. behind them, as sultan, straining every nerve and muscle to carry them to safety, galloped ahead of the cattle, the boys rode into the ruck, beating the brutes with their quirts in an endeavor to stop them. but they went a mile before they began to slow down, and ted was able to deflect the course of sultan, who was beginning to tire from the double burden and the terrific pace. but at last the steers calmed down, and permitted themselves to be driven quietly to where the rest of the herd were grazing. as soon as ted had restored the stolen cattle, he and bud started back into the valley in search of shan rhue and sol flatbush, but, although they searched everywhere, the renegades could not be found. in the cave through which they had come from the hole in the wall they found a running branding iron, and fastened to the wall the following notice: "to ted strong and others: you win this time, but there will be others, and i am a lucky man in the end. you can't beat me. "s. r." later they discovered that shan rhue had recently registered in colorado the circle dollar brand, and evidently it was his purpose to steal nearly all of the circle s herd. but although he escaped with his lieutenant, sol flatbush, the men of his band, who had been captured by the soldiers, were convicted and sent to prison for long terms, after they had confessed that shan rhue's organization had made a business of rustling cattle all through the southwest for many years. ted received several letters from the authorities in washington commending his services in averting an uprising of the indians, and the capture of the white renegades, but while this was gratifying, he felt disappointed that shan rhue and sol flatbush were not in prison, also. however, ted believed in the motto, "i bide my time," and he felt in his bones that some time in the future his path and that of the bully, shan rhue, would cross again. the end. no. 42 of the western story library, by edward c. taylor, is entitled "ted strong in montana." note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 14740-h.htm or 14740-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/4/14740/14740-h/14740-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/4/14740/14740-h.zip) the princess passes a romance of a motor-car by c. n. and a. m. williamson authors of _the lightning conductor_ illustrated new york henry holt and company 1905 [illustration: "food for the gods, and only a boy to eat it."] to the dear princess who, each year, makes the riviera sunnier for her presence contents chapter i. woman disposes ii. mercédès to the rescue iii. my lesson iv. pots, kettles, and other things v. in search of a mule vi. the wings of the wind vii. at last! viii. the making of a mystery ix. the brat x. the scraping of acquaintance xi. a shadow of night xii. the princess xiii. afternoon calls xiv. the path of the moon xv. enter the contessa xvi. a man from the dark xvii. the little game of flirtation xviii. rank tyranny xix. the little rift within the lute xx. the great paolo xxi. the challenge xxii. an american custom xxiii. there is no such girl xxiv. the revenge of the mountain xxv. the americans xxvi. the vanishing of the prince xxvii. the strange mushroom xxviii. the world without the boy xxix. the fairy prince's ring xxx. the day of suspense xxxi. the boy's sister illustrations "food for the gods, and only a boy to eat it" (frontispiece) "we really want you, said molly" "sometimes jack drove, with molly beside him" "the blue flame of the chafing-dish" "i was suddenly clapped upon the shoulder" "treading the road built by napoléon" "there was a pang when i turned my back" "that is the déjeuner of napoléon" "down, turk!" "be quiet, jupiter!" "on the ground crouched the boy" "'do you know,' said i, 'you are a very queer boy'" "looking out of the window i saw him in conversation" "sitting with my back to the horses" "here we were at annecy" "voilà monsieur!" "the rock of monaco" chapter i woman disposes "away, away, from men and towns, to the wild wood and the downs, to the silent wilderness." --percy bysshe shelley. "to your happiness," i said, lifting my glass, and looking the girl in the eyes. she had the grace to blush, which was the least that she could do, for a moment ago she had jilted me. the way of it was this. i had met her and her mother the winter before at davos, where i had been sent after south africa, and a spell of playing fast and loose with my health--a possession usually treated as we treat the poor, whom we expect to have always with us. helen blantock had been the success of her season in london, had paid for her triumphs with a breakdown, and we had stopped at the same hotel. the girl's reputation as a beauty had marched before her, blowing trumpets. she was the prettiest girl in davos, as she had been the prettiest in london; and i shared with other normal, self-respecting men the amiable weakness of wishing to monopolise the woman most wanted by others. during the process i fell in love, and helen was kind. lady blantock, a matron of comfortable rotundity of figure and a placid way of folding plump, white hands, had, however, a contradictorily cold and watchful eye, which i had feared at first; but it had softened for me, and i accepted the omen. in the spring, when my london tyrant had pronounced me "sound as a bell," i had proposed to helen. the girl said neither yes nor no, but she had eyes and a smile which needed no translation, so i kissed her (it was in a conservatory at a dance) and was happy--for a fortnight. then came this bidding to dinner. lady blantock wrote the invitation, of course, but it was natural to suppose that she did it to please her daughter. it happened to be my birthday, and i fancied that helen had kept the date in mind. besides, the selection of the guests had apparently been made with an eye to my pleasure. there was jack winston, who had lately married an american heiress, not because she was an heiress, but because she was adorable; there was the heiress herself, _née_ molly randolph, whom i had known through winston's letters before i saw her lovely, laughing face; there was sir horace jerveyson, the richest grocer in the world, whom i suspected lady blantock of actually regarding as a human being, and a suitable successor to the late sir james. besides these, there was only myself, montagu lane; and i believed that the dinner had been arranged with a view to my claims as leading man in the love drama of which helen blantock was leading lady, the other characters in the scene merely being "on" as our "support." if this idea argued conceit, i was punished. it was with the _entrée_ that the blow fell, and i had a curious, impersonal sort of feeling that on every night to come, should i live for a hundred years, each future _entrée_ of each future dinner would recall the sensation of this moment. something inside me, that was myself yet not myself, chuckled at the thought, and made a note to avoid _entrées_. we had been asking each others' plans for august. molly and jack had said that they were going to switzerland to try the new mercédès, which had been given as a wedding present to the girl by a school friend of that name, and of many dollars. then, solely to be civil, not because i wanted to know, i asked sir horace jerveyson what he meant to do. hardly did i even expect to hear his answer, for i was looking at helen, and she was in great beauty. but the man's words jumped to my ears. "miss blantock and i are going to scotland," answered the grocer, in his fat voice, which might have been oiled with his own bacon. i stared incredulously. "together," he informatively added. lady blantock laughed nervously. "i suppose we might as well let this pass for an announcement?" she twittered. "nell and sir horace have been engaged a whole day. it will be in the _morning post_ to-morrow. really, it has been so sudden that i feel quite dazed." it was at this point that i drank to the girl's happiness, looking straight into her eyes. i have a dim impression that the grocer, who no doubt mistook her blush for maiden pride of conquest, essayed to make a speech, and was tactfully suppressed by the future mother-in-law. i am sure, though, that it was helen who presently asked, in pink-and-white confusion, if i, too, were bound for scotland. "but, of course you are," she added. "no," i said. "i've been planning to take a walking tour as soon as this tiresome season is over. i shall run across to france and wander for a while. eventually, i shall end up at monte carlo. a friend whom i rather want to meet, will arrive there, at her villa, in october." i knew that jack winston would understand, for he had not been the only one last winter who had written letters. but jack was of no importance to me at the instant. i was talking at helen, and she, too, would understand. i hoped that, in understanding, she would suffer a pang, a small, insignificant, poor relation of the pang inflicted upon me. it is a thing unexplained by science why the miserable hours of our lives should he fifty times the length of happy hours, though stupid clocks, seeing nothing beyond their own hands, record both with the same measurement. if we had sat at this prettily decorated dinner table in the carlton restaurant (i had thought it pretty at first, so i give it the benefit of the doubt) through the night into the next day, while other people ate breakfast and even luncheon, the moments could not have dragged more heavily. but when it appeared that we must have reached a ripe old age--those of us who had been young with the evening--lady blantock thought we might have coffee in the "palm court." we had it, and by rising at last, sweet molly winston saved me from doing the musicians a mischief. "lord lane, you promised to let us drop you, in the car," she said to me. "oh, i don't mean to 'drop you' literally. our auto has no naughty ways. i hope we are not carrying you off too soon." [illustration: "we really want you, said molly".] too soon! i could have kissed her. "angel," i murmured, when we were out of the hotel, for in reality there had been no engagement. "thank you--and good-bye." i wrung her hand, and she gave a funny little squeak, for i had forgotten her rings. "what! aren't you coming?" asked jack. "we really want you," said molly. "please let us take you home with us--to supper." "we've just finished dinner," i objected weakly. "that makes no difference. eating is only an incident of supper. it's a meal which consists of conversation. look, here's the car. isn't she a beauty? can you resist her? such a dear darling of a girl gave her to me, a girl you would love. can you resist mercédès?" "i could resist anything if i could resist you. but seriously, though you're very good, i think i'll walk to the albany, and--and go to bed." "what nonsense! as if you would. you're quite a clever actor, lord lane, and might deceive a man, but--i'm a woman. jack and i want to talk to you about--about that walking tour." it would have been ungracious to refuse, since she had set her heart upon a rescue. the chauffeur who had brought round the motor surrendered his place to molly, whom jack had taught to drive the new car, and i was given the seat of honour beside her. by this time the streets were comparatively clear of traffic, and we shot away as if we had been propelled from a catapult, molly contriving to combine a rippling flow of words with intricate tricks of steering, in an extraordinary fashion which i would defy any male expert to imitate without committing suicide and murder. i was a determined enemy of motor cars, as jack knew, and thus far had avoided treachery to my favourite animal by never setting foot in one. but to-night i was past nice distinctions, and besides, i rather hoped that molly and her mercédès would kill me. my nerves were too numb to tell my brain of any remarkable sensations in the new experience, but i remember feeling cheated out of what i had been led to expect, when without any tragic event molly stopped the car before their house in park lane--another and bigger wedding present. it was a brand-new toy bestowed by millionaire chauncey randolph on his one fair daughter. jack and molly winston had been married in new york in june (when i would have been best man had it not been for helen), had spent their honeymoon somewhere in the bride's native country, and had come "home" to england only a little more than a fortnight ago. jack's father, lord brighthelmston, had furnished the house as his gift to the bride, and as he is a famous connoisseur and collector, his taste, combined with lady brighthelmston's management, had resulted in perfection. already i had been taken from cellar to attic and shown everything, so that to-night there was no need to admire. we went into the dining-room; why, i do not know, unless that sitting round a table in the company of friends opens the heart and loosens the tongue. i have reason to believe that on the table there were things to eat, and especially to drink, but we gave them the cut direct, though i recall vaguely the fizz of soda shooting from the syphon, and afterwards holding a glass in my hand. "do you mind my saying what i think of lady blantock and her daughter?" inquired molly, with the meek sweetness of a coaxing child. "perhaps i oughtn't, but it would be a relief to my feelings." "i wonder if it would to mine?" i remarked impersonally, addressing the ancient tapestry on an opposite wall. "let's try, and see," persisted molly. "calculating cats! there, it's out. i wouldn't have eaten their old dinner, except to please you. i've known them only thirteen days, but i could have said the same thing when i'd known them thirteen minutes. indeed, i'm not sure i didn't say it to jack. did i, or did i not. lightning conductor?" "you did," replied the person addressed, answering with a smile to the name which he had earned in playing the part of molly randolph's chauffeur, in the making of their love story. "women always know things about each other--the sort of things the others don't want them to know," molly went on; "but there's no use in our warning men who think they are in love with calculating cats, because they would be certain we were jealous. of course i shouldn't say this to you, lord lane, if you hadn't taken me into your confidence a little--that night of my first london ball." "it was the night i proposed to nell," i said, half to myself. "sir horace jerveyson was at the ball, too." "talking to lady blantock." "and looking at miss blantock. i noticed, and--i put things together." "who would ever have thought of putting those two together?" "i did. i said to myself and afterwards to jack--may i tell you what i said?" "please do. if it hurts, it will be a counter-irritant." "well, jack had told me such heaps about you, you know, and he'd hinted that, while we were having our great romance on a motor car, you were having one on toboggans and skates at davos, so i was interested. then i saw her at the ball, and we were introduced. she was pretty, but--a prize white persian kitten is pretty; also it has little claws. she liked you, of course, because you're young and good-looking. besides, her father was knighted only because he discovered a new microbe or something, while you're a 'hearl,' as my new maid says." "a penniless 'hearl,'" i laughed. "you must have plenty of pennies, for you seem to have everything a man can want; but that is different from what a woman can want. i'm sure helen blantock and her mother had an understanding. i can hear lady blantock saying, 'nell, dear, you may give lord lane encouragement up to a certain point, for it would be nice to be a countess; but don't let him propose yet. who knows what may happen?' then what did happen was sir horace jerveyson, who has more pounds than you have pennies. helen would console herself with the thought that the wife of a knight is as much 'lady so-and-so' as a countess. i hate that grocerman, and as for helen, you ought to thank heaven fasting for your escape." "perhaps i shall some day, but that day is not yet," i answered. "however, there is still monte carlo." "shall you drown your sorrows in roulette?" asked molly, looking horrified. "who knows?" "don't let her misjudge you," cut in jack. "have you forgotten what i told you about the italian countess, molly?" "oh, the countess with whom lord lane used to flirt at davos before he met miss blantock? now i see. you said that you were going to monte carlo, on purpose to make helen blantock jealous." "i'm afraid some spiteful idea of the sort was in my mind," i admitted. "but the countess is fascinating, and if she would be kind, monte carlo might effect a cure of the heart, as davos did of the lungs." "i believe you're capable of marrying for pique. oh, if i could prove to you that you aren't, and never have been, in love with helen!" "it would be difficult." "i'll engage to do it, if you'll take my prescription." "what is that?" "cheerful society and amusement. in other words, jack's and my society, and a tour on our motor car." "what, make a discord in the music of your duet?" "dear old boy, we want you," said jack. i was grateful. "i can't tell how much i thank you," i answered. "but i'm in no mood for companionship. the fact is, i'm stunned for the moment, but i fancy that presently i shall find out i'm rather hard hit." "no, you won't, unless you mope," broke in molly. "on the contrary, you'll feel it less every day." "time will show," said i. "anyhow, i must dree my own weird--whatever that means. i don't know, and never heard of anyone who did, but it sounds appropriate. i should like to do a walking tour alone in the desert, if it were not for the annoying necessity to eat and drink. i want to get away from all the people i ever knew or heard of--with the exceptions named." "one would think you were the only person disappointed in love!" exclaimed molly. "why, i have a friend who has really suffered. dear little mercédès----" mrs. winston stopped suddenly, drawing in her breath. she looked startled, as if she had been on the point of betraying a state secret; then her eyes brightened; she began abstractedly to trace a leaf on the damask tablecloth. "i have thought of just the thing for you," she said, apparently apropos of nothing. "why don't you buy or hire a mule to carry your luggage, and walk from switzerland down into italy, not over the high roads, but do a pass or two, and for the rest, keep to the footpaths among the mountains, which would suit your mood?" "the mule isn't a bad scheme," i replied. "a dirty man is an independent animal, but a clean man, or one whose aim is to be clean, is more or less helpless. if he has a weakness for a sponge bag, a clean shirt or two, and evening things to change into after a long tramp, he must go hampered by a caravan of beasts." "one beast would do," said molly practically, "unless you count the muleteer, and that depends upon his disposition." "i suppose muleteers have dispositions," i reflected aloud. "mules have. i've met them in america. but if you think my idea a bright one, reward it by going with jack and me as far as lucerne. there you can pick up your mule and your mule-man." "'a picker-up of unconsidered trifles,'" i quoted dreamily. "well, if you and jack are willing to tool me out on your motor car as far as lucerne, i should be an ungrateful brute to refuse. but the difficulty is, i want to turn a sulky back on my kind at once, while you two----" "we're starting on the first," said jack. "what! no cowes?" "we wouldn't give a day on the car for a cycle of cowes." and so the plan of my consolation tour was settled, in the supreme court beyond which there is no appeal. but man can do no more than propose; and woman--even american woman--cannot invariably "dispose" to the extent of remaking the whole world of mules and men according to her whim. [illustration] chapter ii mercédès to the rescue "what is more intellectually exhilarating to the mind, and even to the senses, than . . . looking down the vista of some great road . . . and to wonder through what strange places, by what towns and castles, by what rivers and streams, by what mountains and valleys it will take him ere he reaches his destination?"--_the spectator_. that locker should have come in at the moment when i was trying on my new automobile get-up was more than a pin-prick to my already ruffled sensibilities--it was a knife-thrust. "what on earth are you laughing at, man?" i demanded, whipping off the goggles that made me look like a senile owl, and facing him angrily, as he had a sudden need to cover his mouth with a decorous palm. "i beg pardon, me lord," he said. "it was coming on you sudden in them things. i never thought to see you, me lord, in hotomobeel clothes--you who always was so down on the 'orrid machines." "well, help me out of them," i answered, feeling the justice of locker's implied rebuke. i twisted my wrists free of the elastic wind-cuffs, and shed the unpleasantly heavy coat that winston had insisted i should buy. "and you such a friend of the 'orse too, me lord," added locker, aware that he had me at a disadvantage. i winced, and felt the need of self-justification. "you're right," i said. "i never thought i should come to it. but all men fall sooner or later, and i have held out longer than most. don't be afraid, though, that i am going to have a machine of my own: i haven't quite sunk to that; if everybody else i know has. i'm only going across france on mr. winston's car. he has a new one--the latest make. he tells me that when he 'lets her out' she does seventy an hour." "wot--miles, me lord?" locker almost dropped the coat of which he had disencumbered me. "kilometres. it's the speed of a good quick train." it was strange; but until the night of that hateful dinner at the carlton, i had never been in a motor car. half my friends had them, or meant to have them; but in a kind of lofty obstinacy i had refused to be a "tooled down" to brighton or elsewhere. fancying myself considerably as a whip, and being an enthusiastic lover of horses, i had taken up an attitude of hostility to their mechanical rivals, and chuckled with malice whenever i saw in the papers that any acquaintance had been hauled up for going beyond the "legal limit." but on the night of the carlton dinner, when molly winston whirled me from pall mall to park lane, that part of me which was not frozen by the grocer (the part the psychologists call the "unconscious secondary self") told me that i was having another startling experience apart from being jilted. winston is my oldest friend, and when his letters were mere pæans in praise of automobilism, i looked upon his fad with compassionate indulgence. then we met in london after his marriage, and between the confidences which we had exchanged, he managed to sandwich in something about motor cars. but i ruthlessly swept aside the interpolation as unworthy of notice. when he suggested a drive in the new car, i called up all my tact to evade the invitation. if the active part of me had not been stunned on the night when helen threw me over, i believe i should have kept bright the jewel of consistency. but the kindness of molly in circumstances the opposite of kind, had undone me. here i was, pledged to get myself up like a figure of fun, and sit glued for days to the seat of a noisy, jolting, ill-smelling machine which i hated, feeling (and looking), in my goggles and hairy coat, like a circus monkey or a circus dragon. nevertheless, i could confess the motor car to my man with comparative calmness. that i should fall was no doubt a disappointment to him. as a conscientious snob and a cherisher of conservative ideals, he could mention it to other valets without a blush. the mules however, towards which the motor was to lead, was a different thing; and while poor locker excavated me from the motor coat, my mind was busily devising means to keep the horrid secret of the mule hidden from him forever. there was but one way to do this. "i suppose, me lord, i'm to travel with the 'eavy luggage, and take rooms at the end of the journey," he suggested. the crucial moment had come. if a man can support existence without the girl he loves, thought i, surely it must be possible for him to live without a valet. "no, locker," i said firmly. "i am to be mr. and mrs. winston's guest, and we--er--shall have no fixed destination. i shall be obliged to leave you behind." "very good, me lord," returned locker in a meek voice. "very good, me lord; _has_ you will. i do 'ope you won't suffer from dust, with no one to keep you in proper repair, as you might say. but no doubt it will be only for a short time." knowing that days, weeks, and even months might pass while i consorted with motors and mules, far from valets and civilisation, i was nevertheless toward enough to hint that locker must be prepared for a wire at any time. i had often derived a quaint pleasure from the consciousness that he despised my bookish habits and certain unconventionalities not suited to a 'hearl'; but one must draw the line somewhere, and i drew it at the mule. i would give a good deal rather than locker should suspect me of the mule. it was arranged that we should leave from jack's house in park lane, and as we wanted to reach southampton early, our start was to be at nine o'clock. "in france," jack had said to me, "we could reel off the distance almost as quickly as the train; but in our blessed land, with its twenty miles an hour speed limit, its narrow winding roads, chiefly used in country places as children's playgrounds, and its police traps, motoring isn't the undiluted joy it ought to be. the thing to prepare for is the unexpected." at half-past eight at jack's door, i bade an almost affectionate farewell to the last cabhorse with which for many wild weeks i should have business dealings. the untrammelled life before me seemed to be signalised by the lonely suit case which was the one article of luggage i was allowed to carry on the motor. a portmanteau was to follow me vaguely about the continent, and i had visions of a pack to supersede the suit case, when my means of transport should be a mule. sufficient for the motor was the luggage thereof, however, and when my neat leather case was deposited in jack's hall, i was rewarded with molly's approving comment that it would "make a lovely footstool." we had breakfast together, as though nothing dreadful were about to happen, and i heartened myself up with strong coffee. by the time we had finished, and molly had changed herself from a radiant girl into a cream-coloured mushroom, with a thick, straight, pale-brown stem, the thing was at the door--molly's idol, the new goddess, with its votive priest pouring incense out of a long-nosed oil can and waving a polishing rag for some other mystic rite. this servant of the car answered to the name of gotteland, and having learned from jack that he had started life as a jockey in hungary, i thought evil of him for abandoning the horse for the machine. he evidently belonged to that mysterious race of beings called suddenly into existence by a vast new industry; mysterious, because how or why a man drifts or jumps into the occupation of chauffeur is never explained to those who see only the finished article. jack praised him as a model of chauffeury accomplishments, among which were a knowledge of seventeen languages more or less, to say nothing of dialects, and a temper warranted to stand a burst tyre, a disordered silencer, an uncertain ignition, and (incidentally) a broken heart--all occurring at the same time. despite these alleged perfections, i distrusted the cosmopolitan apostate on principle, and was about to turn upon his leather-clad form a disapproving gaze, when i dimly realised that it would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. instead, i smiled hypocritically as we "took a look" at the car before lending it our lives. "i hope the brute isn't vicious; doesn't blow up or explode, or shed its safety valve, or anything," i remarked with a facetiousness which in the circumstances did me credit. gotteland answered with the pitying air of the professional for the amateur. "the _one_ thing an automobile can't do, sir, is to blow up." i was glad to hear this, in spite of the strong coffee lately swallowed, but on the other hand there were doubtless a great many other equally disagreeable things which it could do. of course, if it were satisfied with merely killing me, neatly and thoroughly, i still felt that i should not mind; indeed, would be rather grateful than otherwise. but there were objections, even for a jilted lover, to being smeared along the ground, and picked up, perhaps, without a nose, or the proper complement of legs, or vertebræ. "anyhow, the beast has a certain meretricious beauty," i admitted. "those red cushions and all that bright metal work give an effect of luxury." gotteland revenged his idol with another smile. "amateurs _do_ notice such things, sir," said he. "professionals don't care much about the body; it's the motor that interests them." he lifted a sort of lattice which muzzled the dragon's mouth, disclosing some bulbous cylinders and a tangle of pipes and wires. "it's the _dernier cri_. that engine will work as long as there's a drop of essence in the carburetter, and will carry you at forty miles an hour, without feeling a hill which would set many cars groaning and puffing. it will do the work of twenty horses, and more----" "yet i shouldn't be _really_ surprised if one horse had to tow it some day," i murmured more to myself than to him, but molly heard me, through her mushroom. "you'll soon apologise to mercédès for your doubts of her, for motors are their own missionaries," she said, her eyes laughing through a triangular talc window. "you will have learned to love her before you know what has happened, just as you would the real mercédès, if you could see her." curious, i thought, that molly, knowing my state of mind, should be constantly weaving into our conversation some allusion to the namesake and giver of her car. i had never in my life been less interested in the subject of extraneous girls, and with all molly's tact, it seemed strange that she should not recognise this. however, she did not appear to expect an answer, and we were soon settled in the car, molly, as i have said, looking like a graceful fungus growth, jack and i like haggard goblins. molly was to drive, and jack insisted that i should sit in one of the two absurdly comfortable armchair arrangements in front. the chauffeur was presently to curl like a tendril round a little crimson toadstool at our feet, and jack took the tonneau in lonely state. this was, no doubt, an act of fine self-abnegation on his part, nevertheless i could have envied him his safe retirement, from my place of honour, with no noble horses in front to save molly and me from swift destruction. physically, we were very snug, however. the luggage was fitted into spaces especially made for it; long baskets on the mudguards at the side were stowed with maps and guide-books for the tour, and (as molly remarked in the language of her childhood) a "few nice little 'eaties' to make us independent on the way." there was also a sort of glorified tea basket, containing, molly said, a chafing-dish, without which no self-respecting american woman ever travelled, and by whose aid wonderful dishes could be turned out at five minutes' notice in a shipwreck, on a desert island, or while a tyre was being mended. as i mentally finished my last will and testament, gotteland gave a short twist to the dragon's tail, which happened to be in front. instantly a heart began to throb, throb. the chauffeur sprang to his toadstool. molly moved a lever which said "r-r-r-tch," pressed one of her small but determined american feet on something, and the car gave a kind of a smooth, gliding leap forward, as if sent spinning from an unseen giant's hand. though it was but just after nine, the early omnibus had gathered its tribute of toiling or shopping worms, and was too prevalent in park lane for my peace of mind. there were also enormous drays, which looked, as our frail bark passed under their bows, like huge atlantic liners. the hansoms were fierce black sharks skimming viciously round us, and there were other monsters whose forms i had no time to analyse: but into the midst of this seething ocean molly pitilessly hurled us. how we slipped into spaces half our own width and came out scatheless, providence alone knew, but it seemed that kindly fate must soon tire of sparing us, we tempted it so often. "here's a smash!" i said to myself grimly, at the corner of hamilton place, and it flashed through my brain, with a mixture of self-contempt and pity, that my last thought before the end would be one of sordid satisfaction because a fortnight ago i had reluctantly paid an accident assurance premium. my fingers yearned with magnetic attraction toward the arms of the seat, but with all that was manly in me i resisted. i wreathed my face with a smile which, though stiff as a plaster mask, was a useful screen; and as south african tan is warranted not to wear off during a lifetime, i could feel as pale as i pleased without visible disgrace. "how do you like it?" asked molly. "glorious," i breezily returned. "ah, i _thought_ you would enjoy it, when--as they say of babies--you 'began to take notice.' the other night, of course, you were a little absent-minded. besides, it was dark, and the streets were dull and empty. a motor _is_ just as nice as a horse, isn't it? do say so, if only to please me." now i knew why the victims of the inquisition told any lie which happened to come handy. i said that it was marvellous how soon the thing got hold of one; and molly's mushroom reared itself proudly. "that is because you are so brave," said the poor, deceived girl. "of course it's having been a soldier, and all that. people who've been in battle wouldn't think anything of a first motor experience ("oh, wouldn't they?" i inwardly chortled). but, do you know, lord lane, i've actually seen men who were quite brave in other ways, feel a little _queer_ the first time they drove in an automobile through traffic, or even in quiet country roads? i don't suppose you can understand it." "i couldn't," i replied valiantly, "were not imagination the first ingredient of sympathy. but--er--don't you think that omnibus in front is rather large--near, i mean? you mustn't exert yourself to talk, you know, for my sake, if you need to give your whole attention to driving." "i like to talk. it's no exertion at all," said molly, and i fancy i responded with some base flattery, though by this time that smile of mine was so hard you could have knocked it off with a hammer. "the first day i went through traffic," she continued, "my toes had the funniest sensation, as if they were turning up in my shoes. one seemed to come so awfully _near_ everything, without any horses in front." at this very moment my own toes happened to feel as if they were pasted back on my insteps; yet i laughed heartily at the suggestion, and to my critical ear there was only a slight hollowness in the ring, although before us now loomed a huge railway van. it was loaded with iron bars, their rusty ends hanging far out and sagging towards the roadway, enough to frighten the gentlest automobile. ours seemed far from gentle, and besides, we could not possibly stop in time to avoid impalement on the iron spikes. molly and i, if not jack and the chauffeur, must surely die a peculiarly unpleasant and unnecessary death, in the morning of our lives, just as other more fortunate people were starting out, safe and happy in exquisitely beautiful omnibuses, to begin their day's pleasure. and molly believed, because i had been in a few battles, with nothing worse than a bee-like buzzing of some innocent bullets in my ears, that i should be callous in a motor car. however, the bravest soldiers are those who feel fear, and fight despite it. i maintain that i deserved a victoria cross for the grim smile which did not leave my lips as i braced myself for the death-dealing blow. but, as in a dream one finds without surprise that the precipice, over which one is hanging by an eyebrow, obligingly transforms itself into a bank of violets, so did the dragon which had been whirling us to destruction magically change into a swan-like creature skimming just out of harm's way. i now reflected, with a vague sense of self-disgust, that, instead of being glad to leave the world which had denied me helen, i had felt distinctly annoyed at the necessity, had not given a thought to my lost love, and had been thankful for the mere gift of life without her. "i'm so glad you don't think i'm reckless," said molly, as quietly as though we had not passed through a crisis; and indeed to this day i do not believe she would admit that we had. "i'm really very careful; jack says i am. he takes tremendous risks sometimes, or at least it seems so when you're not driving. you'll see the difference when _he's_ in front." i refrained from comment, but i had never valued jack's friendship less, and i was in the act of concocting a telegram from locker which might recall me to london, when from the speed of the scotch express we slowed down to a pace which would have been mean even for a donkey. we continued this rate of progression for a peaceful but all too brief interval; then in the line of traffic opened a narrow canal which i hoped might escape molly's eye. but there was no such luck. she saw; we leaped into it, raced down it, and before i could have said "knife," or any other equally irrelevant word of one syllable, we had left everything else behind. i expected to be (to put it mildly) as uncomfortable as i had been before my short respite, yet strange to say, this was not the case. i did not know what was the matter with me, but suddenly i seemed to be enjoying myself. the tension of muscles relaxed, as if a string which had held them tight--like the limbs of a jumping jack--had been let go. i leaned back against the crimson cushions of my seat with a new and singular sense of well-being. once, as a volunteer in south africa, i had felt the same when, after having a splinter of bone taken out, under chloroform, i had waked up to be told it was all over. this wasn't over, but somehow, i didn't want it to be. we took putney bridge at a gulp, and swallowed the long hill to wimbledon common in the fashion of a hungry anaconda; but before we arrived at this stage a thing happened which unexpectedly raised my opinion of motor cars. it was in the fullham road that we glided close behind a hansom bowling along at a rattling pace. traffic on our right prevented us from passing, and molly had just remarked how vexing it was to be kept back by a mere hansom, when plunk! down went the little nag on his nose. it was one of those tumbles in which the horse collapses in a limp heap without any sliding, though he had been going fast downhill, and of course the hansom stopped dead. the whole scene was as quick as the flashing of a biograph. the driver struggled to keep his seat, clawing at the shiny roof of the cab; his fare, in a silk hat and pathetic frock coat, shot from the vehicle like a flying mercury, and this time it seemed that nothing could keep us from telescoping the vehicle thus suddenly arrested a few feet ahead. but i reckoned without molly. her little gloved hand, and the high-heeled american toys she had for feet, moved like lightning. without any violent wrench, the car stopped apparently in less than its own length, and as, even thus, we were too close upon the cab, molly threw a quick glance behind, then bade mercédès glide gently backward. with the fall of the horse, jack rose in the tonneau, with the instinct of protection over molly. but he said not a word till she had guided the car to safety, when he gave her a little congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "good girl; that was perfect. couldn't have been better," he murmured. we waited until we had seen that neither man nor horse was badly hurt, and then sped on again, with a certain respect for the motor rankling in my reluctant heart. comparing its behaviour with that of an automobile, hansom's ironically named "patent safety" had not a wheel to stand upon. when we were clear of kingston, and winging lightly along the familiar portsmouth road, with its dark pines and purple gleams of heather, i began to feel an exhilaration scarcely short of treacherous to my principles. we were now putting on speed, and running as fast as most trains on the south-western, yet the sensation was far removed from any i had experienced in travelling by rail, even on famous lines, which give glorious views if one does not mind cinders in the eye or the chance of having one's head knocked off like a ripe apple. i seemed to be floating in a great opaline sea of pure, fresh air; for such dust as we raised was beaten down from the tonneau by the screen, and it did not trouble us. our speed appeared to turn the country into a panorama flying by for our amusement; and yet, fast as we went, to my surprise i was able to appreciate every feature, every incident of the road. each separate beauty of the way was threaded like a bead on a rosary. here was sandown park, which i had regarded as the goal of a respectable drive from town, with horses; but we were taking it, so to speak, in our first stride. esher was no sooner left behind than quaint old sleepy cobham came to view; between there and ripley was but a gliding step over a road which slipped like velvet under our wheels. then a fringe of trees netted across a blue, distant sea of billowing hills, and a few minutes later we were sailing under guildford's suspended clock. it was somewhere near the hour of one when molly brought the car gently to a standstill by the roadside, and announced that she would not go a yard further without lunch. the chauffeur successfully took up the part of butler at a moment's notice, busying himself with the baskets, spreading a picnic cloth under a shady tree, and putting a bottle of graves to cool in a neighbouring brook. meanwhile molly was doing mysterious things with her chafing-dish and several little china jars. by the time jack and i had with awkward alacrity bestowed plates, glasses, knives, and forks on the most hummocky portions of the cloth, white and rosy flakes of lobster _à la_ newburg were simmering appetisingly in a creamy froth. i was deeply interested in this cult of the chafing-dish, which could, in an incredibly short time, serve up by the wayside a little feast fit for a king--who had not got dyspepsia. "can't you imagine the programme if we had gone to an inn?" asked jack, proud of his bride's handiwork. "we should have walked into a dingy dining-room, with brown wallpaper and four steel engravings of bloodthirsty scenes from the old testament. a sleepy head waiter would have looked at me with a polite but puzzled expression, as if at a loss to know why on earth we had come. i should have enquired deprecatingly: 'what can you give us for lunch?' what would he have replied?" "there's only one possible answer to that conundrum, and it doesn't take any guessing," said i. "the reply would have been: 'cold 'am or beef, sir; chops, if you choose to wait.' those words are probably now being spoken to some hundreds of sad travellers less fortunate than our favoured and sylvan selves." "if you would like to have a chafing-dish in your family," remarked jack, "you'll have to marry an american girl." "i'm no duke," said i. "earls aren't to be despised, if there are no dukes handy," said molly. "besides, it's getting a little obvious to marry a duke." "which is the reason you took up with a chauffeur," retorted jack. "you call yourself a 'penniless hearl,'" went on molly, "and i suppose, of course, you are 'belted.' all earls are, in poetry and serials, which must be convenient when you're _really_ very poor, because if you're hungry, you can always take a reef in your belt, while mere plain men have no such resource. have you got yours on now?" "it's in pawn," said i. "it's no joke about being penniless. jack will tell you i'm obliged to let my dear old house in oxfordshire, and the only luxuries i can afford are a few horses and a few books. i prefer them to necessities--since i can't have both." i thought that molly might laugh, but instead she looked abnormally grave. "jack told me," she said, "how, when you and he came over to america, six or seven years ago, to shoot big game, you avoided girls, for fear people might suppose your alleged bear hunt was really an heiress hunt. i forgive jack, because that was in the dark ages, before he knew there was a me. but why should a girl be shunned by nice men solely because she's an heiress? can't she be as pretty and lovable in herself as a poor girl?" "she can," i replied, emphasising my words with a look in molly's face. "no doubt she often is. but i do wish some american girls who marry men from our side of the water wouldn't let the papers advertise their weddings as 'functions' (sounds like obscure workings of physical organs), attended by the families of their exclusive acquaintance, worth, when lumped together, a billion of dollars or so." "i know. it's as if they were prize pigs at a fair, and were of no importance except for their dollars," sighed molly. "and then, the detectives to watch the presents! it's disgusting. but some of our newspapers are like mr. hyde. poor dr. jekyll can't do anything with him; and anyhow, you needn't think we're all like that. i have a friend who is one of the greatest heiresses in america, but she hates her money. it has made her very unhappy, though she's only twenty-one years old. if you could see mercédès, with her lovely, strange sad face, and big, wistful eyes----" "i can think of mercédès only with a shiny grey body, upholstered crimson; and for eyes, huge acetylene lamps," i was rude enough to break in; for i fancied that i saw what mistress molly would fain be up to, and my heart was not of the rubber-ball description, to be caught in the rebound. if molly cherished a secret intention of springing her peerless friend mercédès upon me, during this tour which she had organised, it seemed better for everyone concerned that the hope should be nipped in the bud. it was with unwonted meekness that she yielded to being suppressed, and i suffered immediate pangs of remorse. to atone, i did my best to be agreeable. all the way to southampton i praised automobiles in general and hers in particular; admitted that in half a day i had become half a convert; and soon i had the pleasure of believing that the divine molly had forgotten my sin. [illustration] [illustration: "sometimes jack drove, with molly beside him".] chapter iii my lesson "the broad road that stretches." --r.l. stevenson. forty-eight hours later we drove out of havre, bound for paris and lucerne, where i was to "pick up" that mule, and become a lone wanderer on the face of the earth. gotteland had seen to the shipping of the car from southampton, while we spent a day on the crowded sands of trouville, where i was so lucky as to meet no one i knew. it was only now, winston said, that i should realise to the full the joys of motoring, impossible to taste under present conditions in england. our way was to lie along the seine to paris, and jack recalled to us napoleon's saying that "paris, rouen, and havre form only one city, of which the seine is the highway." last year, these two had seen the country of the loire together, under curious and romantic conditions, and now molly was to be shown another great river in france. we changed places in the car, like players in the old game of "stage coach." sometimes molly had the reins, and i the seat of honour by her side. sometimes jack drove, with molly beside him, i in the tonneau; then i knew that they were perfectly happy, though gotteland and i could hear every word they said, and their talk was generally of what we passed by the way, occasionally interspersed by a "do you remember?" now, if there is an insufferable companion under the sun, it is the average "well-informed person" who continually dins into your ears things you were born knowing. this i resent, for i flatter myself that i was born knowing a good many exceptionally interesting and exciting things which can't be learned by studying history, geography, or even _tit-bits_. jack winston, however, though he has actually taken the trouble to house in his memory an enormous number of facts,--"those brute beasts of the language,"--has so tamed and idealised the creatures as to make them not only tolerable but attractive. i can even hear him tell things which i myself don't know or have forgotten, without instantly wishing to throw a jug of water at his good-looking head; indeed, i egg him on and have been tempted to jot down an item of information on my shirt cuff, with a view of fixing it in my mind, and eventually getting it off as my own. whenever molly or i admired any object, natural or artificial, it seemed that jack knew all about it. she showed a flattering interest in everything he said, and, fired by her compliments, he suddenly exclaimed: "look here, molly, suppose we don't hurry on, the way we've been planning to do? last year we had that wonderful chain of feudal châteaux in touraine, to show us what kingly and noble life was in dim old days. now, all along the seine and near it, we shall have some splendid churches instead of castles. we can hold a revel, almost an orgie, of magnificent ecclesiastical architecture if we like to spend the time. i've got ferguson's book and parker's, anyhow, and why shouldn't we run off the beaten track----" "no, dearest," said his wife gently, but firmly, and i could have hugged her. my bump of reverence for the gothic in all its developments is creditably large, but in my present "lowness of mind," as molly would say, a long procession of cold, majestic cathedrals would have reduced me to a limp pulp. "no," molly went on, "i can't help thinking that the churches would be a sort of anticlimax after our beloved, warm-blooded châteaux. it would be like being taken to see your great-grandmother's grave when you'd been promised a matinée. you know we engaged to get lord lane into his lonely fastnesses as soon as possible----" "i don't believe monty's in any hurry for them," said jack, crestfallen. "you ask him if----" "he'd be too polite to be truthful. no, i'm sure that edelweiss will do him more good than rose windows, and mountain air than incense." as she thus prescribed for my symptoms, she gazed through her talc window with marked particularity into her "lightning conductor's" un-goggled face. it wore a puzzled expression at first, which suddenly brightened into comprehension. "do they repent having brought me along, and want to get rid of me?" i asked myself. i could scarcely believe this. they were too kind and cordial; still, something in that look exchanged between them hinted at a secret which concerned me, and my curiosity was pricked. nevertheless, i was grateful to molly, whatever her motive might be for hurrying on to paris. fond as i was of the two, their happy love, constantly though inadvertently displayed before my eyes, was not a panacea for the wound which they were trying to cure, and i still longed for high alpine solitudes. i had let myself drift into a gloomy thought-land, when it occurred to jack that i had better learn to drive. no doubt the clear fellow fancied that i "wanted rousing" and certainly i got it. luckily, as a small boy, i had taken an interest in mechanics, to the extent of various experiments actively disapproved of by my family, and the old fire was easily relit. i listened to his harangue in mere civility at first, then with a certain eagerness. molly sat in the tonneau, jack driving, full-petrol ahead, and i beside him. we talked motor talk, and he forgot the churches, except when they seemed actually to come out of their way to get in ours. i listened, and at the same time gathered impressions of roads--long, strange, curiously individual roads. someone has written of the "long, long indian day." i should like to write of the long, long roads of france. they had never before had any place in my thoughts. paris and the riviera had been france for me till now. i had never been intimate, never even got on terms of real friendship with any country save my own; and i had sometimes been narrow enough to take a kind of pride in this. the sweet english country had yielded up her secrets to me; i knew her spring whimsies, her soft summer moods, her autumn dreams, her wintry tempers, and i had vaunted my faithfulness and love. but here was france in prime of summer, giving me of her best. my heart warmed to her loveliness, and i sniffed the perfume of her breath, mysteriously characteristic as the chosen perfume of some loved woman's laces. it was glorious to spin on, on, between the rows of sentinel poplars, bound for the horizon, yet never reaching it, and regarding crowded haunts of men more as interruptions than as halting places. harfleur was a mere mirage to me, a vision of a gently decaying town left stranded by the stream of civilisation, flowing past to busy havre. some lines from "henry the fifth" made elusive music in my brain, mixed with a discussion of carburetters, explosion chambers, and sparking-plugs. at lillebonne, winston deigned to break short his string of motor technicalities and point out the position of the roman theatre, almost the sole treasure of the sort possessed by northern europe. i stared through my goggles at the castle where the conqueror unfolded to the assembled barons his scheme for invading england; and i begged for a slackening of speed at ancient caudebec, which, with its quay and terrace overhanging the seine, and its primly pruned elms, had such an air of happy peace that i wished to stamp it firmly in my memory. such mental photographs are convenient when one courts sleep at night, and has grown weary of counting uncountable sheep jumping over a stile. beyond caudebec we sailed along a road running high on the shoulder of the hill, with wide views over the serpentine writhings of the seine. here, jack urged a turning aside for st. wandeville or, at least, for the abbey of jumièges, poetic with memories of agnes sorel, whose heart lies in the keeping of the monks, though her body sleeps at loches. but molly would countenance no loitering. _her_ body, she said, should sleep at paris that night. we held straight on, therefore, keeping to a road at the foot of white cliffs, sometimes near the river, sometimes leaving it. quickly enough to please even this unaccountably impatient molly, we had measured off the fifty miles separating havre from rouen, and slowed down for the venerable streets of the norman capital. "i suppose even you will want to give half an hour to the cathedral which i love best in france?" jack inquired, looking back at molly as he turned from the quay up the rue grand port, and stopped in the mellow shade of an incomparable pile which towered above us. molly's mushroom, however, was agitated in dissent. she has an american chin, and an american chin spells determination. we could not see it, but we knew that it meant business. "you and i will spend hours in the cathedral another time," she said. "but now--" she did not finish her sentence, nevertheless a look of comprehension again lighted up jack's face, which for the moment was innocent of goggles. "molly's so keen on the maid," said he, "that she can't forgive rouen for not really being the scene of the trial and burning. but never mind, since she wills it, we'll shake the dust off our michelins, and when we're outside, you will have got far enough in your motoring lesson, i think, to try driving." what the last hour had not taught me (thanks to him) in theory of coils and accumulators, electromagnets and other things, was scarcely worth learning. i seemed to have looked through glass walls into the cylinders, at the fussy little pistons working under control of the "governor,"--a tyrant, i felt sure. i had already formed a mature opinion on the question of mechanically operated inlet valves (which sounded disagreeably surgical), and was able to judge what their advantage ought to be over those of the old type worked by the suction of the piston. i could imagine that more than half the fun of owning a motor car would lie in understanding the thing inside and out; and i said so. "it's a little like controlling the elements," jack answered. "think of the difference in this machine, when it's asleep--cold and quiet, an engine mounted on a frame, a tank of water, a reservoir of cheap spirit, a pump, a radiator, a magnet, some geared wheels fitting together, a lever or two. my man twists a handle. on the instant the machine leaps into frenzied life. the carburetter sprays its vapour into the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders--a thing of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at your service. you move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. the carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across continents. you can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along the great highroads, you can crawl like a worm through the traffic of cities." by the time jack had finished this harangue we had climbed the hill out of rouen and were on the fine but _accidenté_ highroad that leads past boos and pont st. pierre. soon we would reach les andelys and château gaillard. still jack was not quite ready to let me put my newly acquired knowledge into practice. there was a hill of some consequence before mantes, which we had to reach by way of la roche guyon and limay. after that there would be only what the route book calls "_fortes ondulations_"; and under the stronghold of lion heart himself (an appropriate spot, forsooth!), i was to try my hand at dragon-driving. winston brought the car to a standstill at the foot of the mouldering ruins of richard's "saucy castle," and as we looked up at the towering battlements, the huge flanking towers, and the ponderous citadel, the dark mass on its lofty rock set in the sunny landscape like a bloodstone in a gold ring, seemed to be an epitome in stone of life in the middle ages. i uttered every idea that came into my mind concerning the ruin, and squeezed my brain for more, till my head felt like a drained orange; not that i enjoyed hearing myself talk, or thought that jack and molly would do so, but because they could not well interrupt the flow of my eloquence to remind me of the reason for our stop. at last, however, silence fell upon us. it was a shock to me when molly broke it. "oh, lord lane, have you forgotten that this is where you're to begin driving? the road is nice and broad here." i put on a brave air, as does one at the dentist's. "i hope that you're not afraid i shall run you into a ditch?" i asked, laughing. "i don't believe, after all, it can be any worse than steering a toboggan down a good run, or driving a four-in-hand with one's eyes shut, as i did once for a wager on a road i knew as i knew my own hat." "perhaps it isn't exactly _worse_," said molly, "still--i think you'll find it _different_." i did. meanwhile, however, winston was cheering me on. "you'll find steering the simplest thing in the world, really," he assured me. "there's no car so sensitive as this. the faster you go, the easier it is----" "but, perhaps he'd better not try to prove _that_, just at first!" cried molly, with an affected little gasp. "no, no; certainly he won't, my child. he won't go beyond a walk until he's sure of himself and the car. you needn't be frightened. i know my man, or i shouldn't trust him with you and your mercédès. now, then, monty, are you ready?" i had never before sufficiently realised the solemnity of that word "now." it sounded in my ears like a knell, but i swallowed hard, and echoed it. to do myself justice, though, i don't think i was afraid. i was only in a funk that i should do something stupid, and be disgraced forever in the eyes of molly winston. however, i reflected, it couldn't be so very bad. molly herself, and even jack, had to learn. winston had explained to me several times the purpose of all the different levers, and, at least, i shouldn't touch the brake handle when i wanted to change the speed. "no need to grip the wheel so tightly," said jack, and i became aware that i had been clinging to it as if it were a forlorn hope. "a light touch is best, you know; it's rather like steering a boat. a very slight movement does it, and in half an hour it has got to be automatic. of course, always start on the lowest, that is, the first speed, and with the throttle nearly shut." mine was in much the same condition, but i managed to mutter something as i moved the lever, and touched the clutch-pedal with a caress timid as a falling snowflake. almost apologetically, i slid the lever into position, and let in the clutch. somehow, i had not expected it to answer so soon; but, as if it disliked being patted by a stranger, the dragon took the bit between its teeth and bolted. i hung on and did things more by instinct than by skill, for the beast was hideously lithe and strong, a thousand times stronger and wilder than i had dreamed. every faculty of body and brain was concentrated on first keeping the monster out of the ditch on the off side, then the ditch on the near. my eyes expanded until they must have filled my goggles. we waltzed, we wavered, we shied, until we outdid the seine in the windings of its channel. i fully expected that winston would pluck me like a noxious weed from the driver's seat where i had taken root, and snatch the helm himself; but strange to relate, i remained unmolested. jack confined his interference to an occasional "whoa," or "steady, old boy"; while in the tonneau so profound a silence reigned that, if i had had time to think of anything, i should have supposed molly to be swooning. "why don't you curse me, and put me out of my misery?" i gasped, when i had by a miracle avoided a tree as large as a house, which i had seen deliberately step out of its proper place to get in my way. "'curse you,' my dear fellow? you're doing splendidly," said jack. "you deserve praise, not blows. i did a lot worse when i began." thus encouraged, i gained confidence in myself and the machine. almost at once, i was conscious of improvement in mastering the touch of the wheel. soon, i was imitating a straight line with fair success, subject to a few graceful deviations. i realised that, after all, we were not going very fast, though my sensation at starting had been that of hanging on to a streak of greased lightning. i began to sigh for more worlds to conquer, and when jack reminded me that we were on the first speed, i pronounced myself equal to an experiment with the second. he made me practice taking one hand from the wheel, looking about me a little, and trying to keep the car straight by feeling rather than sight. when i had accomplished these feats, and had not brought the car to grief (even though we passed several vehicles, and i was drawn by a demoniac influence to swerve towards each one as if it had been the loadstone to my magnet, or the candle to my moth), jack finally consented to grant my request. he told me clearly what to do, and i did it, or some inward servant of myself did, whenever the master was within an ace of losing his head. i pressed down the clutch-pedal, pulled the lever affectionately towards me, and very gradually opened the throttle, so as not to startle it. in spite of my caution, however, i thought for an instant we were really going to get on the other side of the horizon, which had been avoiding us for so long. we shot ahead alarmingly, but to my intense relief, as well as surprise, i found that jack had not exaggerated. it was easier to steer on the second speed than on the first. i had merely to tickle the wheel with my finger, to send us gliding, swanlike, this way or that. to be sure, i did well-nigh run over a chicken, but i would be prepared to argue with it till it was black in the face (or resort to litigation, if necessary) that the proper place for its blood would be on its own silly head, not mine. elated by my triumphs, i scarcely listened further to jack's directions; how, if i thought there was danger, all i had to do was to unclutch, and put on the brake, whereupon the car would stop as if by magic, as it had for molly in the fulham road; how i must not forget that the foot brakes had a way of obeying fiercely, and must not be applied with violence; how i must remember to pull the brake lever by my hand, towards me if i wanted to stop; how it acted on expanding rings on the inside faces of drums, which were on the back wheels (i pitied those poor, concealed faces, for the description was neuralgic, somehow), and i could lock them at almost any speed. "i want to get on the third, and then i'll try the fourth, thank you," i interpolated impatiently. "more-more! faster, faster! whew, this knocks spots out of the ice run!" "let him have his way, jack," cried molly, speaking for the first time. "hurrah, the motor microbe is in his blood, and never, never will he get it out again." "full speed ahead, then!" said jack. i took him at his word. i could have shouted for joy. mercédès was mine, and i was mercédès'. chapter iv pots, kettles, and other things "seared is, of course, my heart--but unsubdued is, and shall be, my appetite for food." --c.s. calverley. * * * * * "a little buttery, and therein a little bin, which keeps my little loaf of bread unchipt, unflead; some little sticks of thorn or brier make me a fire." --robert herrick. if any man had told me before i started, that in two days i should find it a genuine sacrifice to stop driving a motor car, i should have looked upon him as a polite lunatic. it was only because jack could drive faster than he dared to let me, and because i was ashamed to tell molly that after all i was not in a desperate hurry to reach paris or anywhere else, that i finally tore myself from the driver's seat of the mercédès. afterwards, though i had not reached the stage when confession is good for the soul, i sat wondering what there was expensive and at the same time disagreeable which i could give up for the sake of possessing a motor of my own. in various phases of my mental and spiritual development, i had framed different conceptions of a future state beyond this life. never, even in my earliest years, had i sincerely wished to be an angel with an undeserved crown weighing down my forehead, and a harp, which i should be totally incompetent to play, within my hand; but now it struck me that there might be a worse sort of nirvana than driving a 10,000 horsepower car along a broad, straight road free from dogs, chickens, or any other animals (except, perhaps, rich, knighted grocers), and reaching all round saturn's ring. dogs had been the one "little speck in garnered fruit" for me when driving, for i love dogs and would not willingly injure so much as the end hair of the most moth-eaten mongrel's tail; therefore my brain searched a remedy against their onslaught, as i sat mute, inglorious, in the tonneau, after my late triumphs. we flashed on, passing the kilometre stones in quick succession. at pretty little mantes we crossed the seine, and presently came into the france i knew in my old, conventional way; for we passed st. germain, and so on to paris by le pecq, reuil, the long descent to the pont de suresnes (which seemed to hold laughable memories for jack and molly), through the bois down the champs elysées, and to our hotel in the place vendôme, where jack announced that we had had a run of 130 miles. winston and i flattered ourselves that paris had few secrets from us (though i don't doubt that five minutes' wrestling with baedeker might have made us feel small), and we had no wish to linger at this season. but, if we were deaf to the sirens who sing in the rue de la paix, molly was not. she had discovered that there were some "little things she wanted, which she really thought she had better buy." i fancy that the little things were shoes; anyhow, it was to be jack's blissful privilege to help her choose them, and he was of opinion (probably founded on experience) that it would take nearly all day. i decided to call on a man at the embassy, ask him out to lunch, and do him very well. i had not seen him for years, and he had bored me to extinction the last time we met; but it had come to my ears that he had been in love with helen blantock, and proposed to her, so i felt that there would be a certain charm in his society. later, there was a "little thing" which i, too, wished to buy (though i did not intend to seek it in the rue de la paix), and then i was to meet molly and jack about tea time at our hotel, in time to arrange for dining out somewhere. after all, the man was more boring than ever, as he had got himself engaged to another girl, and insisted upon talking of her, instead of helen. my one pleasure in the day, therefore, lay in purchasing the article of which i had fixed my mind after driving yesterday. this was a water pistol, warranted to keep dogs at bay, in motoring. i had some difficulty in obtaining it, and when i did, it was expensive, but i was rewarded by the thought of the pleasure my acquisition would afford my friends. the wild dashes of dogs in front of the wheels gave molly such frequent starts of anguish, that i wondered jack had not thought of this simple preventive, and i congratulated myself on having remembered an advertisement of the weapon which i had seen in some magazine. it was, i thought, rather clever of me to remember, since in those days motors had been no affair of mine; but then, the illustration had been striking, in every sense of the word. it had represented a lovely girl, with hair unbound, saving from destruction the automobile in which she sat with several companions, by shooting a fierce blast of water into the face of a huge beast well-nigh as terrible as cerberus. i determined to surprise jack and molly, when the right time should come; accordingly, the moment i reached our hotel, i filled the pistol with water, and placed it, thus loaded, in the pocket of my motoring coat ready for emergencies. hardly had i made this preparation for the future when i discovered on the table a note addressed to me in winston's handwriting. "dear monty," i read, "molly and i have a bet on. she has bet me a dinner that you will drive her car out to madrid, and meet us at half-past seven, so that we can have the dinner by daylight. i have bet her the same dinner that you won't. which of us must pay?--yours, jack." i whistled. what, drive the car through the traffic of paris? it must be a joke. of course it was a joke, but---when i had dressed for dinner, i strolled over to the garage not far away where the creature lurked. anyhow, i would have a look at her, and see what orders gotteland had received. yes, of course it was a joke. or else my poor friends had gone mad. still, there was a kind of madness with method in it. diabolical wretches, with their bets, and their dinners! did they dream i would try to do it, and smash the car? "nothing like driving a motor through traffic, to give one self-confidence afterwards," jack had said yesterday, after praising me for refraining from killing a small boy in a village street. "once a man has been thrown on his own resources, and has got through the ordeal all right, it is as good as a certificate," he had added. gotteland was in the shrine of his goddess, talking to other cosmopolitan-looking persons in leather. there was a nice smell of petrol in the place. i snuffed at it as a war-horse scents the battle, and promptly decided that the joke should become deadly earnest, no matter what the consequence to the cart the chauffeur, or myself. "everything is ready, my lord," said one of the sacrifices about to be offered up. he had now discovered that there was a sort of starting-handle to my name, and seemed as fond of using it as he was of the equivalent on his beloved motor. "did mr. winston--er--say anything about my driving?" i humbly inquired. "well, my lord, his orders were that it should be as you pleased. but perhaps i had better mention that driving is careless in paris, with cabs and automobiles all over the road, to say nothing of the trams; and then there's the keeping to the right instead of the left. if you should happen to get a little confused, my lord, not being accustomed to drive in france----" "i wish i had a _mille_ note for every time i've driven a four-in-hand through this blessed town," said i. "i'm not afraid if you're not." "oh, my lord, i've been in so many accidents, one or two more can't matter," he replied, as hercules might have replied if asked whether he were equal to a thirteenth labour in odd moments. "when i was jockey in count tokai's racing stables, a horse went mad and kicked me nearly to death. then i was a racer in old bicycling days, and had several bad spills. this scar on my face i got in a smash with one of the first benz cars made. my master thought it a fine thing at that time to go ten miles an hour, and before he'd driven much, my lord, he was determined to take the car through the streets of düsseldorf himself. there was a wagon coming one way----" "thank you," i cut in, "i'll bear the rest of that story another time. i'm not sure it would exhilarate me much at the moment. we'll be off now, and i'll do my best not to adorn you with a second scar." without another word, gotteland started the motor. the critical eyes of the assembled chauffeurs pierced to my marrow, but i squared my shoulders, prayed my presence of mind to behave itself and not get stage fright; then--_noblesse oblige!_--we swept in a creditable curve to the door of the garage, and out in fine style. gotteland also tried to look unconcerned. i think i must have seen this with my ears, as both eyes were fully occupied in searching a way through the surging current of street traffic, but i did see it. i was pleased to find that i was the better actor of the two, for gotteland's attitude revealed a strained alertness. he was like a woman sitting beside a driver of skittish horses, saying to herself: "no, i _won't_ scream or seize the reins till i must!" a sneaking impulse pricked me to take the easiest way, by the rue de rivoli, and across the place de la concorde, but i shook myself free of it, and with high resolve turned the car towards the boulevards, determined that, if molly won her bet, it should be well won. a sailor steering a quivering smack towards harbour in a north sea hurricane; an indian guiding a bark canoe through the leaping rapids of a swollen river: to both of these i likened myself as the dragon threaded in and out among the adverse streams of traffic. the great crossing by the opéra was a whirling maelstrom; a policeman with a white staff, scowled when he should have pitied; i felt alone in chaos before the creation of the world. as for noah and his ark, not an experience could he have had that i might not have capped it before i reached the bois. if i have a guardian spirit, i am sure that to numberless other good qualities he adds the skill of an accomplished motorist; for if he did not get the car to madrid, without a single scratch upon her brilliant body, i do not know who did. i have no distinct memories, after the first, yet when we arrived at our destination, gotteland generously complimented, and as i did not care to go into psychological explanations, i accepted his eulogium. it was jack, not molly, who paid for the dinner at madrid, and it was a good one. next morning early we started on our way again. jack driving, and i watching his prowess. i was now as anxious to meet dogs belligerently inclined towards motors, as i had been to avoid them, but it was not until we were well past fontainebleau that the chance for which i yearned, arrived. suddenly we came upon a yard of dachshund wandering lizard-like across the road, accompanied by a pert spitz. the waddler prudently retired, but the spitz, with all the disproportionate courage of a knight of old attacking a fire-breathing dragon, lanced himself in front of the car. after all, what are dragons but strange, new things which we know nothing about and therefore detest? this brave little knight detested us, and with magnificent self-confidence essayed to punish us for troubling his existence. my hand flew to my pocket, but paused, even as it grasped the water pistol. the dog was small, the weapon large. a fierce jet of water propelled from its muzzle might blow the breath from that tiny body, which my sole wish was to warn from under the wheels of juggernaut. however, he was persistent, and was in real danger, since to avoid an approaching cart, jack was forced to steer perilously near the yapping beast. i snatched the weapon, pulled the trigger, and--a mild, mellifluous trickle which would have disgraced a toilet vaporiser sprayed forth. jack, molly, and the peasants in the approaching cart burst into shouts of laughter. the spitz, undismayed by the gentle shower, which had spattered his nose with a drop or two, leaped at the weapon, and, irritated, i flung it at his head. it fell innocuously in the road and our last sight of the spitz was when, rejoined by his lizard friend, he industriously gnawed at the pistol, mistaking it for a bone, while the dachs gratefully lapped up the water i had provided. my surprise was a popular success, but not the kind of success which i had planned. jack said that he could have "told me so" if i had asked him, and i vowed in future to let dogs delight to bark and bite without interference from me. the one inept remark which shelley seems ever to have made was that "there is nothing to see in france." my opinion, as we spun along the road which would lead us to lucerne and my waiting mule, was that there was almost too much to see, too much charm, too much beauty for the peace of mind of an imaginative traveller; there were so many valleys which one longed to explore, in which one felt one could be content without going farther, so many blue glimpses of mysterious mountains, veiled by the haze of dreamland, that one suffered a constant succession of acute pangs in thinking that one would probably never see them again, that one would need at least nine long lives if one were to spend, say, even a month in each place. molly advised me not to be a spendthrift of my emotions, at this stage of the journey, lest i should be a worn-out wreck before the grandest part came, but the idea of husbanding enthusiasm did not commend itself to me. why not enjoy this moment, instead of waiting until the moment after next? it was too much like saving up one's good clothes for "best," a lower-middle-class habit which i have detested since the days when i howled for my smartest lord fauntleroy frills in the morning. there were sweet villages where they made cheese, and where i could have been happy making it with helen blantock; there were châteaux with turret rooms where my book shelves would have fitted excellently; but always we fled on, on, until at last, after two bewildering, cinematographic days, we drove into the streets of that dignified and delightful city, bern. it had not been necessary for us to pass through bern; it was, in fact, a few yards more or less out of the most direct path. we chose this route simply and solely with the view of paying a visit to the bears. molly had never met them; i had neglected them since childhood; jack looked forward to the pleasure of introducing them to his wife. it was on our way to call upon the bears, that destiny seduced me to turn my head at a certain moment, and look into a shop window. suddenly the flame of my desire for the walking solo with a mule accompaniment (somewhat diminished lately, i confess) leaped up anew. there were things in that window which made a man long to be a hermit. "mrs. winston." i cried (molly was driving), "for goodness' sake stop." in an instant the car slowed down. "what is the matter?" she implored. "are you ill? have we run over anything?" "no, but look there," i said eagerly. "what an outfit for a camping tour! my mouth waters only at sight of it." "greedy fellow," commented jack from the tonneau. "drive on, molly. get him past the shop. he doesn't really want any of those things, and wouldn't use them if he had them. the sooner he forgets the better." "never shall i forget that instantaneous breakfast for an alpiniste," i fiercely protested, "and i will have it at any cost. i know there's no other shop on the continent like this, and i shall buy an outfit for myself and mule, here, if i have to come back from lucerne by train for it." "hang your mule!" exclaimed jack. "i was hoping you'd forgotten all about him by this time, and had made up your mind to go on with us indefinitely." i saw reproach blaze through the talc triangle in molly's mushroom. (yet i thought she liked me, and had not, thus far, found "three a crowd.") "lord lane isn't a _chameleon_, jack," said she, "that he should change his mind every few minutes. _of course_ he's going to have his mule trip. and as for this shop, all those dear little pots and kettles and things in the window are too cute for words. he _shall_ have them." was i to be a bone of contention between husband and wife? "please, both of you come in and help me choose," i meekly pleaded, in haste to restore the peace which i had broken. we got out, and a small crowd collected round the car, gotteland standing by with his chin raised and the exact expression of the frog footman in "alice in wonderland." one would have said that he saw, afar off, the graves of his ancestors, on the summit of some lonely mountain. it was what molly would have called a "lovely" shop, and it did business under the strange device: "magasin suisse d'equipment sportif." the name alone was worth the money one would spend. everything to cover the outer, and nourish the inner sportsman, was to be had. i felt that i could scarcely be lonely or sad if i possessed a stock of these friendly articles. jack's ribald advice to buy a pelerine, and a green-loden gemsjäger hat with a feather, stirred me neither to smiles nor anger, for molly and i were already deep in exploration. the first thing i bought was a mule-pack. being a merciful man, i chose one of medium size, for already i could fancy myself becoming fond of the animal which was to be my companion in many wild and solitary places, and i did not wish to overburden him. i then, aided and abetted by molly, began to choose the pack's contents. an "_appareil de cuisson alpin, idéal_" went without saying, like the air one breathes. it composed itself, according to the voluble attendant who displayed it, of six parts, each part far better than the others. there was a _gamelle_, with a "_crochet pour l'enlever_" and a _couvercle_, which, not to show itself proud, would lend its services also as an _assiette_ or a _poêle à frire_. there was the burner of alcohol; there was "_le couvercle de celui-ci_," which served equally to measure the spirit, and there was a charming _appareil brise vent_ which had the air of defying tornadoes. when i had secured this treasure, molly drew my attention to a series of aluminium boxes made to fit eggs and sandwiches. i bought these also, and, pleased with the clean white metal, invested in plates, goblets, and water bottles of the same. next came a _couvert pliant_, containing knife, fork, and spoon; and, lest i should be guilty of selfishness, i ordered a duplicate for the man who would look after the mule. best of all, however, were the tinned soups, meats, vegetables, puddings, and cocoas, which you simply set on the fire in their bright little cans, and heated till they sent forth a steamy fragrance. then you ate or drank them, and were happy as a king. molly and i selected a number of these, and completed the list with a sleeping bag and a _tente de touriste_, which she persuaded me would be indispensable when lost in the mountains, as i was sure to be, often. when my goods and chattels came to be collected, we were shocked to find that the mule-pack would not contain them. the question remained, then, whether i should sacrifice these new possessions, already dear, or whether i should doom my mule to carry a greater burden. the attendant intimated that swiss mules preferred heavy loads, and had they the vocal gifts of balaam's ass, would demand them. swayed by my desires and his arguments, i changed my pack for a larger one. after more than an hour in the shop, we tore ourselves away, leaving word that the things should be sent by post to lucerne. we then repaired to the bear pit, by way of the clock, and having supplied ourselves with plenty of carrots, had no cause to complain of our reception. [illustration] chapter v in search of a mule "yes, we await it, but it still delays, and then we suffer." --matthew arnold. "when i arose and saw the dawn, i sighed for thee . . . come, long-sought!" --percy bysshe shelley. jack no longer attempted to dissuade me from my walking tour. whether molly had talked to him, or whether he had, unprompted, seen the error of his ways, i cannot tell, but the fact remains that, during the rest of our run to lucerne, he showed a lively interest in the forthcoming trip. "i suppose," said he, when we had caught our first sight of pilatus (seen, as one might say, on his back premises), "i suppose that anywhere in switzerland, there ought to be no trouble about finding a good pack-mule. somehow one thinks of switzerland and mules together, just as one does of bacon and eggs, or nuts and raisins, and yet, i can't recall ever having come across any mules in lucerne, can you, monty?" "no," i admitted, "but there were probably so many that one didn't notice them--like flies, you know." "of course, the air of switzerland is dark with mules and donkeys," said molly, who always seemed quick to resent any obstacles thrown between me and my mule. "one sees them in picture books. all that lord lane will have to say is, 'let there be mules,' and there will be mules--strings of them. he will only have to pick and choose. the thing will be to get a good one, and a nice, handsome, troubadour-sort of man who can cook, and jodel, and sew, and put up tents, and keep off murderers in mountain passes at night. it may take a day or two to find exactly what is wanted." "the best person in switzerland to give monty all the information he needs," said jack, evidently not wholly convinced, "is herr widmer, who has an hotel high above lucerne, on the sonnenberg. he has another in mentone, and i've heard him tell how he has often come up from the riviera to switzerland on horseback. he would be able to advise monty exactly how to go." "let's stop at his place on the sonnenberg, then," said molly, who never took more than sixty seconds to make the most momentous decisions, less important ones getting themselves arranged while slow-minded english people drew breath. certainly, as we drove through the streets of lucerne, we saw neither mules nor donkeys, but molly accounted for this by saying that no doubt they were all at dinner. in any case, with the blue lake a-glitter with silver sequins dropped from the gowns of those sparkling white ladies, the mountains; the shops gay and bright in the sunshine, on one side the way, shadows lying cool and soft under the long line of green trees on the other, who could take thought of absent mules? let them dine or die; it mattered not. lucerne was beautiful, the day divine. when we were lunching on the balcony of the winstons' private sitting-room at the sonnenberg, with mountains billowing round and below us, i saw that there was something on molly's mind for she was _distraite_. suddenly she said, "before you talk to herr widmer about your mule, don't you think that you had better decide absolutely upon your route?" "but, darling," objected jack, "that is largely what he wants advice about." "he can't do better than take mine, then," said molly. "lord lane, _promise_ me you'll take mine and _no_ one's else." "of course i'll promise," i answered recklessly, for her eyes were irresistible, and any man would have been enraptured that so exquisite a creature should interest herself in his fate. "it doesn't much matter to me where i go, so long as i can moon about in the mountains, and eventually, before i'm old and grey, bring up on the riviera." "well, then," said molly, "since you are so accommodating, i not only advise but _order_ you to go over the great st. bernard pass, down to aosta." "might a humble mortal ask, 'why aosta?'" i ventured. "because it's beautiful, and beneficent, and a great many other things which begin with b." "you've never seen it, though," said jack. "but i've always wanted to see it, and as you and i have another programme to carry out at present, it would be nice if lord lane would go, and tell us all about it. he's promised me to keep a sort of diary, for our benefit later." "i saw the duchess of aosta married at kingston-on-thames," i reflected aloud. "she was a very pretty girl. what am i to do after i've made my pilgrimage to her country--about which, by the way, i know practically nothing except that there's a poster in railway stations which represents it as having bright pink mountains and a purply-yellow sky?" "oh, after aosta, i've no instructions," replied molly, as if she washed her hands of me and of my affairs. "for the rest, let fate decide." as she spoke, she looked mystic, sibylline, and i could almost fancy that before her dreamy eyes arose a vision of my future as if floating in a magic crystal. for an instant i was inclined to beg that she would prophesy, but the mood passed. all that i asked or expected to get from the future was a mule, a man, some mountains, and forgetfulness. it was decided, then, that the only questions to be put to herr widmer should concern the mule. i had a vague dream of presently standing on the balcony, while various muleteers and their well-groomed animals passed in review under my eyes, but the landlord's first words struck at my hopes and left them maimed. "there are no mules to be had in lucerne," he said. "in the country near by, then?" "nor in the country near by. the nearest place where you could get one would be in the valais--best at brig." "but i don't want to go to brig," i said forlornly. "if i went to brig, that would mean that i should have to do a lot of walking afterwards, to reach the parts i wish to reach, through the hot rhone valley, where i should be eaten up by gnats and other disagreeable wild beasts. i know the rhone valley between brig and martigny already, by railway travelling, and that is more than enough." "the rhone valley is a misunderstood valley. even between martigny and brig, it is far more beautiful than anyone who has seen it only from the railway can possibly judge," pleaded herr widmer. "it well repays a riding or walking tour." but my soul girded against the rhone valley, and i would not be driven into it by persuasion. "i'd rather put up with a donkey to carry my luggage," said i, with visions of discarding half my instantaneous breakfasts, "than begin my walk in the rhone valley. surely, lucerne can be counted on to yield me up at least a donkey?" "you must go into italy to find an _âne_," replied the landlord, inexorable as destiny. i suddenly understood how a woman feels when she stamps her foot and bursts into tears. (there are advantages in being a woman.) to be thwarted for the sake of a mere, wretched animal, which i had always looked upon with indifference as the least of beasts! it was too much. my features hardened. inwardly, i swore a great oath that, if i went to the world's end to obtain it, i would have a pack-mule, or, if worse came to worst, a pack-donkey. at this bitter moment i chanced to meet molly's eyes and read in them a sympathy well-nigh extravagant. but i knew why it had been called out. if there is one thing which causes unbearable anguish to a true american girl it is to find herself wanting something "right away" which she cannot have. but luckily for her country's peace, her lovers' happiness, this occurs seldom. "what is the nearest place in italy where lord lane could get a donkey?" she asked. "it is possible that he might be able to buy or hire one at airolo," said our landlord. "at one time they had them there, for the railway works, and mules also. but now i do not----" "we can go there and see," said molly. "airolo's on the other side of the st. gothard, and automobiles aren't allowed on the swiss passes," remarked jack. this, to me, sounded final, so far as airolo was concerned, but not so with the honourable mrs. winston! "what do they do to you if you _do_ go?" she asked, turning slightly pale. "they fined an american gentleman who crossed the simplon in his automobile last year, five thousand francs," answered herr widmer. "oh!" said she. "so an american did go over one of the passes? well, thank you _so_ much; we must decide what to do, and talk it over with you again later. meanwhile, we're very happy, for it's lovely here." hardly had the door of the sitting-room closed on our host, when molly, with the air of having a gun-powder plot to unfold, beckoned us both to come near. "i'll tell you what we'll do," said she, in a half-whisper, when surrounded by her body-guard of two. "first, we'll ask _everybody_ in lucerne whether there are any mules or donkeys on the spot, just in case herr widmer might be mistaken; if there aren't any, let's go over the st. gothard _in the middle of the night_." "good heavens, what a desperate character i've married!" exclaimed jack. "not at all. don't you see, at night there would be nobody on their silly old pass that they make such a fuss about. even in daylight diligences don't go over the st. gothard in our times, and at night there'd be _nothing_, so we couldn't expose man or beast to danger. we'd rush the _douanes_, or whatever they call them on passes, and if we _were_ caught, what are five thousand francs?" "i wouldn't dream of letting you do such a thing for me," i broke in hurriedly. "if airolo or the neighbourhood turns out to be the happy hunting ground of the sedate mule or pensive _âne_, i will simply take train----" "you will take the train, if you take it, over jack's and my dead bodies," remarked molly coldly. "it would be rather sport to rush the pass at night," said jack. "oh, you darling!" cried molly, "i've never loved you so much." this naturally settled it. we walked down to the town by an exquisite path leading through dark, mysterious pine forests; where the slim, straight trunks of the tall trees seemed tightly stretched, like the strings of a great harp, and where melancholy, elusive music was played always by the wind spirits. in lucerne we did not, as molly had suggested, ask everybody to stand and deliver information, but we compromised by visiting tourists' bureaux. at these places the verdict was an echo of our landlord's, and i saw that molly and jack were glad. having scented powder, they would have been disappointed if the midnight battle need not be fought. molly had never seen lucerne, which was too beautiful for a fleeting glance. it was arranged that, after driving me over the pass, for weal or woe, they should return. they would leave most of their luggage at the sonnenberg, and come back to spend some days, before continuing their tour as originally mapped out. we slept that night in peace (it is wonderful how well you do sleep, even with a "mind diseased," after hours of racing through pure, fresh air on a motor car); and next day we began stealthy preparations for our adventure. chapter vi the wings of the wind "oh, still solitude, only matched in the skies; perilous in steep places, soft in the level races, where sweeping in phantom silence the cloudland flies." --r. bridges. the wind howled a menace to mercédès, as she glided down the winding road towards the comfortable, domestic-looking suburbs of lucerne. banks of cloud raced each other across the sky, and, crossing the bridge over the reuss, we saw that the waters of the lake, turquoise yesterday, were to-day a sullen indigo. the big steamers rolled at their moorings; white-crested waves were leaping against the quays, and thick mists clung like rolls of wool to the lower slopes of pilatus. molly's spirits rose as the mercury in the barometer fell. "would you care for people if they were always good-tempered, or weather if it were always fair?" she asked me (we were sitting together in the tonneau, jack driving). "i revel in storms, and if we have one to-night, when we are on the pass, one of the dearest wishes of my life will be gratified. 'a storm on the st. gothard!' haven't the words a thunder-roll? sunlight and mountain passes don't belong together. i like to think of great alpine roads as the fastnesses of giants, who threaten death to puny man when he ventures into their power." it had been arranged that we should "potter" (as winston called it) round the arms of the star-fish lake, until we reached flüelen; that from there we should steal as far as we dared up the reussthal while daylight lasted, dine at some village inn, and then, instead of returning to the lowlands of lucerne, make a dash across the mighty barrier that shut us away from italy. under a lowering sky, and buffeted by short, sharp gusts of wind, which seemed the heralds of fiercer blasts, we swung along the reedy shores of the narrowing lake, the broken sides of the rigi standing finely up on our right hand. winston was satirical about the poor rigi and its railway, calling it the primrose hill and the devil's dyke of switzerland, the paradise of trippers, a mountain whose sides are hidden under cataracts of beer-bottles; but from our point of view, the vulgarities of the maligned mountain were mellowed by distance, and i neither could nor would look upon it as contemptible. leaving the lake of the forest cantons, we spun along the margin of the tamer sheet of zug, to pass, beyond arth, into the great wilderness caused by the fearful landslide of a century ago, when a mighty mass of rock and earth split off from the main bulk of the rossberg and thundered down into the valley. the slow processes of nature had done much to cover up decently all traces of the titan's rage, but the huge, bare scar on the side of the rossberg still told its tale of tragedy. by the peaceful lowerzer see the road undulated pleasantly, and at schwyz (the hub of swiss history) we had tea, the torn and imposing pyramids of the two myten bravely rearing their heads above the mists that encumbered the valleys. there was no need to hurry, for we had the night before us, so we passed slowly, halting often, along the marvellous axenstrasse, while jack distilled into molly's willing ears legends from the old heroic days of switzerland, before it became the happy haven of hotel-keepers. from the car we could note the characteristics of the cantons which had entered into the famous bond; pastoral and leafy unterwalden, with green fields and orchards; schwyz, also green and fertile; but uri (the cold, highland partner in this great alliance), a country of towering mountains and savage rocks. molly wanted to get a boat, and row across to the rütli to stand on that spot where, in 1307, walter fürst, arnold of melchthal, and werner stauffacher took the famous oath, and very reluctantly she gave up the wish when jack pointed to the rising waves, painting in lurid colours the sudden and dangerous storms that sweep the lake of uri. when he went on, however, to insinuate doubts as to the historic accuracy of these old stories, and to hint that even william tell might himself he an incorporeal legend, molly clapped a little hand over his mouth, crying out that even if he had tried to destroy the maid of orleans he must spare william tell. further on, she made us confide the car to gotteland on the axenstrasse, while we descended the path to tell's chapel and did reverence to the hero's memory. on such a day as this must it have been that tell leaped ashore from the boat, leaving gessler to look after himself; for the blasts were shrieking down the lake, and the waves dashed their foam over the ledge where stands the chapel. jack stopped several times in the rock galleries of the axenstrasse before we reached flüelen; consequently it was evening when we slipped into little altdorf, where molly insisted on making a curtsey to the statue of tell and his agreeable little boy. winston predicted that we should probably not be challenged until we got to göschenen, as up to that point the road does not take on a true alpine character. the storm (which seemed rising to a point of fury) was in our favour, too, for no one would choose to be out on such a night, save mad english automobilists and wilful american girls. dusk was beginning to shadow the reussthal, as we ran past the railway station at erstfeld, and began at length the ascent of the st. gothard road. the great railway (of which we had caught glimpses as we came along the lake) was now our companion, while on the other hand roared the tumbling reuss. so hoarse and insistent was the voice of the stream that molly suggested it should be "had up for brawling." it did us the service, however, of drowning the noise of our motor, at all times a discreetly silent machine; and as jack had given orders that the big bleriots should not be lighted (two good oil lamps showing us the way), we had high hopes that we might fly by unnoticed, on the wings of the storm. in amsteg no one seemed to look upon us with surprise, and here the road turned, to worm itself into the heart of the mountains, while the railway, often disappearing into tunnels, ran far above our heads. by the time we had reached gurtnellen night had fallen black and close, and molly issued an edict that we should dine in the open air, instead of seeking the doubtful comforts of a village inn, where, too, we might suffer from the solicitude of some officious policeman. the car accordingly was run under the lee of a great rock, the ever-inspired gotteland extemporised a shelter with the waterproof rugs, and the blue flame of the chafing-dish presently cheered us with its glow. the wind bellowed along the precipices, the reuss shouted in its rocky bed, and once an express from italy to the north passed high above us, streaming its lights through the darkness like sparks from a boy's squib. yet those plutocratic travellers up in the _wagons lits_ were not having anything like the "good time" we enjoyed, warm in our motor coats, sitting snug behind our rock, a lamp from the car illuminating our little party and shining on molly's piquant profile as she brewed savoury messes in her magic cauldron. this was testing thoroughly the resources of the automobile, which was playing the part of travelling kitchen and larder as well as travelling chariot, and could no doubt be made, with a little ingenuity, to play the parts also of travelling bed and tent. yet, as i said all this aloud to jack, my mind leaped forward to other nights which i should soon be spending alone tinder the stars, and i thought tenderly of my aluminium stove and tent, my sleeping-sack, and the other camping tools i had bought in bern. from where we lay hid behind our rock to airolo was only some thirty-two miles, and the car ate up distance with so voracious an appetite, that it was clear we should arrive in the little italian town in the dead waste and middle of the night. to travel a forbidden road on an automobile, and then to knock up a snoring innkeeper at one in the morning, to ask him where we could find a donkey, seemed to be straining unduly the sense of humour; so after consultation we decided that we should leave airolo to its slumbers and speed down the pass into italy until we ran to earth the object of our quest. [illustration: "the blue flame of the chafing-dish".] molly had produced excellent coffee; the smoke of our cigarettes mingled its perfume with the night air. our position had in it something unique, for while we were "in the heart of one of nature's most savage retreats" (as said a guide-book of my boyhood), we were at the same time enjoying the refinements of civilisation, and i suggested to winston that our bivouac would form a fit subject for a picture labelled, in the manner of some dutch masters, "automobilists reposing." by the time gotteland had packed up everything, and we were seated once more in the car, it was nearly eleven o'clock at night. coming out from the shelter of our rock, so fierce a blast of wind smote us that molly would, i think, have been carried off her feet had i not given her a steadying arm. we had to cram our caps on our heads, or the wind would have torn them from us, and the voice of the motor was swallowed up in the shrieking of the tempest. molly was evidently destined to have her wish. the car ran swiftly up the road to wasen, and some twinkling lights and a huge crimson eye at the entrance to the great tunnel told us that we had done the ten miles to göschenen. no one stirred in the streets of the village, and, gliding cat-like past the station, jack put the car at the beginning of the real ascent of the famous st. gothard road. the higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. there was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. in the sombre defile of the schöllenen the air rushed as through a funnel. we could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns--the sole beacon of safety in this welter. we had a ghostly impression of winding through a narrow gorge, the river roaring in its depths; then, dashing through an avalanche gallery (where the lights played strange tricks with the vaulted roof), we came out upon the devil's bridge. the spray from the reuss, which here drops a full hundred feet into the abyss, lashed our faces as with whips; the storm leaped at us out of the blackness like a wolf; the car quivered, and for an instant it seemed that we should be hurled against the parapet of the bridge. but we passed unharmed, and a quarter of a mile further on winston stopped in the welcome shelter of the urner loch, a tunnelled passage in the rock. we gasped out broken expressions of a fearful joy; then, seeing that molly was well, and that the wind-wolf's teeth had torn nothing from the car, jack went full speed ahead again, steering along the open urseren valley, where we had fleeting glimpses of green fields instead of granite rocks. thus we came to andermatt, where not the eye of a mouse seemed open to mark our quick and stealthy passage. we were now on that great mountain highroad that slants in a straight line across almost all switzerland from coire to martigny; but we kept on it only for a little while, to steal through hospenthal--as dead asleep as the other villages (for labour had not yet begun to waken in its hard bed), and take the southern road that leads to italy. thus far, audacity had been laurelled by success. it was near one in the morning, and we were spinning fast up a valley which showed bleakly in the flying lights of our car. soon jack called to us that we had crossed the border line of the canton ticino, and presently through the blackness twinkled the little lakes which mark the summit of the pass. we were nearly seven thousand feet above the sea, and suddenly, as we crossed the ridge and began to sail down the dismal val tremolo towards airolo, the great wind that had made majestic music all day and night ceased to blow. we ran into a zone of motionless, ice-cold air, and what seemed an unnatural silence, only the hum of the motor breaking the frozen stillness of these high alpine solitudes. the road plunged to lower levels in interminable windings, the car swooping in a series of bird-like flights, exhilarating to the nerves, thrilling to the imagination; for in the blackness that held us we could but guess at abysses which dropped away almost from under the tyres of our wheels. sometimes we dashed over foaming rivers, and soon we sped through airolo, where yet no one moved. now the loud-voiced ticino was our companion, and we swept down through an open valley to faido, where we met the first human being we had seen since we left gurtnellen. it was a very old man, with a red cap, like a stocking, pulled close upon his head. he had a rake on his shoulder, and we were close on him before he knew; for the car was coasting, and ran with hardly any noise save the whir of the chains. for a flashing instant that old face shone out of the circle of our lights, concave with astonishment; then we lost it forever. "no fear that _he_ will telephone to have us stopped lower down," said molly. "he thinks we are supernatural, and will go home and tell his grandchildren that he has seen witches tearing home after a revel up among the glaciers." faster still the car flew down the road. the air that streamed past us held the faint, elusive perfume of italy, which softly hints the presence of the walnut, the chestnut, and the grape. through village after village we swept at speed, our lamps shining now on mulberry and fig trees, and on vines trained over trellises held up by splintered granite slabs. next we came suddenly upon an italian-looking town with bad _pavé_ and dimly lighted streets, where three or four workmen, early astir, stared at us in bewilderment. it was bellinzona; but passing through, we came out presently on the margin of an immense sheet of water, and it was only in locarno on the edge of lago maggiore, when dawn was paling the eastern sky, that jack at last drew rein. no one was tired; no one wanted to rest. on the contrary, our rapid flight over the alps had intoxicated us with the sense of speed; and we were all excitedly for going on until we should reach the frontier. as pink dawn blossomed in the sky, like a heavenly orchard, and the mountain tops were beaten into copper, we glided along the edge of the lake, past picturesque villages and _campanili_, and cypress trees. at the italian frontier there were the usual tedious formalities of payment and sealing the car with a leaden seal; but when all this was done by sleepy officials, surly at our early passage, though little recking of our crimes, we sailed on again, molly driving now, through a landscape magically clear in the young morning light. suddenly we all started in joyous astonishment, and molly brought the car to a stop. each had seen the same thing, each had been struck with the same thought. here, at last, we had found what we had come so far to seek; what switzerland denied us, italy offered. standing alone in a field by the roadside was a small, dark grey donkey, tethered to a stone; and no other living being was in sight. the creature was not eating; it was only thinking; and it looked at us with an eye that seemed to speak of loneliness and the desire for human fellowship. "the very thing for you!" cried molly; and the long-sought-for treasure, finding itself observed, flicked one of its heavy ears. gotteland and i dismounted and went nearer. as we approached, the donkey nickered; and as its family is famed for reticence, such proof of friendliness made me yearn to possess the deserted little beast. but its legs were very thin, its hoofs exceedingly small, and the thought of loading so frail a structure with the great packs that held my camping kit seemed a barbarity. meanwhile gotteland, who knows something of everything, had carefully examined the tiny animal, and just as i was growing sentimental over its perfections, he broke the charm by pronouncing it to be incredibly old, and unfit for work. he also drew my attention to a disagreeable sore upon its shoulder. it was sad; but indisputably the man was right; in any case there was no one with whom a bargain could have been arranged, and with poignant regret i was forced to leave my treasure-trove to its solitary thoughts. after this we did not stop again until molly steered the car to the door of a beautiful hotel in pallanza, where the shirt-sleeved concierge hurried into his gold-laced coat, to receive in fitting style the unusually early guests. my first care, after coffee and a bath, was to examine the landlord of the hotel on momentous question of mules and donkeys. at lucerne, i told him, they had assured me that the animals "flourished" in canton ticino and the neighbourhood of the italian lakes. but i met with no encouragement. mules and donkeys were rarely seen in these parts, the host declared. true, a few peasants employed them in the fields; but those were poor things, unfit for an excursion such as monsieur purposed. at piedimulera, perhaps, monsieur would find what he wanted; yes, at piedimulera, or if not, at domodossola; or--his face brightened--in the valais, preferably at brig. yes, he was certain that mules and asses in abundance could be found at brig in the rhone valley. brig! my heart sank. it was the old story. counterfeiting patience, i explained that i had an antipathy to the rhone valley, and had actually crossed the alps to find animals in italy rather than be driven to seek them in brig. crushed by a hopeless, answering gesture, i made my report to molly and jack. "it will end," i said, "in my traversing the world, and eventually arriving in japan, still searching the _rara avis_. by that time i shall have become a harmless lunatic, and people will treat my babblings with indulgent forbearance, when i go from house to house begging to be supplied with a pack-mule or a pack-donkey." at _déjeuner_, in a garden which was a successful imitation of eden, the situation did not, however, look so dark. the perfume of flowers, distilled by the hot sun, was of araby the blest; the borromean islands spread their enchantments before us, across a glittering blue expanse of lake, and the world was after all endurable, though empty of mules. besides, molly was a sweet consoler. she dwelt on the hopeful suggestion in the name piedimulera. it could not be wholly deceiving, she argued. why name a place foot-of-a-mule, if there were no mules there? "if there aren't," i exclaimed, "i swear to you that i will, by fair means or foul, dispose of at piedimulera all the things with which i fondly thought to deck the animal my fancy had painted. everything i bought at bern shall go, if i have to dig a grave by night in which to bury them. this is a vow, and though my heart be wrung, i'll keep it." molly listened to this outburst as gravely as if i had been threatening to sacrifice a son, did not some incredible good fortune supply a ram caught by his horns in the bushes. for piedimulera we left in the afternoon, somewhat buoyed up by the omen of the name. the way led back towards the alps, up a broad and beautiful valley strewn with evidences of the works for the simplon railway: embankments, bridges, quarries, and occasional groups of workmen hauling rhythmically on the many ropes of a pile-driver. presently we swerved from the main road, and crossed the valley bed, obedient to the map, which was our only guide to piedimulera. we passed one or two romantically placed, ancient villages, each of which i hoped might be our goal; but, as usual in life, the town for which we were bound did not appear as alluring as other towns, where we had no need to stop. "i feel there will be not so much as the ghost of a long-perished roman mule in this hamlet," i said despondently, hoping that molly would contradict me. but she, too, looked anxious, now that the great moment had come, for we were driving into a town, at the mouth of a deep gorge already dusky with purpling shadows, and there was no doubt that it was piedimulera. the gloom of the twilight settled upon our spirits, dissimulate as we might, as the car swept into the cobble-paved courtyard of an _albergo_, a venerable grandfather of a hostelry, old, grim, and forbidding. out came a large, fair man to welcome us, with calculation in his cold grey eye. he looked to me like a spider in his web, greeting some inviting flies. we broke the ice by asking for coffee, and when we were told that we must have it without milk, as there were no cows within a radius of many miles, i would have staked all my possessions (especially those acquired at bern) that there would be no such comparatively useless animals as mules or donkeys. instinct is seldom wrong. if ever there was nothing in a name, there was nothing in that of piedimulera, which had evidently been applied in sheer mockery, or because, untold generations ago, the foot of that rare creature, a mule, had been preserved here in a museum. when the landlord found that we did not intend to stop overnight, unless mules were at once forthcoming, he visibly lost interest in us, as inedible insects. he shrugged his shoulders at the bare idea that piedimulera might shelter such creatures as we were mad enough to desire, and assured us that there was not the least use in trying domodossola. we had much better spend the night with him, and to-morrow morning go on as best we might to brig. no? then he washed his hands of us. i did not give my treasures to this person: rather would i have burnt all, than picture him battening on my instantaneous breakfasts. molly would have had me keep them, at least until we knew what fate awaited us at domodossola. the moment i had irrevocably parted with my outfit, bought in happier days, i should find a mule, and how annoyed would i be, she prophesied. but i was adamant. had i not made a vow? besides, if i were to find a mule or donkey the moment i had got rid of his paraphernalia, that alone was an inducement to throw the cargo overboard. on our way to domodossola, i saw a pretty dark-eyed young woman, with a cherubic baby in her arms, standing in the doorway of a tumble-down cottage. evidently she was waiting to greet her husband when he should come home, weary with his long day's work. quickly i made a decision and with the same abruptness i had used in urging molly to draw before the too attractive shop in bern, i begged her now to stop. my white elephants were stowed away in separate bundles in the tonneau, where, ever since lucerne, they had been the cause of cramps and "pins and needles" to the feet of any member of the party who sat there. i ruthlessly collected the lot, and, well-nigh swamped by the load, i carried them to the cottage door, where i laid all at the feet of the young mother. she suddenly became an incarnate point of admiration, and could scarcely believe that i was sane, or that she was not dreaming when i explained my wish to make her a present. if i had stayed an hour, i could not have dissipated her bewilderment, so i left the things to speak for themselves--if she did not take them for infernal machines and throw them into the river. it was evening when we arrived at domodossola, and i felt nothing save cold resignation when told emphatically by the concierge of our chosen hotel that my quest was hopeless. "you will have to go to brig," he said; and though he was an intelligent and worthy man, i could have smitten him to earth. "you must abandon me to my fate," i told jack and molly. "_il est trop fort._ if i'm to walk the face of the earth, i want a pack-mule and a man; and, 'somehow, somewhere, somewhen,' i mean to have them. but you've more than done your duty by me. you can get back to lucerne from here comfortably, without daring any more mountain passes and fines for law-breaking. since to brig i must go, i'll make a virtue of necessity, and walk over the simplon, to see the tunnel and railway works." "walk, if you will," said molly; "but if i know my lightning conductor and myself, we'll see you through to the end, be it bitter or sweet." "echo answers," added jack. "if you want to see things clearly, you must have daylight, and if we wish to escape the arm of the law, we must fly by night, which means that we can't join forces till the journey's end." "you needn't think we're sacrificing ourselves, for we should love it," molly capped him. "we're having the jam of adventure spread thick on our bread now." "well, then, everything's settled," said jack, "except the start." molly thought a day in domodossola too much. it was decided, therefore, that they should rest till eleven, and that the motor should be ready at midnight. they could reach brig between two and three, and being a posting town, the hotel people were sure to be up. i was to start early in the morning, and meet my friends at brig, after walking over the pass. i saw them off, and then plunged fathoms deep into sleep, dreaming of a land flowing with mules and donkeys. at five, i was up, and was surprised to find that the despised domodossola was a beautiful and interesting old town, with curiously spanish effects in its shadowy streets, lined with ancient, arcaded houses. i thought to save time and fatigue by taking a carriage to the frontier village of iselle at the foot of the pass, and was glad i had done so, for the road was rough and covered inches deep with a deposit of peculiar, grey dust. but things mended when we climbed a hill, turned out of the main valley, and followed the course of the river diveria into a lateral gorge of the mountains, the real porchway or entrance of the simplon pass. [illustration] chapter vii at last! "a jack-o'-lantern, a fairy fire, a dare, a bliss, and a desire." --bliss carman. "here a great personal deed has room." --walt whitman. the further i penetrated into the mountains, the more like a vast engineering workshop did the long alpine valley become. yet, curiously enough, instead of destroying romance, this gave a certain majestic romance of its own; the romance of man's struggle to conquer the stupendous forces of nature with his science. it was as if vulcan's stithy had been dropped down into a profound ravine of the alps, and the drone of machinery mingled with the music of the fleeting river--a strange diapason. on the right of the highroad, the flat mountain face opened a black, egg-shaped mouth at me. i got out of the carriage to approach it, and while i stood peering down the dark throat, as if i were a lilliputian doctor examining the tongue of giant gulliver, i was suddenly clapped upon the shoulder. it flashed into my mind that perhaps it was forbidden to stare at the tunnel-in-making; and turning to defend myself from a lash of red tape, with the adage that "a cat may look at a king," i saw a man i had known years ago smiling at me. [illustration: "i was suddenly clapped upon the shoulder".] i have a worldly-minded cousin who says that she is always nice to girls, because "you never know whom they may marry." it might be equally diplomatic to be nice to foreigners who are at oxford with you, because you don't know that they may not become famous engineers, able to show you interesting things when you visit their country. giovanni bolzano had been at balliol with me, studying english, and now it turned out that he was second engineer to the works for the new tunnel. i recalled with poignant regret that jack winston and i had once made hay of his room; but evidently he bore no malice, for after saying that he was not surprised to see me, as everybody came this way sooner or later, he offered to show me his tunnel, of which this was the italian mouth. it had another at brig, twelve miles away, and boasted the longest throat in the world, but as it was marvellously ventilated, it would never choke in its own smoke, and bolzano was very proud of the engineering achievement. having discharged my carriage, i went with him into a workshop, heard the humming of dynamos, and the buzzing of tremendous turbines, actuated by the fall of the river diveria, and gazed with the fascination of a mouse for a cat at a huge and diabolical fan, driving air into the tunnel. this fearful beast had a house to itself, with a passage down which you could venture like theseus entering the labyrinth of the minotaur; but such was the volume of breath which it drew into its mighty lungs that you must use all your strength not to be sucked in and hurled against the shafting; all your self-control not to be confused by its loud, unceasing roar. hardly had we come out from this weird place, which would have given edgar allan poe an inspiration for a creepy tale, when bolzano showed me a relief gang of men getting ready to enter the tunnel, in a train consisting of wooden boxes drawn by a miniature locomotive. this was my chance. i was hurried off to his quarters, helped into rough, miner's clothing, with great boots up to my knees, and given a miner's lamp. then, joining the eight hundred italians,--a battalion of the soldiers of labour,--we got into a box, and set off to relieve eight hundred other such soldiers who for eight hours had toiled in the schisty heart of the mountain. i felt as if suddenly, between sleeping and waking, i had plunged deep into the dusk of dreamland. we rumbled through a lofty egg-shaped vault, lined with masonry, lighted waveringly, with strange play of shadow, by our many lamps. this phase of the dream seemed to last a long time; and then the train of boxes slowed down, for we had reached the danger-point, a part of the tunnel where the hidden genii of the mountain had planned a trap to upset all geological expectations. having allowed the engineers to penetrate thus far, they had suddenly flooded the tunnel with cataracts of water from fissures in the rock, and had laughed wild, echoing laughter because they had contrived to delay the work for a year, and cause the spending of much extra money. the dream showed me now a long iron cage, shoring up the crumbling walls of the excavation; and through this cage we crept like a procession of wary mice, suddenly putting on speed at the end, till we reached the tunnel-head, and found another train preparing to go out. here the dream flung me into a teeming inferno of darkness and lost spirits who (spent with eight hours' monotonous toil in this circle) had dropped asleep, sitting half-naked in the line of boxes which would bear them away to a spell of rest. they had fallen into pathetic attitudes of collapse, some lying back with their mouths open, some resting their heads on folded arms, some drooping on comrades' shoulders. as our train-load of activity came to a stand, this other train-load of exhaustion rumbled slowly away, the smoky lamps glinting on polished, olive-coloured flesh, on hairy arms, and swarthy faces shut to consciousness. close to the tunnel-head we alighted, and went on into the dream on foot, the gallery contracting to a few feet in height, where a group of black figures bent over rock-drills which creaked and groaned. i saw the drill-holes filled with dynamite, and retired with the others while the fuse was lighted. i heard from afar off the thunderous detonations as the rock-face was shattered. i saw the débris being cleared away, before the drills should begin to grind again; and the remembrance that, in another rathole on the swiss side, another party of workers was patiently advancing towards us, in precisely the same way, sent a mysterious thrill through my blood. "suppose the two galleries don't meet end to end?" i spoke out my thought. "but they will," said bolzano. "our calculations are precise, and we have allowed for an error of two inches: i do not think there will be more. there is a great system of triangulation across the mountains, and every few months our reckonings are verified. by-and-bye, we shall hear the sound of each other's drills; then, down will come the last dividing wall of rock, and swiss and italians will be shaking hands." i think, in coming out of the dark tunnels and windy galleries, i felt somewhat as jonah must have felt after he had been discarded in distaste by the whale. the light dazzled my eyes. i could have shouted aloud with joy at sight of the sun. i made bolzano breakfast with me in the little inn at iselle, and got upon my way again, at something past noon. the vast turmoil of the growing railway was left behind. it was like putting down a volume of walt whitman, and taking up tennyson. the pass had the extraordinary individuality of one face as compared with another. it had not even a family resemblance to the st. gothard. the air was sweet with the good smell of newly cut wood and resinous pines. there were sudden glimpses of icy peaks, cut diamonds in the sun, seen for a moment, then swallowed up by stealthily creeping white clouds, or caressed by them with a benediction in passing. thin streaks of cascades on precipitous rocks made silver veinings in ebony. side valleys opened unexpectedly, and one knew from hearsay that gold mines were hidden there. treading the road built by napoleon, i was enveloped in the gloom of the wondrous gondo schlucht, to come out into a broad valley,--a green amphitheatre, above which a company of white, mountain gods sat grouped to watch a cloud-fight. if i had not been heart-broken by the cruelty of helen blantock, i should have been almost minded to thank her for sending me here. but then,--i reminded myself hastily when this thought winked at me over my shoulder,--i was stunned still, by my heavy disappointment. i was not conscious to the full of my suffering now, but i should wake up to it by-and-bye, and then it would be awful--as awful as the desolation left by a recent great avalanche whose appalling traces i had just seen. [illustration: "treading the road built by napoléon".] i refused to be interested in the old hospice of st. bernard, or the newer hospice, built by order of napoleon, because neither seemed to me the real thing. if i could not see the hospice of st. bernard on the pass of great st. bernard, i would not see any other hospices called by his name. if possible, i would have gone by them with my eyes shut; but at the new hospice the yapping of a dozen adorable puppies in a kennel opposite lured me, and i paused to talk to them. they did not understand my language, and this was disappointing; but if i had not stopped i should have missed a short cut which i half saw, half suspected, dimly zigzagging down the mountain into an extraordinarily deep valley, and tending in the direction of brig. it would have been a pity to pass it by, for though i often thought myself lost, i eventually caught sight of a town, lying far below, which could be no other than the one for which i was bound. after three hours of fast walking down from the hospice, i plunged through an old archway into the main street of brig. coming into it, i stopped to gaze up in astonishment at an enormous house which looked to me as big as windsor castle. indeed, to call it a house does not express its personality at all; yet it was hardly magnificent enough for a castle. at each corner was an immense tower, ornamented with a big bulb of copper, like a gigantic and glorified spanish onion. a beautiful renaissance gallery, flung across from one tall building to another, lent grace to the otherwise too solid pile, and i guessed that i must have come upon the ancient stronghold and mansion of the famous stockalper family, still existing and still one of the most important in switzerland. in the pass i had seen the towers built by the first stockalper--that gaspar who in mediæval days was called "king of the simplon"; who protected travellers and controlled the caravan traffic between italy and switzerland; now, to see the house which he had founded still occupied by his descendants, fixed more pictorially in my mind the stirring legends connected with the man. the little town of brig seemed noisy and gay after the great silence of the pass. church bells were ringing, whips were cracking; in the central place there were crowding shops, bright with colour, and lights were beginning to shine out from the windows of the hotels. i was to meet the winstons at the hôtel couronne; and as i ventured to show my travel-stained person in the hall, i was greeted by a vision: molly in white muslin, dressed for dinner. "what, you already!" she exclaimed. "you must have come over the pass by steam or electricity. we didn't expect you for an hour. we've lots to tell you, and oh, i've bought you a sweet revolver, which you are always to have about you, on your walking trip, though jack laughed at me for doing it. but now, for your adventures." in a few words i sketched them, and learned that the motor had again pulled wool over the eyes of the law; then molly must have seen in mine that there was a question which i wished, but hesitated, to ask. if a man may have a beam in his eye, why not a mule? "we've been interviewing animals of various sorts for you all day," she said. "i've had a kind of employment agency for mules, and have taken their characters and capacities. but----" "there's a 'but,' is there?" i cut into her ominous pause. "well, the nicest beasts are all engaged for days ahead, or else their owners can't spare them for a long trip; or else they're too young; or else they're too old; or else they're _hideous_. at least, there's one who's hideous, and i'm sorry to say he's the only one you can have." "'twas ever thus, from childhood's hour.'" "but the landlord says there are dozens of mules at martigny." "a mere mirage." "no, he has telephoned. but you'll look at the one here, i suppose, if only as a matter of form? i think he's outside now." "let him be brought before me," i said, with the air of a tyrant in a melodrama; and, by the way, i have always thought it would be very pleasant being a tyrant by profession, like him of syracuse, for instance. you could do all the things you wanted to do, without consulting the convenience of anybody else, or having it on your conscience that you hadn't. at this moment jack appeared. it seemed that he had been putting the mule (the one available mule) through his paces, and the wretched fellow was laughing. "it's not funny, at all," said i, thinking it was the situation which amused him. but jack explained that it wasn't that. "it's the brute's tail," said he. "when you see it, you'll know what i mean." i did know, at sight. the organ--if a mule's tail can be called an organ--had mean proportions and a hideous activity which expressed to my mind a base and depraved nature. had there been no other of his kind on earth, i would still have refused to take this beast as my companion; and after a few moments' feverish discussion, it was arranged that after all we must go through the rhone valley to-morrow to martigny. but the rhone valley, radiant in morning light, heaped coals of fire upon my head. i had maligned perfection. there was all the difference between the country between brig and martigny seen from a railway-carriage window, and seen from a motor car, that there is between the back of a woman's head when she is giving you the cut direct, and her face when she is smiling on you. the rhone valley tame! the rhone valley monotonous! it was poetry ready for the pen of shelley, and a scene for the brush of turner. the little towns sleeping on the shoulders of the mountains, or rising turreted from hardy rocks bathed by the golden river; the peeps up cool lateral valleys to blue glaciers; the near green slopes and distant, waving seas of snowy splendour left a series of pictures in the mind; and best of all was martigny's tower pointing a slender finger skyward from its high hill. late in the afternoon, as the car whirled us into the garden of the hôtel mont blanc, we came face to face with two mules. they had brought back a man and a girl from some excursion. the landlord was at the door to receive his guests. jack, molly, and i flung the same question at his head, at the same moment. was the situation as it had been when he telephoned? could i hire a mule and a man, not for a day or two, but for a long journey--a journey half across the world if i liked? the answer was that i might have five mules and five men for a journey all across the world if it were my pleasure. it sounded like a problem in mental arithmetic, but i thanked my stars that there seemed no further need for me to struggle over its solution. [illustration] chapter viii the making of a mystery "there was the secret . . . hid in . . . grey, young eyes." --alice meynell. "henceforth i whimper no more, postpone no more." --walt whitman. in my opinion it is a sign of strength rather than of weakness, to change one's mind with a good grace. for my part, i find pleasure in the experience, feeling refreshed by it, as if i had had a bath, and got into clean linen after a hot walk. changing the mind gives also somewhat the same sensation as waking in the morning with the consciousness that no one on earth has ever seen this day before; or the satisfaction one has on breaking an egg, the inside of which no human eye has beheld until that moment. a change of mind bestows on one for the time being a new ego; therefore i did not grudge myself my delight in the once despised rhone valley. nevertheless, i was glad that the mule of brig had been one with which i could conscientiously decline to associate. my resolve not to take a pack-mule there had become so fixed, that to have uprooted it would have seemed a confession of failure. besides, the need to go on to martigny had given an excuse for another day with jack, molly, and mercédès. i had been as happy as a man whose duty it is to be broken-hearted, may dare to be. but the next morning came at martigny, and with my bath the news that the five promised men with their five mules awaited my choice. i had secretly hoped that the day might be mule-less till evening, for in that case jack and molly would probably stay on, and i should not be left alone in the world until to-morrow. however, it was not to be. i gave myself the satisfaction of keeping the mules waiting, on the principle of always doing unto others what they have done unto you; and after a leisurely toilet, i went down to hold the review. four men, with four mules, started forward eagerly, jostling each other, at sight of me accompanied by the landlord. but one held back a little, with a modest dignity, as if he were too proud to push himself into notice, or too generous to exalt himself at the expense of others. he was a slim, dark man of middle height, past thirty in age, perhaps, with a look of the soldier in the bearing of his shoulders and head. he had very short black hair; high cheekbones, where the rich brown of his skin was touched with russet; deep-set, thoughtful eyes, and a melancholy droop of the moustache. his collar was incredibly tall and shiny, with turn-down points; he wore a red tie; his thick brown clothes might have been bought ready made in the edgeware road; evidently he had honoured the occasion with his sunday best. while his comrades jabbered together, in patois which flung in a french word now and then, like a sop to cerberus, he spoke not a word; yet i saw his lips tighten, as he laid his arm over the neck of a small but well-built mule of a colour which matched its master's clothing. the animal rubbed a brown velvet head against the brown waistcoat which, perhaps, covered a fast-beating heart. from that instant i knew that this was my man, and this my mule, as certainly as if they had been tattooed with my family crest and truculent motto: "what i will, i take." "you've been a soldier, haven't you?" i asked the muleteer in french. he saluted as he replied that he had, and that for several years he had served a french general, as orderly. his name was joseph marcoz, and--he added--he was a protestant. "and your mule?" i asked. "finois, monsieur." "ah, but his persuasion? he is protestant, too?" if joseph had looked puzzled, i should have been disappointed, but a spark of humour lit the gloom of his sombre eye. "finois is pantheist, i think you call it, monsieur. i am persuaded that he has a soul, for which there will be a place in the beyond; and if he goes there first, i hope that he will be looking out for me." it seemed a sudden drop, after this preface, to turn to bargaining. the landlord made the break for me, however, when he saw that i had set my mind upon marcoz and his finois. it then appeared that joseph was not his own master, but worked for the real owner of finois and other mules. the price he would have to ask for such a journey as i proposed was twenty-five francs a day. this would include the services of man and mule, food for the one, and fodder for the other. without any beating down, i accepted the terms proposed, and the only part of the arrangement left in doubt was the time of starting. it was not eight o'clock, yet already the diligences and private carriages going over the grand st. bernard had departed with a jingling of bells and sharp cracking of whips which had first informed me that it was day. with me, it was different, however. speed was no longer my aim. i would not be in a hurry about arriving anywhere, and when i learned that there were a couple of small towns on the pass, at either of which i could lie for a night, there seemed no fair excuse for keeping jack and molly at martigny. as i was wondering when they would wake, that i might consult them on the details of my journey, i glanced up and saw molly, as fresh as if she had been born with the morning, standing on a balcony just over my head. in her hand was a letter, and as she waved a greeting, something came fluttering uncertainly down. i managed to catch this something before it touched earth, and had inadvertently seen that it was an unmounted photograph, probably taken by an amateur correspondent, when molly leaned over the railing, with an excited cry. "oh, don't look. please, _please_ don't look at that photograph!" she exclaimed. "of course i won't," i answered, slightly hurt. "what do you take me for?" "i know you wouldn't mean to," she answered. "but you might glance involuntarily. you _didn't_ see it, did you?" suddenly i was tempted to tease her. "would it be so very dreadful if i did?" "yes, dreadful," she echoed solemnly. "don't joke. do please tell me, one way or the other, if you saw what was in the picture?" "you may set your mind at ease. if it were to save my life, i couldn't tell whether the photograph was of man, woman, boy, girl, or beast; and now i'm holding it face downward." molly broke into a laugh. "good!" she exclaimed. "i'm coming to claim my property, and to look at your new acquisitions. i've been criticising them from the window, and i congratulate you." a moment later she was beside me, had taken her mysterious photograph, and hidden it between the pages of a letter, covered with writing in a pretty and singularly individual hand. she explained that a whole budget of "mail" had been forwarded to martigny, in consequence of a telegram sent to lucerne, and then, as if forgetting the episode, she applied herself to winning the hearts of the man joseph and the mule finois. presently we were joined by winston, and i broached the subject of the start. "the idea is," i said, "to begin as i mean to go on, with a walk of from twenty to thirty miles a day, according to the scenery and my inclination. marcoz thinks that we could pass the night comfortably enough at a place called bourg st. pierre, even if we didn't get away from here for an hour or so. then early to-morrow we would push on for the hospice, and reach aosta in the evening." "it would be a mistake to leave here in the heat of the day, don't you think so?" said jack. "much better if we all stopped on, did some sightseeing, and then molly and i bade you good speed about half-past seven to-morrow morning." "but, lightning conductor, you forget we can't stay. you know--_the letters_," said molly, with one of those deep, meaning glances which her lovely eyes had more than once sent jack, when there was some question as to our ultimate parting. my heart invariably responded to this glance with a pang, as a nerve responds to electricity. she wished to go away with her lightning conductor, and leave me at the mercy of a mule. well, i would accept my lonely lot without complaining, but not without silently reflecting that happy lovers are selfish beings at best. the forlorn consciousness that i was of superlative importance to no one was heavy upon me. i wanted somebody to care a great deal what became of me, and evidently nobody did. i was horribly homesick at breakfast, and the winstons' gaiety in the face of our parting seemed the last straw in my burden. perhaps molly saw this straw in my eyes, for she looked at me half wistfully for a moment, and then said, "if we weren't sure this walking trip of yours will do you more good than anything else, we wouldn't let you leave us, for we have loved having you. we'll write to you at aosta, where you will be staying for a couple of days, and give you our itinerary, with lots of addresses. by that time, you too will have made up your mind about your route. you will have decided whether to branch off among the bye-ways, or go straight on south, although you mustn't go _too_ quickly, and get there too early----" "i don't believe i shall have made up my mind to anything in aosta," said i gloomily. "i feel that i shall still be unequal to that, or any other mental effort, and what is to become of me, heaven, joseph, and finois alone know." "now, isn't it funny, i feel exactly the opposite? something seems to tell me that at aosta, if not before, you will, so to speak, 'read your title clear,'" said molly, with aggravating cheerfulness. "as soon as you've settled what way to take, you must write or wire; and who knows but by-and-bye we shall cross each other's path again, on the road to the riviera?" i revived a little. "i don't think you told me that you were going to run down there. jack was talking about keeping mostly to switzerland, i thought." "but switzerland will turn a cold shoulder upon us, as the autumn comes to spoil its disposition, and we were saying only this morning that it would be fine to make a rush to the riviera, for a wind up to our trip." "you see, molly had a letter----" jack had begun to speak with an absent-minded air, but suddenly recovered himself. "we don't care to get back to england till november," he hastily went on. "i want molly to have some hunting and a jolly round of country houses just to see what we can do to make an english winter tolerable. we've got four or five ripping invitations, and in january mistress molly herself will have to play hostess to a big house party, at brighthelmston park, which the mater and governor have lent us till next season." if he had wanted to take my mind off an inadvertence, he could scarcely have manoeuvred better, but why the inadvertence (if it had been one) could concern me, it was difficult to imagine. there was a friendly dispute as to whether molly and jack should see me off, or whether i should wish them good-bye before starting on my journey; but in the end it was settled that i should be the one to leave first. perhaps they believed that, if left to myself, i should never start at all; perhaps they wished to add photographs of the mule-party to their kodak collection, already large; or perhaps they thought only how to make the parting pleasantest for me, since i had no one, and they had each other. [illustration: "there was a pang when i turned my back".] in any case, at ten o'clock all that was left of my store was placed upon the back of finois, who had the air of ignoring its existence, and mine as well. had he been a horse, he would at least have deigned to exchange glances with me, friendly or otherwise; but being what he was, he looked everywhere except at me, as if he had been some haughty aristocrat conscientiously snubbing an offensive upstart. joseph appeared to be the one human being of more importance for finois than the moving bough of an inedible tree, bush, or shrub, and even molly could win him to no change of facial expression, though he ate her offered sugar. there was a pang when i turned my back irrevocably upon my friends, having waved my hand or my panama so often that to do so again would he ridiculous. we were off, joseph, finois, and i; there was no getting round it; and as we ambled away along the hot white road, we seemed but small things in the scheme of a busy and indifferent world--mere cards, shuffled by the hands of an expert, for a game in which our destination was unknown. [illustration: no title] chapter ix the brat "be kind and courteous to this gentleman; hop in his walk and gambol in his eyes." --shakespeare. in beginning our tramp, i trudged step for step with joseph, who had finois' bridle over his arm, and answered my questions regarding the various features of the landscape. thus i was not long in discovering that he had a knowledge of the english language of which he was innocently proud. i made some enquiry concerning a fern which grew above the roadside, when we had passed through martigny bourg, and joseph answered that one did not see it often in this country. "it is a seldom plant," said he. "it live in high up places, where it was _difficile_ to catch, for one shall have to walk over rocks, which do not--what you say? they go down immediately, not by-and-bye." i liked this description of a precipice, and later, when we had engaged in a desultory discussion on politics, i was delighted when joseph spoke solemnly of the "great mights." he had formed opinions of lord beaconsfield and gladstone, but had not yet had time to do so of mr. chamberlain, for, said he, "these things take a long time to think about." fifteen or twenty years from now, he will probably be ready with an opinion on men and matters of the present. he asked gravely if there had not been a great difference between the two long-dead prime ministers? "how do you mean?" i enquired. "a difference in politics or disposition?" "they would not like the same things," he explained. "the lord beaconsfield, _par exemple_, he would not have enjoyed to come such a tour like this, that will take you high in icy mountains. he would want the sunshine, and sitting still in a beautiful _chaise_ with people to listen while he talked, but monsieur gladstone, i think he would love the mountains with the snow, as if they were his brothers." "you are right," i said. "they were his brothers. one can fancy edelweiss growing freely on mr. gladstone. his nature was of the white north. you have hit it, joseph." "but i do not see a thing that i have hit," he replied, bewildered, glancing at the stout staff in his hand, and then at finois, who had evidently not been brought up on blows. it was then my turn to explain; and so we tossed back and forth the conversational shuttlecock, until i found myself losing straw by straw my load of homesickness, and becoming more buoyant of spirit in the muleteer's society. after the splendours of the simplon it seemed to rue, as the windings of the great st. bernard pass shut us farther and farther away from martigny, that this was in comparison but a peaceful valley. it was a cosey cleft among the mountains, with just room for the river to be frilled with green between its walls. there was a look of homeliness about the sloping pastures, which slept in the sunshine, lulled by the song of the swift-flowing dranse. the name "great st. bernard" had conjured up hopes of rugged grandeur, which did not seem destined to be fulfilled, and at last i confided my disappointment to joseph. "if monsieur will wait an all little hour, perhaps he will yet be surprised," he answered, breaking into french. "we have a long way to go, before we come to the best." we walked briskly, lunched at the dull village of orsières; and delaying as short a time as possible, pushed on--indeed, we pushed on much farther than joseph had expected, when he suggested our sleeping at bourg st. pierre. "we might go higher," said he, "before dark, but it would be late before we could reach the hospice, and there is no place where we could rest for the night after st. pierre, unless monsieur would care to stop at the cantine de proz." "what is the cantine de proz?" i asked, trudging along the stony road, with my eyes held by a huge snow mountain which had suddenly loomed above the green shoulders of lesser hills, like a great white barrier across the world. "the cantine de proz is but a house, nothing more, monsieur, in the loneliest and wildest part of the pass--how lonely, and how wild, you cannot guess yet by what you have seen. the people who keep the house are good folk, and they live there all the year round, even in winter, when the snow is at the second-story windows, and they must cut narrow paths, with tall white walls, before they can feed their cattle. these people sell you a cup of coffee, or a glass of beer, or of liqueur, and they have a spare room, which is very clean. if any traveller wishes to spend a night, they will make him as comfortable as they can. one english gentleman came, and liked the place so well, that he stayed for months, and wrote a book, i have been told. but it is desolate. perhaps monsieur would think it too _triste_ even for a night. at st. pierre there is at least a little life. and the hotel 'au déjeuner de napoléon,' i think it will amuse monsieur." "that is an odd name for a hotel," said i. "you see, monsieur, it was made famous because of the _déjeuner_ which napoléon took there on his march with his army of 30,000 across the pass in the month of may, 1800, and that is the reason of the name. the madame who has the house now, is a grand-daughter of the innkeeper of that day; and she will show you the room where napoléon breakfasted, with all the furniture just as it was then, and on the wall the portraits of her grand-parents, who waited on the great man." "at all events, we will rest and have something to eat there," i said. "then, if it be not too late, we might push on further. i like the idea of the lonely cantine de proz." my opinion of the pass was changing for the better, before we reached the straggling town of stony pavements, which could not have a more appropriate patron than st. pierre. true, our road was always narrow, and poorly kept for a great mountain highway; so far, none of the magnificent engineering which impressed one on the simplon. but here and there dazzling white peaks glistened like frozen tidal waves against the blue, and the dranse had a particular charm of its own. joseph said little when i patronised the pass with a few grudging words of commendation. he had the secretive smile of a man who hides something up his sleeve. it was five o'clock when we arrived at bourg st. pierre, and having climbed a dark and hilly street, closely shut in with houses which age had not made beautiful, joseph pointed out a neat, white inn, standing at the left of the road. "that is the 'déjeuner de napoléon,'" said he, "and near by are some roman remains which will interest monsieur if----" "by jove, two donkeys!" i broke in, heedless of antiquities, in my surprise at seeing two of those animals which experience had taught me to look upon as more rare than joseph's "seldom plant." "two donkeys in front of the inn. where on earth can they have sprung from? i would have given a good deal for that sight a few days ago, but now"--and i glanced at the dignified finois--"i can regard them simply with curiosity." "i have been over this pass more than twenty times," said joseph (who was a native of chamounix, i had learned), "yet rarely have i met with _ânes_. and see, monsieur, the woman who is with them. she is not of the country, nor of that part of italy which we enter below the pass, at aosta. it is a strange costume. i do not know from what valley it comes." "well," said i, as we drew near to the group in the road outside the hotel, "if that girl, or at any rate her hat, did not come from the riviera somewhere, i will eat my panama." involuntarily i hastened my steps, and joseph politely followed suit, dragging after him finois, who seemed to be walking in his sleep. i felt it almost as a personal injury from the hand of fate, that after my unavailing search for donkeys in a land where i had thought to be forced to beat them off with sticks, i should find other persons provided with not one but two of the creatures. [illustration: "that is the déjeuner of napoléon".] they were charming little beasts, one mouse-colour, one dark-brown with large, grey-rimmed spectacles, and both animals were of the texture of uncut velvet. the former carried an excellent pack, which put mine to shame; the latter bore a boy's saddle, and the two were being fed with great bread crusts by a bewitching young woman of about twenty-six or -eight, wearing one of the toad-stool hats affected by the donkey-women of mentone. she looked up at our approach, and having surveyed the pack and proportions of finois with cold scorn, her interest in our procession incontestably focused upon joseph. she tossed her head a little on one side, shot at the muleteer an arrow-gleam, half defiant, half coquettish, from a pair of big grey eyes fringed heavily with jet. she moistened full red lips, while a faint colour lit her cheeks, under the deep stain of tan and a tiger-lily powdering of freckles. then, having seen the weary joseph visibly rejuvenate in the brief sunshine of her glance, she turned away, and gave her whole attention to the donkeys. "hungry, joseph?" i asked. he had to bethink himself before he could answer. then he replied that he had food in his pocket, bread and cheese, and that finois carried his own dinner. they would be ready to go on, if i chose, or to remain, if that were my pleasure. "it is too early for a final stop, at a place where there can no amusement for the evening," said i. "we had better go on. if you intend to stay outside with finois, i'll send you a bottle of beer, and you can, if you will, drink my health." with this i went in, feeling sure that the time of my absence would not pass heavily for joseph. this was the hour at which, in england, we would sip a cup of tea as an excuse for talk with a pretty woman in her drawing-room; but having tramped steadily for some hours in mountain air, i was in a mood to understand the tastes of that class who like an egg or a kipper for "a relish to their tea." i looked for the landlady with the illustrious ancestors, and could not find her; but voices on the floor above led me to the stairway. i mounted, passed a doorway, and found myself in a room which instinct told me had been the scene of the historic _déjeuner_. it was a low-ceilinged room with wainscoted walls, and at first glance one received an impression of the past. there was a soft lustre of much-polished mahogany, and a glitter of old silver candelabra; i thought that i detected a faint fragrance of lavender lurking in the clean curtains, or perhaps it might have come from the square of ancient damask covering the table, on which a meal was spread. that meal consisted of chicken; a salad of pale green lettuce and coraline tomatoes; a slim-necked bottle of white wine; a custard with a foaming crest of beaten egg and sugar; and a dish of purple figs. food for the gods, and with only a boy to eat it--but a remarkable boy. i gazed, and did not know what to make of him. he also gazed at me, but his look lacked the curiosity with which i honoured him. it expressed frank and (in the circumstances) impudent disapproval. having bestowed it, he nonchalantly continued his conversation with the plump and capped landlady, who was evidently enraptured with him, while i was left to stand unnoticed on the threshold. purely from the point of view of the picturesque, there was some excuse for madame's preoccupation. the boy would have delighted an artist, no doubt, though our first interchange of glances gave me a strong desire to smack him. his panama--a miniature copy of mine--hung over the back of his old-fashioned chair--the one, no doubt, in which napoleon had sat to eat the _déjeuner_. soft rings of dark, chestnut hair, richly bright as japanese bronze, had been flattened across his forehead by the now discarded hat. this hair, worn too long for any self-respecting, twentieth-century boy, curled round his small head and behind the slim throat, which was like a stem for the flower of his strange little face. "strange" was the first adjective which came into my mind; yet, if he had been a girl instead of a boy, he would have been beautiful. the delicately pencilled brows were exquisite, and out of the small brown face looked a pair of large, brilliant eyes of an extraordinary blue--the blue of the wild chicory. when the boy glanced up or down, there was great play of dark lashes, long, and amazingly thick. this would have been charming on a girl, but seemed somehow affected in a boy, though one could hardly have accused the little snipe of making his own eyelashes. he wore a very loose-trousered knickerbocker suit of navy-blue; a white silk shirt or blouse, loose also, with a turned-down byronic collar and a careless black bow underneath. he had extremely small hands, tanned brown, and on the least finger of one was a seal ring. my impression of this youthful tourist was that in age he might be anywhere between thirteen and seventeen, and i was sure that he would be the better for a good thrashing. "some rich, silly mother's darling," i said to myself. "little milksop, travelling with a muff of a tutor, i suppose. why doesn't the ass teach him good manners?" this lesson seemed particularly necessary, because the youth persisted in holding the attention of the landlady, who, with a comfortable back to me, laughed at some sally of the boy's. when i had stood for a moment or two, waiting for a pause which did not come, although the brat saw me and knew well what i wanted, i spoke coldly: "pardon, madame, i desire something to eat," i said in french. the landlady turned, surprised at the voice behind her. "but certainly, monsieur. though i regret that you have come at an unfortunate time. we have not a great variety to offer you." "something of this sort will suit me very well," i replied, feeling hungrily that chicken, salad, custard, and figs were the things which of all others i would choose. "it is most regrettable, monsieur, but this young gentleman has our only chicken, unless you could wait for another to be killed, plucked, and made ready for the table." i shuddered at the suggestion, and did not hide my repulsion. "i must put up with an omelette, then, i suppose i can have that?" "at any other time monsieur could have had two, if he pleased, but to-day all our eggs have gone into this custard. the young gentleman ordered his repast by telegraph, and we did our best. as for the figs, he brought them himself; but if monsieur would have a cutlet of the _veau_, or----" "give me a bottle of wine, and some bread and cheese. i do not like the _veau_," i said, with the testiness of a hungry man disappointed. as i spoke, my eyes were on the boy, who ate his breast of chicken daintily. pretty as he was, i should have liked to kick him. "little brat," i apostrophised him once more, in my mind. "if he were not a pig, he would ask me to accept half his meal. not that i would take it. i'd be shot first, so he'd be quite safe; but he might have the decency to offer." worse was to come, however. i had not yet plumbed the black depths of the brat's selfishness. "certainly, monsieur; we have very good cheese," madame assured me soothingly. "if monsieur would be pleased to step downstairs." "i should prefer to remain here," i replied. "this is the room, is it not, where napoleon had his _déjeuner_?" "the same, monsieur, in every particular. but unfortunately, it is for the moment the private sitting-room of this young gentleman, who has made me an extra price to keep it for himself." the poor old lady suffered manifest distress in breaking this news to me, and even in my evil mood i could not add intentionally to her pain. as for it cause, however, he sat absolutely unmoved. i think, indeed, from the blue light in his great eyes (which was absolutely impish), that the situation whetted his appetite. i did not deign another glance at the little wretch, as i went out, discomfited, but i felt that he was grinning at my back. in a room below, i had a very creditable meal, which i should have enjoyed more, had my nerves not been jarred to viciousness. in the midst, i heard footsteps running downstairs, and presently outside the door of the _salle-à-manger_ the boy's voice--sweet still with childish cadences, as a boy's is before the change to manhood first breaks, then deepens it. "if he comes in here, i shall be inclined to throw a rind of cheese at his head," i thought; but he did not beard me in my den. the voice passed away, and presently i heard another, unmistakably that of a woman, giving vent to strange profanities in softest provençal french. the speaker was apostrophising some person or animal, who was, according to her, the most insupportable of heaven's creatures; and at last, with calls upon martyred saints, and cries of "fanny-anny, fanny-anny," there mingled a scuffling and trotting which soon died away in the distance, leaving stillness. soon after, having finished my meal, and paid my bill, i went out to joseph. i found him alone with finois. the donkeys and their fair guardian had gone. "well," said i, as we got upon our way, "i trust you had an agreeable spell of rest? the lady in the riviera hat looked promising. if her conversation matched her appearance, you were in luck, and well repaid for taking your refreshment out of doors." "monsieur," began joseph, "have you in english a way of expressing in one word what a man feels when he is both shocked and astonished?" "flabbergasted might do, at a pinch," i replied, after deliberation. "ah, the good word, 'flabbergasta'! it says much. it is that i am flabbergasta by the young woman of the _ânes_. i was taken, i admit it, monsieur, by her face, as was but natural. and then i wished to find out, for the satisfaction of monsieur and myself, how so strange a cavalcade came to arrive upon the st. bernard pass. "i made myself polite. i spoke with praise of the _ânes_, and though my advances were coldly received at first, at the very moment i would in discouragement have ceased my efforts, the young woman changed her front, and seemed willing to talk. she would not answer my questions, except to say that she was of mentone, and that she had escorted the young gentleman who now employs her on several excursions, a year ago, when he was on the riviera. that he had sent for her and the two _ânes_ to join him by rail, though the expense was great, and that they were travelling for the young gentleman's amusement, and his health, as he had had an illness which has left him still thin, and a little weak. from what place he had come, or to what place they were bound, she would not say. her own name she told me, when i had asked twice over, but the young gentleman's name she would not give, nor would she even say the country of his birth. it was when i brought up this subject that the--the----" "the flabbergasting began?" "precisely, monsieur. she abused me for my curiosity, and, oh, monsieur, the words she used! the profanities! and at the same time her face as mild as a pigeon's! she taunted me with being a protestant, as if it were a black crime which bred others. her name, if you would believe it, is innocentina palumbo--_innocentina!_ but her tongue! monsieur, i listened as if i had been turned to stone. and it was at this time that the young gentleman, of whom she had told me, came out of the inn. he wished to walk, but innocentina said that he was already too tired, and before he knew what was happening, she had him in the saddle on his _âne_. so they went off, and where they will pass the night, their saints alone know, for it is all but certain that they will never get such animals as those even as far as the cantine de proz." "they were going in our direction, then?" i said. "we shall pass them on the way presently." "i do not doubt it, monsieur, though they had half an hour's start." "were the boy and the donkey-woman alone? no tutor with them?" "tutor, monsieur? the poor young gentleman has a tutor and a duenna in innocentina. i wish him joy of her." "i wish her joy of him," said i, remembering my wrongs. but soon i forgot them and all other troubles past and present, in surrendering my spirit to the glory of the scene. joseph had his triumph, for the surprise he had kept up his sleeve was out at last. st. bernard had me at his feet, and held me there. the wild and gloomy splendour of the pass struck at my heart, and fired my imagination. even the simplon had nothing like this to give. the simplon at its finest sang a pæan to civilisation; it glorified the science of engineering, and told you that it was a triumph of modernity. but this strange, unkempt pass, with its inadequate road,--now overhanging a sheer precipice, now dipping down steeply towards the wild bed of its sombre river,--this great st. bernard, seemed a secret way back into other centuries, savage and remote. i felt shame that i had patronised it earlier, with condescending admiration of some prettinesses. no wonder that joseph had smiled and held his peace, knowing what was to come. there was the old road, the roman road, along which napoleon had led his staggering thousands. there were his forts, scarcely yet crumbled into ruin. i saw the army, a straggling procession of haggard ghosts, following always, and falling as they followed, enacting again for me the passing scene of death and anguish. i was one of the men. i struggled on, because napoleon needed all his soldiers. then weakness crushed me, like a weight of iron. a mist before my eyes shut out the opposite precipice with its sparse pines, and flashing waterfalls, the mountain heights beyond, and the merciless blue sky. this was death. who cared? the echo of thirty thousand feet was in my ears as they passed on, leaving me to die by the roadside, as i had left others before. i started, and waked from my dream. it was a joyful shock to see joseph beside me, in the homely clothes which had replaced his "sunday best"; to see finois and his pack full of my friendly belongings. but i clung to the comfortable present for a few moments only. the spell of dead centuries had me in its grip. farther and farther back into the land of dead days, i journeyed with st. bernard, and helped him found the monastery which the eyes of my flesh had not yet seen. the eyes of my spirit saw the place, the nerves of my spirit felt the chill of its remoteness. and even when i waked again, i could not be sure that i was montagu lane, an idle young man of the twentieth century, who had come for the gratification of a whim to this fastness where greater men had ventured in peril and self-sacrifice. imagination is the one possession having which no man can be poor, or mean, or insignificant. he can walk with kings, and he can see the high places of the world with seeing eyes, a gift which no money can give; and yet he will have to suffer as those without imagination never can suffer or picture others suffering. i told myself this, somewhat grandiloquently, and with self-gratulation, as i rubbed shoulders with certain of the world's heroes who had passed along this way; and there was physical relief after a strain, when the precipitous valley widened into billowy pastures lying green at the rugged feet of mountains. can any sound be more soothing than the tinkle of cow-bells in a mountain pass, as twilight falls softly, like the wings of a brooding bird? it is to the ear what a cool draught of spring water is to thirsty lips. there are verses of poetry in it, only to be reset and rearranged, like pearls fallen from their string; there is a perfume of primroses in it; there is the colour of early dawn, or of fading sunset, when a young moon is rising, curved and white as a baby's arm; there is also the same voice that speaks from the brook or the river running over rocks. suddenly we were in the midst of a great herd of cows, which blew out volumes of clover breath upon us, in mild surprise at our existence. they rubbed against us, or ambled away, lowing to each other, and i was surprised to find that, instead of each neck being provided with a bell, as i had fancied from the multitudinous tinklings, one cow only was thus ornamented. "how was the selection made?" i asked joseph. "did they choose the most popular cow, a sort of stable-yard belle, voted by her companions a fit leader of her set; or was the choice guided by chance?" joseph could not tell me, and i suppose that i shall never know. the big, lumbering forms crowded so closely round us in the twilight shadows, that now and then, to force a passage, joseph was obliged to pull a slowly whisking tail, resembling almost exactly an old-fashioned bell-rope. presently we had made our way past the herd, which was shut from our sight by the curtain of evening, though up on the mountain-tops it was still golden day. "there," said joseph, pointing, "is the cantine de proz." [illustration] chapter x the scraping of acquaintance "you shall be treated to . . . ironical smiles and mockings." --walt whitman. "up the hillside yonder, through the morning." --robert browning. i saw, standing desolate in the basin of mountains, an old house of grey stone, very square, very plain, very resolute and staunch of physiognomy. the windows were still unlighted, and it looked a gloomy home for months of winter cold and snow. suddenly, as we approached, rather wearily now, a yellow gleam flashed out in an upper window. "that is the spare room for strangers," said joseph, and i thought that there was a note of anxiety in his voice. "perhaps someone has arrived before us," i remarked. "i hadn't thought of that, as you said so few people ever stopped at the cantine over night." "had you noticed, monsieur, that after all we never passed the party with the donkeys?" asked my muleteer. "i had forgotten them." "i had not, but it was monsieur's pleasure to go slowly; to stop for the views, to look at the ruined torts, and to trace the old road. we gave them time to get far ahead. i was always watching, but never saw them. the _ânes_ had more endurance than i thought, and as for that innocentina, she is a daughter of satan; she would know no fatigue." "it would be like that little brat to gobble up the one spare room of the cantine as he did the one chicken of the 'déjeûner,'" i muttered. "but we shall see what we shall see." we went on more rapidly, and soon arrived at the bottom of a steep flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the cantine. a man came forward to greet us--a fine fellow, with the frank and lofty bearing of one whose life is passed in high altitudes. "can we have supper and accommodation for the night at your house?" i asked. "supper, most certainly, and with pleasure," came the courteous answer, "though we have only plain fare to offer. but the one spare room we have for our occasional guests, has just been taken by a young english or american gentleman. the woman who drives the two donkeys with which they travel, will have a bed in the room of my sister, and we could find sleeping place of a sort for your muleteer; but i fear we have no way of making monsieur comfortable." i was filled with rage against the wretch who had robbed me of a decent meal, and would now filch from me a night's rest. "we have walked a long way," i said, "and are tired. we might have stopped at st. pierre, but preferred to come on to you. it is now too dark to go back, or go on. surely there are two beds in your spare room, and as you keep an inn, and pretend to give bed and board to travellers, you are bound to arrange for my accommodation." "the young monsieur pays for the two beds in the spare room, in order to secure the whole for himself alone," replied the landlord. "not expecting any other guests, we agreed to this; but the youth is perhaps a countryman of yours, and rather than you should go further, or spend a night of discomfort, he will probably consent to let you share the room." "he shall consent, or i will know the reason why," i said to myself fiercely; but aloud i merely answered that i would be glad of a few minutes' conversation with the young gentleman. my host led me to the house door, introduced me to a handsome sister, who was my hostess, explained to her the situation, with the view of it we had arrived at, and descended to show joseph where to shelter finois. my landlady said that she would put the case to the occupant of the spare room, who was already in his new quarters, preparing for supper, but i persuaded her that it would be well for me to be on the spot, and add my arguments to hers. we went upstairs, and in a dark passage plunged suddenly into a pool of yellow light, gushing from a half-open door. i hurried forward, step for step with my guide, lest the door should be shut in my face before i could reach it. over my hostess' shoulder, i saw a bare but neat interior; a "coffin" bed, a white-washed wall, and an uncarpeted floor, mademoiselle innocentina palumbo sitting upon it, tailor-fashion, engaged in excavating a large, dark object from a _rücksack_. in front of her stood the brat, deeply interested in the operation, his curly head bent, his childish little hands on his hips. he was talking and laughing gaily; but at the sound of footsteps in the passage he glanced up, and, seeing me, stared in haughty surprise, which tipped the scales towards anger. "here is a monsieur who is belated on the pass, and begs" (this was hardly the way in which i would have put it) "that he may be allowed to share your room," explained our landlady. "_share my room!_" repeated the brat, so dumfounded at the simple statement that he spoke in english. now i knew that he was a countryman, not of mine, but of molly's, and i wished that she were here to deal with him. "i have never heard anything so--so ridiculous." "really," said i, assuming an air i had found successful with freshers in good old days of under-grad-dom (molly called it my "belted hearl" manner), "really, i fail to see anything ridiculous in the proposal. this is an inn, which professes to accommodate travellers. i have a right to insist upon a bed." to my intense irritation innocentina giggled. the brat did not laugh, but he grew rosy, like a girl. even his little ears turned pink, under his absurd mop of chestnut curls. "you have no right to insist upon mine," retorted he, in the honey-sweet contralto which tried in vain to make of a pert imp, an angel. "you cannot sleep in two," said i. "that is my affair, since i have agreed to pay for them." "i contend that you cannot pay for both, since one is legally mine, by the laws protecting travellers," i argued truculently, hoping to frighten the rude child, though i should have been sore put to it to prove my point. "i have always heard that possession is nine points of the law," said he, impudent and apparently unintimidated. "this is my room, every hole and corner of it, and if you try to intrude, i shall simply sit up and yell all night, and throw things, so that you will not get an instant's sleep. i swear it." then i lost my temper. "you ought to be ashamed of yourself," i exclaimed. "i wonder where you were brought up?" "where big boys never bully little ones." "of all the selfish, impertinent brats!" i could not help muttering. "if i'm a brat, you're a brute, sir. you have only to glance at the dictionary to see which is worse." he looked so impish, defying me, like a miniature ajax, that with all the will in the world to box his ears, i burst out laughing. checking my mirth as soon as i could, however, i covered its inappropriateness with a steely frown. "i do not need to glance at the dictionary to see that you would be a detestable room-mate," said i, "and on second thoughts i prefer to sleep quietly in the stable rather than press my claim here." with this, i turned on my heel, not giving the enemy time for another volley, and stalked downstairs, followed, i regret to say, by innocentina's ribald laughter. almost immediately i was rejoined by the handsome landlady, who, profuse in her regrets, though she had understood no word of what had passed, attempted to console me with the promise of a bed in the _salle-à-manger_. meanwhile, if i desired to wash, her brother would superintend my ablutions. over those rites (which were duly performed at a pump, while the little wretch upstairs wallowed in the luxury of a basin almost as large as my hat), i draw a veil. by the time that they were finished, and i was shining with yellow kitchen soap, having been unable to make use of my own in the circumstances, supper was ready. i walked sulkily into the room, which later would be transformed into my bedchamber, and to my annoyance saw the brat already seated at the table. i had fancied that his conscience would counsel supping privately in the room he had usurped, but this imp seemed to have been born without a sense of shame. thanks to him, i had not even been able to give myself a clean collar, as it had not been possible to open the mule-pack and improvise a dressing-room in the neighbourhood of the pump. but he--he, the usurper, he, the guilty one--had changed from his low-necked shirt and blue serge jacket and knickers into a kind of evening costume, original, i should say, to himself, or copied from some stage child, or christmas annual. he did not speak to me, nor i to him, though, as i sat down in the chair placed for me at the opposite end of the table, i caught a sapphire gleam from the brilliant eyes, which burned so vividly in the little brown face. there came an omelette. it was passed to me. maliciously, i selected the best bit from the middle. the boy took what was left. veal followed, in the form of cutlets, two in number. a glance showed me that one was mostly composed of bone and gristle. i helped myself to the other. revenge was mine at last, though to enjoy it fully i must have a peep at the enemy, to make sure that he felt and understood his righteous punishment. but life is crowded with disappointments. the foe was looking incredibly small, and young, and meek, a puny thing for a man to wreak his vengeance on. with long lashes cast down, making a deep shadow on his thin cheeks, he sat wrestling with his portion, from which the cleverest manipulation of knife and fork was powerless to extract an inch of nourishment. as he gave up the struggle at last, with unmoved countenance, and not even a sigh of complaint, my heart failed me. i felt that i had snatched bread from the mouth of starving infanthood. had not joseph learned from innocentina that the boy had lately recovered from a severe illness? unspeakable brat that he was, and small favour that he deserved at my hands, i resolved that he should have the best of the next dish when it came round. this good intention, however, went to supply another stone in that place which seems ever in need of repaving. cheese succeeded the veal, a well-meaning but somewhat overpowering cheese, and neither the brat nor i encouraged it. it was borne away, intact, and after a short delay appeared a dish of plums, with another of small and attractive cakes, evidently imported from a town. i saw the boy's eye brighten as it fell upon the cakes. he glanced from them to me, as i was offered my choice, and said hastily: "there is one cake there which i want very much. i suppose if i tell you which it is, you will eat it." "there is also only one which i care for," said i. "i wonder if it's the same?" "probably," said the boy. "if you take it, there isn't another which i would be found dead with in my mouth, on a desert island. and i haven't had much dinner." "_i_ had to wash under the pump," said i. "still, greatness lies in magnanimity. you shall choose your cake first; but remember, you cannot have it, and eat it, too; so make up your mind quickly which is better." "i always thought that a stupid saying," remarked the brat, as he helped himself to a ginger-nut with pink icing. "i have my cake, and when i have eaten it, i take another." "your experience in life has been fortunate," i replied, contenting myself with the second-best cake. "but it has not been long. when you are a man----" "a man! i would rather die--young than grow up to be one." "indeed?" i exclaimed, surprised at this outburst. "i hate men." "ah, perhaps then, your experience has not been as fortunate in men as in cakes." "no, it hasn't. it has been just the opposite." "one would say, 'thereby hangs a tale.'" "there does. but it is not for strangers." "i'm not a lover of after-dinner stories. here comes the coffee. luckily, there's plenty for us both. will you have a cigarette?" "no, thanks." "a cigar, then?" "i don't smoke." "ah, some boys' heads _won't_ stand it. i'm ashamed to say that i smoked at fourteen. but perhaps you're not yet----" "i will change my mind and have a cigarette, since you are so obliging." "sure you won't regret it?" "quite sure, thank you." "they're rather strong." "i'm not afraid." he took a cigarette from my case, and smoked it daintily. whether it were my imagination, or whether a slight pallor did really become visible under the sun-tan on the velvet-smooth face, i am not certain: but at all events he rose when nothing was left between his fingers save an ash clinging to a bit of gold paper, and excused himself with belated politeness. not long after, my bed was made up on the floor, and i slept as i fancy few kings sleep. strange; not then, or ever, did i dream of helen. * * * * * the voice of finois or some near relative of his roused me at dawn. i remembered where i was, whither bound, and sleep instantly seemed irrelevant. i scrambled up from my lonely couch, went to the open window, which was a square of grey-green light, and looked out at the mountain walls of the valley basin. the day was not awake yet, but only half conscious that it must awake. there was the faint thrill of mystery which comes with earliest dawn, as though it were for you alone of all the world, and no one else could find his way down its dim labyrinths. but even as i looked, there came a movement near the house, and i saw the stalwart figure of the landlord shape itself from the shadows. other forms were stirring too, the stolid forms of cows, and those of two sturdy little ponies, which were being turned into a pasture. it occurred to me that i could not do better than get through my toilet, and, if joseph and finois were of the same mind, make an early start. i thought that if i could reach the hospice before all the gold of sunrise had boiled over night's brim, i should have a picture to frame in memory. at bedtime they had given me a wooden tub such as laundresses use, and filled it for my morning bath. i had my own soap, and a great, clean, coarse dish-towel of crash or some such material. never before was there a bath like it, with the good smell of pinewood of which the tub was made, and the tingle of the water from a mountain spring. i revelled in it, and as i dressed could have sung for pure joy of life, until i remembered that i was a jilted man, and this tour a voyage of consolation. "you are miserable, you know." i informed my reflection in a small, strange-coloured glass, which allowed me to shave my face in greenish sections. "it is a kind of madness, this spurious gaiety of yours." in half an hour i was out of the house, and found joseph feeding finois. they were both prepared to leave at ten minutes' notice, and when the two human creatures of the party had been refreshed with crusty bread and steaming coffee, the procession of three set forth. as for the boy, the donkeys and their guardian, as far as i knew they were still sleeping the sleep of the unjust. if the pass had been glorious in open day, and by falling twilight, it was doubly wonderful in this mystic dawn-time before the lamp of the rising sun had lit the valley. the green alps where the cattle pasture were faintly musical, far and near, with the ringing of unseen bells, and the air was vibrant with the rush and whisper of waters. as the shadows melted in the crucible of dawn, and an opaline high trembled on the dark mountain-tops that towered round us, i saw marvels which either had not existed last night, or i had been dull clod enough to miss them. fairy wild-flowers such as i had never seen studded the rocks with jewels of blue and gold, and rose, and little silver stars; and there were some wonderful, shining things of creamy grey plush, suggesting glorified thistles. we walked through the valley of death, where many of napoleon's men had perished; and the first rays of sunrise touched the tragic rocks with the gold of hope. up, up beyond the alps and the sparse pine-trees we climbed, until we came to the snowline, and passed beyond the first white ledge, carved in marble by the cold hand of a departed winter. down through a gap in the mountains streamed an icy blast, and i had to remind myself, shivering, that this was august, not december. the wind tore apart the fabric of lacy cloud which had been looped in folds across the rock-face, like a veil hiding the worn features of some aged nun, and showed jagged mountain peaks, towering against a sky of mother-o'-pearl. suddenly, after a steep ascent, we saw before us a tall, lonely mass of grey stone, built upon the rock. behind it the sun had risen, and fired to burnished gold the still lake which mirrored the hospice and its dark wall of mountains, seamed with snow. the impression of high purity, of peace won through privation, and of nearness to heaven itself, was so strong upon me, that i seemed to hear a voice speaking a benediction. chapter xi a shadow of night "this villain, . . . he dares--i know not half he dares- but remove him--quick!" --robert browning. so early was it still, i feared we had come before the brotherhood were astir to receive visitors; but as i looked up at the great, grey, silent building, the noble head of a magnificent st. bernard dog appeared in the doorway, at the top of steep stone steps. there could not have been a more appropriate welcome to this remote dwelling of a devoted band; and when the dog, after gazing gravely at the newcomers, vanished into darkness, i knew that he had gone in to tell of our arrival. i was right, too, for once within, he uttered a deep bell-note, more sonorous and more musical than lies in the throats of common dogs, and was answered by a distant baying. one could not say that these majestic animals "barked." there was as indisputable a difference between an ordinary bark, and the sound they made, as between the barrel instrument played in the streets, and a grand cathedral organ. joseph had visited the hospice many times, and knew the etiquette for strangers. he bade me go in, and ring the bell at the _grille_, unless i should meet one of the monks before reaching it. i mounted the steps, entered the wide doorway which had framed the dog's head, and found myself in a vast, dusky corridor, resonant with strange echoings, and mysterious with flitting shadows, which might be ghosts of the past, or live beings of the present. as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, i saw that there were numerous persons in this great hall: tall monks in flowing robes of black, beggars come to solicit alms or breakfast; and dogs, many dogs, who crowded round me, with a waving of huge tails, and a gleaming of brown jewelled eyes in the dusk. i did not need to ring the bell of the iron gate beyond which, according to joseph, no woman has ever passed. one of the monks came to me--a tall, spare young man with a grave face, soft in expression, yet hardened in outline by a rigorous life and exposure to extreme cold. he gave me welcome in french, with here and there an interpellation of "down, turk," "be quiet, jupiter!" would i like breakfast, he asked; and then--yes, certainly--to see the chapel, the _bibliothèque_, the monastery museum, and the alpine garden? there would be plenty of time for this, and still to reach aosta. another monk was called, and an introduction effected. i was taken into a handsomely decorated refectory, where i opened my eyes in some astonishment at sight of the imp, drinking coffee from a shallow bowl nearly as big as his childish head. innocentina was no doubt at this moment shocking joseph by some new depravity, in the _salle-à-manger_ where humbler folk were entertained with the same hospitality as their (so called) betters. the brat set down his bowl, and saw me, as i subsided into a chair on the opposite side of the long, narrow table. his face flushed, and the brilliant blue eyes clouded, but he deigned to acknowledge our acquaintance with a slight bow. [illustration: "down, turk!" "be quiet, jupiter!"] "i didn't suppose you would have started yet," said i. "i thought the same thing about you," he retorted. "we got off very quietly from the cantine----" "ah, you wished to steal a march on me," i broke in, "but really, my young friend, you need not have feared that i should impose myself upon you as a travelling companion. my one object in making this excursion is, if not to enjoy my own society, at any rate to experiment with it, therefore----" "i have _two_ objects in making mine," the boy interrupted. "one is to avoid men; the other is to find materials for writing a book, with no men in it--only places." "it will not be owing to me, if you fail in the former," said i. "as for the latter, naturally it will depend upon yourself. what shall you call it--'a chiel takkin' notes' or 'in search of the grail'?" he blushed vividly. "i haven't decided on the name yet, but it can't matter to you, as i do not expect you to buy the book when it comes out; nor need you be afraid that you will figure in the pages. if i were to call my book 'in search of--anything,' it would be, 'in search of peace.'" with this, the strange child rose from the table, and bowing, departed, leaving me lost in wonder at him. he was but an infant, and an impertinent infant at that; yet suddenly i had had a glimpse through the great sea-blue eyes, of a soul, weary after some tragic experience. at least this was the impression which flashed into my mind, with the one look i surprised before lashes hid its secret; but in a moment i was laughing at myself. ridiculous to have such a thought in connection with a slip of a boy, seventeen at most! i lingered over my breakfast, so that the brat have finished his sightseeing and got away, before my tour of the hospice began. he and i had had the table to ourselves at first, but i sat so long that others came in, evidently persons who had spent the night at the monastery. there was a russian family, of so many daughters that i wondered their parents had found names for them all; a couple of german women in plaid blouses so terrible that they set me speculating. had the material been chosen by their husbands, with the view of alienating all masculine admiration, as a japanese girl, when married, blackens her teeth? or had the ladies inflicted the frightful things upon themselves, by way of penance for some grievous sin? i should have liked to ask, especially as one of the wearers was very pretty, with a large, madonna loveliness. but under my dreaming eyes, she began eating honey with her knife, and i sprang from the table hastily. as i paused, i heard two stolid cockneys asking each other why the--dickens they had come to this "beastly, cold, god-forsaken hole, with nothing but a lot of ugly mountains to see. there was better sport in oxford street." i should not have considered it murder if i had killed them where they sat, but i refrained, rather than soil my hands. and after all, if a primrose on a river's brim, but a yellow primrose was to them, what did it matter to me? i visited the _bibliothèque_, which was haunted by a fragrance intoxicating to booklovers, of dead centuries, leather bindings, and parchment. i saw the piano given by the king when he was prince of wales; the fine collection of coins and early roman remains found in the neighbourhood of the monastery; i dropped a louis into the box of offerings in the chapel, and then was taken by a mild-eyed, frail-looking monk to see some of the rooms allotted to guests at the hospice. seeing them, i was inclined to wish that i had pushed on through the darkness last night, and reached this mountain-top to sleep. i liked the wainscoted walls, the white, canopied beds, but most of all, i liked the deep-set windows with their view of the silent lake, asleep in the bosom of the mountains, and dreaming of the sky. on most of the walls were votive offerings in the shape of pictures, sent to the monks by grateful visitors in far-off countries. one was an engraving which had adorned the nursery in my youth, and had been a never-failing source of curiosity to me. it was gustave doré's "christian martyrs," and i had once been deprived of pudding at the nursery dinner, because i had remarked (with irreverence wholly unintentional) that one of the lions seemed ill, and anxious to "climb up the wall and get away from the nasty martyrs." thus it is that children are misunderstood by their elders! and now, as i gazed at the same picture on the monastery wall, i felt again all the old, impotent rebellion against injustice and misplaced power. later, i wandered through the pathetically interesting alpine garden, carefully kept by the monks; and then, sure that by this time the brat and his cavalcade must be far on their way, i started, with joseph and finois, to stroll down the pass towards aosta. i had promised jack and molly to tell them in my letters, whether it would be possible for them, with a motor, to go by some of the routes which i chose. over the st. bernard from martigny to the hospice they could not have ventured, even in the stealthy, fly-by-night manner in which they had "done" the st. gothard and the simplon; for on the st. bernard the road was always narrow, often stony and dangerous. beyond, on the other side, even carriages cannot yet pass, descending to aosta, though in another year the new road will be finished. as it is, for many a generation pilgrims from the hospice to italy have been obliged to go down as far as the mountain village of st. rhémy either on foot or mule-back; thus there was no hope for mercédès there. i went swinging down the steep and winding path, my heart chanting a psalm to the mountains. mountains like cathedrals, with carved, graceful spires; mountains like frozen waves left by some great sea when the world was chaos; mountains like leaning towers of pisa; mountains like sentinel titans; mountains silver-grey; mountains dark-red. the "pain de sucre" was strangest of all in form, perhaps, and joseph distressed me much by remarking guilelessly that it, and other white shapes at which he pointed, looked exactly like frosted wedding-cakes. it was true; they did; but they looked like nobler things also, and i resented having so cheap a simile put into my head. with every step the way grew more glorious. this was an enchanted land. i could hardly believe that thousands of travellers had seen it before, and would again. i felt as if i had fallen sindbad-like, into a valley undiscovered by man; and, like sindbad's valley, this sparkled to my dazzled eyes with countless gems. not all cold, white diamonds, like his, but gems of every colour. the rocks through which our path was cut, glowed with rainbow hues, like different precious metals blended. this effect struck me at first (in the brilliant sunshine which alone kept me from being nipped with cold) as puzzling, but in a moment i had solved the "jewel mystery" of the mountains. the rocks were of porphyry, and marble, and granite, spangled with mica; and over all spread in patches a lichen of rose, and green, and yellow, like chipped rubies and emeralds among gold-filings. so wild and splendid was the scene, composed and painted by a peerless master, that i slackened my pace, reluctant to leave so much splendour behind; but despite all delaying, we came after a time down to tree-level. the landscape changed; the diamond spray of miniature cataracts dashed over high cliffs, among balsamic pine forests; the sunshine brought out the intense green of moss and fern. we met porters struggling up the height with luggage on their backs, and fat women riding depressed mules. it was very mediæval, and i had the sensation of having walked into a picture--round the corner of it, into the best part which you know must be there, though it can't be seen by outsiders. it took us an hour and a half to walk the eleven kilometres down to st. rhémy, where we lunched well, and drank a sparkling wine of the country which may have been meretricious, but tasted good. there was a _douane_, for we had now passed out of switzerland into italy, and my mule-pack was examined with curiosity; but why i should have been questioned with insistence as to whether i were concealing sausages, i could not guess, unless a swashbuckling german princeling who married into our family eight generations ago, was using my eyes for windows at the time. i need not have feared that the best of the journey would be over at st. rhémy, for the road (which broadened there, and became "navigable" for motor cars as well as horse-drawn vehicles), wound down still among stupendous mountains capped with snow, jagged peaks of dark granite, and purple porphyry which glowed crimson in contrast with the dazzling snow. we did not leave st. rhémy till long past one, and as we descended upon lower levels the sun grew hot. more than once i called a halt, and we had a delicious rest under a tree in some exquisite glade a little removed from the roadside. it was during one of these, while finois cropped an indigestible branch, that joseph opened his heart, and told me his life's history. it had been more or less adventurous, and it had held a tragedy, for joseph had loved, and the fair had jilted him on the eve of their marriage, for a prosperous baker. this fellow-feeling (for had we not both been thrown over for tradesmen?) made me wondrous kind towards joseph; and when i had drawn from him the fact that his great ambition was to own three donkeys, and start in business for himself, i secretly determined to see what could be done towards forwarding this end. we did not hurry, and while we were still far above aosta, the shadows lengthened and thinned, like children who have grown too fast. we exchanged chestnuts for pines, and the pure ethereal blue of italy burned in the sky. everywhere was rich abundance of colour. the green of trees and grass was luscious; even the shadows were of a translucent purple. below us the valley of aosta lay, so dreamily lovely, so peaceful, that one could imagine there only happiness and prosperity. i remarked this to joseph, and he smiled his melancholy smile. "it is beautiful," he said, "and when you are down at the bottom, you will not be disappointed in the country. but for happiness? it is no better than elsewhere. wait till you see the _crétins_; there is a _crétin_ in almost every family. and not long ago there was a dreadful murder in the neighbourhood of aosta. the criminal has not yet been caught. he is supposed to be hiding somewhere in the mountains, and the police cannot find him. there is a printed notice out, warning people to beware of the murderer--so i read in a newspaper not long ago and i have heard that the inhabitants of all these little hamlets we see here and there, dare not go from village to village after dark, for fear of being attacked." "then, if we should happen to be belated, we might have an adventure?" i said. "indeed, it is not at all unlikely, monsieur. no doubt the man is desperate, and if he saw a chance to get a change of clothing, a mule, and some money, he might risk attacking even two travellers, from behind. but we shall arrive at aosta before dark, and i am afraid----" "i'll warrant you're not afraid of danger." "that we shall get no such sport, monsieur." even as he spoke there came, with the wind blowing up from the valley, a loud, long-drawn shriek of fear or distress, uttered by a woman. we looked at each other, joseph and i, and then without a word set off running down the hill, in the direction of the cry. again it came, "à moi-à moi!" we could hear the words, now, and then a wild, inarticulate scream. i bounded down the winding white road, where the evening shadows lay, and joseph followed, somehow dragging finois--at least, i am sure that he would not have left his beloved beast behind,--and so at last we turned a sharp bend of the path, thickly fringed with a dense wood, where suddenly innocentina sprang almost into my arms. she ran to me, blindly, not seeing who it was, but knowing by instinct that help was at hand. "a robber--a murderer!" she panted. "oh, save--" and then, i think, she fainted. i have a vague recollection of tossing her to joseph, and plunging into the dim wood, where something moved, half-hidden by the crowding trees. it was the donkeys i saw at first, and then i came full upon a man, dressed all in the brown of the tree trunks, so that at a distance he would not be seen among them, in the dusk. he had the _rücksack_ i had noticed at the cantine de proz in one hand, and with the other he had just drawn a knife from the belt under his coat. on the ground crouched the boy, shielding his bowed face with a slim, blue-serge arm. [illustration: "on the ground crouched the boy".] chapter xii the princess "my little body is aweary of this great world." --shakespeare. this was the tableau photographed on my retina as i sprang forward; but i drew the revolver which had occasioned winston's mirth when molly gave it to me at brig, and in an instant the picture had dissolved. the man in brown dropped the _rücksack_, and ran as i have never seen man run before--ran as if he wore seven-leagued boots. my revolver was not loaded, and all the cartridges were among my shirts and collars, on finois' back, therefore i could pursue him with nothing more dangerous than anathemas, unless i had deserted the boy, who seemed at first glance to be almost as near fainting as innocentina. reluctantly letting the man go free, i bent over the little figure in blue, still on its knees. "are you hurt?" i asked in real anxiety, such as i had not thought it possible to feel for the brat. "no--only my arm. he wrung it so. and perhaps i have twisted my knee. i don't know yet. he pushed me back, and i fell down." i lifted him up and supported him for a moment, he leaning against me, the colour drained from cheeks and lips. but suddenly it streamed back, even to his forehead; and raising his head from my shoulder where it had lain for a few seconds, he unwound himself gently from my arm. "i'm all right now, thank you awfully," he said. "i believe you have saved my life and innocentina's. you see, we fought with the man for our things; and when he saw that he couldn't steal them without a struggle, he whipped out a knife and--and then you came. oh, he was a coward to attack two--two people so much weaker than himself, and then to run away when a stronger one came!" i kept joseph's story to myself, and hoped that the boy had not heard it. perhaps, after all, this lurking beast of prey had not been the murderer in hiding. the place was desolate, and evening was falling. some tramp, or thievish peasant, taking advantage of the murder-scare, might easily have dared this attack; and when i glanced at the picnic array under a tree near by, i was even less surprised than before at the thing which had happened. the mouse-coloured pack-donkey had been denuded of his load, and the most elaborate tea basket i had ever seen (finer even than molly's) was open on the ground. if the cups, plates and saucers, the knives, spoons and forks, were not silver, they were masquerading hypocrites; and i now discovered that the large, dark object which i had seen innocentina putting into the _rücksack_ (at this moment half on, half off) was a very handsome travelling bag. it was gaping wide, the mouth fixed in position with patent catches, and it lay where the disappointed thief had flung it, tumbled on its side, with a quantity of gold and crystal fittings scattered round about. on the gold backs of the brushes, and the tops of the bottles, was an intricate monogram, traced in small turquoises. "by jove!" i exclaimed. "do you travel with these things? what madness to spread them out in the woods by an unfrequented mountain road! that is to offer too much temptation even to the honest poor." "i know," said the boy meekly. "it was stupid to picnic in such a place, but we had come fast" (with this he had the grace to look a little shame-faced, knowing that i knew _why_ he had come fast) "and we were tired. it was so beautiful here, and seemed so peaceful that we never thought of danger, at this time of day. we had just begun to pack up our things to move on again, when there was a rustling behind us, the crackling of a branch under a foot, and that wretch sprang out. i was frightened, but--i hate being a coward, and i just made up my mind he _shouldn't_ have our things. innocentina screamed, and i struck at the man with the stick she uses to drive fanny and souris. then he got out his knife, and innocentina screamed a good deal more, and--i don't quite know what did happen after that, till you came." "well, i'm thankful i was near," i said. "and i must say that, though it was foolhardy to make such a display of valuables, you were a plucky little david to defend your belongings against such a goliath. i admire you for it." the boy flushed with pleasure. "oh, do you really think i was plucky?" he asked. "everything was so confused, i wasn't sure. i'd rather be plucky than anything. thank you for saying that, almost as much as for saving our lives. and--and i'm dreadfully sorry i called you a--brute, last night." "it was only because i called you a brat. i fully deserved it, and we'll cry quits, if you don't mind. now, i'd better see how the fainting lady is, and then i'll help you get your things together. how are the knee and arm?" "nothing much wrong with them after all, i think," said the boy, limping a little as he walked by my side back to the road, where i had left innocentina with joseph. we had taken but a few steps, when they both appeared, the young woman white under her tan, her eyes big and frightened. she was herself again, very thankful for so good an end to the adventure, and volubly ashamed of the weakness to which she had given way. in the midst of her explanations and enquiries, however, i noticed that she took time now and then to throw a glance at my muleteer, not scornful and defiant, as on the day before, but grateful and mildly feminine. in conclave we agreed to say nothing in aosta of the grim encounter, lest our lives should be made miserable by _gendarmes_ and much red tape. but joseph, less diplomatic than i, had not scrupled to seize the moment of innocentina's recovery to pour into her ears the story of the escaped criminal, and the excitement in which he had plunged the neighbouring country. she was anxious to hurry on as quickly as possible, lest night should overtake her party on the way, and, still pale and tremulous, she sprang eagerly to the work of gathering up the scattered belongings. while she and joseph put the tea-basket to rights, the boy and i rearranged the gorgeous fittings of the bag, and discovered that not even a single bottle-top was missing. "what a burden to carry on a donkey's back!" i laughed. "you are a regular beau brummel." "why not?" pleaded the boy. "i like pretty things, and this is very convenient. it is no trouble for souris. when the bag is in the _rücksack_, no one would suspect that it is valuable. i have carried all this luggage so, ever since lucerne, and never had any bother before." "what, you too started from lucerne?" "yes. i had innocentina and the donkeys come up from the riviera, to meet me there. we have been a long time on the way--weeks: for we have stopped wherever we liked, and as long as we liked. until to-day we haven't had a single real adventure. i was wishing for one, but now--well, i suppose most adventures are disagreeable when they are happening, and only turn nice afterwards, in memory." "like caterpillars when they become butterflies. but look here, my young friend david, lest you meet another goliath, i really think you'd better put up with the proximity (i don't say society) of that hateful animal, man, as far as aosta. joseph and i will either keep a few yards in advance, or a few yards in the rear, not to annoy you with our detestable company, but----" "please don't be revengeful," entreated the ex-brat. "you have been so good to us, don't be un-good now. i suppose one may hate men, yet be grateful to one man--anyhow, till one finds him out? i can't very well find you out between here and aosta, can i?--so we may be friends, if you'll walk beside me, neither behind nor in front. i am excited, and feel as if i _must_ have someone to talk to, but i am a little tired of conversation with innocentina. i know all she has ever thought about since she was born." "it's a bargain then," said i. "we're friends and comrades--until aosta. after that----" "each goes his own way," he finished my broken sentence; "as ships pass in the night. but this little sailing boat won't forget that the big bark came to its help, in a storm which it couldn't have weathered alone." "do you know," said i, as we walked on together, the muleteer and the donkey girl behind us, with the animals, "you are a very odd boy. i suppose it is being american. are all american boys like you?" "yes," said he, twinkling, "all. i am cut on exactly the same pattern as the rest," and he smiled a charming smile, of which i could not resist the curious fascination. "did you never meet any american boys, till you met me?" "i can't remember having any real conversation with one, except once. his mother had asked me in his presence (it was in new york) how i liked america, and i had answered that it dazzled me; that the only yearning i felt was for something dark and quiet, and small and uncomfortable. she was rather pleased, but the boy put a string across the drawing-room door when i went out, and tripped me up. then we had a little conversation--quite a short one--but full of repartee. that's my solitary experience." "i should have wanted to trip you up for that speech, too; so you see the likeness is proved. it is a funny thing, i know very few englishmen. i've met several, but, as you say, i never had any real conversation with them." "maybe, if you had, you wouldn't be so down on your sex when it has reached adolescence." [illustration: "'do you know,' said i, 'you are a very queer boy'".] "i'm afraid there isn't much difference in men, whatever their country. but it's--their attitude towards women which i hate." i laughed. "what do you know about that?" "i have a sister," said he, after a minute's pause. and he did not laugh. "she and i have been--tremendous chums all our lives. there isn't a thing she has done, or a thought she has had, that i don't know, and the other way round, of course." "twins?" i asked. "she is twenty-one." "oh, four or five years older than you." the boy evidently did not take this as a question. "she is unfortunately an heiress," he said. "money has brought misery upon her, and through her, on me; for if she suffers, i suffer too. she used to believe in everybody. she thought men were even more sincere and upright than women, because their outlook on life was larger, and so it was easy for her to be deceived. when she came out she wasn't quite eighteen (you see we have no father or mother, only a lazy old guardian-uncle), and she thought everyone was wonderfully kind to her, so she was very happy. i suppose there never was a happier girl--for a while. but by-and-bye she began to find out things. she discovered that the men who seemed the nicest only cared for her money, not for her at all." "how could she be sure of that?" "it was proved, over and over again, in lots of ways." "but if she is a pretty and charming girl----" "i think she is only odd--like me. people don't understand her, especially men. they find her strange, and men don't like girls to be strange." "don't they? i thought they did." "think for yourself. have you ever been at all in love? and if you have, wasn't the girl quite, quite conventional; just a nice sweet girl, who was pretty, and who flirted, and who was too properly brought up ever to do or to say anything to surprise you?" "well," i admitted, my mind reviewing this portrait of helen, which was really a well-sketched likeness, "now you put it in that way, i confess the girl i've cared for most was of the type you describe. i can see that now, though i didn't think of it then." "no, you wouldn't; men don't. my sister soon learned that she wasn't really the sort of girl to be popular, though she had dozens of proposals, heaps of flowers every day, had to split up each dance several times at a ball, and all that kind of thing. it was a shock to find out _why_. to her face, they called her 'princess,' and she was pleased with the nickname at first, poor thing. she took it for a compliment to herself. but she came to know that behind her back it was different; she was the 'manitou princess.' you see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in colorado, and he named the principal one 'manitou,' after the indian spirit. i shan't forget the day when a man she'd just refused, told her the vulgar nickname--and a few other things that hurt. but i don't know why i'm talking to you like this. i wanted to get away from you yesterday, because i--don't care to meet people. everything seems different though, now. i suppose it's because you saved our lives. i feel as if you weren't exactly a new person, but as if--i'd known you a long time." "i have the same sort of feeling about you, for some queer reason," said i. "are we also to know each other's names?" "no," he answered quickly. "that would spoil the charm: for there is a charm, isn't there? but we won't call each other brat and brute any more. that's ancient history. i'll be for you--just boy. i think i will call you man." "but you hate man." "i don't hate you. if i were a girl i might, but as it is, i don't. i like you--man." "and i like you, boy. we are pals now. shall we shake hands?" we did. i could have crushed his little brown paw, if i had not manipulated it carefully. after that, we did not talk much. by-and-bye, he was tired, and remounted his donkey, but we still kept side by side, innocentina sending at intervals a perfunctory cry of "fanny-anny," from a distance, by way of keeping the small brown _âne_ to her work. so we reached the beautiful valley of aosta, as the transparent azure veil of the italian dusk was drawn, and out of that dusk glimmered now and then, as if born of the shadows, strange, stunted, and misshapen forms, gnome-like creatures, who stood aside to let us pass along the road. it was as if the brownie club were out for a night excursion; and i remembered my muleteer's lecture about the _crétins_ of this happy valley. these were some of them, going back to town from their day's work in the fields. i had set my mind upon stopping at a hotel of which joseph had told me, extolling its situation at a distance from aosta _ville_, the wonderful mountain-pictures its windows framed, and a certain pastoral primitiveness, not derogatory to comfort, which i should find in the _ménage_. but when my late enemy and new chum remarked that he was going to the mont blanc, i hesitated. "and you?" he asked. "oh, i--well, i had thought--but it doesn't matter." "i see what you mean. would it be disagreeable for you if i were in the same hotel?" "on the contrary. but you----" "i know now that we shall never rub each other up the wrong way--again. besides, we shan't have the chance. i suppose you go on somewhere else to-morrow?" "no, i want to stop a day or two. some friends have asked me to tell them about the sights of the neighbourhood, and what sort of motoring roads there are near by." "i'm stopping, too. so, after all, the little sailing boat and the big bark aren't going to pass each other this night? they are to anchor in the same harbour for a while." "and here's the harbour," said i, for we had come down from the hills into a marvellous old town of ancient towers and arches, with a background of white mountains. molly should have been satisfied. i had obeyed her instructions to the letter, and i was in aosta at last. chapter xiii afternoon calls "if you climb to our castle's top i don't see where your eyes can stop." --robert browning. our hotel had a big loggia, as large as a good-sized room, and we dined in it, with a gorgeous stage setting. the mountains floated in mid-sky, pearly pale, and magical under the rising moon. the little circle of light from our pink-shaded candles on the table (i say our, because boy and i dined together) gave to the picture a bizarre effect, which french artists love to put on canvas; a blur of gold-and-rose artificial light, blending with the silver-green radiance of a full moon. i don't know what we had to eat, except that there were trout from the river, and luscious strawberries and cream; but i know that the dinner seemed perfect, and that the head waiter, a delightful person, brought us champagne, with a long-handled saucepan wrapped in an immaculate napkin, to do duty as an ice-pail. i wondered why i had not come long ago to this place, named in honour of augustus cæsar, and why everybody else did not come. the ex-brat was in the game frame of mind. we talked of more things than are dreamed of in philosophy--(other people's philosophy)--and there was not a book which was a dear friend of mine that was not a friend of this strange child's. we sat until the moon was high, and the candles low. i felt curiously happy and excited, a mood no doubt due in part to the climate of aosta, in part to the discovery of a congenial spirit, where i had least expected to find one. last night, we had been, at best, on terms of armed neutrality; to-night we were friends, and would continue friends, though we parted to-morrow. but parting was not what we thought of at the moment. on the contrary, half to our surprise, we found ourselves planning to see aosta in each other's company. after ten o'clock, when, deliciously fatigued, i was on my way to my room along a great arcaded balcony which ran the length of the house, i met joseph, lying in wait for me. my conscience pricked. i had forgotten to send the poor, tired fellow definite instructions for the next day. he had come to solicit them, but, if i could judge by moonlight, he looked far from jaded; indeed, he had an air of alertness, for him almost of gaiety. "you and finois can have a rest to-morrow and the day after," said i, "while i do some sightseeing. i hear that i shall need one day at least for the town, and another for a drive to the châteaux and show-places of the neighbourhood. i hope you will be able to amuse yourself." "monsieur must not think of me. i shall do very well," dutifully replied joseph. "it is a pity that you and innocentina do not get on. otherwise----" "ah, perhaps i should tell monsieur that i may have misjudged the young woman a little. it seems a question of bringing up, more than real badness of heart. it is her tongue that is in fault; and i am not even sure that with good influences she might not improve. i have been talking to her, monsieur, of religion. she is black catholic, and i protestant, but i think that some of my arguments made a certain impression upon her mind." after this, i gave myself no further anxiety about joseph's to-morrow, but went to bed, and dreamed of fighting for the boy's life, gulliver-like, against a band of infuriated brownies. my first morning thought was to look out of all four windows at the mountains; my next, to ring for a bath. now, as a rule, your morning tub is a function you are not supposed to describe in detail; but not to picture the ceremony as performed at aosta, is to pass by the place without giving the proper dash of local colour. i rang. a girl appeared who struck me as singularly beautiful, but i discovered later that all girls are more or less beautiful at aosta. the propriety of this morning visit was insured by the white cap, which was, so to speak, an adequate chaperon. on my request for a bath, the beauty looked somewhat agitated, but, after reflection, said that she would fetch one, and vanished, tripping lightly along the balcony. twenty minutes then passed, and at the end of that time the young lady returned, almost obliterated by an enormous linen sheet which engulfed her like an avalanche. she was accompanied by a man and a boy, staggering under a strange object which resembled a vast arm-chair, of the grandfather variety. when placed on the floor, i became aware that it was a kind of cross between a throne and a bath-tub, and, having seen the huge sheet flung over it, i still rested in doubt as to the latter's purpose. the man and boy, who had not stood upon the order of their going, returned after an embarrassing absence, with pails of water, the contents of which, to my surprise, they flung upon the sheet. i tried to explain that, if this were a bath, i preferred it without the family linen, but the _femme de chambre_ seemed so shocked at these protestations, that i ceased uttering them, and determined to make the best of things as they stood. when i was again alone, after several rehearsals i found a way of accommodating the human form to the hybrid receptacle, and was amazed at its luxuriousness. the secret of this lay in the sheet, which was fragrant of lavender, and protected the body from contact with a cold, base metal which hundreds of other bodies must have touched before. "'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands," might be said of a hotel bath-tub as well as of a stolen purse; and having once known the linen-lined bath of aosta, i was promptly spoiled for common, un-lined tubs. this was a lesson not to form hasty opinions; but being a normal man, i shall no doubt continue to do so until the day of my death. the boy and i broke our fast together on the loggia, which was even more entertaining as a _salle-à-manger_ by morning than by night. the coffee was exquisite; the hot, foaming milk had but lately been drawn from its original source, a little biscuit-coloured alderney with the pleading eyes of that fair nymph stricken to heiferhood by jealous juno. the strawberries and figs came to the table from the hotel garden, and so did the luscious roses, which filled a bowl in the centre of our small white table. this was arcadia. the very simplicities of the hotel endeared it to our hearts, and there was no real comfort lacking which we could have obtained in london or in paris. after breakfast we set off with our cameras to the town, a walk of ten or fifteen minutes. it was strange, in this pilgrimage of mine, how often i found myself running back into the feudal or middle ages, as far removed from the familiar bustle of modern days as if an iron door had been shut and padlocked behind me. there was little of the twentieth century in aosta (named by augustus the "rome of the alps"), except the monument to "le roi chasseur," and the bookshops, which seemed extraordinarily well supplied with the best literature of all countries. the type of face we met was primitive; scarcely one which would have been out of place on some old roman coin. here, at the end of a narrow, shadowed street, where st. anselm first saw the light (it must have been with difficulty) we came upon a magnificent archway, built to do honour to augustus cæsar's defeat of the brave salasses, four and twenty years before the world had a saviour. a few steps further on, and we were under the majestic mass of the porta pretoria; or we were crossing a roman bridge, or gazing at the ruins of roman ramparts. or, we lost our way in searching for the amphitheatre, and found ourselves suddenly skipping over centuries into the middle ages, represented by the mysterious tour bramafam, the tour des prisons, or the tour du lepreux, round which xavier maistre wrote his pathetic dialogue. then, there was the cathedral with its extraordinary painted façade, like a great coloured picture-book; and the tall cross, straddling a spring in a paved street, put up in thanksgiving by the aostans when they joyfully saw calvin's back for the last time. we spent all day in sightseeing, and had another moonlight evening on the loggia. we were great pals now, boy and i. i had never met anyone in the least like him. at one moment he was a human boy, almost a child; at another his brain leaped beyond mine, and he became a poet or a philosopher; again he was an elfin sprite, a creature for whom puck was the one thinkable name. there was a single thing only, about which you could always be sure. he would never be twice the same. still, though we were friends, "boy" and "man" we remained. he kept his name a secret, and he had forbidden me to mention mine. nor had he spoken of his route or destination, after aosta. as to this i was curious, for i knew now that it would be a wrench to part with the strange little being whose ears i had tingled to box three days (or was it three years?) ago. already he had done me good; and though i had hardly reached the point of confessing as much to myself, as a plain matter of fact i would not have exchanged his quaint companionship for that of my lost love. how she would have hated this idyllic arcadia! how _triste_ she would have been; how weary after a day's tour among relics of past ages; and how much she would have preferred bond street to the arch of augustus, or the park to our snow mountains and green valley! even davos she would have found intolerable had it not been for the tobogganing, the dances and the theatricals, in all of which she had played a leading part. deep down in the darkest corner of my soul, i now knew that i would not have fallen in love with helen blantock had i first met her in aosta. the boy and i agreed that our head waiter was one of the nicest men we had ever met, and when he pledged his personal honour that a day's wandering among neighbouring castles would be "very repaying," we determined to bolt the five he most recommended in one gulp, on our second and last afternoon. if he could, he would have sent us spinning like teetotums from one concentric ring of historic châteaux to another, until goodness knows how far from aosta, finois, souris, and fanny-anny, we should have ended. he would also have despatched us on a two or three days' excursion to courmayeur; and i fear that his respect for us went down like mercury in a chilled thermometer, when he understood that we had not come to the country to do any of the famous climbs. he named so many, dear to the hearts of my alpine club acquaintances, that it would have taken us well into the new year to accomplish half; and he accepted with mild, disapproving resignation our fiat that there were other parts of the world worth seeing. as we had to cover a radius of many miles, in our rounds of visits at the few sample châteaux we had selected from the waiter's list, we decided to spare our legs and those of the animals. it was hardly playing the game we had set out to play--we two strangely-met friends--to amble conventionally from show-house to show-house, in a carriage, with guide-books in our hands, like everyday tourists; nevertheless, we did this unworthy thing. perhaps, therefore, i deserved the punishment which fell upon me. little did i dream, when i flippantly spoke of our expedition as "driving out to pay calls," how nearly my thoughtless words were to be realised. we started immediately after an early _déjeuner_, sitting side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior phaeton, or poor relation of a victoria. the day was hot, but a delicious breeze came to us from the snow mountains, and there was a peculiar buoyancy in the air. our first castle was sarre, the château royal, an enormous brown building with a disproportionately high tower. this hunting-lodge of the king would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains. the huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and i could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party. i was glad that the boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so depressing. the castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have insisted on climbing the steep hill for the barren satisfaction of saying that they had been there. i rejoiced that my little pal was not one of these; but i should have been more prudent had i waited. we drove on, after a pause for inspection, along a road which would have rejoiced the motor-loving heart of jack winston, and i made a note to tell him what a magnificent tour he might have in this enchanted country one day with his car, tooling down from milan. as i mentally arranged my next letter to the winstons, the boy gave a little cry of delight. "oh, what a queer, delightful place! it's all towers, just held together by a thread of castle. it must be aymaville." i looked up and beheld on a high hill an extraordinary château, something like four chess castles grouped together at the corners of a square heap of dice. it does not sound an attractive description, yet the place deserved that adjective. it was charming, and wonderfully "liveable," among its vineyards, commanding such a view as is given to few show-places in the world. "the descendants of the original family have restored it, and live there, don't they?" asked the boy in italian of the _cocher_. the man answered that this was the case, and was inspired by my evil genius to enquire if _ces messieurs_ would like to go over the château. "is it allowed?" the boy questioned eagerly. "but certainly. shall i drive up to the house? it will be only an all little ten minutes." without waiting for my answer, the boy took my consent for granted, and said yes. instantly we left the broad white road, and began winding up a narrow, steep, and stony way, among vineyards. the _cocher's_ all little ten minutes lengthened into half an hour, but at last we halted before a garden gate--a high, uncompromising, reserved-looking gate. "the fellow must be mistaken," said i. "this place has not the air of encouraging visitors;" but, before the words were out of my mouth, the enterprising _cocher_ had rung the gate bell. after an interval a gardener appeared, and betrayed such mild, ingenuous surprise at sight of us that i wished ourselves anywhere else than before the portals of the château d'aymaville. gladly would i have whipped up our fat, barrel-shaped nag, and driven into the nearest rabbit-hole, but it was too late. the gardener took the enquiry as to whether visitors were admitted, with the gravity he would have given to a question in the catechism: is your name n. or m.? can one see your master's house? oh, without doubt, one could see the house. would _les messieurs_ kindly accompany him? his aspect wept, and mine (unless it belied me) copied his. "isn't it hateful?" i asked, _sotto voce_, of the boy, expecting sympathy which i did not get. "no, i think it's great fun," said he. "but i'm sure they are not in the habit of showing the house. you can tell by the man's manner. he's nonplussed. i should think no one has ever had the cheek to apply for permission before." "then they ought to be complimented because we have." i was silenced, though far from convinced; but if you have made an engagement with an executioner, it is a point of honour not to sneak off and leave him in the lurch, when he has taken the trouble to sharpen his axe, and put on his red suit and mask for your benefit. we arrived, after a walk through a pretty garden, upon a terrace where there was a marvellous view. the gardener showed it to us solemnly, we pacing after him all round the château, as if we played a game. at the open front door we were left alone for a few minutes, heavy with suspense, while our guide held secret conclave with a personable woman who was no doubt a housekeeper. astonished, but civil, with dignified italian courtesy she finally invited us in, and i was coward enough to let the boy lead, i following with a casual air, meant to show that i had been dragged into this business against my will; that i was, in fact, the tail of a comet which must go where the cornet leads. everywhere, inside the castle, were traces that the family had fled with precipitation. here was a bicycle leaning abject against a wall; there, an open book thrown on the floor; here, a fallen chair; there, a dropped piece of sewing. once or twice in england, i had stayed in a famous show-house, and my experience on the public thursdays there had taught me what these people were enduring now. at waldron castle we had been hunted from pillar to post; if we darted from the hall into a drawing-room, the public would file in before we could escape to the boudoir; the lives of foxes in the hunting season could have been little less disturbed than ours, and we were practically only safe in our own or each other's bedrooms--indeed, any port was precious in a storm. by the time that the boy and i had been led, like stalled oxen, through a long series of living-rooms, i knowing that the rightful inhabitants were panting in wardrobes, my nerves were shattered. i admired everything, volubly but hastily, and broke into fireworks of adjectives, always edging a little nearer to the exit, though not, i regret to say, invariably aided by the boy. he, indeed, seemed to find an impish pleasure in my discomfiture. during the round, i was dimly conscious that the entire staff of servants, most of them maids, and embarrassingly beautiful, flitted after us like the ghosts who accompanied dante and his guide on their tour of the seven circles. as, at last, we returned to the square entrance hail, they melted out of sight, still like shadows, and i had a final moment of extreme anguish when, at the door, the housekeeper refused the ten francs i attempted to press into her haughty italian palm. "no more afternoon calls on châteaux for me, after _that_ experience," i gasped, when we were safely seated in the homelike vehicle which i had not sufficiently appreciated before. "oh, i shall be disappointed if you won't go with me to the château of st. pierre which we saw in the photograph--that quaint mass of towers and pinnacles, on the very top of a peaked rock," said the boy. "i've been looking forward to it more than to anything else, but i shan't have courage to do it alone." "courage?" i echoed. "after the brazen way in which you stalked through the scattered belongings of the family at aymaville, you would stop at nothing." "in other words, i suppose you think me a typical yankee boy? but i really was nervous, and inclined to apologise to somebody for being alive. that's why i can't go through another such ordeal without company; yet i wouldn't miss this eleventh-century castle for a bag of your english sovereigns." "if only it had been left alone, and not restored!" i groaned. "in that case we should meet no one but bats." "we? then you will go with me?" "i suppose so," i sighed. "it can't add more than a dozen grey hairs, and what are they among so many?" a few kilometres further on we reached the "bizarre monticule," from which sprouted a still more bizarre château. from our low level, it was impossible to tell where the rock stopped, and where the castle began, so deftly had man seized every point of vantage offered by nature--and "points" they literally were. the ascent from the road to the château was much like climbing a fire-escape to the top of a new york sky-scraper, but we earned the right to cry "excelsior!" at last, had we not by that moment been speechless. history now repeated itself. i rang; the castle gate was opened, but this time by a major-domo who had already in some marvellous way learned that strangers might be expected. never was so appallingly hospitable a man, and i trusted that even the boy suffered from his kindness. madame la baronne, who was away for the afternoon, would chide him if guests were allowed to leave her house without refreshment. eat we must, and drink we must, in the beautiful hall evidently used as a sitting-room by the absent châtelaine. her wine and her cakes were served on an ancient silver tray, almost as old as the family traditions, and it was not until we had done to both such justice as the major-domo thought fair that he would consent to let us go further. the house was really of superlative interest, though spoiled here and there by eccentric modern decoration. much of the window glass had remained intact through centuries; the walls were twelve feet thick; the oak-beamed ceilings magnificent, and the secret stairways and rooms in the thickness of the walls, bewildering; but when our conductor began leading us into the bedrooms in daily use by the ladies of the castle, my gorge rose. "this is awful," i said. "i can't go on. what if madame la baronne returns and finds a strange man and a boy in her bedroom? good heavens, now he's opening the door of the bath!" "we must go on," whispered the boy, convulsed with silent laughter. "if we don't, the major-domo won't understand our scruples. he'll think we're tired, and don't appreciate the castle. it would never do to hurt his feelings, when he has been so kind." "to the bitter end, then," i answered desperately; and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the bitter end came. it consisted of a collision with the baronne's dressing-jacket, which hung from a hook, and tapped me on the shoulder with one empty frilled sleeve, in soft admonition. i could bear no more. one must draw the line somewhere, and i drew the line at intruding upon ladies' dressing-jackets in their most sacred fastnesses. if i had been a woman, my pent-up emotion at this moment would have culminated in hysterics, but being a man, i merely bolted, stumbling, as i fled, over my absent hostess' bedroom slippers. i scuttled down a winding flight of tower stairs, broke incontinently into a lighted region which turned out to be a kitchen, startled the cook, apologised incontinently, and somehow found myself, like alice in wonderland, back in the great entrance hail. there, starting at every sound, lest a returning family party should catch me "lurking," i awaited the boy. we left, finally, showering francs and compliments; but i crawled out a decrepid wreck, and refused pitilessly to do more than view the exterior of other châteaux. it was evening when we saw our white hotel once more, and a haze of starlight dusted the sky and all the blue distance with silver powder. [illustration] chapter xiv the path of the moon "and then they came to the turnstile of night." --rudyard kipling. this was to be our last night at aosta, perhaps our last night together, for the boy's plans kept his name company in some secret "hidie hole" of his mind. as, for the third time, we dined on the loggia, before the rising of the moon, we drifted into talk of intimate things. it was i who began it. i harked back to the broken conversation which had first made us friends, and to his chance sketch of helen blantock and her type. in that connection, i ventured to bring up the subject of his sister. "what you said about her disillusionment interested me very much," i told him. "you see, i've just come through an experience something like it myself, do you mind talking about her?" "not in this place--and this mood--and to you," he answered. "but first--what disillusioned you?" "disappointment in someone i cared for,--and believed in." "it was the same with--my sister." "poor princess." "yes, poor princess. was it--a man friend who disappointed you?" "a woman. the old story. as a matter of fact, she threw me over because another fellow had a lot more money than i." "horrid creature." "oh, just an ordinary, conventional, well brought up girl. now you see i have as much right to a grudge against women, as your sister the princess has against men." "but i don't believe the girl _could_ have been as cruel to you, as this man i'm thinking of was to--her. they'd known each other for years, since childhood. he used to call her his 'little sweetheart' when she was ten and he was fifteen. how was she to dream that even when he was a boy, he didn't really like her better than other little girls, that already he was making calculations about her money? she thought he was different from the others, that _he_ cared for herself. they were engaged, the bridesmaids asked, the trousseau ready, the invitations out for the wedding, and then--one night she overheard a conversation between him and a cousin of his, who was to be one of her bridesmaids. only a few words--but they told everything. it was the other girl he loved, and had always loved. but he was poor, and so--well, you can guess the rest. my sister broke off her engagement the next day, though the man went on his knees to her, and vowed he had been mad. then she left home at once, and soon she was taken very ill." "she loved that worthless scoundrel so much?" "i don't know. i don't think she knows. it was the destruction of an ideal which was terrible. she had clung to it. she had said to herself: 'many men may be false, and mercenary, and unscrupulous, but this one is true.' suddenly, he had ceased to exist for her. she stood alone in the world--in the dark." "except for you." "except for me, and a few friends,--one girl especially, who was heavenly to her. but the dearest girl friend can't make up for the loss of trust in a lover." "that's true. by jove, i thought i had been roughly used, but it's nothing to this. i feel as if i knew your sister, somehow. i wonder, since you and she are such pals, that you can bear to leave her." "she wanted to be alone. she said she didn't feel at home in life any more, and it made her restless to be with anyone who knew her trouble, anyone who pitied her. i was ill too,--from sympathy, i suppose, and--she thought a tramp like this would do me good. so it has. being close to nature, especially among mountains, as i've been for weeks now, makes one's troubles and even one's sister's troubles seem small." "you are young to feel that." "my soul isn't as young as my body. maybe that's why nature is so much to me. i am more alive when i'm away from big towns. sunrises and sunsets are more important than the rising and falling of money markets. they--and the wind in the trees. what things they say to you! you can't explain; you can only feel. and when you _have_ felt, when you have heard colour, and seen sounds, you are never quite the same, quite as sad, again,--i mean if you _have_ been sad." "i've said all that--precisely that--to myself lately," i exclaimed, forgetting that i was a man talking to a child. the strange little person whom i had apostrophised as "brat" seemed not only an equal, but a superior. i found myself intensely interested in him, and all that concerned him. "odd, that you, too, should have thought that thing about colour and sound! this evening-blue, for instance. do you hear the music of it?" "yes. i'm not sure it isn't that which has made me answer your questions. but now let's talk of something else--or better still, let's not talk at all, for a while." we were silent, and i wondered if the boy's thoughts ran with mine, or if he had closed and locked the secret door in his brain, and listened dreamily to the sweet evening voices of this valley of musical bells. suddenly, into the many sounds of the silence, broke a loud and jarring note; the trampling of men's feet and horses' hoofs; loud laughter and the jingling of accoutrements. we looked over the balustrade to see a battalion of soldiers marching at ease, on their way back from some mountain manoeuvres, and as we gazed down, they stared up, a young fellow shouting to the boy that he had better join them. "it's like life calling one back," said the strange child. "i suppose one must always go on, somewhere else. and we--we must go on, though it is sweet here." "it was what i was thinking of just now," i answered. "are we to part company?" the boy laughed--an odd little laugh. "why, that depends," said he abruptly, "on where you are going. i've planned to walk back over the st. bernard to martigny, and so by way of the tête noire to chamounix. that name--chamounix--has always been to my ears, as stevenson says, 'like the horns of elf-land, or crimson lake.' i want to come face to face with mont blanc, of which i've only seen a far-off mirage, long ago when i was a little chap, at geneva. what are your plans?" "if i ever had any, i've forgotten them," said i. "look here, little pal, shall we join forces as far as--as far as----" "the turnstile," he finished my broken sentence. "where is the turnstile?" "at the place--whatever it may be--where we get tired of each other. isn't that what you meant?" "according to my present views, that place might be at the other end of the world. you must remember it was never i who tried to get away from you. at the cantine de proz, i----" "don't let's remember to that time. then, i didn't know that you were--you. that makes all the difference. you looked as if you might be nice, but i've learned not to trust first impressions, especially of men--grown-up men. there are such lots of people one drifts across, who are not _real_ people at all, but just shells, with little rattling nuts of dull, imitation ideas inside, taken from newspapers, or borrowed from their friends. fancy what it would be to see glorious places with such a companion! it would drive me mad. i determined not to make aquaintances on this trip; but you--why, i feel now as if it would be almost insulting you to call you 'an acquaintance.' we are--oh, i'll take your word! we're 'pals,' and something big that's over all meant us to be pals. i don't mind telling you, man, that i should miss you, if we parted now." "we won't part," i said quickly. "we'll jog along together. have a cigarette? i'm going to smoke a pipe, because i feel contented." between puffs of that pipe (an instrument which i strongly but vainly recommended to the boy) i told him of my night drive over the st. gothard. as it was his whim to consider names of no importance, i did not mention that of jack and molly winston, but spoke of them merely as "my friends." "could we do the st. bernard at night?" he asked eagerly. "yes, we could, if we saved ourselves by driving up from here to st. rhémy, after déjeuner, otherwise it would mean being on foot all day and all night too. we could send joseph, innocentina, and the animals on very early to-morrow morning, to the hospice, where they might rest till evening. the good monks would give us a meal of some sort about six, and at seven we could leave the hospice. there would be an interval of starry darkness, and then we should have the full moon." "splendid to see the pass by moonlight, after knowing it by day, and sunset, and dawn! it would be like finding out wonderful new qualities in your friends, which you'd never guessed they had." thus the boy; and a few moments later the details of our journey were arranged. joseph and innocentina were interrupted in the midst of ardent attempts to convert one another, to be told what was in store for them. they did not appear averse to the arrangement, for a slight pout of the young woman's hardly counted; there was no doubt that a journey _á deux_ would offer infinite opportunities for religious disputation. as for the little pal and me, we carried out the first part of our programme to the letter. two barrel-shaped nags instead of one took us to st. rhémy, the little mountain village whose men are exempt from conscription, and called, poetically yet literally, "soldiers of the snow." further up the jewelled way, our little victoria could not venture, and we trod the steep path side by side, the boy stepping out bravely, the top of his panama on a level with my ear. some magnetic cord of communication between his brain and mine telegraphed back and forth, without personal intervention on either part, my keen enjoyment of the scene, and his. we did not talk much, but each knew what the other was feeling. most people disappoint you by their lack of capacity to enjoy nature, in moments which are superlative to you--moments which alone would repay you for the whole trouble of living through blank years. but this boy's spirit responded to beauty, up to an extreme point which was highly satisfactory. i saw it in the exaltation on his little sunburned face. joseph and innocentina were ostentatiously delighted to greet us at the hospice. they and the animals had had their evening meal, and were ready to start when we wished. we went to the refectory and dined in company with many persons of many nationalities, who had just arrived from the swiss and italian valleys. some of them manipulated their food strangely, as i had noticed here before; and boy confided to me his opinion that it was a pity human beings were still obliged to eat with their mouths, like the lower animals. "it's a disgrace to one's face, which ought to be exclusively for better things. it's really too primitive, this penny-in-the-slot sort of arrangement. there ought to be a tiny trap-door in one's chest somewhere, so that one could just slip food in unobtrusively, at a meal, and go on talking and laughing as if nothing had happened." we were not long in dining, but by the time we came out again into the biting cold, late afternoon had changed to early evening. it was sunset. the great mountain shapes of glittering, red gold were clear as the profiles of goddesses, against a sky of rose. one--the grandest goddess of all--wore on her proud head a crown of snow which sparkled with diamond coruscations, rainbow-tinted in the pink light. below her golden forehead hovered a thin cloud-veil, of pale lilac; and we had gone a long way down the mountain before the ineffable colour burned to ashes-of-rose. then darkness caught and engulfed us, in the valley of death. the rushing of the river in its ravine was like the voice of night, not a separate sound at all, for hearing it was to hear the silence. by-and-bye we grew conscious of a faint, gradual revealing of the mountain-tops, which for a time had been black, jagged pieces cut out from the spangled fabric of a starry sky. a ripple of pearly light wavered over them, like the reflection of the unseen river mirrored for the lady of shalott. it was a strange, living light, beating with a visible pulse, and it slowly grew until its white radiance had extinguished the individual lamps of the stars. waterfalls flashed out of darkness, like white, laughing nymphs flinging off black masks and dominoes; silver goblets and diamond necklaces were flung into the river bed, and vanished forever with a mystic gleam. "if there's a heaven, can there be anything in it better than this, little pal?" i asked. "there can be god," he said. "i'm a pagan sometimes in the sun, but never on a night like this. then one _knows_ things one isn't sure of at other times. why, i suppose there isn't really a world at all! god is simply thinking of these things, and of us, so we and they seem to be. we are his thoughts; the mountains, and the river, and the wild-flowers are his thoughts. it's just as if an author writes a story. in the story, all the people and the things which concern them are real, but you close the volume and they simply don't exist. only god doesn't close the volume, i think, until the next is ready." "i wonder whether we'll both come into the next story?" "who knows? perhaps you'll wander into one story, and i'll get lost in another." a certain sadness fell upon me, born partly of our talk, partly of the poignant beauty of the night. we came to the cantine de proz, fast asleep in its lonely valley, and so we went on and on, our souls tuned to music and poetry by the song of the stars and the beauty of the night: but slowly a change stole over us. for a long time i was only dimly conscious of it, in a puzzled way, in myself. why was it that my spirit stood no longer on the heights? why did the moonlight look cold and metallic? why had the rushing sound of the river got on my nerves, like the monotonous crying of a fretful child? why did our frequent silences no longer tingle with a meaning which there was no need to express in words? why was my brain empty of impressions as a squeezed sponge of water? why, in fact, though everything was outwardly the same, why was all in reality different? "oh, man, i'm so hungry!" sighed boy. "by jove, that's what's been the matter with me this last half-hour, and i didn't know it!" said i. "i feel as if i could form a hollow square, all by myself." "i only wish there were something to form it round." "but there isn't--except a few chocolate creams i bought in aosta because i respected their old age, poor things." "perhaps even decrepid chocolates are better than nothing. let's give 'em honourable burial--unless you want them all to yourself, as you did the chicken at the 'déjeûner,' and the room at the cantine de proz." "oh, you _must_ have thought i was selfish! but truly, i don't think i am. it wasn't that. only--i can't explain." "you needn't," said i. "i was 'kidding'--a most appropriate treatment for a man of your size. what i want is food, not explanations." the chocolates, which proved to be eighteen in number, were fairly divided, boy refusing to accept more than his half. we each ate one with distaste, because the celebrated "right spot" was not to be pacified by unsuitable sacrifices; but presently it relented and demanded more. appeased for the moment, the spot allowed us to proceed, but incredibly soon it began again to clamour. we ate several more chocolates, though our gorge rose against them as a means of refreshment. still bourg st. pierre, where we were sooner or later to sleep, was far away, and for the third time we were driven to chocolate. it was a loathsome business eating the remaining morsels of our supply, and we felt that the very name of the food would in future be abhorrent to us. the night had become unfriendly, the pass a _via dolorosa_, and the last drop was poured into our cup of misery at bourg st. pierre. we had wired from the hospice for rooms, and expected to find the little "déjeûner" cheerfully lighted, the plump landlady amusingly surprised to see the guests who had lately brought dissension into her house returning peaceably together. but the roadside inn was asleep like a comfortable white goose with its head under its wing. not a gleam in any window, save the bleak glint of moonlight on glass. joseph and innocentina were behind us with their charges, whose stored crusts of bread they had probably shared. i knocked at the doors no responsive sound from within. i pounded with my walking stick. a thin imp of echo mocked us, and, my worst passions roused by this inhospitality falling on top of nine chocolate creams, i almost beat the door down. two sleepy eyelid-windows flew up, and a moment later a little servant who had served me the other afternoon, appeared at the door like a frightened rabbit at bay. i demanded the wherefore of this reception; i demanded rooms and food and reparation. what, was i the monsieur who had telegraphed from the hospice? but madame had answered that she had not a room in the house. the carriage of a large party of very high nobility had broken down late in the afternoon, and they were remaining for the night, until the damage could be repaired. what to do? but there was nothing, unless _les messieurs_ would sleep, one on the sofa, the other on the floor, in the room of the "déjeûner." "i suppose we'll have to put up with that accommodation, then. what do you say, boy?" i asked. "i would rather go on," he replied, in a tone of misery tempered by desperate resignation, as if he had been giving orders for his own funeral. "go on where?" i enquired grimly. "i don't know. anywhere." "'anywhere' means in this instance the open road." "well--i'm not so _very_ cold, are you? and i'm sure they'll give us a little bread and cheese here." "i think it would be wiser to stop," said i. "we might see the ghost of napoleon eating the _déjeuner_. isn't that an inducement?" "not enough." "i assure you that i don't snore or howl in my sleep. and you could have the sofa to curl up on." "ye-es; but i'd rather go on. you and joseph can stop. innocentina and i will be all right." i was annoyed with the child. i felt that he fully deserved to be taken at his word, and deserted on the pass, but i had not the heart to punish him. if anything should happen to the poor babe in the wood, i should never forgive myself; and besides, it would have been hopeless to seek sleep, with visions of disaster to this strange little pal of mine painting my brain red. "of course i won't do anything of the kind," i said crossly. "if one party goes on, both will go on." i then snappishly ordered food of some sort, any sort--except chocolate,--and having, after a blank interval, obtained enough bread, cheese, and ham for at least ten persons, i divided the rations with joseph and innocentina, who had now come up. we had a short halt for rest and refreshment, taken simultaneously, and presently set out again, with a vague idea of plodding on as far as orsières. the boy refused so obstinately to ride his donkey (i believe because i must go on foot), that innocentina, thwarted, did frightful execution among her favourite saints. joseph reproved her; she retorted by calling him a black heretic, and vowing that she had a right to talk as she pleased to her own saints; it was not his affair. thus it was that our chastened cavalcade left the "déjeûner." after this, our journey was punctuated by frequent pauses. the donkeys were tired; everybody was cross; the calm indifference of the glorious night was as irritating as must have been the "icily regular, splendidly null" perfection of maud herself. only the boy kept up any pretence of spirits, and i knew well that his counterfeited buoyancy was merely to distract attention from guilt. if it had not been for him, we should all have been tucked away in some corner or other of the "déjeûner." no doubt he would have dropped, had he not feared an "i told you so." we were still some miles on the wrong side of orsières, when innocentina came running up from behind, exclaiming that a dreadful thing, an appalling thing, had happened. no, no, not an accident to joseph marcoz. a trouble far worse than that. nothing to the _mulet ou les ânes_. ah, but how could she break the news? it was that in some way--some mad, magical way only to be accounted for by the intervention of evil spirits, probably attracted by the heretic presence of joseph--the _rücksack_ containing the fitted bag had disappeared. if she were to be killed for it, she--innocentina--could not tell how this great calamity had occurred. i thought that after such an alarming preface, the boy would laugh when the mountain had brought forth its mouse, but he did no such thing. his little face looked anxious and forlorn in the white moonlight. and all for a mere bag, which was an absurd article of luggage, at best, for an excursion such as his! "i _can't_ lose it," he said. "there are things in it which i wouldn't have anyone's--which i couldn't replace." "your sister the princess will buy you another," i tried to console him. "this is her bag. she would feel dreadfully if it were gone. besides, my diary-notes for the book i want to write are in it. i would give a thousand dollars to get it again--or more. i shall have to go back." "no, you won't," i said. "as to that, i shall put my foot down. if anyone goes----" "nobody shall go but myself. i won't have it. i----" "and i won't have you go, if i'm forced to snatch you up and put you in my pocket. when i get you safely to orsières, i don't mind a bit----" "no, no, you needn't say it. if we must go on to orsières, i'll pay someone to come back from there, and search." "why shouldn't i be the one? i'm not tired, only rather cross, and for all you know, i may be in urgent need of the reward you mean to offer." "you must be satisfied with your virtue. i've my own reasons, and--and i suppose i'm my own master?" "by jove!" i exclaimed, laughing. "eton would have done you a lot of good. you would have had some of your girly whims knocked out of you there, my kid." "i wonder if that _would_ have done me good?" "it isn't too late to try. you haven't passed the age." "i dare say travelling about with you will have much the same effect," said the boy, suddenly become an imp again. "i think i'll just 'sample' that experiment first. but i _do_ want my bag." "dash your bag! i'll lend you some night things out of the mule-pack. the lost treasure is sure to turn up again, like all bad pennies, to-morrow." we reached orsières and roused the people of the inn with comparative ease. they could give us accommodation, but the man of the house looked dubious when he heard that a runner must at once be found to search for a travelling bag, lost nobody knew where. "to-morrow morning, when it is light----" he began; but boy cut him short. "to-morrow morning may be too late. i will give five thousand francs to whoever finds my bag, and brings it back with everything in it undisturbed." the man opened his eyes wide, and i formed my lips into a silent whistle. i thought the boy exceedingly foolish to name such a reward, when the bag and its gold fittings could not have been worth more than a hundred pounds, and an offer of three hundred francs would have been ample. what could the strange little person have in his precious bag, which he valued as the immediate jewel of his soul? and why would he not let me be the one to find it, thus keeping his five thousand francs in his pocket! he "had his reasons," forsooth! however, it was not my business. [illustration: "looking out of the window i saw him in conversation".] it must have been after three o'clock by the time i fell asleep in a queer little room where you had but to sit up in bed and stretch out your arm to reach anything you wanted. i dreamed of journeying through the night with the boy, but i forgot his lost bag: nor when i waked in full morning light, did i recall its tragic disappearance. i found that it was nearly eight, and bounded out of bed, performing my toilet with maimed rites, since baths were not _comme il faut_ at orsières. "the kid will be asleep still, i'll bet," i said to myself; but looking out of the window at that moment, i saw him in conversation with joseph, innocentina, and--apparently--half the inhabitants of the village. i hurried down, and learned that the bag--still a lost bag--had set all orsières on fire with excitement. the searchers had returned empty-handed, having gone back as far as the cantine de proz; and on the oath of innocentina (more than one, alas!), the _rücksack_ and its contents had been secure on the grey back of souris when we passed the cantine. desolate as was the great st. bernard at night, late as had been the hour when the bag vanished, evidently someone had found and gone off with it. nevertheless, many young persons of both sexes were eager to try their luck in a second quest. the boy, who had been up for hours, had it in mind to wait at orsières until his treasure should be found, or hope abandoned; but i suggested going on at once to martigny. there, we could have handbills printed, offering a large reward, and these could be distributed over the country. the diligence drivers would help in the work, and we could also advertise in a local paper. to this proposal the little pal consented; and we started off again upon our way, a sadder if not a wiser party. it was late afternoon when we straggled into martigny. now, our far away alpine rome with its crumbling towers and castles, our remote heights where a grey monastery was ever mirrored in the blue eye of the mountain lake, seemed like phases of a dream. friends of the boy's (nameless to me, like all links with his outside life) had stopped lately at the hotel where molly, jack, and i had stayed; he therefore proposed to go to the same house, and this jumped with my inclination: for the hotel had a cheerful and home-like individuality which i liked. pitying the little pal's distress, though i chaffed him for it, i undertook the business of getting out the handbills i had suggested, and arranging for an advertisement in a paper with a local circulation. i had to visit the post-office, engaging in a long discussion with the officials who controlled the diligence, and the business occupied more than an hour. in mercy to boy, i had not delayed for any selfish attention to personal comfort, and tramping back through an inch of white dust to the hotel, i was still as travel-worn as on our arrival in the town, nearly two hours ago. i had forbidden the tired child to accompany me, and by this time he would no doubt be refreshed with a bath and a change of clothing, as, fortunately, not all his personal belongings had been contained in the ill-fated bag. he would be impatiently waiting for me at the hotel door, perhaps; and i quickened my steps, in haste to give him details of my doings. entering the garden, i had to bound onto the grass, to escape being run over by a pair of horses prancing round the curve, at my back. i turned with a basilisk glare intended for the coachman, but instead met the astonished gaze of the very last eyes i could possibly have expected. my glare melted into a smile, but not one of my best, though the eyes which called it forth were alluringly beautiful. "contessa!" i exclaimed. "is this you, or your astral body?" "lord lane!" the lovely lady-of-the-eyes responded. "but no, it is not possible!" just as i was about to protest that it was not only possible, but certain, i caught sight of the boy, in the doorway. as, at the contessa's word, the carriage came to a sudden halt, she reaching out to me two little grey suede hands, the slim figure at the door drew back a step, as if involuntarily; but there was no getting round it, my italian beauty had made boy a present of my name, whether he wanted it or not. [illustration] chapter xv enter the contessa "she was the smallest lady alive, made in a piece of nature's madness, too small, almost, for the life and gladness that over-filled her." --robert browning. here was a case of mahomet, _en route_ to pay his respects to the mountain, being met halfway by the object of his pilgrimage; though to liken the contessa di ravello to a mountain is perhaps to brutalise a poetic license. she is a fairy of a woman, a pocket venus. gaetà is her name, and her sponsors in baptism must have been endowed with prophetic souls, for she is the very spirit of irresponsible, childlike gaiety. not that she has a sense of humour. there is all the difference in the world between a sense of humour and a sense of fun, and truth to tell, the contessa had no more humour than a frolicsome kitten. she had always been in a frolic of some sort, when i had known her in davos, whither she had gone because she thought it would be "what you call a lark"; and she was in a frolic now, judging by her merry laughter when she saw me. her great wine-brown eyes were laughing, her full, cupid-lips were laughing, and more than all, the two deep, round dimples in the olive cheeks were laughing. even the little rings of black hair on her low forehead seemed to quiver with mirth, as her head moved with quick, bird-like gestures. she was dressed all in grey, and the cut-steel buttons on her dress twinkled as if they too were in the joke. "fancy meeting you here, of all places!" she said, in her pretty english, lisping but correct. "it is a good gift from the saints. we have had such stupid adventures, and we have been so bored." "we" were evidently the handsome, slightly moustached women of thirty-five, and the thin, darkly dour man of fifty who were with the contessa in the carriage; and a moment later she had introduced me to the baron and baronessa di nivoli. i echoed the name with some interest. "have i the pleasure of meeting the inventor of the new air-ship which is so much talked about?" i asked. "that is my brother paolo," replied the baron, unbending slightly. "he will join us later," added the baronessa, with a quick look at the pretty and rich little widow which betrayed to me a secret. she then turned a dark, disapproving gaze upon me which told another, and i could have laughed aloud. "they want to nobble my poor little contessa for brother-aëronaut, and they don't countenance chance meetings with strange young men," i said to myself, greatly amused. "if they can see through the dust, and suspect in me a possible rival for the absent, they have sharp eyes, or keen imaginations, and i may be in for a little fun." we were at the hotel door, and i was allowed to help the contessa out, though the elder lady preferred the aid of the concierge. for the moment gaetà had forgotten the claims of her companions, and remembered only mine. it is a butterfly way of hers to forget easily, and flutter with delight in a new corner of the garden, just because it is new. "you are staying here? how nice!" she exclaimed, without giving me time to answer. "we should have arrived last night, but we had an accident to our carriage--a broken wheel. it was coming down from the hospice of st. bernard, which we had been to visit--oh, not to please _me_, do not think it. it was the baron, here. in dim ages his people and the saint were cousins, though the idea of a saint having cousins seems actually sacrilegious, doesn't it? i do not love monks, i only respect them, which is so disagreeable. but the baron took us. _dio mio!_ i have no warm blood left. it was frozen up there. and then, that our carriage should have broken down at a little place--the wrong end of nowhere--bourg st. something! we had to stop all night. fancy me without my maid, who was to meet me here. i do not know if my dress is not on wrong side before. later, we all have to go on to chamounix and then to aix-les-bains. i've taken a villa there for a month. you _must_ come and see me." thus she chattered on as we entered the hotel, and then, suddenly, her bright eyes fell upon the boy, who had retired near the stairway. there he stood, with a book in his hand, and an unwonted colour in his brown cheeks, glowing red under the strange blue jewels of his eyes. "what a divine boy!" the countess half whispered to me, not taking her gaze from him. "he is exactly like a wonderful painting by some old master of my own dear country. what eyes! they are better and bigger sapphires than any i own, though i've some famous ones. and how strange they are--looking out of his brown face, from under such black lashes, too. oh, a picture, certainly. he is not like a modern, every-day boy, at all. he can't be english, of that i'm sure, and yet----" "he is american," i said, when she paused thoughtfully, the boy at his distance reading or pretending to read, as he stood. "but you are right. he is very far from being an every-day boy." "you know him, then?" "we've been travelling companions for days, and have got to be tremendous pals." "how old is he?" asked the contessa, a deep glow of interest and curiosity kindling in her warm brown eyes. "i don't know. he has talked freely about himself only once or twice, though we've discussed together most other subjects under the sun." "how deliciously mysterious. mysterious! yes, that's the word for him. he has mysterious eyes; a mysterious face. there is a shadow upon it. that is part of the fascination, is it not? i am sure he is fascinating." "extraordinarily so. i have never met anyone at all like him." "he might be a boy tasso. but he has suffered; he is not a child any more, though his face is smooth as mine. he must be eighteen or nineteen?" "i should give him less, though he has read and thought a tremendous lot for a boy." "men are not judges of age, thank heaven. women are. i _will_ have it that your friend is nineteen. i should be too silly to take an interest in him, were he less, if it were not motherly; and that wouldn't be entertaining. you see, i am already twenty-two." "you look eighteen," i said; and it was true. widow as she was, it was not possible to think of the contessa as a responsible, grown woman. "i told you that you were no judge of age. i was married at eighteen, a widow at nineteen. _dio mio!_ but it all seems a long time ago, already! lord lane, you must introduce to me your friend the boy." here was a dilemma, but i got out of it by telling the truth, which is usually, in the end, the best policy, many wise opinions to the contrary notwithstanding. "you will laugh," i said, "but i don't know his name." "not possible." "true, nevertheless, like most things that seem impossible; nor does he know mine, unless he heard you speak it driving up to the hotel. he was at the door." "men are extraordinary! but, introduce him. you can manage somehow. it's not his name i care for. it is those eyes. i shall invite him to come and see me in aix. please bring him to me now. the baron is arranging about our rooms, and there is sure to be a misunderstanding of some sort, as we had engaged for last night and did not come. the baronessa? oh, never mind; she had better listen to her husband. she is my friend, and is soon to be my guest, but she has got upon my nerves to-day." thus bidden, i could do no less than walk away down the hall to where the boy stood with his book, leaning against the baluster. "i've done all i could about the bag," i said. "the people in the post-office seemed hopeful that the big reward would do the trick." "thank you. you are very good," he returned. something in his tone made me look at him closely. there was a change in him, though for my life i could not have told what it was or why it had come; there was ice in his voice, though i had spent nearly two dusty, unwashed hours in his service, while he refreshed himself at leisure. "i hope it will be all right," i went on, rather heavily. "look here, that pretty little fairy would like to know you. she's the contessa di ravello. come along and be introduced." the boy flung up his head, his blue eyes flashing. "why am i to be dragged at her chariot wheels?" he demanded. "oh, rot, my child. don't put on airs. men twice your age would snatch at such a chance." "i can't tell what i may be capable of when i'm twice my age. it's difficult enough to know myself now. but i know----" "come on, do, like the dear little old pal you really are," i cut in. "you don't want to put me in a false position, do you? besides, i'd like particularly to get your opinion on the contessa. i may have to ask your advice about something connected with her, later." this fetched him, though with not too good a grace. "you don't know my name," he said, with a return of impishness, as we walked together towards the contessa. "i think that you have the advantage of me in that way, now." "if you call it an advantage. i had a presentiment you weren't plain mister, so i'm not surprised. you may tell your countess that my name is laurence." "christian name or 'pagan' name?" "make the christian name roy." in another moment i was introducing mr. roy laurence to the contessa di ravello; and as they stood eyeing each other, the fairy gaetà pulsing with coquetry through all her hot-blooded italian veins, the boy aloof and critical, i was struck with the picture that the two figures made. the boy had three or four inches more of height than the contessa, and looked almost tall beside her, though i had thought of him as small. her round, dimpled face seemed no older than his oval brown one, in this moment of his gravity, and the haughty air of a young prince which he wore now, consciously or unconsciously, had a certain provoking charm for a spoiled beauty used to conquest. the big blue stars which lit his face expressed a resolve not to yield to any blandishment, and this no doubt piqued gaetà, before whom all the boys and youths at davos had gone down like grass before the scythe. helen blantock came after she had left the place, otherwise she might have had to fight for her rights as queen; but as it was, she had been without rivals and probably had known few dangerous ones elsewhere. never had i seen her take as much real pains to be charming to a grown man, as she took with this silent boy, during the few moments that her friends spent in wrestling with the landlord. what lamps she lit in the windows of her eyes, suddenly raising their curtains on dazzling glances! what rosy flags she hung out in his honour, on dimpled cheeks; what rich display of pearls and coral her cupid-mouth gave him! but all in vain, so far as any change in his cold young face showed. i had seen it warm for a gleam of light on the wing of a swooping bird, or an effect of cloud-shadow on a mountain, as it would not warm for this galaxy of bewitchments, and his quiet civility was but a sharper pin-prick, i should fancy, to a woman's vanity. the little scene was not long in playing, however. soon the baronessa swept to her friend's side, and bore her away, like a large steam-tug making off against wind and tide with a dainty sailing yacht. ignoring the subject of the lady; boy began questioning me about the business of the bag, thanking me again more cordially for what i had done, when i had answered. "i must have a bath and change now," said i at last. "at what time shall we dine?" "we? you will be dining with your new friend." "she's an old friend, if one counts by time of acquaintance, and charming, as you've seen; still, we're rather tired perhaps, and not up to dinner pitch. i'm not sure but we'd get on better alone together, you and i." "i've taken a private sitting-room, and i'm going to dine there." "will you have me with you?" "if you like." "it will be a good opportunity to get your advice." the boy did not answer; but when we sat at table, and had talked for a while of indifferent things, he said abruptly: "what were you going to ask me?" "your advice as to whether it would be well to fall in love with the little contessa." "has she money?" "hang it all, do you think i'm the kind of man to want a woman for her money?" "i've known you about six days." "don't hedge. can't six days tell you as much as six years--such six days as we've had?" "yes. it's true. i would stake a good deal that you're not that kind of man. i don't know why i said it. something hateful made me. the contessa is very pretty. could you--fall in love with her?" "it would be an interesting experiment to try." "if you think so, you must already have begun." "no, not yet. i assure you i have an open mind. but it's an odd coincidence meeting her like this. i was making the fact that she has a house at monte carlo an excuse for going down there--sooner or later--as an end to my journey. now, she is to be in chamounix, and she intends to invite us both, it seems, to visit her in aix-les-bains, where she has taken a villa." the boy looked at me suddenly, with a slight start. "she is going to chamounix?" "so she says." "and--she will invite you to visit her at her villa in aix-les-bains." "you, too. you said yesterday you wanted to go to aix, as you had never been; and we planned an expedition by the mule-path up mont revard." "i know. but--but would you visit the contessa?" "we might amuse ourselves. she would be well chaperoned, no doubt by the baronessa. there's a brother of the baron's in the background. probably he'll turn up at aix. certainly he will if his relatives have any control over his actions. he's no other, it turns out, than paolo di nivoli, the young italian whose airship invention has been made a fuss about lately. it would be rather a joke to try and cut him out with the contessa--if one could." "oh--cut him out." the boy seemed thoughtful. "though you aren't in love with her?" "yes." "i see." "will you go if i do--that is, if she really asks us?" i expected him to flash out a refusal, but he brooded under a deep shadow of eyelashes for a while, looking half cross, half mischievous, and finally said: "i'll think it over." [illustration] chapter xvi a man from the dark "desperate, proud, fond, sick, . . . rejected by men." --walt whitman. as we drank our _café double_, tap, tap, came at the door; a message from the contessa di ravello asking if we would not take coffee with her and her friends in their private sitting-room. i would have preferred to finish my talk with the little pal, which had reached an entertaining point in the announcement that he seemed to know me less well since he had heard my name--that names, and past histories, and circumstances were barriers between lives. but the boy, reluctant a short time ago to be drawn into the contessa's society, was now apparently willing to give up the tête-à-tête. we left our coffee, and went to drink the contessa's, which reached our lips chilled by the silent enmity of her friends. but, whether because their example had been a warning, or because he had suffered a "change, into something new and strange," the boy was no longer a wet blanket. he did not show the self which i had learned to know in some of its phases, but he was shyly conciliatory with the contessa, the blue eyes hinting that, if she were persistent, his admiration might be won. still, he often answered in monosyllables or briefly, when she spoke to him, a smile curving his short upper lip. i could not understand what his manner meant, nor, i am sure, could she; but she was evidently bent on solving the puzzle. "do you play tennis?" she asked him. "yes." "ah, so do i, and well, too, though i'm not english. lord lane will tell you that. and you dance, i know." "yes." "you love it? i do." "i used to." "that sounds as if you were a hundred, instead of--nineteen, is it not?" "i'm not quite ninety-nine." "i should like to dance with you. we are the right size for each other in the dance, are we not?" "i'd try not to disappoint you." "oh, we must have a dance. you love music, i know. one sees it by your eyes. once, when i asked lord lane if he sang or played, he said that he 'had no drawing-room tricks.' rude of him, _n'est-ce pas_? but you? is it that you play?" "the violin will talk for me, if i coax it." "ah, i was sure. we are going to be congenial. but the singing? i see by your face that you sing, though you won't say so. here is a piano. i will accompany you, if you like, and if we know the same things. perhaps our voices would be well together." i was surprised to see the boy get up and go to the piano. "i will sing if you like; but i accompany myself, always," he said. "i don't sing things that many people know." for a moment he sat at the piano, as if thinking. then he, who had never told me that he sang, never even spoken of singing, turned into a young angel, and gripped my heart with a voice as strangely haunting as his eyes and his little brown face. had he been a girl, i suppose his voice would have been called a deep contralto. as he was a boy--i do not know how to classify it. i can say only that, while the mellow music rippled from his parted lips, it seemed as if the gates of paradise had fallen ajar. he sang an old ballad that i had never heard. it was all about "douglas gordon," whose story flowed with the tide of a plaintive accompaniment which i think he must have arranged himself: for somehow, it was like him. all the sadness, all the sweetness in this sweet, sad, old world seemed concentrated in the boy's angel voice, and listening, i was douglas gordon, and he was putting my life-sorrow into words. he took my heart and broke it, yet i would not have had him stop. then, suddenly, he did stop, and the contessa was in tears. "bravo! bravo!" she cried, diamonds raining over two spasmodic dimples. "again; something else." he sang christina rossetti's "perchance you may remember, perchance you may forget," and the thrill of it was in the marrow of my bones. i had scarcely known before what music could do with me, and the voice of the little gaetà, following the song, jarred on my ears as she praised the boy, and pleaded for more. "i can't sing again to-night," said he. "i'm sorry, but i can sing only when i feel in the mood." "but you will come with lord lane, and stay at my villa, which i have taken at aix--yes, if only for a few days? the baron and baronessa will be with me, too. you are going that way. lord lane has told me. will you come?" "is he coming?" "lord lane, tell him that you are." "you are very good, contessa----" "there! you hear, it is settled." "if--lord lane makes you a visit, i will also, as you are kind enough to want me." afterwards, when we had bidden the contessa and her guardian dragons good-night, and it was arranged that we were to stay over to-morrow, on account of the lost bag, i said to the boy on the way upstairs, "you've made a conquest of the contessa." he blushed furiously, looked angry, and then burst out laughing. "are you jealous?" he asked. "i ought to be." "but are you?" "i haven't had time to analyse my emotions. why did you never tell me you sang?" "i wasn't ready--till to-night. now--i sang for you." "i thought it was for the contessa." "did you? well"--with sudden crossness--"you may go on thinking so, if you like. can she sing?" "rather well." "as--better than i can?" "you must judge for yourself when you hear her." "you might tell me. but no! i don't want you to, now. it's spoiled. good-night." "good-night. dream of your conquest." "probably she's only trying to--to bring you to the point, by being nice to me. i wonder if you care?" i would not give the little wretch any satisfaction. i merely laughed, and an odd blue light flashed in his eyes. he was making up his mind to something, for the life of me i could not tell what. the contessa and her satellites should have gone on to chamounix next day, but gaetà frankly announced her intention of waiting, so that we might make the journey together. they were driving over the tête noire, and we would go afoot, to be sure; still, said she, we could keep more or less together, exchanging impressions from time to time, and lunching at the same place. she made me promise, as a reward to her for this delay, that the boy and i would not take the way of the col de balme, by which no carriage could pass. if we did this, our party and hers must part company early in the day, and she would be left to the tender mercies of the baron and baronessa for many a _triste_ hour. "but why should you be imposed upon by them, if they don't amuse you?" i ventured to ask; for gaetà was so frank about her affairs that one was sometimes led inadvertently to take liberties. "oh, it was the brother who amused me, and he amuses me still," replied she, with a _moue_, and a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "at least, i don't _think_ i shall be tired of him, when i see him again. he is a whirlwind; he carries a woman off her feet, before she knows what is happening, and we like that in a man, we italians. we adore temperament. i was nice to the baron and baronessa for paolo's sake. he had to go away from milan, which is my real home, you know--(if i have a home anywhere)--to have a medal for his air-ship, and many honours and dinners given him in paris; so, without stopping to think, i invited the baron and baronessa to visit me in aix. then they suggested that we should have a little tour first; and we are having it--_dio mio_, so much the worse for me, till i met you! and now they make me feel like a naughty child." "will paolo come also to the villa?" i asked, smiling. "he has engagements to last a fortnight still. perhaps afterwards he may run out to aix." the boy's face fell when i told him that i had promised the contessa to walk along the highroad, over the tête noire. "innocentina and i----" he began. then his eyes wandered to gaetà, who stood with her friends at the other end of the hail. she was looking extremely pretty, and chose that instant to throw a quick glance at me, demanding sympathy for some _ennui_ or other caused by the baronessa. "oh, very well," he finished, "it doesn't matter." he was in suspense all day about his mysteriously important bag. though handbills had been hastily printed and scattered over the country, there was no certainty as to when we should hear or whether we should hear at all. late in the evening, however, as we were finishing dinner in the _salle-à-manger_, at the same table with gaetà and her friends, a message came that a man desired to see the young monsieur who had advertised for a lost bag. the boy excused himself, and jumped up. i should have liked to go with him, but courtesy to the ladies forbade, and i sat still, feeling guilty of disloyalty somehow, nevertheless, because of a look he threw me. it seemed to say, "we were such friends, but a woman has come between. my affairs are nothing to you now." i had thought that he would be back in time for coffee, but he did not appear, and the curiosity of gaetà, who had been restless since the boy's departure, could no longer be kept within bounds. "do go and see if he has got that wonderful bag," she said. "he might come to tell us!" i obeyed, nothing loth, but only to learn from the concierge that the young gentleman had gone away with the man who had called. "did he leave no message?" i asked. "no, monsieur. he talked with the man here in the hall for a few minutes; then he ran upstairs and soon came down again with a cap and coat. immediately after, he and the man went out together." "what sort of man was he?" "an italian, monsieur; a very rough-looking peasant-fellow of middle age, poorly dressed in his working clothes. i have never seen him before." i did not like this description, nor the news the concierge had given. it was nine o'clock, and very dark, for it had begun to rain towards evening, and a monotonous drip, drip mingled with the plash of the fountain in the garden. grim fancies came knocking at the door of my brain. it was a mad thing for a boy, little more than a child, to go out alone in the night with a stranger, a "rough-looking peasant-fellow," who pretended to know something of the vanished bag; to go out, leaving no word of his intentions, nor the direction he would take. as like as not, the man was a villain who scented rich prey in a tourist offering a reward of five thousand francs for a lost piece of luggage. as i thought of the brave, innocent little comrade walking unsuspectingly into some trap from which i could have saved him had i been by his side, a sensation of physical sickness came over me. "how long is it since they went out?" i asked quickly. "ten minutes, at most, monsieur." i could have shaken the concierge's hand for this good news, for there was hope of catching them up. i was in dinner jacket and pumps, but i did not wait to make a dash upstairs for hat or coat. i borrowed the blue, gold-handed cap of the concierge, not caring two pence for my comical appearance, which would have sent gaetà into peals of silver laughter, and out into the rain i went, turning up the collar of my jacket. i had forgotten the contessa, and my promise to return immediately with tidings from the front. all i thought of was, which direction should i take to find the boy. ought i to turn towards the town or away from it? before i reached the garden gate, not many metres from the door, i had decided to try the town way; and lest i should be doing the wrong thing and have to rectify my mistake later, i ran as a lamplighter is popularly supposed to run, but doesn't and never did. the boy and his companion would be walking, and, if i were on the right track, i was almost sure to catch them up sooner or later at this pace, before they could reach the town and turn off into some side street. i had not been galloping along through the fresh, grey mud for three hundred metres when i saw two figures moving slowly a few paces ahead. one was small and slender, the other of middle height and strongly built. "boy, is that you?" i shouted. the slim figure turned, and i mumbled a "thank goodness!" "little wretch!" i exclaimed heartily, as i joined the couple ahead. "how could you go off alone like this with a stranger, perhaps a ruffian (he looks it), without leaving any word for me? you deserve to be shaken." "you wouldn't say he looked a ruffian, if you could see his face. i'm sure he's honest. and as for sending word, i didn't care to disturb you and--your contessa." "hang the--no, of course, i don't mean that. luckily i was in time to catch you, and----" "did the contessa send you after me, or did----" "she doesn't know what's become of you. there was no time for politenesses. you gave me some bad moments, little brute. now, tell me what you're about." he explained that the peasant (who understood no word of english) was an italian who had come to martigny to find work as a road mender, that he had been taken ill and lost his job; that he had tramped back over the st. bernard to aosta, near which place he had once lived; that the work he had heard of there was already given to another; and that, walking back to rejoin his family near martigny, he had found the bag on the pass. he had brought it home, and had only just learned the address of the owner, as set forth in the handbills. "why didn't he bring the bag to you, and claim the reward?" i asked. "it is at the house of the priest, and the priest has been away all day, visiting a relative in the country somewhere, who is ill, so this man, andriolo stefani, couldn't get the bag. but he came to tell me that it was found, and where it was." "and he pretends to be guiding you to the house of the priest now?" "no. i'm going to his house--or rather, the room where he and his wife and children live." "for goodness' sake, why?" "because he's refused to accept the reward for finding the bag." "by jove, he must have some deep game. what reason did he give, and what excuse did he make, for dragging you off to his lair? it sounds as if he meant to try and kidnap you for a ransom--(these things do happen, you know)--and there are probably others in it besides himself. i don't believe in the priest, nor the wife and children, nor even in his having found the bag." "he didn't ask me to go to his house. when i spoke of the reward, he said that he couldn't take it, and though i questioned him, would not tell me why, but was evidently distressed and unhappy. finally he admitted that it was his wife who would not allow him to accept a reward. she had made him promise that he wouldn't. then i said that i'd like to talk to her, and might i go with him to his house. he tried to make excuses; he had no house, only one room, not fit for me to visit; and the place was a long way off, outside martigny bourg; but i insisted, so at last he gave in. now, do you still think he's the leader of a band of kidnappers?" "i don't know what to think. there's evidently something queer. i'll talk to him." during our hurried conversation, the man had walked on a few steps in advance. i called him back, speaking in italian. he came at once, and now that we were in the town, where here and there a blur of light made darkness visible, i could see his face distinctly. i had to confess to myself at first glance that it was not the face of a cunning villain,--this worn, weather-beaten countenance, with its hollowed cheeks, and the sad dark eyes, out of which seemed to look all the sorrows of the world. he had found the bag night before last, he said, between the cantine de proz and bourg st. pierre. it had been lying in the road, in the _rücksack_, and he judged by the strap that it had been attached to the back of a man, or a mule. while i questioned him further, trying to get some details of description not given in the handbills, he paused. "there is the priest's house," he said. "there is a light in the window now. perhaps he has come back." "we will stop and ask for the bag," said i, watching the face of the man. it did not blench, and i began to wonder if, after all, he might not be honest. the priest, a delightful, white-haired old fellow, himself of the peasant class, had returned, and from a locked cupboard in his bare little dining-room study produced the much talked of bag, in its _rücksack_. the boy sprang at it eagerly. so secure had he believed it to be on the grey donkey's back, that he had not been in the habit of taking out the key. it was still in the lock, and, the bag standing on the priest's dinner table, the boy opened it with visible excitement. then he dived down into the contents, without bringing them into sight, and a bright colour flamed in his cheeks. "everything is safe," he said, with a long sigh of relief. "i'm thankful." he turned to the priest, speaking in french--and his french was very good. "i have offered a large reward to the finder of this bag. but the man will not have it. can you tell me why, _mon père_?" "i cannot tell you, monsieur. doubtless he has a reason which seems to him good," answered the priest, who evidently knew that reason, but was pledged not to tell. "he and his family have not been in my parish long, but i believe them to be worthy people. i have been trying to get work for andriolo, since he has been well again, and able to undertake it, but so far i have not been fortunate." the boy took a handful of gold from his pocket. "for the poor of your parish, _mon père_, if you will be good enough to accept it for them," said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. the old priest flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was constantly distressed because he could do so little. this would be a godsend. i glanced at the italian, and saw that his weary, dark eyes were fixed with a passionate wistfulness upon the gold. this look, his whole appearance, bespoke poverty, yet he had deliberately refused five thousand francs, a fortune to most men of his condition. now that he was vouched for by the priest, extreme curiosity took the place of suspicion in my mind. i hid the blue cap of the concierge behind my back, in the priest's house, but the boy saw it, and saw that i was drenched with rain. i must have been a figure for laughter, but he did not laugh. "you see, i was in a hurry," i excused myself, under a long, comprehending gaze of his. "it's your fault if i look an ass." "you didn't stop even to go and get a hat," he said. "you came out in the rain just as you were, and you ran--i heard you running, behind me. but--but of course it's because you're kind-hearted. you would have done just the same for anybody. for--the contessa----" "not for the baronessa, anyhow," said i. "i should have stopped for a mackintosh and even goloshes, had her safety been hanging in the balance." then we both laughed, and stefani, who by this time was showing us the way through the rain to his own home, looked over his shoulder, surprised and self-conscious, as if he feared that we were laughing at him. on the outskirts of straggling martigny bourg, he stopped before a gloomy, grey stone house with four rows of closed wooden shutters, which meant four floors of packed humanity. even martigny has its tenements for poor workers, or those who would be workers if they could, and this was one of them. we followed andriolo stefani up four flights of narrow stone stairs, picking our way by testing each step with a cautious foot, since light there was none. arrived at the top floor, we groped along a passage to the back of the house, and our guide opened a door. there was a yellow haze, which meant one candle-flame fighting for its life in the dark, and we waited outside, while the italian spoke for a moment to someone we could not see. there came a note of protest in a woman's voice, but the man's beat it down with some argument, and then stefani returned to ask us in. two women sat in a room almost bare of furniture, and both tried to rise on our entrance; but one, who was young as years go, had her lap full of little worn shoes, and the other, who looked older than the allotted span, was nursing a wailing baby, half undressed. i found myself strangely embarrassed with the coarse guilt of intrusion. i was suddenly oppressed with self-conscious awkwardness, wishing myself anywhere else, and not knowing what to do or say. in all probability i looked haughty and disagreeable, though i felt humble as a worm. how the boy felt i have no means of knowing; i can only tell how he acted. one would have thought that he had known these poor people all his life. i lingered near the door, taking notes of the sad picture; the two rough wooden boxes, in which slept three little dark children, all apparently of exactly the same size; the mattress on the floor near by for the parents; the open door leading into a dark garret, where, no doubt, the grandmother crept to sleep; the shelves on the wall, bare save for a few dishes of peasant-made pottery; the pile of dried mud on the tiled floor, which the young mother had been carefully scraping with a knife from the little worn boots in her lap; the rickety, uncovered table, with a bunch of endives on a plate, and a candle guttering in a bottle. this was the picture, redeemed from squalor only by the lithograph of the virgin on the wall, draped with fresh wild flowers, and its perfect cleanliness; this was the home of the supposed "kidnapper," the man who had refused to accept five thousand francs as a reward. while i stood, stiff and uncomfortable, the boy went forward quickly, begging the two women not to rise. "poor, dear little baby!" he said in italian, looking down at the dark scrap of humanity in the grandmother's arms. "she is ill, isn't she?" now, how did he know that the creature was a "she"? if it were a guess, it was a lucky one, for both women replied together that the little girl had been ailing since yesterday. they could not tell what was the matter. they had hoped that she would be better to-day, but instead, she seemed worse; and with this, a glittering film which had been overspreading the mother's eyes, suddenly dissolved into silently falling rain. there were no sobs, no gaspings from this tired woman, too used to sorrow to rail against it, yet it was plain to see that her heart was breaking. still, life must go on: and so, while she grieved for a little one she feared to lose, she cleaned the boots of those she hoped to keep. "have you called a doctor for her?" asked the boy. "the good priest is half a doctor. he came to see the _bambina_." "what did he say?" "oh, signor, we cannot give her all the things he said she should have, nor can he help us to them, for he has much to do for others, and little to do it with." "yet you would not let your husband take the reward i offered for finding my bag. he is out of work, and you are poor; you have four children to feed, and one of them is ill. why will you not have the money? i have come to ask you that. you see, i _want_ you to have it, for the bag is worth all i've offered and even more to me." "ah, signor, how can i tell you? it was to save my baby i refused." "please tell. you need not mind saying anything to me--or to my friend. we are interested and want to help you." now the young woman's tears were falling fast, but silently still, as if she knew that her heart-break was unimportant in the great scheme of things, and she wished to make no noise about it. her lips moved, but no words came. "she will not speak against me," stefani said suddenly, "nor will my poor mother. but i will tell you the story. i meant to steal your bag, and sell the gold things and all the valuables that were in it. it was a great temptation, for we had scarce a penny left, and there was no work anywhere. i was tired, tired all through to my heart, signor, that night on the pass, and then i found the bag. i brought it home, and charged emilia and my mother to say nothing to anyone outside. the children were at school, so they did not see, or they might have lisped out something, and set people talking. the two women begged me to give up the bag, and try for a reward in case one should be offered, but i was desperate. i said that the gold was worth more than anything that would be offered--the gold, and some jewelry in a little box. i knew a man who would buy of me, and i had gone out to find him yesterday, when, as if heaven had sent a curse upon us for my sin, the _bambina_ was struck down with this illness--a terrible aching of her little head, and a fever. when i came home to take away the things out of the bag, my wife begged me on her knees, for the child's sake, to change my mind; and at last i did, for who can hold out against the prayers of those he loves? "quickly, lest i should repent, i carried the bag to our priest, and told him all. he thought as a penance for the sin which had been in my heart, i should take no reward if it were offered, though he did not lay this upon me as a command. emilia was with him, for, said she, our lady will save the baby if we make this great sacrifice. now you know all the truth." "and i know that you are good people--better than i would have been in your places--better than anyone i know. there's no credit in keeping straight if one's not tempted to go wrong, is there? i won't offend you by begging that you'll take the reward. i offer you no reward, but i am going to give your children a present, and you are to use it for the comfort of your family. i have enough with me, because, you see, i had to get something ready to-day, in case the reward had to be paid. now, it isn't needed for that, so i can use it in this other way. and you have done all that is right, and you would hurt me very much if you refused to let me do what i wish. it is always wrong to hurt people, you know. and you must send me word early to-morrow morning before i go, whether the baby is better. i feel sure, somehow, that she will be." then a roll of notes was thrust into one of the little boots, still caked with mud, which the mother kept mechanically in her hand. there was a pat on the shoulder, too, and an instant later the boy's arm was hooked into mine; i was whisked away with him in as rapid a flight as if he had been a thief, and not a benefactor. "how much did you give them, young santa claus?" i asked, when he had me out in the rain again. "about one thousand three hundred dollars. i can't stop to calculate it for you in pounds or francs. i'm too excited. oh, how wet you are, poor man! and all for me! but wasn't it splendid! and i just know that baby'll be better to-morrow. you see if she isn't." she was. the news was brought to us early in the morning by a poor man half out of his wits with joy and gratitude. [illustration] chapter xvii the little game of flirtation "to take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you." --walt whitman. the contessa had to be pacified, but she adored romance, and she was pleased to say that the story of the bag, lost and found, which i--not the boy--told her, came under that category. she was in the best of tempers for a day of travelling, and saw us off, before her friends were dressed and ready to begin their drive to chamounix. "they are taking as long as they can, on purpose," she whispered to me, with the air of a naughty child planning mischief behind the backs of its elders. "anything to keep me to themselves and away from you! but you are walking, and the way is uphill for a very long time, so the hotel people say. we shall catch you up, and just to spite the di nivolis, if nothing more, i shall beg first one of you, then the other, to let me give you a lift. neither of you must refuse, or i shall cry, and no man has ever made me cry yet." "i'm sure no man ever will," i answered promptly. "and no boy?" she asked, with a long-lashed glance at my companion, who had given no answer save a smile. "i wonder how you would look when you cried, contessa?" was the only reply the little wretch deigned, but instead of offending, it appeared to amuse her. she watched our cavalcade out of the hotel garden (the _rücksack_ once more on souris' faithless back), and the silver bells of her laughter lightly rang us down the road. again we had to pass through martigny bourg, and presently, turning aside from the road which had led me to the grand st. bernard, we took the way on the right, almost at once feeling the rise of the hill. steeper and steeper it grew, and warmer and warmer we, though the day was young. often we were glad of the excuse the view gave us to stop and look back, down into the wide bowl of the rhone valley, with a heat-haze of quivering blue, creating an effect of great distance, like a "gauze drop" on the stage. surely this was the longest lull on earth, and when we reached the top--if we ever did--we should find that we had been climbing jack's beanstalk, coming out into a different world! up and up we dragged for hours, the boy determined not to take to donkey-back, despite the protestations of innocentina, emphatic, but slightly modified by constant association with the man she was engaged in converting. sometimes we were ministered to by small maidens, with marvellously neat, sleek hair, who sprang up under our eyes, apparently from rabbit-holes, their arms hooked into the handles of big fruit baskets which might easily have been their bathtubs or cradles. if we seemed inclined to turn away with an expressionless gaze, the little creatures forged after us with a determined trot, laid back with tiny brown hands the dainty white napkin hiding the basket's contents, and tempted us with purple plums or mellow pears. in the end, we invariably succumbed to these wiles, even when we had sickened at the thought of fruit, and were obliged surreptitiously to hide our purchases by the wayside, when the sturdy young vendors' backs were turned. we carried our panamas in our hands, and the boy's short chestnut curls clung to his forehead in damp rings, making him look absurdly childish. i wondered at myself for discussing with eager interest, as i often did, so many of life's unanswerable questions with such a slip of boyhood. still, i knew that i should often do it again, while we remained together, and that he would know how to measure wits with mine, to my disadvantage, compelling always my respect for his opinions, unless he happened to be in an inconsequential or impish mood. after a long climb, we called a halt at the most attractive of several little wayside châlets we had passed. each was thoughtfully provided with an awning or wooden roof stretching across the road to give shade to travellers, who were lured to pause by bottles of bright-coloured syrups, wine, and beer displayed on flower-decked tables. our chosen châlet made a specialty of milk, and a view. there was a rough balcony at the back, built over a sheer precipice, and far beneath, the rhone valley spread itself for our eyes. we sat resting, with glasses of rich yellow milk in our hands, when a voice under the road-shelter in front roused us from reverie. it was the contessa greeting joseph and innocentina, who were reposing on a bench in the delicious shade. "i was just thinking it was rather queer they hadn't caught us up," i said, rising; and then i asked myself why i had said it; for, when i came to cross-question my own thoughts, they had to own up that the contessa had not been in them. "oh, it was the contessa you were thinking of, then, when you sat looking as if you were a thousand miles away, and had left your body behind to keep your place?" said the boy, jumping up quickly. "well, here she is; your mind may be at ease." we returned to the front of the house, through the neat, bare "living-room," the boy a step or two ahead of me, as if anxious to greet the new arrivals. off came his hat, and he stood leaning against the carriage, looking up into the warm brown eyes of gaetà, which were warmer and brighter than ever because of this sudden show of devotion. had the magnetism of her coquetry fired him? i wondered, it would be strange if it were not so, for she was beautiful, and her manner flattering to a boy so young. somehow, my spirits were dashed at the thought that my companion's last words to me might be explained by jealousy of an older man with a pretty woman. it would be hard if it were to come to this between us. though i had talked of going to see her in monte carlo, the butterfly contessa was no more to me than a delicate pastel on someone else's wall, or a gay refrain, which charms the ear without haunting the memory. i would not interfere with the boy; if he chose to encourage gaetà to flirt with him, he need not fear me; but i had liked to think he valued my comradeship. now, a fancy for this child-woman would rob me of him. instead of being piqued by the contessa's growing preference for the boy, as i ought to have been by all the rules of the game of flirtation, i was conscious of anger against her as an intruder. this feeling increased almost to sulkiness when the boy was invited to take a seat in the carriage beside the gloomy baron, and accepted promptly. the driving party had been delayed a long time in starting, gaetà explained, making large eyes which blamed her friends for everything; and the driver had brought his horses slowly, oh, so slowly, up the long hill, the stupid fellow. but now the carriage flashed ahead, and i was left to tramp on alone, while the contessa and the boy flirted, and joseph and innocentina bickered, all alike unmindful of me. we lunched at the col de forclaz, where the hill, tired of going up, ran down to another valley. there was a godlike assemblage of mountains, white and blue, mountains as far as the eye could reach, and i had a thought or two which i would have liked to exchange for some of the boy's. but if he had ever really had any thoughts, save for the fun of the moment, he had the air of forgetting them all for gaetà. when, in a tone of unenthusiastic politeness, she asked if i would not take my friend's place in the carriage for a while when we started on again, out of pure spite against the little wretch who had dropped me for her i said that i would. i could not see the boy's face, to make sure if he were disappointed, but i hoped it. as for myself, i would fain have walked. in a scene of such exalted beauty, gaetà's little quips and quirks struck a wrong note. sitting with my back to the horses, i could see the boy walking on behind, his face raised mountain-ward and sky-ward, and i longed to know of what he was thinking, for evidently he had left his aggravating, "awfully-jolly-don't-you-know" mood in the carriage with the contessa. [illustration: "sitting with my back to the horses."] the baron and his wife disputed volubly about the date of one of paolo's grand dinners in paris; gaetà yawned, and i was stricken with dumbness. i could think of nothing to say which she would think worth hearing. soon, the tremendously steep descent into the valley gave me the best of excuses to jump down and relieve the horses, which the coachman was leading. somehow, i don't quite know how, i fell back a good distance behind the carriage, and then i found myself so near the boy, who had been slowly following, that it would have been rude not to join him. after all, we had no quarrel, yet oddly enough we could not take up the thread of our intercourse exactly where it had been broken off. there seemed to be a knot or a tangle in it, which would have to be smoothed out. it was a wholly irrelevant incident which untied the knot, and left us as we had been, though there was no reason for it but a laugh which we had together. the thing came about in this wise. we arrived at a small hotel which boasted a garden, and was famous as a view-point. from the door a carriage containing a man was about to drive away. the man was approaching middle age, and had an air of quiet self-reliance which redeemed him from insignificance. he was plainly dressed, in clothes which were not new, and altogether he did not appear to be a personage who, from the hotel-keeper's point of view, would be of supreme importance. yet the landlord and another besieged the quiet man with compliments and pleadings, to which he did not seem inclined to listen. bowing gravely, he told his coachman to drive on, and in a moment had passed us as we stood in the road. but when he had gone, the landlord and his assistant still had no eyes for us. "mark my words," exclaimed the former, in a tone of anguish, "we shall lose our star." were they astrologers, that they should fear this fate? our curiosity was excited, and seeing a head-waiterly person, who wore a mien between awe and stifled amusement, i called for beer which i did not wish to drink. it was served on a table in the shady garden, and i enquired if the carriage just out of sight had contained a troublesome guest. "troublesome is not the word, monsieur," replied the waiter. "but a thing has happened. that gentleman whom you saw, arrived a few days ago, giving the name of karl. he took the cheapest room in the house; he drank one of the cheapest wines, having satisfied himself that the price was within his means. to-day, he said that he was leaving, and asked for his bill. when it was made out, the wine came to a franc more than he thought it ought. 'i do not complain,' said he to our _patron_; 'if that is the price of the wine, i will pay, but i was told at the table it was less. i do not consider the wine good enough for the price.' this vexed the _patron_, because one does not think the more of a person who haggles over a franc, especially if that person has studied cheapness in all ways during his visit. perhaps the _patron_ spoke somewhat irritably, for he did not care whether the monsieur ever came back to his house or not. then the monsieur paid the bill, without another word, and was going away, when a german gentleman, who had been sitting here in the garden, said to the _patron_: 'do you know who that is?' no,' replied our _patron_, 'i do not know, nor do i care.' 'it is baedeker,' said the gentleman. this was terrible; and the patron flew to correct the little mistake about the wine, with a thousand apologies; but the monsieur would not have his money back, and you saw him drive away. now, it is possible that our hotel will no longer keep its star, and that would be no less than a catastrophe." evidently, what his cherished peacock-feather is to a chinese mandarin, that is a baedeker star to a hotel-keeper; and the boy and i were so tickled at the little tragi-comedy that we forgot, as we walked on side by side, that we had been upon official terms only. again we were struck by the extraordinary individuality which differentiates one valley or mountain-pass from another. we had seen nothing like this; nothing, perhaps, so purely beautiful. one could not imagine that winter snow and ice could still the pulse of summer here. it was as if we wandered from one green glade to another in fairyland, where all the little people who owned the magic land had turned themselves hurriedly into strangely delicate ferns and bluebells to watch us, laughing, as we went by. the village of trient lay in deep shadow when we reached it, and found the others waiting for us in the carriage in front of the chief hotel; but there was no gloom in the shadow; it was only a deeper shade of green, with a hint of transparent blue streaked across it. another remote, dream-village on the long list of places where i really _must_ stay for a lazy summer month--when i have time! the list was growing long now, almost worryingly long, and the boy felt it so, too, for he also had a list, and strange to say, it was much the same as mine. we had tea, and were vaguely surprised to see a number of people of our own kind, most of them english and american, engaged in the same occupation, and evidently at home in the place. trient was on their list as well as ours, and now, if they liked, they could cross it off, and begin with the next place. the contessa thought the boy looked tired, and urged him to drive again, but though his manner was still flirtatious he found an excuse to keep to his feet. he was not really tired, not a bit; how could one be tired in so much beauty? the poor horses were fagged though, for the carriage was heavy; he would not add to its weight. "you _are_ getting rather white about the gills," i said to him when the driving party had once more left us behind. "why didn't you take up your flirtation where you left it off, like a serial story to be 'continued in your next'? your weight is nothing." "it wasn't that, really," replied the boy. "what, then?" "do you remember why i wanted to come over the tête noire?" "to have the sensation of mont blanc suddenly bursting upon you." "well, i--to tell the truth, i had a whim--just a whim, and nothing more--to be with you and not with the contessa when the time for that sensation should come." my heart warmed; but perhaps i was flattering myself unduly. "you were afraid that her fascinations might overpower those of mont blanc, i suppose, whereas i am a mere stock or stone?" "that's one way of putting it," replied he calmly. but when the sensation did come, he caught my arm, with a quick-drawn breath, and no word following. our worship of other mountains had been a serving of false gods. there was the one white truth, dwarfing all else into insignificance; not a mere mountain, but a world of snow sailing moon-like in full sky. it was, indeed, as if the moon, gleaming white and bathed in radiance, had come to pay earth a visit. surely it would not stay; surely it was a secret that she had come, and we had found it out, just when this great dark rock-door through which we looked, opened by accident to show the sight. but if it were a secret, there was no fear that we would ever tell it, for it soared beyond words. the first glimpse gave this impression; afterwards we could not have recalled it if we had tried. we grew used to the white majesty which faced us, by-and-bye, as alas! one does grow used to beauty while one has it within reach of the eye. but just as the boy had begun to confess himself tired, and to lag in his walk, resting an arm on my shoulder, a new wonder came, like a draught of tonic wine. sunset, with king midas' touch, transformed the whole mountain to gold, so that it burned like a lamp to light the world, against a violet sky. in the foreground was a low rampart of green mountain, down which poured a huge glacier like an arrested cataract. it glimmered with a faint radiance, greenish-blue, and pale as the gleam of a glow-worm. the violet of the sky deepened to amethyst-purple, and the snow on the waving line of mountains turned from gold to pink, as if there had been a sudden rain of rose leaves. for a long time lasted the changing play of jewelled lights, and then the magic colour was swallowed at a gulp by the descending night. far away, and far down in the deep valley, the lights of chamounix and its satellite villages sparkled like a troupe of fallen stars. they lay in a bright heap, clustered together; and innocentina, coming up with us at this moment, said that they were like raisins sunk together at the bottom of a pudding. the late rain had set all the little torrents talking, and we were silent, listening to their gossip of the mountains' secrets. [illustration] chapter xviii rank tyranny "thou art past the tyrant's stroke." --shakespeare. we seemed to have formed a habit, the boy and i, of steering always for a hôtel mont blanc, if there were one in a town; so that now we had come to look upon a hostelry with such a name as a sort of second home, a daughter of a mother house. there were still two other reasons why we should select the mont blanc in chamounix: the first, because the contessa was going there and had asked us to do likewise; the second, because at martigny we had seen an advertisement of the hotel which stated that it was situated in a "_vaste parc avec chamois_." our imagination pictured an ancient château, altered for modern uses, shut away from the outer world in a mysterious forest of dark pines, where wild chamois sported gracefully at will, leaping across chasms from one overhanging rock to another. it was long past twilight when our little procession of four human beings and three beasts of burden straggled through a lighted gateway which we had been told to enter for the hôtel mont blanc. with one blow our ancient castle was shattered. at a hundred metres distant from the street rose an enormous modern hotel, blazing with light at every window. where was the vast park with its crowding pines and its ravines for the wild chamois? it must be somewhere, since the advertisement certified its existence, and so must the chamois. perhaps the forest lay behind the hotel; but the boy was too tired to care, and to us both baths, food, and rest were for the moment worth more than parks or chamois. the hotel struck a high note of civilisation, and i had seen nothing so fine since london or paris. the boy and i dined late and sumptuously, tête-à-tête, for the hot sun and the long drive had sent gaetà to bed, chastened with a headache; and, weary as he was, the little pal had pluck enough left to suggest an appointment for early next morning. "i shall want to know how mont blanc looks from my window, so i won't waste my time in bed," said he. "besides, i'm rather keen to see the chamois, aren't you? the only one i've ever met was stuffed, and rather moth-eaten. he was in a dime museum in new york." i was up at half-past six next day, and at my window, where mont blanc in early sunshine smote me in the face with its nearness. a sudden longing took me, as the longing for a great white lamp takes a moth, to fly at it, or, in other words, to get myself to the top. i had never "done" any swiss ascents, though i knew almost every peak and pinnacle of rock in cumberland and wales, and it seemed to me that i should be a muff to miss the chance of such a climb as this. by the time i had dressed, the thing was decided. i would see about guides, and try to arrange at once for the ascent. the thought had joy in it, and i ran downstairs, whistling the "alpine maid." the boy and i had settled overnight that we would drink our morning coffee and eat our rolls together, at a quarter to eight, long before the contessa or her friends had opened their eyes; but the appointed time was not yet come, and i had it in mind to make enquiries concerning my excursion, when i almost stumbled against the boy, coming in at the front door. "i've been out in the park," said he, when we had exchanged by way of greeting a "hello, boy" and "hello, man." "meet any chamois?" "yes." "honour bright? an inspection of the park from my window led me to fear that they must be an engaging myth. there's a fine big garden, with a lot of trees in it, but as for rocks or chamois----" "there are both. come out and i'll show you." i went, walking beside the boy along one well-kept path after another, until suddenly the bubble delusion broke. in a cage stood or sat, in various attitudes of bored dejection, five melancholy little animals with horns, and singularly large, prominent eyes. their aspect begged pardon for their degradation, as they turned their backs with weak scorn upon a toy rock in the centre of their prison. "we have reason to believe that we are well connected," they seemed to bleat, "because there is an ancient legend in our household that we are chamois, but you must not judge the family by us." "i believe," said the boy pitifully, "they've degenerated so far now, that, if one gave them mont blanc to bound upon, they wouldn't know what to do with it." "i would, however," said i, full of my project, "and i'm thinking of trying." "what do you meant" asked the boy, looking rather startled. "let's have breakfast out of doors on a little table under the trees, and i'll tell you. here's one in the shade, and away from the--er--a certain chamois-ness in the air." i pulled up chairs, and raised my hand to a hovering waiter. "what i mean to say is," i went on, "that i'm going to make the ascent as soon as i can arrange it. you won't mind waiting for me a couple of days, will you?--or, of course, you can travel with the contessa if you like. no doubt she would be delighted to have you." "you're going up--mont blanc?" "i am, my kid." "no." "why not?" "because--you might be killed." "good heavens, one would think i was icarus, gluing a pair of wax wings on to my shoulder-blades for a flight into ether. i'm not exactly a novice at the game, you know, though i haven't done any snow-climbing. why, you little donkey, you look pale. what's the matter with you?" "do you know what happened this morning--or rather last night?" the boy replied to my question with another. "did any of the hotel people tell you?" "no. don't be mysterious before breakfast. it isn't good for the digestion." "don't joke. i wasn't going to say anything about it till afterwards, in case you hadn't heard; but now i will. the _femme de chambre_ told me. the news has just come that a young guide has died of exhaustion on the mountain, between the observatory and the grands mulets. two others who were with him had to leave him lying dead, after dragging the body down a long way." at this inappropriate moment, our coffee, rolls, and honey were set before us, and the waiter, being an accomplished linguist, like most of his singularly gifted and enterprising kind, had heard and understood the last sentence. bursting with gruesome information, he could not resist lightening himself of the burden, for our benefit and his own. "you can see the dead man lying on the snow, far up on the mountain," said he eagerly, "if you go into the town and look through one of the telescopes. i have seen him already; he is like a small, dark packet on the white ground, wrapped in his coat." my appetite for breakfast suddenly dwindled, but not so my appetite for the climb. i was very sorry that a man had died on the mountain, but i could not bring him to life again by remaining on low levels, and so i remarked when the boy asked me if i were still in the same mind concerning the ascent. "i shall see about a guide directly after breakfast," said i, "and when you hear a cannon fired in the town announcing the arrival of a party at the top of mont blanc, you will know it is an echo of my shout of excelsior!" "no, i won't know it," returned the boy obstinately. "for one thing, the cannon might be fired for someone else, and besides, i won't be here." "oh, you'll go on with the contessa? but i shouldn't be surprised if she were good-natured enough to wait at chamounix to congratulate me when i come down." "no doubt she thinks enough of you to do that. but what i mean is this: if you go up mont blanc, i'm going too." "nonsense! you'll do nothing of the kind. you are a very plucky chap, but you're not a hercules yet, whatever you may develop into ten years from now. no minors are permitted to ascend mont blanc." "_that's_ nonsense, if you like! i shall go if you do." "i won't take you." "i don't ask you to. i shan't start until after you've gone, so, you see, you'll have no power to prevent me." "you are simply talking rot, my dear boy. good heavens, you'd die of mountain sickness or exhaustion before you were half-way up." "perhaps. i know very little about my ability as a climber, for i've never made any big ascents, though i've scrambled about in the mountains a little at home." "it would be madness for you to attempt such a thing. why, don't you know it taxes the endurance of a strong man? you've only lately recovered from an illness; you told me so yourself. i shan't allow you to----" "you're not my keeper, you know." "but we are friends, pals. i ask you, as a great favour, to be sensible, and----" "i asked you as a great favour not to go up mont blanc. things happen. i have a feeling that something might happen to you. i should be--wretched while you were gone. i couldn't sit still under the suspense, feeling as i do. so i would follow your example." "there'd be no danger for me. there might be death for you." "well, then, you can save my life if you like, by not going. if you don't go, i won't." "of all the brutal tyrants who have tyrannised over mankind----" "i heard you say once that you would like to have been a professional tyrant. why shouldn't i qualify for the part?" "you are cruel to put me in such a position." "you are cruel to make me do it, for your own selfish amusement." "by jove! you talk like an exacting woman!" the blood rushed to his face so hotly that it forced water into the brilliant eyes of wild-chicory blue. "if i were a woman i don't think i would be an exacting one. i should only want people i--liked, to do things because they cared about me, otherwise favours would be of no value. we're pals, as you say, great pals, but if you don't care enough----" "oh, hang it all, kid, i'll give the thing up," i broke in, crossly. "i'll potter about with you and the contessa in chamounix, and take some nice, pretty, proper walks. but all the same, you're a little brute." "do you hate me?" "not precisely. but if i stop down here, satan will certainly find mischief for my idle hands to do. i shall try to take your contessa away from you, perhaps." "oh, will you? then i shall try to keep her; and we shall see which is the better man." he rose from the table with a little swagger, ruffling it gaily in his triumph over me; and so young, so small he seemed, to be boasting of his manhood and his prowess in the warfare of love, that i burst out laughing. "come on," i said, "let's go and have a look round chamounix, since there's no better sport to be had." so we strolled out of the _vaste parc avec chamois_ into the streets of the gay and charming little town, lying like a bright crystal at the foot of mont blanc. round each of several big telescopes under striped canvas umbrellas, was collected a crowd. we could guess at what they were looking. "shall we stop and see that piteous dark packet lying lonely on the snow?" i asked, pausing. but the boy hurried on. "no, no," he said, "i should feel as if i had been spying on the dead through a keyhole. i want to buy something at the shops." "and i want to see the statue of horace de saussure, the first man who ever got to the top of mont blanc," said i, with reproachful meaning in my tone. the shops were almost as attractive as those of lucerne, and gave an air of modernity and civilisation to the little place, which would have been out of the picture, had it not contrived to suggest the piquancy of contrast. the boy spent a hundred francs for a silver chamois poised upon the apex of a perilous peak of uncut amethysts, mounted on ebony, and i was witty at the expense of his purchase, likening it to the white elephant of instantaneous breakfasts et cie., which i had long ago cast behind me. "you will be throwing your chamois away in a day or two," i prophesied, "or sending it back to our landlord to add to his collection of animals." "you will see that i shan't throw it away," the boy returned, and insisted upon carrying the parcel in his hand, instead of having it sent from the shop to the hotel. when we had learned something of the town we sauntered homeward; and seated in the _vaste parc_ with a novel and a red silk parasol, we found gaetà. "where have you been so early?" she asked. "to find a burnt-offering for your shrine," said the boy; and tearing off the white wrappings, he gave her the silver chamois. [illustration] chapter xix the little rift within the lute "there comes a mist, and a weeping rain, and nothing is ever the same again; alas!" --george macdonald. we devoted three days to some exquisite excursions, which more than half consoled me for sacrificing mont blanc to make a tyrant's holiday, and then decided to push on to aix-les-bains, stopping on the way for a glimpse of annecy. the contessa had planned to go from chamounix to aix by rail with her friends, but she had either fallen in love with our mode of travelling or pretended it. a hint to the boy, and fanny-anny was placed at her disposal for a ride from chamounix to annecy, a lady's saddle being easily picked up in a town of shops which miss no opportunities. as for the baron and baronessa, it was plain to see the drift of their minds. so angry were they at the change of programme, that it would have been a satisfaction to quarrel with gaetà, and leave her in a huff. but their devotion to paolo, which was almost pathetic, forbade them this form of self-indulgence. they curbed their annoyance with the bit of common-sense, though it galled their mouths, and consented to drive to annecy in a carriage provided by gaetà for their accommodation. they even constrained themselves to be civil to the boy and me, though their heavy politeness had the electrical quality of a lull before a storm. how that storm would break i could not foresee, but that it would presently burst above our heads i was sure. there was no longer a question that boy was hot favourite in the race for gaetà's smiles. there might have been betting on me for "place," but it would have been foolish to put money on my chances as winner. the young wretch scarcely gave me a chance for a word with the contessa, for if i walked on the left he walked on the right of her as she rode, his little brown hand on the new saddle, which had taken the place of the old one sent on to annecy by _grande vitesse_. i would have surrendered, being too lazy for a struggle, had i not been somewhat piqued by the boy's behaviour. he had affected not to care for gaetà at first, and had even feigned annoyance at the temporary addition to our party, while in reality he could have had little genuine wish for my society, or he would not now betray such eagerness in the game he was playing. the vague sense of wrong i suffered gave me a wish for reprisal of some sort, and the only one convenient at the moment was to prevent the offender from having a clear course. i found a certain mean pleasure in stirring the boy to jealousy by reviving, when i could, some half-dead ember of gaetà's former interest in me, and his face showed sometimes that my assiduity displeased him. this was encouragement to persevere, and i praised the contessa to him when we happened to be alone together. "you have a short memory it seems," said he. "you told me not so long ago that you'd been in love with a girl who jilted you. have you forgotten her already?" i winced under this thrust, but hoped that the boy did not see it. his stab reminded me that i had found very little time lately to regret miss blantock, now lady jerveyson; and molly winston's words recurred to me: "if i could only prove to you that you aren't and never have been in love with helen." i had retorted that to accomplish this would be difficult, and she had confidently replied that she would engage to do it, if i would "take her prescription." i had taken her prescription, and--indisputably the wound had become callous, though i was not prepared to admit that it had healed. however, if i had ceased actively to mourn the grocer's triumph, it was not gaetà who had wrought the magic change. what had caused it i was myself at a loss to understand, but i did not wish to argue the matter with the boy. he was welcome to think what he chose. "hearts are caught in the rebound sometimes, if for once a proverb can be right," said i evasively; though a few weeks ago, when molly had been constantly alluding to her friend mercédès, i had told myself that no one could achieve such a feat with mine. to this suggestion the boy made no response, save to tighten his lips, resolving, i supposed, that if hearts were flying about like shuttlecocks, his battledore should be ready to catch the contessa's. our road from chamounix to annecy led us past gorges and over high precipices and among noble mountains, but my mind was no longer in a condition to receive or retain strong impressions of natural beauty. i was irritable and "out of myself," vainly wishing back the days when the boy and i, undisturbed by feminine society, had travelled tranquilly, side by side, giving each other thought for thought. "nothing can be as it has been; better, so call it, only not the same," browning said; and so, i feared, it would be after this with me. we were all to stay at annecy for a night and a day, the contessa having announced that she and her friends would stop too; then gaetà and the others were to go on to aix-les-bains by rail, and the boy and i were to follow on foot, attended by our satellites. later, we were to spend a few days at the contessa's villa and get upon our way again, journeying south. but it did not seem to me that my little pal and i would ever be as we had been before, even though we walked from aix-les-bains all the way down to the riviera shoulder to shoulder. i had the will to be the same, but he was different now; and though we left gaetà in the flesh at her villa, entertaining guests, gaetà in the spirit would still flit between us as we went. the boy would be thinking of her; i should know that he was thinking of her, and--there would be an end of our confidences. the way, though kaleidoscopic with changing beauties, seemed long to annecy. by the time that we arrived, after two days' going, the contessa had eyes or dimples or laughter for no one but the boy. sometimes he was seized with sudden moods of rebellion against his new slavery, and was almost rude to her, saying things which she would not have forgiven readily from another, but the child-woman appeared to find a keen delight in forgiving him. seeing the preference bestowed upon the young american, paolo's brother and sister were inclined to make common cause with me. in the garden of the old-fashioned hotel at annecy where we all took up our headquarters, they came and encamped beside me, at a table near which i sat alone, smoking, after our first dinner in the place. a moment later gaetà passed with the boy, pacing slowly under the interlacing branches of the trees. "i believe that youth to be a fortune-hunter!" exclaimed the thin, dark baron. "you're wrong there," said i, "he's very rich." "at all events, it is ridiculous, this flirtation," exclaimed the plump baronessa. "he is a mere child. gaetà is making a fool of herself. you are her friend. you should see this and put a stop to the affair in some way." "as to that, many women marry men younger than themselves," i replied, willing to tease the lady, though i could have laughed aloud at the bare idea of marriage for the boy. "still," i went on more consolingly, "i hardly think it will come to anything serious between them." "ah, if you say that, you little know gaetà," protested gaetà's friend. "she is infatuated--infatuated with this youth of seventeen or eighteen, whom she insists, to justify her foolishness, is a year older than he can possibly be. something must be done, and soon, or she is capable of proposing to him, if he pretend to hang back." "something will be done, my dear; do not be unnecessarily excited," said the baron. "i fear we have not the full sympathy of lord lane." "if you mean, will i do anything to keep the two apart, i confess you haven't," i answered. "the contessa di ravello is her own mistress, and i should say if she wanted the moon, it would be bad for anyone who tried to keep her from getting it." [illustration: "here we were at annecy".] "we shall see," murmured the baron, as the boy had murmured a few days ago; and behind this hint also i felt that there lurked some definite plan. i had been to aix-les-bains years before, but it had not then occurred to me to visit annecy, so near by. it was the boy who had suggested coming, and we had planned excursions up the lake, looking out on our guide-book maps various spots of historic or picturesque interest which we should see _en route_, especially menthon, the birthplace of st. bernard. now, here we were at annecy, and in all the world there could not be a town more charming. by the placid blue lake--whose water, i am convinced, would still be the colour of melted turquoises if you corked it up in a bottle--you could wander along shadowed paths, strewn with the gold coin of sunshine, through a park of dells as bosky-green as the fair forest of arden. in the quaint, old-fashioned streets of the town you were tempted to pause at every other step for one more snap-shot. you longed to linger on the bridge and call up a passing panorama of historic pageants. all these things the boy and i would have done, and enjoyed peacefully, had we been alone, but gaetà elected to find annecy "dull." there was nothing to do but take walks, or sit by the lake, or drive for lunch to the beau rivage, or go out for an afternoon's trip in one of the little steamers. beautiful? oh, yes; but quiet places made one want to scream or stand on one's head when one had been in them a day or two. it would be much more amusing at aix. there were the casinos, and the _fêtes de nuit_, with lots of coloured lanterns in the gardens, and fireworks, and music; and then, the baccarat! that was amusing, if you liked, for half an hour, and when you were bored there was always something else. she must really get to aix, and see that the villa santa lucia was in order. we would promise--promise--_promise_ to follow at once? we would find our rooms at her villa ready, with flowers in them for a welcome, and we must not be too long on the way. gaetà left in the evening, the boy and i seeing her off at the train; and twelve hours later we started for châtelard, joseph taking us away from the highroads--which would have been perfect for molly's mercédès--along certain romantic by-paths which he knew from former journeys. conversation no longer made itself between us; we had to make it, and in the manufacturing process i mentioned my "friends who were motoring." "they may turn up before long now," i said, "judging from the plans they wrote of in a letter i had from them at aosta. it's just possible that they will pass through aix. you would like them." "i have run away from my own friends, and--gone rather far to do it," said the boy. "yet i seem destined to meet other people's. it was with very different intentions that i set out on this journey of mine." "'journeys end in lovers' meetings,'" i quoted carelessly. "perhaps yours will end so." "i thought i had done with lovers," said the boy, with one of his odd smiles. "you're not old enough to begin with them yet." "i was thinking of--my sister. her experience was a lesson in love i'm not likely to forget soon. yet sometimes i--i'm not sure i learned the lesson in the right way. but we won't talk of that. tell me about your friends. i'm becoming inured to social duties now." "you don't seem to find them too onerous. as for my friends--they're an old chum of mine, jack winston, and his bride of a few months, the most exquisite specimen of an american girl i ever met. perhaps you may have heard of her. she's the daughter of chauncey randolph, one of your millionaires. look out! was that a stone you stumbled over?" "yes. i gave my ankle a twist. it's all right now. i daresay my sister knows your friend." "i must ask molly winston, when i write, or see her. but you've never told me your sister's name, except that she's called 'princess.' if i say miss laurence----" "there are so many laurences. did you--ever mention in your letters to--your friends that you were--travelling with anyone?" "i haven't written to them since i knew your name, but before that, i told them there was a boy whom i had met by accident and chummed up with, just before aosta. i think i rather spread myself on a description of our meeting." "you _didn't_ do that! how horrid of you!" "oh, i put it right afterwards, i assure you, in another letter. i told them that in spite of the bad beginning, we'd become no end of pals. that we travelled together, stopped at the same hotels, and--what's the matter?" "nothing. my ankle does hurt a little, after all. shall you go on in your friends' motor car if you meet them?" he looked up at me very earnestly as he spoke. "at one time i thought of doing so, if we ran across each other. but now that i've got you----" "who knows how long we may have each other? either one of us may change his plans--suddenly. you mustn't count on me, lord lane." "look here," i said crossly, "do speak out. don't hint things. do you mean me to understand that you wish to stop at aix, indefinitely, and play out your little comedy of flirtation to its close?" "i don't know what i intend to do; now, less than ever," answered the boy in a very low voice, the shadow of his long lashes on his cheeks. i was too much hurt to question him further, and we pursued our way in silence, along the lake side, and then up the billowy lower slopes of the semnoz. we had showers of rain in the sunshine; and the long, thin spears of crystal glittered like spun glass, until dim clouds spread over the bright patches of blue, and the world grew mistily grey-green. we had planned long ago, before the spell of the contessa fell upon us, to make the journey we were taking now, by way of the semnoz, the so-called rigi of this alpine savoy, which is neither wholly french nor wholly italian. but we had abandoned the idea since, in a fine frenzy to keep our promise of rejoining her with all speed lest she perish alone in the icy disapproval of her friends. when the mists closed round us, we ceased to regret the decision, if we had regretted it; for instead of seeing savoy spread out beneath us, with its snow mountains and fertile valleys, lit with azure lakes--as many as the graces--we should have been wrapped in cloud blankets. after a walk of thirty-two kilometres, we came to châtelard, and, having known little or nothing of the town, we were surprised to find that most other people knew of it as a great centre for excursions. it was almost as unbelievable as that the places where we lived could possibly go on existing in exactly the same way during our absence. "there are actually three hotels, all said to be good," i remarked, quoting from my guide-book. "to which shall we go?" the boy hesitated. "choose which you like, for yourself," he replied with a slight appearance of embarrassment. "as for me, i will make up my mind--later." i could take this in but one way: as a snub. evidently he had selected this fashion of intimating to me the change that gaetà's intrusion had worked in our relations. i bit back a sharp word or two which i might have regretted by-and-bye, and answered not at all. in consequence of this little passage, however, the boy went to one hotel, and i to another, where i put joseph up also. a sense of loneliness was upon me, therefore my conscience stirred uneasily, and i reproached myself in that of late i had neglected the affairs of my muleteer. at one time he and i had conversed at length on such subjects as mules, women, perdition, and the like; but for many days now our intercourse had consisted mostly of a "good morning, joseph!" "good morning, monsieur!" to-night i sent for him, and enquired whether he had anything to wish for. "ah, monsieur, there is but one thing for which i ask at present," he said. "anything i can manage, joseph?" "i fear not, monsieur. it is the assurance that the poor young soul i am trying to lead out of darkness may reach the light before we have to part." "innocentina's?" "the same, monsieur." "you think her conversion within sight?" "just round the corner, if i may so express it." "yet i hear that she tells her employer she is devoting all her energies towards saving you from eternal fire. it was her excuse for letting the bag drop off souris' back without noticing it, and for allowing fanny's saddle to chafe." "ah, monsieur, women are ready with excuses. do you think i would permit any preoccupation of mine to interfere with the well-being of finois?" "even saving a pretty woman's soul? no, joseph, to do you justice, i don't. but i warn you, you may not have much more time before you to finish your good work. innocentina's employer and i may part company before long." though i smiled, i spoke heavily. joseph's melancholy dark face flushed, and the light died out of his eyes. "thank you, monsieur, i will do my best to be quick," said he, as if it had been a question of saddling finois, instead of rescuing a young lady from the clutches of the scarlet woman. whatever progress he had really been making with innocentina's soul, it was clear that she had been getting in some deadly work upon his honest heart. chapter xx the great paolo "condescension is an excellent thing; but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is."--r.l. stevenson. after i went to bed that night, i thought long and bitterly of the little pal's defection. mentally i addressed him as a young gazelle who had gladdened me with his soft dark eye, only to withdraw the light of that orb when it was most needed. as he apparently wished me to understand that, now he was on with gaetà, he would fain be off with me, i would take him not only at his word, but before it. i would make an excuse to avoid stopping at the contessa's villa, but would let him revel there alone in his glory; if one did not count the di nivolis. next morning we met by appointment at eight o'clock, and tried to behave as if nothing had happened; but i realised that i would have been a dead failure as an actor. i was grumpy and glum, and the coaxing, child-like ways which the boy used for my beguiling were in vain. i did not say anything about my change of plans for aix, but i brooded darkly upon them throughout the day, my mood eating away all pleasure in the charming scenery through which we passed, as a black worm eats into the heart of a cherry. we had about twenty-nine kilometres to go, and by the time that the shadows were growing long and blue, we were approaching aix-les-bains. nature had gone back to the simple apparel of her youth, here. she was idyllic and charming, but we were not to ask of her any more sensational splendours, by way of costume, for she had not brought them with her in her dress-basket. there were near green hills, and far blue mountains, and certain rocky eminences in the middle distance, but nothing of grandeur. poplars marched along with us on either side, primly on guard, and puritanical, though all the while their myriad little fingers seemed to twinkle over the keyboard of an invisible piano, playing a rapid waltz. then we came at last into aix-les-bains, where i had spent a merry month during a "long," in oxford days. i had not been back since. already the height of the season was over, for it was september now, but the gay little watering-place seemed crowded still, and in our knickerbockers, with our pack-mule and donkeys, and their attendants, we must have added a fantastic note to the dance-music which the very breezes play among tree-branches at light-hearted aix. "pretty, isn't it?" i remarked indifferently, as we passed through some of the most fashionable streets. "yes, very pretty," said the boy. "but what is there that one misses? there's something--i'm not sure what. is it that the place looks huddled together? you can't see its face, for its features. there are people like that. you are introduced to them; you think them charming; yet when you've been away for a little while you couldn't for your life recall the shape of their nose, or mouth, or eyes. i feel it is going to be so with aix, for me." the villa which the contessa had taken for a few weeks before her annual flitting for monte carlo, was on the way to marlioz, and we had been told exactly how to find it. still silent as to my ultimate intentions, i tramped along with the boy beside me, joseph and innocentina bringing up the rear. we would know the villa from the description we had been given, and having passed out of the town, we presently saw it; a little dun-coloured house, standing up slender and graceful among trees, like a charming grey rabbit on the watch by its hidden warren in the woods. "i'm tired, aren't you?" asked the boy. "i shall be glad to rest." now was my time. "i shan't be able to rest quite yet," said i, with a careless air. "i shall see you in, say 'how-de-do' to the contessa, and then i must be off to the hotel where i used to stop. i remember it as delightful." "why," exclaimed the boy blankly, "but i thought--i thought we were going to stay with the contessa!" "you are, but i'm not," i explained calmly. "my friends the winstons may very likely turn up at the same hotel" (this was true on the principle that anything, no matter how unexpected, _may_ happen); "and if they should, i'd want to be on the spot to give them a welcome. i wouldn't miss them for the world." "the contessa will be disappointed," said the boy slowly. "oh no, i don't think so; and if she is, a little, you will easily console her." "if i had dreamed that you wouldn't----" the boy began his sentence hastily, then cut it as quickly short. i opened the gate. we passed in together, joseph remaining outside according to my directions, keeping fanny-anny as well as finois, while innocentina followed the boy with the pack-donkey. a turn in the path brought us suddenly upon a lawn, surrounded with shrubbery which at first had hidden it from our view. there, under a huge crimson umbrella, rising flowerlike by its long slender stem from the smooth-shaven grass, sat four persons in basket chairs, round a small tea table. gaetà, in green as pale as undine's draperies, sprang up with a glad little cry to greet us. the baron and baronessa smiled bleak "society smiles," and a handsome, fair young man frankly glared. evidently this was the great paolo, master of the air and ships that sail therein; and as evidently he had heard of us. now i knew what the baron had meant when he said to his wife: "something _shall_ happen, my dear." he had telegraphed a danger-signal to paolo, and paolo had lost not a moment in responding. this looked as if paolo meant business in deadly earnest, where the contessa was concerned; for how many dinners and medals must he not have missed in paris, how many important persons in the air-world must he not have offended, by breaking his engagements in the hope of making one here? he was fair, with a latin fairness, this famous young man. there was nothing saxon or anglo-saxon about him. no one could possibly bestow him--in a guess--upon any other country than his native italy. he was thirty-one or two perhaps, long-limbed and wolfishly spare, like his elder brother, whom he resembled thus only. he had an eagle nose, prominent red lips, sulky and sensuous, a fine though narrow forehead under brown hair cut _en brosse_, a shade darker than the small, waxed moustache and pointed beard. his brows turned up slightly at the outer corners, and his heavy-lidded, tobacco-coloured eyes were bold, insolent, and passionate at the same time. this was the man who wished to marry butterfly gaetà, and who had come on the wings of the wind, in an airship "shod with fire," or in the _train de luxe_, to defend his rights against marauders. his look, travelling from me to the boy, and from the boy to innocentina and meek grey souris, was so eloquent of contempt passing words, that i should have wanted to knock the sprawling flannelled figure out of the basket chair, if i had not wanted still more to yell with laughter. he, the boy and i were like dogs from rival kennels eyeing each other over, and thinking poorly of the other's points. paolo di nivoli was doubtless saying to himself what a splendid fellow he was, and how well dressed and famous; also how absurd it really would be to fear one of us dusty, knickerbockered, thick-booted, panama-hatted louts, in the tournament of love. the donkey, too, with its pack, and innocentina with her toadstool hat, must have added for the aëronaut the last touch of shame to our environment. as for us,--if i may judge the boy by myself,--we were totting up against the italian his stiff crest of hair, for all the world like a toothbrush, rampant, gules; the smear of wax on the spikes of his unnecessarily fierce moustache; the ridiculous pinpoints of his narrow brown shoes; the flaunting newness of his white flannels: the detestable little tucks in his shirt; his pink necktie. in fact, each was despising the other for that on which the other prided himself. all this passed in a glance, but the frigid atmosphere grew no warmer for the introduction hastily effected by gaetà. to be sure, the boy bowed, i bowed, and paolo bowed the lowest of the trio, so that we saw the parting in his hair; but three honest snorts of defiance would have been no more unfriendly than our courtesies. not a doubt that gaetà felt the electricity in the air, with the instinct of a woman; but with the instinct of a born flirt, she thrilled with it. her colour rose; her warm eyes sparkled. she was perfectly happy; for--from her point of view--were there not here three male beings all secretly ready to fly at one another's throat for love of her; and what can a spoiled beauty want more? she covered the little awkwardness with charming tact, for all her childishness; and then the excuses i made for my defection caused a diversion. she was so sorry; it was really too bad. i was going to desert her for other friends. were not we friends, nice new friends, so much more interesting than old friends, whom you knew inside-out, like your frocks or your gloves? but surely, i would come often, very often to the villa--always for _déjeuner_ and _dîner_, till the other friends arrived, was it not? and i would not try to take signor boy (this was the name she had built on mine for him) away from her and the dear baronessa? i reassured her on this last point, promised everything she asked, and then got away as quickly as i could, lest i should disgrace myself by letting escape the wild laughter which i caged with difficulty. it was arranged that we should all meet that evening, after dinner, at the villa des fleurs, for one of those _fêtes de nuit_ which gaetà loved; and then i turned my back upon the group under the red umbrella, without a glance for the boy. i tramped into the town once more, with joseph close behind, leading his own finois and innocentina's fanny, and found my way to the hotel, in its large shady garden, where coloured lamps were already beginning to glow in the twilight. soon i had all the resources of civilisation at my command: a white-and-gold panelled suite, with a bath as big as a boudoir, and hot water enough to make of me a better man (i hoped) than paolo di nivoli. later i dined on the wide balcony, with flower-fragrance blowing towards me from the mysterious blue dusk of the garden. i ought, i said to myself, to be well-contented, for the dinner was excellent, and the surroundings a picture in aquarelles. still, i had a vague sense of something very wrong, such as a well brought up motor car must feel when it has a screw loose, and can't explain to the chauffeur. what was it? the boy's absence? nonsense; he didn't want me, rather the contrary. why should i want him? a few weeks ago i had not known that he existed. i drank a pint of dry champagne, iced almost to freezing point; but instead of hardening my heart against the ex-brat, to my annoyance the sparkling liquid gradually but surely produced the opposite effect. the fragrance of the flowers, the soft wind among the chestnut trees in the garden, the beauty of the night, all reproached me for my conduct to the young creature i had abandoned. what use was it to remind myself that i had merely taken a leaf out of his book, that i had even played into his hands, as he seemed to desire? the answer would come that he was a boy, and i a man. no matter what he had done, i ought not to have left him to flirt with gaetà under the jealous eyes of the italian, who was "a whirlwind, and caught a woman off her feet." it was too late now to think of this, for i had refused gaetà's invitation to visit at her house, and having done so i could not ask for another, even if i would. probably the boy would know well enough how far to go, and to protect himself from consequences when he had reached the limit. [illustration] chapter xxi the challenge "'do i indeed lack courage?' inquired mr. archer of himself, 'courage, . . . that does not fail a weasel or a rat- that is a brutish faculty?'"--r.l. stevenson. i drank my black coffee and smoked a cigarette. then, a glance at my watch told me that it was time to keep the appointment at the villa des fleurs, five minutes' walk from the hotel. i expected the contessa's party to be late, but somewhat to my surprise they had already arrived, and a quick glance showed me that, outwardly at least, the relations of all were still amicable. "signor boy did not wish to come," said the contessa to me, "but i made him. he says that he does not like crowds. look at him now; he has wandered far from us already, probably to find some dark corner where he can forget that there are too many people. but then, it was sweet of him to come at all, since it was only to please me." it was true. the boy had slipped away from the seats we had taken near the music. he had gone to avoid me, perhaps, i said to myself bitterly. i need not have spoiled my dinner with anxiety for his welfare; he seemed to be taking very good care of himself. "i was horribly worried at dinner," whispered gaetà to me, the light of the fireworks playing rosily over her face. "those two--you know of whom i speak--weren't a bit nice to each other. it was paolo who began it, of course, saying little, hateful things that sounded smooth, but had a second meaning; and signor boy is not stupid. he did not miss the bad intention, oh, not he, and he said other little things back again, much sharper and wittier than paolo, who was furious, and gnawed his lip. it was most exciting." "did you try to pour oil on the troubled waters?" i asked. "i was very pleasant to them both, if that is what you mean, first to one and then to the other. after dinner, i gave signor boy a rose, and paolo a gardenia." "how charming of you," i commented drily. "if that didn't smooth matters, what could?" the aëronaut was sitting on gaetà's left, i on her right, with the baronessa next me on the other side, and both were straining every nerve to hear our confidences, though pretending to be lost in admiration of the _feu d'artifice_. when the contessa laughed softly, her little dark head not far from my ear, the italian sprang up, and walked away, unable to endure five minutes of gaetà's neglect. she and i continued our conversation, though our eyes wandered, mine in search of the boy, hers i fancy in quest of the same object. soon i caught sight of the slim, youthful figure, in its rather fantastic evening dress, the becoming dinner-jacket, the eton collar, the loosely tied bow at the throat, and the full, black knickerbocker trousers, like those worn in the days of henri quatre. as i watched it moving through the crowd, and finally subsiding in a seat under an isolated tree, i saw the boyish form joined by a tall and manly one. paolo di nivoli had followed his young rival, and presently came to a stand close to the boy's chair. he folded his arms, and looked down into the eyes which were upturned in answer to some word. we could not see the expression of the two faces. we saw only that the man and the boy were talking, spasmodically at first, then continuously. "i do hope they're not quarrelling," said gaetà, in the seventh heaven of delight. "of course not," i replied, annoyed at her frivolity. "they are too sensible." "let us make some excuse, and go over to them," she pleaded. "i am tired of sitting still." there was nothing for it but to obey her whim. i took her across the grassy space which divided us from the two under the tree, and she began to chatter about the fireworks. what did signor boy think of them? was not aix a charming place? but abruptly, in the midst of her babble, paolo di nivoli swept her away from the boy and me, in his best "whirlwind" manner, which doubtless thrilled her with mingled terror and delight. "nice night, isn't it?" i remarked brilliantly. "yes," said the boy. "did the contessa give you a good dinner?" "no--yes--that is, i didn't notice." "perhaps that was natural." the boy did not answer, but i heard him swallow hard. he was on his feet now, having risen at gaetà's coming, and he stood kicking the grass with the point of his small patent-leather toe. then, suddenly, he looked up straight into my face, with big dilated eyes. "what's the matter?" i asked, when still he did not speak. "oh, man, i'm in _the most awful scrape_." "what's up?" "i should be thankful to tell you about it, and get your advice, if--you were like you used to be." "it's you who have changed, not i." "no, it's you." "don't let's dispute about it. tell me what's the trouble. has that bounder been cheeking you?" "worse than that. he said things that made me angry, and--then i checked him." "just now--under this tree?" "it began at dinner, a little. but the particular thing i'm speaking of happened here. i couldn't stand it, you know." "what did he say?" "he asked me how old i was, at first--in _such_ a tone! i answered that i was old enough to know my way about, i hoped. he said he should have thought not, as i travelled with my nurse. then he wanted to know what was in souris' pack, whether i carried condensed milk for my nursing-bottle. it was all i could do to keep from boxing his ears, before everyone, but i kept still, and laughed a little; presently i answered in a drawling sort of way, saying i needn't tell him that what souris carried was no affair of his, because when i came to think of it, after all it was quite natural that a great donkey should be interested in a small one." "by jove, you little fire-eater!" "well, i had to show him that i was an american, anyhow." "i suppose he was annoyed." "he was very much annoyed. man, he's challenged me to fight a duel. only think of it, a real duel! he said i'd have to fight, or he'd thrash me for a coward. i--it's a horrid scrape, but i don't see how i'm going to get out of it with--with honour. will you--if i do have to--but look here, i won't have him running me through with a _sword_, or anything of that sort. i'm afraid i couldn't face that. i wouldn't mind a revolver quite as much." "the big bully!" i exclaimed. "but of course it's all rot. there can be no question of your fighting him." "i don't know. i'd rather do that--if we could have pistols--than have him think an american--could be a coward. i'm not a coward, i hope, only--only i never thought of anything like this. he's going to send a friend of his to call on you, as a friend of mine, he said. i suppose that means a what-you-may-call-'em--a 'second,' doesn't it? if i must fight with him, man, you will be my second, won't you, and--and act for me, if that's the right word?" gazing up earnestly, his eyes very big, his face pale, he looked no more than fourteen, and the idea of a duel to the death between this child and gaetà's whirlwind would have been comic in the extreme, had i not been enraged with the whirlwind. "i'll be your friend, and get you out of the scrape," i said. "but it will mean that you must give up the contessa." "give up the contessa!" echoed the boy. "what do _i_ want with the contessa! i'm sick of the sight of her." "since when?" "since the first day we met. i don't think she's even pretty. what you can see in her, i don't know--the silly little giggling thing! there, it's out at last." "what i see in her?" i repeated. "i like that." "i always supposed you did. but i can't _stand_ her." "well, of all the---look here, why have you been hanging after her, if you--" "i didn't. i just wasn't going to let you make a fool of yourself over her, and then regret it afterwards. so i--i did my best to take her attention away from you, and i succeeded fairly well. it--vexed me to see you falling in love with her. she wasn't worth it." "there was never the remotest chance of my doing so." "you said there was." "i was chaffing, just to hear myself talk. i should have thought you would know that." "how could i know? you were always saying how pretty and dainty she was, and quoting poetry about her, while all the time i could read her shallow little mind, and see how different she was from what you imagined." "i think i have a fairly clear idea of her limitations." "but you told me that you'd planned to go down to monte carlo expressly to see the contessa; and you said that it would perhaps be a wise thing for you to try and fall in love with her." "if a man has to try and fall in love with a woman, he's pretty safe. you and i seem to have been playing at cross purposes, youngster. you thought i was in danger of falling in love, and i thought you were already in." "you _couldn't_ have believed it, really." "i did, and supposed you wanted me out of the way." "i was thinking the same thing about you. you did seem jealous and sulky." "i was both; but it was because our friendship had been interfered with, little pal." "oh, man, do you really mean that?" "every word of it. i wouldn't give up a talk with you for a kiss from the contessa, of which, by the way, i'm very unlikely to have the chance. but you----" "i've been miserable for the last few days. i--i missed you, man." "and i you, boy." "what an awful pity it is i've got to stand up and be shot, just as we're good friends again, and everything's all right!" "you've got to do nothing of the sort. _le cher_ paolo will, if he is really in earnest and not bluffing, send his friend to me, and matters will be settled, never fear." "i don't fear. at least, i--hope i don't--much. only i wasn't brought up to expect challenges to duels. they're not--in my line. but i won't apologise, whatever happens. no, i won't, i won't, _i won't_. i dare say it doesn't hurt much, being shot; and i suppose he wouldn't be so--so impolite as to shoot me in the face, would he?" "he is not going to shoot you anywhere," said i. "i am glad i told you. i was feeling--rather queer. what am i to do? am i to go back to the villa as if nothing had happened, or--what?" "'what' might mean coming to my hotel, but you seemed to find my society a bore." "that's unkind. it was your own fault that i went to a different hotel at châtelard." "how do you make that out?" "i can't tell you. i don't suppose you'll ever know. but if you should guess, by-and-bye, remembering something you once said, you might understand." "something i once said----" "never mind. please don't talk of it. i'd rather be shot at. but i want you to believe that my reason wasn't the one you thought. now, tell me what you're going to do about signor di nivoli. have you made a plan?" "one has popped into my head," i replied. "it mayn't answer, but will you give me _carte blanche_ to try? if it doesn't work, i'll get you out of the mess in another way. but this would give us a chance of making paolo eat humble pie." "do try it, then. i'd risk a lot for that." "as for to-night, on the whole i think the best thing will be for you to go back to the villa. of course we mustn't let the contessa suspect----" "little cat! i wouldn't give her the satisfaction." "upon my word, you're not very gallant." "i don't care. i'm sick of the contessa. a plague upon her, and all her houses. yet, i wish her nothing worse than that she should marry paolo. ugh! a man with his hair _en brosse_!" "probably he is saying, 'ugh! a boy with curls on his collar.'" "may one of his old balloons fly away with him, before he shoots me. anyhow, he shall find that curls don't make a coward. only--there's just one thing before you treat with him. i won't--i _can't_--be jabbed at with anything sharp." "you shan't," said i. with this, the contessa beckoned from a distance, with news that she was going home. we followed, the boy and i, allowing her to walk far ahead, with her triumphant aëronaut, the baron and baronessa, radiant with satisfaction in the success of their plot, arm in arm between the two couples. having seen my little daniel to the gate of the lions' den, i shook hands cordially with everybody, paolo last of all. he placed his fingers with haughty reluctance in my ostentatiously proffered palm, but i held the four chilly, fish-like things (chilly only for me) long enough to mutter, _sotto voce_: "i want a word with you on a matter of importance. i'll walk up and down the road for twenty minutes." his impulse was to refuse, i could see by the sharp upward toss of his chin. but a certain quality in my look, clearly visible to him in the light of the gate lamp (i was at some pains to produce the effect), warned him that if his bloodthirsty plans were not to be nipped in the red bud, he must bend his will to mine in this one instance. he answered with a glance, and i knew that i should not be kept long on my beat. chapter xxii an american custom "oh, have it your own way; i am too old a hand to argue with young gentlemen, . . . i have too much experience, thank you."--r.l. stevenson. five minutes, ten minutes passed, after the farewells. then, as i sauntered by on the other side of the way, i heard the sound of a foot on gravel, and paolo di nivoli appeared under the gate light. there he paused, expecting me to cross to him, but i allotted him the part of mahomet and selected for myself that of the mountain. shrugging his square shoulders, he came striding over the road to me; and i had scored one small victory. i hoped that i might take it for an omen. "i do not understand the nature of this appointment, monsieur," began the italian. "i intended to send my friend captain de sales to you to----" "ah, yes, that is the continental way in these little affairs," i ventured to interrupt him coolly. "on our side of the channel we are rather ignorant on such matters, i fear. but my young friend mr. laurence is an american." "do you mean that he will refuse to fight, after insulting me?" asked paolo, bristling. "not at all. he is very young, and this will be his first duel. he may have misunderstood your intentions. but i gathered from him that you had said he would have to fight; that you then requested him to name a friend to whom you could send a friend of yours----" "this is the fact. there was no misunderstanding. he named you." "yes; but as i said, he is an american." "what of that, since he will fight?" "as a duellist yourself, no doubt a successful one, you must be aware that such matters are conducted differently in the states." "i know nothing of that. i know only our own ways, which are good enough for me." "but my friend, being the challenged party, has the right, i believe, to choose the manner of duel." "that will be arranged between you and my friend, according to the choice of mr. laurence." "i must ask you to go slowly, just at this point. in the states, it is against the duelling code to have the details arranged by the friends of the principals. it is the principals themselves who do all that, and for the best of reasons. but as mr. laurence is a boy, and you are a man, it is but right that i should speak with you for him. you needn't send captain de sales to me. we are man to man, and in ten minutes we can have everything settled with fairness to both parties." "this is a new idea, monsieur, and i confess it does not commend itself to me," said paolo. "i suppose, however, you are anxious to fight?" "_sacré bleu_, but yes. the little jackanapes called me a donkey, and he had the impudence to allude to my invention as a 'balloon,' adding that there was little to choose between it and my head. _ciel!_ do i wish to fight?" "then, as you must grant him the privileges of the challenged party, i fear there is only one way of carrying this thing through. he is patriotic to a fault, and he will fight in the american fashion or not at all. i must say this is to the credit of his courage, as there is to me, an englishman, something appalling about the method. i trust that i'm not a coward, yet it would take all my nerve to face such an ordeal. no doubt, however, with the fiery latin races it is different." "i shall be glad of your explanation, monsieur. what is this method of which you speak?" "there are several small variations; there are the bits of paper; there are the matches; there are the beans of different size." "i am more in the dark than ever." "my friend proposes the bits of paper. two are taken, exactly resembling each other, except in length. both are placed inside a book, with an end, say an inch long, sticking out. you and mr. laurence draw simultaneously, that there can be no question of cheating. the one who draws the long bit lives--the other stands up to be shot, without defending himself." "_mon dieu_, how horrible! i would never submit to such a barbarous test. that is not a duel, it is murder." i shrugged my shoulders as gracefully, i flatter myself, as paolo himself could have done it. but for the moment paolo was in no shoulder-shrugging mood. his very crest--it seemed to me--was drooping. "nevertheless," said i, "that is the american idea of a duel, as practised in the best society. my friend is a member of the four hundred, and should it become known that he had been killed in an old-fashioned, butcherly duel, his memory would be disgraced." "but what about my memory?" demanded paolo, with open palms. "monsieur does not appear to think of that." "it was not on my mind. i am acting for my friend. you have challenged a boy, a mere child, to fight you to the death. he very pluckily accepts your challenge. there are those who would think that you had done a brutal, even a cowardly thing, in putting a youth of seventeen or eighteen into such a position. then, surely your most lenient friends would say that the least you could do would be to give the child his right of choice in weapons. very well; he chooses two bits of paper of different lengths." paolo shuddered. "i will not consent," he said, swallowing hard, after a moment's reflection. "very well. you have had my friend's ultimatum. am i to tell him that this is yours?" "it is not fair!" he exclaimed. "monsieur laurence has his friend to act for him. as yet, i have no one." "he is eighteen at most. you are--perhaps thirty. still, if you insist, i will see captain de sales, tell him my principal's idea, and perhaps he will be more fortunate in inducing you to consent----" "no, no," cried the italian quickly. "i would not have him or anyone know of this monstrous proposal. i should never hear the end of it, and there would be a thousand versions of the story." i was not surprised at this decision on his part. indeed, i had expected it with confidence. "you will not reconsider?" i asked nonchalantly. "jamais de la vie!" "then the duel is off." paolo swore. i smiled; but he did not see the smile. i was careful that he should not. "i consider that you and your principal have taken an unfair advantage." "that is between you and me. if you care to raise the question----" "i have no quarrel with you." "then you and mr. laurence must treat the misunderstanding of this evening as if it had not been. this will not be difficult, as he will go with me on an excursion to-morrow, now that his--er--engagement with you is off; and the day after, he and i think of leaving aix altogether, by way of mont revard." this plan arranged itself spontaneously; but as the boy had ungallantly called gaetà "a little cat," and i was slightly _blasé_ of her dimples, i thought that i might count upon its being carried out. "what--he will go away?" exclaimed paolo, all at once a different man. "he will leave aix altogether, you say?" "yes. you see, we are on our way south. mr. laurence merely wanted a glance at aix _en route_, and the contessa was kind enough to invite him to her house. it was really nice of her, as he is such a boy." "you think so? yes--perhaps. well, i consent on these terms to forget. you may tell your principal what i have said." "i will," i returned. "he will be guided by me, and forget also; though i assure you, like most of his countrymen, he is a fire-eater--a fire-eater." this time it was paolo who volunteered to shake hands. [illustration] chapter xxiii there is no such girl "she has forgotten my kisses, and i--have forgotten her name."--a.c. swinburne. i went early in the morning to the villa with the intention of culling the boy like a wayside flower, and carrying him off to the lake. the hour was unearthly for a morning call, and the windows were still asleep, but i was spared the necessity of raising the echoes with an untimely peal of the bell. under the red umbrella lounged the boy, reading with the appearance, at least, of nonchalance. for all he could tell, i might have failed in my mission, and have come to announce the hour fixed for deadly combat; but he was not even pale. indeed, i had never seen him rosier, or brighter-eyed. i sat down on the rustic seat beside him, and with a glance at the veiled windows of the villa, i remarked in a low voice, "it's all right." "that goes without saying." "why?" "because you promised." "thanks for the compliment. have you had your _café au lait_?" "no. i got up early, and thought of walking round to your hotel to see you, but decided i wouldn't." "i half expected you." "i didn't want to seem too--importunate. i hoped you'd come here." "like a promising child, i've justified your hopes. let's walk down to the grand port, to a garden restaurant i remember; and over our coffee, i'll tell you the story of my diplomatic _coup_. meanwhile, we'll discuss shakespeare and the musical glasses." "anything but the contessa," said the boy, springing up, and cramming his panama over his curls. "i shall breathe more freely on the other side of the gate, and i shan't consider myself out of the scrape until i'm out of her house for good." in the street he drew fuller breaths, and with each yard of distance that we put between ourselves and the villa his eyes grew brighter and his step more airy. i unfolded my plan for the morning, which was to take a trip up the lake to the abbey of hautecombe, and return in time for _déjeuner_, since, as a guest of the contessa, the boy could scarcely absent himself all day without conspicuous rudeness. "you'll have to be tied to the lady's apron strings, if she wants you knotted there, for the afternoon," said i. "but i'm going to have a telegram from my friends to meet them on the top of mont revard to-morrow, so if you want an excuse----" "what, your friends the winstons?" he broke in, with one of the sudden flaming blushes that made him seem so young. "yes, why not?" "they are coming to join you?" "i told you they might turn up at any moment, and----" "and now the moment has arrived. then it has also arrived for us to say good-bye." "do you mean that?" "oh, don't think me ungrateful--or ungracious. i'm neither. but, in any case, we must sooner or later have reached the parting of the ways. you are bound to monte carlo. i have--the vaguest plans." "i thought you said that your sister might be going there with friends." "but my sister and i are--very different persons." "surely you would wish to meet her there?" "it's rather undecided at present, anyhow," returned the boy, his eyes bent on the ground as we walked, our steps less sprightly now. "there's only one thing settled, which is, that i can't go with you up mont revard to meet--people." "there isn't the slightest chance of my meeting anyone there, friend diogenes," i began. "i was only waiting for you to give me time to explain, since you're inclined to be obtuse, the difference between sending a telegram to yourself, and----" "oh, i see. you aren't going to meet a soul on mont revard?" "not even an astral body--by appointment. and the plan was made for your deliverance. rather hard lines that you should kick at it." he looked up, laughing and merry once more. "i won't kick again. man, you are--well, you're different from other men. yes, from every other man i've ever met." "am i to take that as praise?" he nodded, his big eyes sending blue rays into mine. "thanks. best man you ever met?" another nod, and more colour in his cheeks. "good enough to be introduced to your sister?" "good enough--even for that." "what if i should fall in love with her?" the boy straightened his shoulders, after a slight start of surprise, and seemed to pull himself together. for a moment he was silent, as we walked on under the close-growing plane trees which lined the long, straight road to the grand port. then at last he said, "you wouldn't." "how can you tell that?" "because--she isn't--your style." "you don't know my 'style' of girl." "oh, yes, i do. don't you remember a talk we had, the first day we were friends? we told each other a lot of things. i can see that girl; the girl who--who----" "jilted me," i supplied. "don't hesitate to call a spade a spade." "a lovely, angelic-looking creature, typically english; golden hair; skin like cream and roses." "the type has palled upon me," said i. "i know now that molly winston--my friend's wife--was right. i never really loved that girl. it was her popularity and my own vanity that i was in love with." "are you sure?" "as sure as that i'm starving for my breakfast. if the young lady--she's married now, and i wish her all happiness--should appear before me at the end of this street, and sob out a confession of repentance for the past, it wouldn't in the least affect my appetite. i should tell her not to mind, and hurry on to join you at the corner." "you would have forgotten by that time that there was a me." "i can't think of anyone or anything at the moment which would make me forget that," said i. "the contessa?" "not she, nor any other pretty doll." "an earthquake, then?" "nor an earthquake: for i should probably occupy myself in trying to save your life. to tell the honest truth, little pal, you've become a confirmed habit with me, and i confess that the thought of finishing this tramp without you gave me a distinct shock, when you flung it at my head. if you were open to the idea of adoption, i think i should have to adopt you, you know: for, now that i've got used to seeing you about, it seems to me that, as certain advertisements say of the articles they recommend, no home would be complete without you. but there's your sister; she would object to annexation." the boy was busily kicking fallen leaves as he walked. "you might ask her--if you should ever see each other." "make her meet you at monte carlo, and introduce us there. i'll tell you what i'll do. i'll give a dinner at the hôtel de paris--the night after we arrive. it shall be in your hands, and of course your sister's, who ought to know your pal. you must try hard to get her to come. is it a bargain?" "i can't answer for her." "but i only ask you to try your hardest. come now, when i've told you about last night, you'll say i deserve a reward." "yes, i'll try." "but, by jove, i'd forgotten that your sister is an heiress," i went on. "i've vowed not to fall in love with a girl who has a lot of money." "i told you that you wouldn't fall in love with her." "is she like you?" "a good many people think so. that's why i'm so sure she wouldn't be the sort of girl you'd care for--you, a man who admires the english rose type or--a contessa." "the contessa was your affair. for me, a woman of her type could never be dangerous. whereas, a girl like your sister----" "still harping on my sister!" "i often think of her as 'the princess.' it's a pretty name. i fancy it suits her. once or twice, since we've been chums, you have had letters, i know. i hope you've better news of her?" "she's cured in body and mind. it is--rather a queer coincidence, perhaps, for like you, she has found out, so she tells me--that she wasn't really in love with--the man. she was only in love with love." "i'm heartily glad. if she's as true and brave a little soul, as glorious a pal as you are, she will one day make some fellow the happiest man alive." the boy did not answer. perhaps he was overwhelmed with the indirect praise suddenly heaped upon him; perhaps he thought that i spoke too freely of the princess his sister. i was not sure, myself, that i had not gone beyond good taste; but calling up the picture of a girl, resembling in character the little pal, had stirred me to sudden enthusiasm. fancy a girl looking at one with such eyes! a girl capable of being such a companion. it would not bear thinking of. there could be no such girl. i was glad that, at this moment, we arrived at the grand port, and the garden restaurant, where my regrets for the light that never was on land or sea--or in a girl's eyes--were temporarily drowned in _café au lait_. the talk was no more of the unseen princess, but of paolo. at last i condescended to enter into a detailed account of the night's happenings, where the aëronaut was concerned, and the boy threw up his chin, showing his little white teeth in a burst of laughter at my manoeuvre. "but that _isn't_ an american duel," he objected, still rippling with mirth. "you commit suicide, you know. the man who draws the short bit of paper agrees to go quietly off and kill himself decently somewhere, before the end of a stipulated time." "i'm aware of that, but i gambled on paolo's ignorance of the custom," said i. "i flattered myself that i'd totted up his character like a sum on a slate, and i acted on the estimate i formed. if i had kept entirely to facts, without giving the rein to my imagination, you might now be doomed to travel at this time next year to buda-pesth, and there drown yourself in the largest possible vat of beer. had paolo been unlucky in the matter of getting the short bit of paper, a little thing like that wouldn't have bothered him much. he would simply have gone off for a long trip in his newest air-ship, and conveniently forgotten such an obscure engagement. it was the thought of standing up defenceless, to be artistically potted at by you, that turned his heart to water." "i believe you're right, and anyway, you are very clever," said the boy. "what does one do for a man who has saved one's life?" "if you were only a girl, now--a princess in a fairy story--you would bestow upon me your hand," i replied gaily. "as it is--i can't at the moment think of a punishment to fit the crime." "though i can't be a princess, i might play the prince, and give you a ring," he said, pulling at the queer seal ring he always wore. "but it wouldn't fit the crime--i mean the finger." "mere mortals never argue when the fairy prince makes them a present. do take the ring. i should like you to have it to--remember me by." "to remember you by? but such chums as we have got to be don't give memory much pull; they arrange to see each other often." "fairy princes vanish sometimes, you know." "if i take your ring, will you appear if i rub it?" the boy was smiling, but his eyes looked grave. "if when the fairy prince has vanished--that is, if he _should_--you want to see him really badly, try rubbing the ring. it might work. but you'll probably lose the ring before that--and the memory." i answered by hooking the ring, which was far too small for the least of my fingers, into the spring-loop which held my watch on its chain. "my watch and i are one," i said. "only burglary or death can separate me from the ring now; and if i'm smashed next time jack winston lets me drive his motor car, there will probably be a romantic little paragraph in the papers--perhaps even a pathetic verse--about the ring on the dead man's watch-chain, which will give you every satisfaction." "the boat's whistling," said the boy. "we'd better run, if we want to see the abbey of hautecombe before lunch." we did run, and caught the boat in that uncertain and exciting manner which brings into play a physical appurtenance unrecognised by science, _i.e._, the skin of the teeth. under the awning which shaded the deck, we took the only two seats not occupied by an abnormally large german family,--abnormally large individually as well as collectively,--and settled ourselves for half an hour's enjoyment of a charming water-panorama. "what a heavenly place aix is!" exclaimed the boy fervently. "i'm so glad i came." "i thought yesterday that you were disappointed in the place." "oh, yesterday was yesterday. to-day's to-day. how glorious everything is, in the world. i do love living. and i like everybody so much. what nice, good creatures one's fellow beings are. my heart warms to them. i don't believe anybody's really horrid, through and through. i should like to pat somebody on the shoulder." "queer thing; i feel exactly the same way this morning," said i. "shall we throw ourselves on one another's bosom, and kiss each other on both cheeks, german fashion, to show our good will towards all mankind? i'm sure our travelling companions would warmly sympathize with our _schwärmerei_." "no-o, perhaps we'd better not risk setting them the example, for fear they should follow it." "then let's shake hands." he put out his little slim brown paw, and i seized it with such heartiness that he visibly winced, but not a squeak did the pain draw from him; and the large germans, looking on gravely, no doubt thought that, according to some queer english rite, we had registered an important vow. really the world was a nice place that day, though i might not have noticed it so much if the boy and i had been still at loggerheads. yesterday, as we entered aix, i had said to myself that the mountains surrounding the town had descended to depths of dumpy ugliness unworthy the name and dignity of mountains. i had formulated the idea that there should be world landscape-gardeners appointed, to work on a grand scale, and alter hills or mountains which nature had neglected or bungled. but to-day, as we steamed down the long, narrow lac de bourget, sitting shoulder to shoulder, the light breeze fluttering butterfly-wings against our faces, i could not see that there was anything for the most fastidious taste to alter, anywhere. as the lake at annecy had been incredibly blue, this lake was incredibly green. no weekly penny paper in england, even in its fattest holiday number, would have room enough to compute the vast number of emeralds which must have been melted to give that vivid tint to the sparkling water. it was as easy to see the inhabitants of the lake having their luncheon at the bottom, on tables exquisitely decorated with coloured pebbles, as it is to look in through the plate-glass window of a restaurant. as our course changed, the mountains girdling the lake and filling in the perspective, grouped themselves in graceful attitudes, like professional beauties sitting for their photographs. there were châteaux dotted here and there on the hillside, and i no longer peopled them with myself and helen blantock. i realised that if one had a palace on the lake of como or bourget, or any other romantic sheet of water, one could be happy as an elderly bachelor, if one's days were occasionally enlivened by visits from congenial friends, such as the winstons and the boy. no wonder that lamartine was happy at chatillon, writing his meditations! i felt that a long residence on the shores of the lac de bourget would inspire me to some modest meditations of my own, and i could even have taken down a few memoranda for them, had i not feared that the boy would laugh to see my notebook come out. i remembered hautecombe, with its ancient abbey, deep cream-coloured, like old ivory or the marbles of the vatican, glimmering among dark trees, and mirrored in the lake so clearly that, gazing long at the reflection, one felt as if standing on one's head. i pointed it out to the boy from a distance, on its jutting promontory, with the pride of the well-informed guide, and talked of the place with a superficial appearance of erudition. but after all, when he came to pin me down with questions, my bubble-reputation burst. not a date could i pump up from the drained depths of my recollection, and in the end i had to accept ignominiously from the boy such crumbs as he had collected from a guide-book larder. what was it to us, i contended, that the monastery was said to have been built in 1125? what did it matter that it had originally been the home of cistercians? why clog one's mind with such details, since it was enough for all purposes of romance to know that the old building had weathered many wars and many centuries, and that a special clause had protected the monks when savoie was ceded by italy to france? the great charm of the place for me, apart from its natural beauty, lay in the thought that it was the last home of dead kings, the vanished princes of savoie; i did not want to know the facts of its restoration at different dates, and would indeed shut my eyes upon all such traces if i could. though the abbey and its double in the lake had remained a picture in my mind, through the years since i had seen them, i was struck anew with the peaceful loveliness of the place as we approached the little landing-stage. the kings of savoie had chosen well in choosing to sleep their last sleep at hautecombe. the boy and i slowly ascended the deeply shadowed road which led up the hill to the abbey, but leisurely as we walked, we soon outpaced the germans. for this we were not sorry, since it gave us the silent grey church to ourselves--and the sleeping kings. we bestowed money for his charities upon the white-robed monk who would have shown us the tombs and the chapels, conscientiously gabbling history the while; and then, with compliments, we freed him from the duty. his hard facts would have been like dogs yapping at our heels, and, as the boy said, we would not have been able to hear ourselves think. we whispered as if fearing to wake the sleepers, as we wandered from one bed of marble in its dim niche, to another. never, perhaps, did so many crowned heads lie under the same roof as at peaceful hautecombe, sleeping longer, more soundly far, than the princess in her enchanted palace in the wood. for centuries the convent bells have rung, calling the monks to prayer; and sometimes the walls have trembled with the thunder of cannon: yet the sleepers have not stirred. there they have lain, those stately, royal figures, with hands folded placidly on placid bosoms, resting well after stress and storm. it was difficult to keep in mind that the real kings and queens had mouldered into dust under the stone where reposed their counterfeit presentments. again and again we had to send away the impression that we were looking at the actual bodies, transformed by the slow process of centuries into marble, together with their guardian lions, their favourite hounds, and their curly lambs. the endless slumber of these royal men and women of savoie seemed magical, mysterious. we felt that, if we but had the secret of the talisman, we could wake them; that they would slowly rise on elbow, and gaze at us, stony-eyed, and reproachful for shattering their dreams. the murmurous silence of the church whispered broken snatches of their life stories--not that part which we could read in history, or see graven in latin on their tombs, but that part of which they might choose to dream. had those knightly men in carven armour loved the marble ladies lying in stately right of possession by their sides, or had their fancy wandered to others whose dust lay now in some far, obscure corner of earth? if my homage could have compensated in any small degree for kingly unfaith, a drop of balm would have fallen upon the marble heart of each royal lady to whom such injustice had perchance been done; for i loved them all for their noble dignity, and the sweet femininity which remained to them even under the mask of stone. their names alone warmed the blood with the wine of romance: the princess yolande; the duchess beatrix; the lady melusine. surely, with such names and such profiles, they had been worth a man's living or dying for; and if life had not been so vivid for me that day, i should have wished myself back in the far past, in heavy, uncomfortable armour, fighting their battles. "'where are all the dear, dead women?'" asked the boy. "'what's become of all the gold that used to hang, and brush their shoulders?' maybe part of the answer to browning's question lies in those tombs." "they were princesses, like your sister," said i. "i've been fancying them with her eyes." "what do you know about her eyes?" he asked quickly. "i imagine them like yours." "let's get out into the sunshine again," said the boy. "i'm afraid it's time to leave the princesses, and go back to the contessa." [illustration] chapter xxiv the revenge of the mountain "contending with the fretful elements." --shakespeare. it is the early bird which gathers the worm, if the worm has thoughtlessly got up early too; but it is also the bird which comes flying from afar off, whatever his engagements elsewhere may be; the bird which, having come, remains on the spot favoured by the worm, singing sweet songs to charm it into a mood ripe for the gathering. such a bird was paolo, and such--but perhaps it would be more gallant not to carry the simile further, since even poetry could scarcely license it. it is enough to say, in proof of the proverb, that when the boy and i arrived at the villa in time for _déjeuner_, to which i had been invited over night, we found paolo with gaetà, under the red umbrella, unencumbered by any irrelevant barons or baronesses. gaetà was looking pale and a little frightened. her dimples were in abeyance, as if waiting to learn whether something had happened to twinkle about, or something which would more likely extinguish them forever. but the aëronaut might have invented an air-ship to take the place of ordinary channel traffic, so great with pride was he. he appeared to have grown several inches in height, and to have increased considerably in chest measurement, as he sprang from his chair to welcome us, as if we had been long-lost brothers. "congratulate me," said he. "the contessa has just consented to be my wife." gaetà clutched the arm of her rustic seat with a tiny hand upon which a new ring glittered, like a new star in the firmament. her warm dark eyes, eager, expectant, deliciously fearful, were on the boy. if the discarded favourite of yesterday had leaped to the throat of the accepted lover of to-day (her "whirlwind"), she would have screamed a silvery little scream and implored him for _her_ sake to accept the inevitable calmly; she would have given him a reproachful flash of the eyes, to say, "why didn't _you_ take me, instead of letting him carry me away? what could i do, when you left me alone, at his mercy--i so frail, he so big and strong?" her glance would then have telegraphed to paolo, "you have won me and my love; you can afford to spare a defeated rival who is desperate"; and perhaps she might even have thrown me a crumb for auld flirtation's sake. but the boy did not, apparently, feel the least magnetic attraction towards paolo's throat, or any other vulnerable part of the aëronaut's person. nor did he stamp on the ground, crying upon earth to open and swallow the master of the air. i, too, kept an unmoved front; but then, being english, that might have been pardoned to my national _sang-froid_. there was, however, no such excuse for the mercurial young american, and flat disappointment struck out the spark in gaetà's eye. the second act of her little drama seemed doomed to failure. "_mille congratulations_," said the boy cordially, i basely echoing him. we shook hands with gaetà; we shook hands with paolo, and something was said about weddings and wedding-cake. then the baron and baronessa appeared so opportunely as to give rise to the base suspicion that they had been eavesdropping. more polite things were mumbled, and we went to luncheon, gaetà on paolo's arm, with a disappointed droop of her pretty shoulders. we drank to the health and happiness of the newly affianced pair, a habit which seemed to be growing upon me of late, and might lead me down the fatal grade of bachelordom. the boy and i were unable to conceal, as we ought to have done out of politeness, the fact that our appetites had sustained the shock of our lady's engagement, and i saw in her eyes that she could never wholly forgive us, no, not even if we made love to her after marriage. "shall you take your wedding trip in a balloon?" asked the boy demurely; and this was the last straw. gaetà did not make the faintest protest when, soon after, it was announced that he and i thought of leaving aix on the morrow. i am not sure that she even heard my vague apologies concerning a telegram from friends. we all went to the opera at one of the casinos that night. it was "rigoletto," and gaetà and paolo sat side by side, looking into each other's eyes during the love scene in the first act. but the boy was adamant, and i did not turn a hair. he and i were much occupied in wondering at the strange infatuation of the stage hero, but especially the villain--quite a superior villain--for the heroine, who looked like an elderly papoose: therefore we had no time to be jealous of anything that went on under our noses. the party supped with me, _en masse_, at my hotel; and afterwards i said good-bye to gaetà. she did not know that i had planned my journey with a thought of seeing her at the end, and drowning my sorrows in flirtation; but the boy knew, and had not forgotten--the little wretch. i saw his thought twinkling in his eyes, as i said debonairly that we might all meet on the riviera. if i had not sternly removed my gaze, i should probably have burst out laughing, and precipitated a second duel in which i, and not the boy, would have been a principal. when i had been in aix-les-bains before, i had made the excursion to mont revard, as all the world makes it, by the funicular railway; and after half an hour in the little train, i had arrived at the top for lunch and the view, both being enjoyed in a conventional manner. now, all was to be changed. the boy and i did not regard ourselves as tourists, but as pilgrims. among other things that self-respecting pilgrims cannot do, is to ascend a mountain by means of a funicular railway; better stay at the bottom, and look up with reverence. therefore, instead of strolling out to the little station about twelve o'clock, with the view of reaching the restaurant on the plateau in time for _déjeuner_, we met on the balcony of the bristol at seven in the morning. there we fortified ourselves for a long walk, with eggs and _café au lait_, while innocentina and joseph grouped the animals at the foot of the steps. the day was divinely young, and most divinely fair, when we set forth. only the soft fall of an occasional leaf, weary of keeping up appearances on no visible means of support, told that autumn had come. the weather put me in mind of a beautiful woman of forty, who can still cheat the world into believing that she is in the full summer of her prime, and is making the most of the few good years left before the crash. as we struck up the steep hill that leads out of aix-les-bains and civilisation, passing with all our little procession into the oak copses which fringe the lower slopes of mont revard, the boy and i agreed that nothing became the town so well as the leaving it behind. at last little aix unveiled her face to us, as we looked down upon it from airy altitudes. we had space to see how pretty she was, how charmingly she was dressed, and how gracefully she sat in her mountain-backed chair, with her dainty white feet in the lake, which, as joseph said, we could now follow with our eyes _dans toute son étendue_. a beautiful _étendue_ it was, the water keeping its extraordinary brilliance of colour, even in the far distance; vivid in changing blue-greens, flecked with gold, like the spread tail of a peacock burnished by the sun. mont revard is chiselled on the same pattern as all the other mountains, big and little, of this part of savoie; first, the long, steep slope decently covered with a belt of wood, oak below, and pine above; then a grey, precipitous wall, scarred and furrowed by the frost and storm of a million years or more. this block-and-socket arrangement of nature is, generally speaking, one of the least interesting of mountain forms, and its crudity was the more noticeable as we were fresh from the soaring pinnacles and stupendous pyramids of switzerland. but mont revard is the perfection of its type; and as we plodded in single file up the threadlike path wound round the mountain (joseph and innocentina in front, driving the animals), my respect for revard increased with each steeply ascending step. aromatic-scented branches brushed our faces, and we had to part them before we could pass on. then they flew back into their accustomed places, resenting our intrusion by shaking over us a shower of fragrant dew. the path, which was always narrow, had fallen away a little here and there, for it is no one's business to repair it now, since the making of the railway has turned pilgrims into tourists. there was just room for man or beast to walk without danger, but so sheer were the descents below us, so great the drop, that a woman might have been pardoned a few tremors. "it's a good thing you're not a girl," said i to the little pal, across my shoulder, holding back a particularly obstinate branch which would have liked to push us over the precipice, with its lean black arm. "you would be screaming, and i shouldn't know what to do for you." "not if i were an american girl," he replied, bristling with patriotism. "is your sister plucky?" "as plucky as i am; but perhaps that's not saying much. so you're glad i'm not a girl?" "i wouldn't metamorphose you, and lose my comrade. still, if your sister were like you, and not an heiress, i should----" "you would--what?" "like to meet her. but she would probably detest me, and wonder how her brother could have endured my society for weeks on end." i was looking back, as i spoke, at the boy, who was close behind, when suddenly his smile seemed to freeze, and springing forward he caught me by the coat sleeve. "what's the matter?" i asked, for he was pale under the brown tan. for an instant he did not answer. then, with his lips trembling slightly, he smiled again. "i thought you were going to be killed, that's all," said he, "so i stopped you. you were looking back at me, but i saw that--that you were just going to tread on a stone which fanny had loosened with her hoof as she passed. if you had stepped there, before you could regain your balance, you--but there's no use talking of it. only do look where you're walking, won't you, when we're on a path like this? now we can go on." "why, you little duffer, you're as white as a ghost!" i exclaimed. "if the stone had slipped i should have jumped back. the path isn't really so narrow. it only gives that effect because it's steep, and hangs over the edge of a precipice. still, many thanks for your solicitude." "i believe, after all, i'll have to rest for a minute," the boy said apologetically. "i feel--a little queer. you needn't wait. i'm sorry you should see me like this. you'll think that there's nothing to choose between me and a girl. but i'm not always a coward." "i know that well enough," i assured him. "you're not a coward now. but come on. you shall rest when the path widens, where the others are stopping." i caught his hand to pull him along, since we could not walk abreast, and it was icy cold. yet it was not for himself that he had feared, and my heart was very warm for the little pal, as i steered him carefully past the loose, flat stone on the edge of the narrow path. joseph and innocentina, who had been driving finois and souris, allowing fanny to follow at will, had called a halt with the three animals, in a green dell where the way widened. the muleteer had a handful of exquisite pink cyclamen, fragrant as violets, which he had been gathering from hidden nooks among the rocks, and he was in the act of presenting the flowers to innocentina when we arrived, but she waved them aside, exclaiming at her young master's pale face. the boy explained that there might have been an accident, owing to fanny, and the donkey girl broke into violent abuse of the brown velvet creature who was her favourite. "daughter of a thrice-accursed mother, and of a despicable race!" she cried in her odd patois, which it was often better not to understand too well. "blighted and bloodthirsty beast! but look at her now, eating with an enormous appetite a branch as big as herself. anaconda! she would eat if the world burned. if she had, with a stroke of her twenty times condemned hoof, hurled us all to death on the rocks below, she would still eat, not even looking over the cliff to see what had become of us." "but you should not talk so," broke in joseph, lover of animals. "it was not the fault of the little _âne_ that the stone was loosened. how could she know? it is you who are hard of heart, to turn upon her thus. it is because you are catholic, and believe that the beasts have no souls." "it is better to have none than to be a heretic, and the soul burn," retorted innocentina. "i am not hard-hearted. i love my young monsieur, and would not see him injured, that is all; while you care for nothing in the world so much as your old finois. ah, i would i had the _insouciance_ of the _ânes_. it is after all that which keeps them young." at this we laughed, which annoyed innocentina so much that she at once fed to the maligned fanny a bunch of charming yellow-pink mushrooms which my prophetic soul told me had been originally intended for her master's lunch. fortunately for us, joseph--sadly wearing in his buttonhole the despised cyclamen--discovered a few more of these agreeable little vegetables, which he tested for our benefit by drawing his sturdy thumbnail along the stem, showing how the fluted undersurface flushed red at the touch, while the blood flowed carmine from the wound he made. a short rest brought the colour back to the boy's lips, but we did not go on again until we had eaten some of the chicken sandwiches which had been put up for me at the hotel. climbing had made us hungry, although we had not been three hours on the way. and we had left the summer behind, on lower levels; we did not need to remind ourselves now that it was autumn. by noon we were _en route_ again, but the brilliance of the day had gone. as we looked back at the world we were leaving, serrated mountains were dark against flying silver clouds, and when we neared the col, a fierce north wind, which had been lying in wait for us above, swooped down like a great bird of prey. we had heard it shrieking from afar, but now we had penetrated into its very eyrie; and as we crept, like flies upon a wall, along the tiny path which merely roughened the sheer rock precipice, the wind caught and clawed us with savage glee. for a wonder, the much-travelled joseph had never before made the ascent of mont revard, therefore a certain pioneer instinct on which i pride myself, and yesterday's research in the admirable map of the ministry of the interior, alone gave us guidance. i did not see how we could have come wrong, yet each moment it appeared that our neglected path had reached its end, like an unwound tape-measure. could it be possible that this broken, ill-mended thread was the clue which would eventually lead us to the col de pertuiset, and the châlet-hotel far away upon the summit of the mountain? the boy and i were ahead now, i sheltering him slightly from the cold blast with my body, as i walked before him. presently the way turned abruptly, to zig-zag up a gap in the rock face, and i shouted a warning to joseph to look after innocentina and the animals, so steep and ruinous was the path. but i need not have been alarmed. a backward glance showed me that joseph had anticipated my instructions, so far as innocentina was concerned. not a word of complaint came from the boy; indeed, it would have been difficult for him to utter it, even if he would, with the wind rudely pressing its seal upon his lips. but i held out a hand to him, and though he rebelled at first, an instant's silent tussle made me master of his, so that i could pull him up with little effort on his part. in the deep gullies and hollows of this chasm below the col, the wind had us at its mercy, and forced our breath down our throats. we were in deep shadow, though the sun should have been not far past the zenith, and looking up to learn the reason, we saw that a huge bank of woolly mist hung grey and heavy between us and the sky. below--far, far below--we had a glimpse of the world we had left still bathed in september sunshine, warm and beautiful, with cloud-shadows flying over low grass mountains and distant lakes. then we seemed to knock our heads against a dull grey ceiling, which noiselessly crumbled round us, and we were in the mist. no longer was it a ceiling, but a sea in which we swam; a sea so cold that a shiver crept through our bones into our marrow. we had escaped the clutches of the wind, to drown in fog, and in five minutes i had beside me a small, ghostly form with frosted hair, and a white rime on his jacket. the boy was like a figure on a great iced cake, for the ground was whitened too. luckily, the ascent was over, and we were on grassy, undulating land where stunted trees stood here and there like pointing wraiths in the misty gloom. dimly i could see, now and then, a daub of paint, red as a splash of blood, on a dark boulder, to guide travellers towards the summit hotel. had it not been for these, it would have been impossible to find the way, or keep it if found. we could walk side by side here, and looking down at the boy, i could see that he was shivering. "can it be that a few hours ago the mere exertion of walking made us so hot that we had to mop our foreheads, and fan ourselves with our hats?" i asked. "let's talk about it," said the boy. "it may warm us, just to remember." "are you very cold?" "not so ve-r-y." "your teeth are chattering in your head. stop, we'll have our overcoats out of the packs." "i don't want mine." "nonsense; you must have it." "to tell the truth, i haven't got it with me. i gave it to the upstairs waiter at chamounix. he told me a lot about himself, and he was in trouble, poor fellow; he'd been discharged for some fault or other, and was so poor that he was going to walk home, in the farthest part of switzerland. you see, i thought as i was on the way south, i wouldn't need an overcoat. i'd hardly ever wanted it so far, and the waiter was a small, slim chap, not much bigger than i am. anyhow, we shall soon be at the hotel now, and we can walk fast." he looked so white and spirit-like in the mist, with his big bright eyes made brighter by the tired shadows underneath, that i would not discourage him with the truth. if i had said that i feared we were lost in the mist, and perhaps might not reach the hotel for hours, he would have realised all his weariness and suffering. i made him wait, however, and when the ghostly procession of man, woman, and beasts had trailed up to us, i ordered a stop for finois to be unloaded, that my overcoat might be unearthed. in place of the workmanlike pack which the mule might have borne, had i not insisted on fulfilling a rash vow, my luggage was contained in twin brown hold-alls bought at martigny, and covered with a waterproof cloth which was the property of joseph. both these abominable rolls had to be taken off finois' back and laid upon the whitened grass, as i had forgotten in which one was stuffed the coat that i had not worn for many days. now at this bitter moment, could my valet but have known it, he had his full revenge. i longed for him as a thirsty traveller in the desert longs for a spring of water. yet i knew, deep down in my desolate heart, that locker would not have been able to cope with this crisis. in cities, he was more efficient than most of his kind, but the unusual was a bugbear to him; and, lost in a freezing mountain mist, he would have lain down to die with my horrible hold-alls still strapped and bulging. it is a strange thing that most servants would consider themselves deeply injured if asked to bear half the hardships which their masters cheerfully undergo for the sheer fun of the thing. joseph came to my rescue, but, with all the good will in the world, he complicated matters. finois, fanny, and souris pressed nearer, hoping for something to eat, and the two donkeys, discouraged and disheartened by the unexpected cold, were piteous, shivering objects, with their velvet hair bristling on end, their little legs knocking together. even their faces seemed to have shrunk, and fanny was all eyes and grey spectacles. i opened the hateful object which, by its tuberculous knobs, i recognised as the one least often unpacked. it was there that i expected to find the coat, wrapped democratically round goodness knew how many spare boots, stockings, collars, and other small articles which locker would never have allowed to come within speaking distance of each other. but, with the total depravity of inanimate things, the coat had escaped from the hold-all. in my certainty that i must come upon it sooner or later--at the bottom of everything, of course--i scattered the other contents recklessly about; and when at last i gave up the search in despair, the white ground was strewn with the most intimate accessories of my toilet. seized with a berserker rage, i tore open the second hold-all, and before the boy could utter a cry of protest, more collars, handkerchiefs, brushes, and little horrors of every description peppered the earth. there were as many things there as the inestimable mother of the swiss family robinson contrived to stow in her wonderful bag during the five minutes before the shipwreck--things which fulfilled all the wants of the young robinsons for the period of seventeen years. but, naturally, the one thing i needed was missing; and now that it was too late, i vaguely recalled seeing that overcoat hanging limply on a peg in the wardrobe of some hotel whose very name i had now forgotten. if i had been a woman, i should inevitably have burst into tears, and somebody would have comforted me, and everything would immediately have been all right. as it was, i used several of innocentina's most lurid phrases, under my breath, and announced my intention of abandoning my luggage on the mountain-side, rather than attempt the impossible task of feeding it again to the monsters which had disgorged it. "poor man!" exclaimed the boy. "why didn't you confide to me before, that you were physically and mentally incapable of packing? i've often noticed that your hold-alls looked like overfed boa constrictors, but i didn't dream things were as bad as this. you had better let innocentina and me do the work for you. we're what you call 'nailers' at it, i assure you." i made a snatch at a dressing-gown, which i rescued from the conglomerate heap before he could push me away. then, with the garment hung over my arm, i stood by helplessly with joseph, while innocentina and the boy, with incredible swiftness and skill, set about the business from which i had been dismissed. somewhat after this fashion must the work of creation have been done, when there was only chaos to begin upon. in five minutes all my scattered horrors had been sorted neatly, according to their species, like the animals forming in procession for the ark; collars after their kind; boots after their kind; and so on, down to the humble shoestring and mean shirt-stud. never had those loathsome inventions of an evil mind, my hold-alls, so closely resembled self-respecting members of the luggage fraternity as they did when the boy and innocentina had finished with them. with a sigh of relief the little pal jumped up from his grim task, leaving joseph to fasten the straps; and as he got to his feet, his small hands purple with cold, i wrapped the dressing-gown round his shoulders. then, seeing his slight figure engulfed in it, like a very small pea in a very big pod, i burst out laughing. "is _that_ what you wanted?" cried the boy. "i won't have it. i won't! i'd rather freeze than be a guy. put it on yourself." "i don't need it. it was for you. don't be ungrateful, after all my trouble." "all _my_ trouble, you mean. take off the horrid thing. i won't wear it. let me alone." unmoved by his complaints, i still held him prisoner, using the dressing-gown as a strait-jacket, while he fought in my grasp. a sudden suppressed giggle from innocentina at this juncture seemed to drive him to frenzy. "if you don't let me go, i'll--i'll box your ears!" he stammered. "try it," i advised sternly. he could not move his arms, so closely i held him, but his eyes were blazing. "you'll be sorry for this some day," he panted. "will you keep on the dressing-gown, if i let you go?". "no." "then will you wear my coat?" "what! and have you in your shirt-sleeves? rather not. let me----" "i'll give you the coat and wear the dressing-gown myself. _i'm_ not as vain as a girl." whether the thought of what my appearance would be in the gown, or the taunt i flung at him, moved the boy, i cannot say, but suddenly his struggles ceased. "i'll wear anything you like," said he with a sudden accession of meekness, so unexpected that i was alarmed for his health, and gazed at him closely to see if he were on the verge of a collapse. instead of looking ill, however, he was no longer pinched and pallid, but radiant with colour. rage had produced a beneficial effect upon his circulation. on his promise, i released him, nor did i insist when he waved me aside, and hurriedly girded up the dressing-gown himself. the garment reached almost to his feet, and the quaintness of the little figure shrouded in its dark folds and hatted with panama straw, in the midst of a mountain snow-cloud, was a sight to make fanny laugh; but i kept a grave face, and so did joseph and innocentina, though the donkey-girl's eyes were bright. we marched on again when finois had been reloaded, the party keeping well together, lest we should lose each other in this mist which was snow, this snow which was mist. the boy and i walked ahead at first; i silent lest i should laugh, he silent--probably--lest he should cry. the woolly cloud wrapped its folds round us thicker and closer, so that objects a dozen feet away were blotted out of sight, and for all practical purposes ceased to exist. the silvery rime, freezing as it fell, covered stones and boulders so that it was no longer possible to see the red splashes which marked the way. soon, we were hopelessly lost, plunging down into grassy hollows, where our feet slipped between rough stones into muddy ruts concealed under a treacherous film of white, or plodding up to the top of knolls which proved to have no connection with anything else, when we had toilsomely attained them. by-and-bye i knew how a man feels in a treadmill, and i was anxious for the boy's sake, seeing the queer little figure in the panama and dressing-gown gradually droop, despite the brave spirit with which it was animated. losing confidence in my boasted ability as a pioneer, i called joseph to the rescue, and bade him take the lead. having intruded upon him suddenly, behind the screen of snow-cloud, i found him engaged in the samaritan act--no doubt carried out on purely humanitarian principles--of warming one of innocentina's hands in his. i simulated blindness with such histrionic skill that honest joseph was deceived thereby; but not so innocentina. she tossed her head, and folded her arms in her cape as if it had been the toga of a roman senator unjustly accused of treason. she had been, so she assured me, at that instant on the point of coming forward to entreat her young monsieur to mount fanny, since he must be deadly tired; but the boy, joining us at the moment, denied excessive fatigue and said that he would freeze if he rode. besides, he added, it would be cruel to burden fanny, in her present state of depression. the most likely thing was that we should have to carry her; and if she continued to shrink at her present rate per minute, soon we could slip her into one of our pockets. joseph, promoted to the post of honour, forged ahead; and either fanny and souris insisted upon following finois, or else innocentina felt called upon to continue the process of conversion even in adverse circumstances; at all events, the boy and i almost immediately found ourselves in the background, all that we could see of our companions being a tassel-like grey tail quivering above a moving blur of little legs, scarcely thicker than toothpicks. the boy, who was still sulking in the dressing-gown, suddenly broke by a spasmodic chuckle the silence which had blended chillingly with the weather. "what's up?" i enquired, thawing joyously in the brief gleam of moral sunshine. "i was only thinking that if innocentina wants to convert joseph from heresy she'd better not lecture him to-day about eternal fire. the idea is too inviting. i never envied anyone so much as my namesake, st. laurence, on his gridiron. it would be a luxury to grill." "perhaps the gridiron was to him what my dressing-gown is to you," said i. "i'm getting resigned to it. that's the reason i'm talking to you. i hated you for five minutes; but--you never like people so much as when you've just finished hating them." "which means that i'm forgiven?" "that, and something more." "good imp! the thermometer is rising. but i feel a beast to have got you into this scrape. if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have known that a mule-path existed on mont revard." "i'm not sorry we came. this will be something to remember always. it's a real adventure. afterwards we shall get the point of view." "i wish we could get one now," said i. "but the prospect isn't cheerful. molly winston's prophecy is being fulfilled. she was certain that sooner or later i should be lost on a mountain; and her sketch of me, curled up in sleeping-sack and tent, toasting my toes before a fire of twigs, and eating tinned soup, steaming hot, made me long to lose myself immediately. but, alas! a peasant child near piedimulera is basking at this moment in my woolly sack, and battening on my instantaneous breakfasts." "don't think of them," said the boy. "that way madness lies. a chapter in my book shall be called, 'how to be happy though freezing.'" "what would be your definition of the state, precisely?" "being with somebody you--like." my temperature bounded up several degrees, thanks to these amends, but our sole comfort was in each other, since joseph had no hope to give. at this moment he parted the mist-curtain to remark that he could find no traces of a path or landmark of any kind. hours dragged on, and we were still wandering aimlessly, as one wanders in a troubled dream. we were chilled to the bone, and as it was by this time late in the afternoon, i began to fear that we should have to spend the night on the mountain-side. revard was wreaking vengeance upon us for taking his name in vain. we had made naught of him as a mountain; now he was showing us that, were he sixteen thousand feet high instead of four, he could scarcely put us to more serious inconvenience. i was growing gravely anxious about the boy, though the bitter cold and great fatigue had not quenched his spirit, when the smell of cattle and the muffled sound of human voices put life into the chill, dead body of the mist. a house loomed before us, and i sprang to the comforting conclusion that we had stumbled upon one of the outlying offices of the hotel, but an instant showed me my mistake. the low building was a rough stone châlet with two or three cowherds outside the door, and these men stared in surprise and curiosity at our ghostly party. "are we far from the hotel?" i asked in french, but no gleam of understanding lightened their faces; and it was not until joseph had addressed them in the most extraordinary patois i had ever heard, that they showed signs of intelligence. "hoo-a-long, hoo-a-long, walla-ha?" he remarked, or words to that effect. "squall-a-doo, soo-a-lone, bolla-hang," returned one of the men, suddenly wound up to gesticulate with violence. "he says that the hotel is about half an hour's walk from here," joseph explained to me, looking wistful. and my own feelings gave me the clue to that look's significance. "thank goodness!" i exclaimed heartily. "but it would be tempting providence to pass this house, which is at least a human habitation, without resting and warming the blood in our veins. perhaps we can get something to eat for ourselves and the donkeys--to say nothing of something to drink." another exchange of words like brickbats afforded us the information, when translated, that we could obtain black bread, cheese, and brandy; also that we were welcome to sit before the fire. i pushed the boy in ahead of me, but he fell back. the stench which struck us in the face as the door opened was like an evil-smelling pillow, thrown with good aim by an unseen hand. mankind, dog-kind, cow-kind, chicken-kind, and cheese-kind, together with many ingredients unknown to science, combined in the making of this composite odour, and its strength sent the boy reeling into my arms. "no, i can't stand it," he gasped. "i shall faint. better freeze than suffocate." but i forced him in; and in five minutes, to our own self-loathing, we had become almost inured to the smell. eat we could not, but we drank probably the worst brandy in all europe or asia, and slowly our blood began once more to take its normal course. a spurious animation soon enabled the boy to start on again; one of the cowherds pointed out the path, and for a time all went well with our little band, even fanny and souris having revived on black crusts of mediæval bread. but the half-hour in which we had been told we might cover the distance between châlet and hotel lengthened into an hour. the mist grew greyer, and thicker, and darker, misleading us almost as cleverly as its sophisticated english cousin, a london fog. again and again we lost our way. owing to the fatigue of the boy and innocentina, and the utter dejection of the unfortunate little donkeys, we could not walk fast enough to keep our blood warm, and my tweeds, in which i was buttoned to the chin, seemed to afford no more protection than newspaper. when i remarked this to the boy he replied with a faint chuckle that he felt like a newspaper himself--"a newspaper," he repeated, shivering, "with the smallest circulation in the world. and if it weren't for your dressing-gown there wouldn't be any circulation left at all." the day, which had begun in summer and ended in winter, was darkening to night when joseph, who was in advance, cried out that he had flattened his nose against something solid, which was probably the wall of the hotel. no blur of yellow light penetrated the gloom, but a few minutes of anxious groping brought us to a door--rather an elaborate, pretentious door, which instantly dispelled all fear that we had come upon another châlet, or perchance a barn. [illustration] chapter xxv the americans "is the gentleman anonymous? is he a great unknown?" --shakespeare. while joseph and innocentina remained outside with the animals, the boy and i entered a long, dark corridor, dimly lighted at the far end. half-way down we came upon a porter, whose look of surprise would have told us (if we had not learned through bitter experience already) that mont revard's season was over. he guided us to the door of a large salon, which he threw open with an air of wishing to justify the hotel; and despite the load of weariness under which the boy was almost fainting, he whipped the dressing-gown off in a flash, shook the snow from his panama, squaring his little shoulders, and re-entered civilisation with a jauntiness which denied exhaustion and did credit to his pride. nevertheless, he availed himself of the first easy-chair, and dropped into it as a ripe apple drops from its leafy home into the long grass. the porter scampered off to send us the landlord, and to see to the comfort of joseph and innocentina, until they and their charges could be definitely provided for. while we waited--the boy leaning back, pale and silent, in an exaggerated american rocking-chair, i standing on guard beside him--there was time to look about at our surroundings. the room was immense, and on a warm, bright day of midsummer might have been delightful, with its polished mosaic floor, its painted basket chairs and little tables, and its standard lamps with coloured silk shades. but to-day a stuffy, red-curtained bar-parlour would have been more cheerful. at first, i thought we were alone in the waste of painted wicker-work, for there had been dead silence on our entrance; but hardly had we settled ourselves to await the coming of the landlord, when a movement at the far end of the big, dim room told me that it had other occupants. two men in knickerbockers were sitting on low chairs drawn close to a fireplace, and both were looking round at us with evident curiosity. as the boy's chair had its high back half-turned in their direction, all they could see of him was a little hand dangling over the arm of the chair, and a small foot in a stout, workmanlike walking boot, laced far up the ankle. i stood facing them; and though the sole illumination came flickering from a newly kindled fire, or filtered through the red shades of three large lamps, not only could they see what manner of man i was, but i could study their personal characteristics. in these i was conscious of no lively interest; but as the men continued to gaze over their shoulders at me, and the boy's chair, i decided that they were from the states. they were both young, clean-shaven, good-looking; with clear features, keen eyes, and prominent chins, reminiscent of the attractive "gibson type" of american youth. "well," said one to the other, turning away from his brief but steady inspection of the newcomers, "i thought we were the only two fools stranded here for the night in this weather, but it seems there are a couple more." their voices had a carrying quality which brought the words distinctly to our ears. suddenly the "rocker" was agitated, and the boy's feet came to the ground. nervously, he jerked the chair round so that its back was completely turned to the men at the other end of the room. his eyes looked so big, and his face was so deeply stained with a quick rush of colour, that i feared he was ill. "anything wrong?" i asked, bending towards him, with my hand on his chair. "nothing. i was only--a little surprised to hear people talking, that's all. i thought we had the room to ourselves." his voice was a whisper, and i pitched mine to his in answering. "so did i at first, but it seems two countrymen of yours are before us. i wonder if they have had adventures to equal ours? probably we shall find out at dinner, for this looks the sort of hotel to herd its guests together at one long table." the boy's hand closed sharply on the arm of his chair. "i'm too tired to dine in public," said he, still in the same muffled voice. "i shall have something to eat in my room--if i ever get one." "if that's your game," said i, "i'll play it with you. we'll ask them to give us a sitting-room of sorts, and we'll dine there together like kings." "no, no. you must go down. i shall have my dinner in bed. i'm worn out. what are--those men at the other end of the room like?" "like sketches from new york _life_," i replied. "one is dark, the other fair, with a deep cleft in his chin, and a nose so straight it might have been ruled. better take a look at them. perhaps you may have met at home." "all the more reason for not looking," said the boy. "thank goodness, here comes the landlord." we could have had twenty rooms if we wished, for, said our host, throwing a glance across the salon, he had only two other guests besides ourselves. they had come up by the funicular, meaning to walk next morning down to chambéry, but whether they could do so or not depended on the weather. in any case, the hotel would close for the season in a few days now, and the funicular cease to run. fires should be laid in our rooms immediately, and we should be made comfortable, but as for our animals, unfortunately there were no stables attached to the hotel, no accommodation whatever for four-footed creatures. they would have to go back to the châlet, where they and their drivers could be put up for the night. "that will not do for innocentina," exclaimed the boy quickly. in his eagerness he raised his voice slightly, and the two young men at the other end of the salon seemed waked suddenly to renewed interest in us and our affairs. but the boy's tone fell again instantly. "innocentina must have a room at this hotel," he went on. "the châlet will be bad enough for joseph. for her it would be impossible. joseph won't mind taking the donkeys down and caring for them this one night, for innocentina's sake." "if know joseph, it will afford him infinite satisfaction; and the more intense his physical suffering, the happier he'll be in the thought that he is bearing it for her," i replied. "i'll go out and break the news to the poor chap." the boy sprang up. "no, no; don't leave me alone!" he cried. then, as i looked surprised, he added, more quietly: "i mean i'll go with you, and talk to innocentina. meanwhile, our things can be sent up to our rooms." though he had asked "what the men at the other end of the room were like," he showed no desire to verify for himself the description i had given. he kept his back religiously turned towards his countrymen, and did not throw a single glance their way as we left the salon with the landlord, though i saw that the two young americans were interested in him. we returned to the door at the end of the long corridor, where we had entered the hotel ten or fifteen minutes earlier, and found joseph, innocentina, and the animals still sheltering against the house wall. the porter had already retailed the bad news, and the faithful muleteer had of his own accord volunteered to play the part which the boy and i had assigned him. though he was tired, cold, and hungry, and had the prospect of a gloomy walk, with a night of discomfort to follow, he was far from being depressed; and i thought i knew what supported him in his hour of trial. we saw him off, followed by a piteous trail of asshood, and then, shivering once more, we re-entered the dim corridor. innocentina, much subdued, was with us now, carrying the famous bag in its snow-powdered _rücksack_, while a porter went before with the rest of the luggage, taken from the tired backs of our beasts. we had reached the foot of the stairs, when we came so suddenly face to face with the two americans that it almost seemed we had stumbled upon an ambush. they stared very hard at the boy, who did not give them a glance, though i was conscious of a stiffening of his muscles. he turned his head a little on one side, so that the shadow of the panama eclipsed his face from their point of view; but i could see that he had first grown scarlet, then white. "by jove, but it can't be possible!" i heard one of the men say as we passed and began to ascend the stairs. the answer i did not hear; but innocentina, who was close behind me, glared with unchristian malevolence at the young men, as if instinct whispered that they were concerning themselves unnecessarily about her master's business. the boy ran upstairs as lightly as if he had never known fatigue. the porter showed him his room; his luggage was taken in, and then he came out to me in the passage. "you told joseph that he needn't come up very early to-morrow, didn't you?" he enquired. "yes, as we're pretty well fagged, and chambéry isn't an all-day's journey, i thought we might take our time in the morning. that suits you, doesn't it?" (it was really of him that i had been thinking, but i did not say so.) "oh, yes," he answered absentmindedly, as if already his brain were busy with something else. "what time did you fix for starting? i didn't hear?" "i said to joseph that it would do if he were on hand at half-past ten. you can rest till nine o'clock." "thank you. and now, good night. you've been very kind to-day. maybe i didn't seem grateful, but i was, all the same; very, very grateful." "nonsense!" said i. "if you're too tired to go down, shan't i have my dinner with you? we could have a table drawn up before the fire, and it would be quite jolly." he shook his head, a great weariness in his eyes. "i'm too done up for society, even yours. i'd rather you went down. you will, won't you?" "certainly, if you won't have me. rest well. i shall see that they send you up something decent." "it doesn't matter. i'm not as hungry as i was, somehow. good night, man." "good night, boy." "shake hands, will you?" he pressed mine with all his little force, and shook it again and again, looking up in my face. then he bade me "good night" once more, abruptly, and retreated into his room. i went to my quarters at the other end of the passage, and was glad of the fire which had begun to roar fiercely in a small round stove, like a gnome with a pipe growing out of his head. i had a sponge, changed, and descended to the salon, only to learn that the eating arrangements were carried on in another building, at some distance from the hotel. feeling like a belated insect of summer overtaken by winter cold, i darted down the path indicated, to the restaurant, where i found the americans, already seated at just such a long table as i had pictured, and still in their knickerbockers. there was, in the big room, a sprinkling of little tables under the closed windows, but they were not laid for a meal; and a chair being pulled out for me by a waiter, exactly opposite my two fellow-guests, i took it and sat down. my first thought was to order something for the little pal, and to secure a promise that it should reach him hot, and soon. i then devoted myself to my own dinner, which would have been more enjoyable had i had the boy's companionship. i had worked slowly through soup and fish, and arrived at the inevitable veal, when i was addressed by one of the americans--him of the cleft chin and light curly hair, whose voice i had heard first in the salon. "you came up by the mule path, didn't you?" i answered civilly in the affirmative, aware that all my "points" were being noted by both men. "must have been a stiff journey in this weather." "we came into the mist and snow just below the col." "your friend is done up, isn't he?" "oh, he's a very plucky young chap," i replied, careful for the boy's reputation as a pilgrim; "but he's a bit fagged, and will be better off dining in his own room." "i expect he'll be all right to-morrow. are you going to try and get to chambéry, or will you return to aix by train?" "we shall push on, unless we're snowed in," i said. "that's our plan, too. i dare say we shall be starting about the same time, and if so, if you don't mind, we might join forces." "now, what is this chap's game?" i asked myself. "he isn't drawing me out for nothing; and as these two are together they have no need of companionship. there's some special reason why they want to join us." taking this for granted, the one reason which occurred to me as probable, was a previous acquaintance with the boy, which they wished to keep up, and he did not wish to acknowledge. i determined that he should not be thus entrapped, through me. "that would be very pleasant, no doubt," i replied; "but you had better not wait for us. our time of starting is uncertain." though i spoke with perfect civility, it must have been clear to them that i preferred not to have my party enlarged by strangers, and i rather regretted the necessity for this ungraciousness, as the men were gentlemen, and i usually got on excellently with americans. "oh, very well," returned the handsomer of the two, looking slightly offended. "we shall meet on the way down, perhaps. by-the-by, if i'm not mistaken, your young friend is a compatriot of ours. he's american, isn't he?" "yes." "i believe i've met him in new york, though it was so dark i couldn't be sure. do you object to telling me his name?" "i'm afraid i do object," i answered, stiffly this time. "you must satisfy yourself as to his identity, if it interests you, when you see each other to-morrow." of all that remained of dinner, i can only say the words which hamlet spoke in dying; for indeed, "the rest was silence." directly the meal was over, i hurried back to the hotel, like a rabbit to its warren; smoked a pipe before a roaring fire in my bedroom, and wondered if the little pal were wandering "down the uncompanioned way" of dreamland. as for me, i never got as far as that land. i fell over a precipice without a bottom, before my head had found a nest in the soft pillow, and knew nothing more until suddenly i started awake with the impression that someone had called. "what is it, boy? do you want me?" i heard myself asking sharply, as my eyes opened. it seemed that i had not been asleep for ten minutes, but to my surprise an exquisite, rosy light filled the room. well-nigh before i knew whether i were sleeping or waking, i was out of bed and at the window. it was the light of sunrise, shining over a billowy white world, for the fog had been rent asunder, and through its torn, woolly folds, i caught an unforgettable glimpse of glory. the sky was a rippling lake of red-gold fire, whose reflection turned a hundred snow-clad mountain-crests to blazing helmets for titans. above the majestic ranks rose their leader, towering head and shoulders over all. "mont blanc!" i had just time to say to myself in awed admiration, when the snow-fog was knit together again, only a jagged line of fading gold showing the stitches. nobody had called me; i knew that, now, yet i had an uneasy impression that someone wanted me somewhere, and that something was wrong. it was stupid to let this worry me, i told myself, however; and having lingered a few moments at the window studying the lovely pattern of frost-work lace on the glass, and the fringe of priceless pearls on branch of bush, and stunted tree, i went back to bed. there, i pulled my watch out from under my pillow, and looked at it. "only six o'clock," i yawned. "three good hours more of sleep. i wonder if the boy----" then i tumbled over another pleasant precipice. when i waked again, it was almost nine, and nerving myself to the inevitable, i rang for a cold bath. the morning was bitterly chill, but the tingling water soon sent the blood racing through my veins, and by ten o'clock i was knocking at the boy's door. no answer came, and thinking that he must already be down, i was on my way across the white, frozen grass to the restaurant, when i met the muleteer coming up with finois. "hallo, joseph!" i exclaimed in surprise. "where are fanny and souris?" "innocentina has taken them, monsieur," he answered. "what--they have started?" "but yes, monsieur, and very early." "tell me what happened," i prompted him. "why, monsieur, it was this way. there was not much sleep for me last night, if you will pardon my liberty in mentioning such matters, because of the little animal which bites and jumps away. i know not what you call him in your language, though i think he is known in all lands. besides, the beasts were noisy in the stable underneath the room where i lay with the men. about half-past four the others got up, but i lay still, as it was well with my animals, and there was no hurry. but a little more than an hour later, they called me from below, laughing, and saying there was a lady to see me. i had not undressed, monsieur, for many reasons, and now i was glad, for i knew who it must be, though not why she should be there, and so early too. i could not bear that she should be alone with these rough fellows, and in two minutes i had tumbled down the ladder. "i had not been mistaken, monsieur. it was innocentina. she said her master had sent her down to fetch the _ânes_, as he was obliged by certain circumstances to start on in advance of my master. i did not ask her any questions, but i helped her get ready the donkeys, and i would have walked up with her to the hotel, had she permitted it. if i did so, she said, the cattle men would talk; so i stayed behind." "well, i suppose we shall overtake them," i replied, hiding surprise, as i did not care to let joseph see that i had been left in the dark concerning this strange change of programme. my mind groped for an explanation of the mystery, and then suddenly seized upon one. the boy, who had evidently met his two compatriots in other days and another land, disliked and wished to shun them. he had feared that they might be our companions down to chambéry, and had taken drastic measures to avoid their society. rather than get me up early, for his convenience, after a day of some hardship and fatigue, the plucky little chap had gone off without us. possibly i should find that he had left a note for me, with some waiter or _femme de chambre_. if not, our route down to chambéry and the hotel at which we were to stay there, had already been decided upon. he would have said to himself that there could be no mistake, and that he might trust me to find him at our destination. the americans were not at breakfast, but later, as joseph, finois, and i were starting, i saw them standing at a distance in the corridor. the porter, who had brought down the miserable hold-alls, and was waiting for his tip, murmured that "_ces messieurs_" were not going to make the walking expedition to chambéry; the landlord had advised them that the weather was too bad, and they had decided to return by the noon train to aix-les-bains. i felt that i owed the young men a grudge for the boy's defection; and as there had been no note or message from him, i was not in a forgiving mood. without a second glance towards the pair, i walked away with joseph--alone with him for the first time in many a day. chapter xxvi the vanishing of the prince "now to my word: it is, _adieu, adieu! remember me_." --shakespeare. as we dipped down below the summit of the mountain, we stepped from under the snow-fog, as if it had been a great white, hanging nightcap. the air smelled like early winter, and was vibrant with the melody of cowbells. on snow-covered eminences near and far, dark, sentinel larches watched us, weeping slow tears from every naked spine. so high had they climbed, so acclimatised to the mountains did these soldier-trees seem, that i named them for myself the chasseurs alpins of the forest. "we shall have fine weather to-morrow," said joseph, as we left the snow and came to what he called the "_terre grasse_," which was greasy and slippery under foot. "see, monsieur, a worm; he comes up out of his hole, and the earth clings to him as he walks abroad. if he were clean, that would be a sign of another bad day to follow." "at least we are going down to summer again," i replied; "also to the young monsieur; and to innocentina. but perhaps you are glad of a rest from her sharp tongue." joseph shrugged his shoulders. "i am used to it now, monsieur," said he; and i turned away my face to hide a smile. i knew that he missed the girl, and i was still more keenly aware that i missed a comrade. my fleeting impressions were hardly worth catching and taming, without him to help cage them; without his vivid mind to help colour the thoughts, which mine only sketched in black and white, it was easier to leave the canvas blank. we had decided last night that it would not be wise to attempt the journey by way of the dent du nivolets, as it was on a higher level than the summit of mont revard, and we should risk being again extinguished under a nightcap of snow. we descended, therefore, by the simpler and shorter route, but it was full of interest for the strangeness of the landscape, and the buildings which we reached on lower planes. the houses were no longer characteristically french, but a bastard swiss. the heavy, overhanging roofs were thatched, and of enormous thickness; the walls of grey stone, with roughly carved, skeleton balconies. the peasants no longer smiled at us in good-natured curiosity, but regarded us dourly, though they were gravely civil if we had questions to ask. although i gave joseph no instructions, and he made no suggestions, by common consent we hastened on as if a prize were to be bestowed for our good speed, at the end of the journey. on other days we had sauntered, allowing the animals to snatch delicious _hors d'oeuvres_ from the bushes as they passed, but to-day finois was in the depths of gloom. there was no grey souris, no spectacled fanny-anny to cheer him on the way, and if he reached out a wistful mouth towards a branch, he was hurried past it. how would we feel, i asked myself, if, with the inner man clamouring, we were driven remorselessly along a road decked on either side with exquisitely appointed tables, set out with all our favourite dishes, to be had for nothing--never once allowed to stop for a crumb of _pâté de foie gras_, or a bit of chicken in aspic? yet asking myself this, i had no mercy on finois. we stopped for lunch at a queer auberge, in an abortive village appropriately named les déserts, where the highroad for chambéry began. an outer room roughly flagged with stone, was kitchen, nursery, and family living-room in one. it swarmed with children, and was presided over by two of macbeth's witches, who were not separated from their cauldrons. i took them to be rival mothers-in-law, and they could have taught innocentina some choice new expressions valuable to test upon donkeys or other heretics; but they sent me a steaming bowl of excellent coffee, when i half expected poison; fried me a couple of eggs with crisp brown lace round the edges, and took for my benefit, from one of the shelves that lined the nursery wall, the newest of a hundred loaves of hard black bread. i ventured to ask a down-trodden daughter-in-law of the ladies of the cauldrons, whether a very young gentleman, and an older but still all-young woman, with two donkeys, had stopped at the auberge some hours earlier. the spiritless one shook her head. but no. the only other customers of the house thus far had been the postman and two soldiers. the party might have passed. she and her parents were too busy to take note of what went on outside. a faint chill of desolation touched me. it would have been cheering to have news of the boy and his cavalcade _en route_. by three o'clock chambéry was well in sight, lying far below us as we wound down from mountain heights, and looking, from our point of view, in position something like an inferior aosta. it basked in a great sun-swept plain, and away to the left a lateral valley, dimly blue, opened towards modane and the mont cenis. descending, we found the resemblance carried on by a few ancient châteaux and fortified farmhouses, and as we had now come upon a part of the road which joseph knew, he pointed out to me, in the far distance, the little villa, les charmettes, where rousseau and madame de warens kept house together. again and again i thought we were on the point of arriving in the town, and had visions of exchanging adventures with the boy at the hôtel de france; but always the place seemed to recede before our eyes, elusive as a mirage, alighting again five or six miles away; and this it did, not once, but several times, with singular skill and accuracy. at last, however, after a tedious tramp along a monotonously level road, upon which we had plunged suddenly, we came into an old town, all grey, with the soft grey of storks' wings. the place had a mild dignity of its own--as befitted the ancient capital of savoie--and might have lived, if necessary, on the romantic reputation of its ancient château, standing up high and majestic above a populous modern street. there was an air of almost courtly refinement that reminded me of the wide, sedate avenues of versailles; and no doubt this effect was largely due to the fine statues and decorative grouping of the arcaded streets. one monument was so imposing and so unique, that i forgot for a moment my anxiety to find the boy and hear his news. the huge pile held me captive, staring up at a miniature nelson column, supported on the backs of four colossal elephants sculptured in grey granite of true elephant-colour. these benevolent mammoths, not content with the duty of bearing a tower of stone with a more than life-sized general balancing on top of it, generously spent their spare time in pouring volumes of water from wrinkled trunks into a huge basin. joseph knew that the balancing general, de boigne, had used a vast fortune made in the service of an indian prince, to shower benefits on his native town, as his elephants showered water, and that it was in gratitude to him that chambéry had raised the monument; but i was disappointed to learn that the elephants had no prototypes in real life. it would have satisfied my imagination to hear that the soldier of fortune had returned from the orient to his birthplace, with the four original elephants following him like dogs, having refused to be left behind. but nothing is quite perfect in history, and one usually feels that one could have arranged the incidents more dramatically one's self; indeed, some historians seem to have found the temptation irresistible. joseph promised other choice bits of interest in and near mountain-ringed chambéry; but i had small appetite for sightseeing without the boy, and after my brief reverence to the elephants, i hurried the muleteer and mule to the hotel. at the door we were met by a porter, far too polite a person to betray the surprise which my companions joseph and finois invariably excited in civilisation. he helped to unfasten the pack, and as it disappeared into the vestibule, i was about to bid joseph _au revoir_. but his face gave me pause. like the key to a cipher, it told me all the secret workings of his mind. "you might wait here before putting up finois," i said, "until i enquire inside whether the young monsieur and innocentina have arrived safely. no doubt they have, as we did not catch them up on the road, and it would have been difficult to mistake the way. still----" "_voilà_, monsieur!" exclaimed joseph, his deep eyes brightening at something to be seen over my shoulder. i turned, and there was meek, grey souris leading the way for innocentina and fanny, who were trailing slowly towards us down the street. i was delighted to see them. not until now had i realised how beautiful was innocentina, how engaging the two little plush-coated donkeys. i loved all three. "_eh bien_, innocentina!" i gaily cried. "how are you? how is your young monsieur?" "he was well when i saw him last," returned innocentina. "he must be very far away by this time." "very far away?" i echoed her words blankly. "yes, monsieur. here is a letter, which he told me to deliver to you without fail. i was not to leave chambéry until i had put it into your hand, myself. i was on my way to your hotel, to see if you had arrived. now that i have seen you"--here a starry flash at joseph--"i can begin my journey." "where, if i may ask?" "towards my home. monsieur had better read his letter." [illustration: "voilà, monsieur!"] i had taken the sealed envelope mechanically, without looking at it. now i fixed my eyes upon the address, which was written in a firm, original, and interesting hand, that impressed me as familiar, though i could not think where i had seen it. certainly, so far as i could remember, in all my journeyings with him i had never happened to see the boy's handwriting. yet innocentina said this letter was from him. suddenly it occurred to me that i could do something more enlightening than stare at the envelope: i could open it. i did so, breaking a seal with the same monogram i had noticed on the gold fittings in the celebrated bag. apparently the entwined letters were m.r.l. "forgive me, dear man," were the first words i read, and they rang like a knell in my heart. without going further i knew what was coming. i was to hear that i had lost the boy. "dear man, the prince vanishes, not because he wishes it, but because he must. he can't explain. but, though you may not understand now, believe this. he has been happier in these wanderings, since you and he were friends, than he ever was before. you have been more than good to the troublesome 'brat' who has upset all your arrangements and calculations so often. perhaps you may never see the boy any more. yet, who knows what may happen at monte carlo? anyhow, whatever comes in the future, he will never forget, never cease to care for you; and of one thing besides he is sure. never again will he like any other man as much as the one man who deserves to begin with a capital. "good-bye, dear man, and all good things be with you, wherever you may go, is the prayer of--boy." perhaps never to see the boy again! why, i must be dreaming this. i should wake up soon, and everything would be as it had been. i had the sensation of having swallowed something very large and very cold, which would not melt. reading the letter over for the second time made it no better, but rather worse. the boy had become almost as important in my scheme of life as my lungs or my legs, and i did not quite see, at the moment, how it would be any more possible to get on without one than the other. behold, i was stricken down by mine own familiar friend; yet no wrath against him burned within me; there was only that cold lump of disappointment, which seemed to be increasing to the size of a small iceberg. even lacking explanations, or attempt at them, i knew that he had told the truth without flattery. he had wanted to stay, yet he had gone. and he said that perhaps i might never see him again! if i could have had my choice last night, whether to have the boy lopped off my life, or to lose a hand, the probabilities are that i would have sacrificed the hand. but i had been offered no choice. i recalled our parting, and found new meaning in the words he had spoken at his door. there was no doubt about it; even then he had decided to break away from me. i realised this, and at the same instant rebelled against the decision. i determined not to accept it. he had vanished because of the two americans; exactly why, i could not even guess, but i was certain that the reason was not to his discredit. to theirs, perhaps, but not to his. nevertheless, they were somehow to blame for my loss, and if the young men had appeared at this moment, i should have been impelled to do them a mischief. the principal thing was, however, not to let them cheat me irrevocably of my comrade. i would not depend solely upon that hint about monte carlo. i would find out where he had gone, and i would follow. let him be angry if he would. his anger, though a hot flame while it burned, never endured long. "did monsieur leave here by rail?" i enquired of innocentina. she shrugged her shoulders. "that i cannot tell." "do you mean you can't, or won't?" "i know nothing, monsieur, except that i have been paid well, and told that i may go home as soon as i like, and by what route i like, having delivered the letter to monsieur. my young master gave me enough to return with the donkeys to mentone all the way from chambéry by rail if i chose; but i prefer to walk down, and keep the extra money for my _dot_. it will make me a good one." i am not sure that, before disentangling a huge bottle-fly from fanny's long lashes, she did not glance under her own at joseph, when giving this information. "look here, innocentina," i said beguilingly, "tell me which way, and how, your young monsieur has gone, and i will double that _dot_ of yours." "not if you would quadruple it, monsieur. i promised my master to say nothing." "couldn't you get absolution for breaking a promise?" "no, monsieur. i am not that kind of catholic. it is only heretics who break their promises, and take money for it--like judas iscariot." joseph did not charge at this red rag, but looked so utterly depressed that innocentina's eyes relented. "very well," i said. "you deserve praise for your loyalty. i ought not to have tried to corrupt it. but, you know, i shall find out in the town, or at the railway station." innocentina smiled. "i do not think so, monsieur." "we shall see," i retorted. "joseph, where is the railway station?" joseph pointed, accompanying his gesture with directions. then he offered to be my guide, but i refused his services and left him with innocentina, having bidden him call at my room in the hotel for instructions later. but the prophecy of innocentina the seeress was fulfilled. i could learn nothing of the boy or his movements, at the _gare_ of chambéry. several trains had gone out, bound for several destinations in different directions, during the past three hours, and no one answering the description i gave of the boy had been seen to leave. sadder, but no wiser, i returned to the hôtel de france, and asked if a youth of seventeen, "with large blue eyes, chestnut hair which curled, a complexion tanned brown, a panama hat, and a suit of navy-blue serge knickerbockers," had lunched there. the answer was no. such a yoking gentleman had not come to the hotel, nor had he been noticed in the town, either with or without a young woman and a couple of donkeys. i had no more than finished my questionings and gone up to my room, when joseph arrived--a wistful, expectant joseph, with a deep light of excitement burning in his eyes. "any news?" i asked. "no, monsieur, except that in an hour innocentina starts to walk on to les echelles with her _ânes_." "she is energetic." "the girl knows not what is the fatigue. besides, each day less on the road means so many more francs added to the _dot_." "innocentina seems very keen upon increasing that _dot_. has she anyone in view to share it with her?" "she has not confided that to me, monsieur." "i suppose he would have to be a good catholic?" "of that i am not so sure. i do not think she would object to a good protestant, if he would allow the children to be brought up in her faith." "the lady is brave. she takes time by the forelock." "it is the wise way, monsieur." "well, whoever he may be, i am sure _you_ do not envy the future _mari_, _dot_ or no _dot_. your opinion of innocentina----" "ah, it is changed, monsieur, completely changed, i confess." "then, after all, it is innocentina who has converted you." joseph bent his head to hide a flush. "perhaps, monsieur, if you put it in that way. yet it was not of myself nor of innocentina i came to talk, but of the plans of monsieur." "plans? i've no plans," i answered dejectedly. "will monsieur wish to proceed to-morrow morning as usual?" "proceed where?" i gloomily capped his question with another. "on the way south, towards the riviera, is it not? if we made an early start, it might be possible to go by the route of la grande chartreuse, and reach the monastery late in the afternoon. if monsieur wished to sleep there, travellers are accommodated at the sister house, which has been turned into an hôtellerie since the expulsion of the order." i reflected a moment before replying. on the face of it, it appeared like weakness to change my plans simply because i had been deserted by a comrade whose very existence had been unknown to me when first i made them. yet, on the other hand, i had grown so used to his companionship now, that the thought of continuing my journey without him was distasteful. with the little pal, no day had ever seemed too long, no misadventure but had had its spice. lacking the little pal, the vista of day after day spent in covering the country at the rate of three miles an hour loomed before me monotonous as the treadmill. my gorge rose against it. i could not go on as i had begun. why punish myself by a diet of salt when the savour had gone? "joseph," i said at last, "the disappearance of the young monsieur has been a blow to me, i admit. it has destroyed my appetite for sightseeing, for the moment, at all events. i can't rearrange my plans instantly; but this i have determined. i'll end my walking-tour here. what to do afterwards i will make up my mind in good time, but meanwhile, i won't keep you dancing attendance upon me. you will be anxious to get back home----" "monsieur, i have no home." there was despair in joseph's tone, and suddenly the keen point of truth pierced the armour of my selfishness. poor joseph, facing exile--from innocentina--and keeping his countenance politely, while i densely discoursed of "blows"! being a muleteer "farmed out" by a master, he was at the mercy of fate, and temporarily i represented fate. he could not journey on southwards, whither his heart was wandering, unless i bade him go. this fine fellow, this old soldier, was as much at my orders as if i had been a king. "if you aren't in a hurry to get back to martigny, joseph," said i, changing my tone, "i'll tell you what you can do for me. you may take some of my luggage down to the riviera. i'm expecting a portmanteau to arrive here by rail to-night or to-morrow morning, with plenty of clothing in it. but there are those hold-alls which finois has carried for so long. i can't travel about with them in railway carriages; at that i draw the line; yet if i sent them by _grande vitesse_, their contents would be injured or stolen. take them down to monte carlo for me. i shall go there sooner or later, to meet some friends of mine who are motoring, and i shall stop at the royal." joseph's face would have put radium to shame, with the light it generated. "monsieur is not joking? he is in earnest?" the poor fellow stammered. "most certainly. and when we meet on the riviera, we will talk over a scheme for your future of which i've been thinking. if you would like to buy finois of your patron, and two or three other animals only less admirable than he, setting up in business for yourself, i think i know a man who might advance you the money." "oh, monsieur!" had there been a little more of the french, or a little less of the swiss, in honest joseph's blood, i think that he would have fallen on his knees and rained kisses on my mild-stained boots. the swiss upped the balance, luckily for us both, and kept him erect; but there was a suspicious glitter in his deep eyes, and a sudden pinkness of his respectable brown nose, which gave to his "oh, monsieur!" more meaning than a volume of protestations. his hand came out impulsively, then flew back humbly to his side, but i put out mine and grasped it. "monsieur, i would die for you," he said. "i would prefer," i returned, "that you should live--for innocentina." [illustration] chapter xxvii the strange mushroom "have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face?" --shakespeare. when joseph had gone, with his pockets and his heart both full to bursting, i felt much like the captain of a small fishing vessel, wrecked in strange seas, who has seen his comrades depart on rafts, while he stayed on board his sinking ship alone with three biscuits and a gill of water. there was also a certain resemblance between me and a well-meaning plant which has been pulled up by its roots just as it had begun to grow nicely, and then stuck into the earth again, upside down, to do the best it can. i was not quite sure yet which was up or down, and which way i had better grow, if at all. there was, however, an attraction in a southerly direction: letters were to be forwarded to me at grenoble, and there would probably be one from jack or molly winston, saying when and where they might be expected to come upon the scene with mercédès. finding me stranded, they would doubtless take pity upon my forlornness, and offer me a lift in their car, down to the riviera. and to the riviera i still felt strongly impelled to go, though i had no longer the contessa for an excuse. she had been engaged, in my little drama, for the part of "leading juvenile," with the privilege of understudying the heroine. but she had not shown an aptitude for either rôle, and having stepped down to that of first walking lady, she had minced off my stage altogether. now the cast was filled up without her, though strangely filled, since after the first act there had been no leading lady at all. nevertheless, having arranged a scene at monte carlo i could not persuade myself to give it up, though it would not be played, in any event, at the contessa's villa. the boy had vanished, and the sole word he had left was that i had better not count upon seeing him again. but the more i thought of it, the less necessity i saw for taking him at that word. he perhaps flattered himself that he had picked up all clues and carried them off with him in the wonderful bag. but he had purposefully hinted that "something might happen at monte carlo," and i hoped the something might mean that, after all, the boy would materialise with his sister at the hôtel de paris on the night after our arrival. in any case, if the princess were going to monte carlo, there would the fairy prince be also, and i did not see why i should not be there too, whether molly and jack tooled me down in their motor or not. fifteen minutes after joseph had gone from my life to mingle his lot with innocentina's, i had my own plans definitely mapped out. i would stop in chambéry overnight, to wait for the portmanteau with which i had kept up a speaking acquaintance in the larger centres of civilisation, during the tour, and next day i would go on to grenoble by train, there to pick up letters. the luggage duly arrived in the evening, so that there was no bar to the carrying out of my design; and, accordingly, after my coffee on the following morning, i conscientiously went out to see more of the town before taking the eleven-o'clock train. it was only ten, and as my arrangements were all made, i had time for strolling--too much to suit my mood. the murmur of an automobile preparing to take flight attracted me from a distance, for it seemed that the voice had the cadence of a car i knew. i hastened my steps, turned a corner, and there, in front of the hôtel de france's rival, stood a fine motor, panting, quivering in eagerness to dart away. it was a mercédès, and if it were not molly winston's wedding-present mercédès, it was that mercédès' twin. but there was a strange mushroom in it. i would have known molly's mushroom among a thousand. it was small, round, compact, and of a dark cream colour. this mushroom was flatter, wider, more expansive, with an exceedingly slender stem; and in tint it was of a pale silvery grey. it grew up straight and slim in the tonneau of the car, all alone, unaccompanied by any similar growths, or any guardian goblins; and several servants of the hotel were grouped about, waiting to see it off. i waited, too, sniffing adventure with the scent of petrol, and interested in the resemblance to that good dragon with which i had been friends; but i was about to turn away at last when a form which had evidently been squatting behind the car on the other side, rose to its feet. it was that of gotteland, and had he been a long-lost uncle from australia with his pockets crammed with wills in my favour, i could not have been more delighted to see him. as i rushed forward to claim him as my own, molly and jack came out of the hotel. "monty!" jack cried, with a sincerity of joy which warmed my heart. as for his wife, she cried not at all, but merely gasped. "what luck for me!" i exclaimed, shaking both molly's hands so hard that it was fortunate (as she remarked afterwards) that she had on "only her rainy-day rings." "i did hope to hear of you at grenoble, but scarcely dared think of actually meeting you, even there. in two minutes more i should have been on the way to catch my train." "here's your train, old man," said jack, indicating the throbbing automobile. "my one true love, mercédès," i remarked, looking fondly at the car. "sh!" whispered molly, with an odd little sound which was like a giggle strangled at birth. "she's there." "who?" i started, bewildered. "mercédès." "i know; the darling! i long to have my hands on her again." "oh, lord lane, do be careful! you don't understand. i mean the real mercédès. the girl who gave me the car. she's sitting there. she'll hear you." "it's all right," said jack. "the motor's making such a row, she wouldn't catch the words." "she joined us h--lately," explained molly hurriedly. "i remember now. you used to talk rather a lot about her and want us to meet." "well, you have your wish now, dearie," jack chimed in. "you can introduce them with your own fair hand." "wait--wait." molly whispered piteously, as jack would have taken a step forward, and pulled me with him, a peculiarly dare-devil look in his handsome eyes. "for _goodness'_ sake, jack!" her voice restrained him, and again we were in conclave. "you see, lord lane, it's rather awkward. we want you to go on with us, immensely, but----" "you're awfully good," i hastily cut in. "but i quite see, and i couldn't think of----" "oh, please, that isn't what i meant. now, will you and jack both be quite quiet, like angels, and let me talk for a while, till i make everything clear to everybody, about everybody else. don't grin. i know i'm not beginning well, but the beginning's the difficult part. we wrote to you, lord lane, to grenoble, saying we would be arriving about as soon as you got the letter. we didn't know whether we could tear you away from your mule or not; but anyhow, we should have seen each other and got each other's news. then this friend of mine joined us unexpectedly; at least, we thought we might meet her, but we weren't at all sure she would want to travel with us. however, here she is, and she's a perfect dear; and next to jack and dad i love her better than anybody else in the world. besides, she gave me the car; and you know i told you how ill she had been, and how she was travelling for her health. altogether we have to consider her before anyone; and i want to know, lord lane, if you'll think me a regular little beast if i speak to her first, before we arrange anything?" i opened my lips to answer with a complimentary protest, but before i could frame a word, she had rushed to the two mercédès, her mushroom hanging limp in her hand, and had entered into a low-voiced conversation with the human namesake. "look here, jack; i wouldn't put you out for the world," i said. "as for tearing myself from the mule, that surgical operation has already been performed, and i was going on to monte carlo----" "that's our goal," cut in jack. "molly maligned the place of old days. now i want her to do it justice. you and i will show her monte at its best." "yes, but i'll go down by rail, and meet you there." "you'll do nothing of the kind. molly's friend is one of the most charming girls alive, but she has passed through a great trouble, followed by a severe illness. she came to us in some distress of mind, and we are bound, as molly says, to consider her, as she may not think herself equal to intercourse with strangers. however, all that's necessary is to explain you to her, as i am now explaining her to you, and the thing settles itself. there can be no question of your not going on with us. you and mercédès won't interfere with each other in the least, because, you see, now that you've turned up, the thing is to get down quietly, and--and enjoy ourselves at the journey's end. we'll make a rush of it. in any case, molly would have sat in the tonneau with her friend, and the only difference you will make in our arrangements is that i shall have you as a companion in front instead of gotteland." at this moment our fair emissary returned from the enemy's camp. "mercédès says that not for anything would she cheat us out of your company," announced molly. "only she hopes you won't think her rude and horrid if she doesn't talk. there's her message; but i really think, lord lane, that the best thing is to take no notice of the poor child. she is very nervous and upset still, but i hope in a few days she will be herself again. i won't even introduce you to her. she and i will sit in the tonneau, as quiet as two kittens, while you and jack in front can talk over all your adventures since you met, and forget our existence. we shan't be so very long on the way, shall we, jack?" i began another "but," which was scornfully disregarded by both jack and molly. i might as well consent now, as later, they said, since they would simply refuse to leave chambéry without me, and the longer i took to see reason, the more _essence_ would the motor be wasting. thus adjured, i allowed myself to be hustled off to my hotel by jack, who insisted on accompanying me lest i should turn traitor on the way. in ten minutes gotteland would drive the car to the door of the france, and i was expected to be ready by that time. my packing had been done before i went out, by the united efforts of a _valet de chambre_ and myself; but now all had to be undone again; my motoring coat (unused for weeks and aged in appearance by as many years) dragged up from the lowest stratum with my goblin-goggles, and a few small things dashed into a weird travelling bag which a confused porter rushed out to buy at a neighbouring shop. while i settled the hotel bill, jack arranged to have my portmanteau expressed to grenoble, and by a scramble our tasks were finished when the voice of the car called us to the door. the whole incident had happened so quickly, that i had no time to realise the change in my circumstances, when, "sole, like a falling star," the motor "shot through the pillared town" with me on board. there had been a time when i shrank from the name of the car's giver, believing that molly thrust it too obviously into notice. when "that dear girl mercédès" had threatened to enter our conversations i had often kept her out by force; but now it seemed that i, not she, was the intruder, and in a far more material way. this was, perhaps, poetical justice, but i did not grudge it, since it was evident that molly no longer cherished the intention of dangling her friend the heiress before me like a brilliant fly over the nose of an impecunious trout. on the contrary, she warned me off the premises. we were to hurry down to monte carlo as quickly as possible, that the situation might not be overstrained. mercédès in the tonneau, i in the front seat, were to live and let live during the rapid journey, and this was well. i dimly remembered that, in the first days of our journey in search of a mule, molly had vaunted her friend's beauty, but the silver-grey mushroom prevented me from verifying or disproving this statement. the small, triangular talc window was greyly-opaque, or else there was a grey veil underneath; my one glance had not told me which, and i neither dared nor desired to steal another. jack supplied the blanks in our somewhat broken correspondence, by skimming over the details of their doings; how they had spent most of their time since our parting in switzerland; how they had arrived at aix-les-bains the very morning we left for mont revard; and how they had motored to chambéry yesterday afternoon. "think of my being in the same town with you for more than twelve hours, and not knowing it!" i exclaimed. "to borrow an expression of mrs. winston's, i was jolly 'low in my mind' last night, and the very thought that you two were close by would have been cheering." i had not dared address myself to molly in the other camp, but evidently all communication between the lines was not to be broken off. the wind must have carried my words to her ear, for she bent forward, leaning her arm on the back of our seat. "did you say you were miserable last night?" she inquired with flattering eagerness. "yes. awfully miserable." "poor lord lane! i haven't understood yet exactly why you suddenly gave up your walking tour, and got the idea of going on by rail. i thought from your letters you were having such a good time, that we could hardly bribe you to desert--your party and come with us, even at grenoble." "my party deserted me, and that was the end of my 'good time,'" i replied, charmed with molly's conception of the rôle of a "quiet kitten" whose existence was to be forgotten. as if any man could ever forget hers! "what, your nice joseph and his finois?" she inquired. "when i speak of 'my party' i refer particularly to the boy i wrote you about," i returned, far from averse to being drawn out on the subject of my troubles, though i had resolved, were i not intimately questioned, to let them prey upon my damask cheek. "oh, yes, that wonderful american boy. did he keep right on being wonderful all the time, or did he turn out disappointing in the end?" "disappointing!" i echoed. "no; rather the other way round. he was always surprising me with new qualities. i never saw anyone like him." "ah, perhaps that's because you never knew other american boys. i dare say if i'd met him i shouldn't have found him so remarkable." "yes, you would," i protested. "there could be no two opinions about it." "is he good-looking?" "extraordinarily. such eyes as his are wasted on a boy--or would be on any other boy. if he'd been a girl, he would have been one for a man to fall head over ears in love with." "you're enthusiastic! hasn't he got any sisters?" "he has one, who is supposed to be like him. i was promised--or partly promised--to meet her in monte carlo, at the end of our journey, where the boy expected her to join him." "oh, has he been called away by her?" "i don't think so." "i fancied that might have been why he left you." "i don't know what his reason was, but i have faith enough in the little chap to be sure it was a _good one_." "sure you didn't bore each other?" "if you had ever seen that boy, you'd know that the word 'bore' would perish in his presence like a microbe in hot water. as for me--i don't believe i bored him. he did say once that we would part when we came to the 'turnstile,' meaning the point of mutual boredom, but i can't believe the turnstile was in his sight. i think that his resolution to go was sudden and unexpected." "he must have been an interesting boy, and you ought to be grateful to fate for sending him your way because apparently he gave you no time for brooding on the past." "the past? oh, by jove, i couldn't think what you meant for a second. you have a right to say 'i told you so,' mrs. winston. there was nothing in all that, you know, except a little wounded vanity; and you know, _you_ are really the fate i have to thank for finding it out so soon." "what _do_ you mean?" exclaimed molly, almost as if she were frightened. "i did nothing at all. i----" "you took me away with you and jack. the rest followed." "oh, _that_. i didn't understand. well, as we shall get you down to monte carlo soon, you will meet your boy again." "i wish i could be sure." "i thought you said it was an engagement." "only conditional. besides, had we walked, we should have been weeks on the way. i wonder you don't laugh in my face, mrs. winston, but you'd understand if you could have met the boy." "i supposed jack was your best friend," complained molly. "so he is. but this is different. i'm going to look for the boy at monte carlo. what i'm hoping is, that after all he may keep the half-engagement he made to meet me there." "when?" "on the night after my arrival for a dinner at the hôtel de paris, to be given in honour of him and his sister." "you think he will?" "it's worth going on the chance." "you are the right kind of friend," said molly, "and you deserve to be rewarded, doesn't he, jack?" "yes," jack flung over his shoulder as he drove; "and i shall swear a vendetta against everybody concerned, if he isn't." this did not strike me as a particularly brilliant remark, but molly seemed to find it witty, for she laughed merrily, with a certain impish ring in her glee, reminiscent of the little pal in some moods. evidently she had exhausted her long list of questions, for, laughing still, she twisted her slim body half round in the tonneau, turning a shoulder upon us. i took this as a signal that mercédès was now to have her share of attention, and tactfully bestowed mine on jack. [illustration] chapter xxviii the world without the boy "a . . . somewhat headlong carriage." --r.l. stevenson. though i had given molly eyes and ears during her long catechism, i had been vaguely aware, nevertheless, that on leaving the hôtel de france we had crossed a bridge over the almost dry and pebbly bed of the insignificant leysse; that we had passed the stately elephants, and a robust marble lady typifying france in the act of receiving on her breast a slender savoie; that we had caught a last glimpse of the château, and were spinning along a well-kept road, cheek by jowl with the railway to lyons. from a high mountain on our left, the silver cascade de coux fell vertically, like a white horse's tail; and i smiled to see, as we flashed by, a little house which honoured a valiant foe against whom i had fought, with the name of the café de boers. up and up mounted our road, cresting green billows of rolling mountain land. we were running towards the boundary of savoie, into dauphiné, a country which i had never seen. the boy and i had talked of entering it together and visiting its seven marvels, the very possession of which made it seem in our eyes alluringly mediæval. had he been my companion still, we would have been travelling some hidden side-path, where doubtless joseph and innocentina, chaperoned by _les animaux_, were happily straying at this moment. i could almost hear the donkey-girl's mechanically constant, warning cry, "fanny-anny, fanny-anny! souris-ouris!" like a low undertone of accompaniment to the thrum of the motor. the fancied sound smote me with homesickness, and to coax my mind from the disappointment which still rankled, i asked jack when he would let me try my hand at driving. "not here," said he with a smile, which was instantly explained by an abrupt plunge from the top of a long hill down into a cutting between lichen-scaled rocks, tracing with our "pneus" as we went a series of giddy zig-zags. we had hardly twisted one way when lo! the time had come to twist in the opposite direction, and nowhere had we a radius of more than twenty yards in which to perform our tricks. "i couldn't have done that as well as you did it, i confess," said i, with becoming modesty. "it's easy enough when you've got the knack," replied the "lightning conductor." "so, no doubt, is reeling, writhing, and fainting in coils. motoring down these serpentine hills is like hurling yourself into space, and trusting to providence." "so is all of life," said jack. "a timid man might say the same of getting out of bed in the morning." "even i can do the trick," cut in molly, who was taking a temporary interest in our affairs again. "at least, i can this year, now that chickens are better than they used to be." "they _are_ looking nice and fat this summer" i judicially remarked. "i don't mean that," explained molly. "but they are more sensible. last year, before jack and i were married, chickens were so bad that i used to dream of nothing else in my sleep. i had chicken nightmares. the absurd creatures never would realise when they were well off, but even in the midst of laying a most important egg on one side of the road, our automobile had only to come whizzing along to convince them that salvation depended on getting across to the other. this year they seem to have formed a sort of chicken club, a league of defence against motors, and to have started a propaganda." my imagination tricked me, or this theory of molly's evoked a faint sound of stifled mirth in the heart of the mysterious mushroom. in haste i turned away, lest i should be suspected of regarding it, and jack began to pump my memory mercilessly for what it might retain of his driving lessons. luckily, i had forgotten nothing, and i was able to demonstrate my knowledge by pointing to the various parts of the machine with each glib reference i made. by-and-bye, we came to a place where a grotto was "much recommended"; but swallows, southward bound, do not stop in their flight for grottos. we darted by, thundered through the humming darkness of napoleon's tunnel, and flashed out into a startling landscape, as sensational as the country of the "delectable mountains" in "pilgrim's progress." the cup-like valley was ringed in by mountains of astonishing shapes; it was nature posing for a picture by john martin. in the fields were dotted characteristic dauphiné houses, little elfin things with overhanging roofs like caps tied under their chins. soon, we raced into the main street of tiny les echelles, whence, in the good old days, fair princess beatrice of savoie went away to wed with the famed raymond of provence. we whisked through the village, and down the valley to st. laurens du pont, and the entrance to that great rift between mountains which leads to the monastery of the grande chartreuse. as we plunged into the narrow jaws of the superb ravine, a wave of regret for the boy swept over me. he and i had talked of this day--the day we should see the deserted monastery hidden among its mountains; now it had come, and we were parted. the society of jack and molly and the motor car could make up for many things, but it could not stifle longings for the little pal. besides, magnificent as was mercédès (the dragon, not the mushroom) i felt that finois and fanny-anny would have been more in keeping with the place. i was too dispirited to care whether or no my eyes were filled with dust; therefore i had not goggled myself, and i think that jack must have gathered something of my thoughts from my long face. "how would you like to get out and walk here, like pilgrims of old?" he asked. "it will be too much for the girls, but gotteland will drive them up slowly, not to be too far in advance. american girls, you'll find, if you ever make a study of one or more of them, can do everything in the world except--walk. there they have to bow to english girls." "that's because we've got smaller feet," retorted molly. "where an english girl can walk ten miles we can do only five, but it's quite enough. and we have such imaginations that we can sit in this automobile and fancy ourselves princesses on ambling palfreys." it was close to the deserted distillery of the famous liqueur that we parted company, the car, piled with our discarded great-coats, forging ahead up the historic path. the little tramway that used to carry the cases of liqueur to the station at fourvoirie was nearly obliterated by new-grown grass; the vast buildings stood empty. never again would the mellow chartreuse verte and chartreuse jaune he fragrantly distilled behind the high grey walls, for the makers were banished and scattered far abroad. we lingered for a moment at the narrow entrance to le désert, where the rushing river guiers foams through the throttled gorge, giving barely room for the road scored along the lace of the cliff. it was like a doorway to the lost domain of the monks, and jack and i agreed that st. bruno was a man of genius to find such a retreat. a retreat it was literally. st. bernard had taken his followers to a place where, suffering great hardships, they could best devote their lives to succouring others; but st. bruno's theory had evidently been that holy men can do more good to their kind by prayer in peaceful sanctuaries than by offering more material aid. here,--at the doorway of st. bruno's long corridor,--the ravine, the old forge, the single-arched bridge flung high across the deep bed of the roaring torrent, had all grouped themselves as if after a consultation upon artistic effect. once, there had been an actual gate, built alike for defence and for limitation, but there were no traces of it left for the eye of the amateur. we passed into the defile, and the motor car was out of sight long ago. higher and higher the brown road climbed. the mountains towered close and tall. great pillared palaces of rock loomed against the sky like castles in the air, incalculably far above the green heads and sloping shoulders of the nearer mountain slopes. i had thought that green was never so green as in the valley of aosta, but here in st. bruno's corridor there was a new richness of emerald in the green carpet and wall hangings, such as i had not yet known. it was green stamped with living gold, in delicate fleur-de-lis patterns where the sun wove bright threads; and high above was the ceiling of lapis lazuli, in pure unclouded blue. we heard no sound save the voices of unseen woodcutters crying to each other from mountain slope to mountain slope, the resonant ring of their axes, striking out wild, echoing notes with a fleeting clang of steel on pine, and now and again the sudden thunder-crash of a falling tree, like the roar of a distant avalanche. by-and-bye we came to the aërial bridge which spans the guiers mort, slender and graceful as the arch of a rainbow, and as we gazed down at the far, white water hurling itself in sheets of foam past the detaining rocks, the sharp toot of a horn broke discordantly into the deep-toned music. a motor car sprang round an abrupt curve and flashed by, but not so quickly that i did not recognise among the six occupants the two young americans of mont revard. they passed me as unseeingly as they did the scenery: for they were talking as fast to two pretty girls opposite them in the tonneau, as if the girls had not been talking equally fast to them at the same time. i bore the pair a grudge, and the sight of them brought back the consciousness of my injury. st. bruno, fortunate in many ways, was a lucky saint to have so beautiful a bridge named after him. and as we climbed the brown road--moist with tears wept by the mountains for the banished monks--it seemed to us that the scenery was always leading up to him, as a preface leads up to the first chapter of a book. we went through tunnels as a thread goes through the eye of a needle; we wound round intricate turns of the road; we came upon pinnacle rocks; and then, at last, when we least expected the climax of our journey, we dropped into a great green basin, rimmed with soaring crags. in the midst stood an enormous building, a vast conglomeration of pointed, dove-grey roofs and dun-coloured walls, a city of slate and stone spread over acres of ground and seeming a part of the impressive yet strangely peaceful wilderness. looking at the vast structure, i was ready to believe that st. bruno had waved his staff in the shadow of a rough-hewn mountain, saying: "let there be a monastery," and suddenly, there was a monastery; but our motor, quivering with nervous energy before a door in the high wall, snatched me back to practicalities. molly, leaning quietly back in the tonneau beside the perpetual mushroom, saw us coming from afar off, and waved a hand of absurd american smallness. by the time we were within speaking distance, she was out of the car and coming toward us. "we were so hungry, that we lunched while we waited," she explained, "so now you and jack can go to the hôtellerie and have something quickly. we'll walk in the woods until you come back, and then, as mercédès doesn't seem to mind, we'll all go into the monastery together." it was not until the door of the grande chartreuse had opened to receive us, and closed again behind our backs, shutting us into a large empty quadrangle, that the spirit of the place took us by the hand. over the steep grey roofs (pointed like monkish hands with finger-tips joined in prayer) we gazed up at mountain peaks, grey and green, and pointing also to a heaven which seemed strangely near. the spell of the vast, the stupendous silence fell upon us. somehow, molly drifted from me to jack as we walked noiselessly on, led by a silent guide, as if she craved the warm comfort of a loved presence, and for a few brief moments the veiled mercédès paced step for step beside me. but we did not speak to each other. what a tragic, tremendous silence it was! yes, i wanted the boy. i should have been glad of the touch of his little shoulder. thinking of him thus, by some accident the sleeve of mercédès's coat brushed against mine. still, not a word from either of us. i did not even say, "i beg your pardon," for that would have been to obtrude my voice upon the thousand voices of the silence; dead voices, living voices; voices of passionate protest, voices of heartbreaking homesickness, of aching grief and longing, never to be assuaged. poor monks--poor banished men who had loved their home, and belonged to it, as the clasping tendrils of old, old ivy belong to the oak. how dared we come here into this place from which they had been driven, we aliens? i had not known it would grip me so by the throat. how full the emptiness was!--as full to my mind as the air is of motes when a bar of sunshine reveals them. it was the palace of sleep, lost in the mountain forests, but here there was no hope coming with the springing footsteps of a blithe young prince. the sleepers in this palace could not be waked by a wish, or a magic kiss, for they were ghosts, ghosts everywhere--in the great kitchen, with all its huge polished utensils ready for the meal which would never be cooked, and its neat plain dishes on shelved trays, waiting to be carried to the _grilles_ of the _solitaires_; in the brothers' refectory where the egg-cups were ranged on long, narrow tables, for the meal never to be eaten, where the chair of the reader was waiting to receive him; in the fathers' refectory next door; in the dusky corridors, their ends lost in shadow, where only the sad echoes and the running water of the unseen spring were awake; in the chapels; in the cemetery with its old carved stones and humbler wooden crosses; and most of all in the wonderful cells (which were not cells, but mansions), and in their high-walled gardens, the most private of all imaginable spots on earth. wandering on and on, alone now, i felt myself the saddest man in a twilight world. why, i could not have put into words. had the brotherhood still peopled the monastery, i should have yearned to join them, partly because i was sad, and partly because the so-called cells were the most charming dwelling-places i had seen. each comprised a two-storied house in miniature, and each had its garden, shut irrevocably away from sight or sound of any other. into one of these solitary abodes i went alone, and closed the door upon myself and the ghosts. in fancy i was one of the order, in retreat for a week, my only means of communication with the outer world of the monastery (save for midnight prayers in the dim chapel) a little _grille_. there was my workshop, where i carved wood; there the narrow staircase leading steeply up to my wainscoted bedroom, my study, and my oratory, with windows looking down into the leafy square of garden, planted by my own hands. standing at one of those windows, i knew the anguish of parting and loss which had torn the heart of the last occupant, before he walked out of the monastery between double lines of chasseurs alpins. [illustration] chapter xxix the fairy prince's ring "rub the ring, and the genius will appear." --_arabian nights_. down, down a winding and beautiful road we plunged, on leaving the grande chartreuse, while the afternoon sunlight was still golden. the monastery sank out of our sight as we went, as the moon sinks into the sea, and was gone for us as if it were on the other side of the world. ah, but a sweet, warm world, and i was glad after all that i was not a monk in carved oak cells and walled gardens, but a free young man who could vibrate between the south pole and the albany. molly said that the monastery of the grande chartreuse was like a body without a soul; and in another breath she was asking jack, quite seriously, whether she could buy one of the cells from the french government, all complete, to "express" as a present to her father in new york. we flew, our motor humming like a bee, through exquisite forests clothing the sides of a narrow ravine, where hidden streams made music. then in a twinkling we slipped out from the secret recesses of scented woods, into a village almost too beautiful to accept as reality, in a practical mood. there it lay, like a little heap of pearls tossed down from the lap of one mountain at the feet of another--and we were at st. pierre de chartreuse. the tiny gem of beauty had caught the glory of switzerland, and the soft, fairy charm of dauphiné. its guardian mountain was a miniature matterhorn of indescribable grace and airy stateliness; its lesser attendants formed a group of peaks, grey and green and rose. as if enough gifts had not yet been bestowed upon the little place at its christening, a playground of forest land, rolling up over grassy slopes, had been given, with a neighbouring river, swift and clear, to sing it a lullaby. i had the impulse to clap my hands at st. pierre de chartreuse, as at some "setting" excellently designed and carried out by the most celebrated of scene painters. it was a place in which to stop a month, finding a new walk for each new day; but one does not discover walks in a motor car. one sweeps over the country, sounding notes of triumph. we glanced at st. pierre de chartreuse and sped on towards grenoble, through a landscape markedly different from that of savoie. in savoie everything is done lavishly, on a large scale. the eye roams over spaces of noble amplitude, expressing strength in repose. dauphiné is livelier and daintier; more lovable, too. fairies or brownies (since no mortals do it) keep the whole country like a vast private park. in crossing from savoie into dauphiné one seemed to hear the allegro movement after listening to the andante. with each twist of our road the prospect changed. the mountains grew, soared more abruptly, and the youthful-looking landscape smiled at their strange shapes. as for the cham chaude, which had been the matterhorn at st. pierre de chartreuse, it now disguised itself for some new part at every turn. such lightning changes must have been fatiguing, even for so extraordinarily versatile and clever a mountain, for within fifteen minutes after playing it was the matterhorn, it was a giant, tonsured monk; a greek soldier in a helmet; a dutch cheese; a hen, and a camel. when dragon mercédès had rushed us up the great col, and whirled round a corner, suddenly a battalion of magnificent white warrior-mountains sprang at us from an ambush of invisibility. then, no sooner had they struck awe to our hearts with their warlike majesty, than, repentant, they turned into lovely white ladies, bidding us welcome to the rich, ripe figs and purple grapes which they held in their generous laps. i thought of saint elizabeth of hungary with her fair face, her candid sky-blue eyes, her high, noble bearing, and her white dress caught up, heaped with the roses into which her loaves had been transformed. the tallest, purest white mountain of all i chose for sweet elizabeth, and that was none other than far mont blanc, floating magically in pure blue ether, like a gleaming pearl. flying down the perfect road towards the plain where two rivers met, loved, and wedded, the valley which was the white mountain's lap blended vague, soft greens and blues and purples, hinting of grapes and figs clustering under leaves. here and there a vine had been nipped by early frosts and flung its crimson wreaths, like diadems of rubies, in a red arch across distant billows of mountain snows. autumn was in the air, and though the grass and most of the trees kept all their richness of summer greenery, a faint, pungent fragrance of dying leaves and the smoke of bonfires came to one's nostrils with the breeze. mingled with the exciting scent of petrol, it was delicious. at the confluence of the newly married drac and isère rose the domes and towers of stately old grenoble, hoary with history; and never a town had a nobler setting. swooping down in half-circles, as if our car had been a great bird of prey, we saw the valley veiled with a silver haze, which wrapped the city in mystery, while through this gleaming gauze the two rivers threaded like strings of turquoise beads. "how the boy would have loved this!" i found myself exclaiming over my shoulder to molly. "he used often to talk of the great charm of descending from heights upon places, especially new-old places, which one has never seen before." "used he?" echoed molly. "why, that is rather odd. it is exactly what mercédès has just been saying." the perpetual mushroom moved impatiently. i fancied by the movement of her shoulder that she resented having her thoughts passed on to me. i hastened to turn away, sorry that i had reminded her inadvertently of my cumbersome existence; but i could not help wondering what she had been thinking of in the monastery when we had walked for full five moments side by side. there was no disappointment when we had plunged into the silver haze, torn it apart, and entered the town over a dignified bridge. all around us spread the city old and new; above, on the hills, were numerous châteaux, a strange fort, and the queerest of ancient convents, like the cork castles i had seen in shop windows and coveted as a child. in the town there were statues, many statues--statues everywhere and in honour of everybody. bayard was there, dying; and there was a delightfully human old fellow (humorous even in marble) who cleverly "lay low" till his worst enemy had finished an elaborately fortified castle, then promptly took it. not a spacious modern street that had not at least one magnificent old palace, a façade of joyous renaissance invention, or at least a crumbling mediæval doorway of divine beauty; and nothing of romance was lost because grenoble makes gloves for all the world. we sailed out of the town along the straight five-mile road to the pont de claix, and now it was ho! for the basses alpes, over a road which might have been engineered for an emperor's motoring; past the quaint twin bridges spanning the stream side by side, which our guide-book taught us to recognise as one of the seven wonders (with capitals) of dauphiné. then came a valley, almost theatrical in its romantic grace. one would not have believed in it for a moment if one had seen it first in a sketch. even the railway, on which we soon looked down, was inspired to gymnastic feats, leaping across chasms on giddy viaducts, and twisting back upon itself in corkscrew tunnels. there were thrilling retrospective views away to the giant alps we were leaving behind, but soon, nearer mountains crowded them out of sight. the country grew wild, with a strange grimness, like the face of a blind fate; cultivation ceased in despair of success; and alike on the bare uplands and in the deep-scored valleys there were few signs of human life. then, suddenly, in such a setting, we came upon the grandest of the seven marvels, the most wonderful lone rock in europe, mont aiguille, more like an obelisk of incalculable immensity than a mountain. once, it had been considered unscalable, and might have remained virgin until this century of hardy climbers, had not charles the eighth had a fancy to hear (not to see!) what was on top. up went a few of his bravest satellites, hoisting themselves on to the aërial plateau by means of ropes and ladders, and bringing down wondrous tales of impossible chamois, savage, brilliant-coloured birds, and singular vegetation, which stories promptly went into all the geographies of the day and were believed until a more practical explorer named jean liotard climbed up, to please himself, in 1834. we lost sight of this second dauphiné marvel (the last one we were to see) just before running up the steep hill which led down again into the dark jaws of another mountain pass. it was the col de la croix haute; and once past this gateway of the alps the landscape changed slowly and indefinably, here and there suggesting that we were drawing nearer to the south. though we were still encompassed on every side by mountains, they had lost their alpine splendour of bearing; they stooped, or poked their chins. the country was now all brown and green; and, surfeited with beauty, it seemed to me that here was nothing great. we sped through aspres; through serres, on its rocky promontory; and on through laragne, whose ancient inn with the sign of a spider gave a name to the town. pointed brown-green mountains were crowned with pointed green-brown ruins, hoary after much history-making; and at the pointed mountains' brown-green feet those _avant-courriers_ of the south, almond trees, had sat down to rest on their way home. still we flew on; but at sisteron jack slowed down the motor. here was something too curious for even spoiled sightseers to pass in a hurry. the town struggled hardily up one side of a gorge, deep and steep, where the durance has forced its patient way through a huge barrier of rock whose tilted strata correspond curiously on both sides of the stream. driving down to the low bridge across the river, we gazed up at the town piled high above our heads, culminating in a fortress which, cut in a dark square out of the sky's turquoise, looked old as the beginning of the world. sisteron was brown, too, but not at all green; and beyond, for a time, the country was still in a grim brown study, though it ought to have remembered that it was now laughing provence. it gave us crumbling châteaux, high-perched ancient rock villages without stint, and even a house (in the strangely named village of malijai) where napoleon had lain, early in the hundred days; but not a smile or a wild flower. then, in a flash, its mood changed. the savage land had been tamed by some whispered word of mother nature, and grew youthfully pretty under our eyes. the poplars, in their autumn cloaks of gold, fringed the road with flame, and scattered largesse of red copper filings in our path; the dark mountains drew up over their bare shoulders scarfs of crimson, and the sun flung a million diamonds into the wide bed of the durance. night was falling as we drove into the lazy-looking provençal town of digne, where all was green and sleepy, at peace with itself and the world at large. even the beautiful doric _château d'eau_ was green with moss, and the water of its fountain laughed in sleep; the famous basilica showed grey through green lichen; its wonderful rose window had a green frame of ivy, and the strange, sculptured beasts guarding the door had saddles of green velvet mould. we slept at digne, and made an early morning start, the car plunging us almost from the first into scenery which only gustave doré could have imagined. gnome villages and elfin castles clung to slim pinnacles of rock which seemed to swing, like blown branches, against the sky. wild grey mountains bristled with rocky spines, and trails of scarlet foliage poured like streams of blood down their rough sides, completing the resemblance to fierce, wounded boars. our road was a road of steep gradients, leading us through gorges of a grandeur which would have been called appalling when the world was a little younger, and more in awe of savage nature. if a midge could be provided with a proportionately tiny motor car, and sent coasting at full tilt down a greased corkscrew, from the handle to the sharp end of the screw, the effect would have been somewhat that of our mercédès leaping down the steep defiles. we were vaguely conscious now and then that a river far below us clamoured for our bones; on one side we had a precipice, on the other a sheer face of towering cliff. gorges, glorious gorges! a plethora of gorges. no sooner were we out of one, and drawing breath in a valley of golden sunshine and silver river, but we were back in another majestic cañon. finest of all, perhaps, was the dark clou de rouaine; yet when we sprang out into daylight to throw ourselves into the village of les scaffarels, wonders did not cease. now we were in the true hinterland of the gay, blue-and-gold riviera, following the course of the var, down to nice, not many miles away. wide and pebbly in its bed by the bright pleasure town, here it led us through a succession of more gorges, thundered us through rock tunnels, swept us over bridges, and at last tumbled us into sight of a marvel which must throw the whole seven of dauphiné out of focus. it was the town of entrevaux, and to my shame i had never heard of it. where the narrow valley opens into a broad one, and the green, swift flowing river sweeps in a sickle-curve round the base of a high rock, entrevaux shoots far up into the sky. the river bathes its dark walls, protected by devices dear to the hearts of mediæval vaubans. pepper-castor sentry-boxes jut out over the water; a great drawbridge with portcullis, triple gateway, and neat contrivances for pouring oil and molten lead upon besiegers, alone gives access to the town; while behind the old crowded houses a fortified stairway in the rock leads dizzily up to a stronghold clamped upon a towering peak--a peak like a black, giant wine-bottle, slender-necked, with the fort castle for the cork. "if the boy could see this with me!" i thought. and then, because this place was like a fairy place, i remembered the fairy prince's ring. never had i followed his instructions; but i rubbed it now, and wished that the genie of the ring would give me back the little pal at monte carlo. after entrevaux, picturesque puget-theniers was an anticlimax; though other fairy towns peered down from high crags and sheer hillsides where they hung by wires caught in spider webs--and though we passed through other gorges of grim beauty, my thoughts had flown ahead of our swift car. i was glad when at last we came into sight of a fair white city lying on the blue curve of a bay and ringed with green hills, glad that our journey was all but ended; for the fair city was nice. [illustration] [illustration: "the rock of monaco".] chapter xxx the day of suspense "will you make me believe that i am not sent for . . . ? go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow!" --shakespeare. from nice to monte carlo over the upper corniche, was for us a spin of less than two hours; and after that most beautiful drive in the world, we slowed down before the green-shaded loggia of the royal, early in the afternoon. the hotel was only just open for the season, and it was possible to have a choice of rooms. jack selected a glass-fronted suite, with a view more beautiful than any other in the extraordinary little principality: "magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in faëry lands forlorn." which were, respectively, the harbour, and the rock of monaco (as old as hercules), with its ancient towers dark against a sky of pearl. i was given a peep into molly's salon, which appeared to be a sort of crystal palace, with its two window-walls curtained by trailing roses; and jack kept me for a moment at the door. "i suppose we shall meet for dinner about eight, won't we, no matter what we may all choose to do meanwhile?" said he. "well--er--no," i mumbled, feeling a little foolish. "i have--er--a sort of engagement for to-night. i think i mentioned it before." "what, to meet that missing boy of yours?" asked jack, in a chaffing tone, so tactlessly loud that it must have been distinctly audible to the ladies in the adjoining room, the door of which was open. "isn't that rather a mad idea? you were vaguely engaged to meet your pal, i believe you said, on the night after your arrival, at the hôtel de paris, for dinner. but considering the fact that, if you'd walked down as you then intended, instead of motoring, you would have been a fortnight on the way, isn't it fantastic to expect that he'll turn up?" "not quite as fantastic as you think," i retorted, remembering the terms of the boy's letter, which had not been confided to jack, in their exactness. "anyhow, i'm going on the off chance." "you apparently credit the youth with clairvoyance, my dear chap. supposing he has come down here, how could he know that you'd arrived?" "i wired him from digne, telegraphing to the poste restante at monte carlo, where he would certainly think of enquiring, if he took much interest in my movements. in that message i made it very clear that i should expect him to stick to our bargain, and i have an impression that he will." "he may. but, look here, my dear fellow,"--jack now had the decency to lower his voice,--"have you no red blood in your veins? mercédès--the real mercédès--nearly restored to health and spirits by her run with us through splendid air and scenery, is to unveil her charms this evening at dinner. you have irreverently nicknamed her the perpetual mushroom. to-night, you will see--but you don't deserve to be told what you will see, if you haven't the curiosity to find out at the first opportunity for yourself." "second opportunities, like second thoughts, are better than first," said i. "i shall he delighted to take the second opportunity of meeting miss mercédès--by the way, what _is_ her other name? you always seemed to take it for granted that i knew; but if it was ever mentioned in the summer, i've forgotten." "you should be ashamed to admit that you could deliberately and stoically forget a charming young lady's name, and you don't deserve to have your memory jogged. you shall be told the heiress's name when you meet her, and not before." "i must possess my soul in patience until to-morrow, then," i replied, "for to me one pal in the bush is worth twenty heiresses in the hand, and i am now going out to scour the said bush." "which means the casino, no doubt." "i shall stroll in, when i've got rid of the dust. the rooms are the place to come across people." "all right, gang your ain gait, my son, and i suppose i must wish you luck. daresay we shall see each other before bedtime." a few hours later, i was walking down through the gardens, on my way to the casino. the young grass, sown last month, had already become green velvet, and the flowers were as fresh as if they had been created an hour ago. the air smelled of la france roses and orange blossoms, though i saw neither. some pretty austrian girls were walking about in muslin frocks and gauzy hats, though by this time, in england, women were putting on their fur boas in deference to autumn; and a few days ago i had been lost in a snowstorm on a middle-sized mountain of savoie. as i drew near to the big white casino, strains of music came to me from the terrace, and thinking that the boy might be there listening to the band, i went through the tunnel and came out on the beautiful flower-decked plateau overhanging the sea. out of season though it was, a great many people were sitting there, drinking tea or coffee, and listening to "la paloma." the windows of the casino were open, protected by awnings; birds were taking their last flight, before going to bed in some orange or lemon tree. the place was more charming than in the high season; but the face i looked for was not to be seen, and i deserted the terrace for the rooms. i had not been to "monte" since the boer war; and when i had gone through the formalities at the bureau, and entered the first _salle_, it struck me strangely to find everything exactly as i had left it years ago. the same heavy stillness, emphasised by the continuous chink, chink of gold and silver, and broken only by the announcement of events at different tables: "_onze, noir, impair et manque";--"rien ne va plus";--"zèro!_" the same _onze_; the same _rien n'va plus_; the same _zèro_ heralded in the same secretly joyous, outwardly apologetic tone, by the croupiers fortunate enough to produce it. the same croupiers too;--(or do croupiers develop a family likeness of face, of voice, of coat, as the years go chinking zeroly on?). the same players, or their _doppelgängers_; the same pictured nymphs smiling on the ornate walls. but there was no boy, no boy's sister; and suddenly it occurred to me that i was foolish to expect him. he was too childlike in appearance to have obtained a ticket of admission to the gambling rooms. since it was useless to look for him here, and no other place seemed promising at this hour, there was nothing to do but pass the moments until time to change for dinner. accordingly i watched the tables. once, like most men of my age, i had been bitten by the roulette fever and had wrestled with "systems" in their thousands, not so much for the mere "gamble," as for the joy of striving to beat the wily pascal at his own invention. in those old days the wheel had been like a populous town for me, inhabited by quaint little people, each living in his own snug house; the little people of roulette. not a number on the board but his face was familiar to me; i would have known him if i had met him in the street. there was sly, thin, dark little dix, always sneaking up on tiptoe when you did not want him, and popping out behind your back. business-like, successful, bustling onze; tactless but honest douze; treacherous yet fascinating treize; blundering seize; graceful, brunette dix-sept; and the faithful, friendly vingtneuf; feminine rouge; brusque, virile noir; mean little, underbred manque, and senile passe; priggish pair with his skittish young wife; the dozens, _nouveaux-riches_, thinking themselves a cut above the humbler simple chances in roulette society; the upright, unbending columns; the raffish chevaux; the excitable transversales, and the brilliant carrés; charming on first acquaintance, but fickle as friends; the twin, blind dwarfs, the coups des deux; these and many more, down to the wretched, worried intermittances, ever in a violent hurry to catch a train but never catching it. i could see them all, still; but i saw them pass with calmness now, for i wanted to find the boy. [illustration] chapter xxxi the boy's sister "a little thing would make me tell . . . how much i lack of a man." --shakespeare. the palace clock over in monaco was striking eight as i reached the steps of the hôtel de paris. eight had been the hour appointed. now, here were both the hour and the man: but where was the boy? i walked into the gay restaurant, with its window-wall, and the long rank of candle-lit tables ready for dinner. twenty people, perhaps, were dining; but there was no slim figure in short black jacket, eton collar, and loose silk tie; no curly chestnut head; no blue-star eyes. cordially disliking everybody present, i marched down the length of the room, and took a corner table, which was laid for four. on the sparkling snow of the damask cloth burned a bonfire of scarlet geraniums, and two red-shaded wax candles, of the kind which the boy used to call "candles with nostrils," made wavering rose-lights on the white expanse. i sat down, and an attentive waiter appeared at my elbow, having apparently shot up from the floor like a pantomime demon. "monsieur desires dinner for one?" he deferentially enquired. "i am expecting one or perhaps two friends," i replied. "i will wait for them half an hour. if they do not come by the end of that time, i will dine alone." "will monsieur please to regard the menu?" "yes, thanks." he put it in my hand with an appetizing bow, which would have been almost as good as an _hors d'oeuvre_ had my mood been appreciative of delicacies. but it was not; neither could i fix my mind upon the ordering of a dinner. my eyes would keep jumping to the glass door at the far end of the room. "i want the best dinner the house can serve," i said, meanly shifting responsibility. "not too long a dinner, but--oh well, you may tell the chef i depend upon his choice." "i quite understand, monsieur. a dinner to please a lady, is it not?" "yes. something to please a lady." was there not the boy's sister to be catered for in case she should come? in thinking of him i must not forget her. but then, how improbable it was that my poor dinner would be tasted by either! "and for wine, monsieur?" i ordered at random the brand of champagne which had seemed like nectar to the boy and me that evening in far away aosta, when the compact of our friendship was first made. but yes, certainly, it was to be had. and it should in an all little moment be on the ice. the waiter glided away to make that little moment less, and i was left to measure it and its brothers. one after another they passed. what a pity the moment family is such a large one! i stared at the glass door. other men's friends came in by it, but not mine. i glared at the window close to which i sat. the peculiarly theatrical effect of daylight melting into night, as seen at monte carlo and nowhere else, added to the sensation of suspense i felt, as when the curtain is about to rise on the crowning act of an exciting play. the scene out there in the place was exactly like a setting for the stage. the great white casino, with the constant _va et vient_ to and from the open doorway; the bubbly domes of the fantastically moorish café across the way; the velvet grass, unnaturally green in the electric light; the flower beds in the garden a mosaic floor of coloured jewels; the air blue as a gauze veil, with diamonds shining through its meshes; and over all a serene arch of hyacinth sky, pulsing with smouldering ashes-of-rose just above the purple line of mountain-tops. a carriage drove quickly past the window, and stopped, far on at the main door of the hotel. more people for dinner; but not the boy. i indistinctly saw a tall man and two ladies in long evening cloaks step out; then i turned my eyes elsewhere. over on the brightly lighted balcony of the café de paris opposite, the "out-of-season" musicians were playing "sole mio," and the yearning strains of that simple, hackneyed italian love song stirred my veins oddly. the glass door down at the other end of the room opened, and the movement there caught my eyes. a girl came in, alone, and stood still as if looking for someone--her slender white figure, in its long flowing cloak, clearly outlined against a darker background. she was alone, and there was nobody to introduce us, no one to tell me who she was, but the beautiful face as so marvellously like one i knew, that i jumped up instantly. the boy's sister! she must have come, with friends, and be looking for him. then, he was here, or would be! i have a vague remembrance of treading on several trains as i went to meet her, intending to introduce myself, as her brother had not arrived. the restaurant seemed suddenly to have become a mile long, and she was at the other end of it. so was i, at last, holding out my hand to the white girl with a large black hat, and diamond pins winking in the curly chestnut hair which they held in place. she was so astonishingly like him! now that i had come closer, the resemblance was incredible. the hair; the soft oval of the little face; the eyes--the great, star-eyes! i forgot everything but that one figure, lily-white, and swaying like a lily, as it stood. luckily, there was no one near to see, or think of us. the diners dined, as if this were an ordinary night, as if there might be other such nights again. "who are you?" i said as if in a dream. a wave of colour swept up from the small, firm chin, to the rings of chestnut hair. "i--why, i'm the boy's sister," a low voice stammered. "he--sent me. i've a letter from him. my friends are outside. they will be here soon, but i--i came. you are--i suppose you are man----" "and i know you are boy, boy himself. i mean, he never was--for heaven's sake tell me--but no, i don't need to ask. i've got my little pal back again, that's all." "oh, if i'd been sure you would guess--if i had known you would talk to me like this, i should not have dared to come." "yes, you would. for you are brave; and you owed me this." "i'm ashamed to look you in the face. what must you think of me?" "think? i'm past thinking. i'm thanking the gods. if i could think at all it would be of myself, that i was a fool not to--and yet, _was_ i a fool? you _were_ a boy then. even the contessa----" "oh, don't! where can we sit? i must tell you everything--explain everything. i can't wait. in a few minutes molly and jack will come." "good heavens!" "yes. didn't you guess? i'm the perpetual mushroom,--mercédès--roy--laurence. oh, man, man, how have i dared everything--and most of all this meeting? to fight that duel would have been easier. i think i would never have ventured after all, i would have stayed a mushroom always, and let the boy be buried and forgotten; but molly wouldn't let me." "god bless molly." i suppose i must have led her to my table, for at this juncture we found ourselves there. "will monsieur have dinner served?" breathed a voice out of the hazy unrealities that shut us two in alone together. "dinner by-and-bye," i heard myself murmuring, as one brushes away a buzzing insect. "yes,--dinner by-and-bye--for four." "man," the girl began; and then was silent. "little pal," i answered, and she visibly gathered courage. "you know what a great blow i had, and how it made me very ill," she went on. "it was molly randolph who persuaded me that a complete change, and living in the open air--the open air of other countries where no one knew me or my troubles--would cure my heart, and mind, too." (oh, what a molly! what might she not do for this sad, bad, mad old world, if she would but set up for a specialist in the mind and heart line!) "she didn't help me make the plan that--i finally carried out. you see, she had to be married, and whisked off to england, when she had half finished my cure. one night when i was lying awake, the thought came to me--of a thing i might do. it fascinated me. it wouldn't let me get away from it. at first, it was only a fantastic dream; but it took shape, and reality, till it was able to plead its own cause and argue its own advantages. a girl is handicapped. she can't have adventures; she must have a chaperon. a boy is free. besides--i wanted to get away from men. as a boy, i could take molly's advice, and travel, and be a regular gipsy if i liked. "my hair had been cut short when i was ill. that made me feel as if the thing really was to be. one day i sent out and bought some--some clothes, ready made, and put them on. that settled it, for i was sure no one would ever know me, or the truth. one thing suggested another. i thought of travelling with a caravan--then i changed my mind to donkeys, and that led to innocentina. i'd gone out with her up into the mountains, donkey-back, every day from mentone two years ago. she had talked to me about aosta. her mother's people came from there. always since, i had wanted to go. i wrote her. i began to make preparations for a long journey." "you got the bag!" i exclaimed. "oh, that bag! i should have _died_ if any english-speaking person had found it, and read my diary, which was to be used--partly--as notes for a book--if i should ever write it. i would have offered even a bigger reward, if you had let me. but i must go on:--they will come--molly and jack. i went out to lucerne, where innocentina joined me with the donkeys; but it wasn't till we were away in the wilds that--that the boy appeared. i didn't mean to visit any very big towns afterwards, for it wasn't civilisation i wanted; but--you came into the story, and i did lots of things i hadn't meant to do--because of you, man." "and i did lots of things i hadn't meant to do--because of you, boy." "it was doing different things from what i planned that worked all the mischief. if we hadn't gone to aix, we wouldn't have gone up mont revard; and if we hadn't gone up mont revard, the prince wouldn't have had to vanish." "if he hadn't, would the princess have appeared--for me? or would she always have been passing--passing--i not dreaming of her presence, though she was by my side?" "who can tell? each event in life seems to be propped up against all the others, like a tower of children's bricks. anyway, we did go, and something had sent up to the snowy top of that mountain in savoie the very last man in the world--except one--i would have chosen to meet. it was--_his_ brother--the younger brother of the man i had found out. he wasn't sure of me, i could tell: for he had never seen me with my hair short; and i had got so thin, and my face so brown; but he suspected, and he is a gossiping sort of fellow. if he had had a chance to see me by daylight, he would have been sure, and then there would be some wild story flashing all over america. that is why i ran away. but it hurt me to leave you like that, man." "it cut off all my arms and legs, and my head, and left me only a trunk," i murmured. "i couldn't think what else to do; indeed, i could hardly think at all. but i knew molly and jack were going to chambéry to spend a day, and i thought i might catch them there, if i hurried. you see, molly and i wrote to each other sometimes, though i never said a word about you. i didn't dream you'd knew them, until one day you announced things you'd said to molly in a letter, which--which--well, things which would need a lot of explanation, too difficult for black and white." "by jove!" i exclaimed. "now i know where i'd seen your handwriting before. it was in a letter which molly dropped almost on my head, from a balcony at martigny, and there was a photograph----" "oh, you didn't see it?" "that's what molly asked. i satisfied her that i hadn't." "suppose you _had_--before you met me! but never mind. i did find them at chambéry. they'd just arrived, and i told molly everything." "what did she say?" "oh, she just lent me some of her clothes, and said they'd take me with them in the automobile, out of danger's way until we could decide on a plan. i bought the thing you call a 'mushroom' in a shop, and we were starting off next morning when--you came along. well----" "well?" "molly and jack were in a very awkward position: for i had said to molly that i felt i could never face you again--_never_, anyhow, as the boy, and that _he_ had gone out of your life irrevocably. there i sat in the motor car, and there were you in the street. you can't imagine how i felt. it would have been horrid for them--your best friends--to leave you stranded, and--_i_ didn't want that either. i couldn't help feeling there'd be a tremendous fascination in being so near you, with my face hidden, you not knowing, if only the strain of it needn't last too long; and molly just cut the gordian knot of the scrape, as she always does. she assured me that being in the same car need commit me to _no_ decision as to what i would do in the end. but--you remember how she drew you out, about your feeling for the boy, how you missed him, and how you were going all the way down to monte carlo on the bare chance of his being there? well, she meant me to hear every word, and i did. after that--after that--i--_couldn't_ give you up. i don't believe i could, anyway, when i'd straightened things out in my mind. i'd told you that you would never see the boy again, and you never will; but molly said that was no reason why you shouldn't see the boy's sister. i wrote a note from him to you, for myself to bring to-night, and i thought--i hoped--you might perhaps believe----" "you couldn't have hoped it," i broke in. "say that you came to give me back my little pal, whom you had stolen from me." "it may be. i don't know, myself. i couldn't foresee what would happen. as i heard you say, about motoring down steep hills, i just hurled myself into space, and trusted to providence." "now i understand all that was mysterious in myself," i said. "my heart, not being such a fool as my head, was trying continually to telegraph the truth about the little pal to my brain, which couldn't get the message right, as there was far too much electricity flying about in the atmosphere. now i know why i loved the boy so dearly, because he was you; because he was that other half which every man is always unconsciously looking for, round the world, and hardly ever finds." "oh, man, do you really care--like that? do you love me--love 'for sure' this time?" "sure for this time, and for eternity. there never really was, there never will be, any other woman in my life except you: for you are my life and my world." "you don't hate me for my masquerade?" "hate you! i'll prove to you whether i----" "why does your face look suddenly different, man? why do you stop?" "because--i've remembered something that i'd forgotten." "what?" "your horrible money." "don't you think i knew you'd forgotten? oh, man, the money would be horrible indeed, if you should let it come between us, but you won't, will you? we belong to each other; your following me here proves it beyond doubt. i've known for weeks that i never truly cared for anyone else, for i love you, and can't do without you." "then there's nothing on earth that shall come between us. money or no money, what does it matter, after all? will you finish the journey of life with me, my little pal--my love?" the star-eyes answered. and at that moment molly and jack came in. [illustration] note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 29083-h.htm or 29083-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29083/29083-h/29083-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29083/29083-h.zip) the lightning conductor discovers america by c. n. & a. m. williamson illustrated [illustration: patricia moore] published by doubleday page & company garden city new york copyright, 1916, by c. n. and a. m. williamson all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian [illustration: page decoration]* list of illustrations patricia moore _frontispiece_ page long island "there's absolutely nothing like it on the other side of the water, not even in devonshire or dorset" 87 easthampton "you enter beside the great pond, which is so charming in itself and in its flat frame of village green" 95 long island--south shore "artists would find a paradise of queer, cozy gables, and corners of gardens crowded with old-fashioned flowers" 102 "southampton's soul is very, very old, full of memories of indians" 122 sunnyside "washington irving's dear old dutch house is like a beautiful living body with his memory for its soul" 190 "the old dutch church at tarrytown" 197 the hudson river "when we came into sudden sight of the river there was a magical effect" 207 delaware water gap "winding and wonderful it was in beauty" 213 "the mountains seem cleft in twain. it's a marvellous effect--startling" 216 york a bit of the rock-bound maine coast 303 "the air is spiced with the fragrance of balsam fir...on the way to crawford notch" 310 "the young, slender birches of the mountain wayside" 319 crawford's notch, white mountains 324 "i shall always think of vermont as the state of wild lawns and gardens" 330 "we found the green mountains particularly lovable" 336 captain winston's maps pages 90, 114, 132, 209, 216, 239, 258, 295, 311, 325, 331, and 339 the lightning conductor discovers america i the honble mrs. winston (née molly randolph) to her friend, the countess of lane _on board ss. evangeline,_ _march 15th._ dearest mercédes: it will be days, also nights (worse luck, for my cabin chirps like a cricket, sings like a canary, and does a separate realistic imitation of each animal in the zoo!), before we get to new york. but i have crochet cramp and worsted wrist from finishing a million scarfs since we sailed, so i feel it will ease the strain to begin a letter to you. i dare say, anyhow, i shan't close it till the last minute, with a p. s. to say we're arriving safely--_if_ we do! one never knows nowadays. and we have on board a man who's been torpedoed twice. i hope he isn't the kind to whom everything happens in threes. by the way, he's the ship's mystery, and this letter can't be a complete record of the voyage unless i tell you about him. _place aux dames_, however. there's a girl i want to tell you about first. or had i better polish off our own family history and make a clean sweep of ourselves before beginning on anybody else? on second thoughts, i will! jack's getting better splendidly. i can't say he's getting _well_, for that will take a long time yet, i'm sorry to--but no, to be an honest injun, i'm _not_ sorry. i'm glad--_glad_! he's done his "bit"--quite a large bit--for his country, and if his bones and muscles were knitting as rapidly as i knit socks for soldiers, he would insist on rushing back to do another bit. of course he wouldn't have consented to come over here, even for the three months i've made him (figuratively speaking) "sign on for," if the doctors hadn't all said he'd be a crock for months. even he has to admit that he may as well crock in america as anywhere else; and i've persuaded him that i can't possibly decide what to do with the place cousin john randolph payton left me on long island without his expert advice. it may be the first time i was ever unable to decide a thing by myself, but there _must_ be a first time, you know. and i'm simply purring with joy to have jack at my mercy like this, after all i went through with him at the front. we shall celebrate a wedding day presently. ten years married, and i adore jack just ten times more than i did the day i exchanged a lightning conductor for a husband. he does look _too_ interesting since he was wounded! all the girls gaze at him as if he were a matinee idol or a moving-picture star, and naturally they don't think i'm worthy of him in the least--an opinion in which i agree. luckily, _he_ doesn't. i believe he admires me as much as i do him. and really, i'm not so bad to look at, i notice, now i've begun to live again and don't need to worry over jack every instant. i had feared it might be necessary to own up to twenty-nine, only two years short of my real age, which would be so wasteful. but thank goodness, i see now i can safely retreat in good order back to twenty-five, and stay there for some time to come. i always did feel that if girl or woman found a nice, suitable age, she ought to stick to it! that's all about us, i think. so, speaking of girls, i'll tell you about the one i mentioned. i want to tell you, because jack and i are both passionately interested and perhaps a little curious. consequently i expect her fate and ours, as the palmists say, will be mixed together while we live on long island. in that case, she's sure to be served up to you toasted, iced, sugared, and spiced, in future letters, so she may as well be introduced to you now: "the countess of lane--miss patricia moore." nice name, isn't it? almost as nice as yours before you were married to monty. she has informed me, however, that she hates the patricia part because it sounds as if she turned up her nose in pride of birth, whereas god turned it up when he made her--or else her nurse let her lie on it when she was asleep. anyhow, it's tilted just right, to make her look like one of those wonderful girls on american magazine covers, with darling little profiles that show the long curve of lashes on their off, as well as their near, eyelid. you know that engaging effect? i have been invited to call her "patty," or "pat," both of which names were in use at the french convent school she has lately left. but i think she will have to be "patsey" for me, as to my mind it's more endearing. and "endearing" is a particularly suitable adjective for her. constantly, when looking at the creature, i find myself wanting to hum, "believe me, if all those endearing young charms," etc. there are simply _crowds_ of them--charms, i mean. big blue eyes under those eyelashes, and above them, too, for the under lashes are a special feature; clouds of black wavy hair; and milky-white skin such as true irish beauties have in poems, where it's not so difficult as in real life. this girl is american, not irish, but she's certainly the beauty of the ship. she is the _happiest_ thing you ever saw: and apparently she's coming home (she calls it "home," though she hasn't seen america since she was ten) as a conquering hero comes marching into a blaze of glory. all the same, i'm sorry for her. i have a sort of impression--but why be a croaking raven? i really don't see why! every prospect pleases, and there's no reason man should be particularly vile. when i allude thus flippantly to "man," i refer to papa moore. i suppose when one comes to analyze that "sort of an impression" the danger-note is sounded to my heart by the girl's description of her father. not that she calls him "father," or even "papa," or "dad." she calls him "larry," his name being laurence. she worships the ground he walks on, she says, which is sweet of her, as very little of it has been walked on in her neighbourhood for the last nine years. it seems that mamma and larry made a runaway match, when he was twenty and a half and mamma seventeen and a quarter. he ran from college and she ran from boarding-school. mamma was an heiress; larry was poor. however, he had a lovely old house on long island (or rather his people had it) and he came into it later when the others had kindly died: a very historic old house, according to miss pat. she's intensely proud of her parents' romance, and the fact that larry is at this present time only forty-one. "of course forty-one is _old_," she explained to jack and me, "but not for the father of a grown-up girl, is it? it couldn't be _done_ younger! and when you meet him, you'll see--why, you'll see that i look old enough to be his _mother_!" (she had her nineteenth birthday with a present of a motor car to celebrate it, just before leaving france, and she looks sixteen. so naturally jack and i are curious to behold larry. if her description fits, he must be rather like the father in anstey's "vice versa.") when pat was ten, mamma twenty-eight, and father thirty-one, the trio went to europe, which i think mostly meant paris. mamma was taken with pneumonia after an embassy ball, at which she was the prettiest woman, and died of her triumph. larry didn't know what to do with the child. but some sympathetic soul who wanted to save the dear boy trouble advised him to plant his little flower in the soil of france, where he could come once in a while to see how she grew. he took the advice, and patty was planted in a convent school, where she has stayed till now, as he never seemed ready to dig her up. just what larry has done with himself meanwhile is not explained in this first chapter of the romance, which is as far as we have got. all patty knows is that he left "_important business_" to dash over twice and see her: once when she was thirteen, once again three years later. he was "too handsome for words," and "the girls were all wild about him." since then, nothing doing--except letters and cheques. apparently larry was under the impression that once a schoolgirl, always a schoolgirl. anyhow, he put off indefinitely the happy day when he could take his fair young daughter to reign over his home. the mother superior wrote when pat was going to be eighteen, and larry said he would come, but didn't. patty is sure he couldn't, because "he _adores_ her just as she adores him," and is dying for the time when they can be together. at last, owing to the war, all the older girls were leaving the school except patricia moore; so larry's memory had to be jogged, and this time he opened his heart and sent for pat. dreadfully sorry he couldn't fetch her himself, but gave _carte blanche_ for everything a girl could possibly want in travelling, except a father. i told you about the high-powered french motor car. well, there's an even higher powered french maid. she's the kind that you could describe as "and suite," without the slightest snobbishness or exaggeration, when registering your name in the visitors' book at a hotel. the car, which larry told pat to buy for herself as a birthday present from him, is forty horsepower, i believe; whereas i'm much mistaken if angéle isn't about a hundred demon-power. she's geared terribly high, can "crank" herself i should imagine, and has the smartest new type of body, all glittering paint and varnish. isn't it _nice_ that her name should be angéle? it wasn't the mother superior who engaged this guardian angel for miss moore, but the dear old paris friend of larry's who advised the convent in the first place. angéle was _her_ maid, taken over from a princess--an albanian one, or something balkanic or volcanic. the old friend is a marquise, and my opinion is that her genius lies in finding safe harbours for incubuses (_is_ there such a word, or should it be "incubi?"). heaven knows what explosive thing may happen if the high-powered angéle doesn't fancy her new garage and petrol. besides the car and the maid, mademoiselle patsey is bringing with her to america a regular trousseau for her début, which is to take place in the grand manner. she won't let me see larry's photograph because it doesn't do him justice, and because she wants him to burst upon me as a brilliant surprise; but she has shown me as much of the trousseau as her stateroom and angéle's can contain. the rest's in the hold, and forms quite a respectable cargo. if everything comes off as patsey expects it to do (and after all, as i said, why shouldn't it?) i do think that she and her charm and her clothes are likely to dazzle new york. nothing prettier can have happened there or anywhere for a long time. by the way, did _you_ ever hear of a laurence moore of long island, whose place is called kidd's pines? there may be half a directory bursting with laurence moores, but there can be only one with an address like kidd's pines. it's named after a clump of pines supposed to be a kind of landmark for treasure buried by captain kidd. either the treasure is buried under the trees, somewhere between their roots and china, or the pines point to it. can pines point? i don't see how they can, any more than a pumpkin can point; but perhaps nobody else being able to see is the reason why the treasure's never been found. we haven't many young men on board. most of the young men who travel are going the other way just now; and that makes our ship's mystery more conspicuous. one reason he's so conspicuous is because he's travelling third class. (we used to call it steerage!) maybe you'll say that travelling third class doesn't usually make people mysterious: it makes them smell of disinfectants. also it puts them beyond the pale. not that i or any other nice woman can tell precisely what a pale is. but anyhow, if you go third class you have to show your tongue if the least important person demands a sight of it. and if that doesn't put you beyond pales and everything else, i don't know what does. that's why this man deserves such extraordinary credit for being interesting and mysterious. even if caught in the act of displaying his tongue to the doctor, i believe you'd say, should you see a snapshot: "who _is_ that man?" now, haven't i worked up to him well? don't you want to hear the rest? well, so do _we_. for we don't know anything at all, except that if we go and gaze over the rail of the first-class part of this old-fashioned tub of a ship, into the third-class part, we can generally observe a young man who looks like an italian prince (i mean, the way an italian prince _ought_ to look) telling the steerage children stories or teaching them games. i'm not sure if he's exactly handsome, but there must be something remarkable about him, or all the first-class passengers wouldn't have begun asking each other or the ship's officers or even the deck stewards on the first day out, the question i suggested: "who _is_ that man?" i believe, by the by, it was a deck steward _i_ asked. i've always found that they know everything. or what they don't know they cook up more excitingly than if bound to dull facts. i added to the question aforesaid--"who _is_ that man?"--another: "and how _does_ he come to be in the steerage?" it was the second question which got answered first. "i suppose, my lady"--(whiffitts will anticipate the far future by calling me "my lady")--"that all his money was torpedoed." this explanation raised such a _weird_ picture (can't you see the thing happening?) that whiffitts was obliged to begin at the beginning, and not stop till he came to the end, my eager look a prophesied mine of half-crowns. whiffitts simply loved telling me. it _is_ nice knowing something somebody else doesn't know and is dying to! the name of the ship's mystery is supposed to be storm, peter storm. i say "supposed," advisedly. because it may be _anything_. they don't worry with passenger lists for third-class people; they're just a seething, nameless mass, apparently. but anything remarkable bubbles up to the top, as in the case of the alleged peter storm. naturally, his fellow-passengers have nicknamed him "the stormy petrel." what is he really? we wonder. a jewel shines more brightly at night, and perhaps it's the contrast between the stormy petrel and those "fellow-passengers" of his which makes him look so very great a gentleman, despite the fact that his clothes might have been bought at a second hand--no, a fourth or fifth hand--shop. the creature wears flannel shirts (he seems, thank heaven, to have several to change with, of different colours) and they have low, turn-over collars. apparently all his neckties were torpedoed with his money, for he never sports one. instead, he ties himself up in red or black silk handkerchiefs, very ancient and faded; and if you will believe me, my dear girl, the effect is most _distinguished_! i told you that he looks as an italian prince ought to look and seldom does; but he claims american citizenship. he sailed from new york in the _lusitania_, and was among those saved. far from advertising this adventure, the hero of it would apparently have kept silence if he could; but it leaked out somehow in ireland, whiffits doesn't quite know how. in any case, at the time of taking passage on the _arabic_ back to america, months later, paragraphs about the man's _lusitania_ experience appeared in the papers. he was catechized at the consulate when trying to get a passport for the united states, and it came out then that there was no peter storm on board the _lusitania_. our mystery explained, however, that in the third class there was a passenger registered as "peter sturm." the name, according to him, was spelled wrongly at the time. nobody has since contradicted this statement, so it has been given the benefit of the doubt. once more the man's luck bobbed up on board the _arabic_, where he was saved again, and behaved well, rescuing a lot of people. what he did in that way on the _lusitania_ isn't known; but the searchlight of fame was turned full upon him after the _arabic_, and has never ceased to play around his head. by the by, the said head was wounded in the _arabic_ affair, and bears a scar which runs down over the left temple and is rather becoming. also he got pneumonia from exposure, and lay dangerously ill for some time. several persons whose lives he saved wanted to give him money, but he refused to accept. he was nursed at a hospital in ireland, and when he grew strong enough he found work, in order to pay his own way to america. what he is going to turn his hand to over there he doesn't seem to know, or won't tell. we have a real live millionairess on the _evangeline_ an american millionairess from the west somewhere, a mrs. shuster. she's a widow, about forty-five, common but kind. for "two twos" i believe she would adopt the stormy petrel. she's been in switzerland, where people used to go to eat chocolate and see mountains, and where they now go to make proposals of peace. i believe she made some, but nobody listened much, so she came away disappointed and fiercely determined to do good somewhere or know the reason why! she's a stout, wildly untidy woman whose mouse-coloured hair is always coming down, though it's freely dotted with irrelevant tortoise-shell combs; and whose elaborate clothes look somehow insecure, the way scree does on the side of a mountain. her ideas leap out of her brain like rabbits out of holes, and then go scuttling away again, to be followed ineffectively by others: and her latest is benefiting the ship's mystery. she's sure he can't be american, because americans don't have eyes like wells of ink, and short, close black beards like those of english or italian naval officers. her theory is that he's a subject of some belligerent country, who has conscientious scruples against fighting. the fact that he sailed from new york on the _lusitania_ last spring can't convince the lady that she is wrong in her "deductions," as sherlock holmes would say. it only complicates the mystery a little and adds ramifications. to my mind, mr. storm hasn't at all the look of a man opposed to fighting. i believe he would love it. the odd thing to me is, where there's such wide opportunity on one side or the other, that he isn't doing it. and jack thinks so, too. i do hope he isn't a spy or an anarchist, or a person who takes passage on ships to blow them up or signal to submarines or something. of course i haven't suggested such horrors to mrs. shuster; and yesterday she made up an exploring party for the steerage, so as to open communications with the desired protégé. the first officer had promised to take her, and she asked me to join them. i happened to be talking to patsey moore at the time, and saw by the way her eyes lighted that she was dying to go, too. so i got her included in the invitation. it was a lovely calm day, the long level lines of the sea punctuated with porpoises, dear things like giant commas. a good many of the third-class passengers were writing letters on their knees, and the _quaintest_ paper. among these was the man of mystery; and mrs. shuster sailed up to him, billowing out in the breeze of her own enthusiasm. "we've all heard of you," she said. "and the splendid things you did on the _arabic_." actually the man blushed! he rose up politely; and as he is very tall and straight, rather thin, and extremely dark, he reminded me of a cedar towering beside one of those squat dutch trees cut into the shape of some domestic animal. "i really did nothing," he protested, with that guilty redness spreading over his olive face, and making him more mysterious than ever. _because he had the air of being found out in something._ and the blush began before mrs. shuster got as far as mentioning the _arabic_. it was more as if he were afraid she had met him before and recognized him. "well, other people are better judges of that than yourself," the dear lady contradicted him. "i, and a lot more first-class passengers, feel it's a shame you should be here. we want you to be up with _us_ and--and telling us all about your adventures. the favour wouldn't be from us to you, but the other way round, if you accepted the price of a cabin. we're sure you're a gentleman----" at that it was patsey's and my turn to blush! it was such an awful thing to say to the man, though the poor woman meant so blunderingly well. p. and i were in the background--an easy place to be, because there's so much of mrs. shuster. we weren't even a chorus, because we hadn't made a sound or a gesture, and didn't intend to make one. but the colour effect was unrehearsed and unavoidable. i felt a regular blush of red to the head, as i used to say when i was small, and pat grew scarlet as if she'd been suddenly slapped. i expected to see the forked lightning of scorn dart from those immense dark eyes of storm's: but instead they crinkled up in an engaging smile. one glance the man gave pat and me, against his own will i think: but it was a spontaneous combustion of his sense of humour. it struck a spark to ours, and i dared to smile also. pat didn't quite dare, but looked relieved, though still evidently scared about what might come next, and intensely, painfully interested. "thank you very much," said mr. storm. "i'm afraid you flatter me, madam. i make no such pretension. it's kind of you to think of promoting me, but this is my place. i shouldn't feel at home going first class, i assure you. i haven't either the manners or the clothes to make me comfortable there." "why, i think your manners are _beautiful_," that miserable millionairess assured him, while my mouth felt dry, and i'm sure patsey's became arid as the libyan desert. "we'll all risk that, if you'll come and entertain us with stories of your adventures. as for clothes, i can take up a collection for you from among the gentlemen of the first class. a shirt here, a coat there. they'd be delighted." "thank you again," responded the victim, still smiling. "but i should be--a misfit. and i haven't a story worth telling. i'm no scherezadé. i'm very grateful for your interest, madam, but my best way of showing it is to stay where i am--and where i belong." "you're ever so much too modest," the unfortunate lady persisted. "isn't he, mrs. winston?" i prickled all over like a cactus. "i think mr. petrel--i mean mr. storm--can decide for himself better than we can," i stammered. he looked at me, and then beyond me at pat. "i'm _really_ grateful," he repeated. even mrs. shuster understood that the rare plant preferred to remain in the kitchen garden with the vegetables, and that she could not uproot it. "well," she said reluctantly, "i'm sorry you feel that way. but do let me do _something_ to--to show my appreciation of your gallant conduct on the _arabic_. you're evidently a man of education. i see that, in spite of all you say. it isn't true, is it, that you're an american?" "quite true, madam," he answered coolly. "do i speak like a foreigner?" "not like a _foreigner_, exactly. but--well, i don't know. i must take your word for it. i guess, though, you've spent a good deal of time in other countries?" "i've been here and there," he admitted. "i had the craze for travel in my blood as a boy." as he spoke, he smiled again, as if at some odd memory. "i dare say you know several languages?" suggested mrs. shuster. "oh, i've picked up russian--and a little french, and italian, and spanish." "you ought to get quite a good position, then." "i intend to try." "but they say it's almost impossible to find work anywhere now, without influence," she went on. "have _you_ got influence?" "none whatever, madam." her face brightened. she'd have been bitterly disappointed if he had answered differently! "well, we'll see what i can do for you on land, since you won't accept anybody's assistance on water," chirped the benefactress. "with your knowledge of languages, you might help me in my propaganda." (the way she spoke that word spelt it with a capital.) the stormy petrel flushed up again, whether with annoyance or embarrassment or a mad desire to laugh, i couldn't decide. he murmured that she was very kind, but that he wouldn't trouble her. she must have many people to look after, and he would be all right in one way or another. he wasn't afraid. "no, indeed, i'm sure you're never afraid of _anything_!" protested mrs. shuster, breathless with enthusiasm. but at this moment the officer who was our guide felt that the limit had been reached, even for a millionairess. he hinted that there was more to see of third-class life, and moved us on when our leading lady had offered a royal handshake to the steerage hero. she would no doubt have pinned a v. c. on his breast if she had had one handy, but was obliged to content herself with screaming out reassurances as we were torn away: "i won't forget you. i shall see you again, and suggest something _definite_." of course we didn't want to see more third-class life but we had to pretend to. we saw where the poor dears (mrs. shuster called them poor dears) slept and bathed (if at all) and ate. after a boring ten or fifteen minutes we were returning by the way we had come, when a sheet of paper blew along the deck. it made straight for me as if asking to be saved, and i saved it; otherwise it would have fluttered into the sea. somebody had just begun writing on the paper with one of those blue indelible pencils such as soldiers use in the trenches. there were two or three lines along the top of the page, and they jumped right at my eyes, though of course i didn't mean to read them--"in case you don't get the wireless. you must see him and make him understand that this can't go on. men rose from the dead in old days. what has been done before can be done again. warn him that----" there the sentence broke off. i was thrilled. it was as if a door suddenly flew open in front of a dull house in a slummy street, to show for an instant a scene of splendour, and then slammed shut on your prying nose. of course i _knew_ the paper was storm's, and the handwriting his (a strong, educated hand) because there simply wasn't anybody else in that crowd capable of it. but, as i told you, several of the steerage passengers were taking advantage of the smooth weather to write letters; and, as it happened, our mystery was no longer engaged in writing. he'd stuffed his pad and pencil into a pocket of his awful coat when the good ship shuster first bore down on him under full sail. now, on our return, he was standing at some distance pointing out porpoises to passengers and rather conspicuously not seeing us. i couldn't yell, "mr. storm, you've lost part of a letter you were writing!" but i thought it was the sort of letter he wouldn't want knocking about, so i said in a loud voice to our attendant officer, "oh, somebody has dropped a sheet of paper with writing on it!" i expected storm to start dramatically, feel in his pocket, and perhaps claim his property with a keen glance at my face to see whether i had read anything. i intended of course to put on what jack calls my "rag doll expression," one which i find most useful in social intercourse. but the man didn't start. he could not have helped hearing my siren hoot, but he never turned a hair or anything else. he went on pointing out perfectly irrelevant porpoises. i had to admire his nerve! for instantly i seemed to read the inner workings of his mind, and understood that he'd deliberately decided not to claim the paper. he guessed that i'd read the exciting words, and his mental message to me was: "do what you like, my dear madam, and be d----." i called out again for whom it might concern, "somebody's lost part of a letter!" but no one took any interest in the announcement, so i added, with an eye on the back of the mystery's neck, "well, i suppose there's no use keeping it." i crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it over the rail where it couldn't be missed by the eye of mr. storm. "he'll be glad to know i'm not showing it about, or brooding over it like a bit of a jigsaw puzzle," i thought. but the eye i wished to catch remained glued to the porpoises, and only they could tell whether it darkened with dread or twinkled with suppressed laughter. even mrs. shuster hadn't the "cheek" to try and attract the man's attention, and we returned to our own class thanking our conductor for "all the interesting things he had shown us." i wondered if he knew that while we spoke in plural we thought in singular! "the _dreadful_ old lady will never let go of that poor fellow till she's ruined all the romance, and made him a respectable paid propaganda or something!" sighed patsey moore when we were tucked into our deck chairs once more. i laughed, but saw that she was quite serious, almost tragic. one of her charms is her funny english. she's lived in france and talked french so long that she has to translate herself into english, so to speak; and sometimes she has the quaintest conception of how to do it. also she rolls her "rs"; and if the mystery had heard himself alluded to by her as a "pr-r-opoganda" he would never have forgotten it. as for mrs. shuster--she mightn't have minded the maxim gun of that long-drawn "d-r-r-_read_ful!" but her very vitals would have melted over the "old lady." despite her largeness and oddness of appearance generally, she considers herself a _young_ widow, with a personal fascination beyond that of her banking account. i, with the mellow leniency of--let me see?--twenty-six, find this pathetic. but patsey on the sunny slope of nineteen can't even envisage my viewpoint. for her, a woman over thirty is middle-aged. when she's forty she is old, and there's an end of it. how much the poor baby has to learn! i hope she won't do it in being outrivalled with her best young man some day, by a dazzling siren of forty-five who knows all the tricks of the trade and looks younger than any respectable woman ought to look at half that age! _march 19th_. i was interrupted there, and i seem to have done nothing else but be interrupted ever since, either by big bumpy mrs. shuster, or some one, or else by big bumpy waves which make me want not to write letters. at this moment patsey is calling "oh, _do_ come and look at the statue of liberty! i thought i remembered her twice that size and twice as handsome!" dearest mercédes, i must go at once and browbeat jack (who's never seen the lady you know) into admiring her at pain of losing my love. ever your affectionate molly. ii the honble mrs. winston to her friend the countess of lane _awepesha_, _long island_, _march 21st._ you dear, to send us such a nice expensive cablegram! we found it waiting when we arrived. of course the name of the place limped out of england hopelessly mutilated. but how could a british telegraph operator be expected to spell awepesha? the name is more american than the united states, being indian; and meaning "it calms." belonging to long island, it is algonquian of course. don't you think that rather a nice name for a place on a shady shore by quiet waters, where fierce winds never blow, and soft mists often make you look at the world as through an opal? it's an appropriate name, too, because poor cousin john randolph payton, who died and left awepesha to me, built it after separating from a xantippe wife who made his life a nell. everything is sweet; and the large white house has the calmest face you ever saw: wide-apart eyes, and a high, broad forehead, under drooping green hair--elm hair. jack loves it. he says i mustn't dream of selling, as he rather thought it would be wise to do, before he saw my legacy. now his feeling is that even if we don't spend more than two months out of twenty-four at the place, we simply _must_ keep it for ours. you know we were married abroad, and this is jack's first sight of anything colonial. when i used to talk about a house being "colonial," it left him cold. he had an idea that to the trained eye of a true englishman "colonial" would mean debased georgian. but now he admits--he's a darling about admitting things, which i hear is a rare virtue in husbands!--that there's a delicious uniqueness about an american colonial house not to be found anywhere or in anything else the world over. it is, he thinks, as if america had spiritualized the georgian era and expressed it in terms of airy lightness unknown to the solid georges themselves. of course, our home isn't _quite_ the real thing, but a copy. it's forty years old, whereas kidd's pines--but oh, my dear, that _reminds_ me! you'd never believe what has happened to that poor child, patricia moore, whom i "starred" in my ship's letter to you. when i wrote, she seemed on the topmost crest of the wave. "poor" was the _last_ adjective i should have selected to describe her position in life. compared with her, _nothing_ has happened to jack and me. all we've done since i posted that letter on the dock (waiting for the kindest pet of a custom-house man) can be expressed in three words, _veni_, _vidi_, _vici_. we came, we saw, we conquered--or anyhow took possession. it's much the same thing. but patsey! her world has turned upside down, and jack and i are trying with all our wills and wits to turn it right side up again. the mystery man is entangled in the scheme, too, in a weird way. but i must begin at the beginning, or i shall get tangled myself. pat put on a smart paris frock to land in, and meet "larry": also hat. she looked a dream, and felt one. every woman did her best in the clothes line (i don't mean a pun), but mrs. shuster transcended us all. you can't _think_ what she was like in one of the new-fashioned dresses, and a close-winged hat with a long stick-out thing behind exactly the shape and size of a setting hen. you may imagine a description of mrs. shuster irrelevant to patsey moore's fate and the entangling of the mystery man: but you'll see in a few minutes that this is not so. our dear millionairess had been "making up" to pat as well as to jack and me a good deal, for several days before landing; and you know how jack and i just _can't_ be rude to fellow human beings and take steps to shed them, no matter how we are bored. i inherited this lack of _shaden freude_ from dear father, and jack has inherited it from me. at least, he says he didn't mind how much he hurt pushing people until i softened his heart beyond repair, and turned it into a sort of cushion for any creature needing sanctuary. when we saw the dove of peace (her nickname on board) preening herself in clothes which would have made the queen of sheba "look like thirty cents," i was weak enough to breathe the desired words of admiration. "gorgeous" was, i think, my adjective; and it was no fib. the poor dear was pleased, and volunteered the information that she'd "dressed up to kill" for a particular purpose. "it's really for my protégé's sake," she explained. "i marconied my friend mr. caspian to meet me. you know, _the_ caspian--ed caspian, who's come into the stanislaws' fortune. i think i've told you i know him _very_ well?" (she had indeed. if she'd told us once she'd told us a dozen times. i longed to say so. but one doesn't say to mrs. shuster the things one longs to say. she would go to bed and die if one did.) "i've wired him to meet me at the boat, because i thought i'd interest him in brave peter storm," she went on. "that poor fellow's so quixotic he won't take favours from a woman. but he can't refuse a helping hand from a man like ed caspian." "have you told mr. storm what you're going to do for him?" i ventured to inquire. "not yet," said mrs. shuster, slowly and conspicuously covering with gloves a pair of hands more ringed than saturn. "i thought i'd surprise him. you see, he's persuaded the authorities that he's an american (though you know what _i_ think!), so he's no emigrant, but a returning citizen of the united states. that's what his passport makes him out to be. i've seen it. i asked to. he'll be getting off the ship with the rest of us, and i shall just say, 'mr. storm, i want you to have a little talk with mr. caspian, the great social philanthropist.'" "i see!" i responded inadequately. "but i thought, judging from the newspapers, that mr. caspian had--er--turned over a new leaf since he tumbled into all that money." (you've read, i suppose, mercédes mia, about the change in the white hope of the socialists when suddenly he found himself the tenth richest man in america? i'd never met him myself, till the day of our landing: i've been on the other side of the water so much since jack and i were married and father died. but one has often heard of ed caspian, the "gentleman socialist," the shining light of settlement workers. and since this money came to him several friends have written that it was sad--or funny, according to the point of view--to see how he'd altered.) "it's only the gutter papers that print those horrid stories," mrs. shuster reproached me. "why, they say things against _me_ sometimes! they say all i do is for self-advertisement. did you ever hear such a wicked lie? but we public characters have to put up with a lot. it's our martyrdom. _i_ know ed caspian through and through. at one time--" (she blushed and bridled as only a fat woman with two or three chins can bridle, and i understood what she wished me to understand, though ed caspian can't be more than thirty-two, and she's perhaps forty-five)--"at one time--oh, well, he was a poor young man with noble principles, and i'm always interested in such. my poor husband left me free to do as i liked at his death, and i was able to help several institutions mr. caspian was working for. i've been in europe since he got his money; but i have perfect faith in him. he's richer than i am now, by a long shot, but he used to say he'd do anything to prove his gratitude. it's up to him to prove it to-day. i sent him a long telegram from sandy hook, and, by the by, mentioned you and the honble captain winston." jack is attacked with acute goosefleshitis whenever she calls him that, but i think it's pathetic, she relishes the word "honourable" so much, and makes it sound round and fat in her mouth like a big chocolate cream. of course, jack and i are quite _nobodies_; but it did occur to me when in the same breath she said, "ed would do anything," etc., and "i mentioned you," that mr. caspian might know about jack's father; and that he might find it better worth while bothering to meet lord brighthelmston's son than merely to prove his gratitude to a benefactress no longer needed. well, anyhow, the not very good ship _evangeline_ steamed slowly to her wharf at an early hour of the morning, and patsey moore and mrs. shuster were two of the most excited people on board. jack and i expected no one to meet us, because purposely we had let no one know. so we were not desperately emotional for our own sakes. but we were for pat's. "in a minute we'll see larry!" she kept exclaiming. and her cheeks were like roses and her eyes like sapphires--literally, sapphires. we all gazed at the welcoming, waving crowd; but as the mass individualized into faces, male and female, there was nothing admirable enough for larry. pat gave up hope almost as willingly as a lioness in the zoo would give up her food at half-past feeding time. but at last she had to bow to the inevitable. larry had not materialized. she was in "m" and we were in "w," so we couldn't do as much for her as we should have liked, and for a while had to leave her to the tender mercies of her maid. it was a relief to my mind, therefore, when i saw mrs. shuster introducing a man--mr. caspian i had no doubt--to the girl. hurrying back to "s," she saw me peering out from "w" and flew to me, breathless. "he came, you see!" she panted. "dear fellow! he's just the same. not one bit spoilt. but oh, what _do_ you think he's told me--about miss moore's father?" "not dead?" i breathed. "worse!" she stopped to pant some more. i could have shaken her. "don't keep me in suspense," i begged. but the lady's eyes had lit upon her protégé. "there's peter storm!" she exclaimed. "i've been watching for him. i was afraid he might get away without seeing me." he certainly was in the act of getting away, though i wasn't so sure about the rest. "mr. storm!" she cried. "mr. storm!" he was forced to turn. mrs. shuster beckoned. he came toward us, though not with the long strides which had been leading him in another direction. he took off his cap, bowed gravely, and murmured something about having a man to meet. (jack was absent on leave, searching for some one to look at our trunks.) "oh, mr. storm," said his guardian angel, "i wouldn't have missed you for anything. but i was afraid you might have misunderstood my message. i've sent for a very important man, a great friend of mine, to introduce you to--mr. ed caspian. he won't be long now. but when i mentioned miss moore, the young lady on the ship, and pointed her out to him, he told me the most dreadful news about her father. the poor man is absolutely ruined and bankrupt and everything else that's bad; and here's this dear child with trunkfuls of clothes and a motor car to pay duty on. mr. caspian was _so_ interested when he saw her (that shows he's as good-hearted as ever in spite of the newspapers!), and he's ready to do anything to help, even to paying all the duties." half-forgotten gossip hopped into my mind like a toad. somebody had shown me a paragraph in a scandal-loving american paper about the "change of heart" ed caspian had undergone with his change of purse. "oh, he can't be allowed to do anything of that sort for miss moore," i said quickly. "her father must have heaps of friends who--and anyhow, _we_ shall look after her. i do hope mr. caspian isn't telling the poor child about her father's troubles?" "well, he offered to break the news to her gently," confessed mrs. shuster, looking guilty. "i told him she was so worried about mr. moore not coming to the boat. i'm sure mr. caspian wouldn't say a word to frighten her. he's as gentle as a fawn. i always found him so. and we'll _all_ do things to help dear little miss moore. we'll club together; i'd love to." i hardly heard. without a thought of answering i dashed off to the rescue of pat. but i was conscious, as i dashed, that the ship's mystery had given me a look. not a word had he spoken since mrs. shuster began on the subject of patsey moore (not that he'd had a chance), but the look was one which nobody, no matter how preoccupied, could _help_ being conscious of--it was so brilliant and so strange. on the way to patsey i caught sight of jack in the distance and diverged to him. "i'll get hold of a man in a minute," he said, thinking i'd grown impatient. "never mind a man!" i snapped. "never mind anything!" "not even your hats?" he laughed. "_hang_ my hats! oh, jack, pat's father's ruined, and that caspian creature is telling her--unless we can stop him. do come!" jack came. but we were too late. the roses on pat's cheeks were already snowed under when we hurled ourselves at "m." they both turned as we came up, she and he together. i wasted only one glance on mr. caspian--just enough to see that he was a small man perfectly turned out by his tailor and fairly well by his maker: all the upper part of a blond head and face rather beautiful and idealistic, the lower part not so good, might even be a rude contradiction. then my eyes went to pat's, which were more sapphire-like than ever, because they glittered behind tears that she'd have died rather than let fall. by not winking she had induced the tear-vessels to take back a few, and the process would go on satisfactorily, i was sure, if nothing untoward intervened. "have you and mr. winston met mr. caspian?" she asked, as formally as at a school reception for teaching young girls how to succeed in society. her lips were white and moved stiffly, as lips do when they are cold, though the day was mild as milk. "mr. caspian says he knows larry slightly, and--and--that he's in great trouble." "i'm awfully sorry to be a bearer of ill tidings," ed caspian defended himself to jack and me, "but miss moore was worrying--when mrs. shuster introduced us--because her father hadn't come to meet her, and i thought it would perhaps be best----" well, i won't bother you, mercédes, dear, with all the "we saids" and "he saids." we--that is, jack and i--soon realized that caspian knew what he knew about "larry's" affairs by hearsay, or from the newspapers. he was scarcely acquainted with larry himself: had only met him at houses of mutual friends. laurence moore had come a regular cropper, it seemed. things had been faring badly with him for some time "because he was no business man, and fellows were always persuading him to go into rotten things." "but we'll see him through, miss moore, we'll see him through," mr. caspian finished up. "don't be unhappy. and i see in the papers that the fine old house is yours and can't be sold. your father made it over to you legally, years ago. so that's all right, isn't it?" "have--have things been in the papers about us?" asked pat. the tears had been put neatly back where they belonged, without one dropping out, and she looked pitifully brave--ready for anything, no matter what. she didn't know enough about the world to resent anything caspian had said. on the contrary, she was probably thinking he meant to be kind--showing himself a good friend of larry's and all that. of course i realized from the first that the instant he saw pat the man simply snapped at her. if indeed he had the intention of helping larry it had been born in his mind within the last fifteen minutes, and whatever he might do would be for value received. not that it was quite fair to blame him for that. with another type of man i might have thought it thrillingly romantic that he should fall in love at first sight and resolve to save the girl's father. but with ed caspian it was different--somehow. you see, he used to pose as a saint, a sort of third-rate st. george, with society for the dragon: he was all for the poor and oppressed. i remember reading speeches of his, in rather prim language. he was supposed to live like an anchorite. now, here was st. george turned into his own dragon. what an unnatural transformation! he, who had said luxury was hurrying the civilized world to destruction, wore a pearl in his scarf-pin worth thousands of dollars if it was worth a cent. he had all the latest slang of a bond street nut. (by the way, over here when one talks of a "nut" it doesn't mean a swell, but a youth who is what they'd call "dotty" or "bunny on the 'umph" in a london music hall.) and though his eyebrows still had that heavenly arch which must have made his early reputation, the rest of him didn't look heavenly at all. if i'd been a sensible matchmaker, i ought to have said to myself, perhaps, "never mind, my dear molly, beggars mustn't be choosers. pat is, it seems, a beggar maid. you shouldn't look a gift cophetua in the mouth. here he is, to be had for the taking. encourage her to take him." but i just _couldn't_! i wanted her by and by to marry some one tall and handsome and altogether splendid. in fact, a _man_. and if a man were a man, it didn't matter whether he were a cophetua or not. so i listened quite disgustedly as mr. ed caspian answered pat's piteous question about the newspapers, and criticised his affected accent. i think he fancied it english. "oh, it happens to lots of the best men," he set out to console her, "to be in the papers that way. there's nothing in it! i shouldn't have noticed, had it been some chap i'd never heard of. and then, kidd's pines, don't you know! that's a famous place. there was a picture of it in the sunday _times_, and something about its history. i've always wanted to see the house. may i come down, miss moore? there might be ways i could help you--your father, i mean--if i could look around and study the situation. for instance, it might pay me--actually _pay_ me (no question of obligations)--to lend money on the place enough to set mr. moore right with his creditors and enough over to begin again." "i don't understand," said pat. "oh, you _spider_!" said i, in my mind, also perhaps with my eyes. i refrained from saying it with my lips, however, because after all, you see, i was a new friend of pat's and mustn't stick my fingers into the mechanism of her fate without being sure i could improve its working. jack and i aren't millionaires, especially since the war broke out and all our pet investments slumped. that convalescent home for soldiers we're financing at folkestone eats up piles of money, to say nothing of the belgian refugees to whom we've given up edencourt. there are fourteen families, and not less than seven children in the smallest, the largest has sixteen--the average is ten. is your brain equal to the calculation? mine isn't, but our purse _has_ to be; for we've guaranteed to clothe as well as feed the lot for the duration of the war, and i hear we're keeping a shoe factory working double time. i felt that the most we could do in a financial way for dear pat would be to pay duty on her car and clothes, and see that, personally, she lacked for nothing. whatever mr. caspian's motives might be, i dared not choke him off on my own responsibility, and jack said not a word. so i swallowed that "spider," but just as i was choking it down and caspian was beginning to explain his noble, disinterested scheme, mrs. shuster and the s. m. (for that in future please read ship's mystery) bore down upon the letter "m." for an instant i supposed that pirate shuster had captured storm as a reluctant prize, but his expression told me that this was not the case. he came willingly, had even the air of leading the expedition; and his look of interested curiosity caspian-ward was only equalled by mine at him. remembering vividly the strange, brilliant, and puzzling glance he had thrown to me as i left him with mrs. shuster, i threw him one which i hoped was as brilliant and at the same time more intelligible. what i put into it was: "you're a _man_, even if you are a mystery, so do hurry up and interrupt this conversation, which has got beyond me." of course, i didn't dream that he could help by word or deed, but i thought if he just hurled himself blindly into the breach it would be something. by the time mr. caspian could renew his offer, larry moore might be at hand to look after his own interests and pat's. mr. peter storm (perhaps i've mentioned this?) is tall and has therefore very long legs--soldier legs--that is, they can take prodigious strides as if they had a redoubt or something to carry in record time. whether my glance had lassoed him, or whether he _wanted_ to be introduced to mrs. shuster's rich friend, i couldn't tell. anyhow, he landed among us like an arrow shot from an unseen bow, and "jill came tumbling after." (by the way, "jill" would be a lovely name for mrs. s. i believe her real one is _lily_.) mr. caspian had to stop talking and turn to the newcomers; but before he stopped his explanation had got as far as "a perfectly businesslike arrangement: a mortgage on the place could be----" i wondered if peter storm's ears were as quick of hearing as they were well shaped; and if so whether he would guess what was up, and take enough impersonal interest in a pretty girl far removed from his sphere to be sorry for her. mrs. shuster's first words went far to answer that question. "oh, my dear captain and mrs. winston, mr. storm suggests the most wonderful plan. i was telling him more about poor miss moore's troubles--all i'd heard from mr. caspian--and it seems he knows about kidd's pines, dear miss patty's beautiful place which is her own in spite of all misfortunes." she stopped and giggled a little; then went on in a coy tone, with an arch glance at her tall protégé. "i had to confess that i could never believe he was an american. but now i have to. he knows too much about america not to have lived here. he says he used to keep a winter hotel in florida, and he knows all about the business. he thinks miss moore might make a fortune turning kidd's pines into a hotel--the right kind of hotel. isn't it a _wonderful_ idea, to help her poor father? oh, i forgot! mr. caspian, mr. storm! i was telling you about him, eddy." the two men acknowledged the introduction, inapropos as it was. they were the most extraordinary contrast to one another: the important caspian in his pluperfect clothes, looking insignificant; the unimportant storm in his junk-shop get-up, looking extraordinarily significant. _he_, an ex-hotel-keeper! it was a blow to mystery. yet i didn't lose interest. somehow i felt more. "i shouldn't know how to keep a hotel, should i?" faltered patsey, in her childlike voice. "you'd have to get expert assistance," said the s. m. "i asked mr. storm if he would be free to give advice, and--and perhaps do _more_," broke in mrs. shuster. "i've persuaded him to reconsider his first decision. he's now promised to begin over here as my secretary till he gets something better to do. and, dear miss patty, i'll be just _delighted_ to come as your first guest, to bring you _luck_, if you approve of the idea. i haven't any home. i intended to live at the waldorf and look around. but from what i hear, nobody need ever look farther than kidd's pines, if things there are managed the right way." "i don't think miss moore will need to turn her wonderful old historic place into an inn," said ed caspian acidly. "i, too, have a plan, haven't i, miss moore? and with all respect to our friend mrs. shuster, it's just as practical and a good deal pleasanter than hers." "not mine, eddy: mr. storm's," the lady hastened to disclaim responsibility at the first buffet. "ah, mr. storm's," amended eddy, trying to look down on the s. m. (have you ever seen a pet fox terrier or a dachshund with a bone, try to look down on a wandering collie unprovided with bone? well!...) "i beg your pardon, mr. caspian," i ventured, "but i don't see how your plan is quite as 'practical' as the other. interest has to be paid on a mortgage, and if it can't be paid, why it's foreclosed, both in real life and irish melodramas where the lovely heroine has the most agonizing alternatives offered her. suppose, anyhow, we just let mr. storm tell us--since he's an expert--what he means by the 'right way' of turning kidd's pines into a hotel. maybe he means something very special." "i do," replied the s. m. "i mean what is called an 'exclusive' hotel--especially exclusive in its prices. if people think it difficult to get in, they'll all fight to do so." he looked at pat. "i hope you won't think i'm pushing," he said, "i remember kidd's pines when i was a boy. i thought it was the most beautiful place i ever saw. i've seen a good many since then; but i still think the same." a little colour crept back to pat's cheeks. "why!" she exclaimed, evidently forgetting her troubles for an instant, as atlas might if some one lifted up the world to ease his shoulders. "why, do you know when i first met you, i had a feeling as if i'd seen you before somewhere--a long time ago. did we ever meet when i was a little girl? i seem to associate you with--with my father, as if you'd been a friend of his?" "no, i was never a friend of his," said the s. m., quietly. "he wouldn't know the name of storm from the name of adam." my brain worked wildly as he made this answer. i thought--perhaps i imagined it--that he looked suddenly as stormy as his name. i remembered the sheet of paper that had fluttered to me, the day we went to visit the third class--part of a letter which, rightly or wrongly, i had attributed to peter storm. could it be possible that he had known about larry moore's wild speculations and other foolishnesses?--that he had some hold over moore?--that he had wanted to send him a warning which would now be too late? there was nothing to put such wild ideas into my head, except the sudden, really _very_ odd look in the man's expressive dark eyes--a look i couldn't help associating with the talk about laurence moore. "but i'm a friend of the house," mr. storm was going on to explain. "there was a story i read once--almost the first after i learned to read and could enjoy myself with a book. it was called 'cade of kidd's pines': a great tale for boys." "oh, and for girls, too!" cried pat. "an uncle of mine wrote that book. it was dedicated to----" "i've read it!" chipped in ed caspian, not to be outdone by any storm. "what fellow hasn't? i've given it away for prizes to boys in mission schools. to my mind it would be a shame to make a common hotel out of such a place as kidd's pines." "i don't suggest making a common hotel," said the s. m. the two gazed at each other, the s. m. with a resolutely impersonal look, caspian with as rude a stare as his sainted eyebrows would permit. "a good thing," thought i, "that you've reconsidered and taken mrs. shuster's offer, for you'd never squeeze one out of caspian even if you'd accept it--which you wouldn't!" while i was thinking, jack spoke. "shall we hold a council of war?" he proposed. "you're all interested in finding some way for miss moore and her father out of their troubles. we're interested, too, but we must consult mr. moore himself before we can decide anything definite. for some reason he hasn't been able to come to the ship: a business reason probably. my wife and i are going to be neighbours of miss moore. we'll take her to kidd's pines, and if it's better for her to stay with us for a while we shall only be too happy. anyhow, we invite you to awepesha this afternoon; you, mrs. shuster----" "and mr. storm, my new secretary?" she broke in coyly. "of course. we hope mr. storm will come and elaborate this interesting hotel scheme of his. i shouldn't wonder if there were something in it." "do i share the invitation?" asked caspian. "don't forget that i have a scheme, too!" "delighted!" said jack, making no allusion to the latter "scheme." when he got me alone, under pretext of going back to "w" for the examination of our luggage, we hastily counted up what money we had between us, in order to regulate pat's affairs at the custom house without delay and without mortification to her. even before the blow fell, she had given jack the bills for the paris purchases, so that he might help her calculate the sums which must be paid. "larry always writes that he has no head for figures," she had said, "so if captain winston and i know what's to be done it will save time and gray matter. all poor larry will have to do is to hand over the right change." she spoke lightly of "change," having been brought up to know little difference between pounds and pence. even now when the blow had fallen, and fallen hard, happiness was so much more natural to her than unhappiness that she was already cheered by our suggestions. it seemed to her that everything must soon "come right." i believe she was more anxious to comfort larry and show him what a tower of strength she could be to him than anything else. the first thought in many girls' heads would have been: "here's an end of my good times before they've begun!" but i'm sure there was no place in pat's mind for her own grievances. i fancied that she'd even forgotten those dresses for the débutante who might now never "début," and the birthday car which might appropriately be named the "white elephant." indeed i hoped she would forget, so that jack might pay the duty and escape protests or gratitude. but the girl had a more practical side to her nature than i'd supposed. just as jack and i had finished our calculations by discovering that we hadn't enough ready money to settle up with the customs for ourselves and pat, the stormy petrel "hovered in the offing." "miss moore asked me to find you," he said, "and ask you not to pay duty for her things, as she thinks they'd better be sold for what they'll fetch, so the paris trades-people may be paid without worrying her father." "my gracious!" i exclaimed. "i never thought of that! she gave my husband the bills. i took it for granted _they'd_ been paid, at least!" "it seems not," said the s. m. "i suppose the trades-folk considered mr. moore's name a good one. the french have an almost pathetic faith in americans." (i wondered how he knew that!) "but," he went on more slowly, "i should have liked to suggest to miss moore, if i'd dared, that she ought to stick to her car if she's going to keep a hotel. it might be useful." "of course she must stick to it," jack agreed, "and to her poor little bits of finery. we'll see to all that, and the paris people shan't suffer. i'm afraid these custom-house chaps won't be keen on taking my cheque, as they don't know me, but later will do, perhaps. they won't make a fuss----" "i can let you have a thousand dollars if it would be any good," said the surprising storm, taking from a breast pocket of his cheap ready-made coat an ancient leather wallet, which looked as if it might have belonged to cain or abel. "oh, then all your money _wasn't_ torpedoed!" i blurted out before i knew that i was thinking aloud. then i blushed furiously and wished that the most top-heavy skyscraper in new york would fall on my head. but the s. m. only laughed. "it was not," he replied. "when a man hasn't much he sticks to what he's got a good deal closer than a brother. my savings and i escaped together." this made him seem to me even more mysterious than before, if possible. a man travelling steerage, _plastered_ with bank-notes! but, i reminded myself, he had a right to be spartan if he liked: there was no crime in that, and if he'd _stolen_ the money he wouldn't be likely to mention its existence, even for the sake of as pretty a girl as patricia moore. i hardly expected jack to accept the loan, but he promptly did, and when i saw how pleased, almost grateful, peter storm looked, a flash of intuition made clear jack's tactics. just because the s. m. was what he was, and wore what he wore, the dear boy treated him as man to man. i _do_ think men are nice, don't you?... all the same, for a minute i came near doing mr. storm an injustice. i suspected him of wanting pat to hear what he had done: but no, on the contrary. he asked us both to promise that the matter shouldn't be mentioned to her. "i've done nothing," he said. "i shall get my money back from you in a day or two." and he handed over to jack ten one-hundred-dollar bills which i suppose went down with him in the _lusitania_ and the _arabic_, and bobbed up again. i couldn't help seeing that when they came out they left his wallet as empty as the whale after it had disgorged jonah. i did hope he had pennies in other pockets, or that his salary from mrs. shuster was going to begin in advance. after my cousin died and left awepesha to me, jack and i decided to keep all the servants on, anyhow until we'd made our visit to america. that being the case, we'd wired to the house the day and probable time of our arrival in new york, and the chauffeur had come for us with a respectable elderly automobile which (as the estate agents say) "went with the place." the chauffeur was (is) elderly and respectable, too, evidently transferred by the fairy wand of circumstance from the box-seat of a carriage to the wheel of a car. we took poor forlorn little pat and pouting angéle to awepesha with us, instead of carrying them a mile farther on; and then, without waiting for half a glance at his new domain, jack nobly undertook a voyage of discovery to kidd's pines. what he found out there and the decision of the war council i must wait to tell you till my next letter. i do want this to catch the first ship bound for england, home, and beauty, otherwise you'll think me ungrateful for that ten-dollar telegram. and i'm not--i'm not! we both send love to you and dear old monty. ever your m. iii the honble mrs. winston to the countess of lane _awepesha, long island,_ _march 25th._ dearest mercédes: i don't know whether or not i ought to take it for granted that you and monty are hanging breathlessly on the fate of patricia moore; but i suppose i'm subconsciously judging you by jack and myself. we think, talk, dream, eat, drink, nothing except her business in one form or other! i meant to write you (about the one absorbing subject, of course) a day or two after i closed my last letter, which was a sort of "to be continued in my next" affair. but it was a case of deeds, not words. things had to be done and done quickly. it's all rather tragic and wildly funny. you should have seen jack's face when he came back to awepesha after motoring over to spy out the nakedness of the land at kidd's pines. it takes a lot to flabbergast jack, as i learned when he was my "lightning conductor"; but he certainly did look flabbergasted this time. you know the look as well as the "feel," don't you? it makes the eyes seem wider apart and dropped down at the outer corners. he glanced hastily about to see if i were alone. i was still in the library where he'd left me, because i didn't want to go over the house till he could go, too: and luckily i'd found enough piled-up letters and telegrams to keep me occupied. "it's all right," i said. "patsey's taking a walk in the garden. she's too restless to sit still. besides, i dare say she hoped to head you off. a wonder she didn't! but perhaps she's gone down to the water to try and catch a distant glimpse of kidd's pines. what _has_ become of the adored larry? did you find him?" "i did not," said jack. "i didn't find anybody--at least at the house." "you didn't expect to find anybody but larry, did you?" i asked. "i expected to find servants." "good heavens! aren't there any?" i gasped. "no. wait till i tell you what happened. there's a porter's lodge, of course, but the gate was closed when we got there and nobody came to open it. fortunately it was only shut, not locked. we drove in. it's a ripping place, my child. this can't be compared with it. yet there's an air of neglect over everything. that didn't surprise me much. but when i rang the bell a dozen times without getting an answer it began to seem like a bad dream. i got tired of admiring the doorway, though it's a beauty, and you'll be mad about it; so i decided to investigate elsewhere. i tried my luck at two side entrances and then at the back. not a sound. not even the mew of a cat. palace of the sleeping beauty! not to be discouraged, i wandered along till i found the stables--fine big ones, and a huge garage. locked up and silent as the grave. farther on i discovered a gardener's house: door fastened, blinds down. i went back and told our chauffeur: jekyll, his name is. he knew no more about mr. moore's affairs than we--only what he'd read in the papers; but he proposed running on to the village, and making an errand at the post-office: thought they'd be sure to be up in everything there. he bought stamps, and asked questions while he waited for change. it seems that moore hasn't been at kidd's pines for a week, and yesterday there was a servants' strike. they stampeded in a body; hadn't been paid for months, but hung on hoping for the best till after the bankruptcy. then as moore lay low they decided the game was up." "what a homecoming for patsey!" i moaned. "how _are_ we to tell her?" "you won't have to, dear," she said. which paid us out for talking at the tops of our voices in front of a long french window which i had opened. she was standing in it. my bones turned to water, and jack looked as if he'd been shot for treason. but there it was. she knew! and she behaved like a heroine. she wasn't even pale, as she had been when ed caspian broke things gently to her. "please don't mind," she went on, turning from me to jack. "i didn't mean to eavesdrop at first, but when i heard what you were talking about i thought it would be no harm to listen. it would save your telling me afterward. i don't feel one bit worse than i did. rats leave sinking ships, don't they? i always thought it stupid of them, because they might have to swim miles with waves mountains high. _i_ shan't desert the ship! you've both been angels to me, but now i know that larry isn't at kidd's pines just oversleeping himself. i want to go there at once to wait for him. think, if he came home sad and tired after all his troubles, to find the house shut up like _you_ found it, captain winston! would you be so very kind as to let your chauffeur drive me home at once?" "we can all three go over directly after luncheon," i suggested. can you picture to yourself, mercédes, an american beauty rose suddenly transforming itself into an obstinate mule? you'd say it couldn't be done. but it can. i realized on the instant that unless i sent for wild horses to tear her to pieces, patsey would start for kidd's pines within the next ten minutes, chauffeur or no chauffeur. to ask her mildly how she expected to get in would have been a waste of breath. the frail young creature was quite capable of breaking the beautiful door down with a mallet if no easier way offered! my eyes and jack's met. without a word he rang, and sent word to jekyll that he must be ready to start out again immediately. doubtless poor cousin john's well-regulated clockwork servants thought we'd lost our heads, for luncheon had already been put back for jack's return, and now here we were proposing to go off without it! yet no, not exactly without it. what could be taken with us we took in a basket: for man must eat and woman must at least nibble. while i'd been giving hasty but apologetic orders, pat had darted away in search of angéle, who might, she imagined, be useful in a servantless house. i don't know how much angéle had heard or understood, but when she appeared with fire in her eye and crumbs on her lip, i thought she looked dangerous. we didn't say much on the way to kidd's pines; but inside the gates, though my heart was oppressed, i broke into admiring exclamations. my dear, there's nothing lovelier in italy or in england! i group those two countries together in my comparison because kidd's pines has salient features which suggest both. the general effect of the lawns and gardens round the exquisite old house is english, or would be, if they were better kept. the tall drooping elm trees and occasional willows are vaguely english, too: but the grove of umbrella pine trees crowding darkly together on a promontory like a band of conspirators might be etched against the sky at some seaside château of posilippo. i'm beginning to find out that this combined english-ness and italian-ness is characteristic of long island, where i am even a greater stranger than patricia moore. and yet the most winning charm, the charm which seems to link all other charms together, is the american-ness of everything--oh, an utterly different american-ness from what most people mean when they say "how american that is!" i do wish i could explain clearly; but to explain a thing so delicate, so illusive, would be like taking a soap-bubble in your hand to demonstrate that it was round. it's an effect of imagination and climate: imagination which gave graceful lightness and simplicity to georgian models; climate which has played puck-tricks with elms and other stately trees of england, turning them into fairy trees while leaving the family resemblance. why, there's something different even about the paint on those dear old frame houses in the country over here! in no other part of the world, not even in italy, where colour is so important, could there be a yellow like the yellow paint on the ancient shingled house-front at kidd's pines. i suppose the white window-facings and doorway and pillars, and the green blinds, and the frame of cathedral elms, partly account for the indescribable sweetness of that yellow. i can't liken it to anything but primroses in a forest, seen in the level, secret light of sunrise. my ecstasies cheered patsey a little, and i emitted some of them in french, for the benefit of angéle, who looked about as appreciative as a mexican horned toad. we got into the house easily enough, by sacrificing a window-pane in the kitchen and then undoing the catch. a sweet kitchen it was, or ought to have been if the servants hadn't avenged their wrongs by leaving a lot of dishes and dish towels unwashed. we wandered about, patsey pretending to remember this or that, and really half paralyzed with fright lest she should find that larry had committed suicide in one of the beautiful shut-up rooms. no such horror awaited us, however, and greatly relieved in our inmost minds, we came to rest in the dining-room, where angéle was unpacking our luncheon with her hands and poisoning it with her glances. there were chicken salad and heavenly rolls, pickles which made me feel a child again (a thoroughly american child), chocolate layer-cake, and various other things that thrilled me with pride of the united states. while jack and i (starved) were trying not to eat too much for sympathetic friendship, and pat was trying to eat enough to please us, we heard a door slam in the distance. we started like burglars caught at a stolen feast. it couldn't be angéle, because she was darkening the room with her presence. it couldn't be--but it _was_! "larry!" cried pat, springing up, and making a dash for the door which she happened to face. we others turned to face it also, and saw coming in a delightful boy as happy as pan--much happier than pan would be in modern clothes. "she must be mistaken," i thought. "this can't be a grown girl's father. it can't be a father of anything! impossible it should be a ruined bankrupt. it must be some younger brother of larry's who looks like him." but no! "_hello_, girlie!" the tall lad exclaimed, and held out his arms. patsey rushed into them, and was clasped. she buried her head on the boy's shoulder, and he looked at us over the top of her head, smiling. i assure you i never saw a more engaging smile, not even pat's own--or peter storm's. theirs are quite different. pat's is childlike and winningly ignorant of life; the stormy petrel's is full of unexpected gleams of humour, which lighten those mysterious eyes of an italian prince. this youth's smile at us over his weeping daughter's hat was pagan--the joyous, carefree smile of pan. he patted the girl's back. "awfully sorry i couldn't meet you," he said, in a gay and charming voice, which contradicted a statement that he could be sorry about anything: the sort of voice which you know means a light singing tenor. "i've been busy," he went on, explaining himself to us as much as to pat, "busy winning back the family fortunes." pat drew herself from him to look him in the face, and beam through a few tears. "you darling!" she gasped. "i might have known it! you _have_ won them back?" "i've made a start," he modestly replied. "i'll tell you all about it. jove! you've grown up a dashed pretty girl. we shan't make a bad-looking pair trotting around together--what? but introduce me to your friends." patsey did so. when the young god pan had met us halfway and was warmly shaking hands, one saw that he wasn't quite such an ambrosial youth as he had seemed at a distance. instead of looking twenty, he appeared at the outside twenty-eight, wavy bronze-brown hair; big, wide-open eyes of yellow-brown like cigarette tobacco; low, straight brows and lashes of the same light shade; a clever, impudent nose and a wide, laughing mouth; a pointed, prominent chin with a cleft in it. now, can you imagine this as the description of a nineteen-year-old girl's recreant parent, a ruined bankrupt returning to a house deserted by his unpaid servants? after his failure to meet pat, leaving her to arrive alone and friendless (so far as he could know), with huge duties to pay and nothing to pay them with, i'd been prepared to loathe larry. but to loathe pan would be a physical impossibility for any one who loves the brightness of nature. i fell a victim to the creature's charm at first glance, and i think even jack more or less melted at the second or third. larry had come in hat in hand, and had burst upon us as such a surprise that we didn't notice his costume till after we'd calmed down. when pat had pranced round him a little in a kind of votive dance, his eyes fell upon our luncheon, and he said in french that he had the hunger of seventy-seven wolves. he then approached the table to examine the food with interest, and put down his hat. it dawned upon me only at this instant that the hat was a shiny "topper"; and as he unbuttoned a smart black overcoat and threw back a white silk muffler, lo! he was revealed in full evening dress. this at two-thirty in the afternoon!... "curiouser and curiouser," as alice remarked when she fell down the rabbit hole. "i'm clothed like this," explained larry, "because the house where i went last night to restore our lost fortunes was raided by the police, and i escaped by the skin of my teeth. most of the other chaps were arrested, i saw in the papers this morning, but my usual luck was with me. i happened to hide in a place where they happened not to look--or, rather, there was a fellow who looked, but he was the right sort. a hundred-dollar-bill fixed up a get-away for me, but not till a couple of hours ago. eyes turned the other way till i'd passed the danger zone. then i taxied down here without waiting to eat, for i thought the poor girlie would be sure to come home to roost. all's well that ends well! am i or am i not the 'smart guy?' i pulled a thousand dollars out of roulette last night at poor old jimmie follette's. had only seventy-five to start with. the wheel gave me all the rest. i backed zero and she kept repeating. raised my stakes whenever i won. see here, i've got the spoils on me--all but the hundred i had to shed--and twenty-five for the taxi. let's gloat." chuckling, he emptied his pockets of gold and greenbacks. he was in his own eyes and in patty's the hero of a great adventure. "what did i tell you about larry?" she challenged us. when he heard about the servants, he threw back his curly head and laughed. he'd been living in town, it seemed, for more than a week. "there's such a lot of red tape they tie you up in if you go bankrupt," he explained to jack. "never was so bored in my life! but i kept consoling myself with the thought, 'i'm sure to bob up serenely in the end. i always have and i always shall.' now here's this money for instance. if i can make a thousand out of seventy-five, what can't i make out of a thousand? i wish i'd gone _seriously_ in for roulette before. i might have known i'd win. we'll get some more servants and begin again, for this house is our castle. 'god's in his heaven, all's well with the world.'" "but--but, larry dear, we owe captain winston heaps of money for customs duty," pat ventured, wistfully reluctant to dash his high spirits, yet goaded by conscience. "of course i can sell the things, but meanwhile----" "sell nothing!" exclaimed larry. "now you've come home and can sign papers, we'll mortgage the place, and then we'll be on velvet." my heart sank, because i saw pat in her last ditch, and presently turned out of it with nowhere else to go unless she married for money. she was in such a state of rapture at recovering larry after all her fears, that i thought she would cheerfully consent to anything he advised, but there must have been a sensible ancestor behind the girl somewhere. "oh, i wish we needn't mortgage kidd's pines!" she sighed. "it is such a dear place. i'd almost forgotten--but such a rush of love has come over me for it to-day. i'd hate to risk losing it--and we might, you know. there's another plan that some kind friends from the ship thought of this morning, when--when we heard the news--about our trouble. they're coming to awepesha to talk it over, at four o'clock this afternoon." she turned an imploring glance on jack, who thereupon felt forced to help her out with explanations. he stumbled a little, for fear of hurting mr. moore's pride; but he needn't have worried. larry regarded the idea as the joke of the century. "great scott, what a lark!" he shouted. "i can see the advertisements! 'hiding place of captain kidd's treasure in the grounds.' what do you know about _that_? jove, we'll have digging parties, with me for the leader!" "you must make them _pay_ for the privilege of digging," i suggested. "yes! we'll call it the 'only extra.' i like the idea of that man--storm, did you say his name is?--of charging some high, almost prohibitive price which limits the scope of operation to millionaires, then letting them have everything they want, as if they were guests: champagne or water, the same charge. we ought to get some fun out of this--what?" i thanked billiken, the god of things as they ought to be, that he took it that way, for, if only larry didn't insist on managing the business himself, i saw hope of pat's being saved. our chauffeur, looking more like hyde than jekyll after his long wait, took us all back to awepesha in the car, after larry had changed his telltale clothes to tweeds, and the ruined bankrupt was the life of the party. his remarks about the expression of angéle's back (she sat in front) and his friend the marquise's taste in female beauty were most witty and amusing, if not in the best of taste. i forgot to tell you that ed caspian brought his car down to the docks to take mrs. shuster wherever she wanted to go--a resplendent car of the most expensive make in the world, such a car as he would have called "moloch" in the days when his hand was against capital. before we'd been back very long at awepesha it arrived, bearing the lady and her host, but not mr. storm. he had preferred to travel independently, it seemed, and i rather liked him for it. no sooner were the introductions and first politenesses over between the newcomers and larry, however, than storm appeared. i had rather expected that he would "doll himself up"--as they say in this dear land of ours--for the visit in high society; but he had made no change, not even a tall collar. mrs. shuster, enraptured with larry and in an ecstasy between these three men she could think of as "in her train," presented "mr. peter storm to mr. moore." "a hero of the _lusitania_ and _arabic_," she added, "and going to be my secretary." larry held out his hand, and, as he shook the stormy petrel's, stared at him. "i seem to know your face," he said. "and yet--i can't place it. do you know mine?" "i think if i'd ever seen it i shouldn't have forgotten," returned our ship's mystery. i noticed that he did not say he hadn't seen it or that he had forgotten. and i vividly recalled how pat, too, had had the impression that storm's eyes were familiar--associated with some memory of long ago. neither she nor her father, however, appeared to find any double meaning in his reply. well, to make a long story less long, mrs. shuster and mr. caspian had put their heads together over the hotel idea. both had taken advantage of peter storm's brief absence to forget that it had originated in his brain. they spoke of "our plan," and for the moment he claimed no credit, as i should have been tempted to do. it was only when they began to develop the said plan upon lines evidently different from those agreed upon with him that he roused himself. "in thinking it over," ed caspian explained to larry, "mrs. shuster and i have decided that the simplest thing would be for me to advance any capital necessary to start the hotel enterprise: advertising and a lot of things like that. all in a business way of course. miss moore can give me a mortgage----" "i beg your pardon," the s. m. cut him off in a voice quite low but keen as a knife. "the hotel suggestion was mine, wasn't it, miss moore?" "yes," pat assented, "it certainly was." she looked from one man to the other, puzzled and interested. "i shouldn't have made the suggestion if i weren't more or less of an expert in such matters." storm said this with almost aggressive self-confidence. one had to believe that he knew what he was talking about; that his apparently mysterious past included the management of hotels, and this instinctive if reluctant credence was a tribute to the man's magnetic power. he did look the last person on earth to be a hotel-keeper! believing that he might have been one ought to have destroyed the romance attached to him, but somehow it made the flame of curiosity burn brighter. "don't you all think," he went on, "that the suggestor ought to have a voice in the working out of the scheme--that is, if he has anything to say worth hearing?" "seems to me this is a case for acts, not arguments," remarked caspian. "it isn't good advice but money that's needed at this stage." "exactly," said storm. "the question is, how is it to be obtained? i think it would be more advantageous to mr. moore and his daughter for a small syndicate to be formed than for them to get the capital on a mortgage. they are amateurs. they don't know how to run a hotel. they might make a failure, and the mortgage could be called in----" "i wouldn't do such a thing!" caspian angrily cut him short. "that's why i came forward--so they could have a friend rather than a business man----" "it turns out awkwardly sometimes, doing business with friends," said storm, giving the other a level look straight from eye to eye. so may a cat look at a king. so may a steerage passenger look at a millionaire if he isn't afraid. and apparently this one wasn't afraid, having only other people's axes to grind, not his own. "forming a company or syndicate, mr. and miss moore would have shares in the business, given them for what they could put into it: their historic place and beautiful house. mrs. shuster would take up a large group of shares, and would, i understand, become one of the first guests of the hotel, to show her confidence in the scheme. isn't that the case, mrs. shuster?" "oh, _yes_!" she agreed. all the man's magnetic influence--temporarily dimmed by her old friend ed in the motor car--seemed to rush over her again in a warm wave. "mr. caspian is of course free to join the syndicate," continued the s. m. "but he, too, is an amateur. he may know how to live well in hotels, he doesn't know how to run them well." "i'm not a hotel-keeper, thank heaven, if that's what you mean!" said caspian. "but i happen to have money." "yes, you happen to have money," thoughtfully repeated storm. "which--i suppose we may take for granted--you haven't." "you may take that for granted, mr. caspian." it was now quite evidently a duel between the two men, strangers to each other and as far apart as one pole from another, yet for some reason (perhaps unknown, only _felt_, by themselves) instinctively antagonistic. jack and i were lost in joy of the encounter, and a glance at pat showed me that, schoolgirl as she is, she caught the electric thrill in the atmosphere. larry, too, was visibly interested. he'd opened a box of games on the table where rested his elbow, and taking out some packs of cards he had mechanically begun to play "patience"--a characteristic protest of the spirit against dull discussions of business, even his own. he would like things to be nicely arranged for him, i suspected, but he couldn't be bothered with petty details. he seemed just to take it happily for granted that people ought to be _glad_ to straighten matters out for a charming "play-boy" like him. the tone of the two men, however, had suddenly snatched his attention from the intricacies of patience (a fascinating new patience, i noticed). he was captured, but not, i felt, because of any personal concern he had in the battle. i did wonder what was passing behind the bright hazel eyes which moved from storm's face to caspian's, and back again. "well, then, if i'm to take it for granted that you've no money, where do you come in?" the late socialist was sharply demanding while my thoughts wandered. "i don't come in," said storm. "i act as mrs. shuster's secretary, and her spokesman. it seems she has no business manager, so my duties may carry me occasionally in that direction, i begin to see. if she's to have interests in this affair, i must protect them according to my judgment. my judgment tells me that they could best be protected by having an expert for a large shareholder--perhaps the largest. such a man would have every incentive to work for the scheme's success. and i know the right man." "you do?" contemptuous incredulity rang in caspian's emphasis. "name him!" this was a challenge. "marcel moncourt." ed caspian laughed a short, hard laugh. "marcel moncourt! why, that man wouldn't give up his ease to manage a gilt-edged boarding-house in the country--no, not to please an emperor!" "maybe not," said storm coolly. "there aren't many emperors just now a frenchman wants to please." "you think he'd give the preference to you!" "not to me. but to mr. and miss moore. and"--the man glanced at his employer--"mrs. shuster." she flushed at the immense, the inconceivable compliment, for marcel moncourt, i suppose (don't you?), is as grand a _chef_ as there is in the world, almost a classic figure of his kind, and a gentleman by birth, they say. even mrs. shuster, who doesn't know much outside her own immediate circle of interests, had managed to catch some vague echo of the great moncourt's fame. as for larry, he became suddenly alert as a schoolboy who learns that the best "tuck box" ever packed is destined for him. "good lord!" he exclaimed. "you don't mean you can get the one and only marcel to take charge at kidd's pines?" "i know--or used to know--a person who can certainly persuade him to do so, and on very short notice," said the s. m. "that _settles_ it, then!" cried larry. "can you guess what i was doing? 'ruling passion strong in death'--and that sort of thing! i was betting with myself which of you two would come out ahead in the argument and gain his point over the other. i thought--i must say--the odds were with mr. caspian, for gold weighs down the scales. but marcel is worth his weight in gold. put him in the balance, and the argument's ended. i didn't mean to take a hand in the game! i felt so confident it would work out all right either way. but with marcel and mr. storm on one side, and mr. caspian with a gold-mine on the other, we choose marcel--don't we, girlie?" "who is marcel?" inquired girlie, thus appealed to. larry laughed. "she's just out of a convent," he apologized for his child's abysmal ignorance. "marcel moncourt, my dear," he enlightened her, "was the _making_ of a millionaire, who would never have been anybody without him. once upon a time there was an old man named stanislaws, not particularly interesting nor intelligent except as a money grubber--oh, i beg your pardon, mr. caspian, i forgot he was related to you!--but he was lucky, and the best bit of luck he ever had was getting hold of this marcel as _chef_ and general manager of his establishment. no one had bothered about mr. stanislaws before, rich as he was, but with marcel at the helm, he could have any one he liked as his guest, from a foreign prince or an american president to a pierpont morgan. of course they all tried to get marcel away; but he was like iron to the magnet--none of us could ever understand why. it looked almost like a mystery! when there were no more stanislaws on earth, then, and not till then, marcel considered himself free. he had the world to choose from; and he chose to rest. he is now a gentleman of leisure. any one starting a hotel who could secure marcel would be made--made! but i should have said no hope, short of a fifth avenue palace, if that. no more hope for us than of getting the angel gabriel to stand blowing his trumpet in front of the door." "there is no hope. i'd stake my life on that," said caspian emphatically. "when i came into my cousin's money, after the poor old man's murder and all the other tragedies, i offered marcel a salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year to come to me. by jove, i'd have built a house to fit him. but he wouldn't listen. tired of work was his only excuse." "tired of making millionaires popular, perhaps," murmured mr. storm to a picture of cousin john randolph payton on the wall. caspian's heavenly blue eyes snapped with another kind of blue fire. "i should say that no power except that of _blackmail_ could induce marcel moncourt to take any interest, active or financial, in our scheme down here. perhaps that is your secret?" if i hadn't seen the steerage passenger smile when mrs. shuster accused him of being a gentleman and offered him cast-off clothes, i should have expected violence. he smiled much in the same way now, to pat's relief and larry's disappointment. "perhaps it is," he said. "i've always thought it must be exciting to be a blackmailer. anyhow, it _is_ my secret. if i can get--or, rather, if my friend can get--marcel to put money and gray matter into kidd's pines as a hotel, mr. moore--miss moore, will you have him--and the syndicate?" "we would have him and the devil!" cried larry. ed caspian looked as if he suspected that having marcel and peter storm might turn out much the same thing. but he was the only "no," and the "ayes" had it. afterward mrs. shuster told me that ed caspian vowed to find out all about our ship's mystery if it took his last penny. so we may "see some fun," as larry says. but perhaps you've had enough of our scheme and schemers for the moment, mercédes mia! ever your loving molly. p. s. i suppose he _can't_ be a blackmailer? he might be _anything_! iv patricia moore to adrienne de moncourt, her best friend in the convent school at neuilly _kidd's pines, long island,_ _april 3d._ ma chérie: _j'ai beaucoup de choses à dire_--oh no, i forgot--you asked me to write in english, because it would help your spelling. that was a large compliment, _mon petit choux_, but _do_ look up the most difficult words in the dictionary. it would be more safe. i am trying to think in english, but i find i think faster in french still; and i need to think extremely fast now, as fast as heat lightning. _aussi_ i dream in french, about american people, which mixes me up; and one laughs when i don't get my sentences right. you must not take me for a model, though i will do all my possible, and improve as the time passes on. as i promised, i begin a letter to you on the ship, but i cannot finish, for too many things happening and the times--i mean the weather--being so bad. perhaps it is better i did not, for everything is different now from what we thought. darling larry has lost all his money, and we are in the soup. but it is a superb soup, because we have a _chef_ the most famous of the world. i have almost fear to tell you his name! it is the same as yours, only that naturally he has not the "de," though he has the grand air and is richer than we when we were rich. it will look strange to you, this, that we should have an employé so wonderful when we are in ruins. but he is not an employé like others. we are as his servants. and we have him because he helps us make our house a hotel for the high world. he is not alone in helping us, my father and me. there is, besides, a band who helps. not a band that plays music, you comprehend, but a ring--a circle of people. i have made their acquaintance on the ship, all but one who came on the _quai_ when we arrived, and broke the truth of larry. i did not cry, though i saw all my happy days we have talked of so much, you and me, fly away in smoke. i thought not of them, but of larry, which was worse, for i had a cold fear in my heart like the lumps of raspberry ice we sometimes swallowed too large and fast on the fête days. i feared he might have suffered too much and made himself die. i can speak of that now when i know he is saved. but he did not even wish to be dead. he is brave and wonderful and has earned some of the money back at roulette. i hoped he would earn more like that, it was so easy, beginning only with a few dollars and waiting till they mounted up, and he hoped so, too. but he has had to put himself in the hands of the band who advise us, and they do not approve the roulette. it is too often raided by the police; and then you do not win quite always. larry is too much the charmer for a good man of affairs, and i do not know what would have become of us two if it had not been for this band. it was they who thought of the hotel. at least, it was one--a man. i cannot tell you all about him now, it would take too long a time. and, besides, what can you tell of a man when you know nothing of him unless that he makes every one march as he chooses either with some word or some look of the eyes, though he is the poorest of all and has taken work as secretary? he is named storm. for a man he is young, though for you and me it would be an age--thirty or thirty-two, mrs. winston thinks. captain and mrs. winston are of the band. he is captain the honourable. that is the way the english put their titles with the soldier part in the front. they spell it "honble" on letters or the lists of passengers, but you do not call them by it at all, which is odd; because if not, what is its use? mrs. shuster (that is another of the band) says captain winston will be a lord some day. he is wounded and very handsome, and his wife is a beauty and a darling. i have to call her molly and she has made of me a "patsey." what do you think she has done, when it burst out that larry and i were poor as the mice of churches? she paid the _douane_ for my dresses, those sweet things madame la marquise, your dear mother, troubled herself to choose for me. then molly bought them as i believed for herself, as we are much of the same form, though she is grander by some centimetres in front and at the waist. it was only on my birthday that i find they are for me! i said, "but, dear, dear cabbage, i can never wear all these when i am keeping a hotel!" she said: "yes, you can, my cabbagette, for this hotel will be different. you and larry are high swells and it will be a favour that people are let into your beautiful home. they will be glad of the luck to know you and they will pay for the privilege. the better you dress and the more proud you act the more will they be content and think they have the money's worth. only the richest ones can afford to come." that is well, perhaps, because we have not enough rooms for a grand crowd. we have twenty-five _chambres_, counting great with small, and with haste two beds are being installed in some. each person, if you will believe me, is forced to pay at the least thirty dollars (a hundred and fifty francs) a day. it is crushing! i have thought no one would come. but they do already, though we are not yet in a state of reception. the first day when the announcement showed in the journals of new york and all other grand cities the rush began. that same night we had what molly winston calls sholes (or is it shoals?) of telegrams. i thought shoals were of fish only. i will copy a little of the _avis au public_. _le voilà!_ "monsieur marcel moncourt has the honour to announce that from april 1st the historic mansion of kidd's pines, near huntersford, long island, will open under his direction as a hotel de luxe." there was quite a lot more, explaining how lafayette and jerome bonaparte, and king edward vii when prince of wales had been entertained by ancestors of the present owner, mr. laurence moore, who would now act as host; and that there were baths to all but five of the bed chambers. was it not good chance that larry had them put in? they are not paid for yet, and the plumber, with some others, has been very unkind, making larry a bankroot--no, a bankrupt. we shall soon be rich again with all these thirties and forties and fifties and hundreds of dollars a day (we can take forty people to say nothing of servants if some of them will sleep _ensemble_), and then we can pay every one. _aussi_ the announcement spoke of the pines which have given to our place its name. there was a pirate captain named kidd who buried gold under these trees or near, and though each of our generations since has dug hard whenever it felt poor, nobody has ever found anything, so the treasure is still there--wherever it is. larry wanted to advertise that all might dig, male or female. monsieur moncourt would not permit, however. he said his name was enough, and further advertising would waste the money of the _syndicat_. he is part of the _syndicat_, and has more in it than the others. he would not come if it could not be that way, mr. storm told larry. mr. storm has a friend who is a friend of monsieur moncourt's, a great friend he must be, because monsieur m. will do anything to please him. monsieur m. takes his salary of manager in shares. mr. storm does not have shares, because he, too, like us, is poor as mice who go to church--which it seems they are allowed to do in america, though i do not think we should let them in much in france. mrs. shuster, who has mr. storm for her secretary, is of the _syndicat_, and so is mr. edward caspian, the man who broke the bad news for me. he is about as young as mr. storm, yet looks more young on account of being small and blond, with curly hair like larry's. but he is not like larry in other ways. molly says he looks a combination of lord fauntleroy and don juan. i have read lord fauntleroy when i was a child, but not don juan, so i cannot judge. do you know, _chérie_, i think he is in love with me, and angéle thinks the same. she says it will be a good work to marry him, as he has one of the most gross fortunes of america, besides being rather _beau_, and _bon garçon_. angéle was not nice for a time when we had no servants at kidd's pines, and i asked her to wash a dish. she had the air of one ready to burst. but we stayed a few days at the winstons' place, which has been left in a will to them, and angéle became more happy. she says madame la marquise often took counsel with her and sacrificed her to me that i might have some one of experience to advise me in things of life greater than the dressing of hair. she has fallen into a devotion for larry, and it is for his sake she wishes me to say yes if i am asked by mr. caspian. well! i have not to decide till by and by, because he has not asked. for the moment i do not like him so very strongly, i cannot know why. every one else seems to, except mr. storm, and a darling dog we have here, a golden collie, belonging to larry, but like the baths, not paid for. it jumped against mr. caspian and frightened him so much that he wished it to be tied in a chain. we did not do it, though. i don't love men to have fear of dogs. mr. caspian has come to live with us--in our hotel, i mean. though he has the shares, if you will believe me he pays three hundred and fifty francs a day. so does mrs. shuster. she has a suite of bedroom and sitting-room. a good many of our rooms are like that, with curtains between. it was larry's idea when mamma and he were married and invited many guests. mr. storm would not come to stay, though mrs. s. wished to pay for him. she is a very rich _bourgeoise_ who drops something off herself whenever she moves, if it is only a hairpin; but many time it is a worse thing. and she composes tracts about peace. she asked mr. storm to help her write some, but he said he knew nothing of peace, he had never had any. so you see he does what he likes, though a secretary. he has the most wonderful eyes ever seen. they haunt you as if they had looked deep into strange, sad things. you think of them at night before you go to sleep, and wonder about them, whether you have seen them long ago--and what they mean--for everybody thinks something different of him and his past, some good, some bad. he is not afraid of the collie, but pats it when he passes. and he lights up when he laughs! he has taken a room in the village near, in a little house, which he considers more suitable to him than this. mr. caspian, who was a socialist once, but is not now, says mr. storm dresses like an anarchist. he does not wish mrs. shuster to employ mr. storm, and this pleases her, because she thinks mr. caspian is "jealous." but figure to yourself! an old woman of forty and more! i forgot to tell you the rest about monsieur moncourt. he directs the kitchen as well as the whole house, but you would not have to be ashamed of him even if you were _parents_. he does not come to our dining-room to eat, but has a little one of his own. he has gray hair, a sorrowful, dreamy face like a great artist who has lost an idea; but i suppose it is only that he is always thinking of some marvellous new _plat_ to invent. he spends five days a week on long island and two in new york, for he has a house there of his own. i should love to go one day and see what it is like! perhaps i shall go, with molly. i forgot _aussi_ to tell you of the automobile you said you so much envied me. captain winston attended to the _douane_, and it is settled for us to keep the car as an "investment." i do not quite know who arranged this, because it was like the baths and the collie, not paid. but some one did arrange, and will be paid of course when we are making profits. i know it was mr. storm who said, in the _conseil de guerre_ we had about the hotel, that there must be _at least_ one motor to take guests on tour, and the smarter the car the better. but he could not have been the one to pay as he is the poorest of us all. oh, i am so glad it is my _duty_ to keep this darling car which was to have been my birthday present from larry! i shall learn to drive it myself. captain winston will teach me. he knows how to drive all cars of every breed. molly calls him her "lightning conductor." i could not wait till the chauffeur arrives. by the way, we have a russian count and his wife, an austrian count and his, already all old, here. mrs. shuster is thrilled, and says their titles are a "draw." the trouble is the counts quarrel on politics and make snorty sounds at each other, so they have to be kept from colliding. it is i who must do this the most often, and it tears my nerves. my pigeon, i will write again one of these days soon, when i have settled. now i am still on my head! your upside down friend, patrice. p. s. larry has read this letter and says it is very bad english--shocking! but i cannot write it all over again. you will see, i shall do better next time. v peter storm to james strickland, a new york lawyer celebrated for his brilliant defence of certain famous criminals _huntersford, long island_, _april something or other._ (why be a slave to dates?) dear strickland: yours full of reproaches for changing my plans and upsetting yours is "duly to hand," as you'd probably phrase it yourself. what are you _for_, my dear man, except to take trouble off the shoulders of others on to your own? i ask you that! you like it. you thrive on it. with your uncanny talent for character reading, you should never have expected anything of me but the unexpected. and the whole embroglio is your fault, if you come to look at it between the eyes. i ought never to have come back from siberia four years ago. you hauled me back. what did i do in the west and in the south? you know only too well. yet here i am again, at your call. you'll say you didn't call me to do what i'm doing now, but something widely different. i meant to answer the call in your way, it's true (if at all), but for reasons which have cropped up i prefer to do it in my own. you ought to be pleased at this, because i've now _definitely determined to answer the call_. i hadn't at first. i'd made up my mind no farther than to come and look into the matter you spoke of. i'm looking into it all right where i am, i assure you, though from a different angle than that proposed by you. i don't know why you "deduce" that there's a woman in the case, for there never has been one before. there were sometimes several, i admit. but never one. trust you to see the distinction! have you been pumping marcel? you may as well admit it if you have, for i shall ask him when i see him next at one of our secret meetings, and he will confess. there's nothing he can refuse me, as you have cause to know--and you know why. i inquire as to this more from curiosity than anxiety, because i should rather like to know what is in marcel's mind about me. i never knew he had the qualities of a detective among his many gifts. he has plenty of others! but what does it matter what he thinks, or you screw out of him? i don't mind telling you frankly that your suspicions are justified--to a certain extent. it's not a woman who is in the case. it's a girl. is that worse or better, think you? i'm not in love with her, but edward caspian is, and i am dog in the manger enough not to want him to get her. my future fate--as i expect it to be--lies thousands of hard miles away from this exquisite american child, just unfolded from the pink cotton of a french convent. i am human, however. i'm not a stone, but a man. i saw the girl on the ship, and before i heard her name something stirred in my memory. you know already what the name is, if you know anything from marcel, or if you've put two and two together--a favourite occupation of yours, and then skilfully demonstrating that they're five! she didn't remember me--how could she?--though she did once say something about my eyes "looking familiar." naturally i was interested in her. and though i thoroughly enjoyed the patronage of mrs. shuster and some others who condescended to visit us third-class animals, i could but appreciate the delicate discrimination of miss moore and her friend mrs. winston. i've never thought of myself as a chivalrous person. on the contrary, i'm what my life has made of me, something of the brute. but such dregs of chivalry as had settled at the bottom of my soul's cup were stirred by the news of laurence moore's trouble and its immediate effect upon his daughter. i heard on the dock, and the child heard on the dock--from caspian, who had come to meet my present employer, mrs. shuster. it was easy to see (knowing what we know of him now) that caspian had decided at first sight to go for the girl, who has grown astonishingly pretty and attractive. i'm here to block his game. that's why i took on this idiotic job with madam shuster. it's enough to make a libyan lion laugh! but i saw no other way of keeping near, to do the watchdog act--not being a gentleman or a millionaire like caspian, able to live at leisure anywhere preferred. this blooming hotel business was started to prevent caspian getting his entering wedge into the crack of the family fortunes. he was all generosity. wanted to lend money on a mortgage, just the sort of thing a lazy, happy-go-lucky chap like moore would snap at. and the child couldn't be expected to look farther ahead than her father looked. marcel was my next inspiration--a bait to decide moore that i was not to be despised as an adviser. now, i am the power behind the throne--very _much_ behind, it's true, not in the palace of the king at all, but prodding at the throne with a thin stick through an all but invisible hole in the wall. if it's visible to any one, that one is caspian himself, who probably realized in the hour of battle between us that i'd guessed what he was up to. i am a type he would dislike and distrust in any case, as i think small men are apt to dislike bigger ones capable of reducing them by superior brute force if necessary. as it is, he hates me. i suppose he thinks i have designs on miss moore myself: "the pauper adventurer who has already taken advantage of his influence over an older woman to gain access to the heroine." sounds like a moving picture "cut in," doesn't it? not only does he (the self-cast hero of the picture) intend to punish the villain's impudent interference with him, but to unmask the wretch in order to thwart his designs upon the heroine. to do this, the said hero has put a detective agency on to me. i can hear you ask sharply, "how do you know this?" the answer is, "i _don't_ know. i feel it." and the life i've led has taught me to trust my feelings. i have been like a stag in the forest who scents the unseen hunters when still very far off. if the villain, peter storm, is "unmasked"--well, so much the worse for him, but others will fall with his fall, we know. and the danger for me (it is a danger, i admit) only adds to the--fun. probably you'll mention the word "damn" or some other analogous one when you read that. "_fun!_" you'll sneer. but my dear fellow, it expresses my point of view. i _am_ having fun. i'm having the time of my life. afterward--"let come what come may, i shall have had my day." and i'm going to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer--unless caspian undermines me and blows up my trenches. the latter, by the way, are of a homely character. i lurk in lodgings at the village dressmaker's. i have one room at the back of the house, its dormer window looking over a grass plot and a chicken coop. fortunately the cock is as morose and reserved an individual as i am myself, without my sense of humour--or else he's henpecked. he never opens his head till it's necessary to salute the sunrise; and the hens consider it bad form to boast loudly because a mere egg has been given to the world. for this accommodation i pay four dollars a week, and ten cents a day for having a rubber bath filled. breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee is brought to my room by a timid fawn of a dressmaker's daughter who does me the honour of fearing and admiring me, i surmise. i pay twenty cents for her attendance and admiration. mine is the simple life, but luxurious compared with many of my experiences. as to clothes, i am always hyde, never jekyll. it's safer. my hat is the worst thing in hats you ever beheld, though i have at times surpassed it. you would think i ought to have plenty of leisure on my hands for the work i brought from siberia, but i confess the girl has got between me and it. don't waste a smile. no girl born could tempt me to what i should have to give up for her. besides, there are a thousand other obstacles between me and love. if she wastes a few thoughts on me--as perhaps she does sometimes--it's only curiosity concerning the "ship's mystery." that's what they all called me on board, i heard. but there is the past, a faded yet beautiful background of early youth--one of the few really beautiful things in my life. and there is the girl, a radiant figure in the foreground. i'm in the house at kidd's pines often enough, doing my secretarial work (a howl of laughter here, please!), to see pretty well all that goes on, and the demoniac joy i feel in acting as _deus ex machina_ i can't express to you, because i don't entirely understand it myself. but i wouldn't be out of this for anything. miss moore has been learning to drive her car. (you know about that car!) captain winston began to give her lessons, but cracked up, as his wounds aren't thoroughly mended yet. i had half a mind to offer my services, but thought it would add too much fuel to the fire of curiosity, so held my peace until--well, several things happened first. among them was the coming of castnet, the chauffeur engaged by marcel himself--a frenchman, too young to be mobilized, but supposed to understand a grayles-grice. he looked a smart fellow, and a lesson or two went off well, according to what i heard in mrs. shuster's room. miss moore sometimes comes in when i am there, with news from the front, so to speak: what new guests have arrived, what they are like, how they get on together--or don't get on; for kidd's pines as a hotel is already a going concern. three days after castnet's arrival miss moore gave up having her lesson in order to give count von falm and his wife a spin. they happened to be the only guests--except my boss--without a car of their own, and von falm pointedly alluded to an advertisement promising an automobile for the service of visitors. thereupon the bomb exploded. young castnet, like a sprat defying a sturgeon, refused to drive an enemy of his country. the sturgeon demanded the sprat's discharge. miss moore sought her father. "larry" was teaching the russian countess tennis, and gaily gave his daughter _carte blanche_. she, overwhelmed by responsibility, temporized. france, you see, is her second home! the austrian was in no mood to stand half measures, and gave notice of departure. meanwhile, castnet departed without this ceremony, unaware that providence was at work in his behalf. behold kidd's pines with its best room empty and minus a chauffeur! but miss moore was undaunted. at any moment somebody else might clamour for the car. she determined to be her own chauffeur, and on the strength of her half-dozen lessons, set out alone to experiment with the forty horsepower grayles-grice. that was when i met her on her second excursion, i think. i was taking a walk, and she was stranded in the middle of the "king's highway," about two miles from huntersford. another car equally large and powerful was drawn up almost nose to nose with the grayles-grice, and the road was becoming congested with vehicles of various sorts. the grayles-grice blocked the way. it was impossible for anything else wider than a bicycle or a skeleton to proceed in either direction; consequently you would have supposed that a big reception or an automobile race was taking place in the neighbourhood. you can imagine what language would ordinarily, in such circumstances, have belched from the serried ranks of fiery pierce arrows, dashing cadillacs, and even from peace-loving fords; but what should you say was happening in the present instance? if you refuse to commit yourself to an opinion, it's only because you've never seen miss patricia moore. i will tell you what was happening! all the men were out of all the cars, either helping, advising, or trying to get near enough to do one or both. the chauffeuse herself was sitting behind her wheel with the manner of a youthful queen on a throne receiving homage from courtiers. the grayles-grice is gray, and she was dressed in gray to match, a light pearl gray i should say it would be called. she has a complexion also like pearl, but not gray pearl. excitement had given her a bright rosy colour. her black hair--i don't know whether excitement makes a girl's hair curl--but anyhow hers was doing it, in little rings and spirals which fluttered in the breeze and blew across her cheeks and eyes. by the way, she has the bluest eyes i ever saw in human head. she was thanking her courtiers charmingly whenever they came within speaking distance, rolling her "r's" in a fascinating french fashion she has, and whenever a heated red man would lift his head from the open bonnet or pop up from under the car she would remark how _kind_ he was, or how sad she felt that he should be having all this trouble for _her_! then other men for whom there was not room at the bonnet or under the capacious grayles-grice envied the hot red ones, and intimated (in order to get hot and red and awake sympathy themselves) that they and they alone could find out what was the matter. i should estimate that at least a dozen men had enlisted under the voluntary system, while others on the outer ring only waited their turn. as for the stranded autos (whose number increased as the minutes went on), ladies young and old who sat desiring the return of their cavaliers looked as pleased as the wives of circe's admirers must have looked while their male belongings were transformed into beasts. "why doesn't somebody roll the old thing out of the way and let us go on?" shrieked one of a carful of school teachers deserted by their chauffeur. he, from a distance, explained not too patiently that the trouble was, the thing _wouldn't_ roll. i am pretty sure that not one of the men engaged was in a hurry for it to budge; for you know as well as i that all men are deeply romantic at heart, the oldest boys as well as the youngest boys--or more so. this girl looked like romance incarnate--the face that we see in the sunrise and in our dreams--and it couldn't be often that most of these good commonplace chaps came in for such an adventure. "oh, mr. storm!" exclaimed miss moore when i added myself to the rank of recruits. everybody stared at me. i felt i was not liked. "you see i've br-roken down!" she explained with the smile of a child. "the poor car won't move without ter-r-rible danger, and no one can find out what the mystery is--though they're _so good_ to me!" perhaps she wildly hoped there might be a bond between the man of mystery and all other mysteries. it didn't seem likely that where so many men had failed i should succeed; still, i'd driven a grayles-grice (you remember, don't you?) and perhaps they hadn't. "i suppose you don't know things about cars?" she questioned anxiously, as i drew nearer. "i know some things," i admitted with due modesty. and suddenly i wanted to succeed where these others had failed. because, though i had done some small favours for her, she hadn't known about them, so she had never thanked me except in the most casual way. i thought it would be rather nice to be thanked by her. i gazed at the grayles-grice, which also gazed at me from under her bonnet, and seemed to wink with her carburetor. "how do you know she won't move?" i inquired of every one in general and no one in particular. "the young lady begged us not to try, as it had been tried already by two gentlemen on motor bikes, who had to go on before this lot came," the school teachers' chauffeur defended the crowd's intelligence and his own. "i thought it might be a ball broken in the bearings had jammed a rear wheel, but it ain't that; so we took a squint at the differential, but it ain't that either." "shall we try again to give her a shove?" i suggested. "the traffic can't be held up here all night. pretty soon it will be solid between here and new york." "oh, _don't_ try till you find out what's the matter!" cried miss moore. "there was the most hor-r-r-rible noise when those two other men tried. we might be killed!" i made her get down, and then, with a couple of bold volunteers, risked the mystic peril that lurked behind the "hor-r-rible noise," by attempting to push the car to the edge of the road. if you will believe me, the grayles-grice rolled silently and smoothly as if she were on skates. in a moment she was out of the way, and the coast clear for the crowd. but no man near enough to have seen miss moore stirred until i had made a further discovery. the deep-rooted trouble which had defied the gray matter of all explorers proved to be nothing more or less than complete lack of gasoline. no one had thought of that, because the search had been for something serious and esoteric. "gas" was offered on all hands, and the g.-g., having drunk long and deep, was once more refreshed as a giant to run her course. "shall i drive, or will you?" i mildly asked miss moore. "_can_ you?" she inquired. "i don't think i've forgotten how. i drove a grayles-grice once for a year when i was down on my luck." (you'll let that statement go unchallenged, won't you? it was the most beastly year of my life.) we were about to start on a return journey to kidd's pines, with me at the helm, and quite an audience looking on, when two policemen came bumping along in a short-nosed car. they bawled out a question: had any of us "folks" seen two fellows on motor bikes? miss moore was the only one of the "folks" who had. "do tell them i saw the men," she appealed to me. and then before i could open my lips she had (characteristically of woman) plunged into the recital herself. her car had come to a standstill, she explained, in the middle of the road. she couldn't make it start. two motor bicycle riders had appeared and would have passed, but she signalled them to stop. she begged the pair to push her car out of the way. at first she thought they meant to hurry on. they went past her, one on each side. but they muttered something to each other, stopped suddenly, and jumped off their machines. they were laughing together as they came running back. they said, "all right, miss," and took hold of the grayles-grice as if to wheel her to the edge of the road. but then there followed a fear-r-ful bang, like a pistol shot, and miss moore noticed a queer smell--a little like the fourth of july when you were a child. she was frightened, and so were the men. one of them cried out, "something wrong here! this'll take an expert!" and the other warned her, _whatever_ she did, not to let anybody who didn't understand that make of motor try to budge the wheels an inch. then the two were obliged to go in haste because they had a ferryboat to catch. not long after autos and autos began to stream along from both directions, and were held up because she warned every one not to move the car. clever dodge, wasn't it? the pair had robbed a jewellery shop window, and bagged a whole trayful of suburban engagement rings. as it happened, the police had taken up a wrong scent before they got on the right one. but had the watchdogs come along a few minutes earlier they would have found their way blocked effectively. one of the thieves had fired a torpedo in the road just behind the g.-g. to scare the chauffeuse (one of those big, fat torpedoes motorists and bicyclists sometimes use to frighten dogs) and so had secured a clear road to the nearest ferry. the policemen found the fragments of the torpedo in the dust--after i had suggested their looking for it. that is the way i entered miss moore's service as temporary chauffeur, combining the duties as best i may with secretarial work for mrs. shuster. i'm not sure yet how the two parts are to be doubled successfully, but i'm sure of one thing: i don't mean to throw either part up at present, so there's no use in your grumbling or preaching. some new people have come to stay in the hotel, a jolly family of boys and girls, and a few days' motor trip is suggested, with me at the helm. the party will consist of the jolly family, about whom more later; miss moore as conductress; and captain and mrs. winston accompanying in their own car, as chaperons. for some extraordinary reason, which puzzles me, mrs. s. is not going. apropos of this excursion, i warn you, my dear friend, that you needn't fash yourself to answer my letter in a hurry. you may take time to think. mrs. shuster is not only willing, but anxious, for me to drive for the party. i can't imagine why. but i shall certainly _know_ why, and perhaps to my sorrow, when i get back. if i hadn't taken on the job, caspian would. he spent two days away from kidd's pines, and moncourt (just back from a trip to town as i finish writing) saw him in n. y. in a grayles-grice, apparently taking a lesson how to drive. (his own car is a wilmot.) when he returned, it was without the wilmot. said he'd had an accident, and his auto would be laid up for a week; he hoped miss moore would let him avail himself of her g.-g. when necessary. he was too late, however, for this particular occasion. all arrangements had been made in his absence. i've nobly refused an extra salary; but i expect to have heaven knows how much extra fun. i bet caspian's car will be mended unexpectedly soon, as another is booked to drive the g.-g. this time. yours, p. s. the wilmot has arrived from new york, and doubtless will follow us like a tame dog. if my hand has not forgotten its cunning, the said dog will find itself often outdistanced. vi the honble mrs. winston to the countess of lane _easthampton, long island._ _the loveliest moonlight april night._ dearest mercédes: we're just beginning a short motor trip, pausing here all night because it's beautiful, and because there's a dance which pat and a large family of girls, appropriately named goodrich, wish to sample. to tell the truth, i shouldn't mind dancing, myself! they're going to have a quaint new thing dedicated by its inventor to long island. it's called the gull glide. but jack did too much last week, teaching patsey to drive her giant grayles-grice, and he says if he danced anything it would have to be the shamblers' shake. i wouldn't put my nose inside the ballroom without him; vowed i'd be bored stiff. the goodrich girls' mother is chaperoning her brood and pat. i made jack "seek his bed," as the french say, but i'm on the balcony of our private sitting-room, in the moonlight, writing by an electric lamp whose shade looks like an illuminated red rose seen through silver mist. the music, which throbs up to me like heart-beats, mingles with the undertone of the sea and makes me thankful that jack's so nice and loves me so much. not to be loved in such music and such moonlight would make one feel one wasn't a woman! the dance has just begun and will last hours. i've no intention of trying to sleep till it's over, because i'm sure pat will have things to tell which really _can't_ wait till morning. things like that never can! meanwhile i shall have time for a long letter to you--the kind you say you like to get. this is really for monty also, since you are now with him, helping him to get well, "somewhere in france." jack wanted to write a few lines to-night, to put with mine, but his arm is very lame. he said, "tell monty this is like old times, when he was recuperating in davos, and i was 'lightning conductor' for molly randolph." good gracious, what a lot of water has run past mills and under wheels of motors since then! but luckily (since you ask us to chronicle our adventures, as jack did for monty in those days) we can still mix the honey of love with the lubricating oil of the machine. it will most likely be pat's and somebody else's love, not ours, although our stock never runs dry. but you're interested in pat's affairs, and really they _do_ get more complicated and exciting every day. i shan't tell you much about them just now, but will save that part of the narrative for by and by, in case there's anything to add at half-past midnight. there generally is news from the front about that time. meanwhile, monty (who is as ignorant of this country as jack was only the other day) clamours for j.'s "impressions of america." since jack can't put them on paper, i will. i know all his most topographical thoughts, because he's trying them--not "on a dog" but on me, while i drive the car to save his good right arm. "the lightning conductor discovering america" i call him, as everything surprises and interests him so hugely, you would think he was an "o pioneer!" long island isn't your "pitch," mercédes dear, and you don't know much about it from the inside, so to speak. you may imagine, therefore, that it's a small, sophisticated spot on the map for us to _discover_. but there's where you're wrong, my dear! it's not small and it's not sophisticated. it may look tiny on paper, but it feels far from tiny when you set forth to motor over it. it feels about the size i used to picture england before i went abroad. [illustration: long island "there's absolutely nothing like it on the other side of the water, not even in devonshire or dorset"] jack fancied (he dared not say so to me till he could add "i made a big mistake") that america was new and indigestible, like freshly baked bread. as for long island, he visioned it as a seaside suburb of new york. now, he's so fascinated with awepesha and its environment that he's simply bolting history by the yard! you know, he always was keen on that sort of thing when he travelled; but like most britishers he flattered himself that he had been _born_ knowing all that was worth knowing in the history of the united states: a little about the revolution and the civil war, and "--er--well really, what else _was_ there, you know, if you'd read cooper and 'uncle tom's cabin' when you were a boy?" now, he browses in cousin john randolph payton's respectable library, where every book is bound like every other book in "half calf," and he sees that things began to wake up over here several hundreds of years ago. he has even discovered that an ancestor of his was one of the first important settlers of long island, apparently a perfect pig of a man who was horrid to innocent indians--charming indians who believed that europeans meant what they said. i can't reconcile it with jack to have had a pig for an ancestor, but he certainly had, at least one. luckily the tendency has run out in the family ages ago. but to turn from ancestral pigs to our island! jack says the history of long island is the history of the whole country in miniature, like "the world seen through the little eye of a sparrow," as emerson would have said. in fact, it's _some_ island, as emerson would _not_ have said; and of course we think our part the loveliest and historicalest of all. there's more variety in history as well as scenery on this island than in many entire _states_. you simply take your choice. you say to yourself, "do i prefer indian history and names? or do i prefer the dutch? or does my taste run in the direction of the english? do i want to visit the sites of indian massacres or revolutionary battles? does pirate treasure lure me? am i thrilled by the adventures of whaling-ships and their brave captains?" when you've chosen, you point your auto's nose in the direction desired. the only thing you _couldn't_ find in the island's thousand miles of glorious roads--(yes, my child, a thousand miles, to say nothing of the not so glorious ones!)--the only thing, i repeat, would be something completely modern. that proud statement doesn't sound true, but it is. you could find plenty of new houses, the newest of the new: palaces of millionaires, middle-sized houses of middle-class people who are happier than the happiest millionaires; fantastic cottages for summer folk; cozy cottages of "commuters"; queer colonies of italians, and even of darkies; but there isn't a foot of long island ground on which these palaces and houses and cottages and colonies have sprung up that isn't as historic as european soil. it's enthralling to see how intimately and neatly history here links itself with history on the other side: history of england, france, and holland; noble names and great events. that's what delights jack, picking up these links, and fitting them together like bits of jigsaw puzzles. he's absolutely _thrilled_, and wants to stop the car whenever we come to one of the curiously deformed old trees which still, on country roads, mark the direction of ancient indian trails. this fad of jack's leads to awkwardness during our present excursion, as we're part of a weird cavalcade which i'll describe to you later. but just now i _can't_ let you off those trees! the indians of different tribes had a way of bending one of the lower boughs of a young oak chosen for the sacrifice, bending it so that it grew horizontally, pointing the way along the trail for the initiated. they would have trees done like that at regular intervals; but if you were a silly european you wouldn't know without being told what the trees meant by sticking out their elbows in that significant way; and so you would stupidly proceed to get yourself lost. think what those old trees could tell, if by laying your ear against their trunks you could understand the murmurous whisper inside, like secret voices behind a thick closed door! they look extraordinarily intelligent, thrusting out their long arms and crooking up their elbows, as i said. it's just as if you asked them, "how do i get to the sea?" and they, with indian reticence, answered with a gesture instead of speech. some of these arms have grown to such a length and thickness that they look like the bodies of animals. you can imagine little girls and boys riding on them, playing they are on horses. or you can picture a fair maid and a man sitting side by side on one of those big, low-growing branches, as if it were a comfortable sofa. it would be a _lovely_ place to be proposed to on a summer's day! does your respect for long island begin to grow? i haven't told you yet a quarter of the things that give it interest. our part of the island, the eastern part, used to be harassed by british cruisers in the revolution. also it is the captain kidd part. i suppose even monty knows about captain kidd? it seems that he used to be jack's favourite pirate. when i was at the pirate-loving age i didn't care for kidd as much as for others, because he had such respectable beginnings. think, a scotsman from greenock of all places! and then he became a pirate not for the fun of flying the black flag like storybook pirates, or because he was disappointed in love, but because he cannily decided that he could gain more by turning pirate than by chasing pirates, which lord bellomont, the governor of new york, had sent him out to do. worst of all, when he was caught kidd put the blame on his crew, and vowed that they'd forced him into evil courses. now that we've a house on long island, however, i've taken captain kidd to my heart. he belongs more to the moores of kidd's pines than to us, of course, but i value and vaunt him as a neighbouring ghost of distinction. [illustration: map]* both our place and kidd's pines are not a great distance from shelter island, where one lovely umbrella pine exists, under which the pirate is said to have buried his treasure in 1669. he may have emptied his pockets there one day, but that's _nothing_ to what he seems to have done at kidd's pines. gardiner's island--very aristocratic and historic--isn't far off, and it was from there captain kidd sent word of his arrival to lord bellomont, whose famous syndicate he'd betrayed and made a laughing-stock by turning pirate. he had his six-gunned sloop _antonio_ in harbour there, hoping to "make good" with the authorities; but he must have guessed that there wasn't much chance for him. he must have expected the very thing to happen that did happen: to be arrested with his whole pirate crew, and sent to england in a man-o'-war. if he foresaw that event, he'd not have been silly enough to bury his treasure on gardiner's island, where everybody would rush to search for it the minute his back was turned, would he? no, he'd take a few of his most trusty men and make secret night expeditions in boats from gardiner's island to some part of the shore far enough away not to come under suspicion. then he would have to mark the place where the treasure was buried (oh, but a treasure rich and rare, for he'd brought everything away with him when he left his stolen ship, _the quedah merchant_, at san domingo!), mark it in a way not too conspicuous, but permanent, in case he had the luck ever to get free and come back. no good marking with stones, because some one might build; but what a smart idea to plant trees so valuable that nobody to whom that land was granted would want to destroy them! this is what the canny man of greenock is supposed to have done. he'd brought the tree-slips from the south when he risked his spying expedition into northern waters. he meant to make a present of them to lord bellomont if the governor were lenient: but the governor's heart was flinty, and captain kidd found softer soil for the planting of his trees. it makes a nice story anyhow, doesn't it? and kidd's pines as a hotel can put on five dollars a day extra at least because of the romance and glamour of that hidden hoard. by the way, it's "going some," that hotel inspiration of ours. what with history in general, buried treasure in particular, marcel moncourt's fame, larry's charm and connections, and pat's fatal fascinations, people flock to lay their money on the shrine. they're not all the right sort of people yet, but their money's good--and you can't think how amusing some of the poor pets are! this goodrich family i mentioned--a father, a mother, and three girls (who look as if they ought to be what i used to call "thrins")--are real darlings. they're so rich they can have everything they want, but they don't know what to want. they've always lived in colorado close to the garden of the gods, and the only trips they ever took before were to the yellowstone park and the grand canyon. consequently the scenery of the east looks to their eyes the height of miniature japanese landscapes where you can step over the tops of the highest trees. they are built on the garden of the gods scale themselves, and take up so much room in a motor car that they ought to pay extra. (i _do_ hope the girls may find men tall enough and brave enough to dance with them to-night!) when peter storm first saw the family, he quoted the blind man in the bible who received his sight by a miracle: "i see men as trees, walking!" the goodrichs aren't, however, the latest addition to the circle at kidd's pines. two days before we were due to start on this little jaunt three youths we'd met on the ship turned up. they'd been "doing" the battlefields of france they told us then, seeing the "backs of the fronts"--nice boys, just out of college--and they'd hardly the price of a meal left among them, they joyously said, when we landed. of course they were in love with pat in a nice, young, hopeless way. they bade her good-bye forever; but when they heard of the family crash, and read that the previously unattainable one had become chatelaine of a hotel, they begged, borrowed, or stole (or more likely pawned) things which enabled them to rally round her as clients. they could "run" only to one room for the trio, and that the cheapest in the house; but you never saw three such radiant faces, till this motor expedition happened to be mentioned. fancy their feelings! boats and bridges burnt at vast expense, and nothing to show for the holocaust! the adored one gliding away from under three disconsolate noses next day in an automobile full of other people! tom, dick, and harry (according to us; jim, charlie, and frank according to their sponsors in baptism) simply couldn't bear it. they went out; and four hours later came back with a car (lord made it, so let it pass for a car!) which they had bought somewhere, second or third hand, for a song. even a song of sixpence would be dear for the great-grandmother of the whole progeny of lords! the thing must be eight years old if it's a day, but the boys are as pleased as punch with their bargain. the oldest of them (tom) thinks he has learned to manage the poor old lady; and on the strength of his knowledge and cheek they have hitched themselves to us as the tail end of our procession. they announce their intention of going also to the hudson river country, new jersey, pennsylvania, and new england with us later, when we make those trips according to plan. my heart bleeds for the poor lambs, but jack says they're perfectly happy, and those who don't fall by the wayside will draw lots in the end who is to propose to pat. they have no money, and no hats (at least i've never seen them wear any), and every one ignores their real names; but in their way they are unique, and it will add to the gaiety of nations to have them along if they're not killed before our eyes. speaking of the cavalcade, which i may as well describe since i'm on the subject, peter storm is driving pat's grayles-grice, as papa goodrich says he would "as soon hire a canary bird to tame a mad bull as let that little slim miss moore pilot his family in a man-sized motor car." it seems that our soldier of fortune, p. s., was a chauffeur once for a year. he seems to have been most things, and i'm less than ever able to classify him. but whatever he is or may have been, if i hadn't fallen in love with jack once and for all, i _might_ have fallen in love with peter storm. there's something _very_ queer about his past, that's evident; and only his conscience or bump of prudence prevents him from letting himself go on the tide of love for pat. i see him looking at her now and then--an extraordinary look! but all his looks are extraordinary. i'd give anything almost if he'd confide in me. perhaps he will. lots of people do. [illustration: easthampton "you enter beside the great pond, which is so charming in itself and in its flat frame of village green"] meanwhile, pat sits by him in the seat next the chauffeur's seat, and watches what he does and asks questions. he has persuaded papa goodrich to consent to her driving in easy places. but there are few easy places, because there are too many people enjoying this beautiful island, and just missing you by a miracle at corners. so i suppose it will be the same on future trips, and if mrs. shuster doesn't "kick," her secretary will continue to fill the bill as chauffeur till a professional one is engaged--a _neutral_ one, who neither yearns for the blood of britishers nor the eyes of austrians. strange that mrs. shuster didn't want to come with us! the back of the grayles-grice is fairly full of goodriches, but there's generous capacity for two more fattish passengers. mrs. s. said she would stop at home and help mr. moore receive guests, in case others came in his daughter's absence. but there's nothing in _that_ excuse, really. even larry could have come away if he liked. marcel moncourt is equal to every emergency. in our car we have offered to take a honeymoon couple named morley with whom we feel sympathetic; and mr. caspian, the ex-socialist, in a roomy wilmot, takes--_himself_. please look carefully at the map of long island which i send, and agree with me that though graceful in shape it's a long-bodied, short-legged island. jack says it isn't. he says that i ought to see it's a lobster, and that what i call its legs are its claws. we live on the southern edge of its top, or northeast leg--or claw. if leg, it is kicking shelter island, the biggest of the baby islands swimming gaily about within reach. if claw, it is engaged with the aid of its southern mate in trying to grab the morsel. and a dainty morsel, too!--as i have seen for myself to-day by crossing over to the little island for the first time. i've been so busy getting settled i couldn't do any sight-seeing even in the neighbourhood, unless one counts running back and forth between awepesha and kidd's pines. we started out to-day on one of those pale opal mornings for which it seems long island is famous in spring and autumn. literally, sky and water were one vast cream-white opal, shot with pink, and that wonderful flaming blue which rum has when it's set on fire. our two places aren't very far from greenport, as i've mentioned on postcards; and it's at greenport that you take the nice red ferryboat across lovely, lakelike peconic bay, going to shelter island. things and thoughts are on such a large scale in america, even in the east (though the goodriches don't see it!), that nobody seems astonished at the bigness of the said nice red ferryboat. to my british jack, however, it loomed enormous for the smallness of its "job"--just running between the mother island and her baby islet! but when he realized just what the job in question was, he changed his mind about its being a small one. our cavalcade was only an insignificant unit (as they say in war) among the force of motors which mobilized as the moment for the boat's departure came. there was a regular regiment at last; also lots of horses drawing old-fashioned gigs and quite smart "buggies," and capacious carts; crowds of passengers on foot, women and children, young men and girls--so _pretty_, some of the shopgirls on holiday pointed out to us by the man we bought tickets of. they might have been princesses by their exactly right clothes (right at first glance, anyhow) and their proud air, if you hadn't seen them chewing gum and heard them saying "huh?" to their young men. by the way, that ticket man was the _dearest_ old thing, who very likely had never seen new york. he grew his beard under his chin like a kind of muffler, and said broad-mindedly while we were waiting that he didn't care "_what_ people's religion was, so long as they went to their church twice every sunday, rain or shine." we tried to look as if _we_ did, because we liked him so much. he'd been a sailor in his day, and was proud of greenport for its past--a fascinating, whaling past. in spite of the crowd (bigger i'm sure than aboard the ark, packed though it was to supply a new world with living creatures) there was room for us all, and there was room in the bay for our hugeness, among the flight of snow-white butterflies pretending to be sailboats. six minutes getting across; and then we touched at a gay little landing-place as different from that of serious, serene greenport as the ex-sailor's own church would be from a _thé dansant_. i suppose when other sea-going men of old made money and grew just a little, _little_ bit frivolous, they thought no more of whales, but moved across that bright stretch of water and spent their riches building pretty houses for their children to enjoy. "shelter island" is a charming name for a place to rest in after a strenuous life, don't you think? and the homes to forget whales in are peaceful as days of indian summer after storms. the finest, and perhaps the newest ones, which have nothing to do with memories of adventure with grand old monsters of the deep, are on shelter island heights. but i should rather live lower down in some house yellow as a pat of butter, under great drooping trees. by the way, shelter island's maiden name was _ahaquatuwamuck_. no wonder she changed it. she _had_ to! incidentally an indian chief, yokee, delivered "unto capitanie nathaniel sylvester and ensigne john booth one turfe with a twige in their hands," which meant giving the english possession according to a custom very cannily established by the british. then poor dear "yokee and all his indians did freely and willingly depart." i don't believe a _word_ of the willingly! they were just hypnotized! we meant to have only a look round, and go on by another ferry to sag harbor, thence to arrive at easthampton. but what do you think happened? tom, dick, and harry's preposterous hippopotamus broke out in an eruption of flame at the very moment when our procession was passing in review before a large beflagged hotel which faces the bay. of course it had never occurred to the boys to bring one of those patent extinguishers which all thoughtful automobiles wear now as a matter of course. and i suppose that (at best) they would have done the shadrach, meschach, and abednego act if peter storm hadn't heard yells and dashed back with paraphernalia from pat's car. jack dashed also, but peter (i call him so behind his back) was nearer, and hadn't been wounded. in three minutes the hippopotamus was grinning with her mouth wide open, and the fire out, but looking exactly like one of those uncouth beasts you see in frescoes of the inferno, in ancient monasteries abroad. all the people in the world were on the wide veranda of that immense hotel, gazing at the free show, and we'd have sold ourselves bag and baggage for about thirty cents. it is a gray-shingled hotel trimmed with white, and battalions of rocking-chairs, mobilized in soldierly ranks, were all left rocking wildly at the top of their voices, their occupants had sprung up so suddenly. it did give a ghostly effect, as if the spirits of vanished guests had seized the chairs and begun visibly to use them the instant their rivals in the flesh were out! if you fancy that we were able to escape from the eyes and the rocking-chairs without further pain, that shows how little you know the hippopotamus. being on fire had given it heart-failure or something. there it stood in front of the hotel, preventing any one else from driving up, till the animal's blushing keepers had pushed it to one side, and we were too noble to pretend we weren't acquainted with it, or even to go on and let it follow. we'd started in the morning, though we had practically no run to make, because we wanted nearly all of one day to potter about easthampton, seeing sights. but it ended in our having lunch at shelter island. the dining-room of that hotel was big enough to hold nearly every one in new york, and most of the inhabitants of that and other large cities seemed to be there. i never saw so many "types" in my life, as one haughtily says in the casino at monte carlo. most of the girls were pretty, but there were people of all sorts of shapes and sizes; and you can't conceive how the pretty, just right ones, back in rocking-chairs on the veranda after luncheon, looked at the plain, just wrong ones who ventured to amble past them in humble quest of other chairs. good gracious _me_! i wouldn't have run that gauntlet for any prize less than winning jack's love, unless i simply _adored_ my own clothes and features! toward two o'clock we got away, still feeling as if we'd been pawed over and rejected in a bargain sale. but though eyes stared coldly, flags waved over the hotel as if in our honour, music played, and breezes blew. all the same we were quite glad to get to a peaceful, countrylike ferry which would take us from the island of humiliation to a harbour where no one would know what had happened--namely, sag harbor on the right or lower claw, according to jack, or the left leg, according to me. there's a perfect flotilla of miniature islands in between the claws, and people live on them or spend summers on them. i should like to buy them all, because i couldn't be sure which i should like best, and whichever i had, i should know the ones i hadn't were nicer. this was a wee ferryboat, almost as wee as the things you cross lochs in, in the highlands of scotland, but it hadn't so much the air of that being its day to tip over--which was a comfort. as for sag harbor, don't make the mistake of supposing that it sagged in any untidy way at the edges, or anything dull like that. could you call a place dull which was first heard of historically in connection with a reward for killing wolves? there's a dear old town not far from the ferry. in its sedate middle-age it was a great whaling place, and is still crammed full of sea captains' descendants who are, in their turn, crammed full of fascinating stories of old days of great adventure, just as their serene-looking, aged houses are crammed full of shells and coral and other ocean-borne treasures from the far corners of the world. any of these people (we met some) can tell you that "sagg" harbor or the "harbor of sagg" (it's dropped the "g," as lots of smart people do in england!) came from the word sagma, or chief. jack likes to believe that, just as he likes to find a romantic connection between sagma, chief, or great man, and saga, or great song. but there are other less picturesque suggestions. if you'd seen what a fine old place sag harbor is, you'd hate to think it owed its name to a mere ground-nut the indians called "sagabon," or, still worse, "sagga," "thick-growing," which these ground-nuts were: "tubers big as eggs and good as potatoes, 40 on a string, not two inches underground." poor jack simply stubbed his brain against the hardest of these indian words at first, but now he has developed an almost inconvenient passion for them. when he looks at me steadily, and i think he is about to exclaim a sonnet to my eyebrow, he bursts out: "tomahawk comes from 'tumetah-who-uf,' he who cuts off with a blow"; or, "syosset _sounds_ indian, but is dutch in origin. it came from 'schouts'--'sheriff'"; and so on. i never know when i'm safe, but i'm as pleased as he is with the old long island place-names, english as well as indian. lots of them seem to tell as much about their meanings in a few syllables as an intimate chapter of history; forge river, sachem's house, canoe place, baiting hollow, execution rocks, harbor hill, south manor, bethpage, and a whole pink and green mapful of others. of course jamesport was named after horrid old king james the second, when the island was under english rule; and every governor and grandee must have a place named after himself! but those names i've jotted down do call up pictures of life in the first settlers' days, don't they? i suppose while people are alive, they never realize how romantic their own times are! they always look back. what kind of creature will sigh for the far-off quaintness of _our_ days and make fun of our spelling? those colonists who came in droves from france and holland and england, to chase away indians as dawn chases away the shadows of night, would have been surprised if they'd heard their times called romantic, yet how thrilling they seem to jack and me, as we repeat the old names they gave, and see the "havens" which welcomed them in the new world! if we hadn't felt already that long island was one big haven, we should have begun to feel it at easthampton. when i say "haven," i mean a sort of hearth and home for weary voyagers, you know, for this island _does_ give you the impression of having more heart than most places. perhaps this is because (despite all the indian fighting and battles of the revolution) it was from the beginning of its civilization the bourne of homemakers. and, anyhow, when people did horrid things here in the past they prayed about them devoutly; they didn't build their dining-halls over the dungeons, and comfortably feast while their prisoners starved! [illustration: long island--south shore "artists would find a paradise of queer, cozy gables, and corners of gardens crowded with old-fashioned flowers"] but about easthampton. there's absolutely nothing like it on the other side of the water, not even in devonshire or dorset, where the seashore villages are so lovely. perhaps he will change his mind to-morrow, but to-day jack says easthampton is the prettiest place he ever saw. i wonder if i can make _you_ see what it's like? perhaps you may see with your mind's eye, but i'm afraid for monty it's hopeless, as he's never been to america, where everything is so completely different from other countries. easthampton could be described in several ways by several people, and they would all be right. a history lover would see dignified ghosts of indian chiefs treating with prim puritans driven from new england by grim religious dissensions. he would see the best whaling-boats of the new world being made. he would people the oldest shingled houses with families whose possessions are now stored in the picturesque museum. "this place of dreams belongs to the past," he would say, feeling pleasantly sad as he stood by the great pond, gazing at irresponsible, intensely modern ducks. artists would find a paradise of queer, cozy gables, and corners of gardens crowded with old-fashioned flowers that matter more than all the ancient books in the museum library. they would remember easthampton for the green velvet moss and golden lichen on its ancient roofs, the faint rainbow tints in the old, old glass of its tiny window-panes; for the pink hollyhocks painted against backgrounds of dove-gray shingles; for its sky of peculiar hyacinth blue like a vast cup inverted over wide-stretching golden sands. they would remember gray windmills striding along those sands like a procession of tall monks with arms lifted in benediction; whereas the summer girls and their summer young men would think of the charming, glorified cottages with their awnings and verandas and lovely lawns and masses of blue and pink hydrangeas; also of the big and jolly hotel where we are staying to-night. (the hamptons wouldn't have done for _them_ in old days when men and maids--"persons of the younger sort"--were hauled up before the courts if they were out after nine o'clock!) while the picture for children would be of a shining beach smooth as silk, and immense lengths of white waves, marching rank after rank in an endless army, with deep rolling music of unseen drums. you may take your choice of these hamptons, or like me you may say, "i'll have them all, please!" anyhow, you enter beside the great pond i told you of, which is so charming in itself and in its flat frame of village green that it deserves the capital g and p it's always spelt with. i do believe if you dared begin it with little letters you'd be driven out of town, and not with "'fruites,' and corn, and coates," as the indians were invited to leave in their day. _they_ had a nice well, in a green plain, perhaps where the great pond is now, for all i know. there's an old indian bible which tells about it, when the montauks--a fine brave tribe who sold out _dirt_ cheap to the puritans--lived in their village, which is still commemorated by the name amagansett. (by the way, i promised jack to tell monty that "sett" means meeting-place, which explains why "sett" is the tag end of so many village names here.) as i said, you come to the great pond, and you feel ashamed of being in a motor car, though hundreds of other people are equally guilty. it's all so green and sweet and peaceful, that speed seems a crime. the street, if you can call it a street, is as broad as a generous mind. never was an english village-green as perfect as this, i suppose because the self-banished english folk who created it worked from an idealized picture treasured in their hearts. and there are old gray and white houses as beautiful as houses in dreams, and pretty new houses which carefully contrive not to look out of keeping with the old ones. also there are windmills, sketched on clear open backgrounds--windmills which the english settlers didn't mind copying from the dutch on the other side of the island. now can you fancy what easthampton is like? but even if you can, you'll never, never smell (unless you pack up and come here) the wonderful fragrance of salt sea and sweet flowers which i shall always have in my mind's nostrils (why can't one have nostrils as well as eyes in one's mind?) when i think of this place. and oh, i nearly forgot to tell you about that _great_ feature, the museum and library, though we spent two hours browsing in it, and "musing" (appropriate word for easthampton!) by the fountain in its garden. they've made the building look as elizabethan as though it had been shipped from surrey; and its books and pictures and relics are _fascinating_. so are the girls who are the guardians of the place. they are the only young things there. luckily it was the one day of the week when people are allowed to go inside the quaintest of the houses in the village (i _hate_ calling it a _town_, though perhaps i ought to), the wee bit hoosie where john howard payne lived. if you don't know that he wrote "home, sweet home," you ought to. it's the dearest little gray nest you can imagine, and i envy the people who own it. no wonder j. h. p. was able to write such a song! but how surprised he'd have been, all the same, if any one had told him that a hundred years or so later crowds of pilgrims would come to worship at that humble shrine! we had time, after the payne house, to undertake an adventure. not that we knew it was going to be an adventure when we started. jack was responsible for it, he having inflamed his mind by reading overmuch about montauk indians and their virtues. their great stronghold used to be at montauk point, a kind of peninsula at the far eastern end of the island, and jack wanted to see it. the people at the hotel told us we should find a bad road for motors, but what was that to us, who call ourselves pioneers in the motor world? bad roads were not in the bright lexicon of our youth, and of course the rest of the party wouldn't back out when that was our attitude. besides, mr. goodrich, the garden of the gods giant, put money in an enterprise which expects that ocean liners will some day dock at montauk point and so save many hours. he was as keen in his way as jack was in _his_, though he cared not that brave montauk indians had built their places of refuge there in palisaded inclosures. well, we set forth gaily, none of us knowing what we were in for, unless it was peter storm. i began to think, after certain events, that he must have pushed his inquiries farther than we did, or else, in that lurid past of his, one of the purplest patches was a secret expedition to the end of montauk point. i thought at first it was remarkable of him not only to consent but to applaud the idea that ed caspian should lead the way. earlier, he had seemed to do all he could to spurn and outdistance the wilmot with the grayles-grice. mr. caspian is very proud of the wilmot (though i hear a rumour that he's been taking mysterious lessons how to drive a g.-g.), so proud that he suspected nothing when, without dissent from any quarter, he was allowed to head our procession. at the start everything was beautiful. jack was quite entertaining and instructive to the honeymooners and me about the meaning and derivation of the word montauk which used to be spelled in any old way you liked, from meantauket (which meant "fortified town") to muttaag (pillar or ensign), or manatuck (high land). it seemed that one of the indians' inclosures, called the new fort, was still standing in 1662, when long island was beginning to think itself quite smart and civilized. that was nice to learn, practically on the spot. we were chatting about the few indians who exist to this day on long island (rather mixed up with negroes) and admiring the gorgeous golden dunes, and gorgeouser goldener gorse when suddenly bump! bump! the moderately bad road became immoderately awful. at this spot some disillusioned motorist had revengefully printed on a proud sign-post the classic words: "damn bad road." we were forced to believe him. and at that instant, as if to emphasize the description, millions of mosquitoes the size of humming-birds attacked us. how the indians stood them, goodness knows, but perhaps they put up with the pests because they helped keep off the enemy. all the females of our party uttered uncensored cries, demanding retreat at any price; but ed caspian, hearing these wails, turned upon us with taunts. close behind him came the grayles-grice, peter storm at the wheel. "let the ladies come into my car, mr. storm," said he, "and they won't notice the jolts." "certainly, if they like," peter consented. "we _don't_ like, thanks!" replied all the goodrich giantesses as one. pat didn't answer, but had the air of a captain intending to sink with the ship. "oh, very well, _i_ shall see this through," remarked our noble leader. "one can go anywhere with a wilmot, even to--the devil!" that wasn't the way he meant to end his sentence, _bien entendu_. but just then he plumped into a rut like the back door to china or--to the home of that over-painted gentleman inadvertently mentioned. we've all learned in latin how easy is the descent to the _second_ abode, but if we hadn't had it sufficiently impressed on our young minds how difficult it is to get out again, we should have had an object lesson watching the wilmot. will-_not_ would have been a better name, if you don't mind a pun, for it simply wouldn't and--_didn't_. there it was, stuck in ruts of sand worse than jack and i ever said bad words about in the sahara. ed caspian and his chauffeur did what the german kaiser used to say he'd do to win a cowes yacht race--his damnedest. the engine groaned and snorted. you could almost see sweat starting from every valve. nothing doing but noise! naturally we were all delighted, because pride and falls go so well together when they're other people's; while as for the poor hippopotamus, it looked _weeks_ younger, in a minute! finally, in the midst of a roar that would have turned an elephant green with envy, the wilmot's teeth were torn from their sockets--i mean the gears were stripped. that was the end; and all our men, looking hypercritically helpful, ran to the rescue. but there wasn't any rescue. when everything good had been tried and everything bad said, we had to leave. the wilmot was left to the mercy of the mosquitoes. ed caspian was taken aboard the good ship grayles-grice, and jack and i adopted the chauffeur. our cars backed out of the worst ruts, and it was a long time before we could turn. there, on the way to montauk point, the wilmot remains to this hour, for it was too late to do anything when we got home to the hotel. i wouldn't "put it past" those mosquitoes to suck off all the paint in the night! just here in my budget i was interrupted. pat tiptoed into the sitting-room, spying my rose-light on the balcony, and whispering my name like a password. i told you, didn't i, that there was pretty sure to be news at half-past midnight? there _is_--such funny news, entirely different from what i expected! peter storm and ed caspian both got telegrams. peter storm couldn't understand his. it said, "can't recall him immediately, but will day after to-morrow. most inconvenient to have him here now. this will give you one clear day to try your hand on other car." the mysterious message was signed "l. shuster," and it was given to peter as he was about to dance with pat (it seems he can dance), and seeing him look puzzled she asked politely if anything were wrong. he said he didn't know, and showed her the telegram. she could make no more of it than he could. then mr. caspian appeared with a telegram in his hand. "have you a wire from mrs. shuster?" he wanted to know. peter didn't deny the soft impeachment. "i'm just wondering," blundered ed, "if by any chance the lady was absent-minded and mixed the messages? some one talking to her while she wrote, perhaps. will you let me have a look at yours?" peter let him have a look; in fact, they exchanged; and peter read in the one apparently intended for ed: "please come home day after to-morrow. find i need you. l. shuster." "i think this _is_ mine," said ed. "and probably this is intended for me," said peter. "was it the grayles-grice you thought of trying your hand on?" "i told mrs. shuster i could drive it for miss moore, rather than break up the party if she needed you. she was to let us know--when her plans were settled," explained ed. and patsey says he stammered. "after that affair of the wilmot this afternoon i shouldn't like to advise miss moore to exchange chauffeurs, even for one day," said peter. "mrs. shuster's very good-natured. i expect she'll wait. if not, she can fill my place with some one else, permanently." pat was amused, though i'm not sure she understood the little play of cross-purposes as well as i understand it. and she doesn't seem to attach any importance to that part of the telegram which is the most exciting, to _my_ idea. _why_ would it be inconvenient for our fair lily to have her secretary return to-morrow? something is _up_ at kidd's pines! i vaguely suspected as much when she let us come away without her. when jack wakes i shall ask him what he thinks. love. your affectionate molly. p. s. jack thinks something so wild and woolly that i _daren't_ tell you what it is till i know, for fear he's wrong. much less will i tell pat. and we can't know for two or three days unless we abbreviate the trip which all of us would hate to do. vii edward caspian to mrs. l. shuster _easthampton,_ _wednesday morning._ my dear friend: i know you mean well, and i don't like to scold, but really, _really_ i have a big bone to pick with you! i didn't ask you to _telegraph_. i said _telephone_. i wonder if you ought to consult an aurist, dear lady? and even if you did misunderstand, you might have concentrated on what you were doing for _five_ minutes, don't you think? i don't wish to be disagreeable, but what you have done has given me a sleepless night. several other things have gone wrong, too, but this is the worst, because i'm not sure what the consequences may be. add to not sleeping the fact that i'm up at an unearthly hour in order to write to you, and to hear news of my wilmot (which had an accident yesterday), and you will excuse me if i don't trim my sentiments with roses. almost the last words you said to me were, "one good turn deserves another." i did you a good turn in speaking of you in a _certain_ way to a _certain_ person, as you asked me to do. it was a pleasure to serve you, because of the gratitude owing you for many past kindnesses when life was something of a struggle for me. still, you seemed to think the other day that i had paid a good part of the debt, and that it was up to _you_ now. i don't think i should have asked the favour i did ask, if you hadn't offered. we were both pretty frank about what we wanted, and after what passed i felt i could count on you, as you could count on me. all the evening after i'd come in from a disgusting and pointless expedition i expected to be called to the telephone. there was a dance at the hotel which i was unable to enjoy, as i have never learned any of the new dances, and some girls seem to have little appreciation of the higher pleasure of sitting out with a partner of intelligence, not to mention money. by the way, not only did i owe an exceedingly unpleasant adventure with my car to captain winston's obstinate determination to see montauk point (where there's nothing to see), but i owe him another grudge for upsetting my plans for the night. at dinner, casting his eye round the dining-room, he happened to remark that none of the young men present looked tall enough to act as partners for those beanpole goodrich girls. "beanpole" is _my_ expression, not his. "storm is the right size," he went on meddlesomely, in that calm british way he has of taking it for granted that whatever _he_ says must be right. "i wonder if storm dances?" your errant secretary was dining at another table, by himself, and at some distance from the tables of the rest of the party, who were grouped together in order to talk across. miss moore was with the winstons, and chairs had been reserved for the morleys; but mrs. morley was tired and didn't come down; of course the bridegroom kept her company upstairs; and i was just in time to ask if i might have one of the vacant places, before two of those dreadful boys made a rush for the table. when miss moore heard winston's question about storm she looked up, apparently in surprise; for though you have made him your secretary and he has been a good deal spoiled by every one at kidd's pines and those awepesha people, _she_ first saw him, you must remember, in his own class of life as a steerage passenger. it must have seemed queer that winston should expect the man to dance with girls like her and the goodriches. naturally she didn't put her surprise into words. she is too kind-hearted. if storm had any conception of what his sphere in society ought to be, he would, when asked, have answered, "i _don't_ dance." he need not have lied and said, "i can't." his conceit is such, however, that he hadn't the grace to keep out of the limelight when it suited his purpose to pose in it. he did dance, not only with the goodrich girls, but with miss moore. perhaps you can understand why i told you that his being along would spoil this trip for me, and why i asked you as a particular favour to recall him on the excuse of urgent business. i can now drive a grayles-grice very well, certainly as well as he can; and my chauffeur could have run him back to you at kidd's pines in the wilmot. [illustration: map]* while i was momentarily expecting a 'phone call, a telegram was brought to me in the ballroom, where i was sitting out some new-fangled thing everybody seemed idiotically wild over. the envelope was addressed to me all right, but i couldn't make head or tail of what was inside until suddenly it popped into my head that you'd been absent-minded and mixed storm and me. it seemed almost too bad to be true. and worse than all, storm was in the act of studying his message with the assistance of miss moore. of course he'd got on to the guiding idea, and probably put her on to it also. the fat is thoroughly in the fire now. even though i still expect to get news about the man which will queer his pitch considerably (as i prophesied to you), there may be a lingering resentment in miss moore's mind against me. she is apt to think, from what storm will have put into her head, that i might have minded my own business. little difference is it likely to make with her that i have been and am acting for her good! in that connection, _you_ were more sensible! you refused to discharge the man without proof, but you did pay my judgment the compliment of changing your attitude toward him. now, however, it seems to me you have a perfectly good excuse to get rid of him permanently, without regard to my possible discoveries. apparently he doesn't intend to obey your order to return, but is determined at any cost to go on to the end, playing the gentleman of leisure who can drive a high-powered motor car while he's being paid for addressing envelopes! a bitter end may it be for him! i shouldn't wonder if it would be. i shall do my best to make it so. it will come at the piping rock club, where _i_ have got an invitation for the members of this party for a dance. if storm has the cheek to go, his blood be on his own head! the dance is, as miss moore says, the "climax" of our tour. i hope it may be so for storm in _one_ sense of the word, though not in hers. i have told you before that i can get you a better secretary than he is, at a day's notice; and perhaps you will presently be willing to let me try, now his "eyes alone" don't seem worth the money, as you once thought them. other eyes are of more importance to you in these days. apropos of the latter eyes, i understand why it may have been inconvenient to let storm come back, but certainly he couldn't have been as much in your way in a big house as he is in mine in a motor car. i shall travel in the grayles-grice in spite of him, as the wilmot is out of the running for days. but the trip is spoilt. i felt i must let you know how your mistake has affected me. but i have not ceased to be sincerely your friend, e. caspian. p.s. i am wiring you to send him on the proofs of the new peace tract to correct on the way. that may keep him out of the car a few hours. viii patricia moore to adrienne de moncourt _long island._ _at a beautiful house_ _where we are guests._ mignonne: you cannot figure to yourself how the life is wonderful, just after one has thought, "crack! the sky tumbles!" but yes, you can figure it, because of your adventure at easter. i am almost too happy. i live in a story of fairies, and i ask myself, is it too good to last? you know, chérie, how i loved always to read the books of romance, when we could hide them from our kind sisters, who think it wrong for the young girls to fill their heads with such thoughts till after the marriage. since i have left the dear convent, i have read earnestly in journals the writings of critics who live by having opinions about other people. i see by them that romance is not truth. it is only the dull things which are real. yet for you and me, life is now running like the stories at which these critics laugh the most. that is why i ask myself, "can such things go on?" for it seems that critics must know better than me (or should i say "i?"). perhaps they have reason. perhaps we shall end in a monotony of grayness like the books these wise men and women praise for "the realism." or we shall fall down, down, in tragedy?--for that, it seems, can also be true to life; only just the _happy_ things are not true. yet at present let us live joyously for a little while as in one of those dear books we read in secret at school: books of romance and even of mystery. for instance, look at what you write me of your family, which mixes itself so strangely with my experience. but no, surely it _cannot_ be that the handsome new american cousin with much money, who visited your mother's château in your vacance of easter, is anything to _our_ monsieur moncourt. it is only a coincidence that his name shall be marcel, and that marcel is a name existing with the de moncourt men since the centuries. i regret almost that i have written you of our marcel moncourt just at the moment when this marvellous cousin has jumped into your life; but, even if there is a connection, you must not comprehend it badly. do not for an instant picture that our monsieur moncourt is a _cook_. but, what a _word_ for him! he is a real personage. he is a celebrity. all the world is proud to speak with him, and he can have as much money as he wants. that is why it is so curious he should come to _us_ for a little nothing at all, just through the influence of mr. storm, which also i do not understand. but, as i tell you, if there is a cousinhood or an unclehood, it is not a thing for shame. the young marcel will of course tell madame la marquise everything the moment he passes so far as to ask for you. and then, if he is so rich and so beau, and has the blood of the de moncourts in his veins, what does the rest matter? if i were in your place, dear adrienne, i would not worry on the idea that _our_ moncourt may be this _mauvais sujet_ of a paul jean honoré marcel de moncourt you mention, who vanished in his youth, and has so long been counted as dead. probably that one is quite altogether dead, and our moncourt has no lines with the de moncourts of france. he perhaps took the name because it has a noble sound. that is one of the things one doesn't ask a man, is it not? but if it is important for your happiness, my adrienne, i can perhaps arrive at it through mr. storm, who must know all, and learn, too, if there is a son of our moncourt we have not heard of yet. and now for myself again! it is so gay and such an amusement to have a whole band of young men paying attentions to me, little _me_, who but the other day did not even raise the eyes to a man in taking promenades, without a bad mark on my conduct! larry does not object at all. he laughs. girls are born to love the flirt, he says, and indeed, dear adrienne, he loves it himself! he makes it with all the ladies, even the fat mrs. shuster of whom i have written. but that is his manner. i do not inquiet myself for him, not more than he does for me. at present he is at home, because, though he is a great boy, he has you can't think what a sense of duty. it is for this he stays at kidd's pines to welcome new visitors while i am away _en automobile_ with some of our guests, and chaperoned by dear molly winston. apropos, it is molly winston who gives me courage that life can after all be full of pleasant things and good endings, for she and jack go on having romance and grand adventures. she believes that if "_you want things enough_," they come to you sooner or later. she is a very nice chaperon to have. three dear boys are in love with me, not enough to hurt them, but enough to make me pleasure and themselves, too, all fighting together and pretending to be angry if i am more kind to one than another. also there is always mr. caspian. he has now asked me what we used to call "_the_ question"; and in america it is done to the girl herself, as we so often read, not to the father or mother. but, it seems, he spoke first to larry, almost in the french way. when i have answered no, i was too young (that is the best to say when you are caught by surprise and wish not to offend). he told me that larry wished me to think of him, because they had made up a big friendship, they two, and there were deep reasons why i should engage myself. i went to larry to inquire of this, and he said he did not go so far as mr. caspian thought. however, it would be good for me to be nice to mr. c. and not make him sorrow, for a time, until some things were settled. so i am being nice, but sometimes it is difficult, because mr. caspian and mr. storm are not sympathetic. still, don't you find the little difficulties in the life are like the cloves and cinnamon in the rice pudding which we at school asked for in a "round robin?" (oh, that nice word! we found it, you remember, in an english book!) mr. storm drives my darling car, with which we make many dollars from our visitors who love to go on tour. i am considered too small, though i can do it quite well and have no fear. in smooth places without turns mr. storm lets me take the wheel. i cannot talk when i drive. i am too happy and have a thousand emotions, like a beehive filled with bees that keep flying home with honey. but he can talk, no matter what happens, and he says things i remember. they seem to paint my brain with pictures which he gives me to keep. so his words are like his eyes, not to be forgotten. you know in our garden at the convent there were flowers which would not be banished, though the gardener pulled them up by the roots again and still again: poppies for instance. some thoughts which come to one from other people's minds are like these. they persist, and they plant their seeds in a deep place where they cannot be pulled out. mr. caspian is like the gardener at the convent. he tries to stamp out these thoughts, to plant others in me. but the roots have gone down where he cannot find them. he has come into our automobile, because his own is broken and being mended at easthampton, where we stayed a night, and i danced with peter storm. i let mr. caspian come, instead of saying he had better go with the boys in their car, the hippopotamus, because of larry asking me to be nice. but i do not let him drive ever--except to-day when i am not in the car, as you shall hear. it is too pleasant having peter by me when i have to cry, "oh, what a lovely place!" or, "see the wonderful view!" or, "here is a funny sight!" he has a mood which matches mine, and it would not be so with mr. caspian. i do not know why, but mr. caspian reminds me of an iron fence. you could drape him with pretty flowers, but underneath there would always be the iron fence. perhaps peter storm may be a stone wall under the ivy and blossoming things. but stone is part of nature, and has beautiful colours deep in it, soaked in from sunsets and sunrises and rainbows through thousands of centuries. all the things i see as we travel in the car--fast as a glorious strong wind which blows past the beauties of earth--all the things i see are more _emphasized_ when i have peter sitting by me, seeing them, too. that is why life is so wonderful. i feel things in _double_, as with two souls. yet of course i am not in love. do not think that, or you will be wrong. it is my intellect which is waking up, after it was kept in pink cotton by the sisters; for you know learning school lessons does not wake up our intellect. it only puts on a bright polish, so by and by it can reflect the world when it's out of the cotton. and, oh, it is a sweet world, here in the country that is my home! by and by i will tell you about the house where we are now, and a kind of mystery which gives the fairy-story effect. but you would not know what these days have been if i left out the tale of our travelling. i sent you a fat envelope of postcards, as i promised, with pictures of easthampton: the windmills and the old houses, and the big waves. you will like the one of the long fierce wave like a white cat's paw. they call it the "sea puss." i hoped it meant that really: a giant cat that seized bathers, and people far up the beach as if they were mice running away. but captain winston, who loves the history as we love the bonbons, says no, they have only _stolen_ that name for a great tidal wave which sweeps in from the sea on this side of our island. it was in indian days but a meek little word: "seepus," small river. [illustration: "southampton's soul is very, very old, full of memories of indians"] the postcards of southampton are all pictures of beautiful new houses which rich people have built among the dunes. i could not get old ones, though southampton's soul is very, very old, full of memories of indians and early english settlers who were jealous of the dutch. now it is a colony of "cottages" bigger than many of our french châteaux, and of the most unexpected, charming shapes, covered with flowers. girls and boys who like to dance and have fun all summer like it better than easthampton, so their mothers have to like it better, too. you will not believe when you look at the pictures that not three hundred years ago, if there had been postcards then, you would have seen only forty rough log-houses built behind palisades for fear of indians; maybe the watch-house was where the country club is now! instead of dances and parties the only pleasure was to go to church, where you were called by the roll of a drum. a stern man named thomas sayres beat on the drum and you had to go whether you liked or not, because abraham pierson, the first minister, governed the state as well as church. i am not sure even the indians weren't nicer to live with, because they liked beads and bright things, as we do, especially mirrors. why, they sold anything they _had_ for mirrors! and they were kind and pleasant till the dutch and english spoilt their dispositions. _their_ parties--yes, they _had_ parties!--were in their cornfields--oh, miles of beautiful cornfields that are covered with dark mysterious cedars now, like sad thoughts of the sunny past. the indian families came to help each other in the cornfields, and the young men fell in love with the maidens and proposed as they do at our dances. if you said "no," perhaps they knocked you hard on your head, and took you anyhow! i am pleased it is not so now. i should not like mr. caspian to do it. he was very nice, though, at southampton, and asked to have the grayles-grice stop at one of the shops (the most _fascinating_ shops, like at vichy and aix where your dear mother took us the summer before the war). there he bought wonderful bonbons--candies. i ate only one, and the goodrich girls the rest. you will like the picture i send of the cottage which has been built on to a windmill. i should love to have that. there are lots more windmills, soft and gray and fluffy-looking, like persian pussy cats sitting up in the dunes; so maybe i shall have one some of these days. we saw some lovely roads in france when we motored with madame la marquise, but we were never on any road quite so sweet (i have to say sweet, it is a right word!) as the road of the shinnecock hills. we curved so much among the dunes, i was not allowed to drive, though it was easy as flying in a dream; and the dunes were the colour dunes would be in dreams: gold and silver mingled with warm blue shadows. they had a look of gold and blue flame in fires made of driftwood, because the sun was so bright on them that day, and if you screwed up your eyes to peer through your eyelashes, there was a rose tint with the gold and purple splashes in the sea, like tails of drowned peacocks. you know it is like putting on magic spectacles to peep at the world that way. peter storm told me how to do it. he tells me many things, queer little things and queer big ones, because he has "knocked about the world" and learned them for himself. he does not think he will ever settle down to be happy in one place; but he likes long island to rest in while he takes a long breath. he says what i call its "sweetness" comes from having two ice ages that have given it a "legacy" of small soft hills and harbours made before men were born or thought of. i suppose the ice ages made the shinnecock hills, though they look as young as i do, and as happy. captain winston, who loves indian names, says "shinnecock" really means "plain, or flat place." but never mind, there has been time enough since the hills were named to mix things up! and most people care more about talking "golf" in this part of the world than of indian times; for there is a wonderful golf club close by. mr. storm will teach me to play, and already we begin; but i have not come to that part of my news yet. i cannot think the ice ages had much to do with one of the things most charming which make the character of long island: i mean duck ponds. oh, but the most enchanting duck ponds you could sit for days to watch! and the ducks are not looking like the dull ducks of every day, in other places of the world. they are most elaborate ducks, and their ponds are full of sky and clouds you'd think they would stumble over when they swim: bright, laughing ponds like eyes in the landscape. now, would you believe a village called "quogue" could be pretty? it is as if croaked by a frog. but there was a fairy story i remember, where every time the frog croaked (he was a prince cursed into a frog's skin by a bad godmother) jewels fell out of his mouth. so one could imagine it had been with quogue: and the jewels turned into beautiful houses. the houses are very old now; that is, old for america, which makes them more beautiful. it is only the middle-aged houses that are not beautiful here, and that is true all over the world perhaps; for people had a terrible cramp in their sense of beauty fifty years ago. quogue is on one of those lovely inlets the ice ages kindly made. quantock bay has not a sound of romance, but when you know that it means "long tidal stream" you hear it differently ever after. and it is fun to find out that "quogue" is all the years haven't nibbled off the word "quohaug," a name the indians gave to a great, round, purple-shelled clam they loved. it makes me sad to think of the poor indians chased from the places and the things they loved on this island. even when you motor over these velvet smooth roads, and pass fine modern places as at southampton and dreamy old ones at quogue, and cottages pretty and modest as violets, on the way through the woods to westhampton, you can't put out of your head the thought of indians and their trails through the forests. it is a thought like a dim background of ghosts in a picture where the foreground is bright and gay. i almost cried at _déjeuner_ yesterday when captain winston told about henry hudson and the happy, kind tribe of the canarsies--in 1609, three hundred and seven years ago this spring. they were so pleased when he came sailing into gravesend bay in his little ship the _half moon_ (that is on another part of long island, not where i write of), and they put on their best clothes of animals' skins and mantles made of brilliant feathers, to go and meet the men from "another world." they took presents of green tobacco and furs, and made feasts to honour their visitors. but a man named john colman admired their most beautiful woman too much, and was shot by an arrow. after that they all fought, and a great many indians were killed, and they got to think that every european was treacherous. if you, dear adrienne, could see a place called coney island, it would seem funny to you that john colman (who liked the indian girl too well) should be buried there. it is not at all a place to be buried in; and he feels that, for his ghost walks at night. what a wonder they do not hire it for a side show! the story of john colman is not the only romance captain winston has found in the old books. there are lots, but the nicest one happened in the shinnecock part i have told you of: the romance of the indian water serpent, who avenged the murder of a white girl, edith turner, who nursed him to life when he was dying. water serpent travelled for months, tracking a man who stabbed and threw her in the water of peconic bay. through marshes and forests he went, and at last he tired the murderer out. then he left him dead with a dagger in his heart, the same dagger that killed edith. after that there was nothing left for water serpent to love, so he starved himself to death, and died on edith's grave. do you believe there are white men who can love like that? all this side of the island has indian names, though on the other they are more english; a few english names here, too, of course, only it is the indian ones you remember best, they are so queer. and it seems right, in memory of the indians, that many roads are cut through lovely woods. could you forget names like "speonk" and "moriches?" i _know_ you could not forget the woods either, if you saw them once, or the perfume of the pines and the yellow lilies growing wild. even they had an indian name, captain winston says, or their roots had: "sebon" or "shubun"; and the legend is that the lilies are the spirits of indian children who come back each spring to their old playgrounds. there is another thing they say, too: if you travel along this sandy road (it's really part of the big sandbar which makes fire island--fire island that walls in the south bay)--if you travel by moonlight, or come on the road between moriches and bellport, you can see prints of naked feet, one straight in front of the other, as the indians used to walk; and they are not the feet of europeans. i like those tales; and the ways through the woods (even where there are villages, like one i loved, called "watermill") are so romantic, it would be more strange _not_ to have indian ghosts! bellport i _could_ not pass through without stopping, because of the curiosity shops. i had not much money to buy things, but i wanted to look. so the procession stopped; and the three boys we call tom, dick, and harry--the ones who love me--clubbed together and bought me an old black japanned tea tray with flowers painted on it. their hearts would have been in broken pieces if i had said no, i could not take it. so i said "yes, thank you!" and that put me into trouble, because then mr. caspian bought me something also: a tiny model of an old whaling ship. it was perfect, and cost a great deal. i knew, because i had asked the price and he had heard me. but what could i do? i was thinking what to say, when the wife of the shop man rushed up and reminded him that the model was engaged, and could not be sold to this gentleman. that gave me time to finish thinking! i said no one must buy me anything else, so i was in time to stop mr. caspian from giving me a fat silver watch of the time of the georges. it would have gone well with our house, but i should not have liked it from him. he thumped the watch down when i refused, and mr. storm bought it under his nose. i will tell you by and by what happened about it and the model ship. we took our _déjeuner_ at a place of the queerest name of all; or, no, it was the lake that has the name; we were in a restaurant on the shore, with a flowery terrace shaded by pines. could you pronounce the word "ronkonkoma," if nobody told you how, and you had not indian ancestors haunting your heart? when we were at our tables--two, drawn near together--peter storm called out that mrs. winston offered a prize for the person getting the right pronunciation. she knew, because her husband had learned it in some book. we all tried, and mr. caspian and i spoke it the same way--at least, it sounded to me the same. but molly made peter storm umpire (that means a person who decides when there is a dispute; and is hated if in baseball or football), and peter decided for me, because i put the emphasis in the right place--"ron_kon_koma." what do you suppose the prize was? the fat watch i had wanted! it seemed that peter (i would not call him peter to his face) had bought it for molly. and i may as well tell you at this same time, she gave me the ship for a present that evening. it was for my birthday, she explicated. though it was passed by some weeks, she had wanted to find a thing i liked; and she had gone behind the back of mr. caspian to bargain with the shop woman, so it could be a surprise. she knew it would be spoiled to come through mr. caspian. i shall not dare to put the ship at home where he can see, but it will be in my room, where he can never come. his face looked so cross about the watch of the georges! i couldn't help to be pleased. if peter storm were not the man he is, above caring much for girls, maybe i should think he had arranged these two things to happen with the help of molly. but that is not possible. it would only be a great conceit of mine. we had quite a splendid _déjeuner_ at the lake of the prize name, with blue point oysters, which you will have heard of because they are of an importance like royalties. they are born close by ronkonkoma lake, at a place named after them. i will not say they are named after it! when we started again, i was allowed to drive for miles--not ordinary common miles, but a spin through a kind of motor heaven ruled by the god of "things as they ought to be." i think his name in america is billiken. it quite belongs to him, though he inspired a mortal to make the road forty-five miles! you will have to do it in your head in kilometres. the parkway (they call it) is private, and you pay to go through--only a very little, though it is worth much for the joy. there is no dust and no crowd and no noise, and no policemen springing out like jacks from boxes; and they let you go forty miles an hour. it is a pity to rush so fast, though, unless you turn and go back again, because the fun is over too soon. besides, there is scenery of every kind. one would say they had brought bits from every part of the world. there are woods, dark perfumy pines, and white birches like bridal processions of young girls in white. there are hills and rocks, with emerald ferns, and wild flowers almost like switzerland; and gorse, and fragrant shrubs which must be like the "maquis" they tell you of in corsica. there are meadows lovely as lawns, and glimpses of blue water like nymphs' eyes suddenly opening from enchanted sleep, perhaps to close when you have gone! i hope they do, for i hate to think of everything going on when our backs are turned as when we are there to see, don't you? i could have cried when we came out of the motor parkway, and i must give up the wheel because of mr. goodrich, who fears i might snap in two pieces at the waist and wreck his family. but it was very pretty country still, so i was soon consoled. it is difficult, wishing to live in so many villages! if i had to choose, i do not see how i could; and peter says it will be the same with me in new england. but, ma chére, if you could see _jericho_! i do not mean the one we speak of when we say "i wish i were in jericho!" but the jericho of long island, where i should love to buy all the beautiful old houses, i could not possibly choose between! i would stay in one after the other, and sit in rocking-chairs rocking back and forth like so many old ladies do. but i should not be old. and i would have a man sitting in another chair, rocking, too. he would look like peter storm in some ways--that is, he would have such eyes as peter's. i cannot take interest in other eyes now, his are so living, and they have _all_ the expressions as with ponds which show the moods of the sky. but i would not say this to another than you, not even to molly! and speaking of ponds, chérie, on long island they carpet them with water lilies, or else with ducks, and sometimes both, beautifully mixed together. for modern ducks to be smart and fashionable must not swim or move about much. if they do, it gives them muscles, and to have muscles, makes tough. how glad i am there are not creatures thinking things like that about me when i play tennis or dance or drive a motor! but ducks do not seem to be bitter about it. they just float through life and smile in that way they have, when they are not waddling slowly in front of motors. by the way, peter says the "race memory" of ducks and chickens and especially geese (who are clever though misunderstood) is improving so much they do not now always cross a road when a motor car is coming. they begin to remember from their ancestors it is wise to wait. after jericho and another sweet place called east norwich we came close to oyster bay. maybe your new cousin from america has told you about it, and of mr. roosevelt, who is one of the heroes of america and has been soldier and president and explorer and a little of everything. he lives at oyster bay when he has time to live anywhere. and he is a "great chief," so it is well to have a place called sagamore hill. you will see why when you learn more about indian things, as you will have to do if you marry an american man, you know! i cannot stop to tell you now, because i have come to the mysterious part of my letter; and the only place that matters is the place which is lent us to live in. [illustration: map]* we thought only to stay at an hotel, and mr. caspian or captain winston would have telegraphed, but peter storm said no, there was a nicer plan. for a surprise to us, marcel moncourt--our great marcel!--had asked a man he knew to let us dispose at his house--i mean, _of_ his house. the man was away, but he was of those who will have all things ready for the notice of a moment, if he drops down from the sky upon his servants. but, my child, it is a wonderful house! not old, quite new, like the palace of aladdin. all that misses is a roc's egg, hanging up in the great hall, unless it is there, disguised in a chandelier from venice. some servants are kept to be ready whatever happens. they are japanese, which makes even more the fairy-tale effect. peter storm gives them orders, for that was arranged with our marcel, it seems, before we started. we owe this experience to marcel; but then, we owe marcel to mr. storm; and i think it annoys mr. caspian very, very much that it is thanks to peter we are here. he would like always to be the important one, and he feels it should be his right to be of importance, because (now this is one of the strange things!) the fairy palace was built by a cousin of his--the cousin from whom came all his money. that is really odd, but it is not yet the mysterious part. now i have just come to it. from peter i have heard nothing except what i told you: that the house belongs to a friend of marcel moncourt's, who is always away since he owned it and will not let but will lend his place sometimes. from mr. caspian i have this story which i write for you. his cousin, an old man named stanislaws--only a cousin through a marriage--built the house for his son. it was to be a surprise birthday present, and it must be so beautiful, with many features and furnishings of other countries, that this young man would consent to settle in it. he liked to wander over the world, and his poor father thought if he could give him in one house all the things he loved the best in far-off lands he might be satisfied. that was pathetic, don't you find? to have the house ready in time the old stanislaws offered a great sum to an architect who must put that work in front of all other engagements. he did so, but trying to keep his contracts with every one gave him in the end an illness many people in this country have, called nervous prostration. i suppose it is an american disease, as one does not have it elsewhere. that was the first bad luck of the house, but not the last. when it was finished, before even it was named, the old stanislaws died in a sad way--a way mr. caspian said i would not like to hear of; and the son died, too. mr. caspian thought the house would come to him with everything else; but no, it had been given by the young stanislaws to some friend. this friend kept away, and would not even let his name be known; so mr. caspian fought to get the place for himself, claiming through the law there must be something wrong. he had hope, for he wished to live there, not liking the west, where the old stanislaws home was. but the case came out against him in the end. a lawyer in new york proved that the house had been legally given, and nothing could be done. since then it is marcel moncourt who pays the servants and acts for the owner, but mr. caspian is sure the place is not his. well, here we are in it, anyhow, and shall be till to-morrow, for we are seeing the neighbourhood to-day, and to-night motoring to a dance at piping rock, where there is a country club very rich and celebrated. now, is it not mysterious: a house without a name, belonging to a nameless man? figure to yourself, we eat this man's food, for we are not allowed to pay, and we know not whom to thank! last night when we arrived we were shown to our rooms by a japanese butler. each room has its bath, and not only that, but its own little _salon_. (my suite is french, molly's and captain winston's is english of the elizabeth time; and there are rooms spanish, italian, egyptian, chinese, russian, and greek.) we bathed and dressed, and went down to dine in a circular dining-room with inlaid marble walls, and doors of carved, open-work bronze that have transparent enamel, like iridescent shell let into the openings. it is the first house i have seen big enough to make the goodrich family look small, and the girls screamed with admiration in the dining-room; but peter storm laughed at the whole house. he said he would like as much to live in the museum at athens. afterward in the garden mr. caspian spoke of that, and said it was "bad taste," because mr. storm could never have been to the museum of athens, and "a man of his stamp" was no judge. it was only an impertinence of him to pretend, and an accident that he should have climbed up for a while from his position to ours. that divided me between a laugh and a snap! because mr. caspian is a little man without distinction, and peter--but already you know from my letters what he is like. "i thought," said i, "you were socialist, and for you one man was worth another." "i am not that now," he hurried to tell me. "since i came into so much responsibility i am broader." i knew what he meant, because now i learn the nuances of english words. but to spite him i agreed. "ah, yes, it is in the waist a little, i suppose!" that was the cat in me, for it is true he is growing fat just at his waistcoat. but i remembered in time my promise to larry and dropped the cat to be the meek mouse, while mr. c. explained with care that it was his mind which had broadened out. perhaps i might have been sorry i had scratched, if he had not gone on with talk against peter storm, as he always does if he finds me alone, or else he makes love. he tried to explain two telegrams that mrs. shuster had sent wrong: one which was meant for him, addressed to mr. storm, and vice versa. it seemed as if mr. caspian had wanted her to get peter back in the middle of the trip, on a pretense of much work; but he tried to make me believe it was not his wish at all. "i am mrs. shuster's friend, and she asks my advice," he said. "honestly i do think storm is a slacker about work. it looks as if he'd only engaged as her secretary to get into a class above his own and enjoy himself. i'm afraid he'll lose his job if he doesn't 'watch' out, the way mrs. shuster feels. but she's good-natured, and perhaps she'll give him another chance if he shows his good will by stopping indoors to-morrow and correcting some proofs that must go to the publishers in a hurry. i happen to know they've arrived, by express delivery. it's a test of storm's loyalty. if you're willing to let me drive your car on its sight-seeing tour of the neighbourhood, storm can make good with mrs. shuster." these were almost the words he spoke, for i listened hard while i thought what to do. i answered, sweet as honey, "yes, _please_ drive to-morrow. i will tell mr. storm he is free to work for mrs. shuster all day long." he was so pleased with me! then peter happened to walk by, in another path, and i said, "i will break it now." "do!" he whispered back; and did not try to come with me, as he often does if i am going near peter. it is a joke with peter and me since the mistake of the telegrams that mr. caspian would do some desperate thing to drive the grayles-grice, and that made it more easy to play a little trick. i said: "i hear you are asked to correct proofs of a peace tract. is it hard to do, or could i help when i finish a long letter i write to-morrow? i have seen so many beautiful sights, i shall mix all up in my mind if i see more before i put on paper my thoughts about them. mr. caspian can drive well enough the short smooth ways we have mapped out, do you not think?--and he would have his wish." peter laughed, and so did i. there was not need to explain for him to understand that the plan was part of our joke. oh, it has been the most heavenly day in the garden! i have sat on a purply red velvet cushion, on a marble seat brought from italy. behind the seat is a row of cedars, like a guard of black soldiers. these things suit long island as well as they suit italy, though peter laughs at them for being here. he laughs in a good-natured yet almost sad way, as if he thought it wrong to make fun of what a dead man did for love of his son. peter has sat in the garden, too, working hard, and we have not disturbed each other. the japanese brought us lunch out of doors in a summer house built like a temple in a roman garden. we had hothouse strawberries and cream of jersey cows, and when peter heard me say i would like to see a jersey, he ordered a japanese to have one fetched. it came--oh, so small a cow, like a great toy, colour of biscuit, and with a purple tongue which it rolled round a tartine i gave. i have never been more happy. i would have asked peter at _déjeuner_ if there was a son of marcel moncourt, but it seemed not the right time somehow, i can hardly tell why. when i have helped him with the proofs perhaps. (i am to copy his marks on a second set, and i shall try so hard not to have mistakes!) or to-night, at the piping rock club, where we shall dance together, i hope. anyway soon. and i will write to you all he says. your fairy-tale goose girl--or princess--i know not which! patrice. ix angéle dubois, patricia moore's maid, to the marquise de moncourt (_a translation of her letter into english._) madame la marquise has done me the honour of commanding me to write when there was news, good or bad, of the distinguished monsieur laurence moore. the first time i took pen in hand i had the pain of telling madame of his failure in finance, which greeted mademoiselle his daughter and me on our arrival in this country. had it not been for my promise to madame, i do not know if my courage would have supported the humiliations i was obliged to suffer at that time, but i reminded myself of her confidence in me, and praise be to the saints was able to accomplish my duties until better days dawned. in this i was aided by the kindness of monsieur, who has much sympathy and condescension for all near him. it is unfortunate that he should be forced to put his beautiful house to the uses of a hotel, as i took the liberty of complaining before to madame. but such is the unique charm of monsieur, he carries off this apparent ignominy without losing caste, and is most popular with all his guests and domestics--even too popular with some of the former who are females. and this brings me to my excuse for troubling madame. poor monsieur is as gay and good-natured as a boy. he can bear to hurt the feelings of no one, not even a cat, human or otherwise. and then, naturally, like all men, he has a weakness for being comfortable. money should grow in his pockets, but alas! it does not. they are often empty, and he knows not how to put up with that. it is no doubt the duty of his daughter to take a husband rich and generous enough to put monsieur in the position he should fill, without anxieties, where, if there is any question of a second marriage for him, the choice of a wife may be made by his heart. and if madame la marquise will forgive me the immense presumption of speaking my mind, i may say that, from the inquiries monsieur has made concerning his friends in france, i feel assured his soul is really there. most unluckily, however, mademoiselle--who pretends such devotion to her "larry"--puts her own fancies before his welfare. i have done all my possible to persuade her that she should accept a certain monsieur caspian, who has one of the great fortunes of this country, it appears, and is also most presentable. this i have done not only because it is for the ultimate good of mademoiselle, and because monsieur caspian has been considerate to me, but far more because of my promise to watch in every way the true interests of monsieur moore. with such a son-in-law, he would be free to turn his face toward france: and he himself wishes the marriage in his wiser moments. he may even have borrowed some few thousands of francs from monsieur caspian. but his good nature is the enemy again--always the enemy! he has fear of being the cruel parent. indeed he is not, i think, intended by heaven for a parent at all. yet, rather than push mademoiselle into a marriage, he is ready to be drawn into one himself, and there is now much danger that this may happen. as i write, mademoiselle is away on a short automobile tour, and monsieur is completely unprotected, except by me, and what can i do but write to madame la marquise? staying in the house is a dangerous woman, not possessed of siren fascinations; indeed, on the contrary, she is of a plainness to chill the blood of a _debonnaire_ man like monsieur moore. it is her money that is the magnet, and ah, the power makes itself felt! she, the woman who has the _bourgeois_ name of shuster, has remained at home, giving various excuses, but the true reason is to get herself safely engaged to monsieur before the return of his daughter. monsieur also, it must be confessed, is a little to blame in this matter, but it is his good nature once more! and, then, he was not perhaps averse to an innocent flirtation with a woman, even an unattractive one, who flattered him. now, he is being drawn farther than he may have meant when he made the pretext that he was needed at home. i would telegraph to madame, but i do not see what good that would accomplish. it is not likely that even to save an old friend from disaster, madame would launch herself at a moment's notice upon a dangerous voyage. besides, there is this consolation: even if monsieur is led by the nose--his so handsome nose!--a betrothal is not a marriage, and there is many a cup does not reach the lip which awaits it. madame la marquise may rest assured that i will not leave a stone unturned to prevent the worst from coming about. when mademoiselle returns i will make her comprehend that her dearly loved father's happiness is in her hands. she has but to make a small sacrifice which she will never regret. even for herself it would be well, were there no other to consider, for there is on the scene a _person extremely undesirable_ of whom mademoiselle is thinking too much. i have been asked to warn her against him, and i do my best, but it is a delicate situation. mademoiselle can be obstinate as the camel. she would have little regard for my advice had i not come to her from madame. with unfailing devotion and respect, i am the humble servant of madame la marquise, angéle dubois. x edward caspian to mrs. shuster my dear friend: if i dated this letter "the stanislaws house," it would suggest nothing to you except a hotel. it's not a hotel; but it has _no name_, and it is generally spoken of in this way. as a matter of fact, it ought to be mine, and i've suffered from a strong sense of irritation in being brought here against my will. i couldn't prevent the party coming, however, and as i didn't care to turn my back while p. s. had everything his own way, i let myself be dragged, as you might say, at his victorious chariot wheels. we were to have gone to the nearest hotel, as you know, for your telegram to me (just forwarded) and the proofs for storm were both addressed there. p. s. had this invitation up his sleeve as a surprise for the crowd. his pal moncourt knows the man to whom the place was left by young stanislaws, or else he got the favour through the man's lawyer, which i think more likely. but no use troubling you with details of the affair, which can't interest you as it does me. suffice it to say it's a very fine place, and there's something queer about the ownership which, as it happens, my detectives are at this very time trying to get at the root of. i've never ceased to feel that i have been defrauded. i suspect storm heard something of the story from moncourt, and put him up to arranging the "surprise" more to annoy me than to please any one else. well, he scored, i can't deny. but the man laughs best who laughs last, you know, and it's my turn now. i got my chance at piping rock, as i expected; and as i shan't arrive at kidd's pines with the others, i am writing this to put you on to the situation; also to acknowledge your telegram. it was nice of you to send it like that, the minute you got my scolding letter from easthampton. i'm sorry i was so severe, though i had some excuse to be cross. i forgive you freely, now things are turning out a little better, and i ask you to do the same with me. i am writing, as before, in a hurry, for i have to go to new york on important business. my own car has been put to rights, and i am expecting it to turn up at any minute. i shall post this, express, on the way to town. well, the little lady played me a trick day before yesterday. watch out for her, my friend! she looks as innocent as a christmas card angel, but she's got something of the pussy cat in her composition. not that i like her the less for that. it's more exciting. the only way is, to know what one may have to expect, and be ready for emergencies. she may try to make trouble for _you_ in a certain direction, so hurry up and fix things! but so far as i'm concerned, it seems as if i'd got her in hand since last night. the trick she played was to send me off, driving her beastly grayles-grice, and carting the goodrich family round the country, while she and peter storm spooned in an imitation italian garden. i hadn't a notion the girl meant to stay behind till i was in the car with the wheel in my hand. the goodrich lot were in, too. one of them wanted to know what we were waiting for? i said, "for miss moore." "oh, she isn't coming!" remarked the gigantic young female. "she's got letters to write." letters be blighted! it took all my _noblesse oblige_ not to step out of the automobile and refuse to stir. but it would have looked rather too marked, and that little devil of a mrs. winston would have been too much tickled. her car was close by at the time, and for once she'd stopped chattering, no doubt to see how i would bear the blow she probably knew was coming. my one satisfaction was to give her _none_! but i hoped for more later, and got it, as you are going to hear. i had made a plan for the evening, in case storm showed up for the dance. it was quite a simple one. i hadn't given him a special invitation, as i had the others, and if he took it for granted he was asked, it was his own fault. i knew that one of the most exclusive women in society was coming to the dance, mrs. sam de silverley. you may have known she was on your ship, though it's unlikely you saw her, as she was badly sick all the way across, i've heard. she's been rather friendly with me since i came into my money; in fact, i helped to get her the house she's taken for the summer, not far from the piping rock club. it belongs to a man i know, a great golfer, in france with the american ambulance just now; and it was on my programme for the day to call and ask her to be nice to my party in the evening. i did call, while the crowd were having a picnic-lunch, ran the grayles-grice to her place, and stopped long enough for coffee. she's fond of a little gossip, and knew all about the debacle at kidd's pines of course. i gave her a few picturesque details of p. s. and his exploits on land. mrs. sam had already heard of those at sea. the stewardess and her maid had cheered the monotony of the voyage by describing the "stormy petrel," as it seems you all called him on shipboard. i let _you_ down lightly; said that out of charity you'd employed the man to do secretarial work, to which he was entirely unsuited, but that he was thoroughly at home as chauffeur. i enlarged a little on his impudence, and remarked that i shouldn't be surprised if he had the cheek to turn up at the dance, pretending to be my guest. "if he does, i have enough influence in the club to see that he is asked to go," mrs. de silverley assured me. and that was exactly what i wanted. it would be awkward for me, in the circumstances, to have him put out, i said, but if the club did it, understanding that he was _not_ my guest, i should be grateful. this was the whole of my original plan, and i carried it out as intended. but since beginning to work it up, i found i had miss patty to punish as well as p. s. i concentrated my whole mind on my objective while the goodrich girls admired the scenery, during the afternoon run; and toward evening i thought i saw my way to something _big_. you haven't seen the piping rock club yet, i think. well, it's absolutely _it_, and only the right people belong. there's fine golf, and tennis of course, and i've heard englishmen say the lawns are more like the turf "at home" than any they've seen on this side. in fact, winston said that very thing to-day: called the club an "american ranelagh." not that i set much value on his opinion! the clubhouse itself is just like some jolly old country house: white shingles and green blinds, green and white awnings, large open court with brick walks running all around, and a fountain playing in the middle, wicker chairs scattered about the court, and window boxes full of pink flowers, wide verandas or loggias, or whatever you call them, where you can have tea or most anything else you want; a lot of rooms with comfortable chintz-covered furniture, jolly chintz like the old patterns at kidd's pines, and a ballroom fit for buckingham palace. you'll love the place; but i'm not describing it to make you regret stopping at home. if things have gone right with you, it would take twenty piping rocks to do that--and _then_ one! all i'm aiming at is to show you the swell sort of setting i had for my stage last night. the big dances are in the fall and winter. this one was a special affair, very smart but not big, and that made every one there more conspicuous. our crowd had about the only strangers in it. pretty well all the rest knew each other, and most of them belonged to the same clique. i felt good all over, as if i had a chance of coming into my own, when i found storm in the chauffeur's seat of the grayles-grice, ready to drive us to the dance. he was in evening clothes under his big coat: had worn them to dinner of course, pretty weird ones; ready made, i should say. i guessed that he meant to brave the business out, though i wasn't quite easy in my mind up to the last that he wouldn't make some excuse to go home when he'd got us to the clubhouse. but not a word of the sort did he utter. on the contrary, i heard him tell miss moore she "wasn't to forget their dance." that made me hot in the collar, and if i'd been inclined to wobble before, i nailed my colours to the mast then. not only was i egged on by my anger against that fellow, who has deliberately put stumbling-blocks in my way from the first, but by my sincere desire for miss moore's welfare. quite apart from my wishes where she is concerned, nothing could be worse for her than an entanglement with an adventurer like storm--a man from the dark, you might call him, if you chose to say nothing worse. and already the goodriches are talking--made jokes in the automobile yesterday about the two who had stayed at home to "write." how girls manage to squeeze such a lot of clothes into small space, i don't know. anyhow, miss patty and the goodriches and the two young married women didn't appear in the same dresses they had worn for the dance at easthampton. i never saw patty look so pretty, though as a rule i don't like green, and to me it's unlucky. i shall never let her have another green dress when we are married, becoming though the colour may be. storm was looking after the grayles-grice when the rest of us went into the clubhouse, so i knew the dance patty was to "remember" couldn't be the first. i asked her to sit it out with me, and she hesitated a minute. "has some one else got ahead of me?" i asked. she said no, but she had been thinking she wouldn't give the first dance to any one; she would "sit with molly and jack." it shot into my head that she didn't want storm to come in and find her with me, knowing he wastes no love on yours truly. i was mad, but i kept cool. "all right, let me sit with you all three," i said. "i've got something important to tell you that can't very well wait." i saw by her eye what she thought the "something important" was, so i hurried to disabuse her mind. "it's about storm," i explained. "i don't know whether you'd care to save him serious trouble, but you can do so if we talk the thing over while there's time." "of course i would care to!" she said. "he's been very kind to larry and me." in my opinion it was the other way round, but i didn't stop to argue. i took her into the ballroom, having previously found out that mrs. sam de silverley hadn't arrived yet. i was counting on her being a bit late. she generally is--for the sake of the effect. when we were sitting down together, patty and i (all the rest of our lot dancing, except the winstons), i didn't waste a second in firing off my first gun. "i want to ask you frankly, miss moore," i began, "to tell me if you know whether storm intends to be present at this dance to-night." "but yes!" she answered in that funny french way she has, that would be difficult to put on paper if one wanted to. "he will come in a few minutes." "oh," said i. "that's a pity." "why a pity?" she wanted to know. "because he's not invited, and that is going to make it mighty awkward--worse than awkward." "but, you invited us all," she insisted. "you are a member. you have the right----" "i have the right, but i didn't exercise it for storm's benefit. i shouldn't have thought of doing so. the rest of the party are gentlemen and ladies. the club can make no objection to them as guests. storm is a chauffeur. i should have insulted the club by inviting him, and i certainly didn't do so." patty flushed up, and her eyes turned black. she can be a regular little _tiger_ cat, that girl! she must have been spoilt by the nuns in that blessed convent of hers! i believe she'd have liked to box my ears. but i knew i had the whip hand, and i was enjoying myself. "he's _not_ a chauffeur. you know that!" she snapped. "he kindly drives my car these few days, because we couldn't replace the man who went, and because i am not experienced. if it comes to that, _you're_ a chauffeur, too. you drove the grayles-grice to-day, and you would to-morrow, if i said yes." "you are talking sophistry," said i, though i don't suppose she knew what i meant, as i believe she thinks in french. "storm is a paid employé of mrs. shuster. he's been switched off one job on to another to accommodate. and he admits he's had former experience as a chauffeur, driving a grayles-grice. anyhow, the fact remains that's the way his status will be regarded here, and if he comes in, claiming to be my guest, in self-defense i shall have to deny it, otherwise i might be asked to resign. when i've had to give him the lie, he will be kicked out of the place. that's a sure thing." patty began to look sick, and her green dress wasn't as becoming as it had been while she was just plain mad. "you said something about my saving him trouble," she reminded me. "what did you mean?" "well, you could do one of two things," i began to explain. "you could come out now with me in a hurry before he gets in, to head him off and tell him in your own words what i've just said." "i would rather die than do such a very insulting thing!" she rapped out, rolling her r's as if she were beating a drum. "all right then, there's one thing left--that gives you a little more time, but not much, because if the crash isn't to come the question has got to be decided in a few minutes, before the arrival of a certain lady--as a matter of fact, a lady who was on your ship and knows all about mr. peter storm. when _she_ appears on the scene she'll enter a complaint, and the affair will be out of our hands. you will then be too late to save mrs. shuster's secretary and your friend the chauffeur from a nasty knock which may leave a black mark for the rest of his life--make it hard for him to get new situations and that sort of thing." "tell me quickly what to do and i will do it!" she said. "ask me as a favour to you to speak up for storm. if you do i shall grant the favour, no matter what it may cost me. but as it will most likely cost me my membership when the story comes out later (which it will) why, i sort of feel as if you'd hate to have me give you that favour for nothing." "i do not ask you to give it for nothing!" said she. "but you do ask the favour. is that what i'm to understand?" "yes. i do ask that." "you don't think you'd better wait and hear what i want for my reward before you decide?" "no. because whatever you want i will do rather than have mr. storm hurt for life, when it was i who persuaded him to come." (i think she said "me," but that's a detail. i adore her little slips!) "he objected, because there were some good reasons he couldn't tell me for him _not_ to go to a big fashionable dance, but i thought that was just because he was modest. i wanted to show him how i felt--how molly winston and _all_ of us feel, except you, the _socialist_"--(i wish you could have heard how she hissed that word at me!)--"so i begged him to come, to please _me_. then he told me he would, and now it seems i bring him to humiliation. it is terrible! yes, i will do anything to save him. and now what is it you want?" poor little tragedy queen, i was almost sorry for her, in spite of her tricks! but i was punishing her for her own future good. think of the difference for a girl between being mrs. edward caspian and mrs. peter storm! "can you guess?" i asked. "perhaps i can; perhaps i can't. you had better put it into words, and see how it sounds." "well, i only want you to say what your father wants you to say, and what you let me think you might be willing to say, if you weren't so young. i want you to be engaged to me. once you've promised, i shall feel safe, and won't press you too much or too soon for the rest. we can talk the future over with mr. moore when we get back to kidd's pines." "_soit!_" said patty, which sounded like slang for a slap, but i happened to remember it was french for something or other. (i asked mrs. sam later, and she thought it meant "so be it.") "_soit!_ now go this instant and make everything perfectly right for mr storm, because here he comes, and if any one is rude, _nothing_ i have said counts." i bounded away from her, as if she'd shot me out of a gun, and crossed the room to meet storm. it was the first time i had ever been cordial, and he let me see he was surprised. such was his manner that it was all i could do to keep up the show of friendliness, but i knew patty was in a mood to come down on me like a thousand of brick if the least detail went wrong. my only fear was that mrs. sam might have said something to somebody prematurely; but apparently she hadn't. i explained to storm i must definitely introduce him as my guest, because all the other names had been mentioned, and not his. you could have knocked me down with a feather when he said, "oh, i'm not _your_ guest. i'm here on the invitation of mr. james strickland of new york, and huntington, long island, who is one of the oldest members of this club, as i dare say you know. but he doesn't come to the dances." for a minute i was weak in the knees. i saw all my work destroyed. but when i'd got my second wind i realized that nothing was changed. patty would never tell storm that she'd engaged herself to me to save him from being turned out of the piping rock club. she'd be too proud for such a confession, and, besides, she'd hate to upset his feelings to that extent. when she's not in a temper she's almost absurdly kind, and when she _is_ in a temper, it generally seems to be with me. but i shall change that, later. there was still danger, however, from mrs. sam. i had warned her to pull storm off his perch; now i must warn her to leave him on it, or patty's promise wouldn't stand. i let storm go, even though i knew he was going straight to _her_. she was engaged to marry me, and i could trust her--as far as i could see her anyhow! presently mrs. sam floated in with a suite consisting of one husband, one daughter, and several satellites of both sexes. she had on the most expensive dress in the room, i should judge, and her hair was done in a way which nobody could help noticing on account of the diamond sign-posts; consequently she was in a good humour. i paid her compliments, and then pretended suddenly to remember our conversation of the afternoon. "oh, by the by," said i, "that fellow i was telling you about turns out to be better than i thought. he's not a professional chauffeur, and apparently he's a gentleman by birth. anyhow, he's a protégé of james strickland the new york lawyer, and is introduced here by him, not by me. he's got the countersign! we'd better consider him a friend and let him pass--what?" "oh, certainly, if he's under the protection of strickland," said mrs. sam. "james strickland is the most successful of the decent lawyers in new york. one never knows when one may want his services, and he's merciless, positively _merciless_, if he gets down on anybody. we'll let sleeping dogs lie." whether she meant that strickland or storm was a sleeping dog, or that they'd both lain down together, i don't know, and don't care. i'd got what i wanted! "i wonder why it is miss moore's green dress seemed so becoming the first part of the evening," said the oldest and shortest miss goodrich to me when we were sitting out an extra (i'd as soon try to dance with the statue of liberty as with her), "and now it doesn't suit her at all." if she'd known it, that remark was less complimentary to me than to patty herself; but she didn't know, for the engagement isn't out yet. it won't be till after i arrive at kidd's pines with the ring (choosing it is part of my business in new york), and meanwhile i've gone into all these details in my letter to you, so that you'll be "on to" the situation. i've helped you, and if you see any need for a special effort before i get back (or afterward either for that matter) i shall rely on you. besides, each one of us agreed to report progress to the other. if i hadn't seized upon this happy thought for the dance, i might have had my work cut out to get patty, once you'd secured the father. i have a vague and not very self-flattering idea that she was keeping me up her sleeve, so to speak, for use in order to "save" her father. well, she "saved" storm instead, so her philanthropic instincts haven't been wasted. the question is--though you mayn't think me very gallant to ask it--is there any fear of its working the other way round? i, having permanently promoted the family fortunes, will our friend "larry" jog on quietly with the bit in his mouth? you have fair warning, anyhow, and i hope to see you day after to-morrow. i am a different man from the one who wrote you last time. your sympathetic friend, e. caspian. xi peter storm to james strickland _huntersford._ _my simple life room. unearthly hour; but leading hen has just laid my breakfast egg._ hail, father confessor! when you read what i have to say, if you weren't a model of (several, if not) all the virtues, you'd say, "i told you so!" but you're a cynic at head, not at heart, and you allow yourself to be sarcastic only in the privacy of your own brain-pan as a rule. i warn you i want to gush, and having stripped myself of all alleged friends and acquaintances (except you) as a tree strips itself of leaves in winter, i've no one else to gush to. perhaps it's but fair to myself, though, to explain that it doesn't feel like "gush" to me. i use the word only because i'm a coward and fear to have you think me a sentimental idiot. i'm trying to let myself down, you see, as easily as i can! it's a queer thing (i don't know whether a punishment or an omen of blessing) that our talk when you prophesied my repentance took place on the same road i travelled last night in a car of the same make and same power. the same moon which gazed coldly on you and me, and maybe eavesdropped, beamed sympathetically on me and some one else a few hours ago, and if it had sense, witnessed your poetic justification. now i ask for your advice again, and this time--if it's anything like what i want--i'll take it. but i find it isn't as easy to get on with my confession as i thought it would be. i'm nervously inclined to put the cart before the horse. or, i'm hanged if i'm sure which is the cart and which the horse! the spell of the moon is upon me still. i feel myself two men--the man who argued you down; the man who wishes you had downed him. i wonder if you remember that night--my last on this side of the water--as well as i do? can you see us two, after our secret visit to _the_ house, getting into the car? the moon a boat tossing a silver prow high into the blue, and the stars small bright points like sequins flung in the air at an eastern wedding. away we go, slipping through cold spring harbor; trees pouring past the car like smoke, hills olive gray in the moonshine; old white houses dreaming of their stately past; young houses wide awake and playing bridge or victrolas; carpets of baby bracken; dark, slumbering forests planted by forgotten indians; stretches of fair country with pools of moonlight ringed in shadow shores; then, _your_ dear old seafaring town of huntington, where to-night, by the way, i had a glimpse of your own delightful butter-yellow house as we slipped along the road between your lawn and the water. the weeping willows moving in the breeze looked like silver fountains, and the thick blossoms of the apple orchard might have been a million hovering white moths. you and i had no such fancies in our heads that night, had we? we didn't think that each side road we passed looked as if it led to fairyland--more fools we! but i was always a fool. i see that now, when my brain is suddenly seized with growing pains. just about at northport you suggested the possibility of my wanting to marry. i thought of that last night, as a glimpse of moonlit water flashed under my eyes, and remembered how i laughed you to scorn. all through those gay and vital young woods which wall the road beyond i continued to idiotize, unable to see dryads dancing in the moonlight (as _she_ and i saw them in the same spot to-night), careless that nature was distilling magic perfume for us from tree and fern and wild flower, our eyes shut to the fact that elves disguised as indian lilies were using silvered ponds for mirrors. do you remember that lonely graveyard in the woods, relic of some community of early settlers? "i'd as soon be dead and lying there as live the life you want me to live!" said i, with a would-be wise nod of the head as i drove past. but now i see too well that you were the wise one. why didn't nature make me understand myself as i begin to understand now? there must have been the same heart-searching perfume in the woods that night--a blend of locust bloom with wild roses and the bitter-sweet tang of young fox-grape tendrils swinging high among the tree branches. yet i could do no better than expound to you my dry-as-dust opinions on marriage. women, according to me, had only one way of making a man happy, and thirty thousand ways of torturing him. i wanted to have inscribed on my tombstone: "what did he do for the good of womankind? he remained a bachelor." most husbands and wives, i thought, had the air of being married to foreigners whose mentality they could never quite touch. i believed that i was cut out for a bad husband, a disappointing friend, an irritating acquaintance, and that the ends of the earth were the only happy hunting grounds for a wild spirit like mine--places where i could freely dive far down under the surface of myself and swim at ease. birds in the hand had no brightness of plumage for me. they were always moulting. i coveted the ones that sang farthest away in the bush. "why have a mad desire to become an ancestor for people you don't know and may dislike?" i think i remember inquiring of you, as you sagely dilated--at ancient smithtown--on the notable achievements of a certain bull rider smith for the benefits of his posterity. he was doubtless a smart business man and a good sportsman, to gallop so far and fast on such an animal, when told he could have all the road he could ride round on bull-back in the course of a day. but to me his ambitions seemed futile, and the whole of long island less important than a flyspeck on the map of the world. now, i shouldn't mind spending my life here, even in _the_ house, though i should prefer an old one; and the smithtown church with its cyclopian eye of a clock in a tall puritanical steeple would exactly suit me to be married in. as we bowled along the middle island country road _she_ wanted to know if i had ever driven there before. i had to say "yes" (i couldn't lie to her), and then she asked an embarrassing question or two. but she was almost pathetically easy to put off, so afraid she was of being overcurious. i would have given a good deal to burst out with the whole truth, in that mood of mine, a mood of exaltation with my soul flaming up like a beacon. but even if i'd seriously thought of speaking, i couldn't with the back of the car boiling over with handsome giantesses from colorado--goddesses from the garden of the gods. they were pretty good about not interrupting; but now and again they couldn't resist breaking in with "oh, _is_ it our dear old peconic river again, that gives the name to riverhead?" or, "_did_ they call it jamesport after king james the second of england?" or, "_can_ those beautiful black trees in front of that _darling_ white house be irish yews?" or, "_don't_ you think southold's the most adorable old town we've seen _yet_?" of course, if my companion on the front seat had catechized me in this way, i should have been charmed to give her all my feeble fund of information concerning huguenot and english settlers, dates, etc. (fortunately 1648 will do in most instances!), but it was a little disconcerting to hear these extraneous discords just when my heart was beating well in tune with the oldest song in the world. you now need no explanation of what has happened to me. besides, you've been expecting it to happen. i knew that, and expected on my part to disappoint you by its _not_ happening. but this girl magic has been too much for me. i've gone under; and i should be a happy man as the moon sets and the sun rises to-day if only i'd listened to you on that moonlight night before it was too late. yet is it too late? that's what i want to thrash out. have i locked the door between myself and happiness with such a girl as patricia moore, and is the key lost? or can i with your help find the key, oil the lock, and open the door? i used to think a very young girl went about--so to speak--with a love letter in her pocket all ready for post except that it wasn't yet addressed. but this girl isn't like that. she wouldn't write the letter till she knew the address she wanted to send it to. all the same i feel the possibility that i _could_ make her care for me. i suppose i was falling in love with her when i wrote you that i wasn't. i thought it was just very pleasant and amusing to be on terms of friendship with such a charming and unique girl. but now--_friendship_! there's as much difference between that and love as there is between a photographic copy of a tintoretto and the original tintoret itself. when i think of any other man getting patricia moore, a link seems to drop right out of my spine. yet she's not born for an old maid. love and a "happy ending" for her story ought to be attached to her like a label. if i can't work to get her, some one else will. caspian is doing it already, but in spite of the money i don't think she'd ever take him: her instinct finds truth as the needle finds the pole. three boys are also working; but they're big babies, with young-chicken-coloured hair and merry, heather-mixture eyes. they talk no language but slang. they come to grief in a preposterous automobile about every ten miles and attract their idol's attention and startle horses by giving vent to s. o. s. yells. whenever they have to enter a room they plunge in as if the door had broken away before them. their only conception of a "good time" is ragtime. if one of them shows signs for a moment of having been trained to house manners, his chums taunt him. "none of your pêche melba airs here!" is the favourite expression. so you'll agree with me i have a fair field, _if_ i'm permitted to enter. am i? can i undo everything and go back to the days before the revolution? would it be fair to others concerned? and that reminds me, whatever happens, young marcel mustn't suffer. he has been a complication for some time, but apparently he's likely to be a more serious one now. you'd never guess what he's done, if i gave you a dozen chances, so i'll sandwich his love story with mine. _her_ best friend is named adrienne de moncourt, daughter of the widowed marquise "of that ilk." the said marquise, from what i gather, is responsible for miss moore's being brought up in france, under her own eye. i shrewdly suspect this was arranged in the hope of attracting our "beloved vagabond," larry, back and forth across the sea. a terrible, man-eating tigress of a lady's maid has been imported, nominally to take care of princess pat, secretly (or i'll eat my hat) to keep an eye upon and report on larry's capers to the marquise de moncourt! since my princess came to these shores, "a distant cousin from america" has introduced himself to the marquise. he being young, good looking, and presumably rich, the lady invited him to her château to spend easter. mademoiselle came home from school for the holidays. the two met. the name of the rich american cousin is marcel de moncourt. the princess patricia says that she loves her adrienne next best to larry, and she hopes and prays the cousin is all he should be. she asked me to tell her if "_our_ marcel" had a son. i was obliged to confess that he had; but when she wanted to know if it could possibly be the same, i hedged in every direction. you and moncourt and i must have a powwow as soon as possible. you can't blame me for falling in love, as you always said the thing was inevitable; and you'll be even less likely to croak if i tell you how it was i first diagnosed the serious state of my feelings. it was at the dance you got me invited to at the piping rock club--many thanks again. you will deduce that i bought a "reach me down" evening suit before starting on this expedition--first time i'd worried myself into such togs for heaven knows how long. i never thought to be caught by conventions again, but i'd tar and feather my body if that was the costume best suited to _her_ society. you see how i'm turning over new leaves--turning so fast i've hardly time to read them as i go on! as i explained to you in asking the favour, i guessed that caspian meant to score over me, so i wanted to be the one to do the scoring. i thought if i simply swaggered into the ballroom as one of caspian's guests, he was certain to repudiate me, which would have been rather amusing if it hadn't made me conspicuous. it was, as you remarked, something of a risk to appear at all in such a place on such an occasion, but i've trusted to luck so often and come out on the top of the wave (literally!) that i didn't mind, provided i could jog along quietly, and get in even one dance with my little princess. i felt safe under your respectable wing, and was looking forward to the fun of not exploding if caspian had laid a fuse to blow me up. but strickland, think of it, _she_ had been suffering for my sake! when i went to ask her for our dance, i found her deadly pale. "what is the matter?" i jerked out, actually scared by her whiteness. "are you faint? shall i take you into the open air?" "oh, please do!" she said; and i whisked her out quickly onto one of those verandas as wide as a room. "could we go home?" she asked piteously, but when i suggested making a dash into the ballroom to find her pal, mrs. winston, she wouldn't hear of it. "no," she said, "molly mustn't be disturbed. it is nothing. only--i should like to go. if you wouldn't mind." if i wouldn't _mind_! it would have been pretty well worth being born for to drive her back alone, just we two in the car, but i dared not take the child at her word. i thought she was too ill to remember mrs. grundy's silly old existence, and i couldn't take advantage of her forgetfulness. at the same time it seemed the act of a prig grafted on to a bounder to put the idea into her head, and make her ashamed of having said the wrong thing. you see what a nuisance my conscience is! i petted it so much when it was young, now it won't stop in its cage. i didn't know what to say, and felt as if it would be money in my pocket not to have been born, for my spirit had melted in me, as one of those soft capsules melts in your mouth. i don't know what i should have said or done, my mental state being that of a hen in front of a motor, if at that instant mrs. winston herself hadn't appeared. it was as if my subconscious self had made a dash and dragged her out by the hair! winston was with her (as mrs. shuster ingenuously remarked one day, "that man is as nice to his wife as if he were somebody else's husband"), and they came straight to us, marching solemnly, like a deputation. "angel child," said molly (we all think of her as "molly"), "i noticed you looking a little wan, so jack and i just waltzed out to see how you were, and also to pat mr. storm figuratively on the back." "why--what has happened?" inquired the princess almost wildly. "such fun! envy is the sincerest flattery, so mr. storm ought to be pleased that mr. caspian hasn't loved him since the day he had his great inspiration about marcel and kidd's pines. it appears that our vaudevillain (isn't that a nice name for dear eddy?) passed round the word that mr. storm had no invitation to this dance, when all the time he had come on the behest of some fearfully celebrated man in new york every one seems to bow down to. collapse of the gunpowder plot!" "oh, i'm _so_ thankful!" sighed dear molly's angel child. she clapped her hands and gave a little skip. then i guessed in a flash why she had looked pale, why she had wanted to get me out of the ballroom, and why she'd been ready to defy old lady grundy in order to keep me safe, and avoid hurting the poor secretary-chauffeur's feelings by telling him what was up. that was the moment, my friend, when i realized that i'd always been wrong and you'd always been right. i knew that the girl lit the world for me. again i ask you, what am i going to do about it? i don't believe she's in love with me. it was only that she couldn't bear to have me humiliated, and was willing to make a sacrifice to save me pain. but i do believe i could make her love me if i tried. the kind angel as good as admitted the cause of her illness by making a quick recovery and going in with captain winston while i followed with his wife. molly, by the way, almost confessed she'd suspected that pat was anxious for my welfare, and had come out to relieve the girl's mind. do you wonder at the state of mine? i'm bound to add that my rescue didn't seem to restore her spirits permanently. she looked rather "wan," as molly said, all the rest of the evening; or it may have been the effect of a green dress she wore. certainly she was somewhat _piano_ in manner, too; and despite her pal's slap at caspian, the princess didn't treat him as if he were the dragon of the opera. on the contrary, she sat out several dances with him. i bear her no grudge, though! she hadn't the air of enjoying his society. we were to have started for kidd's pines the morning after the dance at piping rock, but a mrs. sam de silverley (who said she knew you) was moved by curiosity to want me introduced to her. she "pined to see the inside of the stanislaws house," first hinted and then pleaded to do so, and in return invited the whole of our crowd to a garden party at her place. some russian dancers were to "entertain," and the goodriches--who are seeing life with all their souls--yearned to go. so did our bride and bridegroom, who want their money's worth of honeymoon; therefore it was arranged that we stay over, and drive home in a moonlight procession. i am not built for bun worries, be they out of doors or in, and declined on the plea of important work. besides, i saw by the look in patsey's eyes that she also intended to refuse. i hoped that through some remarkable coincidence we might meet in the garden "at home," as we had the day before, but caspian caught the coincidence this time, so i sulked in the house with man's most faithful dumb companion, a pipe. caspian didn't stay with my little lady for long, so i hope she refused him and got it over with. anyhow, she was in a delicious mood all the way to kidd's pines, as you may have assumed from the tone and indeed the very existence of this letter. we talked of impersonal things, never of ourselves and seldom of each other, and she was not as gay as when we began the trip, yet--never had she been so dear. i began this letter with a partial promise to abide by your advice; but if you harshly tell me it's too late to change things, i'm afraid i shall go full speed ahead just the same. i won't, however, decide till i hear from you--not because i'm patient, but because the girl mustn't be "rushed" in any case. besides, i shall very likely not see her to-day. i dropped the party at the door of kidd's pines in the dead middle of the night (forgot to tell you caspian didn't come with us, but turned tail and went to new york: _another_ sign!), garaged the grayles-grice, and biked to the village. i'll now try to sleep for an hour or two--less because i'm tired than because i want to dream myself back in the path of the moon, where walks romance to greet me. my bed here, by the by, usually reminds me of a rack out of commission. but to-day i don't care. i shall find it a bed of roses. write as soon as you've thought things over, please. or, better still, wire: "advise yes," or--but i won't think of the alternative. either way, however, i'll still be yours loyally, pietro. p.s. can't sleep, can't dream. something tells me all isn't well at kidd's pines. i had forebodings before we started that there'd be ructions when we got back, but i'd mislaid them under a thousand other thoughts. seems a long time ago! but while i was trying to sleep just now, this came into my mind as if a voice spoke it: "bridge the gulf that parts you from your wish, and you can walk across." i wish it were _your_ voice said that, old man! p.p.s. talk of women with their postscripts! they're not in it with me. i keep leaping off the gridiron--i mean out of bed--again and again to add a word that threatens to burst my brain if bottled up. this time shall be the last! i only want to assure you that i'm not brooding over any _coup_ of revenge against caspian. my personal dislike of him has nothing to do with my attitude, except that the more i see of the worm the more i see what a worm he is. not only is he unworthy to crawl in the same atmosphere with miss moore (don't smile sarcastically at that expression. i _like_ it!) but he's more fitted for underground conditions than any caterpillar i ever met. caterpillars change to butterflies. worms, as far as my knowledge goes, are changeless. i don't feel revengeful against him. but i don't feel conscientious and dutiful for a cent! xii patricia moore to adrienne de moncourt chérie: i have not the heart or the time for a long letter, but i must quickly tell you that our marcel _has_ a son. i asked p. s. but he seems not to think your new cousin can be the same. soon, surely, he will himself say everything to you, and open his heart wide. ah, how i wish you all there is of happiness, the more because i am not to have it myself. the critics knew better about life than i, you see, mignonne. yet i am going to be brave. i have got myself engaged with mr. caspian already, since i wrote from the beautiful house. you will think that strange, but it came to happen in a simple way. it was at the dance at the piping rock club. that sounds romantic, is it not? but it was not romantic at all. i just had to do it. then, after a little while, i was very sorry. i thought perhaps i need not have made myself this misery. i was not nice to him the rest of that night, and the next day i would not let him take a snapshot of me in the wonderful garden. i said i had a copyright of my own face, if we _were_ engaged! and i hoped that would make him break, but it did not. he was only in the sulks. and he does not look nice in the sulks. i was glad he had to go to new york and not motor home with us in the grayles-grice, and i could not be interested when he said in hints that his business in town had something to do with _me_--something i should _like_! i'm sure i cannot like it. and oh, chérie, he has such _slept_ on looking ears, i dare not think of them: too flat, and crinkly at the top like inside lettuce leaves! i was making up my mind all the way home in heavenly moonlight that it had been a mistake and i must jump out of it. this made me almost happy again--this, and watching peter storm drive, which i do like to see, he does it so well, so strongly, it seems to give you strength being near him. but now i am at home and everything is changed, worse than when larry was bankrupted. i found him almost engaged to _mrs. shuster_. he was doing it because of being poor, and to save me from the sacrifice. that was what he explained. so of course i told him i had promised to marry mr. caspian, and all would be right for us. he is going to get out of it with mrs. shuster if he can in honour. if he cannot i must try to _dig_ him out. larry matters so _much_ more than i do! i wish i were being engaged in france instead of here, because there i think _les jeunes filles_ do not have to kiss. here, one says they do. but _i_ will not! i wish again thy happiness, dear one. mine is lost. would it do good if you prayed to saint anthony of padua to find it for me again? nobody knows yet except larry. i shall not tell angéle. she would be pleased, and i should want to slap her! your poor patrice. xiii molly winston to mercédes lane _awepesha, long island_, _wednesday._ dearest old girl: i shouldn't call you that if you weren't young and beautiful! jack and i have just sent you a cheap, enthusiastic cable containing the one word "hurrah!" you will understand that our cheers ring across the atlantic because monty is mending well. your letter came this morning with the good news. biarritz will be a jolly place for his convalescence. i shall never forget when jack and i were there together before we were engaged. oh, with _aunt mary kedison, of course_! and in jack's car, my poor old horror of accursed memory being burnt long before. jack was "brown" then, and my "lightning conductor" as he still is and ever shall be; though just at present when we motor i have to sit behind the scenes and make the lightning work. his wounds have left him stiff in the left arm and leg, but the doctors say he will really and truly be himself again in a few months: six or seven at most. i wish you the same luck with monty, or better if possible. by the way, we shall meet aunt mary again soon. she has been to the bahamas for the winter, with a family of retired missionaries (i think they retired after one of them was eaten), but has come back to a house she owns in new england. we shall have to stop and say, "how do you do and good-bye" on our way somewhere else. i confess i dread it, for though aunt mary is as good as gold, or, anyhow, silver, she's one of those creatures who begin: "you know i'm a very _truthful_ woman," whenever they have a disagreeable personal remark to make. you've met the type! they're mostly women; and they dissolve in tears and think you cruel as dozens of graves if you retort in kind. i expect aunt mary's (almost) first words to jack will be, "well, mr. winston--(oh, _captain_ is it, molly?)--i'm glad to see that my niece and you continue to get along fairly. you're aware i never _could_ approve on principle of these international matches, or mismatches; american women ought to marry men of their own country, if they must marry at all." (she's never forgiven me for snubbing her pet, jimmy payne, now a terribly respectable husband and _poopa_.) "still, there _can_ be exceptions, and evidently you don't bully my niece, as it's established that _most_ englishmen do their wives, for she's looking well considering her age. let me see, she was born in the year----" but at this point i shall interrupt aunt mary by a bright remark about the weather, or a _bludgeon_ if the weather won't work! i thank our lucky stars (jack and i have a skyful) that we're going to do another trip before we start for new england. of course i want my ewe-lion (i've named him that behind his back since he turned warrior) to see all of my dear country he can before we have to sail again; but it's too bad such a lovely part as new england should be infested by aunts, isn't it? it's called the "ideal tour," i believe--through the white mountains and some green and blue ones, etc.--but for jack and me it will have a drawback. people used to be torn to death by wild horses. that's not done in the best circles now; but it's perfectly admissible, alas, to be talked to death by wild aunts. i'm charmed that you're so interested in patsey moore and peter storm. the latter, as i wrote, has developed into _her_ "lightning conductor." indeed, in some ways jack and he are alike: for you know jack "brown-ed" himself in order to conduct me; and i can't help thinking that our stormy petrel isn't as stormy as he's painted. now i know him so well, i don't let my mind dwell on the possibility of his being less worthy of our intense interest than he seems. if there's anything hidden, it's "buried treasure," such as we hope against hope may exist at kidd's pines. it's not very long, as the crow flies--i mean the post--since i wrote you last; but i do think more things can happen in america to the square minute than anywhere else in the world. especially at kidd's pines! it's like living in a "movie" when they are running the reels off fast. why, our reels go so quickly you hardly know what's happened to the "walking men and women", and it's even difficult to tell the hero from the villain. that sounds frivolous, but it's serious really. i should be very sad if i weren't hoping that jack and peter storm and i may be able to combine together and stop things from going all to bits. at present _everything_ to do with "heart interest" is _horrid_--except some things that are funny. and the people they're happening to can't see the fun in them as the outsiders--jack and i--can. naturally there _would_ be heaps of heart interest, all over the place, wherever patty was; and that would be all right if larry weren't simply followed around by it too, the way actor-managers are by the spotlight. when we were doing our delicious motor run around long island, getting acquainted with the old whalers, and indian chieftains, and golfers and millionairesses, it was sweet to see how pat was unconsciously taming our stormy petrel to eat out of her hand. even jack saw it happening, so it must have been pretty obvious, because men never _can_ see other people's love stories going on under their noses. i knew as well as if he'd told me, that peter storm would rather be torpedoed again than fall in love and settle down. besides though none but the brave deserve the fair, few but the rich ever get them. and i suppose the stormy one _can't_ be rich, whatever else he may be. perhaps he was _once_, and lost all his money; for he certainly has the look of a banished prince, and the long-distance manner of one, if he doesn't like anybody or is bored. but strong as he may be in many ways, he could not resist pat when he was in a motor car with her day after day. jack and i would have bet (if that hadn't been callous) as to whether he'd cave in far enough to propose; and if _i_ had bet i should have lost. but it wouldn't have been my fault. it would have been ed caspian's. jimmy payne at his worst wasn't a patch on him. how the man managed it i can't conceive (as pat is of an almost exaggerated and clamlike loyalty), but she arrived at kidd's pines at the end of that short trip _engaged to caspian_! i didn't know till the next day; didn't know that, or the rest. you see, we finished up with a moonlight run from the gorgeous house i wrote you a postcard about. we were late, for the faust-cry in our hearts was communicated to our speed: "linger awhile: thou art so fair!" jack and i didn't stop at kidd's pines at all, though they asked us in to have night-blooming sandwiches and such things. we went straight on to awepesha and slept the sleep of the moderately just. pat had promised to 'phone in the morning, and did. she merely asked how we were, and said she was well; but i could tell from her voice that something dreadful was the matter. i dashed over in the car before jack was dressed, ready with an excuse about a book i wished to borrow, and was so early that i found myself colliding--nay, telescoping--with the breakfast brigade of the "hotel." pat doesn't break her fast with the paying guest, however: she's an early bird, though her pet aversion is a worm. i sent a message to her room (the smallest in the house) and was invited to go up. there was a cloud of cigar smoke in the air, and as pat doesn't smoke, i deduced a miraculously matinal call from larry. that alone was an omen of catastrophe, for larry is either up all night or not before 10 a. m. and pat's face was worse than an omen. i could see behind her poor little smile of greeting, right into her mind, as if her head had been a watch with nothing but glass over the works. "good gracious, darling, whatever _is_ it?" i gasped. "nothing," said she, "except--except that tom has toothache, and i'm sorry for him." "that boy has got a regular rush of teeth to the head!" i snapped. "never mind him. it's you i'm interested in. dear baby, your nosebud is quite pink. you've been crying--not for tom's tooth." "maybe i got sunburned motoring," she paltered with me. "nonsense! you've a sunproof complexion, as well as waterproof hair. _out_ with it, darling!" "you talk like a dentist," pat put off the evil moment. "i hope your dentist doesn't call you 'darling.' mine wouldn't twice. seriously, my child, i don't want to intrude; but we're friends, aren't we? and i'm older than you (worse luck!), so you might let me help. is it anything to do with housekeeping worries? has the cook fainted on the breakfast bacon--or----" with that--perhaps the picture was too awful!--she burst into tears. "oh, larry has promised mrs. shuster he'd marry her, and i must save him," she sobbed. my dear mercédes, you could have knocked me down with a dandelion seed! positively my feet felt wobbly under me, like standing on poached eggs. instantly i realized why the dove of peace hadn't wanted to go motoring with us happy, innocent mortals, and why larry--hypnotized by mrs. shuster's money or his own fatal good nature--had pretended that he must stop at home to look after his guests. i wished i were as common as _mud_, and could have gasped out "_gosh!_" i've told you a good deal about mrs. shuster, haven't i? she's not a bad sort in her way--but for larry, _unthinkable_! yet i might have guessed. she's been doing her hair a new way lately, and powdering her face. for larry to have to kiss it now would be exactly like kissing a marshmallow. she's so awkward, too: the least obstacle attracts her like a magnet to stumble over it, and larry hates awkwardness. then her clothes! she could force a fashion to change, simply by following it far enough; and she's taken to wearing such bright colours it would be more comfortable to look at her through smoked glasses. oh, yes, i ought to have guessed! "save him?" i echoed. "we'll all save him." "he says it's too late to back out, now, in honour," wailed pat. "the moores have always been ter-r-ibly honourable." i thought from what i'd heard of some, not excepting larry himself, that "terribly" was the word. i bit my heart and was silent, however, and patsey went on: "i've done my very best. i've told him it wasn't _necessary_. i feel sure (though of course he's too chivalrous to say so of poor mrs. shuster) that he would _nevaire_ marry her except for my good. oh, dear, how i wish money were _extinct_!" "it is almost, in lots of pockets and other places," i said. "you mean, you think mr. moore--er--chose this way of giving you a _dot_?" "what else could it be? and the cruel part is, i have already the _dot_. i have dotted myself. i am engaged to mr. caspian." "the _devil_ you are!" i coarsely exclaimed. but it seemed to comfort pat somehow. she gave herself to my arms, and cried into my neck the hottest tears i ever felt. they might have boiled out of a yellowstone geyser, as a sample. i soothed the child as well as i could. "don't cry, dear," i begged. "you didn't on the dock, you know, when you got the bad news." "oh, but we were only ruined then!" she choked. "now we're both of us nearly married. and if larry'd only known about me in time, he needn't have spoiled himself." i was tempted to assure her that larry would hardly have taken such a step for any one's sake except his own. but i knew she'd never quite forgive me for mentioning clay in connection with her idol's feet. instead, i repeated that larry _should_ be rescued; that i'd talk it over with jack, and surely, surely we'd think of a plan. within my heart i vowed, and with far more earnestness, to rescue larry's daughter also. the very fact that pat didn't confess to sacrificing herself, however, warned me from indiscretion. i repeated that i would consult jack; and a little snake of an idea wriggled into my head at the same instant. i let it curl up and get warm. it was not a viper! jack said even worse than i had said. he said "damn!" but when he says it, my dear, it sounds the most satisfactory word! i _was_ pleased he took it that way, instead of reminding me it wasn't our business! i felt encouraged to mention my idea, which was to send a note with our car, and ask mr. storm to lunch at awepesha. "three heads are better than two," said i, "though it mayn't be so with hearts." "but storm's still supposed to be mrs. shuster's secretary," said jack. "if they had any differences after the affair of the telegrams, they've swallowed the hatchet--i mean, buried it. you remember, storm stayed at home a whole day doing proofs, in the middle of the trip----" "yes, the day pat also stayed at home--the same home--to write letters!" "well, what i was coming to is this: while he remains in mrs. shuster's service, whatever his motive for doing so may be, he's more or less at her beck and call. it suited her to have storm's back, and all our backs, turned for a bit; now the ground is safe again under the lady's feet. she'll want our congratulations, and storm's stylo, to send out the glad tidings. ten to one by this time she's got hold of him, and he's heard the worst----" "meaning, not about her and larry, but pat and caspian," i finished jack's sentence. "storm will be at kidd's pines for lunch," went on my fellow-conspirator (i took it for granted he would be that!), "eating dead sea apples." "i don't believe it!" i contradicted. "pat would hardly be equal to meeting him, with that nosebud and those eyes. he'll have escaped into the wilderness--his own backyard, probably. it's the safest and most retired place there is to have a berserker rage in. i'll word my note so that he'll understand we're on the salvage dodge. then he'll come like an arrow shot from the bow." "car permitting!" said jack; but he was really sympathetic of course, or he wouldn't have been jack. peter did come, and it was more complicated than i had thought, leading up to the subject, because as i've told you, p. s. is as reserved as a leyden drop--if that's the name for it: don't you know, it falls into a jar full of something or other and instantly hardens on the outside, which sets up a great strain, and you have to be careful in touching it for fear it flies to bits? however, i began with larry and mrs. shuster. he hadn't heard about them, for he had been advised in a note from his employeress that he needn't come over till she sent for him (i suppose _that_ was to please caspian and keep the hated rival out of the way till the creature could rush back). peter didn't laugh at all, except just at first when i got off my _mot_ about the marshmallow kiss. he seemed to think, not about the funny part of such an entanglement for larry, but about the horrid part of it for pat. and then, when i had got him quite melted and human, i blurted out: "the worst of it is, poor little patsey has sacrificed herself to save her father, because _she_ thought he'd sacrificed himself to save her, or something of that sort." "what do you mean?" asked peter, not able to wait till i had finished swallowing heavily. "she's promised to marry a man she doesn't even _like_," i said. "mr. caspian." you ought to have seen his face! his lips tightened, and his eyes simply blazed. i almost thought in another second my leyden drop _would_ fly to bits! but peter isn't really that sort of badly regulated drop. "caspian's cursed money," he remarked, when he felt able to speak. "yes," i replied. "the poor girl said that she wished money were extinct. i wish his were, anyhow!" "stranger things have happened," returned peter. "i promised pat that we'd save larry, and i promised myself that we'd save her," i went on. "jack and i have an exalted idea of your cleverness about conducting cars and affairs in general, so we decided to ask you to help us conspire. it was really you who made the success of the venture at kidd's pines, by your marvellous conjuring trick of getting marcel moncourt to come. we felt, if you could do a thing like that you could do anything. but my gracious, you look as if you'd resort to murder! we don't want you to go as far as that." "i would if necessary," peter said, "but i think it won't be necessary. we'll scotch our snake, not kill him." "the snake doesn't love _you_," i ventured. "i've sometimes thought he'd do all he could to hurt you. but--but i suppose he couldn't do anything very troublesome, could he, even if you envenomed him a little more?" "he might be able to upset some of my arrangements," said peter, "but in upsetting them, his own would be under the avalanche." i saw by his look that this wasn't just a joke. the stormy petrel meant _something in particular_, something he didn't intend to explain to jack or me; and all my old feeling about his mysteriousness came back. "i should feel guilty," i said, "if by asking you to plot with us, i'd induced you to mix yourself up in a business which might be annoying." "however it turns out, it won't be annoying," peter answered. "things have gone far beyond that. if i choose, mrs. winston, i can put caspian out of the running to-morrow. money has given him power to use this situation for his own advantage. if he lost it----" "heavens, man, if he lost it, don't you see that patricia moore's the sort of girl to feel she owed him allegiance?" broke in jack, who had so far confined himself to listening. "any one who could take caspian's money away would be _giving_ him the girl." as i heard this, i realized how _very_ clever jack is, for neither peter storm nor i had thought of that, though it was absolutely true. he and i would have rushed wildly ahead and broken every bank caspian had a cent in, if we could. but we both had the wisdom to realize instantly that jack was right about pat. "we mustn't do anything serious to begin with," i said. "let's see if we can't think of something _silly_, like the mouse gnawing the net that had caught the lion. another lion trying to do that would only have tangled up his teeth. can you condescend to think of a thoroughly silly and frivolous trick?" "i've thought of one," said peter, "without condescending at all. as you say, we won't begin by tearing the net; we'll unravel it. what do you think would have happened to you, mrs. winston, before you were married, if you'd had to travel day after day in a motor car with a man you already disliked?" "i _know_ what would have happened. it did happen!" jack and i tossed each other a smile across the memory of jimmy payne. "i got to _loathe_ him. i see what's in your head--don't i?" "you do. but one of us conspirators would have to be in the car to see how things worked, and when they'd gone far enough." "of course!" i caught him up. "and that one would have to be you. i must stick to my poor wounded man on our next trip, as on the last." "very well, let it be me," said peter. i don't think he wanted his eyes to meet mine at that moment, for he hadn't time to push his soul back behind the glass doors and lock it in. somehow he couldn't help it, though; and i knew that he knew that _i_ knew what was in his heart for patricia moore. whatever the wild streak in his nature was, which had made him vow not to marry and settle down, the flame of love had burst out with such terrific force the streak was simply _melted_. truly, i hadn't begun this scene with the deliberate intention of being a matchmaker. but i saw that if the man hadn't loved to _desperation_, he would never have given in at all. perhaps if this unpleasant tangle hadn't arrived he might have taken himself out of patsey moore's life without quite knowing what his had missed--until it was too late. we went on developing our plan, with occasional suggestions from jack; and we thought we might as well try to kill another bird with the same stone, by throwing it in the direction of larry and mrs. s. think what it will be for larry to be engaged to mrs. shuster day after day in a motor car, especially if there's a better looking and younger woman on board! you see how things are shaping themselves. i _hope_ it makes you look forward a little, little bit, to my next letter, dear girl! your affectionate, anxious, but optimistic molly. xiv peter storm to james strickland _the day before the battle._ many thanks for your letter, my dear fellow. it's less pessimistic than i expected, and gives me the impression that i may regard you as a prop. i shall follow your advice rigidly, though i must juggle some of the details, as caspian has taken advantage of the poor little girl's love for her father, and practically (from what i understand) blackmailed her into promising to marry him. mrs. winston is in her confidence, though both she and i think there are unexplored depths. patricia confesses that, rather than larry should give her mrs. shuster for a step-mamma, she took the line of least resistance to obtain money. but i have a horrible instinctive idea that the trouble began at piping rock, and that she really sacrificed herself to shield me. this makes me feel positively hydrophobic toward caspian; but all the same i'll remember what you say, and not be "precipitate"--one of your favourite words: follows you about like a dog! before doing anything drastic, i'm hoping that my dear girl may see for herself that caspian is impossible. or, if her devotion to larry is like the rock of gibraltar on which waves of contrary emotions dash themselves in vain, it may be that larry will do a little mining and sapping on his own account. captain and mrs. winston and i have formed an alliance offensive and defensive, particularly the former, against the coalesced forces of caspian and shuster. there has been no talk of my private feelings--_bien entendu_--but the small nations are to be protected by our united diplomacy. we're starting off on another expedition planned with a certain bold audacity. moore and his fat fiancée are to travel together in caspian's wilmot, conducted by his chauffeur, accompanied by the prettiest, most coquettish miss goodrich, and one of mrs. shuster's peace league confrères, ex-senator collinge, a violently intelligent man who looks (mrs. winston says) like a moth-eaten lion with false teeth. we hope and expect that mrs. shuster will get on larry's sensitive nerves when at such close quarters; that desperation combined with natural inclination will drive him to flirt with idonia goodrich, who will enthusiastically respond; that mrs. shuster's mortification may drive her to such vulgar vengeance as will disgust larry beyond repair; that the lion may not be too moth-eaten to seize his chance and the lady, and that pat may then scramble down from the pyre of self-sacrifice. this seems a good deal to expect from a three or four days' motoring trip, doesn't it? but almost anything can happen in automobiles. and i haven't told you yet the rest of our programme. "tom, dick, and harry" don't count. they're simply "on in the scene," and like the poor, always with us! they pound through the landscape as before, with their hippopotamus; and captain and mrs. winston, who are to be of the party, will take our bride and bridegroom again, a very appropriate arrangement. but everything hangs upon the grayles-grice. after a council of war with the winstons, i advised miss moore that it would be comparatively safe to have caspian conduct. you see, the two engagements are announced (caspian and mrs. shuster saw to that, without letting a blade of grass grow under their feet!), and so it was easy for me to take it for granted that patricia would wish to give the wheel of her car to c. "of course you'll want to sit in front," i said humbly. "but if you would still care to have any help i can give, i'd gladly offer my services. i can perch on one of the fold-up chairs," i went on, "which will leave plenty of room for any others you like to take, no matter how large (i thought of the goodriches). i've had more experience as a mechanic than mr. caspian, perhaps, and i might be useful in emergencies----" "oh you _would!_" broke in the darling, with adorable alacrity. and as far as she was concerned, the matter was settled. you would have thought, however, that caspian would be the rock i'd split on, now that he has a "say" in the affairs of patricia. but the winstons and i hadn't forgotten this chance in our calculations. we expected c. to take a fiendish joy in the prospect of kicking me when i was down: "putting me into my place" and making love to miss moore before my starting eyes--a great triumph for him after the very different long island trip in the same car with some of the same passengers. well, we were as right as rain. the yellow dog snapped at the attractive morsel, which we _hope_ we have poisoned. how will _she_ stand the situation he is exulting in? next time i write i shall know how our strategy works out. i talk of it lightly, but honestly, strickland, i'm not laughing on the right side of my mouth. and if it weren't for your advice, and molly winston's conviction that pat would stick to c. if he were ruined, i shouldn't be playing about with any such piffling policy as i've just outlined. there'd be a cataclysm for somebody! i might get involved in it myself--but i'd risk that. it may have to come, anyhow, of course, so hold yourself prepared, as i do. and meanwhile we mustn't forget where the _two marcels_ come in. yours ever, the stormy petrel. (that's what they named me on shipboard, and, by jingo, it's appropriate now!) xv molly winston to mercédes lane _just back at awepesha._ dearest mercédes: jack says he would be having _the_ time of his life lightning conducting over here (i'm not sure he expressed it as americanly as that) if only people would be sensible enough to do what we want them to do. they do seem so obstinate when they won't! even dear patsey, not to speak of larry and the two unspeakables--but no, i won't let myself go on that subject now: i might say too much. i'll cool my feelings by telling you about the lovely--or ought-to-have-been-lovely--trip we have just had. scenery is far more restful than human nature--other people's human nature i mean, not jack's and mine. and jack says that american country scenery is the _most_ restful in the world, just as the cities are the most exciting. clever adjustment of the law of contrast! i'm not sure he isn't right, are you? surely there aren't such exquisite, laughing, dryad-haunted woods in europe, so young and gay and unspoiled looking, as if you had just discovered them yourself, and nobody else had ever seen them before. i'm falling in love with my own country all over again, and appreciating it proudly because my much-travelled jack is so ingenuously astonished every minute at its striking individuality, its difference from any other part of the globe he has ever "infested" (his own word!). oh yes, every prospect pleases, and only ed caspian is vile--though mrs. shuster is a good second, and pat--but i said i wouldn't mention them, anyhow at first. i'm sure jack and i were _never_ so irritating, except perhaps to aunt mary. but she was _different_. one somehow wanted to irritate her. she was born to be irritated. dearest, i'm going to write you a straightforward account of three divine days which would have been all spotless brightness if it hadn't been for--but no matter! we (quite a large party in four cars: the grayles-grice, the wilmot, ours, and the hippopotamus) started early on a warm morning, not from long island but from a new york hotel. we'd been invited by mrs. shuster to a roof-garden dinner in (or on) it the night before, where we'd been dazzled by an incredible assemblage of gunpowder pearls and dynamite diamonds on the bosoms of the ammunition aristocracy--a wondrous new class of americans sprung up since the war. not _one_ of us wore a jewel, i must tell you, except mrs. shuster, who flaunted an ancestral ring she'd cozened out of poor larry. (pat had "forgotten" her searchlight which caspian made a special expedition to new york to buy her as a badge of slavery.) jack was quite excited about beginning the hudson river trip in this way, because he's been so busy discovering long island, and it's been so warm, that he kept new york up his sleeve (sleeves are worn large) until later. he hadn't even seen riverside drive i'd boasted of so much; but he wouldn't be jack winston if he didn't know rather more about it than the average american, including me. if it were any other englishman, i couldn't stand his airs of historic erudition about my native land, but jack is _so_ human and boyish in his joy of "fagging up things," and so broad-mindedly pleased that we beat his wrong-headed ancestors in our revolution, that i don't grudge him the crumbs he's gathered. of course, i pretend to have crumbs in my cupboard, too, even when it's really bare as bone. i say, "oh, yes, now i _remember_!" and intelligent-sounding things like that. did you, for instance, ever know that the source of the hudson--the most important source--is a little lake in essex county, with an indian name which translates into "tear of the clouds?" i didn't, and i'm not certain people ought to probe rivers' pasts any more than they ought women's. it's their own fault if they find out insignificant beginnings. fancy saying, "who _was_ she?" about a beautiful body of water like the hudson! jack is naturally glad that henry hudson was english, not dutch, as so many people think from his being spelt hendrik as a rule. i suppose the dutch hoped that would be thought, from their tacking on the "k," for they were so jealous of each other, the hollanders and the puritans, in the days of the early un-settlers. [illustration: sunnyside "washington irving's dear old dutch house is like a beautiful living body with his memory for its soul"] frightfully geologic things seem to have happened and subsided under the hudson, making it navigable all the way; otherwise new york city wouldn't be the greatest on the american continent. jack was talking to me about this all along riverside drive, not that it would have mattered much, because new yorkers could have said it was the greatest to chicago people just the same. i didn't dare make this remark to jack, however, because he was being thrilled with thoughts of the revolution and i wanted to encourage him in those. i hoped he wouldn't know about fort washington being the place of the fight that caused general washington to give up manhattan island to his--jack's--horrid ancestors; but he did know, and about the sloops and brigs and other things which we foxy little americans had sunk there to keep the british ships from getting farther up the river. you can get tremendously excited about this revolution business when you're on the spot, you see, though you and i have lived so much in england where most people treat it as a "brush" less important than the boer war. and when you are here, surrounded with all the noisy progress and skyscraping greatness of our country, it is wonderful to think how a few brave men, determined to have their rights, in spite of desperate odds, made this vast difference in the world. i was secretly longing to know what jack would think of the dear palisades, which seem so wonderful to us, and give us more of a feeling, somehow, than the highest mountains of europe, africa, or asia. but he was most satisfactory about them. he didn't say much. he just gazed, which was better; and they were looking their grandest that day, like the walls of castles turned into mountains. and there were strange lights and shadows in the water which gave a magical, enchanted effect. there were thunderous violet clouds in the sky, with shafts of sunshine pouring through; and jack and i discovered, deep down in the river, marvellous treasures of the enchanted castles: white marble seats and statues, and golden vases, and drowned peacocks, with spread purple tails floating under the crystal roof which _we_ call the surface of the river. it does annoy me when europeans patronize us about being a new country, doesn't it you? the palisades, it seems, boiled up and took shape as a wall of cliff thirty million years ago, or maybe more, in the triassic period. what can you get anywhere older than that? and europe would give a cathedral or two out of her jewel-box to look young as long as america does! we've got a queer old manuscript at awepesha, which jack has ferreted out of obscurity, telling the indian legends of the hudson river. they are as beautiful as anything from the ancient sanscrit, and the indians who lived on the palisades' green tops, or along the shores beneath--the hackensack, and tappan indians and others who have given their names to river places--had some of the best legends of all. i love the woman of the mountains (young and lovely, not old, as some people say) who had done noble service for the great spirit: as reward she had the privilege of cutting out a new silver moon every month with her magic shears, and when it was shrinking into uselessness, to snip what was left into little stars--as juliet wanted done with romeo! she lived in a wonderful purple cave, not in the palisades, but hidden in the catskills; and from its door, which no one could find, she sent forth day and night alternately. also, in immense jars of porphyry and gold, she kept sunshine and storm, to let out when she thought best. perhaps those purple splashes and golden gleams we saw under the water were her storm and sun jars, which floated out of the cave and buried themselves in the sand poured down by sandy hook! to jump from the indian legends to the dutch, i do trust the story of spuyten duyvil is true. it must be, because it's too good _not_ to be true. do you remember it's told in dear washington irving's "knickerbocker history of new york?"--the most amusing history book ever written, i should think. the man--one of peter stuyvesant's men, i fancy--was hurrying to warn the farmers that the beastly british were coming, and when there was no bridge by which he could cross the stream he vowed he'd do the trick "in spuyt den duyvil." the history says he was drowned in the fierce waters, but i _can't_ believe that part. i think his jealous rival--of course he had one--put _that_ tale about. of course he got across and warned the farmers, as he deserved to do for defying the devil. i remember when i used to be at boarding-school in new york, and in spring we were taken little saturday trips when we were good, the very name of "yonkers" meant deadly suburban dullness to me. i only wanted to get past the place. but to motor through with jack makes all the difference, even though by the time we reached there i was bristling with rage at sight of the doings of caspian in the grayles-grice. we were trailing in the rear, so the troublous events and turbid emotions of the cars ahead were visible to us, as if they had been uncovered saucepans boiling over on a redhot stove. fancy that caspian creature practically ordering storm out to buy newspapers, as if he were a chauffeur! but jack consoled me: "before you explode, stop and think what would have been the effect on you if jimmy payne had done that with poor old brown." of course, i should have ached to box jimmy's ears, and all my loyalty would have flowed out in waves to brown; so perhaps pat--but to go back to yonkers. it makes the name sound less unsympathetic and like a frog's croak to recall that it was given when the yonk heer vredryck flypse, or philipse (he who called new york "a barren island"), the richest and most important man of his day, from new york to tarrytown, built one of his manor houses there. it's still there, by the way, and lots of other historic things, if one bothers to stop and dig them up, instead of dashing through with an admiring glance at the jolly modern houses, more conspicuous than the old. we had a full day before us, what with worshipping at washington irving's shrine, and sighing over sing sing, and arriving at west point in time for dress parade and to hear the sunset gun. so we flew fast through lovely hastings-on-hudson, and irvington, over a silk-smooth surface, under an adorable avenue of trees which perhaps remembered the revolution; past exquisite places where only exquisite people ought to live, to sleepy hollow and tarrytown. it seems sacrilege to arrive in autos and a hurry at a town with a name so deliciously lazy, to say nothing of its associations. but one can't help being modern! i wonder if the comfortable dutch settlers who pottered along this old albany post road ever dreamed nightmare dreams of creatures like us, tearing in strange machines over surfaces magnificently bricked or oiled, and covering in one day distances to which they would prayerfully have devoted weeks? probably they would have pitied and despised rather than envied us; and maybe they'd have been right: for does the extra ozone and the thrill of speed quite make up for things missed or half seen? still, _impressions_ are wonderful; and i shan't forget the bluebell colour of distant hills, the silver-gray of rocks, and the diamond-dazzle of water glimpsed between feathery tree branches, or the jewelled gleam of wild flowers scattered by the roadside, and the pale flame of mulleins straight and tall as lighted candles in the grass. isn't it a sweet thing for the world that there should have been men who loved making the rock-bound fields of history blossom with delicate flowers, just as monks of ancient days illumined quite dull texts?--men like washington irving, for instance. i always loved washington irving, and so i'm glad to say did jack; but he came back to life and actually walked with us that day. perhaps it sounds impudent and conceited to say this, but i don't mean it so, and if he knew how humble and happy we felt as we came under his spell, i do think he wouldn't have snubbed us. no, he would never have snubbed any one! he was much too human, and _understanding_. he wouldn't scornfully have called us "tourists," but would have realized that we were worshippers at a shrine. of course i _don't_ include ed caspian or mrs. shuster! c., when the time came to leave our cars outside the with-difficulty-found gates of sunnyside, put on the airs of a _grand seigneur_ who knows all that is to be known already. he said (so peter told us later): "it's not much of a place; quite a small house, not worth getting out for." and he actually proposed that patty should sit in the car with him while the others explored! pat wasn't "taking any." she jumped out, and rather than see her walk away with peter, c. had to follow. as for mrs. shuster, she can't bear to walk if there's a chance of sitting still, especially since she's taken to these fearfully tall-heeled, new-fashioned, high-necked boots which make our feet look like the hoofs of rather _chic_ cows: incredible heels like the venetian beauties used to wear. she, like caspian, reminded her beloved of the blessing for those who only stand (sit!) and wait. but larry said he'd something important to tell pat; then strolled with idonia goodrich and never went near his daughter. mrs. shuster was reduced to her peace partner; and, oh, you _can't_ think what she looks like when she pouts! we had to thank larry for an open sesame to the doors of sunnyside, however; for he has some distant acquaintance with the grand-nephew of washington irving who has inherited the quaint, delightful house with its red gables and extraordinarily intelligent-looking windows. anybody is allowed to peep inside the gates of the old place, but of course the house is only for friends or acquaintances, or it would be overrun and the family would have to take to the cellar. pat had somehow forced larry to write and ask permission, for he never puts pen to paper if he can help it! sometimes it's a blow to see where your favourite authors lived, but washington irving's dear old dutch house is _just right_. it is like a beautiful living body with his memory for its soul: yes, a charming body with all his quaintnesses and unexpectednesses and dainty mysteries. it looks at least as old as the seventeenth century, but only a nucleus of the rambling, many-windowed, creeper-clad mansion is really old. there's a romance about that part, by the way, but perhaps you know it better than i do. [illustration: "the old dutch church at tarrytown"] once upon a time, when washington irving was very young, he visited the pauldings in a house swept away now. he used to take a boat and row all alone, to think thoughts and dream dreams under the willow trees that even then roofed the brook in sunnyside glen. he could see a tiny house called "wolfert's roost," and said to himself, "if i could live here and have that for mine i should be perfectly happy." it didn't seem then as if his wish could possibly come true, but he always kept it in his heart, and years later, after he had lived in london and been american minister in madrid, he came back to his first love, with money he had been saving up, to make it his own. he added and added again to the house, but contrived to give it the lovely look of having just grown up anyhow, as trees and flowers grow. that's partly because of its cloaks and muffs and boas of trumpet-creeper and ivy. it has the look, too, even now, of being miles from anywhere--except the river and the creek, which sing the same song they sang long ago, under the trees. the trees of sunnyside are somehow curiously individual, jack and i thought, as if they knew the historic reputation they had to live up to, and were gently proud of it. there are trees graceful as ladies dancing a minuet, spreading out their green brocade skirts for a deep curtsey; trees as spicily perfumed as the pouncet boxes of those same ladies; thoughtful trees whose one mission in life is to give deep shade under showering branches, and gay trees like sieves for sunshine. jack and i wandered among them and then gazed out upon them, as washington irving must often have gazed (in search of new inspiration), through the small square panes of his study windows. his descendants have changed nothing there, in that dear little modest nest for a genius! it's close to the front door, as you go in from the deep porch, at the right-hand side of a fascinating corridor. looking down that corridor you see a vista of rooms, delightful as rooms in dreams. they are furnished, but not crowded, with old and exquisite things--things which must have been intimate friends of the family for generations; and, oh, how much more attractive are the rooms than any royal suites i've seen in palaces! in the study (i feel sure _he_ called it that, not library) the master of long ago might have walked a moment ago, out into the garden, so entirely does the room seem impressed with his personality. there are his books, his manuscripts, his pens; his desk, and his writing-chair drawn up to it; his little table; the charming old prints he loved, given to him and signed by friends whose names are famous; pictures of the house when it was "wolfert's roost," and when it had grown larger. the green and golden light streaming through the windows, front and side, seems just the sort of light that washington irving would have loved to write in. he made it greener and more inspiring by bringing from melrose abbey slips of the ivy which now curtains the windows; and in the green-gold light he wrote his "life of washington" and many other things which we all love. coming out of the study when we were ready to go away, i looked through the open door of a beautiful room across the corridor, straight into an old-fashioned mirror. never was a mirror so becoming. i felt as if i were seeing my own portrait painted by romney; and behind me for an instant i seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of another face, as though a man stood on the study threshold, smiling to me a kind good-bye. i adore my own imagination. after jack, it is my best and dearest chum! i think even if one didn't know that thrilling things had happened in tarrytown and sleepy hollow (heavenly names!) in old days, one would somehow _feel_ it. what's the use of one's subconscious self if it doesn't nudge one's subjective self and whisper that _it_ was born knowing? why, i could see sir vredryck flypse and his family streaming out of the old dutch church, as gorgeous in their sunday best as the church was simple; the ladies' stomachers embroidered with silver and seed pearls, their short, stiff brocade skirts swinging to show their silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, much as ours do now; the men taking a sly pinch of snuff, and brushing it hastily off their blue or gray coats; tie-wigs, silver buttons, and knee breeches glittering in the sunshine of such a day as this, away back in sixteen hundred and something. i can see neat, consciously aristocratic and good dominie mutzelius or dominie ritzema in irreproachable black, with a touch of white, going as guest to sunday dinner at philipsburg manor, after the "great people" had listened to his eloquence, seated in their cushioned "boxes" in the seven-windowed church. there are only six windows now; but in those days you had to keep your window and weather eye open, even during the dominie's discourse, for indians might take a fancy to scalp the congregation if it could be taken unawares. luckily the lord of the manor, and his friends, and the sturdy farmers with their families, were not to be caught napping, even if the sermon were dull and the weather hot. besides, in case of emergency, they could turn their church into a fort at a few minutes' notice. the walls were nearly three feet thick; the seven windows were barred with iron, and so high up that, if the indians wanted to peep, they had to climb on each other's shoulders. as for the doors, they could hardly be knocked in with a battering ram; so you had no excuse to stop at home on sunday, even in "indian summer." of course we went to see the grave where all that is mortal of washington irving lies in the sleepy hollow cemetery; and the famous bridge--or, rather, the new edition of it built by william rockefeller. do you remember that major andre was taken on the albany post road at tarrytown on his way to new york, with dispatches from the traitor benedict arnold hidden in his stockings? i've always had a sneaking sympathy with andre, because he was gallant and young and good looking, but tarrytown isn't the place, i find, in which to express any such sentimental feeling. he is still the villain of the piece there, a mere spy, travelling in disguise, a treacherous wretch who long and stealthily worked to corrupt a hitherto honourable general. he is the villain, and david williams, john paulding, and isaac van waart, the scouting militiamen who took and searched him, are the heroes of that drama of 1780. tarrytown people are delighted to this day that andre was hanged, and they love the monument to his captors who wouldn't be bribed by horse, or watch, or money. i suppose if andre hadn't offered those bribes, or said he belonged to the "southern party," they might never have thought of his stockings, he would have got safely to the waiting ship, and on to new york; and benedict arnold would have surrendered west point to the british! heaps of other exciting things helped to make tarrytown historic: an indian massacre, a big battle in the revolution, major hunt's "bag of british soldiers at van tassel's tavern when he won fame by his shout, 'gentlemen, clubs are trumps!'" and so on. but we took even more interest in the old legends of spook rock, and andre's ghost and cuffy's prophecy and the flying dutchman, who of course tacks back and forth across the tappan zee. such things are so much more real than facts! besides, we had to "get on--get on!" that war cry of motoring men. we did get on, along the smooth brick road to ossining, which is really sing sing, you know (or ought to, if you don't), only ossining is the old indian name, so they took it back to escape the blight. it's such a pretty town that it would have been a shame to associate it only with the state prison, whose high gray walls are the only grim thing in the landscape. it was for the sake of staring at them, though, and shivering down our spines that we took the detour to ossining. when we had shivered enough we turned back to tarrytown and drove our motors like docile cattle on board a steam ferryboat which took us across the river to nyack, the dearest, quaintest of little dutch towns. it looks as lazy as, and more obstinately old-fashioned than, tarrytown, though tarrytown is far more important and impressive. there's a colony of frame houses in nyack which makes you feel you've suddenly tripped and stumbled out of the twentieth century back into the early nineteenth; and we lunched in a charming little hotel that gave us things to eat equal to any restaurant in new york. we had a divine run from nyack, through a fairy forest, with hook mountain in sight and the ramapo hills on the horizon. hook mountain glowed a bright rose colour wherever its green cloak was torn; and when we came into sudden sight of the river there was a magical effect: a veil of silver mist, with boats big and little moving behind it, like white swans. we had woods all the way to rockland lake, where the great icehouses loomed like queer castles, until we ran down to lake-level and lost the illusion. then we turned in the direction of haverstraw, going through the nice old-fashioned village of congers. the hills and tiny valleys were as gay and pretty as the summer day! we could hardly realize that we weren't very far from new york, it all seemed such lovely _lost_ country, private and purposely hidden, as if strangers had no right to be there. soon the gay little hills were playing they were mountains, and almost making us believe that they really were. the roadsides were like rock gardens, spangled pink and gold and blue. far below lay the river, but it looked vast enough to be a wide lake; and always the "surface" was so perfect we had the sensations of flying. at haverstraw we were by the river, and even the brick-fields contrived to take on a gorgeous, glittering colour in the afternoon sun. stony point, a high rocky promontory just above, is the place where "mad anthony wayne" stormed the fortress thought to be impregnable. the british called it "little gibraltar." jack had been looking out for that and the ruins of the old fort, because daredevil wayne is quite one of his heroes. the whole peninsula here is a public park, so no wonder everything is beautifully kept! i think we got lost after this, owing to ed caspian, who led the procession and was sure he knew the way. however, we reached west point somehow, after two or three wrong but delicious detours, returning on our own tracks each time. jack and i didn't care, but we could see the back of mrs. shuster's head sulking itself almost off, and patsey's hat looking careworn and sad. it must have been wretched for her, seeing all these heavenly things with nobody except ed caspian to say "oh!" to: flowery meadows, weeping willows like waving fountains of silver, cedars stalking among them like tall black monks, dark bulks of near mountains, blue ghosts of far ones; ferns and wild flowers sprouting from every rock; here and there a shining streak of waterfall. what matter if we did go wrong, and risk missing west point to reach tuxedo, instead of saving the latter till next day? we spared ourselves that mistake, and came back to the right road after twice passing a glorified log cabin of an inn all balconies and rich brown wood on a stone foundation. mountains seemed to reach toward each other across the shining river, and then to open out into a long corridor, dark walled and paved with silver. there was a lake with an island and a pavilion: iona island--too beautiful to pass as we did pass; a bridge over a steep rocky gorge, and a river-glimpse mysterious as the backgrounds of old italian pictures. but we turned away from it into woods--deep forests of cedars fragrant as smoking incense, and at last--rather late because of side wanderings--we came to highland falls. i remember your telling me that your first love was a west point cadet, who proposed to you on your sixteenth birthday in "flirtation walk." lucky you! but this was my first glimpse of the place as we drove through gates from highland falls into the government reservation. we meant to arrive, shed the dust at our hotel, and then saunter forth for dress parade, but instead of that we had to see the great sight of the day sitting in our motors. the poor hippopotamus did look antediluvian among all the smart cars and carriages assembled! but the rest of us weren't so bad, even after a day's run, and, anyhow, we had no time to think of ourselves, there was too much else to think of. i wonder if the place has changed much since that sixteenth birthday of my mercédes? of course it's only a _very_ few years ago! not being aunt mary, i won't make any remark about the number. but if you haven't quite forgotten that first love, doesn't it make your heart beat to think of those great terraced, castellated buildings of gray stone massed against the cliffsides above the sparkling river, almost walhalla-like in grandeur, of the gracious elms and the prim soldierly barracks draped with ivy, of the vast parade ground and the wonderful grouping of mountains whose shapes lie reflected far down under the crystal water, cro' nest, haunted by the "culprit fay," and storm king; and little constitution island which tried its best to stop the british ships. i wish a cadet had fallen in love with me! i wish one would do it now! i adored them all as i sat in the motor watching the ranks of white-clad figures moving to music and looking, in the late sunshine against their green background, like hundreds of marble statues come alive. when they stood to "attention" they were like snow men. oh, and what music it was, to which they moved! jack said there couldn't be a scene of its kind half so fine and picturesque anywhere else in the world. i felt quite proud to have been born an american as i looked at it, and so, judging from their expressions, did crowds of pretty girls who gazed adoringly at all those soldiers in the making. it worried me a little, just when the music was at its noblest, that a man in a motor _char-à-bancs_ or something huge and touristy should be telling his victims how west point had been "the key to the hudson," and what a fatal blow would have been dealt to hopes of independence if benedict arnold could have handed it over to the british. i thought he glared at jack as he delivered this lecture, guessing perhaps by the shape of his particularly nice nose that he's a britisher. but just then the sunset gun was fired, echoing again and again among the mountains. all the female victims squeaked and stopped their ears, and the man jumped, so that jack was saved. you, who have happy memories of flirtation walk, will pity pat when i tell you that her sensitive conscience made her consent to walk there with ed caspian after dinner, jack and peter storm and i following at a respectful distance. peter could hardly bear it. i suppose the moonlight on the water glinting far under the high cliff walk and the bitter-sweet scent of the ferns went to his head. he forgot that we'd all planned together this way of disgusting pat with what she thought her duty--throwing her so constantly with caspian that she'd find out all his faults. but when peter was leading up to some excuse for joining the pair in front, jack reminded him that if ever the medicine could be beneficial to the poor little patient it would be in such a scene, and on such a night made for love and happiness. mrs. shuster and larry and idonia were walking, too. i believe larry had intended to take idonia alone, having advised lily to rest, but lily passionately refused to rest. fancy her on flirtation walk! west point is a _witching_ place to spend a night in, even though a dance--or a "hop," or whatever they call it--is going on, and _you're_ not invited! next morning, after lingering again at battle point to drink in as lovely a view as the world can give, we dashed off once more. it was just the hour of "guard mount," and the cadets looked too fascinating. the girls gazed at them as if they were the heroes of a hundred battles, and so, in a way, they were and are: at least, as west pointers they're heirs to those who fought a hundred battles. jack read in some book that out of sixty battles in the civil war fifty-six had for commanders men from west point--and not all on one side! of course, they fought in the old mexican war as well, for west point has been a training school ever since 1794. that seems a long time in america! [illustration: the hudson river "when we came into sudden sight of the river there was a magical effect: a veil of silver mist, with boats big and little moving behind it, like white swans"] we had a gorgeous run to tuxedo--a road that might make europe jealous--among mountains of the catskill family, too important and beautiful, i thought, to dismiss as foothills. what a pity rip van winkle spent all his twenty years asleep in one place! _i_ should have walked in my sleep, and changed my bed from mountain to mountain every night or so. oh, i forgot to tell you, at west point i heard a new legend of the catskills. at least, it's so old that it's as good as new. once when the indians were just comfortably beginning to feel at home after one of those interrupting ice ages, there lived a fearful giant with a wife and children as terrible as himself. the only things they cared to eat were indian babies; and after this horrid family had been vainly admonished for their ways by the great spirit they were suddenly, in the midst of a meal, turned into stone. being so big, they became mountains, and as some tried to run away and escape the others' fate, they grouped themselves in a chain along the riverside. i don't quite believe this story, though! i'd rather think that a _good_ family of giants asked the great spirit to let them become beautiful mountains when they died, and so be remembered lovingly forever, while the world lasts. the ramapo valley is a dream of loveliness all the way, with its lakes like wide-open blue eyes of dryads, and its laced silver ribbon of river. larry has a friend at court--i mean tuxedo park; so he was again useful as well as ornamental--a rare thing for him! we sailed in at the queer gates as confidently as if we owned a hundred acres of land and a lake inside the magic circle. only the hippopotamus balked. he had tire trouble just inside the entrance to paradise; but i think he could have crawled in if tom, dick, and harry had urged him a little. they, poor boys, are under a cloud since pat's engagement was announced, and are only going on as a sort of mute protest against its irrevocability. if it were any one else except caspian--peter storm, for instance--they would bravely retire from the field with congratulations for the victor, but they have a vague idea in their nice heads that pat isn't happy and may have to be rescued when the time comes, but they must have felt that nothing so violent could happen in a place as "exclusive" as tuxedo park. by the way, don't you hate the expression "exclusive" in connection with society? i do think it quite naïvely snobbish, not to say un-christian! how much more heart-warming to speak of an _in_clusive place or entertainment! however, we humans haven't mounted to that height yet; and "exclusive" being not only the word but the feeling at tuxedo, the boys felt themselves and the hippopotamus unsuited to the occasion. consequently they broke down outside the sacred precincts, and we glided past the gray-stone, red-gabled portals while they grouped round a tire to hide the fact that it was flat. we spent the morning with larry's friend for our guide, seeing one grand private place after another. his own is almost the grandest of all, and is on a lake fringed with feathery trees which weave a gold-green network across the blue. the golf course is perfectly beautiful, and made me for the first time want to learn. i never have, because it seems to me a middle-aged, pottering game; and i've always so hated staying at country houses with golf lovers who talk of nothing else. anyhow, i don't want to have a golf complexion until i'm _forced_ to be over twenty-six. [illustration: map]* the gardens of the tuxedo park dwellers are really bits of eden, although you would have to bite a bit out of the apple before you could be sophisticated enough to make them grow like that. we lunched with larry's friend, and should have enjoyed the feast immensely if ed caspian hadn't put on multimillionaire airs, and snubbed peter storm at the table. pat turned crimson, and i hoped that good might come out of evil--that she might break off with the rude wretch as a punishment. peter behaved so well that he deserved such a reward. jack and i were proud of him! but the engagement survived the earthquake, as an ugly house of "reinforced" cement will stand when medieval castles fall. i found out afterward why, and i'll tell you presently. as for mrs. shuster, i was rather sorry for her. she sat opposite larry and beside her incarnate peace tract, larry being at his hostess's left hand with idonia goodrich on his other side. the hostess is a beauty, so is idonia, so you may well imagine that larry would have forgotten lily's existence if she hadn't frequently reminded him of it by screaming his christian name across banks of pansies and orchids. j. and i hoped that jerry-built betrothal might crumble in consequence, as larry's fastidiousness is his most prominent feature. but no! it also stood; and i will tell you the reason when i tell you about pat. things were going on normally--and hatefully--when we bade tuxedo park farewell, and found the boys eating sausages and drinking ginger-beer. we sailed about seeing scenery for part of the afternoon--scenery of the ramapo valley and round suffern, i mean--and falling more and more in love with the ramapo river. it has cataracts and wide-open spaces; secret, hidden mysteries; revolution history, and enough beauty and charm of every sort to suffice three rivers instead of one. but we'd set our hearts on spending the night at the delaware water gap, so we had to rush on in that irritating way which becomes a habit hard to break. it's an obsession with even the least offensive motorists--like jack and me! there can't be _sweeter_ country anywhere than this, which i'm trying to lure you to come and see when you and monty can take your second honeymoon, as we are doing; but it has no look of being _undiscovered_ like some we saw the day before. rich people, but luckily people of taste, know all about that cup of crystal, pompton lake, the sweet singing wanaqua river, and lovely pequannock park. they have made homes for themselves, quite wonderful in beauty, and never pretentious; never a staring house or grotesquely expensive gates to shock the dear little childlike mountains and shady river. along the winding roads, where trees trailed shadows like dragging masses of torn spanish lace, there were fine stone walls draped with woodbine, and among the folding hills were orchards like great flower-beds, surrounding the most lovable and livable houses. every five minutes we would come to a picture which might have been "composed" by an artist: a pond reflecting a quaint little church with two guardian grandfather trees, and a funny old "gig" with a yellow horse, waiting for some one we should never see; an ancient white house born to make a background for cedars far more ancient; a lake with shining surface half hidden under red water-weeds like coral necklaces broken and scattered on a silver salver. oh, and i mustn't forget the funny fire-alarms in front of isolated houses! a big thing like a split iron ring with a hammer to strike it. the ring vibrates better if it's split; and you could see nothing quainter in holland. there was a very odd monument, too, which i loved. i think it was in the nice, wide-streeted village of pompton. it might have been a titan helmet smashed by a bomb, and i should have loved to stay and find out all about it! we'd come into northern new jersey at oakland, so no wonder we saw splendid cedars, for new jersey has lots of cedars and heaps of history, and is proud of both. i hadn't realized that it would be such a beautiful state of forest-clad hills, lakes and rivers that mingle so you can't tell where they begin or end, and villages walled by woods and tied together by silver ribbons of river or brook. this is the northern part i'm talking about; the south is flat, where it becomes seacoast. along bowery roads to stockholm, franklin, lafayette we passed (later in the year the goldenrod must be like a sunburst there!), and motors, big and little, weave their way democratically among lazy-looking, old-fashioned chaises and slender "buggies." the "going" was always good, and there was some delicious "coasting" down one long, long hill almost like a mountainside. how jack loved the cozy farmhouses and red barns which were so becoming to the black and white cattle grazing in the valleys; and the slender waving corn like fairy dancers in jewelled head-dresses! some of the barns were so big, the houses they belonged to reminded him of little mothers who had produced giant children. the homelike effect of all these gentle hills and flowery valleys and floating blue mist wreaths appealed curiously to the heart, like minor music; yet there were grand things, too: here and there a noble limestone cliff; a gloomy wood of hemlocks where it seemed _anything_ might happen; a mossy dark ravine, as at branchville; and all the large lakes or "ponds," so unexpected each time when you come in sight of them. after a dear little town called layton (with a river singing it to sleep) we turned off to the right for dingman's ferry, and then felt we were really on the way to the delaware water gap. we had come to the delaware river! from the top of a very high hill we saw it--the river, i mean; and, oh, but it looked worthy of its guardian mountains! winding and wonderful it was in beauty as we dropped into its deep, intimate valley, down the tremendous slope. we were so excited we hardly knew the road was bad! and after all there was no old ferry answering to the name of "dingman," but a wide bridge in its place. on the other side was pennsylvania, with a barred gate to keep you out of it until you had handed over forty cents to a wee boy who "held us up" and firmly said, "you've got to pay!" he lived in a pet of a house, where i should love to live, myself (with jack), and the entrance to the neighbour state was so fine as to seem dramatic. the smooth tarred road was a relief, too, after a few hard bumps: a lovely tree-shadowed road past a big yellow-painted hotel; past a delightful village high above the river bed, where a great forest made a dark, perfumed screen between our eyes and the bright glitter of water. so we dipped down by and by to a house with a garden full of flowers, and a forest of its own with the river sparkling through it. the hemlocks gave out a perfume as if a box of spices had been newly opened; and when we saw that the house was a hotel and restaurant we simply had to stop for tea. to our surprise and joy we found that the man who kept the place was a frenchman--an alsatian named schanno; and everything he gave us was so delicious we might have been at ciro's, in paris or monte carlo! [illustration: delaware water gap "winding and wonderful it was in beauty, as we dropped into its deep, intimate valley, down the tremendous slope"] almost, it would have been a relief, said jack, to find the scenery less beautiful, so as to have a diminuendo and a crescendo--the crescendo to be our goal of that day, the water gap. but it _would_ keep on being so lovely, we could scarcely say when it was just _good_, when better, or when best. we had a gray road, glossy as a beaver's back, to travel on toward the gap; a valley road with small mountains lifting curly dark heads in every direction to gaze down on us out of their glistening, perfumed foot-bath of evening mist. the villages we passed had pretty, sophisticated-looking new houses for "summer people"; here and there was a charming country inn with the air of being famous. at bushkill (nice name!) the brown river forked, in a coquettish, laughing way shaking hands with itself and parting in the woods. nearby was a glorious waterfall among charming hills which seemed to have been roused by the music of the cataract, and sat up with their hair standing all on end. four or five miles from the great water gap we began to see the formation which gives that name. the mountains seem cleft in twain. it's a marvellous effect--startling! it took my breath away, as if i had seen a great window suddenly flung wide open in the sky. truly, that's not an exaggeration of the sunset-wonder of the delaware water gap! the hills were a deep, almost sullen purple that evening, the purple of darkest hyacinths. they made a high wall for the valley; then, in an instant, the wall was gone, as if hewed down with a firm, straight stroke, and there was that immense open window of golden light. why, it was worth crossing the ocean to see as we saw it then! and we had come through such winding ways of hill and valley that it felt as if this were the end of the earth, the jumping-off place into a sea of jewelled colour. yet they say it's only three or four hours in a fast train from new york! i don't want to believe that, and i shall never know by experience, for i shan't be so sacrilegious as to take a train while motors run on roads and aeroplanes skim through clouds. the town where the hotels and cottages are is as gay a little fairyland among the mountains as i used to think baden-baden or carlsbad; just such maddeningly attractive little shops and bright gardens and beautifully grouped trees. we went on to a hotel in the woods, a hotel which seemed all veranda and view--a view our spirits drank in, in deep, unforgettable draughts: i mean, jack's and mine drank. they were the only well-regulated, calm spirits in the whole procession, except the goodriches, who are "always merry and bright." when darkness fell in a shimmering blue curtain shot with silver, we found that the hotel had other things besides those two "vs" which were all we had thought of at first: very nice, pleasant things, and jack and i decided that it wouldn't be wrong or selfish to the war, or each other, to let ourselves feel perfectly happy for a few serene hours. but it wasn't to be! far from it--fate has such a rude way of ignoring my plans and substituting her own, which are seldom a patch on mine! i "got myself up to kill" for dinner, and thought pat intended to do the same. being made in the creator's image, i like to look as nice as i can, to do him credit, even when travelling, especially in large hotels full of other women. but pat didn't appear. neither did larry. my eyes and jack's conspired across the table. "good!" we thought. "the plot works!" we couldn't tell by what process it worked, but that it did work we were sure, until peter shook his head at the signal of our raised eyebrows. "nothing has happened in the grayles-grice," his expression said; so the only hope left was the wilmot. anything that might take place there was of secondary importance, still, indirectly, a break there might bring relief to the other forces engaged. instead of stopping downstairs to let the world admire my paris frock, and listen to the music (not just nice little music for nice little minds, but something really good and suited to the scenery), i bolted my dinner and dashed up to patsey's room. a knock brought no answer, but when i called, "may i come in?" patsey unlocked the door. you know how, when i want to get things out of people, i disguise myself with a spaniel smile and spaniel eyes? well, i did that with pat. there was just enough light in the room for her to see my spanielness, for she'd done away with all but one small reading-lamp, with a depressing green shade. she was in her kimono, with her hair down, looking an ideal ophelia. not that ophelia sported a kimono; but you know the effect i mean, all masses of wavy tresses round a small white face, and eyes very big and wistful. she wasn't going to tell me a thing, but my spanielhood melted her. it was perfectly true, as peter had warned me: nothing had happened in the car; but the night before in flirtation walk caspian had tried to kiss the girl! he had wanted to before, when he gave her the ring; she had refused, explaining that the marquise had told her she was not to be kissed before marriage. he hadn't persisted then, but last night he had been _horrid_. she would not have gone for the walk if he hadn't asked her before larry, and larry had seemed to want her to go. perhaps it was only that she might be near, and protect him from mrs. shuster; but idonia could have done that. anyhow, pat and "mr. caspian" (she would not call him "ed") had got separated from the others. she had struggled, but he had succeeded in kissing her ear, and she had boxed his! "it can't be exactly wicked to marry for money," sighed pat. "it's too disagreeable. and wicked things are always nice--in books. oh, molly, it will be awful to marry _him_. already he tries to make me do what he likes. he puts himself in front of me and all r-round me like a bar-rbed wire fence. i don't know how to bear it. i am a broken girl!" [illustration: delaware water gap "the mountains seem cleft in twain. it's a marvellous effect--startling!"] [illustration: map]* i said nonsense--she wasn't broken; but the engagement had much better be. "give him back his ring," i went on. "or perhaps you have given it? i see you haven't worn it since the first day." "it was too big, not suitable for motoring. and now--it is pawned," she announced. "pawned?" i gasped. "yes. i cannot tell you the rest. but--it makes it so that i must go on being engaged, in honour. i cannot now give the ring back." i asked no more questions, but i guessed. larry had had some big bill presented to him. pat did not wish to wear the ring. what good was it to any one, then? why should it not be "up the spout," instead of in a jewel-box? larry would have argued. while i was having my talk with pat, larry was confiding in jack. he told him about the ring. i had guessed right. he had "acted impulsively." mrs. shuster was a more trying proposition than he had imagined, but he would have to "stick to it now," or he should never have money enough to redeem pat's ring. jack offered to lend the sum, but larry wouldn't hear of that--was quite hurt; had only wanted sympathy. he has the quaintest code of honour! we had both to promise not to tell, and so we can't pass the news on to peter. but sufficient to yesterday is the evil thereof! i don't suppose pat had slept; but luckily faces are being worn small and white this year, with eyes too big for them, and she looked as young next morning as if she had spent her night in paradise instead of _far_ below that level. i felt horribly worried, because the plot wasn't working a bit, and i couldn't eat my breakfast (if this keeps up, i shall get so thin my veils won't fit!), but all the same i _couldn't_ help enjoying the day. it was so nice, in spite of all, proving to jack that you can _never_ exhaust the beauties of my country: there are always more to come! he had prophesied that after the water gap the rest of the trip would be an anticlimax. but he needn't have feared. the first stage of the way beyond gave us a new sensation. it seems the road is known to be one of the most exquisite in america; and indeed it was as well worth coming from europe for as the water gap itself--worth even the risk of being torpedoed. our procession seemed to pass through a painted and tapestried corridor, so pink and purple and azure and gold were the rocks that lined our way, with millions of delicate wild flowers. and oh, the retrospect view! it was wonderful, too, crossing by ferry, and looking back. albertson's ferry we chose, and one car at a time rolled sedately on to a flatboat to be rowed to the opposite side of the river by a very young charon in a very large straw hat. we had groves to drive through, and little leafy roads like surrey lanes, that looked innocent enough to lead nowhere, but somehow we managed to skip from valley to valley with a sensation almost of flying; and if the roads were like surrey, the colour of the earth--when a bare place showed in a meadow--was rose-pink as devon. goldenrod, not yet in bloom, might have been planted purposely, in borders, mixed with sumach. the red barns were bigger and "homier" than those of the day before, and the little stone farmhouses most inviting. it was quite a shock to find ourselves suddenly in "vienna." (what if jack should be interned!) but it was a miniature vienna. next came hackettstown, a charming place, and then the famous schooley's mountain, which dropped us down, down into german valley. at morristown we lunched, and afterward went to washington's headquarters, an adorable old yellow house almost as fine as kidd's pines. so by persippany and pine brook to jersey city and into new york: beauty and interest of one sort or other all the way, but our great object not accomplished. everything worse than ever, and pat and larry each obstinately determined to be sacrificed. oh, that caspian man! i wish i had the formula for becoming a _werewolf_, and i would devour him! your every loving, molly. xvi angéle, patricias maid, to the marquise de moncourt (_translation_) _kidd's pines._ i take again the liberty of communicating with madame la marquise, having as always her interests at heart. matters develop after a manner somewhat serious since my last letter. the engagement of this poor charming gentleman to the altogether undesirable madame shuster touches a sharp crisis. i had the highest hopes that constant association of some days in an automobile might force a crash, as it was but the spirit of _laissez faire_ and the pressing need of money which led monsieur into the ambush, as madame la marquise already knows. i am not carried on these frequent and sudden excursions which have become a family custom with us; for i was obliged firmly to make mademoiselle comprehend that i could not in self-respect run myself off my feet to wait upon the numberless ladies stuffed in fashion of sardines into these conveyances. to be the slave of half a dozen _bourgeoises_ does not comport with the dignity of one who for years served madame la marquise and indeed indirectly serves her still. i was not therefore acquainted with the events of the tour which followed the two betrothals, until after the return of the expedition; and it was a great disillusion for me to find that the unfortunate gentleman and the less than lady were still in the same relation. as for mademoiselle and the millionaire, they also return as they went; but that is not of importance to madame la marquise, who wishes only the future high position of her friend's daughter. that will be assured through this marriage. the one danger is that both engagements are bound up together by a singular entanglement. i will explain to madame la marquise. i informed myself of the situation through overhearing (by accident, of course) a talk between monsieur moore and mademoiselle. i knew already that a ring of great magnificence brought back after a special journey to new york by monsieur caspian did not please mademoiselle. in fact she wore it only for a few hours, and on retiring to her room that night threw it so roughly on the _table de toilette_ that it fell on the floor and rolled under the bed. having engaged herself, she could not in ordinary circumstances refuse to wear the _gage d'amour_ of her rich fiancé, even though three wild young boys, who stay here spending money for love of her, choose to laugh at the size of the diamond and compare it to the headlight of a locomotive. i heard them pretend to suffer pain in the eyes from its intense brilliance, and they even went so far as to manufacture for themselves green shades to tie over the forehead, which gave them a ridiculous appearance and set all the world laughing. no! mademoiselle was obliged to have a more reasonable excuse for taking from her finger the sign of her betrothal. but she found one without difficulty. myself, i heard her plead to monsieur caspian that for the risks of these tours in automobile a jewel of this value was unsuitable. she requested him to keep the ring in safety not only for a few days but some weeks, as there was question of a longer expedition through several eastern states. this monsieur caspian wisely refused to do, realizing no doubt that if the jewel returned to his possession a further pretext might be found why it should remain there. there was a lively discussion outside the door of mademoiselle where monsieur had pursued her, i being stationed inside. finally it was agreed that monsieur moore should place the ring in a safe. and from this discussion all the trouble in ridding himself of madame shuster has resulted. now i arrive at the conversation overheard by me, after the short tour of three days from which i had hoped much for the unselfish interests of madame la marquise. i was in the wardrobe of mademoiselle on the night of the return--one of the strange wardrobes which in this country they dig into the wall instead of placing against it. i was engaged in hanging up the dresses which mademoiselle had taken with her (shockingly wrinkled!) when she came--i might say bounced like a young panther--into the room with monsieur her father. the wardrobe door was open, but rather than interrupt them at such a crisis, by showing myself, i very discreetly and without sound closed it to a certain extent. this poor monsieur was in great trouble. money is for him but something to be exchanged for pleasures of one kind or another. he is not a man to study mean economies, and it is for that he is of an attraction so great for all the world, especially for women. what more could be asked of him for the good of his child than to consent that so beautiful an old property should be vulgarized as an hotel? money comes in, much money, i believe, but there are great debts. monsieur had become bankrupt. a percentage must, in honour, be paid to those who trusted him. alas! however, that was not quite all. madame la marquise will remember the last visit of monsieur moore to france, and how he persuaded her by telegram to go with friends and see him win great sums at monte carlo. unfortunately after she obeyed, the winnings ceased, and there was nothing agreeable to see. on the contrary! well, it appears that in new york there are several of these establishments. monsieur had very good luck before our arrival from france. he tested it too often, however. at these places are men who watch the tables and lend money to players. they demand outrageous interest, and they must be paid soon, or there are anxieties. knowing the good income from the scheme of the hotel, one of these birds of prey took advantage of monsieur moore's impulsive nature. the results were disastrous. the conversation which so accidentally reached me could not have been the first on the subject. at least one other i had missed, or i should not have neglected reporting to madame la marquise. in speaking the father and daughter referred to matters not only already discussed but arranged. i learned that in desperation, through these ignoble creditors, monsieur moore had placed the ring not in the safe but in the mont de pieté, which here is called the pawnbroker, or uncle. mademoiselle had evidently regretted it, fearing that the procedure was not honest, but monsieur had convinced her that, as the jewel was her property, she had a legal right to dispose of it. and indeed, for all i can tell to the contrary, the thing had been done before she was consulted. no doubt monsieur was right in his assertion about legality, if the engagement continued. but i learned as i hung up the dresses that both mademoiselle and her father had reached the point of high exasperation with the fiancé and fiancée. they both wished to break. yet what was to be done? mademoiselle could not give back the ring to monsieur caspian. monsieur moore, who had still other debts not yet settled by the uncle, could not burst the bond which--being known to outsiders--procures him a certain indulgence. madame shuster is rich! they now all start off once more in automobiles; but short of murder or suicide i do not see how monsieur moore is to escape his _ennuis_. i do not venture to suggest any action to madame la marquise, but i have again faithfully represented to her the situation of her friend. and i am as always her devoted servant, angéle. xvii peter storm to james strickland dear strickland: these few hasty lines in answer to your question, which, if i'd had my wits about me, i should not have waited for you to ask. no apology do i make, however, as you know as well as i do that my wits are not wool but rose gathering. i inquired of moncourt before starting off again whether he had heard anything lately from young marcel. it was rather a delicate subject to open with him, as you can readily believe, it having been dropped between us by common agreement. he's extremely sensitive, and highly nervous like _all_ great artists such as he is, but i was as tactful as possible, and finally got out of him that he had no tidings whatever for nearly a year. "no news was good news," he had tried to persuade himself, and the last thing he'd heard, marcel was doing pretty well in the argentine. when i'd worked up to mentioning the brilliant comet calling itself de moncourt which has suddenly appeared in french skies, the old boy reflected, then gave it as his opinion that it can hardly be _our_ marcel who has lanced himself upon this adventure. unless, of course, marcel junior felt it his duty--or his pleasure--to give up his personal interests and join the french army! that suggestion (mine) struck and rather pleased moncourt. but in spite of it, we both agree that, considering all things, marcel wouldn't dare tempt providence by taking the bold line ascribed to the "rich new american cousin" of the marquise de moncourt and her family. besides, if he were in the army, and on leave, miss moore's friend wouldn't speak of him as an american, would she? however, write circumspectly to the man you mention in paris and try to make sure, as that will be best for all concerned. as for my affairs, they go vilely. having sown dragon's teeth all my life i now expect to reap strawberries and cream, so i suppose i can't complain if i don't get them. yours ever, p. s. xviii molly winston to lord and lady lane _new london._ dear duet: i nearly said "dear people," but aunt mary used to impress upon me when i was small that _two_ could not be called "people." "people" must mean a "company or crowd"; and i used to addle my infantine brain wondering how it could be that "two was a company," if two _couldn't_ be a crowd, yet a company and a crowd were the same thing. two must be spoken of as "persons" according to aunt m., and i can't address you as "dear persons," can i? you will judge from this prelude that i have come into aunt mary-zone again. well, i have: we have not visited her yet; but she has been to new york on business and i know just how old i am, how many freckles i have on my nose, that my hair is shades darker than it used to be, and that i must have gained at least an inch round my waist since we saw each other last. as for jack, she wonders i let him tear about the country the way we are doing. her opinion is that he would be better off in bed, though she's glad to see him of course. if only i could retaliate in kind, couldn't i be cattish? but _noblesse oblige_! jack and i are as proud as punch (and judy) that the travel letters make you both want to come and do likewise. ah, if you could! but we'll do as you ask: go on as we've begun, and so if possible carry you with us in spirit. i say "we," because, though i do the writing, jack has been keeping rough, joggly notes taken down _en automobile_ for me to incorporate in my letters to you. we were at awepesha only a few days after i wrote you last, because sir george bingham and his wife, who are distant cousins of jack's, arrived in new york after exciting adventures in the east, and as they couldn't leave town we went to visit them at their hotel. just for the first day it was quite a relief to have something new to think of, and not worry my gray matter constantly over patricia moore's affairs, but the second day i was dying to know how things were going at kidd's pines; and when the time came to join the party (as we had promised) for the new england trip, i was all joy and excitement at the thought of plunging into the vortex again--in spite of the visit to aunt mary looming ahead. and then, i'm always happy to be in a car. not that i love all cars indiscriminately--i don't. i love the one i'm in, and tolerate those that others are in when the weather's fine. in dust and mud i loathe all except my own, and feel they have no right to exist. indeed, _none_ have quite the individuality they used to have when they were a new breed of beasts; don't you find it so? nothing ever happens to the good ones. they never break down and sob by the roadside and have to be petted and comforted by their mothers and fathers, as in the dear dead days of long ago. of course we hated to have them break down then, and longed for the time when they should be improved beyond that stage, but i do find them a little _too_ eugenic now. well, to go back to the creatures who haven't improved--ourselves and others. jack and i had our auto in new york, so we started from there, as before, and this time met the procession at rye. only think, on the way, after crossing the bronx river we paused a few minutes to gaze at a cottage where edgar allan poe once lived. it didn't look a bit like him, or as if he could have lived there, but we were glad to have seen it. as for new rochelle, it's as pretty and fresh and fashionable as a summer bride. i always pretend to myself when i read mrs. cutting's stories about those dear, human young married couples or engaged girls and boys of hers, that they live in new rochelle, outside the "smart" circle which only the most ambitious ones can ever hope to enter. we loved coming on to the old post road between boston and new york, but i've told you already how jack and i feel about post roads, and wouldn't dream of writing the words without capitals. it may be conceited (or isn't it conceit to boast of one's husband?), but i don't believe most of the automobilious travellers we met, evidently native-grown americans, knew or cared half as much about the history of every mile as did my english jack. you can guess pretty well by people's faces whether they're saying to themselves, "how long will it take me to _get_ there?" or "this used to be an indian trail before it was a post road"; or "paul revere rode this way"; or "fenimore cooper once lived at heathcote hill and wrote 'the spy'" (delicious book!); "here, close by mamaroneck, is a chimney of the old house where the hero of the story was hidden; here at christchurch, in charming little rye, fenimore cooper's eyes have gazed on the silver chalice presented by queen anne." fancy the difference travelling with a person whose visage expresses that wild, road-pig desire to get on at any price, and one like jack, who has the "i want to see and know all that's beautiful" face! talking of faces, i wish you could see ed caspian's when he motors. he's so anxious to look as if he had done it all before, in a better car if possible, that he's like an image of buddha reflected in a convex mirror. his cap is quite wrong, too. he thinks it's heather mixture, but it's the purple of a bruise. peter's is exactly right. as for pat's--well, a girl's hat should be her crowning glory, shouldn't it? hers is; and it is becoming to pat to be sad and puzzled about life. but all this is an "aside." i, too, must "get on!" and to get on, we go through portchester, which is like melting a map of poland and a map of italy, and mixing them together, because there are so many poles and italians there. we came to portchester along a lovely, shady road, and it's really an old place, though it looks new. we had a river to cross named after an indian village jokingly called "bay rum," but they've decorously altered it to byram; and on its other side we were in connecticut, which jack pronounces _precisely_ as it's spelled! these _english_! greenwich was our first connecticut town, a charming introduction to a new state: highroad and streets thickly tree-lined, and once, when we lost ourselves at a turning, we passed exquisite houses in lovely gardens. there was a divine smell of ozone-haunted seaweed in the air, for greenwich is on long island sound, with gold-green sedgy shores, and everybody is rich or richish. surely, though, the people are not "exclusive" in that selfish way i hate, for in this part of the world they can prowl all over each other's lawns; they have hardly any fences. it seems, however, that things are _very_ difficult politically. you can't do your hair in a new way without asking permission! i simply would, wouldn't you? and do it so prettily they couldn't fuss. yet the really exciting thing about greenwich is not the way you do your hair or moustache. it is the cottage where (apropos of moustaches) general israel putnam was shaving off his when british soldiers rudely surprised him. the cottage is on the road, a beautiful road, and it's a still more beautiful stone cottage, with a flag and two cannons on the lawn. certain horrid people say he lived at another house, but probably that's because they wanted to get the cottage cheap for themselves! you have only to _look_ at it, to feel that general putnam must have lived there. as for the creatures who insist that he took a mere cowpath for his great escape, and didn't ride down the old stone steps on the face of the cliff, why, they wouldn't dare repeat it in front of his monument in putnam hill park, i'm sure! when you get out of a town or village here, in a minute you might be a hundred miles from anywhere, and living a hundred years ago--except for motors; and you can pretend they are insects, if you like. there are sweet, mysterious byways which it breaks your heart not to see the end of, and ponds like the long island ponds, which is to say, like broken blue panes dropped from the windows of heaven. we took a détour after coscob (an indian-named village) because the road was being mended; and there was a little summer settlement called sound beach which i should _love_ to have to play dolls in. it would be just right for that. the big event of our morning, however, was seeing the famous marks place. every one is allowed to drive through, so we were not fortune's favourites, yet it was a favour of fortune to have such a vision. there's a romance about the ownership--rather a sacred and beautiful romance of love, and perhaps that partly accounts for the extraordinarily romantic effect of the place itself. only a man inspired by love could have planned those mysterious flowery openings in the forest of hemlock which borders the lake as forests edge the lakes in the trossachs. only a man so inspired could have known just how to use his backgrounds of rock and cliff, or group his irises along the brookside, and mass his rhododendrons in the sunlight, where they blaze like the rose-flames of driftwood. i should hardly have been surprised if the swans floating like great lilies on the shining lake had all begun to sing some wonderful wagnerian song in chorus. we were in a dream as we sailed slowly out (yes, _slowly_, my dear, because motoring folk are kindly asked, "hold ye speed to two and half leagues an hour") on to the post road again, under an arch of elms characteristic of new england, and of pure architectural value. i could tell you things about each place we glided or tore through--treesy, yet important and city-like, like stamford, where they make the yale locks that burglars all over the world have cause to curse; elm-bowered darien; norwalk, once a great shipping port for reluctantly banished oysters, managing still to be picturesque because of its pretty common where cattle have a _legal_ right to graze; sweet old westport, on an inlet of the sound, dim with elm-shadow; fairfield, with its beautiful old and new houses, its "village green," and its romance of john hancock, who risked being caught by the british in order to meet and hastily marry dorothy quincy; but then, if i told you all that jack and i told each other, there would be no room to tell you of ourselves. besides, the whole thing is like a connected, serial story, in which the post road itself plays a leading part. one ought to begin with the early settlers, making the road which is so perfect now; then the continental armies marching along it in the days when it was (luckily for the fighting americans) still rough and difficult to travel. in spite of the neat prosperity nowadays, and the sign-posts which tell you everything you can possibly want to know about directions, it is easy to read the faded print of that long serial romance of generations. old houses tell it, old trees tell it, old names tell it, and the very modernness of the new things emphasizes the heroic drama of the past. think, for instance, of the boulder monument at fairfield, commemorating its birth in 1639 and its burning by the british in 1779! we crossed the river at westport, and found the scenery even prettier than before. then, after fairfield, we came out on the post road again, though it called itself "fairfield avenue," and presently we were in a turmoil of life at bridgeport. there was as much noise as in new york, but a hundred thousand people can make themselves heard in the world, especially if they're americans! haven't we read in the papers about immense buildings blowing up at bridgeport since the war began? but we couldn't see anything that looked blown up, or sensational, except the heroes on posters of "movie" theatres--oh, more movie theatres than i thought there were in the world! we tried to listen through the roar and rumble of a big town for gorgeous distant yells of lions and trumpetings of elephants, but perhaps the dear beasts were off on "tour." bridgeport is only the winter quarters of barnum, and now we are on the way to summer. by the by, bridgeport people ought to enjoy themselves in summer, judging from all the yachts and pleasure boats we saw dancing in their sleep on the water. after stratford (a most lovable old town, of charming gray-shingle houses, which, to escape loneliness, crowded close to the edge of the elm-shaded road) we crossed the housatonic. the shores stretched away into mystery, so broad was the river; and the moment we were out of a town, in the country, the scene was like a dream of indian days, just interrupted by waking now and then at sight of some houses grouped round a common. there was milford, for instance, which looked as if nothing could happen in its pretty peacefulness, yet it was the hiding-place of a regicide judge who ran away to america after the head of charles the first was off! at new haven, the "city of elms," we could have turned toward boston along a fine road by way of springfield, but we preferred to keep to the charming coast road, and it goes without saying that we stopped to prowl about among the college buildings; also we lunched. "a village of learning and light" the place is called, but of course its village days are outgrown, though the learning and light will remain forever, while yale lasts. washington reviewed the yale students on the green, which is the historic centre of new haven, just as the college is its ever-pulsing heart. (i wonder if the dear boys had already invented that lovely yale yell, and gave it in washington's honour?) benedict arnold helped also to write the romance of the green by drawing up his company there. the great elms which look down on it now must have seen him and perhaps read his treacherous mind, for they say the elms of new haven are the most intelligent and learned anywhere in new england except at harvard itself; and you know that knot-holes are trees' eyes. they don't tell this to any one save their most intimate friends, but jack and i know tree language. at home in the park we put our ears against their trunks and listen in the spring, when they are most talkative and don't mind telling their best secrets. the brown and red yale buildings, restful and interesting, jack and i loved, and we insisted on lingering to look at them, though every one was impatient with us except pat, peter, and the three dear bareheaded boys. peter thought the beautiful white library and its surroundings "like a vista of washington seen through a diminishing glass"; so evidently he has been to washington in his mysterious past! if some of us hadn't suffered from motoritis and speeditis rather badly we should have pottered about half the day, but ours is a hard procession to manage. besides, ed caspian hates to have pat interested in things, because then he's obliged to get out and look at them with her, or risk her in peter's society. this danger he runs only when he can't run himself. he is so proud of his well-shaped feet that he has his boots made too small, and if the weather is warm it's a real penance for him to walk far. there's really something _pathetic_ about this, or would be were caspian only a little less bumptious than he is, for if gossip tells the truth, the millionaire of to-day was once one of those sterling socialists who began their career to fame walking the king's highway with bare feet and their spare clothes tied up in their one handkerchief. (how awkward if they had a cold in the head!) after all the fuss he made about "wasted time," we arrived early at new london, where we planned to spend the night. something happened there, but i haven't come to that yet. first, i must tell you just a little about the dazzling beauty of the way! i should like to tell you a lot, and force you to stop at every place en route. easthaven, with trees and a church steeple which almost succeed in reaching heaven; branford, where yale college was founded, and where there are the very nicest seventeenth century houses you ever saw--_fighting_ houses with overhanging upper stories where you could look down through holes in the floor and pot at indians trying to break in; guilford, prettiest of all the villages on jack's list of places where he'd like to live (we almost envied fitz greene halleck, the poet, for being born there); clinton, with its parklike common which reminded us of the lichtenthal allée at baden-baden; old saybrook, worthy of its name, and thrilling for its antique shops; old lyme, the haunt of artists, glimmering white in a grove of elms; flanders village--east lyme--where all the flowers on earth were jumbled sweetly together like happy families in every garden. but if i did delay you thus, your poor mind would become like one of these jumbled gardens, full of sweet things impossible to sort. mine is like that already; but, after all, it doesn't matter so much for me, because jack has promised to bring me this way once again before we go back home. then, if i've mixed one village with another in a kind of mental earthquake, i can rearrange my _tout ensemble_. impressions of the country, however, i shall never lose or blur disastrously with those of any other part: it is too individual, and makes too clear a picture. much of our way was like a private park bigger than any king or emperor in europe ever owned. then, after miles of trees with blue, misty vistas hanging between, like painted gauze curtains, we flashed suddenly out to open spaces purple-red with fireweed, and vast, flat stretches of tawny marshland swept with tides of colour, rainbow streaks of amethyst and rose-topaz. the sound was within sight and smell. salt perfume of ocean mingled with spicy fragrance from the sunburnt bayberry flung in thick ruglike masses upon bare gray rock, and azure veinings of the sea, stray among the marshes, made strong-growing water plants give out a tang that was tonic to our nostrils. you may think that such a picture could be sketched in colour along the coastline of almost any country, but if so, you will be mistaken, for all this as we saw it was extraordinarily individual and _american_. why, exactly, i can't define, but you will understand, if monty doesn't. though you say you haven't been much in new england you know what the soul of america is. well, this soul, whose first (remembered) spark came from the indians, was brightened to living fire by the puritans from over the sea who called the world they found new england. somehow, the combination is unique, and the same curious sense of personality runs through everything, linking all together as a golden thread might link many different coloured beads. the cedars crowning the hills could be only american cedars. "joe pye weed" (whose indian name is lost, but whose pinky purple colour is ever present) is so patriotic a plant that it would perish rather than grow in foreign parts. the ponds crusted with water-lily pads and ringed round with young trees like children dancing hand in hand seem to sing "we are of _new_ england!" and even the apple trees--immense domed tents of green and pink brocade--are like colonial ladies dressed in their hoop-skirted best. new london, on the contrary--when we came to it at last--struck us as being like some town of england, or of scotland. that was only a first impression, however, and a superficial likeness. we soon began to find out the differences, for new london was our night stop, and we had hours before dark to criticise and admire. it hadn't been a long run, as runs go, from new york, and at new haven we heard motor fiends at luncheon near us in the hotel talk of "pushing on to boston." just such a fiend would caspian be if he could, because he so hates the stops devoted to sight-seeing; but jack and peter are, after all, powers behind the throne, or, rather, behind the engines. they don't drive, yet unostentatiously they direct less determined or less firmly concentrated minds. nobody except your molly realized that we were to spend an afternoon and night at new london because jack winston and peter storm wished it, but so, indeed, it was. nobody but your molly guessed that a sight-seeing plot was hatching against caspian and--incidentally--against mrs. shuster. idonia goodrich had been carefully incited to keen interest in new london because of the yale and harvard boat races, and though nothing was going on, she wanted to see the place where such things _did_ go on. where idonia goes, the fickle larry likes to go just now, for when a good-looking girl flags him with the signal, "i'm ready to flirt if you are!" he simply can't resist, which means that where idonia and larry go, thither goeth lily also. as for pat, she knows that actively seeing sights is her one hope (if any) of escape from caspian. consequently she had listened with almost unnatural interest to jack's talk, before starting, of the principal "features" to be sought out at our first night's stopping place. [illustration: map]* were it not for caspian's feet, i'm afraid dear pat wouldn't have cared a whalebone to go and stare at the harbour because new london had been a big whaling centre. she wouldn't have bothered with john winthrop's historic mill, which has never been out of use from his day to ours. she wouldn't have rushed from nathan hale's schoolhouse to gape at the perkins mansion, where washington and lafayette stayed; or if she had she would have consented to go in the car. as it was, however, that girl's energy was frenzied, and her exertions were rewarded at last by the dropping out of caspian from her train. he limped back to the hotel, furious, leaving pat with me and jack, peter, tom, dick, and harry. pat was a new person when she had shed him, and we ended up our excursion with a wild, weird "movie." it _was_ fun! i never laughed so much; and peter storm was like a boy. a cloud fell upon us, however, and damped our spirits as we returned to the hotel to dress for dinner. we knew that caspian would be in the sulks, and that somehow pat would be made to pay for her pleasure. there he sat in the big hall, where he could see us as we filed guiltily in, very late. as a protest, he was already dressed, and looked like one of those neat little sugar men with yellow hair, red lips, and black coat that you see on lower middle-class wedding cakes. he held a book in his hand, but had been talking, or trying to talk, to a big, dark, handsome man who lolled in a neighbouring chair. in a flashing glance we gained the impression that the big fellow was bored by caspian and had sought refuge from him behind a newspaper. but at sight of us caspian hastily stiffened into an attitude of martyred waiting, and at the same instant the tall man jumped up with a queer exclamation. his paper dropped. he looked as if he saw a ghost, and--that ghost was peter storm! "mon dieu!" or words to that effect i saw, rather than heard, him say. then peter got to him in two or three gigantic strides, as if in seven-leagued boots, and thrust his face close to that other astonished face. what peter said i could not catch, because he spoke in a whisper and very fast. what the big man (bigger than peter) said in return could not have been caught by the ear of a fox, for he said nothing at all--except with his eyes. they, at first, expressed something like horror. then they softened, or dulled, i couldn't tell which, and suddenly it occurred to me to flash a glance to caspian. he was almost ill with curiosity. pat had turned to stare at him, too, knowing already, through the bitter experience which had made him her fiancé, that c. wanted only a weapon with which to do peter harm. certainly it did look as if peter were desperately anxious to choke the man into silence. he had the air of wanting to stop some irrevocable word from being said, of urging, explaining, almost entreating. "what _can_ it mean?" i asked myself, determined, however, to keep my faith in the stormy petrel at any price. as i thought of all sorts of things, i heard pat say, "_i'm_ not going to dress. it's too late, and i'm too tired. i'll go in to dinner just as i am, if you will, molly." instantly i guessed what was in her mind. the bright child was rallying round peter. if i hadn't been sure before that she'd fallen in love with him, i should have been sure then! it was love that made her think quickly and find the best way to defend him--as she had found a way before, by sacrificing herself. she knew that, if he were left alone, ed caspian would try to get hold of the stranger (whom he evidently knew) the instant peter and he parted. he would pump him if possible, and peter's secret, whatever it was, would be at the enemy's mercy. i rose to the occasion, or, rather, i sat down on it. i subsided into the chair close to caspian which the man had jumped up from like a jack-in-a-box. pat followed my example by plumping into a seat on ed's other side, and in common decency he could not bolt. "why, yes," i said, "i should like nothing better than an excuse to dine as i am. mr. caspian is so smart, he must bear off the honours for us all." jack, of course, saw what we were up to, for he had seen the whole drama--tragedy, comedy, whatever it was! british though he is, it never takes him longer than a lightning (conductor) flash to seize any situation in which i am concerned. but i don't need to tell you that! you, too, have married a britisher, and know just how much that dear old american joke about english slowness of comprehension amounts to--unless the creature is putting on airs! "we'll none of us dress," said he, with a wicked gleam in his eye; the boys joined him; and the dapper wedding-cake figure was surrounded and swallowed up by a wave of untidy tourists. we didn't leave him alone for a minute, until peter storm and the stranger were seen returning from their confab, and going toward the restaurant door _together_, without a backward glance for us. things were thus safe for the time being. i announced that i was rested, and would like to dine at once. pat said that she was famished! we went to dinner therefore--picture it!--without even washing our hands. peter and the stranger sat at a little table at the farthest corner of the room. caspian looked ready to burst with rage at being "circumvented," and to sink into the floor with shame of his unsuitably clad companions. as for me, i smiled at jack a sardonic smile which would have made a grand "close up" in the "movie" we had just seen. the most experienced villain couldn't have improved on it. "say, who is that chap feeding over there with storm?" inquired the innocent tom. "that," said caspian, "is the military attaché of the russian embassy in washington. he is here on business. his name is captain ipanoff. he is also a prince." his being "also a prince" explained to me why ed, our prize snob, should have tried to lure him from his newspaper with honeyed conversation. but it didn't explain why his eyes should start out of his head at sight of peter storm. up to date, the thing hasn't been explained; for now, as i write to you, it is the same night, and so far as i know, p. s. and his prince are still together. i don't want--at least, i don't _want_ to want--to know anything about peter storm that he doesn't wish known. but ed caspian will know if possible. i do wonder what the mystery _can_ be, don't you? i shall write again almost at once, whether i have any more to tell on this subject or not. i can't stop long in the middle of the secret--i mean the trip! your very affectionate molly. p. s. jack says curiosity is a misunderstood virtue. without it the world would not have progressed. he's forgotten pandora. but no, perhaps not. hope was at the bottom of her box, and we should have missed it if she hadn't let the winged troubles out. xix patricia moore to adrienne de moncourt _moon pond_, _newport, r. i._ mignonne: i have found waiting here a letter from my adrienne. it has been forwarded from kidd's pines. what can have happened to this poor letter i do not know, but it has been a long time on the way. i see it is written just after the last one, which i have had--it is two weeks now; so it brings me not much of news except that you like the american cousin more even than before, and a crisis draws near. all my love and good wishes go to you, chérie. already it must be that things are settling themselves for you and your marcel (i am sure he _is_ your marcel!), and the wishes will arrive late. perhaps you will send me a cable; and it may come at any time, for you will be at home with dear madame your mother and not with the sisters. but i shall not really _expect_ the message by telegram, for in france one does not send cables as one does in america. one thinks twice. it is an important decision to take. as for me, all remains as when i wrote you last. i thought at first that i could not go on being engaged, but would have to break. now i find it too difficult to do this, though i have not saved my poor larry from his sacrifice. he bears up well, but that is because we are _en automobile_, and there are changes of scene, and nice people to make him forget. he is wonderful about forgetting, but i fear he may collapse when by and by he must look reality in the face. it is not always a pretty face! i sometimes forget, too, for a while, but it is more difficult, for a girl cannot choose her own companions as a man can. i lie awake at night thinking of the future, because if i am to help larry in a big, useful way i must marry--not just go on being engaged. much money is to be settled on me, and i will give all to larry. i feel as if i should not like to take any for myself. you and i used to say we should not let ourselves be married off to men we could not love, as so many of the old girls at school have done. but circumstances can be very strong. with me, there are complications. it will not be fair to dear larry to speak of them. i do not see how they can arrange themselves without my marrying. still, i try to think of the present and not of the future. i have this tour before me. it is not perfect, but at least i cannot be a _mrs._ till it is over! here at newport we visit friends of larry's, all of us except the nice tom, dick, and harry i told you of; a senator collinge, mrs. shuster's friend; the goodrich family, who are so large and handsome, and a family of two who are a bride and bridegroom, and mr. storm. he is not at newport at all, though the others who are not at moon pond stay in a pretty little hotel almost like a private house. it seems odd, they do not have big hotels in this wonderful place. the rich people who have made the new part so wonderful do not like to have tourists come and stay if they can help it. they want newport to belong to them, and so it does, except the old town, which molly winston and her husband and i like best of all. do you not think "moon pond" a fascinating name for a place? the pond is in the garden of these friends where we spend two days and nights; and in front of the large lawn, with its great clumps of blue hydrangea, rolls the atlantic ocean. it _would_ be lovely to stay here, for it is a beautiful place (a very big house built of gray shingles, soft gray like the feathers on a mother bird's breast, and not looking too big in a showy way, because it is rambling, with many verandas and unexpected nooks), but they _will_ give us a dinner in celebration of being engaged. that spoils everything. i am glad mr. storm will not be at the dinner. i should not like to see his eyes. mr. caspian is not nice to him, but he is better than at first, because i was very angry at some things he did. i said i would not be engaged to a man who could be rude to another poorer in money than himself. yes, i think peter storm must be _very_ poor in money, or he would not go on in this situation with mrs. shuster, who has mr. caspian for one of her best friends, yet lets him behave as he likes to her secretary. mr. storm is a proud man and of a high temper. one can see that when his eyes look like topaz fire, and his face turns red. yet he shuts his mouth and makes fists of his hands, and says nothing instead of hitting or answering back. i am so sorry for him! he is the most interesting man you could meet. but i suppose you never will meet, for he will be gone out of my life long before you and i see each other once more--if we ever do. he does not like to be in a fashionable place, and newport is perhaps the most fashionable in this country. he came with us for the tour, as far as new london, a big, nice town which has a river called the thames, like real london. then he met a man he knew, and said he would join us again after newport, at fall river, on the way to boston, which will be our next stop. the friend he met was rather mysterious. or no, the way of meeting was mysterious. it was a great surprise to them both, and mr. storm took the man--a russian prince--off to a distance and never let him come near us for a minute. mr. caspian knew the prince to speak to, and he would have asked him about mr. storm if he could, but molly winston and i would not let him. if mr. storm has something he wishes to keep a secret, it is his affair. but there is one thing i worry about a little. i do not see why i may not tell you _that!_ before i made my promise to him, mr. caspian was so silly as to be jealous of mr. storm. he thought, like all of us, that there was some mystery, but unlike us, he believed it was a _bad_ one. he wished to do mr. storm some harm. he even threatened to hire a detective to watch always what he did. but after we were engaged mr. caspian did not feel the same. i suppose he said to himself that he was more safe. he did not want mr. storm to go away, because he enjoyed being a tyrant to him, and showing his power over me. it was like that till new london. i was rather silly there, i am afraid, but i was so tired of being with mr. caspian every minute. he seems to squeeze out my vitality like water from a sponge! i took a revenge by making _him_ tired--in his feet, not his head. we all left him to go home and rest and be very cross while we enjoyed ourselves. but it is not me he would punish for that. it is poor peter storm! he begins to be jealous again as before, and i am afraid he may do the horrid thing he has threatened to do. a word he dropped made me think of it. i wish i could give mr. storm some hint to be careful. but even when i see him again (it won't be till day after to-morrow) i shall not dare. perhaps i can get molly to speak. i can't help missing mr. storm when we go about seeing beautiful things. i told you long ago i liked seeing things with him. but i keep with molly and jack winston as much as i can when we are out of doors, here at newport. larry's friends are very good. they let us go about as we like and come in when we like. now that mr. storm is away, mr. caspian does not worry to be with me every minute. he knows some fearfully rich people at newport. it is strange, isn't it, that he likes rich people much better than poor (except larry and me), though he used to be a socialist and give lectures against capital? peter storm says that to be a _true_ socialist is the finest thing in the world, and can save the world from itself; but i do not think mr. caspian can have been that kind, as he does not even like to talk of socialism now. his friends here, the hodges, live in a house which jack winston says could swallow up and digest buckingham palace. he has made me meet them, and they are very pleasant, but not so restful as the langworthys, where we stay. when the hodges find i want to see sights, they are surprised and laugh. it is not the fashion with people who live at newport to see sights. they have seen everything in the whole world, and care only for seeing each other--the ones they know. nobody else is worth knowing. mr. caspian tries to be like that, but it seems an imitation. with the real ones it is true, and not for effect. it seems that our family must be very old, because everybody, even these grandest ones, are kind to us, and think it is great fun that we keep a hotel. molly and jack they like of course, because m. and j. are "great swells." now, chérie, i must stop, and go for a walk with them. molly calls it a "potter." but you will not know what that word means! a hundred wishes and loves! your patrice. xx night letter telegram from peter storm to james strickland _new london._ just missed getting into scrape here. saved by presence of mind. you have heard me speak of ipanoff. met him accidentally. he has relatives seeing america, awaiting them new london; found me instead. shall stay to-morrow, letting my party go on. meet fall river by train. couldn't stand newport. writing you on business. p. s. xxi molly winston to mercédes lane _a gorgeous hotel in dear old boston._ best mercédes: i am thrilled with new england! it has got into my blood, which is of the south. why do we--you and i and the rest of us--dash over to europe before we're old enough to see much of and appreciate our own country? still, i'm thankful we did, or we shouldn't have met jack or monty. are you tired of travelling with me and my lightning conductor? you said you couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't be; so if you've changed your mind, you've brought this on yourself. i didn't quite realize, even with my first warm glow of admiration, all that new england meant, in a _concrete_ way. i realized the beauty, the individual charm, the historic interest, but now i'm beginning to put them together in a bouquet where one flower sets off another. oh, dear, i wish that not _quite_ so many things had happened before our day! it would have been easier to sort them about a hundred and fifty years ago. yet, a hundred and fifty years ago there wouldn't have been an emerson, a thoreau, a hawthorne, a longfellow, a whittier, a bryant, a lowell, or an oliver wendell holmes, to say nothing of half a dozen others i'm too excited to recall at the moment. it would have been sad to come here before they lived and embroidered the tapestry of life with their lovely thoughts--almost the difference between travelling on a gray day and in clear sunshine. for new england belongs to these philosophers and poets just as much as it belongs to the indians and puritans and soldiers of the revolution. now you see what my mood is! i think jack has inspired it, for he can quote most of the new england writers, if not by the yard at least by the _inch_. he says he used to learn their wit and wisdom to repeat "at his mother's knee." i shouldn't have supposed lady brightelmston's knee capable of it; but one never knows! the last time i wrote you was at new london. i posted the letter at groton, i remember, because i was thinking so hard of "the peter storm mystery" that everything else went out of my head. my dear, _he stayed behind_, with his russian friend, leaving pat to the mercy of caspian! you have to cross by ferry to get to groton--old fort griswold--and the new london side is _too_ amusing. practically all the boy population of america seemed to be there to see us off. they had come on purpose to tell motorists what to do and whither to proceed, thus extracting dimes in gratitude or blackmail. good gracious! if we tried to do half the things they advised, nay, insisted on, we'd be as busy as bees the rest of our lives or else go mad! i can tell you we were thankful to escape on to the charming, peaceful road we found after the ferry had shed us on the other side. soon we turned off on to a rough short cut; but it was fascinating, too, and would have been like scenery on the crinan canal if it hadn't been still more like itself. the hydrangeas growing in the gardens were marvellous, great trees of them, with different shaped flowers from ordinary human hydrangeas, flowers like huge bunches of white grapes seen from a distance. the flat blue and pink kind prefer to grow close by the shore. there was another darling tree--one on every lawn nearly--rose of sharon. do you know it? the name alone makes jack glad he came to america. and then, the colour of the marshes!--crimson and orange-gold, with streaks of emerald. where there weren't marshes, the meadows were white with queen anne's lace. she must have sent a lot of it to america! tiger lilies grew wild, dazzling colonies of them, and from gray rocks ferns spurted and showered. isn't it charming that a river called the mystic should run, or, rather, gently dawdle, through a world like this? its mother is the sound; and perhaps because it's very historic, it justified its dignity by leading us out of this flowery fairyland, past stern, faded farmhouses to a wide country of rolling downs, bathed in silver light--downs whose sides were spread with forests like dark tracts of shadow. we passed through westerly of the granite quarries, and suddenly we realized that we were in rhode island. don't you like the name "watch hill?" i do. and i liked the place, which "summer people" love. but all the neighbourhood is enchanting. it doesn't matter _where_ you stay! i never saw so many flowers, wild and tame: tame hydrangeas, wild grapes, wild spirea and bayberry, half-tamed, worried-looking sunflowers, with so much sun they don't know which way to turn. all this within sight of the sound, with islands and necks of blue-green land like a door ajar to the ocean. it was a fine drive, after wakefield, along the narragansett front, the most countrylike road imaginable, with wild shrubbery on either side, and then the most ultra-civilized hotels, an army of them on parade, with the sea for their drill sergeant. at saunderstown we took ferry for newport--a double ferry, but neither journey was long. a mist floated over the water like the ghost of the queen anne lace we had passed; but we had glimpses of fort greble and fort adams. oh, there's _heaps_ to see at newport besides the haunts of the four hundred! we landed at last in a dear old town with quaint but rich-looking houses of retired sea captains and other comfortable folk who simply don't exist for the eyes of society, though they no doubt have a background crowded with brave ancestors. jack and i meant to stop at a nice little hotel which exists apologetically; but friends of larry's insisted on our staying with them. we should have thought up some excuse to refuse (not that we'd _fib_: but it's fair to economize truth at times!) if pat hadn't begged us to accept. you see, ed caspian was invited as her fiancé, and mrs. shuster as larry's, and there was to be a dinner in honour of the two couples. the poor child, a lamb led to the slaughter, seemed to think that the altar of sacrifice would be more tolerable if we were present to scatter rosemary and rue upon it. we consented, of course. but i felt quite hard toward peter storm, who had, in a way, been appointed by jack and himself as her unofficial guardian in the grayles-grice, and had apparently _failed_ her by stopping behind with his russian. we were able to relieve the strain a little by taking the girl out for walks in the old town, a part of newport most interesting to us, least interesting to caspian. dear father brought me once to newport to visit people in a house which called itself a cottage and looked like a castle, but that was when i was seventeen, in a summer holiday in the midst of school life. i had the intense ambition of a flapper to be a débutante; and because i envied girls who were "out" i did all i could to usurp their prerogatives by flirting and "dressing up." i didn't care a rap for anything or anybody over thirty. the casino, the yacht club, bellevue avenue for shopping or driving, bailey's beach, that haven for any modern venus to rise from the foam if she has a lovely bathing dress, the twelve-mile ocean drive in all its luxury and millionairish beauty--these represented newport for me; and i _bet_ they'd have meant the same for you in your salad days! they're still great fun, and perfectly delightful and almost unique, it is true, but now i feel, with jack, the "call of the past." the old stone mill, with its contradictory histories, is more fascinating than the casino. i could get quite hot and angry arguing with any one who disputes the fact--_fact_, i say!--that this extraordinary gray-stone tower draped with creepers and backed with trees is the memorial of a viking's wife. longfellow's "the skeleton in armour" was one of those poems which lady brighthelmston's knee taught to jack. "speak, speak, thou fearful guest!" i had forgotten, i'm ashamed to say, but jack has reminded me about the figure in "rude armour drest" which appeared when they took away a wall. i just won't have my viking tower torn out of the eleventh century and stuck into the seventeenth. so there! i don't see why it isn't right to believe the nicest things in the past of a country instead of the worst, as you must do with a woman, if you're not a cat! pat and i are going to read fenimore cooper's "red rover" because the scenes are laid in this neighbourhood; at least i am going to read it, and pat will if caspian gives her a chance to do anything intelligent in future. he won't if he can help it, i'm sure! you ought to have seen the boiled codfish look in his eyes when pat, arriving at moon pond after an excursion with us, tried to entertain him by talking of matthew perry building the first steam vessel in the american navy and arranging a treaty that opened the door of japan to the west! there's a monument to him in the park, and we'd been looking at it. well, in spite of fate, i think the child enjoyed her newport days, if not her newport evenings, and indeed, she seemed to have the feeling that they were snatched from the jaws of the said ruthless lady. we mooned about among the entirely charming and more or less famous houses, in what ought to be called oldport, a very, very important place for more than a hundred years before a tidal wave of fashion swept over it about the middle of the eighteenth century: great families coming in their own schooners, with their servants and horses, from charleston and savannah. you can't think of the exciting, historic things we found out in our "moonings": history on the sea, even before captain kidd's privateers were being chased along the shore, for rhode island always "loved to fight if she could fight on the sea"; history on land, from the time that the inhabitants were abandoning their houses in fear of sir henry clinton and the british fleet, up to these brilliant days of astors and belmonts and vanderbilts. jack and i got so resigned to visiting larry's pleasant friends that we should have been sorry to leave if it hadn't been for our curiosity to see "what would happen next" in the peter affair. the last thing we did was to get up with the sun and start out for an excursion to the forty steps. but, after all, jack was too lame to manage them. he was very cut up, but his sense of humour came to the rescue as usual, and he was showing a brave face again when we started off in the motor once more, for fall river--and beyond. then, if not before, we should have realized what a marvellous frame newport has. i suppose in some ways no other spot is equal to it. even jack says that, and there are few of the great show places of the world he hasn't seen. as a send-off, we gave ourselves a detour and said good-bye to the ocean drive. the fleet, which had been visiting for several days, was steaming off to sea. we looked across walls of blue hydrangeas and "rosa rugosa" hung with berries like lumps of coral, out to the gray ships speeding fast through cataracts of sapphire spray. it was a wonderful sight and a wonderful day! the morning sun seemed to paint the rocks purple and turn the high spurting surf to fountains of diamonds. it lit the young gold of maple trees, and the delicate crysophrase green of weeping beeches that sweep the lawns along the twelve-mile drive (consoled niobes weeping only happy tears!) and threw ladders of light down to the marshes. you will think i am always writing you about marshes. but these are super-marshes. if there are marshes by the sea of glass they must be like these. they are so full of faded rainbows that their colour seems to drain into the crystal veins of water which wind into them from inlets of the sea, and turn the crystal into deep-dyed amethysts. as we went on along the shore, the tiny waves ruffled under our eyes like frills of lace on a baby's baptismal dress. the sea became a wide river with dreamland visioned on the other side. oh, what a contrast to all the beauty of the "peaceful isle" and its surroundings to dash into fall river! here and there is a house, or a charming name of a street, to tell that it was once a pleasant old village like other new england villages, but commerce has sacked it of all that is beautiful--or, if it has left anything by mistake, we didn't see it. the ugly, work-marred town smote us like a blow in the face, and yet we saw that it has its own fierce, flaunting interest. i shall never again think of a fall river boat as a restful thing. a fall river boat was all i knew of fall river before, except that a big revolutionary battle was fought there. now a battle between labour and capital is ceaselessly going on. it was a joy--a selfish joy, perhaps--to spin out of the town limits and come into devonshire. really, it _was_ devonshire--devonshire in look and in the names of places. what of taunton, for instance? so we flew on to boston, through a series of exquisite parks such as surely no other city in the world can have for a frame. [illustration: map]* there was just one attractive feature about fall river for us: not the picture palaces, of which there must be about a million; not the coloured posters of the azores, put up to please the homesick portuguese labourers, but the reappearance of peter storm. frankly, dearest, i had been afraid in my inmost heart that the mystery was going to close round peter like a dark cloud, hiding him from our sight forever. caspian had perhaps hoped that this might be the case. but peter had said that he would be found standing at the corner of elm street (there wasn't an elm in it, or any other tree), and there he was, though we were early at the rendezvous rather than late. i forgot to tell you that pat started out from newport in our car, the bride and bridegroom squeezing into the grayles-grice. i'd accused the girl of not looking well--a stupidity of which i should never be capable if i hadn't an object to gain--and she had owned to a slight headache. i said that i had some wonderful pillules that i could give her; but i must administer them myself, and they must be taken every half-hour. of course there was nothing for it but she must come to us; and she brightened visibly with every mile, though whether owing to the pillules or the increasing nearness of fall river, i can't say, and wouldn't if i could. having disposed of the honeymooners, there was room in our car for peter. jack and i had manoeuvred (by taking a short cut jack found on a map) to reach elm street first; so we did a sort of sabine business reversed: snatched up peter and dashed on. i could almost _hear_ ed caspian gnashing his teeth in the g.-g. just behind. it was a sound like something wrong with the gear. boston you perhaps know more about than i do, at any rate from books. but you would like to see jack here--and monty with him, of course: two wounded heroes enjoying a well-earned repose, as many a wounded hero has enjoyed in other days. he--jack--wonders if the famous tea is lying at the bottom of the harbour still, in hermetically sealed tins, and whether it improves with age. i broke it to you with the top of my letter that we're in a perfectly gorgeous hotel. jack and i have a suite which would be good enough for a king and queen. he was determined that we'd "do ourselves well," as we are to stay several days, running out to plymouth and so on, and running back. we've been here now only one night and a morning, but already our sitting-room looks, in some ways, as if we'd taken it for life. flowers, of course! jack always buys me flowers; and books--books--books: longfellow, hawthorne, whittier, oliver wendell holmes, and some glorified guides in volume form. i said, "are we to carry all these in the car? we shall be boiling over with books, swamped with books, buried under books as tarpeia was under the shields and bracelets!" but jack had made his plans. they will be sent home to awepesha by the hotel people when we go, and we are to have the comfort of them here. as nobody else will have any books, they'll offer pat an excuse to drop in on us--peter, too. jack ought to give "penny readings," i think! i haven't, by the way, got any satisfaction out of peter. we are partners in the caspian-shuster plot, but _his_ plot he keeps to himself. i wonder what, from all i have told you, mercédes, _you_ think of him? in spite of everything, jack and i believe that he's _all right_, and vaguely we look for a great surprise, though of what nature we cannot say. i wish it would come before we get into aunt mary-land. i begin to need something to brace me up! love! ever your molly. xxii molly winston to mercédes lane _still boston._ dear one: i was wishing for a surprise, and it came. but it hasn't explained anything. it has only thickened the plot--thickened it like porridge made of boston beans. i didn't mean to inflict another letter upon you quite so soon; but i'm so full of the surprise--and "beans," too--heavenly boston ones, very brown, and crisp on top--that i can't wait. my last night's budget was posted to you only this morning early, when jack and i were going out to discover what every (other) man and woman knows about the hub of the universe. all day long we were so busy seeing and doing things in this delightful, intimate personality that i lost my stormy petrel emotion in a crowd of other emotions. usually when we stop anywhere, and are not in the car most of the day, mrs. shuster finds work for peter to do. she and ex-senator collinge give him sheafs of notes to elaborate into letters or articles for the papers which propagate their ideas. i think--and have thought from the first--that this plan of campaign is more to please the ally (caspian) than from any pressing need for such work to be done _en route_. mrs. shuster impulsively engaged storm before caspian met him, and very likely made some sort of contract to which he can hold her if he chooses. besides, she admires him as much as ever, though she admires larry more, and in her silly, blundering way, she plays a double game. all sweetness and light to storm when she's with him, and immense pride in him as an employé--the pride a small, dull comet might feel in attracting attention to itself by trailing a disproportionately brilliant tail across the sky. all specious promises and excuses to caspian when she's with him and _not_ with peter. caspian, you remember, _used_ to be a protégé of hers when he was a rising young socialist, and she was the widow of a quaint genius who'd made a fortune in some weird patent to keep your hair from decaying, or your teeth from falling out. now, he's a rising young millionaire, accepted by people who matter; and he can do more for her than she for him, socially. so she has to be nice to him, no matter how she feels, and "keep him sweet," anyhow until she's _quite_ sure of larry and his ancestors to back her up. that's the way i account for peter's being kept on, though of course there's the fact that caspian enjoys bullying him now that he's down. anyhow, that's the situation on the surface. when we motor, the stormy petrel submits himself for the present to the boot of the tyrant in the grayles-grice. when we leave the motor, peter is left, too, and chained to his duties. but, so long as he gets through his tasks at the appointed time, no questions can be asked as to how he spends the extra hours. and the speed with which he does get through those tasks is miraculous as that of psyche sorting the grains of wheat at the order of mother-in-law venus! psyche had all the kingdom of ants to help her. but _who_ helps peter? one can't suppose that he's rich enough to fling all his salary to an understudy while he gads. yet i've seen him going to his room with a _sheaf_ of papers which would keep the nose of a common secretary at the grindstone for six or seven hours, whereas p. s. is free to do as he pleases in less than half that time. this long preamble explains why peter storm didn't start out with us this morning, though we picked him up at fall river and brought him on to boston, as i told you, and why he was nevertheless able to appear casually in cambridge. we came across him in the college yard, just as we were "processing" through the big gateway, guided by the boys, proud, happy boys, showing off their alma mater to their best girl and her satellites! "if i'd had an education, here's where i should like to have got it," peter remarked, calmly joining our forces, unabashed by caspian's stare. "you haven't finished all that stuff the senator and i gave you!" gasped lily, knowing that the eye of ed had travelled reproachfully to her. "that's all right, mrs. shuster," was peter's airy reply. "when you get home, you'll find that everything has been duly posted." there was nothing more to be said on the subject. and though peter referred to himself as a person of no education, he seemed to know more about cambridge than the boys themselves--quite as much as jack, who has been studying up the place as if for an exam! it really is charming, that college yard, you know, mercédes--just as charming in its way, jack admits, as bits of oxford, or the old cambridge for which this darling place was named. once it was called newton, but after the great event in 1636--the granting by the general court of massachusetts bay of _four hundred pounds_ "towards a schoole or colledge"--they decided that it ought to be called cambridge. nearly all the buildings contrive to look rather venerable (they cloak themselves with creepers), but some, like massachusetts hall and harvard hall, and several houses, are really old. tom, dick, and harry put on the air of graybeards returning, after a half-century of adventure, to their childhood's home, though they left college only last year to go abroad. it was funny to see the patronizing looks they cast on the undergrads we saw; but they were the life of the place for us, all the same, and we felt truly _in_ it, chaperoned by them. outside college bounds, however, they lost interest. it was jack who had to tell us about "brattle." as far as the boys were concerned, it might have been any ordinary street, instead of _the street_ of the world, as it is to true hearts of cambridge. in cambridge the smart thing is to be rather dowdy, just as it is at oxford, and in cambridge of england; and so, as we had got ourselves up to dazzle boston (a difficult task, i must say!), we were conspicuously, ignominiously tourists as we gazed in reverence at washington's elm, at longfellow's exquisite old primrose yellow house, and the other historic incarnations of cambridge's past. only the boys were not subject to the pitying scorn of society. they didn't have on their _worst_ clothes, because they have neither best nor worst, but what they had on was _it_. and possessing no hats was greatly in their favour. by the way, did you know that cambridge is the first place where a printing press was set up in america? i didn't. it remained for my english jack to inform me of the fact. this cambridge expedition was in the afternoon i neglected to mention. our morning (while peter doubtless toiled) had been spent in the wonderful public library of boston itself. we'd meant to do more and other things, but one could stay a week in that library, which i believe started with just _ten thousand_ books! everything is beautiful about it, from the pale-pink granites and brown spanish tiles without to the st. gauden lions who guard the great marble staircase within. sargent's "religions of the world" is a noble decoration, and abbey's frieze of the holy grail is beautiful, but the panel paintings of puvis de chavannes--"the muses greeting the genius of enlightenment"--are worth while coming from london or paris to boston to see. after we motored back from cambridge we wandered about here and there, seeing the "cradle of american liberty," the "sanctuary of freedom," and the place "where independence was born." unless you have the key, you won't be able to unlock this saying, so i'll do it for you. why, they call faneuil hall the "cradle of liberty" because they used to hold all the town meetings there to discuss whether they should revolt against british rule or no; so liberty must have rocked to and fro a lot! the old south meeting house is the "sanctuary of freedom," for there it was prayed for and blessed. and of course independence was born in the old state house. i wonder if anything half as epoch-making will ever come to pass under the great gold dome of the new one? it's very fine, but it can never be quite so thrilling, i think. and _it_ wasn't built where the pillory and scaffold used to stand! jack would see the bunker hill monument, too, though i think monuments, even the finest, seem to chill your glorious visions of what really happened on the spot. jack, and pat, and peter, and i then made a secret pact that we'd devote part of to-morrow to hawthorne's boston; that we'd _pretend_ to find the house of "the blythedale romance" in tremont street; that we'd poke about for the lost site of hester prynne's lonely hut on the back bay (huts there are neither cheap nor lonely now), and search for various other story landmarks. with this happy prospect before us, and having slyly shaken off all other companions, we went unsuspectingly back to the hotel, not dreaming of a _guet-apens_, as the french so expressively say. peter doesn't live at our hotel, not being able to afford gorgeousness. marble-walled, gilded-ceilinged rotundas and restaurants are not for humble secretaries, alas, even if they do look like banished princes! we invited him, however (also pat), to have tea with us in our own sitting-room, and he accepted. if we could, we should have sneaked in; but the magnificent entrance-hall of our palatial hotel is not adapted to sneaking purposes. i'll be hanged if there's a single trapdoor under a conveniently placed persian rug, or so much as a secret sliding panel, unless you count the elevators as such! however, we were doing our best to look invisible _en masse_, when up sprang edward caspian and crossed our path as we ought to have expected the villain of the piece to do. he was not alone. with him was a man, not young, yet not looking middle-aged. he had a head rather like shakespeare's, and eyes like aquamarines with a light burning behind them. "jove!" i heard the stormy petrel mutter. "camera-eyed dick!" i knew instantly that caspian had been as good as his word, and had sent for a detective. the name "camera-eyed dick" was too terribly expressive, and so was the way peter pronounced it, even though he spoke under his breath--to himself, not to me. i felt that here was a man with a fearsome specialty--a man called "camera-eyed," because his eyes photographed on his brain stuff a permanent picture of every face he saw. and caspian had brought him here, no doubt at large expense, to recognize the face of peter storm, alias some one else. oh, it was an awful moment, and made worse because i felt this stroke was partly our fault. if we hadn't done everything we could to aggravate caspian and make him more jealous than ever of storm, just as his jealousy had been simmering down, probably he wouldn't have bothered to carry out his old threat. i thought i should faint, i was so frightened for peter, and so sick at the idea of having him arrested or something. "is there anything i can do?" i stammered out, before i could stop myself from making a bad _faux pas_ and showing that i suspected his danger. peter (he and i were walking ahead, jack and patsey behind) didn't make the faintest pretense of not understanding. he gave me a glance--i wasn't sure whether it was just bold or whether there was a sense of drama in it--and said in a quiet voice: "no, thank you; nothing at all." the one way of escaping the encounter would have been to run for it, which would, of course, only have made matters worse; so we marched straight on into the jaws of detection. i would have given much to know whether jack and pat had heard peter's exclamation, and if they guessed in the least what a scene we might be in for. (no, not a _scene_! i couldn't, even then, associate peter with a "scene" in public; despite his temper, he is always so cool in every emergency, and has such a peculiar way of carrying things off!) much as i wanted to know, however, i dared not turn. does a mouse turn to the mice behind it and say, "here is mr. camera-eyed cat?" no! we walked along, my knees feeling like pats of butter, and presently ed caspian and his companion blocked our way, filling the whole horizon. "i want to introduce my friend mr. moyle, mrs. winston," said ed. "and mr. moyle, this is mr. peter storm." beads of perspiration came out on my nose, which aunt mary always used to tell me was most unladylike and ought never to happen. my heart and i just stood still together! murmuring something more like a hiccup than a "how do you do?" i saw peter use his eyes like grappling irons on the camera-eyes of mr. moyle. then his magnetism, like a band of pirates, swarmed aboard of the other's mentality. he put out his hand and shook the hand of the man, whether camera eyed dick wished to shake hands or not, and with that shake, the lamp seemed suddenly to be snatched away from behind the aquamarines. "how do you do, mr. moyle? pleased to meet you," peter said slowly. "pleased to meet _you_," echoed mr. moyle. his shakespearean forehead had turned red, and there was a slight gasp in his voice, a tone sliding up instead of down. his queer eyes (rather bald-looking because his light lashes curl right up and away from them, leaving them very wide open) turned off their lights, as i said. but though they were vacant compared to what they had been when professionally on the alert, they had a curious effect as if they would _burst_ if he couldn't laugh. this may have been produced by the lashes turning up so much. i couldn't make it out at all, anyhow. and the whole _affair_ is past my making out. now, what should _you_ say peter did to quell camera-eyed dick? was it the look, or was it the way he shook hands? for he _was_ quelled. there's no doubt--or very little doubt--about that. he was _friendly_ with peter storm. he and peter and caspian talked together, and it was camera-eyes who went away first. ed was ready to _cry_, i'm sure. i asked jack afterward (of course i breathed not a word to pat), and he said that she and he had guessed nothing of what was going on under the surface of the introduction. they hadn't heard peter's give-away words; and without that clue there was no reason to suspect. i shan't sleep to-night because of that "misunderstood virtue" of mine. in other words, curiosity is gnawing my vitals. your modern pandora, alias molly. xxiii peter storm to james strickland _boston._ dear strickland: caspian has "let loose the dogs of war" on me, or, rather, the first dog is loose. there will no doubt be others yapping on my track. you'll grin when i tell you the first of the breed was your old henchman, camera-eyed dick! hotel halls seem to be fatal to me lately. i shall get jumpy going into one. caspian was lying in wait for me to appear with miss moore and the winstons, we having "lost" the others and gone for a walk. camera-eyes was with him, and i thought it was touch and go for me. however, i turned the tables by doing the camera-eye act myself. also, i gave dick's hand a friendly grip. you remember that he's a mason? going away, he contrived to palm me a card with a scrawled address: a small hotel where he was spending the night. late in the evening i walked round there, taking it for granted that dick would be in, and that he had recognized me with certainty despite the lapse of time. i counted on his not giving me away to his employer, so i didn't hurry to pay my respects. and i hadn't trusted the old chap in vain. he was loyal to caspian, so far as not betraying any instructions he may have had; but he did not mind admitting that he'd come from new york to boston on receipt of a telegram. i felt i owed him the reward of an explanation, so gave a somewhat garbled one, in which dick was intensely interested. he confessed that he was "flabbergasted" at sight of "the gentleman he'd come to be introduced to" (me) and for once was disinclined to believe his eyes. he promised silence, refused a reward, as near the v.c. as i'm able to bestow, and i told him to call on you. you're sure to hear from him soon. this is the second narrow escape i've had within a week. i oughtn't to take these risks till i'm ready to face the consequences, whatever they may be. but i'd do more to be in sight of patricia moore's profile which is about all i see of her in the car these days when (in every sense of the word) i'm obliged to take "a back seat." do, for heaven's sake, finish up your end of the business and give me a free hand, since you yourself say i may in honour take it. i probably should take it even if you said the opposite--that i tell you frankly, as i believe i've told you before. but it's good to have your backing. i've been to plymouth to-day, thanks to a chap i've hired to do my work for me, and have returned to boston, which we shall leave to-morrow for good and all. caspian had an accident just before starting time--had been out in a taxi on a hurried errand to some shop, and the chauffeur, trying to be helpful, banged the door with c.'s finger in it. the finger was in a glove, or the hurt would have been more serious, but even as it was, when he tried to take the wheel of the g.-g. he found the pain unbearable. i was called--like a male cinderella--from the ashes (those of a cigarette) and ordered to drive. in an instant the secretary had become the chauffeur. i can do these fairy godmother trick-acts like lightning; and as miss moore didn't think it necessary to change her seat, i knew that fate was going, anyhow, to give me one good day. i had never been by road from boston to plymouth, and as i'd not expected to drive, i hadn't looked up the route. caspian probably had, but i didn't want help from him, and i determined to die rather than look at a map. you, a harvard man, no doubt know the way well, though a motor car was a rare if not unknown species of animal when you were an undergrad. in the beginning it was easy enough. we simply went out of boston along the road by which we'd come in: past the arnold arboretum of which you harvard fellows are so proud; forest hill, parklike morton street, and across the neponset river, where my dear little seat-mate (who couldn't have guessed how i felt to be by her side again) was enraptured with the view of boston harbour. she was gayer than i had seen her since that moonlight night when i came to myself--too late, as it turned out; yet i don't feel somehow that it's _irrevocably_ too late. i can't! it was good to hear her laugh again. "do look," she said, "at the funny little porches on the funny little houses! they put hammocks on ones that are so narrow people have to fall off the porch when they want to get out! yet see how happy the women look! they must have husbands they love." caspian heard, and leaned forward to suppress her. "patricia, i wouldn't talk so much to the chauffeur if i were you, while he's driving. he doesn't know the way, and he'd better give his attention to the sign-posts." of course i could say nothing. but i reminded myself that snubs generally come home to roost. i hoped he'd "get _his_," as you say, and i hadn't long to wait before poetical justice fell. the man kept up a running fire of information, which he had doubtless culled from a guide-book to impress his fiancée, having no personal interest in history except that it has led up to him. the landscape left him cold; the seas of wild blue chicory and forget-me-not didn't suggest to him the colour of a certain girl's eyes as it did to another chap who had no right to make the comparison. he didn't care for the "golden wedding house," or any of the other pretty old houses so beautifully fitted to the pretty old ladies rocking on their "piazzas" under the shade of giant trees. the facts with which he had primed himself, like pocketsful of dry cracknels, were such as "here" (at east milton) "was built the first railway in the country. it was horse drawn, and over it was carried" (i think he used the word "transported," which proved the guide-book) "stone from the quarries of quincy to construct the bunker hill monument." "here" (at quincy) "in the middle of the city stands the stone temple where are buried the two presidents, john adams and john quincy adams." it was then that the snub flew home, with a strong impetus from the exasperated pat. "i don't want to know about bunker hill monument being built," she turned round to snap. "i want to think it built itself. and i don't want to know where presidents are buried. i only want to know where they had their golden weddings, and where they lived happily. besides, it gives me a crick in my neck to be always listening to some one behind. if i can't talk to mr. stor-r-rm for fear of upsetting him, i won't talk to anybody, please!" there was one in the eye for caspian; and it gave me my opportunity to murmur with mere perfunctory politeness (?) that it didn't "upset" me in the least to talk or be talked to while i "chauffed." after that we did converse a little, about captain john smith and miles standish, without caspian venturing to butt in; but i must say he got revenge through my losing myself in hingham. you remember that wonderful street of lawns and trees with a perfect specimen of an old church? i believe it's the oldest church, still in use, in the united states, but i dared not state this lest c. should seize the chance to snap me up and say i was mistaken. well, anyhow, i shared so recklessly in pat's admiration of the said church and the quaint, pleasant houses with flag-staffs sticking out over their doors, that i fulfilled caspian's prophecy and got lost. the first thing i knew we were bumping over an appalling road, and had to turn back. "i told you so!" i heard c. muttering like distant thunder, and asked him mildly if he preferred to take the wheel; but his finger was even more painful than his temper. i felt his glare like a gimlet in the back; but pat more loudly than needful expressed her delight in seeing hingham a second time. "it is exactly like cranford," she said. "new england seems to be full of cranfords, but hingham is the most cranfordy of all. and i don't believe even the old england cranford could have such elms in such a wonderful street. they are like tall, transparent green wine glasses set for a dinner party of titans." "you get these exaggerated ideas from mrs. winston," came another mutter from behind, but no reply was vouchsafed. speaking of mrs. winston, i'd happened to hear her talking with her husband last night, about the day's run to plymouth, and a word here and there had caught my attention. i remembered that a "sky pilot" named hobart had come from hingham in england, and somehow got the new place named after the old. i remembered, too, a romantic story they spoke of: the hiding of "the nameless nobleman" between the floors of a south hingham house, and his marrying the girl who saved him, molly wilder. (jack winston thinks that all the nicest women since the christian era have been named mary.) i hurried to tell pat about these things, and a few others which i either recalled or made up on the spot. while i talked, in defiance of orders, i somehow contrived to get onto a splendid road to cohasset: woods for miles and miles; and an idea came into my head--which i passed on--that abraham lincoln's ancestors flourished in this region. so, to scituate, though over a wrong road again (pat called it "a dear little wrong road"), to marshfield, where daniel webster died and was laid to rest. on the way we "guessed" that a detestable yellow house we saw, with a well and a bucket, were the house, well and bucket of samuel woodworth himself, the "old oaken bucket" man. caspian was sure it wasn't the house, and this seemed to make the darling pat equally sure it _was_. (don't you think from what i tell you that the signs and omens are good?) i dared to believe that the girl wasn't sorry to have me beside her again. once in a while i threw a glance at her face as we spun over the perfect road through woods which might never have been touched by the hand of man, and there was a rapt look on it, the sweetest look you ever saw--sweeter than you ever saw, because you haven't seen _her_ yet. but you will--you will!--when you've finished your work and i've finished mine. fortunately for me i have a good memory, and luckily i'd kept my ears open while molly and jack winston discussed the route, for i know nothing of this country, which, by the way, i find so beautiful. i reproach myself for thinking too little of my own land, and seeking adventure in others. in duxbury, you know probably, miles standish and john alden both had houses. john's second house is still standing, and pat insisted on stopping to see it; though i take courage from her confession that she likes the bold rough standish best. queer to remember, in a sleepy little place like duxbury, that a man who chose to build there had in his mind memories of fierce, wild fighting against the duke of alva! past a nice-smelling tarry rope factory we sailed into plymouth and joined forces with the other cars. it's a fine entrance into the old pilgrim town, isn't it? bowers of trees, and some of the noblest elms on earth. "how do things go?" molly winston whispered to me, when we had all crowded hungrily into that jolly old-fashioned yellow-painted hotel you're sure to remember, even though you didn't lunch in it with a patricia moore. i knew what she meant, because we three (she, her husband, and i) started out with a secret pact against the firm of caspian and shuster. and it gave me a good warm feeling to be asked the question, because the fair molly hasn't been quite as gracious since i voluntarily fell out of ranks at boston. i hope i shall be able to explain that defection to her some day. meanwhile, i was glad of a sign of trust and friendship, and replied that i had an idea "things" were looking up for us. "the little lady is ready to bite his head off," i added. molly shuddered. "he uses the wrong sort of brilliantine," she mentioned. "but even honey and flowers wouldn't make it a pleasant act." while caspian (i could almost have pitied him) saw a doctor about his damaged digit, the rest of us, even my reluctant employeress, wandered about looking at the ancient landmarks and watermarks we pretended to have come to see. perhaps some of us really had come for the purpose--jack winston, for instance, who's as keen as mustard on linking new world with old world history. but, then, he doesn't have to make excuses to snatch a little of his best girl's society, as i, tom, dick, and harry do. as for moore, it's the opposite. he spends his time making excuses to get away from his fair lady; and most of those excuses are found in the society of another! i could almost pity mrs. shuster, too, she is so ingenuously miserable. but i harden my heart. neither of the pair is worthy of a pang. and few neglected loveresses have senators to fall back upon. (she's done that literally, once or twice, and heavily, because she's a champion stumbler.) none of us feel drawn toward monuments, though we may approve of them on principle, but if ever a monument was called for, at any place in the world, that place is plymouth. all the same, i'm not sure, if i'd had a voice in the matter, that i shouldn't have let the rock, with its date, tell the story in its own simple way without any further emphasis. what with that, and the welcoming beauty of the harbour which no pilgrim with his eyes open could resist, and the museum, and the ancient houses, i think plymouth could have held her own. somehow or other that witch of a molly winston contrived to gather the clan together round her and jack, and give me a chance to play guide to pat. to be sure, mrs. shuster, loyal to her absent partner, tried to form a hollow square around us. but she couldn't spare more than half an eye from larry; and half one of mrs. shuster's eyes isn't dangerous. there are quite a lot of things to be "done" in plymouth, you know, and if they are being done in couples or trios you can always go and gaze at the old common house while the others are revering forefathers' rock. you can bow and smile as you meet them hurrying to the museum, and search industriously for the town brook which decided the pilgrims to settle at plymouth. you can make your companion look up into your eyes by telling her what you know or pretend to know about priscilla, and pretend that the puritan maid gathered cowslips for her cowslip wine on the shores of the said "very sweet brook." this, and more chat of the same order, will suffice to hold the dear one's attention until you are pretty sure that if you say, "shall we walk along to pilgrim hall and see the relics?" you and she will be astonished to meet the rest of the party just coming away. apropos of pilgrim hall, my only failure was there. we did meet the party issuing from the doric doorway. i'd managed that all right, but mrs. shuster turned on the threshold, kindly volunteering to remain and point out objects best worth seeing. i wished her in halifax, or almost any other place which could be catalogued under the same letter, but short of telling her to go there, i saw no escape. whether it was an infliction for pat or not, i couldn't be sure. i never knew much or wanted to know much, until just lately, about the workings of girls' minds. but i will tell you what she did: she said, "oh, that is so good of you, mrs. shuster! _do_ come with us. it's nice to have some one really interested to go about with. now larry, much as i love him, is a worry in a place like this. he and idonia will just go comfortably back to the hotel and have tea in some nice nook and wait for you, so we shall know where to find them much better than if they loved sight-seeing as the others do!" there are lilies and lilies. this lily of ours looked suddenly like a tiger lily, rather a faded one, badly in need of water, as pat took hold of her arm and affectionately pulled her into the marble vestibule. she did not break away with a roar and a bound, as i half expected her to do, but meekly let the cruel child lead her on. i knew then, however, that it was a question only of moments. you've seen a cat, caught up against its will into a lap, feign contentment, while with muscles braced it waits its opportunity to take the lap unawares and spring. that is about what happened with mrs. shuster. she pointed us out a painting of the "mayflower on her first morning at sea," all _couleur de rose_; she indicated the chairs of elder brewster and governor carroll which were wobbling about on the _mayflower_ that very morning no doubt; and having brought us to a stand before the damascus blade of miles standish, she considered her duty done. "i'm tireder than i thought i was," she said. "i believe i shall have to go back to the hotel myself, and rest a bit before we start for boston. i wouldn't stay long here if i were you. if mr. storm buys a guide-book at the hotel, or some postcards, you'll have pictures of everything without standing on your feet." pat replied meekly that she would return to the hotel the minute she felt tired, but did want to see john adams' bible and a few things like that. mrs. shuster mustn't at all mind leaving her. mrs. shuster did mind, but she went nevertheless. i longed to catch pat's eye, and smile; but she didn't appear to have a smile in her. such innocent gravity you never saw, and when mrs. s. had left us, the girl made no reference to the episode. i did buy some picture postcards, but not until we'd seen everything they represented. i bought also, at the same shop, a pretty little box containing three green candles made of bayberry wax. both cards and candles i offered to miss moore, and she accepted them, sniffing with childlike ecstasy at the candles, which are supposed to give forth, in burning, the perfume which the bayberries pour out in the heat of the sun. afterward i was told by molly winston the sentimental superstition about bayberry candles. i wonder if miss moore knew it, and if she thought i knew. i haven't, as you see, given up hope that the forced association of this motor trip may make the child realize how impossible for her would be a permanent association with that worm c. if she breaks her engagement before anything happens, so much the better; but the thing, in one form or other, will now have to happen, of course. a letter from you could reach me at bretton woods, and i should be glad to hear there just when you think affairs might be settled. i'm hideously impatient, but i'm not unhappy. yours as ever, and a little more, p. s. we came back from plymouth to-night, along the short road, caspian patched up but sulky as an owl. luckily i didn't lose the way once. xxiv edward caspian to richard moyle, known professionally as "camera-eyed dick" _portsmouth, new hampshire._ dear mr. moyle: the more i think of it, the more i feel that you are keeping back something from me. you say that the face of this man storm "recalls nothing and nobody" to you. i must accept your word. yet i got the impression that at least he reminded you of some one. i was watching your face at the moment you met. since you left me, refusing to interest yourself further in the affair, i have thought of it unceasingly. a sudden and extremely interesting idea has come into my head. i cannot afford to waste it, though without the aid of a competent detective like yourself i may not be able to put it to good use. if you will not change your mind and take up the matter again on new lines, i shall be glad if you can send me a smart man from your agency, a person in whose discretion as well as intelligence you have implicit confidence. kindly wire me to the post-office, ogunquit, me. yours truly, e. caspian. (telegram from richard moyle to edward caspian, post-office, ogunquit, maine): _sorry have no one can recommend for job mentioned. nothing in it. advise you leave it alone._ (richard moyle to peter storm, ogunquit, maine. try all hotels): _excuse liberty, but look out for e. c. may make you trouble._ (peter storm to richard moyle, at new york): _many thanks. am looking out._ _p. s._ xxv molly winston to mercédes lane _wenham._ mercédes dear: my first thought as i waked yesterday morning was aunt mary. i thought of her in my bath--a cold porcelain bath, rapidly filling up with hot water, and giving me rather the feeling of eating an ice with hot chocolate sauce. i thought of aunt m. with breakfast and choked her down with my coffee. when we had left our happy home--the boston hotel--the "chug chug" of our motor sang the song which the west point cadets have made up for "church call." _"you've got to go, whether you want to or not! you've got to go, so you'd better turn out! oh, h--ades!"_ but after a while the road was so pretty that i succeeded in forgetting her now and then, as you might forget you were on the way to the dentist's when you passed splendid jewellery and hat shops. we were also on the way to marblehead and salem; aunt mary wasn't till afterward. marblehead, with all its romance of ancient days, is only about sixteen miles from boston as the automobile flies, but you pass a good many sweet things first. we went through somerville, got lost there, and were guided in every direction but the right one by a plague of boys not much bigger than the "dimes" they didn't earn. jack simply won't look at maps when in the car, or inquire; expects to find his way by instinct, and somehow generally _does_. (are _all_ men like that?) crossed the mystic river, and got on to the velvet surface of the revere beach parkway. but chelsea came before the beach: charming old chelsea, which probably, in its heart, thinks boston its suburb, and prides itself on almost a century and a half of aristocratic peace since the old fighting days when israel putnam won his commission as major-general there. there couldn't be a greater contrast than between chelsea and revere beach. it's a good thing that miles of parklike road--fought over once by independents and british--lie between, or they could never stand each other, those two! jack and i ought to have come to revere beach when we were little boy and girl, for, oh, the joy of it for children! what price the dragon gorge, the mountain railway more like the alps than the alps are like themselves, the theatres, the shops of every kind, the cottages which are nests for birds rather than commonplace, human habitations? opposite, nahant sat looking delightful and alluring, but we went on to lynn--lynn, unattractive at first, and pretty when we got better acquainted, like some of the nicest women i know. it's a great place now for shoes, and was once a great place for pilgrims. what a pity the former are too late for the latter! the pilgrims must have needed the shoes badly. they could have walked along the old pilgrim road to swampscott if their feet were equal to it. and perhaps they forgot their feet, as i forgot aunt mary, for it is--and must then have been--a lovely road. hawthorne used to walk to swampscott, too, as well as to marblehead, but he came the other way, from salem. do you remember swampscott was where he found pink and white susan, who gave him the sugar heart? that was pink, too, with a touch of white perhaps. she sounds so delightful as the "mermaid!" i'm glad hawthorne kept the heart for years, and then instead of throwing it away ate it--gave it honourable burial, so to speak--which shows that you _can_ have your heart and eat it, too! (i must, by the by, make a parable of this for pat, who is eating hers, though she certainly has _not_ got it. she has given it to some one else, though i fancy she _thinks_ she has merely mislaid it.) in apropos of hearts, they make dories in swampscott; and it's _not_ swampy one bit! of course i quoted whittier's "skipper ireson's ride" to jack, coming toward marblehead. it was "up to me" to show my british husband that i, too, had learned things at people's knees. _"old flood ireson for his hard heart, tarred and feathered, and carried in a cart by the women of marblehead."_ i wasn't certain i got it just right, but did my best to put a confident ring into my voice, which is half the battle when you're not sure of yourself. what a blow, therefore, to be told that in truth and in deed the women of marblehead had nothing to do with the job! jack says the _men_ did it. and worse still, captain ireson was supposed to have been a victim rather than a villain, because his sailors mutinied and refused to let him go to the rescue of the sinking ship. i hate having my childish beliefs disturbed! it tears me all up by the roots, and gives me a pain in my spirit's toes. but never mind, there's plenty more romance, which no one can take away from new england, though the very man who wrote about ireson complained that it had gone: _"gone like the indian wizard's yell and fire dance round the magic rock. forgotten like the druid's spell at moonrise by his holy oak."_ no, no, whittier, surely you wouldn't say so now if you could see steamboats and trains pouring forth multitudes, and thousands and tens of thousands of motor cars stuffed full of people from all over the world drawn to new england because of its never, never lost halo of romance! did i tell you just now that we were coming toward marblehead? well, one can do that, and not get to marblehead. you can keep on seeing marblehead and expecting to arrive, while in reality you are going all around "robin hood's barn." by the way, i never saw a barn exciting enough to belong to robin hood till i came with jack on this tour through new england. here, barns are as grand as churches, and very much like them, steeples and all. a lot of things happened to us on the way to will o' the wisp marblehead--_old_ marblehead, i mean, for _new_ marblehead is just a very gay and jolly summer resort, such as i fancy little susan would, in her pink sugar heart, have loved. we kept on seeing the old town to our left, across a harbour as full of white yachts and sailboats as a new england pond is of water lilies. jack was loving everything, and utterly oblivious that beyond salem lay aunt mary-ville. his face was perfectly ecstatic as we crossed a river--whittier's beloved merrimac--on an ancient covered wooden bridge. he said the sound of the tires on the slightly loose boards was better music than the followers of richard strauss could make from the "noises of life." i do love those covered bridges, don't you? they're so richly brown, some of them, that while one slowly travels along under the roof, it's like looking at the sun through a piece of cider-brown glass. or if they're not brown, they're a soft, velvet gray--gray as shadows at full moon, gray as the light in dreams. i hardly know how, eventually, we did get into old marblehead, for jack and i were both so infatuated with the way we lost sight now and then of the goal. imagine a road lined on either side with apple trees. if you haven't seen these, you have never seen such orchards in your life, my mercédes! if there was anything as good in eden, no wonder eve ate that apple. i shouldn't wonder if she fixed her eye on it when it was still a bud. and then, behind the orchards, there were hills, playgrounds for baby cedars. everything contrived to look at least two hundred years old (except the blossoms and the motor cars), and even the pigeons had such an air of colonial serenity that they simply refused to stir for a new-fangled thing like an automobile. they sat still, pretending not to see us, and never changed their expressions! at last we did get into old marblehead, and i'm so happy to tell you it was exactly like finding our way round the corner in a picture. you know that thrilling corner in pictures, leading somewhere you are dying to see and never can? well, now i have seen it. it's marblehead. round the corner of the front of the picture where the new, smart things are, we cleverly slipped in. and there was the background running up the canvas, all over funny labyrinths of streets generally leading nowhere, or, if anywhere, back to the same garden we'd just passed, a darling garden boiling over with grass pinks, cabbage roses, sweet williams, and bleeding hearts. each house was just a little quainter than the other, and jack and i thought we were going to like marblehead better than any that ever lived, until--we came to salem, after manchester and magnolia. then--we weren't precisely being _untrue_ to marblehead. no, never that! _but_ salem--perhaps it's fair after all to keep a larger place in memory-land for the witch city. it would have been almost a _world_ tragedy if, when the great fire swept over the town, it hadn't stopped short of the old part, which is american history incarnate. that "old part" consists of "old, older, oldest." the oldest houses of all, built about 1635, are very, very simple, as if the puritans had prayed over them to be delivered from temptation and craving for beauty. then, next are the ones not quite so old, when people began to be rich and see that beauty wasn't after all the unpardonable sin. these houses of the eighteenth century look as if architects might have been commissioned to come from the old world to build them, bringing traditions of gracious decoration for outside and in. next, there are the far grander and more stately mansions which grew up after the revolution, when the good folk of new england knew that their land and their fortunes would be theirs forever, undisputed. salem had grown into an important place then. merchants and shipowners had plenty of money to spend. they spent it well, too, for they made their dwellings very beautiful, so beautiful that the witch hunters and quaker persecutors of the past would have been shocked to the bottom of those hollow places they called their hearts. what a good thing it is that there wasn't much brick to be had when the first old colonial houses were a-building! to be sure, some of the very best in salem and boston and other towns are of brick; but brick had to come in ships from old england, so only those persons with the most money and possibly the most cultivated taste could use it. consequently the characteristic houses of new england and its borders--the white and yellow houses we _think_ of when we say "new england"--were made of wood; and they are unique in the world. they say that the oldest buildings of salem--the gothic, steep-roofed ones--were meant as copies of gabled cottages on the old home side of the water. but if they were, they were as far off the originals as a child's drawing on a slate is far from a steel engraving; and jack and i are glad, because these dear things are so ingenuously and deliciously american that they could exist nowhere except on this side. i was only too glad to stay in salem as long as possible, because it put off aunt mary and wenham, where jack and i had promised to stay all night, letting the others go on to wait for us at newburyport. jack had a map (he doesn't mind having maps of towns, or looking at road maps when _in_ towns), and we took a regular hawthorne itinerary. we began at the house in union street where he was born--a rather pathetic, forlorn house, like the birthplaces of most geniuses; then the next, where the family lived till they moved to raymond, in sight of the white mountains; and so on, following to the custom-house where the bored genius weighed and gauged, and not missing a single landmark. all are picturesque to the imagination, but the landmark most picturesque to the eye is of course "the house of seven gables," and that, some of those dreadful people who dispute everything nice say, isn't what it pretends to be. as if such an adorable and perfectly sincere and high-souled looking house would pretend anything! should i hear such heresy uttered i would stop my ears, but coming on it in print was simple, because all i had to do was to snap the book shut with a bang. it is the dearest, kindest little gray house, which all new houses, no matter how big and distinguished, would be proud to have for their grandmother! hawthorne's cousin, miss ingersoll, whom he called the "duchess," lived in the old turner street house, and it _had_ had seven gables before his day. it's perfectly legitimate to put them back, and even a _duty_, which has been exquisitely carried out. i should like to kiss the hand of the lady who honoured hawthorne's beautiful memory by making the house as dear as that memory itself. i suppose it was she who had the brilliant idea of using for a front door an old nailed oak one found in the attic (there must be a lovely attic!), putting the quaint oven of ancient times into the kitchen, and retrieving from oblivion the "duchess's" toasting fork with which she used to make toast for hawthorne. there's a creepy story about the way he thought of the murder, from seeing, through a tiny window of greenish glass, a cousin of his fast asleep and looking as if dead. but there's a story just as fascinating about every house in salem, connected with hawthorne. romantic and interesting things followed him about in his life, like tame dogs, though he didn't always realize at the moment that they were romantic or interesting. sometimes he thought only that they were tame. all over the place you feel the thrill of witches and the torturing of quakers. that's partly thanks to longfellow, and whittier, of course, but mostly from the _influence_ which such tremendous happenings leave, i think. it's as if some picture of the past were in the atmosphere, and now and then, out of a corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse, as you do of the "ghost" of a rainbow when the rainbow seems to have gone. the "witch house," where judge corwin lived at the time of the persecution, is almost hidden away now, as if it were trying to escape from something, and at last brought to bay like a very small, fierce animal. even now i can hardly bear to think of those days, and all those poor people suffering through a few naughty, hysterical children. i'm sure the indian woman tituba could haunt me in salem even if i lived in a perfectly new, perfectly good modern hotel! i should have tried the experiment, i think, if it hadn't been for aunt mary being so nearby, at wenham. well, quite late in the afternoon (i forgot to tell you we lunched, but you may take that for granted, with so many men in the party) we said good-bye to salem. we said other things, too, all in praise of it; and jack felt particularly reverential because salem sent the first ships from america to indian and russian ports. wasn't it sporting when you think of what ships were then? but these seafaring men of the new england coast were like the men of devon, the "bravest of the brave." aunt mary had plumped heavily down on my heart again, before we got to beverly, and this time i couldn't put her out of my mind though the grandeur of the north coast was in my eyes. oliver wendell holmes lived in beverly and loved it, but then he had no aunt mary in the neighbourhood. did you ever read what thackeray said about wenham lake ice? it seems every london house of any pretension had it on its dinner table, but i don't think it travels so far in these days of artificial ice. the lake's still there, anyhow, in a hollow to the left of the road as you go, gleaming blue and mysterious as watching eyes between the dark trunks of a pine forest. then, after that lake, there was no more excuse for lingering, unless at the monument. we came into wenham. jack was trying to look brave. "in a few minutes now," said he, with galvanized cheerfulness, "we shall be having tea with your aunt mary." at that instant (we had purposely dropped back to bring up the rear of the procession after salem, letting even the lumbering hippopotamus bumble on ahead) we beheld all our family of cars drawn up under some skyscraping elms, in front of the most delectable tea-house you ever met in your life. the hippo was in front of a very fine old white church, with "i am one of the pillars of new england" written in every line of it; but it was certainly the tea-house which had arrested its career. [illustration: map]* there was a large green and white striped umbrella or two protecting some little tables, and grouped round those little tables were our friends. "i'm _hanged_ if we'll be having tea with my aunt mary!" said i, with that firm-jawed look jack has got to know and fear as characteristic of the american wife at bay. so we had tea there, under elms so generously deep and thick that large populations of robins live in them without ever having seen each other's faces. they were, to the tree world, what blenheim is in castle world. people can come and live there for years, they say, without the duke ever knowing they've arrived. well, so could whole families of birds live in these elms without the leading robin hearing an alien chirp. we drowned our sorrows in tea and cream, and buried our sinister premonitions in scones. also cakes. a wonderful woman had made them--a lady-woman. she will be the heroine of my great american novel, if i ever write one. i hope to goodness she won't be gone from wenham before it's finished and i can send her a presentation copy! everything was green and white in the tea-house, except the dear little things to be sold there: weather-cocks, and door-stops, and old china. we bought specimens of these as sops to cerberus--i mean, as presents for aunt mary--and when there was no longer a pretext for lingering we crept reluctantly away with the spoils. it was absolutely _no_ comfort to me, as we crawled through the pretty square, and approached "miss keddison's mansion" (only too easy to find) that wenham would be a lovely place to spend not only one but many nights in. there, on a colonial porch, behind colonial pillars, in a colonial rocking-chair, sat aunt mary on the watch. _she_ looked not only colonial but doric! we had got ahead of the others by this time, and my aunt, rising from her chair, with a gesture stopped the whole procession. i don't know whether she meant to do this or not, but no one would have dared pass, any more than if she had been a railway barrier with "stop! look! listen!" painted on her high white forehead. we slowed down: the grayles-grice, the wilmot, the hippo, and our hiawatha, as we have lately named our car. aunt mary descended the steps and came to the gate. jack jumped out, forgetting he was lame, and nearly fell. i screamed. every one scrambled or leaped or slid to the rescue; and that was the way in which providence arranged for peter storm and pat moore and larry, to say nothing of those who mattered less, to become aunt mary's guests. providence is not too important a word, as you will see when i tell you as much as i'm allowed to tell, about--what came of the visit. aunt mary has many virtues. they stick out all over her like pins, but there are some which aren't uncomfortably sharp. her hospitality, for instance. this house of hers at wenham isn't one of the prettiest in the place, but it is white and dignified, and the over-arching trees give it charm. aunt mary is proud of it, and i think she was really pleased to welcome the crowd. besides, when she was in new york on business, cutting coupons or something, jack and i talked to her about larry and pat. she was very interested, and said she had been taken to kidd's pines to a garden party, some fifteen years ago, by cousin john randolph payton, who left me awepesha, you know. she thought that she still had some snapshots of the garden which she had taken herself that afternoon. in those days, it seemed, she had threatened to develop a craze for photography, but had found that it "interfered too seriously with her more intellectual pursuits." however, she used to paste her trophies in scrapbooks, and she said that when she got home from new york she would look up the volume of that date. it ought to be in the attic, though she had not seen it for a number of years. jack and i thought she would forget about this, and we had indeed forgotten it ourselves when we arrived at wenham. aunt mary, however, had not. she greeted larry warmly (for her) and assured him that, if her niece had kept her informed of the route, she would have written or telegraphed asking the whole party to tea. not knowing our whereabouts, she could not do this, but was delighted to find the cars stopping at her door, and hoped that their occupants would all take tea with her. every one was simply stuffed with scones and chocolate cake, but such was the look in aunt mary's eye that none dared confess the tea-house debauch. her invitation was accepted, and, eighteen strong, we filed into her parlour. luckily it's as big as a good-sized country schoolroom, and there's a mid-victorian "suite" consisting of two sofas, a settee, a couple of easy chairs and eight uneasy ones. aunt mary is of those worthy women who upholster themselves and dress their furniture, so everything in her home is rather fussy, lots of antimacassars and tidies and scarfs and that sort of thing. besides, she thinks flowers are for gardens, not for houses, with the exception of some wax ones made by herself when a girl and preserved under glass. still, there's such a pet of an old chinese wall paper, and everything is so exquisitely neat that the effect isn't so bad as you might suppose. aunt mary has a _flair_ for liking the wrong people, and wronging the right ones, so of course she took quite a fancy to ed caspian, and was somewhat stiff with peter, whom mrs. shuster introduced as "my secretary, mr. storm." however, she was as nice as she could be to larry, and asked if i had mentioned her visit to kidd's pines. when she heard that i had not, she was surprised and grieved at my carelessness. "my niece was always inclined to be forgetful," said she. "i can't think where she inherited it from. the first thing i did on my return from new york was to look in the attic for my old photograph scrapbooks. i have a place for everything, and everything in its place, in this house; but i travel a great deal, and occasionally my servants, with the best intentions, upset my arrangements. i found several of the little volumes exactly where i expected to lay my hand on them, but i am very sorry to say the one i wanted was missing. if i had been sure that i should have the pleasure of seeing you and your daughter, mr moore, i would have looked even more thoroughly, for i'm _sure_ the photographs exist. it was fifteen years ago this summer that i attended the garden party at kidd's pines, with my cousin, mr. payton. i met you and mrs. moore for a moment, i remember quite well. you both looked almost too young to be married, i thought, but your little girl was about four years old. she was not at the party officially" (aunt mary smiled at her own coy wit), "but i met her with a boy much older, who was playing with her. i took a snapshot of them both together, standing by a swing which was in a retired part of the grounds." by this time larry was bored to extinction, but still charming, as he always is with women, young or old, pretty or plain. he pretended so pleasantly to be disappointed at the loss of the book (he loathes looking at photographs) that aunt mary was fired to a renewed effort. "why, now i come to think of it," said she, "there's another place in the attic where the book quite well might be. if you will excuse me, i'll go up and try to find it." larry hastened to protest that he wouldn't trouble her for the world, but aunt mary was firm in her desire to please, though sorry to desert her guests. as the argument went on, peter storm abruptly got up and handed me a plate of cake. "heavens, no more!" i murmured in an anguished whisper. "i feel as if i should never be able to look cake in the face again." "don't then, but look me in the face," he mumbled. i did so, surprised. "please ask to go and search for that book, and take me with you," i saw, rather than heard, the words formed by his lips. mine not to question why! mine but to do or die! instantly i offered, in a honeyed tone, to save aunt mary for her guests, by myself searching the attic. (dear dad and i stayed with her over one melancholy christmas when i was a kid. we arrived by train, of course, and saw nothing of the country. as for wenham itself, it was feet deep in snow, so i saw nothing of that either, but i did see the attic. it was my refuge and my joy. i worship garrets.) of this episode i reminded my aunt, and assured her that, though my last visit had been so long ago, i remembered the topography of the attic. if she would tell me the place to look, i would guarantee to find the volume if it existed. aunt mary proceeded at once to mention the date of that christmas visit, and my age at the time, so now everybody who can be bothered reckoning up knows just how long i have been twenty-six. having made this revelation to those whom it concerned and did not concern, she decided to accept my offer. i jumped up to go, and at the door, as if on a sudden thought, exclaimed, "oh, mr. storm, do come along and protect me from garret ghosts." he came, and we talked of indifferent things on the way up: of the house, and the steepness of the attic stairs. at the top of the steps, however, he changed his tone. aunt mary had mentioned a certain oak secretary-bookcase with glass doors, standing close to the head of the stairs, and as i steered for it, along a narrow lane between ancient trunks and packing cases, peter said: "mrs. winston, i've made up my mind to tell you something, and this is a good place to do it. when i've told you, you'll understand why i didn't want miss keddison to find that book of photographs, and why i don't even want it to exist in this house." then he went on, and told me the most extraordinary and astonishing story. i'd give anything to pass it on to you; and having got _so_ far, you'll curse me for not going farther! but i had to promise i wouldn't write or breathe the secret to any one except jack. so, alas, you must wait till the embargo is taken off. peter wouldn't let me look for the little red volume described by aunt mary, because i was to say to her that i couldn't find it. he it was who opened the drawer of the secretary where she had thought the book might be, and i heard a rustling of papers for a minute or two. then the drawer was shut. i asked no questions, but when we went down to report the failure of my quest i _fancied_ that the left side of peter's chest was slightly--very slightly--more prominent than the right, as if he had something thicker than a handkerchief in his breast pocket. i am writing this in my bedroom, by lamplight (no gas, no electricity for aunt mary), and instead of hating our visit and nearly perishing, as we expected to do, jack and i are enchanted that we came. it evidently _was_ to be, as servants say when they break one of your best cups. now we may be able to help (?) along. much love. yours, molly of the guilty secret. xxvi molly winston to mercédes lane _bretton woods._ dearest girl: i am positively afraid to write you, lest you and monty think me a _beast_ for harrowing up your feelings about peter storm and the book of photographs, and aunt mary's garret, the way i did, and then letting you down with a dull thud. jack says it was cruelty to animals (he doesn't state what kind) to have told you anything, as i couldn't tell you all. but i just got going, and couldn't bear to stop till i had to! we've travelled such a long way now, since wenham, that i can't describe all the places to you as i generally do in my letters, and, besides, it might make you even more cross with me than you are already, to read on and on, hoping for some startling development about the stormy petrel, and find nothing but scenery. however, i've kept a diary to enclose in this, which you can read or not, as you like. if you do, you won't be buoyed up with false expectations. about peter: as the war correspondents say, "we may look for great events in the course of the next few weeks." about pat: she is still engaged to ed caspian, but i am looking for great events in that direction also. the only trouble is, one can't tell with her which way the wind will blow. if caspian gets into deep water, she may feel--oh, well, we must pray that things will shape themselves just right all round. [illustration: york a bit of the rock-bound maine coast] about larry: i don't think i'd much care if it weren't for pat. for a perfectly fascinating human creature he is the most selfish pig i ever met, and for a selfish pig he is the most charming being! he has certainly tried lily's patience to the breaking point, but it hasn't broken, and seems warranted not to break. sometimes i've thought that he wanted to force the woman to throw him over, then i've changed my mind and decided that he doesn't flirt for a motive. he simply can't _help_ it. and if the fleshpots of egypt can only be his, mixed with a diet of orange blossoms, i verily believe he'll take them together. ever your affectionate and apologetic, molly of the guilty secret. molly's diary for mercédes _from wenham to bretton woods_ jack said at ipswich that one ought to have a guide-catcher on one's automobile, like a cowcatcher on an engine. the air was dark with would-be guides, though it's a beautiful town to get lost in. we came to it from wenham (where i ought to have mentioned the polo, _jack_ wouldn't have forgotten) along a dream of a road lined with lovely white birches and lovely white houses. the houses keep on being lovely at ipswich, and the wonderful elms are many-branched, like immense jewish candlesticks of green-gold. you would never think the devil would come to such a place! but it seems he did. there was a church he had heard of where the folk were particularly religious, and he wanted to have a look. one was enough, however. he jumped right over the church to avoid it and get back home as quickly as he could, and to this day you can see his footprint on a black rock in the park. that's one story. another is that instead of going home, he bounded to rowley, where there is another charming church, looking the very haunt of peace, good will to men. i can quite believe that even the devil might come a long way to gaze at some of these old new england churches. you can't think what a feeling of pure delight they give to the mind, in spite of, or because of, their simplicity. the green banks where they are built might be vast altars with elms for the altar candlesticks, and the smooth sward for the altar cloth. the devil may have heard all this, and wanted to see for himself if it were true. i don't know how he escaped from rowley, as he left no footprint, though the easiest way would have been along the good bay road! maybe he had a secret passage down under the sea, which isn't very far off. spinning on between meadows, you can see it away to the right, misty blue as the wild forget-me-nots which mingle with a thousand other wild flowers. newburyport is like a perfume bottle for its sweetness, or, rather, two perfume bottles: one filled with salt fragrance from the sea, the other with the scent of apple blossoms from countless orchards. that sounds as if it were only a small village, but it isn't: it's a town, and one of the most historic. almost everything exciting that can happen in new england has happened at newburyport--from earthquakes which uprooted corn and set all the bells to ringing, to visits of the french aristocracy, dashing exploits of privateers, the entertaining of general washington, and the quickest proposal of marriage on record. almost the nicest thing about newburyport, however, and one of the nicest things i ever heard, is the story of timothy dexter, who grew very rich, nominated himself for the peerage, and assumed the title of "lord." he was considered a half-witted sort of fellow, who inherited a little money and didn't know what business to engage in. "charter a ship," said a practical joker whom he consulted. "buy a cargo of warming-pans and send them to cuba." timothy dexter did as he was told; but fortune is always supposed to favour simpletons, you know! it happened in cuba that there were not nearly enough buckets to bail up the syrup from the vats in the sugar-cane mills, and those at hand were too small. dexter's warming-pans were just the thing! the whole cargo was bought up, fetching huge prices, and "lord" timothy's fortune was made. after that he bought himself a big house and planted his garden full of dreadful wooden statues, the worst of all representing himself. we lost our fine roads as we left massachusetts for new hampshire, but the country was beautiful: stone-wall country again, with straight, dark pines; and the road grew better as we neared the dear old sea-going town of portsmouth, full of beautiful and romantic houses. in one of the best of them governor wentworth invited his friends to a party and flabbergasted them all by turning the "party" into a wedding. he married his housemaid--but she was a beauty! but of all the pleasant things of portsmouth the thomas bailey aldrich house is the best. this lovely old house is kept exactly as he left it. his spirit seems to pervade the place as a fragrance lingers after the flowers have gone. you may call portsmouth "strawberry bank" if you like. and once, at the mouth of great bay, there was a terrible bar of rocks beautifully named "pull-and-be-damned-point." people used to love saying it when they felt cross, for even the ministers couldn't scold them for mentioning it; but an interfering government took it away for the prosaic motive of making a fine harbour. across the piscataqua river we were plumped into maine, at kittery, where there's a big navy yard now, and where once they made splendid ships. by a road that ran through woods and past ideal, storybook farmhouses we came to york, where captain john smith came by sea. there we had to stop and look at "ye olde gaol," because it's the very oldest building of the american commonwealth. the prisoners used to be "sold" for several years, to work out their punishment, just as if they were regular slaves; and now in the gaol they have all sorts of relics of past, queer customs. there's a fort still standing, too, with an overhanging upper story to shoot indians from, like the houses i wrote you about when we first came into new england. there was a frightful massacre of the settlers once upon a time, and a frightful revenge. also there was a witch, who lies buried under a great stone, so huge that she can't possibly squeeze through at night to ride on her deserted broomstick. there are legends, too, and the nicest we heard was the ghost-tale of pirate trickey, who was hanged on the seashore. that atonement wasn't enough for his crimes, though! he still haunts the beach, ever binding sand with a rope, and groaning above the sound of the waves as the sand slips away. and i mustn't forget "handkerchief moody," who gave hawthorne his idea for the "minister's black veil"; but he was real and neither ghost nor legend. there's a modern york, too, and so much of it that you might almost miss the old if you didn't know. lots of interesting people have stayed there: mr. howells, and mark twain, and your beloved thomas nelson page among the rest, but beyond their zone is the zone of the tiny toy cottages, the crowded boarding-houses, the snub-nosed lord motor cars rolling along the beach close to the rolling waves, and beginning to sink in the sand if they stop. beyond again, woods which might be primeval, broken with farms as hidden away in their midst as those of the early settlers; here and there a pile of fragrant cut timber; now and then a few hayricks, in fields surrounded by vast tracts of pineland. jack and i began to think we were on the most beautiful road yet. we lunched at ogonquit, beloved of artists, and then fell so in love with it ourselves that we stayed all the rest of the day and all night, too. it's a fishing village, but you don't stop in the village. you stop under the wing of a large gray, mother-bird-looking hotel close to the shore, and away from everything else. on one side there is a cove with shiny brown rocks so thinly trimmed with grass that they look like a suit of giant armour showing through a ragged green cloak. on the other side is sea, blue by day as if it flowed over bluebell fields--strangely blue as it sweeps up to embrace the rose and golden sands, the apricot pink sands. toward evening these sands were covered with gulls, lying thick as white petals shaken down from invisible orchards. and the mourning cry of the sea-birds was as constant and never ending as the sea-murmur. we forgot we heard it! but suddenly, as night fell, we remembered, because the crying ceased as if it obeyed a signal for silence. no sooner had it stopped than the moon blossomed out from the sea-mist like a huge rose unfolding behind a scarf of blue gauze. we _were_ glad we had stayed! next morning we atoned for lost time by getting up early and starting on again: a pretty road through the village of wells, with the sea in the distance. all the farmhouses seemed to take summer boarders or give meals, and sell vegetables or something. they showed nice enticing samples at their gates: strawberries, green peas, honeycomb, or gilded eggs. it did look so idyllic! we couldn't mistake kennebunk when we came to it, because it advertises itself on a sign-post: "this is kennebunk, the town you read about." i _hadn't_ read about it, but i felt i ought, for if ever there was a typical new england town, kennebunk is _it_! we slipped in along a grass-grown, shady way, with old houses looking at us virtuously with sparkling eyes, as virtuously as if they hadn't been built with good gold paid for rum. i think that was what the ships used to bring back from their long voyages; but maybe the most virtuous-looking houses were built with molasses. the ships brought that, too. there are two rivers--the monsam (at the monsam house lafayette stayed) and the kennebunk, and there's a roaring mill, but greatest of all attractions at kennebunk is that of going on to kennebunkport. mrs. deland has a house there, and booth tarkington, too, and it's a dear delightful place, with arbourlike streets running inland, and deep lawns with elms shaped like big shower bouquets for brides. it wasn't long after kennebunkport that we beheld for the first time sawmills, and logs that had come down from the white mountains. that was a thrill! for we were on our way to the white mountains. we saw no sign of them yet, but there was no cause for impatience. the landscape was as lovely as if planned by the master of all landscape gardeners. there were quaint features, too, as well as beautiful ones: everywhere funny little tin boxes standing up on sticks by the roadside, labelled "u.s. mail," with no guardians but squirrels and birds, and apparently no one to read or send letters. biddeford was attractive, and so was portland, but portland was the means of delaying our car. jack would go wandering to the eastern side of the nice city, to find a monument he had read about, overlooking casco bay. underneath are buried, in one grave, the commanders of the _enterprise_ and the _boxer_, british and american ships. the american won, but both commanders were killed, and the britisher had been so brave that they thought their own captain would like to lie by his side. it wasn't a grand monument to see, but i love the idea. and another thing i love about portland is the thought that longfellow was born there in sight of the ocean. by and by, a good long time after we had got out of portland by forest avenue, our road began to run uphill. in a park leading to raymond, where hawthorne "savagized" as a boy, our hearts beat at sight of a sign saying "white mts." just that! abrupt but alluring. white birches were like rays of moonlight striping the dark woods, and there was the incense smell of balsam firs. we sniffed the perfume joyously and reminded each other--jack and i--that maine is america's scotland: like scotland for beauty of lake and forest and mountain; like scotland, too, "hard for the poor, and a playground for the rich." along a rough but never bad country road we flashed past lake after lake--sebago the biggest--and ahead of us loomed far-off blue heights like huge incoming waves sweeping toward an unseen shore. no longer did we need a sign-post to point us to the mountains; but there were some things by the way that surprised us. suddenly we found ourselves coming on the "bay of naples," a big sapphire sheet of water ringed in with some perfectly private little green mountains of its own. it was as if we had dreamed it, when we plunged into forests again, deep, mysterious forests of hemlock. cowbells tinkled faintly, as in switzerland, though we saw no cows, and there was no other sound save the sealike murmur of the trees--that sound which is the voice of silence. lakes and ponds lay at the feet of dark slopes, as if women in black had dropped their mirrors and forgotten to pick them up. [illustration: "the air is spiced with the fragrance of balsam fir ... on the way to crawford notch"] we were back in new hampshire again for the night, for we stopped in north conway, at a hotel in a great garden. if it had liked, it could have called the whole valley its garden, for it is a vast flowery lawn with mountains for a wall. such a strange wall, with a high-up stone shelf on which you might think the brave pequawket indians had left the images of their gods, beyond the reach of white men. they had a fine village of wigwams where our hotel stands now, facing the mountains it's named for, and the trees and the saco river haven't forgotten their old masters' songs of war and of hunting. [illustration: map]* this part of the world must be the intimate, hidden home of balsam firs. the air is spiced with their fragrance, and not only the gay little shops at north conway, but each farmhouse and cottage we passed next day, going on to crawford notch, sold pillows of balsam fir. by this time we began to pity and patronize ourselves, because we had thought that nothing could be as beautiful as our ways of yesterday. the ways of to-day were the most beautiful of all. we were going to bretton woods, and on the way we learned a great secret--this: that when the fairies made their flit--the well-known dymchurch flit--they decided to emigrate to the white mountains. somebody had told them--probably it was the moon--that the scenery there was marvellously suited to their tastes, and would give them a chance to try experiments in landscape gardening according to fairy ideas. it seemed likely that they might remain undiscovered in the new fastness for many centuries, and that when the time came for their presence to be suspected, the world would have assumed a new policy toward the fay race. no cruel calumnies would be written or spoken about them, such as saying that they cast spells on children or animals, and it would be between man and fairy a case of "live and let live." some dull, unobservant people might think that our road was walled on one side by gray-blue rocks, but in reality they are dark, uncut sapphires, a façade decoration for the fairy king's palace. those same dullards might talk of scattered boulders. they are trophies, teeth of giants slain by fairy warriors. fairies melt cairngorms and topazes which they find deep in the heart of the mountains, and pouring them into the sources of rivers and brooks give the colour of liquid gold to the water which might otherwise be a mere whitish-gray or brown. fairies crust the stones with silver filagree-work dotted with diamonds. fairies have planted blue asters and goldenrod and sumach in borders, studying every gradation of colour, and while the flowers lie under the spell of the sun they become magic jewels, because the seeds were brought from fairyland. fairies, who no longer bewitch children, have turned their attention instead to enchanting the young, slender birches of the mountain waysides. the enchantment consists in causing rays of moonlight always to glimmer mysteriously on the white trunks, in full daylight. they seem illuminated, even to eyes that haven't found out the secret. the carpets of moss are the fairies' roof-gardens, where they dance and pretend to be ferns if you look at them. the round stones in the water-beds are the giants' pearls which were lost in the great battle. the music of the forest is an orchestra consisting of fairy voices and stringed instruments, harps, violins, and 'cellos. and now and then i caught a high soprano note beyond the powers of a tetrazzini. it was a fairy who told me that mount washington is bare because he gave his green velvet mantle to a smaller mountain, though he, at his cold height, needed it much more than his smaller brethren of the presidential range. and from a fairy, too (after we had passed the wide wonder of crawford's notch), i heard the story of nance's brook. it is the gayest of all the gay brooks of the mountains, so evidently it has forgotten nance and ceased to mourn her. but she--a beautiful girl of the neighbourhood--drowned herself there when her lover went off with a town beauty. the brook used to be the fairies' favourite bathing-place, and they could enter from a secret corridor in their sapphire-fronted palace. of course they could no longer use it after the drowning; but they cased the body of nance in crystal, like a fly in amber; and there, under the running water, her face can sometimes be seen on midsummer nights. thus, mercédes, ends your molly's diary, for we have come to bretton woods! xxvii edward caspian to daniel winterton the manager of a detective agency in new york _bretton woods._ sir: i have received your letter and telegram, and am glad to find that you have a better opinion of my deductions than was held by your confrère, mr. moyle. the longer i dwell on the idea the more does it appear that circumstantial evidence all points one way. why should this unimportant and poor young man have an influence so extraordinary over marcel moncourt? more than one millionaire would have given a fortune to moncourt for less work than he is doing at kidd's pines practically for nothing. it is known that he spoiled his son and brought him up with the airs of a prince who might succeed to a throne. it is known also that the son went abroad directly after old stanislaws' sudden death. the story is a family scandal; but i have woven together a few of the threads and can put them into your hands, which may help you to speed along your inquiries. at that time i was not on intimate terms with my relatives. my sphere, in fact, did not touch theirs. i never saw moncourt's son, but i have heard him described as dark, tall, and somewhat distinguished looking. this might also be a flattered description of the man in question. i think i had better mention, in the same connection, an event which has just occurred. i cannot say i am able to find that it has any concern with the affair on which you are engaged, but you may see deeper than i do. at all events, i will bring it to your attention for what it may be worth. you have no doubt heard of the very fine mansion on long island, tentatively called "the stanislaws house?" i hoped that when i became heir to the property it would be mine, with the rest. unfortunately this was not the case. it had been left to a friend of the late heir, as was indubitably proved by mr. james strickland, who legally represented the stanislaws family, father and son. now, through strickland, the place has been offered to me, if i wish to buy it. i should be inclined to do so if i did not suspect something underhand in the business, though what, i cannot define. the somewhat extended motor trip which has taken me away from kidd's pines is now nearly over; but you might wire anything important to great barrington, mass., where i shall be stopping for a night after leaving here. yours truly, e. caspian. xxviii patricia moore to adrienne de moncourt _bretton woods._ chére petite: i must write to tell you i am happy again, though i ought not to be, and have no right. oh, it is like a miracle coming to pass, to be suddenly happy when you have thought all was at an end. suppose that it has poured down rain on your poor head for many days, and you are wet and cold, oh, but cold through and through to your heart, and you have forgotten the feel of sunshine. then, of a sudden, a stream of light breaks out and dazzles in your eyes. you are warm, you sing for joy. in the back of your mind a voice may say, "the clouds will shut up again, this is not to last." for the moment you are happy and do not care for what will come. you just hold out your arms to the warm ray of light. it was like that with me to-day, and in all senses of speaking, for i was in a great rain, alone and very sad and soaked--but i will tell you. there is none else i may tell, not even molly; for if i said this to her, she would again offer and insist to lend us money that the ring of mr. caspian could be got from the mont de pieté and given back to him. she would think that was the only thing needed to end the engagement which makes me miserable; and so it would have been at first, or almost the only thing. now there is more, for mrs. shuster begged dear larry to borrow some money from her the other night, when he had played poker in the hotel at boston with some men he met. larry has such luck at the games of chance, nearly always, he did not stop to think, "what will happen if i lose?" he played with all the eager fire that it is his nature to put into everything he does, and these men were high punters, as reckless as larry and much more rich. so it was five thousand dollars my poor boy had to borrow, and we cannot take the money which our wonderful monsieur moncourt makes for us from kidd's pines, because of the bankruption, if that is the word, and so much always owing to creditors. it is as if we held out a sieve for our great marcel to pour gold dust into, and it nearly all goes before we can touch it. naturally i cannot fail larry when it is in my power to save him, no matter what the consequences to me. but listen, _ma chérie_! it is yesterday we came to bretton woods, after a drive of the highest beauty, with famous points of view. i had to see them with mr. caspian at my side--all but the view of crawford notch, as it is named, which is of a surprising splendidness, and where we stopped to get down from our automobiles and walk about. when that happens--the getting down, i mean--i often find myself with the winstons, and mr. caspian does not care much to come where they are. then, when i am with them, often mr. storm is there, too. so the crawford notch was the best as it was the most beautiful of my moments in the white mountains till this afternoon. and now i have come to what i wish to tell. when we waked in the morning of to-day it was to see rain coming down in the cataracts. this spoiled our plan of taking some walks and seeing the golf course, which captain winston loves to do. but also, the rain made it not good to travel. shut up, one misses the beauty of the ways. somehow it arranged itself through the influence of molly and jack that we stay long enough to have a fine day. not to be with mr. caspian too much, i stayed a good deal in my room. i tried to read a novel i bought in the hotel--a hotel splendid enough for a big city, though it stands among wild mountains, so far away from the world it is--molly says--as if diogenes had had his tub enlarged and fitted up by ritz. but this novel had a sad ending, i found when i looked ahead, so i could not bear to go on. by that time it was afternoon. i went downstairs. most of our people were playing bridge, among them larry and mrs. shuster, and mr. caspian. molly and jack were not there. neither was mr. storm. when he saw me mr. caspian got up, and told his table they must make a dummy. i wished then i had stayed in my room, but it was too late. the best i could do was to walk out on the veranda--an immense veranda where the most fierce rain could not follow you to the chairs against the wall. molly and jack love fresh air, so i thought perhaps to find them sitting out there. but they were not to be seen; and when mr. caspian came on and on after me, though he hates what they love, i took a most desperate resolution. i went straight ahead as if i had come downstairs to do it, and walked right off the veranda into the pouring rain. i had no umbrella, and my head was bare and i had on a dress of white shantung silk. i knew he wouldn't follow me into the rain, and he didn't. he stood at the top of the steps and called after me that i was a crazy girl. "come back!" he said, as if he had the right to order me about. "you will get soaked to your skin and catch your death of cold!" [illustration: "the young, slender birches of the mountain waysides"] i looked back just long enough to answer that i _loved_ to be soaked to my skin, and i was not afraid of catching the cold. all i wanted was that he did not catch me. but i did not say this part aloud. he called out something more, but i had got too far away to hear, for i was walking fast, and the rain made a loud, sweet sound, pattering on leaves. when i had looked back, i had seen something more than the figure of mr. caspian standing on the steps in his nice white flannel clothes: i had seen molly and jack and mr. storm. they were not on the side of the veranda i had come out on, but just round the corner, talking together in great earnest. i did not think they saw me; but you shall know by and by! i must have seemed like a mad one walking along with my head up in all that rain, as if i were out for my pleasure. but i did not care. i felt not to care for anything. it did not seem to matter what happened to me; i wished that i could take cold and die. i found a path under trees, winding up a beautiful high hill. on one side was rock, and i wished a large piece would fall on my head so i should never have to go back to the hotel. but that was selfish to larry, for i could not bring him any money if i were dead! i walked on and on, and the rain made my hair go in little corkscrew curls over my eyes, and my thin dress stuck to my neck and arms like a skin, and i must have looked an object to scare the crows. i was cold, too, for there was a chill in the rain as if it had once been ice on some mountain-top, but i would not turn back. i was determined to wait a long time and be sure mr. caspian had gone in to his bridge. then, i thought, i would find some side way into the hotel where i should not be seen. as i walked up the path, i heard suddenly steps coming behind. i was afraid that after all mr. caspian had decided himself to follow. i thought he had perhaps put on a coat for the rain, and brought an umbrella to take me back, with my hand on his arm. quick, i hurried to climb up to a terrace-place there was above that place in the path, with a lovely tree on it, almost like a tent. i think it is named the weeping ash. i sat very still underneath, and i hoped the man might not look up; but i did not remember about my footprints in the wet earth stopping just there. i did not think of the footprints at all. from where i sat, crouched down under the low tent of the little tree, i could see the head of a person coming. it was not the head of mr. caspian! it was a much higher head, and it wore the hat of peter storm. when i knew it was he, i wanted, oh, so much, to call out his name and tell him i was there. but i said to myself, "no, that would not be nice, my girl. he will guess you hid from mr. caspian, but that you did not wish to hide from _him_!" so i did not move. but he stopped and called my name. then it was no harm to answer. even the sisters would say it would be rude if i did not! i looked out from under the tree, and explained that i had come there to wait till the rain was not so much. on his part he explained that he had seen my footmarks come to an end on the path. "i have brought you mrs. winston's umbrella," he said. "we saw you go away without one, so she sent me with hers. may i come up and help you down? the grass is slippery." i did not need the help, but i said, "yes, come." and as he came, the rain, which had not been so bad for some minutes, began to pour down in a torrent. instead of falling in drops, it was like thick crystal rods. "we had better wait," he said. "the umbrella won't be much good in this deluge." it would have been cruel not to ask him into my shelter, so i did; and it was too low for him to stand up. he had to sit down by my side. the rain came in a little, though the tree made a thick roof, and he put up the umbrella over my head. i told him he must come under it, too. we were close to each other, more close than we had been on the front seat of the car in the days when he drove with me by his side--closer than i had ever been with him except when we danced. i looked up at him, and he looked down at me. "poor little girl!" he said. "you are drenched!" they were such simple words. any one might have said them. but it was as if his eyes spoke quite different things. a light shone out of them into mine. and though i did not mean to do it, my eyes answered. i knew the most wonderful thing! i knew that he loved me, not like a friend, but with a great, immense, fiery love. and i think he must have known that i loved him, for i couldn't help my eyes telling. oh, adrienne, now the secret is out to you. i have loved him a long time, loved him _dreadfully_. i have felt as if he were _me_--as if i wasn't _there_ till he had come. do you understand? if you do not, you have not yet loved your cousin marcel de moncourt! it seemed to me that never in my life before had i felt; and suddenly i was crying, as his eyes held mine to his. the next instant i was in his arms. it was not till then i thought of my promise to another man. and to tell the truth, as i wish to do to you, it was two or three minutes or maybe more that i did not think. then i took my arms down from his neck (yes, i had put them there, as if i were in a dream, when his arms went round my waist and he kissed my cheek, all wet with cold rain and hot tears). it was only my cheek, because i turned my lips away, not out of goodness or because of being loyal to somebody else, i am afraid, but just because it seemed so great and wonderful to be in his arms i could bear no more. "i forgot!" i said. "i forgot that i have given my word." "i forgot, too," he said. "but now it is irrevocable. your word can't stand. you love me, and nothing shall make me let you go. don't you know that?" i told him that if he loved me, i did not want to go. i was in the midst of saying that--though i did not want to--i _must_; but he interrupted to tell how he loved me. and, adrienne, if i had never been happy for one single hour in my life till then, and could never be happy after, still i should have been glad i was born--yes, glad even if i lived to be an old, old woman with nothing of joy to remember but that. if this is wicked, it cannot be helped. i had to listen while he explained that he knew i couldn't care for ed caspian, and it was only to help larry i had said yes. he went on, that he understood there must be money, for larry's sake, and if he could get money, quite a good deal, would i marry him? even if i wouldn't (he flashed out in a sudden, almost fierce way) he would never let ed caspian have me, because he was not worthy and it would be sacrilege. i said, if i were alone in the world i would marry for love if there was not a cent. but i must think for larry, as larry was like a boy, and by comparison i felt an old woman. that made peter laugh, for the first time, but he did not laugh long. he begged me to trust him: that he knew how to get all larry would need, and we would both look after him together as if we were old people and larry our child. he said there were reasons why he could not have this money at once; at least, he _could_ have it, but there were things to be done first. all he asked for himself, till the hour came, was my trust. but he wanted me to break off my engagement at once. after what had happened between us, he could not any longer bear it to go on. if it had been that i could give mr. caspian back his ring, i would have agreed to do as peter asked. yet how could i say, "i will not marry you. but your ring you cannot have till i am married to another man and his money gets it from the uncle?" even less could i tell peter about the uncle, because he would blame poor larry. it was dreadful to refuse peter what he asked, but i had to refuse. i was afraid he would be angry and despise me because i could not even explain why i would not break. but there he was wonderful. when he had thought for a moment, and looked at me as if he would read my soul, he said: "you must have some reason which seems to you very strong. i asked you to trust me, and now i'm going to trust _you_, though it hurts a good deal. it will be all the more of an incentive to me to make the way clear as soon as possible; and meanwhile i'm not going to spoil the best hour i have ever known." i was a little afraid, when he said this, that he might think we could lose ourselves in love again; and he must have guessed what troubled me, for he spoke at once: "don't worry. i know now you love me. that's all i want. till you give me the right to something more, i'll stand where i stood half an hour ago, down on the ladder of friendship. but give me the rest of the hour here--if you trust me as i trust you." i was only too glad to consent. but the moment i agreed, he remembered that i was drenched, and said he would take me home. i had to give him my hot hand before he would believe i was warm as if sitting by a stove. [illustration: crawford's notch, white mountains] oh, the glorious half-hour that followed! i cannot express to you, adrienne, the joy of it. we spoke no more of love. we did not touch each other. but we _knew_. and the rain, which had come down for a few minutes in that great flood, stopped, to let the sun shine out. i never saw the world so marvellous as then. the lovely things sparkling bright all around where we looked put ideas of beauty in our heads, so we spoke about them, not about ourselves. just to be there together, that was all. you cannot think what a pleasure only to talk of _trees_! and it seemed they were listening. they laughed and clapped their little hands. [illustration: map]* it is molly who says always that trees are alive, like us. these woods of the white mountains she calls the woods of fairies. now we saw well it was the truth. they looked quite different woods from others. even the sunshine was a different colour, and shades of colour. you see, the woods are not old, but young: baby birches, and baby maples, and their big brothers not yet turning darker green. in the sun all was gold of many tints. peter and i could see a flickering light, like a net of pale, pale gold, trail across the amber-coloured leaves of spring. peter said, "the spirit of the woods has bare shoulders, sunburned brown, and her gold hair blows over them." i said, "the trunks of the littlest birches are sticks of her broken ivory fan she has planted in the ground, and the tall ones are masts of buried ships, bleached white in the moonlight." we were a chorus to praise the nature; but if our tree had been a cell of prison, we should have said, "the bars are beautiful." it was such a dear, kind tree, my adrienne! peter made us both pretend that we could remember when we had been trees, live creatures, living in lovely houses--the houses which were ourselves. we had our concert rooms where the birds sang to us. we had our menageries of trained squirrels. we lived very long, and always we were young and of great beauty. we slept in the time of winter to dream of the summer days, and then we remembered the history of birds and men we had seen making--all the things that, now we are people, we have to read in books. no words of the love did we speak after those first minutes of surprise, but we could have sat forever, not tiring of our talk. at last i had to say, "now we _must_ go!" and peter did not keep me. we shook hands like the friends. and then the divine hour was over, except in memory. there it will always live for me. i can always call it back, with every word and look, even if things do not come right for us, as peter thinks they will. i wish, oh, _how_ i wish, i could be as sure as he seems to be! but i cannot help telling myself that perhaps, as he is used to being poor, he does not realize how much money larry needs. it has done me good to write to you of this, my adrienne, for love is coming to you, too, even if it has not yet come as it has to me. your patrice. xxix molly winston to mercédes lane _awepesha, long island._ dearest mercédes: i haven't written to you since bretton woods, because the little details of our travels might have seemed an aggravation while i kept the _secret_ up my sleeve, and had no particular personal news with which to embroider the story of the days. now, it's different. i can't tell you the secret yet, it's true; but there's some rather big news--news which brought us all back to long island in a hurry after great barrington. i'm debating with myself whether to blurt it out now, or to lead up to it gradually. i'll ask jack's advice! * * * * * i have asked, and jack says, "i think monty and mercédes would rather finish our travels with us, and see the things that happened as we saw them, instead of being made to play providence and reach the end before it arrives." so i'll take his word for it, and begin where i left off at bretton woods, only hurrying on, perhaps, a little faster than i should if there were no bombshell to explode later. we didn't hurry our journey, however. no presentiment warned us of what was to come. we stayed two days at bretton woods, and adored the place. fancy drinking water from a spring at mount echo! the name turned water into champagne. and fancy having nice college boys disguised as waiters, to serve us, and earn enough for next winter's course! it rained one day, but the downpour was a blessing in disguise for it drew peter and pat nearer together and wove a spun-glass barrier between the girl and caspian. she ran out in a torrent to get rid of the inevitable ed, who discreetly retired in fear of a drenching; then, when his back was safely turned, i sent peter storm after her with an umbrella. jack and i were still on the veranda when the two came back an hour and a half later. the rain had stopped. danae's shower of gold had been scattered over the woods in a sunburst. but even the joyousness of nature was hardly enough to account for the look on their faces. i hoped to hear that night or next day that the unnatural engagement with ed caspian was "off." there i was disappointed. not a word was said either by the girl or the man; yet _something_ happened during that walk in the rain, i was still sure. both were different afterward, in a way too subtle to define. but _nothing_ is too subtle to feel! the night after starting on again we stopped at lake sunapee in new hampshire, and the day's run getting there was just as astonishing as the run which brought us to bretton woods. we saw the glories of franconia notch. we saw the great stone profile, which influenced hawthorne's life. i heard people speaking of it as the profile of an "_old_ man," but to jack's eyes and mine it was young with eternal youth, the youth of the gods. it gave us the same mysterious thrill that the sphinx gives; and its gaze, reading what sky and mountains, cathedral forests and rushing rivers have to tell, holds the same secret that's in the stone eyes looking over the desert. there are some charming indian legends in these mountains where the profile reigns as king. one is the story of an immense carbuncle, the biggest jewel in the world, which hangs suspended from a rock over a hidden pool that reflects its fire. it's guarded by an evil spirit, but when the day comes for it to be found, the god of the profile will put the knowledge of its whereabouts into the mind of a man. at the same time strength will come to that man to overcome the wicked guardian, and win the jewel. how i wish the profile had taken a fancy to jack! i'm sure there couldn't be a better modern st. george. alas, however, no flash of divination came to him, and the only supernatural adventure we had in these faun and fairy haunted woods was to catch a glimpse of the white doe of the mountains which appears to travellers now and then, bringing them good luck. of course _some_ people would say it was just an ordinary, _café-au-lait_-coloured deer, with the sun shining on it to make it look white; because there are still deer in the mountains: but you and monty wouldn't be so banal! we saw lakes and forests, dark, impenetrable pines, and baby woods of white and gold and palest green; rivers and brooks that are cousins to the brooks and rivers of scotland; rocks like enchanted elephants lying down fast asleep in surging foam, and green pools clear as glass to their pearl-stored depths. the flume, in its different way, was as memorable as the great stone face. so flashing white was the swift water it seemed to send out troops of flying spirits which vanished as we looked, or else crossed on a bridge of rainbow to the blue mountains that walled the distance. sunapee has a river and a lake, and our hotel was great fun, with a dining-room which pretends to be a glorified log cabin. next day we had lost the superlative beauty of the mountains. it was just very pretty country, where the mountains sent the baby foothills to play and sun themselves. by and by, however, the green mountains began to float before us, not in the least green, but darkly blue against the pale-blue sky, like background mountains in stained-glass-window land; and vermont opened adorably. the door of the state was set in a wall of beautiful forests, wild forests which might have been discovered by us for the first time if a great suspension bridge hadn't given away the story of civilization. the mountains pretended to be wild also, though they were low and softly wooded. but along our roadside lay piles of good-smelling, newly sawn wood, which we feared that men, not brownies, had placed there; and now and then we passed, in the midst of apparent wildness, a mild-looking elderly farmhouse. [illustration: "i shall always think of vermont as the state of wild lawns and gardens"] towns had a way of appearing where we least expected to see them; chester, for instance, which had nothing to lead up to it. (but there was a delicious luncheon in it!) and the instant we had passed out from its street of stately trees we were deep in the country again. i don't know why vermont should have the greenest grass and trees in the world, and more varieties of wild flowers growing in thick borders by brooks and roadsides. yet really it does seem to be so! i shall always think of vermont as the state of wild lawns and gardens. [illustration: map]* did you ever see what they call the "jewel flower?" i saw it for the first time in vermont: a delicate little yellow bell of a thing; but its stem is a magician. dip it in water, and in a few minutes it will have collected enough solid-looking pearls for a necklace. it was peter who knew this, and told pat, whereupon she had the grayles-grice stopped for an experiment, and the whole procession halted. the brook proved the truth of peter's statement. it's extraordinary the country as well as town lore peter has! at least i wondered at it, until i heard something of what his adventurous life has been. if we discovered one new flower that day, we discovered dozens; new to jack and me, i mean: tall, rose-red ones like geraniums, of which the country people couldn't tell the names; purple ones like plumes; white ones like blond bluebells; and others that looked like nothing but themselves. all the old friends were there, too: wild roses, honeysuckle, convolvulus, growing in the midst of feathery ferns and young-gold bracken. never did any earthly gardener plant with such an eye to colour as the planting of what vermont farmers call their "wild lots." there were apple trees, very big and of strange, dancing shapes, almost like the olives of italy; and after we had left the garden country for a country of hills with steep gradients, we came to "maple-sugar country." (i shall send you a box of that maple sugar, which we bought at a pretty little place named peru. but i'm afraid it's last year's.) despite their steepness the roads were well made, humping themselves up very high, and then sinking comfortably down into what they call "water breaks" or "thank you, ma'ams!" i'd often heard that last expression; but being english, jack had to have it explained to him that the horse was supposed to rest there a minute and give thanks for the respite from pulling. it will make you feel as if i'd rubbed a file across your front teeth, my dear, when i tell you that we shot out of maple-sugar country into marble country. but isn't that better than mixing them up together? the marble's very pretty, and you don't have to eat it. you walk on it, when you come to manchester-in-the-mountains. before you get there, though, you see many other mountains, which don't belong to manchester. they are bold and big enough to be named ben something or other if they were in scotland; but this is such a country of mountains you know--white, blue, and green--that they don't get grand titles conferred on them unless they're beyond the average. manchester-in-the-mountains is called the "city of marble pavements," which makes you feel, before you see it, as if you were coming to rome after it was improved by augustus cæsar. but it is really a perfectly beautiful village, whose highroad is the main street, and at the same time a cathedral-aisle of elms. they paved it with marble only because there's so much marble about they don't know what to do with it all--unless they give it away with a pound of tea. we stayed all night in the nicest country hotel jack and i ever saw in our lives. it's named after a neighbouring mountain; and i think it must have been made by throwing several colonial houses together and building bits in between. the rooms give circumstantial evidence for this theory, too, for there are labyrinths of drawing-rooms and parlours and boudoirs and libraries, with a step or two up, or a step or two down, to get in. it's chintzy and cozy and old-fashioned looking, yet really it's up to or ahead of date. as for the people who stay there, golf is written all over them, for the great attraction of the place is one of the best golf courses in the united states. we both felt that we were being cruelly torn away when we had to "move on" again next morning, but we are always pretty soon resigned to being in a car again, you know! i feel so deliciously irresponsible the minute i start off, like a parcel being sent to some nice destination by post. i can't understand any one _not_ feeling that a motor is as companionable as a horse, can you? it has so many interesting moods, and one's relation with the dear thing--if it belongs to one--gets to be so perfect! besides the joy of the car, we found the green mountains particularly lovable, not large, but of endearing shapes. we should have liked to have them for pets. yet the pet aspect is only one of many. they have grand aspects, too. they've inspired poets, and given courage to soldiers. yesterday we had thought vermont all made of gardens. to-day it was made of mountains, mountains everywhere the eyes turned. and wherever there was a place to nestle an exquisite farmhouse did nestle. i used to think that england had the monopoly of beautiful farmhouses, but these vermont ones, though as different as a birch from an oak, are just as perfect. even jack, whose every drop of blood is english and scottish, admitted this. they're white and of simple lines, with a rich green background of woods. in front there are lawns with lots of flowers growing as they please, and ferns left to do as they like if they don't interfere with other people; on both sides generous meadows stretching far away. jack said: "what a warm glow the thought of such a home must bring to the heart of a boy when he's out for the battle of life! and what a place to come back to at christmas!" "or thanksgiving," said i. but "thanksgiving" suggests no picture to jack as it does to you and me. our cranberry sauce in england is always a failure, not thick or sweet enough; and the poor fellow has _never tasted pumpkin pie_! if one of them came into his life, he would probably address it as it is spelt; and what self-respecting pumpkin pie would be luscious unless it were pronounced "punkin?" "anyhow, i give vermont a star," he murmured, with the look of pinning a v. c. onto a mountain's breast. and he did that just in time, for the mountains were receding into the background, taking hands in a ring round wide woodlands. by way of the pretty toy town arlington we came to bennington, which is the heart of history for vermont. the man for whom it was named was granted the first township in the wild lands known as "the wilderness" then. but it must have been a beautiful wilderness, for the british soldiers of those pre-revolutionary days used to fall in love with it as they marched through, and promise themselves that they would come back and build homes. they did come back and build the homes, and the "promised land" was so attractive that new york wanted to take it away by writ of ejectment. the vermonters decided to fight for their rights under ethan allen, and thus "the green mountain boys" came into existence as a famous band. the bronze catamount which still grins defiance toward new york from the top of its tall pedestal makes that day seem yesterday! there's a great monument also, to the battle which made bennington's glory, but the most _humanly_ interesting thing in town--for us--was the old robinson house. such a darling house, with a heavenly door and scalloped white picket fence. you would love it! and it's turned itself into a kind of glorified curiosity shop, as so many of the charming old houses of new england have done. you feel you must go in to see what these lovely houses are like inside; and the first thing you know, you are buying queen anne mirrors, japanned trays, braided mats, and even serpentine fronted bureaux, which you don't know what to do with but die rather than do without! everything else that we saw was a "star" place after that, for we were coming back into massachusetts, and to the berkshire hills which thoreau loved, and hawthorne, and longfellow, and oliver wendell holmes. williamstown is as celebrated in its smaller way as harvard or yale, for a university's fame needn't consist in size, i suppose! i hardly ever saw a place where every building was so perfectly suited to every other building, without one jarring note; and though it's more important than a village now, the lovely description hawthorne wrote suits the town as well as ever. he said: "i had a view of williamstown from greylock summit: a white village and a steeple in a gradual hollow, with huge mountain swells heaving up, like immense subsiding waves far and near around it." do you remember "ethan brand" and "the unpardonable sin?" i hadn't realized till jack reminded me, as we looked up to "old greylock," that the lime kiln was there. i'm going to read hawthorne all over again now--when i have time! "greylock" was the translated name of a brave indian chief who used to fight with the french against the english. i wonder what he would say nowadays when they are allies? if he were as intelligent as his mountain is beautiful, he'd be glad. the berkshire hills are the small brothers of the green mountains, for they are all of the same family, but they have their own characteristics. it seems as if the men who engineered the wonderful roads must have loved the hills and planned each mile of the way so as to show off some favourite feature. for instance, you could never for a minute miss greylock's long, dove-coloured streak which justifies his name! if williamstown is the gate of the berkshires, pittsfield is their heart; and so it's right that the place should be the literary landmark it is. longfellow came on his honeymoon to the "hill city," and wrote the "old clock on the stairs" in the very house where the clock was--and is now. south mountain is close by, where "elsie venner" scenes were laid; and "elsie's" author lived for years at a place between pittsfield and lenox. it's still there, and is called "holmesdale." [illustration: "we found the green mountains particularly lovable"] we spoke of staying at pittsfield all night, just because it's lovely; but we arrived so early that caspian and mrs. shuster wanted to go on to great barrington, where we had planned to stop. they said they expected letters. "shall we thwart them?" jack asked me mischievously. i murmured that it was a "toss up," so we did go on--which was a good thing, as it turned out. pittsfield _ought_ to have been stopped in, for it is a dream of beauty, and so is lenox. stockbridge seemed just as charming--almost more to me, for hawthorne lived there, in a "little red house with green shutters," on the shore of stockbridge bowl. we had followed him about from place to place, but there we had to leave him at last, writing "the house of the seven gables." then, always running along the most perfect road, we came to great barrington, bryant's home. we couldn't escape the romancers and the poets if we'd wished, for it was _their_ country. it was late by this time, and we were hungry and dusty. i didn't expect letters, and felt inclined to wish we had lingered farther back. here there would be a rush to bathe and dress before a decent dinner hour: and it looked such a smart hotel! "i believe, now i come to think of it, that i asked to have letters forwarded to me from kidd's pines," remarked larry, as we all walked into the big hall. "they'll be the first i've had--if there are any. i put them off till the last minute! i didn't want the beastly things to look forward to on getting home." i hardly listened. the hotel seemed full, and i was wondering if jack could get me a room with a bath. pat and i and the goodrich goddesses grouped together, waiting to hear our luck as to quarters, when larry came to us, looking rather dazed. he had some letters in his hand, and an open telegram. "this has been waiting for me all day," he said in a queer voice, and held out the telegram to pat. i felt a little frightened. but nobody we loved could be dead! "oh, molly!" the girl cried. "kidd's pines has had a fire. it is partly burnt down. all the people have had to go away. that means my life is over!" the last words broke from her in such a tone of despair that i was startled. it was grievous that damage should have come to the dear old house. but why should she say her "life was over?" i asked myself the question; but suddenly the answer seemed to come, like a whisper in my ear: "she thinks it means ruin. if she hoped to break off with caspian in spite of everything, and marry peter, she feels that hope is over." there was no chance of a private word with pat then or afterward. the news ran like wildfire. all the men came and crowded round us, consoling or giving advice. jack was the most sensible. "let's see when the next train starts," he said. "you and i, molly, will go with moore and pat; and they must stop with us at awepesha. the others, of course, can do as they like." it ended in the whole party taking the train, for every one was anxious for one reason or other. the bride and bridegroom and the goodriches had left things they valued at kidd's pines. caspian and mrs. shuster felt that where the moores went, there they ought to go also. as for the boys, they would have followed pat to the death. [illustration: map]* well, we got off, at the cost of dinner. but most of us had forgotten that we were hungry. the cars were simply abandoned for the time being, in garage. they were to be "sent for," like boys and girls at a children's dance. you can imagine that, by the time we had got to new york, and from new york to long island, it was a witching hour of the night! nobody cared, however. all our thoughts were centred at kidd's pines. i kept pat close to me in the train, and once in a while peter hovered near, as if he longed for a chance to say something. but pat could not or would not talk, either to him or me. she had a headache, and sat with her eyes shut, looking pitifully pale. larry, on the contrary, was all excitement, and never stopped jabbering with one person or another till the end of the journey. i could have boxed his ears. well, when at last we arrived, the damage wasn't as bad as we expected, for the fire had started by day. wasn't it sickening, a woman (one of kidd's pines' "paying guests") had upset a lot of alcohol from a spirit lamp. that was the way it began. and she didn't give the alarm at first: she was afraid of the consequences to herself, and she and her maid tried to put the fire out. of course the room got thoroughly alight before anything was properly done. one wing of the house is half in ruins. nothing else is hurt much, except by water. but, as the telegram said, every one cleared out, as rats leaving a sinking ship. and would you believe it, there is _no_ insurance! how _like_ larry! i've been trying to forget my worries for a while, writing this long letter to you, and leaving the worst for the last. but really, i don't know what is to be done about larry and pat. if it weren't for what peter storm told me at wenham in aunt mary's garret, i--oh, i mustn't tread on _that_ ground, though! i forgot that the time limit isn't up. pat and larry wouldn't come to stay with us after all. their rooms were not hurt, and they wanted to stop at home. caspian and mrs. s. are there, too. i wish they weren't. but i hear that c---is soon starting for new york on business. i hope to goodness it's true! peter also had to go there this morning, by the earliest train--a milk train or an egg train or something, and there won't be any news worth having until to-morrow, i suppose. this is only the morning after our night rush from great barrington. i hardly slept, and neither did jack, but we are both keyed up with excitement, guessing why peter storm is in new york. i don't know just when he can get back, or whether he'll come here, or go straight to kidd's pines--or to his lodgings. but jack and i shall motor over early in the old car this afternoon to see how dear patsey gets on. i'll post this, and write you again the minute i have something to tell. ever your molly. xxx edward caspian to daniel winterton _great barrington, mass._ sir: i thank you for your telegram and letter which i have just found, and am answering in haste, as i am starting almost at once for long island by train. news has come by wire that there has been a fire at kidd's pines, causing considerable destruction, and the trip ends suddenly a couple of days sooner than it should have _done_. i am much interested in your news and the information you have picked up. no doubt i shall want the person you mention who knows moncourt junior to come to kidd's pines within the next few days, as soon as things are more settled there. i will then manage to have "storm" on the spot, as you suggest, and we shall see the effect of the surprise. if an arrest can follow, so much the better. men of his stamp are enemies of society. you have my full permission to communicate with the regular police, who will be glad of this chance put into their way, whether they choose to give us credit or not. suspicion was hushed up by the family and the doctors, but it was certainly suggested that young moncourt caused the death of my distant cousin stanislaws, and robbed him of valuables which he was known to keep in his bedroom. there was no account of these things when i inherited; but as i could get nobody to come forward and swear to their existence, much less give a description, i let the matter drop. i have resolved to buy the stanislaws house on long island, as to which i hesitated when i wrote you last. another communication has informed me that i must give an answer at once, or the place will pass into other hands. my fiancée, miss moore, admired the house when our party spent several nights there some time ago, and i may decide to give her the place as a wedding present. i must go to new york from kidd's pines to-morrow morning, and fix this business up. i will call on you at your office at five o'clock p. m. for a consultation, and should be glad if you would secure the presence of stanislaws' old valet whom you have discovered. i should like to talk to him before he comes with me to kidd's pines. yours truly, e. caspian. xxxi molly winston to mercédes lane _awepesha._ dearest: i promised to write again soon, but there isn't yet the news i hoped to tell. indeed, i'm a little depressed and worried, though i've nailed my flag of faith to the mast of the "stormy petrel!" you shall know just what has happened. i think i wrote you that peter went to new york early the morning after our night rush from great barrington to long island. i took it for granted that his business there concerned the revelation he made to me in aunt mary's garret; but he had no time, and perhaps no inclination, to enter into details. he just said, "i'm off, and i hope everything will go well. i shall get back to my 'diggings,' and see you either at awepesha or kidd's pines the minute i can finish up." caspian hung about till peter was safely away, and then put in as much deadly work as possible before leaving for new york. he was nice (as nice as he knows how to be) to larry and pat, and bucked them up about kidd's pines. that was the proper thing; but was it proper, or was it simply caspian-esque, to tell patty at such a moment that he'd bought the beautiful stanislaws house i wrote you about, as a present for her? of course he mentioned the sum he was paying for it--a whacking one. he wouldn't be caspian if he hadn't boasted! i happened to be at kidd's pines when he was making this dramatic announcement. (i told you jack and i were motoring over in the old car, but we went earlier than we expected, because just as i had finished your letter patsey 'phoned to ask us for a "picnic luncheon in the burnt-up house.") caspian was telephoning like mad when we arrived, and only finished just as luncheon was ready, which gave him an excuse for letting his left hand, to say nothing of both feet, know what his right hand had been doing. i suppose he was afraid, if jack and i were left to hear the news from pat, a little of the gilt might be off the gingerbread. so he launched his own thunderbolt as we sat down at the table: larry, pat, mrs. shuster, jack, and i. i was so flabbergasted that i can't remember his words. but they were those of the noble, misunderstood hero of melodrama to his ungrateful sweetheart and her ruined father who have never appreciated his sterling worth. he let them jolly well know, and rubbed it in, that he would _never_ have spent such an enormous sum on anything for himself: that indeed, though he _ought_ to have received the stanislaws house as an inheritance, he had abandoned all idea of possessing it until pat expressed intense admiration for the place. with this incentive, the moment they were engaged he had begun negotiations. the price asked was so outrageous, however, that he was on the point of refusing when misfortune fell upon kidd's pines. it would now be impossible to continue living there in comfort for the present, so he (caspian) had spent his morning in fixing up by 'phone the business of purchase. of course he would have to go to new york, and see mr. strickland, who had the matter in hand. indeed, he intended to start directly after luncheon; but he could not bear to go without relieving the family mind of its anxieties. poor little pat was scarlet, and her eyes were--i was going to say like saucers, but i think they were more like large, expressive pansies. "oh, you _shouldn't_ have done that for me!" she exclaimed. "of course, i'm grateful, and it was ver-r-y good of you, but----" "didn't you say you would _love_ to live in that house?" caspian cross-questioned her over a pickle. (he's disgustingly fond of pickles: makes a beast of himself on pickles!) "yes, i suppose i did," patsey admitted; and got out a "but" again, but not a word further. "very well. that was enough for me. i wanted to prove that i was going to stand by you now, in every way, and i hope this is as big a proof as a man can give," said the noble saviour of the situation. "we must marry as soon as possible, of course. i'll get the license to-day. and then you can have your wish. you shall live in the stanislaws house, and when your father and mrs. shuster get back from their honeymoon you can write them to visit us, and stay as long as they like." pat, as pale as she had been red, stammered confused thanks for his thoughtfulness. how _could_ the girl, when he'd just announced the expenditure of five hundred thousand dollars for her _beaux yeux_, tell him not by any means to get the license? i was sickeningly sorry for her. i knew exactly how she felt. as for me, i had rush of luncheon to the head, a frightful effect, considering that i'd just eaten a soft-shelled crab. with the little i knew of affairs between them i was still instinctively sure that pat and the stormy petrel had come to some sort of a vague understanding the day of rain at bretton woods. i thought that the rain had melted down the wall between the two, and peter had prematurely said more than he meant to say, perhaps begging her to break off with caspian. evidently she had refused (for larry's sake), but had very likely hoped that somehow peter would step in and save her before it was too late. now, all of a sudden, it _was_ too late! and peter wasn't even near. i could imagine the child's despair, with the present of a five-hundred-thousand-dollar house flung at her head--a house which would be "no use" to her fiancé if it were not to be shared with her. even knowing what _i_ knew, i feared that the situation might become serious, more because of peter's absence than anything else. as soon as we finished luncheon and caspian was saying good-bye to pat (decorously in the presence of larry, from whom she refused to be detached), i asked jack what he thought. "if only we knew where to get at peter in new york!" i wailed. "i'm afraid the girl will be _married_ to that creature before peter comes back; and then nothing will be of any use." "we mustn't let that happen," said jack. "not that i believe storm has turned his back without thinking of every contingency. and he must know about the sale." "he didn't mention it when he told me the story," i said. "not a word about the stanislaws house!" "probably it didn't strike him as important in that connection," jack argued; and i accepted the deduction; but i was _far_ from comfortable and my peace of mind was not restored by a conversation i snatched with pat when caspian had gone. i begged her to do nothing rash, in a moment of generous impulse; but she exclaimed, "it is others who seem to have the generous impulses! i cannot afford to be generous. but dear molly, i must be just. and now everything is against larry and me. we must go where the tide takes us." she didn't use as flowery language as that, but it's difficult to quote patty in the vernacular. well, we crawled home after a while, jack and i. and nothing more happened that day, except that pat 'phoned me from her ruinous home about nine o'clock in the evening, to say "mistaire" caspian had come back. he had bought the stanislaws house and paid for it, but she had refused to accept the gift. "it must be _his_, not mine," she said. "i understand that he would not have bought it except for my sake, so already i owe him a big debt of gratitude. i will not owe him more. it is now too much." "did he get the license?" i tremblingly ventured to inquire. "yes," pat answered. but when i hurried on to the next question, "have you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. she had dropped the receiver, and i was afraid i could guess why. she couldn't bear to discuss the sword hanging over her head. few descendants of damocles can! all that was yesterday. i've waited to-day to write you in the hope of having something new to tell. but it's now ten o'clock p. m. and there is nothing good; rather the contrary. pat has almost if not quite promised to marry ed caspian at the end of the week, saturday, and mrs. shuster has hinted at her willingness to become mrs. moore on the same day. the knots are to be tied (devil permitting) very quietly, at home, in the water-logged drawing-room at kidd's pines. my pleadings to pat of no avail. the combination of pawned rings, debts, five-hundred-thousand-dollar houses, etc., and _peter's absence at the crucial moment_ is too strong for her. as for larry, he seems to be as hopeless as his daughter. i fancy from a chance word which pat _inadvertently_ let drop that, with the prospect of a millionaire son-in-law, larry desperately attempted to free himself, but mrs. shuster "persuaded" him to stick to his bargain. how she managed i don't know, but there are lots of ways, and larry with all his faults is a gentleman. he even has a chivalrous vein which, though lying deep under selfishness, crops up near the surface occasionally. i wish he'd been chivalrous with his daughter, while there was time for it to do good, instead of at the last moment with this silly middle-aged woman who wants to get "into society" through him. oh, just one other thing which i nearly forgot to mention! at my urgent suggestion jack wrote a line to peter storm, in care of a man named james strickland, said by caspian to have looked after the interests of a family with whom peter is connected. he's a well-known lawyer, so we easily found his address in the new york directory. he has his office there, of course, though i believe he has a house somewhere on long island, i don't know where. there's just the merest chance that peter storm may go to him in new york. he's going to _some_ lawyer, so why not strickland? anyhow, we have no other means of getting at this extremely stormy petrel until his return. may it not be put off too long! jack, like all other men, hated to interfere, for p. s. has never spoken to either of us, in so many words, of his "intentions" toward patty moore. but i cooked up a specious-sounding note, saying that, if peter didn't want caspian to complicate matters for everybody, he had better hurry up and come back before c---was actually _married_. that letter went off by special delivery this morning. au revoir, till i can give you the sequel! your battered but not yet broken molly. xxxii molly winston to mercédes lane _awepesha._ mercédes mine: hurrah! there's a thing i may tell you without giving away peter's confidences till the cat's ready to jump from the bag. jack and i were restless last evening. when i finished my letter to you, it was only half-past ten; and i felt as if i could jump up and down and scream. "if i don't do _something_, i shall have a conniption fit!" i threatened. jack doesn't know what a conniption fit is, not having been brought up in an american nursery, but lest it might be something appalling, he asked how i should like to go out in the car for a short spin. by this time hiawatha had been brought home by our chauffeur; and the moon was soon due to rise, so it seemed an attractive prospect that jack held out. "i'll tell you what let's do!" said i. "go over to patty's. if there's a light in the drawing-room windows we'll ring. if not, we'll just spin round outside the wall to the side gate, and go into the grounds for a look at the moon from the point of the pines." in fifteen minutes we were off. and as i've told you, it's only a short spin to kidd's pines. there was a light in the drawing-room, so we did ring, and pat was thankful for the excuse to get out of doors. larry had gone to town--on "business," he had said, and mrs. shuster was sulking as if she doubted the statement. the boys had been over from some weird inn, not far off, where they are lurking now, in order to rally round their goddess, but luckily pat had sent them away just before we arrived. they would have been too noisy to please the moon! patsey had been playing the piano at mrs. shuster's request, while the latter forlornly knitted impossible socks for brobdinag-footed soldiers. of course we politely asked mrs. s. to join our expedition, at the same time intensely willing her to refuse. will prevailed. mrs. shuster said she "must write to the poor dear senator, and send him good wishes for a lecture he is to deliver in new york." so she was disposed of; and we three went out into the fragrant night. i suppose she calls her senator "poor dear" as a delicate way of letting us guess that she has refused him. have i told you about the point of the pines, i wonder? i feel sure i must have done so. the pines are those under which captain kidd is supposed to have buried some of his treasure--the pines which have given the place its name. there is a narrow slip of land on which the principal members of this pine family grow. instead of stretching straight out into the water, it curves toward the lawn, as if the back of your hand and your four fingers composed the lawn, and your thumb, slightly but not far extended, were the point of the pines. there are only a few trees, for the point is small; they're seven in number and they reach beautifully toward the sound, like running dryads holding out eager arms to the sea. they aren't ordinary pines, such as you may see almost anywhere on long island, but are of the "umbrella" sort, like those of italy, just as beautiful if not nearly so large as those at rome in the pincian gardens, or at naples, where their branches seem sketched in straight, horizontal black lines against the blue background of sea and sky. shelter island has one such pine, under which also captain kidd is supposed to have deposited a sample of treasure. i think there are no more in our part of the world. well, you can imagine that it's wonderful to sit by the water, lapping and whispering as it mumbles to the shore with toothless baby mouths; to sit there and wait for the moon to come up behind those dark umbrella pines. none of us three felt like talking. there wasn't much to say which interested us just then, and at the same time went well with the exquisite romance of the place. besides, it was lovely to listen to the water. we grouped together, sitting on the grass, jack with his back against a big chestnut tree, i leaning against his shoulder, and patsey reclining, with her elbow in my lap. far away a clock musically struck the half-hour after eleven, and as the sound died away a creamy light began to run along the sky. we sat very still, knowing what was coming to pass. in a minute more we saw a ruddy rim rise out of purple dusk; and with that almost incredible quickness in which the miracle is accomplished, the whole moon was up, red and slightly concave, for it was past the full. then the thing we had come out to see, happened. we saw the molten lamp directly behind the biggest of the seven pines out on the point. the tree, black as ink, looked suddenly like a gigantic suit of armour, with an immense heart-shaped jewel--perhaps that magic carbuncle from the hidden pool of the white mountains--suspended in its breast. while we looked something else happened: a small rowboat with a man in it skimmed into sight, and slowed down at the point of the pines. silent as a water bird it glided into the tiny cove between the point and the wide stretch of lawn, stopping dead under the moon-illumined tree. by common consent we were as still as statues. where we sat at a distance from the shore, and under the big chestnut, we were invisible to the man in the boat. we thought we should see him climb onto the bank, where his figure would be silhouetted against the moonlight; but he didn't appear. "perhaps it's a rendezvous of sweethearts," i whispered. "presently another boat will come with the girl." "perhaps," patsey whispered back. "yes, it must be that. there is nothing he can do with the cave." "cave!" echoed jack, interested as a boy. "is there a cave?" "it is only a little one," said pat. "not a nice cave. i have been in it when i was small. one gets there if one slides down a bank from the point, just as well as from the water. i would run away from my nurse, and she would scold and call out, but she would not come after me, because it is a very low roof. to get to the very end, one must go on the hands and knees, but i _liked_ that the best of all. i tried to find the treasure of captain kidd, which larry told me about. but that was only a child's thought. he would _nevaire_ have hidden it where one had only to push through some bushes, then to crawl in and pull it out." "no," said jack, who had never put much faith in the treasure's tale, much as he would have enjoyed doing so. "all the same, a cave's a big attraction. lots of people must have tried their luck exploring, in the hope of some secret hidie-hole." "not so many know of the cave, that it is there," said pat. "some bushes grow in front and hide the mouth. if not, you would have seen it yourself. but larry told all the people who came to stay this spring. he thought it would amuse them to look for the treasure. and it was promised--if there had not been the fire!--that when we came home from our trip we would give a party to dig under the pines. each one was to have a spade; and it would be allowed to dig down some feet, but not enough to hurt the pines. the gardeners were to decide on that. larry thought it would be fun. but i am not sure if _mistaire_ caspian would not have persuaded him to forget the plan. he told me, if there were a treasure, it would be best to keep it for ourselves." "all in the family," said i. and to myself i added, "catch him giving something for nothing!" "shall i take a peep at that fellow down there?" suggested jack. "he has no right trespassing anyhow, whether he's prospecting for treasure or waiting for his girl." "let's all three go and stare at him with calm reproach," i said. "the moonlight will shine on our faces and turn us into accusing spirits." we got up and walked across the lawn, threading our way among trees till we came to the bank where we could look down to the water and straight across to the point. there was the boat, tethered to a bush, but the man had vanished. "by jove! he _must_ be in the cave!" said jack. "i'll go----" "no, you won't!" i cut him short fiercely. "if you do i'll scream at the top of my voice and yell for help. he may be a murderer!" "xantippe!" jack retorted; but he couldn't help laughing when pat and i both seized his dinner-jacket. "look!" whispered the girl at that instant. "just there! a light--a little faint light--behind the bushes." "the fellow's coming out," said jack. "oh, then we can all stand behind this tree and watch," i proposed. "when he's getting into his boat jack can challenge him. he'll probably be so scared he'll fall into the water." the tree i meant was a large-waisted willow, of the weepiest variety, with girth enough and tears enough to hide us all, especially as pat and i were darkly dressed--she in green and i in gray. we hadn't many minutes to wait; indeed, it was but half an hour since we came out, for the clock we had heard struck again: midnight. we felt deliciously creepy! of course i hadn't wanted jack not mended yet from the trenches to go crawling on all fours into perfectly irrelevant caves with no orders of merit or victoria crosses attached to them. at the same time, we were keyed for comedy, and just excited enough to forget the skeletons in our closets at home: caspians, and shusters, and money-lenders, and unpleasant things like that. it was just as the clock finished striking that the light in the cave (if you can call a gleam like an exaggerated glowworm a light) went out, or in jack's words "dowsed its glim." this meant, we surmised, that the man had finished his mysterious (probably ridiculous) errand, and could now get along with no lamp but the moon. there was a faint rustle, rustle among the bushes which discreetly veiled the opening, and from behind them came a man. for a second or two he stood up straight as if he were stretching himself and taking a full breath. the moon shone behind him, outlining his figure; and, mercédes, if you were here i would bet _anything_ you couldn't guess who it was. as it is i can't hope to win money from you. i must just tell you, and have done with it! the man was peter storm. we recognized him in time for jack not to give that challenge we had planned. whether j. decided not to give it because the man was peter, or because he was dumbfounded, i didn't know then, but he told me afterward that he instantly decided to keep still for peter's sake. he knew, of course, whatever peter was up to there was nothing mean or underhand about it, and as it was evidently meant for a secret expedition it would annoy peter to be caught. i had exactly the same impression myself; and pat said later that she would have "cr-r-umpled all up" if jack had called out. we hardly breathed while peter was getting into his boat and untying the painter that had moored it to a bush. even then we had to wait before coming back to life, for he sat still a minute or two, with his hands on the sculls, and looked our way, as if he were gazing at us. of course we knew we were safely concealed from sight, and that he was only staring past trees and shrubbery at the dark, distant house. from that point of view there wasn't a twinkle of light to be seen through a blind; and if jack and i hadn't taken the unusual whim into our heads to motor over from home, patty would have been in bed and perhaps fast asleep for an hour. i never realized before how hard it is, with the best intentions, to keep utterly, absolutely still: except once when i was a little girl and a nurse i had took me to a quaker meeting. it was a silent one. i thought something awful would be done to me if i moved; and i tell you i could hear my _ribs creak_ when i breathed! so i could again now, huddled behind the tree. and i thought i could hear patty's hair curl. when peter had rowed away, and he and his boat had disappeared round the point, we all three drew a deep sigh of relief. then we looked at each other. "jiminy _christmas_!" said i. "exactly!" said jack. only pat said nothing. then she clasped her hands on an inspiration. "do you know what i think?" she exclaimed. "yes--it _must_ be that! there is nothing else which can explain. mr. storm is ver-ry sorry for us, larry and me, because once more we are in ruin. not even marcel can do us good now! but if it were true about the tr-reasure of the captain kidd, it would be ours. it would save me from--i mean, it would save us from all the trouble we are in. don't you see, molly and jack, that is it? he went into the cave to search. if he would find the tr-reasure, he would tell us we were rich." while she was talking, explaining her theory, my mind worked fast. what she said put an idea into my mind. it was different from her idea, because i had a clue--when i came to think of it--that she didn't possess. as it turned out, jack's brain was working in the same direction as mine, at the same moment. i guessed this, before he told me, from what he said in answer to pat. "perhaps you're right," he told her. "i'm afraid storm must have been disappointed, though, if he was looking for captain kidd's treasure to give you. he came out with empty hands. maybe, though, now you've got the inspiration you'll be more lucky, you and your father. i agree with caspian on this subject: you'd better not invite too many people to your treasure-hunting bee. in fact, i think it had better confine itself to members of the family." "no use," sighed pat. "there's not a hole nor a corner of that cave i didn't search like a needle for a haystack--i mean the othaire way round--when i was petite." "do you give me leave to explore?" asked jack. "yes, indeed," said pat. yet i thought she hesitated before she spoke. "when will you like to go?" "i must dress for the job, i suppose," said jack. "shall we say to-morrow at ten o'clock in the morning, with you and molly and nobody else in a stage box to watch the performance?" pat agreed, laughing, yet there was something peculiar--an _arriere pensée_--in her laugh. she had suddenly become absent-minded--or else she was sleepy; and i reminded jack that it was growing late. we took the girl back to the house, into which she disappeared with a dreamy, "la somnambula" air; and for once i was glad to see the last of the dear child. i was _dying_ to talk to jack. but i'm not going to inflict our discussion upon you. instead, i'll tell you what happened in the morning (that's to-day!). we got up early and jack sported a shocking old suit of knickerbockers, just right for an up-to-date cave man. you see, he really meant to keep his engagement. if he found anything, as he thought quite probable, it would bear out his theory and save unsuspecting peter the trouble of working the moore family up to an interest in the cave. we were just attacking our coffee and rolls, however, at eight-thirty, when pat appeared, hovering at the end of the vine covered pergola which we use for a breakfast-room. "come to remind me of my promise?" laughed jack, jumping up. but as she drifted slowly in, we saw that, whatever her errand might be, for her it was no laughing matter. "i have to confess a thing to you both," she said. "i have been in the cave. even before you went away, i made up my mind i would go in. i did not sleep too much. i got up when it was light. i put on a bad dress. i slid down the bank like when i was a little one. i creeped into the cave, with a candle, the way i used to do. it is not distant to the end, where one can squeeze. i looked all over, everywhere, as always when i was small. i remembered a hole far at the back--not a big hole--where i used to put pretty pebbles and play i was captain kidd with my pockets full of diamonds. the hole was there, but stuffed up with stones. i pulled them all out. and behind i saw a box--a queer old oak box. but oh, molly, i have seen that box before, it was only a few days ago!" "not _possible_!" i cried, anxious to defend poor peter and his quixotic plot. "you would say not. yet it is so. i saw the box--or its twin box--at that dear old robinson house which is made into a curiosity shop at bennington." "you must have been dreaming," said jack, backing me up. "no. i saw it. but mr. storm did not know i saw it, because he did think i was not in the room where it was. he thought i was always with mr. caspian. and so i was, except for a minute. i went to look for you, in a back room. you were not there. you must have gone upstairs----" "i did, to see a table miss robinson spoke of," i admitted. "only mr. storm was in the back room. he had in his hand the box, with a large date carved in the wood. if he bought it i am not sure, for i went away quickly when i saw he was alone. and after, there was nothing in his hand. but maybe when he wanted an old box with a date of 1669--yes, that _particular_ date of _all_ others!--he remembered, and went back to bennington--or sent." "good gracious, but why a box of that 'particular' date?" i wanted to know. which was stupid of me. i ought to have recalled at once the fact that captain kidd was supposed to be burying treasure in 1669. "it was the year of captain kidd!" pat reminded me; and went on, as if in desperation: "in the hole of _our_ cave, to-day, was _that_ box, from miss robinson's house in bennington. there was no lock to it; and i suppose mr. storm could not wait to have one made. he was in a hurry. i understand why, but i cannot tell you that. all i can tell is, _it was there_. i pulled it out from the hole--it was not so heavy!--and not more than thirty centimetres long. inside was sand, and mixed up with the sand many, many jewels--oh, a fortune in jewels. i know, because i took the box to my room--nobody was up, so no one saw me. i spread on the floor a bed-coverlet and poured out the sand on it. then i could count the beautiful stones without the fear they would roll away. there are a hundred pearls, oh, but large ones, big as peas; and some rubies, and diamonds in the dozen--emeralds, too. i do not know too much of such things, but they must all have cost ten, twenty, or maybe more thousands of dollars." as she finished, breathless, pat looked from one to the other of us. and jack and i dared not look at each other, or our eyes would have said, "told you so!" "he put these things to make us rich, where we would think they were _ours_," the girl went on. "it was noble. he would never have confessed--never let us know what we owed to him. if you and me had not seen him last night--and if i had not known the box--we should have believed. we should have sold the jewels and paid our debts. and i--but what use to think of what i could have done? what i _must_ do, is to tell him i _know_--yes, the _minute_ he comes back to our house. it will be to-day, for now we can guess what has kept him so busy. he has somehow got these jewels--not set, so they may seem to be very old. but how--_how_ did he get them--a poor man like him?" "however he got them, it's all _right_," jack soothed her. "i am sure!" she said proudly. "he was to try and find money. he told me that at bretton woods. he finds it. but he does not keep. he gives it to me, like this! of course it does no good. of course i cannot take. i wish i could see him _here_ at this house, with you to help me talk of last night." well, so it was arranged, according to her wish: that we should send over to his "diggings," as he calls them, and see if peter had arrived. the car was despatched with the chauffeur and a hasty note from me; and patty waited with us for news. but there was no news. mr. storm had not come, and his landlady, the village dressmaker, knew nothing of his movements. there, my dear, i must leave my story. about this episode you now know as much as i do, or any of us. but doesn't it make you love peter? when he told me his _secret_, he never breathed a word of this intention. if only one chance in a million hadn't placed his best girl and two of his best friends within spying distance, the poor fellow's plan would have been a brilliant success. no doubt his idea was to propose (as if jokingly) to larry a search for captain kidd's alleged treasure, to replenish the family fortunes after the fire. they would have been indebted to no one for what the cave might yield. a rich larry and patty could have arisen like a pair of phoenixes hand in hand from their own ashes, and flown high above caspian and shuster level! the thing is now to let peter know his plan has failed before he begins talking about buried treasure. we must manage it somehow. by the pricking in my thumbs, i feel he'll come this afternoon! and luckily, if all is well, the treasure troving won't be his only errand. to-morrow i shall perhaps be able to let you into the whole secret. if he but realizes that time is the great object now! your molly in suspense. p. s. i _do_ think it was fun about the box from miss robinson's, don't you? xxxiii molly winston to mercédes lane _awepesha._ dearest: i believe that, next to the day jack proposed to me at taormina, and the day we were married in london, this has been the most exciting day of my life. i expected excitement, but nothing to what we have had! i wrote you yesterday morning, after pat went home to the boxful of sand and jewels which not even larry was to know about. the note i wrote to peter storm had been left at his lodgings, so when he returned he would know that he was wanted at our house. the trouble was, we had no idea _when_ he would return; and that poor child pat was trembling in her extremely high-heeled shoes (she never wears boots to tremble in) lest caspian should reappear upon the scene. i hardly dared hope that the letter jack had sent to mr. strickland's office would reach peter; but it was that which did the trick. mr. strickland _was_ the lawyer he had been consulting about his complicated affairs, and when the note arrived, mr. s. knew where to send it. no sooner was it read, than peter bolted from new york to long island, and had the happy thought of coming to see us, to pick up the latest news from the front. i was so pleased to see him walk in, i could almost have kissed him! but i didn't stop to talk long. i ordered hiawatha, and dashed off to fetch pat. i was afraid if i merely _sent_ for her, something might happen to keep the girl at home, or caspian might have turned up, and insist on coming with her. as it happened, i wasn't far wrong. caspian _had_ indeed turned up, bringing a strange man with him, and both were closeted with larry. i whisked pat away before she could be called into the council chamber. the poor child insisted on carrying the "captain kidd" box, wrapped in a silk tablecloth from como! she wanted to place it in the hands of its owner and donor without delay, and peter and she were to be given some moments alone together, jack having prepared the mind of p. s. meanwhile. the two men were in the library when i opened the door and walked in upon them. jack had finished telling the tale of the night, and i felt pity as well as affection for peter. he doesn't show his emotions easily, but i could see that he was pained and humiliated by the failure of his romantic scheme. i said not a word to him about it, but mentioned that patsey was in my boudoir. "i think she has something to say to you," i added. "i'll go to her at once, if i may!" he exclaimed. "you not only may but must," i enjoined; then stopped him at the door. "i hope you're ready to tell her everything now?" "i'm ready, yes," he answered promptly. "but is it the best time----" "it's the only time there is!" i cut him short. "she's right," jack backed me up. "very well," said peter. "if you both say it's the supreme moment, it is. but i shall have to go through with what she's got for me first." with that, he went out and shut the door. and i confess to you, mercédes, i should have liked to be a fly on the wall in my boudoir during the scene between those two. a fly has no conscientious scruples against eavesdropping, which is fortunate for it, as nature has equipped it so well for indulgence in that pursuit. as i couldn't be a fly on a ceiling, looking at peter and pat upside down, i went and sat on jack's lap. "dearest," said i, "you tell me what _you'd_ say if you were peter, and i'll tell you what _i'd_ say if i were pat." "i wouldn't say anything," replied jack without an instant's hesitation. "i should just take you in my arms, and hug you hard. i should also kiss you. and one kiss leads to another, you know." "i do know," i admitted. "by experience. you taught me that. it's one of the lessons of life." "i'll bet patricia moore is learning it at this instant," jack remarked thoughtfully. and we kissed each other in sheer vividness of imagination. "but she's still engaged to ed caspian," i reminded him. "damn caspian!" said jack; and then jumped, staring at something over the back of my head. i bounded off his lap as if a jack johnson had exploded at my feet. wheeling round to stare where he stared, i saw the most deadly reputable of my dear late cousin's servants ushering into the room the person apostrophized. behind that person followed one i had never seen before. behind both lurked larry moore, for once in his life ill at ease; and by his side, urging him in, was mrs. shuster. "how do you do?" i exclaimed, trying to look as if i had never seen jack's knee, and feeling as if my _toes_ were blushing. what jack did i don't know; but i suspect he put on a nonchalant air of "well, we _are_ married, anyhow!" "i'm sorry to interrupt a conversation evidently not meant for _my_ ear," began caspian. (trust him always to do and say the wrong thing!) "but i understand mrs. winston called at kidd's pines and took miss moore away at a moment when both i and her father wanted her particularly. that being the case, i thought i had better come here and let her kind host and hostess learn the news at the same time." "meaning us?" i inquired, feeling dangerous. "meaning you and captain winston. the news will interest you both. it is about two dear friends of yours, marcel moncourt and--his son." "we've never had the pleasure of meeting marcel moncourt junior," said jack. "oh, yes, you have, begging your pardon," said ed. "only you know him by another name. by the way, may i ask, before i go further, where is patricia?" "pat's in my boudoir," i informed him airily. "she's engaged just now, talking to mr. storm. he----" "is the person i referred to a moment ago," caspian sliced my sentence in two. "marcel moncourt junior has good reason for taking an alias. it was known to everybody who knew him and his father that he was a wastrel, if not worse. marcel senior was a fool about him--brought him up like a prince, and suffered the consequences. the boy spent money like water, and was hauled out of one scrape only to fall into another. then came the time of my cousin old justin stanislaws' death. it happened under strange circumstances; there was suggestion of foul play. young marcel was in the house at the time--had arrived secretly. i know that certain jewels disappeared mysteriously--couldn't be found afterward--jewels that stanislaws always kept near him because of certain associations. not only did they disappear, but young marcel disappeared, too--whether with or without them was never proved. stanislaws' son was alive then and protected the fellow: they'd been friends as boys. no inquiry was made till _i_ became the heir. then it was too late. marcel junior had gone abroad and couldn't be located. it was then it came to my knowledge that suspicion pointed to young marcel not only as a thief but as a murderer----" "oh, come, sir, that's going a bit too far!" ventured the mean-looking little man who had come in with caspian, and who had been growing more and more restless as ed piled up his accusations. "why, too far, when you told me yourself that one of his handkerchiefs was found in my cousin's room the morning after the murder?" "well, you see, sir, there was never anything more than gossip to say it _was_ a murder," persisted the little man. turning anxiously to jack, he hurried to explain himself. "i was valet to the old gentleman at the time of his death," he announced. "i'm an englishman, as i think you are, sir. my name's thomas dawson. i've been living in chicago and other cities of the middle west since young mr. stanislaws (who was drowned later) paid me off and let me go. this gentleman, the heir to the estates, has had me looked up by a detective agency. i came to new york willing enough; but i didn't come to accuse no one of murder, whether i have any cause to remember them kindly or _not_!" "you're not asked to accuse any one, you're asked to identify a man you know," snapped caspian. he, too, turned to jack. "it's very annoying as things have turned out, that moncourt senior didn't stop on at kidd's pines after the fire instead of going to new york. he ought to be here now, so we could confront him with----" "really, caspian, i think 'confront' isn't the word to use in such a tone and in connection with our marcel," jack admonished him. "what, not the word when he has passed off his wretched son upon us as a stranger, and let the fellow take a confidential situation with a rich woman like mrs. shuster? she might have suffered the same fate as my poor cousin. there's no excuse for such conduct. it's not weakness but wickedness. the whole mystery of marcel's taking up the job at kidd's pines is explained by this impudent trick----" "hardly explained," objected jack. "you haven't proved your point yet." "what point haven't i proved?" "that mr. storm is really marcel moncourt junior." "we came here to prove it, before every one concerned," blustered ed. "all i ask is to have him brought in." "he'll bring himself very willingly!" i couldn't resist sticking in my oar. "and pat with him." "i'll fetch my fiancée myself, if you please, mrs. winston," said caspian, at his most caddish. i didn't intend to let him do that, but i was saved the trouble of a dispute by the door opening and pat and peter walking in, as if they had been hypnotically summoned. they hadn't heard the visitors' arrival, but had evidently expected to find jack and me alone. i saw by a glance at pat's face that the interview had made some call upon her emotions; but i didn't think she looked wild enough to have heard the whole secret. besides, they'd hardly been away long enough for all that--and the other things jack and i had so vividly imagined. they both paused for a second at the door, and pat had the air of wishing she were somewhere else. she braced herself up, however, for a scene, and marched in with her head up--peter storm by her side. i saw peter's eyes pick out the little man thomas dawson, whom caspian pushed slightly forward. peter was surprised, no doubt of that, but he seemed also amused, as if his quick mind had grasped the situation. his look travelled to jack's face and mine. he smiled at us. then, "hello, dawson!" said he. "good lord, sir!" gasped dawson, turning green, and losing power over his knees. he grabbed at caspian for support, was haughtily pushed away, and tumbled into a chair, like a jelly out of its mould. as it chanced, the chair was a rocking-chair, and the conjunction was undignified. "what's the matter?" ed questioned sharply. "why don't you speak up? is this man's name marcel moncourt?" "no, sir, it's stanislaws. he's--he's the young master--or else he's a ghost." * * * * * there, my dear, the secret's out! perhaps, if you've been able to keep track of caspian's antecedents as described in my letters, you've guessed it already. but in case you haven't attached much importance to that part of the affair, i'll just remind you that ed caspian was lifted out of the ranks of his fellow socialists and capital haters, by becoming a capitalist himself, on the death of two distant cousins, stanislaws' father and stanislaws' son, tremendous millionaires. the old man died some time before the young one, who disappeared with the _lusitania_ and was reported drowned. you can imagine the effect on ed when, instead of crushing the enemy, he found himself crushed. he turned tallow-white, glaring at dawson, staring at storm, and stammered out: "i don't believe you! it's a lie!" "no, caspian, it's not a lie," said peter storm, whom jack and i have known since wenham as pietro stanislaws. he spoke almost gently. "i meant to stay dead--not for your sake, but for my own. the only fun i'd ever got out of life was from knocking round the world with just enough money to put bread in my mouth and clothes on my back. my father never saw you, and never wanted to see you. he had reason to dislike socialists. i never saw you, and wanted to still less. i thought you would be a bore. but i respected what i heard of you. people told me you were sincere. they said your aim in life was to benefit your fellowman. you were a hard worker. you seemed to have every virtue. i thought you'd do more good with my father's money than i ever should, if i shouldered the responsibility. i was always a socialist at heart--but i was selfish. i'd hated the conventional life my father wanted me to live, and i'd kicked against the pricks. i came back to consciousness after that adventure on the _lusitania_, and found that no one knew who i was. i'd babbled russian when i was delirious! the next thing i learned, was that pietro stanislaws was drowned. i couldn't resist the big temptation to let him sleep under the sea. i'd happened to know something about a chap named peter sturm or storm in the third class of the _lusitania_. he hadn't turned up afterward, so i thought--as i'd done him a small kindness--he wouldn't grudge me his name. i felt at home with the name of peter. so that's how it came about. and no matter what my own feelings might have been--no matter how much i might for any reason have wanted to change my mind--i wouldn't have gone back on my resolution if it hadn't been for your own conduct." "i don't know what you mean!" caspian choked. "i don't believe----" "i think you do believe," peter caught him up (i can't remember his precise words of course; but i give you the sense of them). "and if you'll reflect you must pretty well understand my meaning. what kind of a steward have you been of the great enterests intrusted to you? have you done one person except yourself any good? no! the moment your circumstances changed, your nature changed to fit them; or, rather, you let your real nature have its way when you'd nothing more to gain by posing. you've not only thrown away my father's money--_my_ money--on every sort of extravagance: you've been actually vicious. my lawyer james strickland was the only person on earth, except marcel moncourt senior, who knew that i hadn't gone down with the _lusitania_. marcel didn't know till i came back to new york, recalled by strickland's accounts of your behaviour. then i got strickland to break the news to marcel--for a purpose. i wanted a favour from him. i wanted him to help laurence moore. but even then you would have been safe from me, caspian, if you'd shown yourself any sort of a man. i began a letter about you to strickland on the ship coming home. it blew away, and so did some of my plans concerning you. it was fate! but this isn't revenge for your petty persecutions of storm! i hope i'm not little enough to take vengeance. i saw you weren't fit for the place i had given you. seeing that, i decided that pietro stanislaws had a right to come back from the grave. but don't imagine that i intend to throw you out on the world with empty pockets. that would be unfair, after the way i've let you live. i was the owner of the stanislaws house, as it's called. strickland arranged the business for me; and at my wish he offered it to you, caspian. you bought: now you can sell to me again at a profit; and you'll owe me no thanks for any favour, which is my reason for wanting such a deal. talk to my lawyer. he'll be expecting you to call." "you'll have to prove that you're pietro stanislaws!" caspian still weakly protested. "the story doesn't ring true to me. you may be taking advantage of some resemblance. you may be another tichborne claimant. why, now i think of it, i always heard there was a likeness between young moncourt and young stanislaws--that moncourt did all he could to cultivate it!" "well, of that you can judge to-day," said peter, keeping his temper. "thanks to miss moore, marcel senior and i learned where marcel junior was hanging out. marcel senior has thought for a while that he had some cause to be grateful to me: that's why he stepped into the breach at my request, at kidd's pines. and i wanted him to do it--for one reason--because when i was a boy of thirteen or fourteen mrs. moore was very good to me. i was at a school on long island. i ran away, as i generally did: stole a ride on a freight train--fell off, got hurt, was seen by mrs. moore as she was driving with her little daughter, and instead of letting me be taken to hospital she brought me home to her house. i'm not sure if her husband approved. all the same he allowed me to stay and get well. it wasn't till i was able to get about that i told them who i was. but all that's an aside! it explains why i wanted to do a decent turn to kidd's pines if i could. miss moore mentioned to me when we were spending a few days at the stanislaws house some weeks ago that a young man named marcel de moncourt was visiting friends of hers in france, and claiming to be their cousin. well, that was a true claim, as marcel senior informed me. he himself came to america when he was young, to make his fortune, and dropped the "de" out of his name. he says he'd been rather a black sheep, and didn't deserve to be identified with his family. we had a powwow, he and i, about young marcel. there was, and is, _nothing against_ him in the matter of my father's death. i won't go into that question at the moment, but i can show good cause for protecting him then, and protecting him now. when we communicated with marcel in france, where he'd arrived from the argentine he decided to sail at once for this side, with his cousins the marquise de moncourt and her daughter adrienne, to whom he is engaged. i've just been telling miss moore that her best friends--present company excepted"--(peter smiled at jack and me) "that her best friends arrived this morning, from bordeaux to new york, where marcel senior met them and his son at the dock. he meant to escort them to kidd's pines; and they may arrive there at any minute. when the marquise and her daughter find that mr. and miss moore are here, perhaps they'll let marcel bring them on." i glanced at larry. (from hints pat had innocently let drop, i was sure the marquise had been in love with larry for years: that she'd kept pat under her thumb in france, hoping to keep larry, too. it occurred to me that things said by the girl in letters to adrienne--things about mrs. shuster, or idonia, or both--had probably brought the marquise flying to the rescue. or else, that unspeakable maid of pat's--angéle--was engaged by the marquise to let her know what was "doing" at kidd's pines.) larry's face was a study! not a study of "detected guilt." nothing like that. he looked sheepish, yet _relieved_. i read in his beautiful eyes of a boy, "hurray! i _bet_ she'll somehow rescue me from shuster yet!" i should have bet the same, if there'd been any one to bet with, but there wasn't--unless mrs. shuster herself. and she didn't yet realize what the advent of the frenchwoman might mean for her future. she was beginning to recover from the shock of caspian's fall, and to preen herself because she was about to meet a real, live marquise. she had only a few minutes to wait, for peter's prophecy came true. the great marcel did bring the marquise and adrienne on, by their urgent request, to awepesha. pat, it seems, had written so much about jack and me, they almost felt as if they knew us! and young marcel, already assured that he'd nothing to fear in america, was with his father and the ladies. (i'll tell you presently the story of old justin stanislaws' death and young marcel's connection with it: but i'd never heard it properly myself when the moncourt party arrived. you see marcel didn't come much into peter storm's "secret," as he'd confessed it to me.) there was hardly time to wonder what the marquise and young marcel would be like (and adrienne) when the visitors were announced by our bewildered butler. if you have felt any sympathy for larry you'll be glad to hear that the marquise is a charmer from charmerville. how larry ever resisted her all these years i can't think, unless he valued his freedom beyond the lure of woman, and refrained from going to france for fear of striking his colours. she's the frenchiest creature you ever saw: you know, the fascinating kind with magnolia-white skin, languishing eyes, black hair worn over the ears, red lips, and any age you like between twenty-eight and forty-five. adrienne, compared to her mother, is a mere _lump_. but she has fine eyes and a bright smile, and pat loves her, so she must be nice. as for marcel junior, he really does look a little like peter; a sort of a christmas-card resemblance to a strong type. he's really engaged to adrienne, it appears, and is an entirely reformed character; but i expect that the ménage will be mostly enriched by marcel père--and peter. i hope you are dying to know how pat took peter storm's transformation into pietro stanislaws. but i'm going to save that bit for the last. i must explain to you some of the things peter explained to me at aunt mary's, and other things i've learned since, else you won't be able to understand him as we do. that running-away-from-school affair was characteristic, but not as anarchic as it sounds. his father, justin stanislaws, was polish in ancestry but american by birth. he got to know marcel moncourt senior soon after marcel's bolt from france to new york. they both married italian girls, who were beautiful and intimate friends. the father of stanislaws' love was rich, and lived in terror of the "black hand." stanislaws won her by saving the life of his father-in-law elect; and that was the starting-point of his great fortune. once he had the nucleus, his genius for making money began to pile dollars up by the million. marcel hadn't "found" himself yet. stanislaws lost sight of him for years; but after pietro's mother died, marcel appeared again, also a widower, with one little boy. he was as poor as stanislaws was rich. yet he felt in himself the quality to supply the millionaire with something money had failed to give: social success. he explained his ideas; stanislaws had the sense to see that they were good. marcel "took him on," so to speak, organized his establishment, arranged magnificent and original entertainments; got him known and sought for by the right "set," and so, each man "made" the other. marcel started out on his new career with a thumping salary; stanislaws advised investments and speculations. marcel began to grow rich as well as famous, and might have been happy but for his son. marcel junior was a "caution!" from his early boyhood he was always falling into trouble, and having to be helped out by his adoring father or the indulgent stanislaws, who seemed for a while to care more for young marcel moncourt than for his own high-spirited and independent pietro. but at last he grew tired of the constant calls upon his generosity, and relations became strained. by this time both the boys were grown up. pietro's greatest joy was wandering over the world like a gypsy or a tramp, or anything but a "tourist." when his father's health failed he was summoned back from a glorious adventure in russia, and expected to "settle down." he couldn't bear to disappoint the old man, and did his best to live up to expectations; but he was like a young lion caught in the libyan desert and shut in a gilded cage. the people his father wanted him to entertain bored him to tears. he saw that they valued justin and pietro stanislaws for what could be got out of them: invitations, dinners, financial "tips," tours _en automobile_; and there was no reward for which peter cared. "our houses were practically hotels," he said to me, "and our hearts were utilized as snake hospitals. i might as well have been a chauffeur for all the choice of guests or destination i had when i drove my father's friends in our cars. i never did anything i wanted to do, and i never got any gratitude for doing what they wanted me to do. i might as well have been a goldfish, swimming round and round in the same globe, month after month, year after year. it wasn't my job! nature hadn't made me for a fat, tame life. but young marcel wasn't as much use as an understudy for a dutiful son as i'd once hoped. so i made up my mind to stick it while father lived and wanted me." i don't know just how long peter was in the "treadmill"--as he called it: two years, perhaps, then came justin stanislaws' sudden death. the old man was found by his valet one morning, lying dead on the marble floor of his gorgeous bedroom, with a wound at the back of his head, and a handkerchief marked "m.m." clutched in his hand. the wall safe where he kept his most precious treasures--photographs of his dead wife, her letters, and the favourite jewels which she had left for "pietro's bride"--was open, the key was still in the lock, and the steel box containing the jewels had disappeared. young marcel moncourt had also disappeared; and this was serious, because he had come to visit his father and had vainly begged for the loan of five thousand dollars from justin stanislaws. you will wonder when you read this why peter didn't set the police on marcel's track, instead of doing all he could not only to protect him but to upset the theory of murder. but you see, in spite of the circumstantial evidence, peter didn't believe that his father had been killed by marcel or any one. the doctors said that the wound at the back of the head could quite well be the result of the fall; and that death might have been caused by heart failure. as for the handkerchief, marcel senior assured peter that he and young marcel used the same monogram: also that more than once his handkerchiefs and justin stanislaws' had been mixed together by the laundress, as they were of exactly the same size and quality, differing only in initials. he pleaded that the handkerchief was no clue, and no proof of a crime. he argued that the old man was a poor sleeper, and often unlocked the safe in the night, to look over the beloved letters and photographs. for that purpose he kept his bunch of keys under his pillow; and as for the absence of the jewels, that proved nothing because he--marcel senior--had himself warned stanislaws that it was imprudent to have them there. several other hiding-places, more secure and more secret, existed in the house; and some day, it was his opinion, the steel box might eventually be found in one of them, placed there by stanislaws. peter listened, and pitied, and his own heart spoke for both marcels. he decided to give his old playmate the benefit of the doubt, and you know already from what i've told you about peter that, when he makes up his mind to do a thing, he does it thoroughly. the story that justin stanislaws had been murdered was denied, and scorn was poured upon it by the family. it survived only among sensation mongers and gossip lovers--like caspian--who always believe the worst of every one and everything. marcel senior was grateful beyond words, but he was conscientious, too. months passed with no word from his son (this was no new experience!), then a letter came from the argentine. "i'm doing well here," wrote marcel junior. "you won't have to worry about me in future. i know i've been a fool; but for once and for all i've had my lesson." and he went on to tell what the lesson was. "i was half crazy when you and old stanislaws refused to let me have five thousand dollars," he said. "the scrape i'd got into was worse than i'd told you. i was at my wits' ends for money, and i dreamed about the safe in stanislaws' wall. i knew what he kept there. he often showed pietro and me the jewels. i dreamed that i went into his room, took the keys from under the pillow, and opened the safe. then a noise woke me up. the dream was true. i waked standing at the open safe with the steel box in my hand. the noise that brought me to myself was stanislaws falling on the marble floor. you know i've been a sleep walker all my life. but i realized in a second how hard it would be to prove myself innocent, whether stanislaws lived or died. i thought my one chance was to be off before morning. i swear i didn't mean to steal the jewels. but the first thing i knew, i was out in the hall with the box in my hand, and i dared not go back!" marcel junior went on to say that to his surprise the jewel-case wasn't locked. because he had no money to get away with, he took out a diamond ring. the box, with the rest of its contents intact, he buried in the garden. in the hiding-place described it was found by marcel senior who carried it, with the letter, to pietro. it was soon after this that peter finished settling up his father's affairs with the help of james strickland, and sailed for england in the _lusitania_, meaning to take a long holiday after his strenuous years as a budding millionaire. the recovered jewels he left in strickland's care. and now you will have guessed, mercédes, whence came those pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds requisitioned for miss robinson's box with its convenient date of 1669! all that had to be done was to unstring the pearls and unset the stones, and they might be supposed to date from one century as well as another. now have i made everything clear, i wonder, up to the time when the _lusitania_ went down and pietro stanislaws was reborn as peter storm? oh, but one thing i forgot! you remember i wrote about the russian military attaché from washington, who recognized peter and was mesmerically suppressed by him at new london? there was no great mystery after all. they'd known each other in russia, so you may imagine it was a shock to the prince, seeing his dead friend suddenly walk into the hotel. that was a bad moment for peter! he wanted to declare his identity when the time came, not to have it given away; so he pounced on the man and whispered, "girl in the case. i'll explain." which he did later and in private. now we come back at last to pat: "the girl in the case!" but you haven't let yourself worry about her, have you, mercédes? even i didn't worry much. from the moment she and peter retired into my boudoir to "talk things over," and jack and i sat supplying details out of our imagination, i knew that whatever happened all would be well. for that i trusted peter. if ed caspian had fallen from his high estate through no fault of his own, and could have posed as a martyr, pat might have thought it her duty to be loyal. even so she could never have said, "i will," when invited to take him for better or worse. as it was, caspian could pose as nothing but a _pig_! he had given himself away, all along the line. and he was not to go pathetically out into the world alone as a pauper. he would have more money than he'd ever dreamed of until after the _lusitania_ tragedy. he would at worst be able to fight with senator collinge over the hand (and purse) of his dear old friend mrs. shuster, if larry escaped her! the only difficulties i foresaw concerned the pawned engagement ring and larry's debts to lily. as to these i boldly decided that if worst came to worst i would betray my trust and tell peter everything. you will see, however, that my conscience was saved, and by caspian. pat, of course, was petrified at seeing peter storm turn into pietro stanislaws. she listened dumbly to peter's indictment of caspian; and then, before she found time or words to speak, the little wretch turned to snap at her like a trapped jackal. "you'll throw me over now!" he sneered. "that goes without telling. rats desert a sinking ship. but--_what do you mean to do about my ring_? maybe you thought i didn't know. ask mrs. shuster! angéle told her. i guess mrs. shuster's money and my ring have gone the same way!" that was too much for larry. "you'd better go after your d--d ring, then!" said he, looking like a handsome, angry schoolboy. "i can give you the pawn-ticket; and i bet peter storm--or stanislaws--will lend the money to redeem the beastly thing. as for mrs. shuster, we won't bring her name into this. she and i will settle our affairs, official and unofficial, although you seem to be so deep in her confidence. i say, captain winston, do you mind my telling caspian that the nearest way to the pawnbroker's is through your front door, and the quicker he finds it the better?" "i don't mind in the least your telling him that," jack replied pleasantly. "and i should _love_ you to!" i added breathlessly. this brought pat to me. "oh, _molly_!" she said. "oh, _patsey_!" said i. then peter came to us. "oh, _peter_!" said we both. somehow, i found that in his right hand was a hand of mine, and in his left (nearest the heart) was one of patty's. "it's all right," he said. "it ends by _my_ getting the treasure of kidd's pines." "well, i do think you've earned it!" i exclaimed. "if it were mine to give i'd give it with my blessing." "i owe it largely to you--you and your lightning conductor." it was to me peter spoke; but he looked at pat, "i don't know what i should have done without you." that was nice of him, wasn't it? i love praise, even when i don't deserve it. we _have_ taken an interest, if we've done nothing more. and so have you, my kind mercédes. peter and pat, and you and monty, and jack and i, are perfect dears, if i do say it myself. and i know those two are going to be as happy as we are. i wish you could both be at the wedding. it will have to be soon, if jack and i are to throw rice and slippers. ever your loving old molly. the end [illustration: the country life press garden city, n. y.] * * * * * transcriber's note: the page numbers of illustrations have been changed to reflect the new positions, and are now indicated in the illustration list by 'page' instead of 'facing page'. for the benefit of certain readers, explanatory names have been added to some illustration tags and these have been identified with an asterisk. obvious printer's errors have been corrected. all other inconsistencies are as in the original. the author's spelling has been retained. [illustration: _she was only a tall white girl simply dressed_] my friend the chauffeur _by_ c. n. and a. m. williamson authors of "lady betty across the water," "the princess virginia," "the lightning conductor," etc., etc. with illustrations by frederic lowenheim a. l. burt company, publishers new york _copyright, 1905, by_ mcclure, phillips & co. _published september, 1905_ to the other beechy contents part i--told by ralph moray chapter page i a chapter of surprises 3 ii a chapter of plans 17 iii a chapter of revenges 28 iv a chapter of humiliations 40 v a chapter of adventures 55 vi a chapter of predicaments 78 part ii--told by beechy kidder vii a chapter of childishness 89 viii a chapter of playing dolls 97 ix a chapter of revelations 107 x a chapter of thrills 115 xi a chapter of brakes and worms 129 xii a chapter of horrors 138 xiii a chapter of wild beasts 152 xiv a chapter of sunshine and shadow 163 part iii--told by the countess xv a chapter of pitfalls 175 xvi a chapter of enchantment 191 part iv--told by maida destrey xvii a chapter of motor mania 205 xviii a chapter according to shakspere 225 xix a chapter of palaces and princes 235 xx a chapter in fairyland 244 xxi a chapter of strange spells 256 xxii a chapter beyond the motor zone 267 xxiii a chapter of kidnapping 283 xxiv a chapter on putting trust in princes 292 part v--told by terence barrymore xxv a chapter of chasing 303 xxvi a chapter of high diplomacy 316 list of illustrations page she was only a tall white girl simply dressed _frontispiece_ as he spoke a douanier lounged out of his little (after) 62 whitewashed lair two or three men were moving about the place (after) 148 a great white light pounced upon us like a hawk on a chicken (after) 200 my friend the chauffeur part i told by ralph moray i a chapter of surprises "wanted, ladies, to conduct. an amateur automobilist (english, titled) who drives his own motor-car accommodating five persons, offers to conduct two or three ladies, americans preferred, to any picturesque centres in europe which they may desire to visit. car has capacity for carrying small luggage, and is of best type. journeys of about 100 miles a day. novel and delightful way of travelling; owner of car well up in history, art, and architecture of different countries. inclusive terms five guineas a day each, or slight reduction made for extensive trip. address--" when terry had read aloud thus far, i hastily interrupted him. i wasn't quite ready yet for him to see that address. the thing needed a little leading up to; and by way of getting him quickly and safely on to a side rack i burst into a shout of laughter, so loud and so sudden that he looked up from the little pink riviera newspaper of which i was the proud proprietor, to stare at me. "what's the matter?" he asked. i subsided. "the idea struck me so forcibly," said i. "jolly clever, isn't it?" "it's a fake, of course," said terry. "no fellow would be ass enough to advertise himself like that in earnest. probably the thing's been put in for a bet, or else it's a practical joke." i had been aware that this, or something like it, would come, but now that the crisis was at hand i felt qualmish. terry--known to strangers as lord terence barrymore--is the best and most delightful chap in the world, as well as one of the best looking, but like several other irishmen he is, to put it mildly, rather hard to manage, especially when you want to do him a good turn. i had been trying to do him one without his knowing it, and in such a way that he couldn't escape when he did know. but the success of my scheme was now being dandled on the knees of the gods, and at any instant it might fall off to break like an egg. "i believe it's genuine," i began gingerly, almost wishing that i hadn't purposely put the pink paper where terry would be sure to pick it up. "and i don't see why you should call the advertiser in my paper an ass. if you were hard up, and had a motor-car--" "i am hard up, and i have a motor-car." "what i was going to say is this: wouldn't it be much better to turn your car into the means of making an honest living, and at the same time having some rattling good fun, rather than sell the thing for less than half cost, and not only get no fun at all, but not know how to get out of the scrape in which you've landed yourself?" it was terry's turn to laugh now, which he did, though not uproariously, as i had. "one would think the ass was a friend of yours, by your enthusiasm in defending him," said he. "i'm only putting the case to you in the way i thought you'd see it most clearly," i persisted mildly. "but, as a matter of fact, the 'ass' as you call him, _is_ my friend, a very intimate friend indeed." "didn't know you had any intimate friends but me, anyhow owners of motor-cars, you old owl," remarked terry. "i must say in your defence, though, it isn't like you to have friends who advertise themselves as titled couriers." "if you're obliged to start a shop i suppose it's legitimate to put your best goods in the windows, and arrange them as attractively as you can to appeal to the public," i argued. "this is the same thing. besides, my friend isn't advertising himself. somebody is 'running him'--doing it for him; wants him to get on, you know--just as i do you." terry gave me a quick glance; but my face (which is blond and said to be singularly youthful for a man of twenty-nine) was, i flatter myself, as innocent as that of a choir-boy who has just delivered himself of a high soprano note. nevertheless, the end was coming. i felt it in the electric tingle of the air. "do you mind telling me your friend's name, or is he a secret?" "perhaps the address at the end of the advertisement will be enlightening." terry had dropped the paper on the grass by the side of his _chaise longue_, but now he picked it up again, and began searching for the place which he had lost. i, in my _chaise longue_ under the same magnolia tree, gazed at him from under my tilted panama. terry is tall and dark. stretched out in the basket chair, he looked very big and rather formidable. beside him, i felt a small and reedy person. i really hoped he would not give me much trouble. the day was too hot to cope with troublesome people, especially if you were fond of them, for then you were the more likely to lose your head. but the beginning was not encouraging. terry proceeded to read the end of the advertisement aloud. "address x. y. z., châlet des pins, cap martin." then he said something which did not go at all with the weather. why is it that so many bad words begin with d or h? one almost gets to think that they are letters for respectable people to avoid. "hang it all, ralph," he went on, after the explosion, "i must say i don't like your taste in jokes. this is a bit too steep." i sat up straight, with a leg on each side of the chair, and looked reproaches. "i thought," i said slowly, "that when your brother behaved like such a--well, we won't specify what--you asked, i might even say begged, for my advice, and promised in a midnight conversation under this very tree to take it, no matter how disagreeable it might prove." "i did; but--" "there's no such word as 'but.' last year i advised you not to put your money into west africans. you put it in. what was the consequence? you regretted it, and as your brother showed no very keen interest in your career, you decided that you couldn't afford to stop in the guards, so you cut the army. this year i advised you not to play that system of yours and raleigh's at monte carlo, or if you must have a go at it, to stick to roulette and five franc stakes. instead of listening to me, you listened to him. what were the consequences?" "for goodness sake don't moralize. i know well enough what they were. ruin. and it doesn't gild the pill to remember that i deserved to swallow it." "if only you'd swallowed the advice instead! it would have slipped down more easily, poor old boy. but you swore to bolt the next dose without a groan. i said i'd try and think of a better plan than selling your panhard, and going out to help work an african farm on the proceeds. well, i _have_ thought of a plan, and there you have the proof of my combined solicitude and ingenuity, in my own paper." "don't shoot off big words at me." "i'm a journalist; my father before me was a journalist, and got his silly old baronetcy by being a journalist. _i'm_ one still, and have saved up quite a little competency on big words and potted phrases. i've collected a great many practical ideas in my experience. i want to make you a present of some of them, if only you'll have them." "do you call this advertisement a practical idea? you can't for a minute suppose that i'd be found dead carting a lot of american or other women whom i don't know about europe in my car, and taking their beastly money?" "if you drove properly, you wouldn't be found dead; and you would know them," i had begun, when there was a ring at the gate bell, and the high wall of the garden abruptly opened to admit a tidal wave of chiffon and muslin. terry and i were both so taken aback at this unexpected inundation that for a moment we lay still in our chairs and stared, with our hats tipped over our eyes and our pipes in our mouths. we were not accustomed to afternoon calls or any other time-of-day calls from chiffon and muslin at the châlet des pins, therefore our first impression was that the tidal wave had overflowed through my gate by mistake, and would promptly retire in disorder at sight of us. but not at all. it swept up the path, in pink, pale green, and white billows, frothing at the edges with lace. there was a lot of it--a bewildering lot. it was all train, and big, flowery hats, and wonderful transparent parasols, which you felt you ought to see through, and couldn't. before it was upon us, terry and i had sprung up in self-defence, our pipes burning holes in our pockets, our panamas in our hands. now the inundation divided itself into separate wavelets, the last lagging behind, crested by a foaming parasol, which hid all details, except a general white muslin filminess. but terry and i had not much chance to observe the third billow. our attention was caught by the first glittering rush of pink and emerald spray. out of it a voice spoke--an american voice; and then, with a lacy whirl, a parasol rose like a stage curtain. the green wave was a lady; a marvellous lady. the pink wave was a child with a brown face, two long brown plaits, and pink silk legs, also pink shoes. "we've come in answer to x. y. z.'s advertisement in this morning's _riviera sun_. now which of you two gentlemen put it in?" began the lady, with gay coquetry which played over each of us in turn. oh yes, she was wonderful. she had hair of the brightest auburn that ever crowned a human head. it was done in undulations, with a fat ring in the middle of her forehead, between two beautifully arched black eyebrows. her skin was very white, her cheeks were very pink, and her lips were very coralline. everything about her was "very." out of a plump face, with a small nose that turned up and a chin which was over-round, looked a pair of big, good-natured, nondescript-coloured eyes, and flashed a pair of pleasant dimples. at first glance you said "a stout girl of twenty-five." at the second, you were not sure that the lady wasn't ten years older. but her waist was so slender that she panted a little in coming up the path, though the path was by no means steep, and her heels were so high that there was a suspicion of limp in her walk. even to me the lady and her announcement gave a shock, which must have doubled its effect upon terry. i was collecting my forces for a reply when the little brown girl giggled, and i lost myself again. it was only for an instant, but terry basely took advantage of that instant in a way of which i would not have believed him capable. "you must address yourself to my friend, sir ralph moray," said the wretched fellow glibly. "his are the car and the title mentioned in the advertisement of _the riviera sun_, which he owns." my title indeed! a baronetical crumb flung to my father because of a service to his political party. it had never done anything for me, except to add ten per cent to my bills at hotels. now, before i could speak a word of contradiction, terry went on. "i am only mr. barrymore," said he, and he grinned a malicious grin, which said as plainly as words, "aha, my boy, i think _that_ rips your little scheme to smithereens, eh?" but my presence of mind doesn't often fail for long. "it's mr. barrymore who drives my car for me," i explained. "he's cleverer at it than i, and he comes cheaper than a professional." the wonderful white and pink and auburn lady had been looking at terry with open admiration; but now the light of interest faded from the good-natured face under the girlish hat. "o-oh," she commented in a tone of ingenuous disappointment, "you're only the--the chawffur, then." i didn't want terry to sink too low in these possible clients' estimation, for my canny scotch mind was working round the fact that they were probably american heiresses, and an heiress of some sort was a necessity for the younger brother of that meanest of bachelor peers, the marquis of innisfallen. "he's an amateur chauffeur," i hastened to explain. "he only does it for me because we're friends, you know; but," i added, with a stern and meaning glance at terry, "i'm unable to undertake any tours without his assistance. so if we--er--arrange anything, _mr. barrymore_ will be of our party." "unfortunately i have an engagement in south af--" began terry, when the parasol of the third member of the party (the one who had lagged behind, stopping to examine, or seeming to examine a rose-bush) was laid back upon her white muslin shoulders. somehow terry forgot to finish his sentence, and i forgot to wonder what the end was to be. she was only a tall, white girl, simply dressed; yet suddenly the little garden of the châlet des pins, with its high wall draped with crimson bougainvilla, became a setting for a picture. the new vision was built on too grand a scale for me, because i stand only five foot eight in my boots, while she was five foot seven if she was an inch, but she might have been made expressly for terry, and he for her. there was something of the sweet, youthful dignity of giovanni bellini's madonnas of the trees about the girl's bearing and the pose of the white throat; but the face was almost childlike in the candour and virginal innocence of its large brown eyes. the pure forehead had a halo of yellow-brown hair, burnished gold where the sun touched it; the lips were red, with an adorable droop in the corners, and the skin had that flower-fairness of youth which makes older women's faces look either sallow or artificial. if we--terry and i--had not already divined that the auburn lady got her complexion out of bottles and boxes, we would have known it with the lifting of that white girl's parasol. can a saintly virgin on a golden panel look sulky? i'm not sure, but this virgin gave the effect of having been reluctantly torn from such a background, and she looked distinctly sulky, even angelically cross. she had not wanted to come into my garden, that was plain; and she lagged behind the others to gaze at a rose-bush, by way of a protest against the whole expedition. what she saw to disapprove of in me i was at a loss to guess, but that she did disapprove was evident. the dazzling brown eyes, with the afternoon sun glinting between their thick dark fringes, hated me for something;--was it my existence, or my advertisement? then they wandered to terry, and pitied, rather than spurned. "you poor, handsome, big fellow," they seemed so say, "so you are that miserable little man's chauffeur! you must be very unfortunate, or you would have found a better career. i'm so sorry for you." "do sit down, please," i said, lest after all it should occur to terry to finish that broken sentence of his. "these chairs will be more comfortable if i straighten their backs up a little. and this seat round the tree isn't bad. i--i'll tell my servant to send out tea--we were going to have it soon--and we can talk things over. it will be pleasanter." "what a _lovely_ idea!" exclaimed the auburn lady. "why, of course we will. beechy, you take one of those steamer-chairs. i like a high seat myself. come, maida; the gentlemen have asked us to stay to tea, and we're going to." beechy--the little brown girl--subsided with a babyish meekness that contradicted a wicked laughing imp in her eyes, into one of the _chaises longues_ which i had brought up from its knees to a sort of "stand and deliver" attitude. but the tall white girl (the name of "maida" suited her singularly well) did not stir an inch. "i think i'll go on if you don't mind, aunt ka--i mean, kittie," she said in a soft voice that was as american in its way as the auburn lady's, but a hundred and fifty times sweeter. i rather fancied that it must have been grown somewhere in the south, where the sun was warm, and the flowers as luxuriant as our riviera blossoms. "you will do nothing of the kind," retorted her relative peremptorily. "you'll just stay here with beechy and me, till we've done our business." "but i haven't anything to do with--" "you're going with us on the trip, anyhow, if we go. now, come along and don't make a fuss." for a moment "maida" hesitated, then she did come along, and as obediently as the brown child, though not so willingly, sat down in the _chaise longue_, carefully arranged for her reception by terry. "evidently a poor relation, or she wouldn't submit to being ordered about like that," i thought. "of course, any one might see that she's too pretty to be an heiress. they don't make them like that. such beauties never have a penny to bless themselves with. just terry's luck if he falls in love with her, after all i've done for him, too! but if this tour does come off, i must try to block _that_ game." "i expect i'd better introduce myself and my little thirteen-year-old daughter, and my niece," said the auburn lady, putting down her parasol, and opening a microscopic fan. "i'm mrs. kathryn stanley kidder, of denver, colorado. my little girl, here--she's all i've got in the world since mr. kidder died--is beatrice, but we call her beechy for short. we used to spell it b-i-c-e, which mr. kidder said was italian; but people _would_ pronounce it to rhyme with mice, so now we make it just like the tree, and then there can't be any mistake. miss madeleine destrey is the daughter of my dead sister, who was _ever_ so much older than i am of course; and the way she happened to come over with beechy and me is quite a romance; but i guess you'll think i've told you enough about ourselves." "it's like the people in old comic pictures who have kind of balloon things coming out of their mouths, with a verse thoroughly explaining who they are, isn't it?" remarked miss beechy in a little soft, childish voice, and at least a dozen imps looking out of her eyes all at once. "mamma's balloon never collapses." to break the awkward silence following upon this frank comparison, i bustled away with hospitable murmurs concerning tea. but, my back once turned upon the visitors, the pink, white, and green glamour of their presence floated away from before my eyes like a radiant mist, and i saw plain fact instead. by plain fact i mean to denote félicité, my french cook-housekeeper, my all of domesticity in the châlet des pins. félicité might be considered plain by strangers, and thank heaven she is a fact, or life at my little villa on the riviera would be a hundred times less pleasant than it is; but she is nevertheless as near to being an angel as a fat, elderly, golden-hearted, sweet-natured, profane-speaking, hot-tempered peasant woman of provence can possibly be. whatever the greatest geniuses of the kitchen can do, félicité can and will do, and she has a loyal affection for her undeserving master, which leads her to attempt miracles and almost invariably to accomplish them. there are, however, things which even félicité cannot do; and it had suddenly struck me coldly in the sunshine that to produce proper cakes and rich cream at ten minutes' notice in a creamless and cakeless bachelor villa, miles from anywhere in particular, might be beyond even her genius. i found her in the back garden, forcibly separating the family pet, a somewhat moth-eaten duck, from the yellow cat whose mouse he had just annexed by violence. with language which told me that a considerable quantity of pepper had got into her disposition (as it does with most cooks, according to my theory) she was admonishing the delinquent, whom she mercilessly threatened to behead and cook for dinner that evening. "you have been spared too long; the best place for you is on the table," i heard her lecturing the evil cannibal, "though the saints know that you are as tough as you are wicked, and all the sauce in the alpes maritimes would not make of you a pleasant morsel, especially since you have taken to eating the cat's mice." "félicité," i broke in upon her flood of eloquence, in my most winning tones. "something has happened. three ladies have come unexpectedly to tea." the round body straightened itself and stood erect. "monsieur well knows that there is no tea; neither he nor the other milord ever take anything but coffee and whisk--" "never mind," said i hastily. "there must be tea, because i asked the ladies to have some, and they have said yes. there must also be lettuce sandwiches, and cakes, and cream--plenty, lots, heaps, for five people." "as well ask that serpent of wickedness, your duck, to lay you five eggs in as many minutes." "he isn't my duck; he's yours. you won him in a raffle and adopted him. i suspect it's a physical impossibility for him to lay eggs; but look here, félicité, dear, kind, good félicité, don't go back on me. man and boy i've known you these eighteen months, and you've never failed me yet. don't fail me now. i depend on you, you know, and you _must_ do something--anything--for the honour of the house." "does monsieur think i can command tea, cakes, and cream from the tiles of the kitchen floor?" "no; but i firmly believe you can evolve them out of your inner consciousness. you wouldn't have me lose faith in you?" "no," said félicité, whose eyes suddenly brightened with the rapt look of one inspired. "no; i would not have monsieur lose faith. i will do what i can, as monsieur says, for the honour of the house. let him go now to his friends, and make his mind easy. in a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes at most, he shall have a feef o'clocky for which he need not blush." "angel!" i ejaculated fervently, patting the substantial shoulder, so much to be depended upon. then with a buoyant step i hastened round the house to rejoin the party in the front garden, where, i anxiously realized, the tables might have been completely turned during my absence. ready to hurl myself into the breach, if there were one, i came round the corner of the villa, to meet the unexpected. i had left terry with three ladies; i found him with seven. evidently he had gone into the drawing-room and fetched chairs, for they were all sitting down, but they were not being sociable. mrs. kidder's round chin was in the air, and she wore an "i'm as good as you are, if not better" expression. the imps in beechy's eyes were critically cataloguing each detail of the strangers' costumes, and miss destrey was interested in the yellow cat, who had come to tell her the tragic tale of the stolen mouse. the new arrivals were english. i can't explain exactly how i knew that, the moment i clapped eyes on them, but i did; and i felt sure their nearest male relative must have made money in beer, pickles, or it might have been corsets or soap. they were that kind; and they had a great many teeth, especially the daughters, who all three looked exactly thirty, no more and no less, and were apparently pleasantly conscious of superlative virtue. i could see the house they lived in, in england. it would be in surbiton, of course, with "extensive grounds." there would be a debrett's "peerage," and a burke's "landed gentry," and a volume of "etiquette of smart society" on the library shelves, if there was nothing else; and in the basket on the hall table the visiting cards of any titled beings of the family's acquaintance would invariably rise to the top like cream. "i understand from your friend that it is your advertisement which appears in _the riviera sun_ to-day," began the mother, whose aspect demanded a capital m. "you are sir ralph moray, i believe?" i acknowledged my identity, and the lady continued: "i am mrs. fox-porston. you will have heard of my husband, no doubt, and i daresay we know a great many of the same people at home." (this with a dust-brush glance which swept the americans out of the field.) "i think it is a very excellent idea of yours, sir ralph, to travel about the continent on your motor-car with a few congenial companions, and i have brought my daughters with me to-day in the hope that we may arrange a delightful little tour which--" "ting-a-ling" at the gate bell robbed us of mrs. fox-porston's remaining hope, and gave us two more visitors. little had i known what the consequences of one small, pink advertisement would be! apparently it bade fair to let loose upon us, not the dogs of war, but the whole floating feminine population of the french riviera. something must be done, and done promptly, to stem the rising tide of ladies, or the châlet des pins and terry and i with it, would be swamped. i looked at terry, he looked at me, as we rose like mechanical figures to indicate our hosthood to the new arrivals. they were americans; i could tell by their chins. they had no complexions and no particular age; they wore blue tissue veils, and little jingling bags on their belts, which showed that they were not married, because if they had been, their husbands would have ordered the little jingling bags into limbo, wherever that may be. "good-afternoon," said the leading blue veil. "i am miss carrie hood woodall, the lady lawyer from hoboken, who had such a nice little paragraph in _the riviera sun_, close to your advertisement; and this is my chaperone, mrs. elizabeth boat cully. we're touring europe, and we want to take a trip with you in your automobile, if--" "unfortunately, ladies," said i, "the services of--er--my car are already engaged to mrs. kidder, of colorado, and her party. isn't it so, barrymore?" "yes," replied terry stoutly. and that "yes" even if inadvertent, was equivalent i considered, to sign and seal. mrs. kidder beamed like an understudy for _the riviera sun_. beechy twinkled demurely, and tossed her plaits over her shoulder. even miss destrey, the white goddess, deigned to smile, straight at terry and no other. at this moment félicité appeared with a tray. whipped cream frothed over the brow of a brown jug like a white wig on the forehead of a judge; lettuce showed pale green through filmy sandwiches; small round cakes were piled, crisp and appetizing, on a cracked sèvres dish; early strawberries glowed red among their own leaves. talk of the marengo trick! it was nothing to this. the miracle had been duly performed; but--there were only five cups. mrs. fox-porston and her daughters, miss carrie hood woodall and her chaperone, took the hint and their leave; and the companions of the future were left alone together to talk over their plans. "lock the gate, félicité," said i. "do make haste!" and she did. dear félicité! ii a chapter of plans so it is that fate calmly arranges our lives in spite of us. although no details of the coming trip were settled during what remained of our new employers' visit, that was their fault and the fault of a singularly premature sunset, rather than mine, or even terry's; and we both felt that it came to the same thing. we were in honour bound to "personally conduct" mrs. kidder, miss beechy kidder, and miss destrey towards whatever point of the compass a guiding finger of theirs should signify. it has always been my motto to take father time by the fore-lock, for fear he should cut it off, or get away, or play some other trick upon me, which the cantankerous old chap (no parent of mine!) is fond of doing. therefore, if i could, i would have had terms, destination, day and hour of starting definitely arranged before that miraculously-produced tea of félicité's had turned to tannin. but man may not walk through a solid wall, or strive against such conversational gifts as those of mrs. kidder. she could and would keep to anything except the point. that, whatever its nature, she avoided as she would an indelicacy. "well, now, mrs. kidder," i began, "if you really want us to organize this tour, don't you think we'd better discuss--" "of _course_ we want you to!" she broke in. "we all think it's just awfully good of you to bother with us when you must have so many friends who want you to take them--english people in your own set. by the way, do you know the duchess of carborough?" "i know very few duchesses or other americans," i replied. whereupon miss kidder's imp laughed, though her mother remained grave, and even looked mildly disappointed. "that's a funny way of putting it," said beechy. "one would think it was quite an american habit, being a duchess." "so it is, isn't it?" i asked. "the only reason we needn't fear its growing like the yellow peril is because there aren't enough dukes. i've always thought the american nation the most favoured in the world. aren't all your girls brought up to expect to be duchesses, and your men presidents?" "_i_ wasn't," snapped beechy. "if there was a duke anywhere around, mamma would take him, if she had to snatch him out of my mouth. what are english girls brought up to expect?" "hope for, not expect," i corrected her. "any leavings there are in the way of marquesses or earls; or if none, a mere bishop or a c. b." "what's a c. b.?" asked mrs. kidder anxiously. "a companion of the bath." "my goodness! whose bath?" "the bath of royalty. we say it with a capital b." "my! how awkward for your king. and what was done about it when you had only a queen on the throne?" "you must inquire of the chamberlains," i replied. "but about that trip of ours. the--er--my car is in a garage not far away, and it can be ready when--" "oh, i hope it's a _red_ car, with your coat of arms on it. i do so admire red for an automobile. we could all fix ourselves up in red cloaks and hats to match, and make ourselves look awfully swell--" "everybody'd call us 'the crimson ramblers,' or 'the scarlet runners,' or something else horrid," tittered that precocious child beechy. "it isn't red, it's grey," terry managed hastily to interpolate; which settled one burning question, the first which had been settled or seemed likely to be settled at our present rate of progress. "if you are keen on starting--" i essayed again, hope triumphing over experience. "yes, i'm just looking forward to that start," mrs. kidder caught me up. "we _shall_ make a sensation. we're neighbours of yours, you know. we're at the cap martin hotel. isn't it perfectly lovely there, with that big garden, the woods and all? when we were coming to the riviera, i told the man at cook's that we wanted to go to the grandest hotel there was, where we could feel we were getting our money's worth; and he said all the kings and princes, and queens and princesses went to the cap martin, so--" "we thought it might be good enough for us," capped beechy. "it's as full of royalties, as--as--" "as a pack of cards," i suggested. "and some of them have splendid automobiles. i've been envying them; and only this morning i was saying to my little girl, what a lot of nice things there are that women and children can't do, travelling alone--automobiling for one. then, when i came on that advertisement of yours, i just _screamed_. it did seem as if the hand of providence must have been pointing it out. and it was so funny your home being on the cap, too, within ten minutes' walk of our hotel. i'm sure it was _meant_, aren't you?" "absolutely certain," i responded, with a glance at terry, who was not showing himself off to any advantage in this scene although he ought to have been the leading actor. he did nothing but raise his eyebrows when he thought that no one was looking, or tug at his moustache most imprudently when somebody was. or else he handed the cakes to miss destrey, and forgot to offer them to her far more important relatives. "i'm so sure of it," i went on, "that i think we had better arrange--" "yes, indeed. of course your ch--mr. barrymore (or did i hear you say terrymore?) is a very experienced driver? we've never been in an automobile yet, any of us, and i'm afraid, though it will be perfectly lovely as soon as we're used to it, that we may be a little scary at first. so it would be nice to know for sure that the driver understood how to act in any emergency. i should _hate_ to be killed in an automobile. it would be such--such an _untidy_ death to die, judging from what you read in the papers sometimes." "i should prefer it, myself," i said, "but that's a matter of taste, and you may trust terry--mr. barrymore. what he doesn't know about a motor-car and its inner and outer workings isn't worth knowing. so when we go--" "aunt k--i mean kittie, don't you think we ought to go home to the hotel?" asked miss destrey, who had scarcely spoken until now, except to answer a question or two of terry's, whom she apparently chose to consider in the martyr's boat, with herself. "we've been here for _hours_, and it's getting dark." "why, so it is!" exclaimed mrs. kidder, rising hurriedly. "i'm quite ashamed of myself for staying so long. what will you think of us? but we had such a lot of things to arrange, hadn't we?" we had had; and we had them still. but that was a detail. "we _must_ go," she went on. "well, we've decided nearly everything" (this was news to me). "but there are one or two things yet we'll have to talk over, i suppose." "quite so," said i. "could you and mr. terrymore come and dine with us to-night? then we can fix _everything_ up." "speaking for myself, i'm afraid i can't, thanks very much," terry said, hastily. "what about you, sir ralph? i may call you sir ralph, may i not?" "please. it's my name." "yes, i know it. but it sounds so familiar, from a stranger. i was wondering if one ought to say 'sir ralph moray,' till one had been acquainted a little longer. well, anyway, if you could dine with us, without your friend--" i also thanked her and said that matters would arrange themselves more easily if barrymore and i were together. "then can you both lunch with us to-morrow at one o'clock?" quickly, before terry could find time to object if he meditated doing so, i accepted with enthusiasm. farewells were exchanged, and we had walked to the gate with the ladies--i heading the procession with mrs. kidder, terry bringing up the rear with the two girls--when my companion stopped suddenly. "oh, there's just one thing i ought to mention before you come to see us at the hotel," she said, with a little catch of the breath. evidently she was embarrassed. "i introduced myself to you as mrs. kidder, because i'm used to that name, and it comes more natural. i keep forgetting always, but--but perhaps you'd better ask at the hotel for the countess dalmar. i guess you're rather surprised, though you're too polite to say so, my being an american and having that title." "not at all," i assured her. "so many charming americans marry titled foreigners, that one is almost more surprised--" "but i haven't married a foreigner. didn't i tell you that i'm a widow? no, the only husband i ever had was simon p. kidder. but--but i've bought an estate, and the title goes with it, so it would seem like a kind of waste of money not to use it, you see." "it's the estate that goes with the title, for you, mamma," said beechy (she invariably pronounces her parent "momma"). "you know you just love being a countess. you're happier than i ever was with a new doll that opened and shut its eyes." "don't be silly, beechy. little girls should be seen and not heard. as i was saying, i thought it better to use the title. that was the advice of prince dalmar-kalm, of whom i've bought this estate in some part of austria, or i think, dalmatia--i'm not quite sure about the exact situation yet, as it's all so recent. but to get used to bearing the title, it seemed best to begin right away, so i registered as the countess dalmar when we came to the cap martin hotel a week ago." "quite sensible, countess," i said without looking at beechy-of-the-attendant-imps. "i know prince dalmar-kalm well by reputation, though i've never happened to meet him. he's a very familiar figure on the riviera." (i might have added, "especially in the casino at monte carlo," but i refrained, as i had not yet learned the countess's opinion of gambling as an occupation.) "did you meet him here for the first time?" "no; i met him in paris, where we stopped for a while after we crossed, before we came here. i was so surprised when i saw him at our hotel the very day after we arrived! it seemed such a coincidence, that our only acquaintance over on this side should arrive at the same place when we did." "when is a coincidence not a coincidence?" pertly inquired miss beechy. "can you guess that conundrum, cousin maida?" "you naughty girl!" exclaimed her mother. "well, you like me to be childish, don't you? and it's childish to be naughty." "come, we'll go home at once," said the countess, uneasily; and followed by the tall girl and the little one, she tottered away, sweeping yards of chiffon. "i do hope she won't wear things like that when she's in--ahem!--_our_ motor-car," i remarked _sotto voce_, as terry and i stood at the gate, watching, if not speeding, our parting guests. "i doubt very much if she'll ever be there," prophesied terry, looking handsome and thoroughly celtic, wrapped in his panoply of gloom. "come away in, while i see if i can find you 'the harp that once through tara's halls,' to play your own funeral dirge on," said i. "you look as if it would be the only thing to do you any good." "it would certainly relieve my feelings," replied terry, "but i could do that just as well by punching your head, which would be simpler. of all the infernal--" "now don't be brutal!" i implored. "you were quite pleasant before the ladies. don't be a whited sepulchre the minute their backs are turned. think what i've gone through since i was alone with you last, you great hulking animal." "animal yourself!" terry had the ingratitude to retort. "what have _i_ gone through, i should like to ask?" "i don't know what you've gone through, but i know how you behaved," i returned, as we walked back to the magnolia tree. "like a sulky barber's block--i mean a barber's sulky block. no, i--but it doesn't signify. hullo, there's the universal provider, carrying off the tray. félicité, _mon ange_, say how you summoned that tea and those cakes and cream from the vasty deep?" "what monsieur is pleased to mean, i know not," my fourteen-stone angel replied. "i visited with haste a friend of mine at the hotel, and i came back with the things--that is all. it was an inspiration," and she sailed away, her head in the air. terry and i went into the house, for the sun had left the high-walled garden, and besides, the talk we were going to have was more suitable to that practical region, my smoking-room-study-den, than to the romantic shade of a magnolia tree. we unpocketed our pipes, and smoked for several minutes before we spoke. i vowed that terry should begin; but as he went on puffing until i had counted sixty-nine slowly, i thought it simpler to unvow the vow before it had had time to harden. "a penny for your thoughts, paddy," was the sum i offered with engaging lightness. "which is generous of me, as i know them already. you are thinking of her." teddy forgot to misunderstand, which was a bad sign. "if it weren't for her, i'd have got out of the scrape at any price," said he, bold as brass. "but i'm sorry for that beautiful creature. she must lead a beastly life, between a silly, overdressed woman and a pert minx. poor child, she's evidently as hard up as i am, or she wouldn't stand it. she's miserable with them, i could see." "so you consented to fall into my web, rather than leave her to their mercy." "not exactly that, but--well, i can't explain it. the die's cast, anyhow. i'm pledged to join the menagerie. but look here, ralph, do you understand what you've let me in for?" "for the society of three charming americans, two of whom are no doubt worth their weight in gold." "it's precisely their weight that's on my mind at this moment. you may know one or two little things, my dear boy, but among them motoring is not, otherwise when you were putting that mad advertisement into your pink rag, you would have stopped to reflect that a twelve-horse power car is not expected to carry five grown persons up airy mountains and down rushy glens. europe isn't perfectly flat, remember." "only four of us are grown up. beechy's an infant phenomenon." "infant be hanged. she's sixteen if she's a day." "her mother ought to know." "she doesn't want any one else to know. anyway, i'm big enough to make up the difference. and besides, my car's not a new one. i paid a thumping price for her, but that was two years ago. there have been improvements in the make since." "do you mean to tell me that car of yours can't carry five people half across the world if necessary?" "she can, but not at an exciting speed; and americans want excitement. not only that, but you saw for yourself that they expect a handsome car of the latest make, shining with brass and varnish. amateurs always do. what will they say when my world-worn old veteran bursts, or rather bumbles, into view?" i felt slightly crestfallen, for the first time. when one is an editor, one doesn't like to think one has been caught napping. "you said you ought to get two hundred pounds for your panhard, if you sold it," i reminded him. "that's a good deal of money. naturally i thought the motor must be a fairly decent one, to command that price after several seasons' wear and tear." terry fired up instantly, as i had hoped he would; for his car is the immediate jewel of his soul. "decent!" he echoed. "i should rather think she is. but just as there's a limit to your intelligence, so is there a limit to her power, and i don't want it to come to that. however, the thing's gone too far for me to draw back. it must depend upon the ladies. if they don't back out when they see my car, i won't." "to all intents and purposes it's my car now," said i. "you made her over to me before witnesses, and i think i shall have her smartened up with a bit of red paint and a crest." "if you try on anything like that, you can drive her yourself, for i won't. i like her old grey dress. i wouldn't feel at home with her in any other. and she sha'n't be trimmed with crests to make an american holiday. she goes as she is, or not at all, my boy." "you are the hardest chap to do anything for i ever saw," i groaned, with the justifiable annoyance of a martyr who has failed to convert a pagan hero. "as if you hadn't made things difficult enough already by 'mistering' yourself. at any moment you may be found out--though, on second thoughts, it won't matter a rap if you are. if you're a mere mister, you are often obliged to appear before an unsympathetic police magistrate for pretending to be a lord. but i never heard of a lord's falling foul of the law for pretending to be a mister." "if you behave yourself, there isn't much danger of my being found out by any of the people most concerned, during a few weeks' motoring on the continent; but it's to be hoped they won't select england, scotland, or ireland for their tour." "we can tell them that conditions are less favourable for motoring at home--which is quite true, judging from the complaints i hear from motor-men." "but look here; you let me in for this. what i did was on the spur of the moment, and in self-defence. i didn't dream then that i should be, first cornered by you, then led on by circumstances into engaging as chauffeur, to drive my own car on such a wild-goose chase." "it's a wild goose that will lay golden eggs. fifteen guineas a day, my son; that's the size of the egg which that beneficent bird will drop into your palm every twenty-four hours. deduct the ladies' hotel expenses--say three guineas a day; expenses for yourself and car we'll call two guineas more (of course i pay my own way), that leaves you as profit ten guineas daily; seventy guineas a week, or at the rate of three thousand five hundred guineas per annum. before you'd spent your little patrimony, and been refused an--er--fratrimony, you weren't half as well off as that. you might do worse than pass your whole life as a personal conductor on those terms. and instead of thanking the wise friend who has caught this goose for you, and is willing to leave his own peaceful duck for your sake, with no remuneration, you abuse him." "my dear fellow, i'm not exactly abusing you, for i know you meant well. but you've swept me off my feet, and i'm not at home yet in mid air." "you can lie on your back and roll in gold in the intervals of driving the car. i promise not to give you away. still, it's a pity you wouldn't consent to trading a little on your title, which heaven must have given you for some good purpose. as it is, you've made my tuppenny-ha'penny baronetcy the only bait, and that's no catch at all for an american millionairess, fishing for something big in aristocracy pond. why, when that prince of hers discovers what is doing, he will persuade the fair countess dalmar that she's paying a high price for a nobody--a nobody-at-all." "what makes you think he doesn't know already, as he evidently followed the party here, and must be constantly dangling about?" "my detective instinct, which two seasons of pink journalism has developed. mrs. kidder saw the advertisement this morning, and was caught by it. may sherlock holmes cut me in the street if prince dalmar-kalm hasn't been away for the day, doubtless at monte carlo where he has lost most of his own money, and will send the countess's to find it, if she gives him the chance." "i never saw the fellow, or heard of him, so far as i can remember," said terry thoughtfully. "what's he like? middle-aged, stout?" "he looks thirty, so he is probably forty; for if you look your age, you are probably ten years past it--though that sounds a bit more irish than scotch, eh? and he's far from being stout. from a woman's point of view, i should say he might be very attractive. tall; thin; melancholy; enormous eyes; moustache waxed; scar on forehead; successful effect of dashing soldier, but not much under the effect, i should say, except inordinate self-esteem, and a masterly selfishness which would take what it wanted at almost any cost to others. there's a portrait of prince dalmar-kalm for you." "evidently not the sort of man who ought to be allowed to hang about young girls." "young girls with money. don't worry about the vestal virgin. he won't have time in this game to bother with poor relations, no matter how pretty they may happen to be." terry still looked thoughtful. "well, if we are going in for this queer business, we'd better get off as soon as possible," said he. i smiled in my sleeve. "st. george in a stew to get the princess out of the dragon's claws," i thought; but i refrained from speaking the thought aloud. whatever the motive, the wish was to be encouraged. the sooner the wild goose laid the first golden egg the better. fortunately for my private interests, the season was waning and the coming week would see the setting of my _riviera sun_ until next november. i could therefore get away, leaving what remained of the work to be done by my "sub"; and i determined that, prince or no prince, luncheon to-morrow should not pass without a business arrangement being completed between the parties. iii a chapter of revenges mrs. kidder, alias the countess dalmar, either had a fondness for lavish hospitality or else she considered us exceptionally distinguished guests. our feast was not laid in a private dining-room (what is the good of having distinguished guests if nobody is to know you've got them?); nevertheless, it was a feast. the small round table, close to one of the huge windows of the restaurant, was a condensed flower-show. our plates and glasses (there were many of the latter) peeped at us from a bower of roses, and bosky dells of greenery. the countess and the infant were dressed as for a royal garden party, and terry and i would have felt like moulting sparrows had not miss destrey's plain white cotton kept us in countenance. mrs. kidder had evidently not been comfortably certain whether we ought not to march into the restaurant arm in arm, but the penniless goddess (who had perhaps been brought to europe as a subtle combination of etiquette-mistress and ladies'-maid) cut the gordian knot with a quick glance, to our intense relief; and we filed in anyhow, places being indicated to terry and me on either hand of our hostess. a painted satin menu, with a list of dishes as long as terry's tailor's bills, lay beside each plate. we were to be provided with all the luxuries which were not in season; those which were would have been far too common for an american millionairess, such as i began to be more and more convinced that our hostess was. it was the kind of luncheon which calls for rare and varied wines, just as certain poetical recitations call for a musical accompaniment; therefore the countess's first words on sitting down at the table came as a shock. "now, sir ralph," said she, "you must just order any kind of wine you and mr. ter--barrymore like. mr. kidder never would have alcohol in the house, except for sickness, and we three drink only water, so i don't know anything about it; but i want that you gentlemen should suit your own taste. do make the waiter bring you something _real_ nice." my sparkling visions of steinberger cabinet, cos d'estournel, or an "extra sec" of '92, burst like a rainbow bubble. here was one of life's little tragedies. neither terry nor i are addicted to looking too lovingly on wine when it is red, or even pale golden; still, at this moment i had a sharp pang of sympathy for tantalus. to be sure, that hint as to "something real nice" grudged no expense; but i must have been blest with more cool, unadulterated "cheek" than two seasons of journalism had given me, to order anything appropriate while our hostess drowned her generous impulses in iced water. with a wooden expression of countenance, i asked terry what he would have. "water, thanks," he replied airily, and if, instead of gazing at the ceiling with elaborate interest, he had allowed his eye to meet mine at that instant, a giggle might have burst over that luncheon-table, out of a clear sky. perforce, i felt obliged to follow his lead, for only a guzzling brute could have bibbed alone, surrounded by four teetotallers; but, deprived of even an innocent glass of riviera beer, my soul thirsted for a revenge which could not be quenched with iced water; and i took it without waiting for repentance to set in. "you see, barrymore is a chauffeur," i carefully explained "and it's _en regle_ for him, even though an amateur, to drink nothing stronger than cold water. you will notice during our trip, countess, how conscientious he is in sticking to this pledge." i felt that terry's eye launched a dagger; but it was now my turn to be interested in the ceiling. "oh, how _good_ of him!" exclaimed our hostess. "i do _admire_ that in you, mr. tarrymore." (i couldn't help wondering incidentally whether the countess would have had such frequent lapses of memory regarding terry's name, if she knew that he was the brother of a marquis; but it may be that i wronged her.) "we shall feel as safe as if we were in a house when you are driving, now we know what kind of a man you are, shan't we, girls?" poor terry, irrevocably pledged to blue ribbonism for the term of his natural chauffeurdom! i could have found it in my heart to pity him, had not the iced water come jingling ironically round at that moment. let it then be upon his own head, with ice or without. and this came of lunching with the widow of a simon pure kidder! for i had no longer the slightest doubt as to the middle name of the deceased. with a brain almost cruelly clear and cold, i entered the lists with the lady's conversational gifts, and after a spirited but brief tourney, conquered with flying colours. my aim was to pin her down to something definite ... like an impaled butterfly: hers was to flutter over a vast garden of irrelevances; but she did not long evade the spike. i tipped its point with the subtly poisonous suggestion that all arrangements must be made in the hour, otherwise complications might arise. there seemed to be so many people who had been attracted by that simple little advertisement of mine, and really, i must be able to say that i and my car were engaged for such and such a date--preferably a near one--or i should have difficulty in evading requests for an intermediate trip with others. the butterfly wriggled no more. indeed, it hastened to assure the executioner that it was only too anxious to be comfortably pinned into place. "when could _you_ go, sir ralph?" the countess asked. "day after to-morrow," i answered boldly. "could you?" she looked rather taken aback. "we--er--haven't motor things yet," she demurred. "you can get 'every requisite' (isn't that the word?) in the nice or monte carlo shops, if that's your only reason for delay." still the lady hesitated. "mamma's new crown isn't painted on all her baggage yet," said beechy, living up, with a wicked delight, to her _rôle_ of _enfante terrible_. "it's being done, but it wasn't promised till the end of the week. say, sir ralph, don't you think she's mean not to give me even so much as _half_ a crown?" what i really thought was, that she deserved a slap; but terry spared the countess a blush and me the brain fag of a repartee conciliatory alike to parent and child. "i think we ought to warn you," he said, "that the car hasn't precisely the carrying capacity of a luggage van. perhaps when you find that there's no room for paris frocks and hats, you'll repent your bargain." "can't we take a small trunk and a satchel apiece?" asked the countess. "i don't see how we could do with less." "i'm afraid you'll have to, if you go in--er--my friend's car," terry went on ruthlessly. "a small box between the three of you, and a good-sized dressing-bag each, is all that the car can possibly manage, though, of course moray and i will reduce our luggage to the minimum amount." mrs. kidder looked grave, and at this instant, just as i felt that terry's future was wavering in the balance, outweighed probably by a bonnet-box, there was a slight stir in the restaurant, behind our backs. involuntarily i turned my head, and saw prince dalmar-kalm hurrying towards us, his very moustache a thundercloud. he could not have appeared at a less convenient time for us. i was sure that he had not been consulted in regard to the automobile trip; that perhaps even now he was in ignorance of the plan; and that, when he came to hear of it as he must within the next five minutes, he would certainly try (as beechy would have put it) to snatch the american ladies out of our mouths. it was like terry's luck, i said to myself, that this evil genius should arrive at the moment when mrs. kidder had been mercilessly deprived of her wardrobe by a mere chauffeur. terry had stupidly given her an opening if she chose to take it, by suggesting that she might "repent her bargain," and i was sure it wouldn't be dalmar-kalm's fault if she didn't take it. a second later he had reached our table, was bending low over mrs. kidder's hand, smiling with engaging wickedness at beechy, and sending a dark look of melancholy yearning to catch miss destrey's sympathies. "why, prince," the countess exclaimed in a loud tone, calculated to reach the ears of any neighbouring royalties, and let them see that she was as good as they were. "why, prince, if you're not always surprising people! i thought you were staying another day with the duke of messina, in monte carlo." "told you so!" my eyebrows--such as they are--telegraphed to terry. "he _has_ been away; only just back; pantomime demon act." "i found myself homesick for cap martin," returned the prince, with an emphasis and a sweeping glance which made a present of the compliment to the woman, the girl, and the child. "humph," i sneered into the iced water; "lost all he'd got with him, and the money-lenders turned crusty; that's when the homesickness came on." "well, now you're here, do sit down and have lunch with us," said mrs. kidder, "unless"--archly--"your homesickness has destroyed your appetite." "if it had, the pleasure of seeing you again would restore it;" and once more the austrian's gaze assured each one of the three that she alone was the "you" referred to. a nod and a gesture whisked a couple of attentive waiters to the table, and in the twinkling of an eye--even an american eye--a place was laid for the prince, with duplicates of all our abortive wine glasses. "aha, my fine fellow, _you_ are no friend of cold water," i said to myself in savage glee, as i acknowledged with a bow mrs. kidder's elaborate introduction. "you will suffer even more than we have suffered." but i reckoned without a full knowledge of the princely character. history repeated itself with an invitation to the new guest to choose what he liked from the wine card. i looked for a courteous refusal, accompanied by some such gallant speech as, that he would drink to the ladies only with his eyes; but nothing of the kind happened. he searched the list for a moment with the absorption of a connoisseur, then unblushingly ordered a bottle of romanée conti, which wine, he carelessly announced, he preferred to champagne, as being "less obvious." the price, however, would be pretty obvious on mrs. kidder's bill, i reflected; seventy francs a bottle, if it were a penny. but did this coming event cast a shadow on the prince's contentment? on the contrary, it probably spangled its fabric with sequins. he sniffed the wine as if it had been an american beauty rose, and quaffed it ecstatically, while terry and i gulped down our iced water and our indignation. "you are just in time, prince," said mrs. kidder, "to advise us about our journey. oh, i forgot, you don't know anything about it yet. but we are going a tour in sir ralph moray's automobile. won't it be fun?" "indeed?" the prince ejaculated hastily; and i had the satisfaction of knowing that one swallow of the romanée conti was spoiled for him. "no; i had not heard. i did not know that sir ralph moray was one of your friends. has not this been suddenly arranged?" "it was only _decided_ yesterday," replied the countess; and it was revealed to me that the plump lady was not without feminine guile. "what is your car?" inquired the prince, turning abruptly to me. "a panhard," i answered, with a gaze as mild as milk. i knew that my answer would disappoint him, as he could pick no flaws in the make of the machine. "what horse-power?" he continued his catechism. "something under twenty," i conservatively replied. "twelve," corrected terry, with a brutal bluntness unworthy of a celt. he can be very irritating sometimes; but at this moment he was looking so extremely handsome and devil-may-care, that my desire to punch his head dissolved as i glared at him. could any woman in her senses throw over even a titleless terry and twelve horses worth of motor for a hat box or two and an austrian prince? "a twelve-horse-power car, and you propose to take with you on tour three ladies, their maid, and all their luggage?" demanded dalmar-kalm in his too excellent english. "but it is not possible." i felt suddenly as if terry and i were little snub-nosed boys, trafficking with a go-cart. "they won't need their maid, prince," said miss destrey. "i know how to do aunt kathryn's hair; and the dear sisters have taught me how to mend beautifully." this was the first time she had opened her lips during luncheon, except to eat with an almost nun-like abstemiousness; and now she broke silence to rescue a scheme which yesterday had excited her active disapproval. the girl, always interesting because of her unusual type of beauty, gained a new value in my eyes. she excited my curiosity, although her words were a practical revelation of her place in the trio. why did she break a lance in our defence? and had she been torn from a convent to serve her rich relatives, that she should mention the "sisters" in that familiar and tender tone? had her beautiful white sails veered with a new wind, and did she _want_ to go with us, after all? did she wish to tell the prince in a sentence, how poor she really was? these were a few of the hundred and one questions which the fair maid of destrey's charming and somewhat baffling personality set going in my mind by a word or two. i thought that the prince's face fell, but mrs. kidder's contribution to the defence distracted my attention. "we don't expect to take _all_ our luggage," she said. "i suppose some things could be sent by rail from place to place to meet us, couldn't they?" "of course," i assured her, before dalmar-kalm could enlarge upon the uncertainties of such an arrangement. "that's what is always done. and your maid could travel by rail too." "she is a parisienne," exclaimed mrs. kidder, "and she's always saying she wouldn't leave france for twice the wages i pay." "try her with three times," suggested beechy. but miss destrey was speaking again. "as i said, it doesn't matter about agnes. aunt kathryn and beechy shan't miss her; and she never does anything for me." "what a pity," complained the prince, "that my automobile is at the moment laid up for repairs. otherwise i should have been only too delighted to take you three ladies to the world's end, if you had the wish. _it_ is not 'something less than twenty,' as sir ralph moray describes his twelve-horse-power car, but is something _more_ than twenty, with a magnificently roomy roi de belge tonneau and accommodation for any amount of luggage on the roof. by the way, yours has at least a cover, i make no doubt, sir ralph?" "no," i was obliged to admit, my mouth somewhat dry--owing perhaps to the iced water. "no cover? how, then, do you propose to protect these ladies from the rain?" this with virtuous indignation flashing from his fierce eyes, and a gesture which defended three helpless feminine things from the unscrupulous machinations of a pair of villains. my ignorance of motor lore bereft me of a weapon with which to parry the attack, but terry whipped out his sword at last. "the ladies will be protected by their motor coats and our rugs. i'm sure they're too plucky to sacrifice the best pleasures of motoring to a little personal comfort when it may happen to rain," said he. "a roof gives no protection against rain except with curtains, and even when without them it curtails the view." "ah, it is cruel that i cannot get my car for you from paris," sighed the prince. "perhaps, countess, if you would wait a little time--a week or ten days, i might--" "but we're going day after to-morrow, aren't we, kittie?" quickly broke in miss destrey. "i suppose so," replied mrs. kidder, who invariably frowned when addressed as "cousin kathryn," and brightened faintly if spontaneously kittied. "we've been here more than a week, and seen all the nice and monte carlo sights, thanks to the prince. there's nothing to keep us, although it will be about all we can do to get off so soon." "why be hurried, countess?" with a shrug of the shoulder half-turned from me. "well, i don't know." her eyes wandered to mine. "but it suits sir ralph to leave then. i guess we can manage it." "where will you go?" inquired dalmar-kalm. "i might be able to join you somewhere _en route_." "well, that's one of the things we haven't quite settled yet," replied mrs. kidder. "almost anywhere will suit me. we can just potter around. it's the automobiling we want. you know, this is our first time in europe, and so long as we're in pretty places, it's much the same to us." "speak for yourself, mamma," said beechy. "maida and i want to see the lake of como, where claude melnotte had his palace." "oh, my, yes! in 'the lady of lyons.' i do think that's a perfectly sweet play. could we go there, sir ralph?" "i must consult my chauffeur," said i, cautiously. "he knows more about geography than i do. he ought to; he spends enough money on road-maps to keep a wife. eh, terry?" "there are two ways of driving to the lakes from here," he said, with a confidence which pleased me. "one can go coasting along the italian riviera to genoa, and so direct to milan; or one can go through the roya valley, either by turin, or a short cut which brings one eventually to milan." "milan!" exclaimed miss destrey, with a rapt look. "why, that's not very far from verona, is it? and if it's not far from verona, it can't be so far from venice. oh, beechy, think of seeing venice!" "it would be easy to go there," terry said, showing too much eagerness to fall in with a whim of the poor relation's; at least such was my opinion until, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, he added, "if we went to venice, countess, it would be very easy to run on if you liked, into dalmatia and see the new estate which you told us you thought of buying, before you actually made up your mind to have it." it was all i could do to strangle a chuckle at birth. good old terry! even he was not above taking a neat revenge; and the prince's face showed _how_ neat it was. could it be possible that the estate in dalmatia which carried with it a title, had any resemblance to claude melnotte's in that "sweet" play, "the lady of lyons?" i could scarcely believe that, much as i would have liked to; but it was clear he would have preferred to have the american millionairess take the beauties of her new possessions for granted. "oh, i have made up my mind already. i made it up before we arrived here," said the countess. "she made it up in the train coming from paris," corrected beechy, "because she had to decide what name to register, and whether she'd have the crown put on her handkerchiefs and her baggage. but she had to cable to our lawyer in denver before she could get money enough to pay what the prince wanted in advance, and the answer only came back this morning." "and what does the lawyer say?" asked the prince, flushing, and with a strained playfulness contradicted by the eager light in his eyes. "just guess," said beechy, all her imps in high glee. "lawyers are such dry-as-dust persons," remarked his highness, hastily lifting his glass to toss off the last of the romanée conti. "if he is a wise man who studies his client's interests, he could not advise madame against taking a step by which she ascends to a height so advantageous, but--" "oh, he said yes," cried mrs. kidder, clinging to her countesshood. "and he put after it, 'if you will be a fool,'" added beechy. "but he'll have to pay for that part of the cable himself." "he is my late husband's cousin," explained mrs. kidder, "and he takes liberties sometimes, as he thinks simon would not have approved of everything i do. but you needn't tell _everything_, beechy." "let's talk about venice," said miss destrey with a lovely smile, which seemed all the more admirable as she had given us so few. "i have always longed to see venice." "but you didn't want to come abroad, you can't say you did," remarked beechy the irrepressible, resenting her cousin's interference, as a naughty boy resents being torn from the cat to whose tail he has been tying a tin can. "and i know _why_ you didn't!" she too had a taste for revenge! miss destrey blushed--i wondered why; and so, no doubt, did terry wonder. (had she by chance been sent abroad to forget an unfortunate attachment?) "you wanted to stay with the sisters," beechy took advantage of the other's embarrassed silence to go on. "and you hardly enjoyed paris at all, although everybody turned to look after you in the streets." "well, now that i have come, i should enjoy seeing the places i've cared most to read about in history or poetry," said miss destrey quickly, "and venice is one of them." "maida has lived more in books than she has in real life," remarked miss beechy with scorn. "i know a lot more about the world than she does, although i am only--only--" "thirteen," finished the countess. "beechy darling, would you like to have some more of those _marrons glacés_? they aren't good for you, but just this once you may, if you want to. and oh, sir ralph, i should love to see my new estate. it's a very old estate really, you know, though new to me; so old that the castle is almost a ruin; but if i saw it and took a great fancy to the place, i might have it restored and made perfectly elegant, to live in sometimes, mightn't i? just where _is_ schloss (she pronounced it 'slosh') what-you-may-call-it? i never _can_ say it properly?" "schloss hrvoya is very far down in dalmatia--almost as far east as montenegro," replied the prince. "the roads are extremely bad, too. i do not think they would be feasible for an automobile, especially for sir ralph moray's little twelve-horse-power car carrying five persons." "i differ from you there, prince." terry argued, looking obstinate. "i have never driven in dalmatia, although i've been to fiume and abbazzia; but i have a friend who went with his car, and he had no adventures which ladies would not have enjoyed. our principal difficulty would be about petrol; but we could carry a lot, and have supplies sent to us along the route. i'll engage to manage that--and the car." "then it's settled that we go," exclaimed mrs. kidder, clapping two dimpled hands covered with rings. "what a wonderful trip it will be." i could see that the prince would have liked to call terry out, but he was too wise to dispute the question further; and a dawning plan of some kind was slowly lightening his clouded eye. my wish was granted at last; something was settled. and later, strolling on the terrace, i contrived to put all that was left upon a business basis. never had man a better friend than terence barrymore has in me; and my whole attention on the way home was given to making him acknowledge it. iv a chapter of humiliations after all, we did not start on the day after to-morrow. our luncheon had been on tuesday. on wednesday a note came, sent by hand from mrs. kidder, to say that she could not possibly be ready until friday, and that as friday was an unlucky day to begin any enterprise, we had better put off starting until saturday. but i must not "think her changeable, as she really had a very good reason"; and she was mine "cordially, kathryn stanley kidder-dalmar." having first stated that she could not be ready, and then added her reason was good, i naturally imagined there was more in the delay than met the eye. my fancy showed me the hand of prince dalmar-kalm, and i firmly believed that each finger of that hand to say nothing of the thumb, was busily working against us. all thursday and friday i expected at any moment to receive an intimation that, owing to unforseen circumstances (which might not be explained) the countess and her party were unable to carry out the arrangement they had entered into with us. but thursday passed, and nothing happened. friday wore on towards evening, and the constant strain upon my nerves had made me irritable. terry, who was calmly getting ready for the start as if there were no cause for uncertainty, chaffed me on my state of mind, and i rounded upon him viciously, for was not all my scheming for his sake? i was in the act of pointing out several of his most prominent defects, and shedding cigarette ashes into his suit-case as he packed, when félicité appeared with a letter. "it's from her!" i gasped. "and--she's got her coronet. it's on the envelope, as large as life." "which means that she's ready," said the future chauffeur, examining a suit of overalls. "don't be so cocksure," said i, opening the letter. "hum--ha--well, yes, it does seem to be all right, if you can ever judge a woman's intentions by what she says. she wants to know whether the arrangement stands, that we're to call for them at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and whether we're to go rain or shine. i'll scratch off a line in answer, and say yes--yes--yes, to everything." i did so with a trembling hand, and then gave myself up to the weakness of reaction. upon félicité fell the task of doing my packing, which consisted in cramming a suit of flannels, my evening things, and all the linen it would hold without bursting asunder, into a large, fitted suit-case. terry had a suit-case too, five times better than mine (irishmen in debt always do have things superior to those of every one else); we had motor-coats, and enough guide-books and road-maps to stock a small library; and when these were collected we were ready for the great adventure. when terry visits me at the châlet des pins, he keeps his car at a garage in mentone. his habit has been to put up his chauffeur close by this garage, and telephone when he wants to use the car; but the chauffeur was paid off and sent away ten days ago, at about the time when terry decided that the automobile must be sold. he had not been in spirits for a drive since, until the fateful day of the advertisement, but immediately after our luncheon with the countess he had walked down to the garage and stayed until dinner-time. what he had been doing there he did not deign to state; but i had a dim idea that when you went to call on a motor-car in its den, you spent hours on your back bolting nuts, or accelerating silencers, or putting the crank head (and incidentally your own) into an oil bath; and i supposed that terry had been doing these things. when he returned on wednesday, thursday, and friday, spending several hours on each occasion, i went on supposing the same; but when at nine o'clock on saturday morning he drove up to the garden gate after another trip to mentone, i had a surprise. terry had almost bitten off my head when i had innocently proposed to have his car smartened up to suit the taste of the countess; but, without saying a word to me, he had been at work improving its appearance. "she" (as he invariably calls his beloved vehicle) was dressed in grey as before, but it was fresh, glossy grey, still smelling of turpentine. the tyres were new, and white, and a pair of spare ones were tied onto the motor's bonnet, which looked quite jaunty now in its clean lead-coloured paint. the shabby cushions of the driver's seat and tonneau had been re-covered also with grey, and wherever a bit of brass was visible it glittered like pure gold. at the sound of the panhard's sob at the gate, félicité and i hurried down the path, armed with the two coats and suit-cases, there to be surprised by the rejuvenated car, and dumbfounded by a transformed terry. "mon dieu, comme il est beau, comme ça," cried my domestic miracle worker, lost in admiration of a tall, slim, yet athletic figure, clad from head to foot in black leather. "mais--mais ce n'est pas comme il faut pour un milord." "why, terry," exclaimed i, "i never thought--i never expected--i'm hanged if you're not a real professional. it's awfully smart, and very becoming--never saw you look better in your life. but it's--er--a kind of masquerade, you know. i'm not sure you ought to do it. if innisfallen saw you like that, he'd cross you out of his will." "he's dead certain to have done that already. when i engaged as your chauffeur i engaged as your chauffeur and i intend to look the part as well as act it. i want this car to be as smart as it can, which unfortunately isn't saying much, and towards that end i've been doing my best these last three or four days. she isn't bad, is she?" "from being positively plain, if not ugly, she has become almost a beauty," i replied. "but i thought you were determined to preserve her from the sin of vanity? why this change of mind?" "well, i couldn't stand dalmar-kalm running her down," terry confessed rather sheepishly. "there was so little time, that half the work on her i've done myself." "that accounts, then, for your long and mysterious absences." "only partly. i've been working like a navvy, at a mechanic's shop, fagging up a lot of things i knew how to do on principle, but had seldom or never done with my own hands. i was always a lazy beggar, i'm afraid, and it was better fun to smoke and watch my man collet making or fitting in a new part than to bother with it myself. this will be my first long trip 'on my own,' you see, and i don't want to be a duffer, especially as i myself proposed going down into dalmatia, where we may get into no end of scrapes." "by jove!" i exclaimed, gazing with a new respect at my leather-clad friend and his car. "you've got some good stuff in you, terry. i didn't quite realize what a responsibility i was throwing on you, old chap, when i named you as my chauffeur. except for my drives with you, i suppose i haven't been in a motor half a dozen times in my life, now i come to think of it and it always seemed to me that, if a man knew how to drive his own car, he must know how to do everything else that was necessary." "very few do, even expert drivers, among amateurs. a man ought to be able not only to take his car entirely to pieces and put it together again, but to go into a mechanic's shop and make a new one. i don't say that i can do that, but i can come a bit nearer to it than i could five days ago. i don't think that the poor old car will be such a shock to the ladies now, even after some of the fine ones they must have seen, do you?" he was so ingenuously proud of his achievements, had toiled so hard, and sacrificed so much of his personal vanity in providing his employers with a suitable chauffeur, that i did not stint my commendation of him and his car. félicité, too, was prolific in compliments. the duck, who had waddled out to the gate to see what was doing, quacked flattery; the yellow cat mewed praise; and terry, pleased as punch with everything and everybody, whistled as he stowed away our suit-cases. the moment of departure had come. with some emotion i bade farewell to my family, which i should not see again until i returned to the riviera to open the autumn season with the first number of the _sun_. then one last look at the little place which had become dear to me, and we were off with a bound for the cap martin hotel. terry, when in a frank and modest mood, had sometimes said to me that, with all the virtues of strength, faithfulness, and getting-thereness, his car was not to be called a fast car. thirty miles an hour was its speed at best, and this pace it seemed had been far surpassed by newer cars of the same make, though of no higher power, since terry's had been built. this fact i took for granted, as i had heard it from terry's own lips more than once; but as we flew over the wooded road which divided the châlet des pins from the cap martin hotel, i would have sworn that we were going at the rate of sixty miles per hour. "good heavens!" i gasped. "have you been doing anything to this car, to make her faster than she was? help! i can't breathe." "nonsense," said terry, with soothing calm. "it's only because you haven't motored for a long time that you imagine we're going fast. the motor's working well, that's all. we're crawling along at a miserable twenty miles an hour." "well, i'm glad that worms and other reptiles can't crawl at this pace, anyhow, or life wouldn't be worth living for the rest of creation," i retorted, cramming on my cap and wishing i had covered my tearful eyes with the motor-goggles which lay in my pocket. "if our millionairesses don't respect this pace, i'll eat my hat when i have time, or--" but terry was not destined to hear the end of that boast--which perhaps was just as well for me in the end, as things were to turn out. we spun down the avenue of pines, and in less than a lazy man's breathing space were at the door of the cap martin hotel. quite a crowd of smart-looking people was assembled there, and for one fond second i dreamed that they were waiting to witness our arrival. but that pleasant delusion died almost as soon as born. as the group divided at our approach we saw that they had been collected round a large motor-car--a motor-car so resplendent that beside it our poor rejuvenated thing looked like a little, made-up, old quaker lady. in colour this hated rival was a rich, ripe scarlet, with cushions to match in her luxurious tonneau. her bonnet was like a helmet of gold for the goddess minerva, and wherever there was space, or chance, for something to sparkle with jewelled effect, that something availed itself, with brilliance, of the opportunity. the long scarlet body of the creature was shaded with a canopy of canvas, white as the breast of a gull, and finished daintily all round with a curly fringe. the poles which held it were apparently of glittering gold, and the railing designed to hold luggage on the top, if not of the same precious metal, was as polished as the letters of lord chesterfield to his long-suffering son. one jealous glance was enough to paint this glowing picture upon our retinas, and there it remained, like a sun-spot, even when a later one was stamped upon it. three figures in long, grey motor-coats, exactly alike, and motor-caps, held on with shirred chiffon veils came forward, two advancing more quickly than the third. "how _do_ you do, sir ralph? good morning, mr. barrymore," mrs. kidder and beechy were saying. "we're all ready," went on the former, excitedly. "we've been admiring the prince's car, which came last night. isn't it a perfect beauty? just _look_ at the sweet poppy-colour, and his crest in black and gold. i never saw anything so pretty, did you?" "i like sir ralph's car," said miss destrey. "it's such a cool grey, and even in wind or dust it will always look neat. we shall match it very well with our grey coats and veils." i could have kissed her; while as for terry, standing cap in hand, he looked grateful enough to have grovelled at our fair champion's feet. nevertheless, we could not help knowing in our hearts that no normal girl could help preferring that celestial peacock to our grey hen, and that miss destrey's wish to be kind must have outstripped her obligation to be truthful. this knowledge was turning a screw round in our vitals, when his highness himself appeared to give it a still sharper twist. he had been standing at a short distance, talking with a small chauffeur of a peculiarly solemn cast of countenance. now he turned and joined the ladies with a brisk step and an air of proprietorship. the fact that he was wearing a long motor-coat, of a smart cut, and a peaked cap which became him excellently, struck me as ominous. had he caught the birds--our birds--after all, at the last moment, and had they been too cowardly to let us know? "oh, good morning, sir ralph," said he. "so that is the famous car. mine is a giant beside it, is it not? no doubt you and your friend are clever men, but you will need all your cleverness to provide comfortable accommodation for these ladies' luggage as well as themselves. i would not mind betting you ten to one that you will fail to do it to their satisfaction." "i'll take the bet if the ladies don't mind," responded terry promptly, those lazy irish eyes of his very bright and dark. "what--a bet? why, that will be real fun," laughed the countess, showing her dimples. "what is it to be?" a slightly anxious expression hardened the lines of the prince's face when he found himself taken in earnest. "a thousand francs against a hundred of yours shall it be, monsieur? i don't wish to plunge my hand into your pockets," said he, shrewdly making a virtue of his caution. "as you like," terry assented. "now for the test. your luggage has come down, countess?" "yes; here it all is," said mrs. kidder, guiltily indicating three stout hotel porters who stood in the background heavily laden. "dear me, it _does_ look as if it was going to be a mighty tight squeeze, doesn't it?" in response to a gesture, the porters advanced in line, like the three graces; and counting rapidly, i made out that their load consisted of one good-sized "innovation" cabin box, two enormous alligator-skin dressing bags, one small bag, and two capacious hold-alls, umbrellas, parasols, and a tea-basket. i began to tremble for more than terry's five pounds. i now saw all the prince's guile. he had somehow managed to produce his car, and had, no doubt, used all his eloquence to persuade mrs. kidder that she would be justified in changing her mind at the last moment. that he had failed was owing either to her sense of honour or her liking for the english-speaking races over foreigners, even princely ones. but refusing to abandon hope, his highness had pinned his last fluttering rag of faith upon the chance that our car would fail to fulfil its contract. with this chance, and this alone still to depend upon, he had probably kept his melancholy chauffeur up all night, sponging and polishing. if the panhard refused to absorb the ladies' luggage, there would be his radiant chariot waiting to console them in the bitter hour of their disappointment. as terry stood measuring each piece of luggage with his eye, silently apportioning it a place in the car, i felt as i had felt at "monte" when, at roulette, as many as three of my hard-won five franc pieces might easily go "bang," like the sixpence of another canny scot. will it be _rouge_; will it be _noir_?... i could never look; and i could not look now. turning to beechy, who stood at my shoulder eagerly watching, i flung myself into conversation. "what are you laughing at?" i asked. "at all of you," said the infant. "but especially the prince." "why especially the prince?" i was growing interested. "i should think you'd know." "how could i know?" "because i guess you're pretty bright. sometimes i look at you, and you seem to be thinking the same things i am. i don't know whether that makes me like you or hate you, but anyway it makes me give you credit for good wit. i'm not exactly _stupid_." "i've noticed that. but about the prince?" "can't you guess how he got his automobile just in the nick of time?" "yes, i can guess; but maybe it wouldn't be right." "and maybe it would. let's see." "well, the countess heard favourably from her lawyer in denver on tuesday, and paid down something in advance for the dalmatian estate." "_and_ the title. right first time. the 'something' was eight thousand dollars." "phew!" "that's just the word for it. when she's seen the place, she'll pay the rest--eight thousand more. quite a lot for those gold crowns on the luggage; but we all have our dolls with eyes to open or shut, and poor mamma hasn't had any chance to play dolls till just lately. she's busy now having heaps of fun, and i'm having a little, too, in my simple childish way. well, so long as we don't interfere with each other!... the prince sees that mamma can afford to buy dolls, so he would like to play with her, and me, and--" "and he doesn't want barrymore and me in the playroom." "i _thought_ you were bright! it made him just sick to think of you two walking off with us from under his nose. _there_ was his automobile in paris, and there was he _here_, perfectly useless, because i'm sure he'd lent the auto to his uncle." "to his uncle?" i echoed. "don't you say that in england, or scotland, or wherever you come from? 'put it up the spout'--pawned it; and he couldn't move one way or the other till he'd got mamma's money. the minute that was in his pocket he began to plan. the first thing he did was to tell mamma that he had a surprise for her, which he'd been getting ready for several days, and it would be spoiled if we all went off with you and that awfully good-looking chauffeur of yours on thursday. he said he _must_ have till saturday morning, and mamma was so curious to know what the mystery was, and so afraid of hurting a real live prince's feelings, that she was finally persuaded to wait." "oh, that is the explanation of her letter to me." "yes. i suspected what was going on, but she didn't; having dimples makes people so soft and good-natured. i don't _know_ what the prince did after she'd given her word to stay, but i guessed." "he wired money to his chauffeur in paris or somewhere, had the car got out of the clutches of that relative you referred to, and brought on here at top speed." "but not its own speed. when it arrived here last night, it was just as spick and span as it is now." "then it must have come by train." "that's what i think. i bet the prince was too much afraid some accident might happen to it on the way, and upset all his plans, to trust to having the thing driven down here by road." "you must be careful not to let your brain develop too fast," i pleaded, "or when you grow up, you--" "that's such a long time off, i don't need to worry yet," miss kidder remarked demurely. "do you think i look more than my age?" "no, but you _talk_ more," said i. "how can you judge? what do you know about little girls like me?" "i don't know anything about little girls like you, because all the rest got broken; but if you'll teach me, i'll do my best to learn." "the prince is doing his best too, i guess. i wonder which will learn faster?" "that depends partly on you. but i should have thought all his time was taken up with your mother." "oh my! no. he wants _her_ to think that. but you see, he's got more time than anything else, so he has plenty to spare for me, and maida too. do you know what he called us to a friend of his in this hotel? the friend's wife told her maid, and she passed it on to our agnes, who repeated it to me because we were sending her away. 'kid, kidder, kiddest.' i'm kiddest, of course; that's easy enough; but it would save the prince lots of trouble and brain-fag if he only knew which was 'rich,' which 'richer,' and which 'richest.'" "heavens!" i ejaculated. "if you have got together all this mass of worldly wisdom at thirteen, what will you have accumulated at twenty?" "it all depends on when mamma allows me to be twenty," retorted the little wretch. and what lengths this indecently frank conversation might have reached between us i dare not think, had not an exclamation from terry cut it short. "what do you say to that, countess, and miss destrey? have i won the bet?" he was demanding, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, as he stood to survey his work. if i had not infinite belief in terry's true irish ingenuity, i would have considered the day and the bet both lost before the test had been essayed. but he had justified my faith, and there on the almost obliterated lines of the motor-car, behold a place for everything, and everything in its place. on one step the "innovation" cabin-box reared itself on end like a dwarfish obelisk; a fat hold-all adorned each mud-guard, where it lay like an underdone suet pudding; the two huge dressing-bags had been pushed under the corner seats of the tonneau, which fortunately was of generous dimensions, while the third and smallest one (no doubt miss destrey's) was so placed that it could be used as a footstool, or pushed to the front out of the way. umbrellas and parasols stood upright in a hanging-basket especially designed for them; books and maps had disappeared into a box, which was also a shelf on the back of the driver's seat, and the tea-basket had been lashed on top of this. the prince's voice responded to terry's question with ribald mirth before it could be answered by the ladies. "ha, ha, ha!" cried he, shouting with laughter at the appearance of the car; and even my lips twitched, though i would have vowed it was st. vitus's dance if anyone had accused me of a smile. "ha, ha, the automobile looks like nothing so much as a market-woman going home with the family provisions for a month. but will she ever _get_ home?" here he became spasmodic, and as he had made a present of his picturesque smile to all the lookers-on as well as to those whom it most concerned, a grin rippled over the faces of the various groups as a breeze ruffles the surface of a pond. if i could have done his highness prince dalmar-kalm a mischief at this moment, without imperilling my whole future, i would have stuck at nothing; but there is capital punishment in france, and, besides, there were no weapons handy except the ladies' hatpins. still, it was useless denying it, the car looked, if not like a market-woman, at least like a disreputable old tramp of the motor world, with its wreaths of luggage looped on anyhow, as if it were a string of giant sausages; and i hated the prince not only for his impertinent pleasure in our plight, but for the proud magnificence of his car, which gained new lustre in the disgrace of ours. "you have more, what do you call it in english--cheek, is it not?--than most of your countrymen, to ask the ladies whether they can be satisfied with _that_," he went on, between his mirthful explosions. "_chère_ countess, do not let your kind heart run away with you. let me tell sir ralph moray that it is impossible for you to tour with him under such conditions, which are surely not what you had a right to expect. if you will go with me, _that_"--pointing a derisive finger at the panhard--"can follow with the luggage." mrs. kidder shook her auburn head, though her dimples were obscured, and a pinkness of complexion for which she had not paid betrayed the fact that her _amour propre_ was writhing under this ordeal. poor little woman, i really pitied her, for even with my slight knowledge of her character, i guessed that she had dreamed of the sensation the departure _en automobile_ of a party so distinguished would create at the hotel. she had confidingly judged the charms of the advertised car from those of the advertisers, and this was her reward. could we blame her if, in the bitterness of mortification, she yielded to the allurement of that glittering car which was our detractor's best argument? but she was loyal on the rack. "no," she said, "i never backed out of anything yet, and i'm not going to now. besides, we don't want to, do we, girls? sir ralph's automobile is just as nice as it can be, and it's our fault, not his, or mr. barrymore's, if we've got a little more luggage than we were told we ought to take. i guess we'll get along all right as soon as we're used to it, and we shall have _the_ time of our lives." "mamma, you're a brick, and i'm glad papa married you," was beechy's pæan of praise. "and i think the way our things are arranged looks really _graceful_," said miss destrey. "mr. barrymore has won that bet easily, hasn't he, kitty and beechy?" "yes," came faintly from the countess and cordially from the child. and i whistled "hail, the conquering hero" _sotto voce_, as dalmar-kalm, with a smile like a dose of asafoetida, counted out the amount of his lost wager. "well," he said, squaring his shoulders to make the best of a bad bargain, "you are three brave ladies to trust yourselves in a machine without room, speed, or power to cross the alps." "you can go to the cathedral at monaco and pray for us to saint joseph, who, agnes told me, looks after travellers," said beechy. "but i do think a more modern saint ought to be invented for motorists." "i shall do better than that. i shall be your protecting saint. i shall go with you as a surgeon attends a company of soldiers," returned the prince, with his air of _grand seigneur_. "that is, i shall keep as near you as a twenty-horse-power car with a light load can possibly keep to a twelve, with three times the load it's fitted to carry." "you're not very complimentary to mamma," glibly remarked the irrepressible. "i fancy, in spite of our load," said terry with undaunted cheerfulness, "we shall find room to stow away a coil of rope which may prove useful for towing the prince's car over some of those alps he seems to think so formidable, in case he decides to--er--follow us. if i'm not mistaken, prince, your motor is a festa, made in vienna, isn't it?" "certainly; the most successful in austria. and mine is the handsomest car the company has yet turned out. it was a special order." "there's an old proverb which says, 'all isn't gold that glitters.' i don't know whether it's apropos to anything that concerns us or not, but we shall perhaps remember it sooner or later. now, ladies, i think everything is shipshape, and there's nothing to keep us any longer. how would you like to sit? some people think the best place beside the driver, but--" "oh, _i_ wouldn't sit there for worlds with no horse in front to fall out on in case anything happened!" exclaimed mrs. kidder; "and i couldn't let beechy either. maida is her own mistress, and can do as she likes." "if that girl is going to get in the habit of sitting by terry day after day," i hurriedly told myself, "i might far better have let him sell his car and grow ostriches or something in south africa. _that_ idea shall be nipped before it is a bud." "i fear i should take up too much room in the tonneau," i suggested with feigned meekness. "you ladies had better have it all to yourselves, and then you can be comfortable. terry and i, on the driver's seat, will act as a kind of screen for you against the wind." "but you really don't take up nearly as much room as maida does in her thick motor-coat," said mrs. kidder. "if she's not _afraid_--" "of course i'm not afraid!" cut in maida. "well, then, i think it would be nicer if sir ralph sat with us, beechy," went on mrs. kidder, "unless it would bore him." naturally i had to protest that, on the contrary, such an arrangement would be what i most desired, had i dared to consult my own selfish wishes. and i had to see the vestal virgin (looking incredibly interesting with her pure face and dark eyes framed with the motor-hood) helped to seat herself in fatal proximity to my unfortunate friend. talk of a powder magazine and a lighted match!--well, there you have the situation as i felt it, though i was powerless for the moment to avert a catastrophe. v a chapter of adventures the prince let us take the lead. he could start twenty minutes later and still easily pass us before the frontier, he said. he had two or three telegrams to send, and one or two little affairs to settle; but he would not be long in catching us up, and after that the ladies might count upon his services in any--er--any emergency. "he might better have gone on ahead and polished up that old castle of his a bit before mrs. kidder sees it," terry murmured to me; but we had no right to object to the prince's companionship, if it were agreeable to our employers, and we uttered no audible word of dissent to his plan. beechy and her mother had the two corner seats in the roomy tonneau, and i settled myself on the flap which lets down when the door is closed. in doing this, i was not unconscious of the fact that if the fastening of the door gave way owing to vibration or any other cause, i should indubitably go swinging out into space; also, that if this disagreeable accident did occur, it would be my luck to have it happen when the back of the car was hanging over a precipice. nevertheless i kept a calm face. these things usually befall some one else rather than one's self; the kind of some one else you read of over your morning coffee, murmuring, "dear me, how horrid!" before you take another sip. terry started the car, and though it carried five persons and enough luggage for ten (i speak of men, not women), we shot away along the perfect road, like an arrow from the bow. at our first fine panther bound, mrs. kidder half rose in her seat and seized my right arm, while beechy's little hand clutched anxiously at my left knee. "oh, mercy!" the countess exclaimed. "tell him not to go so fast--oh, quick! we'll be killed." "no, we won't, don't be frightened; it's all right," i answered soothingly, primed by my late experience in leaving the châlet des pins. "why, we're going slowly--_crawling_ at the rate of twenty--" "fifteen!" laughed our chauffeur over his shoulder. "fifteen miles an hour," i amended my sentence wondering in what way the shock of surprise had affected the vestal virgin. somehow i couldn't fancy her clawing weakly at any part of terry's person. "you wouldn't have us go slower, would you? the prince is sure to be watching." "oh, i don't _know_," wailed mrs. kidder. "i didn't think it would be like this. isn't it awful?" "i believe i--i'm going to like it by-and-by," gasped beechy, her eyes as round as half-crowns, and as big. "maida, have you _fainted_?" miss destrey looked back into the tonneau, her face pale, but radiant. "i wouldn't waste time fainting," said she. "i'm buckling on my wings." "wish she were a coward!" i thought. "terry hates 'em like poison, and would never forgive her if she didn't worship motoring at the first go-off." as for me, i have always found a certain piquant charm in a timid woman. there is a subtle flattery in her almost unconscious appeal to superior courage in man which is perhaps especially sweet to an undersized chap like me; and i had never felt more kindly to the countess and her daughter than i did at this moment. as lothair with his corisande, i "soothed and sustained their agitated frames" so successfully, that the appealing hands stole back to their respective laps, but not to rest in peace for long. the car breasted the small hill at the top of the cap, sturdily, and we sped on towards mentone, which, with its twin, sickle bays, was suddenly disclosed like a scene on the stage when the curtains have been noiselessly drawn aside. the picture of the beautiful little town, with its background of clear-cut mountains, called forth quavering exclamations from our reviving passengers; but a few minutes later when we were in the long, straight street of mentone, weaving our swift way between coming and going electric trams, all the good work i had accomplished had to be done over again. "i can't stand it," moaned mrs. kidder, looking, in her misery, like a frost-bitten apple. "oh, can't the man _see_ that street car's going to run us down? and now there's another, coming from behind. they'll crush us between them. mr. terrymore, stop--stop! i'll give you a thousand dollars to take me back to cap martin. oh, he doesn't hear! sir ralph--why you're _laughing_!" "mamma, you'd send a mummied cat into hysterics," giggled beechy. "i guess together we'd make the fortune of a dime museum, if they could show us now. but the cars _didn't_ run over us, did they?" "no, but the next ones will--and oh, this cart! mr. terrymore's the queerest man, he's steering right for it. no, we've missed it _this_ time." "we'll miss it every time, you'll see," i reassured her. "barrymore is a magnificent driver; and look, miss destrey isn't nervous at all." "she hasn't got as much to live for as mamma and i have," said beechy, trying to hide the fact that she was holding on to the side of the car. "you might almost as well be smashed in an automobile as end your days in a convent." here was a revelation, but before i had time to question the speaker further, she and her mother were clinging to me again as if i were a last straw or a forlorn hope. this sort of thing lasted for four or five minutes, which doubtless appeared long to them, but they were not in the least tedious for me. i was quite enjoying myself as a refuge for shipwrecked mariners, and i was rather sorry than otherwise when the mariners began to find their own bearings. they saw that, though their escapes seemed to be by the breadth of a hair, they always were escapes, and that no one was anxious except themselves. they probably remembered, also, that we were not pioneers in the sport of motoring; that some thousands of other people had done what we were doing now, if not worse, and still lived to tell the tale--with exaggerations. presently the strained look left their faces; their bodies became less rigid; and when they began to take an interest in the shops and villas i knew that the worst was over. my arm and knee felt lonely and deserted, as if their mission in life had been accomplished, and they were now mere obstacles, occupying unnecessary space in the tonneau. as for terry, i could see by the set of his shoulders and the way he held his head that he was pleased with life, for he is one of those persons who shows his feelings in his back. he had fought against the idea of this trip, but now that the idea was crystallizing into fact he was happy in spite of himself. after all, what could he ask for that he had not at this moment? the steering wheel of his beloved motor (preserved for him by my cunning) under his hand; beside him a plucky and beautiful girl; behind him a devoted friend; in front, the fairest country in the world, and a road which would lead him to the alps and to piedmont; to stately milan and to the blue, rapturous reaches of como; a road that would beckon him on and on, past villages sleeping under cypresses on sunny hillsides to verona, the city of the "star-crossed lovers;" to giotto's padua, and by peerless venice to strange dalmatia, where christian and moslem look distrustfully into one anothers' eyes. what all this would be to terry i knew, even though he was playing a part distasteful to him; for if he had missed being born an irishman, and had reconciled it to his sense of humour to be born at all, he would certainly have been born an italian. he loves italy; he breathes the air as the air of home, drawn gratefully into the lungs after a long absence. he learned to speak italian as easily as he learned to walk, and he could pour out liquid line after line of old italian poetry, if he had not all a british male's self-conscious fear of making an ass of himself. history was the only thing except cricket and rowing, in which he distinguished himself at oxford, and italian history was to him what novels are to most boys, though had it occurred to him at the time that he was "improving his mind" by reading it, he would probably have shut up the book in disgust. he was not a stranger in the country to which we were going, though he had never entered it by this gate, and most of his motoring had been done in france; but i knew that he would revel in visiting once more the places he loved, in his own car. "have you ever been in italy?" i asked the countess, but she was evilly fascinated by a dog which seemed bent on committing suicide under our car, and it was beechy who answered. "we've never been _anywhere_ before, any of us," she said. "mamma and i only had our machinery set running a few months ago, but now we _are_ wound up, goodness knows how far we'll get. as for maida--she's no mechanical doll like us. but do you know the play about the statue that came to life?" "galatea?" i suggested. "yes, that's the name. maida's like that; and i suppose she'll go back as soon as she can, and ask to be turned into a statue again." "what do you mean?" i ventured to inquire; for these hints of the child's about her cousin were gradually consuming me to a grey ash with curiosity. "i can't tell you what _i_ mean, because i promised i wouldn't. but that's what _maida_ means." "what she means?" "yes, to go back and be turned into a statue, forever and ever." i ought to have been glad that the girl destined herself for a colder fate than a union with a happy-go-lucky irishman as poor as herself, but somehow i was not glad. watching the light glint on a tendril of spun gold which had blown out from the motor-hood, i could not wish her young heart to be turned to marble in that mysterious future to which beechy kidder hinted she was self-destined. "perhaps i'd better make love to her myself," was the suggestion that flashed into my mind; but innate canniness sturdily pushed it out again. with my seven hundred a year, and _the riviera sun_ only just beginning to shed a few golden beams, i could not afford to take a penniless beauty off terry's hands, even to save him from a disastrous marriage or her from the fate of galatea. yet what a day it was in which to live and love, and motor over perfect roads through that radiant summer-land which the ligurians loved, the romans conquered, and the modern world comes from afar to see. though it was early in april, with easter but a few days behind us, the sky, the air, the flowers, belonged to june--a rare, rich june to praise in poetry or song. billows of roses surged over old pink and yellow stucco walls, or a soaring flame of scarlet geranium ran along their tops devouring trails of ivy with a hundred fiery tongues. white villas were draped with gorgeous panoply of purple-red bougainvillea; the breeze in our faces was sweet with the scent of lemon blossoms and a heavier under-tone of white-belled datura. far away, over that polished floor of lapis-lazuli which was the sea, summer rain-clouds boiled up above the horizon, blue with the soft grey-blue of violets; and in the valleys, between horned or pointed mountains, we saw spurts of golden rain glittering in the morning sun. what a world! how good to be in it, to be "in the picture" because one had youth, and was not hideous to look upon. how good to be in a motor-car. this last thought made the chorus at the end of each verse for me. i was very glad i had put that advertisement in _the riviera sun_, and that "kid, kidder, and kiddest" had been before any one else in answering it. i could hear terry telling miss destrey things, and i knew that if they listened the others could hear him too. this was well, because an unfailing flow of information was included in the five guineas a day, and i should have been embarrassed had i, as the supposed owner of the car, been called upon to supply it. i listened with a lazy sense of proprietorship in the man, as my chauffeur related the pretty legend of st. agnes's ruined castle and the handsome pagan who had loved the christian maiden; while he described the exquisite walks to be found up hidden valleys among the serrated mountains behind mentone; and enlarged upon the charms of picnics with donkeys and lunch-baskets under canopies of olives or pines, with a carpet of violets and primroses. he seemed well up in the history of the grimaldis and that exciting period when mentone and legend-crusted roquebrune had been under the rule of tyrannical princes of that name, as well as hercules's rock, monaco, still their own. he knew, or pretended to know, the precise date when napoleon iii. filched nice and savoy from reluctant italy as the price of help against the hated austrians. altogether, i was so pleased with the way in which he was beginning, that i should have been tempted to raise his wages had he been my paid chauffeur. we skimmed past englishmen and english or american girls in panama hats, on their way to bathe or play tennis; on all hands we heard the english tongue. skirting the old town, piled high upon its narrow nose of land, we entered the east bay, and so climbed up to the french side of the pont st. louis. "now for some red tape," explained terry. "when i came to the riviera this season i had no idea of going further, and i'm sorry to say i left my papers in london, where apparently they've disappeared. but as the countess doesn't care to come back into france, i hope it won't matter much." as he spoke, a _douanier_ lounged out of his little whitewashed lair, and asked for that which terry had just said he had not. "i have no papers," terry informed him, with a smile so agreeable that one hoped it might take away the sting. "but you intend to return to france?" persisted the official, who evidently gave even a foreigner credit for wishing to rush back to the best country on earth with as little delay as possible. "no," said terry apologetically. "we are on our way to italy and austria, and may go eventually to england by the hook of holland." the _douanier_ gave us up as hopeless, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. he vanished into his lair, consulted a superior officer, and after a long delay returned with the news that we must pay ten centimes, probably as a penance for our mulish stupidity in leaving france. i dropped a penny into his palm. "will you have a receipt for this sum?" he asked. "no, thanks," i smiled. "i have infinite trust in your integrity." "perhaps we'd better get the receipt all the same," said terry. "i've never been paperless before, and there may be some fuss or other." "it took them twenty minutes to decide about their silly ten centimes," said the countess "and it will take them twenty more at least to make out a receipt for it. do let's go on, if he'll let us. i'm dying to see what's on the other side of this bridge. we haven't been over into italy before; there was so much to do in nice and monte carlo." "all right, we'll risk it, then, as you wish it," terry agreed; and our prophetic souls did not even turn over in their sleep. on we went, up the steep hill which, with our load, we were obliged to climb so slowly that terry and i were ashamed for the car, and tried diplomatically to make it appear that, had we liked, we could have flown up with undiminished speed. [illustration: _as he spoke a douanier lounged out of his little whitewashed lair_] terry pointed out objects of interest here and there. i questioned him rapidly and he, playing into my hand, answered as quickly, so that, if our wheels lagged, our tongues gave the effect of keeping up a rattling pace. "don't you think there's something particularly interesting and romantic about frontiers?" asked terry of the company in general. "only a fictitious and arbitrary dividing line, one would say, and yet what a difference on either side, one from the other! different languages, different customs, prejudices so different that people living within ten yards of each other are ready to go to war over them. here, for instance, though the first thing one thinks of in crossing the bridge is the splendid view, the second thought that comes must be, how bare the italian country looks compared to the luxuriant cultivation we're leaving behind. we're turning our backs now on cosy comfort, well-kept roads, tidy houses, tidy people; and we're on our way to meet beggars, shabbiness, and rags, poverty everywhere staring us in the face. yet much as i admire france, it's to italy i give my love." "talking of frontiers," i flung back the ball to him, "i've often asked myself why it is that a whole people should with one accord worship coffin-beds, six inches too short for a normal human being, hard wedges instead of bolsters, and down coverings three feet thick; while another whole people just round a geographical corner fiercely demand brass beds, springy mattresses, and blankets light as--as love. but nobody has ever satisfactorily answered that question, which may be far more important in solving the profound mystery of racial differences than it would seem." "why are _you_ prudent and economical, and i reckless and extravagant?" inquired terry. "because i come from the country that took over england, and you from the country that england took over," i explained. but terry only laughed, being too busy to pick up the cudgels for his native land. "probably that's also why i'm a chauffeur while you're an editor," he added, and miss destrey's little nose and long curve of dark eyelash, seen by me in profile, expressed the sympathy which one young soul in misfortune must feel for another. "now we're in italy," he went on. "what i said is coming true already. look at these carts crawling to meet us down the hill. the harness seems to be a mere collection of 'unconsidered trifles,' picked up accidently by the drivers; bits of leather, string and rope. and the road you see is strewn with loose stones, though a few metres further back it was so smooth one might dance on it. in dear, lazy italy, steam-rollers are almost as unknown as dragons. in most districts, if one wants to mend a road, one dumps some stones on it, and trusts to luck and traffic to have them eventually ground in. but luckily our tyres are almost as trustworthy as the bank of england, and we don't need to worry about the roads." at the pink italian custom house terry got down and vanished within, to pay the deposit and receive certain documents without which we could not "circulate" on italian soil. far above our heads looked down the old, brown keep of the grimaldis, once lords of all the azure coast; below us glittered mentone, pink and blue and golden in the sun; beyond monte carlo sat throned, siren-like, upon her rock. terry had scarcely engaged the attention of the officials when the buzz of a motor, livelier and more nervous than our faithful "thrum, thrum," called to us to turn our heads; and there was prince dalmar-kalm's brilliant car flying up the hill, even as we had wished to fly. the prince stopped his motor close to ours, to speak with the countess sitting alone in it, and announced that he would have overtaken us long ago, had he not found himself obliged to pause for a talk with the ex-empress eugenie. this announcement much impressed mrs. kidder, who doubtless realized more fully than before her good fortune in having such a distinguished personage for a travelling companion. he stood leaning on the side of our luggage-wreathed vehicle, with an air of charming condescension. there was no need for him to hurry over the formalities of the _douane_, he said, for even if he were considerably behind us in starting, he would catch us up soon after we had reached la mortola. thus beguiled, the half-hour occupied by the leisurely officials in providing us with papers and sealing the car with an important looking leaden seal, passed not too tediously for the ladies. finally, the prince saw us off, smiling a "turned-down smile" at our jog trot as we proceeded up that everlasting hill, which runs like a shelf along the face of the great grey cliff of rock. far below, azure waves draped the golden beach with blue and silver gauze and fringed it daintily with a foam of lace. then, at last, the steep ascent came to an end, with a curve of the road which plunged us down into a region of coolness and green shadow. "why, i don't think italy's so shabby after all," exclaimed the countess. "just see that pretty little maltese cross above the road, and that fine school-house--" "ah, but we're in hanbury-land now," i said. "hanbury-land? i never heard of it. is it a little independent principality like monacoa? but how funny it should have an english-sounding name sandwiched in right here between italy and france." "the lord of the land is an englishman, and a benevolent one, a sort of fairy god-father to the poor in all the country round," i explained. "you won't find hanbury-land mentioned on the map; nevertheless it's very real, fortunately for its inhabitants; and here's the gate of the garden which leads to the royal palace. la mortola is a great show place, for the public are allowed to go in on certain days. i forget if this is one of them, but perhaps they will let us see the garden, nevertheless. shall i ask?" it was in my mind that, if we stopped, we might miss the prince as well as see the garden, so that we should be killing two birds with one stone, and i was glad when the countess caught eagerly at the suggestion that we should beg for a glimpse of la mortola, a place famed throughout europe. permission was given; the big iron gates swung open to admit us. we entered, and a moment later were descending a long flight of stone steps to terraces far below the level of the road where the car stood waiting our return. had aladdin rubbed his lamp in the days before his unfortunate misunderstanding with the geni and demanded the most beautiful of gardens, the fulfilment of his wish could have taken no fairer form than this. strange, tropical flowers, vivid as flame, burned in green recesses; water-sprites upset their caskets of pearls over rock-shelves into translucent pools where lilies lay asleep, dreaming of their own pale beauty. long, green pergolas, starred with flowers, framed blue-veiled pictures of distant coast-line, and mediæval strongholds, coloured with the same burnt umber as the hills on which they stood, gloomed and glowed across a cobalt sea. there is nothing that pleases the normal male more than to be able to point out objects worthy of interest or admiration to the female of his kind. since time immemorial, have not landscape-pictures in books of travel been filled in, in the foreground, with the figures of men showing the scenery to women? did any one ever see such a work of art representing a woman as indicating any point of view to a man? no doubt many could have done so; and the ladies in the pictures had probably noticed the objects in question before their male escorts pointed to them; but knowing the amiable weakness of the other sex, they politely refrained from saying, "oh, we saw that _long_ ago." thus did terry and i, after the conventional traditions of our species, lead our little party through avenues of cypresses, to open rock-spaces, or among a waving sea of roses to battle-grounds of rare cacti, with writhing arms like octopi transformed into plants. here, peering down into a kind of dyke, paved with rough tesselation, we vied with each other in telling our charges that this was the old roman road to gaul, the aurelian way, over which julius cæsar, st. catherine of siena, dante, and other great ones passed. then we showed them one of napoleon's old guns, covered with shells, as when it was fished out of the sea. we enlarged upon the fact that there was no tree, shrub, or blossom on the known face of the earth of which a specimen did not grow at la mortola; and when we had wandered for an hour in the garden without seeing half there was to see, we climbed the long flight of steps again, congratulating ourselves--terry and i--that we had played dalmar-kalm rather a neat trick. the crowd of villagers who had clustered round our car outside the entrance gates would screen it from the prince as he flashed by, and he would go on and on, wondering how we had contrived to get so far ahead. our way would take us, after passing through ventimiglia, up the roya valley which terry had decided upon as a route because of its wild and unspoiled beauty, different from anything that our passengers could have seen in their brief experience of the riviera. but as there were no inns which offered decent entertainment for man or automobile within reasonable distance, we were to lunch at ventimiglia, and no arrangement had been made with dalmar-kalm concerning this halt. his confidence--perhaps well founded--in the superiority of his speed over ours had led him to believe that he could pause at our side for consultation whenever he wished. therefore, we had left cap martin without much discussion of plans. mrs. kidder was of opinion that we would find him waiting in front of the "best hotel in ventimiglia," with an excellent luncheon ordered. "the best hotel in ventimiglia!" poor lady, she had an awakening before her. not only was there no prince, but there was no best hotel. old ventimiglia, in its huddled picturesqueness, must delight any man with eyes in his head; new ventimiglia must disgust any man with a vacancy under his belt. as we sat in the shabby dining-room of a seventh-rate inn (where the flies set an example of attentiveness the waiters did not follow), pretending to eat macaroni hard as walking-sticks and veal reduced to _chiffons_, i feared the courage of our employers would fail. they could never, in all their well-ordered american lives, have known anything so abominable as this experience into which we had lured them, promising a pilgrimage of pleasure. but the charmingly dressed beings, who looked like birds of paradise alighted by mistake in a pigsty, made sport of the squalor which we had expected to evoke their rage. "dear me, i wish we'd brought some chewing gum," was beechy's one sarcasm at the expense of the meal, and maida and the countess laughed merrily at everything, even the flies, which they thought did not know their own power as well as american flies. "we've some _lovely_ cakes and candy packed in that sweet tea-basket we bought at an english shop in paris," said mrs. kidder; "but i suppose we'd better not get anything out to eat now, for fear of hurting the waiters' feelings. what do you think, sir ralph?" "personally, i should like nothing better than to hurt them," i replied severely, "but i'm thinking of myself. cakes and candy on top of those walking-sticks! 't were more difficult to build on such a foundation than to rear venice on its piles and wattles. "we'd better save what we have till later on," said maida. "about four o'clock, perhaps we shall be glad to stop somewhere, and i can make tea. it will be fun having it in the automobile." "there she goes now, revealing domestic virtues!" i thought ruefully. "it will be too much for teddy to find her an all-round out-of-doors and indoors girl in one. he always said the combination didn't exist; that you had to put up with one or the other in a nice girl, and be jolly thankful for what you'd got." but terry did not seem to be meditating upon the pleasing trait just brought to light by his travelling companion. he remarked calmly that by tea-time we should doubtless have reached san dalmazzo, a charming little mountain village with an old monastery turned into an inn; and then he audibly wondered what had become of the prince. "my! what a shame, i'd almost forgotten him!" exclaimed mrs. kidder. "he must have given us up in despair and gone on." "perhaps he's had a break-down," i suggested. "what! with that wonderful car? he told me last night that nothing had ever happened to it yet. he must be miles ahead of us by now." "then this is his astral body," said terry. "clever of him to 'project' one for his car too. never heard of its being done before." nor had i ever heard of an astral body who swore roundly at its chauffeur, which this apparition now stopping in front of the restaurant windows did. it called the unfortunate shape in leather by several strange and creditably, or perhaps discreditably, original names, but as this flow of eloquence was in german, it could not be appreciated by the ladies. mrs. kidder knew the languages not at all, and miss destrey and beechy had remarked, when dalmatia was proposed, that their knowledge was of the copy-book order. so completely upset was the prince, that on joining us he forgot to be sarcastic. not a question, not a sneer as to our progress, not an apology for being late. he flung himself into a chair at the table, ordered the waiters about with truculence, and, having thus relieved his mind, began complaining of his bad luck. an austrian prince, when cross and hungry, can be as undesirable a social companion as a cockney cad, and the countess's distinguished friend did not show to advantage in the scene which followed. yes, there had been an accident. it was unheard of--abominable; entirely the fault of the chauffeur. chauffeurs (and he looked bleakly at terry) were without exception brutes--detestable brutes. you put up with them because you had to; that was all. the automobile had merely stopped. it must have been the simplest thing in the world for a professional to discover what was wrong; yet this animal, joseph, could do nothing but poke his nose into the machinery and then shrug his hideous shoulders. why yes, he had taken out the valves, of course, examined the sparkling plugs, and tested the coil. any amateur could have done so much. it gave a good spark; there was no short circuit; yet the motor would not start, and the chauffeur was unable to give an explanation. twice he had taken the car to pieces without result--absolutely to pieces. then, and not till then, had the creature found wit enough to think of the carburetter. there was the trouble, and nowhere else. all that delay and misery had been caused by some grit which had penetrated into the carburetter and prevented the needle working. this it was to have a donkey instead of a chauffeur. "but it didn't occur to you that it might be the carburetter," said terry, taking advantage of a pause made by the arrival of the prince's luncheon, which that gentleman attacked with ardour. "why should it?" haughtily inquired dalmar-kalm. "i am not engaged in that business. i pay other people to think for me. besides, it is not with me as with you and your friend, who must be accustomed to accidents of all sorts on a low-powered car, somewhat out of date. but i am not used to having mine _en panne_. never mind, it will not happen again. _mon dieu_, what a meal to set before ladies. i do not care for myself, but surely, sir ralph, it would have been easy to find a better place than this to give the ladies luncheon?" "sir ralph and mr. barrymore wanted us to go to the railway-station," miss destrey defended us, "but we thought it would be dull, and preferred this, so our blood is on our own heads." we finished gloomily with lukewarm coffee, which was so long on the way that the countess thought we might as well wait for the "poor prince." then, when we were ready, came a violent shower, which meant more waiting, as the countess did not agree cordially with her daughter's remark that to "drive in the rain would be good for the complexion." when at last we were able to start it was after three, and we should have to make good speed if we were to arrive at san dalmazzo even by late tea-time. terry was on his mettle, however, and i guessed that he was anxious our first day should not end in failure. tooling out of ventimiglia, that grim frontier town whose name has become synonymous to travellers with waiting and desperate resignation, we turned up by the side of the roya, where the stream gushes seaward, through many channels, in a wide and pebbly bed. the shower just past, though brief, had been heavy enough to turn a thick layer of white dust into a greasy, grey paste of mud. on our left was a sudden drop into the rushing river, on the right a deep ditch, and the road between was as round-shouldered as a hunchback. seeing this natural phenomenon, and feeling the slightly uncertain step of our fat tyres as they waddled through the pasty mud, the pleasant smile of the proud motor-proprietor which i had been wearing hardened upon my face. i didn't know as much about motors as our passengers supposed, but i did know what side-slip was, and i did not think that this was a nice place for the ladies to be initiated. there might easily be an accident, even with the best of drivers such as we had in terry, and i was sure that he was having all he could do to keep on the crown of the road. at any moment, slowly as we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the ladies, even if it had no more serious consequences. it was while we were in this critical situation, which had not yet begun to dawn upon our passengers, that dalmar-kalm seized the opportunity of racing past us from behind, blowing a fanfarronade on his horn, to prove how much faster his car could go than ours. in the instant that he was abreast of us, our tonneau, which overhung the back axle further than is considered wise in the latest types of cars, swung outwards, with a slip of the tyre in the grey grease, and only by an inch which seemed a mere hair's breadth was terry able to save us from a collision. the countess screamed, beechy clung once more to my knee, and we all glared at the red car with the white canopy as it shot ruthlessly ahead. the prince's tyres were strapped with spiked leather covers, which we could not carry as they would lose us too much speed; therefore the danger of side-slip was lessened for him, and he flew by without even knowing how near we had been to an accident. the anger painted on our ungoggled faces he doubtless attributed to jealousy, as he glanced back to wave a triumphant _au revoir_ before flashing out of sight, round a bend of the road. there is something very human, and particularly womanish, about a motor-car. the shock of the narrow escape we had just had seemed to have unsteadied the nerve of our brave panhard for the moment. we were nearing a skew bridge, with an almost right-angled approach; and the strange resultant of the nicely balanced forces that control an automobile skating on "pneus" over slippery mud twisted us round, suddenly and without warning. instantly, oilily, the car gyrated as on a pivot, and behold, we were facing down the valley instead of up. terry could not had done it had he tried. "oh, my goodness!" quavered the countess, in a collapse. "am i dreaming, or has this happened? it seems as if i must be out of my wits!" "it _has_ happened," answered terry, laughing reassuringly, but far from joyous within, i knew. "but it's nothing alarming. a little side-slip, that's all." "a _little_ side-slip!" she echoed. "then may i be preserved from a big one. this automobile has turned its nose towards home again, of its own accord. oh, sir ralph, i'm not sure i like motoring as much as i thought i would. i'm not sure the hand of providence didn't turn the car back." "nonsense, mamma!" cried beechy. "the other day the hand of providence was pointing out sir ralph's advertisement in the newspaper. it can't be always changing its mind, and you can't, either. we're all _alive_, anyhow, and that's something." "ah, but how long shall we be?" moaned her mother. "i don't want to be silly, but i didn't know that an automobile had the habits of a kangaroo and a crab, and a base-ball, and i'm afraid i shall never get used to them." terry explained that his car was not addicted to producing these sensational effects, and compared the difficulties it was now combatting with those which a skater might experience if the hard ice were covered an inch deep with soft soap. "we shall soon be out of this," he said, "for the road will be better higher up where the hill begins, and the rain has had a chance to drain away." cheered by these promises, the poor countess behaved herself very well, though she looked as if she might burst an important blood-vessel, as terry carefully turned his car on the slippery surface of the road's tortoise-back. i was not happy myself, for it would have been as "easy as falling off a log" for the automobile to leap gracefully into the roya; but the brakes held nobly, and as terry had said, there was better going round the next corner. here the mountains began to draw together, so that we were no longer travelling in a valley, but in a gorge. deep shadow shut us in, as if we had left the warm, outer air and entered a dim castle, perpetually shuttered and austerely cold. dark crags shaped themselves magnificently, and the scene was of such wild grandeur that even beechy ceased to be flippant. we drove on in silence, listening to the battle song of the river as it fought its way on through the rocky chasm its own strength had hewn. the road mounted continuously, with a gentle incline, weaving its grey thread round the blind face of the mountain, and suddenly, turning a shoulder of rock we came upon the prince's car which we had fancied many kilometres in advance. the big red chariot was stationary, one wheel tilted into the ditch at the roadside, while dalmar-kalm and his melancholy chauffeur were straining to rescue it from its ignominious position. our panhard had been going particularly well, as if to justify itself in its employers' eyes after its late slip from rectitude. "she" was taking the hill gaily, pretending not to know it from the level, and it did seem hard to play the part of good samaritan to one marked by nature as a levite. but--_noblesse oblige_, and--honour among chauffeurs. terry is as far from sainthood as i am, and i knew well that his bosom yearned to let dalmar-kalm stew in his own petrol. nevertheless, he brought the car to anchor without a second's hesitation, drawing up alongside the humiliated red giant. amid the exclamations of mrs. kidder, and the suppressed chuckles of the _enfante terrible_, we two men got out, with beautiful expressions on our faces and dawning haloes round our heads, to help our hated rival. did he thank us for not straining the quality of our mercy? his name and nature would not have been dalmar-kalm if he had. his first words at sight of the two ministering angels by his side were: "you must have brought me bad luck, i believe. never have i had an accident with my car until to-day, but now all goes wrong. for the second time i am _en panne_. it is too much. this viper of a joseph says we cannot go on." now we began to see why the prince's chauffeur had acquired the countenance of a male niobe. wormlike resignation to utter misery was, we had judged, his prevailing characteristic; but hard work, ingratitude, and goodness knows how much abuse, caused the worm to turn and defend itself. "how go on with a change-speed lever broken short off, close to the quadrant?" he shrilled out in french. "and it is his highness who broke it, changing speed too quickly, a thing which i have constantly warned him against in driving. i cannot make a new lever here in a wilderness. i am not a magician." "nor a félicité," i mumbled, convinced that, had my all-accomplished adjutant been a chauffeur instead of a cook, she would have been equal to beating up a trustworthy lever out of a slice of cake. "be silent, brigand!" roared the prince, and i could hardly stifle a laugh, for joseph is no higher than my ear. his shoulders slope; his legs are clothespins bound with leather; his eyes swim in tears, as our car's crankhead floats in an oil bath; and his hair is hung round his head like many separate rows of black pins, overlapping one another. "we shall save time by getting your car out of the ditch, anyhow," suggested terry; and putting our shoulders to it, all four, we succeeded after strenuous efforts in pushing and hauling the huge beast onto the road. i had had no idea that anything less in size than a railway engine could be so heavy. there was no question but that the giant was helpless. terry and joseph peered into its inner workings, and the first verdict was confirmed. "there's an imperfection in the metal," said expert terry. in his place, i fear i should not have been capable of such magnanimity. i should have let the whole blame rest upon my rival's reckless stupidity as a driver. "it's plain you can do nothing with your car in that condition," he went on. "after all" (even terry's generous spirit couldn't resist this one little dig), "it would have been well if i'd brought that coil of rope." "coil of rope? for what purpose?" "to tow you to the nearest blacksmith's, where perhaps a new lever could be forged." "this is not a time for joking. twelve horses cannot drag twenty-four." "they're plucky and willing. shall they try? here comes a cart, whose driver is wreathed in smiles. labour exulting in the downfall of capitol. but labour looks good-natured." "good morning," terry hailed him in italian. "will you lend me a stout cord to tow this automobile?" the prince was silent. even in his rage against fate, against joseph, and against us, he retained enough common sense to remember that 'tis well to choose the lesser of two evils. the carter had a rope, and an obliging disposition. a few francs changed hands, and the hare was yoked to the tortoise. yoked, figuratively speaking only, for it trailed ignominiously behind at a distance of fifteen yards, and when our little panhard began bumbling up the hill with its great follower, it resembled nothing so much as a very small comet with a disproportionately big tail. the motor, in starting, forged gallantly ahead for a yard or two, then, as it felt the unexpected weight dragging behind, it appeared surprised. it was, indeed, literally "taken aback" for an instant, but only for an instant. the brave little beast seemed to say to itself, "well, they expect a good deal of me, but there are ladies on board, and i won't disappoint them." "félicité," i murmured. "she might have stood sponser to this car." with another tug we began to make progress, slow but steady. joseph, as the lighter weight, sat in his master's car, his hand on the steering-wheel, while the prince tramped gloomily behind in the mud. seeing how well the experiment was succeeding, however, he quickened his pace and ordered the chauffeur down. "i do not think that the difference in weight will be noticeable," he said, and as joseph obediently jumped out the prince sprang in, taking the wheel. instantly the rope snapped, and the big red chariot would have run back had not joseph jammed on the brake. terry stopped our car, and the ill-matched pair had to be united again, with a shorter rope. "afraid you'll have to walk, prince," said he, when he had finished helping joseph, who was apparently on the brink of tears. dalmar-kalm measured me with a glance. "perhaps sir ralph would not object to steering my car?" he suggested. "then joseph could walk, and i could have sir ralph's place in the tonneau with the ladies, where a little extra weight would do no harm. would that not be an excellent arrangement?" "david left goliath on the ground, and dragged away only his head," i remarked. "_we_ are dragging goliath; and i fear his head would be the last--er--feather. so sorry. otherwise we should be delighted." what the prince said as the procession began to move slowly up-hill again, at a pace to keep time with the "dead march in saul," i don't pretend to know, but if his remarks matched his expression, i would not in any case have recorded them here. vi a chapter of predicaments on we went, and twilight was falling in this deep gorge, so evidently cut by the river for its own convenience, not for that of belated tourists. here and there in the valley little rock towns stood up impressively, round and high on their eminences, like brown, stemless mushrooms. each little group of ancient dwellings resembled to my mind a determined band of men standing back to back, shoulder to shoulder, defending their hearths and homes from the saracens, and saying grimly, "come on if you dare. we'll fight to the death, one and all of us." at last, without further mishap, we arrived at a mean village marked airole on terry's map. it was a poverty-stricken place, through which, in happier circumstances, we should have passed without a glance, but--there, by the roadside was a blacksmith's forge, more welcome to our eyes than a castle double-starred by baedeker. joseph's spleen reduced by the sight of his master tramping in the mud while he steered, the little chauffeur looked almost cheerful. he promised to have a new lever ready in half an hour, and so confident was he that he urged us to go on. but the prince did not echo the suggestion, and mrs. kidder proposed that we should have tea while we waited. though it was she who gave birth to the idea, it would have been miss destrey who did all the work, had not terry and i offered such help as men can give. he went in search of water to fill the shining kettle; i handed round biscuits and cakes, while the prince looked on in the attitude of napoleon watching the burning of moscow. we were as good as a circus to the inhabitants of airole; nay, better, for our antics could be seen gratis. the entire population of the village, and apparently of several adjacent villages, collected round the two cars. they made the ring, and--we did the rest. we ate, we drank, and they were merry at our expense. the children wished also to eat at our expense, and when i translated (with amendments) a flattering comment on mrs. kidder's hair and complexion offered by an incipient don juan of five years, she insisted that all the spare pastry should be distributed among the juveniles. the division led to blows, and tears which had to be quenched with coppers; while into the mêlée broke a desolate cry from joseph, announcing that his lever was a failure. the prince strode off to the blacksmith's shop, forgetful that he held a teacup in one hand and an _éclair_ in the other. with custard dropping onto the red-hot bar which joseph hammered, he looked so forlorn a figure that terry was moved to pity and joined the group at the forge. he soon discovered what joseph might have known from the first, had he not lived solely in the moment, like most other chauffeurs. the village forge was not _assez bien outillée_ for a finished lever to be produced; the prince's car must remain a derelict, unless we towed it into port. we started on again, in the same order as before and at the same pace, followed by all our village _protegés_, who commented frankly upon the plight of the prince, and the personal appearance of the whole party. at length, however, our moving audience dwindled. a mile or two beyond airole the last, most enterprising boy deserted us, and we thought ourselves alone in a twilight world. the white face of the moon peered through a cleft in the mountain, and our own shadows crawled after us, large and dark on the grey ribbon of the road. but there was another shadow which moved, a small drifting shadow over which we had no control. sometimes it was by our side for an instant as we crept up the hill, dragging our incubus, then it would fall behind and vanish, only to reappear again, perhaps on the other side of the road. "what _is_ that tiny black thing that comes and goes?" asked mrs. kidder. "why," exclaimed miss destrey, "i do believe it's that forlorn little dog that was too timid to eat from my hand in the village. he must have followed all this time." "do see if it is the same dog, prince," beechy cried to the tall, dark figure completing the tail of our procession. a yelp answered. "yes, it is he," called the prince. "a mangy little mongrel. i do not think he will trouble us any longer." then a surprising thing happened. the vestal virgin rose suddenly in the car. "you have _kicked_ him!" she exclaimed, the gentleness burnt out of her pretty voice by a swift flame of anger. "stop the car, mr. barrymore--quickly, please. i want to get down." never had that panhard of terry's checked its career in less space. out jumped maida, to my astonishment without a word of objection from her relatives. "i will not have that poor, timid little creature frightened and hurt," i heard her protesting as she ran back. "how _could_ you, prince!" now, though the girl was probably no more than a paid companion, she was lovely enough to make her good opinion of importance to the most inveterate fortune hunter, and as miss destrey called, "here, doggie, doggie," in a voice to beguile a rhinoceros, dalmar-kalm pleaded that what he had done had been but for the animal's good. he had not injured the dog, he had merely encouraged it to run home before it was hopelessly lost. "i am not cruel, i assure you. my worst troubles have come from a warm heart. i hope you will believe me, miss destrey." "i should be sorry to be your dog, or--your chauffeur," she answered. "he won't come back to be comforted, so i suppose after all we shall have to go on. but i shall dream of that poor little lonely, drifting thing to-night." hardly had she taken her seat, however, than there was the dog close to the car, timid, obsequious, winning, with his wisp of a head cocked on one side. we drove on, and he followed pertinaciously. mildly adjured by the countess to "go home, little dog," he came on the faster. many adventures he had, such as a fall over a heap of stones and entanglement in a thorn-bush. but nothing discouraged the miniature motor maniac in the pursuit of his love, and we began to take him for granted so completely that after a while i, at least, forgot him. on we toiled with our burden, the moon showering silver into the dark mountain gorges, as if it were raining stars. the further we burrowed into the fastnesses of the roya, the more wild in its majestic beauty grew the valley, so famed in history and legend. the gorge had again become a mere gash in the rock, with room only for the road and the roaring river below. high overhead, standing up against the sky like a warning finger, towered the ancient stronghold of piena, once guardian fortress of the valley; where the way curved, and crossed a high bridge spanning the torrent, we passed a tablet of gleaming bronze set against the rock wall, in commemoration of masséna's victory in an early campaign of napoleon's against italy. sometimes we rushed through tunnels, where the noise of the motor vibrated thunderously; sometimes we looked down over sublime precipices; but the road was always good now, and we had no longer to fear side-slip. we met no one; nevertheless terry got down and lit our lamps, dalmar-kalm making an unnecessary delay by insisting that joseph should light his too. this was sheer vanity on the prince's part. he could not bear to have his great bleriots dark, while our humbler acetylene illumined the way for his mightiness. suddenly we ran out of the bewildering lights and shadows, woven across our way by the moon, into the lights of a town; and two _douaniers_ appeared in the road, holding up their hands for us to stop. down jumped terry to see why he should be challenged in this unexpected place, and the prince joined him. "your papers, if you please," demanded the official. terry produced those which had been given us at the custom-house in grimaldi. "but these are italian papers. where are those for france?" asked the _douanier_. "this is not france," said the prince, before terry could speak. "it is breil, and it is france," returned the man. "france for nine kilometres, until fontan, where italian territory begins again." terry laughed, rather ruefully. "well," said he, "i have no french papers, but we paid a penny at the pont st. louis to leave france. this car is french, and we ought not to pay anything to enter; nevertheless, i shall be delighted to hand you the same sum for the privilege of coming in again." "ah, you paid ten centimes? then, if you have the receipt it may be possible to permit you to go on." "permit us to go on!" echoed dalmar-kalm angrily. "i should think so, indeed." "i'm sorry, i took no receipt," said terry. "i thought it an unnecessary formality." "_no_ formality is unnecessary, monsieur," said the servant of form. "i also am sorry, but in the circumstances you cannot enter french territory without a receipt for the ten centimes. as a man i believe implicitly that you paid the sum, as an official i am compelled to doubt your word." who but a frenchman could have been so exquisitely pompous over a penny? i saw by terry's face that he was far from considering the incident closed; but he had too much true irish tact to try and get us through by storming. "let us consider," he began, "whether there is not some means of escape from this difficulty." but dalmar-kalm was in no mood to temporize, or keep silent while others temporized. the lights of breil showed that it was a town of comparative importance; it was past eight o'clock; and no doubt his highness's temper was sharpened by a keen edge of hunger. that he--he should be stopped by a fussy official figure-head almost within smell of food, broke down the barrier of his self-restraint--never a formidable rampart, as we had cause to know. in a few loud and vigorous sentences he expressed a withering contempt for france, its institutions, its customs, and especially its custom-houses. "if you'd mix up the prince's initials, as you do mr. barrymore's sometimes, and call him kalmar-dalm, there'd be some excuse for it," beechy kidder murmured to the countess. "hush, he'll hear!" implored the much-enduring lady, but there was small danger that his highness would hear any expostulations save his own. the functionary's eye grew dark, and terry frowned. had the _douanier_ been insolent, my peppery irishman would have been insolent too, perhaps, in the hope of cowering the man by truculence more swashbuckling than his own; but he had been as polite as his countrymen proverbially are, if not goaded out of their suavity. "look here, prince," said terry, hanging onto his temper by a thread (for he also was hungry), "suppose you leave this matter to me. if you'll take the ladies to the best hotel in town, moray and i will stop and see this thing through. we'll follow when we can." dalmar-kalm snapped at the suggestion; our passengers saw that it was for the best, and yielded. as they moved away, a shadowy form hovered in their wake. it was the little black dog of airole. the marquis of innisfallen's first quarrel with his brother had been caused by terry's youthful preference for an army instead of a diplomatic career. now, could his cantankerous relative have seen my friend, he would once more have shaken his head over talents wasted. the oily eloquence which terry lavished on that comparatively insignificant french _douanier_ ought to have earned him a billet as first secretary to a legation. he pictured the despair of the ladies if the power of france kept them prisoners at the frontier; he referred warmly to that country's reputation for chivalry; he offered to pay the usual deposit on a car entering france and receive it back again at fontan. to this last suggestion the harassed official replied that technically his office was closed for the night, and that after eight o'clock he could not receive money or issue papers. finally, therefore, terry was reduced to appealing to the cleverness and resource of a true frenchman. it was a neat little fencing-match, which ended in the triumph of great britain. the functionary, treated like a gentleman by a gentleman, became anxious to accommodate, if he could do so "consistently with honour." he had an inspiration, and suggested that he would strain his duty by sending a messenger with us to fontan, there to explain that we were merely _en passage_. out of the crowd which had collected a loutish youth was chosen; a _pourboire_ promised; and after many mutual politenesses we were permitted to _teuf-teuf_ onto the sacred soil of france. it is no more safe to judge a french country inn by its exterior, than the soul of cyrano de bergerac by his nose. the inn of breil had not an engaging face, but it was animated by the spirit of a brillat savarin, by which we were provided with a wonderful dinner in numerous courses. we could not escape from it, lest we hurt the _amour-propre_ of the cook, and it was late when we were ready for our last _sortie_. "you will never reach san dalmazzo to-night, towing that car," we were informed by the powers that were in the hotel. "the hills you have passed are as nothing to the hills yet to come. you will do well to spend the night with us, for if you try to get on, you will be all night upon the road." our passengers were asked to decide, and we expected a difference of opinion. we should have said that the two girls would have been for pushing on, and the countess for stopping. but that plump lady had already conquered the tremors which, earlier in the day, had threatened to wreck our expedition at its outset. "it's a funny thing," said she, "but i want to go on, just _on_, for the sake of _going_. i never felt like that before, travelling, not even in a mann boudoir car at home, which i guess is the most luxurious thing on wheels. i always wanted to _get_ there, wherever 'there' was; but now i want to go on and on--i wouldn't care if it was to the end of the world, and i can't think why, unless it's the novelty of automobiling. but it can't be that, either, i suppose, for only a little while ago i was thinking that bed-ridden people weren't badly off, they were so _safe_." we all laughed at this (even the prince, whom plenty of champagne had put into a sentimental mood), and i suddenly found myself growing quite fond of the countess, crowns and all. after the heat of the _salle à manger_, the night out of doors appeared strangely white and cold, its purple depths drenched with moonlight, the high remoteness of its dome faintly scintillant with icy points of stars. an adventure seemed to lie before us. we turned wistfully to each other for the warmth of human companionship, and had not the prince been trying to flirt with little beechy unseen by mamma, i should have felt kindly even to him. even as it was, i consented to let him try sitting in his own car, and the rope, inured to suffering, had the consideration not to break. we forged on, up, up the higher reaches of the roya valley, so glorious in full moonlight that it struck us into silence. the mountains towering round us shaped themselves into castles and cathedrals of carved marble, their façades, grey by day, glittering white and polished under the magic of the moon. the wonderful crescent town of saorge, hanging on the mountain-side, would alone have been worth coming this way to see if there had been nothing else. veiled by the mystery of night, the old ligurian stronghold appeared to be suspended between two rocky peaks, like a great white hammock for a sleeping goddess, and now and then we caught a jewelled sparkle from her rings. they had not told an idle tale at the inn. the road, weary of going up-hill on its knees, like a pilgrim, got suddenly upon its feet and we were on its back, with the prince's chariot trailing after us. nevertheless, our car did not falter, though the motor panted. scarcely ever were we able to pass from the first speed to the second, but then (as beechy remarked), considering all things, we ought to be thankful for any speed above that of a snail. at fontan--when he had vouched for us--we dismissed our _oaf_, with a light heart and a heavy pocket. again, we were in italy, a silent, sleeping italy, drugged with moonlight, and dreaming troubled dreams of strangely contorted mountains. then suddenly it waked, for the moon was sinking, and the charm had lost its potence. the dream-shapes vanished, and we were in a wide, dark basin, which might be green as emerald by day. a grey ghost in a long coat, with a rifle slung across his back, flitted into the road and startled the countess by signing for us to stop. "oh, mercy! are we going to be held up?" she whispered. "i'd forgotten about the brigands." "only an italian custom-house brigand," said terry. "we've got to san dalmazzo after all, and it isn't morning yet." "yes, but it is!" cried beechy. "there's a clock striking twelve." a few minutes later we were driving along a level in the direction of the monastery-hotel, which was said to be no more than a hundred metres beyond the village. i had often heard of this hostelry at the little mountain retreat of san dalmazzo, loved and sought by italians in the summer heat. the arched gateway in the wall was clearly monastic, and we felt sure that we had come to the right place, when terry steered the car through the open portal and a kind of tunnel on the other side. before the door of a long, low building he stopped the motor. its "thrum, thrum" stilled, the silence of the place was profound, and not a light gleamed anywhere. terry got down and rang. we all waited anxiously, for much as we had enjoyed the strange night drive, the day had been long, and the chill of the keen mountain air was in our blood. but nothing happened, and after a short pause terry rang again. silence was the only answer, and it seemed to give denial rather than consent. four times he rang, and by this time the prince and i were at his back, striving to pierce the darkness behind the door which was half of glass. at last a greenish light gleamed dim as a glow-worm in the distance, and framed in it a figure was visible--the figure of a monk. for an instant i was half inclined to believe him a ghost, haunting the scene of past activities, for one does not expect to have the door of an hotel opened by a monk. but ghosts have no traffic with keys and bolts; and it was the voice of a man still bound to flesh and blood who greeted us with a mild "_buona sera_" which made the night seem young. terry responded and announced in his best italian that we desired accommodation for the night. "ah, i see," exclaimed the monk. "you thought that this was still a hotel? i am sorry to disappoint you, but it ceased to be such only to-day. the house is now once more what it was originally--a monastery. it has been bought by the order to which i belong." "isn't he going to take us in?" asked the countess, dolefully. "i'm afraid not," said terry, "but i'll see what i can do." ah, that "seeing what he could do!" i knew it of old, for terry's own brother is the only person i ever met who could resist him if he stooped to wheedle. italian is a language which lends itself to wheedling, too; and though the good monk demurred at first, shook his head, and even flung up his hands with a despairing protest, he weakened at last, even as the _douanier_ had weakened. "he says if we'd come to-morrow, it would have been impossible to admit us," translated terry for the ladies' benefit. "the lease is going to be signed then. until that's done the house isn't actually a monastery, so he can strain a point and take us in, rather than the ladies should have to travel further so late at night. i don't suppose we shall find very luxurious accommodation, but--" "it will be perfectly lovely," broke in beechy, "and maida, anyhow, will feel quite at home." "he won't accept payment, that's the worst of it," said terry, "for we shall make the poor man, who is all alone, a good deal of bother. still, i shall offer something for the charities of his order, and he can't refuse that." we filed into the hall, lit only by the lantern in our host's hand, and "kid, kidder, and kiddest," charmed with the adventure, were delightfully ready to be pleased with everything. we seemed to have walked nearly half a kilometre before we were shown into small, bare rooms, furnished only with necessaries, but spotlessly clean. then beds had to be made and water brought. every one worked except the prince, and every one, with the same exception, forgot to be tired and ceased to be cold in the pleasure of the queer midnight picnic. we had not dared hope for anything to eat, but when our host proposed a meal of boiled eggs, bread, and wine, the good man was well-nigh startled by the enthusiastic acceptance of his guests. a small room containing a table, and a pile of chairs against the wall, was chosen for the banquet. terry and maida laid the table with the dishes from the tea-basket, and a few more found in neighbouring cupboards. beechy boiled the eggs while our host unearthed the wine; the countess cut slices of hard, brown bread, and i added butter in little hillocks. then we ate and drank; and never was a meal so good. we seemed to have known each ether a long time, and already we had common jokes connected with our past--that past which had been the present this morning. it was after one o'clock when it occurred lo us that it was bedtime; and as at last the three ladies flitted away down the dim corridor, terry and i, watching them, saw that something flitted after. it was the little black dog of airole. part ii told by beechy kidder vii a chapter of childishness when i waked up that morning in the old monastery at san dalmazzo, if that's the way to call it, and especially to spell it, i really thought for a few minutes that i must be dreaming. "there's no good getting up," i thought, "for if i do i shall somnambulize, and maybe break my rather pleasing nose." once, when i was a little girl, i fell down-stairs when i was asleep, and made one of my front teeth come out. it was a front tooth, and mamma had promised me five dollars if i'd have it pulled; so that was money in my pocket. but i haven't got any teeth to sell for five dollars now, and it's well to be careful. accordingly i just lay still in that funny little iron bed, saying, "beechy kidder, is this _you_?" perhaps it was because of all those bewildering impressions the day before, or perhaps it was from having been so dead asleep that i felt exactly as if i were no relation to myself. anyhow, that was the way i _did_ feel, and i began to be awfully afraid i should wake up back in denver months ago, before anything had happened, or seemed likely ever to happen. when i thought of mamma and myself, as we used to be, i grew almost sure that the things hadn't happened, because they didn't seem the kind of things that could possibly happen to us. why, i didn't even need to shut my eyes to see our denver house, for it was so much more real than any other house i'd been in, or dreamed i'd been in since, and especially more real than that tiny, whitewashed room at the monastery with a green curtain of vines hanging over the window. a square, stone house, with a piazza in front (only people out of america are so stupid, they don't know what i mean when i say "piazza"); about six feet of yard with some grass and flowers. me at school; mamma reading novels with one eye, and darning papa's stockings with the other. my goodness, what a different mamma! when i thought of the difference, i was surer than ever that i must be dreaming her as she is now, and i had half a mind to go and peek into the next room to look, and risk falling down-stairs bang into realities and denver. would she have smooth, straight dark hair with a few threads of grey, all streaked back flat to her head to please papa; or would she have lovely auburn waves done on a frame, with a curl draped over her forehead? would her complexion be just as nice, comfortable, motherly sort of complexion, of no particular colour; or would it be pink and white like rose-leaves floating in cream? would she have the kind of figure to fit the corsets you can pick up at any shop, ready made for fifty-nine and a half cents, and the dresses miss pettingill makes for ten dollars, with the front breadth shorter than the back? or would she go in at the waist like an hour-glass and out like an hour-glass, to fit three hundred-franc stays in paris, and dresses that would be tight for _me_? poor mamma! i'd made lots of fun of her these last few months, if they were real months, i said to myself; and if more real months of that kind should come, i'd probably make lots of fun of her again. i am _like_ that; i can't help it. i suppose it's what papa used to call his "originality," and mamma his "cantankerousness," coming out in me. but lying there in the narrow bed, with the dream-dawn fluttering little pale wings at the window, i seemed suddenly to understand how hard everything had been for her. at some minutes, on some days, you _do_ understand people with a queer kind of clearness, almost as if you had created them yourself--even people that you turn up your nose at, and think silly or uninteresting at other times, when your senses aren't sharpened in that magic sort of way. my "god-days," are what i call those strange days when i can sympathize with every one as if i'd known their _whole_ history and all their troubles and thoughts and struggles, ever since they were born. i call them that, not to be irreverent, but because i suppose god _always_ feels so; and the little spark of him that's in every human being--even in a naughty, pert thing like me--comes out in us more on some days than on others, though only for a few minutes at a stretch even then. well, my spark burned up quite brightly for a little while in the dawn, as i was thinking of mamma. i don't suppose she could ever have been in love with papa. i guess she must have married him because her parents were poor, or because she was too kind hearted to say no. anyway, it must have been horrid for her to know that he was rich enough to let her do anything she liked, but wouldn't let her do anything nice, because he was a consistent democrat, and didn't believe in show or "tomfoolery." i'm sure i couldn't explain what a consistent democrat really is; but papa's idea of being it was to scorn "society people," not to have pretty clothes or many servants, to look plain and speak plainly, always to tell the whole truth, especially if you would hurt anybody's feelings by doing so, and not to spend much money except on uninteresting books. mamma would have loved better than anything to be a society leader, and have her name appear often in the papers, like other ladies in denver who, she used to tell me, didn't come from half as good family as she did. but papa wouldn't let her go out much, and she didn't know any of the people she wanted to know--only quite common ones whose husbands kept stores or had other businesses which she didn't consider refined. i'm afraid i was never much comfort to poor mamma either. that cantankerousness of mine which makes me see how funny people and things are, always came between us, and i expect it always will. i must have been born old. her only real pleasure was reading novels on the sly, all about smart society and the aristocracy, but especially english aristocracy. she simply revelled in such stories; and when papa died suddenly without time to tie up his money so as to force mamma to go on doing what _he_ wanted, and not what _she_ wanted, all the rest of her life, the first thing that occurred to her was how to make up for lost time. "we'll travel in europe for a year or two," she said to me, "and when we come back we'll just show denver society people that we're _somebody_." that was all she thought of in the beginning, but when we'd gone east to chicago for a change, and were staying at a big hotel there, a new idea came into her head. partly it was from seeing so many smart-looking young women having a good time every minute of their lives, and feeling what was the use of being free to enjoy herself at last, with plenty of money, when she was dowdy and not so very young any more? (i could tell just what was in her mind by the wistful way she looked at gorgeous ladies who had the air of owning the world, with a fence around it.) and partly it was seeing an advertisement in a newspaper. mamma didn't mention the advertisement to me at first. but when she'd been away one morning alone on a secret errand she stammered and fidgetted a little, and said she had something to explain to me. then it all came out. she'd been to call on a wonderful french madame who could make a woman of thirty-eight (that's mamma's bible age) look twenty-five, and she hoped i wouldn't lose respect for her as my mother or think her frivolous and horrid if she put herself into the madame's hands for a few weeks. i couldn't help laughing, but mamma cried, and said that she'd never had a real good time since she was grown up. she did long to have one at last, very much, if only i'd let her do it in peace. i stopped laughing and almost cried, myself; but i didn't let her see that i wanted to. instead, i asked what would be the sense of _looking_ twenty-five, anyhow, when everybody would know she _must_ be more, with a daughter going on seventeen. mamma hadn't thought of that. she seemed years older than ever for a minute; and then she put her hand in mine. hers was as cold as ice. "would you mind going back a little, darling?" she asked. "it would be _so_ kind and sweet of you, and it would make all the difference to me." "going back?" i repeated. "whatever _do_ you mean?" it made her dreadfully nervous to explain, because she was afraid i'd poke fun at her, but she did get out the idea finally. "going back" was to bring on my second childhood prematurely. thirteen was a nice age, she thought, because many girls get their full growth then; and if i wasn't more than thirteen she could begin life over again at twenty-nine. "what, let down my hair and wear my dresses short?" i asked. she admitted that was what i'd have to do. i thought for a whole minute, and at last i just couldn't bear to disappoint her. but all the same, i reminded myself, i might as well make a good bargain while i was about it. "if i do what you want," said i, "you'll have to be mighty nice to me. i must be given my way about important things. if you ever refuse to do what i like, after i've done so much for you, i'll just turn up my hair and put on a long frock. then everybody'll see how old i am." she would have promised anything, i guess; and that very afternoon she gave me three lovely rings, and a ducky little bracelet-watch, when we were out shopping for short clothes and babyfied hats. soon we moved away from that hotel to one on the north side, where nobody had seen us; and the first thing i knew, i was a little girl again. it certainly was fun. to really appreciate being a child, you ought to have been grown up in another state of existence, and remember your sensations. it was something like that with me, and my life was almost as good as a play. i could say and do dreadfully naughty things, which would have been outrageous for a grown-up young lady of nearly seventeen. and _didn't_ i do them all? i never missed a single chance, and i flatter myself that i haven't since. the french madame made a real work of art of mamma. the progress was lovely to watch. she kept herself shut up in her room all day, pretending to be an invalid, and drove out in a veil to the madame's. then, when she was finished, we went right away from chicago to new york, where we meant to stay for a while till we sailed for europe. mamma hadn't been east before, since she was a girl of twenty, for that was when she married papa, and he took her to live in denver. we bought lots of beautiful things in new york, and mamma enjoyed herself so much, being pretty and having people stare at her, that she was almost sick from excitement. when we'd seen all the sights and were tired of shopping, she remembered that she'd got a niece staying in the country not far away, on the hudson river. i'd heard mamma speak of her sister, who, when seventeen, had married a savant (whatever that is), and had gone to california soon afterwards, because she was delicate. but evidently the change hadn't done her much good, because she died when her baby was born. the savant went on living, but he couldn't love his daughter properly, as she'd been the cause of her mother's death. besides, he wasn't the kind of man to understand children, so when madeleine was nine or ten, he sent her to a school--a very queer school. it was kept by a sisterhood; not nuns exactly, because they were protestants, but almost as good or as bad; and an elderly female cousin of the savant's was the head of the institution. there madeleine destrey had been ever since, though mamma said she must be nineteen or twenty; and now her father was dead. that news had been sent to mamma months before we left denver, but as she and the savant had written to each other only about once every five or six years, it hadn't affected her much. however, she thought it would be nice to go and see madeleine, and i thought so too. it was a short journey in the train, and the place where the sisterhood live is perfectly lovely, the most beautiful i ever saw, with quantities of great trees on a flowery lawn sloping down to the river. i was wondering what my cousin would be like--the only cousin i've got in the world; and though mamma said she must be pretty, if she was anything like her mother, i didn't expect her to be half as pretty as she really is. we surprised her as much as she did us, for naturally she expected mamma to be like other aunts, which she isn't at all--now; and evidently she considered me a _curiosity_. but she was very sweet, and when she found mamma didn't want to be called aunt kathryn, she tried hard always to "kitty" her. we only intended to spend the day, but it turned out that the time of our visit was rather critical for maida. she was in the act of having her twentieth birthday; and it seemed that in her father's will he had "stipulated" (that's the word the cousin-mother-superior used) that his daughter should be sent to travel in europe when she was twenty, for a whole year. the reason of the stipulation was, that though he didn't care for maida as most fathers care for their children, he was a very just man, and was afraid, after living so long in the sisterhood his daughter might wish to join the order, without knowing enough about the outside world to make up her mind whether it truly was her vocation for good and all. that was why she was to go to europe; for when you're twenty-one you can become a novice in the sisterhood, if you like. the mother superior didn't really want maida to go one bit. it was easy to see her anxiety to have the "dear child safe in the fold." but maida wasn't to inherit a penny of her father's money if she didn't obey his will, which wouldn't suit the sisterhood at all; so the mother had to hustle round and think how to pack maida off for the year. when we happened to arrive on the scene, she thought we were like moses's ram caught in the bushes. she told mamma the whole story--(a ramrod of a lady with a white face, a white dress, and a long, floating white veil, she was) asking right out if we'd take maida with us to europe. mamma didn't like the idea of being chaperon for such a girl as maida; but it was her own sister's daughter, and mamma is as good-natured as a mellin's food baby in a magazine, though she gets into little tempers sometimes. so she said, "yes," and a fort-night later we all three sailed on a huge german steamer for cherbourg. "at least, that's what we did in the 'dream,'" i reminded myself, when i had got so far in my thoughts, lying in the monastery bed. and by that time the light was so clear in the tiny white room, that there was no longer any doubt about it, i really was awake. i was dear little thirteen-year-old beechy kidder, who wasn't telling fibs about her age, because she _was_ thirteen, and was it anybody's business if she were something more besides? viii a chapter of playing dolls i looked at my bracelet-watch, which i had tucked under my pillow last night. it wasn't quite six o'clock, and we hadn't gone to bed till after one; but i knew i couldn't sleep any more, and life seemed so interesting that i thought i might as well get up to see what would come next. the water-pitcher didn't hold much more than a quart, but i took the best bath i could, dressed, and decided to find out what the monastery grounds were like. we were not to be called till half-past seven, and it was arranged that we should start at nine, so there was an hour and a half to spare. i wondered whether i should wake maida, and get her to go with me, but somehow i wasn't in the mood for maida. i was afraid that, being in a monastery, she would be thinking of her precious sisterhood and wanting to hurry back as fast as she could. she does mean to join when her year is up, i know, which is so silly of her, when the world's such a nice place; and it nearly gives me nervous prostration to hear her talk about it. not that she often does; but it's bad enough to see it in her eyes. maida is a perfect dear, much too good for us, and she always knows the proper etiquetical thing to do when mamma and i are wobbly; but she is such an edelweiss that i'm always being tempted to claw her down from her high white crags and then regretting it afterwards. mamma gets cross with her too, when she's particularly exalted, but we both love her dearly; and we ought to, for she's always doing something sweet for us. only she's a great deal too humble. i suppose it's the thing to be like that in a sisterhood, but mamma and i _aren't_ a sisterhood, and the sooner maida realizes that there's such a place as the world, the better it will be for her. so i didn't wake maida, but went tiptoeing out into the long corridor, and got lost several times looking for the way out of doors. at last i was in the garden, though, and it was very quaint and pretty, with unexpected nooks, old, moss-covered stone seats, and a sundial that you'd pay hundreds of dollars for in america. staring up at the house i thought a window-shutter moved; but i didn't attach any importance to that until, after i'd crossed several small bridges and discovered a kind of island with the river rushing by on both sides, i saw prince dalmar-kalm coming towards me. i was sitting on a bench on the little green island, where i pretended to be gazing down at the water and not to see him till he was close by; for i was in hope that he wouldn't notice me in my grey dress among the trees. i don't believe the prince's best friends would call him an early morning man. he's the kind that oughtn't to be out before lunch, and he goes especially well with gaslight or electricity. i felt sure he'd be unbearable before breakfast--either his breakfast or mine. "it's a pity," i thought, "that i can't run down as rapidly from the age of thirteen to the age of one as i have from seventeen to thirteen. when the prince found me. i should be sitting on the grass playing with dandelions and saying. 'da, da?' which would disgust him so much that he'd stalk away and leave me in peace to grow up in time for breakfast." but even a child must draw the line somewhere; and presently the prince said "good-morning" (so nicely that i thought he must have had a cracker or two in his pocket), asking if he might sit by me on the bench. "i was just going in to wake mamma," i replied, and i wondered whether, if i jumped up suddenly, his end of the bench would go down and tilt him into the river. it would have been fun to see his highness become his lowness, and to tell sir ralph moray afterwards, but just as i was on the point of making a spring, he remarked that he had seen me come out, and followed for a particular reason. if i tumbled him into the water, i might never hear that reason; so seventeen-year-old curiosity overcame thirteen-year-old love of mischief, and i sat still. "as you have only just come out, i don't see why you should be just going in, unless it is to get away from me," said the prince, "and i should be sorry to think that, because you are such a dear little girl, and i am very fond of you." "so was papa," said i, with my best twelve-and-a-half-year-old expression. "but i am not quite ancient enough to be your papa," replied the prince, "so you need not name us together like that." "_aren't_ you?" i asked, with big eyes. "well, that depends on how old you are, my dear." "i'm too old for you to call your dear, unless you _are_ old enough to be my papa," was the sage retort of baby beechy. "i'm over thirty," said the prince. "yes, i know," said i. "i found the almanach de gotha on the table of our hotel at cap martin, and you were in it." "naturally," said the prince, but he got rather red, as people always do when they find out that you know just how far over thirty they've really gone. "but i'm not married," he went on, "therefore you cannot think of me as of your papa." "i don't think of you much as anything," said i. "i'm too busy." "too busy! doing what?" "playing dolls," i explained. "i wish you were a little older," said the prince, with a good imitation of a sigh. "ah, _why_ haven't you a few years more?" "you might ask mamma," i replied. "but then, if i had, _she_ would have more too wouldn't she?" "that would be a pity. she is charming as she is. she must have married when almost a child." "did you come out here at this time of the morning to ask me about mamma's marriage?" i threw at him. "because, if _that_ was your reason, i'd rather go in to my dolls." "no, no," protested the prince, in a hurry. "i came to talk about yourself." i began to feel an attack of giggles coming on, but i stopped them by holding my breath, as you do for hiccoughs, and thinking about job, which, if you can do it soon and solemnly enough, is quite a good preventive. i knew now exactly why prince dalmar-kalm had dashed on his clothes at sight of me and come into the garden on an empty stomach. he had thought, if he could get me all alone for half an hour (which he'd often tried to do and never succeeded) he could find out a lot of things that he would like to know. perhaps he felt it was impossible for anybody to be as young as i seem, so that was what he wanted to find out about first. if i _wasn't_, he would flirt; if i _was_, he would merely pump. there wasn't much time to decide on a "course of action," as mamma's lawyer in denver says; but i put on my thinking-cap and tied it tight under my chin for a minute. "there's more fun to be had in playing with him than with dolls," i said to myself, "if i set about it in the right way. but what _is_ the right way? i can't be bothered having him for my doll, because he'd take up too much time. shall i give him to maida? no, i'll lend him to mamma to play with, so long as she plays the way i want her to, and doesn't get in earnest." "what are you anxious to say about me that can't wait till breakfast?" i asked. "_those men_ will be at breakfast," said he. "they are in the position of your couriers, yet they put themselves forward, as if on an equality with me. i do not find that conducive to conversation." "mamma asked maida yesterday whether it was better to be an austrian prince, or an english baronet?" said i. "sir ralph moray's a baronet." "so he says," sneered the prince. "oh, he is. mamma looked him out in burke the very day i found you were thirty-nine in the almanach de gotha." "anybody can be a baronet. that is nothing. it is a mere word." "it's in three syllables, and 'prince' is only in one. besides, austrians are foreigners, and englishmen aren't." "is that what miss destrey said to your mamma?" "no, because mamma's a foreign countess now, and it might have hurt her feelings. maida said she felt more at home with a plain mister--like mr. barrymore, for instance; only he's far from plain." "you consider him handsome?" "oh, yes, we all do." "but i think you have not known him and sir ralph moray for long. your mamma has not mentioned how she met them, but from one or two things that have been dropped, i feel sure they are in her employ--that she has hired them to take you about in their very inadequate car; is it not so?" "i'll ask mamma and tell you what she says, if you'd like me to," i replied. "no, no, dear child, you are too literal. it is your one fault. and i find that you are all three too trusting of strangers. it is a beautiful quality, but it must not be carried too far. will you not let me be your friend, miss beechy, and come to me for advice? i should be delighted to give it, for you know what an interest i take in all connected with you. there! now you have heard what i followed you out especially to say. i hoped that this would be a chance to establish a confidential relationship between us. _voulez-vous, ma chère petite?_" "what kind of a relationship shall we establish, exactly?" i asked. "you say you don't want to be my papa." "if i were your papa, i should be dead." "if you were my brother, and the age you are now, mamma might as well be dead." "ah, i would not be your brother on any consideration. not even your step-brother; though some step-relationships are delightful. but your mamma is too charming--you are _all_ too charming, for my peace of mind. i do not know how i lived before i met you." i thought that the money-lenders perhaps knew; but there are some things even little beechy can't say. "your mamma must have great responsibilities for so young a woman," he went on, while i pruned and prismed. "with her great fortune, and no one to guard her, she must often feel the weight of her burden too heavy for one pair of shoulders." "one can always spend one's fortune, and so get rid of the burden, if it's too big," said i. the prince looked horrified. "surely she is more wise than that?" he exclaimed. "she hasn't spent it all yet, anyhow," i said. "are you not anxious lest, if your mamma is extravagant, she may throw away your fortune as well as her own; or did your papa think of that danger, and make you quite secure?" "i guess i shall have a little something left, no matter what happens," i admitted. "then your papa was thoughtful for you. but was he also jealous for himself? had i been the husband of so fascinating a woman as your mamma, i would have put into my will a clause that, if she married again, she must forfeit everything. but it may be that americans do not hug their jealousy in the grave." "i can't imagine poor papa hugging anything," i said. "i never heard that he objected to mamma marrying again. anyhow, she's had several offers already." "she should choose a man of title for her second husband," said the prince, very pleased with the way the pump was working. "maybe she will," i answered. he started slightly. "it should be a title worth having," he said, "and a man fitted to bear it, not a paltry upstart whose father was perhaps a tradesman. you, miss beechy, must watch over your dear mamma and rescue her from fortune hunters. i will help. and i will protect _you_, also. as for miss destrey, beautiful as she is, i feel that she is safe from unworthy persons who seek a woman only for her money. her face is her fortune, _n'est-ce pas_?" "well, it's fortune enough for any girl," said i, thinking again of job and all the other really solemn characters in the old testament as hard as ever i could. the prince sighed, genuinely this time, as if my answer had confirmed his worst suspicions. "he will be nice to mamma, now," said little beechy to big beechy. "no more vacillating. he'll come straight to business." and promising myself some fun, i got up from the bench so cautiously that the poor river was cheated of a victim. "now i _must_ go in," i exclaimed. "_good_-bye, prince. let me see; what are we to each other?" "confidants," he informed me. "you are to come to me with every difficulty. but one more word before we part, dear child. be on your guard, and warn your mamma to be on hers, with those two adventurers. perhaps, also, you had better warn miss destrey. who knows how unscrupulous the pair might be? and unfortunately, owing to the regrettable arrangements at present existing, i cannot always be at hand to watch over you all." "owing a little to your automobile too, maybe," said i. "by the way, what is its state of health?" "there has been no room for the automobile in my thoughts," said the prince, with a cooled-down step-fatherly smile. "but i have no doubt it will be in good marching order by the time it is wanted, as my chauffeur was to rise at four, knock up a mechanic at some shop in the village, and make the new change-speed lever which was broken yesterday. if you are determined to leave me so soon, i will console myself by finding joseph and seeing how he is getting on." we walked together towards the house, which had opened several of its green eyelids now, and at the mouth of a sort of stucco tunnel which led to the door there was joseph himself--a piteous, dishevelled joseph, looking as if birds had built nests on him and spiders had woven webs round him for years. "well," exclaimed the prince with the air of one warding off a blow. "what has happened? have you burnt my automobile, or are you always like this when you get up early?" "i am not an incendiary, your highness," said joseph, in his precise french, which it's easy to understand, because when he wishes to be dignified he speaks slowly. "i do not know what i am like, unless it is a wreck, in which case i resemble your automobile. as you left her last night, so she is now, and so she is likely to remain, unless the gentlemen of the other car will have the beneficence to pull her up a still further and more violent hill to the village of tenda. there finds himself the only mechanic within fifty miles." "i engaged _you_ as a mechanic!" cried the prince. "but not as a workshop, your highness. that i am not and shall not be this side of paradise. and it is a workshop that we must have." "do not let me keep you, miss beechy," said the prince, "if you wish to go to your mamma. this little difficulty will arrange itself." i adore rows, and i should have liked to stay; but i couldn't think of any excuse, so i skipped into the house, and almost telescoped (as they say of railroad trains) with the nice monk, who was talking to maida in the hall. i supposed she was telling him about the sisters, but she was quite indignant at the suggestion, and said she had been asking if we could have breakfast in the garden. the monk had given his consent, and she had intended to have everything arranged out doors, as a surprise, by the time we all came down. "aunt kathryn is up; i've been doing her hair," explained maida, "but we didn't hear a sound from your room, so we decided not to disturb you. what _have_ you been about, you weird child?" "playing dolls," said i, and ran off to help mamma put on her complexion. but it was on already, all except the icing. i confessed the prince to her, and she looked at me sharply. "don't forget that you're a little girl now, beechy," she reminded me. "what were you talking about?" "you and my other dolls, mamma," said i. "even when i was seventeen i never flirted fasting." "what did you say about me, dearest?" "oh, it was the prince who said things about you. you can have him to play with, if you want to." "darling, you shouldn't talk of playing. this is a very serious consideration," said mamma. "i never heard much about austrians at home. most foreigners there were germans, which made one think of beer and sausages. i do wonder what standing an austrian prince would have in denver? should you suppose he would be preferred to--to persons of less exalted rank who were--who were not quite so _foreign_?" "do the prince and sir ralph moray intend to go over as samples?" i asked sweetly, but mamma only simpered, and as a self-respecting child i cannot approve of a parent's simpering. "i wish you wouldn't be silly, beechy," she said. "it is a step, being a countess, but it is not enough." "you mean, the more crowns you have, the more crowns you want." "i mean nothing of the sort," snapped mamma, "but i have some ambition, otherwise what would have been the good of coming to europe? and if one gets opportunities, it would be sinful to neglect them. only--one wants to be sure that one has taken the best." "there they all three are, in the yard," i remarked, pointing out of the window at the opportunities, who were discoursing earnestly with joseph. "of course, i'm too young _now_ to judge of such matters, but if it was _i_ who had to choose--" "well?" "i'd toss up a penny, and whichever side came, i'd take--" "yes?" "mr. barrymore." "mr. barrymore! but he has no title! i might as well have stayed in america." "i said that, because i think he'd be the hardest to get. the other two--" "what about them?" "well, you don't need to decide between them yet. just wait till we've travelled a little further, and see whether you come across anything better worth having." "oh, beechy, i never know whether you're poking fun at me or not," sighed poor mamma, so forlornly that i was sorry--for a whole minute--that i'd been born wicked; and i tied her tulle in a lovely bow at the back of her neck, to make up. ix a chapter of revelations maida really was the prettiest thing ever created, when i looked down at her from mamma's window, as she arranged flowers and cups and saucers on the table which the monk had carried out for her, into the garden. he had quite a gallant air, in his innocent way, as if he were an old beau, instead of a monk, and his poor face seemed to fall when mamma's untitled opportunity--all unconscious that he was an opportunity--saw maida, left joseph, and sprang to her assistance. but no wonder those two men, so different one from the other, found the same joy in waiting on her! the morning sun sprinkled gold on her hair, and made her fair skin look milky white, like pearl; then, when she would pass under the arbour of trees, the shadows threw a glimmering veil over her, and turned her into a mermaid deep down in the green light of the sea. i don't believe our glorified chauffeur would have stopped talking motor talk and run about with dishes for mamma or me as he did for maida. and i wonder if one of us had adopted that little scarecrow of a black dog, whether he would have given it a bath in the fountain and dried it with his pocket-handkerchief? that is often the way. if a girl has set her face against marriage and would rather be good to the poor than flirt, every man she's reluctantly forced to meet promptly falls in love with her, while all the thoroughly nice, normal female things like mamma and me have to take a back seat. by the way, mamma and i are literally in the back seat on this automobile trip; but my name isn't beechy kidder if it's dull for any length of time. however, this reflection is only a parenthesis in the midst of breakfast; for we all had breakfast together in the monastery garden and were as "gay as grigs." (n.b.--some kind of animal for which sir ralph is responsible.) the prince was nice to the two "adventurers," because he didn't want them to repent their promise to tow his car up to tenda; maida was nice to everybody, because a monastery was next best to a convent; mr. barrymore was nice to her dog; sir ralph and the prince were both nice to mamma, and breakfast (i spell it with a capital to make it more important) was nice to the poor little girl who would have had nobody to play with, if each one hadn't been a dancing doll of hers without realizing it. the monk wouldn't charge us a cent for our board, so we had unconsciously been paying him a visit all the time, though paying nothing else, and the prince had actually found fault with the coffee! however, sir ralph gave him a donation for the charities of the house, which he accepted, so we could bid him good-bye without feeling like tramps who had stolen a lodging in somebody's barn. as our automobile had to drag the prince's, and it appeared that tenda was less than three miles away, maida and i decided to walk. sir ralph walked with us, and the prince looked as if he would like to, but after our talk before breakfast, he naturally felt that his place was by the side of mamma. she comes down two inches in common-sense walking shoes, so of course hills are not for her, now that she's trying to be as beautiful as she feels; but the prince persuaded her to sit in the tonneau of his car, as it crawled up the steep white road behind mr. barrymore and the panhard, so slowly that he could pace beside her. sir ralph talked to maida, as we three trailed after the two motors, and i began to wonder if i hadn't been a little too strenuous in making the prince entirely over to mamma. not that i wanted him personally, but i did want some one to want me, so presently i pretended to be tired, and running after the toiling cars, asked mr. barrymore whether my weight would make much difference if i sat by him. "no more than a feather," said he, with such a delightful smile that i wished myself back at seventeen again, so that he might not talk "down" to me in that condescending, uncomfortable way that grown-ups think themselves obliged to use when they're entertaining children. if he had only known it, i should have been quite equal to entertaining _him_; but i was a victim to my pigtails and six inches of black silk stocking. "do you like motoring?" he asked, conscientiously. "yes," said i. "and it _is_ a fine day. and i would rather travel than go to school. and i admire europe almost as much as america so you needn't bother about asking me those questions. you can begin right now with something you would really _like_ to ask." he laughed. "as you're so fastidious, i'd better consider a little," he said. "maybe it would save time if i should suggest some subjects," said i, "for i suppose we'll be at tenda soon, even though the prince's car is as big as a house, and this hill is as steep as the side of one. would you like to ask me about mamma's past?" "good gracious, what do you take me for?" exclaimed mr. barrymore. "i haven't decided yet," i replied, "though the prince has talked to me quite a good deal about you." "has he, indeed? what does he know about me?" and our magnificent chauffeur turned suddenly so red under his nice dark skin, that i couldn't help wondering if, by any chance, the prince were the least little bit right about his being an adventurer. i almost hoped he was, for it would make things so much more romantic. i felt like saying, "don't mind me, my dear young sir. if you've anything to conceal about yourself, i shall like you all the better." but what i really did say was that the prince seemed much more interested in people's pasts than he--mr. barrymore--appeared to be. "my future is more interesting to me than my own past, or any one else's," he retorted. but i thought that he looked a little troubled, as if he were racking his brain for what the prince could have let out, and was too proud or obstinate to ask. "you _are_ selfish," i said. "then there's no use my trying to make this ride pleasant for you, by telling you anecdotes of my past--or maida's." at this his profile changed. i can't say his "face" because he was steering a great deal more than was flattering to me, or necessary in going up hill. would the fish bite at that last tempting morsel of bait? i wondered. the prince would have snapped at it; but though mr. barrymore's title is only that of chauffeur, he is more of a gentleman in his little finger than the prince in his whole body. he may be an adventurer, but anyhow he isn't the kind who pumps naughty little girls about their grown-up relations' affairs. "i am only concerned with yours and miss destrey's present," he said after a minute. "but the present so soon becomes the past, doesn't it? there's never more than just a minute of the present, really, if you come to look at it in that way, all the rest is past and future." "never mind," said mr. barrymore. "you've got more future than any of the party." "and poor maida has less." he forgot about his old steering-wheel for part of a second, and gave me such a glance that i knew i had him on my hook this time. "why do you say that?" he asked, quite sharply. "oh, you _are_ interested in somebody's future beside your own then?" "who could help being--in hers?" "you look as if you thought i meant she was dying of a decline," said i. "it isn't quite as bad as that, but--well, beautiful as maida is i wouldn't change places with her, unless i could change souls as well. it would be a good deal better for maida in _this_ world if she could have mine, though just the opposite in the next." "such talk clouds the sunshine," said mr. barrymore, "even for a stranger like me, when you prophesy gloomy mysteries for one who deserves only happiness. you said something of the sort to moray yesterday. he told me, but i was in hope that you had been joking." "no," said i. "but i suppose maida doesn't think the mysteries gloomy, or she wouldn't 'embrace' them--if that's the right word for it. mamma and i imagined that coming to europe would make her see differently perhaps, but it hadn't the last time i asked her. she thought paris lots of fun, but all the same she was homesick for the stupid old convent where she was brought up, and which she is going to let _swallow_ her up in a year." "good heavens, how terrible!" exclaimed our chauffeur, looking tragically handsome. "can nothing be done to save her? couldn't you and your mother induce her to change her mind?" "we've tried," said i. "she saw a lot of society in paris and when we were at cap martin, but it gave her the sensation of having made a whole meal on candy. mamma has the idea of being presented to your queen alexandra next spring, if she can manage it, and she told maida that, if she'd tack on a little piece to her year of travel, _she_ might be done too, at the same time. but maida didn't seem to care particularly about it; and the society novels that mamma loves don't interest her a bit. her favourite authors are shakspere and thomas hardy, and she reads cooper and sir walter scott. so what _can_ you do with a girl like that?" "there are other things in life besides society." "mamma doesn't think so. i guess we've both done all we can. i'm afraid poor maida's doomed. but there's one comfort; she'll look perfectly beautiful in the white robe and veil that her sisterhood wears." mr. barrymore gave a sort of groan. "what a vocation for a girl like that!" he muttered, more to himself than to me, i imagine. "something desperate ought to be done." "_you_ might try to influence her," i said. "not that i think it's likely you _could_. but there's no harm in trying." he didn't answer, but his face was as grave as if i had just invited him to a funeral, and as even job couldn't have kept my features from playing (why shouldn't features play, if they can work?), i hastily sought the first excuse for laughter i could find lying about loose. "oh, how _funny_!" i exclaimed. "ha, ha, ha, how _funny_!" "what is funny?" drearily demanded our chauffeur. "why, that queer little grey-brown town we're coming to. it looks for all the world like an exhibition of patent beehives at a country fair." "that is tenda," volunteered mr. barrymore, still plunged in the depths of gloom. "your unfortunate namesake, poor beatrice di tenda, would have been surprised to hear such a simile applied to her native town." "who was she?" i felt bound to inquire. "i was telling miss destrey about her yesterday. she seemed interested. miss destrey is very fond of history, isn't she?" "yes. but i'm tired talking of her now. i want to hear about the other beatrice. i suppose, if she was italian, she was bice too; but i'm sure her friends never made her rhyme with mice." "her husband made her rhyme with murder. did you never hear of the opera of beatrice di tenda? her story is one of the most romantic tragedies in history. well, there she was born, and there she lived as a beautiful young woman in that old castle whose ruined tower soars so high above your collection of beehives. when she was in her gentle prime of beauty, the ferocious duke filippo maria visconti came riding here from milan to court the sweetest lady of her day. she didn't care for him, of course, but young women of high rank had less choice in those times than they have in these, and that was the way all the mischief began. she did love somebody else, and the wicked duke starved her to death in the tower of another old castle. when we get to pavia, which we shall pass on the way to milan, i'll show you and miss destrey where your namesake lived when she was a duchess, and died when her duke would have her for a duchess no more, but wanted somebody else. poor beatrice, i wonder if her spirit has ever been present at the performance of the opera, and whether she approved." "i hope she came with the man she loved, and sat in a box, and that the duke was down in--in--" "the pit," said mr. barrymore, laughing, and giving a glance back over his shoulder for maida and sir ralph, as he stopped the car in front of a machinist's place. "here we are, joseph," he called to the prince's chauffeur, who was steering the broken car. "now, how soon do you expect to finish your job?" "with proper tools, it should be no more than an hour's work," said joseph, jumping down. "an hour? why, i should have thought three would be more like it," exclaimed mr. barrymore. "i am confident that i can do it in one all little hour," reiterated joseph, and for once the prince regarded him benignly. "whatever joseph's faults, he is an excellent mechanician," said his highness. "i did not intend to ask that you would wait, but if my car can be ready so soon, perhaps you will have pity upon me, countess, and let me escort you to the castle while joseph is working." "castle? i don't see any castle," returned mamma, gazing around. "what's left of it looks more like a walking-stick than a castle," said i, pointing up to the tall, tapering finger of broken stone that almost touched the clouds. "is mamma's new property in dalmatia as well perserved as that, prince?" "you have always a joke ready, little miss beechy." his lips smiled; but his eyes boxed my ears. almost i felt them tingle; and suddenly i said to myself, "good gracious, beechy kidder, what if your dolls should take to playing the game their own way, in spite of you, now you've set them going! where would you be _then_, i'd like to know?" and a horrid creep ran down my spine, at the thought of prince dalmar-kalm as a step-father. maybe he would shut _me_ up in a tower and starve me to death, as the wicked duke did with the other beatrice; and it wouldn't comfort me a bit if some one wrote an opera about my sufferings. but if he thinks he'll really get mamma, he little knows me, that's all. we shall see what we shall see. x a chapter of thrills the hotel at tenda is apparently the one new thing in the town, and it is new enough to more than make up for the oldness of everything else. we went there to grumble because, after we had done the ruined castle (and it had done mamma), joseph's "all little" hour threatened to lengthen itself into at lest two of ordinary size. mr. barrymore's eyebrows said, "i told you so," but his tongue said nothing, which was nice of it; and the prince did all the complaining as we sat on perfectly new chairs, in a perfectly new parlour, with a smell of perfectly new plaster in the air, and plu-perfectly old newspapers on the table. according to him, joseph was an absolutely unique villain, with a combination of deceit, treachery, procrastination, laziness, and stupidity mixed with low cunning, such as could not be paralleled in the history of motor-men; and it was finally mr. barrymore who defended the poor absent wretch. "really, you know," said he, "i don't think he's worse than other chauffeurs. curiously enough, the whole tribe seems to be alike in several characteristics, and it would be an interesting study in motor lore to discover whether they've all--by a singular coincidence--been born with those peculiarities, whether they've been thrust upon them, or whether they've achieved them!" "joseph never achieved anything," broke in the prince. "that disposes of one point of view, then," went on mr. barrymore. "anyhow, he's cut on an approved pattern. all the professional chauffeurs i ever met have been utterly unable to calculate time or provide for future emergencies. they're pessimists at the moment of an accident, and optimists afterwards--until they find out their mistakes by gloomy experience, which, however, seldom teaches them anything." the prince shrugged his shoulders in a superior way he has, and drawled, "well, you are better qualified to judge the brotherhood, than the rest of us, at all events, my dear sir." mr. barrymore got rather red, but he only laughed and answered, "yes, that's why i spoke in joseph's defence. a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," while maida looked as if she would like to set the new dog at his highness. the fact is she has got into her head that our handsome chauffeur is very unfortunate; and when maida is sorry for anybody or anything she'll stick by that creature--man, woman, or dog--through thick and thin. and funnier still, _he_ is sorry for _her_. well, it all comes into my game of dolls. but i'm not sure that i shan't fall in love with him myself, and want to keep him up my sleeve against the time when i'm seventeen again. the hotel clock was so new that it hadn't learned to go yet; and i never saw people glance at their watches so much, even in the midst of a long sermon, as we did, sitting on those new chairs in that new parlour. at last sir ralph moray proposed that we should have lunch; and we had it, with delicious trout as new as the dish on which they came frizzling to the table. while we were eating them joseph was announced, and was ordered to report himself in the dining-room. he seemed quite cheerful--for him. "i came to tell your highness that i shall be able to finish in time to start by four o'clock this afternoon," said he complacently. up sprang the prince in a rage and began to shout french things which must have been shocking, for sir ralph and mr. barrymore both scowled at him till he superficially calmed down. joseph had either forgotten that he'd promised to be ready hours ago, or else he didn't see why we should attach the least importance to a tiny discrepancy like that. in the midst of the argument, while the prince's language got hot and his fish cold, mr. barrymore turned to mamma and proposed that we should start directly after lunch, as most probably the prince wouldn't get off till next morning. the prospect of staying all night at tenda, with nothing to do but sit on the new chairs till bed time, was too much even for mamma's wish to please titled opportunity number one. she nervously elected to go on with titled opportunity number two and his friend. i thought that the prince would be plunged in gloom by this decision, even if he didn't try to break it. to my surprise, however, he not only made no objection, but encouraged the idea. he wouldn't wish to sacrifice us on the altar of his misfortune, he said. we must go on, dine at cuneo, and he would meet us at the hotel there, which he could easily do, as, when once his automobile was itself again, it would travel at more than twice the speed of ours. "especially up hill," he added. "the landlord has told joseph that beyond tenda the ascent is stupendous, nothing less than alpine. you will be obliged to travel at a snail's pace, even if you reach the top without every passenger walking up the hill, which mounts, curve after curve, for miles." poor mamma's face fell several inches. she had had enough walking up hill for one day, as the prince knew well, and no doubt he enjoyed the chance of disgusting her with motoring in other people's automobiles. but mr. barrymore's expression would have put spirit into a mock turtle. "i know what the gradients are," he said, "and what we can do. to show that i'm an exception which proves the rule i laid down for chauffeurs, i'm not making any experiments without counting the cost. i hope we shall get to cuneo by tea-time, not dinner-time, and push on to alessandria as a better stopping-place for the night." "very well. in any case i shall expect to catch you up at cuneo," said the prince, "and so, if you please, we will make a rendezvous at a certain hotel." baedeker was produced, a hotel was selected, and half an hour later his highness was bidding us _au revoir_, as we settled ourselves in our luggage-wreathed car, to leave the town of beatrice and the dominating, file-on-end shaped ruin. we had all been up so early that it seemed as if the day were growing old, but really it was only one o'clock, for we'd lunched at twelve, and all the afternoon was before us in which to do, or not to do, our great climbing act. just to see how our gorgeous chauffeur would look, i asked if i mightn't sit on the front seat for a change, because my feet had gone to sleep in the tonneau yesterday. i half-expected that he would shuffle round for an excuse to keep maida; but with an immovable face he said that was for the three ladies to arrange. of course, maida must have wanted to be in front, but she is so horribly unselfish that she glories in sacrificing herself, so she gave up as meekly as if she had been a lady's-maid, or a dormouse, and naturally i felt a little brute; but i usually do feel a brute with maida; she's so much better than any one i ever saw that i can't help imposing on her, and neither can mamma. it's a waste of good material being so awfully pretty as maida, if you're never going to do anything for people to forgive. yesterday we had been too hot in our motor-coats till night came on. to-day, when we had left tenda a little way below, we opened our shawl-straps and got out our fur stoles. at first i thought that the prince had only been trying to frighten us, and make us wish we were in a big car like his, for the road went curving up as gracefully and easily as a swan makes tracks in the water, and our automobile hummed cheerfully to itself, forging steadily up. it was so nice having nothing to drag that, by comparison with yesterday afternoon, we moved like a ship under full sail; but suddenly the road reared up on its hind feet and stood almost erect, as though it had been frightened by the huge snow-capped mountains that all at once crowded round us. an icy wind rushed down from the tops of the great white towers, as if with the swooping wings of a giant bird, and it took our car's breath away. instead of humming it began to pant, and i noticed the difference at once. if i'd been maida, i should probably have been too polite to put questions about the thing's behaviour, for fear mr. barrymore might think i hadn't proper confidence in him; but being beechy, with no convictions to live up to, i promptly asked if anything was the matter. "the car's only trying to tell me that she can't manage to spurt up on third speed any more," said he. "i shall put on the second, and you'll hear what a relief it gives to the motor." it certainly was as if the automobile had gulped down a stimulant, and revived in a second. but as we turned a shoulder of the mountain, coming in sight of a railroad depôt, a high embankment, and a monstrous wall of mountain with the sky for a ceiling, i couldn't help giving a little squeak. "is that a _road_?" i asked, pointing up to a network like a skein of silk twisted in a hundred zigzags across the face of the mountain from bottom to top. "why, it's like the way up jack's beanstalk. no sane automobile could do it." "some could," said mr. barrymore, "but i dare say it's lucky for us that ours hasn't got to. it's the old road, only used now to communicate with that desolate fortress you see on the top shelf of the mountain, standing up there on the sky-line like the ark on ararat. all this country is tremendously fortified by both the french and italians, in case they should ever come to loggerheads. above us somewhere is a long tunnel burrowing into the _col_, and the new road runs through that instead of over the summit." "bump!" went the car, as he finished his explanation, and then we began to wade jerkily through a thick layer of loose stones that had been spread over the road like hard butter over stale bread. "_le corse_" (that is what our landlord had called the cruel wind sweeping down from the snow mountains) was hurling itself into our faces; our fat rubber tyres were bouncing over the stones like baseballs, and i'd never been so uncomfortable nor so perfectly happy in my life. i wished i were a cat, so that i could purr, for purring has always struck me as the most thorough way of expressing satisfaction. when other people are in automobiles, and you are walking or jogging past with a pony, you glare and think what insufferable vehicles they are; but when you're spinning, or even jolting, along in one of them yourself, then you know that there's nothing else in the world as well worth doing. i made a remark like that to mr. barrymore, and he gave me such a friendly, appreciative look as he said, "have you discovered all this already?" that i decided at once to eat my heart out with a vain love for him. i haven't been really in love before since i was ten; so the sensation was quite exciting, like picking up a lovely jewel on the street, which you aren't sure won't be claimed by somebody else. i was trying to think what else i could say to fascinate him when the car lost its breath again, and--"r-r-retch" went in another speed. "it's our 'first and last,'" said mr. barrymore. "good old girl, she's going to do it all right, though there's many a twenty-four horse-power car that wouldn't rise to it. by jove, this is a road--and a half. i believe, ralph, that you and i had better jump off and ease her a bit." mamma squeaked, and begged our chauffeur not to leave us to go up by ourselves, or we should be over the awful precipice in an instant. but mr. barrymore explained that he wasn't deserting the ship; and he walked quickly along by the side of the car, through the bed of sharp stones, keeping his hand always on the steering-wheel like a pilot guiding a vessel among hidden rocks. maida would have been out too, in a flash, if mr. barrymore had let her, but he told us all to sit still, so we did, happy (judging the others by myself) in obeying him. i hadn't supposed there could be such a road as this. if one hadn't had hot and cold creeps in one's toes for fear the "good old girl" would slide back down hill and vault into space with us in her lap, one would have been struck dumb with admiration of its magnificence. as a matter of fact, we were all three dumb as mutes, but it wasn't only admiration that paralysed my tongue or mamma's, i know, whatever caused the phenomenon with maida, who has no future worth clinging to. as we toiled up, in spite of the stones that did their best to keep us back, we simply hung on the breathing of the motor, as mamma used to on mine when i was small and indulged in croup. when she gasped, we gasped too; when she seemed to falter, we involuntarily strained as if the working of our muscles could aid hers. all our bodies sympathized with the efforts of her body, which she was making for our sakes, dragging us up, up, into wonderful white, shining spaces where it seemed that summer never had been and never would dare to come. the twisted skein of silk we had looked up to was turning into a coil of rope now, stretched taut and sharp from zig to zag, and on from zag to zig again. below, when we dared to look back and down, the coil of rope lay looser, curled on itself. the mountain-top crowned by the fort (which as mr. barrymore said, did certainly look like the ark on ararat when all the rest of creation was swept off the globe) didn't appear so dimly remote now. we were coming almost into friendly relations with it, and with neighbouring mountains whose summits had seemed, a little while ago, as far away as kingdom come. i began to feel at last as if i could speak without danger of giving the motor palpitation of the heart. "what are you thinking of, maida?" i almost whispered. "oh!" she answered with a start, as if i'd waked her out of a dream. "i was thinking, what if, while we're still in this world we could see heaven, a far, shining city on a mountain-top like one of these. how much harder we would strive after worthiness if we _saw_ the place always with our bodily eyes; how much harder we'd try; and how much less credit it would be for those who succeeded." "what are _you_ thinking of, mamma?" i asked. "did the big mountains give you a thought too?" "yes, they did," said she, "but i'm afraid it was more worldly than maida's. i was saying to myself, the difference in being down far below, where we were, and high up as we are now, is like our old life in denver and our life here." as she went on to expound her parable, she lowered her voice, so that sir ralph and mr. barrymore, walking, couldn't catch a word. "in those days at home, it would have seemed as impossible that we could have princes and baronets and--and such people for our most _intimate_ friends, as it looked a little while ago for us to get near that fort up there, or the mountain-tops. yet we are, in--in every sense of the word, _getting there_." the thoughts which the mountains had put into maida's golden head and mamma's (now) auburn one were so characteristic of the heads themselves that i chuckled with glee, and our two men glanced round questioningly. but in accordance with mamma's simile, to explain to them would have been like explaining to the mountains themselves. by and by, though still going up, we were on snow level. snow lay white as maida's thoughts on either side of the steep road, but _le corse_ had run shrieking farther down the mountain, and was not at home in its own high house. we were less cold than we had been; and when presently the worst of the zigzags were past and a great black tunnel-mouth in sight to show we'd reached the _col_, the sun was almost warm. a few moments more, and (on our second best speed, with all five on board) we had shot into that great black mouth. i always thought that we had the longest and biggest of everything in our country, but i never heard of a tunnel like this in america. it was the queerest thing to look into i ever saw. the lamps of our automobile which mr. barrymore had stopped to light before plunging in, showed us a long, long, straight passage cut through the mountain, with an oval roof arched like an egg. except for a few yards ahead, where the way was lit up and the arch of close-set stones glimmered grey, the blackness would have been unbroken had it not been for the tunnel-lights. they went on and on in a sparkling line as far as our eyes could reach; and if the most famous whale in the world had had a spine made of diamonds, jonah would have got much the same effect that we did as he wandered about in the dark trying to get his bearings. it was only the most distant electric lamps that looked as if they were diamonds stuck close together along the roof. the near ones were balls of light under swaying umbrellas of ink-black shadow; and sometimes we would flash past great sharp stalactites, which were, as maida said, like titanesses' hatpins stuck through from the top of the mountain. at first the tunnel road was inches thick with white dust; then, much to our surprise, we ran into a track of greasy mud which made our car waltz as it had in the roya valley close to the precipice. "it's the water filtering in through the holes your titanesses' hatpins have made in their big pincushion," explained mr. barrymore, who had heard maida make that remark. and the hateful creatures had so honeycombed the whole mountain over our heads, that mamma and i put up umbrellas to save ourselves from being drenched. "what a place this would be for an accident! or--suppose we met something that _objected_ to us!" mamma shrieked, her voice all but drowned by the reverberation made by our motor in the hollow vault. with that, as if her words had "conjured it from the vasty deep"--to use a quotation of sir ralph's--something appeared, and it did object to us very much. it was a horse, and it gleamed like silver as our front lamp pointed it out to our startled eyes with a long, bright finger of light. he was coming towards us, down the narrow, arched passage, walking on his hind legs, with some one in a cart behind him, standing up and hitting him on the head with a whip. we were not really going very fast on account of the splashy mud; but what with the roaring echo of the motor, the dripping of water, the narrowness of the tunnel, the yapping of our little dog, the shouts of the man in the cart, and the strangeness of the picture ahead--just like a lighted disc on the screen of a magic lantern--it did seem as if everybody concerned must come to awful grief in about three seconds. i don't know whether i screamed or not; though i know mamma did; a deaf man would have known that. but the first thing i was really sure of was that mr. barrymore had not only stopped the car but the motor, had jumped down, and gone to the horse's head. he said something quickly to the driver, which i couldn't understand, because it was in italian; but the man didn't yell or whip the horse any more. mr. barrymore patted the poor beast, and talked to him, until he seemed tired of dancing about as if he were popcorn over a hot fire. then, when he had quieted down, and remembered that his forefeet were given him to walk with and not to paw the air, mr. barrymore led him gently up to our automobile, patting his neck all the time. he snorted and quivered for a minute, then smelt of what mr. barrymore calls the "bonnet," with the funniest expression of disgust and curiosity. i imagined the horse was thinking, "this is a very nasty thing, but it seems to belong to the nicest, kindest man i ever met, so perhaps it isn't as bad after all as i thought at first." the driver's scowl turned to a smile, as he eventually drove by, we waiting till he had got safely past. "i think that was real nice of you, mr. barrymore," said mamma, as we went teuf-teufing on again. she is always a little uneasy with him, because, though he's a friend of sir ralph moray's, he's only a chauffeur, and she isn't quite sure whether she oughtn't to patronize him a little to keep up her dignity as a countess. but it was a good sign that she should remember his name for once. as for me, i've given him one for use behind his back, which is to make up for his lack of a title, express his gorgeousness and define his profession all at the same time. it is "chauffeulier," and i rather pride myself on it. "it was only decent," he answered mamma. "i love horses, and i've enough imagination to guess pretty well how one feels when he's called upon to face some unknown horror, with no sympathy from behind. it would have been sheer brutality not to stop motor and all for that poor white chap. he won't be as bad next time; and perhaps his master will have learned a little common sense too. all the same, that kind of adventure spells delay, and i hope this tunnel isn't infested with timid horses. luckily, the line seems all clear ahead." a few minutes more, and looking before and after, we could see far away two little oval pearls of daylight, one straight ahead, one straight behind. it was like having one's foresight as good as one's hindsight; which in real life, outside tunnels, would save a lot of disasters. mr. barrymore explained that we'd reached the apex of two slopes, and now we would be descending gradually. it gave us a shock to burst out into the sunlight again by-and-by, but it was a glorious shock, with a thrill as the dazzling white mountains seemed to leap at our eyes. if you speak of zigzags going up hill, oughtn't you to call them zagzigs going down? anyway, there they were, hundreds of them apparently, looking something as a huge corkscrew might look if it had been laid on a railroad track for a train to flatten. we began to fly down, faster and faster, the motor making no noise at all. at each turn of the corkscrew it seemed to me as if we must leap over into space, and i felt as if i had been struck by lightning; but always our chauffeur steered so as to give plenty of margin between our tyres and the edge of the precipice; and by-and-by i was thoroughly charged with electricity so that i ceased to be actually afraid. all i felt was that my soul was covered with a very thin, sensitive skin. "oh, mr. terrymore, for mercy's sake, for _heaven's_ sake...!" wailed mamma. "i don't feel _able_ to die to-day." "you shan't, if i can help it," answered mr. barrymore, without looking round; but as he never wears goggles, i could see his face plainly from my place by his side, and i thought it had rather an odd, stern expression. i wondered whether he were cross with mamma for seeming to doubt his skill, or whether something else was the matter. but instead of fading away, the expression seemed to harden. he looked just as i should think a man might look if he were going to fight in a battle. i awfully wanted to ask if anything were wrong, but something mysterious--a kind of atmosphere around him, like a barrier i could feel but not see--wouldn't let me. "i believe the thing is broken, somehow," i said to myself; and the thought was so awful, when i stared down at all those separate layers of precipice which we would have to risk before we reached human-level (if we ever reached it) that my heart pounded like a hammer in my side. it was a terrible sensation, yet i revelled in it with a kind of desperate joy; for everything depended on the eye, and nerve, and hand of this one man whom it was so thrilling to trust. each time we twisted round a corkscrew i gave a sigh of relief; for it was one less peril to pass on the way to safety. "do just stop for a moment and let us breathe," cried mamma; and my suspicions were confirmed by mr. barrymore's answer, thrown over his shoulder. "it's best not, countess," he said. "i'll explain afterwards." mamma is always ecstatic for an instant after any one has addressed her as "countess," so she didn't insist, and only murmured to herself, "oh, _why_ did i leave my peaceful home?" in a minor wail which showed me that she wasn't really half as anxious as i was. but if she could have seen mr. barrymore's profile, and had the inspiration to read it as i did, she would probably have jumped out of the automobile in full flight. whereupon, though she might have gained a crown to wear upon her forehead, all those on her brushes and powder-pots, and satchels and trunks, would have been wasted. poor little mamma! we plunged down below the snow-line; we saw far beneath us a wide, green valley, where other people, the size of flies, were safe if not happy. we passed some barracks, where a lot of sturdy little mountain soldiers stopped bowling balls in a dull, stony square to watch us fly by. we frightened some mules; we almost made a horse faint away; but the chauffeulier showed no desire to stop and let them admire our "bonnet" at close quarters. the excitement of the drive, and my conviction that mr. barrymore was silently fighting some unseen danger for us all, filled me with a kind of intoxication. i could have screamed; but if i had, it wouldn't have been with cowardly fear. partly, perhaps, the strange exhilaration came from the beauty of the world on which we were descending almost as if we were falling from the sky. i felt that i could have lovely thoughts about it--almost as poetical as maida's--if only i had had time; but as it was, the ideas jostled each other in my mind like a crowd of people rushing to catch a train. from behind, i could hear maida's voice from moment to moment, as she talked to mamma or sir ralph, innocently unsuspicious of any hidden danger. "isn't it all wonderful?" she was saying. "day before yesterday we left riotous, tumultuous summer on the riviera; found autumn in the roya valley, chill and grim, though so magnificent; and came into winter snows this morning. now we've dropped down into spring. it's like a fairy story i read once, about a girl whose cruel stepmother drove her from home penniless, and sent her into the mountains at dead of night, telling her never to come back unless she could bring an apronful of strawberries for her stepsister. the poor girl wandered on and on in the dark in a terrible storm, until at last she strayed to a wild mountain-top, where the twelve months lived. some were old men, wrapped in long cloaks; some were young and ardent; some were laughing boys. with a stroke of his staff, each month could make what he would with the weather. father january had but to wave his stick to cause the snow to fall; may, in pity for the girl's tears, created a rose garden, while his brother's snow-wreaths were melting; but it was june who finally understood what she wanted, and gave her a bed of fragrant strawberries. i feel as if _we_ had wandered to the house of the months, and they were waving their staffs to create miracles for us." "it will be a miracle if we ever get out of the house of the months and into one of our own," i said to myself, almost spitefully, for the talk in the tonneau did seem frivolous when i glanced up furtively at that tight-set mouth of mr. barrymore's. and after that, to look down from a frame of snow mountains through a pinky-white haze of plum, cherry, and pear blossoms to delicate green meadows sparkling with a thick gold-dust of dandelions, was for me like going out to be tried for my life in a frock made by a fairy. i hardly breathed until the corkscrew uncurled itself at last and turned into an ordinary downhill road. our car slackened speed, and finally, as we came upon the first long, level stretch, to my astonishment moved slower and more slowly until it stopped dead. xi a chapter of brakes and worms mamma laughed one of those coquettish, twenty-five-year-old laughs that go with her auburn hair and her crowns. "well, have you decided to give us a chance to breathe, after all?" she asked. "i should say it was about time." "i'm afraid you'll breathe maledictions when you hear what is the matter," said our chauffeulier. "good gracious! what's happened?" exclaimed mamma. "if the thing's going to explode, do let us get out and run." "so far from exploding, she's likely to be silent for some time," mr. barrymore went on, jumping down and going to the automobile's head. "i'm awfully sorry. after the delays we've suffered, you won't think motoring is all it's painted, when i tell you that we're in for another." "why, what is it this time?" mamma asked. "i'm not quite sure yet," said mr. barrymore, "but the chains are wrong for one thing, and i'm inclined to think there's some deep-seated trouble. i shall soon find out, but whatever it is, i hope you won't blame the car too much. she's a trump, really; but she had a big strain put upon her endurance yesterday and this morning. dragging another car twice her size for thirty miles or more up a mountain pass isn't a joke for a twelve horse-power car." any one would think the automobile was his instead of sir ralph's by the pride he takes in it. sir ralph doesn't seem to care half as much; but then i don't believe he's a born sports-man like his friend. you can be a motor-car owner if you've got money enough; but i guess you have to be _born_ a motor-car man. "well, this isn't exactly an ideal place for an accident," remarked mamma, "as it seems to be miles from anywhere; but we ought to be thankful to providence for not letting the break come up there on that awful mountain." i saw a faint twinkle in mr. barrymore's eyes and a twitch of his lips, as he bent down over the machinery without answering a word, and i couldn't resist the temptation of letting him see that i was in his secret. there couldn't be any harm in it's coming out now. "thankful to mr. barrymore for bringing us safely down the 'awful mountain' when the break _had_ come at the top," i corrected mamma, with my chin in the air. "good heavens, beechy, what _do_ you mean?" she gasped, while our chauffeulier flashed me a quick look of surprise. "oh, only that the accident, whatever it was, happened soon after we came out of the tunnel, and if mr. barrymore'd stopped when you wanted him to, he couldn't have started again, for we were just running downhill with our own weight; and i knew it all the time," i explained airily. "you're joking, beechy, and i think it's horrid of you," said mamma, looking as if she were going to cry. "am i joking, mr. barrymore?" i asked, turning to him. "i had no idea that you guessed, and i don't see now how you did; but it's true that the accident happened up there," he admitted, and he looked so grave that i began to feel guilty for telling. "then it was only by a merciful dispensation that we weren't hurled over the precipice and dashed to pieces," exclaimed mamma. "that depends on one's definition of a merciful dispensation," said mr. barrymore. "from one point of view every breath we draw is a merciful dispensation, for we might easily choke to death at any instant. we were never for a single moment in danger. if i hadn't been sure of that, of course i would have stopped the car at any cost. as a matter of fact, when we began the descent i found that the hand-brake wouldn't act, and knew the chains had gone wrong. if i'd thought it was only that i could have put on our spare chains, but i believed there was more and worse, so i determined to get on as far towards civilization as i could before stopping the car." "you brought us down those ghastly hills without a brake!" mamma cried out, losing her temper. "and sir ralph called you careful! i can never trust you again." i could have slapped her and myself too. "aunt kathryn!" exclaimed maida. then i could have slapped her as well for interfering. it would serve her right if i married her off to the prince. the chauffeulier looked for a second as if he were going to say "very well, madam; do as you like about that." but maida's little reproachful exclamation apparently poured balm upon his troubled soul. "not without a brake," he answered, with great patience and politeness, "but with one instead of two. if the foot-brake had burned, as possibly it might, the compression of the gas in the cylinder could have been made to act as a brake. the steering-gear was in perfect order, which was the most important consideration in the circumstances, and i felt that i was undertaking a responsibility which the car and i together were well able to carry out. but as i thought that amateurs were likely to be alarmed if they knew what had happened, i naturally kept my knowledge to myself." "i saw that something was wrong by the set expression of your face," said i, "and i wasn't a bit afraid, because i felt, whatever it was, you'd bring us through all right. but i'm sorry i spoke now." "you needn't be," said he. "i shouldn't have done so myself yet i wasn't silent for my own sake; and i should do the same if it had to be done over again." but this didn't comfort me much, for i was sure that maida wouldn't have spoken if she had been in my place. i don't know why i was sure, but i was. "whatever barrymore does in connection with a motor-car, is always right, countess," said sir ralph, "though in other walks of life i wouldn't vouch for him." his funny way of saying this made us all laugh and mamma picked up the good temper which she had lost in her first fright. she began to apologize, but mr. barrymore wouldn't let her; and the storm was soon forgotten in the interest with which we hung upon the chauffeulier's explorations. he peered into the mysterious inner workings of the machine, tapped some things, thumped others, and announced that one of the "cones of the countershaft" was broken. "there's no doubt that the undue strain yesterday and this morning weakened it," he said, coming up from the depths with a green smear on his noble brow. "what we've really to be thankful for is that it waited to snap until we'd got up all the hills. now, though as the countess says we seem to be miles from anywhere, we're actually within close touch of civilization. unless i'm out in my calculations, we must be near a place called limone, where, if there isn't much else, at least there's a station on the new railway line. all we've got to do is to find something to tow us, as we towed dalmar-kalm (a mere mule will answer as well as a motor) to that station, where we can put the car on the train and be at cuneo in no time. the guide-books say that cuneo's interesting, and anyhow there are hotels of sorts there--also machine tools, a forge, a lathe, and things of that kind which we can't carry about with us." "what a splendid adventure!" exclaimed maida. "i love it; don't you, beechy?" i answered that i entertained a wild passion for it; but all the same, i wished i'd mentioned it first. this settled mamma's attitude towards the situation. she saw that it was _young_ to enter into the spirit of the adventure, so she took the cue from us and flung herself in with enthusiasm enough to make up for her crossness. "somebody must go on an exploring expedition for a mule," said mr. barrymore, "and as i'm the only one whose italian is fairly fluent, i suppose i must be the somebody. miss destrey, would you care to go with me for the sake of a little exercise?" in another minute i would have volunteered, but even thirteen-year-olds have too much pride to be the third that makes a crowd. gooseberry jam is the only jam i don't like; so i kept still and let them go off together, chaperoned by the little black dog. sir ralph stood by the automobile talking to mamma while i wandered aimlessly about, though i could tell by the corner of his eye that she didn't occupy his whole attention. just to see what would happen, i suddenly squatted down by the side of the road, about twenty yards away, and began to dig furiously with the point of my parasol. i hadn't been at work for three minutes when i was rewarded. "the countess has sent me to ask what you are doing, miss beechy," announced a nice voice; and there was sir ralph peering over my shoulder. "i'm looking for one of my poor relations," said i. "a worm. she's sent up word that she isn't in. but i don't believe it." "i'm glad my rich relations aren't as prying as you are," said he. "i often send that message when it would be exceedingly inconvenient to have further inquiries pressed. not to rich relations, though, for the very good reason that they don't bother about me or other poor worms, who have not my félicité to defend them." "who's félicité?" i asked, not sorry to keep sir ralph for my own sake or that of mamma--who was probably taking advantage of his absence to put powder on her nose and pink stuff on her lips, by the aid of her chatelaine mirror. "who's félicité? you might as well ask who is the queen of england. félicité is my cook--my housekeeper--my guide, philosopher and friend; my all." "that dear, fat duck who brought us tea the day we were at your house?" "i have two ducks. but félicité was the one who brought you the tea. the other eats mice and fights the cat. félicité doesn't eat mice, and fights me." "i loved her." "so do i. and i could love you for loving her." "perhaps you'd better not." "why? it's safe and allowable for men of my age to love little girls." "i'm different from other little girls. you said so yourself. besides what is your age?" "twenty-nine." "you look about nineteen. our chauffeulier looks older than you do." "chauffeulier? oh, i see, that's your name for terry. it's rather smart." "i call it a title, not a name," said i. "i thought he ought to have one, so i dubbed him that." "he ought to be complimented." "i mean him to be." "come now, tell me what name you've invented for me, miss beechy." i shook my head. "you've got a ready-made title. but you look too boyish to live up to it. the chauffeulier would come up to my idea of a baronet better than you do." "oh, you don't have to be dignified really to be a baronet, you know. terry--er--you mustn't mention to him that i told you; but he may be something a good deal bigger than a baronet one day." "he's a good deal bigger than a baronet now," said i, laughing, and measuring sir ralph from head to foot. "but what may he be one day?" "i mustn't say more. but if you're at all interested in him, that will be enough to fix your attention." "what would be the good of fixing my attention on him, if that's what you mean," i inquired, "when he's got his attention fixed upon another?" "oh, you mustn't judge by appearances," said sir ralph hastily. "he likes you awfully; though, of course, as you're so young, he can't show it as he would to an older girl." "i shall grow older," said i. "even before we finish this trip i shall be a _little_ older." "of course you will," sir ralph assured me soothingly. "by that time, terry will, no doubt, have screwed up courage to show you how much he likes you." "i shouldn't have thought he lacked courage," said i. "only where girls are concerned," explained sir ralph. "he seems brave enough with my cousin maida. it's mamma and me he doesn't say much to, unless we speak to him first." "you see he's horribly afraid of being thought a fortune-hunter. he's almost morbidly sensitive in that way." "o-oh, i see," i echoed. "is that the reason he's so stand-off with us--because he knows we're rich?" "yes. otherwise he'd be delightful, just as he is with miss destrey, with whom he doesn't have to think of such things." "you're fond of him, aren't you?" i asked, beginning again to dig for the worm; for sir ralph was squatting beside me now, watching the point of my parasol. "rather!" he exclaimed. "he's the finest fellow on earth. i should like to see him as happy as he deserves to be." "but you don't want him to fall in love with maida?" "that's the last thing i should choose for either of them. though it's early to talk of such contingencies, isn't it, as they've known each other--we've all known each other--only a few days?" "it only takes a few minutes for the most important things to happen, such as being born and dying. _why_ should falling in love take more? it wouldn't with me." "you're young to judge." "pooh, i've been in love several times. now i come to think of it, i'm in love this moment--or almost. _why_ don't you want mr. barrymore to fall in love with my cousin?" "it would be imprudent." "perhaps you're falling in love with her yourself." "i shouldn't wonder." "if you'll tell me whether you are or not, i'll tell you who it is i _think_ i'm in love with." "well, i _could_ be. now for your secret." "i give you leave to guess." "really?" "and truly." "some one we've just been talking about?" "'i could be.' oh dear, i believe this worm _is_ out after all." "this is most interesting. i don't mean about the worm. terry's in luck for once." "but he thinks me a little girl." "little girls can be fascinating. besides, i'll make it my business to remind him that little girls don't take long to grow up." "will you really? but you won't let him know about this talk?" "sooner would i be torn in two by wild motor-cars. these confidences are sacred." "i'll say nice things about you to maida," i volunteered. he stared for a minute, and then laughed. "i should tell you not to if i weren't certain that all the nice things in the world might be said on that subject with no more effect upon miss destrey than a shower of rain has on my duck's back. you must try and help me not to fall in love with her." "why?" i asked. "because, for one reason, she'd never fall in love with me; and for another, i couldn't in any event afford to love her, any more than can my friend terry barrymore." "perhaps i'd better work her off on the prince, and then you'd both be out of danger," said i. "it would at least save me anxiety about my friend, though i should doubtless suffer in the process," replied sir ralph. "i'll comfort you whenever i have time," i assured him. "do," he entreated. "it will be a real charity. and in the meantime, i shan't be idle. i shall be working for you." "thank you ever so much," said i. "i should be glad if you'd report progress from time to time." "i will," said he. "we'll keep each other up, won't we?" "be-echy!" shrieked mamma. "i've been screaming to you for the last _twenty_ minutes. come here at once and tell me what you're doing. it's sure to be something naughty." so we both came. but the only part that we mentioned was the worm. x xii a chapter of horrors it is wonderful how well it passes time to have a secret understanding with anybody; that is, if you're a girl, and the other person a man. mr. barrymore and maida seemed hardly to have gone before they were back again; which pleased me very much. in attendance was a man with a mule--a grinning man; a ragged and reluctant mule; which was still more reluctant when it found out what it was expected to do. however, after a fine display of diplomacy on our chauffeulier's part, and force on that of the mule's owner, the animal was finally hitched to the automobile with strong rope. mr. barrymore had to sit in the driver's seat to steer, while the man led the mule, but we others decided to walk. mamma's heels are not quite as high as her pride (when she's feeling pretty well), so she preferred to march on the road rather than endure the ignominy of being dragged into even the smallest of villages behind the meanest of beasts. a train for cuneo was due at limone, it seemed, in an hour, and we could walk there in about half that time, mr. barrymore thought. he had made arrangements with the _capo di stazione_, as he called him, to have a truck in readiness. the automobile would be put on it, and the truck would be hitched to the train. maida and i were delighted with everything; and when mamma grumbled a little, and said this sort of thing wasn't what she'd expected, we argued so powerfully that it was much more fun getting what you did not expect, than what you did, that we brought her round to our point of view, and set her laughing with the rest of us. "after all, what does it matter, as long as we're all young together?" said she, at last; and then i knew that the poor dear was happy. sir ralph considered limone an ordinary italian village, but it seemed fascinating to us. the fruit stalls, under overhanging balconies, looked as if piled with splendid jewels; rubies, amethysts and pearls, globes of gold, and silver, and coral, as big as those that aladdin found in the wonderful cave. dark girls with starry eyes and clouds of hair stood gossipping in old, carved doorways, or peered curiously down at us from oddly shaped windows; and they were so handsome that we liked them even when they doubled up with laughter at our procession, and called their lovers and brothers to laugh too. men and women ran out from dark recesses where they sold things, and from two-foot-wide alleys which the sun could never have even seen, staring at us, and saying "molta bella" as maida passed. she really was very effective against the rich-coloured background--like a beautiful white bird that had strayed into the narrow village streets, with sunshine on its wings. but she didn't seem to realize that she was being looked at in a different way from the rest of us. "i suppose we're as great curiosities to them, as they are to us," she said, lingering to gaze at the gorgeous fruit, or some quaint catholic emblems for sale in dingy windows, until sir ralph had to hurry her along lest we should miss the train. we were in plenty of time, though; and at the railroad depôt (according to me), or the railway station (according to sir ralph and our chauffeulier), the automobile had been got onto the truck before the train was signalled. our tickets had been bought by mr. barrymore, who would pay for them all, as he said it was "his funeral," and we stood in a row on the platform, waiting, when the train boomed in. as it slowed down, car after car passing us, mamma gave a little scream and pointed. "look, there's another automobile on a truck!" said she. "my goodness, if it isn't exactly like the prince's!" "and if that isn't exactly like the prince!" echoed sir ralph, waving his hand at the window of a car next to the truck. we all broke into a shout of ribald joy. not even a saint could have helped it, i'm sure; for maida is pretty near to a saint, and she was as bad as any of us. the prince's head popped back into the window, like a rabbit's into its hole; but in another second he must have realized that it was no use playing 'possum when there, within a dozen yards, was that big scarlet runner of his, as large as life, though not running for the moment. he quickly decided to make the best of things by turning the tables upon us, and pointing the finger of derision at our automobile, which by careening himself out of the window he could see on its truck. before the train had stopped, he was down on the platform, gallantly helping mamma up the high step into the compartment where he had been sitting; so we all followed. "you broke something, i see," his highness remarked jovially, as if nothing had ever happened to him. "it was you who broke it," said i, before either of our men could speak. "but i mean something in your motor," he explained. "yes, its heart! the long agony of towing you up those miles of mountain was too much for it. but motors' hearts can be mended." "so can young ladies', _n'est-ce pas_? well, this is an odd meeting. i telegraphed you, countess, to the hotel at cuneo, where we arranged our rendezvous, in case you arrived before me, to say that i was on the way; but now we will all go there together. since we parted i have had adventures. so, evidently, have you. joseph's repairs were so unsatisfactory, owing to his own inefficiency and that of the machine shop, that i saw the best thing to do was to come on by train to cuneo, where proper tools could be obtained. after some difficulty i found horses to tow me up to the railway terminus at vievola, where i succeeded in getting a truck, and--_voila_!" whereupon mamma poured a history of our exploits into the prince's ears, exaggerating a little, but saying nothing detrimental to our chauffeulier, who would perhaps not have cared or even heard if she had, for he was showing things to maida through the window. "we're in piedmont now," he said. "how peaceful and pretty, and characteristically italian it is, with the vines and chestnut trees and mulberries! who would think, to see this richly cultivated plain, that it was once appropriately nicknamed 'the cockpit of europe,' because of all the fighting that has gone on here between so many nations, ever since the dawn of civilization? it's just as hard to realize as to believe that the tiny rills trickling over pebbly river-beds which we pass can turn into mighty floods when they choose. when the snows melt on monte viso--that great, white, leaning tower against the sky--and on the other snow mountains, then is the time of danger in this land that the sun loves." mamma thought the train rather restful after an automobile, but i discouraged her in that opinion by saying that it sounded very old-fashioned, and she amended it by hurriedly remarking that, anyhow, she would soon be tired of resting and glad to get on again. "that must be cuneo, now," said mr. barrymore, pointing to a distant town which seemed to grow suddenly up out of the plain, very important, full of vivid colours, and modern looking after the strange, ancient villages we had passed on the way. when we got out of the train joseph was on the platform, more depressed than ever, but visibly brightening at sight of mr. barrymore, for whom he evidently cherishes a lively admiration; or else he regards him as a professional brother. what happened to the two automobiles, i don't know, for we didn't stop to see. sir ralph had a hurried consultation with mr. barrymore, and then said that he would take us up to the hotel in a cab, with all our luggage. there wasn't room for the prince in our ramshackle old vehicle, and he took another, being apparently very anxious to arrive at the hotel before us. he spoke to his driver, who lashed the one poor nag so furiously that maida cried out with rage, and they flashed past us, the horse galloping as if black care were on his back. but something happened to the harness, and they were obliged to stop; so we got ahead, and reached the wide-arcaded square of the hotel first after all. it was quite a grand-looking town, for a middle-sized one, but mamma drew back hastily when she had taken a step into the hall of the hotel. "oh, we can't stop here!" she exclaimed. "this must be the worst instead of the best." with that several little men in greasy dress-coats, spotted shirts, and collars so low that you could see down their necks, sprang forward and bowed very humbly, like automata. "may i have the extreme honour of asking if it is her very high grace, madame the countess dalmar and suite who felicitate our humble hotel with their presence?" inquired the fattest and spottiest in one long french breath. mamma drew herself up to her full height, which must be at least five feet three, heels included. i don't know exactly what it is to bridle, but i'm sure she did it. she also moistened her lips and smiled with both dimples. "wee, wee, jay swee countess dalmar," she admitted, leaving her suite to account for itself. "then i have here a telegram for madame," went on the man, giving her a folded paper which, with an air, he drew forth from an unspeakable pocket. mamma looked important enough for a princess, at least, as she accepted (i can't say took) the paper and opened it. "oh, i might have known," she said, "it's that one the prince sent this morning. but isn't it funny he telegraphs 'automobile in grand condition, took hills like bird, shall make slight détour for pleasure, but will reach cuneo almost as soon as your party. dalmar-kalm.' i don't understand, do you?" "i understand why the prince was willing to be left behind at tenda, and why he wanted to get to this hotel first, anyhow," said i; and sir ralph and i were laughing like mad when his belated highness appeared on the scene. seeing mamma with the telegram in her hand, he explained volubly that it had been sent before he decided to save time and wear and tear by coming on the train; but he was red, and stammery, and sir ralph looked almost sympathetic, which made me wonder whether _all_ motor-men sometimes tell fibs. after being received with so much appreciation, mamma began to think that perhaps the hotel wasn't so dreadful after all; and when sir ralph gave his opinion that it would prove as good as any other, she said that we would stay. "i should be sorry to hurt the people's feelings, as they seem such _nice_ men," she sighed. "but--i suppose it will only be for coffee?" "i'm sorely afraid it will be for dinner to-night and breakfast to-morrow morning too," replied sir ralph. "it's too bad that virtue such as ours should have such a reward. we did unto others as we would they should do unto us; and this is the consequence. terry intends to work all night on the car, if he can get the mechanic to keep his shop going, and we may hope to start as early in the morning as you like." "perhaps joseph may have mine ready to-night, in which case i can take the ladies on--" the prince began, but mamma was too overcome to hear him. trying to look like a countess at all costs, she allowed herself and us to be led, as lambs to the slaughter, up a flight of dirty stone stairs, to see the bedrooms. "you will have our best, is it not, madame la comtesse?" inquired the man of the hotel, who seemed to be a cross between a manager and a head-waiter, and who swelled with politeness behind a shirt-front that resembled nothing so much as the ten of clubs. "yes, i was sure of that, gracious madame. you and your suite may assure yourselves that you will be placed in our _chambres de luxe_." with this announcement, he threw open a door, and stood salaaming that we might file in before him. mamma pitched forward down a step, shrieked, tottered, saved herself by clawing the air, while maida and i both pitched after her, falling into fits of laughter. it could n't have been colder in the spotty man's family vault, and i hope not as musty. maida flew to one of the two windows, set deep in the thickness of the wall, and darkened by the stone arcade outside. but apparently it was hermetically sealed, and so was the other which i attacked. the ten of clubs looked shocked when we implored him to open something--anything; and it was with reluctance that he unscrewed a window. "the ladies will be cold," he said. "it is not the weather for letting into the house the out of doors. we do that in the summer." "haven't these windows been opened since then?" gasped maida. "but no mademoiselle. not to my knowledge." "make him show us other rooms, quick," said mamma, who can't speak much more french than a cat, though she had a lesson from a handsome young gentleman every day at cap martin, at ten francs an hour. "this is the only one that will accommodate the ladies," replied the ten of clubs. "the other that we have unoccupied must be for the gentlemen." the idea of our two men and the prince as room-mates was so excruciating that i suddenly felt equal to bearing any hardship; but mamma hasn't the same sense of humour i have, and she said that she knew she was sickening for something, probably small-pox. "three of us in this room all night!" she wailed. "we shall never leave the hotel alive." at this juncture sir ralph appeared at the door, peeping gingerly in at us, and looking the picture of misery. "i'm so sorry for everything," he said. "terry's down-stairs, and we both feel that we're awful sweeps, though we hope you won't think we are. he's going to interview the other hotels and see if he can find anything better, so don't decide till he comes back." we three female waifs stood about and smelt things and imagined that we smelled still more things, while sir ralph exhausted himself in keeping up a conversation with the ten of clubs, as if all four of our lives depended upon it. the ordeal lasted only about ten minutes, though it seemed a year, and then mr. barrymore's tall form loomed in the dark doorway. "there's nothing better," he announced desperately. "but you ladies can go on to alessandria by train with dalmar-kalm, who'll be only too happy to take you." "what, and desert mr. automobile-micawber?" i cut in. "never! we're none of us _infirm old women_, are we, mamma, that we should mind roughing it, for once?" "no-o," said mamma. "it--i dare say it will be fun. and anyhow, we can have them make a fire here, so it will be less like picnicking in one's own grave." the very thought of a fire was cheering, and we trooped off to the _salle à manger_, where it was understood that the prince had gone to order coffee. mr. barrymore wouldn't stay, for he was anxious to get back to the motor, which he had left at a machinist's, and deserted only long enough to come and give us news. the "shop" was to keep open all night, and he would work there, making a new cone. joseph, it seemed, was to work all night in another shop, and both automobiles were to be ready in the morning. "but you will be horribly tired, driving through the day and working through the night," said maida. "i for one would rather stop here to-morrow." "it's nothing, thanks. i shall rather like it," replied the chauffeulier. "please don't worry about me." then he gave us a smile and was off. the coffee was so good that our spirits rose. we decided to unpack what we needed, and then, by way of passing the time before dinner, take a walk. strange to say, the prince did not complain of his quarters, but, after we had for the second time refused his offer of an escort to alessandria, became somewhat taciturn. we left him in the _salle à manger_, mamma heading the procession of three which trailed to our room. maida and i lingered behind for a moment, to play with our first italian cat, until a wild cry of "fire!" from mamma took us after her with a rush. a cloud of wood smoke beat us back, but maida pushed bravely in, got a window open again, and, after all, there was nothing more exciting than a smoky chimney. sir ralph, hearing the clamour, flew to the rescue, poured water from the pitcher into the ricketty three-legged stove, upset a good deal on himself and on the cemented floor (which looked like a slab of frozen sausage), and finally succeeded in putting out the fire, though not until both beds were covered with blacks. by this time the ten of clubs, the nine, the eight, and all the little cards of the pack were dancing about us in a state bordering on frenzy, but maida and sir ralph together eventually evolved a kind of unlovely order out of chaos, and everybody was told off to perform some task or other: one to sweep, one to dust, one to change the bedding. in self-defence we hurried off for our walk, leaving the unpacking for later, and sir ralph proposed that we should find the machine shop where the chauffeulier was working. we asked the way of a good many people, all of whom gave us different directions, and at last arrived at a building which looked as if it might be the right place. but there was joseph pounding and mumbling to himself, and no mr. barrymore. in common humanity we stopped for a few words, and joseph mistook our inch of sympathy for an ell. almost with tears he told us the history of his day, and choked with rage at the prospect of the long task before him. "what is it to his highness that i lose a night's sleep?" he demanded of a red-hot bar which he brandished at arm's length. "less than nothing, since he will sleep, believing that all will be ready for him in the morning. but his dreams would be less calm if he knew what i know." "what do you know, joseph?" asked sir ralph, edging nearer to the door. "that the water-power will be shut off at eleven o'clock, the lathes will no longer turn, and i can do nothing more till to-morrow morning at six, which means that we will not get away till noon." "by jove, that's a bad look-out for us, too," said sir ralph, when we had escaped from joseph. "i suppose things will be the same at terry's place. what a den for you to be delayed in! but i've an idea the prince means to sneak quietly off to alessandria, and will expect joseph to meet him there to-morrow morning. my prophetic soul divined as much from his thoughtful air as we discussed our quarters." it was almost dark when we found the other machine shop, at the end of a long straight road with a brook running down it, and trees walking beside it, straight and tall. it was a wonderful, luminous kind of darkness, though, that hadn't forgotten the sunset, and the white mountains were great banks of roses against a skyful of fading violets. but the minute we stepped inside the machine shop, which was lighted up by the red fire of a forge, night seemed suddenly to fall like a black curtain, shutting down outside the open door and windows. two or three men were moving about the place, weedy little fellows; and mr. barrymore was like a giant among them, a splendid giant, handsomer than ever in a workman's blouse of blue linen, open at the throat, and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to show muscles that rippled under the skin like waves on a river. that was what i thought, at least; but sir ralph apparently differed with me, for he said, "you do look a sweep. isn't it about time you dropped work, and thought of making yourself respectable for dinner? judging by appearances, that will take you several hours." "i'm going to have a sandwich and some wine of the country here," answered the giant in the blue blouse. "awfully good of you all to come and call on me. would you like to see the new cone, as far as it's got?" of course we said "yes," and were shown a thing which looked as if it might be finished in ten minutes; but when sir ralph commented on it to that effect, mr. barrymore went into technical explanations concerning "cooling" and other details of which none of us understood anything except that it would be an "all night job." "but you can't work without the water-wheel, i suppose?" said sir ralph. "and we've just heard from joseph toiling away at a rival establishment, that the water is taken off at eleven." "this water won't be. i'm paying extra for it. as a great concession i'm to have it all night. joseph could have got it, too, if he'd had a little forethought." "joseph and forethought! never. and what is more, i don't think he'd thank us for the information. he is rejoicing in the thought of an excuse for bed." "that's the difference between a chauffeur and a chauffeulier," i whispered to maida. "it's really very good of you to work so hard," said mamma, condescending to the blue blouse. "i never enjoyed anything more in my life," replied its wearer, with a quick glance towards maida, which i intercepted. "the one drop of poison in my cup is the thought of your discomfort," he went on, to us all. "you must make them give you warming-pans anyhow, and be sure that the beds are dry." "i should think they're more like swamps than beds," said mamma. "we shall sit up rather than run any risk." "besides," i began, "there might be--" [illustration: _two or three men were moving about the place_] "_hush_, beechy!" she indignantly cut me short. "i was only going to say there might be--" "you mustn't say it." "sofa birds." "you naughty, dreadful child. i am astonished." "don't prig or vipe, mamma. sir ralph, don't you think those are nice abbreviations? i made them up myself. 'prig', be priggish.' vipe', be viperish. mamma's not at all nice when she's either." "i think you're all wonderfully good-natured," remarked mr. barrymore hastily. "you are the right sort of people for a motoring trip, and no other sort ought to undertake one. only men and women of fairly venturesome dispositions, who revel in the unexpected, and love adventure, who can find fun in hardships, and keep happy in the midst of disappointments, should set out on such an expedition as this." "in fact, _young_ people like ourselves," added mamma, beaming again. "yes, young in heart, if not in body. i hope to be still motoring when i'm eighty; but i shall feel a boy." we left him hammering, and looking radiantly happy, which was more than we were as we wandered back to the arcaded town and our hotel; but we felt obliged to live up to the reputation mr. barrymore had just given us. somehow, the ten of clubs and his assistant cards (there were no chambermaids) had contrived to make a fire that didn't smoke, and the bed linen looked clean, though coarse. dinner--which we ate with our feet on boards under the table, to keep them off the cold stone floor--was astonishingly good, and we quite enjoyed grating cheese into our soup on a funny little grater with which each one of us was supplied. we had a delicious red wine with a little sparkle in it, called nebiolo, which sir ralph ordered because he thought we would like it; and when we had finished dining, mamma felt so much encouraged that she spoke quite cheerfully of the coming night. we went to our room early, as we were to start at eight next day, and try to get on to pavia and milan. we had said nothing to the prince about the water-wheel, as it was not our affair to get joseph into trouble with his master; and i'm afraid that all of us except mamma derived a sinful amusement from the thought of his highness's surprise in the morning, at alessandria or elsewhere. even maida's eyes twinkled naughtily as he bade us "_au revoir_, till our start," kissing mamma's hand, and saying nothing of his night plans. "i wonder, if we _could_ go to bed, after all?" soliloquized mamma, looking wistfully at the hard pillows and the red-cased down coverlets, when we were in our room. "what was that mr. terrymore said about warming-pans? i should have thought they were obsolete, except to hang up on parlour walls." "i should think nothing that was in use six hundred years ago, was obsolete in an italian town like this," said i. "anyhow, i'll ring and see." i did ring, but nobody answered, of course, and i had to yell over the top of the stairs for five minutes, when the ten of clubs appeared, looking much injured, having evidently believed that he was rid of us for the night. he almost wept in his earnest endeavours to assure us that the bedding was as dry and warm as the down on a swan's breast; but when maida insisted on warming-pans, he admitted that they existed in the house. we were sleepy, but having ordered warming-pans which might stalk in at any moment, we could not well begin to undress until they had been produced and manipulated. we waited an hour, until we were nodding in our chairs, and all started from a troubled doze at the sound of loud knocking at the door. in the passage outside stood four sad-faced young men of the card tribe, bearing two large and extraordinary implements. one looked like a couple of kitchen chairs lashed together foot to foot, to make a cage, or frame, the space between being lined with sheets of metal. the other was a great copper dish with big enough holes pricked in the cover to show the red glow from a quantity of acrid smelling wood-ashes. all four came into the room, solemn and silent, while we watched them, struck dumb with amazement. they set down the things on the floor, turned open the larger bed of the two, which mamma and i were to share, put in the huge frame, shoved the copper bowl inside it, as a cook would shove a dish into the oven, and replaced the covering. then they stood and gravely waited for ten or fifteen minutes, till they thought that the dampness had been cooked out. we stood by also, momentarily expecting to see the bed break into flames; but nothing happened, except rather a nice, hot smell. at last, with one accord they flew at the blankets, turned them down, took out dish and frame, and repeated the same process with maida's narrow bunk. it took us nearly an hour afterwards to get ready for bed, but when we crept in at last it was like cuddling down in a hot bird's-nest, odorous of cooked moss. in the daytime we hadn't noticed that the hotel was particularly noisy, though it apparently had most other vices; but ten o'clock seemed the hour when all the activities of the house and town began. church bells boomed; electric bells rang; myriads of heavy carts rolled through the stone-paved square; people sang, whistled, laughed, gossipped, quarrelled, and even danced in the street under our windows, while those in the hotel had apparently been advised by their physicians to run up and down stairs for hours without stopping, for the good of their livers. it was a busy night for everybody, and my one consolation was in planning the dreadful tortures i would inflict on the whole population of cuneo if i were king of italy. i thought of some very original things, but the worst of it was, when i did finally fall asleep i dreamed that they were being tried on me. xiii a chapter of wild beasts "the dear thing! how nice to see it again! i could kiss it," i heard maida saying. something was snorting dreadfully, too. i'm not sure which waked me. but i sleepily asked maida what it was she could kiss. "why, the automobile, of course," she replied. "now, beechy, _don't_ drop off again. it's down there in the courtyard. can't you hear it calling? this is the third time i've tried to wake you up." "oh, i thought it was the ten of clubs roaring, while i dipped him repeatedly into boiling cod-liver oil," i murmured; but i jumped out of bed and dressed myself as if the house were on fire. mamma said that she had been up since six; and i knew why; she hadn't liked to make herself beautiful under the eyes of maida, so exquisitely adorned by nature. but she was fresh and gay as a cricket. in the _salle à manger_ were sir ralph and mr. barrymore, who had brought the motor from the machine shop. he looked as well tubbed and groomed as if he had had two hours for his toilet, instead of twenty minutes; and we laughed a great deal as we told our night adventures, feeling as if we'd been friends for months, if not years. it was much nicer without the prince, i thought, though mamma kept glancing at the door, and showed her disappointment on learning that he had stolen off to sleep at alessandria. joseph, it seemed, had telegraphed him this morning about the water-wheel, and the news that his automobile couldn't be ready till twelve or one o'clock. as we thankfully turned our backs on cuneo we realized why it had been given a name signifying "wedge," because of the two river torrents, the stura and gesso, that whittle the town to a point, one on either side. for a while we ran smoothly along a road on a high embankment, which reminded sir ralph and the chauffeulier of the loire; less beautiful though, they thought, despite the great wedding-ring of white mountains that girdled the country round. by and by the mountains dwindled to hills, purple and blue in the distance, misty spring-green in the foreground; in place of the dandelions of yesterday we had a carpet of buttercups woven in gold on either side of the road. there was always the river, too; and, as maida said, water brightens a landscape as a diamond brightens a ring. the air was as warm now as on the riviera but there was a tingle of youth and spring in it, while at cap martin it was already heavy with the perfume of summer flowers. and we had not to be sorry for poor people to-day, for there were no poverty-stricken villages. the country was rich, every inch cultivated, and there were comfortable farms with tall, important-looking gateways. but, then, mr. barrymore told us that it was no safer to judge an italian farm by its gateway than an italian village shop by the contents of its windows. after a while, just as we might have begun to tire of the far-reaching plain, it broke into billows, each earthy wave crested by a ruined château, or a still thriving mediæval town. bra was the finest, with a grand old red-brown castle towering high on a hill, and throwing a cool shadow all across the hot, white road below. "we must stop in asti, if it's but for ten minutes," said sir ralph. "why?" asked maida, over her shoulder (she was sitting in the front seat again, where mr. barrymore had contrived to put her). "do you mean on account of vittorio alfieri?" "who is he?" inquired mamma; and i was wondering, too; but i hate to show that i don't know things maida knows. "oh, he was a charming poet, born in asti in the middle of the eighteenth century," said maida. "i've read a lot about him, at--at home. he had one of the prettiest love stories in history. it is like an anthony hope romance. i thought, perhaps, sir ralph wanted us to see the house where he lived." "i'm ashamed to say it was the asti spumante i was thinking of," confessed sir ralph. "it's a wine for children, but it might amuse you all to taste it on its native heath; and you could drink the health of vittorio alfieri--in a better world." mamma thought that proceeding rather too popish for a professed presbyterian; nevertheless, we decided to have the wine. we approached asti by way of a massive gateway, which formed a part of the ancient fortifications of the city; and though we had seen several others rather like it since coming into piedmont and lombardy, it struck me with a sort of awe that i would have been ashamed to put into words, except on paper, for fear somebody might laugh. i suppose it's because i come from a country where we think houses aged at fifty, and antique at a hundred; but these old fortified towns and ruined castles frowning down from rocky heights give me the kind of eerie thrill one might have if one had just died and was being introduced to scenery and society on the fixed stars or planets. at home it had always seemed so useless to know which was which, guelfs or ghibellines, when i was studying history, that i made no effort to fix them in my mind; but now, when i caught snatches of talk between maida and the chauffeulier, to whom the guelfs and ghibellines are still apparently as real as republicans and democrats were to papa, i wished that i knew a little more about them. but how could i tell in those days that i would ever be darting about in a country where george washington and abraham lincoln would seem more unreal than the swabian emperors, the marquesses of montferrat, and the princes of savoie ever did to me in denver? i envied maida when i heard her say that the house of savoie had been like goethe's star, "unhasting and unresting" in its absorption of other principalities, marquisates, counties, duchies, and provinces, which it had matched into one great mosaic, at last, making the kingdom of italy. mr. barrymore loves italy so much that he likes her for knowing these things, and i think i shall steal that book she bought at nice, and is always reading--hallam's "middle ages." the effect of the grim old gateways, even upon me, is a little marred by the fact that from out of their shadows usually jump small blue-uniformed octroi men like jacks from a box. at asti there was a particularly fussy one, who wouldn't take mr. barrymore's word that we'd nothing to declare, but poked and prodded at our hold-alls and bags, and even sniffed as if he suspected us of spirits, tobacco, or onions. he looked so comic as he did this that maida laughed, which appeared to overwhelm him with remorse, as if an angel had had hysterics. he flushed, bowed, motioned for us to pass on, and we sailed into a wide, rather stately old street. "oh, look!" maida cried out, pointing, and the chauffeulier slowed down before a house with a marble tablet on it. it was almost a palace; and mamma began to feel some respect for vittorio alfieri when she read on the slab of marble that he had been born there. "why, he must have been a gentleman!" she exclaimed. maida and mr. barrymore laughed at that, and sir ralph said that evidently the countess had a small opinion of poets. "another countess loved alfieri," remarked mr. barrymore; and when mamma heard that, she made a note to buy his poems. but i don't believe she knew who the countess of albany was, though she was able to join feebly in the conversation about the young pretender. we went into the house, and wandered about some cold, gloomy rooms, in one of which vittorio had happened to be born. we saw his portrait, and a sonnet in his own handwriting, which mr. barrymore translated for maida, and would for me, perhaps, only i was too proud to interrupt. altogether i should have felt quite out of it if it hadn't been for sir ralph. after our talk about the worm and other things, he couldn't help guessing what my feelings were, and he did his best to make me forget my sorrow. he said that he didn't know anything about the italian poets except the really necessary ones, such as dante and petrarch, and as little as possible of them. then he asked about the american ones, and seemed interested in walt whitman and eugene field and james whitcomb riley, all of whom i can recite by the yard. when we had scraped up every item of interest about alfieri, as papa used to scrape up butter for his bread rather than take a fresh bit, we spun on again to an old-fashioned hotel, where everybody rushed to meet us, bowing, and looked ready to cry when they found we didn't want rooms. "perhaps the countess would absolve you from your vow of temperance, terry, that you may have the exquisite delight of quaffing a little asti spumante," said sir ralph to mr. barrymore, when we were at a table in a large, cool dining-room. "why, of course," replied mamma, and then opened her eyes wide when both men laughed, and mr. barrymore intimated that sir ralph's head would be improved by punching. neither of them would take any of the wine when it came, though it looked fascinating, fizzling out of beautiful bottles decked with gold and silver foil, like champagne. it tasted like champagne too, so far as i could tell; but perhaps i'm not a judge, as there was never any wine except elderberry at home, and i've only had champagne twice since i've been the child of a countess. the asti was nice and sweet. i loved it, and so did mamma, who said she would have it, torrents of it, at the next dinner party she gave. but when sir ralph hurried to tell her that it was cheap, she vacillated, worrying lest it shouldn't be worthy to go with her crowns. i don't know whether it was the spumante, or the sunshine, as golden as the wine, but i felt quite happy again when we drove out of asti. i didn't care at all that i wasn't sitting beside mr. barrymore, though i thought that i probably should care again by and by. mamma was happy, too, and sir ralph amused us by planning a book to be called "motoring for experts, by experts." there were a good many rules for automobilists, such as:-no. 1. never believe you have got money enough with you when you start. whatever you think will be right, be sure you will want exactly twice as much. no. 2. never suppose you have plenty of time, or plenty of room for your luggage. never get up in the morning at the time your chauffeur (not mr. barrymore, but others) tells you he will have the car ready. do not leave your bed till the automobile is under your window, and do not pack the things you have used for the night until the chauffeur has started your motor for the third time. no. 3. all invalids, except those suffering from pessimism, may hope to be benefited by motoring; but pessimism in a mild form often becomes fatally exaggerated by experience with automobiles, especially in chauffeurs. no. 4. hoping that things which have begun to go wrong with a motor will mend, should be like an atheist's definition of faith: "believing what you know isn't true." if you _think_ a bearing is hot, but hope against hope it 's only oil you smell, make up your mind that it _is_ the bearing. no. 5. never dream that you'll get anywhere sooner than you thought you would, for it will always be later; or that a road may improve, for it is sure to grow worse; or that your chauffeur, or anyone you meet, knows anything about the country through which you are to pass, for every one will direct you the wrong way. no. 6. if your chauffeur tells you that your car will be ready in an hour, it will be three, if not four; if he says that you can start on again that afternoon, it will be to-morrow before lunch. no. 7. put not your trust in princes, nor in the motor-cars of princes. no. 8. cultivate your bump of presence of mind, and the automobile will see that you have plenty of other bumps. we hadn't got half to the end of the rules we had thought of, when things began to happen. the road, which had been splendid all the way to asti and beyond, seemed suddenly to weary of virtue and turn eagerly to vice. it grew rutty and rough-tempered, and just because misfortunes never come singly, every creature we met took it into its head to regard us with horror. fear of us spread like an epidemic through the animal kingdom of the neighbourhood. a horse drawing a wagon-load of earth turned tail, broke his harness as if it had been of cobweb instead of old rope, and sprang lightly as a gazelle with all four feet into another wagon just ahead. a donkey, ambling gently along the road, suddenly made for the opposite side, dragging his fruit-laden cart after him, and smashed our big acetylene lamp into a brass pancake before mr. barrymore could stop. children bawled; women, old and young, ran screaming up embankments and tried to climb walls at the bare sight of us in the distance; old men shook their sticks; and for a climax we plunged deep into a tossing sea of cattle just outside alessandria. it was market day, the chauffeulier explained hastily, over his shoulder, and the farmers and dealers who had bought creatures of any sort, were taking them away. as far as we could see through a floating cloud of dust, the long road looked like a picture of the animals' procession on their way to the ark. our automobile might have stood for the ark, only it is to be hoped, for noah's sake, after all he was doing for them, that the creatures behaved less rudely at sight of it, novelty though it must have been. great white, classic-looking oxen whose horns ought to have been wreathed with roses, but weren't, pawed the air, bellowing, or pranced down into ditches, pulling their new masters with them. calves ran here and there like rabbits, while their mothers stood on their hind legs and pirouetted, their biscuit-coloured faces haggard with despair. mamma said that never before had she given cows credit for such sensitive spirits, but perhaps it was only italian ones which were like that, and if so she would not drink milk in italy. she was very much frightened, too; and talking of an automobile supplying bumps, her grip on sir ralph's arm must have supplied a regular pattern of bruises, during the animal episode. but worse than the terrified beasts were the ones that were not terrified. those were the most stupidly stolid things on earth, or the most splendidly reckless, we couldn't tell which; we knew only that they were irritating enough to have made job dance with rage, if he had had an automobile. what they did was to wheel round at the sound of our horn, plant themselves squarely in the centre of the road, and stand waiting to see what we were, or else to trot comfortably along, without even taking the trouble to glance over their shoulders. as the road was too narrow for us to pass on either side, with an enormous ox lolling insolently in the middle, refusing to budge an inch, or an absurd cow taking infinite pains to amble precisely in front of the motor's nose, we were frequently forced to crawl for ten or fifteen minutes at the pace of a snail, or to stop altogether and push a large beast out of the way. by the time we got into alessandria, with its mighty maze of fortifications, i was so weak from laughing that i giggled hysterically at sight of the prince standing in the doorway of a hotel which we were sailing past. i pointed at him, as maida had pointed at vittorio alfieri's tablet, and mamma gave a welcome meant to drown my giggle. mr. barrymore stopped, and his highness came to the side of the car. "i was so sorry to miss you this morning," he said, "but after bidding you _au revoir_ last evening, i suddenly remembered that i had a friend in alessandria whom i had not seen for long, and it occurred to me that i would pay him a visit. after all, i might have saved myself the pain, as i found that he was away." "at least you saved yourself the pain of a bad night," said i. "oh, that would have been nothing," he exclaimed. "indeed, if there were hardships to be borne, i would have preferred to share them with you." i don't know what would have happened at that moment if i'd met maida's eyes, or sir ralph's eyes, or indeed, any eyes on the prowl; but all avoided mine. the prince was expecting, or said that he was expecting joseph to arrive at any instant with the car. then he would follow us, and as we planned to stop at pavia and he did not, he would be in milan before us. we had suffered so many delays at the hands, or rather the hoofs of our four-footed brethren, that we had no time to waste in compliments with irrelevant princes, so we quickly sped on again as well as the uneven road would allow, leaving behind the big fortified town which mr. barrymore said had been built by the lombard league (whatever that was) as a place of arms to defy the tyranny of the emperors. though the road was poor, except in bits, and gave us all the bumps mentioned in sir ralph's rules, the country was lovely and loveable. grapes, mulberries, rice, and stuff called maize, which looked exactly like our american corn, grew together like a happy family of sisters, and from the hills dotted about, more thickly than mamma's crowns on her toilet things, looked down old feudal castles as melancholy as the cypresses that stood beside them, like the sole friends of their adversity. of tortona and voghera i carried away only the ghost of an impression, for we darted through their long main streets, deserted in the noon-tide hour, and darted out again onto the straight white ribbon of road that was leading us across all northern italy. it was so dusty that mamma, maida, and i put on the motor-veils we had discarded after the first few hours of the trip till now; things made of pongee silk, with windows of talc over our eyes and little lace doors for our breath to pass through. it was fun when we would slacken speed in some town or village, to see how the young italians tried to pry into the motor-masks' secrets and find out if we were pretty. how much more they would have stared at maida than at her two grey-clad companions, if they had known! but behind the pongee and the talc, for once our features could flaunt themselves on an equality with hers. even monks, brown of face and robe, gliding noiselessly through wide market places in the blue shadows of hoary campaniles, searched those talc windows of ours with a curiosity that was pathetic. young officers, with great dark eyes and slender figures tightly buttoned-up in grey-blue uniforms, visibly preened themselves as the car with the three veiled ladies would sweep round a corner; and really i think there must be something rather alluring about a passing glance from a pair of eyes in a face that will always remain a mystery. if i were a man i believe i should find it so. anyway, it's fun for a girl to guess how she would feel about things if she were a man. i suppose though, we 're generally wrong. after we 'd frightened enough horses and other domestic animals to overstock the whole of northern italy and felt quite old in consequence (considerably over thirteen), a sweet peace fell suddenly upon us. we had passed the place where napoleon's great battle was fought, and voghera, where we might have stopped to see the baths but didn't, because we were all too hungry to be sincerely interested in anything absolutely unconnected with meals. then turning towards pavia, we turned at the same moment into arcadia. there were no more beasts in our path, unless it was a squirrel or two; there were no houses, no people; there was only quiet country, with a narrow but deliciously smooth road, colonies of chestnut and acacia trees, and tall growths of scented grasses and blossoming grain. it was more like a by-path through meadows than an important road leading to a great town, and mr. barrymore had begun to wonder aloud if he could possibly have made a mistake at some cross-way, when we spun round a corner, and saw before us a wide yellow river. it lay straight in front, and we had to pass to the other side on the oddest bridge i ever saw; just old grey planks laid close together on top of a long, long line of big black boats that moved up and down with a lazy motion as the golden water of the po flowed underneath. "this is a famous bridge," said the chauffeulier; so mamma hurried to get out her camera and take a picture, while we picked our way daintily over the wobbly boards at a foot pace; and another of the man at the far end, who made us pay toll--so much for each wheel, so much for each passenger. maida never takes photographs. she says she likes better just to keep a picture-gallery in her brain. mamma always takes them, but as she usually has three or four on the same film, making a jumble of chicago street-cars with italian faces, legs, and sun-dials, as intricate as an irish stew, i don't see that in the end they will be much of an ornament to the journal of travel we're all keeping. "this is where the po and the ticino meet, so we're near pavia," mr. barrymore told us; and if our eyes brightened behind our masks, it wasn't so much with interest in his information, as at the thought of lunch. for we were to lunch at pavia, before seeing the certosa that maida had been talking about for hours with the chauffeulier; and before us, as we crossed the ticino--bridged by a dear, old, arching, wooden-roofed thing supported with a hundred granite columns--bubbled and soared a group of grey domes and campaniles against a turquoise sky. the roofed bridge, that seemed to be a lounging place and promenade, led into a stately city, which impressed me as a regular factory for turning out italian history, so old it was, and so conscious, in a dignified kind of way, of its own impressiveness. i felt sure that, if i could only remember, i must have studied heaps of things about this place at school; and the town was full of students who were probably studying them, with more profit, now. they were very italian, very good-looking, very young youths, indeed; and they were all so interested in us that it seemed ungrateful not to pay more attention to them than to their background. they grouped round our automobile with a crowd of less interesting people, when we had stopped before a hotel, and some of the students came so close in the hope of seeing what was behind the motor-veils, that maida was embarrassed, and mamma and i pretended to be. xiv a chapter of sunshine and shadow mamma's lunch was spoiled because, in pronouncing "campanile" for the first time, she rhymed it with the river nile, and realized what she had done when some one else soon after inadvertently said it in the right way. she didn't get over this for a long time, so the landlord profited, and must have been pleased, as all the italians at the table d'hôte took twice of everything. those who were not officers were middle-aged men with fat smiles which made them look like what i call "drummers," and sir ralph wastes time in naming commercial travellers. he and mr. barrymore explained that, at all these quiet provincial hotels with their domed roofs and painted ceilings, their long tables and great flasks of wine hung in metal slings, more than half the customers come every day to eat steadily through cheap monthly subscriptions. "they can live like fighting cocks for next to nothing," said sir ralph. "if _the riviera sun_ ever suffers an eclipse, i shall probably end my days in a place like this, pavia for choice, because then i can make my friends at home believe that i live here to worship the certosa." now to make up for her slip about the campanile, mamma began to talk about the certosa as if it were an intimate friend of hers; but though she hurried to get out the word while sir ralph's pronunciation of it still echoed under the painted dome, her first syllable was shaped so much like a "shirt" that i had to take a drink of water quickly. it is a funny thing, if people have no ear for music, and can't tell one tune from another, they don't seem to _hear_ foreign words rightly, and so, when they speak, their pronunciation is like "yankee doodle" disguised as "god save the king." it is that way with mamma; but luckily for me, papa had an ear. we had to pass through "pavia of the hundred towers" after a look at the grand old castello, and go out into arcadian country again to reach the certosa. our way lay northward now instead of east, beside a canal bright as crystal, and blue as sapphire because it was a mirror for the sky. then, we turned abruptly down a little side road, which looked as if it led nowhere in particular, and suddenly a wonderful thing loomed up before us. i don't know much about churches, but there are some things which one is born knowing, i suppose; such as the difference between really great things and those that don't touch greatness. one wouldn't need to be told by a guide-book that the certosa of pavia is great--as great as anything ever made, perhaps. even "little beechy kidder" felt that at first glance; and then--there was nothing to say. it was too beautiful to chatter about. but it did seem strange that so pure and lovely a building could have owed its existence to a crime. i had heard mr. barrymore telling mamma that it was originally founded in thirteen hundred and something, by the first duke of milan with the view of taking off the attention of heaven from a murder he had committed--quite in his own family--which got rid of his father-in-law, and all the father-in-law's sons and daughters at the same time. no wonder it took a whole certosa to atone for it, with statues of the founder dotted about, presenting models of the church to the virgin; or praying with clasped hands; or having his funeral procession in great pomp. but i didn't like his face; and judging from its expression, i shouldn't be surprised if he were glad the certosa had been taken away from the monks to be made a national monument, so that more people could glorify him. it wasn't until i had seen a great many other things, however, that i made acquaintance with his dukeship gian galeazzo visconti (it is always easy to remember wicked peoples' names), for at first sight there was only the wonderful gateway, with a glimpse of the dazzling marble church, a splendid great dome, and some bewildering towers glittering in the sun. mr. barrymore hired a youth to guard the automobile and the dog while we went in, strange figures for such a place, in our motoring get-up. i didn't know before what exquisite stuff terra-cotta could be, but had despised it in america as the thing cheap statuettes are made of. now, when i saw it mellowed by centuries, combined with marble, and moulded into arches and cornices, and a thousand marvellous ornamentations, i made up my mind that i would never have a house of my own unless it could have terra-cotta window and door-frames, and chimneys, and everything else besides that could possibly be made of terra-cotta. but the cloisters, great and small, were better than anything else; better than the façade; better than the marble church, with all the lovely little side chapels; better than anything i ever saw; and i walked about alone, pleased with myself because, in spite of my ignorance, i had enough sense of appreciation to be happy. still, i wasn't sorry when sir ralph left mamma listening with maida, to things mr. barrymore was saying about moulded brick and terra-cotta architecture in north italy, to join me. "terry says there's something in the world more beautiful than this," he remarked. "i suppose he's thinking of maida," said i. "not at all. probably, if you could see into his mind you'd discover that he's wishing you hadn't wandered away from his orations. the thing which he considers more beautiful is the cloister of monreale, at palermo, in sicily. but, then, this isn't the part of italy terry loves best. he won't begin to shine till he gets to verona; and even verona he calls only a charming inn where the world's great travellers have left mementoes of their passage, rather than a true italian town stamped with the divine genius of italy. when he's at venice, he'll be at home. you'll like terry in venice." "the question is, will he like _me_ in venice?" i asked, looking out of the corner of my eye at the tall chauffeulier in his leather-coat, showing a heavenly white marble doorway to maida, and mamma. "of course he will. you mustn't be discouraged by his manner. if only he thought you were poor!" "shall i intimate to him that maida is very rich?" "no, no. i wouldn't deceive him about that. let well alone. all will come right in time." "meanwhile, i suppose i must put up with you?" "if you can. unless i bore you. would you rather i left you alone?" "no-o. there's just enough of you to fill an aching void," said i, pertly. but he didn't seem to mind at all, and was very kind in telling about frescoes and things, although he calls himself ignorant. he has forgotten the boast in his advertisement perhaps, or he's trying to live up to it as well as he can when his chauffeur isn't available. we stopped so long at the certosa that the sun had gone far down the west as we walked through the beautiful, strange gateway to the roadside resting-place of our car. where crowds come from in the country is as mysterious as where pins and hairpins go to; but anyhow, there was a wide ring of people round the automobile, in which our hired caretaker sat gazing condescendingly on the throng. when we arrived on the scene, with our hands full of scents made and bottled by the banished monks, quaint pottery, and photographs of frescoes, general interest was transferred to us, but only for a moment. even maida's beauty failed as an attraction beside the starting-handle of the car, when the chauffeulier turned it. "don't you see many motors here?" asked sir ralph of our deposed guard, and he shook his head. "not one a month," he said, "though they say that some of the rich men in milan use them. i do not know where they go." almost as he spoke a big one shot by, heading for alessandria and--who knows but for cuneo? when we came to think, it was the first we had seen since ventimiglia, though on the french side of the riviera the things had been a pest to everybody--who hadn't one. as we started, the sinking sun turned a million tiny clouds floating up from behind the world into rose-pink marabout feathers, which by-and-by were silvered round their curly edges by a wonderful light kindled somewhere in the east. it grew brighter and brighter as the rose-coloured plumes first took fire down at the western horizon, and then burned to ruddy ashes. when half the sky was silver up came floating a huge pearl, glistening white, and flattened out of the perfect round on one side, like two or three of the biggest pearls on mamma's long rope. even in america i never saw the sunset-glow so quickly quenched by a white torrent of moonlight. but on this night it was not white; it was soft and creamy, like mother-of-pearl. and as the opal gleam of the sky darkened to deep amethyst the stars came out clear and sparkling and curiously distinct one from the other, like great hanging lamps of silver, diamond-crusted. all the world was bathed in this creamy light, while the sky scintillated with jewels like the flashing of a spangled fan, as we drove into the outskirts of milan. it had been lucky for us that there was a moon, as we had a crumpled brass waffle in the place of our big lamp; but the effect of the town lights, orange-yellow mingling with the white radiance pouring down from the sky, was wonderful and mysterious on arched gateways, on dark façades of tall buildings, on statues, on columns, on fountains. coming in out of the country stillness, the noise and rush of the big city seemed appalling. fierce electric trams dashed clanging and flashing in all directions, making a pandemonium worse than chicago or the streets of paris. horses and carts darted across the glittering tracks under our noses, bicyclists spun between our car and lumbering hotel omnibuses, and hadn't an inch to spare. in the middle of one huge street was something that looked like a roman ruin, with every shadow sharp as a point of jet in the confused blending of light. brazen bells boomed, mellow chimes fluted, church clocks mingled their voices, each trying to tell the hour first; and to add to the bewildering effect of our entry, drivers and people on foot waved their arms, yelling wildly something i couldn't understand. mr. barrymore understood, however, and only just in time to save an accident, for it seemed that we were on the wrong side of the road. suddenly and arbitrarily it was the rule to keep on the left side instead of the right, and the chauffeulier shot across before a tram, approaching at the speed of a train, could run us down. "that's the worst of this part of italy," i heard him shout over the din to maida. "any town that chooses makes a different rule for itself and its suburbs, and then expects strangers to know by instinct just where and when it changes." it was like being shot out of a catapult from the inferno straight to paradise, as sir ralph said, when suddenly we saved ourselves from the hurly-burly, flashing into a noble square with room for a thousand street-cars and as many automobiles to browse together in peace and harmony. a mass of glimmering white towers and pinnacles, the cathedral rose, a miracle of beauty in the flood of moonlight that turned grey into white, old marble into snow, and gave to each of the myriad carvings the lace-like delicacy of frost-work. "i wanted you to see the duomo first by moonlight," said mr. barrymore, after we had sat still, gazing up for some moments, with even the car motionless and silent. "to-morrow morning you can come again for the detail, and spend as much time as you like inside, for i hope it won't take us many hours to run to bellagio; but you will never forget to-night's impression." "i shall never forget anything that has happened, or that we've seen on this trip," maida answered, in a voice that told me how much she felt her words. but if she had anything more to say the motor impolitely drowned it, and we were whirled away again via pandemonium, to quite a grand hotel. the first person we met in a big, square hall full of wicker chairs and tables, was prince dalmar-kalm, in evening dress, looking as calm as if he had never heard of an automobile. he flung agreeable smiles at maida and me, but his real welcome was for his "chère comtesse," and she was delighted, poor dear, to be made much of at the expense of two girls, one a beauty. "i arrived over an hour ago," he said, "very dusty, a little tired, a good deal hungry; but, of course, i would not have dreamed of dining without you." "did you get in on the car, or on the cars, this time?" i asked. "but certainly in the car," said he, reproachfully. "joseph met me at alessandria early in the afternoon, and once started, we went as the wind goes--a splendid pace, without a single break-down. i passed your automobile at pavia, and thought of joining you at the certosa, where you no doubt were at the time; but i decided that it would be more satisfactory to keep on and greet you here. i knew you would take my advice, as you promised, comtesse, and come to this hotel, so i ventured to have my place laid at your table and order a few extras which i thought you would like. have pity, i beg, on a starving man, and make yourselves ready in twenty minutes." "but mr. barrymore can't join us then," maida objected to mamma, in a low voice. "he has the car to look after before he can dress, and after the good day he has given us wouldn't it be ungrateful to begin without him?" "my dear girl, when all's said and done, he _is_ the chauffeur," replied mamma, at her worst under his highness's influence. "it would be a pretty thing if we were to keep the prince waiting for him. _you_ can come down later if you like." "very well, i will," said maida, very pink as to her cheeks and bright as to her eyes. i didn't think she would dare keep her word, for fear mr. barrymore might believe she cared too much about him; but just because he's poor and she imagines he is snubbed, she will do anything. everybody except the chauffeulier had been at table for a quarter of an hour, and hors d'oeuvres and soup, and fish, had given place to beef, when maida came in, dressed in white, and looking beautiful. as she appeared at one door mr. barrymore appeared at another, and was just in time to pull out her chair instead of letting the waiter do it. the chauffeulier, seeing we had ploughed through half the menu, wouldn't have bothered with soup or fish, but maida insisted on having both, piping hot too, though she never cares what she eats; so the belated one got as good a dinner as anybody. whether he realized that maida had waited for him i don't know, but he was so unusually talkative and full of fun that i longed to "vipe" somebody, feeling as i did that his cheerfulness was due to maida's kindness. unfortunately there was no excuse for viping; but i suddenly thought how i could throw a little cold water. "have you noticed, mr. barrymore," i asked, "that my cousin maida never wears anything except black, or grey, or white?" he looked at her. "yes, i have noticed," he said, with an expression in his eyes which added that he'd noticed everything concerning her. "but then," he went on, "i haven't had time to see her whole wardrobe." "if you had, it would be the same," said i. "it's a pity, i think, for blue and pink and pale green, and a lot of other things would be so becoming. but she's got an idea into her head that because, when she goes back home a few months from now, she will enter that old con--" "beechy, please!" broke in maida, her face almost as pink as an american beauty rose. "well you _are_ going to, aren't you?" i flew out at her. "or have you changed your mind--already?" "i think you are very unkind," she said, in a low voice, turning white instead of red, and mr. barrymore bit his lip, looking as if he would rather shake me than eat his dinner. then all at once i was dreadfully sorry for hurting maida, partly because mr. barrymore glared, partly because she is an angel; but i would have died in agony sooner than say so, or show that i cared, though i had such a lump in my throat i could scarcely swallow. of course everybody thought i had turned sulky, for i shrugged my shoulders and pouted, and didn't speak another word. by and by i really did begin to sulk, because if one puts on a certain expression of face, after a while one finds thoughts that match it stealing into one's mind. i grew so cross with myself and the whole party, that when mamma said she was tired and headachy, and would go to our sitting-room if maida didn't object, i determined that whatever happened those two shouldn't have the satisfaction of a _tête-à-tête_. every one had finished except maida and the chauffeulier, who had only got as far as the chicken and salad stage; and when mamma proposed going, a look came over the prince's face which i translated to myself as, "_rien à faire ici_." since our talk in the garden at san dalmazzo, he has given himself no more trouble for maida or me; all is for mamma, at least, when she is present; so i wasn't surprised when he said that he had several telegrams to send off, and would excuse himself. "but about to-morrow," he exclaimed, pausing when he had risen. "shall you stop to see the cathedral, and something of milan by daylight, before going on to the lake of como?" "oh, yes," maida answered. "mr. barrymore says we shall have plenty of time." "he is quite right," replied the prince so graciously that i instantly asked myself what little game he was playing now. "it is not far from here to bellagio, where you intend to stop. you will go, of course, by way of the brianza?" (this to the chauffeulier.) "i suppose we must," answered mr. barrymore. "i don't know anything at first-hand about the road, but at the garage they tell me motors occasionally do it. the gradients are steep according to the route-book, but unless there's something worse than meets the eye there, our car will get through all right." "i have already driven over the whole length of that road," said the prince. "not _en automobile_, but, no doubt, what a couple of horses can do, your twelve horse-power car can do better. as for me, i have been in milan many a time, and its sights are an old story. i will therefore go on early to-morrow morning, leaving your party to follow; for i have acquaintances who live in a charming villa near bellagio--the duke and duchess of gravellotti--and i wish to ask them as soon as possible to call on the countess." mamma was delighted at the prospect of receiving a call from a real, live duke and duchess, so she shed rays of gratitude upon the prince, and trotted out both her dimples. "come, beechy," she said. "we'll go now, as maida doesn't mind." "i haven't finished my nuts and raisins, and i want some of those _marrons glacés_ afterwards," said i. "i'll stay and eat them, and chaperon maida. i guess she needs it more than you, mamma, though you're both an awful responsibility for me." that sent mamma away with a vexed rustle of three separate layers of silk. the prince walked after her, just far enough behind not to step on her train (he isn't the kind of man who would ever tear a woman's dress, though he might pull her reputation to pieces), and maida, mr. barrymore, sir ralph, and i were left together. both men had jumped up when mamma rose, but they sat down again when she had turned her back, the chauffeulier (presumably) to finish his dinner, sir ralph to keep me in countenance. but there was no more gaiety. my douche of cold water had quenched mr. barrymore's irish spirits, and maida was depressed. i was the "spoil-sport;" but i "stuck it out," as sir ralph would have said, to the bitter end. when we all streamed into the big hall there sat mamma in a corner with the prince, instead of having gone up-stairs to nurse her headache. what was worse, she was letting the man teach her to smoke a cigarette in imitation of some russian ladies in another corner. they were puffing away as calmly as they breathed, because it was the same thing with them; but mamma was far from calm. she was flirting with all her might, and feeling tremendously pretty and popular. she didn't see me until i had stalked up behind her. "mamma!" i said, in a tone of freezing virtue. "four years ago, you spanked me for that. and if papa were here now, what would _he_ do to you?" she started as if a mouse had sprung at her--and mamma is dreadfully afraid of little innocent mice. then she began to explain and apologize as if she had been thirteen, and i--well, i'll _say_ twenty-nine. i foresee that i am going to have trouble with mamma. part iii told by the countess xv a chapter of pitfalls a woman finds out a great many things about herself when she is automobiling. or is it automobiling that makes new qualities grow? i'm not sure; but then i'm so different in many ways from what i used to be that i hardly know myself any more. beechy would tell me that it's all owing to madame rose-blanche of chicago; but it isn't really. she changed me on the outside; she couldn't change my disposition--except that one is happier when one's pretty than when one's a "trump," as the english ladies say. but i used to hate being out-of-doors; it seemed such a waste of time. and when poor mr. kidder was alive, i often thought that if i could be free to do exactly as i liked for a month, i'd spend it lying on a sofa among a pile of cushions, with a big box of candy, and dozens of new english society novels. yet now that i _am_ free to do as i like, not for one month, but for all the time, i go gadding around the world at twenty or thirty miles an hour (they feel like twice as many) in an automobile. however, it's just as if i had walked right into a novel myself, to be one of the heroines. i've read a good many novels with young widows for heroines; in fact, i prefer them, as it's so pleasant to put yourself in the heroine's place while you read, especially if you're interested in the hero. in my novel that i've stepped into, there are three heroes if i count mr. barrymore, and i suppose i may (though he's only the chauffeur, as the prince often reminds me), for beechy says that sir ralph moray tells her he comes from a very fine family. at first i didn't know but sir ralph would be the real hero, for by an odd coincidence _he_ is twenty-nine, which is my age--if it's true, as madame says, that a woman has a right to count herself no older than she looks. besides, i'm very partial to the english; and though i was a little disappointed, after seeing that advertisement of his, to learn that the "titled englishman" owning a motor-car, was no higher than a baronet, i thought he might do. but somehow, though kind and attentive, he has never shown the same warm interest that prince dalmar-kalm takes in me, and then it is so romantic that i should be buying an estate with one of the titles belonging to the prince's family. i can't help feeling now that the prince, and no one but the prince, is _meant_ for the hero of this story of which i am the heroine. after all, what title sounds so well for a woman as "princess"? it might be royalty, and i'm sure it would be admired in denver. the change in me may be partly owing to the excitement of realizing that i'm in a grander sphere than any i have ever entered before, or dared hope to enter, and that this may be but a kind of ante-chamber to something still grander. of course i might have gone on this trip in the prince's automobile, if he had known in time that i had a fancy to try motoring, but perhaps it's better as it is. i like being independent, and it's just as well to have several men in the party, so that no one among them can think he's going to have everything his own way. who, that knew me a few years--or even a few months--ago, would have believed i could be perfectly happy sitting all day in a cramped position in an automobile, covered with dust or wet with sudden showers; tired, hungry, putting up with all sorts of discomforts by the way, and half the time frightened out of my wits by appalling precipices or terrific wild beasts? but happy i am, happier than i've ever been, though i keep asking myself, or maida, or beechy, "_why_ is it so nice?" maida says she doesn't know why, she only knows it is, and much more than nice. "the quintessence of joy-of-life," that is what she has named the sensation; and as maida uses it, it is sure to be all right, though i must admit that to me it sounds almost improper. then there is another thing which strikes me as queer about myself and the two girls since we've been travelling in an automobile. we used to be glad when a train journey was over, and thankful to arrive at almost any place, whether it was beautiful or not, but now we're always in a perfect fever to go on--on--on. we shoot into some marvellous old town, that we would once have thought worth coming hundreds of miles just to see; and instead of wanting to get out of the motor-car and wander about, visiting all the churches or museums or picture-galleries, we think what a pity to spoil the record of so many miles in so many hours. if we stop long of course it brings down the average, and that seems nothing less than a calamity, though why on earth we should care so much, or care at all (considering we have our whole future before us) is a mystery. even maida, who is so fond of history, and countries that have made history in dim old ages, feels this. she thinks there is a motoring microbe that gets into your blood, just as other microbes do, so that it's a disease, only instead of being disagreeable it's almost dangerously pleasant. you know you ought to pause and do justice to a place, says maida, but the motoring microbe wriggles and writhes against the decision of your reason, and you have to use violent measures before you can dull it into a state of coma for a while. mr. barrymore tries to explain this phenomenon by arguing that, of all modern means of getting about the world, motoring is in itself the most enjoyable. the mere journey is as good a part of your tour as any, if not better; and that's the reason why, according to him, you never have the same longing to "get there" or "stay there" (wherever "there" may be) that you have when you travel by train, or boat or carriage. it is the thrill of flying through the air at such a rate that intoxicates you and makes you feel you are conquering the world as you go. perhaps he's right. but after all, reasons don't signify much. the principal thing is that you do feel so, and it is lovely. i was so tired after that long day from cuneo to milan that i wouldn't get up to go and look at the cathedral. i'd seen it by moonlight, and it couldn't be better by day, so i just lay in bed, and made a comfortable toilet afterwards without hurrying, which was a nice change, and gave me time to use my electric face-roller. when the girls came back, they were raving about magnificent statues, aisles, columns, windows, vistas, gargoyles, and saints' bodies in gorgeous shrines of silver. beechy had apparently forgotten that she'd been vexed with me over night, and i was relieved, for she will _not_ agree with me about the prince, and i don't know what i should do if she really did carry out any of her threats. if she _should_ put on the long frock she had before mr. kidder died (which she _says_ she's got with her, locked up in her portmanteau), and should fix her hair on top of her head, that would be just about the end of my fun, once and for all. but she is such a dear girl at heart, in spite of the peculiarities which she has inherited from poor simon, i can't think (if i manage her pretty well) that she would do anything to spoil my first real good time and hurt my feelings. we had an early lunch, and started about one with such a crowd outside the hotel to see us go away, that we made up our minds there must be precious few automobiles in milan, big and busy city as it is. the whole party was so taken up with the cathedral, that for a while they could talk of nothing but gian galeazzo visconti (who seemed to have spent his life either in murdering his relations or founding churches), or marble from the valley of tosa, or german architects who had made the building differ from any other in italy, or the impulse napoleon had given to work on the façade, or the view from the roof all the way to como with the apennines and lots of other mountains whose names i'd never heard; but presently as we got out into the suburbs the road began to be so awful that no one could talk rationally on any subject. we three americans weren't quite so disgusted as sir ralph and mr. barrymore seemed to be, for we are used to roads being pretty bad outside large cities; but the gentlemen were very cross, and exclaimed that it was a disgrace to milan. our poor automobile had to go bumping and grinding along through heaps of sharp stones, more like the dry bed of a mountain torrent than a road; and my nerves were on edge when mr. barrymore told us not to be frightened if we heard an explosion like a shot, because it would only be one of the tyres bursting. no pretty little ladylike automobile, said he, could possibly hope to come through without breaking her bones; only fine, manly motor-cars, with noble masculine tyres, could wisely attempt the feat; but ours would be all right, even if a tyre did go, for the damage could be repaired inside half an hour. still, the thought of the possible explosion that might go off right under my ears at any instant kept me in a state of suspense for a long distance--about thirty kilometres, mr. barrymore said; and then the way improved so much that i settled down again. even the scenery had been ugly up to that time, as if to match the road, but it began to change for the better at precisely the same moment. the only interesting things we had seen so far were peasants playing bowls in the villages through which we passed (for it was a fête day) and the curious carts with wooden frames for awnings arched over them, which gave an effect as if the passengers were crowding inside the white ribs of some skeleton monster. such pretty women and children were in the carts, too; the women like beautiful, dark madonnas with their soft eyes looking out from under graceful head-draperies of black cashmere, or blue or yellow silk, glorious in colour as the sun touched it. they didn't seem to mind the bumping over the stones, though the carts were springless, but then, they had no hats lolloping over to one side, or stays to pinch in their waists and make them uncomfortable as i had, though--as beechy says--my daytime motoring waist is _inches_ bigger round than my evening waist. i was glad when i could put my hat straight again, once for all, and have time to enjoy the scenery through which, as i told myself, the prince must lately have passed on his car, perhaps thinking of me, as he had promised. behind us was the great plain in which milan lies, and before us soared into the air a blue chain of mountains, looking mysterious and inaccessible in the far distance, though we were sweeping on towards them, charging down hill after hill into a more exquisite landscape than i could have imagined, enchantingly italian, with dark old châteaux crowning eminences above fertile fields; pretty brown villages on hillsides clustering round graceful campaniles (a word i've practised lately with several other difficult ones); green-black cypresses (which maida says seem like sharp notes in music); and wonderful, flat-topped trees that mr. barrymore calls umbrella pines. we were now in a region known as the brianza, which is, it appears, a summer resort for the milanese, who come to escape the hot weather of the plains, and find the breezes that blow up from the lakes--breezes so celebrated for their health-giving qualities that nobody who lives in the brianza can die under ninety. there were a great many inviting looking, quaint farmhouses, and big cottages scattered about, where the people from milan are taken as lodgers. i had forgotten my nervousness about the tyres, when suddenly a queer thing happened. there was a wild flapping and beating as if a big bird had got caught in the engine, while something strange and horrifying kept leaping up and down with every revolution of the wheels, like a huge black snake racing along with us and trying for a chance to pounce. it was so like a weird and horrid dream that i shrieked; but in a few seconds mr. barrymore had stopped the car. "we _are_ in luck," said he. "why?" i asked. "have we killed the serpent-thing--whatever it is?" then he laughed. "the serpent-thing is the outer covering of the tyre on one of our driving wheels," he explained. "and we're in luck because, after that ghastly road it isn't the tyre itself. this is nothing; i'll tear it off, and the good old tyre's so sound that we can go on with its skin off, until bellagio, when i'll put on a new one before we start again. it has cracked the mud guard in its gyrations, though fortunately not enough to make it unsafe for the luggage." in about three minutes we were teuf-teufing on once more; but we hadn't been going for ten minutes when, half-way up a hill, the motor gave a weary sigh, and moved languidly, as if it were very tired and discouraged, yet trying its best to obey. we were on the outskirts of a village called erba, and the automobile crawled on until it saw a little inn, with a lot of peasants sitting in the cool shade of an arbour, drinking wine; there it stopped, which was wonderfully intelligent of it. "the poor animal wants water after its hard work," said mr. barrymore; so he got down and asked a boy to bring some, ordering at the same time a siphon of fizzy lemonade for everybody. while we were sipping the cold, sweet stuff, mr. barrymore burst out laughing, and we all looked up to see what was the matter. there was that silly boy bringing a pint of water, in a _carafe_, to pour into the tank of the motor; and he seemed quite surprised and disgusted when he was told to go back and fetch about twenty litres more. the automobile had thoughtfully slowed down in the one bit of shade there was; still it was tremendously hot, and we realized that it was only the motion of the car which had kept us from finding it out before. we should have been miserable if we hadn't changed our tailor motoring-costumes for the holland dresses and coats which we'd bought ready-made at the last moment, in monte carlo. in spite of them, however, we were glad when the water was in, and the motor-car's heart began to beat again. then down went ours, for after a dozen throbs the comforting sound grew faint and presently stopped. "there's no proper explosion," mr. barrymore announced in a puzzled way. "i'm afraid the petrol i bought in milan wasn't very good; the italian never is as good as the french, though it's more expensive. but perhaps it's only 'tired.' i'll empty it out and put in some fresh." he did, but the poor automobile was not revived by the change; and mr. barrymore began to peer about in the inner workings of the thing to see what had gone wrong. he examined the _bougie_, whatever that was, and cleaned the aspiration valve with petrol, all of which took time; and what with the heat, and the noise the peasants in the inn-garden made with their _boules_, i began to get the feeling that beechy calls "caterpillars in the spine." just when they were crawling up and down my marrow, however, mr. barrymore cried out, "eureka! it's the pump." this exclamation didn't convey much to me, but it was encouraging that he seemed pleased; and when he had adjusted the friction roller against a fly-wheel, or something queer and ticklish of that sort, we flew away from erba at a splendid pace, as if the car had decided to let bygones be bygones. we ran beautifully along a smooth and level road that was trying to make up for its evil past, by the side of a small but pretty lake, and it seemed as if our troubles were over at last. but the astonishment on the faces of the peasants who stared from doorways in a couple of very picturesque villages through which we drove, was ominous. evidently they had scarcely ever seen a motor-car, for they glared at us as if we were antediluvian animals. running out of the second village, asso, we found ourselves climbing a road which was not only as steep as the side of a house, but so narrow that, if we had met anything, it couldn't possibly have passed us. the way was wild and eerie; we could not tell what might come beyond each corner, and we could see nothing but the roughly climbing road, with its embankments, except as we looked back and down into vast spaces of strange beauty, like fleeting scenes in dreams. "i'm sure we must have come wrong. this can't be the way that the prince meant," i said. "it's more like a track for goats than automobiles." "we have come right according to directions," answered mr. barrymore, "but i must say, i rather wonder at the directions. according to dalmar-kalm's account, the road was fairly good. i can hardly think he risked this route for his own car." "is there another he could have taken?" inquired sir ralph. "yes. he could have driven along the lake as far as varenna, and then sent his car across to bellagio on one of the steamers." "my prophetic soul, which i inherit from a long line of scotch ancestors, tells me that's what he did," said sir ralph. then he added in a lower voice, "it would be like him." but i heard, and wondered if, after all, he were a little jealous of the prince? "whether he did or not, i'm glad _we_ didn't," remarked beechy. "this looks like being an adventure; and none of us are old enough to have outgrown our love of adventure, are we, mamma?" of course, i had to say "no," though i'd been on the point of asking whether it wouldn't be possible for us to go back. we had just come into a ragged hamlet, and there was literally no more than room for us to scrape through between the poor stone houses which leaned over us on either side the steep, roughly cobbled road. six inches less, and we would have been in danger of slicing off our mud-guards, upon which lay a lot of our luggage as if on shelves. my heart was in my mouth, and i said so to beechy; but she only laughed, and replied pertly--even for her--that she hoped it was a good fit, or should she pat me on the back? instead of smoothing out to a level again, as i hoped against hope that it would, the road grew steeper with each quarter-mile, so steep that it seemed as if the car must take to running down hill backwards. but always it went forging steadily up on the strongest speed with a dependable, bumbling noise, never once faltering, though the col di tenda wasn't as steep a gradient as this. certainly, after one's faith in the car has stopped wobbling, there was a kind of wild pleasure in the experience, especially in looking over one's shoulder at the valleys lying far below us, cut deep into the green heart of the mountain, as if they had been hollowed out of an emerald. suddenly the road gave a twist, and instead of prancing in the air, lay down at the feet of a grim, grey town, as a dog lies down at the feet of his master. mr. barrymore stopped to see if the motor had got hot or burst a blood-vessel or anything; but all was well, and when we had slipped on our thick coats, those who had got out to walk the steepest hills--sir ralph and beechy--climbed in again. we had been a long time creeping up, longer than mr. barrymore had calculated, and the chill of evening was in the air. besides, we were in the midst of the mountains now, and it was hard to realize that we had ever felt too hot. as we drove along the edge of ridge, a keen wind caught us. i shivered and felt as if there were no more thickness to me than a paper doll; but i shouldn't have dared to tell beechy that, or she would have laughed, for i haven't got my weight down yet to less than a hundred and fifty pounds. there was a gnawing just under my new gold belt-buckle with the cat's-eyes on it, as if the cats had claws as well as eyes, and i remembered that it was ages since lunch. maida and beechy never appear to be hungry when they motor, though, so _i_ wouldn't complain, for fear it might seem old and frumpy to think of such material things. but five minutes later being cold or hungry mattered as little as it would in a shipwreck. the first thing that happened was a view--a view so unexpected and so superb that i gaped at it with my mouth open. so far away, so far below, that it was as if we looked down from a balloon sailing among the clouds, two lakes were set like sapphires in a double ring of mountains, whose greens and blues and purples were dimmed by a falling veil of twilight. but through the veil, white villas gleamed on the dark hillsides, like pearls that had fallen down the mountain-side, scattering as they fell; and above, in the great pale dome of the sky, a faint silver light pulsed and quivered, like the water-lights that one sees on the wall of a room near the river. it was a search-light sent out by the moon, which was _en panne_ somewhere on its way up the horizon, maida said; and it was she who put some of those other thoughts into my mind; but my head didn't hold any of them long at that time, because of the next thing that happened. it was not a view; it was a plunge that we took down into the view. we had come up one side of a house to get to this place on the roof, and now we began to slither down the other side, which was worse, a hundred times worse. who was it who said, "a horse, my kingdom for a horse?" i think it must have been richard the third in shakspere's play, which i went to see once in denver, at a matinée, and mr. kidder scolded me afterwards for wasting my time and his money. well, i never sympathized with any one so much in life as i sympathized with that poor man (i mean richard, not mr. kidder) at this moment. i knew just how he must have felt, though of course the circumstances were somewhat different, automobiles not having been invented in those days, and he being on the stage, with a battle going on behind the scenes, where it was cheaper to produce, i suppose. but i would have given my money, and even my title, for a kind, gentle horse (the older the better) instead of a motor-car. a horse, at his worst, doesn't want to kill himself, while an automobile doesn't care what happens to it; and in these dreadful moments the only possible comfort would have been in sitting behind a thing with an instinct of self-preservation. as it was, i sat with every muscle tense and a feeling as if my hair was standing up so straight on my head that every hairpin must fall out. but what was a hairpin more or less, or even a "transformation" a little awry, to a woman about to become a corpse? i held my breath, as if to let it go meant to lose it forever, while that automobile walked down the mountain exactly as a fly walks down a long expanse of wall-paper, making a short turn for every flower in the pattern. there was a flower every other second in _our_ pattern, which meant a sharp turn for the fly; and i could have slapped mr. barrymore for talking on, as if we weren't in peril enough to be prayed for in church, about the lake of como and the lake of lecco, and bellagio (where we were going) on the promontory. where we were going, indeed! our only hope, clearly, was in heaven; though i should have liked just to see my new estate in dalmatia first. i had to let my breath go at last, and while snatching another, i managed to gasp that i would get out and walk. but that imp of a beechy (who must, i sometimes think, be a changeling) hugged my arm and said that i wasn't to be "an old woman, like the prince"; that this experience was too blissful to be spoiled by anybody's nerves, and no one was going to be hurt, not even the little dog from airole. "how do you know?" i panted. "oh, because i do. and besides, i put my faith in our chauffeulier." "you had better put your trust in providence," i said severely. "it hasn't come to _that_ yet," was her flippant reply; and i shouldn't have been surprised if white bears had come out to devour her, for those mountain fastnesses looked capable of bears or worse. "don't forget this is the road the prince recommended," beechy went on. "it would be too unflattering to our vanity to think he could have wished to hurl us to our death, so it must be all right." "he had forgotten what it was like," i said. but the idea did enter into my mind that perhaps he had thought if our car should break down we might be induced to continue our journey in his. and the suggestion of so strong a desire on his part to monopolize a certain member of our party wasn't wholly unpleasant. it gave me enough warmth round the heart to support life during the rest of the experience which beechy considered so "blissful." i will say for mr. barrymore that he drove carefully, keeping the brakes on all the time, and slowing down for one curve after another, so short and so sharp, that if our automobile had been much longer in the body the turn couldn't have been managed. we had trusted to mr. barrymore's judgment about where we were to stop at bellagio, for even sir ralph had never done more than pass through the place; and he had telegraphed for rooms at a hotel on a high promontory above the lake, once the château of a famous old italian family. it is still called the villa serbelloni, and mr. barrymore had described the view and the garden as being so exquisite, that he had excited our curiosity and interest. i always think, too, there is something fascinating, if you aren't very grand yourself (or haven't been till lately), about living in the same rooms where grand people have lived. you can say to yourself, "here the duchess ate her dinner, here she danced, here she wrote her letters. in this garden she walked; her eyes looked upon this view," and so i was particularly attracted towards the villa serbelloni, even though prince dalmar-kalm had suggested several reasons for our going to one of the hotels on the level of the lake. of course i'd not confided these reflections either to maida or beechy, for even maida is unsympathetic about some things, and thinks, or says that she thinks, it is horridly snobbish to care about titles. she told beechy, in an argument they were having together, that she would just as soon as not snub an english duke or marquise, just to show that there were _some_ american girls who didn't come abroad to spend their money on buying a husband from the british aristocracy. she hasn't had a chance to prove her strength of mind in this way yet, for so far we have met only an english baronet; though i must admit that she's much nicer to mr. barrymore, who is nobody at all, than she is either to sir ralph moray or the prince. when we seemed to be dangling midway between heaven and earth, and the sapphires that had been the lakes had turned into burnished silver mirrors, mr. barrymore drew our attention to a high point of land running out into the water, its shape sharply cut like a silhouette in black against the silver. "that is where we shall be in about half an hour more," said he, "for all those twinkling yellow stars mean the villa serbelloni." i thought it much more probable that we would be at the bottom of lake como, having been previously dashed into pieces so small that no expert could sort them. but just as the moon had painted a line of glittering gold along the irregular edges of the purple mountains we did actually arrive on level ground close to the border of the lake. then we had to mount again to the villa serbelloni, for there was no more direct way to it, connecting with the road by which we had come, and after we had wound up the side of the promontory for a little while we began to drink in a fragrance as divine as if we really had been killed and had gone straight to heaven. it was quite a different fragrance from any i had ever known before in any garden; not so richly heavy as on the riviera, though penetrating; as delicate, maida said, as a beethoven symphony, and as individual. i believe if i were to go blind, and somebody should lead me into the garden of the villa serbelloni without telling me where i was, i should know by that wonderful perfume. i can't imagine its being the same anywhere else. at the sound of our motor several people came out to the door of the long, white, crescent-shaped building, and among them, to my great pleasure, was the prince. "how late you are!" he exclaimed, coming to help me out before sir ralph, or a very handsome young man who was the manager of the hotel, had time to do it. "i've been expecting you for the last two hours. do you know that it's nearly nine o'clock? i began to be afraid something had happened." "what a pity you didn't think of that in milan!" snapped beechy. "did you get mamma to make a will in your favour last night?" "my dear young lady, what do you mean?" implored the poor prince. "i guess you'd know that without asking, if you'd come the way we have, instead of taking boats and things all over the place," giggled the impossible child, and then complained out aloud that i was pinching her. naturally, the prince was too dignified to bandy words with a naughty little girl, so he didn't pursue the subject further, but began inquiring particulars of our adventures as we went into the house together. "do you know why i was especially anxious to arrive ahead of you?" he asked me, in a low voice. "i think i remember your explaining last night," said i. "ah, but i didn't give my most important reasons. i kept them for your ears alone; and i hope you won't be displeased. do you remember telling me something about to-morrow?" i thought for a moment. "do you mean that it will be my birthday?" i asked. "i mean nothing else. did you imagine that i would forget?" to tell the truth, i hoped he had, for i'd only mentioned it on an impulse, to regret the words as soon as they were out. a woman who is--well, i'll say over twenty-eight--had, perhaps, better let "sleeping dogs lie" when it comes to talking about birthdays, especially if she has a daughter who doesn't sleep, and never lies when she's wanted to. however, out the news had popped about the 30th of april being my birthday, and the prince would hardly believe that i was as much as twenty-nine, though, of course, there is beechy, and i couldn't well have married younger than fifteen. i murmured something now about a birthday being of no consequence (i wish it weren't), but the prince said that mine was of a great deal to him, and he had made exertions to arrive early and arrange a little surprise for me. "i will say no more," he went on. "you will know the rest to-morrow; but the best, not until evening." i could think of nothing during dinner except what he had said, though it was so late, and i'd been so hungry. and afterwards, standing on the balcony outside my bedroom window looking down on a scene of fairy-like beauty, the wonderful white moonlight and thoughts of the prince seemed to mingle together in my head, like some intoxicating draught. "countess dalmar, princess dalmar-kalm," i kept saying over to myself, until the words wove themselves into a song in my brain, with the scent of the flowers for accompaniment. the whole house seems to have absorbed the perfumes of the garden, as if they had soaked into the wood. the corridors, the bedrooms, the wardrobes, even the chests of drawers, have the same delicate fragrance. it scented my dreams and told me where we were when i waked in the morning, confused with sleep. xvi a chapter of enchantment a birthday _must_ be happy spent in such an exquisite place, i told myself, when i'd got up and peeped out of the window upon a land of enchantment--even a birthday more advanced than one would choose. by morning light the lake was no longer sapphire, but had taken on a brilliant, opaque blue, like _lapis lazuli_. umbrella pines were stretched in dark, jagged lines on an azure background. black cypresses pointed warning fingers heavenward, rising tall and slim and solemn, out of a pink cloud of almond blossoms. the mountains towering round the lake, as if to protect its beauty with a kind of loving selfishness, had their green or rugged brown sides softened with a purplish glow like the bloom on a grape. and in the garden that flowed in waves of radiant colour from terrace to terrace, as water flows over a weir, roses and starry clematis, amethyst wistaria, rosy azalea, and a thousand lovely things i'd never seen before, mingled tints as in a mosaic of jewels. i had lain awake in the night listening to a bird which i could almost have believed a fairy, and, though i'd never heard a nightingale, i wondered if he could be one. he said over and over again, through the white hours perfumed with roses and flooded with moonlight: "do look, do look! spirit, spirit, spirit!" and so, just in case he might have been calling me, i got up early to see what he had wanted me to see. then i was gladder than ever that we had decided to spend at least that day and another night at serbelloni, for one might journey to all four corners of the globe and not find another place so magically beautiful. although i was up so early, perhaps i spent a longer time over my toilet than the two girls do over theirs; and when i was ready neither maida nor beechy were in their rooms. i had opened my door to go down and look for them when i came face to face with a waiter carrying an enormous bouquet. it was for me, with a perfectly lovely poem written by the prince. at least, it was in his handwriting, so i suppose it was by him, and it was full of pretty allusions to an "adorable woman," with praises for the gracious day that gave her to the world. i _was_ pleased! it was like going back and being a young girl again, and i could have sung for joy, as the bird did last night. the rest of the party were on an entrancing terrace, looking down over other flowery terraces upon the town of bellagio, with its charming old campanile, and its grey roofs like a flock of doves clustering together on the border of the lake. the water was so clear and still that the big hotels and villas on the opposite shore seemed to have fallen in head down, and each little red-and-white canopied boat waiting for passengers at the quay had its double in the bright blue mirror. clouds and mountains were all reflected too, and it seemed as if one might take one's choice between the real world and the dream world. maida and beechy had already been for a walk with sir ralph and mr. barrymore, who had taken them up by a labyrinth of wooded paths to an old ruined castle which they described as crowning the head of the promontory. it had been built by the romans, and in the middle ages was the stronghold of brigands, who captured beautiful ladies and terrorized the whole country. the girls were excited about some secret passages which they had found, leading down from the ruin to wonderful nooks screened on one side by trees and hanging over sheer abysses on the other. they wanted to show also an old chapel and a monks' burying ground which you had to reach by scrambling down a narrow stairway attached to the precipitous rocks, like a spider web. but i had on my white _suede_ shoes with the louis quinze heels, which look so well with a white dress and dark blue silk stockings; besides, i began to want my breakfast, and it would have been impolite to disappear before i thanked the prince, who might come out at any moment. we had our coffee and rolls in a kind of bower close to the terrace; and afterwards i did walk along the level path, fenced in with a tangle of roses--pink, and white, and gold, and crimson--as far as a high shelf, cut into the face of the sheer cliff which plunges vertically down, down into the blue-green water. the prince was my companion, and he (who has distinguished friends in the neighbourhood, which he has visited before) told me a strange story of the place. once, he said, the princes of stanga were lords of the land here, and a certain daughter of the house was famous as the handsomest and cruellest princess of her time. despite her dreadful disposition, she had crowds of lovers, whom she used to invite to walk with her by moonlight, after a _tête-à-tête_ supper. she would lead them to this very spot on which we stood, and just as she had lured them on to make a burning declaration of love she would give a laugh, and a sudden push, which hurled them to death in the lake far below. how different, judging from what i have read in the ladies' magazines, from the home-life of our dear princesses of to-day! and how different from _my_ habits, if i am asked to become, and do become, a princess. i should have liked to throw out some delicate little suggestion of this sort, and perhaps would have found the right words, had not beechy appeared at that moment with sir ralph. then my whole attention was taken up, as it had been during breakfast, by tactfully staving off any allusion on the prince's part to my birthday. all was in vain, however; he said something gallant, and i was quite as giddy for a few seconds as one of the wicked princess's lovers, lest beechy should be in an impish mood and throw out allusions to my age. but she was as good as a kitten, though she looked at me in a naughty way, and only said, "would any one believe mamma was twenty-nine to-day--if it weren't for me?" when we went indoors afterwards i gave her that ruby heart ring of mine that she likes. all day long we were busy doing agreeable things. we lunched down by the lake shore, in the garden of a big hotel there, and afterwards were rowed across to cadenabbia, in one of the canopied boats, to visit the villa carlotta in its wonderful terraced garden. i was delighted with the boat and the man who rowed us, in his white clothes and scarlet sash, but the prince half-whispered in my ear that he was going to show me something better in the evening, when the time came for the "birthday surprise" about which i must please say nothing--not even to beechy. we had coffee at the most idyllic spot imaginable, which we reached by leaving the boat and mounting rather a steep path that went up beside a baby cascade. at the top was a shady terrace, with arbours of grape vines and roses, and a peasant's house, where the people live who waited upon us. we had thick cream for our coffee, and delicious stuff with raisins in it and sugar on top, which was neither bread nor cake. i wanted the recipe for it, but i didn't like to get any one to ask; and perhaps it wouldn't taste the same in denver. oh dear me, i begin to think there are lots of things that won't taste the same in denver! but i _should_ love better than anything to go back with a high title, and see what some of those society women, who turned up their noses at me when i was only mrs. simon kidder, would do then. there isn't one who has a right to put crowns on her baggage or anywhere else, and i've got that already, whatever happens by and by. we were rowed back to bellagio again, and climbed up by a short cut to the villa serbelloni just in time to escape a storm on the lake. in a flower-draped cave above our favourite terrace, we sat in garden chairs and watched the effect, while mr. barrymore and sir ralph talked about pliny, whose statue was nearby, and some strange old general of napoleon's who lived for awhile at the villa serbolloni, and terrorized people who wanted him to pay his debts, by keeping fierce, hungry bloodhounds to patrol the place night and day. when you are nicely sheltered, to watch rain falling in the distance, and marching like troops of grey ghosts along the sky, is something like watching other people's troubles comfortably, while you are happy yourself--though maida would think that a selfish speech. anyway, the effect of that storm was thrilling. first, nature seemed to stop smiling and grow very grave as the shadows deepened among the mountains. then, suddenly the thing happened which she had been expecting. a spurt of ink was flung across the sky and lake, leaving on the left a wall of blue, on the right an open door of gold. black feathers drooped from the sky and trailed across the roughened water, to be blown away from sight as the storm passed from our lake to another; and when they had vanished, out came the sun again to shine through violet mists which bathed the mountain sides, and made their peaks seem to rise from a transparent sea. we could not tear ourselves away until sunset; and by the time we had dressed for dinner, the rising moon had traced a path of silver from shore to shore, across the pansy-purple water, where the lights of cadennabia were sending golden ladders down to the bottom of the lake. i supposed that we would dine indoors, but the arbour where we had breakfasted was illuminated with coloured lanterns, which gleamed like rubies and emeralds and topazes among the dark tree branches, and the trails of roses and wistaria. "this is part of my surprise," said the prince. "i have arranged this in honour of your birthday, dear countess. no, don't thank me. is it not my greatest pleasure to think of you?" perhaps it was because i was in a mood to be pleased with everything, but it did seem as if i had never tasted such a dinner as that was. we had every delicacy in and out of season, a fruit salad which is a specialty of the house, made of strawberries, fresh figs, cherries, pineapples, and almonds; and when i thought that all the surprise was over, along the terrace came a procession of green, blue and rose-coloured lights, as if fairies were flitting among the trees. but the fairies turned out to be waiters, bringing illuminated ices in fantastic shapes, and a birthday cake for me lighted with twenty-nine tiny wax candles. all had been thought of by the prince; and if there had been any doubt in my mind before, i now saw that he really loved me for myself alone. when everybody had wished me good wishes, blowing out the candles as they wished, we left the table to stroll about in the moonlight, and the prince and i got separated from the others. "ah, but this isn't all," he broke in, when i was trying to tell him how much i appreciated what he had done. "the best, i hope, is to come, if you will trust yourself to me for a little while." i was ready to do so for any length of time, and when he had sent to the house for my wrap, and was leading me down a sloping path which i hadn't seen before, my curiosity bubbled like a tea-kettle beginning to boil. "we are going to the little harbour on the lecco side," he explained, "and there--you shall see what you shall see." "are you planning to run away with me?" i asked, laughing. "perhaps," said he, "and as fast as if we were in my automobile, though we shall travel by water." i couldn't think what he meant, until we arrived at the harbour of which he had spoken. there, among two or three canopied row-boats was one as different as a swan is from geese. it had no canopy; and as the prince brought me down to the quay, a man who had been sitting in the boat jumped up and touched his cap, which was shaped like a chauffeur's. and sure enough it was a chauffeur's, for this was a motor-boat, which had been lent by friends to prince dalmar-kalm, especially for him to take me on the lake by moonlight. he told me that he had hurried to bellagio on purpose to borrow it, and if we did not leave too early to-morrow the people would call on me--distinguished people, who would delight in doing honour to the "american countess." those were his very words; and he was so kind that i hadn't the heart to let him see i was frightened to go out in the motor-boat. i should have been far happier in a slow, comfortable old row-boat; and when i found that the prince intended to leave the chauffeur behind, and manage the thing himself, my heart felt as if it had melted and begun to trickle down between my ribs. it did seem hard, just as i had got used to a motor-car, to have this new experience thrust upon me, all unprepared. often i had thought what noble sentiments one ought to utter while driving in an automobile, considering that, at any moment your next words might be your last! but as we shot away from that little quay, out into the cold white path of the moon, i felt that to save my life i couldn't have uttered any sentiments at all. the prince, however, appeared to be happy, and to have perfect confidence in himself, in spite of the water looking twice as wet as it had looked in the afternoon. this motor was of the same make as that in his car, he said; it was by his advice that his friends had bought it, therefore he understood it very well, and where would i like to go? "anywhere," i answered, as pleasantly as a woman can, whose heart has just turned to water. "if i could but flatter myself that you meant anywhere with _me_!" he exclaimed. "to me, also, our destination is indifferent, provided that i am with you and have you to myself, undisturbed by others not worthy to approach you. do you know, countess, this is the first time you have ever been alone with me, for more than a few moments?" "it's only been a few minutes now," i faltered, for the sake of something to say. "ah, but it will be many minutes before i give you up," said he, "unless you are cruel." my heart began to beat fast, for his manner made me guess that something special was coming, and though i had often thought such a moment might arrive, and decided, or almost decided, how i would act, when it was actually at hand it seemed more tremendous than i had supposed. "you must try to keep me in good humour, then," said i; but though the moon was beautifully romantic, and i felt he was looking at me with his whole soul in his eyes, i couldn't help keeping one of mine glued on the steering gear, or whatever one ought to call it, and wondering whether he was paying as much attention to it as he was to me. "i am more anxious to please you than anything else in the world; you must have seen that long ago," he went on, moving closer. i gave a little bound, because the boat was certainly going in zigzags, and he was so near that by accident i jogged his elbow. with that, the boat darted off to the left, at twice the rate it had been going. i screamed under my breath, as beechy says, and caught hold of the seat with both hands. the prince did something in a hurry to the machinery, and suddenly the engine was as still as death. the boat went on for a few yards, as if by its own impetus, and then began to float helplessly. "i've stopped the motor by mistake," he explained. "i will start it again soon, but let us remain as we are for the present. it is so delicious to rock quietly on the little waves with you beside me, and the rest of the world far away." "oh, but the waves aren't so very little," i said. "the water hasn't smoothed down since the storm. it's awfully nice and poetic, but don't you think it would be still nicer if you just steered?" "i cannot steer the boat unless the motor is working," he replied. "but there is no danger of our being run down at this time. the moon lights the water with a great white lamp." "yes, but look at that big, dark cloud," said i, pointing up. "it will be putting out the light of the lamp in about five minutes. and--and i _do_ see things moving on the water. when the moon is obscured, we _might_ have a collision." the prince looked up and saw the cloud too. "very well," he said. "i will start the motor at once on one condition--that you do not ask me to take you home for an hour, at least." "i promise that," i answered, quite shyly. instantly he set to work at the motor; but it wouldn't start. the prince did a great many things, and even lighted dozens of matches, to see what was the matter, but not a throb would the engine give. "i am afraid," he announced at last, in a voice that tried not to sound cross, "i'm afraid the sparking-plug is broken." "well?" said i, "what then? shall we be drowned?" "not at all," he reassured me, taking my hand. "we shall only drift about until some one comes to our rescue, as unfortunately there are no oars on board. if i thought you were not unhappy, i could rejoice in the accident." i let him keep my hand, but i couldn't feel as happy as i ought, to be polite. "it's--it's very interesting," i stammered, "but they don't know where we are, and they'll never think to search the lake for us!" "the chauffeur will come to see what is wrong if i do not get the boat back by a little after midnight," said the prince. "a little after midnight!" i echoed. "but that would be awful! what would they think? and oh, see, the cloud's over the moon! ugh, how dark it is. we shall certainly be run down. couldn't we call for help?" "we are a long way already from the shore," said the prince; "and besides it is not dignified to shout. by and by some one will come. meanwhile, let us enjoy ourselves. dear countess, i confess i brought you here to-night--your birthday night--for a purpose. will you listen while i tell you what it is?" "sh! wait one minute. aren't those voices in the distance, and don't you see something big and dark bearing down upon us?" "they exist but in your imagination," answered the prince; "or is it only that you wish to put me off?" "oh, no; i wouldn't be so rude," said i. "please excuse me." but i was on pins and needles, trying to keep an eye in every direction at once (as if i'd had a headlight in my face) and to make the most of my situation at the same time. "then i will no longer strain my patience," cried the prince in a warm voice. "dearest countess, i am at your feet." and so he was, for he went right down on his knees in the bottom of the boat, kneeling on my dress so that i couldn't have stirred an inch if i'd wanted to, which i didn't; for i meant to accept him. he had had only my right hand, but now he seized the left, too, and began to kiss, first one, and then the other, as if i'd been a queen. this was the first time a man had ever gone down on his knees to me, for the prince is the only foreign gentleman i ever knew, and mr. kidder proposed in a buggy. afraid as i was of a collision, i was enjoying myself very much, when suddenly a horrid thing happened. a great white light pounced upon us like a hawk on a chicken, and focussed on us as if we were a tableau. it was so bright, shining all over us and into our eyes, that it made everything else except just the prince and me, and our boat, look black, as if it were raining ink. and we were so taken aback with surprise, that for an instant or two we kept our position exactly as if we were sitting for our photographs, the prince kneeling at my feet and kissing my hands, i bending down my face over his head. i never experienced such a moment in my life, and the thought flashed into my head that it was simon's ghost come to forbid my second marriage. this idea was so frightful, that it was actually a relief to hear a vulgar shout of laughter coming from the other end of the light, wherever that was. the prince recovered before i did, and jerked himself up to a sitting posture on the seat, exclaiming something in german, which i am afraid was swearing. [illustration: _a great white light pounced upon us like a hawk on a chicken_] "those italian ruffians of the _douane_, with their disgusting search-light!" he sputtered in english when he was recovering himself a little. "but do not derange yourself, countess. they have seen that we are not smugglers, which is one advantage, because they will not trouble us any more." all this time the light was in our faces, and the hateful customs people could see every feature, down to the shortest eyelash. when they did turn the horrid white stream in another direction, i felt as weak as if the search-light had been a stream of cold water. i tried not to be hysterical, but i couldn't help crying and laughing alternately, especially when the prince would have taken my hands and begun all over again. "'ware the light!" i gasped, as nervous as a cat that hears a mouse in the wall. and though i really did want the prince to propose to me, and was anxious to say that i would be his princess, in the circumstances i was as thankful as i was astonished to hear beechy's voice calling to me across the water. in five minutes more a row-boat containing all the members of our party came alongside, and the lights in our bow and theirs showed us their faces, though the moon was still hiding her face in her hands with a pair of black gloves on. "we _thought_ you'd gone down to the lake," said beechy, "so i persuaded the others to come too; but we never dreamed you were in a motor-boat, or whereabouts you were, till we _saw_ you." i felt myself get as red as fire; though, when one comes to think of it, i am my own mistress, and beechy can't keep me from doing anything that i've made up my mind to do. "this boat belongs to a friend of the prince's," i explained. "we were trying it when it broke down, and he has been examining the motor." "so i noticed," remarked beechy. "i guess you're a little near-sighted, aren't you, prince?" he did not answer her, but explained to mr. barrymore the cause of the accident, and asked to be towed into harbour. of course, my evening was spoiled. i tried to laugh it off and say how providential it was they had come to our rescue; but though i kept telling myself every minute that there was no need for me to mind beechy, i dreaded meeting her alone. however, the evil moment wouldn't be put off forever, and she came along the balcony from her window to mine when i had shut myself up in my bedroom. i expected her to fly out at me, but her manner was the same as usual. "want me to undo your frock behind, mamma?" she asked. then, when she had got me half unhooked: "tell me what the prince said when he proposed." "he didn't propose," said i. "if he didn't i shall ask sir ralph to call him out. he'd no business kissing your hands unless he'd proposed." i was surprised at this attitude. but it made me feel confidential. "he hadn't had a chance," i volunteered. "he was just going to, when the search-light--" "--searched. lucky for you the interruption came at the right moment." "why? i thought--" "because it saved you the pain of refusing him." "but, beechy darling, i don't think i was going to refuse him." "don't you? well, i do. i'm sure of it." "dearest, if you wouldn't look at me in that square-chinned way! it's so like your poor papa." "i'm papa's daughter. but i don't intend to be prince dalmar-kalm's step-daughter." i began to cry a little. "why do you always try to thwart me when i want to be happy?" i asked. "that isn't fair to say. look at my short dress and my hair in pigtails. there's proof enough of what i'm ready to do to make you happy. i let you be a countess, and you may be a princess if you can _buy_ the title, but no princes on this ranch!" my blood was up, and i determined to fight. "beechy," i exclaimed. "i guess i've a right to do as i like, and i _will_. it's for your good as well as mine, for me to marry a title, and i'm _going_ to. i shall say 'yes' when the prince proposes." "he won't propose," said she, suddenly as cool as if she had been in a refrigerator. "he will, the minute i give him the opportunity, and i shall to-morrow; i don't care what you do." "i bet he won't. i'll bet you a good deal. anything you like, except the long dress i've got in my trunk, and the package of hairpins in my grip." "what makes you think he won't?" i asked, worried by her manner, which was odd. "i know he won't." "you know the prince will never propose to me?" she nodded. i flew at her, and took her by the shoulders, as if she'd been seven instead of--her present age. "you cruel girl!" i exclaimed. "you're going to tell him how old i am, and--and a lot of hateful things." "no, i'm not, and for a good reason. it wouldn't change his mind. so long as your banking account's all right, he wouldn't care if you were methusaleh. i shan't tell him anything about you. i shan't mention your name. but he won't propose." "what _are_ you going to do?" i stammered. "that's my secret." "oh, you have got something in your head?" she nodded again. "and up my sleeve." "you will poison his mind." "no, i won't. i shall only--play dolls." and she went on unfastening my waist. part iv told by maida destrey xvii a chapter of motor mania what becomes of the beautiful army of days marching away from us into the past? the wonderful days, each one differing from all the others: some shining in our memory, in glory of purple and gold, that we saw only as they passed, with the setting of the sun; some smiling back at us, in their pale spring dress of green and rose; some weeping in grey; but all moving at the same pace along the same road? the strange days that have given us everything they had to give, and yet have taken from us little pieces of our souls. where do the days go? there must be some splendid world where, when they have passed down to the end of the long road, they all live together like queens, waited upon by those black slaves, the nights that have followed them like their shadows, holding up their robes. i've had this thought in my mind often since i have been flashing across europe in an automobile, grudging each day that slipped from me and would not stay a moment longer because i loved it. i wish i knew the way to the land where the days that have passed live; for when those that are to come seem cold to me, i would like to go and pay the old ones a visit. how well i would know their faces, and how glad i would be to see them again in their own world! well, perhaps, even though i can never find the way there, i can see the days' portraits painted in rows in the picture gallery of a house i own. it isn't a very big house yet, but at least one new room is being built onto it every year, and lately it has grown faster than ever before, though the architecture has improved. fancy my being a householder! but i am, and so is everybody. we all have the house of our past, of which we alone have a key, and whenever we wish, we can steal softly, secretly in, by dim passages, to enter rooms sealed to the whole world except ourselves. i have been making the picture gallery in mine, since i left america; but the pictures i care for most have been put up since i began motoring. i suppose some very rich natures can be rich without travel, for they are born with caskets already full of jewels; but ordinary folk have empty caskets if they keep them shut up always in one safe, and i begin to see that mine were but poor things. i keep them wide open now, and every day, every hour, a beautiful new pearl or diamond drops in. it seems strange to remember how reluctant i was to come away. i thought there could be nothing more beautiful, more satisfying to eyes and heart, than my home. the white, colonial house set back from the broad hudson river among locust trees and tall, rustling maples; the sloping lawn, with the beds of geranium and verbena; the garden with its dear, old-fashioned flowers--holly-hocks, sweet-williams, bleeding-hearts, grass pinks, and yellow roses; the grey-green hills across the water; that picture stood to me for all that was ideal on earth. and then, the sisters, with their soft ways and soft voices, their white robes and pale blue, floating veils; how their gracious figures blended with and accentuated the peaceful charm of the scene, shut away from the storms of this world throughout their lives! i was partly right, for of its kind there could be nothing more beautiful than that picture, but my mistake was in the narrow-minded wish to let one suffice. i rejoice now in every new one i have hung up, and shall rejoice all the more when i am back again myself--just one of those white figures that flit across the old canvas. yes, i shall be one of those figures, of course. the mother has always told me it was my true vocation; that peace and leisure for reflection and concentration of mind were the greatest earthly blessings a woman could have. ever since, as a very small girl, i longed for the day when i should be allowed to wear one of those pretty, trailing, white cashmere dresses and long, pale blue veils, i have looked forward to joining the sisterhood of good women who alone have ever given me love and the protection of home. nothing has happened to change my intentions, and they are _not_ changed. only, i'm not homesick any more, as i used to be in the feverish paris days, or even on the riviera, when we did very little but rush back and forth between monte carlo and cap martin, with prince dalmar-kalm and his friends. i shall go home and carry out the plans i've had for all these years, but--i shall live--live--live--every single minute till the time comes for my good-bye to the world. i should have liked to stay a month at bellagio (with the wonderful garden of serbelloni to explore from end to end), instead of the two days that we did stop; still, the moment our start was arranged, i was perfectly happy at the thought of being in the car again. there was a discussion as to how we should begin the journey to lecco and desenzano, where we were to sleep one night, for our difficulty lay in the fact that there's but one road on which you can drive away from the wooded, wedge-like promontory which bellagio pushes out into the lake; the steep, narrow road up to civenna and down again to canzo and asso, by which we had come. as our car had done the climb and descent so well, mr. barrymore wanted to do it again, perhaps with a wicked desire to force the prince into accompanying us or seeming timid about the capabilities of his automobile. but when aunt kathryn discovered how easy the alternative was (simply to put the car on a steamer as far as varenna, then running along a good road from there southward to lecco), she said that mr. barrymore's way would be tempting providence, with whose designs, i must say she appears to have an intimate acquaintance. heaven had spared us the first time, she argued, but now if we deliberately flew in its face, it would certainly not be considerate on a second occasion. i was ready so much earlier on the last morning than aunt kathryn or beechy, that i ordered coffee and rolls for myself alone on the terrace; and they had just appeared when mr. barrymore came out. he was going presently to see to the car, so naturally we had breakfast together, with an addition of some exquisite wild strawberries, gleaming like _cabouchon_ rubies under a froth of whipped cream. it was only eight o'clock, when we finished, and he said there would be time for one last stroll through the divinest garden in italy, if i cared for it. of course i did care, so we walked together up the rose-bordered path from the sweet-smelling flower-zone to the pine-belt that culminates in the pirates' castle. while we stood looking down over the three arms of the lake in their glittering blue sleeves, a voice spoke behind us: "ah, miss destrey, i've found you at last. your cousin asked me to look for you and bring you back as soon as possible. you are urgently wanted for something, though what was not confided to me." the prince used to be troublesome when he first attached himself to our party. if ever he happened to meet me in the big hall or the garden of the hotel at cap martin, when neither aunt kathryn nor beechy was with me, he always made some pretext to talk and pay me stupid compliments, though he would flee if my relations came in sight. after the trip began, however, his manner was suddenly different, and he showed no more desire for my society than i for his; therefore i was surprised by an equally sudden change this morning. it was hardly to be defined in words, but it was very noticeable. even his way of looking at me was not the same. at cap martin it used to be rather bold, as if i were the kind of person who ought to be flattered by any attention from a prince dalmar-kalm. later, if he glanced at me at all, it was with an odd expression, as if he wished me to regret something, i really couldn't imagine what. but now there was a sort of reverence in his gaze and manner, as if i were a queen and he were one of my courtiers. as i'm not a queen, and wouldn't care to have him for a courtier if i were, i wasn't pleased when he attempted to keep at my side going down by the narrow path up which mr. barrymore and i had walked together. he didn't precisely thrust mr. barrymore out of the way, but seemed to take it for granted, as it were by right of his rank, that it was for him, not the others to walk beside me. i resented this, for to my mind it is horribly caddish for a person to snub another not his equal in fortune; and as mr. barrymore never pushes himself forward when people behave as if he were their inferior, i determined to show unmistakably which man i valued more. consequently, when the prince persisted in keeping at my shoulder, i turned and talked over it to mr. barrymore following behind. but on the terrace level with the hotel he had to leave us, for the automobile was to be shipped on board a cargo-boat that sailed for varenna some time before ours. "why are you always unkind to me? have i been so unfortunate as to vex you in any way?" asked the prince, when we were alone. "i am neither kind nor unkind," i replied in a practical, dry sort of tone. "i am going in now to see why they want me." "please don't be in such a hurry," said the prince. "perhaps i made miss beechy's message too urgent, for i had seen you with the chauffeur, and i could not bear that you should be alone with him." "it is stupid to speak of mr. barrymore as the chauffeur," i exclaimed in a rage. "and it's not your affair prince, to concern yourself with my actions." with that i darted into the long corridor that opens from the terrace, and left him furiously tugging at his moustache. "did you send the prince to call me in, beechy?" i asked, after i had tapped at her door. "i happened to see the prince and have a little talk with him in the garden a few minutes ago," said she, "and i told him if he saw you he might say we'd be glad if you'd come. mamma's in such a stew finishing her packing, and it would be nice if you'd help shut the dressing-bag." aunt kathryn hadn't been herself, it seemed to me, during our two days at bellagio. this morning she had a headache, and though i'd hoped that she would walk down to the boat with the prince, she decided to take the hotel omnibus, so i was pestered with him once more. beechy and sir ralph were having an argument of some sort (in which i heard that funny nickname "the chauffeulier" occur several times), and as mr. barrymore had gone ahead with the car and our luggage, the prince kept with me all the way through the terraced garden, then down the quaint street of steps past the bright-coloured silk-shops, to the crowded little quay. i should have thought that after my last words he would have avoided me, but apparently he hadn't understood that he was being snubbed. he even put himself out to be nice to the black dog from airole, which is my shadow now, and detests the prince as openly as he secretly detests it. it was scarcely half an hour's sail to varenna, and ten minutes after landing there, we were in the car, bowling smoothly along a charming road close by the side of lecco, the eastern arm of the triple lake of como. for a time we ran opposite the promontory of bellagio, with the white crescent of the villa serbelloni conspicuous on the darkly wooded hillside. near us was an electric railway which burrowed into tunnels, as did our own road now and then, to save itself from extinction in a wall of rock. as we went on, we found the scenery of lecco more wild and rugged than that of como with its many villas, each one of which might have been claude melnotte's. villages were sparsely scattered on the sides of high, sheer mountains which reared their bared shoulders up to a sky of pure ultramarine, but lecco itself was big and not picturesque, taking an air of up-to-date importance from the railway station which connects this magic land with the rest of italy. "i shouldn't care to stop in this town," said beechy, when mr. barrymore slowed down before an imposing glass-fronted hotel with gorgeous ornamentations of iron and a wonderful gateway. "after what we've come from, lecco _does_ look unromantic and prosaic, though i daresay this hotel is nice and will give us a good lunch." "nevertheless it's the _promessi sposi_ country," answered mr. barrymore. "what's that?" asked beechy and aunt kathryn together. but i knew; for in the garret at home there's an old, old copy of "the betrothed," which is manzoni's _i promessi sposi_ in english, and i found and read it when i was a small girl. it was very long, and perhaps i should find it a little dull now though i hope not, for i loved it then, reading in delicious secrecy and stealth, because the sisterhood doesn't allow youthful pupils to batten on love stories, no matter how old-fashioned. i hadn't thought of the book for years; but evidently its story had been lying all this time carefully put away in a parcel, gathering dust on some forgotten shelf in my brain, for down it tumbled at the mention of the name. as mr. barrymore explained to aunt kathryn that this was the country of _i promessi sposi_ because the scenes of manzoni's romance had been laid in the neighbourhood, i could see as plainly as if they lay before my eyes the quaint woodcuts representing the beautiful heroine, lucia, her lover, renzo, and the wicked prince innominato. nevertheless i took some credit to myself for remembering the old book so well, and fancied that there weren't many other travellers nowadays who would have it. but pride usually goes before a fall, as hard-hearted nurses tell vain little girls who have come to grief in their prettiest dresses; and at lunch it appeared that the humblest, most youthful waiter at lecco knew more about the classic romance of the country than i did. indeed, not a character in the book that wasn't well represented in a picture on the wall or a painted post-card, and all seemed at least as real to the people of lecco as any of their modern fellow-citizens. the landlord was so shocked at the idea of our going on without driving a few kilometres to acquate, the village where renzo and lucia had lived, and visiting the wayside shrine where don roderigo accosted lucia, that aunt kathryn was fired with a desire to go, though the prince (who had come the same way we had) would have dissuaded her by saying there was nothing worth seeing. "i believe you don't approve of stories about wicked princes like innominato," said beechy, "and that's why you don't want us to go. you're afraid we'll get suspicious if we know too much about them." after that speech the prince didn't object any more, and even went with us in his car, when we had rounded off our lunch with the robiolo cheese of the country. it was a short drive to lucia's village; we could have walked in less than an hour, but that wouldn't have pleased aunt kathryn. appropriately, we passed a statue of manzoni on the way--a delightful manzoni seated comfortably on a monument (with sculptured medallions from scenes in his books) almost within sight of the road to acquate, and quite within sight of monte resegno, where the castle of wicked innominato still stands. then no sooner had we turned into the narrow road leading up to the little mountain hamlet than our intentions became the property of every passer-by, every peasant, every worker from the wire factories. "_i promessi sposi_," they would say to each other in a matter-of-course way, with an accompanying nod that settled our destination without a loophole of doubt. in acquate itself, a tiny but picturesque old village (draped with wistaria from end to end, as if it were _en fête_), everything was reminiscent and commemorative of the romance that had made its fame. here was via cristoforo; there via renzo; while naturally via lucia led us up to the ancient grey _osteria_ where the virtuous heroine was born and lived. we went in, of course, and sir ralph ordered red wine of the country, to give us an excuse to sit and stare at the coloured lithographs and statuettes of the lovers, and to peep into the really beautiful old kitchen with the ruddy gleams of copper in its dusky shadows, its bright bits of painted china, its pretty window and huge fireplace. on a shelf close by the fire sat a cat, and i attempted to stroke it, for it looked old enough and important enough to have belonged to lucia herself. but i might have known that it would not suffer my caresses, for it's nearly always so with foreign cats and dogs, i find. the lack of confidence in their own attractions which they show is as pathetic as that of a neglected wife; they never seem to think of themselves as pets. aunt kathryn would persist in talking of innominato as "abominato" (which was after all more appropriate), and the generous display of lucia's charms in the pictures caused her basely to doubt that most virtuous maiden's genuine merit. "if the girl hadn't worn such dresses, they wouldn't have painted her in them," she argued. "if she _did_ wear them, she was a minx who got no more than she might have expected, prancing about lonely mountain roads in such shameless things. and i don't want a piece of wood from the shutter of her bedroom to take away with me. i should be mortified to tell any ladies in denver what it was; and what's the good of carting souvenirs of your travels around with you, if you can't tell people about them?" we got back to our lakeside hotel sooner than we had thought, and the landlord prayed us to see one more of lecco's great sights. "it is not as if i asked you to go out of your way to look at some fine old ruin or a beautiful view," he pleaded. "you have seen many such on your journey, and you will see many more; but this thing to which i would send you is unique. there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world; and to go will take you five minutes." this excited aunt kathryn's curiosity, but when she heard that "it" was only a wonderful model of the cathedral at milan, exact in every smallest detail and made by one man, she thought that she would seize the opportunity of lying down while the others went, and be fresh for our start, in an hour's time. the idea of a model in wood of such a masterpiece as the milan cathedral didn't particularly recommend itself to me; but when we had arrived at a curiosity shop, and been ushered into a huge inner room, i suddenly changed my mind, for what i saw there was wonderful--as wonderful in its way as the great cathedral itself. it was the father of the man who showed us the model, and owned the shop, who had made the miniature _duomo_. his name was giacomo mattarelli, and he was an extraordinary genius, worthy of a tomb in the cathedral to the worship of whose beauty he devoted twenty years of his life and sacrificed those which remained. the story of his self-appointed task struck me as being as marvellous as the task's result, which stood there in the dim room, perfect in proportion and delicately wrought as ivory carved by chinese experts. i don't know what the others thought, but the tale as told by the artist's son was for me full of pathos and beautiful sentiment. the man had been a cabinet-maker by trade, but he had money and could gratify his craving for art. the glory of the milan cathedral, seen once, became an obsession for him, and he went again and again. at last the idea grew in his mind to express his homage in a perfect copy of the great church which, as he said, "held his heart." there was no train between milan and lecco in his day (1840), and he used to walk all those miles to make drawings of the cathedral. at first he meant to do the work in iron, but iron was too heavy; then he began casting plates in copper, but they were hollow behind, and he could not get the effect he wanted, so after several wasted months he began again with olive wood. often he would work all night; and no trouble was too much for his inexhaustible patience. each statue, each gargoyle was copied, first in a drawing, then with the carving tools, and no hand but that of the artist ever touched the work. at the end of twenty-two years it was completed; not a detail missing inside or out; and then when all was done the modeller went blind. now his son had lighted up the model for us to see, and i was almost aghast at the thought of the incredible labour it had meant--literally a labour of love, for the artist had given his eyes and his best years to his adoration of the beautiful. and the whole thing seemed the more of a marvel when i remembered how mr. barrymore had called milan cathedral the most highly ornamented building in the world. nowhere else, he said, existed a church so smothered with carving. every point, every niche has its statue. there, in the model, one could find each one. through magnifying glasses the little carved faces (hardly larger, some of them, than a pin's head) looked at one with the same expression as the original, and not a mistake had been made in a fold of drapery. each sculptured capital, each column, each decorative altar of the interior had been carved with loving fidelity. all that, in the vast cathedral had taken centuries and many generations of men to plan and finish, this one infinitely patient man had copied in miniature in twenty-two years. it would have been worth visiting the town to see the model alone, even if we had turned miles out of our path. to go from there to desenzano by way of bergamo and brescia was to go from lake to lake--lecco to garda; and the road was beautiful. castles and ancient monasteries had throned themselves on hills to look down on little villages cringing at their august feet. along the horizon stretched a serrated line of pure white mountains, sharply chiselled in marble, while a thick carpet of wild flowers, blue and gold, had been cut apart to let our road pass through. it was a biscuit-coloured road, smooth as uncut velvet, and fringed on either side with a white spray of heavenly-fragrant acacia, like our locust-trees at home. rustic fences and low hedges defining rich green meadows, were inter-laced with wild roses, pink and white, and plaited with pale gold honeysuckle, a magnet for armies of flitting butterflies. every big farmhouse, every tiny cottage was curtained with wistaria and heavy-headed roses. wagons passed us laden with new-mown hay and crimson sorrel; and we had one odd adventure, which might have been dangerous, but was only poetic. a horse drawing some kind of vehicle, piled high with fragrant clover, took it into his head just as were side by side, that it was his duty to punish his mechanical rival for existing. calculating his distance nicely, he gave a bound, flung the cart against our car, and upset half his load of clover on our heads. what he did afterwards we had no means of knowing, for we were temporarily extinguished. it was the strangest sensation i ever had, being suddenly overwhelmed by a soft, yet heavy wave of something that was like a ton of perfumed feathers. instantly the car stopped, for mr. barrymore, buried as he was, didn't forget to put on the brakes. then i felt that he was excavating me, and almost before i knew what had swallowed me up i was emerging from green and pink billows of clover, laughing, gasping, half-dazed, but wholly delighted. "you're not drowned?" he asked quickly. "no, i can swim," i answered, and set myself promptly to help him and sir ralph rescue beechy and aunt kathryn, which was rather like looking for needles in a haystack. by the time we had all got our breath and wiped the clover out of our eyes, horse and cart had vanished comet-like into the horizon, leaving a green trail behind. we bailed out the car and started gaily on once more, but presently our speed slackened. without a sigh the automobile stopped precisely in the middle of the road, and gently, though firmly, refused to go on again. when mr. barrymore saw that this was more than a passing whim, he called sir ralph to the rescue, beechy and i jumped out, and the car was pushed to one side. then, with all of us standing round, he proceeded to search for the mischief. apparently nothing was wrong. the engine was cool; the pump generously inclined, and fat yellow fireflies flew out of the sparking-plugs when they were tested. then mr. barrymore remembered the cause of the prince's first accident, and looked at the carburetter; but there was not so much as a speck of dust. for a while he continued to poke, and prod, and hammer, sir ralph offering humorous advice, and pretending to be sure that, if his housekeeper félicité were on the spot, the car would start for her in an instant. the mystery only thickened, however, and to make matters worse the prince, who had been proudly spinning on ahead, came tearing back to see what had happened. though he pretended to be sympathetic, he was visibly overjoyed at our misfortune, which turned the tables upon us for once, and his suggestions were enough to wreck the valvular system of a motor-car; not to mention the nervous system of a distracted chauffeur. "perhaps the petrol's dead," said mr. barrymore, paying no heed to the prince's ideas. he opened a new tin and was about to empty its contents into the reservoir, when he uttered an exclamation. "by jove! just look at that, miss destrey!" he said; and i couldn't help feeling flattered that he should appeal to me on a subject i didn't know anything about. he was peering at the small round air-hole leading down to the reservoir, so i peered too, and in spite of my ignorance i saw what he meant. the hole was entirely stopped up with the body of a pinkish-grey caterpillar, and mr. barrymore explained that the poor car had simply stopped because it couldn't breathe. no air had been able to reach the petrol in the reservoir, and therefore no spirit had trickled through to the carburetter. we had been delayed for more than half an hour by a mere worm, which had probably arrived with the clover; but when the automobile could fill her lungs again she started on at a great pace. we passed a wonderful old riverside town, that had one of the most remarkable churches we had seen yet; and by-and-by a fine city, set like a tiara on the forehead of a distant hill, seemed to spring up, peer at us from its eminence, and then dip down out of sight among other hills which made a dark foreground against white mountains. it was bergamo; and not once did we see it again until we were almost in the place, when it deigned to show itself once more--an old, old city on a height, a newer city extended at its feet in a plain. "this town is packed full of interesting things," said mr. barrymore. "i stayed here two days once, at a nice old-fashioned hotel with domed, painted ceilings, marble walls and mahogany mantle-pieces which would have delighted you. and even then i hadn't half time for the two or three really fine churches, and the academy, where there are some bellinis, a palma vecchio, and a lot of splendid old masters. bergamo claims tasso, perhaps you remember, because his father was born here; and harlequin, you know, was supposed to be a bergamese." "oughtn't we to stop and see the pictures?" i asked. "we ought. but one never does stop where one ought to, motoring. besides, you'll see the best work of the same artists at venice and as we want to reach desenzano for dinner we had better push on." we did push on but not far. unless the main road runs straight into a town and out of it again it is often difficult to discover the exit from italian cities like those through which we passed, and mr. barrymore seemed always reluctant to inquire. when i remarked on this once, thinking it simpler to ask a question of some one in the street rather than take a false turn, he answered that automobilists never asked the way; they found it. "i can't explain," he went on, "but i believe other men who drive cars share the same peculiarity with me; i never ask help from a passer-by if i can possibly fish out the way for myself. it isn't rational of course. sometimes i could save a détour if i would stop and ask; but i prefer to plunge on and make a mistake rather than admit that a mere man on legs can teach me anything i don't know. it seems somehow to degrade the automobile." the argument was too subtle for me, not being an automobilist; and on trying to get out of bergamo, mr. barrymore made one of his little détours. the road twisted; and instead of finding the one towards brescia it happened that we went down a broad way which looked like a high road, but happened to be only a _cul de sac_ leading to the railway station. we were annoyed for a minute, but we were to rejoice in the next. seeing his error, mr. barrymore had just turned the car and was circling round, when two men stepped into the middle of the road and held up their hands. they appeared so suddenly that they made me start. they were very tall and very grave, dressed alike, in long black coats buttoned to their chins, black gloves, and high black hats. each carried an oaken staff. "they're mutes," said sir ralph as mr. barrymore put on the brake. "they've come to warn us that there's going to be a funeral, and we must clear out for the procession." the pair looked so sepulchral, i thought he must be right, though i'd never seen any "funeral mutes." but mr. barrymore answered in a low voice, "no, they're policemen. i wonder what's up?" then, aloud, he addressed the melancholy black beanpoles; but to my surprise, instead of using his fluent italian to lubricate the strained situation, he spoke in english. "good day. do you want something with me?" of course they didn't understand. how could they have been expected to? but they did not look astonished. their black coats were too tight round their necks for them to change expression easily. one began to explain his object or intention, with gentle patience, in soft italian--so soft that i could have burst out laughing at the thought of the contrast between him and a new york policeman. now almost my whole knowledge of italian has been gained since aunt kathryn decided to take this trip, for then i immediately bought a phrase-book, a grammar, and "doctor antonio" translated into the native tongue of hero and author, all of which i've diligently studied every evening. mr. barrymore, on the contrary, speaks perfectly. i believe he could even think in italian if he liked; nevertheless _i_ could understand a great deal that the thin giant said, while _he_ apparently was hopelessly puzzled. even without an accompaniment of words, the policeman's pantomime was so expressive, i fancy i should have guessed his meaning. with the grieved dignity of a father taking to task an erring child, he taxed us with having damaged a cart and injured a horse, causing it to run away. he pointed to the distance. with an arching gesture he illustrated a mound of hay (or clover?) rising from the vehicle; with a quick outward thrust of hands and widespread fingers he pictured the alarm and frantic rush of the horse; he showed us the creature running, then falling, then limping as if hurt; he touched his knees to indicate the place of the wound. what could the most elementary intelligence need more to comprehend? certainly it was enough for the crowd collected about us; but it was not enough for mr. barrymore, who is an irishman, and cleverer about everything than any man i ever met. he sat still, with an absolutely vacant though conscientious look on his face, as if he were trying hard to snatch at an idea, but hadn't succeeded. when the policeman finished, mr. barrymore sadly shook his head. "i wonder what you mean?" he murmured mildly in english. the italian retold the story, his companion throwing a word into a pause now and then. both patient men articulated with such careful nicety that the syllables fell from their mouths like clear-cut crystals. but mr. barrymore shook his head again; then, suddenly, with a joyous smile he seized a pocket-book from inside his coat. from this he tore out an important-looking document stamped with a red seal, and pointed from it to a lithographed signature at the foot. "foreign secretary; lansdowne--lord lansdowne," he repeated. "inglese. inglese and italiani sempre amici. yes?" his smile embraced not only the long-suffering policemen but the crowd, who nodded their heads and laughed. having made this effect, mr. barrymore whipped out another impressive paper, which i could see was his _permis de conduire_ from the department of mines in nice. he pointed to the official stamp on this document, and with the childlike pride of one who stammers a few words of a foreign tongue, he exclaimed, "nizza. nizza la bella." with this, he looked the giants so full and kindly in the face, and seemed to be so greatly enjoying himself, that every one laughed again, and two young men cheered, appearing to be rather ashamed of themselves afterwards. then, as if every requirement must at last be satisfied, he made as if to go on. but the conscientious comrades, though evidently faint and discouraged, hadn't yet given up hope or played their last card, despite the yards of english red tape with which those two stamped papers had fed their appetite for officialism. the taller of the pair laid his black glove on our mud-guard, cracked by the flapping tyre days ago, and to be mended (i'd heard mr. barrymore say) at the garage in mestre. with such dramatic gestures as only the latin races command, he attempted to prove that the mud-guard must have been broken in the collision near bergamo, of which his mind was full. at last our chauffeulier comprehended something. he jumped out of the throbbing car, and in his turn went through a pantomime. from a drawer under the seat he produced the rubber skin that had come off our tyre, showed how it fitted on, how it had become detached, and how it had lashed the mud-guard as we moved. everybody, including the policemen, displayed the liveliest interest in this performance. the instant it was over, mr. barrymore took his place again, coiled up the rubber snake, and this time without asking leave, but with a low bow to the representatives of local law, drove the car smartly back into the town. what could the thwarted giants do after such an experience but stand looking after us and make the best of things? "it was our salvation that we'd lost our way and were driving towards bergamo instead of out," said the conqueror triumphantly. "you see, they thought probably they'd got hold of the wrong car, as the accused one had been coming from lecco. what with that impression, and their despair at my idiocy, they were ready to give us the benefit of the doubt and save their faces. otherwise, though we were innocent and the driver of the cart merely 'trying it on,' we might have been hung up here for ten days." "oh, could they have hung us?" gasped aunt kathryn. "what a dreadful thing italian law must be." then we all laughed so much that she was vexed, and when beechy called her a "stupid little mamma," snapped back that anyhow she wasn't stupid enough to forget her italian--if she knew any--just when it was needed. she is too sweet-tempered to be cross for long, however, and the way towards brescia was so charming that she forgot her annoyance. though the surface was not so good as it had been, it was not too bad; and our noble tyres, which had borne so much, seemed to spurn the slight irregularities. with every twenty yards we had a new view, as if the landscape slowly turned, to assume different patterns like the pieces in a kaleidoscope. on our left the mountains appeared to march on with us always, white and majestic, with strange, violet shadows floating mysteriously. set back from the roadside, behind rich meadows rippling with gold and silver grain, were huge farmhouses, with an air of dignity born of self-respect and venerable age. we had pretty garden glimpses, too, and once in a while passed a fine mansion, good enough to call itself a château so long as there were no real ones in the neighbourhood. often chestnut-trees in full glory of white blossom, as if blazing with fairy candles, lined our way for miles. there was snow of hawthorne too--"may," our two men called it--and ranks of little feathery white trees, such as i knew no name for, looking like a procession of brides, or young girls going to their first communion. then, to brighten the white land with colour, there were clumps of lilac, clouds of rose-pink apple blossoms, blue streaks that meant beds of violets, and a yellow fire of iris rising straight and bright as flame along the edges of green, roadside streams. just as we came into a splendid old italian town, thunder began to growl like a lion hiding in the mountains. a few drops of rain splashed on our motor-hoods, and a sudden chill wind gathered up the sweet country scents into one bouquet to fling at us. "here we are at brescia. shall we stop for the storm and have tea?" asked mr. barrymore. aunt kathryn said "yes" at once, for she doesn't like getting wet, and can't bear to have the rain spray on her face, though i love it. so we drove quickly through streets, each one of which made a picture with its old brown palaces, its stone steps with pretty women chatting in groups under red umbrellas, its quaint bridge flung across the river, or its pergola of vines. past a magnificent cathedral we went as the bells rang for vespers, and children, young girls, old black-shawled women, smart soldiers, and gallant-looking, tall officers answered their call. thus we arrived at a quaint hotel, with a garden on the river's edge; and under a thick arbour of chestnut-trees (impervious to floods) we drank coffee and ate heart-shaped cakes, while the thunder played wild music for us on a vast cathedral organ in the sky. "no wonder the soldiers are smart and the officers fine," said the chauffeulier, in answer to a remark of mine which beechy echoed. "brescia deserves them more than most towns of italy, for you know she has always been famous for the military genius and courage of her men, and once she was second only to milan in importance. venice--whose vassal she was--had a right to be proud of her. the history of the great siege, wherein bayard got the wound which he thought would be mortal, is as interesting as a novel. 'the escape of tartaglia' and 'the generosity of bayard' are bits that make you want to shout aloud." "and yet we'll pass on, and see nothing, except those panorama-like glimpses," i sighed. "oh motoring, motoring, and motor maniacs!" "how often one has that half-pleasant, half-regretful feeling about things or people one flashes by on the road," soliloquized sir ralph, pleasantly resigned to the pain of parting. i have it continually, especially about some of the beautiful, dark-eyed girls i see, and leave behind before i've fairly catalogued their features. i say to myself, "lovely flower of beauty, wasted in the dust of the roadside. alas! i leave you for ever. what is to be your fate? will you grow old soon, under your peasant-burdens and cares? how sad it is that i shall never know your history." "it wouldn't be a bit interesting," said beechy. "but i suppose that theory won't comfort you any more than it did maida the other day, when she tried too late to save a fly from dying in some honey, and i consoled her by saying it probably wasn't at all a nice fly, if one had known it." "no, it doesn't console me," sir ralph complained. "still, there's a certain thrill in the thought of bursting like a thunder-bolt into the midst of other people's tragedies, comedies, or romances, just catching a fleeting glimpse of their possibilities and tearing on again. but there are some creatures we meet that i'm glad to lose sight of. not those who glare anarchically, unconsciously betraying their outlook on life; not the poor slow old people who blunder in the way, and stare vacantly up at our fiery chariot--so strange a development of the world for them; not the dogs that yelp, and are furious if we don't realize that they're frightening us. no, but the horrid little jeering boys, who run beside the car at their best speed when we're forging up perpendicular hills on _our_ lowest. these are the creatures i would wipe out of existence with one fierce wish, if i had it in me. to think that they--_they_--should have the power to humiliate us. i don't get back my self-respect till we're on a level, or my _joie de vivre_ until we're shooting downhill, and can hold our own with a forty horse-power motor, to say nothing of a one-horse, italian village boy." "what a revelation of vindictiveness, where one would least expect it!" exclaimed mr. barrymore. "but the rain's over. shall we go on?" and we all agreed eagerly, as we probably should in paradise, if it were a question of motoring. xviii a chapter according to shakspere "another cuneo!" groaned aunt kathryn, at sight of the hotel in the steep little town of desenzano, on lake garda; but later she apologized to the quaint courtyard for her misunderstanding, and was more than tolerant of her vast bedroom draped with yellow satin, and opening on an arboured terrace worthy even of a countess dalmar. for miles our way towards verona next morning was pink and white with chestnut bloom. even the shadows seemed warmly pink under the long unbroken arch of flowering trees. far away, behind the green netting of their branches, we caught blue flashes of lake and mountain peaks of amethyst, while beechy wished for a dozen noses dotted about here and there at convenient intervals on her body, so that she might make the most of the perfumed air. "but you would want them all cut off when you got to the nearest town," remarked aunt kathryn. ever since brescia, the road had been so smooth and well kept that it was as if we had come into a different country; but mr. barrymore said it was because we were now under the jurisdiction of venice--venice, as rich and practical as romantic. and i had to repeat the name over and over in my mind--verona and padua too--to make myself believe that we were actually so near. horses were better trained in this district, and "knew a motor when they saw it." even a drove of sheep (near the wonderful fortress of peschiera with its coiled python of a river) seemed comparatively indifferent as they surged round us in a foaming wave of wool. but then, sheep have no facial expression. all other four-footed things show emotion by a change of countenance, just as human beings do--more, because they don't conceal their feelings--but sheep look as if they wore foolishly smiling masks. even when, as their ranks closed in around the automobile, we broke a chain with a pretty little tinkling noise, and some of the sheep tripped up on it, they did nothing but smile and merely mention "ba-a" in an indifferent, absent-minded way. "if you only _knew_ how much nicer you are with mint sauce!" beechy taunted them, as we swept round a corner and were in the labyrinth of the fortress, which was, our men told us, part of the once famous quadrilateral that made trouble for italy in '48. "there's something pathetic about old, obsolete forts as grand as peschiera," mr. barrymore said to me. "so much thought and money spent, the best military science of the day employed to make a stronghold as feeble against modern arms as a fort of cards. such a fortress seems like an aged warrior, past his fighting days, or an old hunting dog, as keen on the chase as ever, poor fellow, but too old to move from before the fire, where he can only lie and dream of past triumphs." "i was thinking almost exactly the same!" i exclaimed, and i liked mr. barrymore all the better; for it draws you nearer to a person when you find that your thoughts resemble each other in shape and colour. oddly enough, it's often so with mr. barrymore and me; which is the reason it's so agreeable to have the place beside him when he drives. no more than half a dozen miles from peschiera we saw the tower of san martino, raised on the great battlefield of solferino. by this time we had left the lake behind; but we had exchanged the low, amethyst mountains for tall white ones, glorious pinnacles of snow which were the higher austrian alps. everything was impressive on this road to verona, even the farmhouses, of an entirely different character from those of the "yesterday country;" and then, at last, we came in sight of verona herself, lying low within a charmed circle of protecting hills, on which castles and white villas looked down from among cypresses and rose-pink almond trees. i was glad that the gateway by which we entered verona was the finest through which we had passed, for though mr. barrymore called the town "an inn for the great travellers of history," it was more for me. it was the home of romance; for was it not juliet's home and romeo's? that gateway, and the splendid old crenellated bridge of dark red brick (toning deliciously with the clear, beryl-green of the swift-rushing adda) made a noble, preface for the city. and then, each old, old street into which we turned was a new joy. what lessons for modern architects in those time-softened brick façades, with the moulded arches of terra-cotta framing the green open-work of the shutters! i began to feel a sense of exaltation, as if i had listened to an anthem played by a master hand on a cathedral organ. i couldn't have told any one, but i happened to glance at mr. barrymore, and he at me, just as he had driven into the _piazza_ where dante's house looks down over the tombs of the scaligers. then he smiled, and said, "yes, i know. i always feel like that, too, when i come here--but even more in venice." "how _am_ i feeling?" i asked, smiling with him. "oh, a little bit as if your soul had got out of your body and taken a bath in a mountain spring, after you'd been staggering up some of the steep paths of life in the dust and sun. isn't that it?" "yes. thank you," i answered. and we seemed to understand each other so well that i was almost frightened. "i want all these streets for mine," said beechy, in a chattering mood. "oh, and especially the market-place, with that strange old fountain, and the booths under the red umbrellas like scarlet mushrooms. mamma, have you got money enough to buy them for me, and have them packed up in a big box with dried moss, like the toy villages, and expressed to denver?" "speaking of dried moss, all these lovely old churches and palaces and monuments look as if history had covered them with a kind of delicate lichen," i said, more to mr. barrymore than to beechy. "and it enhances their beauty, as the lace of a bride's veil enhances the beauty of her face." "or a nun's veil," cut in beechy. i wonder why she says things like that so often lately? well, perhaps it's best that i should be reminded of my vocation, but it gives me a cold, desolate feeling for a minute, and seems to throw a constraint upon us all. we had made the chauffeulier stop three or four times in every street to look at some beautiful bit; a gate of flexible iron-work that even ruskin must have admired, the doorway of a church, the wonderful windows of a faded palace; but suddenly i felt ready to go to the hotel, where we were to stop for the night, that we might do our sight-seeing slowly. it was a delightful hotel, itself once a palace, and to be there was to be "in the picture," in such a place as verona. the prince had arrived before us, as his motor is retrieving its reputation, and we all lunched together, making plans for the afternoon. as usual, he was _blasé_--so different from mr. barrymore, who has seen the best things in italy as often as prince dalmar-kalm has, yet never tires; indeed, finds something new each time. the prince began by announcing that verona bored him. but one could always go to sleep. "that's what i mean to do," said aunt kathryn, who generally takes her cue from him. "i consider that i've seen verona now, and i shall lie down this afternoon. perhaps later i shall write a few letters in the hall." i was unkind enough to fancy this a hint for the prince, but perhaps i wronged her. and anyway, why should she not give him hints if she likes? he has been very attentive to her, although for the last few days i don't think they have been quite so much in "each others' pockets" (as beechy calls it) as before. a little attention was needed by the automobile, it appeared--such as a tightening up of chains, and a couple of lost grease-cups to replace; therefore mr. barrymore's time would be filled up without any sight-seeing. but sir ralph offered to take beechy and me anywhere we liked to go. i was very glad that the prince said nothing about accompanying us, for somehow i'd been afraid he would. we consulted guide-books until we were bewildered, but in the midst of confusion i held fast to two things. we had seen romeo's house, towering picturesquely behind the scaligers' tombs; but i wanted to see where juliet had lived, and where she had been buried. "the prince says it's all nonsense," exclaimed aunt kathryn. "if there was a slight foundation for the story in a great family scandal here about shakspere's time, anyhow there's none for the houses or the tomb--" beechy stopped her ears. "you're _real mean_," she said, "you and the prince both. it's just as bad as when you thought it your duty to tell me there was no santa claus. but i don't care; there _is_. i shall believe it when i'm _seventeen_; and i believe in the romeo and juliet houses too." but when we were in the street of juliet's house--she and sir ralph and i--beechy pouted. standing with her hands behind her, her long braids of hair dangling half-way down her short skirt as she threw back her head to gaze up, she looked incredibly modern and american. "there were no tourists' agencies in those days," she remarked, regretfully, "so i suppose shakspere _had_ to trust to hearsay, and somebody must have told him a big tarradiddle. i guess juliet was really on a visit to an aunt in the country when she first met romeo, for fancy a girl in her senses yelling down from that balcony up at the top of a tall house to _any_ lover, let alone a secret one? besides, there wouldn't have been enough rope in verona to make the ladder for romeo to climb up." after this speech, i decided that, fond as i really am of her, i could _not_ visit juliet's tomb in beechy's society. i gave no hint of my intentions, but after an exquisite hour (which nobody could spoil) in that most adorable of churches, san zenone, and another in sant' anastasia, i slipped away while beechy and sir ralph were picking out the details of st. peter's life on the panels of a marvellous pilaster. we had had a cab by the hour; and when they should discover my absence, they would take it for granted that i had got tired and gone home. they would then proceed to carry out their programme of sight-seeing very happily without me, for beechy amuses sir ralph immensely, child as she is, and she makes no secret of taking pleasure in his society. she teases him, and he likes it; he draws her out, and her wit brightens in the process. i hurried off when their backs were turned. not far away i found a prowling cab, and told the man to drive me to juliet's tomb. he stared, as if in surprise, for i suppose girls of our class don't go about much alone in italian towns; but he condescended to accept me as a fare. however, to show his disapproval maybe, he rattled me through streets old and beautiful, ugly and modern (why should most modern things be ugly, even in italy?) at a tremendous pace. at last he stopped before a high, blank wall, in a most dismal region, apparently the outskirts of the town. i would hardly believe that he had brought me to the right place, but he reassured me. in the distance another cab was approaching, probably on the same errand. i rang a bell, and a gate was opened by a nice-looking woman, who knew well what i wanted without my telling, and she spoke so clearly that i was able to understand much of what she said. instead of feeling that the romance of visiting juliet's burial-place was destroyed by traversing the great open square of the communal stables, where an annual horse show is held, i was conscious of a strange charm in the unsuitable surroundings. it was like coming upon a beautiful white pearl in a battered old oyster-shell, to pass through this narrow gateway at the far end of a dusty square, and find myself face to face with a glimmering tomb in a quiet cloister. the strong contrast between the sordid exterior and this dainty, hidden interior was nothing less than dramatic. the lights and shadows played softly at hide-and-seek, like dumb children, over the grass, among the pillars of the little cloister, over the tomb itself. i was thankful to be alone, troubled by no fellow-tourists, safe from little beechy's too comical fancies, free to be as sentimental as i liked. and i liked to be very sentimental indeed. i stood by the tomb, feeling almost like a mourner, when a voice made me start. "is it juliet's spirit?" asked prince dalmar-kalm. i would rather it had been any one else. "how odd that you should come here!" i exclaimed, while my face must have shown that the surprise was not too pleasant. "it is not at all odd. you are here," answered the prince. "you said at _déjeuner_ that you were coming, if you had to come alone. _eh bien?_ i saw miss beechy and sir ralph moray driving together, deep in baedeker. my heart told me where you were; and i arrive to find you looking like juliet come to life again. perhaps it is so indeed. perhaps you were juliet in another incarnation. yes, i feel sure you were. and i was romeo." "i'm sure you were not," i replied; but i could not help laughing at his stagey manner, though i was more annoyed than ever now, and annoyed with myself too. "i particularly wished to be alone here, or i wouldn't have slipped away from beechy and sir ralph, so--" "and i particularly wished to be alone here with you, or i wouldn't have followed when you _had_ slipped away from them," he broke in. "oh, miss destrey--my madeleine, you must listen to me. there could be no place in the world more appropriate to the tale of a man's love for a woman than this, where a man and woman died for love of one another." "i thought you called all this 'nonsense'?" i cut him short. "no, prince, neither here nor anywhere must you speak of love to me, for i don't love you, and never could." "i know that you mean to shut yourself away from the world," he interrupted me again. "but you shall not. it would be sacrilege. you--the most beautiful, the most womanly girl in the world--to--" "no more, please!" i cried. "it doesn't matter what my future is to be, for you will not be in it. i--" "i must be in it. i adore you. i can't give you up. haven't you seen from the first how i loved you?" "i _thought_ i saw you liked trying to flirt when no one was looking. that sounds rather horrid, but--it's the truth." "you misjudged me cruelly. have you no human ambition? i could place you among the highest in any land. with me, your beauty should shine as it never could in your own country. is it nothing to you that i can make you a princess?" "less than nothing," i answered, "though perhaps it would be pretty of me to thank you for wanting to make me one. so i do thank you; and i'll thank you still more if you will go now, and leave me to my thoughts." "i cannot go till i have made you understand how i love you, how indispensable you are to me," he persisted. and i grew really angry; for he had no right to persecute me, when i had refused him. "very well, then, _i_ shall go," i said, and would have passed him, but he seized my hand and held it fast. it was this moment that mr. barrymore chose for paying his respects to juliet's tomb; and i blushed as i have never blushed in my life, i think--blushed till the tears smarted in my eyes. i was afraid he would believe that i'd been letting prince dalmar-kalm make love to me. but there was nothing to say, unless i were willing to have a scene, and that would have been hateful. nor was there anything to do except the obvious thing, snatch my hand away; and that might seem to be only because some one had come. but how i should have loved to box the prince's ears! i never dreamed that i had such a temper. i suppose, though, there must be something of the fishwife in every woman--something that comes boiling up to the surface once in a while, and makes _noblesse oblige_ hard to remember. the one relief to my feelings in this situation was given by my queer little new pet--the wisp of a black doggie i've named airole, after the village where he grew. i'd brought him into the cloister in my arms hidden under a cape, because he had conceived a suspicious dislike of the cabman. now he said all the things to the prince that i wanted to say, and more, and would have snapped, if the prince had not retired his hand in time. the process of quieting airole gave me the chance to make up my mind what i should do next. if i went away, i couldn't prevent prince dalmar-kalm from going with me, and mr. barrymore would have a right to imagine that i wished to continue the interrupted scene. if i stayed it was open for him to fancy that i wanted to be with _him_; but between two evils one chooses the less; besides, a nice thing about mr. barrymore is that, notwithstanding his good looks and cleverness, he's not conceited--not conceited enough, i sometimes think, for he lets people misunderstand his position and often seems more amused than angry at a snub. acting on my quick decision, i said, "oh, i'm glad you've come. you know so much about verona. please talk to me of this place--only don't say it isn't authentic, for that would be a jarring note." "i'm afraid i don't care enough whether things are authentic or not," he answered, both of us ignoring the prince. "you know, in my country, legend and history are a good deal mixed, which makes for romance. besides, i'm inclined to believe in stories that have been handed down from generation to generation--told by grandfathers to their grandchildren, and so on through the centuries till they've reached us. when they're investigated by the cold light of reason, at least they can seldom be disproved." i agreed, and the conversation went on, deliberately excluding the prince. each minute i said to myself, "surely he'll go." but he did not. he stayed while mr. barrymore and i discussed the genius of shakspere, chiming in now and then as if nothing had happened, and remaining until we were ready to go. at the cab there was another crisis. i hadn't yet entirely realized the prince's stupendous capacity for what beechy would put into one short, sharp word "cheek." but i fully appreciated it when he calmly manifested his intention of getting into my cab, as if we had come together. something had to be done instantly, or it would be too late. leaning from my seat so that the prince had to wait with his foot on the step, i exclaimed, "oh! mr. barrymore, won't you let me give you a lift? prince dalmar-kalm has his own cab, and i'm alone in this." "thanks very much, i shall be delighted," said the chauffeulier. even the prince's audacity wasn't equal to the situation created by these tactics. he retired, hat in hand, looking so furious that i could hardly help laughing. mr. barrymore got in beside me, and we drove off leaving the prince with nobody but his own cabman to vent his rage on. i rather hoped, for a minute, that mr. barrymore would say something which would give me the chance for a vague word or two of explanation; but he didn't. he simply talked of indifferent things, telling me how the work on the car was finished, and how he had had time after all to wander among his favourite bits of verona. and then, in a flash of understanding, i saw how much more tactful and manly it was in him not to mention the prince. xix a chapter of palaces and princes what a pity clocks don't realize the interesting work they do in the making of history, as they go on ticking out moments which never before have been and never will be again! it would be such a reward for their patience; and i should like my watch to know how often i've thanked it lately for the splendid moments it has given me. some of those i had in verona (no thanks to the prince!) have really helped to develop my soul, and it used to need developing badly, poor dear; i see that now, though i didn't then. i never thought much about the development of souls, except that one must try hard to be good and do one's duty. but now i begin dimly to see many things, as if i caught glimpses of them, far away, and high up on some of the snowy mountain-tops we pass. must one live through several incarnations, i wonder, for true development? are some people great-minded because they have gone through many such phases, and are the wondrous geniuses of the world--such as shakspere--the most developed of all? then the poor commonplace or stupid people, who never have any real thoughts of their own, are they the undeveloped souls who haven't had their chance yet? if they are, how kind those who have gone further ought to be to them, and what generous allowances they ought to make, instead of being impatient, and pleased with themselves because they are cleverer. i think i should like to send whole colonies of those poor "beginners" to italy to live for a while, because it might give them a step up for their next phase. as for myself, i'm going further every day, almost as fast, i hope, as the automobile goes. "she," as the chauffeulier affectionately calls her, went especially fast and well the morning we swept out of verona. there was an entrancing smell of italy in the air. there is no other way to describe it--it is that and nothing else. as long as verona was still within sight, i kept looking back, just as you drink something delicious down to the last drop, when you know there can be no dregs. only to see how the town lay at the foot of the mountains of the north, was to understand its powers of defence, and its importance to the dynasties and princes of the past. with mr. barrymore's help, i could trace one line of fortification after another, from the earliest roman, through charlemagne and the scaligers, down to the modern austrian. no wonder that verona was the first halting-place for the tribes of germans, pouring down from their cold forests in the north to cross the alps and rejoice in the sunshine of italy! for verona's nearness to the north and her striking difference to the north impressed me sharply, as a black line of shadow is cut out by the sun. up a gap in the dark barrier of mountains i gazed where mr. barrymore pointed, towards the great brenner pass, leading straight to innsbruck through tyrol. how close the northern nations lay, yet in the warm italian brightness how far away they seemed. but soon verona disappeared, and we were speeding along a level road with far-off purple peaks upon our left, and away in front some floating blue shapes which it thrilled me to hear were actually the euganean hills. the chauffeulier set them to music by quoting from shelley's "lines written in dejection in the euganean hills"--a sweet old-fashioned title of other days, and words so beautiful that for a moment i was depressed in sympathy--though i couldn't help feeling that _i_ should be happy in the euganean hills. they called across the plain with siren voices, asking me to come and explore their fastnesses of blue and gold, but aunt kathryn couldn't understand why. "they're not half so imposing as lots of mountains we've passed," she said. "and anyway, i think the beauty of mountains is overestimated. what are they to admire so much, anyhow, when you think of it, more than flat places? they are only great lumps at best." "well," replied sir ralph, "if it comes to that, what's the sea but a big wet thing?" "and what are people but a kind of superior ant, and the grandest palaces but big anthills?" beechy chimed in. "i've often thought, supposing there were--well, things, between gods and men, living here somewhere, invisible to us as we are to lots of little creatures, what kind of an idea _would_ they get of us and our ways? they'd be always spying on us, of course, and making scientific observations, as we do on insects. i used to believe in them, and be awfully afraid, when i was younger, because i used to think all the accidents and bad things that happened might be due to their experiments. you see they'd be wondering why we did certain things; why lots of us all run to one place--like venice, or any show city--instead of going to another nest of anthills; or why we all crowded into one anthill (like a church or theatre) at a particular time. so a theatre-fire would be when they'd touched the anthill with one of their cigars, to make the ants run out. or a volcano would have an eruption because they'd poked the mountain with a great pin to see what would happen. or when we're cut or hurt in any way, it's because they've marked us to know one from the other, as we run about. i do hope they're not thinking about _us_ now, or they'll drop something and smash the automobile." "oh, don't, beechy! you make my blood run cold!" cried aunt kathryn. "do let's talk of something else quickly. how gracefully the vines are trained here, draped along those rows of trees in the meadows. it's much prettier than ordinary vineyards. you might imagine fairies playing tag under these arbours." "or fauns chasing nymphs," said sir ralph. "no doubt they did a few years ago and caught them too." "i'm glad they don't now," replied aunt kathryn, "or this would be no fit place for ladies to motor." but i wasn't glad, for the whole country was one wide background for a pre-raphaelite picture, and the mountains to which aunt kathryn had applied so insulting a simile were even grander in size and nobler in shape than before. we had seen many old châteaux (though never a surfeit), but the best of all had been reserved for to-day. far away on our left, as we drove towards padua, it rose above the little town that crawled to the foot of the castle's hill to beg protection; and it was exactly like a city painted by mantegna or carpaccio, mr. barrymore said. up the hill ran the noblest and biggest wall that an old master's imagination could have conceived. many men might walk on it abreast; and at every few yards it bristled with sturdy watch-towers, not ruined, but looking as ready to defy the enemy to-day as they were six hundred years ago. the culmination was the castle itself, so magnificently proportioned, so worthily proud of its place, that it seemed as if the spirit of the middle ages were there embodied, gazing down in haughty resignation upon a new world it did not even wish to understand. the name of the castle was soave; but when i heard that nothing startling enough to please me had happened there, i wouldn't know its history, for my fancy was equal to inventing one more thrilling. there was plentiful sensation, though, in the stories the chauffeulier could tell of napoleon's battles and adventures in this neighbourhood. i listened to them eagerly, especially to that which covered his falling into a marsh while fighting the austrians, and standing there, unable to get out, while the battle of arcole raged around him. we were at the point of the rescue and the victory of the french, when we arrived at another gateway, another octroi, another city, to enter which was like driving straight into an old, old picture. in a long street of palaces, all with an elusive family resemblance to one another, we paused for consultation. this was vicenza, the birthplace and beloved town of palladio; these palaces with fronts crusted with bas relief; these corinthian pillars, these arabesque balconies, these porticoes that might have been stolen from greek temples, all had been designed by palladio the great. and the beautiful buildings seemed to say pensively, like lovely court ladies whose day is past, "we are not what we were. time has changed and broken us, it is true; but even so we are worth seeing." it was that view which our chauffeulier urged, but aunt kathryn was for going on without a stop, until sir ralph said, "it's not patriotic of you to pass by. palladio built your capitol at washington, and all the fine old colonial houses you admire so much in the east." "dear me, did he?" exclaimed aunt kathryn. "why, i never heard of him." "moray doesn't mean his words to be taken undiluted," said mr. barrymore. "if it hadn't been for palladio, there would have been no inigo jones and no christopher wren, therefore if you'd had a capitol at all, it wouldn't be what it is now. and to understand the colonial architecture of america, you have to go back to palladio." "well, here we are at him," sighed aunt kathryn. "but i hope we won't have to get _out_?" mr. barrymore laughed. "the middle ages revisited, _en automobile_! however, i'll do my best as showman in the circumstances." so he drove us into a splendid square, where palladio was at his grandest with characteristic façades, galleries, and stately colonnades. then, slowly, through the street of palaces and out into the open country once more--a rich country of grain-fields (looking always as if an unseen hand softly stroked their silver hair) and of hills swelling into a mountainous horizon. there was a bright little flower-bordered canal too, and i've grown fond of canals since the neighbourhood of milan, finding them as companionable as rivers, if more tame. indeed, they seem like rivers that have gone to live in town, where they've learned to be a bit stilted and mechanical in manner. the farmhouses, standing but a short distance back from the level of the road, were manorial in a queer way; two or three of them, exquisite old things, their great roofed balconies covered with ivy and blossoming creepers. the women we met were pretty, too--so pretty often that, as sir ralph said, it wouldn't have been safe for them to walk out in the feudal ages, as they would promptly have been kidnapped by the nearest seignior. we might have guessed that we were not far out from venice by the gorgeous titian hair of the peasant children playing by the wayside, or a copper coil twisted above a girl's dark eyes. "how long a time shall we spend in padua, countess?" asked the chauffeulier as we came within sight of a gateway, some domes and campanili. "oh, don't let's make up our mind till we get there," replied aunt kathryn comfortably. "but we are there," said he. "in another minute the little men of the _dazio_ will be tapping our bags as a doctor taps his patient's lungs." padua! each time that we actually arrived in one of these wonderful old places, it was an electric shock for me. i had to shake myself, mentally, to make it seem true. but if it was like a dream to enter the place of petruchio's love story, what would it be by-and-by--oh, a very quick-coming by-and-by--to see venice? i hardly dared let my thoughts go on to that moment for fear they should get lost in it, and refuse to come back. sufficient for the day was the padua thereof. not so beautiful as verona, still the learned and dignified old city had a curiously individual charm of its own, which i felt instantly. i loved the painted palaces, especially those where most of the paint had worn off, leaving but a lovely face, or some folds of a velvet robe, or a cardinal's hat to hint its story to the imagination. the old arcaded streets were asleep, and grass sprouted among the cobbles. where they followed the river we had glimpses of gardens and arbours backed with roses, or an almond tree--like a rosy bride leaning on a soldier-lover's neck--peeped at us, side by side with a dark ilex, over a high brick wall. "how long _ought_ we to stay in padua?" aunt kathryn deigned to ask, as if in delayed answer to the chauffeulier's question, when he helped her out of the car at the stella d'oro, where we were to lunch. "a week," said mr. barrymore, his eyes twinkling. her face fell, and he took pity. "if we weren't motor maniacs," he went on. "in that case we would have come here on a solemn pilgrimage to do full justice to the adorable giotto, to the two best churches--not to be surpassed anywhere--and the dozen and one other things worth seeing. but as we are mad we shall be able to 'do' padua, and satisfy our consciences though not our hearts, in three hours. my one consolation in this deplorable course, lies in the thought that it will make it possible to give you your first sight of venice between sunset and moonrise." beechy clapped her hands, and my heart gave a throb. somehow, my eyes happened to meet mr. barrymore's. but i must not get into the habit of letting them do that, when i'm feeling anything deeply. i can't think why it seems so natural to turn to him, as if i'd known him always; but then we have _all_ got to be great friends on this trip, and know each other better than if we'd been meeting in an ordinary way for a year. all except the prince. i leave him out of that statement, as i would leave him out of everything concerning me nearly, if i could. i believe that _none_ of us know him, or what is in his mind. but sometimes there's a look in his eyes if one glances up suddenly, which would almost frighten one, if it were not silly and melodramatic. that is the only way in which he has troubled me since the horrid little incident at juliet's tomb--with these occasional, strange looks; and as he wrote me a note of apology for his bad conduct then, i ought to forgive and forget. the hotel where we lunched was not in a quaint riverside street, but in a square so modern it was hard to realize for the moment that we were in the oldest city of northern italy, dating from before roman days. however, the stella d'oro was old enough to satisfy us, and i should have been delighted with the nice italian dishes mr. barrymore knew so well how to order, if i hadn't been longing to rush off with a bit of bread in my hand, not to waste a paduan moment on so dull a deed as eating. it was only twelve when we arrived, and before one we were out of the huge, cool dining-room, and in the may sunlight again. the prince was with us; had been just ahead of us, or just behind us, all through the journey from verona. but i thought by keeping close to aunt kathryn and beechy there would be no danger that he would trouble me. unfortunately, the pattern of our progress arranged itself a little differently from my plan. all was simple enough in the churches, which we visited first, not to give them time to close up for their afternoon siesta. mr. barrymore was of the party, and we all listened to him--the prince because he must, we others because we wished--while he ransacked his memory for bits of paduan history, legend or romance. he showed us the giottos (which he had done well to call adorable) at the madonna of the arena; he took us to pay our respects to st. anthony of padua (that dear, obliging saint who gives himself so much trouble over the lost property of perfect strangers) in his extraordinary and well-deserved basilica of bubbly domes and lovely cloisters. he guided us to santa giustina, where i would stop at the top of the steps, to pet two glorious old red marble beasts which had crouched there for four centuries. one of them--the redder of the two--had been all that time wrestling with an infinitesimal st. george whom he ought to have polished off in a few hours; while the other--the one with an unspeakable beard under his chin and teeth like the gearing of our automobile--had been engaged for the same period in eating a poor little curly lion. the inside of the church--too strongly recommended by baedeker to commend itself to me--made me feel as if i had eaten a lemon water-ice before dinner, on a freezing cold day; and it was there that the chauffeulier departed to get ready the motor-car. there it was, too, that the pattern disarranged itself. when we had finished looking at a splendid paolo veronese, we hurried out into the prato della valle (which has changed its name to something else not half so pretty, though more patriotic), and sir ralph took beechy away, so that aunt kathryn and i were left to the prince. he hardly talked to her at all, which hurt her feelings so much that she turned suddenly round, and said she must speak to beechy. i could have cried, for the piazza was so beautiful that i wanted some one congenial with me, to whom i could exclaim about it. it was girdled by a belt of clear water, with four stone bridges and a double wall on which stood a goodly company of noble gentlemen. there was the history of padua's greatness perpetuated in marble--charming personages, one and all, if you could believe their statues, and it would have seemed treacherous not to. each stood to be admired or revered in the attitude most expressive of his profession: galileo pointing up, graceful, spiritual, enthusiastic; a famous bishop blessing his flock; some great poet dreaming over a book--his own, perhaps, just finished; and so on, all along the happy circle of writers, priests, scientists, soldiers, artists. i felt as if i wanted to know them--those faithful friends of all who love greatness, resting now in each others' excellent society, their sole reflection those in the watery mirror. but prince dalmar-kalm thought himself of importance even in this king's garden. "did you get my letter?" he asked. "and do you forgive me?" he said. "and will you trust me, and not be unkind, now that i've promised to think of you only as a friend?" he persisted. i didn't see why he should look upon me even as a friend; but a cat may look at a king, if it doesn't fly up and scratch; so why not a prince at an american girl? to save argument and not to be unchristian, i pledged myself to some kind of superficial compact almost before i knew. when it was done, it would have been too complicated to undo again; and so i let it go. xx a chapter in fairyland "nobody can ever quite know venice who goes by rail from padua," said the chauffeulier to me, when we had started in the car. "the sixteen miles of road between the two places is a link in venetian history, and you'll understand what i mean without any explanation as you pass along." this made me post my wits at the windows of my eyes, and tell them not to dare sleep for an instant, lest i should disappoint expectations. but, after all, the meaning i had to understand was not subtle, though it was interesting. the way was practically one long street of time-worn palaces and handsome villas which had once been the summer retreats of the rich venetians; and i guessed it without being told. i guessed, too, that the owners came no more or seldom; that they were not so rich as they had been, or that, because of railways and automobiles, it was easier and more amusing to go further afield. but what i didn't know without telling was that the proprietors had been accustomed, in the good old leisurely days, to step into their gondolas in front of their own palaces in venice and come up the brenta to their summer homes without setting foot to ground. if i hadn't been told, too, that the brenta was a river big in venetian history if not in size, i should have taken it for one of my favourite canals, with its slow traffic of lazy barges, and its hundred canals crossing it with long green arms that stretched north and south to the horizon. but at stra i must have respected it in any case; and it was near stra, also, that we passed the most important palace of any on that strange, flat road. the very garden wall told that here was a house which must have loomed large in historic eyes, and through magnificent gateways we caught flashing glimpses of a noble building in a neglected park. "it belonged to the pisani, a famous family of venice," said the chauffeulier as we sailed by. "but napoleon took it--as he took so many other good things in this part of the world--and gave it to his stepson eugène beauharnais." "i've never thought about napoleon in connection with venice, somehow," i said. "but you will, when your gondola takes you under the huge palace where he lived," he answered. "talking of gondolas, i forgot to tell you what a nice plan the prince has for us," said aunt kathryn, with the air of breaking news. "as soon as i mentioned at what time you had arranged to leave padua, he said he would telegraph to some dear friends of his at venice, the conte and contessa corramini, to send their beautiful gondola to meet us at mestre (wherever that is) so that we needn't go into venice by train across the bridge. isn't that lovely of him?" no one would have answered if it hadn't been for mr. barrymore. he said that it was a very good plan indeed, and would be pleasanter for us than the one he had made, which he'd meant for a surprise. he had telegraphed from padua to the hotel britannia, where we would stay, ordering gondolas to the tram-way station in mestre to save our sneaking into venice by the back-door. now those gondolas would do very well for our luggage, while the party of five made the journey more luxuriously. "party of six, you mean, unless the prince has had an accident," amended beechy. "no; for i shan't be with you. i must drive the car to the garage at mestre, and see that she's all right. moray'll be with you to arrange everything at the britannia, which you'll find one of the nicest places in the world, and i'll come when i can. now, here's the turning for mestre, and you must look for something interesting on the sky-line to the right, before long." i couldn't help being disappointed, because i'd wanted the chauffeulier to be with us when i saw venice first; but i couldn't say that; and i'm afraid he thought, as everybody was silent, that nobody cared. there was nothing to show the turning to mestre, except a small tablet that we might easily have missed; and the road was laughably narrow, running along a causeway with a deep ditch on either hand. aunt kathryn was so afraid that a horse would come round one of the sharp bends walking on its hind legs, that she was miserable, but i trusted mr. barrymore and enjoyed the country--real country now, with no more palaces, villas, or beautiful arcaded farmhouses. the distance was hidden by long, waving grasses, over which the blue line of the corinthian alps seemed to hover like a cloud. there was a pungent smell of salt and of seaweed in the air, that meant the nearness of the lagoon--and venice. then, suddenly, the "something" mr. barrymore had told us to look for, grew out of the horizon--dim and mysterious, yet not to be mistaken; hyacinth-blue streaks that were pinnacles and campanili, bubbles that were domes, floating between the gold of the sunset and the grey-green of the tall grass, for no water was visible yet. "venice!" i whispered; but though beechy and aunt kathryn each cried: "oh, there it is! _i_ saw it first!" they were so absorbed in a discussion as to what the prince's friends ought to be called, and they soon lost interest in the vision. "conte! it's like condy's fluid!" said beechy. "i won't call him 'conte.' i should laugh in his face. if plain count isn't good enough for him, and countess for her, i shall just say 'you'--so there!" soon we saw a great star-shaped fortress as we ran into a town, which was mestre; and at the same time we lost shadow-venice. passing a charming villa set back behind an avenue of cypresses and plane trees that gave an effect of dappling moonlight even in full day, some one in the tall gateway waved his hand. "by jove, it's leo bari, the artist!" exclaimed sir ralph. "i forgot his people lived here. i know him well; he comes to the riviera to paint. do slow down, terry." so "terry" slowed down, and a handsome, slim young man ran up, greeting sir ralph gaily in english. he was introduced to us, and his sister, a lovely italian girl with titian hair, was invited to leave the becoming background of the gateway to make our acquaintance. they were interested in the details of our tour, especially when they heard that, after a week in venice, we were going into dalmatia. "why, i'm going down to ragusa to paint," said he. "i've been before, but this time i take my sister beatrice. she paints too. we go by the austrian lloyd to-morrow. perhaps we see you there?" "have you ever been down as far as cattaro?" asked aunt kathryn, from whose tongue the names of dalmatian towns fall trippingly, since she "acquired" a castle and a title there. "oh, yes, and to montenegro," replied the artist. "and do you remember the houses of the neighbourhood?" went on aunt kathryn. "it is already but two years i was there, so a house would have to be young for me not to remember," replied the young man, unconscious of the funny little twist of his english. "i am thinking of a very old house; slosh--er--the castle of hrvoya. have you seen it?" "ah, that old ruin!" exclaimed the artist. "i seen it, yes. but there is not more much schloss hrvoya to see, only the rock for it to stand." poor aunt kathryn! i was sorry for her. but she bore the blow well, and, after all, it's the title, not the castle for which she cares most--that, and the right to smear everything with crowns. "perhaps i'll ask you to paint hrvoya for me some day," she said. but afterwards, when we had bidden the handsome brother and sister _au revoir_, she remarked that she was afraid mr. bari hadn't an artistic eye. the good-byes said, we swept through the picturesque town to make up for lost time, and presently encountered a little electric tram running seaward on a causeway. we followed over a grass-grown road, and suddenly found venice again, so near that we could actually distinguish one building from another. beyond a broad stretch of water the dream city floated on the sea. "look; i did this for _you_, so that you would go into venice in a way worthy of yourself," the prince murmured in my ear, when the car had stopped, joining his which was waiting. he waved his hand towards a wonderful gondola, with a gesture such as aladdin's genie might have used to indicate the magic palace. the glossy black coat of the swan-like thing brought out the full value of the rich gold ornaments. a long piece of drapery trailed into the water behind, and two gondoliers, like bronze statues dressed in dark blue, crimson, and white, stood up tall and erect against a background of golden sea and sky. they helped us in, hat in hand; and not the chauffeulier's absence nor the prince's presence could spoil for me the experience that followed. sunk deep in springy cushions, i half sat, half lay, while the bronze statues swayed against the gold, softly plying their long oars, and wafting me--_me_--to venice. i felt as if i were moving from the wings of a vast theatre onto the stage to play a heroine's part. evening bells, chanting a paen to the sunset, floated across the wide water faint as spirit-chimes, and they were the _leitmotif_ for my entrance. "what a shame to be in motoring things!" i said to beechy. "women should have special gondola dresses; i see that already--a different one each day. i should like to have a deep crimson gown and a pale green one--lilac too, perhaps, and sunrise-pink, all made picturesquely, not in any stiff modern way." "the costume of your sisterhood would be pretty in a gondola," beechy answered. and again that coldness fell upon me which i always feel at a reminder, intentional or unintentional, of the future. but the chill was gone in a moment--lost in the luminous air, which had a strange brilliancy, as if reflected from a stupendous mirror. i had never seen anything even remotely resembling it before. it was as though we were living inside a great opal, like flies in amber. and it seemed that in a world so wonderful everything one did, or looked, or thought, ought to be wonderful too, lest it should be out of tune with all surrounding beauty. sea and sky were of one colour, except that the sea appeared to be on fire underneath its glassy surface. the violet sky was strewn with blown rose-petals and golden feathers; the tiny waves were of violet ruffled with rose and gold, and spattered with jewelled sparks which might be flashes from a doge's vanished ring. in the distance, sails of big ships were beaten into gold leaf by the sinking sun; and nearer, there were other sails bright as flowers--a sea picture-gallery of madonnas, of arrow-wounded hearts, of martyred saints, or bright-robed earthly ladies. we were rowing straight into the sunset, straight into fairy-land, and i knew it; but--what would happen when the rose-and-golden glory had swallowed us up? the sparkle of the water and air got into my blood, and i felt that it must be sparkling too, like champagne. i was more alive than i had ever been when i was on earth; for of course this was not earth--this venice to which i was going. no other road but this water-road could have consoled me for the thought that there would be no more motoring for a week. and clearly it was a road of which it was necessary for the gondoliers to know every oar-length; for it was defined by stakes, standing up out of the lagoon singly, or gathered into clusters like giant bunches of asparagus. turning my back to the arched railway bridge, which accompanied us too far, i looked only at sky and water, and at venice rising from the sea. the tide was running out, the prince said (among other chatterings, while i wished everybody woven in a magic spell of silence) and the gondola made swift progress, rocking lightly like a shell, over the bright ripples of the lagoon. the nearer we drew to venice the more like a vision of enchantment did the city seem. not a sound came to us, for the music of the bells had died. all was still as in a dream--for in dreams, does one ever hear a sound? i think i never have. and now the gold had faded from the clouds, leaving them pink and violet, transparent as gauze, through which the rising moon sifted silver dust. how could the others talk? i did not understand. aunt kathryn was saying, "if i hire a gondolier, i want to get a singer." as if he were a sewing-machine, or a canary-bird! and beechy was complaining that she felt "very funny;" she believed the motion of the gondola was making her seasick, just as she used to be in her cradle, when she was too young to protest except by a howl. it was a relief to my feelings when we turned out of the wide lagoon into a canal, for then they did at least speak of the scene around them, asking questions about the tall palaces that walled us in; who lived here; who lived there; what was the name or history of that? the odour of seaweed was more pungent, and there was a smell of water mingling with it too; something like fresh cucumbers, and the roots of flowers when they have just been pulled out of the earth. i could not have believed that water could have such clearness and at the same time hold so many colours, as the water in this, my first canal of venice. it was like a greenish mirror, full of lights, and wavering reflected tints from the crumbling palaces whose old bricks, mellow pink, gold, and purple, showed like veins through the skin of peeling stucco. down underneath the shining mirror, one could see the old marble steps, leading up to the shut mystery of water gates. there were shimmering gleams of pearly white and ivory yellow, under beardy trails of moss old as the marble out of which it grew. and over high walls, delicate branches of acacia and tamarisk beckoned us, above low-hung drapery of wistaria, that dropped purple tassels to the lapping water's edge. so we wound through one narrow, palace-walled rio after another, until venice began to seem like a jewelled net, with its carved precious stones intricately strung on threads of silver; and then suddenly, to my surprise, we burst into a great canal. i saw a bridge, which i knew from many pictures must be the rialto, but there was no disappointment, no flatness in the impression of having seen this all before, for not the greatest genius who ever lived could paint venice at her every day best. palace after palace; and by-and-by a church with a front carved in ivory by the growing moonlight, thrown up against a background of rose. "palladio, it must be!" i cried. "yes; it's san georgio maggiore, terry barrymore's favourite church in venice," said sir ralph, who had been almost as silent as i. "and here we are at the hotel britannia." "why, it has a garden!" exclaimed aunt kathryn. "i never thought of a garden in venice." "there are several of the loveliest in italy," replied sir ralph. "but the britannia's the only hotel that has one." "my friend's palazzo has a courtyard garden with a wonderful old marble well-head, and beautiful statues," said the prince. "he and his wife are coming to call on you to-morrow, and you will have the opportunity of thanking them for their gondola. also, they will probably invite you to leave the hotel, and visit them during the rest of your stay, as they are very hospitable." "i'll wager you won't want to leave the britannia, once you are settled there," said sir ralph quickly. "it's the most comfortable hotel in venice, and terry and i have wired for rooms with balconies overlooking the grand canal, and the garden. there isn't a palace going that i would forsake the britannia for." by this time the gondola had slipped between some tall red posts, and brought us to the steps of the hotel. i was glad that they were marble steps and that the house had once been a palace, otherwise i should not have felt i was making the most of venice. if i live to be a hundred (one of the sisters is close on eighty) i shall never forget that first night in the city of the sea. it was good to see mr. barrymore back again for dinner in the big red and gold, brightly frescoed dining-room; and it was he who suggested that we should have coffee in the garden, at a table on a balcony built over the water, and then go out in gondolas. we hired three; and as there are only two absolutely delightful seats in a gondola, i was trembling lest the prince should fall to my unlucky lot, when aunt kathryn called to him, "oh, do sit with me, please. i want to ask about your friends who are coming to see us." so of course he went to her, and sir ralph jumped in with beechy; therefore the chauffeulier was obliged to be nice to me, whether he liked or not. we all kept close together, and soon the three gondolas, following many others, grouped round a lighted music-barge like a pyramid of illuminated fruit floating on the canal. either the voices were sweet, or they had the effect of being sweet in the moonlight on the water; but the airs they sang got strangely tangled with the songs in other barges, so that i longed to unwind one skein of tunes from another, and wasn't sorry to steal away into the silence at last. we were not the only ones who flitted. the black forms of gondolas moved soundlessly hither and thither on the surface of the dark lagoon, their single lights like stars in the blue darkness. far away twinkled the lamps of the lido, where byron and shelley used to ride on the lonely sands. near-by, on the piazzetta where the twin columns towered against the silver sky, white bunches of lights glimmered like magic night-blooming flowers, with bright roots trailing deep down into the river. we talked of the countless great ones of the world who had lived and died in venice, and loved it well; of byron, who slept in marino faliero's dreadful cell before he wrote his tragedy; of browning, whose funeral had passed in solemn state of gondolas down the grand canal; of wagner, who found inspiration in this sea and sky, and died looking upon them from his window in the palazzo vendramin. but through our talk i could hear aunt kathryn in her gondola close by, saying how like the doge's palace was to a big bird-cage she once had; and the prince was continually turning his head to see if we were near, which was disturbing. we had nothing to say that all the world might not have heard, yet instinctively we spoke almost in whispers, the chauffeulier and i, not to miss a gurgle of the water nor the dip of an oar, which in the soft darkness made the light flutter of a bird bathing. i remembered suddenly how sir ralph had said one day, "you'll like terry in venice." i did like terry in venice; and i liked him better than ever at the moment of our return to the hotel, for there began a little adventure of which he became the hero. as i stepped out of the gondola there was a flash and a splash. "oh my gold bag!" i exclaimed. "your present, aunt kathryn. it's in the canal; i shall never see it again." "yes, you will," said mr. barrymore. "i--" "if there was much money in it, you had better have a professional diver come early to-morrow morning from the arsenal," the prince broke in. "i know an amateur diver who will get back the bag to-night--now, within the next half-hour i hope," went on the chauffeulier. "indeed? where do you propose to find him at this time?" asked the prince. "i shall find him inside the hotel, and have him out here, ready for work in ten minutes," said mr. barrymore. "what fun!" exclaimed beechy. "we'll wait here in the moonlight and see him dive. it will be lovely." mr. barrymore was gone before she finished. it was nearly eleven o'clock. the music-barges had gone; the hotel garden was deserted, and scarcely a moving star of light glided over the canal. our three gondolas, drawn up like carriages at the marble steps of the britannia, where the water lapped and gurgled, awaited the great event. the prince pooh-poohed the idea that mr. barrymore could find a diver, or that, if he did, the bag could be retrieved in such an amateurish way. but i had learned that when our chauffeulier said a thing could be done, it _would_ be done, and i confidently expected to see him returning accompanied by some obviously aquatic creature. what i did see however, was a great surprise. something moved in the garden, under the curtain of creepers that draped the nearest overhanging balcony. then a tall, marble statue, "come alive," vaulted over the iron railing and dropped into the lagoon. it didn't seem at all strange that a marble statue should "come alive" in venice; but what did seem odd was that it should exactly resemble mr. barrymore, feature for feature, inch for inch. "hullo, terry, i didn't know you meant to do that!" exclaimed sir ralph. "you _are_ a lightning change artist." for it was the chauffeulier, in a bathing suit which he must have hurriedly borrowed from one of the landlord's tall young sons, and he was swimming by the side of my gondola. "i meant nothing else," laughed the statue in the water, the moon shining into his eyes and on his noble white throat as he swam. "now, miss destrey, show me exactly how you stood when you dropped your bag, and i think i can promise that you shall have it again in a few minutes." "if i'd dreamed of this i wouldn't have let you do it," i said. "why not? i'm awfully happy, and the water feels like warm silk. is this where you dropped it? look out for a little splash, please. i'm going down." with that he disappeared under the canal, and stayed down so long that i began to be frightened. it seemed impossible that any human being could hold his breath for so many minutes; but just as my anxiety reached boiling point, up he came, dripping, laughing, his short hair in wet rings on his forehead, and in his hand, triumphantly held up, the gold bag. "i knew where to grope for it, and i felt it almost the first thing," he said. "please forgive my wet fingers." "why, there's something red on the gold. it's blood!" i stammered, forgetting to thank him. "is there? what a bore! but it's nothing. i grazed the skin of my hands a little, grubbing about among the stones down there, that's all." "it's a great deal," i said. "i can't bear to think you've been hurt for me." "why, i don't even feel it," said the chauffeulier. "it's the bag that suffers. but you can have it washed." yes, i could have it washed. yet, somehow, it would seem almost sacrilegious. i made up my mind without saying a word, that i would not have the bag washed. i would keep it exactly as it was, put sacredly away in some box, in memory of this night. xxi a chapter of strange spells "never since anne boleyn has a woman so lost her head over a man with a title as mamma over prince dalmar-kalm," said beechy, after our week at venice was half spent. and i wished that, in fair exchange, he would lose his over aunt kathryn instead of wasting time on me, and casting his shadow on beautiful days. roses and lilies appeared on my writing-desk; they were from him. specimens of venetian sweets (crystallized fruits stuck on sticks, like fat martyrs) adorned large platters on the table by the window--gifts from the prince. if i admired the little gargoylish sea-horses, or the foolish shell ornaments at the lido, i was sure to find some when i came home. and the man hinted in whispers that the attentions of the comte and contessa were for me. all this was annoying though he put it on the grounds of friendship; and i didn't like the corraminis, although their influence opened doors that would otherwise have been closed. through them we saw the comte de bardi's wonderful japanese collection of the palazzo vendramin, the finest in the world; through them we had glimpses of the treasures in more than one old palace; they gave us a picnic dinner in their lighted gondola, on the lagoon, with many elaborate courses cooked in chafing-dishes, which the gondoliers served. they took us to chioggia on their steam yacht which--it seemed--they must let half the year to afford the use of it the other half. the "county" (as aunt kathryn pronounces him) must have been handsome before his good looks were ravaged by small-pox. as it is, beechy compares his dark face to a "plum cake, from which somebody has picked out all the plums;" and the black eyes, deep set in this scarred mask, gaze out of it with sinister effect. yet his manner is perfect, witty, and gracious. he speaks english fluently, and might be of any age between thirty-five and fifty. as for the contessa, she has the profile of a boadicea (with which i could never feel thoroughly at home if it were mine) and the walk of a bewitched table, so stout she is, and so square. her principal efforts at conversation with me were in praise of prince dalmar-kalm, so i scarcely appreciated them. indeed, the corraminis repelled me, and i was glad to spare all their distinguished society to aunt kathryn. each day in venice (not counting the hours spent with them and the prince) was more wonderful, it seemed, than the day before. first among my pictures was san marco, which i went out to see alone early in the morning, but met mr. barrymore as i inquired my way. i could have wished for that, though i wouldn't have dreamed of asking him to take me. as we went through the narrow streets of charming shops, we played at not thinking of what was to come. then, mr. barrymore said suddenly, "now you may look." so i did look, and there it was, the wonder of wonders, more like a stupendous crown of jewels than a church. like a queen's diadem, it gleamed in the grey-white piazza, under the burning azure dome of the sky. "oh, we've found the key of the rainbow, and come close to it!" i cried. "what a marvel! can human beings really have made it, or did it make itself as gems form in the rocks, and coral under the sea?" "the cornice does look as if it were the spray of the sea, tossing up precious stones from buried treasures beneath the waves," he answered. "but you're right. we've got the key of the rainbow, and we can go in." i walked beside him, awe-struck, as if i were passing under a spell. there could be no other building so beautiful in the world, and it was harder than ever to realize that man had created it. the golden mosaic of the domed roof, arching above the purple-brown of the alabaster walls, was like sunrise boiling over the massed clouds of a dark horizon. light seemed generated by the glitter of that mosaic; and the small white windows of the dome gained such luminous blues and pale gold glints, from sky without and opal gleams within, that they were changed to stars. the pavement was opaline, too, with a thousand elusive tints and jewelled colours, waving like the sea. it was all i could do not to touch mr. barrymore's arm or hand for sympathy. we didn't speak as we passed out. i was almost glad when the spell was broken by the striking of the great, blue clock opposite san marco, and the slow procession of the life-size mechanical figures which only open their secret door on fête days, such as this chanced to be. watching the stiff saints go through their genuflexions put me in a good mood for an introduction to the pigeons, which i longed to have for friends--strange little stately ruffling things, almost as mechanical in their strut as the figures of the clock; so metallic, too, in their lustre, that i could have believed them made of painted iron. some wore short grey eton jackets, with white blouses showing behind; these were the ladies, and their faces were as different as possible from those of their lovers. so were the dainty little coral feet, for alas! the masculine shoes were the pinker and prettier; and the males, even the baby ones, were absurdly like english judges in wigs and gowns. it was charming to watch the developments of pigeon love-stories on that blue-and-gold day, which was my first in the grand piazza of san marco. how the lady would patter away, and pretend she didn't know that a rising young judge had his eye upon her! but she would pause and feign to examine a grain of corn, which i or some one else had thrown, just long enough to give him a chance of preening his feathers before her, spreading out his tail, and generally cataloguing his perfections. she would pretend that this demonstration had no effect upon her heart, that she'd seen a dozen pigeons within an hour handsomer than he; but the instant a rival belle chanced (only it wasn't chance really) to hop that way and offer outrageous inducements to flirtation, she decided that, after all, he was worth having--and, alas! sometimes decided too late. that same afternoon mr. barrymore took me to the little church of san giorgio degli schiavoni to see the exquisite carpaccios, because he was of opinion that aunt kathryn and beechy would prefer to go shopping. yet, after all, who should appear there but beechy and sir ralph! beechy thought the dragon a delightful beast, with a remarkable eye for the picturesque, judging from the way in which he had arranged the remains of his victims; and she was sorry for him, dragged into the market-place, so pitifully shrunken, beaten, and mortified was he. she wanted to live in all the mediæval castles of the picture-backgrounds, and was of opinion that the basilisk's real intentions had been misunderstood by the general public of his day. "i should love to have such a comic, trotty beast to lead about in central park," said she. "why the octopi that the people cook and sell in the streets here now, are ever so much horrider. one might run away from them, if you like. loathsome creatures! i do draw the line at an animal whose face you can't tell from its--er--waist. and only think of _eating_ them! i'd a good deal rather eat a basilisk." beechy was also convinced--before she crossed the bridge of sighs--that many people, especially americans, would pay large sums or even commit crimes, in order to be put in prison at venice. "such a lovely situation," she argued, "and lots of historical associations too." but afterwards, when she had seen where marino faliero lay, and the young foscari, she was inclined to change her mind. "still," she said, "it would be an experience; and if you couldn't afford to stop at a hotel, it might be worth trying, if you didn't have to do anything very bad, and were sure of getting a cell on the canal." neither beechy nor aunt kathryn cared much for the churches or the pictures, so they and sir ralph bargained for venetian point or the lace of burano, or went to the glass makers', or had tea at the lido with the corraminis, while mr. barrymore took me to the frari, the miracoli, and other churches that he loved best, or wandered with me among the glorious company of artists at the accademia, and in the doges' palace. but beechy did join in my admiration and respect (mingled with a kind of wondering pity) for the noble army of marble lions in venice. oh, those poor, splendid lions! how sad they look, how bitter is the expression of their ponderous faces. especially am i haunted by the left-hand lion in the piazza degli lioni, hard by san marco. what can have happened to him, that he should be so despairing? whatever it was, he has never got over it, but has concentrated his whole being in one, eight-century-long howl ever since. he is the most impressive of the tribe; but there are many others, big and little, all gloomy, sitting about in piazzas, or exposed for sale in shops, or squatting on the railings of balconies. when i think of that fair city in the sea, i shall often want to run back and try to comfort some of those lions. beechy was with me in this; and as for aunt kathryn, even the flattering attentions of the corraminis did not please her more than our experience at the antiquaries', which we owed to mr. barrymore. we hadn't been in venice for twenty-four hours before we saw that the chauffeulier knew the place almost as if he had been born there. he was even well up in the queer, soft venetian _patois_, with hardly a consonant left in it, so well up that he announced himself capable of bandying words and measuring swords with the curiosity-shop keepers, if we liked to "collect anything." at first aunt kathryn thought that she wouldn't bother; there would be too much trouble with the custom house at home; but, when beechy happened to say what a rare thing a marble well-head or a garden statue five hundred years old would be considered in denver, she weakened, and fell. the idea popped into beechy's head just as our gondola (it was towards the end of our week in venice) was gliding by a beautiful, shabby old palace in a side canal. a canopy of grape-vines, heavy with hanging clusters of emeralds and here and there an amethyst, shadowed a carved water-gate. under the jade-green water gleamed the yellow marble of the steps, waving with seaweed like mermaids' hair; and in the dim interior behind the open doors there were vague gleams of gilded chairs, pale glints of statuary, and rich streaks of colour made by priests' vestments or old altar hangings. "i don't believe even mrs. potter adriance has got anything like this in her house, though they call it so elegant," remarked beechy. that speech was to aunt kathryn what valerian is to a pussy cat; for mrs. potter adriance (as i've often heard since i made acquaintance with my relations) is the leader of denver society, and is supposed once to have said with a certain emphasis: "_who_ are the kidders?" "perhaps i'll just step in and see what they've got here," said aunt kathryn. "it isn't a cheap place," replied mr. barrymore. "this man knows how to charge. if you want any marbles, he has some fine ones; but for other things i'll take you somewhere else, where i promise you shall be amused and not cheated." "i think our yard at home is big enough for two or three statues; and a marble well-head and a sundial would be lovely," exclaimed aunt kathryn. "we'll look at some," said mr. barrymore, motioning to the gondolier. "but now, unless you're to pay six times what everything's worth, you must put yourselves in my hands. remember, you don't care to glance either at statues, well-heads, or sun-dials." "but that's what we're here for!" cried aunt kathryn. "ah, but the man mustn't guess that for the world! we appear to be searching for--let's say, mirrors; but not finding the kind we want, we _may_ deign to look at a few marbles as we pass. we don't fancy the fellow's stock; still, the things aren't bad; we may decide to save ourselves the trouble of going further. whatever you do, don't mention a price, even in english. appear bored and indifferent, never pleased or anxious. when i ask if you're willing to pay so and so, drawl out 'no' or 'yes' without the slightest change of expression." as we landed on the wet marble steps and passed into the region of gilded gleams and pearly glints, our hearts began to beat with suppressed excitement, as if we were secret plotters, scheming to carry through some nefarious design. immediately on entering, i caught sight of two marble baby lions sitting on their haunches side by side on the floor with ferocious expressions on their little carved faces. "i must have those for myself," i murmured to mr. barrymore in a painfully monotonous voice, as we passed along a narrow aisle between groves of magnificent antique furniture. "they appeal to me. fate means us for each other." but at this moment an agreeable and well-dressed italian was bowing before us. he was the proprietor of the antiques, and he looked more like a philanthropic millionaire than a person with whom we could haggle over prices. without glancing at my lions (i knew they were mine; and wanted them to know it) or aunt kathryn's statues and well-heads, mr. barrymore announced that he would glance about at paintings of old venice. what had signore ripollo of that sort? nothing at present? dear me, what a pity! lacquered japanese temples, then? what, none of those? very disappointing. well, we must be going. hm! not a bad well-head, that one with the procession of the bucentaur in _bas relief_. too obviously repaired; still, if signore ripollo would take three hundred lire for it, the thing might be worth picking up. and that little pair of lions. perhaps the ladies might think them good enough to keep a door open with, if they didn't exceed fifteen lire each. signore ripollo looked shocked, but laughed politely. he knew mr. barrymore, and had greeted him on our entrance as an old acquaintance, though, in his exaggerated italian way, he gave the chauffeulier a title more exalted than beechy had bestowed. "milord will always have his joke; the well-head is two thousand lire; the lions fifty each," i thought i understood him to remark. but not at all. milord was not joking. would the signore sell the things for the price mentioned--yes or no? the philanthropic millionaire showed now that he was hurt. why did not milord ask him to give away the whole contents of his shop? after this the argument began to move at express speed, and i would have lost track of everything had it not been for the gestures, like danger signals, all along the way. mr. barrymore laughed; signore ripollo passed from injured dignity to indignation, then to passion; and there we sat on early renaissance chairs, our outward selves icily regular, splendidly null, our features as hard as those of the stone lions, our bodies in much the same attitudes, on our uncomfortable seats. but inwardly we felt like torturers of the inquisition, and i knew by aunt kathryn's breathing that she could hardly help exclaiming, "oh, _do_ pay the poor man whatever he asks for everything." "will you give five hundred lire for the well-head?" mr. barrymore finally demanded, with a reminder of past warnings in his eye. "yes," answered aunt kathryn languidly, her hands clenched under a lace boa. "and will you give twenty lire each for the lions? they are very good." (this to me, drawlingly.) "ye-es," i returned, without moving a muscle. the offers were submitted to signore ripollo, who received them with princely scorn, as i had felt sure he would, and my heart sank as i saw my lions vanishing in the smoke of his just wrath. "come, we will go; the signore is not reasonable," said mr. barrymore. we all rose obediently, but our anguish was almost past hiding. "i can't and won't live without the lions," i remarked in the tone of one who says it is a fine day. "i will _not_ leave this place without that well-head, the statue of neptune, and the yellow marble sundial," said aunt kathryn in a casual tone which masked a breaking heart. nevertheless, mr. barrymore continued to lead us towards the door. he bowed to signore ripollo; and by this time we were at the steps of the water-gate. the gondoliers were ready. driven to desperation we were about to protest, when the italian, with the air of a falsely accused doge haled to execution, stopped us. "have your way, milord, as you always do," he groaned. "i paid twice more for these beautiful things than you give me, but--so be it. they are yours." true to our instructions we dared not betray our feelings; but when the business had actually been arranged, and our gondola had borne us away from the much-injured antiquary, aunt kathryn broke out at the chauffeulier. "how _could_ you?" she exclaimed. "i never was so sick in my life. that poor man! you've made us rob him. i shall never be able to hold up my head again." "on the contrary, he's delighted," said mr. barrymore jauntily. "if we'd given him what he asked he would have despised us. now we've earned his respect." "well, i never!" gasped aunt kathryn inelegantly, forgetful for the moment that she was a countess. "i suppose i can be happy, then?" "you can, without a qualm," said mr. barrymore. "where's that other place you spoke of?" she inquired, half-ashamed. "there's a--a kind of excitement in this sort of thing, isn't there? i feel as if it might grow on me." "we'll go to beppo's," replied the chauffeulier, laughing. beppo was a very different man from signore ripollo, nor had he a palace with a water-gate to show his wares. we left the gondola, and walked up a dark and narrow rioterrà with coquettish, black-shawled grisettes chatting at glowing fruit-stalls and macaroni shops. there, at a barred iron door, mr. barrymore pulled a rope which rang a jangling bell. after a long interval, a little, bent old man in a shabby coat and patched trousers appeared against a background of mysterious brown shadow. into this shadow we plunged, following him, to be led through a labyrinth of queer passages and up dark stairways to the top of the old, old house. there, in the strangest room i ever saw, we were greeted by a small brown woman, as shabby as her husband, and a supernaturally clever black cat. a grated window set high up and deep in the discoloured wall, allowed a few rays of yellow sunlight to fall revealingly upon a motley collection of antiquities. empire chairs were piled upon louis quinze writing-desks. tables of every known period formed a leaning tower in one corner. rich persian rugs draped huge florentine mirrors; priests' vestments trailed from half-open chests of drawers. brass candlesticks and old venetian glass were huddled away in inlaid cabinets, and half-hidden with old illuminated breviaries and pinned rolls of lace. a kind of madness seized aunt kathryn. she must have thought of mrs. potter adriance, for suddenly she wanted everything she saw, and said so, _sotto voce_, to mr. barrymore. then the bargaining began. and there was nothing dog-like about beppo. he laughed high-keyed, sardonic laughter; he scolded, he quavered, he pleaded, he was finally choked with sobs; while as for his wife, she, poor little wisplike body, early succumbed to whatever is venetian for nervous prostration. surely the chauffeulier could not bear the strain of this agonizing scene? our consciences heavy with brass candlesticks and marquise sofas, we stood looking on, appalled at his callousness. beppo and susanna cried weakly that this would be their ruin, that we were wringing the last drops of blood from their hearts, we cruel rich ones, and in common humanity i would have intervened had the pair not suddenly and unexpectedly wreathed their withered countenances with smiles. "what has happened? are you giving them what they wanted?" i asked breathlessly; for long ago i had lost track of the conversation. "no; i promised them twenty lire over my first offer for that whole lot," said mr. barrymore, indicating a heap of miscellaneous articles reaching half-way to the ceiling, for which, altogether, beppo had demanded two thousand lire, and our offer had been seven hundred. i could have prayed the poor old peoples' forgiveness, but to my astonishment, as we went out they beamed with pleasure and thanked us ardently for our generosity. "is it sarcasm?" i whispered. "no, it's pure delight," said mr. barrymore. "they've done the best day's work of the season, and they don't mind our knowing it--now it's over." "human nature is strange," i reflected. "especially in antiquarians," he replied. but we arrived at the hotel feeling weak, and were thankful for tea. xxii a chapter beyond the motor zone we all felt when we had said good-bye to venice that we had a definite object in view, and there was to be no more pleasant dawdling. it was ho for schloss hrvoya! aunt kathryn had suddenly discovered that she was impatient to see the ancient root from which blossomed her cherished title, and nothing must delay her by the way. i should have wondered at her change of mood, and at the prince's new enthusiasm for the dalmatian trip--which, until our arrival in venice, he'd tried to discourage--but beechy explained frankly as usual. it seemed that count corramini (said by prince dalmar-kalm to possess vast funds of legal knowledge) had intimated that the countess dalmar-kalm was not rightfully a countess until every penny was paid for the estate carrying the title. that same day, without waiting to be asked, she had given the prince a cheque for the remaining half of the money. now if she finds scarce one stone left upon another at schloss hrvoya, she can't cry off her bargain, so it's easy to understand why the prince is no longer anxious. exactly why he should seem so eager to get us to our destination is more of a puzzle; but perhaps, as beechy thinks, it's because he hopes to influence aunt kathryn to rebuild. and certainly he has influenced her in some way, for she could hardly wait to leave venice at the last. we went as we had come, by water, for we wouldn't condescend to the railway; and at the landing-place for mestre our grey automobile stood waiting for us, so well-cared for and polished that it might just have come from the makers, instead of having charged at full tilt "up the airy mountains and down the rushy glens" of half europe. it was goddess-like to be in the car again, yet i regretted venice as i've regretted no other place i ever saw. even when there, it seemed too beautiful to be real, but when we lost sight of its fair towers and domes, in bowling northward along a level road, i grew sadly convinced that venice was a fairy dream. we saw nothing to console us for what we had lost (though the scenery had a soft and melancholy charm) until we came to old fortified treviso, with its park, and the green river dante knew, circling its high walls. at conegliano--where cima lived--we ran into the town between its guardian statues, gave a glance at the splendid old castle which must have given the gentle painter many an inspiration, and then turned eastward. there was a shorter way, but the route-book of the italian touring club which the chauffeulier pinned his faith to in emergencies, showed that the surface of the other road was not so good. udine tried to copy venice in miniature, and i loved it for its ambition; but what interested me the most was to hear from mr. barrymore how, on the spot where its castle stands, attila watched the burning of aquileia. that seemed to take me down to the roots of venetian history; and i could picture the panic-stricken fugitives flying to the lagoons, and beginning to raise the wattled huts which have culminated in the queen city of the sea. from udine we went southward; and at the austrian custom house, across the frontier, we had to unroll yards of red tape before we were allowed to pass. almost at once, when we were over the border, the scenery, the architecture, and even the people's faces, changed; not gradually, but with extraordinary abruptness, or so it seemed to me. just before dark we sailed into a great, busy town, with a surprising number of enormous, absolutely useless-looking buildings. it was trieste, austria's biggest port; and the prince, who had kept near us for the hundred and thirty miles from venice, began to wear an air of pride in his own country. he wanted us to admire the fine streets and shops, and made us notice how everywhere were to be seen greek, russian, polish, french, german, italian, and even english names. "that proves what a great trade we do, and how all the world comes to us," he said. our hotel was close to the quay, and there were a thousand things of interest to watch from the windows when we got up next morning, as there always are in places where the world "goes down to the sea in ships." at breakfast there was a discussion as to our route, which, owing to suggestions and counter-suggestions from the prince, hadn't been decided. the chauffeulier wanted to run through istria and show us capodistria (another copy of venice), rovigno, and pola, which he said had not only a splendid roman amphitheatre, but many other sights worth making a détour for. i was fired by his description, for what i've seen of northern italy has stimulated my love for history and the architecture of the ancients; but prince dalmar-kalm persuaded aunt kathryn that, as the neighbourhood of cattaro is our goal, it would be a waste of time to linger on the threshold of dalmatia. "why, a little while ago you thought it stupid to go into dalmatia at all," said beechy. "you warned us we'd have trouble about petrol, about roads, about hotels, about everything." "i have been talking since with corramini," replied the prince unruffled. "he has motored through the country we are going to, and i see from his accounts, that the journey is more feasible than i had thought, knowing the way as i did, only from a yacht." "funny he should be more familiar with the country than you, as you've got a castle there," beechy soliloquized aloud. "i make no secret that i have never lived at hrvoya," the prince answered. "neither i, nor my father before me. the house where i was born is at abbazzia. that is why i want you to go that way. it is no longer mine; but i should like you to see it, since you cannot at present see schloss kalm, near vienna." "you seem so fond of selling your houses, why don't you offer mamma the one near vienna, if it's the best?" persisted naughty beechy. "i could not sell it if i would," smiled the prince, who for some reason is almost always good-natured now. "and if i offer it to a lady, she must be the princess dalmar-kalm." i felt that a glance was thrown to me with these words, but i looked only at my plate. the conversation ended by the prince getting his way, as he had made aunt kathryn think it _her_ way: and we gave up istria. soon after ten we were _en route_ for abbazzia--close to fiume--slanting along the neck of the istrian peninsula by a smooth and well-made road that showed the austrians were good at highways. it was but thirty miles from sea to sea, and so sweetly did the car run, so little were we troubled by cantankerous creatures of any sort, that we descended from high land and before twelve o'clock ran into as perfect a little watering place as can exist on earth. aunt kathryn was prepared to like abbazzia before she saw it, because it was the scene of prince dalmar-kalm's birth, and also because she'd been told it was the favourite resort of austrian aristocracy. i hadn't listened much, because i had clung to the idea of visiting historic pola; but abbazzia captured me at first glance. everywhere was beauty and peace. the adriatic spread itself pure and clean as a field of spring flowers, and as full of delicate changing colour. away on a remote horizon--remote as all trouble and worry seemed, in this fair spot--hovered islands, opaline and shimmering, like a mirage. nearer rose a stretch of green hills, travelling by the seashore until they fell back for fiume, a white town veiled with a light mist of smoke. but for abbazzia itself, it seemed the most unconventional pleasure place i ever knew. instead of a smart "parade" all along the rocky indentations which jutted into or receded from the sea, ran a winding rustic path, tiny blue waves crinkling on one side; on the other, fragrant groves of laurel, olives, magnolias, and shady chestnut-trees. we walked there, after lunching at quite a grand hotel, which, the prince told aunt kathryn, was full of "crowned heads" in winter and earlier spring. nowhere else have i seen the beauty of sea and shore so exquisitely mingled as on this path overhanging the adriatic, nor have i smelled more heavenly smells, even at bellagio. there was the salt of the sea, the rank flavour of seaweed, mingled with the sharp fragrance of ferns, of young grass, of budding trees, and all sweet, woodsy things. along the whole length of the gay, quaint town, ran the beautiful path, winding often like a twisted ribbon, but never leaving the sea. behind it, above and beyond, was the unspoiled forest only broken enough for the cutting of shaded streets, and the building of charming houses, their fronts half windows and the other half balconies. the dark rocks starred with flowers to the water's edge, looked as if there had been a snow-storm of gulls, while the air was full of their wistful cries, and the singing of merry land birds that tried to cheer them. each house by the sea (the one where prince dalmar-kalm first saw the light, among others) had its own bathing place, and pretty young girls laughed and splashed in the clear water. up above, in the town, were public gardens, many hotels, theatres, and fascinating shops displaying embroideries and jewelry from bosnia, which made me feel the nearness of the east as i hadn't felt it before, even in venice. we could not tear ourselves away in the afternoon, but spent hours in a canopied boat, dined in the hotel garden, and bathed in the creamy sea by late moonlight, the chauffeulier giving me a lesson in swimming. aunt kathryn grudged the time, but we overruled her, and atoned by promising to go on each day after this to the bitter end, whatever that might be. next morning, by way of many hills and much fine scenery we travelled towards a land beyond the motor zone. though the roads were good enough, if steep sometimes, judging by the manners of animals four-legged and two-legged, automobiles were unknown. only children were not surprised at us; but then, children aren't easily surprised by new things, i've noticed. they have had so few experiences to found impressions on, that i suppose they would think a fiery chariot nothing extraordinary, much less a motor-car. the costumes began to change from ordinary european dress to something with a hint of the barbaric in it. here and there we would see a coarse-featured face as dark as that of a mongolian, or would hear a few curious words which the chauffeulier said were slavic. the biting, alkaline names of the small dalmatian towns through which we ran seemed to shrivel our tongues and dry up our systems. there was much thick, white dust, and, to the surprise of the amateurs of the party, we once or twice had "side slip" in it. how we hated the "mended" roads with their beds of stone, though near rivers they were not so bad, as the pebbles instead of being sharp were naturally rounded. but aunt kathryn wouldn't hear a word against the country, which was _her_ country now. once, when the cylinders refused to work, for some reason best known to themselves or the evil spirits that haunt them, we were "hung up" for twenty minutes, and surrounded with strange, dark children from a neighbouring hamlet, aunt kathryn insisted on giving each a coin of some sort, and received grinning acknowledgments with the air of a crowned queen. "i daresay i shall have tenants and retainers like these people," said she, with a wave of her hand. for a part of our journey down the narrow strip of strange coast, we had on one side a range of stony mountains; on the other, only a little way across the sea, lay desolate islands rising in tiers of pink rock out of the milk-white adriatic. but before long we lost the sea and the lonely islands; for at a place named segna our road turned inland and climbed a high mountain--the velebit--at whose feet we had been travelling. as we were trying to make a run of more than a hundred and twenty-five miles--a good deal for a heavily-loaded car of twelve horse-power--the chauffeulier kept the automobile constantly going "for all she was worth." he had planned that we should spend the night at the sea-coast town of zara--that place so inextricably tangled up in venetian history--for there we might find a hotel fit to stop at. about midday we lunched at a mean town called gospic, and vast was the upheaval that our advent caused. as we drove in, looking right and left for the cleanest inn, every able-bodied person under seventy and several considerably over ran to follow, their figures swarming after us as a tail follows a comet. at the door of our chosen lunching-place they surged round the car, pressing against us, and even plucking at our dresses as we pushed through into the house. spray from this human wave tossed into the passage and eating-room in our wake, until the burly innkeeper, his large wife, and two solid handmaidens swept it out by sheer weight. mr. barrymore was afraid to leave the car, lest it should be damaged, so he sat in it, eating bread and cheese with imperturbable good humour, though every mouthful he took was watched down his throat by a hundred eager eyes. the landlord waited upon us himself, and could speak german and italian as well as his own croatian or slavish dialect. we were surprised at the goodness of the luncheon, and sir ralph was surprised at the cheapness of the bill. "it will be different when they've turned this coast into the austrian riviera, as they 're trying to do," he said. when we appeared at the door again, ready to go on, there fell a heavy silence on the chauffeulier's audience. not only had they had the entertainment of watching him feed, but had observed with fearful awe the replenishing of the petrol and water-tanks and examination of the lubricators. now they had the extra pleasure of seeing us put on our motor-masks and take our places. when all was ready mr. barrymore seized the starting handle, and gave it the one vigorous twist which wakes the engine when it is napping. but almost for the first time the motor was refractory. the handle recoiled so violently and unexpectedly that the chauffeulier staggered back and trod on the toes of the fat man of the crowd, while at the same time there burst from the inner being of the car a loud report. at this sign of the motor's power and rebellion against him whom it should have obeyed, the audience uttered cries, scattering right and left, so as to leave a large ring round the automobile which before had not had room to breathe. "misfire, that's all," said mr. barrymore, laughing and showing his nice white teeth in a comforting way he has when anything alarming has happened. next instant the motor was docile as a lamb; the engine began to purr; the chauffeulier jumped to his seat, and, followed by a vast sigh from the crowd, we darted away at thirty miles an hour. the rest of the day was a changing dream of strange impressions, which made aunt kathryn feel as if denver were at least a million miles away. we climbed once more up to the heights of the velebit, seeing from among the dark, giant pines which draped it in mourning, the great forests of croatia, lika, and krabava, with their conical mountains, and far off the chains of bosnia. then, at a bound, we leaped into sight of the adriatic again and sped down innumerable _lacets_ overlooking the beautiful land-locked sea of novigrad, to tumble at last upon the little town of obrovazzo. thence we flew on, over an undulating road, towards dalmatia's capital, zara. just as anachronistic electric lights had shown us the way through curiously italian streets, with beautifully ornamented windows, past a noble corinthian column and out onto a broad space by the sea, without a warning sigh the automobile stopped. "our last drop of petrol!" exclaimed mr. barrymore. "lucky it didn't give out before, as i began to be afraid it might, owing to the hills." "by jove! this doesn't look the sort of town to buy food and drink for motors!" remarked sir ralph ruefully. the chauffeulier laughed. "ours won't starve," said he. "i thought you knew i'd ordered tins of petrol to meet us at every big town, for fear of trouble. it will come down by boat, and i shall find the zara lot waiting for me at the austrian lloyd's storehouse. you'd have remembered that arrangement if your wits hadn't been wool-gathering a bit lately." "i wonder if they have?" soliloquized sir ralph. "well, here we are within three yards of a hotel which, if i've any brains left, is the very one you selected from baedeker." we all got out as if we had stopped on purpose, and the hotel which fate and our chauffeulier had chosen proved very fair, though too modern to be in the picture. if the automobile had flashed us to mars things could hardly have been more unfamiliar to our eyes than when we walked out next morning to find ourselves in the midst of a great fête. flags were everywhere: in arched windows, rich with sculptured stone; flying over the great gates of the city; festooned in the charming little houses with fountain courts surrounded by columns. the peasants of the country round had flocked to town for the holiday. dark, velvet-eyed girls in short dresses of bright-coloured silk heavy with gold embroidery, their hair hidden by white head-dresses flashing with sequins, and tall men in long frock coats of dark crimson or yellow, were exactly like a stage crowd in some wonderful theatre; while handsome austrian officers wearing graceful blue cloaks draped over one shoulder, might have been operatic heroes. there was strange music in the streets, and a religious procession, which we followed for some time on our way to the maraschino factory which mr. barrymore said we must see. of course, some monks had invented the liqueur, as they always do, but perhaps the cherries which grow only among those mountains, and can't be exported, had as much to do with the original success of the liqueur as the existence of the recipe. if aunt kathryn had listened to mr. barrymore and me we would have gone from zara inland to a place called knin, to visit the cataract of krka, described as a combination of niagara and the rhine falls. but she said that the very sound of the names would make a cat want to sneeze, and she was sure she would take her death of cold there. so the proposal fell to the ground, and we kept to the coast route, the shortest way of getting to ragusa and cattaro. when we had climbed out of zara by the old post road, begun by venice and finished by austria, our way lay among the famous cherry-trees which have made zara rich. there were miles of undulating country and fields of wheat, interspersed with vines and almond trees which mingled with the cherries. the pastures where sheep and goats grazed were blue and pink with violets and anemones; here and there was an old watch-tower, put up against the turks; and the rich peasants drove in quaint flat chaises, which looked as if the occupants were sitting in large pancakes. with a motor it was not far to sebenico, which called itself modestly a "little genoa;" and it was so pretty, lying by the sea, with its narrowest streets climbing up a hill to an ancient fortress, that i should have loved to linger, but aunt kathryn was for pushing on; and, of course, it is her trip, so her wishes must be obeyed when they can't be directed into other channels. we stopped only long enough for an omelette, and passed on after a mere glimpse of close-huddled houses (with three heads for every window, staring at the motor) and a cathedral with an exquisite doorway. then we were out of the town, spinning on through the wild, unreal-looking country towards spalato. "what new ground for honeymooners!" exclaimed sir ralph, enchanted with everything, in his half-boyish, half-cynical way. "i shall recommend it in _the riviera sun_ for a wedding trip _en automobile_. shouldn't you like to do it, miss beechy--dawdling, not scorching?" "i think when i get married," beechy replied judicially, "i shan't want to _go_ anywhere. i shall just _stay_ somewhere for a change." "it's early to decide," remarked sir ralph. "i don't know. it's always well to be prepared," said beechy, with the enigmatical look she sometimes puts on, which (in spite of her ankle-short dresses and knee-long tails of hair) makes her appear at least sixteen. beyond sebenico the dalmatian landscape frowned upon us, but we liked its savage mood. the road, winding inland, was walled with mountains which might have struck a chill to the heart of childe roland on his way to find the dark tower. on a rocky shoulder here and there crouched a sinister little hamlet, like a black cat huddling into the neck of a witch. sometimes, among the stony pastures where discouraged goats browsed discontentedly, we would spy a human inhabitant of one of those savage haunts--a shepherd in a costume more strange than picturesque, with a plait of hair almost as long as beechy's, hanging down his back--a sullen, mongolian-faced being, who stared or scowled as we flew by, his ragged dog too startled by the rush of the motor even to bark, frozen into an attitude of angry amazement at his master's feet. one evidence only of modern civilization did we see--the railway from sebenico to spalato, the first we had come near in dalmatia; and we congratulated ourselves that we were travelling by automobile instead. no tunnels to shut out some wonderful view, just as our eyes had focussed on it, no black smoke, no stuffy air, no need to think of time tables! when at last we sighted the adriatic again, a surprise awaited us. the land of desolation lay behind; beyond, a land of beauty and full summer. we ran beside an azure sea, transparent as gauze, fringing a tropical strand; and so came into the little town of trau, which might have been under a spell of sleep since mediæval days. its walls and gates, its ornate houses, its fort and sanmicheli tower, all set like a mosaic of jewels in a ring of myrtles, oleanders, and laurels, delighted our eyes; and the farther we went on the way to spalato, keeping always by the glittering sea, the more beautiful grew the scene. the walls along our road were well-nigh hidden with agaves and rosemary. cacti leered impudently at us; palms and pomegranates made the breeze on our faces whisper of the south and the east. not a place we passed that i would not have loved to spend a month in, studying in the carved stones of churches and ruined castles the history of venetian rule, or the wild romance of turkish raids. spalato we reached at sunset, as the little waves which creamed against the pink rocks were splashed with crimson; and spalato was by far the most imposing place dalmatia had shown us yet. as in italy, the ancient and modern towns held themselves apart from one another, as if there could be no sympathy between the two, though the new houses were pushing and would have encroached now and then if they could. we stayed all night; and by getting up at sunrise beechy and i, with mr. barrymore and sir ralph, had time for a glimpse of diocletian's palace, grand in ruinous desolation. still we went on beside the sea, and from spalato to almissa--sheltered under high rocks at the mouth of a river, was a splendid run leading us by the territory of an ancient peasant republic--poljica; one of those odd little self-governing communities, like san marino, which have flourished through troubled centuries under the very noses of great powers. poljica had had its jeanne d'arc, who performed wondrous feats of valour in wars against the turks, and i bought a charming little statuette of her. at almissa we bade good-bye to the blue water for a while to run by the banks of the cetina, a big and beautiful river; for the range of the biokovo hills had got between us and the sea; but we threaded our way out to it again, after switchbacking up and down an undulating road close to the frontier of herzegovina; and at the end of a wonderful day descended upon a harbour in an almost land-locked basin of water. it was gravosa, the port of ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of land. it was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were unloading their queer cargoes. dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. and the setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in the port. all this we saw in the moment or two that we halted by the quay, before turning up the road to ragusa. it was a mile-long road, and like a pleasure garden all the way, with the whiteness of wild lilies flung like snow drifts against dark cedars, and trails of marvellous roses, strangely tinted with all shades of red and yellow from the palest to the deepest, clambering among the branches of umbrella pines. there were villas, too, with pergolas, and two or three dignified old houses of curious architecture, of which we had a flashing glimpse through doorways in enormous walls. we bounded up the saddle of a hill, then down again, and so came to a charming hotel, white, with green verandahs, set in a park that was half a garden. we were to spend the night and go on next day, after seeing the town; but the chauffeulier said that we should not see it to the same advantage by morning light as in this poetic flush of sunset. so after greeting signore bari and his sister, who were painting in the park, we drove on, through a crowded _place_ where music played, crossed a moat, and were swallowed by the long shadow of the city gate, black with a twisted draping of ancient ivy. a throng of loungers, theatrically picturesque, fell back in astonishment to give us passage, and a moment later we were caught in a double row of fortifications with a sharp and difficult turn through a second gate. it was almost like a trap for a motor-car, but we got out, and sprang at the same instant into the main street of a town that might have been built to please the fancy of some artist-tyrant. "it's a delicious mixture of carcassonne and verona set down by the sea, with something of venice thrown in, isn't it?" said mr. barrymore: and i thought that part of the description fitted, though i had to be told about splendid, fortified carcassonne with its towering walls and bastions, before i fully understood the simile. "yes, a verona and venice certainly," i answered, "with a sunny coast like that of the french riviera, and inhabited by people of the far east." i think one might search the world over in vain to find just such another fascinating street as that broad street of ragusa, with its exquisitely proportioned buildings that gave one a sense of gladness, the extraordinary great fountain, the miniature palace of the doges, the noble churches and the colourful shops brilliant with strange, embroidered costumes exposed for sale, eastern jewelry, and quaint, ferocious-looking weapons. and then, the queer signs over the shops, how they added to the bewildering effect of unreality! many of the letters were more like hooks and eyes, buckles and bent pins, than respectable members of an alphabet, even a foreign one. and the people who sold, and the people who bought, were more wonderful than the shops themselves. there were a few ordinary europeans, though it was past the season now; and plenty of handsome young austrian officers in striking uniforms, pale blue and bright green; but the crowd was an embroidered, sequined, crimson and silver, gold and azure crowd, with here and there a sheepskin coat, the brown habit of a monk, and the black veil of a nun. through half-open doorways we peeped into courtyards where fountains flashed a diamond spray, all pink with sunset, between arcaded columns. we saw the cathedral planted on the site of the chapel where richard coeur de lion worshipped; then, wheeling at the end of the street, we returned as we had come while the rose-pink air was full of chiming church bells and cries of gulls, whose circling wings were stained with sunset colour. altogether this day had been one of the best days of my life. so good a day, that it had made me sad; for i thought as i leaned on the rail of my balcony after dinner, there could not be many days so radiant in my life to come. many thoughts came to me there, in the scented darkness, and they were all tinged with a vague melancholy. there was no moon, but the high dome of the sky was crusted with stars, that flashed like an intricate embroidery of diamonds on velvet. from the garden the scent of lilies came up with the warm breeze, so poignant-sweet that it struck at my heart, and made it beat, beat with a strange tremor in the beating that was like vague apprehension, and a kind of joy as strange and as inexplicable. far away in the _place_ some one was singing a wild, barbaric air, with a wonderful voice that had in its _timbre_ the same quality the lilies had in their fragrance. for some reason that i didn't understand, my whole spirit was in a turmoil, yet nothing had happened. what was the matter? what did it mean? i couldn't tell. but i wanted to be happy. i wanted something from life that it had never given, never would give, perhaps. there was a voice down below in the garden--mr. barrymore talking to sir ralph. i listened for an instant, every nerve tingling as if it were a telegraph wire over which a question had been sent, and an answer was coming. the voice died away. suddenly my eyes were full of tears; and surprised and frightened, i turned quickly to go in through my open window, but something caught my dress and drew me back. "maida!" said another voice, which i knew almost as well as that other i had heard--and lost. prince dalmar-kalm had come out of a window onto a balcony next mine, and leaning over the railing had snatched at a fold of my gown. "let me go, please," i said. "and that name is not for you." "don't say that," he whispered, holding me fast, so that i could not move. "it must be for me. _you_ must be for me. you shall. i can't live without you." his words jarred so upon my mood that i could have struck him. "if you don't let me go, i'll cry out," i said, in a tone as low as his, but quivering with anger. "i would be nothing to you if you were the last man in the world." "very well. i _will_ be the last man in your world. then--we shall see," he answered; and dropped my dress. in another instant, i was in my room and had fastened the shutters. but the words rang in my ears, like a bell that has tolled too loud. xxiii a chapter of kidnapping beechy was ill next morning; nothing serious; but the prince, it seemed, had brought her in the evening a box of some rich turkish confection; and though she doesn't care for the man, she couldn't resist the sweet stuff. so she had eaten, only a little, she said; but the box contradicted her, and the poor child kept her bed. aunt kathryn and i were with her until eleven o'clock. then she was sleepy, and told us to go away. so we went, and took a drive to the pretty harbour of gravosa, with mr. barrymore and sir ralph in the motor, unaccompanied by the prince, whose car was said to be somehow disabled. we expected, if beechy were well, to get on next day; but the chauffeulier was troubled about the road between ragusa and cattaro--and no proper "route-book" existing for that part of the world, unexplored by motors, he could find out surprisingly little from any one. prince dalmar-kalm was as ignorant as others, or appeared to be, although this was his own land; and so it seemed doubtful what would be our next adventure. the spin was a very short one, for the day was hot, and we didn't care to leave beechy long alone. but when we came back she was asleep still; and i was getting rid of my holland motor-coat in my own room when aunt kathryn tapped at the door. "don't take off your things," she said, "but come out again--that's a dear--for a drive to gravosa." "we've just come back from gravosa," i answered, surprised. "yes, but we didn't see the most interesting thing there. you know the yacht standing out at a little distance in the harbour, that i said looked like the corraminis'? well, it _is_ the corraminis'. the prince wants us to drive with him--not on the automobile, for it isn't mended yet, but in a cab, and go on board the yacht for lunch with the county and contessa." "oh, you'd better go without me," i said. aunt kathryn pouted like a child. "i can't," she objected. "the prince _says_ i can't, for it would be misunderstood here if a lady drove out alone with a gentleman. do come." "i suppose i shall have to, then," i answered ungraciously, for i hated going. at the last minute little airole darted after me, and to save the trouble of going back i caught him up in my arms. i was rewarded for the sacrifice i had made by being let alone during the drive. the prince was all devotion to aunt kathryn, and scarcely spoke a word to me. at the harbour there was a little boat sent out from the corraminis' "arethusa" to fetch us, so it was evident that we had been expected and this was not an impromptu idea of the prince's. on board the yacht, which we had visited once or twice in venice, count corramini met us, his scarred face smiling a welcome. "i am more than sorry that my wife is suddenly indisposed," he said, in his careful english. "she is subject to terrible headaches, but she sends messages and begs that countess dalmar will take the head of the table in her absence." we lunched almost at once, and as it was a simple meal, finished soon. coffee was served on deck under the awning, and its shadow was so cool, the air so fresh on the water, and the harbour so lovely that i was growing contented, when suddenly i grew conscious of a throb, throb of the "arethusa's" heart. "why, we're moving!" i exclaimed. "a short excursion the prince and i have arranged for a little surprise," explained count corramini. "we hoped it might amuse you. you do not object, countess?" "i think it will be lovely, this hot afternoon," said aunt kathryn, who was radiant with childish pleasure in the exclusive attentions of the two men. "but poor little beechy!" i protested. "probably she will sleep till late, as she couldn't lunch," said aunt kathryn comfortably. "and if she wakes, the 'other beatrice' as she calls signorina bari, will sit with her. she offered to, you know." i raised no further objection to the plan, as evidently aunt kathryn was enjoying herself. but when we had steamed out of the bay of ombla, far away from ragusa's towering fortifications, and on for more than an hour, i ventured to suggest to count corramini that it was time to turn back. "we shan't get to the hotel till after three, as it is," i said, glancing at my watch. "let us consult the countess," he replied. "here she comes now." aunt kathryn and the prince had left us twenty minutes before, to stroll up and down the deck, and had been leaning over the rail for some time, talking in low voices, but with great earnestness. as the count answered me, they had moved and were coming slowly in our direction, aunt kathryn looking excited, as if the prince had been saying something strange. "don't you think we ought to go back to beechy?" i asked, as she came nearer. she sat down in the deck chair without replying for a moment, and then she said, in an odd, quavering tone, "maida, i've just heard a thing from the prince, that i'll have to talk to you about. county, can i take her into the sallong?" the count jumped up. "it is for dalmar-kalm and me to go, if you wish to speak with mees destrey alone," he exclaimed. and laying his hand on the prince's shoulder, the two men walked away together. my only thought was that prince dalmar-kalm must have told aunt kathryn of my refusal and asked her to "use her influence." but her first words showed me that i was mistaken. "i'm very angry with the prince, but i can't help thinking what he's done is romantic. he and the county have _kidnapped_ us." "what do you mean?" i exclaimed. "oh, you needn't look so horrified. they're only taking us to cattaro by yacht instead of our going by automobile, that's all." "all?" i echoed. "it's the most impudent thing i ever heard of. didn't you tell him that you wouldn't go, that you--" "well, i'd like to know what good my saying _'wouldn't'_ could do? i can't stop the yacht." "it's count corramini's yacht, not the prince's," i said, "and whatever else they may be, they're gentlemen, at least by birth. they can't run off with us like this against our wills." aunt kathryn actually chuckled. "well, they _have_, anyhow," she retorted. "and the prince says, if only we knew what the road to cattaro was like, i'd thank instead of scolding him." "nonsense!" i exclaimed. "we must go back. what's to become of beechy left alone in ragusa ill, with nobody but mr. barrymore and sir ralph to look after her? it's monstrous!" "yes, of course," said aunt kathryn, more meekly. "but signorina bari's there. it isn't so dreadful, maida. beechy isn't _very_ sick. she'll be well to-morrow, and when they find we're gone, which they can't till late this afternoon, they won't waste time motoring down; they'll take a ship which leaves ragusa in the morning for cattaro. the prince says they're sure to. we'll all meet by to-morrow noon, and meanwhile i guess there's nothing for us to do but make the best of the joke they've played on us. anyway, it's an exciting adventure, and you like ad--" "you call it a joke!" i cried. "i call it something very different. let me speak to the prince." i sprang up, forgetting poor airole asleep on my lap, but aunt kathryn scrambled out of her low chair also, and snatched my dress. "no, i'm not going to have you insult him," she exclaimed. "you shan't talk to him without me. he's _my_ friend, not yours, and if i choose to consider this wild trick he's playing more a--a compliment than anything else, why, it won't hurt you. as for beechy, she's _my_ child, not yours." this silenced me for the moment, but only until the men appeared. "are we forgiven?" asked the prince. "maida's very angry, and so am i, of course," replied aunt kathryn, bridling, and showing both dimples. "dear ladies," pleaded the count, "i wouldn't have consented to help this mad friend of mine, if he hadn't assured me that you were too much under the influence of your rather reckless chauffeur, who would probably break your bones and his companion's car, in his obstinate determination to go down to cattaro by motor." "why, lately the prince has been encouraging it!" i interrupted. "ah, you have misunderstood him. a wilful fool must have his way; that was what he thought of your gentleman chauffeur, no doubt. this will give the self-willed young man an excuse to take the boat to cattaro to-morrow. you will have a run on dalmar-kalm's motor (which he has put on board on purpose) this afternoon from cattaro to schloss hrvoya. it will not be serious for miss beechy. you can wire, and get her answer that signorina bari is playing nurse and chaperon very nicely." "you must understand, miss destrey, as i have made the countess understand already," put in prince dalmar-kalm, "that i only chose this course because i knew it would be useless trying to dissuade mr. chauffeur barrymore from attempting the trip by road; but this will effectually stop him." "you are very, very naughty, prince," chattered aunt kathryn; and i was so angry with her for her frivolity and vanity that i should hardly have dared to speak, even if words hadn't failed me. "at least, we have thought of your comfort," said count corramini. "there are two cabins ready for your occupation, with everything you will need for the toilet, so that you can sleep in peace after your trip to hrvoya." "i must protest," i said, just able to control my voice. "i think this an abominable act, not worthy of gentlemen. knowing that one of us feels so strongly, count, won't you order your yacht to turn back to ragusa?" he bowed his head, and shrugged his eyebrows. "if i had not given my word to my friend," he murmured. "for to-day "arethusa" is his." "i believe he's bribed you!" the words sprang from my lips, without my meaning to speak them; but they hit their mark as if i had taken close aim. the scarred features flushed so painfully that they seemed to swell; and with the lightning that darted from under the black thundercloud of his brows, the man was hideous. he bit his lip to keep back an angry answer, and aunt kathryn screamed at me, "maida! i'm _ashamed_ of you. you'd better go to your cabin and not come out till you're in a--a more _ladylike_ frame of mind." i took her at her word and walked sharply away with airole trotting at my heels. there were six cabins on "arethusa", as i knew, because i had been shown them all. i knew also which was count corramini's, which his wife's, which her maid's, and which were reserved for guests. now i walked into one of the spare cabins, of which the door stood open, and whether it was meant for me or for aunt kathryn i wasn't in a mood to care. various toilet things had been ostentatiously laid out, and there was a bunch of roses in a glass, which in my anger i could have tossed out of the window; but i hate people who are cruel to flowers almost as much as those who are cruel to animals, and the poor roses were the only inoffensive things on board. "oh, airole," i said, "she takes it as a _compliment_! well--well--_well_!" my own reflections and the emphasis of airole's tiny tail suddenly brought my anger down from boiling point to a bubbly simmer; and i went on, thrashing the matter out in a conversation with the dog until the funny side of the thing came uppermost. there was a _distinctly_ funny side, seen from several points of view, but i didn't intend to let anybody know that i saw it. i made up my mind to stay in the cabin indefinitely; but it was not necessary to the maintenance of dignity that i should refrain from enjoying as much of the scenery as the porthole framed in a picture. accordingly i knelt on the bed, looking out, too excited to tire of the strained position. we had passed a long tongue of land, beaten upon by white rollers of surf, that seemed as if they strove to overwhelm the old forts set far above their reach. a rocky island too, rising darkly out of a golden sea; and then we entered the mouth of a wonderful bay, like the pictures of norwegian fords. as we steamed on, past a little town protected by a great square-towered, fortified castle, high on a precipitous rock, i guessed by the formation of the bay, which mr. barrymore had shown me on a map, that we were in the famous bocche di cattaro. "yes," i told myself, "that must be castelnuovo. mr. barrymore said the bay was like the lake of lucerne, with its starfish arms. this can't be anything else." the yacht glided under the bows of two huge warships, with officers in white, on awninged decks, and steamed into a long canal-like stretch of water, only to wind out again presently into a second mountain-ringed bay. so we went from one to another, passing several pretty towns, one beautiful one which i took to be perasto, if i remembered the name aright, and two exquisite islands floating like swans on the shining water, illuminated by the afternoon sun. then, at last we were slowing down within close touch of as strange a seaside place as could be in the world. close to the water's edge it crept, but climbed high on the rocks behind the houses of the foreground, with a dark belt of ancient wall circling the lower town and upper town, and finishing at the top with fortifications marvellous enough for a dream. in the near background were green hills; but beyond, towered desolate grey mountains crowned with dazzling snow, and on their rugged faces was scored a tracery of white lines seemingly scratched in the rock. i knew that they must mean the twistings of a road, up and up to the junction of mountain and sky, but the wall of grey rock looked so sheer, so nearly perpendicular, that it was impossible to imagine horses, or even automobiles mounting there. in my interest and wonder as to whether we had arrived at cattaro already i had forgotten my injuries for the moment, until i was reminded of them by aunt kathryn's voice. "it's cattaro," she called through the door. "let me in, please. i've something to say." i slipped back the bolt and she came in hurriedly, as if she were afraid of being kept out after all. "see here, maida," she said, "to save time the prince is having his motor put on shore the minute we get in to the quay, and he'll drive us up to schloss hrvoya this afternoon. it's only four o'clock, and he says, though it's away up in the mountains and we'll be two hours getting there, we shall run down in half the time, so we shall be back soon after seven and can dine on board. it's quite appropriate that i should be with the prince, whose ancestral home it was, when i look on hrvoya first. he's fully persuaded me of that. i think the whole thing's most dramatic, and i do hope you won't spoil it by being disagreeable any longer." "i think you're the--the _unwisest_ woman i ever saw!" i couldn't help exclaiming. "well, i think _you're_ very rude. i do believe you're jealous of me with the prince. that's _his_ idea, anyway, though he'd be vexed if he thought i'd told you, and i wouldn't if you hadn't aggravated me. oh dear, you do make me so nervous and miserable! _will_ you come to schloss hrvoya or will you not?" i thought very quickly for a few seconds before answering. perhaps it would be better to go than to stay on "arethusa" without aunt kathryn, especially as i had now made count corramini my enemy. mr. barrymore and sir ralph and beechy couldn't arrive at cattaro by ship till to-morrow, even if they found out what had become of us, and followed at the earliest opportunity without waiting to hear. no, there was nothing to keep me on the yacht, or in the town of cattaro, and hateful as the whole expedition was, it would be better to cling to aunt kathryn than be anywhere else alone in a strange place, among people whose language i neither spoke nor understood. "yes, i will come," i said. "arethusa" touched the quay as i spoke, and there was a great bustle on deck, no doubt landing the prince's motor, which had stood concealed on the forward deck under an enormous tarpaulin. aunt kathryn, triumphant, hurried off to get ready, and i began slowly to follow her example. xxiv a chapter on putting trust in princes when i had put on my hat and coat, which i'd taken off in the cabin, i went on deck with airole tucked under my arm, expecting to find aunt kathryn, as i had not made haste. she was not there, but on shore close to the quay stood the automobile, which had been put off in a kind of sling; and on the front seat was the familiar, plump figure in its long, light brown coat, and the mushroom-like mask with the talc window. i had not brought my mask, but evidently aunt kathryn must have had hers stuffed into one of the big pockets of her coat, as she often did. the prince stood talking to her, and seeing that all was ready i crossed the gang-plank and walked quickly to the car. aunt kathryn neither spoke to me nor turned her head, which scarcely surprised me, considering the bad terms we were upon, for the first time in all the months of our acquaintance. the prince "hoped that i wouldn't mind sitting in the tonneau," and explained a pile of rugs on the seat opposite mine by saying that it would grow chilly as we ascended into the mountains, and he did not wish his passengers to suffer. "where's joseph?" i asked, addressing him for the first time since taking him to task on deck. "i left him in ragusa," replied the prince. "he will not be needed." with this, the tonneau door was shut, the car started, and we bounded away. a few men and women, in very interesting, eastern costumes, quite different from anything we had seen yet, watched our progress in silence and with imperturbable faces, dark and proud. angry as i still was with prince dalmar-kalm for the trick he had so impudently played upon us, and the part forced upon me for aunt kathryn's sake, i could not be blind to the beauty of this strange world, or suppress all joy in it. cattaro seemed to lie plastered against a tremendous wall of sheer rock rising behind the ringed town and its fortress; and i saw, soon after starting, that we must be bound for the mountain with the silken skein of road, which i had gazed at in wonder from my porthole. we had not long left cattaro, when our way began to mount in long zigzags, doubling back again and again upon itself. presently we could look down upon the town, prone at the foot of its fortified hill on the very edge of the sea, which as we climbed, assumed the shape and colour of a great shimmering blue silk sleeve. mountains towered all around us, mountains in every direction as far as the eye could reach, many crowned by low, green forts, connected with the lower world by the lacings of thread-like roads. still we mounted, the car going well and the prince driving in silence. though the gradient was steep--sometimes so steep as to be terrible for horses--we seemed to travel so fast that it was surprising to find ourselves apparently no nearer the mountain-tops than when we started. though we gazed down so far that all things on the sea level had shrunk into nothingness, and the big warship we had seen in coming was no larger than a beetle, we gazed still farther up to the line where sky and mountain met. and always, there were the grey-white, zigzag lines scored on the face of the sheer rock. i longed for some one to talk with, some one sympathetic to exclaim to; in fact, i wished i were driving up this magnificent, this appalling road, beside the chauffeulier instead of in prince dalmar-kalm's tonneau. i wondered that aunt kathryn--usually so impulsive--could restrain herself here, and expected at any moment to have her turn to me, our differences forgotten. but no, she neither moved nor spoke, and i realized how angry she must be with me, to visit her vexation upon herself, and the prince also. i had thought the col di tenda wonderful, and the way down to bellagio over the mountains still more thrilling; but here, they were dwarfed into utter insignificance. i could have imagined nothing like this feat of engineering, nothing so wild, so majestic as the ever-changing views from these incredible heights. my respect for schloss hrvoya and its environment increased with every ascending mile; but the distance was proving itself so great that i did not see how it would be possible for the prince to keep his promise, and get us back to cattaro before eight. and we had left summer warmth as far behind as the level which it enriched with tropical flowers. the prince suggested to aunt kathryn that she should wrap round her a shawl-like rug, and though i hated to follow his advice or take any favours from him, i decided that it would be foolish to make myself a martyr. so i, too, swaddled myself in woolly folds, and was thankful. now the windings of the bocche di cattaro revealed themselves completely. the bay was no longer a silk sleeve; but a vast star, seemingly cut out of a _lapis lazuli_, was set mosaic-like in the midst of green and blue-grey mountains that soared up from it--up, up, in shapes strange as a goblin's dream. then, the azure star vanished, and rocky heights shut away the view of the distant sea. vegetation grew sparse. at last we had reached the desolate and stony top of the mountain-range which a little while ago had touched the sky. clouds like huge white swans swam in the blue air below us, where we could look down from some sheer precipice. but where was schloss hrvoya? and would aunt kathryn never speak to me? almost as if he read my thoughts, prince dalmar-kalm turned his head, checking the speed of the motor. "don't be discouraged," he said, cheerfully. "we shall be going down now, for a time, instead of up; and shortly we shall be at our journey's end." "but soon it will be twilight," i answered. "do you know, it is after six, and you said we would be back in cattaro before eight. that's impossible now; and i'm afraid that there won't be much daylight for aunt kathryn to have a first look at her castle." "it will be more imposing by twilight," replied the prince; and though my words had been a bid for notice from aunt kathryn, she made no sign of having heard. once more prince dalmar-kalm turned his attention to driving, and, as he had prophesied, we began to plunge down heights almost as tremendous as those we had climbed. the road, though splendidly engineered, was covered with loose, sharp stones; and the surging mountain-tops on every side were like the tossing waves of a desolate sea, turned to stone in some fierce spasm of nature. then, in the midst of this petrified ocean, we flashed through a tiny village, and my hopes of reaching schloss hrvoya before nightfall brightened. from the little group of low, stone buildings, men who must have sprung from a race of giants, rushed out in answer to the voice of our motor. i had never seen such wonderful men, unless, perhaps, mr. barrymore might be like them, if dressed as they were. not one of the splendid band was under six feet in height, and many were much taller. on their handsome, close-cropped heads they wore gold-braided turbans over one ear. their long coats, falling to the knee, were of green, or red, or white, open to show waistcoats crusted with gold embroidery. round their slim waists were wound voluminous sashes stuck full of sheathed knives and huge pistols. some had richly ornamented leather boots reaching half way up their long, straight legs, while others wore white leggings, with knitted stockings pulled up over them. in a moment these gorgeous giants and their mean village were gone for us; but our road took us past persons walking towards the town; men, young and old, tall, beautiful boys, and white-clad women driving sheep, who knitted their husbands' stockings as they walked. here and there in a deep pit among the tumbled grey rocks would be a little vivid green dell, with a fairy ring of cultivated vegetation. this would be guarded, perhaps, by a hut of stone, almost savage in the crudeness of its construction. it was as if the proud people of this remote, mountain world, wishing to owe their all to their own country, nothing to outsiders, had preferred to make their houses with their own hands out of their own rocks, hewing the walls and roofing them with thatch from grass grown in their own pastures. impressed, almost terrified by the loneliness of this desolate land of giants, lit fiercely now by the lurid glow of sunset, i searched the distance for some towering hill crowned by a castle which might be hrvoya. but there were no castles, even ruined castles, in this region of high rocks and lonely huts, and the red horizon was hemmed coldly in by a range of ghostly, snow-clad mountains. "what mountains are those, far away?" i could not resist asking. "they are the mountains of albania," the prince answered. "why, but that sounds as if we were at the end of the world!" i cried, startled. he laughed over his shoulder. "and i am the last man in it! what did i say to you yesterday?" this reminder brought back the anger i was forgetting in my need of human fellowship, and i did not speak again, but hugged little airole the closer, nestled under the warm rug. at the end of a long, straight road that stretched before us i could see a single, pale yellow light suddenly flash up in the twilight like a lonely primrose, and farther on a little knot of other lights blossomed in the dusk. "we shall be there now in a few minutes," i was saying to myself, when suddenly i was startled by a loud report like a pistol-shot. aunt kathryn gave a shriek which was quite hoarse and unlike her natural voice, but i was silent, holding airole trembling and barking under my arm. the car swerved sharply, and my side of the tonneau seemed to settle down. i was sure that an invisible person must have shot at us, and wished sincerely that the prince would drive on instead of slacking pace. but he stopped the engine, exclaiming in an angry voice, "a tyre burst! thousand furies, why couldn't it have waited twenty minutes more?" "is it serious?" i asked; for we had never had this experience before, on any of the rough roads we had travelled. "no," he answered shortly, "not serious, but annoying. we can crawl on for a little way. i was a fool to stop the motor; did it without thinking. now i shall have the trouble of starting again." grumbling thus, he got out; but the motor wouldn't start. the engine was as sullenly silent as aunt kathryn. for ten minutes, perhaps, the prince tried this device and that--no doubt missing joseph; but at last he gave up in despair. "it is no use," he groaned. "i am spending myself for nothing. if you will sit quietly here for a few moments, i will go ahead to that house where the light is, to see if i can get you ladies taken in, and the car hauled into a place where i can work at it." "what language do they speak here?" i asked, a chill of desolation upon me. "slavic," he answered. "but i can talk it a little. i shall get on, and you will see me again almost at once." so saying, he was off, and i was alone with the statue of aunt kathryn. at first i thought that, whatever happened, i wouldn't be the one to begin a conversation, but the silence and deepening darkness were too much for my nerves. "oh, aunt kathryn, don't let's be cross to each other any longer," i pleaded. "i'm tired of it, aren't you? and oh, what wouldn't i give to be back in sweet ragusa with beechy and--and the others!" still not a word. it seemed incredible that she could bear malice so; but there was no cure for it. if she would not be softened by that plea of mine, nothing i could say would melt her. i should have liked to cry, for it was so lonely here, and so dreadful to be estranged from one's only friend. but that would have been too childish, and i took what comfort i could from airole's tiny presence. a quarter of an hour passed, perhaps, and then the prince came back accompanied by a man so huge that the tall austrian seemed a boy beside him. they looked at the car, communicating by gestures, and then the prince said, if we would walk to the house the woman there would receive us, while he and his companion pushed the automobile into a shed which the man had. i made no further attempt to extract a relenting word from aunt kathryn, as we tramped side by side along the road. reaching a two-storied stone box of a house, she dropped behind at the doorway, leaving me to confront a hard-faced woman in a white jacket, with a graceful head-dress half-hiding her black hair. in one hand she had a partly finished stocking with knitting-needles in it; in the other she held a candle in a quaintly made iron candlestick. something she said to us in a strange, but rather soft-sounding language, of which i couldn't understand one syllable; but seeing my hopelessly blank expression she smiled, nodded, and motioned us to cross the threshold. the room was bare, with a floor of pounded earth. there was a wooden table in it, a few shelves, and a long bench; but beyond was a more attractive interior, for in an inner apartment she had lighted a fire of sticks on a rude hearth. i stood aside to let aunt kathryn pass in before me, which she did without a word. we both stood before the fire, holding out gloved hands to the meagre blaze, while little airole ran about, whimpering and examining everything with unconcealed disapproval. i had just time to notice how oddly shabby aunt kathryn's gloves were, and to wonder if she didn't intend to take off the "mushroom" (the talc window of which the firelight transformed into a pane of red glass), when prince dalmar-kalm appeared. without asking permission he walked in, and looking at aunt kathryn, said in french, "you may go, victorine." i stared, as bewildered as if the unfamiliar scene were turning to a dream; but as the cloaked and mushroomed figure reached the door, the spell broke. i took a step after it, exclaiming, "aunt kathryn--kittie!" the door shut almost in my face. "that is not your aunt kathryn," said the prince, in a voice which, though low, vibrated with excitement. "it is one of the contessa corramini's servants, chosen to play this part because her figure is enough like your aunt's to resemble it closely in a motor-coat. all that is of your aunt is that coat, the hat, the mask of silk. you must hear the truth now, for it is time, and know what you have to face." "i don't understand you," i stammered weakly. it was more than ever as if i were in a dream. i actually told myself that i would wake up in bed at the hotel imperial in ragusa. and oh, how i wished that i would wake soon! "i will _make_ you understand," went on the prince. "you know--you've known for many days--how i love you. you have forced me to do this thing, because you were obstinate, and would not give me yourself, though i could not live without you. because i could not, i have done this. it was planned as long ago as venice. i confided all to corramini, though not to his wife, and he promised to help me because he is in money difficulties, and i agreed to do something for him. but if you had been kind last night in ragusa, when i gave you one more chance to repent, you might have been spared this. it was only to happen if all else failed." "still i don't understand," i said slowly. "then your brain is not as quick as usual, my dear one. i hoped miss beechy would be ill to-day, for she was the one i feared. there was a little medicine in that pink, turkish stuff--not to hurt her much, but enough for my purpose. if i could, i would have got rid of the aunt, too; only she was needed as the cat's-paw. you would never have come without her. contessa corramini knows nothing of this, though she has a suspicion that something mysterious goes on. she was not on the 'arethusa.' at this moment she is in venice. victorine was the one woman beside yourself and the aunt on the yacht, and victorine has been well paid for the part she plays. she took the aunt's coat and hat and mask out of the cabin, when the lady was on deck with corramini and me, wrapped in a becoming blue cloak with a hood, left on board by contessa corramini. while the aunt was looking everywhere for her missing things, you joined the masked lady in the car. now, we are farther from schloss hrvoya than from cattaro. you are in montenegro, where i have brought you because the austrian consul is my friend, and he will marry us." "he will not!" i cried, choking and breathless. "he must. it is the only thing for you, now. let me show you the situation, in case you do not yet understand all. your aunt is far away. she will be enraged with you, and believe you to blame for the humiliating trick played on her. never will she forgive you. if there is a scandal, she will do her best to spread it. i know women well. don't you remember, 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?' there will be others, too. victorine will tell a dramatic tale to the contessa corramini, and corramini will gossip at his clubs in venice, rome, florence, paris, where many of your rich compatriots are members. the rights of the story will never quite be known, but it will leak out that you came to montenegro with me alone, and spent many hours. the only safeguard is to make it an elopement, and that safeguard i offer you, with my heart and all that is mine. you must leave this place as the princess dalmar-kalm, or it would be better for your future that you should never leave it. see, i am the last man in your world now, and it is necessary that you take me." "i didn't know," i answered in the dream, "that men like you existed out of novels or stage plays. that is why i failed to understand at first. i was giving you the benefit of the doubt. but i understand now. let me go--" he laughed. "no! and if i did, what good would it do you? it is night; you are many miles from anywhere, in the wildest mountains of europe. you do not speak one word of the language, or any one in this land a word of yours. practically, you are alone in the world with me. even your wretched little dog is not here to snarl. his curiosity took him outside, and he cannot get back through the keyhole of the door, small as he is. presently the consul will be at this house. i had meant to go to his had it not been for the accident, but i will send for him. he is my very good friend. he will do what i ask." "but if i do not consent?" i flung at him. "you will have to consent," he said; "and soon you will see that for yourself." part v told by terence barrymore xxv a chapter of chasing i wondered why the ladies didn't come to lunch, for the last thing they had said when we brought them back in the motor was, "we shall see you again at half-past twelve." ralph and bari and his sister and i, waited for a quarter of an hour; then we sat down, for the signorina thought they might have changed their minds and be lunching with the little invalid. but at half-past one, while we were still at the table, a message came from miss beechy. she had waked up from her nap, "sent her compliments," and would be glad to know when her mamma and cousin would return to her. that took the signorina flying to the bedroom, and there was an interval of some suspense for ralph and me; for the absence of the ladies, with this new light thrown upon it, began to appear a little strange. the italian girl was away for an age, it seemed, and we knew the instant we saw her, that she was not the bearer of reassuring news. her pretty face looked worried and excited. "the countess and miss destrey have not been up-stairs," she announced in her native tongue. "the little bicé has been awake for an hour, wondering why they never came. will you make inquiries of the landlord?" i lost not a moment in obeying this request; and even before i got my answer, i seemed to know that dalmar-kalm would be mixed up in the affair. the ladies had driven away with his highness in a hired cab not many minutes after we had brought them to the hotel door with the motor. on the face of it, it looked ridiculous to fear mischief, yet i was uneasy. if i had not worshipped her so much--but then, there had ceased to be any "if" in it long ago. i had very little hope that she could ever be got to care, even if i could reconcile it with common decency to ask a girl to think of a stony-broke beggar like me. but in some moods i was mad to try my luck, when i reflected on what she had before her if i--or some other brute of a man--didn't snatch her from it. but whether or no she were ever to be more to me than a goddess, the bare thought of trouble or harm coming to her was enough to drive me out of my wits. while i was smoking two cigarettes a minute on the verandah, and asking myself whether i should be paddy the fool to track her down, with her aunt and the prince, signorina bari (who had run up to beechy with the latest developments) came out to us. "sir ralph," said she, "little miss kidder says she must see you, in a great hurry. she has something important to tell, that she can't tell to any one else; so she has got up, and is on the sofa in a dressing-gown, in the countess's private sitting-room." ralph looked surprised, but not displeased, and was away twenty minutes. "miss beechy wants us to find out where dalmar-kalm has taken her mother and miss destrey," said he, when he returned from the interview. the order was welcome. nothing was known at the hotel concerning the destination of the prince and his companions in the cab, so i hurried to get the car, and ralph and i drove off together, meaning to make inquiries in the town. "did miss beechy's mysterious communication have anything to do with her cousin?" i couldn't resist asking ralph, who sat beside me, in that blessed seat sacred so long to the one woman. "yes, it had," he replied discreetly. "and with dalmar-kalm?" "distinctly with dalmar-kalm." that sent some blood up behind my eyes, and i saw ragusa red, instead of pink. "by jove, you've got to tell me what she did say, now!" i exclaimed. "can't, my dear chap. it's a promise--after a confidence. but i don't mind letting out this much. it seems miss beechy has been playing dolls with us, as she calls it, on this trip, without any of us suspecting it--or at least seeing the game in its full extent. owing to her manipulation of her puppets, there's the dickens to pay, and she thinks she has reason to know that dalmar-kalm had better not be allowed to take a long excursion with miss destrey, even chaperoned by our dear, wise countess." "good heavens!" i jerked out. "what do you mean?" "i don't exactly know myself. things mayn't be as serious as the little girl thinks in her present remorseful mood, no doubt intensified by her late illness. 'when the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,' you know--and the rest of it. still, we're safe in finding out where the party has gone and taking steps accordingly." "there's joseph, mooning about with his hands in his pockets, like a lost soul," i exclaimed. "_have_ lost souls pockets?" "shut up. i'm going to catechize him. he rather likes me, and has several times relieved his mind on the subject of his master, by spitting venom to his brother chauffeur until i refused to listen." with this i stopped the car in front of the gaudy shop which had attracted the dismal little joseph. "is your car mended already?" i asked him in french. "it was not broken, monsieur." "really. i understood the prince to say it was." "i know not what he said. is there anything that his highness would not say, if it pleased him? but so far from the car being injured, i was kept up most of the night by his command, putting it in the best order, looking to every nut, seeing that the grease-cups were filled, and everything as fine as though to try for first prize in a show. this morning did i get a moment's sleep? on the contrary, i must drive the automobile at eight o'clock, before any one was up, down to the harbour, and with much trouble put it on the yacht of the conte corramini, which had come into this port, the saints alone know why." "i should say the saints had little to do with the affair," remarked ralph, but i cut him short. "what then?" i asked. "then it must be covered up, his highness said, in case of rain--though the sky was as dry as my throat--till you could not tell the automobile from a haystack, on the forward deck where it had been placed." "and after that?" "after that i know nothing, except that his highness condescended to remark that he would go away for a trip to-day, and i was to wait for him until i heard further. that will be soon, for when it comes to real work on the car it breaks his heart. he can drive, but apart from that he knows no more of the automobile than does the little black dog adopted by the beautiful mademoiselle." "i suppose you'll get a wire to-morrow at latest," said i. "well, _au revoir_. we're turning here." "going to the harbour?" ralph asked, dryly, and i nodded. i am afraid that we did the mile to gravosa in a good deal less than the legal limit, but luckily no one was the worse for it, and there were no policemen about. at gravosa we found some men on the quay who could talk italian, and in five minutes i knew for certain what i had suspected. a white yacht answering the description i gave of "arethusa," had sent a boat before noon to meet a cab bringing to the port two ladies and a gentleman. the signore were in long brownish coats and close hats. one was stout, with much colour; the other, a young girl, transcendently beautiful. "that impudent fellow has whisked them off to cattaro, to see his beastly ancestral ruin," suggested ralph. "that's what he's done. he's probably chuckling now with savage glee to think that willy-nilly countess kidder-dalmar can't get out of her bargain." "i don't believe they would willingly have left the little girl lying there ill, to say nothing of leaving us in the lurch without a word," said i. "ralph, there's something pretty devilish under this, or i'll eat my hat." "well, i should expect to see you devouring it, if--i hadn't heard beechy's confess--if she hadn't told me some things," ralph amended his sentence. "i'm hanged if i won't give chase!" i exclaimed. "how can you? you were saying at lunch that so far as you'd been able to fog it out, there wasn't more than the ghost of a road after castelnuovo on to cattaro; and it's to cattaro one must go for the ancestral ruin." "if there's a ghost of a road, it will do for me and this motor," i said. "what does it matter if we're both smashed, if only we get there first?" "men and motors don't get far when they're smashed. you'll have to wait till to-morrow morning, when we can all go flying down by the austrian lloyd, if the truants don't turn up in the meantime." "wait till to-morrow morning? my name isn't terence barrymore if i do that, or if i wait one minute longer than it will take me to go back where i came, and load up with petrol enough to see me through this job for good or evil." "you'll start off at once, without finding out any more--and road or no road?" "there's no more to find out this side of cattaro, unless i'm far out of my reckoning; and if there's no road after castelnuovo, i'll--i'll get through somehow, never fear." "i don't fear much, when you set your jaw that way, my son. i suppose you'll just give me time to make my will, and--er--say good-bye to miss beechy?" "you're not going, ralph. i must travel light, for speed; i don't want an unnecessary ounce of weight on board that car to-day, for she's got to show her paces as she never did before. you must stop behind, and instead of saying good-bye, try to cheer miss beechy." "well, needs must, when _somebody_ drives," mumbled ralph. but he did not look very dismal. i made no preparations, save to fill up with petrol and put all the spare _bidons_ sent by the austrian lloyd in the tonneau. i was in flannels, as the day was not to be a motoring day, and i wouldn't have delayed even long enough to fetch my big coat, if i hadn't suddenly thought that i might be glad of it for her. ralph saw me off, making me promise to wire from cattaro--if i ever got there!--as soon as there was news for beechy of her mother and cousin. once out on the open road i gave the old car her head, and she bounded along like an india rubber ball, curtseying to undulations, spinning round curves along the sea coast, and past quaint old towns which i thought of only as obstacles. often when you wish your car to show what she can do, she puts on the air of a spoiled child and shames you. but to-day it was as if the motor knew what i wanted, and was straining every nerve to help me get it. in a time that was short even to my impatience, she and i did the thirty-odd miles to castelnuovo. a few questions there as to the feasibility of trying to reach cattaro by road, brought no information definite enough to make the experiment worth the risk of failure. at best there would be many rough miles to cover, in rounding the numerous arms of that great starfish, the bocche di cattaro, and no boat of the austrian lloyd or hungarian croatian lines was available to-day, even if shipping the motor in that way wouldn't have involved endless red tape, delay and bother. nevertheless, with a simmering inspiration in my mind, i steered the car down a narrow road that led to the harbour, a crowd pattering after me which, no doubt, was very picturesque if i had been in the mood to observe it. but my eyes were open for one thing only, and at the port under the high walls of the fortresses that leap to the sky, i knew that i had found it. a good-sized fishing boat with a painted sail aflap against the mast, lay alongside the quay. beside it stood gossiping two fine sailor-men, heroically tall, with features cut in bronze. at the thrum of the motor and clatter of the crowd they turned to stare, and i drove straight at them, but in order not to give them a fright stopped short a good five yards away. the proud men of these parts are not easily scared, and all that these two did was to take their black pipes out of their mouths. not a word of slavic have i to bless myself with, but i tumbled out italian sentences, and they understood, as i was pretty sure they would. what i asked was, would they take me and my motor in their boat, immediately, on the instant, to cattaro? one grinned; the other shook his head; but he hadn't wagged it from left to right before i pulled a handful of austrian gold and silver out of my pockets, which were luckily well-filled with the hard-earned money of my chauffeurhood. the man who had grinned, grinned wider; the man who had shaken his head did not shake it again. i bargained just enough to please them with the notion that they were plucking me; and five minutes later we three were hauling a few planks scattered on the quay, to form a gangway to the boat. as for the fascinated crowd, not a man jack of them but was at my service, after the display of coin which no bright eye had missed. in no time we had our gangway laid on to the gunwale, and a couple of sloping planks to roll the motor on board. the next thing was for me to jump into the car and begin to drive gently ahead, directing the sailors with nods and becks to steady her by grasping the spokes of her wheels. thus we got her into the boat, none the worse for the ordeal; then, picking up a rope, i was about to make her fast when professional spirit woke in my two hosts, and taking the rope from me they lashed the car as none but seamen can. while one stalwart fellow poled the boat off from the quay, his mate hoisted the yard that carried the triangular sail. a following wind, which had been detestable on the dusty road, gave us good speed on our errand; the broad-bowed old boat made creaking progress, a shower of silver foam hissing from her cutwater. my furious energy had been contagious, and perhaps, seeing my desire for haste, the fishers hoped to earn something further from the madman's gratitude. all they could do to urge their craft they did. in other circumstances--say with her by my side--i should have been filled with enthusiasm for the bocche di cattaro and its scenery, for never had i seen anything quite like it; but now i grudged each screen of rock that stopped the breeze, each winding of the water. from the narrow opening where the adriatic rushes into cattaro at the hidden end of the great sheet of lakes, can't be more than fifteen miles as the crow flies; but so does the course twist that it is much longer for mere wingless things, going by water. how i wished for a motor-boat! but we did not do badly in the big fishing smack. i feared at last that in the straits the wind might die, but instead it blew as through a funnel. we were swept finely up the narrow channel, and so into the last lake with cattaro and its high fort at the end of it; and my heart gave a bound as i saw "arethusa" lying anchored at the quay. we had more trouble in landing the motor than in getting her aboard, but the thing was done at last; more coins changed hands, and there was the car on shore with another crowd round her. i engaged one of my bronzed fishermen to stand guard lest mischief should be done, and stalked off to the yacht; but before i reached her i was met by corramini himself, all smiles and graciousness. "i heard your motor," said he, "and guessed your mission. you have come, of course, to see the ladies?" "yes," said i, not troubling to waste words on him. "miss kidder is anxious." "ah, then did they not leave word? i suppose there wasn't time, as i understand the excursion was planned in a hurry. i don't know the details. it has only been my duty, as my pleasure, to act as host. dalmar-kalm desired to show the ladies schloss hrvoya, and brought his automobile on board for that purpose. he started almost as soon as we arrived here, well before five o'clock, and should have been back some time ago, according to his calculation. but i suppose it was a temptation to linger, or else there has been trouble with the motor. unfortunately the chauffeur was left at ragusa, as my friend is inclined to be a little vain of his driving. but i doubt his powers as an engineer, and have been somewhat anxious for the past half hour." "it is after seven o'clock," i said. "yes. i was dining when i heard your motor. i would ask you on board to have something, but i see by your face that you have it in mind to run to the rescue; and perhaps it would be kind as well as wise. do you know how to reach schloss hrvoya?" "i have seen it on the map," i replied, "and can easily find it, no doubt, by inquiries." "or you may meet the other automobile _en route_. well, your coming is a relief to my mind. i shall be glad to hear on your return that all is well." "thanks," said i rather stiffly, for the man's personality was repellent to me, and in venice i'd heard some stories, not very nice ones, concerning his career. he is of good family, is tolerated by society for his dead father's sake and his wife's, but once or twice a crash has nearly come, so the whisper runs about the clubs. not trusting his fluent affability, i hesitated whether to believe him and start, or to say i would accept his suggestion to go on board, in order that i might have a look round "arethusa" before committing myself to anything. as i stood in doubt i was hailed from the deck of the yacht, and there, to my surprise, stood our countess, showing dishevelment even in the distance and twilight. "oh, mr. terrymore, is that _you_?" she cried to me. i gave the corramini a look, as i shouted in reply, but he shrugged his shoulders. "i had no time to mention yet that the countess was not of the party for schloss hrvoya," said he, "for thereby hangs a tale, as your great poet says, and it would have taken too long to tell; but now i suppose she must delay you. it is a pity." i had no answer for him. it was clear that, whatever had occurred, it had been his object to deceive me, and hustle me quickly away from the dangerous neighbourhood of the yacht before i could find out that the countess, at all events, was still on board. but chance had thwarted him, and he was making the best of it with characteristic cleverness, saving his own skin. bareheaded, her wondrous auburn hair disordered, her face blurred with half-dried tears, the poor woman met me half-way, skipping across the gangway on to the now almost deserted quay. "something awful's happened," she gasped. "what?" i asked, a sudden tightness in my throat. "that's the worst of it. i don't know. and the county doesn't know." "tell me as well as you can." "why, we came here on purpose for the prince to take me to slosh hrvoya. he wanted it so much. maida had to be along, because it would have made talk if he and i'd come alone; but her being with us wasn't of any importance to _him_, he told me so himself. well, when his automobile was landed just where we're standing now, i told maida to get ready and went to my cabin to get ready myself, but my things were all gone--my hat and coat, and motor-mask and everything. i thought, i could have left them in the sallong, though i was sure i hadn't; but i hurried to look. they weren't there, and i ran back to maida's door, thinking it just possible, to play me a trick--as she was cross--she might have hidden my things while i was on deck. but she'd gone off and the things were nowhere. at that minute i heard a noise like a motor, and looked out of my porthole, but already it was out of sight from there, and i got up on deck again only in time to catch sight of the prince's automobile flashing away at about a mile a minute." "miss destrey was in the car?" "of course. she was sitting in the tonneau; and it looked as if there was some one beside the prince; but maida was in the way, so i couldn't make sure, and while i was dodging my head about, trying to see, the automobile disappeared. did you ever know anything so horrid? i'm furious, and i don't know what the prince must be thinking of me." i was aghast at this unexpected point of view, but her next words enlightened me. "it's maida's fault, i know that, though i don't see how she managed the thing. she was wild with me because i stood up for the prince carrying us off like this, and i suppose she just thought she'd punish me by somehow cheating me out of the pleasure i'd been looking forward to. i can't think of anything else, and neither can the county. he says maida probably told the prince that at the last minute i'd refused to go with him; otherwise he never would have driven off with her and left me like that." i saw that it would be a simple waste of time to argue with her, and didn't attempt it. "i'm going to look for them," i said. "oh, _do_ take me with you." i thought for a second or two. the countess isn't exactly a featherweight, and speed was an object; but protection for miss destrey was a still greater consideration, and it might be well for her to have even this foolish little woman's companionship. "certainly," i replied. "i shall be very glad." wraps of some sort for her head and body were borrowed on board the yacht, corramini showing himself kind and helpful, and with but a few minutes' delay for the lady's preparations, and lighting the lamps, we were ready to start. my mind was on the rack of doubt and distraction, but though i trusted corramini not at all, i couldn't see why the most likely way to choose for the chase might not be the road to hrvoya. dalmar-kalm must be more or less familiar with the neighbourhood, and might have acquaintances along the route who would help him. corramini was watching the start, so i took the direction which, from some previous poring over local maps, i knew must lead towards dalmar-kalm's ruinous inheritance. this i did, lest he might have some means of communicating with his friend; but once out of his sight, i slowed down, and addressed every one i met, in italian. had a motor-car been seen driving this way during the afternoon? several persons stared blankly, and did not brighten to intelligence when italian was exchanged for faulty german; but we had not gone far when we caught up with a ricketty cab, whose driver was evidently dawdling homeward to shelter for the night. his pitch was, perhaps, near the quay, and if so he might be the very man i wanted. i hailed him, and fortunately he had a little italian, and more french, of which he was innocently vain. "i have seen an automobile," said he, "but it was not coming this way. there cannot have been another, for till to-day we have seen no such thing since prince jaimé de bourbon drove here and up to montenegro, which made a great excitement for every one some years ago. and this one to-day has also gone to montenegro." i asked him to describe the vehicle, and not only did he give it all the characteristics of the prince's car, but said that he had seen it slung on shore from a white yacht, which ended all doubt upon the motor's identity, unless by any chance he had been bribed by dalmar-kalm to mislead inquirers. this seemed a far-fetched supposition; but why should montenegro be chosen as a destination? i asked this question aloud, half to myself, half to the countess, and after a fashion she answered it from the tonneau. "dear me, i can't think why on earth they should go there; but i believe i _do_ remember the prince once saying, ever so long ago when we first talked of driving down into dalmatia, that he had a friend in montenegro--an austrian consul, though i don't know in what city there." "there's only one--the capital, cettinje," i said mechanically, and my thoughts leaped ahead to the place i named. "the scoundrel!" i muttered under my breath. "who, the austrian consul?" "no. for all i know, he may be a splendid fellow and probably is; he would never do the thing. but that beast might hope it." "what beast--what thing--hope what?" "i beg your pardon, countess. i was talking to myself. nothing that you would care to hear repeated." xxvi a chapter of high diplomacy i had heard travellers speak, and had read in books, of that mighty feat of engineering the road to montenegro; but even so i was not prepared for the thrilling grandeur of that night drive in the mountains. with a carriage and two horses, counting halts for rests we must have been seven good hours on the way to cettinje; but my little twelve horse-power car worked with me heart and soul (i shall always believe now that she's got something of the sort, packed away in her engine), and we reached the lonely montenegrin frontier, near the mountain-top, in not much over an hour after our start. i caught the glimmer of the white stones that mark the dividing line between austrian ground and the brave little principality, and knew what they must mean. twenty minutes more saw us at the highest point of the stupendous road; and dipping for a flight downward, we arrived not long after in the cup-like plain where the first montenegrin village showed a few lights. i stopped at a small inn, ordered brandy for the countess (who was half dead with cold or terror of our wild race beside precipices) and inquired of the german-speaking landlord about the prince's car. yes, a big red automobile had rushed by, much to the surprise of everyone, about an hour ago. no doubt it was bound for cettinje; but there had been no news of it since. we flashed on without waiting for further parley. it was a long way yet, but the car devoured the road as if she were starving. at last we saw a single light to the left, and then a bunch of lights huddled together in a mountain-ringed plain, half a mile or so beyond. to my annoyance i had to slacken speed for a flock of belated and bewildered sheep, just as we were nearing the first light, but in a moment we would have shot ahead again, had not my attention been caught by the sharp yelping of a little dog. it was not the defiant yap of an enemy to motors, but rather a glad welcome; and the thin shred of sound was curiously familiar. instead of putting on speed, i stopped dead in the middle of the road. "whist! airole, is that you?" i called. in an instant a tiny black form was making wild springs at the car, trying to get in. it was airole and no other. "this is where they are," i said. "in that house, yonder. if it hadn't been for the dog, we'd have gone on, and--" it wasn't worth while to finish. i drove to the side and stopped the engine. the countess would go with me, of course, and it was better that she should; for she was the girl's aunt, and this was the pass her foolishness had brought her to. airole pattered before us, leaping at the shut door of a rough, two-story house of dark stone. i knocked; no one came, and i pounded again. if there had been no answer that time, i meant to try and break the door in with my shoulder, which has had some experience as a battering ram and perhaps those inside guessed at my intentions, for there followed a scrambling sound. a bolt was slipped back, and then a tall montenegrin, belted and armed with knife and big revolver, blocked up the doorway. i tried him in italian. no use; he jabbered protests in slavic, with a wife peeping curiously over his shoulder, as the countess peeped over mine. finally, to save time and somebody's blood, perhaps, i offered an austrian note and it proved a passport. they let us go in; and entering, i heard miss destrey's voice raised in fear or anger, behind another closed door. then most of the blood in my body seemed to spring to my head, and i have no very distinct recollection of anything more, till i found that i had done to that second door what i'd meant to do to the first, and that maida had run straight into my arms. "my darling!" i heard myself exclaiming. i know that i held her tight against my heart for an instant, saying, "thank heaven!" that she seemed to have been mine for all the past and must belong to me for all the future. i know that she was sobbing a little, that she clung to me; and that then, remembering the man and what was owing him, i put her away to begin his punishment. "you unspeakable ruffian!" i threw the words at him, and threw myself at the same time. i think we struggled for a few moments, but i am younger than he, as well as bigger, so it was not much credit to my prowess that i soon had my hand twisted in his collar and was shaking him as if he'd been a rat. it was the countess who stopped the fun, by hurling herself between us, quite like the heroine of old-fashioned melodrama. "oh, for my sake, for _my_ sake!" she was wailing. "it wasn't his fault. wait and let him have the chance to explain." one more shake i gave, and threw him off, so that he staggered back against the wall. "he threatened to shoot me at last," cried maida. "shall i kill him?" i asked. "no," she said trembling. "let him go. you are here. i am safe." the man stood and glared at us like an animal at bay. i saw his eyes dart from maida to me, from me to the countess, and rest on her as if begging something. and his hunted instinct was right. if there were hope left for him anywhere, it was with her. "don't believe anything they say of me," he panted, dry-lipped. "corramini tricked me by sending his wife's servant in your place, dressed in your things, wearing your motor-mask. she wouldn't speak. i didn't know the truth till i got here. i thought it was you i had run away with to montenegro, hoping i might persuade you to marry me, when you were out of the way of your daughter, who hates me, and would ruin me with you if she could. i would have left miss destrey behind, if i could have hoped you'd come without her. imagine my feelings when i found out i'd lost you! if i have frightened her it was in my blind rage against her and every one concerned in the trick. as for your chauffeur, he is not worth fighting, and as i am a gentleman, i do not even return the blows of one who is not--especially before ladies." "aunt kathryn, you must not believe his falsehoods," cried maida. "if you do--if you let yourself care for him--he will spoil your life." the countess petulantly stopped her ears. "i won't listen to you," was her answer. "i knew there had been trickery of some sort, and you may as well save your breath, for whatever you say i will believe nothing against the man i love." with that she took her fingers from her ears, and held out both hands to dalmar-kalm. he ran to take them, and pressed his lips ardently first upon one, then the other plump cushion of dimpled satin. disgusted with this exhibition of a woman's folly, while i pitied it, i could look no more, but turned to maida. "will you let me take you away?" was all that my lips said, but my eyes said more, in memory of that first moment of our meeting, which was, please god, to influence our whole future--hers and mine. "yes," she answered. "but--i can't leave here without aunt kathryn." "you must go with miss destrey, countess," i insisted. "whatever you may decide later in regard to prince dalmar-kalm, in any case you must go with your niece and me to stop at an hotel in cettinje, for the night." the man would not let go her hand. "promise me you will not leave montenegro till you are my wife," he begged. "if you do, i feel i shall lose you for ever." "i'll do my best," faltered the lady, as a lady should, i suppose, who feels herself a heroine of romance. i could almost have respected that scoundrel for his diplomacy. his motto was, "get what you want, or if you can't, take what you can;" and he was living up to it, playing up to it before an audience as no other man i ever saw could or would. he didn't seem to care what we thought of him, now that he was gaining his point. but when fatty degeneration of the soul sets in, there is room for little real pride in a man's breast. "you will not allow yourself to be prejudiced against me?" he went on. "never," vowed the countess. "no one had better try it." "i will not try after to-night, if what i have to tell doesn't change your mind," said maida. "but, just this once--" "no--no!" "very well then, i will say nothing except--" "be careful!" "oh," and the girl turned imploringly to me, "take us somewhere, so that i can talk to her alone." "there's said to be a good enough hotel in cettinje. i'll take you both there," i ventured. "come and see me early--early, prince," said the countess. "yes. but i am not 'prince' to you now. i am 'otto.'" "otto, then." so i got them away, leaving the man behind, to his own devices, and at the door i had the joy of wrapping maida in my big coat. how glad i was that i had brought it! i drove them to a hotel in the _place_ at the end of the long main street, and when the countess had hurried ostentatiously off to her room, that no nefarious attempts might be made upon her resolution. she and i stood for a moment hand in hand, in the dim hall. "you are mine?" i asked. "are you sure you want me?" "i've been sure of that--too sure for my peace of mind since the first day i saw your dear face--the loveliest on earth. but i never thought to have you. i never thought that i would have a right to ask, for i'm poor--horribly poor." "oh, as if that mattered!" "i know it doesn't now, for this that's happened has given us to each other. i'll work hard and make money. nothing can part us--i couldn't bear it. but it seems too good to be true. is it possible you care for me?" "i think i've cared--ever since the first few days. i'd never guessed that i would meet a man like you. but oh, i did not mean to marry _any_ man." "i know, darling. i know what you'd planned. i lay awake nights over it, wondering if, beggar as i was, i couldn't snatch you from that cold future. but i shouldn't have thought i had the right if this thunder-bolt hadn't struck me." "as aunt kathryn--poor aunt kathryn!--is always saying, 'it must have been meant.' i never promised that--that i would join the sisters, you know. i suppose this is why my father would have me go abroad when i came of age. he was afraid i might make up my mind before i had--found my heart." "have you found it now--for sure?" "no. i--i've _lost_ it." "angel! but you've got mine instead. you won't mind marrying a beggar and being a beggaress?" the adorable creature laughed. "i shall love it," she said. there was no one in the hall except airole, and the shadows were asleep--so i kissed her: and knew why i had been born. i'd often wondered, but i never will again. we had a fierce tussle with the countess to prevent her stopping in montenegro and marrying her prince there and then, as soon as might be. the truth was, and she owned it, that she was afraid to face beechy till she had been made irrevocably a princess. but finally we prevailed, almost by force, and tore the poor lady from her lover, who protested that he would follow, were it to the world's end. i believed he would, too, for he had threatened to be the last man in maida's world; the countess was now the last woman in his, and he would hold on to her and her money as a drowning man grasps at a substantial spar. i shall never forget that drive down from the mountain land where a king rode to fetch a fairy bride. at cattaro we took the fishing boat which had carried me yesterday; and i think the sailor-men realized, when they saw what i had brought back, that i wasn't a madman after all. then the spin from castelnuovo to ragusa that i had taken in such a different mood fifteen hours before. and at ragusa, beechy, still pale and shaken, springing up from her sofa to meet maida and me as we opened the door. ralph sprang up too, and his chair had been drawn so close to her sofa that the rush of her white wrapper--or whatever it was--upset it. "where's mamma?" came the first question, as was natural. "she's gone to her room, and we're to talk to you before she sees you," said maida. "oh beechy, you must be good to her; she's miserable." then we told the story, preparing beechy for her mother's decision, and i expected hysterics. but she neither laughed nor cried. she only sat still, looking curiously guilty and meek. "isn't it dreadful? but i couldn't do anything," said maida. "he is a wicked man--you don't know yet how wicked. he got me up to montenegro by a horrid pretence, and when i wouldn't promise to marry him at once he tried arguments for about an hour, then locked the door of a room in the house where we were because his motor broke down, and threatened to shoot me. i don't know if he really would. perhaps not. but anyway, mr. barrymore saved me. he came just then and burst the door open." "it's all my fault from beginning to end!" broke out beechy, tragically. "i confessed to sir ralph yesterday, when i was only worried for fear something might happen, but now it _has_ happened, i'll confess to you, too. i got afraid mamma would really marry the prince--oh, but that wasn't the way it began! just for fun, long ago, when we first started, i let him pump me--it was great fun _then_--and told him how rich mamma was, and would be, even if she married again. i thought it would be such larks to watch his game, and so it was for a while, till i was in an awful stew for fear i'd gone too far and couldn't stop things. i was ready then to do something desperate rather than find myself saddled with _that_ prince for my step-father. so i sacrificed you." "i don't see--" maida began; but beechy cut her short. "why, when we went to that sisterhood of yours, i overheard the mother superior, or whatever you call her, confiding to mamma that you were a tremendous heiress, that you didn't quite know how rich you were yourself, and wouldn't be told till you were safely back from europe. it was a secret, and i hadn't any business to know. but i let it out to the prince, when i was in such a state about him and mamma, in bellagio. he _went_ for you at once, as i knew he would--but what's the matter, mr. barrymore? it isn't for you to be angry with me. it's for maida." "i'm not angry with you, but with myself," i said. and then for a minute i forgot ralph and beechy, and remembered only maida. "don't think i knew," i said. "if i had, i wouldn't--" "oh, don't say you wouldn't. i love to feel you _had_ to," the angel cried. "i hold you to your word, oh, with all my heart in my right to you. beechy, your chauffeulier and i--are engaged." "there!" the child exclaimed, with a look at ralph i couldn't fathom. "didn't i tell you so?" "well, it doesn't matter _now_, does it?" was his retort. "how shall i feel if you don't wish miss destrey your best wishes?" "oh, i do, i do," exclaimed the strange child. "and i congratulate the chauffeulier. but he must do some congratulating too. i'm going to put up my hair, come out in a long dress, and be engaged to sir ralph." maida's great eyes were greater than ever. "beechy!" she protested. "you aren't fourteen!" "no, i know i'm not; but i'm seventeen. and when i told ralph that, he proposed at once. you see he's been my father confessor ever since we've been on this trip, so he knows all that's best and worst of me; and i do think we shall have real fun when we're married. i told mamma i'd have no princes on _my_ ranch, and i won't. but if she's fool enough to take that man, after all, she and i can visit each other's ranches after this, and we'll be all right. mine's going to be in england or scotland in summer, and in winter i'm to live with félicité and the duck. oh, i shall be happy, and so will ralph, i hope. but i never thought a good democrat like papa's daughter would go and marry a man with a title." "a mere baronet. it needn't go against the grain much," remarked sir ralph. "think how much worse it is for your poor cousin!" "why?" "to marry a 'real live lord,' who will some day be a marquis." "oh!" exclaimed beechy. "she who said she would like to teach other american girls a lesson." "i didn't know," maida faltered. "what?" asked ralph. "you didn't tell her?" "i forgot all about it," i said. "but maida, dearest, it doesn't matter. i--" "nothing matters but you," she said. "and you," i added. the end good fiction worth reading. a series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest. * * * * * windsor castle. a historical romance of the reign of henry viii. catharine of aragon and anne boleyn. by wm. harrison ainsworth. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by george cruikshank. price, $1.00. "windsor castle" is the story of henry viii., catharine, and anne boleyn. "bluff king hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful anne boleyn. the king's love was as brief as it was vehement. jane seymour, waiting maid on the queen, attracted him, and anne boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor. this romance is one of extreme interest to all readers. horseshoe robinson. a tale of the tory ascendency in south carolina in 1780. by john p. kennedy. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of americans than horseshoe robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in south carolina to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the british under such leaders as cornwallis and tarleton. the reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those times. the picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never overdrawn, but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that price in blood and tears which the carolinians paid as their share in the winning of the republic. take it all in all, "horseshoe robinson" is a work which should be found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the colonists which it contains. that it has been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read it for the first time. the pearl of orr's island. a story of the coast of maine. by harriet beecher stowe. cloth, 12mo. illustrated. price, $1.00. written prior to 1862, the "pearl of orr's island" is ever new; a book filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew each time one reads them. one sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of orr's island," and straightway comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild, angry howl of some savage animal." who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named mara, which came into this world under the very shadow of the death angel's wings, without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud blossomed? again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the character of that baby boy moses, who came through the tempest, amid the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast. there is no more faithful portrayal of new england life than that which mrs. stowe gives in "the pearl of orr's island." * * * * * for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, a. l. burt company, 52-58 duane st., new york. good fiction worth reading. a series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest. * * * * * guy fawkes. a romance of the gunpowder treason. by wm. harrison ainsworth. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by george cruikshank. price, $1.00. the "gunpowder plot" was a modest attempt to blow up parliament, the king and his counsellors. james of scotland, then king of england, was weak-minded and extravagant. he hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the catholics. in their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. finally the plotters were arrested, and the king put to torture guy fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. a very intense love story runs through the entire romance. the spirit of the border. a romance of the early settlers in the ohio valley. by zane grey. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. a book rather out of the ordinary is this "spirit of the border." the main thread of the story has to do with the work of the moravian missionaries in the ohio valley. incidentally the reader is given details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting of this great nation. chief among these, as a matter of course, is lewis wetzel, one of the most peculiar, and at the same time the most admirable of all the brave men who spent their lives battling with the savage foe, that others might dwell in comparative security. details of the establishment and destruction of the moravian "village of peace" are given at some length, and with minute description. the efforts to christianize the indians are described as they never have been before, and the author has depicted the characters of the leaders of the several indian tribes with great care, which of itself will be of interest to the student. by no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid word-pictures of the thrilling adventures, and the intense paintings of the beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken forests. it is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly braved every privation and danger that the westward progress of the star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. a love story, simple and tender, runs through the book. richelieu. a tale of france in the reign of king louis xiii. by g. p. r. james. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. in 1829 mr. james published his first romance, "richelieu," and was recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft. in this book he laid the story during those later days of the great cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. one of the most striking portions of the story is that of cinq mar's conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites, affording a better insight into the statecraft of that day than can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. it is a powerful romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and absorbing interest has never been excelled. * * * * * for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, a. l. burt company, 52-58 duane st. new york. good fiction worth reading. a series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest. * * * * * darnley. a romance of the times of henry viii. and cardinal wolsey. by g. p. r. james. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. in point of publication, "darnley" is that work by mr. james which follows "richelieu," and, if rumor can be credited, it was owing to the advice and insistence of our own washington irving that we are indebted primarily for the story, the young author questioning whether he could properly paint the differences in the characters of the two great cardinals. and it is not surprising that james should have hesitated; he had been eminently successful in giving to the world the portrait of richelieu as a man, and by attempting a similar task with wolsey as the theme, was much like tempting fortune. irving insisted that "darnley" came naturally in sequence, and this opinion being supported by sir walter scott, the author set about the work. as a historical romance "darnley" is a book that can be taken up pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle charm which those who are strangers to the works of g. p. r. james have claimed was only to be imparted by dumas. if there was nothing more about the work to attract especial attention, the account of the meetings of the kings on the historic "field of the cloth of gold" would entitle the story to the most favorable consideration of every reader. there is really but little pure romance in this story, for the author has taken care to having entertained the tender passion one for another, and he succeeds in making such lovers as all the world must love. captain brand, of the schooner centipede. by lieut. henry a. wise, u.s.n. (harry gringo). cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. the re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea yarns who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as can come through the medium of a printed page, for never has a story of the sea and those "who go down in ships" been written by one more familiar with the scenes depicted. the one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is "captain brand," who, as the author states on his title page, was a "pirate of eminence in the west indies." as a sea story pure and simple, "captain brand" has never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual embellishments of blood and thunder, it has no equal. nick of the woods. a story of the early settlers of kentucky. by robert montgomery bird. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. this most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life in kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. the novel, long out of print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its realistic presentation of indian and frontier life in the early days of settlement in the south, narrated in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. a very charming love romance runs through the story. this new and tasteful edition of "nick of the woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for this enchanting story from dr. bird's clever and versatile pen. * * * * * for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, a. l. burt company, 52-58 duane st., new york. good fiction worth reading. a series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest. * * * * * a colonial free-lance. a story of american colonial times. by chauncey c. hotchkiss. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. a book that appeals to americans as a vivid picture of revolutionary scenes. the story is a strong one, a thrilling one. it causes the true american to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter, until the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes with patriotism. the love story is a singularly charming idyl. the tower of london. a historical romance of the times of lady jane grey and mary tudor. by wm. harrison ainsworth. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by george cruikshank. price, $1.00. this romance of the "tower of london" depicts the tower as palace, prison and fortress, with many historical associations. the era is the middle of the sixteenth century. the story is divided into two parts, one dealing with lady jane grey, and the other with mary tudor as queen, introducing other notable characters of the era. throughout the story holds the interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably over a half a century. in defiance of the king. a romance of the american revolution. by chauncey c. hotchkiss. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. mr. hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of yankee bravery, and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the spirit of the revolution. the heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. his whole story is so absorbing that you will sit up far into the night to finish it. as a love romance it is charming. garthowen. a story of a welsh homestead. by allen raine. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. "this is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong points of welsh character--the pride, the hasty temper, the quick dying out of wrath.... we call this a well-written story, interesting alike through its romance and its glimpses into another life than ours. a delightful and clever picture of welsh village life. the result is excellent."--detroit free press. mifanwy. the story of a welsh singer. by allan raine. cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by j. watson davis. price, $1.00. "this is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. the action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights and shadows of love are introduced. it rings true, and does not tax the imagination."--boston herald. * * * * * for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, a. l. burt company, 52-58 duane st., new york. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 19412-h.htm or 19412-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/4/1/19412/19412-h/19412-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/4/1/19412/19412-h.zip) set in silver by c. n. and a. m. williamson illustrated [illustration: _audrie_] garden city new york doubleday, page & company 1913 all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian copyright, 1909, by doubleday, page & company to a great man, and a great motorist _with all admiration we dedicate our story of a tour in the land he loves_ "... this little world, this precious stone, set in the silver sea that serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this england." set in silver i audrie brendon to her mother at champel-les-bains, switzerland _rue chapeau de marie antoinette_, _versailles_, _july 4th_ darling little french mother: things have happened. fire-crackers! roman candles! rockets! but don't be frightened. they're all in my head. nevertheless i haven't had such a fourth of july since i was a small girl in america, and stood on a tin pail with a whole pack of fire-crackers popping away underneath. isn't it funny, when you have a lot to tell, it's not half as easy to write a letter as when you've nothing at all to say, and must make up for lack of matter by weaving phrases? now, when i'm suffering from a determination of too many words to my pen, they all run together in a torrent, and i don't know how to make them dribble singly to a beginning. i think i'll talk about other things first. that's the way dear dad used to do when he had exciting news, and loved to dangle it over our heads, "cherry ripe" fashion, harping on the weather or the state of the stock-market until he had us almost dancing with impatience. yes, i'll dwell on other things first--but not irrelevant things, for i'll dwell on you--with a capital y, which is the only proper way to spell you--and you are never irrelevant. you couldn't be, whatever was happening. and just now you're particularly relevant, though you're far off in nice, cool switzerland; for presently, when i come to the thing, i'm going to ask your advice. it's very convenient having a french mother, and i do appreciate dear dad's yankee cleverness in securing you in the family. you say sometimes that i seem all american, and that you're glad; which is pretty of you, and loyal to father's country, but i'm not sure whether i shouldn't have preferred to turn out more like my mamma. you're so _complete_, somehow--as frenchwomen are, at their best. i often think of you as a kind of pocket combination of somebody's hundred best books: romance, practical common sense, poetry, wit, wisdom, fancy cookery, etc., etc. who but a frenchwoman could combine all these qualities with the latest thing in hair-dressing and the neatest thing in stays? by the way, can one's stays be a quality? yes, if one's french--even half french--i believe they can. if i hadn't just got your letter of day before yesterday, assuring me that you feel strong and fresh--almost as if you'd never been ill--i shouldn't worry you for advice. only a few weeks ago, if suddenly called upon for it, you'd have shown signs of nervous prostration. i shall never forget my horror when you (quite uncontrollably) threw a spoon at philomene who came to ask whether we would have soup _à croute_ or _potage à la bonne femme_ for dinner! switzerland was an inspiration; mine, i flatter myself. and if, in telling me that you're in robust health again, you're hinting at an intention to sneak back to blazing paris before the middle of september, you don't know your spartan daughter. all that's american in me rises to shout "no!" and you needn't think that your child is bored. she may be boiled, but never bored. far from it, as you shall hear. school breaks up to-morrow--breaks into little blond and brunette bits, which will blow or drift off to their respective homes; and i should by this time be packing to visit the despards, where i'm supposed to teach mimi's young voice to soar, as compensation for holiday hospitality; but--i'm not packing, because ellaline lethbridge has had an attack of nerves. you won't be surprised that i stopped two hours over-time to-day to hold the hand and to stroke the hair of ellaline. i've done that before, when she had a pain in her finger, or a cold in her little nose, and sent you a _petit bleu_ to announce that i couldn't get home for dinner and our happy hour together. no, you won't be surprised at my stopping--or that ellaline should have an attack of nerves. but the reason for the attack and the cure she wants me to give her: these will surprise you. why, it's almost as hard to begin, after all, as if i hadn't been working industriously up to it for three pages. but here goes! dearest, you've often said, and i've agreed with you (or else it was the other way round), that _nothing_ i could ever do for ellaline lethbridge would be too much; that she couldn't ask any sacrifice of me which would be too great. of course, one does say these things until one is tested. but--i wonder if there is a "but"? of course you believe that your one chick has a glorious voice, and that it's a cruel shame she should be doing nothing better than teaching other people's chicks to squall, whether their voices are worth squalling with or not. perhaps, though, mine mayn't be as remarkable an organ as we think; and even if you hadn't made me give up trying for light opera, because i received one insult (with a capital i) while i was madame larese's favourite pupil, i mightn't in any case have turned into a great prima donna. i was rather excited and amused by the insult myself--it made me feel so interesting, and so like a heroine of romance; but you didn't approve of it; and we had some hard times, hadn't we, after all our money was spent in globe-trotting, and lessons for me from the immortal larese? if it hadn't been for meeting ellaline, and ellaline falling a victim to my modest charms, and insisting upon madame de maluet's taking me as a teacher of singing for her "celebrated finishing school for young ladies," what would have become of us, dearest, with you so delicate, me so young, and both of us so poor and alone in a big world? i really don't know, and you've often said you didn't. of course, if it hadn't been for ellaline--madame's richest and most important girl--persisting as she did, in her imperious, spoiled-child way, madame wouldn't have dreamed of engaging a young girl like me, without any experience as a teacher, no matter how much she liked my voice and my (or rather larese's) method. i suppose no one would else have risked me; so i certainly do owe to ellaline, and nobody but ellaline, three happy and (fairly) prosperous years. to be sure, because of my position at madame de maluet's, i have got a few outside pupils; but that's indirectly through ellaline, too, isn't it? i'm reminding you of all these things so that you may have it clearly before your mind just how much we do owe ellaline, and judge whether the payment she now asks is too big or not. that's the way she puts it, not coarsely or crudely; but i know how she feels. she sent me a little note yesterday, while i was giving a lesson, to say she'd a horrid headache, had gone to bed, and would i come to her room as soon as i could. well, i went at lunch time, for i hated to keep her waiting, and thought i could eat later. as it turned out, i didn't eat at all. but that's a detail. she had on a perfectly divine nighty, with low neck and short sleeves (no girl would be _allowed_ to wear such a thing in any but a french school, i'm sure, even if she were a "parlour boarder") and her hair was in curly waves over her shoulders. altogether she looked adorable, and about fourteen years old, instead of nearly nineteen, as she is. "you don't show your headache a bit," said i. "i haven't got one," said she. then she explained that she'd been dying for a chance to talk with me alone, and the headache was the only thing that occurred to her in the circumstances. she doesn't mind little fibs, you know. indeed, i believe she rather likes them, because any "intrigue," even the smallest, is exciting to her. you would never guess anything like what has happened. that dragon of a guardian of hers is coming back at last from bengal, where he's been governor or something. not that his coming would matter particularly if it weren't for complications, but there are several, the most formidable of which is a young man. the young man is a french young man, and his name is honoré du guesclin. he is a lieutenant in the army (ellaline mentioned the regiment with pride, but i've forgotten it already, there was so much else to remember), and she says he is descended from the great du guesclin. she met him at madame de blanchemain's--you remember the madame de blanchemain who was ellaline's dead mother's most intimate friend, and who lives at st. cloud? ellaline has spent all her holidays there ever since i've known her; but though i thought she told me everything (she always vowed she did), not a word did she ever breathe about a young man having risen over her horizon. she says she didn't dare, because i'm so "queer and prim about some things." i'm not, am i? but now she's driven to confess, as she's in the most awful scrape, and doesn't know what will become of her and "darling honoré," unless i'll consent to help them. she met him only last easter. he's a nephew of madame de blanchemain's, it seems; and on coming back from foreign service in algeria, or somewhere, he dutifully paused to visit his relative. of course it occurs to me, did madame de blanchemain write and intimate that she would have in the house a pretty little anglo-french heiress, with no inconvenient relatives, unless one counts the dragon? but ellaline says honoré's coming was quite a surprise to his aunt. anyway, he proposed on the third day, and ellaline accepted him. it was by moonlight, in a garden, so who can blame the poor child? i always thought if even a moderately good-looking young man proposed to me by moonlight, in a garden, i would say "yes--yes!" at once, even if i changed my mind next day. but honoré is _very_ good looking (she has his picture in a locket, with _such_ a turned-up moustache--i mean honoré, not the locket), and so ellaline didn't change her mind next day. not a word was said to madame de blanchemain (as far as ellaline knows), for they decided that, considering everything, they must keep their secret, and eventually run away to be married; because honoré is poor, and ellaline's an heiress guarded by a dragon. well, through letters which e. has been receiving at a teashop where she and the other older girls go, rigorously chaperoned, twice a week, it was arranged to do the deed as soon as school should close; and if they could have carried out their plan, ellaline would have been madame du guesclin before the dragon could have appeared on the scene, breathing fire and rattling his scales. they were going to scotland to be married (honoré's idea), as a man can't legally marry a girl under age in france without the consent of everybody concerned. once she'd got away with him, and had had any kind of hole-in-the-corner wedding, honoré was of opinion that even the most abandoned dragon would be thankful to sanction a marriage according to french law; so it could all be done over again properly in france. i suppose this appealed immensely to ellaline's love of intrigue and kittenish tricksiness generally. anyway, she agreed; but young officers propose, and their superiors dispose. honoré was ordered off for a month's manoeuvres before he could even ask for leave; and as he's known to be destitute of near relatives, he couldn't rake up a perishing grandmother as an excuse. what he did try, i don't know; but anyhow, he failed, and the running away had to be put off. that was blow number one, and could have been borne, without blow number two, which fell in the shape of a letter. it said that the wicked guardian was just about to start for home, and intended to pick up ellaline on his way to england, as if she were a parcel labelled "to be kept till called for." she's certain he won't let her marry honoré if he has the chance to say "no" beforehand, because he cares nothing about her happiness, or about her, or anything else except his own selfish ambitions. of course, ellaline is a girl who takes strong prejudices against people for no particular reason, except that she has a "feeling they are horrid"; but she does appear to be right about this man. he's english, and though ellaline's mother was half french, they were cousins, and i believe her dying request was that he should take care of her daughter and her daughter's money. you would have thought that that must have softened even a hard heart, wouldn't you? but the dragon's was evidently sentiment-proof, even so many years ago, when he must have been comparatively young--if dragons are ever young. he accepted the charge (ellaline thinks her money probably influenced him to do that; and perhaps he was paid for his trouble); but, instead of carrying out his engagements, like a faithful guardian, he packed the poor four-year-old baby off to some pokey, prim people in the country, and promptly went abroad to enjoy himself. there ellaline would no doubt have been left to this day, dreadfully unhappy and out of her element, for the people were an english curate and his wife; but, luckily, her mother had stipulated that she was to be sent to the same school in france where she herself had been educated--madame de maluet's. never once has her guardian shown the slightest sign of interest in ellaline: hasn't asked for her photograph or written her any letters. they've communicated with each other only through madame de maluet, four times a year or so; and ellaline doesn't feel sure that her fortune has been properly administered, so she says she ought to marry young and have a husband to look after her interests. when i ventured to hope that the dragon wasn't quite so scaly and taily as she painted him, she proved her point by telling me that he'd been censured lately in the english radical papers for killing a lot of poor, defenceless bengalese in cold blood. somebody must have sent her the cuttings, for ellaline hardly knows that newspapers exist. i dare say it was kathy bennett, one of madame's few english pupils. ellaline has chummed up with her lately. and that news does seem to settle the man's character, doesn't it? he must be a perfect brute. ellaline says that she'd rather die than lose honoré, also that he'll kill himself if he loses her. and now, dearest--now for the thunderbolt! she vows that the only thing which can possibly save her is for _me to take her place for five or six weeks_, until her soldier's manoeuvres are over and he can get leave to whisk her off to scotland for the wedding. you're the quickest-witted darling in the world, and you generally know all that people mean even before they speak. yet i can see you looking puzzled as well as startled, and muttering to yourself: "take ellaline's place? where--how--when?" i was like that myself while she was trying to explain. i stared with an owlish stare for about five minutes, until her real idea in all its native wildness, not to say enormity, burst upon me. she wants to go day after to-morrow to madame de blanchemain's, as she'd expected to do before she heard that the dragon was coming to gobble her up. she wants to stay there quietly until honoré can take her, and she wants _me to pretend to be ellaline lethbridge_! i nearly fell off my chair at this point, but i hope you won't do anything like that--which is the reason why i've been working up to the revelation with such fiendish subtlety. have you noticed it? ellaline has plotted the whole scheme out. i shouldn't have thought her capable of it; but she says it's desperation. she's certain she can persuade madame de maluet to let her leave school, to go to the station and meet the dragon (that's the course he himself suggests: too much trouble even to run out to versailles and fetch her) with only me as chaperon. i dare say she's right about madame, for all the teachers will be gone day after to-morrow, and madame herself invariably collapses the moment school breaks up: she seems to break up with it, and to have to lie in bed for at least half a week to be mended. madame has really quite a flattering opinion of my discretion. she's told me so several times. i suppose it's the way i do my hair for school, which does give me a look of incorruptible virtue, doesn't it? fortunately she doesn't know i always change it (if not too tired) ten minutes after i get home to you. well, then, taking madame's permission for granted, ellaline points out that all stumbling-blocks are removed, for she won't count moral ones, or let me count them. i'm to see her off for st. cloud, and wait to receive the dragon. "sir, behold the burnt-offering--i mean, behold your ward!" and i'm to go on being a burnt-offering till it's convenient for the real ellaline to scrape my ashes off the smoking altar. it's all very well to make fun of the thing like that. but to be serious--and goodness knows it's serious enough--what's to be done, little mother? ellaline has (because i insisted) given me till to-morrow morning to answer. i explained that my consent must depend on your consent. so that's why i haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. i rushed home to write this immense letter to you, and get it off to catch the post. it will arrive in the morning with your coffee and _petits pains_--how i wish i were in its place! you can take half an hour to make up your mind (i'm sure with your lightning wits you wouldn't ask longer to decide the fate of the great powers of europe) and then telegraph me simply "yes," or "no." i will understand. for my own sake, naturally, i should prefer "no." that goes unsaid, doesn't it? i should then be relieved of responsibility; for even ellaline, knowing that you and i are all in all to each other, could hardly expect me to fly in your face, just to please her. but, on the other hand, if you did think i could do this dreadful thing without thereby becoming myself a dreadful thing, it would be a glorious relief to pay my debt of gratitude to ellaline, yes, and even _over_-pay it, perhaps. one likes to over-pay a debt that's been owing a long time, for it's like adding an accumulation of interest that one's creditor never expected to get. when, gasping after the first shock, i pleaded that i'd do anything else, make any other sacrifice for ellaline's sake, except this _one_, she flashed out (with the odd shrewdness which lurks in her childishness like a bright little garter-snake darting its head from a bed of violets), saying that was always the way with people. they were invariably ready to do for their best friends, to whom they were grateful, anything on earth except the only thing wanted. well, i had no answer to make; for it's true, isn't it? and then ellaline sobbed dreadfully, clutching at me with little, hot, trembling hands, crying that she'd _counted_ on me, that she'd been sure, after all my promises, i wouldn't fail her. she'd felt so _safe_ with me! are you surprised i hadn't the heart to refuse? i confess, dear, that if i were quite alone in the world (though the world wouldn't be a world without you) i should certainly have grovelled and consented then and there. she says she won't close her eyes to-night, and i dare say she won't, in which case she'll be as pathetic as a broken flower to-morrow. i don't think i shall sleep much either, wondering what your verdict will be. i really haven't the remotest idea whether it will be yes or no. usually i imagine that i can pretty well guess what your opinion is likely to be, but i can't this time. the thing to decide upon is in itself so fantastic, so monstrous, that one moment i tell myself you won't even consider it. the next minute i remember what a dear little "crank" you are on the subject of gratitude--your "favourite virtue," as you used to write in old-fashioned "confession albums" of provincial american friends when i was a child. if people do anything nice for you, you run your little high-heeled shoes into holes to do something even nicer for them. if you're invited out to tea, you ask your hostess to lunch or dinner, in return: that sort of thing invariably; and you've brought me up with the same bee in my bonnet. so what _will_ your telegram be? whatever you say, you may count on a meek "amen, so be it," from your most admiring subject, audrie. p. s.--of course, it isn't as if this man were an ordinary, nice, inoffensive human man, is it? i do think that almost any treatment is too good for such a cold-blooded, supercilious old dragon. and you needn't reprove me for "calling names." with singular justice providence has ticketed him as appropriately as his worst enemy would have dared to do. they have such weird names in cornwall, don't they?--and it seems he's a cornishman. until lately he was plain mister, now he's sir lionel pendragon. somebody has been weak enough to die and leave him a title, and also an estate (though not in cornwall) which he's returning to england in greedy haste to pounce upon. so characteristic, after living away all these years; though madame de maluet has tried to make ellaline believe he's coming back to settle down because of a letter _she_ wrote, reminding him respectfully that after nineteen it's almost indecent for a girl to be kept at school. don't fear, however, if your telegram casts me to the dragon, that i shall be in danger of getting eaten up. his dragonship, among other stodgy defects, has that of eminent, well-nigh repulsive, respectability. he is as respectable as a ramrod or a poker, and very elderly, ellaline says. from the way she talks about him he must be getting on for a hundred, and he is provided with a widowed sister, a mrs. norton, whom he has dug up from some place in the country to act as chaperon for his ward. all other women he is supposed to detest, and would, if necessary, beat them off with a stick. ii audrie brendon to her mother _rue chapeau de marie antoinette_, _versailles_, _july 5th_ my spartan angel: now the telegram's come, i feel as if i'd known all along what your decision would be. i'm glad you were extravagant enough to add "writing," for to-morrow morning i shall know by exactly what mental processes you decided. also, i'm glad (i think i'm glad) that the word is "yes." it's afternoon now; just twenty-four hours since i sat here in the same place (at your desk in the front window, of course), trying my best to put the situation before you, as a plain, unvarnished tale. i stuck the bit of blue paper under ellaline's nose, and she almost had a fit with joy. if she were bigger and more muscular, she'd have kissed and squeezed the breath of life out of me, which would have been awkward for her, as she'd then have been thrown back upon her own resources. oh, _ma petite poupee de mere_, only think of it! i go to-morrow--into space. i disappear. i cease to exist _pro tem_. there will be no me, no audrie, but, instead, two ellalines. i've often told her, by the way, that i would make two of her. evidently i once had a prophetic soul. i only wish i had it still, so i might see beforehand what will happen to the me-ness of ellaline in the next few weeks. anyhow, whatever comes, i expect to be supported by the consciousness that i'm paying a debt of gratitude as perhaps such a debt was never paid before. of course i shall have a perfectly horrid time. not only shall i be wincing under the degrading knowledge that i'm a base pretender, but i shall be wretchedly homesick and bored within an inch of my life. i shall be, in the sort of environment ellaline describes, like a mouse in a vacuum--a poor, frisky, happy, out-of-doors field-mouse, caught for an experiment. when the experiment is finished i shall crawl away, a decrepit wreck. but, thank heaven, i can crawl to you, and you will nurse me back to life. we'll talk everything over, for hours on end, and i'll be able to abuse the dragon to my heart's content. i know you'll let me do that, provided i don't use naughty words, or, if any, disguise them daintily in a whisper. ellaline and i have discussed plans and possibilities, and if all goes as she expects (i don't see why it shouldn't), i ought to be freed from the unpleasant rôle of understudy in five or six weeks. the instant my chains are broken by a telegram from the bride saying, "safely married," or words to that effect, i shall do "all my possible" to fold, my tent like an arab and silently steal--not to say sneak--away from the lair of the dragon, without his opening a scaly red eye to the dreadful reality, until i'm beyond his power. it must be either that or the most awful scene with him--a regular row. he, saying what he thinks of my deception; me, defending myself and the real ellaline by saying what i think of his general beastliness. if it came to that, i might in my rage wax unladylike; so perhaps, of the two evils, the lesser would be the sneak act--_n'est ce pas_? well, i shall see when the time comes. in five or six weeks i had thought, in any case, of allowing you to leave champel-les-bains, should you grow too restive lacking my society. i thought of proposing by then, if you were sufficiently braced by swiss air, milk, and honey and champel douches, that we should join forces at a cheap but alluring farmhouse somewhere. that idea may still fit in rather well, mayn't it? but if, for any unforeseen reason, i should have to stay sizzling on the sacrificial altar longer than we expect, you mustn't come home to hot paris to economize and mope in the flat. you _must_ stop in switzerland till i can meet you in some nice place in the country. promise that you won't add to my burdens by being refractory. i'll wire you an address as soon as i am blessed--or cursed--with one. and _whatever_ you do, don't forget that i'm merged in ellaline lethbridge. if her identity fits me as badly as her dresses would do it will come about down to my knees and won't meet round the waist. as soon as i have your letter to-morrow morning, dearest, i'll write again, if only a few lines. then, when i've seen the dragon and have gained a vague idea how and where he means to dispose of his prey, i'll scribble off some sort of description of the man and the meeting, even if it's on board the channel boat, in the midst of a tossing. your iphegenia. (or would jephtha's daughter be more appropriate? i'm not quite sure how to spell either.) iii audrie brendon to her mother _rue chapeau de marie antoinette_, _july 6th. early morning_ dearest dame wisdom: you ought to be adviser-in-chief to crowned heads. you'd be invaluable; worth any salary. what a shame you aren't widely known: a sort of public possession! but for my sake i'm glad you aren't, because if you were discovered you'd never have a spare minute to advise me. of course, dear, if you hadn't reached your conclusions just as you did about this step you wouldn't have counselled, or even allowed, me to take it. and i will remember every word you say. i'll do exactly as you tell me to do. so now, don't worry, any more than you would if i were an experienced and accomplished young parachutist about to make a descent from the top of the eiffel tower. it's eight o'clock, and i've satisfied my soul with your letter and my body with its morning roll and coffee. when i've finished scribbling this in pencil to you, i shall pack, and be ready--_for anything_. by the way, that reminds me. what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive, etc. won't the dragon think it queer that his rich ward should make no better toilettes than i shall be able to produce--after living at versailles, practically in paris, with a huge amount of spending money--for a schoolgirl? i thought of that difficulty only last night for the first time, after i was in bed, and was tempted to jump up and review my wardrobe. but it was unnecessary. not only could i call to mind in the most lively way every dress i have, but, i do believe, every dress i ever did have since my frocks were let down or done over from yours. i suppose that ought to make me feel rather young, oughtn't it? to remember every dress i ever owned? but it doesn't. i'll be twenty-one this month, you know--a year older than you were when your ears were gladdened by my first howl. i'm sure it was unearthly, yet that you said at once to dad: "the dear child is going to be musical!" but to return to the wardrobe of the heiress's understudy. it consists of my every-day tailor-made, two white linen coats and skirts, a darned collection (i don't mean that profanely) of summer blouses, and the everlasting, the immortal, black evening dress. is it three or four years old? i know it was my first black, and i did feel so proud and grown-up when you said i might have it. you'll be asking yourself: "where is the blue alpaca she bought in the bon marché sale, which was in the act of being made when i left for _la suisse_?" up to now i've concealed from you the tragical fact that that horrid little mademoiselle voisin completely spoiled it. i was so furious i could have killed her if she'd been on the spot. there is no rage like the dress rage, is there? my one hope is that the dragon may take as little interest in ellaline's clothes as he has taken in ellaline's self, or that, being used to the costumes of the bengalese, which, perhaps, are somewhat sketchy, he may be thankful that his ward has any at all. you see, i can't tell ellaline about this, because she couldn't help thinking it a hint for her to supply the deficiency, and i wouldn't let her do that, even for her own credit. anyhow, there'd be no time to get things, so i must just do the best i can, and carry off the old gray serge and sailor hat with a stately air. heaven gave me five foot seven and a half on purpose to do it with. now i must pack like heat-lightning; and when i've finished i shall send the brown box and the black gladstone to the gare de lyon, where _he_ will arrive from marseilles. that is rather complicated, as of course we must go to the gare du nord for calais or boulogne; but he mayn't wish to start at once for england, and in my new character, as his ward, i must be prepared to obey his orders. i hope he won't treat me as he seems to have treated the bengalese! the luggage of miss ellaline lethbridge obviously can't be called for at the flat of mrs. brendon and her daughter audrie, for there would be questions--and no proper answers. therefore, when i present myself at the gare de lyon, i intend to be "self-contained." all my worldly goods will be there, to be disposed of as the grand mogul pleases. when i've packed i shall hie me to madame de maluet's, looking as good and meek as a trained dove, to take charge of ellaline--and to change into ellaline. after that--the deluge. good-bye, darling! me, to the lions! but i shall have your talisman-letter in my pocket, i can't be eaten, though i do feel rather like your martyr child iv audrie brendon to her mother _on board the boat, half-channel over_, _july 6th. night_ mother dear: the dragon-ness doesn't show at all on the outside. i expected to meet a creature of almost heraldic grimness--rampant, disregardant, gules. what i did meet--but i'm afraid that isn't the right way to begin. please consider that i haven't begun. i'll go back to the time when ellaline and her chaperon (me) started away from school together in a discreet and very hot cab with her trunks. she was jumpy and on edge with excitement, and got on my nerves so that it was the greatest relief when i'd seen her off in her train for st. cloud. just at this point i find another break in my narrative, made by a silly, not at all interesting, adventure. i'd been waving my hand for the twenty-fifth time to ellaline, in response to the same number of waves from her. when at last she drew in her head, as the train steamed away, i turned round in a hurry lest she should pop it out again, and bumped into a man, or what will be a man in a few years if it lives. i said, "_pardon, monsieur_," as gravely as if it were a man already, and it said in french made in england that 'twas entirely its fault. it was such a young youth, and looked so utterly english, that i smiled a motherly smile, and breathed, "not at all," as i passed on, fondly thinking to pass forever out of its life at the same time. but, dearest, the absurd little thing didn't recognize the smile as motherly. perhaps it never had a mother. i had hardly observed it as an individual, i assure you, except as one's sub-conscious self takes notes without permission from headquarters. i was vaguely aware that the creature with whom i had collided was quite nice-looking, though bullet-headed, freckled, light-blue-eyed, crop-haired, and possessing the shadow of a coming event in the shape (i can't call it more) of a moustache. i had also an impression of a panama hat, which came off in compliment to me, a gray flannel suit, the latest kind of collar (you know "sissy williams says, 'the feeling is for low ones this year'!") and mustard-coloured boots. all that sounds hideous, i know, yet it wasn't. at first sight it was rather attractive, but it lost its attractiveness in a flash when it mistook the nature of my smile. you wouldn't believe that a nice, clean little british face could change so much for the worse in about the eighth part of a second! it couldn't have taken longer, or i shouldn't have seen, because it happened between my smile and my walking on. but i did see. a disagreeable kind of lighting up in the eyes, which instantly made them look full of--consciousness of sex, is the only way i can express it. and instead of being inoffensive, boyish, blue beads, they were suddenly transformed into the sharp, whitey-gray sort that the neapolitans "make horns" at. well, all that was nothing to fuss about, for even _i_ know that misguided youths from surbiton or pawtucket, who are quite harmless at home, think they owe it to themselves to be gay dogs when they run over to paris, otherwise they'll not get their money's worth. if it hadn't been for what came afterward i wouldn't be wasting paper and ink on a silly young bounder. as it is, i'll just tell you what happened and see if you think i was to blame, or whether there's likely to be any bother. at that change my look slid off the self-conceited face, like rain off a particularly slippery duck's back. he ought to have known then, if he hadn't before, that i considered him a mere it, but i can just imagine his saying to himself: "this is paris, and i've paid five pounds for a return ticket. must have something to tell the chaps. what's a girl doing out alone?" he came after me and said i'd dropped something. so i had. it was a rose. i was going to disclaim it, with all the haughty grace of a broomstick, when suddenly i remembered that it was my _carte d'identité_, so to speak. the dragon had prescribed it in his last letter to madame de maluet about meeting ellaline. as there might be difficulty in recognition if she came to the station with a chaperon as strange to him as herself, it would be well, he suggested, that each pinned a red rose on her dress. then he would look out for two ladies with two roses. i couldn't make myself into two ladies with two roses, but i must be one lady with one rose, otherwise the dragon and i might miss each other, and he would go out to versailles to see what the dickens was the matter. then the fat would be in the fire, with a vengeance! you see, i had to say "yes" to the rose, because there wasn't time to call at a florist's and try to buy another red label before going on to the gare de lyon. i put out my hand with a "thank you" that sounded as if it needed oiling, but, as if on second thought the silly idiot asked if he might keep the flower for himself. "it looks like an english rose," said he, with a glance which transferred the compliment to me. "certainly not--sir," said i. "i need it myself." "if that's all, you might let me give you a whole bunch to make up for it," said he. then i said, "go away," which mayn't have been elegant, but was to the point. and i walked on with long steps toward the place where there were cabs. but quite a short man is as tall as a tall girl, and his steps were as long as mine. "i say," said he, "you needn't be so cross. what's the harm, as long as we're both english, and this is paris?" "i'm not english," i snapped. "if you don't go away i'll call a gendarme." "you will look a fool if you do. a great tall girl like you," said he, trying to be funny. and it did sound funny. i suppose i must have been pretty nervous, after all i'd gone through with ellaline, for i almost giggled, but i didn't, quite. on the contrary, i marched on like a war-cloud about to burst, and proved my non-british origin by addressing a cabman in the parisian french i've inherited from you. i hoped that the boy couldn't understand, but he did. "mademoiselle, i have to go to the gare de lyon, too," he announced, "and it would be a very friendly act, and show that you forgive me, if you'd let me take you there in a taxi-motor, which you'll find much nicer than that old noah's ark you're engaging." "i don't forgive you," i said, as i mounted into the alleged ark. "your only excuse is that you're not grown up yet." with that parthian shot i ordered my _cocher_, who was furtively grinning by this time, to drive on as quickly as possible. of course the horrid child from surbiton or somewhere didn't have to go to the gare de lyon; but evidently he regarded me as his last hope of an adventure before returning to his native heath or duckpond; so, naturally, he followed in a taxi-motor, whose turbulent, goodness-knows-what-horse-power had to be subdued to one-half-horse gait. i didn't look behind, but i felt in my bones--my funny bones--that he was there. and when i arrived at the gare de lyon so did he. the train i'd come to meet was a p. and o. special, or whatever you call it, and it wasn't in yet, so i had to wait. "cats may look at kings," said my gay cavalier. "cads mayn't though," said i. perhaps i ought to have maintained a dignified silence, but that _mot_ was irresistible. "you _are_ hard on a chap," said he. "i tell you what. i've been thinking a lot about you, mademoiselle, and i believe you're up to some little game of your own. when the cat's away the mice will play. you've got rid of your friend, and you're out for a lark on your own. what?" oh, wouldn't i have loved to box his ears! but this time i was dignified and turned my back on him. luckily, the train came puffing into the station, and he ceased to bother me actively, for the time; but the worst is to follow. now i think i've got to the part of my story where the dragon ought to appear. suddenly, as the train stopped, that platform of a paris railway station was turned into a thoroughly english scene. a wave from great britain swept over it, a tall and tweedy wave, bearing with it golf clubs and kitbags and every kind of english flotsam and jetsam. all the passengers had lately landed from the foreignest of foreign parts, coral strands, and that sort of remote thing, but they looked as incorruptibly, triumphantly british, every man, woman, and child of them (except a fringe of black or brown servants), as if they had strolled over from across channel for a saturday to monday in "gay paree." one can't help admiring as well as wondering at that sort of ineradicable, persistent britishness, can one? i believe it's partly the secret of great britain's success in colonizing. her people are so calmly sure of their superiority over all other races that the other races end by believing it, and trying to imitate their ways, instead of fighting to maintain the right to their own. that feeling came over me as i, a mere french and american chit, stood aside to let the wave flow on. everyone looked so important, and unaware of the existence of foreigners, except porters, that i was afraid my particular drop of the wave might sail by on the crest, without noticing me or my red rose. i tried to make myself little, and the rose big, as if it were in the foreground and i in the perspective, but the procession moved on and nobody who could possibly have been the dragon wasted a glance on me. toward the tail end, however, i spied two men coming, followed by a small bronze figure in "native" dress of some sort. one of the two was tall and tanned, and thirty-five or so. the other--i had a bet with myself that he was my dragon. but it was like "betting on a certainty," which is one of the few things that's dull and dishonest at the same time. some men are born dragons, while others only achieve dragonhood, or have it thrust upon them by the gout. this one was born a dragon, and exactly what i'd imagined him, or even worse, and i was glad that i could conscientiously hate him in peace. the other man had the walk so many englishmen have, as if he were tracking lions across a desert. i quite admire that gait, for it looks brave and un-self-conscious; but the old thing labelled "dragon" marched along as if trampling on prostrate bengalese. a red-hot tory, of course--that went without saying--of the type that thinks radicals deserve hanging. in his eyes that stony glare which english people have when they're afraid someone may be wanting to know them; chicken-claws under his chin, like you see in the necks of elderly bull dogs; a snobbish nose; a bad-tempered mouth; age anywhere between sixty and a hundred. altogether one of those men who must write to the _times_ or go mad. dost like the picture? both these men, who were walking together, looked at me rather hard; and i attributed the dragon's failure to stop at the sign of the rose to the silly vanity which forbade his wearing "specs" like a sensible old gentleman. accordingly, with laudable presence of mind, i did what seemed the only thing to do. i stepped forward, and addressed him with the modest firmness madame de maluet's pupils are taught in "deportment lessons." "i beg your pardon, but aren't you sir lionel pendragon?" "i am lionel pendragon," said the other man--the quite young man. mother, you could have knocked me down with the shadow of a moth-eaten feather! they both took off their travelling caps. the real dragon's was in decent taste. the mock dragon's displayed an offensive chess-board check. "have you come to say--that miss lethbridge has been prevented from meeting me?" asked the real one--the r. d., i'll call him for the moment. "i am----" it stuck in my throat and wouldn't go up or down, so i compromised--which was weak of me, as i always think on principle you'd better lie all in all or not at all. "i suppose you don't recognize me?" i mumbled fluffily. "what--it's not possible that you're ellaline lethbridge!" the r. d. exclaimed, in surprise, which might mean horror of my person or a compliment. i gasped like a fish out of water, and wriggled my neck in a silly way, which a charitable man, unaccustomed to women, might take for schoolgirl gawkishness in a spasm of acquiescence. instantly he put out his hand and wrung mine extremely hard. it would have crunched the real ellaline's rings into her poor little fingers. "you must forgive me," he said. "i saw the rose"--and he smiled a wonderfully agreeable, undragonlike smile, which put him back to thirty-two--"but i was looking out for a very different sort of--er--young lady." "why?" i asked, losing my presence of mind. "i--well, really, i don't know why," said he. "and i was looking for a very different sort of man," i retorted, feeling idiotically schoolgirlish, and sillier every minute. he smiled again then, even more nicely than before, and followed the example i had set. "why?" he inquired. unlike him, i did know why only too well. but it was difficult to explain. still, i had to say something or make things worse. "when in doubt play a trump, or tell the truth," i quoted to myself as a precept; and said out aloud that, somehow or other, i'd thought he would be old. "so i am old," he said, "old enough to be your father." when he added that information, he looked as if he would have liked to take it back again, and his face coloured up with a dull, painful red, as if he'd said something attached to a disagreeable memory. that was what his expression suggested to me; but as i know for a fact that he has not at all a nice, kind character, i suppose in reality what he felt was only a stupid prick of vanity at having inadvertently given his age away. i nearly blurted out the truth about mine, which would have got me into hot water at once, as ellaline's hardly nineteen and i'm practically twenty-one--worse luck for you. by this time the mock dragon had walked slowly on, but the brown image in "native" dress had glued himself to the platform near by, too respectful to be aware of my existence. while i was debating whether or no the last speech called for an answer, the r. d. had a sudden thought which gave him an excuse to change the subject. "where's your chaperon?" he snapped, with a flash of the eye, which was his first betrayal of the hidden devil within him. "she was called away to visit a relative," i answered, promptly; because ellaline and i had agreed i was to say that; and in a way it was true. "you didn't come here alone?" said he. "i had to," said i. "then it's a monstrous thing that madame de maluet should have let you," he growled. "i shall write and tell her so." "oh, don't, please don't," i begged, you can guess how anxiously. "she really _couldn't_ help it, and i shall be so sorry to distress her." he was still glaring, and desperation made me crafty. "you wouldn't refuse the first thing i've asked you?" i tried to wheedle him. i hoped--for ellaline's sake, of course--that i should get another smile; but instead, i got a frown. "now i begin to realize that you are--your mother's daughter," said he, in a queer, hard tone. "no, i won't refuse the first thing you ask me. but perhaps you'd better not consider that a precedent." "i won't," said i. he'd been looking so pleased with me before, as if he'd found me in a prize package, or won me in a lottery when he'd expected to draw a blank; but though he gave in without a struggle to my wheedling, he now looked as if he'd discovered that i was stuffed with sawdust. my quick, "i won't," didn't seem to encourage him a bit. "well," he said, in a duller tone, "we'll get out of this. it was very kind of you to come and meet me. i see now i oughtn't to have asked it; but to tell the truth, the thought of going to a girls' school, and claiming you----" "i quite understand," i nipped in. "this is much better. my luggage is all here," i added. "i couldn't think where else to send it, as i didn't know what your plans might be." at that he looked annoyed again, but luckily, only with himself this time. "i fear i am an ass where women's affairs are concerned," he said. "of course i ought to have thought about your luggage, and settled every detail for you with madame de maluet, instead of trusting to her discretion. still, it does seem as if she----" i wouldn't let him blame madame; but i couldn't defend her without risking danger for ellaline and myself, because madame's arrangements were all perfect, if we hadn't secretly upset them. "i have so _little_ luggage," i broke in, trying to make up with emphasis for irrelevancy. "and madame considers me quite a grown-up person, i assure you." "i suppose you are," he admitted, observing my inches with a worried air. "i ought to have realized; but somehow or other i expected to find a child." "i shall be less bother to you than if i were a child," i consoled him. this did make him smile again, for some reason, as he replied that he wasn't sure. and we were starting to hook ourselves on to the tail end of the dwindling procession, quite on friendly terms, when to my horror that young english cadlet--or boundling, which you will--strolled calmly out in front of us, and said, "how do you do, sir lionel pendragon? i'm afraid you don't remember me. dick burden. anyhow, you'll recollect my mother and aunt." i had forgotten all about the creature, dearest; but there he had been lurking, ready to pounce. and what bad luck that he should know ellaline's guardian, wasn't it? at first i thought maybe he really had had business at the gare de lyon, and that i'd partly misjudged him. and then it flashed into my head that, on the contrary, he didn't really know sir lionel, but had overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me. wasn't that a conceited idea? but neither was true. at least the latter wasn't, i know, and i'm pretty sure the first wasn't. what i think, is this: that he simply followed me to the gare de lyon for the "deviltry" of the thing, and because he'd nothing better to do. that he hung about in sheer curiosity, to see whom i was meeting; and that he recognized the dragon as an old acquaintance. i once fondly supposed coincidences were remarkable and rare events, but i've known ever since i've known the troubles of life that it's only agreeable ones which are rare, such as coming across your long-lost millionaire-uncle who's decided to leave you all his money, just as you'd made up your mind to commit suicide or marry a jewish diamond merchant. disagreeable coincidences sit about on damp clouds ready to fall on you the minute they think you don't expect them, and they're more likely to occur than not. that's my experience. evidently the dragon did remember dick's mother and aunt, for the first blankness of his expression brightened into intelligence with the mention of the youth's female belongings. he held out his hand cordially, and remarked that of course he remembered mrs. burden and mrs. senter. as for dick, he had grown out of all recollection. "it was a good many years ago," returned the said dick, hastening to disprove the slur of youthfulness. "it was just before i went to sandhurst. but you haven't changed. i knew you at once." "on leave, i suppose?" suggested sir lionel. "no," said dick, "i'm not in the army. failed. truth is, i didn't want to get in. wasn't cut out for it. there's only one profession i care for." "what's that?" the dragon was obliged to ask, out of politeness, though i don't think he cared much. "the fact is," returned mr. burden (a most appropriate name, according to my point of view), "it's rather a queer one, or might seem so to you, and i've promised the mater i won't talk of it unless i do adopt it. and i'm over here qualifying, now." it was easy to see that he hoped he'd excited our curiosity; and he must have been disappointed in sir lionel's half-hearted "indeed?" as for me, i tried to make my eyes look like boiled gooseberries, an unenthusiastic fruit, especially when cooked. i was delighted with the dragon, though, for not introducing him. having said "indeed," sir lionel added that we must be getting on--luggage to see to; his valet a foreigner, and more bother than use. i took my cue, and pattered along by my guardian's side, his tall form a narrow yet impassable bulwark between me and mr. dick burden. but mr. d. b. pattered too, refusing to be thrown off. he asked sir lionel if he were staying on in paris; and in the short conversation that followed i picked up morsels of news which hadn't been given me yet. it appeared that the dragon's sister (who would suspect a dragon of sisters?) had wired to marseilles that she would meet him in paris, and he "expected to find her at an hotel." he didn't say what hotel, so it was evident mr. dick burden need not hope for an invitation to call. apparently our plans depended somewhat on her, but sir lionel "thought we should get away next day at latest." there was nothing to keep him in paris, and he was in a hurry to reach england. i was glad to hear that, for fear some more coincidences might happen, such as meeting madame de maluet or one of the teachers holiday-making. conscience does make you a coward! i never noticed mine much before. i wish you could take anti-conscience powders, as you do for neuralgia. wouldn't they sell like hot cakes? at last mr. dick burden had to go away without getting the introduction he wanted, and sir lionel was either very absent-minded or else very obstinate not to give it, i'm not sure which; but if i were a betting character i should bet on the latter. i begin to see that his dragon-ness may be expected to leak out in his attitude toward woman as a sex. already i've detected the most primitive, almost primæval, ideas in him, which probably he contracted in bengal. would you believe it, he insisted on my putting on a veil to travel with?--but i haven't come to that part yet. as for mr. burden, as i said, he disappeared from our view; but i doubt if we disappeared from his. you may think this is conceited in me, but, as he took off his panama in saying good-bye, he contrived to peer at me round an unfortified corner of the dragon, and the look he flung me said more plainly than words: "this is all right, but i'm hanged if i don't see it through," or something even more emphatic to that effect. sir lionel was surprised when he saw my luggage, which we picked up when he'd claimed his own. "i thought young ladies never went anywhere without a dozen boxes," said he. "oh, mamma and i travelled half over europe with only one trunk and two bags between us," i blurted out, before i stopped to think. then i wished the floor would yawn and swallow me up. he did stare!--and his eyes are dreadfully piercing when he stares. they are very nice-looking gray ones; but i can tell you they felt like hatpins. "i should have thought you were too young in those days to know anything about luggage," said he. that gave me a straw to clutch. "madame de maluet has told me a great deal." (so she has, about one thing or another; mostly my own faults.) "oh, i see," he said. it must have seemed funny to him, my saying that about the trunks, as ellaline's mother died when e. was four. he hadn't much luggage, either; no golf clubs, or battle-axes, or whatever you play about with in bengal when you aren't terrorizing the natives. he sent the brown servant off in one cab with our things, and put me in another, into which he also mounted. it did seem funny driving off with him, for when i came to think of it, i was never alone with a man before; but he was gawkier about it than i was. not exactly shy; i hardly know how to express it, but he couldn't help showing that he was out of his element. oh, i forgot to tell you, he'd shaken hands with the mock dragon, and shunted him off just as ruthlessly as he did the boy. "see you in london, sooner or later," said he. as if anyone could want to see such a disagreeable old thing! yet, perhaps, if i but knew, the mock dragon's character may be the nobler of the two. if i were to judge by appearances, i should have liked the real dragon's looks, and thought from first sight that he was rather a brave, fine, high-principled person, even unselfish. whereas i know from all ellaline has told me that his qualities are quite the reverse of these. we were going to the grand hotel, and driving there he pumped up a few perfunctory sort of questions about school, the way grown-up people who don't understand children talk to little girls. you know: "do you like your lessons? what do you do on holidays? what is your middle name?" sort of thing. i was afraid i should laugh, so i asked him questions instead; and all the time he seemed to be studying me in a puzzled, surprised way, as if i were a duck that had just stepped out of a chicken egg, or a goblin in a nonconformist home. (if he keeps on doing this, i shall _have_ to find out what he means by it, or _burst_.) i asked him about his sister, as i thought bengal might be a sore subject, and he appeared to think that i already knew something of her. if ellaline does know, she forgot to tell me; and i hope other things like that won't be continually cropping up, or my nerves won't stand it. _i_ shall take to throwing spoons and tea-cups. he reminded me of her name being mrs. norton, and that she's a widow. he hadn't expected her to come over, he said, and he was surprised to get her telegram, but no doubt he'd find out that she'd a pretty good reason. and it was nothing to be astonished at, her not meeting him at the gare de lyon, for she invariably missed people when she went to railway stations. it had been a characteristic of hers since youth. when they were both young they were often in paris together, for they had french cousins (ellaline's mother's people, i suppose), and then they stopped at the grand hotel. he hadn't been there, though, he added, for nearly twenty years; and had been out of england, without coming back, for fifteen. that made him seem old, talking of what happened twenty years ago--almost my whole life. yet he doesn't look more than thirty-five at most. i wonder does the climate of bengal preserve people, like flies in amber? perhaps he's really sixty, and has this unnatural appearance of youth. "does mrs. norton know about--me?" i asked. "why; of course she does," said he. "i wrote her she must come and live with me when i found i'd got to have----" he shut up like a clam, on that, and looked so horribly ashamed of himself that i burst out laughing. "please don't mind," said i. "i know i'm an incubus, but i'll try to be as little trouble as possible." "you're _not_ an incubus," he contradicted me, almost indignantly. "you're entirely different from what i thought you would be." "oh, then you thought i _would_ be an incubus?" i couldn't resist the temptation of retorting. maybe it was cruel, but there's no society for the prevention of cruelty to dragons, so it can't be considered wrong in humane circles. "not at all. but i--i don't know much about women, especially girls," said he. "and i told you i thought of you as a child." "i hope you haven't gone to the trouble of engaging a nurse for me?" i suggested. and if he were cross at being teased, he didn't show it. he said he'd trusted all such arrangements to his sister. he hadn't seen her for many years, but she was good-natured, and he hoped that we would get on. what i principally hoped was that she wouldn't prove to be of a _suspicious_ nature; for a detective on the hearth would be inconvenient, and women can be so sharp about each other! i've found that out at madame de maluet's; i never would from you, dear. you weren't a cat in any of your previous incarnations. i think you must have "evoluted" from that neat blending of serpent and dove which eventually produces a perfect parisienne. we went into the big hall of the grand hotel, where sir lionel said in "his day" carriages used to drive in; and suddenly, to my own surprise, i felt gay and excited, as if this were life, and i had begun to live. i didn't regret having to play ellaline one bit. everything seemed great fun. you know, darling, i haven't had much "life," except in you and books, since i was sixteen, and our pennies and jauntings finished up at the same time; though i had plenty before that--all sorts of "samples," anyhow. i suppose it must have been the bright, worldly look of the hotel which gave me that tingling sensation, as if a little wild bird had burst into song in my heart. although it's out of season for parisians, the hall was full of fashionable-seeming people, mostly americans and other foreigners. as we came in, a lady rose from a seat near the door. she was small, and the least fashionable or well-dressed person in the room, yet with the air of being satisfied with herself morally. i saw at once she was of the type who considers her church a "home from home"; who dresses her house as if it were a person, and upholsters herself as if she were a sofa. of course, i knew it was mrs. norton, and i _was_ disappointed. i would almost have preferred her to be catty. she and her brother hadn't seen each other for fifteen years, but they met as calmly as if they had lunched together yesterday. i think, though, that was more her fault than his, for when he held out his hand she lifted it up on a level with her chin to shake; and of course that would have taken the "go" out of a grasshopper. i suppose it wouldn't have been "good form" to kiss in a hotel hall, but if _i_ retrieved a long-lost brother in any sort of hall, i don't believe i could resist. her hair was so plainly drawn back, it was like a moral influence, and her toque sat up high on her head like a bun or a travelling pincushion. the only trimming on her dress was buttons, but there were a large family of them. sir lionel introduced us, and she said she was pleased to meet me. also, that i was not at all like my mother or father. then she asked if i had ever been to england; but luckily, before i'd had a chance to compromise myself by saying that i'd lived a few months in london, but had been nowhere else (there's where our money began to give out), her brother reminded her that i was only four when i left england. "of course, i had forgotten," said mrs. norton. "but don't they ever take them over to see the british museum or the national gallery? i should have thought it would be an education--with cheap returns." "probably french schoolmistresses believe that their pupils get their money's worth on the french side of the channel," replied sir lionel. "oh!" said mrs. norton; and looked at me as if to see how the system had answered. i'm sure she approved of the gray serge and the sailor hat more than she approved of the girl in them. you see, i don't think she sanctions hair that isn't dark brown. we didn't sit down, but talked standing up. sir lionel and his sister throwing me words out of politeness now and then. she has a nice voice, though cold as iced water that has been filtered. her name is emily. it _would_ be! he said he was surprised as well as pleased to get her telegram on arriving at marseilles, and it was very good of her to come to paris and meet him. she said not at all, it was no trouble, but a pleasure, or rather it would be, if it weren't for the sad reason that brought her. "why, is anybody dead?" asked sir lionel, looking as if he were running over a list in his head, but couldn't call up a name which concerned him personally. "there's been a thinning off among old friends lately, i'm sorry to say; i've told you about most of them, i think, in postscripts," replied mrs. norton. "but it wasn't their loss, poor dears, which brought me over. it was the fire." "what fire?" her brother wanted to know. "why, _your_ fire. surely you must have seen about it in to-day's london papers?" "to-day's london papers won't get to marseilles till to-morrow, and i haven't been long enough in paris to see one yet," explained sir lionel. "have i had a serious fire, and what has been burnt?" he spoke as coolly as if it were the question of a mutton chop. "part of the house," returned mrs. norton, not even trying to break it to him. "i hope not the old part," said he. "no, it is the new wing. but _that_ seemed to me such a pity. such a beautiful bathroom, hot and cold, spray and shower, quite destroyed; and a noble linen closet, heated throughout with pipes, and fully stocked." "the bathroom may have been early pullman, and the linen closet late german lloyd, my dear emily; but the rest of the house is tudor, and can't be replaced," said sir lionel; and i was sure, as he looked down at his sister, of a thing i'd already suspected: that he has a sense of humour. that's a modern improvement with which you wouldn't expect a dragon to be fitted; but i begin to see that this is an elaborate and complicated dragon. some people are pharisees about their sense of humour, and keep harping on it till you wish it were a live wire and would electrocute them. _he_ would rather be ashamed of his, i fancy, and yet it must have amused him, and made him feel good chums with himself, away out in bengal. mrs. norton said that warings had very handsome tudor dining-rooms in one or two of their model houses, so nothing was irrevocable nowadays; but she was pleased, if he was, that only the modern wing was injured. it had happened yesterday morning, just too late for the newspapers, which must have annoyed the editors; and she had felt that it would be best to undertake the journey to paris, and consult about plans, as it might make a difference (here she glanced at me); but she hadn't mentioned the fire when wiring, because things seemed worse in telegrams, and besides, it would have been a useless expense. no doubt it had been stupid of her, but she had fancied he would certainly see it in the paper, with all details, and therefore guess why she was meeting him. "we have nowhere to take miss lethbridge," said she, "since graylees castle will be overrun with workmen for some time to come. i didn't know but you might feel it would be best, after all, for us to put her again in charge of her old schoolmistress for a few weeks." if hair could really rise, mine would have instantly cast out every hairpin, as if they were so many evil spirits, and have stood out all around my head like strumpelpeter's. yet there was nothing i could say. if i were mistress of a dozen languages, i should have had to be speechless in every one. but i saw sir lionel looking at me, and i hastily gave him a silent treatment with my eyes. it had the most satisfactory effect. "no, i don't think we will take her back to madame de maluet's," said he. "madame may have made other plans for the holiday season. perhaps she is going away." "i'm sure she is," said i. "she is going to visit her mother-in-law's aunt." sir lionel was still looking at me, lost in thought. (i forget if i mentioned that he has nice eyes? i haven't time to look back and see if i did, now. i'm scribbling as fast as i can. we shall soon land, and i want to post this at dover, if i can get an english stamp "off" someone, as "sissy" williams, our only british neighbour, says.) "how would you like a motor-car trip?" sir lionel asked abruptly. the relief from suspense was almost too great, and i nearly jumped down his throat, so, after all, it would have been my own fault if the dragon had eaten me. "i should _adore_ it!" i said. "my dear!" protested mrs. norton, indulgently. "one adores heavenly beings." "i'm not sure a motor-car isn't a heavenly being," said i, "though perhaps without capitals." the dragon smiled, but she looked awfully shocked, and no doubt blamed madame de maluet. "i've a forty-horse mercédès promised to be ready on my arrival," said sir lionel, still reflective. "you know, emily, the little twelve-horse-power car i had sent out to east bengal was a mercédès. if i could drive her, i can drive a bigger car. everybody says it's easier. and young nick has learned to be a first-rate mechanic." i suppose young nick must be the dragon's pet name for the bronze image. what fun that he should be a chauffeur! fancy an indian idol squatted on the front seat of an up-to-date automobile. but when you come to think of it, there have been other gods in cars. i only hope, if i'm to be behind him, this one won't behave like juggernaut. he wears almost too many clothes, for he is the type that would look over-dressed in a bangle. "we might have an eight or ten weeks' run about england," the dragon went on, "while things are being made straight at graylees. it would be good to see something of the blessed old island again before settling down." "one would think you were quite pleased at the fire, lionel," remarked his sister, who evidently believes it wrong to look on the bright side of things, and right to expect the worst--like an undertaker calling for a client before he's dead. "what is, is," returned he. "we may as well make the best of it. you wouldn't mind a motor tour, would you, emily?" "i would go if it were my duty, and you desired it," she said, looking as if she ought to be on stained glass, with half a halo, "only i am hardly young enough to consider motoring as a pleasure." "there aren't many years between us," replied her brother, too polite to say whether he were in front or behind, "but i confess i do regard it as a pleasure." "a man is different," she admitted. thank goodness, he is! then they talked more about the fire, which, it seems, happened through something being wrong with a flue, in a room where mrs. n. had told a servant to build a fire on account of dampness. it must be a wonderful old place from what they both let drop. (i told you in another letter how sir lionel had inherited it, about the same time as his title, or a little later. the estate, though, comes from the mother's side, and her people were from warwickshire.) his cool british way of saying and taking things is a good deal on the surface, i think. he would have hated us to see it, but i'm sure he worked himself up to quite a pitch of joyful excitement over the idea of the motor trip, as it developed in his mind. and it is splendid, isn't it, darling? you know how sorry you were we hadn't been more economical, and made our money last long enough to travel in england, instead of having to stop short after a splash in london. now i'm going to see bits in spite of all, until i'm "called away," and i'll try my best, in letters, to make you see what i do. ellaline wouldn't have enjoyed such a tour, for she hates the country, or any place where it isn't suitable to wear high heels and picture hats. but i--oh, i! twenty dragons on the same seat of the car with me couldn't prevent my revelling in it--though it may be cut short for me at any minute. as for mrs. norton---but the stewardess has just said we shall be in, in five minutes. i had to come down to the ladies' cabin with mrs. n. now i haven't time to tell you any more, except that they both (sir l. and his sister, i mean) wanted to get to england as soon as possible. i know _she_ was disappointed not to fling her brother's ward back to madame de maluet, and probably wouldn't have come over to paris if she hadn't hoped to bring it off; but she resigns herself to things easily when a man says they're best. it was sir lionel who wanted particularly to cross to-night, though he didn't urge it; but she said, "very well, dear. i think you're right." so here we are. a large bell is ringing, and so is my heart. i mean it's beating. good-bye, dearest. i'll write again to-morrow--or rather to-day, for it's a lovely sunrise, like a good omen--when we get settled somewhere. i believe we're going to a london hotel. yes, stewardess. oh, i ought to have said that to her, instead of writing it to you. she interrupted. love--love. _your_ audrie, _their_ ellaline. v audrie brendon to her mother _ritz hotel, london_, _july 8th_ angel: may your wings never moult! i hope you didn't think me extravagant wiring yesterday, instead of writing. i was too busy baking the yeasty dough of my impressions to write a letter worth reading; and when one has practically _no_ money, what's the good of being economical? you know the sole point of sympathy i ever touched with "sissy" williams was his famous speech: "if i can't earn five hundred a year, it's not worth while worrying to earn anything"; which excused his settling down as a "remittance man," in the top flat, at forty francs a month. dearest, the dragon hasn't drag-ged once, yet! and, by the way, till he does so, i think i won't call him dragon again. it's rather gratuitous, as i'm eating his bread--or rather, his perfectly gorgeous _à la cartes_, and am literally smeared with luxury, from my rising up until my lying down, at his expense. i know, and you know, because i repeated it word for word, that ellaline said she thought he must have been well paid for undertaking to "guardian" her, as his hard, selfish type does nothing for nothing; and she has always seemed so very rich (quite _the_ heiress of the school, envied for her dresses and privileges) that there might be temptations for an unscrupulous man to pick up a few plums here and there. but--well, of course ellaline ought to know, after being his ward ever since she was four, and hearing things on the best authority about the horrid way he treated her mother, as well as suffering from his cruel heartlessness all these years. never a letter written to herself; never the least little present; never a wish to hear from her, or see her photograph; all business carried on between himself and madame de maluet, who is too discreet to prejudice a ward against a guardian. and i--i saw him only day before yesterday for the first time. what _can_ i know about him? i've no experience in reading characters of men. the dear old abbé and a few masters in the school are the only ones i have a bowing acquaintance with--except "sissy" williams, who doesn't count. it's dangerous to trust to one's instincts, no doubt, for it's so difficult to be sure a wish isn't disguising itself as instinct, in rouge and a golden wig. but then, there's the man's profile, which is of the knight-of-old, crusader pattern, a regular hook to hang respect upon, though i'd be doing it injustice if i let you imagine it's _shaped_ like a hook. it isn't; it's quite beautiful; and you find yourself furtively, semi-consciously sketching it in air with your forefinger as you look at it. it suggests race, and _noblesse oblige_, and a long line of soldier ancestors, and that sort of thing, such as you used to say survived visibly among the english aristocracy and english peasantry (not in the mixed-up middle classes) more markedly than anywhere else. that must mean some correspondence in character, mustn't it? or can it be a mask, handed down by noble ancestry to cover up moral defects in a degenerate descendant? am i gabbling school-girl gush, or am i groping toward light? you know what i want to say, anyhow. the impression sir lionel pendragon makes on me would be different if he hadn't been described by ellaline. i should have supposed him quite easy to read, if he'd happened upon me, unheralded--as a big ship looms over a little bark, on the high sea. i'd have thought him a simple enough, straightforward character in that case. i should have put him in the class with his own tudor castle--not that i've ever yet seen a tudor castle, except in photographs or on postcards. but i'd have said to myself: if he'd been born a house instead of a man, he'd have been built centuries and centuries ago, by strong barons who knew exactly what they wanted, and grabbed it. he'd have been a castle, an _early_ tudor castle, battlemented and surrounded by a moat, fortified, of course, and impregnable to the enemy, unless they treacherously blew him up. he would have had several secret rooms, but they would contain chests of treasure, not nasty skeletons. now you understand exactly what i'd be thinking of the alleged dragon, if it weren't for ellaline. but as it is, i don't know what to think of him. that's why i describe him as elaborate and complicated, because, i suppose, he must be totally different inside from what he seems outside. anyhow, i don't care--it's lovely being at the ritz. and we're in the newspapers this morning, emily and i shining by reflected light; mine doubly reflected, like the earth's light shining on to the moon, and from that being passed on to something else--some poor little chipped meteorite strayed out of the milky way. it was mrs. norton who discovered the article about sir lionel--half a column--in the _morning post_ and she sent out for lots of other papers without saying anything to her brother, for--according to her--he "hates that sort of thing." i didn't have time to tell you in my last that she was sick crossing the channel (though it was as smooth as if it had been ironed, and only a few wrinkles left in), but apparently she considers it good form for a female to be slightly ill in a ladylike way on boats; so, of course, she is. and as i was decent to her, she decided to like me better than she thought she would at first. for some reason they _both_ seemed prejudiced against me (i mean against ellaline) to begin with. i can't think why; and slowly, with unconcealable surprise, they are changing their minds. changing one's mind keeps one's soul nice and clean and fresh; so theirs will be well aired, owing to me. emily has become quite resigned to my existence, and doles me out small confidences. she has not a rich nature, to begin with, and it has never been fertilized much, so it's rather sterile; but no noxious weeds, anyhow, as there _may_ be in sir lionel's more generous and cultivated soil. i think i shall get on with her pretty well after all, especially motoring, when i can take her with plenty of ozone. she is a little afraid of her brother, though he's five years younger than she (i've now learned), but extremely proud of him; and it was quite pathetic, her cutting out the stuff about him in the papers, this morning, and showing every bit to me, before pasting all in a book she has been keeping for years, entirely concerned with sir lionel. she says she will show that to me, too, some day, but i mustn't tell him. as if i would! but about the newspapers. she didn't order any radical ones, because she said they were always down on the aristocracy, and unjust as well as stupid; but she got one by mistake, and you've no idea how delighted the poor little woman was when it praised her brother up to the skies. then she said there were _some_ decent radicals, after all. of course, one knows the difference between "mirabeau judged by his friends and mirabeau judged by the people," and can make allowances (if one's digestion's good) for points of view. but there's one thing certain, whether he's angel or devil, or something hybrid between the two, sir lionel pendragon is a man of importance in the public eye. i wonder if ellaline realizes his importance in that way? i can't think she does, or she would have mentioned it, as it needn't have interfered with her opinion of his private character. it's a little through emily, but mostly from the newspaper cuttings, that i've got my knowledge of what he's done, and been, and is expected to be. he's forty. i know that, because the _morning post_ gave the date of his birth, and he's rather a swell, although only a baronet, and not even that till a short time ago. it appears that the family on both sides goes back into the mists of antiquity, in the days when legend, handed down by word of mouth (_can_ you hand things out of your mouth? sounds rude), was the forerunner of history. his father's ancestors are supposed to be descended from king arthur; hence the "pendragon"; though, i suppose, if it's true, king arthur must really have been married several times, as say the vulgar records of which tennyson very properly takes no notice. there have been dukes and earls in the family, but they have somehow disappeared, perhaps because in those benighted days there were no american heiresses to keep them up. it seems that sir lionel was a soldier to begin with, and was dreadfully wounded in some frontier fight in india when he was very young. he nearly lost the use of his left arm, and gave up the army; but he got the victoria cross. ellaline didn't say a word about that. maybe she doesn't know. after i'd read his "dossier" in the paper, i couldn't resist asking him at lunch what he had done to deserve the v. c. "nothing to deserve it," he answered, looking surprised. "to get it, then?" i twisted my question round. "oh, i don't know--almost forget. pulled some silly ass out of a hole, i believe," said he. that's what you get for asking this sort of englishman questions about his past. i thought it was only widows with auburn hair you mustn't talk to about their pasts. "a grateful government" (according to the _morning post_) "sent young pendragon, at the age of twenty-five, to east bengal, as private secretary to sir john hurley, who was lieutenant-governor at that time"; and it's an ill governor, so to speak, who blows no one any good. sir john's liver was so tired of bengal, that he had to take it away, and lieutenant pendragon (as he was then) looked after things till another man could arrive. he looked after them so brilliantly, that when the next lieutenant-governor did something silly, and was asked to resign, our incipient sir lionel was invited to take on the job. he was only thirty, and so he has been lieutenant-governor for ten years. now he's going to see whether he likes being a baronet better, and having castles and motor-cars. all the papers i saw praised him tremendously, and said that in a crisis which might have been disastrous he had averted a catastrophe by his remarkable strength of character and presence of mind. i suppose that was the time when the other papers accused him of abominable cruelties. i wonder which was right? perhaps i shall be able to judge, sooner or later, if i watch at the loopholes of his character like a cat watching for a mouse to come out for a walk. as for money, if one can believe newspapers, he has plenty without shaking pennies from the slot of ellaline lethbridge's bank, and was fairly well off even before he came in for his title or his castle. however, as a very young man, he may have been poor--about the time he went into guardianship. by the way, the left arm seems all right now. anyhow, he uses it as arms are meant to be used, so far as i can see, so evidently it improved with time. the papers tell about his coming back to england, and his warwickshire castle, and the fire, and mrs. norton giving up her house in--some county or other; i've already forgotten which--to live with her "distinguished brother." also, they say that he has a ward, whose mother was a relative of the family, and whose father was the honourable frederic lethbridge, so well known and popular in society during the "late eighties." ellaline was born in 1891. what had become of him, i'd like to know? perhaps he died before she was born. she has told me that she can't remember him, but that's about all she has ever said of her father. we are to stay at the ritz until we start off on the motor trip, which is actually going to happen, though i was afraid it was too good to be true. the new car won't be ready for a week, though. i am sorry, but mrs. norton isn't. she is afraid she will be killed, and thinks it will be a messy sort of death to die. besides, she likes london. she says her brother will be "overwhelmed with invitations"; but he hates society, and loathes being lionized. imagine the man smothered under stacks of perfumed notes, as tarpeia was under the shields and bracelets! emily has not lived in london, because she wanted to be in a place where she particularly valued the vicar and the doctor; but she has given them up for her brother now, and is only going to write her symptoms, spiritual and physical. she enjoys church more than anything else, but thinks it will be her duty to take me about a little while we're in town, as her brother is sure not to, because he spurns women, and is not interested in anything they do. i suppose she must know; and yet, at lunch yesterday, he asked if we were too tired, or if we should like to "do a few theatres." i said--because i simply _had_ to spare them a shock later--that i was afraid i hadn't anything nice to wear. i felt myself go red--for it was a sort of disgrace to ellaline--but he didn't seem as much surprised as mrs. norton did. her eyebrows went up; but he only said of course school girls never had smart frocks, and i must buy a few dresses at once. one evening gown would be enough for a young girl, mrs. norton said, but he didn't agree with her. he said he hadn't thought about it, but now that it occurred to him, he was of opinion that women should have plenty of nice things. then, when she told him, rather hurriedly, that she would choose me something ready made at a good shop in oxford street, he remarked that he'd always understood bond street was the place. "not for school girls," explained dear emily, who is a canny person. "she isn't a school girl now. that's finished," said sir lionel. and as she thinks him a tin god on wheels, she ceased to argue. by the by, he has the air of hating to call me by name. he says "miss lethbridge," in a curious, stiff kind of way, when he's absolutely obliged to give me a label; otherwise he compromises with "you," to which he confines himself when possible. it's rather odd, and can't be an accident. the only reason i can think of is that he may feel it is really his duty to call me "ellaline." i promised to write to ellaline, as soon as i'd anything to tell worth telling; and i suppose i must do it to-day; yet i dread to, and can't make up my mind to begin. i don't like to praise a person whom she regards as a monster; still, i've nothing to say against him; and i'm sure she'll be cross if i don't run him down. i think i shall state facts baldly. when i get instalments of allowance--intended for ellaline, of course--i am to send the money to her, except just enough not to be noticeably penniless. i'm to address her as mademoiselle leonie de nesville, and send letters to poste restante, because, while i'm known as miss lethbridge, it might seem queer if i posted envelopes directed to a person of my own name. it was ellaline who suggested that, not i. she thought of everything. though she's such a child in some ways, she's marvellous at scheming. i really can't think yet what i _shall_ say to her. it's worrying me. i feel guilty, somehow, i don't know why. mrs. norton suggested taking me out shopping and sight-seeing this afternoon. sir lionel proposed going with us. his sister was astonished, and so was i, especially after what she had said about his not being interested in women's affairs. "just to make sure that you take my tip about bond street," he remarked. "and bond street used to amuse me--when i was twenty. i think it will amuse me now--to see how it and i have changed." so we are going, all three. rather awful about the gray serge and sailor hat, isn't it? i felt self-respecting in them at versailles, and even in paris, because there i was a singing teacher; in other words, nobody. but in london i'm supposed to be an heiress. and here, at the ritz, such beautiful beings come to lunch, in dresses which they have evidently been poured into with consummate skill and incredible expense. i tasted _pêche melba_ to-day, for the first time. it made me wish for you. but it didn't seem to go at all with gray serge and a cotton blouse. i ought to have been a gorgeous being, with silk linings. how am i to support the shopping ordeal? supposing mrs. norton chooses me things (oh horror!). they're sure to be hideous, but they may be costly. as it says in an english society paper which madame de maluet takes: "what should a. do?" if only telepathy were a going concern, you would answer that hard case for your poor, puzzled "a.," alias "e." p. s. nothing more heard or seen of the white girl's burden, richard of that ilk. i was afraid of his turning up at the grand hotel in paris, or even at the station to "see us off," but he didn't. he has disappeared into space, and is welcome to the whole of it. i should nearly have forgotten him, if i didn't wonder sometimes what his mysterious profession is. vi sir lionel pendragon to colonel p. r. o'hagan, at droita, east bengal _ritz hotel, london_, _july 8th_ my dear pat: you were right, i was wrong. it _is_ good to be in england again. your prophecy has come true. the dead past has pretty well buried its dead. a few dry bones show under the surface here and there. i let them lie. is thy servant a dog, that he should dig up buried bones! as you know, i was ass enough to dread arriving in paris. i dreaded it throughout the whole voyage. when i got to marseilles, i found a wire from emily, saying she would meet me in paris. ass again! i had an idea she was putting herself to that trouble with the kindly wish to "stand by," and take my thoughts off old days. but i might have known better, knowing that good, practical little soul. she had quite another object. came to break the news of a fire at graylees; but it seems not to have done any serious damage, except to have wiped out a few modern frills. they can easily be tacked on again. i'm glad it was no worse, for i love graylees. i might have turned out a less decent sort of chap than i am if it hadn't been for the prospect of inheriting it sooner or later. one has to live up to certain things, and graylees was an incentive. you asked me to tell you if emily had changed. well, she has. it's eighteen years since you saw her; fifteen since i did. i must tell you honestly, you'd have no sentimental regrets if you could see her now. you will remember, if you're not too gallant, that she was three years older than you; the three seem to have stretched to a dozen. luckily, you didn't let norton's snatching emily from under your nose prey upon cheek or heart. nothing is damaged. you are sound and whole, and that is why your friendship has been such a boon to me. you have saved me from tilting against many windmills. i suppose you'll think i'm "preambling" now, to put off the evil moment of telling you about ellaline de nesville's girl. but no. for once you're mistaken in me. after all, it isn't an evil moment. i'm surprised at myself, doubly surprised at the girl; and both surprises are agreeable ones. i don't ask you if you remember ellaline; for nobody who ever saw her could forget her; at least, so it seems to me, after all these years, and all the changes in myself. as i am now, hers is the last type with which i should fall in love, provided i were fool enough to lose my head for anyone. yet i can't wonder at the adoration i gave her. she was exactly the sort of girl to call out a boy's love, and she had all mine, poor foolish wretch that i was. there's nothing more pathetic, i think, at this distance, than a boy's passionate purity in his first love--unless it's his disillusionment; for disillusion does no nature good. it would have done mine great harm if i hadn't had a friend like you to groan and grumble to. you understand how i've always felt about this child she wished me to care for. i was certain that ellaline number 2 would grow up as like ellaline number 1 as this summer's rose is like last summer's, which bloomed on the same bush. at four years old the little thing undoubtedly had a dollish resemblance to her mother. i thought i remembered that she had the first ellaline's great dark eyes, full of incipient coquetry, and curly black lashes, which the little flirt already knew how to use, by instinct. the same sort of mouth, too, which to look at makes a boy believe in a personal cupid, and a man in a personal devil. i had a dim recollection of chestnut-brown hair, falling around a tiny face shaped like ellaline's; "heart-shape" we used to call it, emily and i, when we were both under our little french cousin's thumb, in the oldest days of all, before even emily began to find her out. i wonder if a child sheds its first hair, like its first teeth? i've never given much thought to infantine phenomena of any kind; still, i'm inclined to believe now that there must be such cases. of course, we know a type of blond, née brunette; for instance, mrs. senter, young burden's fascinating aunt, whom we suspected of having turned blond in a single night (by the way, whom should i run across in paris but dicky, grown up more or less since he chaperoned his female belongings in the far east). but i'm not talking of the mrs. senters of the world; i'm talking of ellaline's unexpected daughter. she has changed almost incredibly between the ages of four and nineteen. before i knew emily intended meeting me in paris, i wrote the school-ma'am asking that my ward might be sent, well chaperoned, to the gare de lyon. it was bad enough to have to face a modern young female, adorned with all the latest improvements and parlour tricks. it would have been worse to face several dozens of these creatures in their lair; therefore, i funked collecting my ward at versailles. i was to know her by a rose pinned on her frock in case she'd altered past recognition. it was well, as things turned out, that i'd made the suggestion, otherwise the girl would have had to go back to versailles, like an unclaimed parcel; and that would have been bad, as she had no chaperon. something had happened to the lady, or to the lady's relatives. i almost forget what, now. instead of the dainty little tanagra figure in smart french frills, which i expected, there was a tall, beautiful young person, with the bearing of an atalanta, and the clothes of a quakeress. she tacked my name on to the wrong man, or i should have let her go, in spite of the rose, so different was she from what i expected. and you'll be amused to hear that her idea of lionel pendragon was embodied by old "hannibal" jones, who got into my train at marseilles. he's taken to parting his name in the middle now, and is general wellington-jones. she ought to have known my age approximately, or could have learned it if she cared to bother; but i suppose to nineteen, forty might as well be sixty. that's a thing to remember, if one feels the sap pulsing in one's branches, just to remind one that after all it's not spring, but autumn. and at the present moment, by the way, i'm not sure that i shan't need this kind of taking down a peg, for i am feeling so young that i think i must be growing old. i have begun to value what's left me of youth; to take it out and look at it in all lights, like a fruit which must be gloated over before it decays--and that's a fatal sign, eh? i have the most extraordinary interest in life, which i attribute to the new motor-car which will be finished and ready to use in a few days; also to the thought that graylees is my own. but i'm wandering away from the girl. she is as unlike ellaline de nesville as one beautifully bound first volume of a human document can be from another equally attractive. "first volume of a human document" isn't inexpressive of a young girl, is it? heaven knows what this one may be by the time the second and third volumes are ready for publication; but at present one turns over the leaves with pleased surprise. there's something original and charming in each new page. her first hair must have been shed, for the present lot--and there is a lot!--is of a bright, yellowy brown; looks like a child's hair, somehow. there are little rings and kinks about it which i take to have been put there by the curling-tongs of nature, though i may be mistaken. and i suppose i must have deceived myself about the child's eyes, for they are not black, but of a grayish hazel, which can look brown or violet at night. she is a tall young thing, slim and straight as a sapling, with frank, honest manners, which are singularly engaging. i look at her in amazement and interest, and find her looking at me with an expression which i am not able to make out. i hardly dare let myself go in liking her, for fear of disappointment. she seems too good to be true, too good to last. i keep wondering what ancestress of ellaline de nesville's, or fred lethbridge's, is gazing out of those azure windows which are this girl's eyes. if fred's soul, or ellaline's, peeps from behind the clear, bright panes, it contrives to keep itself well hidden--so far. but i expect anything. i had no notion until now that a young woman could be a delightful "pal" for a man, especially a man of my age. perhaps this is my ignorance of the sex (for i admit i locked up the book of woman, and never opened it again, since the chapter of ellaline), or it may be that girls have changed since the "brave days when we were twenty-one." at that remote epoch, as far as i can discover by blowing off the dust from faded souvenirs, one either made love to girls, or one didn't. they were there to dance with and flirt with, and go on the river with, not to talk politics to, or exchange opinions of the universe. they--the prettiest ones--would have thought that valuable time was being wasted in such discussions. yet here is this girl, not twenty, a child fresh from school--a french school, at that--radiant with the power of her youth, her beauty, her femininity; yet she seems actually interested in problems of life unconnected with love affairs. she appears to like talking sense, and she has humour, far more subtle than the mere, kittenish sense of fun which belongs to her years--or lack of them. i dreaded the responsibility of her, but i dreaded much more being bored by her, flirted with by her. i'm hanged if i could have stood that from the kind of girl i was prepared to see; but as i said, i've found a "pal"--if i dared believe in her. instead of avoiding my ward's society, and shoving it on to emily, as i intended, i excuse myself to myself for contriving pretexts to bask in it. to-day, for instance, what do you think i did? a shopping expedition was in question. emily, who never had much taste in dress, and now clothes herself as if in punishment for sin, seems to know when other women are badly turned out. she thinks it right that young girls should be simply dressed, but considers that in the case of ellaline simplicity has been carried too far. you see, she doesn't know what you and i know about that wretched fellow lethbridge's end, and she believes his daughter has plenty of money, or will have, on coming of age. naturally, i don't undeceive her. emily is a good soul, but over-conscientious in questions of money, and if she knew the truth she might be inclined to hold the purse-strings tight. she might even be tempted to hint something distressing to this poor girl, if the child vexed her by any thoughtless little extravagance; whereas i wouldn't for a good deal have ellaline's daughter guess she owes anything to me. emily offered to choose frocks for miss lethbridge; whereupon that young lady cast such a comical glance of despair at me--a glance which i think was involuntary--that it was all i could do not to burst out laughing. i saw so well what was in her mind! and if you will believe me, o'hagan, i volunteered to go with them. having committed myself, i had all the sensations of a fly caught on a sheet of "tanglefoot," or a prisoner of war chained to a roman chariot; but in the end i enjoyed myself hugely. nothing better has happened to me since i used to be taken to look at the toyshops the day before christmas. no, not even my first pantomime could beat this as an experience! emily's economical soul clamoured for oxford street. i stood out for bond, and got my way. (you will grin here. you say i always do get my way.) my idea was to make of myself a kind of last resort, or court of appeal. i meant to let emily advise, but to sweep her aside if she perpetrated atrocities. the first shop, however, went to my head. it was one of those where you walk into a kind of drawing-room with figurines, or whatever you call them--slender, headless ladies in model dresses--grouped about, and other equally slender, but long-headed ladies in black satin trains, showing off their dummy sisters. it was the figurines that intoxicated me. i saw ellaline's head--in imagination--coming out at the top of all the prettiest dresses. they were wonderfully simple, too, the most attractive ones; seemed just the thing for a young girl. emily walked past them as if they were vulgar acquaintances trying to catch her eye at a duchess's ball, but they trapped me. there was a white thing for the street, that looked as if it had been made for ellaline, and a blue fluff, cut low in the neck, exactly the right colour to show up her hair. then there was a film of pink, with wreaths of little rosebuds dotted about--made me think of spring. (i told you i'd lost my head, didn't i?) i stopped my ward, pointed out these things to her, and asked her if she liked them. she said she did, but they would be horribly expensive. she wouldn't think of buying such dreams. with that, up swam one of the satin ladies (whose back view was precisely like that of a wet, black codfish with a long tail; i believe she was "directoire"); and hovering near on a sea of pale-green carpet she volunteered the information that these "little frocks" were "poems," singularly suited to the style of--i expected her to say my "daughter." instead of which, however, she finished her sentence with a "madam" that brought a blush to my weather-beaten face. i was the only one concerned who did blush, however, i assure you! the girl smiled into my eyes, with a mischievous twinkle, and minded not at all. a former generation would have simpered, but this young person hasn't a simper in her. i said "nonsense," she could well afford the dresses. she argued, and emily returned to help her form up a hollow square. they were both against me, but i insisted, and the codfish was a powerful ally. "would they fit you?" i asked the girl. "yes, they would fit me, i dare say. but----" that settled it. "we'll take them," said i. and after that, being beside myself, i reconnoitred the place, pointing my stick at other things which took my fancy. the codfish backed me up at every step, and other codfishes swam the green sea, with hats doubtless brought from unseen coral caves. most of them were enormous hats, but remarkably attractive, in one way or another, with large drooping brims that dripped roses or frothed with ostrich plumes. i made ellaline take off a small, round butter plate she had on, which was ugly in itself, though somehow it looked like a saint's halo on her; and murmuring compliments on "madam's" hair, the siren codfishes tried on one hat after another. i bought all, without asking the prices, because each one was more becoming to the girl than its predecessor, and not to have all, would have been like deliberately destroying so many original gainsboroughs or sir joshuas. the child's hair, by the way, is extraordinarily vital. it spouts up in two thick, bright billows over her white forehead, like the beginning of a strong fountain--a very agreeable foundation for a hat. seeing that i had gone mad, the wily codfishes took advantage of my state, and flourished things before my eyes, at which emily instantly forbade me to look. it is true that they were objects not often seen by bachelor man, except in shop windows and on the advertising pages of women's magazines; but silk petticoats and cobwebby lace frills have no gorgon qualities, and i was not turned to stone by the sight of them. i even found courage to ask of the company at large if they were the sort of thing that young ladies ought to have in their wardrobes. the answer was emphatically in the affirmative. "have you already got all you want of them, or could you make use of more?" i inquired of my ward. "i shouldn't know myself in such miracles," said she, with a kind of gasp, her eyes very bright, and her cheeks pinker than they had been when she was suspected of bridehood. she was still suspected of it; indeed, i think that in the minds of the black satin codfishes circumstantial evidence had tinkered suspicion into certainty. but ellaline was deaf to the "madam." they might have turned her from wife into widow without her noticing. she was burning with the desire to possess those embroidered cobwebs and those frilled petticoats. i don't know why she should have been more excited about garments which few, if any, save herself, would see after she'd put them on, than she was about those on which cats and kings might gaze; but so it was. i should like to ask an expert if this is the case with all females, or if it is exceptional. "send the lot with the hats and dresses," said i. and when she widened her eyes and gasped, i assured her that i knew her income better than she did. anything she cared to have in the way of pretty clothes she could afford. strange to say, even then she didn't seem comfortable. she opened her lips as if to speak; shut them hastily at the first word, swallowed it with difficulty, sighed, and looked anxious. i should rather have liked to know what was in her mind. we ended up by the purchase of costumes suitable to the automobile, both for emily and ellaline. i think women ought to be as "well found" for motoring, as for yachting, don't you? and i am looking forward to the trip i intend to take. it will be interesting to study the impressions made upon this young girl by england, land of history and beauty--- ... this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea- ... this england. you will laugh at me, perhaps, for my long "harping" on my ward; but anyhow, don't misunderstand. it's not because she is pretty and engaging (one would say that of a kitten), but because of the startling contrast between the real girl and the girl of my imagination. i can't help thinking about her a good deal for this reason, and what i think of i have generally talked of or written of fully to you, my best and oldest friend. it's a habit nearly a quarter of a century old, and i don't mean to break it now, particularly as you have made rather a point of my continuing it on my return "home" after all these years. london has got hold of me. i am fascinated by it. either it has improved as it has grown, or i am in a mood to be pleased with anything english. do you remember dear old ennis's rooms, which you and i used to think the height of luxury and gaiety? i've promised myself to go there again, and i mean to take ellaline and emily to supper after the theatre to-night. i think i shall keep this letter open to tell you how the old place impresses me. midnight and a half. i've had a shock. ennis's is dead as a doornail. we entered, after the theatre, and galvanized the rooms into a kind of dreadful life. they "don't serve many suppers now, sir," it seems. "it's mostly luncheons and dinners." the waiters resented us as intruders. we were the only ones, too, which made it worse, as all their rancour was visited on us; but we hadn't been for many minutes at our old favourite table (the one thing unchanged), trying to keep up a spurious gaiety, when another party of two ventured in. they were young dick burden and his aunt, mrs. senter. now, you mayn't see it, but this was rather odd. it wouldn't have been odd in the past, to meet your most intimate friend from round the corner, and the shah of persia, at ennis's. but evidently the "people who amuse themselves" don't come now. it's not "the thing." why, therefore, should this couple choose ennis's for supper? _they_ haven't been out of england for fifteen years, like me. if mrs. senter occasionally spends saturday to monday in india, or visits the sphinx when the sphinx is in season, she always returns to london when "everybody is in town," and there does as everybody does. i immediately suspected that burden had brought her with an object: that object, to gain an introduction to ellaline. the suspicion may seem far-fetched; but you wouldn't pronounce it so if you could have seen the young man's face, in the railway station at paris, the other day. i had that privilege; and i observed at the time his wish to know my ward, without feeling a responsive one to gratify it. i don't know why i didn't feel it, but i didn't, though the desire was both pardonable and natural in the young fellow. he has a determined jaw; therefore perhaps it's equally natural that, when disappointed, he should persist--even follow, and adopt strong measures (in other words, an aunt) to obtain his object. you see, ellaline is an extremely pretty girl, and i'm not alone in thinking so. my idea is that, having found us in the newspapers, staying at the ritz, the boy must have somehow informed himself as to our movements, awaiting his opportunity--or his aunt. i bought my theatre tickets in the hotel. he may have got his information from there; and the rest was easy--as far as ennis's. i'm afraid the rest was, too, because mrs. senter selected the table nearest ours, and after we had exchanged greetings proposed that we join parties. the tables were placed together, and introductions all round were a matter of course. young england expects that every aunt will do her duty! they still give you very good food at ennis's, but it's rather like eating "funeral baked meats." mrs. senter is exactly what she was some years ago. perhaps it would be ungallant to recall to your memory just _how_ many years ago. she is, if anything, younger. i believe there's a maxim, "once a duchess, always a duchess." i think women of to-day have another: "once thirty, always thirty"; or, "once thirty, always twenty-nine." but, joking apart, she is a very agreeable and rather witty woman, sympathetic too, apparently, though i believe you used to think, when she was out smiting hearts at our back o' beyond, that in nature she somewhat resembled a certain animal worshipped by the egyptians and feared by mice. she seems very fond of her nephew dick, with whom she says she goes about a good deal. "we chaperon each other," she expressed it. she pities me for my fire at graylees, but envies me my motoring trip. we shall be off in a few days, now, i hope, as soon as ellaline has been shown a few "features" of london. i went to see the car to-day, and she is a beauty. i shall try her for the first time to-morrow. ever yours, pen. vii audrie brendon to her mother _ritz hotel, london_, _july 9th_ one and only compleat mother: things have happened. i felt them coming in my bones--_not_ my funny-bones this time. for the things may turn out to be not at all funny. mr. richard burden has been introduced to the alleged miss lethbridge. i wonder if he _can_ know she is merely "the alleged"? he is certainly changed, somehow, both in his manner, and in his _way of looking at one_. i thought in paris he hadn't at all a bad face, though rather impudent--and besides, even man is a fellow being! but last night, for a minute, he really had an incredibly wicked expression; or else he was suppressing a sneeze. i couldn't be quite sure which--as you said about aubrey beardsley's weird black-and-white women. it was at a restaurant--a piteous restaurant, where the waiters looked like enchanted waiters in the palace of the sleeping beauty. he--mr. dicky burden--came in, with an aunt. such an aunt! i could never be at home with her as an aunt if i were a grown-up man, though she might make a bewitching cousin. she's quite beautiful, dear, and graceful; but i don't like her at all. i think sir lionel does, though. they knew each other in bengal, and she kept saying to him in a cooing voice, "_do_ you remember?" you can see she's too clever to be _always_ clever, because that bores people; but she says witty, sharp things which sound as if they came out of plays, or books, and you think back to see whether she deliberately led up to them. for instance, she asked sir lionel, apropos of woman's suffrage, whether, on the whole, he preferred a man's woman, or a woman's woman? "what's the difference?" he wanted to know. "all the difference between a gibson girl and an ibsen girl," said she. i wonder if she'd heard that, or made it up? anyhow, when sir lionel threw back his head and laughed, in an attractive way he has, which shows a dent in his chin, i wished _i'd_ said it. but the more she flashed out bright things, the more of a lump i was. i do think the one unpardonable sin is dulness, and i felt guilty of it. she simply vampired me. sucked my wits dry. and, do you know, i'm afraid she's going on the motor trip with us? sir lionel doesn't dream of such a thing, but she does. and she's the sort of person whose dreams, if they're about _men_, come true. of course, i don't know her well enough to hate her, but i feel it coming on. in books, all villainesses who're worth their salt have little, sharp teeth and pointed nails. mrs. senter's teeth and nails are just like other women's, only better. book villainesses' hair is either red or blue-black. hers is pale gold, though her eyes are brown, and very soft when they turn toward sir lionel. nevertheless, though i'm _not_ cattish, except when absolutely necessary, i know she's a _pig_, never happy unless she has the centre of the stage, whether it's _her_ part or not--wanting everyone to feel the curtain rises when she comes on, and falls when she goes off. she looks twenty-eight, so i suppose she's thirty-five; but really she's most graceful. standing up for sir lionel to take off her cloak, her trailing gray satin dress twisted about her feet, as some charming, slender trees stand with their bark spreading out round them on the ground, and folding in lovely lines like drapery. she managed to draw mrs. norton into conversation with her and sir lionel, and to let dick talk to me, so they must have arranged beforehand what they would do. at first, when he had got his wish and been introduced, he spoke of ordinary things, but presently he asked if i remembered his saying that he wished to go into a certain profession. i answered "yes," before i stopped to think, which i'm afraid flattered him, and then he wanted me to guess what the profession was. when i wouldn't, he said it was that of a detective. "if i succeed, my mother will give up her objections," he explained. "and i think i shall succeed." it was when he said this, that he looked so wicked--or else as if he wanted to sneeze--as i told you. what can he mean? and what has he found out? or is it only my bad conscience? oh, dear, i should like to give it a thorough spring cleaning, as one does in lent! i'm afraid that's what is needed. i've had plenty of blacks on it since ellaline made me consent to her plan, and i began to carry it out. but now i have more. i have lots of dresses and hats on it, too--lovely ones. and petticoats, and such things, etc., etc. did dragons of old insist on their fairy princess-prisoners having exquisite clothes, and say "hang the expense"? _this_ dragon has done so with his princess, and i had to take the things, because, you see, i have engaged to play the part, and this apparently is his rich conception of it. he says that i--ellaline--can afford to have everything that's nice; so what _can_ i do? the worst of it is, much of my new finery is so delicate, it will be _défraiche_ by the time the real ellaline can have it, even if it would fit or suit her, which it won't. but probably the man was ashamed to be seen with a ward in gray serge and a sailor hat, so i couldn't very well violate his feelings. perhaps if i'd refused to do what he wanted, all his hidden dragon-ness would have rushed to the surface; but as i was quite meek, he behaved more like an angel than a dragon. it really was fun buying the things, in a fascinating shop where the assistants were all more refined than duchesses, and so slender-waisted they seemed to be held together only by their spines and a ladylike ligament or two. but if providence didn't wish women to lace, why weren't our ribs made to go all the way down? the way we were created, it's an _incentive_ to pinch waists. it seems _meant_, doesn't it? i was a dream to look at when we went to supper at that restaurant; which was _one_ comfort. mrs. senter's things were no nicer than mine, and she was so interested in what i wore. only she was a good deal more interested in sir lionel. "everywhere i go, people are talking of you," she said. "you have given them exciting things to talk about." "really, i wasn't aware of it," returned the poor dragon, as apologetically as if she'd waked him up to say he'd been snoring. since i wrote you, i've heard more things about his past from mrs. norton, who is as proud of her brother, after a fashion, as a cat of its mouse, and always wanting to show him off, in just the same way. (we all have our "mouse," haven't we? i'm yours. just now, the new hats are mine.) she has told me a splendid story about a thing he did in bengal: saved twelve people's lives in a house that was on fire in the middle of the night--the kind of house which blazes like a haystack. and, according to her, he thinks no more of rescuing drowning persons who jump off ships in seas swarming with sharks than we think of fishing a fly out of our bath. now, _is_ it possible for a man like that to be treacherous to women, and to accept bribes for being guardian to their children? i do wish i knew what to make of it all--and of him. he has taken the funny little bengalese valet, who has been, and is to be, his chauffeur, to try the new car this morning. he meant to have gone before this to look at his partly burnt castle in warwickshire, but he says london has captivated him, and he can't tear himself away; that he will go in a day or two, when he has trotted mrs. norton and me about to see a few more sights. of course, we could quite well see the sights by ourselves. mrs. norton has seen them all, anyhow, and only revisits them for my sake; while as for me, you and i "did" london thrillingly together in the last two months of our glory. but sir lionel has an interesting way of telling things, and he is as enthusiastic as a boy over his england. not that he gushes; but one knows, somehow, what he is feeling. i can't imagine his ever being tired, but he is very considerate of us--seems to think women are frail as glass. i suppose women _are_ a sex by themselves, but we aren't as different as all that. once in a while he threw a sideways glare at dick burden, when d. b. was talking with a confidential air to me. i know from ellaline and mrs. norton that sir lionel dislikes women; but all the same i believe he thinks we ought to be kept indoors unless veiled, and never allowed to talk to men, except our relatives. mrs. norton is _so_ funny, without knowing it. she asked her brother as gravely as possible at breakfast this morning: "had you a harem in bengal, dear?" "good heavens, no!" he answered, turning red. "what put such a ghastly idea into your head?" "oh, i only thought perhaps it was the thing, and you were obliged to, or be talked about," she explained, calmly. he went on to tell her that it was not at all necessary to have harems, and she was quite surprised. you would think that she'd have taken pains to find out every detail of her brother's life in a country where he was one of the head men, wouldn't you? but she hardly feels that any country except her own is worth serious inquiries. she has the impression that "heathen" are all alike, and mostly naked, but not as embarrassing to meet as if they were white. good-bye, dearest. i'm afraid i write very disconnected letters. but i feel "disconnected" myself, somehow, like a telephone that's been "cut off." your loving and well-dressed deceiver. p. s. it's to-morrow, for i forgot to post this, there were so many things "doing." please forgive me. the car's splendid, and i am to christen her. we're going to have a kind of ceremony like a launching, and i have to think of a name for her, and throw wine on her bonnet. sir lionel is longing to get off on the tour, he says; and as he's to leave town for warwickshire to-morrow, turning me over temporarily to the tender mercies of the good--(his sister)--i almost hope that after all mrs. senter mayn't have time to "sweedle" him into taking her with us, as i _know_ she hopes to do. we, by the way, are not to see his place until the burnt bit is mended. we're to avoid warwickshire in starting out, go away up north as far as the roman wall, visit bamborough castle, where he thinks friends of his, who own it, will actually invite us to lunch, or something (it seems like a dream), and then stop in warwickshire at the end of the tour, when all the dilapidations have been made good. the dragon naturally expects me, not only to finish the trip, but to take up my residence at graylees until next spring, when his plan is that his ward shall be presented. oh, mice and men, and dragons, how aft your plans gang agley! of course, mine depend altogether upon ellaline. i hold myself ready for marching orders from her. but i must confess to you that, whether right or wrong, i don't look forward to the weeks of my duties as understudy with the same feelings i had when i was engaged to perform them. little did sir lionel guess what was in my mind this morning, when i asked if one could see most of england in a few weeks when motoring! but i may have to take my flight from the car, so to speak, unless ellaline be detained for some reason. i'm expecting a letter from her any day now, and there may be definite news. good-bye, again, dearest. viii audrie brendon to her mother _royal hotel, chichester_, _july 17th_ brightest and best: _la donna é automobile._ _i_ am "la donna"; and the most inward me-ness of my me _é automobile_. some people--mrs. norton, for instance--might say: "what on earth does the silly thing mean?" but you always know what i mean. you and i were born knowing quite a lot of nice little things like that, weren't we? things we picked up during our various incarnations; things _new_ souls haven't had time to collect, poor dears. my automobiliness is the reason i've only sent you snippy "how-do-you-do and good-bye" notes, interspersed with telegrams, for the last few days, just thanking you for wise advice, and saying "glad-you're-well; so-am-i." you will guess from my very handwriting that i'm feeling more at home in life than i did when i wrote you last. and i can't help being pleased that ellaline's adored one won't be able to leave his manoeuvres, to make her his own, till a fortnight or so later than she expected. that is, i can't help being glad, as the doctor thinks you ought to stop at champel-les-bains till after the first week of september, and we _couldn't_ be together, even if i were back in paris. you swear you didn't hypnotize him to say that? i would enjoy more peace of mind, while careering through england in apollo, if i were certain. oh, that reminds me, i forgot to tell you what fun it was christening apollo. i quite enjoyed it, and felt immensely important. don't you think "apollo" an appropriate name for such a magnificent car as i've described to you? the sun god--driver of the chariot of the sun? sir lionel likes it; but he says he isn't sure "the cloud" wouldn't be a more appropriate name, because the car costs such a lot that "she" has a silver lining. i began by calling her "it," but he won't let me do that. he doesn't much mind my being amateurish, but he hates me to be disrespectful. i am so dazzled by the motor and enchanted with the sport of motoring--as well as seeing things even more lovely than i hoped for--that i'm not worrying over dick burden and his mysterious hints about himself as a detective. besides, when he and his aunt came to tea (you'll remember i told you in a scrap of a note that it was the day sir lionel went to warwickshire, and how vexed mrs. senter was to find him gone), mr. dick made himself quite pleasant. he wasn't impertinent, or too admiring, or anything which a well-brought-up young englishman ought not to be. indeed, i thought by his manner that he wanted tacitly to apologize for his bad behaviour when we first met; so probably, when i fancied he looked wicked that night at ennis's rooms, it _was_ because he wanted to sneeze. you have taught me to give everybody, except young men, the benefit of the doubt; but i don't see why one shouldn't give it to young men, too. i think they're rather easier to forgive, somehow, than women. is that why they're dangerous? but d. b. could never be dangerous to me, in the sense of falling in love. his aunt certainly wishes to throw us together; i suppose on account of ellaline's money. she doesn't like girls, i'm sure, but would always be ready, on principle, to give first aid to heiresses. it is something to be thankful for that she hasn't grafted herself on to our party, as i feared she might; and though they're both going to stop at some country house near southsea, and they "hope we may meet," i dare say i shan't be bothered by them again while i'm in england. i don't intend to worry. _la donna é automobile!_ i haven't properly described our start, or told you about the things i've seen _en route_, and i promised to tell you everything; so i'll go back to the beginning of the trip. there was apollo, throbbing with joy of life in front of the hotel door, at nine o'clock of a perfect english morning. there were statuesque, ritzy footmen, gazing admiringly at the big golden-yellow car (that was one of the reasons i thought she should be named after the sun god, she is so golden). there was charu chunder bose, alias young nick, who would think it a sin against all his gods to dress as a chauffeur, and who continues to garb himself as a self-respecting bengali--young nick, with his sleepy eyes, and his buddha-when-young smile, about as appropriate on a motor-car as a baby crocodile. there was sir lionel waiting to tuck us in. there were we two females in neat gray motor dust-cloaks, on which the dragon insisted; mrs. norton in a toque, which she wore as if it were a remote and dreaded contingency; your audrie in a duck of an early victorian bonnet, in which she liked herself better than in anything else she ever had on before. there, too, was our luggage, made to fit the car, and looking like the very last word of up-to-dateness--if you know what that look is. of course, it wasn't the first time i'd been out in the car, for i think i told you, the day apollo was christened i had a spin; but it rained, and we went only through the park. that was nothing. this morning we were bidding good-bye to london, and our pulses were beating high for the tour. young nick drove on the christening day, but this time sir lionel took the driver's seat, with the brown idol beside him; and i saw instantly, by the very way he laid his hand on the steering-wheel, with a kind of caress--as a horse-lover pats a beloved mare's neck--that he and the golden car were in perfect sympathy. we were starting early, because sir lionel had planned a good many things for us to see before dark; but early as it was, piccadilly and knightsbridge were seething with traffic. motor-'buses like mad hippopotamuses; taxi-cabs like fierce young lions; huge carts like elephants; and other vehicles of all sorts to make up a confused medley of wild animals escaped from the zoo. it looked appalling to mingle with, but our own private dragon drove so skilfully, yet so carefully, that i never bit my heart once. always the car seemed sentient, steering its way like a long, thin pike; then when the chance came, flashing ahead, dauntless and sure. we went by a great domed palace--harrod's stores--and then over putney bridge, passing swinburne's house, whose outside is as deceiving as an oyster-shell that hides a pearl; through epsom, charles the second's "brighton" (which i've been reading about in a volume of pepys sir lionel has given me), to leatherhead, along the dorking road, slowing up for a glimpse of juniper hall, glowing red as a smouldering bonfire behind a dark latticed screen of splendid lebanon cedars. i dare say it's a good deal changed since dear little fanny burney's day, for the house looks quite modern; but then neither buildings nor the people who live in them show their age early in england. close under box hill we glided; and sir lionel pointed out a little path leading up on the left to george meredith's cottage. just a small house of gray stone it is (for i would get out and walk up part way to see it from far off, not to intrude or spy); and there that great genius shines out, a clear, white light for the world, like a beacon or a star. evidently surrey air suits geniuses. do you remember reading about keats, that he wrote a lot of "endymion" at burford bridge? it was only a little after ten o'clock when we passed the quaint-looking hotel there, but already at least a dozen motors were drawn up before it. i wanted to go in and ask if they show the room lord nelson used; but we had too many things to see. of course, i am always wishing for you, but i began to wish the hardest just as we came into this green, brackeny, fairyland of surrey. it's the kind of country you love best; although i must say it was never planned for motors. winding through those green tunnels which are the surrey lanes, i felt as if, in some quaint dream, i were motoring on a tight-rope, expecting another car to want to pass me on the same rope--which naturally it couldn't! it would have been much worse, though, if young nick had been driving. that little, smooth brown face of his looks as if its idol-simper hid no human emotions, and i believe if people and animals were perfectly flat, like paper dolls, so that they would do no harm to his car, he wouldn't mind how many he drove over. luckily, however, they _aren't_ flat, and the only thing earthly he adores, after his master, is his motor; so he is nice and cautious for its sake. but the dragon thinks of everyone, and says there's no pleasure for him in motoring if he leaves a trail of distress or even annoyance along the road as he passes. he slows down at corners; he goes carefully round them; he almost walks apollo in places where creatures of any kind may start out unexpectedly; and he blows our pleasant musical horn as if by instinct, never forgetting, as i'm sure i should do. as we twisted and turned through the surrey lanes, between dorking and shere, little children in red cloaks and tams appeared from behind hedges, looking like blowing poppies as they ran. and blue-eyed, gold-brown haired girls in cottage doorways, under hanging bowers of roses, were as decorative as old chelsea china girls. the red tiles of their roofs, as i turned back for one more glimpse, would already be half hidden in waves of green, but would just show up like beds of scarlet geraniums buried in leaves. shere was almost too beautiful to be real, with its rows of elizabethan cottages whose windows twinkled at us with their diamond-shaped, diamond-bright panes, sparkling under their low, thatch-eyebrows, from between black oak beams. the tudor chimneys were as graceful as the smoke wreaths that lazily spiraled above them, and the whole effect was--was--well, inexpressibly birket foster. i used to think he idealized; but then, i'd never seen anything of england but london, and didn't know how all english trees, cottages, and even clouds, are trained to group themselves to suit artists of different schools. i kept wishing that you'd made me study architecture and botany, instead of languages and music. in justice to oneself, one ought, when travelling in england, to have at least a bowing acquaintance with every sort of architecture, and all families of flowers, to say nothing of trees, so that one might exclaim, as snobs do of royalties and celebrities: "oh, _she_ was the great granddaughter of so-and-so." "he married lady this-and-that." also, i find i need much more knowledge of literature than i have. this country is divided off into a kind of glorious chessboard, each square being sacred to some immortal author, playwright, or poet. the artists press them close, without overcrowding; and history lies underneath--history for every square inch. "twelve coffin deep," i quoted kipling to myself, as my mind panted along roman roads, and the pilgrim's way. "why, was there a cemetery there?" asked mrs. norton, looking mildly interested. she, by the way, doesn't much care for ruins. she says they're so untidy. you and i travelled till our money threatened to give out in the noble cause of sight-seeing, but i never realized history quite so potently even in italy as i do in england. yet that's not strange, when you think how tiny england is, compared with other countries, and how things have gone on happening there every minute since the phoenicians found it a snug little island. its chapters of history have to be packed like sardines, beginning down, down, far deeper than kipling's "twelve coffins." one surrey village telleth another, just to slip through in a motor-car, though none could ever be tiresome in the telling; but if one stopped to hear the real story of each one, how different they would all be! there would be grand chapters of fighting, and mysterious chapters of smuggling--oh, but long ones about smuggling, since most of the manors and half the old cottages have "smugglers' rooms," where the lace and spirits used to be hidden, in their secret journey from portsmouth to london. it's difficult to believe in these thrilling chapters now, in the rich, placid county, where the only mystery floats in the veil of blue mist that twists like a gauze scarf around the tree trunks in the woods, and the only black spots are the dark downs in the distance, with the sky pale gold behind them. you would love motoring, not only for what you do see, but for what you nearly see, and long to see, but can't--just as dad used to say "thank god for all the blessings i've never had!" why, every road you don't go down looks fantastically alluring, just twice as alluring as the one you are in. you grudge missing anything, and fear, greedily, that there may be better villages with more history beyond the line of your route. it's no consolation when mrs. norton says, "well, you can't see everything!" you _want_ to see everything. and you wish you had eyes all the way round your head. it would be inconvenient for hair and hats, but you could manage somehow. we had to go through petworth, a most feudal-looking old place, reeking of history since the confessor, and mentioned in the domesday book (i do so respect towns or houses mentioned in the domesday book!), and if it had been the right day we could have seen lord leconsfield's collection of pictures, some of the best in england; but it was the wrong day, so we sailed on out of surrey into sussex, and arrived at bignor. all i knew about bignor was that i must expect something amazing there. sir lionel asked me not to read about it in the books of which we have a travelling library in the car--one at least for each county we shall visit. he said he "wanted bignor to be a surprise" for me; and it is odd the way one finds oneself obeying that man! not that one's afraid of him, but--well, i don't know why exactly, but one just does it. we didn't stop in the village, though there was the quaintest grocery shop there you can imagine, perfectly mediæval; and in the churchyard yew trees grand enough to make bows for half the archers of england--if there were any in these days. we went on to quite a modern-looking farmhouse, and sir lionel said, "i am going to ask mrs. tupper if she will give us a little lunch. if she says 'yes,' it's sure to be good." "i don't know any tuppers, lionel," objected mrs. norton. "who are they?" "relatives of martin tupper, if that name recalls anything to your mind," said he. mrs. norton had a vague idea that she had been more or less brought up on extracts from martin tupper, and seemed to associate him with sundays, when, as a child, she hadn't been allowed to play. but that didn't explain how lionel happened to know connections of his in a sussex farmhouse. besides, he couldn't possibly have seen them for more than fifteen years. "that is true, and i only saw them once, even then," he admitted. "but mrs. tupper had been here for a good many years, engaged in the most delightful work, which you will hear about by and by; and i'm sure she is here still, and will be for many more years to come, because i don't want to imagine the place without her." mrs. norton said no more, and her brother knocked on the door of the farmhouse, which stood hospitably open. in a minute, a dear old white-haired lady appeared, and instantly her face lighted up. "why, if it isn't mr. pendragon--i mean sir lionel--come back to see us again!" said she. sir lionel grew red with pleasure, at being remembered by her, for apparently he hadn't at all expected it. he seems to forget that he is a celebrity, and generally doesn't like being reminded of the fact, but he was pleased that mrs. tupper had read about him in the papers from time to time, and had never forgotten his face. she said she would be delighted to provide us with lunch, if we didn't mind a simple one; and then she would have gone on to say something which would have given the "surprise" away, if sir lionel hadn't stopped her. we had delicious country things to eat, with real surrey cream and apple dumplings. they did taste good after the elaborate french cooking in london, by way of contrast! then, when we had finished, sir lionel said, "now, mrs. tupper, can you take us for a stroll round the farm?" that didn't sound exciting, did it? we walked out, and it seemed a very nice farm, but nothing remarkable. as we wandered toward some sheds, in a field of mangolds, sir lionel made us look up at a big hill, and said, "there was a roman camp there. if you'd stood where you stand now, on a quiet night in those times, you could have heard the clanking of armour or the soldiers quarrelling over their dice. here roman stane street ran, and chariots used to stop to bring the latest news from rome to the owner of the villa." "was there a villa?" asked mrs. norton, who thinks it polite to ask her brother questions, whether she is interested or not. "let's take a look into this shed," said he, by way of answer. and, there, protected by that rough roof, was a great stretch of splendid mosaic pavement. it was done in circular compartments of ornamentation, and in one was a beautiful head of ganymede--in another, winter. alas, i shouldn't have known what they were if i hadn't been told, but i would have known that they were rare and wonderful. this was the "surprise." this was the secret of bignor; but it wasn't nearly all. there were lovely broken pillars, and lots more pavements, acres of mosaic, it seemed; for the villa had been large and important, and must have been built by a rich man with cultivated taste. he knew how to make exile endurable, did that roman gentleman! standing in his dining-hall, i could imagine him and his fair lady-wife sitting at breakfast, looking out from between white, glittering pillars at the sussex downs, grander than those of surrey, reminding me of great, brave shoulders raised to protect england. now we knew what mrs. tupper's "delightful work" was! for forty-nine years she has cleaned the mosaic pavement of the vanished roman villa, all of which were discovered by the grandfather of the present owner of the farm. never once has she tired of looking at the mosaics, because, as she explained to us, "one doesn't tire of what is beautiful." there speaks true appreciation, doesn't it? only a born lover of the beautiful could have said that so simply. there was an italian, a man from venice, repairing the mosaic. he could hardly speak a word of english, and beamed with a sudden smile when i asked him some question in his native tongue. we talked awhile, and i translated several things he said to sir lionel and his sister. i'm ashamed to confess, dear, that i was pleased to show off my poor little accomplishment, and proud because i knew one thing which our famous man didn't. wasn't that low of me? "well, you weren't disappointed in my surprise, i think?" said sir lionel, when we were starting away at last. i just gave him one look. it really wasn't necessary to answer. as we flashed on, through country always exquisite, and over perfect roads, i could think of nothing but bignor, until suddenly, after passing through a long aisle of great beeches, like an avenue in a private park, a tremendous bulk of stone looming at me made me jump, and cry out, "oh!" sir lionel turned his head long enough for half a smile. "arundel castle," he said. it's lucky for me that mrs. norton doesn't know much about any part of england except her own home, and the homes of her particular friends, or else she would always be explaining things to me, and i should hate that. it would be like having purple hot-house grapes handed out to one impaled on the prongs of a plated silver fork. i should have wanted to slap her, if _she_ had told me i was looking at arundel castle, but i was grateful to her brother for the information. this was a wickedness in me; but if you knew how i felt, having started out from the ritz expecting a quiet day's run through one or two of the garden counties of england, to come like this, bang into the midst of roman villas, and under the shadow of a tenth-century castle-keep, maybe you'd excuse my morals for being upset. you can't have centuries roll away, like a mere cloud of dust raised by your motor, and be perfectly normal, can you? i tried to seem calm, because i hate to be gushing and school-girlish (for ellaline's sake, i _suppose_, as it can't make any difference what her dragon thinks of me), but i'm pretty sure he saw that i was rather "out of myself" over all his surprises. he stopped the motor, and we sat for a long time gazing up at the towers beyond the green and silver beeches--a pile of battlemented stone, looking like the middle ages carved in granite, yet more habitable to-day than ever before. we had lunched early, and had plenty of time, so we walked through the park, which made me feel that england must be rather big, after all, to have room for thousands of such parks--even much larger ones--and all its great cities--and miles and miles of farms and common land, and mere "country." when we lived in new york, you and dad and i, we used to joke about the way we should feel in england if we should ever go to visit dad's ancestral devonshire. we used to pretend that, after being accustomed to the vast distances of america, we should be afraid of tumbling off the edge of england; but so far i find that i don't dread that imminent peril. just now england seems so vast that my only fear is i mayn't have time to reach the roman wall. the duke's midges bit us a good deal, in the park, so we didn't linger, but went back to apollo, where young nick's remarkable appearance had attracted a crowd of boys and girls from arundel town. they stood in the road gaping at him, with that steady, unblinking stare english children and french grown-ups have, while the brown image sat motionless in the car, as scornfully oblivious of his critics as if he'd been the idol he looked. poor sir lionel hates the attention his extraordinary little chauffeur excites, for, in spite of his long expatriation, he loathes being conspicuous in any way as heartily as other englishmen do. but (mrs. norton has told me) he saved young nick from being murdered by someone who was a "family enemy." since then--it was when nick was scarcely more than a child--the brown image has worshipped the dragon, and refused to be separated from him. when sir lionel proposed providing for him well, and leaving him behind, nick made no complaints, but began industriously to starve himself to death. so, of course, he had to be brought to england, and his master just makes the best of him, costume, features, broomstick legs, and all. we had tea in a picture of turner's: for littlehampton, with its tidal river, its harbour and pier, its fishing boats and shining sails, its windmill, its goldy-brown sands, and its banked violet clouds, was a genuine turner. of course, he wouldn't have painted the beach hotel, in spite of its nice balconies, but we were glad it was there, and it didn't spoil the picture. by that time, it was nearly half-past five, but we had hours of daylight before us, so we stopped for a look at climping church (don't you love the "ing" that shows a place has kept its saxon name?) with its splendid norman doorway and queer, long windows, shaped like open pods of peas beautifully ornamented round their edges. thank goodness, there was nothing "perp" about it! i get so tired of "perp" things in guide books. slinden we glanced at, too, a most idyllic village, garrisoned with the noblest beeches i ever saw. hilaire belloc, whose "path to rome" we liked so much, stayed at slinden, writing delightful things about sussex. i mean to get and read all i can, because, even in the glimpse i've had, i can see that sussex has a character, as well as a charm, individually its own. the downs give it, and make you feel that a true man of sussex would be frank, warm-hearted, simple and brave, with old-fashioned ways which, with a pleasant obstinacy, he would be loath to change. i heard mrs. tupper quote two or three quaint proverbs which were new to me, but sir lionel said they were old, almost, as the sussex downs, and as racy of the soil. i always associated brighton with sussex, which made it seem a sophisticated county: but you see, _true_ sussex--the downs--stands all independent and sturdy, between the pleasure-places by the sea and the snug weald. the faces we passed didn't look like faces descended from smugglers, they seemed so kind and good; but then, of course, smuggling was quite a respectable industry in sussex, where the secretive formation of the coast clearly showed that providence had meant it to epict. i love the sussex downs, i like the sussex faces, and i admire the sussex church spires--tall and pointed, covered with lichened shingles. we stopped at boxgrove, too, a church adored by architects; and as we went our way to goodwood the sea was a torn sheet of silver seen behind great downs which the afternoon sun was gilding. oh, the lebanon cedars and the views of goodwood! if i were there for the races, i think not even the finest horses, the most beautiful women, and the prettiest frocks in england could hold my eyes long from that view. i can shut my eyes now--the day after--and see those lebanon cedars black against an opal sky. another picture i can see, too, is bosham church, standing up tall and pure as a gray nun singing an _ave maria_ beside the clear water. it comes back to me from my studies of english history that vespasian had a villa there, and that harold sailed from bosham. do you know, he's in the act of doing it on the bayeux tapestry? once, the danes stole the bosham church bells, and the dear things still ring at the bottom of the sea, because the robber ship was wrecked, and went down with the chime, in mid channel. i like that story. it matches the picture and the tapestry. our day stopped at chichester, and my letter must stop, too, for all this i tell you of was only yesterday. we arrived last evening, and now it's nearly midnight of the next day. i began to write just after dinner, sitting in my dear old-fashioned room, and if i don't soon say good-night i shan't get much beauty sleep. to-morrow morning, at half-past nine, we're going on; but before we start i'll scribble a chichester postscript. so you see, i must be up bright and early, especially as i mean to fly out for one more glimpse of the cathedral--though i spent most of this afternoon in it. i wonder if you are sparing a few minutes to-night to dream of your audrie? p. s.--eight-twenty in the morning, and i've been up for two hours. you'd like chichester immensely. i don't say "love," for it hasn't engaged my affections, somehow; but i do love the beautiful jewel of a market cross, and some of the tombs in the cathedral. the cross is quite a baby compared with lots of others, it seems, being only just born at the time henry viii. was cutting off pretty ladies' heads when he had tired of their hearts. several tombs are so lovely, you almost want to be dead, and have one as like as possible; but, though part of the cathedral is satisfyingly old (eleventh century), its new spire reminds one of a badly chosen hat, and the whole building somehow looks cold and dull, like a person with a magnificent profile who never says anything illuminating. [illustration: "_the jewel of a market cross_"] as for chichester itself, except the market cross, the only thing that has touched my heart was st. mary's hospital, surely the quaintest old almshouse on earth. the town has rather a self-conceited air to me, and unless one were wise, one mightn't realize without being informed that it's immemorably old. of course, though, if one _were_ wise, one would know the romans had had a hand in the making or re-making of it, because of the geometric, regular way in which it's built. sir lionel pendragon told me that. he seems to remember all he ever learned, whereas ever so many little bundles are already knocking about in dusty corners of my brain, with their labels lost. there couldn't be a more thrilling road than the road along which we came to chichester, and by which we will leave it in a few minutes now. think of roman stane street, and listen for the rumble of ghostly chariot wheels! then--if you've not come this way for goodwood races--you can throw your mind a little further ahead to the days of the crusaders and the pilgrims; and to kings' processions glittering with gold and glossy with velvets; to armies on their way to fight; and further ahead, to coaches plying along the portsmouth road. i wonder how many people in the hundreds of motors that flash back and forth each day do think of it all? i pity those who don't, because they lose a thought that might embroider their world with rich colours. p.p.s.--i met sir lionel, accidentally, of course, in the cathedral this morning, where he, too, was saying good-bye to the most fascinating of the old tombs. and wasn't it odd, we had the same favourites? they looked even nicer and queerer than yesterday, with no mrs. norton to spatter inappropriate remarks about. we walked back to the hotel together, and he asked me, just as we were coming in, whether my allowance was enough, or would i like to have more? i had burst out that it was heaps, before i stopped to realize that he was asking that question really of ellaline, not of me. perhaps i ought to have temporized, and said i would make up my mind in a few days--meanwhile writing to her. i suppose she must be quite an heiress; but he can't be as mercenary as she thinks, or he wouldn't have made such a suggestion. i'm called! the motor's ready. i'll post this from the hotel. ix audrie brendon to her mother _southsea_, _july 19th_ dearest: this address isn't part of our plan of campaign. we'd meant to pass through, after pausing on the way just long enough to see portsmouth harbour, and dickens's birthplace; but we've stopped here on my account, and now i wish we hadn't. i'll tell you why, in a minute; but if i don't mention a few other things first, they'll be crowded out, and i shall forget them. after we'd seen the birthplace, and were seeing the harbour, sir lionel asked if i'd care to go on board a man-o'-war. of course, my answer was "yes"; and he said there was an old friend of his whom he would like to see, captain starlin, of the _thunderer_, so he'd ask for an invitation. he scribbled things in pencil on a visiting-card, and sent it on board the big gray monster, by a nice low-necked sailor. of course, the invitation which came back was most cordial, and even mrs. norton appeared pleased with the idea of going over the ship. we were received by the captain himself--rather a young-looking man, whose complexion seemed to have slipped down, like sir lionel's, both their foreheads being quite white, and the rest of their faces tanned brown. he took us everywhere, showing us interesting things, and presently said that, not only must we dine with him that evening, but must stay to a dance that was to be given on board afterward. "oh, many thanks, but we're only motoring through, and go on this afternoon," began sir lionel. then he stopped short, and looked at me. "would you like to dance?" he asked. "she hasn't anything to wear, if she would," mrs. norton answered for me. "you were so strict about luggage, we've only two evening dresses apiece, plain things for hotel dinners, nothing at all suitable to a dance." "didn't you buy her anything good enough for dances that day in bond street?" snapped the dragon. "_you_ bought her several things almost too good for dances, at her age," retaliated the dragon's sister, but only in a gentle coo. "they're left at the ritz, awaiting instructions to go on to graylees, with most of our things, and will probably be all beggars' creases before she has a chance to wear them." "she shall have a chance to wear any or all of them to-night, if she wants to dance," said sir lionel. "of course she wants to dance," chimed in captain starlin. "did you ever see a young lady who didn't want to dance, especially on a man-o'-war?" "_do_ you want to?" repeated the dragon. between them i was quite dashed, and murmured something non-committal about its being very nice, if it had been convenient, but---"there is no 'but,'" said ellaline's guardian. "that settles it. we stop the night in southsea, where there's no doubt a good hotel; and i will send someone immediately to the ritz for your boxes, emily--and yours." he never calls me by name if he can help it. emily was inclined to object that it would be foolish to send, and we didn't want all our things anyway, till her brother gave her a look--not cross, but--well, just one of his looks that make you do things, or stop doing them, whichever he pleases; and she didn't say any more. i can't help rather liking his masterful ways, though they're old-fashioned now that we're all supposed to think we need votes more than frocks; but this time it really would have been ungrateful of me to disapprove, as the whole fuss was being made for me. and i was dying to go to the dance! we went quickly back to the motor, spun into southsea, and before the female contingent knew exactly what was happening to it, rooms were engaged for the night, and a "responsible person" despatched by the first train to town, with a letter demanding certain articles of our luggage. i was quite excited about the evening, but outwardly was "more than usual calm," as we wandered here and there, after luncheon, seeing southsea--which must, by the way, be a most convenient place for girls, as they can choose between navy and army, or play with both if they are pretty enough. just as we were going to have a run out to hayling island in the car, whom should we meet in the street, close to our hotel, but mrs. senter and dick burden. she was looking very fetching and young, almost like a girl, certainly as unlike an aunt as possible. and, mother, i _know_ it wasn't an accident. i don't mean about her being an aunt, of course, but being in southsea and meeting us. the day she called, in london, when sir lionel was in warwickshire, i heard her asking mrs. norton questions about our route; and when dear emily mentioned winchester, she said, "oh, won't you be passing through southsea?" mrs. norton answered in her vague little way that she was sure she didn't know. then mrs. senter went on to say that she and dick were invited to stay at a house near southsea, and she thought they would probably accept. perhaps, if they did, we might meet. but, as i wrote you, i thought it more likely we wouldn't, unless sir lionel should seem keen when he heard; and he _didn't_. he apparently took no interest whatever when his sister repeated the conversation to him next day. well, i'm sure mrs. senter made up her mind to accept her friend's invitation (even if she didn't ask for one) the minute she found out that we were likely soon to pass southsea. she must have known we would be sure to stop for a look round portsmouth and the neighbourhood, and thought the chance worth taking. if she hadn't, she would have stopped in london till the end of the season, no doubt, for she's the kind of person who lives for society, and only cares for the country when it's the fashion to be in it. i wouldn't be a bit surprised if she'd been patrolling the streets of portsmouth and southsea for a day or two, in the hope of running across us sooner or later. or, as dick burden fancies himself in the part of a detective, perhaps he hit upon some surer way of getting at us. those two, aunt and nephew, play into each other's hands beautifully. mamma, it seems, is visiting in scotland at the moment, so they hunt in couples. how long "aunt gwen" has been a widow the saints may know; i don't--but anyway she has begun to "take notice," as people say about bright little babies. she has looked up sir lionel in debrett, and marked him with a red cross for her own, i believe. such impudence! a woman like that, to dare think of trying to grab a man of his position and record! she ought to know how unsuitable she would be for him. as for dick, of course he wants to flirt with me; but wait--wait till you hear the latest developments. sir lionel seemed neither pleased nor displeased at the meeting, but he could not have suspected it was more than an accident, for he remarked that it was odd we should run up against each other like this! mrs. senter said yes, indeed, it was, she was never more surprised in her life, though really it would have been odd, when one came to think of it, if we hadn't met, since she and dick were stopping with friends on hayling island, and were constantly in southsea. "do let me write a note to my friend captain starlin, and get you all invitations to the _thunderer_ dance to-night," she tacked on to the tail of her explanation. "he's an old friend of mine, too," said sir lionel, "and we've not only invitations already, but have accepted them, and sent for my sister's and miss lethbridge's clothes." her face fell a little for an instant when she heard we'd sent for clothes, as probably emily and i would have suited her better in our worst things; but she brightened up and said how pleased she was, because she and dick were both going, and now they would really look forward to the dance; dick had been bored with the idea before. well, the boxes came in good time, and the bond street darlings weren't crushed in the least, because i had put them to bed so nicely with sheets and pillows of tissue paper. i decided to wear a pink chiffon, with tiny button roses laid like a dainty frame all round the low neck and where the sleeves ought to have been but weren't. the chiffon's embroidered with roses to match. can you imagine me in such a dream? i can't. but it suits me, rather. i wore pink shoes and stockings and gloves, all of the same shade, and poor emily in gray silk, with her hair done in an aggressively virtuous way, looked like a cross between an anglican nun and a tourist economizing luggage. yet she wouldn't have been shocked if her brother'd had a harem in bengal, because it was "good form." but of course, as she says, one is obliged to excuse things in men. it was very amusing having dinner in the captain's room, which was large and quite charming, with curtains and frilly silk cushions, and heaps of framed, signed photographs, and books, almost as if a woman had arranged it. but he told us one felt the motion there, more than anywhere else, in a storm; which must be some consolation to the "middies" who have to work for years before they can ever hope for such luxurious quarters. mrs. senter and dick weren't at dinner, which was one comfort. besides ourselves, there were only the captain's married sister, who had come from town for the dance, and her husband. the husband's an earl--lord knaresbrook; rather old; but lady knaresbrook is young, frightfully pretty, and knows it. she flirted fascinatingly at dinner with sir lionel; not as mrs. senter flirts, flickering her eyelashes, saying smart things as if to amuse him alone, and hang everyone else!--but just looking at him, with gorgeous, starry eyes; asking a question now and then, and listening with all her soul. i'm not sure it isn't an equally effective way, especially when done in a diamond tiara by a countess under twenty-five. i should quite have enjoyed watching it if sir lionel had been a stranger, but knowing him somehow made me feel 'pon honour not to look, and rather restless. i do believe that, compared with some of these men, who've been at the other end of the world for years doing important political things, samson with his hair all cropped off was _adamant_ to lovely woman! naturally, i had to have something to look at, and i couldn't look at lord knaresbrook because the shape of his nose worried me; and anyhow he wanted to talk to emily about people they both knew. such exciting bits as this floated to my ears: "ah, yes, _he_ was the great-grandson of lord this. she married the duke of that's second cousin." so i looked a good deal at captain starlin, and he looked at me and not at very much else, which was quite easy, the most important lady being his own sister, who took the place of hostess; so mrs. norton was on his right and i on his left. as he was our host, and evidently wanted to flirt a little, i thought it my duty to gratify his wish, and played up to him. that was quite right, wasn't it? i'm sure you'll say yes, as you are a parisienne, and have brought me up to do unto others as i would be done by. but several times i happened to catch sir lionel's eyes, and they had a gloomy glint in them; not angry, but as if he'd discovered a screw loose in me. i felt as uncomfortable as you do with a smudge on your nose, which you see in shop-window mirrors when you've forgotten your handkerchief; but it was too late to change my behaviour suddenly, so i went on as i had begun. we mere females didn't leave the men at the table, perhaps because there wasn't any place where it would have been proper for us to wander unmanned. we sat for hours, and lady knaresbrook smoked, and wanted us to smoke, though of course she must have known that no woman with her hair done like emily's _would_. emily looked shocked, but just pressed in her lips, and didn't disapprove out aloud, as she might if lady knaresbrook had been plain "mrs." but afterward she told me she was now ready to believe "all they say" about diana knaresbrook. just because she smoked! mrs. norton could find immorality in a hard-boiled egg if she looked for it. at last we went above, or whatever you call it on a ship, and everything had been made beautiful with flags and bunting; but _nothing_ was as beautiful as those sailor men themselves, especially the middies. i felt like their mother (i hope that's not unmaidenly?) and should have loved to smooth their hair and pat them on the cheek--of which, by the way, they had plenty! a good many were introduced to me; and dick brought his aunt very early, because, he said, he didn't want to find all my dances gone. you can believe i hadn't saved any for _him_! but as a matter of fact, i had kept back two, thinking sir lionel might ask me; for after his many kindnesses i shouldn't have liked to seem not to want to dance with him, you see. when he didn't ask at first, i supposed it might be because he wasn't a dancing man (horrid expression!--sounds like a trained bear); but presently i saw him waltzing with lady knaresbrook; and he danced beautifully, as if he'd done nothing else all those years in bengal. then i said to myself: "he's vexed with me because he thinks i behaved badly at dinner, and perhaps i did." and i almost hoped he would suggest sitting out a dance, so that we could talk. but then dick came; and when he found i had two dances he wanted them both. "there are things i must tell you," he said. and mother, it's easy to see that the creature has some talent as a detective, because he guessed at once why i'd been saving those dances. "it's no good keeping anything up your sleeve for pendragon," said he, in his perky way, as if he were on an equality with the ex-lieutenant-governor of east bengal. "he won't ask you to dance. he thinks you're a little girl, and is leaving you to little boys, like me, which is quite right. the only woman he's ever taken any interest in for the last fifteen years is aunt gwen. and you can't say he doesn't show good taste." i couldn't, especially as mrs. senter was looking like the heroine of a novel which you'd be sure to forbid my reading; so i gave him the dances, partly for that reason and partly because i was cowardly enough to want to hear what he had to tell. just at the moment he couldn't say more, though, because a sweet brown lamb of a middy came and whirled me away. so it went on for half the evening, until it was nearly time for dick burden's first dance, and i was sitting down to breathe (after a furious galop, which didn't go at all well with a directoire dress), beside mrs. norton, who had the air of thinking a ballroom a sort of pound for lost souls. up came sir lionel as if to speak to her, and--i don't know what made me do it--i said, "i saved a dance for you, but you never asked me for it, so i gave it to someone else." his face got red. perhaps he thought i was lecturing him for being rude. "did you give it to starlin?" he asked, bluntly. "no. i've had mine with captain starlin. to mr. burden," said i. "do you want to dance it with him?" "not at all." "chuck him, then, and dance it with me. i should like to talk to you." "that's what he said." "do you want to hear what he's got to say?" (well, you know, dear, i _had_ wanted to; but suddenly i felt as if dick didn't matter more than a fly, nor did any one else except the person i was talking to. you _do_ feel like that with these quiet, masterful sort of people, whether you care for them or not. it's just a kind of momentary hypnotism; or, at least, that's the definition i've been giving myself.) "i don't want to hear what he's got to say," my hypnotized me answered, in the queer, abrupt way in which we had begun snapping out little short sentences to each other. "i'm sure he couldn't say anything really interesting." "don't you like dick burden?" "not much." "then the dance is mine. which is it?" "the next. here he comes now. i see the top of his head, over the shoulder of that youth with the collar of a curate and the face of a convict." the dragon smiled benevolently at my wicked description of a comparatively inoffensive person, and whisked me off. "are you offended with me?" i asked, as we waltzed a weird but heavenly hungarian waltz (made in germany). "why do you ask that?" he wanted to know. "because you looked offended at dinner. what had i done? eaten something with the wrong fork?" "you had done nothing i oughtn't to have been prepared to see you do." "what ought you to be prepared to see me do?" "it doesn't matter now." "it does. if you don't tell me, i shall scream 'murder' at the top of my lungs, and then you'll have to speak." "i certainly wouldn't. i'd bundle you home at once." "i haven't got any home." "my home is yours, till you marry." "or you do." "don't talk nonsense." (he was probably going to say "tommy-rot" but considered such striking words unfit for the ear of a débutante. this _was_ my début, i suppose? my very first ball.) "then tell me what you were unprepared for in me." "i was prepared for it at first, before i saw you. but----" "what?" "well, if you will have it, for your flirting." suddenly i felt impish, and said, innocently, that i supposed it was what girls came on board men-o'-war to do, so i had only done my best to please. by this time we'd stopped dancing, and were sitting down. i'd forgotten dick burden. "it all depends upon the point of view," he answered, with rather a disgusted air. "my point of view is," said i, gravely, "that soldiers as _well_ as sailors should approve of flirting, because flirtation is a warlike act; a short incursion into the enemy's country, with the full intention of getting back untouched." "ah, but what of the enemy?" suggested the dragon. "he can always take care of himself on such incursions." "so that's the theory? and at nineteen you have enlisted in that army?" "what army?" "the great army of flirts." i couldn't keep it up any longer, for i had really started in to explain, not to joke. and you know, dear, that flirting as a profession wouldn't be in my line at all. "do i look like a flirt?" i asked. "no. you don't," said he. "and i was beginning to hope----" "please go on hoping, then," i said. "because i didn't want to behave badly. if i did, it was because i don't quite know the game yet. and i wanted to tell you that i didn't really mean to be silly and schoolgirlish, and disgrace you and mrs. norton." then it was his turn to apologize, and he did it thoroughly. he said that i hadn't been silly, and so far from disgracing him, he was proud of me--"proud of his ward." it was only that i seemed so much more womanly and companionable than he'd expected, that he couldn't bear to see in me, or think he saw, any likeness whatever to inferior types of woman. whereupon i had the impertinence to ask _why_ he'd expected me to be inferior; but the only explanation i could get him to make was that he didn't know much about girls. which he had remarked before. we'd sat out two dances before we--i mean i--knew it; and nobody had dared to come near us, because a middy can't very well snatch a partner out of a celebrity's pocket. and dick, too, though he seems to have the courage of most of his convictions, drew the line at that. but suddenly i did remember. i smiled at a hovering laddie with the most smoothly polished hair you ever saw, just like a black helmet; and when the laddie had swung me away in the merry widow waltz sir lionel went back to mrs. senter. rather an appropriate air for her to dance to, i thought. i do pray i'm not getting kitten-catty? anyhow, i'm not in my _second_ kittenhood! you will be wondering by this time why i'm sorry we stayed at southsea, when it was all for me, and i seem to have been having the "time of my life." but i'm coming to the part you want to know about. i thought perhaps dick burden would be vexed at my going off with sir lionel, under his nose, just as he was ready to say "my dance." however, he walked up to me as if nothing had happened, when it was time for the second, so i didn't apologize. i thought it best to let sleeping partners lie. we danced a little, but dick, who is one-and-twenty, doesn't waltz half as well as sir lionel, who is forty; and he saw that i thought so. presently he asked if i'd rather sit out the rest, and i answered, yes; so he said he would tell me the things he had to say. he found a quiet place, which must have looked as if deliberately selected for a desperate flirtation; and then he didn't do much beating about the bush. he just told me that he _knew everything_. he'd partly "detected" it, and partly found out by chance; but of course he made the most of the detecting bit. don't be frightened and get a palpitation at the news, dearest; it isn't worth it. there's going to be no flare-up. of course, if i were the heroine of a really nice melodrama, in such a scene as dick and i went through, i should have been accompanied by slow music, with lime-light every time i turned my head, which would have heartened me up very much; while dick would have had villain music--plink, plink, plunk! but i did as well as i could without an accompaniment, and i think, on the whole, managed the business very well. you see, i had to think of ellaline. i dared not let her out of my mind for a single instant, for if i should fail her now, at the crucial time, it would be my fault if her love story burst and went up the spout. if i'd stopped thinking of her, and saying in my mind while dick talked, "i must save ellaline, no matter what happens to me!" i should certainly have boxed his ears and told him to go to limbo. he began by telling me that he'd met a friend of mine, a miss bennett--kathy bennett. oh, mother, just for a minute my heart beat under my pretty frock like a bird caught in a child's hand! you remember my writing you what a friendship ellaline and kathy struck up, before kathy left school to go back to england, and how she sent ellaline cuttings from the london radical papers about sir lionel pendragon in bengal? i do think it's almost ungentlemanly of so many coincidences to happen in connection with what i'm trying to do for ellaline. but kathy's such a lump, it's too great a compliment to call her a coincidence. anyhow, dick met her in town, at a tea party (a "bun worry," he called it) where he went with his dear aunt gwen; and when kathy mentioned being at school at madame de maluet's, he asked if she knew miss lethbridge. she said of course she did, and she thought ellaline was a "very naughty little thing" not to write or come and see her. she had read in the papers about the arrival of sir lionel with his sister and ward, you see. dick remarked that he'd hardly call miss lethbridge a "little thing," whereupon kathy defended her adjective by saying ellaline was only about up to her ear. of course that set mr. dick's detective bump to throbbing furiously. he reassured me by announcing that he hadn't said any more to kathy, but that he'd thought a lot. in fact, he thought so much that he asked if she'd give him a line of introduction to madame, as he had a cousin who wanted to go to a french school, and next time he "ran across to paris," he might have a look at versailles. kathy gave the note, and that same night, if you'll believe it, the horrid little boy did "run across." at the earliest hour possible in the morning he called at the school, only to find madame already away for her holidays. but you know she always leaves her sister, mademoiselle prado, to look after things, and when mademoiselle heard what dick wanted, she showed him all over the place. he said he would like to see photographs of the young ladies in groups, if any such existed, because he could write his australian cousin what nice, happy-looking girls they were. promptly that poor, unsuspecting female produced the big picture madame had done of the tea-party on the lawn, a year ago in june, and there was i in it. but dick was too foxy to begin by asking questions about me. kathy adorned the photograph also, with ellaline on her right and me in the perspective of her left ear, which must have seemed to point at me accusingly. dick could claim kathy quite naturally, as he'd come with her letter, and presently he led up to me, saying he seemed to have seen me somewhere. was i a great friend of miss bennett's, and was it probable that she had my portrait? mademoiselle innocently said no, miss bennett was much more likely to have mees lethbridge's portrait than mees brendon's, as mees brendon was not a pupil of the school, only a teacher of singing, and mees kathy was not musical. but mees lethbridge, _la petite jeune fille_ on the right, was a friend of mees bennett. now you'll admit that dick was rather smart to have chopped all these branches off the tree of knowledge with his little hatchet. i think his cleverness worthy of a better cause. the next thing he did was to ask, naïvely, if _that_ miss lethbridge was _the_ miss lethbridge--the ward of sir lionel pendragon, so much talked of in the papers just now? proud that her sister's school had moulded a celebrity, mademoiselle chatted away about ellaline, saying what a dear child she was, how sorry madame was to part from her, and how madame de blanchemain, ellaline's _chère marraine_, at st. cloud, must be missing her _mignonne_ at this very moment. it goes without saying that mr. dick's next step took him at a single stride to st. cloud. he didn't call on madame de blanchemain, not wishing to stir up a tempest in a teapot, but simply pryed and peered, and did all sorts of sneaky things, only excusable in a professional detective, who must (or thinks he must) live. he found out about madame de blanchemain's nephew, ellaline's honoré, and put this and that together, until he'd patched up the theory of a love affair. but further he dared not go, on that track, so he pranced back to versailles, and found out things about audrie brendon. the way he did that was through noticing the name of the versailles photographer who took the group in the garden. dick called on him, and said he wanted a copy of the picture, because his "cousin" was in it. the man had several on hand, as parents occasionally wrote for them, and when dick got his he inquired who i was. the obliging photographer, perhaps scenting a romance, told him i lived in the rue chapeau de marie antoinette with my mother. then the wretch actually had the impudence to describe to me a visit he paid our apartment, ringing at the door, and asking dear philomene for madame brendon! in five minutes, he had heard all our family affairs, as far as that dear, simple, talkative soul could tell him. that you were in switzerland, and i had gone to england to visit a friend. i sat and listened to the end of the story, saying never a word, though i was in one of the moods which make me a person that nobody but myself could stand for a moment. i should simply have smiled if wild horses had come along to tear him in two. "so you see," said he, at last, when i didn't speak, "i'm in the game with you." "it isn't my game," said i. "you're playing it," said he. "because i have to," said i. "is it sir lionel who's making you play it?" he asked. "oh, dear, no," i broke out, before i stopped to think. "then, he isn't in it?" i thought it looked more respectable to admit that, whatever the "game" was, sir lionel and i were not playing it together. "you're doing it for your friend," deduced our young detective. i gently intimated that that was _my_ business. but mr. burden advised me that i would be wise to accept him as my partner if i didn't want the business to fail. "what have i done to you, that you should interfere?" i wanted to know, only i didn't dare--actually didn't _dare_, for ellaline's sake, to speak angrily. oh, i did feel like a worm's paper doll! "you've made me like you, awfully," he said. "then you shouldn't want to do me any harm," i suggested. "i don't want to do you harm," he defended himself. "what i want is to see as much of you as possible, and also i'd like to give aunt gwen a little pleasure, thrown in with mine. i want you to ask sir lionel to invite us to join your party. there's plenty of room for us in that big motor-car of his. i went to see it in the garage to-day." "you _would_!" i couldn't resist sputtering. but he took no notice. "you needn't be afraid that aunt gwen's in this," he went on to assure me. "i've kept mum as an oyster. all she knows is that i saw you--miss lethbridge--in paris, and haven't been the same man since. she helped me get to know you, of course. she's a great chum of mine, and her being an old pal of sir lionel's too, meant a lot for me in the beginning. she's a ripper, and stanch as they make 'em--but they _don't_ make 'em perfectly stanch where other women are concerned. and as long as you and i hunt in couples she shan't have a suspicion." "you'd tell her, if i refused to hunt in that way?" i asked. "i might think it my duty to let sir lionel know how he's being humbugged. at present i'm shuttin' my eyes to duty, and lookin' at you. what?" "why does mrs. senter want to come with us?" i ventured to inquire. "because," explained her loyal nephew, "she's fed up with visiting, and she loves motoring. so do i, with the right people. i'm sure it's not much to ask. we won't sponge on sir lionel. we'll pay our own hotel bills; and i'm sure, even though you are in a wax with me just now, you must admit aunt gwen and i would wake things up a bit--what? all's fair in love and war, so you oughtn't to blame me for anything i've done. you'd think it jolly well romantic if you read it in a book." i denied this, but said i would consider. he must give me till to-morrow morning to make up my mind; which he flatly refused to do. to-morrow would be too late. he saw in my eye that i hoped to slip off, but it was "no good my being foxy." things must be fixed up, or _blown_ up, on board this ship to-night. whether or not he really meant to do his worst, if i wouldn't give in, i can't be sure, but he looked as obstinate as six pigs, and i didn't dare risk ellaline's future. my _own_ impression is that there's a _big_ mistake somewhere, and that she would be perfectly safe in sir lionel's hands if she would tell him frankly all about honoré du guesclin--i, meanwhile, vanishing through a stage trap or something. but she may be right. and i _may_ be wrong. that's why i was forced to promise dick. and i kept my promise, as soon as we got home to our hotel--sir lionel, mrs. norton, and i. i knew it would be a most horrid thing to do, but it was even horrider than i thought. all the way going back i was planning what to say, and feeling damp on the forehead, thinking how impudent it would seem in _me_, a young girl and a guest, to make such a suggestion. but it had to be done, so i screwed up my courage, swallowed half of it again, with a lump in my throat, and exclaimed in a gay, spontaneous way, like the sweet, innocent angel i am: "oh, sir lionel, _wouldn't_ it be fun if mrs. senter and--and her nephew were going with us for a little way? they both love motoring." he looked surprised and emily pursed her lips. "do you want them to come?" he asked. "well, i just thought of it," i stammered. "i thought you didn't like burden," he said. no wonder, as i'd unfortunately unbosomed myself of my real sentiments not three hours before! "i think he's amusing enough," i tried to slide out of the difficulty. "and mrs. senter probably wouldn't go without him." "i somehow gathered an impression that you didn't admire her particularly," went on sir lionel, looking at me with a very straight look. "oh, i never said so!" i cried. "i admire her immensely." "in that case, i'll ask them, with pleasure," said sir lionel. "the idea did cross my mind in london, but i didn't think you'd care for it, somehow. emily will be pleased, i know. won't you, emily? and if mrs. senter will be as reasonable as you two in the matter of luggage we shall have plenty of room." "it is your car, and the idea of the tour is yours," said mrs. norton, very feminine and resigned, also feeling that my "cheek" deserved a tiny scratch. "i am pleased with whatever pleases _you_." next morning (or rather the _same_ morning, and _this_ morning) sir lionel got his sister to write a note to mrs. senter, and he wrote one too, or added a p. s. "aunt gwen's" reply was a ladylike warwhoop of joy; and we are now waiting till the latest additions to our party have broken the news to their hostess at hayling island, packed a few things to take, and sent the rest "home" (wherever that may be) with mrs. senter's maid. good-bye, my parisienne angel. your broken and badly repaired audrie-ellaline. i long to hear whether you think i ought to have braved dick. x sir lionel pendragon to colonel patrick o'hagan _royal hotel, winchester_, _july 21st. night_ my dear pat: i thought of you on the portsmouth downs yesterday, remembering a tramp you and i had together, "exploring wild england," as we called it. we then had a pose that all england, except "town," was wild--save only and always when there was any shooting of poor silly pheasants or hunting of "that pleasant little gentleman," the fox. after running out through portsmouth, i suggested stopping the car and mounting the downs above, on foot, for a look at the view. there are now five in our party, instead of three--not counting young nick, who has no stomach for views. at ellaline's expressed wish, mrs. senter and dick burden have come on with us from hayling island, where they were staying. we met them at a dance on the _thunderer_, which starlin captains. they have been invited to be of the party for a fortnight or so. i should rather have liked to watch ellaline's face as she climbed the hill, her feet light on yielding grass, where the gold of buttercups and turquoise of harebells lay scattered--as she climbed, and as she reached the top, to see england spread under her eyes like a great ring. but that privilege was burden's. i hope he appreciated it. mine was to escort mrs. senter. i was glad she didn't chat. i hate women who chat, or spray adjectives over a view. you remember it all, don't you? on one side, looking landward, we had a constable picture: a sky with tumbled clouds, shadowed downs, and forests cleft by a golden mosaic of meadows. seaward, an impressionist sketch of whistler's: southampton water and historic portsmouth harbour; stretches of glittering sand with the sea lying in ragged patches on it here and there like great pieces of broken glass. over all, the english sunshine pale as an alloy of gold and silver; not too dazzling, yet discreetly cheerful, like a puritan maiden's smile; but not like ellaline's. hers can be dazzling when she is surprised and pleased. i think i recall your talk with me on a height overlooking the harbour--perhaps the same height. we painted a lurid picture, to harrow our young minds, of the wreck of the _royal george_. and we said, gazing across the downs, that england looked almost uninhabited. well, it appears no more populous now, luckily for the picture. i heard ellaline saying to dick burden that the towns and villages might be playing at hide and seek, they concealed themselves so successfully. also i heard her advise him to read "puck of pook's hill," and was somewhat disappointed that she'd already had it, as i bought it for her in southsea yesterday. probably she won't care to read it again. perhaps i had better give the book to mrs. senter, who is a more intellectual woman than you and i supposed when she was playing with us all in india. but one doesn't talk books with pretty women in the east. you remember the day you and i walked to winchester from portsmouth, starting early in the morning, with our lunch in our pockets? well, we came along the same way, past old william of wykeham's wickham, the queer mill built of the _chesapeake's_ timbers, and bishops' waltham, where the ruins of the episcopal palace struck me as being grander than i had realized. ellaline was astonished at coming upon such a splendid monument of the past by the roadside, and was delighted to hear of the entertainment coeur de lion was given in the palace after his return from the german captivity. of course the story of the famous "waltham blacks" pleased her too. women can always forgive thieves, provided they're young, gay, and well born. when mrs. senter found that ellaline and my sister were in the habit of sitting in the tonneau, young nick beside me, she asked, after a little hesitation, if she might take his place, leaving the chauffeur to curl himself up on the emergency seat at my feet. she said that half the fun of motoring was to sit by the man at the wheel and share his impressions, like being in the forefront of battle, or going to the first performance of a play, or being in at the death with a hunt. so now you can imagine me with an amusing neighbour, for naturally i consented to the change. neither ellaline nor emily had suggested companioning me, and though i must say i had thought of proposing it to ellaline, i hadn't found the courage. she would no doubt have been too polite to refuse, while perhaps disliking the plan heartily. now, burden has been allotted a place with her and my sister, which is probably agreeable to ellaline. curious! even the frankest of girls--and i believe ellaline to be as frank as her sex allows--can be secretive in an apparently motiveless way. why should she tell me one moment that she didn't like burden, and the next (practically) ask me to invite him and his aunt to travel with us, because she "admires mrs. senter immensely"? or perhaps it is that the child doesn't know her own mind. i am studying her with deepening interest, but am not likely to have as many opportunities now there are more of us. she and burden, being the young girl and the young man of the party, will, of course, be much together, and mrs. senter will fall to my lot for any excursions which may not interest, or be too tiring for, emily. this boy's presence makes me realize, as i didn't until i had a young man of twenty-one constantly under my eyes, that the knocking of the "younger generation" has already begun to sound on my door. i had better hearken, i suppose, or some one else will kindly direct my attention to the noise. i confess i don't like it, but it's best to know the worst, and keep the knowledge in the heart, rather than read it in the mockery of some pretty girl's eyes--a pretty girl to whom one is an "old boy," perhaps. jove, pat, that sticks in my gorge! it's not a thought to take to bed and go to sleep with if one wants pleasant dreams. i'm stronger than i ever was, my health is perfect, i have few gray hairs, my back is straight. i feel as if the elixir of youth ran hot in my veins. yet one sees headlines in the papers, "too old at forty." and--one is forty. it didn't matter--that is, i didn't think of it, until the coming of this boy. his very ideas and manners are different from mine. no doubt they're the approved ideas and manners of his generation, as we had ours at his age. i wear my hair short, and think no more of its existence except to wash and brush it; but this dick parts his in the middle, and sleeks the long locks back, keeping them smooth as a surface of yellowish satin, with bear's grease or lard, or some appalling, perfumed compound. his look is a mixture of laziness and impudence, and half his sentences he ends up with "what?" or even "what-what?" his way with women is slightly condescending, and takes their approval for granted. there's no youthful shyness about him, and what he wants he expects to get; but with _me_ he puts on an irritating, though, i fear, conscientious air of deference that relegates me to the background of an older generation; sets me on a pedestal there, perhaps; but i have no wish for a pedestal. still, to do him justice, the lad is neither ill-looking nor ill-mannered. indeed, women may consider him engaging. his aunt seems devoted to him, and says he is irresistible to girls. i think if no "greenery yallery" haze floated before my eyes, i might see that he is rather a decent boy, extremely well-groomed, alert, with good, short features and bright eyes. when he walks with ellaline he has no more than an inch the advantage of her in height, but he has a well-knit figure and a "sandhurst bearing." "crabbed age and youth cannot live together." am i crabbed age? well, this long digression ought to bring me on as far as winchester, where we came yesterday afternoon, late. we should have been earlier (though our start was delayed by our guests' preparations), but ellaline was fascinated by the pretty village of twyford. you remember it? she'd been reading it up in a guide-book, and would stop for a look at the place where the fair fitzherbert was said to have been married to her handsome prince, later george iv. i can't recall hearing that story, though certainly mrs. fitzherbert's relations lived near; but i knew pope was sent down from school there because of a satire he wrote on the master, and that franklin visited and wrote in twyford. it was after four when i turned the car round that sharp corner which swings you into the market square of what is to me the grandest and most historic town of england. why, it _is_ england! didn't the romans get their venta belgarum, which finally developed into winta-ceaster and winchester, from the far older celtic name for an important citadel? wasn't there a christian church before the days of arthur, my alleged ancestor? wasn't the cathedral begun by the father of ælfred on the foundations of that poor church as well as those of a roman temple? wasn't it here that the name of anglia--england--was bestowed on the united kingdoms, and wasn't it from winchester that ælfred sent out the laws that made him and england "great"? ellaline delights in the fact that the said roman temple was apollo's, as well as concord's, she having named my car apollo, and the sun god being her favourite mythological deity at the moment. apropos of mythology, by the way, she was rather amusing this morning on the subject of icarus, who, she contends, was the pioneer of sporting travel. if he didn't have "tire trouble," said she, he had the nearest equivalent when his wax wings melted. i should have enjoyed playing cicerone in winchester, knowing and loving the place as i do, if it hadn't been for dick burden's air of thinking such knowledge as mine quite the musty-fusty luggage of the old fogy. there's no use pretending it didn't rub me up the wrong way! yesterday after arriving, emily clamoured for tea, so we attempted no further sightseeing, but drove straight to this delightful old hotel, which was once a nunnery, and has still the nunnery garden, loved by the more enterprising of cathedral rooks. or are they the nuns come back in disguise? this, you'll guess, is ellaline's idea. on the way here, however, there was the beautiful city cross in the high street. it would have been a disgrace not to stop for a look at it, even though we could return; and ellaline was most enthusiastic. she doesn't know much about these things (how could she)? but she feels by instinct the beauty of all that is really fine; whereas mrs. senter, though maybe better instructed, is more _blasée_. indeed, though she admires the right things, she is essentially the modern woman, whose interest is all in the present and future. i can't imagine her reading history for the sheer joy of it, as the child would and evidently has. mrs. senter would prefer a french novel; but it would have to be well written. she would accept no trash. she has an elastic mind, i must say, and appeared satisfactorily shocked when i told her how the cross would have been chopped up by paving commissioners in the eighteenth century if the people hadn't howled for its salvation. the same sort of fellows did dump ælfred and his queen out of their comfortable stone coffins, you know, to use the stone. brutes! what was st. swithin thinking of to let them do it? a mercy it didn't occur to some commission to take down stonehenge. they could have made a lot of streets with that. in the market place, too, there was the ancient fair of winchester to think of, the fair that had no rival except beaucaire; and i had been telling them all, on the way into the town, how the woods round the city used to swarm with robbers, hoping to plunder the rich merchants from far countries. altogether, i fancy even dick was somewhat impressed by the ancient as well as modern importance of winchester by the time we drove to the hotel. by and by, when we had our rooms and were washed and refreshed, we drank tea in the garden, where old-fashioned flowers were sweet; plenty of roses, stocks, and pansies. (i had an old scottish nurse when i was a foot or two high, and i've never forgotten what she said about pansies. "they have aye the face of a smacked cat!" it's true, isn't it? a cat glares and puts its ears back when it's smacked. not that i ever smacked one to see.) afterward, i was not of a mind to propose anything. i thought each had better follow his or her inclination for what was left of the day; and mine was to stroll out and review old memories. i should have liked to take ellaline, but fancied she might prefer society nearer her own age. however, i came across her in the high street, alone, gazing fascinated at the window of an antique shop. there are some attractive ones in winchester. i wasn't sure if she weren't waiting for dick, who might have strolled away from her for a minute, so i would have passed on if she hadn't turned. "did you ever see anything so beautiful?" she asked me. i had, but i didn't say so. i liked her to like everything in my winchester, so i inquired what she admired most in the shop window. she hardly knew. but there was some wonderful old jewellery. the girl was right. the antique jewellery was particularly good. there were some admirable necklaces and rings, with fine stones. "what's your birth month?" i asked, on a sudden thought. "july," said she. "what--this very month? i hope the birthday hasn't passed." "no-o, not yet," she answered reluctantly. she saw by now what was in the wind, and didn't want to seem greedy. i persisted. "tell me when." "the twenty-fifth. but you are _not_ to." "not to--what?" "you know." "yes, i will. it's a guardian's duty to his ward, and in this case a pleasure." "i'd much rather you didn't, really." and she looked as grave as a statue of justice. "some day you'll know why." i waived the subject at this point, for i felt obstinate, and wanted to give her a present. there was, and is, no doubt in my mind that her reason is a schoolgirl reason. madame de maluet has probably brought her up to believe it is not _comme il faut_ for a _jeune fille_ to accept a present from a _monsieur_. still, her voice and expression were so serious, even worried, that i'm wondering if it could be anything else. anyhow, i have bought the present, and intend to give it her on the 25th. it is a quaint old marquise ring, with a cabuchon ruby surrounded by very good diamonds. i think she will like it, and i don't see why she shouldn't have it--from me. i feel as if i would like to make up to her for the injustice i've been doing her in my mind all these years since she was a little child, left to me--poor, lonely baby. only i don't quite know how to make up. i don't even dare to confess myself, and say i am sorry i never seemed to take any interest in her as she grew up. she must have wondered why i never asked to have her picture sent me, or wanted her to write--or wrote; and she must have felt the cold neglect of the only person (except an old french lady, her godmother) who had any rights over her. beast that i was! and i can't explain why i was a beast. no doubt she adores the legend (it can't be a memory) of her mother, and i would have it always so. she need never know any of the truth, though of course, when she marries i shall have to tell the man one or two things, i suppose. i'll let you know next time i write how the ring is received. this morning, after breakfast, we all walked about the streets of winchester, and, of course, went to the cathedral, where we stopped till nearly two o'clock. the town and the place have all their old charm, and even more for me; the "piazza"; the huddled, narrow streets full of mystery, the cathedral close with its crowded entrance, its tall trees that try to hide cathedral glories from common eyes; its mellow queen anne and georgian houses which group round in a pleasant, self-satisfied way, as if they alone were worthy of standing-room in that sacred precinct. to me, there's no cathedral in england that means as much of the past as winchester. you know how, in the nave, you see so plainly the transition from one architectural period to another? and then, there are those splendid mortuary chests. think of old kynegils, and the other saxon kings lying inside, little heaps of haunted dust. i was silly enough to be immensely pleased that the child picked out those mortuary chests in their high resting place, and the gorgeous alleged tomb of william rufus, as the most unforgettable among the smaller interests of winchester cathedral, for they are the same with me; and it's human to like our tastes shared by (a few) others. she was so enchanted to hear how william the red was brought by a carter to be buried in winchester, and about the great turquoise and the broken shaft of wood found in the tomb, that i hadn't the heart to tell her it probably wasn't his burial place, but that of henri de blois. of course she liked bloody mary's faldstool--the one mary sat in for her marriage with philip of spain; and the mss. signed by ælfred the great as a child, with his father. women are caught by the personal element, i think, more than we are. and so interested was she in jane austen's memorial tablet, that she wouldn't be satisfied without going to see the house where jane died. there were so many other things to see, that emily and mrs. senter would have left that out, but i wanted the girl to have her way. poor little, sweet-hearted jane! she was only forty-one when she finished with this world--a year older than i. but doubtless that was almost old for a woman of her day, when girls married at sixteen, and took to middle-aged caps at twenty-five. now, i notice, half the mothers look younger than their daughters--younger than any daughter would dare to look after she was "out." a good many interesting persons seem to have died in winchester, if they weren't clever enough to be born in the town. earl godwin set an early example in that respect. died, eating with edward the confessor--probably too much, as his death was caused by apoplexy, and might not have happened if edward hadn't been too polite to advise him not to stuff. of course, the cathedral is the great jewel; but for me the old city is an ancient, kingly crown set full of jewels. there's the west gate, for instance. you know how we said it alone would be worth walking many miles to see. and the old castle. i'm not sure that isn't one of the best sights of all. i took the party there after luncheon, and the same delightful fellow showed us round. he hadn't changed since our time, unless he is more mellow. he was quite angry to-day with a german-american woman--the type, as ellaline murmured to me, that alone is capable of a plaid blouse. the lady inquired nasally of our old friend, "is this hall mod-ern; what you call mod-ern?" we were at the moment gazing up at king arthur's round table, which henry viii. hung on the wall to save it further vicissitudes, after henry vii. had it daubed with colours and tudor roses, to furnish forth some silly feast. the dear old chap raised his eyebrows at the question, and glanced round as if apologizing to each massive pillar in turn. well, he said, he would hardly call the hall modern, as it had been built by william the conqueror, but perhaps the lady _might_ be used to older things at home. with that, he turned on an indignant heel, and led us out to the courtyard where wretched edward ii.'s brother, the duke of kent, was executed. he has the same old trick of being "sorry to say" whenever he has anything tragic or gruesome to relate, passing lightly over details of oubliettes, and skeletons found without their heads--as so many were on grim st. giles's hill. of course we went and had a look at st. cross and henri de blois's old hospital almshouse. we would have stopped there yesterday, if emily hadn't so ardently desired tea. but, if i'd thought to tell her about the dole of bread and beer, she might have been persuaded, though my description of the exquisite windows in the courtyard, and the quaint houses of the black and white brethren, left her cold. we all had some of the dole to-day at the portal; and mrs. senter took it as a compliment that each one was given so little. tourists get tiny bits, you know, and beggars big ones; so she thought it would have been a sign that they disparaged the ladies' hats and frocks if they had been more generous. it would be difficult to disapprove of hers. she understands the art of dress to perfection. a pity we couldn't have been here earlier in the year, isn't it? for among the nicest new things in old winchester are the winchester schoolboys. how they spurn the ordinary tourist they meet in the street, and how scornfully polite they are to any unfortunate straying beast who asks them a question, making him feel meaner than any worm! a foreigner must long to ask the consequential youths to "kindly excuse him while he continues to breathe"; for few strangers can sympathize with the contempt we english have, while still in callow youth, for everyone we don't know. but, let a newcomer blossom into an acquaintance, or mention a relative at eton, and all is changed. the winchester boys turn into the most delightful chaps in the world. i dare say i shall think dick burden a delightful chap when i know him better. at present, it's all i can do to put up with him for the sake of his aunt. and the fellow has such an ostentatiously frank way of looking one straight in the eyes, that i'm hanged if i'd trust him to go as straight. talking of going straight, to-morrow morning early we leave for salisbury, and when we feel like moving shall pass on toward the new forest. ever yours, pen. xi audrie brendon to her mother _white hart hotel, salisbury_, _july 24th_ dearest: i am particularly homesick for you to-night, because it's my birthday eve. twenty-one to-morrow, but passing for nineteen. and isn't it annoying, i went and blurted out in winchester two days ago that i had a birthday hanging over me. i'm awfully afraid sir lionel thinks himself bound to give me a present. if he does, and i can't get out of taking it, i shall have to pass it on to ellaline, of course, when i'm passing everything else on--including myself. i know you're thinking of me to-night, as you walk after dinner under the glorious chestnut trees you describe in the park at champel-les-bains. i wish you had an astral body! it wouldn't take up any room, or have to pay railway fares, or wait for invitations to visit, and it could easily be one of the party in sir lionel's car. so nice to have it sitting between me and dick burden! i wanted you dreadfully at winchester, as i wrote you in the note i scribbled after seeing the cathedral. i wish i'd told you more about winchester then, for now it's too late. all stonehenge is lying on top of my winchester impressions, and it will take them a little time to squeeze from underneath. they will come out, though, i know, none the worse for wear. and how i shall talk this trip over with you, when we're together again, and i know the end that's hiding behind the motor-veil of the future! mother, dear, when i shut my eyes to-night, i see barrows, billowing prehistorically along the horizon, and i see stonehenge, black against a red sunset, and silver in the moonlight. also, i have begun to _think_ architecturally, i find, through seeing so much architecture, and trying to talk about it intelligently, as mrs. senter contrives to do. (i believe she fags it up at night, with a wet towel over her hair wavers!) do you know what it is to think architecturally? well, for me (not apropos of mrs. s. at all), a made-up woman is "well restored," or "repaired." an intellectual-looking man, with a fine head, has norman bumps and gothic ears. a puppy with big feet is an early perp., with norman foundations, and so on. it gives a new interest to life and the creatures we meet. emily is late georgian, with victorian elevations. i hated leaving winchester; but oh, those barrows we saw, when we were coming away! they made most antique things seem as new as a china cup with "for a good girl" outlined on it in gold letters. so many stupendous events have scattered themselves along this road of ours, as the centuries rolled, that it makes the brain reel, trying to gather them up, and sort them into some kind of sequence. often i wish i could sit and admire calmly, as mrs. senter can, and not get boiling with excitement over the past. but one is so uncomfortably intelligent, one can't stop thinking, thinking every minute. every tiny thing i see has its little "thought sting," ready like a mosquito; and a fancy that has lately stabbed me is the striking resemblance between english scenery, or its features, and english character. the best bits in both are shy of showing themselves, and never flaunt. they are so reserved that to find them out you must search. all the loveliest nooks in english country and in english souls are hidden from strangers. why, the very cottages try to hide under veils of clematis and roses, as the cottage children hide their thoughts behind long eyelashes. we came to salisbury by way of romsey, and got out to see the splendid old church which almost ranks with winchester cathedral as a monument of england. and romsey abbey, too, very beautiful, even thrilling; still more ancient hursley, with its earthworks, about which, for once, sir lionel and dick burden were congenial. of course, men who have been soldiers like sir lionel, or tried to be soldiers and couldn't, like dick, must know something about the formation of such things; but anyone may be interested--except a mrs. norton. you and i had no motoring when we were travellers, so we didn't see europe as i am seeing england; still, i don't believe any other country has this individuality of vast, billowing downs. as you bowl smoothly from one to another, over perfect roads, you have a series of surprises, new beauties opening suddenly to your eyes. it is exciting, yet soothing; and that mingling of emotions is part of the joy of the car. for motorists, the downs of hampshire and wiltshire are like a goddess's beautiful breasts; and nature is a goddess, isn't she?--the greatest of all, combining all their best qualities. this white hart is a nice hotel, but i rather resent the foreign waiters, as out of the picture, in such an essentially old-fashioned, english place. i like the animal names of the hotels in england. already we have seen a lot; and they form into a quaint, colourful, noah's ark and heraldic procession across the country. the black bull; the golden unicorn; the blue boar; the red lion; the piebald horse; the green dragon; the white hart. i am still longing for a purple bear. the first thing we did after getting settled (which i always like, as i haven't enough luggage to make much bother) was to walk out and see the town. i kept dick with me, not because i wanted him, you may be sure, but because i can see he is a blot on the 'scutcheon for sir lionel, and i feel so guilty, having forced him into the party, that i try to attract the blot to myself. if i mention the blot in future, you'll know what it is. when i'm very desperate, i may just fling a drop of ink on the paper to relieve my feelings, and that will mean the same thing. the blot puts on an air of the most exaggerated respect for sir lionel. you'd fancy he was talking to a centenarian. horrid, pert little pig! (i think pigs run in their family.) i know he does it on purpose to be nasty, and make sir lionel feel an old stager. do you remember the pig-baby in "alice's adventures"? he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases. not that it need, for sir lionel looks about thirty-four. nobody would give him forty unless they saw it in books; and he is like a knight of romance. there! now you have the opinion i have come to hold of ellaline's dragon. for me, the dragon has turned into a knight. but, of course, i may be mistaken. mrs. senter says that no girl can ever possibly understand a man, and that a man is really much more complicated than a woman, though the novelists tell you it's the other way round. we started out, all of us, except emily, who lies down after tea, to walk to john halle's hall, a most interesting banqueting room, which is now a china-shop, but was built by a rich wool-stapler (such a nice word!) in 1470, as you can see on the oak carvings. but there was so much to do on the way, that we saw the hall, and the old george inn--where pepys lay "in a silk bed and had very good diet"--last of all. the antique furniture shops were simply enthralling, and i wanted nearly everything i saw. travelling is good for the mind, but it develops one or two of the worst passions, such as greed of possession. we went into several shops, and i could have purred with joy when sir lionel asked me to help him choose several things for graylees, which he would have sent on there, direct. he seemed to care more for my advice than for mrs. senter's, and i don't think she quite liked that, for she really knows a good deal about old english furniture, whereas i know nothing--only a little about french and italian things. the streets of salisbury, with their mediæval houses, look exactly as if they had been originally planned to give the most delightful effects possible when their pictures were taken. every corner is a gem; and sir lionel told us that the old rectangular part of the town _was_ planned more or less at one time. of course, the people who did the planning had plenty of time to think it all over, before moving down from old sarum, which was so high and bleak they couldn't hear the priest saying mass in the cathedral, because of the wind. fancy! salisbury used to be called the "venice of england"; but i must say, if one can judge now, the simile was far-fetched. lots of martyrs were burnt in salisbury, it seems, when that sort of thing was in fashion, so no wonder they have to keep bloody queen mary's chair in winchester instead of salisbury, where they've a right to feel a grudge against the wretched little, bilious bigot of a lovesick woman. sir lionel has several well-known martyrs on his family tree, mrs. norton says; and she is as proud of them as most people are of royal bar-sinisters. i never thought martyrs particularly interesting myself, though perhaps that's an uneasy jealousy, as we've none in our family that i know of--only a witch or so on father's side. poor dears, what a pity they couldn't have waited till now to be born, when, instead of burning or drowning them, people would have paid them to tell nice things about the past and predict lovers for the future! witches were fascinating; but many martyrs probably marted out of sheer obstinacy, don't you think? of course, it was different when they executed you without giving you a chance to recant, as they did with political prisoners; and do you know, they cut off poor witty buckingham's head in salisbury market-place? "so much for buckingham!" where it came off, there's an inn, now, called the saracen's head. i wonder if _it_ was chopped off in the neighbourhood, too, or if it's only a pleasant fancy, to cover up the buckingham stain in the yard? anyhow, they tell you there that in 1838 buckingham's skeleton was dug up under the kitchen of what used to be the blue boar inn. but even that isn't as ghastly a tale as another one of salisbury: how one of jack cade's "quarters" was sent to the town when he'd been executed. i should have liked to know if it's still to be seen, but i thought it would be hardly nice to ask. we saved the cathedral for the last, and just as we were in the midst of sight-seeing there, it was time for service, so we sat down and listened to music which seemed to fall from heaven. there's nothing more glorious than music in a cathedral, is there? usually it makes me feel good; but this time it made me feel so sinful, on account of ellaline, and sir lionel and dick, that i almost cried. do you think, dear, that if i were in a novel they would have me for a heroine or a wicked adventuress? i hae me doots; but my one hope is, that you can't be an adventuress if you really mean well at heart, and are under twenty-two. maybe i'd expected too much of salisbury cathedral, because i'd always heard more about it than others in england, but it wasn't quite so glorious to me as winchester. it's far more harmonious, because it was planned all at one time, like the town, and there's singularly little foreign influence to be traced in the architecture, which makes it different from most others, and extraordinarily interesting in its way. it's very, very old, too, but it is so white and clean that it looks new. and one great beauty it has: its whiteness seems always flooded with moonlight, even when sunshine is streaming over the noble pillars and lovely tombs. this morning i went back, with emily, to service, and wandered from chapel to chapel, till nearly luncheon time. then sir lionel came, and took me up strange, hidden, winding stairs, to the den of the librarian. it was like stealing into an enchanted castle, where all save the librarian slept, and had slept for centuries. when it was time to go away, i was afraid that sir lionel might have forgotten the magic spell which would open the door and let us escape. there were interesting things there, but we weren't allowed to look at the ones we wanted to see most, till we were too tired to enjoy them, after seeing the ones we didn't want to see at all. but you know, in another enchanted castle, that of the sleeping beauty, there was only _one_ lovely princess, and goodness knows how many snorey bores. at three, we started to motor out to stonehenge; and sir lionel chose to be late, because he wanted to be there at sunset, which he knew--from memory--to be the most thrilling picture for us to carry away in our heads. nobody ever told me what an imposing sight old sarum remains, to this day, so i was surprised and impressed by the giant conical knoll standing up out of the plain and its own intrenchments. i'd just been reading about it in the guide-book, how important it used to be to england, when it was still a city, and how it was a fortress of the celts when the romans came and snatched it from them; but i had no idea of its appearance. i would have liked to go with sir lionel to walk round the intrenchments, but he asked only dick. however, mrs. senter volunteered to go, at the last moment, just as they were starting, and emily and i were left, flotsam and jetsam, in the car, to wait till they came back. i wasn't bored, however, because emily read a religious novel by marie corelli, and didn't worry to talk. so i could sit in peace, seeing with my mind's eye the pageant of william the conqueror reviewing his troops in the plain over which old sarum gloomily towers. such a lurid plain it is, this month of poppies, red as if its arid slopes were stained with the blood of ghostly armies slain in battle. but it was going back further into history to come to amesbury. you know, dear, queen guinevere's amesbury, where she repented in the nunnery she'd founded, and the little novice sang to her "too late! too late!" when she was buried, king arthur had "a hundred torches ever burning about the corpse of the queen." can't you see the beautiful picture? and when her nunnery was gone in 980, another queen, far, far more wicked than guinevere, built on the same spot a convent to expiate the murder of her stepson at corfe castle. we are going to corfe, by and by, so i shall send my thoughts back to amesbury from there, in spite of the fact that elfreda's nuns became so naughty they had to be banished. nor shall i forget a lover who loved at amesbury--sir george rodney, who adored the fascinating countess of hertford so desperately, that after her marriage he composed some verses in her honour, and fell then upon his sword. why don't men do such things for us nowadays? were the "dear, dead women" so much more desirable than we? wasn't amesbury a beautiful "leading up" to stonehenge? it's quite near, you know. it doesn't seem as if anything ought to be near, but a good many things are--such as farms. yet they don't spoil it. you never even think of them, or of anything except stonehenge itself, once you have seen the first great, dark finger of stone, pointing mysteriously skyward out of the vast plain. that is the way stonehenge breaks on you, suddenly, startlingly, like a cry in the night. i was very glad we had the luck to arrive alone, for not long after we'd entered the charmed, magic circle of the giant plinths, a procession of other motor-cars poured up to the gates. droves of chauffeurs, and bevies of pretty ladies in motor hats swarmed like living anachronisms among the monuments of the past. of course, _we_ didn't seem to ourselves to be anachronisms, because what is horrid in other people is always quite different and excusable, or even piquant, in oneself; and i hastily argued that _our_ motor, apollo, the sun god, was really appropriate in this place of fire worship. even the druids couldn't have objected to _him_, although they would probably have sacrificed all of _us_ in a bunch, unless we could have hastily proved that we were a new kind of god and goddess, driving chariots of fire. (anyhow, motor-cars are making history just as much as the druids did, so they ought to be welcome anywhere, in any scene, and they seem to have more right to be at stonehenge than patronizing little pepys.) you remember rolde, in holland, don't you, with its miniature stonehenge? well, it might have been made for druids' children to play dolls with, compared to this. if the phoenicians raised stonehenge in worship of their fiery god, they had good reason to flatter themselves that it would attract his attention. and i do think it was sensible to choose the sun for a god. next to our own true religion, that seems the most comforting. there was your deity, in full sight, looking after one side or the other of his world, all through the twenty-four hours. i never felt more awe-stricken than i did passing under the shadow of those great sentinel plinths, guarding their sunken altar, hiding their own impenetrable mysteries. the winds seemed to blow more chill, and to whisper strangely, as if trying to tell secrets we could never understand. i love the legend of the friar's heel, but, after all, it's only a mediæval legend, and it's more interesting to think that, from the middle of the sacrificial altar, the priest could see the sun rise (at the summer solstice) just above that stupendous stone. i stood there, imagining a white-robed druid looking up, his knife suspended over a fair girl victim, waiting to strike until his eye should meet the red eye of the sun. oh, i shall have bad dreams about stonehenge, i know! but i shan't mind, if i can dream about the duke of buckingham digging for treasure there at midnight. and if i were like du maurier's dear peter ibbetson, i could "dream back," and see at what far distance the builders of stonehenge got their mysterious syenite, and that one black sandstone so different from the rest. i could dream who were the builders; whether phoenicians, or mourning britons of arthur's day--as geoffrey of monmouth tells. sir lionel and i like to think it was the britons, for that gives him a family feeling for the place, since he read out of a book warton's sonnet: "thou noblest monument of albion's isle, whether by merlin's aid from scythia's shore to amber's fatal plain pendragon bore, huge frame of giants' hands, the mighty pile to entomb his britons slain by hengist's guile, or druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, taught 'mid the massy maze their mystic lore." next time, i want to see stonehenge from an airship, or, at a pinch, a balloon, because i can judge better of the original form, the two circles and the two ellipses, which the handsomest policeman i ever saw out of a christmas annual explained to me, pacing the rough grass. he lives at stonehenge all day, with a dog, and they are both guardians. i asked him if he had not beautiful thoughts, but he said, not in winter, miss, it was too cold to think then, except about hot soup. stonehenge is very becoming to this young man, especially at sunset. and, dearest, you can hardly imagine the glory of those piled stones as you look back at them, going slowly, slowly away, and seeing them purple-black against a crimson streak of sunset like a smoking torch. [illustration: "_the policeman explained to me_"] we got lost, trying to find the river road, going home, and had great fun, straying into meadows, and onto ploughed ground, which poor apollo resented. the way was beautiful, past some lovely old houses and exquisite cottages; and the avon was idyllic in its pretty windings. but the villages of wiltshire i don't find as poetical as those in surrey and sussex or hampshire. you would never guess what i'm going to do to-morrow morning? i'm not sure you'd let me, if you knew. but a ward doesn't need a chaperon with a guardian. he plays both parts. i'm to get up early--before the sun is awake--and sir lionel is to motor me out to stonehenge, so that i can see it by sunrise as well as sunset. it is a beautiful idea, and the handsome policeman has promised to be there and let us in. seeing a sunrise is like a glorified private view, i think. i expect to feel as louis of bavaria must have felt when he had a wagner opera all to himself. now i am going down to post this, so that it can leave for london by the last train, and start for switzerland in the morning--of my birthday. i shall count the sunrise a birthday present from heaven if it's fine; and if it isn't i shall know, what i suspect already, that i don't deserve one. your loving changeling, audrie. xii audrie brendon to her mother _compton arms, stony cross, new forest_, _july 25th_ little star-mother: it's very late to-night, or early to-morrow, but i did want to write you on my birthday; and besides, i am in a hurry to tell you about the fairylike experience i have had. i am in fairyland even here and now; but i have been to the heart of it. i shall never forget. oh, but first--the sunrise, my birthday sunrise. it was wonderful, and made me think how much time i have wasted, hardly ever accepting its invitations. i believe i will turn over a new leaf. i shall get up very, very early every day, and go to bed very, very late, so as to squeeze all the juice out of the orange, and wring every minute out of my youth. i feel so alive, i don't want to lose the "morning glory." when i'm old i shall do differently. i'll go to bed directly after dinner and sleep late, so that age may be short, following a long youth. isn't that a good plan to make on my twenty-first birthday? sir lionel hadn't forgotten, and wished me many happy returns of the day; but he didn't give me a present, so i hoped he had changed his mind. we got back to salisbury about the time mrs. norton and mrs. senter were having their breakfasts in bed (they hadn't heard of our expedition, and the word had gone out that we weren't to start for the new forest till after luncheon, as it would be a short run), and we had nearly finished our tea, toast, and eggs, when dick strolled into the coffee-room. he seemed decidedly _intrigue_ at sight of us together at a little table, talking cozily; and that detective look came into his eyes which cats have when a mouse occurs to them. he laughed merrily, though, and chaffed us on making "secret plans." dick hasn't a very nice laugh. it's too explosive and loud. (don't you think other animals must consider the laughter of humans an odd noise, without rhyme or reason?) also dick has a nasty way of saying "thank you" to a waiter; with the rising inflection, you know, which is nicely calculated to make the servant feel himself the last of god's creatures. by two o'clock we had said good-bye to salisbury ("good-bye" for me, "au revoir" for the others, perhaps), and were kinematographing in and out of charming scenery, lovelier perhaps than any we'd seen yet. under green gloom of forests, where it seemed a prisoned dryad might be napping in each tree, and where only a faun could have been a suitable chauffeur; past heatherland, just lit to rosy fire by the sun's blaze; through billowy country where grain was gold and silver, meadows were "flawed emeralds set in copper," and here and there a huge dark blot meant a prehistoric barrow. the car played us a trick for the first time, and young nick, looking more like buddha than ever, got down to have a heart-to-heart talk with the motor. i think apollo had swallowed a crumb, or something, for he coughed and wheezed, and wouldn't move except with gasps, until he had been patted under the bonnet, and tickled with all sorts of funny instruments, such as a giant's dentist might use. it was fun, though, for us irresponsible ones, while sir lionel and nick tried different things to get the crumb out of apollo's throat. other motorists flew by scornfully, like the priest and the levite, or slowed up to ask if they could help, and looked with some interest at mrs. senter and me, sitting there like mantelpiece ornaments. i didn't even want to slaughter them for the dust they made, now that i'm a real motorist myself, for "dog cannot eat dog"; and even cyclists seemed like our poor relations. one elderly woman bumped by, sitting in a kind of dreadful bath chair fastened in front of a motor bicycle, spattering noise and petrol. you couldn't see her features under her expression, which was agonized. the young man who propelled her was smirking conceitedly, as if to say, "what a kind chap i am, giving my maiden aunt a good time!" presently a small car came limping along that had "we know it" printed in large, rough letters on a card, tied to a broken wheel. wasn't that a good idea, when they'd got nervous prostration having everybody tell them? cows paused, gazed at us, and sneered; but at last apollo's crumb was extracted; young nick brushed the dust off his sleeves by rubbing his arms together, the way flies clean their antennæ, and we were ready to go on. "it's a wise car that knows its own chauffeur," said mrs. senter. just because this happened, and because a tire presently burst in sheer sympathy, we travelled in the beginning of sunset, which was divine. the scene swam in rose-coloured light, so pink it seemed as if you could bottle it, and it would still be pink. the tree trunks were cased in ruddy gold, like the gold leaf wrapped round royal mummies. making up for lost time, the white road smoked beneath our tires, and we were soon in the new forest--the old, old new forest, perfumed like the fore-court of heaven. we came to this pretty little hotel, in the midst of heathery spaces like a cutting in the aromatic forest. i like my room, but i didn't want to stop in it and begin dressing for dinner. looking out of my window, i saw a little white moon, curved like a baby's arm, cushioned among banks of sky azaleas, so i felt i must go out and drink the sunset. i had left too much of that rose-red wine in the bottom of the silver goblet. i must have the last drop! so i ran downstairs; and i warn you, now comes the experience which i liked so much, but of which you won't approve. the landlord stood in the hall, and i asked him if there were anything wonderful i could go and see in a few minutes. he smiled, and said it wouldn't take me very long to find rufus's stone, but he would not advise me to do it. i replied that i wouldn't ask him to advise, if he'd point out the road, and probably i should only venture a little way. he was a nice man, so he went out in front of the hotel to point, and lent me a puppy as a companion. the puppy was no respecter of persons. all he cared for was a walk, so he kindly consented to take me with him, gambolling ahead as if he knew where i wanted to go. that tempted me on, and the way wasn't hard to find, for the puppy or for me. we played into each other's paws, and when i was lost he found me, or vice versa. the first thing i knew, there was the stone. nobody could mistake it, even from a distance; and going down to it from the top of a hill, it was still light enough to read the inscription. this was my first entrance into the heart of fairyland. william rufus couldn't have chosen a more ideal spot to die in, if he'd picked it out himself from a list of a hundred others; and the evening silence under the great, gray beeches seemed as if it had lasted a thousand years, always the same, old and wise as mother earth. then, suddenly, it was broken by the rustle and stir of a cock pheasant, which appeared from somewhere as if by magic, and stood for an instant all kingly, his breast blazing with jewelled orders in the sunset. me he regarded with the haughty defiance of a norman prince, and screamed with rage at the puppy, all his theories upset, because he had been so positive the world was entirely his. so it was, if he'd only stopped to let me assure him that he owned all the best things in it; but he whirred and soared; and thus i realized instantly that he was a fairy in disguise. how stupid of me not to have guessed while he was there! [illustration: "_william rufus couldn't have chosen a more ideal spot to die in_"] you know, the new forest is haunted with fairies, good and bad. there are the "malfays" that came because of william the conqueror's cruelty in driving away the peasants to make the great deer-forest for his hunting; and there are the good fays that help the cottage housewives, and the "tricksies" that frighten the wild ponies and pinch the cattle. i wouldn't have been surprised to learn that that pheasant was puck himself, for no doubt puck has a hunting-lodge somewhere in the new forest. i meant to sit by the stone only five minutes, but the fairies put a spell upon my five minutes, and the first thing i knew, the sun was gone. so was the puppy, which was even more serious, for i was handicapped by not knowing his name, and no self-respecting canine thing would respond to shouts of "dog," or "here, pup, pup, pup!" however, i tried both, running about to look for him, here and there, among the enchanted bracken that rustled with elf-life, while the shadows came alive, and the rosy light died. "puppy, puppy!" i implored, helplessly drifting; and then, to my surprise--can you "find" that you've lost a thing? well, i don't know how else to express it. i found that i'd lost the path. if i'd only been able to remember whether the hotel were north or south, or east or west of rufus's stone, maybe it would have been all right; but does any normal girl ever give thought to points of the compass? i yelled a little more, hoping the puppy would be gentleman enough to come back to a lady in distress, and luckily sir lionel heard my howls. he'd come out to look for me, on learning from the landlord that i'd gone to rufus's stone, with the puppy, and he had met it--not the stone, but the puppy--looking sneaky and ashamed. just then, my voice gave him an idea of my whereabouts, otherwise we should probably have missed; and if we had, i don't know what i _should_ have done, so you mustn't scold at what happened next. remember the new forest is not a french pension full of old maids, but fairyland--fairyland. he was in evening dress, without a hat, and i _was_ pleased to see him, because i was beginning to be the tiniest bit afraid; and he did look so nice; and i was _so_ glad he wasn't dick burden. but don't worry! i didn't tell him that. it seems he came downstairs rather early for dinner, and the landlord mentioned that i'd gone out, so he strolled along, thinking to meet me after walking a few yards. when he didn't, he thought he'd better keep on, because it was too late for me to be out of doors alone. i was apologetic, and afraid it must be long past dinner-time; but he said i needn't mind that, as he had left word for the others not to wait after eight-fifteen. then in a few minutes i began to realize that we might have an adventure, because when i called, and sir lionel hurried on in quest of me, he'd forgotten to notice the landmarks. it did seem ridiculous to have trouble in finding the way, so short a distance from the hotel; but you can't conceive how misleading it is in the new forest. it's like a part of the enchantment; and if we had been in the maze of the minotaur, without ariadne's clue, we couldn't have been more bewildered than we soon found ourselves, tangled in the veil of twilight. "i wonder if birds will cover us with leaves?" i said, laughing, when we had made up our minds that we were lost. but it seemed more likely that, if any creature paid us this thoughtful attention, it would be bats. as night fell in the forest, they unhooked themselves from their mysterious trapezes, and whirred past our faces with a soft flap, flap of velvet wings. i don't know what i should have done if one had made a halfway-house of my hair! "are you hungry?" sir lionel wanted to know. i said that i was, but wouldn't harrow him up by explaining that i was ravenous. he didn't appear even to _want_ to scold, though it would have been easy to hint politely that it would be my own fault if we didn't get any dinner that night--or, perhaps, breakfast next morning. instead of being cross with me, he blamed himself for being stupid enough to lose me. i exonerated him, and we were extremely nice to each other; but as we walked on and on, round and round, seeing no lights anywhere, or hearing anything except that wonderful sound of a great silence, i began to grow tired. i didn't mean, though, that he should see it. _i_ had enough to be ashamed of, without that, but he knew by instinct, and took my hand to draw it through his arm, telling me to lean as heavily as i liked. i held back at first, saying it wasn't necessary; and insisting, as i pulled away, his hand closed down on mine tightly. it was only for a second or two, because i gave up at once, and let him lay my hand on his arm as he wished. but, do you know, mother, i think i ought to tell you it felt quite differently from any other hand that ever touched mine. of course i haven't even shaken hands with many men since i've been grown up, though if you'd let me be a singer i shouldn't have thought any more about it than if i were president of the united states. one reads in novels of "the electricity in a touch," and all that; but there it generally means that you're falling in love. and i can't possibly be falling in love with ellaline's dragon, can i? i don't suppose that can be. it would be too stupid, and forward, and altogether unspeakable. but really, i do feel differently about him from any way i ever felt before toward anybody. i have always said that i'd rather be alone with myself than with anyone else except you, for any length of time, because i'm such good chums with myself, and enjoy thinking my own thoughts. but i _do_ like being with sir lionel. i feel excited and eager at the thought of being with him. and his fingers on mine--and my hand on his arm--and the touch of his sleeve--and a faint little, almost imperceptible scent of egyptian cigarettes mixing with the woodsy smell of the night--oh, i don't know how to describe it to myself. so now you know as much as i do. but wouldn't it be dreadful if i should go and fall in love with sir lionel pendragon of all other men in the world? in a few more weeks i shall be slipping out of his life forever; and not only that, but i shall be leaving a very evil memory behind. he will despise me. i shall have proved myself exactly the sort of person he abominates. i didn't think all that, however, as he put my hand on his arm. i just felt the thrill of it; but instead of worrying, i was happy, and didn't care how tired and hungry i was, or whether we ever got anywhere or not. as for him, he was too polite to let me know he was bored, and all the time we were looking for the hotel the night was so beautiful, so wonderful, that we couldn't help talking of exquisite things, telling each other thoughts neither of us would have spoken aloud in daylight. it was quite dark now, except for a kind of rosy quivering of light along the horizon, and the stars that had come out like a bright army of fairies, with millions of scintillating spears. i knew then, dearest, that he was no dragon, no matter what circumstantial evidence may have been handed down to ellaline as a legacy from her dead mother. that is something to have divined by the magic of the forest, isn't it, after i've been puzzling so long? there is now not the least doubt in my mind. so if i should be silly and sentimental enough to fancy myself in love, it can't do any harm, except to make me a little sorry and sad after i've come home to you. it won't be anything to be _ashamed_ of, to have cared about a man like sir lionel; because i assure you i shan't behave foolishly, no matter how i may eventually feel. you can trust your audrie for that. it was too dark to tell the time by a watch, but we remarked to each other that they must have finished dinner long ago; and sir lionel hoped this wouldn't spoil the memory of my birthday for me. "oh, no," said i, before i thought, "it will make it better. i shall never, never forget this." "nor i," said he, in a pleasant, quiet tone. then he went on to tell me that he had a little birthday remembrance which all day he'd been wanting to give me. it was a ruby ring, because the ruby was july's stone, but i needn't wear it unless i liked. he hoped i wouldn't mind his having disobeyed me when i said i wanted nothing, because he wished very much to give it to me. and having lived alone, and ordered his own and other people's affairs for so long, had accustomed him to having his own way. would i be kind to him, and accept his present? i couldn't say no, under those stars and in that enchantment. so i answered that i would take the ring--knowing all the while i must soon hand it over to ellaline. "shall i give it to you now?" he asked, "or will you wait till to-morrow?" i did want to see it, though it was to be only borrowed! "now," said i. then he took a ring from some pocket, and tried to slip it over a finger of the hand on his arm. "oh, but that's the engaged finger," i burst out. silly of me! i might have let him put it on, and changed it afterward. "i beg your pardon," said he, almost as if he were startled. "that will be a younger man's privilege some day, and then you will be taken away from me." "you will be glad to get rid of me, i should think," i hurried to say, stretching out my other hand, and letting him slip the ring on the third finger. "should you think so?" he echoed. "i suppose you have the right to feel that, after the past. but don't feel it. don't, child." that was all, and i didn't answer. i couldn't; for what he had said was for ellaline, not for me. yet it made my heart beat, his voice was so sincere, and fuller of emotion than i'd ever heard it yet. just then, into our darkness a light seemed to flash. we both saw it together. i thought it might be the hotel, but sir lionel said he feared it was more probably the window of some remote cottage or charcoal-burner's hut. we walked toward it, and that was what it was: a charcoal-burner's hut. sir lionel must have been disappointed, because he wanted to get me home, but _i_ wasn't. i was in such a mood that i was not ready for the adventure to come to an end. the next bit of the adventure was exactly suited to the new forest, and we couldn't have experienced it anywhere else. the hut was a tiny, wattled shed, and the light we'd seen came through the low, open doorway. it was the light of a fire and a candle; and there was a delicious aromatic smell of wood smoke in the air. sir lionel explained, as we walked up to the place, that some of these huts were hundreds of years old, remnants of the time when debtors and robbers and criminals of all sorts used to hide in the forest under the protection of the malfays. as he spoke, we almost stumbled over some obstacle in the dark, and he said that very likely it was the hearth of a vanished cottage. people had the right to leave the hearth if their house were torn down, to establish "cottage rights"; and there were a good many such, still scattered through the forest, even in the gardens of modern houses; for no one dared take them away. the charcoal-burner was "at home," and receiving. he was engaged in cooking eggs and bacon for his supper, and if you could only guess how good they smelled! nothing smells as nice as eggs and bacon when you are hungry, and we were ravenous. most things as old as that charcoal-burner are in museums; and his eyes were so close together it seemed as if they might run into one when he winked. also, he was deaf, so we had to roar to him, before he could understand what had happened. when he did understand, though, he was a thorough trump, and said we could have his supper if we "would be pleased to eat it." bread and cheese would do for him. and we might have tea, if we could take it without milk. but there were three eggs, and three strips of bacon, so we insisted that we must share and share alike, or we would have nothing. i made the tea, in a battered tin pot which looked like an heirloom, and we all sat at an uncovered kitchen table together, though our host protested. it was fun; and the old thing told us weird tales of the forest which made me conscious that i have a spine and marrow, just as certain wild music does. his name is purkess; he thinks he is descended from purkess, the charcoal-burner who found the body of william rufus; and his ancestors, some of whom were smugglers and poachers, have lived in the forest for a thousand years. he was so old that he could remember as a child hearing his old grandfather tell of the days of the wicked, illegal timber-selling in the forest for the building of warships. just think, grand oaks, ash and thorn, trees stanch as english hearts, sold for the price of firewood! i sat at the table, watching the firelight play on my ring, which i hadn't seen till we got into the hut; and it is beautiful. i shall enjoy having it, though only for a little while, and shall regard it as a trust for ellaline. the charcoal-burner assured us we needn't worry; he would put us on the way home, and give us landmarks which, after he'd guided us a certain distance, we couldn't miss even at night. when we'd finished our eggs and bacon, our tea and chunks of dry bread, sir lionel laid a gold piece on the table. blind as he was, the old man wasn't too blind to see _that_, and he simply beamed. "bless you all the days of your life, sir, and your good, pretty lady!" he cackled. that's the third time i've been taken for sir lionel's wife. the other times i didn't care, but this time, though i laughed, it was a _put on_ laugh, because of those dim questionings about myself floating in the background of my mind. the descendant of poachers knew the forest, as he said, "with his eyes shut." he limped before us for nearly half a mile, along what he called a "walk"--a new forest word--and then abandoned us to our fate, after describing the profile of each important tree which we must pass, and pointing out a few stars as guides. then we bade each other good-bye for ever. he went back to gloat over his gold piece, and sir lionel and i went on together. somehow, we fell to talking of our favourite virtues, and without thinking, i said, "my mother's is gratitude." "gratitude," he repeated, as if in surprise, but he didn't seem to notice that i'd used the present tense. to make him forget my slip, i hurried on to say i thought mine was courage, in a man, anyhow. what was his, in a woman? "truth," he answered, with an instant's hesitation. luckily he couldn't see me blush in the dark. but the real audrie was always decently truthful, wasn't she? it's only this ellaline-audrie that isn't free to be true. "only in women?" i asked, uncomfortably. "truth goes without saying in men--the sort of men one knows," said he. "don't you think women love the truth as much as men?" i persisted. "no, i don't," he answered abruptly. then qualified his "no," as if he ought to apologize for it. "but i haven't had much experience," he finished, a heavy, dull sound coming into his voice. well, dearest, that's all i have to tell you on this, my birthday night, except that we found our way back to the hotel safely, arriving about half-past ten, and only emily was anxious about us. the other two were inclined to be frivolous; and mrs. senter noticed the new ring, which i had forgotten to take off my finger. nothing ever escapes her eyes! i saw them light, and linger, but of course she didn't refer to the ring, and naturally i didn't. i hadn't quite decided whether or not i should wear it "for every day," and had been inclined to think it would be better not, even at the risk of disappointing the giver. but i made up my mind, when mrs. senter looked so peculiarly at it, that i would brazen the thing out, and so i will. "i envy you your adventure," she said, in what _i_ felt was a meaning voice, though sir lionel didn't appear to read under the commonplace surface. i don't care if she does choose to be horrid. i don't see how she can hurt me. and as for dick, he has done his worst. he has made me get them both asked for the tour. i should think that's enough. we are going to stop at the compton arms for two or three days, running about in the car to see different parts of the forest, and coming "home" at night. i love that way! the only thing i don't like in going from one hotel to another, is having all sorts of queer little birthmarks on my hankies and other things in the wash. good-bye, angel duck. your grown-up daughter. only think, i am now of age! by the way, sir lionel, who expected his ward to be a little girl (thoughtless of him!), said to-night: "you're so old, i can't get used to you." and i retorted, "you're so young, i can't get used to _you_." i hope it didn't sound pert, to answer like that? xiii audrie brendon to her mother _lulworth cove_, _july 30th_ why aren't you with me, dearest, seeing what i am seeing? it's all very well for you to write that my letters make a panorama pass before your eyes, and i'm flattered, but i want you. although i am enjoying life, i'm more excited than happy, and i don't sleep well. i dream horrid dreams about mrs. senter and dick burden, and about ellaline, too, but i always laugh when i wake up. thank you so much for telling me that you think i'm behaving pretty well, considering. but i wonder what you'll say in your next, after my last? every day since then i've been meaning to write, if only a short note, but we've had early starts and late stops; and then, from not sleeping at night, i'm often so tired when the end of the day comes that i feel too stupid to try and earn your compliments. it is morning, and i'm writing out of doors, sitting on a rock, close by the sea. but before i begin to describe lulworth, i must tell you a little about the glorious things of which i've had flying glimpses since the letter dated compton arms. this is our first all-night stopping place since we left stony cross "for good," but i've picked up many a marvellous memory by the way. people who haven't seen the new forest haven't seen england. i had no idea what it was like till we stayed there. i knew from guide-books that there were thousands of acres of woodland still, though much had been "deforested"; but i didn't know it hid many beautiful villages, and even towns. it's a heavenly place for motoring, but i'm not sure it wouldn't be even better to walk, because you could eke out the joy of it longer. i should like a walking honeymoon (a whole round moon) in the new forest--if it were with just the right man. oh, i mustn't forget to say i'm glad i didn't see rufus's stone by daylight. mrs. senter and dick went the morning after i wrote to you, but i wouldn't go again, because i didn't want to lose the enchanted picture in my mind. she laughed when i refused. i could have slapped her. but never mind. when they came back they were disgusted, and said there was a ginger-beer woman and a man with the game of "aunt sally," and a crowd of cockney excursionists round them and the stone. talk of malfays! sir lionel had made out an itinerary for the day, and we were to start for lyndhurst, beaulieu abbey, lymington, brockenhurst, and mark ash, all of which we were to visit before evening, coming back by way of lyndhurst again, and stopping there for tea. but before we got off, such a comic thing happened. i didn't think to mention it in a letter, but one day we passed a motor-car that was having tire trouble by the side of the road. the chauffeur was rolling on a new tire, with a curious-looking machine, in which young nick was passionately interested, as he'd never seen one before. sir lionel explained that it was an american tool, not very long invented, and said to be good. he added, in an evil moment, that he wished he'd thought to buy one like it before leaving london, as probably the thing couldn't be got in the provinces. well, just as we were about to spin away in great style from the compton arms, one of our tires sighed, and settled down for an unearned rest. but instead of looking black-browed and murderous, as he did when the same thing occurred before, nick smiled gleefully. he jumped down, and without a word produced a machine exactly like the one his master admired a few days ago. "where did you get that?" asked sir lionel. "last night, sahib," returned nick, imperturbably. (he can speak quite good english.) "what! since we had our trouble?" "yes, sahib." an odd expression now began to play among nick's brown features, like a breeze over a field of growing wheat. "how's that? there's no shop." "the sahib says true. i found this thing." "where?" sharply. "but a little way from here. in the road." "you rascal," exclaimed sir lionel. "you stole it." young nick made buddha eyebrows and a buddha gesture. "the sahib knows all. but if i did take it? those men, they were going again to the big city. we away. they never miss this. they buy another. it is better we have it." trying to look very angry, though i knew he was dying to laugh, sir lionel reproached nick for breaking a solemn promise. "you swore you'd never do such a thing in england if i brought you with me. now you've begun again, the same old game. i shall have to send you back, that is all." "then i die, and _that_ is all," replied young nick, calmly. the end of the story is, that sir lionel found out the names of the men, who had spent the night at the compton arms, and had written their address in the visitors' book. he sent the tool to them, with an explanation which i should have loved to read. and it appears that, though nick is honest personally, he is a thief for the car, and in bengal took anything new and nice which other motors had and his hadn't. now, mrs. norton is afraid that, if sir lionel scolds him much, he will commit hari-kari on the threshold of the hotel, which would be embarrassing. and it does no good to tell her that hari-kari is a japanese or chinese trick. she says, if nick would not do that he might do something worse. gliding over the perfect roads of the forest, apollo seemed actually to float. i never felt anything so delicious, and so like being a goddess reclining on a wind-blown cloud. no wonder motorists' faces, when you can see them, almost always look madly happy. so different from "hay motorists," as the blot says. _they_ generally look grumpy. the little wild ponies were one of the forest's surprises for me. we met lots of them, mostly miniature mothers giving their innocent-faced, rough babies an airing; delightful beastkins. and i almost liked mrs. senter for having a cousin who owns one of these ponies as a pet, a dwarf one, no bigger than a st. bernard dog. it wears a collar with silver bells, follows her everywhere, thinks nothing of curling up on a drawing-room sofa, and once was found on its mistress's bed, asleep on a new paris hat. the enticing rose-bowered cottages we passed ought to have told me that we were back in hampshire again, if the new forest hadn't seemed to a poor little foreigner like a separate county all by itself. it would be no credit to a bride to clamour for love in such a cottage, and turn up her nose at palaces. she might be married at the beautiful church of lyndhurst (a most immediate jewel of a church, with an exquisite altar-piece by lord leighton, a flaxman, and a startlingly fine piece of sculpture by an artist named cockerell), then, safely wedded, plunge with her bridegroom into the forest, and be perfectly happy without ever coming out again. i wish i had had the "forest lovers" to re-read while we were there. i think maurice hewlett must have got part of his inspiration in those mysterious green "walks" which lead away into that land where fairy lore and historic legend go hand in hand. lyndhurst, which king george iii. loved, is pretty, but we didn't stop to look at it, because we were coming back that way. after seeing the church which, though modern, i wouldn't have missed for a great deal, we spun on to beaulieu abbey, the home of a hero of motoring. there we saw a perfect house, rising among trees, and sharing with the sky a clear sheet of water as a mirror. once this was a guest-house for the abbey; now it's called the palace house, and deserves its name. its looking-glass is really only a long creek, which spills out of the solent, but it seems like a lake; and you've only to walk along a meadow path to the refectory of the old abbey. from there you go through a mysterious door into the ruined cloisters, which used to belong to the cistercians--the "white monks." king john provided money for the building; which proves that it's an ill wind which blows no one any good, because the stingy, tyrannical old king wouldn't have given a penny to the abbots if they hadn't scourged him in a nightmare he had. i shan't soon forget the magnolia and the myrtle in the quadrangle, and if i were one of the long-vanished monks, i should haunt the place. there couldn't be a lovelier one. from beaulieu we went to lymington, a quaint and ancient town, with a picturesque port. everything there looked happy and sleepy, except the postillions on the bournemouth coach, which was stopping at the hotel where we had an early lunch. they were wide awake and jolly, under their old-fashioned, broad-brimmed beaver hats. after lymington, we skimmed through the forest, hardly knowing or caring whither, though we did manage to find brockenhurst, and mark ash, which was almost the finest of all with its glorious trees. our one wish was to avoid highways, and sir lionel was clever about that. the sweetest bit was a mere by-path, hardly to be called a road, though the surface was superb. young nick had to get down and open a gate, which led into what seemed a private place, and no one who hadn't been told to go that way would have thought of it. on the other side of the gate it was just another part of forest fairyland, whose inhabitants turned themselves into trees as we, in our motor-car, intruded on them. i never saw such extraordinary imitations of the evergreen family as they contrived on the spur of the moment. it was a glamorous wood, and throughout the whole forest i had more and more the feeling that england isn't so small as it's painted. there are such vast spaces not lived in at all, yet haunted with legend and history. one place we passed--hardly a place, it was so small--was called tyrrel's ford; and there sir walter tyrrel is said to have stopped to have his horse's shoes reversed by a blacksmith, on his flight to the sea, after killing the red king. or no, now i remember, this was next day, between ringwood and christchurch! when we were having tea at lyndhurst on our way back, at a hotel like a country house in a great garden, we found out that it once had been the home of your forty-second cousin, the duc de stacpoole, who came to england with louis philippe. there's his beautiful tapestry, to this day, in the dining-room, and his gorgeous magnolia tree looking wistfully into the window, as if asking why he isn't there to admire its creamy flowers, big as fat snowballs. on our way home the rabbits of the new forest were having a party, and were annoyed with us for coming to it without invitations. they kept "crossing our path," as people in melodramas say, so that we had to go slowly, not to run over them, and sometimes they galloped ahead, just in front of us, exactly in the middle of the road, so that we couldn't pass them. dick kept longing to "pot" at the poor little pets, but sir lionel said he had lived out of england long enough to find a good deal of pleasure in life without taking that of any other creature. that isn't a very dragonish sentiment, is it? next day we had a delicious run (there's no other adjective which quite expresses it) through ringwood, which is a door of the forest, to christchurch, another abbey--(no, it's a priory; but to me that's a detail) which stands looking at its own beauty in a crystal mirror. it's augustan, not cistercian, like beaulieu; and it's august, as well; very noble; finer to see than many a cathedral. you and i, in other lands, have industriously travelled many miles to visit churches without half as many "features" as christchurch. one of its quaintest is a leper's window; and a few of the beauties are the north transept, with unique "hatchet" ornamentation; a choir with wonderful old oak carvings--and the tomb of the countess of salisbury, of whom you read aloud to me when i was small, in a book called "some heroines of history." she came last in the volume because she was only a countess, and not a queen, but i cried when she said she didn't mind being killed, only being touched by a horrid, common axe, and wanted them to cut off her head with a sword. there are lots of other beautiful things in the church, too, and a nice legend about an oak beam which grew long in the night, and building materials which came down from a hill of their own accord, because one of the builders was christ himself. that's why they named it christchurch, you see, instead of twyneham, as it would otherwise have been. we stopped only long enough, after we had seen the priory, to pay our respects to a splendid old norman house near by, and then dashed away toward boscombe and bournemouth, which reminded me a little of baden-baden, with its gardens and fountains and running waters; its charming trees and exciting-looking shops. just because it's modern, we didn't pause, but swept on, through scenery which suddenly degenerated. however, as i heard sir lionel say to mrs. senter: "you can't go far in this country without finding beauty"; and presently she was her own lovely self again, fair as nature intended her to be. i mean england, not mrs. senter, who is lovelier than nature made her. we ran through miles of dense pine forests, where rhododendrons grew wild; where gulls spread silver wings and trailed coral feet a few yards above our heads; and the tang of the sea mingled with pine-balsam in our nostrils. soon after dull, but historic wareham we came quite into the heart of thomas hardy's country. scarcely had we turned our backs on wareham (which i wasn't sorry to do), when i cried out at something on a distant height--something which was like a background in a mediæval picture. it was corfe castle, of which i'd been thinking ever since amesbury, because of the wicked elfrida; but the glimpse was delusive, for the dark shape hid in a moment, and we didn't see it again for a long time--not until our curving road ran along underneath the castle's towering hill. then it soared up with imposing effect, giving an impression of grisly strength which was heightened the nearer we approached. distance lends no enchantment to corfe, for the castle dominates the dour, gray town that huddles round it, and is never nobler than when you tap for admittance at its gates. i tried to think, as we waited to go in, how young edward felt--edward the martyr--when he stood at the gates, waiting to go in and visit his half-brother whom he loved, and his step-mother elfrida, whom he hated. he never left the castle alive, poor boy! afterward, in the ruins, i went to the window where elfrida was supposed to have watched the young king's coming, before she ran down to the gates and directed the murder which was planned to give her own son the kingdom. it made the story seem almost too realistic, because, as you often tell me, my imagination carries me too fast and too far. there's nothing easier than to send it back ten or twelve centuries in the same number of minutes--and it's such a cheap way of travelling, too! corfe is in dorset, you must know, a county as different from others as i am different from the real ellaline lethbridge, and the castle is at the very centre of the isle of purbeck, which makes it seem even more romantic than it would otherwise. i'm afraid it wasn't really even begun in the days of elfrida, or "ælfrith," who had only a hunting lodge there; but if people _will_ point out her window, am i to blame if i try to make firm belief attract shy facts? besides, facts are such dull dogs in the historical kennels until they've been taught a few tricks. anyhow, corfe is norman, at worst, and not only did king john keep much treasure there, but one supposes there's some hidden still. if i could only have found it, i'd be buying a castle for you and me to live in. sir lionel thinks that i, as his ward, will live in his castle; and he was telling me at corfe about the norman tower at graylees. but, alas, i knew better. oh, i didn't mean that "alas"! consider it erased; and the other silly things i wrote you the other night, please. they're all so _useless_. there were loads of interesting prisoners in corfe castle, at one time or another, knights from france, and fair ladies, the fairest of all, the beautiful "damsel of brittany," who had claims to the english crown. and kings have visited there; and in cromwell's day a lady and her daughters successfully defended it in a great siege. it was such a splendid and brave defence that it seems sad, even to this day, to think how the castle fell after all, a year later, and to see the great stones and masses of masonry lying, far below the height, exactly where they rolled when parliament ordered the conquered towers to be blown up by gunpowder. the bankes family, who still own corfe, must be proud of that lady bankes, their ancestress, who held the castle. and isn't it nice, the bankes still have the old keys, where they live, at kingston lacy? you like thomas hardy's "hand of ethelberta" next to "far from the madding crowd." well, coomb castle in that book is really corfe castle. i told you we were in hardy country. after wareham, and not very far away, at wool, is an old, old manor-house of the turbervilles, turned into a farmhouse now. you don't need to be reminded of what hardy made of that, i know. we lunched at an interesting old inn, like all the rest of the ancient houses of corfe, slate-roofed, grim and gray. then we coasted down the steep hill to the plain again, making for swanage. it was dusty, but we weren't sorry, because, just when we were travelling rather fast, on a perfectly clear road, a policeman popped out like a jack-in-the-box, apparently from nowhere. you could tell by his face he was a "trappist," as dick calls the motor-spies, and though sir lionel wasn't really going beyond the legal limit, he glared at our number as if he meant mischief. but that number-plate had thoughtfully masked itself in dust, so with all the will in the world he could work us no harm after our backs were turned. once in a while it does seem as if nature sympathized with the poor, maligned motorist whom nobody loves, and is willing to throw her protection over him. it would be like tempting providence to polish off dust or mud, in such circumstances, wouldn't it? my face was a different matter, though, and i longed to polish it. before we got to swanage, it felt--even under chiffon--just as an iced cake must feel. only the cake, fortunately for its contour, never needs to smile. we were going to swanage because of the caves--tilly whim caves. did you ever hear of them, parisienne mamma? small blame to you, if not, because one can't know everything; but they are worth seeing; and the swanage harbour is a little dream. the town is good, too. old-world, and very, very respectable-looking, as if it were full of long-established lawyers and clergymen, yet not dull, like wareham, which was important in saxon days, long before swanage was born or thought of. it's "knollsea" in the "hand of ethelberta." do you remember? and alfred the great had a victory close by--so close, that in a storm the danish ships blew into what is the town now, as if they had been butterflies with their wings wet. we climbed up, up above the village, in the motor-car, on the steepest, twistingest road i've seen yet in england, though sir lionel says i'll think nothing of it when we get into devonshire; up, up to a high place where they've built a restaurant. near by we left the motor (and emily, who never walks for pleasure), and ho, for the caves! it was a scramble among dark cliffs of purbeck limestone. the caves are delightfully weird, and of course there are smuggling stories about them. a strange wind blew through their labyrinths, ceaselessly, like the breathings of a hidden giant, betrayed by sleep. it was heavenly cool in that dim twilight that never knew sun, but oh, it was hot coming out into the afternoon glare, and climbing the steep path to where the motor waited! i think mrs. senter was sorry she hadn't stopped with emily. she got a horrid headache, and felt so ill that sir lionel asked if she would care to stop all night at swanage, and she said she would. fortunately, it turned out that there were good hotels, and sir lionel took rooms at the one we liked the best--old-fashioned in an agreeable way. mrs. senter went to bed, but the rest of us strolled out after dinner; and mrs. norton began talking to dick about his mother, which threw sir lionel and me together. we sat on the pier, where the moon turned bright pink as she dipped down into a bank of clouds like a rose-garden growing out of the sea. and even when it was dark, the sea kept its colour, the deep blue of sapphires, where, at a distance, little white yachts and sailboats looked like a company of crescent moons floating in an azure sky. i felt in the sweetest mood, kind toward all the world, and particularly to sir lionel. i couldn't bear to remember that i'd ever had bad thoughts, and doubts, so i was half sub-consciously nicer to him than i ever was before. dick kept glaring at me, from his seat beside mrs. norton, and drawing his eyebrows together when he thought sir lionel wasn't looking. going home, he got a chance for a few words, when emily was speaking to her brother about mrs. senter's headache. he said that there was something he must say to me, alone, and he wanted me to come out into the garden behind the hotel, to talk to him when the others had gone to bed, but of course i refused. then he said, would i manage to give him a few minutes next day, and intimated, gently, that i'd be sorry if i didn't. i told him that "i'd see"; which is always a safe answer; but i haven't "managed" yet. when i got back to my room at the hotel i noticed that some of my things weren't in the places where i'd left them; and the writing portfolio in a dressing-case which sir lionel _thinks_ is mine, but is really ellaline's (one of the bond street purchases), had my papers changed about in it. the servants in the house seemed so respectable and nice, i can't think that one of them would have pried. and yet--well, the truth is, i'm afraid of being catty, but i can't help putting mrs. senter's headache and my disturbed papers together in my mind. two and two when put together, make four, you know. and her room in the swanage hotel was next to mine. she might have been sure that we'd all go out after dinner on such a perfect night. but why should she bother? unless dick has told her something, after all? i suppose i shall never know whether it was she or someone else who meddled. i looked through all the papers and other things, but could find nothing "compromising," as the adventuresses say. however, i can't quite remember what i had. some letter may have been taken. i have been a tiny bit worried since, for you know ellaline would never forgive me if anything should go wrong now. and i've been thinking that, though sir lionel is no dragon, there may be something about honoré du guesclin which he wouldn't approve. ellaline may even have her own reasons for thinking he wouldn't approve, dragon or no dragon. very likely she didn't tell me everything--she was so anxious to have her own way. but to go back to the journey here. almost each mile we travelled gave us some thought of hardy, and acquainted me with the character of dorset, which is just what i expected from his books: giant trees; tall, secretive hedges; high brick walls, mellow with age and curtained with ivy; stone cottages, solid and prosperous and old, with queer little bay-windows, diamond-paned; purbeck granite bursting through the grass of meadows, and making a grave background for brilliant flowers; heaths that hardy wrote about in the "return of the native"--heaths, heaths, and rolling downs. we took the way from swanage to west lulworth, and had an adventure on a hill. sir lionel is very strict with his little buddha about examining everything that could possibly go wrong with the motor, and just before we started, i heard him ask young nick if he had looked at the brakes after our descent from tilly whim. "oh, yes, sahib," said the brown image. "oh, no!" said the brakes themselves, on a big hill, as far from the madding crowd as "gabriel" and "bathsheba" ever lived. we'd got lost, and that was the way the car punished us. first of all, the motor refused to work. that made apollo feel faint, so that he began to run backward down the hill instead of going up; and when sir lionel put on the brakes, they wouldn't act. it was the first time anything really bad had happened, and my heart gave a jump, but somehow i wasn't frightened. with sir lionel driving, it seemed as if no harm could come; and it didn't, for he steered to the side of the road, and brought the car up short against a great hummock of grass. all the same, we nearly tipped over, and sir lionel told us to jump. i shouldn't have stirred if he hadn't spoken. i should have awaited orders; but the others were moving before we stopped, and mrs. senter fell down and bumped her knee. that made her hair come partly undone, and, to my horror, a bunch of the dearest little curls, which i always thought lived there, were loosened. there was a great wind blowing, and in a second more the curls would have been on the horizon, if i hadn't seized them just as they were about to take flight. if they'd gone, they must have passed almost in front of sir lionel's nose, on their way. wouldn't that have been dreadful? i should think she could never have looked him in the face again, for her hair's her greatest beauty, and she's continually saying things about its being all her own, and having more than she knows what to do with. but luckily his back was turned when i caught the curls, and stuffed them hastily into her hand before she was on her feet, nobody seeing except dick. i suppose a nephew doesn't count! but do you know, dear, if they'd been my curls, i believe she'd have loved sir lionel to see them. i don't like her a bit, but all the more i couldn't be mean. i reserve all my cattyness toward her for my letters to you, when i let myself go, and stretch my little nails in my velvet paw. i was sorry for young nick! he was miserably sheepish, and vowed that he really had examined the brakes. sir lionel just looked at him, and raised his eyebrows; that was all, because he wouldn't scold the poor little wretch before us. it was as much as the three men could do to get apollo down on his four tires again, for, though he seemed as lightly balanced as an eccentric dancer trying to touch one eyelid to the floor, he was partly embedded in the bank by the roadside. then we all sat gracefully about, while sir lionel and the chauffeur worked--young nick under the car, looking sometimes like a contortionist tying himself into lover's knots, sometimes like a miniature michelangelo lying on his back to paint a fresco. i hope, though, that michael never had half the trouble finding his paints and brushes that nick had to get at his tommies and jemmies, and dozens of strange little instruments. he lay with his mouth bristling with giant pins, and had the air of a conscientious dentist filling a difficult tooth. it was a long time before the brakes were properly tightened up and the four cylinders breathing freely again; but it would have been ungracious to be bored in such a glorious wild place, in such glorious weather. there was a kind of walt whitman feeling in the air that made me want to sing; and finally i could resist no longer. i burst out with those verses of his which you set to music for me. at least, i sang a few bars; and you ought to have seen sir lionel wheel round and look at me when he heard my voice. i never said anything to him about knowing how to sing, so he was surprised. "why, you have quite a pretty voice, ellaline!" said mrs. norton. "'quite a pretty voice!' i should say she had!" remarked sir lionel. he didn't say any more. but i never had a compliment i liked better; and i didn't mind a bit when mrs. senter remarked that anyone would fancy i was a professional. i was almost sorry to go on at last, though emily was worrying lest we should get no lunch. but we saw beautiful things as we spun toward lulworth, rushing so swiftly along an empty road that the hedges roared past us like dark cataracts. it was thrilling, and showed what apollo could do when he chose. if there had been a soul on the road, of course we wouldn't have done such deeds; though i must say, from what i've seen, if you creep along so as not to kick up a dust and annoy people, they aren't at all grateful, but only scorn instead of hating you, and think you can't go faster, or you would. still, you have the consciousness of innocence. one thing we saw was a delightful tudor house, called creech grange; and the ancestor of the man who owns it built bond street. i'm sure i don't know why, but i'm glad he did. we took the valley way on purpose to see the grange, instead of going over ring hill and other windy heights, but it was worth the sacrifice. lulworth castle, which we passed, is rather like graylees, sir lionel said; so now i wish more than ever that i could see graylees, for lulworth is fine and feudal. but i shall have burst like a bubble before the time comes for graylees. there! i have brought you with us to lulworth cove, at last--the adorable little place where, at this moment, as i told you at the beginning of my letter, i'm sitting on the beach among red and green fishing boats. you wouldn't dream of lulworth's existence until it suddenly breaks on you, and you see the blue bay lying asleep in the arms of giant rocks, which appear to have had a violent convulsion without disturbing the baby sheet of water. i suppose they were angry with the world for finding out their secret; for it has found out, and loves to come to lulworth cove. however, the place contrives to _look_ as unknown as ever, as if only some lazy gulls and a few fishermen mending lobster-pots had ever heard a hint of it. there's a narrow street; a few pretty old cottages; a comfortable hotel where we had crabs, divine though devilled, and _omelette au rhum_ floating in flames of the blue i should like my eyes to be when angry; there's a post-office, and--nothing else that i can think of, except circling hills, a golden sweep of beach, and sea of ethereal azure creaming against contorted rocks. that's all; but it's a little paradise, and---_night, of the same day._ just there i was interrupted. dick burden came, and i had to listen to him, unless i wanted a scene. i couldn't appeal to any nice brown fisherman to please feed him to the lobsters, so i sat still and let him talk. he said that he was awfully in love with me. a charming fashion he's taken to show it, hasn't he? as i remarked to him. he replied in the old, old way, about all being fair, etc., etc. i asked him which it was, love or war, and he said it was both. he knew i wasn't in love (i should think not, indeed!), but he wanted me to promise to be engaged to him from now on. "i won't," said i--short and sudden, like that. "you'll jolly well have to," said he. then he proceeded to warn me that if i didn't, my friend miss ellaline lethbridge must look out for herself, because i would no longer be in a position to guard her interests. i mentioned that he was a perfect beast, and he said it might be true, but i was a deceiver, and it was not good taste for the pot to call the kettle black. "i'd rather go into the kind of convent where one's not allowed to speak a word all one's life, except '_memento mori_,' than marry you," said i, politely. but it seemed that he wasn't thinking so much about being married, as just being engaged. as to marrying, we were both very young, and he would wait for me till we could afford to marry, which mightn't be for some time yet, he explained. what he was keen on beginning at once, was being engaged. "why?" i asked, savagely. "because i don't want anyone else to think he has a chance. that's the plain truth," said dick, in the most brazen way. that staggered me; for he was glaring straight into my eyes in such a meaning way i couldn't help understanding _who_ was in his mind. so utterly _ridiculous_! as if the person he meant would ever think of me! and dick used to say himself that sir lionel pendragon took no interest in girls, or any women except mrs. senter. i'd have liked to remind him of this, only i wouldn't let him see that i read his thoughts. "i believe you must be mad," said i. "i shouldn't wonder," said he. "anyhow, i'm mad enough to go straight to sir lionel with the whole story the minute he comes back from his walk with his sister and my aunt, unless you do what i want." "that won't be very nice for mrs. senter," i temporized, "if she's enjoying this trip she was so anxious to take; for if sir lionel knows about ellaline the tour will probably break up, and he'll rush over to france." "on the contrary, it will be nice for her," dick returned, "because many a heart is caught in the rebound." i said that this argument was too intricate for me, but it wasn't really. i knew quite well what he meant, though of course he is absolutely mistaken, as far as sir lionel's feelings toward me are concerned. but i had to think quickly, and i thought maybe he was right about his aunt. she would be a woman who would make _any_ use of an emergency. and once she had compromised poor sir lionel, it would be too late, for i have an idea he'd be exaggeratedly honourable. you may smile at my saying she'd compromise him. but you know what i mean. i'm not sure _i_ do--but anyhow, i couldn't bear to have her do it, especially if it could be prevented by me. i sat still a minute, reflecting, and then asked dick what he meant by "being engaged." he replied that he meant the usual thing; and i replied to this that nothing could tempt me. he saw i wouldn't go back from my word, so he promised, if i _would_ be engaged, that he'd not try even to hold my hand until i should be willing. all he would ask was, that he might tell his aunt we had a "kind of a, sort of an understanding," which might develop into an engagement, and let _her_ tell sir lionel. nothing more than that; and why should i mind, when in any case there could never have been a question of my marrying sir l.? i said i did mind horribly, but not on that account, and i should never marry anyone. i was almost ready to cry, i felt so wretched. i don't think i was ever as miserable in my life, dear; though, when i come to argue it out with myself, i've pretended so much to please ellaline, it oughtn't to matter, pretending a little more. just then all three of the others came along, and seeing us on the beach, joined us. dick put on a familiar air with me, as if he had rights, and i saw sir lionel glance from me to him, and draw his eyebrows together. i came indoors then, to my room, and didn't go out again till dinner time. i was half afraid mrs. senter might already have got in her deadly work, but if she had, sir lionel didn't say anything to me. only it was a horrid dinner, in spite of nice, seaside things to eat. nobody spoke much, and i felt so choked i could hardly swallow. oh, i am homesick for you, dear. i hurried upstairs, as soon as dinner was over, saying i had letters to write. to-morrow, early, we start for sidmouth, in devonshire, going by way of weymouth and dorchester. as i write, looking from my window, across which i haven't drawn the curtains, i can see sir lionel and mrs. senter strolling out of the hotel, toward the beach. there's a lovely blue dusk, which the sunset struck into a million glorious sparks, and then let fade again into a dull glow, like ashes of roses. they look a romantic couple walking together. i wonder if they are talking about each other, to each other, or--about _dick and me_? i feel as if i should have to scream--"sir lionel, don't believe it. it isn't true!" but of course, i can't. i think i shall go to bed, and then i won't be tempted to look out of the window. always your own loving audrie. please write at once, and address poste restante, torquay. xiv sir lionel pendragon to colonel patrick o'hagan _knoll park hotel, sidmouth, devon_, _august 2nd. evening_ my dear pat: i am a fool. by this time you will soon be receiving my first letter, and saying to yourself, "he is on the way to being a fool." well, i am already that fool. i didn't see where i was drifting, but i see now that it had begun then; and of course you, a spectator, won't be dense as i was at first. you will know. i didn't suppose this thing could happen to me again. i thought i was safe. but at forty, it's worse with me than when i was twenty-one. i don't need to explain. yet i will say in self-defence that, fool as i am, i am not going to let anyone but you know that i'm a fool. especially the girl. she would be thunderstruck. not that girls of nineteen haven't married men of forty, and perhaps cared for them. but this girl has been brought up since her babyhood to think of me as her guardian, and an elderly person beyond the pale where love or even flirtation is concerned. imagine a daughter and namesake of ellaline de nesville being in the society of a man, and not trying to flirt with him! it's almost inconceivable. but ellaline the second shows not the slightest inclination to flirt with me. she is gentle, sweet, charming, even obedient; perhaps i might say daughterly, if i were willing to hurt my own feelings. therefore, even without mr. dick burden's oppressive respect for me, i must suppose that i am regarded as a generation behind. by the way, that young beast made me a present of a cane the other day. not an ordinary stick, but an old gentleman's cane, with a gold head on it. he said he saw it in a shop at weymouth, where we stopped for lunch, and thought it so handsome, he begged that i would accept it. his aunt laughed, called him a ridiculous little boy, and advised me to have "thou shalt not steal" engraved on a gold band, with my name and address. this was to soothe my _amour propre_; but, while i wonder whether the thing really _is_ a gift suitable to my years, i long to lay it across the giver's back. he gave it to me before ellaline, too. what an idiot i am to care! i can laugh, for my sense of humour hasn't yet jilted me, if my good sense has. but the laugh is on the wrong side of my mouth. i feel somewhat better, having confessed my foolishness--which you would have divined without the confession. the girl doesn't suspect. i enact the "heavy father" even more ostentatiously than if i weren't ass enough to prefer a rôle for which time and our relationship have unfitted me. but it's rather curious, isn't it, what power one little woman can wield over a man's life, even the life of a man who is as far as possible from being a "woman's man"? ellaline de nesville pretty well spoiled my early youth, or would if i hadn't freed myself to take up other interests. she burdens the remainder of my young years by making me, willy nilly, the guardian of her child. and, not content with that, she (indirectly) destroys what might have been the comfortable contentment of my middle age. women are the devil. all but this one--and she isn't a woman yet. the dangerous part is that i am not as grimly unhappy as i ought to be. there are moments, hours, when i forget that there's any obstacle dividing ellaline's future from mine. i think of her as belonging to me. i feel that she is to be a part of my life always, as she is now. and until i have again drummed it into my rebellious head that she is not for me, that my business with her is to see that she gets a rich, well-born, and well-looking young husband, not more than two-thirds of my age, i enjoy myself hugely in her nearness. but, why not, after all? just for the length of this tour in the motor-car, which throws us so constantly together? as long as i don't betray myself, why not? why not revel in borrowed sunshine? at graylees, i can turn over a new leaf; i need see very little of her there. she and emily will have plenty to do, with their social duties, and i shall have my own. let me be a fool in peace till graylees, then. if i _can_ be a fool in peace! talking of borrowed sunshine, england seems to have borrowed an inexhaustible supply from some more "favoured clime" this summer. i dare say we shall have to pay for it later. i shall have to pay for my private supply, too--but no matter. next to my native cornwall, i think i prefer devonshire; and devonshire is being particularly kind and hospitable, offering us her choicest gifts. it's said that the earth is a host who murders all his guests. but he certainly gives some of us, for some of the time, glorious innings during our visit to him. i don't complain, though my stay so far has been accompanied by a good deal of stormy weather. i remember your once remarking that weymouth would be a good place to hide in, if you wanted to grow a beard or anything lingering and unbecoming; but you wouldn't make that remark now: there are too many pretty women in the nice, tranquil old town. just at this season it's far from dull, and walking along the esplanade, while young nick mended a tire, i understood something of george the third's fondness for the place. certainly vanity wouldn't permit you to show your nose on parade or beach, in these times, during the beard-growing process, for there's apparently no hour of the day when a lively scene isn't being enacted on both: the sands thickly dotted with tents; charming girls bathing, chubby children playing, pretty women reading novels under red parasols, fishermen selling silver-scaled fish, boatmen soliciting custom; the parade crowded with "trippers," soldiers and sailors; the wide road noisy with motor-cars and motor-'buses; even the sea gay with boats of all descriptions, and at least one big war vessel hovering in the distance. besides, there is the clock-tower. i don't know why i like it so much, but i do. i have a feeling that weymouth would be worth a visit for the sake of that clock alone; and then there's the extraordinary historical and geological interest, which no other watering-place has. burden was anxious to go over to portland, lured there, no doubt, by the incipient detective talent of which he boasts; but the ladies voted it too sad a place to see, on an excursion of pleasure, and perhaps they were right. the sort of woman who would like to go and spend a happy afternoon staring at a lot of unfortunate wretches dressed in a pattern of broad arrows, would go "slumming" out of idle curiosity; and i have always thought i could not love a woman who amused herself by slumming, any more than i could love one who eagerly patronized bull-fights. thomas hardy's work is too near nature's heart to appeal to mrs. senter, and too clever for my good sister emily, who will read no author, willingly, unless he calls a spade a pearl-headed hatpin. but ellaline, strange to say, has been allowed to read him. evidently french schools are not what they once were; and she and i particularly wanted to go through dorchester (his casterbridge) even though we could see nothing of hardy's place, max gate, except its tree-tops. a pity more english towns haven't made boulevards of their earthworks (since there are plenty that have earthworks), planting them with chestnuts and sycamores, as dorchester has cleverly done. it was an idea worthy of a "mayor of casterbridge." we lingered a bit, in the car, picking out "landmarks" of resemblance to the book, and there were plenty. you know, there's a magnificent roman amphitheatre near by; but did we stay to look at it? my friend, we are motorists! and it happened to be a grand day with the car, which, though still very new, has "found" itself. "apollo" seemed a steed of "pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." he chafed against stopping, and i humoured him gladly. "strange," said ellaline, yesterday, "how a person will pay lots of money to buy a motor-car, and go tearing about the world at great expense, to gratify two little black or blue holes in his face; and then, instead of letting the holes thoroughly absorb his money's worth, he will rush past some of the best things on earth rather than 'spoil a run.'" but she doesn't take the intoxication of ozone into consideration in this indictment. our road was of the best, and always interesting, with some fine distant views, and here and there an avenue of trees like a vast gothic aisle in a cathedral. "we could see things so nicely if it weren't for the mists!" sighed emily, who, if her wish had been a broom, would have ruthlessly swept away those lacy cobwebs clinging to the hill-sides. "why," replied ellaline, "you could see a bride's face more clearly if you took away her veil, but it's the prettiest thing about her." that put my feelings in a nutshell. england would be no bride for me if she threw away her veil; and nowhere did it become her more than in dorset, somerset, and devon, where it is threaded with gold and embroidered with jewels toward the edge of sunset. of course, there's only the most fanciful dividing line between somerset and devon, yet i imagine the two counties different in their attributes, as well as in their graces. surely in somerset the downs are on a grander scale. between two of them you are in a valley, and think that you see mountains. in devonshire you have wider horizons, save for the lanes and hedges, which do their best to keep straying eyes fastened on their own beauty. i suppose men who never have left england take such beauty for granted, but to me, after the flaunting luxuriance of the east, it is enchanting. i notice everything. i want someone, who cares for it as i do, to admire it with me. if it weren't for dick burden this england would be making me twenty-one again. you should see, to understand me, all the lovely things fighting sportively for supremacy in these devonshire hedges; the convolvulus pretending to throttle the honeysuckle; the honeysuckle shaking creamy fists in the faces of roses that push out, blushing in the starlight of wild clematis, white and purple. such gentle souls, these devonshire roses! kind and innocent, like the sweet, sentimental "evelinas" of old-fashioned stories, yet full of health, and tingling with buds, as a young girl with fancies. devonshire seems to express herself in flowers, as sterner counties do in trees and rocks. even the children one meets playing in the road are flowers. they are to the pretty cottages what the sweetbriar is to the hedges; and no background could be daintier for the little human blossoms than those same thatched cottages with open, welcoming doors. ellaline, fascinated by glimpses through open doors--(old oak dressers set with blue and white china; ancient clocks with peering moon-faces; high-backed chairs; bright flowers in gilt vases on gate-legged tables, all obscurely seen through rich brown shadows)--says she would like to live in such a cottage with somebody she loved. who will that somebody be? i constantly wonder. i should think less of her if it could be dick burden, or one of his type, yet mrs. senter hints that the girl likes his society. _can_ she? we had a picnic luncheon on our way to sidmouth, lingering rather long (once you have stopped your motor, nothing matters. if you're happy, you are as reluctant to go on as you are to stop when going). then, as they all wished to travel by moonlight, i suggested that dinner also should be a picnic. we bought food and drink at honiton, and the country being exquisite between there and sidmouth, we soon found a moss-carpeted, tree-roofed dining-room, fit for an emperor. nearby glimmered a sheet of blue-bells, like a blue underground lake that had broken through and flooded the meadow. ellaline said she would like to wash her face in it, as if in a fairy cosmetic, to make her "beautiful forever." i really don't believe she knows that would be superfluous trouble! and a fairy godmother has given her the gift of song. i wish you could hear her sing, pat. i have heard her only once; but if i hadn't been a fool already, i'd have become one then, beyond recall. so we sat there, on the still, blue brink of twilight, till the moon rose red as a molten helmet, and cooled to a silver bowl as she sailed higher, dripping light. but tell me this: would i think of such similes if i weren't like a man who has eaten hasheesh and filled his brain with a fantastic tumult--a magical vision of romance, such as his heart never knew in its youth, never can know except in visions, now that youth has passed? there's joy as well as pain in the vision, though, i can tell you, as there must be in any mirage. and it was in a mirage of moonlight and mystery that we took up our journey again, after that second picnic, swooping bird-like, from hill to valley, on our way to the knoll park hotel. it's an historic place, by the way, with an interesting past--once it was a country house belonging to an eccentric gentleman--and at present it is extremely ornamental among its lawns and lebanon cedars. as for sidmouth the town, you have but to enter it to feel that you are walking in a quaint old coloured lithograph--one of the eighteenth-century sort, you know, that the artist invariably dedicated, with extravagant humility, to a marquis, if he didn't know a duke! there's no architecture whatever. as far as that is concerned, children might have built the original village of sidmouth as they sat playing on the beach; but the queer cottages, with their low brows of mouse-coloured thatch, protruding amid absurd battlements, have a fantastic charm. they are most engaging, with their rustic-framed bow-windows, like surprised-looking eyes in spectacles; their green veranda-eyebrows, and their smiling, yellow-stucco faces, with low foreheads. the house where queen victoria stopped as a little girl is a great show place, of course, and is like a toy flung down against a cushiony hillside, a battlemented doll's house, forgotten by the child who let it fall, while big trees grew up and tried to hide it. two cliffs has sidmouth, and an innocent esplanade, and--that is about all, except the toy town itself. but it's a place to stay in. a happy man would never tire of it, i think. an unhappy one might prefer brighton--or monte carlo. i am neither one nor the other. so i prefer a motor-car. we are on the wing again to-morrow. i must now go to our sitting-room, which looks over the sea, and play a rubber of bridge with mrs. senter, emily, and burden. ellaline doesn't play. hope i haven't bored you with my burden, and other complaints. yours ever, pen. _later, august 2nd, night_ i have opened my letter again, to tell you what came of that rubber of bridge. i've lost--all the glamour. the reaction after the hasheesh has set in. we didn't play long. just that one rubber, and before we finished ellaline had taken her copy of "lorna doone" upstairs to her own room, without interrupting our game for a good-night. she didn't think we saw her go; but there were two of us who did. burden was one of the two. i don't need to tell you who the other fool was. mrs. senter and i were partners, as we generally are, if there's any bridge going in the evening. she's devoted to the game, and it's always she who proposes it. i would generally prefer to fag up our route for next day with guide-books and road-maps. but hosts, like beggars, can't be "choosers." well, to-night emily and burden had all the cards, and burden wanted a second rubber, but his aunt doesn't like losing her money to her nephew, even though we play for childishly low stakes. she said she "knew that mrs. norton was tired," and emily didn't deny the soft impeachment, as she plays bridge in the same way she would do district visiting during an epidemic of measles--because it is her duty. dick had the latest french imitation of sherlock holmes to read, and a box of egyptian cigarettes to smoke (mine), which he evidently thinks too young for me. emily had some embroidery, which i seem to remember that she began when i was a boy, and kept religiously to do in hotels. (but what is there that my good sister does, which she does not do religiously?) mrs. senter had nothing to amuse or occupy her--except your humble servant--consequently she suggested a stroll in the garden before bedtime. she was almost beautiful in the moonlight, quite ethereal-looking, and her hair a nimbus for that small white face of hers; just as small, just as white, and just as smooth as when those big eyes used to look up into our eyes under an indian moon. and she is always agreeable, always witty, or at least "smart." still, i must confess that i was ungallantly absent-minded until something she said waked me up from a brown study. "he really _is_ a nice boy," she was saying, "and after all, it's a tribute to your distinguished qualities that he should be afraid to speak to you." i guessed at once that she must have been talking of her nephew. "what is he afraid to say to me?" i enquired. "afraid to ask you for miss lethbridge," she explained. i think just about that time an ugly black eyelid shut down over the moon. anyhow, the world darkened for me. "isn't it rather old-fashioned, in these rapid days, for a young man to ask a guardian's permission to make love to his ward?" said i, savage as a chained dog. she laughed. "oh, he hasn't waited for that to make love, i'm afraid," she returned. "but he's afraid she won't accept him without your consent." "he seems to be afraid of several things," i growled. "afraid to speak to me--afraid to speak to her." "he is young, and love has made him modest," mrs. senter excused her favourite. "he knows he isn't a _grand parti_. but if they care for each other?" "i have seen no reason to believe that she cares for him," said i, thinking myself (more or less) safe in the recollection of ellaline's words at winchester. i told you about them, i think. "ah, well," said mrs. senter, "she cares enough, anyhow, to have entered into a pact of some sort with the poor boy--a kind of understanding that, if _you_ approve, she may at least _think_ of being engaged to him in the future." "you are sure she has done that?" i asked, staggered by this statement, which i was far from expecting. "quite sure, unless love (in the form of dick) is deaf as well as blind. he certainly flatters himself that they are on these terms." "since when?" i persisted. (by the by, i wonder if the inquisitors ever hit on the ingenious plan of making prisoners torture themselves? nothing hurts worse than self-torture.) "only since lulworth cove, or you would have heard of it before. you know when we came back from our walk, and saw them sitting on the beach together, i said what a pretty picture they made?" naturally, i remembered extremely well. "that was when they had their great scene. dick begged me, as an old friend of yours, to say a word when i found the chance. and i confess, i've _made_ the chance to-night. i do hope you won't think me impertinent and interfering? i'm fond of dick. he's about all i have to be fond of in the world. and besides--just because i've never been happy myself, i want others to be, while they're young, not to waste time." i muttered something, i hardly know what, and she went on to talk to me of her past, for the first time. said she had married when little more than a child, and had made the mistake of marrying a man she thought she could manage to live happily with, instead of one she couldn't manage to live happily without. that was all; but it had made _all_ the difference--and if miss lethbridge had given her first love to dick---i nearly said, "hang first love!" but i held my tongue, fortunately, for of course she meant well, and was only doing her best for her nephew. but how anyone could love that fellow passes my understanding! why, it seems to me the creature's parents could hardly have loved him, unless he had had something of the monstrous hypnotism, as well as the selfishness, of a young cuckoo in its stolen nest. yet the same hypnotism may influence birds outside the nest, i suppose. that's the only way to account for an infatuation on the part of ellaline. "if you are angry, dick and i must go away," mrs. senter went on. "but he couldn't help falling in love, and to me they seem made for each other." i had to answer that of course i wasn't angry, but i thought any talk of love premature, to say the least. "you won't actually refuse your consent, then?" asked she. "much good my refusing would do, if the girl really cares!" said i. "i shan't disinherit her, whatever she does." mrs. senter laughed at that. "why, even if you did," said she, "it wouldn't matter greatly to them, because dick has something of his own, and she is an heiress, isn't she?" then--i don't know whether i was wrong or not--but i swear i made the answer i did without any mean or selfish motives--if i can read my own soul. if burden were a fortune-hunter, i wanted to save her from him, that's all. i told mrs. senter that ellaline had very little money of her own. "i shall look after her, of course," i said. "but the amount of the _dot_ i may give will be determined by circumstances." i don't know that i mayn't have put this in a tactless way. anyhow, mrs. senter looked rather odd--hurt, or distressed, or something queer--i couldn't make quite out. she said, nevertheless, that dick did not care for miss lethbridge's money. he had fallen in love with her the first time they met. nothing else mattered, as they would have enough to live on. but she had supposed the girl almost too rich for dick. wasn't ellaline a relation of the millionaire family of lethbridges? she had heard so. i answered that the relationship was distant. that ellaline's father had once been a friend of mine, and that her mother had been my cousin, though a french girl. "oh!" said mrs. senter, as if suddenly enlightened. "is she--by any chance--the daughter of a _frederic_ lethbridge?" what she recalled about fred lethbridge, i can't guess. she isn't old enough to have known him, unless as a child or a very young girl. but she certainly had some thought in connection with him which made her silent and reflective. i hope i have done ellaline no harm--in case the girl really does care for burden. i never had the intention of keeping her parentage secret, though at the same time it would pain me to have any gossip reach her. however, to do mrs. senter justice, i don't think she is a gossip. she likes to say "smart" things, but so far as i have heard, she is never smart at other people's expense. and since her confidences to me concerning her past, i am sorry for the poor little woman. not much more passed between us on the subject of ellaline and dick, except that i refused to recommend the young man to the girl's good graces. i had to tell mrs. senter that, not even for the pleasure of pleasing her, could i consent to do what she asked. but i did finally promise to let ellaline know that personally i had no objection to the alleged "understanding," if it were for her happiness. nevertheless, i would advise her that she must do nothing rash. mrs. senter not only permitted, but actually suggested, this extra clause; and our _séance_ ended. some things are too strange not to be true; and i suppose this infatuation of ellaline's, if it exists, is one of them. and it must exist. there can be no doubt of it, since mrs. senter has it from the boy--who apparently has it from the girl. what to make of it, however, that she told me only about ten days ago, she didn't like him? yet i am forgetting. we have it on good authority that "'tis best to begin with a little aversion." i ought to have known that a daughter of ellaline de nesville and frederic lethbridge couldn't develop into the star-high being this girl has seemed to me; and i must make the best of it that she's something less in soul than, in my first burst of astonished admiration, i was inclined to appraise her. after all, why feel bitter against people because they have disappointing shortcomings, if not defects, instead of the dazzling virtues that glittered in your imagination? cream always rises to the top, yet we don't think less of it because there's nothing but milk underneath. yes, if i find out that she likes this hypnotic cuckoo i mustn't despise her for it. but i must find out as soon as i can. suspense is the one unbearable pain. and you are at liberty to laugh at me as i hope i shall soon be laughing at myself. l. p. xv audrie brendon to her mother _osborne hotel, torquay_, _august 6th_ ma petite minerve-de-mere: a hundred and six and a half thanks for your counsels and consolations. i needed both, and not a bit the less because i'm not unhappy now. i'm violently happy. it won't last, but i love it--this happiness. i keep it sitting on my shoulder and stroking its wings, so it mayn't remember when it's time to fly away. that letter i wrote you _was_ silly. i was a regular cry-baby to write it. but i'm so glad you answered quickly. i don't know how i should have borne it if the man at the poste restante window had said: "nothing for you, miss." i might have responded with blows. there was a letter from ellaline, too. i'd sent her the "itinerary" as far as i knew it, and torquay was the last place on the list. i was wondering if anything were the matter, but there isn't--though there _is_ news. she waited to write, she says, so that her plans might be decided and she could tell them to me. the military manoeuvres go on; and the news has nothing directly to do with the adored honoré. but ellaline has made a confidante--a scotch girl she has met. i don't mean she's told everything; far from that, apparently. she has kept the fraudulent part, about me, secret, and only confided the romantic part, about herself. what she says she has told is, that she's run away from cruel persons who want to have all her money, and to prevent her from having any happiness. that she's hiding till the man she's engaged to can take her to scotland and have a scotch marriage--at gretna green, if possible, because it would be romantic, and her mother was married there. the scotch girl, with northern coldness of reason, has pointed out that gretna green is nowadays like any other place, but ellaline is not weaned from the idea. she appears to have fascinated her new friend (as she did her old ones), in spite of the northern coldness, and has received a pressing invitation to visit at the girl's house in scotland until honoré can claim her. there is a mother, as well as a girl, but only a stepmother, and apparently a detail; for the girl has the money and the strength of will. the two are stopping in a pension near madame de blanchemain's house. the girl is a miss mcnamarra, with freckles and no figure, but engaged to an officer, and consequently sympathetic. she has advised ellaline that, if she travels from france to scotland with honoré, on the way to be married, he mayn't respect her as much as if she had friends and chaperons, and a nice place to wait for him. ellaline is too french at heart not to feel that this advice is good--though she adds in her letter that she, of course, trusts darling honoré completely;--so she has accepted the invitation. the only trouble is, she wants more money at once. she must let golden louis run through her fingers like water, for i sent her nearly all sir lionel handed me before we started on the trip. i shall have to ask him for more, and i'll hate doing that, because, though i shall be gone out of his life so soon, i'm too vain and self-conscious (it must be that!) to like making a bad impression on his mind while we're together. i shan't hate it as much, however, as i should, supposing that something which happened last night _hadn't_ happened. i'm coming to that part presently. it's the thing that's made me happy--the thing that won't last long. we left adorable little sidmouth days ago--i almost forget how many, coming as far as exeter along a lovely road. but then, everything is lovely in devonshire. it is almost more beautiful than the new forest, only so different that, thank goodness, it isn't necessary to compare the two kinds of scenery. perhaps devonshire, stripped of its bold, red rocks, drained of its brilliant blue sea, and despoiled of its dark moors, might be too sugary sweet with its flower-draped cottages, and lanes like green-walled conservatories; but it is so well balanced, with its intimate sweetnesses, and its noble outlines. i think _you_ are rather like devonshire, you're so perfect, and you are the most well-balanced person i was ever introduced to--except dad. i'm proud that his ancestors were devonshire men. and oh, the junket and devonshire cream are even better than he used to tell me! i haven't tasted the cider yet, because i can't bear to miss the cream at any meal; and the chambermaid at sidmouth warned me that they "didn't mix." bits of devonshire are like italy, i find. not only is the earth deep red in the meadows, where the farmers have torn open its green coat, and many of the roads a pale rose-pink--dust and all--but lots of houses and cottages are pink, a real italian pink, so that whole villages blush as you look them in the face. sometimes, too, there's a blue or a green, or a golden-ochre house; here and there a high, broken wall of rose or faded yellow, with torrential geraniums boiling over the top. and the effect of this riot of colour, in contrast with the silver gray of the velvety thatch, or lichen-jewelled slate roofs, under great, cool trees, is even more beautiful than italy. if all england is a park, devonshire is a queen's garden. from sidmouth we went to budleigh salterton (why either, but especially both?), quaintly pretty, and rather holland-like with its miniature bridges and canal. then to exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny "maison carrée" (which would remind one more of nîmes if it had no bay windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills that ripple away into faint lilac shadows in the distance. then we struck inland, to exeter, and at exeter we stopped two days, in the very oldest and queerest but nicest hotel imaginable. i wasn't so very happy there, because the thing i'm going to tell you about in good time hadn't happened yet. but i'm not sure that i wasn't more in tune with exeter than if i had been as happy as i am now. the scenery here suits my joyous mood; and the grave tranquillity of the beautiful old cathedral town calmed my spirit when i needed calm. i've given up expecting to love any other cathedral as i loved winchester. chichester i've half forgotten already--except some of the tombs. salisbury was far more beautiful, far more impressive in its proportions than winchester, yet to me not so impressive in other ways; and exeter cathedral struck me at first sight as curiously low, almost squat. but as soon as i lived down the first surprise of that effect i began to love it. the stone of which the cathedral is built may be cold and gray; but time and carvings have made it solemn, not depressing. i stood a long time looking up at the west front, not saying a word; but something in me was singing a te deum. and how you would love the windows! you used always to say, when we were in italy and france, that it was beautiful windows which made you love a cathedral or church, as beautiful eyes make one love a face. this cathedral has unforgettable eyes, and a tremendously long history, beginning as far back as nine hundred and something, when athelstan came to exeter and drove out the poor british who thought it was theirs. he built towns, founded a monastery in honour of saint mary and saint peter, not having time, i suppose, to do one for each. and afterward the monastery decided that it would be a cathedral instead. but two hundred and more years earlier, that disagreeable st. boniface, who disliked the celts so much, went to a saxon school in exeter! i wonder what going to school was like when all the world was young? i wandered into the cathedral both mornings to hear the music; and something about the dim, moonlit look of the interior made me feel _good_. you will say that's rather a change for me, perhaps, because you tell me reproachfully, sometimes, after i've thought about the people's hats and the backs of their blouses in church, that i have only a bowing acquaintance with religion. i don't know whether i mayn't be doing the most dreadful wrong every minute by pretending to be ellaline; but it was _begun_ for a good purpose, as you know, and you yourself consented. and though i have twinges sometimes, i did feel good at exeter. oh, it did me heaps of good to _feel_ good! you have to live up to your feelings, if you feel like that. and i prayed in the cathedral. i prayed to be happy. is that a wrong note for a prayer? i don't believe it is, if it rings true. anyway, it makes me feel young and strong to pray, like achilles, after he'd rolled on the earth. and i do feel so young and strong just now, dear! i have to sing in my bath, and when i look out of the window--also sometimes when i look in the glass, for it seems to me that i am growing brighter and prettier. i love to be pretty, because it's such a beautiful world, and to be pretty is to be in the harmony of it. though, perhaps--only perhaps, mind!--i'm glad i'm not a regular beauty. it would be such a responsibility in the matter of wearing one's clothes, and doing one's hair, and never getting tanned or chapped. and i love to be thin, and alive--alive, with my soul in proportion to my body, like a hand in a glove, not like a seed in a big apple. but isn't this funny talk, in the midst of describing exeter? it's because of the reaction from misery to ecstasy that i'm so bubbly. i can't stop; but luckily it didn't come on in exeter, because the delightful, queer old streets aren't at all suitable to bubble in. it's impertinent to be excessively young there, especially in the beautiful cathedral close, where it is so calm and dignified, and the rooks, who are very, very old, do nothing but caw about their ancestors. i think some curates ought to turn into rooks when they die. they would be quite happy. our hotel, as i said, was fascinating, though mrs. norton fell once or twice, as there were steps up and down everywhere, and dick bumped his forehead on a door. (i wasn't at all sorry for him.) mrs. senter said, if we'd stopped long she would have got "cottage walk," and as she already had motor-car face and bridge eye, she thought the combination would be _trop fort_. if she weren't dick's aunt, and if she weren't so determined to flirt with sir lionel without his knowing what she's at, and if she didn't make little cutting speeches to me when he isn't listening, i think i should find her amusing. the only things i didn't like at the hotel were the eggs; which looked so nice, quite brown, and dated the morning you had them, on their shells, but tasting mediæval. i wonder if eggs can be post-dated, like cheques? as for the other eatables, there was very little taste in them, mediæval or otherwise. i do think ice-cream, for instance, ought to taste like something, if it's only hair oil. and the head waiter had such mournful-looking hair! i never got a talk alone with sir lionel in exeter, because though he tried once or twice, with the air of having a painful duty to accomplish, i was afraid he was going to ask me about dick, and i just felt i couldn't bear it, so avoided him, or instantly tacked myself on to emily or someone. i think emily approves of my running to her, whenever threatened by man's society, because she thinks the instinctive desire to be protected from anything male is pretty and maidenly. she certainly belongs to the stone age in some of her ideas; though her maxims are of a later period. many of them she draws (and quarters) from the scriptures; at least, she attributes them to the scriptures, but i know some of them to be in shakespeare. lots of people seem to make that mistake! of course, in the car i never talk to sir lionel, except a word flung over shoulders now and then, for mrs. senter sits by him. she asked to. did i tell you that before? so the day we left exeter things were just the same between us; not trustful and silently happy, as at the time of the _ring_, but rather strained, and vaguely official. it had rained a little in exeter, but the sky and landscape were clean-washed and sparkling as we sailed over the pink road, past charming little starcross, with its big swan-boat and baby swan-boat; past dawlish of the crimson cliffs and deep, deep blue sea (if i were a bluer--just as good a word as brewer!--i would buy dawlish as an advertisement for my blue. it seems made for that by nature, and is so brilliant you'd never believe it was true, on a poster); down a toboggan slide of a hill into teignmouth, another garden-town by the sea, and through one of england's many newtons--newton abbot, this time--to torquay. as we hadn't left exeter until after luncheon, it was evening when we arrived; but that, sir lionel said, was what he wanted, on account of the lights in and on and above the water, which he wanted us to see as we came to the town. he has been here before, long ago, as he has been at most of the places; but he says that he enjoys and appreciates everything more now than he did the first time. it was like a dream!--a dream all the way from newton abbot, where sunset began to turn the silver streak of river in the valley red as wine. there was just one ugly interval: the long, dull street by which we entered torquay, with its tearing trams and common shops; but out of it we came suddenly into a scene of enchantment. that really isn't too enthusiastic a description, for in front of us lay the harbour; the water violet, flecked with gold, the sky blazing still, coral-red to the zenith, where the moon drenched the fire with a silver flood. the hills were deeper violet than the sea, sparkling with lights that sprang out of the twilight; and on the smooth water a hundred little white boats danced over their own reflections. we begged sir lionel not to let young nick light our lamps, for they are so fierce and powerful, they swallow up the beauty of the evening. but i do think, where there are lots of motors about, it would be nice if _people_ had to be lighted at night, and especially dogs. now, at last, i have come to the thing--the thing that makes me happy, with a happiness all the more vivid because it can't last. but even if i fall to the depths of misery once more, i shan't be a coward, and moan to you. it must be horrid to get letter after letter, full of wails! i don't see how mademoiselle julie de lespinasse could write the letters she did; and i can't much blame monsieur de guibert for dreading to read them, always in the same key, and on the same note: "i suffer, i suffer. i want to die." well, i've kept you waiting long enough, or have you, perhaps, read ahead? i should, in your place, though i hope _you_ haven't. we came to the osborne because sir lionel knew and liked it, though there's another hotel grander, and we usually go to the grandest (so odd, that feels, after our travels, yours and mine, when our _first_ thought was to search out the cheapest place in any town!), and the osborne has a terraced garden, which runs down and down the cliffs, toward the sea, with a most alluring view. mrs. senter had luggage come to meet her here, and she appeared at dinner in our private sitting-room looking quite startlingly handsome, in a black chiffon dress embroidered in pale gold, exactly the colour of her hair. the weather had turned rather cold, however, since the rain at exeter, so, gorgeous as the moonlight was, she wanted to stop indoors after dinner, and proposed bridge, as usual. that was the signal for me to slip away. i'd finished "lorna doone," which is the loveliest love story in the english language (except part of "richard feverel"), so i thought i would go into the garden. i felt moderately secure from dick, because, even if he really _is_ in love with me, he is as much in love with bridge, and besides, he's afraid of his aunt, for some reason or other. as for sir lionel, it didn't occur to me that he might even _want_ to come. i strolled about at first, not far from the hotel. then i was tempted farther and farther down the cliff path, until i found a thatched summer-house, where i sat and thought what a splendid, ornamental world it would be to live in if one were _quite_ happy. by this time the sky and sea were bathed in moonlight, the stone pines--so like italian pines--black against a silver haze. in the dark water the path of the moon lay, very broad and long, all made of great flakes of thick, deep gold, as if the sea were paved with golden scales. it was so lovely it saddened me, but i didn't want to go indoors; and presently i heard footsteps on the path. i was afraid it was dick, after all, as he is horribly clever about finding out where one has gone--so detectivey of him!--but in another second i smelt sir lionel's kind of cigarette smoke. it would make me think of him if it were a hundred years from now! still, dick borrows his cigarettes often, as he says they're too expensive to buy, so i wasn't safe. indeed, _which ever_ it turned out to be, i wasn't safe, because one might be silly, and the other might scold. but it was sir lionel, and he saw me, although i made myself little and stood in the shadow, not daring to sit down again, because the seat squeaked. "aren't you cold?" he asked. i answered that i was quite warm. then he said that it was a nice night, and we talked about the weather, and all that idiotic sort of thing, which means empty brains or hearts too full. by and by, when i was beginning to feel as though i should scream if it went on much longer, he stopped suddenly, in a conversation about fresh fish, and said: "ellaline, i think i must speak of something that's been on my mind for some days." he'd never called me "ellaline" before, but only "you," and this gave me rather a start, to begin with, so i said nothing. and, as it turned out, that was probably the best thing i could have done. if i'd said anything, it would have been the wrong thing, and then, perhaps, we should have started off with a misunderstanding. "i should hate to have you think me unsympathetic," he went on. "i'm not. but--do you want to marry dick burden, some day?" if he'd put it differently i might have hesitated what to answer, for i _am_ afraid of dick, there's no use denying it--of course, mostly on ellaline's account, but a little on my own too, because i'm a coward, and don't want to be disgraced. as it was, i _couldn't_ hesitate, for the thought of marrying dick burden would have been insupportable if it hadn't been ridiculous. so you see, i forgot to dread what dick might do if he heard, and just blurted out the truth. "i'd sooner go into a convent," said i. "you mean that?" sir lionel pinned me down. "i do," i repeated. "could you imagine a girl wanting to marry dick burden?" "no, _i_ couldn't," said sir lionel. and then he laughed--such a nice, happy laugh, like a boy's, quite different from the way i have heard him laugh lately--though at first, in london, he seemed young and light-hearted. "but i'm no judge of the men--or boys--a girl might want to marry. dick's good-looking, or near it." "yes," i admitted. "so is your little chauffeur. but i don't want to marry it." "are you flirting with dick, then?" sir lionel asked, not sharply, but almost wistfully. i couldn't stand that. i had to tell the truth, no matter for to-morrow! "i'm not flirting with him, either," i said. "what then?" "nothing." "but he seems to think there is something--something to hope." "did he tell you so?" "no. he sent me word." "oh! words get mixed, when they're sent. he _knows_ i'm not flirting with him." "does he know--forgive me--does he know that you don't love him--a little?" "he knows i don't love him at all." "then i--can't understand," said sir lionel. "would you like me to love him?" i couldn't help asking. "no," he began, and stopped. "i should like you to be happy, in your own way," he went on more slowly. "i've been at a loss, because a little while ago you said you didn't like burden, and then you seemed to change your mind----" "it was only seeming," i continued on my reckless course. "my mind toward him stands where it did." "if that is so, what have you done to him, to give him hope?" "nothing i could help," i said. "there's a strange misunderstanding somewhere, apparently," sir lionel reflected aloud. "oh, don't let there be one between us!" i begged, looking up at him suddenly. he put his hand out as suddenly, and grabbed--literally grabbed--mine. i was so happy! isn't it nice that men are so much stronger than women, and that we're meant to like them to be? it can make life so interesting. as his fingers pressed mine, i let mine press his too, and felt we were friends. "by jove, no, we won't," he said. and though it wasn't much to say, nothing could have pleased me better. the words and the tone seemed to match the close clasp of our hands. "would you be willing to trust me?" i asked. "of course. but in what way do you mean?" "about dick burden. he _doesn't_ think i'm flirting, and he doesn't think i care for him. yet i want you to trust me, and not say anything to him or to his aunt. let dick and me fight it out between us." he laughed again. "with all my heart, if you want to fight. but i won't have you annoyed. if he annoys you he must go. i will get rid of him." "dick can't annoy me if he doesn't make trouble for me with you, sir lionel," i said. (and that was the truth.) "only, if you'll just trust me to manage him?" "you're very young to undertake the management of a man." "dick isn't a man. he's a boy." "and you--are a child." "i may seem a child to you," i said, "but i'm not. i'll be so happy, and i'll thank you so much, if you'll just let things go on as they are for a little while. you'll be glad afterward if you do." and he will, when i've gone and ellaline has come. he will be glad he didn't give himself too much trouble on my account. but i'm not going to think now of what his opinion of me may be _then_. at present he has a very good, kind opinion. even though i am a child in his eyes, i am a dear child; and though it can't last, it does make me happy to be dear to him, in any way at all--this terrible dragon of ellaline's. but that isn't the end of our conversation. the real end was an anti-climax, perhaps, but i liked it. for that matter, the tail of a comet's an anti-climax. it was only that, when we'd talked on, and he'd promised to trust me, and leave the reins in my hands, while he attended solely to the steering of his motor-car, i said: "now we must go in. mrs. senter will be wanting to finish her rubber." (i forgot to tell you that he explained she'd had a telegram, and had been obliged to hurry and write a letter, to catch the last post. that had stopped a game in the middle.) "oh, hang it all, i suppose she will!" he grumbled, more to himself than to me, because, if he'd paused to think, he would have been too polite to express himself so about a guest, whatever his feelings were. but that's why i was pleased. he spoke impulsively, without thinking. wasn't it a triumph, that he would rather have stayed there in the garden, even with a "child," than hurry back to that radiant white-and-gold (and black) vision? now you know why i am so pleased with life. all that happened last night, and to-day we have had "excursions," but no "alarums." we (every one, not just he and i) have been to kent's cavern, where prehistoric tigers' teeth grinned at us from the walls, and have taken a walk to babbicombe bay, where we had tea. i think it was the loveliest path i ever saw, that cliff way, with the gray rocks, and the blue sea into which the sky had emptied itself, like a cup with a silver rim. and the wild flowers--the little, dainty, pink-tipped daisies, which i couldn't bear to crush--and the larks that sprang out of the grass! there are things that make you feel so at _home_ in england, dear. i think it is like no other country for that. to-morrow we are to motor to princetown, on dartmoor--eden phillpotts land--and are coming back to torquay at night. if i have time i'll write you a special dartmoor letter, for i have an idea that i shall find the moor wonderfully impressive. but we mayn't get back till late; and the day after we are to start early in the morning for sir lionel's county, cornwall. afterward we shall come back into another part of devonshire, and see bideford and exmoor. that's why i've been able to forget some of my worries in "westward ho!" and "lorna doone" lately. but sir lionel can't wait longer for cornwall, and, so day-after-to-morrow night my eyes shall look upon--only think of it--"dark tintagel by the cornish sea." that is, we shall see it, apollo permitting, for motors and men gang aft aglee. this isn't apropos of apollo's usual behaviour, but of the stories we've been told concerning dartmoor roads. they say--well, there's nothing to worry about with sir lionel at the helm; but i shouldn't wonder if to-morrow will be an adventure. there, now, i'm sorry i said that. you may be anxious; but i can't scratch it out, and it's nearly at the bottom of _such_ a big sheet. so i'll wire to-morrow night, when we get back, and you'll have the telegram before you have this letter. your how-to-be-happy-though-undeserving, but ever loving, audrie. xvi audrie brendon to her mother _still torquay, ten thirty_, _august 7th_ dearest: i thought the moor would be impressive. it is overwhelming. oh, this devonshire of my father's people is far from being all a land of cream and roses! dartmoor has given me so many emotions that i am tired, but i must tell you about it and them. when i shut my eyes, i see tors, like ruined watch-towers, against the sky. and i see princetown, grim and terrible. no country can look its best on a map, no matter what colour be chosen to express it; but i did like dartmoor's rich brown, which set it apart from the green parts of devonshire. it took some time, though, even in a motor, to come to the brown; for our road was fairy-like as far as holne, charles kingsley's birthplace. we got out there, of course, and looked at his memorial window in the charming village church. at holne bridge i thought of the beautiful way to the grande chartreuse; so you can imagine it was far from sterile, although we were on the fringe of the moor. and ah, what a lovely green fringe the brown moor wears! it is all trimmed round the edge with woods, and glens, where the baby river dart goes laughing by. and there's a most romantic lover's leap, of course. strange how so many lovers, though of different countries, have all that same wild desire to jump off something! if i were a lover i should much rather die a flat, neat death. we saw this lover's leap only at a distance when going toward the moor, but coming back--however, i will tell you about it afterward, when i come to buckland chase, on the way home. it was at holne that the big hills, of which we'd been warned, began; but apollo merely sniffs at gradients that make smaller, meaner motors grunt with rage. we had a car behind us (which had started ahead), but it was rather an ominous sign to see no "pneu" tracks in the white dust of the road as we travelled. other days, we have always had them to follow; and it makes a motor feel at home to know that his brethren have come and gone that way. this must have seemed to apollo like isolation; and as if to emphasize the sensation which we all shared, suddenly we began to _smell_ the moor. i can't describe to you exactly what that smell was like, but we _knew_ it was the moor. the air became alive and life-giving. it tingled with a cold breath of the north, and one thought of granite with the sun on it, and broom in blossom, and coarse grass such as mountain-sheep love, though one saw none of those things yet. the scenery was still gentle and friendly, and the baby dart was singing at the top of its voice. really, it was almost a tune. i felt, as i listened, that it would be easy to set it to music. the moss-covered stones round which purled the clear water looked like the whole notes and half notes, all ready to be pushed into place, so that the tune might "arrange itself." and the amber brown of the stream was mottled with gold under the surface, as if a sack full of sovereigns had been emptied into the river. the first tor on our horizon was sharp tor, which the dart evidently feared. the poor little river disappeared at sight of it, hurrying away from its frown, and as the stream vanished all the dainty charm of the landscape fled, too. we saw the moor towering toward us, stern and barren, with that great watch-tower of nature's pinning it to the sky. moorland ponies raced to and fro, mad with the joy of some game they were playing, and they were not afraid of us. i should think the live things of the moor were afraid of nothing that could come to them out of the world beyond, for that pungent air breathes "courage," and the gray granite, breaking through the poor coat of grass, dares the eyes that look at it not to be brave. near the moorland ponies--on holne moor--we came to the strangest reservoir you could dream of. it was vast, and blue as a block fallen out of the sky; and once, sir lionel said, it had been a lake, though now it gives water to the prison town. an old road used to run through it; and to this day you can see the bridge under water. the story is that strange forms cross that bridge at night. i'm sure it's true, for anything could happen on the moor, and of course it swarms with pixies. you believe that, don't you? well, anyway, you would if you saw the moor. the next tor was nameless for us, but it was even finer than sharp tor. after seeing stonehenge i felt so certain it must be druidical that it was disappointing to hear it wasn't--that all such theories about the tors had "exploded." afterward there were lots of tors; and there were tin mines, too, not far from our wild, desolate road--tin mines that have always been worked, they say, since the days of the phoenicians. i should have been more interested in thinking about them, however, if we hadn't just then begun gliding down a hill which, from the top, looked as if it might go straight through to china. my toes felt as if they'd been done up in curl-papers for years. but there was a savage joy in the creepiness of it, and apollo "chunk-chunked" sturdily down, in a nice, dependable way, toward a lonely village, which i felt sure was entirely populated by eden phillpotts people. he, and the other authors who write about the moor, invariably make their leading characters have "primitive passions," so i thought perhaps the faces of the moor folk would be wilder and stranger, and have more meaning than other civilized faces. but all those i saw looked just like everybody else, and i was so disappointed! they even dropped their "h's"; and once, when we stopped a moment at a place where sir lionel wasn't sure of the way, i asked a boy on a rough pony the names of some trees we had passed. "h'ash and green h'elm, miss," said he. it _was_ a blow! toward eleven, the sun had drunk up the cold mist, and the moor basked in heat. we were in an empty world, save for a cottage now and then, and a cyclopean wall of stones loosely piled one upon another. yet this was the main road from ashburton to princetown! apollo glided along a desolate white way between creamy and silver grasses artistically intermingled, and burning, golden gorse, which caught the sun. the splendid, dignified loneliness of the moor was like the retreat chosen by a hermit god! there may be only twenty square miles of moor, but it feels like a hundred. hexworthy and the forest inn, which we came to in a valley, were curiously swiss, all but the ancient cross which made me think of eden phillpotts's "american prisoner." how can i say an "ancient" cross, though, when the _really_ old things on the moor began not only before christ, but before history--the stone circles, the cairns and the cromlechs, the kistvaen and the barrows! the hut circles, where a forgotten people used to live, are strewn in thousands over the moor, and cooking utensils are sometimes dug up, even now; so you see, everything isn't discovered yet. the people hadn't any metal to work with, poor creatures, until the bronze age, and they clothed themselves in skins, which i suppose their dressmakers and tailors made when the sheep and cows that wore them first had been cut up and eaten. i wonder if girls were pretty in those days, or men handsome, and if anyone cared? but i suppose knowing the difference between ugliness and beauty is as old as adam and eve. if eve hadn't been pretty, adam wouldn't have looked at her, but would have waited in the hope of something better. the first sight of princetown only intensified the loneliness of the moor, somehow, partly because it loomed so gray and grim, partly, perhaps, because we knew it to be a prison town. the dark buildings looked as much a natural growth of the moor as those ruined temples on the horizon, which were tors. it was almost impossible to believe that plymouth was only fifteen miles away. and the sombreness and gloom of the melancholy place increased instead of diminished as we drew nearer to it, after leaving behind us the pleasant oasis of tor bridge and its little hotel that anglers and walkers love. the prison settlement was stuck like a black vice-spot in the midst of wide purity. gloom hung over it in a pall, and stole the warmth from the sunshine. what a town to name after a prince regent! and what a town to have lunch in! yet it was a singularly good lunch. we ate it in a hotel built of gray stone, with gray stone colonnades, which looked like an annex to the prison. there was meat pie, which one expected to find smoking hot, and it gave quite a shock to find it not only cold, but iced. there was a big, cool dining-room, all mysterious, creeping shadows, and queer echoes when one dared to speak. and unless one did speak the silence sent a chill through one's body, but it was an interesting chill. certainly the hotel was the strangest i ever saw; and the hotel dog was like no other animal on land or sea. he appeared to be a mixture of brindled bull and irish terrier, with long side-whiskers on a bull-dog face. he was a nightmare, but he loved devonshire cream and junket, and ate them as if he were a lamb. we stayed a long time in princetown, and then started to go home by a different way. out of a vast moorland tract we descended to dartmoor bridge, the prettiest oasis in the wild desert of moor which we had seen yet. but soon we were back in moorland again, with tors rising up to snatch at heaven with their dark claws. each one seemed different from all the rest, just as people's faces are different in crowds. some were like crests of waves, petrified as they were ready to break; but the weirdest of all were exactly like ruined forts of dwarfs. and presently the scenery changed again in a kaleidoscopic way. we came to lovely houndsgate, with a great, deep wonder-valley far below us, only to return to a region of tors and bracken, and to plunge down the most tremendous hill of all--a hill which was like gliding down the glassy side of an ocean wave. i had just exclaimed, "see, there's a motor ahead of us!" when an extraordinary thing happened. the car going before us, very fast, suddenly ran to the side of the steep road, stopped, some people jumped out, and at the same instant a great flame spouted straight up toward the sky. not one of us said one word, except emily, who squeaked, and cried, "oh, lionel! we shall all be killed and burned up!" of course, sir lionel didn't answer. i would have given anything to be in mrs. senter's place, sitting beside him, so that i could see his face, and guess what he meant to do. but it was decided and done in a few seconds. he took apollo on a little farther, and then stopped as near the burning motor as he dared, so that there might be no danger of our catching fire. before we could have counted "one, two," he had sprung from the car and was running toward the fiery chariot, with young nick flying after him. dick burden got down, too, and sauntered in their wake, but he didn't go very fast. it was so exciting and confusing that i scarcely understood at first what was happening, but sir lionel tore off his coat as he ran, and flung it round the woman from the other car. she had not been on fire when she jumped out, but the grass and bushes close by the road had already begun to blaze, and her dress had caught in the flame. she was tall and big, but sir lionel lifted her up as if she'd been a child, and, wrapped in his coat, laid her down at a little distance on the grass, where he rolled her over, and put out the fire. then, when she was on her feet again, panting and sobbing a little, he and the other men began stamping out the flames playing among the low bushes, lest they spread along the moor. as for the car, sir lionel said afterward it was hopeless trying to save her, as there were gallons and gallons of petrol to burn (it was her brakes that had got on fire, and ignited the rest), and no sand or anything of that sort to throw on. but while we were staring at the strange scene, the flames died down, having drunk up all the petrol; and whether some part of the mechanism which held the red-hot brakes in place gave way suddenly, i don't know. all i do know is, that the car quivered, moved forward, began running down the tremendous hill, faster and faster, until, with a wild bound, she disappeared from our sight over a precipice. by this time we were all out, except emily, hurrying down the hill, to talk to the people who had lost their car; but would you believe it, they hardly cared for their loss, now they were out of danger? it was a bride and groom, with their chauffeur, and they were americans, staying at the imperial, in torquay. the bridegroom was elderly but humorous, and told us he used to hate motors and kept tortoises for pets, because he liked everything that moved slowly, all his ancestors having come from philadelphia. but the girl he loved wouldn't marry him unless he promised to take her to england on an automobile trip. now he hoped she had had enough, and would let him go back to tortoises again. he said he had never enjoyed anything so much as seeing the car's red-hot skeleton jump over the precipice, where it could not hurt anyone, but would just fall quietly to pieces on the rocks. the bride was great fun, too, and as she comes from st. louis, it is not likely she will cultivate tortoises. when we took them all three back to torquay with us, squashed in anyhow, she talked about running over to paris and buying a balloon or an aeroplane! we came by way of the buckland chase, as it is called--private property; and an elfin glen of beauty, for mile after mile, with the dart singing below, and the lover's leap so close that it seemed painfully realistic--especially after the adventure of the car which leaped into space. sir lionel got his coat burnt, and his hands a little, too; but he would drive, though young nick might have done so as well as not. after all we shan't get to cornwall to-morrow! sir lionel says it would be a crime to leave this part of the world without going up the dart (the "rhine of england") in a boat, and seeing the beautiful old butter market at dartmouth. i shall send you postcards from there, if i have the chance, for it's very historic. it will be cornwall the day after, but i shall have to wire my next address. with all the love of your moorland princess. p. s. you ought to have seen emily and mrs. senter fussing over sir lionel when he burnt his hands! he hates being fussed over, and was almost cross, until our eyes happened to meet, and then we both smiled. that seemed to make him good-natured again. and he is wonderfully patient with his sister, really. xvii mrs. senter to her sister, mrs. burden, at glen lachlan, n. b. _white hart hotel, launceston, cornwall_, _aug. 10th_ my dear sis: it came off all right. my things usually do, don't they? with some women, it is only their lip-salve and face powder that come off. with me, it is plans. luckily i inherited mamma's genius for high diplomacy, while you, alas, only came in for her rheumatism. and by the way, how _are_ your poor dear bones? not devilled, i hope? do forgive the cheap wit. i am obliged to save my best things for sir lionel. he appreciates them highly, which is one comfort; but it is rather a strain living up to him (though i do think it will pay in the end), and in intercourse with my family i must be allowed to rest my brain. when everything is settled, one way or the other, my features, also, shall have repose. to keep young, every woman ought to go into retirement for at least one month out of the twelve, a fortnight at a time, perhaps, and do nothing but eat and sleep, see nobody, talk to nobody, think of nothing, and especially not _smile_. if one followed that regime religiously, with or without prayer and fasting, one need never have crow's-feet. of course, with you it is different. you have now decided to live for dick, and let your waist measure look after itself; but i have larger aims and fewer years than you, dearest. my conception of self-respecting widowhood is to be as young as possible, as attractive as possible, as rich as possible, and eventually to read my title clear to (at least) a baronet, and have a castle in a good hunting county. there are difficulties in my upward way, yet i feel strongly i shall overcome them. let my motto be, "the battle to the smart, and the situation to the pretty." why shouldn't i triumph on both counts? the ward, to be sure, is pretty, and is in the situation; but she doesn't know her own advantages, and i'm not sure she would marry sir lionel if he asked her; which at present he apparently has no intention of doing, although he admires her more warmly than either dick or i think advisable in a guardian. since i wrote you last, just before starting on this motor match-making venture of ours, there have been several new developments. i don't know whether you are any deeper in dick's confidence, in this affair, than i am (though i fancy not), but i scent a mystery. dick really _has_ detective talent, dear sis, and if i were you, i shouldn't oppose his setting up as a sort of _art nouveau_ sherlock holmes. whether he has found out about some schoolgirl peccadillo of miss lethbridge's, and is dangling it over her head, damocles sword fashion, i can't tell, because _he_ won't tell; though he looks offensively wise when i tease him, and i have tried in vain, on my own account, to discover. but certain it is that he is either blackmailing her in a milk-and-water way, or hypnotizing her to obey his orders. he hinted, you know, that he could get the girl to make sir lionel invite us to join the motoring party; but i supposed then that she had a weakness of the heart where my dear nephew was concerned. now, my opinion is that she dislikes, yet fears him. not very complimentary to dick, but he doesn't seem to mind, and is enjoying himself immensely in his own deliciously, impertinently, perky way. somehow or other he has induced her to be more or less engaged to him, a temporary arrangement, i understand, but pleasing to him and convenient to me. what dick gets out of it, i don't know, and don't enquire; but _i_ get out of it the satisfaction of "shelving" the girl as a possible rival. sir lionel, who (it's useless to spare your motherly vanity!) has no very warm appreciation of dick's qualities, is disgusted with his ward for encouraging d.'s advances, and is inclined to turn to me for sympathy. in that branch i am a great success, and altogether am getting on like a house afire. what if i do have to pump up an intelligent interest in politics in general, and affairs in the far east in particular? i am fortunately so constituted that fifteen minutes' study of the _times_, washed down by early tea (taken strong), enables me to discourse brilliantly on the deepest subjects during the day; and, thank goodness, virtue is rewarded in the evening with a little bridge. if i am ever lady pendragon (sounds well, doesn't it?) it shall be all bridge and skittles, for me--and devil take politics, military science, history, the classics, herbert spencer, robert browning, shakespeare, and all other boring or out-of-date things and writers (if he hasn't already taken them) on which i am now obliged to keep up a sort of maxim-fire of conversation. as to dick's affairs, however, if the girl really is the heiress we thought her, i shall be only too glad to use my influence in every direction at once, to make the temporary arrangement a permanent one. but the worst of it is, i'm not at all sure that she is any sort of an heiress. sir lionel intimated to me the other night, when i was tactfully tickling him with hints, that she has little except what he may choose to give her. if that be true, i fear as mrs. dick her _dot_ will not be large; but it strikes me as very probable that he was only trying to put me off--or rather, to put dick off, if dick were fortune-hunting. i don't know whether to believe his version or not, therefore; but i did get at one fact which may help us to find out for ourselves. dear ellaline is a daughter of _frederic_ lethbridge. it was rather a shock to hear this, for i have a vague impression that there was once a scandal, quite a ripe, juicy scandal, about a frederic lethbridge. can it have been this frederic lethbridge, and if so, had it anything to do with money matters? i haven't mentioned my doubts to dick, because he really is idiotically in love with the girl, and is capable of foolishness. i intend to let him go on as he is going for the present, as he can do himself no harm, and can do me a great deal of good, by keeping his darling out of my way and sir lionel's thoughts. but of course, he mustn't be allowed to marry her if she has nothing of her own. sir lionel is rich, but not rich enough to make his ward rich enough for dick, and keep plenty for his wife--when he gets one--if she be anything like _me_. your dear hostess, who would by this time be my hostess if i weren't otherwise engaged, knows everything and everybody. not only that, she has done both for a considerable term of years. you remember the joke about her being torn between the desire not to exceed the age of forty-five and yet to boast a friendship with lord beaconsfield? well, she can have known frederic lethbridge, and all about him, without being a day over forty, as that is sir lionel's age, and mrs. lethbridge was a distant relative of his. tell lady macrae that. say that the frederic lethbridge you are inquiring about married a miss de nesville, and that there is a daughter in existence, a girl of nineteen. if lady mac doesn't know anything, get her to ask her friends; but do hurry up for dick's sake, there's a dear, otherwise i shan't be able to pull the strings as you would like me to; and already my sweet nerves are jangled, out of tune. dear lady mac is so adorably frank, when she has something disagreeable to say, that you'll have no difficulty in ferreting out the truth--if it's anything nasty. for most reasons i hope it isn't, as a rich girl would be a valuable bird in the hand for dick; and i am on the spot to see his affairs as well as my own through, whatever happens. for my part, if sir lionel weren't up to such a fatiguingly high level of intelligence, i believe i could fall in love with him. he may be descended from king arthur, but he looks more like lancelot, and i fancy might make love rather nicely, once he let himself go. although it's long since he did any soldiering, he shows that he _was_ a soldier, born, not made. he has improved, if anything, since we knew him in india, but i remember you used to be quite afraid of having to talk to him then, and preferred colonel o'hagan, whom you thought jolly and good-natured, though, somehow, i never got on with him very well. i always had the feeling he was trying to read me, and i do dislike that sort of thing in a man. it ruins human intercourse, and takes away all natural desire to flirt. you ask me how i endure emily norton. well, as i sit beside sir lionel in the car, i don't need to bother with her much in the daytime. she hates bridge, and thinks playing for money wrong in most circumstances, but considers it her duty to please her brother's guests; and as she never wins, anyhow, it needn't affect her conscience. i tell her that _i_ always give my winnings to charity, and didn't think it necessary to add that, to my idea, charity should not only begin at home, but end there, unless its resources were unlimited. the poor, dull thing has that kind of self-conscious religion that sends her soul trotting every other minute to look in the glass, and see that it hasn't smudged itself. so trying! once she asked me what i did for _my_ soul? i longed to tell her i took cod-liver oil, or somebody's fruit salt, but didn't dare, on account of sir lionel. and she has such a conceited way of saying, when speaking of the future: "if the lord spares me till next year, i will do so and so." as if he were in immediate need of her, but might be induced to get on without her for a short time! one would know, by the way she screws up her hair, that she could never have felt a temptation. but i shall not let myself be troubled much with her if i marry sir lionel. she can go back to her doctor and her curates, and be invited for christmas to graylees, which, by the way, i hope to inspect when we have finished this tour. i am looking quite lovely in my motoring things, and enjoying myself very much, on the whole. devonshire i found too hot for this time of the year, but the scenery is pretty. i had no idea what a jolly little river the dart is; and dartmouth is rather quaint. for those who are keen on old things, i suppose the butter market would be interesting; but i can't really see why, because things happened in certain places hundreds of years ago, one should stand and stare at walls or windows, or fireplaces. the things _must_ have happened somewhere! although charles the second, for instance, may have been great fun to know, and one would have enjoyed flirting with him, now that he's been dead and out of reach for ages, he's of no importance to me. we left torquay yesterday, and arrived here in the evening, after a hilly but nice run, and lunching at plymouth. of course, a lot of nonsense was talked about sir francis drake. one almost forgets _what_ the old boy did, except to play bowls or something; but i have a way of seeming to know things, for which i deserve more credit than anyone (save you) would guess. when they were not jabbering about him at lunch, it was about the _mayflower_, which apparently sailed from plymouth for the purpose of supplying americans with ancestors. i never met any americans yet, except the kind who boast of having begun as shoeblacks, whose great-great-grand-parents didn't cross in the _mayflower_. it must have been a huge ship, or else a lot of the ancestors went in the steerage, or were stewards or stowaways. there was a ferry, getting from devonshire into cornwall, so of course we just missed a boat and had to wait half an hour. i was dying to go to sleep, but the others were as chirpy as possible, gabbling cornish legends. when i say the "others," i mean sir lionel and ellaline lethbridge. i didn't know any legends, but i made up several on the spur of the moment, much more exciting than theirs, and that pleased sir lionel, as he is a cornishman. heavens, how i did take it out of myself admiring his native land when we'd got across that ferry! said the scenery was quite different from that of devonshire, at the first go off; and i'm not sure there _weren't_ differences. the road coming toward launceston really was romantic; rock-walled part of the way, with a lot of pink and yellow lichen; and again, fine open spaces with distant blue downs against a sky which looked, as i remarked to sir lionel, as if the gods had poured a libation of golden wine over it. not bad, that, was it? i believe we passed an arthurian battle-field, which naturally interested him immensely, therefore _had_ to interest poor me! he seems to think there actually _was_ an arthur, and was quite pleased with me for saying that all the cornish names of places rang with romance like fairy bells sounding from under the sea--perhaps from atlantis. anyhow, they're a relief after such devonshire horrors as meavy and hoo meavy, which are like the lisping of babies. sir lionel thought the "derivations" of such names an absorbing subject! but living in the east so long has made him quixotically patriotic. here and there we passed a whole villageful of white-washed cottages, with purplish-brown moss covering their roofs--rather picturesque; and some of the slate-roofed, stone houses are nice in their way, too; i suppose distinctively cornish. not that i care! i'm glad graylees castle isn't in cornwall, which is _much_ too far from town. there were some mine-shafts about, to mar the scenery, toward the end of the journey, and the road surface was bad compared to what we've had. if the car weren't a very good one, we should have suffered from the bumps. ellaline lethbridge, by the way, said something about cornwall which puzzled me. suddenly she exclaimed: "why, the atmosphere here is like spain! everything swims in a sea of coloured lights!" _i_ thought she'd spent all her life at school in france, and i mentioned the impression, upon which she replied, with an air of being taken aback: "i mean, from what i have _heard_ of spain." can she have had an escapade, i wonder? but that is dick's business, not mine--at present. there's a castle in launceston, which has kept us over to-day, as sir lionel has been in these parts before, and can't rest unless we see everything he admired in his youth. i wish he hadn't seen so much, there'd be less for us to do. i _hate_ pottering about, seeing sights in the rain, and it has been trying to rain all day. it's well enough to say that the rain rains alike on the just and the unjust, but that is not true, as some women's hair curls naturally. ellaline's does, and mine doesn't--except the part i owe for at truefitt's. it's an old hotel that we're in, quite pleased to show its age; and i have made rather a beast of myself with some sort of cornish pasty, which, it seems, is a local favourite, and spoils the peasants' teeth. cornish cream is good, and, i understand from sir lionel, was invented by the phoenicians. i suppose they drowned their sorrows in it while working in the tin mines one always associates with them. we go to tintagel to-morrow, and do some other cornish things, i don't know what. but write to me at bideford, as we shall be back in devonshire in a few days on our way--i fancy--toward wales. i long to hear what you or lady mac may have up your sleeves about the dear ellaline's papa. ever your affectionate gwen. dick sends his love, and will write. xviii mrs. senter to her sister, mrs. burden _king arthur's castle, tintagel_, _aug. 12th_ my dear sis: i'm sorry i told you to write to bideford, as we're stopping at this place several days, and i might have had your answer here. however, it's too late now, as by this time your letter is in the post, perhaps, and we may or may not leave to-morrow. i think i can be pretty sure your wire to dick means that you'd heard from me, and that the news for him is not favourable. if he guessed that i'd been questioning you about the eligibility of his girl, frankly i doubt if he'd have swallowed the bait of your telegram. even as it was he seemed restive, and didn't yearn to be packed off to scotland, even for a few days. however, he'd committed himself by reading your message aloud, before he stopped to think; and when sir lionel and ellaline had learned that you were ill, and wanted him, they would have been shocked if he'd refused to go. i comforted him by promising to sow strife between ward and guardian, as often and diligently as possible, until he can get back to look after his own interests, and i shall do my best to keep the promise--not for dick's sake alone. he was off within an hour after the telegram, a little sulky, but not too worried, as he has the faith engendered by experience in your recuperative powers. i, naturally, worry still less, as i have a clue to the mystery of your attack which dick doesn't possess. i quite believe that by the time he reaches your side it will no longer be a bedside, but a sofaside; that you'll be able to smile, hold dick's hand, and replace benger's food with slices of partridge and sips of champagne. by the way, this is the glorious twelfth. it does seem odd and frumpish not to be in scotland, but motoring covers a multitude of social sins. not a word has been said about birds. our sporting talk is of mufflers, pinions, water-cooled brakes, and chainless drives. the tyndals have turned up at this hotel, more gorgeous and more bored than ever, but they have taken a fancy to ellaline lethbridge, and i am playing it for all it's worth. it comes in handy at the moment, and i have no conscientious scruples against using millionaires for pawns. they have an impossibly luxurious motorcar. sir lionel thinks it vulgar, but they are pleased with it, as it's still a new toy. i have been making a nice little plan for them, which concerns ellaline. none of them know it yet, but they will soon, and if it had been invented to please dick (which it wasn't entirely) it couldn't suit him better. you may tell him that, if by any chance he's with you still when you get this. my mind is busy working the plan out, so that there may be no hitch, but a few unoccupied corners of my brain are wondering what you have discovered about miss lethbridge's prospects and antecedents; how, if both are very undesirable, you intend to persuade dick to let her drop. if i were you i wouldn't waste arguments. retain him a few days if you can, though i fear the only way to do so is to have a fit. i believe that can be arranged by eating soap and frothing at the mouth, which produces a striking effect, and, though slightly disagreeable, isn't dangerous. but seriously, if he refuses to hear reason, don't worry. i am on the spot to snatch him at the last moment from the mouth of the lionness, provided she opens it wide enough to swallow him. your ever useful and affectionate sister, gwen. p. s. the tyndals have got a cousin of george's with them, a budding millionaire from eton, who has fallen in love at sight with the lethbridge. but even dick can't be jealous of childhood, and it may be helpful. taking everything together, i am enjoying myself here, though i'm impatient to get your letter. cornwall agrees with sir lionel's disposition, and he is being delightful to everyone. i think while he is in the right mood i shall repeat to him what a sad failure my marriage was, and how little i really care for gaiety; "society my lover, solitude my husband," sort of thing. he is the kind of man to like that, and the sweet, soft air of cornwall is conducive to credulity. xix audrie brendon to her mother _king arthur's castle, tintagel_, _august 12th_ most dear and sovran lady: i call you that because i've just been reading sir thomas malory's "le morte d'arthur" (is that old french spelling?), and because the style of address seems suitable to king arthur's castle--which isn't really his castle, you know, but an hotel. i thought it was the castle, though, when i first saw it standing up gray and massive on an imposing hill. i supposed it had been restored, and was rather disappointed to find it an hotel--though it's very jolly to live in, with all the latest feudal improvements and fittings, and king arthur's round table in the enormous entrance-hall. sir lionel wouldn't let mrs. senter laugh at me for thinking it the real castle, but said it was a natural mistake for a girl who had spent all her life in a french school--and how should i know the difference? i _was_ grateful to him, for though i love to have some people laugh at me she isn't one of those people. she laughs in that sniffy way cats have. the real castle i can see from my own feudal, castellated balcony. it is beautifully ruined; but you can go into it, and i have been. only i want to tell you about other things first. in my short note from launceston, did i mention the old norman house which belongs to cousins of sir lionel's? he used to visit there, and poke about in the castle, which was godwin's and harold's before the conquest. but the nicest cousins are dead and the rest are away, so we could only see the outside of the house. however, we went to call at an ancient stone cottage of the colour of petrified wallflowers, to see a servant who took care of sir lionel when he was a child. a wonderful old wisp of a thing, with the reputation of being a witch, which wins her great respect; and she used quaint cornish words that have come down from generation to generation, ever since the early celts, without changing. when sir lionel sympathized with her about her husband's death, she said it was a grief, but he'd been a sad invalid, and a "good bit in the way of the oven" for several years. [illustration: _in sir lionel's county, cornwall_] on the way to tintagel from launceston we passed slaughter bridge, one of the many places where legend says king arthur fought his last battle. so that was a good entrance to arthurian country, wasn't it? our road cut huge, rolling downs in two, and they surged up on either side, so it was rather like the passage through the red sea. and under a sky that hung over us like an illimitable bluebell, we saw our first cornish mountains, rough tor and brown willy. names of that sort make you feel at home with mountains at once, as if you'd known them all your life, and might lead them about with a string. but they are only corruptions of old celtic names that nobody could possibly pronounce; and nearly everything seems more or less celtic in cornwall, especially eyes. they are beautiful gray-blue, with their black lashes as long on the lower as on the upper lid, and look as if they had been "rubbed in with a dirty finger." now i see that sir lionel's eyes are celtic. i didn't know quite how to account for them at first. _he_ has a temper, i think, and could be severe; but he says the cornish people are so good-hearted that if you ask them the way anywhere, they tell you the one they think you would prefer to take, whether it's really right or not. but i'm glad he is not so easy going as that. it was exciting to wheel into a little road like a lane, marked "tintagel"! i felt my copy of "le morte d'arthur" turning in my hand, like a water-diviner's rod. we took the lane to avoid a tremendous hill, because hills give mrs. norton the "creeps" in her feet and back hair, and she never recovers until she has had tea. but it was a charming lane, with views by and by of wide, purple moorland, sunset-red with new heather; and the sky had turned from bluebell azure to green and rose, in a wonderful, chameleon way, which it seems that the sky has in cornwall. i suppose it was a celtic habit! all about us billowed a profusion of wild beauty; and though for a long time there was nothing alive in sight except a flock of bright pink sheep, my stage-managing fancy called up knights of the round table, "pricking" o'er the downs on their panoplied steeds to the rescue of fair, distressed damsels. and the bright mirrors which the fleeting rain had dropped along the road were the knights' polished shields, laid down to save the ladies from wetting the points of their jewelled slippers. then came my first sight of the cornish sea, deep hyacinth, with golden sails scattered upon it, and arthur's cliffs rising dark out of its satin sheen. beyond, in the background, gray houses and cottages grouped together, the stone and slates worn shiny with age, like very old marble, so that they reflected glints of colour from the rose and violet sky. by the time i was dressed for dinner it was sunset, and i went to sit on the terrace and watch the splendid cloud pageant. i seemed to be the only one of our party who had come down yet, though, to tell the whole, _whole_ truth, i had had a sneaking idea sir lionel would perhaps be strolling about with a cigarette, looking nice and slim, and young, and soldierly in his dinner jacket. he is nicer to look at in that than in almost anything else, i think, as most englishmen are. he wasn't there, however, so i had to admire his cornish sunset without him. and i had such fine thoughts about it, too!--at least they seemed fine to me; and if i weren't quite a congenial friend of my own it would have seemed a waste of good material to lavish them on myself alone. i saw through the open door of the sunset, into arthur's kingdom, where he still rules, you know, and is lord of all. the whole west was a field-of-the-cloth-of-gold, and across the blaze of golden glory rode dark shapes of cloud, purple and crimson, violet and black. they were arthur's knights tilting in tournament, while the queen of beauty and her attendant ladies looked on. now and then, as i watched, a knight fell, and a horse tore away riderless, his gold-'broidered trappings floating on the wind. when this happened, out of the illumined sea would writhe a glittering dragon, or scaly heraldic beast, to prance or fly along the horizon after the vanishing charger of the fallen knight. sometimes the rushing steed would swim to a fairy island or siren-rock that floated silver-pale on the shining water, or jutted dark out of a creamy line of breakers; and though i knew that the knights and ladies and wondrous animals were but inhabitants of sunset kingdom, limited, and that the glimmering islands and jagged rocks would dissolve by and by into cloud-wreaths, they all looked as real as the long tongue of land beyond which north devon crouched hiding. and the colour flamed so fiercely in the sky that i was half afraid the sun must be on fire. as i sat there watching the last of the knights ride away, three people came out of the hotel and stood on the terrace. i just gave them one glance, and went back to the sunset, but somehow i got the feeling that they were looking at me, and talking about me. presently they began to walk up and down, and as they passed in front of my seat, they turned an interested gaze upon me. all i had known about them until then was that they were a trio: a man, a woman, and a boy, with conventional backs; but as they turned, i recognized the man and the woman. you would never guess who they were, so i'll tell you. do you remember the people for whom you talked italian at venice four years and a half ago, the day we arrived, and there was a strike, and no porters to carry anybody's luggage? well, here they were at tintagel! i was perfectly certain of this in an instant, and i realized why they were so interested in me. they thought they had seen me before, but perhaps were not sure. anyway, they walked on, and only the boy looked back. he was dressed in eton clothes, and was exactly like all other boys, except that he had mischievous eyes and a bored mouth--almost as dangerous a combination in a boy, i should think, as a box of matches and a barrel of gunpowder. i thought that he was probably their son, and that, as he had nothing better to do, he was wondering about me. i would have given a lot to know what they were saying, and whether venice was in their minds or not, but i could do nothing except hope they might not place me mentally. i wouldn't get up and go in, because that would have been too cowardly; and besides, if they were staying in the hotel, i should certainly run up against them afterward. i had just decided to face it out, and had put on a forbidding expression, when along came sir lionel, so i had to take off the expression and fold it away for future emergencies. he was smoking one of those cigarettes which go so well with sunsets, and he had seen the king arthur sky-tournament from the other side of the house. he said he had not supposed i should be down so soon, but was hoping that i hadn't missed the show, wherever i was. he threw away his cigarette--which is one of his old-fashioned tricks if he sees a woman, never even waiting to know if she minds--and asked if he might sit on the seat by me. that was old-fashioned, too, wasn't it? the dick burdens of the world plump themselves down by girls without worrying to get permission. they think female things will be too flattered for words, by a condescending male desire to be near them. i told you how nice sir lionel looks in evening clothes, didn't i? you've no idea what a perfect shape his head is; and a large lake of white shirt under a little black silk bow is particularly becoming to a clean-shaven man with a very tanned skin--though i don't know why. one would think it might have the opposite effect. and sir lionel does tie his necktie so nicely, with a kind of careless precision which comes right of itself, like everything he does. (you will think all this is silly, and it is; but i keep noticing things about him, and liking them, so i tell you, because i may have prejudiced you against him at first, as ellaline prejudiced me.) we were beginning to have a good talk about cornwall, and quaint cornish ways and superstitions, when out of the house came mrs. senter. the venice people had just passed again, and were near the hotel door as she appeared. "why, sallie and george!" she exclaimed. and "why, gwen!" the venice lady answered. they shook hands, the boy and all, and though sir lionel didn't pay much attention to what was going on, i couldn't keep up our conversation. "suppose they tell mrs. senter they met me in venice!" i said to myself. "what _shall_ i do?" out of one corner of my eye i saw that they did speak of me, and she threw a quick, eager glance in my direction. a minute or two later they all strolled on together, until they had come in front of our seat. there mrs. senter paused, and said, "sir lionel, these are my friends, mr. and mrs. tyndal, of whom i think i must have spoken to you, and this is their cousin, mr. tom tyndal. they are touring in their motor, and arrived here this afternoon, a little before us. quite a coincidence, isn't it?" and then, as if on second thoughts, she added me to the introduction. "quite a coincidence," indeed! it never rains, but it pours coincidences, on any head that is developing a criminal record. the tyndals paid sir lionel compliments, and seemed to be delighted to meet him, evidently regarding him as a great celebrity, which, i suppose, he really is. then, when they had made him sufficiently uncomfortable (compliments are to him what a sudden plague of locusts would be to most men), they turned to me. "surely we have met before, miss lethbridge?" remarked mrs. tyndal. and you ought to have seen how mrs. senter's features sharpened, as she waited for me to stammer or blush. as far as the blush was concerned, she had her money's worth; and i only didn't stammer because i was obliged to stop and think before replying. i almost worshipped sir lionel when he answered for me, in a quick, positive way he has, which there seems no gainsaying. i suppose men who live in the east cultivate that, as it keeps natives from arguing and answering back. "impossible," said he, "unless it was at versailles, where my ward has been at school since she was a very small child, with no holidays except at st. cloud." "mightn't it have been at paris?" obligingly suggested mrs. senter, determined i shouldn't be let off, if conviction of any sort were possible. "no, i don't think it was at paris," murmured mrs. tyndal, reflectively, eyeing me in the sunset light, which was turning to pure amethyst. "now, where _could_ it have been? i seem to associate your face with--with italy." oh, my goodness! she _was_ getting "warm" in our game of "hide the handkerchief." "she has never been to italy," said sir lionel, beginning to look rather cross, as if mrs. tyndal were taking liberties with his belongings--of which, you see, he thinks me one. "not even--venice?" she persisted. "oh, yes, _that_ is it! now i know where i seem to have seen you--at venice. you remember, don't you, george?" by this time sparks had lighted up in sir lionel's eyes, as if he were a turk, and one of the ladies of his harem were unjustly suspected. "it is impossible for mr. tyndal to remember what didn't happen," he said, dropping a lump of ice into his voice. "you saw someone who looked like her in venice, perhaps, but not my ward." i was almost sorry for the poor tyndals, who meant no harm, though they had the air of being so frightfully rich and prosperous that it seemed ridiculous to pity them. "of course, it could only have been a resemblance," said mr. tyndal, with that snubby glare at mrs. tyndal which husbands and wives keep for each other. "it must have been," she responded, taking up her cue; for naturally they didn't want to begin their acquaintance with a distinguished person by offending him. these signs of docility caused sir lionel to relent and come down off his high horse. whenever he has been at all haughty or impatient with his sister (whose denseness would sometimes try a saint) he is sorry in a minute, and tries to be extra nice. it was the same now in the case of the poor tyndals, whose etonian cousin had all the time been gazing up at him with awed adoration, as of a hero on a pedestal; and suddenly a quaint thought struck me. i remembered about the bengalese sir lionel was supposed to have executed for some offence or other, and i could see him being sorry immediately afterward, tearing around trying to stick their heads on again, and saying pleasant words. well, he stuck the tyndals' heads on very kindly, so that they almost forgot they'd ever been slashed off; and when mrs. norton came out, which she did in a few minutes, looking as if she'd washed the dust off her face with kitchen soap, we all strolled up and down together, till it was time for dinner. mrs. tyndal walked with me, but not a word did she say about venice. that subject was to be tabooed, but i'm far from sure she was convinced of her mistake, and she couldn't overcome her intense interest in my features. however, she seems good-natured, as if even to please mrs. senter she wouldn't care to do me a bad turn. only, i don't think people do things from motives as a rule, do you? they just suddenly find they want to do them, and presto, the things are done! that's why the world's so exciting. we chatted non-committally of cabbages and kings and automobiles; and i recalled tracing pneu-tracks like illusive lights and shadows before us on the damp road, as we spun into tintagel. no doubt they were the pneus of the tyndals. their table was next ours in the dining room, so close that motor-chat was tossed back and forth, and it appeared that mr. tyndal was as proud of his car as a cat of its mouse. mrs. tyndal's mice are her jewels, and she has droves of them, which she displayed at dinner. afterward she did lace-work, which made her rings gleam beautifully, and she said she didn't particularly like doing it, but it was something to "kill time." how awful! but i suppose frightfully rich people are like that. they sometimes get fatty degeneration of the soul. well, nothing more happened that evening, except that the tyndal boy and i made great friends--quite a nice boy, pining for some mischief that idle hands might do; and his cousins said that, as we were going to stop several days at tintagel, "making it a centre," they would stop, too. sir lionel didn't appear overjoyed at the decision, but mrs. senter seemed glad. she and her sister, mrs. burden, have known the tyndals for years, and are by way of being friends, yet she works off her little firework epigrams against them when their backs are turned, as she does on everybody. according to her, their principal charm for society in london is their cook; and she says the art treasures in their house are all illegitimate; near-gobelin, not-quite-raphaels, and so on. she makes sir lionel smile; but i wonder if she'd adopt this cheap method if he'd ever mentioned to her (as he has to me) that of all meannesses he despises disloyalty? the tyndal boy went up to bed before the rest of us, and when sir lionel and mrs. norton had been forced to play bridge with mrs. senter and mr. tyndal, i slipped away, too. we'd lived in the hotel such a short time, and it's so big, that i counted on recognizing my room by the boots which i put outside the door when i went down to sunset and dinner. of course, i'd forgotten my number, as i always do. i wouldn't consider myself a normal girl if i didn't. there were the boots, not taken away yet--looking abject, as boots do in such situations--but i was pleased to see that they compared favourably in size with the gray alligator-skin and patent leather eccentricities of mrs. senter, reposing on an adjacent doormat. with this frivolous reflection in my mind, it didn't occur to me, as i turned the handle of the door marked by my brown footgear, that the room now appeared farther to the left, along the passage, than i had the impression of its being. i opened the door, which was not locked, walked in, felt about for the electric light, switched it on, and had sauntered over to a table in the centre of the room before i noticed anything strange. then, to my startled vision appeared unfamiliar brushes and combs on a chest of drawers; beautiful, but manly looking silver-backed ones; and along the wall was a row of flat tweed legs, on stretchers. for an instant i stood still, bewildered, as if i'd walked into a dream, beguiled by a false clue of boots; and during my few seconds of temporary aberration my dazed eyes fell upon a book which lay on the table. it was sir lionel's "morte d'arthur" (second volume; he's lent me the first), and in it for a marker was a _glove of mine_. i'd lost it at torquay, after we had our dear, good talk, and he knew i was looking for it, all about the sitting room we had at the hotel there, yet he never said a word. oh, dear little french mother, you can't think what an odd feeling it gave me to see he had kept my glove, and had put it in his book! yes, i believe you _can_ think, too, because probably you've felt just like that yourself when you were a girl, only you never thought it _convenable_ to describe your symptoms for your daughter's benefit. i know it was perfectly schoolgirlish of me, and i ought to have outgrown such sentimentality with my teens; but if you could see sir lionel, and understand the sort of man he is, you wouldn't think me so outrageous. that he--he, of all men--should care to keep anything which would remind him of an insignificant child like me! i'm afraid there came a prickly feeling in my eyelids, and i had the most idiotic desire to kiss the book, which i knew would have a nice smell of his cigarettes, because my borrowed volume has. of course, i wouldn't have done it for anything, though, so don't think i'm worse than i am. and really, really, i don't believe i'm exactly in love. i hope i'm not so foolish. it's just a kind of infatuated fascination of a moth--not for a candle, but for a great, brilliant motor lamp. i've seen them at night dashing themselves against the glass of our bleriots once or twice when we've been out late, and i know how hopelessly they smash their soft, silly wings. i should have been like them if i'd kissed the book; but instead, after that one look which told me the glove really was _my_ glove, i bounced out of the room, snatching my boots up as i dashed across the threshold. bump! as i did so i almost telescoped with sir lionel who had retrieved his boots, probably from my doormat. and at the same moment came a boyish yelp from somewhere, followed by the smart slap of a door shutting. i wished it had been a smart slap of my hand on the tyndal boy's ear, for of course the boot-changing was that little fiend's work, i guessed in a second. so did sir lionel, and we both laughed--at ourselves, at each other, and everything. it seems that the youthful horror had changed every pair of boots along the corridor, and made the most weird combinations. i don't suppose sir lionel thought about the glove in the book, anyway at the time, and luckily there was nothing tell-tale in my room, in case he strayed in, except your photograph in the silver frame you gave me on my last birthday. and of course he could make nothing of that. he had got out of playing bridge, because when mrs. tyndal saw he wasn't keen, she offered to take a hand, and he said he did want to write to a man in bengal, his best friend. we talked to each other only a few minutes, after the boot-puzzle had been put right; but would you believe it, up came mrs. senter, while sir lionel and i were bidding each other good night in front of my door? she looked as stiff and wicked as a frozen snake for an instant; then she smiled too sweetly, and said she'd come for her spanish lace mantilla. but i almost know she had fancied that sir lionel might have made an excuse to get a word with me, and had flown up to find out for herself. you can imagine, dear, that i didn't feel much like going to bed when i'd finished saying good-night, and shut my door upon the world. it seemed to me that this birthplace of sir lionel's ancestor, king arthur pendragon, was too romantic and wonderful to go tamely to sleep in. and what was my covered balcony for, if not to dream dreams and think thoughts, by moonlight? so i switched off the electricity in my room, and went out to find that the moon (which is big and grand now) had come out, too, tearing apart a great black cloud in order to look down on arthur-land, and see if she had any adorers. anyway, she must have seen me, for she turned the night into silver dawn, so clear and bright that she couldn't have missed me if she tried. i did wish for you to be with me then, and i'm ashamed to confess i wouldn't have minded sir lionel as a companion, because tintagel seems so much more his than mine. never did i hear the sea talk poetry and legend as it does round those dark rocks of old "dundagel." i thought as i leaned out from my balcony, a lonely, unappreciated juliet--that the sound was like the chanting voice of an ancient bard, telling stories of the golden days to himself or to all who might care to listen. i fancied i could hear the words: they found a naked child upon the sands of dark dundagel by the cornish sea. i could see the ruined castle, on its twin cliffs, below the hotel-castle cliff and between me and the sea; and the very meagreness of what remains seemed to increase the interest and mystery by stimulating the imagination, forcing it to create its own pictures. i "reconstructed" the castle, building it of the same stone they use now at tintagel, and have used for the last thousand years or so; a dark stone, singularly rich with colour--pansy and wallflower colour, with splashes of green flung on to dead gray, like bright autumn leaves stirred into a heap of other leaves dim and dead. and the mortar for my masonry was the moonlight which flooded the sea and those wide downs whose divisions into fields turned them into enormous maps. i worked myself up into such a romantic mood that i almost cried in the joy and pain of living, and expected to look back upon myself with the "utmost spurn" when i should come back to real life after a good sleep in the morning. but i didn't,--perhaps because, instead of encouraging the good sleep, i lay and listened to the wild song of the cornish wind. i waked early, feeling exactly the same, if not more so, and could hardly wait to get down into the ruins of the old castle. i splashed about in a cold bath, dressed as quickly as a well-groomed girl can, and then--i committed what might seem an indiscreet act if the last of the pendragons and i did not stand toward each other in the place of guardian and ward. "nothing is, but thinking makes it so." and sir lionel certainly does think we're in those positions; therefore it was all right for me to knock at his door, and ask through the keyhole if he would very, very much mind taking me to the castle? he was dressed, and opened the door instantly. it was the one thing he would have liked to propose, said he, only he had been afraid of disturbing me so early. wasn't that kind of him? i remembered the glove, and the thought of it was more delicious than a breakfast of cornish cream and honey; although, of course, lurking in the background of my mind was the horrid idea that he might have accidentally picked the thing up to use as a bookmark. and another idea, gloomier even, though not so horrid, was that, even if he does like me well enough to keep things of mine, he must soon grow to hate me when he knows who i am. he suggested coffee, but i wouldn't have it, because i was afraid mrs. senter might appear and want to go to the castle too. i had visions of her, hearing our voices in the corridor, and dashing out of bed to fling on her clothes; but even if she did overhear the whole conversation, i don't think she's the kind who looks her best before breakfast, if she has dressed in a hurry; and anyway, we were spared the apparition. it was a fine scramble getting to the ruins, and when sir lionel had opened a door (with a key you get from a cottage close by the sea) it was quite as if he were my host, entertaining me in his ancestral home. i told him that it felt twice as interesting to be there with a true pendragon, than with a mere king or anybody like that, and he seemed pleased. "i _hope_ i am a 'true' pendragon," he said, rather thoughtfully. "one must try to be--always." he looked at me very, very kindly, as if he would have liked to say something more; but he didn't speak, and turned away his eyes to look far over the sea. it was only for a little while, though, that he was absent-minded. sitting there on the rough, wind-blown grass which is the floor of the castle now, he told me things about the place and its history. how dundagel meant the "safe castle," and how the "arthurian believers" say it was built by the britons in earliest roman days; how david bruce of wales was entertained by the earl of cornwall on the very spot where we were sitting, and how the great hall, once famous, was destroyed as long ago as when chaucer was a baby. and as he talked, the rising wind wailed and sobbed like old, old witches crying over the evil fallen on arthur and his castle. such an old, wise-sounding wind it was, old enough to have been blowing when arthur was a baby, drowning the lullabies sung by his mother igerna, "that greatest beauty in britain." we forgot breakfast, and stopped in the ruins a long time, until suddenly we both realized that we were desperately hungry. but instead of going up to our own hotel, we walked into the quaint village (whose real name is trevena, though nobody calls it that) and had something to eat at a hotel where sir lionel used to stop occasionally when he was a boy. afterward, we went to see the village schoolmaster, whom he knew; such a nice man, who paints pictures as well as teaches the children--and i felt guilty at being introduced as sir lionel's "ward." i think my conscience is like a bruised peach, pinched by many fingers to see if it's ripe, i have that guilty feeling so often! when we spoke of the schoolmaster's versatility, he laughed and said it was "nothing to his predecessor's," who used to cut the children's hair, clip horses, measure land, act as parish clerk as well as teacher, pull teeth, and beat such transgressors as had to be punished in a way less serious than prison. doesn't that take one back to long ago? but so does everything in tintagel--and all over cornwall, sir lionel says. they have such nice old-fashioned words here! isn't "jingle" good? it's some kind of a conveyance, exactly the opposite of a motor-car, i fancy, from the description. and i like the word "huer," too. it means a man who gives the hue and cry when the pilchards are coming in, and all the fishermen must run to the sea. i should like to know everything about cornwall, from the smugglers, and the famous wrestlers, to the witches--the last of whom lives near boscastle still. but the little that travellers in motors can learn about places steeped in history, is like trying to know all about a beautiful great tree by one leaf of flying gold which falls into the automobile as it sweeps by, along the road. still, the little one does learn is unforgettable, impressed upon the mind in a different way from the mere _learning_. and i suppose few people know everything about every place, even in their own countries. if they did, i'm sure they'd be prigs, and no one would want to know _them_! when we got back to our hotel castle on the cliff, the tyndals' motor was at the door, a huge, gorgeous chariot, and nothing would do but we must "try the car." mrs. senter had promised to go, and was putting on her hat. the tyndals are difficult people to resist, because if you try to make excuses they pin you down in one way or another, so that you must either do what they want or hurt their feelings; and though sir lionel is supposed to have been so strict in bengal, he is quite soft-hearted in england. i think he hates going about in motors that aren't his, because he enjoys being the man at the helm, which is perhaps characteristic of him; however, the tyndals swept all of us, except mrs. norton, away to delabole to see the slate quarries, and to have the adventure of sliding down a fearfully steep incline in a tiny trolley-car--if that's the right word for it. i half expected charon to meet me with his ferry-boat at the bottom. it wouldn't have seemed much stranger than other things in cornwall. all that happened yesterday. to-day we have been to trebarwith strand and port isaac, and have walked to the loneliest church i ever saw, with the gravestones in the burying ground propped by buttresses, that the wind mayn't throw them down. it is tintagel church, though it's a good long way from the village, and the vicarage is of the fourteenth century. oh, and i heard a splendid legend about the ruined castle from the vicar, who is its warden! it seems, when it was built by the old princes of west wales--very beautiful as well as strong, with walls "painted of many colours," it was placed under a powerful spell by merlin, that it might become invisible twice in every year. how i should like to be at tintagel at the right time, and see if the ruins would disappear from before my eyes. i believe they would; and the enchantment would take the form of a sea mist. to-morrow we are to leave cornwall for bideford. i had got as far as that, when mrs. senter knocked at my door, and asked if she might come in for a few minutes; so i had to say yes, and "smile full well in counterfeited glee." but i hated to be interrupted, as there was just time before dressing for dinner to finish my letter to you. now it is after dinner, and before i go to bed, i'll tell you what has happened. how conceited i was to suppose it possible that sir lionel thought me an important person! i am sure the glove episode must have been a mere accident. serves me right! mrs. senter came to tell me that they'd all been talking about the way to bideford, and sir lionel said the road was so hilly, he wished we hadn't quite as many passengers in the car. then the tyndals asked if they might take me, because they'd made up their minds to go to bideford too, and sir lionel answered that it would be a splendid way out of the difficulty if i were willing. the only trouble was, he didn't like to propose such a thing for fear of hurting my feelings; and the conversation ended, according to mrs. senter, by the tyndals planning to suggest the idea to me as if it were their own, then letting the matter rest on my decision. mrs. senter went on to explain that sir lionel didn't know she was repeating to me what had passed, but that she thought i would prefer to know. "i'm sure _i_ should if i were in your place," she purred sweetly. "when the tyndals invite you, of course you must do exactly as you please; but don't you think for mrs. norton's sake, as she's such a coward, it would be best to keep the car as light as possible, since sir lionel fears the roads are really bad?" "oh, certainly," said i, trying so hard not to blush that i must have been purple. "i shall be delighted to go with mr. and mrs. tyndal, in their lovely car, and it's very nice of them to ask me." "you _won't_ tell sir lionel i interfered, will you?" she begged. "i should be quite afraid of him if he were angry." "you needn't worry. he shan't hear anything from me," said i. "and you do think i was right to let you know?" she implored. "of course," i assured her. but i was feeling hurt all the way up to my topmost hair and down to my tipmost toe. not that i mind going with the tyndals, but that sir lionel should pick _me_ out as the bit of superfluous ballast to cast to the winds! that was what made me feel cold and old, and alone in the world. i conscientiously told myself that i was the youngest of the party, and the right one to sacrifice; but nothing was much comfort until the thought jumped into my head that maybe mrs. senter had fibbed. i went to dinner buoyed up by that hope, but it died young; for the tyndals _did_ invite me, in sir lionel's hearing; and when i said that i should be charmed--he smiled calmly. so far from making objections, i thought he looked quite pleased. poor me! i fancied in the castle ruins that he actually liked my society. but i forgot that i'd invited him to go with me. _i shan't forget again._ and _hang_ the glove! your poor, foolish, conceited, humiliated audrie. xx telegram from dick burden to his aunt _glen lachlan, august 13th_, _8 o'clock a.m._ senter, king arthur's castle, tintagel, cornwall: returning to-day. hope find you still at tintagel. try and make pendragon stay if he plans to leave. find some excuse. dick. xxi telegram from mrs. senter to her nephew _tintagel, august 13th_, _9.20 a.m._ r. burden, glen lachlan, n. b. just starting for bideford. can make no excuse to delay, but have done better. if you arrive tintagel to-night will find member of party most important to you still there. better hurry. will leave letter explaining all. senter. xxii letter left by mrs. senter at king arthur's castle hotel, for her nephew dick burden _august 13th_ dear dick: your wire has just come as we are starting. i've telegraphed, and will leave a few words for you in pencil. lucky you have a resourceful relative, and that mrs. norton's washing didn't come till late this morning! my resourcefulness enables me to change my plans for your benefit, or rather, to make them work together for your good, in the time most women take to change their minds; while the lateness of mrs. n.'s washing and her mild obstinacy in determining to wait for it, against her brother's wishes, provide us with a few extra minutes. now it suddenly appears that young nick hasn't enough petrol to get on as far as--anywhere. that will give us more minutes. brown buddha, as your adored one calls him, has crawled humbly but swiftly off to obtain a new supply. sir lionel, already in a vile temper for reasons which i may have time to explain, is bursting with rage to which he is too proud to give a natural outlet. he looks ready to explode, not with bombs, but with dambs. i have never heard him say a single one, during the whole of our acquaintance, but his eyes are sending out a fiery cataract of them this minute. a good thing for me he doesn't know what i know, or the fire would be turned upon me, and i should wither like "she" in her second bath. quickly i'll tell you what i've done, and why sir lionel is wild; also how i've rearranged everything and everybody at the last minute, in order to satisfy you. what a precious darling aunt you have got, to be sure, and what a lot you do owe her! for motives of my own, i planned to transplant your sweet ellaline from our motor-car to the motor-car of others for the day. the "others" are george and sallie tyndal, about whose sudden, apropos appearance i wrote your mother only yesterday; but, of course, as you're leaving to-day you'll miss the news in that letter. i thought your anxiety for your parent's health would hardly be poignant enough to keep you in scotland long, but i didn't suppose you'd be able to tear yourself away _quite_ so soon. i don't doubt you wonder how it can be possible for me to have too much of dear e.'s society, but strange as that may seem, it can; and worse than that, i dislike sir lionel getting too much of it. i don't think it is good for him; and he's had enough of the commodity since we've been in tintagel to produce, according to my point of view and yours, disastrous effects. i decided that drastic measures were necessary for both our sakes, and with me to decide is to act--when anything really important is at stake. first i persuaded the tyndals that it would be kindly to invite miss lethbridge to travel in their motor to bideford, whither they also are bound. i said that sir lionel feared we would be rather a crowd for his car, as the roads are supposed to be bad. this flattered them, for their motor, which is somewhat more powerful than ours, is the one object for which they live at present. besides, they were delighted at the chance of getting the girl to themselves, as they think they met her years ago in italy, where it is alleged she has never been. some school girl escapade, perhaps. you had better do a little catechising, later on. meanwhile, the tyndals yearn for the opportunity of pumping. sir lionel has quite fiercely prevented them from doing so, up to date. he looked ready to challenge poor george to a duel the other evening for merely suggesting that they might have met miss lethbridge in venice. to sir l. i hinted that ellaline was bored, now that you were gone, and that she would enjoy the change of travelling for a day with new people; that she had taken a fancy to the tyndal boy; and i added that she had asked me privately whether i thought that sir lionel would object to her accepting, provided the tyndals wanted her to go to bideford. naturally, when the invitation came, he did _not_ object. you'd have laughed if you could have seen her face when he smiled with apparent benevolent delight upon the suggestion. the sight would have repaid you for many a snub, my poor love-sick swain! that was where matters stood till your telegram came, a few minutes ago. all i hoped for was, to get rid of the dear child for one long, happy day, and to estrange her a little (partly for your sake) from her solicitous guardian. but your wire set another bee humming in my motor-bonnet. i determined to do you a good turn if i could; so i flew up, before answering you, to have a talk with the tyndals. they were starting a few minutes after us, by my advice, and hadn't come downstairs yet. ellaline, too, was still in her room, sulking, no doubt, and hadn't said good-bye to sir lionel or any of us. i know that, because my room at this hotel has been close to hers--and to his, too; so whenever a word is murmured on a doorstep i hear. no word has been murmured this morning; and e. has had her breakfast sent into her bedroom. to the tyndals i said that word had arrived from you, and that in confidence i would tell them that you and miss lethbridge are as good as engaged. at least, that you had a private understanding which would be an engagement if sir lionel weren't a dog in the manger. he didn't want the girl himself, i explained, yet he didn't want to give her to anyone else--short of a millionaire. you, i went on to say, had wired that you would be back this evening, and ellaline was dying to stay and see you. sir lionel didn't know you were coming, i confessed, and would be angry if he did; but if they--the tyndals--could somehow misunderstand the arrangements made overnight, and in the confusion of their minds leave miss lethbridge behind, it would be a great favour to everyone concerned--except sir lionel. the tyndals, who think a lot of themselves because they have more money than brains, are annoyed with sir l. because he snapped at them about venice; so they were rather pleased at the idea of doing him a bad turn and at the same time advancing love's young dream. when i assured them it would be easy to say that they understood ellaline had changed her mind and was going with sir lionel, they agreed to slip off without her about half an hour after the flight of apollo. that is the plan, as it stands, up to date. sir lionel and mrs. norton won't know till this evening at bideford that e. isn't with the tyndals; and then of course i shall get george and sallie out of his bad graces as well as i can. meanwhile you will find her at tintagel, and can bring her on by rail. that will be delightful for you; and as sir lionel is old-fashioned in some of his notions, he may be more inclined to consent to an engagement between you after the sort of journey you and she will have together. so i think all interests will have been served. i am writing in the big hall of the hotel, and sir lionel is walking up and down, glaring first out of one window, and then out of another, at the rain, which is beginning to come down in drops as large as half-crowns. i only wish _my_ half crowns, or even my shillings, were as plentiful! but perhaps they will be, some day before long--who knows? i do hope ellaline won't take it into her head to appear at the last minute before we get off, and complicate things. not that i won't be equal to disposing of her if she does! but no! here is young nick, very meek and soapy. he has got his petrol. emily norton reluctantly puts down a twenty-year-old volume of blackwood which she has found in the hotel library. we are off. good-bye--and good luck. gwen. xxiii audrie brendon to her mother _tintagel_, _august 13th_ dearest lodestar: i can feel you drawing me across miles of land and sea, and if only i could travel on a telepathic pass i would start this minute, ellaline or no ellaline. toward her and sir lionel i feel as mercutio felt toward the montagus and capulets: "a plague on both your houses!" nobody seems to care what becomes of me. why should i care what becomes of them? everything is too horrid and too extraordinary to-day. i got into the wrong side of bed last night, and got out again on the wrong side this morning. it happened to be the only side there was, as the bed stands against the wall in an alcove, where it can't be pulled out; and nobody could expect me to bound like a kangaroo over the foot, could they? but there are times in life when every side of everything is wrong; and this is one of those times with me--has been since dinner last night, when sir lionel grinned with joy at the prospect of shunting me upon the tyndal family for a day. (when you are friends with people they smile; when you are out with them, they grin.) well, this morning i thought i wouldn't hurry to get down. i felt, if mrs. senter beamed at me from under her becoming motor-hat at starting, i should do her a mischief, and if emily smirked inoffensively i should throw murray in her face. as for sir lionel--words fail to express what i believed myself capable of doing to him. i could have stolen his car, in which he appeared to grudge me a seat, and have gone off with it into space to be a motor pirate. whence can i have inherited these vicious tendencies? truly, i never supposed i had them before; but you don't know yourself until people have practically accused you of taking up too much room in their old automobiles, although you're perfectly aware that you are less than eighteen inches wide at your broadest part in your thickest frock, and you thought they liked your society and kept your gloves. in that mood i wouldn't have condescended to see apollo off if he'd been twice a god, armed with an invitation for me from juno to a house-party on olympus. no sooner, however, did i hear his dear familiar purr as he swept away from the door of the hotel (my balcony is a corner one, and i could just catch the well-known c-r-r-r) when i regretted intensely that i hadn't been _en evidence_, looking indifferent. suddenly, i suffered pangs of apprehension lest my stopping in my room had seemed like (what it really was) a fit of the sulks; but it was past repentance-time. apollo was gone, mrs. senter doubtless sitting by sir lionel's side as usual, and probably commenting wittily on my silly conduct. the tyndals told me last night that they meant to start at ten, so i went downstairs five minutes before, too late to have to wait about, too early to be called. i expected to find them in the hall, and when they weren't there, i strolled out to see if the motor had come to the door, thinking they might be watching the loading up of their luggage. as for mine, apollo had taken it as usual, except a pretty little fitted handbag, small and wonderfully convenient, which sir lionel came across in a shop and bought for me (i mean for ellaline) at torquay. but there wasn't a tyndal in sight, and not so much as the smell of a motor-car, so i wandered inside and asked the handsome landlady, whom i met near king arthur's round table, whether she had seen the tyndal automobile or its owners. "why," said she, "they went off about ten minutes ago." "went off--where?" i asked blankly. "to bideford, i think they were going," she replied. "that can't be, for i was to have gone with them," said i. "indeed?" exclaimed the landlady, polite but puzzled. "i didn't know. i thought you had gone with your own party. i was surprised to meet you here just now. i'm afraid there must have been some misunderstanding, for certainly mr. and mrs. tyndal and their young cousin have really gone, because they bade me good-bye here in the hall, and said they hoped to come back some day." she looked at me pityingly, and i felt exactly like robinson crusoe before he knew there was going to be a friday; but, like him, i kept a stiff upper lip. i am happy to say i even laughed. "well, that's very funny," said i, as if being pigeon-holed by sir lionel and marooned by the tyndals was the most amusing experience in the world, and i simply delighted in it. "of course, somebody or other will count noses and miss me after a while. then they'll have to come back and fetch me, i suppose." "you could go on to bideford by rail, if you liked," the landlady informed me gratuitously. "there is a train early this afternoon, and----" "oh, i think i'd better wait here," i said. "if they came back and found me gone, it would be too complicated." she agreed; but she little guessed how much more complicated it would be to take a train for anywhere without any pennies. if i had money, i would go to _you_, and not to bideford. at least, that is the way i feel now; but i suppose i wouldn't, for my obligations to ellaline haven't snapped with the strain of the situation, although just at this moment they don't seem to matter. it's only deep down in my heart that i know they do matter. there is my scrape, dearest of women, and mamma whom i would select if i were able to choose among all eligible mothers since eve, up to date. the situation hasn't changed in the least, to the time of writing, except that it has lasted longer, and got frayed round the edges. i was paid for, including food and lodging, until after breakfast. it is now half-past five o'clock p.m., pouring with rain, howling with wind, and not only has nobody come back to collect me, but nobody has telephoned or telegraphed. i have eaten, or pretended to eat, a luncheon, for which i have no money to pay. i refused tea, but was so kindly urged that i had to reconsider; and the buttered toast of servitude is at this moment sticking in my throat, lodged on the sharp edge of an unuttered sob. your poor, forlorn little daughter! what is to become of her? will she have to go to the place of unclaimed parcels? or will she be sold as bankrupt stock? or will she become a kitchen-maid or "tweeny" in king arthur's castle? but don't worry, darling. i won't be such a beast as to post this letter till something is settled, somehow, even if i have to rob the hotel till. there is nothing to do except write, for i can't compose my mind to read; so i will continue recording my emotions, as french criminals do when condemned to death, or lovesick ladies when they have swallowed slow poison. 5.50.--rain worse. wind yelling imprecations. i sit in the hall, as i can't call my room my own. new people are arriving. they look cook-ey, but are probably countesses. i gaze at them haughtily, and try to appear prosperous. i hope they think my mother, the duchess, is taking a nap in our magnificent suite upstairs, while i write a letter to my godfather, the prince, to thank him for his birthday gift of a rope of pearls which reaches to my knees. 6.15.--the landlady has just been sympathizing with me. she says there is a night train to bideford. i have poured cold water upon the night train to bideford, and came near pouring some hot tears on the timetable she kindly brought me. 6.25.--people are going up to dress for dinner. they are god's creatures, but i do not love them. 6.40.--the head-waiter has just fluttered up to ask if i would like a smaller table for dinner. no table would be too small for my appetite. i said---7.10.--darling, sir lionel has come back for me, alone, dripping wet, and it was all a mistake, and he did want me, and he's furious with everybody in the world except me, to whom he is perfectly adorable. and i'm afraid i adore him. and we're starting at once, when we've had a sandwich and coffee--can't wait for dinner. everything is _too_ nice. i'll explain as soon as i've time to write. your radiant transformation scene, a. b. xxiv audrie brendon to her mother _the luttrell arms, dunster_, _aug. 18th_ duck of the universe: five days since i wrote, and it seems five minutes. but i did telegraph--with my last shilling; and even that would be rightfully ellaline's, if the labourer weren't worthy of his hire. you see, after the letter i had from her in torquay, when she wanted money to go to scotland with her new friends, the mcnamaras, i very reluctantly screwed my courage to the asking point, and got more out of sir lionel. if he weren't the most generous man in the world he would have privately dubbed me "oliver twist" by this time. perhaps he has! but i trust not. anyhow, i shall get on without more requests, i hope, until the next "allowance" day comes round; or until every pin is lost and every hairpin has dropped out. because in the telegram i was forced to be economical, and ran only to "all well. love" ("much" scratched out as an extravagance), i must now go back to the moment of sir lionel's unexpected, almost miraculous, appearance at tintagel. there i was in the hall, scribbling dolefully about my symptoms. "teuf, teuf, teuf!" heard outside, between screeches of wind. in bounces sir lionel, wet as a merman, dripping rivulets at every step, splashing, swashing in his boots, drops dripping from his eyelashes; glares around, looking ready to bite someone's head off without salt or sauce; sees me; brightens with a watery gleam; comes toward me, rather shy and stiff, yet evidently under the influence of--emotion of some sort. i didn't know whether to expect a scolding or a blessing, so waited speechless. "what a brute you must think me," was his first remark. i drank it as a thirsty traveller lost on the sahara would bolt a pint of dew. "i didn't know what to think," i replied conservatively. "but you are wet, aren't you?" "am i?" he asked, mildly surprised. "i hadn't noticed. i suppose i am. it's raining." "i should think it was," said i. and then we both laughed. it is the nicest thing, to laugh with sir lionel! whatever he might have done against me, i forgave him all instantly. "never mind whether i'm wet or dry," he went on. "whichever i am, it won't hurt me. the only thing that has hurt was thinking of you being here--abandoned. by jove!--i've been in a murderous mood!" "a good thing you weren't back in bengal," said i, mildly. he looked at me with a sharp look. "who has been telling you tales about me in bengal?" "i sometimes read newspapers," i explained. "schoolgirls have no business with newspapers. but hang bengal! i want to come to an understanding with you. is it true or is it not that you wanted to go with the tyndals in their motor to-day?" "i wanted to, if you wanted me to." "i didn't. i hated the idea. but, of course, if you----" "_i_ didn't. i hated the idea. but i thought your motor was too full for such hilly country." (dearest, i longed to tell him who had said that _he_ had said, etc., etc.; but i'd promised; and one must keep one's promises even to cats.) "my dear child," sir lionel burst out, "little girls shouldn't do too much independent thinking. it's bad for their health and their guardians' tempers. if my motor had been too full for hilly country, you wouldn't have been the jonah to cast into the sea. nick would have been fed to the whales. but the idea was ridiculous--ridiculous!" i was so happy, i didn't even want to defend myself. i understood most of the mystery now. i suppose it's a compliment to a girl if a woman of the world wants to get rid of her. anyhow, i consoled myself for hours of misery by laying that flattering unction to my soul. if i had liked, i could have unravelled the whole tangle for sir lionel's still puzzled mind; but if i had done so, i should have been returning cat-claw for cat-claw; so i pretended to be "lost in it, my lord"; and, indeed, it was true that i couldn't understand why the tyndals had failed me. sir lionel explained that, just before reaching bideford the silencer worked loose, and so got upon mrs. norton's nerves that apollo was stopped in the pouring rain for young nick to right the wrong. as if to prove the truth of the proverb, "the more haste the less speed," in his hurry poor buddha burnt his hand. while he was wringing it like a distracted goblin, along came the tyndal car, which had left tintagel about half an hour after apollo. to sir lionel's amazement, no me! questions on his part; according to him, idiotic answers on the part of the tyndals. _he_ had thought, of course, i was going with them. _they_ had thought that i'd changed my mind, and gone earlier with him. everybody confused, apologetic, repeating the same silly excuses over and over, three or four times. nobody showing the slightest sign of having a remnant of common sense. "by jove! i could have cheerfully executed the lot of them--all but the boy, who seemed to have some glimmerings of sanity," grumbled sir lionel. "he had wanted to run up and knock at your door, to make sure you really had gone; but somebody--he began to say who, when mrs. tyndal stepped on his foot--forbade him to do it." i think i can guess who the somebody was, can't you? though i don't see what arguments she can have used to persuade the really good-natured tyndals to abandon me. the rest of the story is, that when sir lionel found i had been left behind, he said he would at once turn back and fetch me. judging from one or two things he let slip inadvertently, i fancy he wanted emily to come with him, but she drew the line at chaperoning in wet weather, and missing her tea. she proposed telegraphing for me to come on by rail. sir lionel wouldn't hear of my making such a journey unaccompanied--me, a simple little french schoolgirl who had never travelled alone in her life! then mrs. senter, kind creature, volunteered to be his companion, if he must return; but sir lionel firmly refused the unselfish offer, saying he wouldn't for the world put her to so much unnecessary trouble. nick he would have brought, but the unfortunate brown image was suffering so much pain from his burnt hand, that the only humane thing to do was to drive him to a doctor's--which was exactly what sir lionel did. rooms were already engaged at the royal hotel; he dumped out emily, mrs. senter, and the luggage there; left young nick having his hand treated; and without so much as crossing the threshold of the hotel, turned apollo's bright bonnet toward tintagel and me. rain was coming down in floods. he said nothing about that, but i knew. the storm drew down twilight like the lid of a box; the road was deep in mud; everything that could happen to delay the car did happen; once sir lionel had to mend a tire himself, and almost wished he hadn't made young nick disgorge the stolen tool; he ought to have arrived at tintagel an hour before he did; but here he was at last. and would i have a sandwich, and then start, or would i prefer to wait for dinner? i snatched at the sandwich idea, and his eye brightened. he said he only _looked_ wet, for everything was waterproof, and he was "right as rain"--which sounded too appropriate to be comfortable. we ate as the israelites of old in passover days, figuratively with our staves in our hands; at least, i had a bag in mine, and sir lionel a road book, because he'd lost his way once in his haste, and didn't want to make further mistakes. by the time we were ready to start, it was as if merlin had woven an enchantment of invisibility, not only over the castle ruins, but over the whole landscape, which was blotted out behind a white avalanche of rain. the wind howled, mingling with the boom of the sea; and altogether it was such a bewitched, walpurgis world that i tingled with excitement. sir lionel wanted to put me inside the car, but i pleaded that i had been so lonely and sad all day, i must be close to someone now. this plea instantly broke down his determination, which had been very square-chinned and firm till i happened to think of that argument. he knew my coat to be waterproof, because he chose it himself in london, and i tied on a perfectly sweet rain-hood, which i'd never needed before, because this was the only real storm we'd had. it is a crimson hood, and i knew i was nice in it, from the look of sir lionel's eyes. this was my first night run in the car, and the first time since starting on the tour that i'd sat on the front seat by his side. early as it was, it "made night," and sir lionel lit the great lamps. instantly it was as if a curtain of darkness unrolled on either side, leaving only the road clear and pale, spouting mud, and the rain in front like a silver veil floating across black velvet. i sat close to sir lionel. i can't tell you how good the sense of his nearness and protection was, and how glad i felt to know that he hadn't really wanted to send me away from him. i would have given up anything--no, _everything_ else in the world just then, for the sake of that knowledge--except, of course, your dear love. we didn't talk much, but he is one of those men to whom you don't need to talk. the silence was like that unerring kind of speech when you can't say the wrong thing if you try; and if sir lionel had said in the wind and darkness: "i have got to drive the car into the sea, and you and i must die together in five minutes," i should have answered: "very well. with you i'm not afraid." and it would have been true. the hills looked stupendous before we quite came to them; great bunchy black humps of night; but they seemed to kneel like docile elephants as we drew near, to let apollo mount upon their backs. we passed lovely old cottages, which in the strange white light of our bleriots looked flat, as stage scenery, against that wide-stretched "back-cloth" of inky velvet. it was like motoring in a dream--one of those dreams born before you've quite dropped asleep, while your eyes are still open. we tore through boscastle, and on to bude, along an empty road, with the trees flying by like torn black flags, and the rain giving a glimpse now and then of tall cliffs, as its veil blew aside. i was never so happy in my life, and when i just couldn't help saying so to sir lionel, what do you suppose he answered? "that's exactly what i was thinking." and then he added: "good girl! grand little sportswoman! i'm proud of you!" presently, once in a while the dazzling radiance of our lamps would die down and threaten to fail. at last it did fail altogether, and we were blotted out in the night, as if we had suddenly ceased to exist. "carbide all used up," explained sir lionel. by this time we were near hartland point (the promontory of hercules for the ancients) and sir lionel said that the best thing to do was to crawl on slowly until we should come to clovelly. there we could leave the car at the top of the hill, go down to the village, rouse someone at a hotel, get hot coffee, and wait until dawn, when the lamps would no longer be needed. we could distinguish nothing in the night, except a glimmer of road between dark banks, until suddenly, looking far down toward the moaning sea, we caught sight of a few lights like yellow stars which seemed to have been tossed over a precipice, and to have caught on a steep hillside, as they rolled. "that's clovelly," said sir lionel. he stopped the car on a kind of natural plateau and lifted me lightly down, so that i shouldn't splash into unseen abysses of mud. apollo would be safe there, he said, though in old days the folk of clovelly used to be not only desperate smugglers, but wreckers, and would entice ships upon the rocks by means of lure-lights. they were very different now, and as honest and kind-hearted as any people in the world. there was no dawn yet, but the wind had dropped a little, and the long crystal spears of rain seemed to bring with them an evanescent, ethereal glitter, reflected from unseen stars above the clouds. the trembling silver haze dimly showed us how to pick our way down a steep, narrow street of steps, over which fountains of water played and swirled. there were lights of boats in a little harbour, far, far below, and the extraordinary village of tiny white houses appeared to have tumbled down hill, like a broken string of pearls fallen from a goddess's neck. sir lionel held my arm to keep me from tripping, and we descended the steps slowly, the rain that sprayed against our faces smelling salt as the sea, its briny "tang" mingling with the fragrance of honeysuckle and fuchsias. the combination, distilled by the night, was intoxicating; and if i ever smell it again, even at the other end of the world, my thoughts will run back to sir lionel and the fairy village of clovelly. half-way down the cleft in the cliff, which is clovelly's one street, we stopped at a house where a faint light burned sleepily. it was the new inn, and when sir lionel knocked loudly, i was doubtful as to the reception we were likely to have at such an hour. but i needn't have worried--in devon! even if you wake people out of pleasant dreams to disagreeable realities, and demand coffee, and trail wet marks over their clean floors, they are kind and friendly. a delightful man let us in, and instead of scolding, pitied us--a great deal more than i, at any rate, needed to be pitied. he lit lights, and we saw a quaint room, whose shadows threw out unexpected gleams of polished brass, and blues and pinks of old china. though the calendar said august 13th, the temperature talked it down, and insisted on november, so an invitation into a clean, warm kitchen was acceptable. the nice man poked up the dying fire, put on wood and coals, and soon got a kettle of water to boiling. we should have some good hot coffee, he cheerily promised, before we could say "jack robinson." but when it leaked out that we had had no dinner except a sandwich at tintagel, and nothing since, his warm devonshire heart yearned over us; and to the hot coffee he added eggs and bacon. while the dear things fizzled and bubbled, we were allowed to sit by the stove and toast our feet; and if anything could have smelled more heavenly than the salt rain and sweet honeysuckle out of doors, it would have been the eggs and bacon in the new inn kitchen. we begged to eat in the kitchen, too, and even that was permitted us, at a table spread with a clean cloth which must have been put away in a lavender cupboard. by the time the coffee, with foaming hot milk, and the sizzling eggs and bacon were ready, the early daylight was blue on the window panes. the rain had stopped with the first hint of sunrise, and in clovelly at least (clovelly means "shut in valley," a name not worthy of its elfin charm) the wind had gone to sleep. i don't know how much sir lionel suggested paying for that breakfast, but it must have been something out of the way, for our devonshire benefactor protested that it was far too much. he would accept the regular price, and no more. why, we had only got him up an hour before his usual time. that was nothing. it would do him good; and he would have no extra pay. warm, comfortable, and refreshed, sir lionel and i bade our host good-bye, meaning to continue our journey to bideford; but what we saw outside was too beautiful to turn our backs upon in that unappreciative, summary fashion. it was not sunrise yet, but was just going to be sunrise, and the world seemed to be waiting for it, hushed and expectant. the white village glimmered in the pearly light, like a waterfall arrested in its rush down a cleft in a hill. not having seen clovelly, you may think that a far-fetched simile; but really it isn't. if a young cataract could be turned into a village, that would be clovelly. the marvellous little place is absolutely unique; yet if one could liken it to anything else on earth, it might be to a corner of mont st. michel, or a bit of old bellagio, going down to the sea; and certainly it is more italian than english in atmosphere and colouring, only it is perfectly clean, as clean as a toy, or a dutch village; so _that_ part of the "atmosphere" isn't entirely italian! i even saw waste-paper pots; and if that isn't like broek in waterland, what is? down in the harbour, the fishing boats lay like a flock of resting birds; and as we descended the cobbled steps of the street, to go to the shore, the early morning donkeys began to come up, laden with heavy bags and panniers, just as you and i saw them in italy, and driven by just such boys and old men as i remember there, dark-eyed, picturesque, one or two with red caps. the doors of the little low-browed houses huddled on either side opened here and there, up and down the path, giving glimpses of pretty, neat interiors; bits of old furniture, the glint of a copper kettle, a brass jug, or a bit of mended blue china. a gossipy devonshire cat came out and begged for caresses, mewing the news of the night--such a chatty creature!--and down on the beach, we made friends with the oldest man of the village, born in 1816. he was a handsome old fellow, with pathetic, faded eyes in a tanned, ruddy face; and the queer little harbour (everything is little at clovelly, except the inhabitants) with its rustic sort of pier, and red-sailed fishing boats, looked as if it had been designed entirely as a background for him. however, it's much more antique even than he--six hundred years old, instead of something short of a hundred, and made by the famous carey family. we stopped there talking to the ancient sailor-man, hearing how the clovelly fishermen go out with black nets by day in good weather, and at night with white ones, to "attract the fish." "that is trew, miss," said he, when i laughed, thinking it a joke. i love the devonshire way of saying "true," and other words that rhyme. their soft voices are as gentle, as kindly, as the murmur of their own blue sea. as we mounted the ladder-like path to the top of clovelly, to go back to apollo again, the sun came up out of the sea, where the blue line of water marked the edge of the world, and spilt floods of gold over it, like a tilted christening cup. we turned and stood still to watch the day born of dawn; and i feel sure that if we had come to clovelly to spend several weeks, i could never have learned to know the place as i had divined it, in this adventure. you seem to learn more about a flower by inhaling its perfume after rain, don't you think, than by dissecting it, petal by petal? i fancy there is something like that in getting the feeling and impression of places at their best, by sudden revelations. of course, i want to go back to clovelly, but not with any of the mrs. nortons of the world. i couldn't bear to do that, after being alone there with sir lionel. while one's heart is thrilled by exquisite sights, and the ineffable thoughts born of them, one knows poor emily is wondering whether the servants are looking after things properly at home; and that very knowledge is apt to slam down an iron shutter in one's soul. it must have been about five o'clock when we took our places in the car again. we had only eleven miles' run to bideford, and i wished them twice eleven, for surely they are among the most beautiful miles in england. no wonder people believe in fairies in this part of the world! it would be ungrateful if they didn't. as the sun climbed, the brown wood roads were inlaid with gold in wavy patterns. from our heights, now and again we caught glimpses of clovelly, down its deep ravines. the hobby drive, which belongs to clovelly court, is almost more exquisite than buckland chase, on the way to dartmoor; if you had been there with me, you would know i couldn't give it higher praise. and how i wish you _had_ been! how i wish you could see these english woods! they have such an air of dainty gaiety, very different from austrian or german or french forests; and though their elms and oaks and beeches are often giants, they seem dedicated to the spirit of youth. their shadows are never black, but only a darker green, or translucent gray; and part of their charm is a nymph-like frivolousness which comes, i think, from their ruffly green _dessous_. other woods have no _dessous_. their ankles are mournfully bare, and their stockings dark. in the woods of the hobby drive, the bracken was like elfin plumes; each stone, wrapped in moss, was a lump of silver coated with verdigris; distant cliffs seen between the trees were cut out of gray-green jade, against a sea of changing opal; and in the high minstrel-galleries of the latticed beeches a concert of birds was fluting. isn't gallantry bower a fine name? at first thought it would appear an inappropriate one, for it's a sheer cliff overlooking the sea on one side and a vast sweep of woodland on the other; but i can make it seem appropriate, by picturing some wild brave sailor making love to his sweetheart there, and telling her about the sea, her only rival in his love. no doubt it's a corruption of some old cornish name, and i refuse to accept it as a lover's leap, though such a legend has grown up around it. i'm tired of lover's leaps. the whole coast, as we swept round, was a vast golden sickle in the early morning light; and everything was so beautiful that the door of my heart swung wide open. no arm would have been strong enough to push it shut, not even mrs. senter's. instead of feeling angry with her, as we drew near bideford, i was grateful for the adventure she had (indirectly) given me. the servants of the royal hotel were just waking up, but, of course, being devonshire people, instead of being cross they were delightfully good-natured and smiling. i was shown to a pleasant room, and provided with a hot bath which (with nearly a whole bottle of eau de cologne extravagantly emptied into it) made me feel as if i had had a refreshing eight hours' sleep. already it seemed as if the night's experience had been a dream, dreamed in that sleep. but i was glad, glad it was real, and not a dream; something i had lived through, by sir lionel's side; a clear memory to remain like a happy island in the sea of life whatever the future weather. i dressed slowly, not wanting even "forty winks"; and about eight o'clock emily knocked at my door. she had been worried, she said, and not able to sleep, fearing accidents, waking now and then, to listen for the sound of a car. poor dear, she wouldn't know apollo's noble voice from the threepenny thrum of a motor bicycle! but she was kind and solicitous, though i think a little shocked to find my vitality in such a state of effervescence. she would have approved of me if i had been a draggled wreck; but even as it was, she felt it worth while to explain why she hadn't accompanied her brother. she would have proposed doing so, she assured me, but her neuralgia had been very trying yesterday, owing to the bad weather and east wind. she feared to be more trouble than assistance to sir lionel, and as he was my guardian, i was sufficiently chaperoned by him; any expert in etiquette would confirm her in that opinion, she anxiously added. nevertheless, when i told her about our stop at clovelly, she shook her head, and intimated that perhaps it had better not be referred to in public. i suppose by "in public," she meant before the tyndals and mrs. senter. at nine i had the pleasure of meeting the fair gwendolen again, in one of the most remarkable rooms you can imagine. sir lionel had engaged it in advance, to be our private sitting-room, but it is as celebrated as it is interesting. only think, charles kingsley wrote "westward ho!" in it, and it is such a quaint and beautiful room, it must have given him inspiration. you see, the hotel used to be the house of a merchant prince who was a great importer of tobacco in queen elizabeth's days; so it isn't strange that it should have many fine rooms; but the one where kingsley wrote is the best. it's sad that the oak panelling should be ruined with paint and varnish; but nothing short of an earthquake could spoil the ceiling, which is the famous feature. the merchant prince hired two italians to come to england and make the wonderful mouldings by hand. that was long before the days of cement, so the fantastic shapes had to be fastened to each other and the ceiling with copper wire. when the skilled workmen had finished their fruits and flowers and leaves, and all the weird fancies which signified the evolution of man, the canny merchant prince promptly packed the italians back again to their native land, lest other merchant princes should employ them to repeat the marvellous ceiling for their houses! by this thoughtful act, he secured for himself the one and only specimen of the kind; and to this day nobody has ever been able to copy it, though the attempt has often been made. the marvellous part is the startlingly high relief of the mouldings, and the quaintness of the evolutionary ideas, all those centuries before darwin. it was rather disappointing to find out that the beautiful ceiling had nothing to do with charles kingsley's wish to use the room as a study. it was in the time of the present landlord's grandfather, who owned a quantity of rare old books, records of bideford's past, and mr. kingsley wanted to refer to them. but their owner valued them too much to lend, even to such a man as charles kingsley. "you must come and write in the room," said he. so kingsley came and wrote in the room, and liked it and the books so much that he gave a glowing account of both to froude, who presently arrived and used the remarkable room for _his_ study, too. the books are there still, carefully put away; and a portrait of the good mayor of westward ho! (the novel, not its namesake town) which was found in the cellar with vandyck's name faintly traced on it, hangs opposite the fireplace. the great treasure of the room, though, after the ceiling, is a letter from kingsley, framed, protected with glass, and lying on a table. mrs. senter looked almost green, when she beheld me, the picture of health and joy, and saw on what good terms i was with sir lionel. i am certain, dear, that she wants to marry him, and i can't think she's capable of appreciating such a man, so it must be for his money. a "sportin', huntin', don't-you-know--what?" sort of fellow would please her better, if all else were suitable, because she could turn him round her finger; and that neither she nor anybody else can ever do with sir lionel--though he is pathetically chivalrous where women are concerned, and still more pathetically credulous. i remember so well your reading "westward ho!" aloud to me when i was about ten, and had been ill. i associate it with the joy of getting well. it made me feel proud of my devonshire ancestors, even then, and it makes me more proud now, for i've been reading the book for the second time, in kingsley-land. it's like the bible almost, in bideford. i should pity the person who dared pick a flaw in the story, in the hearing of a bideford man, woman, or child. why, i believe even a bideford dog would understand the insult, and snap! it's a great, and rather original compliment to name a town in honour of a book; but "westward ho!" the novel, is worthy of a finer namesake. of course, rudyard kipling having been to school in westward ho! makes the place more interesting than it ever could have been of itself, in spite of its glorious neighbour, the sea. but bideford is a delightful place. dad used to say that no men in the world could beat the men of devon for courage; and that bideford men were amongst the bravest of all, as you and i would have known from "westward ho!" even if we'd never read history. it looks an old-world town, almost unspoiled, even now, with its far-famed bridge on twenty-four arches, its steeply sloping streets, its quay, and its quaint pink and green houses by the river. in the old ship tavern "the brotherhood of the rose" was founded (you remember), and sir richard grenville--dear sir richard!--had his house where the castle inn stands now. i took a long walk with sir lionel and (i am sorry to say) mrs. senter, on the quay along the riverside; and there are some guns there, which they say were lost from the spanish armada. while we were walking, who should join us but dick burden, back from scotland! it appears that he arrived at tintagel last night, only a little while after sir lionel and i had left in the car. he expected to be earlier, but he took cross-country trains which looked promising on time-tables, and missed connection. i can't be thankful enough he didn't arrive before we started, instead of after, for, of course, sir lionel would have had to ask him to come with us, and that would have spoiled everything. there would have been no beautiful "memory island" in my sea! do you know, i had almost forgotten dick for two or three days? he seemed to have gone out of my life, as if he had never been in, and it was quite a mental shock to meet him on the quay at bideford. he didn't seem to be in the picture at all, whereas sir lionel is always in it, whatever or whenever it may be. we (sir lionel and i) asked politely for his mother's health, and he answered, apparently without thinking, "mother?--oh, she's all right." then he evidently remembered that he'd been sent for because she was ill, and had the grace to look ashamed of his hard-heartedness. he explained that when he arrived, he found her already better, though nervous, and that she was "practically cured." but i saw him and his aunt exchange a look. i wonder if it meant that the mother has any weird sort of disease--contagious, perhaps? i do hope it isn't anything i haven't had. it would be so awkward to come down with it now; though the sight of dick with mumps, for instance, would repay me for a good deal. mrs. senter's room at bideford adjoined mine, with a (locked) door between; and that night, for half an hour after i'd gone to bed i heard a murmur of voices, hers and dick's. they seemed to be tremendously in earnest about something. luckily, i couldn't hear a word they said; otherwise i should have had the bother of stopping my ears; but i couldn't help knowing that there was a heated argument, aunt gwen protesting, nephew dick insisting; and, after stress and storm, a final understanding arrived at which apparently satisfied both. such a splendid road it was, going out of bideford, with views of sea and river, the distant shore levels indigo, and a fiery golden light, like spilt sherry, on the livid green of the salt-paled grass. the sails of fishing boats from instow rose from dark, ruffled waters, white as lily petals; and out of heavy purple clouds, poured streams of flaming light, as if bags loaded with gold dust had burst with their own weight. long sand flats gleamed red as coral with some low-growing sea plant; and the backs of wind-blown leaves on bush and hedge were all dull silver, under the shadows of racing clouds, that tore at thousand horse-power speed over golden meadows. it was an extraordinary, but thoroughly english effect; and isn't it sad, the grazing cows and sheep we passed never once looked up or cared! but the people--the charming peasants of devon--cared. they looked up, and smiled at their sky, as if it gave them good thoughts; and everyone on foot or in wagon was so polite to us, flashing such kind looks from beautiful eyes, that we had the sensation of tasting honey. it kept us busy, returning the bows of the handsome, courteous people, and, altogether, it was like a royal progress. poor apollo isn't used to such treatment, out of devonshire and cornwall, i can tell you! he always does his best to be considerate, yet he is often misunderstood, being nothing but a motor-car, whom nobody loves! it was a joy to see merry devonshire children flinging themselves into our dust, as if it were perfumed spray, and playing that they, too, were motor-cars. such a nice change after some counties where we had behaved beautifully without any appreciation, to feel that for once we gave pleasure to some one, as we passed in and out of their obscure little lives! the wind was laden with the scent of honeysuckle, and the sweet, yellow hay, which blew out of high-piled carts to twine like gold webbing on flowery hedges and on the crimson hollyhocks that rose like straight, tall flames against whitewashed walls. even the droves of sheep we met were more polite than non-devonshire sheep, for instead of blocking our way obstinately, keeping just in front so that we could pass on neither side, they thoughtfully charged into village inns and cottage gardens. but, of course, you can't expect pink sheep to act like ordinary mutton-hood. these devonshire creatures look exactly like a lot of pink wool mats blowing away. probably they are "pixie led," for devonshire simply swarms with pixies. if you are a human being, and happen to put your stockings on wrong side out, they get power over you at once. but i don't know what the trick is, if you are a sheep. we ran above a great ravine at barnstaple, and the scene was so fine, that i gave mental thanks to the glaciers which, in the ice age, had so tastefully scooped out all this down-country into graceful curves and majestic cliffs. after leaving the sea behind us we were ringed in, swallowed up among lovely, gracious hills, which hid the world from us--us from the world. for miles upon miles, a snake-like road writhed smoothly down the sides of these hills, until at last, after a wildly exhilarating run we found ourselves in a peaceful green valley. the hobby drive was no more beautiful, and not half so exciting; but by now we were coming to the switzerland of england. as we sped on, great downs rolled up behind us, and towered above our heads like the crests of huge green waves at breaking point. even the sky suited itself to the country here, forming bigger, more tumbled clouds than elsewhere; and to my surprise i saw american goldenrod, such as i used to gather as a child, growing, quite at home, among yellow ox-eyed daisies. there was a tremendous hill, wriggling down with wicked twists to lynton, and in the middle we met a car that had torn off all its tires. sir lionel asked if we could do anything, but the chauffeur was so disgusted with life that, though he snapped out "no, thank you," his eyes said "damn!" at lynton we stopped at a hotel like an exaggerated, glorified cottage, with a thatched roof and a veranda running all round. it stands in a big, perfumed garden, and from the windows and that quaint stone-paved veranda you can look over the sea to the welsh coast, whence, at evening, two blazing eyes of light watch you across the blue water. sir lionel had meant to stay only one night at the cottage hotel, but lynton was beautiful, with a siren beauty, that would not let us go. even his resolution wasn't proof against its witchery. so we stopped two whole days, going "downstairs" (as i called it) to lynmouth, to see the old shelley cottage and lots of other things. but oh, what a road from lynton! if a young fly, when its mother takes it for its first walk down a wall, feels as i did, crawling to lynmouth, both brakes on, i pity it. i wasn't exactly frightened, for i never could be, quite, with sir lionel driving, but i was prickly with awe. it was a good thing emily didn't go with us. i believe her poor little pin-cushion heart would have burst in sheer fright, and all the sawdust would have trickled out. i laughed hysterically, when i saw a motor garage at the bottom. it ought to be a motor hospital, for few cars can get down unscathed, i should think. afterward, when we were safely up again, sir lionel said that, if he had known what it was really like he wouldn't have taken mrs. senter and me in the car, but would have had us go in sir george newnes's lift. not that he didn't trust apollo, but he confessed to being uncomfortable for us. i will say that mrs. senter behaved well, however, and never emitted one squeak, though her complexion looked when we arrived at lynmouth as if she had been on a tossing ship for weeks. up at lynton, the great thing to do, is to walk along the edge of the sea cliff to the valley of rocks (a kind of nature museum for statues and busts of titans), locked in between castle rock and the devil's cheesewring. it is a startlingly magnificent walk, but when you are actually in the valley of rocks, it isn't quite so wonderful as when seen from a distance; the arena itself is rather like the backyard of the gods, where they threw their broken mead-cups. i had a queer feeling of having been there before, which i couldn't understand for a minute, until a scene in "lorna doone" flashed back to me. and a young maid in the hotel firmly believes that many of the fantastic shapes of rock were once people who (according to an old story), were turned into stone for behaving irreligiously on sundays. yesterday morning we said good-bye to lynton, and sir lionel, dick, mrs. senter, and i walked to watersmeet, emily going along the upper road in the car with young nick, whose hand was well enough to drive. i don't know whether dad ever talked to you about watersmeet; but i'm surprised if he didn't, because not only is it one of the very most beautiful beauty spots of devon, but not far beyond, on the way to exmoor, is brendon, our name place. you can guess without my telling, why watersmeet is called watersmeet: and it is the most musical meeting you can imagine; rocks on one side, a wooded hill on the other, and down below, the singing river. we walked along an exquisite low-lying path from watersmeet, and all about i saw the name of brendon: brendon village; brendon forge, and other brendons. i was so excited that i forgot the lethbridge episode, and was on the point of exclaiming to sir lionel "how interesting to come on father's ancestral home!" i wonder what would have happened if i had? i should have had to try and blunder out of the scrape somehow, with dick's eyes on me, sparkling with mischief, and mrs. senter critical. i forgot to tell you that the tyndals left us at bideford, having no excuse to cling, even if they wanted to, because they had "done" exmoor already; but since the evening when mrs. tyndal tried to pump me about venice, dear gwendolen has been restless and suspicious. she can't suspect the truth, of course, unless dick has told her, which i'm sure he hasn't (for his own sake), but she suspects something. she has a common enough mind to spring to some horrid conclusion, such as my having been secretly in venice with objectionable people. perhaps she thinks me privately married! i'm sure she'd be delighted if that were the truth, because then dick and sir lionel would both be safe. as we walked, dick kept trying to get me far enough away from the others to tell me some news, which he hurriedly whispered was important. but even if i'd wanted to give him a chance, which i didn't, fate would have denied it to him. at rockford inn we took to the motor again, finding emily limp after what she considered appalling hills; but i'm sure they were nothing to the lynton-lynmouth one, as this time apollo himself had been sent down in the big lift. now we were coming to doone-land; and i was all eagerness to see it, because of "lorna doone," and because of things i'd heard from sir lionel, as we walked side by side for a few minutes after watersmeet. i had supposed that if there were any foundation for the doone story, it was as slight as the "fabric of a dream"; but he told me of a pamphlet he had read, "a short history of the original doones," by a miss ida or audrie browne, only about eight or nine years ago. she said it was extraordinary how well the author of "lorna" had known all the traditions of her family--for she was one of the doones; and that there really was a sir ensor, a wild rebellious son of an earl of moray, who travelled with his wife to exmoor, and settled there, in a rage because the king would give him no redress against his elder brother. "how does she spell her name of audrie?" i asked, trying to look more good and innocent than eve could possibly have been even in pre-serpentine days. "a-u-d-r-i-e," he answered, and i trusted that dick was too far behind to hear what we were saying. "that was the favourite name for girls in the doone family," sir lionel went on. "miss browne thinks sir ensor and his wife must have crossed the quantocks coming here, and have taken a fancy to the name of west quantoxhead's patron saint, audrie, also spelled that way." "it's rather a pretty name," i ventured, feeling pink. "one of the prettiest in the world," said sir lionel. i was pleased--though i ought to have been bowed down with the burden of borrowed guilt. there was a bad motor road from oare to the gateway of the moor, but apollo didn't mind, though i think he was glad to stop outside malmsmead farm, where we had lunch. i suppose you can't expect such modern creatures as motors and chauffeurs, especially bengali ones, to appreciate farmhouses seven hundred years old! i loved the place, though, and so did sir lionel. nothing ever tasted better than the rosy ham, the crisp cottage bread, the thick cream, and wild honey the farm people gave us. and the honey smelt like the moor, which has just as individual and haunting a fragrance as dartmoor, though different. after lunch i wanted to see the doone valley, and the ruins of the doone houses (which, by the way, my namesake miss browne says were not the doone houses, but only the huts where the brigand-band used to keep stolen cattle), so sir lionel said i must have a pony. i wasn't tired, though he thought i ought to be, after our walk; but the idea of riding a rough exmoor pony was great fun, and i didn't object. sir lionel asked mrs. senter (who had been making fun of the doone story at lunch) rather coolly if she would care to go, too; and to his evident surprise, though not at all to mine, she instantly said she would. they have several ponies at the farm, and sir lionel hired two, he and dick meaning to walk, and emily intending to stop in the farm sitting room nodding over the visitors' book, full of interesting names, no doubt. no sooner had our dear, roughly fringed little beasts been saddled, and we swung on to their backs, than there arose a great hue and cry in the farmyard. the stag hunt was passing! such an excitement you never saw. nobody would have thought the same thing had happened many times a year, for generations. the big, good-natured farmer raced about, waving his arms, and adjuring us to "coom on!" the postman darted by on his bicycle, forgetful of letters, thinking only of the stag; pretty girls from the neighbouring badgeworthy farm, and lorna doone farm tore up a hill, laughing and screaming. "they'm found! they'm found!" yelled the farm hands. everybody shouted. everybody ran, or at least danced up and down; and wilder than all was the joy of our exmoor ponies, mrs. senter's and mine. they didn't intend to let the hunt go by without them, the stanch little sporting beasts! we hadn't the least idea what they meant to do, or perhaps--just perhaps!--we might have stopped them; but before mrs. senter and i knew what was happening to us, off we dashed on pony-back after the hunt. i laughed so much i could hardly keep my seat, but i did somehow, though not very gracefully, and in about five minutes sir lionel's long legs had enabled him to catch my little monster, which he grabbed by the reins and stopped, before we'd got mixed up with the staghounds. dick was slower about rescuing his aunt, because his legs are shorter than sir lionel's; and her pony had not the pleasant disposition of mine. dick vowed afterward that it spit at him. after reading "lorna" the doone valley looked rather too gentle, with its grassy slopes, to be satisfactory to my brigand-whetted mind; and the ruins of the doone houses would have been disappointing, too, if it hadn't been for miss audrie browne's tale of the distant dwellings, in the weir water valley; but i liked hearing that all the hills have names of their own, and that you can be sure you are not going to fall into a treacherous bog, if only you see a sprig of purple heather--a good, honest plant, which hates anything secret. our ponies didn't need the heather signal, though; they shied away from bogs as if by instinct, they knew the moor so well. if we had stumbled into a pitfall, our only hope would have been to lie quite flat, and crawl along the surface with the same motion that you make in swimming. it was late afternoon by the time we had seen all that the ponies wanted us to see of the doone valley, and then our way led us back to lynmouth, by the appalling countisbury hill; on to parracombe, blackmore gate, challacombe, romantic little simonsbath (sacred to the memory of sigmund the dragon-slayer, and two outlaws, of whom tom faggus, of the "strawberry horse," was one), and pretty, historic exford, and so to dunster. a beautiful road it was to the eye, but not always to the tire, and half the hills of england seemed to have lined up in a procession. but apollo smiled in his bonnet at them all, and appeared rather pleased than otherwise to show what he could do. when we came into dunster it was almost dark--just the beautiful hour when the air seems to have turned blue, a deep, clear azure; and of all the quaintly picturesque places we have seen, i know at first glimpse that dunster would turn out to be the best. some towns, like some people, introduce themselves to you in a friendly, charming way, with no chill reserve, as if they were sure you deserved to see their best side. it's like that with dunster, anyhow when you arrive in a motor, and the first thing you see is the ancient yarn market, wooden, octagonal, perfect. then before you have recovered from the effect of that, and the general unspoiledness of everything, you come to the stone porch of the luttrell arms inn; old and grim, with openings for crossbows with which i suppose the abbots of cleve must have had to defend themselves, because the house once belonged to them. if you could see no other town but dunster, it would be worth while coming across seas to england. but i suppose i've said that about other places, haven't i? well, i can't help it if i have. dunster is absolutely perfect--not one false note struck in the quaint music of its antiquity. our sitting room was the abbot's refectory, splendid with black oak beams, and a noble ceiling. its diamond-paned windows look into a wonderful courtyard, where you expect to see monks walking, or perhaps cavaliers; and on the hill above the garden, there are earthworks thrown up by oliver cromwell's army during the siege of dunster castle--the "alnwick of the west." to-morrow, we are to be allowed, as a special favour, to see the inside of the castle which towers up so grandly against the sky. it isn't open to the public; but sir lionel knows some relatives of the owners, so we are to be shown round. "to-morrow," i say. but if i don't stop at once, and go to bed, it will be "to-day." ever your audrie. xxv from sir lionel pendragon to colonel patrick o'hagan _swan hotel, wells_, _aug. 20th_ my dear pat: what a good fellow you are! your letter, just forwarded here, has been like for me a draught from the "cup which cheers but not----" no, on second thoughts i can't go on with the quotation "but not inebriates." i rather think the cup has inebriated me a little. anyhow, it has made me a bit conceited. i say to myself, "well, if this is his opinion of me, why not believe there's something in it, and do as other men have done before me? he ought to be a judge of men, and know enough of women to have some idea of the sort of person it would be possible for one of them to love." that is the state of mind to which you have brought me, with a little ink and a little paper, and plenty of good intentions. it would take about a magnum of champagne to exhilarate some men as your praise and your advice have exhilarated me. when i wrote you last, i was in the dumps. it was a dull world, and all the tigers i had ever shot were mounted on sackcloth, or stuffed with ashes. sounds disgusting, doesn't it? but suddenly, the sun broke out, and dulness and tigers fled together. i suppose i must always have been a creature of moods, and didn't know it; for all it took to change gray purgatorio to blue paradiso was a few words from a girl. she said she didn't love dick, and would as soon marry my chauffeur--or words to that effect. explained everything--or, if she didn't explain, looked at me, and i thought she had explained. i forget now whether she did explain or not, rationally and satisfactorily, but it doesn't matter. there is no one like her, and i have reached a stage of idiocy concerning her which i would blush to describe. i see now that the feeling which a very young man, hardly out of boyhood, dignified with the name of love, is merely a kind of foundation that, when fallen into picturesque ruin, makes a good firm flooring of experience to build second, or real, love, upon. i don't know whether that's well or badly said, but it expresses my state of mind. if only this second true love of mine were not the daughter of the first and false! even now, when i frankly acknowledge to myself that she can make the light of the world for me, there are black moments when i distrust her--distrust my impressions of her; and hate myself for doing both. i used to believe so firmly in heredity that i can't throw aside my old theories in a moment, even for her sake. how comes ellaline de nesville's and fred lethbridge's daughter to be what this girl seems? that's what i ask myself; but there again your letter helps. you remind me that "our parents are not our only ancestors." but enough of all this rhapsodizing and doubting. there's nothing definite to tell you, except that she has said she doesn't care for dick burden, and that, generally speaking, if appearances are against her, i must kindly not judge by them. "give her the benefit of the doubt as long as you can," you say. but, thank heaven i can do more. i give her the benefit of not doubting at all, except in those black moments i have confessed to you. we have had some good road adventures together, and she has proved herself a thorough sportswoman, as well as a jewel of a companion; but, of course, i haven't had her often to myself. mrs. senter and dick burden are still of the party, and say nothing about future plans, though there was a vague understanding when they first came that they were asked for a fortnight. they seem to be enjoying themselves, so i suppose i ought to be pleased; and mrs. senter is agreeable to everybody, though sometimes it has occurred to me that she and ellaline don't hit it off invariably. still, i may be mistaken. she praises ellaline, and seems anxious to throw her into dick's society, which presumably she wouldn't do if she didn't like the girl. dick did run up to scotland to see his mother for a few days, and i thought, as mrs. burden sent for him on account of her health, he might have to stay on. but no such luck. he was back almost indecently soon--pounced down upon us at bideford, just in time, perhaps, to prevent my _taking your advice before i got it_. the fact is, there was a queer misunderstanding with which i won't bore you, but by which ellaline was left behind at tintagel, and i went back alone to fetch her, with the car. she was adorable, even unusually adorable, and i loved her horribly. yes, that's the only word for it, because it hurt; it hurt so much that next day i felt i couldn't go on bearing the pain, and that i should have to find a chance to tell her. i was pretty sure she would think me a middle-aged and several other kinds of a fool, even though she were polite in words; nevertheless, i might have run the risk, even unspurred by your letter, if dick hadn't come back looking extremely young and attractively impertinent. she mayn't care a rap for him; she says she doesn't, so i suppose she knows her own mind; still, the contrast between our years is in his favour, and with him under my nose as well as continuously underfoot, i see myself as (i fear) others see me. yet i may not be able to keep my head if a chance should come. and if i lose it--my head, i mean--that's the time to take your advice. we have been seeing some fine country of late; dunster was one of the best bits, also grand old luttrell castle, which, by the way, is hardy's stancy castle in "the laodicean." there are some rare old buildings in dunster which reek history. the church has a noble rood screen; and the yarn market is unique in england; so is the queer old "nunnery," so-called, and the ancient inn where we stayed. [illustration: "_the yarn market is unique in england_"] cleve abbey is only a few miles away, and i was surprised at the magnificence of the ruin, which was used as a farmhouse for years, and would be thus degraded still if it weren't for mr. luttrell, the owner of dunster castle, who has bought and restored it. cistercian, and as old as the tenth century, with a gatehouse of richard the second's day; bits of exquisite encaustic tiling from the demolished church, preserved religiously under glass; and a refectory roof to enchant artists and archæologists--beautiful hammer-beams and carved angels of spanish walnut wood, fifteenth century, i think; and some shadowy ghosts of frescoes. ellaline was enchanted with the old custodian, who talked much about "heart of oak," and when she ventured to remark that he "looked as if he were made of it," she and the old fellow himself both blushed amusingly. we came on through pretty, respectable-looking williton, where lived reginald fitz urse who helped murder st. thomas of canterbury, and where everything is extraordinarily ancient except the motor garage. by this we were among the quantock hills; and the differences between devonshire and somerset scenery were beginning to be very marked. it's difficult to define such differences; but they're visible in every feature; the shape of the downs; the trees, standing up tall and isolated in "zummerzet," like landmarks; even the conformation of roads--which, by the way, are extremely good in these regions, a pleasant change for the car after some of her wild hill-climbing and tobogganning feats in north devon. do you remember how, when we were boys, we discussed favourite names, and placed audrey high in the list among those of women? here, in the quantock hills, they spell it "audrie," for the saint who patronizes west quantoxhead; and i have learned that it was the name which the outlawed doone tribe best loved to give their girl children. i think i used to say i should like to marry a girl named audrey, but never heard of such a person in real life, until ellaline informed me, on seeing st. audrie's, that it's the name of her most intimate friend. i responded by confessing my boyish resolve, and to amuse myself, asked if she would some day introduce me to her friend. "not for the world!" said she, and blushed. i wish i could make myself believe her jealous. you would probably encourage me to think it! wordsworth loved the pleasant region of the quantock hills, you know, and wrote some charming poems while he and coleridge lived at nether stowey and alforden; but just to see, in passing, nether stowey looks unattractive; and as for bridgewater, not much farther on (where a red road has turned pink, then pale, then white with chalk), it is as commercial to look at as it is historical to read of. when a boy, in bloodthirsty moods, i used to pore over that history; read how judge jeffreys lodged at bridgewater during the bloody assizes (the house is gone now, washed away like an old blood stain); how the moor between weston and bridgewater (in these days lined with motors) was lined with feversham's gibbets after sedgemoor. doesn't macaulay refer to that as "the last fight deserving the name of battle, fought on english soil"? then there was the story of "swayne's jumps," which one connected with bridgewater. he made his famous escape in toxley wood, close by, and to this day the place is marked with three stones. that sort of thing rushes you back in a minute over long distances in time, doesn't it?--as motors rush you forward in a minute over long distances of space. so to glastonbury, by way of poland hill, looking down over the sedgemoor plain, chedzoy church, on whose southern buttress the battle axes were sharpened, and weston zoyland, with its dutch-sounding name, and dutch-looking dykes. i never saw glastonbury until now, and i'm not sure that, having seen it, i shan't be obliged to hook it on top of winchester, on my bump of reverence. not that one can compare its ruined grandeur with well-preserved winchester, the comparison lies in the oldness and the early beginnings of religion. i believe glastonbury is the one religious institution in which briton, saxon, and norman all share and share alike; so the place seems to bind our race to a race supplanted. st. dunstan is the "great man" of the place, because he it was who restored the monastery after danish wars; but he is a modern celebrity beside joseph of arimathea, the founder, who came with eleven companions to bring the holy word to britain. it was the archangel gabriel who bade him found a church in honour of the virgin; and it was a real inspiration of the archangel's; for what one can see of the chapel of st. joseph is absolutely perfect--a gem of beauty. we came to glastonbury in the afternoon, having lunched at a nice old coaching house in bridgewater, and after pausing for a look at the abbot's kitchen, i drove straight to the george, which i had heard of as being the pilgrim's inn of ancient times, and the best bit of domestic architecture in the town. the idea was to have tea there--an indulgence for which emily clamoured, being half choked with chalky dust; but the house was so singularly beautiful and interesting that it seemed a crime not to sleep in it. the front is a gorgeous mass of carved panelling; in the middle rises a four-centred gateway, and on the left is a marvel of a bow window, with a bay for every story. we went up a newel stairway to look at rooms, and one in which henry viii. slept a night fell to my share--not because i was selfishly ready to take the best, however, for there were several others more curious, if not more interesting. our quarters for the night selected, we went out sight-seeing, on foot, first taking the abbey and chapel of the blessed virgin, corruptly known as st. joseph's. it's a good thing, pat, that you didn't get your youthful way, and annex emily, because you have, or had, a "strong weakness" for ruins, and she doesn't appreciate them in any form. the difference between her expression and ellaline's while gazing at what is left of glastonbury's glory was a study. emily's bored, yet conscientiously desiring to be interested; the girl's rapt, radiant. and, indeed, these remnants of beauty are pathetically fair enough to draw tears to such young eyes as hers. they are even more majestic in ruin than they could have been in noblest prime, i think, because those broken arches have the splendour of classic tragedy. they are like a poem of which a few immortal lines are lost. in the warm light of the august afternoon the old stones, pillars, and arches of glastonbury abbey seemed to be carved in stained ivory, a bas relief on lapis lazuli. we lingered until our pretty mrs. senter got the look in her eyes of one who has stood too long in high-heeled boots, and emily asked plaintively whether we were not going to see the glastonbury thorn. it appeared that she had promised to write her tame parson about it, and send him a sprig for planting; and she was much disappointed when she heard that the "original thorn," joseph of arimathea's blossoming staff, had been destroyed centuries ago on weary-all hill, where the saintly band rested on the way to glastonbury. one trunk of the famous tree was hewed down by a puritan in elizabeth's day (i'm happy to tell you he lost a leg and an eye in the act), while the second and only remaining one was destroyed by a "military saint" in the great rebellion. "what disagreeable things saints have done!" exclaimed ellaline, which shocked emily. "there have been very few _military_ ones, anyhow," my sister returned, mildly, with a slightly reproachful glance at me, aimed at my spiritual failures. i cheered her up by promising that i would get her a sprig of thorn at wells, and telling her how all the transplanted slips have the habit of blossoming on christmas day, old style--january 6th, isn't it? our next "sight" was the museum in the market place; and you may take my word for it, pat, there's nothing much more interesting to be found the world over, if you're interested in antiquities, as you and i are. there's the alfred jewel, which, of course, the women liked best; and next in their estimation came the bronze mirrors, the queer pins and big needles, the rouge pots and the hair curlers (which emily gravely pronounced to be curiously like hinde's) of the celtic beauties who lived before the visits of those clever commercial travellers, the phoenicians. these relics were taken from the prehistoric village at godnet marsh, discovered only about sixteen years ago, and they were found with others far more important; for instance, a big, clumsy canoe of black oak, which was soft as soap when it first came up out of its hiding-place in the thick peat bog, but was hardened afterward by various scientific tricks. i confess to more interest in the dice boxes and dice, some of which the sly old celtic foxes had loaded. cheating isn't precisely a modern device, it seems! after the museum, i took the party to a jeweller's i'd heard of, and bought some copies of the sacred treasures: a replica of the alfred jewel; a silver bowl, exactly imitating a bronze one from the lake village--probably of greek manufacture, brought over by phoenicians--and other quaint and interesting things. ellaline is to have the jewel; the silver bowl is to be a "sop" to mrs. senter; and for emily is a tiny model oven, such as the phoenicians taught the celts to make and cornish cottagers bake their bread in to this day. there was the old red lion inn to see, too, where abbot whiting lay the night before his execution, which was a murder; and the women's almshouses, and a dozen other things which tourists are expected to see besides many dozen which they are not; and it is for the latter that ellaline and i have a predilection. she and i are also fond of believing any story which is interesting, therefore we are both invaluable victims to the custodians of museums and other show places. the nice old fellow in the glastonbury museum was delighted with our faith, which would not only have moved mountains, but transported to such mountains any historic celebrity necessary to impress the picture. we believed in the burying of the original chalice, from which to this hour flows a pure spring, the holy, or blood spring. we believe that st. patrick was born, and died on the isle of avalon; and more firmly than all, that both arthur and guinevere were buried under st. mary's (or st. joseph's) chapel. why, didn't the custodian point out to us, in the picture of an ancient plan of the chapel, the actual spot where their bodies lay? what could we ask more than that? but if we go to scotland next year, we shall doubtless believe just as firmly that arthur rests there, in spite of the record at glastonbury, in spite even of tennyson: "... the island valley of avilon; where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns and bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, where i will heal me of my grievous wound." does that come back to you, from arthur's speech to bedévere? but he died of the "grievous wound" after all; and the custodian goes so far as to assert, solemnly, that when the coffins were opened in the days of henry ii. the bodies of the king and queen were "very beautiful to see, for a moment, untouched by time; but that in a second, as the people looked, their dust crumbled away, all except the splendid golden hair of guinevere, which remained to tell of her glory, for many a long year, until it was stolen, and disappeared forever." that is a good story, anyhow, and adds to the curious, almost magical enchantment of glastonbury. ellaline says that the very name of glastonbury will after this ring in her ears like the sound of fairy bells, chiming over the lost lake that ringed the isle of avalon. you know, i dare say, that glastonbury is supposed to have its derivation from british "ynyswytryn," "inis vitrea," the "island of glass," because the water surrounding it was blue and clear as crystal. so many golden apples grew in the island orchards, that it became also the isle of avalon, from "avalla" an apple. even now, the queer conical, isolated hills of the neighbourhood are called islands, and it is easy to picture glastonbury as an isle rising among lesser ones out of a bright, azure estuary stretching away and away to the bristol channel. the saxon king, edgar, whose royal castle has given the name to the town of edgarly, must have had a fine view in his day. and now you have only to go up tor hill (a landmark for miles round, with its tower of st. michael on top like the watch-dog of a dead king) to see wells cathedral to the north, the blue mendips east and west, and cutting the range, a mysterious break, like a door, which means the wild pass of cheddar; far in the west, a gleam of the bristol channel; south, the polden hills, the dorset heights beyond, and the quantocks overtopped by the peak of dunkery beacon. i think one would have to go far to see more of england in one sweep of the eye. indeed, foreigners might come, make a hasty ascent of tor hill, and take the next boat back to their own country, telling their friends not untruthfully that they had "seen england." at night, in the room of henry viii., i dreamed i saw anne boleyn, with ellaline's face, which smiled at me, the lips saying: "i'll forgive you, if you'll forgive me." i hope that's a good omen? we gave ourselves twenty-four hours in glastonbury and the neighbourhood, running out to the prehistoric village at godney marsh, to see the excavations, and to meare (by the by, the very causeway over which our motor spun was built of stones from the abbey!) then on, toward evening, to wells. there have been surprisingly blue evenings lately, to which ellaline has drawn my attention; and her simile on the way to wells, that we seemed to be driving through a pelting rain of violets, i thought rather pretty. what shall i do, i wonder, if i have to part with her--give her to some other man, perhaps? it hardly bears thinking of. and yet it may easily happen. it seems to me that every man who sees her must want her; and the feeling doesn't make for peace or comfort. i suppose i might be different, and less the brute, if i hadn't lived so long in the east, growing used to eastern customs; but as it is, when i see some man's eyes light upon her face and rest there in surprised admiration, i want to snatch her up, wrap her in a veil, and run off with her in my arms. beastly, isn't it? i have no such feeling, however, in connection with mrs. senter, although she is very striking, and excites a good deal of attention wherever we go. i haven't seen emily so happy since we have been motoring as she is at wells, and it seems almost criminal to tear her away, though i fear i shall have to do so to-morrow. she says that, except at home, she has never felt such "an air of religious calm" as at wells; and there's something in the feeling which i can understand, though i must admit i don't go about the world searching for religious calm. certainly one can't imagine a crime being committed at wells, and a wicked thought would be rather wickeder here than elsewhere. not that the cathedral is to me alluringly beautiful (i believe it ranks high, and is even exalted as the "best secular church" to be found the world over, the west front being glorified as a masterpiece beyond all others in england); at first sight it vaguely disappointed me. i am no expert judge of architecture, and don't pretend to be; still, i dare to have my likes and dislikes; and it was not until i'd walked round the cathedral many times, stood and stared at it, and gone up heights to survey it from different points of view, that i began to warm toward it mightily. now, i find it eminently noble, yet not so lovable as some which my memory cherishes, some not perhaps as architecturally or artistically perfect. but you know what individuality buildings have, especially those which are vast and dominating; and wells is unique. as the common people say, it "wants knowing." emily, usually sparing of adjectives, pronounces the lady chapel "a dream," and i don't think she exaggerates; but for myself, the things least forgettable in the cathedral will be the chapter house stairs and the beautiful fourteenth century glass. the ascent of the staircase is an exquisite experience, and, as ellaline cried out in her joy, "it must be like going up a snow mountain by moonlight." the old clock in the transept, too, holds one hypnotized, waiting always to see what will happen next. peter lightfoot, the glastonbury monk, who made it in the fourteenth century, must have had a lively imagination, and have loved excitement--"something doing," as americans say. ellaline and i are overcome with sympathy for one of four desperately fighting knights who never gets the colours. hard luck to work like that for hundreds of years, and never succeed! at last emily has seen the glastonbury thorn, and obtained her slip, as an exceptional favour. she longs for christmas to come, to know if it will bloom, as it does regularly every year in the gardens of the bishop's palace. until now i couldn't have imagined envying a bishop, but to live in the palace at wells, and own the palace gardens for life, would be worth a few sacrifices. i should think there could have been never a more poetical or charming garden on earth--not excepting eden or a few indian gardens i have admired. it is perfect; as ellaline says, even pluperfect, in its contrast with the gray ruins, and the mellow, ancient house. there is an embattled wall, which makes a terrace walk, above the fair lawns and jewelled flower beds, and from the top as you walk, the hills girdling the old city go waving in gradations of blue to an opal horizon. there's an old well house in the garden, which is one of its chief ornaments, and has adorned it since the fifteenth century. bishop beckington--the beckington of the punning rebus (beacon and tun) built it to supply water to the city. but there were plenty of other springs, always--seven famous ones--which suggested the name, wells; and had they not existed, perhaps king ina (who flourished in the eighth century, and was mixed up in glastonbury history) would not have founded a cathedral here. blessed be the seven wells, then, for without them one of the fairest places in england might never have existed. i had heard of the celebrated swans, and as i knew she would like them, i determined to pay the birds a morning call (the day after we arrived) with ellaline. from any obtrusion of emily's i felt safe, for her mind whirls here with old oak carvings, flaxman sculptures, ancient vestments, carven tombs, and, above all, choral services. indeed, emily is never at her best except in a cathedral; and i knew that swans would not be ecclesiastic enough to please her. but of mrs. senter and dick i had to be more wary; for the lady, no doubt because she is my guest, feels it polite to give me a good deal of her society; and dick naturally considers that ellaline's time is wasted on me, especially when he isn't by to alleviate the boredom. my one chance was to lure the girl out early, for neither mrs. senter nor burden loves the first morning hours. with all the guilty tremors of one who cooks an intrigue, i sent a note to ellaline's room, just after she had gone to bed, asking if she were "sporting enough" to come for a walk at seven-thirty. i thought that way of putting the invitation would fetch her, and it did; but perhaps a card i enclosed had something to do with her prompt acceptance. i printed, in my best imitation of engraved text, "mr. and mrs. swan and the misses cygnet, at home, in the moat, bishop's palace. ring for refreshments. r.s.v.p." five minutes later came down a scrap of paper (all she had, no doubt) with a little pencil scrawl, saying that miss lethbridge was delighted to accept mr. and mrs. swan's kind invitation for seven-thirty, and thanked sir lionel pendragon for obtaining it. i have put this away with my treasures, of course. i was at the place appointed before the time, and she didn't keep me waiting. as a matter of fact, she's always extraordinarily prompt. modern school training, i suppose, as ellaline the first was never known to be in time for anything. and the swans were worth getting up for. they are magnificent creatures; but, unlike many professional beauties, they're as clever as they are handsome. for generations they and their ancestors have been trained to ring a bell when they breakfast; and to see the whole family, mother, babies, and cousins, breasting the clear, lilied water, and waiting in a dignified, not too eager, row while father pulls a bell in the old palace wall, tweaking the string impatiently with his beak, is better than any theatrical performance of this season in london. ellaline was entranced, and would have the play played over and over again by the swan actors and the stage manageress, a kindly and polite woman who conducted the entertainment. when we were both ashamed to beg for more, ellaline suggested a walk round the town, which is of an unspoiled beauty, and you can guess whether or no i was glad to be her guide. i'm certain i should have proposed before breakfast (i wonder if any other man was ever in love enough for that?) if dick burden and his aunt hadn't turned a corner at the critical moment. but perhaps it was just as well. in spite of what you say, i am certain she would have refused me. nevertheless, for your encouragement, my dear old pat, i am yours ever gratefully, pen. xxvi mrs. senter to her sister, mrs. burden _empire hotel, bath_, _august without end, amen!_ my dear sis: talk about a land where it is always afternoon! seems to me it will never stop being august. i'm dead sick of motoring in present company, and so furious with sir lionel that the only revenge i can think of is to marry him. would that i could say, "vengeance is mine"; but it's still a bird in the bush, i regret to say, while in my hand is nothing save the salt which i'm trying to sprinkle on its tail. curious feeling one has on a motor tour. i have the sensation of being detached from my own past (good thing that, for _some_ ladies of our acquaintance!) like a hook that's come out of its eye. the hook, however, is quite ready to fit into any new eye that happens to be handy, or dig out any eye that happens to be in the way. and that brings me back to mademoiselle lethbridge. it really can't be good for one's liver to dislike anyone as much as i have grown to dislike that girl; but unfortunately i can't afford to despise her. she is clever; almost too clever, for cherished, protected, schoolgirl nineteen. would that i could find a screw loose in her history! wouldn't i make it rattle? i thought i had got hold of one, through the tyndals, but sir lionel wouldn't listen to the rattling, wouldn't let it rattle for an instant. it is only the change of climate and english food that prevents his manners from being (as no doubt they were in eastern climes) those of a bashaw; and if he were one's husband he couldn't be more disagreeable than he is at times. not that he means to be disagreeable. if he did, one would know how to take him--or not to take him. but it is his polite indifference to which i object. i'm not used to it in men. it's like a brick wall you're dying to kick against, only it's no use. i don't take all the trouble i do with my hair and complexion not to be looked at, i assure you. why, my waist might just as well be two inches bigger for all he notices! it is too trying. and then, to see the way he looks at that girl, who doesn't know enough about physical economy to make powder stick on her nose when it rains! it does me good to talk to you like this. dick isn't sympathetic, because he happens to be in love with the young female, and though he occasionally abuses her himself, on the spur of a snub, he won't let me do it. don't think, however, that i give up hope. by no means. i have heaps of tricks up my sleeve, small and fashionable as it is, and lots of strings to my bow. but i just wish one was a "bowstring" and round a girl's neck. i'd give a tiny, tiny pull. in fact, i _did_ give one yesterday--one which i've been wanting to give ever since i received your letter. but actually, till yesterday, i never got a chance. i "made" several, but they always went to bits, like a child's house of cards. poor me! that is part of the creature's cleverness. i think she knew by instinct that i had something nasty to say, and she kept dodging about, preventing me from laying hands (i won't say claws) on her. dick, too, she has kept in the same position, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. indeed, she has handled us both surprisingly well, considering her age and bringing up. i have a certain respect for her. but one often respects people one dislikes, doesn't one? at least, really nice, amusing people of my type do. exactly what dick wants to do with his white mouse when he has pounced on it i have no means of knowing, for since a slight misunderstanding, not to say row, which we had on the night of his return from scotland and you, a certain reserve has fallen between us, like a stage curtain. he is on the stage side; i am in the position of audience. but i was never in doubt for a moment as to what would follow _my_ pounce, provided the mouse didn't prove too strong for me--and i don't think it has. my pretty little ladylike bite must have left a mark on the velvet fur. i dare say i have excited your curiosity by referring to a "row" with dick, and lest you neglect my interests in the rest of the letter, to brood upon his, i'd better pander at once to your maternal anxiety. he wouldn't have confessed to me anything you had told him about miss lethbridge's antecedents, for the very good reason that he hangs onto her with the grip of a bulldog on a marrow-bone; but as i was armed with your letter (i found it waiting for me at bideford) containing full information, he saw it was no use to keep anything back. if i had had the letter a little earlier i might not have racked my valuable brain as violently as i did to give him a chance alone with ellaline. i arranged for him to find her deserted at king arthur's castle, like mariana in her moated grange; but on reading what you had to say, i admit i had qualms as to the wisdom of my policy where dick's future was concerned. however, even then i trusted to myself to save him if it came to the worst; and it might have been valuable for my future if things had happened "according to schedule"--just because sir lionel _is_ such a bashaw. he would never again have felt the same to the girl if she had schemed to be left behind in order to meet dick. however--i can control most men, and many women, but i can't control trains; and it was through their missing connections that dick missed rescuing his ladylove. as it has turned out, no harm has been done to him. i wish i could be as sure of myself; for sir lionel, i fancy, hasn't been quite as nice since. he can't guess what i had to do with the affair; but--i suppose even men have instinct, inferior to ours though it be. dick came to my room at bideford, and was cross because things had gone wrong; i was cross because he was cross (i hate injustice in anyone but myself), and then he was crosser because i told him it would never do for him to marry the girl, knowing what we now know. he said he would have her, and hang everybody else, especially sir lionel; i argued that hanging people would do no good; and he then said that it would be all right anyhow about the _dot_, as he knew a way of getting something decent out of sir lionel for her. what he knew he firmly refused to divulge, and when i asked if he'd told you, he replied that he jolly well hadn't. also he accused me of "stinginess," in not wanting "pendragon to part," and wishing to keep the "whole hog" for myself; his delicate way of expressing my desire to retain the means of purchasing tiaras, etc., suitable to my rank, in case i should become the future lady pendragon. at this point in the conversation our family relations were somewhat strained, but before they reached snapping point, with my accustomed tact (partly learned from you) i smoothed my nephew down, regardless of my own injured feelings. nothing could be better for me than that he should be engaged to miss lethbridge, though, of course, nothing could be worse for us all than that he should marry her. trust me, i say again, as i have said before, to prevent that. i assure you, i can easily do it. meanwhile, i encourage dick to believe that he has softened my hard heart; and though he doesn't believe in me absolutely, or tell me all the workings of his mind, i'm certain you need have no anxiety about your son and heir. now to my own affairs, which, after dick's future and your neuralgia, i flatter myself are dear to you. you've often remarked that i'm nothing if not dramatic, and perhaps when i tell you what i did yesterday you will think i've proved it for the hundredth--or is it the thousandth?--time. we left wells (which depressed me as all cathedral towns do, because everybody, and even every building, seems so unco guid) to run through the cheddar ravine, which, i fancy, though i don't know and care less, is among the mendip hills. i woke up with a headache, not having slept on account of a million church clocks and bells which were deadly busy all night, and i felt i should be no better until i'd had it out with the enemy. sir lionel, as you know, can be a pleasant companion when he chooses, and he's so good-looking in his soldier way that i can't help admiring him when i'm not hating him, but it is a strain on the nerves, headache or no headache, sitting next a man and trying every minute to make him like you better than he does the woman he wants to be with, who is sitting behind him. it means that you must be amusing and witty and interested in everything he says. but how can you be witty when the only thing you want to say is "devil and damn," of which he would violently disapprove from a lady's lips (or pen)? and how can you be interested in all he says when he discourses about mouldy old saints, and legends, and history, and things over and done with long ago, like that? what do i care if st. dunstan--of whom i heard too much at glastonbury--saved king edmund, hunting in the mendips, from falling over cheddar cliff, horse and man? why, i don't even know who edmund was, or when he happened. celtic relics, found in caves, are less than nothing to me, and roman coins are a mere aggravation when one is bothered how to get current coin of the realm. botany bores me, too, though i have been studying it, together with many other dull things which, unfortunately for me, sir lionel likes. well, we went up the mendip hills by way of an obscure little village called priddy, which seemed important to sir l. because they found some lead pigs in a mine there marked imp. vespasianus, and a few old roman dice, and brooches like safety-pins. it would be much more to the point if he would take an interest in what _i_ wear, rather than concentrating his attention on the way b. c. roman miners or soldiers contrived to fasten their rags together. it would console one for invariably losing one's pins and hatpins when one wants them most, if one could think future generations would grow emotional over them. yet, on the whole, i should prefer it done by a certain man in my own generation. the moment we got away from priddy, where a lot of starfish roads come together, my spirits rose. the country began to look theatrical, which was a pleasant change after wells, and all my native dramaticness began to surge in me. i felt on my mettle; and when sir lionel talked about visiting the cheddar caverns i said to myself: "my name isn't gwen senter if i don't get hold of the girl in a cave, and tell her a thing or two." it can't be easy to escape from people in caves, i thought; and so it proved. but i haven't come to that, yet. i really enjoyed the cheddar ravine. it is the sort of scenery that appeals to me. hills rose, wild and rocky, shutting in our road, and brigands would have been appropriate, as in some mountain pass of spain. there were sheer gray cliffs like castles and burnt-out churches, and watch-towers. said sir lionel: "here we come, straight from one of the finest cathedrals made by man, to see what nature can do in the way of ecclesiastical architecture; façades here as fine as any west front, and vaguely rich with decoration." i purred, of course, agreeing, and pointing out graceful spires, empty niches for saints, tombs for cardinals, and statues of kings and bishops with crowned and mitred heads, babbling on thus with hurried intelligence, lest ellaline should jump in ahead. it's the kind of place--this weird alley of colourful rock--where you feel things must happen, and i determined they _should_ happen; a hidden place you are surprised at being able to enter, as if the door had been shut by enchantment a few million years, and then forcibly opened for modern motorists. i used this idea on sir lionel, in a form too elaborate to waste on a sister, and made a distinct hit. but ellaline got in a little deadly work at the first cave. she began talking fairy talk with sir lionel, and that not being my style, i had to let her have her head. fancy _my_ pretending to be a child who, having lost itself, suddenly sees a hole in a rock, crawls in for shelter from beasts of the forest, and finds that by accident it has stumbled on the entrance to fairyland! but miss lethbridge had quite a fairy game with sir lionel, who, she played, was his ancestor king arthur, carried to this strange place by the four queens who rowed his body across the lake. "you can be one of the queens, if you like," she graciously said to me. "and dear mrs. norton another?" i suggested. that turned the budding drama into farce, as i meant it should. it was a weird cave, and would have served excellently for my purpose; but when i heard there was another to follow--as servants say of the next course for dinner--i thought it would be an anti-climax to use this one. besides, there were a good many people in it. there were tricky illuminations to show off the best formations, one of which was king solomon's temple, king s. sitting with folded arms at the entrance, his knees up as if he had a pain; but being only a pink stalagmite, he couldn't be expected to behave. having done justice to gough's cavern, we returned to the car, and skimmed along the splendid, rock-walled road to the next cave, which, it appears, is a deadly rival of the first. one advertises visits of martel, the explorer; the other boasts the approval of royalty. i'm sure they would love to have a notice up: "by appointment to the king," as if they were tailors. but what could a king do with a cave nowadays? at one time, it might have been handy to hide in, but those days and those kings are changed. i believe, by the way, britons did hide in one or two of the cheddar caverns, when the saxons were uncomfortably interested in their whereabouts, and there are bones, but i'm glad to say we didn't see them. i hate to be reminded of what i'm built on, and can't bear to look in the glass after seeing a skull, with or without cross-bones. in this second cave, when mrs. norton was putting an appropriate prehistoric question i'd coached her up to ask her brother, i linked a friendly arm in ellaline's, and bore her off under convoy. "what a sweet, illuminated stalactite curtain!" said i, rapturously. "doesn't it look like translucent coral, and wouldn't you like to have a dress exactly that colour?" thus i managed to keep her with me, and fall behind the others, glaring at dick so meaningly as to frighten him away when he showed signs of lingering. my scene thus effectively set, and the two leading characters on the stage together, i lost no time in beginning to recite my lines. it was in a dark sort of rock-parlour, with some kind of an illuminated witches' kitchen or devil's cauldron to look at, and give us an excuse to pause--all very effective. "miss lethbridge," i said, "i have rather a disagreeable duty to perform." "when people tell you they have a duty to perform, it goes without saying that it's disagreeable," she replied, with a flippancy on which i consider i have the patent. "have i a black on my nose, or is my dress undone at the back?" "there is a black," said i, "but it's not on your nose." "on my character, perhaps?" she insinuated. "not exactly," said i. "but it will be on my conscience if i don't get it off. you see, you ought to know. if you don't know, you're handicapped, and it isn't fair that a girl like you should be handicapped. i've been trying for days to screw up my courage to speak. in this queer place, i feel suddenly as if i could. shall we talk here, while we have the chance?" "you talk, please," said she. "i will do the rest." (pert thing.) however, i took her at her word, and did what i had to do, with neatness and dispatch, as an executioner should. but the odd part was, that when i had chopped off her head with the axe you sharpened for me and posted from scotland, registered and expressed, she hardly seemed to know it was off. she did look a little pale, though that might have been the effect of the strange light, but she thanked me pleasantly for telling her the truth, and said she quite appreciated my motive. "i was prompted entirely by my interest in you, and because of my nephew's friendship," i said. "oh, yes," said she, in a voice like cream. "what else _could_ it be?" "it could be nothing else," i replied emphatically. "i'm sure i hated distressing you, but it was that good might come. i do hope it hasn't upset you too much?" "no, not too much," said she. "but it has made me horribly--hungry!" really, that did stagger me! i must confess i can't tell what to make of the girl. anyhow, she _knows_, which is the principal thing, and no matter how remarkable an actress she may be for her age, she must care. it wouldn't be human not to care for such a story about her own mother and father. yet she took it so impersonally! i can't get over that. and she actually ate a good luncheon! i wonder she could swallow. but, of course, i'd put everything as politely as i could put such things, because i didn't want her to scream or faint. well, i needn't have worried! we had lunch at an inn near cox's cavern, with two cascades in the back garden, which is shut in by quite a private and special gorge of its own. i watched the girl as much as i dared, but she looked about as usual so far as i could make out. the only noticeable effect of our conversation was that she seemed somewhat suppressed, sat silent and thoughtful, and attempted no sallies. dozens of motors arrived while we were eating, gorgeous cars with resplendent chauffeurs, but there wasn't one to put the bonnet of "apollo" (as someone has named ours) out of joint; and not one chauffeur as striking as our extraordinary bengali in his native dress. i forgot to mention that i bound ellaline to secrecy before i began my tale, saying that i'd had the information in confidence. she has her faults, but i don't think she'd break her word. she is one of those tall, upstanding, head-in-the-air creatures who pride themselves on keeping a promise till it's mouldy. my headache was better, after relieving my mind, and i enjoyed the run to clifton and bristol. we had to go through the queer old gray village of cheddar, which was as cheesy looking as one would expect it to be; and i suppose the market cross we passed must have been good, as sir lionel would stop and take a photograph. as we turned out of the place for axbridge, i threw a glance over my shoulder, back at the exit of the queer valley, and a carved bronze screen seemed already to have been drawn across it. it was a fine road; axbridge a sort of toy village whose houses might have been made for good little girls to play with; and to avoid the traffic in the main road we went by way of congresbury, where the milford-joneses live. i was glad we didn't meet them driving their old pony-chaise. i should have been ashamed to bow. there was a turn which led us into a charming road, winding high among woods, then coming out where the gorge of the avon burst upon our view. it always pleases sir lionel if one is enthusiastic over scenery, so i was, though i really hated going over that awfully high suspension bridge, as i detest looking down from heights. so does mrs. norton; but i can't afford to be classed with her, therefore i joined ellaline in exclaiming that the bridge was glorious. i suppose it is fine, if one could only look without fear of being seasick. we stopped all night in clifton, in which miss lethbridge was interested, largely because of "evelina," who stopped at the hot wells, in the "most romantic part of the story." i couldn't for my life remember who wrote "evelina"--which was awkward; and it hasn't come back to me yet. i always mix the book up with "clarissa harlowe," and so does dick, though, of course, he's read neither. we went to see a lot of things in bristol, but the best was a church called st. mary redcliffe. mrs. norton, though tired, pined to go when she heard it was famous; and it's as much as your life is worth to deny her a church if she wants one. the others, except dick, said it was worth stopping for; also that they were glad they did; so somebody was pleased! and sir l. and e. jabbered enough history in bristol to last a schoolmaster a week. i was quite thankful to start again, and stop the flow of intelligence, because i hadn't found time to fag up bristol and clifton beforehand, as i do some towns. so we came to bath, where we've been stopping for two days at one of the best hotels in england, and where i might enjoy a little well-earned civilization if it weren't that there are a thousand and one old houses and other "features" which mademoiselle ellaline pretends she yearns to visit. of course, _i_ know that all she wants is a chance to monopolize sir l.'s society, but _he_ doesn't know that; and my business is not only to fight unjust monopoly, but to establish a senter-pendragon trust myself. consequently there is no rest for the wicked, and willy-nilly, i, too, gloat over relics of the past. luckily for me, as i have had to do more sight-seeing here than almost anywhere else, bath is a fascinating place, and i believe it's becoming very fashionable again. anyhow, all the great ones of earth seem to have lived here at one time or another. i wonder if it mightn't be nice for you to spend a season, taking the waters, or bathing, or whatever is the smartest thing to do? i've noticed it's only the very smartest thing that ever thoroughly agrees with you, and i sympathize. i have the sort of feeling that what is good for duchesses may be good for me; but if i bring off what i'm aiming at now, lady pendragon shall rise on the ladder of her husband's fame and her own charm to the plane of royalties. by the way, in nosing about among the foundations of a church here, st. peter's--they found the wife (her body, i mean) of that king edmund thingummy i never could find out about. he seems always to be cropping up! i was in hopes we'd only have to go back to the roman days of bath, as that saves trouble; but, oh no, down i must dip into saxon lore, or i'm not in it with the industrious miss lethbridge! i think the wretched saxons had a mint here, or something, and there were religious pageants of great splendour in which that everlasting st. dunstan mixed himself up. i tell you these things, i may explain, not because i think you will be interested, but because i want to fix them in my mind, as we haven't finished "doing" bath yet, and are to stop another day or two. as for roman talk, there is no end of it among us; it mingles with our meals, which would otherwise be delicious; and in my dreams, instead of being lulled by the music of a beautiful weir under my window, i find myself mumbling: "yes, sir lionel, ptolemy should have said the place was outside, not in, the belgic border." (sounds like something new in embroidery, doesn't it?) "strange, indeed, that they only discovered the roman baths so late as the middle of the eighteenth century! and then, only think of finding the biggest and best of all, more than a hundred years later!" i assure you, i have kept my end up with my two too-well-informed companions, and i was even able to tell sir lionel a legend he didn't know: about bladud, a son of the british king lud hudibras, creating bath by black magic, secreting a miraculous stone in the spring, which heated the water and cured the sick. then bladud grew so conceited about his own powers that he tried to fly, and if he had succeeded there would have been no need for the wright brothers to bother; but when he got as far as london from bath the wing-strings broke and he fell, plop! on a particularly hard temple of apollo. after him reigned his son, no less a person than king lear. i got this out of a queer little old book i bought the first day we came, but i assumed the air of having known it since childhood. there's another legend, it seems, about bladud and a swine, but it's less esoteric than this, and sir lionel likes mine better. i do wish we hadn't to spend so much time poking about in the roman baths, for though there are good enough sights to see there, for those who love that sort of thing, one does get such cold feet, and there are such a lot of steps up and down, one's dress is soon dusty round the bottom, and that's a bore when one has no maid. if i could choose, i'd prefer the pump room, and would rather talk of beau nash and the old assembly rooms than of minerva and her temple--or indeed of pepys, or miss austen and fanny burney. by the way, "evelina" was hers. i've found that out, without committing myself. i wish i could buy the book for sixpence. i think i'll try, when nobody is looking; and it ought to be easy, for we simply haunt a bookshop in gay street, belonging to a mr. meehan, who is a celebrity here. he has written a book in which sir lionel is much interested, called "famous houses of bath," and as it seems he knows more about the place as it was in old days and as it is now than any other living person, he has been going round with us, showing us those "features" i mentioned. he appears to have architecture of all kinds at his finger tips, and not only points out here and there what "wood the elder and wood the younger" did, under patronage of ralph allen, but knows which architect's work was good, which bad, which indifferent; and that really is beyond me! i suppose one can't have a soul for paris fashions and english architecture too? i prefer to be a judge of the former, thanks! it's of much more use in life. i should think there can hardly be a street, court, or even alley of old bath into which we haven't been led by our clever cicerone, to see a "bit" which oughtn't on any account to be missed. here, the remains of the roman wall, crowded in among mere, middle-aged things; there the place where queen elizabeth stayed, or queen anne; where "catherine morland" lodged, or "general tilney"; where "miss elliot" and "captain wentworth" met; where john hales was born, and terry, the actor; where sir sidney smith and de quincey went to school; the house whence elizabeth linley eloped with sheridan; the place where the "king of bath," poor old nash, died poor and neglected; and so on, ad infinitum, all the way to prior park, where pope stayed with ralph allen, rancorously reviling the town and its sulphur-laden air. so now you can imagine that my "walking and standing" muscles are becoming abnormally developed, to the detriment of the sitting-down ones, which i fear may be atrophied or something before we return to motor life. sir lionel has remarked that bath is a "microcosm of england," and i hastened to say "yes, it is." do you happen to know what a microcosm means? dick says it's a conglomeration of microbes, but he is always wrong about abstract things unconnected with sherlock holmes. by this time you will be as tired of bath as if you had pottered about in it as much as i have, and won't care whether it had two great periods--roman and eighteenth century--or twenty, inextricably entangled with the south pole and kamchatka. _more_ tired than i, even, for i have got a certain amount of satisfaction to the eye from the agreeable, classic-looking terraces and crescents, and the pure white stone buildings that glitter on the hillsides overlooking the avon. that is the sort of background which is becoming to me, and as i had all my luggage meet me in bath, i have been able to dress for it; whereas miss lethbridge has done most of her exploring in blue serge. in a day or two we are off again--wales sooner or later, i believe, though i ask no questions, as i don't care to draw attention to my own future plans. we were asked for a fortnight, and i am not troubling my memory to count by how many days we have overstayed--not our welcome, i hope--but our invitation. you will wonder perhaps why i "overstay," since i frankly admit that i'm "fed up" with too much scenery and too much information. yet no, you are far too clever to wonder, dear sis. you will see for yourself that i must go on, like "the brook," until sir lionel asks me to go on--as lady pendragon. or else until i have to abandon hope. but i won't think of that. and i am being so nice to mrs. norton (whenever necessary) that i think she has forgiven me the colour of my hair, and will advise her brother to invite me to make a little visit at graylees castle, where it is understood the tour eventually comes to an end. when this end may arrive the god of automobiles knows. a chauffeur proposes; the motor-car disposes. and the woman-in-the-car never reposes--when there's another woman and a man in the case. your-enduring-to-the-end, gwen. p. s.--that was an inspiration of mine about the cheddar cavern, wasn't it? i have another now, and will make a note of it. n.b.--get sir l. to take me to see the ruins of tintern abbey by moonlight (if any) and while there induce him to propose, or think he has done so. i have a white dress which would just suit. xxvii audrie brendon to her mother _tintern abbey_, _august 27th_ dearest saint: we're not exactly living in tintern abbey; that would be too good to be true, and would also annoy the rooks which cry and cry always in the ruins, as if they were ghosts of the dead cistercian monks, clothed not in white, but in decent black, ever mourning their lost glory. but we are in a perfect duck of a hotel, covered with virginia creeper, and as close by as can be. we arrived this afternoon, and have had an hour or two of delightful dawdling in the abbey. soon we are to have an early dinner, which we shall bolt if necessary, so that we may go in again by moonlight, before the moon escapes. i have dressed quickly, because i wanted to begin a letter to you. i shan't have time to finish it, but i'll do that when we've come back from the heavenly ruins, with moonlight in my pores and romance in my soul. i ought to write a better letter in such a mood, oughtn't i? and i do try to write nice letters to my angel, because she says such dear, kind things about them, and also because i love her better every day. we've seen quantities of beautiful things and places since i wrote you last, darling. to think them over is like drawing a long gold chain, strewn at intervals with different precious stones, through the fingers, slowly, jewel by jewel. the gold chain is our road and the beautiful beads are the places, of course. i can say "draw them slowly through the fingers," because we don't scorch. we are out to see the "fair face of england," not to scurry over it like distracted flies. i don't remember many "jewels" on the way to gloucester from bath through cold aston and stroud; but if i were properly up in history, no doubt i should have noted more than i did; yet gloucester itself was a diamond of the first water. i feared to be disappointed in the cathedral, so soon after exquisite wells and the abbey at bath, which i loved. but as soon as i got inside it was quite otherwise, especially as i had sir lionel to show me things, and he knew gloucester of old. to me, the interior was almost as interesting as winchester itself (which, so far, has outranked all), for the transition from one period to another is so clearly and strangely marked, and it's the actual birthplace of perpendicular architecture. the cloisters must be among the loveliest in the world; and there's a great, jewelled window which leaves a gorgeous scintillating circle in my mind's eye, just as the sun does on your body's eye, when you have looked in the face of its glory. oh, and the extraordinary stone veil, with its gilded ornamentation! i shan't forget that, but shall think of it when i am old. there is an effect as of tall rows of ripe wheat bending toward one another, gleaming as wheat does when the breeze blows and the sun shines. we heard the choir singing, an unseen choir of boys and men; and the voices were like shafts of crystal, rising, rising, rising, up as far as heaven, for all i know. don't you feel that the voice of a boy is purer, more impersonal and sexless, somehow, than the clearest soprano of a woman, therefore exactly fulfilling our idea of an angel singing? think of gloucester having been laid out on the same plan as the prætorian camp at rome! they've proved it by a sketch map of viollet le duc's; and under the city of the saxons, and mediæval gloucester, lies gloucestra--"fair city"--of the romans. you can dig bits of its walls and temples up almost anywhere if you go deep enough, people say. it must have been an exciting place to live in when rome ruled britain, because the fierce tribes from southern wales, just across the severn, were always spoiling for a fight. but now one can't imagine being excited to any evil passion in this shrine of the great "abbey of the severn lands." the one passion i dared feel was admiration; admiration everywhere, all the way through from the tomb of osric the woden who founded the abbey, to the new inn (which is very old, and perfectly beautiful); in the ancient streets, at the abbot's gateway, all round the cathedral, inside and out, pausing at the tombs (especially that of poor murdered king edward ii., who was killed at berkeley castle only a few miles away), and so on and on, even into the modern town which is inextricably tangled with the old. there are quantities of interesting and lovely places, according to sir lionel, where one ought to go from gloucester, especially with a motor, which makes seeing things easier than not seeing them; there's cheltenham, with a run which gives glorious views over the severn valley; and stonebench, where you can best see the foaming severn bore; and tewkesbury, which you'll be interested to know is the nortonbury of an old book you love--"john halifax, gentleman"; and malvern; and there's even stratford-on-avon, not too far away for a day's run. but sir lionel has news that the workmen will be out of graylees castle before long, and he says we must leave some of the best things for another time; oxford and cambridge, for instance; and graylees is so near warwick and kenilworth and stratford-on-avon that it will be best to save them for separate short trips after we have "settled down at home." how little he guesses that there'll be no settling down for me--that already i have been with him longer than i expected! whenever he speaks of "getting home," and what "we" will do after that, it gives me a horrid, choky feeling; and i'm afraid he thinks me unresponsive on the subject of the beautiful old place which he apparently longs to have me see, because my throat is always too shut up, when it is mentioned, to talk about it. i can't do much more than say "yes" and "no," in the absolutely necessary places, and generally show symptoms of cold in the head, if there's a hanky handy. of course, i am dying to see you, dearest. you know that, without my telling, and you are everything to me--my whole world. yet it hurts me dreadfully to know that, when sir lionel pendragon is at home, instead of carrying out the nice plans he makes each day for "us" in the future, he will be despising me heartily, and thinking me the very worst girl, without exception, who ever lived. i believe he now dislikes bloody queen mary more than any other woman who ever spoiled the earth with her offensive presence; but probably she will go up one when he gets to know about me. i don't doubt that he'll be angry with the real ellaline as well, but not absolutely disgusted with her, as he will be with me. besides, whatever he feels, it won't matter to her very much, except where money is concerned, because she will be married before he knows the truth. she won't have to live in his house, or even in the same country with him, for her home will be in france with her soldier-husband. unfortunately, i'm afraid his opinion of her may matter in a mercenary way, for i have heard the whole story--i believe the _true_ story--of ellaline's mother and father, as connected with sir lionel's past. mrs. senter told it, and enjoyed telling it, because she thought it would depress and take the spirit out of me. she hoped, i'm sure, that it would make me shrink from sir lionel's society in shame and mortification; also she very likely fancied that i might consider myself an unfit bride for her nephew, whose attentions to me are extremely convenient for her; but she would prefer not to have them end in matrimony. if i were ellaline lethbridge, with the feelings of audrie brendon, i should have taken the recital precisely as she expected; though really i don't think ellaline herself, as she is, would have minded desperately, except about the money. but being audrie brendon, and not ellaline, i could have shouted for joy at almost every word that woman said, if it hadn't been in a cave where shouting would have made awful echoes. you know, dear, how i have been puzzling over sir lionel the noble, as he appears to me, and sir lionel the dragon, as painted by ellaline, and how i've vainly tried to match the pieces together. well, thanks to mrs. senter's revelations, the puzzle no longer exists. of course, long ago, i made up my mind that there was a mistake somewhere, and that it wasn't on my side; still, i couldn't understand certain things. now, there _isn't one detail_ which i can't understand very well; and that's why i'm so ready to believe mrs. senter's story to be true. most disagreeable things are; and this is certainly as disagreeable for poor little ellaline as it was meant to be disagreeable for me. mrs. senter excused herself for telling me horrid tales about my people by saying that my ignorance gave me the air of being ungrateful to sir lionel, and unappreciative of all he had done for me. that he, being a man, was likely to blame me for extravagance and indifference to benefits received, although aware, when he actually reflected on the subject, that i sinned through ignorance. she thought (said she) that it would be only fair to tell me the whole truth, as i could then change my line of conduct accordingly; but she hoped i wouldn't give her away to sir lionel or dick, as she was speaking for my sake. when i had promised, she informed me that "my mother," ellaline de nesville, a distant cousin of lionel pendragon's, was engaged to him when they were both very young. there was a lawsuit going on at the time about some tin mines in cornwall, from which most of his money came, for the property was claimed by a man from another branch of the family, who suddenly appeared waving a marriage certificate or a will, or something melodramatic. well, the lawsuit was decided for the other man, just about the time that sir lionel (who wasn't sir lionel then) got shot in the arm and seemed likely to be a cripple for life. both blows coming together were too much for mademoiselle de nesville, who was fascinating and pretty, but apparently a frightful little cat as well as flirt, so she promptly bolted with an intimate friend of her fiancé, a mr. frederic lethbridge, rich and "well connected." they ran off and were married in scotland, as ellaline the second expects to be. (odd how even profane history repeats itself!) and this though mr. lethbridge knew his friend was desperately in love with the girl. what happened immediately after i don't know, except that mrs. senter says sir lionel was horribly cut up, and lost his interest in life. but anyhow, sooner or later, the lawsuit, which had gone to a higher court, was, after all, decided in his favour. the other man turned out to be a fraud, and retired into oblivion with his wills and marriage certificates. meanwhile, ellaline number one awoke to the fact that her husband wasn't as rich as he was painted, or as nice as she had fancied. some of his people were millionaires, but he had run through a good deal of his fortune because he was mad about gambling. at first, when the bride supposed that there was heaps of money, she enjoyed gambling, too, and they were always at longchamps, or chantilly, or the english race-courses, or at aix or monte carlo. by and by, though, when she found that they were being ruined, she tried to pull her husband up--but it was too late; or else he was the sort of person who can't be stopped when he's begun running down hill. probably she regretted her cousin by that time, as he was rich again, and likely to be richer, as well as very distinguished. and when a few years later (while our ellaline was a baby) frederic lethbridge forged a millionaire uncle's name, and had to go to prison, she must have regretted sir lionel still more, for she was a little creature who loved pleasure, and hardly knew how to bear trouble. mrs. senter said that mr. lethbridge had been sure the uncle would shield him rather than have a scandal in the family, and so it was a great surprise to him to be treated like an ordinary criminal. when he was sentenced to several years in prison, after a sensational trial, he contrived to hang himself, and was found stone-dead in his cell. his widow had to go and live with some dull, disagreeable relations in the country, who thought it their duty to take her and the baby for a consideration, and there she died of disappointment and galloping consumption, leaving a letter for her jilted cousin lionel, in bengal, which begged him to act as guardian for her child. all the money she had at her death was a few thousand pounds, of which she had never been able to touch anything but the income, about two hundred pounds a year; and that sum, mrs. senter gave me to understand, constituted my sole right to consider myself an heiress. despite the shameful way in which she had behaved to him, sir lionel accepted the charge, eventually took his cousin's little girl away from the disagreeable relatives, and put her at madame de maluet's, where mother ellaline was educated and particularly desired her daughter to be educated. not only did he pay for her keep at one of the most expensive schools in france (madame's is that, and she prides herself on the fact), but gave her an allowance "far too large for a schoolgirl" in the opinion of mrs. senter's unknown (to me) informant. doesn't this account for everything that looked strange, and for all that appeared cold-hearted, almost cruel, in sir lionel to ellaline, who had heard the wrong side of the story, certainly from madame de blanchemain--a silly woman, i fancy--and perhaps even from madame de maluet, whose favourite pupil ellaline the first was? no wonder sir lionel didn't write to the child, or want her to write to him, or send her photograph, or anything! and no wonder he dreaded having her society thrust on him when madame de maluet hinted that it was hardly decent to keep his ward at school any longer. i even understand now why, when i show the slightest sign of flirtatiousness or skittishness, he stiffens up, and draws into his shell. i very politely let mrs. senter see that i appreciated her true disinterestedness in repeating to me this tragic family history; and of course she was a cat twice over to do it. at the same time, i never liked her so much in my life, because it was so splendid to have sir lionel not only justified (he hardly needed that with me, at this stage) but haloed. i think he has behaved like a saint on a stained-glass window, don't you? i have interrupted my letter about places and things tremendously, to tell you the story as it was told to me; but it seemed to come in appropriately, and i wanted you to know it, so that you might begin to appreciate sir lionel at his true worth in case you have been doubting him a little up to now. everyone has gone down to dinner, i'm afraid, and i must go, too, because of the abbey afterward, and not keeping them waiting; but perhaps, if i skip soup and fish, i may stop long enough to add that after gloucester we went to quaint old ross, sacred to the memory of "the man of ross," who was so revered that a most lovely view over the river wye has been named for him. we had lunch there, at a hotel where i should love to stay, and then passed on, along a perfect road, down the wye, till we came to kerne bridge, near goodrich castle. there we got out, leaving buddha as the god in the car, and walked for half a mile along a romantic path to the ruined castle. it was one of the first built in england, and there are early norman parts of it still intact, and incredibly strong looking, as if they meant to last another thousand years. i was so interested in it, and wish whoever it may concern would leave the castle to me in his will. i would fix up a room or two and bring you there, and we'd have that exquisite view always under our eyes. as for servants, we could employ ghosts. the wye is even more charming as a river and as a valley than we used to imagine when we wanted to "do" england, before it burst upon us that most of the wherewithal was used up. nothing could be more dreamy and daintily pretty than landscape and waterscape, though here and there is a bit which might be gray and grim if the beetling rocks weren't hatted with moss and mantled with delicate green trees. wherever there is a boulder in the river, the bright water laughs and plays round it, as if forbidding it to look stern. the real way to see the wye isn't by motor, but by boat, i am sure, even though that may sound treacherous to apollo and disloyal to my petrol; but we did the best we could, and went out of our way some miles to see symond's yat, a queer, delightful, white village on a part of the river which is particularly divine. there's a splendid rock, and the yat is the rock, as well as the village. also there's a cave; but i wasn't sorry not to stop and go in, lest mrs. senter might seize the opportunity of telling me some other fearsome tale, less welcome than the last. in old days it used to take a week by coach from london to monmouth. now, with a motor, i dare say we could do it in one long, long day, if we tried. only it would be silly to try, because one wouldn't see anything, and would make oneself a nuisance as a "road hog" to everybody one met or passed. it was monmouth we came to next, after "digressing" to symond's yat, and as it was nearly evening by that time, sir lionel decided to stay the night. he meant to start again in the morning; but monmouth castle, towering out of the river, was so fine that it was a pity to leave it unvisited, particularly as henry v., a special hero of sir lionel's (mine, too!) was born there. then we took an unplanned eight-mile run to raglan castle, a magnificently impressive ruin; and that is why we arrived so late to-day at tintern. this letter has grown like jack's beanstalk, until i think i'd better post it on my way to dinner, instead of adding rhapsodies about moonlight in the abbey. i won't forget to put them in though, next time i write, which will be almost immediately--if not sooner. your even more loving than loquacious audrie. xxviii mrs. senter to her sister, mrs. burden _tintern abbey_ my dear sis: he came, the moon saw, and i--didn't conquer! you know what i mean? i'm sure you remember what i hoped to do at tintern abbey by the light of the moon; and if you are the good elder sister i think you are, i trust you prayed for my success. if you did, don't mind too much about the prayer not being answered, but try again, and give sir lionel "absent treatments," and all that sort of thing, because, if the moon had been properly turned on, he might have been brought to the point. for i look my best by moonlight, and have a great gift of pathos in a white light--like heroines of melodrama who always have themselves followed about by it on purpose--or else by a patch of snow. but the moon was only on at half-cock, and didn't work well, and after we had stubbed our toes on several things in dark shadows among the ruins, i just folded up my plan of campaign, and put it into my pocket until next time. the pity of it!--when i had been at a lot of trouble to persuade mrs. norton that it would be damp in the abbey, and that there exists a special kind of bat which haunts ruins and is consumed by an invincible desire to nest in the front hair. so she stopped in the hotel; and as for miss lethbridge, i knew i could trust dick to look after her. but--well, it can't be helped, and the moon is growing bigger and brighter every night. i don't know whether there were any toe-stubbing incidents in the ranks of the rear-guard; but something must have happened, for mademoiselle has come home looking _stricken_. i'm dying to hear what's the matter, but dick won't tell. perhaps she swallowed a bat! yours (would that i could say sir l.'s) ever lovingly, gwen. xxix audrie brendon to her mother _tintern abbey_, _same night_ after all, i'm writing again, darling mother. i do think that dick is an unmitigated cad. i told him so, and he said it was only because i was so unkind to him, and he was determined i shouldn't "chuck" him. he is hateful! it's too horrid to be obliged to obey dick burden's orders, just for ellaline's sake, when if it weren't for her i could not only tell him what i think of him, but have him sent away in disgrace. sir lionel would thrash him, i believe, if he knew--but it's useless to talk about that. and as dick gracefully reminds me, the pot can't call the kettle black. i am the pot. oh! i was in such a happy mood when we went into the abbey, and so delighted that we were able to be there by moonlight, dreaming as little of what would happen as red riding hood did before she met the wolf. sir lionel and i started together, somehow, but the minute we were in the ruins mrs. senter called him to ask a question about the tombs that break the soft green carpet of grass in the long aisles. instantly dick pounced on me, just as his aunt did in the cave the other day, and i could only have got away from him by showing that i'd rather be with sir lionel--which, of course, i wouldn't do. dick began at once accusing me of avoiding him, and keeping out of his way on purpose when he tried to speak with me alone, ever since he came back from scotland; and i retorted flippantly: "oh, have you only noticed that since then?" but in a minute i wished i hadn't defied him. he said, if i wanted him to be considerate, making him angry wasn't the right way to set about it; and that, if i had been in his power before, i was a good deal deeper in now. still, i wasn't so very frightened, because i'm used to his threats, and i thought he was only "bluffing"; so i bluffed back, and laughed, saying that it didn't suit his style to be melodramatic. "you make me want to shake you," he said, crossly. "i know that," said i. and then he burst like a thunder-cloud--at least, his news did; the news he had been wanting to tell me since bideford. when he was in scotland, _he saw ellaline_. she had arrived with those mcnamarras i told you about, and their place must be near the one where dick's mother is visiting. he recognized her from that photograph of the school garden-party (where he saw my picture, too, you know, and was able to find out my name, and where we live in versailles). that is, he thought he couldn't be mistaken, but made sure by inquiring, until he hit upon someone who could tell him that a mademoiselle de nesville had come to stay with mrs. and miss mcnamarra. of course, he couldn't have known that ellaline had taken the name of de nesville, but as he had heard that de nesville was her mother's maiden name, it wasn't difficult for a budding sherlock holmes to put two and two together. you see how much worse the position is now, both for ellaline and me, and that the little wretch didn't exaggerate when he boasted that i'm more "in his power" than ever. what a misfortune that ellaline should have come to scotland--so near where we shall be, too, if we go to the roman wall! he has only to tell the whole thing to sir lionel, and say: "if you don't believe it, run up to such and such a place, and there you will see the real ellaline lethbridge, whom perhaps you may recognize from her likeness to your cousin, her dead french mother." if only ellaline were safely married! but she can't be yet, for days and days, i'm afraid. she was to have written or telegraphed me at gloucester, if there were any chance of her soldier lover getting away sooner than last expected; but i had no word from her at all, at the poste restante there. all that sounds bad enough for me, doesn't it? but there's worse to come. the wretch swears he will (as he calls it), "give the show away" to sir lionel to-morrow if i don't tell sir l. myself that i have fallen in love with dick. i said that sir lionel wouldn't believe me if i did, because i'd told him at torquay i wasn't in love with dick. that admission slipped out, and sherlock holmes caught at it. "ah, i thought you'd done something to put him off the scent!" he flashed out. "i call that downright treacherous of you; and all the more i'll hold you down to your bargain this time. i said i'd speak to-morrow unless you did what i told you to do, but now i say i'll speak this minute, if you don't promise by all that's sacred to ask him for his consent to-morrow. i'll shout to him now. one--two--three!" "yes, yes, i will!" i cried--because dick had worked himself up to such a fury that i saw that he meant what he said. "i shall know fast enough whether you keep your word or not," he growled. "and if you don't, you understand just what you have to expect." if i hadn't given in to ellaline! i ought to have known that nothing but trouble could come of it. yet no--i won't wish it undone. i can't! no matter what happens, i shall never really regret what gave me the chance of meeting a man like sir lionel. i don't think there is another in the world. and to-morrow i am to have the honour of informing him that i'm in love with that little worm, dick burden. having seen the sun, i love a flicker of phosphorus on a sulphur match. do write me the minute you get this, won't you? no, telegraph if you can think of anything consoling to say. poste restante, chester. your frightened and loving audrie. xxx audrie brendon to her mother _aberystwith_, _august 29th_ brightest and best: i have a short reprieve, because dick has had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to london. a telegram was forwarded to him from gloucester, where he had left sending-on instructions; and he knocked at my door early yesterday morning (at tintern) to say he must leave immediately by the first train. he was excited, because the telegram came from the head of a firm of well-known private detectives with whom he had been in correspondence for some time, trying to buy a junior partnership for a few hundreds left him by his grandmother. there's a chance now that he may get the partnership, only he must be on the spot, as another man is making an offer "more advantageous--in some ways." dick is wild to get in, and regards this as the opportunity of a lifetime. doesn't that prove the type of mind he has? actually yearning to be in business as a detective! well, he's had good practice lately, and i must say he has made the most of it. "this call couldn't have come at a worse time, but i must obey it," he pronounced solemnly, while i peeped through my half-open door, in my prettiest ellaline dressing-gown--far too nice to waste on dick. disgusted with life, as i was, i nearly laughed in his face, and _at_ his face; but dared not quite, for fear of enraging him again just when he appeared to be in a comparatively lenient mood. he had come to explain and apologize, and in his perky conceit really seemed to fancy that i might be hurt at his desertion. so when he asked if i would "bid him good-bye pleasantly, and remember to keep my promise," i had a small inspiration. i would bid him good-bye pleasantly, i bargained, provided he let me off keeping the promise until he should come back; because, i said, it would be humiliating to plead with sir lionel on the very day my _fiancé_ turned his back upon me in order to attend to mere business. "you call this _mere_ business?" sputtered dick; and i soothed him, but persisted firmly, gently, until at last he agreed to grant the reprieve. i think his own vanity, not my eloquence, obtained the concession, because it pleased him to believe that i leaned upon him in this crisis. and of course i had to promise over again, more earnestly than ever, "not to back out, but to stick to my word." i must still stick to it, of course (unless a wire or letter from you meanwhile suggests some miraculous, agreeable, honourable alternative); but sufficient for the day is the evil thereof--and the dick thereof. this day and several days to come are free from both; for my albatross can't arrange the details of its partnership, sell out some investments in order to pay the money down, and join us again before chester. there i shall certainly hear from you; and i have such infinite faith in your dove-like serpentineness, that i let myself cling to the ragged edge of hope. meanwhile, i shall enjoy myself as much as i possibly can, so that, at worst, i shall have more good days to remember when bad days come. for the days will be very bad indeed if i have to bear sir lionel's silent scorn, and still remain with him, awaiting release from ellaline. i felt like a different human being after dick had gone, and would have written you at once, but he had delayed me so long that i had to finish dressing at top speed, because we were to make an earlier start than usual. there was chepstow castle to see (quite near, and a shame to have missed it), as well as a hundred-and-fifty-mile run to tenby. chepstow was splendidly picturesque and striking; but the country through which we had to pass on the way to tenby would not have been particularly interesting if it weren't for the legends and history with which it is as full as it is of ruined castles. it is largely coal country now, and after the lovely, winding wye, playing hide-and-seek with its guardian hills, we might have found the road unattractive as we ran through newport, cardiff, neath, swansea, and carmarthen. but it made all the difference in the world to know that carmarthen was merlin's birthplace; that stories of arthur's exploits and knightly deeds leave golden landmarks everywhere; and that it seems quite an ordinary, reasonable thing to the people to name railway engines after sir lancelot. isn't it charming of them? yet what would elaine, the lily maid of astolat, say to such a liberty, i wonder? we arrived in tenby too late for anything save an impression, last evening; but it was one of those enchanting, mysterious impressions which one can only have after dusk, when each old ivied wall is purple with romance, and each lamp in a high window is a lovelight. my first thought as we came in and found tenby on fire with sunset, was that the place looked like a foreign town set down in england; and so of course it is, for it was founded by a band of flemish people, who fled from persecution. the huge old city walls and quaint gates put me in mind of a glorified boulogne, or a bit of old dinan, under the castle. and the way the town lies, with its beautiful harbour far below, its gray rocks and broken walls by the sea, in golden sands, is like turner's ideas of historic french fortresses. the benedictine monks, too, who come across the gleaming stretch of water from caldy island in a green-and-red steam yacht, add one more foreign note. and i'm delighted to tell you that the hotel where we stayed is built upon the city wall of which nobody seems to know the date--not even the guide-books. the people we asked rather apologized for having to confess that probably it was no earlier than the twelfth century; for the twelfth century is considered crudely modern for welsh things. in front of my bedroom window an old lookout tower, darkly veined with ivy, stood up from the vast foundation of the stone wall; and at night i could gaze down, down, over what seemed in the moon-mist to be a mile of depth, to an almost tropical garden laid out on the wall itself. when the tide comes in and drowns the gold of the sands, the sea breaks against the buttress of rock and stone, and the hotel seems all surrounded with the wash and foam of waters, like a fortified castle of long-ago. we ought to have stopped more than one night and part of a next day, but there is so much, so much to do; and, as i told you, sir lionel's thoughts are already marching on toward home. there are all the beauty spots of wales before us; and the lake country, and the north by the roman wall, before we turn south again for graylees. i say "we"--but you know what i mean. the run we had to-day, coming through cardigan to aberystwith, has begun to show me what wales can do in the way of beauty when she really puts her soul to it; but sir lionel says it is nothing to what we shall see to-morrow. what joy that i have still a to-morrow--and a day after to-morrow--empty of dick! do you suppose a condemned person finds his last sip of life the sweetest in the cup? i can imagine it might be so. you'll be glad to get this, i'm sure, dearest, so i'll send it at once, with loads and loads of love from, your criminal child. p. s. i forgot to tell you that aberystwith isn't nearly as beautiful as tenby, but it has a castle towering over the sea, built by no one less than gilbert strongbow the cruel, who grabbed all cardiganshire for himself, and dotted castles about everywhere--or else stole other people's, which saved trouble. i know you like to picture me wherever i am, so i must tell you at least that about aberystwith, though describing places seems irrelevant in my present mood. i am keyed to the "top notch," and don't feel able to do anything leisurely. i do not expect to sleep to-night, and shall get up as soon as it's light, and dart down to the beach to look for amber, or carnelian, or onyx, which they say can be found here. i asked a chambermaid of the hotel, after we arrived this evening, what all the mysterious, stooping people were doing on the sands, and she said searching for amber, to bring them luck. i hope i may come across a bit--even a tiny bit. i am needing a luck-bringer. there was another mystery which puzzled me here: droves of pretty girls, between twelve and twenty, flitting past the windows, on "the front," every few minutes; sometimes two by two, sometimes four or five together. i thought i had never seen so many young girls. there were enough for the girl population of a large city, yet here they were all crowded together in this small watering-place. but the chambermaid has swept away the mystery. it's a college, and the girls "live out" in different houses. at the other end of the town is another college for young men. that sounds entertaining, doesn't it? xxxi audrie brendon to her mother _pen-y-gwrd-hotel_, _august 30th_ dear rose-without-a-thorn: i didn't find the amber, but sir lionel found a fat little, round lump, and gave it to me; and that seems almost more lucky than finding it myself; because it may mean that something good is to come to me from him. he was on the aberystwith beach when i got there, though it was only half-past six. he hadn't said a word the night before, but he made up his mind then to find some amber--for me. you see, he knew the superstition about luck, and how everybody goes hunting for it. i picked up a pretty piece of carnelian, and gave it to him in exchange, asking him "to keep it to remember me by." "i don't want to remember you," he answered. and when, perhaps, i looked hurt, he went on: "because i want to keep you in my life. i want you very much, if----" but just then mrs. senter came behind us, and left that "if" like a key sticking in a door which couldn't be opened without one more turn. i should have liked to know what was behind the door; but i daresay there was nothing much, really. she, too, had come to look for amber and other things. i don't know about the other things, but she didn't find the amber. at eleven o'clock, after seeing something of the place, we slipped away toward machynlleth, along a hilly road, which grew lovelier with each of its many twists among low mountains. now, said sir lionel, we were about to see the heart of wales; and i should soon have realized that without his telling, for as we slowed down to pass through little villages we heard the children talking welsh--a soft, pleasant language, which i can only try to describe by saying that it sounded like whispering out loud. but that is a very irish description! the scenery was so gentle in its beauty that my wild, excited mood was lulled by its soft influence. the colour of landscape and sky kept the delicate tints of spring, though we are in full, rich summer; and there was none of the tropical verdure we saw near tenby; no crimson fountains of fuchsias, no billows of blood-red roses, and fierce southern flowers. pale honey-suckle draped the gray or whitewashed stone cottages. rocks and crannies of walls were daintily fringed with ferns, or cushioned with the velvet of moss, and crusted with tarnished golden lichen. a modern-timbered house, rising pertly here and there, looked out of place among dwellings whose early owners quarried each stone from among their own mountains. as we left the fairy glades of those wooded hills for rugged mountains scantily clad with ragged grass, slate-quarries tried their ugly best to blotch and spoil the scene, but owing to some strange charm of atmosphere, like a gauze veil on the stage, they could not quite succeed. by and by the gauze veil turned to rain, but rain suited the wild landscape--far better, by the way, than it suited mrs. senter, whose nightly hair-wavers are but a reed to lean upon in wet weather. she made some excuse to come behind with emily and me, and before the car started again i summoned courage to ask if i might take her place, saying i loved to feel the rain. so there i was with sir lionel once more; and i wondered if he thought of that night when we rushed through the storm from tintagel to clovelly? soon this also bade fair to be a storm, for the rain began to tumble out of the sky, rather than fall, as if an army of people stood throwing down water by the bucketful. i revelled in it, and in the sombre scenery, where sharp rocks stood out like bones through the tattered green coats of soldier-mountains. all the world was gray or gray-green, save for a patch of purple heather here and there, like the stain of a new wound. we were under cadir idris, mounting the pass high above a deep ravine; yet the blowing rain hid the mountain from our eyes as if he were the veiled prophet. the sound of the wind, which seemed to come from all quarters at once, was like the mysterious music of a great æolian harp, as it mingled with the song of ghostly cascades that veined the dark rocks with marble. mountain sheep sprang from crag to crag as apollo rounded a corner and broke into their tranquil lives, now and then loosening a stone as they jumped. one good-sized rock would have bounced down on the roof of our car if sir lionel hadn't seen it coming, and put on such a spurt of speed that apollo leaped ahead of the danger. but he always does see things in time. you wouldn't think sheep could have as much expression as those sheep had, when they saw us and weren't sure which way to run. of course they needn't have run at all; but whichever way they decided, it was certain to be wrong! i was sorry to leave that pass behind, and have its door shut after us, for we came out into a pastoral landscape, where the only wild things were the grazing black cattle. it was charming country, though; and in less than a mile we had reached a famous spot known as the tourist walk. the rain was pelting down harder than ever, so we could not get out and take the walk; but soon after we had abandoned it the deluge suddenly turned from lead to a thick spray of diamonds, mixed with sparkling gold-dust. our road glittered ahead of us like a wide silver ribbon unrolled, as we sailed into the little gray town of dolgelly on its torrent river; and beyond, in a fresh-washed radiance of sunlight, the way was one long enchantment, the sweet world of green hills and musical waters looking as young as if god had made it that day. the graceful mountains which pressed round the valley had the air of waiting each her turn to stoop and drink a life-giving draught from the river, which, as we neared barmouth, opened to the sea, gleaming like a vast sheet of quicksilver. further on, travelling through woods where young green trees shot up from gilded rocks, glimpses of the estuary came to us like a vision of some italian lake. just before harlech, the wild yet nymph-like beauty of the world changed to an almost startling grandeur, for the coast moved back from the sea with a noble sweep, magnificent mountains towered along the shore, and line after line of beryl waves shattered into pearl upon a beach of darkened gold. harlech castle was an event in my life. i thought i had begun to take ruined castles for granted in wales, as you do sea-shells on the shore; but harlech is a castle that you couldn't take for granted. it was a shock at first to find that a hotel had been built in the very face of it, as if bearding it in its den; yet it is a nice hotel; and when we had lunched there agreeably, i not only forgave it for existing, but began to like and thank it for having thoughtfully placed itself on that admirable height. from here our eyes ought to have been smitten with the sight of snowdon; but the grand old mountain was asleep, his head buried in white cloud-pillows which alone betrayed his whereabouts; so we had to be content with the castle. and i was content. to see the splendid ruin reared on its great rock, dark against sea and sky, was thrilling as a vision of an old wounded knight girding his strength for a last stand. [illustration: "_the splendid ruin, reared on its great rock_"] history says that harlech castle is no older than edward i.; but story says (which is more important, because more romantic) that in the dim dawn while history still dozed, here rose the tower of twr brauwen, white-bosomed sister of bran the blessed. also, it came into the possession of hawis gadern, a great beauty and heiress, whose uncles tried to wrest it from her, but were defeated and imprisoned in the castle. anyway, however that may be, owen glendower came and conquered, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when he was forging a chain of wonderful deeds which made him the hero of wales. never mind if he was driven away a few years after by prince henry. that's another story. the way from harlech by portmadoc to exquisite pont aberglaslyn and beddgelert is very arthurian; that is, it suggests pre-mediæval backgrounds, and at every turn i caught myself expecting to come upon camelot, unspoiled, unchanged. the high mountains still wore their invisibility masks, but the lower mountains, not too proud to show themselves to motoring mortals, grouped as graciously together as if they were lovely ladies and gay knights, turned to stone just when they had assembled to tread a minuet. and the fair glaslyn flowed past their feet with a swing and sweep, as though the crystal flood kept time to dance music which our ears were not attuned to catch. quickly we flashed by more than one beautiful lake, too; a jewel hidden among mountains, found by our eyes unexpectedly, only to be lost again. and all the while cader idris and snowdon drew hoods of mist over their heads, pulling them down tightly and firmly. not once had we caught a glimpse of either mountain, though we were almost near enough to knock our noses or apollo's bonnet against their sharp elbows; but we were too happy to care much--at least, one of us was!--and we cared even less when rain came on again. i still kept my place beside sir lionel, who was repentant for having made me cry over the dreadful, agonizing, too-tragic story of gelert. i won't repeat it to you, because it's wickedly sad, and grayhound gelert was so much nobler than most people. sheets of spun glass shimmered and waved before us, as we rushed on through the mountains, past the beautiful place of gelert's grave, up toward pen-y-gwrd. and the tinkling swish of the rain on the glass sounded to me as the welsh names had begun to sound. i wish you could hear them spoken, for the spelling gives no idea of their pronunciation, or the pleasant, muffled music of them. but all i can tell you is, that when you come into wales you will feel they are characteristic of the country; mysterious, sympathetic, rather secretive. sir lionel was happy in the thought of pen-y-gwrd, because some of the best memories of his boyhood are associated with that little spot in the mountain-land of wales. he used to come, and climb with an old friend a few years older than himself, a colonel o'hagan, who is in bengal now, and who--he thinks--will like me. not much chance of our ever meeting! just as sir lionel finished quoting charles kingsley on pen-y-gwrd, we drew up in front of a low gray stone building; and kingsley's merry words rang in my ears as the door of the hotel opened. you know i can always remember a verse after having once heard it. "there is no inn in snowden which is not awful dear, excepting pen-y-gwrd (you can't pronounce it, dear) which standeth in the meeting of noble valleys three; one is the vale of gwynant, so well beloved by me; one goes to capel curig, and i can't mind its name; and one, it is llanberis pass, which all men knew the same." never did any gesture give a better welcome than the opening of that door! we'd been too happy to know we were cold with the chill of the mountains--half-seen shapes that hovered close, with white cascades like ghosts flitting ever across their dimness; but when a glow of firelight streamed out to greet us, suddenly we realized that we were shivering. in the square hall, several men were talking together, men with oxford voices and open-air faces. in their midst was one man, much older, grizzled and weather-beaten, not a gentleman in the conventional sense, yet in listening to him the others had an air of deference, as if he were a hero to the group. the four or five figures stood out like a virile, impressionist sketch in black and brown on a red background; but as we entered, welcomed by some pink-cheeked young hostess, the ruddy light danced into our eyes. the men in front of the fire moved a little as if to give place, and glances were thrown at us, while for an instant the conversation flagged. then the group was about to return to its own interests, when suddenly, out from among the rest stepped the grizzled man. he hesitated, as if uncertain whether or no to obey an impulse, then came forward with a modest yet eager air. "i can't be mistaken, sir, can i?" he asked. "it must be mr. pendragon--i beg your pardon, sir li----" "why, penrhyn!" cried sir lionel, not giving him time to finish; and seizing one of the gnarled brown hands, he shook it as if he never meant to stop. both their faces had lighted up, and were beaming with joy. the grizzled man seemed to have thrown off fifteen years in a minute, and sir lionel looked like a boy of twenty-two. by this time everyone was gazing--staring is too rude a word--and the other faces were beaming as well, as if the most delightful thing had happened. i am sure that sir lionel had forgotten the existence of us three females, and had rushed back to the bright dawn of his youth. it was the light of that dawn i saw on his face; and i found my heart beating with excitement, though i didn't know why, or what it was all about. "by jove, penrhyn, to think of your being the first man to greet me on our old stamping-ground!" sir lionel exclaimed. "it seems too good to be true. i've been thinking about you all day, and your face is a sight for sore eyes." "i'd rather see you, sir, than have a thousand pounds drop down on me through the ceiling," retorted the mysterious hero. (i should think so, indeed.) they shook hands, and beamed on each other a little more, and then sir lionel remembered his flock. turning to us, he introduced the grizzled man. "this is my old friend and guide, owen penrhyn," said he, as if he were drawing us into the circle of a prince. "there never was a guide like him in the welsh mountains, and never will be again. jove! it's glorious to find him at the old business still! though, in our day together, we didn't carry this, eh?" then i saw that an alpine rope was coiled across one of the strong shoulders clad in rough tweed, and that the great stout boots were strikingly trimmed with huge bright nails. "it's like sir lionel to put the praise on me," protested the dear old thing, flushing up like a boy. "why, he was the best amateur" (he pronounced the word quaintly and i loved him for it) "i ever see, or ever expect to see. if he'd gone on as he began, he'd a' broken the noses of some of us guides. pity he had to go to furrin' parts! and i'll be bound he never told you, ladies, of his first ascent of twll ddu, or how he pulled me up out of the torrent by sheer strength, when my fingers were that cold i couldn't grip the hand-holds? i'd 'a' fallen clear to the bottom of the devil's kitchen if't hadn't been for mr. pendragon, as he was then. and what d' you think, ladies, he says, when i accused him o' savin' my life?" "what?" i begged to know, forgetting to give my elders a chance to speak first. "'tommy rot.' that's his very words. i've never forgot 'em. 'tommy rot.'" he beamed on us, and every one in the hall laughed, except perhaps emily, who smiled doubtfully, not sure whether or no it was to her brother's credit to have remarked "tommy rot" in such a crisis. but after that, we were all friends, we, and owen penrhyn, and the other men, too; for though we didn't really talk to them till dinner, i knew by their eyes that they admired sir lionel immensely, and wanted to know us all. at dinner there was splendid climbing talk, and we heard further tales of sir lionel's prowess; among others of a great jump he had made from one rock of trifaen to the other, with only a little square of rock to light upon, just on the edge of a sheer precipice; a record feat, according to the old guide. and while the men and we women listened, the wind outside raged so wildly that now and then it seemed as if a giant fell against the house and afterward dashed pebbles against it in his fury. then again the wind-giant would rush by the hotel in his hundred-horse-power motor-car, tooting his horn as he went. it was nice sitting there in the comfortable dining-room, listening to the climbing stories, while the wind roared and couldn't get at us, and the whole valley was full of marching rain! now i am writing in my bedroom, close to a gossipy little fire, which is a delightful companion, although august has still a day to run. mrs. senter is having her beauty sleep, i suppose; and i should think mrs. norton is reading young's "night thoughts." i know she takes the book about with her. the men are still in the hall downstairs, very happy, if one can judge by the laughter that breaks out often; and i am as happy as i can be with the thought of dick probably appearing at chester day after to-morrow night. but i won't let myself think of that too much, because it isn't certain that he will get back then, and it _is_ certain that there will be some word from you, which may change everything. you see what faith your girl has in you! but wouldn't she be ungrateful if she hadn't? there is one other thing which has been bothering me in odd moments, though, and i wish i had asked your advice about that, too, in the letter to be answered at chester; but the idea hadn't occurred to me then. it suddenly sprang into my mind last night when i was lying in bed, not able to go to sleep. ought i to repeat to ellaline what mrs. senter told me about the money? i don't mean the part about the poor child's father and mother. no one but a thorough pig of the universe would tell a daughter perfectly unnecessary horrors, like those; but about her not being an heiress in her own right, and depending on sir lionel for everything except two hundred a year? if i were really in her place, instead of pretending to be, i should want to know, and shouldn't thank anyone for keeping the truth from me. it would be unbearable to accept generosity from a man, thinking i might be as extravagant as i liked, with my own money. but it is difficult to make up my mind, on account of the _fiancé_. you, being french yourself, know how it is with french officers who fall in love with a girl who has no _dot_, or only a small one. most of them, if poor themselves, would slap their foreheads and despair, but think it their duty to their country to forget the girl. i'm afraid the adorable honoré is rather poor; and though no normal young man, especially a frenchman, could help being fascinated by ellaline if thrown in her society, many normal young men would be more ready to let themselves go, believing her to be an heiress. perhaps honoré wouldn't have proposed if he hadn't thought ellaline a very rich as well as a very pretty girl. perhaps if he found out even now, at the eleventh hour, that she depends upon a person whom she has just slighted and deceived, he might desert her. wouldn't that be awful? not that i think ellaline would tell him, if i wrote to her exactly what i've heard from mrs. senter. fascinating as she is, it isn't in her to be frank. i'm sure she would keep the secret until after her lover was safely her husband; but she would be upset and even more anxious about the future than she is. i don't know what to do. and in the last letter i had from her she scolded me for continually praising sir lionel. she is sure i am mistaken about him, and that, if i can see any good under the dragon's scales the evil monster must have hypnotized me. she really seemed quite vexed. maybe i shall hear from her at chester. i hope so, as i'm rather worried because she didn't write to the last address i was able to give. whatever message your expected letter or telegram has for me, i will answer it at once. good night, dearest little dame wisdom, with more love than ever from your audrie. i'm so glad we are staying here all day to-morrow and to-morrow night. there are dozens of beautiful things to see; and besides, it is as safe as the inmost circle of a labyrinth from dick, who has no clue. xxxii audrie brendon to her mother _queen's hotel, chester_, _september 1st_ we've been in chester for several hours, my angel; and not only is there no dick (for which heaven be praised), but no word from you, which worries me. still, i shan't be really anxious unless on my second call at the post-office (to be made by and by) i draw a blank again. at least, i didn't draw a blank exactly when i went there before. i drew a letter from ellaline, with vexing news. honoré de guesclin is in a scrape. he could get leave now, and come to her, but he and some of his brother officers have been amusing themselves by learning to play bridge. naturally, those who played best came off best, and honoré wasn't one of them. he has borrowed of a money-lender, and is in a hole, because the fellow won't let him have more, and is bothering for a settlement. also, honoré owes some of his friends, and hasn't a penny to pay up or start on a journey. ellaline doesn't seem to think much about the moral aspect of her honoré's affairs (you see, she knows nothing of what her mother must have suffered from her father's _penchant_), but she is in a great state of nerves about the delay. she has always been told it was bad luck to put off a wedding, and besides, she finds scotland _triste_, and wants to be married. you can guess to what all this is leading up! i must get money, somehow, anyhow, but a great deal, and immediately. i must send her at least four thousand francs by return of post; five thousand, if possible; but if "monsieur le dragon is too stingy to give more, at all events nothing less will be of the least use." it's easy for her to dictate terms. she hasn't got to face the very upright and honourable gentleman whom, she calls the dragon, whereas i have; and i've already shamed myself by asking for large sums at short intervals. i simply can't go to him here and "hold him up" for four thousand francs. it would be monstrous, and if he asked what i wanted to do with it (as it seems to me it would be only his duty to ask the young schoolgirl he thinks me) i should be able to find no decent excuse, as i have no expenses beyond those he pays. however, i shall have to do something desperate, i don't know yet what. he has given me some pretty things, and though i hate the thought of parting with them in such a way, as they're ellaline's by rights, it's no more than fair she should benefit by them in the hour of her need. poor girl! of course there's nothing for it but she must marry the young man now, yet it seems a poor outlook, doesn't it? she explains in a p. s. that she was too upset to write me to the last place, as she hadn't heard from honoré when she expected; but now, if the money is forthcoming all right he will start for scotland as soon as possible after receiving it from her, and settling up. i have calculated times as well as i could, and fancy that if i can in any way send her a post-office order from chester to-morrow, she and honoré may be able to marry in a week. once i shouldn't have believed i could be sorry to have my "principal" arrive and take back her own part; but now, if it weren't for dick burden, it would actually be a temptation to me to delay ellaline's appearance on the scene. of course, i wouldn't be such a wicked wretch as to yield to the temptation, but i should feel it. ellaline promises to telegraph the moment honoré arrives, and again when they're safely married, so as to give the understudy plenty of time to scuttle off the stage, before the guardian is informed that his charge has been taken off his hands. she doesn't want to see sir lionel, she says, but she and honoré will write him unless, when honoré has consulted a scottish solicitor (if that's what they're called), it's considered wiser for the lawyer himself to write. so you see, this makes it harder for me to know what to do about repeating mrs. senter's story. if ellaline understood her position she would, perhaps, think it better to come with her bridegroom and throw herself at her injured guardian's feet. what a nice world this would be if your affairs didn't get so hopelessly tangled up with other people's that you can hardly call your conscience your own! and never have i realized the niceness of the world more fully than in the last few days. [illustration: "_its twenty-one towers and turrets still dominate bridge and river_"] yesterday i had a little easy climb with sir lionel and the old guide, and saw the glory of llanberis pass. to-day, on the wings of apollo, we have flown through amazingly interesting country. it really did seem like flying, because the road surface was so like velvet stretched over elastic steel that eyesight alone told us we touched earth. miles aren't tyrants any more, but slaves to the mastery of good motor-cars; and any motoring monte cristo can fairly exclaim, "the world is mine!" (n. b. this isn't original. sir lionel said it at lunch.) from north wales to cheshire looks a long run on the map, but motors are made to live down maps; and we arrived in this astonishingly perfect old town early in the afternoon, coming by way of capel curig (whence we saw snowdon crowned with a double rainbow), sweet bettws-y-coed, or "station in the wood," and so down the river valley in a bird swoop, to noble conway, with its castle that was once a famous welsh fortress. now, in piping days of peace, its towers and turrets still dominate bridge and river, and the great pile is as fine, in its way, as carcassone. don't you remember, it was from conway castle that richard the second started out to meet bolingbroke? we stopped to take photographs and buy a few small pearls from the "pearl-breeding river"; and while we gazed our fill at the mighty monument, we learned from a guardian that in old days a certain lady erskine hired the castle for six shillings and eightpence a year, in addition to a "dish of fish for the queen," when her majesty chanced to pass! at colwyn bay we lunched early, at a charming hotel in a garden above a sea of mediterranean blue; and the red-roofed town along the shore reminded me of dinard. after that, coming by abergele and rhuddlan to chester, the way was no longer through a region of romance and untouched beauty. there were quarries, which politely though firmly announced their hours of blasting, and road users accommodated themselves to the rules as best they might. but there were castles on the heights, as well as quarries in the depths; and though sir lionel says that inhabitants of wales never think of turning to look at such a "common object of the seashore" as a mere castle, i haven't come to that state of mind yet. near rhuddlan there was a tremendous battle at the end of the seventh century, out of which so many fine songs have been made that the welsh princes and nobles who were slain have never lost their glory. there's a castle, too (of course), but the best thing that happened for us was a gloriously straight road like a road of france, and as nobody was on it save ourselves at that moment, we did about six miles before the next moment, when others might claim a share. i believe the holyhead road is very celebrated. soon we had to turn our backs upon a mystic mountain-land that ringed us in, and face the sea once more--a wide water-horizon whose line was broken with great ships steaming from all parts of the world to liverpool. apollo had seemed a little faint before luncheon, because of some inner disturbance, but he was flying fast as a saint on his way to paradise as we crossed the dee, into england out of wales, and sprang into gladstone country. when people are obliged to reach a town by rail, there must be disappointments to lovers of the picturesque, as you and i know by experience. it's like arriving at a house by the tradesmen's entrance; but with a motor one sails up to the front door through the park. of all the towns to which apollo has brought us, the entrance to chester to-day was the best. the first effect of colour left on my eyes the impression of sunset-red, warm as copper beeches. the place seemed to be lit with fading firelight, and i wondered at the soft glow everywhere, until i realized that the big buildings--the cathedral, the great houses and the old city wall--were all made of rosy sandstone. you can't imagine how a large town which has lived as long as chester has, and gone on growing, could have contrived to remain so satisfyingly beautiful, or keep such an air of old-time completeness. but the secret is, i suppose, that chester is "canny" as well as "bonny," and, being wise, she refused to throw away her precious antique garments for glaring new ones. when she had to add houses, or even shops, wherever possible she reproduced the charm and quaintness of the black and white tudor or stuart buildings which are chester's intimate treasures. of course, i've seen little of the place yet; but after i had been to the post-office, i strolled about before coming back to the hotel, partly to recover from my disappointment in not hearing from you, partly because i was so bewitched with my first glimpse that i couldn't bear to come indoors still a stranger to the town. hovering in front of the cathedral (a curious building, black in its oldest parts, bright pink where it has been renovated) i saw sir lionel and mrs. norton coming. that was awkward, because i had said i wanted to "settle in" before sight-seeing, but i explained vaguely that i'd changed my mind, and was invited to go into the cathedral with them. perhaps it was because emily was with us that nothing seemed very wonderful in the interior--unless the carved oak in the choir--but the cloisters are beautiful, and i liked the chapter house. after "doing" the cathedral, mrs. norton was tired, so sir lionel and i had a walk alone, an adventure mrs. senter would never have allowed if she'd guessed i was out of my room. she is a dog in the manger about walks. she hates them herself, but she won't let other people take them without her if she can help it. we dropped emily at the hotel, and had a delicious ramble (speaking for myself!) through the four extraordinary streets which stand for much in chester's peculiar fame. wandering there, it was easy to believe what the guide-books say: that nowhere in great britain does a town exist which so preserves the ancient character of all its architecture. i don't know if there are british relics; but the city wall and gates are roman, part of the castle, too; and since mediæval days nothing seems to have lost in picturesqueness. people come from all over the world to see the rows: streets dug out below the rock-surface on which the town was originally built, having shops and even warehouses on their level, with galleries above, open fronted, stone-paved, balustraded with black oak, so that these "rows" all look as if the houses were wide open, communicating with one another. the carved oak fronts of the houses and shops, done ingeniously with strange pargetting, and adorned with wondrous windows, are so adorably queer, with their stagey effects, that i don't wonder chester has become a kind of mecca for travellers from my native land, where most things are new. when we had thus skimmed a little of the cream from the town itself, we had a walk on the old wall, while church bells, near and distant, chimed; but still i don't feel i've more than glanced at the place. to-morrow we plan to run out to knutsford, which is mrs. gaskell's cranford really, and i have begged to start early, because if we do (though naturally i don't allege this reason) we can get off before dick arrives. then, when we come back, we can do more sight-seeing, and maybe be out when he turns up at the hotel. after that event, unless you save me to-night with some miraculous suggestion, all pleasure will be over. and at best, i'm not looking forward with undiluted joy to to-morrow, because i must not only decide what to do for ellaline, but do it. while i was walking on the wall with sir lionel just now, gazing up at watch-towers, or down over the town, and dodging seedy amateur guides whom we nicknamed "wallers," i kept thinking, thinking, about what to sell. the only thing sir lionel has given me of really great value, which could be easily disposed of, is the ruby and diamond ring. but how it would hurt me to give it up in such a sordid way! it was my birthday present from him, and it's associated in my mind with that night of moonlight in the new forest when i first knew i _cared_. but i'm sorely afraid it must be the thing to go. there are several important-looking antique shops here, and i noticed, when casting my eye about, one where they make a speciality of curious and rare jewellery. i shall look at it again more carefully when i run out to the post-office, in a few minutes, and perhaps i may have courage to try and strike a bargain, so as to send the money off in the morning before knutsford--if i get it---_an hour later._ dearest, i've got your wire, now, having retrieved it from the poste restante, and i'm thankful for it--thankful that you're well, thankful that you don't blame me for anything i've done, faults committed or mistakes made. but--alas, i don't think the advice, good as it is, will be of any use to me. you see, you don't know mrs. senter. it would be hopeless for me to try and force her to exert authority over dick burden. in the first place, she has no real authority, as apparently he has no expectations from her; and in the second place, though i'm almost sure she doesn't know the truth about me and ellaline, she suspects that dick has a hold over me; and after all i've submitted to from him already it would be impossible to "bluff" her into the belief that i'd dare ask sir lionel to send them both away. no, my dear one, there's little hope for me in that scheme. i allowed ellaline to make my bed for me, and i must lie in it, although it has proved to be one of those nasty folding ones that will shut and swallow me up in a trap. no, it's cowardly to whine like that. it won't be pleasant to keep my promise to dick; but there have been worse things; and i shall probably be able to escape before long. anyhow it will all be the same a hundred years hence. as soon as i am with you again it will be as if nothing had happened; and meanwhile i am going to keep a "stiff upper lip." it mayn't be becoming, but that won't matter, as sir lionel will never look at me; and you will see by my letters in future how well i am getting on. best love to my best loved, from audrie. xxxiii sir lionel pendragon to colonel patrick o'hagan _keswick hotel_, _september 3rd_ my dear pat: here we are, you see, in the "happy hunting ground" where you and i used to hunt such shy game as chimneys, needles, crevices, etc., etc.; and if i'm not as happy in it now as i ought to be, that isn't the fault of the country, which is as fair as it ever was--the fairest in england, perhaps. it just happens, unfortunately, that i've been rubbed up the wrong way before coming to the places i'd looked forward to revisiting more than any other, except cornwall; and if i hadn't invited dear old penrhyn from pen-y-gwrd to meet me here, and have a climb, i'm not sure i should have stopped. however, i have enjoyed the beauty of the run. i must have been as blind as a mole, and as earthy, if i hadn't. fine road from chester to liverpool, which city had an air of opulent magnificence seen from the ferry, as we neared her--rather like a huge, modern venice. lunched there, at the adelphi, on the fat of the land, and had some trouble finding the way out of town. liverpool welcomes the coming, but doesn't speed the parting guest; not a sign-post in sight anywhere. bad pavé till ormskirk, when things improved, growing better and better; but no scenery to speak of until near preston. villages all along the line, stone-paved; struck me as being characteristic of that stern north country which we approached. "road too good not to mean police-traps," said i to myself; and an a. a. scout warned me that they swarmed; but luckily we were not held up. i wasn't in a temper to have taken any nonsense lying down, i'm afraid. ran straight through lancaster, which was almost a pity, as john o' gaunt's castle is a brave old fortress, whether or no he really built the famous tower; and at the king's arms we might have got some genuine oat-cakes, which would have given a taste of cumberland to the strangers. as it was, the first truly characteristic things we came upon were the stout stone walls, on which we happened a little short of kendal. down to windermere, a steep but beautiful run; mrs. senter by my side, and very enthusiastic. she seems to take an unaffected interest in scenery, with which you would hardly have credited her in old times. she was entranced by her first sight of the lake, which is not surprising, for to one who has never seen them the lakes must be a revelation. dick burden, by the way, was not with us on this run, nor was he at chester. he had business in london, which kept him longer than he expected when he left our party at tintern. i can't say i regret him, though others may. i understand that there has been some telegraphing between him and his aunt, and that his present intention is to rejoin us at newcastle. rather wish he would put off his return a little longer, as it is arranged that we go out to cragside and bamborough castle; and one doesn't like to abuse such delightful hospitality as we have been offered there. dick's presence does not add to the gaiety of nations, it seems to me, and i am not keen on taking him. i found penrhyn waiting for me here, the good fellow, delighted at the prospect of his short visit, and to-morrow he and i will have some small climb. i shall send the car, with young nick to drive all who care to go, to a few of the beauty spots, while i am otherwise occupied. they must penetrate the cloistered charms of exquisite borrodaile, and of course see lodore, which ought to be at its best now, as there have been heavy rains. jove! how the cumberland names ring on the ear, like the "horns of elfland"! helvelyn; rydal; ennerdale; derwent water; glaramara! aren't they all as crystal as the depths of mountain tarns, or that amethystine colour of the sky behind the clear profiles of high peaks? i'm sorry we're too late for the grasmere sports; but the fact is we have lingered by the way longer than i planned for this trip; and now, as things are turning out i'm inclined to cut the end of the tour short. graylees is practically ready for occupation, and i feel as if i ought to be there. no! that isn't good enough for you, old chap. it's true, as far as it goes; but you have begun to read between the lines by this time, i know, and i may as well speak out. i should be an ostrich if i weren't sure that you've been saying to yourself: "why doesn't this fellow refer to the girl he has spent so much pen and paper on? why does he go out of his way to avoid mentioning her name?" well, she hasn't eloped, or done anything culpable. but there is no use concealing from you, as i have told you so much, that she has hurt me to the quick. not that she has been unkind, or rude, or disagreeable. quite the contrary. and that's the worst of it, for i prayed to heaven that there might be nothing of her mother in this young soul. at first, as you know, i could hardly believe the girl to be all she seemed, but soon she won me to thinking her perfection--a lily, grown by some miracle of nature in a soil where weeds had flourished hitherto. i would have given my right hand rather than have to admit a flaw in her--that is, the one fatal flaw: slyness hidden under apparent frankness, which means an inherited tendency to deceit. this may sound as if i had found the poor child out in a lie. but there has been no spoken lie. she has only done the sort of thing i might have expected ellaline de nesville's daughter to do. i told you about the ring i bought her at winchester, and gave her on her birthday; how prettily she received it; how she seemed to treasure it more because of the thought and the association than the intrinsic value of the ruby and the brilliants. at chester, the night before we left, i thought i'd try to pick up some little souvenir of the town for her, as she was delighted with the place. of course i wanted something small, as our luggage isn't of the expanding order, so i had the idea of jewellery; a little antique pendant, or a few old paste buttons. there is a certain shop in the "rows" where one looks for such things, and expects to find them good, if highly priced. in the window of that shop i saw displayed for sale the ring i had given to ellaline! the sight of it there was a blow; but i persuaded myself i might be mistaken; that it wasn't the same ring, but another, almost a duplicate. i went in and asked to look at it. the shopman mentioned that it was something quite unusually good, and had "only come in" that afternoon. inside i found the date which i had had engraved on the ring; the date of ellaline's birthday. i bought it back--for a good deal more than i paid in winchester, as this chap knew his business thoroughly; but that is a detail. it was merely to satisfy a kind of sentimental vanity that i wanted to get the thing out of the window and into my own hands; for, needless to say, i don't intend to speak of the matter at all to ellaline. it would humiliate me more than it would her, to let her see that i know what she did with her birthday present; for partly, i blame myself. i supposed that i was fairly free-handed with money, and had no idea that the girl could possibly want more than she had. still, i told her to let me know in case she found me thoughtless, and not to hesitate to ask for anything she wanted. she could have had as much as she chose, and i would have put no questions. if i'd been surprised with the largeness of the sums, i should have believed that she had some pensioners to whom she wished to be charitable; for i had begun to believe that she could do no wrong. as i said, there was nothing culpable in selling the ring. it was hers. she had a right to do as she liked with it. but that she should like to part with it; that she should do so, knowing i would hate it if i knew; that she should be exactly the same with me as if she hadn't done a thing which she was aware would distress me; that she hadn't the courage and frankness to come to me and say---oh, hang it all, i'm grumbling and complaining like an old prig! perhaps i am one. i know dick burden thinks so. we'll let it go at that. i don't need to explain to you a matter which outwardly is insignificant, and is significant to me only for reasons which the past will account for to you better than my explanations. the salt has gone out of life a bit, and i think it will do me good to get to graylees, where i shall find a thousand things to interest me. i daresay ellaline will be glad to settle down, though she is too polite to show it; and i'm sure emily will. after a look at the roman wall, and a sight of bamborough, we shall run to warwickshire with few détours or pauses. you see, by the way, that you were wrong in thinking she could care. if there had been the least warmth in her heart for me she couldn't have sold my ring. i'm glad i didn't make a fool of myself. penrhyn wants to be remembered to you. yours ever, pen. xxxiv sir lionel pendragon to colonel o'hagan _county hotel, newcastle_, _september 5th_ my dear pat: you'll be surprised to get another letter from me on the tail of the last, but there have been developments in which i think you will be interested. the sale of the ring was a mere preface to what has followed. we arrived at newcastle this afternoon, finding burden already here. i didn't think the meeting between him and ellaline particularly cordial, but appearances are deceiving where girls are concerned, as i have lately been reminded in more ways than one. about an hour ago, while i was getting off some letters and telegrams, i received a message from my ward asking if she could see me in the hotel drawing-room--the place is so full i couldn't get a private one. i went down at once, of course, dimly (and foolishly) hoping that she wanted to "confess" about the ring. but it was quite a different confession she had to make; her desire to be engaged to mr. burden! naturally, after our last conversation on that subject, i was somewhat surprised, and on the spur of the moment was tempted to remind her that not long ago young nick had appeared as suitable in her eyes, as young dick. however, i stopped in time to save myself from being both bounder and brute. i did inquire whether she were now sure of her own mind; but it was the duty of a guardian and not the malice of a disappointed man which prompted the question. her manner was singularly dry and businesslike, and she came as near to looking plain as it is possible for a beautiful girl to come; so love isn't always a beautifier. "i am sure of my mind for the moment," she replied, with repulsive prudence. "i suppose a girl need never say more." this answer and her manner puzzled me, so i ventured to ask, in a guardianly way, if she thought she were enough in love with burden to be happy with him. "i haven't to think about being with him at all yet," she temporized. "you seem to have an extraordinary idea of an engagement," i said, perhaps rather sneeringly, for i felt bitter, and had never approved of her less. "perhaps i have," she returned, in such an odd, muffled sort of tone that i feared she was going to cry, and glanced at her sharply. but she was looking down and there were no tears visible, so that fear was relieved. "you do, at all events, wish to be engaged to burden?" i persisted. "am i to understand that?" "i have asked for your consent," she said, with a queer stiffness. and it was on my tongue to say as stiffly, "very well: you have it. what pleases you should please me." but the words stuck in my throat, as if they'd been lumps of ice; and instead i answered, almost in spite of myself, that i couldn't give my consent unconditionally. i must have another talk with burden, and whatever my decision might be, i would prefer that she didn't consider herself engaged until after the tour was ended. "we'll bring it to a close as soon as possible now," i added, trying not to sound as bitter as i felt, "so as not to keep you waiting." she made no response to this, except to give me a singular look which even now i find it impossible to understand. it was as if she had something to reproach me for, and yet as if she were more pleased than sad. girls are very complicated human beings, if indeed they can be classified thus--though perhaps some men's lives would be duller if they were simpler. as for my life, the less girls have to do with it when my ward is off my hands, the better. since the above conversation, i have been drawn into a talk with burden. he appeared anxious to find out exactly what had passed between ellaline and me, almost as if he suspected her of not "playing straight," but i replied, briefly, that she had asked my permission to be engaged to him, having evidently changed her mind since our last discussion on the subject. this appeared to content him more or less, although i repeated what i'd said to the girl: that i was not prepared to consent officially until i had communicated with his mother, and satisfied myself that my ward would be welcomed in the family. this he evidently thought old-fashioned and over-scrupulous, but when i admitted being both, he ceased to protest, only saying that he wished to write to his mother first. i suggested talking with his aunt, also, and he did not object to the idea, so mrs. senter and i have already had a short conversation concerning her nephew's love affair. she cried a little, and said that she would be "horribly alone in the world" when her "only real pal" was married, but that of course she wished for his happiness above everything, and she meant to give him a wedding present worth having, if she beggared herself for years. the poor little woman showed a great deal of heart, and i was touched. i'm afraid she's not too happy, under her air of almost flippant gaiety and "smartness," for she rather hinted that she liked some man who didn't care for her--someone she met in the east. i suppose she can't be cherishing a hidden passion for you? rather cruel of us, accusing her of being a flirt in those days, if she were in earnest all the time, eh? in case i "pump" her a little about this mysterious disappointment, and find it's you she's thinking of, i may turn the tables, and give you some good advice--better than you gave me. you might do worse than get leave and have another look at this pretty and agreeable lady before deciding to let her slip. yours always, pen. good old owen enjoyed his two days in cumberland. he, too, tried his hand on advising me. said i ought to marry. not i! xxxv mrs. senter to her sister, mrs. burden _newcastle_, _september something_ my dear sis: this is to ask a great favour of you, and you must be a pet and grant it. there's nothing i won't do for you in return, if you will. i have just been having a most satisfactory chat with sir l. it began in reference to dick. somehow or other that ingenious darling had forced ellaline lethbridge to ask sir lionel for his (dick's) hand! i say "forced," because she is not in the least in love with him, indeed, (strange as it may seem to you) detests the ground he walks on; yet she does things that he tells her to do--things she hates like poison. this last _coup_ of dick's convinces me of what i've often suspected: he knows something about her past which she is deadly afraid he will tell sir lionel. it may be connected with that visit to venice, when the tyndals saw her; anyhow, whatever the secret may be, it is serious. she is obliged to bribe dick; but she dislikes him too intensely to marry him ever--even if the way to do so were made easy; so, i reiterate, have no fear on that score. sir lionel fancies himself in love with the girl, but he will get over it, even if he isn't on the way to do so already, pushed roughly onto the right road by her confessed preference for dick. for the moment, however, i can see he is rather hard hit, though he would be _mad_ if he dreamed i or anyone could read his august feelings. he thinks his hesitation to permit an engagement arises from conscientious scruples, but really it's because he can't bear to have any other man (or boy) making love to his girl. that's the brutal truth; and he's haggling and putting off the evil day as long as he can. he wanted to ask me what my feeling was in the matter; whether _you_ would be pleased, and so on. ellaline might not be rich, he explained, but she would have enough for her own wants as a married woman. he thought her husband, when she had one, ought to wish to do the rest; and though dick considered his own prospects good, a partnership in a detective agency hardly seemed ideal. i told him i couldn't quite answer for you, as you had always hoped your one boy might fall in love with a rich girl; but that i was sure dick adored ellaline. i asked if i should write to you, when dick did; and he said, half reluctantly, perhaps i had better. poor wretch, he was afraid i might succeed in persuading you! i was pathetic on the subject of dick, and our comradeship, which must be broken by the dear boy's marriage, and as sir l. was suffering himself, he was in just the right mood to sympathize with me. i snivelled a little; and at last, emboldened by success, i allowed him to gather that there was someone i'd cared for a long, long time--someone who didn't care for me. at that he was so nice, that i liked him better than i ever thought i could; and since then i feel i really can't and shan't lose him. no sooner had he given my hand a warm yet disappointing "kind friend" squeeze, at parting, than i routed out dick in his own room. i promised him that i would induce you to write a nice letter about the proposed engagement to sir lionel if he in his turn would persuade ellaline to put in a good word for _me_ with sir l., to tell him that she believed i cared for him a good deal, and was unhappy. when i said "persuade" to dick, i meant use his unknown power to command; for if the girl would say that to her guardian, her words would be the one stone capable of killing two birds. it would prove to him that of which i don't think he is perfectly sure at present: her love for dick, or, at worst, her complete indifference to himself; and it would pop into his head the idea i want to put there, though i have done all it's safe to do openly toward inserting it. i saw when i softly hinted at a hopeless affection which had spoiled years of my life, that he didn't think of himself. somehow, he must be _made_ to think; and now is the right time, for his heart is sore, and needs balm. he would be so sorry for me that, in the state he is in, he couldn't be hard. he would argue that, as he was bound to be unhappy anyway, he might as well try to make others happy. i feel that everything would happen exactly as i want it to happen if ellaline lethbridge could be depended upon to say the right thing. of course, there lies the danger: that she won't. but dick boasts that she'll have to do as he tells her. it's worth risking; but he won't give the word unless he thinks that i've coaxed you 'round. that's the favour i ask. will you, when you get this, wire to me at once, "writing according to your request to sir l."? i can then show your telegram to dick (you must address it to me at bamborough castle, where we are to spend a night, after staying one at cragside) and he will put pressure to bear on ellaline lethbridge. you can be absolutely certain that no harm will come of this. that dick and she will never be married; whereas, when i am married to sir lionel, i'll give you a present of five hundred pounds, within the first year, to do with as you like. i'd even be willing to sign a paper to that effect. your anxious, yet hopeful gwen. xxxvi audrie brendon to her mother _bamborough castle_, _september 9th_ dear: i know you are miserable about me, but don't be it, because i'm not miserable about myself. honour bright! i've done the hateful deed. it was at newcastle: and i knew i was in for it, the minute i saw dick. he's got his partnership, and thinks he's got me. but there's many a slip 'twixt dick burden and audrie brendon. i wouldn't tell sir lionel i was in love with the horrid boy detective, and i'm happy--or nearly happy--to say that he refused to give his consent straight out to an engagement. he told dick the same thing; so there'll be no leaving us two alone in lovesick corners (can corners be lovesick?), or making announcements, or anything appalling of that sort. perhaps it was easier, speaking to sir lionel, because he hadn't been kind to me since the last evening in chester--i can't think why, though i can think why i deserved unkindness. the ring was terribly on my mind; but he can't have found out about that, because the man in the shop promised he wouldn't try to sell it until next day. i couldn't get quite what ellaline wanted, though i sold two or three other things--all i could sell; but it came nearly to the right amount; and it went off to her in scotland, in the form of a post-office order, that same night--assured instead of registered, as the letter was so valuable. sir lionel being somewhat frigid and remote in his manner, appearing to take no more interest in me than if he were a big star and i a bit chipped off a leonid, i delivered myself of what i had to say without great difficulty. i had a queer, numbed feeling, as though if it didn't matter to him, it didn't to me, until just at the last, when he said something that nearly made me cry. luckily i was able to swallow the sob. it felt like a large, hot, crisp baked potato; and my heart felt like a larger, cold-boiled beet soaked in vinegar. it's all over now, though, and i'm comparatively callous. maybe the vinegar has pickled me internally? bamborough castle, where we arrived to-day with our kind and delightful hosts of cragside, is to be the northernmost end of the tour. on leaving, we turn southward; and would make straight for warwickshire and graylees, if, in an evil moment, mrs. norton and i hadn't for once agreed about a place that we longed to see. it is haworth, where the brontës lived, and sir lionel said that our wish should be gratified. he planned a day in yorkshire: ripon, fountains abbey, haworth, harrogate (not york, because emily went there with the late mr. norton, and has sad marital memories); and the plan still stands. i have an idea that sir lionel is impatient to reach graylees now, so after the yorkshire field-day we will push on there; and i shall perhaps hear from ellaline as to honoré's plans. he ought to be in scotland by that time. i've written her to wire me at the nearest post-office to graylees castle, as i don't like to receive telegrams there. but i see no reason why you shouldn't send a letter to graylees--the last letter, i hope, which need ever be addressed to me as "miss ellaline lethbridge." it will seem nice to get into my own name again! rather like putting on comfortable shoes after tight ones that made blisters. and how divine to fly to you--a distracted chicken, battered by a thunderstorm, scuttling back under its mother's downy wing! nevertheless, i'm not going to cheat you out of seeing england through my eyes, because my pleasure--just a little of it--is damped by dick. i am resigned and calm, and you mustn't think me a martyr. i've told you i hate whiners, and i won't be one. why, i ought to be thankful for the chance of such a wonderful trip, and not be cowardly enough to spoil it by a few private worries! cumberland is even lovelier than wales, though i shouldn't have thought that possible. sir lionel went climbing with the nice welsh guide, whom he invited to keswick, so he wasn't with us much; and dick being in london still, there were only mrs. norton, mrs. senter, and i to be conducted by young nick. it did seem odd being driven by him, and seeing his back look so inexpressive among the most ravishing scenes. i asked if he didn't think cumberland glorious, but he said it was not like india. i suppose that was an answer? we spun off into the mysterious enchantments of borrodaile in gusts of rain; but the heavenly valley was the more mystic because of the showers. huge white clouds walked ahead of us, like ghosts of pre-historic animals; and baby clouds sprawled on the mountain sides, with all their filmy legs in air. at lodore the water was "coming down" like a miniature niagara. heavy rains had filled the cup of its parent river full, and the waterfall looked as if floods of melted ivory were pouring over ebony boulders. what a lovely, rushing roar! it was like the father of all sound--as if it might have given the first suggestion of sound to a silent, new-born world. windermere and derwent water we saw, too, and each was more beautiful than the other. also i was much excited about the giant's grave, near keswick, which has kept its secret since before history began. all the way to carlisle the country was very fair to see, scarcely flagging in charm to the end; and carlisle itself was packed with interest, from its old cathedral to the castle where david i. of scotland died and mary queen of scots lodged. now our thoughts were turned toward the roman wall, and i thrilled a little, despite the forbidding stiffness of sir lionel's disapproving back as he drove. because of kipling's splendid story of the roman soldier in "puck of pook's hill," i knew that for me the great wall (all that's left of it) would be one of the best things. parnesius, the young centurion, told una and dan that "old men who have followed the eagles since boyhood say nothing is more wonderful than the first sight of the wall." and also that there were no real adventures south of it. it was disappointing to think that nowadays, on our way there, we couldn't expect to meet "hunters and trappers for the circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves" for the amusement of the soldiers in the far northern camps; or that when we should come to the wall, we'd find no helmeted men with glittering shields walking three abreast on the narrowest part, screened from picts by a little curtain-wall at the top, as high as their necks; no roaring, gambling, cock-fighting, wolf-baiting, horse-racing soldier town on one side, and heather wastes full of hiding, arrow-shooting picts on the other; yet i heard sir lionel say we could still trace the guard-houses and small towers, and see how the great camp of cilurnum was laid out. we had left the mountains before we came into carlisle, but not the hills; and after one of grandiose size, which an old northumbrian we met called "a fair stiff bank," we were on the roman road; the long, long, straight road forging uncompromisingly, grimly up and down, ever on, scorning to turn aside for difficulties; the road where the legions paced with the brave roman step--"rome's race, rome's pace," twenty-four miles in eight hours. kipling illuminated the way through haltwhistle and chollerford to the chesters, a private park which is a big out-of-doors museum, for it has in its midst the remains of old cilurnum. we got out at the gates, and wandered among the ruins that have been reverently excavated; a gray and faded scene, like a kind of skeleton pompeii with dead bones rattling; entrance gateways; ghost-haunted guard-houses; stone rings which were towers; many short, straight streets whose half-buried pavements once rang under soldiers' heels; the forum; all the camp-city plan; a map with outlines roughly sketched in stone on faded grass. we had had our first sight of the wall of which centurions in britain bragged when they went back to rome. then it was a living wall; but it is very wonderful still, where its skeleton lies in state. we had started so early from keswick, that it wasn't two o'clock when we left the chesters; and i was surprised when, instead of drawing up before some country inn for lunch, we skimmed through a gate only a mile or two away, and stopped under the shadowy frown of an imposing mediæval stronghold. it was haughton castle, whose towers and keep are crowded with stories of the past, and the visit was to be a surprise for us. sir lionel knew the owner, who had asked us all to lunch, for the "dragon's" sake; and it looked quite an appropriate resting-place for a dragon of elegant leisure. it was as interesting within as without; and after luncheon they took us over the castle; best of all, down in the deep dungeon where archie armstrong, a chief of moss-troopers, was forgotten and starved to death by his captor, sir thomas swinburne, a stout knight of henry the eighth's day. there is a long story about archie, too long to tell you here; but each castle of northumberland (the county of castles, not of collieries) has dozens of wonderful old stories, warlike, ghostlike, tragic, and romantic. i have been reading a book about some of them, which i will bring you. it's more interesting than any novel. and king arthur legends are scattered broadcast over northumberland, as in cornwall. also the "scots wha hae wi' wallace bled" did much of their bleeding and fighting here. there's history of "every sort, to please every taste," from celtic times on; but i'm not sure that the troublous days of the great feudal barons weren't the most passionately thrilling of all. if the first sight of the wall was wonderful to the roman soldiers, so must have been the first sight of the wide tyne. i know it was so to me, as we flashed upon it at the first important twist of the straight roman road, and crossed it on a noble bridge. of course, newcastle has a castle; and it was "new" when william the conqueror was new to his kingdom. now that i've seen this great, rich, gay, busy city, ancient and modern, i realize how stupid i was to associate it with mere coal, as strangers have a way of doing, because of the trite remark about "taking coals to newcastle." why, the very names of the streets in the old part chime bell-like with the romance of history! and i like the people of northumberland--those i have met; the shrewd, kindly townsfolk, and the country folk living in gray villages, who love old, old ways, and emit quaint wit with a strong, rough "burr." they have the look in their eyes that northern people have, all the world over; a look that can be hard, yet can be kinder than the soft look of more melting southern eyes. sir lionel is of the south--born in cornwall; yet his eyes have this northern glint in them--as if he knew and understood mountains. just now they are terribly wintry, and when they rest coldly on me i feel as if i were lost in a snowstorm without hat or coat. but no matter! now, what shall i say to you of bamborough castle, which is the crown of our whole tour? i wish i were clever enough to make the splendour of it burst upon you, as it did upon me. imagine us motoring over from cragside (a very beautiful and famous modern house, with marvellous gardens and enchanting views) which belongs to these kind, delightful friends of sir lionel's who own bamborough castle. there was a house-party at cragside, and there were twelve or fifteen of us who left there in a drove of automobiles. [illustration: "_there were twelve or fifteen of us who left cragside_"] down the beautiful winding avenue; then out upon a hump-backed, switchback road, a dozen miles and more, past great alnwick, on, on, until suddenly a vast, dark shape loomed against the sky; a stone silhouette, not of a giant's profile, but of a whole vast family of giants grouped together, to face the sea. to _own_ a thing like that must feel like owning niagara falls, or the marble range of the sierra nevada, or biting off a whole end of england and digesting it. yet these charming people take their ownership quite calmly; and by filling the huge castle from keep to farthest tower with their beautiful possessions, seem to have tamed the splendid monster, making it legitimately theirs. i thought alnwick grand, as we passed, but its position is insignificant compared with bamborough, which has the wide north sea for a background. on a craggy platform of black rock like a petrified cushion for a royal crown, it rises above the sea, a few low foothills of golden sand drifting toward it ahead of the tide. the grandeur of the vast pile is almost overwhelming to one who, like me, has never until now seen any of these mighty fortress-castles of the north; but a great historian says that the site of bamborough surpasses the sites of all other northumbrian castles in ancient and abiding historic interest; so even if i had been introduced to dozens, my impression must remain the same. "round bamborough, and its founder, ida (the flame-bearer), all northumbrian history gathers"; and it is "one of the great cradles of national life." bamborough village, close by, was once the royal city of bernicia, and the "laidly worm" was there to give it fame, even if there had never been a grizel cochrane or grace darling; but the history of the hamlet that once was great, and the castle that will always be great, are virtually one. i shall bring you besant's "dorothy foster," and lots of fascinating photographs which our hostess has given me. (i don't think i need leave them for ellaline, as she wouldn't care.) but you know the story of the laidly worm, because dad used to tell it to me when i was small. the wicked stepmother who turned her beautiful stepdaughter into the fearsome worm used to live at the bottom of a deep, deep well that opens in the stone floor of the castle keep; and there, in the rock-depths, a hundred and fifty feet below, she still lurks, in the form of a gigantic toad. i have been allowed to peep down, and i'm sure i caught the jewelled sparkle of her wicked eye in the gloom. but even if she'd turned me into a laidly worm, i couldn't be more repulsive than i probably am at present to sir lionel; besides, i could crawl away into a neighbouring cave with modern improvements, and console myself with a good cry--which i can't do now, for fear of getting a red nose. i should hate that, because mrs. senter's nose is so magnolia-white, and the background of a magnificent feudal castle sets off her golden hair and brown eyes so passing well. [illustration: "_bamborough surpasses all northumbrian castles_"] there might be volumes of history, as well as romances, written about bamborough castle--as sir walter scott, and harrison ainsworth, and sir walter besant knew. why, the thrill of unwritten stories and untold legends is in the air! from the moment i passed through the jaws of outer and inner gateways, i seemed to hear whispers from lips that had laughed or cursed in the days of barbaric grandeur, when bamborough was the king of all northumbrian castles. there are queer echoes everywhere, in the vast rooms whose outer walls are twelve feet thick; but more deliciously "creepy" than any other place is the keep, i think--even more thrilling than the dungeons. yet the castle, as it is now, is far from gloomy, i can tell you. not only are there banqueting-halls and ball-rooms, and drawing-rooms and vast galleries which royalties might covet, but there are quantities of charming bedrooms, gay and bright enough for débutante princesses. my bedroom, where i am writing, is in a turret; quaintly furnished, with tapestry on the wall which might have suggested to browning his "childe roland to the dark tower came." it's very late, but i don't like to go to bed, partly because i can't keep jumping up and down to look out of my window at wild crags and moonlit sea when i'm asleep; partly because i have such silly, miserable dreams about sir lionel hating me, that i wake up snivelling; and to write to you when i'm a tiny bit _triste_ is always like warming my hands at a rainbow-tinted fire of ship's logs. to-morrow afternoon we are going back to newcastle, where we will "lie" one night, as old books say, and then make a very _matinal_ start to do our great day in yorkshire, passing first through durham, with just a glance at the great cathedral. once upon a time we would have given more than a glance. but, as i told you, sir lionel seems to have lost heart for the "long trail." i never saw him so interested in mrs. senter as he has appeared to be these last two nights at cragside and here. certainly she is looking her very, very best; and in her manner with him there is a gentleness and womanliness only just developed. one would fancy that a sympathetic understanding had established itself between them, as it might if she told him some piteous story about herself which roused all his chivalry. well, if she has told him any such story, i'm sure it is a "story" in every sense of the word. and i don't know how i should bear it if she cajoled him into believing her an injured innocent who needed the shelter of a (rich and titled) man's arm. perhaps it is a little sad wind that cries at my window like a baby begging to come in; perhaps it is just foolishness; but i have a presentiment that something will happen here to make me remember bamborough castle forever, not for itself alone. _afternoon of next day_ it _has_ happened. best one, i don't quite know what is going to become of me. there has been the most awful row. it was with dick, and sir lionel doesn't know about it yet, and we are supposed to be going away in a few minutes; but maybe dick is talking to sir lionel now, and if he is, i don't suppose i shall be allowed to proceed in the company of virtuous emily and (comparatively) innocent gwendolen. i shall probably be given a third-class ticket back to paris, and ordered to "git." it's rather hard that, having sacrificed so much, large chunks of self-respect among other things, it should all come to nothing in the end. ellaline will want to kill me, for i have thrown her to the lions. it won't be my fault if they don't eat her up. oh, darling, i do feel horribly about it, and really and truly, without exaggeration, i would have died sooner than repay her kindness to me by giving her away like this. an ancestress of yours in the revolution ran up the steps of the guillotine laughing and kissing her hands to the friends she left in the tumbril, and i could have been almost half as brave if by so doing i might have avoided this dreadful abandoning of ellaline's interests, trusted to me. but what can you do between two evils? isn't it a law of nature, or something, to choose the lesser? dick went just the one step too far, and pulled the chain too tight. he had begun to think he could make me do anything. a little while ago, i was alone in the armoury, absorbed in looking at a wonderful engraving of the tragic last earl of derwentwater, when suddenly dick came up behind me. i wanted to go, and made excuses to escape, but he wouldn't let me; and rather than have a scene--in case anyone might come--i let him walk me about, and point out strange old weapons on the wall. that was only a blind, however. he had something particular to say, and said it. there was another thing i must do for him: find a way of informing sir lionel, prettily and nicely, that mrs. senter cared for him, and was very unhappy. i flew out in an instant, and said that i'd do no such thing. "you must," said he. "i won't," said i. "nobody can make me." "oh, can't they?" said he. "i can, then, and i mean to. if you refuse to do it, i shall believe you're in love with sir lionel yourself." "i don't care what you believe," i flung at him. "there's no shame in saying i like sir lionel too well and respect him too much to have any hand in making him miserable all the rest of his life." "do you insinuate that marrying my aunt would make him miserable?" dick wanted to know. "i don't insinuate. i assert," said i. and by that time i was in such a temper, and my nerves had so gone to bits that i didn't know, and cared less, what i was saying. i went on and told dick exactly what i thought of mrs. senter, and that for a loyal, true sort of man like sir lionel it would be better to die at once than have her for his wife--for that would be death, too, only slow and lingering. dick was white with fury, but i hardly noticed then, for i was seeing red. "if you call her deceitful, what are you?" he sputtered. "i'm neither here nor there," said i. "certainly you won't be here long, or where pendragon is," said he. "i wouldn't marry you now, if you'd have me. you're nothing more or less than an adventuress." "and you're a blackmailer," i mentioned, because i'd gone back to primitive passions, like eve's, or a brittany fishwife's. "that's a lie," he answered politely, "because blackmailers only threaten; i'm going to perform. it's all up with you." "i don't care for myself," said i. but, as you know, that was only partly true. then for a minute dick seemed to repent. "no good losing our tempers like this," he said. "take back your insults to my aunt, who is the best pal i ever had--though that's not saying much--and speak a good word for her to sir lionel, whom she really loves, and i'll let you off." "i'd have my tongue cut out first," i answered. "is that your last word?" he persisted. "yes," said i. "very well, then," said he, "you'll be sorrier for this than you ever were for anything in your life." and he stamped away, leaving me alone. i flew up to my room, because i wasn't going to run the risk of his bringing sir lionel in and telling him everything before me. so here i am, and that's all; except that emily has come to my door to say her brother wants to know if i can be ready to start in twenty minutes. _newcastle, night_ we're back in our rooms at the county hotel, and i am dazed with the mystery of what is going on. i _was_ ready in twenty minutes; and all the automobiles that brought us yesterday were waiting to take us away again. when i came down, mrs. norton and mrs. senter were in our car; sir lionel, cool but polite, prepared to help me in, standing by. he has great control over his features, but i didn't think, if he had heard dick's story, and intended to shed me at the nearest railway station (not to make a scandal at bamborough), he could be looking as unmoved as that. no dick was in sight. naturally, i didn't ask for him, but perhaps my eye moved wildly round, for mrs. senter read its question, and answered it in a voice like insufficiently sweetened lemonade: "your dick, dear child, has had another urgent summons to his mother's side, and won't be with us to-day. his last words were that you would understand, so i suppose he explained more to you than to me. but you are privileged." i could have boxed her ears, _hard_. emily went on, in her fussy way, to make things clear to my intellect by adding that our host had kindly sent mr. burden to the nearest railway station in his own fastest motor, as it seemed he had just time to catch a train leaving almost immediately. i didn't know what to make of it all, and don't now. whether a telegram from the invalid mother did really come in the nick of time to save me, like abraham's ram that caught in the bushes at the last minute; or whether this sudden dash to scotland is a deep-dyed plot; or whether he isn't going, really, but means to stop and spy on me disguised as a chauffeur or a performing bear--or _what_, i can't guess. all i do know is that, so far, sir lionel's manner is unchanged. perhaps dick left a note with mrs. senter, which she is to put into sir l.'s hand at an appropriate moment? he may seem altered at dinner, to which i must go down soon; or he may send for me and have it out during the evening. i'll add a line before we get off to-morrow morning. _september 10th. 8.45 a.m._ we're just going. he seems the same as ever. i'm lost in it! i'll post this downstairs. please write at once to graylees; for if i am sent away before, i'll ask to have letters forwarded to my own address. your audrie. xxxvii mrs. senter to her nephew, dick burden, at glen lachlan, n. b. _newcastle_, _september 10th_ _8 a.m._ you might have told me what was up. is your mother really ill? am anxious and puzzled. don't think you play fair. wire, midland hotel, bradford. gwen. xxxviii dick burden to his aunt, mrs. senter, midland hotel, bradford _glenlachlan,_ _september 10th_ _8 p.m._ mother not ill. you will know everything to-morrow or day after. dick. xxxix audrie brendon to her mother _midland hotel, bradford_, _september 11th_ beloved one: situation unchanged. i know now how you felt when you had nervous prostration. however, i'm not going to have it, so don't worry. if i had been in a state of mind to enjoy it fully, this would have been a wonderful day. but i don't suppose damocles enjoyed himself much, even if they brought him delicious things to eat and drink, and rich jewels, and the kind of cigarettes he'd always longed for, yet never could afford to buy--knowing that any instant it might be the hair's time to break. i don't believe he could have done justice to beautiful durham cathedral and the famous bridge; or splendid richmond castle on its height above the swale; or the exhilarating north road; or charming ripon; or even the exquisite, almost heart-breaking beauty of ruined fountains abbey, by the little river that sings its dirge in music sweeter than harp or violin. no, he couldn't have put his soul into his eyes for them, and i didn't. i was almost sorry that we were to go on and see harrogate and the strid and bolton abbey, because in my restlessness i didn't feel intelligent enough to appreciate anything. i could only be dully thankful that the sword hadn't pierced me yet; but i wanted to be alone, and shut my eyes, and not have to talk, especially to mrs. norton. [illustration: "_the exquisite beauty of ruined fountains abbey_"] dimly i realized that harrogate seemed a very pretty place, where it might be amusing to stay, and take baths and nice walks, and listen to music; and my bodily eyes saw well enough how lovely was the way through niddersdale and ilkley to pately bridge, where we had to get out and walk through enchanted woods to the foaming cauldron of the strid. the water, swollen by rain, raced over its rocks below the crags of the tragic jump, like a white horse running away, mad with unreasoning terror. nevertheless, my bodily eyes were only glass windows which my spirit had deserted. it left them blank still, at bolton abbey, which is poetically beautiful (though not as lovable as fountains), on, up the great brown hill of barden moor, through skipton, where, in the castle, legend says fair rosamond lived; until--haworth. there--before we came to the steep, straight hill leading up to the bleak and huddled townlet bitten out of the moor, my spirit rushed to the windows. the voices of charlotte brontë and her sister emily called it back, and it obeyed at a word, though all the beauty of wooded hills and fleeting streams had vanished, as if frightened by the cold, relentless winds of the high moorland. rain had begun to fall. the sky was leaden, the sharp hill muddy; everything seemed to combine in giving an effect of grimness, as the car forged steadily up, up toward the poor home the brontës loved. isn't it a beautiful miracle, the banishing of black darkness by the clear light of genius? it was that light which had lured us away from all the charms of nature to a region of ugliness, even of squalor. the brontës had lived there. they had pined for haworth when away. emily had written about the "spot 'mid barren hills, where winter howls, and driving rain." they had thought there, worked there, the wondrous sisters; they had illuminated the mean place, and made it a lodestar for the world. when we reached the top of the hill (which was almost like reaching a ceiling after climbing the side of a hideous brown-painted wall), i forgot my own troubles in thinking of the brontës' tragedy of poverty, disappointment, and death. we were in a poor street of a peculiarly depressing village, and could not even see the moor that had given the brontë girls inspiration, though we knew it must stretch beyond. even in bright sunshine there could be no beauty in haworth; but under that leaden sky, in the thick mist of rain, the poor stone houses lining the way, the sordid, unattractive shops were positively repellent. all that was not so dark a gray as to look black was dull brown; and not a single window-pane had a gleam of intelligence for the unwelcome strangers. i could imagine no merriment in haworth, nor any sound of laughter; yet the brontës were happy when they were children--at least, they thought they were; but it would be too tragic if children didn't _think_ themselves happy. there was the black bull inn, where wretched bramwell brontë used to carouse. poor, weak vain-glorious fellow! i never pitied him till i saw that gloomy stone box which meant "seeing life" to him. there was the museum where the brontë relics are kept--but we delayed going in that we might see the old parsonage first, the shrine where the preserved relics had once made "home." oh, mother, the sadness of it, tucked away among the crowding tombstones, all gray-brown together, among weeds and early falling leaves! here already it was autumn; and though i could fancy a pale, frosty spring, and a white, ice-bound winter, my imagination could conjure up no richness of summer. [illustration: "_the foaming cauldron of the strid_"] the gravestones crowding the gray old house in the churchyard, pushing it back toward the moor, were thick as an army on parade--a sad, starved army, where dying soldiers lean on each other for support; and the parsonage, shadowed by dripping trees, was plain and uncompromising as a sermon that warns you not to love the world or you will spend eternity in hell. but behind--just beyond the wall--billowed the moor, monotonous yet majestic, the scene that called to emily and charlotte brontë's hearts, always, when they were far away. my heart contracted as i thought of them there; and when we'd walked back to the village street, and been admitted to the museum, i was on the point of crying--not for myself, but with the choked grief one might have on opening a box of old letters from a loved, dead friend. it is the most intimate, touching little jumble of pathetic souvenirs you ever saw in a museum; more like treasures guarded by near relations than a collection for public eyes to see; but that makes the poignant charm of it. i could have sobbed on a pink print frock with a cape, such as jane eyre might have worn at thornfield, and on bits of unfinished needlework, simple lace collars, and water-colour sketches with which charlotte tried to brighten the walls of her austere home. there was the poor dear's wedding shawl, and a little checked silk dress of which i'm sure she was innocently proud; a few fantastic drawings of bramwell's; a letter or two from the sisters; and a picture of the reverend carus wilson, who was supposed to be mr. brocklehurst; just the rather handsome, well-fed, self-satisfied man you would expect him to be. i think, dear, that haworth has done me good, and helped me to be brave. again and again i turned, when we'd left, to look back at the church tower, and try to gather some of the brontë courage before we slipped away down many a dark hill toward bradford, as night gathered us in. i may need all the courage that i have borrowed and cashed in advance, because suspense is worse than the pain of any blow. we leave here early to-morrow morning for graylees castle in warwickshire--and the tour is at an end. your audrie, who loves and longs for you. xl audrie brendon to her mother _graylees castle_, _night of september 12th_ dearest and wisest: i remember the first letter i wrote you (on july fourth) about the ellaline business began with expressions something like this: "fireworks! roman candles!! rockets!!!" well, my last letter about the ellaline business begins with explosions, too. a whole gunpowder plot has exploded: dick's plot. we got here in the afternoon; an uneventful run, for sir lionel was always the same; cool but kind. i couldn't believe dick had told him anything. graylees is a place to be proud of, and you would never know there had been a fire in the castle--but no injury was done to the oldest part. mrs. norton says graylees is called the "miniature warwick," but it doesn't look a miniature anything: it seems enormous. there's a great hall, with suits of armour scattered about, and weapons of all periods arranged in intricate patterns on the stone wall; and a minstrels' gallery, and quantities of grand old tudor and stuart furniture; there's a haunted picture-gallery where a murdered bride walks each christmas eve, beautifully dressed; there's a suite of rooms in which kings and queens have occasionally slept since the time when henry seventh reigned; there's a priest's "hidie hole," and secret dungeons under the big dining-hall where people used to revel while their prisoners writhed; and--but i haven't seen nearly all yet. the room allotted to me looks down from its high tower on to a mossy moat choked with pink and white water lilies; on a stone terrace this side of a sunken garden, a peacock plays sentinel, with his tail spread like a jewelled shield; and against the sky dark, horizontal branches of lebanon cedars stretch, like arms of black-clad priests pronouncing a blessing. may the blessing rest upon this house forever! i hardly saw the country through which we came, though it was george eliot's country; and i half expected something to happen as soon as we arrived; sir lionel perhaps turning on me at last, and saying icily: "i know everything, but don't want a scandal. go quietly, at once." nothing of the sort came to pass, however. we had tea in the great hall, brought by an old butler who had known sir lionel when he visited the uncle who left graylees to him. afterward, mrs. norton showed me "my room," where already a maid engaged for "miss lethbridge" had unpacked most of my things, the big luggage having arrived before us. my heart gave a jump when i saw the drawers, and big cedar-lined wardrobes full of finery; but settled down again when i remembered that almost everything belonged to ellaline, and that my legitimate possessions could be packed again in about five minutes. before the change of friendship's weather at chester, i think sir lionel would have wanted to take me round his domain, indoors and out, but no such suggestion was made. i was in my room, and there i stayed; but i felt too restless to settle down and write to you. i kept waiting for something, as you do for a clock to strike, when you know it is bound to strike soon. by and by it was time to dress for dinner. i couldn't bear to wear one of the grand ellaline dresses, so i put on the old black. i did look a frump in it, in such a place as graylees castle, where everything ought to be beautiful and rich, but i did my hair as nicely as i could, and from the top of my head to my shoulders i wasn't so bad. i went downstairs at eight o'clock, and mrs. senter was already in the great hall, standing in front of the splendid stone fireplace, watching her rings sparkle in the light of the wood fire, and resting one pretty foot on a paw of the left-hand carved stone wolf that supports a ledge of the mantelpiece--just as if it belonged to her and she had tamed it. she glanced up when i appeared, and smiled vaguely, but didn't speak. she seemed thoughtful. after awhile, emily came, swishing silkily. mrs. senter began to talk to her, praising the place; and then, just before the quarter past--dinner-time--sir lionel joined us, looking nice, but tired. mrs. senter gave him a sweet smile, and he smiled back, absent-mindedly. he gave her his arm in to dinner, and she did clever things with her eyelashes, which made her seem to blush. she wore a white dress i'd not seen yet, a simple string of pearls round her neck, and quite a maidenly or bridal look. i couldn't wonder at sir lionel if he admired her! at the dinner-table (which was beautiful with flowers, lots of silver, and old crystal--a picture against the dark oak panelling) mrs. senter was on his right hand, i on his left, his sister playing hostess. this was as usual; but as it was the first time in his own house, somehow it made mrs. senter seem of more importance. he and she talked together a good deal, and she said some witty things, but spent herself mostly in drawing him out. he didn't speak to me, except to deign a question about my room, or ask whether i would have a certain thing to eat. i felt a dreadful lump, and worth about "thirty cents," as dad used to say. after dinner, when emily took us to a charming drawing-room, all white, with an old spinet in one corner, sir lionel stopped away for a few minutes; but when he came mrs. senter grabbed him immediately. she wouldn't let him hear, when emily inquired if i could sing, accompanying myself on the spinet, but began asking him eagerly about the library, which it seems is rather famous. "you shall see it to-morrow, if you like," said he. "oh, mayn't i have a peep to-night?" she begged, prettily. "do take me. just one peep." so he took her, of course, and the peep prolonged itself indefinitely. i had a sinking presentiment that my dreadful flare-up with dick had been in vain, and that after all she would inveigle him into proposing to her this very night. since i refused to tell him that her damask cheek was being preyed upon by love of him, she would probably intimate as much herself, and bury her head between her hands, looking incredibly sad and lovable. sir lionel wouldn't be the man to fight such tactics as those! i knew he didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't love her one little bit, but he would be sorry for her, and sacrifice himself rather than she should suffer for his sake, when he might make her happy. emily chatted to me pleasantly about the church, and the vicar at graylees, and family tombs, and such cheerful things, to which i said "yes" and "no" whenever she stopped; but a cold perspiration was coming out on my forehead. i was just as sure as that i was alive, that mrs. senter didn't mean to leave the library until sir lionel had made her a present of himself, his books, and his castle. probably my sub-conscious self or astral body was there, hearing every word they said. anyhow, i _knew_. and i could do nothing. a thumb-screw or a rack would have been a pleasant relief. suddenly we heard the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the house. "who can that be?" wondered mrs. norton. "it's after half-past nine." "very likely it's mr. burden," said i; the first moderately intelligent remark i'd made since we were left together. she agreed with me that this was probable; but when fifteen, twenty, forty minutes passed by the clock, and dick did not appear, she changed her mind. it must have been someone to see sir lionel, she thought, on business that wouldn't wait. i was not convinced of this, and longed for her to ring and ask a footman who had come; but i couldn't very well suggest it. the house did sound so silent, that my ears rang, as they do when one listens to a shell! ten; ten-fifteen; ten-thirty; a louis quatorze clock chimed. hardly had it got the last two strokes out of its mouth, when sir lionel opened the door. he was pale, in that frightening way that tanned skins do turn pale, and he didn't seem to see his sister. he looked straight past her at me, and his eyes shone. "i want very much to speak to you," he said. his voice shook ever so slightly, as if he were going into a battle where he knew he would be killed, and felt solemn about it, but otherwise was rather pleased than not. then i knew my time had come. i almost looked for the steps of the guillotine, but i was suddenly too blind to see them if they had been under my nose. "very well," i said, and got up from my chair. "oh," exclaimed emily, "don't go. if you have anything to say to ellaline, which you'd like to say to her alone, let me go. i am getting sleepy, and was just thinking about bed. perhaps i might say good-night to you both?" "good-night, dear," answered sir lionel. i had never heard him call her that before. "say good-night to mrs. senter for me," went on emily to us both. "yes," said sir lionel. but i don't think he had heard. mrs. norton swished silkily out. the door shut. i braced myself, and looked up at him. his eyes were on my face, and they were full of light. i supposed it must be righteous anger; but it was a beautiful look--too good to waste on such a passion, even a righteous form of it. "you poor child," he said in a low voice, standing quite near me. "you have gone through a great deal." i started as if he had shot me--that way of beginning was so different from anything i had expected. "wh-what do you mean?" i stammered. "that i always knew you were brave, but that you're a hundred times braver than i thought you. dick has come back. he has brought with him a girl and a man from scotland--bride and groom." all the strength went out of me. i felt as if my body had turned to liquid and left only my brain burning, and my heart throbbing. but i didn't fall. i fancy i caught the back of a tall chair, and held on for dear life. "ellaline," i murmured. "yes, ellaline," he said. "thank god, you are not ellaline." "thank god?" i echoed in weak wonder. "i thank god, yes, because it was killing me to believe that you were ellaline--to believe you false, and frivolous, and a flirt, just because of the blood i thought you had in your veins. and i exaggerated everything you did, till i made a mountain out of each fancied fault. that fellow burden brought ellaline here--just married to her frenchman to-day--because he wanted to ruin you. he told me with pride how he'd ferretted out the whole secret--traced you to your address in versailles, learned your real name--told everything, in fact, except that he'd been blackmailing you, forcing you for your friend's sake to actions you hated. he didn't tell me that part, naturally, but there was no need, because i guessed----" "what--what have you done to him?" the words came limping, because of the look in his eyes, which shot forth a sword. "oh, unluckily it's under my own roof, so i could do no more than bid him clear out if he didn't want to be kicked out!" "gone!" i whispered. "yes, gone. and as mrs. senter's very loyal to her nephew, she prefers to leave with him, though she has had nothing to do with his plottings--didn't even know, and i asked her to stay. she insists on going to-night when he does. i'm sorry. but it can't be helped. i cannot think of her now." "ellaline----" i began faintly; but he cut me short, with a kind of generous impatience. "yes, yes, you shall see her. she wants to see you, now that she understands, but----" "understands?" "why, you see, that little beast, dick burden--whose mother's staying near where ellaline was in scotland--went there straight from bamborough, and put the girl up to believe you'd been playing her false--prejudicing me against her interests, trying to keep for yourself things that ought to be hers; so apparently she worked herself into a hysterical state--must have, or she wouldn't have believed him against you; and the instant she was married to her frenchman, who'd come to claim her, all three dashed off here to 'confront' you, as that cad burden explained to me. i couldn't understand what they were all driving at just at first, but i saw that the girl was the living image of her mother, consequently the thing didn't need as much explaining in any way as it might otherwise." "she was horribly afraid you wouldn't let her marry him," i broke in, getting breath and voice back at last. "so she said. oh, when she knew burden had lied to her about you, she repented her disloyalty, and told me how you hated the whole thing. i don't wonder she thought me a brute, never writing, never seeming to care whether she was alive or dead; i see now i was a brute; but it's you who've shown me that, not she. however, she will reap the benefit. i daresay three months ago i should have growled over such a marriage, felt inclined to wash my hands of the girl, perhaps, but now--now i'm delighted to have her married and--_off_ my hands. that sounds callous, but i can't help it. it's true. the frenchman seems a gentleman, and fond of her--trust ellaline de nesville's daughter to make men fall in love!--and i wish them both joy." "but--but if he's poor?" i dared to question. "oh, that'll be all right. i'm so thankful for the way everything has turned out, i'd give her half my fortune. that would be asinine, of course; but i shall settle a thousand a year on her for life, and give her a wedding present of a cheque for twenty thousand, i think. should you say that would be enough to satisfy them?" "they ought to be distracted with joy," i said (though deep in my heart i knew that ellaline is never likely to be satisfied with anything done for her. she always feels it might have been a little more). "but," i went on, "maybe it's selfish to think of myself now--but i can't help it for a moment. i have been so ashamed--so humiliated, i could hardly bear--and yet i know you won't, you can't, see that there's any excuse----" "didn't i tell you that i thought you very brave?" he asked, looking at me more kindly than i deserved. "yes. and i was brave." i took credit to myself. "but brave people can be wicked. i have hated myself, knowing how you'd hate me when----" "i don't hate you," he said. "the question is--do you hate me?" i gasped--because i was so far from hating him; and suddenly i was afraid he might suspect exactly _how_ far. "no," said i. "but then, that is different. i never had any reason to hate you." "didn't ellaline warn you i was a regular dragon?" i couldn't help laughing, because that had been our very name for him. "oh, well, she----" i began to apologize. "you needn't be afraid to confess," said he. "in the exuberance of her relief at finding all well, and not only being forgiven, but petted, she told me what a different man i was from the murderous image in her mind; and that she saw now you were right about me. is it possible you defended me to her?" "but of course," i said. "in spite of all the injustice i did you--and showed that i did you?" "i always felt myself to blame, and yet--yet it hurt me when i saw you disapproved of me. since chester----" "it was that ring stuck in my throat," said he. "you knew?" i stammered, turning red. "saw it in a shop window. and now i know why you did it--why you did everything, i think. heavens, what good it would have done me to kick that little beast burden all around the park!" "there wouldn't have been anything left of him, if you had," i giggled, beginning to feel hysterical. "oh, i am glad he's gone, though. i shall be going myself to-morrow, of course, but----" "no," he said. "no, that must not be. i--ellaline wants you." "hadn't i better see her now?" i asked meekly. "not yet. tell me--did that cad try you too far at bamborough, and did you defy him?" i nodded yes. "what did he do?" "he didn't do anything. he wanted me to promise something." "to marry him at once?" sir lionel was looking dangerous. "no-o. it wasn't anything about me. i can't tell you, because it concerns someone else. please don't ask me." "i won't. if it concerns someone else, not yourself, i don't care. yes, i do, though. did it concern me? can you answer me that?" "i can answer so far, if you don't press me further. it did concern you. i would not sacrifice you to--but i don't want to go on, please!" "you shan't. that's enough. you sacrificed yourself rather than sacrifice me. you----" "i'd sinned enough against you." "you gave me back my youth." "i?" "don't you know i love you--worship you--adore you?" yes, _he said that_, mother. his lips said it, and his dear, dear eyes. i looked up to them, and mine overflowed, and he needed no other answer, for he took me in his arms. i didn't know people could be so happy. i could have died in that moment, only i would much, much rather live. in a few minutes we told each other heaps of things about the way we felt, and the way we _had_ felt, and compared notes; and it was heavenly. he'd bought back the darling ring in chester, and now he put it on my finger again; and i'm sure, dearest, that you won't mind our being engaged? he says he has adored me ever since the first day, and will to the last, then on into the next world, because there can't be a next world that won't be full of his love for me. and i adore him, ah, _how_ i adore him--and you will come here to live with us in this beautiful old castle, where, like the prince and princess of the fairy stories, we will be happy ever after. i have seen ellaline, and she is well and hugged me a great deal. her honoré is really very handsome; but i can't write about them now, though they have been so important in my life; and without them there would have been no life worth speaking of. emily and lionel (i am to call him that now) will take me to you, and everything shall be arranged as you wish. dear little, wise mother, i wonder if you ever thought it might end like this? i didn't. but he is the most glorious man who ever happened. only, he didn't happen. all the rest of the world--not counting you--happened. he just had to be. your loving, perfectly happy audrie. the google books library project (http://books.google.com/), from which additional text and images were obtained this project gutenberg edition of the automobile storage battery--its care and repair, by o. a. witte, was prepared by george davis, based upon the etext originally produced by mark posey, to whom we extend a huge "thank you"; thanks also to richard allain, who produced the scans from which posey worked, as well as to the google books library project (http://books.google.com/), from which additional text and images were obtained. ======================================================================== the automobile storage battery its care and repair -----------------------------------------------------------------------radio batteries, farm lighting batteries ======================================================================== a practical book for the repairman. gives in nontechnical language, the theory, construction, operation, manufacture, maintenance, and repair of the lead-acid battery used on the automobile. describes at length all subjects which help the repairman build up a successful battery repair business. also contains sections on radio and farm lighting batteries. by o. a. witte chief engineer, american bureau of engineering, inc. ======================================================================== third edition completely revised and enlarged fourth impression published 1922 by the american bureau of engineering, inc. chicago, illinois, u. s. a. copyright, 1918, 1919, 1920, and 1922, by american bureau of engineering, inc. all rights reserved. ======================================================================== entered at stationers' hall, london, england. first impression april, 1918. second impression december, 1919. third impression october, 1920. fourth impression september, 1922. ======================================================================== preface ======= many books have been written on storage batteries used in stationary work, as in electric power stations. the storage battery, as used on the modern gasoline car, however, is subjected to service which is radically different from that of the battery in stationary work. it is true that the chemical actions are the same in all lead-acid storage batteries, but the design, construction, and operation of the starting and lighting battery, the radio battery, and the farm lighting battery are unique, and require a special description. many books have been written on storage batteries used in stationary work, as in electric power stations. the storage battery, as used on the modern gasoline car, however, is subjected to service which is radically different from that of the battery in stationary work. it is true that the chemical actions are the same in all lead-acid storage batteries, but the design, construction, and operation of the starting and lighting battery, the radio battery, and the farm lighting battery are unique, and require a special description. this book therefore refers only to the lead-acid type of starting and lighting battery used on the modern gasoline automobile, the batteries used with radio sets, and the batteries used with farm lighting plants. it is divided into two sections. the first section covers the theory, design, operating conditions, and care of the battery. the second section will be especially valuable to the battery repairman. all the instructions given have been in actual use for years, and represent the accumulated experiences of the most up-to-date battery repair shops in the united states. the first edition of this book met with a most pleasing reception from both repairmen and battery manufacturers. it was written to fill the need for a complete treatise on the automobile storage battery for the use of battery repairmen. the rapid sale of the book, and the letters of appreciation from those who read it, proved that such a need existed. the automobile battery business is a growing one, and one in which new designs and processes are continually developed, and in preparing the second and third editions, this has been kept in mind. some of the chapters have been entirely rewritten, and new chapters have been added to bring the text up-to-date. old methods have been discarded, and new ones described. a section on farm lighting batteries has been added, as the automobile battery man should familiarize himself with such batteries, and be able to repair them. a section on radio batteries has also been added. special thanks are due those who offered their cooperation in the preparation and revision of the book. mr. george m. howard of the electric storage battery co., and mr. c. l. merrill of the u. s. light & heat corporation very kindly gave many helpful suggestions. they also prepared special articles which have been incorporated in the book. mr. henry e. peers consulted with the author and gave much valuable assistance. mr. lawrence pearson of the philadelphia battery co., mr. f. s. armstrong of the vesta accumulator co., messrs. p. l. rittenhouse, e. c. hicks and w. c. brooks of the prest-o-lite co., mr. d. m. simpson of the general lead batteries co., mr. r. d. mowray and mr. c. r. story of the universal battery co., mr. h. a. harvey of the u. s. light and heat corporation, mr. e. b. welsh of the westinghouse union battery co., mr. s. e. baldwin of the willard storage battery co., mr. h. h. ketcham of the united y. m. c. a. schools, and messrs. guttenberger and steger of the american eveready works also rendered much valuable assistance. the chapter on business methods was prepared by mr. g. w. hafner. o. a. witte, chief engineer, american bureau of engineering, inc. september, 1922 ======================================================================== contents -------1. introductory gasoline and electricity have made possible the modern automobile. steps in development of electrical system of automobile. sources of electricity on the automobile. 2. batteries in general the simple battery, or voltaic cell. chemical actions which cause a cell to produce electricity. difference between primary and secondary, or storage cells. a storage battery does not "store" electricity. parts required to make a storage battery. 3. manufacture of storage batteries principal parts of a "starting and lighting" battery. types of plates used. molding the plate grids. trimming the grids. mixing pastes. applying pastes to the plate grids. hardening the paste. forming the plates. types of separators. manufacture of separators. manufacture of electrolyte. composition and manufacture of jars. types of cell covers. single and double covers. covers using sealing compound around the cell posts. covers using lead bushings around the cell posts. the prest-o-lite peened post seal. batteries using sealing nuts around cell posts. construction of vent tubes. exide and u. s. l. vent tube design. vent plugs, or caps. manufacture of the battery case. assembling and sealing the battery. terminal connections. preparing the completed battery for "wet" shipment. preparing the completed battery for "dry" shipment. "home-made" batteries. 4. chemical changes in the battery chemical changes in the battery. plante's work on the storage battery. faure, or pasted plates. how battery produces electricity. chemical actions of charge and discharge. relations between chemical actions and electricity. 5. what takes place during discharge what a "discharge" consists of. voltage changes during discharge. why the discharge is stopped when the cell voltage has dropped to 1.7 on continuous discharge. why a battery may safely be discharged to a lower voltage than 1.7 volts per cell at high rates of discharge. why battery voltage, measured on "open circuit" is of little value. changes in the density of the electrolyte. why specific gravity readings of the electrolyte show the state of charge of a cell. conditions which make specific gravity readings unreliable. why the specific gravity of the electrolyte falls during discharge. why the discharge of a battery is stopped when the specific gravity has dropped to 1.150. chemical changes at the negative plates during discharge. chemical changes at the positive plates during discharge. 6. what takes place during charge voltage changes during charge. voltage of a fully charged cell. changes in the density of the electrolyte during charge. changes at the negative plates during charge. changes at the positive plates during charge. 7. capacity of storage batteries definition of capacity. factors upon which the capacity of a battery depend. how the area of the plate surfaces affects the capacity. how the quantity, arrangement, and porosity of the active materials affect the capacity. how the quantity and strength of the electrolyte affect the capacity. why too much electrolyte injures a battery. why the proportions of acid and water in the electrolyte must be correct if specific gravity readings are to be reliable. 8. internal resistance effect of internal resistance. resistance of grids. resistance of electrolyte. resistance of active materials. 9. care of battery on the car care of battery box. how to clean the battery. how to prevent corrosion. correct battery cable length. inspection of battery to determine level of electrolyte. how to add water to replace evaporation. when water should be added. how electrolyte is lost. danger from adding acid instead of water. effect of adding too much water. when specific gravity readings should be taken. what the various specific gravity readings indicate. construction of a syringe hydrometer. how to take specific gravity readings. why specific gravity readings should not be taken soon after adding water to replace evaporation. troubles indicated by specific gravity readings. how to make sure that sections of a multiple-section battery receive the same charging current. how temperature affects specific gravity readings. how to make temperature corrections in specific gravity readings. battery operating temperatures. effect of low and high temperatures. troubles indicated by high temperatures. damage caused by allowing electrolyte to fall below tops of plates. i-low to prevent freezing. care of battery when not in use. "dope" or "patent" electrolyte, or battery solutions. 10. storage battery troubles normal and injurious sulphation.-how injurious sulphate forms. why an idle battery becomes sulphated. why sulphated plates must be charged at a low rate. how over discharge causes sulphation. how starvation causes sulphation. how sulphate results from electrolyte being below tops of plates. how impurities cause sulphation. how sulphation results from adding acid instead of water to replace evaporation. why adding acid causes specific gravity readings to be unreliable. how overheating causes sulphation. buckling.-how overdischarge causes buckling. how continued operation with battery in a discharged condition causes buckling. i-low charging at high rates causes buckling, how non-uniform distribution of current over the plates causes buckling. how defective grid alloy causes buckling. shedding, or loss of active material.-normal shedding. how excessive charging rate, or overcharging causes shedding. how charging sulphated plates at too high a rate causes shedding. how charging only a portion of the plate causes shedding. how freezing causes shedding. how overdischarge causes loose active material. how buckling causes loose active material. impurities.-impurities which cause only self-discharge. impurities which attack the plates. how to remove impurities. corroded grids.-how impurities cause corroded grids. how sulphation causes corroded grids. how high temperatures cause corroded grids. how high specific gravity causes corroded grids. how age causes corroded grids. negatives.-how age and heat cause granulated negatives. heating of charged negatives when exposed to the air. negatives with very hard active material. bulged negatives. negatives with soft, mushy, active material. negatives with rough surfaces. blistered negatives. positives.-frozen positives. rotten, disintegrated positives. buckled positives. positives which have lost considerable active material. positives with soft active material. positives with hard, shiny active material. plates which have been charged in the wrong direction. separator troubles.-separators not properly expanded before installation. improperly treated separators. rotten and carbonized separators. separators with clogged pores. separators with edges chiseled off. jar troubles.-jars damaged by rough handling. jars damaged by battery being loose. jars damaged by weights placed on top of battery. jars damaged by freezing of electrolyte. jars damaged by improperly trimmed plate groups. improperly made jars. jars damaged by explosions in cell. battery case troubles.-ends of case bulged out. rotted case. troubles with connectors and terminals.--corroded and loose connectors and terminals. electrolyte troubles.-low gravity. high gravity. low level. high level. specific gravity does not rise during charge. "milky" electrolyte. foaming of electrolyte. general battery troubles.-open circuits. battery discharged. dead cells. battery will not charge. loss of capacity. loss of charge in an idle battery. 11. shop equipment list of tools and equipment required by repair shop. equipment needed for opening batteries. equipment for lead burning. equipment for general work on cell connectors and terminals. equipment for work on cases. tools and equipment for general work. stock. special tools. charging equipment. wiring diagrams for charging resistances and charging circuits. motor-generator sets. suggestions on care of motor-generator sets. operating the charging circuits. constant current charging. constant potential charging. the tungar rectifier. principle of operation of tungar rectifier. the two ampere tungar. the one battery tungar. the two. battery tungar. the four battery tungar. the ten battery tangar. the twenty battery tungar. table of tungar rectifiers. installation and operation of tungar rectifier. the mercury are rectifier. mechanical rectifiers. the stahl rectifier. other charging equipment. the charging bench. illustrations and working drawings of charging benches. illustrations and working drawings of work benches. illustrations and working drawings of sink and wash tanks. lead burning outfits. equipment for handling sealing compound. shelving and racks. working drawings of receiving racks, racks for repaired batteries, racks for new batteries, racks for rental batteries, racks for batteries in dry storage, racks for batteries in "wet" storage. working drawings of stock bins. working drawings for battery steamer bench. description of battery steamer. plate burning rack. battery terminal tongs. lead burning collars. post builders. moulds for casting lead parts. link combination mould. cell connector mould. production type strap mould. screw mould. battery turntable. separator cutter. plate press. battery carrier. battery truck. cadmium test set and how to make the test. paraffine dip pot. wooden boxes for battery parts. acid car boys. drawing acid from carboys. shop layouts. floor grating. seven architects' drawings of shop layouts. the shop floor. shop light. 12. general shop instructions complete instructions for giving a bench charge. instructions for burning cell connectors and terminals. burning plates to strap and posts. post building. extending plate lugs. moulding lead parts. handling and mixing acid. putting new batteries into service (exide, vesta, philadelphia, willard, westinghouse, prest-o-lite). installing battery on car. wet and dry storage of batteries. age codes (exide, philadelphia, prest-o-lite, titan, u.s.l., vesta, westinghouse, willard). rental batteries. terminals for rental batteries. marking chapter page rental batteries. keeping a record of rental batteries. general rental policy. radio batteries. principles of audion bulb for radio. vesta radio batteries. westinghouse radio batteries. willard radio batteries. universal radio batteries. exide radio batteries. philadelphia radio batteries. u.s.l. radio batteries. prest-o-lite radio batteries. "dry" storage batteries. discharge tests. 15 seconds high rate discharge test. 20 minutes starting ability discharge test. "cycling" discharge tests. discharge apparatus. packing batteries for shipping. safety precautions for the repairman. testing the electrical system of a car. complete rules and instructions for quickly testing, starting and lighting system to protect battery. adjusting generator outputs. how and when to adjust charging rate. re-insulating the battery. testing and filling service. service records. illustrations of repair service record card. rental battery stock card. 13. business methods purchasing methods. stock records. the use and abuse of credit. proper bookkeeping records. daily exhibit record. statistical and comparative record. 14. what's wrong with the battery? "service." calling and delivering repaired batteries. how to diagnose batteries that come in. tests on incoming batteries. general inspection of incoming batteries. operation tests for incoming batteries. battery trouble charts. causes of low gravity or low voltage. causes of unequal gravity readings. causes of high gravity. causes of low electrolyte. how to determine when battery may be left on car. how to determine when battery must be removed from car. how to determine when it is unnecessary to open a battery. how to determine when battery must be opened. 15. rebuilding the battery how to open a battery.-cleaning outside of battery before opening. drilling and removing connectors and terminals. removing the sealing compound by steam, hot water, hot putty knife, lead burning flame, and gasoline torch. lifting plates out of jars. draining plates. removing covers. scraping sealing compound from the covers. scraping sealing compound from inside of jars. what must be done with the opened battery?-making a preliminary examination of plates. when to put in new plates. when old plates may be used again. what to do with the separators. find the cause of every trouble. eliminating "shorts." preliminary charge after eliminating shorts. washing and pressing negatives. washing positives. burning on new plates. testing jars for cracks and holes. removing defective jars. repairing the case. reassembling the elements.-putting in now separators. putting elements into jars. filling jars with electrolyte. putting chapter page on the covers. sealing the covers. burning on the connectors and terminals. marking the repaired battery. cleaning and painting the case. charging the rebuilt battery. testing. 16. special instructions exide batteries.-types. type numbers. methods of holding jars in case. opening exide batteries. work on plates, separators, jars, and case. putting plates in jars. filling jars with electrolyte. sealing covers. putting cells in case. burning on the cell connectors. charging after repairing. tables of exide batteries. u.s.l. batteries.-old and new. u.s.l. covers. special repair instructions. tables of u.s.l. batteries. prest-o-lite batteries.-old and new prest-o-lite cover constructions. the "peened" post seal. special tools for work on prest-o-lite batteries. the peening press. removing covers. rebuilding posts. locking, or "peening" the posts. precautions in post locking operations. tables of prest-0-lite batteries. philadelphia diamond grid batteries.-old and new types. the philadelphia "rubber-lockt" cover seal. philadelphia rubber case batteries. the philadelphia separator. special repair instructions. eveready batteries.-why the eveready batteries are called "non-sulphating" batteries. description of parts of eveready battery. special repair instructions. vesta batteries.-old and new vesta isolators. the vesta type "d" battery. the vesta type "dj" battery. vesta separators. the vesta post seal. special repair instructions for old and new isolators and post seal. westinghouse batteries.-the westinghouse post seal. westinghouse plates. types of westinghouse batteries. type "a" batteries. type "b" batteries. type "c" batteries. type "e" batteries. type "h" batteries. type "j" batteries. type "0" batteries. type "f" batteries. willard batteries.-double and single cover batteries. batteries with sealing compound post seal. batteries with lead inserts in cover post holes. batteries with rubber casket post seal. special repair instructions for work on the different types of post seal constructions. willard threaded rubber separators. universal batteries.-types. construction features. putting new universal batteries into service. titan batteries.-the titan grid. the titan post seal. 17. farm lighting batteries comparison of operating conditions of farm lighting batteries with automobile batteries. jars for farm lighting batteries. separators. electrolyte. charging equipment. relation of the automobile battery man to the farm lighting plant. rules governing the selection of a farm lighting plant. location and wiring of farm lighting plant. installation. care of plant in service. care of battery. charging farm lighting batteries. rules governing discharging of farm lighting batteries. troubles found in farm lighting batteries. inspection and tests on farm lighting batteries. description of prest-o-lite farm lighting battery. rebuilding prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. description of exide farm lighting batteries. the delco-light battery. rebuilding and repairing exide farm lighting batteries. westinghouse farm lighting batteries. willard farm lighting batteries. definitions condensed dictionary of words and terms used in battery work. general index a visit to the factory photographs showing factory processes. buyers' index. (omitted.) for the convenience of our readers we have prepared a list of companies from whom battery shop equipment may be obtained. advertisements (omitted. outdated; high bandwidth) ======================================================================== section i --------working principles, manufacture, maintenance, diseases, and remedies ======================================================================== the automobile storage battery ======================================================================== chapter 1. introductory. gasoline and electricity have made possible the modern automobile. each has its work to do in the operation of the car, and if either fails to perform its duties, the car cannot move. the action of the gasoline, and the mechanisms that control it are comparatively simple, and easily understood, because gasoline is something definite which we can see and feel, and which can be weighed, or measured in gallons. electricity, on the other hand, is invisible, cannot be poured into cans or tanks, has no odor, and, therefore, nobody knows just what it is. we can only study the effects of electricity, and the wires, coils, and similar apparatus in which it is present. it is for this reason that an air of mystery surrounds electrical things, especially to the man who has not made a special study of the subject. without electricity, there would be no gasoline engine, because gasoline itself cannot cause the engine to operate. it is only when the electrical spark explodes or "ignites" the mixture of gasoline and air which has been drawn into the engine cylinders that the engine develops power. thus an electrical ignition system has always been an essential part of every gasoline automobile. the first step in the use of electricity on the automobile, in addition to the ignition system, consisted in the installation of an electric lighting system to replace the inconvenient oil or gas lamps which were satisfactory as far as the light they gave was concerned, but which had the disadvantage of requiring the driver to leave his seat, and light each lamp separately, often in a strong wind or rain which consumed many matches, time, and frequently spoiled his temper for the remainder of the evening. electric lamps have none of these disadvantages. they can be controlled from the driver's seat, can be turned on or off by merely turning or pushing a switch-button, are not affected by wind or rain, do not smoke up the lenses, and do not send a stream of unpleasant odors back to the passengers. the apparatus used to supply the electricity for the lamps consisted of a generator, or a "storage" battery, or both. the generator alone had the disadvantage that the lamps could be used only while the engine was running. the battery, on the other hand, furnished light at all times, but had to be removed from the car frequently, and "charged." with both the generator and battery, the lights could be turned on whether the engine was running or not, and, furthermore, it was no longer necessary to remove the battery to "charge," or put new life into it. with a generator and storage battery, moreover, a reliable source of electricity for ignition was provided, and so we find dry batteries and magnetos being discarded in a great many automobiles and "battery ignition" systems substituted. the development of electric lighting systems increased the popularity of the automobile, but the motor car still had a great drawback-cranking. owing to the peculiar features of a gasoline engine, it must first be put in motion by some external power before it will begin to operate under its own power. this made it necessary for the driver to "crank" the engine, or start it moving, by means of a handle attached to the engine shaft. cranking a large engine is difficult, especially if it is cold, and often results in tired muscles, and soiled clothes and tempers. it also made it impossible for the average woman to drive a car because she did not have the strength necessary to "crank" an engine. the next step in the perfection of the automobile was naturally the development of an automatic device to crank the engine, and thus make the driving of a car a pleasure rather than a task. we find, therefore, that in 1912, "self-starters" began to be used. these were not all electrical, some used tanks of compressed air, others acetylene, and various mechanical devices, such as the spring starters. the electrical starters, however, proved their superiority immediately, and filled such a long felt want that all the various makes of automobiles now have electric starters. the present day motor car, therefore, uses gasoline for the engine only, but uses electricity for ignition, starting, lighting, for the horn, cigar lighters, hand warmers on the steering wheel, gasoline vaporizers, and even for shifting speed changing gears, and for the brakes. on any car that uses an electric lighting and starting system, there are two sources of electricity, the generator and the battery, these must furnish the power for the starting, or "cranking" motor, the ignition, the lights, the horn, and the other devices. the demands made upon the generator are comparatively light and simple, and no severe work is done by it. the battery, on the other hand is called upon to give a much more severe service, that of furnishing the power to crank the engine. it must also perform all the duties of the generator when the engine is not running, since a generator must be in motion in order to produce electricity. a generator is made of iron, copper, carbon, and insulation. these are all solid substances which can easily be built in any size or shape, and which undergo very little change as parts of the generator. the battery is made mainly of lead, lead compounds, water and sulphuric acid. here we have liquids as well as solids, which produce electricity by changes in their composition, resulting in complicated chemical as well as electrical actions. [fig. 1 the battery] the battery is, because of its construction and performance, a much abused, neglected piece of apparatus which is but partly understood, even by many electrical experts, for to understand it thoroughly requires a study of chemistry as well as of electricity. knowledge of the construction and action of a storage battery is not enough to make anyone an expert battery man. he must also know how to regulate the operating conditions so as to obtain the best service from the battery, and he must be able to make complete repairs on any battery no matter what its condition may be. ======================================================================== chapter 2. batteries in general there are two ways of "generating" electricity on the car: 1. magnetically, 2. chemically. the first method is that used in a generator, in which wires are rotated in a "field" in which magnetic forces act. the second method is that of the battery, and the one in which we are now interested. if two unlike metals or conducting substances are placed in a liquid which causes a greater chemical change in one of the substances than in the other, an electrical pressure, or "electromotive" force is caused to exist between the two metals or conducting substances. the greater the difference in the chemical action on the substances, the greater will be the electrical pressure, and if the substances are connected together outside of the liquid by a wire or other conductor of electricity, an electric current will flow through the path or "circuit" consisting of the liquid, the two substances which are immersed in the liquid, and the external wire or conductor. as the current flows through the combination of the liquid, and the substances immersed in it, which is called a voltaic "cell," one or both of the substances undergo chemical changes which continue until one of the substances is entirely changed. these chemical changes produce the electrical pressure which causes the current to flow, and the flow will continue until one or both of the substances are changed entirely. this change due to the chemical action may result in the formation of gases, or of solid compounds. if gases are formed they escape and are lost. if solids are formed, no material is actually lost. assuming that one of the conducting substances, or "electrodes," which are immersed in the liquid has been acted upon by the liquid, or "electrolyte," until no further chemical action can take place, our voltaic cell will no longer be capable of causing a flow of electricity. if none of the substances resulting from the original chemical action have been lost as gases, it may be possible to reverse the entire set of operations which have taken place. that is, suppose we now send a current through the cell from an outside source of electricity, in a direction opposite to that in which the current produced by the chemical action between the electrodes and electrolyte flowed. if this current now produces chemical actions between electrodes and electrolyte which are the reverse of those which occurred originally, so that finally we have the electrodes and electrolyte brought back to their original composition and condition, we have the cell just as it was before we used it for the production of an electrical pressure. the cell can now again be used as a source of electricity as long as the electrolyte acts upon the electrodes, or until it is "discharged" and incapable of any further production of electrical pressure. sending a current through a discharged cell, so as to reverse the chemical actions which brought about the discharged conditions, is called "charging" the cell. [fig. 2 a complete cell; negative group; positive group] cells in which an electrical pressure is produced as soon as the electrodes are immersed in the electrolyte are called it "primary" cells. in these cells it is often impossible, and always unsatisfactory to reverse the chemical action as explained above. cells whose chemical actions are reversible are called "storage" or "secondary" cells. in the "storage" cells used today, a current must first be sent through the cell in order to cause the chemical changes which result in putting the electrodes and electrolyte, in such a condition that they will be capable of producing an electrical pressure when the chemical changes caused by the current are complete. the cell now possesses all the characteristics of a primary cell, and may be used as a source of electricity until "discharged." it may then be "charged" again, and so on, the chemical action in one case causing a flow of current, and a reversed flow of current causing reversed chemical actions. we see from the above that the "storage" battery does not "store" electricity at all, but changes chemical into electrical energy when "discharging," and changes electrical into chemical energy when "charging," the two actions being entirely reversible. the idea of "storing" electricity comes from the fact that if we send a current of electricity through the cell for a certain length of time, we can at a later time draw a current from the cell for almost the same length of time. [fig. 3 complete element] fig. 3. a complete element, consisting of a positive and negative group of plates and separators ready for placing in the hard rubber jars. three things are therefore required in a storage cell, the liquid or "electrolyte" and two unlike substances or electrodes, through which a current of electricity can pass and which are acted upon by the electrolyte with a chemical action that is greater for one substance than the other. in the storage cell used on the automobile today for starting and lighting, the electrodes are lead and peroxide of lead, and the electrolyte is a mixture of sulphuric acid and water. the peroxide of lead electrode is the one upon which the electrolyte has the greater chemical effect, and it is called the positive or "+" electrode, because when the battery is sending a. current through an external circuit, the current flows from this electrode through the external circuit, and back to the lead electrode, which is called the negative, or electrode. when starting and lighting systems were adopted in 1912, storage batteries had been used for many years in electric power stations. these were, however, large and heavy, and many difficult problems of design had to be solved in order to produce a battery capable of performing the work of cranking the engine, and yet be portable, light, and small enough to occupy only a very limited space on the automobile. as a result of these conditions governing the design, the starting and lighting battery of today is in reality "the giant that lives in a box." the electric storage battery company estimates that one of its types of batteries, which measures only 12-5/8 inches long, 7-3/8 wide, and 9-1/8 high, and weighs only 63-1/2 pounds, can deliver enough energy to raise itself to a height of 6 miles straight up in the air. it must be able to do its work quickly at all times, and in all sorts of weather, with temperatures ranging from below 0â° to 100â° fahrenheit, or even higher. the starting and lighting battery has therefore been designed to withstand severe operating conditions. looking at such a battery on a car we see a small wooden box in which are placed three or more "cells," see fig. 1. each "cell" has a hard, black rubber top through which two posts of lead project. bars of lead connect the posts of one cell to those of the next. to one of the posts of each end cell is connected a cable which leads into the car, and through which the current leaves or enters the battery. at the center of each cell is a removable rubber plug covering an opening through which communication is established with the inside of the cell for the purpose of pouring in water, removing some of the electrolyte to determine the condition of the battery, or to allow gases formed within the cell to escape. looking down through this opening we can see the things needed to form a storage battery: the electrolyte, and the electrodes or "plates" as they are called. if we should remove the lead bars connecting one cell to another, and take off the black cover, we should find that the posts which project out of the cells are attached to the plates which are broad and flat, and separated by thin pieces of wood or rubber., if we lift out the plates we find that they are connected alternately to the two lead posts, and that the two outside ones have a gray color. if we pull the plates out from each other, we find that the plates next to the two outside ones, and all other plates connected to the same lead post as these have a chocolate-brown color. if we remove the jar of the cell, we find that it is made of hard rubber. pouring out the electrolyte we find several ridges which hold the plates off the bottom of the jar. the pockets formed by these ridges may contain some soft, muddy substance. thus we have exposed all the elements of a cell, posts, plates, "separators," and electrolyte. the gray colored plates are attached to the "negative" battery post, while the chocolate-brown colored ones are connected to the "positive" battery post. examination will show that each of the plates consists of a skeleton metallic framework which is filled with the brown or gray substances. this construction is used to decrease the weight of the battery. the gray filler material is pure lead in a condition called "spongy lead." the chocolate-brown filler substance is peroxide of lead. we have found nothing but two sets of plates--one of pure lead, the other of peroxide of lead, and the electrolyte of sulphuric acid and water. these produce the heavy current necessary to crank the engine. how this is done, and what the chemical actions within the cell are, are described in chapter 4. ======================================================================== chapter 3. manufacture of storage batteries. --------------------------------to supply the great number of batteries needed for gasoline automobiles, large companies have been formed. each company has its special and secret processes which it will not reveal to the public. only a few companies, however, supply batteries in any considerable quantities, the great majority of cars being supplied with batteries made by not more than five or six manufacturers. this greatly reduces the number of possible different designs in general use today. the design and dimensions of batteries vary considerably, but the general constructions are similar. the special processes of the manufacturers are of no special interest to the repairman, and only a general description will be given here. a starting and lighting battery consists of the following principal parts: 1. plates 2. separators 3. electrolyte 4. jars 5. covers 6. cell connectors and terminals 7. case plates of the two general types of battery plates, faure and plante, the faure, or pasted type, is universally used on automobiles. in the manufacture of pasted plates there are several steps which we shall describe in the order in which they are carried out. casting the grid. the grid is the skeleton of the plate. it performs the double function of supporting the mechanically weak active material and of conducting the current. it is made of a lead antimony alloy which is melted and poured into a mould. pure lead is too soft and too easily attacked by the electrolyte, and antimony is added to give stiffness, and resistance to the action of the electrolyte in the cell. the amount of antimony used varies in different makes but probably averages 8 to 10%. the casting process requires considerable skill, the proper composition of the metal and the temperature of both metal and moulds being of great importance in securing perfect grids, which are free from blowholes, and which have a uniform structure and composition. some manufacturers cast two grids simultaneously in each mould, the two plates being joined to each other along the bottom edge. trimming the grids. when the castings have cooled, they are removed from the moulds and passed to a press or trimming machine which trims off the casting gate and the rough edges. the grids are given a rigid inspection, those having shrunken or missing ribs or other defects being rejected. the grids are now ready for pasting. [fig 4. grid, trimmed, and ready for pasting] fig. 4 shows a grid ready for pasting. the heavy lug at one upper corner is the conducting lug, for carrying the current to the strap, fig. 5, into which the lugs are burned when the battery is assembled. the straps are provided with posts, to which the intercell connectors and terminal connectors are attached. the vertical ribs of the grids extend through the plate, providing mechanical strength and conductivity, while the small horizontal ribs are at the surface and in staggered relation on opposite faces. both the outside frames and the vertical ribs are reinforced near the lug, where the greatest amount of current must be carried. the rectangular arrangement of ribs, as shown in fig. 4, is most generally used, although, there are other arrangements such as the philadelphia "diamond" grid in which the ribs form acute angles, giving diamond shaped openings, as shown in fig. 6. pastes. there are many formulas for the pastes, which are later converted into active material, and each is considered a trade secret by the manufacturer using it. the basis of all, however, is oxide of lead, either red lead (pb30 4), litharge (pbo), or a mixture of the two, made into a paste with a liquid, such as dilute sulphuric acid. the object of mixing the oxides with the liquid is to form a paste of the proper consistency for application to the grids, and at the same time introduce the proper amount of binding, or setting agent which will give porosity, and which will bind together the active material, especially in the positive plate. red lead usually predominates in the positive paste, and litharge in the negative, as this combination requires the least energy in forming the oxides to active material. [fig. 5 plate straps and posts] the oxides of lead used in preparing the pastes which are applied to the grids are powders, and in their dry condition could not be applied to the grids, as they would fall out. mixing them with a liquid to make a paste gives them greater coherence and enables them to be applied to the grids. sulphuric acid puts the oxides in the desired pasty condition, but has the disadvantage of causing a chemical action to take place which changes a considerable portion of the oxides to lead sulphate, the presence of which makes the paste stiff and impossible to apply to the grids. when acid is used, it is therefore necessary to work fast after the oxides are mixed with sulphuric acid to form the paste. in addition to the lead oxides, the pastes may contain some binding material such as ammonium or magnesium sulphate, which tends to bind the particles of the active material together. the paste used for the negatives may contain lamp black to give porosity. applying the paste. after the oxides are mixed to a paste they are applied to the grids. this is done either by hand, or by machine in the hand pasting process, the pastes are applied from each face of the grid by means of a wooden paddle or trowel, and are smoothed off flush with the surface of the ribs of the grid. this work is done quickly in order that the pastes may not stiffen before they are applied. u. s. l. plates are pasted in a machine which applies the paste to the grid, subjecting it at the same time to a pressure which forces it thoroughly into the grid, and packs it in a dense mass. drying the paste. the freshly pasted plates are now allowed to dry in the air, or are dried by blowing air over them. in any case, the pastes set to a hard mass, in which condition the pastes adhere firmly to the grids. the plates may then be handled without a loss of paste from the grids. [fig. 6 philadelphia diamond grid] forming. the next step is to change the paste of oxides into the active materials which make a cell operative. this is called "forming" and is really nothing but a prolonged charge, requiring several days. in some factories the plates are mounted in tanks, positive and negative plates alternating as in a cell. the positives are all connected together in one group and the negatives in another, and current passed through just as in charging a battery. in other factories the positives and negatives are formed in separate tanks against "dummy" electrodes. the passing of the current slowly changes the mixtures of lead oxide and lead sulphate, forming brown peroxide of lead (pbo2), on the positive plate and gray spongy metallic lead on the negative. the formation by the current of lead peroxide and spongy lead on the positive and negative plates respectively would take place if the composition of the two pastes were identical. the difference in the composition of the paste for positive and negative plates is for the purpose of securing the properties of porosity and physical condition best suited to each. [fig. 7 formed plate, ready to be burned to plate connecting strap] when the forming process is complete, the plates are washed and dried, and are then ready for use in the battery. if the grids of two plates have been cast together, as is done by some manufacturers, these are now cut apart, and the lugs cut to the proper height. the next step is to roll, or press the negatives after they are removed from the forming bath so as to bring the negative paste, which has become roughened by gassing that occurred during the forming process, flush with the surface of the ribs of the grid. a sufficient amount of sulphate is left in the plates to bind together the active material. without this sulphate the positive paste would simply be a powder and when dry would fall out of the grids like dry dust. fig. 7 shows a formed plate ready to be burned to the strap. separators in batteries used both for starting and for lighting, separators made of specially treated wood are largely used. see fig. 8. the willard company has adopted an insulator made of a rubber fabric pierced by thousands of cotton threads, each thread being as long as the separator is thick. the electrolyte is carried through these threads from one side of the separator to the other by capillary action, the great number of these threads insuring the rapid diffusion of electrolyte which is necessary in batteries which are subjected to the heavy discharge current required in starting. in batteries used for lighting or ignition, sheets of rubber in which numerous holes have been drilled are also used, these holes permitting diffusion to take place rapidly enough to perform the required service satisfactorily, since the currents involved are much smaller than in starting motor service. [fig. 8] fig 8. a pile of prepared wooden seperators ready to be put between the positive and negative plates to form the complete element. for the wooden separators, porous wood, such as port orford cedar, basswood, cypress, or cedar is used. other woods such as redwood and cherry are also used. the question is often asked "which wood makes the best separators?" this is difficult to answer because the method of treating the wood is just as important as is the kind of wood. the wood for the separators is cut into strips of the correct thickness. these strips are passed through a grooving machine which cuts the grooves in one side, leaving the other side smooth. the strips are next sawed to the correct size, and are then boiled in a warm alkaline solution for about 24 hours to neutralize any organic acid, such as acetic acid, which the wood naturally contains. such acids would cause unsatisfactory battery action and damage to the battery. the vesta separator, or "impregnated mat," is treated in a bath of barium salts which form compounds with the wood and which are said to make the separators strong and acid-resisting. [fig. 9 philco slotted retainer] some batteries use a double separator, one of which is the wooden separator, while the other consists of a thin sheet of hard rubber containing many fine perforations. this rubber sheet is placed between the positive plate and the wooden separator. a recent development in the use of an auxiliary rubber separator is the philco slotted retainer which is placed between the separators and the positives in philadelphia diamond grid batteries. some exide batteries also use slotted rubber separators. the philco slotted retainer consists of a thin sheet of slotted hard rubber as shown in fig. 9. the purpose of the retainer is to hold the positive active material in place and prevent the shedding which usually occurs. the slots in the retainer are so numerous that they allow the free passage of electrolyte, but each slot is made very narrow so as to hold the active material in the plates. electrolyte little need be said here about the electrolyte, since a full description is given elsewhere. see page 222. acid is received by the battery manufacturer in concentrated form. its specific gravity is then 1.835. the acid commonly used is made by the "contact" process, in which sulphur dioxide is oxidized to sulphur trioxide, and then, with the addition of water, changed to sulphuric acid. the concentrated acid is diluted with distilled water to the proper specific gravity. jars the jars which contain the plates, separators, and electrolyte are made of a tough, hard rubber compound. they are made either by the moulding process, or by wrapping sheets of rubber compound around metal mandrels. in either case the jar is subsequently vulcanized by careful heating at the correct temperature. the battery manufacturers do not, as a rule, make their own jars, but have them made by the rubber companies who give the jars a high voltage test to detect any flaws, holes, or cracks which would subsequently cause a leak. the jars as received at the battery maker's factory are ready for use. across the bottom of the jar are several stiff ribs which extend up into the jar so as to provide a substantial support for the plates, and at the same time form several pockets below the plates in which the sediment resulting from shedding of active material from the plates accumulates. covers no part of a battery is of greater importance than the hard rubber cell covers, from the viewpoint of the repairman as well as the manufacturer. the repairman is concerned chiefly with the methods of sealing the battery, and no part of his work requires greater skill than the work on the covers. the manufacturers have developed special constructions, their aims being to design the cover so as to facilitate the escape of gas which accumulates in the upper part of a cell during charge, to provide space for expansion of the electrolyte as it becomes heated, to simplify inspection and filling with pure water, to make leak proof joints between the cover and the jar and between the cover and the lead posts which project through it, and to simplify the work of making repairs. single and double covers. modern types of batteries have a single piece cover, the edges of which are made so as to form a slot or channel with the inside of the jar, into which is poured sealing compound to form a leak proof joint. this construction is illustrated. in exide, fig. 1.5; vesta, fig. 264; philadelphia diamond grid, fig. 256; u. s. l., figs. 11 and 244; and prest-0-lite, fig. 247, batteries. exide batteries are also made with a double flange cover, in which the top of the jar fits between the two flanges. in single covers, a comparatively small amount of sealing compound is used, and repair work is greatly simplified. in the eveready battery, fig. 262, compound is poured over the entire cover instead of around the edges. this method requires a considerable amount of sealing compound. the use of double covers is not as common as it was some years ago. this construction makes use of two flat pieces of hard rubber. in such batteries a considerable amount of sealing compound is used. this compound is poured on top of the lower cover to seal the battery, the top cover serving to cover up the compound and brace the posts. fig. 10 illustrates this construction. [fig. 10 cross-section of gould double cover battery] sealing around the posts. much variety is shown in the methods used to secure a leak proof joint between the posts and the cover. several methods are used. one of these uses the sealing compound to make a tight joint. another has lead bushings which are screwed up into the cover or moulded in the cover, the bushings being burned together with the post and cell connector. another method has a threaded post, and uses a lead alloy nut with a rubber washer to make a tight joint. still another method forces a lead collar down over the post, and presses the cover down on a soft rubber gasket. using sealing compound. some of the batteries which use sealing compound to make a tight joint between the cover and the post have a hard rubber bushing shrunk over the post. this construction is used in gould batteries, as shown in fig. 10, and in the old willard double cover batteries. the rubber bushing is grooved horizontally to increase the length of the sealing surface. [fig. 11 u.s.l. cover] other batteries that use sealing compound around the posts have grooves or "petticoats" cut directly in the post and have a well around the post into which the sealing compound is poured. this is the construction used in the old philadelphia diamond grid battery, as shown in fig. 254. using lead bushings. u. s. l. batteries have a flanged lead bushing which is moulded directly into the cover, as shown in fig. 11. in assembling the battery, the cover is placed over the post, and the cell connector is burned to both post and bushing. [fig. 12 lead bushing screwed into cover] in older type u. s. l. batteries a bushing was screwed up through the cover, and then burned to the post and cell connector. an old type prest-o-lite battery used a lead bushing which screwed up through the cover similarly to the u. s. l. batteries. fig. 12 illustrates this construction. the sjwn and sjrn willard batteries used a lead insert. see page 424. the modern vesta batteries use a soft rubber gasket under the cover, and force a lead collar over the post, which pushes the cover down on the gasket. the lead collar and post "freeze" together and make an acid proof joint. see page 413. the westinghouse battery uses a three part seal consisting of a lead washer which is placed around the post, a u shaped, soft gum washer which is placed between the post and cover, and a tapered lead sleeve, which presses the washer against the post and the cover. see page 417. [fig. 13 cross section of old type willard battery] the prest-o-lite peened post seal. all prest-o-lite batteries designated as types whn, rhn, bhn and jfn, have a single moulded cover which is locked directly on to the posts. this is done by forcing a solid ring of lead from a portion of the post down into a chamfer in the top of the cover. this construction is illustrated in fig. 247. batteries using sealing nuts. the exide batteries have threaded posts. a rubber gasket is placed under the cover on a shoulder on the post. the nut is then turned down on the post to force the cover on the gasket. this construction is illustrated in fig. 239. the titan battery uses a somewhat similar seal, as shown in fig. 293. some of the older willard batteries have a chamfer or groove in the under, side of the cover. the posts have a ring of lead in the base which fits up into the groove in the cover to make a tight joint. this is illustrated in fig. 13. the later willard constructions, using a rubber gasket seal and a lead cover insert, are illustrated in figs. 278 and 287. filling tube or vent tube construction. quite a number of designs have been developed in the construction of the filling or vent tube. in double covers, the tube is sometimes a separate part which is screwed into the lower cover. in other batteries using double covers, the tube is an integral part of the cover, as shown in fig. 10. in all single covers, the tube is moulded integral with the cover. [fig. 14a vent hold in u.s.l. battery] several devices have been developed to make it impossible to overfill batteries. this has been done by the u. s. l. and exide companies on older types of batteries, their constructions being described as follows: in old u. s. l. batteries, a small auxiliary vent tube is drilled, as shown in fig. 14. when filling to replace evaporation, this vent tube prevents overfilling. [fig. 14b filling u.s.l. battery] a finger is placed over the auxiliary vent tube shown in fig. 14. the water is then poured in through the filling or vent tube. when the water reaches the bottom of the tube, the air imprisoned in the expansion chamber can no longer escape. consequently the water can rise no higher in this chamber, but simply fills up the tube. water is added till it reaches the top of the tube. the finger is then removed from the vent tube. this allows the air to escape from the expansion chamber. the water will therefore fall in the filling or vent tube, and rise slightly in the expansion chamber. the construction makes it impossible to overfill the battery, provided that the finger is held on the vent hole as directed. [fig. 14c filling u.s.l. battery (old types)] figure 15 shows the non-flooding vent and filling plug used in the older type exide battery, and in the present type lxrv. the new exide cover, which does not use the non-flooding feature, is also shown. the old construction is described as follows: [fig. 15a sectional view of cover in older type exide battery. top view of cover and filling plug, plug removed] [fig. 15b old and new exide covers] from the illustrations of the vent and filling plug, it will be seen that they provide both a vented stopper (vents f, g, h), and an automatic device for the preventing of overfilling and flooding. the amount of water that can be put into the cell is limited to the exact amount needed to replace that lost by evaporation. this is accomplished by means of the hard rubber valve (a) within the cell cover and with which the top of the vent plug (e) engages, as shown in the illustrations. the action of removing the plug (e) turns this valve (a), closing the air passage (bb), and forming an air tight chamber (c) in the top of the cell. when water is poured in, it cannot rise in this air space (c) so as to completely fill the cell. as soon as the proper level is reached, the water rises in the filling tube (d) and gives a positive indication that sufficient water has been added. should, however, the filling be continued, the excess will be pure water only, not acid. on replacing the plug (e), valve (a) is automatically turned, opening the air passages (bb), leaving the air chamber (c) available for the expansion of the solution, which occurs when the battery is working. generally the filling or vent tube is so made that its lower end indicates the correct level of electrolyte above the plates, in adding water, the level of the electrolyte is brought up to the bottom of the filling tube. by looking down into the tube, it can be seen when the electrolyte reaches the bottom of the tube. vent plugs, or caps. vent plugs, or caps, close up the filling or vent tubes in the covers. they are made of hard rubber, and either screw into or over the tubes, or are tightened by a full or partial turn, as is done in exide batteries. in the caps are small holes which are so arranged that gases generated within the battery may escape, but acid spray cannot pass through these holes. it is of the utmost importance that the holes in the vent caps be kept open to allow the gases to escape. case the wooden case in which the cells are placed is usually made of kiln dried white oak or hard maple. the wood is inspected carefully, and all pieces are rejected that are weather-checked, or contain worm-holes or knots. the wood is sawed into various thicknesses, and then cut to the proper lengths and widths. the wood is passed through other machines that cut in the dovetails, put the tongue on the bottom for the joints, stamp on the part number, drill the holes for the screws or bolts holding the handles, cut the grooves for the sealing compound, etc. the several pieces are then assembled and glued together. the finishing touches are then put on, these consisting of cutting the cases to the proper heights, sandpapering the boxes, etc. the cases are then inspected and are ready to be painted. a more recent development in case construction is a one-piece hard rubber case, in which the jars and case are made in one piece, the cell compartments being formed by rubber partitions which form an integral part of the case. this construction is used in several makes of radio "a" batteries, and to some extent in starting batteries. [fig. 16 exide battery case] asphaltum paint is generally used for wooden cases, the bottoms and tops being given three, coats, and the sides, two. the number of coats of paint varies, of course, in the different factories. the handles are then put on by machinery, and the case, fig. 16, is complete, and ready for assembling. assembling and sealing the first step in assembling a battery is to burn the positive and negative plates to their respective straps, fig. 5, forming the positive and negative "groups", fig. 2. this is done by arranging a set of plates and a strap in a suitable rack which holds them securely in proper position, and then melting together the top of the plate lugs and the portion of the strap into which they fit with a hot flame. a positive and a negative group are now slipped together and the separators inserted. the grooved side of the wood separator is placed toward the positive plate and when perforated rubber sheets are used these go between the positive and the wood separator. the positive and negative "groups" assembled with the separators constitute the "element," fig. 3. before the elements are placed in the jars they are carefully inspected to make sure that no separator has been left out. for this purpose the "exide" elements are subjected to an electrical test which rings a bell if a separator is missing, this having been found more infallible than trusting to a man's eyes. in some batteries, such as the exide, vesta, and prest-o-lite batteries, the cover is placed on the element and made fast before the elements are placed in the jars. in other batteries, such as the u. s. l. and philadelphia batteries, the covers are put on after the elements are placed in the jars. after the element is in the jar and the cover in position, sealing compound is applied hot so as to make a leak proof joint between jar and cover. [fig. 17 inter-cell connector] the completed cells are now assembled in the case and the cell connectors, fig. 17, burned to the strap posts. after filling with electrolyte the battery is ready to receive its "initial charge," which may require from one day to a week. a low charging rate is used, since the plates are generally in a sulphated condition when assembled. the specific gravity is brought up to about 1.280 during this charge. some makers now give the battery a short high rate discharge test (see page 266), to disclose any defects, and just before sending them out give a final charge. the batteries are often "cycled" after being assembled, this consisting in discharging and recharging the batteries several times to put the active material in the best working condition. if the batteries are to be shipped "wet," they are ready for shipping after the final charge and inspection. batteries which are shipped "dry" need to have more work done upon them. preparing batteries for dry shipment there are three general methods of "dry" shipment. the first method consists of sending cases, plates, covers, separators, etc., separately, and assembling them in the service stations. sometimes these parts are all placed together, as in a finished battery, but without the separators, the covers not being sealed, or the connectors and terminals welded to the posts. this is a sort of "knock-down" condition. the plates used are first fully charged and dried. the second method consists of assembling a battery complete with plates, separators, and electrolyte, charging the battery, pouring out the electrolyte, rinsing with distilled water, pouring out the water and screwing the vent plugs down tight. the vent holes in these plugs are sealed to exclude air. the moisture left in the battery when the rinsing water was poured out cannot evaporate, and the separators are thus kept in a moistened condition. the third method is the willard "bone dry" method, and consists of assembling the battery complete with dry threaded rubber separators and dry plates, but without electrolyte. the holes in the vent plugs are not sealed, since there is no moisture in the battery. batteries using wooden separators cannot be shipped "bone-dry," since wooden separators must be kept moist. terminal connections when the battery is on the car it is necessary to have some form of detachable connection to the car circuit and this is accomplished by means of "terminal connectors," fig. 18, of which there are many types. [fig. 18 battery terminal] many types of terminals are in two parts, one being permanently attached to the car circuit and the other mounted permanently on the battery by welding it to the terminal post, the two parts being detachably joined by means of a bolted connection. in another type of terminal, the cable is soldered directly to the terminal which is lead burned to the cell post. in this construction there is very much less chance of corrosion taking place, and it is therefore a good design. homemade batteries the wisest thing for the battery shop owner to do is to get a contract as official service station for one of the well known makes of batteries. the manufacturers of this battery will stand behind the service station, giving it the benefits of its engineering, production, and advertising departments, and boost the service station's business, helping to make it a success. within the past year or so, however, some battery repairmen have conceived the idea that they do not need the backing of a well organized factory, and have decided to build up their own batteries. some of them merely assemble batteries from parts bought from one or more manufacturers. if all the parts are made by the same company, they will fit together, and may make a serviceable battery. often, however, parts made by several manufacturers are assembled in the same battery. here is where trouble is apt to develop, because it is more than likely that jars may not fit well in the case; plates may not completely fill the jars, allowing too much acid space, with the results that specific gravity readings will not be reliable, and the plates may be overworked; plate posts may not fit the cover holes, and so on. if such a "fabricated" battery goes dead because of defective material, there is no factory back of the repairman to stand the loss. if the repairman wishes to assemble batteries, he should be very careful to buy the parts from a reliable manufacturer, and he should be especially careful in buying separators, as improperly treated separators often develop acetic acid, which dissolves the lead of the plates very quickly and ruins the battery. batteries made in this way are good for rental batteries, or "loaners." these batteries are assembled and charged just as are batteries which have been in dry storage, see page 241. if the repairman who "fabricates" batteries takes chances, the man who attempts to actually make his own battery plates is certainly risking his business and reputation. there are several companies which sell moulds for making plate grids. one even sells cans of lead oxides to enable the repairman to make his own plate paste. even more foolhardy than the man who wishes to mould plate grids is the man who wishes to mix the lead oxides himself. many letters asking for paste formulas have been received by the author. such formulas can never be given, for the author does not have them. paste making is a far more difficult process than many men realize. the lead oxides which are used must be tested and analyzed carefully in a chemical laboratory and the paste formulas varied according to the results of these tests. the oxides must be carefully weighed, carefully handled, and carefully analyzed. the battery service station does not have the equipment necessary to do these things, and no repairman should ever attempt to make plate paste, as trouble is bound to follow such attempts. a car owner may buy a worthless battery once, but the next time he will go to some other service station and buy a good battery. no doubt many repairmen are as skillful and competent as the workers in battery factories, but the equipment required to make grids and paste is much too elaborate and expensive for the service station, and without such equipment it is impossible to make a good battery. the only battery parts which may safely be made in the service station are plate straps and posts, intercell connectors, and cell terminals. moulds for making such parts are on the market, and it is really worth while to invest in a set. the posts made in such moulds are of the plain tapered type, and posts which have special sealing and locking devices, such as the exide, philadelphia, and titan cannot be made in them. ======================================================================== chapter 4. chemical changes. ----------------before explaining what happens within one storage cell, let us look into the early history of the storage battery, and see what a modest beginning the modern heavy duty battery had. between 1850 and 1860 a man named plante began his work on the storage battery. his original cell consisted of two plates of metallic lead immersed in dilute sulphuric acid. the acid formed a thin layer of lead sulphate on each plate which soon stopped further action on the lead. if a current was passed through the cell, the lead sulphate on the "anode" or lead plate at which the current entered the cell was changed into peroxide of lead, while the sulphate on the other lead plate or "cathode" was changed into pure lead in a spongy form. this cell was allowed to stand for several days and was then "discharged," lead sulphate being again formed on each plate. each time this cell was charged, more "spongy" lead and peroxide of lead were formed. these are called the "active" materials, because it is by the chemical action between them and the sulphuric acid that the electricity is produced. evidently, the more active materials the plates contained, the longer the chemical action between the acid and active materials could take place, and hence the greater the "capacity," or amount of electricity furnished by the cell. the process of charging and discharging the battery so as to increase the amount of active material, is called "forming" the plates. [fig. 19 illustration of chemical action in a storage cell during charge] plante's method of forming plates was very slow, tedious, and expensive. if the spongy lead, and peroxide of lead could be made quickly from materials which could be spread over the plates, much time and expense could be saved. it was faure who first suggested such a plan, and gave us the "pasted" plate of today, which consists of a skeleton framework of lead, with the sponge lead and peroxide of lead filling the spaces between the "ribs" of the framework. such plates are known as "pasted" plates, and are much lighter and more satisfactory, for automobile work than the heavy solid lead plates of plante's. chapter 3 describes more fully the processes of manufacturing and pasting the plates. we know now what constitutes a storage battery, and what the parts are that "generate" the electricity. how is the electricity produced? theoretically, if we take a battery which has been entirely discharged, so that it is no longer able to cause a flow of current, and examine and test the electrolyte and the materials on the plates, we shall find that the electrolyte is pure water, and both sets of plates composed of white lead sulphate. on the other hand, if we make a similar test and examination of the plates and electrolyte of a battery through which a current has been sent from some outside source, such as a generator, until the current can no longer cause chemical reactions between the plates and electrolyte, we will find that the electrolyte is now composed of water and sulphuric acid, the acid comprising about 30%, and the water 70% of the electrolyte. the negative set of plates will be composed of pure lead in a spongy form, while the positive will consist of peroxide of lead. the foregoing description gives the final products of the chemical changes that take place in the storage battery. to understand the changes themselves requires a more detailed investigation. the substances to be considered in the chemical actions are sulphuric acid, water, pure lead, lead sulphate, and lead peroxide. with the exception of pure lead, each of these substances is a chemical compound, or composed of several elements. thus sulphuric acid is made up of two parts of hydrogen, which is a gas; one part of sulphur, a solid, and four parts of oxygen, which is also a gas; these combine to form the acid, which is liquid, and which is for convenience written as h2so 4, h2 representing two parts of hydrogen, s one part of sulphur, and 04, four parts oxygen. similarly, water a liquid, is made up of two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen, represented by the symbol h2o. lead is not a compound, but an element whose chemical symbol is pb, taken from the latin name for lead. lead sulphate is a solid, and consists of one part of lead, a solid substance, one part of sulphur, another solid substance, and four parts of oxygen, a gas. it is represented chemically by pb so4. lead peroxide is also a solid, and is made up of one part of lead, and two parts of oxygen. in the chemical changes that take place, the compounds just described are to a certain extent split up into the substances of which they are composed. we thus have lead (pb), hydrogen (h), oxygen (0), and sulphur (s), four elementary substances, two of which are solids, and two gases. the sulphur does not separate itself entirely from the substances with which it forms the compounds h2so4 and pb so4. these compounds are split into h2 and so4 and pb and so4 respectively. that is, the sulphur always remains combined with four parts of oxygen. let us now consider a single storage cell made up of electrolyte, one positive plate, and one negative plate. when this cell is fully charged, or in a condition to produce a current of electricity, the positive plate is made up of peroxide of lead (pbo2), the negative plate of pure lead (pb), and the electrolyte of dilute sulphuric acid (h 2so4). this is shown diagrammatically in fig. 19. the chemical changes that take place when the cell is discharging and the final result of the changes are as follows: (a). at the positive plate: lead peroxide and sulphuric acid produce lead sulphate, water, and oxygen, or: [image] formula (a). pbo2 + h2so4 = pbso4 + h20 + 0 (b). at the negative plate: lead and sulphuric acid produce lead sulphate and hydrogen, or: [image] formula (b). pb + h2so4 = pbso4 + h2 [fig. 20 chemical reaction in a storage cell during discharge] the oxygen of equation (a) and the hydrogen of equation (b) combine to form water, as may be shown by adding these two equations, giving one equation for the entire discharge action: [image] formula (c). pbo2 + pb + 2h2so4 = 2pbso4 + 2h2o in this equation we start with the active materials and electrolyte in their original condition, and finish with the lead sulphate and water, which are the final products of a discharge. examining this equation, we see that the sulphuric acid of the electrolyte is used up in forming lead sulphate on both positive and negative plates, and is therefore removed from the electrolyte. this gives us the easily remembered rule for remembering discharge actions, which, though open to question from a strictly scientific viewpoint, is nevertheless convenient: during discharge the acid goes into the plates. the chemical changes described in (a), (b), and (c) are not instantaneous. that is, the lead, lead peroxide, and sulphuric acid of the fully charged cell are not changed into lead sulphate and water as soon as a current begins to pass through the cell. this action is a gradual one, small portions of these substances being changed at a time. the greater the current that flows through the cell, the faster will the changes occur. theoretically, the changes will continue to take place as long as any lead, lead peroxide, and sulphuric acid remain. the faster these are changed into lead sulphate and water, the shorter will be the time that the storage cell can furnish a current, or the sooner it will be discharged. taking the cell in its discharged condition, let us now connect the cell to a generator and send current through the cell from the positive to the negative plates. this is called "charging" the cell. the lead sulphate and water will now gradually be changed back into lead, lead peroxide, and sulphuric acid. the lead sulphate which is on the negative plate is changed to pure lead; the lead sulphate on the positive plate is changed to lead peroxide, and sulphuric acid will be added to the water. the changes at the positive plate may be represented as follows: lead sulphate and water produce sulphuric acid, hydrogen and lead peroxide, or: [image] formula (d). pbso4 + 2h2o = pbo2 + h2so4 + h2 the changes at the negative plate may be expressed as follows: lead sulphate and water produced sulphuric acid, oxygen, and lead, or: [image] formula (e). pbso4 + h2o = pb + h2so4 + o the hydrogen (h2) produced at the positive plate, and the oxygen (0) produced at the negative plate unite to form water, as may be shown by the equation: [image] formula (f). 2pbso4 + 2h2o = pbo2 + pb + 2h2so4 equation (f) starts with lead sulphate and water, which, as shown in equation (c), are produced when a battery is discharged. it will be observed that we start with lead sulphate and water. discharged plates may therefore be charged in water. in fact, badly discharged negatives may be charged better in water than in electrolyte. the electrolyte is poured out of the battery and distilled water poured in. the acid remaining on the separators and plates is sufficient to make the water conduct the charging current. in equation (f), the sulphate on the plates combines with water to form sulphuric acid. this gives us the rule: during charge, acid is driven out of the plates. this rule is a convenient one, but, of course, is not a strictly correct statement. the changes produced by sending a current through the cell are also gradual, and will take place faster as the current is made greater. when all the lead sulphate has been used up by the chemical changes caused by the current, no further charging can take place. if we continue to send a current through the cell after it is fully charged, the water will continue to be split up into hydrogen and oxygen. since, however, there is no more lead sulphate left with which the hydrogen and oxygen can combine to form lead, lead peroxide, and sulphuric acid, the hydrogen and oxygen rise to the surface of the electrolyte and escape from the cell. this is known as "gassing", and is an indication that the cell is fully charged. relations between chemical actions and electricity. we know now that chemical actions in the battery produce electricity and that, on the other hand, an electric current, sent through the battery from an outside source, such as a generator, produces chemical changes in the battery. how are chemical changes and electricity related? the various chemical elements which we have in a battery are supposed to carry small charges of electricity, which, however, ordinarily neutralize one another. when a cell is discharging, however, the electrolyte, water, and active materials are separated into parts carrying negative and positive charges, and these "charges" cause what we call an electric current to flow in the apparatus attached to the battery. similarly, when a battery is charged, the charging current produces electrical "charges" which cause the substances in the battery to unite, due to the attraction of position and negative charges for one another. this is a brief, rough statement of the relations between chemical reactions and electricity in a battery. a more thorough study of the subject would be out of place in this book. it is sufficient for the repairman to remember that the substances in a battery carry charges of electricity which become available as an electric current when a battery discharges, and that a charging current causes electric charges to form, thereby "charging" the battery. ======================================================================== chapter 5. what takes place during discharge. ---------------------------------considered chemically, the discharge of a storage battery consists of the changing of the spongy lead and lead peroxide into lead sulphate, and the abstraction of the acid from the electrolyte. considered electrically, the changes are more complex, and require further investigation. the voltage, internal resistance, rate of discharge, capacity, and other features must be considered, and the effects of changes in one upon the others must be studied. this proceeding is simplified considerably if we consider each point separately. the abstraction of the acid from the electrolyte gives us a method of determining the condition of charge or discharge in the battery, and must also be studied. [fig. 21 graph: voltage changes at end and after charge] voltage changes during discharge. at the end of a charge, and before opening the charging circuit, the voltage of each cell is about 2.5 to 2.7 volts. as soon as the charging circuit is opened, the cell voltage drops rapidly to about 2.1 volts, within three or four minutes. this is due to the formation of a thin layer of lead sulphate on the surface of the negative plate and between the lead peroxide and the metal of the positive plate. fig. 21 shows how the voltage changes during the last eight minutes of charge, and how it drops rapidly as soon as the charging circuit is opened. the final value of the voltage after the charging circuit is opened is about 2.15-2.18 volts. this is more fully explained in chapter 6. if a current is drawn from the battery at the instant the charge is stopped, this drop is more rapid. at the beginning of the discharge the voltage has already had a rapid drop from the final voltage on charge, due to the formation of sulphate as explained above. when a current is being drawn from the battery, the sudden drop is due to the internal resistance of the cell, the formation of more sulphate, and the abstracting of the acid from the electrolyte which fills the pores of the plate. the density of this acid is high just before the discharge is begun. it is diluted rapidly at first, but a balanced condition is reached between the density of the acid in the plates and in the main body of the electrolyte, the acid supply in the plates being maintained at a lowered density by fresh acid flowing into them from the main body of electrolyte. after the initial drop, the voltage decreases more slowly, the rate of decrease depending on the amount of current drawn from the battery. the entire process is shown in fig. 22. [fig. 22 graph: voltage changes during discharge] lead sulphate is being formed on the surfaces, and in the body of the plates. this sulphate has a higher resistance than the lead or lead peroxide, and the internal resistance of the cell rises, and contributes to the drop in voltage. as this sulphate forms in the body of the plates, the acid is used up. at first this acid is easily replaced from the main body of the electrolyte by diffusion. the acid in the main body of the electrolyte is at first comparatively strong, or concentrated, causing a fresh supply of acid to flow into the plates as fast as it is used up in the plates. this results in the acid in the electrolyte growing weaker, and this, in turn, leads to a constant decrease in the rate at which the fresh acid flows, or diffuses into the plates. furthermore, the sulphate, which is more bulky than the lead or lead peroxide fills the pores in the plate, making it more and more difficult for acid to reach the interior of the plate. this increases the rate at which the voltage drops. the sulphate has another effect. it forms a cover over the active material which has not been acted upon, and makes it practically useless, since the acid is almost unable to penetrate the coating of sulphate. we thus have quantities of active material which are entirely enclosed in sulphate, thereby cutting down the amount of energy which can be taken from the battery. thus the formation of sulphate throughout each plate and the abstraction of acid from the electrolyte cause the voltage to drop at a constantly increasing rate. theoretically, the discharge may be continued until the voltage drops to zero, but practically, the discharge should be stopped when the voltage of each cell has dropped to 1.7 (on low discharge rates). if the discharge is carried on beyond this point much of the spongy lead and lead peroxide have either been changed into lead sulphate, or have been covered up by the sulphate so effectively that they are almost useless. plates in this condition require a very long charge in order to remove all the sulphate. the limiting value of 1.7 volts per cell applies to a continuous discharge at a moderate rate. at a very high current flowing for only a very short time, it is not only safe, but advisable to allow a battery to discharge to a lower voltage, the increased drop being due to the rapid dilution of the acid in the plates. the cell voltage will rise somewhat every time the discharge is stopped. this is due to the diffusion of the acid from the main body of electrolyte into the plates, resulting in an increased concentration in the plates. if the discharge has been continuous, especially if at a high rate, this rise in voltage will bring the cell up to its normal voltage very quickly on account of the more rapid diffusion of acid which will then take place. the voltage does not depend upon the area of the plate surface but upon the nature of the active materials and the electrolyte. hence, although the plates of a cell are gradually being covered with sulphate, the voltage, measured when no current is flowing, will fall slowly and not in proportion to the amount of energy taken out of the cell. it is not until the plates are pretty thoroughly covered with sulphate, thus making it difficult for the acid to reach the active material, that the voltage begins to drop rapidly. this is shown clearly in fig. 22, which shows that the cell voltage has dropped only a very small amount when the cell is 50% discharged. with current flowing through the cell, however, the increased internal resistance causes a marked drop in the voltage. open circuit voltage is not useful, therefore to determine how much energy has been taken from the battery. acid density. the electrolyte of a lead storage battery is a mixture of chemically pure sulphuric acid, and chemically pure water, the acid forming about 30 per cent of the volume of electrolyte when the battery is fully charged. the pure acid has a "specific gravity" of 1.835, that is, it is 1.835 times as heavy as an equal volume of water. the mixture of acid and water has a specific gravity of about 1.300. as the cell discharges, acid is abstracted from the electrolyte, and the weight of the latter must therefore grow less, since there will be less acid in it. the change in the weight, or specific gravity of the electrolyte is the best means of determining the state of discharge of a cell, provided that the cell has been used properly. in order that the value of the specific gravity may be used as an indication of the amount of energy in a battery, the history of the battery must be known. suppose, for instance, that in refilling the battery to replace the water lost by the natural evaporation which occurs in the use of a battery, acid, or a mixture of acid and water has been used. this will result in the specific gravity being too high, and the amount of energy in the battery will be less than that indicated by the specific gravity. again, if pure water is used to replace electrolyte which has been spilled, the specific gravity will be lower than it should be. in a battery which has been discharged to such an extent that much of the active material has been covered by a layer of tough sulphate, or if a considerable amount of sulphate and active material has been loosened from the plates and has dropped to the bottom of the cells, it will be impossible to bring the specific gravity of the electrolyte up to 1.300, even though a long charge is given. there must, therefore, be a reasonable degree of certainty that a battery has been properly handled if the specific gravity readings are to be taken as a true indication of the condition of a battery. where a battery does not give satisfactory service even though the specific gravity readings are satisfactory, the latter are not reliable as indicating the amount of charge in the battery. as long as a discharge current is flowing from the battery, the acid within the plates is used up and becomes very much diluted. diffusion between the surrounding electrolyte and the acid in the plates keeps up the supply needed in the plates in order to, carry on the chemical changes. when the discharge is first begun, the diffusion of acid into the plates takes place rapidly because there is little sulphate clogging the pores in the active material, and because there is a greater difference between the concentration of acid in the electrolyte and in the plates than will exist as the discharge progresses. as the sulphate begins to form and fill up the pores of the plates, and as more and more acid is abstracted from the electrolyte, diffusion takes place more slowly. if a battery is allowed to stand idle for a short time after a partial discharge, the specific gravity of the electrolyte will decrease because some, of the acid in the electrolyte will gradually flow into the pores of the plates to replace the acid used up while the battery was discharging. theoretically the discharge can be continued until all the acid has been used up, and the electrolyte is composed of pure water. experience has shown, however, that the discharge of the battery should not be continued after the specific gravity of the electrolyte has fallen to 1.150. as far as the electrolyte is concerned, the discharge may be carried farther with safety. the plates determine the point at which the discharge should be stopped. when the specific gravity has dropped from 1.300 to 1.150, so much sulphate has been formed that it fills the pores in the active material on the plates. fig. 23 shows the change in the density of the acid during discharge. [fig. 23: variation of capacity with specific gravity] changes at the negative plate. chemically, the action at the negative plate consists only of the formation of lead sulphate from the spongy lead. the lead sulphate is only slightly soluble in the electrolyte and is precipitated as soon as it is formed, leaving hydrogen ions, which then go to the lead peroxide plate to form water with oxygen ions released at the peroxide plate. the sulphate forms more quickly on the surface of the plate than in the inner portions because there is a constant supply of acid available at the surface, whereas the formation of sulphate in the interior of the plate requires that acid diffuse into the pores of the active materials to replace that already used up in the formation of sulphate. in the negative plate, however, the sulphate tends to form more uniformly throughout the mass of the lead, because the spongy lead is more porous than the lead peroxide, and because the acid is not diluted by the formation of water as in the positive plate. changes at the positive plate. in a fully charged positive plate we have lead peroxide as the active material. this is composed of lead and oxygen. from this fact it is plainly evident that during discharge there is a greater chemical activity at this plate than at the negative plate, since we must find something to combine with the oxygen in order that the lead may form lead sulphate with the acid. in an ideal cell, therefore, the material which undergoes the greater change should be more porous than the material which does not involve as great a chemical reaction. in reality, however, the peroxide is not as porous as the spongy lead, and does not hold together as well. the final products of the discharge of a positive plate are lead sulphate and water. the lead peroxide must first be reduced to lead, which then combines with the sulphate from the acid to form lead sulphate, while the oxygen from the peroxide combines with the hydrogen of the acid to form water. there is, therefore, a greater activity at this plate than at the lead plate, and the formation of the water dilutes the acid in and around the plate so that the tendency is for the chemical actions to be retarded. the sulphate which forms on discharge causes the active material to bulge out because it occupies more space than the peroxide. this causes the lead peroxide at the surface to begin falling, to the bottom of the jar in fine dust-like particles, since the peroxide here holds together very poorly. ======================================================================== chapter 6. what takes place during charge. ------------------------------voltage. starting with a battery which has been discharged until its voltage has decreased to 1.7 per cell, we pass a current through it and cause the voltage to rise steadily. fig. 24 shows the changes in voltage during charge. ordinarily the voltage begins to rise immediately and uniformly. if, however, the battery has been left in a discharged condition for some time, or has been "over discharged," the voltage rises very rapidly for a fraction of the first minute of charge and then drops rapidly to the normal value and thereafter begins to rise steadily to the end of the charge. this rise at the beginning of the charge is due to the fact that the density of the acid in the pores of the plates rises rapidly at first, the acid thus formed being prevented from diffusing into the surrounding electrolyte by the coating of sulphate. as soon as this sulphate is broken through, diffusion takes place and the voltage drops. [fig. 24 graph: voltage changes during charge] as shown in fig. 24, the voltage remains almost constant between the points m and n. at n the voltage begins to rise because the charging chemical reactions are taking place farther and farther in the inside parts of the plate, and the concentrated acid formed by the chemical actions in the plates is diffusing into the main electrolyte. this increases the battery voltage and requires a higher charging voltage. at the point marked 0, the voltage begins to rise very rapidly. this is due to the fact that the amount of lead sulphate in the plates is decreasing very rapidly, allowing the battery voltage to rise and thus increasing the charging voltage. bubbles of gas are now rising through the electrolyte. at p, the last portions of lead sulphate are removed, acid is no longer being formed, and hydrogen and oxygen gas are formed rapidly. the gas forces the last of the concentrated acid out of the plates and in fact, equalizes the acid concentration throughout the whole cell. thus no further changes can take place, and the voltage becomes constant at r at a voltage of 2.5 to 2.7. density of electrolyte. discharge should be stopped when the density of the electrolyte, as measured with a hydrometer, is 1.150. when we pass a charging current through the battery, acid is produced by the chemical actions which take place in the plates. this gradually diffuses with the main electrolyte and causes the hydrometer to show a higher density than before. this increase in density continues steadily until the battery begins to "gas" freely. the progress of the charge is generally determined by the density of the electrolyte. for this purpose in automobile batteries, a hydrometer is placed in a glass syringe having a short length of rubber tubing at one end, and a large rubber bulb at the other. the rubber tube is inserted in the cell and enough electrolyte drawn up into the syringe to float the hydrometer so as to be able to obtain a reading. this subject will be treated more fully in a later chapter. changes at negative plate. the charging current changes lead sulphate into spongy lead, and acid is formed. the acid is mixed with the diluted electrolyte outside of the plates. as the charging proceeds the active material shrinks or contracts, and the weight of the plate actually decreases on account of the difference between the weight and volume of the lead sulphate and spongy lead. if the cell has had only a normal discharge and the charge is begun soon after the discharge ended, the charge will proceed quickly and without an excessive rise in temperature. if, however, the cell has been discharged too far, or has been in a discharged condition for some time, the lead sulphate will not be in a finely divided state as it should be, but will be hard and tough and will have formed an insulating coating over the active material, causing the charging voltage to be high, and the charge will proceed slowly. when most of the lead sulphate has been reduced to spongy lead, the charging current will be greater than is needed to carry on the chemical actions, and will simply decompose the water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the cell "gasses." spongy lead is rather tough and coherent, it, and the bubbles of gas which form in the pores of the negative plate near the end of the charge force their way to the surface without dislodging any of the active material. changes at the positive plate. when a cell has been discharged, a portion of the lead peroxide has been changed to lead sulphate, which has lodged in the pores of the active material and on its surface. during charge, the lead combines with oxygen from the water to form lead peroxide, and acid is formed. this acid diffuses into the electrolyte as fast as the amount of sulphate will permit. if the discharge has been carried so far that a considerable amount of sulphate has formed in the pores and on the surface of the plate, the action proceeds very slowly, and unless a moderate charging current is used, gassing begins before the charge is complete, simply because the sulphate cannot absorb the current. the gas bubbles which originate in the interior of the plate force their way to the surface, and in so doing cause numerous fine particles of active material to break off and fall to the bottom of the jar. this happens because the lead peroxide is a granular, non-coherent substance, with the particles held together very loosely, and the gas breaks off a considerable amount of active material. ======================================================================== chapter 7. capacity of storage batteries. -----------------------------the capacity of a storage battery is the product of the current drawn from a battery, multiplied by the number of hours this current flows. the unit in which capacity is measured is the ampere-hour. theoretically, a battery has a capacity of 40 ampere hours if it furnishes ten amperes for four hours, and if it is unable, at the end of that time, to furnish any more current. if we drew only five amperes from this battery, it should be able to furnish this current for eight hours. thus, theoretically, the capacity of a battery should be the same, no matter what current is taken from it. that is, the current in amperes, multiplied by the number of hours the battery, furnished this current should be constant. in practice, however, we do not discharge a battery to a lower voltage than 1.7 per cell, except when the rate of discharge is high, such as is the case when using the starting motor, on account of the increasing amount of sulphate and the difficulty with which this is subsequently removed and changed into lead and lead peroxide. the capacity of a storage battery is therefore measured by the number of ampere hours it can furnish before its voltage drops below 1.7 per cell. this definition assumes that the discharge is a continuous one, that we start with a fully charged battery and discharge it continuously until its voltage drops to 1.7 per cell. the factors upon which the capacity of storage batteries depend may be grouped in two main classifications: 1. design and construction of battery 2. conditions of operation design and construction. each classification may be subdivided. under the design and construction we have: (a) area of plate surface. (b) quantity, arrangement, and porosity of active materials. (c) quantity and strength of electrolyte. (d) circulation of electrolyte. these sub-classifications require further explanation. taking them in order: (a) area of plate surface. it is evident that the chemical and electrical activity of a battery are greatest at the surface of the plates since the acid and active material are in intimate contact here, and a supply of fresh acid is more readily available to replace that which is depleted as the battery is discharged. this is especially true with high rates of discharge, such as are caused in starting automobile engines. therefore, the capacity of a battery will be greater if the surface area of its plates is increased. with large plate areas a greater amount of acid and active materials is available, and an increase in capacity results. (b) quantity, arrangement, and porosity of active materials. since the lead and lead peroxide are changed to lead sulphate on discharge, it is evident that the greater the amount of these materials, the longer can the discharge continue, and hence the greater the capacity. the arrangement of the active materials is also important, since the acid and active materials must be in contact in order to produce electricity. consequently the capacity will be greater in a battery, all of whose active materials are in contact with the acid, than in one in which the acid reaches only a portion of the active materials. it is also important that all parts of the plates carry the same amount of current, in order that the active materials may be used evenly. as a result of these considerations, we find that the active materials are supported on grids of lead, that the plates are made thin, and that they have large surface areas. for heavy discharge currents, such as starting motor currents, it is essential that there be large surface areas. thick plates with smaller surface areas are more suitable for low discharge rates. since the inner portions of the active materials must have a plentiful and an easily renewable supply of acid, the active materials must be porous in order that diffusion may be easy and rapid. (c) quantity and strength of electrolyte. it is important that there be enough electrolyte in order that the acid may not become exhausted while there is still considerable active material left. an insufficient supply of electrolyte makes it impossible to obtain the full capacity from a battery. on the other hand, too much electrolyte, due either to filling the battery too full, or to having the plates in a jar that holds too much electrolyte, results in an increase in capacity up to the limit of the plate capacity. there is a danger present, however, because with an excess of electrolyte the plates will be discharged before the specific gravity of the electrolyte falls to 1.150. this results in over discharge of the battery with its attendant troubles as will be described more fully in a later chapter. it is a universal custom to consider a battery discharged when the specific gravity of the electrolyte has dropped to 1.150, and that it is fully charged when the specific gravity of the electrolyte has risen to 1.280-1.300. this is true in temperate climates. in tropical countries, which may for this purpose be defined as those countries in which the temperature never falls below the freezing point, the gravity of a fully charged cell is 1.200 to 1.230. the condition of the plates is, however, the true indicator of charged or discharged condition. with the correct amount of electrolyte, its specific gravity is 1.150 when the plates have been discharged as far as it is considered safe, and is 1.280-1.300 when the plates are fully charged. when electrolyte is therefore poured into a battery, it is essential that it contains the proper proportion of acid and water in order that its specific gravity readings be a true indicator of the condition of the plates as to charge or discharge, and hence show accurately how much energy remains in the cell at any time. a question which may be considered at this point is why in automobile, work a specific gravity of 1.280-1.300 is adopted for the electrolyte of a fully charged cell. there are several reasons. the voltage of a battery increases as the specific gravity goes up. hence, with a higher density, a higher voltage can be obtained. if the density were increased beyond this point, the acid would attack the lead grids and the separators, and considerable corrosion would result. another danger of high density is that of sulphation, as explained in a later chapter. another factor which enters is the resistance of the electrolyte. it is desirable that this be as low as possible. if we should make resistance measurements on various mixtures of acid and water, we should find that with a small percentage of acid, the resistance is high. as the amount of acid is increased, the resistance will grow less up to a certain point. beyond this point, the resistance will increase again as more acid is added to the mixture. the resistance is lowest when the acid forms 30% of the electrolyte. thus, if the electrolyte is made too strong, the plates and also the separators will be attacked by the acid, and the resistance of the electrolyte will also increase. the voltage increases as the proportion of acid is increased, but the other factors limit the concentration. if the electrolyte is diluted, its resistance rises, and the amount of acid is insufficient to give much capacity. the density of 1.280-1.300 is therefore a compromise between the various factors mentioned above. (d) circulation of electrolyte. this refers to the passing of electrolyte from one plate to another, and depends upon the ease with which the acid can pass through the pores of the separators. a porous separator allows more energy to be drawn from the battery than a nonporous one. operating conditions. considering now the operating conditions, we find several items to be taken into account. the most important are: (e) rate of discharge. (f) temperature. (e) rate of discharge. as mentioned above, the ampere hour rating of a battery is based upon a continuous discharge, starting with a specific gravity of 1.280-1.300, and finishing with 1.150. the end of the discharge is also considered to be reached when the voltage per cell has dropped to 1.7. with moderate rates of discharge the acid is abstracted slowly enough to permit the acid from outside the plates to diffuse into the pores of the plates and keep up the supply needed for the chemical actions. with increased rates of discharge the supply of acid is used up so rapidly that the diffusion is not fast enough to hold up the voltage. this fact is shown clearly by tests made to determine the time required to discharge a 100 amp. hr., 6 volt battery to 4.5 volts. with a discharge rate of 25 amperes, it required 160 minutes. with a discharge rate of 75 amperes, it required 34 minutes. from this we see that making the discharge rate three times as great caused the battery to be discharged in one fifth the time. these discharges were continuous, however, and if the battery were allowed to rest, the voltage would soon rise sufficiently, to burn the lamps for a number of hours. the conditions of operation in automobile work are usually considered severe. in starting the engine, a heavy current is drawn from the battery for a few seconds. the generator starts charging the battery immediately afterward, and the starting energy is soon replaced. as long as the engine runs, there is no load on the battery, as the generator will furnish the current for the lamps, and also send a charge into the battery. if the lamps are not used, the entire generator output is utilized to charge the battery, unless some current is furnished to the ignition system. overcharge is quite possible. when the engine is not running, the lamps are the only load on the battery, and there is no charging current. various drivers have various driving conditions. some use their starters frequently, and make only short runs. their batteries run down. other men use the starter very seldom, and take long tours. their batteries will be overcharged. the best thing that can be done is to set the generator for an output that will keep the battery charged under average conditions. from the results of actual tests, it may be said that modem lead-acid batteries are not injured in any way by the high discharge rate used when a starting motor cranks the engine. it is the rapidity with which fresh acid takes the place of that used in the pores of the active materials that affects the capacity of a battery at high rates, and not only limitation in the plates themselves. low rates of discharge should, in fact, be avoided more than the high rates. battery capacity is affected by discharge rates, only when the discharge is continuous, and the reduction in capacity caused by the high rates of continuous discharge does not occur if the discharge is an intermittent one, such as is actually the case in automobile work. the tendency now is to design batteries to give their rated capacity in very short discharge periods. if conditions should demand it, these batteries would be sold to give their rated capacity while operating intermittently at a rate which would completely discharge them in three or four minutes. the only change necessary for such high rates of discharge is to provide extra heavy terminals to carry the heavy current. the present standard method of rating starting and lighting batteries, as recommended by the society of automotive engineers, is as follows: "batteries for combined lighting and starting service shall have two ratings. the first shall indicate the lighting ability, and shall be the capacity in ampere hours of the battery when discharged continuously at the 5 hour rate to a final voltage of not less than 1.7 per cell, the temperature of the battery beginning such discharge being 80â°f. the second rating shall indicate the starting ability and shall be the capacity in ampere-hours when the battery is discharged continuously at the 20-minute rate to a final voltage of not less than 1.5 per cell, the temperature of the battery beginning such discharge being 80â°f." the discharge rate required under the average starting conditions is higher than that specified above, and would cause the required drop in voltage in about fifteen minutes. in winter, when an engine is cold and stiff, the work required from the battery is even more severe, the discharge rate being equivalent in amperes to probably four or five times the ampere-rating of the battery. on account of the rapid recovery of a battery after a discharge at a very high rate, it seems advisable to allow a battery to discharge to a voltage of 1.0 per cell when cranking an engine which is extremely cold and stiff. (f) temperature. chemical reactions take place much more readily at high temperatures than at low. furthermore, the active materials are more porous, the electrolyte lighter, and the internal resistance less at higher temperatures. opposed to this is the fact that at high temperatures, the acid attacks the grids and active materials, and lead sulphate is formed, even though no current is taken from the battery. other injurious effects are the destructive actions of hot acid on the wooden separators used in most starting and lighting batteries. greater expansion of active material will also occur, and this expansion is not, in general, uniform over the surface of the plates. this results in unequal strains and the plates are bent out of shape, or "buckled." the expansion of the active material will also cause much of it to fall from the plates, and we then have "shedding." [fig. 25 graph: theoretical temperature changes during charge and discharge] when sulphuric acid is poured into water, a marked temperature rise takes place. when a battery is charged, acid is formed, and when this mixes with the diluted electrolyte, a temperature rise occurs. in discharging, acid is taken from the electrolyte, and the temperature has a tendency to drop. on charging, therefore, there is danger of overheating, while on discharge, excessive temperatures are not likely. fig. 25 shows the theoretical temperature changes on charge and discharge. the decrease in temperature given-in the curve is not actually obtained in practice, because the tendency of the temperature to decrease is balanced by the heat caused by the current passing through the battery. age of battery. another factor which should be considered in connection with capacity is the age of the battery. new batteries often do not give their rated capacity when received from the manufacturer. this is due to the methods of making the plates. the "paste" plates, such as are used in automobiles, are made by applying oxides of lead, mixed with a liquid, which generally is dilute sulphuric acid, to the grids. these oxides must be subjected to a charging current in order to produce the spongy lead and lead peroxide. after the charge, they must be discharged, and then again charged. this is necessary because not all of the oxides are changed to active material on one charge, and repeated charges and discharges are required to produce the maximum amount of active materials. some manufacturers do not charge and discharge a battery a sufficient number of times before sending it out, and after a battery is put into use, its capacity will increase for some time, because more active material is produced during each charge. another factor which increases the capacity of a battery after it is put into use is the tendency of the positive active material to become more porous after the battery is put through the cycles of charge and discharge. this results in an increase in capacity for a considerable time after the battery is put into use. when, a battery has been in use for some time, a considerable portion of the active material will have fallen from the positive plates, and, a decrease in capacity will result. such a battery will charge faster than a new one because the amount of sulphate which has formed when the battery is discharged is less than in a newer battery. hence, the time required to reduce this sulphate will be less, and the battery will "come up" faster on charge, although the specific gravity of the electrolyte may not rise to 1.280. ======================================================================== chapter 8. internal resistance. -------------------the resistance offered by a storage battery to the flow of a current through it results in a loss of voltage, and in heating. its value should be as low as possible, and, in fact, it is almost negligible even i in small batteries, seldom rising above 0.05 ohm. on charge, it causes the charging voltage to be higher and on discharge causes a loss of voltage. fig. 26 shows the variation in resistance. [fig. 26 graph: changes in internal resistance during charge and discharge] the resistance as measured between the terminals of a cell is made up of several factors as follows: 1. grids. this includes the resistance of the terminals, connecting links, and the framework upon which the active materials are pasted. this is but a small part of the total resistance, and does not undergo any considerable change during charge and discharge. it increases slightly as the temperature of the grids rises. 2. electrolyte. this refers to the electrolyte between the plates, and varies with the amount of acid and with temperature. as mentioned in the preceding chapter, a mixture of acid and water in which the acid composes thirty per cent of the electrolyte has the minimum resistance. diluting or increasing the concentration of the electrolyte will both cause an increase in resistance from the minimum i value. the explanation probably lies in the degree to which the acid is split up into "ions" of hydrogen (h), and sulphate (so4). these "ions" carry the current through t he electrolyte. starting with a certain amount of acid, let us see how the ionization progresses. with very concentrated acid, ionization does not take place, and hence, there are no ions to carry current. as we mix the acid with water, ionization occurs. the more water used, the more ions, and hence, the less the resistance, because the number of ions available to carry the current increases. the ionization in creases to a certain maximum degree, beyond which no more ions are formed. it is probable that an electrolyte containing thirty per cent of acid is at its maximum degree of ionization and hence its lowest resistance. if more water is now added, no more ions are formed. furthermore, the number of ions per unit volume of electrolyte will now decrease on account of the increased amount of water. there will therefore be fewer ions per unit volume to carry the current, and the resistance of the electrolyte increases. with an electrolyte of a given concentration, an increase of temperature will cause a decrease in resistance. a decrease in temperature will, of course, cause an increase in resistance. it is true, in general, that the resistance of the electrolyte is about half of the total resistance of the cell. the losses due to this resistance generally form only one per cent of the total losses, and area practically negligible factor. 3. active material. this includes the resistance of the active materials and the electrolyte in the pores of the active materials. this varies considerably during charge and discharge. it has been found that the resistance of the peroxide plate changes much more than that of the lead plate. the change in resistance of the positive plate is especially marked near the end of a discharge. the composition of the active material, and the contact between it and the grid affect the resistance considerably. during charge, the current is sent into the cell from an external source. the girds therefore carry most of the current. the active material which first reacts with the acid is that near the surface of the plate, and the acid formed by the charging current mixes readily with the main body of electrolyte. gradually, the charging action takes place in the inner portions of the plate, and concentrated acid is formed in the pores of the plate. as the sulphate is removed, however, the acid has little difficulty in mixing with the main body of electrolyte. the change in resistance on the charge is therefore not considerable. during discharge, the chemical action also begins at the surface of the plates and gradually moves inward. in this case, however, sulphate is formed on the surface first, and it becomes increasingly difficult for the fresh acid from the electrolyte to diffuse into the plates so as to replace the acid which has been greatly diluted there by the discharge actions. there is therefore an increase in resistance because of the dilution of the acid at the point of activity. unless a cell is discharged too far, however, the increase in resistance is small. if a battery is allowed to stand idle for a long time it gradually discharges itself, as explained in chapter 10. this is due to the formation of a tough coating of crystallized lead sulphate, which is practically an insulator. these crystals gradually cover and enclose the active material. the percentage change is not high, and generally amounts to a few per cent only. the chief damage caused by the excessive sulphation is therefore not an increase in resistance, but consists chiefly of making a poor contact between active material and grid, and of removing much of the active material from action by covering it. ======================================================================== chapter 9. care of the battery on the car. ------------------------------the manufacturers of starting and lighting equipment have designed their generators, cutouts, and current controlling devices so as to relieve the car owner of as much work as possible in taking care of batteries. the generators on most cars are automatically connected to the battery at the proper time, and also disconnected from it as the engine slows down. the amount of current which the generator delivers to the battery is automatically prevented from exceeding a certain maximum value. under the average conditions of driving, a battery is kept in a good condition. it is impossible, however, to eliminate entirely the need of attention on the part of the car owner, and battery repairman. the storage battery requires but little attention, and this is the very reason why many batteries are neglected. motorists often have the impression that because their work in caring for a battery is quite simple, no harm will result if they give the battery no attention whatever. if the battery fails to turn over the engine when the starting switch is closed, then instruction books are studied. thereafter more attention is paid to the battery. the rules to be observed in taking care of the battery which is in service on the car are not difficult to observe. it is while on the car that a battery is damaged, and the damage may be prevented by intelligent consideration of the battery's housing and living conditions, just as these conditions are made as good as possible for human beings. 1. keep the interior of the battery box clean and dry. on many cars the battery is contained in an iron box, or under the seat or floorboards. this box must be kept dry, and frequent inspection is necessary to accomplish this. moisture condenses easily in a metal box, and if not removed will cause the box to become rusty. pieces of rust may fall on top of the battery and cause corrosion and leakage of current between terminals. occasionally, wash the inside of the box with a rag dipped in ammonia, or a solution of baking soda, and then wipe it dry. a good plan is to paint the inside of the box with asphaltum paint. this will prevent rusting, and at the same time will prevent the iron from being attacked by electrolyte which may be spilled, or may leak from the battery. some batteries are suspended from the car frame under the floor boards or seat. the iron parts near such batteries should be kept dry and free from rust. if the battery has a roof of sheet iron placed above it, this roof should also be kept clean, dry and coated with asphaltum paint. [fig. 27 "do not drop tools on top of battery"] 2. put nothing but the battery in the battery box. if the battery is contained in an iron box, do not put rags, tools, or anything else of a similar nature in the battery box. do not lay pliers across the top of the battery, as shown in fig. 27. such things belong elsewhere. the battery should have a free air space all around it, fig. 28. objects made of metal will short-circuit the battery and lead to a repair bill. 3. keep the battery clean and dry. the top of the battery should be kept free of dirt, dust, and moisture. dirt may find its way into the cells and damage the battery. a dirty looking battery is an unsightly object, and cleanliness should be maintained for the sake of the appearance of the battery if for no other reason. moisture on top of the battery causes a leakage of current between the terminals of the cells and tends to discharge the battery. wipe off all moisture and occasionally go over the tops of the cell connectors, and terminals with a rag wet with ammonia or a solution of baking soda. this will neutralize any acid which may be present in the moisture. the terminals should be dried and covered with vaseline. this protects them from being attacked by acid which may be spilled on top of the battery. if a deposit of a grayish or greenish substance is found on the battery terminals, handles or cell connectors, the excess should be scraped off and the parts should then be washed with a hot solution of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) until all traces of the substance have been removed. in scraping off the deposit, care should be taken not to scrape off any lead from terminals or connectors. after washing the parts, dry them and cover them with vaseline. the grayish or greenish substance found on the terminals, connectors, or handles is the result of "corrosion," or, in other words, the result of the action of the sulphuric acid in the electrolyte upon some metallic substance. [fig. 28 battery installed with air space on all sides] the acid which causes the corrosion may be spilled on the battery when hydrometer readings are taken. it may also be the result of filling the cells too full, with subsequent expansion and overflowing as the temperature of the electrolyte increases during charge. loose vent caps may allow electrolyte to be thrown out of the cell by the motion of the car on the road. a poorly sealed battery allows electrolyte to be thrown out through the cracks left between the sealing compound and the jars or posts. the leaks may be caused by the battery cables not having sufficient slack, and pulling on the terminals. the cap which fits over the vent tube at the center of the top of each cell is pierced by one or more holes through which gases formed within the cell may escape. these holes must be kept open; otherwise the pressure of the gases may blow off the top of the cell. if these holes are found to be clogged with dirt they should be cleaned out thoroughly. the wooden battery case should also be kept clean and dry. if the battery is suspended from the frame of the car, dirt and mud from the road will gradually cover the case, and this mud should be scraped off frequently. occasionally wash the case with a rag wet with ammonia, or hot baking soda solution. keep the case, especially along the top edges, coated with asphaltum or some other acid proof paint. [fig. 29 battery held in place by "hold-down" bolts] 4. the battery must be held down firmly. if the battery is contained in an iron box mounted on the running-board, or in a compartment in the body of the car having a door at the side of the running-board, it is usually fastened in place by long bolts which hook on the handles or the battery case. these bolts, which are known as "hold-downs," generally pass through the running board or compartment, fig. 29, and are generally fastened in place by nuts. these nuts should be turned up so that the battery is held down tight. other methods are also used to hold the battery in place, but whatever the method, it is vital to the battery that it be held down firmly so that the jolting of the car cannot cause it to move. the battery has rubber jars which are brittle, and which are easily broken. even if a battery is held down firmly, it is jolted about to a considerable extent, and with a loosely fastened battery, the jars are bound to be cracked and broken. 5. the cables connected to the battery must have sufficient slack so that they will not pull on the battery terminals, as this will result in leaks, and possibly a broken cover. the terminals on a battery should be in such a position that the cables may be connected to them easily, and without bending and twisting them. these cables are heavy and stiff, and once they are bent or twisted they are put under a strain, and exert a great force to straighten themselves. this action causes the cables to pull on the terminals, which become loosened, and cause a leak, or break the cover. [fig. 30 measure height of electrolyte in battery] 6. inspect the battery twice every month in winter, and once a week in summer, to make sure that the electrolyte covers the plates. to do this, remove the vent caps and look down through the vent tube. if a light is necessary to determine the level of the electrolyte, use an electric lamp. never bring an open flame, such as a match or candle near the vent tubes of a battery. explosive gases are formed when a battery "gasses," and the flame may ignite them, with painful injury to the face and eyes of the observer as a result. such an explosion may also ruin the battery. during the normal course of operation of the battery, water from the electrolyte will evaporate. the acid never evaporates. the surface of the electrolyte should be not less than one-half inch above the tops of the plate. a convenient method of measuring the height of the electrolyte is shown in fig. 30. insert one end of a short piece of a glass tube, having an opening not less than one-eighth inch diameter, through the filling hole, and allow it to rest on the upper edge of the plates. then place your finger over the upper end, and withdraw the tube. a column of liquid will remain in the lower end of the tube, as shown in the figure, and the height of this column is the same as the height of the electrolyte above the top of the plates in the cell. if this is less than one-half inch, add enough distilled water to bring the electrolyte up to the proper level. fig. 31 shows the correct height of electrolyte in an exide cell. never add well water, spring water, water from a stream, or ordinary faucet water. these contain impurities which will damage the battery, if used. it is essential that distilled water be used for this purpose, and it must be handled carefully so as to keep impurities of any kind out of the water. never use a metal can for handling water or electrolyte for a battery, but always use a glass or porcelain vessel. the water should be stored in glass bottles, and poured into a porcelain or glass pitcher when it is to be used. [fig. 31 correct height of electrolyte in exide cell] a convenient method of adding the water to the battery is to draw some up in a hydrometer syringe and add the necessary amount to the cell by inserting the rubber tube which is at the lower end into the vent hole and then squeezing the bulb until the required amount has been put into the cell. in the summer time it makes no difference when water is added. in the winter time, if the air temperature is below freezing (32â° f), start the engine before adding water, and keep it running for about one hour after the battery begins to "gas." a good time to add the water is just before starting on a trip, as the engine will then usually be run long enough to charge the battery, and cause the water to mix thoroughly with the electrolyte. otherwise, the water, being lighter than the electrolyte, will remain at the top and freeze. be sure to wipe off water from the battery top after filling. if battery has been wet for sometime, wipe it with a rag dampened with ammonia or baking soda solution to neutralize the acid. never add acid to a battery while the battery is on the car. by "acid" is meant a mixture of sulphuric acid and water. the concentrated acid, is of course, never used. the level of the electrolyte falls because of the evaporation of the water which is mixed with the acid in the electrolyte. the acid does not evaporate. it is therefore evident that acid should not be added to a cell to replace the water which has evaporated. some men believe that a battery may be charged by adding acid. this is not true, however, because a battery can be charged only by passing a current through the battery from an outside source. on the car the generator charges the battery. it is true that acid is lost, but this is not due to evaporation, but to the loss of some of the electrolyte from the cell, the lost electrolyte, of course, carrying some acid with it. electrolyte is lost when a cell gasses; electrolyte may be spilled; a cracked jar will allow electrolyte to leak out; if too much water is added, the expansion of the electrolyte when the battery is charging may cause it to run over and be lost, or the jolting of the car may cause some of it to be spilled; if a battery is allowed to become badly sulphated, some of the sulphate is never reduced, or drops to the bottom of the cell, and the acid lost in the formation of the sulphate is not regained. if acid or electrolyte is added instead of water, when no acid is needed, the electrolyte will become too strong, and sulphated plates will be the result. if a battery under average driving conditions never becomes fully charged, it should be removed from the car and charged from an outside source as explained later. if, after the specific gravity of the electrolyte stops rising, it is not of the correct value, some of the electrolyte should be drawn off and stronger electrolyte added in its place. this should be done only in the repair shop or charging station. care must be taken not to add too much water to a cell, fig. 32. this will subsequently cause the electrolyte to overflow and run over the top of the battery, due to the expansion of the electrolyte as the charging current raises its temperature. the electrolyte which overflows is, of course, lost, taking with it acid which will later be replaced by water as evaporation takes place. the electrolyte will then be too weak. the electrolyte which overflows will rot the wooden battery case, and also tend to cause corrosion at the terminals. if it is necessary to add water very frequently, the battery is operating at too high a temperature, or else there is a cracked jar. the high temperature may be due to the battery being charged at too high a rate, or to the battery being placed near some hot part of the engine or exhaust pipe. the car manufacturer generally is careful not to place the battery too near any such hot part. the charging rate may be measured by connecting an ammeter in series with the battery and increasing the engine speed until the maximum current is obtained. for a six volt battery this should rarely exceed 14 amperes. if the charging, current does not reach a maximum value and then remain constant, or decrease, but continues to rise as the speed of the engine, is increased, the regulating device is out of order. an excessive charging rate will cause continuous gassing if it is much above normal, and the temperature of the electrolyte will be above 100â° f. in this way an excessive charging current may be detected. [fig. 32 cell with level of electrolyte too high] in hot countries or states, the atmosphere may have such a high temperature that evaporation will be more rapid than in temperate climates, and this may necessitate more frequent addition of water. if one cell requires a more frequent addition of water than the others, it is probable that the jar of that cell is cracked. such a cell will also show a low specific gravity, since electrolyte leaks out and is replaced by water. a battery which has a leaky jar will also have a case which is rotted at the bottom and sides. a battery with a leaky jar must, of course, be removed from the car for repairs. "dope" electrolytes from time to time within the past two years, various solutions which are supposed to give a rundown battery a complete charge within five or ten minutes have been offered to the public. the men selling such "dope" sometimes give a demonstration which at first sight seems to prove their claims. this demonstration consists of holding the starting switch down (with the ignition off) until the battery can no longer turn over the engine. they then pour the electrolyte out of the battery, fill it with their "dope," crank the engine by hand, run it for five minutes, and then get gravity readings of 1.280 or over. the battery will also crank the engine. such a charge is merely a drug-store charge, and the "dope" is generally composed mainly of high gravity acid, which seemingly puts life into a battery, but in reality causes great damage, and shortens the life of a battery. the starting motor test means nothing. the same demonstration could be given with any battery. the high current drawn by the motor does not discharge the battery, but merely dilutes the electrolyte which is in the plates to such an extent that the voltage drops to a point at which the battery can no longer turn over the starting motor. if any battery were given a five minutes charge after such a test, the diluted electrolyte in the plates would be replaced by fresh acid from the electrolyte and the battery would then easily crank the engine again. the five minutes of running the engine does not put much charge into the battery but gives time for the electrolyte to diffuse into the plates. chemical analysis of a number of dope electrolytes has shown that they consist mainly of high gravity acid, and that this acid is not even chemically pure, but contains impurities which would ruin a battery even if the gravity were not too high. the results of some of the analyses are as follows: no. 1. 1.260 specific gravity sulphuric acid, 25 parts iron, 13.5 parts chlorine, 12.5, per cent sodium sulphate, 1 per cent nitric acid. no. 2. 1.335 specific gravity sulphuric acid, large amounts of organic matter, part of which consisted of acids which attack lead. no. 3. 1.340 specific gravity sulphuric acid, 15.5 per cent sodium sulphate. no. 4. 1.290 specific gravity sulphuric acid, 1.5 per cent sodium sulphate. no. 5. 1.300 specific gravity sulphuric acid. if such "dope" electrolytes are added to a discharged battery, the subsequent charging of the battery will add more acid to the electrolyte, the specific gravity of which will then rise much higher than it should, and the plates and separators are soon ruined. do not put faith in any "magic" solution which is supposed to work wonders. there is only one way to charge a battery, and that is to send a current through it, and there is only one electrolyte to use, and that is the standard mixture of distilled water and chemically pure sulphuric acid. 7. the specific gravity of the electrolyte should be measured every two weeks and a permanent record of the readings made for future reference. the specific gravity of the electrolyte is the ratio of its weight to the weight of an equal volume of water. acid is heavier than water, and hence the heavier the electrolyte, the more acid it, contains, and the more nearly it is fully charged. in automobile batteries, a specific gravity of 1.300-1.280 indicates a fully charged battery. generally, a gravity of 1.280 is taken to indicate a fully, charged cell, and in this book this will be done. complete readings are as follows: 1.300-1.280--fully charged. 1.280-1.200--more than half charged. 1.200-1.150--less than half charged. 1.150 and less--completely discharged. [fig. 33 and fig. 34: battery hydrometers] for determining the specific gravity, a hydrometer is used. this consists of a small sealed glass tube with an air bulb and a quantity of shot at one end, and a graduated scale on the upper end. this scale is marked from 1.100 to 1.300, with various intermediate markings as shown in fig. 33. if this hydrometer is placed in a liquid, it will sink to a certain depth. in so doing, it will displace a certain volume of the electrolyte, and when it comes to rest, the volume displaced will just be equal to the weight of the hydrometer. it will therefore sink farther in a light liquid than in a heavy one, since it will require a greater volume of the light liquid to equal the weight of the hydrometer. the top mark on the hydrometer scale is therefore 1.100 and the bottom one 1.300. some hydrometers are not marked with figures that indicate the specific gravity, but are marked with the words "charged," "half charged," "discharged," or "full," "half full," "empty," in place of the figures. the tube must be held in a vertical position, fig. 35, and the stem of the hydrometer must be vertical. the reading will be the number on the stem at the surface of the electrolyte in the tube, fig. 36. thus if the hydrometer sinks in the electrolyte until the electrolyte comes up to the 1.150 mark on the stem, the specific gravity is 1.150. [fig. 35 using hydrometer for reading specific gravity] for convenience in automobile work, the hydrometer is enclosed in a large tube of glass or other transparent, acid proof material, having a short length of rubber tubing at its lower end, and a large rubber bulb at the upper end. the combination is called a hydrometer-syringe, or simply hydrometer. see figure 34. in measuring the specific gravity of the electrolyte, the vent cap is removed, the bulb is squeezed (so as to expel the air from it), and the rubber tubing inserted in the hole from which the cap was removed. the pressure on the bulb is now released, and electrolyte is drawn up into the glass tube. the rubber tubing on the hydrometer should not be withdrawn from the cell. when a sufficient amount of electrolyte has entered the tube, the hydrometer will float. in taking a reading, there should be no pressure on the bulb, and the hydrometer should be floating freely and not touching the walls of the tube. the tube must not be so full of electrolyte that the upper end of the hydrometer strikes any part of the bulb. the tube must be held in a vertical position, fig. 35, and the stem of the hydrometer must be vertical. the reading will be the number on the stem at the surface of the electrolyte in the tube, fig. 36. thus if the hydrometer sinks in the electrolyte until the electrolyte comes up to the 1.150 mark on the stem, the specific gravity is 1.150. if the battery is located in such a position that it is impossible to hold the hydrometer straight up, the rubber tube may be pinched shut with the fingers, after a sufficient quantity of electrolyte has been drawn from the cell and the hydrometer then removed and held in a vertical position. specific gravity readings should never be taken soon after distilled water has been added to the battery. the water and electrolyte do not mix immediately, and such readings will give misleading results. the battery should be charged several hours before the readings are taken. it is a good plan to take a specific gravity reading before adding any water, since accurate results can also be obtained in this way. [fig. 36 hydrometer reading showing cell charged, half-charged, and discharged] having taken a reading, the bulb is squeezed so as to return the electrolyte to the cell. care should be taken not to spill the electrolyte from the hydrometer syringe when testing the gravity. such moisture on top of the cells tends to cause a short circuit between the terminals and to discharge the battery. in making tests with the hydrometer, the electrolyte should always be returned to the same cell from which it was drawn. failure to do this will finally result in an increased proportion of acid in one cell and a deficiency of acid in others. the specific gravity of all cells of a battery should rise and fall together, as the cells are usually connected in series so that the same current passes through each cell both on charge and discharge. if one cell of a battery shows a specific gravity which is decidedly lower than that of the other cells in series with it, and if this difference gradually increases, the cell showing the lower gravity has internal trouble. this probably consists of a short circuit, and the battery should be opened for inspection. if the electrolyte in this cell falls faster than that of the other cells, a leaky jar is indicated. the various cells should have specific gravities within fifteen points of each other, such as 1.260 and 1.275. if the entire battery shows a specific gravity below 1.200, it is not receiving enough charge to replace the energy used in starting the engine and supplying current to the lights, or else there is trouble in the battery. use starter and lights sparingly until the specific gravity comes up to 1.280-1.300. if the specific gravity is less than 1.150 remove the battery from the car and charge it on the charging bench, as explained later. the troubles which cause low gravity are given on pages 321 and 322. it is often difficult to determine what charging current should be delivered by the generator. some generators operate at a constant voltage slightly higher than that of the fully charged battery, and the charging current will change, being higher for a discharged battery than for one that is almost or fully charged. other generators deliver a constant current which is the same regardless of the battery's condition. in the constant voltage type of generator, the charging current automatically adjusts itself to the condition of the battery. in the constant current type, the generator current remains constant, and the voltage changes somewhat to keep the current constant. individual cases often require that another current value be used. in this case, the output of the generator must be changed. with most generators, a current regulating device is used which may be adjusted so as to give a fairly wide range of current, the exact value chosen being the result of a study of driving conditions and of several trials. the charging current should never be made so high that the temperature of the electrolyte in the battery remains above 90â° f. a special thermometer is very useful in determining the temperature. see fig. 37. the thermometer bulb is immersed in the electrolyte above the plates through the filler hole in the tops of the cells. batteries used on some of the older cars are divided into two or more sections which are connected in parallel while the engine is running, and in such cases the cables leading to the different sections should all be of exactly the same length, and the contacts in the switch which connect these sections in parallel should all be clean and tight. if cables of unequal length are used, or if some of the switch contacts are loose and dirty, the sections will not receive equal charging currents, because the resistances of the charging circuits will not be equal. the section having the greatest resistance in its circuit will receive the least amount of charge, and will show lower specific gravity readings than for other sections. in a multiple section battery, there is therefore a tendency for the various sections to receive unequal charges, and for one or more sections to run down continually. an ammeter should be attached with the engine running and the battery charging, first to one section and then to each of the others in turn. the ammeter should be inserted and removed from the circuit while the engine remains running and all conditions must be exactly the same; otherwise the comparative results will not give reliable indications. it would be better still to use two ammeters at the same time, one on each section of the battery. in case the amperage of charge should differ by more than 10% between any two sections, the section receiving the low charge rate should be examined for proper height of electrolyte, for the condition of its terminals and its connections at the starting switch, as described. should a section have suffered considerably from such lack of charge, its voltage will probably have been lowered. with all connections made tight and clean and with the liquid at the proper height in each cell, this section may automatically receive a higher charge until it is brought back to normal. this high charge results from the comparatively low voltage of the section affected. in case the car is equipped with such a battery, each section must carry its proper fraction of the load and with lamps turned on or other electrical devices in operation the flow from the several sections must be the same for each one. an examination should be made to see that no additional lamps, such as trouble lamps or body lamps, have been attached on one side of the battery, also that the horn and other accessories are so connected that they draw from all sections at once. some starting systems have in the past not been designed carefully in this respect, one section of the battery having longer cables attached to it than the others. in such systems it is impossible for these sections to receive as much charging current as others, even though all connections and switches are in good condition. in other systems, all the cells of the battery are in series, and therefore must receive the same charging current, but have lighting wires attached to it at intermediate points, thus dividing the battery into sections for the lighting circuits. if the currents taken by these circuits are not equal, the battery section supplying the heavier current will run down faster than others. fortunately, multiple section batteries are not being used to any great extent at present, and troubles due to this cause are disappearing. the temperature of the electrolyte affects the specific gravity, since heat causes the electrolyte to expand. if we take any battery or cell and heat it, the electrolyte will expand and its specific gravity will decrease, although the actual amount of acid is the same. the change in specific gravity amounts to one point, approximately, for every three degrees fahrenheit. if the electrolyte has a gravity of 1.250 at 70â°f, and the temperature is raised to 73â°f, the specific gravity of the battery will be 1.249. if the temperature is decreased to 67â°f, the specific gravity will be 1.251. since the change of temperature does not change the actual amount of acid in the electrolyte, the gravity readings as obtained with the hydrometer syringe should be corrected one point for every three degrees change in temperature. thus 70â°f is considered the normal temperature, and one point is added to the electrolyte reading for every three degrees above 70â°f. similarly, one point is subtracted for every three degrees below 70â°f. for convenience of the hydrometer user, a special thermometer has been developed by battery makers. this is shown in fig. 37. it has a special scale mounted beside the regular scale. this scale shows the corrections which must be made when the temperature is not 70â°f. opposite the 70â° point on the thermometer is a "0" point on the special scale. this indicates that no correction is to be made. opposite the 67â° point on the regular scale is a -1, indicating that 1 must be subtracted from the hydrometer reading to find what the specific gravity would be if the temperature were 70â°f. opposite the 73â° point on the regular scale is a +1, indicating that 1 point must be added to reading on the hydrometer, in order to reduce the reading of specific gravity to a temperature of 70â°f. [fig. 37 special thermometer] 8. storage batteries are strongly affected by changes in temperature. both extremely high and very low temperatures are to be avoided. at low temperatures the electrolyte grows denser, the porosity of plates and separators decreases, circulation and diffusion of electrolyte are made difficult, chemical actions between plates and acid take place very slowly, and the whole battery becomes sluggish, and acts as if it were numbed with cold. the voltage and capacity of the battery are lowered. as the battery temperature increases, the density of the electrolyte decreases, the plates and separators become more porous, the internal resistance decreases, circulation and diffusion of electrolyte take place much more quickly, the chemical actions between plates and electrolyte proceed more rapidly, and the battery voltage and capacity increase. a battery therefore works better at high temperatures. excessive temperatures, say over 110â° f, are, however, more harmful than low temperatures. evaporation of the water takes place very rapidly, the separators are attacked by the hot acid and are ruined, the active materials and plates expand to such an extent that the active materials break away from the grids and the grids warp and buckle. the active materials themselves are burned and made practically useless. the hot acid also attacks the grids and the sponge lead and forms dense layers of sulphate. such temperatures are therefore extremely dangerous. a battery that persistently runs hot, requiring frequent addition of water, is either receiving too much charging current, or has internal trouble. the remedy for excessive charge is to decrease the output of the generator, or to burn the lamps during the day time. motorists who make long touring trips in which considerable day driving is done, with little use of the starter, experience the most trouble from high temperature. the remedy is either to decrease the charging rate or burn the lamps, even in the day time. internal short-circuits cause excessive temperature rise, both on charge and discharge. such short circuits usually result from buckled plates which break through the separators, or from an excessive amount of sediment. this sediment consists of active material or lead sulphate which has dropped from the positive plate and fallen to the bottom of the battery jar. all battery jars are provided with ridges which keep the plates raised an inch or more from the bottom of the jar, and which form pockets into which the materials drop. see fig. 10. if these pockets become filled, and the sediment reaches the bottom of the plates, internal short circuits result which cause the battery to run down and cause excessive temperatures. if the electrolyte is allowed to fall below the tops of the plates, the parts of the plates above the acid become dry, and when the battery is charged grow hot. the parts still covered by the acid also become hot because all the charging current is carried by these parts, and the plate surface is less than before. the water will also become hot and boil away. a battery which is thus "charged while dry" deteriorates rapidly, its life being very short. if a battery is placed in a hot place on the car, this heat in addition to that caused by charging will soften the plates and jars, and shorten their life considerably. in the winter, it is especially important not to allow the battery to become discharged, as there is danger of the electrolyte freezing. a fully charged battery will not freeze except at an extremely low temperature. the water expands as it freezes, loosening the active materials, and cracking the grids. as soon as a charging current thaws the battery, the active material is loosened, and drops to the bottom of the jars, with the result that the whole battery may disintegrate. jars may also be cracked by the expansion of the water when a battery freezes. to avoid freezing, a battery should therefore be kept charged, the temperatures at which electrolyte of various specific gravities freezes are as follows: specific gravity freezing pt. specific gravity freezing pt. --------------- ----------- --------------- -----------1.000 32 deg. f 1.200 -16 deg. f 1.050 26 deg. f 1.250 -58 deg. f 1.100 18 deg. f 1.280 -92 deg. f 1.150 5 deg. f 1.300 -96 deg. f 9. care of storage battery when not in service. a storage battery may be out of service for a considerable period at certain times of the year, for example, when the automobile is put away during the winter months, and during this time it should not be allowed to stand without attention. when the battery is to be out of service for only three or four weeks, it should be kept well filled with distilled water and given as complete a charge as possible the last few days, the car is in service by using the lamps and starting motor very sparingly. the specific gravity of the electrolyte in each cell should be tested, and it should be somewhere between 1.280 and 1.300. all connections to the battery should be removed, as any slight discharge current will in time completely discharge it, and the possibilities of such an occurrence are to be avoided. if the battery is to be put out of service for several months, it should be given a complete charge by operating the generator on the car or by connecting it to an outside charging circuit. during the out-of-service period, water should be added to the cells every six or eight weeks and the battery given what is called a freshening charge; that is, the engine should be run until the cells have been gassing for perhaps one hour, and the battery may then be allowed to stand for another similar period without further attention. water should be added and the battery fully charged before it is put back into service. it is desirable to have the temperature of the room where the battery is stored fairly constant and as near 70 degrees fahrenheit as possible. ======================================================================== chapter 10. storage battery troubles. ------------------------the storage battery is a most faithful servant, and if given even a fighting chance, will respond instantly to the demands made upon it. given reasonable care and consideration, it performs its duties faithfully for many months. when such care is lacking, however, it is soon discovered that the battery is subject to a number of diseases, most of which are "preventable," and all of which, if they do not kill the battery, at least, greatly impair its efficiency. in discussing these diseases, we may consider the various parts of which a battery is composed, and describe the troubles to which they are subject. every battery used on an automobile is composed of: 1. plates 2. separators 3. jars in which plates, separators, and electrolyte are placed 4. wooden case 5. cell connectors, and terminals 6. electrolyte most battery diseases are contagious, and if one part fails, some of the other parts are affected. these diseases may best be considered in the order in which the parts are given in the foregoing list. plate troubles plates are the "vitals" of a battery, and their troubles affect the life of the battery more seriously than those of the other parts. it is often difficult to diagnose their troubles, and the following descriptions are given to aid in the diagnosis. sulphation 1. over discharge. some battery men say that a battery is suflphated whenever anything is wrong with it. sulphation is the formation of lead sulphate on the plates. as a battery of the lead acid type discharges, lead sulphate must form. there can be no discharge of such a battery without the formation of lead sulphate, which is the natural product of the chemical reactions by virtue of which current may be drawn from the battery. this sulphate gradually replaces the lead peroxide of the positive plate, and the spongy lead of the negative plate. when a battery has been discharged until the voltage per cell has fallen to the voltage limits, considerable portions of the lead peroxide and spongy lead remain on the plates. the sulphate which is then present is in a finely divided, porous condition, and can readily be changed back to lead peroxide and spongy lead by charging the battery. if the discharge is continued after the voltage has fallen to the voltage limits, an excessive amount of sulphate forms. it fills up the pores in the active materials, and covers up much of the active material which remains, so that it is difficult to change the sulphate back to active material. moreover, the expansion of active material which takes place as the sulphate forms is then so great that it causes the active material to break off from the plate and drop to the bottom of the jar. 2. allowing a battery to stand idle. when lead sulphate is first formed, it is in a finely divided, porous condition, and the electrolyte soaks through it readily. if a battery which has been discharged is allowed to stand idle without being charged, the lead sulphate crystals grow by the combination of the crystals to form larger crystals. the sulphate, instead of having a very large surface area, upon which the electrolyte may act in changing the sulphate to active material, as it does when it is first formed, now presents only a very small surface to the electrolyte, and it is therefore only with great difficulty that the large crystals of sulphate are changed to active material. the sulphate is a poor conductor, and furthermore, it covers up much of the remaining active material so that the electrolyte cannot reach it. a charged battery will also become sulphated if allowed to stand idle, because it gradually becomes discharged, even though no wires of any kind are attached to the battery terminals. how this takes place is explained later. the discharge and formation of sulphate continue until the battery is completely discharged. the sulphate then gradually forms larger crystals as explained in the preceding paragraph, until all of the active material is either changed to sulphate, or is covered over by the sulphate so that the electrolyte cannot reach it. the sulphate thus forms a high resistance coating which hinders the passage of charging current through the battery and causes heating on charge. it is for this reason that sulphated plates should be charged at a low rate. the chemical actions which are necessary to change the sulphate to active material can take place but very slowly, and thus only a small current can be absorbed. forcing a large current through a sulphated battery causes heating since the sulphate does not form uniformly throughout the plate, and the parts which are the least sulphated will carry the charging current, causing them to become heated. the heating damages the plates and separators, and causes buckling, as explained later. if batteries which have been discharged to the voltage limits are allowed to stand idle without being charged, they will, of course, continue to discharge themselves just as fully charged batteries do when allowed to stand idle. 3. starvation. if a battery is charged and discharged intermittently, and the discharge is greater than the charge, the battery will never be fully charged, and lead sulphate will always be present. gradually this sulphate forms the large tough crystals that cover the active material and remove it from action. this action continues until all parts of the plate are covered with the crystalline sulphate and we have the same condition that results when a battery is allowed to stand idle without any charge. 4. allowing electrolyte to fall below tops of plates. if the electrolyte is allowed to fall below the tops of the plates, so that the active materials are exposed to the air, the parts thus exposed will gradually become sulphated. the spongy lead of the negative plate, being in a very finely divided state, offers a very large surface to the oxygen of the air, and is rapidly oxidized, the chemical action causing the active material to become hot. the charging current, in passing through the parts of the plates not covered by the electrolyte also heats the active materials. the electrolyte which occasionally splashes over the exposed parts of the plates and which rises in the pores of the separators, is heated also, and since hot acid attacks the active materials readily, sulphation takes place quickly. the parts above the electrolyte, of course, cannot be charged and sulphate continues to form. soon the whole exposed parts are sulphated as shown in fig. 209. as the level of the electrolyte drops, the electrolyte becomes stronger, because it is only the water which evaporates, the acid remaining and becoming more and more concentrated. the remaining electrolyte and the parts of the plates covered by it become heated by the current, because there is a smaller plate area to carry the current, and because the resistance of the electrolyte increases as it grows more concentrated. since hot acid attacks the active materials, sulphation also takes place in the parts of the plates still covered by the electrolyte. the separators in a battery having the electrolyte below the tops of the plates suffer also, as will be explained later. see page 346. 5. impurities. these are explained later. see page 76. 6. adding acid instead of water. the sulphuric acid in the electrolyte is a heavy, oily liquid that does not evaporate. it is only the water in the electrolyte which evaporates. therefore, when the level of the electrolyte falls, only water should be added to bring the electrolyte to the correct height. there are, however, many car owners who still believe that a battery may be charged by adding acid when the level of the electrolyte falls. batteries in which this is done then contain too much acid. this leads to two troubles. the first is that the readings taken with a hydrometer will then be misleading. a specific gravity of 1.150 is always taken to indicate that a battery is discharged, and a specific gravity of 1.280 that a battery is charged. these two values of specific gravity indicate a discharged and charged condition of the battery only when the proportion of acid in the electrolyte is correct. it is the condition of the plates, and not the specific gravity of the electrolyte which determines when a battery is either charged or discharged. with the correct proportion of acid in the electrolyte, the specific gravity of the electrolyte is 1.150 when the plates are discharged and 1.280 when the plates are charged, and that is why specific gravity readings are generally used as an indication of the condition of the battery. if there is too much acid in the electrolyte, the plates will be in a discharged condition before the specific gravity of the electrolyte drops to 1.150, and will not be in a charged condition until after the specific gravity has risen beyond the usual value. as a result of these facts a battery may be over-discharged, and never fully charged, this resulting in the formation of sulphate. the second trouble caused by adding acid to the electrolyte is that the acid will then be too concentrated and attacks both plates and separators. this will cause the plates to become sulphated, and the separators rotted. 7. overheating. this was explained in chapter 9. see page 66. buckling buckling is the bending or twisting of plates due to unequal expansion of the different parts of the plate, figs. 207 and 208. it is natural and unavoidable for plates to expand. as a battery discharges, lead sulphate forms. this sulphate occupies more space than the lead peroxide and spongy lead, and the active materials expand. heat expands both active materials and grids. as long as all parts of a plate expand equally, no buckling will occur. unequal expansion, however, causes buckling. 1. over discharge. if discharge is carried too far, the expansion of the active material on account of the formation of lead sulphate will bend the grids out of shape, and may even break them. 2. continued operation with battery in a discharged condition. when a considerable amount of lead sulphate has, formed, and current is still drawn from the battery, those portions of the plate which have the least amount of sulphate will carry most of the current, and will therefore become heated and expand. the parts covered with sulphate will not expand, and the result is that the parts that do expand will twist the plate out of shape. a normal rate of discharge may be sufficient to cause buckling in a sulphated plate. 3. charging at high rates. if the charging rate is excessive, the temperature will rise so high that excessive expansion will take place. this is usually unequal in the different parts of the plate, and buckling results. with a battery that has been over discharged, the charging current will be carried by those parts of the plates which are the least sulphated. these parts will therefore expand while others will not, and buckling results. 4. non-uniform distribution of current over the plates. buckling may occur in a battery which has not been over-discharged, if the current carried by the various parts of the plate is not uniform on account of faulty design, or careless application of the paste. this is a fault of the manufacturers, and not the operating conditions. 5. defective grid alloy. if the metals of which the grids are composed are not uniformly mixed throughout the plate, areas of pure lead may be left here and there, with air holes at various points. the electrolyte enters the air holes, attacks the lead and converts the grid partly into active material. this causes expansion and consequent distortion and buckling. buckling will not necessarily cause trouble, and batteries with buckled plates may operate satisfactorily for a long time. if, however, the expansion and twisting has caused much of the active material to break away from the grid, or has loosened the active material from the grids, much of the battery capacity is lost. another danger is that the lower edges of a plate may press against the separator with sufficient force to cut through it, touch the next plate, and cause a short-circuit. shedding, or loss of active material the result of shedding, provided no other troubles occur, is simply to reduce the capacity of the plates. the positives, of course, suffer more from shedding than the negatives do, shedding being one of the chief weaknesses of the positives. there is no remedy for this condition. when the shedding has taken place to such an extent that the capacity of the battery has fallen very low, new plates should be installed. after a time, the sediment space in the bottom of the jar becomes filled with sediment, which touches the plates. this short-circuits the cell, of course, and new plates must be installed, and the jars washed out thoroughly. 1. normal shedding. it is natural and unavoidable for the positives to shed. lead peroxide is a powder-like substance, the particles of which do not hold together. a small amount of sulphate will cement the particles together to a considerable extent. at the surface of the plate, however, this sulphate is soon changed to active material, and the peroxide loses its coherence. particles of peroxide drop from the plates and fall, into the space in the bottom of the jar provided for this purpose. bubbles of gas which occur at the end of a charge blow some of the peroxide particles from the plate. the electrolyte moving about as the battery is jolted by the motion of the car washes particles of peroxide from the positive plates. any slight motion between positive plates and separators rubs some peroxide from the plates. it is therefore entirely natural for shedding to occur, especially at the positives. the spongy lead of the negatives is much more elastic than the peroxide, and hence very little shedding occurs at the negative plates. the shedding at the positives explains why the grooved side of the separator is always placed against the positive plate. the grooves, being vertical, allow the peroxide to fall to the bottom of the jar, where it accumulates as sediment, or "mud." 2. excessive charging rate, or overcharging. if a battery is charged at too high a rate, only part of the current is used to produce the chemical actions by which the battery is charged. the balance of the current decomposes the water of the electrolyte into hydrogen and oxygen, causing gassing. as the bubbles of gas force their way out of the plates, they blow off particles of the active material. when a battery is overcharged, the long continued gassing has the same effect as described in the preceding paragraph. 3. charging sulphated plates at too high a rate. in sulphated plates, the chemical actions which take place as a battery is charged can proceed but very slowly, because the sulphate, besides being a poor conductor, has formed larger crystals which present only a small surface for the electrolyte to act upon, and has also covered up much of the remaining active material. since the chemical actions take place slowly, the charging current must be kept at a low value. if too heavy a charging current is used, the battery will be overheated, and some of the current will simply cause gassing as explained in no. 2 above. the gas bubbles will break off pieces of the sulphate, which then fall to the bottom of the jars as "mud." 4. charging only a part of the plate. if the electrolyte falls below the tops of the plates, and the usual charging current is sent into the battery, the current will be too great for the plate area through which it passes, and hence gassing and shedding will result as already explained. the same condition exists in a battery in which one or more plates have been broken from the strap, either because of mechanical vibration or because of impurities such as acetic acid in improperly treated separators. the remaining plates are called upon to do more work, and carry the entire charging current. gassing and shedding will result. 5. freezing. if a battery is given any care whatever, there is little danger of freezing. the electrolyte of a fully charged battery with a specific gravity of 1.280 freezes at about 92â° below zero. with a specific gravity of 1.150, the electrolyte freezes at about 5â° above zero. a frozen battery therefore indicates gross neglect. as the electrolyte freezes, the water of the electrolyte expands. since there is electrolyte in all the inner parts of the plate, the expansion as the water in the paste freezes forces the pastes out of the grids. the expansion also cracks the rubber jars, and sometimes bulges out the ends of the battery case. loose active material this refers to a condition in which the active materials are no longer in contact with the grid. corrosion, or sulphation, of the grids themselves is generally present at the same time, since the chemical actions are shifted from the active material to the grids themselves. 1. over discharge. as a battery discharges, the lead sulphate which forms causes an expansion of the active material. if a battery is repeatedly over-discharged, this results in the positives shedding. in the negatives, the spongy lead is puffed out, resulting in the condition known as "bulged negatives" as illustrated in fig 122. 2. buckling. as a plate grid is bent out of shape, the active material, especially the peroxide, breaks loose from the grid, since the peroxide cannot bend as much as the grids. this occurs in the negatives also, though not to such an extent as in the positives. if the plates are buckled to such an extent that the element will not go back into the jar, the positives should be discarded. if the positives are buckled, the negatives will be also, but not to the extent that the positives are. in the case of the positives, there is no remedy, and the plates should be discarded. the negatives, however, may be fully charged, and then straightened, and the active material forced back flush with the grids by pressings, as described in chapter 15. impurities impurities may be divided into two general classes. the first class includes those which do not attack the separators or grids, but merely cause internal self-discharge. the second class includes those which attack the grids or separators. 1. impurities which merely cause self-discharge. this includes metals other than lead. if these metals are in solution in the electrolyte, they deposit on the negative plate, during charge, in their ordinary metallic state, and form small cells with the spongy lead. these small cells discharge as soon as the charging circuit is opened, and some of the lead is changed to lead sulphate. this, of course, causes a loss in capacity. free hydrogen is given off by this local discharge, and so much of it is at times given off that the hydrogen bubbles give the electrolyte a milky appearance. silver, gold, and platinum are the most active in forming small local cells. these metals form local cells which have comparatively high voltages, and which take away a considerable portion of the energy of a cell. platinum is especially active, and a small amount of platinum will prevent a negative plate from taking a charge. gradually, however, the spongy lead covers up the foreign metal and prevents it from forming local cells. iron also forms local cells which rob the cell of a considerable portion of its capacity. this may be brought into the cell by impure acid or water. iron remains in solution in the electrolyte, and is not precipitated as metallic iron. the iron in solution travels from the positive to the negative plate, and back again, causing a local discharge at each plate. it is, moreover, very difficult to remove the iron, except by pouring out all of the electrolyte. manganese acts the same as the iron. 2. impurities which attack the plates. in general, this class includes acids other than sulphuric acid, compounds formed from such acids, or substances which will readily form acids by chemical action in the cell. nitric acid, hydrochloric or muriatic acid, and acetic acid belong in this class of impurities. organic matter in a state of decomposition attacks the lead grids readily. impurities in the second class dissolve the lead grids, and the plate disintegrates and falls to pieces, since its backbone is destroyed. when a battery which contains these impurities is opened, it will be found that the plates crumble and fall apart at the slightest touch. see fig. 210. separators which have not been treated properly introduce acetic acid into a cell. the acetic acid attacks and rots the lead, especially the lugs projecting above the electrolyte, and the plate connecting straps. the plates will generally be found broken from the connecting strap, with the plate lugs broken and crumbled. as for remedies, there is not much to be done. impurities in the first class merely decrease the capacity of the battery. if the battery is fully charged, and the negatives then washed thoroughly, some of the impurities may be removed. impurities of the second class have generally damaged the plates beyond repairs by the time their presence is suspected. the best thing to do is to keep impurities out of the battery. this means that only distilled water, which is known to be absolutely free from impurities should be used. impurities which exist in the separators or acid cannot be detected readily, but in repairing a battery, separators furnished by one of the reliable battery makers should be used. pure acid should also be used. this means that only chemically pure, or "c. p." acid, also known as battery acid should be used. in handling the acid in the shop, it should always be kept in its glass bottle, and should be poured only into a glass, porcelain, earthenware, lead, or rubber vessel. never use a vessel made of any other material. corroded grids when the grids of a plate are attacked chemically, they become thin and weak, and may be spoken of as being corroded. 1. impurities. those impurities which attack the lead grids, such as acids other than sulphuric acid, compounds formed from these acids, or substances which will readily form acids dissolve some of the lead which composes the grids. the grids gradually become weakened. the decrease in the amount of metal in the grids increases the internal resistance of the cell and give a tendency for temperatures to be higher in the cell. the contact between grids and active material is in time made poor. if the action of the impurities continues for any length of time, the plate becomes very weak, and breaks at the slightest touch. 2. high temperatures. anything that raises the temperature of the electrolyte, such as too high a charging rate, causes the acid to attack the grids and form a layer of sulphate on them. the sulphate is changed to active material on charge, and the grids are thereby weakened. 3. age. grids gradually become weak and brittle as a battery remains in service. the acid in the electrolyte, even though the electrolyte has the correct gravity and temperature, has some effect upon the grids, and in time this weakens them. during the life of a battery it is at times subjected to high temperatures, impurities, sulphation, etc., the combined effects of which result in a gradual weakening of the grids. granulated negatives 1. age. the spongy lead of the negative plate gradually assumes a "grainy" or "granulated" appearance. the lead then seems to be made up of small grains, like grains of sand, instead of being a smooth paste. this action is a natural one, and is due to the gradual increase in the size of the particles of the lead. the plate loses its porosity, the particles cementing together and closing the pores in the lead. the increase in the size of the particles of the spongy lead decreases the amount of surface exposed to the action of the electrolyte, and the plate loses capacity. such plates should be thrown away, as charging and discharging will not bring the paste back to its original state. 2. heat will also cause the paste to become granulated, and its surface to become rough or even blistered. heating of negatives exposed to the air when charged negatives are exposed to the air, there is a decided increase in their temperature. spongy lead is in an extremely finely divided state, the particles of lead being very minute, and forming a very porous mass. when the plate is exposed to the air, rapid oxidation takes place because the oxygen of the air has a very large surface to act upon. the oxidation causes the lead to become heated. the heating, of course, raises the temperature of the electrolyte, and the hot acid attacks both grids and lead. fully charged negatives should therefore be watched carefully when removed from a battery. when they become heated and begin to steam, they should be dipped in water until they have cooled. they may then be removed from the water, but should be dipped whenever they begin to steam. after they no longer heat, they may be left exposed to the air. this method of dipping the negatives to prevent overheating has always been followed. however, the electric storage battery company, which makes the exide batteries, does not take any steps to prevent the heating of the negatives when exposed to the air, stating that their plates are not injured by the heating which takes place. negatives with very hard active material this is the characteristic condition of badly sulphated negatives. the active material may be as hard as a stone. the best method of treating such negatives is to charge them in distilled water. see chapter 15. bulged negatives this is a characteristic of a repeatedly over-discharged negative. the lead sulphate which forms as a battery discharges is bulkier than the spongy lead, and the lead expands and bulges out between the ribs of the grid. negative with soft, mushy active material 1. high gravity. gravity above 1.300 causes the acid to act upon the spongy lead and soften it. 2. heat will soften the spongy lead also. the softened spongy lead is loosened and falls from the grids, as shown in fig. 211. little can be done for such negatives. negatives with roughened surface this is caused by slight overheating, and is not a serious condition. frozen positives a battery which is allowed to stand in a cold place while completely discharged will freeze. the water in the electrolyte expands as it freezes, cracking the rubber jars and bulging out the end of the wooden case. as the electrolyte which fills the pores of the positive plates freezes and expands, it breaks the active material loose from the grids. when the battery thaws, the active material does not go back into the grids. when such a battery is opened, and the groups separated, the positive active material sticks to the separators in large pieces, fig. 112, and that remaining in the grids falls out very easily. the active material has a pinkish color and is badly shrunken. rotted, disintegrated positives 1. impurities. this has already been discussed. see page 76. 2. overheating. the hot electrolyte dissolves the lead of the grids and that which is dissolved is never converted back to lead. continued overheating wears out the grids, and the active material also, and the plate falls to pieces at the slightest pressure. 3. age. positives gradually disintegrate due to the prolonged action of the electrolyte on the grids, an occasional overheating, occasional use of impure water, etc. positives which are rotted and disintegrated are, of course, hopeless, and must be junked. buckled positives as previously described, buckling is caused by unequal expansion. if the buckling is only slight, the plates may be used as they are. if the plates are badly buckled, the active material will be found to be loose, and the plates cannot be straightened. such positives should be discarded. positives that have lost considerable active material this is the result of continued shedding, the causes of which have already been given. if the shedding is only slight, and the plate is good otherwise, it may be used again. if such active material has been lost, the plates must be discarded. positives with soft active material continued operation at high temperatures, will soften the peroxide, and make the plates unfit for further use. old positives are soft, clue to the natural deterioration of the paste with age. positives with hard, shiny active material this condition is found in batteries that have been charged with the acid below the tops of the plates. the part of the plate above the acid is continually being heated by the charging current. it becomes hard and shiny, and has cracks running through it. the peroxide becomes orange or brick colored, and the grid deteriorates. the part of the plate below the electrolyte suffers also, as explained more fully on page 71. such plates should be discarded if any considerable portion of the plates is affected. plates in which 1/2 to 1 inch of the upper parts are affected may be used again if otherwise in good condition. plates which have been charged in wrong direction such plates have been partly reversed, so that there is lead peroxide and spongy lead on both positive and negative plates, and such plates are generally worthless. if the active materials have not become loosened from the grids, and the grids have not been disintegrated and broken, the plates may sometimes be reversed by a long charge at a low rate in the right direction. if this does not restore the plates, discard them. separator troubles separators form the weakest part of a battery, but at the same time perform a very important duty. new separators should therefore be installed whenever a battery is opened for repairs. repairs should never be attempted on separators. 1. not properly expanded before installation. separators in stock must be kept moist. this not only prevents them from becoming dry and brittle, but keeps them fully expanded. if separators which have been kept dry in stock are installed in a battery, they do their expanding inside the battery. this causes them to project beyond the edges of the plates. the crowding to which they are subjected causes them to crack. cracked separators permit "treeing" between plates, with a consequent short circuit. 2. not properly treated. separators which have not been given the proper chemical treatment are likely to develop acetic acid after they are in the battery. acetic acid dissolves the lead grids, the plate lugs, and the plate connecting straps rapidly. if the plate lugs are found broken, and crumble easily, acetic acid is very likely present, especially if an odor like that of vinegar is noticeable. improperly treated separators will cause a battery to show low voltage at high rates of discharge, particularly in cold weather, and will also cause the negatives to give poor cadmium readings, which may lead the repairman to conclude that the negatives are defective. the separators of batteries which have been shipped completely assembled without electrolyte and with moistened plates and separators will sometimes have the same effect. 3. cracked. separators should be carefully "candled"--placed in front of a light and looked through. cracks, resinous streaks, etc., mean that the separator should not be used, as it will breed trouble. 4. rotted and carbonized. this may be the result of old age, overheating, or high gravity electrolyte. 5. pores clogged. impurities, dirt from impure water, and lead sulphate fill the pores of a separator and prevent the proper circulation of the electrolyte. the active material of frozen positives also fills up the pores of a separator. 6. edges chiseled off. a buckling plate will cut through the lower edge of a separator and short circuit the cell. holes will be cut through any part of a separator by a buckling plate, or a negative with bulged active material. jar troubles battery jars are made of hard rubber, and are easily broken. they are not acted upon by the electrolyte, or any of the impurities which may be found in the jar. their troubles are all mechanical, and consist of being cracked, or having small holes through the walls. jars are softened by high temperatures, but this does no particular harm unless they are actually burned by an open flame or red hot metal. the causes of jar troubles are as follows: 1. rough handling. by far the most common cause of jar breakage is rough handling by careless or inexperienced persons. if one end of a battery rests on the floor, and the other is allowed to drop several inches, broken jars will probably result from the severe impact of the heavy lead plates. storage batteries should be handled as if made of glass. when installed on a car, the springs protect the battery from shock to a considerable extent, but rough roads or exceptionally severe jolts may break jars. 2. battery not properly fastened. in this case a battery is bumped around inside the battery compartment, and damage is very likely to result. 3. any weight placed on top of the battery is transmitted from the links to the plates, and by them to the bottom of the jars. batteries should always be stored in racks, and not one on top of another. the practice of putting any weight whatever on top of a battery should be promptly discouraged. 4. freezing. this condition has already been explained. it causes a great many broken jars every winter. 5. groups not properly trimmed. the outside negative plates in a cell come just inside the jar, and the strap ends must be carefully trimmed off flush with the plates, to prevent them from breaking the top of the jars. jars have slightly rounded corners, and are somewhat narrower at the extreme ends than nearer the center. a group may therefore go into a jar quite readily when moved toward the other end of the jar to that into which the post strap must go when in proper position for the cover. when the group is forced back into its proper position the strap may break the jar. it is a good plan not only to trim the ends of the negative straps perfectly flush, but to round the strap corners where they go into the jar corners. 6. defective jars. (a) a jar not properly vulcanized may come apart at the scam. (b) a small impurity in the rubber may dissolve in the acid and leave a minute pinhole. all jars are carefully tested at the factory and the likelihood of trouble from defective jars is extremely small. 7. explosion in cell. (a) hydrogen and oxygen gases evolved during charging make a very explosive mixture. an open flame brought near a battery on charge or freshly charged, will probably produce an explosion resulting in broken jars and jar covers. (b) an open circuit produced inside a cell on charge in the manner described on page 86 under the heading "open circuits," will cause a spark at the instant the circuit is broken, with the same result as bringing a flame near the battery. (c) the small holes in the vents must be kept free for the escape of the gases. these holes are usually sealed in batteries shipped with moistened plates and separators, to keep air out of the cells. the seals must be removed when the battery is prepared for service. if the vents remain plugged, the pressure of the gases formed during charge will finally burst the covers of jars. battery case trouble 1. ends bulged out. this may be due to a battery having been frozen or to hold-downs being screwed down too tight, or some similar cause. whether the case can be repaired depends on the extent of the bulging. this can best be determined by the repairman. 2. rotted. if the case is rotted around the top, it is evidence that: (a) too much water was added, with subsequent overflowing when electrolyte warmed up during charge. (b) the tops were poorly sealed, resulting in leaks between the covers and the jars. (c) battery has not been fastened down properly, and acid has been thrown out of the jars by the jolting of the car on the road. (d) the vent plugs have not been turned down tightly. (e) electrolyte has been spilled in measuring specific gravity. if the case is rotted around the lower part it indicates that the jars are cracked or contain holes. instructions for making repairs on battery cases are given on page 360. trouble with connectors and terminals 1. corroded. this is a very common trouble, and one which should be guarded against very carefully. corrosion is indicated by the presence of a grayish or greenish substance on the battery terminals, especially the positive. it is due to several causes: (a) too much water added to cells. the electrolyte expands on charge and flows out on the top of the battery. (b) battery not fastened firmly. the jolting caused by the motion of the car on the road will cause electrolyte to be thrown out of the vent caps. (c) battery poorly sealed. the electrolyte will be thrown out on the cover by the motion of the car through the leaks which result from poor sealing. (d) vent caps loose. this also allows electrolyte to be thrown out on the battery top. (e) electrolyte spilled on top of battery in measuring specific gravity. (f) battery cables damaged, or loose. the cables attached to the battery terminals are connected to lugs which are heavily coated with lead. the cables are insulated with rubber, upon which sulphuric acid has no effect. care should be taken that the lead coating is not worn off, and that the rubber insulation is not broken or cut so as to allow electrolyte, which is spilled on the battery top as explained in (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e), to reach the bare copper conductors of the cable. the terminal parts are always so made that when the connections are kept tight no acid can come into contact with anything but lead and rubber, neither of which is attacked by sulphuric acid. (g) attaching wires directly to battery terminals. there should be no exposed metal except lead at the battery terminals. no wires of any other metal should be attached to the battery terminals. such wires should be connected to the rubber covered cables which are attached to battery, and the connections should be made far enough away from the battery to prevent electrolyte from coming in contact with the wire. car manufacturers generally observe this rule, but the car owner may, through ignorance, attach copper wires directly to the battery terminals. the positive terminal is especially subject to corrosion, and should be watched carefully. to avoid corrosion it is necessary simply to keep the top of the battery dry, keep the terminal connections tight, and coat the terminals with vaseline. the rule about connecting wires directly to the battery terminals must of course be observed also. 2. loose. loose terminal connections cause a loss of energy due to their resistance, and all such connections must be well made. if the inter-cell connectors are loose, it is due to a poor job of lead burning. this is also true of burned on terminals, and in either case, the connections should be drilled off, cleaned and re-burned. terminals sometimes become so badly corroded that it is impossible to disconnect the cables front the battery. stitch terminals should be drilled off and soaked in boiling soda water. electrolyte troubles (1) low gravity. see page 321. (2) high gravity. see page 323. (3) low level. see page 323. (4) high level. this condition is due to the addition of too much water. it leads to corrosion as already explained. it also causes a loss of acid. the electrolyte which overflows is lost, this of course, causing a loss of acid. the condition of low gravity then arises, as described on page 321. (5) specific gravity will not rise during charge. see page 204. (6) milky electrolyte: (a) lead sulphate in battery acid. it sometimes happens that sulphuric acid contains some lead sulphate in solution. this sulphate is precipitated when water is added to the acid in mixing electrolyte, and gives the electrolyte a milky appearance. this sulphate settles if the electrolyte is allowed to stand. (b) gassing. the most common cause of the milky appearance, however, is the presence of minute gas bubbles in large quantities. these may be the result of local action caused by the presence of metallic impurities in the battery. the local action will stop when the battery is put on charge, but will begin as soon as the battery is taken off charge. the impurities are gradually covered by lead or lead sulphate, and the local action is thus stopped. excessive gassing in a cell which contains no impurities may also cause the electrolyte to have a milky appearance. the gas bubbles are very numerous and make the electrolyte look milky white. (c) impurities in the electrolyte will also give it a milky appearance. general troubles open circuits 1. poor burning of connectors to posts. unless a good burned connection is made between each connector and post, the joint may melt under high discharge rates, or it may offer so much resistance to the passage of current that the starting motor cannot operate. sometimes the post is not burned to the connector at all, although the latter is well finished off on top. under such conditions the battery may operate for a time, due to frictional contact between the post and connector, but the parts may become oxidized or sulphated, or vibration may break the connection, preventing the flow of current. frequently, however, the circuit is not completely open, and the poor connection acts simply as a high resistance. under such a condition the constant current generator automatically increases its voltage, and forces charging current through the battery, although the latter, having only a low fixed voltage, cannot force out the heavy current required for starting the engine. 2. terminals broken off. inexperienced workmen frequently pound on the terminals to loosen the cable lugs, or pry on them sufficiently to break off the battery terminals. if the terminals and lugs are kept properly greased, they will come apart easily. a pair of terminal tongs is a very convenient tool. these exert a pressure between the terminal and the head of the terminal screw, which is first unscrewed a few turns. 3. acid on soldered joints. amateurs sometimes attempt to make connections by the use of a soldering iron and solder. solder is readily dissolved by acid, not only spoiling the joint, but endangering the plates if any gets into the cells. solder must never be used on a battery except for sweating the cables into the cable lugs, and the joint even here must be well protected by rubber tape. 4. defective posts. posts withdrawn from the post mould before they are cool enough may develop cracks. bubbles sometimes occur in the posts. either trouble may reduce the current carrying capacity or mechanical strength of the post and result in a broken or burned-out spot. 5. plates improperly burned. as previously explained, this is not likely to cause immediate trouble, but by imposing extra work on the balance of the plates, causes them to wear out quickly. battery discharged 1. due to excessive use of starting motor and lamps. 2. failure of generator. 3. defective switches, which by being grounded, or failing to open allow battery to discharge. 4. defective cutout, allowing battery to discharge into generator. 5. addition of accessories, or use of too large lamps. 6. defective wiring, causing grounds or short-circuits. 7. insufficient charging rate. 8. battery allowed to remain idle. dead cells 1. worn out separators. the duties of separators are to prevent the plates from touching each other, and to prevent "treeing," or growth of active material from the negative to the positive plates. if they fail to perform these duties, the battery will become short-circuited internally. the separator troubles described on page 81 eventually lead to short-circuited cells. 2. foreign material. if a piece of lead falls between plates so as to later punch a hole through a separator, a short circuit will result. great care should be taken in burning plates on the straps to prevent lead from running down between plates, as this lead will cause a short circuit by punching through the separator. 3. accumulation of sediment. the active material which drops from the plates accumulates in the "mud" space in the bottom of the jar. if this rises until it touches the bottom of the plates, a short-circuit results. usually it is advisable to renew the positives in a battery which has become short-circuited by sediment, since the sediment comes largely from the positives, and if they have lost enough active material to completely fill the sediment space, they are no longer fit for use. 4. badly sulphated plates and separators, impurities which attack the plates. loss of capacity a battery loses capacity due to a number of causes. some of them have already been considered. 1. impurities in the electrolyte. these have already been discussed. 2. sulphation. this also has been described. 3. loose active material, as already described. the active materials which are not in contact with the grids cannot do their work. 4. incorrect proportions of acid and water in the electrolyte. in order that all the active material in the plates may be utilized, there must be enough acid in the electrolyte, and also enough water. if there is not enough acid, the battery will lack capacity. if there is too much acid, the acid when the battery is fully charged will be strong enough to attack and seriously damage the plates and separators. insufficient amount of acid may be due to replacing, with water, electrolyte which has been spilled or which has leaked out. too much acid results from an incorrect proportion of acid and water in the electrolyte, or from adding acid instead of water to bring the electrolyte above the plate tops, and causes sulphation, corroded plates, and carbonized separators. the remedy for incorrect proportions of acid and water in the electrolyte is to give the battery a full charge and adjust the gravity by drawing off some of the electrolyte and replacing it with water, or 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte, as the case may require. 5. separators clogged. the pores of the separators may become filled with sulphate or impurities, and thus prevent the proper circulation of the electrolyte. new separators must be put in. 6. shedding. the capacity of a battery naturally decreases as the active material falls from the plates, since the amount of active material which can take part in the chemical actions that enable us to draw current from the battery decreases. 7. low level of electrolyte. aside from the loss of capacity which results from the sulphation caused by low electrolyte, there is a loss of capacity caused by the decrease in the useful plate area when the electrolyte is below the tops of the plates. only that part of the plate surface which is below the electrolyte does any work, and the area of this part gradually decreases as the electrolyte falls. 8. reversal of plates. if one cell of a battery has an internal short circuit, or some other defect which causes it to lose its charge, the cell will be discharged before the others which are in series with it, and when this cell is completely discharged, the other cells will send a current through it in a discharge direction, and the negative plates will have a coating of lead peroxide formed on them, and will assume the characteristics of positive plates. the positives will be reversed also. this reversal may also be the result of charging a battery in the wrong direction, on account of reversed charging connections. the remedy for reversed plates, provided they have not become disintegrated, is to give them a long charge in the right direction at a low rate. 9. effect of age. a battery gradually loses capacity due to its age. this effect is independent of the loss of capacity due to the other causes. in the negatives, the size of the grain increases its size, giving the plates a granulated appearance. stitch plates are called "granulated" negatives. the spongy lead cements together and loses porosity. loss of charge in an idle battery it has been found that if a charged battery is allowed to stand idle, and is not charged, and no current is drawn from it, the battery will gradually become completely discharged and must be given an occasional "freshening" charge. now, as we have learned, when a battery discharges lead sulphate forms on each plate, and acid is taken from the electrolyte as the sulphate forms. in our idle battery, therefore, such actions must be taking place. the only difference in this case is that the sulphate forms without any current passing through the battery. at the lead peroxide plate we have lead peroxide paste, lead grid, and sulphuric acid. these are all the element-, needed to produce a storage battery, and as the lead peroxide and the lead are touching each other, each lead peroxide plate really forms a short circuited cell. why does this plate not discharge itself completely? a certain. amount of discharge does take place, and results in a layer of lead sulphate forming between the lead peroxide and the grid. the sulphate, having high resistance then protects the lead grid and prevents any further action. this discharge action therefore does not continue, but causes a loss of a certain part of the charge. at the negative plate, we have pure spongy lead, and the grid. this grid is not composed entirely of lead, but contains a percentage of antimony, a metal which makes the grid harder and stronger. there is but very little difference of potential between the spongy lead and the grid. a small amount of lead sulphate does form, however, on the surface of the negative plate. this is due to the action between the spongy lead and the electrolyte. some of the lead combines with the acid to form lead sulphate, but after a small amount has been formed the action is stopped because a balanced chemical condition is soon obtained. thus only a small amount of lead sulphate is formed at each plate, and the cell thereby loses only a small part of its charge. in a perfectly constructed battery the discharge would then stop. the only further action which would take place would be the slow evaporation of the water of the electrolyte. the loss of charge which actually occurs in an idle charged battery is greater than that due to the formation of the small amounts of sulphate on the plates, and the evaporation of the water from the electrolyte. does an idle cell discharge itself by decomposing its electrolyte? we have a difference of potential of about two volts between the lead and lead peroxide plate. why is the electrolyte not decomposed by this difference? at first it might seem that the water and acid should be separated into its parts, and hydrogen liberated at the negative plate. as a matter of fact, very little hydrogen gas is set free in an idle charged cell because to do so would require a voltage of about 2.5. at two volts, so little gas is formed that the loss of charge due to it may be neglected entirely. the greatest loss of charge in an idle battery results from conditions arising from the processes of manufacture, internal troubles, and leakage between terminals. the grids of a cell are an alloy of lead and antimony. these are mixed while in a molten condition, and are then allowed to cool. if the cooling is not done properly, or if a poor grade of antimony is used, the resulting grid is not a uniform mixture of antimony and lead. there will be areas of pure lead, with an air hole here and there. the lack of uniformity in the grid material results in a local discharge in the grid. this causes some loss of charge. if the active material completely fills the spaces between the grids, the acid formed as the cell is charged may not be able to diffuse into the main body of the electrolyte, but forms a small pocket of acid in the plate. this acid will cause a discharge between paste and grid and a coating of lead sulphate forms on the arid, resulting in a certain loss of charge. in general any metallic impurity in a cell will cause a loss at the lead plate. when a cell is charged, the current causes the metals to deposit on the lead plate. local cells are formed by the metallic impurity, the lead plate, and the acid, and these tiny cells will discharge completely, causing a loss of charge. this has already been described on page 76. another cause of loss of charge in an idle cell is leakage of current between the terminals on the outside of the battery. during charge, the bubbles of gas which escape from the electrolyte carry with them minute quantities of acid which may deposit on the top of the battery and gradually form a thin conducting layer of electrolyte through which a current will flow from the positive to the negative terminals. this danger may be avoided by carefully wiping any moisture from the battery. condensation of moisture from the air, on the top or sides and bottom of a battery will cause the same condition. this will be especially noticeable if a battery is kept in a damp place. the tendency for crystals of lead to "tree" over from the negative to the positive plates is well known. an idle battery is one in which this action tends to take place. treeing will occur through the pores of the separators and as there is no flow of electrolyte in or out of the plates, the lead "trees" are not disturbed in their growth. a freshening charge causes this flow to take place, and break up the "trees" which would otherwise gradually short circuit the cells. ======================================================================== section ii -----------------------------------------------------------------------shop equipment shop methods ======================================================================== chapter 11. care of the battery on the car. ------------------------------any man who goes into the battery repair business will gradually learn by experience what equipment he finds necessary for his work. some men will be able to do good work with comparatively little equipment, while others will require a somewhat elaborate layout. [fig 38.] fig. 38. typical work room showing bench about 34 inches high, lead burning outfit, hot plates for melting sealing compound and hand drill-press for drilling off inter-cell connectors. there are some things, however, which are necessary, and the following lists are given to help the repairman select his equipment. the man with limited capital will be unable to buy a complete equipment at the start, but he should add to his equipment as fast as his earnings will permit. the repairman may be able to "get-by" with crude equipment when his business is very small, but to make his business grow he must absolutely have good equipment. the following list gives the various articles in the order of their importance. the first seven are absolutely necessary, even for the poorest beginner. the others are also essential, but may be bought as soon, as the money begins to come in. some of the tools must also be bought before opening doors for business, such as the putty knife, screwdrivers, pliers, and so on. each article, which requires explanation, is described in detail, beginning on page 100. equipment which is absolutely necessary 1. charging outfit, such as a motor-generator set, rectifier, or charging resistance where direct current is available. 2. charging bench and accessories. with the charging bench must go the following: 1. a syringe-hydrometer for measuring specific gravity of electrolyte, for drawing off electrolyte and for adding water to cells. 2. a special battery thermometer for measuring temperature of electrolyte. 3. a voltmeter to measure cell, battery, and cadmium voltages. 4. an ammeter to measure charging current. 5. a glass bottle for distilled water. also one for electrolyte. 6. a number of eighteen inch lengths of no. 12 flexible wire fitted with lead coated test clips, for connecting batteries in series while on charge. 3. work bench with vise. 4. sink or wash tank and water supply. 5. lead-burning outfit. (this should properly be called a lead welding outfit, since it is used to melt lead parts so that they will be welded together.) 6. for handling sealing compound, the following are necessary. 1. stove. 2. pot in which compound is melted. 3. an iron ladle for dipping up the melted compound. 4. one or two old coffee pots for pouring compound. 7. shelving or racks for batteries waiting to be repaired, batteries which have been repaired, rental batteries, new batteries, battery boxes, battery jars, battery plates, etc. 8. bins for battery parts, such as covers, inter-cell connectors, plate straps, terminals, handles, vent plugs, hold down bolts, separator hold-downs, and so on. equipment needed in opening batteries 9. a battery steamer for softening sealing-compound and making covers limp, for softening compound around defective jars which are to be removed, for softening jars which are to be set in a battery box, and so on. 10. putty knife to remove softened scaling compound. 11. one ratchet brace with set of wood bits or square shank drills of the following sizes: 3/8, 5/8, 3/4, 13/16, and 7/8 inch, for drilling off terminals and inter-cell connectors. a power drill press, or a portable electric drill will save time and labor in drilling off the terminals and connectors. 12. center punch for marking terminals and connectors before drilling. 13. ten inch screwdriver for prying off connectors and terminals which have been drilled. the screwdriver may, of course, be used on various other kinds of work also. 14. a ten-inch length of 3/4 inch angle iron to protect upper edge of case when prying off the connectors and terminals which have been drilled. 15. two pairs of standard combination pliers for lifting elements out of jars. a pair of six or eight inch gas pliers will also do for this work. 16. machinist hammer. this is, of course, also used for other purposes. 17. terminal tongs for removing taper lugs from terminals. 18. pair of long, fiat nosed pliers for pulling out separators and jars. 19. open-end wrench for use in removing taper lugs from terminals. equipment for lead burning (welding) in addition to the lead burning-outfit, the following tools are needed: 20. a plate burning rack for setting up plates which are to be burned to a plate strap. 21. a plumber's or tinner's triangular scraper for cleaning surfaces which are to be welded together. a pocketknife will do in a pinch. 22. steel wire brush for cleaning surfaces which are to be welded together. this may also be used for general cleaning of lead parts. 23. coarse files, vixen, round, and flat, for filing lead parts. 24. set of burning, collars to be used in burning inter-cell connectors to posts. 25. moulds for casting sticks of burning lead. a pot for melting lead is needed with the mould, and mould compound is also needed. 26. set of post builders-moulds used for building up posts which have been drilled short in removing terminals and intercell connectors. 27. pair of blue or smoked glasses to be worn when using lead burning outfit. equipment for general work on cell connectors and terminals 28. set of moulds for casting inter-cell connectors, terminals, terminal screws, taper lugs, plate straps and posts, etc. 29. set of reamers to ream holes in terminals and connectors. 30. set of hollow reamers for reducing posts. equipment for work on cases 31. cans of asphaltum paint for painting cases. may also be used for acid-proofing work benches, floor, shelves, charging bench, and so on. 32. paint brushes, one wide and several narrow. 33. battery turntable. 34. several wood chisels of different sizes. 35. small wood-plane for smoothing up top edges of case. 36. large glazed earthenware jars of washing or baking soda solution for soaking cases to neutralize acid. tools and equipment for general work 37. one pair of large end cutting nippers for cutting connectors, posts, plate lugs, and so on. 38. one pair of 8 inch side cutting pliers. 39. one pair of 8 inch diagonal cutting pliers. 40. several screwdrivers. 41. adjustable hacksaw frame with set of coarse blades. 42. gasoline torch. 42. soldering iron, solder and flux. 44. separator cutter. 45. plate press for pressing bulged, spongy lead of negative plates flush with surface of grids. 46. battery carrier. 47. battery truck. 48. lead lined box for storing separators. a large glazed earthenware jar may be used for this purpose, and is much cheaper, although it will not hold as many separators, on account of its round shape, as the lead lined box. 49. several old stew pans for boiling acid soaked terminals, connectors, covers, etc., in a solution of washing soda. 50. set of metal lettering stamps, for stamping pos and neg on battery terminals, repairman's initials, date battery was repaired, and nature of repairs, on inter-cell connectors. 51. cadmium test set. 52. high rate discharge testers. 53. pair of rubber gloves to protect hands when handling acid. 54. rubber apron to protect clothing from acid. 55. pair of rubber sleeve protectors. 56. rubbers to protect shoes, or pair of low rubber boots. 57. tags for tagging repair and rental batteries, batteries in storage, etc. 58. pot of paraffine which may be heated, and paper tags dipped after date has been written on tag in pencil. a 60-watt lamp hung in the can may be used for heating the compound. in this way the tag is protected from the action of acid, and the writing on the tag cannot be rubbed off or made illegible. 59. a number of wooden boxes, about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide, and 4 inches deep, in which are placed terminals, inter-cell connectors, covers, vent plugs, etc., of batteries being repaired. 60. several large glazed earthenware jars are convenient for waste acid, old separators, and general junk, which would otherwise litter up the shop. stock 61. a supply of spare parts, such as cases, jars, covers, plate straps, inter-cell connectors, plates, vent plugs, etc., should be kept. 62. a supply of sealing compound is necessary. 63. a carboy of pure acid, and carboys of 1.400 electrolyte ready for use should be on hand. a 16 oz. and a 32 or 64 oz. graduate are very useful in measuring out acid and water. 64. a ten gallon bottle of distilled water is necessary for use in making up electrolyte, for addition to cell electrolyte to bring electrolyte up to proper level, and so on. if you wish to distill water yourself, buy a water still. 65. a supply of pure vaseline is necessary for coating terminals to prevent corrosion. special tools owing to special constructions used oil sonic of the standard makes of batteries, special tools are required, and such tools should be obtained if work is done oil these batteries. some of these tools are as follows: 66. special wrenches for turning sealing nuts on exide batteries. 67. two hollow reamers (post-freeing tools) for cutting lead seal around posts of prest-o-lite batteries. there are two sizes, large and small, see page 389. 68. style "b" peening press for sealing posts of prest-o-lite batteries to covers, see page 390. 69. pressure tongs for forcing lead collar oil posts of vesta batteries, see page 415. 70. special wrench for tightening sealing nut oil titan batteries. 71. special reamer for cutting sealing ring oil universal batteries. the list of special tools is not intended to be complete, and the repairman will probably find other special tools necessary from time to time. in any case, it is best to buy from the battery manufacturer such special tools as are necessary for the batteries that come in for repairs. it is sometimes possible to get along without the special tools, but time and labor will be saved by using them. descriptions of tools and equipment named in foregoing list charging equipment a battery is charged by sending a direct current through it, this "charging" current entering the battery at, the positive terminal and passing out at the negative terminal. to send this current through the battery, a voltage of about 7.5 volts is applied to each battery. two things are therefore necessary in charging a battery: 1. we must have a source of direct current. 2. the voltage impressed across each battery must be, about 2.5 per cell. the charging voltage across each six volt battery must therefore be 7.5, and for each twelve volt battery the charging voltage must be about 15 volts. with the battery on the car, there are two general methods of charging, i. e., constant potential (voltage) and constant current. generators having a constant voltage regulator have a constant voltage of about 7.5, the charging current depending upon the condition of the battery. a discharged battery thus receives a high charging current, this current gradually decreasing, or "tapering" as the battery becomes more fully charged. this system has the desirable characteristic that a discharged battery receives a heavy charging current, and a fully charged battery receives a small charging current. the time of charging is thereby decreased. with a constant-current charging system, the generator current output is maintained at a certain value, regardless of the state of charge of the battery. the disadvantage of this system is that a fully charged battery is charged at as high a rate and in most cases at a higher rate than a discharged battery. in the shop, either the constant-potential, or the constant-current system of charging may be used. up to the present time, the constant current system has been used in the majority of shops. the equipment for constant current charging uses a lamp bank or rheostat to regulate the charging current where direct current is available, and a rectifier or motor-generator set where only alternating current is available. recently, the hobart brothers company of troy, ohio, has put on the market a constant potential motor-generator set which gives the same desirable "tapering" charge as does the constant voltage generator on the car. this set will be described later. where a 110-volt direct current supply is available, fifteen 6-volt batteries may be connected in series across the line without the use of any rheostat or lamp bank, only an ammeter being required in the circuit to indicate the charging current. the charging rate may be varied by cutting out some of the batteries, or connecting more batteries in the circuit. this method is feasible only where many batteries are charged, since not less than fifteen 6-volt batteries may be charged at one time. constant current charging using lamp banks, or rheostats figures 39 and 40 show the wiring for a "bank" of twenty 100-watt lamps for battery charging from a 110 volt line. figure 39 shows the wiring to be used when the positive side of the line is grounded, while figure 40 shows the wiring to be used when the negative side of the line is grounded. in either case, the "live" wire connects to the lamp bank. the purpose of this is to eliminate the possibility of a short-circuit if any part of the charging line beyond the lamp bank is accidentally grounded. [fig. 39 lamp bank for charging from a 110 volts, d.c. line (positive grounded)] [fig. 40 lamp bank for charging from a 110 volts, d.c. line (negative grounded)] [fig. 41 rheostat for charging from a 110 volts, d.c. line (positive grounded)] [fig. 42 rheostat for charging from a 110 volts, d.c. line (negative grounded)] figures 41 and 42 show the wiring of two charging rheostats which may be used instead of the lamp banks shown in figures 39 and 40. in these two rheostats the live wire is connected to the rheostat resistances in order to prevent short-circuits by grounding any part of the circuit beyond the rheostats. these rheostats may be bought ready for use, and should not be "homemade." the wiring as shown in figures 41 and 42 is probably not the same as will be found on a rheostat which may be bought, but when installing a rheostat, the wiring should be examined to make sure that the "live" wire is connected to the rheostat resistance and does not connect directly to the charging circuit. if necessary, change the wiring to agree with figures 41 and 42. figures 43 and 44 show the wiring of the charging circuits. in figure 43 each battery has a double pole, double throw knife switch. this is probably the better layout, since any battery may be connected in the circuit by throwing down the knife switch, and any battery may be cut out by throwing the switch up. with this wiring layout, any number of batteries from one to ten may be cut-in by means of the switches. thus, to charge five batteries, switches 1 to 5 are thrown down, and switches 5 to 10 are thrown up, thereby short-circuiting them. [fig. 43 wiring for a charging circuit, using a dpdt switch for each battery; and fig. 44 wiring for a charging circuit, using jumpers to connect batteries in series] figure 44 shows a ten-battery charging circuit on which the batteries are connected in series by means of jumpers fitted with lead coated test clips, as shown. this layout is not as convenient as that shown in figure 43, but is less expensive. using motor-generator sets [fig. 45 ten battery motor-generator charging set] where no direct current supply is available, a motor-generator or a rectifier must be installed. the motor-generator is more expensive than a rectifier, but is preferred by some service stations because it is extremely flexible as to voltage and current, is easily operated, is free from complications, and has no delicate parts to cause trouble. motor-generator sets are made by a number of manufacturers. accompanying these sets are complete instructions for installation and operation, and we will not attempt to duplicate such instructions in this book. rules to assist in selecting the equipment will, however, be given. except in very large service stations, a 40 volt generator is preferable. it requires approximately 2.5 volts per cell to overcome the voltage of a battery in order to charge it, and hence the 40 volt generator has a voltage sufficient to charge 15 cells in series on one charging line. five 6 volt batteries may therefore be charged at one time on each line. with a charging rate of 10 amperes, each charging line will require 10 times 40, or 400 watts. the size of the generator will depend on the number of charging lines desired. with 10 amperes charging current per line, the capacity of the generator required will be equal to 400 watts multiplied by the number of charging lines. one charging line will need a 400 watt outfit. for two charging lines 800 watts are required. each charging line is generally provided with a separate rheostat so that its charging rate may be adjusted to any desired value. this is an important feature, as it is wrong to charge all batteries at the same rate, and with separate rheostats the current on each line may be adjusted to the correct value for the batteries connected to that line. any number of batteries up to the maximum may be charged on each line. [fig. 46 thirty-two battery motor-generator charging set] in choosing a charging outfit, it is important not to get one which is too large, as the outfit will operate at a loss when running under a minimum load. it is equally important not to get one which is too small, as it will not be able to take care of the batteries fast enough, and there will be a "waiting list" of batteries which cannot be charged until others are taken off charge. this will prevent the giving of good service. buy an outfit that will care for your needs in the future, and also operate economically at the present time. most men going into the battery business make the mistake of underestimating their needs, and getting equipment which must soon be discarded because of lack of capacity. the manufacturers each make a number of sizes, and the one which will best fill the requirements should be chosen. in selecting an outfit the manufacturer's distributor or dealer should be consulted in deciding what size outfit to obtain. the particular outfit will depend on the voltage and frequency of the alternating current power circuits, the maximum charging current desired (10 amperes per line is ample), and the greatest number of batteries to be charged at one time. for the beginner, a 500 watt ten battery outfit, as shown in fig. 45, is suitable. for the medium sized garage that specializes in battery charging, or for the small battery service station, a one kilowatt outfit is most satisfactory. two charging panels are generally furnished with this outfit, and two charging lines may thus be used. this is an important feature, as one line may be used in starting a charge at 10 amperes, and the other for charging the batteries, that have begun to gas, at a reduced rate. fig. 46 shows a 2 k. w. four-circuit, 32 battery motor-generator set. each circuit is provided with a separate rheostat and ammeter. the two terminals near the top of each rheostat are connected to one charging circuit. the two terminals near the lower end of each rheostat are connected to the generator. the 2 kilowatt set is suitable for a city garage, or a battery service station in a medium sized town. a beginner should not purchase this large set, unless the set can be operated at at least one-fourth capacity continuously. as a service station grows, a 5 kilowatt set may be needed. the 1, 2 and 5 kilowatt sets should not be used on anything but city power lines. single phase, or lighting lines are not satisfactory for handling these sets. a few suggestions on motor-generator sets 1. installation. set the motor-generator on as firm a foundation as possible. a good plan is to bolt it to a heavy bench, in which position it is easily inspected and adjusted, and is also less likely to be hit by acid spray, water, etc. set the motor-generator at some distance from the batteries so that acid spray and fumes will not reach it. sulphuric acid will attack any metal and if you are not careful, your motor-generator may be damaged seriously. the best plan is to have the motor generator set outside of the charging room, so as to have a wall or partition between the motor-generator and the batteries. the charging panels may be placed as near the batteries as necessary for convenience, but should not be mounted above the batteries. figure 47 shows a convenient layout of motor-generator, charging panels, and charging benches. note that the junipers used in connecting the batteries together are run through the upper holes of the wire porcelain insulating cleats, the lower hole of each insulator supporting the wire from the charging panel which runs to the end of the bench. [fig. 47] fig. 47. convenient arrangement of motor-generator, charging panels, and charging benches instructions for the wiring connections to the power lines generally come with each outfit, and they should be followed carefully. fuses in both the motor and generator circuits are especially important, as they protect the machines from damage due to overloads, grounds, or short-circuits. the generator must be driven in the proper direction or the generator will not build up. the rotation of a three-phase motor may be reversed by reversing, and charging benches any two of the cables. to reverse a two-phase motor, reverse the cables of either phase. before putting a motor-generator set into operation, be sure to check all connections to make sure that everything checks with the instructions furnished by the manufacturer. operating the charging circuits a generator operates most efficiently when delivering its rated output. therefore, keep the generator as fully loaded as possible at all times. when you do not have enough batteries to run the generator at full load, run each charging circuit at full load, and use as few circuits as possible. this will reduce your power bill, since there is a loss of power in the rheostat of each charging circuit, this loss being the greatest when only one battery is on the circuit, and a minimum when the circuit is fully loaded. with several charging circuits, it is also possible to put batteries which are in the same condition on one circuit and adjust the charging rate to the most suitable value. thus, badly sulphated batteries, which must be charged at a low rate, may be put on the same circuit, while batteries which have had only a normal discharge may be put oil another circuit and charged at a higher rate. as each battery becomes almost fully charged, it may be removed from the circuit and put on another circuit and the charge completed at the finishing rate. this is a good practice, since some batteries will begin to gas sooner than others, and if the charging rate is not reduced, the batteries which have begun to gas will have active material blown out by the continued gassing. a careful study of such points will lead to a considerable saving in power costs. care of motor-generator set a. machine will not build up or generate. this may be due to: 1. machine rotating in wrong direction. 2. brushes not making good contact. clean commutator with fine sandpaper. 3. wrong connections of field rheostat-check connections with diagram. 4. open circuit in field rheostat. see if machine will build up with field rheostat cut out. b. excessive heating of the commutator. this may be due to: 1. overload--check your load and compare it with nameplate reading. add the total amperes on all the panels and see that it does not exceed the ampere reading on the nameplate. 2. wrong setting of the brush rocker arm. this causes sparking, which soon will cause excessive heating. 3. rough commutator. this will cause the brushes to chatter, be noisy and spark. caused many times by allowing copper to accumulate on the bottom of the brushes. 4. insufficient pressure on brushes, resulting in sparking. this may be due to brushes wearing down to the point where the brush lead screw rests on the brush holder. 5. dirt and grease accumulating between the brush and brush holder causing brush to stick; brush must always move freely in the holder. 6. brush holder may have come loose, causing it to slip back, relieving brush press-lire. 7. brush spring may have become loosened, releasing the tension. 8. watch commutator carefully and keep it in the best of condition. there will not be excessive heating without sparking. excessive sparking may raise the temperature so high as to cause throwing of solder. you can avoid all this by taking proper care of the commutator. c. ammeters on panels read reverse: this is caused by improperly connecting up batteries, which has reversed the polarity of the generator. this generally does no harm, since in most cases the batteries will automatically reverse the polarity of the generator. generally the condition may be remedied by stopping the machine, reversing the batteries and starting the machine again. if this is unsuccessful raise the brushes on the machine. connect five or six batteries in series in the correct way to one panel, while the machine is not in operation. turn on the panel switch. when the machine is started, it will then build up in the right direction. if it does not do so, repeat the above, using a larger number of batteries. d. machine refuses to start. if there is a humming noise when you try to start the motor, and the outfit does not start, one of the fuses needs replacing. the outfit will hum only on two or three phase current. never leave the power turned on with any of the fuses out. constant-potential charging in the constant-potential system of battery charging, the charging voltage is adjusted to about 7.5, and is held constant throughout the charge. with this system a discharged battery receives a heavy current when it is put on charge. this current gradually decreases as the battery charges, due to the increasing battery voltage, which opposes, or "bucks" the charging voltage, and reduces the voltage which is effective in sending current through the batteries. such a charge is called "tapering" charge because the charging current gradually decreases, or "tapers" off. the principle of a "tapering" charge is, of course, that a discharged battery may safely be charged at a higher rate than one which is only partly discharged, because there is more lead sulphate in the discharged battery which the action of the current changes back to active material. as the battery charges, the amount of lead sulphate decreases and since there is less sulphate for the current to act upon, the charging rate should be reduced gradually. if this is not done, excessive gassing will occur, resulting in active material being blown from the grids. a battery which has been badly sulphated, is of course, in a discharged condition, but is not, of course, able to absorb a heavy charging rate, and in handling such batteries on a constant potential system, care must be taken that the charging rate is low. another precaution to be observed in all constant potential charging is to watch the temperature of batteries while they are drawing a heavy charging current. a battery which gasses soon after it is put oil charge, and while still in a discharged condition, should be taken off the line, or the charging line voltage reduced. with constant potential charging, as with constant current charging, the two things to watch are temperature and gassing. any charging rate which does not cause an excessive temperature or early gassing is safe, and conversely any charging rate which causes an excessive battery temperature, or causes gassing while the battery is still less than three-fourths charged, is too high. [fig. 48] fig. 48. hobart bros. co. 3 k. w. constant potential motor-generator charging set the constant-potential charging set manufactured by the hobart bros. co., consists of a 3 k.w. generator rated at 7.5 volts, and 400 amperes. this generator is direct connected to a 5 h.p. motor, both machines being mounted oil the same base plate. figure 48 shows this outfit. note that for the charging line there are three bus-bars to which the batteries are connected. twelve volt batteries are connected across the two outside bus-bars, while six volt batteries are connected between the center bus-bar and one of the outer ones. the tungar rectifier [fig. 49 tungar rectifier bulb] all rectifiers using oil are operated on the principle that current can pass through them in one direction only, due to the great resistance offered to the flow of current in the opposite direction. it is, of course, not necessary to use mercury vapor for the arc. some rectifiers operate on another principle. examples of such rectifiers are the tungar made by the general electric co., and the reetigon, made by the westinghouse electric and manufacturing co. the tungar rectifier is used extensively and will therefore be described in detail. the essential parts of a tungar rectifier are: a bulb, transformer, reactance, and the enclosing case and equipment. the bulb is the most important of these parts, since it does the rectifying. it is a sort of check valve that permits current to flow through the charging circuit in one direction only. in appearance the bulb, see figure 49, resembles somewhat an ordinary incandescent bulb. in the bulb is a short tungsten filament wound in the form of a tight spiral, and supported between two lead-in wires. close to the filament is a graphite disk which serves as one of the electrodes. figure 50 shows the operating principle of the tungar. "b" is the bulb, containing the filament "f" and the graphite electrode "a." to serve as a rectifier the bulb filament "f" must be heated, this being done by the transformer "t." the battery is connected as shown, the positive terminal directly to one side of the alternating current supply, and the negative terminal to the graphite electrode "a." to understand the action which takes place, assume an instant when line wire c is positive. the current then flows through the battery, through the rheostat and to the graphite electrode. the current then flows through the are to the filament and to the negative side of the line, as indicated by the arrows. during the next half cycle when line wire d is positive, and c is negative, current tends to flow through the bulb from the filament to the graphite, but as the resistance offered to the flow of current in this direction is very high, no current will flow through the bulb and consequently none through the battery. [fig. 50 illustration of tungar "half-wave" rectifier] [fig. 51 illustration of tungar "full-wave" rectifier] the rectifier shown in figure 50 is a "half-wave" rectifier. that is, only one-half of each alternating current wave passes through it to the battery. if two bulbs are used, as shown ill figure 51, each half of the alternating current wave is used in charging the battery. to trace the current through this rectifier assume an instant when line wire c is positive. current will then flow to the graphite electrode of tube a, through the secondary winding of the transformer s to the center tap, through the rheostat, to the positive battery terminal, through the battery to the center of the primary transformer winding p, and through part of the primary winding to d. when d is positive, current will flow through tube b from the graphite electrode to the filament, to the center of transformer winding s, through the rheostat and battery to the center of transformer winding p, and through part of this winding to line wire c. in the actual rectifiers the rheostat shown in figures 50 and 51 are not used, regulation being obtained entirely by means of other windings. from the foregoing description it will be seen that if the alternating current supply should fail, the batteries cannot discharge into the line, because in order to do so, they would have to heat up the filament and send current through the bulb from the filament to the graphite electrode. this the batteries cannot do, because the connections are such that the battery cannot send a current through the complete filament circuit and because, even if the batteries could heat the filament they could not send a current from the filament to the graphite, since current cannot flow in this direction. as soon as the alternating line is made alive again, the batteries will automatically start charging again. for these reasons night charging with the tungar is entirely feasible, and no attendant is required to watch the batteries during the night. the tungar rectifier is made in the following sizes: a. two ampere rectifier catalogue no. 195529 [fig. 52. the two ampere tungar rectifier] [fig. 53 internal wiring of the two ampere tungar rectifier] this is the smallest tungar made. figure 52 shows the complete rectifier. figure 53 shows the internal wiring. this tungar will charge a 6 volt battery at two amperes, a 12 volt battery at one ampere and eight cells at 0.75 ampere. it is suitable for charging a lighting battery, or for a quick charge of a motorcycle or ignition battery. it will also give a fairly good charge over night to a starting battery. another use for this rectifier is to connect it to a run-down starting battery to prevent it from freezing over night. of course, a battery should not be allowed to run down during cold weather, but if by chance a battery does run down, this tungar will prevent it from freezing during the night. the two ampere tungar is, of course, more suitable for the car owner than for a garage or service station. it is also very suitable for charging one radio "a" battery. the two ampere tungar is normally made for operation on a sixty cycle circuit, at 115 volts. it may also be obtained for operation on 25-30, 40-50, and 125-133 cycles alternating supply line. see table on page 130. b. the one battery rectifier catalogue no. 219865 [fig. 54. the one battery tungar rectifier] this tungar will charge a 6 volt battery at five amperes, or a 12 volt battery at three amperes. figure 54 shows this tungar, with part of the casing cut away to show the internal parts. to take care of variations in the voltage of the alternating current supply from 100 to 130, a set of connections is provided which are numbered 105, 115, and 125. for most supply voltages, the 115 volt tap is used, for lower voltage the 105 volt tap is used, and for higher voltage the 125 volt tap is used. this tungar is designed for 60 cycle circuits, but on special order it may be obtained for operation on other frequencies. this tungar is most suitable for a car owner, is satisfactory for charging a radio "a" battery, and a six volt starting and lighting battery at one time. c. the two battery rectifier catalogue no. 195530 [fig. 55. the two battery tungar rectifier] this tungar is shown in figure 55, with part of the casing cut away to show the internal parts. it was formerly sold to the car owner, but the one battery tungar is now recommended for the use of the car owner. the two-battery tungar is therefore recommended for the very small service station, or for department stores for taking care of one or two batteries. the four battery tungar, which is the next one described, is recommended in preference to the two-battery outfit where there is the slightest possibility of having more than two batteries to charge at one time. the two-battery rectifier will charge two 6-volt batteries, or one 12-volt battery at six amperes, or one 18-volt battery at three amperes. it has a double-pole fuse block mounted on the auto transformer core, which has one fuse plug only. figure 55 shows the fuse plug in the position for charging a 6-volt battery. when it is desired to charge a 12-volt battery or an 18-volt battery, the fuse is removed from the first receptacle and is screwed into the second receptacle. [fig. 56. the four battery tungar rectifier complete] the two-battery rectifier is designed to operate on a 115-volt, 60-cycle line, but oil special order may be obtained for operation on 25-30, 40-50, and 125-133 cycle lines. d. the four battery tungar catalogue no. 193191 this tungar is shown complete in figure 56. in figure 57 the top has been raised to show the internal parts. figure 58 gives the internal wiring connections for a four battery tungar designed for operation on a 115 volt line. the four battery tungar will charge from one to four 6 volt batteries at 5 amperes or less. it is designed especially for garages having very few batteries to charge. these garages generally charge their boarders batteries rather than send them to a service station, and seldom have more than four batteries to charge at one time. the four battery tungar is also suitable for the use of car dealers who wish to keep the batteries on their cars in good shape, and is convenient for preparing for service batteries as they come from the car manufacturer. [fig. 57. the four battery tungar rectifier, with top raised to show internal parts.] the four battery tungar is designed for operation on a 60-cycle line at 115 or 230 volts. on special order this tungar may be obtained for operation on other frequencies. e. the ten battery rectifier catalogue no. 179492 this is the tungar which is most popular in the service stations, since it meets the charging requirements of the average shop better than the smaller tungars. it will charge from one to ten 6 volt batteries, or the equivalent at six amperes or less. where more than ten batteries are generally to be charged at one time, two or more of the ten battery tungars should be used. large service stations use as many as ten of these tungars. [fig. 58 internal wiring of the four battery tungar rectifier] the efficiency of the ten battery tungar at full load is approximately 75 per cent, which compares favorably with that of a mercury-are rectifier, or motor-generator of the same size. this makes the ten battery tungar a very desirable piece of apparatus for the service station. [fig. 59 complete 10-battery tungar rectifier] figure 59 shows the complete ten battery tungar, figure 60 gives a side view without the door to show the internal parts. [fig. 60 side view, cross-section of 10-battery tungar rectifier] figure 61 shows the internal connections for use on a 115-volt a.c. line and figure 62 the internal connections for use on a 230-volt line. this tungar is made for a 60-cycle circuit, 25-30, 40-50, and 125-133 cycle circuits. [fig. 61 internal wiring for the 10 battery tungar rectifier for operation on a 115 volts a.c. line] [fig. 62 internal wiring for the 10 battery tungar rectifier for operation on a 230 volts a.c. line] f. the twenty battery tungar catalogue no. 221514 this tungar will charge ten 6-volt batteries at 12 amperes, or twenty 6-volt batteries at six amperes. figure 63 shows the complete rectifier, and figure 64 shows the rectifier with the side door open to show the internal parts. this rectifier will do the work of two of the ten battery tungars. it is designed for operation on 60 cycles, 230-volts. on special order it may be obtained for operation on 115 volts and also for other frequencies. the twenty battery tungar uses two bulbs, each of which is the same as that used in the ten battery tungar, and has two charging circuits, having an ammeter and regulating switch for each circuit. one snap switch connects both circuits to the supply circuit. the two charging circuits are regulated independently. for example, one circuit may be regulated to three amperes while the other circuit is delivering six amperes. it is also possible, by a system of connections to charge the equivalent of three circuits. for instance, five batteries could be charged at six amperes, five batteries at four amperes, and five batteries at ten amperes. other corresponding combinations are possible also. general instructions and information on tungars life of tungar bulbs. the life of the tungar bulb is rated at 600 to 800 hours, but actually a bulb will give service for 1,200 to 3,000 hours if the user is careful not to overload the bulb by operating it at more than the rated current. [fig. 63 the 20 battery tungar rectifier] [fig. 64 internal view of the 20 battery tungar rectifier] instructions. complete instructions are furnished with each tungar outfit, the following being those for the ten battery tungar. installation a tungar should be installed in a clean, dry place in order to keep the apparatus free from dirt and moisture. to avoid acid fumes, do not place the tungar directly over the batteries. these precautions will prevent corrosion of the metal parts and liability of poor contacts. fasten the tungar to a wall by four screws, if the wall is of wood, or by four expansion bolts if it is made of brick or concrete. though the electrical connections of the outfit are very simple, it is advisable (when installing the apparatus) to employ an experienced wireman familiar with local requirements regarding wiring. line connections the two wires extending from the top of the tungar should be connected to the alternating current supply of the same voltage and frequency, as stamped on the name plate attached to the front panel. these connections should be not less than no. 12 b. & s. gauge wire and should be firmly soldered to the copper lugs. external fuses are recommended for the alternating-current circuit, as follows: with 115-volt line use 15-ampere capacity fuses. with 230-volt line use 10 ampere capacity fuses. one of the bulbs (cat. no. 189049) should now be firmly screwed into its socket. squeeze the spring clip attached to the beaded cable and slip this clip over the wire protruding from the top of the bulb. do not bend the wire. battery connections in making battery connections have the snap-switch in the "off" position. the two wires extending from the bottom of the tungar should be connected to the batteries. the wire on the left, facing the front panel, is marked + (positive) and the other wire (negative). the positive wire should be connected to the positive terminal of the battery and the negative wire to the negative terminal. the two flexible battery cables are sometimes connected directly to the two wires projecting from the bottom of the tungar. these cables should be securely cleated to the wall about six inches below the outfit. this arrangement will relieve the strain on the tungar wires when cables are changed to different batteries. when two or more batteries are to be charged, they should be connected in series. the positive wire of the tungar should be connected to the positive terminal of battery no. 1, the negative terminal of this battery of the positive terminal of battery no. 2, the negative terminal of battery no. 2 to the positive terminal of battery no. 3, and so on, according to the number of batteries in circuit. finally the negative terminal of the last battery should be connected to the negative wire from the tungar. reverse connections on one battery is likely to damage the plates; and reverse connections oil all the batteries will blow one or more fuses. operation a tungar is operated by means of a snap-switch in the upper left-hand corner and a regulating switch in the center. before starting the apparatus, the regulating switch should be in the "low" position. the tungar is now ready to operate. turn the snap-switch to the right to the "on" position, and the bulb will light. then turn the regulating switch slowly to the right, and, as soon as the batteries commence to charge, the needle on the ammeter will indicate the charging current. this current may be adjusted to whatever value is desired within the limits of the tungar. the normal charging rate is six amperes, but a current of as high as seven amperes may be obtained without greatly reducing the life of the bulb. higher charging rates reduce its life to a considerable extent. lower rates than normal (six amperes) will increase the life of the bulb. turn the snap-switch to the "off" position when the charging of one battery or of all the batteries is completed; or when it is desired to add more batteries to the line. the tungar should be operated only by the snap-switch and not by any other external switch in either line or battery circuits. when the snap-switch is turned, the batteries will be disconnected from the supply line, and then they may be handled without danger of shock. immediately after turning the snap-switch, move the regulating handle back to the "low" position. this prevents any damage to the bulb from the dial switch being in an improper position for the number of batteries next charged. troubles if on turning on the alternating-current switch the bulb does not glow: 1. see whether the alternating-current supply is on. 2. examine the supply line fuses. if these are blown, or are defective, replace them with 15 ampere fuses for a 115-volt line or with 10-ampere fuses for a 220-volt line. 3. make sure that the bulb is screwed well into the socket. 4. examine the contacts inside the socket. if they are tarnished or dirty, clean them with sandpaper. 5. try a new bulb, cat. no. 189049. the old bulb may be defective. if the bulb lights but no current shows on the ammeter: 1. examine the connections to the batteries, and also the connections between them. most troubles are caused by imperfect battery connections. 2. examine the fuses inside the case. if these are blown or are defective, replace them with 15 ampere fuses, cat. no. 6335. 3. see that the clip is on the wire of the bulb. 4. the bulb may have a slow leak and not rectify. try a new bulb, cat. no. 189049. 5. have the switch arm make good contact on the regulating switch. if the current on the ammeter is high and cannot be reduced: 1. the ammeter pointer may be sticking; tap it lightly with the hand. the ammeter will not indicate the current correctly if the pointer is not on the zero line when the tungar is not operating. the pointer may be easily reset by turning slightly the screw on the lower part of the instrument. 2. be sure that the batteries are not connected with reversed polarity. 3. the alternating-current supply may be abnormally high. if only one three-cell battery is being charged, and the alternating-current supply is slightly high, then the current on the ammeter may be high. the simplest remedy is to connect in another battery or a small amount of resistance. a spare bulb should always be kept on hand and should be tested for at least one complete charge before being placed in reserve. all tungar bulbs are made as nearly perfect as possible, but occasionally one is damaged in shipment. it may look perfect and yet not operate. for this reason all bulbs should be tried out on receipt. if any bulb is found defective, the tag which accompanies it should be filled out, and bulb and tag should be returned to your dealer or to the nearest office of the general electric company, transportation prepaid. tungar rectifiers (the following columns omitted from the table below: catalog numbers, dimensions, net weight, and shipping weight.) name no. 6v bats no. 12v bats. dc amps dc volts ac volts freq. ------------ ------------ ------ ------- ------- ----2 amp. tungar 1 (2 amps.) 1 (1 amps.) 1-2 7.5-15 115 60 2 amp. tungar 1 (2 amps.) 1 (1 amps.) 1-2 7.5-15 115 60 2 amp. tungar 1 (2 amps.) 1 (1 amps.) 1-2 7.5-15 115 40-50 2 amp. tungar 1 (2 amps.) 1 (1 amps.) 1-2 7.5-15 115 25-30 2 amp. tungar 1 (2 amps.) 1 (1 amps.) 1-2 7.5-15 115 125-133 1 battery tungar 1 (5 amps.) 1 (3 amps.) 1-5 7.5-15 115 60 2 battery tungar 2 (6 amps.) 1 (6 amps.) 1-6 7.5-15 115 60 2 battery tungar 2 (6 amps.) 1 (6 amps.) 1-6 7.5-15 115 40-50 2 battery tungar 2 (6 amps.) 1 (6 amps.) 1-6 7.5-15 115 25-30 2 battery tungar 2 (6 amps.) 1 (6 amps.) 1-6 7.5-15 115 125-130 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 115 60 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 115 40-50 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 115 25-30 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 115 125-133 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 230 60 4 battery tungar 4 (5 amps.) 2 (5 amps.) 1-5 7.5-30 230 40-50 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 115 60 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 115 40-50 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 115 25-30 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 115 125-133 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 230 60 10 battery tungar 10 5 1-6 7.5-75 230 40-50 20 battery tungar 10 (12a.)/ 20 (6a.) 10 (6a.) 1-12 7.5-75 230 60 20 battery tungar 10 (12a.)/ 20 (6a.) 10 (6a.) 1-12 7.5-75 230 40-50 20 battery tungar 10 (12a.)/ 20 (6a.) 10 (6a.) 1-12 7.5-75 230 25-30 bulb (all 4 amp. tung.) -- -- -- -- -- --bulb (all 10 and 12 amp. tung.) -- -- -- -- -- --bulb (all 2 amp. tung.) -- -- -- -- -- --bulb (all 1-2 bat. tung.) -- -- -- -- -- --mercury arc rectifier the operation of the mercury are rectifier depends upon the fact that a tube containing mercury vapor under a low pressure and provided with two electrodes, one of mercury and the other of some other conductor, offers a very high resistance to a current tending to pass through the tube from the mercury electrode to the other electrode, but offers a very low resistance to a current tending to pass through the tube in the opposite direction. current passes from the metallic electrode to the mercury electrode through an are of mercury vapor which is established in the tube by tilting it so the mercury bridges the gap between the mercury and an auxiliary electrode just for an instant. the absence of moving parts to got out of order is an advantage possessed by this rectifier over the motor-generator. the charging current from the rectifier cannot, however, be reduced to as low a value as with the motor-generator, and this is a disadvantage. this rectifier is therefore more suitable for larger shops, especially where electric truck and pleasure cars are charged. mechanical rectifiers mechanical rectifiers have a vibrating armature which opens and closes the charging circuit. the circuit is closed during one half of each alternating current cycle, and open during the next half cycle. the circuit is thus closed as long as the alternating current is flowing in the proper direction to charge the battery, and is open as long as the alternating current is flowing in the reverse direction. these rectifiers therefore charge the battery during half the time the battery is on charge, this also being the case in some of the are rectifiers. the desired action is secured by a combination of a permanent magnet and an electromagnet which is connected to the alternating current supply. during half of the alternating current cycle, the alternating current flowing through the winding of the electromagnet magnetizes the electromagnet so that it strengthens the magnetism of the permanent magnet, thus causing the vibrator arm to be drawn against the magnet. the vibrator arm carries a contact which touches a stationary contact point when the arm is drawn against the magnet, thus closing the charging circuit. during the next half of the alternating current cycle, or wave, the current through the electromagnet coil is reversed, and the magnetism of the electromagnet then weakens the magnetism of the permanent magnet, and the vibrator arm is drawn away from the magnet and the charging circuit is thus opened. during the next half of the alternating current cycle the vibrator arm is again drawn against the magnet, and so on, the contact points being closed and opened during half of each alternating current cycle. mechanical rectifiers are operated from the secondary windings of transformers which reduce the voltage of the alternating current line to the voltage desired for charging. each rectifier unit may have its own complete transformer, or one large transformer may operate a number of rectifier units by having its secondary, or low tension winding divided into a number of sections, each of which operates one rectifier. the advantages of the mechanical rectifier are its simplicity, cheapness and portability. this rectifier also has the advantage of opening the charging circuit when the alternating current supply fails, and starting again automatically when the line is made alive again. any desired number of independent units, each having its own charging line, may be used. the charging current generally has a maximum value of 6 amperes. each rectifier unit is generally designed to charge only one or two six volt batteries at one time. stahl rectifier this is a unique rectifier, in which the alternating current is rectified by being sent through a commutator which is rotated by a small alternating current motor, similar to the way the alternating current generated in the armature of a direct current generator is rectified in the commutator of the machine. the stahl rectifier supplies the alternating current from a transformer instead of generating it as is done in a direct current generator. brushes which bear on the commutator lead to the charging circuit. the stahl rectifier is suitable for the larger service stations. it gives an interrupted direct current. it is simple in construction and operation, and is free of delicate parts. other charging equipment if there is no electric lighting in the shop, it will be necessary to install a generator and a gas, gasoline, or steam engine, or a waterwheel to drive it. a 10 battery belt driven generator may be used in such a shop, and may also, of course, be used with a separate motor. the generator should, of course, be a direct current machine. the size of the generator will depend upon the average number of batteries to be charged, and the amount of money available. any of the large electrical manufacturers or supply houses will give any information necessary for the selection of the type and size of the outfit required. if an old automobile engine, and radiator, gas tank, etc., are on hand, they can be suitably mounted so as to drive the generator. charging bench [fig. 65. charging bench with d.p.d.t. switch for each battery] figures 47 and 65 show charging benches in operation. note that they are made of heavy stock, which is of course necessary on account of the weight of the batteries. the top of the charging bench should be low, to eliminate as much lifting of batteries as possible. figure 66 is a working drawing of the bench illustrated in figure 65. note the elevated shelf extending down the center. this is convenient for holding water bottle, acid pitcher, hydrometer. note also the strip "d" on this shelf, with the voltmeter hung from an iron bracket. with this arrangement the meter may be moved to any battery for voltage, cadmium, and high rate discharge readings. it also has the advantage of keeping the volt meter in a convenient and safe place, where it is not liable to have acid spilled on it, or to be damaged by rough handling. in building the bench shown in figure 66, give each part a coat of asphaltum paint before assembling. after assembling the bench give it two more coats of asphaltum paint. [fig. 66 working drawing of charging bench shown in fig. 65] figures 67, 68, 69 and 70 show the working plans for other charging benches or tables. the repairman should choose the one which he considers most suitable for his shop. in wiring these benches, the elevated shelf shown in figure 66 may be added and the double pole, double throw switches used. instead of these switches, the jumpers shown on the benches illustrated in figure 47 may be used. if this is done, the elevated shelf should also be installed, as it is a great convenience for the hydrometer, voltmeter, and so on, as already described. as for the hydrometer, thermometer, etc., which were listed on page 96 as essential accessories of a charging bench, the exide vehicle type hydrometer is a most excellent one for general use. this hydrometer has a round bulb and a straight barrel which has projections on the float to keep the hydrometer in an upright position when taking gravity readings. the special thermometer is shown in figure 37. a good voltmeter is shown in figure 121. this voltmeter has a 2.5 and a 25 volt scale, which makes it convenient for battery work. it also gives readings of a .2 and 2.0 to the left of the zero, and special scale markings to facilitate the making of cadmium tests as described on page 174. as for the ammeter, if a motor-generator set, tungar rectifier or a charging-rheostat is used, the ammeter is always furnished with the set. if a lamp bank is used, a switchboard type meter reading to about 25 amperes is suitable. with the constant potential system of charging, the ammeters are furnished with the motor-generator set. they read up to 300 amperes. the bottles for the distilled water and electrolyte are not of special design and may be obtained in local stores, there are several special water bottles sold by jobbers, and they are convenient, but not necessary. figure 133 shows a very handy arrangement for a water or acid bottle. [fig. 67 working drawing of eight foot charging bench] [fig. 68 working drawing of a ten foot charging bench] [fig. 69 working drawing of a twelve foot charging bench] [fig. 70 working drawing of a twelve foot charging bench (without drain rack)] [fig. 71 working drawing of a two man work bench to be placed against a wall] [fig. 72 working drawing of a double, four man work bench, with two tool drawers for each man] work bench a work bench is more of a standard article than the charging bench, and there should be no trouble in building one. figure 38 illustrates a good bench in actual use. a vise is, of course, necessary, and the bench should be of solid construction, and should be given several coats of asphaltum paint. [fig. 73 working drawing of a two man, double work bench] figure 71 shows a single work bench which may be placed against a wall. figures 72 and 73 show double work benches. note that each bench has the elevated shelf, which should not, under any consideration be omitted, as it is absolutely necessary for good work. the tool drawers are also very convenient. it is best to have a separate "tear down" bench where batteries are opened, as such a bench will be a wet, sloppy place and would not be suitable for anything else. it should be placed near the sink or wash tank, as shown in the shop layouts illustrated in figures 136 to 142. sink or wash tank [fig. 74] fig. 74. sink with faucet, and extra swinging arm pipe for washing out jars. four inch paint brush for washing battery cases an ordinary sink may be used, as shown in figure 74. this figure also shows a convenient arrangement for washing out jars. this consists of a three-fourths inch pipe having a perforated cap screwed over its upper end. near the-floor is a valve which is normally held closed by a spring, and which has attached to it a foot operated lever. in washing sediment out of jars, the case is inverted over the pipe, and the water turned on by means of the foot lever. a number of fine, sharp jets of water are thrown up into the jar, thereby washing out the sediment thoroughly. if an ordinary sink is used, a settling tank should be placed under it, as shown in figure 75. otherwise, the drain pipe may become stopped up with sediment washed out of the jars. pipe b is removable, which is convenient in cleaning out the tank. when the tank is to be cleaned, lift pipe b up very carefully and let the water drain out slowly. then scoop out the sediment, rinse the tank with water, and replace pipe b. in some places junk men will buy the sediment, or "mud," as it is called. [fig. 75 settling tank to be used with sink shown in fig. 74] figures 76 and 77 give the working drawings for more elaborate wash tanks. the water supply shown in figure 74 may be used here, and the drain pipe arrangement shown in figure 75 may be used if desired. [fig. 76 working drawing of a wash tank] [fig. 77 working drawing of a wash tank] lead burning (welding) outfit in joining the connectors and terminals to the positive and negative posts, and in joining plate straps to form a "group," the parts are joined or welded together, melting the surfaces to be joined, and then melting in lead from sticks called "burning lead." the process of joining these parts in this manner is known as "lead burning." directions for "lead burning" are given on page 210. there are various devices by means of which the lead is melted during the "lead burning" process. the most satisfactory of these use a hot, pointed flame. where such a flame is not obtainable, a hot carbon rod is used. the methods are given in the following list in the order of their efficiency: 1. oxygen and acetylene under pressure in separate tanks. the gases are sent through a mixing valve to the burning tip. these gases give the hottest flame. 2. oxygen and hydrogen under pressure in separate tanks, fig. 78. the flame is a very hot one and is very nearly as satisfactory as the oxygen and acetylene. [fig. 78] fig. 78. hydrogen-oxygen lead burning outfit. a and b are regulating valves. c is the safety flash back tank. d is the mixing valve. e is the burning tip. 3. oxygen and illuminating gas. this is a very satisfactory method, and one that has become very popular. in this method it is absolutely necessary to have a flash back tank (fig. 79) in the gas line to prevent the oxygen from backing up into the gas line and making a highly explosive mixture which will cause a violent explosion that may wreck the entire shop. [fig. 79 flash-back tank for lead burning outfit] to make such a trap, any strong walled vessel may be used, as shown in figure 79. a six to eight inch length of four inch pipe with caps screwed over the ends will make a good trap. one of the caps should have a 1/2 inch hole drilled and tapped with a pipe thread at the center. this cap should also have two holes drilled and tapped to take a 1/4 inch pipe, these holes being near the inner wall of the large pipe, and diametrically opposite one another. into one of these holes screw a short length of 1/4 inch pipe so fig. 79. flash-back tank for lead burning outfit that it comes flush with the inner face of the cap. this pipe should lead to the burning outfit. into the other small hole screw a length of 1/4 inch pipe so that its lower end comes within 1/2 inch of the bottom of the trap. this pipe is to be connected to the illuminating gas supply. to use the trap, fill within one inch of top with water, and screw a 1/2 inch plug into the center hole. all connections should be airtight. 4. acetylene and compressed air. the acetylene is bought in tanks, and the air compressed by a pump. 5. hydrogen and compressed air. this is the method that was very popular several years ago, but is not used to any extent at present because of the development of the first three methods. a special torch and low pressure air supply give a very satisfactory flame. 6. wood alcohol torch. a hand torch with a double jet burner gives a very clean, nonoxidizing flame. the flame is not as sharp as the oxygen flame, and the torch is not easily handled without the use of burning collars and moulds. the torch has the advantage of being small, light and portable. a joint may be burned without removing the battery from the car. 7. gasoline torch. a double jet gasoline torch may be used, provided collars or moulds are used to prevent the lead from running off. the torch gives a broad flame which heats the parts very slowly, and the work cannot be controlled as easily as in the preceding methods. [fig. 80 carbon lead burning outfit] 8. carbon arc. this is a very simple method, and requires only a spare 6 volt battery, a 1/4 inch carbon rod, carbon holder, cable, and clamp for attaching to battery. this outfit is shown in fig. 80. it may be bought from the american bureau of engineering, inc., chicago, ill. this outfit is intended to be used only when gas is not available, and not where considerable burning is to be done. in using this outfit, one terminal of an extra 6 volt battery is connected by a piece of cable with the connectors to be burned. the contact between cable and connector should be clean and tight. the cable which is attached to the carbon rod is then connected to the other terminal of the extra battery, if the battery is not fully charged, or to the connector on the next cell if the battery is fully charged. the number of cells used should be such that the carbon is heated to at least a bright cherry red color when it is touching the joint which is to be burned together. sharpen the carbon to a pencil point, and adjust its position so that it projects from the holder about one inch. occasionally plunge the holder and hot carbon in a pail of water to prevent carbon from overheating. after a short time, a scale will form on the surface of the carbon, and this should be scraped off with a knife or file. in burning in a connector, first melt the lead of the post and connector before adding the burning lead. keep the carbon point moving over all parts to be joined, in order to insure a perfectly welded joint. 9. illuminating gas and compressed air. this is the slowest method of any. pump equipment is required, and this method should not be used unless none of the other methods is available. the selection of the burning apparatus will depend upon individual conditions as well as prices, and the apparatus selected should be one as near the beginning of the foregoing list as possible. directions for the manipulation of the apparatus are given by the manufacturers. the most convenient arrangement for the lead burning outfit is to run pipes from one end of the work bench to the other, just below the center shelf. then set the gas tanks at one end of the bench and connect them to the pipes. at convenient intervals have outlets for attaching the hoses leading to the torch. equipment for handling sealing compound (a) stove. where city gas is available, a two or three burner gas stove or hot-plate should be used. where there is no gas supply, the most satisfactory is perhaps an oil stove. it is now possible to get an odorless oil stove which gives a hot smokeless flame which is very satisfactory. in the winter, if a coal stove is used to heat the shop, the stove may also be used for heating the sealing compound, but it will be more difficult to keep the temperature low enough to prevent burning the compound. (b) pot or kettle. an iron kettle is suitable for use in heating compound. special kettles, some of which are non-metallic, are on the market, and may be obtained from the jobbers. (c) an iron ladle should be obtained for dipping up compound, and for pouring compound when sealing a battery. figure 81 shows a convenient form of ladle which has a pouring hole in the bottom. a taper pin, which is raised by the extra handle allows a very fine stream of compound to be poured. the exact size of the ladle is not important, but one which is too heavy to be held in one hand should not be used. (d) several old coffee pots are convenient, and save much time in sealing batteries. sealing compound is a combination of heavy residues produced by the fractional distillation of petroleum. it is not all alike-that accepted for factory use and distribution to service stations must usually conform to rigid specifications laid down by the testing laboratories governing exact degrees of brittleness, elongation, strength and melting point. for these qualities it is dependent upon certain volatile oils which may be driven off from the compound if the temperature of the molten mass is raised above the comparatively low points where some of these oils begin to volatilize off as gaseous vapor or smoke. compound from which certain of these valuable constituent oils have been driven off or "burned out" through overheating is recognized through too great brittleness and shrinkage on cooling, causing "cracked compound" with all of its attending difficulties. [fig. 81 pouring ladle] do not put too much cold compound in the kettle to begin with. it is not advisable to carry much more molten compound in the kettle at any time than can easily be dipped out-cold compound may be added during the day as needed. when there is considerable cold compound in the kettle, and the heating flame is applied, the lower bottom part of the mass next to the surface of the iron is brought to a melting point first-heat must be conveyed from this already hot part of the compound upward throughout the whole mass-so that before the top part of it is brought to a molten condition the lower inside layers are very hot indeed. if there is too much in the kettle these lower layers are necessarily raised in temperature beyond the point where they lose some of their volatile oils-they are "burned" before the whole mass of compound can be brought to a molten state. do not use too large a heating flame under the kettle for the same reasons. a flame turned on "full blast" will certainly "burn" the bottom layers before the succeeding layers above are brought to the fusion point. use a slow flame and take time in melting up the compound. it pays in the resulting jobs. the more compound is heated, the thinner it becomes--it should never be allowed to become so hot that it flows too freely--it should never exceed the viscosity of medium molasses. it should flow freely enough to run in all narrow spaces but not freely enough to flow through them before it cools. stir the kettle frequently during the day. it is advisable about once a week to work as much compound out of the kettle as possible, empty that still remaining, clean the kettle out, and start with fresh compound. never use old compound over again--that is, do not throw compound that has been dug out of used batteries into the kettle with the new compound. the old compound is no doubt acid soaked, and this acid will work through the whole molten mass, making a satisfactory job a very doubtful matter indeed. cold weather hardens sealing compound, of course, and renders it somewhat brittle and liable to crack. this tendency could be overcome by using a softer compound, but, on the other hand, compound so soft that it would have no tendency to crack in cold weather would be so soft in warm weather that it would fail to hold the assembly with the necessary firmness and security. it is far better policy to run the risk of developing a few cracks in the winter than a loose assembly in summer. surface cracks developed in cold weather may be easily remedied by stripping off the compound around the crack with a heated tool, flashing with the torch and quickly re-sealing according to the above directions. it is not practical to work any oil agent, such as paraffin or castor oil, into the compound in an effort to soften it for use in cold weather. shelving and racks the essential things about shelving in a battery shop are, that it must be covered with acid-proof paint, and must be made of heavy lumber if it is to carry complete batteries. figure 82 shows the heavy shelving required in a stock-room, while figure 83 shows the lighter shelving which may be used for parts, such as jars, cases, extra plates, and so on. [fig. 82] fig. 82. typical stockroom, showing heavy shelving necessary for storing batteries. figures 84 and 85 show two receiving racks for batteries which come in for repairs. in many shops batteries are set on the floor while waiting for repairs. if there is plenty of floor space, this practice is not objectionable. in any case, however, it improves the looks of the shop, and makes a better impression on the customer to have racks to receive such batteries. note that the shelves are arranged so as to permit acid to drain off. batteries often come in with wet, leaky cases, and this shelf construction is suitable for such batteries. the racks shown in figures 86 and 87 are for repaired batteries, new batteries, rental batteries, batteries in dry storage, and for any batteries which do not have wet leaky cases. figures 88 and 89 show racks suitable for new batteries which have been shipped filled with electrolyte, batteries in "wet" or "live" storage, rental batteries, and so on. note that these racks are provided with charging circuits so that the batteries may be given a low charge without removing them from the racks. note also that the shelves are spaced two feet apart so as to be able to take hydrometer readings, voltage readings, add water, and so on, without removing the batteries from the racks. bins figure 90 gives the dimensions for equipment bins suitable for covers, terminals, inter-cell connectors, jars, cases, and various other parts. these bins can be made with any desired number of sections, and additional sections built as they are needed. [fig. 83] fig. 83. corner of workshop, showing lead burning outfit, workbench and vises. [fig. 84 working drawing of a 6-foot receiving rack] [fig. 85 working drawing of a 12-foot receiving rack] [fig. 86 working drawing of an 8-foot rack for repaired batteries, new batteries, rental batteries, batteries in dry storage, etc.] [fig. 87 working drawing of a 16-foot rack for repaired batteries, new batteries, rental batteries, batteries in dry storage, etc.] [fig. 88 working drawing of a 16-foot rack suitable for new batteries (shipped filled and fully charged), batteries in "wet" storage, rental batteries, etc.] [fig. 88b end view of rack in fig. 88] [fig. 89 working drawing of a 12-foot rack suitable for new batteries (shipped filled and fully charged), batteries in "wet" storage, rental batteries, etc.] [fig. 89b end view of rack in fig. 89] [fig. 90 working drawing of bins suitable for battery parts] battery steamer steaming is the most satisfactory method of softening sealing compound, making covers and jars limp and pliable. an open flame should never be used for this work, as the temperature of the flame is too high and there is danger of burning jars and covers and making them worthless. with steam, it is impossible to damage sealing compound or rubber parts. a soft flame from a lead burning torch is used to dry out the channels in the covers before sealing, and is run over the compound quickly to make the compound flow evenly and unite with the jars and covers. but in such work the flame is used for only a few seconds and is not applied long enough to do any damage. with a steaming outfit, it is also possible to distill water for use in mixing electrolyte and replacing evaporation in the cells. the only additional equipment needed is a condenser to condense the steam into water. [fig. 91] fig. 91. battery steamer, with steam hose for each cell [fig. 92 condenser for use with battery steamer] figure 91 shows a steaming outfit mounted on a wall, and shows the rubber tube connections between the several parts. the boiler is set on the stove, water being supplied from the water supply tank which is hung above the boiler to obtain gravity feed. the water supply tank is open at the top, and is filled every morning with faucet water. this tank is suitable for any shop, even though a city water supply is available. a water pipe from the city lines may be run to a point immediately above the tank and a faucet or valve attached. where there is no city water supply, the tank may, of course, be filled with a pail or pitcher. the boiler is equipped with a float operated valve which maintains a one to one and one-half inch depth of water. as the water boils away, the float lowers slightly and allows water to enter the boiler. in this way, the water is maintained at the proper level at all times. a manifold is fitted to the boiler and has six openings to which lengths of rubber tubing are attached. these tubes are inserted in the vent holes of the battery which is to be steamed. any number of the steam outlets may be opened by drawing out the manifold plunger valve to the proper point. when distilling water, a tube is attached to one of the steam outlets as shown, and connected to the condenser as shown. a bottle is placed under the distilled water outlet to collect the distilled water. cooling water enters the condenser through the tubing shown attached to the condenser at the lower right-hand edge. the other end of this tube is attached to the water faucet, or other cooling water supply. the cooling water outlet is shown at the lower left hand edge of the condenser. the cooling water inlet and outlet are shown in figure 92. if there is no city water supply, a ten or twenty gallon tank may be mounted above the condenser and attached by means of a rubber tube to the cooling water inlet shown at the lower right hand edge of the condenser in figure 92. a similar tank is placed under the cooling water outlet. the upper tank is then filled with water. when the water has run out of the upper tank through the condenser and into the lower tank, it is poured back into the upper tank. in this way a steady supply of cooling water is obtained. [fig. 93 steaming box in which entire battery is set] another type of steamer uses a steaming box, figure 93. the battery is placed in the box and steam is sent in through the cover. the boiler has only one steam outlet, and this is connected to the box by means of a hose. [fig. 94 special bench for battery steamer] if desired, a special bench may be made for the steaming outfit, as shown in figure 94. the other tools needed for opening batteries, as given in the list on page 97 are standard articles, and may be obtained at any hardware store, except the terminal tongs, which should be purchased from a battery supply house. [fig. 95 battery terminal tongs] figure 95 illustrates the use of terminal tongs. battery terminals usually stick so tight that they must be forced out with pliers or other tools. here is shown a pair of tongs that makes easy work of the job. one end has a fork and the other is shaped to come between the fork. it is placed on the battery terminal, as shown, and when the handles are brought together the terminal attached to the battery lead is forced out without marring any of the parts. equipment for lead burning (welding) plate burning rack the plates which compose a "group" are joined to the plate connecting strap to which the post is attached. the plates are "burned" to the strap, and this must be done in such a manner that the plates are absolutely parallel, that the distance between plates is correct, and that the top surface of the strap is at right angles to the surface of the plates. these conditions are necessary in order that the positive and negative groups may mesh properly, that the complete element, consisting of the plates and separators may fit in the jar properly, and that the cell covers may fit over the posts easily. [fig. 96] fig. 96. universal plate burning rack. will hold three groups of plates at one time. designed for standard and special plates in order to secure these conditions, plates that are to be burned to the strap are set in a "burning rack," shown in figs. 96 and 97, which consists mainly of a base upon which the plate rest, and a slotted bar into which the lugs on the plates fit. the distance between successive slots is equal to the correct distance between the plates of the group. an improved form of burning rack has a wooden base which has slots along the side. the plates are set into these slots and are thus held in the correct position at both top and bottom. [fig. 97 plate burning rack for standard 1/8 inch, and thin plates] fig. 97 shows a rack for use with 1/8 inch and 7-64 inch plates. fig. 96 shows a "universal" rack which may be used with both the 1/8 and 7-64 inch plates, and also many special plates. the guide-bar, or "comb," e, has slots along two sides, the base having corresponding slots, as shown. to accommodate different sized plates, the comb may be raised or lowered, and the uprights may be moved back and forth in two slots, one of which is shown at f. in using this rack, the plates are set in position, with their lower edges in the slots of the base, and their lugs in the slots in the comb. the plates are in this way held at opposite corners, and are absolutely straight and parallel. special fittings are provided to simplify the work of burning. a bar, d, fits along the edge of the comb, and holds the lugs of the plates firmly in the slots. this bar is movable to any part of the comb, being held by two spring clips, c. two bars, a and b, which are adjustable, make a form around the plate lugs which will prevent the hot lead from running off while burning in the plates. instructions for burning on plates are given on page 217. the triangular scraper, steel wire brush, coarse files and smoked or blue glasses are all standard articles and may be obtained from any supply house. the burning collars are made of iron, and are set over the end of inter-cell connectors when burning these to the posts, see figure 98. experienced repairmen generally do not use them, but those who have trouble with the whole end of the connector melting and the lead running off should use collars to hold in the lead. [fig. 98 burning collars] the burning lead mould in every shop there is an accumulation of scrap lead from post drillings, old connecting straps, old plate straps, etc. these should be kept in a special box provided for that purpose, and when a sufficient amount has accumulated, the lead should be melted and run off into moulds for making burning-lead. the burning lead mould is designed to be used for this purpose. as shown in fig. 99, the mould consists of a sheet iron form which has been pressed into six troughs or grooves into which the melted lead is poured. this sheet iron form is conveniently mounted on a block of wood which has a handle at one end, making it possible to hold the mould while hot without danger of being burned. a sheet of asbestos separates the iron form from the wood, thus protecting the wood from the heat of the melted lead. a hole is drilled in the end of the handle to permit the mould being hung on a nail when not in use. the grooves in the iron form will produce bars of burning lead 15 inches long, 5-16 inch thick, 3/8 inch wide at the top, and 1/4 inch wide at the bottom. [fig. 99] fig. 99. burning-lead moulds, and burning sticks cast in them the advantage of this type of burning lead mould over a cast iron mould is obvious. the form, being made of sheet iron, heats up very quickly, and absorbs only a very small amount of heat from the melted lead. the cast-iron mould, on the other hand, takes so much heat from the melted lead that the latter cools very quickly, and is hard to handle. an iron pot that will hold at least ten pounds of molten lead should be used in melting up lead scraps for burning sticks. when the metal has become soft enough to stir with a clean pine stick skim off the dross. continue heating metal until slightly yellow on top. with a paddle or ladle drop in a cleaning compound of equal parts of powdered rosin, borax and flower of sulphur. use a teaspoonful for a ten-pound melting and make sure the compound is perfectly dry. stir a little and if metal is at proper heat there will be a flare, flash or a little burning. a sort of tinfoil popcorn effect will be noticed floating on top of the metal. stir until this melts down. have your ladle hot and skim off soft particles. dust the mould with mould compound, a powder which makes the lead fill the entire grooves, and not become cool before it does. when everything is ready, fill the ladle and pour the lead into one of the grooves. hold the ladle above one end of the groove while pouring, and do not move it along the groove. fill the other grooves in a similar manner. post builders. these are moulds which are set over the stumps of posts which have been drilled short in removing the inter-cell connectors. lead is then melted in with a burning flame to build the post up to the proper height. figure 100 shows a set of post-builders, and figure 101 illustrates their use. [fig. 100 set of post builders] [fig. 101 illustrating use of post builders] equipment for general work on connectors and terminals moulds for casting inter-cell connectors, terminals, terminal screws, taper lugs, plate straps, etc. figure 102 shows a plate strap mould with which three straps and posts may be cast in one minute. it has a sliding movable tooth rack for casting an odd or even number of teeth on the strap. [fig. 102 plate strap mould] figure 103 shows a link combination mould which casts five inter-cell connectors for use on standard 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 plate batteries, four end connectors (two dodge tapers, and standard tapers, negative and positive), one end connector with 3/8 inch cable used on 12 volt maxwell battery and on all other cars a wire cable, and one small wire to connect with end post on batteries requiring direct connection. it also casts two post support rings to fit standard size rubber covers and to fit posts cast with plate strap mould, and two washers which are often needed when installing needed when installing new or rental batteries. [fig. 103 and fig. 104: link combination mould, and castings made in it] figure 104 shows the parts which may be made with this mould. [fig. 105 cell connector mould] [fig. 106 production type strap mould] figure 105 shows a cell connector mould which casts practically all the cell connectors used on standard 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 plate batteries. this mould is similar to the link combination mould shown in figure 103. [fig. 107 indexing device for strap mould] [fig. 108 castings made in strap mould] figure 106 shows a production type strap mould which is designed to be used by large battery shops. forty-two styles of straps are, cast by this mould. this mould has an indexing device as shown in figure 107, which is adjusted by means of a screw for moulding the straps for any number of plates from seven to nineteen. figure 109 shows some of the castings which are made with this mould. [fig. 109 terminal mould and castings made in it] figure 109 shows a terminal mould which casts five reversible end terminal connectors, a cable connector, such as is used on the maxwell battery, and two washers often needed in making a tight connection. [fig. 110 screw mould] figure 110 shows a screw mould which casts standard square lead leads on four screws in one operation, two 5/8 inch and two 3/8 inch. this mould has a screw adjustment in the base which makes each cavity adaptable to any length screw. equipment for work on cases the acid proof asphaltum paint, paint brushes, wood chisels, wood plane, and earthenware jars are all standard articles. [fig. 111 battery turntable] figure 111 shows a battery turntable which is very convenient when painting cases, lead burning, etc. tools for general work most of the articles in this list require no explanation. some of them, however, are of special construction. separator cutter. some battery supply houses sell special separator cutters, but a large size photograph trimmer is entirely satisfactory. [fig. 112] fig. 112. plate press for pressing swollen, bulged negatives (after plates have been fully charged) [fig. 113] fig. 113. inserting plate press boards between negatives preparatory to pressing plate press. figure 112 shows a special plate press in which the plates are pressed between wooden jaws. no iron can come into contact with the plates. this is a very important feature, since iron in solution causes a battery to lose its charge very quickly. this press is made of heavy hardwood timbers, and may be set on a bench or mounted on the wall. a set of lead coated troughs carry away the acid which is squeezed from the plates. [fig. 114 showing how negatives should be placed in the plate press] this press is designed for pressing negative plates, the active material of which has become bulged or swollen. a plate in this condition has a low capacity and cannot give good service. swollen negatives often make it impossible to replace the plates in a jar. when negatives are found to be bulged or swollen, the battery must be fully charged, and the negatives then pressed. to do this, plate press boards, which are of acid proof material, and of the proper thickness are inserted between the negatives, as shown in figure 113, and the plates are then set in the press is shown in figure 114. [fig. 115 negative group before and after pressing] figure 115 shows a group before and after pressing. note that pressing has forced the active material back into the grid where it must be if the plates are to give good service. never send out a battery with swollen or bulged negatives. slightly buckled negatives may also be straightened out in the plate press. positives do not swell or bulge as they discharge, but shed the active material. they are therefore not pressed positives buckle, of course, but should never be pressed to straighten them. the lead peroxide of the positive plates is not elastic like the spongy the negatives, and if positives are pressed to straighten them the paste will crack and break from the grid. slightly buckled positives may be used, but if they are so badly buckled that it is impossible to reassemble the element or put the element back into the jars, they should be discarded. [fig. 116 battery carrier] [fig. 117 battery truck] battery carrier. figure 116 shows a very convenient battery carrier, having a wooden handle with two swinging steel hooks for attaching to the battery to be carried. with this type of carrier no strain is put on the handle, as is the case if a strap is used. battery truck. when a battery must be moved any considerable distance, a truck, such as that shown in figure 117 should be used. this truck may easily be made in the shop, or may be made at a reasonable cost in a carpenter shop. the rollers should be four inches or more in diameter and should preferably be of the ball-bearing type. rubber tires on the rollers are a great advantage, since the rubber protects the rollers from acid and also eliminates the very disagreeable noise which iron wheels make, especially in going over a concrete floor or sidewalk. the repairman need not make his truck exactly like that shown in figure 117, which is merely shown to give a general idea of how such a truck should be constructed. the truck shown in figure 117 was made from a heavy wooden box. with this construction lifting batteries is largely eliminated, which is most desirable, since a battery is not the lightest thing in the world. the battery is carried in a horizontal position and the truck is small enough to be wheeled between cars in the shop. [fig. 118 another battery truck] another form of battery truck is shown in figure 118, although this, is not as good as that shown in figure 117. cadmium test set and how to make the test as the cell voltage falls while the battery is on discharge, the voltage of the positive plates, and also the voltage of the negative plates falls. when the battery is charged again the voltages of both positive and negative plates rise. if a battery gives its rated ampere-hour capacity on discharge, we do not care particularly how the voltages of the individual positive and negative groups change. if, however, the battery fails to give its rated capacity, the fault may be due to defective positives or defective negatives. if the voltage of a battery fails to come up when the battery is put on charge, the trouble may be due to either the positives or negatives. positives and negatives may not charge at the same rate, and one group may become fully charged before the other group. this may be the case in a cell which has had a new positive group put in with the old negatives. cadmium tests made while the battery is on charge will tell how fully the individual groups are charged. since the voltages of the positives and negatives both fall as a battery is discharged, and rise as the battery is charged, if we measure the voltages of the positives and negatives separately, we can tell how far each group is charged or discharged. if the voltage of each cell of a battery drops to 1.7 before the battery has given its rated capacity, we can tell which set of plates has become discharged by measuring the voltages of positives and negatives separately. if the voltage of the positives show that they are discharged, then the positives are not up to capacity. similarly, negatives are not up to capacity if their voltage indicates that they are discharged before the battery has given its rated capacity. cadmium readings alone do not give any indication of the capacity of a battery, and the repairman must be careful in drawing conclusions from cadmium tests. in general it is not always safe to depend upon cadmium tests on a battery which has not been opened, unless the battery is almost new. plates having very little active material, due to shedding, or due to the active material being loosened from the grid, will often give good cadmium readings, and yet a battery with such plates will have very little capacity. such a condition would be disclosed by an actual examination of the plates, or by a capacity discharge test. how cadmium tests are made to measure the voltages of the positives and negatives separately, cadmium is used. the cadmium is dipped in the electrolyte, and a voltage reading is taken between the cadmium and the plates which are to be tested. thus, if we wish to test the negatives, we take a voltage reading between the cadmium and the negatives, as shown in fig. 119. similarly, if we wish to test the positives, we take a voltage reading between the cadmium and the positives, as shown in fig 120. [fig. 119 making cadmium test on negative plates] [fig. 120 making cadmium test on positive plates] in dipping the cadmium into the electrolyte, we make two cells out of the battery cell. one of these consists of the cadmium and the positives, while the other consists of the cadmium and the negatives. if the battery is charged, the cadmium forms the negative element in the cadmium-positives cell, and is the positive element in the cadmium-negatives cell. the voltage of the cadmium does not change, and variations in the voltage readings obtained in making cadmium tests are due to changes in the state of charge of the negative and positive plates which are being tested. what cadmium is: cadmium is a metal, just like iron, copper, or lead. it is one of the chemical elements; that is, it is a separate and distinct substance. it is not made by mixing two or more substances, as for instance, solder is made by mixing tin and lead, but is obtained by separating the cadmium from the compounds in which it is found in nature, just as iron is obtained by treatment of iron ore in the steel mill. when cadmium readings should be made 1. when the battery voltage drops to 1.7 per cell on discharge before the battery has delivered its rated ampere-hour capacity, at the 5-hour rate when a discharge test is made. 2. when a battery on charge will not "come up," that is, if its voltage will not come up to 2.5-2.7 per cell on charge, and its specific gravity will not come up to 1.280-1.300. 3. whenever you charge a battery, at the end of the charge, when the voltage and specific gravity no longer rise, make cadmium tests to be sure that both positives and negatives are fully charged. 4. when you put in a new group, charge the battery fully and make cadmium tests to be sure that both the new and old groups are fully charged. 5. when a 20-minute high rate discharge test is made. see page 267. that cadmium readings should be taken only while a battery is in action; that is, while it is on discharge, or while it is on charge. cadmium readings taken on a battery which is on open circuit are not reliable. when you are not using the cadmium, it should be put in a vessel of water and kept there. never let the cadmium become dry, as it will then give unreliable readings. open circuit voltage readings worthless voltage readings of a battery taken while the battery is on open circuit; that is, when no current is passing through the battery, are not reliable. the voltage of a normal, fully charged cell on open circuit is slightly over 2 volts. if this cell is given a full normal discharge, so that the specific gravity of its electrolyte drops to 1.150, and is allowed to stand for several hours after the end of the discharge, the open circuit voltage will still be 2 volts. open circuit voltage readings are therefore of little or no value, except when a cell is "dead," as a dead cell will give an open circuit voltage very much less than 2, and it may even give no voltage at all. what the cadmium test set consists of the cadmium tester consists of a voltmeter, fig. 121, and two pointed brass prods which are fastened in wooden handles, as shown in fig. 122. a length of flexible wire having a terminal at one end is soldered to each prod for attachment to the voltmeter. fastened at right angles to one of the brass prods is a rod of pure cadmium. [fig. 121 special cadmium test voltmeter, & fig. 122 cadmium test leads] cadmium tests may be made with any accurate voltmeter which gives readings up to 2.5 volts in divisions of .05 volt. the instructions given below apply especially to the special ambu voltmeter but these instructions may also be used in making cadmium tests with any voltmeter that will give the correct reading. the ambu cadmium voltmeter fig. 121 is a view of the special ambu voltmeter, which is designed to be used specially in making cadmium tests. fig. 122 shows the cadmium leads. the four red lines marked "neg. charged," "neg. discharged," "pos. charged," and "pos. discharged," indicate the readings that should be obtained. thus, in testing the positives of a battery on charge, the pointer will move to the line which is marked "pos. charged," if the positive plates are fully charged. in testing the negatives, the pointer will move to the line marked "neg. charged," which is to the left of the "0" line, if the negatives are fully charged, and so on. figs. 123, 124, 125 and 126 show the pointer in the four positions on the scale which it takes when testing fully charged or discharged plates. in each figure the pointer is over one of the red lines on the scale. these figures also show the readings, in volts, obtained in making the cadmium tests on fully charged or completely discharged plates. [fig. 123 voltmeter showing reading obtained when testing charged negative; & fig. 124 showing reading obtained when testing charged positives] [fig. 125 voltmeter showing reading obtained when testing discharged negatives; and fig. 126 showing reading obtained when testing discharged positives] if pointer is not over the "0" line: it sometimes happens, in shipping the instrument, and also in the use of it, that the pointer does not stand over the "0" line, but is a short distance away. should you find this to be the case, take a small screwdriver and turn the screw which projects through the case, and which is marked "correct zero," so as to bring the pointer exactly over the "0" line on the scale while the meter has no wires connected to its binding posts. connections of cadmium leads: in making cadmium tests, connect the prod which has the cadmium fastened to it to the negative voltmeter binding post. connect the plain brass prod to the positive voltmeter binding post. the connections to the ambu cadmium voltmeter are shown in fig. 127. testing a battery on discharge the battery should be discharging continuously, at a constant, fixed rate, see page 265. [fig. 127 ambu cadmium voltmeter] generally, on a starting ability test (see page 267), the positive cadmium readings will start at about 2.05 volts for a hard or very new set of positives, and at 2.12 volts or even higher for a set of soft or somewhat developed positives, and will drop during the test, ending at 1.95 volts or less. the negative cadmium readings will start at 0.23 volt or higher, up to 0.30, and will rise gradually, more suddenly toward the end if the plates are old, ending anywhere above 0.35 and up to 0.6 to 0.7 for poor negatives. short circuited cells: in cases of short circuited cells, the voltage of the cell will be almost down to zero. the cadmium readings would therefore be nearly zero also for both positives and negatives. such a battery should be opened for inspection and repairs. testing a battery on charge the battery should be charging at the finishing rate. (this i's usually stamped on the battery box.) dip the cadmium in the electrolyte as before, and test the negatives by holding the plain prod on the negative post of the cell. see fig. 119. test the positives in a similar manner. see fig. 120. the cell voltage should also be measured. if the positives are fully charged, the positive cadmium reading will be such that the pointer will move to the red line marked "pos. charged." see fig. 125. if you are using an ordinary voltmeter, the meter will give a reading of from 2.35 to 2.42 volts. the negatives are then tested in a similar manner. the negative-cadmium reading on an ordinary voltmeter will be from .175 to .2 to the left of the "0" line; that is, the reading is a reversed one. if you are using the special abm voltmeter, the pointer will move to the red line marked "neg. charged." see fig. 123. the cell voltage should be the sum of the positive-cadmium and the negative cadmium readings. if the voltage of each cell will not come up to 2.5 to 2.7 volts on charge, or if the specific gravity will not rise to 1.280 or over, make the cadmium tests to determine whether both sets of plates, or one of them, give readings indicating that they are fully charged. if the positives will not give a reading of at least 2.35 volts, or if the negatives will not give a reversed reading of at least 0.1 volt, these plates lack capacity. in case of a battery on charge, if the negatives do not give a minus cadmium reading, they may be lacking in capacity, but, on the other hand, a minus negative cadmium reading does not prove that the negatives are up to hill capacity. a starting ability discharge test (page 267) is the only means of telling whether a battery is up to capacity. improperly treated separators will cause poor negative-cadmium readings to be obtained. the charging rate should be high enough to give cell voltages of 2.5-2.7 when testing negatives. otherwise it may not be possible to get satisfactory negative-cadmium reading. separators which have been allowed to become partly dry at any time will also make it difficult to obtain satisfactory negative-cadmium readings. high rate discharge testers (see page 265 for directions for making tests.) figure 128 shows a high rate discharge cell tester. it consists of a handle carrying two heavy prongs which are bridged by a length of heavy nichrome wire. when the ends of the prongs are pressed down on the terminals of a cell, a current of 150 to 200 amperes is drawn from the cell. a voltage reading of the cell, taken while this discharge current is flowing is a means of determining the condition of the cell, since the heavy discharge current duplicates the heavy current drawn by the starting motor. each prong carries a binding post, a low reading voltmeter being connected to these posts while the test is made. this form of discharge tester is riot suitable for making starting ability discharge tests, which are described on page 267. other forms of high rate discharge testers are made, but for the shop the type shown in figure 128 is most convenient, since it is light and portable and has no moving parts, and because the test is made very quickly without making any connections to the battery. furthermore, each cell is tested separately and thus six or twelve volt batteries may be tested without making any change in the tester. for making starting ability discharge tests at high rates, a carbon plate or similar rheostat is most suitable, and such rheostats are on the market. [fig. 128 high rate discharge tester] [fig. 129 paraffine dip pot] paraffine dip pot paper tags are not acid proof, and if acid is spilled on tags tied to batteries which are being repaired, the writing on the tags is often obliterated so that it is practically impossible to identify the batteries. an excellent plan to overcome this trouble is to dip the tags in hot paraffine after they have been properly filled out. the writing on the tags can be read easily and since paraffine is acid proof, any acid which may be spilled on the paraffine coated tags will not damage the tags in any way. figure 129 shows a paraffine dip pot. a small earthenware jar is best for this purpose. melt the paraffine slowly on a stove, pour it into the pot, and partly immerse a 60-watt carbon lamp in the paraffine as shown. the lamp will give enough heat to keep the paraffine melted, without causing it to smoke to any extent. after filling out a battery card, dip it into the paraffine, and hold the card above the pot to let the excess paraffine run off. let the paraffine dry before attaching the tag to the battery, otherwise the paraffine may be scratched off. wooden boxes for battery parts [fig. 130] fig. 130. boxes for holding parts of batteries being prepared figure 130 shows a number of wooden boxes, about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. these boxes are very useful for holding the terminals inter-cell connectors, covers, plugs, etc., of batteries which are dismantled for repairs. write the name of the owner with chalk on the end of the box, and rub the name off after the battery has been put together again. the boxes shown in figure 130 had been used for plug tobacco, and served the purpose very well. the larger box shown in figure 130 may be used for collecting old terminals, inter-cell connectors, lead drillings, etc. earthenware jars the twenty gallon size is very convenient for waste acid, old separators, and any junk parts which are wet with acid. the jars are acid proof and will help keep the shop floor dry and anything which will help in this is most desirable. acid carboys acid is shipped in large glass bottles around each of which a wooden box is built to prevent breakage, the combination being called a "carboy." since the acid is heavy, some means of drawing it out of the bottle is necessary. one method is illustrated in figure 131, wooden rockers being screwed to the box in which the bottle is placed. [fig. 131 a simple method of drawing acid from a carboy] a very good addition to the rockers shown in figure 131 is the inner tube shown in figure 132. in this illustration the rockers are not shown, but should be used. the combination of the rockers with the inner tube gives a very convenient method of pouring acid from a carboy, since the heavy bottle need not be lifted, and since it helps keep the floor and the top of the box dry. [fig. 132 use of inner tube to protect box when pouring acid] the rubber tube shown in figure 132 is a piece of 4 inch inner tube which is slit down one side to make it lie flat. near one end is cut a hole large enough to fit tightly over the neck of the acid bottle. slip this rubber over the neck of the bottle and allow the long end to hang a few inches over the side of the carboy bottle or box. this is for pouring acid from a carboy when it is too full to allow the contents to be removed without spilling. this device will allow the contents of the carboy to be poured into a crock or other receptacle placed on the floor without spilling, and also prevents dirt that may be laying on top of the carboy from falling into the crock. [fig. 133 siphon for drawing acid from carboy] figure 133 shows a siphon method for drawing acid from a bottle, although this method is more suitable for distilled water than for acid. "a" is the bottle, "b" a rubber stopper, "c" and "d" are 3/8 inch glass or hard rubber tubes, "e" is a length of rubber tubing having a pinch clamp at its lower end. to use this device, the stopper and tubes are inserted in the bottle, and air blown or pumped in at "c," while the pinch clamp is open, until acid or water begins to run out of the lower end of tubing "e." the pinch clamp is then released. whenever acid or water is to be drawn from the bottle the pinch clamp is squeezed so as to release the pressure on the tube. the water or acid will flow down the tube automatically as long as the pinch clamp is held open. the clamp may be made of flat or round spring brass or bronze. this is bent round at (a). at (c) an opening is made, through which the part (b) is bent. the clamp is operated by pressing at (d) and (e). the rubber tubing is passed through the opening between (b) and (c). this method is a very good one for the small bottle of distilled water placed on the charging bench to bring the electrolyte up to the proper height. the lower end of tube (e) is held over the vent hole of the cell. the pinch clamp is then squeezed and water will flow. releasing the clamp stops the flow of water instantly. if tube (e) is made long enough, the water bottle may be set on the elevated shelf extending down the center of the charging bench. [fig. 134 foot pump for drawing acid from carboy] figure 134 shows another arrangement, using a tire pump. d and e are 3/8 inch hard rubber tubes. d is open at both ends and has a "t" branch to which the pump tubing is attached. to operate, a finger is held over the upper end of d, and air is pumped into the acid bottle, forcing the acid into the vessel f. to stop the flow of acid, the finger is removed from d. this stops the flow instantly. this method is the most satisfactory one when fairly large quantities of acid or water are to be drawn off. shop layouts the degree of success which the battery repairman attains depends to a considerable extent upon the workshop in which the batteries are handled. it is, of course, desirable to be able to build your shop, and thus be able to have everything arranged as you wish. if you must work in a rented shop, select a place which has plenty of light and ventilation. the ventilation is especially important on account of the acid fumes from the batteries. a shop which receives most of its light from the north is the best, as the light is then more uniform during the day, and the direct rays of the sun are avoided. fig. 38 shows a light, well ventilated workroom. the floor should be in good condition, since acid rots the wood and if the floor is already in a poor condition, the acid will soon eat through it. a tile floor, as described below, is best. a wooden floor should be thoroughly scrubbed, using water to which baking soda has been added. then give the floor a coat of asphaltum paint, which should be applied hot so as to flow into all cracks in the wood. when the first coat is dry, several more coats should be given. whenever you make a solution of soda for any purpose, do not throw it away when you are through with it. instead, pour it on the floor where the acid is most likely to be spilled. this will neutralize the acid and prevent it from rotting the wood. if you can afford to build a shop, make it of brick, with a floor of vitrified brick, or of tile which is not less than two inches thick, and is preferably eight inches square. the seams should not be less than one-eighth inch wide, and not wider than one fourth. they should be grouted with asphaltum, melted as hot and as thin as possible (not less than 350â° f.). this should be poured in the seams. the brick or tile should be heated near the seams before pouring in the asphaltum. when all the seams have been filled, heat them again. after the second heating, the asphaltum may shrink, and it may be necessary to pour in more asphaltum. if possible, the floor should slope evenly from one end of the room to the other. a lead drainage trough and pipe at the lower end of the shop will carry off the acid and electrolyte. it is a good plan to give all work benches and storage racks and shelves at least two coatings of asphaltum paint. this will prevent rotting by the acid. the floor of a battery repair shop is, at best, a wet, sloppy affair, and if a lead drainage trough is too expensive, there should be a drain in the center of the floor if the shop is small, and several if the shop is a large one. the floor should slope toward the drains, and the drain-pipes should be made of glazed tile. to keep the feet as dry as possible, rubbers, or even low rubber boots should be worn. sulphuric acid ruins leather shoes, although leather shoes can be protected to a certain extent by dipping them in hot paraffine. [fig. 135 wooden grating on shop floor to give dry walking surface for the repairman] a good plan is to lay a wooden grating over the floor as shown in figure 135. water and acid will run down between the wooden strips, leaving the walking surface fairly dry. if such a grating is made, it should be built in sections which may be lifted easily to be washed, and to permit washing the floor. keep both the grating and the floor beneath covered with asphaltum paint to prevent rotting by acid. once a week, or oftener, if necessary, sweep up all loose dirt and then turn the hose on the floor and grating to wash off as much acid as possible. when the wood has dried, a good thing to do is to pour on the floor and grating several pails of water in which washing soda or ammonia has been dissolved. watch your floor. it will pay-in better work by yourself and by the men working for you. have large earthenware jars set wherever necessary in which lead drillings, old plates, old connectors, old separators, etc., may be thrown. do not let junk cases, jars, separators, etc., accumulate. throw them away immediately and keep your shop clean. a clean shop pleases your customers, --and satisfied customers mean success. on the following pages a number of shop layouts are given for both large and small shops. the beginner, of course, may not be able to rent even a small shop, but he may rent part of an established repair shop, and later rent an entire shop. a man working in a corner of an established service must arrange his equipment according to the space available. later on, when he branches out for himself, he should plan his shop to got the best working arrangement. figure 136 shows a suggested layout for a small shop. such a layout may have to be altered because of the size and shape of the shop, and the location of the windows. [fig. 136 floorplan: layout for a small shop] as soon as growth of business permits, a shop should have a drive-in, so that the customer may bring his car off the street. without a drive-in all testing to determine what work is necessary will have to be done at the curb, which is too public for many car owners. a drive-in is also convenient if a customer leaves his car while his battery is being repaired. to a certain extent, the advantages of a drive-in may be secured by having a vacant lot next to the shop, with a covering of cinders. as soon as possible, however, a shop which is large enough to have a drive-in should be rented or built. figure 137 shows a 24 x 60 shop with space for three cars. the shop equipment is explained in the table. figure 138 shows a 40 x 75 shop with room for six cars and a drive-in and drive-out. this facilitates the handling of the cars. figure 139 shows a 30 x 100 shop in a long and somewhat narrow building. it also has a drive-in and drive-out. another arrangement for the same sized shop as shown in the preceding illustration is shown in figure 140. here the drive-out is at the side and this layout is, therefore, suitable for a building located on a corner, or next to an alley. figure 141 shows a larger shop, which may be used after the business has grown considerably. figure 142 shows a layout suitable for the largest station. somewhere between figures 136 and 142 is a layout for any service station. the thing to do is to select the one most suitable for the size of the business, and to fit local conditions, if a special building is put up, local conditions are not so important. if a shop is rented, it may not be possible to follow any of the layouts shown in figs. 136 to 142. however, the layout which is best adapted for the actual shop should be selected as a guide, and the equipment shown obtained. this should then be arranged as nearly like the pattern layout as the shop arrangement will permit. concerning light light is essential to good work, so you must have plenty of good light and at the right place. for a light that is needed from one end of a bench to the other, to look into each individual battery, or to take the reading of each individual battery, there is nothing better than a 60 watt tungsten lamp under a good metal shade, dark on outside and white on inside. a unique way to hang a light and have it movable from one end of the bench to the other, is to stretch a wire from one end of the bench to the other. steel or copper about 10 or 12 b & s gauge may be used. stretch it about four or five feet above top of bench directly above where the light is most needed. if you have a double charging bench, stretch the wire directly above middle of bench. before fastening wire to support, slip an old fashioned porcelain knob (or an ordinary thread spool) on the wire. the drop cord is to be tied to this knob or spool at whatever height you wish the light to hang (a few inches lower than your head is the right height). put the ceiling rosette above center of bench; cut your drop cord long enough so that you can slide the light from one end of bench to the other after being attached to rosette. put vaseline on the wire so the fumes of gas will not corrode it. this will also make the spool slide easily. this gives you a movable, flexible light, with which you will reach any battery on bench for inspection. the work bench light can be rigged up the same way and a 75 or 100 watt nitrogen lamp used. [fig. 137 shop layout] [fig. 138 shop layout] fig. 137 and 138: a-receiving rack. b-portable electric drill, or hand drill. c-wash tank, d-tear down bench. e-hot water pan. f-waiting rack (5 shelves). g-repair bench (6 ft. by 2 ft. 3 in.). h-charging table (3 circuits). i-electrolyte(10 gal. crocks). j-separator rack. k-generator. l-switchboard. m-stock bins, n-new batteries, o-live storage. p-sealing compound. r-ready rack (5-shelves). s-dry storage. (s is not in fig. 137.) [fig. 139, 140 & 141 various shop layouts] fig. 139, 140 and 141: a-receiving rack. b-power drill. c-wash tank. d-tear down bench. e-hot water pan. f-waiting rack (6 shelves). g-repair bench. h-charging table (3 circuits). i-electrolyte (10 gal. crocks). j-separator rack. k-generator. l-switchboard. m-stock bins. n-new batteries. o-live storage. p-sealing compound. r-ready rack (5-shelves). s-dry storage. t-torn down parts. (o and t in 141, not in 139 and 140.) [fig. 142 shop layout] fig. 142: a-receiving rack. b-power drill. c-wash tank. d-tear down bench. e-hot water pan. f-waiting rack (6 shelves). g-repair bench. h-charging table. i-electrolyte (10 gal. crocks). j-separator rack. k-generator. l-switchboard. m-stock bins. n-new batteries. o-live storage. p-sealing compound. r-ready rack. s-dry storage. t-torn down parts. ======================================================================== chapter 12. general shop instructions. -------------------------charging batteries. the equipment for charging batteries, instructions for building and wiring charging benches have already been given. what we shall now discuss is the actual charging. the charge a battery receives on the charging bench is called a "bench charge." battery charging in the service station may be divided into two general classes: 1. charging batteries which have run down, but which are otherwise in good condition, and which do not require repairs. 2. charging batteries during or after the repair process. the second class of charging is really a part of the repair process and will-be described in the chapter on "rebuilding the battery." charging a battery always consists of sending a direct current through it, the current entering the battery at the positive terminal and leaving it at the negative terminal, the charging current, of course, passing through the battery in the opposite direction to the current which the battery produces when discharging. when a battery discharges chemical changes take place by means of which electrical energy is produced. when a battery is on charge, the charging current causes chemical changes which are the reverse of those which take place on discharge and which put the active materials and electrolyte in such a condition that the battery serves as a source of electricity when replaced in the car. batteries are charged not only in a repair shop but also in garages which board automobiles, and in car dealers' shops. no matter where a battery is charged, however, the same steps must be taken and the same precautions observed. when a bench charge is necessary: (a) when a battery runs down on account of the generator on the car not having a sufficient output, or on account of considerable night driving being done, or on account of frequent use of the starting motor, or on account of neglect on the part of the car owner. (b) batteries used on cars or trucks without a generator, or batteries used for radio work should, of course, be given a bench charge at regular intervals. (c) when the specific gravity readings of all cells are below 1.200, and these readings are within 50 points of each other. should the gravity reading of any cell be 50 points lower or higher than that of the other cells, it is best to make a 15-seconds high rate discharge test (see page 266) to determine whether the cell is defective or whether electrolyte has been lost due to flooding caused by over-filling and has been replaced by water or higher gravity electrolyte. if any defect shows up during the high rate test, the battery should be opened for inspection. if no defect shows up, put the battery on charge. (d) when the lamps burn dimly while the engine is running. (e) when the lamps become very dim when the starting switch is closed. if a battery is tested by turning on the lights and then closing the starting switch, make sure that there is no short-circuit or ground in the starting motor circuits. such trouble will cause a very heavy current to be drawn from the battery, resulting in a drop in the voltage of the battery. (f) when the voltage of the battery has fallen below 1.7 volts per cell, measured while all the lights are turned on. (g) when the owner has neglected to add water to the cells regularly, and the electrolyte has fallen below the tops of the plates. (h) when a battery has been doped by the addition of electrolyte or acid instead of water, or when one of the "dope" electrolytes which are advertised to make old, worn out batteries charge up in a ridiculously short time and show as much life and power as a new battery. use nothing but a mixture of distilled water and sulphuric acid for electrolyte. the "dope" solutions are not only worthless, but they damage a battery considerably and shorten its life. such a "doped" battery may give high gravity *readings and yet the lamps will become very dim when the starting motor cranks the car, the voltage per cell will be low when the lights are burning, or low voltage readings (1.50 per cell) will be obtained if a high rate discharge test is made. every battery which comes in for any reason whatsoever, or any battery which is given a bench charge whenever necessary should also be examined for other defects, such as poorly burned on connectors and terminals, rotted case, handles pulled off, sealing compound cracked, or a poor sealing job between the covers and jars, or covers and posts. a slight leakage of electrolyte through cracks or imperfect joints between the covers and jars or covers and posts is very often present without causing any considerable trouble. if any of the other troubles are found, however, the battery needs repairing. arrangement of batteries on charging bench. if a battery comes in covered with dirt, set it on the wash rack or in the sink and clean it thoroughly before putting it on charge. in setting the batteries on the charging bench, place all of them so that the positive terminal is toward the right as you face the bench. the positive terminal may be found to be painted red, or may be stamped "+", "p", or "pos". if the markings on one of the terminals has been scratched or worn off, examine the other terminal. the negative terminal may be found to be painted black, or be stamped "-", "n" or "neg". if neither terminal is marked, the polarity may be determined with a voltmeter, or by a cadmium test. to make the voltmeter test, hold the meter wires on the battery terminals, or the terminals of either end cell. when the voltmeter pointer moves to the right of the "0" line on the scale, the wire attached to the "+" terminal of the meter is touching the positive battery terminal, and the wire attached to the "-" terminal of the meter is touching the negative battery terminal. if this test is made with a meter having the "0" line at the center of the scale, be sure that you know whether the pointer should move to the left or right of the "0" line when the wire attached to the "+" meter terminal is touching the positive battery terminal. another method of determining which is the positive terminal of the battery is to use the cadmium test. when a reading of about two volts is obtained, the prod held on one of the cell terminals is touching the positive terminal. when a reading of almost zero is obtained, that is, when the needle of the meter just barely moves from the "0" line, or when it does not move at all, the prod held on one of the cell terminals is touching the negative terminal. this test, made while the battery is on open-circuit, is not a regular cadmium test, but is made merely to determine the polarity of the battery. the polarity of the charging line will always be known if the bench is wired permanently. the positive charging wire should always be to the right. if a separate switch is used for each battery (figures 43 and 65), the wire attached to the right side of the switch is positive. if the batteries are connected together by means of jumpers (figures 44 and 47), the positive charging wire should be at the right hand end of the bench as seen when facing the bench. if a constant-potential charging circuit is used as shown in figure 48, the positive bus-bar should be at the top and the neutral in the center, and the negative at the bottom. if the polarity of the charging line wires is not known, it may be determined by a voltmeter, in the same way as the batter-, polarity is determined. if this is done, care should be taken to use a meter having a range sufficient to measure the line voltage. if no such voltmeter is available, a simple test is to fill a tumbler with weak electrolyte or salt water and insert two wires attached to the line. the ends of these wires should, of course, be bare for an inch or more. hold these wires about an inch apart, with the line alive. numerous fine bubbles of gas will collect around the negative wire. with the polarities of all the batteries known, arrange them so that all the positive terminals are at the right. then connect them to the individual switches (see figure 43), or connect them together with jumpers (see figure 44), being sure to connect the negative of one battery to the positive of the next. connect the positive charging line wire to the positive terminal of the first battery, and the negative line wire to the negative terminal of the last battery. see page 105. with all connections made, and before starting to charge, go over all the batteries again very carefully. you cannot be too careful in checking the connections, for if one or more batteries are connected reversed, they will be charged in the wrong direction, and will most likely be severely damaged. as a final check on the connections of the batteries on the line, measure the total voltage of these batteries and see if the reading is equal to two times the total number of cells on the line. now inspect the electrolyte in each cell. if it is low, add distilled water to bring the electrolyte one-half inch above the plates. do not wait until a battery is charged before adding water. do it now. do not add so much water that the electrolyte comes above the lower end of the vent tube. this will cause flooding. charging, rate. if you connect batteries of various sizes together on one circuit, charge at the rate which is normal for the smallest battery. if the rate used is the normal one for the larger batteries, the smaller batteries will be overheated and "boiled" to death, or they may gas so violently as to blow a considerable portion of the active material from the plates. it is quite possible to charge 6 and 12 volt batteries in series. the important point is not to have the total number of cells too high. for instance, if the 10 battery tungar is used, ten 6-volt batteries (30 cells), or any combination which gives 30 cells or less may be used. for instance, five 12-volt batteries (30 cells), or six 6-volt batteries (18 cells) and two 12-volt batteries (12 cells), or any other combination totaling 30 cells may be used. the same holds true for motor-generators. the charging rate is generally determined by the size of the charging outfit. the ten battery tungar should never have its output raised above 6 amperes. a charging rate of 6 amperes is suitable for all but the very smallest batteries. in any case, whether you are certain just what charging rate to use, or not, there are two things which will guide you, temperature and gassing. 1. temperature. have a battery thermometer (figure 37) on hand, and measure the temperature of the electrolyte of each cell on the line. if you note that some particular cell is running hotter than the others, keep the thermometer in that cell and watch the temperature. do not let the temperature rise above 110 degrees fahrenheit, except for a very short time. should the highest of the temperature of the cells rise above 110 degrees, reduce the charging rate. 2. gassing. near the end of a charge and when the specific gravity has stopped rising, or is rising very slowly, bubbles of gas will rise from the electrolyte, this being due to the charging current decomposing the water of the electrolyte into hydrogen and oxygen. if this gassing is too violent, a considerable amount of active material will be blown from the plates. therefore, when this gassing begins, the charging rate should be reduced, unless the entire charging has been done at a low rate, say about five amperes. if gassing begins in any cell soon after the charge is started, or before the specific gravity has reached its highest point, reduce the charging rate to eliminate the gassing. if one battery or one cell shows a high temperature and the others do not, or begins gassing long before the others do, remove that battery from the charging line for further investigation and replace it with another so as not to slow up the charge of the other batteries which are acting normally. as long as excessive temperatures and too-early gassing are avoided, practically any charging rate may be used, especially at the start. with a constant potential charging set, as shown in figure 48, the charge may start at as high a rate as 50 amperes. if this system of charging is used, the temperature must be watched very carefully and gassing must be looked for. with the usual series method of charging, a charge may, in an emergency, be started at 20 amperes or more. as a general rule do not use a higher rate than 10 amperes. a five ampere rate is even better, but more time will be required for the charge. time required for a charge. the time required is not determined by the clock, but by the battery. continue the charge until each cell is gassing freely (not violently) and for five hours after the specific gravity has stopped rising. the average condition of batteries brought in for charge permits them to be fully charged in about 48 hours, the time being determined as stated above. some batteries may charge fully in less time, and some may require from four days to a week, depending entirely upon the condition of the batteries. do not give any promise as to when a recharge battery will be ready. no one can tell how long it will take to charge. specific gravity at the end of the charge. the specific gravity of the electrolyte in a fully charged cell should be from 1.280 to 1.300. if it varies more than 10 points above or below these values, adjust it by drawing off some of the electrolyte with a hydrometer and adding water to lower the gravity, or 1.400 acid to raise the gravity. after adjusting the gravity charge for one hour more. battery voltage at end of charge. the voltage of a fully charged cell is from 2.5 to 2.7 when the temperature of the electrolyte is 80 degrees fahrenheit; 2.4 to 2.6 when the temperature of the electrolyte is 100 degrees fahrenheit, and 2.35 to 2.55 volts when the temperature of the electrolyte is 120 degrees fahrenheit, and this voltage, together with hydrometer readings of 1.280-1.300 indicate that the battery is fully charged. just before putting a battery which has been charged into service, give it a 15 seconds high rate discharge test, see page 266. painting. before returning a battery to the owner wipe it perfectly clean and dry. then wipe the covers, terminals, connectors and handles with a rag wet with ammonia. next give the case a light coat of black paint which may be made by mixing lamp black and shellac. this paint dries in about five minutes and gives a good gloss. the customer may not believe that you are returning the battery which he brought in but he will most certainly be pleased with your service and will feel that if you take such pains with the outside of his battery you will certainly treat the inside with the same care when repairs are necessary. the light coat of paint costs very little for one battery, but may bring you many dollars worth of work. level of electrolyte. during charge the electrolyte will expand, and will generally flow out on the covers. this need not be wiped off until the end of the charge. when the electrolyte has cooled after the battery is taken off charge, it must be about 1/2 inch above the plates. while the electrolyte is still warm it will stand higher than this, but it should not be lowered by drawing off some of it, as this will probably cause it to be below the tops of the plates and separators when it cools. troubles if all goes well, the charging process will take place as described in the preceding paragraphs. it frequently happens, however, that all does not go well, and troubles arise. such troubles generally consist of the following: specific gravity will not rise to 1.280. this may be due to the plates not taking a full charge, or to water having been used to replace electrolyte which has been spilled. to determine which of these conditions exist, make cadmium test (see page 174) on the positives and negatives, also measure the voltage of each cell. if these tests indicate that the plates are fully charged (cell voltage 2.5 to 2.7, positive-cadmium 2.4 volts, negative-cadmium minus 0.15 to 0.20 volts), you will know that there is not enough acid in the electrolyte. the thing to do then is to dump out the old electrolyte, refill with 1.300 electrolyte and continue the charge until the specific gravity becomes constant. some adjustment may then have to be made by drawing off some of the electrolyte with a hydrometer and adding water to lower the gravity, or 1.400 acid to bring it up. remember that specific gravity readings tell you nothing about the plates, unless it is known that the electrolyte contains the correct proportions of water and acid. the cadmium test is the test which tells you directly whether or not the plates are charged and in charging a battery the aim is to charge the plates, and not merely to bring the specific gravity to 1.280. if the specific gravity will not rise to 1.280 and cadmium tests show that the plates will not take a full charge, then the battery is, of course, defective in some way. if the battery is an old one, the negatives are probably somewhat granulated, the positives have probably lost much of their active material, resulting in a considerable amount of sediment in the jars, and the separators are worn out, carbonized, or clogged with sediment. such a battery should not be expected to give as good service as a new one, and the best thing to do if the tests show the battery to be more than half charged, is to put it back on the car, taking care to explain to the owner why his battery will not "come up" and telling him that he will soon need a new battery. remember that improperly treated separators, or defective separators will cause poor negative-cadmium readings to be obtained. if a fairly new battery will not take a full charge, as indicated by hydrometer readings and cadmium tests, some trouble has developed due to neglect, abuse, or defect in manufacture. if all cells of a fairly new battery fail to take a full charge within 48 hours, the battery has probably been abused by failing to add water regularly, or by allowing battery to remain in an undercharged condition. such a battery should be kept on the line for several days more, and if it then still will not take a full charge the owner should be told what the condition of the battery is, and advised to have it opened for inspection. if one cell of a battery fails to take a charge, but the other cells charge satisfactorily, and cadmium tests show that the plates of this cell are not taking a charge, the cell should be opened for inspection. if one cell of a battery charges slowly, cut the other cells out of the line, and charge the low cell in series with the other batteries on the charging line. if all cells of a battery, whether new or old, will not take even half a charge, as indicated by hydrometer readings (1.200), the battery should be opened for inspection. if the gravity of a battery on charge begins to rise long before the voltage rises, and if the gravity rises above 1.300, there is too great a proportion of acid in the electrolyte. the remedy is to dump out the electrolyte, refill with pure water and continue the charge at a lower rate than before, until the specific gravity stops rising. then charge for ten hours longer, dump out the water (which has now become electrolyte by the acid formed by the charging current), refill with about 1.350 electrolyte and continue the charge, balancing the gravity if necessary at the end of the charge. if a battery becomes very hot while on charge at a rate which is not normally too high for the battery, it indicates that the battery is badly sulphated, or has a partial short-circuit. gassing generally goes with the high temperature. if you can detect a vinegar-like odor rising from the vent holes, you may be absolutely sure that the separators used in that battery have developed acetic acid due to not having received the proper treatment necessary to prepare them for use in the battery. the electrolyte should be dumped from such a battery immediately and the battery should be filled and rinsed with water several times. then the battery should be opened without loss of time, to see whether, by removing the separators and washing the plates thoroughly, the plates may be saved. if the acetic acid has been present for any length of time, however, the plates will have been ruined beyond repair, the lead parts being dissolved by the acid. if the electrolyte of a battery on charge has a white, milky look, there may be impurities which cause numerous minute bubbles to form, such bubbles giving the electrolyte its milky appearance. the milky appearance may be due to the use of "hard" water in refilling, this water containing lime. the electrolyte as seen with the acid of an electric lamp or flashlight should be perfectly clear and colorless. any scum, particles of dirt, any color whatsoever shows that the electrolyte is impure. this calls for dumping out the electrolyte, filling and rinsing with pure water, refilling with new electrolyte and putting the battery back on the charging line. of course, this may not cause the battery to charge satisfactorily, which may be due to the troubles already described. should it ever happen that it is impossible to send a current through a charging circuit go over all the connections to make sure that you have good contact at each battery terminal, and that there are no loose inter-cell connectors. if all connections to the batteries are good, and there are no loose inter-cell connectors, cut out one battery at a time until you start the current flowing, when you cut out some particular battery. this battery should then be opened without further tests, as it is without a doubt in a bad condition. the conditions which may exist when a battery will not charge, as shown especially by cadmium tests, are as follows: (a) the battery may have been allowed to remain in a discharged condition, or the owner may have neglected to add water, with the result that the electrolyte did not cover the plates. in either case a considerable amount of crystallized sulphate will have formed in the plates. plates in such a condition will require a charge of about a week at a low rate and will then have to be discharged and recharged again. several such cycles of charge and discharge may be necessary. it may even be impossible to charge such a battery, no matter how many cycles of charge and discharge are given. if the owner admits that his battery has been neglected and allowed to stand idle for a considerable time, get his permission to open the battery. (b) the battery may have been overheated by an excessive charging rate, or by putting it on a car in a sulphated condition. the normal charging rate of the generator on the car will over heat a sulphated battery. overheated plates buckle their lower edges cut through the separators, causing a short-circuit between plates. (c) the pockets in the bottoms of the jars may have become filled with sediment, and the sediment may be short-circuiting the plates. (d) impurities may have attacked the plates and changed the active materials to other substances which do not form a battery. such plates may be so badly damaged that they are brittle and crumbled. acetic acid from improperly treated separators will dissolve lead very quickly, and may even cause an open circuit in the cell. (e) the conditions described in (a), (b), and (c) will permit a charging current to pass through the battery, but the plates will not become charged. it is possible, of course, but not probable, that a condition may exist in which all the plates of one or both groups of a cell may be broken from the connecting straps, or inter-cell connectors may be making no contact with the posts. in such a case, it would be impossible to send a charging current through the battery. acetic acid from improperly treated separators, and organic matter introduced by the use of impure water in refilling will attack the lead of the plates, especially at the upper surface of the electrolyte, and may dissolve all the plate lugs from the connecting straps and cause an open-circuit. (f) the separators may be soggy and somewhat charred and blackened, or they may be clogged up with sulphate, and the battery may need new separators. (g) the spongy lead may be bulged, or the positives may be buckled. the active material is then not making good contact with the grids, and the charging current cannot get at all the sulphate and change it to active material. the remedy in such a case is to press the negatives so as to force the active material back into the grids, and to put in new positives if they are considerably buckled. (h) one of the numerous "dope" electrolytes which are offered to the trustful car owner may have been put in the battery. such "dopes" might cause very severe damage to the plates. tell your customers to avoid using such "dope." the conditions which may exist when the plates of a battery take a charge, as indicated by cadmium tests, but the gravity will not come up to 1.280 are as follows: (a) there may be considerable sediment in the jars but not enough to short circuit the plates. if the battery has at some time been in a sulphated condition and has been charged at too high a rate, the gassing that resulted will have caused chips of the sulphate to drop to the bottom of the jars. when this sulphate was formed, some of the acid was taken from the electrolyte, and if the sulphate drops from the plates, this amount of acid cannot be recovered no matter how long the charge is continued. if the owner tells you that his battery has stood idle for several months at some time, this is a condition which may exist. the remedy is to wash and press the negatives, wash the positives, put in new separators, pour out the old electrolyte and wash out the jars, fill with 1.400 acid, and charge the battery. (b) impurities may have used up some of the acid which cannot be recovered by charging. if the plates are not much damaged the remedy is the same as for (a). damaged plates may require renewal. (c) electrolyte may have been spilled accidentally and replaced by water. (d) too much water may have been added, with the result that the expansion of the electrolyte due to a rise in temperature on charge caused it to overflow. this, of course, resulted in a loss of some of the acid. the causes given in (c) and (d) may have resulted in the top of the battery case being acid-eaten or rotted. the remedy in these two instances is to draw off some of the electrolyte, add some 1.400 acid and continue the charge. if plates and separators look good and there is but little sediment, this is the thing to do. if battery will not hold a charge. if a battery charges properly but loses its charge in a week or less, as indicated by specific gravity readings, the following troubles may exist: (a) impurities in the cells, due to the use of impure water in the electrolyte, or in the separators. some impurities (see page 76) do not attack the plates, but merely cause self-discharge. the remedy is to dump out the old electrolyte, rinse the jars with pure water, fill with new electrolyte of the same gravity as the old and recharge. if this does not remove impurities, the battery should be opened, the plates washed, jars cleaned out, new separators put in, and battery reassembled and charged. (b) there may be a slow short-circuit, due to defective separators or excessive amount of sediment. if preliminary treatment in (a) does not cause battery to hold charge, the opening of battery and subsequent treatment will remove the cause of the slow short-circuit. suggestions 1. make sure every battery is properly tagged before going on line. 2. determine as quickly as possible from day to day, those batteries that will not charge. call owner and get permission to open up any such battery and do whatever is necessary to put it in good shape. 3. as soon as a battery charges to 1.280-1.300, the voltage is 2.5-2.7 per cell and the cadmium readings are 2.4 or more for the positives and -0.15 to -0.20 for the negatives and the gravity voltage and cadmium readings do not change for five hours, remove it from the line as finished and replace it with another if possible. go over your line at least three times a day and make gravity, temperature, and cadmium tests. 4. make a notation, with chalk, of the gravity of each cell each morning. do not trust to memory. 5. remove from the line as soon as possible any battery that has a leaky cell and neutralize with soda the acid that has leaked out. 6. batteries that are sloppers, with rotten cases, and without handles are sick and need a doctor. go after the owner and get permission to repair. 7. keep the bench orderly and clean. 8. remember that if you have a line only partly full and have other batteries waiting to be charged you are losing money by not keeping a full line. 9. leave the vent plugs in when charging. the atmosphere in many service stations, where the ventilation is poor, is so filled with acid fumes that customers object to doing business there. the owners of these places may not notice these conditions, being used to it, or rather glory in being able to breathe such air without coughing or choking, but it certainly does not invite a customer to linger and spend his money. the remedy for such a condition is to leave the vent plugs in place on the batteries that are charging so that the acid spray in the gas from the battery condenses out as it strikes these plugs and drips back into the cells, while the gas passes out through the small openings in the plug. the plugs need only be screwed into the openings by one turn, or only set on top of the vent openings to accomplish the result. this takes no additional time and more than repays for itself in the saving of rusted tools and improved conditions in the battery room and surroundings. in charging old exide batteries, be sure to replace the vent plugs and turn them to open the air passages which permit the escape of gases which form under the covers. if you wish to keep these air passages open without replacing the plugs, which may be done for convenience, give the valve (see page 21) a quarter turn with a screwdriver or some other tool. 10. if the electrolyte from a battery rises until it floods over the top of the jar, it shows that too much water was added when the battery was put on charge, the water rising to the bottom of the vent tube, thereby preventing gases formed (except those directly below the vent hole) from escaping. this gas collects under the covers, and its pressure forces the electrolyte up into the vent hole and over the top of the battery. in charging old u.s.l. batteries it is especially necessary to keep the air vent (see page 20) open to prevent flooding, since the lower end of the vent tube is normally a little below the surface of the electrolyte. remember, do not have the electrolyte come up to the lower end of the vent tube. note: to obtain satisfactory negative cadmium readings, the charging rate should be high enough to give a cell voltage of 2.5-2.7. improperly treated separators, or separators which have been allowed to become partly dry at any time will make it impossible to obtain satisfactory negative cadmium readings. lead burning (welding) lead cannot be "burned" in the sense that it bursts into flame as a piece of paper does when a match is applied to it. if sufficient heat is applied, the lead will oxidize and feather away into a yellow looking dust, but it does not burn. the experienced battery man knows that by "lead burning" is meant the heating of lead to its melting point, so that two lead surfaces will weld together. this is a welding and not a "burning" process, and much confusion would be avoided if the term "lead welding" were used in place of the term "lead burning." the purpose of welding lead surfaces together is to obtain a joint which offers very little resistance to the flow of current, it being absolutely necessary to have as low a resistance as possible in the starting circuit. welding also makes joints which are strong mechanically and which cannot corrode or become loose as bolted connections do. some earlier types of starting and lighting batteries had inter-cell connectors which were bolted to the posts, but these are no longer used. the different kinds of lead-burning outfits are listed on page 143 the oxygen-acetylene and the oxygen-hydrogen flames give extremely high temperatures and enable you to work fast. where city gas is available, the oxygen illuminating gas combination will give a very good flame which is softer than the oxygen acetylene, oxygen-hydrogen outfits. acetylene and compressed air is another good combination. there are two general classes of lead-welding: (a) welding connecting bars, called "cell" connectors, top connectors, or simply "connectors," to the posts which project up through the cell covers, and welding terminals to the end posts of a battery. (b) welding plates to "straps" to form groups. the straps, of course, have joined to them the posts which project through the cell covers and by means of which cells are connected together, and connections made to the electrical system of the car. in addition to the above, there are other processes in which a burning (welding) flame is used: (c) post-building, or building posts, which have been drilled or cut short, up to their original size. (d) extending plate lug. if the lug which connects a plate to the plate strap is too short, due to being broken, or cut too short, the lug may be extended by melting lead into a suitable iron form placed around the lug. (e) making temporary charging connections between cells by lightly welding lead strips to the posts so as to connect the cells together. (f) a lead-burning (welding) flame is also used to dry out the channel in cell covers before pouring in the sealing compound, in re-melting sealing compound which has already been poured, so as to assure a perfect joint between the compound cover and jar, and to give the compound a smooth glossy finish. these processes are not welding processes and will not be described here. general lead burning instructions flame. with all the lead burning outfits, it is possible to adjust the pressures of the gases so as to get extremely hot, medium, and soft flames. with the oxygen-acetylene, or oxygen-hydrogen flame, each gas should have a pressure of about two pounds. with the oxygen-illuminating gas flame, the oxygen should have a pressure of 8 to 10 pounds. the city gas then does not need to have its pressure increased by means of a pump, the normal pressure (6 to 8 ounces) being satisfactory. various makes of lead-burning outfits are on the market, and the repairman should choose the one which he likes best; since they all give good results. all such outfits have means of regulating the pressures of the gases used. with some the gases are run close to the burning tip before being mixed, and have an adjusting screw where the gases mix. others have a y shaped mixing valve at some distance from the burning tip, as shown in figure 78. still others have separate regulating valves for each gas line. with these adjustments for varying the gas pressure, extremely hot, hissing flames, or soft flames may be obtained. for the different welding jobs, the following flames are suitable: 1. a sharp, hissing flame, having a very high temperature is the one most suitable for the first stage in welding terminals and connectors to the posts. 2. a medium flame with less of a hiss is suitable for welding plates to strips and lengthening plate lugs. 3. a soft flame which is just beginning to hiss is best for the finishing of the weld between the posts and terminals or connectors. this sort of a flame is also used for finishing a sealing job, drying out the cover channels before sealing, and so on. in adjusting the burning flame, 4 the oxygen is turned off entirely, a smoky yellow flame is obtained. such a flame gives but little heat. as the oxygen is gradually turned on the flame becomes less smoky and begins to assume a blue tinge. it will also be noticed that a sort of a greenish cone forms in the center portion of the flame, with the base of the cone at the torch and the tip pointed away from the torch. at first this inner-cone is long and of almost the same color as the outer portion of the flame. as the oxygen pressure is increased, this center cone becomes shorter and of a more vivid color, and its tip begins to whip about. when the flame is at its highest temperature it will produce a hissing sound and the inner cone will be short and bright. with a softer flame, which has a temperature suitable for welding plates to a strap, the inner cone will be longer and less vivid, and the hissing will be greatly diminished. the temperature of the different parts of the flame varies considerably, the hottest part being just beyond the end of the inner cone. experience with the particular welding outfit used will soon show how far the tip of the torch should be held from the lead to be melted. cleanliness. lead surfaces which are to be welded together must be absolutely free from dirt. lead and dirt will not mix, and the dirt will float on top of the lead. therefore, before trying to do any lead welding, clean the surfaces which are to be joined. the upper ends of plate lugs may be cleaned with a flat file, knife., or wire brush. the posts and inter-cell connectors should be cleaned with a knife, steel wire brush, or triangular scraper. do not clean the surfaces and then wait a long time before doing the lead burning. the lead may begin to oxidize if this is done and make it difficult to do a good job. the surfaces which are to be welded together should also be dry. if there is a small hole in the top of a post which is to be welded to a connector or terminal, and this hole contains acid, a shower of hot lead may be thrown up by the acid, with possible injury to the operator. do not try to save time by attempting to weld dirty or wet lead surfaces, because time cannot be saved by doing so, and you run the risk of being injured if hot lead is thrown into your face. remove absolutely every speck of dirt--you will soon learn that it is the only way to do a good job. safety precautions. remove the vent plugs and blow down through the vent holes to remove any gases which may have collected above the surface of the electrolyte. an explosion may result if this is not done. to protect the rubber covers, you may cover the whole top of the battery except the part at which the welding is to be done, with a large piece of burlap or a towel which has been soaked in water. the parts covered by the cloth must be dried thoroughly if any welding on them. instead of using a wet cloth, a strip of asbestos may be laid over the vent holes, or a small square of asbestos may be laid over each vent hole. burning on the cell connectors and terminals have the posts perfectly clean and free from acid. clean the tops, bottoms and sides of the connectors with a wire brush, figure 143. finish the top surfaces with a coarse file, figure 144. with a pocket knife clean the inside surfaces of the connector holes. place the connectors and terminals in their proper positions on the posts, and with a short length of a two by two, two by one, or two by four wood pound them snugly in position, figure 145. be sure that the connectors are perfectly level and that the connectors are in the correct position as required on the car on which the battery is to be used. the top of the post should not come flush with the top of the connector. note, from figure 146, that the connector has a double taper, and that the lower tapered surface is not welded to the post. if the post has been built up too high it should be cut down with a pair of end cutting nippers so that the entire length of the upper taper in the connector is in plain sight when the connector is put in position on the post. this is shown in figure 146. with the connectors in place, and before welding them to the posts, measure the voltage of the whole battery to be sure that the cells are properly connected, as shown by the voltage reading being equal to two times the number of cells. if one cell has been reversed, as shown by a lower voltage reading now is the time to correct the mistake. [fig. 143 brushing connector before burning in] [fig. 144 rasping connector before burning in] the connectors and terminals are now ready to be welded to the posts. before bringing any flame near the battery be sure that you have blown out any gas which may have collected under the covers. then cover the vents with asbestos or a wet cloth as already described. you will need strips of burning lead, such as those made in the burning lead mould described on page 164. use a hot, hissing flame for the first stage. with the flame properly adjusted, hold it straight above the post, and do not run it across the top of the battery. now bring the flame straight down over the center of the post, holding it so that the end of the inner cone of the flame is a short distance above the post. when the center of the post begins to melt, move the flame outward with a circular motion to gradually melt the whole top of the post, and to melt the inner surface of the hole in the connector. then bring the lower end of your burning lead strip close to and over the center of the hole, and melt in the lead, being sure to keep the top of the post and the inner surface of the hole in the connector melted so that the lead you are melting in will flow together and unite. melt in lead until it comes up flush with the upper surface of the connector. then remove the flame. this completes the first stage of the welding process. now repeat the above operation for each post and terminal. [fig. 145 leveling top connectors before burning in] it is essential that the top of the post and the inner surface of the hole in the connector be kept melted as long as you are running in lead from the strip of burning lead. this is necessary to have all parts fuse together thoroughly. if you allow the top of the post, or the inner surface of the hole in the connector to chill slightly while you are feeding in the lead, the parts will not fuse, and the result will be a poor joint, which will heat up and possibly reduce the current obtained from the battery when the starting switch is closed. this reduction may prevent the starting motor from developing sufficient torque to crank the engine. when the joint cools, the lead will shrink slightly over the center of the posts. to finish the welding, this lead is to be built up flush or slightly higher than the connector. brush the tops of the post and connector thoroughly with a wire brush to remove any dirt which may have been floating in the lead. (dirt always floats on top of the lead.) soften the burning flame so that it is just barely beginning to hiss. bring the flame down over the center of the post. when this begins to melt, move the flame outward with a circular motion until the whole top of post and connector begins to melt and fuse. if necessary run in some lead from the burning lead strip. when the post and connector are fused, clear to the outer edge of the connector, raise the flame straight up from the work. [fig. 146 connector in position on post for for welding to post. surfaces a-b are not welded together] you will save time by doing the first stage of the burning on all posts first, and then finish all of them. this is quicker than trying to complete both stages of burning on each post before going to the next post. the object in the finishing stage is to melt a thin layer of the top of post and connector, not melting deep enough to have the outer edge of the connector melt and allow the lead to run off. all this must be done carefully and dexterously to do a first-class job, and you must keep the flame moving around over the top and not hold it in any one place for ally length of time, so as not to melt too deep, or to melt the outer edge and allow the lead to run off and spoil the job. sometimes the whole mass becomes too hot and the top cannot be made smooth with the flame. if this occurs wait until the connector cools, soften the flame, and try again. figure 147 shows the welding completed. [fig. 147 connectors "burned" to posts] burning plates to strap and post first clean all the surfaces which are to be welded together. take your time in doing this because you cannot weld dirty surfaces together. plates which compose a group are welded to a "strap" to which a post is attached, as shown in figure 5. the straps shown in figure 5 are new ones, as made in the factory. plate lugs are set in the notches in the straps and each one burned in separately. in using old straps from a defective group, it is best to cut the strap close to the post, thus separating all the plates from the post in one operation, as was done with the post shown in figure 96. if only one or two plates are to be burned on, they are broken or cut off and slots cut in the strap to receive the lugs of the new plates, as shown in figures 148 and 149. [fig. 148 sawing slot in plate strap] set the plates in a plate burning rack, as shown in figure 96, placing the adjustable form around the lugs and strap as shown in this figure. be sure to set the post straight, so that the covers will fit. a good thing is to try a cover over the post to see that the post is set up properly. the post must, of course, be perpendicular to the tops of the plates. if the slotted plate strap shown in figure 5 is used, or if one or two plates have been cut off, melt the top of the lug of one of the plates which are to be burned oil, and the surfaces of the strap to which the plate is to be welded. melt in lead from a burning-lead strip to bring the metal up flush with the surface of the strap. proceed with each plate which is to be burned on. if all the plates have been sawed from the strap, leaving the post with a short section of the strap attached, as shown in figure 96, melt the edge of the strap, and the top of one or two of the end plate lugs and run in lead from the burning strip to make a good joint. proceed in this way until all the lugs are joined to the strap and then run the flame over the top of the entire strap to make a smooth uniform weld. be sure to have the lower edge of the strap fuse with the plate lugs and then run in lead to build the strap up to the proper thickness. raise the flame occasionally to see that all parts are fusing thoroughly and to prevent too rapid heating. [fig. 149 slotting saw, a group with two plates cut off, and slots in strap for new plates] when enough lead has been run in to build the strap tip to the correct thickness and the plate lugs are thoroughly fused with the strap, raise the flame straight up from the work. allow the lead to "set" and then remove the adjustable form and lift the group from the burning rack. turn the group up-side-down and examine the bottom of the strap for lead which ran down the lugs during the welding process. cut off any such lead with a saw, as it may cause a short-circuit when the plates are meshed with the other group. post building in drilling down through the inter-cell connectors to separate them from the posts in opening a battery, the posts may be drilled too short. in reassembling the battery it is then necessary to build the posts up to their original height. this is done with the aid of post-builders, shown in figure 100. clean the stub of the post thoroughly and also clean the inside of the post builder. then set the post builder carefully over the stub post, so that the upper surface of the post builder is parallel to the upper surface of the plate strap. the built up post will then be perpendicular to the surface of the strap, which is necessary, in order to have the covers and connectors fit properly. with the post builder set properly adjust the burning torch to get a sharp, hissing flame. bring the flame straight down on the center of the post stub. when the center of the post stub begins to melt, move the flame outward with a circular motion until the whole top of the stub begins to melt. then run in lead from a burning lead strip, figure 101, at the same time keeping the flame moving around on the top of the post to insure a good weld. in this way build up the post until the lead comes up to the top of the post builder. then lift the flame straight up from the post. allow the lead to set, and then remove the post builder, grasping it with a pair of gas or combination pliers and turn the post builder around to loosen it. extending plate lugs it sometimes happens that a good plate is broken from a strap, thus shortening the lug. before the plate may be used again, the lug must be extended to its original length. to do this, clean the surfaces of the lug carefully, lay the plate on a sheet of asbestos, and place an iron form having a slot of the correct width, length, and thickness, as shown in figure 150. use a medium hissing flame, and melt the upper edge of the lug, and then run in lead from the lead burning strip to fill the slot in the iron form. the plate may then be used again. [fig. 150 extending lug on plate] making temporary charging connections after a battery has been opened it is often desired to charge a battery without burning on the intercell connectors. temporary connections may be made between cells by placing a short length of a burning lead strip from post to post and applying a flame for an instant to spot-weld the strip to the top of the post. moulding lead parts in using special moulds for casting inter-cell connectors, plate straps with posts, terminals, etc., follow the special instructions furnished by the manufacturers as to the manipulation of the special moulds made by them. aside from the special instructions for the use of moulds, there are general rules for the melting of lead and handling it after it is melted, which must be observed if good castings are to be made. raw materials. in every battery repair shop a supply of old terminals, cell connectors, posts, and straps, will gradually accumulate. these should not be thrown away or sold as junk, but should be kept in a box or jar provided for that purpose. old plates should not be saved, since the amount of lead in the grid is small and it is often covered with sulphate. the lugs connecting the plates to the straps may, however, be used. before using the scrap lead as much dirt as possible should be brushed off, and all moisture must be dried off thoroughly. scrap lead contains some antimony, which is metal used to give stiffness to the parts. using miscellaneous scrap sometimes gives castings which do not contain the proper percentage of antimony. if there is too much antimony present, cracked castings will be the result. to remedy this condition, bars of pure lead should be purchased from some lead manufacturing company. adding pure lead will reduce the percentage of antimony. bars of pure antimony should also be kept oil hand in case the castings are too soft. lead melting pots are standard articles which may be purchased from jobbers. a pot having a 25 pound capacity is suitable for small shops and for larger shops a 125-pound size is best. before melting any lead in such pots, have them thoroughly free from dirt, grease, or moisture, not merely in order to get clean castings, but also to avoid melted lead being thrown out of the pot on account of the presence of moisture. severe burns may be the result of carelessness in this respect. in starting with an empty melting pot, turn oil the heat before putting in any lead, and let the pot become thoroughly heated in order to drive off any moisture. with the pot thoroughly hot, drop in the lead, which must also be dry. when the metal has become soft enough to stir with a clean pine stick, skim off the dirt and dross which collects on top and continue heating the lead until it is slightly yellow oil top. dirt and lead do not mix, and the dirt rises to the top of the metal where it may readily be skimmed off. with a paddle or ladle, drop in a cleaning compound of equal parts of powdered rosin, borax, and flower of sulphur. use a teaspoonful of this compound for each ten pounds of metal, and be sure that the compound is absolutely dry. stir the metal a little, and if it is at the proper temperature, there will be a flare, flash, or a little burning. a sort of tinfoil popcorn effect will be noticed oil top of the lead. stir until this melts down. have the ladle with which you dip up the melted lead quite dry. when dipping up some of the lead, skim back the dark skin which forms oil top of the lead and dip up the clean bright lead for pouring. in throwing additional lead into a pot which is partly filled with melted lead, be sure that the lead which is thrown in the pot is dry, or else hot lead may be spattered in your face. have the moulds clean and dry. the parts with which the lead comes into contact should be dusted with a mould compound which fills in the rough spots in the metal so that the flow of lead will not be obstructed, and the lead will fill the mould quickly. dip tip enough lead to fill the part of the mould you use. when you once start pouring do not, under any circumstance, stop pouring until the lead has completely filled the mould. lead cools very quickly after it is poured into the mould, and if you stop pouring even for all instant, you will have a worthless casting. in a shop having an ordinary room temperature, it is generally unnecessary to heat the moulds before making up a number of castings. if it is found, however, that the first castings are defective due to the cold mould chilling the lead, the mould should be heated with a soft flame. after a few castings have been made, the mould will become hot enough so that there will be no danger of the castings becoming chilled. when the castings have cooled sufficiently to be removed, strike the mould a few blows with a wooden mallet or a rawhide hammer to loosen, the castings before opening the mould. the castings may then be removed with a screwdriver. cracked castings indicate that the mould was opened before the castings had cooled sufficiently, or that there is too much antimony in the castings. the remedy is to let the castings cool for a longer time, or to add pure lead to the melting pot. handling and mixing acid the electrolyte used in the battery is made by mixing chemically pure concentrated sulphuric acid with chemically pure water. the concentrated acid, or "full strength" acid cannot be used, not only because it would destroy the plates, but also because water is needed for the chemical actions which take place as a cell charges and discharges. the water therefore serves, not only to dilute the acid, but also to make possible the chemical reactions of charge and discharge. the full strength acid has a specific gravity of 1.835, and is mixed with the water to obtain the lower specific gravity which is necessary in the battery. the simplest scheme is to use only 1.400 specific gravity acid. this acid is used in adjusting the specific gravity of a battery on charge in case the specific gravity fails to rise to a high enough value. it is also used in filling batteries that have been repaired. acid is received from the manufacturer in ten gallon glass bottles enclosed in wooden boxes, these being called "carboys." distilled water comes in similar bottles. when distilled in the shop, the water should be collected in bottles also, although smaller ones may be used. neither the acid nor the water should ever be placed in any vessels but those made of lead, glass, porcelain, rubber, or glazed earthenware. lead cups, tanks, and funnels may be used in handling electrolyte, but the electrolyte must not be put in containers made of any metal except lead. lead is rather expensive for making such containers, and the glass bottles, porcelain, rubber, or glazed earthenware may be used. in mixing acid with water, pour the water in the bottle, pitcher or jar, and then add the acid to the water very slowly. do not pour the acid in quickly, as the mixture will become very hot, and may throw spray in your face and eyes and cause severe burns. never add the water to the acid, as this might cause an explosion and burn your face and eyes seriously. stir the mixture thoroughly with a wooden paddle while adding the acid. a graduate, such as is used in photography, is very useful in measuring out the quantities of acid and water. the graduate may be obtained in any size up to 64 ounces, or two quarts. in using the graduate for measuring both acid and water, be sure to use the following table giving the parts of water by volume. although the graduate is marked in ounces, it is for ounces of water only. if, for instance, the graduate were filled to the 8 ounce mark with acid, there would be more than eight ounces of acid in the graduate because the acid is heavier than the water. but if the proportions of acid and water are taken by volume, the graduate may be used. a convenient method in making up electrolyte, is to have a 16 ounce graduate for the acid, and a 32 or 64 ounce graduate for the water. in the larger graduate pour the water up to the correct mark. in the 16 ounce graduate, pour 1.400 acid up to the 10 ounce mark. then add the acid directly to the water in the graduate, or else pour the water into a bottle or pitcher, and add the acid to that. for instance, if we have a 32 ounce graduate, and wish to make up some 1.280 acid, we fill this graduate with water up to the 5-1/2 ounce mark. we then fill the 16 ounce graduate with 1.400 acid up to the 10 ounce mark. then we slowly pour the 1.400 acid into the graduate containing the water, giving us 1.280 acid. in a similar manner other specific gravities are obtained, using the same amount of 1.400 acid in each case, but varying the amount of water according to the figures given in the last column of the next to the last table. the following table shows the number of parts of distilled water to one part of 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte to prepare electrolyte of various specific gravities. the specific gravity of the mixture must be taken when the temperature of the mixture is 70â° f. if its temperature varies more than 5 degrees above or below 70â°f, make the corrections described on page 65 to find what the specific gravity would be if the temperature were 70â° f. by weight for 1.300 specific gravity use 5 ounces of distilled water for each pound of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.280 specific gravity use 6-1/2 ounces of distilled water for each pound of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.275 specific gravity use 6-3/4 ounces distilled water for each pound of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.260 specific gravity use 7-1/2 ounces distilled water for each pound of 1.400 electrolyte. by volume for 1.300 specific gravity use 3-1/2 pints distilled water for each gallon of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.280 specific gravity use 4-1/2 pints distilled water for each gallon of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.275 specific gravity use 5 pints distilled water for each gallon of 1.400 electrolyte. for 1.260 specific gravity use 5-1/4 pints distilled water for each gallon of 1.400 electrolyte. in case you wish to use other measuring units than those given in the above table, this table may be written as follows, giving the number of parts distilled water to 10 parts of 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte: specific gravity desired parts by weight parts by volume --------------- ---------------------- --------------1.300 3 4-1/4 1.280 4 5-1/4 1.275 4-1/6 6 1.260 4-7/10 6-1/2 the next table gives the number of parts of distilled water to 10 parts of concentrated sulphuric acid (which has a specific gravity of 1.835) to prepare electrolyte of various specific gravities: specific gravity desired parts by weight parts by volume ----------------------- -------------- --------------1.400 8-1/2 15-8/10 1.300 13-1/2 15-8/10 1.300 13-1/2 25 1.280 15 27 1.270 16 28 1.260 17 30 putting new batteries into service new batteries are received (a) fully charged and ready for service, (b) fully assembled with moistened plates and separators, but without electrolyte, (c) in a "knockdown" condition, with dry plates and without separators, (d) fully assembled with "bone dry" plates and rubber separators, and without electrolyte. those received fully charged should be put on a car as soon as possible. otherwise they will grow old on the shelf. every month on the shelf is a month less of life. if the battery cannot be sold, put it into dry-storage. batteries received in condition (b) should not be kept in stock for more than six months. batteries received with dry plates and without separators or with rubber separators may be stored indefinitely without deteriorating. batteries shipped fully charged, or "wet." all makes. unpack the battery, keeping the packing case right side up to avoid spilling electrolyte. brush off all excelsior and dirt, and examine the battery carefully to see if it has been damaged during shipment. if any damage has been done, claim should be made against the express or railroad company. 1. remove the vent caps from the cells and determine the height of the electrolyte. it should stand from three-eighths to one-half inch above the tops of the plates. the level may be determined with a glass tube, as shown in fig. 30. if the electrolyte is below the tops of the plates, it has either been spilled, or else there is a leaky jar. if all cells have a low level of electrolyte, it is probable that the electrolyte has been spilled. 2. next measure the specific gravity of the electrolyte of each cell with the hydrometer, and then add water to bring the electrolyte up to the correct level, if this is necessary. should the temperature of the air be below freezing, charge the battery for an hour if water is added no matter what the specific gravity readings are. this will cause the water to mix thoroughly with the electrolyte. if the battery were not charged after water is added, the water, being lighter than the electrolyte, would remain on top and freeze. for this one hour charge, use the "starting" rate, as stamped on the nameplate. 3. if the specific gravity of the electrolyte reads below 1.250, charge the battery until the specific gravity reads between 1.280 and 1.300. for this charge use the normal bench charging rates. 4. after this charge place the battery on a clean, dry spot for twenty-four hours as an extra test for a leaky jar. if there is any dampness under the battery, or on the lower part of the battery case, a leaky jar is indicated. an inspection of the level of the electrolyte, which even though no dampness shows, will show the leaky jar. 5. just before putting the battery on the car, make the high rate discharge test on it. see page 266. batteries shipped "dry" exide batteries storing. 1. keep the battery in a dry, clean place, and keep the room temperature above 32 degrees, and below 110 degrees fahrenheit. 2. put the battery into service before the expiration of the time limit given on the tag attached to the battery. the process of putting the battery into service will require about five days. 3. if the battery has been allowed to stand beyond the time limit, open up one of the cells just before beginning the process necessary to put the battery into service. if the separators are found to be cracked, split, or warped, throw away all the separators from all the cells and put in new ones. if the separators are in good condition, reassemble the cell and put the battery into service. putting battery into service. 1. fill the cells with electrolyte of the correct specific gravity. to do this, remove the vent plugs and pour in the electrolyte until it rises to the bottom of the vent tubes. the correct specific gravities of the electrolyte to be used are as follows: (a) for types dx, xc, xe, xx and xxv, use 1.360 electrolyte. in tropical countries use 1.260 electrolyte. (b) for types lx, lxr, lxre, lxrv, use 1.340 electrolyte. in tropical countries use 1.260 electrolyte. (c) for types mha and phc, use 1.320 electrolyte. in tropical countries use 1.260 electrolyte. (d) for types kxd and kz, use 1.300 electrolyte. in tropical countries use 1.240 electrolyte. 2. after filling with the electrolyte, allow the battery to stand ten to fifteen hours before starting the initial charge. this gives the electrolyte time to cool. 3. no sooner than ten to fifteen hours after filling the battery with electrolyte, add water to bring the electrolyte up to the bottom of the vent tubes, if the level has fallen. replace the vent caps and turn them to the right. start charging at the rates shown in the following table. continue charging at this rate for at least 96 hours (4 days). table of initial and repair charging rates type and size of cell charging rate, amperes minimum ampere hours -------------------- --------------------- -------------------kz-3 1/2 50 lx-5, lxr-5, lxre-5 1-1/2 145 kxd-5 2 190 xc-9, xx-9 2-1/2 240 dx-11, kxd-7, lxr-9, lxre-9, xc-11, xe-11 3 290 dx-13, kxd-9, lxr-11, xc-13, xe-13, xx-13 4 385 lxr-13, lxre-13, xc-15, xe-15, xx-15 4-1/2 430 kxd-11, xc-17, xe-17 5 480 lxrv-15, lxr-15, lxre-15 5-1/2 525 lx-17, lxr-17, lxre-17, xc-19, xe-19, xxv-19 6 575 mha-11, phc-13 6 575 xc-21, xe-21 6-1/2 625 xc-23 7 675 xc-25 7-1/2 720 4. occasionally measure the temperature of the electrolyte. do not allow the temperature to rise above 110â° fahrenheit (120â° fahrenheit in tropical countries). should the temperature reach 110â°, stop the charge long enough to allow the temperature to drop below 100â°. 5. at the end of the charge, the specific gravity of the electrolyte should be between 1.280 and 1.300 (1.210 and 1.230 in tropical countries). if it is not between these limits adjust it by drawing off some of the electrolyte with the hydrometer and replacing with water if the specific gravity is too high, or with electrolyte of the same specific gravity used in filling the battery, if the specific gravity is too low. 6. wipe off the top and sides of the battery case with a rag dampened with ammonia to neutralize any electrolyte which may have been spilled. 7. just before putting the battery into service, give it a high rate discharge test. see page 266. vesta batteries 1. remove vent caps from each cell and fill with electrolyte of 1.300 specific gravity. this electrolyte should not have a temperature greater than 75â° fahrenheit when added to the cells. 2. after the addition of this acid, the battery will begin to heat and it should be left standing from 12 to 24 hours or until it has cooled off. 3. battery should then be put on charge at the finish charging rate stamped on the name plate. continue charging at this rate for approximately 48 to 72 hours or until the gravity and voltage readings of each cell stop rising. 4. care should be taken to see that the temperature of battery does not rise above 110â° fahrenheit. if this occurs., the charging rate should be cut down. 5. the acid in each cell will undoubtedly have to be equalized. 6. at the finish of this developing charge the gravity should read 1.280 in each cell. if below this, equalize by putting in 1.400 specific gravity acid, or if the contrary is the case and the acid is above 1.280 add sufficient distilled water until the gravity reads 1.280. 7. after the acid has been equalized and it has stopped rising in density the voltage of each cell while still on charge at the finishing rate should read at least 2.5 volts per cell or better. 8. the battery is then ready for service. just before putting battery into service, make a high rate discharge test on it. see page 266. philadelphia diamond grid batteries 1. remove the vent plugs and immediately fill the cells with electrolyte until the level is even with the bottom of the vent tube in the cover. do not fill with electrolyte whose temperature is above 90â° fahrenheit. the specific gravity of the electrolyte to be used in starting batteries varies with the number of plates in each cell, the correct values being as follows: charging rates fill batteries listed in table no. 1 with 1.270 sp. gr. acid. table--no. 1 no. of ll-llr plates & lh lm, lmr lt, ltr ls, lsr lg lt lsf ----- ----- ------ ------ ------ -- -- --9 2.0 2.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 11 2.5 3.0 2.5 3.5 4.0 13 3.0 3.5 3.0 4.0 2.5 15 3.5 4.0 3.5 4.5 5.5 17 4.0 5.0 4.0 5.5 6.0 19 4.5 5.5 4.5 6.0 special battery: 136 usa ... 6. 0 amps. table no.2 fill batteries listed in table no. 2 with 1.250 sp. gr. acid. no. ll-llr lm lt ls s of plates & llh lmr ltr lsr sh st lsf -------- ----- -- -- -- -- -- --5 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.5 7 1.5 1.5 1.5 2.0 3.0 2.0 1.5 9 4.0 11 5.0 special batteries: 330 aa .... 1.0 amps. 524 std-h2 ................... 1.0 amps. 7 6 spn ...................... 1.5 amps. the number of plates per cell is; indicated in the first numeral of the type name. for instance, 712 lla-1 is a 7 plate ll. for all lighting batteries, types s and st. use 1.210 electrolyte. 2. allow the battery to stand for one or two hours. 3. remove the seal from the top of the vent caps, and open by blowing through the cap. 4. insert vent plugs in the vent tubes. 5. put the battery on charge at the rate given in the table on page 228. to determine the rate to use, see type name given on the battery nameplate and find correct rate in the table. keep the battery charging at this rate throughout the charge. 6. continue the charge until the battery voltage and the specific gravity of the electrolyte stop rising, as shown by readings taken every four hours. from three and one-half to four days of continuous charging will be required to fully charge the battery. 7. watch the temperature of the electrolyte, and do not allow it to rise above 110â° fahrenheit. if the temperature rises to 110â° f., stop the charge and allow battery to cool. extend the time of charging by the length of time required for the battery to cool. 8. after the specific gravity of the electrolyte stops rising, adjust the electrolyte to a specific gravity of 1.280 at a temperature of 70â° fahrenheit. if the temperature is not 70â°, make temperature corrections as described on page 65. 9. the battery is now ready to be installed on the car. just before installing the battery, make a high rate discharge test on it. willard bone-dry batteries a willard threaded rubber insulated battery is shipped and carried in stock "bone-dry." it is filled with electrolyte and charged for the first time when being made ready for delivery. threaded rubber insulated batteries received bone-dry must be prepared for service, as follows: 1. mix electrolyte to a density of 1.275. 2. remove the vent plugs and fill to the top of the vent hole with 1.275 electrolyte. be sure that the electrolyte is thoroughly mixed by stirring and that its temperature is not above 90 degrees fahrenheit. 3. a portion of the solution will be absorbed by the plates and insulation because they have been standing dry without any liquid in the cells. the volume is thus decreased, necessitating the addition of electrolyte after first filling. wait five minutes and then again fill to the top of the vent hole with 1.275 electrolyte. 4. the battery must now stand at least twelve hours and not more than twenty-four hours before charging. after it has been filled an increase in temperature of the battery solution will take place. this is caused by the action of the acid in the solution penetrating the plates mid reacting with the active material, but does no injury. since the acid in the solution joins the active material in the plates the density of the solution becomes proportionately lower. this is to be expected and should cause no concern. in order that the entire plate volume of active material may be in chemical action during charge, the battery should stand before being placed on charge--until the solution has bad time to penetrate the entire thickness of the plates. this requires at least twelve hours, but not more than twenty-four hours. 5. just before charging the battery, again fill with 1.275 electrolyte to 3/8 inch over the top of the separators. after this, do not add anything but distilled water to the battery solution. 6. the battery should then be put on charge at the finish rate until the gravity stops rising. at the end of this period the specific gravity should be between 1.280 and 1.300. it may take from 36 to 72 hours before this density is reached. care should be taken not to prolong the charging unduly, for that may cause active material to fall out of the grids, thus injuring the plates beyond repair. 7. because of the evaporation of water in the solution during the charging process, it is necessary to add distilled water from time to time in order to keep the solution above the tops of the separators. the temperature of the battery while on charge should never exceed 110 degrees fahrenheit. if the temperature rises above this point the charging must be discontinued for a time or the rate decreased. if at any time during the initial charging the density rises above 1.300 some of the solution should immediately be drawn off with a syringe and distilled water added. this must be done as often as is necessary to keep the density below 1.300. if the specific gravity does not change after two successive readings and does not then read within the limits of 1.280 to 1.300 it should be adjusted to read correctly. if the reading is less than 1.280 it should be adjusted by drawing off as much solution as can be taken out with a syringe and electrolyte of 1.400 specific gravity added. the battery must then be placed on charge for at least four hours and another reading taken. if it is again found to be less than 1.280 this operation should be repeated as many times as necessary to bring the density up to 1.280. 9. the height of solution when taking the battery off charge should be 5/8 of an inch above the top of the separators. after the battery has been off charge long enough to permit the solution to cool to normal temperature, draw off the excess to a final height of 3/8 inch above separators. replace the vent plugs and battery is ready for service. unfilled willard wood insulated batteries unfilled, wood-insulated batteries have not had an initial charge and require a treatment similar to batteries with threaded rubber insulation. when shipment is made in this manner, such batteries should be placed in service before the date indicated on the tag attached to the battery. to prepare such a battery for service: 1. remove the vent plugs and fill each cell with 1.335 specific gravity electrolyte (one part of concentrated sulphuric acid by volume to two parts of distilled water by volume) to 3/8 inch above the tops of the separators. 2. wait 5 minutes and then fill each cell again with 1.335 specific gravity electrolyte to 3/8 inch above the tops of the separators. 3. the battery must then stand from 10 to 15 hours before placing on charge. 4. after standing for this length of time, fill each cell again, if necessary, with 1.335 specific gravity electrolyte to bring the level of the electrolyte 3/8 inch above the tops of the separators before charging. 5. place the battery on charge at the finish rate marked on the name plate until the gravity and cell voltage stop rising. this charging will require at least 48 hours. 6. if, after a charge of 48 hours or longer the specific gravity does not rise for two consecutive hours, the gravity should be between 1.280 and 1.300. if it is not between these limits, the specific gravity should be adjusted to these values at the end of the charge. 7. if, during the charge, the temperature exceeds 110 degrees fahrenheit, the charge rate should be reduced so as to keep the temperature below 110 degrees fahrenheit and the time of charging lengthened proportionately. preparing westinghouse batteries for service (these batteries are prepared for shipment in what is known as export condition.) 1. remove vent plugs and discard soft rubber caps. 2. fill all cells with 1.300 specific gravity sulphuric acid until top of connecting straps, as seen through vent holes are completely covered. temperature of filling acid should never be above 90 degrees fahrenheit. note: the aim is to fill the cells with acid of such a specific gravity that the electrolyte, at the end of charge, will need very little adjusting to bring it to the proper specific gravity. 1.300 specific gravity acid has been found to be approximately correct for this purpose. however, if after several batteries have been prepared for service using 1.300 specific gravity acid, considerable adjusting at the end of charge is necessary, it is permissible to use a slightly different specific gravity of filling acid, but the use of acid above 1.325 specific gravity or below 1,250 specific gravity is not recommended. 3. allow batteries to stand after filling for from two to three hours before putting on charge. 4. put on charge at finish charge rate shown on name plate of battery. note: if temperature of electrolyte in battery reaches 100 degrees fahrenheit (determined by inserting special thermometer through vent hole in cover), the charging rate should be immediately reduced, as continued charging at a temperature above 100 degrees fahrenheit is injurious to both separators and plates. 5. continue charging until all cells are gassing freely and individual cell voltage and specific gravity of electrolyte have shown no decided rise for a period of five hours. note: the length of time required to completely charge a new battery depends largely upon the time the battery has been in stock, varying from twelve to twenty-four hours for a comparatively fresh battery to four or five days for a battery six months or more old. 6. keep level of electrolyte above tops of separators at all times, while charging by adding distilled water to replace that lost by evaporation. 7. after battery is completely charged the specific gravity of electrolyte in all cells should be adjusted to 1.285 at 70 degrees fahrenheit, and the level of electrolyte adjusted so that after battery is taken off charge the height of electrolyte stands 1/8 inch above tops of connecting straps. note: corrections for temperature if temperature of electrolyte is above or below 70 degrees fahrenheit the correction is one point of gravity for each three degrees of temperature. see page 65. if specific gravity of electrolyte is above 1.285, a portion of the electrolyte should be removed and replaced with distilled water. if the specific gravity is below 1.285, a portion of electrolyte should be removed and replaced with 1.400 specific gravity sulphuric acid. acid of higher gravity than 1.400 should never be put in batteries. batteries should always be charged for several hours after adjusting gravity to insure proper mixing of the electrolyte and to see that the correct specific gravity of 1.285 has been obtained. 8. after first seven sections have been followed examine vent plugs to see that gas passage is dot obstructed and screw back in place. battery is now ready for service. the prest-o-lite assembled green seal battery this type of battery is made up of the same sort of plates as the old partly assembled green seal battery. the elements are, however, completely assembled will wood separators and sealed in the jars and box in the same manner as a wet battery to be put into immediate service; the cell connectors are burned in place. how to store it. a room of ordinary humidity, one in which the air is never dryer for any reason than the average, should be used to store these batteries. they should be shielded from direct sunlight. examine the vents-they should be securely inserted and remain so during the entire storage period. if these precautions are observed, this type battery may be stored for at least a year. to prepare battery for use. 1. prepare sufficient pure electrolyte of 1.300 specific gravity. if during the mixing considerable heat is evolved, allow electrolyte to cool down to 90 degrees fahrenheit. never pour electrolyte, that is warmer than 90 degrees fahrenheit, into cells. 2. remove the vents and lay them aside until the final charging operation has been completed. within 15 minutes from the time the vents are removed fill all cells to the bottom of vent openings with the electrolyte prepared, as stated above. 3. allow the electrolyte to remain in the cells, not less than one hour. at the end of this time, should the electrolyte level fall below the tops of the separators, add enough electrolyte to bring level at least one-half inch above separators. if the temperature in the cells does not rise above 100 degrees fahrenheit, proceed immediately (before two hours have elapsed) with the initial charging operation. if the temperature remains above 100 degrees fahrenheit, allow the battery to stand until the electrolyte cools down to 100 degrees fahrenheit. then proceed immediately with the charge. it is important that the acid does not stand in the cells for more than two hours, unless it is necessary to allow the acid to cool. 4. initial charging operation. place the battery on charge at the ampere rate given in the following table. the total initial charge must be for fifty-two hours, but at no time permit the electrolyte temperature to rise above 115 degrees fahrenheit. if the temperature should reach 115 degrees fahrenheit, take the battery off the line and allow the electrolyte to cool, but be sure that the total of fifty-two hours actual charging at the ampere rate specified is completed. initial charge---52 hours plates type of per cell plate ahs whn rhn shc bhn jfn gm cln kpn ------- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --3 1.5 5 2 2 2.5 3 7 3 3 3.5 4 3 5 9 4 4 5 5 7 11 5 5 6 7 7.5 5 9 13 6 6 7 8 9 6 10.5 10.5 15 7 7 9 9.5 10.5 7 12 17 10 12 9 19 9 9 11 12 9 the nominal battery voltage and the number of plates per cell is indicated by the prest-o-lite type designations, i. e.: 613 rhn denotes 6 volts, 13 plates per cell or 127 shc denotes 12 volts, 7 plates per cell. 5. the electrolyte density at the end of fifty-two hours charge should be near 1.290 specific gravity. a variation between 1.285 and 1.300 is permissible. if, after fifty hours of the initial charge, the electrolyte density of any of the cells is outside these limits, adjustment should be begun while still charging. for those cells in which the density is higher than 1.300 specific gravity replace some of the electrolyte with distilled water. in those cells where the density is lighter than 1.285 specific gravity replace some of the electrolyte with previously prepared electrolyte of 1.400 specific gravity. wait until the cells have charged one hour before taking readings to determine the effect of adjustment, which, if not accomplished, should be attempted again as before. practice will enable the attendant to estimate the amount of electrolyte necessary to replace in order to accomplish the proper density desired-at the end of initial charge. 6. following the completion of the fifty-two hour charge, if there is time to do so, it is good practice to put the battery through a development cycle, i. e., to discharge it at about the four-hour rate and then put it on the charging line again at the normal rate until a condition of full charge is again reached. the objects gained by this discharge are: (a) further development of the plates. (b) adjustment or stabilization of the electrolyte. (c) checking the assembly by noting the failure of any cell or cells to act uniformly and satisfactorily during discharge. the four-hour discharge rate is, of course, like the normal rate of initial charge, dependent upon the size and number of plates per cell in any particular battery; the number of cells determines the voltage only and has nothing to do with the battery's charge or discharging rating. these four-hour discharge rates are as follows: plates per cell type of plate ahs whn rhn shc bhn jfn gm cln kpn ------- -- -- -- -- -- -- - -- --3 3 5 5 5 5.5 6.5 7 7.5 7.5 8 10 7.5 13.5 9 10 10 11 13 18 11 12.5 12.5 14 16 19 12.5 22.5 13 15 15 16.5 19.5 22.5 15 27 27 15 17.5 17.5 19 23 26 17.5 31.5 17 22 26 19 22.5 22.5 25 29 22.5 immediately at the end of the four-hour discharge, put the battery on the line and charge it at the normal rate prescribed in the initial charge rate table until a state of complete charge, as noted by cell voltage and gravity is reached. this charging time should be about sixteen hours. any adjustments of electrolyte found necessary at the end of this charging period in the same manner prescribed in paragraph no. 5, for such adjustments made just before the completion of the initial fifty-two hour charge. (transcriber's note: no item number 7. in original publication.) 8. at the end of the fifty-two hour charge, or, if the development discharge has been given, at the end of the development cycle charge, replace the vent plugs, wash all exterior surfaces with clean water and dry quickly. the battery is then ready for service. installing a battery on a car a battery must be installed carefully on the car if it is to have any chance to give good service. careless installation of a battery which is in good working order will invariably lead to trouble in a very short time. on the other hand, a properly installed battery is, nine times out of ten, a good working and long lived battery. after you have removed the old battery, scrape all rust and corrosion from the inside of the battery box or compartment in which the battery is placed. this can best be done with a putty knife and wire brush. if you find that electrolyte has been spilled in the box, pour a saturated solution of baking soda on the parts affected so as to neutralize the acid. then wipe the inside of the box dry and paint it with a good acid proof paint. next take out the hold down bolts. clean them with a wire brush, and oil the threads on the bolt and in the nut to make them work easily. it is very important that this oiling be done, as the oil protects the bolts from corrosion, and to remove the nuts from a corroded bolt is an extremely difficult and aggravating piece of work, often resulting in the bolts being broken. should such bolts become loose while the car is in use, it is hard to tighten them. wooden strips found in the battery box should be thoroughly cleaned and scraped, and then painted with acid proof paint. when you lower the battery into its box, lower it all the way gently. do not lower it within an inch or so of the bottom of the case and then drop it. this will result in broken jars and plate lugs. turn the hold downs tight, but not so tight as to break the sealing compound at the ends of the battery, thereby causing electrolyte to leak out, and battery to become a "slopper". cables and connectors should be scraped bright with a knife and brushed thoroughly with the wire brush to remove all corrosion. old tape which has become acid soaked should be removed and the cable or wire underneath cleaned. before applying new tape, take a small round bristle brush and paint vaseline liberally over the exposed cable immediately back of the taper terminal. then cover the vaseline with tape, which should be run well back from the terminal. the vaseline prevents the corrosion of the cable and the tape holds the vaseline in place. after the tape has been applied, paint it with acid proof paint. cover the terminals of the battery with vaseline. cables must have enough slack to prevent strains from being put on the battery terminals. by following these directions, you will not only have a properly installed battery, which will have a good chance to give good service, but will have a neat looking job which is most pleasing to the eye of the car owner. remove all dirt from the battery and cable terminals and thoroughly clean the surfaces which are to connect together, but do not scrape off the lead coating. apply a heavy coating of pure vaseline to these surfaces and tighten the connection perfectly, squeezing out the vaseline. then give the whole connection a heavy coating of vaseline. this is very important in order to prevent connection trouble. if battery is installed in an enclosing box, be sure that none of the ventilating holes are clogged. storing batteries when a battery is not in active use on a car it should be put into storage. storage is necessary: 1. when a car is to stand idle for a considerable period, such as is the case when it is held for future delivery. 2. when a car is laid up for the winter. 3. when batteries are kept in stock. batteries may be stored "wet," i.e., completely assembled and filled with electrolyte, or "dry," i.e., in a dry disassembled condition, without electrolyte. in deciding whether a battery should be stored "wet" or "dry," two things are to be considered, i.e. the length of time the battery is to be in storage, and the condition of the battery. if a battery is to be out of commission for a year or more, it should be put into "dry" storage. if it is to be in storage for less than one year, it may be put into "wet" storage if it is in a good condition. if the condition of the battery is such that it will need to be dismantled soon for repairs, it should be put into "dry" storage, even though it is to be out of service for less than one year. batteries in "dry" storage require no attention while they are in storage, but they must be dismantled before being put into storage and reassembled when put back into service. when a battery is brought in to be stored, note its general condition carefully. (a) its general appearance-condition of case, handles, terminals, sealing compound, and so on. (b) height and specific gravity of the electrolyte in each cell. (c) age of battery. question owner as to length of time he has had battery. read date marks on battery if there are any, or determine age by the age code. see page 243. if a battery is less than a year old, is in good condition, and is to be stored for less than one year, it may be put into "wet" storage. if it is more than a year old, put it into dry storage, unless it is in first class shape and is to be stored for only several months. after making your general observations, clean the battery, add distilled water to bring the electrolyte up to the proper level, put the battery on charge and keep it on the line until it is fully charged. watch for any abnormal condition during the charge, such as excessive temperature rise, failure of voltage to come up, failure of specific gravity to come up, and gassing before gravity becomes constant. if no abnormal conditions develop during the charge, put the battery on discharge at a rate which will cause the voltage to drop to 1.7 volts per cell in about four hours. measure the cell voltages at regular intervals during the discharge test. if the voltage of any cell drops much more rapidly than that of the other cells, that cell is defective in some way, and should be opened for inspection. if the voltage of all cells drops to 1.7 in three hours or less, the battery should be put into dry storage. after completing the discharge test, recharge it fully, no matter whether it is to be put into wet or dry storage. if no trouble developed during the charge or discharge, the battery may be put into "wet" storage. if trouble did develop, the battery should be put into "dry" storage. if dry storage is found to be necessary the owner should be informed that the condition of his battery would cause it to deteriorate in wet storage and necessitate much more expensive repairs when put into use again than will be necessary in the thorough overhauling and rejuvenation of dry storage. he should be advised that dry storage involves dismantling, drying out elements and reassembling with the needed repairs and new separators in the spring. be sure that the customer understands this. if it is evident that repairs or new parts, involving costs additional to storage charges, will be necessary, tell him so. do not leave room for a complaint about costs in the spring. to avoid any misunderstanding, it is highly advisable to have the customer put his signature on a storage agreement which states fully the terms under which the battery is accepted for storage. the storage cost may be figured on a monthly basis, or a price for the entire storage period may be agreed upon. the monthly rate should be the same as the regular price for a single battery recharge. if a flat rate is paid for the entire storage period, $2.00 to $3.00 is a fair price. "wet" storage 1. store the batteries on a bench or shelf in a convenient location and large enough to allow a little air space around each battery. 2. place each battery upon wooden strips in order to keep the bottom of the battery clear of the bench or shelf. 3. apply vaseline freely to the battery terminals, and to exposed copper wires in the battery cables if the cables are burned directly to the battery terminals. if the cables are not burned on, remove them from the battery. 4. if convenient, install the necessary wiring, switches, etc., so that batteries may be connected up and charged where they stand. otherwise the batteries must be charged occasionally oil the charging bench. [fig. 151 batteries connected for trickle charge] 5. batteries in wet storage may be charged by the exide "trickle" charge method, or may be given a bench charge at regular intervals. 6. bench charge method.--once every month, add distilled water to replace evaporation. then give battery a bench charge. see page 198. before putting battery into service repeat this process and just before putting the battery into service, make the high rate discharge test on it. see page 266. 7. trickle charge method.--this consists of charging the batteries in storage continuously at a very low rate, which is so low that no gassing occurs, and still gives enough charge to maintain the batteries in good condition. in many cases the "trickle" charge method will be found more convenient than the bench charge method, and it has the advantage of keeping the batteries in condition for putting into service on short notice. it should, however, be used only where direct current lighting circuits are available. in the "trickle" method, the batteries are first given a complete bench charge, and are then connected in series across a charging circuit with one or several incandescent lamps in series with the batteries to limit the current. in fig. 151, an example of connections for a "trickle" charge is given. the charging current for different sized batteries varies from 0.05 to 0.15 ampere. the following table gives the lamps required to give the desired current on 110 volt circuit. in each case, the lamps are connected in series with the batteries. the "2-25 watt, (lamps), in parallel" listed in the table are to be connected in parallel with each other and then in series with the batteries. the same is true of the "3-25 watt (lamps), in series" listed in the table. series on 115 volt line amp. hours no. of cells no. 115 volt capacity amperes in series lamps required 5 amp. rate approximate on line 115 volt ---------- ---------- ----------- -------------50 or less 0.05 3 5-15 watt, in series 50 or less 0.05 30 2-15 watt, in series 50 or less 0.05 45 1-15 watt, in series 50-100 0.10 3 3-25 watt, in series 50-100 0.10 3 1-25 watt, in series 50-100 0.10 45 2-25 watt, in parallel 100 or over 0.15 3 2-25 watt, in series 100 or over 0.15 30 1-25 watt, in series 100 or over 0.15 45 3-25 watt, in parallel every two months interrupt the trickle charge long enough to add water to bring the electrolyte up to the proper level. when this has been done, continue the trickle charge. before putting the batteries into service, see that the electrolyte is up to the correct level, and that the specific gravity of the electrolyte is 1.280-1.300. if necessary, give a short charge on the charging bench to bring the specific gravity up to the correct value. dry storage 1. give the battery a complete charge. pour out the electrolyte, and separate the groups. if the negatives have bulged active material, press them in the plate press. in batteries such as the prest-olite in which it is difficult to remove the plates from the cover, the groups need not be separated unless the negatives have badly bulged active material. it may not be necessary to separate the groups even then, provided that the positives are not buckled to any noticeable extent. if only a very slight amount of buckling exists, the entire element may be pressed by putting thin boards between the plates in place of the separators. 2. immerse the negatives in distilled water for ten to twelve hours. if positives and negatives cannot be separated, wash each complete element in a gentle stream of water. 3. remove plates from water and allow them to drain thoroughly and dry. the negatives will heat up when exposed to the air, and when they do so they should be immersed in the water again to cool them. repeat this as long as they tend to heat up. then allow them to dry thoroughly. 4. throw away the old separators. rubber separators may be saved if in good condition. clean the covers and terminals., wash out the jars, and turn the case up side down to drain out the water. examine the box carefully. it is advisable to wash with a solution of baking soda, rinsing the water in order to neutralize as far as possible the action of acid remaining on the box. if this is not done, the acid may start decomposition of the box while in storage, in which case the owner of the battery may insist on its renewal before acceptance at the end of the storage period. 5. when, the plates are perfectly dry, nest the positives and negatives together, using dry cardboard instead of separators, and replace them in the jars in their proper positions. 6. replace the covers and vent plugs, but, of course, do not use any sealing compound on them. 7. tie the terminals and top connectors to the handle on the case with a wire. 8. tag the battery with the owner's name and address, using the tag on which you made the sketch of the arrangement of the terminals and top connections. 9. store the battery in a dry place, free from dust, until called for. 10. when the battery is to be put into service again, put in new separators, put the elements in the jars, seal the covers, and burn on the top connectors and terminals (if these are of the burned-on type). fill the cells with electrolyte of about 1.310 specific gravity and allow the battery to stand for ten to twelve hours in order to cool. then put the battery on charge at one-half the normal charging rate and charge until the specific gravity of the electrolyte stops rising and remains stationary for five hours. the total time required for this development charge will be about four days. watch the temperature of the electrolyte carefully, and if it should rise to 110â° fahrenheit, stop the charge until it cools. 11. the specific gravity will fall during the first part of the charge, due to the new separators; at the end of the charge, the specific gravity should be 1.280-1.300. if it is not within these limits, adjust it by withdrawing some electrolyte with the hydrometer and adding water if the gravity is high, or 1.400 electrolyte if the gravity is low. 12. clean the case thoroughly and give it a coat of asphaltum paint. 13. just before putting the battery into service, give it a high rate discharge test. see page 266. determining age of battery battery manufacturers use codes to indicate the age of their batteries. these codes consist of letters, figures, or combinations of letters and figures, which are stamped on the inter-cell connectors or on the nameplate. the codes may also be burned on the case. the codes of the leading makes of batteries follow. in addition to determining the age of a battery by means of the code, the owner should be questioned as to the time the battery was installed on his car. if the battery is the original one which came with the car, the dealer's or car manufacturer's records will help determine the battery's age. if a new battery has been installed to replace the one that came with the car, the battery distributor's records will help determine the age of the battery. familiarity with the different makes and types of battery will also help in determining a battery's age. manufacturers make improvements in the construction of their batteries from time to time, and by keeping up-to-date on battery constructions, it is often possible to approximate the age of a battery by such changes. if a battery was kept "dry" while in stock, its age should be figured from the time it was prepared for service and placed on the car, since batteries in dry storage do not deteriorate. some batteries are shipped from the factory "wet," i.e., filled with electrolyte and fully charged and the age of such batteries should be figured from the time they were shipped from the factory, because deterioration begins as soon as a battery is filled with electrolyte. when batteries are "dry" no chemical action can take place, and the battery does not deteriorate, while in a "wet" battery, chemical action takes place which gradually causes a battery to deteriorate. exide age code. since october, 1917, the date of shipment of exide batteries from the factory, or from exide deposts has been stamped on the top of the first inter-cell connector from the negative end of the batter instead of on the nameplate figures are used to indicate the dates, as follows: [image: exide and philadelphia battery age code charts] all philadelphia batteries shipped prior to april 1, 1920 and all batteries shipped from depot stock after this date carry double letter branding. the first battery is the factory date and the second letter in this code indicates latest month during which the guarantee may begin. batteries sold direct from philadelphia to all classes of customers after april 1, 1920, carry the single letter branding code, indicating month of manufacture. the letters used in the double letter age code are selected from the table given above, and the second letter is the important one, since it gives the latest date from which adjustment can be made. if a philadelphia battery with a double letter age code comes in, therefore, the foregoing table should be consulted in determining the age of the battery. if a philadelphia battery with a single letter age code comes in, the following table should be consulted in determining the age of the battery: [image: single letter philadelphia batteries age code chart] prest-o-lite age code. all prest-o-lite batteries carry a date letter stamped on the cell-connectors. this letter indicates the month and year in which the battery was manufactured. the letter is preceeded by a number which represents the factory at which the battery was built. prest-o-lite factory marks. indianapolis--50 cleveland--7 san francisco--23 for example: "50-k" indicates that the battery was manufactured at indianopolis in january, 1920. in addition to the above, each "wet" prest-o-lite battery is branded in the side with a date, as "9-19," indicating october, 1919. this date is really sixty days ahead of the actual building date, to allow time for shipping, etc., before the guarentee starts. the branded "9-19" was actually built in august, 1919. titan age code. the age of titan batteries is indicated by a number stamped on one of the inter-cell connectors, this number indicating the month the battery was hipped from the factory. [image: age code charts for titan batteries] [image: age code charts for u.s.l., and vesta batteries] [image: age code charts for westinghouse and willard batteries] rental batteries rental batteries are those which are put on a customer's car while his own is being repaired or recharged. they are usually rebuilt batteries turned in when a new battery is bought. they may also be made of the good parts of batteries which are junked. by carefully saving good parts, such as plates, jars, covers, and cases, a stock of parts will gradually be acquired from which rental batteries may be made. rental batteries may also be bought from the battery manufacturers. a supply of rental batteries should, of course, be kept ready to go out at any time. the number of such batteries depends upon the size of the business. 25 batteries for each 1000 cars in the territory served is a good average. do not have too many rental batteries of the same type. many of them will be idle most of the time and thus will not bring in any money. rentals should be made to fit those makes of cars of which there are the greatest number in the territory served by the repair shop. sufficient parts should be kept on hand to make up other rentals on short notice. terminals for rental batteries there are several combination terminals on the market which allow rental batteries equipped with them to be easily connected to several of the various types of cable terminals that are in use. yet it is a universal experience for the average service station always to have calls for rental batteries with just the type of terminals which are not on hand. when the station has many batteries with the clamp type straight posts the call always seems to be for the taper plug type and vice versa. [fig. 152 best type of connection to be used whenever possible] most of us will agree that the clamp type post terminal is the cause of much trouble. it is almost impossible to prevent corrosion at the positive post and many a car owner has found that this has been his trouble when his lights burn all right but the battery seemingly does not have power enough to turn over the engine and yet every cell tests 1.280. service station men should not scrape and clean up a corroded clamp type terminal and put it back on again, but should cut it off and put on either a taper plug or, preferably, a lead-plated copper terminal lug. of course either of these terminal connections necessitates changing the battery terminals to correspond. for rental batteries it will be found that short cable terminals with lead-plated copper lugs at the end will enable a battery man to connect most any type of cable terminal on any car. it is true that such connections must be taped up, but the prompt service rendered more than offsets a little tape. figures 152 to 158 illustrate how these connections can be made to the taper plug and clamp types which are used on most cars. [fig. 153 method of connecting rental battery with cable terminals to car with taper plug] [fig. 154 another method of connecting copper terminal lug to clamp terminal on car] [fig. 155 method of connecting rental batteries with cable terminals to cars with clamp type terminals] fig. 155. showing method of connecting rental batteries with cable terminals, to cars with clamp type terminals. in fig. 155 the cable insulation is stripped for a space of an inch and the strands are equally divided with an awl. a bolt is passed through the opening and a washer and nut complete the connection. [fig. 156 and fig. 157 two methods of connecting a clamp type terminal to taper plug terminals] two methods of connecting a clamp type terminal to taper plug terminals. in fig. 156 a taper plug is inserted and screwed tight. the projecting part of the plug has been turned down to fit the clamp type terminal which is clamped to it. in fig. 157 a bolt is passed through and the clamp type terminal tightened to the plug type terminal with a washer and nut. [fig. 158 lead plated copper terminal lug] fig. 158 shows a simple means of putting on a lead-plated copper terminal lug without solder. these lugs should be soldered on whenever possible, but it is often a difficult job to put one on in the confined space of some battery compartments. in such places, a quick and lasting job can be made with a band vise and a short piece of round iron. this latter is laid across the lug and the vise screwed up, making a crimp across the lug which firmly grips down upon the bared cable strands that have been inserted into the lug. new batteries sold to replace other batteries should be installed with cable connections, as illustrated in figure 152. this method of connecting a battery is superior to any other method and will never cause trouble. it will usually be found that the old taper plugs or clamp terminals that have been in use have started to corrode and that a new battery works increasingly at a disadvantage from the day it is installed until the corrosion becomes so great that the car cannot be started and then the customer kicks about his new battery. the best connection possible will pay handsome dividends to all concerned, in the end. marking rental batteries. rental batteries should be marked in a mariner which enables them to be recognized quickly. painting the cases a red color is a good way. the service station's name should appear somewhere on the battery. a good plan is to have a lead tag, which is attached to the handle at the negative end of the battery, or is tacked to the case. the name may also be painted on the case. each battery should be given a number which should preferably be painted in large white figures on the end or side of each case. the number may also be stamped on a lead tag tied to the handle at the negative end. a service station which sells a certain make of battery should not use cases of some other make if the name of the other make appears on the case. such names may give a wrong impression to the customer, which will not be fair either to the service station or to the manufacturer whose name appears on the case. if the service station sells, another make of battery, the customer may get the impression that the service station man does not have enough confidence in the make which he sells, and must use some other make for his rentals. if the rental battery does not give good service, the customer will get the impression that the manufacturer whose name appears on the case does not turn out good batteries, when as a matter of fact, the plates, covers, jars, and other parts used in the rental battery may not have been made by this manufacturer. some battery men would, perhaps, consider the failure of a rental battery as an opportunity to "knock" the manufacturer whose name appears on the case. such an action may have the desired effect on a very few customers, but the great majority of men have no use for any one who "knocks" a competitor's products. keeping a record of rental batteries. a careful record should be kept of all rental batteries. the more carefully such a record is kept, the less confusion there will be in knowing just where every rental battery is. a special rack for rental batteries, such as those shown in figures 88 and 89 should be provided, and all rental batteries which are in the shop should be kept there, except when they are on charge or are being overhauled. have them fully charged and ready to go out immediately, without keeping a customer waiting around, when he is in a hurry to go somewhere else. general rental policy. no service station should make a practice of installing rental batteries on any car unless the owner leaves his own battery to be repaired or recharged. the purpose of having a stock of rental batteries is to enable customers to have the use of their cars while their own batteries are being repaired by the battery man who furnishes the rental battery and not to furnish batteries to car owners who may be taking their batteries to some other station to be repaired. it is, of course, a good thing to be generous and accommodating, but every battery repairman should think of his own business first, before he helps build up the business of a competitor. the customer must have some inducement to bring in your rental battery and get his own. a rental charge of 25 cents-per day serves as a reminder to most customers. however, some customers are forgetful and the battery man must telephone or write to any owner who fails to call for his battery. if, due to failure to keep after the owner, a rental battery is out for several weeks, there is likely to be an argument when the rental bill is presented to the owner. if the delay in calling in a rental battery is due to failure to repair the customer's battery, the rental charge should be reduced. a rental battery should not be put in place of a battery which is almost ready for the junk pile. the thing to do is to sell the customer a new battery. repairs on an almost worn out battery are expensive and the results may not be satisfactory. radio batteries the wide-awake battery man will not overlook the new and rapidly growing field which has been opened for him by the installation of hundreds of thousands of radio-phone receiving sets in all parts of the country. the so-called radio "craze" has affected every state, and every battery repairman can increase his income to a considerable extent by selling, charging, and repairing radio storage batteries. the remarkable growth of the radio-phone has, of course, been due to the radio broadcasting stations which have been established in all parts of the country, and from which concerts, speeches, market reports, baseball reports, news reports, children's stories and religious services are sent out. these broadcasting stations have sending ranges as high as 1,000 miles. the fact that a service station is not located near a broadcasting station is therefore no reason why it should not have its share of the radio battery business, because the broadcasting stations are scattered all over the united states, and receiving sets may be made powerful enough to "pick up" the waves from at least one of the broadcasting stations. radio receiving sets may be divided into two general classes, the "crystal" sets and the "bulb" sets. "crystal" sets use crystals of galena (lead sulphide), silicon (a crystalline form of silicon, one of the chemical elements), or carborundum (carbide of silicon) to "detect" or, in other words, to rectify the incoming radio waves so that they may be translated into sound by the telephone receivers. receiving sets using these crystals do not use a battery, but these sets are not very sensitive, and cannot "pick up" weak waves. this means that crystal receiving sets must be used near the broadcasting stations, before the waves have been weakened by traveling any considerable distance. as a general rule, the radio-listener's first receiving set uses a crystal detector. very often it is difficult to obtain good results with such a set, and a more elaborate set is obtained. moreover, even if a crystal set does give good results, the owner of such a set soon hears of friends who are able to hear concerts sent out from distance stations. this gives him the desire to be able to hear such stations also and he then buys a receiving set which uses the "audion-bulb" for detecting, or rectifying the incoming waves. the audion-bulb resembles an ordinary incandescent lamp. it contains three elements: 1. in the center of the bulb is a short tungsten filament, the ends of which are brought out to two terminals in the base of the bulb. this filament must be heated to incandescence, and a storage battery is required for this purpose, because it is necessary to have a very steady current in order to obtain clear sounds in the receiver. lately plans have been suggested for using a direct current lighting line, and even an alternating current lighting line for heating the filament, but at present such plans have not been perfected, and the battery will undoubtedly continue to be used with the majority of sets. 2. surrounding the filament but not touching it is a helix of wire, only one end of which is brought out to a terminal in the base of the bulb. this helix is called the "grid." in some bulbs the grid is not made in the form of a helix, but is made of two flat gridlike structures, one on each side of the filament. 3. surrounding the "grid" is the "plate" which is sometimes in the shape of a hollow metallic cylinder. some plates are not round, but may be oval, or they may be two flat plates joined together at some point, and one placed on either side of the grid. the plate has one terminal in the base of the bulb. [fig. 159 illustrating the principle of the audion bulb] the action of an audion-bulb is quite complex, but a simpler explanation, though one which may not be exactly correct from a purely technical point of view, is as follows, referring to figure 159: the "a" battery heats the filament, causing a stream of electrically charged particles to flow out from the filament in all directions. these electrons act as a conductor, and close the circuit which consists of the plate, the "b" battery, and the telephone receivers, one end of this circuit being connected to one side of the filament circuit. current then flows from the positive terminal of the "b" battery to the plate, then to the filament by means of the stream of electrons emitted by the filament, along one side of the filament, through the wire connected to the positive terminal of the "a" battery to the telephone receivers, through the receivers to the negative terminal of the "b" battery. as long as the filament remains lighted a steady current flows through the above circuit. the "grid" is connected to the aerial wire to intercept the radio waves. these waves produce varying electrical charges on the grid. since the stream of charged particles emitted by the filament must pass through the grid to reach the plate, the charges which the radio waves produce on the grid strengthen or weaken the stream of electrons emitted by the filament, and thus vary the current flowing in the telephone receiver circuit. the changes in this current cause the receiver diaphragm to vibrate, the vibrations causing sounds to be heard. since the variation in the telephone receiver circuit is caused by electrical charges produced by the radio waves, and since the radio waves change according to the sounds made at the transmitting station, the variations in the telephone receiver current produces the same sounds that are sent out at the transmitting station. in this way concerts, speeches, etc., are reproduced in the receivers. the modern radio receiving set includes various devices, such as variable condensers, variocouplers, loose-couplers, variometers, the purpose of which is to "tune" or adjust the receiving set to be capable of receiving the radio waves. an explanation of such devices is not within the scope of this book, but there are numerous reasonably priced books and pamphlets on the market which describes in a simple manner all the component parts of a radio-receiving set. from the foregoing remarks it is seen that a six-volt storage battery is required with each receiving set which uses the audionbulb type detector. the filament current of an audion-bulb averages about one ampere. if additional bulbs are used to obtain louder sounds, each such bulb also draws one ampere from the storage battery. the standard audion-bulb receiving set does not use more than three bulbs, and hence the maximum current drawn from the battery does not exceed three amperes. the automobile battery manufacturers have built special radio batteries which have thick plates and thick separators to give longer life. the thick plates are much stronger and more durable than the thin plates used in starting and lighting work, but do not have the heavy current capacity that the starting and lighting battery plates have. a high current capacity is, of course, not necessary for radio work, and hence thick plates are used. batteries used for radio work do not operate under the severe conditions which exist on automobiles, and trouble is much less likely to develop. however, the owner of the radio set rarely has any means of keeping his battery charged, and his battery gradually discharges and must then be recharged. it is in the sale of batteries for radio work and in the recharging of them that the battery man can "cash-in" on the radio phone "craze." this business rightfully belongs to the automobile battery man and he should go after it as hard as he can. a little advertising by the service station man, stating that he sells radio batteries, and also recharges them should bring in: very profitable business. the battery man who calls for and delivers the radio batteries which need recharging and leaves rental batteries in their place so that there is no interruption in the reception of the evening concerts is the one who will get the business. as already stated, radio storage batteries have thick plates and thick separators. perforated rubber sheets are also used in addition to the separators. large sediment spaces are also generally provided to allow a considerable amount of sediment to accumulate without causing short-circuits. the cases are made of wood or hard rubber. since radio batteries are used in homes and are, therefore, used with handsomely finished cabinets containing the radio apparatus, the manufacturers give the cases of some of their radio batteries a pleasing varnished or mahogany finish. before returning radio batteries which have been recharged, the entire batteries should be cleaned and the cases polished. returning radio batteries in a dirty condition, when they were received clean, and polished, will drive the radio recharging business to some other service station. vesta radio batteries the vesta battery corporation manufacturers three special types of "a" batteries for radio work, as follows: 1. the 6ea battery, made in capacities of 60, 80, and 100 ampere hours. fig. 160. 2. the v6ea7 battery, having a capacity of 80 ampere hours. fig. 161. 3. the r6ea battery, having a capacity of 100 ampere hours. fig. 162. [fig. 160, 161, 162, 163 various vesta radio batteries] vesta radio batteries. fig. 160 shows the 6ea series, "a" battery. fig. 161 shows the v6ea series, "a" battery. fig. 162 shows the r6ea (rubber case) series, "a" battery. fig. 163 shows the "b" battery. these batteries have 5, 7, 9 plates per cell, respectively. the plates are each 5 inches high, 5 7/8 inches wide, and 5/32 inches thick. the cases for these batteries are furnished in three designs--plain black boxes (all sizes), finished maple boxes (7 plate size only), and hard rubber boxes (9 plate size only). these vesta batteries are the "a" batteries used for heating the filaments of the audion bulbs. the vesta radio "b" battery, fig. 163, is a 12 cell, 24 volt battery, with a 22 and a 20 volt tap. exide radio batteries [fig. 164 exide radio "a" battery] the exide radio "a" battery, fig. 164, is made in four sizes, the capacities ranging from 20 to 120 ampere-hours. the design and construction of these batteries are similar to the exide starting batteries. the over-all height of these batteries is approximately 95/8 inches, the width 7-5/16 inches, while the length varies with the number of the plates. type cat. no. length weight capacity ------- ------- ----- ----- -------3-lxl-3 13735 4-9/16 15-1/2 lbs. 20 amp. hrs. 3-lxl-5 13736 5-11/16 24-1/2 lbs. 40 amp. hrs. 3-lxl-9 13737 9-1/16 42-1/2 lbs. 80 amp. hrs. 3-lxl-13 13750 12-7/16 59-1/2 lbs. 120 amp. hrs. willard radio batteries the willard storage battery co. manufactures both "a" and "b" storage batteries. the willard "a" battery, fig. 165, is an all-rubber battery. the case is a rubber "monobloc" construction, that is, the entire case is pressed into shape at one time. there are no separate jars for the cells, there being rubber partitions which form integral parts of the case. the case is, therefore, really a solid, one piece, three compartment jar. the ribs at the bottoms of the compartments are parts of the one-piece block, and are higher than those found in the usual starting and lighting battery. embedded in each side wall of the case is a bronze button which holds the handle in place. soft rubber gaskets of pure gum rubber surround the post to make an acid proof seal to prevent electrolyte from seeping from the cells. the separators are the standard willard "threaded rubber" separators. [fig. 165, 166, and 167 various willard radio batteries] willard radio batteries. fig. 165 shows the all-rubber "a" battery. fig. 166 shows the complete "b" battery. fig. 167 shows one cell of the "b" battery. the willard "a" battery comes in five sizes, type wrr97 (20 ampere hours capacity), type wrro (50 ampere hours capacity), type wrr1 (89 ampere hours capacity), type wrr2 (100 ampere hours capacity), and type wrr3 (125 ampere hours capacity). the willard "b" storage battery, type cbr124, figs. 166 and 167, is a twelve cell battery, each cell consisting of a round glass container having one negative and one positive plate insulated from each other by a small "threaded rubber" separator. the plates and separators rest on a hard rubber "bottom rest" which consists of a short length of hard rubber tube, so formed as to support the plates and separators and at the same time hold them together. the cells are assembled in a case which has a separate compartment for each cell. as seen from fig, 166, the upper parts of the cells project above the top of the case, which simplifies inspection. westinghouse radio batteries [fig. 168 westinghouse radio "a" battery, type hr] [fig. 169 westinghouse radio "b" battery, type l, and fig. 170 westinghouse radio "b" battery, type m] the westinghouse union battery co. manufactures both "a" and "b" storage batteries. their "er" type, fig. 168, is the "a" battery, and their "l" and "m" types, figs. 169 and 170, are the "b" batteries. the hr battery has 3/16 inch thick plates, high rests to provide ample mud and acid space, and thick separators. rubber sheets are placed on both sides of the positive plates. rubber covered cables are moulded into the terminals to minimize corrosion at the positive terminal. the "hr" batteries are made in six and eight volt sizes, with 3 plates per cell, 5 plates per cell, 9 plates per cell, and 13 plates per cell. the westinghouse radio "b" batteries are made in two sizes. type 22-m-2, fig. 170, has a capacity of 1.2 ampere hours at 0.04 ampere. it is designed to operate a receiving set having one detector and two amplifier bulbs for three to five weeks between charges. the type 22-l-2 battery, fig. 169, has a capacity of 4.5 ampere hours at 0.25 ampere. part no. type volts amp. hours at 3 amps. weight intermittent rate ------- --- ---- -------------------- -----100110 6-hr-5 6 54 a.h. 30 lbs. 100111 6-hr-9 6 108 a.h. 46 lbs. 100112 6-hr-13 6 162 a.h. 65 lbs. 100135 8-hr-5 8 54 a.h. 40 lbs. 100136 8-hr-9 8 108 a.h. 60 lbs. 100137 8-hr-13 8 162 a.h. 87 lbs. 100145 6-hr-3 6 27 a.h. 20 lbs. part no. type volts capacity weight ------ ----- ---- ------- -----100148 22-m-2 22 1.2 a.h. at .04 amps. 6-1/4 lbs. 100140 2-l-2 22 1.2 a.h. at 25 amps. 19-3/4 lbs. philadelphia radio batteries [fig. 171 philadelphia radio "a" battery] the philadelphia storage battery co. makes both "a" and "b" radio batteries. the "a" battery, fig. 171, uses the standard diamond-grid plates, and the "philco slotted retainer" used in philadelphia starting batteries. the cases of the "a" batteries are made of hardwood, finished in an ebonite black. soft rubber insulating feet on the bottom of the case prevent scratching any table or varnished floor on which the battery may be set. the instructions for preparing the philadelphia "a" battery for service are similar to those given for the starting and lighting batteries, given on page 228. for the initial filling, 1.220 electrolyte is used, and the battery charged at the following rates: initial and recharge charging rate ---------------------------------type initial rate recharge rate --- ----------- ------------56lar 1.0 2 56rar 2.0 3 76rar 3.0 4.5 96rar 4.0 6 116rar 5.6 7.5 136rar 6.0 9 the final gravity of the electrolyte should be 1.250. however, if the owner insists on getting maximum capacity, the battery may be filled with 1.250 electrolyte and balanced to 1.290 at the end of the charge. [fig. 172 philadelphia radio "b" battery] the philadelphia radio "b" battery, type 224-rb, fig. 172, has 12 cells contained in a one-piece rubber case. it is shipped dry, and requires no initial charge. to prepare it for service, the soft rubber vent caps are removed and 25 c. c. of 1.250 electrolyte poured into each cell. u. s. l. radio battery [fig. 173 u.s.l. radio "a" battery] the u. s. l. radio "a" battery, fig. 173, uses 1/4 inch positives, with 3/16 inch intermediate and 1/8 inch outside negatives. port orford cedar separators are used which are four times as thick as the usual starting battery separator. the case is made of hardwood, and is varnished to match cabinet work. the electrolyte has a specific gravity of 1.220. the heavy plates and separators and the low gravity of the electrolyte are designed to give long life. ampere ampere hour plates hour capacity per capacity (or intermittent type cell @ 3 amperes use) dimensions weight --- --- ---------- --------------- --------- -----dxa-303-x 3 12 20 5-3/16 x 18 7-1/4 x 9-1/4 dxa-305-x 5 40 60 9-1/8 x 7-1/4 39 x 9-1/4 dxa-307-x 7 70 85 11-3/4 x 7-7/16 48 x 9-1/4 dxa-309-x 9 98 115 14-3/8 x 7-7/16 59 x 9-1/4 prest-o-lite radio batteries the prest-o-lite co. makes two lines of radio "a" batteries. first, an inexpensive battery, fig. 174, and a deluxe battery, fig. 175, which has a better finish and appearance. both types have a mahogany finished case with rubber feet to prevent damaging furniture. a bail handle simplifies the carrying of the battery. capacities range from 47 ampere-hours to 127 ampere-hours at a one ampere discharge rate. [fig. 174 & 175 presto-o-lite radio "a" battery] table of prest-o-lite radio batteries ------------------------------------ hours discharge at rate of: type 1 amp. 2 amps. 3 amps. 5 amps. 10 amps. ------ ----- ------ ------ ------ -------67 whnr 47.5 21.7 13.6 7.5 3.0 69 whnr 66 30 18.9 10.5 4.5 611 whnr 82.8 38.5 24.3 13.5 6.0 67 kpnr 95 44.2 27.8 15.0 6.5 69 kpnr 127 61.5 38.5 21.5 9.5 universal radio batteries [fig. 176 universal type wr, radio "a" battery] the universal battery co. manufacture three types of radio "a" storage batteries. type wr, fig. 176, has three sealed hard rubber jars assembled in a hardwood case which is stained and finished in mahogany. the separators are made of port orford cedar and are 1/8 inch thick, about twice the thickness of the separator used in starting and lighting batteries. the plates also are much thicker than the standard starting and lighting battery plate. the type wr battery comes in three sizes. types wr-5, wr-7, and wr-9, having capacities of 60, 85, and 105 ampere hours, respectively, at a 3 ampere rate. the universal type rr radio "a" battery, fig. 177, is assembled in a hard rubber combination case, which is a solid piece of rubber divided into three compartments. this gives a compact, acid proof case. this battery also comes in three sizes, types rr-5, rr-7, and rr-9, having capacities of 60, 85 and 105 ampere hours, respectively, at a three ampere discharge rate. [fig. 177 universal type rr, radio "a" battery] [fig. 178 universal type gr, radio "a" battery] the universal type gr radio "a" battery, fig. 178, is assembled in three sealed glass jars which are placed in a mahogany finished wooden crate. this construction makes the cell interiors visible, enabling the owner to detect troubles and to watch the action of the cells on charge and discharge. the gr battery comes in two sizes, gr-5 and gr-jr., having respective capacities of 60 and 16 ampere hours at a 3 ampere discharge rate. "dry" storage batteries during the past year or two, so-called "dry" starting and lighting storage batteries have appeared on the market. this class includes batteries having "dry," "semi-dry," and "jelly" electrolytes. the claims made for these batteries are that there is nothing to evaporate and that the periodical addition of water is therefore unnecessary, that spilling and slopping of electrolyte is impossible, and that injurious sulphation does not take place. the "dry" storage battery is not a new idea, for as much as thirty-five years ago, the oerlikon company of switzerland manufactured "dry" electrolyte storage batteries in commercial quantities. these batteries were for a long time a distinct success for work requiring only low rates of discharge. for high rates of discharge the lack of diffusion, due to the absence of a liquid electrolyte, reduces the capacity. the lack of diffusion will cause a rapid drop in voltage when cranking the engine! and a slow recovery after the engine begins to run under its own power. the manufacturers of the "dry" storage batteries, of course, claim that their batteries are more efficient and satisfactory than the standard "wet" battery, but it has been impossible to get sufficient data from the manufacturers to go into detail on the subject. several of the largest of "wet" battery manufacturers formerly made "dry" storage batteries for lighting and ignition service, but when starting motors came into use, discarded the "dry" batteries in favor of the present "wet" storage batteries. discharge tests discharge tests may be divided into four general classes: (a) brief high rate discharge tests to determine condition of battery. these tests are made for 15 seconds at a high rate. (b) lighting ability discharge tests. (c) starting ability discharge tests. (d) "cycling" discharge tests. the 15 seconds high rate discharge test the 1.5 seconds high rate discharge test is a valuable aid in determining the condition of a battery, particularly where the hydrometer readings give false indications, such as is the case when electrolyte or acid is added to a cell instead of water to replace evaporation. only two or three percent of the battery capacity is consumed by the test, and it is not usually necessary to recharge the battery after making the test. the test must be made in conjunction with hydrometer readings, as otherwise it might give false indications itself. both incoming and outgoing batteries may be tested, and the method of testing depends upon whether the battery is coming in for repairs, or is going out after having been charged, repaired, or worked on in any way. in either case, the test consists of discharging the battery at a high rate for a short time, and taking voltage readings and making observations while the battery is discharging. [fig. 179 making a 20 seconds high rate discharge test] rates of discharge. it is not necessary to have any definitely fixed discharge rate. the rate should merely be high enough to reveal any improperly burned joints, short-circuited cells, or cells low in capacity for any reason. the discharge tester is suitable for all batteries used on cars and trucks. for an incoming battery. take a hydrometer reading of each cell. if the readings are all below 1.200 and are within 50 points of each other, most likely all the battery needs is a bench charge, with a possible adjustment of the gravity of the electrolyte at the end of the charge. the discharge test should in this case be made after the battery has been fully charged. if the gravity readings are all above 1.200, or if the reading of one cell differs from the others by 50 points or more, make the discharge test, as shown in fig. 179. after fifteen seconds, read the voltage of each cell. if the cells are uniformly low in voltage; that is, below 1.5 volts per cell, the battery needs recharging. if the voltage readings of the cells differ by 0.1.0 volt or more and the battery is fairly well charged, there is something wrong in the cell having the low reading, and the battery should be opened and examined. with a discharged battery the difference in cell voltage will be greater, depending on the extent of the discharge, and only experience can guide in drawing correct conclusions. a short-circuited cell will give a very low voltage reading. remember that the actual voltage reading is not as important in indicating a defective cell as the difference between the voltage readings of the cells. a cell which gives a voltage which is 0.1 volt or more less than the others is generally defective. for outgoing new, charged, or repaired batteries. just before putting the battery into service, make the test as a check on the internal condition of the battery, particularly if the battery has been repaired or has stood for sometime since being charged. (it is assumed that the battery has been charged and the gravity of the electrolyte properly adjusted when the test is made.) the battery should not show more than 0.10 volt difference between any two cells at the end of 15 seconds, and no cell should show a voltage less than 1.75 volts, and the voltage should remain fairly constant during the test. if every cell reads below 1.75 volts, the battery has not been completely charged. if one cell is more than 0.10 volt lower than the others, or if its voltage falls off rapidly, that cell still needs repairs, or is insufficiently charged, or else the top connectors are not burned on properly. top connectors which heat up during the test are not burned on properly. lighting ability discharge tests these are tests continuing for 5 hours to a final voltage of 1.7 per cell. these tests are not of as great an interest as the starting ability tests, description of which follows: starting ability discharge tests the society of automotive engineers recommends two ratings for starting and lighting batteries: "batteries for combined lighting and starting service shall have two ratings. the first shall indicate the lighting ability and be the capacity in ampere-hours of the battery when discharged continuously at the 5 hour rate to a final voltage of not less than 1.7 per cell, the temperature of the battery beginning such a discharge being 80 deg. fahr. the second rating shall indicate the starting ability and shall be the capacity in ampere-hours when the battery is discharged continuously at the 20 minute rate to a final voltage of not less than 1.50 per cell, the temperature of the battery beginning such discharge being 80 deg. fahr." the capacity in ampere-hours given by manufacturers is for a continuous discharge for 5 hours. in the battery shop, however, the "starting-ability" discharge test is the test which should be made, though the conditions of the test are changed somewhat. to make this test, the battery should be fully charged. connect a rheostat to the battery terminals and adjust the rheostat to draw about 100 amperes from an 11 plate battery, 120 amperes from a 13 plate battery, 135 amperes from a 15 plate battery, 155 amperes from a 17 plate battery, 170 amperes from a 19 plate battery and so on. continue the discharge for 20 minutes, keeping the discharge current constant, and taking voltage readings of each cell at the start, and at the end of 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes. at the end of 20 minutes, if the battery is in good condition, the voltage of each cell should not be less than 1.5, and the temperature of the electrolyte in any cell should not exceed 95 degrees fahrenheit, provided that the temperature at the start was about 80 degrees. the cell voltages should drop slowly during the test. if the voltage begins to drop rapidly during the test, as shown by the current falling off so rapidly that it is difficult to keep it at 100 amperes, measure the cell voltages quickly to see which cells are dropping rapidly. an example of a 100 ampere test on a good rebuilt cell with eleven plates is as follows: voltage immediately after start of discharge, 1.88. after 5 minutes, 1.86 volts. after 10 minutes, 1.80 volts. after 15 minutes, 1.72 volts. after 20 minutes, 1.5 volts. if the voltage of a cell begins to fall off rapidly before the twenty minutes are up, but not before 15 minutes, the cell needs "cycling" (charging and discharging) to bring it up to capacity. if the voltage drops rapidly before the end of 15 minutes, the plates are low in capacity, due to age, or some defect. it is not safe to expect very good service from a cell which will not stand up for 20 minutes before de voltage begins to drop rapidly. if the rapid voltage drop begins very much before 20 minutes, it is very doubtful whether the battery will give good service. comparisons of the results of tests with the service which the battery gives after installed on the car will soon enable the repairman to tell from the results of the tests just what to expect from any battery. the "starting-ability" test should be made on all batteries which have been rebuilt whenever there is time to do so and on all batteries about which there is any doubt as to what service they will give. after the test, the batteries should be put on the line again and charged before sending them out. the rates of discharge given here for the "starting-ability" tests may be varied if experience with a particular make of battery shows some other rate to be better. the important thing is to use the same rate of discharge for the same make and type of battery at all times. in this way the repairman will soon be able to distinguish between good and bad batteries of a particular make and type. cadmium tests may be made during the starting ability discharge tests. see page 174. "cycling" discharge tests new batteries, or rebuilt batteries which have had new plates installed, or sulphated batteries which will not "come up" on charge, should be discharged when they have "come-up," as far as they will go. in some cases it is necessary to charge and discharge them several times before they will be ready for service. this charging and discharging is often called "cycling" the battery. new batteries are generally "cycled" at the factory before sending them out. the forming charge generally does not convert all the pastes into active material and the battery using plates which have been treated in the forming room is put through several discharges and charges after the battery is fully assembled. in service on a car, the battery is being "cycled" constantly and there is generally an increase in capacity after a battery is put on a car. positive plates naturally increase in capacity, sometimes up to the very clay when they fall to pieces, while negatives tend to lose capacity with age. batteries which are assembled in the service station, using new plates, generally require several cycles of charge and discharge before the specific gravity will rise to 1.280 before the positives will give 2.4-2.5 volts on a cadmium test, before the negatives will give a reversed voltage reading of 0.175 to 0.20 volt on a cadmium test, and before a satisfactory "starting-ability" or "breakdown" test can be made. a battery which has been abused by failing to add water to replace evaporation, by allowing to remain in a partially or completely discharged condition for sometime, or which has been allowed to become sulphated in any other way, will generally require "cycling" before it will "come-up" to a serviceable condition. the rates for a "cycling" discharge should be such that the battery will be discharged during the daytime, the discharge being started in the morning, and the battery being put back oil the charging line in the evening in order that it may be charging during the night. the rate of discharge should be somewhat higher than the rate used when the plates are formed. two or three amperes per positive plate in each cell will generally be satisfactory. discharge apparatus a simple discharge rheostat is shown in fig. 180. the terminal on the end of the cable attached to the right hand terminal of the battery shown in the illustration is movable, and it may be clamped at any point along the coils of wire so as to give various currents. the wire should be greased lightly to prevent rusting. [fig. 180 simple high rate discharge rheostat] another simple apparatus consists of a board on which are mounted six double contact automobile lamp sockets which are all connected in parallel. a pair of leads having test clips attached is brought out from the sockets for fastening to the battery terminals. lamps of various candlepower may be turned into the sockets to obtain different currents. discharge tests are helpful in the case of a battery that has lost capacity. the battery is first fully charged, and is then discharged at the 5 hour rate. when the voltage of the battery has fallen to 1.7 volts per cell (measured while the battery is discharging) a cadmium test is made to determine whether the positives or negatives are causing the lack of capacity. for further descriptions of the cadmium test see page 174. in reviving sulphated batteries, it is sometimes necessary to charge and discharge the battery several times to put the active material in a healthy condition. discharge tests at a high rate are very valuable in diagnosing the condition of a battery. a description of such tests will be found on page 267. for making the heavy discharge tests a rheostat of the carbon plate type is suitable. with such a rheostat currents from 25 to more than 200 may be drawn from a six volt battery, and a smooth, even variation of a current may be obtained from the minimum to the maximum values. such a rheostat is on the market and may be purchased complete with ammeter and leads for attaching to the battery. packing batteries for shipping batteries which are shipped without electrolyte need merely have plenty of excelsior placed around them in a strong crate for protection from mechanical injury. batteries which are shipped filled with electrolyte must be protected from mechanical injury and must also be packed so that it is difficult to turn the crate upside down and thus allow the electrolyte to run out. a very popular crate has been the so-called "dog-house," with a gable roof such as is actually used on dog-houses. the idea of such a roof is that it is impossible to place the crate with the roof down, since it will tip over if this is done. however, if these crates are placed side by side, it is a very simple matter to put a second row of crates on top of them, turning the second row up-side-down, as shown in fig. 181, and allowing the electrolyte to run out. the men who load freight or express-cars have often shown great skill and cunning in packing "dog-house" crates in other ways so as to damage the batteries. many have attained a high degree of perfection in breaking the crates. [fig. 181 "dog-house" crates for shipping batteries] some sort of a roof on a battery crate is required by law, the idea being to make it difficult to turn the crate up-side-down. perhaps the best crate would be one with a flat top marked "this side up," but such a crate would not comply with the law. [fig. 182 steps for construction of a crate for shipping battery] a better form of crate than the "dog-house" and one which complies with the law, is shown in fig. 182. the top of each end piece is cut at an angle, the peak on one end being placed opposite the low point of the opposite end piece. fig. 182 shows the steps in the construction of the crate. 1. the case should be built of strong lumber (11/2 inch preferably), and of ample size to allow packing with excelsior top, bottom, sides and ends to a thickness of two or three inches. nail strongly. 2. when the case is complete (except cover) place a thick, even layer of excelsior (or packing straw) in the bottom and set in *he battery right side up. lay paper (preferably paraffined) over top of battery to keep it clean, then pack tightly with excelsior sides and ends. 3. now lay sufficient packing material on top of the battery so that cover will compress it tightly, stuffing it under cover boards as they are put on. the extended boards at bottom, and the gable roof are provided to prevent the battery from being tipped over; extensions of sides for carrying. box should be plainly labeled: "handle with care. damages claimed if tipped on side." in addition to the address of destination, as given in shipping instructions be sure to mark with name of shipper for identification upon arrival. when shipping by freight, the proper freight classification in the united states is "electric storage batteries, assembled." when shipping by express in the united states, "acid" caution labels must be attached to each package. storing separators separators which have been given the chemical treatment necessary to remove the substances which would cause trouble in the battery, and to make the wood porous, must be kept wet and never be allowed to become dry. a lead lined box, or large earthenware jars may be used as containers. put the separators in the container and then pour in enough very weak electrolyte to cover the separators. this electrolyte may be made of i part of 1.220 electrolyte to 10 parts of distilled water, by volume. be very careful to have the container absolutely clean and to use chemically pure acid and distilled water in making the weak electrolyte. remember that impurities which are picked up by the separators will go into the battery in which the separators are placed. therefore, keep the separator tank in a clean place and keep a cover on it. have your hands clean when you take separators out of the tank to place in a battery, and do not put the separators on a dirty bench before inserting them between plates. the best thing to do is to hold the separators in one hand and insert them with the other, and not lay them on any bench at all. reinsulation separators are the weakest part of a battery and wear out while the other parts of a battery are still in good condition. good plates are often ruined by weakened separators causing short-circuits. many batteries which have to be junked after being in service about a year would have given considerable service if they had been reinsulated. generally the separators of one cell wear out before those of the other cells. do not, however, reinsulate that cell alone. the separators in the other cells are as old as those which have worn out, and are very near the breaking down point. if you reinsulate only one cell, the owner will naturally assume that the other cells are in good condition. what happens? a month or so later one of the other cells "goes dead." this does not have a very soothing effect on the owner, who will begin to lose confidence in you and begin to look around for another service station. if you explain frankly that it is useless to reinsulate only one cell of a battery and that the other cells will break down in a short time, the customer will want you to reinsulate all the cells. a somewhat higher bill for reinsulating all the cells at once will be more agreeable than having the cells break down one at a time within a month or two. in the case of the customers who come in regularly for testing and filling service, you will be able to tell when the separators are wearing out. when you find that a battery which has been in service about a year begins to run down frequently, and successive tests made in connection with testing and filling service show that the generator is not able to keep the battery charged, advise the owner to have the battery reinsulated. do not wait for the battery to have a dead cell. sell the owner on the idea that reinsulation will prevent the possibility of his battery breaking down when he may be out on a tour, and when it may be necessary to have his car towed in to a service station. if you allow the battery to remain on the car when it begins to lose its charge, the owner will not, of course, suspect that anything is wrong, and if his battery one day breaks down suddenly, lie will very likely lose confidence both in you and the battery, since he has been bringing in his car regularly in order to have his battery kept in good shape. the sudden failure of his battery will, therefore, make him believe that you do not know your business, or that the battery is a poor one. new separators will give every battery which is a year old a new lease on life. if you explain to a customer that he will get a much longer period of service from his battery if he has it reinsulated when the battery is a year old, you should have no trouble in getting the job, and the subsequent performance of the battery will show that you knew what you were talking about. safety first for the battery repairman 1. do not work on an empty stomach-you can then absorb lead easily. 2. keep your fingers out of your mouth when at work. 3. keep your finger nails short and clean. 4. do not chew tobacco while at work. in handling tobacco, the lead oxides are carried to your mouth. chewing tobacco does not prevent you from swallowing lead. 5. when you leave the shop at night, and before eating, wash your face, hands, and arms with soap, and clean your nose, mouth, and finger nails. 6. do not eat in the repair shop. 7. drink plenty of good milk. it prevents lead poisoning. 8. use epsom salts when constipated. this is very important. 9. bathe frequently to prevent lead poisoning. 10. leave your working clothes in the shop. 11. it is better not to wear a beard or mustache. keep your hair covered with a cap. 12. before sweeping the shop dampen the floor to keep down the dust. 13. do not drink beer or whisky, or any other alcoholic liquors. these weaken your system and make you more susceptible to lead poisoning. 14. in handling lead, wear gloves as much as possible, and wash and dry the gloves every day that you wear them. 15. wear goggles to keep lead and acid out of your eyes. 16. when melting lead in a hydrogen flame, as in burning on the top connectors, the fumes given off may be blown away by a stream of air. the air supply to the flame may be tapped for this purpose. 17. the symptoms of lead poisoning are: gums darken or become blue, indigestion, colic, constipation, loss of appetite, muscular pain. in the later stages there is muscular weakness and paralysis. the hands become limp and useless. 18. wear rubber shoes or boots. leather shoes should be painted with a hot mixture of equal parts of paraffine and beeswax. 19. wear woolen clothes if possible. cotton clothing should be dipped in a strong solution of baking soda and dried. wear a flannel apron covered with sacking. 20. keep a bottle of strong ammonia handy. if you should spill acid on your clothes, apply some of the ammonia immediately to neutralize the acid, which will otherwise burn a hole in your clothes. 21. keep a stone, earthenware, or porcelain jar filled with a solution of washing soda or baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). rinse your hands in this solution occasionally to prevent the acid from irritating them. 22. if you should splash acid in your eye, wash it out immediately with warm water, and drop olive oil on the eye. if you have no olive oil at hand, do not wait to get some, but use any, lubricating oil, or vaseline. testing the electrical system "out of sight, out of mind," is a familiar saying. but when does it hold true? what about the battery repairman? are the batteries he repairs "out of sight, out of mind?" does his responsibility end when he has installed a battery on a car? suppose he put a battery in first class shape, installs it on a car, and, after a week or two the battery comes back, absolutely dead? is the battery at fault, or is the repairman to blame for neglecting to make sure that the battery would be given a reasonably good chance to give good service and receive fair treatment from the other part of the electrical system? the actual work on the battery is finished when the battery cables are fastened to the battery terminals. but real battery service does not end there. the battery is the most important part of the electrical system of a car, but it is only one part, and a good battery cannot be expected to give satisfactory service when it is connected to the other parts of the electrical system without making sure that these parts are working properly, any more than a man wearing new, shoes can step into a mud puddle and not have his shoes covered with dirt. the battery functions by means of the current which flows through it by way of the cables which are connected to its terminals. a battery is human in many respects. it must have both food and exercise and there must be a proper balance between the food and the exercise. too much food for the amount of exercise, or too much exercise for the amount of food consumed will both lead to a lowering of efficiency, and disease frequently results. a battery exercises when it turns over the starting motor, furnishes energy to the lamps, or operates the a ignition system. it receives food when it is charged. proper attention to the electrical system will result in a correct balance between food and exercise, or in other words, charge and discharge. the electrical equipment of a car consists of five principal parts: 1. the battery. 2. the ignition system. 3. the starting motor. 4. the generator. 5. the lighting system. the normal course of operation of this system is as follows: starting. the ignition switch is closed, and connects the ignition system to the battery. the starting switch is then closed, connecting the starting motor to the battery. the battery sends a heavy current through the starting motor, causing the motor to turn over, or "crank" the engine. the motion of the engine pistons draws a mixture of air and gasoline vapor into the cylinders. at the proper instant sparks are made to jump between the points of the spark plugs, igniting the air and gasoline vapor mixture, forming a large amount of gas. this gas expands, and in doing so puts the engine into motion. the engine begins to run under its own power and the starting switch is opened, since the starting motor has performed the work required of it, and has nothing further to do as long as the engine runs. the engine now operates the generator. the generator begins to build up a voltage as the engine speed increases. when the voltage of the generator has risen to about 7-7.5, the generator is automatically connected to the battery by the cutout (also known as reverse-current relay, cut-out relay, or relay). the voltage of the generator being higher than that of the battery, the generator sends a current through the battery, which "charges" the battery. as long as the engine continues to run above the speed at which the generator develops a voltage higher than that of the battery, a charging current will normally flow through the battery. when the ignition switch is opened the engine can no longer develop any power and consequently stops running. when the decreasing engine speed causes the generator speed to drop to a point at which the generator voltage is less than that of battery, the battery sends a reverse, or discharge current through the cutout and generator, thereby causing the cutout to open and disconnect the generator from the battery. lights. when the engine is not running, the battery furnishes current to the lights. this is a discharge current. when the engine runs at a speed which is greater than that at which the the cutout closes, the generator furnishes current for the lights, and also for the ignition system, in addition to sending a charging current through the battery. from the foregoing description, we see that the battery is at rest, is discharging, or charging under the following conditions: engine not running, lamps off, ignition off. under these conditions all switches are open, and hence no current should be passing through the battery. if a current is found to be passing through the battery under these conditions, it is a discharge current which is not doing any work and is caused by a defective cutout, defective switches, or grounds and short-circuits in the wires, cables, or apparatus connected to the battery. starting the engine. a heavy discharge current is drawn from the battery. this current should not flow more than 10 seconds. if the starting motor does not crank the engine or cranks it too slowly, the motor or the cables and switch connecting the motor to the battery are defective, assuming that the battery is large enough and is in a good condition. if the starting motor cranks the engine, but the engine does not begin to run under its own power within ten seconds, the starting system is not at fault, and the starting switch should be opened. engine not running, all lamps on. a discharge current flows from the battery which is equal to the sum of the currents drawn by lamps when connected to the battery separately. if the current is greater than this sum, trouble is present. engine running, lamps off. the generator sends a charging current into the battery and also supplies current to the ignition system (except when a magneto is used). if the generator does not send a charging current through the battery there is trouble in the generator, or in the parts connecting the generator to the battery (assuming the battery to be in a good condition). if the generator sends a current through the battery, it may be of the correct value, it may be insufficient, or it may be excessive. a normal current is one which keeps the battery fully charged, but does not overheat it or cause excessive gassing. an insufficient current is one which fails to keep the battery charged. an excessive charging current is one which keeps the battery charged, but which at the same time overheats the battery and causes excessive gassing. the excessive current may also overheat the generator, while a normal or insufficient charging current will not injure the generator. it is possible, but not probable, that the generator may be sending current through the battery in the wrong direction, so as to discharge it instead of charging it. this will happen if a very badly discharged battery is installed with the connections reversed. if a fully or even partly charged battery is installed with its connections reversed, the battery will generally reverse the polarity of the generator automatically, and the battery will be charged in the proper direction, although the current flow in the charging circuit is actually reversed. engine running, lamps on. under these conditions, the generator should supply the current for the lights, and still send a charging current of 3 to 5 amperes through the battery. this means that the current drawn from the battery when the engine is not running and the lights are all turned on should be at least several amperes less than the charging current which the generator sends into the battery when the engine is running and the lamps are turned off. tests to be made by the repairman the battery repairman can, and always should, make a few simple tests which will tell him whether the various conditions of operation are normal. this should be done as follows: 1. install the battery carefully (see page 236), and connect the negative battery cable to the negative battery terminal. now tap the positive battery cable on the positive battery terminal. if a snappy spark is obtained when this is done, some of the switches are open or are defective, the cutout is stuck in the closed position, or there are grounds or short-circuits in the parts which are permanently connected to the battery. even though no spark is obtained when you tap the positive battery cable on the positive battery terminal, there may be some trouble which draws enough current from the battery to cause it to run down in a short time. to detect such trouble, connect a voltmeter (which has sufficient range to indicate the battery voltage) between the positive battery cable and the positive battery terminal. (cable is disconnected from the terminal.) if the voltmeter now gives a reading equal to the voltage of the battery, there is some condition causing a current leakage from the battery, such as a cutout stuck in the closed position, defective switches which do not break the circuits when in the open position, or grounds or short-circuits in the cables and wires connected to the battery. if the voltmeter pointer does not move from the "0" line on the scale, complete the battery connections by fastening the positive battery cable to the positive battery terminal, and make the test described in section 2. if the voltmeter pointer moves from the "0" line, and gives a reading equal to the battery voltage, connect the voltmeter permanently between the positive battery cable and the positive battery terminal and make a general inspection of the wiring, looking for cut or torn insulation which allows a wire or cable to come in contact with the frame of the car, or with some other wire or cable, thereby causing a ground or short-circuit. old, oil-soaked insulation on wires and cables will often cause such trouble. if a general inspection does not reveal the cause of the current leakage, proceed as follows: closed cutout, or defective cutout windings. (a) if the cutout is mounted outside the generator, remove the cover from it and see if the points are stuck together. if they are, separate them and see if the voltmeter pointer returns to the "0" line. if it does, you have found the trouble. the points should be made smooth with 00 sandpaper. see that the moving arm of the cutout moves freely and that the spring which tends to hold the arm in the open position is not weak or broken. if the voltmeter pointer does not return to the "0" line when the cutout points are separated, or if the points were not found to be stuck together, disconnect from the cutout the wire which goes to the ammeter or battery. if this causes the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, the cutout is defective and a new one should be installed, unless the trouble can be found by inspection and repaired. if the voltmeter pointer does not return to the "0" line when the battery or ammeter wire is disconnected from the cutout, see paragraph (d). (b) if the cutout is mounted inside the generator, disconnect from the generator the wire which goes to the ammeter or indicator. if this causes the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, the cutout points are stuck together or the cutout is defective, and the generator should be taken apart for inspection. if this does not cause the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, replace the wire and see paragraph (d). (c) if no cutout is used and connections between the generator (or motor-generator) and the battery are made by closing the ignition or starting switch, such as is the case on delco and dyneto motor-generators, and some delco generators, disconnect from the generator or motorgenerator the wire that goes to the ammeter or indicator. if this causes the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, the switch which connects the generator or motor-generator to the ammeter or indicator is defective. if the voltmeter pointer does not return to the "0" line, replace the wire and consult paragraph (d). (d) defective starting switch. disconnect from the starting switch the cable that goes to the battery. if one or more smaller wires are connected to the same terminal as the heavy cable, disconnect them also and hold their bare ends on the bare end of the heavy cable. if this causes the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, the starting switch is defective. if the voltmeter pointer does not return to the "0" line, replace the cable and wires on the starting switch terminal and proceed as follows: defective switches. see that the ignition and lighting switches are in their "off" positions. if they are not, open them and see if the voltmeter pointer returns to the "0" line. if it does, you have found the trouble. if it does not, disconnect from the switch (or switches, if there are separate lighting and ignition switches), the feed wire which supplies current to the switch from the battery. if this causes the voltmeter pointer to return to the "0" line, the switches are defective. if the pointer does not return to the "0" line, replace the wires on the switch and consult the next paragraph. if there are other switches which control a spot light, or special circuits, such as tonneau lamps, or accessories, such as gasoline vaporizers, electric primers, etc., make the same tests on these switches. if no trouble has been found, see paragraph (e). (e) grounds or short-circuits in wiring. disconnect from each terminal point in the wiring system the wires which are connected together at that point. also remove fuses from the fuse blocks. if the voltmeter pointer returns to the "0" line when a certain wire or fuse is removed, there is a ground or short-circuit in the wire or in the circuit to which the fuse is connected. (f) turn on the lights. remove the voltmeter and complete the battery connection. note how much current is indicated on the ammeter mounted on the instrument panel of the car as the different lamps are turned on. in each case the ammeter should indicate "discharge." should the ammeter indicate "charge" the battery connections have been reversed, or the ammeter connections are reversed. the driver will tell you whether the ammeter has been reading "charge" or "discharge" when the lamps were turned on. this is a good way to check your battery connections. if the car has no ammeter, or has an indicator which is marked "on" or "off," or "charge" or "discharge," an ammeter may be connected in series with the battery by disconnecting the cable from the positive battery terminal and connecting the ammeter to the cable and to the terminal, and the readings obtained from this meter. the amperes indicated on the ammeter should be the greatest when the main headlamps are burning bright. by comparing the readings obtained when the different lighting combinations are turned on, it is sometimes possible to detect trouble in some of the lighting lines. 3. start the engine. before you do this, be sure that the cables are connected directly to the battery terminals, and that no ammeter or voltmeter is connected in series with the battery, as the heavy current drawn by the starting motor would ruin the instruments very quickly. an ammeter may be left connected in series with the battery, providing that a switch is used to short-circuit the meter while starting the engine. a meter having a 500 ampere scale may be left connected in series with the battery while the engine is being started, but for the tests which are to be made a 25 ampere scale should be used. the engine should start within ten seconds after the starting switch is closed. if more time than this is required, carburetor adjustments, position of the choke lever, etc., should be looked after. continued cranking of the engine will run the battery down very quickly, and the chances are that the car will not be run long enough to allow the generator to recharge the battery. make whatever adjustments are necessary to reduce the cranking time to ten seconds, or advise the owner to have them made, warning him that otherwise you will not be responsible if the battery runs down very quickly. 4. when the engine has started, set the throttle lever so that the engine runs as slowly as possible. the ammeter (either that on the instrument panel, or a special test ammeter connected in series with the battery) will indicate several amperes discharge, this being the current taken by the ignition system. now speed up the engine gradually. at an engine speed corresponding to a car speed of 7 to 10 miles per hour in high (if there is any difficulty in estimating this speed, drive the car around the block while making this and the following tests) the ammeter pointer should move back to, or slightly past, the "0" line, showing that the cutout has closed. if the ammeter needle jumps back and forth and the cutout opens and closes rapidly, the polarity of the battery and that of the generator are not the same. this condition may be remedied by holding the cutout points closed for several seconds, or by short-circuiting the "battery" terminal on the cutout with the "generator" terminal on the cutout. after a slight movement of the ammeter pointer indicates that the cutout has closed, speed up the engine gradually. when the engine speed corresponds to a car speed of 18-25 miles per hour in "high," the current indicated on the ammeter should reach its maximum value and the pointer should then stop moving, or should begin to drop back toward the "0" line as the speed is increased. for average driving conditions, the maximum charging current should not exceed 12 to 14 amperes for a 6 volt, 11 to 13 plate battery, and 6 to 7 amperes for a 12 volt battery. (these currents should be obtained if "constant-current" generators, such as the "third brush," "reversed-series," or vibrating current regulators are used. the "third brush" type of generator is used on more than 99 per cent of the modern cars. some cars use a "constant-voltage" regulated generator, such as the bijur generator, having a voltage regulator carried in a box mounted on the generator. on all cars using a "constant-voltage" generator, the charging rate when the battery is fully charged should not exceed five amperes for a six volt generator). if the generator has a thermostat, such as is used on the remy generators, the charging rate will be as high as 20 amperes until the generator warms up, and then the charging rate will drop to 10-12 amperes, due to the opening of the thermostat points, which inserts a resistance coil in series with the shunt field. if the charging current reaches its maximum value at 18-25 miles per hour, and shows no increase at higher speeds, decrease the engine speed. when the engine is running at a speed corresponding to a car speed of about 7 miles per hour, or less, the cutout should open, indicated by the ammeter indicating several amperes discharge, in addition to the ignition current, for an instant, and then dropping back to the amount taken by the ignition system. now turn on the headlights (and whatever lamps are turned on at the same time) and speed the engine up again. the ammeter should indicate some charging current at engine speeds corresponding to the usual speed at which the car is driven. if it does not, the charging current should be increased or smaller lamps must be installed. troubles the operation of the electrical system when the engine is running may not be as described in the foregoing paragraphs. troubles may be found as follows: 1. cutout does not close until engine reaches a speed in excess of 10 miles per hour. this trouble may be due to the cutout or to the generator. if the ammeter shows a charging current of three amperes or more as soon as it closes, the cutout is at fault. the thing to do in such a case is to adjust the cutout. first see that the movable armature of the cutout moves freely and does not bind at the pivot. if no trouble is found here, the thing to do is to decrease the air gap which exists between the stationary and movable cutout points when the cutout is open., or to decrease the tension of the spring which tends to keep the points open. on most cutouts there is a stop which the cutout armature strikes when the cutout opens. by bending this stop the air-gap between the points may be decreased. this is the adjustment which should be made to have the cutout close earlier, rather than to decrease the spring tension. some cutouts have a spiral spring attached to the cutout armature. others have a flat spring. on still others, the spring forms the connection between the armature and the cutout frame. in the first two types, the spring tension may be decreased, but wherever possible the air-gap adjustment should be made as described. if the cutout closes late, and only about an ampere of charging current is indicated on the ammeter, and the cutout points are fairly clean and smooth, the trouble is generally in the generator. the generator troubles which are most likely to exist are: a. dirty commutator. b. dirty brush contact surface. c. loose brushes. d. brushes bearing on wrong point of commutator (to set brushes properly, remove all outside connections from generator, open the shunt field circuit, and apply a battery across the main brushes. shift the brushes until the armature does not tend to rotate in either direction. this is, of course, a test which must be made with the generator on the test bench). e. loose connections in the shunt field circuit. the foregoing conditions are the ones which will generally be found. more serious troubles will generally prevent the generator from building up at all. 2. cutout does hot open when engine stops. this condition is shown by a discharge current of about 5 amperes when the engine has stopped. (in delco systems which have no cutout, an even greater discharge will be noted as long as the ignition switch remains closed.) this trouble is generally due to cutout points stuck together, a broken cutout spring, or a bent or binding cutout armature. 3. cutout does not open until ammeter indicates a discharge of three or more amperes (in addition to the ignition discharge). this may be remedied by increasing the spring tension of the cutout, or removing any trouble which causes the cutout armature to bind. on many cutouts the armature does not actually touch the core of the cutout winding when the points are closed, there being a small piece of copper or other non-magnetic metal on the armature which touches the end of the cutout and maintains a small air gap between the core and armature, even when the points are closed. the opening action of the cutout may be changed by filing this piece of non-magnetic material so as to decrease the air gap, or pinching it with heavy pliers so as to make it stand farther out from the cutout armature and thus increase the air gap between the armature and core when the points are closed. decreasing this air gap will cause the cutout to open late, and increasing it will cause the cutout to open early. 4. cutout will not close at any engine speed. if cutout does not close the first time the engine speed is increased, stop the engine. this condition may be due to a defective cutout, an open-circuit in the charging line, a ground or short-circuit between the cutout and the generator, or a defective generator. to determine whether the cutout is defective, remove the wires from it and hold together the ends of the wires coming from the generator, and the one going to the ammeter. start the engine. if no other trouble exists, the ammeter will indicate a charging current at speeds above 8-10 miles per hour. if no current is obtained, stop the engine. if the cutout trouble consisted of an open circuit in one of its windings, or in the points not closing, due to dirt or a binding armature, or if there is an open-circuit in the charging line, the generator will, of course, have been running on open-circuit. this will cause the fuse in the shunt field circuit to blow if there is such a fuse, and if there is no such fuse, the shunt field coils may be burned open, or the insulation on the field coil wires may have become overheated to a point at which it burns and carbonizes, and causes a short-circuit between wires. such troubles will, of course, prevent a generator from building up when the cutout wires are disconnected and their ends held together. if there is a ground in the cutout, or between the cutout and the generator, the generator will very likely be unable to generate (if a "one-wire" system is used on the car). if there is some defect in the generator-such as dirty commutator, high mica, brushes not touching, commutator dirty, or loose brushes, brushes too far from neutral, grounded brushes, brushes not well ground in, wrong type of brushes, grounded commutator or armature windings, short-circuited commutator or armature windings, open-circuited armature windings, grounded field windings, short-circuited field windings, open-circuit or poor connections in field circuit, one or more field coil connections reversed, wrong type of armature or field coils used in repairing generator, generator drive mechanism broken-then the generator will not build up. if no charging current is, therefore, obtained when the generator and ammeter wires are disconnected from the cutout and their ends held together, there may be a ground or short-circuit in the cutout windings or in the circuit between the generator and the cutout, or the generator may be defective, due to having been operated on open-circuit, or due to troubles as described in the foregoing paragraph. the presence of a ground or short in the circuit between the generator and cutout or in the cutout may be determined by disconnected the wire from the generator, disconnecting the battery (or ammeter) wire from the cutout, and running a separate extra wire from the generator to the wire removed from the cutout. then start the engine again. if a charging current is obtained, there is a ground or short either in the cutout or in the circuit between the cutout and the generator. (it is also possible that the failure of the generator to build up was due to poor brush contact in the generator. the use of the extra wire connected the generator directly to the battery, thus magnetizing the generator fields and causing generator to build up. if poor brush contact prevented the generator from building up, closing the cutout by hand will often cause the generator to start charging. if you can therefore cause the generator to build up by holding the cutout points closed by hand, or by shorting across from the generator terminal to the battery terminal of the cutout, it is probable that the generator brushes are not making good contact). the cutout may be tested by stopping the engine, replacing the battery (or ammeter) wire on the cutout, and holding the end of the extra wire on the generator terminal of the cutout. if a charging current is then obtained, the cutout is 0. k. and the trouble is between the cutout and the generator. 5. an excessive current is obtained. if a third brush generator is used, look for loose or dirty connections in the charging line, dirty cutout points, dirty commutator, dirty brushes (especially the brush, or brushes, which is dot connected to one end of the field winding), brushes loose, brushes not well ground in, and any other conditions which will cause a high resistance in the charging line. it is characteristic of third brush generators that their current output increases if there is an increase in resistance in the charging circuit. if no troubles such as those enumerated above are found, the third brush may need adjusting. generators using vibrating current or voltage regulators will give an excessive output if the points need adjusting or if the regulating resistance is short-circuited. generators using reversed series regulation will give an excessive output if there is a short-circuit in the series field coils. 6. low charging current is obtained. this may be due to adjustment of the regulating device, to high resistance in the shunt field circuit in case of a third brush generator. in case of generators using other kinds of regulation, loose connections, dirty commutator and brushes, etc., will cause low charging current. 7. generator charges up to a certain speed and then stops charging. the trouble is caused by some condition which causes the brushes to break contact with the commutator, especially in the case of a "third" brush. high mica, loose brush spring, or a commutator which has been turned down off-center may cause the trouble. this trouble most frequently occurs on cars using third brush motor-generators having a 3 to 1 or more speed ratio between them and the engine. these motor-generators operate at such high speeds that high mica and a commutator which is even slightly off center have a much greater effect than the same conditions would cause in separate generators which operate at much lower speeds. the remedy for this trouble is to keep the mica under-cut, and to be very careful to center the armature in the lathe when taking a cut from the armature. in turning down the commutators of high speed motor-generators, special fittings should be made by means of which the armature may be mounted in its own ball-bearings while the commutator is turned down. adjusting generator outputs the repairman should be very slow in adjusting generator outputs. most cases of insufficient or excessive charging current are due to the troubles enumerated in the foregoing paragraphs, and not due to incorrect adjustment of the regulating device. before changing the adjustment of any generator, therefore, be sure that everything is in good condition. the third brush generator, for instance, will have an excessive output if the brushes are dirty, loose, or not well seated on the commutator. the use of a third brush which is too wide, for instance, will change the output considerably. a high resistance third brush will decrease the output, while a low resistance brush will increase the output. on the other hand, an increase in the resistance of the charging circuit will cause an increase in the output of a third brush generator, which is just the opposite to what is ordinarily expected. such an increase in resistance may be due to loose or dirty connections, dirty cutout contact points, corroded battery terminals and so on. remember also that the third brush generator sends a higher current into a fully charged battery than it sends into a discharged battery. it is, therefore, essential that a fully charged battery be on the car when the output of a third brush generator is adjusted. there are two things which determine whether any change should be made in the charging rate on the car, viz: driving, conditions and the season of the year. driving conditions. a car which makes short runs, with numerous stops, requires that the starting motor be used frequently. this tends to run the battery down very quickly. moreover, such a car usually does not have its engine running long enough to give the generator an opportunity to keep the battery charged, and to accomplish this, the charging rate should be increased. a car which is used mostly at night may need a higher charging rate, especially if short runs are made, and if the car stands at the curb with its lights burning. long night runs will generally call for only a normal charging rate, since the long charging periods are offset by the continuous use of the lamps. a car used on long daylight runs should generally have the charging rate reduced, because the battery is charged throughout such runs with no discharge into lamps or starting of motor to offset the continued charge. if the lamps are kept lighted during such runs, the normal charge rate will be satisfactory, because the lamp current will automatically reduce the current sent into the battery. in the winter time, engines must be cranked for a longer time before they will start, the battery is less efficient than in warm weather, and lights are burning for a greater length of time than in summer. such conditions require an increase in the charging rate, especially if the car is used on short runs. oil long runs in the winter time, the normal charging rate will generally be satisfactory because the long charging period will offset the longer cranking period. in the summer time, engines start more easily than in winter, and hence require less cranking. the lamps are used for only short periods and the battery is more efficient than in winter. a lower charging rate will, therefore, keep the battery charged. long tours in the summer time are especially likely to result in overcharged, overheated batteries, and a reduced charging rate is called for. how and when to adjust charging rates a correct charging rate is one which keeps a battery fully charged, but does not overcharge it, and which does not cause either the generator or the battery to become overheated. the only way to determine whether a certain charging rate is correct on any particular car is to make an arrangement with the car owner to bring in his car every two weeks. on such occasions hydrometer readings should be taken and water added, if necessary, to bring the surface of the electrolyte up to the proper level. the hydrometer readings will show whether the generator is keeping the battery charged, and if a change in the charging rate is necessary, the necessary adjustments may be made. if a customer does not bring in his car every two weeks, call him up on the phone or write to him. the interest which you show in his battery by doing this will generally result in the customer giving you all his repair business, and he will also tell his acquaintances about your good service. this will give you considerable "word of mouth" advertising, which is by far the best form of advertising and which cannot be bought. it must be earned by good battery service. adjusting a third brush generator. the best rule to remember for changing the output of a third brush machine is that to increase the output, move the third brush in the direction in which the commutator rotates, and to decrease the output, move the third brush in the opposite direction. move the third brush only 1/16 inch and then sandpaper the brush seat with 00 sandpaper. allow the generator to run for about twenty minutes to "run-in" the brush. then vary the speed to see what the maximum charging rate is. if the change in the charging rate is not sufficient, move the third brush another 1/16 inch and proceed as before until the desired charging rate is obtained. adjusting vibrating regulators. the output of generators which use a vibrating regulator is adjusted by changing the tension of the spring fastened to the regulator arm. in many cases this adjustment is made by means of a screw which is turned up or down to change the spring tension. in other cases a hook or prong is bent to change the spring tension. where a coil spring is used, lengthening the spring will decrease the tension and lower the output, while shortening the spring will increase the tension and raise the output. vibrating regulators are of the "constant" current or the "constant-voltage" types. the constant current regulator has a winding of heavy wire which carries the charging current. when the charging current reaches the value for which the regulator is set, the electromagnet formed by the coil and the core on which it is wound draws the regulator armature toward it and thereby separates the regulator points, which are in series with the shunt field. a resistance coil, which is connected across the regulator points and which is short-circuited when the points are closed, is put in series with the shunt field when the points separate. this reduces the shunt field current, causing a decrease in generator voltage and hence current output. as the current decreases, the pull of the electromagnet on the regulator armature weakens and the spring overcomes the pull of the electromagnet and closes the regulator points. this short-circuits the resistance coil connected across the regulator points and allows the shunt field current to increase again, thereby increasing the generator output. this cycle is repeated at a high rate of speed, causing the regulator points to vibrate rapidly. the action of a vibrating "constant-voltage" regulator is exactly the same as that of the "constant current" regulator, except that the coil is connected across the generator brushes. the action of this coil therefore depends on the generator voltage, the regulator points vibrating when the generator voltage rises to the value for which the regulator is set. adjusting reverse-series generators. the regulation of the output of this type of generator is accomplished by means of a field winding which is in series with the armature, and which therefore carries the charging current. these series field coils are magnetically opposed to the shunt field coils, and an increase in charging current results in a weakening of the field flux. a balanced condition is reached at which no increase of flux takes place as the generator speed increases, the tendency of the increased shunt field current to increase the total flux being counterbalanced by the weakening action of the flux produced by the series field current. to increase the output of a reverse series generator, it is necessary to weaken the opposing series field flux. the only way of doing this is to short-circuit the series field coils, or connect a resistance across them. to decrease the output of a reverse series generator, a resistance coil may be connected in series with the shunt field winding. neither of these schemes is practicable, and hence the reverse series generator may be considered as a "non-adjustable" machine. under-charging may be prevented by using the starting motor and lights as little as possible, or by giving the battery a bench charge occasionally. over-charging may be prevented by burning the lights whenever the engine is running, or leaving the lights turned on over night. other forms of regulation have been used on the older cars, but the majority of the cars now in use use one of the four forms of regulation described in the foregoing paragraphs. if adjustments need to be made on some car having a system of-regulation with which the battery man is not familiar, the work should be done in a service station doing generator work. if generator outputs are changed because of some special operating condition, such as summer tours, the rate should be changed to normal as soon as the usual driving conditions are resumed. testing and filling service every man expects to be paid for his work, since his purpose in working is to get money. yet there are numerous instances in every line of work requiring work to be done for which no money is received. the term "free service" is familiar to every repairman, and it has been the cause of considerable discussion and dispute, since it is often very difficult to know where to draw the tine between free service and paid service. the term "free service" might be abolished with benefit to all concerned. in the battery business "free inspection" service is a familiar term. it is intended to apply to the regular addition of distilled water by the repairman and to tests made at the time the water is added. since the term "inspection" might be misinterpreted and taken to apply to the opening of batteries for examination, the term "testing and filling service" should be used instead of "free inspection service." battery makers furnish cards for distribution to car owners. these cards entitle the holder to bring in his battery every two weeks to have distilled water added if necessary, and to have his battery tested without paying for it. this service requires very little time, and should be given cheerfully by every service man. "testing and filling service" is an excellent means of becoming acquainted with car owners. be as pleasant and courteous to the "testing and filling" customer as you are to the man who brings in a battery that needs repairs. for this customer will certainly give you his repair business if you have been pleasant in giving the testing and filling service. a thoroughly competent battery man should be put in charge of the testing and filling service, since this man must meet the car owners, upon whom the service station depends for its income. customers are impressed, not by an imposing array of repair shop equipment, but by the manner of the men who meet them. these men will increase the number of your customers, or will drive trade to competitors, depending on the impression they leave in the minds of the car owners. every service station owner should persuade all the car owners in the vicinity of the station to come in regularly for the free testing and filling service, and when they do come in they should be given cheerful, courteous service. each "testing" and "filling" customer is a prospective paying customer, for it is entirely natural that a car owner will give his repair work to the battery man who has been taking care of the testing and filling work oil his battery. when a new battery is needed, the "testing" and "filling" customer will certainly buy it from the man who has been relieving him of the work of keeping his batteries in good shape. car owners who depend on your competitor for their "testing and filling" service will not come to you when their battery needs repairing, or when they need a new battery. you may be convinced that you handle a better make of battery than your competitor does, but your competitor's word will carry far more weight than yours with the man who has been coming to him for testing and filling. good testing and filling service is, therefore, the best method of advertising and building up your business. the cost of this service to you is more than offset by the paying business it certainly brings, and by the saving in money spent for advertising. remember that a boost by a satisfied customer is of considerably greater value to your business than newspaper advertising. a careful record should be kept of every battery which is brought in regularly for testing and filling service. if a test shows that one or more cells are low in gravity, say about 1.220, this fact should be recorded. if the gravity is still low when the battery comes in again for test, remove the battery and give it a bench charge. the customer should, of course, pay for the bench charge and for the rental battery which is put on the car in the meantime. battery manufacturers generally furnish cards to be used in connection with the testing and filling service, such cards being issued to the customers. a punch mark is made every time the battery is brought in, if the owner neglects to come in, this is indicated by the absence of a punch mark, and puts the blame for any trouble caused by this neglect on the owner if any cell shows low gravity, a notation of that fact may be made opposite the punch mark for the date on which the low gravity was observed. if the low gravity is again found the next time the battery is brought in, the battery should be removed and given a bench charge. if the bench charge puts the battery in good shape, and the subsequent gravity readings are high, no trouble is present. if, however, the low gravity readings begin to drop off again, it is probable that new separators are required, especially if the battery is about a year old. the logical course of events in the testing and filling service is to keep the battery properly filled (at no cost to the customer), give the battery an occasional bench charge (for which the customer pays), reinsulate the battery when it is about a year old (for which the customer pays), and sell the customer a new battery when the old one is worn out. if some trouble develops during the lifetime of the battery which is not due to lack of proper attention, the customer should pay to have the repairs made. from this the battery man will see how the testing and filling service pays. the way to get business is to have people come to your shop. become acquainted with them, treat them right, and you need not wonder where the money is to come from. service records in order to run a repair shop in an orderly, business-like manner, it is necessary to have an efficient system of service records. such a system will protect both the repairman and the customer, and simplify the repairman's bookkeeping. for a small service station a very simple system should be adopted. as the business grows, the service record system must necessarily become more complicated, since each battery will pass through several persons' hands. battery manufacturers generally furnish service record sheets and cards to their service stations, and the repairman who has a contract with a manufacturer generally adopts them. the manufacturers' service record systems are often somewhat complicated, and require considerable bookkeeping. for the smaller service station a single sheet or card is most suitable, there being only one for each job, and carbon sheets and copies being unnecessary. such a service record has three essential parts: (a) the customer's claim check. (b) the battery tag. (c) the record card. fig. 183 shows a service record card which is suitable for the average repair shop. part no. i is the customer's claim check, part no. 2 the battery tag, and part no. 3 the record card, and is 5 inches by 8 inches in size. the overall size of the entire card is 5 inches by 12 inches. parts i and 2 are torn off along the perforated lines marked (a). when a battery comes in the three parts are given the same number to identify them when they have been torn apart. the number may be written in the "no." space shown on each part, or the numbers may be stamped on the card. the record should not be made out as soon as a customer comes in, but after the battery has been examined and tested and the necessary work determined. put the customer's name on parts 2 and 3. record the address, telephone, etc., in the proper spaces on part 3. having determined by test and inspection what is to be done, fill out the "workcosts" table on part 3, putting a check mark in the first column to indicate the work to be done and the material needed. figure up the cost while the customer waits, if this is possible. explain the costs to the customer, and have him sign contract no. 1. if you do this there can never be any argument about the bill you hand the customer later if the customer cannot wait, or if he is well known to you and you know lie will not question your bill, have him sign contract no. 2. in either case, the terms printed on the back of the card authorize the repairman to make whatever repairs he finds to be necessary, and bind the customer to pay for them. find out whether the customer will call, whether you are to deliver the battery, or whether you are to ship it, and put a check mark in the proper space at the right of the "work-costs" table. mark the battery with the chalk whose color is indicated, and you will know how to dispose of the battery when the repairs are completed. fill out the claim check and give it to the customer, tearing it off along the perforated lines. fill out the battery tag, indicating after "instructions" just what is to be done. [fig. 183 front & back of the battery service card] make a sketch of the top of the battery in the space provided, dip the tag in the paraffine dip pot (see page 182) and tack the card on the battery. file part 3 in a standard 5 by 8 card index file. to the right of the "work-costs" table are spaces for entering the date on which the work is completed, the date the customer is notified and the date the battery goes out. these dates are useful in keeping a record of the job. when the job is finished and the rental comes in, enter the costs in the "costs" table, and note the date the bill was paid, in the space marked "paid." [fig. 184 rental battery card to be tied on car of customer] file all the 5 by 8 cards (part 3) in alphabetical order in a "dead" ticket file, in either alphabetical or numerical order. with this file you can build up an excellent mailing list of your customers. you can note how many new customers you are securing and how many customers are not coming back. the latter information is very valuable, as it enables you to find out what customers have quit, and you can go after them to get their repair business again. when a rental is put on a card, the card shown in fig. 184 may be tied to the car where it is easily seen. this will serve as a reminder to the customer and will help advertise your shop to those who ride in the car. each rental battery should have a number painted on it in large white letters, or should have attached to it at all times a lead tag on which is stamped a number to identify the battery. to keep a record of the rental batteries, a card or sheet similar to that shown in fig. 185 may be used. each time the rental is put on a car, a record is made of this fact on the card. each rental battery has its own card, and reference to this card will show at once where the battery is. each card thus gives a record of the battery. the number of the rental is also written on the stock card shown in fig. 183, but the purpose of putting the number on these cards is merely to make sure that the battery is returned when the customer's battery is replaced on the car and to be able to figure out the rental cost quickly and add it to the time and material costs in repairing the customer's battery. the record card shown in fig. 183 does not help you locate any particular rental battery. for instance, suppose that rental battery no. 896 is out and you wish to know who is using it. you may, of course, look over the "battery tags" which are tied to the batteries which are being repaired in the shop, or you may examine the file containing the record cards, but this would take too much time. but if you refer to the rental file you can determine immediately where rental battery no. 896 is, since the cards in this file should be arranged numerically. the rack on which rental batteries are placed should have a tag bearing the same number as the rental battery tacked to the shelf below the place provided for the battery. each rental battery should always be placed in the same place on the shelf. you can then tell at a glance which batteries are out. a good plan, and one which will save space, is to write the number of the rental battery on the customer's claim check, and when repairs on his own battery are completed, to set his battery in the place provided on the rental rack for the rental which he is using. when he comes in for his battery, you can tell at a glance whether his battery is ready by looking at the place where the rental he is using is normally placed on the rental rack. if a battery is there you will know that it is his battery, and that it is ready for him. [fig. 185 rental battery stock card] you could, of course, look through the batteries on the "ready rack," but this would take more time, since the numbers of the batteries on this rack will always be different, and you would have to look through all the batteries on the "ready rack" before you would be able to tell whether any particular battery were ready. by putting a customer's battery in place of the rental he is using, you will have only one place to look at in order to know whether his battery is ready. ======================================================================== chapter 13. business methods. ----------------success in this day and age cannot be attained without a well thought-out plan of action. there is no business which does not demand some sort of system of management. the smallest business must have it, and will go to ruin without it. hence every battery service station proprietor should see to it that his affairs are systematized -arranged according to a carefully studied method. most men look upon "red-tape" with contempt and in the sense of a mere monotonous and meaningless routine, it merits all the contempt poured upon it. hard, fast and iron-clad rules, which cease to be a means, and become an end, prove a hindrance rather than a help. but an intelligent method, which adapts itself to the needs of the business, is one of the most powerful instruments of business. the battery man who despises it will never do anything well. it does not matter how clever he is, how good a workman he is, how complete his knowledge of batteries, if he attempts to run his business without a plan, he will eventually come to grief. purchasing methods. every battery service station proprietor is eager to build up his business, and improve the character of his trade, because this in turn means that he will be assured of larger sales to a good class of customers. and it is at once evident that there are a number of requirements that affect this question of building up a business, one of the first in importance being that of purchasing. one of the first things with which the battery man is faced is the question of what, where, and in what quantities to purchase. the philosophy of correct purchasing consists in getting the right materials, in proper quantities, at a low price, and with as little cost for the doing of it as possible. the purchasing problem should be a most interesting and important subject to the proprietor of every service station, because the policy pursued with regard to purchasing will not only largely govern the economy of all his expenditures, except rent and payroll, but it will also control his selling policies. goods are sold, and services rendered only because some one wants to buy. the customer's purchasing problems govern the proprietor's selling problems. to sell properly, it is necessary to meet the requirements of those who buy. correct purchasing is not merely a matter of "buying." the buying itself has but little to do, after all, with the question of real economy in this part of the business. the proprietor's purchasing policy should not cease when the purchase order is [fig. 186 stock record] made out, but should continue after the goods have been delivered, received and inspected. he should see that they are properly stored, that they are put to the use intended, and that they are used efficiently. this can be accomplished to good advantage by the use of the stock record illustrated in fig. 186. when goods are received, each item should be entered on these stock record cards, keeping in mind always that the requirements of a "perpetual" or "going" inventory of this kind are that a separate account be kept with each kind or class of stock, and not alone with each class, but with each grade of each class. for example, if a quantity of batteries were received, it would not suffice to have one card only for the entire quantity, unless they should happen to be all of the same type and make. it should be understood that these cards are a record of all articles coming into stock, and all articles going out of stock in the way of sales or otherwise, with an individual card for each kind, grade, style or size of stock carried on hand. from the purchase invoices covering stock received, an entry is made in the column headed "received", to the proper account, showing date, order number, quantity and price. each sales tag is used to make the entries in the columns headed "disbursed", in which the date, tag number, quantity, price, and the balance quantity on hand are shown. if this is done daily, for all the sales tags of the particular day, and the cards on which the "disbursed" entries were made are kept separate from the balance of the cards, it is an easy matter to arrive at the cost of all sales for each day, the advantage of having this daily information will be explained and illustrated in following paragraphs. the use and abuse of credit. the question of the proper use of credit is closely allied with the purchasing of goods. a great many business failures can be traced directly to overexpanded credit. any battery service station proprietor who does not place a voluntary limit on the amount of credit for which he asks is, to say the least, running a very great business risk. the moment he expands his credit to the limit, he leaves himself with no margin of safety, and a sudden change in business conditions may place him in a serious situation. commercial agencies usually call this condition a lack of capital. the real cause, however, is not so much lack of capital as it is too much business on credit. this does not mean that credit should not be sought; or that all business should be done on the capital actually invested in the concern. credit is necessary to commercial life. very few business concerns are so strong financially as to be able to do without credit. credit should be sought and used intelligently, and it is not a hard matter for any battery service station proprietor to keep his credit good. all that is necessary is to take a few precautions, and observe in general the principles of good business. the first requisite, of course, is to accept no more credit than the business will stand. sometimes it is possible to secure enough credit to ruin a business. its present condition and future prospects may appear so good as to warrant securing all the credit possible under the circumstances. it requires courage to limit the growth and the temporary prosperity of a business by keeping down the credit accepted. it is very hard to refuse business. it is difficult not to make extensions when there is enough business in sight to pay for the extensions. but the acid test of whether or not you should extend and borrow is not the amount of business that can be done, but the amount of money that can be spared. the mere fact that you have the money or can get it does not in the least mean that it should be spent. and the reason for this is that, in order to keep your credit good, you must meet all obligations promptly. nothing has a more chilling effect on any business than failure to meet all indebtedness when due. as soon as additional time is requested in which to meet obligations, your credit rating begins to contract; and if, at the same time, your credit has been overexpanded the business is placed in a most difficult position. more than one concern has gone to the wall when faced with this combination. proper bookkeeping records. the principal difficulty in this matter of the proper use of credit will lie in poor bookkeeping records, making it impossible for the proprietor to know very much about his financial position or operating condition day by day and week by week and month by month. many service station proprietors figure what they owe once a year only, when they inventory, and many do not keep a permanent record even then; and usually those who are neglectful in this regard are the ones who owe the most, proportionately, who do not take their discounts, and who do not progress. the following table covers the average discounts allowed in various lines. if you study it, and find out how much it costs you to lose discounts, you will at once realize the necessity for the proper sort of bookkeeping records. 1. 1% cash, 30 days net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12% per year 2. 2% cash, 30 days net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24% per year 3. 3% cash, 30 days net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36% per year 4. 5% cash, 30 days net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60% per year 5. 8% cash, 30 days net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96% per year 6. 1% 10 days, 30 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18% per year 7. 2% 10 days, 30 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36% per year 8. 3% 10 days, 30 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54% per year 9. 5% 10 days, 30 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90% per year 10. 8% 10 days, 30 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144% per year 11. 1% 10 days, 60 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4% per year 12. 2% 10 days, 60 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.8% per year 13. 3% 10 days, 60 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.2% per year 14. 5% 10 days, 60 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72% per year 15. 8% 10 days, 60 days net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115.2% per year then there is the matter of expenses; rent, wages, insurances, taxes, depreciation, freight and express, and all the other miscellaneous items that go to make up the total of your cost of doing business. expenses eat up a business unless controlled. they ought to be so analyzed that you are able to place your finger on items which appear too large, or uncalled for, or which need explanation. a daily exhibit of your business. in order to accomplish this, you ought to keep a record similar to that shown by fig. 187--a daily exhibit of your business. the advantage of this record is that it will give any battery man daily information as to the following facts of his business: 1. the amount of stock on hand. 2. the amount of gross profit. 3. the percentage of gross profit. it will give monthly information as to: 1. the expense and percentage of expense. 2. the actual net profit. 3. the percentage of net profit. such information will help you to locate exactly when and where your losses come; during what months and from what causes. it will enable you to turn losing months this year into profitable months next year; to tell whether your losses were due to a too great expense account, or to too low gross profits. the percentage columns on the sheet are the most important, because only by percentages can you make proper comparisons, and know just how your business is headed. you cannot guess percentages; you must have a way of knowing continually what they are, in order to be certain of getting the right return on your investment. [fig. 187a "daily exhibit" form] [fig. 187b "daily exhibit" form, continued] in analyzing this daily exhibit, you will note that it is ruled for five weeks and two extra days, in order to provide for any one and all months of the year. the various columns are provided so that the entries in them will give a clear-cut story of the actual state of your affairs, daily, weekly, and monthly. each column will be considered in the order in which it appears on the form. first column--"merchandise on hand." in starting this record the first day, the figures entered in this column must be an actual physical inventory of your stock on hand, priced and extended at cost. do not total this column. second column--"new goods added to stock." the figures entered in this column should be the total value of all new goods received from manufacturers or jobbers on the particular day. if you return any articles to the seller immediately upon receipt, and before putting them into your stock, deduct such goods from the invoices and enter only the net amount in this column. this column should be totaled every week and every month. third column--"goods returned by customers;--deduct from sales." the total value of all goods returned by customers extended at the prices charged customers should be entered in this column daily. every week and every month this column is totaled. fourth column--"cost of goods returned;--deduct from cost of goods sold." the cost of all goods returned by customers should be entered in this column. the cost prices can always be secured from the stock record cards, as previously explained. total this column every week and every month. fifth column--"goods returned to manufacturers." sometimes there is occasion to return merchandise after it has been put into stock. in such cases, the money value of the articles sent back to manufacturers or jobbers should be entered in this column. this does not mean such goods as were returned on the day received, and were deducted from the seller's invoice, and at no time have appeared in the second column, "new goods added to stock," but only to such merchandise as was originally entered in the second column, and later returned to the manufacturer. this column should be totaled every week and every month. sixth column--"goods sold, less goods returned." enter here total of selling prices on sales tags for each day, after deducting amount in the third column. total this column every week and every month. seventh oolumn--"cost of goods sold, less cost of goods returned." the total of the sales extended at cost prices for each day, minus the amount showing in the fourth column, should be entered in this column. it should be totaled every week and every month. eighth column--"gross profits." to arrive at the figures to be entered in this column deduct the amount in the seventh column from the amount in the sixth column. total this column every week and every month. ninth column--"per cent to sales." this percentage should be figured every day, and every week and every month, and is arrived at by dividing the figures in the eighth column by the figures in the sixth column. it will pay you to watch this column closely. you will be astonished at the way it varies from day to day, week to week, and month to month. if you watch it closely enough, you will soon learn a great deal more about your business than you ever knew before. you do not need to total this column. tenth column--"accounts receivable." on the day the daily exhibit is first started, the figures for this column must be taken from whatever records you have kept in the past. do not total this column. eleventh column--"collections." every day you collect any money from those customers who run charge accounts with you, enter the amount collected in this column. total it every week and every month. twelfth column--"cash sales." every day enter the amount of cash sales in this column, and total it every week and every month. thirteenth column--"charge sales." the amount of daily sales made to those customers who do not pay cash but run a charge account should be entered in this column. every week and every month this column should be totaled. general calculations. to arrive at the amount of "merchandise on hand" after the first day, which is, as has been previously explained, an actual physical inventory, add the amounts showing in the first and second columns, and deduct from this total the sum of the fifth and seventh columns. enter this result in the first column for the next succeeding day. continue as above throughout the entire month. after the first day the figures in "accounts receivable" column are obtained by adding together the amounts showing in the tenth and thirteenth column and deducting from this total the amount in the eleventh column. this balance will be entered in the tenth column for the next day, the same procedure being followed for each day thereafter. "merchandise on hand" after the close of business on the last day of the month should be entered in the first column on the line marked "month total." this same amount will be carried forward to the first column of next month's sheet and entered on the line of the particular day of the week on which the first of the month falls. following the "month total" are the "year to date" and "last year to date." these figures are important for purposes of comparison. arrive at total for "year to date" by adding the total for the present month to the total for "year to date" found on the previous month's sheet. the figures for "last year to date" are taken directly from the sheet kept for the same month last year. it is, of course, evident that this cannot be done until one year's records have been completed. expenses and profits. under the heading "summary" at the bottom of the sheet, provision has been made for finding out how much net profit you have made for the month. on the line marked "gross profits" enter the "month total" figures in the eighth column. below this enter all the various items of expense as follows: (1) advertising: by advertising is meant such copy, signs, etc., which may be prepared and used for the purpose of keeping the public informed as to your ability to serve them--in other words, any space which is used for general publicity purposes, such as for instance, your card in the classified telephone directory, or blotters, folders, dodgers which you may have printed up and distributed. do not load this account with church programs, contributions to the ball team, tickets to the fireman's ball and the like. these are donations, and not advertising. (2) electricity: all bills for electrical current will be charged to this account. (3) freight: charges for all freight and express will be made to this account. (4) insurance: the total yearly insurance should be divined by twelve, to obtain the amount to be charged to this account monthly. (5) proprietor's salary: many battery service station proprietors do not charge their own living as an expense. that's a serious mistake, of course. if those same men should hire a manager to run their service station, the manager's salary would naturally be charged to expense. the amount of money withdrawn from the business by the proprietor should therefore be charged to expense. (6) rent: the amount of money you pay monthly for rent should be charged to this account. if, on the other hand, you own your own building, charge the business with rent, the same as if you were paying it to someone else. every business should stand rent; besides, the building itself should show itself a profitable investment. charge yourself just as much as you would anyone else; don't favor your business by undercharging, nor handicap it by overcharging. (7) supplies: the cost of all supplies, small tools and miscellaneous articles which are bought for use in the business and not for sale should be charged to this account. (8) taxes: the yearly amount of taxes paid should be divided by twelve, in order to arrive at the monthly proportion to be charged to this account. (9) wages: the amount of wages paid to employees should be charged to this account. care should be taken to determine the actual amount for the month, if wages are paid on a daily or weekly wage rate. (10) miscellaneous: any expenses of the business not listed above will be charged to this account. this may include such items as donations, loss on bad accounts, and such like items of expense. you may itemize these into as many headings as you desire, but for the purposes of the daily exhibit combine all of them under "miscellaneous expense." all these expense items are then added together, and this total is entered on the line marked "total expenses." deduct "total expenses" from "gross profit" to arrive at "net profit." to arrive at the totals for "this year to date," carry the figures forward from the previous month's sheet and add figures for present month. the figures for "last year to date" will be found on the sheet for the corresponding month of last year, and are copied in this column. all percentages should be figured on sales. the figures shown on each line in the "amount" columns under the headings "this month," "this year to date" and "last year to date" should be divided by the "month total" of the sixth column, shown above, i. e., "goods sold, less goods returned." when you take inventory, the amount of stock should equal "merchandise on hand," as shown by the daily exhibit. but there will generally be a discrepancy, varying with the size of your stock, and that discrepancy will represent the amount of goods gone out of your station without being paid for; sold for cash and not accounted for; sold on credit and not charged, and the like. it's worth something to know exactly what this amounts to. the place for this information is under "inventory variations" on the sheet. the space headed "accounts payable" is provided for recording, on the last day of every month, just what you owe for accounts and for notes, and also the same information for the corresponding date of last year. invaluable monthly comparative information. you see now that by the use of the daily exhibit you have a running history of your business by days, weeks and months. but this is hardly sufficient for a clear view of your business, since you will want some record which will tell you what the year's business has been, and how it varied from month to month. [fig. 188. statistical and comparative record] this is provided for in the statistical and comparative record, illustrated by fig. 188, on which the amount of sales, cost of sales, gross profit, expenses and net profit are entered for each month of the year. all the figures for entry in this record are taken directly from the daily exhibit at the end of the month, which makes the work of compiling it a very easy task. the advantages of a record of this kind can hardly be overstated. the figures in the upper part of this statement will show which months have been profit payers and which have not, while from the figures in the lower part of the report you are able to determine the percentage any group of expenses bears to sales, and are thus in position to subsequently control such items. do not let the fear of doing a little bookkeeping work prevent you from keeping these records. they should go a long way toward solving the problems which the average proprietor faces today: 1. selling his goods and services without a profit. 2. failure to show sufficient net profit at the end of the year. 3. constantly increasing cost of doing business. you may think at first glance that it will require a great deal of extra work to keep these records, but in this you are mistaken. they are very simple and easy to operate. the american bureau of engineering, inc., will advise you where to obtain these forms. ======================================================================= chapter 14. what's wrong with the battery? -----------------------------when a man does not feel well, he visits a doctor. when he has trouble on his car, he takes the car to a service station. what connection is there between these two cases? none whatever, you may say. and yet in each instance the man is seeking service. the term "service station" generally suggests a place where automobile troubles are taken care of. that does not mean, however, that the term may not be used in other lines of business. the doctor's office is just as much a "service station" as the automobile repair shop. the one is a "health service station" and the other is an "automobile service station." the business of each is to eliminate trouble. the battery repairman may think that he cannot learn anything from a doctor which will be of any use to his battery business, but, as a matter of fact, the battery man can learn much that is valuable from the doctor's methods of handling trouble. the doctor greets a patient courteously and always waits for him to tell what his symptoms are. he then examines the patient, asking questions based on what the patient tells him, to bring out certain points which will help in making an accurate diagnosis. very often such questioning will enable the doctor to determine just what the nature of the illness is. but he does not then proceed to write out a prescription without making an examination. if he did, the whole case might just as well have been handled over the telephone. no competent physician will treat patients from a distance. neither will he write out a prescription without making a physical examination of the patient. the questioning of the patient and the physical examination always go together, some questions being asked before an examination is made to give an approximate idea of what is wrong and some during the examination to aid the doctor in making an accurate diagnosis. the patient expects a doctor to listen to his description of the symptoms and to be guided by them in the subsequent examination, but not to arrive at a conclusion entirely by the description of the symptoms. a patient very often misinterprets his pains and aches, and tells the doctor that he has a certain ailment. yet the doctor makes his examination and determines what the trouble is, and frequently find a condition which is entirely different from what the patient suspected. he then prescribes a treatment based on his own conclusions and not on what the patient believes to be wrong. calling for batteries. a doctor treats many patients in his office, but also makes his daily calls on others. similarly, the battery repairman should have a service truck for use in calling for customers' batteries, especially where competition is keen. some car owners cannot bring their cars to the repair shop during working hours, and yet if they knew that they could have their battery called for and have a rental battery installed, they would undoubtedly have their battery tested and repaired more frequently. in some instances a battery will be so badly run down that the car cannot be started, and the car is allowed to stand idle because the owner does not care to remove his battery, carry it to a service station and carry a rental battery with him. batteries are heavy and generally dirty and wet with acid, and few people wish to run the risk of ruining their clothes by carrying the battery to a shop. the wise battery mail will not overlook the business possibilities offered by the call for and deliver service, especially when business is slow. a ford roadster with a short express body will furnish this service, or any old chassis may be fitted up for it at a moderate cost. of course, you must advertise this service. do not wait for car owners to ask whether you will call for their batteries. many of them may not think of telephoning for such service, and even if they do, they might call up some other service station. when batteries come in what does a man expect when he brings his battery to the battery service-station? obviously lie expects to be greeted courteously and to be permitted to tell the symptoms of trouble which he has observed. he furthermore expects the repairman to examine and test the battery carefully before deciding what repairs are necessary and not to tell him that he needs new positives, new separators, or an entirely new battery without even looking at the battery. when a car is brought to your shop, you are the doctor. sonic part of the mechanism is in trouble, and it is your duty to put yourself in charge of the situation. listen to what the customer hp to say. he has certainly noticed that something is wrong, or he would not have come to you. ask him what he has observed. he has been driving the car, starting the engine, and turning on the lights, and certainly has noticed whether everything has been operating as it should. the things he has noticed were caused by the trouble which exists. he may not know what sort of trouble they indicate, but you, as the battery doctor can generally make a fairly accurate estimate of what the trouble is. you should, of course, do more than merely listen to what the customer says. you can question him as to how the car has been used, just as the doctor, after listening to what a patient has to say, asks questions to give him a clue to what has caused such symptoms. the purpose of the preliminary questioning and examination is not merely to make an accurate diagnosis of the troubles, but to establish a feeling of confidence on the part of the customer. a man who owns a car generally possesses an average amount of intelligence and likes to have it recognized and respected. your questioning and examination will either show the customer that you know your business and know what should be done, or it will convince him that you are merely putting up a bluff to hide your ignorance. what the customer wants to know is how much the repairs will cost, and how soon lie may have his battery again. estimate carefully what the work, will cost, and tell him. if a considerable amount of work is required and you cannot estimate how much time and material will be needed, tell the customer that you will let him know the approximate cost later, when you have gone far enough with the work to be able to make an estimate. if you find that the battery should be taken off, take it off without any loss of time and put on a rental battery. if there is something wrong outside of the battery, however, it will be necessary to eliminate the trouble before the car leaves the shop, otherwise the same battery trouble will occur again. if there is no actual trouble outside the battery, and if the driving conditions have been such that the battery is not charged sufficiently while on the car, no actual repairs are necessary on the electrical system. the customer should be advised to drive in about every two weeks to have his battery tested, and occasionally taken off and given a bench charge. it is better to do this than to increase the charging rate to a value which might damage the generator or battery. adopt a standard method of procedure in meeting, a customer and in determining what is wrong and what should be done. if the customer is one who brings his car in regularly to have the battery filled and tested, you will: be able to detect any trouble as soon as it occurs, and will be able to eliminate it before the battery is seriously damaged. a change in the charging rate, cleaning of the generator commutator or cutout contact points, if done in time, will often keep everything in good shape. with a new customer who has had his battery for sometime, you must, however, ask questions and make tests to determine what is wrong. before sending the customer away with a new, rental, or repaired battery, test the electrical system as described on page 276. the most important transaction and one which will save you considerable argument and trouble is to get everything down in black and white. always try to have the customer wait while you test the battery. if you find it necessary to open the battery do this in his presence. when he leaves there should be no question as to what he shall have to pay for. if more time is required to determine the necessary work, do not actually do the work without getting in touch with the owner and making a written agreement as to what is to be done and how much the cost will be. the service record shown in fig. 183 may be used for this purpose. the following method of procedure is suggested as a standard. follow it closely if possible, though in some cases, where the nature of the trouble is plainly evident, this will not be necessary any more than a doctor who sees blood streaming from a severe cut needs to question the patient to find out what is wrong. it may not always be necessary to ask all the questions which follow, or to ask them in the order given, but they cover points which the repairman should know in order to work intelligently. some of the information called for in the questions may often be obtained without questioning the customer. do not, however, hesitate to ask any and all questions covering points which you wish to know. 1. greet the customer with a smile. your manner and appearance are of great importance. be polite and pleasant. do not lose your temper, no matter how much cause the customer gives you to do so. a calm, courteous manner will generally cool the anger of an irate customer and make it possible to gain his confidence and good will. do not argue with your customers, your business is to get the job and do it in an agreeable manner. if you make mistakes admit it and your customer will come again. keep your clothes neat and clean and have your face and hands clean. remember that the first glimpse the customer has of the man who approaches him will influence him to a very considerable extent in giving you his business or going elsewhere. do not have a customer wait around a long time before he receives any attention. if he grows impatient because nobody notices him when he comes in, it will be hard to gain his confidence, no matter how well you may afterwards do the work. 2. what's the trouble? let the customer tell you his story. while listening, try to get an idea of what may be wrong. when he has given you all the information he can, question him so that you will be able to get a better idea of what is wrong. (a) how long have you had the battery? see page 242. (b) was it a new battery when you bought it? (c) how often has water been added? (d) has distilled water been used exclusively, or has faucet, well, or river water ever been used? impure water may introduce substances which will damage or even ruin a battery. (e) has too much water been added? if this is done, the electrolyte will flood the tops of the jars and may rot the upper parts of the wooden case. (f) how fast is car generally driven? the speed should average 15 m. p. h. or more to keep battery charged. (g) how long must engine be cranked before it starts? this should not require more than about 10 seconds. if customer is in doubt, start the engine to find out. if starting motor cranks engine at a fair speed, engine should start within 10 seconds. if starting motor cranks engine at a low speed, a longer cranking time may be required. the low cranking speed may be due to a run-down or defective battery, to trouble in the starting motor or starting circuit, or to a stiff engine. to determine if battery is at fault, see "battery tests," below. (h) has the car been used regularly, or has it been standing idle for any length of time? an idle battery discharges itself and often becomes damaged. if car has been standing idle in cold weather, the battery has probably been frozen. (i) has it been necessary to remove the battery occasionally for a bench charge? (j) has battery ever been repaired? see page 322. battery tests 1. remove the vent plugs and inspect electrolyte. if the electrolyte covers the plates and separators to a sufficient depth, measure the specific gravity of the electrolyte. if the electrolyte is below the tops of the plates and separators, see following section no. 2. if all cells read 1.150 or less, remove the battery and give it a bench charge. if the specific gravity readings of all cells are between 1.150 and 1.200, and if no serious troubles have been found up to this point, advise the owner to use his lights and starting motor as little as possible until the gravity rises to 1.280-1.300. if this is not satisfactory to him, remove the battery and give it a bench charge. if the specific gravity readings are all above 1.200, or if the gravity reading of one cell is 50 points (such as the difference between 1.200 and 1.250, which is 50 "points") lower or higher than the others (no matter what the actual gravity readings may be), make the 15 seconds high rate discharge test on the battery. see page 266. if this test indicates that the internal condition of the battery is bad, the battery should be removed from the car and opened for inspection. if the test indicates that the internal condition of the battery is good, the specific gravity of the electrolyte needs adjusting. the difference in specific gravity readings in the cells is due to one of the following, causes: (a) water added to the cell or cells which have low gravity to replace electrolyte which had been spilled or lost in some other manner. (b) electrolyte added to the cell or cells which have high gravity to replace the water which naturally evaporates from the electrolyte. (c) trouble inside the cell or cells which have low gravity. the high rate discharge test will show whether there is any internal trouble. if any cell shows a gravity above 1.300, remove the battery, dump out all the electrolyte, fill battery with distilled water and put the battery on charge. if the gravity of one or more cells is 50 points less than the others, water has been used to replace electrolyte which has been spilled or lost in some other manner, or else one or more jars are cracked. a battery with one or more cracked jars usually has the bottom parts of its wooden case rotted by the electrolyte which leaks from the jar. if you are not certain whether the battery has one or more cracked jars, see that the electrolyte covers the plates in all the cells one-half inch or so, and then let the battery stand. if the electrolyte sinks below the tops of the plates in one or more cells within twenty-four hours, those cells have leaky jars and the battery must be opened, and new jars put in. if the low gravity is not caused by leaky jars, give the battery a bench charge and adjust the level of the electrolyte. 2. if you found electrolyte to be below tops of plates in all the cells, the battery has been neglected, or there mail be leaky jars. add distilled water until the electrolyte covers the plates to a depth of about one-half inch. (a) if it requires only a small amount of water to bring up the level of the electrolyte, remove the battery and give it a bench charge. see page 198. only a brief charge may be necessary. ask the driver when water was added last. if more than 1 month has passed since the last filling, the upper parts of the plates may be sulphated, and the battery should be charged at a low rate. (b) if it requires a considerable amount of water to bring up the level of the electrolyte, and the bottom of the wooden battery case shows no signs of being rotted, the battery has been neglected and has been dry for a long time, and the plates are mostly likely badly damaged. open the battery for inspection. (c) if only one cell requires a considerable amount of water to bring up the level of its electrolyte, and the bottom of the wooden battery ease shows no sign of being rotted, that cell is probably "dead," due to in internal short-circuit. to test for "dead" cells, turn on the lamps and measure the voltage of each cell. a dead cell will not give any voltage on test, may give a reversed voltage reading, or at the most will give a very low voltage. a battery with a dead cell should be opened for inspection. (d) if the bottom part of the wooden battery case is rotted, and a considerable amount of water had to be added to any or all cells to bring up the level of the electrolyte, the battery has leaky jars and must be opened to have the leaky jars replaced by good ones. if there is any doubt in your mind as to whether any or all jars are leaking, fill the cells with distilled water and let the battery stand for twelve to twenty-four hours. if at or before the end of that time the electrolyte has, fallen below the tops of the plates in any or all cells, these cells have leaky jars and the battery must be opened and the leaky jars replaced with good ones. the electrolyte which leaks out will wet the bench or on which the battery is placed and this is another indication of a leaky jar. general inspection in addition to the tests which have been described, a general inspection as outlined below will often be a great help in deciding what must be done. 1. is battery loose? a battery which is not held down firmly may have broken jars, cracked sealing compound around posts or between posts and separators, and active material shaken out of the grids. there may also be corrosion at the terminals. 2. are cables loose? this will cause battery to be in a run down condition and cause failure to crank engine. 3. is there corrosion at the terminals? this will cause battery to be in a run-down condition and cause failure to start engine. corrosion is caused by electrolyte attacking terminals. a coating of vaseline on the terminals prevents corrosion. 4. is top of battery wet? this may be due to addition of too much water, overheating of battery, cracks around posts and between posts and cover, electrolyte thrown out of vents because of battery being loose, or electrolyte or water spilled on battery. such a condition causes battery to run down. 5. is top of case acid soaked? this is caused by leaks around posts or between covers and jars, flooding of electrolyte due to overheating or due to addition of too much water, or by electrolyte spilled on covers. 6. is lower part of case acid soaked? this is caused by leaky jars. 7. are ends of case bulged out? this may be due to battery having been frozen. this general inspection of the battery can be made in a few seconds, and often shows what the condition of the battery is. operation tests two simple tests may be made which will help considerably in the diagnosis. turn on the lights. if they burn dim, battery is run down (and may be defective) and battery needs bench charge or repairs. if they burn bright battery is probably in a good condition. with the lights burning, have the customer or a helper step on the starting switch. if the lights now become very dim, the battery is run down (and may also be defective), or else the starting motor is drawing too much current from the battery. trouble charts for the convenience of the repairman, the battery troubles which may be found when a car is brought in, are summarized in the following tables: all cells show low gravity or low voltage a. look for the following conditions: 1. loose or dirty terminals or cell connectors. this may reduce charging rate, or open charging circuit entirely. remedy: tighten and clean connections. 2. corrosion on terminals or cell connectors caused by acid on top of battery due to over-filling, flooding, defective sealing, lead scraped from lead-coated terminals, and copper wires attached directly to battery. a badly corroded battery terminal may cause the generator, ignition coil, and lamps to burn out because of the high resistance which the corroded terminal causes in the charging line. it may reduce charging rate, or open charging circuit entirely. remedy: remove cause of corrosion. clean corroded parts and give coating of vaseline. 3. broken terminals or cell connectors. these may reduce charging rate or open charging circuit entirely. remedy: install new parts. 4. generator not charging. remedy: find and remove cause of generator not charging (see page 284). 5. charging rate too low. remedy: if due to generator trouble, repair generator. if due to incorrect generator setting change setting. if due to driving conditions increase charging rate. 6. acid or moisture on top of battery due to defective sealing, flooding, spilling electrolyte in taking gravity readings, loose vent plugs. this causes corrosion and current leakage. remedy: find and remove cause. 7. tools or wires on battery causing short-circuits. remedy: tell customer to keep such things off the battery. 8. short-circuits or grounds in wiring. remedy: repair wiring. 9. cutout relay closing late, resulting in battery not being charged at ordinary driving speeds. remedy: check action of cutout. see page 282. 10. excessive lighting current, due to too many or too large lamps. remedy: check by turning on all lamps while engine is running. ammeter should show three to five amperes charge with lamps burning. in winter the charging rate may have to be increased. b. question driver as to following causes of low gravity and low voltage: 1. has water been added regularly? 2. has impure water, such as faucet, well, or river water ever been added to battery? 3. has too much water been added? 4. has electrolyte been spilled and replaced by water? 5. has battery been idle, or stored without regular charging? 6. is car used more at night than in daytime? considerable night driving may prevent battery from being fully charged. 7. is starter used frequently? 8. what is average driving speed? should be over 15 m. p. 11. 9. how long is engine usually cranked before starting-? cranking period should not exceed 10 seconds. c. if battery has been repaired. the trouble may be due to: 1. improperly treated separators used. 2. grooved side of separators put against negatives instead of positives. 3. separator left out. 4. cracked separator. 5. positives used which should have been discarded. 6. bulged, swollen negatives used. 7. poor joints due to improper lead-burning. d. battery troubles which may exist: 1. sulfated plates. 2. buckled plates. 3. internal short-circuits. 4. cracked jars. 5. clogged separators. gravity readings unequal 1. acid or moisture on top of battery, due to defective sealing, flooding, spilling electrolyte, loose vent plugs. this causes current leakage. remedy: find and remove cause. 2. tools or wires on battery, causing short-circuits. remedy: tell driver to keep such things off the battery. 3. electrolyte or acid added to cells giving the high gravity readings. 4. electrolyte spilled and replaced by water in cells giving low readings. 5. grooved side of separators placed against negatives in cells giving the low readings. 6. separator left out, cracked separator used, hole worn through separator by buckled plate or swollen negatives, or separators in some cells and new ones in others. 7. old plates used in some cells and new ones in others. 8. impurities in cells showing low gravity. 9. shorted cell, due to plates cutting through separators. 10. cracked jar. 11. oil some of the older cars a three wire lighting system was used. if the lights are arranged so that more are connected between one of the outside wires and the center, than between the other outside wire and the center, the cells carrying the heavier lighting load will show low gravity. 12. on some of the older cars, the battery is made of two or more sections which are connected in series for starting and in parallel for charging. oil such cars the cells in one of the sections may show lower gravity than other cells due to longer connecting cables, poor connections, corroded terminals, and so on. such a condition an-ill often be found in the old two section maxwell batteries used previous to 1918. high gravity this is a condition in which the hydrometer readings would indicate that a battery is almost or fully-charged, but the battery may fail to operate the starting motor. if the lights are burning while the starting switch is closed, they will become very dim. the gravity readings may be found to be above 1.300. the probable causes of this condition are: 1. electrolyte or concentrated acid added instead of water. 2. one of the numerous "dope" solutions which have been advertised extensively within the past two years. never use them. if customer admits having used such a "dope" warn him not to do so again. low electrolyte probable causes: 1. water not added. 2. electrolyte replaced in wrong cell after taking gravity readings. 3. cracked jars. 4. battery overcharged, causing loss of water by overheating and excessive gassing. probable results: 1. sulfated plates. 2. carbonized, dry, cracked separators. 3. considerable shedding. battery overheats probable causes: 1. water not added regularly. 2. impure water used. 3. impure acid used. 4. battery on hot place on car. 5. alcohol or other anti-freeze preparation added. 6. excessive charging rate. 7. improperly treated separators. 8. battery over-charged by long daylight runs. probable results: 1. sulfated plates. 2. burned, carbonized separators. 3. buckled plates. 4. excessive shedding. electrolyte leaking out at top probable causes: 1. too much water added. 2. battery loose in box. 3. cracks in sealing compound due to poor sealing, or cables pulling on terminals, or due to poor quality of sealing compound, or good quality compound which has been burned. 4. vent plugs loose. probable results: 1. upper portion of case rotted by acid. 2. electrolyte low. 3. plates sulphated. 4. upper parts of separators dry. summary 1. when may a battery be left on the car? (a) when you find that the specific gravity of all cells is more than 1.150, the voltage of each cell is at least 2, the voltage doe's not drop when the lights are turned on, or the lights do not become very dim when the engine is cranked with the starting motor, there are no loose terminals or connectors, the sealing compound is not broken or cracked so as to cause a "slopper," the electrolyte covers the plates, the box is not rotted by acid, and there are no broken jars. these conditions will exist only if battery has been well taken care of, and some trouble has suddenly and recently arisen, such as caused by a break in one of the battery cables, loosening of a cable connection at the battery or in the line to the starting motor. 2. when should a battery be removed from car? (a) when you find broken sealing compound, causing the battery to be a "slopper." (b) when you find inter-cell connectors and terminals loose, corroded, or poorly burned on. (c) when you find box badly rotted by acid, or otherwise defective. (d) when you find a cracked jar, indicated by lower part of case being acid soaked, or by low electrolyte, or find that electrolyte level falls below the tops of the plates soon after adding water. (e) when you find a dead cell, indicated by very low or no voltage, even on open circuit. (f) when specific gravity of electrolyte is less than 1.150, or gravity readings of cells vary considerably. (g) when battery voltage drops to about 1.7 or less per cell when lamps are turned on, or lamps become very dim when the starting motor is cranking the engine, or the high rate discharge test shows that there is trouble in the cells. (h) when you find that electrolyte is below tops of plates, and it requires considerable water to bring it up to the correct height. (i) when battery overheats on charge, or discharge, although battery is not located in hot place, charging rate is not too high and lamps and accessories load is normal. (j) when battery is more than a year old and action is not satisfactory. (k) when a blacksmith, tinsmith or plumber has tried his hand at rebuilding the battery. such a battery is shown in fig. 189. (1) when ends of care are bulged out. 3. when is it unnecessary to open a battery? (a) when the only trouble is broken sealing compound. the battery should be resealed. (b) when loose, corroded, or poorly burned on terminals and connectors have merely resulted in keeping battery only partly charged and no internal troubles exist. the remedy is to drill off the connectors, or terminals, and re-burn them. (c) when the external condition of battery is good, and a bench charge, see page 198 (with several charge and discharge cycles if necessary) puts battery in a good condition, as indicated by voltage, cadmium, and 20 minute high rate discharge test. 4. when must a battery be opened? (a) when prolonged charging (72 hours or more) will not cause gravity or voltage to rise. such trouble is due to defective plates and separators. (b) when battery case is badly acid soaked. a slightly acid soaked case need not be discarded, but if the damage caused by the acid has been excessive, a new case is needed. plates may also be damaged. (c) when one or more jars are cracked. new jars are needed. the plates may also be damaged. (d) when one or more cells are "dead," as indicated by little or no voltage, even on open circuit. new plates (positives at least) may be required. (e) when battery is more than a year old and action is unsatisfactory. (battery will not hold its charge.) battery may have to be junked, or new separators may be required. every battery should be reinsulated at least once during its lifetime. (f) when a blacksmith, tinsmith, or plumber have tried to repair a case, fig. 189. [fig. 189. a blacksmith and tinsmith tried their hands on this case, lower part enclosed in tin, strap iron, covered with friction tape, around the top] (g) when the ends of case are bulged. a new case is needed. if the battery has been frozen it should generally be junked. there are some cases on record of a frozen battery having been thawed out and put in serviceable condition by a long charge at a low rate followed by several cycles of discharge and recharge. generally, at least, a new case, jars, and positives are required. note: new separators should always be installed, whenever a battery is opened for repairs, unless the separators already in the battery are new, and the trouble for which the battery was opened consists of a leaky jar, a separator left out, or some other trouble which does not require pulling the plates out of mesh. ==================================================================== chapter 15. rebuilding the battery. ----------------------how to open a battery [fig. 190 battery to be opened] a battery is open when its plates have been drawn out of the hard rubber jars. all parts are then exposed, and accessible for inspection and repairs. in an assembled battery, the top of each cell is closed by a hard rubber cover. leakproof joints are made between these covers and the rubber jars and the wooden case by means of sealing compound which is poured in place while in a molten condition, and joins the covers to the jars and which hardens as it cools. the joints between the covers and the posts which project through the covers are in many batteries made with sealing compound. the cells are then connected to each other by means of the cell connectors, also called "top-connectors," or simply "connectors." these connectors are joined to the lead posts, to which are connected the plate groups by fusing with a flame, and melting in additional lead to make a joint. in opening a battery, we must first disconnect the cells from each other, and then open the joint made by the sealing compound between the covers and the jars and case. the plates may then be lifted out of the jars, and the battery is open. the steps necessary to open a battery follow, in the order in which they must be taken. 1. clean the battery. set the battery on the tear down rack. see that the vent plugs are all tight in place. then clean the outside of the battery. remove the greater part of the dirt with a brush, old whisk-broom, or a putty knife. then put the battery in the water, using a stiff bristled brush to remove whatever dirt was not removed in the first place. a four-inch paint brush is satisfactory for this work, and will last a year or more if taken care of. if water will not remove all the dirt, try a rag wet with gasoline. 2. drilling off the connectors and terminals. when you have cleaned the outside of the battery as thoroughly as possible, set the battery on the floor near your work bench. make a sketch of the top of the battery, showing the exact arrangement of the terminals and connectors. this sketch should be made on the tag which is tied to the battery. tic this tag on the handle near the negative terminal of the battery or tack it to the ease. then drill down over the center of the posts. for this you will need a large brace with a heavy chuck, a drill the same size as the post (the part that goes down into the battery), a large screw driver, a center punch, and a hammer. [fig. 191 drilling post and cell connector] with the center punch, mark the exact centers of the tops of the posts and connectors. then drill down about half way through the connectors and terminals until you cut through the part of the connector which is welded to the post. when you can see a seam between the post and connector you have drilled through the welded part. see figs. 191 and 192. now pry off the connectors with the screw driver, as shown in fig. 193. lay a flat tool such as a chisel or file on the top edge of the ease to avoid damaging the ease when prying off the connectors. if any connector is still tight, and you cannot pry it off with a reasonable effort, drill down a little deeper, and it will come off easily, provided that the hole which you are drilling is exactly over the center of the post and as large as the post. there are five things to remember in drilling the connectors and posts: [fig. 192 connector drilled to correct depth] (a) be sure that the hole is exactly over the center of the post. (b) do not drill too deep. make each hole just deep enough so that the connector will come off easily. fig. 192 shows a cross section of a post and connector drilled to the proper depth. notice that you need not drill down the whole depth of the connector, because the bottom part is not burned to the post. (c) be sure that the drill makes the right sized hole to permit the connectors and terminals to be removed easily when drilled half way through. an electric drill will do the work much faster than a hand brace. (d) protect the edge of the battery box when you pry up the connectors with a screw driver. (e) remove your drill after the hole is well started and see whether the hole is in the center of the post. should you find that it is off center, tilt the drill, and with the end of the drill pointing the center of the post as you drill, gradually straighten the drill. this will bring the hole over the center of the post. having removed the connectors, sweep all the lead drillings front the top of the battery into a box kept for lead drillings only. fig. 194. when this box is full, melt the drillings and pour off in the burning lead mould. [fig. 193 prying off cell connector] post seal. if the post seal consists of a lead sealing nut, this may be removed now. with some types of batteries (willard and u. s. l.), drilling the connectors also breaks the post seal. with other batteries, such as the vesta, westinghouse, prest-0-lite, universal, it is more difficult to break the post seal. [fig. 194 brushing lead drillings into box] on these batteries, therefore, do not break this seal before drawing out the plates. you may find that it will not be necessary to separate the groups, and the post seal will not have to be broken at all, thereby saving yourself considerable time on the overhauling job. 3. heating up the sealing compound. having disconnected the cells from each other by removing the cell connectors, the next step is to open the joint made by the sealing compound between the covers and jars. fig. 195 shows the battery ready for this step. when cold, the compound is a tough substance that sticks to the cover and jar, and hence it must be heated until it is so soft that it is easily removed. there are several methods by means of which compound may be heated. these are as follows: steam. this is the most popular, and undoubtedly the best means of heating the compound, and in the following instructions it will be assumed that steam has been used. the battery is either placed in a special box in which steam is sent, or else steam is sent directly into each cell through the vent tube. in the first method the compound is heated from the outside, and in the second it is heated from the inside of the cell. [fig. 195 battery ready for steaming] [fig. 196 drawing up an element] if the battery is placed in the steaming box, about ten minutes will be required for the steam to heat up the sealing compound. for batteries which use but very little compound, less time is required. if steam is sent directly into the cells through the vent tubes, five to seven minutes will generally be enough. the covers must be limp and the 1 compound must be soft before turning off the steam. hot water. the electrolyte is poured out of the battery, which is then inverted in a vessel of hot water. this method is slower than the others, and is more expensive because it requires a larger volume of water to be heated. hot putty knife and screwdriver. the compound may be dug out with a hot putty knife. this is a slow, unsatisfactory method in most instances, especially in those batteries which use a considerable amount of sealing compound. with some batteries using only a small quantity of compound, a heated putty knife may be run around the inside of the jar between the jar and the cover. this will break the joint between the cover and the jar, and allow the plates to be lifted out. the compound is then scraped from covers and inside of jars, heating the knife or screwdriver whenever it cools off. lead burning flame. any soft lead burning flame may be used. such a flame may be adjusted to any desired size. where steam is available, a flame should, however, never be used. the temperature of the flame is very high, and the covers, jars, case, posts, and vent plugs may be burned and made worthless. even for the expert repairman, a flame is not as satisfactory as steam. the gasoline torch. this is the most unsatisfactory method, and should not be used if possible. the torch gives a hot, spreading flame and it is difficult to prevent the covers, jars, case, etc., from being burned. do not use a gasoline torch if you can possibly avoid doing so. alcohol torches are open to the same objections, and are not satisfactory, even in the hands of a highly skilled workman. if a flame is used for heating the compound, be sure to blow out with a hand bellows or compressed air any gas that may have gathered above the plates, before you bring the flame near the battery. electric heat. special electric ovens for softening sealing compound are on the market. the heating element is brought close to the top of the battery. where electric power is cheap, this method may be used. otherwise it is rather expensive. [fig. 197 resting element on jar to drain] when the sealing compound has been softened, place the battery on the floor between your feet. grasp the two posts of one cell with pliers, and pull straight up with an even, steady pull. if the battery has been steamed long enough, the plates will come up easily, carrying with them the cover (or covers, if the batter has upper and lower covers) to which the compound is sticking, as shown in fig. 196. do not remove the plates of the other cells until later. rest the plates on the top of the jar just long enough to allow most of the acid to drain from them, fig. 197. if you have removed the post seal, or if the seal consists of compound (old philadelphia batteries), pry off the covers now with a screw driver. otherwise, leave the covers in place while cleaning off the compound. while the plates are resting on the jars to drain, scrape the compound from the covers with a warm screw driver or putty knife, fig. 198. work quickly while the compound is still hot and soft, and comes off easily. as the compound cools it hardens and sticks to the covers and is removed with difficulty. if the battery has sealing compound around the posts, this should also be removed thoroughly, both from the cover and from the post. when you scrape the compound from the covers, do a good job. do not scrape off most of it, and then leave pieces of it here and there. remove every bit of compound, on the tops, edges, sides, and bottoms of the covers. if you need different sized putty knives or screw drivers to do this, use them. the time to remove all the compound is while it is still hot, and not after it has become hard and cold. if the battery has single covers, the compound can be removed very quickly. if the battery is of the old double-cover type, the job will take more time, since all the compound should be scraped from both top and bottom covers, fig. 199. [fig. 198 removing compound from cover] as soon as you have removed the compound from the covers of the first cell, serape away the compound which may be sticking to the top and inside walls of the jar, fig. 200. here again you must do a good job, and remove all of this compound. if you do not do it now, you will have to do it when you try to put the plates back into the jar later on, as compound sticking to the inside walls of the jar will make it difficult, and even impossible to lower the plates into the jar. now draw up the plates of the next cell. rest the plates on the top of the jar just long enough to drain, and then lift off the covers, and remove all of the compound, from cover, posts, and jar, just as you did in the first cell. the third cell, (and the others, if there are more than three cells) are handled just as you did the first one. remember that you should lose no time after you have steamed the battery. hot compound is soft and does not stick to the covers, jars, and posts and may therefore be removed quickly and easily. cold compound is hard, and sticks to the covers. draw out the plates of only one cell at a time, and clean the compound from the cover, posts and jar of that one cell before you draw out the plates of the other cells. in this way, the compound on the covers of the other cells will remain hotter than if all the plates of the battery were drawn out of the jars before any of the compound was removed from the covers. you should have all the plates drawn out, and all the compound removed within five minutes after you draw up the plates. [fig. 199 removing sealing compound from double cover] throw away the old compound. if is very likely acid-soaked and not fit for further use. what must be done with the battery? the battery is now open, and in a condition to be examined and judgment pronounced upon it. the question now arises, "what must be done with it!" in deciding upon this, be honest with your customer, put yourself in his place, and do just what you would like to have him do if he were the repairman and you the car owner. the best battery men occasionally make mistakes in their diagnosis of the battery's condition, and the repairs necessary. experience is the best teacher in this respect, and you will in time learn to analyze the condition of a battery quickly. handle every cell of a battery that comes in for repairs in the same way, even though only one dead cell is found, and the others are apparently in good condition. each cell must be overhauled, for all cells are of the same age, and the active materials are in about the same condition in all the cells, and one cell just happened to give out before the others. if you overhaul only the dead cell, the others cells are quite likely to give out soon after the battery is put into service again. [fig. 200 removing compound from top of jar] it is absolutely necessary for you to have a standard method in working on battery plates. you must divide your work into a number of definite steps, and always perform these steps, and in the same order each time. if you have a different method of procedure for every battery, you will never be successful. without a definite, tangible method of procedure for your work you will be working in the dark, and groping around like a blind man, never becoming a battery expert, never knowing why you did a certain thing, never gaining confidence in yourself. it is impossible to overemphasize the importance of having a standard method of procedure and to stick to that method. careless, slip-shod methods will please your competitor and give him the business which belongs to you. 1. examine plates to determine whether they can be used again rules for determining when to discard or use old plates follow. 2. if all plates of both positive and negative groups are to be discarded, use new groups. the question as to whether the old negatives should be used with new positives has caused considerable discussion. if the negatives are old and granulated, they should of course be discarded. remember that the capacity of negatives decreases steadily after they are put into service, while the capacity of positives increases. putting new positives against negatives which are rapidly losing capacity is not advisable. however, trouble often arises in a battery whose negatives still have considerable capacity, and such negatives may safely be used with new positives. if you feel that a battery will not give at least six months more service after rebuilding with the old negatives, put in all new plates, or sell the owner a new battery, allowing him some money on the old battery. but if you really believe that the negatives still have considerable capacity, put in new positives if required. if all new plates are used, proceed as directed in this chapter, beginning at page 348. 3. if you find that only some of the plates are to be discarded, or if you are not certain as to the condition of the plates, eliminate any short circuits which may exist, and give the battery a preliminary charge, as described later, before you do any work on the plates. plates that are fully charged are in the best possible condition for handling, and you should make it an ironclad rule that if some of the plates can be used again always to charge a battery before you work on the plates, no matter what is to be done to them. if both positives and negatives are to be discarded, the preliminary charge should not, of course, be given, but if only the negatives, or the negatives and some or all of the positives are to be used again, give this preliminary charge. very few batteries will come to your shop in a charged condition, and an exhausted battery is not in a good condition to be worked on. charge the whole battery even though only one cell is in a very bad condition. this is a method that has been tried out thoroughly in practice, not in one or two cases, but in thousands. batteries in all sorts of conditions have been rebuilt by this method, and have always given first class service, a service which was frequently as good, if not better than that given by new batteries. examining the plates place an element on a block of wood as shown in fig. 201. carefully pry the plates apart so that you can look down between them and make a fair preliminary examination. whenever possible, make your examination of the plates without separating the groups or removing the old separators. this should be done because: (a) very often the active material is bulged or swollen, and if you pull out the old separators and put in new ones before charging, the element spreads out so at the bottom that it cannot be put back into the jars without first pressing in a plate press. pressing a complete element with the separators in place should never be done if it can possibly be avoided. if it is done the separators should be thrown. away after you have charged the battery, washed and pressed the negatives, and washed the positive. [fig. 201 element on block for examination] (b) if you put in new separators before giving the battery the preliminary charge, the new separators may pick up any impurities which may be on the plates, and will probably be cracked by forcing them between the bulged and sulphated plates. if, however, the old separators are covered with sulphate, it is best to throw them away and put in new separators before giving the battery its preliminary charge, because such separators will greatly hinder the flow of the charging current. in batteries using rubber sheets in addition to the wooden separators, remove all the wooden separators and leave the rubber sheets in place between the plates. where only wooden separators are used in a battery, these may be thrown away and perforated rubber separators used for the preliminary charge. rubber separators may be used again. see (a) above about precautions against pressing a complete element. [fig. 202 separating the groups] if you are not absolutely certain as to the condition of the plates, draw out a few separators. if separators stick to the plates, loosen them by inserting a putty knife blade between them and the plates. removing a few separators will permit you to separate the groups before removing the rest of the separators. to separate the groups, grasp a post in each hand, as, in fig. 202, and work them back and forth, being careful not to injure the posts, or break off any plates. with the groups separated, the remaining separators will either fall out or may be easily pushed out with a putty knife. ordinarily, the groups may be separated in this way if the elements have thirteen plates or less. the natural thing to do at this point is to decide what must be done to the plates, and we therefore give a number of rules to help you determine which are to be junked, and which are to be used again. study these rules carefully, and have them fixed firmly in your mind so that you can tell instantly what must be done with the plates. [fig. 203 positives from frozen vehicle cell, showing active material sticking to separator] when to put in new plates 1. if one or more jars are cracked and leak, and positive plates have been ruined by freezing, as shown in fig. 203, and if upon drawing out the separators, and separating the positive and negative groups the active material drops out of the grids, the only way to put the battery in a good condition is to put in new positives, and new jars and case if necessary. make a careful estimate of 1. (a) cost of new jars. 2. (b) cost of new plates. 3. (c) cost of new case if needed. 4. (d) cost of labor required. try to have the owner present while you are opening his battery. if, however, he could not wait, and has left, call him up and tell him what the total cost will be, and if he has no objections, go ahead with the job. if he is not entirely satisfied with your price, try to get him to come to your shop. show him the battery, explain its condition, tell him just what must be done with it, and explain how you made your estimate of the cost of the whole job. if you do this. there will never be any misunderstanding as to cost. tell him the cost of a new battery, and let him decide if lie wants one. if the cost of repairing is almost as much as the price of a new battery. advise him to buy a new one, but allow him to make the decision himself. he will then have no cause for complaint. [fig. 204 and 205 show diseased negatives. the large ones only eight months old. active material, granulated and blistered] 2. if the battery is more than two years old, and the active material on the negative plates is granulated (grainy appearance), figs. 204 and 205, and somewhat disintegrated; if the plates are weak and brittle around the edges, and several grids are cracked, fig. 206, and the plates have lost a considerable amount of active material; and if the case has been rotted by the acid, the battery should be junked. [fig. 206 weak and cracked positives] call up the owner, and tell him he needs a new battery. if he does not seem pleased, ask him to come to your shop. then show him his battery, and explain its condition. if you are courteous and patient, you will sell him a new battery. otherwise he will never return. [fig. 207 buckled plates, and fig. 208 an unusually bad case of buckling] 3. if the positive plates are badly distorted from buckling, as in figs. 207 and 208 discard them, for they will cut through new separators, if put into commission again, ill from two to six months. 4. a battery which has has been dry and badly sulphated at some past period of its life will have the dry portions covered with a white sulphate, the acid line being clearly distinguishable by this white color, as shown at a and b in fig. 201. if the plates are otherwise in good shape and you wish to use them, give them the "water cure" described on page 349. [fig. 209 corroded, bulged and sulphated negatives. disintegrated, rotten positives.] [fig. 210 disintegrated positives.] 5. rotten and disintegrated positive plates, figs. 209 and 210, must be replaced with new plates. the plates have fallen to pieces or break at the slightest pressure. disintegrated plates are an indication of impurities or overcharging, providing the battery is not old enough to cause disintegration normally,--say about two years. the lead grid is converted into peroxide of lead and becomes soft. as a result, there is nothing to support the paste, and it falls out. better put in new negatives also. 6. batteries with high gravity or hot electrolyte have burned and carbonized separators, turning them black and rotting them, the negative paste becomes granulated and is kept in a soft condition, and gradually drops from the grids on account of the jolting of the car on the road. fig. 211 shows such a battery. 7. dry, hard, and white, long discharged, and badly sulphated plates, figs. 201 and 209, are practically ruined, though if the trouble is not of long standing, the plates may be revived somewhat by a long charge at a very low rate, using distilled water in place of the electrolyte, and then discharging at a current equal to about one-eight to one-tenth of the ampere hour capacity of the battery at the discharge board. charge and discharge a battery a number or times, and you may be able to put a little "pep" into it. in charging sulphated plates, use a low charging rate, and do not allow gassing before the end of the charge, or a temperature of the electrolyte above 110â°f. [fig. 211 side and end view of element from traveling salesman's battery] 8. if a battery case is not held down firmly, or if the elements are loose in the jars, the plates will jump around when the car is in motion. this will break the sealing compound on top of the battery, and cause the battery to be a slopper. the active materials will be shaken out of the grids, as shown in fig. 212, and the plates will wear through the separators. new plates are required. 9. if battery has been reversed. often the plates of such a battery disintegrate and crumble under the slightest pressure. if the reversal is not too far advanced, the plates may be restored (see page 81), but otherwise they should be discarded. this condition is recognized by the original negatives being brown, and the original positives gray. from the foregoing explanations, you see that most of the trouble is with the positives: (a) because the positive active material does not stick together well, but drops off, or sheds easily. (b) because the positives warp or buckle, this causing most of the battery troubles. (c) because the positive plate is weaker and is ruined by freezing. when the old plates may be used again 1. if one or more plates are broken from the plate connecting straps, or the joint between any strap and the plate is poorly made. if plates are in good condition, reburn the plate lugs to the straps. [fig. 212] fig. 212. element from a "slopper." element was loose in jar and jolting of car caused paste to fall out. 2. straight rebuild. if the general condition of the battery is good, i.e., the plates straight or only slightly buckled, only a slight amount of shedding of active material, no white sulphate oil either plate, the grids not brittle, active material adhering to and firmly touching the grids, the positive active material of a dark chocolate brown color and fairly hard (as determined by scratching with blade of a pocket knife), the negative active material dark gray in color and not blistered or granulated, and the plates not too thin, make a straight rebuild. to do this, charge the battery, remove any sediment from the bottom of the jar, wash and press the negatives, wash the positives, clean the parts, insert new separators, and reassemble as directed later. the only trouble may be cracked sealing compound, or a broken jar. broken jars should, of course, be replaced. [fig. 213 badly bulged negatives. such plates must be pressed] 3. badly bulged negative plates, fig. 213, cause lack of capacity because the active material is loose, and does not make good contact with the grids. if the active material is not badly granulated (having a grainy appearance) the plates call be used again. sulphated negatives have very hard active material, and will feel as bard as stone when scratched with a knife. hard negatives from which active material has been falling ill lumps oil account of being overdischarged after having been in in undercharged condition may be nursed back to life, if too much of the active material has not been lost. 4. the formation of an excessive amount of sulphate may result in cracking the grids, and the active materials falls out in lumps. such plates may be put in a serviceable condition by a long charge and several cycles of charge and discharge if there is not too much cracking or too much loss of active material. 5. positives which are only slightly warped or buckled may be used again. 6. when the only trouble found is a slight amount of shedding. positive active material must be of a dark chocolate brown color and fairly hard. negatives must be a dark gray. 7. when the plates are in a good condition, but one or more separators have been worn or out through, or a jar is cracked. if the battery is one which will not hold its charge, and plates seem to be in a good condition, the trouble is very likely caused by the separators approaching the breaking down point, and the repair job consists of putting in new separators or "reinsulating" the battery. what to do with the separators it is the safest plan to put in new separators whenever a battery is opened, and the groups separated. separators are the weakest part of the battery, and it is absolutely essential that all their pores be fully opened so as to allow free passing of electrolyte through them. some of the conditions requiring new separators are: 1. whenever the pores are closed by any foreign matter whatsoever. put in new separators whether you can figure out the cause of the trouble or not. the separator shown in fig. 201 is sulphated clear through above the line b, and is worthless. the separator shown in fig. 203 should not be used again. 2. when the separators have been cut or "chiseled off" by the edge of a buckled plate, fig. 214. 3. when a buckling plate or plate with bulged active material breaks through the separator, fig. 214. [fig. 214] fig. 214. separators worn thin and cut through on edges by buckled plates. holes worn through by bulged active material, center one shows cell was dry two thirds of the way down. 4. when a battery has been used while the level of the fig. 214. separators worn thin and cut through on edges by buckled plates. holes worn through by bulged active material. center one shows cell was dry two thirds of the way down electrolyte has been below the tops of the plates, or the battery has been used in a discharged condition, and lead sulphate has deposited on the separators, fig. 201. [fig. 215 rotted separators] 5. when a battery has been over-heated by overcharging or other causes, and the hot acid has rotted, burned and carbonized the separators, fig. 215. 6. when a battery has been damaged by the addition of acid and the separators have been rotted, fig. 215. 7. separators which are more than a year old should be replaced by new ones, whether plates are defective or not. when you have put in new separators, and put the battery on charge, the specific gravity of the electrolyte may go down at first, instead of rising. this is because the separators may absorb some of the acid. if the battery was discharged when you put in the new separators, the lowering of the specific gravity might not take place, but in most cases the specific gravity will go down, or not change at all. find the cause of every trouble the foregoing rules must be studied carefully and be clearly tabulated in your mind to be able to tell what to put into commission again and what to discard as junk. it will take time to learn how to discriminate, but keep at it persistently and persevere, and as you pass judgment on this battery and that battery, ask yourself such questions as: what put this battery in this condition? why are the negative plates granulated? why are the positive plates buckled? what caused the positive plates to disintegrate? why are the separators black? why is the case rotten when less than a year old? why did the sealing compound crack on top and cause the electrolyte to slop? why did one of the terminal connectors get loose and make a slopper? who is to blame for it, the car manufacturer, the manufacturer of the battery, or the owner of the car? why did this battery have to be taken off the car, opened up and rebuilt at 5 months old, when the battery taken off a car just the day before had been on for 30 months and never had been charged off the car but once? there is a reason; find it. locate the cause of the trouble if possible, remove the cause; your customer will appreciate it and tell his friends about it, and this will mean more business for you. eliminating "shorts" if you have decided that some or all of the plates may be used again, the next thing to do is to separate any plates that are touching, and put the battery on charge. it may be necessary to put in new separators in place of the defective ones. examine the separators carefully. whenever you find the pores of the separators stopped up from any cause whatsoever, put in new separators before charging. 1. sometimes the negative plates are bulged or blistered badly and have worn clear through the separators, fig. 214, and touch the positives. in cases of this kind, to save time and trouble, separate the groups, press the negatives lightly, as described later, assemble the element with new separators, and it is ready for charging. 2. there is another case where the groups must be separated and new separators inserted before they will take charge, and that is where the battery has suffered from lack of water and has sulphated clear through the separators, fig. 201. the separators will be covered with white sulphate. chemical action is very sluggish in such cases. if you find that the separator pores are still open, leave the separators in place and proceed to separate the plates that are touching. how? that depends on what insulating material you have available that is thin enough. if nothing else is available, take a piece of new dry separator about 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch square, or a piece of pasteboard the same size. use a screw driver or putty knife to separate the plates far enough to insert the little piece of insulation as in fig. 216. free all the shorts in this way, unless you have some old rubber insulators. in this case, break off some narrow strips 3/4 inch wide or less, put two together and repeat the operation as above, using the rubber strips instead of the pieces of separator. insert down 1/2 inch or so and bend over and break off. occasionally the lipper edges of the plates are shorted, in which case they must be treated the same way. [fig. 216 clearing short circuits] [fig. 217 cleaning scale from posts before replacing connectors temporarily for charge] charging when you have in this way cleared all the "shorts" in the elements place the elements back in the jars in the same position as they were when you opened the battery, and add enough distilled water to the electrolyte to cover the plates to a depth of one-half inch. if the negatives are badly sulphated (active material very hard), they will charge more quickly if all the old electrolyte is dumped out and the cells filled with distilled water before putting the battery on charge. this "water cure" is the best for sulphated negatives and will save many plates that could otherwise not be used again. make it a rule to replace the old electrolyte with distilled water if negatives are sulphated. [fig. 218] fig. 218. tapping connectors in place. preparatory to charging after battery has been opened and shorts removed the next operation is to put the battery on charge. grasp each post in the jaws of a pair of gas pliers and work the pliers back and forth, fig. 217, so as to remove the scale and allow the connecting straps to make good contact. now take a knife and cut off the rough edges left in the connecting straps by the drill. taper the edge, if necessary to go on post. turn the connectors upside down and pound gently in position, fig. 218, to make a good connection. temporary charging connections may also be made by burning lead strips on the posts. this being properly done, the battery is ready for charging. check up the connections to be sure they are correct. now put the battery on charge, and charge at a low rate. do not allow the temperature of any cell to rise above 110â°f. continue the charge until the electrolyte clears up, and its specific gravity stops rising and the plates have a normal color over their entire surface. fully charged positive plates have a chocolate brown color, and fully charged negative plates have a dark gray color. by holding an electric light directly over a cell, and looking down, the color of both negatives and positives may be determined. do not take the battery off charge until you have obtained these results, although it may be necessary to continue the charge for two, three, four, or five days. in this preliminary charge it is not necessary to bring the gravity up to 1.280, because the electrolyte is not to be used again, and the plates will become charged completely, regardless of what the gravity is. the essential thing is to charge until the electrolyte becomes perfectly clear, the gravity stops rising, and the plates have the right color. the cadmium test may be used here to determine when the plates are charged. if the gravity rises above 1.280 during the preliminary charge, adjust it to 1.280 by drawing out some of the electrolyte and adding distilled water. the battery must stay on charge until you have the desired conditions. if one cell does not charge,--that is, if its specific gravity does not rise,--you have probably not freed all the shorts, and must take the element out of the jar again and carefully inspect it for more shorts. right here is where one of the most important questions may be asked about rebuilding batteries. why must you free the shorts and put the battery on charge? why not save time by putting in all new separators, sealing the battery, burning on the cell connectors, and then putting it on charge? if you have ever treated a battery in this way, what results did you get? why did you have a badly unbalanced gravity of electrolyte? how could you know what specific gravity electrolyte to put in each cell? perhaps one was charged, one only half charged, and the other dead. suppose the dead cell had impurities in it. how could you get rid of them? suppose the battery showed poor capacity on test, what would you do? washing and pressing the negatives to continue the actual work on the battery. the battery being fully charged,--the electrolyte clear, the plates of normal color, the specific gravity no longer rising,-remove it from the charging bench and put it on the work bench. draw each element and let drain as in fig. 197. [fig. 219 nesting plates] here again the labeled boxes described on page 183 come in handy. separate one group, remove the separators, and put one group in each end of box to keep clean. separate another group, and nest the plates, fig. 219, the negative with the negative, and positive with positive. separate the third element and put groups in the boxes. pour the old electrolyte out of the jars, and wash out the jars as described on page 360. you now have the plates in the best possible shape for handling. take the boxes containing the plates to the sink. have the plate press and the plate press boards ready for use. if, for any reason, you are called away from your work at this point to be gone for five minutes, do not leave the fully charged negatives exposed to the air, as they will become very hot. cover them with water. a one-gallon stone or earthenware jar will hold the negative plates of a 100 ampere hour battery if you nest two of the groups. you may also put negatives back in jars from which they were taken, and fill with water. now hold a negative group under the faucet, and let a strong stream of water run down over each plate so as to wash it thoroughly, and to remove any foreign matter from the plate surfaces. all negative groups must be handled in exactly the same way so as to get the same results in each case. after you have washed the first group, place it on edge on a clean board with the post down and pointing away from you, and the bottom of the group toward you. now insert plate press boards which are slightly larger than the plates, and of the exact thickness required to fill the spaces between plates, fig. 113. for the standard 1/8 inch plates, a 5-16 inch board, or two 1/8 inch boards should be placed between plates. the 1/8 inch boards are actually more than 1/8 inch thick, and will give the proper spacing. for thin plates, use 1/4 inch boards. do not push the plate press boards more than 1/8 inch above the tops of the plates, and be sure that the boards cover the entire plates. put a board on the outside of each end plate of the group. in this way insert the plate press boards in each of the three negative groups. then place each negative group on the lower jaw of the plate press with the post of each group pointing toward you. three groups may be pressed at one time. bring the top edges of the transite boards flush with the front edge of the lower jaw of the press, so that no pressure will be applied to the plate lugs. see fig. 114. pressure applied to the plate lugs will break them off. now screw down the upper jaw of the press as tightly as you can with the handwheel, so as to put as much pressure on the plates as possible. leave the plates in the press for about five minutes. then remove them from the press, take out the boards, and replace the plates in the battery jar from which they were removed, and cover with water. they may also be placed in a stone or earthernware jar and covered with water, especially if there is any work to be done on the jars or case of the battery. if the spongy lead of the negatives is firm, they may be reassembled in the battery as soon as they have been pressed. if, however, the spongy lead is soft and mushy, keep the negatives covered with water for 12 to 24 hours. this will make them hard and firm. then remove them from the water and dry them in the air. in drying, the plates will become heated and will steam. as soon as you notice any steaming, dip the plates in water until they are cool. then remove them from the water and continue the drying process. each time the negatives begin to steam as they dry in the air, dip them in the water until they are cool. when the negatives are dry, they are ready to be reassembled in the battery and prepared for service. negatives treated in this way will give good service for a much longer time than they would if not treated in this way. the spongy lead has been made firm and elastic. if you have other negatives in your shop which are not in use, treat them in the same way and put them away for future use, to use as rental batteries. always put them through the same process: 1. charge them fully. 2. press them in the plate press to force the spongy lead back into the grids. 3. soak them in water, if the spongy lead is soft and mushy, for 12 to 24 hours, or even longer until the spongy lead is firm. dry them in the air, dipping them in water whenever they begin to steam and become heated. this will give you negatives that will give excellent service and have a long life. many negatives treated in this way will be good for fifteen months to two years of additional service. the rental batteries should be assembled in the same way as those you are rebuilding for the owners. the importance of pressing negatives cannot be exaggerated. always press the negatives of the batteries which you rebuild. do not do it to half, or three-fourths of the negatives, but to all of them. the work takes but a few minutes, and the time could not be put to better advantage. the spongy lead of the negatives swells and bulges out and makes very poor contact with the grids as a battery becomes discharged. this results in a loss of capacity, gradual sulphation of the loose active material, corrosion of the grids, failure of the gravity to rise high enough on charge, overheating of the battery on charge, gassing before the sulphate is reduced to active material with breaking off and roughening of the active material, and makes the battery lazy and sluggish in action. the spongy lead must make good contact with the grids if the battery is to have a long life and give good service. no amount of charging will cure a negative with bulged, swollen active material. once this material becomes bulged nothing but pressing will put it back where it belongs, and until it is pressed back into the grids the plates are in a poor condition for service. even if the bulging is but very slight, the plates must be pressed. washing positives if you intend to use some of the positives, they should now be washed. if you intend to use all new positives, throw away the old ones, of course. the positives should not be held under the faucet as the negatives were, because the stream of water will wash out much of the positive active material. rinse the positives a number of times in a jar of clean water by moving them up and down in the water. this will remove impurities from the surfaces of the plates and wash off any foreign or loose materials. after rinsing each positive group, replace it in the box. never attempt to straighten badly buckled positives, as the bending cannot be done successfully, and the active material will not have good contact with the grids. positives cannot be pressed as negatives can, because the positive active material lacks the elasticity and toughness of the negative spongy lead. slightly buckled positives may sometimes be straightened by bending them lightly all around the edges with a pair of thin, wide nosed pliers. this should be done very carefully, however, and the straightening done gradually. if the plates cannot be straightened in this way and the separators do not lie perfectly flat against them without pinching at the corners, the plates should be discarded, and new ones used in their place. this is all the work to be done on the old plates, and those which are to be used again are ready to be reassembled in the battery. the process of treating the plates should be followed in every battery that you rebuild, and the same steps should always be taken, and in the same order. with one standard method of rebuilding batteries you will do uniformly good work and satisfy all your customers. the essential thing for the success of your battery business is to learn the standard method and use it. do not rush a battery through your shop, and leave out some of the steps of the process, even though the owner may be in a hurry. if you have a good stock of rental batteries you can put one on his car and keep it there until you have done as good a job of rebuilding on his battery as you possibly can. remember that the standard method which has been described has not simply been figured out as being a good method. this method has been worked out in the actual rebuilding of thousands and thousands of batteries of all makes and in all conditions, and has produced batteries full of life and power, ready to give one to two years more of good, reliable service. burning on plates when you put new plates into a battery, or find some of the plates broken from the connecting strap, it will be necessary to burn the plates to the strap. frequently you will find plates which are otherwise in a good condition broken from the connecting straps. this is most likely to happen when the plates have been cast on to the connecting strap instead of being burned on. these plates must be burned on. new plates are frequently necessary. from pages 339 to 346 you see that new plates are required under the following conditions: (a) positives. ruined by freezing; weak and brittle from age, large part of active material shed; badly buckled; rotten and disintegrated by impurities; reversed. positives in a reasonably good mechanical condition can be restored to a good electrical condition by charging. (b) negatives. active material granulated, bulged and disintegrated; charged while dry; positives disintegrated by impurities; ruined by overcharging; badly sulphated because allowed to stand idle, or used while discharged; much active material lost, and that which is left soft and mushy; negatives reversed by charging battery backwards. when making plate renewals, never install plates of different design in the same group. always use plates of the type intended for the battery. the battery should first be fully charged, as already explained. if all the plates in a group are to be discarded, clamp the post in a vise, being careful not to crack the hard rubber shell if one is on it, or to damage the threads on posts such as the exide or to draw up the vise so tightly as to crush the post. then saw off all the old plates with a new coarse toothed hacksaw, a sharp key hole saw, or any good saw which has a wide set, close to the post. this separates the entire group of plates from the post in one short operation. this method is much better than the one of sawing the plates off below the connecting strap, and sawing or punching the old plate ends out of the strap. see page 217 for instructions for welding plates to the straps. work on the jars the work on the jars consists of removing any sediment which may have collected, washing out all dirt, and replacing leaky jars. the removal of sediment and washing should be done after the preliminary charge has been given and the old electrolyte poured out unless the preliminary charge was given with distilled water in the jars. the old electrolyte need not be poured down the sewer, but may be kept in stone or earthenware jars and used later in making electrical tests to locate leaky jars. testing jars remove all sealing compound from the jar by means of a hot putty knife, finishing by wiping with a gasoline soaked rag. inspect each jar carefully under a strong light for cracks and leaks. if you know which jar is leaky by having filled each cell with water up to the correct level, when you made the first examination of the battery, and then having it allowed to stand over night to see if the electrolyte in any cell has dropped below the tops of the plates, no tests are necessary, but if you are in doubt as to which jar, if any, is leaky, you must make tests to determine which jar is leaky. if you know that there is no leaky jar, because of the bottom of the case not being acid eaten and rotted, it is, of course, not necessary to test the jars. one test consists in filling the jar within about an inch of the top with old or weak electrolyte, partly immersing the jar in a tank which also contains electrolyte, and applying a voltage of 110 or 220 between the electrolyte in the jar and the electrolyte in the tank in which the jar is partly immersed. if current vows, this indicates that the jar is leaky. [fig. 220 testing jar for leaks, using a 15-watt lamp in series with test circuit] fig. 220 shows the principle of the test. a suitable box,--an old battery case will do--is lined with sheet lead, and the lead lining is connected to either side of the 110 or 220 volt line. the box is then partly filled with weak electrolyte. the jar to be tested is filled to within about one inch of the top with weak electrolyte. the jar is immersed to within about an inch of its top in the box. the top part of the jar must be perfectly dry when the test is made, or else the current will go through any electrolyte which may be wetting the walls of the jar. a lead strip or rod, which is connected to the other side of the 110 or 220 volt line, through a lamp as shown, is inserted in the jar. if there is, a leak in the jar, the lamp will burn, and the jar must be discarded. if the lamp does not light, the jar does not leak. instead of using a lead lined box, a stone or earthenware jar may be used. a sheet of lead should be placed in this jar, being bent into a circular shape to fit the inside of the jar, and connected to one side of the line. the lead rod or sheet which is inserted in the jar may be mounted on a handle for convenience in making the test. the details of the testing outfit may, of course, be varied according to what material is available for use. the lamps should be suitably mounted on the wall above the tester. [fig. 221 testing jar for leaks, using a voltmeter in series with test circuit] this test may be made by using a voltmeter instead of lamps, as shown in fig. 221. if a voltmeter is used, be especially careful to have the part projecting above the liquid perfectly dry. a leaky cell will be indicated by a reading on the meter equal to the line voltage. [fig. 222 testing jar for leaks, using secondary of ford ignition coil, or any other vibrator ignition coil] a third method uses a ford ignition coil, as shown in fig. 222. a leak will be indicated by a spark, or by the vibrator making more noise than it ordinarily does. instead of using the ford coil, as shown in fig. 222, the test may be made as shown in fig. 223. fill the jar to within an inch of the top with electrolyte and immerse one of the high tension wires in the electrolyte. attach the other high tension wire to a wire brush, comb, or rod having a wooden handle and rub it over the outside of the jar. a leak is shown by a spark jumping to the jar. [fig. 223 testing jar for leaks, using secondary of ford ignition coil, or any other vibrator ignition coil] the test may also be made without removing the jar. if the lead lined box be made two feet long, the entire battery may be set in the box so that the electrolyte in the box comes within an inch of the top of the battery case. fill each jar with weak electrolyte and make the test as before. if this is done, however, remove the battery immediately after making the test and wipe the case dry with a cloth. to make the test in this way, the case must be considerably acid eaten in order to have a circuit through it to the jar. removing defective jars the method of removing the jars from the case depends on the battery. in some batteries the jars are set in sealing compound. to remove a jar from such a battery, put the steam hose from your steamer outfit into the jar, cover up the top of the jar with rags, and steam the jar for about five minutes. another way is to fill the jar with boiling hot water and let it stand for fully five minutes. either of these methods will soften the sealing compound around the jar so that the jar may be pulled out. to remove the jar, grasp two sides of the jar with two pairs of long, flat nosed pliers and pull straight up with an even, steady pull. have the new jar at hand and push it into the place of the old one as soon as the latter is removed. the new jar should first be steamed to soften it somewhat. press down steadily on the new jar until its top is flush with the tops of the other jars. some batteries do not use sealing compound around the jars, but simply use thin wooden wedges to hold the jars in place, or have bolts running through opposite faces of the case by means of which the sides are pressed against the jars to hold them in place. the jars of such batteries may be removed without heating, by removing the wedges or loosening the bolts, as the case may be, and lifting out the jars with pliers, as before. new jars should be steamed for several minutes before being put in the case. when you put jars into such batteries, do not apply too much pressure to them, as they may be cracked by the pressure, or the jar may be squeezed out of shape, and the assembling process made difficult. [fig. 224 washing sediment from jars. water supply controlled by foot valve] repairing the case the case may be repaired with all the jars in place, or it may be necessary to remove the jars. if the case is to be junked and the jars used again, the case may simply be broken off, especially if there is much sealing compound around the jars. empty the old acid from the jars, take the case to the sink and wash out all the sediment, fig. 224. with the pipe shown in fig. '14, you have both hands free to hold the case, as the water is controlled by' a foot operated spring cock. if the case is rotten at top, patch it with good wood. if the top and bottom are so rotten that considerable time will be required to repair it, advise the owner to buy a new case. sometimes the top of the case can be greatly improved by straightening the side edges with a small smoothing plane, and sometimes a 1/2 inch strip or more fitted all along the edge is necessary for a good job. handles that have been pulled, rotted, or corroded off make disagreeable repair jobs, but a satisfactory job can be done unless the end of the case has been pulled off or rotted. sometimes the handle will hold in place until the battery is worn out by old age if three or four extra holes are bored and countersunk in the handle where the wood is solid, and common wood screws, size 12, 1/2 or 5/8 inch long used to fasten the handle in place. sometimes it will be necessary to put in one half of a new end, the handle being fastened to the new piece with brass bolts and nuts before it is put into place. sometimes you can do a good job by using a plate of sheet iron 1-16 inch thick, and 4 inches wide, and as long as the end of the case is wide. rivet the handle to this plate with stovepipe, or copper rivets, and then fasten the plate to the case with no. 12 wood screws, 1/2 inch long. if the old case is good enough to use again, soak it for several hours in a solution of baking soda in water to neutralize any acid which may have been spilled on it, or which may be spilled on it later. after soaking the case, rinse it in water, and allow it to dry thoroughly. then paint the case carefully with asphaltum paint. reassembling the battery reassembling the elements take a negative group and put it on edge on a board, with post away from you, and lower edge toward you. mesh a positive in the negative group. the groups are now ready for the separators. take six moist separators from your stock. slip one into position from the bottom in the middle of the group, with the grooved side toward the positive plate, spreading the plates slightly if necessary. take another separator, slip it into position on the opposite side of the positive against which your first separator was placed. in this way, put in the six separators, with the grooved side toward the positives, working outward in both directions from the center, fig. 225. the grooves must, of course, extend from the top to the bottom of the plate. now grasp the element in both hands, and set it right side up on the block, giving it a slight jar to bring the bottoms of the plates and separators on a level. [fig. 225 inserting separators] now grasp the element in both hands, and set it right side up on the block, giving it a slight jar to bring the bottoms of the plates and separators on a level. next take a cover, and try it on the posts, fig. 226. pull the groups apart slightly, if necessary, before inserting any more separators, so that the cover fits exactly over the posts, fig. 227. see that the separators extend the same distance beyond each side of the plates. you may take a stick, about 10 inches long, 1 1/2 inches wide, and 7/8 inch thick, and tap the separators gently to even them up. a small wood plane may be used to even up the side edges of wood separators. if you put in too many separators before trying on the cover, the plates may become so tight that you may not be able to shift them to make the cover fit the posts or you may not be able to shift the separators to their proper positions. it is therefore best to put in only enough separators to hold the groups together and so they can be handled and yet remain in their proper position when set up on the block. without separators, the posts will not remain in position. [fig. 226 trying on a cover] [fig. 227 shifting groups to make cover fit] with the element reassembled, and the remaining separators in their proper positions, see that all the plates are level on bottom, and no foreign matter sticking to them. place the element in box shown in fig. 219 to keep clean. reassemble the other elements in exactly the same way, and put them in the box. the elements are now ready to be put in the jars. putting elements in jars steam the jars in the steamer for about five minutes to soften them somewhat, so that there will be no danger of breaking a jar when you put in the elements. with the case ready, look for the "+", "p" or "pos" mark on it. (cases which are not marked in this way at the factory should be marked by the repairman before the battery is opened.) place the case so that this mark is toward you. grip an element near the bottom in order to prevent the plates from spreading, and put it in the jar nearest the mark, with the positive post toward you, next to the mark. put an element in the next jar so that the negative post is toward you. put an element in the third jar so that the positive post is toward you, and so on. the elements are correctly placed when each connecting strap connects a positive to a negative post. if the case has no mark on it, reassemble exactly according to the diagram you made on the tag before you opened the battery. set the jars so that the posts are exactly in line so that the cell connectors will fit. [fig. 228 tightening a loose element by placing a separator against outside negative] if an element fits loosely in the jar, it must be tightened. the best way to do this is to put one or more separators on one or both sides of the elements before putting it in the jar, fig. 228. if you leave the elements loose in the jars, the jolting of the car will soon crack the sealing compound, and you will have a "slopper" on your hands. if element fits very tight, be sure that the corners of the plate straps have been rounded off and trimmed flush with outside negatives. be sure also that there is no compound sticking to the inside of jars. take care not to break the jar by forcing in a tight fitting element when the jar is cold and stiff. filling jars with electrolyte or putting on the covers with all the elements in place in the jars, one of two things may be. done. first, the jars may be filled with electrolyte and the covers then sealed on, or the covers may first be sealed on and the jars then filled with electrolyte. each method has its advantages and disadvantages. if the jars are first filled with electrolyte, acid may be splashed on the tipper parts of the jars and sealing made very difficult. on the other hand, if the electrolyte is first poured in, the charged negatives will not become hot, and sealing compound which runs into the jar will be chilled as soon as it strikes the electrolyte and will float on top and do no harm. if the covers are sealed before any electrolyte is added, it will be easier to do a good sealing job, but the negatives will heat up. furthermore, any sealing compound which runs into the jar will run down between the plates and reduce the plate area. if care is taken to thoroughly dry the upper parts of the jars, add the electrolyte before sealing on the covers. use 1.400 acid if you have followed the directions carefully, and have therefore freed all the shorts, have thoroughly charged the plates, have washed and pressed the negative groups, have washed the positives, have then added any new plates which were needed, and have put in new separators, use 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte. this is necessary because washing the plates removed some of the acid, and the new separators will absorb enough acid so that the specific gravity after charging will be about 1.280. the final specific gravity must be between 1.280 and 1.300. in measuring the specific gravity the temperature must be about 70â°f., or else corrections must be made. for every three degrees above 70â°, add one point (.001) to the reading you obtain on the hydrometer. for every three degrees under 70â°, subtract one point (.001) from the reading you obtain on the hydrometer. for instance, if you read a specific gravity of 1.275 and find that the temperature of the electrolyte is 82â°f., add ((82-70)/3 = 4)four points (1.275 + .004), which gives 1.279, which is what the specific gravity of the electrolyte would be if its temperature were lowered to 70â°. the reason this is done is that when ave speak of an electrolyte of a certain specific gravity, say 1.280, we mean that this is its specific gravity when its temperature is 70â°f. we must therefore make the temperature correction if the temperature of the electrolyte is much higher or lower than 70â°f. putting on the covers this operation is a particular one, and must be done properly, or you will come to grief. get the box containing the covers and connectors for the battery you are working on; take the covers, and clean them thoroughly. there are several ways to clean them. if you have gasoline at hand, dip a brush in it and scrub off the compound. the covers may also be cleaned off with boiling water, but even after you have used the hot water, it will be necessary to wipe off the covers with gasoline. another way to soften any compound which may be sticking to them, is to put the covers in the battery steamer and steam them for about ten minutes. this will also heat the covers and make them limp so that they may be handled without breaking. if the covers fit snugly all around the inside of the jars so that there is no crack which will allow the compound to run down on the elements, all is well and good. if, however, there are cracks large enough to put a small, thin putty knife in, you must close them. if the cracks are due to the tops of the jars being bent out of shape, heat the tops with a soft flame until they are limp, (be careful not to burn them). now, with short, thin wedges of wood, (new dry separators generally answer the purpose), crowd down on the outside edges of the jar, until you have the upper edge of jars straight and even all around. if the jars are set in compound, take a hot screwdriver and remove the compound from between the jar and case near the top. if the cracks between cover and jar still remain, calk them with asbestos packing, tow, or ordinary wrapping string. do not use too much packing;--just enough to close the cracks is sufficient. when this is done, see that the top of the case is perfectly level, so that when the compound is poured in, it will settle level all around the upper edge of the case. sealing compounds there are many grades of compounds (see page 149), and the kind to use must be determined by the type of battery to be sealed. there is no question but that a poor grade used as carefully as possible will soon crack and produce a slopper. a battery carelessly sealed with the best compound is no better. the three imperative conditions for a permanent lasting job are: 1. use the best quality of the proper kind of compound for sealing the battery on hand. 2. all surfaces that the compound comes in contact with must be free from acid and absolutely clean and dry. 3. the sealing must be done conscientiously and all details properly attended to step by step, and all work done in a workmanlike manner. with respect to sealing, batteries may be divided into two general classes. first, the old type battery with a considerable amount of sealing compound. this type of battery generally has a lower and an upper cover, the vent tube being attached or removable, depending on the design. the compound is poured on top of the lower cover and around the vent tube, and the top covers are then put on. most of the batteries of this type have a thin hard rubber sleeve shrunk on the post where the compound comes in contact with it; this hard rubber sleeve usually has several shallow grooves around it which increase its holding power. this is good construction, provided everything else is normal and the work properly done with a good stick-, compound. there are a few single cover batteries with connecting straps close to top of covers, and the compound is poured over the top of the straps. see fig. 262. the second general type consists of single one-piece cover batteries that have small channels or spaces around the covers next to the jars into which the sealing compound is poured. this type of battery is the most common type. [fig. 229 pouring compound on lower covers] compound in bulk or in thin iron barrels can be cut into small pieces with a hatchet or hand ax. to cut off a piece in hot weather, strike it a quick hard blow in the same place once or twice, and a piece will crack off. directions for properly beating sealing compound will be found on page 150. sealing double cover batteries the following instructions apply to batteries having double covers. these are more difficult to seal than the single cover batteries. if you can seal the double cover batteries well, the single cover batteries will give you no trouble. always start the fire under the compound before you are ready to use it, and turn the fire lower after it has melted, so as not to have it too hot at the time of pouring. if you have a special long nosed pouring ladle, fill it with compound by dipping in the pot, or by pouring compound from a closed vessel. if you heat the compound in an iron kettle, pour it directly into pouring ladle, using just about enough for the first pouring. the compound should not be too hot, as a poor sealing job battery will result from its use. see page 150. before sealing, always wipe the surfaces to be sealed with a rag wet with ammonia or soda solution, rinsed with water, and wiped dry with a rag or waste. if you fail to do this the compound will not stick well, and a top leak may develop. then run a soft lead burning flame over the surfaces to be sealed, in order to have perfectly dry surfaces. remember that sealing compound will not stick to a wet surface. [fig. 230 first pouring of sealing compound] [fig. 231 cooling compound with electric fan] pour compound on the lower covers, as in fig. 229. use enough to fill the case just over the tops of the jars, fig. 230. then pour the rest of the compound back in compound vessel or kettle. to complete the job, and make as good a job as possible, take a small hot lead burning flame and run it around the edges of case, tops of jars, and around the posts until the compound runs and makes a good contact all around. if you have an electric fan, let it blow on the compound a few minutes to cool it, as in fig. 231. then the compound used for the second pouring may be hotter and thinner than the first. fill the pouring ladle with compound, which is thinner than that used in the first pouring, and pour within 1/16 inch of the top of the case, being careful to get in just enough, so that-after it has cooled, the covers will press down exactly even with the top of the case, fig. 232. it will require some experience to do this, but you will soon learn just how much to use. as soon as you have finished pouring, run the flame all around the edges of the case and around the post, being very careful not to injure any of the vent tubes. a small, hot-pointed flame should be used. now turn on the fan again to cool the compound. [fig. 232 second pouring of sealing compound] while the compound is cooling, get the cell connectors and terminal connectors, put them in a two-quart granite stew pan, just barely cover with water, and sprinkle a tablespoon of baking soda over them. set the stew pan over the fire and bring water to boiling point. then pour the water on some spot on a bench or floor where the acid has been spilled. this helps to neutralize the acid and keep it from injuring the wood or cement. rinse off the connectors and wipe them dry with a cloth, or heat them to dry them. [fig. 233 pressing covers down to make them level with top of case] now take the top covers, which must be absolutely clean and dry, and spread a thin coat of vaseline over the top only, wiping off any vaseline from the beveled edges. place these covers right side up on a clean board and heat perfectly limp with a large, spreading blow torch flame. never apply this flame to the under side of the top covers. the purpose is to get the covers on top of the battery absolutely level, and exactly even with the top of the case all around it, and to have them sticking firmly to the compound. there is not an operation in repairing and rebuilding batteries that requires greater care than this one, that will show as clearly just what kind of a workman you are, or will count as much in appearance for a finished job. if you are careless with any of the detail, if just one bump appears on top, if one top is warped, if one cover sticks above top of case, try as you may, you never can cover it up, and show you are a first-class workman. see that you have these four conditions, and you should not have any difficulty after a little experience: [fig. 234 pressing covers down around posts to make them flush with top of case] 1. you must have just enough compound on top to allow the top covers to be pressed down exactly even with upper edge of case. 2. the top covers must be absolutely clean and have a thin coat of vaseline over their top, but none on the bevel edge. 3. a good sized spreading flame to heat quickly and evenly the tops to a perfectly limp condition without burning or scorching them. 4. procure a piece of 7/8-inch board 1-1/2 inches wide and just long enough to go between handles of battery you are working on. spread a thin film of oil or vaseline all over it. having heated the covers and also the top surface of the compound until it is sticky so that the covers may be put down far enough and adhere firmly to it, place the covers in position. then press the covers down firmly with a piece of oiled wood, as in fig. 233, applying the wood sidewise and lengthwise of case until the top of cover is exactly even with the top of the case. it may be necessary to use the wood on end around the vent tubes and posts as in fig. 234, to get that part of the cover level. if the compound comes up between covers and around the edges of the case, and interferes with the use of the wood, clean it out with a screwdriver. you can then finish without smearing any compound on the covers. [fig. 235 wiping bottom of spoon filled with sealing compound] [fig. 236 filling cracks around covers with sealing compound] when you have removed the excess compound from the cracks around the edges of the covers with the screwdriver, take a large iron spoon which has the end bent into a pouring lip, and dip up from 1/2 to 2/3 of a spoonful of melted compound (not too hot). wipe off the bottom of the spoon, fig. 235, and pour a small stream of compound evenly in all the cracks around the edges of the covers until they are full, as in fig. 236. do not hold the spoon too high, and do not smear or drop any compound on top of battery or on the posts. no harm is done if a little runs over the outside of the case, except that it requires a little time to clean it off. a small teapot may be used instead of the spoon. if you have the compound at the right temperature, and do not put in too much at a time, you will obtain good results, but you should take care not to spill the compound over covers or case. [fig. 237 final operation of cleaning off excess compound] after the last compound has cooled,--this requires only a few minutes,--take a putty knife, and scrape off all the surplus compound, making it even with the top of the covers and case, fig. .237. be careful not to dig into a soft place in the compound with the putty knife. if you have done your work right, and have followed directions explicitly, you have scraped off the compound with one sweep of the putty knife over each crack, leaving the compound smooth and level. you will be surprised to see how finished the battery looks. some workmen pour hot compound clear to the top of the case and then hurry to put on a cold, dirty top. what happens? the underside of the cover, coming in contact with the hot compound, expands and lengthens out, curling the top surface beyond redemption. as you push down one corner, another goes up, and it is impossible to make the covers level. sealing single cover batteries single cover batteries are scaled in a similar manner. the covers are put in place before any compound is poured in. covers should first be steamed to make them soft and pliable. the surfaces which come in contact with the sealing compound must be perfectly dry and free from acid. before pouring in any compound, run a soft flame over the surfaces which are to be sealed, so as to dry them and warm them. close up all cracks between jars and covers as already directed. then pour the cover channels half full of sealing compound, which must not be too thin. now run a soft flame over the compound until it flows freely and unites with the covers and jars. allow the compound to cool. for the second pouring, somewhat hotter compound may be used. fill the cover channels flush with the top of the case, and again run a soft flame over the compound to make it flow freely and unite with the covers, and to give it a glossy finish. if any compound has run over on the covers or case, remove it with a hot putty knife. burning-on the cell connectors with the covers in place, the next operation is to burn in the cell connectors. directions for doing this are given on page 213. if you did not fill the jars with electrolyte before sealing the covers, do so now. see page 364. marking the battery you should have a set of stencil letters and mark every battery you rebuild or repair. stamp "pos," "p," or "+" on positive terminal and "neg," "n," or on negative terminal. then stamp your initials, the date that you finished rebuilding the battery, and the date that battery left the factory, on the top of the connectors. record the factory date, and type of battery in a book, also your date mark and what was done to the battery. by doing this, you will always be able to settle disputes that may arise, as you will know when you repaired the battery, and what was done. to go one step farther, keep a record of condition of plates, and number of new plates, if you have used any. grade the plates in three divisions, good, medium and doubtful. the "doubtful" division will grow smaller as you become experienced and learn by their appearance the ones to be discarded and not used in a rebuilt battery. there is no question that even the most experienced man will occasionally make a mistake in judgment, as there is no way of knowing what a battery has been subjected to during its life before it is brought to you. cleaning and painting the case the next operation is to thoroughly clean the case; scrape off all compound that has been spilled on it, and also any grease or dirt. if any grease is on the case, wipe off with rag soaked in gasoline. unless the case is clean, the paint will not dry. brush the sides and end with a wire brush; also brighten the name plate. then coat the case with good asphaltum paint. any good turpentine asphaltum is excellent for this purpose. if it is too thick, thin it with turpentine, but be sure to mix well before using, as it does not mix readily. use a rather narrow brush, but of good quality. paint all around the upper edge, first drawing the brush straight along the edges, just to the outer edges of rubber tops. now paint the sides, ends and handles, but be careful not to cover the nameplate. to finish, put a second, and thick coat all around top edge to protect edge of case. paint will soak in around the edge on top of an old case more easily than on the body of the case as it is more porous. charging the rebuilt battery with the battery completely assembled, the next step is to charge it at about one-third of the starting or normal charge rate. for batteries having a capacity of 80 ampere hours or more, use a current of 5 amperes. do not start the charge until at least 12 hours after filling with electrolyte. this allows the electrolyte to cool. then add water to bring electrolyte up to correct level if necessary. the specific gravity will probably at first drop to 1.220-1.240, and will then begin to rise. continue the charge until the specific gravity and voltage do not rise during the last 5 hours of the charge. the cell voltage at the end of the charge should be 2.5 to 2.7, measured while the battery is still on charge. make cadmium tests on both positive and negatives. the positives should give a cadmium reading of 2.4 or more. the negatives should give a reversed reading of 0.175. the tests should be made near the end of the charge, with the cell voltages at about 2.7. the cadmium readings will tell the condition of the plates better than specific gravity readings. the cadmium readings are especially valuable when new plates have been installed, to determine whether the new plates are, fully charged. when cadmium readings indicate that the plates are fully charged, and specific gravity readings have not changed for five hours, the battery is fully charged. if you have put in new plates, charge for at least 96 hours. measure the temperature of the electrolyte occasionally, and if it should go above 110â°f., either cut down the charging current, or take the battery off charge long enough to allow the electrolyte to cool below 90â°f. adjusting the electrolyte if the specific gravity of the electrolyte is 1.280 to 1.300 at the end of the charge, the battery is ready for testing. if the specific gravity is below or above these figures, draw off as much electrolyte as you can with the hydrometer. if the specific gravity is below 1.280, add enough 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte with the hydrometer to bring the level up to the correct height (about 1/2 inch above tops of plates). if the specific gravity is above 1.300, add a-similar amount of distilled water instead of electrolyte. if the specific gravity is not more than 15 points (.015) too low or too high, adjust as directed above. if the variation is greater than this, pour out all the electrolyte and add fresh 1.280 specific gravity electrolyte. after adjusting the electrolyte, continue the charge until the gravity of all cells is 1.280-1.300, and there is no further change in gravity for at least two hours. then take the battery off charge and make a final measurement of the specific gravity. measure the temperature at the same time, and if it varies more than 10â° above or below 70â°, correct the hydrometer readings by adding one point (.001 sp. gr.) for each 3 degrees above 70â°, and subtracting one point (.001 sp. gr.) for each 3 degrees below 70â°. be sure to wipe off any electrolyte which you spilled on the battery in adjusting the electrolyte or measuring the specific gravity. use a rag dipped in ammonia, or baking soda solution. high rate discharge whenever you have time to do so, make a 20-minute high rate discharge test on the rebuilt battery, as described on page 266. this test will show up any defect in the battery, such as a poorly burned joint, or a missing separator, and will show if battery is low in capacity. if the test gives satisfactory results, the battery is in good condition, and ready to be put into service, after being charged again to replace the energy used by the test. ================================================================ chapter 16. special instructions. --------------------exide batteries exide batteries may be classified according to their cover constructions as follows: 1. batteries with single flange covers, as shown in figs. 15 and 238. this class includes types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, phc, xc, xx, and xxv. [fig. 238 exide battery, partly disassembled] 2. batteries with double flange covers, as shown in fig. 242. this class includes types mha, kz, kxd, lxre, and xe. the cover constructions are-described in chapter 3. all exide batteries, except types kxd, lxre, and xe, have burned-in lead top connectors. all types have a removable sealing nut around each post to make a tight joint between the post and cell cover, as described on page 19. formerly some exide batteries had cell connectors which were bolted to the cell posts, but this construction is now obsolete. types kxd, lxre, and xe have cell connectors made of flexible, lead coated copper strips. types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, mha, phc, xc, xx, and xxv have been designed and built to meet the requirements of starting, lighting and ignition service for passenger automobiles and power boats. types kxd, lxre, and xe have been especially developed to meet the requirements of the starting, lighting and ignition service on motor trucks and tractors. type kz has been produced particularly for motorcycle lighting and ignition service. [fig. 239 exide battery with single flange cover] type numbers the type of an exide battery is stamped on the battery name plate. thus, on one of the most popular exide batteries is marked type 3-xc-13-1. other exide batteries have different numerals and letters in their type numbers, but the numerals., and letters are always arranged in the same order as given above. the first numeral gives the number of cells. the letters give the type of cell. the numerals following the letters give the number of plates per cell. the last numeral indicates the manner of arranging the cells in the battery case. thus, in the example given above, 3-xc-13-1 indicates that there are three cells in the battery, that the type of cell is xc, that each cell has 13 plates, and that the cells are arranged according to method no. 1, this being a side to side assembly. methods of holding jars in case two methods of holding exide jars in the battery case are used: 1. types mha, kxd, lxre, and xe have the jars separated by horizontal wooden spacers, there being two spacers between adjoining jars. running horizontally between these two spacers are tie bolts which pass through the case. these bolts are tightened after the jars are placed in the case, thus pressing the sides of the case against the jars and holding them in, place. types kxd, lxre, and xe, in addition to the tie bolts, are secured in the case by sealing compound beneath and around the jars. each cell is provided with two soft rubber buffers which are v shaped, and are placed over the ridges in the bottom of the jars, thereby minimizing the effect of shocks on the plates and separators which rest on the buffers. 2. in types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, phc, xc, xx, and xxv, there are no spacers between adjoining jars, and the jars simply fit tight in the case. should they not fit tight enough to hold them in place securely, thin boards are inserted between the jars and the case to pack them in. type kz has the three sets of plates in one jar, having three compartments, with a three compartment cover. opening exide batteries 1. drilling off the top connectors. do this as described on page 329. for type kz batteries use a 3/8 inch drill. for all other types use a 5/8 inch drill. 2. removing plates from jars. follow the general instructions on page 333. types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, phc, xc, xx, and xxv. in opening these batteries, all of which have the single flange cover, you may remove each cell complete from the case, and then draw out the plates; or you may draw out the plates without taking out the jars. to remove the complete cell, heat a thin bladed putty knife and work it down all around the outside of the jar. then lift out the complete cell by pulling steadily on the cell posts with two pairs of gas pliers. the battery should be placed on the floor when you do this, and you should stand with one foot pressed against the side of the case. if you do not wish to remove the complete cells, or should the jars fit too tight in the case, unseal the covers and remove the plates according to the instructions given on page 333. types kz and mha. these batteries have the double flanged cover. several methods may be used in removing the plates from the jars. in each case, the top of the cell is cleaned, gas blown out of the vent holes, and the sealing nuts removed before opening the cells. [fig. 240 removing double flange exide cover] first, a flame may be used to soften the sealing compound which is placed in the slot formed by the two flanges of the cover. if you wish to use a flame, first remove each complete cell from the case, loosening the tie bolts that pass through the case to release the jars. then hit out each complete cell. now get two strong boards which are about one fourth inch longer than the height of the jar. see fig. 240. support the jar on these boards by resting the lower edge of the sides of the cover on the top edge of the boards. then run a moderate flame around the outside of the flange until the cover is soft, and the compound melting. then press down on the cell posts with your thumbs, and the jar and plates will drop free of the cover. the plates are then drawn out and rested on the top of the jars to drain, as usual. another method is to remove the cells from the case and put them in the battery steamer for ten minutes as described on page 332. instead of first taking the complete cells out of the case and then steaming them separately, you may steam the entire battery for about ten minutes, and then draw out the plates and cover of each cell with gas pliers without removing the jars. this method must be used in opening types kxd, lxre, and xe, which have sealing compound under the jars. work on plates, separators, jars, and case having opened the battery, follow the instructions given on pages 335 to 361 for examination of plates and separators, and all work on plates, jars, separators, and case. reassembling plates [fig. 241 upsetting threads to prevent nut from turning] first slip the positive and negative groups together without separators. then wipe the posts with a rag moistened with ammonia, rinse them with water, and dry thoroughly with a clean rag. next slip the soft rubber washers over the posts and place the cover in position. lubricate the lead sealing nuts with graphite that has been mixed to a paste with water. do not use grease or vaseline to lubricate these nuts. then put on the sealing nuts and tighten them partly with your fingers. you are now ready to insert the separators as directed on page 361. types mha, phc, kxd, kz, lxr, lxre, lxrv, xx, and xxv have, in addition to the usual wooden separators, perforated rubber sheets, which should be placed against the grooved side of each wooden separator before inserting, and insert with rubber sheet against the positives. make a careful examination to see that you have not left out any separators. when the separators are all in place, even them up on each side. then tighten the sealing nuts with the special exide wrench. when you have turned the nuts down tight, lock them in place by driving a center punch on the threads on the post just above the nut, fig. 241. this will damage the thread and prevent the nut from turning loose. putting plates in jars the next step is to lower the plates into the jars, as described on page 362. in types kxd, lxre, and xe be sure to first replace the two soft rubber buffers in the bottom of the jar, one over each ridge. filling jars with electrolyte as soon as you have an element in place in the jar, fill the jar with electrolyte of the proper strength, as described on page 364, to prevent the separators and plates from drying. the negatives, especially, must be covered with electrolyte to prevent them from heating and drying. sealing exide battery covers [fig. 242 laying "worm" of sealing compound] [image: chart showing capacity of exide batteries] for types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, phc, xc, xx, and xxv, which have the single flange type of cover, slowly heat the sealing compound until it runs, but do not get it so thin that it will run down into the cell between the cover and jar. then pour it into the channel between cover and jar walls. allow it to cool and finish it off flush with a hot knife. when pouring, be sure the compound is liquid and not lumpy, as in such a case a poor seal will result. a glossy, finished appearance may be given to the compound by passing a flame over it after the job is finished. for types kxd, kz, lxre, mha, and xe, which have the double flange type of cover, have ready a string or worm of sealing compound about 3-16 inch in diameter, made by rolling between boards some of the special compound furnished for the purpose. the cover may or may not have been attached to the element, depending on how repairs have been made. in either case the procedure is the same as far as sealing is concerned. assuming the element is attached, stand it upside down, with the cover resting upon two strips, fig. 242. lay the string of compound all around the cover channel. now turn right side up and insert in the jar, taking care that the jar walls enter the cover channels at all points. apply heat carefully to the edges of the cover and gently force cover clown. if too much compound has been used, so that it squeezes out around the cover, scrape off the excess with a hot knife while forcing cover down. putting cells in case when the covers have all been sealed, put the cells in the case, taking care to put the negative and positive posts in their proper positions, so that each cell connector will connect a positive to a negative post. in types mha, kxd, lxre, and xe, which have wooden spacers between the cells, take care that the spacers are in position and then, after cells are in place, tighten the tie bolts with a screw driver to clamp the jars. in types dx, lx, lxr, lxrv, sx, xc, xx, and xxv the cells should fit tight in the case; pack them in with thin boards if necessary. burning on the cell connectors see instructions on pages 213 to 216. charging after repairing see also instructions on page 373. not sooner than ten to fifteen hours after filling battery with electrolyte, add electrolyte to restore level if it has fallen. u. s. l. batteries the instructions for rebuilding batteries which have already been given, pages 328 to 374, apply also to all u. s. l. batteries. in working on the old u. s. l. batteries, illustrated in fig. 243, draw out the electrolyte down to the tops of the plates so that the electrolyte is below the lower end of the vent tube. then blow out any gas which may have collected under the cover with compressed air or bellows. never fail to do this, as there is only a small vent hole in the cover through which the gas can escape, the vent tubes extending down into the electrolyte when the cells are properly filled. [fig. 243 cross section of old type usl battery] [fig. 244 cross section of new type usl battery] fig. 244 shows the new u. s. l. cover construction. note that the special cell filling device is no longer used. u. s. l. batteries have lead bushings moulded into the cover. these bushings fit around the posts, and are burned to the posts and top connectors, figs. 243 and 244, thus giving leak proof joints between the cover and the posts. in burning on the connectors, melt bottom edge of hole first, then top of post and cover bushing, and melt in your burning lead slowly. [image: chart showing capacity of usl batteries, page 1] [image: chart showing capacity of usl batteries, page 2] prest-o-lite batteries [fig. 245 old type prest-o-lite battery with lead bushings that screw up into cover] some of the old prest-o-lite batteries have a lead bushing around the post, fig. 245, similar to the u. s. l. batteries. this will make a perfectly tight seal, provided that you screw the bushing up tight. the new types of prest-o-lite batteries have a "peened" post seal, special instructions for which follow. the general instructions for rebuilding batteries given on pages 328 to 374 apply to prest-o-lite batteries in every respect. the "peened" post seal is, however, a special construction, and directions for working on this seal are as follows: [fig. 246 prest-o-lite element locked] all prest-o-lite batteries designated as types whn, rijn, bhn, jfn, kpn, and shc, have a single moulded cover which is locked directly on to the posts of the element. this feature is the result of forcing a solid ring of lead from a portion of the post, projecting above the cover, down into a deep chamfer in the top of the cover. figs. 246 and 247 show this construction. this construction makes a solid unit of the cover and element, which does away with the sealing compound, washers, nuts, etc., for making the acid tight seal around the posts. the locking operation requires some special instructions and shop equipment for assembly and all repairs which involve removal from and replacement of the cover on the element. the majority of battery repairs such as renewal of jars, separators, straightening of plates, and removal of sediment, can be made without separating the cover and element. in such cases the connectors are drilled off, compound is softened and removed from around the covers and the complete unit is removed from the cell. it may be handled throughout the repair as a unit, and the cover serves as a bridge to hold the plates of both groups in line just as they remain in the jar. [fig. 247 sectional view of prest-o-lite battery with peened post seal] however, where the cover is broken or must be replaced for other reasons, when plates have to be renewed, or the posts have been broken off below the cover, the element and cover must be separated. all the apparatus and special tools which are used in connection with the locking, as well as the building-up, unlocking (freeing), and rebuilding, of the posts in all prest-o-lite battery types are grouped together and collectively termed the type "n" post locking outfit. this outfit, complete, is carried in stock at all prest-o-lite warehouses under the part number 27116. each of the individual parts or tools also has a separate part number and may be bought separately. prest-o-lite type "n" post locking outfit arbor press (complete with following 12 parts) 27115 main casting 27114 latch 27107 bed plate 27113 lever 27108 rack 27211 washer 27112 pinion shaft 27110 pinion 27109 latch pin 27111 *special cln & kpn spacer 27233 *special cln & kpn latch 27232 *special cln & kpn bed plate 27234 large peening tool (9-21 rhn, whn, bhn, shc, kpn, cln; 11-17 jfn) 27101 small peening tool (7-whn, rhn, shc; 9-jfn) 27100 peening tool for small terminal posts in which are east threaded brass inserts (columbia) 27105 large post freeing tool 27103 small post freeing tool 27102 no. 8 post freeing tool (13/16" diameter straight post) 27123 [1] large post re-builder (9-21 rhn, whn, bhn, shc, kpn, cln; 11-17 jfn) 27005 [1] small post re-builder (7-whn, rhn, shc; 9-jfn) 27004 [2] ford positive post builder 27006 [2] ford negative post builder 27224 2 no. 8 post builder (13/16" diameter straight post) 27225 style "b" prest-o-lite torch, with six feet of red gum tubing a-3116 automatic reducing valve a-427 complete type "n" outfit including all parts above 27116 * the cln and kpn spacer block, bent latch and bed plate are special parts used only in the arbor press when it is especially assembled to lock cln or kpn posts. [1] the re-builder is used to build up posts before attempting to lock on the cover. the replacing of the metal cut away from the original diameter of the post when the jar cover was removed is necessary to the correct operation of the peening tool. [2] the builder is used to build up posts, after they have been locked and shaped by the peening tool, to a size large enough to take some special terminal. for example, the ford positive post builder is used in building up posts, locked by the large peening tool, to the proper size to take the ford positive terminal. the automatic reducing valve delivers the gas from the p-o-l tank at a uniform pressure of 3 pounds per square inch, whether the tank is full, half empty, or nearly empty, and regardless of the volume of gas used. the volume or flow of gas is regulated by the key. the style "b" torch mixes the pure acetylene from the gas tank with the proper amount of air necessary to an efficient heating flame. the heating flame is conducted or delivered to the peening tool by the short length of brass tubing known as the torch-holder, over which the "b" torch is pressed by hand in completing the assembly. [fig. 248 special prest-o-lite peening press] both the "b" torch and the automatic reducing valve are absolutely essential to the use of the prest-o-lite gas tank for heating the peening tool. prest-o-lite gas tanks, style a, b, c, or e, may be used in connection with the automatic reducing valve, as shown in fig. 248. to use a welding size gas tank it is necessary to insert a "w to a" adapter between the tank and reducing valve. this adapter can be purchased from the prest-o-lite co., inc. the arbor press when received by the service station is fully assembled, ready for mounting and operation with all p-o-l locked post types except cln and kpn. mount the press in a vertical position (fig. 248) in a convenient place and at an accessible height on a wall or post. holes are provided in the press for mounting by lag screws or bolts. the position of the peening tool should be well below the level of the eyes, to prevent serious injury from a possible spattering of overheated lead. screw the proper size peening tool into the bottom of the press rack, as shown in fig. 248. the torch-holder must be removed from the peening tool to do this; it should be immediately replaced. in using the press to lock cln or kpn posts it is necessary to remove the bed plate and the latch, and replace these parts with the special bed plate and special latch provided for this purpose, using the spacing block or spacer (also provided) between the special bed plate and the bottom of the press. [fig. 249 reaming prest-o-lite peened post to remove cover] connect the "b" torch to the peening tool. the torch is merely pressed by the hand over the torch-holder. connect the torch with the automatic reducing valve on the gas tank by the rubber tubing, and turn on the gas and light. the flame should be blue and hot. allow the peening tool to become just hot enough to melt the end of a piece of 50-50 solder. do not allow it to get any hotter than this. the tool is then ready for use. the flame may be left on while the tool is in use. in case the tool becomes too hot turn the flame off and allow it to cool to the proper temperature before using. to remove cell covers from elements drill off cell connectors and terminals as usual. insert the proper size freeing tool (or reamer), furnished with the outfit, in an ordinary hand-power drill press or bit-and-brace. with this reamer remove the ring of metal or flange on the post, thereby releasing the cell cover. fig. 249. the freeing tool should not be used in a power-driven press, as slow speed is essential to prevent breaking cell covers. to get the best results, center the freeing tool over the post, gradually forcing it down, at the same time keep it turning slowly until the ring of metal which locks the post in the cover has been removed. a little machine oil should be put on the metal directly under the tool for this operation. after the metal ring has been removed, the cover can be easily lifted off the posts, fig. 250. [fig. 250 removing prest-o-lite cover] [fig. 251 building up posts on prest-o-lite element] the use of the freeing tool in removing the cell cover cuts away a certain amount of metal from the diameter of the posts. before these posts can be relocked by the peening tool in replacing the cell cover they must be built up in size or diameter again so that there will be enough lead to insure a tight joint. to rebuild posts thoroughly clean the post. place the proper post re-builder so that it rests on the shoulder of the post, and run in enough new lead to fill the re-builder. fig. 251. be sure and bring the lead surface of the post into fusion before the new lead is run in, to insure a strong post. to build a smooth, solid post, be sure that the post is thoroughly clean; then use a hot flame. to lock or peen posts (1) assemble positive and negative groups without separators, and paint the posts (just above the shoulder) with hot sealing compound. (2) prepare the cell covers by immersing them in hot water until they are flexible. (3) place a warmed cover over the posts of the two assembled groups (the elements). fig. 252. [fig. 252 replacing prest-o-lite cover on built-up posts] (4) slide the element over the bed plate directly under peening tool, with the bottom of the plate connectors resting on the bed plate. (see fig. 253). (5) pull down the latch to hold the bed plate in alignment. (6) center the post with peening tool. then force the peening tool down slowly until it has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the cover. pause in this operation to allow the metal of the post to become heated; then force tool the rest of the distance. raise the peening tool slightly and force down again. (7) release the latch, withdraw and reverse the element, and repeat operations 4, 5 and 6 on the other post. (8) the assembled groups are now ready to receive separators. [fig. 253 peening prest-o-lite post with special peening press] precautions in post locking operations 1--be sure all covers are warmed until they are flexible before attempting to assemble. 2--be sure that the peening tool is not too hot. if it is, the post will melt away and be ruined. a very hot tool sometimes causes dangerous spattering of hot lead. 3--be sure that the post is centered with the peening tool before forcing the tool down on the post. 4--be sure the cover has been forced down, so that it rests on the shoulder of the post, before releasing. general instructions in breaking in a new peening tool it is advisable to squirt several drops of machine oil inside the tool, as well as putting some oil on the top of the post, before forcing the hot tool down over the post. this will prevent the tool from sticking to the post. if the peening tool should stick to the post, force the tool down again, being certain that the cover is slightly compressed. sticking of the peening tool indicates either that the tool has not yet been broken in, or that there is not sufficient compression in the cover to free the tool on releasing the pressure on the lever of the press. to repair the 13/16" diameter straight terminal post, the ford positive terminal post, the ford negative terminal post, it is good practice to remove the cover in the usual manner, then cut the upper portion of the posts off and rebuild them with the large post re-builder. reassemble the element and cover in the recommended manner and then use the proper post builder to burn the post to its original size. standard types of prest-o-lite starting, lighting and ignition batteries [image: chart for prest-o-lite starting batteries, 6-volt] [image: chart for prest-o-lite starting batteries, 12-volt] [image: chart for prest-o-lite starting batteries, 16-18-24 and 30-volt] [image: chart for prest-o-lite special heavy duty truck batteries for starting and light; chart for 6-volt lighting and ignition types] the philadelphia diamond grid battery old type [fig. 254 cross section of old type philadelphia diamond grid battery] figs. 254 and 255 show the construction of the old type philadelphia diamond grid. battery. figs. 254 and 256 show the diamond shaped grid from which the battery derives its name. it is claimed that this construction gives a very strong grid, holding the active materials firmly in place, and giving a large amount of contact surface between the grid and the active material. figs. 254 and 255 show the old type battery, and give the details of the cover, terminal posts, vent plug, and so on. the post seal is made tight by pouring the compound into the cover well so that it flows in around all of the petticoats on the post. [fig. 255 cross section old type philadelphia diamond grid] this construction increases the distance that the acid must travel along the post, in order to cause a leak, about two and one-half times the vertical distance on a smooth post. the hard rubber washer which fits around the post acts as a lock to prevent the post from turning. this applies especially to the two terminal posts to which the cables are attached. the washer is intended to prevent any strain in the cable from turning the post and breaking the seal between the post and the compound. new development in the philadelphia battery [fig. 256 cross section new type philadelphia battery] [fig. 257 new type philadelphia diamond grid battery] rubber lockt seal covers. during the last few years there has been a marked tendency in the battery industry to do away with the use of sealing compound for making a joint between the cell cover and the terminal posts and to substitute a mechanical seal of some kind at this joint. the philadelphia storage battery co. has developed the "rubber lockt". cover seal, the construction of which is shown in detail in figs. 256 and 257. on the cell posts there is a. flange which supports the cover, and above this there is a recessed portion into which is slipped a soft rubber sleeve or bushing. this portion of the post is made with a ridge extending around the post and with the rubber sleeve forming a high point over which a corresponding locking edge in the terminal hole of the cover is snapped. this construction makes a joint which is flexible and at the same time acid tight. vibration tends to push the cover down on the supporting flanges, as the post diameter is smaller below the locking edge. the design is simple, both from the assembly and the repair standpoint, as no tools are required for either operation. in the assembly operation the groups are lined up so that the post centers are correct and, after wetting the soft rubber sleeves, the cover is snapped in place with a quick downward push. see fig. 258. in removing the covers, catch under each end with the fingers and pull upward, at the same time pressing with the thumbs on the top of the posts. see fig. 259. [fig. 258 replacing cover of philadelphia diamond grid battery] [fig. 259 removing cover of philadelphia diamond grid battery] rubber case batteries. another development of recent years consists of the replacing of the wood case and rubber jars by a one-piece container of hard rubber with compartments for the elements the philadelphia storage battery co. has developed the diamond rubber case, which combines strength and lightness with an attractive appearance. see fig. 260. one of the troubles experienced with the earlier designs of the rubber case was the bulging of the end, due to the pull of the battery hold down rod on a small handle attached to the center of the end. in the philadelphia battery this has been overcome by the use of a wide handle which snaps into openings in the end of the case in such a way that the pull on the handle is transferred to the sides. another feature of this type handle is that it is a separate piece snapped into the case without the use of any metal insert in the rubber case, and if the handle should break, it can be replaced at small expense without the use of any tools. [fig. 260 philadelphia diamond grid battery with rubber case] the philadelphia vent plug is of the bayonet type, and is tightened by a quarter turn. the plug simply has a small vent hole in the top, and may either be taken out or left on while battery is charging. the philadelphia separator the philadelphia separator is made of quarter sawed hardwood. it has a hard resinous wood in which the hard and soft portions occur in regular alternating vertical layers. the soft layers are porous, and permit the diffusion of the acid from plate to plate. the hard layers give the separator stiffness and long life. the alternating hard and soft layers are at right angles to the surface of the separator, so that the electrolyte has a direct path between plates. the methods of repairing philadelphia diamond grid batteries are no different from those already given, on pages 328 to 374. when the elements of the old type batteries have been assembled and returned to the jars, put the covers in place, and pour the compound around the edges of the cover, and in the post wells. the old compound must be removed from the petticoats on the posts before new compound is poured in. the compound must be warm and thin enough to flow around and fill up the petticoat spaces on the posts in order to get a good seal. when the post wells are full of compound, and while compound is still warm, put on the square sealing washers and press them down so that the holes in the washers fit closely around the octagonal part of the posts. the eveready storage battery it is claimed by the manufacturers that the sulphate which forms in the eveready battery during discharge always remains in the porous, convertible form, and never crystallizes and becomes injurious, even though the battery is allowed to stand idle on open circuit for a considerable length of time. due to this fact, the eveready battery is called a "non-sulphating battery." the manufacturers state that eveready batteries which have stood idle or in a discharged condition for months do not suffer the damages which usually result from such treatment, namely: buckling, and injurious sulphation. the plates do become sulphated, but the sulphate remains in the porous, non-crystalline state in which it forms. charging such a battery at its normal rate is all that is necessary to bring it back to its normal, healthy condition. due to the excessive amount of sulphate which forms when the battery stands idle or discharged for a long time, it is necessary to give the battery 50 percent overcharge to remove all the sulphate and bring the battery back to a healthy working condition. the colors of the plates are good guides as to their condition at the end of the charge. the positives should be free from blotches of white sulphate, and should have a dark brown or chocolate color. the negatives should have a bright gray or slate color. description of parts eveready plates are of two general types. plates of the r type are each provided with two feet on lower ends, the positive set and the negative set resting on two separate pairs of bridges in the jars, thereby preventing the sediment which accumulates on top of bridges from short circuiting a cell. plates of the m type, instead of having feet, are cut away where they pass over the bridges of the opposite group. see fig. 261. this construction secures a greater capacity for a given space, and gives the same protection against short circuit from sediment as the foot construction does, since the same amount of sediment must accumulate with either type of plate to cause a short circuit. [fig. 261 type "m" eveready grid] the separators used in eveready batteries are made of cherry wood because it is a hard wood which will resist wear, is of uniform texture, even porosity, and has a long life in a given degree and condition of acid. eveready cherry wood separators go to the repair man in a dry condition, as they do not require chemical treatment. separators when received should be soaked in 1.250 specific gravity acid for four days or longer in order to expand them to proper size and remove natural impurities from the wood. after being fully expanded they should be stored moist as previously described. stock separators may be kept indefinitely in this solution and can be used as required. fig. 262 shows the top construction in the eveready battery. [fig. 262 eveready battery, cell connectors covered by compound] cell connectors are heavily constructed and are sealed over solidly with a flexible sealing compound, fig. 262. two types of cell connectors are used-the crescent and the heavy or "three way" type. repairing eveready batteries to properly open and re-assemble an eveready battery, proceed as follows: 1. take a hot putty knife and cut the compound from the top of each of the inter-cell connectors until the entire top of the connector is exposed. 2. center punch tops of cell connectors and terminal posts. 3. drill off cell connectors. in drilling off crescent cell connector use 1/2 inch drill, and for heavy type connector use 5/8 inch drill. drill deep enough, usually 3/8 to 1/2 inch, until a seam between connector and post is visible around lower edge of hole. having drilled holes in both ends of connector, heat connector with soft flame until compound adhering to it becomes soft. then take a 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch round iron or bolt, depending on connector to be removed, insert in one of the holes, and pry connector off with a side to side motion, being careful not to carry this motion so far as to jam connector into top of jar. 4. after connectors have been removed, steam and open the battery, as described on pages 332 to 335. 5. examine plates, and handle them as described on pages 335 to 355. remember, however, that eveready plates which show the presence of large amounts of sulphate, even to the extent of being entirely covered with white sulphate, should not be discarded. a battery with such plates should be charged at the normal rate, and given a 50 percent overcharge. 6. before re-assembling plate groups preparatory to assembling the battery, take negative and positive plate groups and build up the posts with the aid of a post builder to their original height. assemble groups in usual manner, taking care that posts on straps are in proper position relative to group in adjoining cell, so that cell connectors will span properly. eveready batteries use a right and left hand strap for both positive and negatives, making it necessary to use only one length of cell connector. 7. after inserting assembled plate groups into battery in their proper relation as to polarity, heat rubber covers to make them fairly pliable and fit them over posts and into top of jar, pressing them down until they rest firmly on top of plate straps. see that covers are perfectly level and that vent tubes are perpendicular and all at same height above the plates. 8. heat compound just hot enough so that it will flow. pour first layer about one quarter inch thick, being careful to cover entire jar cover. take a soft flame and seal compound around edges of jar and onto posts. 9. now proceed to burn on top connectors. cell connectors need only be cleaned in hole left by post, and top of each end. 10. while burning in cell connectors the first layer of compound will have cooled sufficiently to permit the second layer to be applied. this should be done immediately after burning on connectors and while they are still hot. also heat the terminal posts, as compound will adhere to hot lead more readily than to cold. start second layer of compound by pouring it over cell connectors and terminal posts, first filling in with sufficient compound to bring level just above the tops of jars. apply flame, sealing around edges of wood case, being particularly careful to properly seal terminal posts. let this layer cool thoroughly before applying third layer. 11. the third layer of compound should be applied in the same way as second layer, pouring on connectors and terminal posts first, and filling in to the level of top of wood ease. the spaces between bars of cell connectors will fill and flow over properly if second layer has been allowed to cool and if cell connectors have not been burned up too high. in sealing last layer with flame, care should be taken not to play flame on compound too long as this hardens and burns the compound. burned compound has no flexibility and will crack readily in service, thus causing the battery to become a "slopper." in pouring compound be sure to have battery setting level so that compound will come up even on all edges of case. do not move battery after pouring last layer until thoroughly cool. before installing battery on car be sure that no compound, etc., has been allowed to get onto taper of terminal post, as this will make a poor connection. if this has happened, clean with medium grade sandpaper. vesta batteries [fig. 263 vesta grid with 3-piece isolator] vesta isolators. the vesta plate embodies in its design devices which are intended to hold the plates straight and thus eliminate the buckling and short-circuiting which form a large percentage of battery trouble. fig. 263 shows clearly the construction of the old type of plate. each isolator used in the old type of plate consists of two notched strips of celluloid, with a plain celluloid strip between them. the notches are as wide as the plates are thick, the teeth between the notches fitting into the spaces between plates, thus holding the plates at the correct distances apart. the plain celluloid strip holds the notched strips in place. at each corner of the vesta plate is a slot into which the isolator fits, as shown in fig. 263. since the teeth on the two notched pieces of each isolator hold the plates apart, they cannot "cut-out" or "short-out" by pinching through the wooden separators, or "impregnated mats" as they are called by the vesta company. the celluloid of which the isolators are made are not attacked by the electrolyte at ordinary temperatures. at higher temperatures, however, the electrolyte slowly dissolves the isolators. the condition of the isolator, therefore, may be used to determine whether the temperature of the electrolyte has been allowed to rise above 100â° fahrenheit. the vesta type "d" battery the appearance of a group of the new type "d" construction is shown in fig. 265, where type "c" and type "d" groups are illustrated side by side for purposes of comparison. it will be seen that the "d" isolator is of one piece only (shown separately in fig. 266). the material is a heavy hard rubber stock which will be no more affected by acid or by electrical conditions in the cell than the hard rubber battery jar itself. the indentations on the two edges of isolator engage in hook shaped lugs on plate edges (fig. 267 shows these clearly) and lock the plates apart fully as efficiently as the three-piece construction. [fig. 264 cross section, vesta isolator battery, type c] there are a number of important advantages which have been gained by the new method of isolation. the illustration (fig. 265) shows how the "d" isolator permits the separators to completely cover and project slightly beyond the edges of the plates, whereas in the old construction there is an edge just above the isolators where the plates are not covered. this improvement means protection against shorts due to flaking, always so likely to occur during the summer "overcharging" season. overcharging is, of course, a form of abuse, and type "d" batteries are designed to meet this sort of service. another great advantage gained is in the arrangement of lugs, it will be noted that the positive isolator hooks are in alignment, as are the negative hooks, but that these two rows, of opposite polarity, are separated from each other by the full width of the isolator; whereas in the type "c" construction the outer edges of the plates, of opposite polarity, were separated only by the usual distance between plates. [fig. 265 vesta elements: showing old 3-piece celluloid isolator and new one-piece hard rubber isolator] [fig. 267 vesta plates type u and dj] [fig.268 inserting vesta hard rubber isolator] the new isolator is simple to insert and remove. being made of hard rubber, it will soften and become pliable if a sufficient degree of heat is applied. the heat required is approximately 150â° to 160â°f., a temperature far above that reached by any battery cell, even under the most extravagant condition of abuse, but readily attained in the shop by means of a small flame of any kind-even a match will do in an emergency. the flame (which should be of the yellow or luminous variety, as the blue flame tends to scorch the rubber) is played lightly over the isolator a few seconds. the rubber becomes soft and is then removed by inserting under the end of the isolator any narrow tool, such as a small screw driver, a wedge point, chisel, etc., and prying gently. in replacing isolators, a small hot plate is convenient but not at all necessary. the isolators are placed on the hot plate, or held in a luminous flame, until soft enough to bend. they are then bent into an arched shape, as shown in fig. 268, and quickly fitted into place under the proper lugs. the regular isolator spacing tool is convenient and helpful in maintaining the plates at uniform intervals while this operation is carried out. the job is completed by pressing down the still warm isolator with any handy piece of metal having a flat edge that will fit the distance between the lugs (fig. 269). the shank of a screw driver does splendidly for this work. the pressure causes the isolator to straighten out, and the indentations fit snugly under the respective hooks on the plates. at the same time the contact with the cold metal chills the rubber to its normal hard condition. it is especially to be noted that the entire operation of isolator removal and replacement can be carried out with none but the commonest of shop tools. [fig. 269 pressing down vesta hard rubber isolator] [fig. 270 complete vesta battery] all of the "u" size batteries have been changed to type "d," so that all "cu" types are superseded by corresponding "du's." type "d" will not be used on cells of sizes "l," "h," or "a", all of which remain of the "c" or three-piece isolator construction. type "s" remains old style as before. type "dj" the vesta company has added a new plate size, produced in the "d" style (one-piece) isolator only, and known as "dj." this plate is one-half inch higher than the "u," as shown in fig. 267. it has 10 per cent more capacity. "dj" batteries are available in all forms corresponding with "cu" types, and can be obtained by merely changing the type form name in ordering, as for example, to replace form 150, 6-dj11-y-150. the overall height of the completed battery is, of course, one-half inch more, and the "dj" should therefore be ordered only when this additional height space is available in the battery compartment of the car. vesta separators the vesta separators, or "mats," are treated by a special process. the vesta company considers its "mats" a very important feature of the battery. see page 15. vesta post seal a lead collar fits over each post to hold the cover tight against the soft rubber gasket underneath. this collar is not screwed or burned on the post, but is simply pressed down over the post, depending for its holding power upon the fact that two lead surfaces rubbing against each other tend to "freeze," and unite so as to become a unit. the connector rests upon the upper race of the collar, and also helps to hold it down in its proper position. fig. 270 shows the complete battery with the lead collar, and the large vent plug. in rebuilding vesta batteries having the lead collars, the cover should be left in place when working on the plates, if possible. if, however, it is necessary to separate groups, and the lead collars must be removed, this is done as shown in fig. 271. a few blows on the side of the collar with a light, two ounce hammer expands the lead collar several thousands of an inch so that the collar may be removed. [fig. 271 expanding lead collar of vesta battery with light hammer] [fig. 272 placing soft rubber gasket over post of vesta battery] in replacing the covers, the lead collar must be forced down over the post, and special pressure tongs are required for this purpose. before driving on the old collar, the post should be expanded slightly by driving the point of a center-punch into the shoulder on the post. instead of expanding the shoulder a new collar may be used. fig. 272 shows the soft rubber gasket being placed over the post, and shows the construction of the cover with its recess to fit the gasket. fig. 273 shows the lead collar being placed over the post after the cover is in place. fig. 274 shows the special long lipped tongs required to force the collar down on the post shoulder. one lip of the tongs has a hole into which the post fits. the necessary driving force may be obtained by applying pressure to the ends of the lips of the tongs with an ordinary vise. this forces the cover down on the rubber gasket to make the acid-tight seal. [fig. 273 placing lead collar over post of vesta battery] [fig. 274 pressing lead collar over post of vesta battery] westinghouse batteries westinghouse batteries have a special seal between covers and posts, as shown in fig. 275. a lead foundation washer (j) is set around the post. a "u" shaped rubber gasket, (k) is then forced between the cover and post, with the open end up. the lips of this gasket are tapered, with the narrow edge up. a tapered lead sleeve (l) is then forced between the lips of gasket (k), thereby pressing the inner lip against the post and the outer lip against the cover. [fig. 275 westinghouse battery, partly dis-assembled] the lead sleeve is held in place by broaching or indenting the collar on taper lead sleeve into the posts. to break the seal, a hollow reamer or facing tool, fitted into a drill press or breast drill, is slipped over the post. a few turns will remove that part of the sleeve which has been forced into the post. remove sealing compound around cover, remove group from cell. the cover can then be lifted off and if any difficulty is experienced, it can easily be removed by prying up cover with screwdriver. after removing the cover, the tapered lead sleeve and "u" shaped gasket can be removed. if these instructions are followed, the "u" shaped gasket and taper lead sleeves can be used when battery is reassembled. with the addition of the foregoing instructions on the post seal, the standard directions for rebuilding batteries given on pages 328 to 374 apply to westinghouse batteries. westinghouse plates in any given size, the westinghouse battery has two more plates per cell than the usual 1/8 inch plate battery. it has the same number of plates as the 3/32 inch thin plate battery, but the thickness of the plates is about half-way between the 1/8 inch and 3/32 inch plates. the westinghouse negative grids, fig. 276, have very few and small bars, just enough to hold the active material. it is slightly thinner than the positive but has the same amount of active material, due to the design of the grids. the condition of westinghouse negatives should not be determined by cadmium readings as these plates may be fully charged and yet not give reversed cadmium readings. [fig. 276 westinghouse positive and negative plates] aside from the special instructions given for the westinghouse post seal, the standard instructions for rebuilding batteries, given on pages 328 to 374 may be used in rebuilding westinghouse batteries. types of westinghouse batteries type "a" batteries the type "a" series was designed to fit the battery compartment in certain rather old models of cars. owing to a lack of space this series is not of as efficient design as the "c" and "b" series. it does have the westinghouse post seal, however. type "a" batteries are not recommended for use when "b" or "c" batteries can be used. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-a-11 100071 64 68 9.1 8 38 6-a-13 100072 79 82 11.0 9-1/8 42 6-a-15 100073 94 96 12.8 10-1/4 46 6-a-17 100074 109 109 14.6 11-9/16 52 6-a-21 100075 139 136 18.2 14-3/16 63 6-a-25 100076 169 164 22.0 17 75 12-a-7 100077 34 41 5.5 10-7/16 48 12-a-11 100078 64 68 9.1 14-15/16 70 12-a-17 100079 109 109 14.6 22-1/16 102 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 4-1/8 .098 type "b" batteries the type "b" series of batteries has been designed for use on a number of cars now in service that do not have a sufficient headroom in the battery compartment for type "c." type "b" batteries carry all of the features of the type "c." due to the fact that the plates of necessity must be somewhat shorter than in the type "c" batteries their efficiency from the point of ampere hours per pound of weight is slightly less than the type "c" series. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-b-7 100031 41 44 6.6 5-3/4 30 6-b-9 100032 59 66 8.8 6.7/8 36 6-b-11 100033 77 82 11.0 8 41 6-b-13 100034 95 99 13.2 9-1/2 47 6-b-15 100035 114 115 15.4 10-1/4 52 6-b-17 100036 132 131 17.6 11-9/16 57 6-b-19 100037 150 148 19.8 12-7/8 60 6-b-21 100038 168 164 22.0 14-3/16 68 6-b-23 100039 186 181 24.2 15-1/2 75 6-b-25 100040 205 197 26.4 17 82 12-b-7 100041 41 49 6.6 10-7/16 54 12-b-9 100042 59 66 8.8 12-11/16 66 12-b-11 100043 77 82 11.0 14-15/16 78 12-b-13 100044 95 99 13.2 17-3/16 91 12-b-15 100045 114 115 15.4 19-7/16 102 12-b-17 100046 132 131 17.6 22-1/16 113 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 4-3/4 0.1 type "c" batteries the type "c" series of batteries is the westinghouse standard. the outside dimensions and capacity are such that some one of this design may be used in a majority of cars now in service. the westinghouse design was built around this type and it should be used for replacement or new equipment. type "c" batteries are provided with the westinghouse post seal wherever possible. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-c-7 100001 45 54 7.3 5-7/8 34 6-c-9 100002 65 73 9.7 7 39 6-c-11 100003 85 91 12.1 8-1/8 44 6-c-13 100004 105 109 14.6 9-1/4 50 6-c-15 100005 125 127 17.0 10-3/8 56 6-c-17 100006 145 145 19.4 11-11/16 63 6-c-19 100007 165 163 21.8 13 70 6-c-21 100008 185 181 24.3 14-5/16 77 6-c-23 100009 205 199 26.7 15-5/8 85 6-c-25 100010 225 218 29.2 17-1/8 93 12-c-7 100011 45 54 7.3 10-9/16 59 12-c-19 100012 65 73 9.7 12-13/16 72 12-c-11 100013 85 91 12.1 15-1/16 84 12-c-13 100014 105 109 14.6 17-5/16 96 12-c-15 100015 125 127 17.0 19-8/16 110 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 4-1/4 0.1 inch type "e" batteries the type "e" series was designed for replacement work on a few old model cars now in service where a narrow, high battery was necessary. the design is not as efficient as the "b" and "c" lines, due to a lack of space and further, it has been necessary to omit the westinghouse post seal for the same reason. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-e-13 100058 79 82 11.0 9-1/8 40 6-e-15 100062 94 96 12.8 10-1/4 44 6-e-17 100065 109 109 14.6 11-9/16 50 6-e-21 100067 139 136 18.2 14-3/16 62 12-e-11 100088 64 68 9.1 14-15/16 70 12-e-13 100060 79 82 11.0 17-3/16 79 12-e-15 100069 94 96 12.8 19-7/16 90 18-e-9 100070 49 54 7.3 15-5/16 75 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------4-1/8 5-5/8 .098 type "h" batteries the type "h" battery is built with heavier plates than the type "c" and "b" batteries for use in cars where the necessary increased space is available and where the weight per ampere output is not a consideration. under the same use the battery will give a greater life than the type "c" or "b" battery having the same positive area. this battery has a greater space between the plates than the "c" or "b" battery and will therefore have less internal discharge when standing on open circuit, and is more desirable for miscellaneous use where open circuit discharge is of consideration. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-h-17 100089 61 74 9.9 7-3/4 35 6-h-9 100090 88 89 13.2 9-1/4 43 6-h-11 100091 115 124 16.5 11-1/2 55 6-h-13 100092 143 149 19.8 12-5/8 36 6-h-15 100093 170 173 23.2 14-5/16 70 6-h-17 100094 197 109 26.5 16 79 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 5 .19 type "j" batteries the type "j" battery is an extremely heavy construction battery with thick plates, and it was designed primarily for use on trucks and other vehicles of this type where there is excessive vibration and other possibility of mechanical abuse. this battery will give a greater life than either the "h", "c" or "b" battery with the same plate area. it is provided with wood separators and rubber sheets. this battery has a greater space between the plates than the "c" or "b" battery and will therefore have less internal discharge when standing on open circuit, and is more desirable for miscellaneous use where open circuit discharge is of consideration. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-j-5 100095 38 55 7.35 6-7/16 38 6-j-7 100096 68 82 11.0 8-1/8 40 6-j-9 100097 98 110 14.7 10-3/8 50 6-j-11 100098 128 137 18.4 11-7/8 60 6-j-13 100099 159 165 22.1 13-3/4 69 6-j-15 100100 189 192 25.7 15-5/8 84 6-j-17 100101 220 220 29.4 17-1/2 96 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 5 .19 type "0" batteries the "0" type battery sacrifices some capacity in obtaining a rugged strength. it is a special battery made only with nineteen plates per cell where the percentage of sacrificed capacity is not great as compared with the twenty-one plate "c" type. it fills the same space as does a 6-c-21. it has greater life and strength. it has less capacity but it is built for conditions requiring less capacity than a twenty-one plate cell. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-o-19 100143 185 185 24.5 13-11/16 68 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------5-5/8 5-1/4 .123 type "f" batteries there is only one type "f" battery. it is of big heavy construction exactly the same dimensions as the battery used for a number of years on the cadillac and certain other cars. this battery is heavier than type "c" of the same capacity and it has a greater life. ampere hours ampere ampere length weight at usual rate for rate for in inches in type part no. lighting rate 20 minutes 5 hours l. pounds --- ------- ------------ --------- ------- -------- -----6-f-13 100086 150 160 21.2 17-11/16 79 plates width height thickness ---- ----- --------4-3/4 5-1/4 .17 willard batteries since 1912, when the willard storage battery co. began to manufacture storage batteries for starting and lighting work, various types of willard batteries have been developed. the original willard starting and lighting batteries used two-piece, or "double" covers. these are shown in the cuts used to illustrate the sealing of double-cover covers in the preceding chapter, and no further description will be given here. the doublecover batteries are no longer made, but the repairman will probably be called upon to repair some of them. the instructions given in the preceding chapter should be used in making such repairs. following the double cover batteries came the single cover battery, of which a number of types have been made. one type used a rectangular post, and was very difficult to repair. fortunately, this type was not used extensively, and the battery is obsolete. willard batteries with compound sealed posts the oldest type single-cover willard battery which the repairman will be called upon to handle is the compound sealed post type, illustrated in-fig. 277. this battery includes types sew, ser, sjw, sl, slr, sm, smr, str, sxw, sxr, sp, sk, sq, em, and emr. as shown in fig. 277, there is a well around each post which is filled with: sealing compound. on the under side of the cover is a corresponding well which fits into the post well, the sealing compound serving to make the seal between the cover and the post. [fig. 277 willard battery cross section] aside from this post seal, no special instructions are required in rebuilding this type of willard battery. a 3/4 inch drill is needed for drilling off the connectors. when the plates have been lifted out of the jars, and are resting on the jar to drain, and while the compound and cover are still hot, remove the cover by placing your fingers under it and pressing down on the posts with your thumbs. with a narrow screw driver or a knife, clean out all of the old compound from the wells around the posts, and also remove the compound from the under side of the cover which fits into the post wells. in reassembling the battery first try on the covers to see that they will fit in the post wells. then remove the covers again and heat them with a soft flame. then heat the post wells perfectly dry with a soft flame. pour the post wells nearly full of compound, and quickly press the cover into position. willard batteries with lead inserts in covers the types sjwn and sjrn willard batteries have lead inserts in the cover post holes, as shown in mg. 278, the inserts being welded to the posts. for removing the connectors and for separating the post from the cover insert, the willard company furnishes special jigs and forms. the work may also be done without these jigs and forms, as will be described later. when the special jigs and forms are used, the work is done, as follows: 1. place willard drill jig z-72 (fig. 279) over the connector, and with a 13/16 inch drill, bore down far enough to release the connector from the post (fig. 279). [fig. 278 lead insert used on willard batteries; fig. 279 willard drill jig z-72; fig. 279 willard drill jig z-72 and how it is used] 2. file off the post stub left by drilling. this will give a flat surface on top of the cover insert and will make it easier to center the drill for the next operation. 3. with a 57/64 inch drill, and willard jig z-94 (fig. 280), drill down to release the post from the cover insert. [fig. 280 willard jig z-94; fig. 281 willard post-builder z-93] 4. in reassembling, build the post up to a height of 1-5/16 inches above the top of the plate strap, using willard post builder z-93 (fig. 281). 5. after removing the post builder, bevel the top edge of the post with a file, as indicated at "a" (fig. 281). then replace plates in the jars. 6. file off tops of cover inserts at "a" (fig. 282), to a height of 3/16 inch above the cover. also remove any roughness on surface "b" caused by pliers when cover was removed. [fig. 282 willard battery cross section of cover insert; fig. 283 willard burning form z-87 and how it is used] 7. put on the covers so that their tops will be 1/32 inch above the top edge of the jars, tapping them lightly with a small hammer. 8. place willard burning form z-87 (fig. 283) over the post and cover insert and burn the post to the insert. 9. remove form z-87 and thoroughly brush off the top of the post stub. then build up the stub post, using willard burning form z-88 on the positive posts and form z-89 on the negative posts (fig. 284). [fig. 284 willard burning forms z-88 and z-89] 10. now seal the covers with sealing compound as usual, and burn on the connectors. 11. if the terminal posts are made for clamp terminals, build up the posts by using willard burning form z-90, for the positive posts and z-91 for the negative posts (fig. 285). [fig. 285 willard burning forms z-90 and z-91] to work on the post seals of willard types sjwn and sjrn without the special willard jigs and forms: 1. remove the connectors and terminals as usual. 2. saw off the posts close to the covers, taking care not to injure the covers; this will separate the posts from the cover inserts, and the covers may be removed. 3. in reassembling, ale off the top of the cover insert at "a" (fig. 292). 4. put covers on so that their tops will be 1/32 inch above the top edge of the jars, tapping the covers lightly with a small hammer. 5. brush the top of post and cover insert perfectly clean. now make a burning form consisting of a ring 1-1/8 inside diameter and 1-5/8 inch outside diameter and 3/16 to 1/4 inch high. set this over the stub post and cover. with a hot lead burning flame melt the top of the post and cover insert together. then melt in lead up to the top of the special burning form (fig. 286). then remove the form. [fig. 286 cross section willard battery posts types sjwn and sjrn] 6. set post builders on the part of the posts which has been built up and build up the posts as usual, fig. 286. then burn on the connectors and terminals. willard gasket type batteries fig. 287 shows this type of construction, used on types sjrg and slwg. fig. 288 shows the seal in detail. a soft rubber gasket is slipped over the post, and the cover is pushed down over the gasket. for removing the covers, have a cover removal frame made as shown in fig. 289. fasten the frame to a solid wall or bench so that it will withstand a strong pull. in rebuilding this type of battery proceed as follows: [fig. 287 willard gasket seal battery cross section] 1. drill off the connectors and terminals, leaving the post stubs, as high as possible, since the only way of removing the plates is by grasping the post stubs with pliers. [fig. 288 details of willard gasket seal] 2. steam the battery to soften the sealing compound and lift out the plates as usual. 3. to remove covers. saw the post stubs off flush with the covers. place the element in the cover removal frame (fig. 289) and pull steadily on the element. a little swaying motion from side to side may help in loosening the covers. if any of the gaskets remain on the posts when the covers are removed, replace them in the cover and thoroughly dry the inside with a rag. [fig. 289 cover removal frame for willard gasket seal battery] 4. to replace covers. with a rag or tissue paper wipe off the posts and then dry them thoroughly with a soft flame. with a 3/4 inch bristle bottle brush apply a thin coating of rubber cement to the inside surfaces of the gaskets. do this to one cover at a time and apply the cover quickly before the cement dries. the cement acts as a lubricant, and without it, it will be impossible to replace the covers. willard separators fig. 290 shows the willard threaded rubber separator which is made of a rubber sheet pierced by thousands of threads which are designed to make the separator porous. this separator is not injured by allowing it to become dry, and makes it possible for the willard company to ship its batteries fully assembled without electrolyte or moisture, the parts being "bone-dry." [fig. 290 willard threaded rubber separator] universal batteries types. the universal battery co. manufactures batteries for (a) starting and lighting, (b) lighting, (c) ignition, (d) radio, (e) electric cars and trucks, (f) isolated, or farm lighting plants, and (g) general stationary work. construction features. the universal starting and lighting batteries embody no special or unique constructions. the boxes are made of hard maple, lock cornered and glued. the jars have single rubber covers. the separators are made of port orford white cedar wood, this wood being the same as that used in some of the other standard makes of batteries. the space between the covers and connectors is sufficient to permit lifting the battery by grasping the connectors. [fig. 291 universal battery cover cross section] fig. 291 shows the universal co. post seal construction. a soft rubber washer (a) is first slipped over the post. the cover (b) is then put in place, and rests on the washer (a) as shown. a second washer (c) is then slipped over the post, resting on the upper surface of the shoulder of the cover. the lead sleeve washer (d) is then forced down over the post, pressing washer (c) down on the cover, and pressing the cover down on washer (a). the two rubber washers serve to make a leak proof joint between post and cover. the lead sleeve-washer (d) "freezes" to the post, and holds cover and washers in position. in rebuilding universal batteries the cover need not be removed unless it is desired to replace plate groups. to remove the cover, after the cell connectors have been drilled off, drill down through the post-stub until the drill has penetrated to the shoulder (e). this releases the seal and the cover may be lifted off. to save time, the post-stub may be cut off flush with the top of the cover with a hack saw after the cell connectors have been drilled off. the drill is then used as before to release the grip of the washer. using a drill to release the grip of the washer makes it necessary to build up the posts when the battery is reassembled. instead of using an ordinary twist drill, a special hollow drill may be obtained from the universal battery co. this drill cuts away the lead sleeve gasket without injuring the post. if an ordinary drill is used, a 3/4 inch drill is required for the seven plate battery and a 13/16 inch drill for all other sizes. one-piece battery containers the standard practice in battery assembly has always been to place the plates of each cell in a separate, hard rubber jar, the jars being set in a wooden box or case. each six-volt battery thus has four containers. when a wooden case is used, jars made of rubber, or some other nonporous, acid-resisting material are necessary. [fig. 292 one-piece battery container] wooden cases have been fairly well standardized as to the kinds of wood used, dimensions, constructional features, and to a certain extent, the handles. the disadvantage of both the wooden case and the iron handles is that they are not acid proof. acid-proof paint protects them from the action of the acid to a certain extent, but paint is easily scraped off, exposing the wood and iron to the action of the acid. it is practically impossible to prevent acid from reaching the case and handles, and corroded handles and rotted cases are quite common. a recent development is a one-piece container which takes the place of the jars and wooden case. such a container is made of hard rubber or a composition of impregnated fibre which uses a small amount of rubber as a binder. these cases are, of course, entirely acid proof, and eliminate the possibility of having acid soaked and acid rotted cases. painting of cases is also eliminated. the handles are often integral parts of the case, as shown in fig. 292, being made of the same material as the case. the repairman should not overlook the possibilities of the one-piece containers. in making up rental batteries, or in replacing old cases, the one-piece containers may be used to advantage. these containers are suitable for radio batteries, since they have a neater appearance than the wooden cases, and are not as likely to damage floors or furnishings because the acid cannot seep through them. the titan battery the titan battery is built along standard lines, as far as cases, plates, separators, and jars are concerned. the ribs of the grids not arranged at right angles but are arranged as shown in fig. 293. each pellet of active material is supported by a diagonal rib on the opposite face of the grid. [fig. 293a titan battery grid] [fig. 293b titan post seal construction] the titan post seal is shown in fig. 293. a soft rubber gasket (g) is slipped over the post, and rests on a shoulder (f) on the post. the cover has a channel which fits over the gasket and prevents the gasket from being squeezed out of place when the cover is forced down on the gasket. the post has two projections (dd), as shown, the lower surface of each of which is inclined at an angle to the horizontal. a lock nut (h), which has corresponding projections (ij) is slipped over the post as shown at (0), and is given a quarter turn. the top surfaces of the projections on the lock-nut are inclined and as the locknut is turned, the projections on the post and nut engage, and the cover is forced down on the gasket (g). to lock the nut in place, a lock washer (l) is then slipped over the post, the projections (mm) fitting into spaces (kk) between the projections on the post and nut, thus preventing the nut from turning. a special wrench is furnished for turning the lock-nut. the cell connectors rest on the tops of the lock washers and keep them in place. the overhauling of titan batteries should be done as described on pages 328 to 374. ======================================================================== section 3. ======================================================================== chapter 17. farm lighting batteries special instructions. -------------------------------------------although the large central station companies are continually extending their power lines, and are enlarging the territory served by them, yet there are many places where such service is not available. to meet the demand for electrical power in these places, small but complete generating plants have been produced by a number of manufacturers. these plants consist of an electrical generator, an engine, to drive the generator, and a storage battery to supply power when the generator is not running. the complete plants are called "house lighting," "farm lighting," or "isolated" plants. the batteries used in these plants differ considerably from the starting batteries used on automobiles. the starting battery is called upon to deliver very heavy currents for short intervals. on the car the battery is always being charged when the car is running at a moderate speed or over. the battery must fit in the limited space provided for it on the car, and must not lose any electrolyte as the car jolts along over the road. it is subjected to both high and low temperatures; and is generally on a car whose owner often does not know that his car has such a thing as a battery until his starting motor some day fails to turn over the engine. all starting batteries have wooden cases (some now use rubber cases), hard rubber jars, and sealed on covers. the case contains all the cells of the battery. automobile batteries have, therefore, become highly standardized, and to the uninformed, one make looks just like any other. farm lighting batteries, on the other hand, are not limited as to space they occupy, are not subjected to irregular charging and discharging, do not need leak proof covers, and are not called upon to delivery very heavy currents for short periods. these facts are taken advantage of by the manufacturers, who have designed their farm lighting batteries to give a much longer life than is possible in the automobile battery. as a result the farm lighting battery differs from the automobile battery in a number of respects. jars. both glass and rubber are used for farm lighting battery jars, and they may or may not have sealed-in covers. fig. 294 shows a glass jar of an exide battery having a hard rubber cover, and fig. 295 shows a prest-o-lite glass jar cell having a cover made of lead and antimony. unsealed glass jars, such as the exide type shown in fig. 324, generally have a plate of glass placed across the top to catch acid spray when the cell is gassing. each jar with its plates and electrolyte forms a complete and separate unit which may easily be disconnected from the other cells of the battery by removing the bolts which join them. in working on a farm lighting battery, the repairman, therefore, works with individual cells instead of the battery as a whole, as is done with automobile batteries. [fig. 294 exide "delco light" farming lighting cell with hard rubber cover] batteries with sealed jars are generally shipped completely assembled and filled with electrolyte, and need only a freshening charge before being put into service, just as automobile batteries which are shipped "wet" are in a fully charged condition when they leave the factory and need only a charge before being installed on the car. [fig. 295 prest-o-lite farm lighting cell with lead-antimony cover] jars that are not sealed are set in separate glass trays filled with sand, or sometimes the entire battery is set in a shallow wooden box or tray filled with sand. this is necessary because the absence of a sealed cover allows acid spray to run down the outside of the jar and this acid would, of course, attack the wooden shelf and make a dirty, sloppy battery. batteries using jars without sealed covers cannot be shipped assembled and charged, and hence they require a considerable amount of work and along initial charge to put them in a serviceable condition. [fig. 296 exide farm lighting cell with sealed glass jar] farm lighting battery jars are less liable to become cracked than those of automobile batteries because they are set in one place and remain there, and are not jolted about as automobile batteries are. cracked jars in farm lighting batteries are more easily detected as the jar will be wet on the outside and the acid will wet the shelf or sand tray on which the jar rests. batteries with sealed rubber jars are normally assembled four cells in a case or tray, with a nameplate on each tray which gives the type and size of cell. the cells are connected together with lead links which are bolted to the cell posts by means of lead covered bolt connectors. [fig. 297 combination wood and rubber separator used in delco-light and exide farm light cell] plates. since farm lighting batteries are not required to deliver very heavy currents at any time, the plates are made thicker than in starting batteries, this giving a stronger plate which has a longer life than the starting battery plate. all makes of starting batteries use the faure, or pasted plate. this type of plate is also used in many farm lighting batteries, but the plante plate (see page 27) may also be used. the exide "chloride accumulator" cell, fig. 323 uses a type of positive plate called the "manchester" positive as described on page 497. separators. grooved wooden separators are used in some farm lighting batteries, while others use rubber separators, or both rubber and wooden separators. some use wooden separators which are smooth on both sides, but have dowels pinned to them. electrolyte. in a starting battery the specific gravity of the electrolyte of a fully charged cell is 1.280-1.300, no matter what the make of the battery may be. in farm lighting batteries, the different types have different values of specific gravity when fully charged. the usual values are as follows: (a) batteries with sealed glass jars 1.210 to 1.250 (b) batteries with open glass jars 1.200 to 1.250 (c) batteries with sealed rubber jars 1.260 to 1.280 a brief discussion of specific gravity might be helpful at this point. in any lead acid battery current is produced by a chemical action between the active material in the plates and the water and sulphuric acid in the electrolyte. the amount of energy which can be delivered by the battery depends on the amount of active material, sulphuric acid, and water which enter into the chemical actions of the cell. as these chemical actions take place, sulphuric acid is used up, and hence there must be enough acid contained in the electrolyte to enter into the chemical actions. the amount of water and acid in the electrolyte may be varied, as long as there is enough of each present to combine with the active material of the plates so as to enable the cell to deliver its full capacity. increasing the amount of acid will result in the plates and separators being attacked and injured by the acid. increasing the amount of water dilutes the acid, giving a lower gravity, and preventing the acid from injuring plates and separators. this results in a longer life for the battery, and is a desirable condition. in starter batteries, there is not enough space in the jars for the increased amount of water. in farm lighting batteries, where the space occupied by the battery is not so important, the jars are made large enough to hold a greater amount of water, thus giving an electrolyte which has a lower specific gravity than in starting batteries. take a fully charged cell of any starting battery. it contains a set of plates and the electrolyte which is composed of a certain necessary amount of acid and a certain amount of water. if we put the plates of this cell in a larger jar, add the same amount of acid as before, but add a greater amount of water than was contained in the smaller jar, we will still have a fully charged cell of the same capacity as before, but the specific gravity of the electrolyte will be lower. charging equipment. automobile batteries are being charged whenever the car is running at more than about 10 miles per hour, regardless of what their condition may be. in farm lighting outfits, the charging is under the control of the operator, and the battery is charged when a charge is necessary. there is, therefore, very much less danger of starving or overcharging the battery. the operator must, however, watch his battery carefully, and charge it as often as may be necessary, and not allow it to go without its regular charge. the generator of a farm lighting outfit is usually driven by an internal combustion engine furnished with the outfit. the engine may be connected to the generator by a belt, or its shaft may be connected directly to the generator shaft. a switchboard carrying the necessary instruments and switches also goes with the outfit. the charging of farm lighting batteries is very much like the charging of automobile batteries on the charging bench, except that the batteries are at all times connected to switches, by means of which they may be put on the charging line. some plants are so arranged that the battery and generator do not provide current for the lights at the same time, lights being out while the battery is charging. in others the generator and battery, in emergency, may both provide current. in others the lights may burn while the battery is being charged; in this case the battery is sometimes provided with counter-electromotive force cells which permit high enough voltage across the battery to charge it and yet limit the voltage across the lamps to prevent burning them out or shortening their life. in some cases the battery is divided into two sets which are charged in parallel and discharged in series. relation of the automobile storage battery man to the farm lighting plant. owners and prospective owners of farm lighting plants generally know but little about the care or repair of electrical apparatus, especially batteries, which are not as easily understood as lamps, motors or generators. prospective owners may quite likely call upon the automobile battery repair man for advice as to the installation, operation, maintenance, and repair of his battery and the automobile battery repairman should have little trouble in learning how to take care of farm lighting batteries. the details in which these batteries differ from starting batteries should be studied and mastered, and a new source of business will be opened. farm lighting plants in the vicinity should be studied and observed while they are in good working order, the details of construction and operation studied, the layout of the various circuits to lamps, motors, heaters, etc., examined so as to become familiar with the plants. then when anything goes wrong with the battery, or even the other parts of the plant, there will be no difficulty in putting things back in running order. selection of plant "farm lighting plant" is the name applied to the small electric plant to be used where a central station supply is not available. such a plant, of course, may be used for driving motors and heating devices, as well as operating electric lights, and the plant is really a "farm lighting and power plant." make. there are several very good lighting plants on the market and the selection of the make of the plant must be left to the discretion of the owner, or whomever the owner may ask for advice. the selection will depend on cost, whether the plant will fill the particular requirements, what makes can be obtained nearby, on the delivery that can be made, and the service policy of the manufacturer. type. plants are made which come complete with battery, generator, engine, and switchboard mounted on one base. all such a plant requires is a suitable floor space for its installation. other plants have all parts separate, and require more work to install. with some plants, the generator and engine may be mounted as a unit on one base, with battery and switchboard separate. the type of jar used in the battery may influence the choice. jars are made of glass or rubber. the glass jars have sealed covers, or have no covers. the rubber jars generally have a sealed cover. the glass jar has the advantage that the interior may be seen at all times, and the height of the electrolyte and sediment may be seen and the condition of the plates, etc., determined by a simple inspection. this is an important feature and one that will be appreciated by the one who takes care of the battery. jars with sealed covers, or covers which although not sealed, close up the top of the jar completely have the advantage of keeping in acid spray, and keeping out dirt and impurities. open jars are generally set in trays of sand to catch electrolyte which runs down the outside walls of the jars. the open jars have the advantage that the plates are very easily removed, but have the disadvantage that acid spray is not kept in effectually, although a plate of glass is generally laid over part of the top of the jar, and that dirt and dust may fall into the jar. size. the capacity of storage battery cells is rated in ampere hours, while power consumed by lights, motors, etc., is measured in watt hours, or kilowatt hours. however, the ampere hour capacity of a battery can be changed to watt hours since watt hours is equal to watt hours = ampere hours multiplied by the volts if we have a 16 cell battery, each cell of which is an 80 ampere hour cell, the ampere hour capacity of the entire battery will be 80, the same as that of one of its cells, since the cells are all in series and the same current passes through all cells. the watt hour capacity of the battery will be 32 times 80, or 2560. the ampere hour capacity is computed for the 8 hour rate, that is, the current is drawn from the battery continuously for 8 hours, and at the end of that time the battery is discharged. if the current is not drawn from the battery continuously for 8 hours, but is used for shorter intervals intermittently, the ampere hour capacity of the battery will be somewhat greater. it seldom occurs that in any installation the battery is used continuously for eight hours at a rate which will discharge it in that time, and hence a greater capacity is obtained from the battery. some manufacturers do not rate their batteries at the 8 hour continuous discharge rate but use the intermittent rate, thus rating a battery 30 to 40 percent higher. rated in this way, a battery of 16 cells rated at 80 ampere hours at the 8 hour rate would be rated at 112 ampere hours, or 3584 watt hours. in determining the size of the battery required, estimate as nearly as possible how many lamps, motors, and heaters, etc., will be used. compute the watts (volts x amperes), required by each. estimate how long each appliance will be used each day, and thus obtain the total watt hours used per day. multiply this by 7 to get the watt hours per week. the total watt hours required in one week should not be equal to more than twice the watt hour capacity of the battery (ampere hours multiplied by the total battery voltage) at the eight hour rate. this means that the battery should not require a charge oftener than two times a week. the capacity of a battery is often measured in the number of lamps it will burn brightly for eight hours. the watts consumed by motors, heaters, etc., may be expressed in a certain number of lamps. the following table will be of assistance in determining the size of the battery required: watts equivalent number no. type of appliance consumed of 20 watt lamps -- ---------------- ------- ----------------1 16 candle power, mazda lamp 20 1 2 12 candle power, mazda lamp 115 3/4 3 electric fan, small size 75 4 4 small sewing machine motor 100 5 5 vacuum cleaner 160 8 6 washing machine 200 10 7 churn, 1/6 h.p. 200 10 8 cream separator, 1/6 h.p. 200 10 9 water pump 1/6 h.p. 200 10 10 electric water heater, small 350 18 11 electric toaster 525 26 12 electric stove, small 600 30 13 electric iron 600 30 14 pump, 1/2 h.p. 600 30 from the foregoing table we can determine the current consumption of the various appliances: amps at 32 amps at 110 no. watts volts volts -- ---- --------- -----------1 20 0.625 0.18 2 15 0.47 0.14 3 75 2.34 6.80 4 100 3.125 0.90 5 160 5.00 1.44 6 200 6.25 1.80 7 200 6.25 1.80 8 200 6.25 1.80 9 200 6.25 1.80 10 350 11.00 3.20 11 525 16.4 4.77 12 600 18.75 5.40 13 600 18.75 5.40 14 600 18.75 5.40 the following tables show how long the battery will carry various currents continuously: [images: various charts/tables] location of plant the various appliances should be placed as near to each other as possible. the lights, of course, must be placed so as to illuminate the different rooms, barns, etc., but the power devices should be placed as close as possible to each other and to the plant. the purpose of this is to use as little wire as possible between the plant and the various appliances so as to prevent excessive voltage drop in the lines. wiring the wires leading to the various appliances should be large enough so that not more than one or two volts are lost in the wires. to obtain the resistance of the wire leading to any appliance, use the following equation: knowing the resistance of the wire, and the total length of the two wires leading from the plant to the appliance, the size of the wire may be obtained from a wiring table. rubber insulated copper wire covered with a double braid should preferably be used, and the duplex wire is often more convenient than the single wire, especially in running from one building to another. wiring on the inside of buildings should be done neatly, running the wires on porcelain insulators, and as directly to the appliance as possible. the standard rules for interior wiring as to fuses, soldering joints, etc., should be followed. installation (see also special instructions for the different makes, beginning page 460.) the room in which the plant is installed should be clean, dry, and well ventilated. it should be one which is not very cold in winter, as a cold battery is very sluggish and seems to lack capacity. if possible, have the plant in a separate room in order to keep out dirt and dust. if no separate room is available, it is a good plan to build a small room in a corner of a large room. keep the room clean and free of miscellaneous tools and rubbish. if the entire plant comes complete on one base, all that is necessary is to bolt the base securely to the floor, which should be as nearly level as possible. if the battery is to be installed separately, build a rack. give the rack several coats of asphaltum paint to make it acid proof. the location of the battery rack should be such that the rack will be: (a) free from vibration. (b) at least 3 feet from the exhaust pipe of engine. (c) far enough away from the wall to prevent dirt or loose mortar from dropping on the cells. figs. 298 and 299 illustrate two types of battery racks recommended for use with farm light batteries. the stair-step rack is most desirable where there is sufficient room for its installation. where the space is insufficient to make this installation, use the two-tier shelf rack. the racks should be made from 1-1/2 or 2 inch boards. [fig. 298 "stair-step" rack for farm lighting battery] the cells may be placed on the battery rack with either the face or the edges of the plates facing out. the latter method requires a shorter battery rack and is very desirable from the standpoint of future inspections. in very dark places, it is more desirable to have the surface of the plates turned out to enable the user to see when the cells are bubbling during the monthly equalizing charge. either method is satisfactory. all metal parts such as pipes, bolt heads, etc., which are near the battery should be given at least three coats of asphaltum paint. care must be taken not to have an open flame of any kind in the battery room, as the hydrogen and oxygen gases, given off as a battery charges may explode and cause injury to the person and possible severe damage to the battery. when making an installation, it is always a good plan to carry the following material for taking care of spillage and broken jars: 1. 1 thermometer 2. 2 series cells 3. 6 battery bolts and nuts 4. 1 hydrometer syringe 5. 2 gallons distilled water 6. 1 jar vaseline 7. 1 gallon 1.220 specific gravity electrolyte [fig. 299 installation of a delco-light plant, showing two-tier shelf rack for battery] when a battery arrives at the shipping destination, the person lifting this shipment should remove the slats from the top of each crate and inspect each cell for concealed damage, such as breakage: should any damage be discovered, it is important that a notation covering this damage be made and signed by the freight agent on the freight bill. this will enable the customer or dealer to make a claim against the railroad for the amount of damage. if a notation of this kind is not made before the battery is lifted, the dealer will be forced to stand the expense of repairing or replacing the damaged cells. when removing cells from a crate, avoid lifting them by the terminal posts as much as possible. this causes the weight of the electrolyte and jar to pull on the sealing compound between the jar and cover, and if the sealing is not absolutely tight, the jar and electrolyte may fall from the cover. a cell should never be carried using the terminal posts as handles. the hand should be put underneath the jar. sometimes a battery will arrive with electrolyte spilled from some of the cells. if spillage is only about one-half to one inch down on the plates of three or four cells, this spillage may be replaced by drawing a little electrolyte out of each cell of the other full cells in the set. oftentimes several cells will have electrolyte extending above the water line, which will aid greatly in making up any loss in other cells. after all cells have been drawn on to fill up the ones that are spilled, the entire set may then have its electrolyte brought up to the water line by adding distilled water. very carefully adjust spillage of pilot cells (delco), as it is very important that the specific gravity of the pilot cells be left as near 1.220 as possible. in case the spillage is more than one inch below the top of plates or glass broken, remove cell and install a new cell in its place. the spilled or broken cell must not be used until given special treatment. connecting cells before connecting up the cells the terminals should be scraped clean for about 11/2 inches on both sides. an old knife or rough file is suitable for doing this work. after the terminals are thoroughly brightened, they should be covered with vaseline. the bolts and nuts used in making the connections on the battery should also be coated with vaseline. the vaseline prevents and retards corrosion, which is harmful to efficient operation. if a new battery is to be installed in parallel with one already in service, connections should be made so that each series will consist of half new and half old cells. the pilot cells for the new battery should be placed in one series and that for the old battery in the other, unless local conditions may make some other arrangement desirable. a drop light must always be provided to enable the user to inspect his battery, particularly when giving the monthly equalizing charge. initial charge when a battery is connected to the plant, it should be given a proper initial charge before any power or lights are used. batteries shipped filled with electrolyte are fully charged before leaving the factory. as soon as a storage battery cell of any type or make is taken off charge and stands idle for a considerable length of time, some of the acid in the electrolyte is absorbed by the plates, thereby lowering the gravity and forming sulphate on the plates. this process is very gradual, but it is continuous, and unless the acid is completely driven out of the plates by charging before the battery is used, the battery will not give as good service as the user has a right to expect. due to the time required in shipment, the above action has a chance to take place, which makes it necessary to give the initial charge. the initial charge consists of charging the battery, with the power and light switch open, until each cell is bubbling freely from the top to bottom on the surface of the outside negative plates and both pilot balls are up (delco-light), and then continuing the charge for five hours more. if the battery has no pilot cells, measure the specific gravity of the electrolyte of each cell, and continue the charge until six consecutive readings show no increase in gravity. as an accurate check on giving the initial charge properly (delco-light), we strongly recommend that hourly hydrometer readings of both pilot cells be taken after both balls are up, the charge to be continued until six consecutive hourly readings show no rise in gravity. due to the fact that it is impossible to hold each cell in a battery to a definite maximum gravity when fully charged, there is likely to be a variation of from ten to fifteen points in the specific gravity readings of the various cells. it should be understood, however, that the maximum gravity is the gravity when the cells are fully charged and with the level of the solution at the water line. for example, with each cell in a battery fully charged and therefore at maximum gravity and with the level at the proper height, some cells may read 1.230, one or two 1.235, several 1.215 and 1.210. all of these cells will operate efficiently, and there should be no cause for alarm. an exception to this is the pilot cell of the delco-light battery. if this check on the initial charge is properly made, it assures the service man and dealer that the battery is in proper operating condition to be turned over to the user. negligence in giving the initial charge properly may result in trouble to both user, service man and dealer. the initial charge may require considerable running of the plant, depending upon the state of charge of the cells when installed. instructing users during the time the initial charge is being given, the service man should instruct the user on the care and operation of the plant and battery. the best way to give instructions to the user is to tack the instruction cards on the wall near the plant in a place where the user can read them easily. proceed to read over the plant operating card with the user. read the first item, go to the plant, explain this feature to the user and allow him to perform the operation, if the instruction calls for actual performance. remember, the user is not familiar with the plant and battery, and the actual performance of each operation aids him to retain the instructions. after the first item has been covered thoroughly, proceed to the second, etc. during the course of instruction, the user will often interrupt with questions not dealing directly with the point being explained. the service man should keep the user's attention on the points he is explaining. when the service man has finished explaining both plant and battery instruction cards, he should answer any points in question which the user wants explained. when the monthly equalizing charge is explained to the user, the service man should always take the user to the battery and show him a cell bubbling freely. this is necessary in order that the user may recognize when the cells are bubbling freely at the time he gives the monthly equalizing charge. impress upon the user the importance of inspecting each cell when giving the monthly equalizing charge to see that every cell bubbles freely. if a cell fails to bubble freely at the end of the equalizing charge, the user should inform the service man of this condition immediately. caution the user against the use of an open flame near the plant or battery at any time. the gas which accumulates in a cell will explode sufficiently to break the glass jar if this gas is ignited by a spark or open flame. care of the plant in operation (see also special instructions for the different makes, beginning page 460.) the battery repairman should be able not only to repair the batteries, but should also be able to keep the entire plant in working order, and suggestions will be given as to what must be done, although no detailed instructions for work on the generator, engine, and switchboard will be given as this is beyond the scope of this book. battery room. the essential things about the battery room are that it must be clean, dry, and well ventilated. this means, of course, that the battery and battery rack must also be kept clean and dry. a good time to clean up is when the battery is being charged. clean out the room first, sweeping out dirt and rubbish, dusting the walls, and so on. both high and low temperatures should be avoided. if the battery room is kept too hot, the battery will become heated and the hot electrolyte will attack the plates and separators. low temperatures do no actual harm to a charged battery except to make the battery sluggish, and seem to lack capacity. a discharged battery will, however, freeze above 0â° fahrenheit. the battery will give the best service if the battery room temperature is kept between 60â° and 80â° fahrenheit. do not bring any open flame such as a lantern, candle or match near a battery and do not go near the battery with a lighted cigar, cigarette or pipe, especially while the battery is charging. hydrogen and oxygen gases form a highly explosive mixture. an explosion will not only injure the battery, but will probably disfigure the one carrying the light, or even destroy his eyes. it is a good plan to keep the windows of the battery room open as much as possible. engine. the engine which drives the generator requires attention occasionally. wipe off all dirt, oil or grease. keep the engine well lubricated with a good oil. if grease cups are used, give these several turns whenever the engine is run to charge the battery. use clean fuel, straining it, if necessary, through a clean cloth or chamois, if there is any dirt in it. the cooling water should also be clean, and in winter a non-freezing preparation should be added to it. do not change the carburetor setting whenever the engine does not act properly. first look over the ignition system and spark plug for trouble, and also make sure that the carburetor is receiving fuel. if possible, overhaul the engine once a year to clean out the carbon, tighten bearings and flywheel, remove leaky gaskets, and so on. generator. keep the outside of the generator clean by wiping it occasionally with an oiled rag. see that there is enough lubricating oil in the bearings, but that there is not too much oil, especially in the bearing at the commutator end of the generator. keep the commutator clean. if it is dirty, wipe it with a rag moistened slightly with kerosene. the brushes should be lifted from the commutator while this is being done. finish with a dry cloth. if the commutator is rough it may be made smooth with fine sandpaper held against it while the generator is running, and the brushes are lifted. the surfaces of the brushes that bear on the commutator should be inspected to see that they are clean, and that the entire surfaces make contact with the commutator. the parts that are making contact will look smooth and polished, while other parts will have a dull, rough appearance. if the brush contact surfaces are dirty or all parts do not touch the commutator, draw a piece of fine sandpaper back and forth under the brushes, one at a time, with the sanded side of the paper against the brush. this will clean the brushes and shape the contact surfaces to fit the curve of the commutator. brushes should be discarded when they be come so short that they do not make good contact with the commutator. see that the brush holders and brush wires are all tight and clean. watch for loose connections of wires, as these will cause voltage loss when the generator is charging the battery. watch for "high mica," which means a condition in which the insulation between the segments projects above the surface of the commutator, due to the commutator wearing down faster than the insulation. if this condition arises, the mica should be cut down until it is slightly below the surface of the commutator. an old hack saw blade makes a good tool for this purpose. a commutator may have grooves cut in by the brushes. these grooves do no harm as long as the brushes have become worn to the exact shape of the grooves. when the brushes are "dressed" with sandpaper, however, they will not fit the grooves, and the commutator should be turned down in a lathe until the grooves are removed. a steady low hum will be heard when the generator is in operation. loud or unusual noises should be investigated, however, as a bearing may need oil, the armature may be rubbing on the field pole faces, and so on. watch for overheating of the generator. if you can hold your hand on the various parts of the generator, the temperature is safe. if the temperature is so high that parts may be barely touched with the hand, or if an odor of burned rubber is noticeable, the generator is being overheated, and the load on the generator should be reduced. switchboard. clean off dirt and grease occasionally. keep switch contacts clean and smooth. if a "cutout" is on the board, keep its contacts smooth and clean. if the knife switch blades are hard to move, look for cutting at the pivots. something may be cutting into the blades. if this is found to be the case, use a file to remove all roughness from the parts of the pivot. see that no switches are bent or burned. keep the back of the board clean and dry as well as the front. see that all connections are tight. keep all wires, rheostats, etc., perfectly clean. a coat of shellac on the wires, switch studs, etc., will be helpful in keeping these parts clean. care of battery cleanliness. keep the battery and battery rack clean. after a charge is completed, wipe off any electrolyte that may be running down the outsides of the jars. wipe all electrolyte and other moisture from the battery rack. occasionally go over the rack with a rag wet with ammonia or washing soda solution. then finish with a dry cloth. paint the rack with asphaltum paint once a year, or oftener if the paint is rubbed or scratched. if sand trays are used, renew the sand whenever it becomes very wet with electrolyte. keep the terminals and connectors clean. near the end of a charge, feel each joint between cells for a poor connection. watch also for corrosion on the connections. corrosion is caused by the electrolyte attacking any exposed metals other than lead, near the battery, resulting in a grayish deposit on the connectors or bolts at the joints. such joints will become hotter than other joints, and may thus be located by feeling the joints after the battery has been charged for some time. corrosion may be removed by washing the part in a solution of baking soda. be very careful to keep out of the cells anything that does not belong there. impurities injure a cell and may even ruin it. do not let anything, especially metals, fall into a cell. if this is done accidentally, pour out the electrolyte immediately, put in new separators, wash the plates in water, fill with electrolyte having a gravity about 30 points higher than that which was poured out, and charge. the cell may be connected in its proper place and the entire battery charged. vent plugs should be kept in place at all times, except when water is added to the electrolyte. keep the electrolyte above the tops of the plates. if the battery has glass jars, the height of the electrolyte can be seen easily. if the battery has sealed rubber jars, the height of the electrolyte may be determined with a glass tube, as described on page 55. in most batteries the electrolyte should stand from three-fourths of an inch to an inch above the plates. some jars have a line or mark showing the proper height of the electrolyte. a good time to inspect the height of the electrolyte is just before putting the battery on charge. if the electrolyte is low, distilled water should be added to bring it up to the proper level. water should never be added at any other time, as the charging current is required to mix the water thoroughly with the electrolyte. determining the condition of the cells. the specific gravity of the electrolyte is the best indicator of the condition of the battery as to charge, just as is the case in automobile batteries, and hence should be watched closely. it is not convenient or necessary to take gravity readings on every cell in the battery on every charge or discharge. therefore, one cell called the "pilot" cell should be selected near the center of the battery and its specific gravity readings taken to indicate the state of charge or discharge of the entire battery. delco-light batteries each have two pilot cells with special jars. each of these has a pocket in one of its walls in which a ball operates as a hydrometer or battery gauge. one pilot cell contains the pilot ball for determining the end of the charge, and other pilot cell containing the ball for determining the end of the discharge. see fig. 294. hydrometer readings should be taken frequently, and a record of consecutive readings kept. when the gravity drops to the lowest value allowable (1.150 to 1.180, depending on the make of battery) the battery should be charged. once every month voltage and gravity readings of every cell in the battery should be taken and recorded for future guidance. these readings should be taken after the monthly "overcharge" or "equalizing charge" which is explained later. if the monthly readings of any cell are always lower than that of other cells, it needs attention. the low readings may be due to electrolyte having been spilled and replaced with water, but in a farm lighting battery this is not very likely to happen. more probably the cell has too much sediment, or bad separators, and needs cleaning. see special instructions on exide and prest-o-lite batteries which are given later. there are several precautions that must be observed in taking gravity readings in order to obtain dependable results. do not take gravity readings if: (a) the cell is gassing violently. (b) the hydrometer float does not ride freely. if a syringe hydrometer is used, the float must not be touching the walls of the tube, and the tube must not be so full that the top of the float projects into the rubber bulb at the upper end of the tube. (c) water has been added less than four hours before taking the readings. a good time to take readings is just before water is added. the hydrometer which is used should have the specific gravity readings marked on it in figures, such as 1.180, 1.200, 1.220 and so on. automobile battery hydrometers which are marked "full," "empty," "charged," "discharged," must not be used, since the specific gravities corresponding to these words are not the same in farm lighting batteries as in automobile batteries and the readings would be incorrect and misleading. if the manufacturer-of the battery furnishes a special hydrometer which is marked "full," "half-full," "empty," or in some similar manner, this hydrometer may, of course, be used. temperature corrections should be made in taking hydrometer readings, as described on page 65. for prest-o-lite batteries, 80 degrees is the standard temperature, and gravity readings on these batteries should be corrected to 80 degrees as described on page 461. gravity readings should, of course, be taken during charge as well as during discharge. the readings taken during charge are described in the following sections on charging. charging (see also special instructions for the different makes, beginning page 460.) two kinds of charges should be given the battery, the "regular" charge, and the "overcharge" or "equalizing charge." these will be spoken of as the "regular" charge and the "overcharge." the regular charge must be given whenever it is necessary in order to enable the battery to meet the lighting or other load demands made upon it. the overcharge, which is merely a continuation of a regular charge, should be given once every month. the overcharge is given to keep the battery in good condition, and to prevent the development of inequalities in condition of cells. when to charge. experience will soon show how often you must give a regular charge in order to keep the lights from becoming dim. when the voltage reading, taken while all the lamps are on has dropped to 1.8 volts per cell a regular charge is necessary. when the specific gravity of the pilot cell indicates that the battery is discharged, a regular charge is necessary. it is better to use the specific gravity readings as a guide, as described later. a good plan, and the best one, is to give a battery a regular charge once every week, whether the battery becomes discharged in one week's time or not. a regular charge may be required oftener than once a week. every fourth week give the overcharge instead of the regular charge. if a battery is to be out of service, arrangements should be made to add the necessary water and give an overcharge every month, the regular charges not being necessary when the battery stands absolutely idle. overcharge. charge the battery as near as practicable at the rate prescribed by the manufacturer. if the manufacturer's rate is not known, then charge at a rate which will not allow the temperature of the electrolyte to rise above 110â° fahrenheit, and which will not cause gassing while the specific gravity is still considerably below its maximum value. one ampere per plate in each cell is a safe value of current to use. a battery having eleven plates in each cell should, for example, be charged at about 11 to 12 amperes. watch the temperature of the pilot cell carefully. this cell should have an accurate fahrenheit thermometer suspended above it so that the bulb is immersed in the electrolyte. if this thermometer should show a temperature of 110â°, stop the charge immediately, and do not start it again until the temperature has dropped to at least 90'. feel the other cells with your hand occasionally, and if any cell is so hot that you cannot hold your hand on it measure its temperature with the thermometer to see whether it is near 110'. a good plan is to measure the temperature of the electrolyte in every cell during the charge. if any cell shows a higher temperature than that of the pilot cell, place the thermometer in the cell giving the higher reading, and be guided by the temperature of that cell. you will then know that the thermometer indicates the highest temperature in the entire battery, and that no other cell is dangerously hot when the thermometer does not read 100 degrees or over. another point in the selection of a pilot cell is to determine if any particular cell shows a gravity which is slightly less than that of the other cells. if any such cell is found, use that cell as the pilot cell in taking gravity readings while the battery is on discharge and also on charge. no cell will then be discharged too far. when all cells are gassing freely, continue the charge at the same current until there is no rise in the specific gravity of the pilot cell for one to two hours, and all cells are gassing freely throughout the hour. then stop the charge. after the overcharge is completed, take gravity readings of all the cells. a variation of about eight to ten points either above or below the fully charged gravity after correction for temperature does not mean that a cell requires any attention. if, however, one cell continually reads more than 10 points lower then the others, the whole battery may be given an overcharge until the gravity of the low cell comes up. if the cell then does not show any tendency to charge up properly, disconnect it from the battery while the battery is discharging and then connect it in again on the next charge. if this fails to bring the gravity of the cell up to normal, the cells should be examined for short circuits. short circuits may be caused by broken separators permitting the active material to bridge between the plates; the sediment in the bottoms of the jars may have reached the plates, or conducting substances may have fallen in the cells. broken separators should be replaced without loss of time, and the cells cleaned if the sediment in the jars is high. regular charge. a regular charge is made exactly like an overcharge, except that a regular charge is stopped when cells are gassing freely, when the voltage per cell is about 2.6, and when the specific gravity of the pilot cell rises to within 5 points of what it was on the previous overcharge. that is, if the gravity reading on the overcharge rose to 1.210, the regular charge should be stopped when the gravity reaches 1.205. partial or rapid charge. if there is not enough time to give the battery a full regular charge, double the normal charging rate and charge until all the cells are gassing, and then reduce to the normal rate. any current which does not cause excessive temperature or premature gassing is permissible, as previously mentioned. if a complete charge cannot be given, charge the battery as long as the available time allows, and complete the charge at the earliest possible opportunity. discharge do not allow the battery to discharge until the lights burn dim, or the voltage drops below 1.8 per cell. the specific gravity is a better guide than the lamps or voltage. the gravity falls as the battery discharges, and is therefore a good indicator of the condition of the battery. voltage readings are good guides, but they must be taken while the battery is discharging at its normal rate. if the load on the battery is heavy, the voltage per cell might fall below 1.8 before the battery was discharged. lamps will be dim if the load on the battery is heavy, especially if they are located far away from the battery. the specific gravity readings are therefore the best means of indicating when a battery is discharged. overdischarge. be very careful not to discharge the battery beyond the safe limits. batteries discharging at low rates are liable to be overdischarged before the voltage gives any indication of the discharged condition. this is another reason why hydrometer readings should be used as a guide. a battery must be charged as soon as it becomes discharged. it is, in fact, a good plan, and one which will lengthen the life of the battery, to charge a battery when it is only about three fourths discharged, as indicated by the hydrometer. suppose, for instance, that the specific gravity of the fully charged battery is 1.250, and the specific gravity when the battery is discharged is 1.180. this battery has a range of 1.250 minus 1.180, or 70 points between charge and discharge. this battery will give a longer life if its discharge is stopped and the battery is put on charge when the gravity falls to 1.200, a drop of 50 points instead of the allowable 70. allowing discharged battery to stand without charge. a battery should never be allowed to stand more than one day in a discharged condition. the battery will continue to discharge although no current is drawn from it, just as an automobile battery will. see page 89. the battery plates and separators will gradually become badly sulphated and it will be a difficult matter to charge the battery up to full capacity. battery troubles farm lighting batteries are subject to the same general troubles that automobile batteries are, although they are not as likely to occur because the operating conditions are not as severe as is the case on the automobile. being in plain view at all times, and not being charged and discharged irregularly, the farm lighting battery is not likely to give as much trouble as an automobile battery. neglect, such as failure to keep the electrolyte up to the proper height, failure to charge as soon as the battery becomes discharged, overdischarging, allowing battery to become too hot or too cold, allowing impurities to get into the cells, will lead to the same troubles that the same treatment will cause in an automobile battery, and the descriptions of, and instructions for troubles in automobile batteries will apply in general to farm lighting batteries also. when a battery has been giving trouble, and you are called: upon to diagnose and remedy that trouble, you should: 1. get all the details as to the length of time the battery has been in service. 2. find out what regular attention has been paid to its upkeep; whether it has been charged regularly and given an overcharge once a month; whether distilled water has been used in replacing evaporation of water from the electrolyte; whether impurities such as small nails, pieces of wire, etc., have ever fallen into any cell; whether battery has ever been allowed to stand in a discharged condition for one day or more; whether temperature has been allowed to rise above 110 deg. f. at any time; whether electrolyte has ever been frozen due to battery standing discharged in very cold weather. 3. talk to the owner long enough to judge with what intelligence he has taken care of the battery. doing this may, save you both time and subsequent embarrassment from a wrong diagnosis resulting from incomplete data. 4. after getting all the details that the owner can supply, you will probably know just about what the trouble is. look over the cells carefully to determine their condition. if the jars are made of glass note the following: (a) height of sediment in each jar. (b) color of electrolyte. this should be clear and colorless. a decided color of any kind usually means that dirty or impure water has been added, or impurities have fallen into the cell. for discussion of impurities see page 76. (c) condition of plates. the same troubles should be looked for as in automobile batteries. see pages 339 to 346. an examination of the outside negatives is usually sufficient. the condition of the positives may also be determined if a flash light or other strong light is directed on the edges of the plates. look for growths or "treeing" between plates. (d) condition of separators. see page 346. if cells have sealed rubber jars, proceed as follows: (a) measure height of electrolyte above plates with glass tube, as in fig. 30. if in any cell electrolyte is below tops of plates that cell is very likely the defective one, and should be filled with distilled water. if a considerable amount of water is required to fill the jar it is best to open the cell, as the plates have probably become damaged. if the jar is wet or the rack is acid eaten under the jar, the jar is cracked and must be replaced. if you have not found the trouble, make the following tests, no matter whether glass or rubber jars are used: (a) measure specific gravity of each cell. if any cell is badly discharged it is probably short-circuited, or contains impurities and had better be opened for inspection. (b) turn on all the lamps and measure the voltage of each cell. if any cell shows a voltage much less than 1.8 it is short-circuited or contains impurities, and should be opened for inspection. (c) examine the connections between cells for looseness or corrosion; and examine the connections between the battery and the generator, going over cables, switches, rheostats, etc. make sure that you have a complete and closed charging circuit between the generator and the battery. (d) if cutout is used on the switchboard, see that its contact points are smooth and clean, and that they work freely. (e) run the generator to see if it builds up a voltage which is sufficient to charge the battery, about 42 volts for a 16 cell battery. if the generator is not working properly, examine it according to directions on page 451. check up the field circuit of the generator to be sure that it is closed. a circuit-tester made of a buzzer and several dry cells, or a low voltage lamp and dry cells, or a hand magneto is convenient for use in testing circuits. test armature windings and field coils for grounds. by the foregoing methods you should be able to determine what is to be done. the following rules should also help: cleaning and renewal of electrolyte is necessary when: (a) sediment has risen to within one-half inch of the bottom of the plates. (b) much foreign material is floating in the electrolyte, or electrolyte is of a deep brown color. replacement of parts is necessary when (a) separators are cracked or warped. see page 346 for separator troubles. (b) plates are defective. see rules on pages 339 to 346. prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries [fig. 300 element from prest-o-light farm light cell] the prest-o-lite battery which is designed for use in connection with farm lighting plants is known as the fpl type. cells of 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 plates are made, the number of plates being indicated by putting the figure in front of the type letters. a seven plate cell is thus designated as a 7 fpl cell, which has an 80 ampere hour capacity at the 8 hour continuous discharge rate. the fpl cell, the construction of which is shown in figs. 295, 300, 301, 302 and 303, has a sealed glass jar with a lead antimony cover. the cover construction is shown in detail in figs. 301 and 302. insulation between the posts and cover is provided by a hard rubber bushing, a hard rubber washer, and a soft rubber washer. the bushing is shaped like a "t" with a hole drilled in the stem. the stem of the bushing fits down into the post hole in the cover, the flange at the top testing on the raised portion of the cover around the post hole. the post has a shoulder a little less than halfway up from its lower end. upon this shoulder is placed the hard rubber washer, and upon the hard rubber washer is placed the soft rubber washer. this assembly is fastened to the cover by the "peening" process used in prest-o-lite automobile batteries as described on page 386. this forces the soft rubber washer tightly against the cover so as to make a leak proof joint-between the bushing and cover. the ring of lead formed around the posts by the peening process supports the posts, plates, and separators, which therefore are suspended from the cell cover. the plate straps extend horizontally across the tops of the plates, and thus also act as "hold-downs" for the separators. the separators are held up by two rectangular rubber bridges which fit mito slotted extension lugs cast into the lower corners of the outside negative plates. an outside negative having these extension lugs is shown in figure 303. [fig. 301 cover of prest-o-light farm lighting cell] [fig. 302 parts of prest-o-light farm lighting cell: nut, stud, terminal, hard rubber bushing] [fig. 303a parts of prest-o-light farming light cell: glass jar, rubber jar, rubber cell connector, glass cell connector] [fig. 303b parts of prest-o-light farm lighting cell: positive plate and outside negative plate] [fig. 303c parts of prest-o-light farm lighting cell: long lead jumper, jumper, separator, short lead jumper] specific gravity of electrolyte. the values of the specific gravity of prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries are as follows: battery fully charged reads 1.250 battery three-fourths charged reads 1.230 battery one-half charged reads 1.215 battery one-fourth charged reads 1.200 battery discharged completely reads 1.180 these readings are to be taken with the electrolyte at a temperature of 80â° fahrenheit. readings taken at other temperatures should be converted to 80â°. to convert readings at a lower temperature to the values they would have at 80â°, subtract one point for every two and one-half degrees temperature difference. for example, suppose a cell reads 1.225 gravity at 60â°. to find what the gravity would be if the temperature of the electrolyte were 80â° divide the difference between 80â° and 60â° by 2-1/2, or 80â° minus 60â° divided by 21/2 equals 8. the gravity at 80â° would therefore be 1.225 minus .008, or 1.217, which is the value of specific gravity to use. if the specific gravity is read at a higher temperature than 80â°, divide the difference between 80â° and the temperature at which the gravity reading was taken by 21/2, and add the result to the actual gravity reading obtained. if, for example, the gravity were 1.225 at 100â°, the gravity at 80â° would be 1.225 plus .008, or 1.233. charging rates. the normal charging rate to be used in giving prest-o-lite batteries a regular charge or overcharge are as follows: battery charging rate ------ ------------5 f.p.l. 5.0 amps. 7 f.p.l. 7.5 amps. 9 f.p.l. 10.0 amps. 11 f.p.l. 12.5 amps. 13 f.p.l. 15.0 amps. 15 f.p.l. 17.5 amps. rebuilding prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries opening the cell. 1. make sure that the cell is as fully charged as possible. since it is not very convenient to charge a single cell, a good time to open a cell for cleaning and repairing is immediately after the battery has been given an overcharge. see page 455. 2. disconnect the cell from the adjoining ones. 3. heat a thin bladed putty knife and insert it under the edge of the lead-antimony cover to melt the sealing compound. run the knife all round the cover, heating it again if it should become too cool to cut the compound readily. 4. grasp the lead posts above the cover and lift up gradually. this will bring up the cover, plates, and separators. 5. place the plates on a clean board for examination. use the instructions given on pages 339 to 346. do not keep the plates out of the electrolyte long enough to let them dry, and the negatives heat up. if you cannot examine the plates as soon as you have removed them immerse them in 1.250 acid contained in a lead or non-metallic vessel until you can examine them. 6. in renewing the electrolyte, pour in as much new 1.250 acid as there was old electrolyte in the jar. (it is assumed that the electrolyte was up to the lower ridge of the glass jar before the cell was opened.) the new electrolyte must not have a temperature above 100 degrees when it is poured into the jar. 7. the separators can be pulled out easily when the plates are laid on their sides. all that is necessary is to remove the small rubber bridge at the bottom corners of the plates. the separators can then be pulled out. if the old separators are to be used again brush off any material that may be adhering to them, and keep them wet with 1.250 acid until they are replaced between the plates. any separators that show cracks or holes, or that split while being replaced between the plates should be thrown away and new ones used. 8. it is not necessary to remove the sediment from the bottom of the jar unless it is within one half inch of the bottom of the plates. if the sediment is to be removed, carefully pour off the clear electrolyte into a lead, hard rubber, or earthenware jar, if the electrolyte is to be used again. 9. if one or two of the plates in either positive or negative groups need to be replaced it is best to burn a new plate to the strap without removing the peened cover. this is done by blocking under the row of plate lugs with metal blocks after cutting off old plate and cleaning the surface of strap. insert new plate, the lug of which has been cut about 1/4 inch short, to allow for new metal. choosing small oblong iron blocks of suitable size, build a form about the plate lug which fits same well. now with a torch and burning lead fuse the new plate onto the old strap. when cool remove and test joint by pulling and slightly twisting the plate at the same time. sometimes one group of a starting and lighting battery may be in sufficiently good condition to pay to combine it with a new group, but this condition will very rarely, if ever, be met in farm lighting cell service. we advise the replacement of the complete cell element if either group is worn out, for the cost of repairs and of new group will probably not be warranted by the short additional life which the remaining old group will give. 10. putting repaired cell back into service. after having finished all necessary cleaning, replacement, or repairs, remove all old sealing material, return the element with attached lead cover to the cell jar. it is not necessary to reseal the cover to the jars this sealing is essential only for insurance against breakage or leakage in shipment. add through the vent plug opening sufficient cool acid of 1.250 sp. gr. to reestablish the proper electrolyte level, which means that the electrolyte is brought up to the lower moulded glass ridge near the top of jar. connect the cell with any other repaired cells and charge at normal rate already indicated under "charging rates" until dell voltage reads 2.5 or above, at 80â°. the positive to cadmium voltage should be at least 0.10 volts less than cell voltage itself. when this condition is obtained cell may be replaced in operating circuit with others and should give satisfactory service. exide farm lighting batteries. exide farm lighting batteries are made with sealed glass jars, open glass jars, and sealed rubber jars, each of which will be described. batteries with sealed glass jars. two types with sealed glass jars are made, these being the delco light type, and the exide type. 1. delco-light type. this type is shown in fig. 294. the cell shown is a pilot cell, there being two of these in each battery as explained below. these cells are made in two sizes, the kxg-7, 7 plate, 80 ampere hour cell, and the kxg-13, a 13 plate, 160 ampere hour cell. these cells are assembled into a 32 volt, 16 cell battery, or a 110 volt, 56 cell battery. the plate groups are supported from the cover, the weight being carried by the wooden cover supports as shown in fig. 294. the strap posts are threaded, and are clamped to the cover and supports by means of alloy nuts, just as is the case in exide automobile batteries. a hard rubber supporting rod or lock pin extending across the bottoms of the plates holds the separators in position and prevents the plates from flaring out at the bottom. a soft rubber bumper fastened on each end of the rod acts as a cushion to prevent jar breakage in shipping. the hard rubber cover overlaps the flanged top of the jar, to which it is sealed with special compound. battery gauges and instruments for testing. every set of delco-light batteries has either one or two cells equipped with a pilot ball. such a cell is known as a pilot cell. fig. 294. pilot cells are used to indicate to the user the approximate state of charge or discharge of the battery. the pilot ball is a battery gauge which is up or down, depending upon the state of charge of the battery. very high temperature affects the operation of the pilot ball. this accounts for-the fact that occasionally a battery will be charged and the pilot ball will be at the bottom of the pocket. a few hours later, after the electrolyte has cooled, the pilot ball will rise to the top. we urge that the user be made to feel that the pilot ball is an excellent gauge and a good signal to watch in connection with the care and operation of his delco-light plant and battery. (further mention will be made of the pilot ball in connection with the subject of proper operation.) it is necessary that the maximum specific gravity of pilot cells be as near 1.220 as possible. any great variation higher or lower will affect the operation of the pilot balls. therefore, every effort should be made to adjust the maximum specific gravity of pilot cells to 1.220 when placed in service. batteries equipped with one pilot cell contain a white pilot ball which will be up when the specific gravity of the electrolyte is approximately 1.185. this ball will drop down when the specific gravity falls a little below 1.185. in other words, the pilot ball will float at a specific gravity of 1:185 or higher, and will sink at a specific gravity lower than 1.185. therefore, when the pilot ball is up, the battery is more than half charged. when the pilot ball is down, the battery is more than half discharged. batteries equipped with two pilot cells have one cell which contains a white ball and the other cell a white ball with a blue band. the plain white ball will be up when the specific gravity is approximately 1.175. the blue band ball will be up when the specific gravity is approximately 1.205. when both balls are up, the battery is charged. when down, the battery is discharged. the blue band ball will drop soon after the battery starts on discharge, or, in other words, when the specific gravity falls below 1.205. the white ball will remain up until the specific gravity falls below 1.175. the ampere-hour meter the ampere-hour meter, fig. 304, is an instrument for indicating to the user the state of charge of the battery at all times and serves to-stop the plant automatically so equipped, when the battery is charged. (further mention will be made of the ampere hour meter on page 471.) in order to check the speed of the ampere-hour meter, use the following rule: on charge, the armature disc should give 16 revolutions in 30 seconds, with a charging rate of 15 amperes; on discharge, the armature disc should give 20 revolutions in 30 seconds, with a discharging rate of 15 amperes. [fig. 304 delco-light ampere-hour meter] hydrometers the standard hydrometer for service men is known as the type v-2b. a special type hydrometer showing three colored bands in place of numbers has been designed for users. the bands are red, green and black. when the hydrometer test shows the bottom of the red band in the electrolyte, the battery, whether in glass or rubber jar, is discharged. when the top of the green band is out of the electrolyte, the glass jar battery is charged. the top of the black band out of the electrolyte indicates the rubber jar battery is charged. when and how to charge battery plants with average loads loads of legs than ten (10) amperes can be taken directly from the battery, until: 1. the large hand on the ampere-hour meter reaches 12, or 2. both pilot balls are down, or 3. hydrometer test shows bottom of red band in the electrolyte. if any or all of the three gauges listed above show the battery discharged, the plant should be started and operated continuously until the battery is charged, as indicated by: 1. ampere-hour meter hand at full, or 2. both pilot balls up, or 3. hydrometer test shows top of full band out of electrolyte. (note: any one or all of the above three items may indicate battery charged. meter hand at full would necessitate both balls up. if both balls are not up, set hand back and charge to bring them up; then set hand at full.) should the user be operating for two or three hours with a seven or eight-ampere load, it would be more efficient to run the plant to carry this load. this only applies for those cases where the battery is partly discharged. carry heavy loads greater than 10 amperes. if there is a constant load of 10 amperes or more, the plant should be started up when the heavy load comes on. when the heavy load is off, the plant may be stopped, but it would be entirely satisfactory to allow the plant to continue to run until "charged," as indicated by: 1. ampere-hour meter hand reaches full, or 2. both pilot balls are up, or 3. hydrometer test shows top of full band out of electrolyte. in any case, plant should be run until battery is "charged" at least once a week. always start charging when battery gauges indicate battery discharged. on ampere-hour meter plants, when the hand is at full, the plant cannot be operated on account of the ignition circuit being broken. in such cases allow load to be taken from the battery until the hand travels back sufficiently to allow the plant to run. occasionally the plant and battery are used to carry continuous loads of from 10 to 15 amperes each night, with practically no day load. this condition necessitates running the plant to carry the load, but at the same time the battery is continually receiving from 10 to 15 amperes charge, with the result that the battery may receive too much charging. this would be indicated by the battery bubbling freely every time the plant is operated. to prevent this condition, the user should be instructed to carry the load off the battery frequently enough to prevent continual bubbling. where small load is used. there are many installations where the battery capacity is sufficient to last several weeks. on installations of this kind it is advisable to charge the battery to full at least once a week. the dealer or service man should use his own judgment on the preceding instructions as to which is best suited for the different conditions encountered. regularly on the first of each month, regardless of whether or not the battery has been used, a special charge, called the equalizing charge, should be given. this charge should be given as follows: the battery should be charged until each cell is bubbling freely from top to bottom on surface of the outside negative plates and then the charge should be continued for two more hours. the monthly equalizing charge is a necessary precautionary measure to insure that the user will bring each cell in the battery up to maximum gravity at least once a month. it also provides a means on the ampere-hour meter plants to set the ampere-hour meter hand at full when the battery is full. the users should be cautioned to inform the service man or dealer immediately if any cell fails to bubble at the end of an equalizing charge, when all others are bubbling freely. this will enable the service man to inspect such cells for trouble and remedy same before the trouble becomes serious. (see further information under inspection and repairs.) inspection trips undercharging or injurious sulphation is the most common trouble encountered. undercharging causes the plates to blister and bulge, and in place of good gray edges on the negative plates and good brown color edges on the positive plates, the edges will show a faded color, with very little brown color showing on the edges of the positive plates. overcharging is not so evident on inspection, except that in such cases the active material from the positive plates, which is brown in color, will be thrown to the bottom as sediment more rapidly than the sediment would accumulate due to normal wear. heavy usage on a battery will also cause considerable sediment in the bottom of the cells, so that it is necessary to investigate carefully whether it is overcharging or overwork. a few questions as to method of operation and load requirements will aid in deciding the cause of excessive sediment. (see when and how to charge, page 468.) sediment space filled. when the space below the plates is filled up with sediment and touching the plates, the cell becomes short-circuited and will deteriorate very rapidly. it will be noticed, however, that the sediment is heaped in the middle of the cell. if the cells are unbolted and unshaken, it will level the sediment and leave a space between the sediment and plates. it is very important that the sediment be shaken down before the cell becomes short-circuited. this will very often prolong the life of the battery a number of months. when the sediment space is completely filled, approximately all the active material will be out of the positive plates. a thorough study should be made as to the general condition of the battery and method of operation before forming an opinion or suggesting any change in method of operation. check ampere-hour meters on plants which have ampere-hour meters, the meter should be checked as to its speed on discharge, and also check position of the meter hand at the time of inspection, to see if it checks with the specific gravity and the pilot balls. (see ampere hour meter, page 467.) it will generally be found that when a battery is sulphated, it is operating in very low specific gravity, or, in other words, the charges have not been carried far enough to drive all the acid out of the plates. a battery that is not receiving quite enough charge may not as a whole become "sulphated," but several cells might become considerably weaker than the others and become "sulphated," causing trouble in these particular cells. such cells will not bubble freely, or possibly not at all, when the other cells are bubbling freely. therefore, a few questions to the user will generally help in locating the low cells. cells that are in trouble, or which soon will be, can very easily be picked out by making a few tests on the battery. therefore, on all inspections, regardless of the age of a battery, it is suggested that the following tests be made: take a specific gravity reading of all cells and note if there are any cells much lower than the others. amy cells having a specific gravity of 30 points lower than the average will generally be found to be in trouble, unless these cells happen to be low from having had spillage in shipment, replaced with water. (this condition, however, should not exist in future installations if the spillage is properly taken care of, as has been explained on page 482.) voltage readings after taking a specific gravity reading, a voltage reading of each cell should be taken. voltage readings taken on open circuit are of no value, so while taking these readings the battery should be on discharge, having at least a discharge of 15 amperes. a good way to get this discharge is to hold the starting switch in and set mixing valve lever at lean point or wide open. a low or defective cell will show a voltage reading .10 to .20 volts lower than the other cells on discharge, while a reversed cell will show a reading in the reversed direction when on discharge, especially on heavy discharge. the voltage readings are a sure check if taken in connection with the specific gravity. when you have low specific gravity and low voltage on the same cells, it is a sure indication of low cells. these cells should be inspected for the probable cause of their being low. shorting of the lugs at bottom of plates and moss bridging across at bottom of the elements, or possibly a split separator, will generally be the main trouble. when any of these conditions exist, it is best to take the low cells back to your shop for repairs. when there is absolutely no indication why the cells are low, they can be cut out of the battery on discharge and put in on charge, until they come up. the following is a good example of readings taken on a battery with a 10-ampere discharge and having four low cells, 4, 8, 11 and 16. the battery had been giving poor service, due to insufficient charging: cell no. specific gravity volts 1 1.200 1.98 2 1.180 1.95 3 1.205 1.98 4 1.150 1.75 5 1.190 1.95 6 1.195 1.98 7 1.200 1.98 8 1.130 1.70 9 1.200 1.95 10 1.205 1.98 11 1.100 1.40 12 1.190 1.95 13 1.180 1.95 14 1.195 1.98 15 1.190 1.95 16 0.000 zero or reversal the main thing to consider in checking voltage readings is the variation from the average. the average voltage readings will vary, depending on the state of charge of the battery when the readings are taken. repairs to repair, the following equipment is necessary: 1. portable lead burning outfit. 2. a suitable blow torch. 3. standard sealing nut wrench. 4. file (shoemaker's rasp). 5. pair of pliers. 6. putty knife. 7. pair of tin snips. 8. wooden blocks to support elements while being worked upon. 9. good supply of battery parts consisting of: kxg-13 glass jars kxg-13 pilot jars kxg-13 positive groups kxg-13 negative groups kxg-13 round rods kxg-13 vent plugs sealing nuts rubber gaskets wood separators kxg-13 rubber covers kxg-7 round rods lead pins carboy electrolyte (including retainer). kxg-7 pilot jars kxg-7 glass jars kxg-7 positive groups kxg-7 negative groups outside negative plates kxg-7 rubber covers emergency repair straps disassembling a cell the glass jar battery covers are sealed to the jars by sealing compound, which may be softened very easily with a blow-torch. when a blow-torch or an open flame is used for softening the sealing compound, the vent plug must be removed before applying a flame. it is also important to blow into the vent after the plug has been removed in order to expel any gas that may have collected in the space above the electrolyte in the cell. if the gas is held in place by leaving the vent plug in, it is apt to explode when an open flame or intense heat is applied to the cover., removing covers may be greatly facilitated by suspending the cell by the terminals, as shown in fig. 305. care should be taken to make this suspension so that the bottom of the jar will not be more than two inches above the table. a pad of excelsior should be placed under it to avoid breaking the glass jar when it drops. [fig. 305 softening sealing compound, delco-light cell] after the sealing compound has been sufficiently softened, the cover may be loosened by inserting a hot putty knife, as shown in fig. 306, there is no danger of breaking the cover by this operation if the cover has been sufficiently warmed. after the jar of electrolyte has dropped, the element should be removed from the jar and carefully placed across the top of it, so that the solution upon the plates will drain back into the jar. (see fig. 307.) [fig. 306 removing delco-light cell cover] [fig. 307 draining element, delco-light cell] [fig. 308 removing cover of delco-light cell] [fig. 309 removing lock pin, delco-light cell] after element has drained, place on wooden blocks, as shown in fig. 308, and remove cover. clean the sealing compound from the cover and jar immediately with a putty knife. turn element upside down with posts through holes in bench and remove lead pin and rubber bumper and withdraw, lock pin. (fig. 309.) the separators may then be withdrawn from the group. (fig. 310.) [fig. 310 removing separatots, delco-light cell] [fig. 311 assembling separators, delco-light cell] assembling place the positive and negative groups upside down with posts through holes in bench and slide in separators. the wood and rubber separators are inserted as follows: the rubber separator is placed against the grooved side of the wood separator, and the two are then slipped between the negative and positive plates with the rubber separator next to the positive plate. (see fig. 311.) inserting locking pin a rubber bumper is pinned on one end of the lock pin by means of a lead pin, and the lock pin is then slipped into place with the lock pin insulating washer placed between the outside negative plates and the wood separators. (see fig. 312.) a rubber bumper is then slipped over the other end of the lock pin and secured by a lead pin. place element on wooden blocks and fasten cover, as shown in fig. 313. [fig. 313 fastening cover, delco-light cell] [fig. 314 preparing cover for sealing, delco-light cell] sealing covers be sure all old sealing compound and traces of electrolyte are removed from the cover. heat sealing compound until it can be handled like putty, roll out into a strip about 1/2 inch in diameter, place strip of compound around inside edge of cover (fig. 314) and heat to melting point with blow-torch. the top of jar should also be heated to insure a tight seal. compound can be melted in a suitable vessel and a 1/2 inch strip poured around cover. when sealing compound and jar have been heated sufficiently, turn jar upside down (fig. 315) and carefully place jar over element and press gently into compound. (do not press hard.) immediately place jar and element upright, and press cover firmly into place. (press hard.) finally, tighten sealing nuts. the cell is now ready for the electrolyte. [fig. 315 sealing jar of delco-light cell] filling cell with electrolyte repaired cells should be filled with electrolyte of 1.200 specific gravity, or with water, as the case may require. standard delco-light electrolyte of 1.220 specific gravity may be purchased from the delco light distributor. the 1.220 electrolyte should be reduced to 1.200 by adding a very small amount of distilled water. this should be thoroughly mixed by pouring the solution from one battery jar into another. the 1.200 specific gravity electrolyte may then be added to the newly assembled cell until flush with the water line. charging the completed kxg-13 cell should be placed on a 12-ampere charge and kept on charge until maximum gravity has been reached. a kxg-7 cell should be charged at a 6-ampere rate. adjusting gravity of electrolyte if the maximum gravity is above 1.220, draw off some of the electrolyte and refill to water line with distilled water. the charge should then be continued for at least one hour to thoroughly mix the electrolyte before taking another hydrometer reading. it may be necessary to repeat this operation. if the maximum gravity is below 1.220, pour off the electrolyte into a glass jar or a suitable receptacle, and then refill the cell with 1.220 electrolyte. charge for one hour to thoroughly mix the solution before checking readings. note: gravity readings in adjusting the electrolyte should always be taken in connection with thermometer readings, making necessary temperature corrections. this is particularly important in adjusting electrolyte in pilot cells. how to repair delco-light cells treating broken cells whenever a shipment of batteries is received in which any of the jars have been broken, the first thing to do is to carefully remove the elements from the broken jars to prevent damage to the plates or separators. these elements should be placed in distilled water to prevent further drying. the plates will not be damaged in any way and can be restored to a healthy condition by charging in 1.200 specific gravity at a 12-ampere rate for the 13-plate cell or, 6-ampere rate for the 7-plate cell, until maximum gravity is reached. (see charging and adjustment of electrolyte, explained on page 481.) treating spilled cells if the spillage is more than one inch below the water level, it should be replaced by electrolyte of 1.200 specific gravity and charged to maximum gravity. treating badly sulphated cells that have been in service when cells are removed from an installation to make repairs, they are usually badly sulphated, which means that considerable acid is in the plates. in charging such cells, use distilled water in place of electrolyte, as this will allow the acid to come out of the plates more readily. the kxg-13 cells should be charged at about 12 amperes and the kxg-7 cells at 6 amperes. cells badly sulphated when charged at the low rate will require from 50 to 100 hours to reach maximum gravity. extreme cases will require even longer charging. in case it is impossible to read the gravity after the cells have been on charge a sufficient length of time, pour out the solution and use 1.220 specific gravity. the charge should then be continued further to insure that maximum gravity has been reached. caution: should the temperature of the electrolyte approach 110â° f., the charging rate should be reduced or the charge stopped until the cell has cooled. treating reversed cells a complete battery may be reversed if the battery is completely discharged and its voltage is not sufficient to overcome any residual magnetism the generator might have. under such conditions the negative plates will begin to discolor brown and the positive turn gray. such a case would be extremely rare. the remedy is to first completely discharge the cells to get rid of the charge in the wrong direction. then short-circuit them. (connect a wire across the terminals.) then charge them in the right direction at a low rate. (12 amperes for a kxg-13 cell, or 6 amperes for a kxg-7 cell.) charge until the specific gravity reaches a maximum. if the battery is operated reversed for any length of time, the negatives will throw off their active material and become useless. a single cell may become reversed by gradually slipping behind the rest of the cells in a set, due to insufficient charging, until it becomes so low that it will reverse on each discharge. this condition cannot be corrected by giving the regular charge, but it will be necessary to give an equalizing charge, continuing the charge until the cell is in normal condition. (be sure to make temperature corrections when taking hydrometer readings.) if the cell appears to require an excessive amount of charge to restore it to condition, it should be removed and taken to the repair shop for a separate charge. if the cell has been allowed to operate in a reversed condition to such an extent that the entire material of the negative plates has turned brown, both positive and negative groups should be discarded. removing impurities impurities, such as iron, salt (chlorine) or oil, may accidentally get into a cell, due to careless handling of distilled water. iron is dissolved by sulphuric acid and the positive plates become affected, change color (dirty yellow) and wear rapidly. the cell becomes different from the rest in gravity, voltage and bubbling. the remedy is to discard the electrolyte as soon as possible, flush the plates and separators in several changes of water, thoroughly wash the jar, use new electrolyte and then proceed in same manner as explained for the treatment of badly sulphated cells, page 482. chlorine has an effect about as described for iron, and is evident by the odor of chlorine gas. the remedy is the same as for iron. oil in the electrolyte, if allowed to get into the pores of the plates, will fill them and lower the capacity very much. it affects negative plates much more than positives. probably the only remedy in this case is new plates. impurities of any nature should be removed as quickly as possible. clearing high resistance short circuits a high resistance short is caused by the sediment falling from the plates and lodging between the positive and negative lugs. as a rule this condition will occur only when severe sulphation is present in the plates. a cell in this condition can be repaired by removing the element and clearing the short circuit. the wood separators should then be withdrawn and replaced by new ones. lock pin insulating washers. should be installed land the element reassembled in the jar and charged to maximum gravity. clearing lug shorts short-circuited lugs are caused by excessive sulphation. the outside negative bulges and the bottom lug bends over and touches the adjacent positive lug. this can be remedied by removing both outside negative plates and burning on new plates which have already been charged and inserting lock pin insulating washers. putting repaired cells back in service when placing a new or repaired cell in a battery which is in service, connect in the cell at the beginning of a charge. this will insure that the new or repaired cell is started off in good condition, because this charge is of the nature of an initial charge to these cells. charging outside negative plates individual negative plates are always received dry, which makes it necessary to charge them before using. the best way to charge such plates is as follows: set up 7 loose negative plates in a kxg-13 jar together with a good positive group, using kxg separators to prevent the plates touching. then stretch a piece of wire solder across the lugs at the top of the negative plates and solder the wire to the plates. fig. 316. the jar may then be filled with 1200 specific gravity and the plates charged at a 12-ampere rate until maximum gravity is obtained. never use negative plates unless they have been treated as described above. after the charge is completed, the negative plates may be placed in distilled water and kept until ready for use. always be sure to give a charge to maximum gravity after burning on new negative plates to an element. [fig. 316 preparing outside negatives for charging] pressing negative plates after badly sulphated cells are recharged, it is sometimes advisable to remove the elements and, press the negative plates, as explained on page 351. care should be taken to prevent the negative plates from drying out while making repairs, in order to avoid the long charge necessary for dried negative plates. the battery should be charged to maximum gravity before attempting to press the plates. it is not necessary and will do no good to press the positive plates. in some cases the active material may be nearly all out of the outside negative plates and the inside negatives may be in good condition, in which case new charged plates should be burned on. (fig. 322.) salvaging replaced cells when it has been necessary to replace cells which have been in service, the elements can very often be saved and assembled again and used as replacement cells in batteries which are several years old. in no case should the cells be used as new cells. the positive plates may be allowed to dry out, but the negatives should be kept in distilled water and not allowed to dry out in the least. they should not be kept this way indefinitely, but should be assembled and charged as soon as possible. do not attempt to repair groups or plates which have lost as much as half of the active material in wear, or which have the active material disintegrated and falling out. such plates should not be used. this does not apply to small bits of active material knocked out mechanically and amounting to an extremely small percentage of the whole. abnormal color indicates possible impurity, and such plates should be washed and used with caution. badly cracked or broken plates should be replaced with new plates or plates from other groups. before new negative plates are used they should be fully charged. (see charging negative plates, page 484.) always use new wood separators when assembling repaired cells. when cells have been operated reversed in polarity to such an extent that the active material of the negative plates has turned brown, both positive and negative groups may have to be replaced. repairing lead parts the portable carbon burning outfit used for battery repairs is operated from the battery itself, making it possible to make repairs at the user's residence without using a gas flame. this outfit can be secured from the delco-light company, dayton, ohio, and consists of a carbon holder with cable, clamp, and one-fourth inch carbon rods. six cells are usually required to properly heat the carbon. if it is completely discharged an outside source must be used. for this purpose a six-volt automobile battery is suitable, or a tray of demonstrating batteries, one terminal being connected to the connection to be burned, the other to the cable of the burning tool. a little experience will soon demonstrate the number of cells necessary to give a satisfactory heat. the cable is connected by means of the clamp to a cell in the battery, the required number of cells away from the joint to be burned. care should be taken that contact is made by the clamp, the lead being scraped clean before the connection is made. the carbon should be sharpened to a long point like a lead pencil and should project not more than 2 inches from the holder. (fig. 317.) [fig. 317 repairing broken post, delco-light cell] after being used a short time, the carbon will not heat properly, due to a film of scale formed on the surface. this should be cleaned off with a file. in case of lead burning, additional lead to make a flush joint should not be added until the metal of the pieces to be joined has melted. the carbon should be moved around to insure a solid joint at all points. in case a post is broken off under the cover, proceed as follows: to make repairs take an old group and cut off the post about one-half way down. saw off the post to be repaired to such a length that when the new post is burned on the length of the post will be approximately the same length as the original post. repairing broken posts. make a half circle mould out of a piece of tin or galvanized iron, as shown in fig. 317. burn solid the side of the post facing up, file it around and then turn the group over, place the form on the burned side and proceed to complete the burning operation. caution: 1. always use clean lead. 2. do not clean the lead and let it stand for any length of time before starting to burn. if it is allowed to stand it will oxidize and prevent a good burning operation. 3. burn with an are and not with a red hot carbon. burning on straps place the strap to be burned in a vise and split the end through the center and then bend the two halves over to form a foot, as shown in fig. 318. make a mould out of a piece of tin or galvanized iron and place this mould around the post to which this strap is to be burned. (fig. 319.) then proceed to burn the post and strap together. [fig. 318 splitting end of strap, delco-light cell] when a union is made between the strap and the post a small amount of new clean lead should be burned on the top of the foot to reinforce this point. care should be taken not to get the mould too high, as this will cause trouble in getting the carbon down to the foot and the post. [fig. 319 burning on negative strap, delco-light cell] [fig. 320 auxiliary strap, delco-light cell] [fig. 321 positioning auxiliary strap, delco-light cell] how to eliminate burning on straps by use of an auxiliary strap a very good way to repair broken straps without the burning operation is to use the auxiliary strap shown in fig. 320. this strap is slipped over the post of the terminal or strap which is broken and the sealing nut is then clamped down on the strap, as shown in fig. 321. these straps may be obtained from the delco-light distributors or from the delco-light factory at dayton, ohio. burning on new plates [fig. 322 burning on outside negative plate, delco-light cell] when it is necessary to burn on new plates, carefully clean with a file the lead on both the plate and the common strap to which all plates of the group are attached. block up the plate with thin boards or wood separators until it is spaced the proper distance from the adjacent plate. care should be taken to see that the side and bottom edge of the plate to be burned on is in line with the other plates of the group. proceed to burn on the plate by drawing a small blaze or are and do not attempt to burn with just a glowing carbon. (fig. 322.) if only a glowing carbon is used the result will be a smeary mass and in the majority of cases will not hold, due to the fact that it is not welded but simply attached in one or two points. the principle of lead burning is to weld or burn two parts into one solid mass and not merely attach one to the other. keeping wood separators in stock no wood separators should be used except those furnished by the delco-light company. these should be kept in distilled water, to which has been added 1.220 electrolyte in the proportion of one part to ten parts of water. it is advisable whenever possible to use new separators when making repairs on a cell. separators which have been in service are liable to be damaged by handling. freezing temperature of electrolyte the freezing temperatures of electrolyte in the delco-light batteries depends upon the specific gravity of the battery. the delco-light battery fully charged, with a specific gravity of 1.220, should not freeze above a temperature of 30 degrees below zero. since, however, the freezing point rises very rapidly with a decrease in specific gravity, special care should be taken to keep batteries charged when temperatures below zero are encountered. the following table shows freezing temperatures of several different gravities of electrolyte. specific gravity freezing point --------------- -------------1.100 19â° f. above zero. 1.150 5â° f. above zero. 1.175 6â° f. below zero. 1.200 16â° f. below zero. 1.220 31â° f. below zero. at the temperature given, the electrolyte does not freeze solid, but forms a slushy mass of crystals, which does not always result in jar breakage. care of cells in stock frequently a dealer or distributor will have several sets of new batteries in stock for five or six months. in this case, the cells should be given a freshening charge before putting into service. this charge should consist of charging the cells to maximum gravity. cells received broken in transit or cells sent in for repairs should be repaired and charged as soon as possible and put into service immediately. this eliminates the possibility of the cells standing idle over a long period in which they would need a freshening charge before they could be used. however, if such cells must be kept in stock, they can be maintained in a healthy condition by keeping on charge at a one fifth ampere rate for 13-plate cells and one-tenth ampere rate for 7-plate cells. taking batteries out of commission if a battery is not to be used at all for a period not longer than about 9 months, it can be left idle if it is first treated as follows: add sufficient water to bring the electrolyte up to the water line in all cells and then give an equalizing charge, continuing the charge until the specific gravity of each cell is at a maximum, five consecutive hourly readings showing no rise in gravity. as soon as this charge is completed, take out the battery fuse and open up one or two of the connections between cells so that no current can be taken from the battery. have vent plugs in place to minimize evaporation. if the battery is to be taken out of commission for a longer time than 9 months, the battery should be fully charged as above and the electrolyte poured off into suitable glass or porcelain receptacles. the plates should immediately be covered with water for a few hours to prevent the negatives heating, after which the separators should be removed, the water poured out of the jars, and the positive and negative groups placed back in the jar for storage. examine the separators. if they are cracked or split they should be thrown away. if in good condition they should be stored for further use in a non-metallic receptacle and covered with water, to which has been added electrolyte of 1.220 specific gravity, in the proportion of one part electrolyte to ten of water by volume. putting batteries into commission after being out of service when putting batteries into commission again, if the electrolyte has not been withdrawn, all that is necessary is to add water to the cells if needed, replace connections, and give an equalizing charge. if the electrolyte has been withdrawn and battery disassembled, it should be reassembled, taking care not to use cracked, split or dried-out separators, and then the cells should be filled with the old electrolyte, which has been saved, provided no impurity has entered the electrolyte. after filling, allow the battery to stand for 12 hours and then charge, using 6 amperes for kxg-7 size and 12 amperes for the kxg-13 size. charge at this rate until all cells start gassing freely or temperature rises to 110â° f. then reduce the charging rate one-half, and continue at this rate until the specific gravity is at a maximum, five consecutive hourly readings showing no rise in gravity. at least 40 hours will be required for this charge. to obtain these low rates with the delco-light plant, lights or other current-consuming devices must be turned on while charging. general complaints from users and how to handle them. 1. pilot balls do not come up. this condition may be caused by (a) battery discharged. (b) weak electrolyte caused by spillage in shipment. (c) defective ball. question the user to determine whether the ball will not come up if the pilot cell is bubbling freely. weak electrolyte or a defective ball will require a service trip to determine the one which is responsible for the ball not rising. (see page 470.) 2. lights dim-must charge daily. this condition may be caused by (a) discharged battery. (b) loose dirty connections in battery or line. (c) low cells in battery. the user should be questioned to determine whether the battery is being charged sufficiently. in case the user is positive the battery is charged, the next probable trouble would be that there were some loose or dirty connections in either plant or battery. have the user check for loose connections. should it be necessary to make an inspection trip, instruct the user to give battery an equalizing charge so the battery will be fully charged when the inspection is made. low cells can be checked by asking the user if all of the cells bubble freely when equalizing charge is given. in case user claims several cells fail to bubble, an inspection trip would be necessary to determine the trouble. (see page 470.) 3. cells bubbling when on discharge. this complaint would indicate a reversed cell. (see page 483.) 4. cells overflowing on charge. this would mean that the cells were filled too high above water lines. 5. engine cranks slowly but does not fire. this would indicate over-discharged battery. explain to user how to start plant under this condition. 6. plant will not crank. this might be caused by (a) blown battery fuse. (b) battery over-discharged. (c) loose or broken connection on battery or switchboard. other exide farm lighting batteries the exide type is shown in figure 296. the plates are held in position both by the cover and by soft rubber support pieces in the bottom of the jar. the support pieces are provided with holes in which projections on the bottom of the plates are inserted. the cover is of heavy moulded glass. the separators are of grooved wood in combination with a slotted rubber sheet (fig. 297). the strap posts are threaded and are clamped to the cover by means of alloy nuts. the cover overlaps the top of the jar to which it is sealed with sealing compound. the method of sealing and unsealing is practically the same as in the exide delco-light type. batteries with open glass jars batteries with open glass jars, in addition to the conducting lug, have two hanging lugs for each plate. the plates are hung from the jar walls by these hanging lugs, as shown in figs. 323 and 324. the plate straps, instead of being horizontal are vertical and provided with a tail so that adjacent cells may be bolted together by bolt connectors through the end of the tail. 1. the exide cell is shown in fig. 324. it has a grooved wood separator between each positive and negative plate. the separators are kept from floating up by a glass "hold-down" laid across the top. the separators are provided at the top with a pin which rests on the adjoining plates. the pins together with the plate glass hold-downs keep the separators in position. to remove an element it is simply necessary to unbolt the connectors, remove the glass cover and hold-down and lift wit the element. 2. the chloride accumulator cell is shown in fig. 323. it differs from the exide only in type of plates and separators. the positive plates are known as manchester positives and have the active material in the form of corrugated buttons which are held in a thick grid, as shown in fig. 325. the buttons are brown in color, the same as all positive active material. the separators, instead of being grooved wood, am each a sheet of wood with six dowels pinned to it. the element is removed the same as in the exide type. [fig. 323 exide chloride accumulator cell with open glass jar, and fig. 324 exide cell with open glass jar] batteries with sealed rubber jars 1. the exide cell is shown in fig. 326. it is assembled similar to exide starting and lighting batteries, except that the plates are considerably thicker, wood and rubber separators are used, and the terminal posts are shaped to provide for bolted instead of burned-on connection. the method of sealing and unsealing the cells is the same as in exide starting and lighting batteries. all instructions already given for glass for cells apply to rubber jar cells except for a few differences in assembling and disassembling. care should be taken to keep the water level at least 1/2 inch above plates at all times as the evaporation is very rapid in rubber jar cells. the temperature should be watched on charging to prevent overheating. never allow temperature to go above 110â° f. unlike the glass jar cells the sediment space in the rubber jar is not sufficient to take care of all the active material in the positive plates. on repairs, therefore, always clean out the sediment and prevent premature short circuits. [fig. 325 manchester positive plates, and fig. 326 exide cell with sealed rubber jar] westinghouse farm lighting batteries jars. westinghouse farm lighting battery jars are made of glass, with a 5/16 inch wall. the jars are pressed with the supporting ribs for the elements an integral part from a mass of molten glass. a heavy flange is pressed around the upper edge to strengthen the jar. top construction. a sealed-in cover is used similar to that used in starting and lighting batteries. the opening around the post hole is sealed with compound. plates. pasted plates are used. the positives are 1/4 inch thick, and the negatives 3/16 inch. posts are 13/16 inch in diameter. separators. a combination of wood and perforated rubber sheets is used. opening and setting-up westinghouse farm lighting batteries [fig. 327 westinghouse farm lighting cell] it is preferable that the temperature never exceed 100 deg. fahrenheit nor fall below 10 deg. in the place where the battery is set up. if the temperature is liable to drop below 10 degrees the battery should be kept in a fully charged condition. 1. remove all excelsior and the other packing material from the top of the cells. take cells out carefully and set on the floor. do not drop or handle roughly. be sure to remove the lead top connectors from each compartment. 2. cells should be placed 1/4 inch apart. also, cells should be placed alternately so that positive post of one cell is adjacent to negative post of the next cell. positive post has "v" shape shoulder and the negative post has a square shoulder. 3. grease all posts, straps and nuts with vaseline. 4. connect positive posts of each cell to negative post of adjacent cell, using top connectors furnished. top connectors are made so as to fit when connection is made between positive post of one cell and negative post of next cell. use long connector between end cells of upper and lower shelves. 5. with all connections between cells in position, join the remaining positive post with a connection marked "positive" leading from the electric generator. do likewise with the remaining negative post. 6. if liquid level in any cell is 1 inch or more below the "liquid line" on side of glass jar, some liquid has been spilled and must be replaced. this should be done by an experienced person. 7. immediately after installation operate electric generator and charge battery until gas bubbles rise freely through the liquid in all cells. a reading with the hydrometer syringe which is furnished with the battery should be taken, when the hydrometer float reads between 1.240 and 1.250, the battery is fully charged. 8. the time required to complete the charging operation mentioned above may vary from one to several hours, depending upon the length of time the battery has been in transit. during the charge the temperature of the cells should not be permitted to rise above 110 deg. fahrenheit. if this condition occurs discontinue the charge or decrease the charge rate until cells have cooled off. 9. when charge is complete replace vent plugs. the relation between various sizes of westinghouse farm light batteries and work to be done the size of the battery furnished with complete farm lighting units vary greatly. sometimes the battery size is varied with the size of the engine and generator, while again the same size of battery may be used for several sizes of engines and generators. in making replacements, while it is always necessary to retain the same number of cells, it is not necessary to retain the same size of cells. usually increasing the cell size increases the convenience to the owner and prolongs the life of the battery to an amount which warrants the higher cost. with a larger battery, danger of injury through overcharging is lessened, the load on the battery is more easily carried and the engine and generator operate less frequently. in order to give an idea of various battery capacities, below is a table showing the number of 32 volt, 25-watt lamps which may be lighted for various lengths of time from sixteen cells. the number of hours shows the length of time that the lamps will operate. table a type 3 hours 5 hours 8 hours --- ------ ------ ------g-7 22 lamps 14 lamps 10 lamps g-9 28 lamps 19 lamps 13 lamps g-11 32 lamps 24 lamps 15 lamps g-13 41 lamps 29 lamps 19 lamps g-15 47 lamps 33 lamps 22 lamps g-17 54 lamps 38 lamps 25 lamps note:--based on 32-volt 25-watt lamps. for example--the table shows opposite g-7 that, with the battery fully charged, twenty-two lamps may be lighted for three hours, fourteen lamps for five hours and ten lamps for eight hours, by a sixteen cell g-7 battery, without operating the engine and generator. motors for operating various household and farm appliances are usually rated either in horsepower or watts. the following table will give a comparison between horse-power and watts as well as the number of 25-watt lamps to which these different sizes of motors and appliances correspond. table b h.p. of motor no. of watts corresponding no. of 25-watt lamps ------------ ----------- -------------------1/8 93 4 1/4 185 7 1/2 373 15 3/4 559 22 1 h.p. 746 30 from table b it will be seen, for example, that a one horsepower motor draws from the battery 373 watts or the same power as do fifteen 25-watt lamps. then referring to table a, it will be found that a g-11 battery could operate 15 lamps or this motor alone for 8 hours. due to the fact that a motor or electric appliance may become overloaded and therefore actually use many more watts than the name plate indicates, it is not advisable to operate any motor of over 1/4 h. p. or even an appliance of over 186 watts on the g-13 or smaller sizes unless the engine and generator are running. it is safe, however, to operate motors or other appliances up to 375 watts on the g-15 or g-17 batteries without operating the engine and generator. willard farm lighting batteries [fig. 328 willard farm lighting cell] the willard storage battery co. manufactures farm lighting batteries which use sealed glass jars, or sealed rubber jars. those using the sealed glass jars include types ph and pa. the sealed rubber jar batteries include types em, eew, ipr, smw, and sew. both types of batteries are shipped fully charged and filled with electrolyte, and also dry, without electrolyte. the following instructions cover the installation and preparation for service of these batteries. glass jar batteries. fully charged and filled with electrolyte each sixteen cell set of batteries is packed in two shipping crates. one crate, which is stenciled "no. 1" contains: * 8 cells. * 18 bolt connectors. * 1 hydrometer syringe. * 1 instruction book. the other crate which is stenciled "no. 2" contains: 8 cells (note:--if the batteries are re-shipped by the manufacturer or distributor, care must be exercised to see that they are sent out in sets.) unpacking remove the boards from the tops of the shipping crates and the excelsior which is above the cells. to straighten the long top connector, grasp the strap firmly with the left hand close to the pillar post and raise the outer end of the strap until it is in an upright position. do not make a short bend near the pillar post. lift the cells from the case by grasping the glass jars. do not attempt to lift them by means of the top connectors. clean the outside of the cells by wiping with a damp cloth. inspection of cells. inspect each cell to see if the level of the electrolyte is at the proper height. this is indicated on the jar by a line marked liquid line. if the electrolyte is simply a little low and there is no evidence of any having been spilled (examine packing material for discoloration) add distilled or clean rain water to bring the level to the proper height. if the liquid does not cover the plates and the packing material is discolored, it indicates that some or all of the electrolyte has been lost from the cell either on account of a cracked jar or overturning of the battery. if only a small quantity of electrolyte is lost through spilling, the cell should be filled to the proper height with electrolyte of the same specific gravity as in the other cells. this cell should then be charged until the gravity has ceased rising. if all the electrolyte is lost write to the willard storage battery co., cleveland, ohio, for instructions. connecting the cells each cell of the type ph battery is a complete unit, sealed in a glass jar. the cells are to be placed side by side on the battery rack so that the positive terminal of one cell (long connecting strap) can be connected to the negative terminal (short strap) of the adjacent cell. join the positive terminal of one cell to the negative terminal of the adjacent cell and continue this procedure until all the cells are connected together. this will leave one positive and one negative terminal of the battery to be connected respectively to the positive and negative wires from the switchboard. the bend in the top connector should be made about one inch above the pillar post to eliminate the danger of breakage at the post. in tightening the bolts do not use excessive force, as there is liability of stripping the threads. give the battery a freshening charge before it is put in service. type ph cells have a gravity of 1.250 when fully charged, and 1.185 when discharged. willard glass jar batteries shipped "knock-down." each sixteen cell set of batteries consists of: 16 glass jars. 16 positive groups. 16 negative groups. 16 covers. 16 vent plugs. 32 lead collars. 32 lead keys. 32 soft rubber washers. 32 hard rubber rods. 64 hard rubber nuts. 18 bolt connectors. wood insulators (the quantity depends upon the size of the cells). sealing compound. hydrometer. instruction books. electrolyte is not supplied with batteries shipped in a knockdown condition. examine all packing material carefully and check the parts with the above list. cleaning the glass jars wash the glass jars and wipe them dry. preparing the covers wash the covers and scrub around the under edge to remove all dust. after they are thoroughly dry place them upside down on a bench. melt the sealing compound and pour it around the outer edge to make a fillet in the groove. assembling the element and separators place the plates of a positive group between the plates of a negative group and lay the element thus formed on its edge, as shown in fig. 329. [fig. 329 inserting separators, willard farm lighting cell] [fig. 330 and fig. 331 fastening cover to posts, willard farm lighting cell] next insert a wood separator between each of the positive and negative plates. next insert the hard rubber rods through the holes in the lugs of the end negative plates, and screw on the nuts. do not screw the nuts so tight as to make the plates bulge out at the center. the rod should project the same amount on each side of the element. place the element in a vertical position. the cover can now be placed over the posts. slip a rubber washer and a lead collar over each post. the two key holes in the lead collar are unequal in size. the collar must be placed over the post so that the end which measures 3/16 inch from the bottom of the holes to the end of the collar will be next to the rubber washer. dip the lead key in water and then put it through the holes, having the straight edge of the key on the bottom side. this operation can easily be done by using a pair of tongs (see figs. 330 and 331) to compress the washer. after the keys are driven tight they can be cut off with a pair of end cutters and then smoothed with a file. sealing element assembly in jar [fig. 332 sealing element assembly, willard farm lighting cell] turn the element upside down and place over a block of wood so that the weight is supported by the cover. (see fig. 332.) heat the sealing compound by means of a flame (a blow torch will answer the purpose), and place the jar over the element, as shown in fig. 331. the jar should be firmly pressed down into the compound. with a hot putty knife, clean off any compound which has oozed out of the joint. the assembled cell can now be turned to an upright position. in case it is necessary to remove a cover, heat a wide putty knife and run it around the edge between the cover and the glass jar. this will soften the compound so that the cover can be pried off. if it is necessary to remove the cover from the posts, the keys must be driven out by pounding on the small end, as the keys are tapered-and the holes in the lead collars are unequal in size. filling with electrolyte fill the cells with 1.260 specific gravity electrolyte at 70â° f. to the liquid line marked on the glass jars. (about i inch above the top edge of separators.) allow the cells to stand 12 hours, and if the level of the electrolyte has lowered, add sufficient electrolyte to bring it to the proper height. initial charge connect the positive terminal (long strap) of one cell to the negative terminal (short strap) of the adjacent cell and continue this procedure until all the cells are connected together. this will leave one positive and one negative terminal to be connected respectively to the positive and negative wires from the charging source. the bends in the top terminal connectors should be made about one inch above the pillar posts to eliminate the danger of breakage at the post. in tightening the bolts, do not use excessive force, as there is liability of stripping the threads. after the cells have stood for 12 hours with electrolyte in the jars, they should be put on charge at the following rates: type amperes --- ------ph-7 4 ph-9 5 ph-11 6-1/4 ph-13 7-1/2 ph-15 9 ph-17 10 they should be left on charge continuously until the specific gravity of the electrolyte reaches a maximum and remains constant for six hours. at this point, each cell should be gassing freely and the voltage should read about 2.45 volts per cell, with the above current flowing. under normal conditions it will require approximately 80 hours to complete the initial charge. the final gravity will be approximately 1.250. if the gravity is above this value, remove a little electrolyte and add the same amount of distilled water. if the gravity is too low, remove a little of the electrolyte and add the same amount of 1.400 specific gravity acid and leave on charge as before. after either water or acid has been added, charge the cells three hours longer in order to thoroughly mix the solution, and if at the end of that time the gravity is between 1.245 and 1.255, the cells are ready for service. it is very important that the initial charge be continued until the specific gravity reaches a maximum value, regardless of the length of time required. the battery must not be discharged until the initial charge has been completed. if it is impossible to charge the battery continuously, the charge can be stopped over night, but must be resumed the next day. it is preferable to charge the battery at the ampere rate given above, but if this cannot be done, the temperature must be carefully watched so that it does not exceed 110â° f. wilard rubber jar batteries shipped completely charged and filled with electrolyte immediately upon receipt of battery, remove the soft rubber nipples and unscrew the vent plugs. the soft rubber nipples are to be discarded, as they are used only for protection during shipment. inspect each cell to see whether the electrolyte is at the proper height. if the electrolyte is simply a little low and there is no evidence of any having been spilled (examine packing material for discoloration), add distilled water to bring the level to the proper height. if electrolyte does not cover the plates and the packing material is discolored, it indicates that some or all of the electrolyte has been lost from the cell, either on account of cracked jar or overturning of the battery. if only a small quantity of electrolyte is lost through spilling, the cell should be filled to the proper height with electrolyte of the same specific gravity as in the other cells. this cell should then be charged until the gravity has ceased rising, if all the electrolyte is lost, write to the willard storage battery co., cleveland, ohio, for instructions. place batteries on rack and connect the positive terminal of one crate to the negative terminal of the next crate, using the jumpers furnished. the main battery wires from the switch board should be soldered to the pigtail terminals, which can then be bolted to the battery terminals. be sure to have the positive and negative battery terminals connected respectively to the positive and negative generator terminals of switchboard. before using the battery, it should be given a freshening charge at the rate given on page 510. the specific gravity of the rubber jar batteries is 1.285-1.300 when fully charged, and 1.160 when discharged. willard rubber jar batteries shipped dry (export batteries) batteries which have been prepared for export must be given the following treatment: upon receipt of battery by customer, the special soft rubber nipples, used on the batteries for shipping purposes only, should be removed and discarded. types smw and sew batteries should at once be filled to bottom of vent hole with 1.285 specific gravity electrolyte at 70â° f. in mixing electrolyte, the acid should be poured into the water and allowed to cool below 90â° f. before being put into the cells. if electrolyte is shipped with the battery, it is of the proper gravity to put into the cells. immediately after the batteries are filled with electrolyte, they must be placed on charge at one half the normal charging rate given on page 510, and should be left on charge continuously until the specific gravity of the electrolyte stops rising. at this point, each cell should be gassing freely and the voltage should read at least 2.40 volts per cell with one-half the normal charging current flowing. if during the charge the temperature of the electrolyte in any one cell exceeds 105â° f., the current must be reduced until the temperature is below 90â° f. this will necessitate a longer time to complete the charge, but must be strictly adhered to. under normal conditions it will require approximately 80 hours to complete the initial charge. the final gravity of the types smw and sew will be approximately 1.285. if the gravity is above this value, remove a little electrolyte and add same amount of distilled water while the battery is left charging (in order to thoroughly mix the solution), and after three hours, if the electrolyte is within the limits, the cell is ready for service. if the specific gravity is below these values, remove a little electrolyte and add same amount of 1.400 specific gravity electrolyte. leave on charge as before. the acid should be poured into the water and allowed to cool below 90â° p. before being used. the batteries are then ready for service. installing counter electromotive force cells counter emf cells, if used with a battery, are installed in the same manner as regular cells. they are connected positive to negative, the same as regular cells, but the negative terminal of the cemf group is to be connected to the negative terminal of the regular cell group. the positive terminal of the counter cemf group is then to be connected to the switchboard. [image: table of charge and discharge rates for different types of batteries, willard farm lighting batteries] ======================================================================== definitions and descriptions of terms and parts ------------------------------acid. as used in this book refers to sulphuric acid (h2so4), the active component of the electrolyte, or a mixture of sulphuric acid and water. active material. the active portion of the battery plates; peroxide of lead on the positives and spongy metallic lead on the negatives. alloy. as used in battery practice, a homogeneous combination of lead and antimony. alternating current. electric current which does not flow in one direction only, like direct current, but rapidly reverses its direction or "alternates" in polarity so that it will not charge a battery. ampere. the unit of measure of the rate of flow of electric current. ampere hour. the product resulting from multiplication of amperes flowing by time of flow in hours, e.g., a battery supplying 10 amperes for 8 hours gives 80 ampere hours. see note under "volt?" for more complete explanation of current flow. battery. two or more electrical cells, electrically connected so that combination furnishes current as a unit. battery terminals. devices attached to the positive post of one end cell and the negative of the other, by means of which the battery is connected to the car circuit. bridge (or rib). wedge-shaped vertical projection from bottom of rubber jar on which plates rest and by which they are supported. buckling. warping or bending of the battery plates. burning. a term used to describe the operation of joining two pieces of lead by melting them at practically the same instant so they may run together as one continuous piece. usually done with mixture of oxygen and hydrogen or acetylene gases, hydrogen and compressed air, or oxygen and illuminating gas. burning strip. a convenient form of lead, in strips, for filling up the joint in making burned connections. cadmium. a metal used in about the shape of a pencil for obtaining voltage of positive or negative plates. it is dipped in the electrolyte but not allowed to come in contact with plates. capacity. the number of ampere hours a battery can supply at a given rate of current flow after being fully charged, e.g., a battery may be capable of supplying 10 amperes of current for 8 hours before it is exhausted. its capacity is 80 ampere hours at the 8 hours rate of current flow. it is necessary to state the rate of flow, since same battery if discharged at 20 amperes would not last for 4 hours but for a shorter period, say 3 hours. hence, its capacity at the 3 hour rate would be 3x2o=60 ampere hours. case. the containing box which holds the battery cells. cell. the battery unit, consisting of an element complete with electrolyte, in its jar with cover. charge. passing direct current through a battery in the direction opposite to that of discharge, in order to put back the energy used on discharge. charge rate. the proper rate of current to use in charging a battery from an outside source. it is expressed in amperes and varies for different sized cells. corrosion. the attack of metal parts by acid from the electrolyte; it is the result of lack of cleanliness. cover. the rubber cover which closes each individual cell; it is flanged for sealing compound to insure an effective seal. cycle. one charge and discharge. density. specific gravity. developing. the first cycle or cycles of a new or rebuilt battery to bring about proper electrochemical conditions to give rated capacity. diffusion. pertaining to movement of acid within the pores of plates. (see equalization.) discharge. the flow of current from a battery through a circuit, opposite of "charge." dry. term frequently applied to cell containing insufficient electrolyte. also applied to certain conditions of shipment of batteries. electrolyte. the conducting fluid of electro-chemical devices; for lead-acid storage batteries it consists of about two parts of water to one of chemically pure sulphuric acid, by weight. element. positive group, negative group and separators. equalization. the result of circulation and diffusion within the cell which accompanies charge and discharge. difference in capacity at various rates is caused by the time required for this feature. equalizing. term used to describe the making uniform of varying specific gravities in different cells of the same battery, by adding or removing water or electrolyte. evaporation. loss of water from electrolyte from heat or charging. filling plug. the plug which fits in and closes the orifice of the filling tube in the cell cover. finishing rate. the current in amperes at which a battery may be charged for twenty-four hours or more. also the charging rate used near the end of a charge when cells begin to gas. flooding. overflowing through the filling tube. forming. electro-chemical process of making pasted grid or other plate, types into storage battery plates. (often confused with developing.) foreign material. objectionable substances. freshening charge. a charge given to a battery which has been standing idle, to keep it fully charged. gassing. the giving off of oxygen gas at positive plates and hydrogen at negatives, which begins when charge is something more than half completed-depending on the rate. generator system. an equipment including a generator for automatically recharging the battery, in contradistinction to a straight storage system where the battery has to be removed to be recharged. gravity. a contraction of the term "specific gravity," which means the density compared to water as a standard. grid. the metal framework of a plate, supporting the active material and provided with a lug for conducting the current and for attachment to the strap. group. a set of plates, either positive or negative, joined to a strap. groups do not include separators. hold-down. device for keeping separators from floating or working up. hold-down clips. brackets for the attachment of bolts for holding the battery securely in position on the car. hydrogen flame. a very hot and clean flame of hydrogen gas and oxygen, acetylene, or compressed air used for making burned connections. hydrogen generator. an apparatus for generating hydrogen gas for lead burning. hydrometer. an instrument for measuring the specific gravity of the electrolyte. hydrometer syringe. a glass barrel enclosing a hydrometer and provided with a rubber bulb for drawing up electrolyte. jar. the hard rubber container holding the element and electrolyte. lead burning. making a joint by melting together the metal of the parts to be joined. lug. the extension from the top frame of each plate, connecting the plate to the strap. maximum gravity. the highest specific gravity which the electrolyte will reach by continued charging, indicating that no acid remains in the plates. mud. (see sediment.) negative. the terminal of a source of electrical energy as a cell, battery or generator through which current returns to complete circuit. generally marked "neg." or "-". ohm. the unit of electrical resistance. the smaller the wire conductor the greater is the resistance. six hundred and sixty-five feet of no. 14 wire (size used in house lighting circuit) offers i ohm resistance to current flow. oil of vitriol. commercial name for concentrated sulphuric acid (1.835 specific gravity). this is never used in a battery and would quickly ruin it. over-discharge. the carrying of discharge beyond proper cell voltage; shortens life if carried far enough and done frequently. paste. the mixture of lead oxide or spongy lead and other substances which is put into grids. plate. the combination of grid and paste properly "formed." positive$ are reddish brown and negatives slate gray. polarity. an electrical condition. the positive terminal (or pole) of a cell or battery or electrical circuit is said to have positive polarity; the negative, negative polarity. positive. the terminal of a source of electrical energy as a cell, battery or generator from which the current flows. generally marked "pos." or "+". post. the portion of the strap extending through the cell cover, by means of which connection is made to the adjoining cell or to the car circuit. potential difference. abbreviated p. d. found on test curves. synonymous with voltage. rate. number of amperes for charge or discharge. also used to express time for either. rectifier. apparatus for converting alternating current into direct current. resistance. material (usually lamps or wire) of low conductivity inserted in a circuit to retard the flow of current. by varying the resistance, the amount of current can be regulated. also the property of an electrical circuit whereby the flow of current is impeded. resistance is measured in ohms. analogous to the impediment offered by wall of a pipe to flow of water therein. rheostat. an electrical appliance used to raise or lower the resistance of a circuit and correspondingly to decrease or increase the current flowing. rib. (see bridge.) ribbed. (see separator.) reversal. reversal of polarity of cell or battery, due to excessive discharge, or charging in the wrong direction. rubber sheets. thin, perforated hard rubber sheets used in combination with the wood separators in some types of batteries. they are placed between the grooved side of the wood separators and the positive plate. sealing. making tight joints between jar and cover; usually with a black, thick, acid-proof compound. sediment. loosened or worn out particles of active material fallen to the bottom of cells; frequently called "mud." sediment space. that part of jar between bottom and top of bridge. separator. an insulator between plates of opposite polarity; usually of wood, rubber or combination of both. separators are generally corrugated or ribbed to insure proper distance between plates and to avoid too great displacement of electrolyte. short circuit. a metallic connection between the positive and negative plates within a cell. the plates may be in actual contact or material may lodge and bridge across. if the separators are in good condition, a short circuit is unlikely to occur. spacers. wood strips used in some types to separate the cells in the case, and divided to provide a space for the tie bolts. specific gravity. the density of the electrolyte compared to water as a standard. it indicates the strength and is measured by the hydrometer. spray. fine particles of electrolyte carried up from the surface by gas bubbles. (see gassing.) starting rate. a specified current in amperes at which a discharged battery may be charged at the beginning of a charge. the starting rate is reduced to the finishing rate when the cells begin to gas. it is also reduced at any time during the charge if the temperature of the electrolyte rises to or above 110 deg. fahrenheit. starvation. the result of giving insufficient charge in relation to the amount of discharge, resulting in poor service and injury to the battery. strap. the leaden casting to which the plates of a group are joined. sulphate. common term for lead sulphate. (pbso4.) sulphated. term used to describe cells in an under-charged condition, from either over-discharging without corresponding long charges or from standing idle some time and being self discharged. sulphate reading. a peculiarity of cell voltage when plates are considerably sulphated, where charging voltage shows abnormally high figures before dropping gradually to normal charging voltage. terminal. part to which outside wires are connected. vent, vent plug or vent-cap. hard or soft rubber part inserted in cover to retain atmospheric pressure within the cell, while preventing loss of electrolyte from spray. it allows gases formed in the cell to escape, prevents electrolyte from spilling, and keeps dirt out of the cell. volt. the commercial unit of pressure in an electric circuit. voltage is measured by a voltmeter. analogous to pressure or head of water flow through pipes. note.--just as increase of pressure causes more volume of water to flow through a given pipe so increase of voltage (by putting more cells in circuit) will cause more amperes of current to flow in same circuit. decreasing size of pipes is increasing resistance and decreases flow of water, so also introduction of resistance in an electrical circuit decreases current flow with a given voltage or pressure. wall. jar sides and ends. washing. removal of sediment from cells after taking out elements; usually accompanied by rinsing of groups, replacement of wood separators and renewal of electrolyte. watt. the commercial unit of electrical power, and is the product of voltage of circuit by amperes flowing. one ampere flowing under pressure of one volt represents one watt of power. watt hour. the unit of electrical work. it is the product of power expended by time of expenditure, e.g., 10 amperes flowing under 32 volts pressure for 8 hours gives 2560 watt hours. ======================================================================== index a acetic acid from improperly treated separators 77 acetylene and compressed air lead-burning outfit147 acid carboys 184 acid. handling and mixing 222 acid. how lost while battery is on car 57 acid. how to draw, from carboys 184 acid should never be added to battery on car 57 acid used instead of water 57 active materials. composition of 13 active materials. effect of quantity, porosity, and arrangement of, on capacity 42 active materials. resistance of 49 age codes 242 age of battery. determining 242 age of battery. effect of, on capacity 47 alcohol torch lead-burning outfit 148 applying pastes to grids 11 arc lead-burning outfit 148 audion bulb for radio receiving sets 253 b battery box should be kept clean and dry 51 battery carrier 173 battery case (see case). battery steamer 158 battery truck 173 battery turntable 170 bench charge 198 to 210 bench charge. arrangement of batteries for 200 bench charge. charging rates for 201 bench charge. conditions preventing batteries from charging 206 bench charge. conditions preventing gravity from rising 207 bench charge. if battery becomes too hot 205 bench charge. if battery will not hold a charge 208 bench charge. if battery will not take half a charge 205 bench charge. if current cannot be passed through battery 206 bench charge. if electrolyte has a milky appearance 206 bench charge. if gravity rises above 1.300 205 bench charge. if gravity rises long before voltage does 205 bench charge. if new battery will not charge 205 bench charge. if one cell will not charge 205 bench charge. if vinegar-like odor is detected 205 bench charge. leave vent-plugs in when charging 209 bench charge. level of electrolyte at end of 203 bench charge. painting case after 203 bench charge. specific gravity at end of 203 bench charge. specific gravity will not rise to 1.280 204 bench charge. suggestions for 209 bench charge. temperatures of batteries during 202 bench charge. time required for 203 bench charge. troubles arising during 204 bench charge. voltage at end of 203 bench charge. when necessary 198 bins for stock parts 158 book-keeping records 302 (omitted) "bone-dry" batteries. putting into service 229 boxes for battery parts 183 buckling 72 buckling. caused by charging at high rates 73 buckling. caused by continued operation in discharged condition 73 buckling. caused by defective grid alloy 73 buckling. caused by non-uniform current distribution 73 buckling. caused by overdischarge 73 buckling does not necessarily cause trouble 73 burning. (see lead-burning.) burning-lead mould 164 burning rack 162 business methods 299 to 312 (omitted) c cadmium. what it is 176 cadmium leads. connection of, to voltmeter 179 cadmium readings affected by improperly treated separators 181 cadmium readings. conditions necessary to obtain good negative-cadmium readings 210 cadmium readings do not indicate capacity of a cell 175 cadmium readings on short-circuited cells 180 cadmium readings. troubles shown by, on charge 206 cadmium readings. when they should be taken 176 cadmium test 174 cadmium test. how made 175 cadmium test on charging battery 181 cadmium test on discharging battery 180 cadmium test set. what it consists of 177 cadmium test voltmeter 178 calling for repair batteries 314 capacity. effect of age of battery on 47 and 89 capacity. effect of plate surface area on 42 capacity. effect of clogged separators on 88 capacity. effect of incorrect proportions of acid and acid in electrolyte on 88 capacity. effect of low level of electrolyte on 88 capacity. effect of operating conditions on 44 capacity. effect of quantity and strength of electrolyte on 42 capacity. effect of quantity, arrangement, and porosity of active materials on 42 capacity. effect of rate of discharge on 44 capacity. effect of reversal of plates on 89 capacity. effect of shedding on 88 capacity. effect of specific gravity on 43 capacity. effect of temperature on 46 carbon-arc lead-burning outfit 148 carboys 184 care of battery on the car 51 to 68 care of battery when not in service 67 carrier for batteries 173 case. cleaning and painting, after repairs 372 case manufacture 22 case. painting, after bench charge 203 case. repairing 360 case. troubles indicated by rotted 319 case troubles 83 cases. equipment for work on 98 and 170 casting plate grids 9 cell connector mould 168 cell connectors. burning-on 213 cell connectors. equipment for work on 98 cell connectors. how to remove 329 changing pastes into active materials 12 charge. (see bench charge.) charge. changes at negative plates during 30 and 39 charge. changes at positive plates during 30 and 40 charge. changes in acid density during 39 charge. changes in voltage during 38 charge. loss of, in an idle battery 89 charge. preliminary, in rebuilding batteries 349 charge. trickle 239 charging bench133 to 139 charging bench. arrangement of batteries on 200 charging bench. temperature of batteries on 202 charging bench. working drawings of 134 to 139 charging circuits. drawings of 105 charging connections. making temporary 220 charging. constant potential 111 charging equipment for farm lighting batteries 439 charging equipment for starting batteries 100 charging farm lighting batteries 455 charging. lamp-banks for 101 charging. motor-generators for 106 charging rate. adjusting 287 charging rate. checking 283 charging rate. governed by gassing 112 and 202 charging rate. how and when to adjust 289 charging rates for bench charge 112 and 201 charging rates for new exide batteries 226 charging rates for new philadelphia batteries 228 charging rates for new prest-o-lite batteries 234 charging rates on the car 283 charging rebuilt batteries 373 charging. rheostats for 101 chemical actions and electricity. relations between 31 chemical changes at the negatives during charge 30 chemical changes at the positives during charge 30 chemical changes at the negatives during discharge 29 chemical changes at the positives during discharge 29 chemical changes in the battery 27 to 31 composition of jars 16 composition of plate grids 9 compound. scraping, from covers and jars 334 compressed air and hydrogen lead-burning outfit 147 compressed air and illuminating gas lead-burning outfit 149 condenser for making distilled water 160 connections. making temporary, for charging 220 connectors. (see cell connectors.) connector troubles 84 constant-potential charging 111 construction of plate grids 10 convenient method of adding water 56 corroded grids 77 corroded grids. caused by age 78 corroded grids. caused by high temperatures 78 corroded grids. caused by impurities 78 corrosion 321 covers. eveready 17 covers. exide 19 and 21 covers. functions of 16 covers. gould 17 covers. how to remove 331 covers. philadelphia diamond grid 16 covers. prest-o-lite 18 and 19 covers. putting on the 365 covers. sealing 366 covers. single and double 16 covers. steaming 332 covers. u.s.l. 18 and 20 covers. vesta 18 covers. westinghouse 417 covers. willard 19 credit. use and abuse of 301 (omitted) cutout. checking action of 282? cycling discharge tests 269 d dead cells. causes of 87 delco-light batteries 466 delco-light batteries. ampere-hour meter for 467 and 471 delco-light batteries. burning-on new plates of 492 delco-light batteries. burning-on new straps for 488 delco-light batteries. care of cells of, in stock 493 delco-light batteries. charging, after reassembling 481 delco-light batteries. charging outside negatives of 484 delco-light batteries. clearing high resistance shorts in 484 delco-light batteries. clearing lug shorts in 484 delco-light batteries. dis-assembling 474 delco-light batteries. gauges and instruments for testing 466 delco-light batteries. general complaints from users of 495 delco-light batteries. hydrometers for 468 delco-light batteries. inspection trips 470 delco-light batteries. pressing negatives of 485 delco-light batteries. putting repaired cells into service 484 delco-light batteries. re-assembling 477 delco-light batteries. removing impurities from 483 delco-light batteries. repairing broken posts of 487 delco-light batteries. repairing lead parts of 486 delco-light batteries. salvaging replaced cells of 486 delco-light batteries. taking, out of commission 494 delco-light batteries. treating broken cells of 482 delco-light batteries. treating spilled cells of 482 delco-light batteries. treating reversed cells of 483 delco-light batteries. use of auxiliary straps with 492 delco-light batteries. when and how to charge 468 discharge apparatus 270 discharge. changes at negative plates during 37 discharge. changes at positive plates during 37 discharge. changes in acid density during 35 discharge. chemical actions at negative plates during 29 discharge. chemical actions at positive plates during 29 discharge. effects of rates of, on capacity 44 discharge. voltage changes during 32 discharge tests. cycling 269 discharge tests. fifteen seconds 266 discharge tests. lighting ability 267 discharge tests. starting ability 267 distilled water. condenser for making 160 dope electrolytes 59 and 199 double covers. sealing 366 dry shipment of batteries 24 dry storage 240 dry storage batteries 265 e earthenware jars 184 electrical system. normal course of operation of 277 electrical system. testing the 276 electrical system. tests on, to be made by the repairman 279 electrical system. troubles in the 284 electricity and chemical actions. relation between 31 electrolyte. adjusting the 373 electrolyte below tops of plates. causes and results of 319 and 323 electrolyte. causes of milky appearance of 206 electrolyte. composition of 199 and 222 electrolyte. correct height of, above plates 55 electrolyte. effect of circulation of, on capacity 44 electrolyte. effect of low 67 electrolyte. effect of quantity and strength of, on capacity 42 electrolyte. freezing points of 67 electrolyte. leaking of, at top of cells 324 electrolyte. level of, at end of bench charge 203 electrolyte. resistance of 43 and 48 electrolyte troubles. high gravity 85 electrolyte troubles. high level 85 electrolyte troubles. low gravity 85 electrolyte troubles. low level 85 electrolyte troubles. milky appearance 85 element. tightening loose 363 elements. re-assembling 361 equipment for discharge tests 270 equipment for general work 98 equipment for general work on connectors and terminals 98 equipment for handling sealing compound 149 equipment for lead-burning 97 equipment for work on cases 98 and 170 equipment needed in opening batteries 97 equipment which is absolutely necessary 96 eveready batteries. claimed to be non-sulphating 401 eveready batteries. description of parts 404 eveready batteries. rebuilding 405 examining and testing incoming batteries 317 exide farm lighting batteries 466 to 498 exide radio batteries 257 exide starting batteries. age code for 243 (age code chart omitted) exide starting batteries. burning-on cell connectors of 382 exide starting batteries. capacities of 381 (chart omitted) exide starting batteries. charging, after repairing 382 exide starting batteries. methods of holding jars of, in case 377 exide starting batteries. opening of 377 exide starting batteries. putting cells of, in case 382 exide starting batteries. putting jars of, in case 382 exide starting batteries. putting new, into service 225 exide starting batteries. re-assembling plates of 379 exide starting batteries. sealing single covers of 380 exide starting batteries. type numbers of 377 exide starting batteries. types of 375 exide starting batteries. work on plates, separators, jars, and cases of 379 f farm lighting batteries 435 to 510 farm lighting batteries. care of, in operation 453 farm lighting batteries. care of plant of, in operation 450 farm lighting batteries. charging 453? or (455) farm lighting batteries. charging equipment for 439 farm lighting batteries. determining condition of cells of 453 farm lighting batteries. difference between, and starting batteries 435 farm lighting batteries. discharge rules for 457 farm lighting batteries. exide 466 farm lighting batteries. initial charge of 448 farm lighting batteries. installation of plant 445 farm lighting batteries. instructing users of 449 farm lighting batteries. jars used in 436 farm lighting batteries. loads carried by 443 (charts omitted) farm lighting batteries. location of plant 444 farm lighting batteries. overcharge of 455 farm lighting batteries. power consumed by appliances connected to 442 farm lighting batteries. prest-o-lite 460 farm lighting batteries. selection of plant 440 farm lighting batteries. separators for 438 farm lighting batteries. size of plant required 442 farm lighting batteries. specific gravity of electrolyte of 438 farm lighting batteries. troubles with 458 farm lighting batteries. when to charge 455 farm lighting batteries. wiring of plant for 444 filling and testing service 291 flames for lead-burning 211 floor. care of 188 floor grating for shop 188 floor of shop 186 forming plates 11 freezing points of electrolyte 67 g gassing causes shedding 74 gassing. charging rate governed by 112 and 202 gassing. definition of 31 gassing. excessive, causes milky appearance of electrolyte 86 gassing of sulphated plates 40 and 75 gassing on charge 37? and 202 granulated negatives 78 granulated negatives. caused by age 78 granulated negatives. caused by heat 78 gravity. (see specific gravity). grids. casting 9 grids. composition of 9 grids. corroded 77 grids. effect of age on 78 and 80 and 342? (344) grids. effect of defective grid alloy on 73 grids. effect of impurities on 77 and 78 and 80 and 342 grids. effect of overheating on 78 and 80 and 342? grids. resistance of 48 grids. trimming 10 h handling and mixing acid 222 heating of negatives exposed to the air 78 high rate discharge testers 181 high rate discharge tests 266 and 267 and 374 home-made batteries 25 hydrogen and compressed air lead-burning outfit 147 hydrogen and oxygen lead-burning outfit 146 hydrometer. what it consists of 60 hydrometer readings. effect of temperature on 65 hydrometer readings. how to take 61 i idle battery. care of 67 idle battery. how it becomes discharged 89 idle battery. how it sulphates 70 illuminating gas and compressed air lead-burning outfit 149 impurities 76 impurities which attack the plates 77 impurities which cause self-discharge 76 incoming batteries. examining and testing 317 incoming batteries. general inspection of 320 incoming batteries. operation tests on 320 incoming batteries. when it is necessary to open 326 incoming batteries. when it is necessary to remove from car 325 incoming batteries. when it is unnecessary to open 325 incoming batteries. when it is unnecessary to remove from car 324 installing battery on the car 236 internal resistance 48 to 50 isolators 408 inspection to determine height of electrolyte 55 j jars. construction of 16 jars. filling with electrolyte 364 jars for farm lighting batteries 436 jars. manufacture of 16 jars. materials used for 16 jars. removing defective 359 jars. testing, for leaks 356 jars. work on 356 jar troubles caused by explosion in cell 83 jar troubles caused by freezing 83 jar troubles caused by improperly trimmed groups 83 jar troubles caused by loose battery 82 jar troubles caused by rough handling 82 jar troubles caused by weights placed on top of battery 83 k (no entries) l lead burning cell connectors 213 lead burning. classes of 211 lead burning. equipment for 97 and 143 lead burning. general instructions for 210 to 220 lead burning plates to straps 217 lead burning terminals 213 lead burning. safety precautions for 213 lead melting pots 220 lead mould 164 lead moulding instructions 220 light for shop 187 and 190 loose active material 75 loose active material caused by buckling 76 loose active material caused by overdischarge 75 loss of capacity 88 loss of charge in an idle battery 89 lugs. extending plate 219 m manufacture of batteries 9 to 26 manufacture of batteries. assembling and sealing 23 manufacture of batteries. auxiliary rubber separators 15 manufacture of batteries. cases 22 manufacture of batteries. casting the grid 9 manufacture of batteries. composition of the grid 9 manufacture of batteries. covers 16 manufacture of batteries. drying the pasted plates 12 manufacture of batteries. forming the plates 12 manufacture of batteries. home-made batteries 25 manufacture of batteries. jars 16 manufacture of batteries. materials used for separators 14 manufacture of batteries. mixing pastes 11 manufacture of batteries. paste formulas 11 manufacture of batteries. pasting plates 11 manufacture of batteries. philco slotted retainer 15 manufacture of batteries. post seal 16 manufacture of batteries. preparing batteries for dry shipment 24 manufacture of batteries. separators 14 manufacture of batteries. terminal connections 25 manufacture of batteries. treating separators 14 manufacture of batteries. trimming the grid 10 manufacture of batteries. vent plugs 22 manufacture of batteries. vesta impregnated mats 15 mechanical rectifier 131 melting pot for lead 220 mercury-arc rectifier 129 milky electrolyte 206 motor-generators 106 to 112 motor-generators. care of 110 motor-generators. operating charging circuits of 109 motor-generators. sizes for small and large shops 106 motor-generators. suggestions on 108 moulding instructions 220 moulding materials 220 moulds. 164 to 170 moulds for building up posts 165 moulds for burning lead sticks 164 moulds for cell connectors 168 moulds for plate straps 167 and 169 moulds for terminal screws 168 n negative plates. changes at, during charge 39 negative plates. changes at, during discharge 37 negatives. bulged 79 negatives. granulated 78 negatives. heating of, when exposed to the air 78 negatives with roughened surface 79 negatives with softened active material 79 negatives with hard active material 79 negatives. washing and pressing 351 new batteries. putting, into service 224 non-sulphating eveready batteries 402 o open-circuits 86 open-circuits. caused by acid on soldered joints 86 open-circuits. caused by broken terminals 86 open-circuits. caused by poor lead burning 86 opening batteries. equipment needed in 97 opening batteries. heating sealing compound 332 opening batteries. instructions for 328 opening batteries. pulling elements out of jars 333 opening batteries. removing connectors and terminals 329 opening batteries. removing post-seal 331 opening batteries. scraping compound from covers 334 opening batteries. when necessary 326 opening batteries. when unnecessary 325 operating conditions. effect of, on capacity 44 overdischarge causes sulphation 69 oxides used for plate pastes 11 oxygen and acetylene lead burning outfit 143 oxygen and hydrogen lead burning outfit 146 oxygen and illuminating gas lead burning outfit 146 p packing batteries for shipping 271 painting case after bench charge 203 paraffine dip pot 182 paste formulas 11 pastes. applying to grids 11 patent electrolytes 59 philadelphia radio batteries 260 philadelphia starting batteries. age codes for 243 philadelphia starting batteries. old type post seal for 398 philadelphia starting batteries. putting new, into service 228 philadelphia starting batteries. rubber cases for 401 philadelphia starting batteries. rubber-lockt seal 399 philadelphia starting batteries. separators for 402 plante plates 27 plante's work on the storage battery 27 plate burning-rack 162 plate lugs. extending 219 plate press 171 plate strap mould 167 and 169 plate surface area. effect of, on capacity 42 plate troubles 69 plates. burning, to straps 217 and 355 plates charged in wrong direction 81 and 343 plates. examining, after opening battery 337 plates. sulphated 342 plates. when old, may be used again 344 plates. when to put in new 339 positives. buckled 80 and 341 positives. changes at, during charge 40 positives. changes at, during discharge 37 positives. frozen 80 and 339 positives. rotted, and disintegrated 80 and 341 positives. washing 354 positives which have lost considerable active material 80 positives with hard active material 81 positives with soft active material. 80 post builders 165 post building instructions 218 post seal 17 post seal. exide 19 post seal. philadelphia 399 post seal. prest-o-lite 386 post seal. titan 434 post seal. universal 430 post seal. u.s.l. 18 post seal. vesta 413 post seal. westinghouse 417 post seal. willard 424 to 428 posts. burning, to plates 217 pots for melting lead 220 pressing plates 171 piest-o-lite farm lighting batteries 460 prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. descriptions 460 prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. opening cells 464 prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. putting repaired cell into service 465 prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. rebuilding 464 prest-o-lite farm lighting batteries. specific gravity of electrolyte 461 prest-o-lite radio batteries 262 prest-o-lite starting batteries. age code for 244 (omitted) prest-o-lite starting batteries. peening instructions for 395 prest-o-lite starting batteries. old style covers for 386 prest-o-lite starting batteries. peened post seal for 386 prest-o-lite starting batteries. peening posts of 391 and 394 prest-o-lite starting batteries. peening press for 390 prest-o-lite starting batteries. post locking outfit for 388 prest-o-lite starting batteries. putting new into service 233 prest-o-lite starting batteries. rebuilding posts of 393 prest-o-lite starting batteries. removing covers from 392 prest-o-lite starting batteries. tables of 396 (omitted) primary cell 5 purchasing methods 299 (omitted) putting new batteries into service 224 q (no entries) r radio audion bulb 253 radio batteries 252 radio batteries. exide 257 radio batteries. general features of 255 radio batteries. philadelphia 260 radio batteries. prest-o-lite 262 radio batteries. universal 263 radio batteries. u. s. l. 261 radio batteries. vesta 256 radio batteries. westinghouse 259 radio batteries. willard 257 radio receiving sets. types of 252 rebuilding batteries 328 (to rest of chapter 15) rebuilding batteries. adjusting electrolyte 373 rebuilding batteries. burning-on cell connectors 371 rebuilding batteries. burning-on plates 355 rebuilding batteries. charging rebuilt batteries 373 rebuilding batteries. cleaning 329 rebuilding batteries. cleaning and painting the case 372 rebuilding batteries. determining repairs necessary 335 rebuilding batteries. eliminating short-circuits 348 rebuilding batteries. examining the plates 337 rebuilding batteries. filling jars with electrolyte 364 rebuilding batteries. heating sealing compound 332 rebuilding batteries. high rate discharge test 374 rebuilding batteries. marking the repaired battery 372 rebuilding batteries. preliminary charge 349 rebuilding batteries. pressing negatives 351 rebuilding batteries. pulling plates out of jars 333 rebuilding batteries. putting elements in jars 362 rebuilding batteries. putting on the covers 365 rebuilding batteries. reassembling the elements 361 rebuilding batteries. removing connectors and terminals 329 rebuilding batteries. removing defective jars 359 rebuilding batteries. removing post seal 331 rebuilding batteries. repairing the case 360 rebuilding batteries. scraping compound from covers and jars 334 rebuilding batteries. sealing double covers 366 rebuilding batteries. sealing single covers 371 rebuilding batteries. testing jars 356 rebuilding batteries. tightening loose elements 363 rebuilding batteries. using 1.400 acid 364 rebuilding batteries. washing negatives 351 rebuilding batteries. washing positives 354 rebuilding batteries. when old plates may be used again 344 rebuilding batteries, when to put in new plates 339 rebuilding batteries. work on jars 356 rectifier. mechanical 131 rectifier. mercury are 129 rectifier. stahl 132 rectifier. tungar 113 reinsulation 274 relations between chemical actions and electricity 31 rental batteries. general policy for 251 rental batteries. marking 249 and 296 rental batteries. record of 251 rental batteries. stock card for 297 (omitted very simple chart) rental batteries. terminals for 248 reversed plates 81 and 89 reversed-series generator. adjusting 290 s s. a. e. ratings for batteries 45 safety first rules 275 safety precautions during lead-burning 213 screw mould .... 168 sealing around the posts 17 sealing compound. composition of 150 sealing compound. equipment for handling 149 sealing compound. heating with electricity 333 sealing compound. heating with gasoline torch 333 sealing compound. heating with hot water 332 sealing compound. heating with lead burning flame 333 sealing compound. heating with steam 332 sealing compound. instructions for heating properly 150 sealing compound. removing with hot putty knife 332 secondary cell 5 sediment. effect of excessive 87 separator cutter 171 separator troubles 81 and 346 separators for farm lighting batteries 438 separators. improperly treated, cause unsatisfactory negative-cadmium readings 181 separators. putting in new 274 separators. storing 273 separators. threaded rubber 430 service records 293 shedding 74 shedding caused by charging only a portion of the plate 75 shedding caused by charging sulphated plate at too high a rate 74 shedding caused by excessive charging rate 74 shedding caused by freezing 75 shedding caused by overcharging 74 shedding. normal 74 shedding. result of 74 shelving and racks 152 shipping batteries 271 shop equipment 95 shop equipment for charging 100 shop equipment for general work 98 shop equipment for lead-burning 97 shop equipment for opening batteries 97 shop equipment for work on cases 98 shop equipment for work on connectors and terminals 98 shop equipment which is absolutely necessary 96 shop floor 186 187? shop layouts 187? 189 to 196 shop light 190? 191 short-circuits. eliminating 348 single covers. scaling 371 sink. working drawings of 144 and 145 specific gravity at end of bench charge 203 specific gravity. changes in, during charge 39 specific gravity. changes in, during discharge 35 specific gravity. definition of 60 specific gravity. effect of, on capacity 43 specific gravity in farm lighting cells 438 specific gravity. limits of, during charge and discharge 43 specific gravity rises above 1.300 205 specific gravity rises long before voltage on charge 205 specific gravity should be measured every two weeks 60 specific gravity. what determines, of fully charged cell 438 specific gravity. what different values of, indicate 60 specific gravity. why 1.280-1.300 indicates fully charged cell 43 specific gravity will not rise to 1.280 204 specific gravity readings. effect of temperature on 65 specific gravity readings. how to take 61 specific gravity readings. if above 1.300 318 and 323 specific gravity readings. if all above 1.200 318 specific gravity readings. if below 1.150 in all cells 318 and 321? specific gravity readings. if between 1.150 and 1.200 in all cells 318 and 321? specific gravity readings. if unequal 318 and 322 specific gravity readings. troubles indicated by 63 stahl rectifier 132 starting ability discharge test 267 steamer 158 steps in the use of electricity on the automobile 1 storage battery does not "store" electricity 6 storage cell 5 storing batteries dry 240 storing batteries wet 239 strap. burning plates to 217 strap mould 167 and 169 sulphate. effect of, on voltage during discharge 32 sulphation. caused by adding acid 72 sulphation. caused by battery standing idle 70 sulphation. caused by impurities 72 sulphation. caused by low electrolyte 71 sulphation. caused by overdischarge 69 sulphation. caused by overheating 72 sulphation. caused by starvation 71 t temperature. cause of high, on car 324 temperature corrections in specific gravity readings 65 temperature. effect of, on battery operation 66 temperature. effect of, on capacity 46 temperature of batteries on charging bench 202 terminal connections 25 terminals. burning-on 213 terminals for rental batteries 248 testing and examining incoming batteries 317 testing and filling service 291 testing the electrical system 276 third brush generator. adjusting 289 threaded rubber separators 430 time required for bench charge 203 titan batteries 432 titan batteries. age code for 245 (omitted) treating separators 14 trickle charge 239 trimming plate grids 10 trouble charts 321 troubles arising during bench charge 204 troubles. battery 69 trucks for batteries 173 tungar rectifier. battery connections of 127 tungar rectifier. four battery 119 tungar rectifier. general instructions for 126 tungar rectifier. half-wave and full-wave 114 and 115 tungar rectifier. installation of 126 tungar rectifier. line connections of 127 tungar rectifier. one battery 117 tungar rectifier. operation of 128 tungar rectifier. principle of 113 tungar rectifier. ten battery 120 tungar rectifier. troubles with 128 tungar rectifier. twenty battery 122 tungar rectifier. two ampere 116 tungar rectifier. two battery 118 turntable for batteries 170 u universal radio batteries 263 universal starting batteries 430 universal starting batteries. construction features of 430 universal starting batteries. putting new, into service 431 universal starting batteries. types 430 u. s. l. radio batteries. 261 u. s. l. starting batteries. age code for 246 u. s. l. starting batteries. special instructions for 382 u. s. l. starting batteries. tables of 384 (omitted) u. s. l. vent tube construction 20 v vent plugs should be left in place during charge 209 vent tube construction 20 vesta radio batteries 256 vesta starting batteries 408 vesta starting batteries. age code for 246246 vesta starting batteries. isolators for 408 vesta starting batteries. post seal 413 vesta starting batteries. putting new, into service 227 vesta starting batteries. separators 413 and 415 vesta starting batteries. type d 409 vesta starting batteries. type dj 412 vibrating regulators. adjusting 290 vinegar-like odor. cause of 205 voltage. causes of low 321 voltage changes during charge 38 voltage changes during discharge 32 voltage, limiting value of, on discharge 34 voltage of cell. factors determining 34 voltage of a fully charged cell 203 voltage readings at end of bench charge 203 voltage readings on open circuit worthless 177 voltaic cell 4 w wash tank. working drawings of 144 water. condenser for distilled 160 westinghouse farm lighting batteries 498 westinghouse radio batteries 259 westinghouse starting batteries 417 westinghouse starting batteries. age code for 247247 westinghouse starting batteries. plates for 418 westinghouse starting batteries. post seal for 417 westinghouse starting batteries. putting new, into service 231 westinghouse starting batteries. type a 418 westinghouse starting batteries. type b 419 westinghouse starting batteries. type c 420 westinghouse starting batteries. type e 420 westinghouse starting batteries. type f 423 westinghouse starting batteries. type h 421 westinghouse starting batteries. type j 422 westinghouse starting batteries. type 0 422 wet batteries. putting new, into service 225 wet storage 239 what's wrong with the battery 313 to 327 when it is unnecessary to open battery 325 when may battery be left on car 324 when must battery be opened 326 when should battery be removed from car 325 willard farm-lighting batteries 502 willard radio batteries 257 willard starting batteries. age code for 247 willard starting batteries. bone-dry 24 willard starting batteries. putting new, into service 229 willard starting batteries with compound sealed post 424 willard starting batteries with gasket post seal 428 willard starting batteries with lead cover-inserts 424 willard threaded-rubber separators 430 working drawings of bins for stock 158 working drawings of charging bench 134 to 139 working drawings of flash-back tank 147 working drawings of shelving and racks 153 to 157 working drawings of shop layouts 189 to 196 working drawings of steamer bench 161 working drawings of wash tank 144 and 145 working drawings of work bench 140 and 141 x y z (no entries under x, y or z) a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w xyz index (table of) contents ======================================================================== a visit to the factory ---------------------the following pages show how batteries are made at the factory. the illustrations will be especially interesting to battery service station owners who have conceived the idea that they would like to manufacture their own batteries. a completed battery is a simple looking piece of apparatus, yet the equipment needed to make it is elaborate and expensive, as the following illustrations will show. quantity production is necessary in order to build a good battery at a moderate cost to the car owner, and quantity production means a large factory, elaborate and expensive equipment, and a large working force. furthermore, before any batteries are put on the market, extensive research and experimentation is necessary to develop a battery which will prove a success in the field. this in itself requires considerable time and money. no manufacturer who has developed formulas and designs at a considerable expense will disclose them to others who desire to enter the manufacturing field as competitors, nor can anyone expect them to do so. if the man who contemplates entering the battery manufacturing business can afford to develop his own formulas and designs, build a factory, and organize a working force, it is, of course, perfectly. proper for him to become a manufacturer; but unless he can do so, he should not attempt to make a battery. the following illustrations, will of course, be of interest to the man who repairs batteries. a knowledge of the manufacturing processes will give him a better understanding of the batteries which he repairs. the less mystery there is about the battery, the more efficiently can the repairman do his work. [photo: casting exide grids] [photo: pasting exide plates] [photo: casting small exide battery parts] [photo: forming exide positive plates] [photo: burning exide plates into groups] [photo: cutting and grooving exide wood separators] [photo: charging exide batteries] [photo: mixing paste for prest-o-lite batteries] [photo: moulding prest-o-lite grids] [photo: inspecting prest-o-lite grids for defects] [photo: prest-o-lite pasting room] [photo: pasting prest-o-lite plates] [photo: a corner of prest-o-lite forming room] [photo: general view of prest-o-lite assembly room] [photo: power operated prest-o-lite peening press] [photo: inspecting prest-o-lite separators] [photo: inserting separators in prest-o-lite plate elements] [photo: final inspection of prest-o-lite batteries] [photo: prest-o-lite experimental laboratory] [photo: laboratory tests of oxides for vesta batteries] [photo: moulding vesta grids] [photo: preparing vesta plates for the forming room] [photo: burning vesta plates into groups. assembling groups with isolators.] [photo: vesta acid mixing room] [photo: checking and adjusting cell readings of vesta batteries on development charge] [photo: final assembly inspection of vesta batteries] [photo: trimming westinghouse grids] [photo: pasting westinghouse plates] [photo: burning westinghouse plates into groups] [photo: packing westinghouse batteries for shipment] [illustration: ambu official service station]